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#all the other shows from part 1 are already in production so what up????
gunsatthaphan · 6 months
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so anyway where are they 😭🫠🫶🏻
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youremyonlyhope · 5 months
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Me: *Feels slightly good about something in my life* Life: Hmm. Nope. *Reminds me of things I should have been a part of but aren't* Me: ...Thanks.
#tonight is a rough-ish night#tomorrow should be better#i need to go to bed#i'm emotionally fragile because i've been watching ugly betty and while parts of it have not aged well AT ALL#there is still a lot of heart in this show and i'm like 5 episodes away from finishing season 1#and the last couple of episodes had some really nice moments and yeah i'm emotionally fragile from it#then i go to instagram and see a post about a production i should have been a part of but ultimately was not#and i'm just like... why... i SHOULD have been there...#not even a rejection. just limbo. ignored. i'd have rather they just said no to me. instead of never answering.#tomorrow i see the kids i'm designing a show for and that's the only thing i really can look forward to right now#so at least that will make me feel productive about life and that i'm doing something. at least for the morning.#then my brother wants me to go to his friendsgiving but if i go his friends will be like 'so what are you up to'#and i have to say basically nothing. for the last month. nothing.#so i don't want to go but i don't really have a good reason NOT to#god i just had flashbacks because i was like 'i can't even think of the last time i just heard nothing about a production'#but no i can. because that was 2 months before this. so. that still hurts. i've already began blocking it out. not a good sign.#and then the only other time before that was in the most chaotic summer of my life#and THAT'S what caused the flashbacks just now and made me stare into space for a good 30 seconds#remembering it all and ahhhhh things i don't want to think about ahhhhhhhhhh#ugh. ok. i'm going to bed. i'm taking my gabapentin and going to bed.#and hopefully i wake up on time since the last few days i've slept in late due to being near-depressed yayyyy life sucks#and now i have a headache woohoo
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forgwater · 27 days
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"Ah, yes. Me, my beloved Prefect and my lookalike tsum from another dimension."
Twst Boys and their reactions to you cuddling their tsum instead of them Headcanons
part 1 part 2 part 3
tagging: @darkflowerav
Trey Clover
This might as well happen.
The Universe just keeps throwing things Treys way doesn't it...
He was hoping for a chill night.
But no. The tsum had to mess that up.
It's fine. He's not gonna get jealous of a plush toy.
He'll let you have your fill of cuddles from the tsum.
But beware should you only show affection to the tsum and ignore his open arms he will pay you back for the entire next week by not giving you cuddles and kisses.
He doesn't hold grudges, he swears.
He does. He holds grudges.
Ace Trappola
Come on!
He's right here you know!
He can see you ignoring him and only paying attention to this tsum!
He swears it is looking down on him. Ugh!
.... Is this about the joke he made this morning? It was just a joke! He already apologized.
No, Deuce, he's not jealous! (he is.)
He already got teased all day about this!
Cuddle him? Pretty please???
He's giving you puppy eyes. The tsum redirects your attention back to it every singe time he does.
Ace is not amused.
Ruggie Bucchi
After a full day of running errands and looking after his tsum, Ruggie is ready to fall into bed and your arms.
Hey, what's the tsum doing here?
Oh, well, fine. It can have one corner of the bed.
What do you mean you plan on cuddling it to sleep and not him???
But he needs your cuddles! They're the best part of his day! ...Night?
Anyways! You promised him cuddles and one single hug won't do it.
He'd use his UM and make you up the tsum away... but he doesn't want to see you upset.
So as long as you promise to drown him in affection tomorrow, he'll let you have the tsum for the night.
You do wake up in the middle of the night with Ruggie hugging you. He's also not letting go.
Jamil Viper
He just can't catch a break, can he?
He'll live.
Jamil is not happy about the new arrangement. But he'll have to make do.
When you ask him about the sour look on his face he says he's fine.
He's obviously not thrilled about the tsum.
So you decide the three of you will cuddle.
You're pretty sure Jamil and his tsum are side eyeing each other.
Neither on of them moves tho. So it should be fine... right?
You'll make it up to Jamil tomorrow for letting you have your cuddles with his plush lookalike.
Vil Schoenheit
Vil enjoyed his tsums company well enough.
It was not doing anything that would get either one of them in trouble.
What a well mannered tsum. He expected no less.
Vil allowed it to be pampered by you for the day.
And he's even allowing it to sleep in the bed with the two of you. As long as it makes you happy he's willing to make a few exceptions.
But this is ridiculous!
You're not even paying attention to him!
Him! Vil Schoenheit! YOUR BOYFRIEND.
It's been such a long day and you're lavishing all of your attention on a plush and not him!
This is unacceptable!
...Perhaps he should test the new makeup products he just got on the tsum first.
And you! You'll have to make it up to him with lots of affection. Tomorrow.
Idia Shroud
It's okay. He'll just... play some games.
Idia knew you wouldn't be able to resist the cuteness of a tsum. They're perfectly made to be cuddled with.
It's alright. He expected this.
He can't really complain when it's HIS tsum that's making you so happy.
.....
BUT WHY THE HELL DOES HE FEEL LIKE HE'S THIRD WHEELING THE TWO OF YOU!?!??!
HE'S YOUR BOYFRIEND.
The tsum should respect this and back of a little!
A few cuddles here and there are fine! But come on! Pay some attention to him too!
At this point Idia can feel his hair turning orange.
You better calm down your gamer boyfriend before some unsuspecting player gets caught in the crossfire.
Malleus Draconia
So far Malleus has been unbothered with the tsum appearances.
They're quite interesting creatures.
He's been happily spending time with his lookalike. It's good to have an ice cream eating buddy.
Truly, he's enjoyed the company.
Malleus thought nothing of it when you brought the plush in the bed.
He was fine with it. Everything was fine.
Until the tsum started hogging your attention, that is.
The Diasomnia housewarden is a hair width away from incinerating his plush lookalike.
....Are those storm clouds forming in the distance?....
Maybe you should pay more attention to your boyfriend.... and quick.
Silver
Luckily for everyone Silvers tsum is a calm one.
I fact, both Silver and the tsum were already asleep when you were done changing in your pajamas.
You know Silver was trying his best to stay awake so you just give his temple a quick peck for his attempt.
And one for the tsum as well.
It looks like you won't have cuddles tonight since they're both sleeping.
To your surprise you do wake up in the middle of the night sandwiched between your boyfriend and his plush counterpart.
Nice and comfy~
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certified-bi · 10 days
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Okay all my thoughts because some people have been saying that not supporting this change is not supporting artist and creators and as an artist fuck that.
1. Audiences owe you nothing. You have to convince them to engage with your creation not the other way around. This is something both the nonprofit theatre I work with recognizes and huge companies realize. It's just part of life. There are so many talented people in the world making amazing art, videos, music, writings, and on and on, and there's only so much time in the day. I'm not saying you shouldn't know your worth, just that being flippant about how little you care about those who can't pay isn't a good move. On that note...
2. PR is everything. If you haven't made a visible effort to push patreon, channel memberships or other avenues of making money, don't be suprised that your creation that was previously accessible to those without extra cash and to those who can't support foreign subscriptions due either to conversions or because it simply doesn't work, being made private isn't popular. There's a big leap from "We want to have more artistic control" to "We can't afford to make our content accessible to most of our audience," and people are smart enough to see this. You either have to make budget cuts or give into sponsors. This isn't unique to Watcher, it's part of literally every production from broadway, to Hollywood, to YouTube. Unless you can fund it yourself or get viewers to pay(which given how many are already strapped for cash...) that's life.
Not to mention they simply do not have enough followers to make the switch to a paid only site(dropping the first epsiode only on YouTube isn't going to draw people in, they're just going to say "oh why start if I'm not going to see the rest" and not watch) especially not one that is buggy and a security risk. Even if the switch had been supported its not going to end well. The only reason services like nebula and dropout work is because of the large amount of series and creators and the fact those creators still are partly on YouTube so new people are drawn in.
3. As for the price, 6 dollars a month is a not a good starting price for only their content and that's as someone who pays for nebula. I'd be paying the same amount for a fraction of the access to others work. Actually it'd be twice as much. And before someone says "it's only a coffee-" that's for you. Not everyone has your lifestyle. And with every other patreon and subscription service that says the same thing, it all adds up and I simply don't think 60 dollars for 48 videos a year on a subscription basis where you don't get to keep the videos if your situation changes, some of which don't appeal to every viewer is a good move. If you were able to buy physical copies of your favorite series they've made that'd be different, but that's not what this is.
4. I do believe that the employees deserve a livable wage. I also did not hire them. It is not on the viewers that they hired more people than they could afford to. They can charge that much if they want to to try and balance this out. They also shouldn't be suprised if not many can or will sign up. They also don't have to be based in L.A. L.A has ridiculous costs associated with it, and quite honestly it doesn't really add much to the content. I'm not saying they need to move to the middle of nowhere Kansas. Simply that living and basing your studio in a super expensive city and then being suprised money is tight is just weird.
5. Something that occurs to me is that they might get more views if their playlists were better set up. Only some series are given playlists. It'd be easier to find all of the series and binge them if they didn't just show off their more popular shows. Honestly the only draw the streaming site has to me is that the series are actually labeled well.
Do I think the weird ass energy towards Steven is necessary? No. He's not the only one at the company and they're all adults. I actually liked grocery run and homemade, and like to see them back. The parascoial attachment to Ryan and Shane is annoying in people's criticisms, but that doesn't make them completely wrong. If you're going to brand yourself as the anti capalist underdogs you can't get away with being dismissive of your poorer fans. The dissonance is what is causing this backlash and makes you look like hypocrites. I definitely think Steven is turning into the fall guy which is fucked up, his statement and the fact dish granted is one of those shows that make people uncomfortable about wealth flexs doesn't help matters.
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ozzgin · 2 months
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Hello!
🌟 here again! I'm here with another request for our lovely bodyguard yandere.
Have you ever seen videos of fans jumping up onto stages with kpop idols? Then get carried away by security behind stage?
I'd love to see how our lovely violent baby girl would react to not being able to react with immediate violence as a reaction given all the eyes and cameras on him. Would he be stone faced just carrying the stage crasher by the collar like a cat? Or would he be dragging him by the legs into hell?
The reactions of fans to the bodyguard would be interesting too, I could see Reader being jealous over people thirsting over bodyguard on Twitter or something lol. Or bodyguard confused on why people would say stuff like "he could snap my back like a twig and I'd say thank you" about him.
Hope you are taking care, and I have my fingers crossed to hear from you eventually
Sincerely
-🌟
Long overdue and I'm terribly sorry about that! I had the ideas for a while now, but I could never find the proper words to assemble everything. ;-;
Yandere! Bodyguard x Idol! Reader (III)
Your bodyguard has gained sudden Internet fame after dealing with a crazed fan on stage. Naturally, he couldn't care less about anyone else, but that doesn't stop you from trying to make him jealous in return. Someone will have to be the sacrificial lamb to his murderous possessiveness.
Content: female reader, obsessive behavior, violence, death, reader and yandere are both psycho
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
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The screen of your phone lights up again and you only need a quick glance to know what it is. Another post about last night’s event. About your bodyguard. You sink your nails into the leather chair and look ahead towards the mirror, exchanging a smile with the hairstylist.
“Oh, it looks lovely! You always do such a great job.” You compliment the woman as you tilt your head both ways, admiring the gentle curls. Now get the fuck out already.
“I’m so glad! Is there anything else you’d like me to-”
“No, that’s all. You can go”, you respond curtly.
The stylist collects her products and waves at you, exiting the room. The phone vibrates once more with a new notification, and you promptly throw it against the door. It scatters in large chunks of scrap across the plush carpet.
The whole ordeal happened within seconds. You were performing the final song of the evening when a fan hurled himself over the security barrier and onto the stage. The people standing at the very front began screaming and some took their phones out, scrambling for a good angle to record everything.
“Please, (Y/N), I’m your biggest fan!” the man pleaded, approaching you with shaking hands.
You froze in place, observing his actions with the same indifference of watching a TV ad that goes on for too long. Before the stranger could even reach your proximity, your bodyguard effortlessly and speedily threw him over the shoulder, giving you a reassuring nod and retreating backstage. He had that smile on his face that signaled he was pissed, and your mouth hung open in realization: You wouldn’t be able to witness the massacre.
You knew that expression all too well. That man would never see the light of day again, and under normal circumstances you would be right behind your bodyguard, cheering him on and suggesting ways to further torment of whoever dared to get too close to you.
And yet, your little ritual had been interrupted. You stood there on the stage, baffled, as the other idols gathered around you with worried looks. You poor thing. That must’ve been terrifying. The audience was shouting words of support, encouraging you to continue as if nothing happened. With pursed lips, you tightened your grip around the microphone and reassured everyone of your well-being. The show had to go on, regardless of your bloodlust.
This morning, you woke up to hundreds of posts online about the incident. Or rather, the way your bodyguard dealt with it. You scrolled through photos, videos, and confessions regarding the mysterious stranger who protected you from harm.
“I need a man like that in my life!”, “I know, right? So cool!”, “Imagine how easily he’d pick you up”, “The broad shoulders! I’m in love <3”
You don’t even have time to be properly upset about it. Your schedule for the day is packed with interviews and photoshoots. You glance in the mirror one final time and exit the room. The bodyguard has been waiting for you, resting against the wall with crossed arms.
“I need a new phone”, you tell him in a casual tone.
“What happened to the previous one?” He inquires, somewhat confused by your sudden request.
“Just do it!” You snap at the large man, rushing past him without providing any window for a reaction.
Ideally, you would very much like to tell him that the sudden influx of attention irritates you beyond comprehension. Then he’d reassure you that his indifference towards everyone else has not changed whatsoever, and thus your worries are entirely unfounded; but, if you need an outlet to release all that stress, he can easily find an empty changing room and service you like he always does.
Unfortunately, there is no time for that.
The bodyguard follows your movements with raised eyebrows, perplexed. What could’ve gotten you into such a sour mood? Has someone caused you to be upset? Are you still pouting after the missed playtime? He ponders the possibilities as he searches for an assistant.
The employee is visibly startled upon hearing his deep voice calling her. She turns obediently and nods, flashing her best customer-facing smile.
“Can you get (Y/N) a new phone?” he asks plainly.
“Huh? Sure…Did she specify any preferences? What was her previous model?”
He stares in confusion.
“…Can’t you guess?” she insists.
“I’m not good with these things.” The bodyguard rummages through his pocket and pulls out an old, cracked device to prove his point. “I don’t use phones much.”
Why would he? The only time he needs a phone is when he’s apart from you, which hasn’t happened since the Christmas incident. He previously considered a more modern option, so he could stalk your social media and make sure you don’t have any perverts sliding into your messages. That proved to be unnecessary, as you frequently leave your phone unattended or involve him in the process: most of your photos posted online nowadays are actually curated by his truly.
“Oh, so you don’t know about the recent craze?” The woman chuckles and takes out her own phone, speedily tapping on the screen before presenting it to the man. “See? You’re trending!”
He scans the multitude of messages. Ah, so that’s what it was. His lips curl into a grin. To think he’d witness his spoiled idol struggle with jealousy.
“That will be it for today!” the photographer announces, gesturing with his hands and guiding his helpers with the expensive equipment.
This was it, the last photoshoot. You unscrew the cap from your water bottle and take a healthy sip from it, wiping the sweat off your forehead with your other hand. The only good part about the continuous work was that you couldn’t check more of those annoying posts drooling over your bodyguard. Remembering it is enough to increase your heartbeat. The male model you were paired with for this campaign walks in your direction.
“Say, do you have anything planned after this?” He questions smugly. “You could come back to my place.”
What a ridiculous idea, you think with a grimace. Does this asshat think he’s worthy of your company? After a second of contemplation, you’re flooded with the same disappointment you felt back on the stage, watching your fan being carried away like a mere piece of cardboard over the much larger frame of your bodyguard. You might just consider the stupid offer. Why not? It’s not fair to be the only one plagued by jealousy.
“Sure. I know a better place, though.”
Your eyes narrow in a bright smile and you lead the young man towards your backstage room. As you pass by your bodyguard, you remember to mention in a low voice: “Make sure no one disturbs us.” He doesn’t answer, merely gazes at you with an empty expression.
“Man, that guy is scary as hell”, the model remarks as he throws himself in your vanity seat. “Are you not afraid to be alone with him?”
“Not really, no”, you respond idly. “You, on the other hand…”
“Excuse me?”
Now then. To set the scene, you gingerly climb into the man’s lap and adjust your arms around his neck. What a frail little human in comparison to your bodyguard. You blush in anticipation and begin counting in your head.
“H-hey, what did you mean-”
The young man is interrupted by someone’s abrupt intrusion. Your bodyguard throws you a quick glance before turning to close the door behind him. Alright, he can’t be too excited. He must pretend he’s furious, baffled, out for the hunt. You went all the way out for him. He even checked his watch to make sure you had enough time. He can’t let his enthusiasm betray him.
You jump out of the model’s hold with a gasp.
“It’s not what you think~!” you exclaim with feigned surprise. “He started flirting with me and I…” Your words trail off and you rub your arm nervously.
The bodyguard approaches the other man with monotonous movements and grabs him by the collar.
“Wait, you can’t possibly…he’s a well-known model!”, you protest with a fake cry.
Sweet little darling. Worry not, he won’t disappoint you. He’ll put on the best show for your sake. Anything to soothe your innocent heart.
“Could be the President himself”, your bodyguard confesses with a dash of theatrics, “and I’d still break his fucking neck for touching you.” He pulls out his pocketknife and looks at you. “I’ll deal with you in a moment, Miss.”
Your knees weaken and you have to rest against the vanity table. Among the screams and pleads for mercy coming from the poor butchered model, you can only focus on one thing: the violent fucking you’re about to receive.
Your bodyguard truly knows you best.
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galedekarios · 1 month
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this is a personal vent post so please let me just get it all out without trying to come at me lol:
so many ppl saying they respect larian's decision to peace out and not deal with hasbro/wotc, but i have to be honest, i don't respect them at all.
they are leaving a game behind that is unfinished and a narrative mess.
they leave a game behind where everyone paid the same amount of money for it, yet depending on which character you prefer, you get less content.
the disparity between everyone else and their writer's pet ast*rion is insane. he has a half to a third more content depending on which character you compare him to.
they leave behind a sparse act 2, which is already so barren compared to act 1 and all it had to offer. act 3 is a narrative mess and lacks structure.
they leave a game behind where they made promises a handful of weeks before release where they ought to have known that they, in fact, will not be delivering said promises: access to the upper city, consequences for playing certain races across the acts (playing a drow is going to be different in act 1 and gives you advantages vs act 3 where it would give you understandable disadvantages), etc etc etc.
they leave behind a game where content was cut from the companions to make it seem like the origins have something to offer when that system is barely able to compare what origin playthroughs offered in dos2 and it hurts the game and the experience (like tara being cut for companion gale).
they leave behind a game where they promised to much variety and proclaimed in panels from hell how they struggled to show the width and depth of the game, but really? it's about as deep as a puddle. a lot of the choices do not matter. kill ethel? nah, she's alive and well in the city. no sister hags to be angry here. give karlach no infernal iron and never talk to her at all? doesn't matter, she'll survive until the end of act 3 and will still call you her bff. dissuade gale to use the orb? we'll make sure he'll still offer 3 more times just in case. send yenna away from camp bc you don't want her there? doesn't matter, she'll stay. and yes, i'm aware these are all small things, but they are part of a larger problem. almost nothing you do truly matters to the point of where i just skip most things in act 1 and 2 now.
they leave behind a game that they promise to still patch, but some things have been broken since early access / release to the point of where i'm like i'm sorry, but your word that you will continue to patch things means about as much to me as all the other empty promises. the dialogue about morena dekarios is still broken and it's been over half a year now. the astral sea scene has low-res body textures for months. i know from mutuals who love minthara that her romance is still broken. and i could go on and on.
and what gets me the most about this is all is that they have learned nothing at all from dos2: act 3 of that game was so bugged and all over the place that i couldn't muster up the motivation to finish it the first time i played. they neglected a character to the point of where he could have been removed from the game or made a general hireling (beast).
those issues were at least attempted to be fixed in the definitive edition.
with swen saying that there will be no new content anymore and stating that both bg3 and its characters are now property of wotc/hasbro, it seems unlikely we'll even get an attempt of a fix.
so what this boils down to to me is just another game company not delivering on their promises after overselling their product and more or less abandoning it after a year to move onto the next big thing.
i don't think i can respect that ngl.
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clockwayswrites · 1 year
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The Fic I'm Still Not Writing (2)
Part 1 that I totally didn't write.
-
“Boss.”
Jason looked up from the report he was going over to see two of his people standing in the the doorway to his office. They shifted nervously and he prepared himself for bad news. While he didn’t exactly aim for a friendly demeanor (that’s what being around as Jason was for), he did attempt to make it clear his people could talk to him. If shit was going to go down then he wanted to know so that he could get on top of it.
Like now.
Fuck.
Things had been looking so good, too. The new shelter would be up and running next week. The supplemented housing for single parents and their kids was doing well— Jason had been by as, well, Jason early that day to make sure everything was on the up and up— and there had been no new shit heads trying to sell drugs on his street corners. He should have expected for it to go wrong.
He tucked the reports away and leaned back in his chair before motioning the two in. Ralph and Marco, Jason thought, placing the two as they came to sit across from him. Ralph mostly helped manage the gym and train new people not to get killed— an ex boxer and coach from when times were better. Marco had just recently risen to lieutenant.
Jason had no clue what trouble the two of them would be bringing him together. Maybe someone did something stupid and needed more training.
It seemed they didn’t know where to start either and kept trading each other uneasy looks. Jason shifted, just slightly, in the way he knew made his chair creek ominously and watched both his men start.
“So, um, us goons have been doing some reading,” Ralph finally started. Jason wasn’t much fond of the term ‘goons’ himself, but for some reason his people had embraced it.
“Reading.” Jason replied, keeping his voice carefully monotone. Where was this going?
“Right, reading,” Marco picked up. “Found some ourselves and then Yasmine called us idiots and suggested some other stuff, but well, we’ve been doing reading. And we didn’t know if you had been.”
What.
“So, we, erm, well we just thought maybe we’d pass along the important bits?” Ralph said, wringing his hat in his hands so hard Jason thought he’d tear the seems apart. “See, when ya enter into a polyamorous relationship with a new partner, it’s important to make them feel included.”
What.
“Yeah,” Marco said with an enthusiastic nod. “And we get that you and Jason already have a rhythm and everything, but Danny seems like a really sweet kid—”
“Little feral.”
“Ralph’s right, little feral, but sos you, Boss— no offense. But he seems sweet. So we don’t want to see him be hurt none just ‘cause you aren’t making room for him.”
“What.” Seriously, what?
“Yeah. Sos like, in our reading—”
Holy fucking shit. His goons did reading about polygamy for him. Because Danny had asked him to share himself. What the fucking fuck.
“—it was important that you make sure that Danny feels like he has space in your space too.”
“Yeah,” Ralph agreed and then pulled an honest to God printout from his back pocket that he smoothed out on the corner of Red Hood’s desk before sliding it over. “Small things, see? Like making sure his favorite snacks are in your apartment. Or stocking up the bath products Danny uses. Don’t just make him use what you or Jason uses.”
“He uses a 5in1 bar of soap, I’m not encouraging that behavior,” Jason growled. (Why the fuck did he say that? He only knew that as Jason.)
It made his men pause for a moment before Marco gave a little nod. “Fair enough, deserves better and all. Buy him something special to use then.”
“What’s wrong with 5in1?” Ralph asked.
“Shut up Ralph, I’ll send you some reading,” Marco replied. “Point is Boss, You have to show Danny he's just as important. We just want this to work out for you, Boss.”
“Right.”
Ralph nodded. “We see how you two look at each other is all. And how Jason looks at him. We aren’t blind, Boss.”
“Right.”
“Um, right,” Marco repeated. He stood up and slapped at Ralph’s arm till Ralph did the same. He did reach out and scoot the printouts a little closer though. “Just, we’re here for you Boss.”
Jason gave a nod of his helmet before watching them scurry out of his office.
He picked up printouts. They did research for him. His little pack of supposedly hardened criminals (fuck the fact they were more and more becoming humanitarian aid) had read up on queer relationships for him.
Shaking his head Jason set the print outs aside and tried to get back to the reports he’d been reading before whatever the fuck that just happened happened.
The third time he glanced over at the printouts he gave up, folded him up into his back pocket, and stormed out of his office. He headed for Jenny’s, the 24/7 dinner that had survived in Crime Alley for nearly 70 years through sheer determination and having good enough food and coffee that no one dared fuck with it. (Didn’t hurt that Jenny kept shotguns under the counter and was a mean shot.)
The bell clattered at his entrance as he barged in and headed to the booth in the back corner. Bright blue eyes glanced up from the pile of textbooks and notes and Danny had the nerve to smirk at him.
Jason slammed his hands down onto the table, the coffee mug rattling from the force of it. Danny calmly picked it up and cradled it to his chest.
“Want to explain to me why the fuck I just sat through two of my people trying to explain some of the finer points of polygamy to me?”
Danny choked on a sip of his coffee. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Oh Ancients, they—” Danny cut himself off with a snort that soon devolved into full on laughter. Jason gave up looming and took a seat as he waited the laughter out. Finally Danny recovered enough to ask, “Are they trying to talk you into it or out of it?”
“They think I’m already in it.”
It took effort not to stiffen as one of Danny’s feet brushed up against his calf. He was smirking in that way that Jason was coming to both love and hate— and that only seemed to come out around Red Hood. “You could be, if you’d give me an answer.”
“You asked to share Jason.”
Danny gave a little shrug. The motion caused the oversized sweater that Jason was just realizing was his to slip down Danny’s bare shoulder on the one side. “I figured you came as part of that deal.”
“What has Jason said about it?” He asked, as if he didn’t very well know.
“Nothing, I haven’t asked. I’m not a home wrecker. I’m not going to tempt a man to cheat if you’re not into the idea.”
Jason crossed his arms.
Danny watched him back from under his dark lashes.
This was insane.
“You know I won’t take off my helmet.”
What the fuck was he doing?
“Never said I need you to. I’m more creative than that, Boss.”
Fuck.
Danny's smirk widened.
---
Fiends, the lot of you. I'm still claiming I'm not writing this shut up. We're blaming the poll, alright?
The GOOOOONS. They're just trying their best to be supportive! They want everyone to be happy!
tag list, I guess? @addie-lover-of-stories @bathildaburp @d4ydr34min9 @sometimesthingsfallapart @idfk-man10 @vythika96 @worthlesswall @aroranorth-west @chrysanthemum9484 @ver-444 @impulsiveasshole @meira-3919 @lazy-bouqet @cryinginthevoid @thegatorsgoose @cutelittlebeanie @blankliferain @ramblingkat @ailithnight
They're absurd, you're all absurd. ...okay I'm absurd too. Stay delightful, my darlings.
Edit: master post of parts I didn't write. Nope.
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maple-the-awesome · 21 days
Text
The Chain Meets Your Baby || 1/2
Part 2 ||
Pairing: Hyrule, Time, Wild, Four x Reader
Requested by @kieradumpzz081927: I hope your request are open(or if ur free for requests), so i saw ur LU oneshots about the one that is called ' He becames a dad ' or smth. So, why not that he would introduce his kid(s) to the chain? That ones going to be interesting Interesting indeed 😈Now, I have my own set of headcannons for what order the Chain becomes dads in, but regardless of their own experience, I'm sure the Links would all subject the new dad to lots of support and teasing. Here you go 💜 Warning: Some mature jokes here and there. Nothing major, but gotta give the new dad a little hell, right? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Zelda Masterlist 🤍Fandom Masterlist
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The last thing Hyrule was expecting to encounter during his village visit was his old traveling companions, the other heroes of courage. Then again, life has been full of surprises lately and it wasn't like he didn't already know that the portals between their worlds are still active. It was only a matter of time before their paths crossed again and honestly, it couldn't have aligned more perfectly.
Happy to see the rest of the Chain again, Hyrule takes the liberty of inviting them back to his home so that they can properly catch up and not be the subject of so many judgment stares from villagers. Throughout the short trip there, the group’s laughter is vibrant as they detail accounts from their recent adventures, soon turning it into a friendly competition of who has the craziest stories. 
This conversation stays well alive all the way from their first steps outside of the village gates to the second Hyrule opens the door to his house, at which point the spirited teasing immediately dies off into a stunned silence.
“Oh! Hello again!” You’re just as pleasantly surprised to see the boys as your boyfriend had been, your smile more than welcoming as you turn around to greet them, yet they’re less focused on you and more so on the small infant you cradle in your arms.
“...I think the Traveler wins,” Wild mumbles, his disbelief shared amongst the rest of the group who merely nod distractedly. 
“Right! I forgot to mention -” Hyrule excitedly hurries to your side before turning to his friends with a thrilled smile, “- This is our daughter, Hope.”
“You just casually forgot to mention you have a kid now…?” Legend narrows his eyes while pointing to the kid in question. He should probably be more annoyed with Hyrule’s tendency of always skipping over important details, but honestly he’s just too shocked to process it right this second.
“Well, she’s only about a month old. Being a dad now takes some getting used to,” Hyrule defends, rubbing the back of his neck timidly, but when you pass your daughter over to him, he shows practice in the way he gently holds her securely to himself before approaching the boys to properly show her off.
Despite their surprise, they’re eager to crowd around him, each wanting to get a good look to ensure this isn’t some clever joke you’re both pulling on them. Fluffy head of dark wavy hair…A little button nose…Sharp pointed ears…Yep, this baby must be yours. She looks exactly as one would imagine the product of Hyrule’s sex life to look like…
“...Geeze. She’s adorable,” Warrior awes, practically leaning over Legend who elbows him back with a glare.
“Isn’t she?” You preen.
“She’s strong, too,” The Vet acknowledges with an unamused pout. He had made the mistake of holding a finger out to the baby only for her to grasp it in an unwavering grip. His attempts at pulling away are fruitless, not that he’s actually trying that hard. Maybe he even likes the feeling of his heart melting just a bit.
“Congratulations. You two must be very proud,” Time praises kindly, having already felt the joy that comes with being a parent himself. He can recognize it in the way Hyrule and you affectionately watch your giggling baby with a pleasant glow surrounding you both.
“We very much are…”
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Muffled commotion outside alerts you to the fact that you have visitors long before they stumble into your home, not even bothering to knock as their excitement gets the better of them. Now, any other day, your husband would be quick to scold such ill-mannered behavior, but fortunately for your guests, he's in far too good of a mood to let it be soured.
So, instead of acknowledging the Chain’s less than graceful entrance, Time immediately rises to his feet with a proud hand left upon your shoulder, "Everyone, we'd like you to meet Saria and Mallory."
The young heroes are in awe as they crowd around the bed just to get a look at the small bundles held within your arms. Sure, they've seen babies before, but these are Time's babies. For many of them, the complicated concept of love alone had once seemed out of reach for any hero of courage, yet here the Old Man is, hitched to a lovely wife and now the lucky father of two adorable daughters. It's an amazing accomplishment, really; one that has the entire Chain feeling happy for him.
"They're so little," Hyrule whispers, scared to speak any louder out of fear he'll accidently wake them.
"They inherited their dad's nose, poor things," Warrior jests, throwing a smirk Time's way.
"They'll grow into them," Rather than take it personally, he chuckles while carefully taking one of the girls from you. Despite having only become a father a few hours ago, he's already a natural at handling them. Ever so gently - as if handling the thinnest of glass - he cradles his daughter to his chest and fixes the tiny hand-sewn blanket around her; a gift from her godmother, Malon, of course.
"You'll have your hands full with twins," Four remarks prudently.
You sigh at the thought, your head thrown back against your pillow, "Ugh, we know…”
Although you’re visibly tired after having undergone hours of stressful labor, you still look upon the baby in your arms with nothing short of pure admiration, clearly having no actual regrets towards having either of them. In your eyes, twins just mean all the more love to give.
"Nothing we can't handle," Time promises before getting a mischievous glimmer in his eye while casually extending his sleeping baby out to Twilight, "This one is Mallory, by the way -"
"- W-Wait -!" The Rancher is immediately caught off guard by it, yet his objections are ignored. Time drops the baby into his arms anyway, practically forcing Twilight to take her, not that he truly minds. A natural around children himself, it takes him only a few seconds to adjust the baby comfortably in his hold.
Blind to the other boys who hover around his shoulders, Twilight's eyes are locked in amazement upon the tiny bean who scrunches her nose and whimpers quietly before soon settling down…To think, this small infant no more than a few hours old is a relative of his. He can't help but wonder how closely related they are. How many generations between them? Three? Two? Maybe even just one? It's a strange thought to consider...but also a very comforting one, too.
"...She's a real beauty, isn't she?" Time asks softly with a strong pat to Twilight's back. The only reply he gets is a wordless nod and whimper as the teary eyed Rancher sniffles.
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What kind of horrors do they need to prepare themselves for? That's the question that rings through every hero's head as they approach Wild's home. They're concern only grows when - as if sensing them - the Champion suddenly appears in his open doorway with an ear-to-ear grin greeting them...Not the most comforting sight seeing as they've come all this way under his vague request.
A letter had been sent to each of them only giving the minor hint that there’s a certain 'surprise' he can't wait to show them, and with someone as chaotic as their accident prone centenarian, the Chain has every right to be anxious about it.
Even as they all crowd outside of his home, Wild refuses to add any context, instead maintaining his mysteriously upbeat aura before finally stepping aside to allow them in. It's only then that the heroes realize what his 'surprise' is, welcomed by the sight of you as you stand there matching Wild's grin while holding an unfamiliar baby in your arms. She can't be much older than a few weeks, judging on both her tiny features and the obvious bags under both of her parents’ eyes...
"You have a baby?!" Wind screeches with delight, not wasting a second to race to your side.
"Her name is Mikan," Chuckling, you kneel down to let him better see your pride and joy. It isn't long before you're surrounded by most of the heroes who are immediately taken by your daughter's cuteness.
"When did this happen?" Time inquires through a raised eyebrow, one of the few Links who had remained by the door with Wild.
"Uh, she'll be three weeks old tomorrow," Wild answers, his hand darting up to rub the side of his neck. He knows that isn’t exactly what Time meant, but it’s the easiest answer.
"I didn't think you -..." Begins Twilight quietly. Although he ultimately cuts himself short, the curious look he gives his successor wordless finishes what he might've said.
Nodding slowly with some hesitation, Wild bows his head while looking back over to you. There's a fondness in his eyes as he watches you carefully pass your daughter over for Wind to hold, "I know what I said before. I...I didn't think this was something I could have - something I could want this badly, but...Well…I probably don’t need to tell you how it is…”
Twilight pats Wild’s back with a knowing smirk, indeed understanding. He’s happy to see his friend finally accept the peaceful life he deserves instead of continuing to run away from it, after all, Twilight has never been blind to the curiosity and faint jealousy that would shine in Wild’s eyes whenever listening to the other heroes talk about their families. He’s been long overdue to have one of his own.
"Hey, just one question," While Wind is busy cooing and rocking your daughter, Four turns around to address Wild once they finally join everyone else, "Did you really name your daughter after a fruit?"
Wild's cheeks flare in embarrassment, "I - It can be a pretty name, too!"
"I'm actually the one who chose it," You confess sheepishly, taking the attention away from your partner, "I was really craving tangerines throughout the whole pregnancy."
"At least it's a somewhat normal name. I was half expecting you to name your future kids something like 'Biscuit' or 'Curry'," Legend snorts.
"...We did consider picking 'Sage'.”
Warrior laughs heartily before throwing a hand over Wild shoulder with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows, "Can we expect that to be the second child's name then?"
"Woah, woah, woah - Let's settle down now, gentleman,” You immediately scold while also taking the chance to save your poor partner by pulling him away from the onslaught of teasing he was about to endure, “One baby at a time. It’s not easy carrying those things, just ask your wives!”
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Four has been off into his own little world - That is to say, he’s been both distracted and extremely tired; a terrible mix, but hey, it’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. Despite his eyelids feeling like bricks, he remains awake and alert, arms folded across his chest as he sits in the bedside chair keeping watch over your sleeping form. 
You need the rest more than him anyway. Your husband has been through some pretty fearsome and ravenous beasts in his time, yet your work last night easily trumpeted every hell he’s undergone himself. Best to let you sleep unless he wants to change that statement.
A series of echoed knocks send Four bolting through the house, hissing a curse under his breath before tossing the front door open with plans to scold whoever’s on the other side, yet he’s stunned into silence when he realizes it’s no poorly timed mailman, rather the very friends he had invited over…although, they did come a lot sooner than he thought they would…
“WE’VE COME TO SEE -!”
“- SHHH!!!” Four nearly smacks a hand over Wild’s face. 
“- …The baby…” Wild finishes with a whisper and a grimace.
Four quickly ushers the Chain inside, allowing them to make themselves comfortable with STRICT orders to keep the noise level down. Yes, their early visit may not have been exactly anticipated, but Four holds no ill feelings towards it, in fact, he’s rather smiley while leading them to the nursery.
“Here they are,” He practically sings, eagerly looking inside the large crib as if he, himself, still can’t get enough of its contents. He has every right to be infatuated, “These are my girls~”
Although Four is bubbling with joy as he admires his little creations, the rest of the Chain stands by with wide eyes. Some even take the time to count each baby just to confirm that they are, indeed, seeing triple. Inside lies three little newborns, each fast asleep after having about as stressful of a day as their parents.
“We’re thinking of naming them Marigold, Amber, and Camelia. You know, keep to the color theme and all…”
“Damn, three of them, huh? You didn’t hold back at all, did you, Smithy?” Warrior observes aloud, much to Four’s instant lack of amusement.
“They’re so cute~” Wind coos, Twilight having to pull him back before he accidentally falls into a crib again.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I brought some of the twins’ old stuff then,” Time hums, his smirk holding a hint of sympathy. Needless to say, he doesn’t miss those early days of juggling babies himself, as much as he loves them dearly.
Four preens at the attention his daughters get, however his smile falters when he notices Sky sticking to the very back of the group, awkwardly rubbing his arm and chewing down on his lip. Four frowns.
“...I’m sorry. We should’ve waited until we told -” He keeps his voice down as he joins the older hero who is quick to shake his head and muster his best smile.
“- No, no. We’re happy for you both. Really…” Despite the sorrow stuck in his voice, Four can tell Sky means every word of it, even the sighed: “...You’re a very lucky guy.”
“...I am,” While there could be more said, he realizes now might not be the time to discuss it. Not with so many new babies in the room.
“No wonder you wanted us to be quiet. I can barely handle one newborn at a time, let alone three at once?” Legend mumbles half to himself, his finger gently cresting one of the baby’s chubby cheeks.
“You know, if you ever find your house getting a little too quiet, you can always babysit -”
“- No way in hell. We already have our hands full as it is.”
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undead-supernova · 4 months
Text
High Tolerance
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Part 1 / Part 2
Masterlist
warnings: weed consumption, sickly sweet pining
pairings: bestfriend!bisexual!modern!eddie x bisexual!fem!reader
plot: you and Eddie are besties and like to get high. and maybe you are yearning for one another. just maybe. juuuuust a little bit.
wc: 3.6k
I'm so proud of this, I hope people enjoy it!
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Part 1: Strawberry Syrup
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You and Eddie mirrored each other, your elbows resting on the glass counter as you rested your chins on one hand, listening intently to the clearly stoned woman talk about the promising high of the day.
The bottle she’d taken down from the shelf looked like a tiny juice box, with pink liquid sloshing inside and a green label with a cannabis leaf, because of course.
“Look,” she said, pointing at a thin layer of film at the top. “That thin layer right there? That's the THC.” 
You looked over at Eddie, his expression matching yours in wonder at how products like these existed. He was nearly grinning, mouth twisted to the side in awe. She continued to explain the process to you—this was Delta-9 THC syrup. Strawberry flavored. Your instructions were clear: mix it into a drink, preferably soda, and have fun.
When the two of you emerged from the smoke shop, you took a sharp pivot across the street to the gas station to get sodas. The southern July heat was starting to show its unwelcome presence, beating hard on you within the two minutes it took to walk over to the Exxon. 
Eddie never truly got the memo for the sun, even when you told him how hot it was going to be outside. He donned a black t-shirt with one of his friend’s band logos on the front and a simple silver chain around his neck. He still wore his leather jacket and navy jeans, denying how hot he was when you called him out for being sweaty. 
“Woah! Rude!” Eddie exclaimed as you walked through the automatic doors, putting a hand on his chest. There was even sweat running down his knuckles from his rings. “I am perfectly content. Maybe I like a little sweat.”
You gestured to your own sweaty body, clad in a black crop top with red lining along the low bustline and black jeans. And you quickly realized that you were also wearing jeans in eighty degree weather.  
“I’m afraid I made the same mistake and I am a hypocrite,” you empathized, catching him off guard. “My apologies.”
“Yeah, I guess you did, huh?” he said softly. 
He glanced down at your outfit and you suddenly felt nervous at the exposure. You paused, realizing you’d both stopped walking. Holding his stare, you looked up at him with a slight smirk. Was Eddie checking you out? Did he really do that? And were you teasing him back? Was that what this was?
No. You were getting ahead of yourself. You were always making up shit like this.
You pivoted, skipping over to the refrigerated drinks, Eddie following in tow. “I’m excited to try this. I’ve seen it in there so many times, but I couldn’t figure out the right time to try it.”
“And you’d never do it without your bestest friend of all best friends, right?” Eddie asked, a playful smile settling on his lips as you flitted around him. 
“That is correct.”
Eddie settled on a Sprite while you decided to grab a strawberries and cream Dr. Pepper—despite the sound of disgust leaving Eddie’s lips.
“That,” he pointed to your drink, “is nasty,” he said before dramatically shooing you away. “Get it away from my face. You've failed me, sweetheart.”
Letting out an exaggerated gasp, you replied, “Excuse me, but it’s already strawberry flavored. Wouldn’t that logically help it taste better?”
“No. Nope.” He pointed to the bottle again. “That is what’s killing the children. Dr. Pepper having a strawberries and cream flavor? We’re truly failing as a society.”
You rolled your eyes, shoving his arm lightly and pointing towards the checkout counter. “Let’s get going. I wanna try it out.”
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When you got into Eddie’s van, he quickly put your drinks in his half-broken cupholders. Your fault, three months ago. Talk about greening out when you kept trying to shove a drink in and repeatedly hit the plastic until half of it snapped off. The van was pretty clean today, surprising Eddie. He’d tried to clean it out the best he could this morning, getting up way too early to do so. Maybe it was to impress you. Who knew. He certainly didn’t. Not at all.
You twisted off the caps as Eddie pulled the strawberry syrup out of his pocket.
“Half for you, you sick fuck,” he said as he carefully poured the pink liquid into your Dr. Pepper. You let out a hearty laugh as he let the rest drip into his own. “Half for me.”
You put the caps back on your drinks before carefully mixing them together, teetering them back and forth to reduce the likelihood of an explosion. Eddie grinned at you and you couldn’t help but smile back, tapping his bottle with yours. 
Before either of you could take your first sip, Eddie said, “Hey, don’t shotgun it.”
You feigned offense. “What? Me? Why would you dare accuse me of being so irresponsible?”
But you knew why. You knew precisely why. There was something about trying stuff with Eddie, from his fresh edibles to the slushies on tap at the hemp store, Jailbait Hemp. (The name was absolutely cringe worthy but you and Eddie swore it was the best place in the city.) Then there were the pre-rolls, the dabs, the potent gummies. You didn’t want to get Eddie started on how many chocolate bars you’d scarfed down before getting a stomach ache and needing to lie down and watch three movies. It wasn’t necessarily unlike you to get ahead of yourself, downing whatever was given to you immediately, especially ones with high doses. Just to see what would happen. Just to have the experience.
Eddie both loved and hated that about you. You’d never thrown up or done something stupid because of it, (other than the tragic cup holder incident), always a little quieter depending on the level of inebriation you were operating on. He loved it the most when the two of you got high in public, like today. Neither one of you were ever loud or obvious about it, usually giggling with one another in hushed whispers. It was actually quite nice.
But, most of all, he loved getting high with you in public because you held his hand. Anywhere you went, whether it be to walk around Hobby Lobby or taking in nature at a nearby park, you held onto him as tightly as you could. You’d told him once, in a haze of one of those blue raspberry Delta-9 slushies, that you felt safe by his side, knowing no one could hurt you when he was there. His mere presence left you feeling more relaxed than at any other point of the day. Even when you were sober. 
He’d looked at you after you said that, stunned by your admission. You’d said it simply, as if it was just a well-known fact that he should’ve known already. Even when you’d looked away from him to gaze back out over the Chattahoochee River, surrounded by loud families and barking dogs, he couldn’t help but soften around the edges. Water had collected in his eyes, nearly slipping out and over his rosy cheeks. But he’d forced himself to look away, to fight the urge to confess that you made him feel the same way. (And then some.) 
Eddie only hoped he’d see the day where you took his hand without the THC in your system. 
“Yes, you, Weirdo.” Eddie shook his head. “Do you not remember when we made that beer cheese with that Delta-Whatever shit your sister got us for your birthday and then you took half of the cheese and—”
As he spoke, you quickly tipped the bottle into your mouth and began to chug.
Eddie said your name with an exasperated sigh. “You’re literally the stupidest person I’ve ever met.”
Unable to respond verbally, you winked at him and threw up a middle finger, letting the seamless mixture of Dr. Pepper and artificial strawberry flavoring slide down your throat. Usually there was an aftertaste of THC in different products. But you couldn’t even taste the syrup. It was like there was nothing else in the drink. Brilliant.
Eddie only shook his head with a smile, knocking back nearly half of his drink just to give in to your antics. Why not? It was a lazy Thursday, anyways.
This was one of those rare occasions when you and Eddie had the same day off of work. It usually happened once or twice a month, leading you both to take the opportunity to go by Jailbait Hemp, find something new to try, split the cost, and see what happens. 
As the bottle left your lips with a small pop, you couldn’t help but let a loud burp ripple through the air, smiling proudly. Eddie squinted his eyes with a serious expression on his face, pretending to listen intently like he was interpreting art.
“That might’ve been my best one,” you admitted, your face a bit smug as you slammed the empty bottle back into the pitiful cup holder. 
Eddie shrugged. “That was about a six, Weirdo.”
“A six?” you asked incredulously. “Are you joking? I don’t think I’ve ever reached that octave before.”
“Sweetheart, you forget that you have the world champion in front of you.”
“Prove it!” you exclaimed, leaning in and scrunching your nose at him. Taunting him further, you added, “You won’t.”
Eddie mirrored your expression, the two of you looking at each other like mischievous little kids. The kind of misbehavior that would get you sent to the office in middle school with a threat of suspension and mud smeared over your clothes like a 1st Place ribbon. 
“Fine,” he said before beginning to down his Sprite. Before you could compliment him on his shotgunning abilities, his burp rang through the van, loud and deep, clearly ten times better than anything you could muster. 
Even in your obvious defeat, you had to suppress a laugh, trying as hard as you could to continue the bit. “That was obviously a two,” you said. “They should’ve crowned someone else.”
Eddie swatted your arm and you did the same. “You’re an absolute menace, you know that? And a liar.” Before you could offer a witty retort, he said, “Now, come on. This’ll hit soon and I don’t wanna be driving when it does. We got shit to do.”
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“What’re we doing at the aquarium?” you asked as Eddie pulled into the parking garage. There was a banner above it, fading from a penguin swimming in the ocean to three more resting on rocks. You’d always found it adorable, filling you with excitement. 
“Uh, well, uh,” he stumbled as he stretched through his window and grabbed a parking voucher. “Yeah,” he continued as he set it on the console and drove through. “I just thought that the syrup would go well with the fish, you know? And it’s deserted right now, being Thursday and all. Also, don’t worry about a ticket. I got you covered.”
You gawked at him. As Eddie parked and reached for the seatbelt latch, you placed a hand on his shoulder. His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. 
“Eddie, it’s, like, fifty dollars to get in. Let me get my own,” you pleaded. “Or we could go somewhere else. I know money’s tight for both of us as it is.”
Eddie shook his head, his smile beginning to falter. “You like to come at least once every summer,” he murmured, looking down to fiddle with the seatbelt still in place. “I wanted to do something nice for you, you know? You’re my best friend.”
Your heart ached a bit at the way he said “best friend.” It sounded removed, like a placeholder for something else, something more. He looked up to meet your eyes again and you felt some part of you wince as a wave of emotion bubbled inside your chest. 
Because that was just the thing, wasn't it? He wasn’t just your best friend. He was the one you spent most of your time with, the person you swapped places with for a sleepover almost weekly. The person you went on mindless adventures with to explore Atlanta, window shopping all of the mansions out in Buckhead for when Eddie would become a rockstar and (jokingly) leave you a tiny guest house in the back. 
The person who had remembered an insignificant detail about you and decided to give you a present.
All you wanted was to lean over, to lightly brush your lips over his, slowly leaving remnants of a soft Thank you. But you couldn’t. No matter how much you suspected Eddie’s affections, you couldn’t attempt to make a move. 
So you opted to slowly headbutt his arm and get out of the car. 
“You’re so weird,” he teased as you walked around the side of the van. 
“So-rry that I’m showing my best friend affection,” you joked back. “We don’t always have to hate each other.”
Eddie snorted, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “Ah, yep. Definitely. We hate each other so fucking much.” He stopped suddenly. You raised an eyebrow as he turned to you, jumping into a fighter’s stance before waving an imaginary sword in your direction. “I am here to avenge my father’s death!” he exclaimed, mimicking a warrior’s bellow. “You will pay, scoundrel.”
You jumped into a similar position, moving your imaginary sword closer to his chest. He moved with you, as if to block your approach. “Thee foul fiend,” you started with a British accent. “I will vanquish thou and feed you to the dragons. Purge you in the fiery—uh—fires of the dungeon moats.”
Eddie couldn’t keep going, bursting into a fit of snorts. You broke too, your laughter making every passerby stare. He put his arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer as you walked. 
“‘Fiery fires’?” he asked. “That has to be the funniest shit I’ve ever heard.”
You laughed at your ridiculous word choice. “Yeah, I don’t know, man. I panicked.”
“I think I’m starting to feel it because I seriously haven’t laughed that hard in a while.”
You could be wrong. That’s what you reasoned with yourself. You had a possibility of being wrong, so you did nothing. After that first time you accidentally held his hand on sheer impulse due to the half cup of Delta-8 beer cheese you chugged, you kept doing it. He thought it was funny. He also said it was cute. Something you did was cute to him. So, whenever you were inebriated, you disguised the action and made the most of it. He always let you hold it, let you cling to him wherever you went. He never even commented on it, just accepting it when you made the contact.
And you could’ve been wrong, but Eddie was looking at you like you were the most beautiful girl in the world and he was looking at your mouth and not your eyes and there was something verging on romantic about this moment. 
But there was that chance, that tiny glimpse of doubt that led you to believe you were destined for the wrong timeline. The one where it wasn’t true. You were the delusional girl in the film that would never get the love interest at the end. The one left behind.
So you held his hand tighter and looked away.
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You were like a little kid when you went to the aquarium, nearly running around to each pane of glass. Looking at the different plaques, you’d search for each individual species listed, tapping on the glass each time. And that hadn’t changed. You just so happened to be a little bit more amazed by the beauty of sea life from the high. 
How wonderful it was to be surrounded by a different existence! Something that humans could never truly fathom living. They moved differently than us. They felt different. Saw colors differently. They even breathed differently. Life was much bigger than just you, despite it always feeling like you and Eddie were the only ones left in the world. 
For some reason, Eddie seemed a little more reserved today. He wasn’t bouncing off the walls like you were. Instead, he took his time. He responded when you spoke, of course. When you asked if it was okay to run ahead, he promised it was. He’d always catch up with you eventually, pointing out fish you hadn’t spotted yet. But he always made the time to stand back with his hands in his pockets and stare, like he was just as captivated as you were, maybe just in a different way. 
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Eddie didn’t tell you that he’d put aside that $100 to use once he asked you out on a date. But he’d desperately wanted to see this look on your face, your slightly red eyes wide and your mouth hanging open in awe as you witnessed the beauty surrounding you. You were nearing the end of the moving tunnel, surrounded by fish on all sides. There were even a few divers waving at the glass. The blue lighting made you something to marvel at, the ebbing water spreading dappled light over you. He knew this look, the one where you were somewhere else, in a deep appreciation of the world around you. It was when you were keenly aware of the meaning of life. He’d know it anywhere.
And it was him you were holding through it all. For some astonishing reason, you’d let him in to witness the rawest emotions overcoming you. The ones that others couldn’t be privy to, wouldn’t be. When you turned to look at him with tears in your eyes, your lips stretched across your face.
You smiled that smile, the one that told him something was hiding there, like there were words written on your lips that couldn’t be shared. While everything else was his to know, this one smile was not on the list.
Because, every time you smiled like that, Eddie asked, “What? Why’re you looking at me like that?”
Like it was a challenge. Like he wanted to push you to say what you were thinking, even if it was just out of spite.
And you’d look away, waving your hand around, saying, “What? Nothing. I’m not looking at you like anything.”
And he’d respond, “Yeah, okay, sure.”
So, like every other time, Eddie asked, “Why’re you looking at me like that?”
But this time you shrugged, holding his eye contact. “I just, uh,” you stumbled, your smile only growing. “I just really love, um…” 
Eddie’s eyes began to widen at the implication of something more, something brilliant. His back straightened, the haze of the high nearly intensifying the moment. Everything was perfect. This moment was perfect and this was going to be it. You were going to finally say something. 
“I just really love what you did for me,” you finished. “I appreciate it a lot.”
And just like that, Eddie was cracking under the disappointment. The high settled back underneath his skin and dragged him down. Of course you didn’t say anything. Why would you? He’d only gotten his hopes up based off of a wild theory he had. One that he knew he’d made up just so he could live in some fantasy where you were together and in love. He just wanted to project how he felt onto you. It was as simple as that. 
But he couldn’t help being disappointed by it.
He only hoped that you didn’t see him deflate. 
  “Yeah, sure,” he responded finally, turning to look back at the fish as you stepped off the moving track. “Don’t mention it.”
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You didn’t drop his hand, but as he looked away from you to keep walking, nausea began to pool in your stomach. The tank was starting to slosh you around its current and you moving along with it was making it worse.
You immediately excused yourself to go find the bathroom. When you found it, you proceeded to throw up in the trash can. Luckily no one was in there, but you still felt awful. It was an utterly embarrassing feeling, knowing that you’d just thrown up in a public space because of sea sickness that you’d never had before today from being blasted on THC syrup. Oh, and you’d almost just told your best friend that you loved him. While holding his hand. While he was also blasted from THC syrup.
God dammit.
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You didn’t mention throwing up to Eddie. In fact, you’d managed to collect yourself for the rest of the day, walking through the aquarium for another hour and a half before Eddie was sober enough to drive back to your apartment. You ended up cooking enchiladas and watching two movies (The Proposal and The Invisible) before Eddie was snoring next to you, stretched out across the couch with his legs in your lap. When you realized he was asleep, you quietly turned the TV off and moved his legs carefully to rest on the couch. You draped a blanket over him and lifted his head to make sure the pillow was positioned at the right angle so his neck wouldn’t ache in the morning.
And here you were, staring up at the ceiling and recounting the errors you’d made. How you’d almost confessed your undying love for him. How you spent the rest of the day inching towards him despite feeling humiliated. How you couldn’t help but lean further in as if he was the only one who could provide you comfort from fucking up so bad.
And when Eddie found you puking from the stress at four in the morning, you knew that this was bad. It was getting harder to keep it in. This was going to boil over and it was going to be soon.
Fuck.
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VHSCC OH MY GOD
(no spoilers)
Starkid nation, you aren't ready.
So let's start with the obvious. Look, I spent thirteen years growing up with Starkid. That initial Michigan gang are deeply special to me and I will always miss Dylan, Brian R., and Corey in any show they aren't in. And this one's no different. But just as Janaya came in and took over Belle from Britney so flawlessly, Curt, Brian, and AJ were all WONDERFUL in their new roles. The gentle-but-high-energy, truly decent, romantic himbo charm Curt brought to our Springsteen boy Jim (you all are going to LOVE Jim, I promise) perfectly offset the defiant, sneering anger of Young Scrooge in "That Scrooge." Brian's reactions (particularly to the "rather take my own life" line) were so funny and some of my favorite parts of the show. And AJ... this is now my favorite thing AJ has ever done. And that's saying something. The smaller casting shake-up moments (Joey as Fezziwig, other little line re-distributions) were so fun as well!
The new act 1 is PERFECTION. I was actually surprised by how absolutely hysterical it was? Like, I won't tell you what was up with that clip on Instagram of Brian, Lauren, and Joey doing a freak-out dance, but I can tell you that their whole Act 1 deal threatened to steal the show every. Single. Time. I already mentioned Curt as Jim, but you will also love Della, who is so funny and real and truly carries us through the start of the show (Janaya is a STAR and she Curt have brilliant chemistry). Ali did a terrific job of balancing the sadness and hope that are both at the center of the devastating little Match Girl. And Jamie's Grandma... well, honestly I have no idea how to talk about Jamie's song without giving stuff away.
But the real star of the show in Act 1, as he should be, was our man Clark. I can't emphasize enough how much he nailed the writing of this whole new act. I mentioned that the new stuff is hilarious, but it's also deeply heartfelt, and also sad exactly when it needs to be. Like, the transition after Jamie's song? I can't really talk about it yet, but what that moment does with emotion is unreal. And, as expected, every song is a banger! My one complaint about this show, and it IS a big one, is that there is no cast recording of the Act 1 songs. I want to listen to them all the time.
But the good news is, I CAN listen to Christmas Carol as much as I want! The classic that started it all is back, with so many people reprising the hell out of their truly iconic roles (God I love the VHS Cratchits), and better than ever. I traditionally hate change, and I love the version of VHSCC Live! we already have so much, but I think I somehow loved this version even more? The staging is alive and clever and there are some additions and changes, particularly in "Final Ghost"/"Christmas Day," that frankly blew my mind and somehow managed to elevate the material even further. I can't wait for the digital ticket to come out so that I can talk about them. To put it simply, James Tolbert mastered his Starkid directorial debut like you won't believe. I'm so proud of him and grateful for the larger role he's taken in Starkid since they moved base to LA.
Also, the Ghost of Christmas Past is extra unhinged this year? Jaime pulled out all of the impish stops and it was the BEST.
Basically, everyone more than delivered. I haven't talked about Meredith yet but she rocked it in the band and continued to validate the hell out of my opinion that "3 Spirits" is the dark horse best song in the show.
And a special shout-out to June Saito for continuing to be a costuming GENIUS. I always love her work and this production is no exception. I honestly wanted to give the return of the Bob Cratchit costume its own round of applause.
You know, the world is a mess and everything is pretty much terrible. It's been a hard year in an impossible decade. But every once in a while you come across some art that takes all of that, acknowledges the truth of it, and somehow pulls back the curtains to harness the joy and hope that's still there under the rubble. To me, Starkid in particular has always been about finding and holding onto the hope and the beauty and humanity that allows us to endure an existence that can so often feel bleak. And VHSCC is maybe the most perfect encapsulation of that idea.
So thank you Clark, James, Meredith, Brian, and everyone who worked so hard on this little bit of magic. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Let's make a little light.
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kerubimcrepin · 8 days
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Dofus: The Production - what is left of the old movie
Originally, the movie was supposed to tie in with the game and the Welsh & Shedar series, and be a trilogy.
As we had already explored on this blog, this did not happen for a variety of reasons.
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Welsh and Shedar got cannibalized by other projects due to its cancellation, and the script of the movie "Dofus Book 1: Joris Jurgen" had to be completely rewritten from its old plot;
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In that movie, Joris was likely supposed to be a street urchin, who survived together with Lilotte, who was a rogue, and the trailer we have for the older version of the movie reflects that:
As we can also see from the trailer, and the poster featured earlier, proto-Kerubim is also a part of the movie, and Khan was not yet meant to be a boufbowler.
(And considering the posters, the cat that inspired Kerubim's design was also a part of the movie. I wonder if it's related to Welsh's cat from Welsh and Shedar? But maybe I'm just crazy.)
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Subsequently, the movie came out at a much later date than planned originally.
(two images included because, bizarrely, there are two versions - one with Joris's tail censored, and the other with his tail uncensored. This proves that already at this point they had a draconic backstory in mind for him, though we do know that at the time of Wakfu season 1 (and, likely, the cancelled DS game, as was noted in my post about it) it was not the case.)
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Also, interestingly, it is the only art of this time to include the tail. A possible error on Xa's part, or something that was considered very briefly?
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In the end, Kerubim (as well as Simone) swallowed up not just the design of Welsh's cat, clothes, and Ecaflip friend;
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He also got the role Julith was supposed to have, both metaphorically, and also literally.
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Or not entirely — considering the fact that Joris was supposed to spend time with him anyway, since we have art of Joris on his mount from that old draft.
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It's quite interesting, to think of all that could have been different in the 2009-2012 version of the movie!
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But even during the making of the second draft of the movie, a lot of things have changed. From the first idea of Joris winning Kerubim back at a pachinko machine, to the concept art of Joris's non-possessed appearance.
The movie was being actively rewritten at the time of the making of Aux Tresors, so some of the early drafts were already tied in with its canon — taking place in Astrub, to be specific — but not with its ending, because the show was still ongoing.
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At one point there was supposed to be a whole cast of Huppermage characters, and judging from the fact one of them is mentioned in the following text, they did play some sort of role in the plot:
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It is likely that from this early draft it was decided that Joris would be a boufbowl fan, which was then worked in as a plot point in Aux Tresors.
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(Stélina may be a proto-version of Bakara.)
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It also seems that at this stage, it would be likely that Lilotte was reworked to be the Princess of Bonta, before eventually becoming the Ouginak we know and love.
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After this Ankama once again returned to the concept of Lilotte as an orphan, though — even when the movie was still set in Astrub!
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And it seems that the draft involved travel between Astrub and Bonta, judging from the usage of a Zaap to attack Luis.
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And even at this point they have come up with the tragically cut "Joris and Khan go to adult industry workers and Joris (10yo boy) engages in depressed underaged drinking" scene.
(I'll never forgive Ankama for cutting this. I still argue that it's in character for Khan, our detested/beloved turbovirgin, to do this — as long as he doesn't get together with any of the women due to thinking himself "too good" for them.)
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Also, at some point the gods were supposed to play a role. And personally, I am glad it was cut — it feels a bit too grand for the first movie in what was supposed to be a series.
I don't have any grand statement, or conclusion, but it is interesting to see all the ways the movie has changed.
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brucebocchi · 22 days
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Winter 2024 anime, Pt. 2: Mixed reactions, the bench, and the gems
hey y'all, this is also up on my ko-fi! it's free to read both here and there, but i'm struggling financially rn so i could appreciate if you'd throw a few bucks my way if you liked it! part 1 can be found here.
And we're back for part 2! Here's all the new stuff I finished this season, and one more I'll get back to later. As with before, these are sorted alphabetically within each category and are not ranked as of yet.
Also as before, the OP for each series is linked in the title. Check them all out if the header images aren't giving you the right feel for each show, but also check them out because most of them were actually pretty damn good this season.
[Solo Leveling OP voice] LET'S GET IT!
Mixed Bags:
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Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!
Your standard, quasi-harem “easily flustered Regular Guy wins over hot girls just by being really nice” shonen romcom. I really don’t have much to say about this one other than if you’ve seen My Dress-Up Darling, you’ve basically seen this already. The only thing that really sets it apart is the setting.
Tsubasa (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki, in a FAR cry from his turn as Mahito in Jujutsu Kaisen) is a straight-laced Tokyoite whose family situation lands him in a small city in the frozen boonies of Hokkaido. While looking for the bus to his new house, he runs into a gyaru in the snowy wild, the underdressed, hilariously-proportioned Minami, and they hit it off. It turns out they go to the same school, there are other cute girls there who take a shine to him as well, it’s nothing new.
I ultimately don’t have much to say about Hokkaido Gals, but I do have a soft spot for series like this, and after reading ahead in the manga I felt obligated to see it through. This is all junk food, but it’s all stuff you’ve seen done better in other series. I also have a soft spot for gyaru in anime and manga, and while I do like Minami just fine, she isn’t Marin Kitagawa or Rumiko Manbagi. I don’t really have it in me to recommend this show to many, though, at least not until another season rolls around, if that ever happens. The manga genuinely does get a lot better as it goes on, but the really worthwhile stuff may not happen until a third season, and I just don’t see that happening. 
The manga has issues that the anime isn’t willing or able to solve, chief of which being the visuals. The art style of the manga is wildly inconsistent, and getting a mediocre animation team on this didn’t help matters at all. While the colors often pop nicely against the pretty, snowy backdrops, nobody looks all that great overall. The characters are recognizable, but they just plain don’t look great a lot of the time, nor do they look consistent from one cut to the next; I said that Minami’s proportions are hilarious, but just as hilarious is how wildly they vacillate from one scene to the next for the sake of trying to titillate the viewer.
My biggest takeaway from both the manga and anime was everything I learned about Hokkaido in the process, and if the series is taking subsidies from the island’s tourism bureau, then it’s a job well done. I want some goddamn jingisukan now. The OP is a great time, though. I’m shocked it took over a decade for us to get a proper “Uptown Funk” knockoff in an anime.
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Metallic Rouge
I’ll be upfront in saying that this was my biggest disappointment of the season by far. This show had so much going for it, and what we got was… ugh.
There was an unbelievable amount of promise from the outset: This was Studio Bones’ commemorative 25th anniversary production, and coming from the studio that gave us all-timer adaptations like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Mob Psycho 100, not to mention later works from Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe (including the Cowboy Bebop movie), you can’t fault anyone for having high expectations. It looked to be a fitting production as well: Watanabe’s influence shines through immediately in the gorgeous, lived-in cyberpunk off-world locales and racially diverse cast. Action takes the form of dope robo-tokusatsu transformation fisticuffs, and it’s entirely in 2D animation to boot. The first couple of episodes were killer, too; everything looked and sounded amazing, and there were just enough plot threads teased out that I just had to see how they’d unravel.
It brings me no joy, then, to say that Metallic Rouge collapses into a jumbled mess. I don’t even want to bother talking about what happens in the show because I don’t fucking care anymore. There are few media experiences more sobering than to have it dawn on you over a span of several weeks that “oh… this isn’t actually all that good, is it?” Episode after episode piles on with sloppy lore, weak worldbuilding, warring factions whose names you immediately forget, pointless double-crosses, and the most predictable twist you’ve ever seen. For a while I was willing to accept the fact that I didn’t know what was going on half the time and expected things to become clearer, but now I’m not entirely sure the writers knew either. The stakes apparently kept rising and everything just kept getting more claustrophobic. I’m glad it’s over, if only because if I had to hear “Clair de Lune” one more fucking time, I was going to go ballistic. 
There are several attempts at emotional beats, as the story is rife with tragedy and sacrifice, and every single one lands with a wet thud. Nobody gets enough time, motivation, or characterization for any of these things to feel like they actually matter, and that’s especially a shame because the finale might have been able to stick the landing if the previous episodes were less dense and better paced. Emphasis on “almost,” though, because just before the season ends, we get the absolute most pointless fakeout I’ve seen since The Rise of Skywalker, which is the lowest point of comparison you can make for any work of sci-fi.
This is especially frustrating because on paper, there is so much to like here. Rouge and Naomi are likable-enough deuteragonists with a fun dynamic, and they’d make easy yuri bait in a better show. The characters are all pretty and uniquely designed across the board, and the overall aesthetic, almost a pastiche of late-90’s anime futurism, is undeniable. The toku suit designs are neat and several of the action scenes are gorgeous. The score and soundtrack are outstanding (except for the aforementioned Debussy indulgence). I have few complaints about how the show looks and sounds; the style is great! All of my issues lie with the substance.
Metallic Rouge may have had all the ingredients, but it just needed more time to cook; whether that would have been by doubling the episode count or by more carefully planning the pacing and trimming some of the fat from the lore, I’m still not sure. Probably both. It probably needed better writers, too. Maybe it just isn’t as smart as it acts and there was no way to satisfyingly resolve the clumsy civil rights allegories that bring it uncomfortably close to the likes of Detroit: Become Human. So all of the above, I guess. I tend to adore stories that involve artificially-intelligent beings developing their own wills and emotions and learning to cut their own strings (the likes of Blade Runner, Nier Automata, even a couple of character arcs in the Persona series), but this ain’t it. I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just disappointed.
If there are two positives that will stick with me, though, they would be the absolute banger of an OP and, of course, Naomi Orthmann herself (pictured above, left). Outstanding character design. I’m mildly obsessed. She deserved a better show.
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The Unwanted Undead Adventurer
This one isn’t even worth talking about, so here’s a brief synopsis, then I’ll add some commentary, and then we’ll all move on with our lives. 
Rentt, a beloved but mediocre adventurer in a fantasy town, gets lost in the mysterious labyrinth that all adventurers explore for personal gain, gets waxed by a dragon, and awakens as a shitty-looking CGI skeleton. He notices, though, that he’s able to level up better as a skeleton than he did as a human, and with the more monsters he defeats, the more he evolves into something closer to human. The rest isn’t really worth discussing.
If I’m being honest, I should’ve dropped this show much sooner. It looks kinda lousy most of the time, the plot (inasmuch as there even is one) is boring, character designs are forgettable (except for Rentt’s closest ally, Lorraine, holy hell) and it seems wholly uninterested in actually building its own setting. If it returns for a second season, I won’t be there, nor will I feel like I’m missing anything. Each episode felt like a chore to watch. I probably only saw it through because 1) I liked looking at Lorraine, I know what I’m about, and 2) I didn’t want to lump it in with the shows I did drop. The Unwanted Undead Adventurer isn’t as patently upsetting or frustrating as those three, but it just plain isn’t a very good show.
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The Witch and the Beast
This show could have been so much more. I was drawn in by the gorgeous character designs and intriguing blend of Victorian gothic aesthetics and architecture with modern infrastructure, and very quickly disappointed by just about everything else. The first episode is an exceptional proof of concept, and almost everything that follows is an upsetting showcase of what could have been.
The story centers around Ashaf, a languid, chain-smoking agent of the governing church with a big-ass coffin strapped to his back, and his partner Guideau, a snarling hyena in a young woman’s body, as they investigate abuses of magic across the continent in search of nefarious witches. Guideau in particular has a bone to pick with witches, as the body they presently inhabit is the result of a witch’s curse, and they remain in furious pursuit of the one who cursed them. The curse can be temporarily undone by a kiss with a witch, allowing Guideau’s true body, a hulking brute confined to the coffin, to escape and wreak havoc. Meaning that on a few occasions we get a girl-on-girl kiss followed by a big dude wrecking shit. There’s also other investigations of serial killings, necromancy, and a cursed sword, and here’s hoping you like those, because the coffin breaks are few and far between.
This wasn’t great! By the third episode I had the sneaking suspicion that the animation talent on hand just wasn’t enough to support the aesthetic. While the character designs are exceptional, almost everyone looks awful in any shot that isn’t completely focused on them. This is especially true of Guideau, who looks so inconsistently off-model from one shot to the next that I’m still not entirely sure what they’re supposed to look like, and that’s kind of unforgivable when we’re talking about a main character. Everything looks too dim and too shiny at the same time, and action scenes look like shit more often than they look interesting. I can see so many flickers of something excellent (or at least really good-looking) in Witch and the Beast, and everything else that keeps those flickers from actually igniting makes it so much more frustrating to watch. Maybe just read the manga instead; the panels I've seen from it were uniformly gorgeous.
Actually, yeah, you should probably just read the manga, because for a season of anime, the pacing is atrocious too. It’s clearly trying to angle for a monster-of-the-week format, but each of these mini-arcs is a little too dense for a single episode, so multiple episodes are dedicated to these one-off curiosities, most of which do nothing to advance the plot or show off what the show does best. And if one of them isn’t particularly interesting, you’re saddled with it for the next two weeks like you've been stuck munching on a mealy apple. And I know you can only adapt so much in a 12-episode season, but the decision to end the season on a flashback arc and a lore dump was baffling. That’s not world-building, that’s lazy, and it made the show’s existing pacing issues feel that much more inane.
I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods. I can only imagine how the mangaka feels about this. Dull and uninspiring all around. What a waste.
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The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic
Isekai, unassuming high school boy gains a unique power, impending war with the Demon Lord, yadda yadda yadda. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic isn’t anything new or special by any means, nor is it particularly well-animated or -paced, but at its best it’s silly and charming enough that it made a nice, brainless palate cleanser on Fridays.
Usato, your standard quiet high schooler, ends up walking home on a rainy evening with the popular, attractive student council president and VP, when an isekai portal happens. It turns out that it was just the seito-kai that was invited along for the ride (and President Suzune, as it turns out, is fucking psyched to get to be in an isekai), and Usato got caught along with them. When tested for magical aptitude, Suzune and VP Kazuki hit the jackpot with electric and light affinities, respectively, but things go awry when Usato’s reading turns up with healing magic. Terror strikes the palace as the intimidating dommy-mommy Captain Rose barges in to spirit Usato away from his new friends and into her squadron of goons to train him as a combat medic.
As character comedy goes, this one is actually pretty solid at times. Shogo Sakata is plenty of fun as the put-upon, lippy Usato (a much louder role than Chainsaw Man’s Aki Hayakawa), and Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi herself!) is a blast as the uncompromising Rose, a terrifying slave driver of a drill sergeant with a secret soft side. The dynamic between them is great, too; Usato is over Rose’s shit from the beginning and isn’t afraid to talk back to her, but before you know it, this transforms into friendly banter as Rose clearly takes a shine to Usato and knows he can handle any punishment she doles out. Suzune’s also a bunch of fun now that she’s broken away from having to be the competent, popular girl at school and gets to fully lean into being a complete dork.
Wrong Way also works decently as an isekai, because it makes an effort to stay rooted in high fantasy rather than fall back on JRPG mechanics, meaning there are no stat screens! It also avoids the trappings of wish-fulfillment isekai series by having Usato start out as a regular-ass guy; he’s not a Kirito type, just someone Rose sees as a rough gem in need of cutting. There are no cheat skills or OP weapons or anything, just a kid training every day to get stronger so he can protect the people close to him, and that’s the kind of anime protagonist you should want to be.
For better and for worse, I get serious mid-00s vibes from this one; watch the OP if you don’t believe me. Some of the colors pop uncannily in that early-digipaint-era way, and the animation is pretty middling; the most fluid animation we see is whenever Suzune is acting like a creep. Much like those mid-00s anime, though, Wrong Way may have benefited from being weekly (or twice as long) rather than seasonal. There’s a ton of planting with very little payoff, and it doesn’t feel like the actual scope of the story has even been addressed yet. We don’t even learn why the series has the name it does until someone literally says it aloud in the 11th episode. I may have to reevaluate this season after a possible second, if we ever get one, because this doesn’t stand too well on its own.
Of the anime in this “mixed bags” segment, I’d say I enjoyed Wrong Way the most, but it still had enough problems for me to keep it here. It’s not a particularly bad anime, but it’s not especially good either. I guess we can slot it into what Hazel refers to as “good mid.”
On Hold: 
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Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (three episodes watched)
Man, what a title. That was the main draw for this BL series, which on paper is basically a gay version of the Mel Gibson vehicle What Women Want. 
Adachi (a surname that will always make me laugh thanks to Persona 4), a gloomy salaryman, has hit the big 3-0 without getting any, and now he can somehow read anyone’s thoughts just by making physical contact with them. Just as he laments that this is his life now, he accidentally bumps into his handsome, popular coworker, Kurosawa, whom he learns has been harboring a massive crush on Adachi this whole time. Well dang, what now? Kurosawa’s a really nice, thoughtful dude, but Adachi’s never even thought about being with a man before! And isn’t there something wrong with already knowing this secret? How can he even go into the office and look Kurosawa in those big, handsome eyes… every single day…
What I’ve seen so far has been pretty solid, if not particularly well animated. The visuals are really my only gripe here; I just put it off for way too long and didn’t have it in me to finish it on time to actually get this thing written and published. Yaoi isn’t my forte, which feels like a shortcoming on my end as a fledgling bisexual, and I’ve already remarked on the solid LGBT representation this past season, so I do plan on hopping back on this one.
I gotta say, the co-leading voice actors put in serious work this season. Adachi is voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi, who continued his role as Stark in Frieren, returned to Mashle as Mash Burnedead, and contributed to Metallic Rouge’s cluttered cast as Noid. Kurosawa’s seiyuu, Ryota Suzuki (of whom I’ll always be a fan for his masterful turn as Yu Ishigami in Kaguya-sama), also held down leading roles in Bang Brave Bang Bravern and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer. They’ve been great in the few episodes of Cherry Magic! that I’ve seen so far, and they’ll be a huge part of what brings me back.
The Gems:
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Bang Brave Bang Bravern
I feel like the mark of a perfectly audacious piece of media is in the moments where I find myself incredulously shouting “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING” at the screen, and Bravern made me do that at least once per episode. I have so many things to say about what makes this show great but all of it can be summed up as “it fucks so goddamn hard.”
A joint military exercise in Hawaii between Japanese and American mech pilots goes south as a sudden invasion by metalloid aliens portends certain doom for humanity. Just in the nick of time, though, a bombastic, autonomous mech named Bravern arrives from space and insists that ace pilot Isami Ao take his reins. Isami reluctantly agrees, and to his consternation, Bravern goes full tokusatsu on everyone’s asses, complete with fully-diegetic theme music, and keeps the threat at bay. With Bravern continuing to pester him to act as a pilot, Isami is forced to take up the mantle of a reluctant hero as everyone rallies around Bravern to save Earth. Tagging along is blond-haired, blue-eyed American pilot Lewis Smith, who gets to live out all of his Top Gun fantasies, right down to the latent homosexuality.
That last point isn’t a projection or anything: This show is legitimately gay as hell, and it rules. Bravern’s feelings towards Isami feel far more romantic than what you’d expect from a literal robot, and his description of how it felt to have Isami pilot him for the first time, as relayed to a grim-faced military council, is riddled with hilarious innuendo. Isami struggles not only with shouldering the burden of needing to be a hero to all of humanity, but also being beset on both sides by a loud, insistent mecha and a dewy-eyed gaijin, both of whom very well seem to want to get in his pants. Intricate rituals punctuate Isami and Lewis’ angsty relationship as these broad-shouldered, muscular men grow ever closer. It’s also worth reiterating that Isami is voiced by Ryota Suzuki, who also voiced Kurosawa in Cherry Magic!, and that may not have even been his gayest role this season. I’m not super well-versed in mecha as a genre, but I do know that there’s a lot of Warrior’s Bond-type stuff in these series, and Bravern lays it on thick. And hard.
This show looks killer, by the way. CGI implementation in 2D anime is still a touchy subject, but Bravern features some of the best I’ve ever seen. Simple cel-shading goes a long way to the point where, outside of some uncanny motion, Bravern himself feels perfectly blended into the hand-drawn animation. Mecha designs range from realistic military-style tech to otherworldly sentient robots, and battle sequences run the same gamut as the stakes rise. As goofy as all of the above may sound, it’s committed to being a grandiose, big-time mecha showcase.
This is as good as camp gets in anime; Bravern does for the mecha genre what Akiba Maid War did for yakuza film pastiche (I have also heard positive comparisons to Samurai Flamenco, which I’ll have to get on ASAP). It’s an excellent mecha show in its own right, and wildly hilarious to boot. Bravern himself is very genre-savvy and seemingly a bit of an otaku himself; he loves acting like a mecha hero, to everyone else’s chagrin. Several of the villains (also mechanical beings, voiced by an all-star seiyuu roster that includes Kenjiro Tsuda, the aforementioned Atsuko Tanaka, and Rie Kugimiya) are total dorks themselves. A CIA interrogator tries to waterboard a mecha at one point. Bravern is a deeply silly show, but the heart is as firmly on the sleeve as the tongue is in the cheek: For as wacky as it can get, the story still unfolds with a straight face and excellent emotional beats. 
This show also has the most unskippable ED of any anime since Chainsaw Man dropped a new one every week. I will not say what happens. You cannot predict what it is. Just watch it. One of the top YouTube comments on that video says “When I saw this ending after episode 2, I thought I was going crazy.” That’s a ringing endorsement.
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Chained Soldier
On the heels of 100 Girlfriends completely rewiring my brain, I was raring for some more good old-fashioned anime trash. I was told that there would be plenty this season, but you can consult the “dropped” section to see how well that worked out for me. Chained Soldier came with some significant hype, and soon enough into the first episode I realized that I’d actually skimmed through this manga before (don’t ask why), so I was on board immediately. Now here’s some nice trashy fun.
The world is in peril thanks to creatures called Shuuki that can advance on our world via portals from another dimension. Women primarily lead the charge against these monsters, as this dimension produces a special fruit that can lend them (and not men) otherworldly powers to help them in the fight. Yuuki, a perfectly normal young man, ends up in grave danger as he stumbles into a portal, where he is saved by the beautiful Kyouka, a commander who is able to subjugate Shuuki at will and use them to fight others. In a bind, she asks Yuuki if she can subjugate him, which he agrees to by licking her finger and transforming into a monster himself, at her beck and call. Because of his utility in battle, Yuuki is enlisted into her squad of baddies (and also an 11-year-old), living in their home as a caretaker and answering directly to Kyouka as her “slave.”
I know, I know, but let's settle down for a second. I put “slave” in scare quotes because Chained Soldier fortunately isn’t going full Shield Hero on us; this arrangement has a give-and-take baked in. See, every time Yuuki completes his service, Kyouka (or whomever else takes advantage of this anomaly) is compelled to carry out whatever suitable “reward” springs from his unconscious, and this is where the ecchi kicks in. Sometimes it’s a kiss, and sometimes it’s something a little more; the reward corresponds to the length and intensity of Yuuki’s contributions to battle, so the heat can turn up in the form of, say, clothed face-sitting, a good scrubbing in the bath, or some nice, casual CBT. All of this is to say that “slave” is a bit of a buzzword here: It’s more of a dom/sub situationship with a lot of extra steps.
Yes, just about everything that isn’t an action setup is full-on harem trash, and Chained Soldier lays it on thick, right down to full-on nudity. Nothing about this show resembles high art, but I can’t help but admire such a high level of commitment to its aesthetic, including the sleaze. It fully commits to the bit and doesn’t even bother lampshading its own trashiness. Chained Soldier knows what it’s about, and I respect that. It also has the good sense not to sexualize the youngest girl, which is a point in its favor that I can’t award a couple other shows previously discussed.
And while this show is plenty fun, the action sequences often excellent, and the character designs usually delightful, there’s not actually a whole lot going on here. As I said with Mashle, I know that battle manga like this can take a minute to really get cooking, and as I said with Witch and the Beast, 12 episodes may not always be a sufficient runtime to adapt enough to break ground, but the debut season feels more like a proof of concept than anything else. That being said, Chained Soldier’s manga has a very effusive audience, and its praises don’t seem to entirely be about the boobs and butts, so I’ll wait patiently for the second season. I think it’s earned that much.
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Delicious in Dungeon
This is the one I’m having the hardest time writing about because it so confidently and so completely speaks for itself that anything I could add would feel like scattering sawdust at the beach. Dungeon Meshi (I refuse to call it by its official English name) is a widely beloved manga among those who’ve read it, and for Studio Trigger to do an honest-to-goodness manga adaptation for the first time might as well be front page news among anime fans. 
The story follows Laios, the deeply weird human hero, as he delves back into a bizarre and mysterious dungeon to rescue his sister Falin from the belly of a dragon, along with his misfit party: the neurotic half-elven mage Marcille, the temperamental halfling rogue Chilchuck, and the dwarven warrior-slash-chef Senshi. The party is frequently low on supplies, so to survive the trip they’ll need to subsist on the most abundant resource in the dungeon: Monsters. Senshi’s aptitude in the kitchen helps ensure that everything is edible and sufficiently tasty, regardless of how nasty the monster it came from may have been. With monster obstructions out of the way and their bellies filled, our party delves deeper into the dungeon as the mysteries deepen in kind.
I love the character dynamics in this so goddamn much. Marcille and Chilchuck are frequently put off by the food presented to them, but their consternation is worsened by the fact that Laios’ fascination with monsters annoys the shit out of them. I referred to him as “deeply weird,” but that doesn’t begin to describe his absolute galaxy brain, and I mean it as a term of endearment. Laios is deeply knowledgeable and curious about the fauna in the dungeon, and not just how they taste: He is vocally curious about how certain monster attacks may feel, sings along with siren songs, and even keeps a hardcover bestiary inside his breastplate. He’s one of those people you turn to if you have a question on a hyperspecific subject, but you have to be careful how you ask it or else you’re trapped for the next two hours. And I love him for it.
Even putting the comedy aside, there is a fascinating human element at play in Dungeon Meshi, and I can tell that that surface has barely even been scratched yet. Marcille is just as dogged in her pursuit of saving Falin as Laios is, maybe even moreso (remember what I keep saying about LGBT representation this season?). Chilchuck continues to convince himself that he’s only in the job for his own personal gain, but you can see that mask slipping. And I still wanna know what Senshi’s deal is. Even with the five major players I listed, there’s an increasingly deep roster surrounding them—showcasing a broad spectrum of races and ethnicities, both real and fantastical—each with their own histories and motivations, and I cannot wait to see how they play out and interact with one another. There seem to be much deeper themes at play here as well as we learn more about perceptions and grudges between differing races, oppositional magics, clashing ideologies, and the monetary incentives that drive both the dungeon’s exploration and its very existence. I’m here for it.
I’ve been holding off on reading the manga until the season is up in June (though I could crack any day), but I know a loving adaptation when I see one. Not that Trigger ever slacks off in the animation department, but they absolutely brought their A-game here. As with Frieren, the action sequences aren’t frequent, nor are they entirely what the show is about, but they look incredible every single time. Everyone looks bouncy and cartoony in the way only Trigger can pull off while still looking as close as possible to Ryoko Kui’s source material (as far as I can tell). And the food, of course, looks incredible, no matter how weird. This is practically a cooking anime and a fantasy dungeon anime at the same time, and both aspects are visually on point at all times.
I’m obviously speaking from my own bubble as one of the six people who still uses Tumblr in 2024, but I rarely see new anime make a splash like this on social media every single week, and the ones that I do are usually the monster shonen hits like Chainsaw Man or Jujutsu Kaisen. Dungeon Meshi deserves the exposure and success it’s attained, and I’m excited to see it continue. I’d easily slot this right up there with Bravern as one of the best new anime of the season.
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A Sign of Affection
I’ve seen a hell of a lot of shonen slice-of-life romances in the past year and change, so a nice fluffy shoujo like this was an excellent palate cleanser. There were a hell of a lot of Big Action Setpieces and panicky teens and grim dungeon crawlers this season, and at the end of the week I wanted to unwind with a bunch of pretty twenty-somethings falling in love with each other.
The show centers on Yuki, a college student living with congenital hearing loss, making do at a public college after growing up at a school for the deaf. Though she’s able to get by with LINE messages and lip reading, she’s unprepared when a foreigner asks for help, but she’s saved by a handsome and mysterious young man named Itsuomi. He’s able to help out, and takes an interest in her when he realizes his fellow undergrad is deaf, and Yuki takes an interest in kind because he’s really goddamn hot. It turns out that he’s a polyglot and an avid world-traveler, but sign language is not in his purview. This mutual interest sparks the concern of her childhood friend, Oushi, one of the few people in her life who already use sign language, who wants to be sure that nothing untoward is happening. And it isn’t, because this is just a really lovely, low-stakes romance story.
This is pure, unfiltered shoujo at its best. Yuki’s internal monologue is peppered with flowery prose, and everything and everyone looks soft and beautiful. Fashionable, doe-eyed women and pillowy-lipped ikemen abound (seriously, holy shit, the lips on these boys) as the scope widens and the main love interests’ friends explore their own possible love stories. Itsuomi is very much of the “mysterious boy” archetype you’ll find in romance stories in this demographic, but he’s not hiding any sort of dark past like you’d typically expect; he’s just an interesting guy who keeps his personal life close to the vest. He’s a self-appointed world citizen who loves learning about how people of all cultures live their lives, and in Yuki he sees someone within his home turf who happens to live in her own world entirely. And it’s easy to see his forward behavior with Yuki as infantilizing at first (Oushi sure does, and I’ll get back to him in a second), but as they grow closer he quickly becomes much more considerate of her boundaries and learns to accommodate her as he studies sign language and gestures that help ensure her comfort. This is a story about Yuki’s horizons broadening just as much as it is about Itsuomi wanting to be let into Yuki’s narrow world, and that sort of synergy makes for some exceptional romance.
A Sign of Affection deserves some credit for refusing to shy away from Yuki’s disability and making a point of depicting her world as one that does little to accommodate her. Very few people in her daily life ever bothered to learn sign language, she relies on a friend to take notes during lectures, and work is hard to come by. It’s an honest depiction that makes an effort not to be exploitative, which is a breath of fresh air. Not only that, but there’s some interesting meta-commentary in there: The only major conflict in the story stems from Oushi’s jealousy, and his reservations about Itsuomi possibly “taking advantage of” Yuki almost feel like he believes that he’s the only one who knows what’s best for her just because he’s done the bare minimum to accommodate her. He thinks he’s coming from a good place, but he winds up accidentally infantilizing her in exactly the way he thinks Itsuomi might. That’s a particularly interesting bit of irony!
I’ve seen enough shonen-oriented romcoms where an unassuming Regular Guy gets flustered as a way-too-casual girl pushes his boundaries (hell, I’ve already reviewed two of those this season), so it’s nice to see the formula flipped for a shoujo as Yuki and her best friend Rin blush and squee over Itsuomi and his coworker Kyouya, respectively. A Sign of Affection isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it, either; plenty of these moments are punctuated by characters’ faces going low-detail or full chibi, and they are cute as shit every single time.
This one was just cozy as hell. If you’re into this sort of thing, swaddle yourself in it and bask.
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Solo Leveling
I let this one collect dust after the third episode and didn’t pick it back up until the season was almost up, and honestly, I was kinda dreading it: The trailers didn’t look too promising, the show was slow to start, and it looked like yet another derivative JRPG-style dungeon crawler that managed to get popular. Turns out, nah, this show actually kinda fucks and the web novel series and webtoon it’s based on are popular for a reason. The story is nothing special, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a perfectly serviceable turn-your-brain-off action spectacle with a bit more lying beneath the surface.
In a modern-day South Korea where portals to mysterious dungeons open up and threaten the populace, those who can brave the dungeons, known as hunters, are an invaluable human resource. Once someone is assigned a grade as a hunter, they have that grade for life, barring some rare occurrences. Sung Jinwoo is at the lowest rung on that ladder as an E-rank, incapable of improvement, assigned the epithet “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” He mostly shows up to portal raids as a warm body to fill a quota, and one such job goes haywire as a secondary dungeon within a portal brutally slaughters most of the raid party, Jinwoo included. He somehow wakes up in a hospital, unharmed, and able to access a digital menu before his eyes that exhorts him to do the One Punch Man workout every day, lest he incur punishment. He gets hilariously chadly in the span of a few days in the hospital, including an inexplicable haircut, and finds access to dungeons only he can enter and levels up within this new system.
This one gets off to a slow start and may have benefited from a longer premiere like Oshi no Ko or Frieren, but once the table is fully set, Solo Leveling really starts to cook. Jinwoo’s titular leveling process is a blast from one fight to the next, and as he moves to work in the dungeons that other hunters can access, it turns out he’s been training with the weights on. He’s suddenly fighting way above his pay grade, and after staving off attacks from hunters taking advantage of portals for nefarious ends, he is recruited by an ambitious corporate scion to make some real coin and establish an independent association of hunters.
While it can feel like there’s a whole bunch of table-setting between portal sequences, it’s some smart worldbuilding on Solo Leveling’s end to establish how portal hunting became a central pillar of this society, and doubly so how political and capitalist interests can leave a wide berth for corruption and bad actors. If there’s money to be made in hunting, of course people will find ways to make even more at the expense of others, both at the corporate and personal levels. There’s a lot of talk in there about “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” and that… makes me nervous.
Those are terms that can be used to justify immoral actions in the name of money, sure, but Jinwoo also uses them to justify his own actions. To what end is he constantly improving himself? Sure, he's doing what he can to provide for his younger sister and their ailing mother, but I see less and less humanity in him as this goes on. There are constant hints at something far more sinister at play than just a dude getting stronger for himself, not the least of which being “the system,” the UI that implores him to keep taking on these “quests.” Someone, or something, seems to be guiding him. Whenever another hunter turns on Jinwoo, of course his self-defense instincts kick in, but system pop-ups instruct him to defeat X number of hostiles like it’s a normal video game scenario. There’s something eerily depersonalized about these encounters, despite them being full-on mortal combat, that gives me serious Ender’s Game vibes. Consider me intrigued.
I’d heard that the Solo Leveling manhwa’s main draw was its visuals, and though I had my doubts early on, I'm sold now. This is a pretty solid presentation! Hiroyuki Sawano turned in yet another banger soundtrack to punctuate all the action setpieces, helping to stitch together a fairly complete package. Said setpieces are exhilarating and almost impressively bloody, and while the animation is nothing impressive in the day-to-day, it goes absolutely batshit when the gloves come off. Movement is inhumanly fluid and the visuals can go into the same psychedelic territories we’ve seen in the likes of Mob Psycho and Jujutsu Kaisen. If this is the new meta for shonen action, I’m not complaining.
By all rights, this is a pretty decent show, but if I’m being honest, this one just hasn’t stuck with me much. And that’s fine! Sometimes I just wanna see some nutty action stuff and move on with my day. Solo Leveling hits that spot perfectly, and I'll be right back there when it returns for its next season.
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‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess
I was surprised to learn that the gag manga this is based on, with such a seemingly simple premise, has been running for well over 200 chapters and counting. As the anime progressed, I was far more pleasantly surprised to learn that it actually works.
In a standard anime fantasy world where the forces of good are fighting the demonic Hellhorde, an unnamed warrior princess and her talking enchanted sword are taken prisoner and subjected to torture as they’re squeezed for intel. Said “torture,” as the title’s scare quotes would suggest, is mildly unconventional, as the demon baddie inquisitor, aptly named Torture Tortura, attempts to ply the princess by presenting her with tantalizingly delicious-looking food that she can only partake in if she coughs up some info. Naturally, the princess caves every single time, but her intel is often inane and useless, so the “torture” continues. It’s not all food, though: The princess is soon held out of arm’s reach of adorable baby animals by a gyaru beastgirl, pampered into submission by a spa-loving giantess, and is faced with a tsundere vampire faildaughter, who… tries. 
And you’d think that would be it; the joke wears thin and you move onto something else. Before you realize it, though, something’s changed: The princess and her captors are quickly becoming friends. The premise almost feels perfunctory: These inquisitors are actual people just doing their jobs, and whatever happens after the princess’ myriad confessions is fair game. There’s no malice or animosity, even during the “torture” sessions themselves: Everyone will have a blast and grow closer as friends, and then the princess will voluntarily go back to her bedless cell. It’s like Sam and Ralph after they clock out, except they’re almost always off the clock. Everyone is genuinely looking out for each other in all directions, and the only thing that keeps the torture going is the need for a status quo to return to, even as it grows more elastic. If anything, Time for "Torture" is a good example of committing to the bit without having to necessarily rely on it.
The real irony in all of this is that it becomes increasingly apparent that the princess is having her needs met in captivity far better than she ever did back home. In her proud proclamations about how she’ll never cave to the temptations before her (shortly before she does just that), the princess often talks about her upbringing and her time as the head of an imperial legion, but these stories often betray her lack of friendship or any of the little things that make life worth living. Her life as royalty was one of isolation and deprivation, to the point where she finds more freedom and fulfillment as a prisoner. She truly lives in a society.
Hellholm, on the other hand, has a surprisingly healthy approach to things like work-life balance, food, and leisure, and its most valuable prisoner is no exception. The Hell-Lord himself is a surprising exemplar of this; for as much as he looks and talks like your standard terrifying JRPG demon king, he’s a surprisingly good dude! He looks after his family, employees, and even the captive princess as if they are all one and the same; he exhibits strong principles and an aversion to conflict, sees to his employees' needs and wants alike, and is a supportive, loving father to his unbelievably precious little daughter (who also serves as a “torturer,” to the princess’ delight). He’s also a big time anime dork, and even bonds with a knight attempting to rescue the princess over their shared otakudom before sending him off peacefully. As “villains” go, he’s top tier.
Time for "Torture" is nothing groundbreaking by any stretch, but it’s a cute, silly time and it plays with anime fantasy tropes in the same way a six-month-old German shepherd “plays” with a cheap stuffed toy. How long the premise holds up is entirely up to you, but I had a lot of fun with it. I have no idea how this ended up being one of the better shows this season, but I guess it just scratched the right itch for me.
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jedimasterbailey · 7 months
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WARNING! AHSOKA SHOW RANT DOWN BELOW! SPOILERS!
Furthermore, I’m going to be completely honest in this review so if you’re someone who truly enjoyed the show, you’re a Rebels stan, etc. then this post isn’t for you. Haters will be blocked immediately so take your negative energy elsewhere. You have been warned!
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For everyone else, buckle up because I’ve got a lot to say and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well. All comments are welcome so long as they are respectful to everyone.
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Okay, so now that the show is done for now. I’m going to be listing some major talking points. We’re there some aspects of the show that I enjoyed/appreciated? Absolutely! But overall, I’m leaving this show very disappointed, confused, and frustrated. The finale left me feeling empty and never have I personally been more silent after a Star Wars show. Now mind you I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I love Ahsoka’s character dearly as well as the Clone Wars and the prequels so there is bias here. Furthermore I am pretty indifferent with Rebels so going in knowing that the Ahsoka show wasn’t going to be…well about Ahsoka but rather a Rebels sequel, that already put a bad taste in my mouth and I was very nervous how this show was going to go and well…it was exactly what I expected from a Filoni/cheap Disney production. Without further ado, here’s a list of all my beef.
1.) Lack of a Coherent and Cohesive Story
So I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but my main issue with Dave Feloni productions is that the story seems to be going all over the place and there’s a lot of moving parts that don’t necessarily meld well together. I often think to myself that Ahsoka is an example of a poorly written fanfiction brought to the screen. So the plot of the show initally was focused on Ahsoka bringing Ezra home. Okay, that’s simple, there’s many different ways we can make that cool and interesting but that’s not what happened here. We’re just filled with a ton of confusing information and we’re in for a very boring journey heading for a very anticlimactic and unsatisfying ending.
For starters, we the audience are informed that Ahsoka and Sabine had started an apprenticeship (which I have ALOT of issues with but that’s for another talking point) but they got into a tiff (which we never find out about and/or see) and now things are just depressing and weird between them. First of all, anyone who has seen Rebels KNOWS that Ahsoka and Sabine literally had very little to do with each other; I can’t recall a single conversation those two have had in the past, nor was it ever eluded to us that Sabine is Force sensitive.
Second we see that Hera and Sabine don’t have anything to do with each other for some reason? Which is weird considering all that’s happened and their history but okay suddenly Sabine, a grown ass 30+ year old woman is Ahsoka’s responsibility, which again why? We don’t get any background information, we’re just expected to accept and go with it.
Third, Ahsoka and Hyuang are reunited and working together immediately but again do we know how that became to be? No. We see none of that.
Fourth we are told that Morgan Elsbeth, a one off antagonist from the Mandalorian that Ahsoka fought is suddenly a Dathormirian woman even though she looks nothing like one besides her outfits in the show nor was that eluded to previously.
Fifth, we are introduced to these two new…I don’t even know what to call them “dark siders” “non Jedi” Shin and Baylan (who is apparently a former Jedi from the Clone Wars but did we see that or see how he knew Ahsoka and Anakin? No.) but we aren’t given any reason to care about them other than they’re in Ahsoka’s way of completing her mission. They end up being more like time fillers that anything else and end up walking away from the big conclusion. Like…why are they even in this show and why should we care?
Perhaps Dave Feloni has this big grand story in his mind but he’s so far up his own ass that none of us get to see this story. It’s like seeing a little kid play with their action figures and they’re super passionate about it but as a outsider you have no idea what’s going on. Now this isn’t good not only for the sake of good storytelling but it’s bad for business too.
Disney wants to make as much money off of Star Wars as they can. That’s extremely obvious. However here you have a show that isn’t going to pull in a casual Star Wars viewers (they would have to watch so much content to catch up on whose who and what is going on) nor is it really going to pull in fans of Clone Wars and Rebels because while they overlap, the fandoms are different and Feloni hasn’t done a good job melding those worlds together thus the divisive opinions on this show. This leaves for an incredibly small niche of people and honestly I think whatever toy sells they make from this show will do better than the actual ratings. I would be shocked if they greenlit for another season because I’m pretty done with this story as is many of the people who would be willing to watch.
All in all this is embarrassing how Feloni and the gang with all the money and resources can’t pull off a simple and epic show when there are thousands of unpaid fanfic writers that could pull off a much better story and build these beloved up characters, which leads into my next point.
2. The Characterizations of Ahsoka, Sabine, and Hera Are Bad
Now I have mentioned previously how much I love Ahsoka but damn it upon watching this show, she may as well be dead. Ahsoka has been given the Luke Skywalker treatment in that Ahsoka has been stripped of everything that made her lovable in Clone Wars and Rebels and is left as a sorry shell of who she once was. Her dialouge is hollow and lifeless not like the lively Ashley counterpart that made us all love Ahsoka in the first place. And no don’t give this “well she’s older now” bullshti excuse because Obi Wan Kenobi never lost his cheekiness and charisma as an old man, neither did Yoda, or Leia, etc. Just because you age doesn’t mean you have to be lifeless. Maturity does not equate to emotionless. Secondly for a woman whose well into her fifties and still acts very much like a Jedi Ahsoka’s views on the Jedi and their philosophy seem very warped and the audience is again left confused as to where she stands on the Jedi. I mentioned in a previous post how I couldn’t stand Ahsoka’s negativity towards the Jedi and how nobody seems to matter but Anakin (even though he’s put her through a ton of trauma and has tried to kill her as Vader) because it’s just so distasteful to the people who raised her and loved her that died by genocide no thanks to Anakin. Ahsoka has zero character development other than she seems to forgive Anakin for his wrongdoings despite the nonexistent apology. For a show that has her name on it, she sure is boring. Makes me miss Ashley and old Ahsoka even more.
As for Sabine I probably could write a whole thesis on how unlikeable she is but I’ll keep it short. One, I find it sick on Feloni’s part that he’s having a grown 30+ year old woman act like a teenager and be snarky with just about everyone. Ezra, who annoyed me immensely in Rebels, was WAY more mature and grounded. And again I’m sick and tired of the Mandalorian excuse of you getting to be an asshole because youre Mandalorian. Shut up. No one is above manners and decency. Sabine’s actions in this show have been far from Jedi like and thanks to her immaturity, she left Ahsoka for dead once and is indirectly responsible for the death of New Republic officers who were trying to stop this very dangerous mission that could possibly bring Thrawn and the Empire back ensuing more death and destruction of innocents. Ahsoka deserves to be angry with her for her words and actions, but of course Sabine gets a free pass and her bad behavior will continue to be enabled.
As for Hera…when did she become such a Karen? Just because you’re an officer doesn’t mean you get to abuse your power for your own personal agenda. That Senator was right about her. Finding Thrawn is a threat to the galaxy and using resources and putting lives at risk for it is a big deal. Hera was depicted as honorable and responsible in the Rebels series and I swear I was watching a different person on screen. Also she is a major Sabine enabler and that needs to stop. Sabine is grown and needs to grow up and fix her attitude.
3.) Anakin’s Role In the Show
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Hayden and I love Anakin, I have the dude tattooed on me for Force sake so don’t come at me for that, but I had some issues on how his character was used here. First, I’m tired of Ahsoka’s relevance to Anakin being the only defining trait about her. Second, I’m continuously annoyed by Anakin’s lack of accountability in these shows; he never once apologizes to Ahsoka for all that’s happened, he never once’s has a meaningful conversation with her; he just basically beats her down until she finally lets go of her past. Did I love the Clone Wars flashbacks! YES! They were my favorite part of the entire show and I want MORE of that; but I so wish Anakin could have been reflecting on his own actions with Ahsoka instead of being like “Is ThAt WhAt ThIs Is AbOuT?” Like come on 🙄
4.) Ahsoka’s “It’s Time To Move On” Line
Are you kidding me Ahsoka? There is still so much more to unpack with her past such as all the other relationships she’s had that completely changed her trajectory like BARRISS and REX and she could also be a mentor figure to Luke and Leia, etc. But nope the only thing that matters is getting over Anakin and all is well despite being stranded in another galaxy and Thrawn being unleashed back home. Like THIS IS NOT OKAY!
5.) The Cheap Ass Production of this Show
I’m not normally one to comment on production but it was so obvious in this show how many corners were cut. For one characters like Thrawn look god awful. Dude looking like a blue Elon Musk instead of an intimidating villain. The use of fog and the volume were very obvious and the places we went to were so boring minus the red leaves forest. The worlds of Star Wars used to be so cool and otherworldly but that’s not the case nowadays and it’s sad. Also why does Force ghost Anakin look better in the 2000’s than it does now? I prefer quality over quantity so I really wish Disney would quit churning out these cheaply made productions and have the audacity to rise their Disney plus subscriptions and not pay their people well.
6.) THE RACISM
I’m so fucking tired of this y’all! 🤬 of course make the Jewish actor in the shipyard be greedy and power hungry. Of course make the Asian Senator the asshole and not any of the white protagonists. The antisemitism and racism against POC is unacceptable to me and it should be unacceptable to you too.
Conclusion
I’m sure I’m missing some talking points but these are my biggest grips and as an Ahsoka fan I’m disappointed. Being a miserable Jedi not Jedi responsible for bringing a new evil into the galaxy but being content being stranded in another galaxy is not the future I believe Ahsoka deserves and I sincerely hope they don’t continue this story. It’s just bad all around. Except for the Loth cats… the Loth cats can stay. And Clone Wars flashbacks.
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tropylium · 2 months
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How to be More Agentic
Ask for things. Ask for things that feel unreasonable, to make sure your intuitions about what’s reasonable are accurate (of course, try not to be a jerk in the process). If you’re only asking for things you get, you’re not aiming high enough.
(We have a saying in Finnish, roughly "darers will dare", with a connotation that well someone's gotta, or else things will not get done… "Daring" is a relatively general pro-agency sentiment but the "darer" part is important also I think; once you have a thought like "oh yeah I'm an asker I will sometimes ask for stuff" about yourself, that already makes it easier to ask, even if you still feel skittlish about rejection or similar)
It’s hard to overstate how overpowered [seeking feedback] is. If you aren’t trying to get real feedback from people who know you, you’re cooking without tasting. This is, like, the lowest hanging fruit for self-improvement, but few people really try to pick it.
(Note to self yeah, I think I can function decently with relatively little social contacts but it's felt for a long time that I am nerfed by not having good sounding boards for talking ideas about my life over with)
Most subject matter is learnable, even stuff that seems really hard. But beyond that, many (most?) traits that people treat as fixed are actually quite malleable if you (1) believe they are and (2) put the same kind of work into learning them as you would anything else. As you might gather, I think agency itself is a good example (…) Many other supposedly fixed traits can likewise be altered. Some other things you can learn: confidence, charisma, warmth, tranquility, optimism. Someone recently asked me how one might go about learning charisma, and the answer was really boring: by reading a few books, watching many hours of charismatic people interacting with others, and adopting a few of their habits. This is surely a plan of action most people could come up with if they didn’t have the notion that charisma is innate lodged in their heads.
(A.k.a. "growth mindset", and crucially yes!, it is itself learnable, learn some of that first of all and it will help you with many many things)
Burnout is the ultimate agency-killer. This is so true that I’ve learned to identify a reduction in agency as one of the first signs of burnout, one that shows up even before I consciously realize what’s happening. A switch flips and I start looking for ways to rule out ideas and actions, to conclude they won’t work or aren’t necessary, rather than chasing better versions. (…) This might be the most important item on the list. It took me almost 40 years to learn it, because my instinct is to think more hours mean more productivity as long as you’re really trying to be productive -- that’s just multiplication, right? No. The reality is that grinding, even if it temporarily increases output, kills creativity and big picture thinking. My rule is never to take instructions on how hard I should work from someone who hasn’t burned out before. Very few people take this seriously enough.
(Extremely true. No amount of exerting agency helps when your issue is burning out for overexerting. Take breaks, don't expect to get miracles done by any set point in your life, learn your limitations; might be a good idea to work on them too but ignoring them doesn't get you past them one bit. "Your body will schedule maintenance for you if you don't")
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absolutebl · 8 months
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This Week in BL - Korea drops my favorite cameo ever & gives KISSES
Entirely subjective yadda yadda. Organized sorta by favs in each category.
Sept 2023 Wk 1
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Ongoing Series - Thai
I Feel You Linger in the Air (Fri grey) ep 4 of 12 - Well that’s one way to find out if he’s gay, see how he reacts to reading a het sex scene out loud. Yai is flirting so hard it’s like he knows everything. 
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Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 4 of 12 - Oh no! I love them. Also cohabitation trope! Also ALL the other ones: hair dry, meet in childhood... GMMTV going no frills with this one.
Hidden Agenda (Sun YT) ep 9 of 12 - Zo’s drama over Pat helping Joke flirt seems awfully manufactured. I’m losing faith in this show. Could GMMTV PLEASE hand JoongDunk a decent script? 
Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 5 of 10 - Sand & Ray are the only interesting couple, and I’m pretty much only watching for them. They gonna go south fast, tho, and they're already ruined by persistent singing. Ooo. When Sand said Top "stole his ex" did he mean Boston? How gay. 
Naughty Babe (Sat YT) ep 2 of 8 - The pronoun conversation had a bonkers translation but I enjoyed the actuality of it. The reasons for Yi's trickery are very convoluted soap opera. But I suppose that is the amnesia trope for you. 
Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 10 of 12 - Boys. We discussed this already. No sex in onsens! I found this one dull, until the end when LLS showed up. Happy to just have him in everything. Thank you Thailand. Looks like it is a classic ep 11 DOOM next week. Who cares? 
Venus in the Sky (Tues iQIYI) 1-2 of 10 eps - The usual Thai pulp claptrap this time a reunion romances in and around a convenience store between a boy who recently quit his job and his former bestie who is now a doctor. Mostly not great acting, plot, or production but the sound is okay and no bad effects or singing (so far), so that’s something. The gay brothers have a fun relationship. It’s vampy and campy but fun. I like it but not sure anyone else would.
Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 4 of 10 - The date was cute but I still don’t like the lead or the premise (we moved into Cyrano de Bergerac territory). It’s moving slowly but it seems like we might be over the crush/stalker part of the narrative, so that’s a relief. 
Crazy Handsome Rich (Sun Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - I just can’t. The sound is too weird. With punch down humor and other issues incoming I may DNF this. You’ve been warned. This ep we got to see LLS with his shirt off. Did anything else happen? 
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Ongoing Series - Not Thai
Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 8fin - No wonder he is everyone’s favorite hyung, boy can read the room like no one else. I love that we got to see exactly how clingy and demanding Choi Jun was always going to be. Only Lee Jun is easy-going enough to put up with him. Also I’ve never watched a KBL with more innuendo. For Korea this was… raunchy. I gotta say had Laws of Attraction not come along, Simon might have been my favorite character of 2023.
Final thoughts on Jun and Jun:
A delightful office romance about an ex-idol who joins cubical life only to find his new boss is his first love. Others boys are sniffing around too. Operative word being "sniffing" as much of this romance involves smell. With a snappy script, enjoyable sides, a pretty as peaches cast, and descent chemistry this show made up for in style what it lacked in substance. I like fluff. I loved this. I smiled every moment I was watching. With tons of rewatch potential (especially the last few eps), my only caution is this is for fans of the BL genre only, I don’t think it’ll work for anyone else. A solid 9/10 from me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
I like that Korea is trying high heat, but Taiwan and Thailand are leaps and bounds better at it.
Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 9-10fin -
Omg they so cute as flirty bf. Eeeeeeee! CAMEO!!!!! My fav guest couple ever! So exciting!!!! I love that they intersected with MY Strongberry couple (Private Lessons). I’m not used to this but Holy innuendo Korea, what with Jun & Jun and now this show? It’s a bit much for my gay little heart. The final episode was entirely unnecessary, but it was fun to see them being all domestic and stuff. Maru with his dumb lettuce leaves was hilarious. I feel like I need to rewatch this one to really understand it properly, so I will likely do that soon.
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Summary of Love Class 2:
3 couples form within a semester of university: 1. a hyung romance reunion of exes, one of whom has a dangerous past, 2. a friends to lovers romance, and 3. a mature student and TA one night stand + complexities (many aspects of which had me laughing). I enjoyed the characters and dialogue of this show immensely. It was a little bit more breezy and friendly than I was expecting after the first installment, Love Class. I’m not entirely sure Korea can handle multiple couples like this because it definitely felt disjointed, especially the 3rd more mature couple (also my favorite) who probably should’ve had their own series. But it was definitely fun and something different from Korea. 8/10 RECOMMENDED
Also, Korea tried to give us higher heat... that was... interesting. I mean, you tried hon...?
Kisseki: Dear to Me (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) ep 4 of 13(?) - Everyone is a sad sack this ep. Ooooo. Teach/student my favorite. We never get this one. It’s messy. I’m not sure if there is a plot. I’m not sure they’re sure if there is a plot. But I am still enjoying it.
Why R U? (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 5-6 of 8 - Why is the Fighter character always so frustrating regardless of name or country? Ji Oh stalking his crush via IG is so relatable. He’s very first crush awkward, unsure, and sweet. They also gave a nice kiss - I love the backpack drop (kiss version of a mic drop?) I still hold that if you haven’t seen the original this might not make much sense. But I am enjoying it. 
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My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 4 of 8 - Oh goody, another JBL where we have to pay attention solely to what they do and not what they say. 
Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 9 of 12 - Big fat sigh. 
It's Airing But...
My Universe (Sun iQIYI) ep 3 of 24 eps - I couldn't get hold of it and I'm not mad. I'm putting it on hold until distribution gets sorted, or icky get their shizz in order (like that'll happen).
Next Week Looks Like This:
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Starting
9/15 You Are Mine (Taiwan Gaga) Secretary has to deal with grumpy boss.
9/15 Bump Up Business AKA Bump Up Project (Korea movie) suspected cinema release? I don't know much about what's going on. Last status update. Love story between a trainee who is about to debut and a celebrity from the same agency. Kpop boy group OnlyOneOf has signed up to star in this idol-based BL (based on a webtoon). They’ve been auditioning for this since Libido IMHO. You can watch me chronicle their BL MV series in this post. It’s from Idol Romance who will do sad but can do good kisses (Wish You, Nobleman Ryu, Once Again, Kissable Lips, Poongduck 304, Tasty Florida, Tinted With You).
Still To Come In September
9/26 I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan ????) - Adapted from the manga, childhood best friends: The cool, smart one who’s good at everything, and his average, dorky friend who struggles. Always by the other’s side, but not together in the way they truly want to be. No matter how hard they try, their hearts cannot reach each other.
9/27 Absolute Zero (Thai iQIYI) - from 2021, Studio Wabi Sabi and New Siwaj finally bring us this “time loop to prevent tragedy” romance. We don’t always get HEAs from them, so I'm on my guard.
9/27 Bon Appetit (Korea iQIYI) - from 2022, 8 eps from GoGo Studio, romance between an office worker who lives off junk food and the man next door who cooks well.
9/? Mr Cinderella 2 (Vietnam YouTube?)
2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).
THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS
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I love him. And I love his version of this character better than Jimmy's.
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I also love it when a show gets meta. (Both Why R U? Korea) Why they didn't just go for YRU? the world may never know.)
(Last week) 
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Imma do this final vent and then I’ll shut up about it.
This was a dumb move, from every possible perspective.
In the og goodbye video, they really made it sound like they were doing the streaming service because they wanted to go bigger, make cooler videos, really see what they could do and let their creative vision take the lead.
Growing as an artist is what you do when you Already Have The Money To Do So. You don’t tell your audience “give me money and then I will use to it to make cooler bigger things”. That’s not a streaming service, that’s a kickstarter.
They didn’t have the numbers to pull a streaming service off either. “We think we’re ready for television quality content” no you don’t. Sorry, no you do not. Television quality content means 30-50 crew per project, means at least 4-5 production being worked on at the same time, and at least 4-5 productions being broadcast at the same time. Watcher has maybe 2 series they upload simultaneously and they have 25 employees TOTAL. Not even CLOSE to tv levels of content, who the fuck do you think you are???
Did they really think all 3 million of their subscribers were going to follow them on this? Including kids, whose spending is dependent on their parents? Including the casuals, who only subscribed for the occasional video? Including people for whom $6 dollars on another streaming service just isn’t an option? Why DIDN’T they poll this, was this being a surprise really that important??
AND why would you completely cut off another revenue? Even if YouTube is restrictive, it’s still another source of income. Cutting that off completely is… bold.
Especially since in the apology, they let it slip that no, actually, it’s because Watcher is on the brink of having to close up shop because they’re not making enough money with just the patreon, the merch sales, the ad reads, etc.
So… one of those is a lie. Or at least part of the truth.
But let’s assume they are in financial trouble, then this was still the dumbest they could’ve done.
Welcome to the entertainment industry where we follow 1 giant fucking rule: Kill Your Darlings.
Fellas, pals, amigos, bros, dudes. If your projects spend more than what they make, it’s time to downsize. Not upscale. Cut the shit that’s spending the most money, start concentrating on how you can conserve without having to fire your crew. Put the projects where you have to fly out and buy new stuff all the time on the back burner, you can get back to them once you actually have the money for them. Work with what you already have. You have a MASSIVE studio space, fuckin use it. You HAVE sets, you HAVE props, you HAVE talent and you have ideas. Start workshopping all the crazy and shit ideas you thought weren’t gonna work and start thinking how you could make them work with the lowest possible budget you can have. Your audience is there, they’ll watch whatever you throw at them. Now is the time to go crazy and see what sticks. You HAVE viewership. Collab. CONSTANTLY. Get it the fuck out there that you exist. A lot of people had no idea a patreon existed, mention it ALL THE TIME. To the point that it becomes annoying. Do it!
If your studio is becoming too expensive, get rid of it. Sorry, kill your darlings. Move some shit around in Steven Lim’s tesla garage, put up some green screens, this is where you work now until you can afford a studio in LA again, you dipshits. Editors can work from home, sound designers can work from home, writers and researchers can work from home, meetings can happen in someone’s kitchen or living room.
And finally: be transparent. Be honest to your audience and communicate. “We’re sorry to put Ghost Files on hiatus, however we can no longer justify the cost of traveling to locations.” The majority of your audience will understand and show patience. The part of your audience that matters will wait and enjoy your other wacky shit in the meantime. Hell, they might spontaneously start their own kickstarter because those who can, will want to support you financially, if you’re just hONEST WITH THEM.
As a business, you constantly have to choose between your financial stability and that of your employees, your vision and the future of your company and what you Want to do with it, and your integrity, the trust between you and your audience. (Especially that last one, businesses can’t pretend they don’t have a relationship with their audience, that’s not how business works, guys.)
When you’re in financial straits, one of those has to go. Watcher chose the latter, they should’ve picked the middle. Their grand television quality ideas can fucking wait, if money is a problem.
Look, I’m an artist too. I had a vision too. But it was either my creative vision or being able to afford food and rent. Creativity can wait, creativity will always be there once I can support it. Living comes ALWAYS first. Asking my audience to fund my huge artistic dreams though, with only the promise of something cool, NEVER even crossed my fucking mind. That’s what donations are for, that’s what the patreon is for.
They apologised. And good. But this was a dumb decision from the goddamn start. There were like 500 steps in between and they skipped all of it. And for what? For money? For grand ideas? For greed or for hubris? How many of their original subscribers are actually gonna come back? How much money did they lose with this stunt? If they really are in financial trouble, this MASSIVE risk -which is what it has always been- might just be their downfall. And it’d be 100% their own fucking fault.
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