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otakween · 5 months

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Digimon Adventure 02 Best Partner Series - Part 2

Lol why are the girls' butts so emphasized in this artwork. Seems sketchy, but okay (Tailmon's even pointing to Hikari's butt, as a YouTube commenter pointed out).

Questionable art aside, I definitely thought these 6 CDs were a little weaker than the ones in my first post, but I'm biased. I don't have a very strong connection with a lot of the 02 characters, so it makes sense that their songs wouldn't hit as hard for me. On the other hand, I really like Ken and Wormmon so their album slapped. Anyways, full thoughts below.

Daisuke & Veemon

Google Boy - Daisuke (Listen here - subbed)

Daisuke singing about being a hot blooded shounen boy and how his goggles are a mark of his coolness and Taichi's legacy. A very Daisuke song lol.

Pretty funny how goggles just became a signature fashion statement for Digimon MCs. At least they kinda had a purpose in Tamers (although it wasn't explained very well).

Go Ahead! - Veemon (Listen here & Translation here)

Veemon's song is very in-sync with Daisuke. Just talking about having courage and rushing into battle without thought (because your squad will back you up and everything will work out! LEEEEROYYYY JENKINSSSSS)

2-Top - Daisuke & Veemon duet (Listen here & Translation here)

Okay, this was definitely the strongest song on this CD. It's catchy, the boys sound great together and the whole thing's a soccer metaphor which is very on brand. (I tried to google and see if "2-Top" is soccer terminology and came up with nothing tho -shrug-)

I like the little banter breaks in this and then in the song they talk about how their bickering just shows how energetic they are haha.

They mention being a digimon tamer in this song but did they even use that terminology in 02? I don't remember...

Miyako & Hawkmon

Crash with Bingo - Miyako (Listen here - subbed)

The lyrics of this song are pretty nonsensical, but I get what vibe they were going for. She's basically singing about being a hot mess but being proud to be herself. Also mentions that she's not just here to look cute.

I feel pretty neutral about Miyako, but I did appreciate that she could be kinda tactless and brash at times. Traditional Japanese femininity usually means being quiet, submissive and agreeable, which she definitely is not.

Although I've never liked the "bingo" catchphrase, it's fun in a song lol

Knight of Love - Hawkmon (Listen here - subbed)

Man, out of all the digimon partners, Hawkmon's gotta be the biggest nothing burger of them all. I couldn't tell you a single thing about the dude. I feel like the bird digimon are the most sidelined for some reason? (Maybe they're like "little boys don't care about birds, they like dinosaurs and bugs!")

Hawkmon sings about being a "knight of love," but I never got "knight" vibes from him really. I guess he kinda talks like a knight, but nothing in his design says knight...he's supposed to look like an Indigenous person, no? Maybe I'm being to literal hahaha

Fly High - Miyako & Hawkmon duet (Listen here - subbed)

Yeah, I don't really buy Miyako and Hawkmon's partner chemistry. They sounds more like coworkers lol. I did like the part where Miyako was asking to talk to all of Hawkmon's digivolutions in quick succession, that was fun.

Miyako's just spiraling the whole song and Hawkmon's trying to comfort her but she seems to be kinda brushing him off for most of it haha

Iori & Armadimon

My Conclusion - Iori (Listen here - subbed)

This song was...not good. Not the worst of the bunch, but it kinda just felt like it had no melody and Iori was talk-singing the whole time. His voice is cute and the lyrics fit his character nicely, but I was thrown off by how janky the song itself sounds.

The song is about Iori's convictions and what evil vs. justice means to him. You can sense that his philosophy is coming from his kendo practice.

I enjoyed the gratuitous English in the final line lol

Omyaa to Let's Go! - Armadimon (Listen here - subbed)

This one had a good energy and I liked the "Let's go!" chorus, but there was still a lot of talk-singing going on

I hate that the song starts by mentioning that damn Chuu x2 Jelly...it's like the show forgot to give Armadimon any memorable qualities so when they wrote this song they were like "he liked jelly...I guess?"

Armadimon losing steam and kinda flubbing the lyrics was the best part of the song lol

A Message to the Future - Iori & Armadimon duet (Listen here - subbed)

Phew, finally a good one. I was a bit worried I'd dislike this whole album. I really liked the melancholy yet optimistic vibe this one had. It kinda feels like any two characters could have sung this, but oh well. It was a nice duet regardless.

Armadimon telling Iori that "no matter what kind of adult you become, you'll always be Iori" was sweet :)

Takeru & Patamon

Focus - Takeru (Listen here - subbed)

Okay this one made me MAD because it was so ship-baity!! What the heckk??? This song is clearly implying that Takeru has romantic feelings for Hikari ("Am I the focus of your heart?"), but the show led me to believe that his feelings were platonic and almost brotherly. Did I watch the same show as the song writer? I don't mind them as a pairing, but I feel like this is contradicting my interpretation of the anime so I'm just confused.

Aside from my grumblings, I think this song was great for the drama of it all lol. I also liked the callbacks to Hikari and Takeru growing up together and Hikari blossoming into a powerful young hero.

The comment section of the YouTube video I've linked have people arguing whether the song is about Hikari or Patamon lol. Ain't no way this song is about Patamon. There's even a hikari pun in there.

Don't Stop Patapata - Patamon (Listen here - subbed)

Not sure if this is cute...or just annoying. Sounds like a song written and performed by a toddler, which is fitting cuz it's Patamon.

This song captures Patamon's one braincell energy (which was on display in the new 02 movie). He doesn't really sing about Takeru much which feels a bit like a wasted opportunity.

Steppin' Out - Takeru & Patamon duet (Listen here - subbed)

I liked the theme and lyrics of this one but the vocals were pretty rough...It sounded like Patamon's VA didn't match Takeru's VA's energy very well and together they sound kind of off key.

Takeru singing about taking off his ripped shirt kinda made me laugh because I pictured like a sexy romance novel cover dude. So not Takeru's image.

Seriously Patamon just kinda sounds disinterested in this song

Hikari & Tailmon

Gentle Rain - Hikari (Listen here - subbed)

Kind of a boring, slow song, but I liked the overall theme. Hikari's showing her vulnerable side and talking about how she can't be strong/brave at all times.

I'm not sure I really understand the rain metaphor here...I think maybe when she's saying it's not an "intense rain" she's saying it will take a long time for her weakness to wash away, but that's okay? IDK, kinda clunky.

Getting up - Tailmon (Listen here & Translation here)

Pretty similar to Hikari's song, but more melancholy. I found this one kind of relatable because I can get existential pretty often. The lines "What can I do? I still don't know. Because I was born my journey continues" hit me.

Tailmon sings about, basically, how life as a digimon is tough and confusing, with all of the nonstop battling. Still, she wants to stay strong for those she needs to protect. (Tailmon kinda has similar vibes to Renamon...or maybe it's just that they both have deep voices.)

Shining Star - Hikari and Tailmon (Listen here - subbed)

This one felt kinda half-assed lol. I think I might just be getting burnt out with all these songs that effectively have the same message.

So yeah, just like a lot of other songs in previous albums, this was a generic song about Hikari and Tailmon being different but loving each other anyway and striving to be their best for each other. I guess it's nice to hear a more optimistic song at the end of the album since the first two were pretty downbeat.

Ken & Wormmon

ONLY ONE - Ken (Listen here - subbed)

Aw man, I'm disappointed that Ken's solo song is from the POV of his Kaiser days :/ oh well. It's still a fun song. I like his evil laugh at the end.

I think this song does a good job of illustrating Ken's internal struggle between good and evil, but always turning to the darkness in the end. I also enjoyed the rock n' roll vocals.

The Future You Dreamed of, The Future I Dreamed of - Wormmon (Listen here - subbed)

Lol Wormmon's such a simp for Ken, but I love him so much 😭❤️ This song was great!! The jazzy instrumentals, the back up vocals and the passion/love in Wormmon's voice were all on point.

This song is all about Wormmon not giving up on Ken and understanding he has good in him that he wants to protect. So pure and sweet <3

True Strength - Ken & Wormmon (Listen here - subtitled)

Omg I loved this one 😭😭😭 so precious! Sure, it may have the exact same theme as a bunch of other songs ("we're so different, but we love each other!") but it definitely has a greater impact considering Ken and Wormmon's baggage.

I loved the light and jazz vibe of this song, I was picturing Ken and Wormmon in tuxedos with tails doing a lil tap dance routine together.

"Your form reflected my heart" omg 😭😭😭

Ken had a whole mini arc in just this album lol

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #image songs #image song #music

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ferretteeth · 2 months

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Having now watched the entirety of Netflix' ATLA here's some thoughts

absolutely zero confidence in the audience's ability to discern information without directly telling us. Aang has this monologue at the start and it's basically just for us to know. hey this character changed his mind, let's tell the audience. is this to address the poor media literacy or is it directly making it worse? i don't know

Katara doesn't have a lot of personality. I feel like at the start of the animated series her character is kind of Supportive Girl but she gets much more personality as time goes. She has nothing here

removing Sokka's sexism is such a misguided attempt of, i guess, addressing misogyny? but instead it accomplishes the opposite. why would you remove characters making mistakes and growing

removed Sokka in drag when this would've been a great opportunity to build on that scene as well as make a statement in the ongoing culture wars. as a side note I hated how the kyoshi warrior makeup looked I felt like it should've looked more like traditional chinese theatre, kind of smeared on instead of these warriors rocking cut creases

actually on the topic of that Sokka is super clearly wearing foundation the whole show while Katara looks very natural. It's equality.

lots of flashbacks and such which we really don't need?? as well as featuring Azula and Ozai. Ozai in particularly is a miss (even if Daniel Dae Kim's presence always is appreciated) since he spends several seasons as nothing but a menacing silhoutte

a lot of the cameos are just very pandery. people like Azula let's show Azula. people like Secret Tunnel let's feature Secret Tunnel. I'm surprised they didn't just straight up have a Korra cameo

the highlight of the show and the one thing I found myself looking forwards to is Dallas Liu's take on Zuko. I've seen other people say this too. he does an incredible job, he's fun, he sounds and acts and looks like the animated version, a right level of bitchiness, angst, priviliege and drama. If this show gets several seasons, I would be thrilled to see him do the redemption arc

great visuals, also. the bending looks good, the architecture is pretty, i enjoy the art direction they were taking to make the bender cultures look more distinctive

Aang doesn't learn waterbending or frankly do anything but airbending the whole season. Not like Book 1 Water is named that way because he learns to bend water

3/10

#rev txt #atla #Netflix avatar #atla netflix

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prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 1 year

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hoping this isn't a ~weird request but i would love to read your takedown/opinions of the failures of TRC as someone who was also reaaaally underwhelmed with how it handled an interesting setup/cast of characters and was left feeling very blah about the whole experience, and i'm having no luck poking thru your tumblr archives if it already exists :) no pressure ofc, enjoying your opinions on the new series regardless! (i personally deleted the ebook after struggling thru the first chapter oops!)

i was going to say "you have caught me on a day when i am crazy exhausted even after sleeping 12 hours so sure why not" but tbh i think that's giving myself too much credit re: my ability to resist this particular flavor of haterade, although it provides a nice justification. disclaimer that i haven't read anything from the original series since right after the raven king came out so i don't remember it super well. but like basically the problems with the raven cycle are two-fold: (1) the first three books are not very good (2) the raven king is the dumbest and most hateful piece of shit masquerading as a novel i have had the misfortune to encounter in my life. like you have to understand i went into this series having had it pitched to me but Dumb But Fun and for the first three books i was having a good time. i was often like "lol this is stupid" but i would say equally often i was like "aw my kids :')" in particular i remember that something clicked for me with BLLB where the books didn't get better but i suddenly like legit loved and cared about the characters and was invested in their relationships in a way where the flaws jumped out a lot less and i appreciated a lot of things stief had done and i made a pynch playlist and started drafting some fic and blah blah blah. and then the raven king came out and it was just, i can't emphasize enough, the worst book in the history of the printed word.

on point the first: the books are not great. stief comes up with some decent lines (funny similes, the occasional spurt of something pretty), and one of the things i will give her is that she can definitely set an Atmosphere (although this skill seems to have gone missing for CDTH) - monmouth manufacturing and fox way both feel like places that are just a bit too interesting to be real but in a nice way. overall though i find her prose weirdly stilted and artificial and tryhard. i think at some point i called her what taylor swift would be as a novelist, back when our most recent taylor albums were red & 1989, and i more or less stand by that - "losing him was like driving a new maserati down a dead-end street" feels like something stief could write, but instead of a 3-minute country-pop song, it's 350 pages of that. also i have genuinely never encountered an author worse at plotting. there's a weird and almost baffling shapelessness to the books that is truly like nothing else i've read in a bad way. like i said this a couple days ago but i felt like it gave me a new respect for every other bad to mediocre novel i had read in my life, because apparently those authors did all have some kind of basic skillset so fundamental i hadn't appreciated it until i read one who absolutely does not. and also the thing i have said before of, every book has a million chapters about the villain who has nothing to do with anything, and every single one of those chapters is boring as absolute fuck. the whelk chapters in TRB are sort of retroactively justified by the noah reveal, which on reflection i think remains the most successful thing she's pulled off, but the others are interminable and completely without reward for the reader.

even fans of the series seem to concede that plotting is not her strong suit, and the things people tend to like her for are (1) her writing, which... sure. i don't think it is good but you do you. and if i am forcing myself to be fair i will say that at the very least she does have a distinct voice and doesn't have that horrible flat YA Novelist Affect that has taken over what i sometimes feel insane swearing used to be a much more vibrant and stylistically diverse genre at least in terms of the things that made their way to my sphere of awareness. so. fine. and then (2) her characters. and like yeah the TRC crew is cute. they're fun. i liked that gansey was kind of insufferable and the books made no attempt to pretend otherwise. i did love classic scorpio depresso bean trauma freak ronan lynch, and i loved how as the series went on he was both a snarling anger machine and an idiot teenage boy with the most embarrassing crush in the world. i liked blue's ambition and her imperfect but passionate feminism. i loved adam parrish's teeth-gritted determination.

and i did absolutely fall for the pynch of it all. ronan lynch, who could have anything he wanted, desperate for the affection of the one guy who had no patience for his bullshit! adam parrish, who saw himself as so lowly, falling for this almost ethereal creature who dreamed beautiful things! the way ronan's main hobby was wallowing in self-pity but the person he was attracted to was the guy who refused to act like it wasn't time for ronan to grow the fuck up. the way adam had such a fraught relationship with anger, his own anger and that of other people, but he saw so keenly through to who ronan really was that while ronan's anger exasperated him, it never scared him or made him feel like he had any obligation but to be his honest self. the way hard-edged ronan dreamed adam lotion for his hands and labeled it in freaking LATIN, the way tense adam started finding a new respect for ronan without ever feeling a need to become more deferential or apologetic. i mean it was good shit. it was such good shit that i really and truly believed that while she was not the greatest writer in the world, stief must have built this particular dynamic between these two people on purpose. she must have deliberately planned for their slow-burning mutual attraction and deepening care to communicate these exact things about what their value was to each other - ronan giving adam space to dream, adam tugging ronan into reality - and while i was pretty sure the last book would be dumb, because all the books were dumb and she'd thrown a lot of balls into the air that she was not gonna catch, and especially because i had the sense she was going to want a neat happy ending which meant either gansey wasn't going to die (boring) or gansey was going to die but everyone was somehow going to be okay by the end anyway (stupid), i was also like, well at least pynch are gonna get together and it's going to be this really nice culmination of both their arcs.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

the short version of why TRK made me feel so wild with rage was that it made extremely clear that everything i had enjoyed about the books up till that point had happened 10000% by accident. pynch is a good example of this. all that stuff i talked about above, all the push-pull dynamics of them, all the stuff that made them a good ship - it turned out that none of it mattered. none of it was relevant. none of it was even worth mentioning. because none of it, actually, was on purpose. adam and ronan get together by making out, which i respect. they do not have a conversation after that happens. not like, they hook up and don't took about it right away. i mean they don't have a post-makeout conversation IN THE ENTIRE BOOK. there is no moment where either of them says or even thinks, like - why this person. which is dumb for ronan because he has been so horny about adam, but hateful for adam because he is out of ronan's league unless we're being very clear about why this is a good fit! the stuff about ronan helping adam normalize his relationship to anger, lmao. nowhere to be found. instead we get gansey telling adam, "don't hurt him." repeat: we get gansey telling adam, who tries the hardest all the time of all people ever and who is half convinced he should be in jail for having feelings, to make sure he is nice to ronan, whose ENTIRE BRAND is "huge fucking asshole all the time for no reason." because ronan is "fragile." which like, sure. he's a half-orphan [at that point] with a fucked up life whose brain tried to kill him two years ago. but adam is an 18 year old paying all his own bills who moved out of his parents' house the day his dad DEAFENED HIM IN ONE EAR, and somehow this does not grant him any kind of special dispensation for care in the ganseyverse. and this is not ever in any way contradicted or challenged or complicated or even referred to later by the text. crime!

meanwhile, ronan... [pinches nose, sighs heavily]. again i said recently that the dream thieves should have told me her hand was not steady on the steering well. because what happens in the dream thieves is ronan meets someone who is like him but bad, and learns from him, and then figures out how to be himself but good. which is a fun sexy idea for a story, but the book fucks it up because ronan is too aware at all times of what a dirtbag kavinsky is and too untempted by his wild ways. there's no real fall, so there can't be a real rise. he fucks up his best friend's car, which he knows is also his best friend's number one most prized possession on earth, and the resolution to that is: hey dude my bad i killed your car but it's okay i dreamed you a copy of it. ???????? that's like parent who runs over your cat and says it's okay because they'll take you to the pet store tomorrow logic [realized in the middle of that i stole that image from sandman sorry]. i mean, in a vacuum, i guess it's not exactly. but like: ronan doesn't address the situation by learning anything about how not to be the kind of person who destroys something of great emotional value to someone he cares about. he addresses the situation by learning how to do his superpower good. this is not emotionally satisfying fantasy writing. it's hollow and stupid. and it's extra stupid because the book's attempt at an emotional resolution later down the line is that ronan needs to... hate himself less. which he can do by... realizing he doesn't hate himself. ??????? once again: empty. unbelievable. stupid. there's no connection there to, like, "now that i hate myself less, i can and should be less of a dick to everyone all the time," much less "one way of hating myself less might be to stop doing things that make me extremely unlikable." just: he hates himself less, he's no longer alone, he can dream whatever he wants, he's cool with his big gay crush now. weak. and like it was weak for me at the time, but reading BLLB i did think: well, the hand lotion. well, the trying to dream up a soul for the dream people. well, the big hug with blue at the end. ronan is growing and changing following his experience. it's kind of a shame we don't get his POV on any of this. but we'll probably catch up with him in the next book.

and again: no. i mean, we get ronan's POV, yeah. but none of it is reflective of someone like consciously trying to break the destructive and harmful (to self and others) habits he had forged in his grief. none of it conveys any awareness on the part of character or text that, like, deciding on purpose to be a decent human being matters. that maybe it's the kind of thing you should commit to before falling into a long distance relationship with someone who probably has PTSD from their abusive parents. that it can be hard, that it's rewarding. none of that. instead - i don't even fucking remember what. at one point he feels guilty about holding adam back and then he thinks, i'm not asking him to stay, just to come back, like ok that makes it so much better. you're just asking adam parrish, a steel whirlwind of ambition, to go to the ivy league college he has just about killed himself getting to because of how desperately he wants to escape the shithole town where he had his traumatic childhood, and then move back in four years' time. which again is not discussed. it's just taken for granted that ronan wants to stay at the barns forever. he tells declan he wants to drop out of high school [a choice being made by an eighteen year old two years after the traumatic experience of finding his dad's murdered corpse] and be a farmer and drive a tractor in circles on the property, which would be kind of funny given that his family farm is populated by dream creatures, except that like the book takes him weirdly seriously and also this is not intended as a metaphor. like his endgame in that series is that this traumatized teenager is living by himself on the barns fucking around and dreaming forever with like 3 friends all of whom are leaving town and zero ties to human reality or goals or desires of any kind and this is treated as a happy ending. even though by the way his mom got brutally murdered eight months before the stupid epilogue. but he's doing fine [stief hates women so bad]. [again it's SO funny that the first dreamer book opens with "ronan realized that his life was totally pathetic and depressing so he decided to move." like there was not this level of complexity present when you wrote the dumb epilogue!]

i keep forgetting about how ronan dreams into existence a weird little feral fawn creature/person and is bizarrely chill about it. also how his mom is his dad's dream and his little brother is his own dream and it's really explicit that his mom in particular does not have a personality of her own but just responds by giving whoever she's talking to whatever kind of person they want to interact with, which is the moooooost fuuuuuucked uuuup thiiiiiing eeeeeeverrrrrrrrrrr, and the books are just like. yeah this is normal and fine. [again sooo funny that in the dreamer trilogy declan is like "unbelievably fucked up that my little brother and mom are dreams." like yeah it is! where did you get that idea maggie. was it in the tumblr tags.]

what else. she ruined blue liking space, which didn't seem possible. blue doesn't like space and want big things because she's a smart spunky girl in nowheresville virginia feisty enough to dare to believe she can make her own life. no. it's because her dad is a tree person and trees like the sky because they grow upwards. whenever i tell people this i have to emphasize how much i'm not exaggerating or making it up. this is what it says in the text. she's like "oh that makes sense." ???????? i dwell on this one a lot because it's soooooo so so so stupid, but also because i think it really encapsulates the thing that makes TRK not just stupid but actively repellant to me, which is that you get the sense reading it that stief thinks it's better when things come from weird magic shit instead of from like real human characteristics and psychology. like for a series about friendship it winds up feeling to me weirdly and grossly misanthropic - none of these people are special or worth caring about because they are human people, it's all because of their magic Stuff. it's all because oh they actually WERE more special than everyone all along, not because of the choices they made but because they were born to it (why is ronan the only one who can take from the ley line without stealing? is it because of the kind of person he is? no. it's bc he's Special). ronan's dreaming, blue's treeness, and then gansey being actually all along a time-shifted resurrected friendship amalgamation creature who felt an instant kinship with his friends, again, not because he was a lonely teenage boy seeking out fellow weirdos to care about, but because they literally had met him before. adam, the only genuinely human character left by the end, meanwhile still is constantly asked by the text to apologize for his existence, not just in the "don't hurt him" scene but in the absolute nightmare section in the end where he goes back to his abusive parents' house for closure(????) and reflects primarily on how ugly and small his trailer was (?????????) and feels startled to discover an instinct in himself to help other adams who might be stuck like he once was, and then immediately conceptualizes this as something blue or gansey would think, which is so hateful i can't even process it. like adam at no point in this last book is acknowledged to have had a positive influence on anyone else even though he's better than the lot of them put together, but he has to kowtow to blue and gansey in his own brain for teaching him (a poor abused kid) that he might empathize with poor abused kids???? when to my sincere recollection NEITHER of them has ever like on the page demonstrated any kind of do-gooding impulse? their hobbies are myth-hunting and unskilled clothing manufacture? perfectly acceptable hobbies for a pair of teens but like? why does she hate poor people and victims of abuse so bad...

the big bad demon that is destroying the town is shaped like a wasp. gansey has a bee/wasp allergy and one time died from bees. these two things are never connected. henry cheng is upgraded to a main character because maggie heard you like diversity and now has a completely different personality than when he was an amiable preppy dbag who happened to be asian. now he has a mother in the mob and a tragic backstory about being kidnapped that taught him that you can't let fear rule your life and if you're scared you should be scared and then do it and be happy anyway, which is pretty good advice for things like an irrational fear of closed spaces that can't actually hurt you but really not applicable to someone who both does literally have a deadly allergy to bees and also has spent the past four years traipsing willy nilly all over the place not even bothering to keep his epipen with him. it turns out gansey's big moral lesson has nothing to do with for example his obsessive desire to control his friends but actually like ronan he just needs to love himself better and realize that his friends care about him after all. please notice again that ronan and gansey, rich boys acting out, need to love themselves more. this is dumb but if this was like the thesis of the whole series i would be like, that was stupid but whatever. but what of adam parrish, a poor abused kid who was abused so hard he is now a poor abused disabled kid? does he get self-love? no. he gets to realize that his rich friends have made him a better person, and be relieved that he's escaped from poverty because of how the aesthetics were bad. I MEAN IT'S SOOOOOO CRAZY AUGHHHHHHH

i forgot when i was talking about henry cheng the scene where blue and gansey go to the asian kids' house and are like "wow such diversity so culture," which is like a nightmare edward said had once. like they're just so excited to have discovered this exotic exciting new world and to learn about things like how henry cheng makes asian jokes because if he says all the bad things about himself first then other people won't say them. and i shit you not, the entire sequence is done in narration, with spoken lines appearing in italics in the middle of descriptive paragraphs, not rendered with dialogue as an actual scene, a technique she doesn't use anywhere else that i can recall and which really serves to just be like... here is this Mass of Asianness, as opposed to being normal about it and being like "here's some asian kids having a party." i haven't seen anyone comment on this technical feature but i think about it all the time because it makes me feel insane. it's one of the few things i've read in the past however many years where i read it and was like "i guess i was naive before about racism." like it's not that i didn't know but i was like, wow in 2016 you can still just transparently have your entire ability to conceptualize scene and narrative totally warped by an attempt to feature non-white people and no one will be like, hey we're all unlearning a lot of stuff but maybe let's rethink this before we go to print. there's a scene where ronan jokes about henry's mixed-raceness by saying "which half" which i do think is stief being unaware of the optics bc she's dumb but still comes across real bad and then there's also a scene where ronan does a "vaguely offensive" imitation of henry's voice which i truly have no fucking idea what the hell that is supposed to mean on a literal concrete basis other than making fun of an asian kid's accent. in both of these cases gansey and blue are disapproving and adam snickers and it's like, ok so pynch is racist now. cool. who asked for this, maggie. and also see above re: i really gaslit myself into thinking that one of the points of this series was that ronan learns to be a better person. my bad! (he sort of attempts at one point to make up with declan about how ronan has treated him so bad and also ronan was obviously his dad's favorite. but like his way of doing this is he gives him a toy he dreamed called a Orb. if i were declan i would throw his Orb back in his face. but like that's how broken the ethos of these books is. a heartwarming reunion between two brothers torn apart by the death of the father that they both equally lost hello declan is also a teenage orphan - and it's just. here's some garbage i got you. i didn't even spend money on it. it just happened.)

in addition to ronan's mom the lady bad guy also dies a horrible bloody death that feels a lot more gratuitously fucked up than any of the man deaths in the series. oh i forgot about how blue's mom is dating a hitman who killed ronan's dad and ronan just like doesn't care about this after the first five minutes at all. and neither does anyone else. and then he wanders offscreen... i forget why. we never get any intel on why blue is destined to kill her first love if they kiss or if that would have happened with anyone but gansey or if she and gansey can kiss after he's resurrected or what. like the prophecy that kicks off the series, and just: nada. gansey sells his beloved home to bribe aglionby into letting ronan graduate and the two of them never talk about this and the text never clarifies whether ronan bothered to graduate or not (and in CDTH it turns out he didn't). like another way this alleged series about friendship is weirdly misanthropic is i really was not convinced by the end of it that these people were friends. none of them are seen ever enjoying each other's company or thinking well of each other outside of the two romantic pairings and gansey going apeshit about how awesome henry cheng is. also gansey's whole big quest for meaning blah blah, like i don't super care that glendower is dead, i think you could write a good book with that moment working thematically even though it does fuck with your continuity because who the fuck were the three sleepers. what was with those birds. (there's a lot of mysterious/spooky shit that never gets addressed and like... again i think you could write a book where that works, i don't like to be prescriptive about this stuff, but again: play stupid games win stupid prizes. write a dumbass book that invests a lot of time in the importance of its magic and worldbuilding, and i will get annoyed when your magic and worldbuilding is dumb as fuck and/or totally pointless.) but it's like ok so then the idea should be that the whole point of gansey's glendower quest was actually an internal one, that the payoff of SIXTEEN HUNDRED PAGES of this is some kind of life lesson or emotional shift or whatever. and the payoff is that gansey realizes his friends love him (which again: but do they though? like do they really?), and that he and blue and henry take a gap year. that's the big exciting finale. a year off before gansey goes to college, with his true love and a guy he first hung out with eight months ago. HELLO? like who gives any kind of a shit about that. about any of this. what the fuck was all this for. this all happened so that two rich teenagers could like themselves better. are you fucking kidding me maggie? hateful!

anyway. i'm sure at the time there was more i was forgetting because this book was sooooo boring and every single thing that happened in it was stupid. i feel like this was very incoherent but in my defense these books are hard to critique coherently because they are, again, so stupid. CDTH from what i remember reading it through the first time and continue to pick up now like hangs together as a book better certainly than TRK did but my experience is such that every time she does something passably right i truly can only be like, wonder how she's gonna fuck this one up to kingdom come.

#askbox #the shmeamer shmilogy #the shmaven shmycle #i had a bunch of stuff under that tag at my old now deleted blog but not this one

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bookaddict24-7 · 3 months

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REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

EVERY WEEK I WILL POST VARIOUS REVIEWS I’VE WRITTEN SO FAR IN 2024. YOU CAN CHECK OUT MY GOODREADS FOR MORE UP-TO-DATE REVIEWS HERE.

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42. Identity by Nora Roberts--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the best things I did for myself with this book was going into the story without reading the synopsis. I legitimately knew absolutely nothing about this book and man, when that first twist happened I was HOOKED.

The familial relationships in this book were everything and I loved that there weren't any of the usual tropes in this one when it came to the romance. It was a thriller first and a romance/familial story second. I did love how all of the characters communicated and worked together, even if their dialogue was sometimes a little awkward--especially when discussing intimate things. I know all families are different, but I wouldn't confess to my mom and grandma that I just came back from a night of pure sex LOL. But hey, to each their own.

The love interest was interesting. I really liked him and his blunt delivery, but sometimes he DID push that line of like "Alright, I guess we're just going with this." It was funny watching these two come together and I'll be honest, when he was a certain way (which I know is just his personality), I thought "wow, our standards are flat against the floor." While the relationship sometimes felt stilted, it didn't detract too much from the story for me.

Now the villain was something else. He was creepy and horrendous. I actually pictured his face changing from when he first meets the MC to when he sees her sick friend. It's horrendous and he was so well written--especially when we get to see his steady decline into even more madness.

Overall, this was FUN and had some very disturbing moments. Roberts is a little too good at writing someone who thinks so horrendously and does some horrible things to his victims. I recommend this for the sweetness of the family and a character who loves her job, but also for the creepy POV of the serial killer.

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43. The Unknown by Katherine Applegate--⭐️⭐️

It's been a few weeks since I've read an Animorphs book because the library holds time is sometimes brutal. Why am I mentioning this? Because this was one of the rare books in this series that I didn't feel any urgency to read. I'll be super honest: This one felt like a weird dream. Half the time I was confused about how the characters got to certain points in the story.

I'll still be reading the rest of the series, of course, but this one was just okay. I do love these adventures, but this felt almost like a filler book?

Anyway, onto the next one!

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44. The Titan's Bride Vol. 1 by ITKZ--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I will admit that while this storyline was actually sweet and pretty intriguing, this book is...nearly all porn. Had me blushing through the whole thing. I'm intrigued by where the story is going and I'm kicking myself for not having ordered the rest of the books yet, but yeah, this was basically porn with a sprinkling of a sweet and fantastical storyline.

I will say that the artwork is stunning!

Sigh. LOL.

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45. Once There Was by Kiyash Monsef--⭐️⭐️⭐️

ONCE THERE WAS would have been better as an adult fantasy book. Why? Because so many things in this book felt like an adult fantasy book--there weren't any adult themes, but a lot of the circumstances were a bit of a stretch. I think I, as a reader, wouldn't have had to suspend my disbelief so much if this had simply been an adult.

I mean, a fifteen year-old inherits her dad's Vet practice and and lives alone?

By the end of the book, I had forgotten this was YA.

Moving on from that, this book had a really cool concept. I loved the idea that there's a vet out there destined to take care of mythological monsters. I also loved that it was such a diverse set of characters too, including the MC. We get to see more about her culture and her father and what happens when Western society stamps out that aspect of an identity. For example: food, language barriers, and culture.

While the book felt a little all over the place, I really liked seeing the MC in action when it came to these magical beings. I also really liked how Monsef explored the concept of grief and how important it can be to just feel the emotions.

Overall, this book was OKAY. There were points where I was a little bored and a little confused as to why this was YA, but I can also see why so many people might love it. This was like Dr. Doolittle for mythological creatures.

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46. Raiders of the Lost Heart by Jo Segura-- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I didn't know what to expect from RAIDERS OF THE LOST HEART, but I had a pretty good time with what Segura gave us. From the badass FMC to the stuttering and himbo of a MMC.

I think with books like this one, I need to not take the storylines too seriously so I can fully enjoy it (which I did). The romance, tension, and spice were great. The adventuring was fun (even though I would have loved to see a bit more). I think reading the author's note also helped in realizing how much leeway was given to the characters' adventuring, since it isn't really like this in real life.

This really felt like I was watching a movie. It was a quick and addicting read and had me hooked from the very beginning.

There is one character, however, who is clearly Pansexual and I do wish they had said that instead of having the FMC confused as to how one person could like more than one gender. I do like that this character explains it, but I do wish Segura had gone the extra step of saying the term.

Anyway, I enjoyed this for what it was and I'm glad I didn't pay attention to the rating!

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47. Olive Harvest in Palestine by Wafa Shami & Shaima Farouki (Illustrator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don't normally rate or talk a lot about the storybooks I come across. But I came across OLIVE HARVEST IN PALESTINE while scrolling Instagram and I knew I immediately wanted it on my shelves. It's beautifully illustrated and the story it tells of an event that was a yearly tradition of harvesting and pressing olives in such a beautiful place like Palestine was both eye-opening and heartbreaking.

It breaks my heart to know that all of that beauty is now only on pages of storybooks, memories, photographs, and videos taken in passing. My heart ached while reading this important book. My heart cries for those olive trees that were hundreds of years old.

If there is a storybook you pick up this year, let it be this one.

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48. Block Shot by Kennedy Ryan--⭐️⭐️

When I read the first book in this series, I was hooked. I thought it was powerful, heartbreaking, and incredibly addicting.

And I don't know if it's because I spent yesterday sick in bed, but BLOCK SHOT was the last thing I wanted to finish (even though I only had like 4 hours left in the audiobook). I finally finished it earlier today but because I knew I wanted to finish it so I could get to the third book. Normally, I tell friends to DNF books but sue me, I wanted to give this book a shot.

All of that being said, I WAS intrigued at the beginning. I loved how these two knew each other from way back when and how, even years later, they still couldn't fight the chemistry between them. Call me wild, but I personally don't know how I would have reacted if I the FMC and the events of the first part of the book happened. On one hand, I get it because being a fat girl has always been my identity. Being the butt of fat girl jokes? Been there, done that. But on the other hand, I found that this FMC had a massive chip on her shoulder that she carried for the majority of the book, which she then moulded into a slightly unhealthy thing.

I'll admit, I found the portrayal of her body and how even the MMC referred to it (like being fat is a horrendous thing) really icky. I know that this was written a few years ago, but it made me so uncomfortable that the fat girl's humiliation was one of the big motivations for the FMC to "better" herself, as if her intelligence and already existent beauty wasn't enough. Don't get me wrong: wanting to feel a certain way and looking a certain way isn't a bad thing, I think the phrasing of it was just not it.

Which leads me to saying that...the FMC was one of those characters who supposedly had a powerful presence and was touted as this saint, but LOL, let's be real. She wasn't. Sure, she could put her business face on, but man, she was someone who was so easily manipulated. There were so many instances where I wanted to shake some sense into her. Like, we KNOW the MMC was an asshole, but at least he admits it? He was honest about who he was, while she was the one play acting.

I won't even touch on the fact that there's cheating in this and it's not like in the first book, where it felt like a glimmer of hope and fear. Here it was all pure selfishness. And I don't think we should always like the main characters in books, but like...at least make them consistent. I don't know, the FMC annoyed me and again, while I didn't like the MMC, at least he was honest.

Also, that twist. I saw it coming, but it added a whole other level of ick to everything and the FMC.

I'm disappointed with this book, but I'll still be picking up book 3.

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49. My Love Mix-Up! Vol. 1 by Wataru Hinekure (writer), Aruko(illustrator), & Jan Cash (Translator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved MY LOVE MIX-UP! and how much fun it was. The storyline was entertaining and while I think things happened a little too quickly in this first volume, I did love the antics and honesty the MC had for his situation. I can never tire of these kinds of stories where kids are just casually living their lives and falling in love with the unexpected person.

This reminded me a lot of BLUE FLAG, which was one of my favourite reads a couple of years ago. I loved the friendship aspect and how, even though things have the potential to be messy, that friendship perseveres.

I also laughed quite a bit at that twist at the end. Will definitely be aiming to get this entire series!

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50. Happy Place by Emily Henry--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I think I always kind of know what to expect from an Emily Henry novel, so while I went into HAPPY PLACE with a bit of nerves, I also knew I would probably enjoy it. I didn't read the synopsis, as per usual, and I was (unsurprisingly) hooked from the beginning. This book was a shot of melancholy, heartbreak, and that magic feeling that summer sometimes brings out in us that anything is possible.

At first, I was put off by the going back and forth with the past and present. Mainly, I've always found these kinds of stories feel a little abrupt when they have a flashback chapter every so often and I become impatient for the present day story. But as the story progressed, I realized it was impatience mingling with anxiety. I was afraid to see what broke these two up; what had the power to come in between these proclamations of forever I-love-you's and soulmate-y kind of love stories. I was worried and while I had to force myself to face it, I'm glad I did. I obviously won't say what it was, but I will say that it felt like a very real reason, even though these two would heavily benefit from couple's therapy.

I also appreciated the friendships and how this book isn't just about the romance that broke, but the relationship between friends. There are different kinds of happy places in this book and many of them include these amazing friends who are guilty of a huge crime: growing up. I find that I related a lot to the one friend who spent her time chasing that high of youth caught in a summer breeze. I remember summers long past full of memories that will never be replicated, but growing up means knowing that those memories exist, even if life and time changes everything.

Much like many other Henry books, this delves into deeper topics as well, like familial trauma, grief, mental health, and abandonment issues. Those were palpable on the pages as the characters faced these very real parts of themselves.

I'm not giving this a full five stars because of the flashbacks and how messy the MC and her love interest were. Communication is a golden rule I wish more romances adopted, but I also can understand that in order to have diverse characters, we need to be mindful of the ones who genuinely have a hard time communicating--usually because of mental health and traumatic responses. All of that being said, I still stand by this couple being chaotic--even if they were probably my second or third favourite couple in the Henryverse.

ALSO, DID EVERYONE PEEP THE BEACH READ EASTER EGG?? Hell yeah.

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Have you read any of these books? What were your thoughts?

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Happy reading!

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magicalyaku · 9 months

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I had vacation and tooth surgery and thus a lot of time to be lazy! <3 A chunk of it I spent listening to the narrations of some creepypasta series. Though, honestly, I'm not sure they can be called that? They're more episodic paranormal stories. Yes, there's monsters running around and dangerous, maybe scary stuff going on, but they're also incredibly wholesome and soo sweet and very queer! So if you're into that, go look for the stories written by @02321 on r/nosleep and Youtube! My Name's Skyler, I'm a Freelance P.I. narrated by Baron Landred (the title on r/nosleep is I Work as a P.I and a Government Agent approached me to help with a case) and I Deliver Mail to Cryptids narrated by Animas. (And also a bunch of stories more set in the same universe of the Silver King.)

Now back to our regular books! We have 4 princes, 2 kings and 1 queen this month!

Banshee Blues (Nina Blazon): I'm in the editing process of my latest novel, which I'm writing in German, so I felt I should read a German, non-translated book for once. This was the only one in my pile but it is from my favourite German author, so all was well. I have a lot to thank her for. The first novel read from her was Der Dunkle Kuss der Sterne (The Stars' Dark Kiss) and that was the first time I liked first-person viewpoint! Her next book had split POV and different tenses and I had to admit it was done well. Banshee Blues was not quite up to par with her previous works but it went a few new directions than usual which was nice as well. It tried very hard to lead you astray with what's going on and who is evil and who isn't. And while I liked how things turned out between the two leads it would have been monumental to have them stay platonic.

The Fallen King's Penitent Soldier (Tales of the High Court 5) (Megan Derr): Sigh, it's been a ride. I had a good time with the whole series. I love the worldbuilding, really. But it is alright to end it here, while it's still good, you know. In a way, these five stories are all built very similar: Being kidnapped by bad guys, running from the bad guys or running after the bad guys for the first half and afterwards waiting to let other people sort it out. There's probably a limited amount of iterations you can go through while still be interesting. But for these five volumes it was fun! As for book 5 by itself, I think it's a good thing it comes so late in the series. Because it really takes its time. There's a lot introspection going on for the two protagonists which is okay because they go through a lot but it's also very long and sometimes not much else happens. I liked the two of them, I liked how religion was handled, I liked how it went full circle back to Allen's story. I liked the series. Good times. :)

Prince & Knight (Daniel Haack & Stevie Lewis): I wanted this for the pretty pictures. But apparently the universe didn't want me to? I ordered this last year already, but the package went on an odyssee through several cities without ever arriving at my home. I ordered it again this year and … the same thing happened?! 8D The odyssee was shorter this time, mind you, but … why again?! I tried a third time and ordered it for pick up at a local bookstore and that finally worked. Geez! It's a children's picture book so the story is as basic as it goes. Is it goo for children? I wouldn't know. The dragon doesn't die and it's very sweet and very pretty.

In all seinen Farben (Boy Queen) (George Lester): I had some exhausting weeks at work and thought I could use something inspirational. Something about finding your own way and shine. Which happens in this book but there's also a lot of drama going on and I was not prepared for the rock-bottom-hit in the beginning. xD I mean, it was written in the blurb but I've owned the book for a year why should I reread the blurb … I know nothing about drag or make-up or anything in that direction (I did watch like 15 minutes of the drag show at Comic Con Stuttgart last year but that hardly counts), so it was charming and interesting to read about.

We Could Be so Good (Cat Sebastian): I have to apologise to everyone on the waitlist for this at my library because I could have read it faster but … once I realised what sort of direction the 70% drama might take I had a tough time reading on. They were so happy and it was nice and I just did not want to suffer! I did assume, since the book goes out of its way to address how all queer books published during the mid of the last century would have to end badly (and the protagonist outright refusing to read them therefore), it would probably take a turn for a happy ending. That was the only hope that kept me going. If I had known any of the author's other work I maybe wouldn't have worried so much, because it's written in her bio already that she'll only write happy endings?! Well … So for anyone else fearing the drama of a book set in 1959: No queer person was harmed in this book! (Nothing major anyway.) I like the book, though! Enjoyed reading it. Nick and Andy are both sweet. But that fear did something to me, took me a while to recover. :'D

Prince & Assasssin (Perilous Courts 1) (Tavia Lark): I needed something simple for my fragile heart and it seems gay fantasy is my comfort read now in the same way my mom reads stuff named like "The Little Bakery at XYZ Street". And what should I tell you, yeah, there're men who are tenderly and not so tenderly intimate with each other, yeah yeah, but there's also giant talking cats! Giant talking cats! Also, I really like the author's writing style. It's so smooth! I started reading and didn't want to put it down anymore because it read so smoothly! The book itself was so much better than I had expected (which was basically nothing). It won't blow you off your feet but it's pretty enjoyable and surprisingly wholesome. Also the worldbuilding felt just right. I'm looking forward to reading the next volumes soon!

King of Immortal Tithe (Darkmourn 2) (Ben Alderson): Did I buy the expensive hardcover just because I like the illustration more than the one of the paperback? Why hello, that's me. So this is the second fae book I read this year. It's apparently a universal truth now that fae men are the most beautiful and well endowed beings on earth and beyond. Not that I mind, you do you, but why does fae anatomy work the same as humans' actually? Anyway, this is a stand-alone in a series of stories all set within the same universe. I like that concept. Hunting for pieces of lore is fun. Arlo is a feisty character so following him was enjoyable. The switch from enemy to lovers was kinda sudden like … I can see why but personally it still felt sudden. Also Faenir calling Arlo constantly Darling was not my taste but you know, if it's just that, I can overlook it. The twist at the end had me barking out evil laughter (which means approval). I did hold back reading the final chapter until I read the first volume as not to spoil any more! (While they are stand-alones the previous story is referenced in this one.)

Lord of Eternal Night (Darkmourn 1) (Ben Alderson): "He was so tall and his hands were so large and his length was so great and so thick my fingers couldn't touch reaching around it. He was not just a man, he was a god!" I laughed. That's not a literal quote, but a good summary. Yeah. I laughed. And while praising one guy he was also dissing his former lover, the baker's son, for not being as large. Not the poor lad's fault, no need to get mean! Should have known at that point already who was the true evil mastermind. :'P. But in all fairness, there is a little more going on in the story. And well, these books know very well what kind of fantasy they're catering. There's a short guy, a little crafty and feisty, not too weak, and the very tall, very beautiful guy who everyone says is evil, but turns out he isn't so evil, he just has a tragic past, he also falls very hard for the protagonist and oops, maybe he does have some capacity for evil. I did like how the story subverted who's good and who's bad like three times. Otherwise, it's not really complex. But I'm kinda into the ending.

Alpha of Mortal Flesh (Darkmourn 3) (Ben Alderson): The third installment in the series, they've been getting more elaborate with each volume. So instead of the 2 and 3 half characters we had in the first one, there's actually a whole cast in here with motivations and backstories. That was nice. The writing style, however, is still as … trying as hard as in the beginning. It's not bad, mind you, I commend it for trying to use the full range of the English language, but there's a lot of words, making everything longer than needed, and sometimes their choice is really weird. Example: "My tongue broke free. It slithered from the confines of my mouth." But it's just a normal human tongue licking something eagerly yet still very normally! And, they're indie books, yeah, but I do wish all three books would have gone through another round of editing. The unnecessary repetitions and errors made me suffer a little. And while I got a little bored and impatient at the end I do like the story and what it's trying to do. Just that it was trying too hard in some aspects of the writing and not hard enough in others.

That's it for July! Apparently, August will be library month again. My TBR bookshelf disapproves but duh. Let's go and have fun. :P

#yaku reads #books #queer books #lgbtq books #queer lit #bookblr #creepypasta #i deliver mail to cryptids #nick & skyler #we could be so good #darkmourn #lord of eternal night #prince & knight #banshee blues #tales of the high court #perilous courts #prince & assassin #boy queen

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silvertsundere · 7 months

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Silver Talks AniManga (17/09/23)

turns out we actually got jump today after all let's go babyyyyyy also one more new series in this serialization round next week but it's about ice skating so not super interested, but we'll see how it is

blue - finale/completed green - new series/new to me

Anime

Atelier Ryza Ep12 (Finale)

nice and chill finale for a chill anime. no sequel announced or hinted at so I guess that was the point of them adding that plotline with empel and lila hunting down the philuscha monster thing. anime was nothing to write home about, the animation was serviceable and never really dipped in quality because of that, the music was from the game so it was good and the voice acting was good as well. some episodes felt really slow but it just be like that when you're adapting a JRPG let alone an atelier one lol. I enjoyed it overall anyway, ryza is super cute and I love her so this anime was basically just an excuse for me to indulge myself in her cuteness for 20 minutes. they also had a lot of klaudia ryza moments which I greatly appreciate. if you've never played the game and want to know if this is a good introduction/starting point.. you should just play the game. you don't really get anything out of this you wouldn't out of the game and you get the whole story instead of just like half of it.

Pokemon Horizons Ep22

nice and action filled episode for once with the return of the original villains and the appearance of this pink chicken. I thought it was p funny moltres is another of the ancient party members since the other is shiny ray and the arboliva which isn't legendary but we'll see how the rest of the party is. also the episode ended on a cliffhanger and I thought that was fucked up since the anime is gonna be on break 2 weeks between cours but that's apparently only next week tehe

Manga

Do Retry Ch19 (Finale)

nice final chapter for do retry, 18 felt a lot like a finale too but this one was a timeskip, all the way to present day, following aozora's grandkid, him going to his funeral and learning about his past. as for the series overall it was...ok. it started with a good impression with some strong art fruit of the author's previous assistant work for matsui but the quality wasn't consistent. the story felt alright at first but as soon as MMA entered the magazine you could really see the gap in their quality. ofc it's not that fair to compare a newcomer to a veteran but still. and then came the cancelation which made the story speed up even more which didn't help it either making it end up as a pretty weak series. I'd say the author could do a better job on their next series but I think they'd be better suit to do some more assistant work for a bit before trying again, but hey I'd rather read another do retry than ichinose so it's not all bad.

Kagurabachi Ch1

hey that was pretty good, I liked it a lot more than mamayuyu last week. the art looked serviceable during the downtime scenes but I really liked how the action looked. also, as is known, I'm a huge slut for swords so having a katana based series like this is like a treat, just for me :). not much to say about the story since they didn't really reveal much either, seems like a standard fare revenge story but we'll see how it goes.

Kaiju 8 Ch93

the hoshina fight is finally over, it was a lot longer than I expected considering the others but it was VERY cool I've always liked hoshina since he's a Swordsman™ and this fight really showed how cool he is. was pogging out my gourd when he went santouryuu. only 2 more fights left now til we get the big climax one with hibino

MamaYuyu Ch2

oh hey would you look at that, I guessed it right last week and their world is getting invaded by demons. we'll see next week how the action goes cause it'll be mc's first time fighting. also gonna take some more time to get used to the weird paneling but it had some neat ones like chap 1 again

Blue Box Ch117

great chap, not only did taiki get his first major w but we also had this cute moment with him saying natsu's name without the honorific

Martial Master Asumi Ch13

great chap too, nito's first official fight started off with a bang and we finally got to see his long teased super move. ofc the next fights won't be so easy but that makes me look forward to them more

#silver talks animanga

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reilliane · 2 years

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I really love your Tyranny series. I thought that it would be different from other villain series that there would be no one she will end up with because she would die at one of the person who serves her. Like Alatus, Diluc, or Kazuha. A realistic ending and not a love-hate idealistic forced romance upon those mentioned.

I thought that maybe it's because she's a tyrant, even if she's really pretty HAHAHAHAH. She committed crimes, killed bystanders where she ordered Kazuha to do it as he's her dog at this point, though he can do nothing about it. Nor I can feel his emotions after those killings hence why I cannot understand her stand in his heart even though he wants to know her more other than his innocent curiosity.

And as you know, Alatus. His morals and pride would never allow himself to fall for her. I think that a person who values his pride is not an easy one to bend. He's honorable and the romance between them, is uh, I think kinda forced?

Lastly, Diluc, he's being forced to a marriage though our Queen has a reason. It's kinda sus if he gradually fall for someone who's trying to keep him beside her for amusement. Like a kidnapped person falling for a kidnapper.

I can understand if Childe and the Queen had some small romance and talk, but still not her end-game as she keeps scowling at him (and yes I vote for him).

But other than that, I don't know why I feel this way. Or I am getting a deja vu feeling after they made Raiden from an Archon Villainess to her first Story Quest which is basically a dating sim that it disappointed me greatly.

But other than those, I think that the Queen really did great at managing her kingdom. Just that I felt that those romance are forced as she is someone who would no need anyone by her side but pawns to discard. Yes, I think of her very highly as a character who's a tyrant.

I still really like it and would still read it though no matter what the ending(s) are.

I feel like I've committed a crime by telling this as I forgot that you write x reader stories. You can disregard this message. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh dear oh dear ~ I'm actually quite glad you approached me on this! I like that you're attuned to their personalities.

I'm assuming you're relatively new and so, wasn't there when I initially talked about Tyranny and the ending it would get.

Because I completely understand! I thought of the story, after all, and thought of the relationships really well. Ain't no way I'm about to shove "love MC GRRR" down their throats, nono :")

Cauuuuse, yes with the way Tyranny!MC is written it really screams 'I NEED NO MAN!' other than as source of leisure 🥴

NOW BUCKLE UP ITS TIME TO READ AN IN DEPTH- THING! This is long, and will be a pleasant read for those who want to know more about MC/LIs.

And MC's complicated reign. In general. As well as my writing... in general KSHDAJKHDSA

This ask is just too good to pass up!

I have a TLDR utc, but there's a looooong, long message too-

TL;DR: Trust me, the plot is nowhere near the half of the whole. There are plenty of stuff to go through, plenty to reveal (boy im still excited for that) and that includes proper development! Tyranny is a fic where morality is the center of conflict. I don't intend, for example, Alatus/Diluc (who loathes MC) to fall for her so suddenly. As a fanfic writer I strive to write the characters accordingly! There is no 'kiss kiss fall in love mwAH!' especially in the Tyranny universe. It may be difficult to see it for now, but trust me when I say that the endings will be realistic. There's one true ending for the conclusion of the fic. True, in this case meaning it is the canon ending, and separate bonus endings (aka the 'routes', think of this as an alternate world where Tyranny is a world of mercy) for the characters.

—

Now of course, even if this is a fanfiction and may not be as realistic as, well, reality (lol) I still aim to reflect realism when it comes to a character's emotions.

I can go ham with plots and twists but I take emotions and relationships seriously. No kissing on the first date! lmao

You'd see that in Fleur too. Fleur!MC is all 'marry me!' and flirty, but nothing ever happens from 0 to 100. So far it's only Fleur!Kazuha who has expressed interest in a date aside from Venti (hello roommate??/j)

Aether? Maybe. Xiao? Zero.

(Of course, that's Fleur as in the fic, not the arts and comics/omake that are set up as comedic/'harem' on purpose)

Happens too in my SMITE book! It has a sub genre of romance but in the 70+ chapters that there are, nothing vastly romantic has ever happened because? Smite!MC has no time for it.

NOW back onto Tyranny-

If you read the genres listed for it (tyranny) in the 'Observatory' there's no romance at all; it's angst, action, fluff. I take labels/genres to heart. That mirrors into the narrative itself.

Romance is just a smol bonus, a sub genre if you will. It's unlisted because it's not a priority. (Whereas if you look at 'Absconder', there's a romance tag because it includes AbyssPrince!Aether & he's regarded as MC's lover)

Surely you've noticed that, despite the LIs being LIs (really, in the first place there only are 'LIs' because as you said, I'm an 'x reader' writer :D), there aren't any solid, blooming relationships with MC at all aside from what is already present.

Which is resigned fealty.

Kazuha is merely following MC's orders and so are Alatus/Xingqiu/Bennett. They're doing only the absolute bare minimum.

(Well, Kazuha has a more intricate reason- still, there are no mentions about him ever feeling something akin to love. Just pity.)

No one ever smiles around her, either, only Albedo/Childe/Zhongli (he barely even does), who were more linked with her when she still wasn't a Queen.

Heck even Diluc only humors this because his life is literally aligned with hers and he plans to break that.

They loathe MC to the core (Alatus/Diluc).

And the others aside from Childe are on neutral grounds (well Xingqiu hates her too lol) for reasons.

—

1. Murder of the og royal family and villagers who were the cause of her siblings' death aside, MC is one heck of a complicated Queen.

The aristocrats she sent to the gallows were corrupt thieves/traitors who'd leak info about the Crown to other Kingdoms, and the criminals she hung were those who don't deserve a second chance. Really, the only time she spilled red out of her own leisure was that time with the villagers.. Not like that's good either.

She liked sending criminals to the gallows and the only time it was stopped was when Zhongli returned to take over the seat of Justiciar (judge) in the court.

2. She leads Khemia well. It's been mentioned that Khemia has prospered even more and military power has upped after she became Queen. Even the Knights are paid well.

The bit about 'being unfriendly' with other nations (note: Kuni, etc) is a problem long before she was even crowned. Yet, trade is good.

She lets the kingdom's traditions continue, aka the festivals. She just doesn't participate in them aside for a few. Yknow, 'eh go do whatever but dont rope me in it'.

It's also been stated that she holds audiences! Literally anyone can be granted, though its a rarity since they're afraid of her ahfjajcja

—

Such are the reasons. They're extreme and immoral, blown out of proportion. She's not the most merciful, but still she does things for the Kingdom.

Other casualties done by Childe are those who are a threat to her. A normal thing for a sovereign, assassination.

Xingqiu dislikes Albedo for aiding Rhine and MC in their quest to take the throne, but could tolerate him well enough because the reality is that, again, murder aside- it's no joke that Khemia has advanced.

It's also been stated in Conqueror that Kuni and Khemia are on thin ice (on the verge of probable war) yet MC is not initiating nor provoking the former. In fact, she went to Kuni (Queen's Retinue) to allay the bad blood between the two Kingdoms and even graciously welcomed Scaramouche when he came to her.

It's what stunned all the most; the nobles in house Khemia took their seats (Duke/Queen) seriously.

I don't condone MC's acts, but these reasons are just one of the many as to why several are torn with her as a ruler. Yes, she's such a wicked person, but she doesn't do things without basis.

Remember that time when she came to a public event instead of Albedo and was, to the surprise/fear of the public, amicable with the children.

Complicated thoughts from LIs are shown in their voicelines 'About the Queen'. I could go on and on about this but this will get too long lmao.

Fluster? Embarrassment? All those they only show when MC does something that warrants it (e.g. flirt), because it's a natural reaction.

Lmao when Alatus gets flustered because of her he absolutely HATES IT AJDJAJCJAJX like seriously, I don't think there ever is a Tyranny short with Alatus as an appearing character that doesn't include at least one mention where he goes 'UGH I HATE THE QUEEN SMMMM' or 'how long am i supposed to put up with this' 😆

And Kazuha. It's been implied that he knew of her way before she became Queen, knew way more.

He does not tolerate MC's actions (no one does- except for Childe HDJAJFWI) but does them because he intends to find something out. And the only way to do that was to stick by her side.

In most of Alatus/Diluc's POVs he thinks of her as a monster. Kazuha didn't even know that MC could weep until he saw her tearing up ('The Queen was much more human than he thought').

It's quite literally, only Childe/Scara/Zhongli who are interested at MC to some degree.

So do you see it dear? Albeit LIs, there is zero romance at all (again... Except for Childe AAAAAA) because it's impossible for it to grow D:

Now onto the endings ! I've mentioned it in my rambles that are now lost in the masses lol but I'll repeat it no matter how many times.

Tyranny will have one ending at first, the true ending, a realistic one that concludes the fic.

But, as you said it, I'm an 'x reader' writer, so there will still be a second ending (say an alternative, a merciful one) that branches off eventually to routes with specific LIs.

But even then! It's not a whole 'fall in love' route because it's.. insane lol, pacing where -?

And even then, again, romance will not be forced :') I assure you to trust me on this one~

In all of my ficlets where romance is the main focus, nothing wholly romantic happens especially when the characters have just met. Just the occasional tension and the flirting.

Unless of course, it's a pre-established relationship!

With what is presently released for Tyranny now, the concept of having 'romance endings' for the LIs may come off as forced. But, Tyranny is yet to reach half the whole plot, there are many things to uncover.

And whilst those are uncovered, so will the unraveling and development of how the LIs think of MC. It's a whole journey!

An agonizing slow burn. IT'LL BE A SHUCKING HIT IN THE HEART I PROMISE REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-

Also.. I've hinted that Tyranny.. well, even with that aside, if you know my way of writing in general, nothing really ends happily :)

Those who stand at the pinnacles are the ones who fall the hardest... hehe (resumes evil cackling)

Anyway.... :') yes, just trust me dear JDSHAJDASHJKDHAK

ps. OMG A CHILDE LOVER! He's rejoicing rn, fr frfrfrfr-

#moonlitchat #m-tyranny #a very long ramble asjdhajsdhas

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risingsouls · 1 year

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🦎[What do you think could be done to improve Super as a series?]

🦎 for my work thoughts || Always Accepting!

[Hoo boy. That's a big question because I would change so damn much. But I think I can sort it down to three main categories:

Tone Whiplash

Taking the interesting concepts introduced and keeping them interesting

Make it feel less like a parody (which is sort of a combo of the two but)

Probably one of the biggest issues I have with Super is the tone whiplash we get from Z to Super. For me, Z evolved from Dragonball's fun, comedic, and more whimsical tone to Z's well-implemented balance of seriousness when the moment called for it while keeping some of the fun and humor from DB. In other words, the series felt like it matured with the characters to put it a different way. Then Super comes in and it feels like it's more interested in reviving much of DB's comedic tone, relying more on jokes and fan service rather than actually continuing the story with a tone similar to what we get in Z. Moments that deserve anything other than a laugh feel passed over if not disregarded in seconds. The characters we watched grow and mature and change feel completely regressed to either what we see in DB if they were there (big examples being Goku and Bulma for this) or their characterization goes full tilt into One Attribute to the point od the character feeling totally flat or their motivations and actions just don't make sense because of it (Vegeta is a good example of this one). And all of this is, as I said, either for a laugh or because of fan service (and I don't just mean the sexy kind, either; excuse my tinfoil hat here, but I've been convinced for a long time that Super's writers are absolutely actively taking cues from fan material and reactions far more than they did with Z because I know there were issues with that back then too) makes it feel like you're watching a completely unrelated series if not just a fan made series. If you're not prepared for it, it's a really big slap in the face and jarring.

The next thing that absolutely sucks with Super is they really do actually introduce a lot of neat concepts and plots but....do nothing with them or ruin them by the end of the arc. Super is a bottomless mine for new concepts from God Ki In general, gods of destruction, angels, and the new universes to new forms(?) like Ultra Instinct, Beast Gohan, Orange Piccolo (both stupid names) and Ultra Ego. But we get next to zero explanation of them, and if we do, it's conflicting or even completely retconned later in the series. Again, it feels like it's all done just to do it and bring in a new form or power or whatever without making it feel relevant or giving any understanding as to why it's special from what we already know and understand. Similarly, pretty much all of the main arcs start our with interesting premises. However, most of the time, by the end, it becomes a huge train wreck and the whole thing just felt like a waste of time (the Goku Black arc which doesn't deserve the hype the fandom gives it I'll say it and the Granolah arc are good examples for basically the same reason). In every arc, it basically feels like there are no real stakes, and, if there were stakes like in the ToP, they get ripped out from beneath us by the god of gods saying they only made the tournament to see if the winner would wish back the other universes from being erased. And even with the concession of Zeno apparently claiming that he would erase all the universes if the winner made a selfish wish, it just makes the entire arc feel pointless. And this feels like it happens in every arc: if the plot had any teeth, by the end, they've been completely ripped out.

And finally, it just needs to not feel like I'm watching or reading a parody or poorly executed fan fiction. As I said this kind of puts both of them together and is just big on how poor the writing is most of the time, from the plot to the characters themselves. I mean shit there's not even blood. And I guess I get they're trying to appeal to a younger audience but listen. I was watching Goku beat the tar out of Frieza at 6 and I liked the series just fine, blood and not constant jokes and all. And maybe I'm just asking to much of this series but damn. If it felt like there was half the effort put into Super as was put into Z (which don't get me wrong could have used a little more effort and care itself in places), this could have actually been a halfway enjoyable series. But as it stands, I can barely handle a few episodes at a time or more than the monthly manga chapter to sate my curiosity and see if anything I want to see in this series comes to pass.]

#.:ooc:.#.:ask:.#cxldtyrant #thanks for this!#i probabalt could have hit on more #with more specific examples #but for the sake of length ill leave it here

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ofstoriesandstardust · 2 years

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you most definitely do not need to answer this if you're not comfortable (or just don't want to), but i saw you say you had grown somewhat resentful of the same mistakes universe and i was curious as to why. i am not personally a writer, but i have a fair amount of friends who are and i have seen similar things happen to them with stories they had put tons of time and effort into, for a variety of different reasons. i know a lot of authors struggle with not getting much interaction on fics, and i can imagine putting something out there that you are proud of and spent a lot of time on and then not hearing anything can feel super disappointing, and also a bit like just chucking your stuff into a void??? i know some other friends of mine have stopped writing because the fandom itself sucked and they were getting weird pointless hate for no reason.

I am definitely sad you've ended/taken a long break from the series, because it's clear you put a ton of time, effort, and care into the same mistakes series, and you developed a character that was deeply nuanced and unique, but also youre doing it all for free and for fun (ideally) so you don't owe anyone anything. I'm for sure rambling at this point but basically i have loved reading the series and i hope somewhere down the line you can start writing again for fun and for yourself!

hey!! i am more than happy to talk about this and the only reason I haven't until now because I wasn't sure anyone really cared and I didn't want it to be misconstrued as whining or ungratefulness. this is probably more of an answer than you were looking for but here we go...

before i came into the top gun fandom, I was very used to chucking my things into the void, as you said. some of my umbrella academy stuff got attention, but aside from a few key mutuals, there wasn't a whole lot. and I was okay with it because I was writing for me and no one else.

and then the og same mistakes trilogy caused my blog to blow up and I was very overwhelmed with the extraordinary overnight attention everything was getting. i went from nothing to so much scrutiny I didn't know what to do. I've gotten to meet and talk to wonderful people because of it, but I've also been subject to some pretty awful hate because of it too. and it never stopped. it just kept getting worse. there was a lot of pressure to deliver consistently and constantly and I felt like no matter what I wrote, I was never appeasing someone. there was always someone who didn't like it and wasn't afraid to tell me so.

ultimately i became resentful because if i never wrote same mistakes, then my blog never would've blown up and i'd never have gotten so much hate. i'd still be writing for me and not judging everything i write before it gets out onto the page. i try to remind myself that i never would've met so many amazing people but that stopped being enough after a little while. when I saw others writing amazing things and get the responses they absolutely deserved while I was being tagged in specific posts for writing things that had overused tropes, I started to wonder what I was doing wrong that I couldn't seem to appease anyone. why it wasn't good enough.

i sort of thought that if i took a step back and focused on other projects, like storm warning and flight risk, things would figure themselves out and the hate would die down and I could come back to same mistakes-verse. uhm, things didn't calm down. the hate didn't stop, as people started taking shots at these other projects (specifically flight risk) and my lack of faith in my writing started extending into my academics.

i've always been pretty proud of my academic writing, and as a historian, it's all I have. but when everyone online is telling you it's shit, and has been telling you that since June, it's hard not to view that for all of your writing. i already feel insecure in my field because I'm still new and honestly this was the last thing I needed.

so i decided to take a step back from all creative writing because it stopped being fun and it stopped being for me and I started hating everything I wrote because I knew no one would like it anyways. i hope it starts being fun again because I miss it and I want to come back to Rebel and Sunshine and Cowgirl and Carolina and all the characters that I love deeply but I don't know when or if that will happen.

#kylie answers #i overshared WHOOPS #same mistakes

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gerudospiriit · 11 months

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[Alright. I finished the game a good bit ago, and I’ve been sitting on this thought for a really long time (i.e. almost when I started the game when it came out). So. If you want to read my brain go brrrrrrr about Nabooru and the Zelda series in general, keep going. Otherwise, scroll on. Nothing to see here.]

[I don't know if it's been apparent, but, outside of really enjoying Tears of the Kingdom on the surface and being super glad they improved by leaps and bounds from Breath of the Wild...it also made me super uncomfortable. I've made mentions of my hang ups with how inconsistent the story is when it insists on seemingly making historical references to past games while also erasing said games a few times. But that's...not really where the discomfort comes in. Like sure. I want consistency. I want the threads of history they sprinkle in to connect at least in some viable and valuable way. I'm an English major for fuck's sake. But, the deep down crux of it is more specific.

I've feared this since the first cutscene, and more prominently when I learned more about the new sages that fought with Rauru, and it only felt more and more true as I played through the game: Tears of the Kingdom has either replaced/deleted Nabooru or changed her. Ocarina of Time and basically every other game and that history became obsolete because...they can't happen. If the Imprisoning War is set at Hyrule's founding, and Ganondorf was sealed away all the way until Zelda and Link release him in TotK, we can't have OoT. We can't have TP. We can't have WW. And, if we don't have OoT, we don't have Nabooru.

Unless, with all the similarities to scenes and whatnot from OoT, this whole Imprisoning War is meant to replace the events of Ocarina of Time (and therefore every other game, essentially), which brings me to the second option: the Sage of Lightning from the Imprisoning Era IS Nabooru. Which is very possible because, judging by the cutscenes, AT LEAST this sage, if not all of the Gerudo, turned on Ganondorf for some reason (which may be him attacking their settlements for some reason??? That's an issue for another post re: The problems I have with Ganondorf in TotK, re:re: the mountain of reasons I hate Demise and his silly little curse). Just like Nabooru did in OoT.

Even going by the second less drastic read of what's going on there, it's still...uncomfortable. It means I have to pretty drastically change Nabooru's story to line up with this new telling of OoT (if that's what this is and I really see no way around it outside of what I'll mention later). And I'll be frank: it hurts. It hurts as a long time Zelda fan who ADORED the story it was trying to tell and who has adored this character for so long only to be left with these feelings about it all. It's frustrating to see the devs do so well and so poorly with the last like...three games when it comes to consistency of even the remotest kind when it comes to lore and story. Instead, like plenty of other games, movies, etc., Nintendo seems more concerned with the shiniest new gimmick within a game and cashing in on nostalgia than actually respecting Zelda's story. AGAIN. Tears of the Kingdom was a lot of fun and a top notch game. A HUGE improvement on Breath of the Wild. And if they had just...given the attention to the details of the story and lore to make it more cohesive and not like a big "we're literally retconning everything" which arguable kinda started with SS lbr), this game would have been perfect to me.

But to get off my bitterness a little and discuss moving forward with Nabooru and some just random thoughts about like...what to do? If anything? I might be jumping the gun, and I may not even make anything set in any kind of stone YET in case DLC gives us more to work with BUT. Here are my thoughts.

As much as it irks me because the devs are wishy washy and won't come out and just admit that, since SS, they've basically wanted to obliterate everything established and start anew with new lore, legends, histories of Hyrule, etc. and therefore keep making some serious links back to the old games they've imploded with their new lore without any real connection or explanation, the first option is to treat SS, BotW, and TotK as basically their own separate entity/AU. With so much changing from the lore and motivations to the religion and removal of the Triforce and other pieces of the story, essentially, it is just next to impossible to REALLY fit these together with OoT and pretty much the rest of the series in a cohesive, workable way.

Which means I would probably have to play two versions of Nabooru: one who follows the events from OoT onward, and another that follows the events of the Imprisoning War as the Sage of Lightning (and I still don't even know if it's HER aklsjdflkjaf) and everything else that entails.

The other option is to figure out a way to just...piece this monstrosity together like some poor, Frankensteinian beast and/or just ignore every ounce of logic and just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, go with the flow, and wing the fuck out of interactions to bs something together for her. Whether that's playing the timeline card because fuck how many more did Zelda create anyway with her time traveling or something else? I'm not sure yet.

And I may be jumping the gun. Maybe we'll get so very lucky and DLC will explain everything for us and we can understand wtf is going on here. But for now, I guess stay tuned for more existential crises ft. Nabooru? Ahahha...]

#[ ☀ ˢᵖⁱʳⁱᵗˢ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵇᵉʸᵒⁿᵈ ;; ᵒᵒᶜ ]#tears of the kingdom spoilers #totk spoilers #im just in my feels frankly #but maybe this will shed some light on why I've been so...finicky about certain things lmao

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cassynite · 1 year

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Top Artistic/Creative Influences in My Life

Tagged by @randalltier for this new meme--I gotta admit it took me a second because I'd never really considered what pieces of media have influenced my own work. This was really cool to do tbh!! Though no one is allowed to make fun of me for the basic bitch answers included 😤

Modern Faerie Tales series (and its sequels/offshoots) by Holly Black: So this isn't super present in my fanfiction right now but in my original works I really like to engage with creatures or forces that are very inhuman in their thinking, where one of the struggles is understanding or working with forces that inherently have deeply different values and morality than our own. I won't say Holly Black does it best I've seen (or even, like...well) but the Modern Faerie Tales was the first time I really saw characters like that, where the faeries really felt like they were deeply inhuman and in some ways unknowable. It's also led to just a lifelong love of faeries in general that constantly shows up in my work lol.

Poetry by Eavan Boland: Easily my favorite poet, there's something about how Boland utilizes nature as an expression of emotion that really gets to me in particular--how water is grief in "Atlantis: A Sonnet" and "And Soul," how nature is indicative of healing in "How We Made a New Art on Old Ground." That's bled into my writing as well--a lot of my favorite bits of writing, where I really feel like I nailed trying to show character's emotions, comes from reflections in the environment and I draw a lot of it back to how her poetry has made me feel.

The Ones that Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin: "Nothing is truly good that makes even one person suffer" is a really important theme to me and the story of Omelas is one that's stuck to me for ages. That theme shows up in some form or another in a lot of my stories--one that I published a long time ago is literally just a pastiche of the story--and its implications regarding colonialism and what makes a just society are pretty integral to core beliefs of mine in general!

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch: I am a fan of time travel stories. But I became a fan of time travel as a double-edged sword, about the erasure of impact that it can have, about choice vs inevitability and what truly matters when things can literally be undone, because of this story. I've got a whole roster of OCs that fuck with time solely because of this and honestly it's a super well-written book beyond the time stuff, and honestly if you've played PWOTR and you like the implications of Aeon and the True Aeon end this is a really good read in general.

...Tolkien: Sorry for the basic bitch answer but. Yeah. Fantasy that has left behind a much brighter age and grieves it, things that are gone but not lost forever, the presentation of evil as seeming large and unstoppable but ultimately being so small and petty and miserable, and how the smallest of things (small people, small acts of kindness, small defiances in the face of the dark) can mean all the difference! It's really important to me! That message of hope and healing just matters a lot to me and a lot of my characters consciously feed into these arcs; like I really dislike making characters are stories with completely destructive scorched earth ends and I do think that comes from Tolkien.

Anyway!! I'm no pressure tagging @silversiren1101 @dujour13 and @dmagedgoods and anyone else who might be interested to talk about the things that have influenced or inspired their art!!

#if i was really brave i'd be adding like three fanfics to this list as well but. ach. that goes a bit far for me tbh #cassy bitches #ask meme #this was super hard but honestly really fulfilling i learned something about my own writing today lol #tho it's probably not going to be very indicative of what i like. actually show here. because ive shared like three things #and most of these apply to og stuff anyway #my fanfic is basically just trauma dumping in fanfic form so. my influences there are all the things i should be telling a therapist lol

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ace-frog · 1 year

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Okay so this is just copying down me ranting about Aikatsu cuz it has taken over my mind recently-

Within the beginning of the original series, brands were pretty important to the point Ichigo climbed a whole ass mountain just for a dress for, if I'm remembering correctly just an audition, and later on in the series Yurika was pretty down in the dumps and restored her sense of like self worth by earning her new dress for her performance

In the later seasons from what I've seen, which is the original and stars cuz I haven't gotten around to friends, planet or parade, they do still include sembalnces of the brands from time to time

However Stars is, seemingly at least, seen as the best season and/or the fan fav other than the OG. But I have my gripes with it and it ties into the whole brand importance/special one thing

And it's with two things: the Planet Wings and Yume's Specialness

First off the Planet Wings

I really didn't enjoy how these wings were seen as oh so special by everyone in the show when they had a crossover episode during the very arc with the original trio. In the original series the designer of the brand was the one who decided whether or not a coord would contain wings but like point is that they weren't special in the way Stars made them special

Rather it was a sign that the idol in question had proved themselves to that designer and had deserved to wear that specific coord and it just had made it feel so much more personal and so much more deserved in my opinion

Which why I feel like the writers had just looked at the Constellation Coords in one of the previous arcs and decided the what if instead of designers who worked hard af to create those coords we just make it magical~

I'm sorry but WHY?!?! I get that they couldn't just repeat things from the original series except they kinda can?? Like having to earn your dresses from the main person leading the brand or designing a brand of your own can be pretty intereting?? It was interesting when they did that?

Like it was such a huge part of them being idols and yet it was basically swept away except for some minor parts. Also like some thing but it's pretty cool to think about how if the show didn't just focus on the main cast we could've seen more idols wearing the same brands and who knows see some competing for the same coord? Like hell maybe it has happened because the idea isn't exactly new

But there was nothing like that from what I've remembered and I think that's just a shame

Now onto my next complaint: the whole idol aura/Yume"s specialness

AURAS WERE NEVER SPECIAL!!! They were just a measure of an idol growth or potential. The whole flashy rainbow thing Yume had was just a no from me. I'm pretty certain that at some point one of the girls from the original cast had rainbows but it wasn't seen as special

The only one who ever had that was Mizuki and that was early on in the series. Also the reason why it was considered special was because she had the same aura outside of her performances and showed how advanced of an idol she was and how good she was in general. Like that was a whole episode that we had?

Also the whole "Yume was a better singer/performer/idol". I'm sorry but that doesn't translate well when we only have visual clues that don't even make much sense to prove that

I'm certain this is just a lot of personal biases and preferences speaking but like idk it just made the original series so much more enjoyable

AND TO ADD ON BECUZ YES IM VERY SALTY

Shion deserved better!! And if you don't remember her well guess what?

THE SHOW BARELY DID EITHER? Like I am forever salty that Star Anis never included Shion from what I remembered. I found her so cool and we rarely saw things like her acting career and it felt like she was just thrown into Powa Purin Power just to complete another trio with Sakura and Otome. And the reason we were given for that was because "she wanted to focus on her acting"

Listen that is valid and all but have we ever considered ya know that being in a unit group with some of the most and the most popular idol would boost your chances even more?

Kanzaki Mizuki was literally the Starlight Quuen and current top idol from that point??

Maybe I just don't know how that industry works but it seems to me that if you are popular enough you'd probs get casted even if you weren't that qualified for a role. And guess what she would be qualified!!! Because she was like a prodigy or something and she still busted her ass off to improve her and her skills!!!

JUSTICE FOR SHION!!!

#froggy rambles #aikatsu #i feel like its relevant enough to include that tag #uhhhh this got pretty long #friends parade and planet are there #but i havent touched on them too much #honestly after stars i just lost touch with the series #who knows maybe what im complaining about here is in those other shows #but either way i just feel like nothing really tops the og series #and from what i see parade and that one crossover ep shows that #these series are all interconnected #im really biased lmao

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