#the older version is still up on twitter but. look at this one instead. its better and im more satisfied with it.

[angelscrowbar]

Newdi mikus!

Isolated versions ⤵

#꒰ა ☘︎ ໒꒱ #ensemble stars #enstars #hatsune miku #miku #personally i don't think i did too well on some of these #pulled an all nighter for no reason and had to drive someone on 20min of sleep #mamiku my beloved #sorry for her pose tho my 3am brain thought the hat on chest was for something lighter not death #well the more i know #i should really start on the design notes post #guys i updated this. sorry teehee #the older version is still up on twitter but. look at this one instead. its better and im more satisfied with it.

[my-correct-emoji-ratings]

😀 Grinning Face 😀

Starting with the basics! This emoji was approved as part of Unicode 6.1 in 2012 and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015

Apple

It looks so dead inside. I don't even want to know what it's gone through. This emoji doesn't fulfill their job as something joyful, it fills me with existensial terror. Solid 3/10.

Google Noto Color Emoji

Definitely better than the Apple one, I like the fact that it has some shine in its eyes and that it has a tongue. Pretty good, I'd say 6/10.

Samsung

Still better than Apple, but worse than Google. I've never been a fan of how "sharp" Samsung emojis look if that makes sense? It still does its job though, 5/10.

Microsoft

Just a little guy. Just a joyful lad. Either that or they're on something. 10/10, it's not perfect but makes me happy.

WhatsApp

This is also deeply unsettling, even though it has the features I like. Maybe it's the shiny ass forehead? 3.5/10.

Twitter

Simple, does it's purpose, kinda feels detached from the emotion that this emoji's supposed to convey and just feels like an image. 5/10.

Facebook

What the fuck is this. Why is it an actual sphere. Why are the eyes blue. 1/10.

Microsoft Teams

This is like the GrubHub ad version of the Microsoft one. 3/10.

Skype

This is an animated one, but I only have the image version. This face that the animation ends with is okay, though I don't like the weird white eye bags it has. The face it starts with is terrifying, google it if you want to. As a whole it would be like a 1/10 but just this one is like a 4.5/10. Let's say 2.5/10 as a compromise.

Twitter Emoji Stickers

This is just so much worse than the facebook one, it's so 3D and I hate how the head isn't completely round. Actual -3/10.

JoyPixels

It's just weird. I don't have anything else to say about it. 3/10.

TossFace

It looks like someone who just experienced an extremely traumatic event. Like I genuinely want to hug it and make sure it gets proper professional help. Poor guy. As an emoji though, 3/10.

Sony Playstation

I don't have a lot to say about this one, looks pretty similar to the older Microsoft one I have on my laptop. Also a 4/10.

Noto Emoji Font

Hard to say anything negative, but also anything positive. It's a very neutral emoji, conveys it's meaning well and isn't over the top. I actually really like this one, 6/10.

OpenMoji

It's so flat, and full of contrast, not very pleasant to look at. The eyes are also ever so slightly too small for my preference. 2/10

emojidex

I have many questions that I probably don't want an answer for, including but not limited to: Why is it red? Why is the mouth shaped like that? Why is the outline so thick? Why are the teeth like that? But like aside from me being extremely nitpicky, this is a pretty solid emoji. Like a 5/10 if I'm being generous.

Messenger

Okay so even though I heavily disagree with the shade of the eyes and other little things, I weirdly like it. Even though the shape is... weird..., I think it wasn't a bad decision this time. I like how it's in a 3/4 view instead of front view, which gives it character and originality. The shading is an interesting detail, and makes this a really good emoji. A surprising 8/10.

LG

Pretty basic, the style reminds me of the really old Apple emoji style in some way. This is like a definition of a middle of the ground emoji. 5/10

HTC

I don't like it, and I don't think it should have or even deserves to have separate teeth. The yellow used in this is a nice shade overall, but doesn't really fit the vibe of emojis. 2/10.

Mozilla

Kinda similar feelings like the HTC one, as in I don't think it should have ears. The extremely washed out colours make it look displeasing, and makes me want to turn my screen brightness up. 1/10.

Best ranking emoji: Microsoft, with a 10/10

Lowest ranking emoji: Twitter Emoji Stickers, with a -3/10

Average ranking: 3.75/10, rounding up to 4/10

Median: 3.25/10, rounding down to 3/10

Mode: Shared between 3/10 and 5/10

#emoji rating #emoji ranking #emoji review #category: smileys and people

[gadgetsboy]

Sony's Project Q Handheld Leaks Online

A while back, Sony unveiled a rather interesting hardware peripheral during its showcase event, grabbing headlines and getting some pretty divisive reactions from the online gaming community. Known as the PlayStation Project Q, the handheld features an unconventional design, although Sony was clear that the device was meant to serve as a streaming companion to the PS5, allowing gamers to access their titles from the cloud. More recently, a new video shared on Twitter shows a hands-on teardown as well as usage of the Project Q, which sheds more light on the mystery handheld. Originally uploaded by user Zuby_Tech, the clip shows the device almost completely dismantled, and gives us a glimpse into the software that's loaded inside. From the footage, it looks like the Project Q will run on a modified version of Android, based on the screenshots featured in the Tweet. It's not clear what version of Android is running, although it could be a forked version similar to the Logitech G Cloud handheld, which comes with a heavily-modified version of Android 11. The teardown also reveals that the controller grips on the sides of the Project Q are not detachable, unlike on the Nintendo Switch. It's clear that Project Q adopts a lot of the PlayStation 5 design language as seen with the controller grips on the left and right, which look a lot like a PS5 controller that's been split in half. In addition to the same design, the controls will come with all the functionality as found on the more "standard" PS5 controller as well. It's worth noting that these controllers flank a large display, not unlike the Nintendo Switch. The display is specified as having a width of 8 inches, putting it in league with other compact tablets out there, such as the iPad Mini. One difference from the iPad Mini though is the Q's aspect ratio, which should be more in line with what we usually see on TVs. As from the company's earlier presentation, Sony has stated that the device is intended to be a streaming companion to the PS5 itself, meaning that it won't come with its own library of games. Instead, the Q will stream the titles that you already own on your PS5, and will of course require a constant internet connection. At the moment, Sony has been silent regarding the software and UI that's running inside the Q, although this newly-released footage does add a bit more clarity as to what we can expect. With that being said, it's definitely a far cry from older Sony gaming handhelds, which come with their own proprietary OS and library of games. There's also the fact that you can already set up an Android phone and third-party controller to use as a PlayStation remote play device, which does bring a bit of questioning to the Q's existence. However, it doesn't seem that the Sony Project Q is meant to succeed the Vita or the PSP in any way, other than the fact that it is a portable PlayStation-branded gaming device. The reliance on streaming, unconventional design, and mysterious software - at the moment, at least - shows that Sony has a different objective in mind this time around. This new leak at least reveals more secrets behind the device, although we still wish for a proper Vita successor. Read the full article

[veworero]

Java lwjgl 3 tutorial

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial how to#

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial code#

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial series#

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial download#

: Contains bindings to stb, a set of single-file public domain libraries. : Contains bindings to LibOVR, the Oculus SDK library. Contains bindings to the OpenGL ES, a royalty-free, cross-platform API for full-function 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems - including consoles, phones, appliances and vehicles. So lets get started with the Shader class. But before we do that, we should load the shaders and compile them, that is what we are going to look for now. In this tutorial, we are going to draw our first triangle onto the screen. In the previous tutorial, we have got some theory on the GLSL language, and we learnt some of the syntax. Welcome to the fifth part of the LWJGL Tutorial Series. Using OpenAL (by Jesse Maurais) 2D Space Invaders with LWJGL renderer (by Kevin Glass) 2D/3D Asteroids using LWJGL (includes game framework) (by Kevin Glass) 2D Scrolling Shoot'Em up - A Java Prototyp tribute. Here you will find documentation for LWJGL. The immediate drawing mode, as well as many other things, was deprecated in OpenGL 3.0, but many of the same principles still apply Documentation. In this tutorial I will use the immediate drawing mode.

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial how to#

By the end of this tutorial you will have learned how to draw coloured primitive two-dimensional shapes: LWJGL OpenGL drawing. So I found your website, and now, I am trying to beg you to help me. I found LWJGL library, and I found your videos on youtube, in which you mention that if one would want to be coached to see the video description. This entry was posted in LWJGL Tutorials and tagged display, framebuffer, howto, java game development, He is only expecting 2D, but I don't want to do 2D. Updating will fix some input bugs where keys seem to. The Minecraft launcher automatically updates to the latest version of LWJGL. Essentially, it is what Minecraft uses for graphics, sound, and input.

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial download#

1 What is LWJGL? 2 Why update? 3 Where to download 3.1 Notes 4 What to replace 4.1 All operating systems 4.2 Windows 4.3 Mac 4.4 GNU/Linux 5 Resources LWJGL is the LightWeight Java Game Library.These buffers are mainly used for short lived operations, or for data that is transferred to the GPU and does not need to be present in the process memory Instead, LWJGL 3 proposes two methods for buffer management: Auto-managed buffers, that is, buffers that are automatically collected by the Garbage Collector.I really doubt you'll find any LWJGL 3 tutorials because its still not had a 1.0 release yet, If you're new to LWJGL or Java I strongly recommend not using an untested library. I learned a lot from Oscar from TheCodingUniverce, here's his playlist.

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial code#

A new tutorial for an old series!Source Code - channel.

Apparently, you guys like these tutorials, and not my others, so here it is.Source Code - channel.

Making a 2D game with LWJGL 3 and Java - YouTub

Twitter this video we take a look at how to create Flappy Bird from scratch in Java, using LWJGL 3 for OpenGL.

For porting existing LWJGL 2 code to LWJGL 3, see the migration guide For more code examples, see the LWJGL samples and the lwjgl3-demos repository (nightly build required).

LWJGL comes with rich documentation, you can browse the javadoc online starting here.For more information, FAQ, guides and tutorials visit the wiki.The Memory FAQ, Bindings FAQ and Troubleshooting pages are especially useful.

This comes at a cost: You now need to carefully specify the dependencies one by one. Now the base code is much more modular, and we can be more selective in the packages that we want to use instead of using a giant monolithic jar file.

LWJGL 3.1 introduced some changes in the way that the project is built.

For older hardware there will possibly be an OpenGL 2.1 version available In the course of the tutorial we will use OpenGL 3.2 Core Profile for creating a small game with shaders.

This tutorial is for anyone who wants to get started with the new version of the Lightweight Java Game Library.

Share your videos with friends, family, and the worl.

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial series#

LWJGL 3 2D Video Tutorial Series « on: April 03, 2015, 11:54:49 » Hi Guys, In tandem with the textual tutorial series I've been working on I've also just started a video series if you guys are wanting to check it out! Here's the link to the tutorials: Setting up a Project to use LWJGL in Eclipse.

LWJGL 3 2D Video Tutorial Series 1 Replies 6476 Views emforce.

Project terbentuk dan buatlah class baru, misal dengan nama LWJGLMain (Klik Kanan -> New -> Java Class).Home Lwjgl 3 2d tutorial LWJGL 3 2D Video Tutorial Serie Untuk selain windows, folder native library yang dipakai menyesuaikan. Parameter tersebut untuk memberitahu Netbeans Letak Eksternal Native library yang dipakai oleh LWJGL, cek/eksplore pada folder tersebut untuk memastikan file dll ada.

#Java lwjgl 3 tutorial

[blizzardsuplex]

CW: mention of substance abuse, discussion of death

My fiction brain isn't doing so hot right now, so I wrote a casual (and untitled) essay instead about jazz, poetry, and professional wrestling (LOL). Thank you @mobiblackout for the conversation this afternoon that inspired me to try and write this down in the first place. <3

When it comes to jazz, I'm mainly a clarinet enjoyer (Buddy DeFranco my beloved). Today, though—totally on a whim—I put on some Bill Evans.

In truth, I don't know much about the guy, save for three things: the first is that he's an incredibly influential jazz pianist. The second is that, for most of his life, he abused heroin. The third…

If you look on his Wikipedia page, there's a section in the biography labeled “After LaFaro’s death”. The very sparse first paragraph reads:

Scott LaFaro being the bassist (double bass, not bass guitar) of the original lineup of the Bill Evans Trio, alongside Evans and the drummer Paul Motian. Going to his Wikipedia page, you get (besides a note that his brief career and life still left him one of the most important jazz bassists ever) a little more about his death and its aftermath:

That second to the last sentence in particular intrigued me—not the least because it had no citation. That, plus the fact it didn't seem that many people visited his page often, meant it was fertile ground for someone to freely make stuff up. I mean, doesn't it sound like the kind of reaction to a death a novel or a biopic would have? Too poignant a tribute, too picturesque a portrait of grief, to be real: an artist willingly (“obsessively”, even) reliving a memory over and over.

Fortunately for my curiosity, and unfortunately for my world-weary mid 20s skepticism, the third to the last line had a source. Not just any random source, either, but an article published in The New Yorker about “jazz's perfect afternoon”: June 25, 1961, when the Bill Evans Trio played (and were recorded live at) the Village Vanguard club, ten days before Scott LaFaro’s fatal car accident. It looked like an interesting article, so I searched up “bill evans I loves you porgy” on YouTube, ended up finding the very version recorded over 60 years ago, and got to reading.

Ah, I thought after seeing that last paragraph, while an audience of probably mostly dead people applauded three definitely dead men. So it wasn't made up. In fact, Wikipedia did what it did almost as well as outright lying on more obscure pages: kind of understating what actually happened.

I replayed the video—it’s a great track—and began to think. ~~~

There's that line from WandaVision that made people go insane, right? “What is grief but love enduring”? A memorable quote, for sure, if (apparently) a contentious one; my older sister told me that no less than Richard Silkin weighed in on X-open parenthesis-formerly-Twitter-close parenthesis.

Being the fencesitter I am, I'm unsure what judgment to pass. On one hand, I'm usually a little wary of any blanket statements regarding experiences as diverse and personal as love or grief. On the other, the sheer number of people it resonated with is no joke; I'm not here to condemn what consoles in hard times.

And, if I had a third hand and a belly in any color but yellow, maybe I'd say grief is (for some) just the first step. Okay, so it's a feeling you're, well, feeling. Does it truly endure if it stays inside you, a mortal being, bottled up? Is it truly love if it isn't expressed—in a smile, in a word, in something you create—to a recipient beyond yourself?

~~~

I'm that person who, when discovering something new that interests me, wants to tell others and ask their thoughts about it immediately. With the internet (and making online friends who are either night owls or in closer timezones), that can be done more easily than ever—which is why I ended up outright changing the entire topic of conversation with a “lucky” friend from pro wrestling to jazz (with permission!)

Rumi/Shams coded, they told me; what, I thought, like the poet? I'd heard of him, of course, read a few translated verses here and there and liked them well enough, but I knew little about the context of his work, even less about his actual life.

My mind was nonetheless still firmly in knowledge sponge mode, and so I asked my friend to explain. Helpfully, they sent me the pertinent sections of both Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī and Shams-i Tabrīzī’s Wikipedia pages:

I could see why these two had been brought to my friend's mind after I'd told them about Evans and LaFaro: another relationship that inspired great creativity; another abrupt, devastating disappearance; another piece of art in memoriam. While Bill Evans almost always played I Loves You Porgy with no accompaniment from the accident onwards, however, a call with no response, Rumi added to the world where there once was nothing:

A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

I am a sculptor, a molder of form. In every moment I shape an idol. But then, in front of you, I melt them down I can rouse a hundred forms and fill them with spirit, but when I look into your face, I want to throw them in the fire. My souls spills into yours and is blended. Because my soul has absorbed your fragrance, I cherish it. Every drop of blood I spill informs the earth, I merge with my Beloved when I participate in love. In this house of mud and water, my heart has fallen to ruins. Enter this house, my Love, or let me leave.

When poetry hits, it really hits; knowing a little more context than I did now, I got actual goosebumps. And, after the initial emotional reaction, with the Bill Evans Trio still playing in the background, I got to thinking again.

This reminds me of a third thing, I told my friend.

~~~ To express your love is all well and good—let the people you care about know you care about them. But what if whatever, or whoever, you're expressing that love to is a hundred percent gone?

I don't necessarily mean death, but I don't mean people in the process of phasing out of your life, either. The slow decline hurts like a bitch, too, but that's not what I want to talk about here. I'm talking a sudden, violent vacating of a space in your life, once-reserved and, from this point until your last breath, never occupied in quite the same way again. In other words: an unexpected and permanent absence.

And when faced with that absence, in that tear in your world, what do you do? Ignore it? Paper over it? Neither will give you the response desired, or indeed a response. Try and fill that hole in exactly, like there was never a hole at all? As Fiona Apple sang, “nobody can replace anybody else”—and no thing can, either.

But, if that's the case, where does the love go?

~~~

Do you know who Plum Mariko is? I asked my friend.

Nope.

A joshi wrestler active in the 90s. Inventor of the stretch plum submission (used now by one Eddie Kingston). She died in the ring from a back bump.

Damn… they replied.

The fatal move was a Liger bomb given by Mayumi Ozaki. She'd done it a million times, and Plum knew how to take it, but this was the final straw after a bunch of wear and tear. 

They held a memorial show, I continued. The main event was Cuty Suzuki and Dynamite Kansai (two big names) versus Ozaki and…Plum Mariko. She, or rather her picture, gets an entrance, her parents are at ringside with another photo, all that.

Then the match begins. It is in essence, of course, a handicap match: Ozaki getting beat up for minutes in front of a mostly-quiet crowd, building up heat that never resolves for a partner who can't tag in. After Ozaki gets pinned and the roster gets in for the ten bell salute, everyone's stone-faced or crying. And for years, at least (I don't know if they still run it now) Ozaki’s promotion did a Plum Mariko-branded memorial show.

I don't know what to say, my friend told me after a few moments. If something similar happens right now…the other person would be crushed for life.

Yeah, I said. In my browser, the audience of the Village Vanguard clap one final time. I pray it never does. ~~~ Questions, questions—and no answers. No universal ones, anyway. As much as I'd love to say Art is love, or grief, or any other emotion immortalized, I don't think I can with a straight face. Sometimes people just want to make things. Sometimes things that are made, regardless of depth of emotion or intent, are forgotten. And is professional wrestling even art?—

So, instead of either deflecting with more questions or being brave enough to give a straight answer, here is an observation:

These are three stories about three different people from three different fields, cultures, and time periods, but they're still connected, both by great loss and getting something like closure from creative expression. Whether memorial shows, or leaving space for a killer baseline, or breaking out into spontaneous verse and song; Art may not have all the answers, but it can help. 

…or maybe it's not about what is expressed, specifically. Maybe it's simply the fact that the act of creating something is what was shared between them. Individual pieces or even whole bodies of work may fade into obscurity—but as long as jazz, or poetry, or professional wrestling, or your field, exists as a whole? So can the love you both channeled and you can still channel into it, even if the only person to recognize it is you. 

It's in Bill Evans saying fondly, five years after LaFaro’s death, that he played like “everything was bubbling over”. It's in Mayumi Ozaki, after the match, looking at Plum's ring gear and saying “if I see her costume, not before long I feel that I have to keep on persevering”. And it's in what Rumi said upon going back to Damascus and not finding Shams there:

Why should I seek? I am the same as He. His essence speaks through me. I have been looking for myself!

#mel's writing tag #bill evans #scott lafaro #rumi #shams tabrizi #plum mariko #mayumi ozaki #I don't even know man LOL they all kind of connect in my head...

[nox-artemis]

Kentaro Miura

It took me awhile to get my thoughts in order. Honestly, as well intentioned as they are, a constant stream of fan tributes on Twitter and Tumblr more-or-less telling me how to process “The End” of Berserk with Miura’s death didn’t do a lot to console me, so I had to take some huge steps away from social media and only conversed my feelings with my other close Berserk fan-friends.

It was very surreal waking up yesterday morning to a friend messaging me simply saying, “did you hear the news?” When shit like that happens, I go onto my Google stories app and scroll through. I didn’t find anything really worth getting too upset over (maybe a bit sad that Queen Elizabeth II’s doggo died?) so it hit me to check my Twitter feed instead.

And that’s when I saw it.

We all know death is inevitable, and life is pretty much spent prolonging the point to that inevitability as well as preparing ourselves for when it happens to us or someone close to us. Being part of the Berserk fandom was the only time we all collectively had this on our mind not only for someone else but for someone we never met or really knew that much about. We only knew Miura through his magnum opus – and that was good enough for us. And no matter how much we discussed the worst-case scenario – pondering how the story would continue and how WE would continue – it still wasn’t enough to prepare us for this amount of shock. Hearing Miura had died and that the Berserk we know and love under his direct supervision is over truly felt like losing a long-lost friend.

It wasn’t just that the Berserk we know of is “over”, but that Miura didn’t have to die. He was only 54: not a young age, but not an old age either, especially by today’s standards. He could have seen the end to his magnum opus the way he envisioned it, yet he died of something so avoidable but is only brought about by a great deal of stress (from what I’ve read). It was always a morbid open rumor that so many of Miura’s infamous hiatuses were actually mental and/or physical health breaks, so the older or more conscious of us fans, while always eager and anxious for a new chapter, learned to not take them so personally. Miura was a spellbinding artist and storyteller, but he was also a human with his own life and conflicts that he was entitled to address at his own pace. This isn’t meant to blame anyone (at the very least, maybe to address some societal/industry issues), but it’s troubling enough to remind everyone – as the story of Berserk has demonstrated – that you need to take care of yourself physically and mentally, and while everyone struggles in life, you don’t have to struggle alone.

I always despised this weird cult of youth that insinuates that life isn’t worth pursuing once you hit your mid-thirties, and how some people so engulfed in their youth insist that they wouldn’t mind dying by the age of 50 or 60. It’s a shame when people live by that because there’s so much to live for beyond your youth – as I’ve learned, I only started buckling down when I transitioned into my thirties. Miura could have had a longer life ahead of him, going beyond Berserk and into his other endeavors, professional and personal, but that will unfortunately never happen now.

Everyone knows I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on Berserk. Most of you found out about me through my blogging several years ago, and I’m pretty proud that I was never the sort of fan that groveled at Miura’s feet and treated Berserk as some untouchable holy book: there were things I disliked about Berserk and things that disappointed me about Miura’s writing, but there were SO MANY MORE THINGS that I loved about Berserk and was proud of Miura for, and I wished him to continue his advancement in narrative growth. He did so and we watched it happened.

And, by meeting so many friends and acquaintances through the fandom, we saw a lot in ourselves change too. It’s surreal how we always joked that it would be one of us fans who would die before Berserk ended or the worst-case scenario of Miura dying; maybe some of us secretly preferred for that happen. But when we weren’t waiting around for another chapter… look at how much we’ve done with our lives! We graduated high school, undergrad, grad school, started and advanced our careers, traveled the world, got together, popped out a kid or two!... And while we experienced a lot of downfalls and tragedies that coincide, can you believe how much we have accomplished together?

We were all personally inspired, motivated, persuaded by Berserk in different ways: a lot of us were inspired for the better and admittedly, some for the not-as-good (if spending countless hours on Tumblr has taught me, there were definitely some toxic fan takeaways that had to be confronted). I’m not going to go to the point of saying that I now live my life by Berserk’s philosophy to a T or live as a reflection of certain characters (because I’m pretty sure that Miura was trying to tell us to NOT live your life like some particular characters) but it certainly helped to brings some aspects of life and existence into perspective, through the lenses of so many characters. Berserk also inspired me to write more, an already favorite pastime of mine, and how I should go about writing and planning a story, taking cues from Berserk on how to and how NOT to write and approach things in my own way, which I think is for the best in the long run. I can only dream that I’ll be published someday – which doesn’t have to be a pipe dream because it’s still much more possible than impossible. And so many other have done the same, creating our own stories and works.

And OF COURSE Berserk inspired me to be a little bit badass from time to time in moments of frivolity and seriousness – but it reminds us all that being badass and being a kinder person who tries to become the best version of themselves are not mutually exclusive. We definitely need more of that in today’s world.

We all made our own little bonfires of dreams happen, and because of Berserk existing, there will be a lot more beginnings than endings, and I don’t see a lot of bonfires being extinguished anytime soon. Miura poured his heart and soul into Berserk and its characters, and while he has passed on, his characters and lessons will live on through us and everything we create and how we live our lives (hopefully for the better).

I was happy to share all of my thoughts with you all – and I’ll continue to do so, since the mythos of Berserk has been a major backdrop of my creative mind for over fifteen years now and there is still so much to dissect and speculate. Personally, I don’t see Berserk ending just yet, if only because I’d be surprised that Miura or his publisher didn’t have some Operation London Bridge type plan in place in the event that this happened (Berserk is, after all, a major title that most likely brings Young Animal a lot of revenue). Again, I never treated Miura or Berserk as divine untouchables, so if there are plans in place to continue Berserk without Miura (BUT with his permission) or just on how to wrap up the story to give it a fulfilling conclusion, I personally would be okay with it (as a friend of mine put it, it’d be more of a tribute than an imitation). Going beyond our lifetimes, works will continue to be interpreted and reinterpreted as they have since time immemorial; perhaps Berserk will reach that point someday.

Honestly, and many have thought so too, Berserk was also meant to be cosmic level in both scale and concept. The plot is so grand and Byzantine that, even under Miura’s direct supervision, I always had a hard time envisioning how a story of this scale would conclude. As much as we love to hate him, a final showdown between Guts and Griffith seems too simple, too “good vs. evil”-esque for Berserk. Maybe having a low-key, vague but optimistic and bittersweet wrap up is what is best for Guts, Casca, and their new-found family. But that’s just another one of my fan speculations.

Regardless or what is to become of Berserk now, I think it’s safe to give adulations. We all came across Berserk at different times in our lives and stuck with the story for different reasons. For some of us, it was just another series that our friend from the campus anime club recommended to us; for others, we were drawn in from a morbid curiosity of its dark notoriety in anime circles. A few of us read for the gratuitous violence and the clout (because we all know you’re so deep and hardcore [/sar]), but a lot more of us read for the journey and the characters that we became a part of. The heaviness of Berserk made us confront a lot of trauma and even relive our own. For some of us, understandably, it was not a good idea to dive deeper (and maybe somethings could have been handled better); for the rest of us, it helped us cope, if not entirely through the story itself, than through the support network we made for ourselves in this fandom and its many realms (some realms, I argue, are more caring and nurturing than others).

From time to time, I always wonder if I would ever “grow out” of Berserk. There were indeed several times I took a step away from fandom and have tried to reduce my exposure to the story - but I always came back in some way, because the essence of Berserk has never left me and never will. Humorously I envisioned myself actually forgetting about Berserk for several decades, decades in which I work at my career, raise my family, mourn my elders, but continue living my life, only to go on the future internet in my mid-50s to find out… Miura is STILL working on that ending, sitting at his desk in the same pose as that famous monochrome capture of him, only he’s grayed and wrinkled, like the great Miyazaki.

The possibility of that future is over, but there are so many others.

#berserk #berserk stuff #kentaro miura #rip kentaro miura

[shihalyfie]

Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative

This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).

One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.

Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.

Nokia’s background and personality

If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.

A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.

Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.

While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.

Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”

Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.

Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.

With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.

Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:

Agumon: Umm, who are you? Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.

Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.

Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.

In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).

Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.

(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)

In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.

Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:

Agumon: Um... who are you? Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.

In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.

Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.

And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.

#digimon #digimon story cyber sleuth #shiramine nokia #nokia shiramine #shihameta

[venusinwalls]

LT2 THEORY: about walls era, meaning of 369 changes in the smiley face, inspiration and references to "2001: a space Odyssey" all are things that went unnoticed, and all with quite a bit of spoilers;

I am going to explain what the film is and why Louis and Charlie were very inspired by it as they said and it serves a lot to understand the changes in everything else

- The first thing is to see the references and for that it is important to return to "walls video" and what perhaps seemed insignificant to us but has many parallels what we see today, so here the spoilers begin. The film addresses topics such as human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence and extraterrestrial life, it is characterized by the surreal and psychedelic as well as being a precursor in its branch and which has a lot of backgrounds with a philosophical touch something iconic for the time.

— escene one: "The dawn of man": the film begins in the desert where a group of animals begin the process of evolution and adaptation when they find a Euler brick or orthohedral block (monolith) that leads to portals and ok but it is quite significant not?

— Escene 2 : rumors of an epidemic make a group of scientists meet and embark on a journey under the surface of the Moon, to 5 astronauts where they find another "monolith" identical to the 1st, the problem here is that it is a suicide mission and none survive match two.

I can't believe how Louis made that reference and we didn't see it ok let's continue, the cause of death of the 5 are the sounds emitted by the monolith and their non-alignment with the elements and here there are references to Nietzsche and the "super man "

— Escene 3: "Mission to Jupiter" where there are 6 crew members: 3 in hibernation 1 artificial intelligence machine and 2 the protagonists: David and Frank and here comes the 3 parallelism of Louis on the dance floor with the movie ship.

In this new mission, both protagonists are not informed about what they are going to and their life on the ship is monotonous, even between the two they become friends and from loneliness they begin to talk with the artificial machine (HAL) all right until they both suspect that something bad is going to happen.

david and frank decide to talk secretly about HAL (the machine) which, in addition to being an artificial machine, fulfills the function of panopticon and well ... This is the crucial part and the link to the whole story because here it begins a before and after in the movie and oh coincidence panoptic parallelism 👁️

HAL always controls them although they think that it is only a machine as I said, it is a panopticon (it sees everything) the machine upon learning of the secret of both decides to take revenge and in the most cruel way, what it does is decompose the machine with connection to the land what generates the pilots have to go to the outside. Frank is the one who offers himself and leaves David in charge of the arrangement inside and that is when Hal (the machine) kills Frank and even though David tries to rescue him it is too late and not only HAL killed Frank but the other 3 hibernating crew.

What leaves David alone on the ship and instead of crying what he seeks is revenge and this is where HAL continues to torment him to the point of distorting the memories in his mind (which is a wink to this part of the walls mv).

From the center of the ship while the machine looks for mercy and asks him to think who the real enemy is, David still disconnects him but hal leaves a video where one of the scientists of the 1st suicide mission is the same one who sent him to this to investigate the "monolith".

— Escene 4: "Júpiter and beyond infinity": with that ending comes the last chapter of the movie where, months later, David arrives at Jupiter finding the "monolith" that, as he approaches, takes the appearance of a door that opens more psychedelic spaces than Louis and Charlie used in "The live london".

The psychedelic scenario changes and everything continues to be seen from the point of the panoptic eye where David is now in mirrors that appear copies and copies of David younger to older and the monolith again in its older version (wink wink or coincidence to coacoac) You know 🌝

The ending of the movie is super complex, like the movie itself, because there are many references, but suddenly, David takes the form / copy of a fetus inside a transparent sphere, then floating in outer space above the Earth, which implies evolution of your copies.

How do you know coacoac is difficult to pigeonhole into "walls album" because in turn it seems that it belongs but no, for me it represents the transition between the old and the new Louis. Coacoac is an autobiographical description of his life and his experiences the power that others can identify with him.

Because if coacoac is the walls transition in the desert, it represents his life before becoming an artist, that is why he chose this film and his inspiration in oasis and within the video he enters other dimensions through the gates of the monolith that, as in the film, are different versions Of his past.

Then he goes to his stage in 1D what is related to the part of the moon in the movie and how all that ended, then the part of David and Frank is his solo era, all the obstacles and losses he had and how just like David did not he gave up and that's where coacoac enters the transition to lt2

Because for me the panopticon represents all those entanglements that he had / has with his record company, that is why now he is even using them in the merch and photos since the panoptics are always symbols of a power that it is difficult to finish it and expose it also Louis has an incredible mind and he is a fan of references and that everything always has a framework like all the videos on walls that do not have an easy order to say because he broke with that and goes from back to front because they are also different spheres and it depends on how you look at it. interpretation, so...

The importance of the film lies in the power to reinvent itself and as we constantly live experiences that seem from other worlds, that is why the smiley face has 6 transitions that are not actually erasing it, it is rebuilding it as it did with its mv and its nods to the movie.

to finish this analysis I put more references first from the beginning of walls louis use merch of the film and its director and in his merch the relationship to 369 with the film and if you look at the number of protagonists are always 3, 6 and 9 in addition to the kinetic art and the various monoliths in the 369 merch:

All this theory is available in Spanish on my Twitter profile @/wallshypersonic.

#louis tomlinson #walls #louist91 #solo louis #kill my mind #we made it #defenceless #habit #louis tommo #louis tomlinson theories #louis edit #perfect now #too young #walls mv #walls appreciation #walls album #louis walls #1direction #1d louis #only the brave #fearless #dlibyh #louis william tomlinson #louis tomlison icons #369 #smiley face #lt2 is coming #lt2 #lt2andsomesunshine

[lochsides]

Yellow Metal - cathartic Review

Here’s something I did not expect to be reviewing this week but when Zayn drops a 24 minute rap track, you fall in line. I had to listen to it a couple times through before I could even begin to make sense of my thoughts because my brain sort of malfunctioned. I have never been prouder to be a Zayn fan. He’s such a nuanced songwriter and there is so much to unpack here.

I think this is the most unfiltered version of Zayn that we have ever been exposed to (and possibly will ever be). I am grateful that he said his piece in this because it needed to be said. As a brown woman, I felt so seen by this and I cannot explain what that means to me. Thank you Z, for your unvarnished truth in addressing racism and various forms of discrimination.

I’m doing a short lyrical analysis below the cut, but the TLDR is that this is a fantastic piece of art that deserves to be heard.

I wish he had released this as an EP because that would be easier to review than a single 24 minute song, structurally speaking. So instead, I have picked out some key lyrics, going from top to bottom, that really spoke to me and decided to study the song that way. His lyricism is hard-hitting in this track. It is beyond anything he has ever released before.

“The planet bleeds, the damaged trees. It’s never leaving until we ascend so fuck the fence.” — I have not seen this lyric being talked about in the fandom, because the lyrics that follow this steal the show, rightly so, but I wanted to give this line a moment because it’s important too. To me, this lyric speaks to where Zayn is at with his relationship with the physical world. He’s out on the farm (about which he even goes to say “tell you what I like, farm life and the tractor”) and I believe he’s happy in his space and he feels connected to nature (also see River Road). So it is a poignant and slightly jaded, but valid perspective that he shares on climate change. It’s never leaving until we ascend. The damage human beings have done to the planet won’t be undone until there are no humans left to do damage. It’s a single sentence that says so much about the depth of the climate crisis. I’m doing my PhD on urban air quality so this is something I care really deeply about and I resonated with.

“And until they stop killing colour, it’s fuck the feds.” — Yeah, agreed Zayn. The systemic racism that he calls out here is echoed throughout the song, in equal parts anger and boldness. I love that he isn’t glossing over it with metaphors, which he could easily do and it would be beautiful in a totally different way, but this makes it harder for racists to overlook. There is so much power in calling it like it is.

“Never lose me to fentanyl, scared when I take a Benadryl, keeping it green in general.” — It frustrates me to no end to see Zayn painted as this drug-addicted lazy musician that doesn’t care about his work, because we know how untrue that is. This narrative is tired and simply boring too, and I won’t get into the racist connotations of it when you consider it against his white colleagues who smoke as much as him but that isn’t one of their defining traits in the media.

“I’m racking up excuses while I’m slacking off on work … it was hard work that got me heard” �� I love the juxtaposition in this verse. The public/media perception on his career is that Zayn doesn’t put in effort or that he doesn’t want it. This obviously stems from his leaving the band. It goes back to what I was saying before about narrative, when in reality, as Zayn has said on various occasions, he fights to make his own choices. And that doesn’t have to look the way everyone else expects it to (“I beg you, don’t include me. I might write it on my shirt”), he has his own struggles that have helped forge his path, but it is his path that he paved, himself. He works hard to be heard. He has to. It reminds me of something my parents used to tell me when I was younger about being immigrants: you have to work 10 times harder for the same opportunities just because of the colour of your skin or your name on the cv. It’s a harsh truth to grow up with but it was my reality, as it is for most POC.

“This life doesn’t give you no armour, a lot of myself can harm you. I swear on what’s good, that I’m here ‘til they take me. I pray that I’m wrinkled, at least over 80…” — There is something about the simplicity of these lyrics are the messaging that I love. He isn’t trying too hard to sound poetic but he still manages it perfectly.

“All I've been achieving, clocking miles in this region, moving like a legion. Promise that I made to myself, an allegiance. Do you still believe I’m a fool for ever leaving? Staring at the ceiling, can never put a cap on achieving. I’m just here for the rap, then I’m leaving. // I’ve had about enough of being my own enemy. It’s time I grew up, a long way from 17. Always went against the grain, struggles in my life. Got some things to say when I stand up on the mike.” — This is the only 1D-related lyric I’ll make reference to because this song is about so much more than that. That said though, we cannot overlook Zayn’s experiences in the band because that is part of his story. The tongue-in-cheek of “I’m just here for the rap, then I’m leaving” is hilarious to me. The line about not wanting to be his own enemy anymore and growing up from 17 reminds me of that quote Taylor (Swift) mentioned in Miss Americana about celebrities getting stuck at the age they got famous. I think this verse is similar to that. None of them ever wanted to be in the band and I don’t care what anyone says, Zayn leaving and proving success outside the band gave the rest of them the courage to follow their own solo careers. Sure there was drama surrounding the split but he did it for himself, to tell his stories the way he is now. Whatever else you have to say about him, you cannot deny his authenticity.

“I ain’t dropping this for fame, I need this time, like therapy, it’s just to keep me sane.” — I think this line tells us 2 things, the first being that this song was not leaked. Z knew what he was doing and his twitter likes tell us as much. He didn’t release it for any sort of attention, otherwise it would be widely available on streaming platforms and for purchase. Which leads to my second point, he released this song to get everything he talks about on the track off his chest. Its referenced in other lyrics too, like “now you see where I come from, the world don’t.” This was for whoever cared to listen, not the world. It’s inaccessible for a reason. I love that he threw those lyrics in. It makes the song feel more like a private conversation or listening to a friend rant. It creates a different form of intimacy between himself and his fans.

“Lessons that I’ve learned, I’ve tried teaching to myself. What I’ve learnt from certain people is that they’re better than myself. So I surround myself with real ones, and you feel the plastic melt.” — This one is for anyone that buys into conspiracy theories surrounding Zayn’s personal life. He surrounds himself with real people, real friendships, real connections. I have never bought into the bullshit that he has zero autonomy over his personal life. I love the use of plastic melting as a metaphor for ridding his life of fakeness.

“Feeling trapped. This industry is a cage.” — Zayn is obviously not the first person to say it. Many artists talk about how suffocating the industry is ( which he further comments on in the sung portion: “I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be, a part of this, no, I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be, a part of this”). Fame is such a wild and unnatural concept and the exploitation and politics of the music industry only feed further into it. The industry being a cage makes me think of zoos and how celebrities are animals on display, when they should be free in the wild. I also really like the musical interlude following this part.

“Nobody’s speaking the truth, I’m offended by the State. Look at the state of the news, I’ve decided the argument, reciting my views.” — Zayn toes the line between keeping to himself and speaking out on important issues, sometimes not very well. I am his biggest cheerleader, but I’m not up his ass. There have been many occasions where he could’ve done better. But I cannot fault him for being offended by the State because same, Z, same. I love that he took this song as an opportunity to real speak out, no punches pulled.

“See I’ve been facing the racists from back when I were a kiddie. Born up in 93’. Living in Bradford City, they kicked me out of the school. Said they had a problem with me hitting the kids that would call me p***, still sit in the classroom, chilling. I’m angry now that I’m older cause I see they treat us different. Got me thinking I’m the problem ‘cause they never dealt with these issues.” — See what I meant about no punches pulled. He said that! He said it like that too. There is so much in this verse that I relate to, it hits a little too deep. I grew up as a brown in predominantly white communities where the colour of my skin was the reason I was outcasted. We know when that’s happening, clear as day. The lyric “got me thinking that I’m the problem cause they never dealt with these issues” says it all. I have many racial traumas that I’m dealing with as an adult because the adults around me when I was a child didn’t deal with racism in the classroom. They do treat us different!

“20 years later, I’m still in the same boat. Tryna treat me like my grandpa, say I came up off the boat. Came to tell you what I stand for. Man I think you’re shit, a joke. How can I be civil when they got me by the throat? // Pushing my feelings down, you ain’t got it like them. ‘Boy your skin is so light.’ Ok motherfucker, take my name up on a flight. Try to convince immigration that your bloodline’s half white.” — Zayn talking his shit is my new favourite art form. How can I be civil when they got me by the throat? Something that I will always be enraged by is that POC are expected to de-escalate situations of racism. We have to push our feelings down, as Zayn says in the verse, because the institution is against us. All of the institutions are against us. The fact that he takes it a step farther to say that his name makes him a target for racism, even though he is half-white just nails his point home. Also, can we please quit the whole ‘Zayn is white-passing’ bullshit. He alludes to it again later in the song (“asian in my face, but still my race you can’t define”). Its not a compliment to erase someone identity in favour of white-washing them.

“My name ain’t on the list unless they label it ethnic.” — Oh, the amount of times we have heard that age old (v. racist) saying ‘{celebrity of colour} is the new [insert white celebrity here]’ as if POC aren’t allowed to succeed in their own right. It is wild to me that Zayn has to deal with this given his level of success.

“Start to understand why they think that I’m threatening. I move in certain ways, couldn’t slow me with ketamine.” — There is a subtle nod to racism (and Islamaphobia) in this line, because of course the brown man is a threat, but I like the way Z turns it around. I also like the rhyme scheme.

“Raised on the benefit for whose benefit? They’ll never learn shit, man, if the shoe fits.” — Okay I might be reaching here, but this is just my interpretation. We all know the benefit system in the UK sucks. Being raised on benefit implies a lack of money growing up, but the benefits aren’t really all that beneficial to the families that rely upon them.

“Dealing with the hurt, they should know cause they don’t deserve it, it hit deep cause I hit the nerve.” — Well, okay then, just call me out. It’s fine. I seriously feel like he’s talking to me directly with this line. I imagine a lot of us do. Its one of those lyrics that are a bit too honest but that why we love them.

“Cathartic, I’m an artist. Trying to put my heart in” // “Freedom fighter, Yellow Metal is my name.” — So do we have an alternate persona for Zayn now? Alright, I’m down. I think these two lines are tied together, because both are mentioned in the song title. (I think of the song as cathartic, by Yellow Metal, aka Zayn, or Yellow Metal as the name of the EP if this was officially released). The lyrics that accompany both title lyrics, along with the subject matter of the song as a whole, suggest that his heart is in standing up against injustices. I said it earlier, this is the most unvarnished version of Z that we have ever been exposed to. Almost like the complete picture to the puzzle pieces we’ve been putting together over the years.

“They’re tryna kill us with disease.” — Why did this line scream out ‘COVID-19 outbreaks in developing countries’ to me? Again, I might be reaching, but there is a disparity between how COVID is treated amongst minorities, along with many other diseases, and not to mention rich, primarily white countries hoarding vaccine supplies while places like India (and my beautiful Bangladesh and I’m sure Pakistan too) suffer needlessly.

“Started something sick and on my mind is what’s next. Just became a dad so now I’m taking all the cheques. Better know I’m staying and paying like it’s debt. Imma get it done, if it’s taking all my breath, sweat, and down I ain’t messing around ’til I’m the best.” — I think this lyric shows off Zayn’s sentimental side more than it does his ambitious side, because we know he’s in this for the long haul. Others may doubt that but his fans never have. But hearing him talk openly about being a father on a song is something else. It’s like Khai added this whole other layer of meaning and purpose to his life and it’s beautiful to watch. I’ve been here since the X-Factor auditions guys!! It makes me so emotional to witness him like this.

“Aint many of me around, p***, I’m just different. Certain stages to this level aint here because fame is to the devil, fuck a label, imma do this from the ghetto.” — God, we’ve been waiting for a fuck the label moment in this house, haven’t we? I won’t get into my theories on his label or his team, but none of us deny the fact that they should be doing more for him than they are. He has the potential to be the biggest thing with the right team and promo because he has a built-in fan base that would go the mile for him. Obviously, there’s also his aversion to promo to contend with and that’s his decision. Even without it, he could shatter every ceiling. Another thing I want to mention about this verse is the nod to the complete lack of South Asian representation in contemporary Western media.

“Don’t know what’s worse: the way that you live your life or the way that you write a verse.” — I’m just putting this in here because it made giggle. Also going to take this space to say how much I love his energy in this song. He knows he’s the shit, as he should!

“Can’t be louder … so free Gaza on my banner.” // “They’re hating on Palestine ways.” — I love that Zayn has always supported this movement, years ago, before being ‘woke’ was a thing. But now, he has a daughter that has Palestinian heritage and I’m sure that makes this hit that much deeper for him, personally. The apartheid in Palestine is heart-wrenching. It’s so strange to me to watch it happen, because I never thought I would witness something like this happening in 2021, yet here we are.

“Like vipers, I see the sly ones, the snake that’s called Biden, none of them abiding what they might put in writing. We should be used to it by now, say whatever for the vote and then just choose another route. Say they’d never kill another unless that brother’s skin is brown. I’m just telling you the facts, if you can’t take it, the truth naked, to bare bones and my thoughts lately, spitting politics.” — This verse is straight up savage and I am living for it! I find it hilarious that he called Biden a snake. This verse addresses the truth about politics, that even electing a left-wing leader doesn’t fix the system.

“I’m Tony Stark, still embarking on a dream” // “Gone green like Bruce Banner” // “He taught me like Ra’s Al Ghul. Felt like living in Gotham, the people were rotten.” — And to tie it all off, I wanted to take a goofy moment to mention all the superhero lyrics Z added in this song, really showing his personality because I’m such a nerd when it comes to this stuff and it makes me wish that we were friends so I could annoy him to death about it.

#reviews #zayn #yellow metal #cathartic #zayn malik

[shreddedleopard]

Twelve-million more reasons Historia and Levi are part of the Endgame. With Pictures.

You can read the first post I made on this here:

10 reasons it would make narrative sense for Levi and Historia’s character arcs to end together.

(This is the mega-evolved version.)

Okay, I’m going to put this out there now, and before you judge me, please just read the posts. You don’t have to agree. This is just an idea. But it makes a stupid amount of sense, at least to me. So here's your fair warning (and now I'm being bold): If you don’t want to potentially be spoiled, Do Not Read On.

Here’s the Theory:

Historia Reiss will give birth to a half-Ackerman child, and together with Levi, from the ashes and ruins of the world Eren destroyed, they will welcome the dawn of a new age for humanity, where Ymir’s curse and the power of the Titans is extinct.

I know. I sound like some crazy, Rivahisu nut. Granted, I am, but I’m not mad enough to make a claim like this without a shit-ton of evidence, because it’s such a damn twist it feels like it can’t be true. But just humour me.

Here’s the theory, then we’ll look at why it makes sense and how it might have been foreshadowed. Please note: I have less clue how this will tie in to Eremika endgame, so I haven’t mentioned this as much, but obviously that will be the other very important side of this coin.

10 months ago (In Japan, full term pregnancy is counted as 10 months), at the banquet celebrating completion of the new railroad, Levi and Historia, having had 3 and a bit years to bond over their shared experiences and become close, may have gotten carried away together and shared one night of being a bit more than friends. She’s well into her 18th year at this point, just to clear that up. This resulted in Historia getting pregnant. Okay just stay with me; I know. I know. I sound crazy. But hear me out. So this pregnancy, contrary to the belief of the MPs and rest of the damn world, was the complete opposite of planned. Historia tells Levi, and Levi immediately panics. Because, to steal Kenny’s famous line, Levi thinks to himself ‘I can’t be some kid’s dad.’

 Levi does what he always does best, and shuts down into business mode, telling Historia she will need to cover it up somehow. Historia does as he asks, probably reluctantly, because she really has developed very deep feelings for him during the timeskip, and finds some farm hand to take the blame, likely saying she made a silly mistake with some random and the father doesn’t want anything to do with the child, and so she needs a father for the child not to be illegitimate. Which is her worst nightmare, because of course, that’s what she was. Levi watches the exchange hidden in that famous hood, feeling very conflicted, because although he cares about her, he thinks it best if no one knows that it was him that got the Queen pregnant, and of course, he’s duty bound, with a vow to fulfil, so he has no time to be worrying about a family. (Silly Levi!) 

How ironic this conversation would be if this theory were true. Remember, Historia was completely willing to eat Zeke if needed. Instead, she got pregnant, unplanned, nothing to do with any plot or selfish wishes, just the result of a spontaneous act of love by two people who’ve grown to care for one another a lot. ANYWAY.

Because we know Levi actually has a good heart, he feels immensely guilty for all of this; he's just a product of his upbringing and thinks he doesn’t know the first thing about families, so it's better for all involved if he not be. See where this is going? The old cursed history repeating? Making the same mistakes as our parents? Plus, Levi is bound by his duty. He is incredibly important to the military still, and he cannot just abandon this for any of his own selfish wishes. He’s supposed to be the one to vanquish the beast titan. 

Cue ten months of Historia looking hella depressed and hopeless, and Levi being even more of an asshole than usual to everyone, and not really wanting to say too much at all, as well as making some terrible workplace decisions (lol) poor boy be distracted.

Look at his face 😭

Yes Levi. A month. Which means Historia is now due and you’re still stuck with beardy, without a solution and pretty soon no reason for the MPs not to turn the mother of your child into a Titan.

That’s what that face is. I thought he looked a bit weird first time I read these panels 🤔 He didn’t know about the wine. We see that later. Anyway, I keep getting distracted, stop. I’ll come back to this.

But fear not; Levi will have a choice to make. 

So this is where it gets a bit more iffy for me, because I'm not sure how it would work, so this could be a way off, BUT. I believe it will come to light that the combination of Royal and Ackerman genes will somehow cancel out a person’s ability to turn into a titan and connection through paths, thus making them truly ‘free.’

The founding titan has the ability to change Eldian physiology, according to what Zeke learned from professor Xavier. 

EDIT: Okay so here’s where I’ve had to tweak this a bit in light of there latest chapter. So we just had Zeke in PATHS. With none other than our second resident genius, and as proclaimed by Eren, the saviour of humanity: Armin. What do our boys have a conversation about? Reproduction and the importance of the small moments in life - it’s these little moments which matter, regardless of the desire or need to recreate. Interesting how both the leaf and baseball link back to what their ideas of ‘family’ became. If Historia and Levi were to be in the same scenario in PATHS, what would their items be? What truly means family to them both? 

Perhaps Armin and Zeke realise what is needed to lift the curse of the titans - maybe a blueprint for genes which can cancel out the connection to PATHS and the founder? If only they had a child with a new type of Royal-Ackerman DNA which might fit the bill ... 

Here’s Levi’s moment. He, with Historia, has created such a child - completely by accident, because of one of those ‘moments’ that both Armin and Zeke mention - moments that are simply just about enjoying what you have with no sense of how it might relate to anything bigger - a real rarity for both of them, considering their roles and constantly being asked to think about the good of humanity as a whole. What a beautiful irony, that in the moment they chose to be selfish and, to use freckled Ymir’s own words, really live for themselves, they set a chain reaction in motion that would ultimately save humanity. 

Where does this leave Eren and Mikasa? Good question. I believe Eren will die once the curse is removed, because tragically he is the character that has been forced to choose humanity over his own personal relationships. As Isayama has said before, Eren is a victim of the story. Mikasa will be the last thing he sees, hence the original dream at the start of the manga, where he wakes up crying. Something like this. But probably a lot better. Yeah.

Out of the ashes of the old world, a new one will be built, but through Historia’s kindness and love, and Levi’s guilt and understanding of what was sacrificed in the past, society will not repeat the same mistakes. The final panel could be Jean holding his child, perhaps with Mikasa, if she ever manages to get over losing Eren. That would be vague enough so that Isayama was able to show it to us already without spoiling much. Or maybe Jean’s dead and it’s not him at all. I don’t know. 😭

Right. Okay. So now you’re going, sweet story, but uh, there’s no way Levi could be the father. He’s so much older. Isayama wouldn't write a moment of romance like that. Not with him and Historia. YOU’RE JUST CRAZY.

Well this is where it get’s interesting. LET ME SHOW YOU. It’s foreshadowed literally everywhere. Right under our noses.

There is so much symbolism.

Dedicate your heart to what? has been Levi’s question recently. What are they all fighting for? What is he fighting for? How will he give meaning to his dead comrades sacrifices? Is killing Zeke really the extent of it? Is vengeance the true meaning of their sacrifices? Or is it something a lot more hopeful?

The answer is shown to us in the opening credits. And the ending credits. Several times. 

Levi says so himself - he keeps messing fulfilling the vow up - why? Why is he so worried about killing Zeke? 

Eren has the same questions to consider. Which PATH is the right one to take - revenge and violence with the rumbling, or love ... with Mikasa. We are literally shown what their choices will be in two virtually identically designed panels, which I’ll show you. Tragically, Eren’s choice is taken from him. He is a victim to the story - he must chose the path that saves humanity. Levi and Eren have been bound together through the theme of choices, and taking the ones which leave you with the least regrets, throughout this entire manga.

The upcoming anime episodes literally plot out the timeline of Levi and Historia’s changing attitude to one another, and then Historia’s pregnancy, it’s just so cleverly subtle. Isayama even tells us when/ during what event her child was probably conceived by just dropping dates in from other, seemingly unrelated plot lines.

Zeke gives pointed comments to Levi constantly - every other line of his is either a different jab at Levi about Historia’s pregnancy, a veiled question, or a reminder that he’s under the pressure of a 10 month time limit to do something about him, or Historia will have to eat him once she’s given birth. We start to see Levi unravel because of this, and make mistakes over and over.

It’s in official art. It’s in the soundtrack. Its in music videos. There’s interviews from Isayama that, when read in light of these ideas, suddenly take on a whole new meaning.

Isayama even trolls us. He’s laughing in our faces, the madman. Like, gotchu 🤣 suckers. While we’re all on Reddit and Twitter like, ‘Levi’s character has become so stagnated! He’s making such poor choices or not giving anything to the plot at all. All that’s left for him now is to give up and die! Be at peace, your story is over.’ OOF. Or, ‘Historia has just been forgotten! She’s become such a pointless character. Isayama just got bored with her and sidelined her.’

I’m going to try and write stuff up in the rough categories below, but these might change. I’ll link them when I’m done, and then pin this post. I’m a bit of a rambler so heads up - this may take a while 😅

There’s also a ton of people I have to mention who have contributed to this - I didn’t spot it by myself. I’ll tag them in the finished post too.

Historia and Levi’s Miscalculation: A manga tale featuring the Jaeger Bros., Pt. 1

Historia and Levi’s Miscalculation: A manga tale featuring the Jaeger Bros., Pt. 2

Historia and Levi’s Miscalculation: A manga tale featuring the Jaeger Bros., Pt. 3

Ackerman-Royal Bloodline and Levi’s Choice Pt. 1

Levi’s Choice Pt. 2

Suns, Moons and Songs

Akatsuki No Requiem - Right theory, Wrong guy

The Farmer and The Cattle Farming Goddess, or WHAT’S IN A NAME.

Mistakes of our parents and breaking the cycle

Memories from the future & Levi’s Guilt

Watch this space. And hold on to your pants. If I’m right, I’m getting very drunk.

#shingeki no kyojin spoilers #shingeki no kyojin manga theory #historia pregnancy #snk #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #aot #levi ackerman #historia reiss #rivahisu

[kenkamishiro]

Jack Jeanne Playthrough Part 1 (Prologue)

I started a Jack Jeanne playthrough a few days ago on Twitter, but I’ll also post here since Twitter is terrible about archiving. I plan on summarizing the entire demo (which is basically up to the end of the 1st performance), and wooing all of the main cast (lol) for all of Ishida’s stills.

Thanks and enjoy!

Fun fact, the background on the title screen changes depending if it's day or night.

The first screenshot of the game I posted has the night version, and it pans out over the entire city of Tamazaka.

Young Tachibana Kisa and Yonaga Souichirou are playing make believe with Kisa's older brother, Tsuki (Kisa calls him Tsuki-nii). Kisa and Yonaga (Sou-chan) Kisa and Yonaga are siblings fighting against Tsuki the Moon King to save their father who's been turned into stone by him.

Tsuki boasts he's gonna use their father to decorate his palace, and he sprinkles moondust on Kisa and Yonaga to turn them into stone too.

Tsuki: Hahahahahaha! ......okay, that's enough for today.

(Tsuki's totally gonna be the big bad in JJ, I can already tell)

Tsuki stops since the sun is already setting to the kids' dismay. Kisa wishes there was a school where she could spend the entire day singing, acting and performing on stage instead of doing mundane schoolwork. And be able to attend it with Yonaga and Tsuki.

Flash forward a few years, Kisa is watching Tsuki perform at Univeil Revue Academy (not Univers, I checked the JJ site), from the Quartz class. He's got lots of fans, called the pride of the academy. Skilled at singing, dancing, acting, etc. The best.

Kisa wants to perform on that stage just like her brother. If only she could attend Univeil, but since she's not a boy...

Btw, the one on the left is Fumi. Same mole, and Tsuki's bio mentioned he performed with 1st year Fumi when he was in his 3rd year.

Some time later. Kisa is delivering lunches everyday for the local lunch vendor. She runs into her friend Akane Ao (Ao-chan) after finishing deliveries. Ao notes it must be difficult working everyday, but Kisa says it's fun, plus she gets a free lunch.

Ao is preparing for high school entrance exams. Her top choice is the school close to Tamazaka City, where Univeil is located, since she loves watching Univeil's revues. She won't be able to see Kisa as much, but Kisa reassures her they'll continue to meet.

Ao asks if Kisa really isn't going to keep going to school.

Ao: You've got a dream too, right Kisa?

Kisa: No, not really. My father's going through some trouble, so I need to help however I can. I have to go back to the lunch vendor soon. See ya!

(avoiding the topic, huh)

Ao: Ever since her brother disappeared, her family...seems to be going through hard times. I'm worried for you, Kisa-chan.

(My Tsuki-being-the-antagonist vibes are getting more justified. Did his ego get so big that he ditched his family?)

Kisa goes home, about to eat the lunch that auntie packed for her. She hears a noise and wonders if it's a debt collector. But it ends up being a weasel with a crescent-moon on its belly.

Kisa: Eh!? A cat...no, a tanuki? A weasel? In the middle of the city?

The weasel runs around and makes a mess in the closet before it runs away. Kisa ends up finding an album of her and Tsuki. She finds the one of Tsuki at Univeil, and remembers her dream of being on stage at Univeil. But it'll never come true.

Kisa finds a photo she doesn't remember of her, Tsuki and Yonaga playing make-believe at a shrine. Yonaga moved away before middle school so she hasn't seen him in ages. She ends up visiting the shrine, remembering how there was once three of them, but now she's alone.

Kisa: ...Univeil. Univeil Revue Academy is a place where revues are created by male students. Only boys are allowed to attend the school and stand onstage...lucky Tsuki-nii. I wanted to go to Univeil too... 

 A suspicious man: Ohoh, just what I was looking for.

Chuuza Shuuri, voiced by Koyasu Takehito (Dio, Takatsugi), the headmaster of Univeil. He recognizes Kisa right away as Tsuki's younger sister and tells her to enroll at Univeil, shocking Kisa.

He has to ask her to check the school site to prove he's not trying to scam her lol.

When asked why, Chuuza states Univeil and its predecessor, Tamazaka Revue Academy has a 200+ year history, 300+ years if the original traveling troupe "The Tamazaka Company" is included. Every year of its history performed by men only.

But Chuuza finds that tradition stale and wants to breathe some new life into the academy. Why do the same thing for ages when both men and women can have the talent? Kisa will be that new life. Follow Tsuki's footsteps to Univeil and test her strengths there.

There will be resistance against Kisa even if it's the headmaster who's allowing it, so he asks her to disguise herself as a boy. Kisa just needs to pass the entrance exam, and Chuuza will deal with the application.

The chances are high of her being discovered as a girl, and if she is, she will be expelled. If she passes, tuition and dorm fees will be covered and she'll get paid while performing on stage so she doesn't have to worry about her father's debts.

Chuuza: There's no need to give up on your dreams.

Kisa: ...!!!

He leaves so Kisa can think it over.

＊＊＊

next

#Jack Jeanne #Ishida Sui #JJ playthrough

[desperationandgin]

Sweet Music (Playin’ in the Dark): Cellist Part 3

Rating: Mature

Also Read On: Ao3

Previous Chapter

Summary: Claire gives Jamie a private concert.

A/N: This installment’s lovely mood board was made by trashyKT on twitter - thank you, doll! And shout out to the beta crew, as always.

Sweet Music (Playin’ in the Dark): Cellist Part 3

It isn’t often that Claire is home late, after Jamie, especially when she knows he’s coming off of working a stretch and finally sleeping uninterrupted. She’d feel guilty about waking him if she didn’t know her surprise would absolve her immediately. There’d been a small reception for a wedding anniversary where she’d been paid to play, the timing of its end putting her home two hours after Jamie. He would try to stay awake, she knew, then fall asleep with the nightstand light on.

Standing in the dark living room, her cello goes down for a moment as she slips off her shoes. Listening to the quiet of the room, she remembers the moment she decided to do this, only a few hours ago. The celebrating couple, married twenty years, had looked at one another and moved around the room to the music as if no others were present. As Claire had played, she’d watched them smile without saying words to one another, as if they were sharing a joke older than the universe itself.

It was the way Jamie already looked at her.

Hefting the instrument case again, she quietly pads to their bedroom. The door is open, offering her the view of a lifetime in the soft glow of her correct assumption: Jamie, naked and sprawled out on his stomach. Even with the scars (or perhaps because of them), he’s beautiful, like a sculpture lovingly molded by hands intimately familiar with his soul.

Putting the case down again, she quietly removes her clothing before reaching up to let her straightened hair tumble down. He doesn’t know it while he sleeps, but she’s never felt more vulnerable. Sitting in her oversized reading chair, she removes her cello, readies herself, and begins to play softly. The notes are low to start, something quiet to wake him, but not startle. She’s naked, playing her instrument for a party of one. The only opinion of her performance that will ever matter again lies in her (their) bed, and her eyes are glued to him as she plays, watching for signs that he’s awake.

His legs move first, and as he stirs, she begins to play with more intent, the volume rising. Instead of keeping her eyes on him now, she closes them, unable to bring herself to watch him watching her.

What she doesn’t see is the way Jamie slowly sits up, unable to move from the bed for a full minute as he first takes in each fluid movement of her bow. It seems one with her hand, the motions intricate but graceful. His brain returns to full awareness, eyes following the hypnotizing back and forth of her arm, and that’s when he realizes she’s not wearing any clothing. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her now if he wanted to, too stunned to do anything but appreciate what he’s seeing and hearing. His mouth opens and closes, wetting his lips before standing, softly walking until he’s able to crouch right by her side. This allows him to see, up close, the way the toned muscles of her arm tense and relax with each note. He watches the delicate bones of her opposite hand move under her skin as her fingers seem to float over the strings. He’s captivated; not just by the music, but by Claire and the beauty and grace she exudes.

This beauty, he imagines, is what God had in mind when He created Eve.

Unable to resist, Jamie’s head ducks, lips pressing to her knee. Her playing doesn’t falter, and so he does it again before slowly kissing up the side of her outer thigh. As her playing increases to full volume (and he thanks Christ her bedroom doesn’t share a wall with neighbors), his fingers drag up her leg beginning at her ankle, circling the bone before caressing his way up her calf. As the notes become lighter, he lowers his head and kisses just under her knee, eyes flitting up to her face in time to see the way her lips part. Smiling, he finds himself back at her thigh. Resting his head there, he doesn’t move until the final note dissipates into an echo.

Only then does he look up at her, finding her unmoving, eyes still closed.

“Mo chridhe, look at me.”

His voice is low, the command making her stomach clench in excitement for what she knows is soon to come.

Literally.

Doing as he says, she finds his eyes so dark they seem black. When he stands to his full height, she’s greeted with the very convincing evidence that he enjoyed her performance.

“That was a pleasant way to wake up then, I take it?” she asks with a satisfied smirk.

Jamie hums his agreement but doesn’t speak. As carefully as he knows she would, he takes her cello and moves it to its case before taking the now vacant spot between her legs. On his knees, his hands move up her legs, lips pressing to the soft skin of her inner thigh.

“Do ye have any idea how beautiful ye are when ye play? How you could bring a man back to life just to catch another glimpse of ye?”

Reaching down to stroke his cheek, she smiles until her face hurts.

“I’m beginning to learn. You’re a very good teacher,” she promises, settling further back in the chair as his assault of kisses continues. Instead of giving her the chance to part her legs more to accommodate him, she bites back a laugh when he puts them over his shoulders. Wiggling so that his hands are between her arse and the chair, she grins down at him.

“You have plans.”

He’s obvious, he knows it, and has never thought to make it a secret, how badly he wants her. She should know it, and he looks up, meeting her grin with one of his own.

“I skipped my supper.”

Before she can fully appreciate his filthy innuendo, his mouth seals over her, a man on a mission. With one hand at the back of his head, she can only hope he’s well-practiced in holding his breath as her hips jerk uncontrollably against his face. He seems to move with her body, though she can’t go far, confined as she is. Still, he knows how she’ll move and follows her lead, his mouth never leaving her. As his lips and tongue drift upward she nearly begs, aching to feel him curl his tongue exactly right as her fingers tug at his hair.

Jamie does that and more, focusing on the poor nerves that don’t stand a chance even while two fingers curve into her. When she cries out, he changes tactics, switching to one finger stroking inside of her, thumb taking over for his tongue. Her body lurches forward in the chair and she feels him grunt, the position causing him to lose his grip on her. That, in turn, makes her cry out in frustration, and his previously unoccupied hand moves to her stomach. Pushing her back in the chair, he goes in once more with zeal, lightly pinning her to the seat as he fills her again with first two fingers, then a third.

With her legs around his head, Claire holds onto the arms of the chair, her pleasure building to a crescendo Jamie can feel. He offers one more well-placed (and torturously slow) drag of his tongue, and when she shatters, her legs tighten once more around him before finally relaxing.

With each residual shudder of pleasure, Jamie presses a kiss to her skin, until she finally seems still. Raising his head, he looks up at this version of the woman he loves; blissed out and unable to move. Quietly, he rests his head on her lap, waiting patiently for her to come back to herself. When he feels her tug at his curls, he looks up again only to find her watching him.

“Any time ye’d like to wake me this way, please feel free.”

She laughs, dragging a hand down her face. “I only felt a little guilty at the idea of waking you. I cared more about your reaction.”

Jamie stands, then braces his hands on the arms of the chair to lean in and kiss her softly. “And did I live up to yer expectations?” he asks, the words mumbled against her lips.

“Mhmm.” It’s a breathless sigh of a response as she kisses him again, leaning forward now.

Easily, Jamie tugs until she’s standing, then lifts her into his arms, coaxing her legs around his hips. Walking forward to the bed, his tongue yields to the playful battle for dominance with hers. Dropping her to the mattress, he kisses a breast now, able to circle her nipple into a tight bud he can suck. Her skin is warm, the soft flesh relenting to his pressure, and the way her back arches makes him groan.

“Christ, I want ye,” he rasps, moving his mouth to her throat, trying not to focus on the feel of his cock nestled against her inner thigh, seeking warmth, searching for home.

“You can have me, Jamie. Now, always.” Sitting up, Claire reaches down to wrap her hand around him, stroking slowly and guiding him closer. “Don’t you know it by now?”

He waits to answer until he’s buried inside of her, panting softly with his head bowed over hers. “I ken that it seems I cannae have ye wi’ out giving myself over fully in return.” He moves slowly, rolling his hips against Claire’s. “And I need ye to have me. All of me.”

Her eyes are wide open, golden and burning, and she stills, reaching out to hold his face between her hands.

“Then give me you, Jamie.”

He pauses to be sure he understands her meaning, searching her face, but he knows.

Pulling out of her, he waits for the span of a heartbeat before thrusting back into her, hard, desperately, and with a groan pulled from low in his belly. His hips drive into her at a punishing pace, letting his mind think of nothing save for the warm, silken heat of her, and the way each muscle seems to ripple around him, beckoning him deeper. Head hanging, he finds it within himself to open his eyes, needing to see her.

Jamie takes pleasure in the arch of her back and part of her lips, the way her brows knit together and then smooth again with each spasm of pleasure. He can feel the sting of her fingernails as her hands tense and relax against his shoulders, and the pressure of her heels digging into his lower back. Unable to resist the long line of her neck, his mouth falls to her skin, leaving wet, breathless kisses until he simply can’t. Burying his face against her skin, Jamie feels the nearly imperceptible turn of her head and hears her strained whisper.

“I want to feel you.”

Claire’s permission is all that it takes, and with another half-dozen thrusts, everything releases; he’s nearly sobbing with pleasure as he spills into her. He feels the way her body tenses beneath his, and when they’re both still, his hearing finally kicks back in, in time to hear one long, drawn-out moan from her — his name he thinks, or something as close to it as she can manage. Panting, Jamie falls onto his side, reaching out after a moment with one hand to drag the pad of a finger down her cheek and slowly along the curve of her neck.

This is his favorite way to watch her: breathless and panting, boneless and skin ruddy with satisfaction. He memorizes the dusted pattern of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, the small veins on her closed eyelids. His lips plant themselves against her chest, feeling her heart begin to slow to a normal rhythm, the vibration in her chest when she speaks, before the words make it out of her mouth.

“You have me, too, Jamie,” she begins, opening her eyes to look at him. Reaching out, her palm rests flat against the side of his face, and she’s quiet until he finally returns her gaze. “All of me.”

Gathering her as close as he can, he sighs in contentment, letting her words settle over his heart. “I ken it. Always did, but what ye’ve done tonight was more than just give yerself to me,” he murmurs, fingers gliding through her straightened hair.

“I don’t know what to call it,” Claire acknowledges, reaching out to trace his features, memorizing, as if one day she’ll have to recall him to someone by description alone and each detail matters. “But it felt important to do.”

He doesn’t know what to call what she did either, other than baring her soul to his. Pressing his hand flush to her chest, Jamie leans in to kiss her, feeling that strong, steady beat of her heart against his palm. For a flash of a moment, he remembers trying to find that same pulse desperately, searching for life. Pushing the thought aside, he drops one more kiss to the corner of her mouth before untangling himself and rising from the bed. Quietly, he pads to the bathroom, returning with a damp cloth and sitting beside her once more.

“Did I ever tell ye about the time I thought I was in love, Sassenach?” he asks, pushing the sheet aside and reaching out for her.

Beginning with her inner thighs, he wipes tenderly, and Claire bites back a soft smile of appreciation, shaking her head. “No. It’s never come up before.” She can’t help but be curious, especially at his verbiage.

His hands continue to clean her gently, with care, even as he speaks.

“Her name was Geneva. Met her in Paris during my gap year. She was my cousin’s secretary, and I was there to work for him over the summer, see if I might want to get into business wi’ him.”

“I see you didn’t,” Claire points out. “But you did appreciate the benefits,” she can’t help but tease.

“Can ye hold all yer wee snide comments until the end?” he requests, rolling his eyes to try and hide his smile. “And no, I’m no’ bad at business, but being in an office all day wasna verra appealing. Still, Gen made the days brighter, and I cannae say I minded seein’ her every day.”

Less comical and more interested in his story, Claire watches him for a moment as he wipes her skin clean. “How old were you?” she asks quietly, assuming he was still a teenager.

“Eighteen,” he confirms. “When ye’re that young, ye think ye ken everything, aye? So, when she asked me for coffee and we had a pleasant time, I asked her on another date, then another. By the end of the summer, I was convinced I loved her and I would take her home wi’ me to Lallybroch for the holidays.”

“But you never did?”

Jamie shakes his head. “She rang me a few weeks before I was to leave and informed me what we’d had was fun, but not verra deep. So, we went our separate ways and I was a sad and confused lad. I moped around a bit, until my sister called me an eejit over the phone and asked what I even kent about love.” He smiles as he finishes doting on Claire, bending to drop a kiss to her hipbone.

“I thought love could only build over time, that eventually, everything would feel as grand as I’d always thought. Now I know it happens all at once and when it’s true, ye cannae stop it even if ye tried.”

Sitting up, Claire looks at him, the question resting on her lips.

“I did try to forget ye, but I couldn’t. No’ completely,” he answers before she has a chance.

“You knew, then?”

Again, he shakes his head, letting the cloth drop to the floor as he reaches for her hand, tugging it to his lips to kiss along her knuckles. “Only my soul, Sassenach.”

He makes her heart ache with loving him, and she reaches out, drawing him back down into her arms to hold him close, a hand lightly petting his curls.

“Then perhaps mine did, too. And when we met at that banquet, it was because we called out to one another.” She doesn’t know if she believes in such things, but Jamie certainly makes it easier to try.

“I’m willin’ tae believe that,” he decides with no hesitation, settling comfortably against her.

Both of them are quiet for a few long moments, idly caressing random places on the other’s body until Claire speaks.

“Frank was a good husband. But we married so young, and it’s as you said. When you’re barely an adult, you believe you know what things are. We thought we knew love, and my uncle was so happy to know I was taken care of.”

Jamie kisses the center of her chest, lips lingering.

“Did ye love him, then?”

She sighs, letting go of a long-held secret. “I loved the idea of being with someone who wouldn’t leave me. I enjoyed his company, and I loved moments with him. I loved that he could make me laugh and that he was as passionate about history and learning as my uncle was.” Her fingers move along the criss-crossed scars on his upper shoulders. “When he died, I mourned. I lost a friend, someone I confided in and trusted. But I was never sad about the loss of my spouse.” When she pauses, she tugs gently at Jamie until he raises his head to look at her.

“Does that make me sound like a terrible person?”

“No,” he murmurs. “Makes ye sound exactly as ye already said: like a woman who was marrit young and realized after her husband’s death that love is more than both of ye thought.” He has no judgment for it, and drops soft kisses along her ribs. “Ye’d already been alone sae long, my Sassenach.”

His now, to love and protect, to reassure with all the love she can stand.

“‘Tis no wonder ye married someone who made ye feel those things. That doesna make ye anything terrible in my eyes. So ye can let go of it.” Settling again, he listens to the beat of her heart.

“You know that I do love you?” She can’t help but ask. “Very thoroughly, in fact.”

Jamie hums, a smile curving his lips. “I had a suspicion, but I’ll never tire of hearing ye say it.”

“You’re not upset that I woke you?”

The way he looks at her makes her laugh, not needing his verbal response. “Alright. But you should sleep. I have plans for you in the morning,” Claire offers coyly, sitting up and tugging until they can resettle spooned together, Jamie snugly behind her.

“Does it involve leaving this bed, Sassenach?” he asks as he presses a soft kiss to the nape of her neck.

When her shoulders shake against him, it’s as much a shiver as it is a quiet laugh. “No. Not until food becomes a priority.”

“Oh, good. I can find myself plenty to eat here for hours, I’m sure.”

Her laugh is louder this time, and after he joins her, they let it echo in the room, filling the walls with the sound. Reaching for his hand, she draws him more firmly around her, closing her eyes.

“Dream of me,” she murmurs, a small smile turning the corner of her lips up.

With one more soft kiss, this time to her shoulder, Jamie lays his head to rest on the pillow beneath him.

“Every night, a nighean.”

#outlander fic #outlander #jamie x claire #the cellist #my fic

[revengerevisited]

i found this vanqua fic the other day, it’s only a couple chapters but i like it so far. :3 it does have a ‘creator chose not to add warnings’ label though, so please be cautious. also baby-xemnas aka kotbysleep (nsfw) aka nekokat42 (also nsfw) is a much better vanqua artist than me so please check him out. X’D (heads-up those twitter threads are way longer than you think so make sure you see eeeverything~).

anyway, more wip art below the cut, plus my endless rambling (i talk about 18+ topics, just a warning)—

i’m still working on venqua week and i’ve got 2 more prompts to go, one i haven’t started yet and one i’m halfway done with—

~aaand yeah i’m re-using it for a vanqua pic too... X’D am i lazy, or just resourceful? you decide. ;P

but yeah, both of these pics will have an 18+ version as well. i admit i’m super anxious about posting it next week, as i’ve seen just how absolutely toxic fandom is on twitter. like, you thought tumblr was bad? i’ve spent the last few days preemptively blocking literally hundreds if not thousands of antis just so i can feel a little safer posting my content without some asshat calling me a pedo or telling me to kill myself over cartoons. XU i somewhat worry that i’ve accidentally blocked some people who were just joking around and weren’t actually harassing anyone, but it’s just so hard to tell sometimes. if i’ve accidentally blocked anybody here, just let me know so i can unblock you. :3 (idk why that sentence came out so sinister sounding but i’m legit being sincere X’D).

but seriously, idk when fandom suddenly got such a stick up its ass (around 2016-17 from my guesstimate) and decided aging-up a fictional character by a year or two is such a crime, but i guess that’s just the state of things. :T i could draw vanitas as a centaur or make him blond or whatever and no one cares, but aging him by one year? suddenly big problem! yeah, right. XP like, i know i said every character in kh is 17+ as of khmom (ignoring any weird timeline retcons of course), but heck i could make an honest case for the wayfinder family all being adults. hear me out—

it’s been 13 years since bbs, right? and for 12 of those years, aqua was in the realm of darkness, terra had some awareness while being possessed by xehanort, ven experienced some of sora’s life when he was in a coma, and vanitas was almost certainly in ven/sora’s heart as well, so all four of them could be said to be 31, 33, and 29 respectively. it’s not like their character models were any different when they were young teens as opposed to older teens, so can we really be sure they’re not all 30~ by now? heck, since ven is from the age of fairytales i could say he’s 1000 years old if i wanted too! (psst, it’s almost as if these are all fictional characters living in a fantasy world with time travel and whatnot and their ages are completely arbitrary numbers nomura made up on the spot, numbers which he has retconned before! :P).

now i don’t actually think they’re that old, but if people are gonna hassle me over a goddamn 2-year age difference, i might as well say fuck it and have fun with it, right? ;P it’s not like antis even know what the canon character ages even actually are, like when they try to say that skuld is underage when (assuming she’s subject x) she’d be around 28~ by now, or axel and saïx’s age. (maybe i’ll draw some saïx x skuld art and watch the antis lose their minds. ;P it wouldn’t even have to be nsfw to rile them up).

anyway, i do admit i’m feeling a little burned out on art recently. XP i’ve been trying to get one art piece out per week plus venqua week, and yeah it’s kinda taken its toll. i know this really isn’t anything anyone wants to hear, but i’ve been kinda thinking of moving away from fandom projects to work on my own original work. now, i’m not saying i’m abandoning a heart and a half nor anything as drastic as that! but i have spent like 2 years of my life on it just to get to the halfway mark, and i’m not sure i can spend 2 more doing only that.

i’ve got an original story idea that i’ve been working on-and-off on for the past 7 years or so, and i’m thinking of going back to it again (it does need a pretty big re-write). its main pairing is actually pretty vanqua-ish, now that i think about it. like, imagine the realm of darkness but instead of the heartless it’s infested with demons, and the main characters are the demon-slaying duo of a serious yet kindhearted half-angel and a feral, snarky half-demon. i even aged them up from 14 to 18 so none of my potential fans have to suffer the same anti bullshit that i have. XP

what else can i ramble about... oh, i got these super cute pins for christmas! :D the heartless is by xkirakira, and vanitas and aqua are by maxxmerch. they’re just so cute! X3 i hope everyone had a merry christmas and a happy holiday! i’ll see you guys later. ^3^ 

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*looks around sheepishly* ó3ò alright... confession time. spoilers for a heart and a half for the rest of this post—

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sooo~ i’ve kinda hinted at this before, but yeah i’ve always planned on adding a sex scene to a heart and a half; when i started writing back in 2018 i hadn’t realized how hostile fandom had become compared to only a few years ago, and it worries me that some readers might drop the fic because of it, or be angry with me over the underage aspect. :(

idk, i could go on about how i just wanted to explore every aspect of a romantic relationship, or how other disney/square enix characters married or had kids young (ariel, sarah hawkins, héctor, claudia strife, possibly jasmine), or how attempting to apply real-world rules to a videogame fantasy setting is inherently silly and pointless, but really it’s just ‘cause i love vanitas and aqua to bits and i just wanted to write a cute and funny mild sex scene between them (this fic is rated mature, not explicit, so much less graphic than confection affection), and at the end of the day they are just fictional characters, after all.

i guess all i can hope for is that i’m a skilled enough writer to pull it off in a believable way, and that my audience won’t be too put off by it. >_> i know vanitas and aqua have technically only known each other for about 2 months so it might not be ‘realistic’ for them to go so far into a relationship so soon, but i think it’s important to remember that ultimately this is a romantic fairytale, and other canon disney couples haven’t seen nearly as deeply into each other’s hearts as vanitas and aqua have (and this video also helped me feel better about it).

i also wanted to finish that nsfw venqua fic i started a few months back, it’s set just before the mark of mastery so yes ven would be 16. i suppose it’s a way of testing the waters to see what kind of reception i’d get (hopefully positive) before i get to that part of a heart and a half. i was also thinking of including some of the uh, ‘keyblades as erogenous zones’ aspect from this terraquaven fic as well... w-why are you looking at me like that?! it’s funny! *sweats nervously* o3o’

in all honesty, i’m probably just overthinking all this (which, knowing me, is almost a guarantee >_<) and i should just *ahem* let my heart be my guiding key, and just write what i want to write without worrying about it all the time. i just get so anxious so easily... buuut that’s not really news to anyone, now is it? ;P well, i think that’s the end of my endless ramble, thanks for reading if you got this far. X’D and i really hope i didn’t actually upset anybody about a heart and a half. ;_; i just felt like i needed to vent a little, but don’t worry about me, i’m doing fine. anyway, i really should stop typing and get back to work on venqua week, sooo... bye! X3

#wip #rambles #rant #tagging just in case

[indecisive-v]

NINJAMUFFIN DOING ANOTHER AMA ON TWITTER, HERE'S MORE SHIT FOR YA! keep in mind i'm just sharing the funkin related stuff, though i am including WAAAAY more than what i shared before 👍 go check out ninja's twitter profile for questions about stuff like ritz! questions in blue, answers in orange. if yall don't wanna read everything i MIGHT make a version of this post where i replace the answers with my own summaries of em (and if the questions are long, those too)

and here's a link to the ama tweet itself! dunno if it's still goin

Q: I figure the answer will be yes but do you have more plans to implement more guest appearances from people in the newgrounds community into FNF? Or are you all gunna focus on OG lore and stuff going forward

A: for guest appearances, I think we have always seen it as getting a healthy mix of both. PERSONALLY I'd like to lean towards having more OG stuff than guest stuff, BUT it's all a matter of what other boys think of that as well. I'm not the sole person working on game!

Q: Are you gonna release the full FNF game or are you gonna be releasing week after week? Like, are you gonna release week 8 or are we gonna wait some years until The Full Ass Game comes out?

A: Release plan for FNF right now is a few more updates or whatev to the 'demo' we have out right now, and then a long silence of probably no updates whatsoever until the full game is done (which will likely be a few years). That's partly why we made kickstarter for game.

Q: Hey so like, how much will Fnf cost after it's finished? And when will you ask the supporters what they want the game on?

A: It's all subject to change, but right now it prob gonna be standard 15-25$ lil steam indie game.

We will ask Kickstarter pledgers and whatnot what they want the game on SUPER close to when its released, to keep options open if we get onto anything like a console people want.

Q: 1. how was your day

2. are you releasing a week 8 song early like week 7, or are you goin full lockdown

A: I am doing GOOD today, and I think recently I've been good in general.

up to the mood, but so far we doing good about not having anything leak or whatev, so I think it'd be fun to have update come out with people not knowing what to expect at all. Build dat intrigue

Q: Will fnf ever get official plushies?? Seems like an untapped market

A: FNF plushies will prob happen some point, we have a lot of current merch stuff on our plates already though! (Mostly kickstarter type stuff, shirts, pins, posters, and all the physical OST stuff) Its a lot to sort out, but in time more and more stuff will happen. We r jus 4 boys!

Q: did you ever expect your game to blow up as it did? what was your first reaction to seeing it become super popular

A: FNF never had a humble moment, literally day 1 before the prototype even came out, the vid on twitter had like 5K likes overnight. Then when ludum dare version came out, it got 5K likes again, like it wasnt just a fluke. Was crazy, and def felt like somethin was different wit FNF

Q: Do you plan on getting other people to come in to help with the music? That seems like a lot of work to dump on one person, what with the erect mode and whatnot.

I guess the question could apply to all aspects of development. Will you be bringing on more people to help?

A: We definitely are getting help from other people. We are always keeping an eye on people for various different things. In terms of programming, already I've gotten 2 people (MtH and Geokureli) to help with certain Week 7 stuff (charting/polish, and loading stuff). Shit like dat

Q: Oh, also, will the Steam version be Workshop compatible? That'd really help streamline the process of downloading mods.

A: Steam version of FNF will likely NOT be Steam workshop compatible, because we want all the mods to NOT be spread out through different places. There WILL be modding support that is as streamlined as Steam workshop though. Mainly for non-steam versions of the game!

Q: Are there any chances that the game will have a physical release? Also any updates on a switch port? I remember one of you guys talking/joking about it.

A: Not impossible for FNF to get a physical release. We would want to see how far we could go with it though. I think it'd be super easy to do something wit people like LimitedRun games or whatev, but I think stuff like that can only go so far. I wanna see Funkin in mf Walmart!!!!!!

not that LimitedRun isn't going to be an option! Just we consider and pursue many different things! FNF release is years away, so we have time to think about everything. Whole mindset can be different just a few months from now.

Q: Out of curiosity, how are you dealing with all the popularity? It blew up so fast id barely be able to handle it if I was in your shoes.

A: The only way I've been able to handle it is having the other boys on the crew and being able to talk to them about all the overwhelmingness.

Part of it feels very lonesome, feels like NO ONE can come close to comprehending exactly how I'm feeling, except them. also other PALS!!!

Q: Do you own any of the bootleg FNF merchandise? Like any bootleg plushies or anything?

A: i dont, i genuinely think they r a waste of money, and I know any bootleg shit that gets made, we can prob go about and make it, and make it 100x cooler because we actually put effort into shit. bootleg shit just in it for the coin, so they aint gettin that from me

Q: How did you go about getting in contact with sr pelo for skid and pumps vocals?

A: Pelo i think was familiar and pals wit PhantomArcade a bit thru various Newgrounds things and collabs and whatnot.

pelo retweeted the first OG FNF posts first ever, and brought a LOT of attention to it. to pay him back, we put skid and pump in game! ask dave for more info prob

Q: what's the plan for having the full ass game open source if it's gonna cost money? couldn't people just download the source and compile the game for free?

A: when FNF is fully released, the full source code will be released as well.

the game will be DRM free so it will be way easier for people to redistribute the released/offical .exe instead of compiling it, so that's not the issue anyways. people will pay for things if they like it

Q: What are the chances of it getting on consoles like switch or Playstation, ps5 would definitely be my preferred way to play

A: it'd be a matter of hiring someone to build out backend stuff for those specific consoles. someone who knows their way around all the wacky code stuff, AND knows console hardware stuff. Then its just a matter of hittin up those console manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo)

the CLOSEST one is SWITCH. pretty much all of that backend is already made, so it just a matter of gettin all that access and shit.

i think in any case though, there's a lot of NDA stuff required, i dunno how much we'd be able to talk about it even IF we get that stuf sorted

Q: any ideas of releasing it on epic store or another platform?

A: Right now, the only thing that is 100% confirmed and WILL happen is a Steam version, itchio version, and mobile versions on respective app stores. Other storefronts aren't out of the picture though, but we don't want to spread ourselves too thin with it.

Q: Will you continue using HaxeFlixel to make the rest of FNF?

A: yes, because it is what I'm the most technically proficient in, and generally is VERY flexible. just a matter of ME becoming a better coder. It's ALL open source, so if I need something done a certain way, either I can do it, or we can hire someone to do it.

Q: have you seen game theory's videos on your game yet and if so, what do you think about them? (not talking about his predictions because i dont want spoilers. i like mystery)

A: it is always good silly fun to watch the Game Theory vids about Funkin with some pals, and see what matpat thinks of the game. i lov the vids, but wish he used my face less! Or at least used a cuter pic of me like this one!!

Q: Ok so: What does the future of FNF look like to you?

A: future of FNF is a rhythm game that not only exceeds every expectation that people have of it, but subverts most expectations and conventions as well.

Q: Do you plan on retouching on older weeks once the game is fully out? Like reanimating sprites, redoing some charting, updating the background, etc

A: retouching and probably overhauling certain aspects is almost definitely gonna happen. Everything is fluid and can be changed (and should be changed when necessary). i dont think anything should be too attached to, especially this early on in development

Q: I honestly do not care if the answer to this is vague as hell to keep surprises and shit lol but… Since Week 7 was the closest we’ll get to a playable girlfriend (still bf controlling tho), do you have plans to make girlfriend playable in spin-off things or just freeplay?

A: wouldnt be out of the picture for a playable GF, i don't think we've had some hard thing AGAINST it. just a matter of what we want out of the game, and what sort of story or whatev we could do with that concept

Q: How do BF and GF manage to meet famous newgrounds characters (such as pico, tankman and the others to come) like is this all in one universe/ timeline or are they being brought in?

A: i think they are all just there existing. i think there's a lot of wacky things in other media that try to justify crossovers, like MULTIVERSE bullshit or TIMELINE shit, but i dunno, its like subspace emissary. Captain Falcon and Olimar from Pikmin just hang out. Shit like dat

disclaimer that all lore shit is in phantomarcade head pretty much and maybe there is wacky dimensions or somethin

Q: Will the game have dlc?

A: its not too unlikely that we'd have expansions of some sort, but i mean right now we plan on packing in as much as we can into base game, and trying to make that as pure as possible.

if there is ANY dlc, i would personally want it to be 100% free updates

Q: How did you meet Phantom Arcade, Kawai Sprite, and EvilSker? And what do you think about the community and its controversies?

A: me and phantomarcade been fukin around NG for years so years and years ago we naturally crossed paths and became pals

about 2 years ago i found kawaisprites music on NG, and started talkin wit him, made Ritz wit him and we fell in lov

and evilsk8r i met cuz of FNF!!!

quik elaborate on evilsk8r, wanted artist for gamejam FNF was for (ludum dare), and OG person i asked wasnt available, so he referred me to evilsk8r, who I have never met or talked to before ever.

#friday night funkin #fnf #fridaynightfunkin

[ace-trainer-risu]

omg i would like to know the hated author...

OH thank you for asking I was. of course secretly deeply hoping someone would ask so I would have an excuse to go off. 

The author [dramatic pause] is VE Schwab!

Now I will pause (again) to say that I just spent like two hours writing a six page long essay on exactly why I dislike her as an author (I don’t know anything about her as a person so no feelings there) but then when I reread it I started to feel worried that it might hurt someone’s feelings who really likes her as an author, so this is a slightly redacted version.

But basically there are three things I hold against her.

For context, I’ve only actually read one book by her, A Darker Shade of Magic. But it’s not just that I didn’t like it. It’s that it left me angry. I read it a year ago and I still get furious when I think about it. It is, in my opinion, a profoundly toxic and hateful book. 

While at the same time also being a very boring and bland book.

So that’s point one) I just don’t get the hype. I read ADSM b/c I saw it recommended everywhere, but I really don’t get why? It’s not very well-written. Purely on a technical level her writing isn’t bad, but it’s not good either, its very...okay. The world building was really disappointing (it’s about four alternate worlds but they’re all almost. exactly the same. which was super disappointing. and also she seems to be under the illusion that london is like the most important place in the world?) The characters are bare minimum sketches, they basically feel like she came up with an initial concept and then never went any further. The characters aren’t particularly likeable or compelling, either, except for one character who...I felt like you weren’t actually supposed to like, lol. The pacing was actively bad. The plot doesn’t really start till around halfway through the book. I actually started ASDM twice and gave up on it the first time b/c it was boring. when I tried again the second time, I thought I had only read maybe the first quarter of it on the first try b/c I couldn’t remember anything happening, but it turned out I had actually read about half, its just that nothing happens in the first half. 

to be fair, I have read reviews of a different book she wrote which specifically praised the writing, so maybe she just did a shitty job on this book and she writes better in her other work?

point two) if you only pay attention to the text of the story, it’s fine! again, its not particularly compelling but its fine. but if you pay any attention to the subtext, its...really misogynistic and queerphobic. its incredibly pervasive through the whole text. 

for one thing, the female protagonist is introduced and is immediately like “Oh. I hate all other women.” (No one asked!) which is not necessarily bad in and of itself, except that...not only is her sexism never called out or contradicted, its actually actively supported by the text. there’s only one other important female character, and she’s Evil(TM), and also gets killed. the very few other female side characters are either someone’s mom or are portrayed as being extremely shallow and vapid and silly. they act exactly how the female protag despises women for acting. so...I don’t think its intentional but you’re left with this weird impression that the female protag is completely justified in her internalized misogyny b/c apparently all other women ARE bad. also, the female protag likes wearing boy’s clothes, which is great, but there’s this weird vibe that girls who don’t wear boy’s clothes are like, dumb and bad and sexist. I think the author is trying to critique repressive female clothing in the past (female character is from regency era england) but she does it really badly and instead accidentally(?) implies that girls who wear skirts are like. dumb sluts. a very weirdly sexist take. like it literally feels like this book hates women and specifically hates them for wearing “women’s” clothes.  *also not the point but it’s really funny that of all the time periods to critique for restrictive clothes, she picked regency england. ah yes, the torturous constraints of...empire waisted dresses and minimal or no corsets. dastardly! 

for another thing, the queer rep is just...so so bad. there’s one explicitly multisexual person (bi or pan isn’t specified but something along those lines) who gets tricked by a manipulative man older than himself heavily implied to be gay (bad) and gets horribly injured and almost dies (bad) basically just so the straight male protag can have angst (bad!). 

the manipulative guy implied to be gay is in turn being magically controlled by...a different! manipulative older man (bad) and is strongly implied to be sexually abused by that man (bad) and the straight main character literally never tries to help him in any way (bad) and ultimately kills(ish) him (bad) but it’s revealed that he basically chose to die (bad) because it was like, the only way he could ever escape his suffering (very bad!!) and the main character then! uses! his dying body! in a spell! to save his own fucking life! and basically disposes of his still alive! body into hell like he’s garbage (so bad I’m literally still fuming of it over a year later)

and then there’s the guy who is manipulating that guy, who is an older man heavily implied to serially abuse and assault teenage boys and young men (bad!!). he also dies too which is fine and good in and of itself...*

except for the fact that of our three queer-adjacent characters, two die and one is horribly injured and almost dies. two are abused and one is an abuser. two are used as angst-fodder for straight characters and one is literally sacrificed, coldly and selfishly and without his consent, to save a straight character’s life. they’re all closely associated with injury and death and trauma and abuse and it’s suggested that death is the only escape. 

subtextually speaking, this book hates queer men and punishes them for existing. 

*note: I want to specifically say that “enjoying abusing teen boys” does not automatically make a person gay or queer. that’s not what being gay/queer means. HOWEVER, there is a long and ugly history of gay men being portrayed as predators who deliberately prey on and abuse younger men, and this character plays directly into that stereotype, and that is why I included him. not b/c he’s positive queer rep but exactly because he isn’t

thirdly) about a year ago there was a bit of buzz about ve schwab writing a book with a canon asexual character...except I looked into it and a) it’s not actually canon at all; the book only says he’s disinterested in sex, which is by NO MEANS the same and it’s shitty to conflate the two when there’s a vast spectrum of asexual experiences (to be clear, it would be one thing if the text said he was asexual AND disinterested in sex. to say he’s disinterested in sex and that equals asexuality is a whole other thing, and is wrong), and schwab then confirmed on her twitter that he’s meant to be asexual. That’s not the same its not the same and we all know its not the same. b) this character is in fact a villain, which is frustrating when asexuality is FREQUENTLY and harmfully associated with people being heartless and unfeeling and evil and like, literal serial killers; to be fair, as I understand it the majority (all?) of the characters in these books are villains, so that’s less bad, but to be fair again, apparently this specific character is also portrayed as being, like “a sociopath” which is ableist AND goes back to all the stuff I said above. and c) what really annoys me is that in her tweets at the time she was very smug about this and fully patted herself on the back. she did half-assed, unresearched “rep” which wasn’t even actually canon and then acted like she was doing ace ppl a favor. excuse me, I didn’t actually ask to be represented by you. 

SO YEAH that’s not the...medium and short of it. the long and short is reserved for a Cursed(TM) google doc filled with my rage. but the tl;dr is that I think she’s an overhyped writer who wrote a profoundly misogynistic, homophobic book and trumps herself up over rep she didn’t actually do a good job of providing. and I would definitely never read another one of her books. The End!

#things you didn't care to know about veronica #negative #veronica reads things #I don't want to tag her name in this so it doesn't come up in searches since i'm being mean #should i censor her name? please let me know if i should censor her name and i will happily do so #the ask and the answer

[beliamh-its-me]

Performance overview & Research

The overarching theme of My Country is inspired by the question, ‘How united is the United Kingdom?’. The idea behind the theme derived from the contrasting verbatim scripted opinions surrounding Brexit. Through acknowledging the vast amount of opinions and stories, we compared each region to the referendum results. Not only did this support our theme, it helped to structure the fictional manifestations of regional characters. For example, Caledonia’s persona has been based off the Scottish remain vote totalling 62.0% (BBC, 2016). So, in order to amplify this, Caledonia is extremely defensive and angry in a way to foreshadow the verbatim lines. Brexit links to the exploitation of corruption within the UK’s patriotism, something amplified in the script. A poignant line, to support the theme comes from Theresa May, ‘...a vision that works not for the privileged few’. The message shows the government promoting the UK as a satisfied minority, proposing changes are needed. This idea finishes the play, leaving the audience questioning the current political climate. We aspire to start a conversation, about politics and its importance. May, quickly became the Conservative party leader. Offering an idea that Brexit was a distant idea, until it was not, accompanied with unsettling optimism. Another issue that arises is the name ‘Brexit’. Broken-down it means ‘Britain’ and ‘Exit’. This means Northern Ireland is excluded from the branding, linking to a long history of division within the UK, and is played on in the script. The major element, being the lack of spoken lines from NI through verbatim, to create the sense of lesser respect for NI’s opinions. The theme of delight breaks tension in the performance. During the fictional scenes, there is shared food, facts and laughter! This is important in remaining partial, but mostly to celebrate the UK for individuality. The constant return of the characters throughout the verbatim sections, create a sense of familiarity. The creative vision is synonymous with the medium, Zoom. The Guardian (2019) reported that Farage’s party accounted for 51% of all shared content on Facebook and Twitter during the campaign. Meaning that Brexit was a social media operation. We used this to incorporate the fictional characters. This is shown through using Facebook inspired videos that indicate joining a ‘Pub Chat’ group call. This implies the characters oversee the verbatim characters, and join the audience in watching the performance. Further, creating a sense of realism as the audience form a relationship with the fictional characters. Both parties are learning about the Brexit repercussions, however the voices of the nation’s get drunk instead resolving the issues within the discussion. This imitates life, as Brexit was unclear.

The creative vision started with explicit use of the Facebook page however, due to complications of practicality, we decided to use the page as an implied structure, through ‘Pub chat’ videos. This was determined after wanting to use a link to the page, to display images alongside monologues. The page distracted the words being spoken, so we refrained. Click here for rehearsal footage

In two ways we have portrayed to the audience the right atmosphere. First, creating a sense of urgency through breaking up scenes with movement and digital influence. This mirrors the masses of campaigning prevalent at the time, and allows information to form in an unbiased way. The second aspect is placing the audience vote before the ‘vote’ scene. This immerses the audience and clarifies a timeline of the performance.

We discussed other avenues to separate the fictional characters from verbatim. Through development of the first scene, we determined that costume would support our intentions. All fictional scenes have Union Jack hats and tops. This is so we can physically change our aesthetic to make transitions easier for the audience. Click here for rehearsal footage.

Research:

My Country- a work in progress, is a verbatim play created by Carol Ann Duffy and Rufus Norris (2017). Duffy is an award-winning writer for her work writing raw and expressive poetry and plays. Duffy’s work includes Take My Husband (1982) and Standing Female Nude (1985). Rufus Norris has acted, written and directed numerous plays/operas such as, Market Boy (2006), Cabaret(2007) (BBC, 2013). Together these playwrights have been able to create an enticing piece surrounding the Brexit debate, with views from numerous angles of the leave/remain spectrum. Verbatim interviews promise direct access to actual lived experiences and make them authentic (Fisher, 2011). To convey Brexit and the volume of controversy surrounding it, verbatim is one of the best ways to express the UK’s concerns fairly. The final vote was 51.9% Leave, 48.1% remain (BBC, 2016). This shows that it is almost impossible to depict the UK’s opinions without using both sides, especially when looking at regions such as Northern Ireland and Scotland who have a troubled history with England. Summerskill (2021) see’s verbatim as ‘Documenting aspects of historical material which tend to be missing from other sources relating to lived experience (p. 24). With the combination of media, technology can thicken participant’s experience, through building different versions of reality, or spaces (Burnett, 2019). This supports our intentions to blend education with theatrics. It also justifies our ideas to improve audience connection. Our audience, typically, were under the voting age during the referendum. This means that, although the effects of Brexit will deeply govern their lives, they had no say in the matter. With the use of verbatim we can transfer the thoughts, feelings and facts from the UK to give the audience an education. Although Brexit has happened, the British Youth Council (2020) are still fighting for young people to be ‘stakeholders in [their] future’. Through reminding them of the past we could motivate them to work on their future in this country. The challenges of creating a political performance entail removing any bias, to allow a genuine response from audience members. If it is done correctly, the abstract creation of political theatre can initiate enquiry and evaluation instead of negative confrontation (Kritzer, 2008).

When looking at companies to influence ideas throughout the creative process, I wanted to draw on two avenues:

The first, being movement to enhance the digital platform. As the creator of the ‘Feast’ and ‘Europe’ sequences, I wanted to make sure that we were utilising the ability to make smaller gestures, whilst still adding abstract and full-bodied movement. I drew inspiration from DV8, a physical theatre company. DV8’s published work of Can We Talk About This?, depict a woman talking in verbatim whilst holding a tea cup. The movement around her is abstract and exciting. The idea to have a focus whilst also conveying deeper dramaturgical control is powerful and I wanted it to be seen within the above-mentioned scenes.

The second, the incorporation of portraying political information. I have drawn on a slightly abstract perspective for this influence. This American Life (2020) by Ross Gay explores delight, which is one of our themes, in this there is a podcast of a boy getting the bus for the first time. Although he is surrounded by the excitement of childhood, he still speaks of death and anxiety. This is something echoed in our piece, a lot of the audience members have been treated like children in the eye of Brexit, but are being given the platform to learn it as they maybe should have at the time. We use our polls to give the audience the chance to express this.

The link below will take you to a specific research document for this performance, containing sources for performance material and references.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X5ibI5xWIoWm3bK9W6aAgplQtarR-Hq5gq8m9uGf1u4/edit

The link below will take you to the social media page:

https://www.facebook.com/RuleBritannia1922

Bibliography

Afflick, R.  (2020). ‘British Youth Council urge Government to consult young people on Brexit’. British Youth Council, 31 January. Available at: https://www.byc.org.uk/news/2020/british-youth-council-urge-government-to-consult-young-people-on-brexit (Accessed: 12 March 2021).

‌BBC (2015). ‘EU Referendum Results’. BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results (Accessed: 2 March 2021).

Burnett, C. et al. (2019) ‘Conceptualising Digital Technology Integration in Participatory Theatre from a Sociomaterialist Perspective: Ways Forward for Research’, Research Papers in Education, 34(6), pp. 680–700. Available at: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1229827&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 12 March 2021).

DV8 (2021). DV8 Physical Theatre. Dv8.co.uk. Available at: https://www.dv8.co.uk/media-portal (Accessed: 8 May 2021).

DV8 (2021). DV8 Physical Theatre. Dv8.co.uk. Available at: https://www.dv8.co.uk/projects/can-we-talk-about-this/foreword-by-lloyd-newson (Accessed: 12 May 2021).

Fisher, A. (2011) ‘Trauma, Authenticity and the Limits of Verbatim’, Performance Research, 16(1), pp. 112–122. doi: 10.1080/13528165.2011.561683

Gay, R.. (2020). The Show of Delights - This American Life. Available at: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/692/the-show-of-delights (Accessed: 12 May 2021).

Kritzer, A. (2008) Political Theatre in Post-Thatcher Britain: New Writing, 1995-2005.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

My Country: A Work In Progress by C.A. Duffy (2017)

Savage, M. (2019). ‘How Brexit party won Euro elections on social media – simple, negative messages to older voters’. The Guardian, 29 June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/29/how-brexit-party-won-euro-elections-on-social-media (Accessed: 26 April 2021).

Smith, N. (2013). ‘Rufus Norris: Who is the new National Theatre director?’ BBC News, 15 October.  Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24532470 (Accessed: 10 March 2021).

Summerskill, C. (2021) Creating verbatim theatre from oral histories. Routledge: New York.