#all i do is stay up too late and make stupid little amvs

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep33 S4 pt 1: Deus Ex US Military

Been a little distracted but was reminded--yo--I gotta finish S4 of Yugioh this year. I think I can do it. There’s like...what...two episodes left? Three? Like I don’t want to tempt 2020, but like...I think I can finish this thing.

That and a bunch of my Photoshop files corrupted, I don’t know why, I’m very scared for my hard drive, and I need to do a big ol defrag and hope that’s enough. Really hoping this is my bad and not my computer’s bad. I’m pretty hard on this computer when I paint digitally.

and I was immediately gifted by the anime gods because yo, it’s my favorite storyboarder! They're back to carry me through my election burn out, every episode they touch has so much style and no matter how freakin weird or confusing the plot is, this storyboarder/animation team doesn’t seem to care. They will this kids show about cards with this attention to detail. They just have a lot of enthusiasm and that’s a thing about anime that I really like to see. No matter how weird it is, you gotta go 150% without any shame. Love it. Love to see em back.

First off, that earthquake from last episode?

Just a little bigger of an earthquake than I originally thought, coincidentally, this is when Roland shows up, only to realize that he’s like...10 minutes to late.

Well, maybe a little longer than 10 minutes when you consider that Mai freakin died and Yugi almost died, and Joey is absolutely dead and being carried across Tristan’s back.

Anyway, Roland just walked into a whole lot and is just trying to process his life. Roland is all of us in October/November of 2020.

If Roland only knew how many times Seto and Mokuba have totally biffed it when he wasn’t looking.

Like for reals...how is Roland still alive? Like...I don’t think the guy has ever died. Not even once. Maybe that’s Roland’s superpower as the secret FourthKaiba, by just being the only one to stay very far away from the constant BS strewn at this family.

Roland is just...too inept to die. He’s always too far away, he comes after the big bad has already murdered a few people, he’s just...too bad at his job to ever be a target. Live long, Roland. The Kaiba who was the smartest of all by actually being the dumbest.

Also, look at him parking far enough away on the actual helicopter landing pad. He is the only ‘Kaiba’ that follows the law. This could also be the other reason for his secret to longevity.

(read more under the cut)

Faced with a stairwell between their freedom and this weird earthquake chasm that just opened on the top story of this building, Yami decides it’s his job to carry...................

...................Raphael.

(Never forget that we know the exactly weight of Yugi Muto.)

And like Yami is weirdly strong because of magic powers but like...maybe Yami should take Joey and then Tristan should pick up Raphael? I’d say Tea could also pick up Raphael, but I feel like she just wouldn’t want to.

TBQH maybe the reason that Yami is carrying Raphael is because literally no one else feels like it? Like no one likes this guy?

Just kinda feels like Yami is holding onto Raphael out of a sunk-cost fallacy. He’s already done so much work to this guy, can’t lose him now. Gotta save Raphael to make up for killing Gurimo, Weevil, and Yugi. Can’t fail a fourth time.

Anyway, you know what else this storyboarder is good at?

How did they even get reference for drawing this? They didn’t, right? They’re just so good at art that they were like “I can draw ANY person in ANY outfit straight up the crotch, I dare you.”

Seto decides to...not help out, much like virtually all of Yami’s other friends, who also just kinda...yelled and cried at this situation instead of...helping.

Which is fine, because the stairwell gave out and then Raphael decided to uhhhh throw this directly at me.

Just one more yeet for the road. Youknow this guy has yeeted the Pharaoh not once but twice in one season, and both times he just chucked him like he was made out of foam core. (Also, please admire the millennium puzzle in this shot going out at like a 90 degree angle. Just...A+, this storyboarder is hilarious)

At first, I really thought Yami was dabbing his way over that ledge.

In a moody shot with his hair and his jacket swaying in the breeze, almost designed for you to lift and stick into your Youtube AMVs, Seto looked onward and seemed...kind of bored because no one’s throwing any cards. And like who can blame him, he has been on the top of so many ledges and so many buildings that he’s seen Yami make this same speech of “DON’T DO THIS DAMN LEDGE THING I SWEAR TO GODS” like...so many times.

He just immediately accepts Yugi died and is like “Well I guess that makes me king of games.”

And Raphael, after like several minutes of begging Yami to just let him die, decides to let go of that ledge on his own, because this is Yugioh, and you gotta fit in that suicide within the first 10 minutes of the episode. Which, PS, is not the weirdest thing that happened this episode.

And because Roland is freakin late to everything, he showed he could have done this the entire time. Honestly I think Roland just didn’t want to deal with Raphael. We can blame this on Roland, right?

PS we never see this building again in this episode.

I don’t know........why they bothered showing this. If anything it makes the next plot twist more weird because it’s like...what was the point of the random ass earthquake and the random ass concept art building if we, in fact, aren’t coming back here???

I mean I guess it’s a nice shot for your Artstation portfolio, good on you, Yugioh background artist.

Unfortunately this chip contains Seto Kaiba’s greatest weakness. (SanDisk card? Jump drive? Which PS--if they had jump drives this whole time, why was Seto using floppies earlier in the season? Like what happened there?)

And then, with the hatch of their helicopter just wide open, no one in a seat belt, and walking away from the destruction of one of the largest buildings in San Fransisco, finally the cops showed up. Real cops this time, not possessed cops. Also, it’s the Marines.

Am I going to get my Monty Python ending? I mean...if cops can recognize these kids in this universe...I might get my Monty Python ending. :) :) :)

For some reason, back on the mean streets of San Fransisco with no people left alive in it, Rebecca just kinda started losing her mind. Maybe this was to make up for the 2 seasons I had to watch Duke Devlin flirt with a 12 yo? That now we have to suffer Duke saddled with this small crazy person?

This small crazy person who is painted as this intolerable person next to Duke Devlin, but is also a love interest for the main character? Like Yugi’s into some weird ass angry girls.

PS the orcs were no longer needed for the plot so they have turned into streams of light in order to join with the Leviathan mass. So now Rebecca and Duke Devlin will just have literally nothing to do for the rest of the season. I guess they can go to Ghiradelli square...someone’s gotta eat that ice cream before it melts.

Also this happened.

In case you were like “Wow Rach, you didn’t update the Death Count, how dare you”--it’s because I uh...completely forgot that the Oricalchos crew is immune to fall damage. Raphael’s just fine now. He fell down 50 stories...and then 50 stories fell on him...but don’t think about it.

Meanwhile, on the back of some aircraft carrier, far into international waters, the kids get recruited into the military of a foreign country and it’s just as weird as you think it is.

Hey guys.

So, Bandit Keith was weirdly in Hell this season for no reason, right? What if he died offscreen because, earlier in the season, the US military threw him at Dartz because they couldn’t get a hold of Yugi or Kaiba? What about that headcanon? What if that’s why his angry ghost wanted revenge?

Anyway, they join the ranks of Shadow T. Hedgehog, which makes sense because...these guys look like human OC’s of Shadow the hedgehog already.

Sorry I just had a moment because Shadow uses guns a lot despite not needing them at all so “people won’t get uncomfortable with how powerful he is” while in Yugioh they can’t even...show a gun. That really is...you ever think about how weird that is? That Shadow the Hedgehog, a strange remix of a 90′s sega mascot, has a million giant guns but Kaiba’s actual gun (which, apparently he does have in the Japanese version of this show) got edited out completely?

Sometimes it just dawns on me and I have a moment.

Now the US Military just hand delivering them to Dartz is so wild because their reason for the USA not doing anything on their own with their fleets and fleets of ships is:

Have you MET the US? I live here, and if we were like given the choice to shoot the ocean...or just die...we’d be like “wait...for reals? So no one gets hurt, we just shoot guns at the water? You mean we finally found our true calling? For REALS? I just shoot this water bucket!??? FOR REALS????” and it would become a national holiday. All pop songs would be devoted to it. Our ancestors would make movies about it.

I mean, our dumbass president considered nuking a hurricane in 2019...in case you forgot because damn, it’s been a STUPID 4 YEARS. (And you better have voted already because for reals do not make me go through 4 more years of this. I do not think this blog would survive it...or the hurricanes that will keep getting nuked.)

Also....the show actually threw the word “proof” out there. Seriously show? You OK?

I figured the mind control situation would be a better reason not to arrest Dartz other than “Dartz is just so good at covering up his tracks” when the TRACKS have a broken down Caltrain on one side of them, and the other side of the tracks have the rest of that same Caltrain at the bottom of a river.

Seto is not amused but he never is. He will take this Nobel Peace Prize and step up to the microphone at the UN and be like “I WANTED IT TO BE A CARDS PRIZE.”

PS--we HAVE a map already, right? Raphael died to give us this map--and then didn’t die, but it’s not like anyone else here knows that. So like...why did we need the US Military to show up at all? Why is this scene important? Other than to look cool, I guess? Like...

...why is the US military here we already have a Deus Ex Machina delivered by Raphael? At least that one was deserved--the whole point of that duel was to get this MAP.

A map that we are never going to use.

...There’s a good chance that two writers wrote this episode in two different buildings and just...glued the two halves together. Animation is wild. Weird ‘Cinema sins’ things like this happen...all the time. This one though, this one is kind of funny because it’s a ton of wasted effort on the very best storyboarder.

Anyway I broke this up into two segments because I’m tired, and also, while a lot of people like long posts, the smaller posts are kinda easier to read. More will be upcoming in like...I dunno it really depends on a lot of things right, now, I’ve been having a time, but at least Yugioh is always there to enjoy. Maybe I’ll need so much distraction you’ll get an update tomorrow? Good things can happen, and it’s not like I get to do anything else for Halloween.

Happy Halloween Y’all! Lets make the most of it!

(here’s a link to read these in chrono order)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#ygo #yugioh #recap #photo recap #humor #seto kaiba #yami muto #yami #the military??? #helicopter #roland #mokuba kaiba #tea gardner #tristan taylor #rebecca hawkins #duke devlin #Ep 33 #S4

[midzelink]

Twilight Princess w/o Text Boxes: A Dream Made Possible w/ Emulation

Okay.  So.

Over the past couple months of running this blog, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about emulating Twilight Princesss in Dolphin, and the other day I finally bit the bullet and booted up the game for the first time.  I had fun finally playing around with the emulator’s free look feature, and I decided now was as good a time as any to finally learn how to make GIFs the proper way--with Photoshop--so I messed around with the program a bit and ended up making this GIF, which I posted yesterday.  It’s not great, but I’ve seen worse, so eh, whatever, right?  At least I’m learning.

Anyway, @therealflurrin sees this GIF and it kicks of a conversation between us about emulation: how it works, what free look is, and what the potential for these kinds of tools are: GIF-making, edits, stills...general hilarity, y’know, basic stuff.

They ask me if I have any idea how to disable the UI of the game.  No, I say; I do a quick cursory Google, and something like that would require texture dumping, editing, and reloading, and that sounds like a heckuva lot of work, doesn’t it?  I’ll just stick to what I know how to do.

And then they say something else:

my DREAM is to capture all the TP cutscenes without the text overlays for AMV purposes......someday

And I'm like, ah.

Ah, shit.

I dunno about the rest of you, but back in the day, when I would stay up until 3 AM watching Midlink AMVs during a sleepover on my friends’ computers (because Hylia knows I didn’t have one, and what the f**k is a smart phone, it’s only 2007), I used to daydream about this exact thing.  I watched a whole ton of (mostly shitty) AMVs, and most of them either completely disregarded any scenes with dialogue, zoomed to somewhat hide their presence, or used the cutscenes with text anyway, and their quality suffered for it regardless--but that was over 10 years ago, long before emulation was so readily accessible (and long before I would discover it), and as time passed, I quickly forgot about this little dream...

...until @therealflurrin reminded me of it.

How hard could it possibly be?

I can’t currently find the forum post I found that instructed another user on how to remove the UI of another (non-Zelda) game in Dolphin, but I can more than summarize the process myself after the day I had yesterday.  Essentially, each aspect of the game’s UI is a texture in the game’s files; you can’t delete textures, but you can replace them using Dolphin’s built-in texture loading feature.  In order to do what I had set out to, I had to:

Navigate to the graphics setting in Dolphin and turn on the “dump textures” feature, which could create viewable .png files of every single texture loaded into the game upon boot and direct them into a single folder.

Boot the game, ensuring that the elements of the UI I wanted to eliminate were clearly visible.

Find the textures responsible for these elements in the dump folder, making note of their file names.

Create and duplicate a 1x1 transparent .png file, renaming each duplication to match each of the various textures I want to replace from the previous step.

Place each of these “textures” into a folder that matches the name of the folder created by the dumping process, moving that folder into Dolphin’s custom textures directory, and again navigating to the graphics settings and checking “load custom textures.”

Doesn’t sound too difficult, right?

...Right.

Some textures were easy, of course.  Getting rid of the text itself was as simple as finding the very few textures that had the letters of the alphabet on them and replacing them, but more than a couple of them were vague stills of nonsense, and combing through hundreds of these textures to find the right ones when I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for...

Well, it was quite the headache, and at some point I ended up saying “f**k it!” and just started replacing anything and everything that looked vaguely suspicious.

For instance, after eliminating the actual text from the boxes, there still remained the matter of the “glow effect” behind the text--upon inspection without the obstruction of this text, just a glowing circle.  I just skimmed through the dump folder that resulted from me booting up the game for just a few seconds and I counted more than thirteen textures that fit that exact bill (plus several others that looked like they maybe could have also been the culprit, somehow), and I just kept on rebooting and replacing, rebooting and replacing until those stupid circles were gone.  (Not the best method in the world, I know, but we learn from our mistakes.)  I spent ages looking for the surely-it-must-be-a-long-black-rectangle-texture responsible for the backdrop, was unable to find it, and replaced a metric shit-ton of unimportant-looking textures until it, too, was somehow gone--and after a lot of trial and error, I finally got the result I was hoping for.

In doing so, however, I had eliminated a heckuva lot of textures that didn’t need replacing, and the entire thing left a bit of a...foul taste in my mouth.

So, like the perfectionist I am, I moved all of the work I had already completed to another location...and began again.

This time, I replaced textures one by one, rebooting the game each time to ensure that it was the correct one.  That “long black rectangle” I was looking for ended up being a tall, transparent image merely 8 pixels wide.  Those glowing circles ended up being the dang circle that I suspected least, go figure.  Regardless, slowly but surely, I was able to replicate my previous success.

Now, my custom texture folder looks a little something like this:

And the in-game result has transformed this:

Into this:

(As you can see, I’ve replaced many other elements of the UI outside of text boxes, and I put them into their own sub-folders for organization’s sake.)

It was a lot of work, but as far as ten-year-old me would be concerned, I have created a means in which to achieve my once impossible dream:

Twilight Princess cutscenes without text boxes.

What does any of this mean?

Effectively, I’ve created a “texture pack” of a sorts that removes most of the game’s UI elements, including the text boxes that have obstructed so many of the game’s better moments.  It’s still far from completely finished, but as of now, it serves its primary function flawlessly, and all that’s left of my childhood dream is one eensy, teensy thing:

Recording, baby!

That is to say, video recording of all the game’s cutscenes with this texture pack in effect, so that kind of footage is available and out there--otherwise, all of this work I’ve done will have been for naught, yeah?  Fortunately, I’m not just an idiot with an emulator and Photoshop; I’m an idiot with an emulator, Photoshop, and OBS Studio, ready and capable to do all of the hard work of capturing these moments for me.

And now, all that I have to do...is play the game.

So, what happens next?

I’m not going to put an estimate on how long this kind of thing is going to take; I have a life outside of this blog and outside of replaying a game I’ve played more than a few times, but over the next few weeks I’m going to be playing through Twilight Princess on Dolphin with the intention to:

Find and capture each of the game’s cutscenes without UI interference, and upload them (probably onto Google Drive) for use by the general public.

Create save states throughout my playthrough and upload them as well, so any person with a good PC, Dolphin, and a North American Twilight Princess .iso can jump into the game at any point they’d like.

Find and tweak any remaining elements of the game’s UI that I can find to make the experience as clean as possible...and perhaps upload this “texture pack” for general use if I am able to do so.

...But mostly the first thing, yeah?  I may keep everyone updated on my progress, if anyone particularly cares, but I also may just keep quiet about it and then dump all of these files at once.  Who knows!  We’ll just have to wait and see.

TL;DR

There’s a whole lot of potential with this kind of thing, and even if it’s a decade too late and no one is really making Twilight Princess AMVs anymore, this is something I’m so stupidly passionate about that I intend to see it through regardless.  I mean, Twilight Princess just happened to be the game that I chose!  If it’s possible with this game, then it must surely be possible with others, and maybe this can inspire other similar "HUD-less” projects from others.  But, even if it doesn’t, I’ll be okay with that.

In the end, if I can make even just one person happy with this little project of mine, that will be more than enough.

#loz #twilight princess #loz tp #midna #loztp #dolphin emulator #emulafun #long post #therealflurrin #my projects #my posts #text free tp

[vrainsrewatch]

episode 11 thoughts

me: i shouldn’t have too much to say about this episode, since it’ll be mostly dueling! me, 25 screenshots later: 

(see what i did there. i’m funny i promise)

a lot of the early episodes i’ve seen twice, or at least use regularly in amvs so i’m somewhat familiar with what happens in them. that is not the case for this particular episode, so even though i sort of remember the beats of it, i’d forgotten a lot of the juicy stuff.

like this.

i’ve seen people bring this scene up before, but it’s really interesting. AI don’t need to sleep, but does the existence of free will inside of them give them the option? sleep is something animals do because they have to. humans sleep way, way longer on average than most other predators, and while there’s certain animals that sleep upwards of 15 hours, those are mostly prey animals -- or at least, animals who don’t really hunt. sloths, koalas, etc.

people do, however, sleep sometimes when they don’t technically have to. people take naps when they’ve had a stressful day, or are staying up late for an event, or even to get through a class that bores them. does that make it an activity?? that one can choose to do?? it’s kind of a weird thought lol.

anyways though,

i don’t talk about emma too much, but she’s a pretty cool gal. she’s obviously incredibly intelligent, she’s an expert hacker, but i love her ability to put things together quickly. she’s an information broker and a bounty hunter, so it makes sense she’s good at putting clues together to form a conclusion fast. i just like that they bothered to have her think this one out so we get to see that, since she doesn’t get much screen time past this season.

i also had forgotten how often dr. kogami shows up in these episodes. for some reason, i only remembered him being here or there throughout the first season, up until rev vs pm round 3.

there’s people in the fandom who like to demonize revolver, mostly because of the tower i think, but honestly, he’s a respectful opponent. he really did not have to explain anything to playmaker -- at the moment, all revolver knows is he’s some dude going around kicking his lackeys asses in duels, and has an ignis attached to his duel disk. he doesn’t know he was a LI victim. he doesn’t have any reason to suspect that, as of right now, but he still goes out of his way to clear things up for yusaku. 

it’s an important aspect of his character that i think people who dislike him tend to forget, and like, you do you -- like and dislike whatever characters you want, i mean -- but you shouldn’t erase parts of them just because you’re not a fan.

anyways though,

it’s really interesting to me how revolver talks about free will. he’s more spiritual then i would’ve guessed, as we find out from his duel vs. soulburner in 115-116, but it shows here, too. 

the ignis have free will, but he thinks of them as below humans; creatures that will only cause harm. if they have free will, they have the choice to be good or bad, and yet he is so dead set in his thinking. he has all the pieces right there, but he just won’t put them together. and with his changes towards ai specifically and what he says to soulburner about flame in their duel, you have to wonder if it’s a willful ignorance.

however that follows up with:

which like, again shows how spiritual revolver actually is in some ways, which is interesting considering how rooted in science he is a lot of the time, but also,

the way he phrases this makes me deeply sad for him. i’ve talked a lot about revolver’s thoughts on his father already, so i won’t talk about it too much here when i’ve got so much else to cover, but really. he deserved an actual father, not an asshole who wrongfully put himself on a pedestal to be admired and worshiped.

i feel like the fandom is so used to the concept since it was introduced so early to us in the series, but seriously, this is kind of a crazy thing. despite how advanced den city is technologically, clearly this has still never been done before outside of the hanoi project. that is a lot to take in and process.

seriously. i don’t blame yusaku and everyone else for being so skeptical. it doesn’t sound possible to us, even though in the real world, it’s been something we’ve talked about since we started developing AI, basically. 

it brings so many moral questions to the table, too, because if something has free will, if something is able to think and live like us, would it be wrong to continue to make it do things that might be against its will? would it be wrong to delete the program, if it’s capable of forming connections with others?

moving on to something less serious, though:

everyone’s favorite meme scene LOL. seriously, this is so stupid and nerdy, i hate it and love it so much at the same time.

originally i wasn’t too fond of revolver’s first avatar, but it’s really grown on me tbh. not really relevant, but things like this actually made it grow on me lol.

next up though we get a flashback of yusaku’s backstory. at the current moment, we really have no context for these scenes, but they’re still shocking to look at in their own right:

and of course, we have little ryoken’s words of encouragement. 

not only do we find out why yusaku does the three things mantra, we also now have the clues that revolver was the one who told this to him, way back when, since we see him use the same tic in an earlier episode.

i’ll try to keep my thoughts on this brief, since i have a lot to say about this, so bear with me.

firstly, the last line. not only is it one of my favorite quotes in the whole series, as it’s simple, powerful, and holds meaning in my own life, but it reflects back on what i was saying about revolver having all the pieces but purposefully not putting them together about the ignis.

it’s a concept that’s hard to grasp at their young ages, and yet ryoken puts it eloquently and yusaku takes it to heart, turning those words into fuel to keep him going. 

three things to live, three things to go home, three things to defeat the enemy. 

these are not normal words of encouragement, and it’s very clearly intentional. this is something a child can cling to, which is exactly what yusaku does. he clings to it so much, even ten years later these are still the words he hears when he needs to get through something. even ten years later, he thinks of three things for everything he does.

ryoken wanted that child -- the one that he lured back to his father, the one that kept losing and kept screaming in pain -- to have a reason to fight back.

and boy, does yusaku fight back.

anyways though.

a lot of people, myself included, love the irony of this. the person he hates, the person he wants to save, the person he’s dueling right now, they are all the same. he is right in front of him, but he doesn’t know it. ah, it hurts so good lol.

a lot of people don’t consider ryoken to be captured, but i do. just not in the sense that yusaku is thinking of.

this is where everyone gets the confusion of firewall being his ace, and i mean like, i get it. but it’s the same way as like, salamangreat pyro phoenix or violet chimera are soulburner’s secondary aces, becaus heatleo is his true ace.

at least, imo. maybe i would’ve been wrong had firewall not been so overpowered it had to be axed from both the OCG and the TCG lmao. 

okay, but why? why just you, seemingly? i touched on the fact that it’s possible jin and spectre also have link sense, i think, but takeru doesn’t. miyu seemingly doesn’t -- or does she, with her ability to sense aqua on her chest during her coma? so really, it’s just takeru, then. why is he the odd one out, here? and was this a byproduct of the LI or were the children chosen on purpose because of this ability? was it something that just had to be awoken inside of them? 

g o d 

have you seen it before? were you even there when revolver took down cyberse????

anyways.

this is so cute. i love them. his little smile. but also, it’s interesting to note that he does this not believing ai has free will. i saw a few people complaining that yusaku’s attachment to roboppi (like the flashback of him petting her head like a dog or smth) was out of character, but it’s clearly not.

he clearly gets invested in the AI around him, probably because he knows he doesn’t have to worry about them hurting him or anything. it’s... sad :(

honestly, i wonder if revolver would’ve won this duel had he not been using his father’s strategy with fire prison. they’re very evenly matched in skill, so i wouldn’t really have been surprised.

this screenshot was just taken because CR called them varrets instead of rokkets but still changed the monster names to rokkets and when i first saw this episode i was like ??? ultra confused lmao.

i’m so glad the subtitles get more consistent as the series goes on. though i harp on CR a lot, i really am grateful they have the whole series and were able to simulcast it throughout it’s airing. 

anyways, that’s all for right now! i started watching this episode like, an hour and a half ago almost LOL so i’ve gotta get some stuff done before watching another. see y’all

#vrains #episode 11

[sweet-star-cookie]

I feel really out of place all the time, like I don’t fit in anywhere. I guess this post is a few thoughts to (maybe) figure out why, aside from my usual anxiety and depression.

My appearance doesn’t match my age. I don’t really have a huge problem with this in general, but it can get rather annoying when I’m treated like a child at any given moment, for reasons that are usually not relevant to that specific situation. But at the same time, I get it. I wear bright colours, I wear my hair in pigtails, I like cartoons, I get unnaturally excited about cute things. I understand the perception, especially at first glance. I only wish there was a way I could accept it more. I don’t like my physical appearance as is, but that’s another hurdle to jump entirely.

I don’t have a place I consider “home”. Don’t get me wrong, I have several places that I live / have the ability to live in, so I will always have a roof over my head. I am extremely grateful for this, but as of now none of them feel like a place I can be truly comfortable. My current living space is a basement in a sketchy part of a city I don’t like. Living at home is stressful and irritating for a variety of reasons. The only other city I lived in was only for two years, which was not enough time to forge any sort of connection to it. I don’t like the idea of moving somewhere new that might be good for me, only to find I don’t like it and have to move again. If I had a more nomadic personality perhaps this would be easier, but for now I have nowhere to go, and I need a solid foundation before I can even begin to start figuring out the rest of this mess of a life. I can picture my dream living space in my head, but reality says it won’t be mine any time soon. I’ve flown the coop, but have nowhere to land. 

I feel like a burden to anyone that chooses my company. Obviously this has to do with my self-esteem, which is the lowest it has ever been of late. No matter who I’m with, no matter how long I stay or what we’re doing, I constantly think that my actions, mannerisms, etc. will be noticed and disliked by everyone else, even down to something as simple as how much food I eat there. I cannot justify anything about myself, so I never feel totally relaxed and require reassurance that my mere existence is warranted. Even that doesn’t always convince me. It’s a strong case of self-sabotage, feeling like I don’t deserve all the beautiful and kind people in my life.

I’m ace aro. Yes this is a part of it too. Explaining asexuality is already hard enough, but like anyone else in this community having to explain it to several people, sometimes more than once, is nothing short of exhausting. I’ve mentioned asexuality to my family members before but to little avail, and this does not include my extended family. Adding aromantic into that mix makes it even harder, but I haven’t even approached that subject yet. It’s a multi-layered subject and I haven’t even scratched the surface. It’s even a little weird with some of my friends and peers, particularly when discussing relationships, children or marriage. I feel like an interloper by being the only person in my entire family that isn’t straight. I hope that someday this will be a source of pride (no pun intended) for future generations rather than shame, as is my hope for this community in general.

I don’t know how I’m going to make a living, because no “real” job feels like the right fit. Plain and simple, that’s the reality I’m facing right now. I officially finished my college schooling at the end of April this year, and the result left my future as a giant void of uncertainty. I went to school for animation, but learned the numerous realities of this field and what that means for me, and I discovered I wasn’t cut out for it. I have the skills, for sure, but everything that comes with a studio job sounds like an endurance test that I cannot complete, despite how much I love animation. Even freelance sounds like a terrifying expedition, especially with the added uncertainty of income that comes with it. I have no faith in myself right now, not even when I make art for fun. I cannot answer the question of why someone would choose me over anyone else for commissions, and I’m not assertive enough to convince them otherwise. Hell, I can’t even convince myself. I need time that I don’t have to establish any sort of traction online or anywhere else, but if my heart isn’t in it, than what is? I went to a job fair for animation recently, and as I looked around and saw my peers and faculty amongst the massive crowd of people, all from the same place as me, I felt completely and utterly alone. Deviating from the desire for a typical job in animation feels like a betrayal to the people that spent 3 years of their lives teaching me that subject, or being by my side to be taught with me. I’m sorry, guys.

Everyone has separate and wildly different expectations of me. Even my likeminded peers, but especially my family. They all assume my life will go a certain way or I’ll pursue certain avenues, but they probably don’t know any different based on what they know about me (we’ll get to that). I don’t have enough confidence to justify a change in these plans. Every family gathering feels like a status report, and it gets awkward if I don’t tell them something they’ll find satisfying. So I either don’t tell them or I lie, which is a trend I really don’t want to keep going, but it feels like the only way on most occasions. It’s easier to live the lie than go through the unnecessary struggle of the truth, especially with my family and their ability to blow everything out of proportion.

So many people don’t know the real me, and I have no idea how to explain it to them. I can’t talk to people, not even ones I know. Meeting new people sounds like an ordeal, so I don’t go out of my way to do it. That said, I can’t convince myself that I’m a person that someone would even want to know. I used to have someone who knew me better than anyone, and only now do I realize how much I relied on her for that support. I felt more comfortable with myself back then than I’ve ever felt before, and I miss feeling that way. We were dumb in high school, but we were dumb together, and that’s all that mattered. Every friendship I’ve ever had up to this point was a product of circumstance (school), and I wonder if that was the only thing that kept us together. History so far would say yes. Now that that’s no longer a part of my life, what happens now?

I love so many things, but can’t express my love for them. Both online and in person, the result is the same: fear. I feel like an outsider to fandoms that I would otherwise be a part of, I have no confidence to talk to people about the same things I like, I’ve never tried writing fanfiction because I feel unworthy to write stories about characters that aren’t mine, I’ve never tried making AMVs because I don’t have ships or really any ideas for them. I fear that whatever I’d share about these subjects isn’t worthwhile, and simply doing so is a waste of someone’s time. I keep hearing “no one cares” in my head, and “I do” is not a good enough rebuttal. I feel like I’m always being watched when I make art and have to be prepared to explain at length why I did every aspect of it, waiting for someone to call me out on something. Any idea that’s even remotely weird or “out there” comes with a wave of “what will people think of this?”, especially if it deviates from what I usually make. I love my OCs but even talking about them makes my brain jump ship every time. If I think the person won’t “get” the idea behind them, I am reluctant to explain more than base details, which misses the point entirely. Unless someone actively responds to everything I say in some way, I feel like I’m wasting their time and I shouldn’t continue. And even then I’m not a good enough verbal communicator to remember crucial details or their order in the moment. Every idea I’ve ever had sounds incredibly stupid the minute I have to explain it out loud, as I usually don’t have enough time to explain everything in the way I want to. And when I do get going, I talk way too much.

Even this post comes with its own set of fears regarding it’s length, it’s content, and whether it’s even worth saying at all. I still have no idea what to do or where I belong. Does it even matter?

...do I?

#personal #vent #long post #sorry for all the words

[araminthe-ispwitch]

I'm in love with a fairytale

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Yuri on Ice

Rating: K+

Pairing/s: past-Georgi Popovich/Anya

Summary:

Once upon a time, there was a man named Georgi Popovich. Somehow, his story is trying to compete for the title of "Greatest Romantic Tragicomedy of All Time."

Alright, here we go, my late birthday fic for my stupid emo son! (Still can't believe they made his b-day the 26th.)

As I've mentioned in The Accursed Tale of Viktor Nikiforov, Georgi's oneshot is the literal side of the song "Fairytale" by Alexander Rybak (y'all should really watch his live performance of this seriously you won't regret that handsome man). Whereas I've waxed lyrical on the life that Viktor had to choose for the career he has taken, I've... uh... pretty much just did a short play on Georgi and the disaster that was his love life during the anime.

But no worries. Remember that woman he went on a date with in Ep. 10? :D

Cross-posted in: AO3 (don’t bother with the FFNet version because FFNet rejects songfics so I had to edit out this poetic fiction of mine there—but as if that’ll make me stop writing them because of the music industries’ logic)

Important Stuff to Note: 1) This is a song fic, in which I've closely followed the lyrics to portray Georgi's life. Which means you really should watch/listen to "Fairytale" by Alexander Rybak. (not just because it's the greatest song of 2009 what are talking about)

2) Envision the structure and flow of this fic as an AMV about Georgi. Makes better sense considering how short this is compared to Viktor's oneshot, right?

3) Those lines centered, bolded, and italicized all together are the lyrics... and other stuff. ;D

4) A lot of short flashbacks in here, too.

5) This is not my usual writing style, oh no. But nevertheless, hope you enjoy and appreciate this minimalist approach I did for this oneshot.

6) Did you listen to the song yet? :v

I'm in love with a fairytale

Part 2 of the Two Sides of a Fairytale series

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who dreamed of romance.

He dreamed so hard.

Like, really, so damn hard.

All his life.

Oh, god, this boy...

Years ago, when I was younger

I kinda liked a girl I knew

Georgi adjusted his collar for the fifteenth time, straightening the lapels as he stood in front of his floor-length mirror. Everything must be perfect today.

It was just another date with his beloved, most precious Anya—their 13th date, actually!—but everything must still be perfect.

Georgi Popovich wouldn’t settle for anything less when it came to his one true love.

She was mine and we were sweethearts

That was then, but then it’s true

Georgi’s jaw fell and so did the bouquet he bought on the way to his date.

His Anya—his precious, most beautiful Anya—was in the arms of an interloper!

This cannot bE—

“ANYA! GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY ANYA!”

He was about to hit the stranger where it really hurts, but then suddenly, his angelic Anya—

“Let go, you idiot!"

Three seconds on the leaf-covered ground later, Georgi looked up at his girlfriend with a flabbergasted look on his slapped face.

“A-Anya, my love, why are you—!”

“We’re through, Georgi.”

I’m in love with a fairytale

Even though it hurts

Georgi stared at his fallen bouquet. It hadn’t been trampled in the wake of the chaos that happened in the last few minutes, but Anya might as well have trampled on them the same way she trampled on his tender heart.

‘Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind

I’m already cursed

“ANYA, NO! IT CAN’T BE TRUE! WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S BETTER THAN ME?!”

Every day we started fighting

Every night, we fell in love

Groaning, Georgi crossed out Procedure Number 16 on his list. He looked back at the tabs of articles open on his laptop as he repositioned the ice pack on his head.

Surely there was a way to get Anya back? She couldn’t possibly be satisfied with that oaf!

There must be a way.

No one else could make me sadder

But no one else could lift me high above

“Anya, my love, I—!”

“SECURITY!”

I don’t know what I was doing

When suddenly, we fell apart

“His theme is what?”

“Coach, don’t you think he’s getting way into this…?”

Georgi ignored the others as he repeated his routine on the rink. He knew they were all watching him and pitying him—largely because he’s been crying non-stop while practicing—but he won’t let their opinions get to him.

He’ll show that wretched woman!

Nowadays, I cannot find her

But when I do, we’ll get a brand new start

Georgi practiced with renewed vigor after hearing Yakov’s news. Viktor was gone! He was now the top skater they have and he has a shot at reaching the Grand Prix Finals!

Finally, he can show the world the fruits of his labor!

And he’ll get to rub his victory at stupid Anya’s face, too! Now she’ll regret dumping him!

I’m in love with a fairytale

The setting couldn’t be more perfect. Anya will also be competing here in China! What a marvelous way to display his intrinsically artistic program to the world!

Just she wait... He'll prove that those... those... stupid Instagram photos of her and him kissing don't mean a thing to him...!

Even though it hurts

I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth, and I’ll find you! I will cast an eternal curse on you!

‘Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind

Never mind! I’ll save you with a kiss right now, my princess!

I’m already cursed

Never mind… I will… take a break for… now…

She’s a fairytale, yeah

Georgi watched as Mickey landed another flawless jump. There was so much more emotion in his performance now that it wasn’t hard to deduce what he was skating for.

The scene tugged at his cold heartstrings and he had to smother a sob.

He promised himself that his Free Skate at the Cup of China was the last time he’d cry for her.

Even though it hurts

“And you are…?”

“Georgi! Georgi Popovich! You looked beautiful out there, Anya!”

“… Why, thank you~!”

‘Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind

“Dinner?”

“Y-Yes! My treat!”

“Hm… Why not?”

I’m already cursed

“Will… Will you be my girlfriend?!”

...

..

.

“Georgi! I’m so sorry!”

Teal-colored eyes blinked into focus as a familiar blonde woman came running towards him. “Ekaterina, are you alright?!” he asked, standing up with hands outstretched, ready to steady her if she wasn’t.

Ekaterina sat down on the park bench with an exhausted huff and flashed him an apologetic smile. “I didn’t think… it would take me so long…”

“You didn’t really have to hurry so much… I could have waited,” said Georgi with concern as he sat back down. Try as he might, he was too busy guiltily reminiscing what happened a year ago at this very same park anyway.

But Ekaterina just waved him off with a chuckle. “But I didn’t want you to wait.” When she peered up at his face with those sparkling gray eyes of hers, Georgi couldn’t find it in himself to chastise her any further—not when she looks so happy.

Why was she looking so happy?

“Here…” She then passed the small box she had brought to him.

“Hm? What’s this?”

Georgi’s eyes widened when he found a variety of sumptuous-looking cupcakes inside. “Try one,” Ekaterina urged.

He chose a cream-colored one and took a bite. “Oh, wow, these are delicious, Ekaterina! Where’d you buy them?”

“… I made them…”

Georgi had to thump his chest to avoid choking, but when he finally calmed down, he looked at Ekaterina like she had revealed herself to be an angel.

“Y-You did?! Really?!”    

The blonde looked down at her lap, but she was glowing red with pride and joy. “W-Well, I… I didn’t want to not bring anything for you like last time so…”

Georgi blinked in confusion. “Oh, you didn’t have to. I mean, I’m fine without anythi—”

“But it’s our date and I wanna bake something for you!” she cut him off loudly—before turning even redder as she realized what she had just squeaked.

Georgi, on the other hand, tried to still his thundering heart and chant to himself that he ought to take this new relationship slow. Because… Because…

He glanced at the beautiful woman next to him, fiddling with her bag’s zipper as she avoided his adoring gaze. Because this time, I want her to want to stay with me.

But it seems… he won’t need to worry much about that, he thought in awe as he took another cupcake.

“Thank you, Ekaterina… They’re really good!”

“O-Oh! Y-You’re welcome!”

“I guess this means you’d make a great housewife, then!”

“…!”

“Ack! Sorry! I-I… F-Forget I said anything!”

“N-No! It’s… It’s fine…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“… Maybe I can make you some Stroganoff next time…”

“…! E-Ekaterina…!”

“Eh?! G-Georgi?! Are you alright?!”

… Crap, I’ve been cursed again.

The End. . . ?

Perhaps not.

But at least this little boy is still dreaming with all his heart.

A/N:

Okay, so unlike the other oneshot, this doesn't need much explanation 'cause, well... it's literally the song itself.

We can say that Georgi's been in love the fairytale that is Anya herself, yes. But my preferred symbolism here is that Georgi's been in love with the idea of love and romance itself. Honestly, I actually believe that the situation with Anya with hadn't been the first one. (Perhaps he had a crush that didn't do so well back then) With this, the chorus makes so much more sense: that even though Georgi's been hurt, he just loves it and wants it so much--almost like he's cursed--that he doesn't mind trying again, even if it means he might get hurt again. In conclusion, my son is a gutsy risk-taker and I just love him so much. (which is why i sprinkled this with comedy because he just inspires my funny bone so much)

I've taken the liberty of calling that blonde woman in Ep. 10 "Ekaterina" as a placeholder name, and I've gone ahead and interpreted a possible persona for her. I already have so many headcanons for her... Crossing my fingers that she's finally The One in S2... >~<

Also, if we'll compare my two oneshots in this series, Viktor's is more about his whole life while Georgi's is just specifically about his love life. AND Disclaimer: Just because Viktor's is longer doesn't mean he's my fave between the two, okay? :v

I'm gonna go ahead and announce this: if I do oneshots about these two again, Georgi will have more because he hasn't gotten his happy-ever-after yet (while Viktor already has Yuuri in canon lol). Also, why did I try to compare them with this songfic series? When Georgi has enough trouble being in Viktor's shadow? Simple. Georgi is supposed to be Viktor's foil in their story. By exposing Viktor's flaws and "ordinariness", Georgi shines more as a likeable and relatable character. Either way, I just hope what I wrote made you guys root for him more.

Belated happy birthday, my stupid son. Easy with the romancing, alright? :v

And with that, Two Sides of a Fairytale is finished. :)

#Yuri on Ice #Yuri!!! on Ice #YOI #YOI!!! #Georgi Popovich #yuri on ice fanfic #yoi fanfic #Alexander Rybak #Ara's writings #fanfics

[zmbkl]

Nano 4

Hello everyone,

I had a good day today. Alia and I wanted to go to Apple Hill because we’ve never been. I heard a lot about it and even my Japanese boss had gone before I did. I mentioned it to my friend who said he would love to take is girlfriend as well. I told them we should meet up for brunch before we go. I am trying to save money and think he is the same position so I offered to cook food at my place. I like cooking and I haven’t cooked in a while.

I used to cook a lot more, but I’ve been very tired and busy lately. I was trying to cook creative and fun things a while ago. I bought a few cookbooks, and saved a few online recipes. It’s something I want to be good at because I am not. I know Alia appreciates whenever I cook for her, and I thought about having more friends over for dinner. It’s another fun thing I wanted to turn into a social thing. I didn’t actually invite many people over as I thought I would. It was either something I was too afraid to show off or everyone had difficult schedules to work around. I stopped cooking as much lately. I let my plate get too full and I haven’t had good time management skills lately.

I am doing DnD all day after work Monday, and I have Japanese classes Tuesdays and Thursdays.  This leaves Wednesday and Friday free after work. On these days I am typically resting from the previous day and nothing ever gets done. Like this weekend, I didn’t do laundry or meal prep. I still need to mail off that refund request for my phone bill before it’s too late. I got this 401k letter I need to respond to, go get my blood tested and I need to call my bank about switching cards. I am also trying to stay healthy and in shape. Which is hard, when being lazy sounds sooo inviting.

I complain about this a lot. I’ve been complaining about my time management skills since I was in high school but I don’t do anything about it. I’ve tried a lot of things. I’ve tried making a calendar and have my phone remind me to get things done. I’ve tried leaving post-it notes on my computer monitor to help remind me to get things done. I think I even tried writing everything in a journal. None of these things worked. I think I ended up deciding that I can’t get anything done at home. I’ve gotten most of my work done at coffee shops or libraries. I’ve just gotten too comfortable at home and I can’t force myself to do things I don’t want to do in my house. I can’t keep going to coffee shops though. I drink too much coffee and I can’t keep spending money on it. Meh. I’ll think of something.

So I was going to talk about how my current roommates are moving out, but I don’t talk about how I know them a lot. So I was picked on a lot in elementary and middle school. I wore dirty cloths, didn’t shower much and my parents always bought me cloths 2-3 sizes too big. I think they got lazy during my growth spurt and stopped trying to get me cloths that fit me. Anyway, I didn’t have a fun time in grade school up until high school. My mom get sent to jail for a month. My siblings and I went to live with my dad in the city called Empire right outside of Modesto. We got temporarily transferred to the high school on that side of town. I was lucky and I knew one kid there from middle school. Scott was his name. I went to go hang out with him while he played Yugioh. There I met two very important people Shay and Jessica.

Jessica was a very angry girl who wore tripp pants and some anime shirt. The anime shirt and color of tripp pants varied but it was always that outfit. Shay was an anxiety kid in jeans and some sort of metal band T-shirt. While I watched Scott play cards, I would talk to these two.  I joined the anime club with Jessica. She was a member who made a lot of AMV’s and yelled a lot. She loved to hit people and steal the attention. I was also really into AMV’s so I used to try to talk to her. She was not into me. Shay seemed cool, and we talked a little, but we didn’t hit it off at first.

Later my mom got out of jail. I moved back in with her. I went to this high school right next to my house for a bit, but I went back to hating school all together. I wanted to go back to the high school with Jessica and Shay (Johansen). I found out you needed to take a program at the high school that isn’t offered anywhere else to justify the transfer. I think it has changed since then, but that’s the way it was in 2006. I joined the child development program to justify the transfer. My history, English, and electives were themed around child development, and I was with the same 70ish kids for these few classes. They could restrict our science classes since the pace kids went at were so varied.  

Anyhoo, I made it back to Johansen, and I was ready to start my junior year.  I got the same lunch period as Jessica and Shay. I eventually started to date Jessica. We started to go out in March of 2007 and we dated for five and half years. That story is very involved and sort of involves this story but I’m going to skim the details for now. I had seen Shay around during my junior year, and I hung out with him a few times, but we didn’t get close until my senior year.

During senior year, Jessica went to a JC close by and I tried my best to make new friends. I hung out with Shay and his friends in the morning. They were all part of the mechanics program. It was very similar to my child development program, but for engineering and mechanics. Some of them went to middle school together, but they all were in the engineering program together.

They were:

Franklin: He was a half black half Filipino kid with long hair and a mean face.  He went to middle school with Shay.

Bobby: I found out his name was Vandy. but somehow got nicknamed Bobby. He was a larger Cambodian kid who went to church with Franklin.

Sam: He was a close friend of Shay. I am not sure how they met but they were the closest out of the group other than Bobby and franklin.

Omar: He was closer with Franklin than Shay. Shay and Franklin always took the opportunity to give Omar a hard time. A lot of young guy friends have one friend they keep around and shit on a lot. Omar was that guy. This was weird, in retrospect, because he was the most successful. Omar had an on and off again girlfriend Sherri. I remember they broke up and got back together a few times, but I never got too involved with it.

This was my high school krew. Franklin called us the Krew in text chats. It was fun. A lot of stupid things I did in high school was with these guys, and they helped me through some difficult times. They were all anime elitist (only watched “Good Anime”), BIG fighting same fans, Metal heads, and browsed 4chan a bunch. A lot of the stuff I know about metal, The Fighting game community, and hipster anime came from these guys. We hung out a lot in college, but that’s when everyone started to change a lot.

Franklin’s parents got hit by the recession REALLY hard and he moved to Stockton. We helped him move a few times, but he kept moving a lot. Always in Stockton so we stayed somewhat close. A common topic of hanging out would be, “Have you heard from Franklin? How is he doing?” We never really knew.

Sam got REALLY into raves and partying. He started to ditch us and go party. We weren’t the partying type so he didn’t invite us. He knew we were kind of straight edge and we suspected he was doing psychedelics at the parties. We didn’t care, but I think he was embarrassed. Meh, he didn’t have to be but it doesn’t matter now.

I still see Bobby on facebook. He seems like he is doing fine.

When I broke up with Jessica in 2013 my friends helped me through it which was nice. I needed a place to live and Omar’s girlfriend Sherri was going to go to Sac state and was looking for a roommate. I moved out of Jessica’s in about a month and I moved in with Sherri. Omar followed about six months later.

I had a falling out with the rest of the group. Sam was the first to block me on all social media. Franklin was next. I heard he thought I screwed him over and he was very upset at me. Shay was the last to go. He unfollowed me on all social media back in March of 2015.

I still live with Sherri and Omar now, and I love living with them. We all made new friends in Sac and we wanted to branch out and live with new people. We are still on good terms, but were going to get new roommates. I’m kind of excited for the change.

Sometimes I miss my old high school friends. I don’t think they were great people, but I developed a lot of who I am because of them. I don’t know if it’s ever worth trying to repair those relationships. I feel like I want to do it just because it sucks knowing the people who were very important to you hate you. I don’t hate them, and I could try to fix what happened between us. I just don’t know if it would be worth it. I don’t see myself hanging out with them or being close friends anymore. I think I just want closer on it. But meh.

#personal #Nano #Therapy