meet Rue: he secretly loves Muffet’s donuts.

top 5 best hannibal takes and worst hannibal takes. go

okay i’m going to do this generally on what other people’s takes (that i’ve seen or read somewhere) are because none of my hannibal takes are bad. 

top 5 best:

that margot should have been butch in the tv show and that the margot/alana romance could have been developed a little more, i’ll elaborate more on the butch angle in top 5 worst, but i think while i enjoy marlana in s3 (who doesn’t) i do think that there could have been a Little More to it, especially since there was admittedly a lot of gratuitous metaphorical work on a visual or verbal level in early s3 that didn’t... really do much after the first few, and that i think bryan fuller definitely got a bit self-indulgent. while i love s3 i think it was weaker because it got quite ensnared in feeling like it had to explain everyone’s individual recovery (not a bad thing necessarily and the looping narrative definitely had this feeling of “time has been changed, mutilated, adjusted after mizumono”, but on a narrative level it could have probably still been achieved but left more room for things to. Happen) and i think that some of the excess could have been trimmed to allow for more margot-alana development beyond simply talking about taking revenge, i would have loved to see some genuine conversation that only affected both of them that made us realise just why alana would raise the child with her, why they would get marriedーalana having very little dating life and presumably trauma around relationships since her immediate ex tried to murder her and is also a serial killer, and margot having been traumatised repeatedly due to being a lesbian in a very homophobic family, they deserved some space in order to explore why exactly they mean a lot to each other. even a singular scene that didn’t depend on taking vengeance on the men who hurt them would have given us enough i think. 

lara jean chorostecki’s hot take (implied) that freddie would have a wife. groundbreaking. love that. regardless of bryan fuller i am assuming with full confidence that freddie lounds has a wife after the timeskip

autistic will graham. enough said. hugh dancy’s only stupid thing was saying will isn’t autistic. that was a sin. will graham is autistic

lesbian abigail hobbs. lesbian abigail hobbs!

the hot take that hannibal doesn’t do its women characters justice, this isn’t just about deaths (i do agree that for the gothic horror narrative characters are doomed to some extent, and i don’t overly grieve over deaths that came too early, so i’m not too fussed) but on a writing level, bryan fuller definitely tries to portray himself as a very woman-positive author who introduces feminine energy - and he does! but at the same time there is a lack in developing relationships between women, and for a story to truly give space to be a genuinely woman-positive story there needs to be strong relationships between women that don’t depend on men; obviously since hannibal’s presence is insidious and infects everything, as is his luciferian ways, and will’s often the binding agent, this can’t be entirely avoided but regardless of hannibal they can exist, on some small level, individually. we saw that a lot in s1! between abigail and freddie and alana and abigail mostly, plus there was a small glimpse at it in season 3 with bedelia and chiyoh (underrated imo i would love to see further into why bedelia has her views of chiyoh and what that means ... i hope they interact again if hannibal s4 comes to pass!). so it proves there is room for it. it doesn’t need to be every episode or even have a huge arc but seeing hannibal pass the bechdel test more than like. twice a season would be nice!

top 5 worst takes:

that bedannibal is more romantic than hannigram (lol)... i love bedelia and bedannibal a lot but that’s just. hm. incorrect

that hannibal has never loved anybody except will. i’ve wrote about this before but i think that’s a deliberate misunderstanding of the character hannibal. what is unique about hannibal and will’s relationship is not the presence of love but the presence of being changed by that love; transformation is at its core, the openness to being adjusted or altered... recognition, seeing, understanding, and that allowing compassion not only for the other (in hannibal’s case) but for the self (in will’s case). hannibal loves a lot, but his love is not separate from crueltyーi think this is where people misunderstand. just because he is willing to hurt or harm people isn’t, in the narrative (not in real life), because he doesn’t love them. his cruelty is because he loves people enough he wants to bring them to the height of their being, in extremis. he loved alana, which is why he showed her a chance at mercy. he loved bedelia. he loved jack. he loved abigail! he loved bella especially, and he genuinely mourned. these went beyond fascinations; these were genuine expressions of affection, love, whether they be platonic or romantic or familial. hannibal’s flaw is not that he is incapable of love. and personally i think to disrespect his relationships with other characters (who are all women, black or both lol) in order to further isolate the white m/m relationship is... not ideal. not a sign that someone is wholly prejudiced but i think it’s something we should be critical about, especially when hannibal through word of god is confirmed to love other people. 

bryan fuller’s own take that margot being femme is somehow less prejudiced or problematic than if she was butch. i haven’t read the book yet but i already know that margot’s portrayal as a butch lesbian was problematic but thomas harris is . undoubtedly prejudiced in many ways and that’s a fault of him, not a fault of the existence of being butchーbeing butch isn’t just a “stereotype” it’s a genuine mode of existence, it’s an intricate relationship with gender, sexuality and love, and butchness deserves to be represented as something beautiful, desirable and complex... instead of just deciding she should be conventionally feminine because that’s somehow more progressive. but then again he also made her have sex with a man so you know. lol

ANY take that involves over-analysing who is a top or who is a bottom and then rendering the characters into homophobic/fetishistic stereotypes. it’s ugly! it’s weird! keep that shit away from me. also any take involving “dark!will”. again that just does the character of will disrespect lol. the whole point of will is that he is morally complex and perhaps beyond the human scopeーhe is not just an echo of hannibal... i’ve seen one too many fics where will just becomes a savage brutal unfeeling murderer who only cares about hannibal after s3. like please watch the show

that hannibal is a narcissist/sociopath... or any other ableist interpretations. not every villain is a narcissistic (a genuine disorder) sociopath (just another word associated with npd etc) just because they do bad things. they’re very real disorders that people deal with and are infinitely more complex than just a character having a god complex and killing people. the whole point about hannibal is that he exceeds what is considered neurodivergent and while i don’t mind if people with similar disorders relate to him (much like how i relate to will’s autistic traits) i think a lot of bad comes from people throwing the label sociopath around because it becomes dehumanising and leads to further stigma against truly vulnerable people. 

basically any trope that just does a character a disservice or neglects the actual story in further of fetishistic thinking, prejudiced thinking, ableist thinking... will graham can be autistic because of his empathy (i’ve seen it implied that he can’t be because of it when, as a very empathetic autistic person, hyper-empathy is a very common if not universal symptom, it just appears differently) and hannibal is not a sociopath just because he kills and eats people. and we should all have a little sip of critical thinking juice

FOWL Scientist/Former Agent “Dr.Rose Gold”

Art by @thefriendlyfour , full bio under the cut:

Physical Description: Greater flamingo with extremely light pink (almost white) feathers for most of the body, dark pink tipped feathers on head feathers/hair that give the illusion of reverse-frosted tips, black feathers on fingers with darker pink feathers on hands. Beak has the same standard black tip and line going along the seam of the beak as regular greater flamingos, almost looking like black lipstick. Torso is fairly slim and small, but long legs and REALLY long neck make Rose look taller when fully extended- full extended height puts them about an inch and a half or so taller than Steelbeak. Has beautifully crafted mechanical legs plated in rose gold colored metal, hence the name.

Outfit: Rose’s general outfit consists of what could be described as a “crop-top lab coat” with a light pink upper half that just barely covers their chest and leaves their midsection exposed, and a split twin-tail style back in vibrant red with a rose emblem on the back. Part of the sleeve and tail on one side have suffered extreme tears and burn damage due to previous experiments gone wrong, but they refuse to throw it out because it “gives the coat more character”, in their opinion.

Gender: Gender fluid/tri-gender, will switch pronouns often (always best to assume gender-neutral pronouns unless told for sure if one of the others is okay).

Sexual Orientation: Polysexual with a preference for men and nonbinary individuals. Is okay with a partner who sometimes presents as female like they do, but not typically interested in regular women.

Age: 31

Nicknames: Rose, Rosey, Ro, Goldy, Dr.Trap, Pinky, Kee, Keekee (the last three are exclusively used by Steelbeak).

Real Name: Keya Datta. (Family is from India, but they never went until they were an adult)

Background:

Coming from a family of FOWL scientists, Keya always had a love of two things: Technology and Villainy. However, instead of taking the route the rest of their family did and jumping straight into the scientist role, Keya wanted to try the exciting life of an agent first.

They were partnered with Steelbeak ten years ago before Steelbeak became chief officer and the two worked surprisingly well together (despite Steelbeak not understanding or remembering their pronouns most of the time), with Keya being one of his longer lasting partners with a record of three months.

Unfortunately, their partnership came to an abrupt end when Keya suffered a rather nasty accident on a mission that resulted in their legs being blown off. The damage was so severe that not even FOWL’s medicine rays could repair their legs. Keya was out of commission for two years for recovery and used that time to design and build their replacement legs.

The joy of fabricating something so sleek and advanced rekindled their love for science and a year later Keya officially became Dr.Rose Gold- FOWL’s top security system designer and elite limb augmentation specialist.

Current Position: Still FOWL’s top scientist when it comes to security systems and traps, Rose has an entire laboratory to themself out in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert. This is both so they have the room to build and test elaborate traps and security systems, and because most people (High Command included) prefer to keep Rose as far away as possible. They don’t really have a lot of people working at the facility, either, it’s mostly just them and the occasional assistant or body guard that High Command sends to look after Rose, though most of them don’t stay for long because they get tired of dealing with Rose’s erratic nature while working, the traps they have to navigate on a daily basis, or both.

Personality:

Rose has a generally cheerful disposition, despite what they do for a living. Don’t let the constant cheerfulness fool you, though, they can also be very creepy and intimidating when they smile while talking about things such as “live experiments”.

They have a lot of energy and will talk for hours about anything they’re interested in (mainly technological advancements, traps, and security systems). Unfortunately, this energy isn’t always directed properly into their work as they’ll often get distracted and bounce randomly from one thing to the next depending on what strikes their mood.

Once they’ve formed an attachment to someone, things like personal space go out the window and they’ll be all over that person constantly. They’ll do everything from sitting on the person’s lap while tinkering with something, to draping themselves over their shoulders for a hug, and even preening- regardless if the person’s a bird or not.

Steelbeak’s so desensitized to it by now that he doesn’t even bat an eye or register anything off about the contact. He’ll hold very serious discussions with people while Rose is hugging him from behind and nuzzling him and not even acknowledge it until someone points out their behavior, at which point he’ll just be like “Trust me, gettin’ rid of ‘em’s more trouble than it’s worth- this is the safer option.”

While the physical affection can be a bit much for some people to handle, it’s nothing compared to Rose’s protective streak. Once they’ve gotten attached to someone, they’ll be SUPER protective of them, doing things like abducting people who wronged the person they care about to use for security-system testing later, keeping security cameras in key locations around their home to monitor for possible threats, and even planting trackers on/in them to know where they are in case of an emergency. “Invasion of privacy” is a phrase that definitely comes up around Rose more often than it probably should, but it’s just their way of showing they care.

Interesting Bonus Facts:

Rose’s favorite instrument is the hurdy gurdy, which surprises most people since it’s a 1,000 year old instrument, but they consider it a remarkable breakthrough in musical engineering. They’ll happily bust one out and play it to prove their point, which many people may originally laugh at...but the laughter stops when they start playing it like THIS and they just smirk when everyone’s jaws hit the floor.

Despite what many people’s first gut-reaction of seeing someone as hyper as Rose drinking coffee might be (typically fear), it actually has the reverse effect that most would expect and helps them focus easier. If they have a deadline for something coming up, they’ll practically LIVE off of coffee for several days straight and go into a work-frenzy where they’ll hyper-focus on their assignment until it’s completed.

Their robotic legs are their pride and joy, and they’ll happily talk about them whenever someone shows even the slightest interest. The limbs are sleek, strong, beautiful, durable, and practical- the feet have built in magnets they can activate to walk along metal walls and ceilings with ease.

Good luck getting them to cover up those pretty legs, though, they’ll plot your death if you even SUGGEST wearing pants to them.

For formal events they’ll either wear a really nice top or a dress, but a full suit is completely out of the question.

“Would you cover up Mona Lisa’s smile? No? Then don’t you even DARE suggest I hide these works of art from the world!”

People are often confused by/misinterpret the nature of Rose and Steelbeak’s relationship due to both Rose’s lack of personal boundaries and the two’s general familiarity and behavior with one another.

Many assume the two have dated in the past, but that never actually happened, mostly because Steelbeak was still figuring himself out back when they were partners and thought he was straight/didn’t understand Rose’s gender identity. Steelbeak eventually figured out he was bi later in life and gained a better understanding of different genders, but he’s also demiromantic and doesn’t really experience romantic attraction that often.

Rose definitely had a physical attraction to Steelbeak back when they worked together, but it never really went anywhere, and by now they’re both too comfortable with their current relationship to want to change anything. So, in the end, they have more of a “could have been something at one point, but never really happened and now it’s too late to try” sort of relationship.

Nowadays the two of them are still close despite how little they get to see each other in person. At most, they might be considered queerplatonic, but they don’t really have any sort of label on their relationship and just enjoy it for whatever it is.

Hi! I’m part of the lgbtq+ community and Severus is my favorite HP character and I was wondering (if you have the time and feel obliged) if you could please give me a few examples of how he’s queer? It’s been a few years since I reread the books, and def before I came out, so I’m a little in the dark here lol Thanks!!

First of all, I just wanted to apologize for how long it has taken me to properly respond to your ask. I’ve been dealing with some ongoing health issues that have turned me into something of a moody writer. I’ll get random spurts of energy and inspiration and then hit a wall of absolute writer’s block assisted by a major case of executive dysfunction every single time I try to respond to the multiple asks languishing in my inbox. Fortunately, I found myself involved in a discussion just today that addressed your ask so perfectly that I wanted to share it with you.  In the very least, that discussion has also managed to shake off my writer’s block temporarily so that I have found myself in the right head-space to finally be able to give this lovely ask the thought and attention that I feel it deserves. 

Although, in regards to the Snape discourse I linked above, I feel that I should warn you in advance that the discussion was prompted by an anti-Snape poster who made a rather ill-thought meme (I know there are many in the Snapedom who would rather just avoid seeing anti-Snape content altogether, so I try to warn when I link people to debates and discussions prompted by anti-posts) but the thoughtful responses that the anti-Snape poster unintentionally generated from members of the Snapedom (particularly by @deathdaydungeon whose critical analyses of Snape and, on occasions, other Harry Potter characters is always so wonderfully nuanced, thought-provoking, and well-considered), are truly excellent and worth reading, in my opinion. Also, as I fall more loosely under the “a” (I’m grey-ace/demisexual) of the lgbtqa+ flag and community I would prefer to start any discussions about Snape as a queer character or as a character with queer coding by highlighting the perspectives of people in the Snapedom who are actually queer before sharing any thoughts of my own.

In addition, I also wanted to share a few other posts where Snape’s queer coding has been discussed by members of the Snapedom in the past (and likely with far more eloquence than I could manage in this response of my own).

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Along with an excellent article in Vice by Diana Tourjée, in which a case for Snape being trans is convincingly argued. 

Importantly, you’ll notice that while some of these discussions do argue the possibility of Snape being a queer or trans character others may only discuss the way that Snape’s character is queer coded. That is because there is a distinct but subtle difference between: “This character could be queer/lgbtq+” and: “This character has queer/lgbtq+ coding” one which is briefly touched on in the first discussion that I linked you to. However, I would like to elaborate a bit here just what I mean when I refer to Snape as a character with queer coding. As while Rowling has never explicitly stated that she intended to write Snape as lgbtq+ (although there is one interview given by Rowling which could be interpreted as either an unintentional result of trying to symbolically explain Snape’s draw to the dark arts or a vague nod to Snape’s possible bisexuality: "Well, that is Snape's tragedy. ... He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily's aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.”) regardless of her intent when she drew upon the existing body of Western literary traditions and tropes for writing antagonists and villains in order to use them as a red-herring for Snape’s character, she also embued his character with some very specific, coded subtext. This is where Death of the Author can be an invaluable tool for literary critics, particularly in branches of literary criticism like queer theory. 

Ultimately, even if Rowling did not intend to write Snape as explicitly queer/lgbtq+ the literary tradition she drew upon in order to present him as a foil for Harry Potter and have her readers question whether he was an ally or a villain has led to Snape being queer coded. Specifically, many of the characteristics of Snape’s character design do fall under the trope known as the “queering of the villain.” Particularly, as @deathdaydungeon, @professormcguire, and other members of the Snapedom have illustrated, Snape’s character not only subverts gender roles (e.g. his Patronus presents as female versus male, Snape symbolically assumes the role of “the mother” in the place of both Lily and later Narcissa when he agrees to protect Harry and Draco, his subject of choice is potions and poisons which are traditionally associated more with women and “witches,” while he seemingly rejects in his first introduction the more phallic practice of “foolish wand-waving,” and indeed Snape is characterized as a defensive-fighter versus offensive, in Arthurian mythology he fulfills the role of Lady of the Lake in the way he chooses to deliver the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry, Hermione refers to his hand-writing as “kind of girly,” his association with spiders and spinners also carries feminine symbology, etc.) but is often criticized or humiliated for his seeming lack of masculinity (e.g. Petunia mocking his shirt as looking like “a woman’s blouse,” which incidentally was also slang in the U.K. similar to “dandy” to accuse men of being effeminate, the Marauders refer to Snape as “Snivellus” which suggests Snape is either less masculine because he cries or the insult is a mockery of what could pass for a stereotypical/coded Jewish feature, his nose, Remus Lupin quite literally instructs Neville on how to “force” a Boggart!Snape, who incidentally is very literally stepping out of a closet-like wardrobe, into the clothing of an older woman and I quoted force because that is the exact phrase he uses, James and Sirius flipping Snape upside down to expose him again presents as humiliation in the form of emasculation made worse by the arrival and defense of Lily Evans, etc.). 

Overall, the “queering of the villain” is an old trope in literature (although it became more deliberate and prevalent in media during the 1950s-60s); however, in modernity, we still can find it proliferating in many of the Disney villains (e.g. Jafar, Scar, Ursula, etc.), in popular anime and children’s cartoons (e.g. HiM from Powerpuff Girls, James from Pokemon, Frieza, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Perfect Cell, basically a good majority of villains from DBZ, Nagato from Fushigi Yuugi, Pegasus from Yu Gi Oh, etc.), and even in modern television series and book adaptations, such as the popular BBC’s Sherlock in the character of Moriarty. Indeed, this article does an excellent job in detailing some of the problematic history of queer coded villains. Although, the most simple summary is that: “Queer-coding is a term used to say that characters were given traits/behaviors to suggest they are not heterosexual/cisgender, without the character being outright confirmed to have a queer identity” (emphasis mine). Notably, TV Tropes also identifies this trope under the classification of the “Sissy Villain” but in queer theory and among queer writers in fandom and academia “queering of the villain” is the common term. This brings me back to Snape and his own queer coding; mainly, because Rowling drew upon Western traditions for presenting a character as a suspected villain she not only wrote Snape as queer (and racially/ethnically) coded but in revealing to the reader that Snape was not, in fact, the villain Harry and the readers were encouraged to believe he was by the narrator she incorporated a long history of problematic traits/tropes into a single character and then proceeded to subvert them by subverting reader-expectation in a way that makes the character of Severus Snape truly fascinating. 

We can certainly debate the authorial intent vs. authorial impact where Snape’s character is concerned. Particularly as we could make a case that the polarizing nature of Snape may well be partly the result of many readers struggling against Rowling subverting literary tropes that are so firmly rooted in our Western storytelling traditions that they cannot entirely abandon the idea that this character who all but had the book thrown at him in terms of all the coding that went into establishing him as a likely villain (e.g. similar to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Snape is also coded to be associated with darkness/black colors and to represent danger and volatile/unstable moods, while his class status further characterizes him as an outsider or “foreign other,” and not unlike all those villains of our childhood Disney films which affirmed a more black-and-white philosophy of moral abolutism, such as Scar or Jafar, the ambiguity of Snape’s sexuality coupled with his repeated emasculation signals to the reader that this man should be “evil” and maybe even “predatory,” ergo all the “incel” and friendzone/MRA discourse despite nothing in canon truly supporting those arguments; it seems it may merely be Snape’s “queerness” that signals to some readers that he was predatory or even that “If Harry had been a girl” there would be some kind of danger) is not actually our villain after all. 

Indeed, the very act of having Snape die (ignoring, for the moment, any potential issues of “Bury Your Gays” in a queer analysis of his death) pleading with Harry to “look at him” as he symbolically seems to weep (the man whom Harry’s hyper-masculine father once bullied and mocked as “Snivellus”) memories for Harry to view (this time with his permission) carries some symbolic weight for any queer theory analysis. Snape, formerly portrayed as unfathomable and “secretive,” dies while pleading to be seen by the son of both his first and closest friend and his school-hood bully (a son that Snape also formerly could never see beyond his projection of James) sharing with Harry insight into who he was via his personal memories. For Harry to later go on to declare Snape “the bravest man he ever knew” carries additional weight, as a queer theory analysis makes it possible for us to interpret that as Harry finally recognizing Snape, not as the “queer coded villain” he and the reader expected but rather as the brave queer coded man who was forced to live a double-life in which “no one would ever know the best of him” and who, in his final moments at least, was finally able to be seen as the complex human-being Rowling always intended him to be. 

Rowling humanizing Snape for Harry and the reader and encouraging us to view Snape with empathy opened up the queer coding that she wrote into his character (intentionally or otherwise) in such a way that makes him both a potentially subversive and inspiring character for the lgbtq+ community. Essentially, Snape opens the door for the possibility of reclaiming a tradition of queer coding specific to villains and demonstrating the way those assumptions about queer identity can be subverted. Which is why I was not at all surprised that I was so easily able to find a body of existing discourse surrounding Snape as a queer coded or even as a potentially queer character within the Harry Potter fandom. At least within the Snapedom, there are many lgbtq+ fans of his character that already celebrate the idea of a queer, bi, gay, trans, ace/aro, or queer coded Snape (in fact, as a grey-ace I personally enjoy interpreting Snape through that lens from time-to-time). 

Thank you for your ask @pinkyhatespink and once again I apologize for the amount of time it’s taken me to reply. However, I hope that you’ll find this response answered your question and, if not, that some of the articles and posts from other pro-Snape bloggers I linked you to will be able to do so more effectively. Also, as a final note, although many of the scholarly references and books on queer coding and queering of the villain I would have liked to have sourced are typically behind paywalls, I thought I would list the names of just a few here that I personally enjoyed reading in the past and that may be of further interest should you be able to find access to them.

Fathallah, Judith. “Moriarty’s Ghost: Or the Queer Disruption of the BBC’s Sherlock.” Television & New Media, vol. 16, no. 5, 2014, p. 490-500. 

Huber, Sandra. “Villains, Ghosts, and Roses, or How to Speak With The Dead.” Open Cultural Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019, p. 15-25.

Mailer, Norman. “The Homosexual Villain.” 1955. Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays, edited by Sipiora Phillip, Random House, 2013, pp. 14–20.

Solis, Nicole Eschen. "Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater." Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, 2016, p. 115+. 

Tuhkanen, Mikko. “The Essentialist Villain.” Jan. 2019,  SBN13: 978-1-4384-6966-9

Could I possibly get an Lotr and The Hobbit Ship please? I'm an Autistic Girl who would like a male ship, an Author and English Major who's obsessed with Dark Academia, Classical Literature, Culture, Mythology and really whatever I happen to be hyperfixating on at the moment. I'm excitable, anxious, highly intelligent, eloquent with a highly advanced vocabulary, stubborn, kind and thoughtful. I'm very short, only 4' 11" tall, with messy brown hair, crooked glasses, pale skin with freckles on my arms and shoulders, light blue eyes, and I typically dress in sweaters, waistcoats and big wooly jackets. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it!

HOBBIT

DEFINITELY THRANDUIL

The man loves literature

He can sit and read with you for hours and not notice the time

He loves to have you snuggled into him as you read together

He finds it adorable when you suddenly hyper fixate on something

tbh I do that too when it comes to fandoms

He will join you whenever you decide on something new you wanna do

he honestly find so many more things he loves with you

honestly you are a really good influence on him

Your bouncing from one thing to the next is a good change of pace too

his days are pretty boring and filled with paperwork and fixing problems

being a little more care free with you makes him feel so loved and relaxed

your use of advanced vocabulary is also much appreciated 

makes his life a little easier so he doesn't have to change the way he is speaking to make it easier for you to understand

Hes not excitable in the same way you are

His excitement is kinda yours in a way

whenever you really excited over something a smile is always on his face

He would never jump up and down with happiness over things, but when you look at him and see that smile you just know

literally falls in love with you every time you get really excited

you are so adorable

When ever you get too anxious though he is always there to make sure you are OK

he will hold your hand if you need more space

but he will gladly pull you onto his lap and hold you if thats what you need

he is very catering to your needs

you are both very stubborn though and will definitely but heads on more than one occasion

though any time either of you fight because of other your stubbornness everyone is on edge

because now Thranduil is incredibly irritable 

And we all know how hard to deal with an annoyed Thranduil is

so the people around the castle will basically ‘accidentally’ lock you both in a room together until you work it out

and hey presto would you look at that the door is no longer locked shut

your height is something he can and will tease

if he hurts your feelings he will instantly stop

he would never want you to be uncomfortable in any way

just little things, calls you his shortcake

call him tree and he will burst out laughing every time

he calls you his little branch in return

omg that was adorable how did I just think of that on the spot

His favourite thing to do at the end of the day is just to pick you up and wrap you into your fluffy jumpers

you look so warm and safe wrapped up in the clothing

his heart dies a little every time he sees it he swears

so cute

he will for a fact coming up to you at random times of the day and boop your glasses back onto your nose

LOTR

LEGOLAS

(bruh you should have seen this coming)

so to being with he isn't into literature as much as his father is

though he can still appreciate it

his favourite thing to see after a long day of training or fighting is seeing you curled up in a fluffy jumper with a book in hand

Makes his heart soft

you both have little competitions to see who can read more in a certain amount of time

he loves a good competition for no reason

you hyper fixation is fun for him, if you randomly wake up one day and decide you want to learn self-defence or archery he will gladly teach you all he knows

he won't really get involved but he will watch from the sidelines and praise you no matter what you are doing

makeup

poetry

story writing

baking

this man is a great hype man

He will get excited with you

run up to him and start jumping up and down about what made you so excited, he will reflect that energy right back at you

yes he will jump with you why not

your height doesn't bother him

he doesn't even mention it half the time

most of the time he doesn't even acknowledge it because to him your still his s/o and he loves you all the same

though there is that 5% of the time

he likes to put things on high shelves so you ask for his help there is said it

brings he so much pride in the fact you go to him for help and no one else

its a good ego boost and thats something he is kinda lacking

your stubbornness doesn't tase him

his dad is stubborn he has been around stubborn people all his life

he is the mediator in your relationship

if you both have a fight he will go to you first even if your the one who needs to apologise because he knows he can get through to you eventually even if you are stubborn

honestly as long as that stubborn nature isn't aimed at him he encourages it

finds it hilarious tbh

he will pick you up and take you away from any situation that makes you anxious

Its just his nature

he can't beat up your anxiety so he will just take you away from what caused it

simple

anyway I think thats all for now

btw he definitely calls you his little bookworm

{{ ~*OOC*~ }}

Tagged by: @streetxcat​ (for reading!) Tagging: Whosoever witnesses these words!

Name: Zira, Blue, RWT, Dovemun Facelaim: (Nonvisual brain = I don’t ‘register’ images? So I never claimed one.) Pronouns: She/her, xe/xer. they/them Height: 5′3.5 Birthday: March 30 (3/30, on the 3rd day of the week!)

Aesthetic: I call it “casual RomantiGoth” summarily, but I have Many Aesthetic Aspects. Everything from the stillness of misty forests, to the writhing stormy seas. Sometimes a single leaf of blank white paper and a blue pen on the table, and sometimes a literal wall of black shelves stocked with old books. Skyclad dances, and yards of black fabric sliding to the ground as I kneel. The sounds of storms and blizzards, and the electric crackle among the graveyard silence on Halloween night. The scent of drying herbs and down feathers, or the crisp chill of the first frost at dawn. Natural, calm, cold, dark, mystic, and alive.

Last song you listened to: Do ytp/crack edits count? Because “That’s right I HEARD the story, over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and......” (If not, it’s Ocean Soul by Nightwish.)

Favorite Muses: Why must you ask a mother to choose amongst her children?! Well: It’s Dove, Dove is definitely the Favorite Child, because she’s the easiest to write (because I know her best!), and she’s also... the most, uh, “volatile” to write with (and thus: Most Interesting). She can be thrown off her game and Reacts Sincerely, even if she has to ~temper~ her emotions.

JLvTT!Raven and another dear OC, Srentha, make a close tie for second, though. Raven takes a certain degree of Wit to write, though she’s also quiet and watchful, not exactly an “active” character, and Srentha is on the polar opposite end of the spectrum as a very hyper and energetic fella, so keeping up with them can be a lot harder than thoughtful, quiet, mild-mannered Dove. But I love the way Raven’s thoughtfulness leads to Action and Revelations rather than Wallowing, and Srentha’s energy is such a JOY when I can keep up with him! He’s my Eternal Optimist, and his spontaneity means you never know what will happen next.

~ * Getting to Know the Account * ~

What inspired you to take on this muse: Oh my. That story is 14 years long. The tl;dr version? I had more than one of the same Raven action figure, one became “Raven’s Sister”, I realized the stories I played out with them could make really good fanfiction, and Writing Stories About “Dove” just became my next hyperfixation. My earliest dated “story” with Dove is from 2005. 

Fast forward a handful of years, and a very dear friend encouraged me to start RPing my OCs (on Anatheria forums, of all places!). Fast forward another couple years, and I got addicted to RPing in the chatrooms of an OC-specific group on devaintArt. Made some plots, made some friends, and developed an irrevocable addiction to RPing with Dove as a standalone character. Then: I discovered Tumblr. And then I discovered: Tumblr has RPs too!! And here we are today, carrying on the second greatest tradition in the history of Me Writing About My OCs. Still RPing Dove.

What are your favorite aspects of your current muse? Dove is so, so special to me. It’s so hard to choose just two or three things; honestly, my favorite aspect is just, watching and learning about her and seeing her GET THROUGH all the situations she finds herself in! I love her determination-- yet how the ferocity of that determination is juxtaposed against her soul-deep pacifism. I love how her quiet nature can be a steadying ballast of comfort, or how much conflict this loud, chaotic world brings to such a quiet soul that it can whip up a storm (within her mind via internal struggle OR outside her, in energies and minds alike). Her powers are incredibly strong, yet she’s so afraid of losing control and hurting someone that she restrains them with this desperate sort of vigilance. She’s so multi-faceted, I think that’s why I like seeing her through so many different situations. And she’s not your typical hero, certainly not an ideal one... but she’s so strong and so brave, all the same.

What’s your biggest inspiration when it comes to writing? Character interactions! People having feelings, and taking actions, and playing off each other! I absolutely LIVE for the interplay between Two Individuals and the unique situations and feelings and energy that each pairing has. But if we’re not talking about RPs: I love being able to explore the minds and hearts of the people I’m writing. I really love writing about magic, and astral manifestations, and mystical objects and places... I have such an unreal connection to Azar and Azarath and so many different aspects of the canon mythology surrounding them. But it’s not just Those Things Alone; it’s what the characters DO with them, and what they do To/For the characters. It’s how the characters interact with them, how they FEEL about it. And how those things can make an impact on their lives. I just really love exploring people. Especially in moments of emotion, passion, and GROWTH!

Favorite types of threads: Okay. So I’m writing for this quiet, sociophobic, wispy girl, right? So let’s take her and... make her talk! Make her go out in public! Make her assert her presence! Push her LIMITS, because not only is it really fun to explore her reactions, but there’s a Special Sort of Drama that can only come from making your baby UNCOMFORTABLE! (And it doesn’t have to be painful or fear-inducing discomfort, either. Anything new? Anything unfamiliar? Anything she doesn’t know, or never saw, or didn’t expect? Just taking her outside her comfort zone, and letting her grow comfortable with new experiences. Grow, baby, grow.~

Biggest struggle in regards to your current muse: Finishing a reply-- written and edited! I’m just SO DAMN EXHAUSTED. And it’s not a lack of muse-- I still clearly Witness In My Head what she’s doing, or how she responds, or how it makes her feel. But it’s capturing it; she has such a rich and churning internal world that it doesn’t feel right to just slap down a few lines of “She does this. She thinks that”. I want to capture her layers! I want to soar across her thought process! I want to take these static words on a screen and make them dance with Dove’s tiny yet meaningful grins, or her struggle against her fear, or her stunned gratitude. Unfortunately my work schedule is draining my energy, and I’m spending so much time sleeping that I can’t fit all the replies I want to turn out in a single hour of writing, and I wind up with a drafts page filled with half-written responses from 3+ months ago, and the wistful memory of when I was writing five paragraphs in 20 minutes or less.... Sigh.

Adult!Barry - info

Info under read more

Face claim: Asahina Kaname         

Age: 21*

*Standard for most interactions, meant to take sometime after his take over the Battle tower.

Height: 6′7 ft / 2 meters

Occupation: Battle brain in charge of the Battle tower in Sinooh.

Depending on the verse’s plot, this can be altered and he will be working over at Johto’s estabilishment.

Personality: So many drastic changes have occurred, not just in a visual standpoint but his behavior and mannerism as well.

Barry no longer is a child, he has since matured up a lot. Once someone who was overflown with energy that wouldn’t stop, has now become a calm and collected person. His charisma, sillinness and positive vibes have remained untouched, so did his dedication and hard working spirits.

He has learned to stop, think and to actually listen to what he is being told.

The lack of an attention span has been replaced with hints of an observant person.

In its essence Barry hasn’t changed in the slightest, however to those who knew him to be just this hyper active child will say otherwise.

Physical appearance: An athletic body- one that resembles a runner, slightly muscular with broad shoulders. Slightly suntanned body.

Short story:

It has been well over 10 years since the games events.

Barry’s pokemon trainer journey ended at the age of 18 years old, when he was done with the island challenges in Alola. That’s when he returned to Sinooh, with his large and prized collection of all the gym badges he has visitted throughout his journey.

The young man’s quest of collecting gym badges has finally come to an end, and a new goal has been set to him.

To become a battle brain, and claim his father’s position at the battle frontier.

Within a matter of weeks from his return Barry started his trainning for such thing.

Every single day was put into it, and in the end it all paid off.

At the age of 20 years old Barry claimed a battle brain title within the frontier, it wouldn’t be until one year later that he would take over Palmer’s estabilishment allowing his father to finally retire.

Relevant headcanons:

Barry isn’t seen as the leader or the head of the other battle brains like his father used to be, due to his lack of experience in the area. This has since been moved on to someone else who has been working there a longer time (likely Thorton, Dahlia or even Darach this is up for discussion);

He is still learning how to deal with the staff, how to manage and whatnot. Because of it Palmer can still be seen roamming around the estabilishment, checking up on Barry;

This is where any kind of romantic relationship is bound to start bloomming, while Barry may still be getting used to his new life. He is more than open to any kind of relationship;

His father has since returned to Twinleaf town, back to his wife and he is staying there with her alongside with the majority of Barry’s pokemon.

Character from a pokemon storytelling group I am in

Name: Hashira Eboshi Job Title: Warlord of Byakko’s Province Species: Mawile Gender: Female Age: 27 Race: Sazanami Characteristic: Somewhat stubborn Nature: Sassy Ability: Hyper Cutter, Intimidate Height: 2’00” Moveset: -Play Rough -Baton Pass -Iron Defense -Sucker Punch -Brick Break -Iron Head Personality: Eboshi doesn’t appear to be interested in diplomacy, or anything involving her title, really, and seems very outgoing and open to everyone. She is the youngest of the warlords, and it shows, even acting more childish than her actual age would suggest. However, Eboshi prides herself on having lots of energy and being “street-smart,” but it has been noted that she is also very prideful. But just like Eboshi has two heads, she also has two faces, and behind that confident mask of hers might hide a different emotion entirely... She likes to spend her free time exploring the winding, confusing tunnels of the mines and mountains, in search of adventure and monsters to fight, and while she might not get lost, she is in for a big scolding if her ever-serious advisor, Sato Osamu, finds her. Not only does the Bisharp do most of the actual warlord work around the province, especially the dreaded paperwork, but he also takes care of Eboshi, making sure she keeps up with her training by sparing, and stays out of trouble. Which is very hard at times: Eboshi is impulsive, stubborn and can be very naive, you might even say ignorant of the world’s workings and dense (if you are Sato). Even though others underestimate her and don’t trust her because of her behaviour, or she at least feels like they won’t, she is still willing to try to work together with them without making a big fuss, showing her overall easy going nature. History: Eboshi comes from a respectful family, that have long ruled over the western mining province. Her parents were very strict, and invested a lot of time trying to teach Eboshi discipline, diligence and etiquette. Her father and mother both did not approve of Eboshi’s wild behaviour; on top of that, Eboshi’s second mouth was also something they wanted to suppress and make sure it was controlled, silent, closed and still. However it would just hang slack and would even snap at people; it even bit a couple of her nannies. So her parents decided to bind it shut with tough leather belts and iron clasps. This seemed to affect Eboshi’s behaviour at first as well, becoming more quiet and controlled. However it soon turned around, and Eboshi began to shirk her duties even more, appearing unexplainingly overconfident to any that would ask what was wrong. At some point her parents appointed a serious and well disciplined lad to help with Eboshi’s training. This boy was Sato Osamu, who would later become Eboshi’s official assistant once she took over. His results with Eboshi, sparring with her, making sure she attended classes, often teaching himself if he had to, and good sense and eye for the more official parts of the warlord’s job, quickly won him her parents’ complete trust. And though the attention he received did not seem to affect the Bisharp, to Eboshi it did put emphasis on how they felt about their own daughter and how she lacked the things they wanted from their child. Despite this she became and still is very close to the Bisharp, even though they are very different, as Sato always seemed to focus on her efforts and never on the praise he received for his own, this gave her the feeling that he cared, something she hardly felt from her parents who only compared her to others. There were two other figures quite prominent in Eboshi’s childhood. When they were younger she used to be friends with Hanako, though most people wondered about that statement, as they always seemed to be fighting about something. Such as the attention of a certain fire monkey: Katsumi was someone they both idolized and saw as a big sister. Katsumi, wanting to break up the fighting between the two, gave them each a bell, saying she liked them both equally, and the bells will be proof that they are both her precious friends, and each other’s friends as well. Eboshi still wears this bell visibly on her person; she still looks up to Katsumi and regards Hanako as a friend, though she is annoyed by the fact she never listens to her and acts superior and Hanako has made it very clear she wants nothing to do with both her and Katsumi. Eboshi feels their issues with each other are because while they are different in their views they are also similar in a lot of ways. And while her parents did not allow her to meet directly, and speak directly to many of the warlords she has always thought that Isas was very cool, and has been interested in his inventions; it’s too bad she can’t understand his explanations though. Currently Eboshi has been relieved of her warlord duties for an a yet undetermined amount of time after Sato’s betrayal and showing inaptitude in performing her appointed duties without his aid. She’s being tutored so that she may potentially take back her role, for the time being Isas, Takeshi and Sho keep an eye on her lands, Isas concerning himself with most of the practical work regarding the mines and its workers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZzVHlhsEeA

Wow, just wow.

It’s like FMF heard how I said that I found a WORSE RWBY reviewer than him...

Then proceeded to go “BUT this isn’t even my FINAL FORM!”

0:54 No, your group RWDE is terrible because you have no morals. You’re only limit is not what is right or what you stand for, but what you can get away with. RWDE only reposnded well because they had literally no other options without outing themselves as uncaring. You however can use the combined echo chamber to ignore reality and pretend like your lies are truth so you won’t realize what you’re eating is shit.

1:04 Well if he did that Lord Fatass, you’d call him a Nazi and then say he fucks his dog because you said so. I mean, that’s what you do to your own critics, which just kind of proves you know what you are doing is wrong and you don’t want to face it.

1:32 Bullshit Slick, I’ve seen you in RWDE. You get involved ALL the god damn time.

1:37 Wow, how knew friendly fire was enabled?

1:44 Now does Jess have any opinions aside form yours? Or does she just spoonfeed you what you already think? Because considering YOUR interactions with anyone who doesn’t think exactly like you: I don’t trust you.

1:52 By talking to them. About this topic. Which is exactly what you tried denying a few seconds ago. So you’re lying before we even get to RWBY. Great.

3:01 No, they are willing to talk. It’s just they can’t or else the assholes you people created and encouraged will rise up like zombies and tear them limb from limb. I’ve seen it happen so you can’t deny it.

3:12 “The idea of a homosexual character being a villain-it’s just thrown in there”

... This is the people who RWDE praises as the height of intelligence: Dumbasses who think that gay people cannot be bad, as though they are somehow any different that straight people.

3:29 Ah huh, so literally ALL THE OTHER SCENES WITH ILLA never happened. Because that proved she had depth already. And Illa had rather explicitly romantic interactions towards Blake with favoritism towards Blake. It wasn’t tacked on, you just tacked THAT on to pander to your RWBY hating audience.

3:37 Hi Lord Fatass. I see your IQ has dropped since we last met. No fucking wonder, all the energy needed to generate that hot air must leave your brain lacking.

Seeing as she was SENDING BLAKE TO ADAM: it wouldn’t affect her motivations at all. If she loved Adam then yes but she doesn’t, so no. But let’s see what snake oil you’re gonna try to sell us.

3:41 https://youtu.be/56Z6po1woq0?t=12m19s

“Literally” huh? Seems like that came well past the Adam section. Almost like it had NOTHING to do with it.

4:00 SO you people didn’t even fucking KNOW what you were talking about. FOur minutes in and you’ve proven yourself unreliable.

4;13 Problem is, you assholes abuse Death Of The Author so much that it has lost all menaing, You gusy don’t get to have interpretations due to your immense bias and untrustworthy behavior as well as a tendency to lie your asses off.

You guys get to show facts and make statements about them SOLELY. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for you to do so otherwise with RWBY.

4:17 No articulation: No credit.

4:27 And we should trust you...why? You just got done saying that she was doing stuff to get Adam to notice her by your shock that the looking comment was about Blake, showing that you don’t know what you are talking about. So your “feeling”could be you misreading the scene or lying about it.

5:03 So did you not watch the Blake CHaracter short or a good chunk of Volume 5/ Because saying Illa’s motivation is to fuck Blake shows you are spewing shit.

5:13 Yeah, it is...so you being a RWBY fan and ignoring the actual motivation don’t fit. SO which is it? Are you lying or do you hate the show so you make up shit?

5:27 Minus the sociopathy. And the selfishness. And the edginess. And the self serving motives. And the personal investiment in the White Fang. And the dick. And the sword. And the anima traits. And the backstory. And the result...

What do they have in common again aside from being White Fang members?

5:35 I see. SO this isn’t four people talking, this is one person talking and three meat puppets. Well, at least I’m only tormenting one person then.

6:01 Fifty bucks says he bites himself in the ass.

6:07 Do I get extra money if he bites himself not even ten seconds later?

6:31 And nothing changed with Illa. She still hates humans. She still cares for Blake. She still doesn’t know what to do. She still doubts herself. She still fights for the Fanaus. And she still has her morals. That’s a hundred bucks now.

6:32 Which is why the character short in which we had her motivation said nothing about Blake and was about her parents.

7:43 Considering SlickSlick is Tumblr and you’re massive following here: You are. In fact, you’re the root of tumblr’s bullshit in RWBY. I should get to tearing them out sometime...

7:54 Here’s more proof you are indeed Tumblr. You can only see in race, gender and ethnicity. Not diversity of thought but rather superficial diversity. Just like Tumblr. Also: All four of you are straight, white and male. You have no room to talk.

8:11 And the shovel official has more IQ than you Fatass since Adam clearly wants to kill humans for Fanaus supremecy, not to fuck. Just like Tumblr, you cannot separate WHAT a person is from WHO a person is.

8:27 Doesn't matter if Illa is gay. Her viewpoint has NOTHING to do with her sexuality

8:33 “all on the unrequiented love”

Was relevant for 43 seconds. I counted. Check for yourself. I do have a link to the moment: Just count the seconds until it changes topic.

Proof you have no idea what you are talking about.

9:11 Precisely what they did. But that can’t be bitched at so here you are, denying reality. Pathetic.

9:36 A. Wasn’t relevant until now (do yo0u wlak around saying “I WANNA FUCK WOMEN!” all the damn time?)

B. Catmen never came out. Incompatible. You just wanna draw a connection to Cartmen to pass off his infamy to Illa while being a clown. Well you fialed both Lord Fatass.

10:05 He can’t eb Edgy lord Extreme.

Fatass is there.

10:11 Considering the actual commentateries don’t rely on echo chambers and edited footage and ignorance to make points, you people need a red pill.

10:17 The fact we are the same species sickens me. It reminds me I can never escape your shit because it’s in me. And it’s disgusting.

10:29 Yeah, people who call others beta are usually omegas themselves. Alphas don’t nee dto assert their dominance or prove themselves, that all comes naturally and they naturally get it. You guys won’t even speak out anywhere that doesn’t give you the advantage or shows weakness. MurderOfBirds cries on screen and is humble enough to thank his fans and acknowledge his flaws: You people put ona  façade, act like your hot shit and never own up. You’re all weaklings.

10:43 Illa never abused Blake in a relationship. Illa never killed out of spite (in fact, she saved out of love). Oh wiat, not your narrative. Sorry, I forgot you’re all delusional.

11:14 I think you meant to see “We’re all equal shit”. Considering yoru just Fatass’ drones: Yes you are.

12:16 And the fact that you are gonna act like that is any different than America having all white casts proves you ain’t peak Tumblr...how?

12:23 When you assholes became Tumblr.

12:49 Not like that’s exclusive to RACE asshole. An Asian growing up in America is not gonna have Chinese values. And a white person leaving in China will not have the same culture as a white person in America.

13:14 Thing is: They ain’t all the same thing. Blake is a Fanaus, Weiss is from Atlas-You have three differnet sides there. And even then, again: Not bound by race. 

13:59 Not if they hate each other “because.” Just like getting along for no reason is boring too. You don’t understand how writing works. Then again, you never did so you’re still going shit!

15:19 NO, THERE ISN’T. Race, Gender and Sexuality mean NOTHING to WHO a person is unless they let it and even then, that a part of PERSONALITY. Only people who argue that those do have an affect are the bigots or idiots. Oh wait, you’re the second one...

15:53 Oh so NOW different culture sdon’t matter huh? Never occurred to you that THEIR society doesn’t work EXACTLY THE SAME as ours? That maybe, they don’t care about that?

How are you all not Tumblr again?

16:45 Not all shows wanna do that and certainly not all people want to watch it. Only people who do are, surprise, hyper Tumblrs!

16:53 Actually you do: Illa. She says nothing about it, she doesn't mention it, she doesn’t act like it, she has no trouble aside form the usual and being gay itself isn’t shocking. SO there you go.

17:19 Easy: Care about something else. The society doesn’t care and you shouldn’t.

18:35 FOr all of you actually since you show no variety in opinion and are notorious for echo chambers.

You just keep saying “We should judge people based on sex, sexuality and race! Taht’s how thinsg work!” without thinking about how so many people want to IGNORE all that.

And taht’s all. Final Thoughts: As expected, they make up bullshit and actm like it’s reality. It’sm RWDE in pure, concentrated video form and surprisingly, they don’t wanna admit it.

Basically: worthless opinions by untrustworthy and stupid people. So laugh at them, make him flip out and dig themselves a hole to be stuck in and leave.

Adult!Barry - info

Info under read more!

Face claim: Asahina Kaname        

Age: 21*

*Standard for most interactions, meant to take sometime after his take over the Battle tower. After 4 years from USUM/SUMO.

Height: 6′7 ft / 2 meters

Occupation: Battle brain in charge of the Battle tower in Johto’s establishment.

Personality: So many drastic changes have occurred, not just in a visual standpoint but his behavior and mannerism as well.

Barry no longer is a child, he has since matured up a lot. Once someone who was overflown with energy that wouldn’t stop, has now become a calm and collected person. His charisma, sillinness and positive vibes have remained untouched, so did his dedication and hard working spirits.

He has learned to stop, think and to actually listen to what he is being told.

The lack of an attention span has been replaced with hints of an observant person.

In its essence Barry hasn’t changed in the slightest, however to those who knew him to be just this hyper active child will be surprised.

Physical appearance: An athletic body- one that resembles a runner, slightly muscular with broad shoulders. Slightly suntanned body.

Short story:

It has been well over 10 years since the games events.

Barry’s pokemon trainer journey ended at the age of 18 years old, when he was done with the island challenges in Alola. That’s when he returned to Sinnoh, with his large and prized collection of all the gym badges he has visitted throughout his journey.

The young man’s quest of collecting gym badges may have come to an end, but a new goal has been set to him.

To become a battle brain, and claim his father’s position at the battle frontier.

Within a matter of weeks from his return Barry started his trainning for such thing.

Every single day was put into it, and in the end it all paid off.

At the age of 20 years old Barry claimed a battle brain title within the frontier, however it wouldn’t be until one year later that he would claim an actual position for himself. Not in Sinnoh, rather in Johto.

As such, he has moved away from his home region in order to start his life elsewhere.

Relevant headcanons:

Barry isn’t seen as the leader or the head of the other battle brains like his father used to be, due to his lack of experience in the area. This has since been moved on to someone else who has been working there a longer time (since he is working at Johto rather than Sinnoh, this means he is working alongside a whole and different team of frontier brains);

He is still learning how to deal with the staff, how to manage and whatnot. Because of it Palmer uses that as the perfect opportunity to show up, and check up on Barry;

This is where any kind of romantic relationship is bound to start bloomming, while Barry may still be getting used to his new life. He is now more than open to any kind of relationship;

His father is still working at Sinnoh’s battle tower, his mother has moved away from Twinleaf town and is now living at the Resort area- alongside her husband.

Mumbling Music, Soundcloud Rap, and Feeling Like an Old Man

I never thought I’d be “over” a genre within the space of a year. My obsessions tend to be longer-lasting, or at the very least, something that I can return to later even if it’s solely for nostalgic purposes. After “discovering” hip-hop in 2015 I quickly gravitated towards the “trap” subgenre whose outlandish figures like Young Thug and Future provided a much-needed break from the years of straight-laced and hyper-earnest music I’d been listening to most of college.

In addition to trap’s personable artists, the subgenre has managed to become one of the most popular and dominant sounds over the past several years. This combination made the scene feel communal and accessible as it grew to become an undeniable a part of the cultural zeitgeist. In fact, hip-hop is part of the cultural landscape now more than ever as artists are propelled to success by internet memes which has led to a “look at me” mentality.

In 2016 a distinct new class of rapper began to emerge who utilized the path that had been paved by their trap forefathers to carve out their own niche and fortify themselves as the “next generation” of hip-hop. This group of (then) up-and-comers included people like Lil Yachty, Desiigner, and 21 Savage who quickly earned the derogatory label of “mumble rap,” a name inspired by the MC’s apparent lack of technical proficiency on the mic. These rappers took cues from people like Young Thug and Future (who are also often lumped into this group) but remain distinct for a few reasons. One: almost all of these artists blew up while still in their teens. Two: almost all of these artists used SoundCloud as a platform in their rise to prominence (paving the way for future artists). Three: Many of the most popular “mumble rappers” also happened to be members of the XXL 2016 Freshman Class.

This inclusion in XXL is the most important commonality to note because it elevated the genre instantly and placed these artists squarely in the spotlight. As these rappers gained popularity and publicity over the summer of 2016 many people criticized the freshmen class for their evident lack of technical skill. It quickly ballooned to a genre-wide discussion about what these rappers “brought to the table” if they were eschewing the things that were typically used as barometers of quality within the genre.

I’ve already put my flag in the ground on the topics of lyricism and proficiency in hip-hop in this post from last year on the importance (or lack thereof) of lyrics. In retrospect, comparing these rappers to groups like Sigur Ros may have been a step too far, but I still stand by the overall sentiment of the post.

Now, I hate to sound nostalgic for something that’s only a year old, much less hoist up these artists who I ultimately think are just okay… but these mumble rap artists were significantly better than what we see coming out of the scene a year later. Thanks to the 2016 Freshman Class, hip-hop became an ongoing debate of “style versus substance,” and we’re only now seeing the implications of this shift a year after the emergence of mumble rap with the birth of a brand new scene. But before I get into that, let’s take a look at two specific artists from the mumble rap movement to help us make a direct comparison.

Two Sides of the Same Sound

Lil Uzi Vert is a Philadelphia-based rapper who first made waves in 2015 with his third mixtape Luv is Rage. In 2016 he rose to prominence thanks to his fourth mixtape Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World which birthed two singles, ended up going gold, and solidified him a place on the 2016 XXL freshman list. In 2017 he’s reached unprecedented heights thanks to a (bad) verse on Migos’ quadruple platinum “Bad and Boujee” which paved the way for his own (much better) track, the monumental "XO Tour Llif3.” Tour Lif3 was originally uploaded to Soundcloud as a throwaway track and has since become a breakout phenomenon going x3 Platinum in 6 months, proving both the popularity of Uzi and cementing the platform as a viable test for mainstream hits.

Moving onto another “Lil” rapper from the same scene: Lil Yachty is an Atlanta-based artist who originally broke through in 2015 with what everyone presumed was a one-off viral hit “One Night.” Within a year his next hit “Minnesota” was being played on Drake’s radio show and he caught fire. This platform brought Yachty a newfound audience which elevated his just-released Lil Boat mixtape and propelled him to the forefront of the hip-hop stratosphere.

I chose to highlight these two because they became symbols of the mumble rap genre within the space of weeks. And while they’re often lumped together, they oddly represent two opposing sides of the same sound. So why these two guys? Aside from their inclusion in the 2016 Freshman Class, they both blew up at the same time, dropped high-profile mixtapes within a month of each other, and use many of the same tropes within their music. I also believe one of the more silly reasons these two were lumped together was because of their hair.

It sounds stupid, but Lil Yachty’s bright red braids and Uzi’s ever-changing dreads became emblematic symbols of the mumble rap movement. Most of the 2016 class had a unique look, but these two stuck out like sore thumbs with their distinct and brightly-colored mops. What’s more, these two rappers specifically started challenging hip-hop norms by disregarding classics and even going as far to state that they are “not rappers” but instead preferring to be labeled as “rockstars.” For better or worse, they became symbols of the new school: two figures that stood in direct opposition to the traditions of the genre. It’s easy to see why they sparked debates, spurred controversy, and turned off old heads the world over in 2016.

There was a clear line being drawn in the sand over the 2016 Freshman. One side saw this crop of artists as energetic, hair-dyed teenagers with little artistic substance beyond the beats they were rapping over. Meanwhile, the other side saw this scene for the fun, carefree, and easily-digestible entertainment that it was intended as.

If it wasn’t apparent by now, I’m fans of these artists, and I resented the fact that these 18-year-olds were being cited as the “downfall of hip-hop” as if their very existence was an offense to the genre’s history. I’ll admit that it took me some time to come around to each artist, but Uzi and Yachty’s 2016 tapes quickly became some of my favorites that year. With upbeat, colorful, summery songs, these artists were just teenagers, but there is a time and place for the type of music they were making.

I was decidedly on the side of these artists. I didn’t see these guys as the "end of hip-hop" that so many classic rap fans were quick to decry them as. I’ve already linked this previous post on why a lack of substantive lyrics doesn’t equate to lack of substantive music, but The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano explains this subgenre’s appeal well in this video where he draws a comparison to this new sound and the punk mentality of the 70’s. These artists became unwitting figureheads for a movement that they didn’t necessarily even create, but their music doesn’t invalidate traditional hip-hop or threaten other artist’s artistic output.

At the end of the day, Yachty and Uzi are two musicians are working towards very different visions with Uzi representing more of a moody, rock-inspired crooning emo trapper and Yachty being more of an upbeat goofball “bubblegum trap” artist. They got judged unfairly, lumped into the same group, and became polarizing figures within the matter of a few months. But on a more positive note, they engaged and energized the younger generation, which led to hip-hop becoming the most popular genre in the US for the first time ever. Their techniques and approaches to music also paved the way for a new type of rapper who took their styles and carried them to their logical extremes. That brings us to 2017.

Mumbles Begat Soundcloud

Compared to this innovative wave of energy that we saw in hip-hop last year, 2017 has felt like a step backward in many ways. We’ve had fewer projects from bigger names, and less “movement” in the genre as a whole. I’m also willing to admit this perceived drop-off in quality could be chalked up to personal bias because, while I feel less enthused by the genre, hip-hop as a whole has still experienced a major influx of activity this year. The problem is its momentum that’s hyper-specified and that I feel absolutely no connection to.

I’ve never wanted to be the old guy who doesn’t “get it” yet, within the space of a year I feel like I’ve already crossed over into old man territory. A year after the rise of the “mumble rapper” we’re now witnessing the birth of a new class of artists dubbed the “Soundcloud Rapper.”

One major artist to blow up from this scene is XXXTentacion. I first became aware of his existence in early 2017 as he was gaining rapid popularity online while behind bars after being arrested for assault at 18 (you read that right). Between Lil Wayne’s infamous stay in prison to Max B’s recent memed-out sentence, rappers are no stranger to trouble with the law. XXX was let out on false charges (which I don’t buy) but I’m willing to (again) admit personal bias because I find the assault of a woman more heinous than simple gun charges. This controversy was a bad way to first hear about an artist and left me with a negative first impression of both the artist and the “scene.”

Around this same time, a Georgian rapper named Playboi Carti released his eponymous debut to surprisingly-high reviews. While not technically part of the same subgenre, Carti’s “Magnolia” blew up inexplicably, earning him a platinum and granting him access to high-profile collaborators the genre over. Carti’s music is similarly lacking in substance the same way that Uzi and Yachty are, so I can’t fault him for that. What I can fault him for is featuring on two and a half separate tracks this year in which his contribution is solely ad-lib-based. God knows I’m not against ad-libs, but it’s incredible to watch someone make a career being propped up by decent beats and more talented artists as they shout “what?” in between each of their bars. Oh and Carti was also taken into custody for assault in 2017 as well, only to be let off a month later.

Despite the public and controversial beatings, Both XXXTentacion and Playboi Carti have enjoyed success and made it onto the XXL Freshman 2017 list, ensuring them both a moderately-successful career. Comparing these two freshmen with the two I highlighted from the 2016 lineup provides a stark contrast between one group of mumbling trap artists and the second group of women-beating teenagers. Even setting aside the quality of their music, elevating and rewarding the abhorrent behavior of the latter two is undeniably a step backward for the genre. And as I’ve been editing this piece, TV’s Eric Andre has publicly spoken out against these artists citing a similar concern.

The Dregs

Now we move onto the two artists that inspired me to sit down to write this post in the first place: Lil Pump and SmokePurpp. These two Florida-born rappers are making music in the same style as XXXTentacion with distorted blown-out bassy instrumentals and loud aggressive chant-like vocals. Pump blew up several months ago on the back of the mindlessly-repetitive “D Rose.” The track, which finds Pump explaining why his expensive watches make him feel like Derrick Rose, was uploaded in late 2016 and has since garnered almost 30 million plays on Soundcloud. There’s honestly very little else to say about the song beyond that.

Critics and journalists took note of this subgenre’s meteoric rise in popularity and began writing Hunter S. Thompson-style gonzo journalism pieces about the scene including this one from Rolling Stone and this incredible write-up by The New York Times. I’d had these articles saved to my Pocket for later reading, but it wasn’t until I stumbled across a Noisey interview whose title was so great that I willingly dove into it.

The article in question “Reading This Interview with Lil Pump and Smokepurpp Will Make You Stupider” is a particularly glazed-over interview with the two Floridians in which the interviewer searches desperately for any semblance of a deeper purpose to these two artists. Their answers, relegated mostly to single-syllable words half-formed sentences, quickly revealed that there is no deeper level to Lil Pump and Smokepurpp. They’re not in search of anything, not inspired by anything, and their self-described “ih-norant” music is their artistic end-all be-all.

Now, look. I listen to a ton of stupid music, some of it just as “ignorant” and turnt up as this, but this new wave of music feels so baseless and devoid that I don’t see any silver lining to it. In fact, I write this primarily from a “worried mother” type perspective because these kids are fucking sixteen. Lil Pump (born August 17th, 2000) was admitted to the hospital following a lean scare just ten days before his birthday. XXXtentacion (born January 23rd, 1998) has (aside from the assault charges) put on a litany of violent concerts including fist fights, two-story jumps, and barricade collisions. I’m not the first to speak out against these artist’s carelessness, and I have a feeling I won’t be the last.

It’s music that trades out the bare minimum artistry that was there before for pure adrenaline and shock value. And again, maybe this isn’t “for me” and that’s why I don’t get it. If anything, these artists are simply a logical continuation of the mumble rap scene taking visual, musical, and artistic queues from the generation immediately before them. And Desiigner and Lil Uzi Vert have pulled equally-dangerous stunts at their shows… but it’s interesting to watch this progression take place so rapidly over the course of a calendar year.

And to circle away from the onstage antics and back to the music: I'm not saying Yachty's music is high art. It's still pretty dissonant, off-putting, and even bad on a technical level. But what Yachty traded those qualities out for is a unique sound and image based around himself. It may be discordant music, but it retains an undeniable sense of bright fun catchiness. Meanwhile, I feel like this new crop of artists retained that similar lack of technicality but traded out any sense of fun for pure adrenaline.

I don’t know where all this is headed. I do think it’s exciting that all this has happened within the space of a year, and it just goes to show how quickly the hip-hop genre is evolving and shifting. Maybe it’s just part of a bigger splintering and within a few years, we’ll have all these subgenres of hip-hop with dozens of artists occupying each well-defined niche with their own space carved out. I fully expect many of these guys to fall off and fade into obscurity soon (or at the very lease encounter more trouble with the law) but overall I think this energy bodes well for the genre. I just don’t want a teenager to die for it.

As long as young people continue to be inspired they’ll continue to innovate and push boundaries. I may not like the music, but I’m always in support of innovation. I sincerely hope I’m still on board for the next “wave” of explosive creativity in music, but I also know I will hit a point in the future where I just stop “getting it” and I accept that.

I don’t necessarily resent the scene, the music, or these artists. I think some of their extracurricular actions are deplorable and shouldn’t be celebrated, but that’s really about it. I see the appeal of the music, but I also know that it’s not for me. If anything, it’s exciting that real, young, independent musicians have the ability to build as much of a platform as more established artists, but sometimes that fan base is built on the back of shitty behavior that nobody should emulate.

It’s also interesting to watch the “gaze” of hip-hop move so quickly from one crop of artists to the next. It seems that nobody gets to spend much time on the throne, and now the artists that were exciting last year are practically legacy acts by the scene’s standards. It’s weird when the “primary focus” (or at least most explosive scene) of a genre is one that I fundamentally disagree with on nearly every level, but again, maybe I’m just turning into an old man.

I can’t think of any other way to end this besides words of hesitant encouragement. I want kids to keep innovating and scaring the adults (and 24-year-olds) by blazing their own trail. There’s something admirable about a sixteen-year-old throwing a song up on SoundCloud and becoming a certified star months later… but when it breeds violence and drug abuse I’m decidedly against it. It’s a fine line, and I respect everyone’s freedom/artistic choices/blah blah blah, I just wish everything was more positive.

So keep it up I guess. We’ll see where this scene goes. Who knows what the next year’s hot topic will be. For the time being, keep doing you. Just don’t do anything too stupid.

Your blog is phenomenal. You are just wonderful and incredibly informative That Interview magazine article just wrecked me, what a truly beautiful and sensitive soul Taylor is. Do you happen to have the entire article? I'd love to know more as I am completely lost and new in the world of fandom. Thank you for your time and all your efforts in promoting and sharing your love of Taylor.

Thanks for the blog love! Always love sharing Taylor information with new fans. 

The Interview Magazine article is probably the most he’s ever opened up to date. Sometimes he’s super guarded in interviews and other times he really opens up. It’s interesting 

Here is the entire article, it’s long:

When I told a female friend I'd be interviewing Taylor Kitsch, the actor who broke out as the hard-nosed, brooding fullback Tim Riggins for five seasons on NBC's Texas high school football melodrama Friday Night Lights her jaw actually dropped. Kitsch's rugged looks - he's a former model and junior hockey player - and world-weary onscreen demeanor, often have this effect on women; another friend referred to him as a "classic hunk." But the 32-year-old British Columbia native possesses a surprising absence of vanity. Kitsch bought a home in Austin while filming FNL, and still lives there, ducking the Hollywood spotlight as much as possible. When I met up with him in New York, he wore a T-shirt and jeans to a luxury hotel lounge and asked if I was planning to "get some grub." He's remarkably grounded, with a ready laugh and a tendency to pepper his speech with the word fuckin'. The lack of pretense shows in his latest effort, the gritty drama Lone Survivor, which happens to be Kitsch's third collaboration with director Peter Berg (after FNL and the big-budget action pic Battleship, 2012). Based on former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's nonfiction book, the film, which co-stars Mark Wahlberg, Eric Bana, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, and Alexander Ludwig - depicts a botched 2005 mission in Afghanistan. Kitsch playsLieutenant Michael Murphy, one of four SEALs drastically outnumbered by Taliban forces. The protracted gunfight at the center of the movie is unsparing, graphic, and hyper-realistic, but Lone Survivor surrounds it with moments of unsentimental tenderness among its band of brothers.Lest you think Kitsch is only interested in stoic roles as athletes and soldiers (he was also a Civil War veteran transported to Mars in 2012's John Carter), he's subverting his image with upcoming turns as a gay activist in a TV-movie adaptation of the 1985 Larry Kramer play The Normal Heart, and as a doctor in the Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction. And he recently wrote, directed, and produced a half-hour short about small time criminals, Pieces, which he's planning to adapt into a feature. I sat down with Kitsch to talk about the movie, his time spent sleeping on subways in New York and his car in Los Angeles, and inevitably, how he reacts to his female admirers. (To my awestruck friend, and other aspirants: he's single - but read on for how not to approach him.)TEDDY WAYNE: I didn't really know the story behind Lone Survivor. What, other than Peter Berg's involvement, drew you to it?TAYLOR KITSCH: There's not a day that goes by that you don't think about it, really. [Marcus] Luttrell's become a great friend of mine now, and I was talking to him about it. It's not even the responsibility of just the performance or just the memory of Murph being part of the SEAL community - this is a torch I have for the rest of my life. How often in this gig do we get to have that, and want it? You didn't know of the book or the story, and now you're going to think of my performance when you think of Mike Murphy, and that's an incredible responsibility.WAYNE: How much of that is solely inspired by the real figure and how much of the work is purely fictional?KITSCH: I think so much of it is that it actually happened, that these guys are still out there doing it. When you meet guys who were buds with Murph, guys that fought right next to him, you really do see how much it means to them that the film's done right. You have the opportunity to be like, "Okay, let's see what I'm fucking made of here, let's see what I'm capable of doing," and training to do it.WAYNE: So what was the training?KITSCH: There's a workout called the Murphy that he created when he was in the SEALs. It's, like, a mile run and then a hundred pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 sit-ups, then another mile run, with a 40 - to 50-pound weighted vest. Some guy claims to have done it in under 30 minutes. I couldn't get there. I was under 35, which is a fucking insane time. I was in the best shape of my life.WAYNE: How about the weapons training?KITSCH: We went to Albuquerque. We had guys who had fought with Luttrell to teach us the weapons systems. And that's live fire; it's not like standing there and just shooting at a target. They call it bounding, and all these other things these guys do as a team. Murph was the leader of the guys, so he's making the call, and you really do see it kind of seamlessly int he film. When he makes a call of "peel right" or "peel left" or "get on line," it's those things that the SEALs fucking love. We got the technical part of it.WAYNE: Was there any improv?KITSCH: Absolutely. Some of this funnier stuff - when I'm in the hide with Mark [Wahlberg] talking about a girl and a Coldplay concert, that was roughly scripted and we just went with it, and Mark is fucking on it. That guy has endless energy, he's quick. Pete would call cut, and the whole crew would burst out laughing. Or we would even have a bit of a camera shake because the camera guy's dying, you know?WAYNE: You were a junior hockey player in Canada before you injured your knee at age 20. Do you feel like you were on the path to professional hockey?KITSCH: Yeah, at least semi. I was hopefully going to go on a scholarship and turn pro. If I even scratched the lineup, it would've been fourth line, up and down from the minors, but, I mean, a minor career was a dream as well.WAYNE: When that injury happened, was it clearly career ending?KITSCH: In retrospect I think it was career ending. But at the time, it was that denial of, "fuck it, I'm gonna recoup it." But then I recouped it, and my first game back it blew out again.WAYNE: So what were you thinking in terms of life plans?KITSCH: Oh, it's over. I was devastated. It really is close to art simulating life in the sense of what FNL was - if you wreck your knee, that's it, everything is gone. Obviously it's not; it's a blessing in disguise, but at the time I remember my best friend came and took me off the ice and I was a wreck. My mom was in the stands and she was a mess, and then I was in the dressing room and I refused to take my gear off. I just knew the second time I did it - like, buddy, uh-oh.WAYNE: So did you do any acting by that age?KITSCH: I loved it. I always grew up winning all these public-speaking competitions in school.WAYNE: Did you move to New York soon after the injury?KITSCH: Yeah, at 21.WAYNE: I read that you were, at points, homeless and sleeping on subways - is that true?KITSCH: It's true. Only for a couple weeks. It wasn't like I was walking around with a grocery cart. I didn't have a visa; I couldn't get fucking work. I wish I could've waited tables. I was taking classes for free with my acting coach, Sheila Gray - she's been amazing, and so I finally paid her back after the first movie I did - and then I just ran out of money. I was staying at my best friend's place. He sublet a bedroom in a big family house, and I was sleeping on his floor, then I wore that out, and I leased a place up on 181st Street in Washington Heights, pretty fucking sketchy area, and I couldn't get electricity because, one, no money, and two, I had no Social Security. So from that best friend, I would take his girlfriend's blow-up mattress and use candles. And then that wore out, got kicked out of there, and I would go back to my buddy's place, and at midnight or whenever, he wanted to go to bed, I'd be like, "All right, I'm gonna go stay at" - make up somebody's place - or a gal's place or whatever, and then that ran out. [laughs] Quite literally. And then I'd sleep on the subway until 5:30, 6 in the morning, and I'd go to the gym and work out for god knows how long and have a shower and just loiter.WAYNE: And you were also a model at this point?KITSCH: Yeah, but I was completely out of work. Didn't work, really. And I was living in a spot that they give you, and by the time you get a job, you owe them so much back end that you're in debt anyway, so then I left that because that was just stupid to just keep building debt.WAYNE: What was your first big break?KITSCH: While I was homeless, I met my manager through one of the guys at the modeling agency. She's like, "Yeah, I'll take a meeting, whatever," just being nice to him. So I had a meeting, and 10 minutes in, she's like, "Okay, I'll take you on." Then my first reading - still homeless - I got but I couldn't do because I didn't have a fucking visa again. So I stayed and studied more and then I moved away to Barbados to work with my dad and dig ditches, and that was the most time I ever spent with my dad in my life on a one-time basis. I made like, 6K. Then I bought a little - it's called a Firefly or a Chevy Sprint, which is like a 12-inch wheel hatchback car that lives on fumes. It'll go forever, and so I bought that when I got to Vancouver - moved back - moved down to L.A., sublet a room for two months. That money ran out, and then I lived in my car.WAYNE: So you had two homeless stints. And both times you picked the transportation choice of the city you were in - subway in New York, car in L.A.KITSCH: Yeah, that's a good point.WAYNE: You need to be in a seaside place for a while and live a few months in your boat.KITSCH: I know! I was super-angry one day in L.A. - my car's a piece of shit, and then the front window wouldn't go down, and so I'm screaming at the handle, forcing it down, the window shatters, and it's the bigger one, 'cause it's a hatchback. So now I'm fucking homeless and I got a plastic bag with duct tape. So I stayed over at my best friend Josh Pence's place, and I'm like, "I think I'm gonna go home," and his mom overheard it, and she's like "You're not fucking driving 23 hours to Vancouver with a plastic bag," and so I went to the junkyard and got it replaced for, like, $75.WAYNE: I thought she was going to say, "No, you should stay here and fulfill your dreams," but she was just making sure you got a new window.KITSCH: [laughs] Yeah! When you're doing it, it's not like, "Oh, man, I'm really paying the price." You just did it. I'd go to Trader Joe's and get a big thing of cottage cheese and brown rice cakes, like, four bucks - that's all I'd eat. And I'm a nutritionist, so I'm like, that's probably the best bang for my buck. I've got protein, carbs..."WAYNE: You start doing the protein-price ratio. Split pea soup is good for that, too.KITSCH: Yeah, garbanzo beans-WAYNE: Tuna fish.KITSCH: Yeah, the cans, that was New York. The Sunkist cans?WAYNE: Starkist, right? But it should be Sunkist - just drinking Sunkist orange soda all day long.KITSCH: [laughs] Yeah, have diabetes at 25. So she gave me the money, I got the thing, drove from three in the morning till midnight, straight. Back at home with mom and then my first or second reading was Snakes on a Plane [2006]. Got it. And then The Covenant [2006] and then Friday Night Lights.WAYNE: In the first few episodes of FNL, Riggins seems to be a secondary character.KITSCH: He was. I was told he wasn't gonna last.WAYNE: What happened? People started responding to you?KITSCH: Yeah, I guess. Whatever it was, people clicked to me, and the studio loved him and what we were doing with him.WAYNE: Most of the humor comes from Riggins off-the-cuff moments.KITSCH: Yeah, the dry humor that Riggins has - that's mostly improv. I played hockey my whole life. I was just hanging out with a bunch of pro-hockey players who were good friends. Calling everybody six, seven, two, zero - that's Riggins. Calling that whole apology on the field, all of it was made up on that day of.WAYNE: You mentioned digging ditches with your father was the most time you ever spent one-on-one. You were raised by your mom for the most part?KITSCH: Yeah, for the most part, with my two bros. I'd see my dad every Christmas for the most part growing up, but he left when I was one-ish, and then I'd spend a couple weeks over Christmas with him. I remember going fishing with him; I remember snow-mobiling. I remember him carrying me around on the ice because he played hockey growing up, too. I remember those flashes, and I don't know if it's made up in my head - but I do remember blips, and being super pumped that he's letting me, at 6 years old, rip on the open lake in the snowmobile.WAYNE: Riggins didn't have a father around. Not to get too precious about it, but did that inform the role?KITSCH: Absolutely. I had no doubts when I was going to play it. It just felt super-organic.WAYNE: Do you see your dad more often these days?KITSCH: No, maybe once or twice a year. Not even. I haven't seen him in years. I've stayed in contact via e-mail, but I don't reach out as much as I should, I guess, but I don't have that - this may gut him, but I don't have that...where I'm like "I want to know what's going on," or "Why did you..." My brothers and I talk about it a lot but - and sometimes it's joking, you know, but...I think it's affected them more, especially one of them a bit more, just because he was older - he was 8. And my mom was with an older guy, and he was a super-sensitive man, and he connected more with me than either of my two brothers. So I think I got a lot of that sensitive part that allows me to be that kind of actor through him. My mom and he split up when I was 12, and I wanted to go live with him, and then I would still go spend weekends, neither of my brothers would, but I'd go spend a weekend with him as much as I could. And he was getting older, and I was not conscious of that either, and then my mom told me he'd died not long ago - man, and it was shitty that I couldn't have reconnected before he did, because it had been five, six, seven years from the last time I saw him. And he was just the softest soul.WAYNE: You live in Austin now. What were your thoughts when you first got there for filming FNL?KITSCH: I didn't even know where Austin was. Quite literally, I'm like, "We're going where to shoot this fucking thing?"WAYNE: You thought it was Boston? "Massachusetts Forever."KITSCH: [laughs] Yeah, totally! Which doesn't have the same kind of tone does it? And Austin was like nothing what it is now. It's, like, the fastest-growing city in the U.S. now. But I bought a place end of second-season, and that's my place now, just a little 1,000-square-foot condo.WAYNE: What's your life like there?KITSCH: I golf a lot. I'm in a men's hockey league. I've made some great friends there. I'm on my motorcycle a lot. Kyle Chandler [of Friday Night Lights] lives there, so whenever we can make time, we'll go on these long rides together. Had a great gal there. Southern belle.WAYNE: "Had," you said?KITSCH: Yeah, it's been tough lately. You never know how it's going to turn out. But I was with her for years.WAYNE: And she was from Austin herself?KITSCH: From Corpus [Christi]WAYNE: How did you meet her?KITSCH: Through my stunt double. He's like, "You gotta meet this gal; she's ridiculous active." She's a yoga instructor now, but she wasn't when we met. But just a super-sporty Southern belle, you know? Great.WAYNE: I don't want to embarrass you, but I told a female friend I was interviewing you, and she was momentarily stunned. I feel like male actors don't often discuss this, but does it ever get almost boring, or do you ever feel objectified if women respond this way? I mean, it's a good problem to have, but is there ever a point where it's like, be careful what you wish for?KITSCH: You're conscious of it. I mean, I'm never going to be like, "Oh, this attention from women sucks." It's flattering 99 percent of the time. After the premiere screening in L.A., there was a young woman, beautiful, mid - to late, twenties, and you're pretty crushed after this movie, it hits you hard, and I was talking to a guy who had served. All of a sudden this girl comes up and she's like, "Hey, I just gotta say this movie was this-and-that, but that fucking scene of you walking down the hall [in which Kitsch is shirtless]..." And then it inevitably went to, "What are you doing later tonight? Can I give you my number?" I kind of took offense to it. That's the one shitty experience out of it, but it's still flattering. Out of every thing in that fucking movie, that's what you took?WAYNE: Is dating a non-actor much more appealing to you?KITSCH: Absolutely. I mean, it's hard because you're all in or I'm all in, and I become super-myopic with work and kind of shut everything else out, and I don't know anything different because that's what's gotten me this far, so I live a pretty unbalanced life. And it's tough because the gal can't really relate in that sense. It doesn't mean she's not supportive, but that part of it wasn't relatable. She didn't understand, "Oh, okay, this guy's gonna be off the grid basically for whatever it is."WAYNE: That'd be tough no matter what.KITSCH: Yeah, it is, but if you're dealing or dating another actress or whatever who goes through that same process, then maybe they might have a bit more acknowledgment of it.WAYNE: But you seem pretty divorced from the Hollywood scene. You're not tabloid fodder that much. How do you safeguard your privacy?KITSCH: Austin helps. No Facebook. If anyone ever thinks I'm on Facebook or Twitter, it's not me, for the record - it's never me.WAYNE: But you are on MySpace right?KITSCH: [laughs] Totally.WAYNE: It sounds like you've preserved your lifestyle pre-acting, pre-fame as much as possible.KITSCH: I try. When I'm in L.A., I'm with one of my best friends, who's an actor coming up, and it's good to have that dialogue. In Austin I don't have that a lot. So that's one of the downfalls of being in Austin, if there is one, that I don't have another couple artists to bounce shit off. It's great to decompress, but it's tough because it goes from a hundred miles an hour living this fucked-up lifestyle to you're in your apartment, dead silence, and you're like, "Oh, what do I do today?" I guess I go for a coffee by myself and just read a couple scripts or something.WAYNE: You're doing a couple different movies this year - The Normal Heart, The Grand Seduction. Far different from Battleship and John Carter. These are more in an indie direction.KITSCH: I was always on that track, from The Bang Bang Club [2011], which is one of my proudest things I've ever done in my life. And that's kind of my personality, too. I'm going to keep swinging for the fences. I'm not going to play another Riggins - that's done. I can go and now try and disappear into Normal Heart. I was just talking to Ryan Murphy about it, the director, who took a fucking leap of faith with me to go and play this, another true story - that's a bigger risk than what John Carter was, because if you don't go in there and nail that role, this could be a fucking career-ender.WAYNE: Do you have any ambitions beyond acting?KITSCH: I wrote and directed a short [Pieces] that Oliver [Stone, who directed 2012's Savages] has seen, that Berg has seen, that [John Carter director Andrew] Stanton has seen, all the producers of John Carter have seen, and I just got two to four million bucks to make it into a feature. So I'm going to hopefully write it in January, February. Pete's mad for it, and Pete will tell you - man, he'll fucking rip it in half - but he's been incredibly supportive, so hopefully, I'll go shoot that in Detroit and Texas.WAYNE: Can you see yourself transitioning at some point to someone who directs, like Peter Berg did?KITSCH: Absolutely. I'd be fucking stupid not to be taking notes from a Stone or a Berg. The way I direct is open. I want to empower you as an actor, and when you're not on track, I'll tell you, but when you are, I want you to fucking just go with it. And so I cast Derek Phillips, who played my brother in Friday Night Lights - he's unrecognizable in the film. And then my best friend in L.A. [Josh Pence], whose mom gave me money for the window, he plays the other guy in the short.WAYNE: Would you ever do an over-the-top comedic role?KITSCH: I'd love to, it's just got to be the right one. When I work, I take it super-seriously, but when you get to know me, man, I'm not - I laugh as much as possible. Growing up, I was that guy at school getting kicked out of class every day to make someone laugh. Voted funniest guy in the school twice.WAYNE: Just twice? What happened the other times - you finished second?KITSCH: [laughs] Yeah, totally! Last. The jokes didn't hit that year. I was off.

Top 10 Opening Tracks on Debut Albums:

Fittingly for my first post on this blog I will be ranking the top ten best opening tracks on debut albums. Some tracks matter more than others and with a truly great opening track can set the tone for a great career and discography and for some on this list it was their crowning achievement and secured them a legacy that the rest of their career maybe does not warrant. So here goes, 

No 10) Radio Free Europe (REM): While there is no shortage of bands and artist who peaked with their debut album, it is still rare to have a band’s sound feel so fully formed so early on, but this was certainly the case with REM. Radio Free Europe has slightly stronger punk rock influences than most of Stipe’s work but it is unmistakably REM and a great track that began a great career.

No 9) I Am One (The Smashing Pumpkins): As my avatar may indicate The Smashing Pumpkins are one of my personal favorite bands but I would say that Gish is quite a way off the heights of the following two albums. Having said this Gish starts incredibly strongly and I Am One is an early highlight in their discography. I Am One lacks the lyrical complexity of their very best work but sonically it immediately distinguishes itself from much of what dominated the rock scene at the time with its double guitar solo and Corgan’s vocals giving it a smoothness that opposed the abrasiveness of the Seattle grunge scene. 

No 8) Gloria (Patti Smith): If this list was best opening lyric on a debut album it would be no contest, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” Maybe no lyric ever has embodied the rebellion of the rocker better than that. It is simply genius.The song as a whole is a classic and can tell us a lot about Patti Smith. Like all rock icons she is a great individual with a vision, but she also seemingly lacked the crazy, unrelenting ego of some of her male counterparts and was always happy to wear her influences on her sleeve (she would namedrop the likes of Hendrix and Dylan throughout her songs) and perform many covers (Gloria being a re-working of a song written by Van Morrison) almost going out of her way to not tell you just what an original and influential artist she was, but Smith was and continues to be most definitely that, one of the greats.

No 7) Jenny was a Friend of Mine (The Killers): The biggest bands of any given era tend to define the sound of that period, think of the way 90s rock become so synonymous with Nirvana or the way the breakthrough of some of the bands I am about to write about signaled an endless stream of imitators, yet The Killers, one of the biggest bands of the last 20 years, do not define the modern era at all but rather a time before that. From the start Jenny was a Friend of Mine alerts us to exactly who The Killers are and what brought them here. The catchy but deceptively dark lyrics recall the best of The Police, the bands sound more generally makes you think The Cars but the greatness of The Killers is how they are so much more than the sum of their influences, they are a band that you and your middle age parents can both love, which is not always a good thing but in the case of The Killers it very much is. 

No 6) Break on Through to the Other Side (The Doors): Without doubt The Doors are one of the best and most influential artists of not only the 60s but of all time, yet there are revisionist takes that seek to undermine their greatness, but to those who question Morrison’s lyrics I say to them that rock n’roll is all about personalities and visions and Morrison was one if not the first true rock star as we know it. Lennon and Jagger would grow into the role as the 60s progressed but from Break on Through to the Other Side Morrison embodied the sex, drugs, poetry, rebellion and unfortunately fatal self-destruction that defines the genre and the characters at its forefront.

No 5) Disorder (Joy Division): You don’t have to be miserable to write great songs, but it helps. Ian Curtis is one of the most tragic figures to be included in the soundtracks of our lives but the work he did produce continues to hold up to the test of time. The sound of Joy Division is like nothing else and the his lyrics are somehow both coldly distant and worryingly personal. Like just about everything Disorder is a track to savor and arguably the best song on their best album.

No 4) I Wanna Be Adored (The Stone Roses): Talking of bands you have to savor the output of The Stone Roses broke into the Manchester music scene boom of the 80s and 90s with one of the best British albums ever only to fade away in the years after. Even if they could never recreate the greatness of their eponymous first album they still gave I Wanna Be Adored which is one of the best indie rock songs ever. It was designed as an apology to fans after they joined a major record label, but that does not really matter because more than anything else I Wanna Be Adored is a great all things to all people kind of song. Everyone who listens to it may take something different from it and that’s  testament to what an amazing opener it.

No 3) Sunday Morning (The Velvet Underground & Nico): While the discourse around The Velvet Underground and Nico (the album) seems to emphasis just how edgy it was talking about drugs and s&m that narrative fails to recognize the many sides of that great album. Sunday Morning showcases the softer side of Lou Reed’s songwriting, easing you into that more edgy (for 1967) stuff, with its melancholy and listlessness it remains an album standout.

No 2) Blitzkrieg Bop (The Ramones): The ubiquity of this track means it is one you can sometimes take for granted but Blitzkreig Bop is one of the most earth-shaking songs of all time. To say a single song changed music forever is maybe simplistic but Blitzkreig changed music forever. The first true punk anthem and the best. There are not too many other ways of saying it, Blitzkreig not only started but defined an entire genre of music and that cannot be said of too many songs.

No 1) Welcome to the Jungle (Guns N’Roses): My relationship with Guns N’Roses is more complicated than with any other artist. Maybe it is as simple as I love one of their albums but hate everything else about the band outside of that. The intellectual part of my brain (admittedly the smallest part of brain) can’t fathom Guns N’Roses, it can’t take the almost comic hyper-masculinity of that band, but what makes them one of the last great rock bands is how they transcend this, how I am continually drawn to them in spite of myself, how every time I put on Welcome to the Jungle I cannot take my eyes off of Axl the way you can’t with all the truly great rock-stars. Welcome to the Jungle is a bombastic anthem of vice and debauchery, but it is incredibly crafted as well. Slash’s riffs and Axl’s voice make for a truly magic rock combination. Particularly the latter, the way Rose transitions from his famous “You’re gonna die” back into the “Welcome to the Jungle” chorus is just unforgettable. Welcome to the Jungle is just the most incredible opener to one of the most incredible albums in rock history. As I’ve already alluded to I could take or leave just about everything post-Appetite (I’m not sure I can quite stand November Rain or its ludicrously melodramatic music video) but with The Jungle Rose and co came up with the perfect entry point into the LA underbelly, where seemingly all women are prostitutes and all the men are lying on streets injecting heroin, yet the pure unadulterated rock n’roll of The Jungle makes it somewhere you want to be, at least for the duration of the album.  Rose may end the song telling you “it’s gonna bring you down” but even now every time I listen The Jungle it only fills me with energy and excitement.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: THE SENTINEL

The last person to join our Team, just at the end of 1910, it should be noted that Mr. McCarthy is the most innocent of us all. Despite his skills, most of the team sees him as someone to be protected; this is in large part due to his naivete and ever-growing fondness for his teammates, as well as his ability to endear himself to anyone he meets.

I figured this was one of the more imperative profiles to go ahead and get out there, because Mr. McCarthy, as an extremely empathetic man, serves as the team’s emotional translator. His unique ability to see everyone’s perspective makes him a good storyteller, and I would be lying if I said that he wouldn’t be an asset to the transcription of this project. As such, Mr. McCarthy will be providing incident reports and analyses of interpersonal behavior on the team.

NAME: Siomon Mac Carthaigh

ALIASES: Simon, Mr. McCarthy, Druid, Sentinel, Crybaby, Loverboy, Tree-hugger

AGE: Born 1432

HEIGHT: 6′6″

WEIGHT: 200 lbs.

SPECIES: Enhanced Human (Subspecies: Magic; Divine)

NOTABLE ABILITIES:

Mr. McCarthy is a hyper-sensitive person. While for most people this would be a hindrance in every-day life, Mr. McCarthy’s job as a guardian to those who cannot speak for themselves is only made easier by his aptitude for emotions and stimuli.

Due to Mr. McCarthy’s connections to Abnoba and Cernunnos, he is strengthened whenever connected to the Earth; note that, while in other cases, this would be incredibly restricting due to wording, the Celtic gods are not ones for word puzzles or riddles. Anything made from Earthly materials qualifies as “Earth”, essentially meaning Mr. McCarthy is, for lack of a better term, omniscient. 

We would be absolutely fucked if aliens came to Earth, but otherwise, Mr. McCarthy is a radar, GPS, sonar, AND targeting system all wrapped into one. 

Mr. McCarthy’s magic serves to make him the single best surgeon and combat medic on the team; his high value to the team means the brass is unwilling to send him out directly into the fray, however, so Ms. Agave serves as the field medic, with Mr. Takahashi taking those in dire need of medical attention directly to Battalion to be addressed by Mr. McCarthy. He has never once lost a patient.

Though his abilities are not as extensive as Mr. Kennedy’s, Mr. McCarthy is capable of shifting into a number of different creatures, as is the case with most druids. His favorite forms are the bear, the goat, and the raven.

Mr. McCarthy is somehow capable of siphoning his divine blessings to the team, providing energy, vitality, and strength to each member of the team. To say I’m jealous would be an understatement. If I could spread even a single brain cell, a single DROP of Apollo or Thoth’s great enlightenment to ANY of my team members, we would have taken over the world by now. As it stands, Mr. McCarthy is only to provide blessings for short-term engagements, as one of the side effects of blessing people with Cernunnos’s will is... ah... increased fertility. This means lots of hormones, and the need to breed clouding every person’s better judgement.

Mr. McCarthy’s natural affinity for spirits, plants, and animals has helped his relationship with Ms. Agave immensely, and oftentimes the two bounce off of each other, working as a cohesive unit. Ms. Agave has expressed a potential interest in having her family moved to The Tearmann Grove, a forest in Northern Ireland under Mr. McCarthy’s protection. 

Mr. McCarthy’s increased stamina, strength, endurance, speed, and vitality (we will not mention the fertility part) has helped him to carry out tasks that would normally require the strength of hundreds of men; as it stands, Simon’s addition to the team has meant that Mr. Amos no longer needs to do all of the heavy lifting.

Cernunnos’s blessing has granted Mr. McCarthy massive rams horns that, should he find himself cornered, he can use to gore enemies; not even the strongest armor can stand up to his horns.

Finally, the druidic runes and tattoos inscribed on Mr. McCarthy’s body provide a sort of defense system, should anyone attempt to capture him; touch must be verified and approved by Simon first, otherwise his body will naturally reject any and all contact in a rather... excruciating manner. Imagine going to place your hand on him in one spot and ending up being burned with the fires of a thousand suns, or placing a hand on another rune and feeling the pain of being put to death in an electric chair. His body is a temple, but more or less one of those temples you see in an Indiana Jones movie.

NOTABLE WEAKNESSES:

Simon has an incredibly weak constitution. It is hard to tell what will set him off, but if something is gross or upsetting enough, he will either cry, run away, or vomit. This has made confronting him with problems infuriatingly confusing because on one hand I trust this man to put his hands inside of my guts when they’re falling out, but at the same time he is a child I wish to hug and assure that everything will be alright.

Despite his tolerance for emotions and stimuli, he has been known to be overwhelmed at times, rendering him incapacitated in a multitude of ways for days. During this time, Mr. McCarthy can generally be found laying in bed, trying to read a good book or sleep. The symptoms are very common with those of fatigue and exhaustion.

Simon’s many blessings have the unfortunate side effect of giving him the disposition of a wild animal. Is he capable of reasoning? Yes. Does that mean he is any less bestial? Hell no. I once walked into the common room to see him in his goat form, chewing on a tin can. He stared into my eyes as he swallowed it whole. It was a traumatizing experience.

Simon requires an extensive amount of time for meditation and preparation before a task is to be carried out, and interrupting even one of his chants or incantations is grounds for starting over. In worst case scenarios, interrupting a chant has been known to summon horrible demonic entities. Be fucking careful people.

Simon is averse to violence, as am I. He is not above getting his hands dirty when need be, but that is a last resort. He has described himself as a lover and not a fighter, and despite being the guardian of both this team and his sacred grove, the druid only uses force when all else has failed.

DIAGNOSES:

Hyper-sexuality, due to increased vitality given by Cernunnos.

High-Functioning Autism.

Hyper-Sensitive Persons Disorder.

Empathy.

ADHD.

BACKGROUND:

Hello! Simon here!

There is not much to tell about my family; my father was a Celtic druid and my mother was a Greek acolyte. My twin sister and I followed much of the same route.

Keep in mind when I say “twin”, my sister does not look a thing like me. I am pale, with some tan marks here and there, with the appearance of an Irishman, while my sister has the skin color and complexion of a Central Asian woman. This is how it has always been in our family.

Our names, bodies, appearances are all determined by who we choose as our patron deities. We have been coveted by Gods of every major pantheon; our decision is made when we are 18, and then our bodies change to match.

I was seduced by Cernunnos and Abnubo, and so when I made the decision to serve them, I was given rams horns, suns for eyes, and a pale complexion with long red hair. I chose the name Siomon Mac Carthaigh. She chose the name Minerva Stanis. She was deadset on serving Athena ever since she was 12.

I headed out into the world, emigrating to Ireland to begin planting and caring for my Sanctuary. A Grove where creatures of all kind could live in peace. It is my only purpose in this life. I guard it with my life.

Sometimes I write to Minerva, who owns a small book shop in Athens that she uses as a front for her alchemy and witchcraft. Sometimes she writes back, tells me about all the battles she had seen with Athena. Sometimes I smirk to myself. She never wanted to be a champion for glory, never wanted to fight, and she chose Athena simply because she would give her freedom; and yet Athena had just as many enemies as the next God.

It ended up that I had the most peaceful and relaxing job of the two of us. I hang out with animals, tattoo my body, and tend to plants. At least I did.

In the early 1900s, I received a divination from my patron Gods for the first time in 30 years. It was time for me to spread their will and serve alongside mortals. I was told about this project, despite it barely being a thought in Dr. Fero’s head. I sought them out, but by the time I arrived, Dr. Fero had already found everyone else.

Now I listen to people’s problems and provide emotional support. Still not as bad as fighting Manticores.

Poor, poor Minerva.

The High-design, Highly Unregulated Vitamin Market is Booming—How Responsible are Designers for Pushing Fake Pills?

“These are basically candy; they’re almost entirely sugar.” My sister is rummaging through my kitchen looking for snacks and comes across the bright, attractive packaging of a newly-launched vitamin brand with an impossibly whimsical name. It doesn’t take a leading authority to see behind the Instagram-ready fonts and minimalist containers, and recognize that these “health” supplements are just just half a step above Sour Patch Kids.

The supplement industry is a booming $30 billion-a-year market, and by 2045 it’s expected to balloon to a whopping $247 billion. It’s only natural that entrepreneurs would want a piece of the pie, even if they lack the necessary dietary or medical training to weigh in on the value of their product. Sure, they may consult nutritional experts, sometimes even doctors, but they don’t actually have to; vitamins and supplements do not require FDA approval to go to market. Sour Patch Kids could be repackaged and sold as a vitality-boosting supernutrient (they could even use that word I just made up) and no one is going to get fined or lose their medical license over it. 

So what about the people behind the packaging, the designers tasked with making a flawed product look polished and enticing or, in the worst case, legitimate? What moral obligation do they have to vet a product before giving it their full professional treatment, and just how much vetting is reasonable to ask, both of the designer, and of us, the consumer? 

Franny Howard* is a packaging designer with a decade of experience on similar projects. “It would definitely give me pause,” she said, in reference to being asked to promote a vitamin or supplement she felt was flawed. “It’s accepted in the industry that a designer is free to decline work on tobacco, and sometimes even alcohol and spirits.” But, she admits, she once took on an assignment, despite her misgivings, out of necessity.

“I needed the job so I had to say yes at the time. But I’m not really proud of it.” It’s no secret that freelance designers often need work and can’t be picky. The ethical line can get just as hazy for those who work in-house or at an agency, and are unable to cherry pick assignments. A product like tobacco is, in Howard’s words, a “known hazard,” but a vitamin supplement is often seen as less black-and-white. “It’s probably not doing any harm, but it might not do any good, either. I’d say it’s up to the designer to make that personal call and think it through.”

Abacus caption

Designer Ryder Ripps is known for provocative, and more than occasionally controversial work that blurs the lines between art, new media, and subtle critique of hyper-consumerist culture. In 2016, he took his trademark digi-apocalyptic aesthetic to the health business, creating the branding around Soylent, a line of nutritional products ranging from supplement shakes to snack bars. He was so energized by the project he later moved to Alabama and launched his own supplement, Abacus Energy Pills, which offer “nearly double the active ingredients of Red Bull and 5 Hour Energy at about 1/5th the price.” Given Ripps’ past experience with tongue-in-cheek social statements, this might look like trolling. The pills, however, are now available on Amazon, making them, in essence, an accepted supplement.

“I think the ethics of design comes down to: is it ethical to make a product that adds nothing to the visual landscape of the world?”

Ripps continued, “Every new thing brought into the world should excite people. I find generic labels pretty unethical as they impose a depressing worldview.” He asserts that there’s little difference between branding vitamin supplements and revamping the public image of a clothing company. Consider all the branding that goes into socially acceptable pharmaceuticals, from Zoloft to Propecia. “Drugs have always been the height of branding, perhaps its deepest and most sensei state.”

Olly caption

One of the vitamin brands that initially drew my attention is OLLY. Launched a few years ago, OLLY is the brainchild of entrepreneur Eric Ryan (who also launched Method) and his partner Brad Harrington (formerly of Shaklee, a nutrition supplement distributor). Together, they set out to “reinvent the look, taste, and feel of boring supplements and brighten up the drab vitamin aisle,” according to their PR rep. By using words like Calm, Sleep, Energy, and Bones, rather than “confusing letters and numbers,” OLLY set out to make vitamins “easier than ever.” While I was unaware that vitamins were ever hard, I did notice these were significantly sweeter—another case of candy masquerading as a cure-all?

Ryan said his “Product Team always evaluates coated vs. uncoated gummy options during the product development process with the goal being to deliver the best product experience. The most common reason to use the sugar coating is to help mask the taste of bitter vitamins or active ingredients like caffeine. Since the sugar is the first thing to hit your tongue’s taste buds, it turns on your sweet receptors before the bitter ones are activated, so that the overall perception is a sweet flavor.” He indicated that the total amount of sugar in each serving of OLLY gummies is 2-3 grams on average, even in the sugar-coated gummies, so its total contribution to the recommended daily sugar limit is fairly small, even when compared to a glass of store-bought juice (which may add up to at least 10-20 grams).

Unfortunately, the pill beneath that sugar coating may be even more bitter than its cheery packaging design would indicate. When asked about the scientific research and development that went into the nutritional makeup of OLLY’s line of supplements, Ryan said, “We firmly believe that the role of creatives is to lead consumers rather than to follow, so we were careful to use research in a way that validated our beliefs but didn’t take away from the ability to be visionary.” What kind of crack team of advocates for cherry-picking studies that validate a favorable hypothesis, you ask?

“OLLY’s products are formulated by an in-house team of credentialed health and nutrition experts, including a naturopathic physician, nutritionist, and pharmacist who, together, have decades of experience researching and developing dietary supplements,” said Ryan. “They use published science to select the ingredients and dose levels of those ingredients required to deliver the intended health benefit.” And while OLLY’s pills may promise “Endless Energy” or claim to be the “Perfect Women’s Multi Vitamin,” and its design may reinforce that optimism and establish a sense of trust, there are no laws to protect consumers from companies selling pretty little sugar pills, just a warning statement to consumers that any claims of health and wellness “have not been regulated by the FDA.” Buyer beware.

Elysium caption

Another sleekly packaged supplement making the rounds on social media is Basis by Elysium Health, which promises to significantly increase the body’s natural production of NAD+, the so-called “youth enzyme.” Founded in 2014 by biologist Leonard Guarente, Head of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at MIT, who has thoroughly studied aging and chronic disease and how natural products can improve health and quality of life, it’s one of the few brands that seems thoroughly, medically vetted. Some have called it the Aesop of the supplement world, not only because of its appeal to the same health-conscious, affluent demographic, but because of its highly recognizable, science-chic  packaging, which often turns up on Instagram and Facebook.

“Design helps communicate our message and mission in a way that highlights that it’s different from anything else in the market, and we continue to refine how we do that every day,” said Elysium Health CEO Eric Marcotulli . “A pillar of our brand is making important and often complex scientific topics and research accessible to consumers.”

“Visually, our reliance on white and clean, straightforward type helps distill and simplify technical science concepts into useful and more easily understood content,” Elysium Health’s COO Andrew Lin told us, pointing to the brand’s standalone editorial publication, Endpoints, which “covers advancements in science and health with the goal of making science accessible to the public.” It’s obvious that Elysium’s creators obsess about their branding as much as they do about the product itself, which has been a huge part of their success. 

The boom in highly-packaged vitamins isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the controversy. In fact, the “hipster cosmetics boom” backlash is already underway, suggesting that we’re going to see more and more of these debates.

“We’re definitely seeing a rise in supplements. Consumers are becoming aware that everything has a ‘fix,’ and are more knowledgeable of the impact of each ingredient that they ingest,” says Yarden Horwitz of Google’s Trends Team, citing the extraordinary rise in heavily branded skincare and wellness items. Interestingly, in studying food trends, she’s noticed a move towards products containing “supplement-esque products” ranging from the mundane (turmeric) to the exotic (ashwagandha, a rejuvenative herb beloved by yogis). “Interestingly, brands that promote these types of powders aren’t necessarily focusing on the packaging of the product, but mainly showing the recipes or beautiful scenery that tells the right story of health and adventure and ‘living your best life.’” Is it too soon to predict that this trend may soon bleed into the vitamin world, creating a backlash against hyper-branded products and a return to more earnest design?

“My hypothesis is that consumers are still in the early educational phase, and the searches are a bit more generic at this stage” she said, suggesting that we’re only just waking up to the wide world of wellness and that, in the future, great packaging might have to keep pace with more significant health concerns. But, for now, when you see a smartly packaged supplement pop up in your Instagram feed, it’s still worth doing your homework. Even if the ingredients are set in Helvetica, sometimes a supplement is really just nothing more than a well-conceptualized dose of snake oil, even if it looks great in a #shelfie.

*Name has been changed for anonymity

Best Anime Movies To Watch – OtakuKart

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Best Anime Movies To Watch – OtakuKart

Looking for some Marvelous Anime movie? I have got you some astonishing hand-picked collection of the movie. Here is a list of  Top 10 Best Anime Movies You Must Watch.So without any further delay let’s start with our Top 10 Anime Movie List

Top 10 Best Anime Movies Of All Time

Patlabor: The Movie (1989)

Many of the films on this list are here because they’re landmark films for their directors, or that they move the art form of Japanese animation forward in meaningful ways. Patlabor is just a good-ass movie made by a bunch of talented people, including future Ghost in the Shell collaborators Mamoru Oshii and I.G Tatsunoko (the early name for the production company that would become Production I.G). Set in the distant future of 1999, Patlabor’s hardboiled sci-fi police procedural explores the connection between humanity and technology, and how we approach law enforcement in an age of automation. Also, this list would otherwise be sorely lacking in giant mech movies – this film has them in spades, and they fight a bunch. It’s pretty cool.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

Studio Ghibli commissioned director Mamoru Hosoda to make Howl’s Moving Castle, but sent him packing after rejecting his initial concepts. Hosoda then turned around and directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, an abounding and inventive dramedy that’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the film follows high schooler Makoto Konno as she learns that she has the power to quite literally leap through time. First, she uses these powers to get good grades, but she quickly learns that her actions have consequences. It’s a wildly imaginative slice of life and marked the emergence of an important voice in animated films.

Your Name (2016)

Since the release of his first short film Voices of a Distant Star (which he wrote, directed, and animated by himself over seven months), Makoto Shinkai has been described by multiple critics as the next Hayao Miyazaki. With his most recent film Your Name. (yes, the period is part of the title), Shinkai finally steps out steps out of the shadows of the greats and finds his own voice. To describe it as a mere body-swapping film does it a great disservice, as it finds the humor and humanity in a situation where two young high schoolers find themselves in each others shoes and desperately want to find each other. But then, Shinkai pulls the rug out from under you halfway through and Your Name. turns into a different kind of film entirely.

Vampire Hunter D (1985)

Vampire Hunter D is often credited as being one of the first anime films specifically targeted for an older audience, and its success paved the way for many of the films on this list. It’s a slow, haunting burn that follows the titular, monosyllabic vampire hunter as he aids and protects a young woman from a demonic menace. Featuring the brooding character design of none other than Final Fantasy concept artist Yoshitaka Amano, Vampire Hunter D is the dark glimpse into the maturation of anime as a genuine theatrical art form.

Ninja Scroll (1993)

If Akira and Ghost in the Shell were the opening salvos for anime’s initial resurgence in the West as more than Saturday morning fodder, Ninja Scroll was the knockout punch. Releasing in the West around the same time as Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll is a stylish, hyper-violent flurry of over-the-top battles and geysers of blood. Ex-ninja Jubei is coerced under threat of death by a Tokugawa spy to hunt down and defeat the Eight Devils of Kimon, each one with its own mystical set of powers. In an hour and a half, Jubei fights a dude whose skin can turn into stone, a naked snake lady, a guy who can melt into shadows, and a woman who plants gunpowder in people’s bodies and uses them as living time bombs.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Studio Ghibli is perhaps second only to Disney in terms of cultural relevance and worldwide recognition in animation, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is where it all started. It follows the eponymous young woman as she navigates a post-apocalyptic future where venturing outside small population centers means having to contend with giant insects and a deadly miasma. Here, you will see many of Ghibli’s themes on humanity, community, mortality, and environmentalism converge, accompanied by lush hand-drawn animation and swashbuckling action.

Perfect Blue (1997)

After working as an animator on other films, Satoshi Kon made his explosive directorial debut with Perfect Blue. It’s about a J-Pop idol who leaves behind a music career to pursue acting, and the further she dives into the role, the more reality and fiction begin to blur together. Kon’s signature style seems to spring forth fully realized from the first frame, his unique take on magical realism ensuring you never see the seams until he wants you to. Kon’s career was cut short due to pancreatic cancer, but his influence can be seen everywhere, including Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Oshii’s adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s seminal graphic novel series is simultaneously one of the most influential and enigmatic anime films ever made. There’s definitely a plot here, as a team of armored police officers leads by Major Motoko Kusanagi attempt to hunt down a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master, but Ghost in the Shell is far more concerned with exploring the philosophical ramifications of its transhumanist themes than it is providing any sort of narrative payoff. It’s a strange one to watch, packing a lot of information and world-building into its brisk 82-minute runtime, but its length and structure allow for repeat viewings that are as rewarding as the first.

Spirited Away (2001)

If you want a good snapshot of Studio Ghibli’s history, first watch Nausicaa, then watch this one. Here is Miyazaki at the height of his craft, using advancements in animation technology to enhance but not overpower an Alice in a Wonderland-esque story filled to the brim with strange creatures and imaginative scenarios. It’s a coming of age story about a young girl who finds herself lost in a bathhouse for the spirits, interacting with an assortment of fantastical creatures as she attempts to rescue her parents. That Miyazaki still explores the consequences of the convergence of nature and technology shows how timeless and important these themes are.

Akira (1988)

Akira is a powerhouse of a film, every frame of animation exploding off the screen with kinetic energy and effortless style. It’s based off the first half of Otomo’s massive graphic novel series of the same name (the second half created after the film was completed, explaining the wild divergence in plotlines), following a group of delinquent teenagers in Neo-Tokyo decades after the end of World War 3. One of these boys, named Tetsuo, is abducted by a secretive government unit and experimented on, awakening his latent psychic abilities which quickly spiral out of control. What follows is a strange, gut-wrenching landmark of science-fiction, filled with rad bikes and an absurd amount of destruction.

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Top 10 Best Anime Antagonists And Their Quotes

A major and most part of a show’s appeal is the villain. Be they suave and sophisticated, or insane and genocidal, they’re always one of the more memorable aspects of a series. With this in mind, I have constructed a list of the Top 10 anime antagonists.

10.Future Rouge – Fairy Tail

Quote – The earth will crumble, the skies shall burn, and the flames of light shall be extinguished, for I am the Dragon King: the emperor born from the.Dragon King Festival!

9.Satou – Ajin

Quote- When I Play Games, I always play on hard mode.Because higher the difficulty….more fun it gets.

8.Neferpitou – Hunter X Hunter 2011

Quote- This person is important to someone who’s important to me.

7.Envy – Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Quote-uit your pathetic blubbering, you idiot! You were trying to kill one of our most important sacrifices. Do you understand me?! You could’ve messed up the entire plan! What would we have done then?! Huh?!

6.Vicious – Cowboy Bebop

Quote- I’m the only one who can keep you alive… And I’m the only one that can kill you.

5….

CONT READING…