#once again: wtf was going on in 2006 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tomb-bloom-noctem · 11 months

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Not am I only feeling very critical towards Taylor Swift due to her choice in Guy She's Dating right now and the implications about where her morals REALLY lie and questioning now how much of her activism has been for publicity but also what the fuck is she doing with all this marketing nonsense happening.

The exclusive CD just for "You're Losing Me" when her show tickets are so hard to come by for many folks, the Karma feat. Ice Spice collab is weirdly put together. Rap isn't my favorite music but even I am aware that Ice Spice is VERY talented yet the song kinda??? Fails to play into her strengths??? Also since Taylor recently released Karma as a single you'd think she'd actually wait until the Ice Spice version was ready and release THAT version as a single. Then of course there's the mess of He Who I Am Not Gonna Name and his garbage plus his beef with Ice Spice then the timing of this release...doesn't look good. Now I'm still feeling inclined to think this collab has probably been in the works for a little while at least since I can only imagine the legal side of things takes some time. But at the same time the poorer quality (in my opinion) of Ice Spice's parts does contribute to it feeling a little rushed. Seriously I don't hate the idea of this collab at all but it really feels like they just tried to shove Ice Spice in there instead of naturally making room for her.

And furthermore, I just kinda personally despise "Feat. MORE Lana Del Rey" The song sounds great. If rumor is to be believed this was how the song was supposed to turn out but Lana didn't know what part she was supposed to sing?? So it was submitted as the original version??? And Taylor just left it??? Instead of reaching out and saying hey actually let's rework this??? Like girl you have sooo much money you can easily get back in that recording studio wtf. I do actually like how the original Snow on the Beach but at the same time I'm so confused as to why it was allowed to just go forward if this newer version was supposed to be the original version. It feels like either the original SOTB was never supposed to be a duet only a feature and it was overly marketed as a duet or...Taylor and/or her label really not paying attention. Don't like either of those. So, to rerecord what should have already existed in the first place to sell a whole priced album again for one new song (which wasn't a new song since apparently it was on physical additions of Midnights), one collab that needed more time in the oven, and now the "real" version of an existing song stupidly called "feat. MORE Lana del Rey"...Seriously you guys couldn't have extended the music a bit and called it "extended edition" or something. For some reason just the way it's titled and knowing the supposed background of the song has me scratching my head and feeling a little rubbed the wrong way.

I don't know if I'm explaining this coherently at all but the whole situation feels a lot like a mess, a bit of a scam, and a lot like a PR move. Feels to me like Taylor's got a lot of yes men in her corner at the moment. And I'm sure she's plenty powerful enough to go "actually I'm still gonna do what I want" even if there are people telling her no. But really feels like she's flying in so many chaotic and messy directions at once with no one telling her she should slow it down, reign it in and think about this a little more. She's very smart and very talented yes, I am still a fan of hers! I've been a fan since 2006! But not gonna lie! I feel deceived and betrayed by her thanks to her being with MH and a lot of her business decisions lately are very confusing. Don't even get me started on how CHEAP the VIP boxes and a lot of this tour merch is turning out to be despite how expensive it all is.

Taylor, can I ask YOU a question. What the fuck.

#tomb talks #long post #taylor swift #swiftie #critical #discourse #ice spice #lana del ray #confused and heart broken #anti matty healy

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ihavedoorinsurance · 1 year

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big long post abt bokutachi-kun bc i have worms

so. a little over a week ago, SoapOpera46 (or Yoli-chan) blessed us with this video and i would like to talk abt it at length. piece by piece. this is the true definition of sadan. so much so that it's going under a readmore (if those even matter anymore. i hear fumblr truncates posts automatically?) anyway

full disclosure: i didn't plan any of this. what's to come is basically word puke, off the top of my head, with no organisation or structure to it.

you won't be interested in this unless you're clinically insane. if you're looking for worthwhile opinions on the video, i recommend browsing the comments section. they're short, sweet, and easy to read. nnnnow, without further ado.....

I KU ZO

i'll start off saying i don't know shit about Dream (YUME-SAN as he is so graciously credited in the vid description)! not a damn thing! all i know is he's a Minecraft YouTuber, and up to just yesterday i didn't even know he made music! what seems to be very emo music if this song is anything to go by.

i looked up the lyrics seperately bc tbh i couldnt extrapolate anything from that singing. bokutachi-kun's a star talent and all bless his heart but i needed expert assistance. also according to the blurb at the bottom of the page i referenced, this song references the struggles of depression and ADHD! and myopia, most tragically of all.

here's a student copy.

what to note before we forge onwards: this is contextualised to us by Yoli-chan as a look into Bokutachi's history, saying she: "feeling it fit bokutachi-kun no past very much!!!"

i'm not sure how far in the past this is, but i have some vague ideas pinned on the information that, expressed by Episode 10, Raku and Koneko have already graduated (or dropped out of i'm not discounting that) college by the time the mainline story is in effect.

you also see these silhouettes

of what i assume to be the girls? at around 1:22, so i'm giving it anywhere from 6 to 14 years ago.

and if that seems like a wide ratio that's because it is!! i have no way of knowing what year of high school he's in, when exactly he graduated, how long it's been since then, or anything. i mean he's a fairly young man so i'll take that into account but that hardly helps

(also grant that none of the story takes off until after Raku and Koneko have left college long enough for Raku to call her fellow alumni "old" friends....also wtf what did they major in i've been asking this for years..you don't see them with jobs ever I MEAN PERHAPS KONEKO MAJORED IN NURSING THE COVID PSA DOES INDICATE SHE IS A PROFESSIONAL SO IDK)

but damn if any of that actually matters. you can't even peg the year by identifying hiis fatback monitor and Windows 98 ass OS

he is using some..EQUIVALENT of early msn messenger, maybe that puts this in the ballpark of 2000-2003

ik the Covid PSA isn't like properly canon or anything but i'll bet Raku is still using Win98 well after the OS's discontinuation anyway (it went out of service in 2006 if that helps.)

so if Bokutachi's old enough to be in any year of high school in 1998-2000 (assuming this computer is any indication. it might not be!), i'd wager a guess he's anywhere between 24-30 years old by the time NNSG properly starts (again assuming, that 2010 is the actual year the show takes place. once again, it might not be! it's at least post-Hatsune Miku, judging by the Christmas episode). this leaves room for college, but i doubt he went.

kind of what i already assumed, but it's fun trying to put these pieces together.

also can i just say i'm intrigued by the "nya, rawr" adlib in the beginning? that is Hitoshi's Thing, as we well know, but additionally, in the very beginning of the video, there is a box of pocky on the floor of the hallway.

pocky would happen to be one half of Hitoshi's favourite breakfast (plus ramune. this fuck drinks soda and eats cookies for breakfast what is wrong with him.), so i wonder if he had some knowledge of Hitoshi already this early on. we're operating on the premise that this is Bokutachi's younger self singing, right? did Hitoshi go to his school? we don't see him anywhere unlike Raku and Koneko, so idk. maybe "nya, rawr" is just a popular, cool phrase to say in Amerijapan.

potential cool thing: the one pocky stick upside down and sitting outside the box but near it might allude to Bokutachi himself. you do get the feeling he's lonely throughout the song, he's not got one close relationship with a real live person. not in school, not at home...

let's start talking about these lyrics.

I wear a mask with a smile for hours at a time Stare at the ceiling while I hold back what's on my mind And when they ask me how I'm doing I say, "I'm just fine" And when they ask me how I'm doing I say, "I'm just fine"

so i like this set of frames

you see him happily chatting away, but abrubtly he gets tense and stops himself. only after his mood swing is acknowledged does he try to perk back up and affirm to whoever's asking that he's "just fine". clearly he feels some kind of pressure to bottle up his emotions.

the facade begins to wane slightly here: despite the open ears he remains reticent. another thing: he seems to just be very guarded when he's around people. like physically!

you see him holding himself in the midst of confrontation here, earlier he'd balled up his fist because he got upset thinking about something too long... his stance in general is very tight in public, from what i can tell.

here, he's got his arms firmly placed at his sides as he turns away from whoever it was that confronted him earlier. shortly afterwards when he's sure he's not being looked at, he drops his little half smile.

in the first image of this post, again at around 1:22-1:25 you see him holding his bookbag straps and powering through the hallways the longer he continues to walk, like there's a sense of urgency there.

and here, he's around people that are likely just minding their own business but he's just. not comfortable in any way. the song mentions at this point:

"Always bein' judged by a bunch of strange faces Scared to go outside, haven't seen the light in ages"

even though it seems he's being ignored for the most part. everyone who's addressed him thus far in the song has only ever asked him if he was okay. i have to wonder if he's being gossipped about behind his back for being an outcast and is well aware of it.

"haven't seen the light in ages" strikes me as metaphorical. light as in hope. light as in a reason to keep going.

ALSO I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE MOMENT TO HIGHLIGHT THESE LYRICS

But the fact is I can never get off of my mattress And all that they can ask is "Why are you so sad, kid?" (Why are you so sad, kid?)

my guy has been in bed all day long, just awake and in bed dawn to dusk, tossing and turning unable to get to sleep. or even will himself to get up. he hasn't eaten, drank, brushed his teeth, showered, just. bed. and the first thing his (probably) legal guardian thinks to ask him when he FINALLY manages to find some strength is why he's so sad.

it'd be nice to interpret that in a compassionate way. i think best case scenario, his guardian(s) don't know how to help him and want to talk with him. approaching the subject of utter disengagement from the world is difficult when you haven't lived it, and i can't imagine mental health resources are plentiful in early 2000s Amerijapan.

but also he doesn't seem to trust his legal guardian(s)?? he's just as guarded with them as he is with strangers, look at this at around 0:56

he looks anxious trying to address either of them. the way he's looking back and forth between them it's like he's trying to get a word in edgewise but can't.

they're not particularly given identifiable features. they look fairly similar to the "strange faces" he sees judging him, except they're bigger. they cast a longer shadow and they're no comfort to him at all. helps that the lyrics accompanied are:

"And it just keeps on pilin' It's so terrifying"

which implies to me he's constantly in the habit of racking up shames in his legal guardian's eyes. like they pick at him frequently and find reasons upon reasons to scold him, and remind him of everything that's going wrong. maybe the pressure he feels to perform normalcy is derived from them, because if someone finds something "wrong" with him, they're going to pick and pick and demean him and lose faith in him. and that hits too close to home for him.

(i'm willing to bet he is/was physically punished too. like, shot in the dark, but that makes sense to me with how stiffly he walks and how clammed up you see him around ppl. i might be projecting though but hey. never said i was sure.)

I'D LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY GUY IS JUST CHRONICALLY ONLINE TOO

morning to night, he finds himself whiling away HOURS on the computer. time spent online (on messaging clients and what have you) outweighs time spent on homework, and studying, possibly eating. anything else that might beg his attention is forgotten.

anything else that might stress him out is forgotten when he turns on the computer. he can mask (OHOHOHOHO) his struggles online because there's no burden of expectation or obligation.

there's a freedom in his anonymity, in how he can choose his company, and lie about being happy, and they'd believe him. no-one asks questions. there's no pressure. and that makes him "happy" so to speak.

i say that because only when he's messing around online do we finally see him peaceful enough to go to sleep. the fog on his brain is lifted when he turns himself into this person that's full of confidence and takes life easy. and even though he might be faking it...

Been wearin' a smile for so long, it's real So long, it's real, so long, it's real

that'll happen to you when you use another skin to cope with your own shortcomings. i'm acutely aware of this in particular. this might be what some people refer to as irony poisoning? when you do something enough times, even if it's only for show, it becomes habit, and your habits aren't you as a person, but they can certainly shape you.

i wonder if he joked about dark sshit like kidnapping people and committing felonies, etc. to try and make himself let go of the fear of being judged by others. make himself stop feeling empathy so he'd stop acting so careful, thus unchaining himself from his own thought paralysis. plenty of people do that (and some become criminals later on, go figure)

anyhow later on we have a mental breakdown from about 1:31 to 1:39 with:

But I've been places So I'm okay-ish, so I'm okay-ish Yeah, I'm okay, bitch"

coupled with what seems to be a violent start from a dream of some kind?

not sure if this dream IS or is connected to the following scenes of walking through the school hallways + out in the grass, but that would actually make a lot of sense considering "haven't seen the light in ages" compared against his internet addiction. like he found a distraction and thus has little incentive to leave. i imagine he's skipping school and holing up in his room or something.

the effects of what he's doing seem to be catching up with him. you can see him high strung when he gets out of bed, and when he answers to what's likely his guardian(s), it snaps him.

i get the impression he either woke up with all this tension, then realised he slept through the morning and made it worse, OR. the dream sharply reminded him of his current circumstances and THAT made it worse.

maybe he's spiralling because he feels powerless. to stop himself from making bad decisions, from disappointing people, from pushing people away, from underachieving, from misusing his time, from taking his life for granted, from being alone...challenging these doubts about your own agency over your life is tough when you don't know where to start and also you're a teenager.

he's clearly wracked with despair over this but can't act in his own best interest due to closing off all avenues to recovery thanks to never opening up to anyone. god the more i think about it, the more i consider "why are you so sad, kid?" to be accusatory. if you feel singled out in being honest, of course you'll try to avoid that.

also note:

But the fact is I need help, I'm failin' all my classes

damn straight.

jesus that report card. look at that thing, that is straight Fs all the way down. i mean we know he hasn't been doing his homework but god ALL F'S??? IN EVERY SUBJECT????? you'd think he wasn't going to school at all, which kind of lends itself to my idea that he's just altogether not going. or when he is there, doing literally anything else but the work. god damn. relatable

that combined with his outburst, that epic door slam?? that might be what pulls him into the doctor's office later on. like his legal guardian(s) are just sick of his shit and so they get him psychoanalysed.

A FINE ANALYSIS FROM DR. ^w^ PHD, FUCKING "NORMAL JA NAI", WHAT A GENIUS ASSESSMENT. I'M SO GLAD THEY COULD TAP INTO THE HEART OF THE ISSUE AND ADDRESS THE ROOT CAUSE OF HIS SUFFERING IN A THOROUGH AND SPECIALISED MANNER. BASED

no seriously even though that shit kills me every time i see it, i like the implication that they only vaguely diagnose symptoms, write a prescription, and send him on his way. like what's really wrong with him is being overlooked by professionals because the mental health awareness just isn't there. as exemplified by:

"They think that I need glasses"

which is a lyric i laughed at but also...that's kinda true to life. you'll say to your school's counsellor, everything that sings to the tune of someone with executive dysfunction. a spectrum disorder even. and they'll be like

"hm. move em up. they cant see the board that's why they're not taking notes right. have you talked to an ophthalmologist". offering bandaid solutions for bigger issues. and speaking of bandaid solutions, DRUGS

"I just really wish that I could pass this (Wish that I could pass this)"

That's what the mask is That's what the point of the mask is"

SDGLKMFKFKLDHNFGJKNGVF I RAN OUT OF IMAGE SPACE LMAOOOO

okay so basically from 1:49-1:59 Bokutachi goes through a moment of crisis where he laments his fate of being labelled as "NORMAL JA NAI". either he doesn't like the things the medication is doing to him or he's skeptical of taking them at all. regardless those shits are going inthe TRASH. my guy is like "fuck big pharma" out here

he is not in a stable frame of mind at all throughout this video. who knows if those pills would have helped. we'll never know because he doesn't trust them. he doesn't want to think of himself as someone who needs that kind of thing.

as far as he's concerned he doesn't! he has his chat group, he has FUCKING MINESWEEPER; if he were to try and "fix" himself now, what would happen to those spaces? would he still be able to navigate them? find the same joy in them as he once did? they're all that matters to him! he's become accustomed to the isolation and this is his only reprieve (read as: escape) from a hostile environment.

(how hostile it really is, that's sort of up in the air. i'm thinking he's got the makings of a dude with some kinda cluster A disorder. ADD and autism are also on my mind, depression because of the song's origins itself, but eh. i digress.)

you can see him calm himself down once it's time to boot up the computer again at 2:00.

so it would seem, he's already given up on trying to be more than what he is right now. change is scary though, i don't blame him. especially when you feel like it's being forced on you when you didn't ask.

maybe this is him trying to regain some kind of control, but...in a decidedly unhealthy way. by sticking his head in the sand and acting like nothing's wrong. burying the idea that he needs help makes him feel less like a problem that needs to be solved and more like a well adjusted person that's just misunderstood.

at 2:09 he pulls out his planner (i refuse to believe that's a smartphone LIKE COME ON THE TIMELINE. PLEASE) and you can kind of watch his stomach churn knowing there's shit to do but his alter ego doesn't care.

his alter ego isn't concerned with that bullshit. "nah i'll have time. i'll do it later. and if i don't get it done tonight, who cares? nothing's gonna happen to me and i don't gotta answer to anybody. i'm not scared." he's developing an apathy to responsibility b/c it frustrates him he can't manage it.

i have to ask if this is where his rebuke of social acceptability took root.

you even see him at around 2:21-2:26 pull out his medical records and write "daijoubu" next to the diagnosis. which also slays me but next to "NORMAL ja nai" it kind of reads like "not being normal is okay".

that's a perfectly fine stance to have when you're just a little kooky! just a tad silly! eccentric even! i don't know if that's something you should be saying to wave away EVERYTHING that could be affecting you (and potentially others if it goes unchecked), just because it makes you uncomfortable to stare it down! that's dangerous!! particularly when you don't know your limits

i'm also kind of loving 2:28-2:32??? where he raises his head to his legal guardians and he's smiling for the first time in front of them.

but now we're well aware all his smiles are performative. he's wearing the mask for them now too.

the fake it 'til you make it policy seems to be his safety net. in order to avoid being treated and seen like a walking blemish, something to be fixed, he's slowly grown to be more comfortable acting well to do, or at least unaffected. then people leave him alone. when he's loose and devil-may-care, he's allowed to be himself. which would be fine if that were honest.

in truth, he's extremely emotional. he's sensitive. he's scared and wound up. he's angry and he's self conscious. he cannot function in the way the world wants him to, and he can't stand his own inaction in the face of his self-inflicted demise. but when that's too shameful to bear, you don't seek anyone out. imagine how much more painful it would be to have someone see you flounder. they'll poke fun. they'll judge.

it's like he sees the world telling him to be better, and his response is to create what he thinks is an objectively better person. even though at the end of the day he is still who he is.

i wonder if he starts wearing that mask permanently because at one point he'd become aware there was no running from himself. with this being his only way to reconcile his failures, it was inevitable.

we end the animation with him going to sleep and his maegami "masked" self looming over the end credits. smiling is equated with wearing a mask consistently throughout the song, so i find the image of him going to sleep with a smile on his face pretty solidly telling me that he's starting the transition into becoming the Projected Bokutachi as opposed to Plain Bokutachi.

this is the beginning of his descent into a more dangerous, yet exciting and outgoing person. he is mentally unwell and owning it. i don't know what happened between high school and the NNSG plotline (or god forbid, what happened between childhood and adolescence), but here we definitely introduce some catalysts for his face-heel turn.

and now i have even more reasons to reconsider this little rat man's true motivations and character depth.

arigatou gozaimasu Yoli-chan (੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

#nnsg #nyan neko sugar girls #nnsgposting #bokutachi-san #no one is going to read this!! and what's more i actually highly encourage that you don't!!!!#look at this shit is longer than the Half Blood Prince #im really just rambling but like god damn you dont understand #how good it is to be validated with this #after eight years my curiosity has been rewarded #and now to go even further beyond and make even MORE fanfic #god i should show off my theory if were going this far with it right #yeah ill do that. at some point though not tonight #i need fresh brain

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a-mag-a-day · 1 year

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MAG 75 - baking in the kitchen (apple something)

"My brother Grant was always afraid of heights. I remember we used to climb trees as children. He would always get scared halfway up, and it would be an hour of coaxing and reassurance before he managed to climb down. He still tried to climb them, though." - I'm the same. I always wanted to climb trees, it looked fun! But at 2 meter up tops I would get scared. Looking down already gave me vertigo and I felt, as though I suddenly lost every sense of balance. Same on ladders.

"Stairs were often more of a problem, especially if there were windows from which he could see the ground getting further away." - As long as the stairs are properly closed off, I don't have a problem. If it's just a railing to put your hands on I'll probably try to stay as far from the edge as possible. I get a lot of intrusive thoughts as soon as I'm somewhere high up with only a railing… It's just like the railway bridge in episode 5 of I Am In Eskew. I'm technically not afraid of heights then, I'm afraid of my own mind.

"I mean, it’s not that I don’t love him or anything, he’s my brother, it’s just that we’d always got on best when we spent most of our time apart." - I don't get (equal) relationships like that, when the focus is on "most of the time apart". I totally get that there are friends you dearly love but just wouldn't want as a roommate, or wouldn't want to spend vacation with. Living together (even if it's only for a week like the vacation example) is something entirely different. But, saying you get along best when most time apart? Why bother? What actually is this "getting along" then? (I get, that this is often something that's referred to family members. When there is a sense of "I have to do something with that person once in a while because we're related". But even then? When there's no reason to interact with that person?)

"Normally I would have reminded him that leaving a window open invites burglars" - on a scale of burglars to librarians, what would Mike Crew be? xD

"I’d love to say that next thing I knew I was on the ground with a broken arm, but I remember every second of that fall. Like it was happening in slow motion." - Oh, there we have the Matrix Effect again, as someone told me it was called in an earlier ask.

"My phone had been smashed in the fall, and when I asked Grant to use his, he got very quiet and told me sheepishly that it, like his keys, was still inside the house." - Who lets their phone at home when going out?? Even in 2006! XD

"I did not invite Grant, which you would have thought would make him think twice about coming with me, but you’d be wrong. As soon as I mentioned it to him, he was online checking if there were any more seats on my flight. There were." - Oh the disappointment, the contempt even at "There were". Also wtf this is so super out of line to just invite yourself like that.

"Then he kept bugging me to change my hotel booking to a twin room until I finally relented and did so. Every time I mentioned something I was planning to do he would invite himself along, generally getting me to arrange it and saying he’d pay me back." - I know someone like this, but hey are also a master of gaslighting so I cut ties. Grant though doesn't sound manipulative or malicious in any kind. He sound just naive. Guess it makes it even more a tragedy for the statement-giver to blame himself. It probably would have been easier to rationalize if he somehow thought his brother deserved it. (Though I'd be careful with this. Certain fates you don't wish your worst enemy.)

"I think that’s why I decided to take him up Tour Montparnasse." - So I googled that building because I also have no idea what that is. The rooftop observation terrace is actually well secured, there's not only a metal railing but a glass box surrounding you when you stand near the barrier. I would probably feel proper uncomfortable standing there, but not totally lost since there is no physical way for me to get over that barrier.

That part with the text messages, the picture and what the statement-giver heard when his call went through is really cool again. I love unlogical spaces like this with no escape (and by love I mean in that way of fascination for horror. I wouldn't actually love being in that situation xD).

"I really hope Grant is dead. Because, if not, I have a horrible feeling deep inside that he’s still on that ladder." - I like the moral dilemma of that statement. The guilt of the statement-giver about something happening that totally was out of his control, but it still happened because of his actions. Who would have thought it could have such dire consequences. Very similar to Jon's arc…

"but it also puts me in mind of the fate of Robert Kelly, the skydiver who fell for far longer than he…" - There a significant change of recording at "the skydiver who fell for far longer than he…". I wonder what happened here? Because these statements surely are never simply in one take, there are always cuts. So why does this one sound so different all of a sudden? Also Jon here making the connection between Crew and Fairchild.

The circumstances of Jon receiving all tapes from Basira are great! Oftentimes you can feel that some things just HAD to happen in order for the story to progress with no other reason behind it. While Jon getting access to all the tapes was still something that needed to happen, it does feel natural and relatable. Basira is angry that the police is so careless and blatantly lying to cover everything up. The police probably also doesn't care about the tapes so Basira takes them to someone who does care. It's like Jon says. The police lost Basira's loyalty. And by the time they notice the tapes gone, it's probably just fine by them. One less weird thing to deal with.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle that kind of brother in my life any better than the statement giver did 😬

#a mag a day #tma #the magnus archives #episode asks #mod ashes #tma spoilers #lycanlovingvampyre #mag 75

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sketchyorsomething · 11 months

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I visited my local flea market at the last weekend and since ranting to myself and together with my sister isn't enough; Let's talk about the brand Schleich

Because it is a german brand, I'm not sure if anyone outside of Germany knows them, but basically they produce toys, or to quote wikipedia "Schleich GmbH is an international german toy manufacturer of realistic figurines and toy sets" (please keep that in mind "realistic looking"). In addition to their normal animals (mainly horses) there are also a couple of production series on fantasy themes; One of them being the Bayala series, which also includes a storyline on its own.

Since december 2006 there where several changes of investors or company chairs until Lego bought them in 2015. Ever since that year, the general sales increased and the amount of money earned here in Germany decreased from 80% to about 50%. Therefore the sales in other countries rose.

That much as a short introduction and now let's actually start the rant. I'll mainly talk about the Bayala series btw

More below the cut

Before I start with the really bad things here are some of their dragons:

(https://www.amazon.de/Schleich-70418-Elfen-Faraun/dp/B00272HPD4#)

That's Faraun. She doesn't look too bad, right? Looks as realistic as a dragon could. My sister owned her as a kid so I'm guessing this figure was produced around 2010 to 2013.

(https://www.amazon.com/Schleich-bayala-2-Piece-Playset-Dragon/dp/B07Y2TCC8Q#)

Those two are from a more recent production line. Maybe you can tell where I'm going with this rant.

Sera (One of my favs)

(https://images.app.goo.gl/JdRqyRjMGcUq97uE9)

I mean look at her. She's so pretty and her horse is pretty and her wings have such a beautiful structure and the colors are so realistic. It's just wonderful

This is a slightly newer version of her, approximately from around 2016. I mean, it's not that bad, still a downgrade but not that bad. The colors are too vibrant, they did changes on the horse so it looks like it has a completely different personality and everything so fragile became bigger and chunkier, like her headband. But it is fine ig... at least in comparison to one of the most recent versions

(https://www.schleich-s.com/de/AT/bayala/produkte/sera-mit-blueten-einhorn-70565-2.html)

Yeah, I know. Wtf is this? What is her face?? Whose horse is that??? Certainly not her's. What kind of drugs did she take to make her eyes look like that???? What are those wings????? Did the plastic pollution so bad that even elves/fairys suffer from it?????? Hell???????

Marween

And at this point, I can not even rank the uglyness of the new figurines properly. They're all the worst

(https://www.amazon.de/Schleich-70427-Elfen-Marween/dp/B0031FTU7K#)

This is the oldest version of her I know. Look at her translucent wings, at the individual seems of her clothes, the wonderful autumn-vibe colors, her little fingers, the hairstrands and so on. It's realistic and so unique

(https://www.kastner-oehler.ch/schleich-sera-in-festlicher-kleidung-reitend-bayala-70503-0807104.html)

This is again a slightly newer version, probably also from around 2016. It's not that bad again. I mean her emo horse lost all his (I think he's a stallion, at least if I remember correctly) personality and a few other details got lost (the seams, parts of the wing structure, ...) but it's still fine

(https://www.amazon.de/Marween-mit-Glitzer-Einhorn/dp/B0B4X6Z17Y#)

But this isn't. They once again gave her a completely new horse with zero personality, every little detail was ignored and her face looks like a bad caricature (the face of the racoon too). I don't care that she has a magnet up her ass now, the clever ways of fairy and horse sticking together (by tiny dents of hands and feet, or her wings) was just that; way more clever. And more subtle. I hate the redesign. Also the product name, where she was just called "Marween" in the original and then "Marween in festive clothing", she now is called "Marween with gitter-unicorn". Is it possible to mske a name more tacky?

And because I can not put any new photos in this post I'll continue this on part 2 (click here whenever it might be available, it isn't right now)

#schleich #rant post #vintage toys #history #bayala #glow down

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cassthecringe · 2 years

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okay so the jotapucci timeline that 100 percent happened araki told me:

1995: jotaro and jolyne’s mom divorce cause he confronted the fact he’s gay enough that he knows he could never be “the one” for her. they’re still friends at this point

1999: jotaro pulls away from jolyne and jolyne’s mom on the basis of “standusers attract standusers and that gets people killed”, a philosophy he’s seen in motion from his time in morioh. he and jolyne’s mom are no longer friends

2002: jotaro is back in florida at the same time pride is going on. he is confused but it teaches him gay bars exist. jotaro is pent up and stressed out so he goes to check it out at a bar in a different city of course. he talks to no one and just leaves after watching dudes hit it off all night. it becomes a hobby

2005: pucci and jotaro notice each other at the gay bar for the first time. jotaro is in his big ass coat and hat. pucci is in not-priest robes and has sunglasses and a hat of his own on. neither of them talk to each other but they notice each other. they begin drinking together in silence if nothing else. sometimes pucci goes home with another dude and jotaro is like how does he attract ppl without even saying anything. sigh. cause he’s annoying and hopeless like that

2006: pucci finally talks and it startles jotaro so bad cause he’s like wtf you have a voice? they begin talking. jotaro goes home w pucci for the first time. it is awkward cause pucci prays a segment of the rosary before they get it on and jotaro’s like um i can leave. but pucci is like no it’s okay just give me a second. jotaro still considers leaving. anyway once he’s done praying for what he’s about to do, pucci gives jotaro (trans man) his first orgasm so jotaro is like ok. i can forgive the praying thing if that keeps up

2007-2009: so it continues. they get each other’s numbers but the only time they text is to be like “wanna get a drink” which is their version of “you up?”. pucci is seething with himself cause he’s almost always the one who caves first but jotaro did initiate a couple of times. btw the reason neither of them figure out “oh fuck ur the dio guy” is cause jotaro usually keeps his shirt one while they get busy (trans man shy about his chest what can you do. not see his star-shaped birthmark that’s what) and pucci doesn’t like talking much cause he views this all as like actual guilty pleasure but a la the haikuyuu post, “i’m not marrying them [so it’s okay].” however the more time they spend together the more both of them open up a bit. it’s honestly kinda sweet but they’ll never be in an actual relationship cause of pucci’s homophobic homosexuality and also jotaro still can’t get over the praying thing (he tries to rope jotaro into it once and jotaro doesn’t respond to him for three months afterward) and also theyre both just very annoying god bless

2010: jotaro decides he needs to leave cause he doesn’t trust that pucci will be safe with him by his side cause jotaro’s mentally ill and doesn’t know pucci has a stand. however during one of their last meet ups jotaro uses star platinum for something and pucci is like oh are you fucking kidding me. they proceed to do their thing first and then almost fight to the death before jotaro gets away. both are very embarrassed about the whole thing so even though pucci literally has jotaro’s number and is friends with cops (ie ppl who would track his phone ip down), he doesn’t do anything about it. jotaro moves houses even tho they only ever met up at hotels (but he DOES keep the phone like a dumbass). neither speak of it again. it is very very very funny

#cass cries #jjba #ummmmm #let me know if i should tag this as not safe for minors

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adultswim2021 · 2 years

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The Venture Bros. #18: “Love-Bheits” | August 20, 2006 – 10:30PM | S02E07

A minor dud in the Venture canon, and the show creators even acknowledge it on the DVD commentary. This was the first script written for season two, “and it shows” either Doc or Jackson lament (sounds like a Doc line to me).

Another example of continuity mattering on the show; I was gonna call this a sequel to “the Baron Underbheit episode from season one” but it turns out it refers both to the cold opening of “Home Insecurity” and events in “Past Tense”. In “Home Insecurity” we see Underbheit dispose of some of his co-conspirators for betraying him. But whenever there's a death that occurs off-camera in the Ventureverse, even facing impossible odds, they have a sporting chance of having actually survived and showing up again.

These former associates of Baron Underbheit show up in this episode, plotting their revenge and overthrow of his kingdom. But they mostly exist to spring the Ventures out of Underbheit's prison, which they find themselves in after they attempt to fly over his domain. Ever seeking revenge, he uses a powerful magnet to pull the Venture's plane out of the sky, in an action shot that I remember being used in tons of promos for this season.

Once the Ventures are captured, the plot shifts towards the Baron trying to marry Dean, who is mistaken for a girl. He's dressed like Princess Leia for a costume party where the Ventures and Brock were all dressed like Star Wars characters.They lose the award for Best Group Costume because Hank dressed as Batman and refused to go along with their theme.

This episode is fine. I wouldn’t call it bad or anything. But I think this one mostly misses the mark humor-wise. Like there’s a subplot about the underground resistance group all doing pranks like putting cat hairs in the Baron's drinking glasses and doing prank phone calls and leaving flaming bags of shit on his doorstep. That’s firmly on the sillier side of things and I feel like a little too jokey for the show, which is usually better than that. Hank and Dean would be that childish, but Girl Hitler?

There's also a scene where Brock is shaking down one of Baron's henchmen for information while squeezing his balls. He suddenly stops squeezing and changes his mean mug to a more grim, somber expression. “I felt... a lump.” He says to the henchman. The henchman, now despondent from his cancerous death sentence, casually gives Brock the information he needs, “I just don't care anymore”. Again, it's a tad too jokey and doesn't make THAT much sense. Being beaten to death by Brock in minutes vs. having ball cancer and having some time left? I get it's a joke, but I think the show is usually smarter than that. But I’m speaking as a person who actually did find a lump on his balls once and sure, I got a little bit of mortal panic. It wasn’t cancer, FYI! It was epididymitis. I just had to take antibiotics and be in pain for a few weeks.

Wait, is this one of those Simpsons “that’s where I’m a viking” things? I always assumed Brock was lying about the lump as a clever tactic, but I realize that’s not 100% confirmed in the episode as being the case! It could’ve been real? Does it make more sense character-wise for Brock to be able to turn off his rage in order to pull out this clever trick? He seems like he’s more unhinged than that. Am I a moron or did I open up a can of worms here?

My favorite part of this episode is the action sequence that precedes the “lump” moment. Brock shoves a spear into the heads of two henchmen and then swings them around to take out more bad guys. It's legitimately creative and cool and exciting. At least we got that!

MAIL BAG

i swear man this is like the 10 time u talked about that pepper sketch wtf

My JJ Pepper sketch has gotten people talking! I wrote that sketch! I am staffed on the Tim & Eric Show!

Any plans on changing it to Adult Swim 2022? We're only halfway through the year and you finished Sealab completely. Yeah, okay. Looking forward to the smart ass remark.

I’m going to be perfectly sincere here: Nah, I’m keeping it 2021 just for the reference and to denote the year I started this project. I ain’t wanna change the URL, neither. Please... FORGIVE ME!

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #the venture bros.

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astrxealis · 2 years

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sjsbsnbsbs theodore...my sweet innocent theo...

mind you, persona 3 portable was made in 2006 so while being a great game, you can only get theodore in the velvet room if you play as the Female MC, even then, FeMC has the choice if you want a male or female velvet room attendant

So as a velvet room attendant, he's the only male so he's often the butt of their jokes and is also constantly sent on errands, and FOR SOME REASON YOU CANT ROMANCE HIM BUT YOU CAN GO ON DATES WITH HIM </33

PLEASE HE'S SO CURIOUS ABT THE HUMAN WORLD HE WANTS TO GO OUT AND EXPLORE WITH YOU AND HE WANTS TO DANCE WITH YOU

in...in a kinda nsfw club but he doesn't know that is someone help this boy oh wait we're the ones helping him—

HE ALSO LIKES SEEING YOU BE HAPPY AND AND AND WHEN YOU GIVE HIM A PROTEIN SHAKE HE GIVES YOU A SWEATER IN RETURN IDK WHERE HE GOT IT FROM SO HE MUSTVE MADE IT HIMSELF/J

AND AND AND IN PERSONA Q—

theo, my boy 😭😭😭

THE STRAWBERRY APRON RLLY DID MAKE ME SMILE OH GODH IT'S SO SILLY N ADORABLE PLS 😭😭💖

damn, theo being vv optional n only there if u actually want him as your velvet room attendant ... no bcs elizabeth (?) seems rlly cool/pretty but boy does theo rlly seem like hes underrated 😔💔 AND HWLLO WHAT SO TOU CAN GO ON DATES VUT NOT ROMANXE HIM ??? atlus wtf hello what 💀💔💔 FR THO HE SEEMS RLLY CUTE ... (mari w great taste once again) HE WANTS TO SEE THE WORLD W U AND DANCE HELLO MAN :(( 💘💞 help oh my god he rlly does seem vv precious 😭

HELP THO THE BOYS IN THIS GAMW SEEM TO LIKE PROTEIN HUH /hj and then oh man seeing u happy and the sweater ... this guy is rllt great holt shi 😔✨✨ <33

#AAAA HE STRIKES MW AA THE GUY whod literallt just kind of say out of nowhere 'your smile is vv pretty'#but then like kind of act like it's not anything to be -!:&(₱/&/& over n just like. but then again that wld mean he was looking at ur smile #NOOOO THIS IS UNDAIR U CANT ROMANCE HIM MAN 😭😭😭#he also seems like hmm wldnt rlly know why ppl like headpats but then after receiving one he just . wants a lot more too ODHWIDBWKSJ #⋯ ꒰ა my galaxy ໒꒱ *·˚#⋯ ꒰ა letters of stardust ໒꒱ *·˚#— mari! ♡#he seems rlly polite n nice but also ODBSKDJD OBLIVIOUS ...

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megamanrecut · 3 years

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Mega Man Recut playlist

:D Since a some of you shared your amazing Recut inspired playlists, I slapped together a quick 90s(...ish) playlist for Recut, organized by season:

Youtube: Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 0 | Season 3

Disclaimer: My taste in music ranges from annoyingly popular to WTF was that

Disclaimer 2: Some of the lyrics fit very well, others are just for mood/vibes/whatever

Disclaimer 3: Okay it doesn’t really work as a playlist BUT this sorta showcases moods for different characters. Click below to see text list (most songs are well known) with author notes why I selected.

lol I hope these links work! I don’t have all the Robot Masters but it was getting long:

Season 1

Wheezer, “Buddy Holly” (1994) - Mega Man vibes (I have trouble picking out songs for Rock, so got idea from @go-west-young-meowth ‘s playlist :D geek rock bands are perfect for him)

Joan Jett “Bad Reputation” (1980) - Roll vibes

Pantera “Walk” (1992) - Roll (for now out of laziness) (*Okay so for Roll, I always pictured Roll liking metal bands that liked dressed all goth/halloween like Slipknot or Ramstein and such WHICH I ASSUMED 90s band did. But they didn’t really. So I did the best I could. idk I got kinda frustrated while researching lol)

Beethoven, “Symphony No.7, 2nd Movement” (1811-1812) - Dr. Light

Nirvana, “Lithium” (1991) - Proto Man vibes

Cowboy Bebop OST, “Tank!” (1998) - Proto Man (Nirvana (though cliche) fits well as a 90s grunge influence for Proto, while if Recut had a soundtrack, something cool and Blues/Jazzy like the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack would be nice for Proto’s scenes)

Herman Stein, “Revenge of the Creature” (1955) - Wily (really anything with the theremin works lol)

Kevin Manthei, “Invader Zim Ending Theme” (2001) - Wily again (why not)

Danny Elfman, “The Batman Theme” (1989, 1992 BTAS) - Syndicate vibes

The Immortals, “Mortal Kombat” (1995) - Cut Man!

Village People, “Macho Man” (1978) - Guts Man (sorry this was all I could think of, I’m sure it could be a karaoke???)

The Aquabats! “Super Rad!” (1997) - Gyro Man (was torn between this and pool party :D also Beck probably works)

House of Pain, “Jump Around” (1989 )- Ring / Magnet

Beastie Boys, “Sabotage” (1994) - Ice / Metal / Magnet / Ring? (lol I’m sorry!)

Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta (1997) - Metal Man

Season 2

Tom Cochrane, “Life is a Highway” (1991) - Top Man

Foo Fighters, “My Hero” (2006) - Mega Man (Someone once told me this reminded them of Recut Mega Man a long time ago. Guess it fits with Nirvana being strong Recut Proto Man influence? D:)

Hole, “Violet” (1994) - Roll

Nine Inch Nails “Head like a Hole” (1989) - Roll (...for now out of laziness. Probably White Zombie/Metallica/Tool/whatever would have worked too. All the 90s metal bands)

Nirvana, “Come as you are” (1991) - Proto Man (...90s anthem? :P but it fits!)

Cowboy Bebop OST, “Bad Dog No Biscuits” (1998) - Proto Man

Beethoven, “Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement” (1801) - Dr. Light

Beethoven/Maganeko, “Moonlight Sonata 3rd Movement (remix)” (2018?) - Dr. Cossack, also Proto Light

Howard Shore, “Ed Wood Titles” (1994) - Wily, NotLMB (theremin again but this time Tim Burton 90s haha)

Debussy, Claire de Lune (1905) - Centum

Green Day, Basket Case (1994)- Ring Man, Magnet Man?

Spin Doctors, Two Princes (1991) - Top Man(ish) again

Spice Girls, “Wanna be” (1996) - Kali Cossack

Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun” (1994)

The Verve, “Bittersweet Symphony” (1997) - Snake Man

Season 0 - (corresponds with chapters with one bonus)

Beethoven, “Für Elise” (1867) - Prologue: Proto

Beethoven – “Pathetique 2nd Movement” (1798) - The Secret

Beethoven, “Pathetique Sonata 1st Movement” (1798) - Stuck

Beethoven/MusicalBasics “Für Elise Nightmare” (2020?) - Cracking Up (ignore lyrics haha)

Beethoven/Imagine Music, “9th Symphony: Ode to Joy (remix)” (2020?) - More Secrets

Walter Murphy, “A Fifth of Beethoven” (1976) - Breaking Out

Cowboy Bebop OST, “Rush” (1998) - Building an Army

Cowboy Bebop OST 2, “Don’t Bother None” (1998?)

idk Proto may be a whiner Beethoven’s alright

Season 3 (Incomplete)

The Ventures, “The Twilight Zone Theme” (1964)

DALI, “Moonlight Densetsu” (1992)

Cowboy Bebop OST, “Cat Blues” (1998)

Nirvana, “All Apologies” (1993)

Pixies, “Where is my mind?” (1988)

Rage Against the Machine, “Bulls on Parade” (1996)

Beethoven, “Ghost” (1809)

Andrew Gold / The Living Tombstone, “Spooky Scary Skeletons (remix)” (2014?)

Queen, “Flash” (1980)

Beethoven/MusicalBasics, “Moonlight Symphony Nightmare” (2020)

Honorable Mentions

Billie Eilish, “Bad Guy” (2019) - ...Elec Man and/or Elec/Proto vibes? (I’m sorry, I’ve thought this for awhile)

The Toadies, “Possum Kingdom” (1994) - same as above (if you don’t take lyrics literally), 90s flavor) though seriously need to research 90s EDM (I guess) because Elec Man is the only main cast member not to have any songs

Neu Tickles, “I am Ninja” (2006?) - Shadow Man (for obvious reasons... :S), LOL warning has very explicit lyrics

There’s a lot of other amazing 90s bands (there’s a lot of amazing bands from any decade) sorry to those I didn’t feature :(

Okay now that this is published I’m going to listen to these for these first time lol

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cynthiaandsamus · 2 years

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Custom Toonami Block Week 91 Rundown

Stone Ocean: Jolyene gets started on prison life by meeting her new cellmate Gwess who… keeps taxidermy birds and stuffs tiny people inside which takes Jolyene and disturbing amount of time to start questioning. Anyway shenanigans occur and Jolyene ends up tiny inside a dead rat speaking like a 2006 internet catgirl, as one does. Since Gwess’s Stand Goo Go-I mean “Cry Cry” Dolls makes peeps small and shit so she can play Elmira from Tiny Toons on them but seeing its physical form allows Jolyene to tie her own Stand together like a 3D printer and beat the shit out of her before she gets caught. So Jolyene gets her locket and arrow fragment back and names her Stand “Ston Fr-Ocean”, Stone Ocean, like the name of the show, guess we’re taking the Golden Wind route on dubbing this huh. But yeah just kinda weird that Stone Ocean manifested without Jolyene’s knowledge and just started beating the shit out of stuff against her will, guess it’s the same deal with how Star Platinum was catching bullets for Jotaro when he was trying to shoot himself in jail, Stands are weird because sometimes they’re automatic when you first get them and then they’re never automatic again, idk man.

Inuyasha: So another filler episode that’s kind of a dud but it is a little funny, it’s one of the one that basically has one gag for the whole episode and how much tolerance you have for that gag will directly affect your enjoyment of the episode. We have Hatchi impersonating Miroku for the whole episode and basically doing exactly what Miroku does except without any spiritual power to back it up and a slightly better charismatic salesman approach. They act like ‘hey it’s just what Miroku does anyway’ and that’s not entirely false but Miroku is a real priest at least and him doing shit to a village will probably somewhat help even if he’s scamming the shit out of most people. Anyway Hatchi gets caught and Miroku actually gets to use the Wind Tunnel for once since all the poisonous insects are hibernating in Mt. Hakurei atm. Not great as far as filler goes for this series but I’ll admit the ending of two Mirokus running away from Sango does put a smile on my face.

Yu Yu Hakusho: So Yusuke threatens the dude beating Kurama up to shoot him in the back and literally fight every demon in the arena if he doesn’t let Kurama bow out of the fight given that he’s in a coma and the shinobi head is just like “Dude wtf, just put him down, this guy’s crazy” and then Yusuke has to fight the Nappa of the group, and as we all know the bigger the muscles in a shonen the less effective they are. So this dude has one move and it’s Sweat Fog which is just as gross as it sounds and even blindsiding Yusuke a few times it does laughably little damage until Yusuke putting two and two together realizes that sweat fog’s weakness is obviously wind so he shoots a Spirit Gun into the wall so hard it causes a makeshift gust to blow away the for and absolutely decimates the guy with one punch and then beats the shit out of him when he tries to play possum. Next up we get fan favorite character Jin and not only do he and Yusuke have a good back and forth, the animation for the sweeping shots and big landscapes as he’s flying around are pretty amazing for the time. It’s a really cool fight and it’s only one punch so far, so that’ll be exciting for next time.

Fate Zero: I’m just kinda confused honestly, this whole episode is confusing. Kiritsugu and Kirei have their fight in Batman’s surveillance basement from The Dark Knight which is kind of weird they both knew exactly where to show up like we just kinda cut to both of them already being there, even with the signal fireworks and all that for them to both know to go to Batman’s basement is just weird, like when Saber shows up she knows to go through the front door but they know to go under. Anyway the fight itself is pretty cool I guess, the weird chanting song that Kiritsugu gets when he’s doing shit just reminded me of Magia playing when Homura does stuff and I kinda wanna see someone dub over this fight with Magia now. Anyway the Grail goes Sploosh and drowns the fight in grail cummies before Kiritsugu wins and we get into one of those Evangelion sequences where nothing makes sense because everyone’s only half-finishing their sentences and the Grail’s just like “dude you can’t just say ‘do good’ that’s not a wish, if you’re the dude I’m gonna be wished from I’mma do things like you would but like ten times better’ and since Kiritsugu has solved every problem in his life ever with murder, the Grail’s just like “I know, MURDER!” and Kiritsugu’s just like ‘wait no’. And like judging by how the grail works in other serieses he can wish for other stuff but the way Kiritsugu murders his wife and child in a fantasy world makes it seem like no matter what he wishes for the grail’s gonna murder everyone anyway. I feel like this is a deeper lore thing because somehow every Holy Grail War seems like it’s actually the story of the previous Holy Grail War and I remember vaguely reading something about how someone jazzed in the grail or something so now it’s all fucked up and summoning people like Gilles and the cup doesn’t know what the fuck it’s doing but none of this is really properly established and Kiritsugu acts like he knows what’ll happen even though they never actually tell him. Anyway Saber murders Lancelot and got that plotline was underdeveloped huh, Kiritsugu shoots Kirei in the pool of grail cummies and he’s not dead because we know he comes back later so maybe he just did an Avatar thing and took away his bending because I don’t recall if he was able to do much shit in UBW anyway. And Saber meets up with Gilgamesh and he’s all ‘Before the war’s over if anyone wants to confess their feelings for me, now’s the time’ and she’s just like ‘Wtf you egomaniacal prick this isn’t about you’ and he’s just ‘That’s literally impossible, everything’s about me.’ And Kiritsugu shows up and is just like ‘okay I’m done, I’ve killed my real wife, my fake wife, my work wife, my fake daughter and shot a priest in a pool of mystical jizz, I’ve had enough, I COMMAND YOU TO FUCKING GETSUGA TENSHO THE EVER LOVING SHIT OUT OF THAT CUP’

Bakemonogatari: So the episode has like eight minutes of Hitagi strutting around naked calling Araragi an idiot and a virgin, very Asuka-esque really (though she does it with all the emotion of Rei so idk). And then we get to the crab business and it just hits like a fucking truck. They go through and ask Hitagi a bunch of personal questions, some seemingly innocent ones she still refuses to answer but then she just comes right out with being sexually assaulted by her mother’s crazy death cult and her, you know, not wanting that, fucks the dude up and rips apart her family in the process. Since her mother only got into the crazy cult because she was worried about Hitagi’s stereotypical failing health, she feels responsible for it and when she meets up with the crab it literally lifts the weight of the issue from her should, relieving her pain but also taking away the resilience and emotional depth that enduring said pain creates, so now she’s an ice queen that weighs one titty’s worth of pounds. They fight the crab a bit, which judging from Araragi’s reaction is not uncommon and they even say he’s had to fight horny cats and weird spirits on at least two occasions but since the dialogue moves so fast in this show it’s hard to parse but since the only thing I know about this show is Hanekawa is a horny catgirl I’m guessing we’ll get back to that later. Anyway instead of just breaking the god crab which is apparently something Oshino can do for reasons, Hitagi apologizes to it and gets her memories and emotions back (and possibly her weight but that also got transferred to Araragi so idk if everyone present got extra weight or they accidentally gave Hitagi’s weight to him, guess we’ll have to see) but yeah, really pretty good shit, it’s a pretty common “don’t run from pain” message like you’d see in Paranoia Agent or The Children Who Chase Lost Voices but it feels like it doesn’t gloss over how much that fucking sucks as a moral because Oshino doesn’t exactly say Hitagi’s a bad person for abandoning her pain but if her choice is to return to it this is what she needs to accept, which is good, both are presented as options with their own forms of suffering involved and that’s kinda neat and Hitagi is hopefully more emotionally deep as a character at this point and won’t be a stunted tsundere the whole time since she thanks Araragi for the help.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So yeah a lot of weird asspulls happen in this episode, apparently Black Lady can just spam Black Crystals and like three of them are enough to break the planet and four will just blow everything up. She still has Brainwashed Mamoru and he just beats the fuck out of Sailor Moon with her own Moon Rod which is just a weirdly jarring scene to watch. Turns out Wiseman was actually the planet Nemesis the whole time so their Nemesis was literally Nemesis, feel like someone thought that was clever. And he tries to Majora’s Mask the planet on top of the castle and Sailor Moon uses her crystal to not have that even though everyone’s been saying she can’t do that but now she can because reasons. And also Sailor Pluto wants to go fight but she can’t because keeper of time and all that, great job btw, time sure is looking great, just standing there will definitely help. But she makes a deal with a one foot tall kitten to be the guardian of space and time for like five minutes while she goes to kick some ass which feels more like a loophole than anything, like having a kitten do it is a very small step up from just jumping out and helping on her own. Anyway turns out Dimande wasn’t really brainwashed and was just kinda going along with it because they had his brother or something and then proceeds to fucking murder his brother anyway and has an existential crisis about how much stronger the silver crystal seems to be than the black crystals even though the black crystals are currently kicking everyone’s asses and Sailor Moon falls down and gives Tuxedo Mask the crystal which combined with the rod seems to awaken him just a bit until Black Lady yoinks them and THEN Diamande yoinks them, like this series is just predicated on people not at all keeping a firm grip on the world-ending objects they have in their possession. Anyway, much like myself, Diamande has had enough of this timey wimey bullshit and is like ‘fuck it, time paradox time’ and is about to touch the two crystals and explode the universe, which at this point, good for him, ya know, full support on your decision Prince.

Durararax2: So after Shizuo beat the shit out of the Tiger gang last episode, their White Knight Sexist Chivalrous leader comes to beat him up, but, you know, it’s Shizuo so he gets knocked the fuck out (though surprisingly slowly by Shizuo standards) and then he proceeds to go date six girls at once and stop a shoplifter the next day. Chikage here’s methods are so extreme that he even won’t beat up a scumbag too much if it’d make a woman upset, classic Durarara absurdity. Also for some reason Namie is the narrator for this one even though she’s barely in it and gives weird commentary the whole time. Also we start the episode with Izaya doing a tiktok about how the possibility of getting murdered by someone is usually low but never zero and his whole Dark Knight Joker speech about how humans are weird. Everyone in the Dollars chat is hanging out when Masaomi slips into Mikado’s DMs to tell him to be careful and shit because something’s brewing but this is Ikebukuro, something’s always brewing. Also a tiny girl tries to kill Shizuo but again, it’s Shizuo, so all it did was annoy him really, also Celty’s on a mission from the mob to find said tiny assassin girl and gets beheaded by a Russian Biker chick but she’s Celty so all that did was annoy her really.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Jojo's Bizarre Adventure #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Bakemonogatari #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

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zontiky · 3 years

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okay so i tried to save this ask as a draft and it got deleted because tumblr is just such a functional website like that <3 but the prompt was “the hargreeves as ghosts in the apocalypse with five” or something like that i’m going to scream

this is SUPER long so i’m putting it under the cut hfkjsd

pre-five: the hargreeves siblings are dead. wait i feel a drabble coming on ooh

The Hargreeves siblings are dead.

Ben isn’t very aware of this at first. He’s been dead since 2006 -- he’s quite used to it, by now. What he is aware of, first, is light. Blinding white light. And Vanya, in the middle of it. He doesn’t close his eyes because he can’t feel pain, but if he could he thinks she would have made him blind. There’s light, and heat, and power, and then he closes his eyes anyway because the ceiling is collapsing around him and it’s instinctual.

When he opens them again he sees ash. Ash -- and Klaus.

He’s gotten used to Klaus, too. Klaus has a memorable sort of face; even if he didn’t, Ben has seen it every single day for almost twenty years. He doesn’t know if it’s actually been twenty years, for him. He doesn’t know how time moves for ghosts. Klaus has assured him it moves the same as it does for the living. Ben isn’t sure Klaus, stoned out of his mind, bleeding sluggishly from his arm, knew what he was talking about.

Anyway.

Klaus.

He’s wearing the coat he’s been flaunting around for the past week. His shirt is see-through, with little stars on it, like a pale imitation of the sky. Ben remembers his pants had laces on them, he’s sure they did not a minute ago, before the brightness that threatened to wipe out his very soul -- his soul is all he has left, really. His gaze drifts down anyway, to check.

Yes. Klaus’ pants have laces up the sides.

“No,” Ben says. Klaus is laying in a heap on the ground, his fingers curled like his tendons have been cut.

His lips feel numb because they always feel numb. Because Ben can’t feel at all. He takes a step. “No,” he says again, louder, surer. “No!”

Klaus looks up at him. His makeup is smudged, like it tends to be. His lips are bitten raw, like they tend to be. His hair is a mess, like it tends to be, and like it will be, always, because Klaus isn’t breathing.

Klaus is lying in a heap on the ground. Klaus is standing above his own body. Klaus is reaching for Ben like he’s hoping to touch him for the first time in years. Just when Klaus’ cold, dead, fingers brush his face, a voice from behind says, so quietly, dripping with disbelief: “Ben?”

Ben shuts his eyes and wishes desperately he could cry.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, for the first time in so, so long, but he also doesn’t feel it at all. He feels-but-doesn’t-feel someone turn him around, until they are saying, “Ben? Ben!” and he has no choice but to open his eyes and face the music.

Diego is gripping his shoulders like he is a dying man and Ben is the answer. Behind him, Luther and Allison watch them, stunned silent. Allison’s hands are pressed to her mouth. She looks like she wants to cry.

And Vanya. Little Vanya, painted white. Her head is hung as her shoulders shake with the weight of the destruction she has so inevitably caused. (Ben would say he always knew she was destined for great things -- but he can’t, because he didn’t.) (Nobody ever said great things had to be good.)

The Hargreeves siblings are dead. Their bodies are strewn across what is left of their childhood home, smouldering and burning, and Ben is very aware of that fact.

righto anyway. so they have an emotional reunion but its also kind of bitter? id have to actually write this for it to make sense so lets skip it for now lol

five shows up

he cannot see them obviously bc theyre all ghosts

god if i did write this it would be such a monster of a fic and would take me like 2 years to finish i already know fhkjdsk

somehow ?? they manage to influence the world around them maybe? idk maybe now that klaus is dead hes sober

or maybe hes high for all eternity?

for the purposes of this au lets say he died sober or in the late stages of withdrawal, and bc ghosts cant feel pain in action hes sober

so EVENTUALLY they figure out how to corporealize bc klaus is like blam wham ghost powers

asdlfk that sounds so stupid im sorry

he would say that tho imho,,, it sounds like something hed say,,,

if i DID write this it would be alternating povs also,,,

ok so out of all of them klaus and ben have the most experience homeless

and while being stuck in an apocalypse is not at all the same thing as being homeless it does help to have some knowledge

five doesnt eat the twinkie!! good for him

dammit okay. theres 2 options we can take here. in the comics five couldnt get back bc he fucked up his math and spent 15 years doing the wrong thing, but if u apply that here, with 6 other ppl checking his work this could be avoided and they end up skipping the whole assassin shtick and just hopping straight back to 2019, ready to prevent the apocalypse

OR five still gets hired for the commission but the sibs are tagging along

i think bc five isnt completely alone in this au unfortunately dolores doesnt exist :((

for each other the 2 paths tho theres also options?? bc they (ghosts) can go back in time and inhabit their past selves bodies? OR they could just,,, cease to exist

IM JUST NOW REALIZING HOW MANY PATHS THIS COULD TAKE,, AAH FUCK

okay gonna split this into parts. this is gonna be so long brace yourselves.

1) they go back in time because math checking and the ghosts swap out for their past selves

after multiple years of being stuck in an apocalypse together i think they would learn to get along with each other. like at least a little bit

which would make it easier for them to prevent the apocalypse

bc theyd:

trust each other more

already know abt the apocalypse and not have to wait for five to grace them all with his knowledge

are working as a team from the very beginning

have open lines of communication

yeah uh. so there

vanya is also already aware of her powers so the whole harold goading her into turning against her family and snapping to wipe out all life on earth thing? yeah that doesnt happen

oh and harold wouldn’t know how to do that in the first place because klaus wouldn’t throw out reggie’s journal! this solves so many problems wtf

there’s still commission issues bc they (and by they i mean five) are on the commission’s radar

so there’s still dope fight scenes sdlkfd pinky promise

okay idk. they stop the apocalypse and everything is okay the end hfkjd

2) they fix the math but only five can go back and the ghosts cease to exist

this is just sad! it would be sad okay! im sad! lets move on

subset of the past one: ben CAN go back with five because he was already dead and time travel affects them differently or something idk

aaaaaa

five & ben dynamic duo would be dope as shit BUT five would not be able to see him... so they use klaus as a middleman fjsdsfd

is there 2 bens? is one ben deleted in favor of the time-traveling ben? i dont know! i dont know my brain is melting

either way shit is happening yall!! obviously klaus is clued in, directly or indirectly it doesnt matter but he is on board the ‘don’t let the entire world end in flames’ train

3) they join the commission and then when five goes back in time they all go back

this is fun because now five is a highly trained assassin who is also lowkey a complete marshmallow for his siblings and once again TEAMWORK WOO

basically the first path but now five has a gun fhsdjk

4) they join the commission but five has to leave them behind and they cease to exist

five with a gun but hes sad now

i didnt go into how much losing his siblings would suck in the prev path but like. it would suck so much. he’s already lost them once if you think about it when he time traveled the first time and yeah he found the adult ghost versions but,, its different

and now suddenly hes stuck with these strange adult versions of the people he knows and he KNOWS them but also he doesnt? at all? they dont have all the years of shared experiences together? and theyre all grown up from the first ‘set’ of siblings he had which for five was like 40+ years ago??

SCREAMS

i have losing my mind disease (self-diagnosed)

subset: five has to leave them behind but they still exist because the commission is out-of-time kind of? idk but they’re still floating around somewhere and come back to impact the plot later or something

yeah idk. literally just wrote them down bc i didnt want them to die^2 hfkjwehd

subset: they still exist but instead of being just Somewhere they’re specifically at the assassination of JFK onwards because thats where five left them and they either go on ghosting and make an appearance in s2 OR they cease because them-wise they havent died yet but that doesnt make sense because ghosts can time travel so nevermind

i dont have the brain energy left to explore this one aaaa

okay jesus christ i think that’s all

I DON’T KNOW. i don’t know. i might write some more of this because honestly it is a very fine flavor of angst + hurt/comfort <3

#didnt proofread this at all 💀 fhsdfks #tua #the umbrella academy #pls dont let this flop i spent like an hour on it hfjksd #aus #team zero #ben hargreeves #wip #I GUESS #misc #ghosting au

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thehaemanthus · 2 years

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Hi! I’ve fallen back into a ACOTAR hole (following the inevitable Scholomance hole post-Last Graduate), and now that I’ve read every book over and every piece of fic at least twice, I was wondering if you had recs for similar books with different authors? I know Leigh Bardugo, SJM, and Naomi Novik pretty well but I feel like there must be new stuff out there.

oh man. Anon, my love, I wish I read more and was better at recs. I'll give you what I got. I'm sure you've read the obvious, the Holly Black and Victoria Aveyard and such.

@feyrearcherons got me addicted to Karen Marie Moning's Fever Series. There's faeries, magic, sex (nothing too explicit tho, the author likes a fade to black) and a slow burn romance that makes me want to tear my hair out (but, also, helped me with Our Savaged Souls, so--). You might pick up the first book and go "absolutely not". Keep in mind it was published in 2006 and have some leniency on fashion choices. It's definitely a candy book, and the series is...I think? Not as cohesive? As I might like. I'm on the second to last book (as of now, I think this author is still going to write more, lol, she hasn't stopped yet) and I'll have a better idea once im done. Warning! It gets dark. It's not YA, it's for a more mature audience. Characters do bad things, and love interests are flawed.

I don't know if this is a similar book to ACOTAR, but I like Katherine Arden's Winternight Trilogy. If I remembering correctly, there's a bit of Death and the Maiden in the romance. Magic, a loveable, wild female protagonist, and some beautiful lush writing.

er....imma just start listing some fantasy books. They pretty much all have strong female characters, an interesting magic system, probably some romance. I don't know if they are similar to ACOTAR (depends on what similarities you want-- the romance, the faeries, the types of characters, the writing) but they are good!

Kristin Cashore, Graceling Realm Series. Classic. Enjoyable. Each book features a different female protagonist, each extremely unique. There's something about the writing, plotting, pacing? that's different. Makes you think differently, I think.

Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes Series. I met her and we defiled a poster advertising the book-signing together and then I got to take it home, so gotta shout out to Sabaa. I really enjoyed the first and second books, but strong plot is not her specialty, I think. She tries to go super dark and doesn't quite get there, but! These books are good and enjoyable.

Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Trilogy. Okay, so this series doesn't have a strong magic system. I don't think others like it as much as I did, and maybe that's because I read it at a formative time or it just clicked with me. The story revolves around an enemies-to-lovers romance, and it does not shy away from that. While there is politics happening, I appreciated that the series wasn't afraid to be what it is-- a story about lovers.

Sherwood Smith, Crown Duel. An oldie but a goodie! No hot and heavy romance, but lots of politics and interesting world building. I read it when I was much younger, so again my perception may be colored by nostalgia. But I read it recently and still enjoyed it quite a bit.

.....okay. If you like Death and the Maiden, if you like "all powerful death gods kneeling for their human lovers", try Land of the Beautiful Dead by R. Lee Smith. The cover looks atrocious, but the writing is good, lol. It's DEFINITELY mature, explicit, extremely dark. It's long as fuck. It could very well be one of those books that I'm like "wow so good" and the rest of the world is like "wtf is wrong with you." But it was good! Oh, also. This book and this author is for monster fuckers.

Okay, I have a lot more general "book recs" but that's it for ACOTAR-esque books. Or just fantasy books that I'm like uhhhh HERE take this.

If you are willing to branch out let me know, I'll give you a general list of books that I'm like "I wish people would read so we could chat about it"

Anyone else, please do reblog or reply with your own recs!

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drwcn · 4 years

Text

About Hanyo no Yashahime:

*contains spoilers*

Okay so I watched the first episode of Inuyasha’s sequel, Hanyou no Yashahime. This was my childhood, I will not apologize. I enjoyed it overall and will be watching it religiously (or as much as I can given my schedule) because like... what the fuck happened I need to know, I have so many questions. What does this mean, what does it all mean??!!!????!!

Obviously the first thing I did afterwards was get on this hell site to see other people’s theories and was immediately bombarded with the question: WHO DID SESSHOMARU FUCK?

Which, granted, is a very fair question, because I too would wanna know. But theorizing the maternity of the twins inevitably brings up the dark question we all have deep inside: fucking hell, is it Rin?

Regarding Rin, as far as I can tell the fandom is generally divided into: EW NO and HELL YES.

I am in the camp of Please Give Me a Reasonably Explanation. I see a lot of things being said like omg she definitely grew up and chose to be with him or ew no he raised her wtf is wrong with you ppl. Now, the whole point of this sequel is that something bad happened and we don’t know what happened to our beloved characters.

I think it’s safe to say the “parent generation” got into some kind of trouble because Setsuna was raised by Kohaku and Towa was raised by Sota.

But here’s what I do know from the original time line:

Inuyasha started in 1997

The entirety of the show from ep 1 to the last episode of the final act was approximately set within the span of 1 year. We know this because within that time frame, Kagome transitioned from her final year of “junior high” to “high school”. In Japan (and other places in Asia), middle school is grades 7,8,9, while high school is 10,11, 12.

At the 3 yr time skip in The Final Act series finale, Kagome just graduated high school, which makes it about 2001.

During those three years, Sango and Miroku had 3 babies, Rin lived with Kaede in the human village, Kohaku started rebuilding the Demon Hunter village, Shippo trained further in his fox magic, and Sesshomaru periodically came to visit.

Knowing this, and given that Rin was 8 when the show started, she should’ve been 11 when the show ended. The visual tried to convey this by putting her in a purple kimono in the final episode, since she probably outgrew the orange one.

And here’s where I say maybe we can all take a collective deep breath and stop arguing because Rin is probably not the mother.

In the first episode of the sequel Hanyo no Yashahime, Rin is once again shown in her iconic orange kimono, not her purple one (even though the events of the first episode is only supposed to be 6 months after Final Act). A part of me wonders if the production team is bringing back the orange kimono for nostalgia points, but another part of me is thinking hmmm no, I think they purposely de-aged Rin to make it even less likely for her to be a potential ship candidate, because it is 2020 and some shit just doesn’t fly anymore (nor should it ever have flown).

Regarding how long has it been since The Final Act, we don’t really know, but we have several clues to sort of guide us along:

If we’re to assume our time is their time, then it’s 2020 and 19 years have passed since The Final Act. This is possible since Inuyasha’s timeline coincides with it’s original release year (1997).

The girls (Moroha, Setsun and Towa) are all 14 years old, which means at least fourteen years have gone by.

Kohaku and Sota all look very grown but not old, and Hisui (Sango and Miroku’s son) looks about late teen ish. If you told me he was 19 years old, I’d believe it.

The slight problem with this new series is the style of anime kind of makes everyone look younger, which makes judging their age that much harder. A friend who recently started watching Inuyasha season 1 and jumped to the sequel had commented how they look younger than they did in the original series and that just has to do with the update in anime style.

Assuming 19 years have passed, Towa and Setsuna would have to have been born in 2006, when Rin was 16. Even taking into account the fact that yes it was feudal Japan in the 1400s, and Rin was only with Sesshomaru on the road for a year so he didn’t technically “raise” her, and the cultural differences I’ve seen some people bring up, I still have to take a step back and say, while all of that is true, the audience of this show is unquestionable from 2020 and quite international. I really don’t think they would go there. I really don’t.

But if they were to take that route, I mean it’s possible. However, given how the character design kind of aged down Rin, I don’t think it’s likely.

Only time will tell I suppose.

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #rin #sesshomaru #coriesss

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plant-dad-sulu · 4 years

Text

The only time in my life when I regularly skipped class was 5th grade math class. I remember our school had this annex building that was taller than the main building and only had about 2 classrooms per floor. It was usually reserved for kindergarten in the basement and special ed on the other floors, but when I was in 5th grade I was in one of two classes on the top floor. Both classes were 5/6 split (god knows why they didn’t just put the 5′s and 6′s together instead) and usually we only interacted at 3 times: recess, fire drills, and math class.

Apparently math class was the only time they felt like we needed to be with our own grades exclusively so every Thursday for math us grade 5′s would go to the classroom across the hall and the 6′s would come to ours. The first half of the period would be spent teaching and the second half would be spent doing worksheets on the stuff we had just learned and I remember going to the first one and sitting through the lesson on the carpet, craning my neck painfully to see the teacher in her chair, and thinking this was the most boring thing I had ever done in my life and if I had to do this every week for a year I was going to die of boredom.

So the next week I did the only logical thing I could and when we arrived at the room across the hall I asked to go to the bathroom. And the teacher said yes. Because of how the building was laid out we only had like 1 bathroom on the floor and it was single-use, but because everyone else was in class I knew no one else would be allowed to use it, so I sat in the bathroom doing literally nothing, waiting until I thought the lesson was over, because sitting on a toilet doing nothing was infinitely more interesting than learning about fractions. Once the right amount of time had passed I went back to class, arriving just in time to get my worksheet and sit at the desk. The worksheet was easy and I realized I could do this every math class.

Generally, the lesson would still be up on the board so if there was anything actually useful about the lesson (which rarely happened) I could just look at whatever was left on the board and work it out for myself. Amazingly this actually worked (barring the day we learned long division when I sat down, looked up, and thought “wtf is this??” but it’s not like we ever used it again and I didn’t wind up learning long division for another year or two once I had switched schools (also dividing fractions, but I muddled through)) and I passed math with flying colours, certain I had gotten away with it.

I didn’t tell anyone but my friends about this until about a decade later when i told my mom in the car and she only laughed and said, “Did you really do that? Well your grades were fine so I guess no harm done!” And I spent pretty much my whole life certain I got away with it, but recently I’ve been thinking about it more and wondering... how the hell could the teacher not notice?

Like obviously she had a full class for these lessons, half of whom she only saw once, maybe twice a week, and sure some things were bound to slip under the radar, but every time?? The same kid takes a lesson-long bathroom break every week?? It seems like it would be impossible not to notice.

So to that teacher who’s name I forget and who let me get away with skipping class for a full school year back in 2006/7: Thank you so much for never telling on me, I owe you my life, because if you had I definitely would have died of boredom back when I was 10 years old.

#nottrek #long post #like I genuinely never thought about the possibility she knew until like a couple days ago #but hey #all it did was fill my tiny body with adrenaline every time I got a worksheet #and my constant competitive spirit made me determined to finish fastest and best every time #so like mom says #no harm done #other than looking like an idiot at a new school the following year because I didn't know how long division worked #mine

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imperfectcourt · 5 years

Text

An Andreil Lake House Au

Neil, hurt and weary going to this old lake house that his family owned

It’s the only place that doesn’t have any bad memories, it’s in his name, and it’s away. He goes to heal physically and stays to heal mentally.

It’s such an obvious place to go that no one will look for him there

Andrew is a social worker who works out of the same hospital where his brother is a doctor and it’s not the life he thought he would ever have bc he never thought he would have a life.

And that…. God it’s so overwhelming sometimes. He finds somewhere to decompress

Neil is terrified at the first letter. He thinks it’s a taunt. He thinks….

The letter says to forward mail and deal with the paw prints? And… wtf?

What a dumbass. Nobody has lived here for years, Neil writes. He leaves the note in the mailbox bc whatever

Andrew rolls his eyes and leaves another note not to be smart and that opening someone else’s mail is a fed offence, genius. Just forward it. And…

The mailbox flag goes down right after he flips it up.

He tries again, noting the drag and how it sticks. It doesn’t fall. It’s pushed.

Neil is slightly relieved that this is some weird supernatural thing when the alternative is murder so he responds flippantly to Andrew’s staunch dismissal

“I am literally standing here in 2004 writing notes on shitty notebook paper to a guy in 2006. It’s hardly the worst thing in the world. Drama queen.”

They go back and forth for a while but Andrew is moving out in a few days. He’s glad to be away from whatever the fuck this fuck is.

Until he and Aaron are eating lunch one day

Aaron mentions the patient who just came through. Been in the news. Some big gang bust that the feds are all over. This guys came in fucked up in a way he couldn’t comprehend as coming from another human. From family.

He didn’t stand a chance

Andrew thinks of the cruelty of others, people who are supposed to be family. The thoughts echo for the rest of the week as he tries to do his damn job.

He can’t do his damn job.

He needs a break…. He goes back to the lake house

Neil fixes up the lake house. He’d adopted by a stray cat that he names King Fluffkins. She walks through his paint tray and leaves a trail down the deck and Neil would smile if he remembered how to

On a whim, he writes a note about it and leaves it in the mailbox.

Andrew huffs at the note and asks about King. He tells Neil about Sir FatCat McCatterson, who prefers the hunting at the lake house but comes with him to his new apartment. Neil sends back a bad drawing of King and her pawprints

Andrew sends a picture of Sir bc who tf doesn’t carry extra pics of their cat in their wallet? Honestly.

Neil’s response is indignant bc that’s my cat she is not fat she is fluffy how tf dare you

It dissolves from there. Andrew doesn’t mind the commute when he can come home to the quiet and a letter. He warns Neil about the weather and Neil tells Andrew about the exy equipment in the attic

Neil finds Andrew’s book at a bus stop just as the bus pulls away

He goes to a party that Matt heard about, some guys who moved in down the road and are throwing some rager

He meets Andrew there. He’s quiet and alone on the front porch. Neil doesn’t try to start a conversation but he does bum a cigarette. He asks how to tell if a cat is fat or just fluffy and gets an impassive look in return

Andrew remembers. He writes that Neil is a waste of nicotine.

They don’t meet.

Neil doesn’t show up to the dinner reservations that he had made himself.

Andrew realizes that he should have known better. What the fuck is he even doing? What kind of life…? Bee would be so disappointed.

It’s been… It’s been a fucking year of this shit. Of this pretend relationship

He supposes he’s kept with it so long because it’s easy to pretend.

Because everyone always gets there eventually.

I don’t understand how someone could hurt another person like that Andrew. How a father could do that to his own family.

…..He needs a break…..

Neil doesn’t respond.

Andrew moves back to Columbia.

Renee is supportive but busy working for the local newspaper

Andrew goes to her office after work to wait for her so they can go to the gym together and spar.

He spins in her chair while she does fuck all and stares at the articles on the wall

He stops one one

One he remembers

I’ve never hesitated like that before, Andrew. It looked like he was already dead. What was there to do? Nobody could come back from something like… that

He knows that face. He remembers that face. He saw that face. Once. At a party.

How can you tell if a cat if fat or just really fluffy? I’m asking for a friend

He has never driven so fast in his life.

The lake house looks the same. Same paw prints. Same exy ball dents poorly fixed in the siding. Same shitty mailbox.

He writes faster than he drove. He tells Neil to run. He tells Neil to get help. He tells Neil who he can go to for help, names of people who might just sit and listen if he uses Andrew’s name. He tells Neil to find him, find Wymack, find Renee, find Higgins, just go get out you fucking idiot what are you still doing here

Leave so you can come back

He waits.

He sits under the mailbox and he waits.

He doesn’t care to understand time travel and he doesn’t give a shit about that Back to the Future shit

He waits

There are footsteps

And. The thing about dead bodies is that they don’t scar. Only the live ones do that.

This one did that.

Neil has scars.

They’re on his face. On his hands. Probably more elsewhere, too, but who gives a fuck.

He grabs Neil’s face between his hands.

They stare at each other

“She’s not fucking fat,” Neil says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper

“I hate you so fucking much,” Andrew says and he means it

“Can I kiss you?” Neil asks

Andrew doesn’t respond with words. He moves his hands to Neil’s neck and pulls

#andreil #neil josten #andrew minyard #aftg #all for the game #andreil lake house au #BECAUSE I'M WORTH IT #my writing

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johannesviii · 4 years

Text

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2005

16 to 17 years old. Finished public highschool, started public university in September. Looking back at 2003-2005 feels like looking at ten years of my life condensed in three. Exhausting.

Also we’re now past the halfway point of these lists! And this is another exceptionally good year for hits.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So I finished highschool that year. I met my best friend ever in late 2004 and we even had some sort of small crew back then! I had a bit of a crush on her but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I don’t know who invented the term ‘friendzone’ but they got its meaning completely wrong because staying friends basically forever with someone you love can be a fantastic thing. Things weren’t rosy nor perfect that year, of course, and I still was miserable at home, but I’m not sure where I’ll be today without her. She's amazing and she still lives nearby nowadays. Shoutout: if you read this, E., you pretty much saved my life.

I was still making tapes and burning CDs, still using my trusty portable cd player, and always listening to stuff while drawing during recess, sitting in a corner and doodling stuff in my sketchbook on the floor like a weird gangly goblin.

I had already started to buy Rock Mag in August 2004 but it really became my monthly ritual in 2005, and it lasted until autumn 2007. A reliable source of posters to cover my walls. At that point they were almost completely covered with paintings, drawings, torn pages from magazines and posters of Linkin Park, Mylène Farmer, Placebo and Indochine.

I also had a better access to the family computer and was a bit more involved online. Might explain why the number of singles I was buying plummeted.

It’s time once again for some (ok, many) honorable mentions!

Beverly Hills (Weezer) - I don’t even know why I like this but I do.

Bouger Bouger (Magic System) - I never understood why it was cool to make fun of these guys in my country. Their music is so happy and fun.

Holiday (Green Day) - My brother loved that band and listened to it a lot, and I was 100% fine with that.

Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day) - See above.

Gabriel (Najoua Belyzel) - That is so-bad-it’s-good at its finest right here.

Candy Shop (50 Cents) - As a sucker for terrible puns (HA, get it?? I’m sorry I’ll get out immediately) I can’t help it, I love this.

Love Generation (Bob Sinclar) - Stay tuned for more of this guy on another list.

Listen to Your Heart (DHT) - The original is better, but it was really nice to hear that again on the radio.

We Be Burnin’ (Sean Paul) - Not my favorite but still damn good.

Bad Day (Daniel Powter) - I even bought the single. What can I say except “relatable”.

All About Us (Tatu) - I bought that single as well. Almost made the list.

Le Bateau Blanc (Karol) - The last cut from the list. Not even kidding at all. I’m still not sure if Keane deserves to be on the list more than this to be honest.

Like it happened previously with Placebo not being elligible at all, it is a complete outrage that Precious by Depeche Mode isn’t elligible for this list. Like, what the f█ck. Playing the Angel was one of the defining albums of the year to me. I’m not even sure it would have topped the list, maybe #2, but it still feels wrong.

There’s another band who’s complete absence from this top feels kinda painful to me, considering how much I loved their new album at the time. Indeed, no single from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance is elligible for this list, and it feels wrooooong, man. I love I’m not okay and especially Thank You For the Venom, but even Helena would have been nice. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

For some unfathomable reason, Get The Party Started (Pink) and, even more unexplainable, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me (Culture Club) recharted in France in 2005 and both made the year-end top 100. The fact they are both elligible but all the stuff mentioned above this paragraph isn’t makes no sense whatsoever.

And now, the actual list!

10 - Everybody’s Changing (Keane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #48

Pretty great even though it’s not my favorite Keane song. That would be Crystal Ball. It’s fantastic and as a person who is scared, above all, by existential horror, the music video is terrifying. Sadly, it’s not elligible for my 2006 list, so Everybody’s Changing will have to be its slightly less good proxy for 2005.

9 - Et Si En Plus Ya Personne (Alain Souchon)

US: Not on the list / FR: #100

This has to be the most borderline non-elligible song ever put on one of my lists. But I’m glad it is still elligible. Remember the song on the 1993 list that I called an “anticapitalist ballad”? Well that’s the same guy. And this time it’s a song about how religion can cause both beautiful things and war, and how “the sky might be empty” because of us. It’s great. Here’s a translation. You’re welcome.

8 - F█ck Them All (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #62

Aaaaaaaaand unfortunately for everyone including myself, she’s back. Not her best song by a mile (told you it was all downhill after C’est Une Belle Journée didn’t I), but still pretty damn good, and that music video where she’s destroying bird-like scarecrows is amazing so here’s a bonus gif.

7 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

My brother LOVED this band and listened to it SO MUCH. And yeah, they were very good and that song might just be my favorite one from them. I don’t have much more to say about it, you all know it already. Let’s move on.

6 - Sugar We’re Going Down (Fall Out Boy)

US: #40 / FR: Not on the list

Again, it feels wrong that both Fall Out Boy AND Panic! at the Disco were elligible for this list but not My Chemical Romance. I was never a fan of these two acts, at all, and their supposed rivalry was kinda hilarious to watch from afar. With a bucket of popcorn. While listening to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge and nodding sadly, of course.

This is still a great song, mind you.

5 - Feel Good Inc (Gorillaz)

US: #37 / FR: Not on the list (really? wtf happened)

Again, I live with someone who loves Gorillaz, so I claim overexposure.

It’s still #5 on a list based on a very, very good year.

That’s quality for you.

4 - Speed of Sound (Coldplay)

US: #57 / FR: Not on the list

A new chapter in the ascension of Coldplay from “Johannes hates this band” to “this is one of the best mainstream bands we have”. An epic saga, years in the making, and Speed of Sound was basically the last scene of Act One. Not my favorite song from X&Y (that would be Talk), but still really good. Hell, I even bought the single, and goodness knows I wasn’t buying a lot of singles anymore in 2005.

Holy shit, half of these are Benassi Bros garbage. None of them are elligible, though! Dodged a bullet there, didn’t I.

3 - Numb/Encore (JayZ + Linkin Park)

US: #93 / FR: #75

What a blessed mashup. For a few magical months in 2005, all the punk goth kids and the hiphop kids were united under this song’s banner and it felt like world peace had been achieved. It could have pissed off everybody but no! Everyone loved it instead!

“But Johannes, this is just Numb all over again with different lyrics. You can’t keep putting Linkin Park at the top of your lists forever.” Sadly no, I can’t. I know. It’s only #3. Don’t yell at me. Also, the next two songs are genuinely better, at least in my opinion!

2 - Lift Me Up (Moby)

US: Not on the list / FR: #31

I heard this on the radio and bought the album, Hotel, on the grounds that Natural Blues from 2000 was one of my favorite songs ever and than it wouldn’t hurt to actually own an album of that guy after all that time (”all that time” being only five years, but please keep in mind the past three years had felt like ten, and in my mind, they still do ; trauma is one hell of a thing). And a couple of days later that year, we went to Disneyland for my brother’s birthday, and I only had a small bag that could contain my cd player, and the earphones and nothing else. So I could only put one cd in it and that was it.

So I picked Hotel, and I basically retreated inside of it whenever my mother was starting to talk aggressively, which happened a lot in the various queues. So in the end, I listened to that cd a LOT that day and every single time, it would calm me while still being energetic enough to keep me enthusiastic for the various Disneyland rides.

Lift Me Up is energetic but cold, aerial but distant, uplifting but sinister. It was the perfect song for someone who was, at the time, trying to tone down their aggressivity and anger and trying to be masculine but in a softer way, while still staying themselves and not giving up the fight. I absolutely adore this song. It’s perfect.

It instantly joined my list of favorite songs ever that year.

1 - Mr Brightside (The Killers)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (this feels so wrong)

If I had to make a top ten of the hits of that entire decade, this would be #2. No debate whatsoever.

Because holy shit.

I was already sold on that band after hearing Somebody Told Me on the radio, which sadly isn’t elligible for this list (I instantly loved it, first because it was catchy as hell, but also because I love the chorus “Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend / Who looked like a girlfriend / That I had in February of last year", because as you already know I tend to be extremely literal minded and my immediate conclusion was “wow you two dated the same trans guy before and after he was out of the closet” and that was highkey relatable and no you can’t change my mind). So I bought the album about two weeks after, mostly blind, because the cd store was playing it and also because Rock Mag said it was great.

That was an understatement. Hot Fuss is one of the best albums of the entire decade and you probably know that already. The first song, Jenny Was a Friend of Mine, floored me right after putting the cd in the player and it felt like the album already reached its peak and there were still 12 tracks after that.

The very next track was Mr. Brightside. And. How do I put this.

There’s like a dozen interpretations possible for this song, and most of them are something like “this guy is so anxious and paranoid he’s gonna break up with this girl because he keeps imagining her cheating with another guy and it might not even be real.”

Now might be a good moment to remind you that at the time, I had a crush on my best friend, and was still firmly in the closet. And this song starts, as everyone knows, with “Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine“.

So... yeah. This is the song that accidentally convinced me the closet sucked and did nothing to deter bullies anyway, and that after more than three years of feeling mostly miserable, I should try to be myself and screw the consequences. I know it wasn’t the original intention behind that song. But still.

Godspeed, The Killers. I owe you one, guys.

Next up: Still not able to put Indochine nor Placebo on a list, OP is this close to punching a wall

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #eye contact tw

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