#i'll be making others for different aspects of 2021

[suckishima]

Chapter 158 vs. Chapter 298

“I am under no illusions that I could ever beat you on my own.”

(don’t mind me going insane under the cut)

ugh there’s two big things that make me crazy about this and 

1 is the surface level of just how yamaguchi’s individual growth keeps going even after the seijoh 2 match—when he gets those run of points and it becomes clear to us that his hard work has paid off—but it doesn’t just stop there! the first panels here are from the shiratorizawa match, the next match after seijoh 2, and i love this bc it’s another example of haikyuu saying “hey so that thing you wanted, you worked hard, you earned it, celebrate!” but then going on to ask “okay so what do we work for next?” and for yamaguchi he’s gone from ‘i just want to be on the court with them’ (deciding to learn jump floats) to ‘i wish i could get my body to listen to me the way theirs seem to’ (failing in siejoh 1 and doubling down during tokyo training camp) to the first panels here ‘i want to contribute/add value to the team’ to then finally the panels from the nekoma match where he can do more than just help, now it’s ‘i want all those things and more. i’m going to get these points with the team and for the team, all with my serve.’ and he DOES! like the GROWTH in his confidence!! aahh

and 2!! this is where i start to really lose it lmao, is his inspiration for all of that! why does yamaguchi play volleyball? because he thinks volleyball is cool. why is it cool? bc tsukki plays and tsukki is cool, and akiteru played and akiteru is cool, right? but is that enough?? by the time high school comes maybe it isn’t, bc of everything that’s happened and he’s a little disenchanted, but then he hears hinata and kageyama’s “as long as i’m here you’re invincible” and he thinks oh sHIT that’s cool! but he doesn’t have that kind of confidence, and he isn’t a setter or really a hitter, he’s barely even a server at this point—the only position on the court where you could gain points entirely alone—but THEN he also sees and understands the significance of a perfectly executed serve and block and he thinks not only is that ALSO super cool, but he realizes if he can get better he can do that super cool thing not just for himself, but for the team and more specifically, for tsukki. 

yamaguchi sees hinata and kageyamas totally insane, reciprocal declaration of making the other better and he starts to get mad at tsukki for not trying. because volleyball is cool, making each other stronger is cool, and tsukki is supposed to be cool too!! and instead of giving up, yamaguchi puts tsukki in his place and then yamaguchi just keeps trying even harder!! and his hard work and dedication is perplexing to tsukki. it’s frustrating bc he can’t understand it yet but he also can’t deny the fact that it certainly isn’t lame. yamaguchi’s passion has never been lame, and then tsukki starts to get inspired too. slowly it begins to cycle, and spiral upwards. yamaguchi took the first initiative to seek out shimada, tsukki joins his brothers practices and agrees to train with the gym 3 boys, yamaguchi has his ‘moment’ when he gets all those points in seijoh 2, tsukki has his when he stuffs ushijima (and neither of them is surprised by either of those moments!! of course they work they’ve been watching has paid off), and then by the time the nekoma match comes up yamaguchi’s confidence has grown tremendously, he gets an ace immediately after those panels and thennn he and tsukki execute their first successful serve and block. the volleyball equivalent of a perfect play. 

we never see yamaguchi and tsukki practice together, and yet separately they’ve been working toward this, silently inspiring each other over and over. individual work but not only individual growth. tsukki tells kuroo he never ever thought he could beat any of them on his own. in his own way, yamaguchi’s actions have made tsukki invincible too. and  kuroo and tsukki also both acknowledge that yamaguchi is already a step ahead once again, planning how he can do even more, starting the cycle another time. they keep passing the inspiration back and forth, connecting one volleyball moment to the next to drive the other to keep working, keep trying for even more!!!!! aaaaaahh

#hq!! #hq!! manga spoilers #tsukki #yamaguchi #hq #hq manga spoilers #one step ahead #oh look im crying over chapter 298 again lmaooo #actual tears in my eyes why am i like this #i was like 'oh i'm feeling good i'll just start up my long abandoned hq reread again' and two chapters in #im already finding growth moments i had forgotten about and i promptly lose my mind #its just *clenches fist* the way furudate does this connect thing about making characters integral to each others growth #solely through their own actions where one characters growth cant happen without the others #and its so perfectly intwined with the concepts of the literal rules of volleyball and aaaAAAAHHH #ive talked about it a lot with kageyama and hinata but tsukki and yamaguchi have aspects of it too okay!! it just works differently #and they both make me unstableee #2021 reread #x #connect #hq meta #tsukkiyama #what more do you need

[northwindow]

love your blog so much! and im wondering how you archive/document your day-to-day life and the information that you take in — whatever form: books, lyrics, trees, etc etc — ? im struggling so much w forgettttttting

i love this question! i’ve always longed to have a beautiful and consistent journal, but it’s something i struggle with maintaining organically so i’ve tried some different structures over the past few years. long-winded answer under the cut 💗

back in 2021, i was making a monthly journal on google slides which i really liked because it's so natural to integrate images. i just made a month of it public here as an example of what it was like.

from 2022 - now, i've been doing a new concept where on the last day of every season i write long, list-y answers to these prompts:

art that has been resonating with me (includes music, books, movies, visual art, anything really). i'll usually write a few words about it... "Decision to Leave dir. Park Chan-Wook—the eye shot! the eye shot with the ants crawling on it" or "'Train Ride' by Ruth Stone: 'Release, release; / between cold death and a fever, / send what you will, I will listen. / All things come to an end. / No, they go on forever.'" or "Chunky misshapen pearls and other organic, shiny shapes"

my favorite memories from the season... examples from past lists include "Swimming hole with Zoë where I stuck a twig in my hair and we waded around on our hands like crocodiles" and "Walks in my snowsuit at night, one in particular where the Gemenids meteor shower was just starting"

a checkup on 5 of my current projects/goals. currently these are 1. learn to lift weights, 2. write 50 "identical" poems, 3. write a new syllabus, 4. practice mindful spending, 5. improve at woodworking.

a checkup on 5 of my core values. currently these are 1. adventure, 2. connection, 3. play, 4. sensuality, 5. sustainability.

reevaluating projects and values to focus on next

since you mentioned wanting to remember things-- when i'm putting this together i draw extensively from my tumblr archive/likes, calendar, photos app, recent playlists, and letterboxd and storygraph accounts. curating this kind of ephemeral data into a more permanent and thoughtful record is really satisfying to me. i privately call this method "wrapped" a la spotify... like i'll have a big entry for "fall 2022 wrapped" and then "winter 2023 wrapped" and so on. i do all this on the app notion and file the seasons on one big page so it's easy to click into one and remember what i was doing and thinking about. (i also converted my dream journal to a notion database. i've logged about 300 dreams in here and love that i can tag by character/feature.)

over the years i've also kept a more classic diary via text documents that's less structured, just spitting out whatever's on my mind with the date at the top. i tend to do this frequently for a while, then ebb off, then restart another doc, rinse and repeat. i also have a few physical notebooks (including these two) but the digital stuff is way more extensive as i prefer to write on the computer.

if i were going to recommend any of this, i would say the visual format of the slides journal was really compelling because i liked the aesthetic freedom but i also love the "wrapped" lists because they seem to cut to the core of an era's texture. in the future i'd like to try to integrate these aspects together! 📓

[starrysharks]

ive sent like 20 asks to you atp but i really love ur art soooo so so so much like ur like my biggest inspiration fr like seriously i could blab all day abt how much i love your art and your arts almost singlehandedly motivated me to start working on shape language more bc i think thats like the key part of your art (to me at least) and youre like the true embodiment of "same face syndrome fears me" but like fr because all your ocs are so distinct and unique

do you have any tips on creating unique silhouettes / just general character design tips?? also id love to hear abt how your use of shapes and shape language evolved over time if ur fine sharing that!!

ok this is literally the sweetest ask ever like first off thank you so much ;_; i'm glad i was able 2 inspire you!!!

for me if you look at my old art there's little to no focus on shape language cuz i wanted to express a 'pointy' animeish style. examples are from 2020, 2021 respectively

as you can see i did NOT flip my canvas and my art was samey as hell,,, but in 2021 i started going for softer colors and shapes rather than points and spikes and brighter shapes. but, if you were to look through all of my art from either era, you'd see it's identical cuz i didn't care for shape language. this went on for quite a while :,)

then i discovered worlds end club in late 2021 and everything changed !!! i watched playthroughs cuz i didn't have a means to play at the time, and decided on making my artstyle a blend of cartoony and animeish - which ended up in choosing more expensive silhouettes and faces in turn

honestly i'm too tired to actually chronicle my artstyle change so i'll just skip to late 2022 in this timeline, sorry 😭

so by now has my artstyle evolved into aomwthing super cool n expressive ? no actually i think my art got worse in late 2022

as you can see, my colors got super washed out and i didn't really take risks, i guess? but i was finally starting to come into my own in terms of artstyle and was finally acknowledging shape language a little bit.

very early 2023 is the same, so let's skip to the one thing that changed my artstyle - the big 8 lineups

suddenly everybody was like 'wow your shapes are so good!!!' this was because i had tried to challenge myself with character design in these drawings. so i tried to emphasise interesting shapes more - using a technique where i'd just take an interesting shape or line that corresponded with a character's personality and repeating it as much as i could across the design.

like this deep cut art, where i tried to 'dial up'their already exaggerated shapes and design aspects (such as making frye's pants sag more or changing up shiv's hair. big man is perfect and needs no changes)

but this journey is still not over because a few months ago i rewatched all of panty and stocking and watched clone high for the first time, and both of these shows emphasise shapes a LOT in their designs, and i picked those up. here's art from a few months ago - in short, i tried to find the 'focal point' of the design, something that set it apart from other designs with similar body types or clothing, and built around that, if it makes sense? here's some art that i think expresses that well

comparing the new quintet art to the old one, i think you can also see that i started to try and use different body shapes and shapes in general (such as clyde having a more triangular build ig) . and tumblr doesn't let me add more pictures so this is where the overview ends !

my advice is - watch and rewatch anything that might inspire you, because it has the ability to push you in the right direction. for technical tips, id say -

draw different body types and age ranges (often times same face syndrome is born from only drawing the same age range, usually 15-20 for most sufferers)

play around with style - do you want a more western inspired style or something more akin to modern anime ? maybe something entirely different! try drawing in different styles that you like and see which ones stick

research fashion if only a little bit - it can help understand visually pleasing silhouettes (such as the famous big jacket or big pants silhouettes)

speaking of big jacket or big pants, contrast is key !!! top or bottom heavy designs are an easy way to express personality and an expressive silhouette ig

ummm thaz it ithink. once again thank you for your kind words and remember to take advice from multiple artists im just one guy!! i hope anything in here helped or was at least interesting to read

#ask zeno #zeno's art #long post #old art

[trashexplorer]

BLCD Review: Ikigami & Donor

Title: Ikigami to Donor (イキガミとドナー)

Author/Artist: Yamanaka Hiko

Shop: CD + Manga

Release Date: 2021/12/03

Cast: 

Nakajima Yoshiki x Saitou Souma

Yamashita Seiichirou + Kawanishi Kengo

Kobayashi Chiaki

Yashiro Taku

Komada Wataru

Hayashi Miho

Shiozaki Tomohiro

Higa Ryosuke

Abe Ryouma

Torashima Takaaki

Oota Kensuke

Nakashima Takuya

Fujita Mami

Miyama Mari

Souya Kazuki

Synopsis: 

"Your blood and flesh, all of it is mine." An ikigami and a healer, together their souls support each other, blooming into love...

In the distant future, ordinary teacher Yoshino learns that he is a "donor" for the strongest species, the "ikigami." These warriors are tasked with protecting the country. "The unique ability of a donor is to use their bodily fluids to heal ikigami." Yoshino learns this fact and is shocked. Thus, Yoshino is forced to live with Kidou... At first, he is like a beast, demanding Yoshino's bodily fluids, but slowly, the underlying loneliness begins to show...

"Someday, if I met a donor, could they come to love me? That thought is the only reason I survived..."

Review Proper

I can’t believe Yamanaka Hiko’s been terrorizing me for over twelve years now. OH MY GOD I’M SO OLD. And true to the Yamanaka Hiko brand, this turned out to be another fantasy masterpiece (read His 500 Years of Suffering Romance). This was definitely the type of thing that would do great even without the BL aspect of it. Now, I did have an issue with Kidou being an asshole (he's almost killed Yoshino more than once), so I’m not excusing it. But I do get how and why he turned out to be like that and I'm aware that it's important for his character development. The world-building was great, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely dubcon 2015. I would strongly advise you not to get into it if that's a deal breaker for you.

Anyway, onto the voice work.

Souma used a tone so close to Gucci's that I kept imagining Gucci being Yoshino. Yes, I didn't read the manga while listening to the BLCD. It was like after graduating Karasuno, Gucci went on to become a teacher, then a donor lmao. His Yoshino panics more like Honda-san, however, so my final verdict is that his Yoshino is half-Gucci, half-Honda-san.

This isn't Nakajiki and Souma's first rodeo, but I'm glad to say that their performance/dynamic here is different from Mikeneko and XL Size. I expected Kidou to be a mix of Amano and Anaconbayashi-kun 'cause the former was cocky and the latter was stoic, but Kidou was only 50% of that mix and 50% brooding, suffering, I'll-protect-you top. Am I even making any sense? Again, I listened to the BLCD first, but the sound direction they gave Nakajiki was very different from what I thought he'd sound like after I read the manga. It’s almost like what happened with OnoD’s expressive Hasebe-kun in the Kotonoha BLCD vs the more stoic Hasebe-kun in the manga. 

The voice work of our two leads was 👌. This might just be my fave out of their pairings 'cause the sex isn't over-the-top like XL Size and Mikeneko. I will say that I wasn't completely sold on Yamashita Seiichirou as Shibata-san 'cause I feel like he speaks too slowly, but I'm sure it'll grow on me by the time I listen to their spin-off. KawaKen was fine. My heart broke for him every time Shibata-san rejected him, so it's safe to say he's got Taki-kun down already.

Oh. I did have a slight issue with the sfx too. Why was it so watery??? Lmao. Even r18 otome cds aren't that wet. But it's not so glaring that it'll turn you off.

The BLCD was almost perfectly accurate to the manga. I highly recommend this to those learning mid to higher levels of Japanese. Futekiya has licensed volumes 1 & 2, so please try to support the official release if you can. I'd be lying if I said that I agree with how they translated it so... literally?, but I think it's also important to see how things are translated that way if you're aiming to dip your toes into translation aside from studying the language. For example, they used "Living God" throughout the manga instead of "Ikigami." It's correctly translated, but I personally prefer retaining the original title. You know, like how Viz uses "Kaiju no. 8" instead of "Monster no. 8?"

God knows if I'll ever survive the spinoff that I wanted to work on. I avoided talking about it for a reason lmao. Anyway, if y'all liked this, then please give 500 Years (Ono Yuuki x Suzuki Tatsuhisa) and Shortcake no Ichigo Sawaranaide (Nojima Hirofumi x Takeuchi Ken). These two are android bls and Ikigami to Donor is more guide bl, but they both share a futuristic vibe.

#blcd reviews #blcd 2021 reviews #ikigami to donor #ginger records #yamanaka hiko #nakajima yoshiki #saitou souma #kobayashi chiaki #yashiro taku #komada wataru

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

My entire Spanish novel collection

I'm not a huge fan of George Orwell, but I read both Animal Farm and 1984 in high school so I know they're short and easy to read. They'll be good practice.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is by far my favorite series of all time. None of the four (yes, four. Not five, not six, but four) are favorites by themselves, but taken as a whole I have yet to find anything more entertaining.

Jurassic Park is fun but VERY dry (as is Crichton's style). He has a lot of "look at all the research I did" exposition dumps, which I liked as a teenager but don't much care for now. If nothing else, I'll learn plenty of scientific vocabulary from Parque Jurasico.

The Martian is one of my favorite books of all time, tied for first with two titles below. I've read it a dozen times, I know it forwards and backwards. El Marciano was the first Spanish book I ever bought back in 2021, and I couldn't parse more than one word in ten. My reading comprehension has improved tremendously since then, and now I can read almost the entire thing (if I don't understand a certain passage, I know from memory of the English version which part I'm at in the story and can limp along without getting frustrated or confused)

The Road is one of the few books that has made me cry. Let me leave it at that.

The Time Traveler's Wife is another favorite tied with The Martian. I read all the other books on this list in high school or college, but I didn't pick this one up until relatively recently. I am currently in the process of reading La Mujer del Viajero en el Tiempo for the first time, and like The Martian I am able to use my knowledge of the English version to cross the gaps I don't yet understand.

World War Z is the third of the three way tie for favorite. I wanna say I read it for the first time in 2011 or 2012. It was before the movie came out, and I remember taking it with me to read at church camp one summer (it was a long bus ride to North Carolina, and I had to hide it from the chaperones all week). Every time I reread it, I pick up on some new aspect I missed the first dozen times around, so I'm excited to see if I come to any revelations in Spanish.

Books I want to get

Artemis and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Devolution by Max Brooks

Redshirts by John Scalzi

A family friend of mine moved to the United States from Honduras in her late 20s and learned English in part by watching Sesame Street with her kids, so I want to get Spanish versions of the Hunger Games trilogy and the five Percy Jackson and the Olympians books because I figure YA novels might help me learn Spanish easier than adult fiction. Right now I'm looking for simple titles that I'm already familiar with, but eventually I want to start buying Spanish books I've never read in English so I can fly without a net. My background is in Latin American Spanish, specifically Cuban Spanish, but my copy of El Marciano is European, so it shouldn't make too much of a difference which translations I buy (just so long as I keep series grouped together in sets so they're all the same)

#spanish books #español #libros #animal farm #1984 #george orwell #the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy #douglas adams #jurassic park #michael crichton #the martian #andy weir #the time traveler's wife #audrey niffenegger #world war z #max brooks #the road #cormac mccarthy #spanish practice #reading list #to read list #spanish edition

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- A Courtesan of Rome

Welcome to the fifteenth official Cadybear's Reviews post! Ironic that this is the fifteenth. Unfortunately this is about 10 days late for Ides of March this year. Today I'll be talking about A Courtesan of Rome, which I have ranked on the "Platinum Tier" at 9 stars out of a possible 10. My last playthrough of this story was around November-December 2021.

I’m rather fond of this one. 

This is one of the few MCs where it makes sense for them to have a lot of pre-set aspects about them, and for the record they did do a fantastic job establishing it via the flashbacks. And even then, they also manage to give us enough player agency by allowing us to choose her motives, methods, and goals. So it’s a very neat and fair balance between pre-set and flexible. 

This is also one of the few pointfully genderlocked books– while male courtesans did indeed exist in Ancient Rome, they’d likely have had vastly different experiences to that of female courtesans. Chances are, the male MC version would have so many dialogue changes that it’d basically be an entirely new book. Don’t get me wrong, I’d definitely love to see a male MC version of this story, but I can understand why PB would genderlock it. 

Admittedly the story can drag at times, and the “8 years ago in Gaul” flashbacks can be a bit of a trudge (granted they do set up the story well), but it is worth it. My only real problem is that according to some fans who are history experts, this story does stray a lot from historical accuracy. But I guess not every periodical story is gonna be perfectly historically accurate. 

That, and also the way they handled Xanthe is just… not good. Other people have explained it better, but basically, in a general sense, Xanthe isn’t much different from MC. Both are courtesans as per being victims of human trafficking, both are forced to rely on seduction to survive and overpower men– but the story villainizes Xanthe, while MC is pushed as heroic and morally grey/complex for the exact same shit. All because… Xanthe is kind of catty towards MC?

I didn’t think much of it in either of my two playthroughs, but I’ve seen other people bring it up and looking back… it’s too major to ignore. It’s hypocritical at best, and has some very troubling (racist) implications at worst. Especially in a book that’s meant to be an empowering periodical womanhood story. So it did end up bringing the book down a tier. 

We rightfully bitch about the cheap “straw loser villain woman who exists solely to have exaggeratedly bad behaviors solely to make the MC seem better” and “pitting women against each other just because they want/do the same thing” tropes all the time in Choices stories like TNA, FCL, and TBB; and while I do still rank those books much lower due to having more objective problems overall, the trope is much more unforgivable in this book given the context. 

However, while the story does have some pretty major problems, it does also have a lot of good aspects going for it that did make me mostly enjoy it. But who knows, my opinion might change after a replay. 

I will also say, it’s really fun to diamond mine this one for OG HSS Book 2. Getting to stab Caesar and then taking down Principal Isa right after. So I do have a bit of a soft spot for the book in that regard. 

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #acor #choices acor #a courtesan of rome #choices a courtesan of rome

[sushicha]

Let's be better about Shourtney/Shartney

Borrowing this Shourtney/Shartney rant from my IG! I originally made this when the evidence got super clear, and I was scared the ship was about to explode in popularity and people were gonna freak out 😬 that hasn't necessarily happened (yet), but I still want the advice out there:

This is kind of a semi-rant and word of caution about the shipping of Shayne and Courtney. Tumblr and IG are pretty much the only two places to talk about this.

So if you've been following the Shourtney hashtag on IG, or have seen evidence here on Tumblr, it's becoming increasingly clear that Shayne and Courtney are dating. With what's been brought to light, it's fairly certain.

I'm the first to admit that I've shipped these two for a while and that I was always curiously looking for proof. There wasn't much evidence prior to 2021, so that's likely around when they started actually dating. Even as the evidence was really pouring in and some of it was kinda stalkerish, I was still morbidly curious, and I know a lot of you did the same. Guilty as charged, I'm a lonely hoe... 😔

I'll start by saying the evidence is NOT from videos. I know a lot of you have tried to use their gazes and interactions in Smosh videos as "proof" for years, but body language is not evidence. There's a million ways to interpret a "gaze" or how they talk to and interact with each other. Courtney especially has that type of aura about her where she's very comforting and has great chemistry with others, so what people interpret as "flirting" is just her normal friendly behavior (it's very reminiscent of how men will sometimes misinterpret women just being nice to them as "flirting"). And despite the fact that they're likely in a relationship, nothing about how they interact now is tangibly different than previous years. They're professionals, they're actors, and Smosh is very self-aware that Shourtney drives up viewer engagement, so there's no doubt they've played it up at times.

But... regardless of how little evidence there is in videos, there's other stuff out there which makes it safe to say they're dating. Look for it yourself, I'll no longer be sharing that info.

To me, it appears like it's more of an "open secret" at this point, like a "if you know, you know" type thing. Courtney is more comfortable posting pictures in Shayne's clothes, Courtney's vlogging in their apartment now... I feel like they're at least at peace with the fact that SOME of us know, especially because the Shourtney fandom is still pretty underground and not a lot of people have seen the harder evidence.

Some might be asking, then, why don't they just go public and get it over with??? Damaige did, so why not them???

Why WOULD they, is the real question?

Public relationships are so complicated. All semblance of real privacy vanishes. Everyone suddenly has some opinion on your relationship. People still analyze the shit out of your body language. People still attribute the woman or fem-presenting person's success to the man. People become entitled to personal information. If you guys breakup, people make wild assumptions and take sides. It becomes a breeding ground for the worst aspects of parasocial behavior. Public relationships sound like a complete nightmare. Having to ignore all of the problematic comments while constantly looking over your shoulder sounds like a complete nightmare. People wanna live their lives privately and be known for their personal accomplishments and skills, not their relationship. Shayne and Courtney are both talented individuals BY THEMSELVES.

They have both expressed in videos and podcasts that neither want to have public relationships. They almost always go bad.

But the unfortunate reality is that their relationship being "exposed", even if it's at a relatively small scale, has been seemingly against their will. While Courtney said in a recent Q&A what she posts is intentional, that might not be the case for friends who accidentally exposed Shourtney. It must suck to have to be so careful about what you post and with who, especially at large parties and whatnot. So much is out of your control. Like, who the fuck wants to closely analyze reflections in windows and shit? Or have to tell someone you might barely know not to post a picture of you two?

Maybe they'll address it at some point. Maybe they won't. Making the comparison to Damien and Saige was always completely unfair because Damaige going public was their own personal decision. Shayne and Courtney are completely different people and may have a different line of thinking on the matter. That's not to mention, Saige has expressed a few times on her Twitch that she regrets going public with her relationship and it only made weird incels attribute her successes to Damien even more.

So what should the fans do???

Not be fucking assholes and creeps. Not be misogynistic. Call out assholish, creepy, misogynistic behavior. Not make wild speculations, or become entitled to their personal lives. Don't send Shayne or Courtney (or anyone they know) weird DM's about it. That type of thing. Keep it chill, talk among us Shourtney stans if you must, and live your fucking life, man. Find your own relationship 😅

I know most of the Shourtney stans have been pretty respectful, all things considered. A few bad apples, stalkers, etc. But whatever weird shit that happened on that (now shutdown) Shourtney Discord server should stay in digital hell.

Shayne and Courtney are gonna share what they wanna share. I make this post foreseeing that they may eventually feel the need to say something, but if I'm wrong and they say absolutely nothing, so be it. They've both said shipping is okay because it's content and mostly harmless, but clearly there's a line. And if you see someone crossing it, call them out!

That's all 🙏 I probably won't post much Shourtney content from here on out, but I'll be around. Feel free to discuss it or ask me stuff. ☺️

#shourtney #shartney

[chainofclovers]

This was my first Ted Lasso post. Saturday, February 6, 2021. We started watching the night before and finished the series that Saturday. I don't know why I wrote the post in that style, but I vaguely remember pretending to pretend to be flippant while already knowing there would be no turning back from the path of being very into this show.

It's actually kind of wild how much Ted/Ted has been in my brain since then. I'm no stranger to being obsessed with things, but this experience has felt unique because it's been A) unusually social and B) unusually suspenseful!

So many things have happened to me since February 5-6, 2021! I have a different job! At that time there existed family members whom I hadn't met (COVID, different countries, newborn baby, etc.) who I now know! A lot of other stuff happened! But chugging through my brain literally every single day since then, alongside all the things that actually happened to me in three-dimensional life, have been the same questions and my multitudinous reactions and predictions and rollercoastering feelings:

Will Ted and Rebecca get together romantically, and/or (and) what aspects of their soulmate connection be things they understand with their own minds?

Where will Ted live at the end of the series?

What's up with Beard and his Ted-devotion?

These are probably the only questions that have truly been there since the beginning—I'm not some kind of savant. But still! Every day! Even on really busy important days! I was thinking about these questions and I still am! And even as the series ends (whatever happens in the future, I'm figuring that since this is the end of the arc and the end of anything planned, it's probably nicest to my brain to just process this as the end) and I feel all the attendant anticipation, I can't really wrap my brain around having the answers. To be in purely reactive/interpretive mode after having all these unanswerable questions bopping around for so long.

The Ted/Rebecca thing is particularly !!!/..../??? for me, because yes, there have been plenty of show commentary/interviews/etc. that imply they won't be a romantic couple at the end of the series (I certainly don't feel baited or promised something) but there's also been plenty of stuff explicitly refusing to talk about what the end actually looks like (for what I assume are good reasons even if they aren't necessarily romantic ones), and there are so many symbolic connection points. I STILL feel like I really don't have a solid hold on what will actually happen between them, and this isn't something that makes me feel critical about the story even if the viewing experience has been a bit stressful. My biggest question is about the extent to which those connection points are realized not just in the text itself but in character conversations.

I've enjoyed nearly all of s3 and the last couple episodes have been particularly satisfying for me but also particularly crazy-making for me and it's just so weird to think about the suspense being over. I'm sad about the parts that are ending, but I'm also excited about not having the stress of unknowns anymore; I'm ready to process it as a whole. It almost feels like I've been planning a wedding or involved trip, and when it happens I'll get a lot of brainspace back. Just in time to write post-series fic. :)

#about me #ted lasso #hot dork club #ted x rebecca #i feel very grateful for all the friends i've made in this fandom #there are some absurdly talented and kind people here #i don't even know what i wanted to accomplish by writing this #just to capture the oddness of having waited week by week and month by month and even year by year for a fictional world to reveal itself #and for the full reveal to be so close to actually happening #weird times man

[maya-chirps]

Celebrating Christmas in the Philippines: The Christmas Capital of Asia (Part 1)

A store in the Philippines that sells Filipino Christmas decorations sourced AFP Photo/Noel Celis, posted by Ana Catalina Paje (2021) via Yahoo! News

Filipino Christmas is notorious worldwide for being some of the longest celebrations of the holiday in the world. Often said to start on the month of September and ending at around February, being the main event for almost half the year is nothing to sneeze at. Even with this, how much do you know about Filipino Christmas exactly?

Just like all Christmas traditions from all around the world, the Filipino way is rooted in long tradition and history that stems from colonial, and postcolonial practices that continue to evolve into the present day with many more additions in the future.

Before I start

As usual, it is important for me to recognize that the Philippines is a diverse country with different cultures, traditions, and histories with each community having their own unique practices and experiences with the holidays. There is no way for me to fully encompass every single experience that every Filipino has for this holiday as well as the experiences of those who don't even celebrate the holiday. This is besides the fact that uncovering sources for more specific traditions or practices may be either difficult or impossible for me to access easily.

I also want to note that not all Filipinos celebrate Christmas such as Filipinos of different religious backgrounds such as Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist Filipinos, or of different denominations that may not celebrate Christmas such as members of some Protestant denominations.

I also had to split up this post into two parts because Tumblr wouldn't let me make extremely long posts. Part 2 is linked here.

With that being said, feel free to add your own stories and experiences to this post if you have any to share or even information that I may not had discussed at all.

(This was supposed to go live on the 25th but it got delays because of personal stuff sowwyyyy. I'll just reblog this for next year too lol)

Etymology

In the Philippines, Christmas is primarily called pasko with the season itself called kapaskuhan . It comes from the Spanish word pascua, from the phrase pascua de navidad. Pascua comes from the Latin pascha which then comes from the Greek πάσχα (páskha) which then came from Hebrew's פסח (pesach) originally referred specifically to Passover (Vivas, 2021).

From pascua and, by extension, pasko's usage to refer to Easter (i.e. pascua de resurrección and pasko ng pagkabuhay respectively), the word was then later used to refer to Christmas (i.e. pascua de navidad) as the word often referred to the celebratory aspect of the holiday. The Spanish brought over the dual usage of the term for both holidays during the colonial period.

Certain variations of the word around the country typically follow the same root with pasku or pascu being used in Kapampangan, a closely related language to Tagalog, and some other languages keeping the usage of pascua like the Spanish creole language of Chavacano.

Filipinos today often interchange the usage of pasko and Christmas when discussing the holiday, and sometimes may use an informal Filipinized spelling of Christmas as krismas by spelling the English word by sound (a trait of a lot of Filipino languages) which mimics a Filipino accent but I honestly had not seen this in a while.

History

Surprisingly,according to legend, the story of Christmas in the Philippines doesn't start on 1521, the year Ferdinand Magellan landed on the island of Cebu, nor the subsequent years after that, but on 1324, nearly 200 years before the Spanish came anywhere close to the Philippines islands.

In an old church called Saint James the Great Parish Church found in Bolinao, Pangasinan, exists a marker that makes the interesting claim that the first mass, and by extension the first mass in the history of the Philippines took place in the very place where the church now stood as a thanksgiving mass for their safe landing on the island (Sotelo, 2015). Ocampo (2012) states that there had been claims within Pangasinan folk legends that this first mass was also specifically the first Christmas mass that had taken place in the history of the Philippines which had embedded itself on the town of Bolinao's folklore.

A photo of the plaque found in St. James the Great Parish, Bolinao, Pangasinan showing Fr. Odorico posted by Vera Bajado (2021) via TripAdvisor

The story goes that on a stormy night, during his missionary travels to Asia, Italian Franciscan friar and missionary Blessed Fr. Odorico of Pordenone landed on the islands to take refuge in the town to wait for the rains to pass. It is said that they had met "hostile natives" who later changed their disposition after he proved himself harmless. He later celebrated the mass with his crew and the locals, people attributing these events to have taken place on the 25th of December (Yuvallos, n.d.). The full text for the marker that relays this story was transcribed by the blog Vagabonding with Chu (2017) and reads:

"Blessed Odorico From Friuli (Italy) Franciscan Missionary Born in Pordenone (Italy) around 1275 A.D. – Father Odorico, a courageous and religious Franciscan missionary pioneered the spread of the Gospel in Asia and China. He traveled always barefooted among indescribable difficulties and dangers exhausting his energies in the service of the Kingdom of God. In 1324, after landing and taking refuge in Bolinao, Pangasinan during a stormy weather, Father Odorico celebrated a thanksgiving Mass in honor of their safe journey and his mission. He also indocrinated and baptized many of the Malay immigrants in Bolinao. He returned home to Udine (Friuli) Italy after thirteen years mission. He died a holy death on January 14, 1331. His precious remains are kept in an artistic tomb of the parish church of our Lady of Mount Carmel, in Udine (Italy). Blessed Odorico, Pray for Us." - Marker in front of St. James the Great Parish Church

This claim is contested by historians including Ocampo (2012) who even adds that the additional parts of the story makes it much more unbelievable such as the claim that Fr. Odorico also planted the first Christmas tree which had not been a popular Christmas staple until the 19th Century. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines later affirms that the first mass did not in fact take place on Bolinao, Pangasinan but on Limasawa, Southern Leyte on Easter Sunday 1521 (Yumol, 2020).

The first Christmas mass most likely happened either a little after this time with a celebration possibly taking place during the stay of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi when arrived in the Philippines in an effort to start colonizing the islands. He was able to establish a Spanish settlement called the Villa del Santisimo Nombre de Jesús where he and his men lived in from 1565 - 1569 where celebrations for Christmas definitely must have taken place. The last of the Spanish forces in the country had also, incidentally, left from Cebu on Christmas day 1898 (The Freeman, 2021).

An old map of Villa del Santisimo Nombre de Jesús, now modern day Cebu posted by the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu (2017).

A lot of older traditions persist to the present day but the more modern-looking Christmas, much like in other Western Christian countries didn't become as popular until the late 19th to early 20th Century coming mostly from other European and American influences.

Traditions such as the Christmas tree had not existed in Filipino Christmas celebrations until the late 19th century, with the first seen mentions of it in the writings of Dr. José Rizal both in his translation of Hans Christian Andersen's work as well as a letter he had wrote home from Berlin to his sister Saturnina, who was called Neneng, and her husband Manuel, who was called Maneng, where he translates a story about a sad pine tree with the words"Ang Puno ng Pino" (en. The Pine Tree) next to two drawings of Christmas trees, Ocampo (2012) writes.

Ocampo continues to explain how Rizal wrote about the many German traditions that he had encountered in Berlin, including the decorating of a pine tree for Christmas. Ocampo later transcribes this letter in his article:

"There are some beautiful and good [German] customs, like Christmas, which gives me pleasure to describe here for it is not found in Spain and you have not read about it in Spanish books. On Christmas Eve they bring from the forest a pine tree, and this tree is chosen because, besides being erect, it is the only tree that keeps its leaves during winter—I say it badly; not really leaves, but a kind of needle. It is decorated with tinsel, paper, lights, dolls, candy, fruits, dainties, etc., and at night time, it is shown to the children (who should see the preparation of it), and around this tree the family celebrates Christmas." - Dr. José Rizal in a letter to his sister Saturnina Rizal and her husband Manuel Hidalgo (Ocampo, 2012)

The Christmas tree, however, didn't become fashionable for the wider public's own Christmas celebrations until the arrival of the Americans, of which brought their own American traditions to the Philippines.

Ocampo continues to write that Rizal compared the customs of Germans and the Spanish and said that the Spanish holiday gets ruined because of too much praying. Rizal states that the Germans and those of Northern Europe, celebrate with the idea of preserving some level of childhood innocence and allow children to play unlike the Spanish which he describes as a much more crass culture who don't allow much play for the season and instead make these children pray during the holiday. Ocampo continues to transcribe:

"... the Spaniards do not indulge in poems for children and young people, or as the vulgar expression goes, they do not beat around the bush. They attend more to the positive, or the stomach. And Carambas! they would say; let us amuse ourselves and let children and young people seek their own amusement as best they can. They do seek their own diversion, with the result that the children and young people in Spain lack the charming innocence and candor of those in the North [of Europe], without malice, without great preoccupations (...) This is because here [in Germany] they know how to give age its due, unlike in other countries where children are not allowed to be themselves, to make noise or to play. Instead, they are made to recite the rosary and novena until the poor youngsters become very sleepy and understand nothing of what is going on (...)" - Dr. José Rizal comparing German and Spanish Christmas customs in his letter to his sister Saturnina and her husband Manuel (Ocampo, 2012).

This aligns with the shift in most Western Christian societies from viewing children (mostly white children) as sinful or ignorant smaller adults to a more romanticized ideal of innocence, allowing children more time for play with less responsibilities that wasn't afforded to them in the previous centuries. The romanticized view of childhood shifted the focus of Christmas on prayer and generosity to be more family, and more specifically, child-centered (Cecire, 2020). This was especially true for more industrialized countries of the time including late 19th Century Germany, of which Rizal was living in during the time he sent that letter to his sister and brother-in-law.

Photograph of the "exhibition of Christmas trees"; at Maryknoll Normal College which features students from the 1930s showing off their Christmas trees that they had created during an art class with Sr. Caritas in the center and art teacher Miss Cristobal at the left-side of the photo at the back. The image was sourced from the University of Southern California Libraries' International Mission Photography Archive, ca.1860-ca.1960, Maryknoll Mission Archives posted by John Tewell (2016) via Flickr.

Filipino Christmas continued to be influenced by non-Hispanic Western Christian countries with the turn of the century and the start of the American colonial era. Traditions like greeting cards which the Americans introduced popularized the figure of Santa Claus and white snow as strong associations with the holiday despite the Philippines never experiencing any snow in its entire history (Roa, 2017).

After the American occupation, Filipino Christmas continued to develop into the modern day adding new traditions stemming from older ones, continuing to change and grow even today.

(Part 2: Practices in the Present Day)

(Reference List)

#mayaposts #mayapino #filipino #philippines #filipino culture #christmas #filipino christmas #history #filipino history #christianity #christian history #traditions #christmas traditions #filipino christmas traditions #colonial history #spanish colonial history #american colonial history #long post

[bogkeep]

maybe it's a little bit early but i'm ready to do the Review and Reflection of my 2022!!

where the past two years were very static years for me with only subtle changes (yes there's a pandemic but i still had to go to work and it all blended together into a soup), THIS year set off the rube goldberg machine of Theo Quit His Job To Move To Sweden And Started Watchmaker School. SO YEAH i think i can make a list again >:)

- I QUIT MY HOTEL RECEPTIONIST JOB THANK FUCKING GOD!! on one hand, i've been incredibly glad to have had the income and stability, especially during a pandemic even though holy fuck i sure had to go to a public facing job during a pandemic, and there were many aspects of my job that i genuinely enjoyed, and i felt quite good at it. that said, thinking about my job now triggers a spike of anxiety through my brain, and i was planning to quit sometime already last year. all of my good and cool coworkers quit shortly before me and i had to train all the new ones (including the new manager!) and i hope i never have to work at a hotel ever again or interact with cops that much. i gave myself so many headaches trying to accomodate all the guests to the best of my very limited abilities - there's only so much i can do with old building inaccessibilities (the elevator didn't even go to the top floor) (most of the bathroom doors were not wide enough for wheelchairs) (COULDN'T WE AT LEAST BUY SOME SHOWER STOOLS?) and the lack of AC. and while my wages were livable enough, i don't think i got paid nearly enough to compromise my personal morals and ethics on a regular basis. that's capitalism for you i guess. ANYWAY GLAD TO BE OUT OF THERE

- i got into watchmaker school!!!!!! i was looking into this and preparing for it already last year, trying to figure out what to DO and where to GO, and it's a huge relief to me that i actually got in!!! a new and exciting step for whatever my future will turn out to be!! :D

- as a result i didn't only move out of my town but out of my country. for now. but now i get to live in an itty bitty garage-turned-house by myself and it's WONDERFUL. this is my first time living entirely by myself!!! i love it!!!!!! yes i will have to temporarily move out in the summers when the houseowner wants to use the space as a tourist season airbnb, but getting to be in control of my own environment is very healing and affirming to me. i spent so much of my teenage/early adult years thinking i'll never be able to handle adult life, but here i am!! thriving!!!!! i am more self sufficient and capable than i ever thought i'd be!!!

- my summer was incredibly chaotic due to all of the moving out and moving in and uncertainty of whether i'd get into school or not et cetera, BUT i did get to visit the czech republic again for the first time since december 2019. it was good to see my family and my childhood best friend again.

- i got to meet several close friends i haven't gotten to see in person for a long time. i got to spend some good quality time with friends i lived close to, as well (that i now miss so so much). i made some new friends that are very dear and important to me.

- i got really super into S & D tier this year, and my brainworms have calmed their wrigging since i've been busy with school and all these other life things, but it's such a wonderful series that i'm absolutely thrilled to have discovered. it even got me making fanfic, and it felt really good to get back into writing again!!

- i think i got a new tattoo earlier this year? so much has happened since march that it feels like a completely different year! it's also very small compared to all the tattoos i got during 2020 and 2021, but i didn't have much else going for me then. so.

- i wish i had like, anything to report regarding my gender transition, but all i've done has been like... 2? video consultations with the trans clinic? and zero progress? i don't want to think about it too hard because it makes me want to tear my hair out. I'M HANGING IN THERE

TO CONCLUDE. this year has been one of huge changes in my life!! i am thoroughly overwhelmed by it but doing my best to ride the waves!! i am being so so brave and pursuing the things i want to do!!!! every now and then things turn out Good and i have to confront the reality of Sometimes Things Are Very Good and it's a little bit like a blinding light too bright to look at directly, because i'm a little burnt out, i'm lightly toasted, and i'm taking on these big things and trying to change along with them, and it's a lot but ultimately worth it, yes? yes.

#swedenquest #other things happened too but these are the things i want to share!! <3

[justafriend-ql]

Do you have any fave Thai BL series? If you do, what's your top 10?

hi anon! i'm so sorry i'm only seeing your ask now. i'm not sure i could pick a top 10... so i'll give you my top 5! i'll add a link to the mydramalist page for each series so you can learn more about them too.

never let me go (2022-2023)

MyDramaList synopsis: Nuengdiao is the heir to a prestigious family. His status has forced him to grow up isolated with no room for imperfection. Then his father is shot to death right in front of him. Now he and his mother's lives are in danger. The son of a loyal Kiattrakulmethee family employee, Palm is appointed to protect him from the dangers in and outside school. In his life of uncertainty, Palm's presence leads Nuengdiao to new experiences. Where to watch: GMMTV's youtube channel or Viki Highlights: high stakes, interesting family drama, great chemistry between the two main leads

2. my school president (2022-2023)

MyDramaList synopsis: Student body president Tinn has a secret crush on Gun, the head of the music club and lead singer of the middling band Chinzhilla. The son of the principal, Tinn is instructed to axe any clubs that don't boost their school's reputation. The music club tops that list and Tinn is therefore Gun's number one enemy. Desperate to save his club, Gun will do anything, even pledge servitude to Tinn. When Tinn learns Chinzhilla has a rule that band members aren't permitted to date until they win the Hot Wave Music Contest, he vows to do whatever it takes to help them do just that. Where to watch: GMMTV's youtube channel or Viki Highlights: great balance of sweetness of seriousness, killer soundtrack, delightful friend group

3. my only 12% (2022)

MyDramaList synopsis: Cake and Seeiw have been friends as far as they can remember. Cake is very outgoing and has a lot of friends while Seeiw is very shy and barely speaks to people he's not used to being around. Despite their different personalities, they are very close. By being next-door neighbors since they were born, they became an essential aspect of each other's lives. However, as they become older, things change and so do the way they see each other. There is only a 12% possibility of having a successful first love. Would that 12% be enough? Where to watch: iqiyi (but also available on platforms like dailymotion) Highlights: slow burn, time jump done right, tremendous acting in emotional scenes

4. not me (2021)

MyDramaList synopsis: Black and White are twins with a powerful connection. After their parents' separation, though, White’s father took him abroad, and their family effectively severed in two. It isn’t until fifteen years have passed that White—now grown—returns to Thailand. One day, seemingly from nowhere, White feels an agony like death. He recovers in the hospital, but they’re unable to determine the cause. Then he picks up a call from a childhood friend, Tod. Tod tells him that Black is in a coma following a vicious attack, and he learns that Black is in a motorcycle gang. Unable to endure the harm done to his brother in silence, and suspecting it was one of Black’s close friends—Sean, Gram, or Yok—who betrayed him, White disguises himself as Black to root out the traitor. But White doesn’t know his brother as well as he thought; he’s not behaving like the Black Sean knows, distrustful and uncaring about the feelings of others. Sean's suspicious. The difference gets under Sean's skin and makes him feel things he shouldn’t. Where to watch: GMMTV's youtube channel Highlights: beautiful and gritty aesthetic, focus on social justice, arson :)

5. i told sunset about you (2020)

MyDramaList synopsis: Teh and Oh-aew were best friends until a boyhood line of reasoning turned them into rivals. Years later as they're preparing for university admissions, both pursuing interests in the field of Communication Arts, the two meet in a Chinese language class. Their reunion awakens complicated and unstable feelings. Where to watch: Viki (but also available on platforms like dailymotion) Highlights: gorgeous cinematography, phenomenal acting, angsttttt

Bonus: currently airing thai bls I'm enjoying

last twilight (2023)

MyDramaList synopsis: Burdened with heavy debt, Mhok, a technical college student, applies for a high-paying job as a caregiver to Day, a badminton player with partial blindness due to infectious keratitis. Day hires Mhok who—unlike other applicants—seems to take no pity on him. With so much time spent in each others' company, the two develop a deep bond. When Day learns he'll have approximately 180 days until he loses what vision he has remaining, how will the two weather the trials ahead? Where to watch: GMMTV's youtube channel Highlights: slice-of-life storytelling, thoughtful representation of disability, pretty cinematography

twins (2023)

MyDramaList synopsis: It is said that identical twins who are produced from the same egg will share a bond as if they were the same person. But not with "Sprite" and "Zee", the identical twins. Despite following the same route as an athlete from birth, both want to be the only one! *adding more context because this synopsis doesn't really tell you anything: after zee is injured in an attack, sprite must take his place on the volleyball team to maintain his chances of competing in the national competition. there are a few problems with this plan: 1) sprite doesn't know how to play volleyball, 2) sprite still has to attend his own jiu jitsu practices, and 3) everyone on the volleyball team seems to hate him, especially first, his new roommate* Where to watch: i've been using dailymotion, but i hear you can watch it on LoveMedia Thailand's youtube channel using a vpn (others, feel free to comment to confirm/deny this) Highlights: fun premise, focus on sports, enemies to lovers

#in my inbox #thai bl #recommendations #i hope at least one or two of these are new to you anon!

[punderfulowl]

Top 8 Anime (That I've Seen) in 2022

Whew boy, I wasn't expecting last year to be such a whirlwind, but all that doesn't matter now when there's Weeb stuff afoot! For those who are unfamiliar, when I make an End-of-the-year list, I like to do so without handcuffing myself to JUST the releases of the previous year. If you are familiar, you guys know that I typically keep to the usual Top 10 (except that one year when it was 12), but as you can see, I only had time to fit in 8.

Rules:

- If an anime had already made it onto a previous list, a newer season can't make it on.

- I only keep to TV series, so no movies.

- No repeating franchises (i.e. if I saw two different Gundam shows in one year, I can only pick one).

- I'm skipping Honorable mentions this year.

8. Tales of Zestiria (2016)

Definitely not my favorite Tales story, but BOY was this show pretty to look at. Ufotable is what Ufotable does, I guess. Truth be told, I couldn't get into the game that this anime is based on, so I figured that watching the anime would be easier. And it was!

7. Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out (2020)

Ah, yes, one of those shows that upset Twitter. I thought this was an adequately told Rom-Com with our two leads having some decent chemistry together. Looking past the "controversy," it was a perfectly serviceable show.

6. Amagami SS (2010)

This was my surprise of the year. This Slice of Life Romance accomplishes a rare feat amongst its peers: Every girl gets a happy ending! You see, our male protag starts out depressed and lonely, develops a relationship with one of the girls over a 3 episode arc, and then starts all over again. Not only that, but during each arc, the camera shows how the other girls are living their lives and they do just fine without him. Maybe I'm not phrasing it the way I want to, but it's just refreshing showing potential love interests living fulfilling lives without Protag-kun. It does, however, lose points for having some questionable moments with its high school cast of characters. Based on a visual novel btw.

5. Komi Can't Communicate (2021)

I can't be the only one who rolls their eyes whenever a story about an average guy gains the affection of the most popular girl in school. I'm, of course, not rolling my eyes at the premise itself, but rather the quantity of stories like this. This story in particular saves itself by having our titular character stumble their way to success despite their crippling social anxiety. I find it both funny and endearing. I look forward to season 2!

4. Recovery of an MMO Junkie (2017)

Speaking of season 2, I wish this anime had one. I may have mentioned this before about a different anime, but I do find it to be a breath of fresh air whenever we have protagonists who are actually adults. A nerd in their thirties looking for love? Couldn't be me 🙂

3. March Comes in Like a Lion (2016)

I still don't know how Shogi is played, heck I don't even have a handle on Chess, but anyone who has ever seen March Comes in Like a Lion knows that's not why we're here. Again, not Shogi specifically, but knowing that people, regardless of age, have weight of some kind on their shoulders, it's such a shame that that weight is on a character so young. Expectations, anxiety, loneliness; all that can be overwhelming for anybody. I would definitely recommend anyone to seek this out. Bonus, it has music from Bump of Chicken!

2. Spy X Family (2022)

I'm sure most of you guys have seen this. You know.

I'm sure there's still plenty of people who haven't seen this yet. It's Everywhere. You guys STILL know.

This show was the right amount of wholesome I needed last year!

1. Mushoku Tensei (2022)

I would probably have to do some more thinking, but this might be my favorite isekai thus far. Has a well built world AND has utilized the whole reincarnation aspect better than most isekai anime. I would go into it more, but I think I'll make that its own post.

This was a bit late, but at least it's still January, right? Hopefully, I'll be in a better head space this year to make a full Top 10.

Make the best of this new year and stay safe out there.

#anime #spy x family #march comes in like a lion #tales of zestiria #uzaki chan wants to hang out! #amagami ss #komi can't communicate #recovery of an mmo junkie #jobless reincarnation #mushoku tensei

[thetwelfthcrow]

I am new to F1, so a bit of a dumb question.

Has Mercedez always been this mehh at pitstops? Even when they were dominating?

Or are they just average now

welcome ! so sorry you found this sport

now my memory is not wholly accurate on this and i don't care too much to look stuff up (i'll rewatch some older races soon), so if anyone corrects me or has some good facts, please i invite you to add your stuff!

so anyways: mercedes have always been mehh at everything but fast car. in 2014, the FIA came with new regulations that required a whole ass new car, and the hybrid era starts. the 2.4 litre v8 engine gets replaced by half the amount of litres and a battery.

in a way it is similar to max's current dominance: one team nails the regulations which makes their car so much faster and so much more efficient than any other team. from 2014-2021 this was mercedes. no one really understood the hybrid car as well as they did, no one could make it as fast as they did. red bull eventually got there, but then we're talking about 2021 where they had the best chance (the car was still not that much faster than the mercedes, i'd argue that red bull won purely on smarter strategies and pit stops, whereas mercedes' car was just that bit faster to compensate for it).

so, you know, mercedes gets so far ahead on raw speed that they don't really need to focus on anything else. they don't need to excel in pit stops, because even if they'd have a whatever-5-seconds pit stop, they'll be able to rush to the finish line regardless. (i wish my brain helped me better with remembering so i could give you some decent examples but alas). some stats from wikipedia (not that toto would care): they won 16/19 races in 2014, 16 in 2016 and 19 in 2017.

"During this eight-year period between 2014 and 2021, 111 of the 160 races were won by a Mercedes driver"

as toto foolishly said, in the past twelve years they never needed to be world champion in pit stops. the only difference between then and now is that then they had a fast car to compensate for it. now a shitty pit stop (or multiple) can ruin their race.

and i know them winning all these races isn't only because of the faster car and best driver. sure they had good strategy calls, sure they had good pit stops, but they didn't excel in them.

so yeah, i'd argue that the major difference between the current max-domination era and the previous mercedes-domination era (nico too, of course) is that red bull simply manages to be top of their game on every aspect of a race: strategy, pit stops, car, driver. whereas mercedes only nailed two: car and driver(s).

hope this helped! and if i'm wrong anywhere please correct me :)

#Anonymous #mercedes #us gp 2023 #zhalia’s lil’ chit chat

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- Wake the Dead

Welcome to the thirty-third official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about Wake the Dead, which I have ranked on the "Bronze Tier" at 5 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was around December 2021-May 2022.

So this one is, uh, very complicated…

I really should like this one more, and I want to like it! It has actual impactful choices with the Hard Choice system and the structure building! This is the type of shit that should put a story in my Diamond Tier! 

Unfortunately, while it did have choices that affect the storyline, the story as a whole was pretty lacking in enjoyability. 

After the first three chapters, following the death of MC’s sister, the story just kind of… fell off. It just dragged on when they weren’t fighting zombies. I know action/thriller/horror stories shouldn’t be nothing but intense gory fight scenes or whatever, but I literally could not have been more bored when they were recruiting new colony members. They didn’t do a lot to make it interesting other than seeing all the different kinds of colonies and new breeds of zombies. 

And why the hell is this book so safe with the main cast?? Like, there is literally no sense of danger, no potential consequences for any of them. I mean at the very most, Eli can get shot and Shannon can get PTSD, but that’s about it. There aren’t any consequences to any of the other characters for having low stats, and the plot armor for these characters is insanely high. 

I know not every horror story has to have all the characters die or get harmed in order to have impact, but it just doesn’t have that same feeling of dread and danger like something like the It Lives series had. A few side characters like Cassidy and Mack will die, but they never gave us a lot of (if any) reason to care about them like ILS did with its non-LI characters like Lily, Dan, Noah, ILB MC’s grandpa, etc. 

And don’t even get me started on the ending. There were zero stakes in that final fight! And the memorial scene was just awful. Why is MC’s sister the only one that gets honored? Then again, everyone else that died were all such forgettable non-characters that they make HSS:CA’s side characters seem relevant and fleshed out. No wonder the book didn’t remember to include them in the memorial.

And the real kicker? Like I said, this is the kind of book I should be putting on Diamond Tier. Like, with books like FCL, Surrender, TBB… we do anticipate better from them, we do mourn the wasted potential of them, but we at least kind of expect them to end up being trashy, or unremarkable at the very least. 

WTD, on the other hand, is something I think we all expected to be amazing. And credit where credit is due, it does have a lot of aspects that make it respectable, not to mention a breath of fresh air as we were entering into an era of mostly single-LI choiceless stories. The hard choice system, 5 non-customizable LIs, exploring the action/zombie horror genre. But I just feel like it could have done more. 

Maybe one day, I’ll give this book a second chance.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play #choices wake the dead #wake the dead #choices wtd #wtd #cadybear's reviews

[drawnaghht]

hmm so last week i was trying to think of why it might be that ppl suddenly started shipping Rise Leo and Yuichi Usagi (a "never met" crossover ship) when the Usagi Chronicles series was teased in 2021* and I think it might just be because it's so easy to change this iteration of both the ship and characters - a lot of the appeal of fanworks these days is full bespoke fan AUs and redesigns.

so I think this Usagi was just easier to sorta project new ideas onto, since he doesn't come with 35+ years of comics history. He's like a clean slate. especially if folks don't watch/don't care to look into the series.

which I kinda get, from an artistic perspective, creative endevours are always more fun if they're new and something you can make your own, right? or at least that's one possible aspect (of both this and fanworks in general)

but from a fannish perspective, my brain is also going like, "oh noo, my blorbo..." xD

and it's also a bit sad that folks ignore the og comic completely in some cases or just, don't look into it out of interest at all lol. I guess I kinda get that too, sometimes in some areas of the world, comics are really hard to get by and maybe some are like me, who want to read them on paper. It might also just be that older comics are unappealing to younger fans (?) but that would wholly be an assumption, since we don't really know all the reasons other people don't get interested in things like comics. I doubt many Rise fans have read the og TMNT comics either (it's fine, cuz again, younger audience + that's sorta the point various animated series sometimes - to get the new audience into the old comics - and sometimes it doesn't go like that)

the other thing is also that technically, Yuichi Usagi seems to be like the Gaumont/Netflix crew's way of making like a fun fanwork in the form of Samurai Rabbit: the Usagi Chronicles. Many of the project leads were fans of Usagi Yojimbo and even some of the voice actors had read the comics as kids or had seen Usagi in the old TMNT series (from the SDCC interview with Stan and crew). Boy even has the Stan Sakai signature under his shoes, lol x3 So he is in some way already a fan-character and has a lot of those "new character" features that might be appealing to some (the hair and clothes are very "generic modern boy") and appealing to change drastically as well.

but anyway, yeah like... I've been around fandoms for a long while so I don't mind much that people are gonna have different tastes abt fanworks and how to write characters, etc. Everybody ships their niche ships differently. it's just interesting to think about, cuz there's so many ways to make fanworks in general and so many ways to define fandom or fandom ships and so on. like it's just something interesting I realized while having a bus ride.

*you can correct me on when the leochi/leochi ship became popular and when people started properly watching the SRTUC series, at least going by tumblr tags (more reliable than twitter, for tags at least) and I'll make any corrections about the timeline of tags here on tumblr xD Going back through the tumblr tag for "leosagi" and "leoichi" you can see a sort of a sharp drop in old leosagi "content" (fanart, fic, posts etc) and then the new stuff, mixed in with various fan designs for a Rise!version of Miyamoto Usagi and other designs and ideas. but I think there needs to be some sorta archive blog for this cuz honestly, going through the tumblr tags without a pages system is... so annoying xD Like I am not in university anymore so I don't feel like doing this sorta stuff (archiving by screenshots or by reblogs) but dang.... sorta feels like this would be nice to have lol

#leoichi #rise leo #yuichi usagi #it's interesting #aghht fantalk #THIS WAS SUPPSED TO BE A SHORT FUNNY POST.....

[doorbloggr]

The "Stiff Pose" Valley

Monday 26/12/22

So although I didn't do a lot of art this year, I wanna take a chance to congratulate myself on improving my artistic abilities this year. 2022 marks the third year I've been playing D&D. As discussed in an earlier post on this blog, the beginning of my D&D hobby coincided with/resulted in a increased frequency of drawing.

And when I started posting my own art online, I also started regularly following other artists online, and over the years, I've noticed them grow. I've noticed a pattern, particularly in character artists, where different aspects of their art will improve at different rates. This is most noticeable in artist's ability to pose characters. I don't wanna attack other artists by drawing attention to art they may not be as fond of anymore, so I'll use my own art as an example.

Beginner artists may not be great at faces or anatomy, but the first thing they attempt to improve on is posing. The anatomy may not have been fantastic, but the characters are not as stiff. But then there comes a phase when the artist improves on the fundamentals of art, improving on facial features and actual body proportions. But at this stage, the poses become... more bland? There comes a stiffness to their characters. The focus on making the characters looked like better proportioned means the artist mellows on posing. I can't pose these arms and legs until I know how to draw arms and legs.

In a similar trend to the uncanny valley, I will declare The "Stiff Pose" Valley. Artists will reach a point in the artistic journey where the art may be technically and visually more impressive than their old art, but less... fun? I found this easy to study in my artwork of one of first D&D characters, Nevaeh.

You can see in the above collage, in arts 1, 2, and 3, I was doing quite boring poses, almost default/t-posing. But when you get to arts 4 and 5, the character may not actually be more visually impressive, but the poses are more dynamic and "fun". At the point of artworks 7 and 8, my art "quality" had improved, the lineart was cleaner, the faces were more pleasant. But more recently, I feel like I've been a bit better with posing.

Artwork 9 was based on and inspired by this chapter art from the One Punch Man manga, but I do wanna say it was more fun than many of my chapter arts previously.

Artwork 10 was less of a direct copying of a pose, and more of an inspiration. At this point, I'd established that Nevaeh was a villain aiming for lichdom, so drew inspiration from the D&D lich Acererak. And I feel like although I haven't reached the fun-ness of the poses in the above 4 and 5 artworks, I feel like I could get there again soon.

The revelation of this process was brought to my attention in my own art recently when I posted my 2022 end of year D&D artwork, where I feel, not only does my art look higher quality than the 2021 art, but the poses were also significantly more fun. And then I looked back and discovered the poses were also more fun in the 2020 art.

In Conclusion

So the point of this post is twofold. I have noticed that other artists I've followed who have gained artistic highs have gone through this journey. And this is also a sign to myself that I've started to crawl out of the Stiff-Pose Valley. I'm on an upward trend, and I can only keep improving.

If you're going through your own artistic struggle and blocks, just keep practising! You might reach your own Stiff-Pose Valley or other specific walls where you think you're not improving, but keep at it. You'll claw your way out of those holes and come out of it a better artist.

#blog #blogpost #art #art process #artists on tumblr #d&d #d&d art