#since then i've made so many new friends who have become the highlight of my year

[djuvlipen]

https://nordicmodelnow.org/2020/03/02/the-cost-of-western-europes-rampant-prostitution-the-genocide-of-romanian-women/?amp=1

Sorry for the triggering article. Not romani but ty for your bravery and support of women 💚

God, that was a good article, thank you for sharing, Anon. I recommend reading the whole thing but I want to highlight some specific parts:

For the last eight months or so, the entire country has been in turmoil and living a nightmare. I do not say ‘nightmare’ lightly. I wish it had just been a bad dream that we’d woken from. If only… But the reality is we can’t shake off the nightmarish situation that’s been stewing since about the time my country was accepted into the European Union and the borders were opened. While it was a fantastic opportunity for the development of the country, it was also the beginning of a horrifying new reality – rampant human trafficking. In an effort to provide for themselves and/or their families, people started to go abroad in search of work opportunities they couldn’t find at home. But it was also a huge opportunity for interlopers and human traffickers, because the opening of the borders made it easier for them to do what they had previously been doing with a lot more difficulty. Now their activity is widespread and unchecked. They have no qualms. They brazenly state that it’s a certified way of making a living. Given the legal status of prostitution in many EU countries, trafficking women and children has become in Romania a legitimate way of making a fortune for the ‘smarter’ people. They declare that dirty money is easier and faster to make with little to no effort on their part. That’s ‘smart’ to them. They announce this unapologetically, and with a superior smirk, on every medium, official and unofficial. For the ordinary, hardworking population, this is unbelievable, unbearable, terrifying.

This points at something I've been thinking about: the European Union is not our friend, it is explicitly anti-women. It doesn't simply tolerate the sex trade, it institutionalizes it to make profit out of it. It is antifeminist at its core and the first victims of it are women from impoverished Eastern European countries, with Romani (not simply Romanian) women being particularly vulnerable.

There are over 500 known trafficking rings in Romania, their areas of influence are well mapped and the leaders well known. They cover pretty much every inch of the country. Not a corner has been left unexploited by them. Prostitution is illegal in Romania, but it is flourishing anyway. As we all know, it produces enormous amounts of money for the ‘clans’ – as the interlopers call themselves with pride. But the biggest source of money is outside the country. In the beginning, they promised a job abroad in agriculture, in restaurants and as babysitters, and the women who fell prey found themselves in prostitution. When word got out and that tactic didn’t work anymore, they resorted to the ‘lover boy’ method. When that didn’t work so well, they started to steal children and young women from the street and even from their own homes. Thousands of other cases similar to Alexandra’s and Luiza’s have surfaced – including one where all six children – two boys and four girls – of a single mother were abducted by force, from their house. None of this – on this scale – would have been possible without the tacit agreement and practical protection of the authorities – police, the justice system, and politicians. The clans have grown so powerful that they even boast of having installed their own politicians, policemen, judges, and prosecutors. They continually escape justice. If some rogue policemen catch them and somehow manage to bring them to court, they use their money and influence to get off. The money that comes, as I said, not so much from the internal ‘market’, but from other European countries to which they traffic the children and women they get their hands on by any means. The most important destination are the countries where prostitution is legalized, like Germany and the Netherlands, but also the countries (including the UK) where laws against pimping and buying women in prostitution are not enforced. Romania has become the number one European source country of children and women in the brothels in Germany and Holland, and also Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece and the UK. Even though the total population of Romania is only about 19 million, there are thousands[*] of Romanian women and children forced into street prostitution in Italy alone – and that’s not counting those in strip clubs, brothels and ‘escort’ prostitution. It’s estimated that there are similar numbers in Spain, the UK, Germany, and Holland – and that’s not considering those in the Arab world and on other continents. Romania has haemorrhaged more than a million children (girls and boys) and women into the prostitution trade in these countries. In countries where prostitution is legal, like Germany, only a small percentage of the women involved are locals. German women do not take up this kind of ‘work’ en masse. (Should we wonder why it’s so off-putting?). But the demand is huge – so they outsource to countries like mine.

This part is also very important. I only wish she had mentioned that Romani women make up a large % of trafficked women from Romania; one of the reasons I started making posts about it is because many people don't think race is relevant when talking about the sex trade in Eastern Europe, because they think all of Eastern Europe is white. The vast majority of articles and studies therefore erasing the large % of trafficked Romani women by painting the general sex-trafficked victim as a white woman, which is not the case as race is relevant here.

And all this because of the participation of our men in power, men who served the parents of the two still missing girls who want their children back with the sentence (pun intended), “I’m hitting a wall.” Yes. That’s what the attorney general said to them when asked why they aren’t looking for the girls: “I can’t look for them because there’s a wall stopping me.” People started rallying for the girls. It is awful to see the two mothers in tears and on their knees in front of the Police Department building, begging the authorities to find their children and bring them home. So what is that wall? Might it be the needs of ‘punters’ in Germany? In Italy? All over Europe and elsewhere? The US military base located only five miles away from the town of Caracal? The need of the overpaid and oversexed American ‘heroes’ to have sex in their spare time lest they might die from abstinence? The needs of the ‘heroes’ (read ‘paedophiles’) in the other US military base about 200 miles away near the sea port of Constanta who built a special pavilion INSIDE the base camp where they go and have sex and where they demand to be brought younger and younger girls (children), new ones each time? (In the case of Alexandra Macesanu and Luiza Melencu, even the FBI got involved and ‘recommended’ putting a lid on the whole affair, and over 90 US soldiers were packed and shipped home a few days after the disappearances broke into the news.) Might all that be the WALL?

And that is very interesting too. Even in peace time, the military is harming and raping girls and women. The US military, none the less. That's imperialism right there. The most powerful country in the world establishing military bases in impoverished countries and harming the girls and women living there. Covered up by the State. Just confirms what we all know: the military is a rotten institution and all soldiers are a threat to women, and the US military is the most powerful one.

#romania #sex trafficking #rape #germany #netherlands #us #anti prostitution #anti imperialism #anti military #ref #asks #anon

[h2llish]

azul rambles becuz im extra busy :)

a lot of people favor/sympathize with azul for his trauma. when i first learned of azul it reminded me a lot of my little sister who underwent a lot of bullying back in school. like the other characters in the game, he strikes me as interesting.

i never experienced much bullying as a kid, but even the little i did was enough to ruin my self-esteem. but azul went through bullying the majority of his childhood. the bullying centered around his appearance, and obviously that made him insecure. (that is relatable for a lot of people, including myself.)

azul has learned how to put up a front, he's good at hiding his insecurities from new people, distracting them with his sly businessman persona who can manage to bring anyone into agreeing to his contracts with a few words and promises of a wish. but as it was revealed, he still holds a lot of insecurities regarding his appearance.

before his overblot these insecurities were eating at him hard. with azul, it really shows how bullying and insecurities can be damaging to a person's mental health.

even more so, azul had become rather fond of money, to the point that it become the mark of his entire persona he created for nrc. but i also think this has to do a lot with his mother, a manager of the family restaurant; his stepfather, a lawyer; and his grandmother, a powerful mage. he has spoken no negative comments and seems to admire all of them.

when that persona, the one who wasn't bullied for his appearance and was a man of business, was threatened, his insecurities seemed to only be highlighted and he broke down.

after his overblot, azul noticeably seems to be more accepting of who he is. while he is still very insecure (becuz he can't just get rid of his insecurities at the snap of a finger, it takes a moment to rid yourself of that sort of mindset after being bullied for so long), he is learning to accept himself.

but one thing i've noticed about azul, is that he isn't just insecure about his appearance (although that is his very prominent insecurity). he seems to be quite insecure about his skills; like flying or his smaller magic reserve. while he is a capable mage, and he is aware of that, he can come off a bit insecure at times when someone points it out.

he doesn't like being underestimated, at all. during book 6 that was pretty obvious when he kept taking riddle's actions and words as insult to his ability to combat. this definitely comes from his bullying in childhood. azul thought riddle to be almost mocking him, not trusting that he was telling the truth when riddle tried to say that's not what he meant at all.

azul obviously has his issues when it comes to friendships or any sort of relationship. apart from trust, he tends to see all relationships as a form of gain. the most of a relationship i've seen when it comes to azul, is the twins, who've known him since they were kids, and who azul does see as friends of his despite the front that their relationship is only business.

azul fears being left alone, as shown in book 3. during the fiasco of leona sanding his contracts and the mc returning with the reveal that this was their plan since they knew azul was trying to stop them from completing their deal. the twins were not on his side during this moment, and that triggered even more anxiety for azul. he was scared they would leave him, and he would have no one (again).

azul continues to show the effects bullying can have on a person throughout. overall, like many other characters, i think his character is really well written.

#❝ ও rambles დ „ #twisted wonderland #azul ashengrotto #twst #i'm like half asleep writing this??? #anyways! azul is neat :)

[allys-diary]

stories i om-nom-nom'd :: april 2024 (week 1)

Considering that this is my first week of full on unemployment since 2016, this is also probably the first time I've purely had time just to myself. So you bet ur souls I nom'd a whole lot of media this week.

As usual, expect spoilers, you've been warned. Everything below the cut:

movies

Mulan (1998)

This was a rewatch and I honestly just had it on because I wanted something in the background while I was cleaning, but also I was having such a blast singing and dancing along to the soundtrack. And also I just wanna take this moment to say that Yao, Ling, and Chien Po were the realest ones in this movie because they were so unfazed by the reveal that their new friend Ping was actually a woman and all they cared about was trying to stop Shang because they thought he was gonna execute her. And then when she popped up at the palace going "Hey guys! I have an idea" they just dropped everything and didn't even hesitate to put on a dress and makeup.

Like I need friends like that, their loyalty is unmatched 👏👏👏

Also the Emperor becoming Mulan's wingman at the end was something I forgot and I cackled so loud watching that scene over 😂

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

I'll be so real and tell y'all that I put off watching this movie for the longest time because I've seen so much hype around it, and when I see smth like that I have one of two possible responses. I either immediately jump on it the second it releases…or I procrastinate. But watching this was honestly so much fun and even though I didn't watch the first movie, I could still feel Winnie's devastation when she watched her sisters fall victim into a yassified Thanos snap. Although honestly I do feel like this was just natural consequence doing its thing, like Book really tried to warn her so many times, so really this is just "Fuck around and find out (Winnifred's Version)".

I will say though, that something I felt was lacking was the building of the characters of the new witches. It feels like the movie was made with the hopes that people would go in this with so much nostalgia for the first movie and that would be enough to carry the entire project without having to do much on actually telling us who these new witches are, and why we should root for them. The dynamic between the three girls felt very much like it was telling rather than showing that Becca would be the leader but she's going to put in the work to make them all have equal footing, while in contrast, the Sanderson sisters had a dynamic that drew you in and showed you from even the first scene that Sarah and Mary were treated by Winnie as subordinates rather than sisters.

There was just enough hints at the end that there's a movement for a third Hocus Pocus movie to be greenlit because there's still one more black flame candle, and that was more than enough for me to blurt out the words "Gilbert, you lil bitch".

On a lighter note tho…the flying roombas and the performance number were a few of the highlights of the movie that kinda make me wanna watch it again…Ohh and Hannah Waddingham as Witch Mother 100% had me going "this better not awaken anything in me"

nvm…too late

tv shows

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

I can't watch the shows in order because my streaming services really said "fuck your binging rights", so I have 0 context on overarching series arcs, but I watch what I can.

Season 21, Episode 1: They created a whole ass MeToo episode and it was so well-written I actually had to take a second to remind myself that this was acting and to hold off on hating Ian McShane because he portrayed his whole "sleazy media mogul with a whole ass casting couch" persona eerily well. One of the things I'm steadily coming to appreciate with the series is that they're not shying away from touching on current issues, and I personally cannot wait for the incoming seasons and they start taking jabs at Sickelodeon--I mean Nickelodeon.

Also Hadid deserves jail time she needs to be taken down ALL the pegs. If Hadid has 0 haters, I am dead.

Season 21, Episode 2: Speaking of not shying away from sensitive issues, this was a doozy and a half because it was really subliminally heavy on the victim blaming. Reagan's "friends" for one are some insane pieces of work just damn near scoffing when they were told "your friend might have been assaulted" and going "yeah probably not she has a whole bunch of crazy antics". And that utterly disheartening moment when the team realizes that if this actually does go to trial, that she might not win because the defense could spin a story about "her wanting it" because of her history and her sexcapades with a bunch of other guys.

In the name of fully supporting women's wrongs, I fully support Reagan going full "I Spit on Your Grave" on these bastards 😤 That and I'd fully be on board with a movie where Ariel Winter goes the vigilante & revenge route.

Sidenote: This is why I hate that I can't stream all the seasons because I have no idea what happened to Olivia in the previous season that was called back to in the final scene with Reagan where she said she knows that Reagan will survive because she survived.

Season 10, Episode 22: Okay so I knew from the jump when Stuckey was introduced that either he wouldn't be around for long because he was gonna screw something up which would result in him getting fired (or at the very least transferred to another department far away from interacting with people), or he'd get an improvement arc where he suddenly became an invaluable asset to the team. What I didn't think was gonna happen was that he was going to go on a murder spree in an attempt to manipulate events so he could overcorrect on a mistake that he made from being way too lax and honestly kind of arrogant.

I just know that Benson went like this the second they had him in custody:

games

Undercover: Blood Bonds

Chapter 3: We get introduced to Vera's former coworker (and possibly ex) Gabe, revealing that before she became a journalist, she was a detective, and he's not too happy about her career shift. In the chapter outro, we get a flashback of Lilly looking like she's going through it and has been keeping a diary to write her feelings down. This flashback might be of the night that Lilly disappeared, maybe the last time Vera saw her sister alive.

Chapter 4: Jericho's a mysterious new figure that makes his entrance by walking into Club (no really, the club's name is "Club") without being carded by Hank, the bouncer. Also he has red eyes. Vera managed to swipe Lilly's journal from the crime scene and she finds out that the last time her sister wrote in there was the night that Vera left the city to go back home.

Chapter 5: Vera's in a competition with Crystal over who gets to keep the job at Club because only one of them can stay after the week's over, and knowing she doesn't have a shot, Crystal sabotages Vera by "accidentally" dropping her lipstick on the floor so that Vera slips and falls and breaks a tray full of glasses. Hank mentions that the previous barmaid Daisy would've been useful to know what happened to Lilly, and the very end shows a flashback that Jericho met Lilly the last time she went to Club and bought her a drink.

Chapter 6: Jericho buys a drink for the new DJ, Bluejay, but doesn't score with her because she has a gig and she's determined to stick to schedule (which is finish her shift at 4am). Hank tells Vera that Daisy was head over heels for Jericho when she used to work at Club, and a flashback reveals Daisy trying to discourage him from chatting up Lilly because she's "just a kid". He's unfazed by that (red flag alert red flag alert woop woop das da sound of da police)

Chapter 7: Vera turns down Jericho's sleazy attempts to buy her a drink and invite her back to his place after shift, and he denies ever having seen Lilly when he's shown a picture of her, claiming that "she's not his type". Then he immediately rebounds in a record 0.5 seconds with the next girl that shows up (and serving her orders becomes our side quest for this level). Outro showcases Hank's green flag status offering his coworkers to drive them home since it's so late, and ends with him driving Vera to the police station so she can check on the status of the investigation.

Chapter 8: We play as Crystal in this level and let me tell you now, I hate it here. She goads on Vera for being "sluggish" and having a bad day and sucks up big time to the boss Mr Smirnov with "grand plans" to improve clientele, which of course gets him going and has him leaning towards granting her the permanent staff position. Then Gabe calls Vera with disappointing news and tells her he'll just give her the apartment keys after work.

Chapter 9: Gabe goes to Club to hand over Vera's apartment keys, which gives us our side quest for this level where we serve Gabe his orders for the night. When he releases the apartment back to Vera, he reveals that Lilly's ex-boyfriend Sam is the prime suspect. He also lets slip that their chief's trying to prioritize the case of a missing barmaid (most likely Daisy). We also get a flashback of what is probably the night Lilly disappeared, where she comes home to find Sam waiting in the dark, angry over her coming in late.

Delicious: True Love

Stage 3, Day 8: Philippe, a horny mustachio'd guy that made the moves on Emily back in Stage 2 and ends up having to share a passenger cart with her on the train, asks Emily about why she's so attached to Jean-Paul's letter. She tells him that she and JP had a summer thing when they were 16, and she wrote him a letter and thought he'd never replied. Turns out he did and the letter arrived a little late…like 16 years late. She says it's fate, but Philippe drops hints that maybe what fate was really trying to do was to make her cross paths with him along the way. He's really down bad for her and it's getting a bit painful to witness, tbh.

Stage 3, Day 9: Philippe writes a review for Fresco's Diner Express (the train restaurant…ohh also, Philippe's a renowned food critic), which he tears into pieces when Emily tells him "you're sweet but my heart's with someone else" and calls her a silly naive American girl whose head's filled with frilly "plastic" Hollywood love stories. Typical "I'm a nice guy" behavior, part of him still thinking that Emily "owes" him after he voluntarily bought her a ticket so she won't be kicked out the train. He tries to make amends when she goes back and gives him his torn up review that she taped back together, and says he's happy to stay friends.

Now see here I wanna believe that he means that, but I've seen "nice guy" behavior. They're never happy staying friends. They're like not-so-silent red flags 😤😤

Stage 3, Day 10: It's Emily's final day on the train and Fresco's a bit emotional because she's helped him so much (he's precious we must protect him at all costs). Philippe shows up at the end to wish Emily goodbye and good luck, finding her suitcase at the station that's now filled with a whole bunch of notes from her mother (she's another thing I don't even wanna touch on right now), and gives her the details of a restaurant where he believes she'll find Jean-Paul.

I'm now looking at the chapter titles for Stage 4, which takes place at a restaurant called "Chez Jean-Paul", and ngl y'all I'm scared. There's one here that says "A Bitter Blow" and something tells me Emily's not actually ending up with JP at the end of this story. Lemme just…preemptively sharped a pitchfork real quick…

Stage 4, Day 1: Emily's arrived at Jean-Paul's restaurant but he's not around, and she offers her assistance to the sole employee manning the place. Said sole employee then takes off to go to an appointment. 🤦🏻‍♀️ The day ends, still no JP, so she goes off to explore Paris and becomes so enamored with the place seeing all these couples so madly in love. Even the birds have their own love stories going on.

Imma tell y'all right now I have so many fears--

Stage 4, Day 2: Emily sees some flowers that remind her of Patrick (the boy next door who delivers flowers to her restaurant back home in Snuggford) and she has a moment where she's just happily remembering him before she up and decides to get some flowers for Jean-Paul. The day ends with her running into JP and him needing to jog his memory (it's been 16 years, so I can kinda understand), which really only kicks into gear when Emily starts reciting lines from his letter. They share a hug and they seem happy but…that chapter title from earlier is still giving me fears--

Stage 4, Day 3: Emily and Jean-Paul are catching up with each other, and that's really what the whole day revolves around. There was a side quest in this level where you'd have to tap on JP when he shows up because he's having a food fight with Emily while serving customers. He says a bit about her being worth waiting for, and they share a kiss. And here's where I have some critique for the story writers and game developers…

If y'all didn't want us to anticipate the twists, the chapter titles should have been hidden until the player reaches said level. Now I know that Emily's bound for heartbreak at JP's hands which makes it easy not to root for this relationship. Y'all should've pulled out the rug from under our feet without the early warning device. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Stage 4, Day 4: Ohh no. Ohh fuckque no I hate it here. Emily's over the moon and tells her new florist friend Amelie that she's reunited with her first love, and Amelie's equally excited because she thinks her boyfriend's about to propose after she's been dropping hints for the last six months. The chapter ends with Jean-Paul in a hurry and promising to see Emily later, but in his rushing he didn't see that a goddamn ring box fell out his pocket.

To quote Dr Swift herself, "I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending" 😖😖

Stage 4, Day 5: Jean-Paul's clearly in a bit of distress because he can't find something, which opens up our side quest for this level, putting the ring back in his coat pocket. There's also an inscription on the ring about "love being a flower" which makes me even more convinced that this ring isn't for Emily, but rather someone else whose name sounds like "Emily". JP then asks Emily to go away with him and see the countryside, to which she says "Yes" because now she's convinced he's gonna propose to her there.

Stage 4, Day 6: Emily and Amelie make promises to each other to attend each other's weddings, both clearly excited about where their relationships are headed (meanwhile I'm here fully convinced that they're seeing the same man). At the end of the day, Emily asks Jean-Paul if they're going to see each other later that night but he says that he has "a prior engagement", but that he intends to whisk her away to the countryside the next night. So lemme just get this straight…he's gonna propose and get engaged to his long-time girlfriend (most likely Amelie), and he's turning Emily into an unwitting other woman by starting something with her without ever even once thinking that "Ohh oopsies I probably should've told her I have a whole ass relationship and I'm already in the proposal stage".

If OG story Jean-Paul has 0 haters, I am dead 😤

Stage 4, Day 7: The day starts off with Jean-Paul starting to wave his red flag loud and proud by showing annoyance at the sound of a child crying because he got a splinter, which has Emily side-eyeing him while she tended to the kid to get the splinter out. There's no side quest in this level, and the day ends with JP postponing their getaway because a friend of his is in town and "he hasn't seen him in so long and he wants to catch up".

Yeah no…I'm sharpening a pitchfork…

Stage 4, Day 8: Aaaaaand here it is. Big confirmations that this story's Jean-Paul is a piece of work that deserves to have da pipi chopped off. The day starts with Emily not having heard from him, the guy not even bothering to check on his restaurant that he claims he gave his entire life to just to earn his star rating, mind you. And it ends with Emily going to spend some time with Amelie, who reveals that she's engaged. They're planning a double date, when they see JP with another woman and kissing her ("haven't seen him in a long time" my ass). The two women reveal to each other in their shock that they've been seeing the same man, and Amelie's immediately on whack-a-cheater mode, while Emily breaks down in tears.

Stage 4, Day 9: We love Amelie in this household, she's a complete girl's girl, not even spending a single second even remotely annoyed at Emily and immediately goes in to hug her when they see each other again. She just hates that she wasted her time and moved to Paris for trash bag Jean-Paul. She walks off before the level starts, vowing to have her revenge. Then Philippe arrives excited to see Emily again and telling her he's had Chez Jean-Paul on his schedule to review, which kicks off this level's side quest of bringing him his orders. Amelie shows up at the end of the level, dousing the final dish that Emily serves Philippe with a heaping dose of hot sauce (high key hoping it's some Carolina Reaper levels of burn).

Philippe writes a review that will take away the restaurant's star rating, and JP goes rabid telling the two women that they ruined his life and "all because he couldn't help that he loved women", to which Emily pushes him into the fountain and Amelie delivers this absolute banger of a line:

Stage 4, Day 10: There isn't much to this day other than Emily saying goodbye to her new friends, and Amelie reminding her that one day they'll attend each other's weddings. We also have Nadia finally getting the quote right. "Love is the flower that grows in front of you." That sends Emily into another round of tears, and giving us as the viewer the glaring red neon sign that's been there since Stage 1, Day 1.

BAY-BEE. IT'S PATRICK. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FRESHLY DELIVERED EVERY MORNING TO YOUR RESTAURANT FLOWERS 👏👏

Delicious World

Season 2, Episode 3, Part 7: This bit focuses more on Frank and Monet's side story, where Monet's cooking his boyfriend a simple risotto and Frank's trying to be reassuring that people would still love his recipes even if he pivots and tries to make simpler dishes, because what would matter is the taste. They have a discussion about what the people would think if he changed up his cooking style, and it led to how his reputation would be "ruined" if he comes out and reveals Frank to be his boyfriend, and sweet little pretend-Health Inspector boi says he's fine with staying private.

Sweet babey noooooo…you deserve better than to be hidden away in a corner 😤

Season 2, Episode 3, Part 8: Speaking of keeping relationships hidden…Jean-Paul's doing the exact opposite, constantly risking it all just to kiss his bb on the cheek out in public where anyone can see. And he shoots down the rumor about him and Shuvani. This is where it's giving me so much whiplash to play both this and True Love at the same time because while the original story's JP is a walking talking red flag, this one's steadily looking more and more like a green flag that I'm almost sad for him that he won't end up with Emily in the end. 😩

Gallery Coloring

If you're familiar with those games where you have to decorate your house/garden/cafe after completing enough levels or earning enough stars from completing levels, that's essentially the whole concept of Gallery. Except the levels are color by number that have varying difficulties.

The story I'm at right now is Leo and Mia (our main characters) are trying to get their friends Paul and Vivian, who've been crushing on each other, to make up and try their hand at a first date again, since the first one didn't go through because of Paul's outstanding levels of misfortune. Vivian's pissed and doesn't even want to look at Paul, let alone hear him out, and instead talks out what she wants to tell him by telling Leo what she appreciates about his and Mia's relationship in a way that's not so subtly criticizing and reading Paul for filth.

Meanwhile these four are all working together trying to get the cafe they've been renovating into a presentable enough state before an art critic named DeWitt comes in to meet with Mia and discuss her works.

There's also a Festival Season event that I'm trying to work through, which is just a mini story of Leo teaching his wife the ways of partying in a music festival.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure

A new update released this week, and gave us a few new morsels of lore. We go on a quest that spans 4 days to bring together Hapidanbui for a performance in hopes of reminding the Island Spirit that old long-running friendships are something to be cherished and hopefully heal her heart a little bit more and get her to open up a bit more to the idea of seeing her old friends again.

There was also a shorter quest that involved us bringing back weather into the island and getting it to rain with the restoration of the Aquafaller, so now it can rain throughout the biomes of the island, revealing blue flowers to water that will reward you with raindrops that can be traded for new furnitures and clothing items.

youtube & tiktok channels that got my watch minutes

India Rose Crawford

If y'all haven't seen the knitted frog stop motion animation videos yet, let me put you on because the way she has gotten to make these motions so smooth, it's like she's breathed life into this cute lil knitted frog?? Like, da fuckque??

SWOOP

SWOOP is one of those creators where when I see that she's posted something new, I wanna drop everything and watch through the entire video no matter how long it is. The new video she dropped this week was an hour and a half long, and she talks about Amanda Bynes and the devastating downfall of her career. If my heart wasn't breaking enough for her, it's just shattered now, and I just hope that whatever she's doing, that she's genuinely happy and giving herself the room and the patience to heal at her own pace.

Also, if Dan "The Foot Man" Schneider has zero haters, I am dead. Jail. Electric chair. 😤😤

Alexa Nikolas

While I can't find it in me to recommend a Trisha Paytas video, that's shockingly what's gonna happen right now, because Alexa made an appearance on Trisha's podcast "Just Trish" this week, talking about her experience in the set of Zoey 101, the abusive chapter of her life where she was a victim of child SA by her ex-husband and the cover up made by parties in the music industry that ultimately led her to starting Eat Predators. And while I do have my opinions on Trisha, I do have to give credit where credit is due and give them my respect for giving Alexa the time and space to share her story and let the emotions flow and not butting in with any potentially disruptive questions and adjusting accordingly when the mood shifts.

Also every single part of me itches so bad whenever I get reminded that she and most likely the rest of the cast don't actually get any residuals from Nickelodeon. Like excuse you?? After all those reruns that are still going to this day, and none of the child talents that helped y'all make those shows happen see a single cent of it?? What the whole grain full fat buttery fuckery is this??

ASMeRi Eats

On a lighter note, lemme share with y'all a mukbang video that had me going full on out of character and craving shrimp

Quinton Reviews

Quinton's become quite notorious for releasing videos that do deep dives of series that span anywhere from 2 to 21 hours. No, really…his Sam & Cat videos are a total of 21 hours spread across 3 videos.

Well this week a new video dropped on the Beverly Hillbillies, this time hosted by his father because Quinton's off hard at work on another project. And this video from his dad has a runtime of 38.5 hours. My eye's twitching just thinking about it, but for some reason I've started to watch it and I'm nowhere near even the 25% mark, but I'll ease my way through in multiple sessions.

stories to om-nom-nom next

Hello Kitty Island Adventure: Imagination Celebration Event

Not quite sure how much story they're gonna put into this event, but I hope that there's a good bit in it because there's castles and cute lil medieval fairy tale vibe type costumes involved, and also they're calling Kuromi "Spooky Queen Kuromi" so there's gotta be something there, right?

The Bricklayer

Honestly I just wanna watch this because Nina Dobrev's in it. I barely even remember what was in the trailer.

That's all for this week. Considering that I'm on vacation mode, chances are next week's post is gonna be even longer than this. I apologize in advance 🫡

#media chronicles

[mdhwrites]

This is me sending you an ask about Commander Anne! 🦎

...This is literally the first time I've gone "Hey, ask me about X because this has too many topics" and they actually did it. XD Okay, so Commander Anne is FUCKING AMAZING. There's a lot of reasons but a lot of it comes down to part of what I think people need to realize about the show. Above anyone else, there are two main characters of the show and S3 is all about their change and their fates. The first is Anne and S3A was entirely about how she had changed since the start of the series.

The second one isn't Sasha. It's Amphibia itself.

Don't get me wrong, Sasha gets a LOT of good in this episode and I will be talking about it but she still isn't elevated to main character status in this half season. She's still a supporting character just like Marcy is primarily a side character (Loggle gets more screentime than the lovable nerd after all). I also don't say this to diminish either of the other girls as characters, simply to admit that their narrative importance isn't as high as the setting itself.

And why shouldn't the setting be important to an ISEKAI? The term literally means other world and Amphibia is ALL about culture clash from big city girl to rural farmers, to frogs and humans and even the various Amphibians themselves. Thus the world is important and Commander Anne shows that Amphibia is FUUUUUUUUUUUCKED.

But how it does it is INCREDIBLY clever because it also shifts who we should expect to be leading things over to Sasha and why she is the Commander. As such, the big highlight of the episode for me is actually the montage of the trip. See... Anne is treating Amphibia the same way she used to.

Amphibia says that won't work anymore. It dumps sludge on her, attacks her with robots that want her dead, etc. like that until we get to the plant where a goofy, silly plan that might have worked in previous seasons is met with a dose of harsh reality as it puts everyone at risk. The got through with gumption and willpower before after all but that doesn't work anymore.

And this is because of a fundamental shift in HOW Amphibia is dangerous now. Amphibia has always been dangerous but it was an impassioned danger. Frogs were merely food and so the monsters took what they needed and then left. The hibernation episode is a PERFECT example of that and of how the Amphibians dealt with it. It might suck but it wouldn't ever mean the end of the entire town. The end of the world.

Andrias on the other hand wishes to warp and break the world so as to fuel his conquest. His desire requires the elimination of any threat and its led by a man who at this point actively hates any and all who oppose him and meets them with sadistic glee. As such, you can no longer just take a casual stroll through the woods. You can no longer drink from the rivers. You can no longer find peace with a world at war.

And FINALLY this brings me around to both Sasha and the Amphibians themselves. They have lived in this state for MONTHS and you can feel it as they clash with the Plantars, who they themselves also adapted to their new environment. Modern luxuries allowed one to become soft. War made the others have to get stronger and smarter. They are more serious because they have to be and there's a certain expectation they hold of those around them because of it. They still vote Anne as commander because they remember the warm days but they don't need a friend who will share their heart.

They need strength tempered with compassion. They need Sasha Waybright. They don't need Cheer Team Sasha though. They need the Protector of Amphibia and for that, we needed to see the end of Sasha's character arc here and it's a damn good one that I should do a full blog on at some point. My big point here is that our one look at her as a child is her playing protector and trying to help Anne and Marcy. Her at St. James is someone who uses the personal belief that she's protecting her friends and making their lives better to make them utterly server her goals and her interests.

There is no pretense now though... Or not quite but that's a discussion for the ending when I get to it (I'm at All In now). She genuinely looks out for people and wants to make them the absolute best they can be, something we'll be seeing from her for the rest of the season in one way or another. She is a true protector which earns her spot as the strength gem because she understands that Strength without selflessness isn't strength at all. It's just cruelty and manipulation.

All of this also does something really smart from a meta standpoint that you can even feel in Sprivy. Namely: This half season IS different from the rest of Amphibia. There's only one episode, full episode, that feels truly like an old episode from S1 or 2 in the entire half season because there is a tone change. It's necessary for the fact that Amphibia is at war and the show doesn't want to treat that as just a joke. It's honestly really clever and impressive in the breadth of what a change in status quote this is.

And done in ELEVEN MINUTES. I... Just... I don't want to compare S3 of Amphibia and S3 of TOH too much because the shortening did cause a shift in priorities and goals but like... If For the Future spent a quarter of its time being this well crafted and compelling about the change of the Isles, it might not be seen as an almost complete waste of time by most people! And these two DO have the same goal for at least part of it which is to introduce the newly changed world and how it has been warped and ravaged and have to be dealt with in a new way which makes the comparison genuinely warranted. Both needed to show this new world and Amphibia did while also having rich character development and not wasting almost a second, unless it's doing jokes that still play into the changes for the characters, while TOH spends 30 seconds of its re-introduction of the Isles to give us eye candy as the animation goes "Gosh, isn't Amity pretty?"

Hell, all of this gushing actually didn't even cover the main conflict of the episode except tangentially but it's a GREAT capstone to Sasha's arc. She wants to give up power because even if she trusted herself with others, she can't trust having it over Anne. Anne is willing to give enough understanding and care though to put herself in a vulnerable situation with Sasha for the good of everyone else. It's a great concept executed very well.

It also admittedly hits close to home, especially post "The Beginning of the End" due to complicated things between me and my twin brother but that's again: For a blog about Sasha's entire character arc and its added complexities that keep Sasha compelling.

But yeah, Commander Anne absolutely deserves to be beloved by the fandom and should honestly be dissected by more people for how incredibly good it is at introducing the new Amphibia to us properly.

======+++++======

Small bonus: Thank you to Nexstage for also asking. I really do appreciate when people take my baits for extra blogs because it's genuinely easier for me to make a blog as a response to an ask rather than making it myself. It has to do with brain problems wanting some guarantee there might be interest in the topic which is a whole thing. Yaaaaa-

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#amphibia #sasha waybright #anne boonchuy #commander anne

[keystone8379]

Have any KF2 players actually listened to the lyrics of Belial's theme?

Regarding Kirby Fighters 2, back in the game's prime, we had these little joke teams, parodies of Liquid, TSM, FaZe, stuff like that. The first of these were Kracko Sunday, started by Fish wishing everyone a happy Kracko Sunday...every Sunday. I can't remember if there was some items tournament that was related to Kracko Sunday, but I know Fishie Funnies was after Kracko Sunday was first mentioned.

You'll have to excuse me because it's been a long ass time since this happened, but at some point after this, some people start putting KS before their name as a team name. Eventually, Fish runs their items tourney, Fishie Funnies. It was an extremely goofy tournament but it had a few cool clips with items and combos into Gigavolt's slams. You can watch a highlights video here, but be warned, there will be name mispronunciations, I have my terrible old username, and everyone who isn't he/him gets misgendered. (He would be a perfect co-comm for Mew2King...)

I forgot me and biM played our whole set on Gigavolt, that shit goes hard. I also forgot how much I didn't like GM's editing style back then, no clue why I took his advice when I was making the New Generation trailer. But I digress. The gigavolt clips, and the fact that the tourney was on a Saturday, led to the eventual birth of a second KF2 squad, Gigavolt Saturday.

I remember leading a big push on Gigavolt Saturday as the "opposing squad" against Kracko Sunday, mostly just to annoy Fish. Even now, 3 years later, I still do many things specifically to clown on fish. There were a ton of other joke squads as well, such as GR, for Get Real, based on a clip where Qwertz gets knowledge checked by an Artist as Water, or JUM, based on Celica's iconic line: "go jum".

I need to make a post about New Generation at some point huh.

Regardless, this brings us back to the title of this post. One day, fish obtains Granblue Fantasy Versus and offers to play it with KF2 people over Parsec. I didn't know much about the game, except from YouTube thumbnails I've seen, showing Belial as a very good character. Prior to this offer, I had looked up Belial on Dustloop Wiki to see what the fuss is about and, honestly, it was one of my favourite character designs I had ever seen. The bizarre twist on the shoto archetype really stood out to me, especially that fireball, being able to change it's direction suddenly is so cool.

So I've never played GBVS but I know how a bnb is structured, and I know what Belial's buttons do, so me and fish play a bunch of games (Belial v Metera) and as I accumulate wins, fish gets tilted as FUCK. Not only can my fireballs catch jumps and spotdodges with a read, (would be on reaction if not for parsec delay) not only can my counter put me right next to fish after catching one of their projectiles, not only is the character and their theme song a walking sex joke, but eventually Schmee comes in and, on my suggestion, ALSO starts playing Belial.

The next day, Schmee makes this edit of Belial holding a sprite cranberry, based of a current emote in the server of Magolor holding a sprite cranberry (made by the GOAT P47) and it's beautiful.

OH, this reminds me, Belial also led to the founding bit for one of CE's longest running in-jokes, powerpoints for new characters!

I decide to type up this super cool moveset for porting Belial's moves into KF2, which is still pinned in the fishselfie-discussion channel, formerly called labbing-discussion but then no one used it. You can check it out right here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16ZN7Hy69QASnfSi7CYmp2V0GKp8tEuLTisV6V_A_uGQ/edit

So this leads us to the present day. GameMaker Studio 2 had become free recently and I had it sitting on my laptop. I already had a pretty fulfilling winter break, I spent time with friends, pushed out a massive Smash Tactics update, but I still had more time. I finally decided to stop thinking about learning GMS and actually started learning GMS. I started out with a fairly simple bullet hell I was calling "baby's first touhou" in which you would move a player, avoid shots from a boss character, then shoot back at the boss. I thought using Belial Cranberry would be funny, but the actual emote was a tiny image because it was an emote. Fortunately, Belial's new key art for GBVSR was PERFECT for holding a sprite cranberry. So for about 2 days, I got to work on making a bunch of attacks, fixing many crashes, and adding a bunch of other stuff like sound effects. Eventually, I ended up with a finished product: Maiden and Cranberry!

Not included in this video is the 'bruh' sound effect when you die. Also, that "wow" voice clip isn't text to speech, it's an actual in-game voice clip. I want to do other things, just simple games to start, but you all know I'm ambitious. There's a lot of things I want to learn to do, and there's a lot of things to learn with programming. It's crazy, there's so much that goes into a game that you never think about until you're actually making it. I'm going to keep messing around with GMS2, and one day, I'm going to be able to make all of that.

#kf2 #kf2 lore #kirby #fighting game community #kirby fighters 2 #fighting games #granblue fantasy #gbvs #gbvsr #belial #gamedev #gms2

[70s-show-diary]

My one (and only) post about That '90s Show

I used the weekend to watch season 1 of That '90s Show. I ultimately decided to watch it for Red and Kitty, and because I couldn't justify forming an opinion without having first given the show a chance. That being said, as most of my thoughts about the show aren't the most positive, and because I want to respect the fans who enjoyed the show, I decided to compile what will likely be my one and only post sharing my thoughts on the show below the cut.

I will say this: I didn't hate the show as much as I thought I would. I enjoyed the humor and the effort they made to maintain a similar tone and vibe to the original show. Of course, Red and Kitty were the highlight of the show, and I enjoyed seeing them as grandparents. I enjoyed seeing the appearances made by the original cast as well (with the exception of Jackie, but more on that later). I even enjoyed seeing Eric and Donna as parents. The new kids were okay, too. They certainly don't have the same chemistry and dynamic that the gang from the original series had, but when you are limited to ten episodes per season, there's not much you can do to really develop characters and their relationships. With more time and devotion to developing these characters, I believe that I could grow to like them more.

The problems that I had with the show are the exactly the problems that I expected to have, and it all stems from the very existence of season 8 of That '70s Show. I do not consider the end of season 7 and any of season 8 to be canon. In my happy bubble, Jackie and Hyde never break up (or make any of the other poor choices that followed), Eric didn't have to travel across the world and break-up with Donna to find a path for his future, Kelso didn't destroy his future as a cop, and Fez didn't become a creep. I grew up with these characters, consider them my friends, and hate what season 8 did to my friends. (I care waaayyy too much about these fictional characters, but I digress.)

Therefore, I've never entertained the idea of a reboot/spin-off series because I knew better than to hope that a spin-off series would ignore season 8. A spin-off that would've attempted to fix these mistakes, while just as unlikely, still wouldn't have been good enough (for me, at least) because I like to pretend all of that unpleasantness never even happened.

Real world circumstances made me even more wary of a spin-off series. AK and MK being married in real life was a sure sign that Jackie and Hyde would never get back together in a spin-off series. But the real nail in the coffin was the despicable and unforgivable actions of DM. With that, I knew Jackie and Hyde were essentially over and we would never see Hyde again. (Don't get me wrong, I am more than relieved that T9S does not associate with DM, but the loss of the character Hyde was tough for me).

So really, it's not entirely That '90s Show's fault that the futures that I had hoped for these characters was unrealized. However, there is a difference between not getting what I want for these characters and completely disrespecting and destroying these characters who are beloved to me (and so many others who have connected with them for years and years). I would've accepted whatever future T9S offered for these characters had they done it in a way that respected the growth and development that they made in the '70s. Jackie being with Kelso instead of Hyde? Fine. But give me a good reason for it. Not the absolute garbage that is Jackie cheating on Fez with Kelso (of all people!) and going on their second marriage. Eric and Donna having a child (and naming her Leia) essentially as soon as Eric came home from Africa is just not something I believe the Eric and Donna from T7S would have done. (I do however, accept this with a grain of salt, because the entire premise of T9S hinges on Eric and Donna have a teenager in the '90s). While Fez finding success in his salons was cute, him not having found love since Jackie cheated on him also didn't sit right with me. And while the best choice...the only choice was to not include Hyde, what I've read about the decision to have Hyde basically drop off the face of the Earth and cut off all ties to his found family is probably the most disrespectful thing that they could have done to write off his character. All that is to say, I could've taken anything except the blatant disrespect that they gave to my friends.

What I wasn't expecting was the sense of heartache that I would feel watching That '90s Show. As I previously stated, for years now, I never held out for a faithful reboot/spin-off series. But watching this show...it really makes me mourn the spin-off that could've been in a perfect world. I truly loved seeing Red and Kitty navigate a household of teenagers again, but this time as grandparents. My heart squeezed when Kitty hugged Eric in the first episode and when Donna and Eric did that cute head-shove from the original series. I couldn't help the smile when Kelso burst in with a "buuuurnnn!!!" in true Kelso-fashion after all these years. Fez's "I said good-day" in his commercial and rivalry with Fenton. Kitty throwing a birthday party. Red's grumpiness. Kitty's signature laugh and Red's muttered "dumbass" comments. I've seen every episode of T7S (with the exception of season 8) so many times that I have entire episodes memorized, down to the timing, hand gestures, and inflections. So seeing my old friend's back in their elements, doing these things again but in new scenes that I have never seen before was certainly... surreal. But none of that nostalgia is worth letting T9S destroy my friends and destroy all their growth and character development. All it has done is make me mourn the faithful spin-off that will never be.

All that is to say that I think I'll be leaving the ''90s behind and returning to the safety of the '70s.

#I realize a lot of my thoughts are similar/identical to others who are also unhappy with T9S #but I had to get it off my chest as well #That '90s Show #That 90s Show #That '70s Show #That 70s Show

[captainderyn]

31, 40, 48, and 50 as an optional bonus from the OC asks

Thank you for the asks <3

--

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain waht their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything)

I'm trying to think which of my idiots would be the most tumblr-bound lol out of my current OCs. V would run a helluva shitpost blog. Like you know the Heritage Post level shitposts? That is absolutely something she would be fantastic at. But she'd constantly be night blogging: "V, why are you posting at 3:43am?" "Don't worry about it".

Era, on a completely different note, if she was given the time would have a beautifully formatted, gorgeously aesthetic blog showcasing her paintings, her painting set up, scenes around Dromund Kaas (especially the floral gardens) with everything carefully curated. Theme? Moody pastels. Photosets? Color coordinated.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!

I have SO many fond memories linked to my characters, especially ones I've made since joining tumblr back in...*checks notes* 2016ish as I've really built myself a fantastic community of mutuals that are so supportive, have engaged me with my characters all the more, and created some truly stunning joint worlds. I'll highlight a few that I've stumbled back across while digging through tumblr (though its absolutely NOT an all encompassing list):

The entire Fictober 2019, where I wrote Moments in Time will forever be special to me; it was my first attempt at fictober and the outpouring of love and support and excitement to follow ficlets of Wulfwryn and Raenor (who were NEW) was so inspiring and as we've seen they've become some of my most written characters <3

Emeldir's Traffic Cone Jacket Saga aka the series of in game shenanigans, fics, and prompts that @greyias and I clowned about a few years ago but keep resurfacing every once in awhile :P

Co-writing fics and writing duo fics with mutuals, especially the Idan and Terrance Odessen Reunion that @lumielles and I wrote pair fics for. There's something so beautiful about writing together with friends.

The enabling you all do >:D the Dream Team of Five, Roslynd, and Rhys wouldn't exist if @tiredassmage hadn't encouraged my tomfoolery with pulling Five off the shelf and breathing new life into a character I didn't think I'd feel inspiration for again and that truly is the story with so many of my characters. They wouldn't exist without y'all! Not in the way they currently do.

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure?

Its a pretty solid toss up between Raenor and Tucdela. Hmmm...nah, I'll go with Tucdela because Raenor has his super saucy side which while that DOESNT mean he isn't the most perfect, cinnamon roll, it does mean he's a little less "pure" :P

50. Give me the good ol' OC talk here. Talk about anything you want.

Terrance has been on my mind a lot lately (hence the stumbling back on the fics) and I really really need to talk more about him because not only is his and Idan's dynamic fantastic, but I actually really popped off with him when I created him. The idea of a miraluka who struggles really really hard with using the Force to "see" as he gets overwhelmed extremely easily, especially on high population planets (like Coruscant) or highly Force attuned planets (Tython, Odessen) is something I want to explore more. That, and I need to write more JediSon and JediDad because Idan really comes through and extends a kind hand to a young kid who has not been shown that. The simple things like a cup of tea, or some spare soft fabric for his eye covering. I need an excuse to go wild over Terrance lol

#captainderyn rambles #oc asks #so many good moments with my mutuals over the years I'd be here tagging all night so I am giving an overwhelming <3 <3 to you ALL

[cvldbones]

it feels so scary getting old - lorde, "ribs"

the idea of growing up has been stuck in my mind, recently. i feel so much more aware of my age than i have ever been before -- not in the book the botox appointment kind of way, but more in a sense of how have i lived this many lives at once?

my brain still thinks i am 23; then, when i sit and think about the me of 23, she is so different from the me of today.

when i was 23, i had spoken to my father for the last time in-person. my favorite taylor swift album was released. i totaled my car. i was a grad student making barely enough to live on, spending the summer on a lake i haven't seen in two years.

she's still twenty-three, inside her fantasy, how it was supposed to be - taylor swift, "right where you left me"

but yesterday, i turned 27. in the highlight reel version of these last four years, you'd see images flashing in quick succession: a graduation cap, my windowless office at my dream job, my best friends getting engaged, me getting engaged, moving, starting a new job, becoming someone's wife --

and yet, our lives are written in the margins.

the same month i got engaged, i lost my second grandparent in as many months. the summer i stopped talking to my father, i was put on anti-anxiety medication for the first time. when i started my dream job, i made a new friend who it feels like i've known all my life. i cried listening to gracie abrams in the car the same week i learned i would be moving states.

when i was twenty-seven, everything started to change - kacey musgraves, "deeper well"

last year, we were in the car, driving home from a weekend spent celebrating my best friend and her soon-to-be husband. my father sent me an email. in it, i was: hateful, ignorant, naive, purposefully hurting others.

it was the first time i had heard from him in months, and it would be the last time.

because the moment i read that email, something crystallized within me. in my father's mind, i remain 23. trapped in amber. forever a girl, barely an adult, freshly hurt by his transgressions. he can't imagine the number of skins i've shed, the versions of myself i have been and unbecome in the years since he knew me last.

so i tell him, i am closing this door. i tell him, you don't know me anymore.

new skin stretched over my bones, i become 27.

i haven't met the new me yet - taylor swift, "happiness"

#writing #words #mine #what the FUCK is this i have no idea #just been thinking about this lately and i can't get it out of my head #poetry

[quartings]

Looking back on X&Y's release 10 years ago...

I still remember queueing up in line for the XY release day literally a whole decade ago- my brother, dad, and one of my best friends were with me and we all went out to Krispy Kreme afterwards- I evolved my first Spewpa there to see which regional Vivillon I had!

Nowadays I can't even imagine pre-ordering a Pokemon game, since I have to wait and see if they perform decently, have enough content in them to justify the $60USD price tag, and whether their DLC is good if not. I've become an old, jaded, beaten-down adult since then, haha...

But enough negativity for now- there are so many good things XY had that we should acknowledge!

Fairies are one of the biggest- we've had them for 10 YEARS now, everyone! Remember when they released the XY demo before the game launch and everyone was hitting Sylveon with everything to see how the new type matched up with everything? And now, Fairy has been paired up with all but two of the other types! They've also become the most OP type now (which is an issue they were made to stop) but it could always be worse! Who knows, maybe in 10 more years, the type chart might be unrecognizable!

They even managed to model and animate over 700 Pokemon on a handheld game, plus all their extra forms! Nowadays, Pokemon games can't manage to do that for even 500 Pokemon on launch.

Mega Evolution was the first battle gimmick ever introduced, and to this day it still remains so much better than the others that we're all still hoping and praying it comes back. I know there were some qualms that mostly OP and popular Pokemon got megas, but naturally the solution shouldn't be "No Megas"- it should be "More Megas"! And we all know someday we're going to have to raid Gamefreak's vault for their Mega Flygon concept art- we know it's out there!! Anyways, I'm glad Megas still get respect in spinoffs- Pokemon GO, Mystery Dungeon, Smash Bros, etc. It gives me hope that one day they really will return.

But the more negative things about XY need to be addressed too- while the games themselves were good, a lot of people rightfully agree that they were the beginning of many declines for the games.

The extremely low difficulty for no reason- NPCs and bosses having miniscule teams with less than 4 moves, rarely any held items and a poorly-made level curve. I can't think of anyone before who thinks the games before were "too hard" or that they're now "just right". To be fair, they've remedied this every now and again with actual challenging bosses (Totems and Ultra Necrozma, BDSP Cynthia, Volo, Team Star Bosses, Sada/Turo, Kieran, and the Ogre Clan) but I do hope this issue gets fully resolved one day. It's not fun playing through 90% of the games mindlessly clicking through the same highlighted "super effective" button over and over.

The "overly friendly rival" problem that first started in XY has finally been fixed though- while Gens 6-8 suffered a bit from it, Gen 9 doesn't just have decent rival characters- Nemona, Arven, Penny, Carmine, and Kieran have been some of my favorite Pokemon characters ever!

The lack of postgame areas and things to do first started in XY. While Looker and Emma's story was great, it didn't offer much of a challenge and there was barely anything to do afterwards. And nowadays when we do get substantial postgames in Pokemon they're paid DLC. And as long as we're getting DLC from now on, can we PLEASE have one that contains a Battle Frontier, please???

Mythicals no longer having their own areas and quests also started in XY- so many unfinished areas in the game that should've gone to them.

Kalos is the only main Pokemon region to only exist in one iteration so far- all others were expanded upon with remakes, sequels, third versions, ultra versions, or DLC. I do hope in maybe 5 years or so we do get XY remakes that'll finally do Kalos justice.

Another problem that eventually got fixed is small amounts of new Pokemon- I remember being in total disbelief that Gen 6 only had 72 new Pokemon, waiting for more to get announced someday. But with Gen 9, we finally have generations containing well over 100 Pokemon again, which is a massive relief!

And one more major underrated change that Gen 6 brought to Pokemon- it's the first one to ever have a worldwide release! I still remember spending most of Gen 5 learning Japanese names of all the new Pokemon, moves, characters, etc while waiting for BW's English release. But nowadays we can all enjoy a new generation's launch around the world at the same time! That's another thing to be grateful for!

But yeah, in these last 10 years so many things have changed and many others have stayed the same- for the Pokemon franchise and for my own life! While not all of it has been perfect, it still blows me away how far we've come, and how much more we need to improve on! I was still a nerdy little kid who didn't know how to draw digitally when these games came out- and now I'm an adult who makes animated shorts and works at an animation production company!

I have no clue if I'll be ready in 2026 for SM's 10th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of the franchise overall! Maybe everything will be better or it'll have gotten so much worse. Either way, I'm happy to have made it this far with you all and can't wait to make a similar post for the 10th anniversary of this blog, too!

#pokemon #pokemon xy #q speaks #positivity #negativity #generation 6

[popculturebuffet]

Breaking Cat News Retrospective: Year One: On The Air! (Comissioned by Emma Fici)

In Loving Memory of Stewie Magilcutty Mattingly 2006-2023 "A Legend that Will Live Forever"

So a few months ago I had some great fortune: I was getting back into comic strips, one of the great loves of my life and one I haven't indulged in on this blog nearly as much as I should. I never stopped reading them all together mind you, but I wasn't reading them daily and now I have it's through enjoyment. I found newer strips to adore like the nostalgic best friendship of crabgrass, the sibling chaos of Rosebuds and the charming reboot of heart of the city, found long running strips i'm now a huge fan of like Safe Havens, ON the FastTrack, and Kevin and Kell, all by one Bill Holbrook as well as Jumpstart which isn't but is fun, and reconnected with strips I hadn't really read daily like wallace the brave and phoebe and her unicorn. But while all of these are great and many will be talked about on here at some point (I'm saving K and K for 2021) out of all of them it was the one of the last ones I binged.. that ended up being my clear favorite and despite it only having been a few months, has worked it's way into being one of my favorite comic strips of all time.

Now i'd been planning to start covering it next year for it's 10 year anniversary.. but then something terrible happened last sunday that sped up plans: My cat Stewie, with me 17 years, had passed away. See reading the strip i'd related a lot of the antics to stewie, especially since my faviorite of the cast happened to also be an honry 17 year old cat. So I felt one of the best ways to honor my fur buddy.. would be to move this up and thankfully my friend Emma, who i'd gotten into the strip agreed to sponsor it. So with the time finally here those few of you who are either loyal readers of mine or just found this might need an intro

Breaking Cat News is a comic strip by Georgia Dunn, and this all started one day nearly 9 years ago when her cat Lupin knocked over a lamp and broke it. Her other two cats, Elvis, the older cat I mentioned and Puck, the gentler middle child, came to investigate and soon Georgia was improvising reporter voices for them… and it made her and her husband Ryan laugh so much she quickly made it into this comic.

She did what most would do and shared it with friends and what not and it spread around so much she decided to make some more… and they proved so popular she made a website, and the rest was history. THe strip was intially a self published webcomic, done in long form sunday like strips, before being picked up by Andrews McMeel aka Uversal Uclick, one of the two major comics syndicates who replayed the strip on their website , and it got popular to the point they published a collection, published more and eventually picked the strip up for dalies.

The strip has not only been a highlight of my day.. but something I love for it's wonderful fan community, who not only flooded my mentions with their condolences over my death, but have been one of the nicest comments sections iv'e found, as my talking on and on about these characters is not only apricated but encouraged and Georgia herself is a throughly kind person who not only comments occasionally but genuinely engages with and apricates her fans. So as such i've been chomping at the bit to do this longform and i'm happy to finally do so. So join me under the cut for a look at BCN's first year on the air as you meet Lupin, Elvis and gentle Puck as they hit the air.

BCN has a very simple, yet brilliant setup the above strip nicely highlights: three cats living in a big pink house report on the various goings on in said house as professional news reporters.. while still, having the logic and actions of a cat. For instance the endless struggle of a cat getting on the counter, table or what have you and having to scoop them off becomes our heroes trying to figure out why the humans guard the counter so jealously.. and also leads to one of my faviorite lines in the entire strip

Some day I will be able to use that panel, as i've used many of this strips for reaction images. Another reason why I wanted to do this really, to show where those panels are from and hopefully get more eyes on the strip.

Anyways like most comic strips the first yearcan feel a tad off in hindsight. Bloom County lacked focus and took a while to assemble it's early cast, with Opus finally bringing it all together. Snoopy was a very regular dog for several years who just happened to like eating candy instead of the imaginative weirdo we all know. Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap, something never brought up again, as was his time in scouts. For Better Or Worse was more a bunch of domestic punchilnes instead of the generational family dramedy it became and all the better for. Every strip, and most works in general, take a bit to become their best self.

For BCN it's the fact the characters start out far less defined. Over time the cats would gain really fleshed out, dynamic, utterly wonderful personalities but for the first few months, their basically all the same person with their quirks only really hinted at. Again this is fair: Georgia was just playing off the very concept at first and likely didn't have much of an idea at first where to go with this beyond the cats just playing off The Woman and The Man (her and ryan's avatars). IT's not bad at all, but it feels weird to go back to after getting so used to what the strip becomes; a multilayered world with it's own history seperate from it's real world inspirations, a colorful and expansive side cast, and each of our main cat cast and our two human adults feel like well thought out fully formed characters. At this point it's just three interchangable cats, a fourth outside we'll get to, and two humans. It's not bad, but it is worth noting just how weird it feels while also reading the daily strip, which still has plenty of reality based antics but also has as much chaarcter humor as it does cat humor.

As Year One goes on though the cats slowly came into focus. So let's meet them shall we?

First up we have our man on the desk, 50's style reporter Lupin. Lupin was in real life adopted last out of the original trio as a kitten having been found with his various brothers and sisters in an abandoned apartment, carelessly abndoned. Lupin contracted a fever which as his intial fosters found, left him deaf, though nicely his disablity is just a part of him and only comes up once or twice in storyline, while still being compesnated for and given resonable acomindation when needed, as he relies on the teleprompter as seen in one strip where he dosen't realize a cricket's chirping is harming his friends ears for obvious reasons. He's a curious troublemaker, with a love of knocking thigns over, exploration, and teasing eldest cat Elvis

Next up is Puck, a black kitty with only three paws. In real life, puck was rescued from a concerned neighbor who noticed he had an infection and whose owners didn't care if he lived or died. He lost a limb, but eventually gained a forever home with the Dunns. Puck is gentle, sometimes shy, but always kind and upfront.

Elvis is a cranky siamise and older burnt out hardhitting journalist. He is the oldest of the cats and the only one in real life (it's unknown if this carries to the strip) who wasn't a shelter baby, with Georgia instaead adopting him from a farm while she was still single. Elvis is quick to anger, distrustful as heck to strangers, and clingy as heck to the woman. There's a good cat underneath it, and he loves his brothers and mom dearly.

IF your wondering who that strange cat in the rad hawiaan shirt is , we'll get to him later.

Story wise in contrast to the later years having frequent arcs mixed with one offs or one weeks dealing with various cat issues, the first year of strips is mostly just varoius shenanigans though a few running gags are set up that run into present day. Besides Elvis' on and off rivalry with the man and the leaves we have The bi monthly 2am running of the cats…

Our boys love of bacon

Their off hours wrestling league BCW, B C DUB, B C DUB!

Georgia is a wrestling fan herself, and it shows as most of the bcw gimmicks are in some way based on actual wrestlers, with Elvis wearing a singlet similar to Jerry the King Lawler, and Puck wearing an outfit similar to jesse ventura with the cadance of the macho man randy savage.

Story wise there's only three major beats and all are fairly loose, with the final one being the centerpiece of a story arc more like the ones we get later: a full on story followed to the end either over a few months or over about a month. The first is Georgia recapping her own real life pregnancy and eventual birth of her son, known her as the baby, the toddler and later the boy. The cats do their best ot help even fi they dont' quite understand

The actual arival slightly baffles Lupin and Puck but they come to accept their new roomate. Elvis… is a bit of a harder sell

It takes a while but eventually he softens on the boy too… if through shared trauma

It's fairly loose in contract to how later arcs go, but it makes sense as this was closer to the real life events presumibly, versus say the adoption of later cats, which has more of an arc to it.

The second dosen't payoff till the next year when they meet, but we do get the introductions of Sir Figaro Newton (Fig for short) and Tabitha, the cats living above our heroes (In real life it was reversed. )

They have their own running of the cats but we'll get to meet them in full next time.

For now though there's just one major arc and it start with a simple running gag. We're now circling back to that outdoor cat, as you simply must meet Thomas, Thomas, aka Admiral Thomas Whistchester, better known as Tommy! Tommy is based on a friends cat who had his own facebook, shared with his roomate sophie (who we'll also meet next time) before his sad passing, though you can still find it today to see plenty of the delicate artiste herself. He's a fluffy boy who just wants to be friends with our cats who all regard him with suspcion but Elvis in paticuarlly gets extra puffy and extra paranoid about their new pal

I also like his fun hawiaan shirt, which fits his party animal lifestyle well. I love the costuming for the cats, with each's outfit perfectly fitting their personality: Lupin has a full suit jacket which both nicely contrasts his chaotic nature as the strip goes and fits his usual roll as desk anchor, Puck has a simple but stylish white dress shirt and tie and Elvis has a more 70's suspenders and dress shirt combo. It's simple stuff but it shows off who they are and it's a key part of any comic strip, especially, even with the strip having alternate outfits for sleep and such, when they'll likely wear said outfit for the whole run of the strip. He's a nice kind guy. He even has a friend in louie, a skunk who sprays lupin who we've only seen all of twice in two decades despite being the coolest dude on the planet.

This also shows Lupin slowly growing closer to Tommy, a friendship that will presist throughout the strip. For his brothers though, it'd take quite the ordeal.. which starts as many tales do.. with Elvis's overestimation of what he can handle getting out of hand

Three hours later snows coming down, the rest of our heroes are panicked and Elvis himself is lost, cold and hungry.. when he runs into our boy Tommy… at first he's as receptive to his help as someone of his station and dignity would be..

To me this is where the strip grows the beard: in just three strips we've gone from the usual shenanigans.. to Elvis fighting to surivive. Not that the stakes are always high nor do they need to be: the slice of life feel of the strip is one of it's draws. But by raising them realisticly just a touch it forces Elvis to let his guard down and shows tommy as more than just comic relief, but a cat whose lost.. and willing to help others not loose what he had simply because he's that kind. It's the kind of depth that carries comedically and dramatically for the rest of the strip that up to this point had only barely been touched. This is where they cease being maybe one trait that's ignored if needed and ebcome the fully fleshe dout fur babies I know and love.

We then get the full story of how Tommy ended up like this, with Lupin finally truly warming up to him, realizing he's not so diffrent.. and fully being touched by Tommy offering up his bed.. while badly missing his family

The next morning tommy gets our hero home, greatful and with a new friend

But… Elvis realizes he can't leave things and having seen the sign we saw earlier takes a giant risk

The people recognize tommy, and call his woman, who will be both one of The Woman's closest friends and easily the biggest recurring human character outside the big pink house going forward. We get the tearful reunion you'd expect and badly hoped for

Turns out he was only a few blocks away, which is also nice setup as it means he can visit again after this. But for now he gets properly aquanited with our cast

And leaves to go to his happy home.. but with a reminder that wherever he goes.. he's one of them. A great way to end a great arc.

This christmas arc is one of my favorites of the series even now: Emotional, touching and perfectly in line with the season and it nicely sets the tone for everything to come. While things won't be this harrowing, our cats world is about to grow exponentially from here on out. So join me in march as the world gets wider, our heroes make some new friends, deal with some new babies, and things only get better from here. Thanks for reading.

#breaking cat news #georgia dunn #comic strips #cats #lupin #elvis #puck #tommy #the woman #the man #comics #kittys

[possessionisamyth]

Given what Lily Gao has said about Ada, do you think Capcom is becoming aware of the criticisms regarding Ada's "dragon lady" persona and is working to correct it?

I'm going to preface this with I am not Chinese nor Chinese-American. I'm black, I taught english in Japan, and knowledge on this kind of racial stereotyping is growing at the same rate as my knowledge on antisemitism, AKA I know some but am still learning. So sorry again for this being long, but my answer will focus on how I look at writing/story analysis.

To be honest, for me when it comes to critically thinking about and analyzing media, I don't really care about what people say in interviews. I don't even look for them. The first exception I make to this is if someone has made enough of something that I can catch the patterns in their story-telling/depiction, and I have a desire to know where that comes from. That desire to know is also extremely rare, because there isn't a piece of written work (sans music) I don't analyze to some extent, and I've gotten great at guessing where ideas sprout from. Too good actually.

I say this not because the information is irrelevant, but because if what they're saying is true it will be executed well in the piece. If what they're saying is true, it will have met the goal whether or not they explicitly tell me what their goal is. I don't look at voice actor interviews, screenwriter interviews, or director interviews, and I haven't since my university classes. The other exception to this are blooper reels and director cuts with commentary. It's a shame many pieces no longer do these because they do highlight the goals of the movie better due to being in the moment with reels or by explaining why things were removed instead of why things were there, which is also more valuable to me.

I'm much less inclined to take Resident Evil voice actor opinions because I do not know how long they'll have that job. On top of that, IF we get Separate Ways DLC, I want how they took her lines in RE4R to make more sense as a result. I have a voice acting friend who loves Ada's new voice, but had problems with the direction they took her lines in. I didn't really hear it. I'm not experienced in that avenue. Me and my friend already have proven to have different opinions since I like when VAs voices crack or sound weak or warbly because it makes the scene feel more real to me. Voices aren't always perfectly practiced sounding without error because it veers too far into the uncanny which is why I stopped listening to ENG dubs of anime.

I love Ada talking to Luis and Leon like they're her subs. I love how bored and uninterested she sounds. It's a million times better than the "don't you want to fuck me" voice because anime has rotted the brains of many, and I'm a stupid gay who think women with deep voices can say anything so there's clearly a bias here! Yet until we see that DLC, which I'm praying we get, I can't tell you if Gao's words are true or not. Japan has a nasty history of being super xenophobic towards chinese people, and their xenophobia has been horribly normalized to this day. (I lived there, and I'm going back, and how nonchalant people were about it made me sick.)

As long as the DLC doesn't half focus on Luis, who Leon/Luis shippers are doing their own "latino papi" racist takes on link included check out the article, we'll have to see. I want to see the Remake Separate Ways DLC put in the work of departing Ada from the dragon lady stereotype. I want to know the writers and directors behind it realized how bad the original RE4 made it via making the remake DLC simply showing Ada as a woman who puts herself and her beliefs first no matter how gray those beliefs are. If it accomplishes that goal narratively, then I can assume whatever Lily Gao said is correct because other people will be talking about it. If it doesn't, then it doesn't regardless of the actor's interpretation of the piece.

Personally (this is related to the racist stereotype topic though veering off topic) If they do RE5 Remake, I will be flooding the tags with either praise or vitrol because jesus fucking christ the african stereotypes in the original? Painful. Physically painful for me. If they don't fix it, you all will know. In the meantime, praying we get that Separate Ways DLC. Really hoping to hear chinese voices who either enjoyed or felt neutral about Gao's acting on the DLC if it drops.

#re #resident evil #re4 remake #heh nothing personal kid #cbros5 #ty for asking me all these qs by the way i love talking about writing #re analysis

[lesbiancarat]

No, no you're good!! Again I just wanted to clarify that because it could be seen wrong and never want anyone to feel like that (also agree numbers are virtual and mean nothing!)

BUT THOUGHTS ABOUT THE COMEBACK!? I personally really, REALLY love it! Its just such a fun one? Like it is seventeen fun but with an edge, a twist. Like a monsta x twist but make it seventeen if that makes sense lolol. Hot is very much st my top 3 comebacks of this year, can we talk about minghao, jun and seungkwan!? This is their era for sure!! I keep seeing jun getting hype and I'm giggling while happy dancing because as he should (also he made me make him a bias so he is now my 4th bias dang his power) thoughts on the bsides? I know favorite bsides change for fans so I'm always curious to hear that :D

And agreed! By all means dress fancy hut have comfy shoes because lots of walking and standing and dancing will be happening! Try to get lightsticks now because sadly at the concert they sell out super fast (but they do sell batteries so you should be fine there!), double check if the venue allows cash or not because I heard this changed for many places. Bring a powerbank!! Super helpful as well! My mom gave me the green light to buy tickets but I found out late about pre-sale so while no code, me and my online friend are going to try general maybe? Idk its the one positive I am clinging onto to be happy after my rough month so good luck to pre-sale carats! Remember don't flip out, be calm! Love you all!

i'm actually really enjoying the comeback so far! tbh while i didn't think i would hate hot based on the highlight medley, i did expect it to be more on the lower end of my favorite svt tracks, just bc i do tend to prefer lighter/fresher songs in general, but i was very pleasantly surprised how much i liked it! i also think the wild west sort of theme they have for this album is super fun, i'm really looking forward to see how they do the set design and stage outfits for the concert bc i think there's a LOT of potential there for some fun things

i've actually only listened to most of the bsides a couple times bc i keep having hot + march on repeat DJFHF i keep thinking i'll put the whole album on repeat but then hot or march will come on and i'll be like wait i gotta listen to that again and suddenly it's all i'm listening to TT. aside from those two though, i think don quixote and 'bout you are up there (+ darling but i'm kind of not counting it since it's not a brand new song so it's hard to compare it to songs i'm still getting used to lol)

but that's all first impressions. like you said, favorite bsides often change. i know it definitely does for me lol. i've found i tend to originally be obsessed with the really catchy and repetitive songs at first but then i listen to them so much that i become a bit sick of them for a little bit. but then eventually i come around to it again and i like the song but i'm not super obsessed with it. on the other hand sometimes there will be a song i'm meh about for a while but then one random tuesday afternoon i'm like oh? this is really really good? so i definitely expect my favorites and least favorites to change over time lol

and yes, jun, minghao, and seungkwan!!!! juns fancams have been going wild so far this era and i've seen him get so much interest from carats with other biases like you which makes me happy dkfgh and of course minghao with his red hair. i feel like seungkwan should be applauded for managing to attract attention this era without having to expose his nipples. truly an amazing feat skdfjg

as someone who bought a lightstick at the last concert i can say it's not impossible, but you do want to have a plan and get in line as quickly as you can lol. but yeah if you're able to get a caratbong ahead of time it will probably be a lot less stressful lol. and good tip about payment! it's still possible you could get tickets during general sale! if not, resales are also possible. i'll keep my fingers crossed for you get tickets!!

#melia.ask #📖 anon

[guineverependragon]

23 animes in 2023

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to make a list of the new animes that I have enjoyed this past year. I've been completing this anime challenge since 2020 and I'm so grateful to have met new mutuals along the way and explore different genres and animation styles. I look forward to continuing the challenge again in 2024 with 24 animes, and I hope you all enjoy the ride with me. Below is my list, highlighting my top 10, with my overall rating and brief summary (some spoilers).

Happy New Year everyone! (◍•ᴗ•◍)♡ ✧*。

Buddy Daddies (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes)

9.8/10; Two assassins accidentally find a 4 year old girl on one of their jobs and eventually become her papas. This series highlighted the important details of parenting while presenting it in a queer platonic way. The fact that they all made it to the end and happily shared their lives together is historical. The angst of episode 10 set the stage for what they were willing to fight for. The growth and development of Rei and Kazuki was beautiful and I love the family they have created together. Angst with a happy ending. One of my favorite found families in one of my favorite comfort series. And the action and call back to details was wonderful. So many tears at the end but I'm glad I stuck it out. 

Natsume Yuujinchou (2008 - ) 6 Seasons (75 episodes, ongoing) 

9.5/10; The series follow Takashi Natsume, an orphan boy in high school who can see yokai (spirits). One day, Takashi finds a very old notebook that his late maternal grandmother, Reiko, who possessed strong spiritual powers, used to bind dozens of powerful demonic spirits, both good and evil, that she defeated to follow her every whim and desire if called upon. Takashi resolves to give back all the names in the age-old notebook, Book of Friends, and in the process joins forces with another feline/wolf-like spirit called Madara (nicknamed "Nyanko-sensei" in his borrowed lucky cat-like form), who knew Reiko when she was alive. Nyanko-sensei intends to take back the notebook after Takashi dies. Until then, he agreed to protect Takashi from the nefarious spirits who want to harm him for being the grandson of Reiko, who died in her young adult years decades prior to the story. The stories of the yokai Natsume meets along his journey are truly heartbreaking and led me to cry on multiple occasions. Natsume's own story of losing his parents and being passed around by family members throughout his life was equally devastating. As Natsume adapts to seeing yokai, he finds true family and friendships and becomes happy. It's a beautiful series from start to finish. 

Skip to Loafer (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes) 

9.5/10; Mitsumi Iwakura is a sparkling high school student who moved from the outskirts of Ishikawa Prefecture to high school in Tokyo after graduating from junior high school. Mitsumi grew up in a depopulated area, with only eight students in her class. However, on the day of her entrance ceremony, she gets caught in the commuter rush and gets lost, and her life plan is quickly frustrated. A tall and handsome boy who was worried about Mitsumi calls out to her and decides to go to school with her every day.  One of my favorite OPs this year. I hope the series will be able to continue. 

The Apothecary Diaries (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes, ongoing)

9.3/10; Set in a fictional country based on Ming-era China, the series follows Maomao, a young girl working as an apothecary in the red-light district, who is kidnapped and sold to the Imperial Palace as a servant. However, Maomao surprisingly tries to make the best of the situation and wait out her time until she can return home. One day, after hearing rumors that the emperor's children are critically ill, she begins to investigate the cause, using her experience as an apothecary, and successfully solves the mystery of their illness. Even though she intends to remain anonymous, her actions eventually catch the attention of an influential eunuch, Jinshi, and soon finds herself solving various mysteries for the royal court. I became hooked on this series pretty much immediately. The lore of the fictional era paired with the insights of Maomao make a truly fascinating story. I’m excited to see where the second half of the series is headed.

My Happy Marriage (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes)

9.2/10; During an era in which spirits and magic are real, but in decline, Miyo Saimori, born without supernatural talent, is forced into an existence of servitude by her abusive stepmother. When Miyo finally comes of marriageable age, though, her hopes of being whisked away to a better life crumble after she discovers her fiancé’s identity: Kiyoka Kudou, a commander apparently so cold and cruel that his previous would-be brides all fled within three days of their engagements. With no home to return to, Miyo resigns herself to her fate—and soon finds that her pale and handsome husband-to-be is anything but the monster she expected. As they slowly open their hearts to each other, both realize the other may be their chance at finding true love and happiness. It has a similar feeling of Cinderella but goes extensively into the aftermath of trauma and learning how to live beyond that. It's true in this case that sometimes love isn't enough but it's certainly important. You find yourself as a viewer wanting Miyo to have the best and also wanting her to believe she deserves the best. And watching Kudou soften his personality as he fell in love with Miyo was such a sweet experience. They are a beautiful couple and I can't wait to see what season two has in store for them. 

My Boss is Goofy (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes)

9.1/10; Kentarō Momose, whose physical and mental health deteriorated after his boss's abuse, changed his job to a sales position at an advertising agency. However, due to his trauma, he was unable to move due to stomach pain during his first tour. Momose's new boss, Shirosaki, leaves Momose without saying anything, and Momose becomes worried that his new boss will be the same as before. | This series was so wholesome. I love how it didn't minimize or brush over Momose's trauma simply because he got a new job. They acknowledged that it takes time to heal and just because his new boss was understood doesn't take away the suffering he had to endure. Momose and Shirosaki's relationship was so pure. I loved everything about them. Even if the series isn't considered BL, it was so refreshing to see men be so vulnerable and supportive of each other. I also loved that they had a clearly identified bi character. An adorable wonderful series that I enjoyed very much. 

Loving Yamada at Lv999! (2023) 1 Season (13 episodes) 

8.9/10; The story follows the daily life of college student Akane Kinoshita. After getting dumped by her boyfriend, she continues the game Forest of Savior (FoS) they once played together and attended an offline event of the game. There she encounters an emotionless and handsome high school student named Akito Yamada. Yamada happens to belong to the same guild in the game as Akane, and after this encounter Akane begins to get closer to other members of the guild, especially Yamada. The ending confession was absolutely heartwarming and I really hope we get a season two to see their relationship grows. 

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (2023) 1 Season (24 episodes)

8.9/10; Anne Halford is a candy crafter determined to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a Silver Sugar Master, a title bestowed only by royalty. In order to travel to the capital and realize her dream, she purchases Challe, a handsome but foul-mouthed fairy, as her bodyguard. Anne wishes to befriend her new companion, but in this kingdom where fairies are treated as property upon possession of one of their wings, Challe wants nothing to do with humans. I was truly thrilled with how engaging this series was. After not watching anything for quite some time I was hooked on this series and watched 5 episodes right away. It's a great combination of adventure, coming of age, fantasy, friendship, and slow burn romance. Animation was gorgeous. I hope it gets another season. One of my favorite watches this year! 

I'm in Love with the Villainess (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes) 

8.9/10; Rei Ohashi, an ordinary office worker, is overworked to death and suddenly finds herself reincarnated as Rae Taylor, the heroine of her favorite otome game, Revolution. However, Rae has no interest in the game's three original romance routes with the Bauer Kingdom's princes. Instead, she sets her heart on Claire François, the game's main antagonist. Using her knowledge of the game's events that are yet to come, Rae tries to give Claire a happy ending before the coming revolution destroys any chance of it happening. Initially I was put off by how disinterested Claire seemed in Rae but the slow turnaround and realization of her feelings at the end really made the series worth watching all the way through. I also like how they were direct about Rei being a lesbian and acknowledging that their relationship wouldn't be the typical kind. 

Oshi no Ko (2023) ️1 Season (11 episodes, ongoing) 

️8.8/10; Gynecologist Gorou Amamiya is tasked with helping deliver the children of Ai Hoshino, an idol singer whom he admires, without the knowledge of the general public. However, the night of Ai's delivery, Gorou is murdered by an obsessive fan of Ai's, and is reincarnated as Aquamarine Hoshino, Ai's son, retaining his memories of his previous life. Unbeknownst to him, Aqua's fraternal twin, Ruby Hoshino, is also a reincarnation of one of Gorou's patients who was a fan of Ai's. Four years later, Ai is murdered by the same fan, who later dies by suicide. However, Aqua deduces that the murderer may have had his and Ruby's father as an accomplice and resolves to infiltrate the entertainment industry to find and kill him. This series was wild from start to finish! It immediately pulled me into the dark mystery of the crime involved while also being fun and compelling. I'm excited to see how the story continues to unfold in season two! 

Josee the Tiger and the Fish (2020) Movie (98 minutes) 

8.7/10; Tsuneo Suzukawa is a 22-year-old university student studying marine biology. He works part-time at a diving shop, where he bonds with coworkers Mai and Hayato. On his way home after a lecture, he saves a paraplegic young woman named Kumiko Yamamura, who insists on being called "Josee". After being invited over for dinner as a token of gratitude, Tsuneo receives a job offer from Josee's grandmother, Chizu, to become a caretaker for Josee. A very endearing film about dreams, grief, and overcoming obstacles. Emotionally compelling moments, gorgeous art style, and an overall happy ending. I very much enjoyed the movie. Only wish we could have seen more of them together as an official couple. 

Romantic Killer (2022) 1 Season (12 episodes)

8.6/10; A romantic comedy following Anzu Hoshino who was visited by a wizard named Riri who is on a mission to fix her love life (or lack thereof). By taking away her most precious desires, video games, chocolates, and her beloved cat, Hoshino is forced to address her wholesome harem but finds beloved friendships along the way. I loved this series. Very wholesome, enjoyable, and entertaining. An anti-heroine after my own heart. 

A Silent Voice (2016) Movie (130 minutes)

8.5/10; The film covers elements of coming of age and psychological drama, dealing with themes of bullying, disability, forgiveness, mental health, suicide, and friendship of opposite sexes. It follows the story of a former bully turned social outcast, who decides to reconnect and befriend the deaf girl he had bullied years prior. Tissues are an absolute must for this one!

Hell's Paradise (2023) 1 Season (13 episodes, ongoing)

8.4/10; Sentenced to death, ninja Gabimaru the Hollow finds himself apathetic. After leading a blood-soaked life, Gabimaru believes he deserves to die. However, every attempt to execute him inexplicably fails. Finally, Sagiri Yamada Asaemon, a fledgling member of a famed executioner clan, is asked to take Gabimaru's life; yet Sagiri makes no move to kill him as requested. Insisting that Gabimaru will not die because of his love for his wife, Sagiri instead offers him the chance to obtain a full pardon for his crimes. If he can travel to the island of Shinsekyo and obtain the Elixir of Life—which supposedly grants immortality—and bring it back for the shogun, then his freedom will be assured. But of the many who have traveled to Shinsekyo in search of the mythical Elixir, not a single person has returned sound of mind, if at all. Though unaware of the numerous dangers ahead, Gabimaru decides to accept the offer—alongside ten other death row convicts—in hope that he and his wife may finally live in peace.   Incredible action sequences and excellent animation from MAPPA studios. Excited to see how the story finishes. This was definitely a step out of my usual genre comfort zone.

 Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes)

8.3/10; Eunha Park dies in modern day Seoul and gets reincarnated in a novel as an extra character named Raeliana McMillan who eventually gets killed off during the story. To avoid her second death, she pretends to be the fiancée of the male lead Duke Noah Volstaire Wynknight for 6 months. Will Noah help Raeliana avoid her ill-fated ending, or is history doomed to repeat itself? 

The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes) 

8/10; Himuro-kun is a descendant of a snow woman in Japanese folklore. As a result, when he experiences a strong emotion he can create a snow storm. Before he arrives on his first days as an office worker, he literally gets cold feet and is frozen in place. Fuyutsuki-san helps by providing some warm tea and comfort which forms the beginning of their mutual affection towards each other. This series was a very wholesome slice of life office romance. It was so refreshing to see a male character be so open and vulnerable with his feelings. I hope we'll be able to see more from this series in the future. 

Tokyo Godfathers (2003) Movie (92 minutes)

8/10; One Christmas Eve, three homeless people—a middle-aged alcoholic named Gin, a crossdresser named Hana, and a dependent teenage runaway named Miyuki—discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage for presents. On the baby is a note asking the finder to take good care of her and a key, leading to a bag with clues to the parents' identity. | An interesting interpretation of found family and divine timing. The animation style was really unique and you couldn't help but root for these people who have found one another. It also looks at the darker themes of how homelessness is looked at in Tokyo (but truly the world). Very unique film. 

Otonari ni Ginga (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes)

7.9/10; Ichirou Kuga has suddenly found himself taking on the responsibility of caring for his two younger siblings after their father's untimely death. To make ends meet, Ichirou rents out rooms in the apartment complex he inherited and works full-time as a shoujo manga artist. However, his manga sales are low, his assistants have recently left, and deadlines are fast approaching. As stress threatens to overtake Ichirou, salvation comes in the form of an extremely competent novice artist, Shiori Goshiki, who becomes his new assistant. With her skills, they are able to tide over the difficult situation, and things begin looking up. But in a bizarre accident, a supernatural experience unfolds between Ichirou and Shirou, which leads her to declare them engaged. With this seemingly innocuous action upending his life, Ichirou now has to manage his new and peculiar relationship with the mysterious girl, all the while following his own passion and fulfilling the duties that rest on his shoulders. The pacing of the series probably would've come across better if I had watched the episodes back to back instead week to week. The romance between the main characters was very sweet and endearing. I think what threw me off was the lore of the princess's world combined with the ordinary day to day. It's a shame the series ended when it did because there's so much left unanswered but I suppose that's the draw to read the manga. Enjoyable and sweet overall. 

Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (2023) 1 Season (13 episodes)

7.9/10; In the small city of Nanao, insomniac Ganta Nakami tries to catch a nap in his school's abandoned astronomical observatory. There he stumbles upon a sociable and carefree girl named Isaki Magari who has the same problem. The two form an awkward friendship and reestablish their school's defunct astronomy club. It was a very sweet romance between two teenagers that have experienced quite a bit of trauma in their lives. Finding comfort and understanding within each other, they begin to heal and grow closer together. 

Tomo-chan is a girl (2023) 1 Season (13 episodes)

6.2/10; A girl confesses to her childhood friend and he doesn't believe her because he doesn't see her as a girl. Tomo tries to be girlier but ultimately Jun realizes he's loved her all along. The plot loses the thread a few times but the pay off in the end for their relationship was worth it. A cute, silly, fun time watch.

Yuri Is My Job! (2023) 1 Season (12 episodes)

6/10; Hime Shiraki is a high school girl who deeply cares about her image as a sweet, helpful princess but on the inside only cares about herself. So when she accidentally injures a café manager named Mai Koshiba, she is willing to cover some shifts to keep her façade intact. Hime ends up working as a waitress at a place that is part café, part theater, where all the waitresses pretend to be students at a fictional all-girls boarding school known as Liebe Girls Academy. Hime finds herself drawn to another waitress at the café, who in front of the customers gives Hime love and devotion like she has never known. However, behind the scenes, the girl seems to hate her guts. I really had a difficult time staying interested initially because of the tsundere attitude and it took awhile to find out what was causing it. The episodes that explored the two main character’s histories and background were the best parts of the series. If I rated the series just on those episodes I would've given it a 9 because it really did capture the experience of loving your best friend and being frustrated when they don't understand those feelings. I want to read the manga and see if there's more to the story there but overall I was very disappointed in the anime. 

Omoi Omoware Furi Furare (2020) Movie (103 minutes)

5.8/10; Yuna Ichihara is in the spring before her first year of high school and is pained to be separated from her best friend Sacchan who is moving away. On her way to the train station, she is stopped by a random girl named Akari Yamamoto, who asks her for money for her train fare. Although Yuna is somewhat afraid and reluctant, she gives the girl money, who in turn gives Yuna her bracelet as a promise she will meet her tomorrow to pay her back. On the same day, Yuna runs twice into a boy who looks like the idolized prince of her childhood who she referred to as her first love. After that, the girl named Akari returns Yuna's money, they head home together only to find out that they live in the same apartment building. The girls instantly become friends. However, they find that they explore love in completely different ways, and Yuna may be in love with Akari's younger brother and Akari in love with Yuna's childhood friend. | It's difficult because the series was 12 volumes put into one film so the pacing of it was a bit different. Also with fan subs it's always possible that certain points get lost in translation. The build up to Yuna and Rio was strange, especially since he initially had a crush and kissed his step sister. They eventually got to a cute place but I have a feeling it was better explained in the manga. And for whatever reason I just didn't really care for Akari; she was always keeping secrets and carrying the burden of things when Yuna always offered to help. The animation was stunning and I can tell the story had a lot of potential. 

Fragtime (2019) Movie (61 minutes)

5.7/10; Misuzu Moritani is an introvert who has always had difficulty interacting with her classmates, quickly becoming flustered whenever someone tries to talk to her. Sometimes, she will use her ability to stop time for three minutes to escape troublesome social situations. One day, as Misuzu watches the suspended environment around her, she observes that her classmate, Haruka Murakami, is somehow able to move despite her temporal influence. From that moment on, Misuzu experiences new wonders as she explores more of the world she has long avoided; no matter where time may take her, Misuzu can count on Haruka to always be at her side. It was equally too long and too short. I don't think the point of the movie really came across. The two main girls were very sweet but overall I wanted the story to be more interesting.

#23 animes in 2023 #anime recommendation #24 animes in 2024

[lifepoast]

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆ nichijou ☾ ﾟ｡⋆₊ ⊹

i finished nichijou today, 27 december 2023! it was the perfect watch for my life right now. i'm very busy, lonely and falling behind on enjoying everyday stuff. i'm in the process of moving to a new apartment from a place i've lived and loved in for 2 years now, and i'm doing most of it alone because my roommate is out of town until we move in.

i'm very sensitive to the idea of serendipity and things coming to my life for a reason, even (or especially) little things like an anime from 2011. what are the chances a random piece of media falls into my lap and resonates deeply at the exact moment - and in the exact way - that i needed it to? but in truth i think the actual miracle is that no matter what i watch or read, my desire to connect with something outside of myself is so strong that it's like i can do it to anything in my path. and in further truth it's not really a miracle at all, because this is to say nothing of all the other pieces i watch and read in the interim and fail to finish because they don't resonate. (i have tried to pick up many books since my last, and have put them all back down - sir gawain and the green knight, crime and punishment, perfect spy...). of course it's more likely i will have resonated with something that i liked enough to bother seeing it through to the end in the first place. i know that, and yet it all feels miraculous anyway. that must be the thesis of nichijou rubbing off on me - that "our ordinary life that passes us day by day may actually be a series of wonderful miracles." ୧ ‧₊˚ 🎐 ⋅

what i love the most about this, and about nichijou, is its suggestion that satire and comedy is, or can be, compassionate. i think people who try to do satire today neglect this. in the toolbox of things that can make a great satire i think compassion is easily overlooked in lieu of tools that can be more construed as weapons; bite, caricature, sarcasm. many would argue satirical intentions are noble. the work of satire is done so that its author may ask something good of its audience: to be more discerning, to put certain illogical behaviours away, to recognise things for what they 'are' with fresh eyes. so is nichijou even satire? i think so, or i at least think it uses the almost ethnographic methodology of satire (highlighting and exaggerating mundane blind spots) to ask its audience of something different: not ridicule nor criticism, but gratitude and tenderness.

if i imagine vividly enough, stay lucid and self-aware enough, and stay optimistic enough to forbid disaster from ending my narrative, anything that happens in my day-to-day could be reinterpreted into oblivion until it becomes a ridiculous, overblown, dramatically and situationally ironic nichijou skit - and like nichijou i could fashion any little thing into a miracle. but to really do this faithfully to the series' mechanics, i would have to let go of self consciousness and control. nichijou wouldn't be nearly as fun to watch if its characters reacted to its insane and illogical world by letting the insanity beat them into submission; if they resisted the narrative's push to treat every little thing in life with equal weight. through everything they maintain their sincerity, and their commitments to themselves, and their friendships, and their plans and ideas, and everyone and everything around them is all the better for it (not least of all the humour).

but i guess nichijou made me emotional today because it made me reflect on my days in high school. it shocked me to realise that what few meaningful and lasting memories i have of it are entirely confined within the friendship i had with my two best friends, and no one else. even though they probably know that, i wonder what they would feel if i said it to them - how else to phrase it? you were my life! you are my frame of reference when i watch these bittersweet shows about being a high schooler! i haven't talked to one of them in probably two years, and the other was my ex roommate - we basically do not speak in person anymore, and we haven't had a long conversation even online for almost a year. it would be a lie if i said that wasn't saddening, but it's not as saddening as it could be, because it's not really anyone's 'fault.' or if it were someone's fault, it would be at least half my own - and that means i can change something, if not something about the situation then something about myself. here i don't think the distinction between 'then' and 'now' really matters.

the three of us were so in tune, so similar, it felt like our personal issues and faults were contagious. we felt like a three-way mirror. and i think in front of a mirror all of us are afraid to be sincere, and to let go of self consciousness, and control. so i think back then the three of us let the chaos around us make us obsessed with those things, and that was a logical response, because we simply didn’t know how much better we could have made things for ourselves. how could we have?! we were so preoccupied with avoiding being “cringe,” otaku shit like nichijou and its lessons were off-limits!!

━━━━━━━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

#media #2023

[aysen14]

My BLOG

Who are you?

Who exactly am I? So, my name is Aizen, and I don't have any nicknames. I am currently 20 years old and live in Atimonan, Quezon, a town full of lovely scenery and wonderful people. I enrolled in the Multimedia Arts course since it matched my interests well. Both of my parents are teachers, and I have a younger sibling named Azlee (he is a boy). I love photography, and it has now become my job, from which I am earning a good living. My clients are mainly from events like weddings, birthdays, corporate gatherings, christenings, etc. Additionally, I work as a freelancer at some studios in Quezon, particularly in Lucena. My photographic experience has been enjoyable, with one of the highlights being the opportunity to meet new photographer/videographer friends and fantastic clients. It can be challenging to wake up early in the morning when your call time for a shoot is too early, but you forget about it because you have this passion burning inside your heart. I started shooting pictures while I was in high school, specifically as a Grade 9 student, using my phone. The process when I first started is extremely memorable, and I am happy about it. I began with the things I already had because my parents couldn't afford a camera due to its expense. Now, I am proud to say that I have purchased one of the most expensive cameras on the market, the Nikon Z6 Mark 2. Now I won't have to struggle to borrow a camera from my classmates who despise lending cameras—LOL! Besides my interest in cameras, I have a girlfriend, a very lovely partner named Joyce Allyn M. Campomanes. She is also enrolled at STI Lucena, pursuing the BSBA course. I've known her since seventh grade at the same school we both attended, OLAA in Atimonan. We've been in a relationship for approximately 4 years, almost 5, and we're both delighted. You've read parts of my story. Let's move on to the next section, and I'll tell you more about it. Please start reading now.

Achievements/Highlights in life

One of my life achievements involves earning a consistent income from my freelancing work. I am delighted that my profession as a Freelance Photographer has enabled me to provide financial support for myself. Being an event photographer was unexpected since I didn't anticipate it evolving this way when I first started capturing things like toys, landscapes, textures, and so on, and sharing them on social media simply because I enjoyed it. Consequently, several of my friends and clients began liking my work, and it gradually became a passive source of income. Moving from referrals to having my own clients is a significant achievement for me. My first camera was a Canon 6D, a gift from my photographer friend, Alvaro Garcia, who owns Alvaro Garcia Photography in Lucena. He happens to be my cousin's classmate. My cousin is also in the same line of work, but he's a videographer. Alvaro Garcia decided to sell his Canon 6D camera, and my cousin suggested it to me, stating that it's an excellent choice, especially for novices like me at the time. To acquire this camera that he was selling, I needed to talk to my parents about purchasing it for me. However, there were others ahead of me, and my parents hadn’t allowed me to make the purchase. This made me upset with them. Little did I know, after a few days, they talked to me about it and said they would buy it for me. I was happy at that time. Many years have passed, and that camera, the Canon 6D, has earned me a lot of money. It enabled me to purchase not only my dream lenses but also my two dream camera bodies, the Canon R6 Mark 2, and the Nikon Z6 Mark 2. I am thankful that the money I used to acquire my current lenses and bodies came from my own hard work, not from my parents. Even though I am still a student, I can now provide for myself and purchase the things I want in life. I can pay my monthly bills and live independently with my own money, all thanks to my passion, hard work, and my lovely clients that trusted me with my style of photography.

How do you see yourself 5 years from now?

In the next five years of my life, I envision reaching new heights in my career as a photographer. I am determined to establish my very own studio, a creative space where I can not only hone my craft but also provide exceptional services as a recognized Photo and Video event supplier. Becoming a notable figure in the field is not just a goal but a testament to the dedication and passion I pour into every project. Beyond my role as an event photographer, I aspire to diversify my business ventures. I see myself delving into additional entrepreneurial pursuits, leveraging my skills and experience to create thriving enterprises. The success I achieve in these ventures will be a direct result of the hard work and perseverance I dedicate to my craft.

Importantly, I want my family to be an integral part of this journey. In the coming years, I envision involving them in my businesses, creating a collaborative and supportive environment. The satisfaction of sharing successes with my family is a key aspect of my vision. Their involvement not only strengthens our bonds but also contributes to the collective achievement of our goals. In my relationship with Joyce Allyn M. Campomanes, I see continued growth and mutual support. As my partner, I want her to be an essential part of the success I achieve. Together, we can navigate challenges, celebrate victories, and build a future filled with shared accomplishments. Our relationship will not only be a source of personal happiness but also a pillar of strength that enhances my overall well-being.

Ultimately, I am excited about the upcoming years and the opportunities they hold. I am committed to putting in the hard work necessary to turn these aspirations into reality, creating a fulfilling and successful life both professionally and personally.

[mitigatingacademics]

This is the first book I've given 5 stars since reading Just Mercy almost 2 years ago.

It's so, so good.

No review I could offer will ever do it justice.

Cassidy's story is well written and highly readable.

It's so telling about how forces from her early childhood to present day contributed to her finding herself in the places she did and influenced the way she reacted to her reality.

She is an incredible young woman.

Her story is fascinating and inspiring.

Please read her book.

Below the cut are some quotes that I've chose to highlight either because it was new information to me, exceptionally outrageous, or heartfelt confirmation of my personal opinion of Liz Cheney (👑❤️🙌🏻), but they in no way tell the entire story.

Please read this book.

“…Dad had found a show he loved: The Apprentice. Dad boasted about Donald Trump’s accomplishments – he was a warrior, just like us, and he had built a global multibillion-dollar business from the ground up. Dad fixated so much on Donald Trump. I wished he would pay attention to us like he did to The Apprentice.”

“…he [Dad] said that Donald Trump was teaching him how to become a better businessman so that he did not have to work as much. The other option, Dad said, was that he could stop working altogether. Dad didn’t think his family would like how suffering felt, and since he had worked so hard, we had no idea what it meant to suffer.” (p. 21)

The effects of questionable influence started early. Cassidy's childhood is relatable in so many ways and also illuminates experiences that we know are common but may not have taken part in ourselves.

She is an excellent student, an achiever, a people pleaser. Because you know where she ends up, you begin to put together how it happened from the very beginning and you empathize deeply.

“…Ben advised me not to address Liz informally. ‘She takes her job very seriously,’ he explained. ‘Not that Kevin and Steve don’t. But Liz is all business until you really get to know her…if she lets you.’” (p. 51)

I love this.

I love that she found this worth mentioning.

God save the 👑 (and the rest of us from unserious politicians.)

“William and I had rented an apartment together earlier that summer, but we had grown apart. I was focused on growing my career, knowing we were headed into the busiest of year on the Hill. William didn’t support Trump, questioning his policies as well as how much time I devoted to work. When we broke up at the end of the summer, he cut ties quickly. We went from four years by each other’s side to there being a gaping hole where my best friend used to be.” (p. 54)

I found it incredibly sad that she lost this important long term relationship over the Trump administration...and that it was only the beginning of the many things she would lose in the years to come.

“I worried that the 2019 inquiry would establish precedent for presidents to face any politically motivated impeachment.” (p. 57)

Too ironic to leave unmentioned...

(To be clear, my comment is in reference to the attempt to impeach BIDEN.)

“I doubt any politician could have led the country through the deadliest pandemic in a hundred years without making errors of judgement and execution. But of all the people in the world, President Trump was uniquely unsuited to the challenge. He lacked empathy and was stubborn and impatient.” (p. 72)

I mean, we knew this, but it's nice to see it in print, especially coming from inside the administration.

“I had made a quick study of President Clinton’s reelection, and admired how he had brilliantly capitalized on scoring smaller, bipartisan legislative victories and used his travel and splashy White House events to portray them as massive accomplishments. I recommended that we follow a similar plan. … ‘We just want bigger legislative wins for the election, not bipartisan wins,’ Mark said. ‘We need to use our conservative base.’ (p. 92)

This is so incredibly demonstrative of who Cassidy is in comparison to where she found herself.

Respect for the genuinely well intentioned research and work she put into this...even in the face of the unsurprisingly disappointing response.

“’Cass, if I can get through this job and manage to keep him out of jail’ – referring to our boss, the president – ‘I’ll [Mark] have done a good job.’” (p. 116)

About that... 😬😬

“Trump hated fundraising – he was expected to flatter people he thought should be flattering him.” (p. 139)

“The president does not like animals…” (p.150)

Unsurprising, both.

Feels good to see the confirmation.

“The president and his legal advisors �� led by Rudy and Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor – would file ninety ‘stop the steal’ lawsuits. …this group held a press conference about various legal challenges. They stood in front of a Philadelphia landscaping company building in a strip mall next to an adult entertainment shop and a crematorium.” (p. 172)

An unforgettable memory that we all share.

Four Seasons Total Landscaping has its own Wikipedia entry because of this event.

“Mark asked for General Services Administration (GSA) staff to light a fire in his office fireplace first thing every morning. He kept a pile of firewood and throughout the day added logs to keep the fire burning. When I went into his office to deliver lunch or a package to him, I would sometimes find him leaning over the fire, feeding papers into it, watching to make sure they burned, and placing logs on top of the ashes.” (p. 182)

Not to take away from the other ways that this is problematic to say the least, but the execution here is ridiculous.

Trump stored moving trucks worth of classified documents in an unused bathroom.

Kudus for knowing the shit needed destroyed, I guess (not that said action was legal, just self-protecting), but maybe don't do it AT the office?

I feel like even those of us that didn't get Cassidy's quick refresher on the rules regarding the requirements of preserving presidential records might have raised an eyebrow at this? 🤦🏻‍♀️

“To me, ‘saving democracy’ should not require a presidential pardon.” (p. 190)

Facts.

“’I’ll be the best chief of staff if I can keep him in office,’ he [Mark] explained to me. ‘If that’s what he wants, that’s what I want.” (p. 191)

Someone drank all the kool-aid.

(Tumblr spell-check suggests 'kook-aid' which... 🤷🏻‍♀️)

“Less than a week after January 6, the House of Representatives moved swiftly to introduce, without holding a public hearing, a single article of impeachment. … After the article was passed by the House, Mark asked me to make a chart with headshots of the ten Republican members who had voted in favor of impeachment. Mark gave the hit list to the president, who kept it on the Resolute Desk.” (p. 227)

While far from the worst of the things they did, just reading about this made me so uncomfortable.

“He [Dad] threw the subpoena in the trash, ranting that I didn’t need to do anything it asked me to do. He had read online that it wasn’t mandatory to comply with congressional subpoenas.” (p. 267)

“If you move back here you won’t have to comply with the subpoena. They’ll never find you here. Daddy will keep you safe.” (p. 269)

When Cassidy approached her father, after trying everything else imaginable, to ask to borrow money to obtain a non-Trump World (the fact that they actually call themselves that non-ironically...) attorney to help her through the mess she'd found herself in, she found that his cheese had slid even further off the cracker.

My heart hurts for her, honestly. Her situation (having a Trumper parent) isn't entirely unique, but it's crushing to see just how much that psychology can completely ruin a person and in turn hurt those that care about them.

It was heartening, later on, to see that she did have other people in her life that were supportive including an aunt and uncle that offered to mortgage their home and ultimately Liz herself who managed to come up with some options for pro-bono legal representation.

“He [Trump Funded Atty] assured me that the committee wouldn’t know what I could and couldn’t recall.” (p. 273)

“We just want to protect the president. We all know you’re loyal. Let’s just get you in and out of this. It’s going to be easy, I promise.” (p. 276)

...Yikes...

“Liz assures me that they will have plenty of bottles stockpiled at the witness table for me on Tuesday.” (p. 312)

I have had an inside joke with myself since watching the J6 hearings about Liz being a 'thirsty bitch' (in the most respectable of ways, of course), due to her always seeming to have a minimum of 3 beverage options available at the dais.

We stan a hydrated 👑.

This was yesterday.

(Credit to @LarrySabato [Liz's UVA handler] on Twitter)

How many water bottles do you see? 🤣

Bless. 🙌🏻

“There’s a quality in Liz’s demeanor, her seriousness and purposefulness, her self-possession that has a bolstering effect on me.” (p. 313)

Cassidy: I really hope I don’t let you down tomorrow.

Liz: Cassidy, you could never let me down. I’m really proud of you.

“Her pride is enough encouragement for me to see this through.” (p. 316)

I, personally, find the inspiration Cassidy gets from Liz to be so (inexplicably but none the less real) relatable.

I feel gratitude to Liz for the way she supported Cassidy through everything they went through.

Girl was doing her best but I don't think she would have gotten there without Liz...and while I think it might be fair to question Liz's motives, I honestly don't think you'd find anything scandalous.

Liz has a very pervasive habit of telling you exactly who she is.

Here she was a Constitution supporting, oath upholding member of Congress trying to do the right thing; regardless of personal consequence.

She saw that in Cassidy as well, which, I think, at least to a certain extent, triggered her mama-bear response.

Of the countless respectable traits regularly demonstrated by my sharp minded, quick witted, problematic fav...mama-bear just might be the best of the best.

We don't always need a babies must be born but not necessarily fed, drill Yellowstone, waterboarding isn't torture, my family threatened to disown me unless I voted for gay marriage opinion on the existential threats of China. ...but we do always want mom to be proud of us. 🤷🏻‍♀️

“Liz checks on me every day. She sends encouraging articles, shares stories about the public support we’ve received since the hearing, and relays messages from prominent figures in the Republican party, our Republican Party. We talk and laugh, I cry, we laugh some more. Liz is becoming my rock.” (p. 334)

I hope they stay in touch.

I really think they're good for each other and I want the best for both of them.

“I didn’t think then, nor do I think now, that I had done anything that day that deserved praise or merited excess pride. I had done a duty I owed the country, a duty I chose.” (p. 325)

I love this about her.

This is where I see the Liz in Cassidy...and that's not something I've ever said about anyone else.

---

My only real complaint about Cassidy's book is that it didn't tell us much about what she's doing now.

Maybe she hasn't figured it out yet.

She's been through a lot and she's still so young.

One can't help but wonder where one goes from here.

I hope wherever life takes her she finds support and fulfillment.

She's certainly earned the right to live outside of the public eye if that's what she chooses.

Please read her book.

#Books #Book Reviews #Cassidy Hutchinson #Enough #Liz 👑❤️🙌🏻