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runningfrom2am · 3 months

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sejanus and coryo not understanding what r is saying when she is quoting a line has got to be one of my favourite things.

“Oh, only being able to hold you without retraumatizing you.” sir-

i love how no matter how much changes in the story, coryo’s hatred towards birds STAY. the boy hates them more than everything.

lennox is making some points with that guilt and love one. being smart is genetic it seems.

you know what? i agree with sejanus so much on the arena part.

i desperately needed someone to tell them what she did in the arena and i’m glad it was sejanus, out of the three who know it. the fact that neither lucy gray nor lennox will be able to process this information as truly real because r, really? oh, how devastating. girlie had convinced herself that [salt->???->staying alive]

“All you did by surviving was make everything weird.” me, one day, probably.

the real comedy is coryo not understanding the joke. also, beatrice the queen <3

she closed her book! she put her book into her bag! she wouldn’t have done that had she not been keen on talking with him. she hadn’t when he first came. 🥹

the fact that she was about to die thinking she was in love while hardly knowing him and now that she is alive, she is living the “what could have been”.

i’m 99% sure that lennox has a calendar where he circled the day coryo will leave, hopefully, with a red marker.

“Watching his eyes- but nothing changes. Baby blue. Worry. More worry.” all i will say is that, this is emotional 🥲

bro i just edited part twenty and it’s over 6k words so get ready hahahah. anyway, let’s dive into this for now!!

1. no me too hahah it’s so funny and coryo tries so hard but sejanus is just always so normal and honest about not really understanding. like at the very beginning when he was like “i thought we were supposed to be mentoring you”, but coryo has always seen her as some kind of walking poem. sejanus loves her honestly, coryo has put her on a pedestal. (not that it’s a bad thing or that he doesn’t love her honestly but he doesn’t try really hard to make her feel understood and she doesn’t even mind)

2. oh my god yeah the DRAMA going on in this man’s head 24/7 hahaha

3. yeah there’s no way that would ever change. (and that makes me believe that tybs will really grow on him lol)

4. we’ve BEEN SAYING THIS like lennox just gets it

5. like,, no one ever thought to ask sejanus what he thought? he was the only other person there! smh

6. literally like they needed to know. she tried to tell lucy gray, but she made the active choice to not tell lennox, even though she doesn’t know the extent of what she had done. (well, she does, she just can’t admit it yet)

7. me now honestly

8. beatrice is such a girlboss i literally love her sm

9. coryo didn’t even have TIME to process the significance of that, he was so focused on keeping her attention 🥹 and bless her HEART she is trying so so hard

10. omg yeah and she totally knows that too 🥹 she’s been comparing them to that story from the very beginning, she doesn’t even know what to do now that she’s seeing the other side. (but also, it’s extremely tragic in a different way, seeing as now she can hardly be around him without shutting down when she wants to be with him so bad)

11. HAHAHA IM SO SURE HE DOES. he is counting down the DAYS

12. as per usual lucy gray was 100% correct and his haircut has made all the difference. she knows her bestie so well

#i have the answers #cold nights <3 #that-veela-girl

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heinzpilsner · 3 months

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Today, there will be no logic, structure and objectivity here. Today I just wanna whine talk about Zuko's character presentation in "The Beach" episode.

Because it never fails in making me cringe.

Aesthetically, being an aimless teenager in a disastrous romantic relationship just doesn't suit Zuko's long-suffering character.

And I can't even tell for sure if it's an inadequate transition of his personality from the previous seasons onto different life circumstances, which only annoys me more.

All I know is that reading the scripts of book 1 with Zuko being an angry brat always makes me smile.

And the scripts of book 3 with similar content only make me groan.

So, "It just isn't fun anymore" is the first clue I can put my finger on.

(This, and the fact that I hate Zuko's emo haircut with passion. Geez, and after this people call the ponytail an abomination!)

Ponytail rights, yay!

But me having or not having fun, as well as my haircut unpopular preferences are not exactly good arguments in an objective character analysis. Which is my primary point of interest. Usually.

Which means I have to take Zuko's behavior in this episode into consideration.

And I kinda hate the fact.

Let's take the situation with Zuko's jealousy, for example.

(I mean... After assuming first that "Zuko being in love with Mai instead of just tolerating her out of loneliness" thing isn't ooc in the first place.

Writers, I still do not quite believe you here.)

I suppose he could become irrationally jealous in a relationship because of his insecurities, especially considering Mai's cold treatment recently, but...

Would Zuko be possessive about his girlfriend to the point of physical aggression?

I mean, he is a hot-tempered young man, and he is prone to physical aggression when angry. We saw it enough times in the past.

But before "The Beach", we could tell nothing about whether he would be a possessive partner or not - just because we never before saw him in a long-term romantic relationship.

So, this is the only precedent we can really judge this aspect of Zuko's personality by. And even with him being in a bad emotional state, this precedent doesn't speak in Zuko's favor.

And... it was introduced why exactly?

Oh yeah, just for the sake of giving Mai a good reason to break up with him for a couple of hours.

But... When I think about it, one little question arises.

Why on earth the writers decided to add new unsympathetic traits to the palette when audience was already hostile towards Zuko?

I mean, after his treatment of his uncle, and the whole Sparky Sparky Boom Man business, the guy already was at his lowest point!

Zuko's character has not yet recovered from the writers' previous assassination attempt, but they decide to deliver another blow on top of that! What a brilliant idea.

Hello guys, have you forgotten you were aiming for a redemption arc here? My sympathy for the guy already shrinked to the point of invisibility, thank you very much! It's not the time to add brand new reasons for the viewers to dislike Zuko!

So, the real problem here is not about whether Zuko is ooc or not. It's about the writers' decisions in depicting the character in certain ways in a certain point of the story.

Hence, the fundamental difference between book 1 fun brattiness and book 3 cringy disaster lies in the dynamic of the character's development.

I wonder - was it just incompetence, or... the creators' willful intent?

/paranoid noises/

(I couldn't help but analyze things in the end, could I?)

Anyway, even if they tried really hard, Zuko's character still managed to survive it. Barely, but managed.

Hurray?

(But after all, what else would you expect from Zuko of all people, lol?)

... What I'm gonna do with canonical fact of his possessiveness though?

Well, on one hand, it could be a nice addition to my 'imperfect zutara' theory. But on the other...

Ahem. Well. I guess I'll treat it just like I treat LoK and the comics!

... Did you ever hear me talking about them? That's it.

Thanks for your attention!

(Hmm. Perhaps I could try to analyze Maiko dynamic in "The Beach" as a theoretical psychological exercise, after all. I suspect I'll have to drink first to be able to deal with this stuff though. Anyway, we'll see.)

And as usual, I'm ignoring all the notifications~

#atla #zuko #anti maiko

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acaplaya-musings · 1 month

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Voiceplay Visuals: Valhalla Calling

This could be a bit of a long one (though still probably not as long as my post for Hide And Seek/Ding Dong)

Valhalla Calling was released on the 8th of April, 2023, and is kinda-sorta a sister video to My Mother Told Me. But Voiceplay didn't restrict themselves to just standing in front of greenscreen backgrounds this time, no no no! They worked together with some production studios/group called Vū, and usually I give credit shoutouts as I go through the video, but I think it might just be easier this time if I show you the credits in the description instead:

Yeah, this one was massive. (And wow Eli did a lot for this one! Shoutout to Eli!)

Voiceplay didn't see a return of Jose Rosario Jr for this one, but we got J None back for it! Woooo! So anyway, let's get into this!

I will get to everyone individually, but check out the set! I like the shields in the background.

J None! The man, the myth, the legend.

J has got the same kind of rune/symbol on his forehead as he did in My Mother Told Me (I'm using the video thumbnail for MMTM for comparison purposes), but brighter white on his cheeks, and of course a fresh new haircut. His shirt(?)/top is the same as well I believe, but the fur is different to that of his original costume.

Cesar of course didn't join Voiceplay till sometime after My Mother Told Me (fun fact: Valhalla Calling was release just a couple weeks shy of when My Mother Told Me was released, two years' prior), so nothing to compare against, but I love his makeup here!

Appreciation for the visual effects/design!

Geoff has swapped out the grey fur over one shoulder for a brown fur cloak/cape thing, and ditched the purple-ish lipstick he was wearing in My Mother Told Me as well, making him look a bit less terrifying 😝 (also, his hair in this one has a bit more fluff/volume to it (love that for him <3)). He does however have the same/similar tattoo designs on his face that he had in My Mother Told Me.

(Also I know I'm meant to be sticking to just the visuals, but you can't just expect me to talk about Valhalla Calling without talking about the B0 subharmonic that Geoff holds for 15 seconds!!!)

Layne seems to be wearing almost exactly the same (if not the exact same) outfit as he did in My Mother Told Me (see the first screencap above), and the same kind of face designs as well

Eli still has tattoo designs on his head like in My Mother Told Me (though whether they're the same or not I'm not sure), but the makeup around his eyes is darker, and of course, he now has a full beard and mustache! (Very impressive, might I add)

"shields and s p e a r s"

(For someone who is ridiculously modest when talking about himself ("baritone with a bass range" I mean REALLY), Geoff sure knows how to look incredibly smug in videos when he wants to be 😅😂)

Actually scratch what I said about nothing to compare Cesar's outfit against - the cloak he's wearing is the same one (or at least very very similar to) the one that Jose wore in My Mother Told Me!

Also shoutout to Cesar for being able to do literally anything when it comes to characters, acting, and performances! Multifaceted is an understatement honestly (and yes I will be talking about Creep, eventually)

He's coming!!!

He is here!!!

(Love Geoff raising his alehorn(?) to J in greeting here)

Outside group shot! Makes costume comparisons a heck of a ton easier.

Layne is basically the only one that stuck with basically his whole original outfit. J kept parts of his and still stuck close to the original concept (with the fur and stuff), Eli definitely got an outfit upgrade (though his tunic/shirt is a pretty similar green colour to what he was wearing in MMTM, and Geoff just basically went with a brand new look (Good For Him). He's still got one arm uncovered/exposed like in MMTM, but it's the right arm this time, not the left! (And J none has more of his arms exposed than he originally did!)

Very smooth hood flip! (which somehow I never noticed before this)

More appreciation for Cesar's makeup!

Everyone of course gave this performance 110%, and J None absolutely killed it with his original rap solo (hey, it was a visual performance too!), but also look at Geoff, looking like some sort of powerful and intimidating sorcerer while delivering another B0 subharmonic held note!

J None trying to rival Layne in Hoist The Colours with his Fierce/Crazy Eyes look I see!

Also whoops I think I just spotted a minor editing/continuity mistake. See Cesar in the background in the above shot here? With the hood off? Well this is the next frame:

Cesar with the hood still on. I shan't hold it against them (editing this must have been a nightmare, at least partially), but I am here to talk about visuals, and so if I see something of note, then I will mention it!

A very small and very blink-and-you-miss-it eyebrow quirk/raise from Geoff (y'know, just to kill us further 😆)

The original creator of the song, Miracle Of Sound, commented on this video, saying "Well done, lads. Definitely one of the more creative covers I've heard! I rate it ten raised alehorns out of ten." And the video currently sits at 4.2 million views on YouTube, which is pretty dang impressive considering the video isn't even a year old yet (UPDATE: as of the 20th of March, it's now at 4.6 million! Goddamn!)

Incredible video, incredible arrangement, incredible vocals, it's honestly peak Voiceplay (but not Voiceplay at it's peak! They don't have one!). I have a good handful of videos to keep going through, so stay tuned!

#voiceplay #acapella #valhalla calling #geoff castellucci #eli jacobson #layne stein #cesar de la rosa #j none #acaplaya analysis #voiceplay visuals

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donnerpartyofone · 5 months

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This morning I left a long comment on a Facebook post by my dead friend's mom where she said she isn't ready to arrange a life celebration yet, and she urges people to keep sharing her daughter's memory. I had been meaning to do this for a month, but I often find Facebook too annoying to use just in UI/UX terms, and I had developed some sort of ridiculous paranoia that people would find out that I might have been the last person to speak to my friend, and that I was standing outside her apartment expecting her to let me in while she was dying. I fantasized that I would have to account for that somehow, to comb through details that I'm sure wouldn't be useful to anyone, and explain why I didn't do more when she strangely didn't come to the door or answer my texts. I still don't know what happened to her.

I reached out to the only acquaintance we shared in common, who was one of her roommates when we were neighbors. He regarded her as his best friend and has been completely shattered by this, especially as it came a year after the death of his ex-girlfriend, who who acted as their kind-of third musketeer. Privately I got a pretty good impression that he drove my dead friend nuts, but I wouldn't know if that was just a part of their "old married couple" dynamic or if they had a truly one-sided relationship. I guess you just don't always get to know how your dearest loved ones really think of you, and in fact maybe you shouldn't. He was the person I had asked to check up on her the day that she died, and he was the only person I could think to ask what happened to her, although I was afraid to. He texted me a detailed download of all the sad things that have happened to him since she died in September, and then he said he would have to wait until his day off to answer my question. I haven't heard from him and I don't think I'm going to. I'm sort of sorry I asked.

Tangentially: It struck me recently that cause of death has become the final frontier of privacy. This is fascinating to me, considering the constant state of overexposure in which most of us live. I've had several experiences in the past few years of someone dying--a casual acquaintance, a friend more than 3 degrees of separation away, a minor celebrity with a cult following in which I participate--and I just had no way of finding out what happened. These have been rare cases in which Google had nothing, not even a rumor; in the present case I was able to unearth the record of an arrest I had never heard about, but nothing about the death. Obviously if you're Michael Jackson or Prince or something then all bets are off, but below that line, if the bereaved don't choose to broadcast the cause or manner of death, then you'll just never find out what those things could have been. I'm thinking right now of another friend of mine who, we all tended to agree, had committed suicide, which was absolutely in-character for her as far as I was concerned...but at the same time, there were compounding factors that made her true level of deliberation ambiguous. I sometimes wish I could talk to someone about it, but I'm afraid it would just hurt her survivors pointlessly to hash it out. In her case, I just have to choose what I want to believe.

Anyway.

My plan that day had been to get a quick haircut before I went to London to record a commentary track for a new release of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, based on my research into the creation of its mythology. This opportunity had come by way of a strange coincidence, and it seemed to justify the grueling self-directed project I had made out of it for the past several years. As I was preparing for my trip, which felt like the climax of a long journey with this subject, I started to feel silly about never having gone to Amityville to see the house. It's not an easy thing to justify; I'd basically be traveling for a total of 5 hours just to stand in front of the house long enough to annoy whoever lives there. But it felt like something I ought to do, as part of my devotion to the topic, so my plan was to see my friend for a quick trim, get on the Long Island Rail Road to do the thing, then return as fast as possible to pack in time to leave the house at 4am the following day. When my friend didn't let me in, only an hour and a half after we'd texted, and I waited around for 25 minutes in the boiling heat in case she had stepped out for coffee or something, before finally coming to terms with the fact that she flaked on me while I was preparing for a stressful international trip, I got all agitated and couldn't bring myself to do the rest of my plan. I've still never seen the Amityville house.

But later, after I found out what had happened, I was glad I didn't go. I imagined the alternative timeline: I went to my friend's apartment for a trim, couldn't make contact with her, went to see the legendary house where six people were brutally murdered and where, according to countless books and movies and podcasts etc, demonic possession took hold--and then I came home to discover that my friend had suddenly and mysteriously died. It would have been impossible for me not to connect these things. Not that I'm so eager to believe in curses; in fact my work has mostly focused on why belief in the supernatural has been easier to achieve than the availability of help for sufferers of mental illness, drug addiction, and domestic violence. But I'm not a hardcore skeptic either, which is exactly why this story has been so meaningful to me. We can't identify true mysteries if we don't train ourselves to analyze real-world events, and the reasons why certain events attract certain monstrous interpretations. For me this kind of training is urgently important, because I'm given to certain strains of magical thinking and I have to be vigilantly aware of what motivates my behavior and convictions. The circumstantial connection between my friend's unexpected death, and my plans for that day, could have proven irresistible to me.

Even now, obviously, I am connecting my plan to visit the cursed house at 112 Ocean Avenue to my friend's abrupt passing. The connection isn't as corrupting as it would be if I had put my feet on Amityville soil that day, but the experience I am currently having tells me exactly how potent this influence could have been at maximum. All my work has been about belief, where beliefs come from, what they do to us personally, even neurologically. I'm haunted by things I used to believe and where those beliefs came from, why I was so vulnerable to them, to the point of complicity in my own destruction. I'm sympathetic to people who believe in things that seem dicey, or in things that offer a seductive reward that outstrips the need to weigh evidence and consequences. But I believe that in many, perhaps most cases, skepticism is just as much of a belief system as faith. Hard evidence always looks that way as long as hard evidence is what you're looking for, an impression that seduces you away from noticing what personal choices you are making in the curation of your worldview. And at the risk of being overly cryptic, I have come to believe that people are only capable of perceiving that which they already believe in, whatever that might consist of. In any case, if you are really paying attention, you begin to notice that you find true proof of things less often than you simply have to prejudicially choose what you believe. These days I have tried to make agnosticism into a discipline, but at the moment I am consciously choosing to believe that my friend did not die in connection with a curse. And I am consciously acknowledging the fact that if that day of my life had gone as originally planned, it could have had a much graver impact on my experience of the death.

#no unsolicited advice please

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x-soapbox-x · 28 days

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Sigh. Once again random posting about an anime that I binged on my day off but. I just want to talk about it!!! This is about Kaguya-sama Love is War. Anyways.

Aside from how much the humor of this show really got to me when the slapstick-esque humor typical in anime isn’t usually my favorite, and how the romance itself is so!! Sweet!! Like it’s obvious from the beginning that they’re perfect for each other just by the fact that they’re playing these mind games with each other knowing the other is also playing, and it’s so much fun watching these two characters have insane mental chess games about following each other on social media and misunderstand each other while also being the only other person that really gets each other. The drama and tension doesn’t come from wondering if one will succeed in winning the others heart bc from the beginning you know they’re already head over heels for each other. The drama all comes from dramatic irony and the narrator himself is in one the joke with the audience and it’s GREAT. But I just want to talk about two specific really small moments I really loved.

The first one is when our lady lead, Kaguya, paints her nails. She worries all day about it-will he like them? Does it go against her identity to cave to girly things just for this stupid boy? She wants him specifically to notice that she painted her nails. It’s such a big deal to her. And of course, because we are privy to both of their internal monologues we know that he notices right away and spends the whole time she’s wishing he’d say something, wondering if it would make him a creep to say something, calculating the likelihood she’d accept a compliment, wondering if it’s a big deal. And at the end of the day he says nothing and she’s walking home staring at her hands disappointed, just a tiny heart break. But then he rides up next to her on his bike and points at her and yells. “Your Nails!”. He doesn’t even compliment them. He rides off before he can get the whole compliment out. But it shows he noticed, and then she’s floating around on cloud nine. It’s so cute and it just feels so…true. Like that’s what it’s like to have a crush for the first time-all this fragile hope, all this heavy anxiety. I love what it says for these specific characters! Like he’s so attentive to her and puts so much work into pretending that he’s not but it becomes so important that he lets her know that he thinks she’s pretty in all these little changeable ways and it’s pretty much the first time in the series that either one of them attempts to be earnest in their interactions instead of straight up doing psychological warfare.

The second little moment I really like is when Miyuki, our fella, has stepped down from being the student class president and as a result has gotten enough rest for multiple nights for the first time in the show, and it changes him. Like physically, he’s suddenly much more youthful looking and approachable and handsome. Everyone is into the well rested former president- except Kaguya. She LOVED his tired eyes, his exhausted and kind of mean glare. He gets all this confidence from being more handsome now and attempts to flirt and it’s completely ineffective. She was so attracted to his ‘death glare’ partly bc of the actual appearance, but also bc it represented his dedication and his work ethic. And then she has this spiral bc she’s not as attracted to him (most people who were young girls attracted to boys might recognize this exact spiral in their history if the object of their affections ever got a haircut) and she wonders if this means she doesn’t actually love him the way she thought. Luckily it’s resolved pretty quickly, but what I loved about this was that her favorite thing about the way he looked was a physical aspect that manifested bc of something intrinsic to who he is as a person, and it was a thing a lot of people actively thought made him look worse. I might be biased bc I also like tired looking eyes on a person (and kind of sport them as well-I am writing this at 2am). But this just seemed so sweet and loving and once again indicates just how much they pay attention to each other.

I guess what I love about this show is that it’s the slowest burn to ever slow burn but they use all that space to explore the hundred little ways to notice and care for another. Love is stored in the attention to detail!! I love how they agonize over every little thing!! I love how much courage it takes them to get over that, I love the hypervigilance of self. I can’t wait to see where it goes next, now that I’ve gotten to the end of season 3 and OOF what an end!!!!

Also it’s just very funny but maybe we can discuss using comedy as a bait and switch for earnestness in some other post. ❤️

#kaguya sama: love is war #yap yap yap #text post #sigh I will never escape from red blue pairings #they are just always perfect to me #anime #love is war #kaguya shinomiya #miyuki shirogane #I am once again seriously discussing anime #long post

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just-sp-in-inginthevoid · 20 days

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Hey! How about Wakasa for the character ask game?

Thank you for asking!! Didn't expect him at all, so that's v nice!

My first impression

Ah. Ikemen — niccce

Oh wait Black Dragon founders??? HELL YEAH; important AND interesting! Bring BD lore in!

My impression now

He carried sm and he deserves his vacation and to be drowning in beer doing nothing but fishing all days like he dreams to. Shinichiro's death and reveal about Time Leaping messed with his head a bit so that's why he's not as energetic as he was as a teen. When he makes a decision, he knows it and what it can trigger but he still does it cold-headed if he feels he has to. Wish we had more on him so I could dig more without feeling like I'm making things up. Ikemen.

Thanks you for revealing the fact Shinichiro was a time leaper, Wakasa

Favorite thing about that character

He knows how to keep secrets but he reveals them when he feels it's necessary. Keeping secret and being trusted is good and all, but the fact he's willing to share the truth after years of silence because he thinks Mikey deserves to be told? To know exactly what's happening to him and why? To know about what his brother's done? It may not change anything to Mikey's state (it likely didn't) – it's too late –but at least he'll know why.

He's the sole reason we got the Original Timeline flashback/arc. And for that reason only—

Least favorite thing

Like the rest of BD 1st gen: How little we saw of him!!! :(

There's too little information!!!

Also the fact his hair was half-cropped disturbed me at first (but I've learnt to love his zebra haircut)

Favorite line/scene

"Honestly speaking, I'm glad Manjiro died." (Chapter 270)

Where he was coming from was understandable – but that was still unexpected and the fact he said that to Shinichiro out of everyone.. Wakasa mourned Mikey already, and cannot bear to lose Shinichiro. He rather lose his friend's brother than his friend. And it's not like he takes the value of Mikey's life away (he suggests to celebrate his passing after all) but Wakasa is not one to have a confused and unsure mind. He doesn't like wasting time with overthinking. He has clear-cut answers to everything, and he's glad that Mikey died, and it's sincere – he's not a liar – and he was scared he'd completely lose his friend and he really, really thinks that now that Mikey's dead, Shinichiro is freed of every burden (he'd take a while to recover but he will, it's Shinichiro) and then it doesn't happen. He loses his friend anyway.

His introduction scene is one of my favorite too – first we can't see him coming, and then he's so tiny next to Kakucho???

Favorite interaction that character has with another

The hime moment avjfklalxkb big brother figure Waka W

The mutual trust he and Benkei have when fighting (and outside of that, I'm sure) is also top-tier

A character that I wish that character would interact with more

Sanzu and Takeomi. Takeomi, because Wakasa and Benkei are only ever seen interacting with Shinichiro and Takeomi's chapter is 3/4 about Shinichiro but there's this uncomfortable wall canon (unwillingly or not) but between Takeomi and Wakasa&Benkei that I Don't LikeTM (it's really interesting tho! Ofc their relationship is tense, but I just wish to see how it was before Takeomi got corrupted. Or even when he was, but before the end of BD.) They founded BD together!! They saw each other maybe daily for 5 years straight – their teenage years – wdym there's almost nothing about them!!(aside from Wakasa's 'A day in his life', Benkei's 'A day in his life' and Takeomi's 'feared/disliked person'???)

And then Sanzu.. Wakasa and Benkei are taking care of Senju – it'd be nice to know what they think of Haruchiyo. If they used to interact with him (and Senju, and the other kids) when he was younger; what their thought about Takeomi regarding the situation, ...

I know the Akashi siblings' nickname is the 'mysterious siblings' but still. I need answer goddammit.

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character

Hikishima from Wild Strawberry

They both like sweet, are strong, look younger than they are, and most importantly: they're both short—

A headcanon about that character

Okay, you gotta hear me out-

His relationship with Benkei was totally inspired by Yoshitsune no Minamoto and Benkei from Japanese History. Hence, Wakasa comes from a rather wealthy family. He's the youngest of a handful of siblings and was born out of wedlock (he's still loved dw). Most of his physical appearance comes from his mother.

(Also – yes he does like lollipops and has a sweet tooth but the stick he constantly has in his mouth is a dango stick. And I'll die on this hill.)

A song that reminds of that character

Oof, though one!

哀悼、そして日常は続く(:"Farewell and then the everydays continue") covered by 宮下遊(Miyashita Yuu) perhaps? It doesn't only remind me of Wakasa so I'm not completely satisfied but here. Let's grieve Shinichiro together.

(Edit: forgot to mention! The translated lyrics can be found in the comments!)

An unpopular opinion about that character

I think the fact I like Takeomi more is not the general consensus lol It's just that canon offers more elements to understand Takeomi's character depth yknow?

Favorite picture

The hidden 28th volume cover. Idk. His posture scratches my brain right.

#Sorry for answering late #I was exhausted yesterday #also it took me hours of listening to song before settling for this one #i promise i listen to other ppl than Miyashita Yuu #and i apologize for only listening to depressing songs #ask game #answering asks

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katnissgirlsmakedo · 10 months

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speak now taylor’s version as a grishaverse concept album: a post.

mine. at first i was like. this is a kanej song… and then i was like no it’s too sweet for kanej this is a wesper song. and i stand by that. you made a rebel if a careless man’s careful. son. i guess. whatever

sparks fly. now THIS is kanej!! and you stood there in front of me just close enough to touch!! close enough to hope you couldn’t see what i was thinking of!!!

back to december. genya about alina for real…. genya goes back to december all the time…. wishing she realized what she had when alina was hers….. whatEVER though.

speak now. mal!!!!! can be him about alina marrying blondie for political reasons or about alina being close to the darkling that time he came to the little palace to report on the stag. he is a jealous bitch!! we love it

dear john. do i even need to say it. literally alina about the darkling. he’s an expert at sorry and keeping lines blurry never impressed by her aceing his tests. he’ll add her name to a long list of traitors who don’t understand and she’ll look back and regret she ignored when they said run as fast as you can. don’t you think she was too young to be messed with. she stole his matches before fire could catch her so don’t look now she’s shining like fireworks over his sad empty town!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he needs to kill himself

mean. he would hate me saying this but. kaz about pekka rollins…. someday i’ll be living in a big old city and all you’re ever gonna be is mean!!!

the story of us. veryyyy kanej. tbh. um you held your pride like you should have held me. why are we pretending this is nothing. she’s standing alone in a crowded room and they’re not speaking. the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now….. I WOULD LAT MY ARMOR DOWN IF YOU SAY YOU’D RATHER LOVE THAN FIGHT. so many things that you wish i knew but the story of us might be ending soon!!!!!! i don’t even care that much whatever.

never grow up. ok well like fuck this song first of all. cried. idk why i thought i wouldn’t like girl you KNOW you’re in an emotionally vulnerable place rn jesus. this one defies blorboification because it’s so crazy but also it’s about alina in the sense that alina is also about me. ok sorry that when i saw alina finally get to the little palace and her new room completely alien to her with nothing familiar but the scars on her body and she’s finally alone for the first time since everything changed overnight and she just immediately breaks down sobbing crying keeling over i immediately was like ummmm she’s gonna be huge for me rn and then i cried so hard i almost threw up and now i’m here. ok. well whatever. you know how sometimes you go to a family reunion and you see your cousin who got married when you were in third grade and you wore a pink tie die sundress and matching pink flip flops and the reception was in a cool barn with little lights all around and there was a weird decorative edible flower on your plate at dinner that you didn’t eat because you were 8 and you thought that was weird and your cousin (the one who just got married) wanted to dance with you and you were 8 so you didn’t want to and you still kinda feel bad about the fact that you were in a bad mood at a wedding when you were 8 but you can’t really do anything about it now and anyway that’s hardly the point if anything because he’s got two daughters now and the youngest is only 5 and she has the same little haircut you had when you were a kid and the same blue eyes and the same shy demeanor and she’s wearing the cutest pink outfit and you just want to cry when you look at her and then your cousin asks you if you would paint her nails because she hasn’t been playing with the other kids there that much and she feels left out and she liked your nails and so you do it and her hands are so little because she’s only five and she’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life and she reminds you of yourself way too much and you just want to cry because you were also the kid at the family reunion that didn’t really get included in playing with the other kids but now you can look at her and do something nice for her and smile at her and be someone for her that no one was for you and like i’m so fucking normal guys i’m not even crying at all lol. lmao even. fuck you taylor

enchanted. ok well. genyalina. what if i said i thought genya helped stop alina from communicating with mal in part because she was jealous that alina loved him.

better than revenge. alina core. she hates women sometimes but don’t worry it’s just because she’s gay and doesn’t know. anyway her about zoya but like literally nothing happened she’s just insane <3

innocent. i’m going to be honest i have never heard this song in full and i’m not about to start now. who cares

haunted. kanej!!!! they walk a fragile line….

last kiss. well i’m not qualified to speak on this but i imagine when mal and alina had to separate in the show this is them. again. i don’t know what i’m saying. anyway it’s also nina and matthias i guess but who cares about them

long live. it was not within me to listen to this tonight but like i know the song and it’s about alina……….. also the crows….. (actually this song has always been about my friends the pevensies but we are making this a grishaverse concept album tonight and we aren’t talking about them rn. but just letting you know there is a deeper priority here. peace and love)

ours. malina!!!!!! don’t you worry your pretty little mind people throw rocks at things that shine and life makes love look hard the stakes are high the waters rough but this love is ours!!!! 🫶🫶🫶🫶

superman. mal…. go save the world i’ll be around…. etc.

electric touch. MAL AND ALINA. HER ELECTRIC TOUCH COULD FILL THIS GHOST TOWN UP WITH LIFE. also it’s kinda lucie and jesse core but we’re not talking about that rn. also i guess it could be a jesper and wylan song but like. alina literally has an electric touch. in a way.

when emma falls in love. nina is soooo emma…. inej is the narrator also

i can see you. this is so kanej i could throw up. i didn’t even finish the song it was too much but just trust me it’s kanej

castles crumbling. ALINAAAAAAAAA

foolish one. oh this one’s EASY. book wylan about jesper and also show inej about kaz. duh. except the bridge which is about blondie wanting to fuck mal so bad it makes him look stupid.

timeless. first of all this is so loved you before by peach prc core. secondly malina core. thirdly beronica core frankly. whatever.

also if if this was a movie was on the correct album i would be saying it was about malina i guess but taylor decided to be ultra lame.

#did everyone have fun at the long ass speak now grishaverse post.#beth.txt #🪲

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writingmaidenwarrior · 6 months

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Sin Eaters Part 6

This next update might be slower because next Friday is my birthday (btw pheita's is on Wednesday if anyone wants to know) , that means I will have barely time to write the next days.

Warnings: none

Tagging @cljordan-imperium

Packed with multiple bags and the hope Talindra and his mother neither killed each other nor started to plan a revolution Wynthan made his way back. He just turned around the corner and back on the main street when he spotted a familiar figure.

The tip of his tongue stuck out as he snuck up behind the man who had his back to him. The woman next to the man might or might not have seen Wynthan. If she did, she didn’t show it.

“You still need some training, Nat.”

“Damn you, Gilmyrn”, Wynthan laughed but straightened up again, “What gave me away?”

“You mean beside the fact Melleis saw you and started chuckling?”

With this Gilmyrn turned around with a broad smile.

“I am sorry, Nat. One day you will succeed”, Melleis snickered and went in to hug him tight.

“This day isn’t today, don’t encourage my little brother like this.”

Gilmyrn acted all serious, but the amusement sparkled in his eyes like a traitor.

“What are you doing here anyway?”

His brother nodded to all the bags with a small frown. Wynthan shook his head.

“I just wanted a haircut …”

“And mom made you her errand boy again?”

“It is not that easy. It started with my human partner.”

Melleis opened her mouth in an expression of remembrance.

“Oh right, you became a Sin Eater yesterday. We saw it on the TV on our way back from the mission. How is she? And why did it start with her?”

Again, Wynthan realized why he liked Melleis so much. Even if Gilmyrn and he were six years apart and Melleis about three years older than him, she always had this childish excitement about meeting new people on her.

“Why don’t you come with me to mom? She would love to see you are all well and you can meet Talindra. Beware of the surprises she holds.”

The dismissive sounds of Gilmyrn only turned this into more fun for Wynthan. It would be funny to see his reaction once he learned about Talindra being a horned one.

“She can’t be worse than Mel.”

“You have no idea.”

“Stop bickering, let’s go.”

As always, Melleis was already a few steps ahead of them. Gilmyrn took some of the bags without a word. They watched as Melleis marched down the street to Kimesnin in a serious air.

“She is on a mission now”, Gilmyrn stated with laughter in his voice.

“I can see. Is there something serious you aren’t at the barracks?”

“I could ask you the same.”

They stared at each other for a few steps until Gilmyrn budged with a snicker.

“Nothing bad. Our unit just needs some rest. Half of us is at the hospital and the doctors made it pretty clear to the commanding officers none of us will go back into the field until the last one had been cleared to be ready to fight again.”

“You won’t get bored with a few weeks off?”, Wynthan teased.

“I might come over to help you young ones train. I know Melleis has some frustration to work out.”

“Young ones, don’t sound like mom …”

“Ouch, that is foul play.”

Their laughter made Melleis turn around with a questioning glance.

“Stop making jokes and move. People could think you are mountains as slow as you are.”

“Not everybody is as impatient as you, love.”

“Not everybody gets as old as time, honey. Now move.”

Shaking his head, Wynthan readjusted the bags in his hands and glanced over to Gilmyrn who just smiled at the back of Melleis.

“How do you get away with this?”, he asked seriously wondering about his brother and Melleis.

“With what?”

“This. Do you hide it when you are at the barracks?”

Gilmyrn stopped confused and tilted his head in a way Wynthan only saw in their mother before.

“Why should I? Isn’t it what they want from us? To become romantic partner as well? They shouldn’t care how it happens unless they get what they want.”

For a moment Gilmyrn paused and looked over to Melleis who just stopped at Lyndhyrr’s bakery.

“We played them in the beginning, to save our lives and buy time to think of any other way how to handle it. Somewhere along the line we actually fell for each other. I will kill anyone who hurts her.”

Wynthan followed his brother’s gaze.

“Can I ask you something serious?”

“What’s up?”

“Do you and Mel have some strange connection? Like trusting each other instantly?��

The look he got was already an answer.

“No, what are you talking about?”

“There is this weird connection between Talindra and me. We sense each other when close by. There is this instant trust with no holding back. I already had the situation with her where she panicked for a good reason and was able to get through to her within seconds. I shouldn’t be able to.”

“I see.”

Gilmyrn frowned and motioned to keep walking.

“You know something?”

Waiting for an answer Wynthan kept his eyes trained on his brother.

“I can’t recall everything, but I remember one of the elders talking about something like this the year before I got taken to training during the Festival of the Eternals. Something about a bond between warriors of the old times.”

“A bond between warriors…”, Wynthan repeated with his thoughts already making connections left and right.

His brother’s gaze rested on him with a smirk.

“She isn’t human, is she?”

“Who?”

“You partner. You said we should beware of her secrets and this questions about a strange connection led me to this thought.”

A slightly manically laughter escaped Wynthan that got worse when he spotted Melleis with another big bag coming out of the bakery.

“She is the daughter of Sin Eaters, got horns during puberty and hid it all those years. If I go just by her eating habits, she is more one of us than human. And speaking of eating habits...”, he nodded towards Melleis, “Talindra already had a taste of the pastries. Melleis needs to defend them.”

Gilmyrn looked to his partner with a raised eyebrow and an aloof smirk.

“Could be fun to watch. Melleis eats more sweets since a few days. I don’t know if she is stressed or if this is a sign for something else.”

The mental picture of the women fighting over the sweet treats made Wynthan smirk as well even if the possibility of Melleis being pregnant wasn’t as pleasant as it sounded. They could only hope that their leaders would allow Kimesnin to raise the child so Melleis could see the kid at least once in a while.

“You just got checked up. She didn’t say anything?”

“Maybe it doesn’t show up already.”

“If someone notices it’s you and mom”, Wynthan snickered.

“What do they notice?”, Melleis interjected.

Lost in their conversation they didn’t notice how she waited for them.

“Changes in people. Either because of sorrows, sickness, or mom’s favorite: early detection of pregnancies.”

The laughter of Melleis made both wonder.

“Would be fun to see one day.”

She pushed Gilmyrn’s hand away as he tried to get a pastry and marched on. He threw Wynthan a pointed look.

“As long as you aren’t the one?”, he threw in.

She shrugged and took another pastry.

“I wouldn’t mind if it will hit me if I just witness this. But something tells me you were talking about Natty-Boy’s partner.”

“Mel…”

“What?”

A broad grin on her face she bit into the baked good and marched on.

“We did. Seemed like you will like her”, Gilmyrn helped him out.

“How so?”

“Mischievous, loves sweets,…”

“I hope she got her own pastries.”

“No worries, we got out own.”

Her worries about her bag of treats made Wynthan’s laughter worse.

“Good, I won’t share. This is the only thing that will prevent you from me killing anyone today.”

With two huge steps Gilmyrn closed the distance to her.

“Did something happen I don’t know?”

“Just the regular: When are you going to get pregnant? Speech every time I am at the hospital”, Melleis growled into her pastry, “One day I am going to kill one of the staff with their little pointy things just for annoying me.”

“Sounds fair to me”, Wynthan shrugged, “They should be aware that sending us off into fights without an end and barely any time to recover isn’t the best base to reach their stupid goal.”

“Did you ever experience any commanding officer thinking?”, Gilmyrn asked cynical, “All they do is repeating the orders of the triumvirates like little puppets. Cruel, sadistic puppets.”

A collective sigh went through the small group. Melleis held her pastry in front of Gilmyrn for him to take a bite before she dug into it again. The small moment started the next chain of thoughts in Wynthan. If the higher ups were already on Melleis’ back for getting pregnant how bad will it be for Talindra with her unique heritage?

“Whatever you are thinking about, Natty, you better stop it before we enter the house or Kimesnin will hug you till you lose conscience.”

Melleis’ voice pulled him out of his dark thoughts. A small smirk on her with syrup smeared face greeted him.

“I try my best.”

The next moment Gilmyrn opened the door.

Talindra and Kimesnin sat with their backs to the door, hunched over the table and deep in musings as it appeared. The short cut on Talindra was already noticeable. Carefully Wynthan put the bags down and went over as silent as possible. With the intention to blow on her neck he bent down.

“Do it and I hurt you”, Talindra stated without even turning around.

“Do what?”, he inquired with an innocent tone.

“Whatever your plan was. Just because my neck is exposed doesn’t mean it’s an invitation for you to pull a prank.”

Gilmyrn and Melleis burst out laughing at the door. Astonished Kimesnin jolted up and glanced over.

“Gil! Mel! Eternals with us, what are you doing here?”

Laughing Kimesnin almost ran over and hugged them tight.

“Forced vacation because the unit is down in the hospital. And this one over there must be Natty’s Talindra. I already like you.”

Melleis wiggled out of the hug and much to Wynthan’s rising panic straight to Talindra.

“Looks like I am famous now”, Talindra joked.

“I got asked about you, that’s all.”

“Naww, poor Natty”, Talindra copied Melleis.

He didn’t know what to think about that. A second later the two women vanished out into the backyard. His eyes still on the door to it he frowned.

“I am fucked, am I?”

“You have no idea how much, sweets”, Kimesnin snickered, “Come and let me cut your hair. Mel won’t let go of Talindra for the next hour at least.”

The deep chuckle of Gilmyrn carried through the room.

“I’ll start dinner preparations. I am afraid we must fight for it today.”

“I am betting on Talindra”, Kimesnin stated dryly with a sly smirk.

With the number of twists and turns the day took, Wynthan gave up and sat down for his hair cut.

#writblr #writing #sin eaters #part 6 #wynne writes #fantasy #adult audience #post apocalyptic

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dollarbin · 9 months

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Dollar Bin #1:

Joan Baez's Come from the Shadows

Joan Baez had a lot of options of where to go next in 1971.

She could elbow her way into the new female singer-songwriter space alongside Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny and Carole King and kick some privileged male ass (Blue, The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens and Tapestry all came out in 71; Dylan and Young put out absolutely nothing).

She could shrug off that ridiculous challenge and compete with the blossoming Linda Ronstadt, turning songs by men into sexy, feminist anthems. Or she could play the dedicated wife to her jailed husband David. Finally, she could dump him and proudly sleep with strangers, all the while pining after Dylan.

Or she could just protest the damn war.

Come From The Shadows, which you can easily find in your local record store's dollar bin (that's what we will be doing in this blog: trolling through my hundreds of dollar bin records; thanks for reading!), has a cover which clearly announces that her priority is Protest.

Can you think of a less commercial and less self-promoting record cover? (I can: her husband David's painting of a funeral on her previous record, Blessed Are..., makes the cover of Self Portrait look like high art; the cover screams "don't buy me for kicks. I am an ugly bummer." Happily the double album is oddly full of light and joy.)

Come From The Shadows' cover photo of two elderly Vietnam protesters under arrest strikes a similarly confrontational tone, but this one isn't ugly. Instead, we know right off that we are either with Joan and her groovy octogenarian jailbirds, or we are pro-war. I'm obviously pro-Joan.

I wish I was in the room when this cover was discussed. Joe Salesperson must have choked on his pipe smoke while ordering a telegram that both begged and ordered Baez to put her pretty face on the cover instead. Somehow Baez had the chutzpah, clout and fierce determination to potentially doom her own record in the name of justice. And so we see these rain drenched hippies, who are matched on the reverse of the gatefold by a concise and angry essay from Joan herself, where she tells us, "in 1972 if you don't fight against a rotten thing you become a part of it." Sounds about right to me!

While we are at it, can you name one record cover by any other female artist before Court and Spark that does not focus on the woman's looks? (Damn, I just thought of one: Joni Mitchell's first record...). Anyway, Baez's cover (and the photo of her on the album's backside, in which she sports a reckless, can't be bothered haircut) manages to protest the war and female objectification at the same time.

But drop the needle on any battered, long-ignored, bargain bin copy of this record and everything gets way more complicated. Turns out that Baez had just about every goal possible in 1972, and all at the same time.

Prison Trilogy, the first track, is in keeping with her cover, as she protests the American prison system (not too surprising a topic given the fact that she'd married a guy, allegedly my mother's cousin's roommate at Stanford, who'd been in prison for refusing the draft). But Baez wrote it. Look out singer-songwriters, Joan's in the game! Songwriting wasn't entirely new for Baez; she'd written Song for David a few years before. But half the songs on this record are penned by Baez, by far her highest quota to date. None of her tracks here touch what Sandy, Joni or Carole had done in the preceding months, but they're all pretty good.

What's more, there's some weird stuff going on in her writing. She has a song about the crisis in Bangladesh and, as near as I can tell, she had nothing to do with George Harrison's male-centric benefit concert that had taken place at the end of 71. We know Stephen Stills was at that show, but was Joan? Stills, who doesn't belong as low down in Rock and Roll Hell as Mike Love but still shares the same zip code, spent the night of the Concert for Bangladesh backstage drunk and annoying everyone. He seems to have made that one of his specialties actually. Night of Hurricane found him demanding a whole room full of coke before he'd perform; and check him out in the bonus/rejected footage of The Last Waltz; it looks as though he is unaware of how one makes music. Anyway, was Baez riding the coattails of Harrison with her song about Bangladesh, or did she do this on her own and set the stage for the men to follow? Who knows!

Baez writes another song on this record that is straight-forwardly about sleeping around with some male stranger. There's nothing ambiguous about it; it's called Love Song to a Stranger and there's talk of him standing "nude by the mirror" while presenting her with a rose. A lovely image! I'll bet her husband would have loved hearing that one in the slammer. But he got out in 71, just before this came out, so I suppose she played it for him when he got home; hopefully the stranger had put on some pants by that point. I'm not passing any judgment here; it's a better approach than Clytemnestra took when Agamemnon walked in the door and I'm impressed with how bold and unapologetic Baez is here. We all know that non-males still get judged for being promiscuous while men still can get grinning props for the same thing. Happily, it turns out that Baez has been shouting at us from the dollar bin about this form of injustice for the past 51 years.

Growing up we had a copy of Diamonds and Rust, Baez huge hit record from a few years later. It was a relic of my mother's pre-motherhood life as a feminist who lived out the plot of 9 to 5 a full dozen years before that bizarro film was conceived. She also happened to have Kris Kristofferson as a cousin, which is endlessly cool. Anyway, the title track of Diamonds and Rust always struck me as a big deal because it's obviously written to and about Dylan, and it's intense. Well, it turns out Diamonds and Rust is the second (maybe there are more?) song Baez wrote directly to Dylan. Side 2 of Come From the Shadows keeps up her trend of obvious song naming; it's called To Bobby and it calls him out unambiguously for ditching The Movement to write songs about the man within himself whose ubiquitous brown coat appears on every cover instead of Joan's anti-war grandparents. Did Dylan listen to songs like this that are obviously about him? What was their conversation like when they next saw each other?

Bob: Hey Joanie, that's an intense song you wrote there. Who's it about?

Baez: You Bob. It's about you.

Bob: Gee wiz, Joanie. Just don't tell my wife, okay? I just wrote one called about you too. It's called Wigwam.

youtube

The songs on Come From The Shadows not written by Baez are an odd grab bag of moods. Baez out Ronstadts Linda by covering Imagine just an album after covering Let It Be. Both Baez covers are solid, with Baez sounding less strident than she can at times. But I'm guessing everyone on planet earth, including your great grandparents, had heard these tunes before Joan included them. We may scratch our heads at such obvious and seemingly redundant covers today, but keep in mind that for most of the listening public The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down was a song by Joan Baez.

Unlike Imagine and Let it Be, the album's very best track, Rainbow Road, didn't make its way into every progressive 70's summer camp songbook. My cool queer kids think it's a gay anthem - and it should be! Take a listen, and thanks for joining me in the Dollar Bin.

youtube

#sandy denny #joan baez #bob dylan #vinyl records #Youtube

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raylex · 1 year

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💫 RAYMAN GO!!!

RAYMANRAYMANRAYMAN (DOES A LITTLE DANCE)

THANK Y'ALL FOR THE ASKS! hope both of your weekends are going good!!! NOW. RAYMAN. let me take you on a JOURNEY through the years, powered by my autism.

let's start off by asking ourselves a question like we're french philosophers. who is rayman?

rayman is the creation of a man named michel ancel. ancel had always loved videogames, and he had spent much of his life doodling little characters and coming up with ideas for them. around 1992, ancel created his favourite character: rayman!

rayman ended up being left with no arms or legs in order to be easier to animate due to, y'know, several technical limitations at the time. this ended up being a fantastic decision, because not only was it unique and creative, but it opened up for so many more possibilities than normal in regards to his moveset! ah, but i'm getting ahead of myself.

around that same time, development began on a game starring ancel's new character. at first it was planned to be released on the super nintendo, but this was scrapped and it got reworked into an atari jaguar game instead. and such, in 1995, the world was introduced to our platforming limbless wonder ❤

following the release of the first rayman game, it was quickly realized how much potential this series had for its future. tons of edutainment games were created, the game got ported to a whole bunch of different platforms, and eventually, a sequel was developed for the n64 and pc in 1999. i present to you, rayman 2: the great escape!

i would insert a joke here about "Rayman had a rough transition into 3d" but that couldn't be further from the truth. rayman's transition into 3d got nothing but praise! this game has been included in multiple lists for the greatest games of all time. suffice to say, this is a common favourite among rayman fans, and for good reason!

a fun fact about this game is that it has been ported to basically every console imaginable. it's like the doom of platforming. you could probably play rayman 2 on your calculator. rayman 2 microwave speedrun when?

anyways, during this time, a tv show was also in production! it unfortunately only got four episodes in before it was cancelled, but it's still great fun. billy west voices rayman, it's hilarious, i recommend giving it a watch. it sort of follows the scrapped plot that the original rayman 2 had.

before we get to my BELOVED rayman 3, i want to point out one port of rayman 2 in particular that's interesting: rayman revolution, released in 2000!

rayman revolution is the ps2 port of rayman 2, and let me tell you, it's got, like, hours worth of more content than the original game did. it SLAPS. in my opinion, it's my favourite version of rayman 2, but some people feel it's a bit over-bloated with all the new added content. i think it's awesome though. it's got an openworld hub world and everything!

anyways, moving on from rayman 2, we get to my FAVOURITE game in the entire franchise. i love this game so much, i could gush about it for HOURS. RAYMAN 3: HOODLUM HAVOC.

I LOVE RAYMAN 3 SO MUCH, Y'ALL. IT'S INSANE. i literally have practically the entire game memorized in my head.

so for this game, michel ancel actually wasn't directly involved with a lot of it. he did, however, help out with a new redesign of our titular main character! this was 2003, everything had to have that early 2000's edge, and rayman was no exception. so he donned a hoodie, got some sick new kicks, and got a fresh sharp new haircut. and he looks SO GOOD Y'ALL but i'm not going to go into how handsome i think he is because i'm gay enough already. BUT SERIOUSLY, COME ON, JUST LOOK AT HIM, HE'S SO BADASS.

MY LOVE ❤❤❤❤❤

although rayman 3 didn't do as well as rayman 2 did, it wasn't considered a BAD game or anything (i will fight anyone who thinks this is a bad game 😤😤😤), and so the franchise continued... and we got, uh. rayman raving rabbids, in 2006.

i'm using an older ps2 cover here purely because i think it looks cooler but the game was primarily developed with the wii in mind seeing as it ended up being a party game. initially, it was developed as rayman 4, and it was supposed to be a platformer like the others (i could rant about the scrapped prototype for a WHILE) but they tossed that concept aside because they wanted to incorporate the wii playstyle into it.

i am not a huge fan of the rabbids. they're like the minions before the minions existed. i actually didn't even know they were in the same franchise as rayman until i got into the rayman franchise, because they ended up branching off and ubisoft favoured rabbids games over rayman... so he sort of got abandoned for a while. in the period between 2006 to 2011 we got some rabbids games. i'm not going to go over them because 100% honestly i do not care for them a whole lot HAHA.

well, 2011 rolls around, and our boy rayman is back in the spotlight with RAYMAN ORIGINS!

despite its title, it's a direct sequel to rayman 3, not a prequel (though it was originally supposed to be, and it was gonna detail rayman's past and how he grew into the hero that he was, but that idea was put aside last minute).

rayman's returned to his 2d platformer roots and he's here to just go through goofy shenanigans and kick some ass and i can respect that!

in 2013, we got a sequel to rayman origins, rayman legends! another great game. i played this one with two of my friends and i had so much fun.

both really good games!

anyways for the next near-decade we just got a bunch of mobile runner games that recycled origins and legends assets. they're fine, nothing noteworthy.

nowadays, ubisoft hasn't paid much mind to rayman anymore, despite him being the mascot that got them where they are today, and they still seem to favour the rabbids, considering that they got in a game with MARIO before rayman did. but it seems like ubisoft hasn't completely forgotten about their old friend... :D

let me tell you. 2023 cannot come fast enough.

#sorry for the essay y'all i just love rayman an ungodly amount and will take any and every opportunity to infodump #ask games #frozenhi-chews #anon #💜☀️ray of sunshine☀️💜

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akoiromanticstudent · 1 year

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aesthetic coffee and bookshop.................. hangout

and the Historian continues to be absolutely lovely, as seen on our date yesterday a couple weeks before Valentine's Day [oops I forgot to finish this post], having met for the first time in person in three years, nothing dramatic happened as a result of the fact that I've graduated, no sudden or notable shift in our relationship. I thought I would detail said date anyway for record keeping and sentimentality, but it's worth noting he casually said we were soulmates so yanno ♥ haha

I arrived 45minutes early to his class that I'd play the Maple Leaf Rag for and knocked on his office door, and he invites me in [despite the fact that he's in the usual pre-class flurry of frantic preparation], and while in there I'm able to confirm that he's still got my insane Valentine's Day gift as well as my extremely secret April Fools Day gift [which I will reveal one day because it was an incredible undertaking but only after my next job is confirmed and I move out of the country lolololol]

and I didn't say the cool thing I wanted to say which was "I'll have you know, I've been waiting two years to say this to your face... hello [first name]" [as he had disallowed me from calling him by first name until it was certain that I would never return as a student] - I really wanted to say this but saying people's names to their faces is like pulling teeth and I never manage it

we had a lovely little chat but I pulled it short because I know he was scrambling for class and I'd better not let his social tendencies get in the way of his work as much as I love hearing him, and he strongly advised I check out the gallery/exhibition downstairs on famous women in popular music [it was indeed very cool ♥] before coming back up to get to the classroom to practice

we realized that I didn't have a way to get into the room early enough so he hands me his key card and says "by the way, you have to give that back" [hehe] and I just laugh but when he leaves I love looking at it [I've seen it before] and the fact that it has his profile picture from when he started teaching at this university, he was SO much younger, emphasizing a model-worthy facial structure with a very modest haircut [notably more hair than now]

I practice various ragtime for a bit and I time it so that he and early students walk in, I'm playing a slower, sweet rag called Weeping Willow to welcome them in, a delightful little piece that none of them have heard before. After this, he enthusiastically introduces me to the class as a pianist, piano teacher, twice music major alum, and a "friend" - the second time he introduced me this way (the first time was to his son - nothing terribly interesting is happening there, I just offered to potentially help his son get an internship or something with my company)

so later in the class I go ahead and play the Maple Leaf, demonstrating various musical, technical, harmonic, and structural aspects, directed by The Historian - and as every time I do this for him, he's delighted that I do this. And "I really particularly love this harmony" and his voice drops and says "Wait, here, stop, this chord, oh yes... Okay next one"... "Just go back and forth between those chords."

after class, I let every else talk to him before I engage him again and we chat like colleagues and buddies (and maybe, somewhat loosely, we are at least nearly peers--after all, I'm an educator as well, simply not classroom), about teaching and students and music, and we depart from the music building together out to our corresponding cars, chatting and laughing and exchanging snarky comments and casually loving compliments

He's SO so so lovely and we go out into the windy, freezing parking lot, and he takes great care to know what my car looks like (as well as get my phone number in case I get lost, as if he didn't already have it) before he goes to his car and I follow him out.

We arrive at the Super Aesthetic Bookshop and I'm sure we look like quite a suspicious pair, this 6'0 white-as-american-man-can-be geezer and 5'3 (reacted) woman, speaking in low hushed pretentious tones and sensible chuckles, standing awkwardly at the counter for several minutes as we slowly realize their coffee machine is broken, so we walk to another coffee shop in the complex with nearly the opposite aesthetic - clean, white, barren, youthful, and now he's the one that looks hilariously out of place, but I feel even weirder, surrounded by people my age and younger (mind you this place looks like it was AI generated from Instagram coffee posts), possibly even giving us looks for the way we interact (but hey! We're just friends, a pair of nerds, hanging out) before we carry our coffees back to the bookshop.

We make our way back to the sitting area-- and it's SO cozy-- he gestures to a few seating options: individual chairs? Or the couch... Which is definitely, definitely, a two-seater, and therefore by definition, a loveseat. Which I DEFINITELY choose, and he seems more than comfortable with, so we settle on this "couch" (fingers curling around our respective coffees for the warmth) - speaking pretentiously again with cute self-depreciating interjections (his eyes cast down bashfully or with secret humor), with a totally appropriate amount of space between us (I still don't know his touch), and somehow never ever getting uncomfortable (his hands are so big), never getting closer (lips curl into a smirk), but never getting further (he hums in agreement, he hums in disagreement, I always think he speaks so smoothly but in reality he stutters enough, in between very fluid phrases).

And we talk about teaching and reading and psychology and society and work and technology and music

He talked about a teaching dilemma, regarding these students, a "modern problem", and he worries that he's holding up expectations that students can no longer meet. Me, being a freaking nerd, don't think that these expectations are excessive, given the relative ease of the other classes in our degree, and I said, "well. I am, in some respects, old fashioned as well..."

Him: "this is why we're soulmates." He's grinning and I laugh with love and don't say anything specific at all to that, but it's definitely there.

We're soulmates.

And maybe that's okay that this means that we're just friends that sometimes come together and chat comfortably for many hours at a time.

#! the historian #arstudent original #professor crush community #professor crush

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not-close-to-straight · 1 year

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Steve's panic attack buying medical supplies... Poor baby. You said this fic is more scent marker heavy than most of your ABO stuff, but I REALLY think it was needed. It fits so perfectly in such a HEAVILY emotion-based story.

Steve threatening Neil!! Steve threatening Neil!! I love a good bloodthirsty bitch. Violence just really hits right sometimes. I love all the constant reminders we get that Steve is NOT a small Omega, in body or in spirit. Neil pissing himself as he narrowly avoids losing his fucking head was the sweetest retribution. I feel like it accomplished both goals. We got some violence, but he ALSO was made so small. He ran, terrified, from an Omega. He tried to get the cops on his side, and he FAILED. He's spent his entire life bullying his was into getting what he wants, and he's losing every last bit of his grip on that.

The kids piling in to puppy pile Steve, and it helping. They get to be here for him like he's there for them.

BILLY TELLING MAX HE LOVES HER AND TELLING HER SHE ALWAYS HAS A HOME WITH HIM. MY GOD.

Literally every single thing about Billy at the Cabin. Joyce's family haircuts and including him in that?? HE'S ONE OF HER KIDS NOW.

BILLY AND ELEVEN. El's complete inability to be sneaky or lie to blackmail someone (friends don't lie!!), and him letting her braid his hair anyway. Also love that he's back to threatening the kids and it's totally toothless but he still does it. Steve LETS him now, because he knows Billy's never going to let anything hurt those kids. The whole exchange about El feeling broken and in a sense unlovable, but he makes her feel so okay, even if not how he was meaning. "I'm going to tell Mike tomorrow." I'm sure that'd be great lol

THE REUNION. Everything about it is so so sweet. They've been so far apart and so worried for so long. But not only that. For the first time in their relationship, they're safe. And nothing bad can happen to them. They're not on a time constraint. They just get to be and be together.

Billy saying he'd let Steve ride him into the carpet made me snicker. That whole exchange. "Counterpoint-" lol I get you, Billy. Sometimes injuries take a back seat. (One time I needed help getting upstairs and was icing my knee which I could barely touch, but that Did Not Stop the festivities.) And Steve's insistence otherwise, because he WILL mama bear the fuck out of anyone and everyone. Even his Alpha.

Also the exchange explaining the Papa Bear thing was so cute. "I thought it was something weird."

THE FUCKING HOUSE. The fact that Steve gave him a home, but also is giving him the key as a necklace?? Just all so beautiful. The parallels. The callbacks. Billy crying because he's so loved and safe.

Also!! "I want your next heat"/"it's yours"!!!! The GROWTH!! OUR BOYS ARE FINALLY TRULY TALKING TO EACH OTHER AND READY TO FULLY HAVE EACH OTHER.

This was such a good chapter, and SUCH a good follow up to the last. The tonal shift wasn't abrupt. It just felt so natural.

Chef's kiss

The scent markers really did help this fic along. It adds another layer of depth to an already canon and verse intense dynamic and i think it REALLY compliments that like… feral… part of Billy. I’ve said before that he’s very much a natural Alpha, especially for how I write my Alphas, even giving him fangs felt like a perfectly normal thing to do since he’s always baring his teeth and licking his lips in the show? And adding the scent markers is just another way for him to be hyper aware of everything all the time and to properly figure out situations (which abused kids have to learn to do anyway literally just to survive).

Whoo okay Neil. You are exactly right about how the scene with Steve makes him feel “small”. Like not to sound too After School Special about it but once a bully realizes you Aren’t scared anymore, they lose their power. Neil tried to be physically imposing and got pushed off the porch because Steve’s bigger. He tried to call on his “authority” as an Alpha (it’s dangerous for omegas to be alone) and got wholly disrespected. Threatened to call the cops and was told to also call an ambulance. And then probably the most satisfying for me to write was how Steve very much treated him like a bratty child “I’m going to count to three!” Homeboy got stripped of every inch of his power and had to run away crying. Love that for us.

And I love the way that Steve felt afterwards. Instead of feeling sick or guilty like he would have if he’d actually killed Neil, he can smile and sort of chuckle about it and he KNOWS he could and would absolutely defend his mate from anyone and it actually gives him the hope that things are going to be okay.

Really super loved the kids influence in this chapter. From the boys puppy piling on Steve to max sneaking out of class to call Billy and honestly everything that is Eleven checking in steve and then sitting and braiding Billys hair while talking about Important things. I usually don enjoy writing too many younger characters because children in general make me want to tear my hair out, but it isn’t stranger things WITHOUT the party and the way the older characters interact with the kids highlights so many good themes and character arcs.

Billy just being so “oh no I’m gonna pop some pain pills and you’re gonna ride me into the carpet” like he’s feeling extremely confident in those pain pills lol. But more importantly, it’s just that connection, he’s so so desperate to keep his mate close and specifically in NCTS Omegaverse, sex is never just sex it’s always emotional and a way to bond and really intensely be with each other so yeah, Billy is 61% just a horn dog but he’s also 39% really needing to that close to his mate and I love that.

I was actually racking my brain trying to figure out what Steve could get Billy for his birthday. In an earlier version of this fic, there was a birthday chapter where Steve took Billy away for an overnight trip to one of the Great Lakes so Billy could just be on a beach again even if it wasn’t cali but once I dove into Neil a little more I realized they’d never get away with that sortnof thing without massive repercussions? So I switched it out and eventually ended up here and I knew I wanted Billys birthday to specifically be the moment where they 100% commit to each other, reaffirm their bond, clear up any potential misunderstandings (like the night at the byers) and move forward together, so then I had to figure out what Steve could give Billy that would be so hugely emotional lik the necklace…

And like. Duh. When it finally came to me it seems so so obvious. Of course steve gets them a place together. It’s been established over and over in this fic how Steve’s house isn’t really home, how he can’t relax there and will never feel totally comfortable there so of course he needs someplace new and of course Billy does to.

And the parallels to the Saint Christopher necklace 😭😭 in case Billy ever starts feeling lost he can remember how to get home to Steve?? I love them.

I almost left the last conversation out because at this point it felt redundant. Obvs the boys are together forever. But you’re right, they’ve always sort of…. Said it without actually saying it. Or (rightfully) assumed. And their communication has been next to nothing just because of Neil. So even with it being a little redundant I think it needed to be said. Billy isn’t even asking at this point either and I love that because he knows exactly where he stands with Steve. “Want your next heat, gonna come home to you every night, mark you up silver, make you mine” and Steve’s responses are “yes” and “I’m already yours”

Honestly I’m embarrassingly emotional over it

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anthonybialy · 7 months

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Causing Effects

Lack of consequences isn’t the same as hiding from them. I wish good luck to anyone trying to explain the distinction to aspiring evaders. Pursuing legal results presently aren’t trendy. Avoiding creditors only seems easier in an era when nobody answers phones.

Printing money makes workers feel foolish. Why clock in for some job that cuts into Candy Crush time all to deal with annoying twits when salaries arrive passively? Getting paid without that irksome work bit is why we have a government.

A wholesale misunderstanding of motivation, economics, and humanity hasn’t yet produced welcome results. The outcome would seem funny if it weren’t one faction’s entire plan. Limitless free currency might sound good to a four-year-old. Adults who can’t envision creating value disappoint the next generation.

Money needs to stop inflating itself. It’s surely not Joe Biden’s fault that bills became worth as much as newspaper as soon as he started spinning in the Oval Office chair. He’s been terrific at accumulating it without ever being useful, so there’s no reason he’d want those filthy piles to turn worthless. Presuming everyone else is as useless led to someone who can’t comprehend producing value handing out cash for nothing.

The fact the item used to buy other ones became worthless as soon as the incumbent brushed against power is evidence none of this worthlessness is his fault. An obvious conspiracy against love and joy just means this cruel world with its nefarious forces conspired to ruin the joy plotted by America’s kindly Grandpa.

The entitlement state is borderless. Taking money to hand it back out certainly couldn’t be the very thing preventing prosperity in the first place. A chance to make a fortune sounds like a lot of work, anyway. Passivity helps regulate blood pressure. Buying votes is an expensive way of cheap whoring.

Dividing by zero is about to multiply. The next couple trillion bucks shredded will tape together prosperity. An entire economic philosophy based upon surreal mathematics will surely add up starting tomorrow. Presuming not only that our dreadful and moronic government is the best at solving problems but also the sole choice leads to the sort of semipermanent stagnation we have now. You’d almost think the country was being conditioned to accept defeat if you were sweet enough to think those in charge are capable of scheming.

Having fun without planning ahead is the only activity labeled a right by enemies of the Bill of Rights. Aborting the unwanted embodies the ultimate circumvention of responsibility. Those who are never born fail to get the chance to avoid the irresponsible example. The victim can’t fight back, which is the sickest targeting of them all.

Volume offers a distraction from shamefulness. Preening about choice lamely distracts from how the most basic frameworks of legality and decency protect others who would be harmed by others. Modern sophisticated thinkers decide they can do whatever they please, including keeping a baby from ever getting that chance.

The loudest science fans surely aren’t compensating for churning out noise with volume. A refusal to understand conception is unsurprising from scientific experts who thought banning haircuts would halt a virus. But a failing grade on biology exams is more willful in this instance. Extensive research has not yet answered the eternal question of whether they’re really that ignorant or really that mendacious.

Permitting stealing at will is how our loving society expresses compassion. Disregard sob stories from diabolically greedy merchants who want to offer products humans want in exchange for currency.

Demonizing commerce is the least surprising policy from fans of plundering in the name of fairness. Hopping literal and figurative turnstiles only creates higher prices. Scientists will never solve the inscrutable mystery of why cities look like zombie movies.

Accepted stealing paired with excessively generating money dramatically raised prices, which is sure an odd way to help the poor. But liberals love inflicting surprises. Even if they don’t, they’re incredible and coming up with exactly the opposite of what they claim.

Smugness doesn’t will nonsense into existence, which is a shame for Democrats who can’t rely on impossibilities like wise concepts. As for some of their countless victims, employing people has become even more of a challenge when there’s less to pay. It’s a good thing there’s a high minimum wage, or this nation would be coping with rampant idling.

Ripping off steaks in order to feed their children is 2023’s most popular hobby. Poor pilferers can’t afford anything. Sure, making pancake mix out of reach resulted from the enacted Democratic platform sabotaging the economy. But stealing from struggling stores is how hateful merchants get punished for trying to sell us what we want. Money is worthless, which makes having a civilization challenging. But liberals need victims to help, even if they don’t technically do it.

Innate ingratitude permeates a philosophy that presumes nothing worthwhile can be created before striving to prove it. A life spent seeking out ways to circumvent the basic fairness of providing something to trade leads to reduced production. They could at least learn incentives from basic examples.

#economy #free market #big government #business

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danganronparegretspastsins · 2 years

Text

(Now Playing: Joy)

Hope's Peak Academy.

The place that’s renowned the world over. This academy is so prestigious and elite, that they only accept students that are the absolute best in their field.

These students are called Ultimates.

There's really no point in explaining what it is, because only newborns wouldn't know about how big of a deal this school is, but no matter the history of the school and it’s reputation...

...You can’t change the fact that I was one of its attendees.

My name is Yashiro Fuyuki. I'm the Ultimate Knife Thrower. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yashiro Fuyuki: Ultimate Knife Thrower

(Voice Claim: Akihiko Sanada, from Persona 3)

I'm not the sort of person who thinks they're ordinary despite evidence to the contrary, nor do I buy into my own hype.

I'm confident in my abilities, but I know where my limits are. Though, I'm considered one of the Academy's top performing Ultimates, if the letter I received is any indication.

"As a reward for honing your talent so much, we at Hope's Peak invite you to the Taiyotsuki Museum as a celebratory field trip. Please bring along, at most, two of your loved ones. Thank you for advancing yourself as the hope of this country."

In all honesty, I'm not usually one for field trips, but a chance to bond with my parents again was exactly what I needed. We hadn't talked that much since I moved to the dorms between my classes and their jobs.

In fact, they were the ones that picked me up from my dorm room. My mom insisted on sitting in the backseat with me so she could fix up my hair, even though I thought it was just fine... Then again, she was the hairdresser between us, so I guess she'd be the expert.

"Honestly, Yashi. You can’t just hide your hair under a beanie every day. You have a very handsome complexion, and you have such beautiful hair to go with it!" She said.

"It’s fine, mom. You don’t need to-" I said.

"It’s not fine, Yashi! Are you even using the conditioner I’ve been sending you? Your hair has so many split ends, I don’t even know where to begin trimming it..." She cut me off, actually taking out some scissors to try and give me an impromptu haircut in the car.

"You think you can style it in time before we get there, sweetie?" My dad asked.

"Hm, I’ll have to use my emergency mousse if I wanna do things quickly…" My mom muttered, opening the blades before pausing. "Wait... was that sarcasm?"

"I’m just glad you’re not spraying hairspray all over the car this time." My dad said.

"Uuuuugh…" I facepalmed, trying not to let my smile show. I missed this. I was originally hoping to meet them there, but the train station was under construction. I didn’t have any way to get to the museum myself, anyway, so… This was better.

We arrived at the museum right on schedule, even if my mother spent an extra fifteen minutes in the parking lot fussing over my hair…

I looked up from the museum map. On both sides of the museum doors were two upperclassmen I recognized from the academy.

One of them glanced our way as me and my parents approached the doors. Out of courtesy, I politely nodded at him.

His eyes followed me as I walked into the doors, almost as if he were wary of me.

Not very sociable, is he?

I snagged a museum map and leafed through it, the blacksmithing exhibits in particular catching my eye. I walked into the museum with my parents, a warm feeling in my chest.

"Where do you guys wanna go first?" I asked, holding out the map.

"Well, it's your hard work that got the trip. I think you should choose our first exhibit, then we can rotate." My dad said. I couldn't help but smile at that.

"The blacksmithing exhibit's practically got my name written on it." I said, folding the map back up.

"Well, you heard the man! Let's work some iron, shall we?" My mom said.

"There's actually a difference between iron working and blacksmithing, mom..." I replied. We arrived at the blacksmithing exhibit, and I got to nerd out to my parents for the first time in a while. I spent a good few hours in that exhibit with my mom and dad... My parents and I grew a little closer today.

That said, my parents were getting extra close with each other too. I tried to make myself scarce as they got more and more affectionate, hesitant to ask for a hug of my own.

"Hey, do you mind if I go to the botanical exhibit next door for a second? Saw something online and I wanted to see if it was true..." I said.

"Oh, you can go a little farther than that, Yashi. We trust you to wait." My mom said, pecking my dad on the cheek.

"Just don't go running off with any pretty girls behind our backs, alright?" My dad said, ruffling my hair and messing up my beanie.

"Hey-! Quit that!" I couldn't stop myself from laughing a little at his jab, even if it was embarrassing. I tried to fix my hair back up, but despite my best efforts, this one part just wouldn't stay down.

"Oh, sorry. Don't go running off with any girls, boys, or anyone else you find pretty." My dad laughed.

"Dad!" Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother purse her lips and reach into her bag, probably ready to spend another 15 minutes fixing my hair again.

"Alright, so I'll go check out the botanical exhibit, then catch up with you two later!" I said hastily, not wanting to undergo an impromptu hairstyling session in the middle of a museum. I quickly walked away from my parents, eventually making my way into the museum's gardens.

That one decision was the worst one of my life.

(Now Playing: To Another World)

The room, much like the rest of the museum, was empty, since the museum had been rented out for the day. The sound of running water was the only sound in the garden, aside from my footsteps.

But before I could find what I was looking for, I heard a second set of footsteps behind me. And before I could turn to look at them, they pressed a taser to my neck.

A jolt of pain rushed through my body before everything crashed to black.

I'm one of Hope's Peak's top performing Ultimates. It's how I got this field trip...

...And it's how I was forced to play a game of distrust and despair.

#Prologue: A War of Hope and Ideals #story #Yashiro Fuyuki #danganronpa fangan #fanganronpa

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asherlockstudy · 3 years

Text

How to do perfect staging: a lesson from Italy

I mentioned at some point I might actually make a post drooling over Italy's Måneskin performance and staging. I was kinda bored to be honest and decided against it but then all those trashy rumours that try to bring the winners down seemed so disgraceful and embarrassing to me that I decided again to do it. Now, the truth is that their performance was a little better in the semi-final introduction act. Perhaps this was due to the anxiety of the Grand Final. This is why I am going to use photos and gifs from that act and perhaps this will show to some that the perfect package might need a little bit of everything, and not just slap your language on the audience's ears with the expectation that this alone is always enough. *Did I make this too personal?*

Anyway, I digress. And I don’t mean that the Grand Final performance wasn’t still the best of the night, I just mean it wasn’t at the same God Tier level as the semifinal one.

Here's why the Italians took advantage of the Dutch stage until its very last millimeter and way more cleverly than any other country.

This is the only act that starts from the back of the stage, where the singer Damiano David waits for us alone.

Even with the rest of the 25 competing countries, this intro makes you forget that you are watching a contest with 26 countries as guests. Unlike anyone else, Italy looks like the host, like this place belongs to them and the frontman waits for you to show you around and possibly drag you to the world of Måneskin. In fact, you almost forget it’s Eurovision - this now looks like a Måneskin concert or, even better, a more private space of theirs with an ominous industrial feel. One of the most impactful things now is the lighting. Take a look at it. Almost all contestants throw all the lights on themselves or on some important prop they have prepared. The Italians are the only ones who chose to just light the stage itself. The simple white lights on the black stage give the impression of depth and it is the only act which shows emphatically the size of the stage. Why this? Well, we already established that in the first seconds the viewers feel they are in a new space belonging exclusively to Måneskin - the lights make us feel that their area is vast and dark and we are about to be drawn to its depths.

Damiano indeed guides us to the front as he sings, where the rest of the band are on the top of a platform. The other members won’t come down and join Damiano until he sings the appropriate verse “Buona sera, signore e signori” (=Good evening, ladies and gentlemen) and accompany it with a theatrical flamboyant bow (that feels very Italian). That’s when, technically introduced to the audience after the official greeting, bassist Victoria de Angelis and guitarist Thomas Raggi come off the platform and join Damiano.

There’s nothing excessive about the visual effects. Only the use of white lights that give the perception of depth and in the background the big shadows of the group’s silhouettes. They are in the front and they cast their shadows in the back; they create to you a feeling of being trapped by them but do you really want to escape?

When the second verse starts, Victoria and Thomas take the paths left and right of the stage and leave Damiano alone. They take even more advantage of the stage and in a typical classic rock band way. These two play with the side cameras but the focus is more on Damiano, whose verse sounds more like a tongue-twister. Since the cameras are rightfully on Damiano, I must now address the elephant in the room. Damiano is particularly attractive. In fact, the whole band is almost mind-bogglingly attractive and they clearly take a lot of care about how exactly they are going to look but Damiano, as the frontman, does especially so. So let’s talk about the outfit. They all have essentially the same outfit, however it is cut differently for each based on the person’s looks and personality. Isn’t it fantastic?

Damiano, who oozes confidence and sex appeal, has accordingly the most “provocative” outfit of the four. His chest and arms are bare so that his many tattoos can be seen. I’ll talk about the other outfits later as they all have their place in the... uh... white lights.

During the second chorus Victoria and Thomas return at the center and after the chorus it is time for the first solo; Victoria’s. The cameras are now on her but the lighting remains modest to accentuate the dark beat of her bass.

Victoria is the only girl of the group and the most dressed of them all - how refreshing! Her outfit is more similar to Thomas but she is buttoned up in the front. How does she wish to underscore her uniqueness as the woman of the band? But of course, with long flamboyant girly sleeves that come to delicious contrast with her aggressive stomping and her wide strides. Both her hairstyle and her outfit is inspired or basically just outright 70′s classic rock look.

It’s time for the bridge of the song right after her solo and Damiano has his attention on her and also draws the viewer’s attention to her some more. This part of the song is lower and softer - in relative terms - that’s why Damiano “chooses” her to sing it to. The lights now turn red, the intensity rises but there’s light flirtatiousness between them, with many smiles to each other and the camera that turns around them as they launch at each other playfully.

Then the song gets darker, more intense, the guitar stronger than the bass and Damiano’s voice turns to a scream. For this part, he turns to his bro, guitarist Thomas and he now draws the attention to him.

He grabs Thomas by the neck in an intense, intimate way (that doesn’t mean sexual, just intimate. His interaction with Victoria wasn’t sexual either). It is clear that through different ways Måneskin want to stress how good and close their relations are and that their singer, who is apparently a show stealer by birth, wants to ensure that they all get equal amount of attention from their audience. I love this.

True enough, nobody is left behind! The last chorus starts with a drums solo and Damiano goes up to the platform to now meet and introduce to us Ethan Torchio. Ethan stands up and his giant shadow is on the now blue background: this is the moment for the - so I hear - somewhat shy drummer to shine in his own aesthetic. The Italians leave none of their assets to fall down and Ethan’s impressive hair rightfully steals the show.

Just like Victoria and Thomas look alike, so do Ethan and Damiano, that’s why their costumes are the most similar. Ethan has a vest that covers him more than Damiano but leaves his arms bare. Because whose else the arms do you need to see if not the drummer’s?

This song has something peculiar because it was not a song originally written for Eurovision; it slows down in the end and does not end on some impressive note from the singer as usual but with the last solo we expect, that of the guitarist, because everything is fair in Måneskin! The focus has to leave Damiano, so now it’s the time for the visual effects to finally catch fire, literally, because nobody is allowed to take their eyes off them! Måneskin use a huge amount of pyro that however feels appropriate for the intense chorus and the ending guitar solo.

Thomas steps up for his solo and I forget we are in 2021. This is the most 70s thing I would ever hope to see.

In a hell of pyro, Thomas looks like he was tranferred right from a 70s rock ‘n roll concert. His outfit would be gladly taken by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The unbuttoned jacket with this boho tie, such a classic 70s fashion touch. His haircut and even his FACE are the epitome of the 70s - what an ending sequence!

But hey we reached the end and this is Eurovision, the song slows down dangerously. Like I said, the Italians forbid us to get distracted. The attention must return to Damiano ASAP. Damiano says one last line and takes the audience with him to the very end with a death drop.

There you have it. Måneskin had me holding my breath for the full three minutes and I did not want to take my eyes off my TV. There are countless shows that are awesome - in this very Eurovision as well - but I was impressed by how they seemed to have found the perfect balance for everything in every single moment. They found the perfect stage concept for the song, they relied on visual effects only when they needed them and they stressed every twist and turn of their sound with a perfectly fitting move or interaction. They also all effortlessly could hold your attention and they made sure that they all would, with members often helping bring out other members. This performance was beautiful and, above all, clever which is why it was undoubtedly the worthiest of the win.

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #esc 2021 #eurovision song contest #italy #italy 2021 #maneskin #damiano david #victoria de angelis #ethan torchio #thomas raggi #music #songs #zitti e buoni #flashing tw #more

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