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yanderes-galore · 11 months

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Can I get a Chucky yandere alphabet, please?

Sure! I tried to keep it general as there was no movie specified. I have not seen every Chucky movie but I think I get the premise, lol. I tried to keep things in character, so he is a horrendous yandere (as he should be-).

Yandere Alphabet Here

Yandere Alphabet - Chucky

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Violence, Obsession, Murder, Sadism, Mass murder, Blood, Possessive behavior, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Swearing, Disturbing behavior, Made him horrible on purpose because that's who he is, Supernatural/Doll possession, Stalking, Torture mentioned, Obviously forced and twisted "relationship".

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

When it comes to Chucky... it's aggressive for the most part. He's aggressive in a lot of way despite being like two feet tall. Despite the whole doll situation he is still very strong and Intimidating.

There's a good chance he'd harm and torment his darling. He isn't the most affectionate person, never really has been. In canon he's be ruthless with you, the less canon version would care a bit more but affection isn't his strong suit.

He'd be an extremely intense and destructive yandere towards his darling.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Messy as all hell. He's a murderer. Most of the time he kills for fun.

He'd kill rivals, he'd kill your entire family, he'd kill who he feels he has to.

Chucky doesn't mind spilling gallons of blood if it means he keeps you alone. He wants to be the only person around you. He likes the idea of making you feel so alone...

Just so he can swoop in and be the only one for you.

Romantic, isn't it? (Obviously it's not-)

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

He can be rather cruel. He would definitely mock you at times then claim he's teasing. If he manages to abduct you he'd be a sadistic little shit about it.

Although over time, to get you to open up to him since he hates being ignored, he'd try to be softer.

It doesn't come off as natural when he trues to express care. This is mostly due to his nature and the fact he's a murderous doll who can't stay dead.

Despite this he tries to show he cares for you in his own twisted way. He'd manipulate you heavily, too. This is because with all the murder going on... your head will be in a vulnerable place.

Just don't expect anything cuddly.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

It's dubious on what Chucky will or will not do. I want to say he won't force anything intimate like with Nica? (Got this from the Wiki, could be wrong) Again, I feel it would be dubious due to how vile he is in the franchise.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Ehhhh, not much. He "cares" for you but it's hard to tell if it's genuine care or not. You could mistake Chucky's bloodlust and possessive behavior towards those who interact with you as vulnerability, maybe?

He can be a bit hard to read when it comes to his obsession over you.

Hard to tell if he's killing others because they knew/talked/were involved with you or because that's just him.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Oh, that's cute-

Do you really think just because he's small he's vulnerable? Wrong.

If you tried to fight back there's a good chance he'll just subdue you somehow. I don't recommend underestimating him unless you have a way to stop him like a gun.

Otherwise... that's a good way to get your Achilles tendon sliced.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

Yes. He would love to treat you escaping him as a game. He's fast and stealthy due to supernatural means. He'd love to see you try to escape... only to fail just as intended.

Oh, what fun!

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

If he decided to turn you into a doll then that would be the worst experience for you. Obviously he will at some point.

After all... a human and a doll aren't entirely compatible in every way.

Don't worry, the pain of your murder by his hands won't hurt too much (it'll hurt lots-).

By the end of it you'll be a doll, just like him.

Good luck running.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

When it comes to Chucky... not entirely sure. He likes the idea of tormenting you as he is a sadistic man. Although once he makes you an immortal doll... he'll try to be more caring than cruel.

It's a difficult feat for him as he is a vile killer. He also plans on showing you the art of murder. Why?

Well, you're partners now, aren't you?

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Yes and he will lash out. He will lash out so much to the point he'll kill. If he sees you with other people, as a human or not, then he kills them. Plain and simple.

No one else gets to have you now if he's here.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Chucky will act cruel and sadistic, often farming your fear. His obsession starts with your torment but soon mellows out. Although... not by much.

He may try to flirt with you, which is strange coming from a doll. There's times he tries to care for you but it's clear he struggles with it.

Chucky is volatile and tends to fly into rages or fits of bloodlust. He is mostly a destructive yandere and not all that nurturing.

He'll try to be a bit better at affection for you since he loves you so much (doubt).

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

Stalking, flirting, teasing... all of it comes out wrong due to him being... him.

There is not much courting. It's you becoming his new victim then by some unfortunate set of events becoming his new partner.

A fate worse than death, really.

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

For the most part, not really.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Surprisingly, not isolation!

It's worse.

Chucky prefers torture as he likes to hear your screams. He wants to hear you beg... he wants to hear you plead for forgiveness.

He likes to make your blood flow from his knife....

Doll or not, he'll show you you're his.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

Most of them if not all.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Chucky doesn't have much patience, he even gets bored if hunts take too long.

When it comes to you he still gets impatient with your defiance.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Bold of you to assume you're leaving?

Death, escaping, why's it matter?

You act like he can't bring you back and trap you?

He remembers people and will hunt you down until he has you.

Then you can get the doll treatment after you're dead!

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

Nope and no!

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

He's a serial killer... he's in it for the power and the sadism.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

He takes a sadistic sense of pleasure in the fact he's caused you to break down so bad. Although with time it gets irritating so he tries to stop it.

Which fails miserably.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Sadism and mass murder, maybe? Not many do that-

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

Getting your hands on a weapon and fleeing as far as you can. Yet let's be honest, there isn't a way to exploit him.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Yes.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

He'd go to great lengths to keep you but not worship you.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

He doesn't pine, he just selects you and the obsession goes from there.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

Yes.

#yandere slasher #yandere slashers #yandere chucky #yandere child's play #yandere charles lee ray

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cathalbravecog · 8 months

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long ramble, haven't had one of these in a while! if you read this, have fun. it's headcanons/thoughts on some stuff. i don't talk about my thoughts on story stuff publicly much anymore especially because 1) i'm shy 2) trust issues 3) bad rsd 4) i forgot the last point

i was writing for oNCE yesterday (some headcanon stuff, for myself, won't be posting that unless i change the wording of some of it to make more sense because i ramble a lot and it's a mess. like i am doing right now. also that turned into being mostly about hr in the end because i am ill. now hopefully this motivation will get me to write my mary and archie stuff.)

and when i went to bed i was thinking about some stuff in toontown, mostly the cogs - and how things work. these are things i ponder on very often and have talked about with my friends many time, throwing ideas back and forth and my headcanons for how things work.

though, there's one thing i really wonder about, and that's where cogs come from in ttcc exactly. in 'that' way though of course to keep things on the same rating as the game is i won't discuss anything explicit so don't worry. (besides they're robots and also are sexless to me, anything related to gender is purely cosmetic to them. you are usually assigned a certain expression when built though, but can change that later on. that's how i explain trans cogs.)

i think about how there are canonical families and children, and that they have "built" dates and places where they've been built. it's obvious as they're robots, they're not born they're built and made.

it's a bit difficult to explore with the limited info we have, which is kind of both an hassle to work with, but also beautiful because you can let your creativity go and make up your own headcanons, without things being set in too much canon. it's also difficult due to how different the suit culture is to us humans and also what we see from the toons which is by nature more familiar to us.

we also do not know much about suitopia, or other possible places where cogs live.

(i, personally, imagine suitopia as essentially a big country where most if not all cogs live. it has it's own regions, cities... all that. where as c.o.g.s. inc has built itself to be essentially it's own small country/community, if that makes sense. though cogs don't always only mention suitopia, at least once 'the whole world' is used. this is irrelevant tho so i won't discuss that but it's still a 'core' headcanon i have - as other things i may hc rely on this personal interpretation / headcanon.

but be aware i do not know everything is canon and can discuss things outside my realm of HCs and interpretations, but if i go deeper into like, let's say, analyzing a cog and imagining their backstory, instantly assume i'm using all these things. sorry for the side ramble, i want to make things clear for possible future reference.)

i wish it will be expanded upon slightly in the future, even a slightest crumb of what it's like out there and i can have a field day with it. i do enjoy the vagueness tho, again, as i've said we do not need to have all the information out there and it's not necessary to the main stories that are being told but MAN my brain itches for MORE. i demand EXPLANATIONS. and so i make up my own lol and i love that i can do that /gen (there's some stuff i do have an issue with that it was not explained better, but again, fixed that with hcs. talking abt atticus but im not getting into that rn)

there also may be things i am missing - i have known of ttcc's existence since it's early days, but i wasn't there for it and missed being there in person for any lore until i started playing for real in early 2023 and became a part of the community. like, there ARE things i have missed AND small details i am missing. that's one criticism i have about some info being more difficult to access now, but the main stuff is on the wiki an all luckily.

anyways that ramble out of the way... how the heck are cogs made? there's a few ways, that seem contradictory in some ways at first but i just see it as different methods.

we know cogs can change their appearances (their shell) and be "upgraded". we know cogs can even choose to be just their skelecogs (Atticus) and i suppose every other skelecog we see.) we know cogs have families and have their own kids. (cathal and bobby jr come to mind, and also belle's own kids and grandkids. not to mention, we have siblings too - thomas and robert. and their whole family drama DOES involve their unseen parents.) we know many cogs, mostly the managers, come into the company as their are - but also new parts are built, at least for the employee cogs in sellbot hq. (recently re-read the dialogue which confirmed this - literally as you're building your sellbot suit.)

we know cogs are more than just some working machines and do have deeper lives and desires and even relationships, though all instances of a parent/child relationship in ttcc have only one parent. makes sense after all they don't reproduce sexually to put it that way, again they're built and they're robots.)

it's easy to conclude, that, cogs are just built. which is true. but it just makes me wonder. we know they age. we have at least 1 cog who is a literal child, and bobby, in human years at least, looks no older than like, 8 years old. (we also don't know how cogs age. we also know cog's don't die like that, due to the whole deal with atticus. i will talk about this one day i have so many thoughts on it)

we know they grow up and even have schools - they're not programmed with everything. they earn experience as they live life and even have?? education systems? like they're more like people than we thought. (ttcc does make cogs more easily sympathized with and gives us INDIVIDUAL cogs and not just... 'The Cogs'. cogs are the focus of ttcc so of course they're developed more and are more 'human' despite being machines.)

so clearly, there's cogs like bobby. who are built young and eventually grow up. we have not seen a cog growing up yet, at least i don't think. but i wonder how that works. through cartoon logic, do they just grow up? their skelecog and perhaps their shell, too? or do they periodically get upgraded to be larger - wouldn't it make sense to built a cog as, well, an adult already? to program all these things? there may be more limits to this than we think, but also just... cultural things possibly.

the only cog CHILD (not just the child of someone - cathal's an adult. also, redd mention, but redd's adopted so he doesn't count) we ever see is bobby and, he is the child of robert, who is known to be very short. we don't know if bobby's going to grow up, or if this height is what he's just going to be like. we have one image where he's way smaller than robert, and other, more recent ones, where they're a similar heights. is that just art inconsistency due to the nature of all the (amazing) artwork being, well, volounteer work and that not everything is (or has to be) perfect? or did bobby really grow up. i'm talking about the wallet picture and the comics featuring bobby, by the way.

though, as things are, i'm sort of assuming that bobby's going to grow up or be upgraded in some way to "grow up"? i don't think we need an clear explanation for that, and in a universe like this 'cartoon logic' would be enough, but it's still something to think about.

like...how do cogs go about having kids, anyways? all instances we see are visually similar as well. cathal has the same gear for his neck as allan's body does, and they have the same head lightbulbs and wires. bobby jr and robert are both furniture.

i've always assumed that it's like in robots (the movie, that i havent watched in years which would be helpful for all this, probably.) if you decide to have a child just for the experience of raising a child, to have a legacy, or due to a bond with a partner - you literally just build one. perhaps not in the same way as in the movie - in here it definitely requires more paperwork and blueprints. but again, it's interesting to think about! hey company i want a CHILD. i look like this build them like me thanks here's some blueprints. (this also explains the amount of single parents. though belle has to have been married/is married as her honorific is listed as mrs. hey fun fact, non native english speaker here. i didnt know 'mrs' means a lady is married until like this year. i've been on this earth for 19 years.)

like the concept of family is possibly just more social there than anything. duh... can't exactly have the same oil and wires inside of you as Robots .

anyways, so that explains kids... but what about the others? some cogs don't have any families mentioned but it's not hard to assume they come from families with parents and siblings as well. what about the employee cogs? who are quite literally very disposable in a way?

we do have to take into account that after all, employee cogs we see just on and about on the streets are mostly a game mechanic, and there are some individual cogs who ARE cogs who would typically be employees cogs. (jennifer comes to mind first, she's a micromanager but also a secretary and counts as a manager. same goes for judy and so forth.)

and y'know, the game won't have a personality and backstory for each random flunky on the streets you fight. but with often they get destroyed and repaired and that there's just... so many of them! of the same model and appearance... makes you think. is that why they were made? are they truly more robotic than the others, more devoid of 'humanity'? or were they different cogs, perhaps more lower class, who's appearances were changed entirely to fit into more easily fixable and replaceable shell forms? something that's less expensive for the company and for them? i swear i am missing some details on this, but that's for me to re read the wiki and cogs ink for on my own later. (i need to have full info n everything and if i dont bring up that i know one small detail i will explode bc someone will bring it up and make me feel dumb and that's the rsd part and it's often physically painful!)

very hard to tell, i'm sort of content with my thoughts on how cogs have kids, but i hope we ever get a bit more clarity on employee cogs - though it is a bit problematic as these are the guys you beat up on the daily who don't have individual personalities.

like i'm just rambling as i go here man, it was gonna be cohesive but i'm just spitting thoughts here now. like, we have 3 seperate skelecog types - all cogs come with a skelecog like we have a skeleton so that also comes into play. it can be adjusted in ways, most notably the head and also in size. though we do have a 4 arm cog. jason please i love you /p we need more jason content. it's wacky, it's tacky - it's toontown!

fun stuff to think about but i just deep fried my brain. tdlr i guess.

how cogs made. how cogs have kids. how cogs work in general. very swag very cool. guzma cathal spades spamtongender goes on 1568854 different tangents while saying they wont aka your swagesty your adhd symptoms are showing

that's it fellas enjoy 2k words of incomprehensible rambles that i am happy to finally get out! you see the way i explain things is precisely why i almost never do it publicly and i need practice shortening things.

#long post #rambles #hcs #its very all over the place its not meant to be streamline but if i made a genuine post about this id never get to it #bc its too much effort and id see it as a chore and not me just autistically rambling about toontown stuff #im prolly forgetting stuff but... dont bring it up at least not for now please - maybe later!#or tell me about it phrased as a question! like yes ask me abt stuff but maybe make it smaller questions/one question at a time bc i wont #know where to start #BUT!! theres stuff i know about but just didnt think to mention or i forgot as i got increasingly more tired writing this because yeag

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crushpunchh-art · 9 months

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Lilith is so special to me bcs she's like so complicated and I love every aspect of her character lol

Also love the way you express her guilt thru Ur art!!

I feel like not enough people explore that.

Like, Lilith spent 30 years in the cult, most of her life, and despite being a victim it also probably caused her to do horrible things, especially to loved ones (i.e. Eda), almost killing Luz (a child), and it left her morality to be very flawed especially in S1 and what we can assume was in-between her initiation and her leaving.

And imagine the guilt for her actions. Like yk she's just cringing at all the horrible things she did in the past, and the horrible things she let be done to her "for the greater good".

Hopefully this made sense :3

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES. ALL OF THIS EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THIS ASK. i feel like a lot of the time when people talk about lilith they act like its umm. a lot more black and white than it is? like either shes The Literal Devil (dont see this very often but theres this ONE GUY ON THE OWL HOUSE FANDOM WIKI.... endless entertainment watching them i promise you.) or Only a victim who Never did anything wrong.

like i love her BECAUSE shes garbage actually. she SUCKS in season 1. like obviously shes suffering but just. like. objectively? shes AWFUL. making fun of eda for her curse when She Caused it comes to mind. she SUCKED in s1! like, really badly! she kidnapped luz and was COMPLETELY unnecessarily menacing to gus and willow (girl chill out stop. you know damn well you could be handling this better) etc etc etc.

except also im like 90% sure she Knew she sucked. actually shes kind of the Leader of the Lilith Hater Squad. im not even sure its a case of flawed morals so much as a case of 'What Does It Matter? It's For The Greater Good'. / occasionally 'what the hell else am i supposed to do.' like does she KNOW shes doing awful things? oh totally. is she going to STOP? nope.

i would like to highlight. this part of your ask:

Like yk she's just cringing at all the horrible things she did in the past, and the horrible things she let be done to her "for the greater good".

lilith doormat truthers rise up. that woman lived under a man who hated her PERSONALLY for like 30 years. while her coworker was bullying her (Why was Kiki like that honestly like what was her damage when it came to Lilith. With Hunter okay sure. But Lilith??? Whatd she do to you???) you think she was STANDING UP FOR HERSELF? No! That woman hasn't stood up for herself since she was like 15! If she had she'd probably be dead by now!!!!

Sorry sorry sorry im ranting. I love her so much. Dumbest little cheeto puff who tries so hard and somehow still manages to do everything wrong.

TO THE ART BIT OF YOUR ASK: oh my god thank you so much!!! when im drawing her thats really like. what i try to focus on? like thats what i REALLY want to get across. that she feels so crazy guilty about everything.

thank you for having so many correct opinions about lilith. we will shake hands or if you dont want to do that we will nod approvingly at one another

#the owl house #crush.txt #lilith clawthorne #long post #response

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knickynoo · 11 months

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Back to the Future: The Animated Series, s01ep09 "Solar Sailors" Review and Commentary

Previous episodes linked HERE

In this episode: Doc and Clara take a relaxing anniversary cruise to Mars but instead end up facing the terrifying reality of being lost adrift in the outer reaches of space until their eventual deaths. But like. In a fun kids' cartoon way.

I know that the point of this entire cartoon is to focus on the cartoon (duh), but the live-action segments with Real Doc are entirely too short. I want more time with him. He is my favorite wild-eyed scientist, and we should have been able to see his absolutely crazed face more often.

I will also use this opportunity to express how much I would have liked if Michael J. Fox had been able to appear in at least one of these segments. Like. Even if it had just been thirty seconds of screentime. It would've been really fun to have seen him as college-aged Marty, barging in on Doc's weird little science show for a few moments.

Moving on.

Real Doc talks about the time he went to space and leads us into the cartoon, where we see Jules and Verne surprising their parents with anniversary gifts. Verne gives them a drawing, and it's adorable.

Jules presents them with the "J.E.B. Cross-Time Headliner," which is equipped with a flux capacitor and allows someone to type in any date and get the newspaper headlines from that time.

Little interesting side-note: The cartoon establishes Doc and Clara's wedding anniversary as December 15th. From reading the wiki for this episode, though, I learned that the BTTF card game (released in 2010) places Doc and Clara's wedding on September 15th instead. Given the absolute whirlwind that Doc and Clara's relationship is in Part III, I think the September date is more fitting. They definitely flew off to safety on the hoverboard, took a second to collect themselves, and then went, "Wow, that was wild; hope Marty made it back home. Let's get married!!"

Jules demonstrates that the machine can pull headlines from the future and types in December 15, 2091, which shows this:

And this is how we learn that the McFly family will own a space cruise company in the future. Also, this newspaper costs $85.

After Clara mentions how nice it would be to take a "second honeymoon" to Mars, Jules hands them two tickets. (he then reveals he used time travel + Doc's credit card to buy the tickets, lol) Doc and Clara leave that same night in the time machine, announcing to the boys that they'll be back in two minutes. As soon as they leave, though, Jules's machine prints out a new headline. This one is from the following day, December 16th, and reads, "McFly Solar Sailship Lost in Space!" Uh oh.

Happy anniversary, Doc and Clara! You are lost forever in the vastness of outer space.

It's up to Jules and Verne to travel to the future and prevent their parents from boarding the ship (named the "MSC Marty", btw). 2091 Hill Valley is super futuristic and shiny, and pretty much everything is run by robots. Unfortunately, Jules and Verne get diverted upon their arrival, so they're unable to keep Doc and Clara from boarding the ship. We then hear an announcement from the captain, Marta McFly, who is Marty and Jennfer's great-granddaughter.

This may be a good place to mention how much I dislike the trend of Marty's relatives having names that are so similar to his. I will give Marty Jr. a pass since that's a common thing for a father and son to do the senior/junior thing, but I honestly don't even like Marlene's name. Marty and Jen could have been more creative than that. (I even like to headcanon that they end up giving her a different name in the "better" version of 2015 that ends up happening for the McFly family—that's how much I dislike the "every relative after Marty is named after him" thing) But I digress...

We learn that the person in charge of ship maintenance is Ziff Tannen, and he is not happy about the fact that, "McFlys have been kicking Tannens around for centuries," and wants his revenge. I think it's funny that these two families just cannot escape each other no matter how hard they try. Of all the people in the world, the Tannens and McFlys are just entwined together no matter the time period or location. The only thing is that the dynamic switches based on if it's pre or post-George punching Biff in 1955. But there's nothing they can do to fully break whatever bizarre ties bind them to each other. Good stuff.

Anyway, Ziff is so bent on making the McFlys pay that he sabotages the ship—dooming ALL OF THESE innocent people to certain death in outer space.

Jules and Verne are unable to get anyone to believe their warnings, and the ship launches. Farewell, Doc and Clara. We will miss you dearly. Considering that Clara is living 100+ years out of her proper time period and that Doc's parents are deceased and he doesn't have any siblings, I can only assume they have it in their wills that, in the event of their untimely demise, Marty gets custody of Jules and Verne. Or perhaps Einstein does. Honestly, with the way Marty's character is in this series, Jules and Verne might be better off being raised by a dog.

In order to gain access to the building where the sailships are being launched, Jules and Verne sneak in with a group of kids who are on a school field trip to tour the McFly Museum of Aeronautics. The McFly family has really built a successful empire for themselves, haven't they?

Meanwhile, in outer space, the passengers of the MSC Marty sailship are enjoying their trip, blissfully unaware of the impending catastrophe. Doc and Clara are riding around on hover scooters and come across an area of the ship where a concert is being held, and they're shocked to see the main act: Marty!

Except it isn't actually Marty, which Doc and Clara discover when they follow him backstage and he rips off his face.

Doc and Clara, understandably, react with utter terror.

But, yes, the guy is merely a Marty McFly impersonator. Marty evidently became a successful enough musician that he has people who are hired to pretend to be him in concerts. (side note: this 10 second scene of "Marty" is the only appearance he makes in this episode)

Things start going haywire then as the sabotaged sails malfunction, sending the ship floating toward the "outer edge of the solar system." Doc and Clara immediately decide to do what they can to help the situation, all the while Jules and Verne are still on Earth trying to get anybody to take their warnings seriously. After breaking their way into the control room and finding out that a Tannen works there, Jules delivers what is perhaps my favorite line.

It's just such a fun and clever "Jules" twist on the idiom: "bet dollars to donuts." He is very much Doc's son.

Ziff is so outraged at the accusation that he accidentally drops a piece of evidence in front of several other crew members—his copy of a magazine titled "Sabotage Weekly." And honestly, this moment alone makes me reconsider this show's reputation for being terrible. I mean, come on. He's reading a magazine called SABOTAGE WEEKLY! This is top-tier comedy! And to add even more delight to the scene, Ziff attempts to flee the scene via jetpack, but he puts it on the wrong way and catapults himself out of the building and straight into prison. Who's cell does he end up crashing into? His grandfather Griff's!!

"You blew it, didn't you, butthead?" Griff disappointedly asks his grandson.

A worker at the control center takes a look at the damaged ship via video feed and forlornly informs the boys that there's nothing she can do. Jules is undeterred by this, though, and formulates a plan to rescue his parents and all the people aboard the ship.

We return to Doc and Clara, who have donned spacesuits and are outside the ship trying to repair it themselves, to no avail. At the realization that it isn't working, Clara notes that she can't believe they will never see their boys again, and Doc cries so much that he fills up his entire suit with tears.

This is. Such a fun children's cartoon.

Thankfully, the agony doesn't last long because Jules and Verne soon come to the rescue, having borrowed the space center's first ship, the MSC Jennifer. They use it to tow the MSC Marty safely back to Earth, and all is well. End of cartoon portion. Back to Real Doc! He greets us with a very silly joke and cracks himself up.

I'm thinking that Doc is probably very proficient at Dad-jokes around his children and that he stands there laughing uncontrollably while his family just stares at him. Anyway, he explains that this is because space is a vacuum, which leads us into an experiment that creates a vacuum in a jar—using fire to suck a small balloon inside of it. And that's about it!

This was a fun one to write about, even though I feel like this post is super lengthy. I'm glad that a lot of you are still enjoying these!

Join me next time to see Marty pose as a ghost in 1845 London in order to break Clara out of prison.

#back to the future #bttf: the animated series

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ketchupkio · 4 months

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I was reading ASAU, and while it is an awesome work (as are the AUs like Faction), its big impact on me were the gender conversations. If someone wanted to further investigate gender and being genderqueer/non-binary, what would you recommend for them? Thank you and I can't wait to see more of these fics soon!

omg thank you????????? omg omg omg????

first (but hardest) part is trying to dissect your feelings a little. it's a complicated process and the results can change over time, but it's worth it to have a good understanding of yourself!!

second, RESEARCH SO MUCH!!!! nonbinary wikis were invaluable to me when i was figuring stuff out. just seeing what other people call gender identities and define them as might be enough to open a door you didn't know existed.

a little background... at 17, i started identifying as non binary bc it was a blanket term that i thought fit best over the complicated feelings i was sorting out, and now at almost 25 i identify with both that AND being a trans man. it was a slow process letting go of femininity bc i was still attached to it, and i was leaving for college and wanted to express myself!! i still find myself in how i dressed then, but now it's more about striking a balance of what i want to present as, what's comfortable, and what's practical for my situation. just go into your gender self discovery journey with the knowledge that you can do whatever you want forever. queer history is full of complicated and contradictory reasoning for gender shenanigans, so pick whatever feels best to you (unless it's like.... being two spirit, which is an indigenous thing and has its own history that i'm not qualified to talk about. but other than closed/cultural things like that, go off!)

third, speak to other trans people!!!! not just people your age either, but old queers! they'll have valuable info and experiences that you cant get anywhere else. and i find reading/watching things about queer history fascinating. all in all, worth the effort for the wealth of knowledge you gain.

fourth, find a good support group that will be gentle and patient with you (and most importantly, AFFIRMATIVE!!!) if you wanna try out new names and pronouns too. ppl need to use your pronouns around you for u to know if you like them. i found the pronoun dressing room super helpful when i was trying to find a neopronoun set that worked for me too!! (i'm very happy with ce/cer, it feels nice, but they/ce/he are all equally me so i encourage ppl to just pick a set if they have trouble switching lol. may not work for you but it does for me!)

have fun and good luck! i hope you have an awesome experience! the road that a trans person walks isn't really easy, but there are a lot of good people to take solace with.

#transgender #replies #kio talks #hormones and everything is a whole other topic and it's highly regional #so if thats something you wanna do in the future there's research that you can do for your area #it might not even be as hard to get as you think!!!#but this is an introductory course lol #as always think about it real hard before you start telling a lot of people and/or doing permanent things #i waited like a year to come out and i still havent legally changed my name #(tho thats a not wanting to appear in court or pay the fee kind of thing)#ALSO U CAN TOTALLY START HORMONES AND THEN STOP THEM!!! DONT LET PPL SCARE U!!! UR STILL TRANS!!!#u dont have to do anything chemical or surgical either!! all up to u #u can do whatever u want forever #ageless soul au #sure it can go in the asau tag

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monstroustea · 9 months

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a friend was talking about style influences earlier and it reminded me of this old meme and i wanted to do one!!!!! i'll talk more about each one under the read more, but if you want to do one, here's the link: https://www.deviantart.com/foxorian/art/Influence-Map-Template-174550753

Sailor Moon (particularly the 90s anime) - this is a big one! i remember drawing sailor moon in elementary school and playing pretend/LARPing sailor moon on the playground... the good old 90s anime style with the exaggerated expressions! cute girls! friendship! this general kind of soft, roundness to the style of the 90s anime? it has everything

Honey and Clover - this manga/anime means the world to me. i love the style, the way the mangaka draws emotions, but also the protagonist's story of finding himself? resonant. the manga especially is precious to me bc of the art tho, it has a sketchy quality that i love

Hey Arnold! - another childhood favorite... this one doesn't reflect on my actual style so much, but it's a big influence on the stories and characters i like and create. if i could make everyone watch only one cartoon, it would be hey arnold

this is a triple threat... Persona 5, sketchbooks, @meruz - if you look at more than one page of this blog, you can probably guess i like p5(r)!! a lot!! i love all the characters, even if you mostly see me drawing the protag and akechi bc i'm a shipper at heart lol... i'm always inspired by sketchbooks of other artists! especially proper sketchbooks, where they're messy and worked in and aren't curated to be "good looking" for people to look at. that said, this is a page meruz posted from one of their sketchbooks (go buy them) and i adore meruz's work! i got into their work a while back and their lineart really drew me in, the lineweight and use of spot blacks is delicious. i need to work more on those in my own art and meruz's work always makes me want to do just that

Dolls - and here we take a little detour from the obvious? i sadly don't own this doll :( she's a rune naito fashion doll and i want one so badly. i collect dolls, especially fashion dolls!! i love their designs!! i usually just leave them in their stock outfits bc those are part of the charm to me. i wanna draw my dolls more, but for now they're just a big influence on design and outfits for characters

Amanda Lafrenais - i've been following amanda for so many years i can't keep count anymore!! her style blends "western" and "anime" so well to me and also she just draws lots of pretty women?? also we love queens who draw different body types

Roleplaying (pixelated image from wiki-how) - i've been roleplaying, mostly just with my bestie erin, since i was like 14? i draw stuff inspired by our roleplays soooo much, whether it's from a scene or just "what if"s we threw around. erin is a brilliant writer, has great ideas, and she's basically the GM even tho it's collaborative writing-based rping lmao... im just like "erin come up with a plot and we can shoot ideas back and forth" lol

Drawfee - no idea anymore how i came across drawfee but it's a really fun and funny channel and i'll do some of their challenges on my own sometimes!! (my favorite is the 30s character from memory challenge, i'll have erin give me characters and time me) also they have a ttrpg-style series called Drawtectives that has great characters!!! also every time julia draws a scene im like "ah i want that to be me..."

The Golden Age of Illustration - i'm such a junkie for cartoons and anime and comics and such, i don't really know the classics OOPS... but in the past year or two i've gotten really into what's apparently known as the "golden age of illustration"!! roughly the 1880's to 1920s, there's a lot of fairy/folk tale art from this era and i'm obsessed with all of it. standout mentions that i love to look at the work of are kay nielsen and edmund dulac

honorable mentions are just... every manga i've ever loved. every artist i've ever obsessed over the art of. and HONORABLE honorable mention to drawingwiffwaffles who sadly hasn't updated in a few months... she got me back into traditional media tho and is a general delight to watch work

#influence map #meme #not my art

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bastardcherub · 9 months

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ok wait that omnigay/ omnique post had me looking on the wiki and. hyperspecific queer labels my beloved, I think this actually sorta describes my gender!

also the name sounds cool as hell lol

I’m not gonna actively use it as a label bc honestly it’s just So much easier to just call myself queer and have it done with (bc if anyone cares enough to actually know I can always explain more) but like. it’s sorta really cool to see that others also experience somethn similar :)

of having a very distinct gender feeling and identity but one that simply. is completely separate from the binaries. I’m not gender neutral at all. if anything I’m gender-full! but my gender also does not relate to the binary genders like, at all lol. my gender expression plays a lot with femininity and masculinity! just bc like that’s super fun to me!! but my identity is not related to them at all.

anyways. this was a nice discovery! :)

#angel rambles

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destructix · 1 year

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omg hiii!! i adore your art so much its so expressive and fun ❤ i noticed u posting about kaiao (kaito and aoko) like a week ago and I wondered if u had any silly thoughts or headcannons about them? I'd love to hear !! :]

YOU'RE TOO KIND *reverse uno cards u* i like ur art as well 🥺🥺 so cute.... and yes i do!! im a bit shy so i will put them under a cut dgdjd

i like to see their relationship as an open one, similarly to how i see shinran, but they're more possessive of each other (not in the jealous way, but more in the "my best friend only deserves the BEST partner(s) so im im giving you a detailed interview and theres nothing you can do about it" way

kaito's gender is All Vibes. aoko thinks she's cis but sometimes she'll say things like "that's so cool! being a boy sounds fun!" and kaito doesn't really know what to do with her fghsdbg

aoko once withheld exclusive footage of one of shinichi's first cases from kaito (which she had due to her ties with the police) to make him promise to take her to the aquarium in exchange for it. whether it worked or not is up to ur imagination....

they have sleepovers :-)

kaito makes fun of aoko's fashion choices since they're on the 'childish' side, but secretly thinks it's cute. he likes picking out outfits and makeup for her (i would really like to draw them in matching lolita coords tbh it'd be so cute....and very self indulgent lol)

aoko subconsciously knows kaito and kid are the same person, but is blocking it out because if it turned out to be true she would be at a loss for what to do. she's quite smart so i can't see it any other way...

aoko likes to call kaito her girlfriend, since it's cute

sapphire reminds kaito of aoko, but he'll never admit that to her face (too embarrassing) (im on aoko's wiki page now and apparently this was almost canon im biting my fist)

they are joined at the hip, so much so that kaito tried to bring her to a g4 meetup (i like it if they hang out lol) before the others stopped him (since she might be uncomfortable being the only girl (?) with three boys she's not familiar with). meanwhile kaito couldnt see where the problem was lolol

#thank u for asking wahhh #kaiao #replies #snoozeeroo #thank u for saying my art is expressive also gfndbhg that makes me happy ToT #i have so many hcs im sure i forgot a few fghfdbg

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lokescurse · 2 years

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With Naoya I feel like you have to watch his body language and tone when he does anything to even get a hint of how he is. Which I don't mind, I'll learn all about from that but really wish he had more of a background. It's so obvious that he's the way he is because of how he was brought up, but I wanna see what was actually happening to him. To me he's a good character, but he could even greater if he was given more time. I just know Maki is gonna kill him again and that's all he's gonna used for.

*Opens all my folders full of Naoya screencaps.* I will oppose you just a little bit on this one. [Cut for length, allow me to spare my mobile users lol.]

Disclaimer in advance that I am not intending to be mean to you. Sometimes when I'm discussing something with someone I come off as mean, that isn't my intent. We are both Naoya lovers and you are welcome in my domain 💖 ehehe.

"With Naoya I feel like you have to watch his body language and tone when he does anything to even get a hint of how he is."

The problem with this statement is that...watching Naoya doesn't help at all. Naoya acts out all of his emotions with is full face and body. Which isn't a bad thing. If anything, I've always found it very endearing of his character, even when he's being a little bastard about something. And, in fact, I actually wouldn't change this at all because it fits well with his name, which (at least according to the wiki) contains the characters for truthfulness/honesty. I also did a re-read of his initial 14(ish?) chapters recently and -while I wasn't exactly taking a magnifying glass to it- I did at least notice on surface level that Naoya doesn't seem to lie. Like ever. He'll hide, or refuse to tell the whole story (as he does when talking to Yuuta), but he doesn't directly mangle the truth. Which, is admittedly a very cool trait to give to your Villain character, but it doesn't help your guess here. Now, Akutami could absolutely back track on this in future chapters and make Naoya an outright liar, but that wouldn't be true of his initial appearances, at least.

Let me show you a bit of what I mean:

^Disgust/irritation, not hidden even though he probably should hide it since he's directly next to the people that have some say in whether he gets to start taking on duties as the clan head or not.

^Hands up in surrender to avoid being attacked, but the face/eyes remain keen and scheming. Even though he regrets mentioning Megumi, he ultimately doesn't lie about his intent, he just hides the name of who the person being "baited” is from Yuuta. We could argue he also hides "kill," behind "meet," but personally if someone said this in the same sentence they used the word "bait" and they had a facial expression like that, I'd just assume something evil was going down, so I don't really count it.

I say all this to say that you won't get anything from Naoya's physical behaviour/tone that isn't already plainly there in his words. It doesn't help that he talks a loooot. This man has never just sat in silence and been content with the birdsong and the gentle sound of wind-chimes. This man must fill the air with his own, mostly unfiltered thoughts at all times lmfao. And all he ever says is some bullshit, so we're not really getting a look inward at all (outside of like...his obsession for Toji, but it doesn't actually feed into who he *is* much). In this sense, we know everything about Naoya...while also knowing nothing at all. And that's what makes it so irritating. I *love* Naoya. Everyone here already knows that. I love that he doesn't hide himself, I love that he - for the most part - thinks that he's powerful enough to not have to lie, I love that he just says and does whatever he wants and then makes fun of people for getting mad about it. But nothing about him clues us into who he is beneath it all, or who he was before. And since Akutami, at least so far, has refused to give more than just a passing glance at his backstory (where he was already a bite-sized asshat), we can't really fully complete Naoya's puzzle, if that makes sense. In many ways it's obvious, but at the same time completely obscured from us, leaving us to throw the pieces together haphazardly in the dark.

Naoya is a *good* character in that he's fun. He is not, however, very well developed at all. Latest chapters only seem to hammer home that he is a cartoon supervillain who is capable of all known evils without really fleshing him out in other directions to balance that. And, while there is still time for Akutami to make moves towards that, any development or backstory we get for Naoya now would likely be disjointed at best, too little too late at moderate, and completely ham-fisted & inappropriate at worst.

So yes, as is, he is very much so just something for Maki to kill. Which does nothing for her character, either. I *could* see Akutami potentially having Maki and Naoya kill each other to push a "revenge always bites back" narrative, but that would leave so many gaps in the culling game for the rest of the students to struggle with while also kind of making the whole build up behind Maki feel....too much. Among other things. At the end of the day, though, we just have to wait and see what Gege decides to do. *Sighs.*

Sorry for rambling & thank you for coming to my Ted Talk lmfao.

#Ramblings #asks #anonymous #Naoya Zenin #Jujutsu Kaisen #JJK #JJK manga #character analysis

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icharchivist · 1 year

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me: i’ll probably make a summary of my thoughts every 10 or so chapters, whatever feels natural.

me 5 chapters into awakening moon: i need to write down my thoughts NOW or i’ll die.

uh. so. hello icha!! I’m on break rn which is why i’m able to do this haha. this is just about the first five chapters of awakening moon… um so actually i was stuck at a relatives place for a lot of new years and ended up? just reading the translation for all of act 1 that was on the wiki as well as alex in wonderland bc those were the two i didn’t rly take notes on? I think also the azuma and sakyo hot spring event i didn’t do notes for… but everything else i had some notes so i thought it’d be good if i could review act 1 a little in preparation. and gee golly am i GLAD I DID. bc 5 chapters in and im being proven sooooo right abt all my thoughts.

this’ll come in handy when talking abt other characters, but most relevantly I was rly able to pick out some hisoka moments i hadn’t noticed earlier… firstly when winter first finds hisoka, he actually doesn’t want them to call the police—I mean i’d get why but also i think he probably instinctively is wary of the police? which i have to think adds to his assassin points, which is my imaginary tip jar for pieces of evidence that point towards hisoka being an assassin. These pretty much also just go hand in hand with hisoka having any time of… nefarious sort of career pre-amnesia, so being a spy or involved in some type of espionage or something feels… appropriate. some assassins do spy stuff as well! but assassin is the guess thats most fun for me to say. lol. pretend it’s a catch-all. um next hisoka, when asked to play a character, asks for really specific details like age and background, and then izumi describes him as acting very… realistically? and later when they’re doing their play she notes that hisoka has gotten a bit more expressive in his acting! I think that sense of realism really works well with his role in sympathy for the angel—hes the most bluntly realistic about everything, it feels, so i’d imagine his more understated nature of acting fits well there… i’d also say that for someone who probably has no acting experience, doing espionage or something like that would train you in some specific kinds of acting! which is maybe why hisoka needs those extra details—it’s more like a cover story, then, and why his acting has that sense of realism—it’s acting that needs to exist in the real world, not the kind of acting that is Performance.

also tasuku asks if hisoka did martial arts, because his footsteps don’t make any sound… assassin points. I think there’s this part where izumi almost gets hit by something on stage or something like that and hisoka saves her? and tasuku says like are you a ninja? and homare mentions that hisoka moved so fast that he couldn’t see him… assassin points. I’ve mentioned the lie low and recover stamina thing already… as well as how when izumi approaches him from behind he pins her to the wall immediately. umm but i forgot that he specifically disappeared because he had a cold! so he didn’t want to… show any weakness, i guess, and just ran away. that felt very assassin to me. I’m basing this off of killua of course, since he also has a sort of “run away when you’re weakened” philosophy. and also!! when they’re talking about their type in romantic partners, hisoka wants someone who’s independent and not clingy. I imagine that has to do with like… as an assassin or as a spy i bet he traveled a lot… so he couldn’t really get attached to people, unlike how he is with the winter troupe. like at first he didn’t even want to get a futon bc he needed to be able to sleep anywhere. probably had to be used to roughing it for whatever assassin work he was doing. and finally… hisoka had memories related to the ocean, where he was like. he said he probably washed ashore from there? and chikage’s always been doing a lot of overseas business trips… i was making connections.

anyways. I bet that hisoka and chikage were both assassins or doing the same kind of work, and that chikage was april and hisoka was december (and chikage is maybe wearing hisokas jacket?? since it says dece right there) AND when he introduced himself!!! He said his bday was april 15th!!! so you can imagine the VINDICATION i felt when chikage confronted hisoka and went "What's the meaning of this, December?” LIKE I CALLED IT. I NOTICED THE DETAILS!!! Unrelated but google tells me hisokas bday is december 3rd? google could be wrong but i didn’t want to check further for fear of spoilers but ah. if that’s true I share a birthday with hisoka!!

wanted to get that out of the way non-chronologically… putting a pin in that, I’ll talk some more abt it later. anyways the actual chapters in the order they came. those thoughts.

getting fully voiced lines again!!! oh my god!!! I checked and i got through sardine search in june of 2021 so dear god, has it been a while. I feel like i notice so much!! the tone of the voices and everything… its so good i missed it. love being able to pick up random words here and there with my “acquired through knowing the translated title as well as the original of japanese songs” knowledge. and MIZUNO GOT TO SEE ROMEO AND JULIUS… and tsuzuru looks so happy to hear that!!! crazy. crazyyyy. Imagine never having read clockwork heart and reading that and being like “who’s that” instead of LOSING MY MIND.

it makes sense that they’d try to recruit a single person instead of doing an open audition, since that would be a little tough if at the end u were like. ok we’re taking One Person. sakyo was also like its nice since u can trust the person which is so funny to me. I mean good caution since the whole godza spy thing happened but also its like. I know you’re going to recruit chikage and im squinting at the screen like… is he someone you can trust? since i think he’s an assassin. also his face just makes me think of like… a sly tanuki, lol. but this also provides good context as to how all these act 2 members kind of already relate to the act 1 charas! its story convenience since u don’t have to establish a dynamic from wholecloth with a whole “first meeting” bit, but it’s also convenient in-story itself since having some familiarity with the person would probably make them easier to trust! a neat thing that works from a watsonian and doylist perspective lol. also whoever joined spring HAD to know itaru, since itaru would have to like. give up his solitary gamer pad (which imo is the more accurate term as compared to man cave)

masumi not answering his phone and saying he doesn’t know the number… considering it was? a secretary? That izumi called at first, I bet it’s his parents. I’m also like on my knees BEGGING for some more masumi developments this episode. (it’s… episode for each troupe season, right? and then chapter for each individual bit. that’s what i’m doing, at least). but oh my god i’m with tsuzuru here. masumi you should be answering sakuya’s calls. the masumi & sakuya dynamic is actually really interesting to me, though! like first off until we did this year forward (which, considering the anniversary event was just before this, seems like they’re retconning that the first 4 plays took one year and instead are going with that these first 12 plays took place in a year…? I think? I’m confused abt the timeline but I refuse to search it up lol) and this is how I realized sakuya’s actually a year older than masumi… it’s cool to see he went right into theatre! he does love it after all. but he still wakes up masumi who’s cranky in the morning haha. usually with these two and the play they did, I would’ve thought it’d be a dynamic of like… cheery guy and cool guy aren’t close at first but slowly the cool aloof guy gets attached but ah… it still feels like masumi didn’t really get that. attached. it’s a very interesting situation to me, because they definitely spend time together and care for each other but they don’t necessarily feel… close? it’ll be interesting to see if that develops. nocturnality’s description of the troupes is, once again, on point—spring troupe is really like a family more than just a group of friends. speaking of that though I’ve been talking to my friend about a3 and he asked me, like, autumn was described as comrades for the same cause, right? what is that cause? and I had to be like… um, acting? because I didn’t know how to say it any better haha. since it’s acting for everyone, too… I think there is a certain flair autumn has in the way it feels like they’re challenging each other a little bit—exemplified with juza and banri, but it’s present with others, too. still I wasn’t sure how to word it?

it’s nice that juza is w/ omi and tsuzuru and banri is with kazunari at uni!!! good they’re not in the same university because… that would be a lot. the moment citron mentioned chika-usa I was like. ah. chikage. like I literally even Just saw him in a bunny outfit… if I didn’t get it from the chika bit I’d get it from the usa bit now. it’ll be exciting to see that reveal since I think he and izumi can talk curry a lot! also he can help with blogging which is nice

then began chikage’s introduction of which I was mentally yelling in my head “HES TRICKING YOU. NO PERSON CAN BE THAT POLITE AND PATIENT AND PERFECTLY GENIAL AND MILD.” I’m just saying like he’s tooo normal to not be faking it. he’s literally itaru’s coworker and we know how that guy appeared versus his real self. so when he says like “I’m a huge fan” about the blog and I go “no. you’re just stalking hisoka.” but like his self-introduction is so normie and at least my personal evaluation of his audition was that he was realistic but not dramatic? A thing which matches quite well with how I think hisoka performs… though again izumi doesn’t really detail that far in about his style, this is just me evaluating him. but yeah wow I wonder why you’d be good at acting, chikage… ever done any espionage? his coin cg looked nice! but I’m just saying… quick with his hands doing magic tricks… hisoka can be so quick you can’t see him, too… also if ur fun party skill inherently involves deception and misdirection as magic tricks do… then I don’t have to trust this pleasant person mask you have. also the way chikage tells sakuya “you seem like you would be the first to go down in a battle” wow I bet you’ve been in some life or death battle situations. being an assassin and all. although, I love the way citron agrees.

izumi: (he's already won them over. I'm glad he's fitting in so well!)

me, banging pots and pans together: ITS AN ACT!!!! ITS AN ACT!!! like he just sounds sooo cloying. like hes being patient with children

and when hisoka appeared izumi saw chikages smile slip!! I thought it was fun to see homare nagging gently at hisoka to introduce himself tho lol… I wish they’d done the coin game. I think hisoka may have guessed correctly. but the way hisokas like well I don’t have anything to say abt myself except my name and homare is then immediately like *gasp* let me list all my hisoka facts!!

and THEN when chikage approached hisoka in the night. THE VOICE CHANGE. HE DROPPED LIKE AN OCTAVE I FUCKING KNEW HIS POLITE VOICE WAS HIDING SOMETHING. I realize amnesia’s hard to believe but god if ur an assassin or whatever in some mystery organization u should be able to believe in amnesia.

this line though: "...All this time I thought you had died together with August." but hisoka doesn't even remember what he said when he was sick! I do remember him apologizing, though… he’s got survivor’s guilt for sure i bet. I was very alarmed by how hisokas yknow. normally gentle and soft voice got very distressed at this part tho! especially when he said his head hurts… I wanted to hug him.

"...Then remember this. My name is April, and I'm here to avenge everything you took away from me." hmph. called it. but also. inigo montoya much? and those flowers WERE threats.

ch 4 starting out with the title reading "yume nikki" gave me immediate flashbacks like. I know it just means dream diary but I will always just think of the game only. hisoka’s flashback though… it was so well written. the emphasis on coldness really got me—it makes sense that at the beginning, he’d even sleep outside in the cold! but wow. he grew up like. starving and without a home. "my hands, my face, my body... everything's cold." and "they weren't like me. they must have had real homes." i am weeping. I am inconsolable.

veryyyyy cool to get hisoka stuff in spring, though. i'd hoped, but wasn't sure since it was the spring play and not the winter one. perhaps that'll all reverse with winter since guy will join then and citron can get hi emo time then? the ch doesn’t say who those two kids who talk to hisoka are, but i’m guessing they’re august and april (with the kid that keeps insulting hisoka being april)... we’ll see about that. and they’re inviting hisoka to join the Organization. Hmmm. okay. while i’d love to point and say “and HERE’s the assassin club!” it’s probably a bit more realistic that these people are… multi-talented in their dealings. organization to me implies more than just like assassin-for-hire but like. actual plans so they r um. maybe. …a. what’s the mundane version of a big evil organization? a terrorist agency…? a shady intelligence guild? it doesn’t rly sound like a yakuza/mafia deal. well anyways that’s what i maybe think hisoka is a part of. that’s 100% the kind of group that would take in kids off of the street. probably some of them do assassinations in em.

the "if you stay here like this, you'll die." / "nowhere else... to go." exchange made me lose my mind. Whenever there is ever a piece of media where some character goes like “if you keep being this way, you’ll ruin your life” but that way of life is the ONLY way that person knows how to live, even if its ruining them… that gets me. and then the "how many times have I thought I might die, yet ended up living? living on, all alone." line from hisoka… like this is before august died but i imagine in the period after august died and he hadn’t joined mankai yet… that was true again, wasn’t it. AND THEN THE GINGERBREAD. THAT’S WHY HE FROZE UP DURING THE CHRISTMAS PLAY!!! BECAUSE THAT WAS THE FIRST FOOD HE WAS OFFERED BY THESE TWO… it is funny that they reeled him in with a snack here… it’s the same in the future, only it’s just marshmallows. still, for a kid surviving out on the streets... sweets are probably like a precious delicacy, huh… since they’re not particularly filling. they’re just nice. a step above plain survival. and then hisoka’s told that they’re family now… thinking about how he says that winter troupe is the place he belongs, later.

back to the present i love how when yuzo comes in citron so pleasantly says"oh, yuzo! have you lost your day job?" pfft. makes sense that chikages articulate. hes probably practiced his voice a lot since this one is miles away from his threatening voice, ahah. Also love how hes like “ive dabbled in kabuki!” and no one can tell if he’s telling the truth or not. like i said. he’s suspicious. yuzo agrees with me seeing as hes like chikage’s too calm around everyone. I thought the interview was funny! like tsuzuru, you’ve managed to somehow precog everyone’s character arcs and personalities well enough, but this time you need to interview the guy? yet you parallels a weird amount of tsumugi and tasukus life with sympathy for the angel without knowing shit about them? yet you absolutely hit upon azuma’s own baggage with nocturnality? Considering chikage seems to joke/lie about a lot of things, it is fair… he’s a pretty mysterious character. Has to be since he’s hiding the fact that he’s an assassin and stuff. I muttered to myself for soooo long about the curry thing though i was like what the fuck is an ultimate curry. curry isn’t even one thing in india. at least in the part of india where i’m from, even our stir fries get called curry (by my family at least!) but then chikage was like. oh its fun to mess with u guys so. okay. hisoka seeing chikage and spring and immediately running off tho… i bet that entire exchange hit him hard especially bc chikage was just like. kind of mean and not helpful lol. excited to see how that goes. i hope winter gets to take care of him since he’s Going Through It right now… i still think whoever is ringing masumi must be his parents. its nice that chikage and izumi get to bond over curry! it'll be interesting when the blog thing gets revealed. itaru seemed weird after he had to explain what a stan was to masumi which is like… i wonder what thats abt. he did mention a little that he had a bad time of it in high school during alice in wonderland so i wonder if thatll ever come up. or mb hes just worried abt chikage seeing his gamer pad. who knows. uh. well. that’s my thoughts on the. first five chapters. I don’t think i’m going to be able to Stop reading this so. I hope ur okay receiving something like this every day-ish.

HI THERE! HELLO THERE! WELCOME TO ACT 2!!!!!!!! I see awakening moon is already having its power on you, so cool.

Chikage time!!!

And ohh that's so cool you get back to previous events. Makes some elements clearer in mind, esp with Hisoka mister subtle exposition backstory over here.

Congratz on noticing all those little details about him on the reread :3c those things still leave me obsessing. Esp the way his acting is described like, that's such an unnatural approach to acting you can't help but raise an eyebrow.

And god yeah. yeah. Hisoka is so weird in the early chapters when you pay extra attention to him it's so much. Another thing from the backstages that might interest you is in Tasuku's New Year's SR (SR - [Careful of Holiday Traffic] - "The Gunslinging Cleaner") where they're all cleaning the dorms, and Winter is doing the bathroom, and Tsumugi and Tasuku end up playing up with the spray bottles to have a pretend fight based on an old play of theirs and it has Tasuku, realistically, get back into his role like he does so well. And Hisoka catches on to that and when Tsumu leaves, he thinks, hey, that was funny, actually funnier that what we're doing, and he takes up two spray bottles as well to play a dual gunner and start to wrap Tasuku into it again. Anyway during this whole bit there's a mention of how Hisoka's way to move feels very natural as he's playing someone who's /using two guns to fight/. Bringing it up so you can add it to your assassin jar.

ANYWAY. CHIKAGE. APRIL. HHHHHHHHHH. You were pointing it out so much in your asks and i was just. pointing while doing uncomprehensible noises, and had to try my best to just go "cool theory! not saying anything tho!" like i wasn't losing my mind because "YOU GOT IT. YOU GOT IT!!!!" (on the April front at least, i'm not confirming anything else LMAO). Chikage's build up was done so well i'm SO glad you caught on the details hhh!! And yeah Hisoka is indeed from Dec. 3rd and omg!!!! twin bday…. I share my bday with his seiyuu personally so we're really onto something here.

The full voice really is so cool!!! And yeah i feel you so much, there's so much characterization in the voice work, the random words we know from song, and even realizing how much they improved since the early day. Always a chill up my spine.

AND YEAH. YEAH THE MIZUNO NAMEDROP. OH MY GOD. holding your hands. See this is why i insisted so hard on you reading all the events, and i'm so glad that you did it. I've had friends who skipped the events because they wanted act 2 so quickly and i was just. no. you don't realize Chikage has been built up, you don't know about Mizuno you dONT- like they legit mentioned then "idk who mizuno is" and i'm just GNHHH. Mizuno!!!

Yeah the audition thing makes sense. esp since now they're popular so it's harder to filter who really would want to make a good actor. not that it means they're actually recruiting a trustworthy bunch bUT. Chikage's face like a sly tanuki so true bestie. His face is up to no good and i love that about him. But yes agreed it works very good on both a wastonian and doylist perspective it's really neat. And YEAH Itaru stamp of approval (to share his gamer pad).

oh god the Masumi's plot. man. (and for the names we improvise as we go, it works out that way). but YEAH Massu you should answer at leAST Sakuay's call gdi!!

ok so for the timeline it's a little weird. In the VN, Sakyo gives them like, a year to revive Mankai first and then one play a month, but it doesn't work with what act 2 says that it's been one year only. In the anime they actually retcon it for real by having Sakyo giving Izumi only one month per troupe, so, it actually fits what the timeline is saying by act 2: that all of act 1's main story and the events all happened in the span of a year. And it makes sense bc at One Play A Month, 3 plays for all 4 troupes gives 12 plays, which makes a lot more sense in general. So Sakyo's original ultimatum has been completely retconned everywhere else at this point.

BUT YEAH SAME i didn't realize Sakuya was older than Masumi until act 2 where the age gap really is pointed out, with Saku leaving High School while Massu is still in. That does explain why Sakuya felt so much "big brotherly" to Masumi too. I do love how he still takes care of Masumi, Sakuya is like. It took me so long for him to even start allowing me around, now i'm his friend nonstop no take back. I think Masumi is "more attached" but it comes from the place of how abyssal his attachement was to start with. Like, Masumi was clearly keeping everyone away before (he didn't even call Sakuya by his name before, that's why Sakuya is overjoyed the day Masumi actually calls him Sakuya) and he's sloooowly letting his guard down but it's not. radical just yet. But yes it does also play on their Nocturnality description of, as a family it doesn't have to be tight and close bond for the love to be unconditional in a way?

And omg about the description and friend. And yeah, so, i think the Japanese term for them is specifically "Nakama" (compared to Spring's "kazoku" (family) and Summer "tomodachi" (friends)). And Nakama is really like. a group of friends or coworkers you're close in with the idea of you're sharing the same goals and ideals. Like, Nakama is used a lot in anime, it can still be close friendship but it's usually in the context of, there's a background that put us together yaknow? and i think "comrades for the same cause" is the best way to translate the idea but as a result this might sound a little clunkier lmao. I think it's, yeah, the goal is acting, but the means to do it is the competition they have against each other to help each other out too. And they come from the same background of intense regrets and moving past that. Brothers in arms if you will. But yeah it's tricky how to word it, it feels natural to describe them that way, like, when Azuma says that it makes sense, but it's a little tricker than that and it's hard to explain without the full picture.

AND YEAH it's nice for the uni repartition. At least the bloodshed isn't spread there LMAO. AND HELPP. Chikage, assigned bunny immediately on first read. The curry alliance would be too strong if Izumi gets an ally. To follow.

CHIIIKAGEEEEE. "he's sooo normal he's totally faking it" is so funny, it's so true. Tbh i do feel like it's the thematic of Spring Adults like. Putting on a front so people Don't Ask Questions about you. Chikage just saw the patern and went :) sup :) god it's really so funny to me Chikage pretended he really liked the troupe only because he had tunel vision on Hisoka it's so much. his Coin CG looks sooooo good. and eheheh :) and YEAH CHIKAGE'S COMMENT ABOUT SAKUYA I FORGOT. No chill. BUT YEAH CITRON. THIS IS SO FUNNY. The chaos of Chikage saying batshit insane thing and Citron just nods in the back YOUR REACTION LMAO. the moment we all go "NOOO IZUMI YOU'RE SEEING IT WRONG"

oh boy so now. the Hisoka scene. God i was thinking about this scene so much the other day it still drives me insane. Maybe Hisoka would have guessed correctly yeah. And YEAH HOMARE JUST LIKE. "leave it to me, i know so much about you" is so soft. I wonder how Chikage might have felt like, man. This person really knows Hisoka uncomfortably well wtf. but yeah i love Hisoka's "ex-feral homecat behavior" who mellowed to everyone but will be warry of newcomers regardless and will just go into silence for it. all while Chikage is just. :))).

BUT YEAH CHIKAGE APPROACHING HIM. GOD THIS SCENE. I think that like, logically amnesia is easy to believe but emotionally, it must be very hard. Like, Chikage thought Hisoka was dead and facing that he's still alive while August isn't must have been a shock. Plus, personally i can't stop thinking about the fact that Chikage learnt he was alive from hearing about Mankai, Itaru probably passed fliers to Sympathy for the Angel in the office and Chikage probably just. fucking froze thinking he was seeing a ghost and was stalking them ever since. And then you think about Hisoka's roles in the plays and think about how Chikage might have interpreted them. Like, Hisoka's first role was one of an angel that was categoric about letting the person Tsumu's character loved die. He was all about keeping the balance on how if someone has to die, they have to die. The second play has Hisoka investigate a murder while being emotionally distant to it, and the third play has Hisoka play an immortal who, by definition, is surviving other people. and i think it's fair that, in grief, Chikage saw all of those as, oh, he's using his experience to mock what happened. I have more to say esp about MMMBM's play and the way Chikage might have reacted to it but. we'll come back to that later. But what i mean is that i think that, emotionally it was hard to process, Hisoka himself looked like he was handling himself fine, and hell, Hisoka loves his troupe and i think eventually it might have felt like it for Chikage too whichh could def feel like there's nothing wrong with Hisoka and he is really just, moving on.

BUT YEAH it's still. OOF. so mean esp since Hisoka JUST DOESNT KNOOWWW and he has been scared for so long about his past and Chikage basically came back and told him "you have good reasons to be scared of your past and now you'll suffer for it" is just. God. So fucked up. Chikage master at mishandling his grief.

Hisoka did talk about August and apologized when he was sick, clearly, survivor's guilt yes. god Hisoka is usually so distached from everything and nothing really affects him PERSONALLY, at best he worries for others people but everything else he manages to deal with on his own, but god. when Chikage starts to confront him he's so distressed and i feel so bad for him i want to hug him so bad.

me: loving liar characters and digging Chikage's deal from the start VS "if you're mean to Hisoka you will meet my sword" moment for the whole first chapter, so many emotions.

but YOU'RE SO RIGHT about the Inigo Montoya feels to that. And yeah, the flowers were def threats though, once you're done with Awakening Moon i'll share the meaning of them because it still drives me bonkers.

LMAO for yume nikki, the way things change our perspectives i swear. Hisoka's flashback god. it was so much. Sweet boy. Sweetheart. It's just. gnhhh. Everything about this part is so emotional and it's terrifying.

And yeah eheheh. Actually, if you get to see it, the chapter's icon for each of the troupe, in act 1 are colored fully with the troupe's collors: first spring is pink, first summer is yellow ect…. but, once you enter act 2 it's amazing how it's like. spring is pink with some blue. summer is yellow with some autumn. ect…. it's like, even graphicwise they tell you, the other troupe linked too closely to this rookie cannot be footnotes, they're also part of the main plot. and yeah that def sets up as Guy being also a Citron plot doesn't it :3c ehehe.

And yeah the kids. those kids. goodness. yeah. For the organisation i won' talk too much about it but yeah it's def not mafia/yakuza, to me it sounds also sounds like something international (see why Hisoka talks a perfect english) but, yeah. def sounds like a shady organization for sure who's exploiting children who have nowhere else to go. Which makes it pretty grim for Hisoka, but also for the implications for August and April since they were there even before Hisoka. Weep.

and guuhhh that exchange is just. god. holds hisoka in my arms. Hisoka's past being unveiled is so tragic like, you get why he forgot everything, it's ust so fucking miserable. Just suffering and surviving, all alone. AND THE GINGERBREAD YES. YES!!!! also how in the whole Christmas event, it was snowing outside and Hisoka kept zoning out looking at it. Just before the play, he was late backstage because he was completely captivated by the snow outside, and THEN Gingerbread on stage. I think the combo of the two triggered memories in Hisoka without him really registering it yet. It was a cold snowy night and he was offered gingerbread, and this was enough to connect the two. BUT YEAH it's funny they reeled him with a snack, it's really just. Wild kitty approach. And yeah Hisoka didn't change a bit, snacks are the way to his heart. But yes, exactly like you say. The fact it's because those sugarly snacks are delicacy, something he probably couldn't eat before when it was all for survival, so, he probably has those as comfort food on the literal sense of the term of how, it's the one thing that brought him salvation out of the street, it's the one thing that tastes like a home, so Hisoka indulges in sweet and sugar as much as he can. not just survival anymore. idk to me it recontextuatlize his marshmallow quirk from "manchild" to "this is literally the only thing he knows to consider as comfort". Esp considering early in Mankai he was refusing comforts like, a futon because he must be ready to sleep anywhere. It fits with the idea that he used to be homeless and probably had to get used to not be picky about where he fet to sleep. Marshmallows was the one thing he was always selfish about and now he's actually working on his comfort, but yeah, that really puts a lot in perspective on that regards. And yeah. a family…. they were a family. Whatever happened to August made Hisoka lose this family and now he has a new one though…

AND HELPP. I love Citron, he's so funny. god i love your reasoning on why Chikage is so good at everything. "of course this two faced bastard would know that". I LOVE how you can not trust anything that comes out of his mouth. Silly little liar man. Yuzo is so perspective, thank you my dude. And YEAH GOD THE INTERVIEW. So funny. Tsuzuru: can psychanalyse everyone in the company / Tsuzuru: oh no this guy lies so much i can't figure out what to do D:. AND HHELPPPPP being from the country that allows you to see through Chikage's bullshit, this is brilliant. He's really just out there, lying for fun.

And yeah man :( poor Hisoka i feel so much for him i want to hug him so bad. Chikage could have. like. actually communicated smh. but nooo. In Winter we trust.

Looking forward how hte Masumi's plot evolve and yeah it's nice Izumi finally has a curry ally. Might be sus as hell but he's also a curryhead so all crimes are forgiven. Oh Itaru. I guess it's also just that, Itaru learned to be himself with the Spring Troupe but now one of his coworker is there and it's a thin line on walking to like, reveal a side of himself he only revealed to those kids to one of the people he was the most likely to hide it from yaknow? Like suddenly feeling exposed and all. And i think that, like. The rest of the Spring Troupe knowing about his true self is fine as it is, even if Itaru didn't trust them, it's like. Who are they going to tell it to. But with Chikage, Itaru has to test first how much he can trust him and maybe be worried Chikage would talk about it at work. Might explain Itaru's uneasiness.

BUT ANYWAY. FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS. IT WAS A BLAST TO READ.

I'm totally okay receiving this everyday-ish, as u know, i'm a huge fan of reading your thoughts and of this specific chapter as it is, so i'll be thrilled. Can't wait to see more of your thoughts :3c

Take care eheheh

#ACT 2 TIME BABYYYYY #ichareply #aranarumei #ichafantalks a3 #long post for ts

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apollo-cackling · 1 year

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Mini-reviews of all the books I’ve completed this year, mostly in the order that I’ve read them:

Network Effect:

What can I say, it’s Murderbot! It’s cool to see Murderbot explored in the sprawl given by a full-length novel, and ART and Murderbot’s relationship is hilarious and fascinating.

The Jasmine Throne:

[I read this way earlier in the year so assume minor spoilers for this, since I’m not sure how much would be actual spoilers]

I mean. Murder lesbians. I love Malini’s ruthlessness and Priya’s deep-seated kindness. Also the relationships between the temple children, especially Ashok and Priya is. Fascinating. And heartbreaking. The way they’re raised in the temple was the “pain makes you stronger” type, and hiw that was complicated by Ahiranya being conquered and the temple being burnt down, all the elders with it. It’s fascinating and great. Also the worldbuilding feels so rich. I know this is an insubstantial thing to say but I really love the Vibe of the book.

I do remember not connecting all that much emotionally of this book though, and I’ve seen some other folks express the same, but it is the first book in a series, so hey.

Bloom Into You:

I read this 3 times. Within 6 months. Yeah I really love this manga lol. I love the characters, the way it deals with queerness and. Well yeah everything. I felt so alternatively seen and personally attacked in the exploration of aromanticism with Yuu; I love. Everything about Touko, and I love how deeply queer Sayaka’s plotlines are. Also Miyako and Riko! Older queer folks! They’re relationship is so endearing in a “old established couple way, and Miyako’s interactions with Sayaka is. it's great! I love intergenerational queer stuff.

There’s some small blemishes there. I’m not sure how necessary the chapter about Koyomi was, for example, and I saw a Japanese person say the translation by Seven Seas wasn’t. great? Or at least adds unneeded nuances and yeah. You can tell. But even despite this, Bloom Into You is great and I love it.

The Eye of the World:

Unfortunately this is one of the many times where I kind of lessened my experience of reading a book by looking at wikis lol. I like to spoil myself on stories in a specific way so that I know the rough structure/how to set my expectations*, but sometimes (fairly often honestly hdsakjhf) I accidentally spoil too much which. yeah was what happened here.

But still it’s a fun book with cool worldbuilding and cool magic. I saw some reviews that called it a LoTR ripoff and. Honestly I didn’t see it all that much when I was reading and I still don’t? Sure the premise is similar but that’s just the premise and plenty of things, like the tone and what each story's going for, are different? The closest I can see are the Trollocs and Myrddraal to Tolkien’s orcs and ringwraiths but even then 'ripoff' is a bit harsh.

I did have the impression that the prose was a bit too Much, not necessarily dense but with a lot that could’ve been cut out, but I’m also only a few steps removed from having aphantasia, so it’s not necessarily the book’s fault.

*for example there was this one time I was reading a series and there was a curse on the protagonist that lasted most of the series but I was running through the book rushing to see when the curse is lifted expecting it to be a short term thing which. didn’t make for a good reading experience lol.

Berserk:

I’ve read up to the middle of the Conviction arc now, I think? And yeah the thing that everyone says is good is good! It’s the exact type of horror that I really don’t deal well with (fleshy wet body horror) but. yeah the way it constructs Guts’ lone angry misanthropic figure and then explores how he got there is really compelling. Also the Bonfire of Dreams and Wounds >>>

It deals with a lot of heavy subject matter, but I think most of it was dealt with well, excluding Wyald. I question how necessary that was.

The Rage of Dragons:

This book is just incredibly fun. Blazingly fast paced, with a protagonist that’s utterly fixated on honing his skills. The society it’s set in is awful, but it does make it all the more gratifying when Tau flips the castes on its head. It also deals with revenge, not necessarily in a new way, but it worked for me because it’s a theme I’m interested in. It’s not a particularly deep book to my memory, but it’s an excellent refinement of form.

Royal Assassin and Assassin’s Quest:

I don’t have much to say on these two because again I lessened my experience by looking at wikis (bad, bad habit) but yeah. Well written, with excellent prose (there’s an intimacy to it that I really like), with some really bittersweet/touching moments.

Breach of Peace:

The debut novella written by a fairly big fantasy YouTuber. It’s about as much as you would expect from that description, but it does at least feel like a genuine effort of a new author rather than pandering for money. It’s pretty mid? There are some chilling moments and I remember it being effective in describing gross gore, but it does show in being a debut.

Heart of Stone:

A romance between a vampire and his personal secretary. It’s pretty good. They play off of each other really well with some intimate moments that you can just feel. There’s also a surprising amount of cool lore for the vampirism in this book which is of course welcome. This book is a fair bit out of my ordinary wheelhouse – I don’t tend to read historical books and the romances I read tend to be either contemporary or SFF – but it was a compelling read. One thing though is that the ADHD/autism coding of the leads felt a bit blunt, but I’m not sure how fair a criticism that is.

Kings of the Wyld:

I think this is just a clear case of a book being entirely for not me. It’s a low realism D&D-type fantasy whose premise is “what if groups of adventurers are rock bands, and the most famous one, long disbanded, comes together for one last adventure into an area filled with monsters to save one of them’s daughter” and. I don’t know, it just really didn’t work for me! I didn’t like the pacing – the quest to save the daughter is time sensitive, but iirc it takes half the book just to get the band back together. Also this is a book that’s all about glory and my worldview is diametrically opposed to that + the humour/tone is a bit too gross to me.

I see a lot of 5 star reviews of this book, so clearly a lot of people like it, but I can’t imagine a book that’s less my thing than this.

The Curse of Chalion:

The Goblin Emperor:

Really cool worldbuilding and good political intrigue. Cazaril, the protagonist, is also such a well written character: he’s been captured to a galley slave before the start of the story, which had a major impact on his psyche. It’s very very satisfying to see this man slowly, slowly learn confidence again. Also again the political intrigue is very interesting but still easy to follow.

The way it deals with queerness is a bit, well there’s many dead/suffering queer characters, but given that it’s published in 2001, I don’t hold it against the book.

A really comfy read: seeing Maia’s deep kindness change the court around him is heartwarming. It’s also again really satisfying to see Maia overcome his neglectful upbringing and become confident in the court intrigue. I saw some folks saying they didn’t like all the complex names and weird linguistics but I’m really into linguistics and I didn’t have that much trouble keeping track of the names until the last few parts of the book (although I was reading electronically so I have a bit of an advantage) so I personally liked that part.

The Darkness Outside Us:

One of my favourite books I’ve read this year. It’s such a twisty, harrowing mystery whose first half left me had me paranoid about everything around me and whose second half is one of the most resonant and moving endings I’ve read. The plot and themes are so well intertwined with each other: you’re pulled through the book by its mystery and the “wtf is going on here” of the it, but then after you’ve read it and its themes marinate in your head it only gets better. I absolutely love everything about it.

Legends and Lattes:

Another really comfy read of an orc adventurer retiring to open a coffee shop. I really liked seeing Viv making friends with the folks around her and improve her coffee shop. It feels a bit like progression fantasy in that way. It markets itself as “high fantasy with low stakes” but honestly the more intimate tone only made the danger that was present more tense. A comfy, warm read.

Ophelia After All:

Red Sister:

Another one of my favourite books I’ve read this year. It’s funny, because I tend to avoid reading YA contemporary, but usually, when I do, I find a new favourite. Ophelia After All is about so many things, Ophelia realising her queerness, yes, but also the way friend/family dynamics can ossify and pressure people to remain the same as they’ve always been, how terrifying the end of high school can be as a harbinger of massive change, the harm even well-meaning parents can do and how to navigate that. It’s about change, being given the opportunity to, and accepting such. Ophelia’s spiral throughout the book is so compelling and tense and the book is ultimately so, so kind.

I find myself forgetting a lot about this book. I remember finding the revelation Nona had near the end about [redacted] to be really cool and absolutely loving Sister Apple and Sister Kettle, both individually and together, and finding parts of the narrative structure to be very cool, but whether it was just a bad time for me to read it or otherwise, it didn’t stick with me too much.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic:

Another book that I found to be kind of forgettable. It didn’t really stick with me any.

Unsouled, Soulsmith, Blackflame, and Skysworn:

The first four books of the hugely popular selfpub progression fantasy series Cradle. It’s fun popcorn fare with a massively expanding scope and fun worldbuilding. The first few books felt a bit slow with how underpowered Lindon was, and there is a bit of an aspect of “suffering makes you stronger” that I’m a bit uneasy with, but overall a fun series.

The Grace of Kings:

"There’s never going to be an end to suffering if ‘he deserves it’ is all the justification people need for inflicting pain."

It, being a deeply political book, can’t escape being a tinge didactic at times – there was one subplot of the book that was essentially Animal Farm – but it manages to completely back up what it’s saying, and at any rate, I prefer this to a book that tries to say nothing, so I didn’t mind too much. Further, while I really liked the sprawl of it, it could be a bit much sometimes: again, the essentially Animal Farm part and Pira. I’m really not sure what Pira’s role was supposed to be.

Cards on the table, this is the type of book that basically tailor made my thing. It’s a fantasy retelling of the Chu-Han contention, and not only am I super into Chinese history, the Han Dynasty is one of my favourite periods of it. It’s this massive sprawling epic with so, so many perspectives. It also feels very Chinese to me in its writing*.

It has this. narrative distance? to it where it doesn’t write many specific events but rather paints its events in broader strokes to characterise how each character thinks. Every one of its characters are unreliable narrators and I loved how the book characterised each and every one of them. I loved so many subplots/characters of the book that if I were to talk about them, this would get way too long, but I especially liked Jizo’s story, the tragedy of it, and how it demonstrated how the Tiro state system fails even the people it supposedly honours as monarchs.

The Grace of Kings is far from being a mass appeal type – it could be hard to follow for someone less used to tracking massive amounts of POVs for example – but I loved it.

The book also has interesting politics (being very feminist and actually raising interesting points feminism for one, albeit still having a cast of majority men). I don’t agree with all of it but it is all presented thoughtfully and gave me a lot of things to think about.

*mind that I’m drawing from a limited pool of Chinese books that I’ve read

Leviathan Wakes:

This book is one that kind of verges on being not for me. Maybe it’s that I don’t read as much epic sci-fi as I do fantasy, but it’s like I don’t have as firm a grasp on the possibility space of this book, so I have no idea what to expect and whether something is supposed to read as a good or bad development etc. The political intrigue was interesting though.

Gardens of the Moon:

This book and its series has a reputation of being hard to follow and get through but it’s honestly not that bad? I probably have an easier time because I’m reading it digitally so I can use the search function, but it’s really not that hard to follow if you accept being a little bit confused.

I found this book more hard to read in that the landscape descriptions were difficult to parse but again that's likely more a me thing. Thematically, this book doesn't have that much yet, but I'm reading the second book now and that's an improvement immediately made.

The first two books of the Tide Child trilogy. This description might be surprising given the amount of me posting about this book here but my descriptor for it right now would be “intellectually compelling/interesting but emotionally boring”. I found the books’ world fascinating to think about but the plot/overall tension of the books felt disconnected to the extent that I have to actively try to read the books instead of feeling compelled.

Aside from that, the first maybe sixth of this book was a bit slow going, but past that it was so compelling to read. I can’t explain what was so compelling but I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s this sense of slowly expanding into an enormous scope, of all the disparate POVs coming together for an explosive finale.

The Bone Ships and Call of the Bone Ships:

Also I found the worldbuilding detailed on a micro level but not affecting too much of the overall plot. There’s a lot of attention to detail put into the little turns of phrase and such to make them reflect the world of this book, but on the level of the worldbuilding affecting the plot, there isn’t much. Supposedly this is a matriarchal society where women are viewed as more important than men, but our protagonist is a man and there’s not all that much of this that affects him to my memory. This is a fascinating world, and there’s much better characters to explore this world with, is what I’m saying.

I still like them but there’s a lot of wasted potential to them I think.

Yuwu:

(some major spoilers)

This is a Chinese danmei (BL) webnovel and. yeah a lot can be assumed from that. I’d describe it as “very well written in the moment to moment but eh on a macro/structural scale”.

I liked the moment to moment! There’s a lot of good angst and character writing moment to moment. And there’s a lot of setups that are only paid off a hundred chapters which are extremely clever, so it’s not bad structurally in that way. It’s just. We are always with the named characters. We are always only with them, and it makes the story’s scale feel claustrophobic when you step back. Yes it’s impressive that everything manages to tie back to the main cast, but also it makes it feel like this empire/world has only like. 20 people in it.

I don’t know why this story gives me this feeling when others don’t, maybe because it’s a story with this huge a scale and grounding elements yet so small a cast that’s actually important, but it feels like the world goes no bigger in scope than the one we’re presented with. It creates this assumption that the common folks/the masses are unimportant to the Great Men of the main cast which is kind of :/ for a story about the horrors of being a slave.

Speaking of, I’m not sure if the story dealt with slaves as much/well as the talk I’ve seen online said it did. I’d need a reread to tell but in my memory it wasn’t particularly extensive. This book focuses pretty tightly onto its main cast, which becomes kind of :/ when almost everyone in that cast is a noble and this book deals as much with the castes of its empire. Even the few characters that were assumed to be slaves almost all turned out to secretly have noble blood and almost all the characters noted to be extremely powerful have noble blood. The only characters that didn't have noble blood iirc are Lu Zhanxing, Li Qingqian and Hong Shao. It’s this paradox of wanting to condemn nobility but also being obsessed with bloodlines. It feels like it wants to condemn the ridiculous and useless posturing and politics of court but likes the idea of a lineage of people that are inherently Better.

There’s several sequences that are supposed to be a condemnation of mob mentality but also paint the nobles as being mostly principled and honoured in contrast to the vicious commoners that wants to feel morally righteous while bulling someone. (I’m thinking of the part where Gu Mang kneels in front of all the graves on Warrior Soul Mountain and there’s a mob that lambasts him the entire way and they’re specifically pointed out to not be the nobles who’ve actually lost family members due to Gu Mang’s ‘treachery’)

So yeah, these are the reviews of all the books I’ve read this year. The first few are a bit bare, as it’s been essentially an entire year since I’ve read them, and these are probably not all that good as reviews, but I wanted to do this to learn how to write reviews and I’d like to think I learnt things writing this (one of which is not to review books a full year later and to write reviews earlier hdjskahdfjkahdf). So yeah.

The climax also didn’t work for me all that much in that this story has all mostly been about the Chonghua internally, the failures of that system and its dogma, and then you have this massive scale climax where an external threat threatens to destroy Chonghua and it turns into “oh the nobles in this country squabble pointlessly but once an actual threat comes onto the table they all put their differences aside to face this threat like a well oiled machine :)”

I don’t want to sound like I hated this story because I didn’t, and again, the moment to moment was very enjoyable! I liked the experience of reading this story! I really liked the tone of the story and worldbuilding! It’s just once I’ve finished reading it and I gain a bit of distance, I find a lot more flaws than strengths.

#you can tell for the first few that I'm reviewing books I read a long while ago dhajskhf lesson learnt #my rambles #ac: books #the tide child #apollo reads malazan #reviews

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dreamteamfanblog · 3 years

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The fact that even the Dream Smp Wiki acknowledges the founding of The Badlands as the festival without acknowledging the stream where Skeppy and Bad literally formed the Badlands (they even named it that stream) way before the festival. Which. Is a shame. Because I really like that stream. Bad's assertion that "The Only Important Side's Skeppy's Side", the way they giggled and reveled in their plans as they discussed how "Maybe the most amount of fun we can have is the chaotic kinda fun~", and I kinda got chills during that giddy "We play the sides against each other and take it all for ourselves!" speech. Like. Man. I remember getting so psyched over that stream and all-caps screaming about how cool it was.

So it's kinda sad to me that nobody seems to know about that stream. Like, it's nothing new, there were hardly any posts whatsoever about it when it happened and literally every time I mentioned that they were going on a villain arc I got multiple confused comments and questions. Then everyone seemed confused about whether Skeppy was even a member for the longest time and even when he was included it was "under the assumption that he's teamed with bad cause in what world aren't they teamed lol" rather than because Skeppy and Bad literally planned their little team together long before other members were even a thought in their minds, and it surely speaks to their characters, that Bad so easily proclaimed Skeppy's side the only one that mattered and slid his idea by Skeppy as an equal before he even thought of a plan, before he even thought of a name, something they did together.

And like, I just clicked on The Badlands wiki page for unrelated reasons, and even that page lists The Festival as the start of The Badlands and lists Bad, Ant, and Awesamdude as the founders even though Bad and Skeppy had formed their own little faction they called The Badlands with just the two of them long before the others entered because the two of them are all that matters to them, really, and in what world does Bad while in his right mind launch such an ambitious project without his Skeppy already by his side.

"The only faction that matters is the Skeppy faction"

The Badlands was their plan, their faction, created with so much giddiness and excitement by the two of them for the two of them, for each other, with the idea in mind that this was all that mattered, whatever else came from their little scheme.

And I just really really like that whole stream. I really like how thoroughly it displays that nothing really matters to them besides each other. I really loved their energy and their giddy excitement and affection throughout the planning with one another was in equal parts a further reminder of how much they matter to each other and an indicator of how disconnected their emotions are from the world outside each other. They agreed to do this for the fun of it. Not even a hunger for power, not some sort of resentment, not as well intentioned extremists, not for any reason but that this is the most amount of Fun we can get out of all this. As if the lives of other people were a game to toy with. As if they lacked empathy entirely for the people their "fun" may hurt. As if they could only see each other.

And god i've been sitting here including this stream as a peak moment for them both and including this in my thoughts on the Badlands dynamic generally because hey, doesn't it strike anyone as odd that Bad and Skeppy were whispering and giggling about how much fun they were going to have and openly discussing plans and expressing a complete lack of care for like Anyone else because as Bad outright said there's not really a thing outside of Skeppy that matters to him in the slightest, and that goes both ways....and yet when Bad approached Sam and Ant it was under the pretenses of solidarity, of 'outrage' over the festival and how Schlatt had gone too far, not a word to them about how the little world domination scheme and The Badlands as a faction long predated this conversation and the moment in which Schlatt took things 'too far'. Isn't it odd that none of this is mentioned to them. That Bad presents this idea as if he and Skeppy hadn't already formed not only the faction but the plans to facilitate conflict and snatch whatever they wanted out of the ruins? That he wasn't chattering away about the Fun they'd have when he proposed the idea to them? That he let them believe they were forming a new group on the spot in reaction to Schlatt? I don't even really think Bad let them in on the plan until a few days before the war despite having planned this all out with Skeppy only days after the election? That Bad let them take for granted their position as neutrals, and then as supporters of Pogtopia, only informing Ant and Sam of what had been the plan since before they'd joined the faction a few days before the event? And even then, he spoke of power, and of how they couldn't possibly stand in support of either faction after everything. He never spoke of the fact that this started as a little game. Because Bad was bored and didn't much mind what entertaining himself through chaos and bloodshed would lead to for others, so long as he maintained Skeppy's favour. Which is something Bad didn't relay to the others.

And looking at the way Bad treats their 'rise to power' for so long, it's all incredibly in line with his little game. I mean, half the time he's not even optimizing strategy here. He doesn't tell Ant or Sam his plans until it's happening, he suggests alliances and pulls away from them with ease given no real rhyme or reason, he abandons threads shortly after he pulls them and leaves a tangled mess of yarn on the floor rather than weaving together any truly effective plan, he negotiates for things he knows he can't get and never seems to bothered when it doesn't pan out, he's never entirely honest with Ant and Sam, even, if i'm being honest. He pushes for land and power and all, that's something he makes moves towards, and is something he's honestly really effective at getting, but it's all regarding so lightly. Like he doesn't care. Like it's all so much fun, just like he and Skeppy had planned for it to be.

And Bad literally continues to not care about much of anything and is very much amused by the goings on of the Smp.

Until he loses the one thing team that actually mattered.

Skeppy's team.

And I mean, yeah, the egg's influencing Bad right now, but the egg isn't actually complete mind control, and the things Bad does are still things he's choosing to do. His attempts to harm Sam. Puffy. Quackity. Everyone who'd ever considered themselves close to him. The way he spoke of power. Of taking over. Of a future for the eggpire, something those around him bought into, even those who believed him powerhungry and mad. Plans much like the ones he'd spun for Ant and Sam a million times before, even without the egg. Plans that were still no more important to him than they'd been during his little games earlier on, because Bad didn't intend to take power for the Eggpire, Bad intended to toss whatever the egg wanted at it and would be glad to sit in the ruins of whatever the egg left behind with Skeppy at his side.

The egg arc is all about Skeppy. He allowed himself to be infected to be with Skeppy, he's chosen to do all of these horrific things to his friends and to innocents and to children without hesitation for Skeppy, the only thing Quackity ever said that had him take pause was when he asked "if the egg can give you anything you want, why don't you have skeppy", the closest Bad's been recently to defying the egg was when Skeppy brushed him aside for it at which Bad lashed out at the egg, Bad insists that the egg will give him something nobody else could. Skeppy's his focus. His center. The only thing that matters.

And Skeppy's ALWAYS been.

Like, god, these things aren't new. The fixation on only Skeppy mattering, the lack of concern for everything else, the willingness to deceive and hurt even those who love him, this was all established in that very first stream when Bad proclaimed Skeppy to be the only side that mattered and they chattered enthusiastically about faction names and the fun they'd have at the expense of anyone and everyone else. This has been A Thing since the moment Bad actually like...became a character at all way back right after the election when he proposed a faction for the two of them. They planned then to recruit others as well, but the faction was there's, the faction was them, no person, no goal, no moral code, none of it was as important as their duo, their bubble, the badlands is Bad's show for Skeppy's amusement and the other people involved are glorified sock puppets who think they're special or that they matter. Nothing in Bad's motives or even really his morality or feelings towards other people has shifted much. It's always been Skeppy. Skeppy, Bad's own heart. Skeppy, Bad's life. The one thing that matters. The only thing that's changed is that before Bad was smiling, setting the world ablaze to see the way the light would reflect off Skeppy's eyes while they laughed about it, and now his Skeppy's gone, and I can guarantee nothings going to stop Bad from burning the rest of the world to the ground if it means getting him back. No other motivator, moral code, or loved one will stop him. Because there aren't any. Because there never were any to begin with. There was never anything besides Skeppy.

And that's just Really Cool and I feel like a lot of their story is at least slightly recontextualized by knowing how The Badlands were actually formed and it makes me sad how little it's thought of that from the beginning it was Skeppy and Bad and nothing else meant a thing. Cause that's a really unique situation with their characters and I need The Badlands being Skeppy and Bad's thing first and foremost above all else acknowledged more often cause it was them from the beginning guys-

#dream smp

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