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ihavemanyhusbands · 1 year

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I Need You Pt. 2 (Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader)

Part 1 can be found here

Aaron finally comes to his senses about your relationship.

Special tag for @hotchsdoormat

WC: 2.5k words

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, Swearing, angst (light stuff tho), some alcohol consumption, idk what else but lmk if I need to add anything!

A/N: Screaming and crying and yearning and throwing up pls enjoy

The next month and a half passed by quietly.

Aaron had been gone before you woke up, just like he said he would. In a state of half-consciousness, you registered his heat leaving your side. You’d stayed in bed all day after that, watching the last trickles of the storm trailing down your window.

He took the rain with him when he left. Now the world was just bleak and gray, but at least it was dry. It was cold too, and even layering sweaters barely helped.

The withdrawals that came with his absence felt different too, much more intense. Perhaps it was due to the fact that the night ended so ambiguously. You couldn’t help but feel like something had changed – something important enough that it couldn’t really be ignored. Could it have been his way of actually saying goodbye?

Once that thought entered your mind, it was impossible to get it out.

Other times, missing him was a hollow sort of ache that you could feel somewhere in your chest. It waned as the days progressed, until you were distracted enough with your daily routine. It was easier to forget, then. Not entirely, but at least to a bearable degree.

Back then, you blindly believed he would always come back. Now you weren’t so sure. No guarantee of anything, he’d said.

But one thing that didn’t change was you not even trying to contact him. Usually, you’d let him contact you first, not wanting to interfere with his work. Even when you were at your most desperate, you would not allow yourself to even text him.

You figured maybe he needed some space, anyway. The best thing to do was try to find a way to keep your mind fully occupied and away from him.

Every day, you ran the same course you always took through your neighborhood. You avoided passing by his house, not even wanting to see if his car was there. You also avoided the spot you’d met him at, just in case. Luckily, and also much to your dismay, you never ran into him.

You assumed that meant he was away on a case once more.

And so you dove into your work, often doing overtime. You tried to see your friends more often as well, and you’d let one or two strangers buy you a drink at a bar, but nothing more. The idea of meaningless sex didn’t appeal to you, even if it was a form of escape.

Though most nights, your tremulous, fragile heart would betray you, and you’d lie awake yearning. You’d try to recall the deep, smooth timbre of his voice; The way butterflies would burst in your stomach whenever you made him laugh. The safety of his embrace and the fervor of his kisses…

You wondered if Aaron was ever in the same position, thinking of you. It was doubtful, given his focus had to be elsewhere, on much more important things.

Then one night, you went to a small, local pub with two of your friends, and the sight you met there made you momentarily freeze like a deer in headlights.

Aaron was sitting at one of the round tables with a group of people. You didn’t know any of them, but you assumed they might be colleagues of his. His dark eyes found you mere seconds after, widening a little.

Despite your panic, you couldn’t very well leave after having just gotten there. It would be entirely too suspicious, and your nosey friends would likely cause a minor scene trying to get an answer out of you.

Plus, you had every right to be there too; It was a public space, after all.

You forced your face to remain a cool mask of indifference, your eyes skating away quickly to avoid giving away that the two of you knew each other. Intimately.

“First round’s on me!” Your friend Julia announced, leading your small group to the bar.

You could still feel his gaze on you as you slipped onto a barstool, the hairs on the back of your neck standing in awareness. Your skirt rode up a little, revealing more of your thigh, which he did not fail to notice.

But you did not look back at him, trying to pretend that nothing was amiss.

Of course, Julia ordered shots of vodka. The three of you clinked glasses before downing them, and you grimaced a little as it burned its way down your throat. The first drink of the night was always the roughest, but you knew you’d soon feel its languid fire spread through you.

The night would be much easier to bear not being fully sober, you figured.

“We should get you laid tonight,” Phoebe, your other friend, said while playfully elbowing you on the side. “Been a while hasn’t it?”

No, not really.

“I guess…” You offered tentatively. “But I’m fine, really. The chastity belt suits me.”

“Hmm, well, I don’t know. You might wanna reconsider. There’s a couple really cute guys here,” Julia said, leaning against the bar. “There’s one that keeps looking over here. And hot damn, that is one fine man.”

You glanced in the direction Julia was looking, and sure enough, you saw Aaron turning away right when your eyes landed on him.

He looked sharp, as usual, never entirely relaxed even in a place like this. He still wore his tie and slacks, but he’d shed his jacket, draping it on the back of his chair. His hair was perfectly gelled, and you had the sudden urge to run your fingers through it and completely mess it up.

“That he is,” you agreed, exhaling slowly. “So, I don’t suppose either of you wanna play darts with me?”

Both of them shook their heads, apologetic grins on their faces.

“Sorry babe,” Julia said sheepishly. “We’ll wait for you right here, though.”

You hopped off the stool and made your way over to the dart boards. You weren’t bad at the game, but you weren’t great, either. Still, you liked it because it was fun, and it was a great distraction.

As you threw the first couple of darts, you swayed a little to the music — West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys was playing. It was one of your favorites.

“Mind if I join you?” A deep, familiar voice said behind you, sending shivers down your spine.

You looked over your shoulder if only to confirm it was him. Your eyes met Aaron’s dark ones, and even if your heart started racing, both of you pretended not to be anything more than strangers.

“Fair warning, though. I can be pretty competitive,” he added, the ghost of a smile on his handsome face.

It was uncharacteristic of him to take such risks. Especially since his team was nearby, but having you so close rendered him helpless. Even you weren’t sure if this was a good idea — considering you were also hurt over how everything went down — but for the time being, you let it slide.

“Maybe,” you smirked just a little. “But you seem like the type that would still let me win.”

From the bar, you could hear a loud wolf-whistle, followed by giggling. You looked over to see your friends smiling knowingly in your direction. Phoebe wagged her eyebrows comically as Julia shot you a thumbs up.

You rolled your eyes playfully, blushing fiercely. Aaron found that an incredibly endearing sight, and his fingers twitched as he fought the need to reach out to you.

“Are you, um, sure this is okay?” You whispered.

He nodded with a small shrug. “Seeing such a pretty girl as yourself, well, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I’m sure that anyone could understand that.”

You huffed a little in amusement. “Just chatting me up is all?”

“I think I’m pretty lucky to just be talking to you.”

You looked back up at him then, and there was something dangerously close to affection in your gaze. There was yearning there too, clear as day.

He felt a pang of guilt. Was this even fair of him? Maybe he was a selfish man, subjecting you to such a confusing push and pull, but he was weak. He’d not lied once when he said he needed you, no matter how long the two of you spent apart.

He couldn’t get you out of his mind since the last time you saw each other. He wondered what you would get up to while he was away, hoping that you were doing well. It was incredibly hard not to reach out to you, to call just to hear your voice.

But he found some solace in the fact that he was doing his part — however small it may seem — to make the world a safer place, especially for you.

“Think you and your friends are gonna need a ride home later?” He asked, lining up his shot before throwing his first dart. “It’d be safer than a cab.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” you said, gazing intently at the look of concentration on his face.

Brows drawing together, eyes narrowing, tongue darting out to absently lick his lips. God, it was unfair how fucking hot he was.

“Why’s that?” He asked.

“Well, I guess for starters… I’m not letting you off the hook that easily this time,” you crossed your arms over your chest, but still trying to keep your posture casual for any onlookers. “And maybe you were right about me. Maybe I do want something more.”

You hadn’t known until that moment that you would finally be putting your foot down, but you were glad that you did.It was either everything or nothing, for the in between was too gruesome to live through.

Truthfully, that'd been on his mind a lot, too. How much he wanted to just cave in and officially make you his. Not being with you made less and less sense to him with each passing day.

Maybe it was the reason he’d stood up from his seat at the table that night, like it was fate.

He stepped to the side to let you throw, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“Well, that is a conversation that I want to re-open… if you’re still willing to have it,” he said, letting his eyes rake over you longingly. “And an apology on my part is due. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

You hummed in thought, not ready to relent yet. “Is it the begging kind of apology?”

“I can beg,” he said quickly. “On my knees and everything.”

“Cheeky,” you shook your head, unable to stop the smile that crept to your lips. “I’ll consider it if you buy me a drink.”

“Coming right up,” he said, also smiling. “Is this a bad time to say that you look ravishing when you’re angry at me?”

You glared at him half-heartedly, and he chuckled, making his way to the bar.

—---------------------------

Of course you caved. You always knew you would, but not too easily. And of course, not yet all the way.

When you finally made it back home – your friends also in the safety of their respective apartments – you didn’t let Aaron get past the foyer. He raised an eyebrow in question, and you crossed your arms over your chest, silently waiting. He took a step forward, almost as if to test you, but you did not waver.

You glanced down at the floor to clue him, tilting your head to the side in a silent dare to challenge you. Realization crossed his face and slowly, he sank down to his knees. What a marvelous sight he was, his face tilted up towards you, dark brown eyes glittering in the low light. There was hunger in his gaze, yes, as well as devotion. But there was also fear swimming in its depths, the kind you only find if you’re really looking.

You found it, too, in his pursed lips. He understood how precarious the situation was, and he’d probably not have another shot if things didn’t go well. He had to choose his words carefully.

“Something you wanna say?” You prompted, unrelenting.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. For a moment, you wanted to reach out and caress his face, to soothe him, but you promised yourself not to touch him until he begged.

“I want to say I’m sorry… but sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he started. “I was an absolute fool. I took you for granted, I let my fear and my pride get in the way, and toyed with you in the process. I did not appreciate you nearly as much as I should have… But my ultimate sin was letting you believe I did not care about you other than on a carnal level.”

He shut his eyes for a moment, regret all over his features. You balled your hands into tight fists to keep them from shaking, barely able to breathe.

“Every morning the sun sears the image of you in my mind, and every night your voice plagues my dreams. It feels as though I am losing my mind,” he chuckled a little, shaking his head in disbelief. “And that’s why I’m fucking terrified. What the hell am I supposed to do if something were to happen to you? How the hell am I supposed to go on?”

You inched closer, the need to touch him almost overbearing. Your heart brimmed with an influx of emotions you could barely describe, coursing through you with every rapid beat.

“I’ve admitted that I am a fool, but I am a lovesick fool. So please, if you could find it in you to forgive me, I promise to make it all up to you. Today, tomorrow and everyday.”

“No more secrets? No more games?” You asked, voice low and hopeful.

He nodded eagerly. You extended your hand out to him, and he took it, kissing your knuckles reverently.

“I’m scared, too,” you admitted, not letting go of his hand. “But we cannot control everything, darling mine. To love is to risk heartbreak, you know, but it is a risk I’m more than willing to take if it means I get to be by your side. That’s a choice no one can take from me.”

“So that means you love me?”

“Yes, and that is why I do forgive you,” you said, bending down to place a gentle kiss on his lips. “Though I do think the begging really helped. I kinda like seeing you on your knees.”

Both of you chuckled, and you finally let him stand. He dove forward to kiss you feverishly, one hand holding the back of your head while the other snaked around your middle, pressing you flush against him.

“I love you, too,” he whispered against your lips, pulling back only to rest his forehead against yours. “And I’m going to spend my days making sure you never forget it.”

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #ssa aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #aaron hotchner angst #hotch #minors dni

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faeriexqueen · 3 years

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Labyrinth 30 Day Challenge (Days 16 - 22)

(*Answering in a batch again!)

16 - Favorite photo.

There are many photos I love, but being that I am weak for anything involving dancing and a ballroom, this photo is a particular favorite.

17 - Is there something in the story that wasn’t so clear that you wanted to know?

I teeter on this. On one end, I do wish we knew more about Jareth - but at the same time, the mystery surrounding him and ambiguity is a huge part of the appeal for me with his character. If there’s one thing I had to nitpick, maybe it was looking at the significance of the play Sarah had and where that came from - but in the original script, it was from Jareth, so I don’t think it’s that much a deep mystery. Honestly, I’m content with the story as is.

18 - Who do you wish the goblin king would take away?

I joke about how I want to be taken away. Get me out of this country and away from my student debt. XD (But truth be told, I would not want to leave my cat. The cat would have to come.) In terms of who I would wish away as something unwanted - I mean, no one? Unless they want to be wished away. I’ll do the deed. XD

19 - Do you agree with Sarah’s answer to Jareth’s offer? Why?

From a wish fulfillment perspective and based off the desire of 4-year-old me who was deeply invested in them as a couple, the short answer would be I wish she had accepted. However, from a plot and story perspective, I absolutely agree with her choice to deny him and return to the Aboveground with Toby. I think it was very crucial to her character development and helped the story and her own arc come full circle, especially in terms of her maturing. Labyrinth to me has always been, before anything else, something of a coming-of-age fantasy. And a really key component of those stories is sometimes walking away for things that aren’t right at that moment.

20 - Would you accept Jareth’s offer?

To be honest, it would depend on so many factors. In theory, I might want to, but I would be wary of the repercussions of doing so.

21 - Do you think Jareth really fell for Sarah?

I think he definitely felt something - whether it be love, admiration, or something more like desire/yearning. To me, Sarah represents what Jareth isn’t and what he can’t have - so there’s a little bit of tragedy there for me (when I read into it, at least.)

22 - Do you have any Labyrinth stuff? Toys, shirts, etc?

I have The Goblins of Labyrinth art book by Brian Froud and Terry Jones, as well as Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History. Aside from those, I don’t have specific Labyrinth merchandise aside from some candles on Esty made inspired after Jareth and the film (I also have a barn owl drawing I got because it made me think of Jareth’s owl form.) That’s it, though I’d like to get more things eventually. ^^

Days 01 - 07. Day 08. Days 09 - 15.

#labyrinth 30 day challenge #labyrinth #30 day challenge #answers

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maybe-homestuck-now-or-something · 3 years

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I wanna connect the ideas in this post with the ideas in this post because they seem relevant to each other.

to give a basic idea of what's in each one, the first is a post that talks about how homestuck is notable as a creative work that effectively uses the language and format of the internet, in a way that resonates well with people who grew up online. my addition extrapolates to talk about how this quality also made homestuck's style of content creation appealing for others to use, and spawned a lot of creativity from the fans. basically, homestuck is a collage, not just of images, but of methods for delivering information to the audience. it uses a broad variety of experimental techniques, but the purpose of them is to make storytelling accessible. in order to convey an idea, you can use any method you want... whatever suits your purposes. by constantly varying the type of art, writing, and formatting that the story uses, it keeps the story from getting boring for the author and the audience. varying the quality and style of the visual art also implicitly accepts and encourages any kind of artwork, at any level of skill or effort, from fans. and at the same time, the story pioneers new techniques that I legitimately haven't seen used before. at some points it even leverages the design of the web page itself to service the story... it's awesome. this gets people thinking about how to tell stories in non-traditional ways, and further encourages the act of being experimental with your storytelling methods, and having fun exploring your chosen medium.

the second link is mostly just me talking about the merits of homestuck's early acts, and at one point I put a particular focus on the idea of science in homestuck. specifically, I was talking about how homestuck handles science in a way that feels very childlike, which is a positive remark. when you're learning about science in school as a kid, efforts are made to present the material in a way that is fun and interesting... and you're given a lot of tools for exploration within the context of science classes, which a lot of people don't really experience having outside of a school setting, if they aren't going into some branch of science for their career. I was observing that homestuck's aesthetic kind of calls to mind the feel of learning about science as a kid... something about the stark readability of the objects and characters, and the bright color coding of things that are important.

the connection I want to make between these two posts is that homestuck hinges a lot of its interest on the concepts of exploration, and creation. it holistically includes a lot of different themes and ideas, and it does it in such a way where the characters don't have to make it explicit... more often than not, you'll end up thinking of it yourself. homestuck simply introduces elements, and lets you form your own ideas. it puts a lot of stuff out there, and links it all together in this messy web of interconnectivity.

for example, check out this post where I added some commentary about the punch card alchemy system, and how it links the concepts of technology and philosophy. the idea is that captchas determine your humanity... but unlike real captchas, which do this by making you read something that a computer can't read, it instead makes you think in a way that a computer can't think. in order to give you access to items, this crafting system requires philosophical justification for the creation of said items. grist isn't just made up currency that exists to make you work for what you make... the amount of it that it takes to make something is only high if you think that the object you're making should be too powerful or important to be gotten for cheap. you prove your humanity by having a psychology that can assign the object meaning, and thus, value.

or what about the broader themes of biology and mythology in homestuck? there are many mentions of genetics... the goal of the game is to produce a universe via breeding, and there are the origins of each of the kids, or the fact that the chess pieces that fight on Skaia's battlefield are made in test tubes in the labs in the furthest ring... etc. but this theme also exists symbolically in the players of each session. they are people who bring their identity with them into the process of making a new universe. each player is given their own planet, which is responsive to the person it's meant for, and features a personal quest for them. and once the new universe is made, the players will preside over it as deities, and help define its culture with their values, interests, and personalities. in this way, homestuck blends the concepts of biology and mythology. in a biological sense, the kids provide the universe with traits. if they are strong/adaptable/resourceful enough to win their game, they get to pass on their influence to a universe of their own. this is why it is relevant that all the players' chumhandle initials are some combination of A, C, T, and G, which are the letters denoting nucleotide bases in DNA. but this concept also applies to heroes going through trials or completing quests to prove themselves worthy of being known as heroes. SBURB's lore automatically mythologizes the players in the role of legendary heroes to the consorts and carapacians, which pushes them to step up to the task of earning their title, and in doing so, complete the game's objectives... and the game gives them the tools to do it.

really, science, mythology, and religion all wrap into each other here in terms of the way things are named and explained. the punch card system and the frog breeding are both referred to as "alchemy" at various points, which indicates both magical and scientific roots. and the highest title that the players aspire to obtain in the game is "god tier" which implies a sort of religious connection between the players and the game's native characters who know them as legends. the magical abilities that the characters display are ambiguous as to whether they are magical, divine, or something else entirely. a lot of them are defined heavily by a character's personality and identity. the malleability of the different elements that homestuck juggles works entirely in its favor... and all of it is geared towards this sense of growth and creativity.

in homestuck, these things exist on micro and macro levels. the growth of one kid into a slightly different person as they get older, vs. the growth of an entity that will encapsulate the universe. the creation of a piece of music, a drawing, a story, a machine, a person, a plan, a planet... it all just keeps escalating, but it's all rooted in specific characters doing specific things, so we don't get lost in it all. the characters bring it all back around, letting us focus on their smaller actions while the bigger plot remains in motion. and all of this exists at the same time as all the surface level reasons to enjoy homestuck. the comic is funny, and charming, and made to be enjoyable as that. but the fact that the broader elements color the tone of it all, leaves you with the impression that there is a lot of potential in every situation. potential places for the characters to go, or things for them to do, or people for them to talk to, or things for them to make, or even ways to grow and change themselves.

and there's potential for you too. you could throw your ideas at the wall to see what sticks in this exact same way. part of reading homestuck is feeling a sense of recognition and identification with the characters. many of them are based broadly on the kinds of people who make up homestuck's audience. with interests in things like music, art, writing, RPing, programming, playing games, watching movies... they're meant to represent you, in part as parody, but in part as a way to make you feel seen and included in this narrative. as lofty as some of these concepts may seem, the people who engage with them in the text are a bunch of dumb awkward teens. you are at least as accepted as they are, and people love these characters a lot, often in spite of/because of a lot of cringey qualities or major character flaws. homestuck is here to tell you not to be self conscious. play around with your world. make your art. write your story. think your thoughts. be funny and laugh at stuff. don't be afraid of doing it badly.

this is what an accessible creative process looks like.

#homestuck #my rant

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zoppzoop · 3 years

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12! 14! 18!

if you could change one ending to a book/show/game/etc, what would you change about it?

Hmm I'm almost always happy with the endings for stuff but if there's sth I would like to change about may piece of media, it would depend on whether it was a unexplained ending or not.

Like if it ends ambiguously and leaves it up to the veiwers interpretation I just cry a little on the inside before doing a deep dive into the theories made by the fandom lmfao

But like i get the appeal of ambiguous endings tho. Like I read a few fic with open endings and simply because of that and how much I had to think about it to satisfy myself, they kinda stuck around in my mind.

name a fandom, ship, or character that you love that others would send you hate mail for liking.

,,, uhh I can't really think of any off the top of my head but shigadeku I guess? I read this one fic a while ago and it stuck with me so yea. The concept's pretty good.

characters you want to wrap in a blanket and tell them they’re going to be okay?

This is a very long list of at least 75% of the characters in bnha but like I guess the main focus characters in it and inko.

Send me some fandom asks ✨

#bug ᕙ(⇀v↼‶)ᕗ

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soulvomit · 4 years

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I really struggle with all discourse about children’s works, but ESPECIALLY The Giving Tree. It’s like having an opinion about a culture you weren’t raised in and ALL you can ever have is an outsider view.

One of the reasons I’m struggling with Giving Tree Discourse has to do with the way I was raised with regard to children’s works. In my own house - the assumption would have been that any books that are ambiguous, that bring up lots of different feelings for lots of different people, would be discussed, and the feelings that they brought up, would be discussed. And this was just assumed to be... all books? I was taught early that EVERYTHING is Your Mileage May Vary? My parents were actually aggressive deprogrammers when it came to messages that I took away from media. Mainstream media often made me feel shitty, ESPECIALLY because of legacy 50s programming on network tv, and because of 80s programming about Perfect Happy Families. My parents were *always* pointing out that stuff I read about or watched, wasn’t real life... from day one. Also, partially due to atheist upbringing, there are very few instances in which I experienced any one book being forced on me as any kind of required foundational pedagogy. There is NO book that I was required to read. (Part of this is that I loved to read so much that I just read a lot of stuff on my own. I did not really get into fiction until my vocabulary and reading abilities caught up to classic fiction and adult works, and my adult figures’ whole focus of teaching me how to read was about getting me up to speed to at least read Steinbeck. Children’s literature *only existed for purposes of teaching reading and grammar* and wasn’t an end to itself, and was supposed to be a temporary, transitory phase until my reading skills got better.) For whatever reason - The Giving Tree is a book that neither upset me, nor particularly appealed to me. It’s not my favorite Silverstein work by a long shot. The one that always spoke to me? Powerfully? The Missing Piece. (I don’t have much experience with Silverstein being rammed down my throat or spoonfed to me, in any case. NO BOOK WAS.)

Like a lot of children’s books, I was neutral on The Giving Tree. There are a whole lot of semi-contemporary kids’ works (as in, written in the 1960s-70s) that just totally missed me.

And I didn’t really come to appreciate Shel Silverstein’s broader oeuvre until adulthood. The only thing I was ever given anything resembling “classical pedagogy” on, was math, because it’s the one thing I wouldn’t study on my own. I was basically encouraged to just study whatever I wanted and if I had a particular interest, my parents got me books on it (that were often above my grade level) and encouraged me to read them and ask questions, and they taught me early on to look up words I didn’t know. Almost all of the books that I liked reading were for older kids (and later, adults). I was actually exposed to classic fantasy work and Grimm’s Fairy Tales before any of the Bowdlerized versions. Because of my limited contact with other children, I just didn’t even know that other kids weren’t being raised in the same world that I was raised in, or reading any of the same material. I only knew that I was different from other kids in ways that made their parents uncomfortable.

My parents were very, very specifically opposed to certain things that are in standard public school pedagogy, and felt that those things destroy children’s minds. Somehow my household managed to not rear me on 20th century children’s material almost at all and barely even any postwar or later 20th century adult fiction (before my dad got me into sci fi). Somehow fairy tales seemed to just... miss me. They weren’t interesting especially because I KNEW they were Bowdlerized, and my parents didn’t push me to read stuff I wasn’t interested in. (But I liked Disney movies for the drama, the songs, and the fancy dresses.) My parents' thing was to let me read whatever I wanted - they simply wouldn’t keep books in the house that they didn’t want me to read - and to make themselves available to any questions I had.

My schooling experience is weird, too. When I was in school (before middle school, because I WANTED to go to middle school), it wasn’t with a lot of consistency, so - whatever social noise was going on between teachers and students, *shrug.* Lots of it missed me. My parents provided a lot of buffer between what was going on at school, and my home life. Anything that got discussed in school, was being countered by my parents’ own programming. So... The thing with books like The Giving Tree is that I’m not used to them being *taught out of.* This is not how my parents used fiction books, and I wasn’t in very many environments consistently enough for the schools to do that, either. I’m not used to any particular book being forced on me as a training manual. That was my parents’ job and their job only and that was a rule in my house. They didn’t rely on media to teach me sharing, that was *their job* and it wasn’t via abstract “let’s have a lesson about sharing.” (Very few things were “lessons” or taught “school style” that weren’t specific academic topics. My parents were into reinforcement and modeling.) Sharing is something that was modeled at the dinner table, for example. Also my mom is a hardcore rationer, and my family was poor for the first half of my childhood, so my understanding of sharing was rooted in pragmatic sharing of resources, as opposed to kids sharing their toys. I was even raised *not to eat in public* because it was rude to eat in front of people if you weren’t sharing your food. And I really feel that a lot of The Discourse around kids’ media comes from the broader culture and its institutions, relying upon mass media to model for kids what parents and schools are no longer able to model. This is the framework everyone is approaching this book from - not as a book on its own merits, but pro-con in terms of its use as an instrument of pedagogy and social modeling that is totally alien to how I was raised to approach any book. They wanted me to question everything I read. I was actually much more reinforced to read science and history material. Another thing is that as an advanced reader, I didn’t enjoy reading children’s work, and came to despise children’s media BECAUSE of the overbearing modeling in it. It was transparent to me and put me right off, and... lots is aimed at middle class WASP kids’ life experiences, in ways that most people don’t realize. (Sometimes I feel like a lot of standard pedagogy, and standard American kids’ writing, is about SLOWING KIDS DOWN and rationing the amount of information they have access to.) And I’ll say that class is actually a big issue. I lived in a poor urban area and was an advanced reader, so the material dangers presented in a 19th century or early 20th century work were actually more relatable to my real world. I FUCKING HATED POSTWAR PERFECT HAPPY FAMILIES CRAP. My family was weird as fuck, and lots of my family was poor as fuck, and all of us were dysfunctional as fuck. This meant I found mainstream shit TOTALLY ALIENATING AND OTHERING and it only reinforced to me how abnormal my family was. (In fact, I didn’t come to discover how normal we really were for a long time... that most families are “dysfunctional” - and that what’s being measured as “normal” is 100% specific to the propagandized optic of middle class white Christian families.) Mainstream children’s work only made me feel bad about my family and about myself, and I started shunning practically anything that other kids were into, or even discussing. Mainstream kids’ works made me feel suicidal, whereas adult works made my imagination soar. (The irony is that Shel Silverstein is one of the few writers that I actually felt *got* me on some level. I think there is a way in which I picked up on the author’s own “otherness” and connected it to my own.)

This is a case where my background is so different from most people’s that even approaching this discourse, is like trying to discuss specific American problems from the inside, when you were raised outside and have no idea what half of the discussions even are. And when I discuss the kids’ books that people are talking about, it’s not even possible for me to come at it from the viewpoint other people do, because that’s not the way ANY book was ever presented to me... and furthermore, my parents felt that it’s parents’ job to teach their children and model social behavior to them, not schools’.

I am just so outside of this discourse that I don’t even know how to approach it. I also don’t know how I feel about the fact that many people are being traumatized by his work because they were forced to read it as Christian-reared children who took different messages away from it than I took, as a secular Jew reading a secular Jew’s work. That makes me have really strong feelings about removing his work, tbh. I don’t know how to feel about this at all. Is there a way that we have to write for children who are Christian-reared, because they will parse some things traumatically? Where does this leave Jewish writers, or outsider writers? Do only specific people get to write for children? This. is. so. complicated.

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cupofsorrows · 5 years

Text

A Conceptual Post About Pokémon as D&D Monsters

I know, I know, it’s been done before, but I’ve been having a lot of ideas about D&D lately and it occurred to me that it might be fun to try to adapt Pokemon to the standard dnd setting(s) - that is, not just copying them wholesale as in, “you open the dungeon door and see a pikachu” but taking the concept of the creature and placing it in your world as something that genuinely belonged there. Like, say, You confront your party with a large turtle-monster that sprays high-powered water jets as its primary mode of attack. It’s essentially a blastoise, but that isn’t what it’s called and it doesn’t necessarily have to follow the rules that an actual blastoise would in the pokemon games. I’ve seen pokemon stat block writeups before, but they’re usually pretty straightforward “this is a psyduck” type deals, and what I’m interested in is retooling the monster to fit in a different world (while keeping the core of it intact). What’s it called (if it has a different name)? Where does it come from in your world, and where does it live? If the original had evolutions, does this version? Lots of potential there. To that end, here are a few pokemon that I think have particularly interesting concepts:

Phantump: Honestly all of the ghost pokemon have interesting concepts but I didn’t want to have a disproportionate number of ghost-types so I chose this one. Core concept is a furtive little forest spirit that uses old tree stumps (or perhaps fallen logs) as surrogate bodies/protective shells. Canon lore says they’re supposedly the spirits of children who died in the forest, so take or leave that as you please. Now, none of these suggestions have to look exactly like their inspirations as long as they convey the idea - for instance I sort of imagine these guys as little humanoid figures made of gnarled wood, which also gives me distinct skull-kid-from-LoZ vibes (but maybe that should be a separate post...)

Heliolisk: I don’t really know what drew me to this critter in particular, except that ‘solar-powered lizard that can shoot electricity and stuff’ is just a good creature to put in a made-up world (probably in a desert region). It even has “-lisk” in its name, like the more infamous basilisk, so it already sounds like it SHOULD be a mythical creature. As I’m writing this I realize that it strongly resembles the already-in-dnd shocker lizard, but come on, this thing is way more badass. Also I was just reading about it on Bulbapedia and apparently it can run super-fast? so... that’s in there, too.

Snorlax or Slaking: Look I just like the concept of a big hairy beast that’s super strong but spends almost all of its time asleep. Not even sure that would affect its stats but it’s great flavor.

Zygarde: A host of tiny organisms - maybe even single-celled - which can come together to form larger gestalt creatures (most famously a massive serpent/worm, but even more powerful forms may be possible). Should be a very powerful, possibly unique, individual, since it is a legendary pokemon.

Dhelmise: Sentient algae that uses marine detritus as a ‘skeleton’? The ghost type delivers again! I imagine that before humans were responsible for so much stuff being in the ocean these must have used a lot of animal bones (and maybe some driftwood) instead.

Seismitoad: I think there are already frog monsters with sonic attacks, but that was only half of the appeal for me here, the other half being ‘large bipedal frog’. I hold this as being very different from bullywugs, grippli, or any other amphibian-based humanoids: While froglike, those are all still fundamentally types of people, whereas this beast is first and foremost a frog. A frog that walks upright and has opposable thumbs. This also works with poliwhirl/poliwrath and croagunk/toxicroak, but then the sonic/vibration stuff won this one out for me by a slim margin. (Addendum: I have come to the realization that seismitoad and croagunk don’t actually have opposable thumbs according to their artwork. Whatever, just fudge it.)

Tropius: This one’s just plain weird. Like, almost exeggcutor-level weird (dang, maybe I should have chosen exeggcutor instead. But tropius is less famously weird. Side note: what’s up with pokemon based on palmlike plants?) It’s part small sauropod dinosaur, part banana tree, and while I’m not sure whether it should be classified as a plant or not, I do know that it can definitely fly. Also, it produces delicious fruit you can eat!

Parasect: You probably figured I was going to mention this one. Everyone thinks of paras and parasect when they think of pokemon with weird but cool concepts. MY take is that the fungus could infest different types of giant vermin, perhaps making it the basis for a template. Or not; these are just suggestions. Do whatever.

Larvesta and Volcarona: Maybe I’m just on a kick from all the GKOTM fanart I’ve been seeing, but giant fire-spitting caterpillar + giant fiery moth adult seems like a creature idea worth exploring. Larvesta also takes longer to evolve than any other stage-one pokemon, which I see as representing a long time spent in larval form (or pupated), which in turn resembles kaiju’s long periods of ‘dormancy’, bringing us back to Mothra (as all things must). Also, I think larvesta/volcarona are the only bug/fire types in the whole series so far? That’s nuts to me but it just makes them even more special.

Abra: Honestly the way this guy looks is like 90% of the appeal for me here. Abra looks like an armadillo tried to evolve into a monkey and somehow ended up with psychic powers in the process. It levitates and teleports, and according to the lore it’s usually asleep but thanks to its psychic powers is still aware of its surroundings. That’s right, its eyes aren’t really narrow, they’re just closed all the time. Do any images of abra with its eyes open exist? If they do, are we prepared to see them? As always, don’t feel like you have to give any of these guys evolved forms just because they evolve in the games. I’m definitely not saying this here specifically because I like abra’s design more than its evolutions, no sir.

Pinsir or Heracross: Pretty much the same as with the toads a few entries above. Clearly not people, but just vaguely reminiscent enough to maybe be just a little unsettling. C’mon, I know they’re cute in the games and the show but tell me you wouldn’t be at least slightly perturbed if you saw a real-life beetle the size of a 10-year-old trundling around on two legs. Even if you thought it was rad as hell you’d still get out of there pretty quick if it started trundling towards you.

Slowpoke: Listen if you don’t get the appeal of a semi-aquatic, ambiguously mammalian quadruped that has psychic capabilities but is also comically oblivious to external stimuli then I just don’t know what to tell you.

Barbaracle: Colonial organism sort of like Zygarde, except the individual parts are bigger. It could even be modular, with the various ‘limbs’ combining in different ways, although that could also complicate the stat block.

Gothitelle: Conceptually I suppose this is just another humanoid psychic creature, but a while ago I saw someone point out how its frills and whatnot are sort of reminiscent of a sea slug, and damned if ‘anthropomorphic nudibranch’ doesn’t get my blood flowing.

Rapidash: Pretty simple, a unicorn variant/non-evil fire horse. Who wouldn’t want one of those?

Necrozma: I never actually played Sun and Moon 2, nor did I get too deep into the postgame ultra beast stuff in SuMo 1, so regrettably I missed out on a lot of the wonderful interdimensional weirdness. While each ultra beast is appealing in its own way, Necrozma is practically a Lovecraftian Great Old One already what with how it was once an interstellar being of heat and light but was somehow injured or depleted and has now become a completely different creature that travels from world to world absorbing all light. That’s a pretty raw concept for any story, let alone a cute kid’s game. And it’s always a plus when something can be cool and threatening while still being safe for a G rating! You could also do what SuMo2 did and take your heroes to a world that’s already had its light stolen by the beast, to explore how the inhabitants of that world have been affected as well as show what awaits the heroes’ world... or just as a nice change of scenery. Lastly there’s the possibility that Necrozma must ultimately be defeated not through violence, but by figuring out how to restore it to its original form. It isn’t too often that the cosmic monstrosity could actually use your help, and it might leave the PCs feeling like they really accomplished something epic. Alternately, it returning to its original form also makes a great homage to the multiple forms of every JRPG final boss ever, a trope that has been under-represented in D&D for TOO LONG.

...and that’s it, at least for now. Naturally, there are about a thousand other possibilities, including different ways of interpreting the examples I’ve provided here. I suppose they could also be used for purposes besides D&D, although if you’re going to put any of this in the fantasy novel you’ve been working on I suggest you be extra diligent in obfuscating the creatures’ actual origins so as to avoid a visit from any lawyers. I don’t know if anybody is actually even going to see this post at all, but if it does end up getting around, then I fully encourage all of you to put your own spins on this if you’re inspired to do so! I’d love to see what other people might come up with.

#pokemon #dnd #d&d #creature design #monsters

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marshmallowgoop · 5 years

Photo

This is something I should have edited together.

So here it is: (a lot of!) the sweet messages I’ve received in the last month or so that are in direct response to my anonymous hate mail.

I don’t know how true it is, but I’ve heard it said that humans are remarkably negative creatures, and it takes so many more positive experiences to balance out just one negative experience. And maybe it’s not that universal a thing, but I can say that it sure feels relevant to my own life.

So, I think it’s important to remind myself that, no matter how much it seems like it’s so easy to attack me but so difficult to support me, I’ve actually received far more kind messages than cruel messages throughout this whole mess. And the kind messages are so much more thoughtful, too—and often attached to real names!

And... I think that says something when I’m as cringey and humiliating as I am. These folks aren’t too ashamed to say that they’re here for me and what I do.

(But that said, I have removed names from anything that wasn’t a reblog or reply because I don’t want to embarrass anyone. Please let me know if you don’t want your words here at all, and I’ll blur them out. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.)

There’s some stuff I want to address under the cut—along with a transcript if anyone is interested in reading these words but has trouble with the screenshots—but more important than any of my ramblings to follow, I want to thank everyone who took the time to write out these supportive sentiments and who continues to support me. I know these meltdowns are a drag, and I know I’ve been a nuisance. Thank you for sticking with me. I aim to be better and live up to what these messages say.

First things first, I want to clarify why I posted the collage of all the hate the other day. I didn’t approach that well, and I’m sorry. I realized too late that it was a bad decision.

Really, that collage was more meant just for me. Maybe it’s sad, but I’ve been actively writing on this site for a good half decade now, and for a lot of that time, I’ve almost craved anon hate. I was disappointed that I never got any. I wondered what the heck I was doing wrong.

After all, I have so many unpopular opinions. I realized that a lot of the community disliked me—or if that’s too strong a word, I knew they didn’t want anything to do with me—because of what I think and how I feel. But they never wanted to voice anything to my face. I wasn’t worth the effort to be attacked. I was nothing. Nobody.

There’s this quote from Tibor Kalman that I think about a lot: “[W]hen you make something no one hates, no one loves it.” If no one hated me enough to hate me right to my face, I thought, then I wasn’t good enough. I was boring. Easily forgotten. Not worth the effort.

So, getting all that anon hate for the first time? God, it hurt. It hurt so bad. Getting everything I’d always feared the community hated about me—as well as things I didn’t even consider them hating about me—right in my inbox? Ow. I cried a lot. I wanted to burn everything I ever wrote a lot. I wanted to quit making stuff for this community a lot.

What’s the use? I thought—selfishly, of course, keeping in mind all the support up above. Why do I try? It was cruel and unfair, but I kept thinking these things. I kept thinking, What’s the use when nobody wants me here?

But I also thought about the implications of getting all that stuff thrown at me. And I knew it meant one thing: I’m not boring anymore.

There is at least one person out there who frequently checks my blog for more things to rail on me for. There is at least one person going out of their way to write nasty, awful, mean-spirited messages. There is at least one person eagerly waiting for me to respond, to say something, anything, so that they can hurt me and drag me and push me down.

After all these years, to at least one person, I’m worth the effort. No matter how much the messages have stung and destroyed me, I wanted to keep a record of them to remind myself, hey. Someone or someones out there hate(s) me this much for having a different opinion on a cartoon. Maybe that says that my opinions on this cartoon are worth something.

I mean, they’re worth this level of mocking and ridicule, right?

But... I could have just kept the collage to myself. It’s a personal motivation. Nobody else needs to see these terrible things. That just encourages the cruelty even more. Why did I publicize it?

Well, it’s not too uncommon for Internet content creators to make something out of their hate comments. I like the trend of turning the comments into songs, like here, for example:

youtube

At the end of the video, Madilyn Bailey, the artist, says that the purpose of the song is to mock Internet troll culture and make something positive from the negativity.

But I wouldn’t say that that was really my motivation for posting my collage. Call me silly and naive, but I wanted to draw attention to these Internet fandom issues. Everything in that collage is what I was having to deal with... on top of my normal life struggles.

While all of this was happening, I was tapering off my anxiety and depression medication because I felt it wasn’t as effective as it could be and because I feared it was making me lose my hair—something that I am extremely self-conscious about. I cut my hair short nearly a decade ago, and it’s never grown back to the same length.

So, needless to say, while all of this was happening, I was horrified about the big clumps of hair lost in the shower. I was dealing with lightheadedness and dizziness from the withdrawal of my meds (which I’m still dealing with, btw), and I was also dealing with stresses at work. My department has changed management within the last year, and there’s been the concern that people will lose their jobs. There’s been the concern that this occupation won’t be enough to support me anymore.

While all of this was happening, I was stressed about my career, about money, about growing older—the beginning of the anon hate assault was just days before my birthday. I couldn’t see my therapist as much as I wanted because there ain’t enough therapists out there for all this world’s issues.

And while I know that I shouldn’t compare, I also know well that my struggles are nothing compared to the struggles of others. So, how must it feel to deal with all the crap that life just normally throws at you, that’s probably a lot worse for most people than it is for me... and then come home to messages that treat you like a disgusting, horrible, awful human being for your feelings on a cartoon? For work you offer to a community for free and fun?

For answers to questions that you only answered because you were asked to?!

Well, it felt pretty bad to me.

When I posted my collage, I meant to send a message about how this is not okay. I don’t want to see this kind of behavior, and I’m bothered that I don’t know how normal or common what happened to me is. Is this an everyday occurrence for online content creators? Have I just been shielded all these years because I wasn’t interesting enough?

I hoped that by sharing what I was going through, it’d draw attention to the problem. We shouldn’t be treating our fandom content creators like this. It’s not fair. It’s sick.

Of course, I don’t want to guilt anyone into supporting me. I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t criticize me. I don’t want anyone to feel that, just because I was dealing with a Lot in life, any poor behavior on my part is somehow okay. It isn’t.

The comments that probably hurt me the most in that collage aren’t even the “hate” ones. They’re the ones that express that I messed up. That I hurt them. I can’t say I agree with how these feelings were expressed, but more than any nasty, personally insulting message, those probably hit hardest. I hate the feeling that I’m disappointing my followers. In fact, in taking screenshots for this post, I saw that at least one of the people who had sent me a sweet message has since unfollowed. And that—the sense that I should just stop, that my work really is as horrible as the cruel anons say, that I’m no longer someone they want to support because I’m a disaster and a failure—that... really, really stung.

But as I’ve said before, I can’t blame anyone for leaving me after all this drama. It stinks. It sucks. I messed up. I try to be kind, respectful, considerate, but I’m not perfect, and there are gonna be mistakes along the way.

So I want to encourage—but only if you’re comfortable doing so, of course—more feedback about how to be better. How could I make my content more appealing? How could I handle these situations in ways that are less awful? Could I improve my post-tagging system? My therapist is helping me, but I’d like to hear from all y’all, too. I want to know how to make stuff that people actually enjoy. Anon hate doesn’t exactly help me make better content, but actual constructive feedback will. That’s what I want to see.

But enough bellyaching. Here are some posts I’m prioritizing right now, and I’d like to know which one folks would want to see most:

✄ “ambiguous” thoughts

✄ Ryuko stronger in episode 14, North Kanto monkey versus Osaka monkey

✄ Episode 6 ending

✄ Ryuko and Senketsu interactions

✄ Ripping out heart

✄ Satsuki’s isolation

✄ Things About: Senketsu, Satsuki, Mako, Tsumugu (maybe more?)

✄ Ryuko’s IF story, episodes 5-8

✄ Ryuko’s IF story, episodes 9-10

✄ Anime Revolution info

It’s a lot, I know ^^; And that’s not even close to all of it. But where should I start? Don’t worry; I intend to finish everything here—especially because a lot of these are old, old requests!—but I’m easily overwhelmed, so an idea of where to begin would be really helpful for me!

tl;dr, I shouldn’t have posted that thing the other day, and maybe this long vomit dump about my intentions doesn’t even come close to making up for it. But I want folks to know that I appreciate their support and would love any feedback about how to better serve the community and live up to these kind messages.

Which, speaking of, here’s a transcript of them:

“As a survivor that's ace I think you're handling the ragyo situation excellently and I'm really enjoying your blog so thank you!”

“Sorry you’re dealing with backlash in regards to your opinions and headcanons on Ragyo, dear! While I can’t really say much on the matter, I think it’s fair that you’re being open with us on how you feel and that you’re entitled to your opinion. Does that mean people will agree with you? No, but that’s okay! Or at the very last, it should be...but people can get heated when certain topics come up and that’s when it Gets Messy”

“There’s no right way to fandom, people jumping in your ask to belittle you are jerks. Tbh the first time I watched Kill La Kill I didn’t consider ryuko and senketsu relationship as romantic but after finding your writing and on subsequent watches I totally see it and like that’s the whole point of fandom right? A group of people who love a thing for varying reasons, I don’t understand this need to be monolithic in fandom. Anyways I love your writing and totally understand your frustrations of late”

“Guys, come on. It’s a work of fiction. People are allowed to like whatever they want to like. You don’t like that? That’s fine! But please, leave Goop alone for stating her mind and expressing how she feels about it. She wouldn’t hark you for your opinion because she’s fully aware of how could make you feel. She’s done nothing but pout her heart out about a series she loves, it’s her passion. If someone did that to YOU, you wouldn’t like it, now would you? (1/2)

“I know it’s not going to magically change overnight and everyone will say their peace to feel validated, but I just feel so bad that you’re getting all of this over things that you’ve previously talked about and STILL have to defend yourself for. Your opinion is yours, Goop, and don’t let ANYONE try to challenge that! (2/2)”

“Please don't be so hard on yourself! I understand why it makes you upset when people send hate and stuff but you shouldn't feel the need to justify every single word you say. I just wanted to let you know that I always adored everything you write and I'm completely on your side in all of this. :) I hope you feel better soon!”

“I think your takes are very good; but more important than everyone agreeing w/ everyone elses readings, I think, is that you are a very good writer of analysis and it would be a shame for you to falter in that because of ppls reactions to your content. anyone who harasses you about having the 'wrong opinions' about fiction needs to learn how analysis of fiction functions & find a better outlet :) you are very talented, Goop, please follow your true north!”

“People get hung up on weird things, like you can disagree with someone and not devolve to personal attacks??? Anyways I enjoy your klk content! I look forward to more analysis of the game!”

“man, i dunno why so many anons gotta be such massive jackasses, you don't deserve it. hell, i don't even ship ryuketsu (I lean towards a more queerplatonic partnership interpretation, and im generally allergic to romantic shipping anyways) and i still deeply appreciate the thought and research and care you put into your meta.”

“ik you don't want asks about this but as a sexual assault survivor you are absolutely valid on how you feel about Ragyo. I skip the bath scene on every rewatch, and I find her atrocious. The fact that people are attacking you for this is dumb.”

“Hey man you’re allowed to talk about who you want on your blog. It’s your shit. People are so entitled nowadays and can’t let people have opinions anymore. You’re not dumb, you’re not trying to be offensive. And it hurts seeing how you’re trying to be courteous and step on eggshells and still getting dragged. Like people are allowed to disagree but there’s no need to be rude to someone trying not to be rude. You’re literally saying an opinion. Everyone else relax, my dude. You’re fine.”

“It’s amazing how all these people can recognize ragyos terrible behavior but insist on having to defend her….”

“Just wanted to shout over all of this hate and say you have an amazing blog and you shouldn’t let this get you down. Keep doing what you’re doing because it’s legitimately awesome. Anyway that’s all I had to say. Keep being you.”

“Hey Goop. Just always remember that even if we're quieter, there will always be more people supporting you and loving you than people hating you. I really hope you don't let these anons destroy your health in a more permanent way. Keep up the good work!”

“Hello! Just wanted to say that I love your posts and analyses of klk so much! I love seeing how passionate you are about it (bc I am too) and I also ship Ryuketsu SUPER hard! I'm sorry if people are getting you down, but I hope you keep on doing your thing!”

trashcanalienist said: I agree with this so much

tolliver-j-mortaelwyver said: …don’t ever let someone else’s insecurities become part of you. 😉

official-raven-branwen reblogged this from marshmallowgoop and added:

Ya’ll got a problem with Goop, you can fuck outta here with that.

#Lookin at you anon

official-raven-branwen said: Why are people being mean to you??! Goop, please please please don’t ever think that your content isn’t wanted. If people are having an issue, that’s on them. They can fuck right off.

tolliver-j-mortaelwyver said: More Ryuketsu! Indeed!

kuribo4indahouse said: Kill la Kill needs you

csolarstorm said: Hey Goop, I sympathize. It’s never easy to share opinions about topics like this, because everyone has a different story, and they all want their story heard by others. I’ve found that you can’t accomodate everyone’s struggles - you can only speak for yourself. Keep on writing, I love Kill la Kill and Iook forward to reading your work.

official-raven-branwen said: You got this!

kuribo4indahouse said: Don’t worry, and don’t count out the possibility of becoming bigger over time!

gaylo-thymos said: Hell yea, you’re doing your very best to be out there and that’s what matters. Keep bein you!

darthvandr said: Well regardless of recent events, you’re one of my favorite blogs and I’d be sad if you left. So you just keep on being you!

kuribo4indahouse said:

Who the fuck wrote that lol

Are those even real people writing those messages? Who would be this rude over a TV show?

And then they call you “butthurt”… Any self awareness?

official-raven-branwen replied to your post “You’re so butthurt about this Ragyou thing. Get over yourself. So…”

You are awesome Goop! Don’t listen to those asshat anons. You rock and those anons mean nothing. You keep being you because you are enough!

Not sure why you have such awful anons. You are an awesome person. Please know that you opinions on stuff that you (very obviously) love are perfectly valid, because they are your opinions, on your own freaking blog. And to that anon that sent you that message, listen dude, if you don’t like the content Goop puts out, there’s the unfollow button right there champ.

eldritchgentleman reblogged your photo and added:

Fuck the opinions of others and enjoy what you love! They don’t own you, listening to them doesn’t make you happy so screw them with a pineapple.

simon-newman reblogged your photo and added:

Also Ryuko and Senketsu is a valid ship.

eric-coldfire reblogged your photo and added:

Absolute valid ship, op. Ignore the haters and keep being you.

kuribo4indahouse reblogged your post and added:

Just laugh at these Goop.

badgerjaw replied to your post “goops, you’re starting to stoop to the level of those that are bugging…”

I don’t think this anon knows what patronizing means, nor can they tell the difference between getting a big head and acknowledging the amount you do in this fandom. To each their own, nonny, cheers

badgerjaw replied to your post “You realize some of us don’t have Tumblr accounts, we’re coming over…”

At least the shirt in question can consent; wonder if these nonnies are gonna get on the people who abuse their non-sentient socks?

“I'm sorry. I don't always necessarily agree with the ideas, but I haven't been offended.”

“And I know you're like, you know, a reasonable, nice person. So even if you did say something that came off as offensive, I wouldn't be up in arms about it, you know?”

“Hey Goop, I know this is coming really late but here's what I wanted to say

“You didn't deserve any ounce of that anon hate.

“I'm just absolutely stunned. There was nothing wrong with what you posted. Not then, not now. Because all you were doing was expressing your OWN interpretations. You weren't trying to claim anything as set-in-stone fact

“And... I don't understand. I don't understand why people are SO angry that another person has an opinion they don't share. In the end, what are we talking about here? An anime...

“Don't get me wrong. The topics you discussed were indeed important to talk about, and fiction definitely does influence reality. But the fact of the matter is that, when it comes down to it, your posts were simply you sharing some headcanons about some characters from an anime

“And... when you look at the grand scheme of things, I really do think those anons are really quite pathetic. I mean. Consider what sort of person they have to be so get SO angry over a post like ‘Hey I think Ragyo might be ace’ and say ‘How can you be this STUPID Ragyo is OBVIOUSLY a lesbian and YOUR WHOLE BLOG IS A BAD TAKE’ like really?????

“Actually you didn't even say ‘Ragyo might be ace,’ it was more of a ‘I personally feel like Ragyo is ace’ and?? What's the issue with that?????/

“I'm sorry if I'm rambling but I'm so upset that you're upset cause of those anons and all the hate you got over NOTHING

“Also, don't discount the fact that there are indeed people out there who agree with you. I know you mentioned that you don't think anyone shares the same opinions on Ragyo as you do. But in all my years of following you, I've realized one thing

“You and I... have the same opinions on EVERYTHING????????

“But let me be clear. That's not why I support you. It doesn't matter if we have the same headcanons.

“Even if I disagreed with everything you said, I'd still support you. Because it's not the headcanons that matter—it's how respectful you are and how you're always trying to better yourself. You always try SO SO SO hard to express yourself in a reasonable and kind way, and you are always trying to be mindful of your wording and considerate of other people's opinions

“It really upsets me to see you apologize so much to people who don't deserve an apology.”

“Hi, Goop. I want to thank you for everything you do on this blog. I started getting into your Kill la Kill content in around 2016. I even keep a copy of your meta book downloaded on my phone to reread every now and then.

“I think what I like so much about your writing is how in-depth and supported and thoughtful it all is. Kill la Kill is so easy for people to write off as just a flashy, over the top, fanservice show. I think the biggest takeaway from the show is that it truly is a story about friendship and love, and I’m glad that you write so, so much about this. It always gets me all giddy and excited when I see you post something new or when you reblog your old stuff. I first watched the show in 2014, then I rewatched it two more times, knowing that I liked it, but not knowing exactly why.

“Until I started reading your blog. It’s really thanks to you that Kill la Kill is now my unbeatable, number one favorite anime ever.

“You put into words so eloquently what I’ve always felt towards Kill la Kill since I first watched it. I want you to know I really appreciate you. Please know you have my support, and I hope you keep doing what you love.”

“First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY~

“I just hope that anon finds something more fulfilling than spewing hate and nonsense. Like model trains, or magic tricks. I know my life got a lot more bright when I kept my nose out of people’s business and started focusing on the things I love to do.”

“I'm sorry that you have to deal with these trolls. :/ Some people just like to get a reaction.

“*would talk more but feels that the conversation is past its expiration*

“I respect you for expressing your opinion. Lord knows how illegal that is when insecure people get offended.”

“super late at night for me and I should be sleeping but I saw all your responses and how you tried to handle things and just felt really bad. You're in a situation that things just can't be solved with a simple logical response. Like I said sometimes people just have a view and when they disagree they just need to attack others who are part of that disagreement.”

kurouga replied to your post “[[MOR] I already knew people felt this way about me, but I guess…”

You don’t know if it needs you? At times like these I’d say the fandom doesn’t deserve you. It’s always mind-boggling – and yeah, saddening – to recognize how readily people forget how to be civil and begin to hold the meaning they see in fiction as more important than the feelings and experiences of others. Meanwhile you’re classy, humble, patient, and resilient enough to have retained these qualities where so many others… haven’t. Nothing short of inspiring.

I’d say it’s reflective of the cancerous state of fandom environments that it’s so much easier to win support with sweeping, neat and tidy divisiveness – that is, by resorting to discouraging, dismissing, or ridiculing differences in opinion – than it is to garner support as a thoughtful proponent of discussion.

Those who would argue “This fandom would be perfect if only those people who have other opinions/ships would just *stop* already” are those who would rather reign over a wasteland than accept that their views aren’t threatened/invalidated by the existence of differing views. And they almost certainly don’t appreciate the irony in that the perfect victory they envision is one in which what remains of the fandom is all cut from the same cloth. Never stop being you, goop.

“Hey uh saw that you're going through some brutal stuff with a anon. But I wanted you to know you're handling it like a champ and hopefully they'll get on with their life soon!”

“No problem I always look forward to getting notifications for your posts. It's kinda sad that you can't talk about opinions on here without someone getting upset but I hope that doesn't stop you from continuing!”

“You write a lot about things and you're sure to upset someone but at least you're being honest and always try to resolve disagreements realistically. I'm sorry that you're crying and all but I hope you do feel better soon! It's gonna be your birthday after all ✌️”

“I don’t know if I clicked the right button. Sorry. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really, really respect your work and to thank you, because you bring so much happiness to life of me and my other friends. Keep up with your good work and continue to share love for Kill La Kill and for t h e m. *salutes*”

“hey! heard you'd been getting shit lately from people deliberately seeking to misunderstand the work you've put into the KLK fandom over the years (doubt you'd remember me but i'm still [blurred for privacy] on AO3). even though i don't use tumblr anymore on a regular basis, of all the people i met and knew, even tangentially, in this fandom, you've always stuck out to me as one of the loveliest and most dedicated fans and my favorite meta writer, period. please keep it up!”

korra-n-stuff replied to your post “You realize some of us don’t have Tumblr accounts, we’re coming over…”

can these anons please go away? you’re wonderful goop, dont change. These people just has sticks in their asses

fromtheriverbanks replied to your post “Guys, come on. It’s a work of fiction. People are allowed to like…”

I love your analysis. I tend to agree with the stuff about Ryuko and Senketsu and think it’s a big part of what makes the show beautiful. If there were PhDs in Kill la Kill, you would deserve one.

#ramblings #shut up goop #goop makes a (kinda) personal post #the discourse #serious talk #a bit?#video #music #kill la kill #ish #tl;dr thank you everyone who has stuck with me #i'm sorry about being so dramatic #i have a really really really hard time getting over things but that's no excuse #i am going to try a lot harder to be better about all the bellyaching

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selfcallednowhere · 4 years

Text

March 2, 2018 Los Angeles, CA

They opened with "I Left My Body," and then came an amusing mix-up. The band was playing what was clearly the beginning of "Damn Good Times," and Flans started talking over it. "We're They Might Be Giants from Brooklyn, New York! We have a new album out and this is the single! It's called 'Why Does the Sun Shine?'!"

And then everyone stopped playing because of course "Why Does the Sun Shine?" wasn't the next song--y'know, as evidenced by the fact that they'd already started playing the next song and it was obviously not it. John said, "None of that was true. Not a single word of it. We are not They Might Be Giants." Flans: "Hi, we're Cheap Trick!"

So then they went back to playing what they were actually supposed to be playing. When I'm singing along at shows I normally always sing the lead part, but not on this one--I sing along with John's "Damn! Good times!" in the chorus because it's way more fun and also inevitably describes how I'm feeling right then.

"Why Does the Sun Shine?" actually was the next song up. John informed us that if the sun were hollow a million earths would fit inside "comfortably," and also that "Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom-smashing machine. They're wrong. But that's what they've found." Also, the heat and light of the sun were caused by the nuclear reaction between "hydrogen, something else, that guy, and everything."

Afterwards, Flans said, "We're frozen in time, but this audience seems more bearded than ever." Then he said that these are complicated, shitty times, and that they were surprised when their management told them they have a new album out. But they thought that was cool, and when they listened to the copies they gave them they discovered that it was "so much better than it had to be." Then he explained that they'd be playing two sets and we should "treat us like you would any other opener--with total emotional distance."

Flans introduced "Mrs. Bluebeard" by saying it was "the part of the show I've all been waiting for." I was looking forward to it too, because at this point I'd just become deeply curious about if John was ever going to manage to get the lyrics right. The correct answer to this question turned out to be NOPE. He messed it up yet again, though he at least managed to do better than the previous night, when some of the things he was singing weren't even words.

After they played "Your Racist Friend," Flans said that during the song he'd been "rocking out stage left" and he'd seen a guy who had his camera out but then had immediately put it away "like he expected me to go all Axl Rose on him." Then he said a thing he'd been joking about other times about how they wanted to encourage flash photography (joke though it may have been, it would've been about the only way one could reliably get decent pictures with the terrible backlit lighting setup they were using), and also if we were recording a bootleg we should send them a copy. He also said that if we had any work emails to catch up on we should feel free to go ahead and do it now.

Next they played "The Statue Got Me High"--on keyboard again, siiiiiiiigh. Once again it was too difficult for me to push past how upset I was about this to properly enjoy one of my all-time fav songs.

After that, John put the contra-alto clarinet on. Flans said that they wanted to thank their corporate sponsor, Microsoft, and that this was Clippy, the mascot of Microsoft Word. John said that he should have just left it at Microsoft, and Flans said he was leaving it at that, that this was all he was allowed to say. Then John told us that it was the contra-alto clarinet. "It's not legal unless you say the whole name." Flans said it was "unrelated to other contra groups," and John said it was "equally controversial." Then Flans said it would be implanting a tracking device in us.

So then they played "All Time What." The more I see that song live, the more I like it.

Afterwards, Flans said that normally he would ask John how his day was, but this time he didn't need to ask because they'd actually spent the whole day together. He said that they'd discussed some documentary about Chicago and "whether the moral ambiguity of Three Billboards was ok or not." Then John said that they'd met four Uber drivers, all of whom enjoyed the job, which surprised him. Flans said they all seemed to have post-doc educations and were interrupting their conversations to correct them about stuff--he said it had happened when they were discussing controlling children and also when they were discussing drugs.

Then John asked Flans if he was staring at his setlist to see what the next song was, and Flans said he absolutely wouldn't slow the show down by doing that (as if knowing what the next song is wasn't the entire purpose of them having setlists in the first place). Then John said the next song was in the movie Mayor of the Sunset Strip, and Flans said the reference was "for people who are old enough to know that Laugh-In wasn't funny." John: "I Think there are people who are old enough to be operating under the delusion that Laugh-In was funny." The song was "Bangs."

Next was "Hearing Aid," and after Flans said that they were "testing the threshold of the PA."

JL: I think I feel the subwoofers under me. JF: I think subwoofers are very expensive, John. *takes microphone off stand* When I take the mic off like this, do you feel like you're about to get a TED Talk? Disrupters. Next slide. JL: You thought this, but no, that. JF: A new way of making deals. They do the work, you make the money. It'll cost you a little to get in on this opportunity. JL: All we need is the kajillions of dollars that you all have. JF: We just need one investor, who has nothing but his Jimi Hendrix replica guitars. We actually did a TED Talk, and we were part of the "what's wrong with this picture" brigade. The theme of the weekend was "genius," which seemed a little fulsome, as my mother would say. We played at like 9 AM, and I was joking that we'd never played that early except at a librarian convention. And afterwards a librarian came up to me and said, "Libraries don't open at 9 AM."

John introduced "The Mesopotamians" by saying it was from "a TV show that was on very early, before Laugh-In."

Before "When the Lights Come On," Flans said that he "forgot if they had an intro to this song," and John said, "That was it right there. You just found it." GOD this song is SO FUCKING GOOD live. I'm so happy that they're playing it so much.

Next came "Nothing's Gonna Change my Clothes" (two completely glorious songs in a row!). All the times I've seen this one live, John sings it in the cadence of the demo, which makes me really happy because I love that version.

After that John held up his coffee and said "Mazel tov." Flans said he didn't think he'd ever heard him say that before, and John said Danny said that he'd said it a couple of days ago. He said Flans said he didn't think he'd ever heard him say it before that time too, but then he said he didn't remember saying it at all. Flans said it was like a KISS concert, with one of them saying over and over that they'd never played a certain song before (which of course made me think of "P.S.O.K."). Then he said that the other day on Twitter some Trump administration official had used the phrase "mazel tov cocktail," and "I salute their scrambled brain." John said that they were talking about all this unrelated stuff and someone had just yelled "We love you!" and it was as if they were saying "Come back!"

After "This Microphone," Flans introduced Curt and said he'd come from Connecticut on a minibike. Then he asked Marty if he was playing a hollowed-out orange, and then asked if he bought it that way or if it came in a kit, then asked him if his sponsor was here. Then Marty said it was supposed to stay on the drumstick, but he hadn't been able to get it to, and Flans said "So you did a mod. It's like a life hack." Then he said that Marty was "putting percussionists out of business."

Next they played "Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal," which remains one of the absolute show highlights for me with Curt there. Where we were standing there was a pole just to the right of John when he was at his keyboard, and I was bopping around so much during that song that I kept having the pole block my view of him. Being able to see him during shows is normally priority #1 for me, but I couldn't help it! That's just what that song + trumpet does to me!

They closed the first set with "Particle Man," and then returned for the Quiet Storm. They opened with "Older" as per usual. This time John was pointing at the crowd for parts of it as if he were Death himself (ala that one fantastic Mink Car promo picture).

After "I Like Fun," Flans said that they love the old songs, and they particularly love this one cos it's "so damn old." People were yelling things out, and Flans said "You can shout out all the names of what you think we're going to play and you'll be wrong." Then he said the song was full of "vitriol and unbridled hostility," which was very appealing to them.

So then they of course played "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," and then did an introduction to "James K. Polk" that was pretty similar to the night before: John said they'd be going all the way from the 1840 of that song into the future of 1844, with "self-driving beards and electric buggy whips," and then that the song wasn't letting their true feelings about its subject come across, which are that "he was a dick." Flans: "It's value-neutral...about someone who was a dick." Then Flans said that he was the reason where we are right now in California is a part of America, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

So next was "James K. Polk," of course. Right before the bridge, with Flans's solo, John did the silly thing he does sometimes where he says some variation of "John Flansburgh, explain!" Then, after Flans played the first half, he said, "I see, go on." There was also some quality spazziness during the last verse--he's often spazzy during that part, I'm not sure why but of course I love it.

Next they played "The Famous Polka."

JF: The only polka we know. People ask us how we sequence our songs--that was "Polk," and then "Polka." "Polk-a." JL: That was also a Radiohead album. JF: That was the good one. This next song is from the John Henry album. It's underrated. JL: I think it's overrated. JF: It's underrated by me. JL: It has a histogram like this. *holds hand up, then moves down, then across, then up again* There are super-haters, and super-lovers.

It made me sad to hear John call it overrated, since it's tied as my favorite album. I do think he's right about how polarizing it is within fandom though, but the "super-haters" are WRONG WRONG WRONG.

So then they played MY SONG. I swear to god, I could see that song at every single show I go to from here on out and it would never stop being an incredibly special experience for me. I just love the song so, so, so MUCH, and it's a really big deal for me to see them play it. I always cheer like crazy when it's over.

That was the last song of the Quiet Storm, followed by "Istanbul." Then Flans introduced "Bills, Bills, Bills" by fist talking about when they did "Tubthumping." He said that the list of songs the AV Club gave them was "notorious and vaguely dubious," and that they had to figure out "how to make it feel good" so they had the staff come in and sing it with them. Then he said that after that they the "opportunity" to come back a second time, and that there are "many reasons not to cover Destiny's Child," but that the song is so complicated that now that they've learned it they don't want to drop it from the set, like they did it in vaudeville. Then he explained that John will sing Beyonce's part and he'll sing Kelly's part, and that she's "my favorite child--I think they call them children--not that I'm an expert." Then he said that there was "the third one" whose name he couldn't remember, and John said "You have to love all your children the same." Then people were yelling that the third one's name is Michelle, and Flans said "Michelle! It's even in the song!" (I'm not sure what he meant by this.)

So then they played the song (I became a Flansgirl for the length of it as per usual), then "New York City," then "Birdhouse in Your Soul."

When John was getting his Kaoss Pad ready for "Wicked Little Critta," he said, "I pressed the button that makes the song happen." After that he was telling someone in front that he couldn't quite read what their homemade shirt said but that it was "freaking me out." I'm not sure what it said exactly, but then Flans said (apparently in response to it) "Two votes? But what about the midterms?" Then he said he needed one for his mom, and then I think the person must've been starting to take the shirt off, because Flans said, "No no no! My mom's in Florida! She can wait!"

After that Flans went back to his joke of the night before about Dan Miller being Tabitha on Bewitched, repeated almost word-for-word the same as the previous night (disillusioning!), but with the new addition this time that they'd added this "fact" to Wikipedia and no one had caught it yet.

After a run of a bunch of great songs that I don't have any special comments on ("Number Three," "Answer," "Twisting," and "Man, It's So Loud in Here"), they did band intros and then Flans thanked "all the lit majors in the audience" (which was random but did make this particular lit major feel pretty awesome!).

They closed the main set with "The Guitar," rockin' and fantastic as always. As bonuses it featured John (adorably) hopping and (adorably) waving during the "the lion waves good-bye" bit in the last verse.

When they came back for the first encore Flans made an announcement that was very exciting to me as a Pacific Northwesterner: that they'd be touring Canada later in the year. He said they're going to be "going to cities that are a mistake to go to." Then he talked about how they just got the I Like Fun vinyl, and that it resembles "a fireman's calendar from 2012."

Then:

JF: This next song is for everyone. JL: Well, almost everyone. *pause* I'm actually not sure what you mean by that. JF: I didn't want to say that it's for you. JL: Are we talking about the same song? JF: "Do They Know It's Christmas?"?

The next song was actually "Dead," so yes that was a mysterious comment to make! But anyway I was thrilled to see it again, and even more thrilled when they followed it up with "Don't Let's Start" again.

When they came back for the second encore Flans was taking a picture of the crowd with his phone, and John was goofily posing at the edge of the stage to be in it too. When I found the picture later that night it was as great as I hoped it would be.

Then John said that he'd just noticed Danny wasn't wearing red pants, and Flans said we should check out the pants that he was wearing, which were these blue ones with a grid pattern that were indeed pretty wild. Then Flans was saying that there's some festival in Boston that they've played a lot, and that they kept having bands that were opening for them right before they made it big (the example he gave was The Cardigans), but one time it was a band called Royal Clown Revue, and he told the promoters that they absolutely did not want a band with a name like that opening for them, but that they told him it was a typo and it was actually Royal Crown Revue, and they were a ska band. Then he told Danny that if he "wanted to make a lateral move into Mighty Mighty Bosstones," he definitely could with those pants.

Then John was thanking us and said "We love you, in an inappropriate way," which was...strange.

The final song was "Doctor Worm," which I think is a good closer--I like it when they end with something really high-energy like that, and everyone gets so into that one.

So it ended up being exactly the same setlist as in San Diego the night before, which surprised me--I've been to shows multiple nights in a row quite a few times, and I don't think I've ever seen them not switch out at least a couple of the songs from one night to the next. The setlist consisted of some really terrific stuff, don't get me wrong, all of which was really exciting to see, but I'd be lying if I said I weren't a bit disappointed about it being exactly the same. Still had an amazing time, of course!

The final all-important JL wardrobe report: he was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, and I managed to be less upset about his dumb haircut than I was the night before.

#tmbg #show reviews

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twiststreet · 5 years

Photo

I enjoyed that final League series. The ending came out today (theoretically marking the end of Alan Moore’s career in comics)-- the last issue was ... Now that I can see the shape of it, the choice he made on the surface story makes sense to me, at least. Or I get the game of it-- how it fits the game he’s been playing with the project all along. Plotwise, today’s last issue ends in an especially bezerk fashion, of classic LOEG “I barely have an idea what this is referring to” fashion. But the “Fun” bit is there’s a lot of Moore snorting at his critics, or just a whole mess of "one last thing-- eat it, you chodes” sneering that’s immature and admirable, for me in equal quantities, but other people may not share that-- you know, dullards.

He lands exactly zero of the emotional character moments in this one, for me. I don’t think that was true of earlier series. I can’t really tell how much that’s intentional. The first and last page of this one makes me suspect it’s very intentional. It’s... It’s a choice! I thought he’d end it more heart-on-his-sleeve with the Mina character in particular, but...

But I can very much see a logic to not doing that in my head. I just can’t imagine an audience less suited on God’s green earth to contemplating the phoniness of “emotional character moments” or being suspect towards them than the comic audience circa 2019 though... (Usually with comics, people end their last issues with like, a splash page of Luke Cage and Spiderman holding hands as they walk in front of a badly drawn sunrise with “only one thing is certain: tomorrow will be more exciting than ever” in there... usually people don’t end their big runs contemplating how many cartoonists blew their brains out, like this one does...).

There’s a sort of despair to the series and the last issue, but a very angry despair. Boy, I found it to be a very angry piece of work. (Perhaps understandably after the utterly shitty reception that last series got-- I thought that last series Century was really interesting, but everybody put their Z-list critics to write about it and you just read some variation of “Alan Moore’s an old man who’s waving his fist into the air and doesn’t like Harry Potter and the bastard refuses to be in a parasocial friendship with me" over and over-- just consistently bad writing and dull thinking).

But yeah: every issue starts with a text section describing a comic artist dying horribly or being buried under tragic gravestones, long forgotten...??? That bit never got old for me. A big part of the appeal of this last series was seeing someone putting all the toys away, when they maybe hated having spent so much time playing with them. The "this was all a mistake” of it all, that suffused this series, I found to be a pretty goddamn unique experience.

(I didn’t understand why they put in that increasingly incoherent superhero parody-- I found that stuff fascinating on a craft level, the density and pacing of it in particular, but didn’t really get what he was up to there, much, why he felt he needed that bit, though I guess it was kinder than the earlier superhero scenes you’d find in League... And I can’t say I got much out of it on a pure entertainment level. I didn’t dwell on that stuff much...).

I keep circling the last page in my head (especially in how to me it really undermines the big stab-at-emotions speech that gets made a couple pages before it)-- the last page ends more ambiguously than I expected, especially with respect to the series’ other big pleasure for me (I think the choice of bad guy felt thematically satisfying in our “current moment,” or whatever)-- I wonder about his choice there. I just know that I never want anyone to interview Moore about it because based on that Chapo interview, he just sounds much happier talking about how he thinks space-time is a brick and his books.

I hope comic people leave him alone.

#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

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theeeveetamer · 5 years

Note

Imagine....Leokumi on a camping trip, and Takumi being the horny on main type of person I headcanon him to be behind closed doors (tents), decides to wake Leo up for the specific reason of riding him and Leo just goes along with it because why not?

Alright here we go! I, too, headcanon that Takumi is horny as fuck. So short little piece for you in between binging Mass Effect and trying to actually write multi-chaptered stuff.

Relevant Tags: Camping sex, PWP, Semi-public sex, risky sex, sex with a chance of getting caught, Leo whines about camping, Takumi is extremely horny (what's new though), Modern AU, Established Relationship

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954623/chapters/44971894

He maintained that camping is, was, and always would be pure torture. He could lay out every reason if he wanted to. It would be a bulleted list with headings and subheadings and numbers and categories... Leo knew exactly what it would look like, because he’d done it in the past. A long time ago, when he and Takumi were first married. Highly structured in the beginning, then devolving into a mass of jumbled complaints as the mere concept of spending the night in the woods infuriated him. Hey, he didn’t claim to be perfect.

Reason the first, right at the top of the list: The bugs. He had no idea what it was about his blood, but no matter how much bug spray he put on it was never enough. His hair could be sticky with the stuff and he always came back looking like a picked over mosquito feast. That, and he got to spend the entire weekend smelling like an orange had sex with a lemon and created some unholy citrus fruit baby. And they had to pee out there! Exposing his dick to the blood sucking monster bugs wasn’t appealing to him.

Reason the second: Sleeping on the ground. He already had enough difficulty falling asleep when he was at home in his bed. Take that away and give him the hard ground and a sleeping bag? Absolutely not. Add in strange animal noises and Hinoka snoring in the next tent over? It was impossible.

And that was just the big stuff. His miscellaneous complaints included peeing in the woods -- so egregious that it made the list twice. That and campfire smoke getting into his clothes, and the stupid, corny sing-a-longs that no one really wanted to do except for Sakura… He’d come this close to stapling the list to Takumi’s camping bag and never coming on another trip again so long as he lived.

He was all the way to printing it out, and then Takumi got home from work and started talking ecstatically about how much fun they were going to have together, and how his family loved it when he came on their family camping trip, and how much his mother couldn’t wait to see him again… And, well, he lost the heart. His prickly husband didn’t get excited about many things, and he’d be damned if he was going to be the one to wipe that smile off of his face. He put the list in the shredder, packed his bags, and decided to suck it up for a couple of days. Once a year, every year, for the last decade.

And that was what led to his current predicament. Lying on the ground with a twig poking his back, half a billion mosquito bites, hair sticky with putrid smelling spray, and Hinoka snoring in the next tent over. Sweaty and gross and not at all happy. And Takumi, of course, was at his side with their lantern on so he could finish the book he’d started on the drive up. At least, that’s what Leo assumed he was doing. His husband hadn’t turned the page for awhile.

It would probably be best to turn the damn light off since Takumi seemed to be falling asleep, but they were squished into one sleeping bag and he didn’t want to risk waking him up. He covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow and tried to ignore everything. Sleep had to come eventually, right? Even the most severe insomniac could get a couple of hours once they’d been driven to the brink. And hey, the more he slept the quicker this would be over. Just as the sweet merciful blackness came to take him he felt something shift at his side.

At first he didn’t think anything of it. Snuggling into one sleeping bag was a challenge for two grown men, even if they did buy the biggest one they could find. It was probably just Takumi rolling over so he could sleep. The soft click of the lantern being turned off seemed to back this theory.

The hand on his stomach wasn’t suspicious at first, either. He referred to Takumi as an “aggressive sleep cuddler.” Sometimes he woke up to the man squeezing him so tight he could barely breathe.

When said hand slipped under the waistband of his pants… That’s when his sleep deprived brain started suspecting that Takumi wasn’t quite as tired as he’d appeared.

“Takumi… What are you doing?” He groggily asked, shooing the hand away.

In response, Takumi swung his leg over his torso and straddled him. The sudden movement tore the sleeping bag wide open. It came undone all at once, filling the mostly quiet air with it’s loud ZIP to protest the abuse. He’d probably broken it if the tearing noises that came with were any indication.

Well, it looked like they were going shopping for a new sleeping bag… Again… Maybe if Takumi wasn’t too cheap to just spring for something that was actually meant to accommodate two people then they wouldn’t have this problem every damn year.

“Leo… Can we..?”

There was no ambiguity in what he was asking. His husband was anything but subtle. Takumi ground his hips down in just the right way, the way he knew Leo liked.

“How are you still this horny? Your family is sleeping ten feet away!” He whispered back.

His husband always knew exactly how to get him going, with just that little contact he was already semi-hard.

“C’mon, I can’t help it! Please? I waited until everyone went to sleep.”

Leo paused for a moment. No lights had gone on in the surrounding tents. Hinoka was still snoring, just as loud as ever, but otherwise things were quiet.

“Alright, fine.” He grumbled, though he’d be lying if he said he was upset by this turn of events. A little embarrassed maybe, but never upset. “Quietly, okay? I don’t want your brother waking up.”

He couldn’t see Takumi’s broad smile in the dark, but he knew it was there. He felt it in the kiss they shared, and in the energy he moved with. His husband quickly reached into his travel bag and pulled out a bottle of lube. It was medium sized and mostly fresh, and he only knew that because he’d caught Takumi trying to discreetly stuff it into his bag right before they left.

The pitch blackness was strange. Leo greatly preferred the lights to be on. How could he not? Half the eroticism came from just watching his partner. He was used to seeing every move, every embarrassed blush as Takumi readied himself. There was a lot more fumbling involved now, and every noise was amplified. He knew when Takumi started, because he always whimpered a little when he stuck his fingers inside of himself. He knew when he was done because he could hear his fingers gliding smoothly in and out, with only a gentle squelching sound.

There was some fumbling to find where Takumi had put the bottle down, but it didn’t take him nearly as long to coat his hand and bring himself full-mast. He tried to be quick about it, because when Takumi got like this he wasn’t exactly in the mood for waiting.

He wasn’t sure how no one heard them. He’d instructed Takumi to be quiet, but his husband was often anything but. He tried… Gods, he tried. But those little whimpers and moans always found a way to make it out of his lips whenever he guided him onto his cock. From here there wasn’t much Leo needed to do.

This was his favorite way to do things, really. Takumi was always so mesmerizing when he was in control. He could get off just watching him, and he often did. But it was dark, so he had to use his imagination a little. It wasn’t hard, they’d done this how many times? How many tents in how many woods in how many years? It was easy to piece the scene together in his mind’s eye. His beautiful husband, eyes closed, silver hair trailing down his back as he bounced on his dick, chasing that relief. One hand wrapped firmly around his own cock and the other braced against Leo’s chest. Desperate and horny and wonderful… Perfection.

He started “slow”, though Leo would never classify anything Takumi did as slow. Takumi was not a deliberate man when he wanted something. More often than not he made Leo’s head spin with his hastiness. An odd dynamic, but it worked just fine for him in the bedroom. After the brief adjustment period he sped up, fingernails leaving angry red lines down his torso as he tried to stifle himself. For once he was grateful for Hinoka’s snoring, because if it wasn’t for that then the sounds of their skin slapping together surely would have woken everyone in a ten mile radius.

When they finally reached that fever pitch he grabbed Takumi’s hips and shuddered. The full weight of his husband rested on his waist as he rolled his hips through the ensuing orgasm. Takumi wriggled in his hands, grunting angrily.

“No fair! I was so close!” He whined, all talk about being quiet apparently out the window.

Leo quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, or where he assumed Takumi’s mouth to be.

“Shh! Do you want to get caught?”

“Well then get me off, damn it!”

“You don’t have to threaten me for that!”

He quickly wrapped his hand around Takumi’s cock, overtop Takumi’s other hand. Leo followed his lead, jerking him off to completion. He had the foresight to grab a tissue before they started, so cleanup was easy. Even if Takumi complained the entire time about having to wait.

He almost wished he’d turned the lantern back on, just so he could have seen the expression on his partner’s face. But the risk of someone seeing their shadows moving in… Unwholesome... ways was enough for him to avoid it.

“It’s not as good this way.” He moped, finally dropping his head onto Leo’s chest.

“I’ll make it up to you when we get home, okay?”

“Home? I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

It almost sounded like a joke, but if he’d learned one thing being married to this man...

“By the gods Takumi… You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

#leokumi #leo #takumi #takuleo #fe14 #fe fates #Anonymous

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parttimestorier · 6 years

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Interview with d Marie Licea

Recently, I had a chance to talk with d Marie Licea, developer of Us Lovely Corpses, about the creative process behind this fascinating “surreal-horror-romance” visual novel. Us Lovely Corpses is a VN I considered reviewing for this blog when I read it, but I struggled to write a review that would be interesting and accessible—explaining the parts that most impressed and resonated with me would mean spoiling it completely. But I encourage anyone who can handle some disturbing content in service of a great story and heartfelt message to try it out. This interview will start with some more general questions, and it includes a warning farther down before any spoilers for Us Lovely Corpses appear.

Question: Did you always plan for the story of Us Lovely Corpses to be a visual novel, or did you consider other mediums as well?

Answer: In its earliest stages, Us Lovely Corpses was actually planned as a comic! I came up with the original idea somewhere around 2014-2015—it was going to be about 10 pages, and would just cover the scene that ended up being the game's finale. Alex and Marisol (who weren't named yet) were very different—they were much younger, Alex wasn't really "a witch," and Marisol was originally a boy!

I sat on the idea a while, and the longer I did so the more I wanted to explore the history of these characters, which made for a longer and more unwieldy comic. Then in 2015, when I started learning about visual novels, it hit me that the concept could work really well in that format, especially when the "exploration" element came in.

Q: Were there any particular visual novels that influenced you?

A: Yes! The reason why I started getting into visual novels specifically in 2015 was that because that was the year We Know The Devil came out!

We Know The Devil totally shifted my viewpoint as to what a visual novel could be—no diss to dating sims, but before WKTD, I, like most people, just saw VNs as dating sims and occasionally something like the When They Cry series.

WKTD totally changed that for me—a short, incredibly contained story that also managed to be about so, so much, in a surreal, horror-inspired atmosphere . . . it really blew me away! Not only was it the game that got me into visual novels, but you can definitely see a lot of its influence on Us Lovely Corpses.

Besides WKTD, there was also Her Tears Were My Light, a fairly minimalist love story that used the "rewind" function in Ren’Py as part of the story. Utilizing mechanics as part of the narrative was a really cool idea to me that also ended up in ULC. (side note: I met and hired Alex Huang to do the music for Us Lovely Corpses because I loved the soundtrack for HTWML so much!)

Finally, I was really into the original Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) trilogy when I was younger, and the evidence gathering segments were a big part of those games. I originally envisioned the "rose clipping" segments of ULC like those parts, where you'd have to select each rose before cutting it, but sadly that was a little too complex for me at the time, and I eventually decided to go for something more simple in order to complete the game. But that initial idea was a big part of what made me try Us Lovely Corpses as a game, so it ended up still being a big influence in the end!

Q: Besides technical things like those mechanics and the exploration element, do you find that you have a different style of writing in visual novels as opposed to the stories you've done in other formats, like twine and comics?

A: I'm not sure if this is always the case for visual novels, but I find I have to format my writing differently when writing for VNs—specifically, in length of sentences and paragraphs. I've found my writing worked a lot better in Us Lovely Corpses the more I broke everything up into smaller fragments—larger ones or paragraphs didn't work as well, which can be a problem for me because my writing can tend to get a bit wordy!

This has to do a lot with the pacing of visual novels and how the player/reader is a big part of that. Control over pacing is a big part of why visual novels appeal to me, but you also have to think differently to get the best result.

Technical stuff aside, I found that, at least for ULC, my actual writing style remained pretty much the same. I think this has the benefit of making the writing in Us Lovely Corpses seem unique, but has the disadvantage of posing a problem for a certain something I didn't see coming at all: Let’s Players!

A few people have made videos of their playthroughs of Us Lovely Corpses, which is incredibly exciting, but when I watch them, I can't help but feel bad for them because they always read everything out loud . . . which means, with my somewhat wordy style, they have to do a LOT of talking!

I haven't actually gotten complaints about this or anything, but I still hope people who make videos of their playthroughs of ULC keep some water nearby!

Note: the next part of the interview contains spoilers for Us Lovely Corpses, as well as discussion of mental illness.

Q: As the story progresses, it becomes explicitly clear that the “monster” is Marisol’s bipolar disorder. Did you ever think about leaving the metaphor more ambiguous, and if so, what made you decide to be so direct instead?

A: I'd say if the "monster" was one specific thing, it would her Ocular Rosaceae, as it's the one specific thing that gives a physical form to Marisol's thoughts and unhealthy behaviors. But even that, in a way, is not taking into account her bipolar disorder and depression, her jealousy towards Alex, her self-loathing and introversion . . . "the monster" is all of those things, because at its core, the monster is mental illness. And mental illness is never just one thing, but many things and factors interacting at once to create something much bigger than a single diagnosis.

All that said, it's not incorrect to say that Marisol's bipolar disorder is the monster; it's just more accurate to say it’s part of Marisol's monster. Back when ULC was still a comic, I wasn't going to talk about specific diagnoses, but as the story grew I realized I wanted to talk more explicitly about mental illness. I don't exactly remember where the idea came about, but early on in the writing process I got that idea in my head of Alex finding that fake corpse and finding that doctor's diagnosis. In retrospect, it was a really, really weird scene, especially as it comes right off the heels of realizing what you thought was a dead body was just a weird joke, but I do like what it represents—in the middle of this surreal trip into a house filled with talking flowers, the story suddenly halts as you soak in this very blunt reminder that, magic aside, this is a world that is representative of the real world. Marisol may have a magical disease and be best friends with a witch, but she's a very real girl, so to speak.

So that harsh reminder is part of why I wanted to be so direct. I guess the other part would be that I just wanted to make no bones about it. Some things you want to leave up to interpretation, and some things you don't. From the very, very beginning the story was always about mental illness, so it just felt right to me to be upfront about it.

Q: One thing I noticed that I thought showed a lot of attention to detail in ULC was that in one of the rooms you explore there are two famous paintings that both have connections to suicide (Millais’s Ophelia and van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows). Are there any other little symbolic details like that you added to the story that some readers might have missed?

A: Ah, I'm glad you caught that! If I had stuck with the more Ace Attorney style of gameplay I would have liked to put more small details like that in. As it stands, the big example is probably pretty obvious—Alex's notes about each rose are fairly close to the standard "flower language" of different rose colors in real life. The fact that yellow roses can mean "jealousy" or "friendship" depending on what source you use actually ended up working very well with the story.

The last names of Alex and Marisol are probably pretty obvious: de Rosa ("of the Rose") and Flores ("Flowers"). Something that's probably less apparent is Marisol, a name that originally comes from a contraction of "Maria de La Soledad" ("Our Lady Of Solitude"), one of the titles given to the Virgin Mary.

Q: Was the flower language the reason you used roses rather than any other flower, or were there other inspirations for that as well?

A: There were a number of reasons! One being that Revolutionary Girl Utena was a big influence on my style and particularly on several parts of the game. There's also the whole dichotomy with roses/thorns. And there's also the simple fact that I have fun drawing roses!

Q: For my last question, are you working on any other visual novels right now?

A: I am as a matter of fact! I'm working on a visual novel set in Japan about some high school kids who explore a strange house. It's still in fairly early stages, but I think if I give it my all I will actually have a demo ready in time for Halloween, which would be great!

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that demo—even more so after learning about all of the serious thought d Marie Licea puts into the details and themes of her work. If you’re as excited as I am about updates on her upcoming projects, you can follow her on itch.io or twitter, and considering supporting her patreon. Thanks for reading!

#visual novel #visual novels #d marie licea #us lovely corpses #interview

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akatokuro · 5 years

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The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episodes 37-38

Aiolia, are you like... okay? (HE IS NOT, IN FACT, OKAY.)

- Last time, I meant to write about these eps but I got hard-derailed with the need to scream at the walls about Milo. This seems to happen to me pretty often. It might be a problem.

- This whole Shaina-->Seiya subplot is still stupid as hell, and the way Seiya treats Shaina here is condescending as hell, but to be very very generous Seiya is at least perceptive enough to not fight back seriously because he understands Shaina essentially has a death wish. Sanctuary will fuck you up hard, dude. The mask issue is yet another way to approach the fundamental ways the entire institution of Sanctuary will break people over its knee.

- Hahaha, I love the way Aiolia enters the scene here, so ominous and terrifying! It's a great contrast to the very mellow, normal dude in the back Aiolia is framed as in his earlier cameos. HEY, SHAINA, DID YOU AND THE OTHER SILVERS REALLY FORGET I WAS A GOLD FUCKING SAINT WELL GUESS WHAT HERE'S A REMINDER

- Lia, are you... having fun sloooowly lifting Shaina into the air first - totally not to terrify her or anything, nope, no grudge here, what are you talking about, hahaha!

- I'm going to be repeatedly gushing about this through the next couple eps, but holy shit, Aiolia's Japanese VA is SO FUCKING GOOD.

- The way he's animated here is so good too! The combination of his flat tone as he introduces himself, his flat expression, and the way only his eyes move when he greets Seiya specifically - it really conveys a sense of tension and Lia being in very, very forced, tight control of himself right now.

- "lmao not even the gold saints knew that there were TWELVE ZODIAC-THEMED CLOTHS! like! twelve zodiacs! god! not just leo and sagittarius! who would ever have guessed!" yeah this is the most obvious thing for the broader lore to instantly fucking throw out the window because no.

- It's a semi-common fanon thing to regard Aiolia as "stupid", but honestly, he's never struck me as such - I like this moment where he's sizing up Seiya's answer re: Sagittarius, and comes to the conclusion that he's telling the truth. But still, murder mission means murder gon happen!

- Aiolia has problems with self-control--his emotions sometimes get the better of him and he can't help himself when he really needs to punch something because he's just SO FUCKING ANGRY--but that's a different thing altogether than just being stupid, especially since I think Lia is pretty self-aware about that aspect of himself.

- I love how Aiolia TOTALLY came here to murder the shit out of these kids, too. Like, think about the contrast with Milo later, when Milo offers to spare Hyouga for Camus's sake - Lia is apparently close friends with Marin, but does he extend the same courtesy? No. That Seiya is Marin's student doesn't fucking matter. He's here to perform a very baggage-ridden mission for Sanctuary, and that is what he is going to do, because Aiolia would really like to turn himself into a Good Saint Robot.

- And again, even as he's warning Shaina, Aiolia comes across as very tightly controlled and very short, played up as frightening and intimidating. His expression and tone doesn't change as Shaina pleads and he points out her emotional shortcomings. Aiolia can run very hot, but he can also turn himself very cold, and the combination of the two feeding into each other is what can make him potentially scary as hell, especially when you remove his inhibitions via a bit of brainwashing!

- That little detail of Lia clenching his fist and his fist shaking as Seiya accuses him of being another assassin from Sanctuary is really good. It should be clear from Lia's VA taking a BEEP BOOP BOP approach to his lines here, but Lia is internally struggling a lot already, and trying to press it down.

- Not struggling with internal conflict about his orders per se, mind you. Moreso struggling with not losing his shit over how fucking mad he is.

- And when Seiya tries to explain the situation to Aiolia, he gets this.

- Aiolia isn't actually stupid, but this is why he's interesting. He dumbs himself down because he feels he can't trust himself - both his actual thoughts and instincts, as what happened with his brother proved to him, and his ability to restrain himself. So what can he do but commit himself to his orders and the rules, especially knowing that he's already walking on a very thin tightrope compared to most people because of his TRAITOR'S BLOOD? (lmao, thanks Milo! Clearly the best friend Aiolia could ever hope for!) There might be a temptation to write off Lia as the "good boy" of the Gold Saints, since he's pushed as the protagonist figure amongst them, but he's really not. He's pretty complex.

- Lol considering how hard Shaina was shitting on and disrespecting Aiolia in earlier episodes... is seeing her so frantic and then flattening her effortlessly a little bit cathartic for you, Lia...? Just a little...?

- Lia's expression still not changing as he turns his FLATTEN BEAM onto Seiya. Truly the TermiLia right now.

- I love Aiolia's response to Seiya bleating off about his brother and why Lia is so loyal to Sanctuary. He is obviously trying to appeal to Lia emotionally by hitting what he knows are emotional weak spots and Lia is not having any of that shit. you are literally just making him madder seiya

- These sure are the words and expression of a very, very bitter man!

- Aiolos isn't exactly an interesting character to me as he is, because the series is by and large mostly interested in him as a straightforward admirable martyr figure - but he could be if you re-interpret him under a more critical lens. His treatment of Aiolia is kind of... something. I don't actually remember him ever offering a truly kind word to his little brother. Like, ever.

- There's even a fun ambiguity if you want to his line in this flashback about "You should be able to do this, because you have the same Cosmos I do - because we're brothers." Yes, it could be read as encouragement - as Baby Lia is obviously doing here - but it's also setting forth an expectation.

- Oh shit, this is some of the stuff I was planning on going through in my upcoming EIGHTEEN PAGE AIOLIA META. Uhhhh....... man, this situation sure sucks for Lia, being left behind like that! Aiolos! Issues! Probably! Yeah!

- Fucking Silvers!

- I'm glad Lia states that he hated Los and used that for fuel in terms of becoming a strong Saint, and also vaguely suicidal. You can totally see it. Leo Aiolia is a cold and hateful person in a lot of ways! It rules!

- Okay Seiya you deserve to be punched for this one

- lol Lia narrowing his eyes in response too hoo boy

- seiya why are you stripping that's shiryuu's deal

- ahhhh shit aiolia's va is SO GOOD! he was already pulling the "flat, controlled tone" before but after seiya hit him with THAT garbage he goes extremely low and dangerous and outright monotone, very audibly you're on thin fucking ice you little shit

- One of the little things that I like about Lia and how he subverts your first impression of "oh, this is the nice, protagonist-y Gold, right?" is that when you piss him off, he gets vicious and downright venomous verbally. Aiolia is capable of outright dripping with contempt for people in a way that's totally "oh, this is what he's been thinking the whole time, he was just holding it back." Like here, when he's practically sneering about "Oh, so this is all you've got after six years training with Marin, huh? You fucking scrub loser."

- Damn, I like Seiya crying as he attacks Aiolia again, knowing that it's hopeless! That's a nice touch. A LITTLE SCARED, HUH SEIYA?

- Lia, you totally should have been able to see Shaina moving and jumping in front of Seiya like that in time to pull back. You really should have. Is your mad getting the better of you? I know Seiya kicked it up several notches, but damn, man.

- yeah i do not think this is the face of someone who is actually going to be losing that much sleep over """"accidentally"""" punching the shit out of shaina

- And Seiya calls out Aiolia for not stopping his attack when he totally had the capability to do so, lmao

- Hahaha, so Lia lets Seiya punch him to let off some steam and goes: "Yeahhhh, my bad. Eh."

- I also like the detail that Lia can heal with his Cosmos! (And lol that Lia was originally going to just leave her there before Seiya called him out.) It's not an ability you actually see a lot of Saints have, including the Golds.

- Lia asks Seiya why he's doing this. Seiya starts to explain, but then Lia immediately cuts him off with THE POPE'S ORDERS ARE ABSOLUTE. aiolia are you like.... okay... i mean you asked him and he was answering y... all righty then. i mean i know that's what you've convinced yourself to cope but

- Then the shitty Silvers show up, and even these guys continue to shit on Lia for his TRAITOR'S BLOOD. Lia gets visibly mad and reiterates his determination to fulfill his mission and murder these damn kids. The Silvers ignore him, and obviously enjoy twisting the knife about being able to ignore him!

- Aiolos decides he's had enough of his bath and decides to give Seiya a hand! Wow!

- okay seiya really rocks the sagittarius cloth though. better looking than aiolos in it. sagittarius seiya is the best looking gold saint tbh. shiryuu is really hideous in libra unfortunately

- And this is Aiolia's face when Seiya puts on the Sagittarius Cloth. WHAT COULD HE BE THINKING? HMMMM.

- I love Aiolia, but he definitely has that smug Gold Saint arrogance running through his being as much as anyone else. "FOR THE GOLD CLOTH TO CHOOSE THE LIKES OF YOU..."

- But this whole thing is great, too. He was willing to let Seiya go - for the day - out of respect for Shaina and okay yeah he did feel a little bad about that, but now that Seiya's put on a Gold Cloth? Nah, you little shit. Sorry Shaina, looks like it's right back to murder o'clock for Leo Aiolia!

- Seiya, with Aiolos's help, manages to land a punch on Lia. He is very cute in his excitemement about this! AIOLIA IS NOT.

- THE TERMILIA HAS UPGRADED TO A NEW, MADDER MODEL. You'll note the feel of this whole thing is REALLY CLOSE to the intimidation of vicious, brainwashed Aiolia later on. All of that was legit in him. That's why it's still interesting as a facet of his character.

- Lia throwing out the "kono Aiolias" left and right. Considering his earlier talk about how much he hated his brother and wanted to surpass him, are we projecting a little bit onto this new kid wearing his Cloth, Lia? Maybe... maybe a little?

- "Aiolia, why are you so loyal to the Pope!?" "BECAUSE I AM DEEPLY TRAUMATIZED--I MEAN, BECAUSE, UH, HE'S A GREAT MAN! YEAH! FUCK YOU!"

- Lia's face when Hyouga and Shun arrive on the scene. YIKES.

- And here when he effortlessly blocks Hyouga and Shun's attacks, with a "lol, you're really going to try to fight KONO AIOLIA, the gold saint?" Again, the contempt and sneering just drips off of him - he's actively mocking them - in a way that is totally, one hundred percent consistent with the way he acts when he is brainwashed, and against Hades's mooks much later. Again, holy shit, I would LOVE to get actual insight into Lia's brain re: his opinion of Milo and the Silvers.

- It is sort of sad, though, as the more pissed off and frustrated Aiolia is obviously getting - jesus christ he just came here to murder some kids out of self-loathing, and then this bullshit with Shaina, and then that bullshit with the Silver Saints, and then the MEGA FUCKING BULLSHIT of Seiya putting on his brother's Cloth and actually hitting him, and now THESE little shits show up and complicate things even more - it feels like he more forcefully repeats those rote robot-lines about "as a saint, for justice, in the name of Athena, pope is like a GOD." Aiolia has issues, man.

- As the Bronzies keep challenging him, we get another shot of Aiolia's shaking, clenched fist. Once again I must emphasize that his VA is doing a fucking amazing job of continuing to escalate Lia's various shades of mad and the various levels of "I am seriously point two seconds away from ripping you little shits apart"

- Yes, Aiolia is refusing to listen and obviously repeating lines he's been "fed" - but once again, I don't think it's stupidity, per se. It's thirteen years of trauma where he had to crush out any personal doubts in order to survive in the environment he was in. But god these kids are making it HARD and reviving OLD FEELINGS and that's PISSING HIM OFF so they GOTTA FUCKING DIE because SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

- Hi Saori! Thanks for showing before everyone died!

- Leo "Fuck you I don't have time for this bullshit" Aiolia vs Kido "Fuck YOU I don't have time for this bullshit" Saori, go!

- I like how Lia refers to Aiolos by his name here, and as "the traitor Aiolos", though we see how in private, in his head, he still called him "nii-san" and he reverts to "nii-san" fully once he knows the truth. Aiolia had a hard life.

- thanks for the unnecessary flashback, episode, this writeup is already getting too long doot doot doot

- It's very hard to be told that "welp, I coped and doubted myself and twisted my thoughts and sense of self for thirteen years for nothing huh!" And I appreciate that Lia doesn't instantly believe her - he needs hard proof, because otherwise it means pretty much his whole life and everything he "worked" for just falls apart. He wouldn't be a bad fit as an Umineko character, really! <_<

- Saori selectively leaving out that Mitsumasa was also a horrible person but okay BABY SAORI IS CUTE AS FUUUUUUCKKKKKKKK

- God I love that Aiolia was totally willing to murder this young girl, too, to test if she was bullshitting him about being Athena. He was really going to try to punch her fucking head off. Aiolia owns.

- I LOVE SAORI FOR CALMLY AGREEING IT TOO HAVE I MENTIONED I FUCKING LOVE HER AND THAT SHE IS THE COOLEST?

- Lia's response to Seiya's outrage at the way he demands "proof." Even though it's brief, you really do get a sense of the weight of what Lia has been struggling with since Aiolos was framed, and how hard it is for him to just throw it all aside. And his "I need it!" re: proof.

- The ghost of Aiolos finally shows up, after all this time - exclusively to shit on his little brother. Hoo boy.

- It REALLY feels like twisting the knife for Aiolos to shoot him with basically "You're not only unworthy of being a Saint, you're unworthy of being my brother! You fuckup! You moron!" Like, again, if this is an indication of Aiolos's parenting methods with training Lia, uh... no wonder Lia has such deep-set issues...

- Like, Aiolia has legitimately suffered a LOT because of Aiolos's actions all this time, so to not have a single shred of compassion and only a very stony "you fucking failure" is pretty. Uh.

- Not that Lia challenges this himself, of course, as he cries over the fact that Los wasn't a traitor and "still fights for justice." Fully indoctrinated, after all!

- "I'm not suicidal over these developments or anything. Nope. Totally not running off here to get myself killed in atonement, encouraged by my brother's ghost who was yelling at me over what a sin I've committed. Not at all. Pay no attention to the sad lion behind the curtain!"

- Doesn't escape Saori's notice, either, as she quietly asks Lia not to die as he heads off.

- And Leo Aiolia exits the episode just as he entered it: in desperate, desperate, desperate need of some serious fucking therapy.

#rewatching sts #aquarius camus did nothing wrong

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Estonia to Eurovision with a lowkey tribute to Avicii soundwise I guess

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I’m not one of those people to go all their way out to overdefend Eesti Laul as “THE most diverse NF to ever exist songwise”, but even I was disappointed in this sudden rush of radiofriendly pop music that I would rather refuse to describe if I had to endure any of them ever again all at once this year. Remember - Netta won with being CRAZY! Why can’t Estonia be CRAZY even more! Was this secretly a bigger demand from the new producers or so that Estonia would need to out-radiofriendly the Latvians whose goal actually was to find a good radiofriendly song that’s enough for qualification????

Also, I kind of wanted to watch Eesti Laul, but I haven’t really settled with it, as I didn’t have enough patience to watch it one time it wasn’t on Saturday (!!). Even with Eesti Laul usually taking the live tweets from foreign fans into account and displaying some of them on the national Estonian television for good measure. And often showcasing their weirdness through crude animations every so often. But I already saw my Twitter timeline being full of that stuff, and for that I’m happy.

I did have some favourites despite being tired of all this pop stuff, and one of them was the ever-so-gender-ambiguous INGER (I say so cuz I thought it was a guy, turns out it’s a she, yeah), and I kind of wanted to see her win after the lowkey last minute interest towards her? But the televote didn’t seem to want any of it during the final public say, and didn’t even want Kerli (not the Spirit Animal Kerli) through despite of her being “hot” (are we now choosing ESC NF winners based on their looks??? tighten up ffs). Instead the final’s televote thought it’d be a good idea to fuck up the international jury’s expectations by putting through an act that got 2(!!!!!) finalised points from them jurors overall and making it win the superfinal. That televote 12 the act got beforehand was just enough for the guy to last-minute qualify over another act of 14 overall points, and who knows, maybe if it wasn’t for that 12, the winner would’ve been someone else. But it didn’t and we have a last minute qualifier victory because televote superfinal is a thing.

And in the literal sense of the way Estonian minds thought their victor that was unfairly treated by the juries was a Swedish singer Victor Crone and his song “Storm”, which was written by the one and only Stig Rastafarian~ err I mean Rästa. Stig is one mythical human creature that never rests a minute without really wanting to appear in the Estonian delegation somewhere every year - whether as all by himself, with someone else, as a songwriter for someone else, or even as part of a band (remember Traffic, anyone? Now that I think of it, the whole band looks like a puppet-act just for Stig to get to Eurovision and the other band members didn’t even want any of it in the first place). Just exactly what is Stig’s aim here? To "take it back to Tallinn”? To meet new people in Europe because he’s too lazy to travel otherwise? To boast about the many Estonian entries he contributed to? Beats me.

That and Victor Crone being Swedish, therefore a man more suited to Melodifestivalen (where he actually once participated in) and only on Eesti Laul because Stig really wanted to save his voice for this one and tag some randomer along with him just for the sake of yearly input to Eesti Laul. Well, at least Victor is historically joining Sahlene and Sandra Oxenryd as “a Swede represending Estonia for a year because what do we know for the Estonians that weren’t chosen instead”. Let’s check his song out.

First and foremost, as the title obviously states, the song reminds me of the late Avicii’s music style, especially around 2012-2013, when he was just starting to get bigger post-”Levels”-release. Just with a bit more singing surrounding the song because... well, maybe to fill up the song some more in order to not look awkward on stage during an instrumental part of the drop being as long as would be one you hear on the radio.

Then he has this easy-listening generic male radio voice that the audiences can not necessarily reasonate with, but it’s memorable, together with the chorus, whose purpose is to be memorable - you don’t need no message that’s special, you just need a melody to hum in your head for the next few weeks, and that’s basically what Stig was able to achieve with this little ditty. Then there’s the amazingly easy song structure: verse - chorus - verse - (extended) chorus - bridge - chorus (+ song ending). That’s a structure that works on basic songs to make them more user-consumption-friendly and not too overbearingly dragged out. And I enjoy it, just like I did “Light Me Up” last year, which was also sung by a mediocre-live-vocalist-Swede that could have easily ended up 6th in Melodifestivalen edition with such song, sadly. I do acknowledge that it’s basic, but I enjoy it.

The problem the Eurofandom finds with this song is that it’s too basic of a song from Eesti, Victor’s proven himself to be a dull live singer, and the chorus rhymes “like this” with “like this”, and all the self-rhymes are automatically shite. And it’s fine if a song I like has its flaws, but it automatically worries me that its live potential is automatically down the drain because of the singer’s lack of vocal compassion or strenght. That begs the question, why choosing THAT kind of song if it’s totally going to underperform live in Eurovision if the singer wasn’t sick in the NF at the time???

...oh I get it now, you Estonians must have thought Stig deserves another year in the Estonian greenroom. Or you found Victor hot. Or you find it great that a song about a storm actually was originally staged to look like Victor’s in a storm. At least for the televiewers’ eye. Because all that they see in the real arenas is the singers’ backs if they don’t turn around in time.

With visuals like these, why even need a music video! (except that there already is one, look at the beginning of the review)

All in all, all condiments are there: just the sugar, spice and everything nice there’s needed for a song like this to break a fandom like this. You can practically smell the Hesburger grease from this song. I don’t care if that’s a bad thing - if you like the song, that’s fine, just shut up and enjoy... but if you dislike it, welp, there’s no way I can change your mind then.

And a random backing singer. Not that she’s helpful as the one for Ott Lepland or anything, she just strikes like thunder and leaves no lasting impact whatsoever.

Greta Salóme’s imaginary cousin, is that you????

Now excuse me while I contradict and repeat myself some more in the next few paragraphs:

Approval factor: As you might have seen me shading Elina a lot last year, I can safely say that at last I’m spared from her vocal practice entrapped in a porcelain-and-silk dressing!!! I like “Storm” myself so I’ll sheepishly approve the hell out of it, lolol. :-)

Follow-up factor: I would be lying if I didn’t say that after a risky-ish way to get all out opera and then coming back to a safe song after doing well with that opera number weren’t a complete nosedive into an empty pool. Subjectively it flows way better for me, but objectively, and the same could be, once again, said for Eesti Lawl [sic] 2019, it is rather interesting of a letdown? But hey, maybe it was finally time for the Estonians to chillax a bit and cave in to send an Estonian-Swedish pop number after the opera stuff, after the 80s synthpop stuff, after the smooth and slightly orchestrated and a little bluesy number, and heart-grabbing ballads... just so they could keep up their ‘variety’ in case Hungary runs out of ideas and starts sending cop-outs of themselves. They already did it with rehashing one artist and one lyrical idea already this year (the catch is that the father’s alive!), honestly. And oddly enough, they have yet to send something a little more modern/electro-influenced that appeals to the common crowd... (”Running” may not count because not everyone can relate, whereas there are more cases of broken-off love (as if in the other half being a heartbreaker or the first half missing the other half so much that they feel “incomplete” than abusive fathers. Just what I think there is? If I’m wrong I obviously expect to be @’ed in the replies section lol) For this conclusion though I’ll say that my opinion says it’s a ‘’’decent’’’ follow up, but for Eurofans, it’s not very much so of such, idk.

Qualification factor: you may think it’s dead while going to perform in between the more badass entries AND mediocre live vocals, but it won’t at least be the worst Stig entry to ever place - around 14th in the semi at the very worst and maybe in the lower half of top 10 at very best imo. Nothing more, nothing less.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

I actually barely even bother with Eesti Laul since they don’t accept my Twitter comments live on their television anyways. Say, were there any Twitter comments live on their television this year? No one on Twitter boasted about it if they saw theirs from what I’ve seen, but what I’ve definitely found from the eager Eesti Laul watchers were some casual and usual Estonian oddities thrown on the broadcast, such as:

• The soft and warm but also random and deranged yearly transitional postcard animations (that were refered to as “crude” earlier in this review), which I commonly know now as “my last two braincells”. Even if the graphical theme itself of this year’s Ee-Lawl were oddly-shaped birds coming out in forms of letters, they didn’t really show up much in the broadcast I suppose, and the best fuckery with my mind this year definitely happened when I saw some of THOSE pop up on my Twitter timeline:

We now return to your regularly scheduled news programm~ wait why are you saying that the scheduled programme should be Eesti Laul

• Even if the most acts themselves weren’t that kooky musically, they were obviously interesting performance-wise. We were greeted with an impulsively quirky crazy cat lady Kaia Tamm who bemoaned the absence of the fluffy creatures in German somehow (you know Germany’s a terrible track-record keeper when the only song in German this year featured on Estonia and the only German in Eurovision this year was gonna be sung by an Ukrainian entrant if she was alowed to), as if a song in full Italian from last year wasn’t enough. Not only did she dress up as Alice in Wonderland with kitty ears, but her costumed dancers were entertaining, the violinist was FIRE and a cute large teddy bear looked cute on stage. Not to mention, someone have rightfully noticed that some costumed felines in the audience looked like as if they were to kill someone:

• Lumevärv too is an interesting thing. Never forgetting Lumevärv. This Inga woman, the fiery orangehead she was, used her 3 minutes on stage the best possible way with dancing with her back turned on at the audience and only looking at the camera, while millions of lights (which is sadly not what the songtitle "Milline päev" means) shone in the audience, creating an amazing mood.

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• Hey everyone, the 10 years challenge is back! This time it’s with the violin virtuousess(???) Sandra Nurmsalu, the lead of Urban Symphony, who deserved much more than a 3rd place. Unfortunately the Estonians did not bring her back to get her desired revenge, which meant that they thought that they woodn’t need no magic tale fairy that’d grant them tree wishes and let her magic wand our out the wondrous [sic] sawdust. I’m already seeing myself out for how terrible this sounded. And it’s a bit saddening about this not doing as well as some hoped, considering she would have brough out the new and the better Jacques Houdek teas:

• Other favourite act of mine from this year, besides the aforementioned “ever-so-gender-ambiguous-looking INGER” with her indie-folk jingle “Coming Home”, was the charming disco-haired Sissi Nylia Benita with a wholesomely radio bop “Strong”, and they both actually looked like they stood a chance in the superfinal vote-up now that the actual Eesti Laul fan favourites, pretty cute pop boys like piano-indie-pop-driven Stefan and electro-pop-and-Kirkorov-driven Uku Suviste, were not receiving enough support by the juries I guess??? I’ll show a video to INGER if anything and link you all to the rest so you could judge these young and beautiful souls to yourselves in a way!

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• Other note-worthy acts include another song about the notorious instrument horsefly in Ee-Lawl’s history that stood even less chance than “Parmupillihullus” but is still fun regardless, and the united forces of Tanja (EE 2014) and Birgit (EE 2013) trying to compose a bigband talk show anthem and dedicating the lyrics for them being ladies with their high heels out on. And honestly, that’s all I’m gonna talk of acts-wise because most other songs were THAT of a radiofriendly-radio-filler that they don’t warrant anything else exciting for me to say.

• No but for real, the voting to the superfinal was completely off-rails. Instead of Victor, juries were there to support that Kerli woman that wasn’t from 2017 (and her soft acoustic song too), as well as Sissi and INGER (but you already know that because I barely read my write-ups before I finish them, hence lots of redundancy). At least that’s all to my knowledge. But everything definitely changed when the televote attacked! And turned the top 3 all male, lol. This voting was rather random simply because the juries didn’t really love Victor, but it definitely took the televote to convince them that “lol Victor is definitely worth of Eurovision!!! screw that he’s non-Estonian!!!” (the difference is that Victor doesn’t have a big social media following unlike Bilal and didn’t win an obnoxiously people-powered talent show unlike USNK from A Dal 2018 - it’s just that he’s more backed by Stig Rästa, and Stig is love, Stig is life.) Honestly, I am all up for unpredictable voting, but if it looks unpleasant to me, then I feel like tuning out.

We’re over with this write-up, thank-fuck-fully, so that you won’t need to hear me lamenting how supposedly cheap “Storm” is ever again. But before that I will have to leave you with some Eurovision 2019 facts coming on: Estonian delegation can be lucky for once - instead of having had to panic for spending an egregious amount of money for a staging detail, this year they don’t have to worry, as the organizers were so shook by Victor’s stormy sky effect, they offered to pay for it themselves!!! Crazy, huh??? (reported for favouritism)

And now I’m done. And we’re moving on to another review and I end up wishing Victor Crone the every best of luck out there. Storm out with a good time well spent! (Whatever that might mean.)

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #estonia 2019 #victor crone #storm #estonia

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maiji · 6 years

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“If you could pick 5 members to be on your team in the dark tournament, who would it be?”

So while I was going back through my archives trying to see if I had any incorrectly flagged content (I scrolled all the way to 2015, found three, and gave up/went to bed lol), I kept getting distracted and rereading old posts out of amusement. One of them was this 21 Questions Yu Yu Hakusho meme - and one question in particular made the gears of my brain clank so I thought hey, why not? Let’s answer it.

I'm going to tackle this question from two angles.

A) If I could pick ANY characters in Yu Yu Hakusho to form a team.

B) If I could only pick characters who appear during the actual Dark Tournament.

As soon as you see my first list, you'll understand why I was like, “oh.” and opted to do it again from B lmao.

(Oh yeah my tags spoil everything but oh well. Hope the rationale makes up for it hahaha)

VERSION A: Fun times

Raizen.

I'm sorry, the tournament is over now, thank you for coming. Seriously though, he's Yusuke with a million times more firepower and brains/experience. Also, one of the appeals of Yusuke is that he makes fighting fun, which is why everyone wants to go up against him. Raizen's friends express the exact same sentiment repeatedly. Raizen in his prime in battle would be a sight to see. He'd be all DID SOMEBODY SAY FIGHTING?? YEAH I'LL FIGHT ALL THE FIGHTS WAHOO and nobody would be able to get him off the arena platform. If there is an arena platform left. Or an arena. Or anything.

Enki.

Jolly uncle/all-round good dude, I love him. He also loves fighting, so he is also lots of fun. He seems much more cool-headed and practical than Raizen, and definitely takes the lead in coordinating the rest of Raizen's pals. Thus, he's a great wingman for Raizen. If you somehow actually manage to defeat Raizen- haha, what am I talking about? OK, if Raizen slept in or something, then you can fight Enki. And in that case the tournament is still over.

Kokou.

LOVES FIGHTING AND WILL KICK YOUR ASS. Even Enki was relieved he didn't have to face her. I firmly believe after Raizen she's the strongest - or at least one of the strongest - out of all of Raizen's already insanely powerful friends. Honestly, between Raizen and Kokou they'd probably just take everybody down, including each other, and have a blast.

My perfect noodle husband Hokushin.

Obviously no one is surprised at this pick on my blog. Also loves fighting, plus super duper reliable, he's perfect support for anything. Along with Enki, he'd help temper Raizen and Kokou's wild party. And somebody needs to clean up after all the mess and make sure everybody gets first aid and whatever. Well, first aid for the other team they just massacred, I guess.

One more Raizen friend: Natsume.

We could put another one of Raizen's friends here, but I pick Natsume because we know a lot more about her and she's so badass and we should have more women. Also, because she's very clearly another great mashup of LOVES FIGHTING and NOT STUPID, as a fifth member, she can easily step in to fill any of the others' shoes, whether it's happily beat the crap out of everything in sight or be calm and strategize. If anybody ever actually needed to be filled in for some reason.

I call this amazingness Team Old People. IMO this team is flawless because they would just be so damn entertaining on so many levels. You have five extremely powerful and smart warriors with centuries of experience who have nothing to prove aside from sheer enjoyment of battle. Every one of them has expressed a passion for fighting because it's simply a joy for them, which means they wouldn't be playing it safe/boring. Seeing a master in action at practically anything is awesome, and not only that but they’d be willing to experiment and take risks and do things that are out there. A tournament is also a form of entertainment for the audience (both the real life audience and the one in the show), and that combined with their expert level combat skills means that I think they'd be so fantastic to watch. And all of them have distinct personalities that balance "I am an ancient demon with wisdom and stuff" VS "I love punching people (or getting punched) in the face!!" in different enough ways that they still offer really interesting character dynamics and interaction opportunities. And they would also be incredibly supportive of each other while still allowing for plenty of snark.

That said, FUN FUN FUN aside, the very obvious problem with this team is that they seriously break the question. And everything else. Even if they don’t intend to flat out obliterate everything, that’s what would probably happen, and that unfortunately can easily head towards its own kind of boring. Everyone would be like "why are we having a tournament, we're going home". So, we must leave Team Old People behind and move on to version B.

VERSION B: Serious business

Dark Tournament characters only. I will exclude members of the Toguro Team from my selection for obvious reasons. NO MORE FUN TIME. This is me pretending that I'm some rich underworld dude or whatever putting together a team I'm betting on to get through the tournament. You're going to see a clear pattern emerging from my picks.

Genkai.

The veteran. Intelligent, experienced, very powerful and pragmatic. I'd shell out big bucks to get her to come back to be my team's captain. No question for me, she's a must, even if all she does is sit on the sidelines and coach the rest of the team. With a group of serious, motivated and talented fighters, she'd be the best mentor and my team would be well-positioned to MAKE ME LOTS OF MONEY SO IN YOUR SMOKY SCARRED FACE SAKYO

Hiei.

Those who know me may find it shocking that I'm including Hiei but not Yusuke, Kuwabara, or Kurama. Hiei doesn't appear on my tumblr very often, and of the four main characters he's probably the one I'm least emotionally invested in. But if you're assembling a team for the Dark Tournament, you're IN IT TO WIN IT!! And Hiei is the best bet. I shall explain.

Hiei is efficient and effective, and his success ratio is the highest out of all Urameshi Team members - the most number of individual fights without a single loss or draw. Granted, he sits out for a chunk of the tournament, but he rarely appears worn out at the end of a fight. The only time he overexerts himself is against Zeru; after his recovery, he never seems to break a sweat. Even against Bui, he had no real issues. From a betting perspective, his odds are very, very good. Kuwabara and Kurama both experience multiple losses - Kuwabara often because he's young and overconfident or becomes so personally involved that he cares more for a positive outcome for other people than for winning; Kurama often because (as Hiei notes) he tends to overcalculate the situation and draw things out so long figuring everything out that it turns into a disadvantage. Yusuke's very strong and has huge potential, but he's also focused far too much on the experience. This makes his battles fun to watch but would give a strategist heart attacks. Many of his fights involve near-misses or less-than-ideal situations stemming from amateur errors. And finally, he gets dinged with a draw in his match with Jin, in part because his dawdling on the field made the deception feasible. Yusuke's great for drama and storytelling, not great for the comfort of my pocketbook. Having him on a team is risky when I know the other underworld bosses I'm competing against are not above using underhanded tactics.

As a result, based on a purely practical evaluation, Hiei is the most reliable choice. He's very focused on, and very good at, the one thing I want - DEFEAT THE OPPONENT UNEQUIVOCALLY. He comes in and tears people apart and there's no chance of an ambiguous referee call. He just needs his team members to be people he can respect to keep him in line. With Genkai as captain, that shouldn't be an issue. Nor with the rest of my picks.

Ryo (Kai in the anime) / M-3.

This is the Dr. Ichigaki member with the invisible claw powers. After their fight, he offers to be a replacement for the seriously injured Kuwabara (Yusuke appreciates it but has to turn him down because it's against the rules unless Kuwabara actually dies). He seems to be the strongest of the three students who were brainwashed by Ichigaki, and without Genkai's intervention and his own struggling against Ichigaki's mechanism, he would very likely have wiped out Kuwabara and Yusuke. He's extremely serious and dedicated, and with someone like Genkai steering the helm I think he'd go far. I'd be comfortable putting money on him. I also like him a lot and wish he had more involvement in the story - I've always felt that if Togashi didn’t need to get Koenma in for story purposes Yusuke hadn't been so freaked out and completely lost mentally when Genkai died, he probably would've asked Ryo to be the replacement fifth member. SOMEONE WRITE THIS

Touya.

Stronger than Gama, less arrogant than Risho, more reliable than Jin (who has many of the same problems as Yusuke), and Bakken sucks and will never be considered by anybody. Touya's powers are also very flexible. Somebody just needs to tell him to NOT TALK TO HIS OPPONENT. Don't talk to them, don't listen to them, don't let them distract you, don't let them get into your head, JUST GET IN THERE AND EYE ON THE PRIZE AND BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF THEM OKAY lol. I also think when Genkai was training everyone for Kurama, Touya was probably the one who gave her the least hard time. I mean, out of Touya, Jin, Chuu, Rinku, Suzuki and Shishiwakamaru who do YOU think would bellyache the least? I thought so.

The fifth member is actually a backup/alternate who doesn't necessarily see action (if you recall, this is why Chuu was mad). For my final pick, I took a while to decide, so I'll tell you about both of the last two people I was considering since I enjoy any excuse to talk about characters I don’t usually see mentioned.

5a is Zeru.

OK, partly I considered him because nobody remembers him lmao - he was Hiei's first victory, obliterated into a shadow by Hiei's training-wheels Kokuryuuha. But if you look at my other picks, I think you'll appreciate why he's on my radar - he fits the profile of what I'm looking for very nicely. I want someone in control of themselves; who is a reliable, consistent, focused fighter unlikely to get distracted by other things; who clearly demonstrates power and is committed and has potential to grow really fast with the right direction/team captain. The only thing is that with Hiei already on the team, this may be duplicating the skillset and the mental profile a bit too much. And I think it's clear Hiei already has the upperhand in baseline power. So,

5b is Suzuki.

His strength isn't fighting. It's his ingenuity in adapting, augmenting, and outfitting his team members with really good, really creative tools. He's honestly more a tinkerer and an inventor, imaginatively tweaking things to be even more useful, and whenever he realizes and accepts this about himself instead of trying to be just another fighter in the limelight, he'll be rich lmao. Anyways, this skill makes him a hugely valuable asset. I don't need him to be in the ring, I'm fine having him support with cool gadgets to amplify the rest of the team.

I HOPE YOU LIKED MY PICKS lol

#yu yu hakusho #meme #21 questions yyh style #raizen #enki #kokou #hokushin #natsume #genkai #hiei #ryo #touya #zeru #suzuki

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takerfoxx · 3 years

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Thoughts on 'A Boy's Life'

magic5ball submitted:

I still don't understand why it took a guy drowning in a car for Cory's dad to realize the town was kinda screwed up. Two of the town's citizens are Klansmen, one is a Nazi in hiding, a gang of criminal moonshiners rule the streets, the bullies can beat weaker kids within an inch of their life with little repercussion, and even among the regular citizens racism is so rampant black folks have to live in a poorer town nearby. How anybody could be nostalgic for this hellhole is beyond me.

Kinda wished Ben Sears got to do more. I liked that kid.

Still debating whether the wasps in the attic of the church were a deliberate attempt at symbolism or not.

Even though Cory tries to paint him as magical, I still think Old Moses was just an ordinary, very aggressive, very big alligator gar.

Speaking of which, 'Last Day of School' vexes me, as while most of the supernatural elements in the story are ambiguous in nature, this one was unambiguously magic in nature.

My God I felt bad for Nemo. The fact we never get closure for the guy only makes it worse.

I really liked Lucifer, to the point where his death was one of the saddest parts of the book for me. The fact it is mentioned so offhandedly just makes it worse. At least Nemo got to leave one last mark on the world.

Wow, the story written by a writer has a main character who has a natural talent for telling stories. Definitely haven't seen that before.

I find Vernon's story interesting in the context of 'A Boy's Life' itself: Vernon crammed a murder mystery into his slice-of-life about a quiet town. 'A Boy's Life' is a slice-of-life with a murder mystery serving as the overarching plot.

Speaking of Vernon, he made me recall how I almost nuked my own writing hobby by trying to fit an what was seen as 'literary' as opposed to what I actually enjoy. Hope he found happiness, wherever he went.

Stevie Cauley managed to be one of my favorite characters despite possibly just being a hallucination. His whole chapter immediately made me think of 'Phantom Racer' by TWRP.

'High Noon in Zephyr' was a great chapter, too.

I love that friggin' triceratops. And Davy Ray's final moments left me depressed.

I find it amusing how Cory's dad bemoans the rise of the supermarket, despite it being my magical wonderland when I was little. These things are relative, I guess.

One of the things I found fascinating while reading this book was how every single major villain got some sort of comeuppance, and the mystery had an actual answer, something I'm not used to seeing in stories I read.

It shocked me how short part five was relative to everything else, but that somehow made the finale more bittersweet.

On another note: 'Yay, Zephyr's dead! Yay! Mr. Lightfoot's still kicking!'

'A Boy's Life' was interesting to me because while it was a good story, it feels like it was written for someone else. That being said, a good story is a good story, even if it was one that didn't necessarily reflect my personal experience. Heck, maybe its' better to hae a specific audience than to strip away your individuality for mass appeal. 7/10.

You know what? That's fair. Not everything is going to click with everyone, and I'm glad you gave it a shake and still thought it was good, even if it wasn't really your thing like it was mine.

A few points though:

It's actually quite believable that it took something as dramatic as a murder for Tom to start to realize how rotten things are, because as bad as that other stuff was, it's still unfortunately something that would be part of "the way things are" in a small Alabama town in the 1960s. But a graphic murder taking place right in front of him? That'll shake the illusions off of anyone.

And I would say that a major theme of the book is learning to recognize the rotten parts of your home as you grow older but also being able to keep the good parts to heart once it's gone. I'm parked in Lakewood for the time being but consider Long Beach my true home, and it is absolutely rife with many, many problems, but I still can't help but love it. Besides, it's easy for us to look back on them and wonder how no one saw how bad things were, but I'm willing to bet that people in the future will look back on what we consider normal and wonder about us too.

Nah. Old Moses was a lake monster, and you can't tell me otherwise. Or at least, a prehistoric gator/dile.

Okay, in regards to The Last Day of School, I made the same mistake my first time too, and often wondered why no one just sprouted wings and flew when they were either lost or in trouble. Then I realized that it's not meant to be them literally flying, it's a bunch of kids and a dog running around in a field pretending that they're flying, but from the viewpoint from within the fantasy itself. If you notice, the other kids rely on Cory to describe what's happening, because he's the imaginative one and known storyteller, so they let him lead the game. It's basically one of those magic of the imagination sort of tales.

I don't think Steve was a hallucination, because it's cooler to have an actual ghost, but also because other people either saw or reacted to his presence.

And I know having a story with a writer is kind of a cliche (thanks, Stephen King), but I'm going to defend it here, because for one, it has actual plot relevance, and two, this is a story about stories, so having a storyteller as a protagonist is thematically appropriate.

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