#this is also kinda the updated version of my for the culture post…i made sure to include some familiar (but updated) faces 😭☝🏾💗🙈 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

roonilwazlibimagines · 3 years

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What are some of your scenarios to fall asleep to? 👀

Ahhhh I’m glad you asked !! Also please feel free to share some of yours they can be specific or vague idc I’m in desperate need

I will be going into heavy detail because I can’t help myself I’m sorry and I will put in both normal ones and Harry Potter ones

Also this is just like one big ramble I’m sorry I got too excited I literally turned into that Tik tok sound where it’s like ‘you’re asking me about my theories? I’ve waited years for someone to ask me about my theories’

Update - I think I’m just going to keep updating this as well when I think of new ones because I keep forgetting some

My most recent one is a royalty one where they’re like royalty but in their really prestigious and royal school they were academic rivals and did not get along and after school they like try to go their separate ways until a couple years later their parents force them into an arranged marriage for like the good of the country or whatever I don’t really care!! You can take it wherever you want from there but in case you were interested in mine he fell for her first and kinda gave up on the enemies thing pretty early on but she still made it clear he wasn’t her favourite person and she despised the situation and there is still constant teasing until she meets his sister or friend or whoever who says that they can’t believe how happy he is with them and she feels so bad because she thinks he deserves better and ends up being much meaner to him because she’s an idiot who can’t express her emotions and he gets angry at her because she’s being super mean after they were just starting to get along and they have a big argument and are forced to talk about their feelings and then I can never decide whether they actually like each other when they get married, I feel like either way is fun

I have a thing for royalty so my other one is literally just princess x stable boy and you can honestly take that wherever you want but I will tell you where I took it for some ✨inspiration✨ so I don’t have my drivers license and get really bad driving anxiety so I self projected and made her terrified of riding horses right (I’m so smart I know) and he is like trying to help her ride the horse and feel comfortable and like obviously they end up in love but I created drama because she sneaks out to his birthday party (!!) but his friends don’t like her because they just think she’ll be a snob but he obviously defends her but like it’s a perfect opportunity for a bit of an innocent princess as well

My personal favourite is the two co stars falling in love and like thinking about doing all those stupid interviews from like buzzfeed and all that and I personally love the trying foods from different places thing (like making them try fairy bread - because I’m from Australia and we aren’t that cultured and being mad when they don’t like it because it is my favourite food) and it’s great because i can make the guy any actor I am currently obsessed with 😭 but also like the red carpet opportunities and interviews and fan reactions and it’s very fun also this keeps my brain very busy because I like making it as realistic as possible and figuring out the actors timeline so I can match the story up with it, it’s always really intense, also if you want inspiration for what moving they’re staring in I always go for the live action version of tangled even if I don’t look anything like rapunzel

Another fun one is where one of them is in a band and you have a friend who is dating one of the other members but you don’t like the band and you’re not shy in letting the other members know that and it turns into an enemies to lovers thing but I haven’t really developed it because halfway through I ended up changing it with the fact that they befriend one of the members and like fall for them but the band member like ‘gets around’ and it makes them jealous until they drunkingly confess it made them jealous this one’s a bit of a mess and is tipping into a 2012 wattpad story but it was how I got back into my 5sos phase two years ago because I felt icky about them but I’m still a slut for Calum 😭

Another one I love is moving abroad to study or whatever (idk I just always need a reason to be in America/Uk because there’s no one here in australia) and you make friends with someone who turns out to be related to someone really famous (insert whoever you want) and you meet them and you think they’re the hottest person you’ve ever seen and you get drunk to gain confidence to talk to them and you’re like unashamedly flirting with them and they think it’s cute and you’re funny but the whole little plot twist is that you don’t know they’re famous (famous people love that, trust me, I have about 10 wattpad stories in my library that can prove this) !! And the don’t believe you don’t know they’re famous !! Anyways I took it in a sugar daddy direction but each to their own!

Specifically for Harry Potter though, you ask?

Currently I am obsessed with Regulus Black and for about the past two weeks I’ve been obsessed with the idea of James potter sibling x regulus black enemies to lovers story and then about a week ago I found an actually good wattpad story about it?!?! (I have recommended it here with warnings but I really encourage you to read it if you’re not a minor) but you can also do your own version because I am still doing my own version and will continue to do my own version tonight even if I am obsessed with the wattpad one !! Currently I am up to post Hogwarts and her and regulus are trying to defeat Voldemort and regulus tells her that Peter is going to betray James and so ofc she tells James but James is like ‘how to do you even know this??’ And he is so afraid and gets angry at her and it’s really dramatic and she tells him she’s dating regulus and then he gets super mad at her because she’s dating like one of the most well known and loyal death eaters (even if regulus is sneakily trying to destroy Voldemort) and because he didn’t tell her and it’s very dramatic

My favourite Sirius black idea is also a James potters sibling one, but I never have any good ideas for it and just end up self projecting so if anyone has any ideas, I am begging you, please tell me !!!

My other Sirius black one is one I’ve been working on for like the last 4 years of my life and I probably should write it but who knows, but basically it’s a 10 things I hate about you x Harry Potter story where reader is about a year or so older than the marauders and she is like Kat Stratford (for people who haven’t watched it the best way to describe her is just an angry early 2000s feminist who is like anti dating and fun (kinda)) but she is Lily Evans sister!! And so Lily gets fed up of James constantly asking her out and makes an offhand comment that she’ll date him when her sister goes on a date with someone and James is like really?!? And Lily is like ‘sure’ because she knows her sister will never date anyone at Hogwarts so James tells the marauders and Remus is like ‘if anyone can take her on a date, it’s Sirius’ and Sirius is like ‘no, I’m stupid but not that stupid’ and James is like ‘please I’ll pay you’ and Sirius is easily bribed so he tries to get her to go on a date with him and like she doesn’t until she does and then finds out he only did it because James paid him but then they fall in love? Basically just 10 things I hate about you lol

My next one is with Draco Malfoy and all it is is that reader comes from a pure blood family and they’ve known each other since they were babies and it’s like basically destined they get married but she gets like really upset when he gets the mark which makes for a good cuddling and crying scene and like idk people are probably more creative than me but I just like reimagining scenes from hp but with this new character so like Poa when she gets angry at him about buckbeak or the bathroom scene (maybe she duels Harry?) and she’s so upset about Draco and comforts him, or helping him in sixth year and comforting him or the quidditch scene in the fifth book (weird note, but I’ve always headcannoned that my original character finds out about dumbledores army but doesn’t say anything and like the da knows she knows but she doesn’t tell Draco or maybe Draco finds out and gets angry at her?)

My other one is another Draco malfoy one where James and Lily live and she’s Harry’s younger sister (and Voldemort isn’t a thing) but like there’s still stereotypes and beliefs and such and like it’s obviously enemies to lovers and maybe they get prefect duties together ? (I am a sucker for this trope in Harry Potter) but then when they do date they try to hide it but Harry finds out but doesn’t say anything until they get into a fight at home and he is like ‘well at least I’m not fucking Draco malfoy behind everyone’s back) (in my head they aren’t fucking because they’re still in Hogwarts but you get the idea) and James and Lily are just like ‘WHAT?!’ Like idk I just think it’s funny imagining James and Lily finding out their kid is dating Draco and Lucius and narcissus finding out Draco is dating a potter - so many possibilities!

Update 6.10.21

I also have one for Charlie Weasley !! And basically you’re friends with the twins and like you go your whole Hogwarts life with the biggest crush on Charlie but like he low key doesn’t even know who you are and you want to become a healer and then after Hogwarts there is a position in Romania and you take it because you know Charlie’s there and at first he is like hmmm I think I know you and you explain you’re friends with the twins and obviously he falls in love with you I also took it in a nsfw direction where it’s like major innocence kink because Charlie is just such a dom to me and he like teaches you everything but he makes sure you’re happy and safe and it’s not really like serious sex you’re both just having fun and he kinda introduces you to dom/sub dynamics but you can do whatever is most comfortable

#I’m probably going to regret posting this #it’s a mess #but let me know if you do actually use any of them and how you change the story #and please feel free to share some of yours because I am running out of scenarios 😭😭#scenarios

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whentherewerebicycles · 3 years

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hello anon!! okay, this is going to be a very long post, so buckle up. standard caveat: since i don’t know the specifics of your topic or discipline or situation, some of this will hopefully be relevant and some of it might not, so just grab what works for you and leave the rest! and if you have more specific questions that this general overview doesn’t touch on, feel free to send those in.

it sounds like you have a few different questions here:

How do I find and articulate my research question?

How do I effectively take notes on my background reading in the early stages, when I’m not sure yet what my argument is going to be?

How do I organize a long research project/paper? How do I conceptualize something that has so many moving parts & happens to be a genre (a thesis) that I’ve never written before?

How do I write something that long?

also I am not sure if by “diss” you mean a senior thesis, master’s thesis, or a doctoral dissertation, as I know US and non-US universities use different terminology! so I will kinda just respond to this as A Very Lengthy Research Paper.

my response here will focus mostly on that first question (how to find/articulate a research question), with some thoughts at the end about notetaking in the early stages of a big research project. I’m going to lay out a method I just used with my own students to help them articulate questions & generate possible lines of inquiry to follow. I have been calling it the ‘research tier’ activity/system but it’s a pretty basic way of mapping out possible directions for a project. I use some version of this for every big project I undertake - whether it’s academic work, planning a course syllabus, or writing fic.

I want to emphasize, before I start, that the “tier” map you construct is a LIVING document, not a set-in-stone plan that has to be finished before you begin. the goal is to get past the anxiety of the blank page by generating tons and tons of ideas and questions related to your central topic -- so that if you hit a dead end, you can trace your way back and follow a different line of inquiry. when i am working on a research project, i am continually updating this planning document (i’ll say more about that at the end, once you have a sense of what the tiers look like).

Those questions are geared towards my students, who are working more in social science-y disciplines and/or on projects that have clear connections to specific communities. If you are writing a more traditional humanities discipline, here are some other examples:

I’m interested in...

the romance novel as a genre

Virginia Woolf’s writings on nature/the environment

the cultural reception and impact of the TV show Will & Grace

what queer social life looked like in 1920s New York

play and playfulness in the college classroom (my current research project, which I’ll use as an example)

once you have some idea of your focus, you can begin generating questions related to that focus. “Tier 2″ begins to get slightly more specific, though you are still very much in “big picture” mode. here’s some sentence stems I give my students to help them generate tier 2 questions:

my students are doing research projects that are ideally supposed to develop out of their preexisting community involvements or commitments, so i give them this additional advice:

[note: if your thesis topic is in a social science-y discipline (or a humanities discipline that leans closer to the social sciences), you can probably use some of those ideas or prompts. if your thesis topic is more of a purely academic humanities-type topic (for instance, a literary studies thesis about a specific novel), not all of those will apply perfectly, but some will hopefully be useful still!]

here’s an example, again using my playfulness project. I’ll list the question and then below it, in italics, I’ll explain what ‘stirred up’ that question for me.

T2: What are some core preoccupations or big-picture questions I want to explore? What are some things I’ve noticed that I want to understand?

Core Question 1: Why are college classrooms so serious? Why is there so little playfulness in most college teaching? Why so little laughter, movement, fun?

Observing my friend’s kindergarten classes made me realize how much elementary educators rely on bright colors, movement, singing, playing imaginative games together, etc. to engage young learners’ imaginations, minds, and bodies. Why do we value that so much in elementary education, but stop considering it important in college classes? Do learners “age out” of a need for highly interactive, engaging learning? I suspect no... so that’s a hunch I can begin to follow.

Observing other college courses (and drawing on my own experience as an undergrad and grad student) made me realize how much educators rely on the same standard methods of teaching (lecturing with a discussion section; a version of Socratic seminar discussion that is primarily led by the professor). To me, these methods are antithetical to playfulness and tend to quash people’s ability or desire to playfully experiment, try things out, risk failure, etc. I wonder if the actual methods we use to teach content or to structure our classes are producing ‘serious’ classes, whether or not we personally as instructors want that to happen. That’s another hunch I could follow...

I’m thinking of a possible connection here to my past research on the origins of English literature as a discipline (in 1920s-30s England). One of the things that scholars often emphasize is how hard faculty had to work to transform English into a serious, rigorous, ‘legitimate’ discipline, akin to the hard sciences. That’s something that I think we still see today in the way people anxiously defend the value of a humanities education. I’m curious about whether the need to justify our existence as a discipline/field of study influences our methods of teaching college students. Do we banish playfulness from the classroom because it threatens that image of the humanities as a serious, rigorous discipline? That’s yet another hunch I could follow...

Core Question 2: I have a hunch that people learn better in playful environments. Is that true -- and if so, why? What is it about playfulness that enhances learning?

I’m a lifelong fangirl, and fandoms are creative environments where people are continually engaged in acts of imaginative play. I’ve observed and have experienced firsthand how these playful environments seem to encourage people to try new things, take creative risks, learn new skills even if they’re afraid they’ll be ‘bad’ at them, and commit huge amounts of time, energy, and passion to long-term creative projects that don’t make any money or ‘earn’ them a grade. I’m curious about how we might adapt the playful, passionate energy of fan spaces to college teaching.

In my own classrooms, I’ve noticed that students get so much more into the activity (and seem to internalize the content more deeply) when I frame it as an imaginative exercise, a roleplaying activity, or a game of some kind. Teaching the same content in a way that encourages playfulness seems to produce deeper engagement (and deeper learning?) than using the traditional methods of ‘serious’ teaching.

Core Question 3: Playfulness and shared laughter/fun seem to build social bonds (again, drawing on my experiences in fandom). Could shared imaginative play help students develop better social skills? Could it help build a sense of community in the classroom and strengthen students’ sense of belonging? This question feels especially urgent to me given the epidemic of self-reported loneliness, anxiety, and depression on college campuses.

You can have lots more than 3 core questions/preoccupations! In fact, the more ideas you can generate at this stage the better. The idea isn’t to hone in on your research question (yet) but to generate as many possible paths you could take, so that you can begin evaluating which interest you most, or which seem like the most fruitful questions to explore/answer. Doing the idea-generating for Tier 2 should already begin to set you up for Tier 3 -- which involves articulating specific sub-questions you’ll need to answer to better understand or answer those core questions/preoccupations.

and then we’ll go ahead and fold in T4, as I tend to move back and forth between T3/T4 as I brainstorm.

I’ll just take one of my Tier 2 questions as an example, but again, you can/should do this for all of yours (or at least the ones that interest you most).

Core question: Playfulness and shared laughter/fun seem to build social bonds (again, drawing on my experiences in fandom). Could shared imaginative play help students develop better social skills? etc etc

T3 subquestions (with T4 “directions for inquiry” folded into the first one, so you can see an example):

-- SubQ1 Does play actually strengthen social bonds? If so, how? Are specific kinds of play better for this than others (ie, collaborative or cooperative play compared to competitive play)? With Tier 4 folded in:

Do a library database search to try to figure out where “play” research typically happens -- is it in psychology research? Neuroscience? Early childhood education?

Then begin searching for different keyword strings that might help me gather up initial sources. Some initial ideas: play + social bonding, play + social skills, play + social development, play + cooperation, play + friendship, play + mental health. (Typically finding a couple useful/relevant articles will help you generate better keywords -- as you can begin to see the kinds of terminology that researchers use to describe your topic.)

I could also maybe interview college students themselves, or design a survey - but that would depend on the type of research I want to do. Do I want to conduct my own original research study, or is my focus more on synthesizing existing research from different fields to construct an argument?

Could I find faculty or researchers who work on these topics, who might be able to direct me to specific resources or help me understand what kind of work has already been done on this topic? Maybe I can’t find someone who specifically researches playfulness, but an educational researcher whose work focuses on social-emotional learning would probably have a pretty good understanding of what features or pedagogical choices help create positive, affirming learning environments.

-- SQ2: Are college students lonely?

Are they reporting (or do they experience) higher rates of mental illness? What are the numbers on this?

What are some of the prevalent theories or hypotheses about why this is? Could social isolation or difficulty forming friendships be a possible contributing factor?

-- SQ3: Why are social bonds good for us - physically, mentally, emotionally?

-- SQ4: Do social bonds enhance learning? If so, how?

What if I looked to other non-academic learning environments (such as fandoms, team sports or group activities, etc where people are learning new skills in highly social settings) to make a case for playfulness in the college classroom? This isn’t direct 1:1 proof that “more playfulness in college classrooms = happier, more socially well-connected students,” but offering detailed descriptions of how those learning environments are structured might spark ideas for my audience (university instructors and administrators) or persuade them that playfulness has an important social-emotional role to play in college learning.

Typically what ends up happening is I produce a huge, messy document (or fill a giant paper or whiteboard if I’m doing it by hand) that has tons and tons of different directions I might follow. usually, the initial process of creating this giant brainstorming document sparks lots of ideas for where to begin researching. then, as i go off and begin reading articles, those articles typically help flesh out my understanding of the core questions or concepts i’m interested in, or my understanding of what kind of research on this topic already exists vs. where the gaps are that my own work might be able to fill. that initial source-gathering phase of research will also usually spark new questions and sub-questions, which get added to my tier map.

having some kind of messy brainstorming map/plan also helps me read in a more focused way. instead of just opening a random article and skimming it without any clear sense of what i’m looking for, i’m now opening articles and reading them with a purpose -- i’m looking for answers to the specific questions i’ve articulated. so i can skim in a more focused way, looking for specific keywords that seem relevant, and i can also take notes in a more focused way, noting down key ideas that

having a question in mind can also help me figure out more quickly if the article is relevant to my research questions or not. for instance, let’s say i open an article about how playing competitive games in high school PE classes improve students’ self-reported moods. if i didn’t know what i was reading for, i might spend a lot of time on this article, trying to figure out if it was relevant to my research (it has the keywords, right? so maybe it’s relevant?). but if i am reading with a specific question in mind (“Do collaborative learning games help strengthen students’ sense of social connection?”) I can tell pretty quickly that this article is not going to be that useful, since it focuses on competitive physical games (probably not something I’ll integrate into an English class). so I can say with some confidence, “I probably don’t need to read this whole thing, but maybe I’ll check out their lit review section or their bibliography to see if the authors cite any other work on play/playfulness that might be more relevant to my specific questions.”

i think i’ve kinda started to answer your second question about notetaking here, too, so i will also say that in the early stages of a big research project, i am absolutely NOT taking detailed notes on any of the sources i find. my focus is much more on amassing a large pool of highly relevant sources that i know i’m going to want to go back to and read more deeply as my research questions come into sharper focus. this is because deep reading burns through a lot of time and energy, so i want to make sure i’m saving that deep reading energy for sources that are quite likely to be relevant to my project.

to figure out if a source is relevant, I often skim the abstract and introduction to figure out the core questions the article or chapter is seeking to answer. then I ask myself three questions:

Are the core questions of this article the same as (or very similar to) my core questions or subquestions? If so, mark this citation as HIGHLY relevant - I’m going to want to come back and read this source carefully, to see if it’s already suggested answers to the questions I’m asking.

Do the core questions of this article seem to resonate with my core questions, even if we’re not asking them in exactly the same way, or the author of this paper is applying them to a different field? If so, mark this citation as LIKELY relevant - it may not be a perfect 1:1 with my own questions, but that can sometimes spark exciting new ideas or ways of reframing my original questions. If not, toss it.

Do the questions this article is asking suggest new questions or lines of inquiry that I am interested in exploring? Sometimes an article will introduce me to a whole new area of research or a new array of questions I hadn’t even originally thought to explore. If that’s the case, I typically pencil those sub-questions into my brainstorming tier document and mark the source as LIKELY or HIGHLY relevant, depending on how excited i am about it.

OK I WILL CLOSE HERE FOR NOW as I have to get back to work, but I will say that when I taught my students this method, they were very confused by the initial explanation of it, but then when they went back and used the models to work through the tier brainstorming activity for themselves, they seemed to find it really useful. so if you are scratching your head, try doing a quick TIER 1 - TIER 2 - TIER 3 - TIER 4 map for your own research question to see if doing it yourself helps clarify. also: if you can’t get further than tier 2, it’s usually a sign that you need to do some more reading and freewriting about the questions that you’re curious about, or the gaps you’ve noticed in the scholarship, or the threads you’d like to follow. but you can do some of that background reading in a more focused way now, using your initial big questions to help guide your selection of background readings & give you a sense of purpose as you read.

#this research 'system' would be CHILLING to some of my hyper-organized academic friends #who are all about using highly structured systems for tagging sources and managing citations and so on #but it works well for my brain & for the way i think #which tends to be very associative and focused on generating connections #i cannot tell if this is helpful or not aha i feel like students often want me to give them a highly structured method #and my answer is usually just like #research is a creative process #and like any creative process there are probably some 'best practices' or helpful methods people can teach you #but you figure out your own way of doing it based on how your brain processes and organizes information & makes connections #i was going to add 'things get less messy in the later stages for me' to reassure you & my horrified hyperorganized friends aha #but that is just a lie #usually i am cutting up drafts and moving pieces around and mindmapping and doing visual representations of sections #right up until the polished final draft #research #mw

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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S5 Ep 3: Apdnarg is Really Hard to Spell

Yo guys, people are getting vaccinated, the sun is parting through the clouds, and I felt so nice that I even stopped listening to quite so many throwback 00′s BTS mashups (and yet I keep clicking on these dissonant catastrophes thinking “this time it’s got to be better. This time they’ll figure it out.” and like, no. Turns out you can’t match Brittany’s Toxic with BTS’ Black Swan. You can’t do that.)

This must be a sign that things are getting better. If anything, it means my personal tastes are improving. I mean I only clicked on like 3 “Dark Academia” Playlists where I could pretend I’m some sort of spooky witch in an abandoned library with a bad music player and basic taste in classical music (like can we ban Satie from Youtube for a little while?). Hell, I might even do a prompt update to this blog!

Yeah, you heard me, I’m actually going to stay ahead of the update schedule for Yugioh Abridged (maybe. I haven’t actually watched cuz of spoilers, I just noticed the thumbnail pop up on Youtube and was like “Damn it, they came out of hiatus??? I got hurry UP.”)

Anyway, speaking of the sky parting.

I’ll have you know my bro said this is actually more like a circumcision and it was one of the worst thing I have ever heard.

We get a chance to take in this lineup of confusing and varied character designs, and Joey. who is...still Joey.

The animators probably had to hold a strike in order for them to put Yugi in the audience, lets be real. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE in this shot and one is wearing a turban where you draw every single wrap. I hope those artists charged by the line.

Tea has a subplot where she’s just very frustrated with everyone she knows. They have been traveling together for like many weeks and got trapped in a foreign country so I get it. But at the same time, it’s kind of hard to picture Tea with female friends.

Because right now you got this 12 year old child, the other duelist who does not care about anything besides cards, and Kaiba’s 3 dragon cards that we’ve all collectively decided are female.

Hell it’s almost like the writers are asking themselves why Tea is here. Maybe they forgot. There’s no more ghosts to bus, no more people to knock out with her ass with random Olympic feats. Tea’s just sidelining.

(read more under the cut)

Mokuba is a itty bit bit taller this season, and so I guess that means he can legally climb on top of the cherry picker in order to give a riveting speech.

Really says a lot about Mokuba that he is so unphased about talking to, I dunno...an entire planet of people. Kind of a shame we never see this courage from Mokuba used for anything other than talking really, really big and giving everyone around him a really hard time.

Mokuba takes a moment to dunk on Yugi Muto, as is Kaiba tradition.

And then introduce the first pair of duelists, which obviously must be between the few people in this tournament that we actually know and care about.

Thankfully, in between last episode and this episode, Yugi has figured out who his own Grandpa is. This is a relief, because Yugi is such a mess, that I was fully convinced it would take over half a season for him to recognize it. I mean how long did it take him to figure out he shares a body with a ghost? Like half a season?

Instead Yugi recovered gracefully from not recognizing his grandpa, but it’s not like he bothered to tell anyone else, so the rest of our cast is just gonna be like “Is he my hairdresser? The guy who delivers my mail? Who is this guy who made absolutely no significant changes to his outfit or voice?”

Like sometimes this show goes full Spongebob silly kid’s show and you never know when to take it seriously or not. They might be sacrificing the entire cast next episode. I really don’t know. But for now their big concern is who is grandpa??? Like an innocent card version of “Are you my Mother?”

Faced with public speaking, Yugi decides to have a melt down.

We have seen him face monsters, we’ve seen him on TV dozens of times, he’s been in multiple competitions...but give a speech? Of course he can’t do that. The kid doesn’t attend enough school to know how to do that. Them’s learning skills.

And that was when a newly assembled wife-jet spliced through the sky like a souped up razer scooter and deposited 1 fully equipped Seto Kaiba in a Buzz Lightyear jetsuit.

THE RECOVERY.

Seto always watching over his Brother, ready to save this awkward party if it kills him (and it really should, that suit is held together by two seat-belts), making sure to get on that platform before Yugi starts going off about how he’s half an Ancient Egyptian. (Ah, life before social media. You could just be hella famous and also half a dead dude and people would just not know. I kinda miss the time before I knew literally everything about everyone.)

Please admire how close those flames are to setting Mokuba’s heavily hairsprayed mane completely alight. It would be an unforgettable spectacle.

These were absolutely just random ass jet packs that Gozaburo Kaiba made to kill hell tons of people, right? Like Seto found it in the family cabin, clutched to the heart of some crispy fried corpse and was like “neat! Mokuba! I found a cool toy!” and just plucked that thing out of that skeleton’s clutches and has been flying around for months?

Like this is Seto Kaiba’s Butter Glider, right?

Seriously what type of vehicle license do you need for one of these things? RIP My ‘Seto only has a scooter license’ headcanon.

Which I’m only even thinking about because I’ve had to try and make an appt with the DMV for days to get a freakin REAL ID. I went to sleep in 2019 and I could fly on a plane. I woke up in 2021 and it’s like “Want one last screw you?” and just...can 2020 please stop screwing me over? It’s March.

Anyway, the Jet is removed soon after, so no, this is not part of his new outfit. He goes right back to his Post-S4-Trauma-Normcore.

After wrestling this competition out of his brother’s hands and confusing everyone in the audience, Roland must have gotten the memo to cut the microphone before Seto got too excited and we were quickly ushered on to the next stage of the tournament.

One sec...the BTS Mashup playlist I just clicked on did a Black Swan X 7 rings mashup and it’s the worst thing my ears have ever heard.

Holy crap. I had to actually turn down my volume. Like...Ariana Grande already has music that has way too many overlapping singing parts on it--and then lets just stick a 52-person boy band on top? That’ll fix it. Yeah. Go ahead.

Wow. Even I had to change the song and you know how much I enjoy pop culture mistakes.

Spot the Mickey but like a million times easier because it’s a Massive Dick Shaped Dragon.

Yep. That’s my grocery shopping outfit. Except maybe not a lab coat and a duel disk. Wish I had a duel disk, that would make social distancing just a hell ton earlier. Just a “Yo, only one person in checkout, please” and then bap them on the head with a propelled discuss/hologram.

Anyway, Grocery shopping/Doctor man dueled the Purple Hair Boy, and considering that Purple Hair got screen time and shook Yugi’s hand once--I think that Doctor man doesn’t stand a freakin chance.

Good. I hate him.

Also, every time he breathes he’s gonna fog up his glasses. I have experience in this area. He can’t read his own cards in the same way I can’t read my phone if I’m in the refrigerated aisle.

So the way this tournament works, is everyone has to sit in the stadium to watch the show. Kinda like showing up to a football stadium just to watch a recorded TV monitor...but then again...that is how it feels to watch a football game at a football stadium when it’s live (at least with the tickets I usually get.)

And as we watch Grandpa waiting for his competitor, we find out that his competitor (Joey) is too busy eating snacks to give him the time of day.

Why do cartoon hot dogs always have lettuce? Is that seriously supposed to be relish? Or is there a place in the world where you put lettuce on your hot dog?

Sorry, bro has just informed of his favorite hot dog order, which is absolutely terrible so I will share it with you: a Five Guys hot dog with ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, mushrooms, pickled peppers, and you guessed it--topped with freakin lettuce.

My own kin. How am I over 30 and just finding out that my baby brother thinks it’s normal to walk into a restaurant with normal god-fearing law-abiding people and order lettuce and mushrooms on a hot dog?

I have fully failed him.

The rest of this episode is watching both Joey Wheeler and Mokuba have a shared panic attack while Seto does freakin nothing.

Please remember that Seto has both a jetpack and a dragon wife plane and could have easily solved this problem. But nah.

Then again, Seto Kaiba has given this crew so MANY rides, that maybe he’s tired of being the Soccer Mom for the team?

Like they don’t actually say this episode, but Seto was the one in charge of like...this entire place, do you think he made the 2 for 1 special just to get Joey where it hurts the most? Or does it actually not take any subterfuge to screw Joey Wheeler because he’s just naturally this way?

Like Mokuba wasn’t there when Joey was told “stay right here, and then we will all go together to fight Dartz” and Joey was like “I’mma save Mai from herself although she told me not to!” and then he Hella Died. But, Mokuba did see the result, AKA, Joey’s dead body being carried on the back of Tristan. Maybe Mokuba never realized that Joey died because he went out of his way to be late?

Lets do a tally of every time I can recall with my dodgy memory that Joey was threatened to be DQ’d/pretty much was DQ’d either by his own fault or no fault of his own

-When he wasn’t allowed to go on the boat to Murder Island because he was a stupid nobody kid who did not have a dueling glove

-When he wasn’t actually supposed to be in Pegasus’ tourney and was, in fact, secretly using half of Yugi’s entrance ticket the entire time

-when Bandit Keith stole the ticket that Joey got from Yugi so then Joey had to borrow Mai’s ticket although she had just used it so it really shouldn't have counted. Because, really anyone could have just piggy backed off of each other’s ticket until the whole boat went through that castle.

-When his account was hacked to get entered into Kaiba’s tourney when Kaiba very clearly told him he could not apply solely because he was Joey Wheeler.

-When he was late to his sister’s eye surgery because he got mugged by Marik’s Rare Hunters, so she almost refused to do the surgery.

-When Joey got possessed by Marik, and as Marik, threatened to murder everyone else in the tournament including both of the Kaiba brother’s who’s tournament it was, and then chained himself to Yugi Muto to throw both of them to the bottom of the ocean.

-I think there was a point when he threatened to attack Kaiba in Kaiba’s own tourney while not possessed? Like several times?

-when he got struck by Lightning and almost did not stand up fast enough after being struck by lightning, which is apparently a type of DQ in Duel Monsters.

-When he tried to save Mai from getting hit by a fireball, but then Yugi did it instead, and then so many people were standing on the dueling platform that Kaiba couldn’t possibly DQ them all.

-When he entered the restricted area of the blimp in order to hassle Kaiba into landing the Blimp, which Kaiba did not do.

-When Marik killed Joey before Joey could press the “go” button on his duel disk to play the card that should have won Joey the match.

-When he was dueling a lawyer in a digital universe but then the dice was like...weighted? So Noah had to walk over and be like “The hell is this weighted dice? This is my perfect digital world? How did you even do that?” and then Joey won because the match was no longer legit.

-When Joey yelled at Noah too much and so Noah turned Joey to stone for being a rude ass spectator

-When Mai was like “Wheeler and Valon, listen closely: do NOT murder each other” and then Joey did a murder on Valon so she was like “I guess I have no choice, I was very clear” and killed Joey straight up.

-When Joey decided to block Seto’s fireballs while Joey Wheeler WAS a playing card, somehow disrespecting both Dartz and Seto Kaiba at the same time.

-When Joey was playing cards but then got absorbed into a giant Leviathan and basically couldn’t play anymore after that.

-There’s probably hell ton of S0 stuff I just haven’t seen yet.

-This episode

And Joey runs fast for a montage of wacky things that really have no business being in a theme park. Things like this:

(remember when Bakura almost died from a rock that ended up being a balloon? It comes full circle.)

The stuff that the Kaiba brother’s think is normal and fun.

Anyway Joey fights off a bunch of hologram snakes and bats and everyone is like “Should we tell him it’s just holograms???” And it’s like wow, guys, how many times have these ‘holograms’ straight up murdered Joey Wheeler and everyone else on this cast? Too many? Because I have a google doc with so many deaths on it. 7,805,844,048, to be exact.

Anyway, he gets there with five seconds to spare and Mokuba’s like “well at least you were still entertaining while we filmed you in front of a live audience being a total spaz for 15 minutes straight, so I’ll let you go.”

Grandpa and Joey start playing, Joey completely oblivious that this is just an older Muto, while Hawkins walks up awkwardly and is like “hey guys. I’m so sorry about this.”

(welcome to my font choices, for those new here, I have to make weird font color choices to make sure it’s legible for the colorblind and also for the non-colorblind. This one is not much contrast, so I may change it up in the future, but for now, this is Grandpa Muto’s new font. I apologize to every graphic designer reading this. Please don’t tell anyone who has ever hired me for graphic design about this blog.)

What’s funny about this exchange is that after they find out that Yugi’s Grandpa is Apdnarg (HOLY my brain cannot get around the spelling for that, and I will not change it in the caps. I cannot do a ‘pdn’ ever again), they don’t stand on his side of the field or anything. Hawkins is legit Solomon Muto’s only fan during this exchange and like...damn. Way not to back your Grandpa, Yugi.

Yugi immediately strides up to Mokuba to non-confrontation-ally inform him that he has stepped over a line and Mokuba is like “what are these things you say called ‘lines?’”

According to Mokuba, Solomon Muto begged him to be in the competition so he could relive his glory days (glory days making no sense here, because the game has only been released for the past 15 years, so glory days is like...the before times that can only be referring to disgraced archeologists and Pegasus ((who is, in his own way...a disgraced archeologist, too))) and Mokuba was like

“You trained Yugi Muto, right? Hey that’s good enough for me. This drama is gold. People will eat it up. Hell yes. Don’t be afraid to abduct him a little bit. Maybe trap a couple people in a digital hellscape for a little while? Now we go by Pegasus house rules here, so fire as many lasers as you want, but just make sure not to hit anyone in the face. Oh man, we are going to be swimming in cash. Love it, Muto Sr, love it.”

But I dunno, I feel like Grandpa won’t make it past next episode. It is Joey. We kinda need him to make it past Ep 4 of the arc. If Grandpa Muto becomes the new Joey Wheeler, that will be a weird transition for this show to make.

But that’s all for today, as always, here is the link to read these in chrono order becuase there’s SO MANY that you don’t need to read backwards--don’t do it--just use the chrono tag (and I don’t know if you can add compound tags, but I did separate the Season from the Episode, so if you write S4, it should only pop up stuff from S4. I didn't’ do that to seasons 1-3 though because I just...didn’t.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

And because I brought it up: here it is, the best BTS Mashup that I found on my deep dive. Like legit--this one isn’t a mess:

youtube

Most of other ones are horrible in a fascinating way. Like I’m not even a BTS fan, I think I sort of age out of that metric, I’m just bored and quarantined. And lets be real, we all appreciate a good bop when we hear it.

#yugioh #ygo #yu gi oh #photo recap #recap #episode recap #yugi muto #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #Joey Wheeler #Apdnarg #Grandpa muto #tea gardner #tristan taylor #professor hawkins #and then I ranted about BTS #but please don't quiz me about BTS I know nothing about them aside from the music #I actually thought there were over 12 of them because every time I see them perform it feels like an entire stageplay production of people #like a 101 dalmations situation where every time I saw BTS there were 3 new people #I assumed it was like the Gorrilaz where people just show up and then disappear in a rotation #but no. There's 7 BTS members #that can't be right #there has to be more than 7 #is this a berenstein bears situation?#how is there only 7?#I swear there used to be like 16 #and they would be introduced like here's jimin and Jungkook and red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and pea #like is google seriously telling me there's only 7 kids in this band?#this is the biggest scam google has ever played on me #this weird alternate timeline that not only has an epidemic but also only 7 members of BTS

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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 4 years

Text

Hakuoki SSL: Tell me! Secrets Q&A

Last post of the month! so I’ll once again end by asking you to please support me if you can either on ko-fi, through paypal or patreon for access to my blog post translations or just to support me. …. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that i can share...

This is the thing that i left as ???? on my March update post... and the thing that i accidentally posted the title of back in may when i was planning out my queue (oops?).

I think I should start by saying that I translated this for amusement.... though I won't deny how this is a fascinating piece of reference for writing hahaha......

Unfortunately since this is only limited to the main six, I really wish I had some of Yamazaki’s responses to these....

Favourites by character order: Hijikata's answer to Q4, Saito's to Q5, Harada's to Q7 and Kazama's to Q7.

Only for references purposes. LMAO.

enjoy!

Hakuoki SSL: Tell me! Secrets Q&A

From 『B's-LOG別冊オトメイトマガジン vol.9』

Translation by KumoriYami

Q1: What is the first thing you wash when bathing [text can be interpreted as either bath or shower]?

Q2: Where would you want to go for a date?

Q3: At Hakuo Gakuen, who do you have the best relationship with?

Q4: Where do you want to go most now?

Q5: What words and actions/behaviours from a woman make you feel a rush of excitement/moves you ["feel a rush of excitement" is an idiom. can be also interpreted more literally as 'move your heart']/excite you the most?

Q6: What are your favourite school activities [roughly says: fond of school activities]?

Q7: What do you wear while sleeping?

Q8: What are your best and worst subjects?

Q9 What happened recently that made you happy?

----------

Hijikata Toshizou

A1: Hands should be washed first.

A2: This...... How about going to a Buddhist shine that has snow in its surroundings. We can recite poetry [either that or songs]....... No, I didn't say anything.

A3: Kondou-san.

A4: I don't know why, [but], no matter what happens, I want to see Hokkaido [says reckless/regardless of everything].

A5: Rather than saying affecting the heart, perhaps it might be better to say that [I'm] not good at dealing with a woman staring into my eyes without fear [or something like that...?].

A6: Although it might cause misunderstandings, that would naturally be writing exams [conducting exams to be written...?].

A7: I sleep in Western style pyjamas.

A8: The subject I am good at is classical literature, [and] I'm not good at chemistry.

A9: Probably when I met with that guy who listened to listened to me without getting tired.

----------

Okita Souji

A1: Hey, after learning about this, what do you plan on doing?

A2: Of course, it needs to be a place where you can go have fun and be happy. That's How about an amusement park, or something like that?

A3:……This question is very difficult to answer. Who knows.

A4: Now? During winter? Oh...... somewhere that isn't cold.

A5: Heheh...... you're probably just wanting to secretly watch me while thinking I haven't found anything out, and of how surprised I'll look when I do.

A6: Club activities.

A7: What will you be wearing? If you want to tell me, I'll tell you after.

A8: I'm actually not particularly good at anything, [but] I dislike classical literature the most.

A9: I saved quite a few pictures of someone recently.

----------

Saito Hajime

A1: Ah, probably the feet.

A2: Da-date!? Then...... a place to go together with a woman? For me/As far as I'm concerned, as long as we're together, it doesn't mater where we go.

A3: Well, when it concerns time spent on school activities, that would be Yamazaki.

A4: I don't know why [but] I look forward to winter, and would like to see snow as soon as possible....... I want to go to a place where I can see snow.

[Personally, i don't get why people like summer lol. I seriously hate summer. and the heat. Snow is soooo much better than the heat. i absolutely can't stand hot weather lol]

A5: Does this question have to be answered? Really...... then, when she shows/exposes her ear...... Ah.

A6: Probably school trips. It's nice to go learn and study new things in places you wouldn't normally go to.

A7: I personally feel that tight sweatshirts are very good.

A8: I'm good at classical literature, [but] I'm not good at math.

A9: When two equal partners people share their lives...... when you hold your other half's hand, you will immediately feel that you are not alone.

----------

Toudou Heisuke

A1: If taking a bath/shower....... of course it'd be the head, the head!

A2: Obviously going to the game centre! Eh...... ah, for a date? Then, is going to karaoke OK? [ok is ENG here]

A3: The person that I have the best relationship with, that'd be Souji since we're constantly together. However let me say beforehand, that this doesn't mean I have a good relationship with him.

A4: This period [Right now]...... it'd be nice to participate in a snow festival? I'd like to go somewhere where I can play with snow.

A5: This....... Ah....... Is it that just that I'm defenceless, or was I just relieved..... [to be able to show her my] sleeping face like that? [I think??????????????]

A6: The cultural festival!

A7: Sleeping in a skintight sweatshirt/sports jersey?

A8: Subject that I'm good at, I can fill in the blanks for modern language [i'm assuming this means a version of Japanese characters but since I don't feel like looking it up right now, I'm just going to leave that translation as is for now.] during an exam, but I'm completely unable to understand stuff in English.

A9: Er...... Well...... after being going into that room again after many years...... I found that the inside arrangement/layout had changed a lot so I was surprised. However she was really happy to let me in.

----------

Harada Sanosuke

A1: Hey. Do you know the common sense of bathing before taking before taking a shower?

A2: Date...... as long as it's the two of us together, it doesn't matter where we go. After she turns 20, there are many places that I'd like to take her to.

A3: Rather than saying that it's a good relationship, it might be accurate to call the relationship with Shinpachi and ill-fated one/ It's not so much a good relationship as a bad one between myself and Shinpachi.

A4: It's rarely winter, I want to go with a country with lots of snow. During the day I'll ski and take a sled/sleigh/bobsled, and in evenings I'll go soak in a spa/hot spring, while also enjoying other foreign culture.

A5: This....... [Seeing] the view of your back while [you're] in the cooking for me in the kitchen.

[the wording in this sentence reaaaaaaally threw me off since it kinda (more literally) reads as "in the kitchen as I cook from behind" ]

A6: All the activities conducted by the school, they're unbelievably exhausting. However, being able to watch how all the students grow and mature, is something to enjoy.

A7: Regardless of what is said...... pyjamas will ultimately become an obstruction. [ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) pfft...]

A8: This, since it's my specialty [referring to subject taught], I'm fast[? and?] good at using my body. Subsequently, I'm not good at every subject that requires lots of thinking.

A9: How can I say this, there's a line that absolutely must not be crossed when I'm together with her...... If I'm not resolute, this line would easily be crossed...... I've been thinking about this lately.

----------

Kazama Chikage

A1: Bathing......? The first thing to do, shouldn't that be immersing oneself in the bathtub?

A2: First tell me where you want to go. I will bring you there.

A3: This way of describing the relationship is very literal [??? well something like that. either that or something along the lines of: That is a good adjective that literally describes the relationship]. It goes without saying, that would naturally be my wife.

A4: Where my wife and I get married.

A.5 Hesitating while wanting to say something with beautiful and delicate eyes while gazing at my appearance, hahaha......

A6: Of course that would be student council [activities].

[it's either that or student assemblies depending on how the words after ‘student' are interpreted, since if they are translated as verbs instead of noun/adjectives, it can mean something to the effect of 'complete gathering of students'... which is also why im kinda leaning towards 'assemblies' though.]

A7: What is meant by this question? Isn't it common sense to sleep while naked?

A8: I'm an expert at every subject. No subject exists that I am not an expert in.

A9: Fufu....... This year I will surely be able to graduate. I've been waiting for so long...... waiting for far too long!

----------

this probably felt longer to translate than it actually did lol... too many questions and answers.... also i don’t know if this was reprinted in one of the ssl books. maybe when i’m bored i’ll mtl the jp to double check some of this lol.... or not.

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki ssl #Hakuoki Other Translation #may edit later

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merinnan · 4 years

Text

DMBJ Ep 6

I’ve been a bit behind putting these up on Tumblr, so I’m afraid you’re about to get a dump of the remainder of Season 1, plus the first two eps of Explore with the Note! (not all in one post, of course - 1 ep per post as usual)

So! Episode 6!

The Xiaoge Rescue Count at the start of ep 6 stands at 9 for Wu Xie, 12 for the protagonists, 13 for everyone.

- And we start back with Chengcheng and High Jr. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS SUBPLOT, MAKE IT GO AWAY AND BRING BACK XIAOGE AND WU XIE.

- Why is Chengcheng calling her kidnapper dage? I don't like her or trust her. She is annoying and shady

- Oh, good, now we are back to Wu Xie being a good boy

- That is a lot of guns and explosives Sanshu has recovered

- I am annoyed at how they all seem to think that A-Ning needs to be shielded from everything unpleasant because she's a girl. She's a goddamn mercenary leader. I think she can take knowing these things - and it's better to let her know as it's found out so that she can adjust to the news properly, instead of springing it on her when it can't be concealed anymore, like what happened when the blood zombie showed up.

- On a completely different tangent, Wu Xie's neck dressing has stayed astonishingly clear for running around in a tomb, crawling through tight tunnels, falling off of ledges and being dramatically rescued, fighting bugs, and fainting all over floors.

- Wu Xie is so sweetly optimistic

- LOL, sure Pangzi, you're here for archeological study

- ....Wu Xie, you are disturbingly knowledgeable about guns for a college student

- Now that I've read the first novel between having watched ep 5 and now, my mind is slightly reeling from how innocent and babie drama Wu Xie is compared to novel Wu Xie

- Awww. Doesn't matter which Wu Xie it is, babie with gun always looks kinda adorable.

- Also, I appreciate Wu Xie's trigger discipline. So often shows have such terrible trigger discipline.

- Oooh, it's like a carved thing on the dais that got his attention. I thought it was like a computer drive or something at first, because it looked kinda like that.

- OH NO, THE LIVING VINES ARE HERE AND SNEAKING UP ON THEM

- ...and pushing the button made them retreat

- ...phew?

- I am still concerned

- The music signifies that something creepy is coming

- lol, babie. Looking so innocent even though He Knows What He Did

- I don't know what that sound is, but that's not a good sound

- ...earthquake? That's a bad thing to happen when you're in the middle of an evil cave.

- WU FAMILY, WHY ARE YOU THE ONLY ONES TRYING TO STAY ON YOUR FEET WITHOUT HOLDING ONTO ANYTHING?!

- So fucking stubborn

- This is where Wu Xie gets it from, if Erbai is wondering

- A-Ning is the smartest one, staying sitting down

- The tree opens up like a fucking security vault and ejects a coffin. Because of course if fucking does.

- Oooh, yeah, that's that shot from the opening credits

- "I can't read any of this, but it says this is the guy we're looking for"

- "His story recorded here is the same as what we know" WU XIE YOU JUST SAID YOU CAN'T READ IT

- Come on. Earlier in the show you said "yes I can read this" and read it. And in the novel, you puzzle it out from being able to read bits. This part, you flat out said he couldn't read it, and now are telling everyone what it says

- I love continuity, but dramas really don't

- The music now is similar enough to the Harry Potter music that I almost expect an owl to go flying past

- The owner of a coffin wanting the coffin to be opened hundreds or thousands of years later seems like it should be something more worrying than how everyone is reacting

- I wanna know how Sanshu knows the coffin has been there for 3000 years. Wu Xie can't read the dates on it, and the Warring States Period was 1500 years ago, not 3000

- JESUS CHRIST, SANSHU, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SENSIBLE ONE!

- Why are you suggesting you open the chained shut coffin in order to see if there's somehow something alive (or alive-ish) in there?

- Awwww! Wu Xie going "no, don't do that, Pokerface told us not to touch anything"

- Like. Not, "no uncle, that seems like a bad idea"

- But "Xiaoge told us not to, and we should do what he says"

- I have the feeling that if this Pangzi is agreeing with something, then you all should not be doing that thing. Because this version of Pangzi is an idiot

- HOW THE FUCK IS THE MOVING COFFIN GOING TO SECRETLY HAVE THE EXIT INSIDE IT, PANGZI

- THAT MAKES THE LEAST SENSE OUT OF EVERYTHING SO FAR

- Pan Zi's "WTF do you think you're doing" look

- This Pangzi is so bad

- I even like Chengcheng better than him. And I wish they had taken her into the tomb and used her as bait.

- I'm glad he's better in other adaptations. Like, I love the Pangzi in Chongqi. I am so glad that he was my intro to Pangzi, not this one

- DON'T MAKE THE BABIE SAD BY BEING DUMB

- A-Ning really should not be just standing there with her leg injury. I've had a muscle biopsy before where they took it from the thigh, which is a similar 'injury' to what she's got, and you do not get on your feet unless you absolutely have to for days afterwards.

- At least they have her limp when she's walking, and it's kinda sad that I'm glad they do that!

- And Pan Zi should not be doing hard physical labour with a fucking gut wound

- But I think I'm more annoyed by A-Ning, because I have personal experience with her kind of injury so know first-hand what kind of pain she's causing herself by standing and walking

- HUMAN BRAIN LOGIC GO

- Pangzi you fucking dick, just standing there watching. You should be pushing instead of Pan Zi

- Hahahah, after all his shittalk and boasting, and he can't do it

- Oh, there, finally

- I know that inside lid is supposed to be jade, but it looks so terribly fake. Oh my god. It's awful

- It looks like a bad Photoshop of one of those Windows 98 default backgrounds

- I love the looks everyone gives Pangzi every time he slips up and talks about getting money from the stuff in the tomb

- LOL, that's not a carving, that's a couple of translucent green plastic discs stuck on top of Windows Background Photoshop cover

- ...I'm kinda waiting for someone to suddenly shout BOO! really loudly while they're all carefully trying to listen for any sounds in the coffin

- They're almost at the end of the first novel in terms of plot, and there's still 4 and a half eps to go

- Wow, I think that's the first time I've seen Sanshu actually worried

- lol, and now Pangzi says he believes him, rather than get his ear that close to the coffin himself

- PANGZI DON'T STARTLE SOMEONE WHO HAS THEIR FINGER ON THE TRIGGER OF A GUN & DEFINITELY DON'T SMACK THE GUN

- Wu Xie has a lot of control to have not accidentally shot right then

- LOL, after all their declarations how they're archaeologists, not tomb robbers, & how they're here to protect cultural artefacts from robbers, etc - they go make references to the northern and southern schools of tomb raiding

- Just without actually saying exactly what the 'Southern School' being referred to actually is.

- ....and now Pangzi jumps in front of the pointed gun as he grabs it. Do you have a fucking death wish, dude?

- And now we see the infamous bronze armour! Jade armour. Whatever

- You'd think they'd have learned to fucking take all of A-Ning's guns away from her after last time she held one of them at gunpoint

- OMG, the face on the helmet is so fucking ridiculous, I can't - It's not even properly positioned over his face

- Aaaaah, Sanshu called him tianzhen I'm so happy at being able to identify that word now it's ridiclous

- That...that is not what peeled skin looks like

- Pangzi comes right out and admits he's a tomb robber

- And for the first time, no-one calls him on it

- Or correct him for calling them tomb robbers

- Ah, there you are, Xiaoge. I was wondering how long it would take for you to be back

- I see looking for people in a tomb requires no shirt XD

- Better shots of shirtless Xiaoge

- Like, same, Wu Xie. Same.

- Look, I have two braincells, and one is for Xiaoge and one is for pingxie

- YOU ACTING LIKE THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS, PANGZI

- Oooh, this is a goood shot of the tattoo. And of who the tattoo is on

- I don't have a Xiaoge problem. It's the opposite of a problem.

- Seriously, Pangzi is so fucking lucky that Xiaoge didn't kill him a dozen times over during their first meetings here

- Also, now that Xiaoge has explained why he threw a knife at Pangzi, I believe it's time to update the Xiaoge Rescue Count to 9 for Wu Xie, 13 for the protagonists, 14 for everyone.

- Although maybe I should have also been keeping a People Eyerolling At Pangzi Count given how often it's been happening

- More Xiaoge pics, feat. emotions that are not 'worrying about Wu Xie'

- Also, did he throw the corpse off the platform after he broke it's neck, or did it yeet itself off somehow?

- I mean, I too wanna know how Xiaoge knows all this stuff if this was all put here 3000 years ago

- I do love that Wu Xie is already about the only person who Xiaoge will actually look at instead of staring down or straight ahead

- LOL, Wu Xie won't even let Pangzi so much as touch this.

- I honestly appreciate that Xiaoge appears to travel lightly enough that he doesn't have a spare shirt

- EVERYTHING makes Wu Xie better than everyone else (except Xiaoge), Pangzi

- lol, Sanshu, yes. You tell him.

- Hahahah, and Wu Xie playing along with Sanshu, the little adorable shit

- THE LOOK ON HIS FACE

- KJFDHKJDAFHFKASDJHFKJASDLHGFSKLJ

- AND DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE THAT SMIRK, WU XIE

- There is absolutely not enough of little shit!Wu Xie in S1

- Loooool, his little nod at Sanshu now that they got their way and made Pangzi promise to stfu for the time being

- And that is the first time I've seen that style of carriage roll like a car

- Those skull ballistae were a cool aesthetic, though

- THAT CARRIAGE WAS ROLLING LIKE A FUCKING CAR, HOW IS IT BACK UPRIGHT AND ROLLING ALONG THE GROUND TO THE CLIFF

- HOW TF IS IT ROLLING ANYWHERE WITH A SMASHED WHEEL

- HOW TF IS HE ABLE TO HOLD IT FOR EVEN A SECOND, ESPECIALLY WITH ONE HAND

- A thin as fuck flagpole is going to give you jack shit in terms of something to brace with when it comes to that much weight

- THE SCRIPTWRITER OF THIS SCENE IS BAD AND SHOULD FEEL BAD

- *cries in physics minor*

- I can suspend disbelief for aliens, zombies, everything about Xiaoge, logic holes, and plot pits. Apparently my line is a non-cultivator breaking the laws of physics.

- Aaaah, here come the zombies

- So this dude is not the zombie dude

- He is the emperor, I think?

- OH MY GOD THAT GREENSCREEN IS JUST THE WORST

- I thought the one on the river was bad. The one of her falling as he dives off the cliff to save her is actively painful

- Oh, now it looks like we're gonna have a dumb love triangle in the flashback. Yay. *waves tiny flag*

- Bitch, be a bit more grateful. Yes, your ex-lover caught you as you were falling & did so by basically flying, but that's just standard wuxia defiance of physics. Your husband held a FUCKING CARRIAGE with ONE HAND for AT LEAST TWO WHOLE MINUTES to keep you alive before your ex finally showed up

- "Were you really frightened?" Your majesty, what kind of a stupid question is that?

- The emperor's armour is really pretty, I gotta say

- Uuuugh, this stupid love story hurts in a bad way

- I'm just gonna fast forward through it

- ...and there's the end of the episode.

- That love triangle is going to make me scream, I know it

- But that does explain how they're going to pad out the episodes a bit more with how far through the plot they are already

- None of them are even really that pretty to make up for the boring, trite, love triangle plot

- How do they expect to keep my attention through it if I don't even have eye candy?!?!

- I will be seriously headdesking if this flashback goes on for more than the next ep!

- Oh well, there we are. The end of ep 6

The Xiaoge Rescue Count at the end of ep 6 stands at 9 for Wu Xie, 13 for the protagonists, 14 for everyone.

#alicia watches dmbj #dmbj #xiaoge rescue count #daomu biji #wu xie #zhang qiling #wang pangzi #iron triangle #xiaoge

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fuckheadwitha · 3 years

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Listening to Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of All Time

Rolling Stone released an updated list of their top 500 albums of all time and being trapped in the purgatory of covid quarantine this seems like the perfect moment to tackle what an almost completely irrelevant former counter-culture institution has to say about music (we can’t actually blame Rolling Stone for this list, a huge number of musicians and critics voted to make it). I am going to listen to every single one of these, all the way through, with a level of attention that's not super intense but I'm definitely not having them on in the background as simple aural wallpaper. Two caveats though: I can make an executive decision to skip any album if I feel the experience is sufficiently miserable, and I'm also going to be skipping the compilation albums that I feel aren't really worth slots (best ofs, etc.). In addition, I will be ordering them as I go, creating a top 500 of the top 500 (it will be less than 500 since we've already established I'm skipping some of these).

Here are 500-490:

#500 Arcade Fire - Funeral

I can already tell I'm going to be at odds with this list if one of the most important albums of my high school years is at the bottom. That being said, I haven't actually given this whole thing a listen since probably the early 2010s, before Arcade Fire fatigue set in and the hipsterati appointed band of a generation just kinda seemed to fade from popular consciousness. I actually dreaded re-experiencing it, since the synthesis of anthemic rock and quirky folk instrumentation which Arcade Fire brought mainstream has now become the common shorthand of insufferable spotify friendly folk pop. Blessedly, the first half of the album easily holds up, largely propelled by dirty fast rhythm guitar, orchestration that's tuneful rather than obnoxious, and lyrics which come off as earnest rather than pretentious. The middle gets a little sappy and “Crown of Love”, a song I definitely used to like, really starts the grate. And then we get to “Wake Up”, whose cultural saturation spawned thousands of dorky indie rock outfits that confused layered strings and horns with power and meaning. This song definitely hasn't survived the film trailers and commercials which it so ubiquitously overlayed, but the line about "a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust" still attacks the part of my brain capable of sincere emotion. This album is probably going to hold the top spot for a while, because although so many elements of Funeral that made it feel so meaningful, that made it stand out so much in 2004, have been seamlessly assimilated into an intellectually and emotionally bankrupt indie pop industrial complex, the album itself still has a genuine vulnerability and bangers that still manage to rip.

#499

Rufus, Chaka Khan - Ask Rufus

Before she became a name in her own right, Chaka Khan was the voice of the band Rufus, and it’s definitely her voice that shines amongst some spritely vibey funk. That’s not to say that these aren’t some jams on their own. “At Midnight” is a banging opener with a sprint to the finish, and although the explicitly named but kinda boring “Slow Screw Against the Wall” feels weak, this wasn’t really supposed to be an album of barn burners. This was something people put on their vinyl record players while they chilled on vinyl furniture after a night of doing cocaine. “Everlasting Love” is a bop with a bassline like a Sega Genesis game, and the twinkling piano on “Hollywood” adds a playful levity to lyrics that are supposed to be both tackily optimistic about making it big out in LA and subtly realistic about the kind of nightmare world showbiz can be. “Better Days” is another track that manages to be a bittersweet jam with a catchy sour saxophone and playful synths under Chaka Khan’s vamping. This album definitely belongs on a ‘chill funk to study and relax to’ playlist.

#498

Suicide - Suicide

We’ve hit the first album that could be rightly called a progenitor for multiple genres that followed it. Someone could say there’s a self-serving element of this being on a Rolling Stone list (the band was one of the first to adopt the label ‘Punk’ after seeing it in a Lester Bangs article) but the album’s legacy is basically indisputable. EBM, industrial, punk, post-punk, new wave, new whatever all have a genealogy that connects to Suicide, and it’s easy to hear the band in everything that followed. But what the band actually is is two guys, one with an electric organ and one with a spooky voice, doing spooky simple riffs and saying spooky simple things. Simplicity is definitely not a dis here. The opener “Ghost Rider” makes a banger out of four notes and one instrument, and the refrain ‘America America is killing its youth’ is really all the lyrical complexity you need to fucking get it. “Cheree” and “Girl” have almost identical lyrics (‘oh baby’ vs ‘oh girl’) but “Cheree” is more like a fairy tale and “Girl” is more like a sonic handjob. “Frankie Teardrop” has the audacity to tell a ten minute story with its lyrics, but of course there is intermittent, actually way too loud screaming breaking up the narrative of a guy who loses everything then kills his family and himself. The song is basically a novelty, and I think you can probably say the whole album is a novelty between its brevity and character. But for a bite sized snack this album casts a huge shadow.

#497

Various Artists - The Indestructible Beat of Soweto

The fact that this particular compilation always ends up in the canon has a lot to do with the cultural context it existed in, being America’s first encounter with South African contemporary music during the decline of apartheid (it wouldn’t end until a decade later in 1994 with the country’s first multi-racial elections). Music journos often bring up the fact Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the all male choir singing on the album ender “Nansi Imali”, sang on Paul Simon’s Graceland like their virtue is they helped Paul Simon get over his depression and not, like, the actual music. But also like, how is the actual music? Jams. Ubiquitous, hooky guitars propel the songs along with bright choruses over low lead vocals, but I didn’t expect the synthesizer on the bop “Qhude Manikiniki”, nor the discordant hoedown violin on “Sobabamba”. “Holotelani” is a groove to walk into the sunset to.

#496

Shakira - Donde Estan los Ladrones

So this is the first head scratcher on the list. It’s not like it sucks. And I think I prefer this 90s guitar pop driven spanish language Shakira to modern superstar Shakira. But I mean, it’s an album of late nineties latin pop minivan music, with a thick syrupy middle that doesn’t do anything for me. The opener and closer stand out though. ‘Ciega, Sordomuda’, one of the biggest pop songs of the 90s (it was #1 on the charts of literally every country in Latin America), has a galloping acoustic guitar and horn hits with Shakira’s vocals at their most percussive.

#495

Boyz II Men - II

So, if you were alive in the 90s you know Boyz II Men were fucking huge, and the worst song on the album is the second track “All Around the World”, basically a love song to their own success, and also the women they’ve banged. You can tell it was written specifically so that the crowd could go fucking wild when they heard their state/city/country mentioned in the song, and I’m not gonna double check but I’m sure they hit all fifty states. Once you’re over that hump though you basically have an hour of songs to fuck to. “U Know” keeps it catchy with propulsive midi guitar and synth horns, “Jezzebel” starts with a skit and ends with a richly layered jazz tune about falling in love on a train, and “On Bended Knee” has a Ragnarok Online type beat. Honestly this album can drag, but you’re not supposed to be listening to it alone in a state of analysis, you’re supposed to have it on during a date that’s going really, really well.

#494

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

A singles compilation of the Ronettes, the only ones I immediately recognized were ‘Be My Baby’ and ‘Going to the Chapel of Love’, the latter of which I didn’t know existed since the version of the song I knew was by the Dixie Cups, which was apparently a source of drama since the Ronettes did it first but producer Phil Spector refused to release it. I feel like as a retro trip to sixties girl groups it’s full of enough songs about breaking up (for example “Breaking Up”) getting back together (for example “Breaking Up”) and wanting to get married but you can’t, because you’re a teenager (“So Young”).

#493

Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear

This album only exists because Marvin was required by his divorce settlement to make it and provide all of the royalties to his ex-wife and motown executive Anna Gordy Gaye. It’s absolutely bizarre, phoned in mid tempo funk whose lyrics range from the passive aggressive (“This is what you wanted right?”) to the petulant (“Why do I have to pay attorney’s fees?”). There is a seething realness here that crosses well past the border of uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s an amazing album to listen to, but it’s an amazing album to exist: Marvin Gaye is legally obligated to throw his own divorce pity party, and everyone's invited.

#492

Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time

I have never heard of Bonnie Raitt before but apparently this album won several grammys including album of the year in 1989 and sold 5 million copies, which I guess goes to show that no award provides less long term relevance than the grammys. The story around the album is pretty heartwarming, it was her first massive hit after a career of whiffs, and Bonnie Raitt herself is apparently a social activist and neat human being. I say all this because this sort of 80s country blues rock doesn't really connect with me, but the artist obviously deserves more than that. I unequivocally like the title track though, a hand-clap backed winding electric piano groove about literally finding love before your eggs dry up.

#491

Harry Styles - Fine Line

I do not think I have ever heard a one direction song because I am an adult who only listens to public radio. I’m totally open to pop bands or boy bands or boy band refugee solo artists, but I don’t like anything here. It’s like a mixtape of the worst pop trends of the decade, from glam rock that sounds like it belongs in a car commercial to folky bullshit that sounds like it belongs in a more family focused car commercial. This gets my first DNP (Does Not Place).

#490

Linda Ronstadt - Heart Like a Wheel

Another soft-rock blues and country album which just doesn’t land with me. But the opener “You’re No Good” is like a soul/country hybrid which still goes hard and the title track hits with the lyrics “And it's only love and it's only love / That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out”.

Current Ranking, which is weirdly almost like an inverse of the rolling stones list so far;

#rolling stone #500 greatest albums of all time

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notdirk · 5 years

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A mini guide on Dirk’s mannerisms

A mini guide Part 2: Electric Boogaloo Wanted to do a second one, if you haven’t already you should totally check out my Jake guide. It’s pretty cool.

So here we are, where making this HAPEN. I obviously am not a Dirk Strider expert but I hope the shit I have to say clears things up, or helps you with roleplay/writing a little.

Dirk is a tough cookie to break down, he’s wordy in 2 main ways. Roseways: He’s wordy like Rose in the sense that he has a very extensive vocabulary. Daveways: He’s wordy like Dave via fruitful metaphors. Both of these combine to form being wordy in ways that I can only describe as Dirkways, he’s like the Verbal Antichrist.

I’d describe it with a Dirk translator, being: INPUT: "What you're doing is stupid."

OUTPUT: "All I can tell you is that the artifice you're performing here, is absolutely farcical."

So Dirk swears. He swears a lot, holding the title for the alpha kid who cusses the most. Thing is with his cussing, he doesn’t have a tendency to cuss people out (excluding Hal/AR but he only calls him a dumbass and a jackass), it’s more to just add expression to sentences, a little fuckin’ emphasis never hurt anyone. Dirk isn’t as polite to people as Jake is though, if he doesn’t wanna talk to someone, he’ll make it clear. The dude has a fairly low tolerance for bullshit.

When it comes to writing for Dirk, you need to take into account the circuitous vocabulary, one big batch of fucks and shits, the little passive aggressive and catty jabs, an arguably cold tone, the colorful analogies and the snarky cynicism.

I’ve read a lot of fanfiction involving Dirk and seen a lot of Dirk roleplayers in action, I’ve also noticed a few miscalculations and misjudgments of his character. (Yet again, I’m not spared from this, as someone whose actually written for Dirk before, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Call this a self-callout if you will but yet again, these are from personal and secondhand experience).

I’d like to add before I delve into the list, in most of the Dirk-related fanfics I have read he's usually like.. The Background Dude who does and says nothing important, just kinda stands and nods his head as the main characters prance around. Either that, or he's The Boyfriend™ who does nothing but exist to be Jake's boyfriend and contributes absolutely nil to the plot. He just also kinda stands there, does some romance shit, then fucks off back to his apartment or whatever.

The mistakes I usually see people make are:

Making Dirk extremely boring, monotone completely and never expressing literally anything, not even frustration. Dirk isn’t built like a robot, he does emote through his text (usually in ways that come off as a little passive aggressive, I really doubt it’s Always intentional). He has a personality and he isn’t a plank of wood, he has his interests and he’ll humor your thoughts. If he truly does not give a shit about whatever you’re talking about to him, he’ll make it clear, he doesn’t just sit there and go “Uhuh. Yeah. Yep.”

Unlike the problem in the Jake tips, Dirk is usually pelted with a shitload of bros, mans and dudes, he does use that language quite a bit but it’s sprinkled generously throughout his pesterlogs, it isn’t jammed into the apple crumble. That’d be greedy and also pretty monotonous to read. Seriously, be careful with how many times he says bro and dude in the span of 5 sentences.

This one is biased and is more due to my qualms with Old fanon Dirk, the 2012 teenage boy who was a weaboo and a brony. You can say it’s in the past, and I wish it was true, but I’ve seen it crop up a little. Seriously, you’re allowed to run around being all like, “Well my Dirk likes My Little Pony and anime, so fuck you!” I’m not here to gatekeep, I’m just saying. People tend to focus on these things a lot, like.. maybe too much. Also the gay thing, I’m gonna get to that.

One thing I see way too much is people making Dirk extremely rude to the other alpha kids. It’s fine if it’s fitting with the scenario, maybe something awful happened and he’s holding resentment, but just your regular Dirk isn’t gonna belittle his friends like that, he does genuinely like and care about his friends. The first pesterlog we have with Actual Dirk starts off with him asking Jane if she’s alright, he gives a shit. He’s expressed frustration towards his friends before (trickster Roxy) but he’s never been inherently rude or mean towards them, he has their best interests in mind but he just goes about it in the wrong ways. Something that kinda ties in with 1 is that he displays sentiment/affection in a strange way, he doesn’t actively go about hiding the fact that he gives a shit about his friends or specific things, he just cakes it in a layer of irony, except the irony is to Display that he gives a shit, instead of Repress it.

Oh boy. The gay thing. Ok, the problem with a very vocal minority of the fandom’s views on Dirk’s homosexuality are that they either erase it or they hyper-focus on it. Hyper-focusing on it being like “Oh look at this smol gay bean, he’s just megahomo.” and in their writing, they’ll emphasize on the “gay” things that he does, as if that’s his only personality trait. That and the whole DirkJake thing, now listen. I do like DirkJake, it’s my OTP but honestly man, people make him way too sexual towards Jake. There's more to his personality than loving Jake, I mean. He didn't even want to talk to a version of himself about it. You think he'd broadcast those feelings to everyone else?

Strider analogies? What Strider analogies? Dirk’s metaphor usage is often overlooked too, sometimes it’s completely forgotten, which kinda baffles me seeing as it’s a more than once occurrence. He uses analogies in a similar way to Dave, they’re usually fairly obscure but still somewhat relevant to the topic at hand. When Dirk strayed away from the topic at hand with Jane, he caught himself immediately, he knows when to shut up but not always.

Dirk isn’t an “uncultured swine”, he’s fairly up to date with pop culture, even being described in his introduction page as a “PRETERNATURAL POPCULTURE ACADEME.” You can look to the Detective Pony rewrites for better examples of his up to date Internet knowledge, arguably dated but that’s just because of the early 2010s, I’m sure if the alphas were introduced this year, he’d.. well. He’d know his shit. He’s considerably book smart but not as socially perceptive, this isn’t to say that Dirk is completely unaware of the consequences of all of his actions, but he makes a lot of mistakes. He’s only human.

Grammar, seriously. It’s strange making this the last (for now) point but I’ve seen a lot of Dirk roleplayers just completely forget about his perfect syntax and grammar, he does remove the g from words occasionally and he does break his text into lines, occasionally using ellipses. But that’s really it. It’s harder to convey emotion through typing in this way but it’s a part of his character.

Yet again, a long post, probably even longer than the Jake one but I hope this helps with writing or roleplaying as Dirk, or just if you’re curious really. Again, if there’s anything you think I got wrong or should add, feel free to let me know, I’ll update it stat.

If you’d like any personal critiques on your writing then I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to pinpoint everything wrong but I’d be happy to assist/see what you’ve got.

#homestuck #dirk strider #not art #roleplay tips

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puppyluver256 · 5 years

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Underworld Ultimatum: The Quest for the Hottest Hades

So I mentioned in a previous big text post that I have some Very Strong Opinions on the interpretation of Greek god Hades shown in Disney’s Hercules film, and now I’m gonna talk about those opinions dammit! But let’s make it a little interesting. I always believe that if you can’t say something nice you shouldn’t say anything at all, so I’m also going to use this as an opportunity to talk about a Hades that I do enjoy. It’s a competition, babey! The Underworld Ultimatum! Or, if you’re preferring to reference a property one of these guys is in, the Hades Cup! (though to be fair this is less of a true competition and more of me showing why I like one and not the other)

First off, it’s the guy who inspired this, give it up foooor...

Disney’s Hades!

First of all, the guy’s design might’ve seemed cool back in the day, but looking back on him he’s kinda bland. Grey toga with accents of other greys, blue deathly pallor, nasty teeth... The flame hair is a pretty good concept, but considering the ancient Greek idea of the underworld probably wasn’t fire-themed I don’t know if it was an appropriate choice. ❌

Speaking of that flame hair, he commits the crime of “blue fire is totally cooler than red fire you guys what is physics?” nonsense. Anyone who puts even the tiniest bit of research in knows that, disregarding chemical compounds that affect flame color, blue flames are hotter than red/orange/yellow flames. Yeah, from an artistic perspective it seems counterintuitive, and blue flames work better with his standard palette, but even with that in consideration they couldn’t’ve made it so his flames turned white when he got angry rather than orange? Lazy... ❌

This is a problem with the Hercules film overall, but this feels like a christianized take on the ancient Grecian pantheon, with a much less horny Zeus in the place of the christian god and Hercules as sort of a Jesus figure. In line with this, Hades is portrayed as an equivalent to Satan and thus is shown to be undeniably evil. This is inaccurate to the actual mythology of Hades, where (and someone with a better scope of Greek mythology can either back me up or refute me on this) he was just a dude who ran the underworld and had no real malicious intent. But of course, a character is themed around death, they have to be a completely irredeemable villain. ❌

AND continuing the villain thing! He ugly, at least according to western society standards and especially compared to the hero and leading lady who are conventionally attractive by those same standards. This is continuing a long Disney tradition that a villain should be ugly. He’s evil, thus he doesn’t get to visit the dentist. ❌

His goals are basically just the same as every other villain, take over the world with some big strong brutes that are locked away by a supposedly benevolent horndog. Well, specifically Olympus, but considering that’s where the gods live and his brief rule subjugates the GODS, if he’d been in the head for longer he’d basically rule the world. Boring, bland, think of something else for once. Or at least have a good reason other than “I’m the villain, world domination for me!” ❌

There’s no real satisfying tension between him as a villain and the hero! His initial direct action against Hercules happens when he’s an infant (speaking of, dude actively tries to kill an infant), and then the next direct interaction between them is like nearly 20 years later and Herc has no knowledge of who this guy is and how big of a threat he’s been this whole time. Call me crazy, but I feel a villain is more effective when the protag is aware of the threat they pose for longer than just “oh he showed up today and apparently he’s been trying to kill me since I was a baby and now he’s got my girl??? guess he’s a bad guy” ❌

Following this point, there’s no satisfying confrontation between Hades and Herc that works to finish off the conflict between them. The major battle that Herc has against him is mainly against the titans, and iirc the only thing that he does to him in the “grabbing Meg’s soul from the soul pool brb” section is punch him in the face. I don’t remember any direct action that Herc does to cause Hades to fall into his soul pool. ❌

He’s voiced by James Woods, who is a major jerk. I’m not going into detail here as this is already long-winded enough, and Google is free. ❌

He’s got Cerberus, as any good interpretation of Hades should. That’s a plus! ✅ Though this Cerberus seems to be based on the “generic mean dog breed” aesthetic, and also I hated fighting this guy in Kingdom Hearts (the original, not the final mix with updated controls, OOF), which leads me toooo...

The guy THEN proceeds to smear his presence all over nearly every Kingdom Hearts game! Like, you’re not needed! Get out! Leave some room for better Disney villains!!! ❌

So nine bads, one good, and that “good” only comes from me liking dogs.

Next up, we have a more recent contender to the Hades mythos in modern media. Showing up outta nowhere in the first entry into a classic series for 21 years, let’s bring our hands together fooooor...

Kid Icarus Uprising’s Hades!

First off...look at this man. Look at this man! Hell yeah that is my aesthetic! Look at all the chaotic colors, the wild anime-esque hair, aaaaa! Amazing design! I would ask someone to get me the name of Uprising’s character designer so I can shake their hand and tell ‘em they did a wonderful job on the Hades look, but they’re probably Japanese and I don’t know a lick of it. Maybe someone at NoA could pass on my compliments... ✅

He does have a flame head form at some point with blue flames, but it doesn’t become red to show his anger so there’s no more of a violation of physics then the rest of his insides are. ✅ And that’s the real problem I have with Disney’s Hades for this particular point, if you’re going to violate physics at least have some damn fun with it instead of just thinking that cooler fire is hotter just because it’s made of warmer colors.

While this Hades is also irredeemably evil, there’s no weird christ-washing of Greek mythology going on here, because the Japanese generally don’t do that sort of thing when throwing a bunch of other culture’s mythologies together. Sure, Kid Icarus includes a lot of Greek mythology elements (Medusa, Thanatos, Pandora, arguably Palutena being based on Athena, among others), but it also incorporates a lot of original elements, such as the Forces of Nature who are not based on any specific Greek gods, the Chaos Kin, the Aurum, freaking space pirates?! And in regards to the Aurum, this Hades is able to put differences aside in order to help the other factions around at the time defeat the Aurum so there’s that! ...though he’s not exactly the best team player, hehehe... ✅

While he does show up out of nowhere after the defeat of the initially perceived villain, Medusa, once he debuts Hades is a constant presence. He’s almost always poking his head into the dialogue to taunt Pit, make some quip or joke, flirt with a female character, give a dastardly threat. Everyone’s always aware of exactly what kind of threat he poses! Good villain writing! ✅

But yeah, speaking of that, he does do the whole “initial villain wasn’t the real villain SURPRISE BITCH” thing that I’m not that fond of. Call it lingering resentment from Twilight Princess where Zant was basically thrown away in favor of bringing Ganondorf back. ❌

This Hades also doesn’t seem to have a Cerberus. Twinbellows is a Thing, yes, but they never show up in the same instance in time. The real Twinbellows is dealt with in the first chapter of Uprising, and the fake version of Twinbellows that shows up in chapter 9 is dealt with LONG before Hades reveals himself. ❌

His goal is to use the souls of everyone and everything that’s died to increase the ranks of his army and in the process throw off the natural order of things, which honestly makes sense as a goal for a malevolent death god. It’s helped by the fact that there’s really no one “good” faction in this game, everyone has their own self interests and Palutena’s just the one that’s most kind to humanity and Pit, who is the protag we experience the game’s events through and thus passes on a little of his bias. ✅

Oh, you want satisfying hero/villain confrontation? The boss battle against him takes up a whole chapter and oooohhhh boy is it a good’un. Do yourself a favor and look up the battle on YouTube, or to avoid a lot of spoilers and gain a lot of context, do yourself an even bigger favor and look up Chuggaconroy’s whole Uprising playthrough. The man goes into detail about everything of this game, not just its characters and basic gameplay. ✅

He eats Pit at one point, and then that whole chapter takes place in his innards. Ew. Gross. ❌

He’s voiced by S. Scott Bollock in the English dub and Hōchū Ōtsuka in the Japanese original. I don’t know whether either of ‘em are jerks, but I doubt they’re as bad as James Woods soooooo... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Setting aside cameos like being a spirit in Smash Ultimate, this Hades has only had a significant appearance in a single piece of media. Even though it’s a tad bittersweet, he doesn’t overstay his welcome, unlike another Hades. ✅

That’s 7 goods, 3 bads, and a shrug. The winner is clear! KI Hades is the victor! Or at least it’s obvious that I prefer him over the Disney version. Rant over, thanks for sticking through my ramblin’ goofballery. It was fun at least, right? I had fun. :D

#disney #disney hercules #disney hades #kid icarus #ki hades #jess discusses character stuff #and how differently two different sets of people can interpret the same core concepts

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092219archive · 5 years

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thinking about arjuna alter sends me onto a whole different dimension of depressed.

when i first saw him, i was really interested in the kind of character he was and the kind of character he would/could be, as most people were. it was theorized a while back that arjuna alter was “krishna,” but nobody truly knew for sure because there was no information about lostbelt 4 at the time. but now there is! about time.

but the thing is like... okay, so some really quick history about my selfshipping experience, which kind of matters and is kind of relevant to why i feel the way i do.

i started selfshipping with karna back in the summer of 2018 (around the time i watched fate/apocrypha), and discovered arjuna through karna (because they’re related and all that; a true sibling rivalry). i wasn’t super interested in arjuna but i figured since i’d be selfshipping with karna, that it would be important to see what kind of relationships he has (this is something i do with any character i plan to selfship with because honestly? i think i’m in too deep).

when i started reading the wiki, i started crying BUT FIGURATIVELY. figuratively. i was in sooo much denial because reading arjuna’s wiki page was like reading my own biography and it HUUURT. i don’t know how they did it, but they did, and it was over for me from then on.

the mood of 2018-

i was already planning out the arjuna/eren relationship halfway through the wiki page, because it was something i could easily do. two characters that have major identity crises with their given roles cope through each other, and fulfill each other’s desires — or something like that, you know? and then the normal procedure of “make a bunch of long analyses posts about the relationship and how they fit each other ~so well~, toss in some doodles, don’t forget the memes-”

but then after a while, i fell out of love. well, not necessarily, but i stopped having romantic feelings for arjuna and karna. it was actually kind of scary? and i complained about it a lot, because i was genuinely terrified/paranoid that i would lose the two of them, despite just how much they meant to me. i invested a lot of time into my selfships with the both of them, and i had a lot of emotions for the both of them. the thing is, usually, once i drop/lose feelings for a fave, they’re gone completely. for the followers who stuck around long enough, my masterlist was a lot longer when i first started this blog compared to now. anybody remember kakei shun from eyeshield 21? gertrude from farethere city?

after some time, i began to accept them more as my “favorite characters” rather than “my boyfriends whom i love very much.” i still get excited when i see nice art of them! but there wasn’t much besides that feeling of “oh! it’s them! the boys!”

but then lostbelt 4 was finally released, and new characters along with designs came out to the public. and i cried, figuratively. when i saw super⭐karna (there’s a star because everybody puts it there for whatever reason) and arjuna alter, the animation updates... i thought to myself, “oh, it’s over for me, isn’t it? i’m going back to my roots, aren’t i?” spoiler: i was.

of course, i was excited along with everybody else for lostbelt 4! but as i looked at the existing refs of arjuna alter, and thought about him a little bit, i actually got. sad? and almost cried, but literally this time. tears were forming and everything. looking at him actually made me feel guilty, for a dumb reason which i’ll get into. when i read about how killing karna just destroyed him inside, and listened to how he just had... no emotions, compared to his “original” self, i was just. depressed.

i guess it felt like i didn’t do enough for him? maybe if i actually stayed and helped him, then maybe he wouldn’t have had to undergo this change in the first place. krishna wouldn’t have gone to take the front, and arjuna would be okay. (it’s not that visible but if you take a look at the wip part on this post, you noticed that eren’s crying because they failed kinda thing). and this is actually a STUPID thought, because it’s been speculated that he would get an alter (for a couple-ish years, i think), and when arjuna alter was first released without a name, people already suspected that it would be arjuna alter. it was apart of his story and, almost destiny as cheesy as it sounds, to get an altered version.

i can’t even interact with this man nor his story, yet i still feel guilty over the fact that i “failed” to “save” him. WHICH, is a super unreasonable thought, and i can’t go “into” his story to [anime protagonist voice] do what i must do. FOR ONE THING, i want CONTEXT for arjuna alter. i want to study his dialogue and find connections to his vanilla self, and i want to know if it was before or after the death of karna that he became “altered” this way. it’s likely that he was, but it’s also possible that the duties as a prince and his insecurities with himself became to overbearing, which allowed krishna to “take over” his body. but the “outcome/result” of arjuna alter is that: he lacks any... emotions, you could say. he’s not completely emotionless, but it’s very obvious that he’s different from arjuna who was more expressive with his emotions; just closed off and purposefully distant. arjuna alter lacks that, from what i can tell. his purpose is “kill a god, sleep, kill another god, sleep-” man, maybe he doesn’t even sleep.

god (or lack of, hehe- get it? because he kills gods?), what if he was so screwed up after the death of karna that he discarded all of his emotions away and decided that it was the gods that turned his fate into this? i think that in the culture arjuna comes from, gods play an extremely prevalent role in life and duty? if that makes sense. it was like that in the past, where gods would live with people, walk among them, and all that. (i’m talking like, babylonia, ancient egypt, etc.) and granted, it’s still like that today in some areas, but a majority of the population don’t worship gods as much. or maybe he didn’t blame the gods specifically, because arjuna’s a bit of a self-centered character, but rather his fate; his “duty” as “arjuna.”

i’m not saying that i want to prevent arjuna alter from “happening” (that’s out of my control anyways since he already exists), but it still feels like i let him fall into this void of despair. like, i didn’t do enough so he’s like this now? i struggle with this kind of stuff, okay-

MAN, i don’t even know why i made this post, i could’ve just said “hey guys i’m super emo over this man” like i did on twitter and be over with this-

#eren chats #long post /#eren rambles about arjuna alter and goes off topic like 3 times.#AS PER USUAL.#i had a reason to writing this post but i got too into it and it turned to a fork from a chopstick.

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actuallyadork · 5 years

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Getting started learning Japanese.

Here’s some resources I’m using to learn Japanese and what I think they do well and not so well. This is all based on my own experiences and what works best for me.

I will be rating based on the following criteria: Cost, Is it easy to use?, How much does it cover?, Pros, Cons, Overall impression.

Tofugu

I’m replacing a previous recommendation with this one. Far superior. I’ll just get right to it.

Free. Easy to use.

Pros: articles on just about everything. Theres a podcast. And every month they post resources for learning japanese. I highly recommend this website for these posts alone.

Cons: some content you gotta pay for but as far as i know they don’t duck around with people’s trust. They are the creators of wanikani and they gotta make money somehow.

Overall: far more useful that the first website i had on here. Maybe I’ll add more details later, but I just wanted to update this one as quickly as possible.

Japanese from Zero (video series)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOcym2c7xnBwU12Flkm5RcLIEhvURQ8TB

Cost: free

Easy to use: yes. Theres a nice playlist so all you have to do is sit and watch.

How much does it cover: You start out knowing absolutely no japanese and by the end of lessons you will know two writing systems. Basic sentence patterns and grammar. There is even a kanji series.

Pros: nothing is easier than sitting and watching videos to learn. You can play it anywhere at anytime. George has been teaching/speaking Japanese for years so he knows where students get stuck. He gives good explanations and examples on when to use new content and when not to use the new content.

Cons: because its a series, sometimes George refers to previous lessons or his book and you may be missing some context if you start in the middle or skip through some lessons.

Overall: The first lessons were painful to get through because It starts out with romanization and if you already know the writing systems, seeing the romaji on screen is like listening to nails on chalk. Not to mention I have a personal beef with numbers and counting as well as the common phrases like “おはよう”

But it is called Japanese from Zero and it is meant for someone who knows absolutely nothing about japanese so I can forgive the painful beggining lessons. Once I got past the introductory stuff the videos became more enjoyable.

Duolingo (app)

Cost: free

Easy to use: yes

How much does it cover: basic japanese sentence patterns, all three writing systems and a handful of new vocabulary.

Pros: teaches new words and sentence patterns and really drills them into your head. Gives you a few new words at a time so you can take the time to learn them without being distracted from all the other words you need to learn. You can go into the course as a Japanese person trying to learn English and really get the most out of Duolingo because the japanese version starts out with Kanji and even gives polite and casual sentence forms.

Cons: very repetitive. I don’t find fault with this but a coworker of mine found this to be very annoying and I can understand why. Duolingo says the lessons will get harder but instead its the same lesson except now you have to review it 10 times instead of 5. That’s not exactly hard, that’s just tedious. My biggest gripe with duolingo is that it doesn’t explain particles or why the kanji has different readings. In order to figure that out I had to go and do my own research which isn’t a big deal but if you’re only using duolingo by itself it makes it harder to understand why you keep getting things incorrect and subsequently how to fix it.

Overall: I will admit I am biased towards duolingo because I’ve used it for Spanish, French, Italian, and now Japanese. I was there from it’s early days when it was absolute shit and it has come a long way. I recognize the issues with Duolingo right now but I know that they are constantly updating. Painful as it may be to keep hearing 六時六分です it really is teaching you sentence patterns that you can use to make your own sentences. You just have to go out and do a little extra work yourself. It is, by far, the easiest to use and the method I use everyday.

TinyCards (app)

Cost: free

Easy to use: yes

How much does it cover: it covers a lot of vocabulary phrases and even sentences. You can probably get a lot mileage out of this one if used correctly and if you’re willing to put in the work

Pros: dozens of pre-made flashcards to choose from and the ability to make your own. Cards come in sets that you can unlock by finishing the first set similar to duolingo. A lot of other flashcard apps work in a similar way except they make you pay for the rest so I appreciate that this one is free of charge. Plus you can find flashcards specifically from the duolingo courses so you can study the vocabulary in isolation rather than in a sentence. Interactive flashcard system. So you don’t just flip cards and call it a day, occasionally you will have to write out the translation in the target language or pick from several choices.

Cons: the difficulty can be a little inconsistent. Sometimes you just flip a card and say I remember that one and other times you’ll have to translate a full sentence in Japanese. Even if you get the kanji right, you may get the answer incorrect because the card wants the hiragana and vice versa. And because there are so many card sets to choose from, not all of them are useful.

Overall: a sister app to duolingo it seems. Cards come from the community of learners and are not limited to japanese or languages. You can also learn about history, art and pretty much anything else. I appreciate the interactive aspect as most other apps don’t do this and the ones that do are muuuch more inconsistent than this one. I found similar interactive flashcard apps that would sometimes show Vietnamese translations instead of English translations. I’ve only recently been using this one but I pretty much gave up on using other similar apps bc they were very inconsistent. I haven’t used it very much though because I’ve discovered that I’m not a flashcard learner. If you learn best with flashcards then I would recommend it.

Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese (website/pdf/app)

Cost: free

Easy to use: relatively. Just read the damn thing. I get it though. Reading is very tedious

What it covers: It really is a beginner to advanced beginner guide covering the same things as all the above. Basic grammar, writing systems and such. One thing that is very unique about Tae Kim’s guide however is that it also includes cultural notes such as explaining casual vs polite speech. Male vs female speech that a lot of the other resources don’t even touch on

Pros: A very good starting point that covers so so much. The website has an option to show/toggle translations. Additional cultural notes plus examples. Almost every“how to learn japanese” guide points to this website

Cons: one of the reasons I was holding out on making this list was because I haven’t finished going through all the resources so I don’t have any cons for this yet. I’m only part-way through and I’ve yet to have any issues with it. Maybe just that once it gets the point across it immediately moves on. You don’t really have time to digest the content so It’s like a very in-depth crash course in japanese. You may need to go out and do extra research in order to really understand the content. If you don’t understand what is being taught, just read over it again and keep it in mind. I’ve found that I’ll come across more examples as I continue my studies and it all starts to fall into place

Overall: It doesn’t sugarcoat Japanese or treat the learner like a baby. If you read the introductory page, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Definitely influenced my approach to learning despite not having gone through all of it. Like other resources, it builds on top of topics already covered but it’s nice having a book-format with conjugation charts and lessons separated by chapters. Videos and podcasts are nice but Tae Kim’s guide also acts as a manual to supplement your learning. Maybe you want to write a sentence in the masu-form and need a quick reminder? Just flip to the page in the guide. No skipping through videos trying to find the part you need because it’s already there.

Manga Sensei (podcast/website)

Cost: mostly free. I believe theres some extra stuff you can purchase. I’ve seen a special podcast that requires payment and comes along with a free pdf. But for the most part, you get a lot of free content.

Easy to use: relatively. Havent been on the website much so for all i know it could be a mess

What it covers: the podcast covers a lot of grammar points and occasional vocabulary and cultural notes. Gives you a good foundation to build on top of. The website has more details on what the podcasts are about but I haven’t spent much time on the website as I have the podcast.

Pros: grammar points in 5 minutes or less. Differences between common words. Good for improving listening skills. If you’re driving or on a bus, you can learn on the go.

Cons: so much to choose from you kinda have to sift through what you need. Most of it is useful and there are a couple of repeat lessons as Manga-Sensei has a beginner’s guide every year. Because its audio only, you may be learning new words and grammar but you may not be able to identify them as quickly on paper. Best to supplement with some type of visual. I believe the website has something to solve this and I’ve heard there is a youtube channel as well? Although I am not sure.

Overall: If you’re going on a long car ride, folding your laundry or even just working-out, this is a great way to stay on top of your studies. Manga-Sensei has talked a lot about his projects such as his manga, alternate podcasts, and pdf. Even though I haven’t taken a look at all of them, it’s clear he’s working hard to bring content for listening, reading, and conversation skills. That being said, the podcast is just as good for learning as any other method. You can still understand the lessons (which are meant to be short and simple anyway)

Japanese Ammo with Misa (Video Series)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSyd8tXJoEJKIXfrwkPdbA

Cost: free although she has a Patreon as well if you want to support her.

Easy to use: yep

How much does it cover: A Lot. From basic videos about grammar to more complex videos breaking down japanese songs as well common phrases and little notes that you may not find in a textbook

Pros: Her lessons have a lot of examples and good breakdowns of the grammar and tense. If a verb is in the past-negative tense, she will break down how to get to that point from the plain form or dictionary form. The best part about her videos is that she has her examples on-screen and color-coded. It may seem like a lot at first, but once you adjust to it, it helps to retain the information.

Cons: Because there’s so much content packed into her lessons, I recommend getting a basic knowledge of Japanese first. She has a video series for basic/introductory Japanese. I would suggest starting with that series or George’s series, or Tae Kim’s guide. Just so you don’t get an information overload.

Overall: There is one video in particular that I recommend to watch and I’ll make another post about it, but I really enjoy her content. Even though some of her videos are very dense with information, the comments suggest that its still easy to follow. I just think that while you can still learn a lot as a newbie, you might retain more if you already understand some grammar.

Japanese (app)

Cost: free holy shit!!

Easy to use: relatively

Pros: search using english, japanese, radicals, or drawing the kanji itself. Flashcard system, where you can build your own decks or use a pre-made one. The flashcards operate on a spaced repetition system. Plus it provides example sentences, compound breakdowns, stroke order, conjugations and JLPT level.

Cons: The drawing search method is sometimes hit or miss but i’m impressed the app has this option at all, let alone that it does not crash the app (like some others I’ve tried). The pre-made decks can have up to 400 words or more which is great if you have that kind of patience but I rarely find myself excited to sift through all of those words only to have about 10 of them be useful to me.

Overall: Okay it’s not like this app is super amazing or revolutionary but it’s a dictionary and flashcard sytem all in one. Say you want to keep a record of the new words you learn to refer back to them later? Make a new deck! Or if you’re reading a book or newspaper and come across a word you don’t know? Add it to the list or make a new deck! I try use new words as often as possible to drill them into my head And although my studying has slowed a bit, this app is perfect to double-check spelling and usage. (At least until jisho.org gets an app). Plus it’s easier to learn and remember words when you’ve come across them on your own.

#日本語 #japanese #learn japanese #dork speaks

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attract-mode-collective · 6 years

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Nothing Sez “Student Game” More Than The Dinosaur Evening News (that’s a good thing, btw)

The above is Mediazoic, which takes place in an alternate reality in which dinosaurs have come back to rule the earth and they've hired you, puny human, to make sure their televised broadcasts are dino family safe.

You moderate comments left on message boards, censor full frontal dino nudity, and so on. It's a student game alright, and one of my top picks from the NYU Game Center Student Showcase2018!

I was also fond of Dreams For Your Computer because CRTs, magnets, and cats...

... Here's what it looks like in action, btw.

Though the one game that I liked the most, and which would actually fare well on the marketplace, would have to be Static...

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And honorable mention goes to an updated take on Flight Simulator, which recreates a 6 hour long commercial flight as a passenger...

... The best part was the look on Stephen Totilo's face, who kinda didn't get it.

When was the NYU thing btw? Over two weeks ago, and it’s been even longer since the last update. Sorry about that. You know the deal: a million, billion things going on. As usual.

Hence why it’ll take not just one, but two bursting at the seams posts, to cover the second half of May! So onto part one…

Please, please, PLEASE let these Game Center CX Blu-rays have an English language option (via miki800.com)...

Not a day goes by in which I don’t wonder how that guy who appears in the instruction manual for Bomberman B-Daman is doing these days (via videogameartarchive & videogameartarchive)...

I really love the “are you for real?” vibe that Samus gives off in the instructions for the original Famicom Disk System release of Metroid (via nintendometro)...

If you’ve ever wondered what a pair of bosses from Mega Man 9 & 10 would look like with 8’s 32-bit sheen, well here ya go (via mendelpalace)...

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A print ad for the Famicom adaptation of Akira that wasn't all that hot (via videogameads)...

Though whenever anyone hears the words “Akira video game”, this is basically what immediately comes to mind. Anything else is a disappointment, no matter what (via aaronkraten)...

Welcome to the rabbit hole that is the Memorex VIS (via @ColinWilliamson)...

Is the soundtrack to some ultra-obscure home banking software for the Mega Drive worth a listen? You goddamn right it is (via mendelpalace)...

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… The accompanying article is also totally worth a read.

It’s the Battletoads X Blue Swede mashup that you can’t believe hasn’t been done yet (via SiIvaGunner)...

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Replace Link with myself & Navi with my iPhone, which I use as an alarm clock, and you have earlier this morning in a nutshell (via nintendometro)...

“So where you going?”

“Down a road. A low poly road…”

“Where you headed towards?”

“Whatever’s at the end of this street. This low poly street...”

“If you look up, what do you see?”

“Low poly buildings, under a low poly sky. Who knows, maybe there’s some low poly birds up there, behind those low poly clouds…” (via pmpkn)

From looking at low poly skies to soaring high above them, but what a difference an arcade board makes huh (via kazucrash)...

This is what Metal Max 2: ReLoaded on the DS looks like, at its normal resolution...

And this is what it looks with the resolution bumped up (via gaucheartist)...

Is this sprite of a BMX biker animated unusually well or am I just out of touch when it comes to 2600 software? Granted, it does come from a game made in 1989 (via segagenesisevangelion)…

According to the law: “NO JUMPING” (via vgadvisor)

“Hi guys.” (via beowulf-ultra)

Such a heartwarming scene (via @PicturesFoIder)...

This is what VR looked like many years ago, which is basically how it still looks today as well (via peazy86)...

It’s Yuji Horii, from way back in the day, presumably before he had created Dragon Quest (via videogamesdensetsu)...

Why yes, I have heard of the Ocelot Arcade System, by virtue of it being Quality Simon Carless content...

... BTW, “Quality content” is in reference to this. Moving on: yes, I've also heard of VecFever. It plays games that you might be familiar with, since it emulates old vector MAME titles...

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Meanwhile, am only just learning that Tiger released their handhelds in Japan under the Game Vision label (via segacity)...

The Sega Dreamcast: it's thinking... about you, cuz it cares about you (via posthumanwanderings)...

"Wait… was he always there?" asks the official Sonic the Hedgehog Tumblr (via sonicthehedgehog)...

And the final nail in the coffin for this gag came courtesy of the official Sonic Tumblr as well (via sonicthehedgehog)...

"Good news everyone skyrim has been ported to the Bethesda offices carpet"

"Who the fuck designed support pillars to obstruct a quarter of the hallway?"

"Bethesda" (via mysteriouslypeculiar)

Yet another "it's funny cuz it's true" (via highlandvalley)...

So annoyed that I only find out about this Games Glorious shirt on the very last day of kylefewell‘s Japanese extrusion (via miki800.com)...

Not a fan of the game (don’t hate, I just don’t find it very enthralling), yet for whatever reason, I REALLY want this vintage Mappy sweatshirt (via namcomuseum)...

When video game attire looks plausible IRL (via @cvxfreak)...

Much like with regular attire, with cosplay, sometimes it’s all about the accessories (via frankiebalboa)...

Don’t think I’ve ever seen this piece of Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter art before (via segacity)...

For those who dig POC, as well those who dig VF, and also those who dig FV... that last one's Fighting Vipers, BTW (via fightersmegamix)...

It’s a crying shame that Fighting Vipers is such an unknown commodity these days (via kazucrash)...

Virtua Fighter vs Virtua Fighter… Kid (via segacity)...

It’s a crying shame that Fighters Megamix is such an unknown commodity these days (via segacity)...

So hyped for RPG Time, based solely upon the headline image used for this 10 ten list of BitSummit games (via @indiegameweb)...

Please enjoy yet another thing that I originally posted on a Saturday late at night, whatever time it might on your end right this second (via contac)...

Been a while since I’ve seen the handiwork of Joe Bleeps, largely since it’s been a while since I’ve been collecting Game Culture Snapshots; the man has certainly stepped up his game (boy mods) since way back when (via kotaku.com)...

Am also very much impressed by the Game Boy Macro, though once again, am super irritated that GBA games do not rest flush with the DS Lite’s body...

An example of function over form I guess (@gamesyouloved)...

Familiar with Line Wobbler? Ever wished you could play it on the go? Are you into demakes? For the Game Boy Advance? (via @diskmem)

Today’s corrupted GBA boot up sequence is (via corruptionasart)...

Can anyone tell what Famicom game we’re seeing that’s all glitched out? (via mendelpalace)...

My fave part of this NES 2 print ad is how, in order to truly drive the message of “EVOLVE OR BECOME EXTINCT” home, whomever felt it necessary to include a little picture of a dinosaur (via nintendometro)...

Was this an ad for the SNES? I ask because it’s considerably more sophisticated when compared to what you usually encountered in gaming rags at the time (via nintendometro)...

This ad for the GoldStar version of the 3DO, hailing from Korea, makes me so proud to be (half) Korean, you have no idea (via notablegamebox)...

This Space Invaders tribute piece is like the cover art to some 80s heavy metal record (via shmups)...

Meanwhile, the album art for the Metal Black soundtrack feels more Pink Floyd-ish than anything else (via reportal)...

As amazing as it would have been to attend a ZUNTATA concert 20 years ago, I desperately wanted to see them perform various Darius cuts live just the other week (via miki800.com)...

This cover art for a tribute album celebrating 25 years of Mega Man is still quite good, 31 years after the fact (via rnn-draws)...

My recommended reading this time is a comparison of all the various Mega Man sprites that have been, including a few that you may not be familiar with (via retrovania-vgjunk.blogspot.com)...

Apparently there was a Mega Man boss that was part arcade machine, but he only appeared in some mobile game, for f's sake Capcom (via mendelpalace)...

Guess now’s a good time to share another random game canter pic (via gogopri)...

Pathos at the game center, even among Sailor Scouts (via funnysailorm00n)...

A pride & joy of my personal collection is both the original retail Japanese release of Jet Set Radio & the available via Sega Direct only edition: De La Jet Set Radio (via videogameartarchive & videogameartarchive)...

Here's an alternate take on it’s alternate cover star (via @Drooling_Demon)…

Putting together the necessary gear to properly grind the streets of Tokyo-to (via kiroziki-cosplay)...

JSR tales place in a fictionalized, idealized interpretation of Japan, whereas this gif is a very realistic take, yup (via dehtyar)...

Meanwhile and elsewhere, somewhere in the United States of America it would seem (via behexagusthegreat)...

There's still dinner time in the future (via kirokazepixel)...

My contribution to #WorldGothDay (via it8bit)…

From dark & dreary, to warm & fuzzy, yet still black & white (via this old post from a few years back)...

Old photos of a Japanese school kid obsessing over the Famicom are somewhat dime a dozen, but the PC Engine? A very rare treat (via gamingremembrance)...

From black & white photographs of Japanese 80s kids playing consoles, to a full color animated gif of US 80s kids at the arcade (via tvneon)...

Time to wrap things up by touching upon something that kept me awfully busy over the past few: Death By Audio Arcade X Dreamhouse II. Here's a rather mysterious image that appeared on the FB event page, and which was utilized in my promotional push...

... Did it work? You’ll have to find out in my part 2 of my Attract Mode X Tumblr: May 2018 recap! Due tomorrow. Maybe.

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afreakingdork · 3 years

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Review Revisited: The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross

So after I posted my 2007 Manga Reviews I got to thinking about how those series formed my early manga opinions and how much I’ve grown as a person since reading them. In the spirit of that, I thought it would be a great idea to revisit those series of yore and update my reviews of them with my older, wiser perspective.

The first up is the first that was on the list and a series that was closer to my heart than I remembered: Shinkuro (Shinshi Doumei Kurosu or The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross). Here’s the 2007 review as a refresher:

ShinKuro: Or Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross for those that aren’t familar with it…Ok so I love this series and its awesome bottom line~ 1-3 are out currently, its one of those stories you gotta read over at least 4 times before you understand the plot, or maybe i have a focus problems who knows, all i know is you need to go out and read this, its got everything yo! Straight, yuri, yaoi…idk I’m not much of a gay fangirl, but hey ya gotta cover japanese basics~

Before I get into the veritable mountain of things I want to talk about (I mean, I have 14 years of feelings to sort through), I first want to tell a story of fate. When I decided to re-do these reviews, I went to look for my old manga. It’s not far, about 50 steps away to my bookshelf, but I didn’t see Shinkuro anywhere. Confused, I waited until the next time I visited my mom to look there and could not find it. I knew when I moved out of her house in 2017 I had sold some extra books to make the move easier, but couldn’t recall a specific memory of packing them up. I checked my email and the only clue was a listing on eBay, but there was no sold email attached. I’m usually really diligent with stuff like that, so I was totally stumped. Regardless, I had no manga, so I went ahead and started reading it on some pirating website. Now, I don’t condone these sites, but I couldn’t find the series anywhere else for whatever reason. I was only able to get a few chapters in before I just couldn’t take it anymore. The site I was using (one of the only sites to even have a pirated version. Seriously, why had this series totally disappeared from the US lexicon!?) only had a fan-scan of the series. Now, Shinkuro is something I’ve read many, many, many times and, while the fan-scan wasn’t unreadable, I kept getting really hung up on how different it was from what I remembered. I would read a line and my brain would make an error noise and respond with what the line should be. As I clicked through the pages, the errors piled up more and more and my brain was relentless about how the lines should have been translated.

Frustrated, I totally gave up and the next time I saw my mom I told her of my plight. I could see the lightbulb go off over her head and she asked me if ‘that wasn’t the manga that didn’t sell on eBay and I gave to her to give away?’ I was taken aback; I hadn’t told her about the eBay email I found and instead only told her I couldn’t find the series I didn’t think I had gotten rid of. She said it was stored in a guest bedroom with a bunch of junk we were going to sell just before the pandemic struck last year. I was still incredulous, but she went back there with me to look for it. Now, no one knows my mom like I do, but I will tell you she is absolute garbage at describing stuff. She gave me this crazy description about a box that was the size of a loaf of bread and it had a hinge on it and I had no idea how that worked with cardboard. It took a long time, moving a metric shitton of full-to-the-brim boxes around to no avail. Since we were getting to the bottom of boxes that were stacked high, we were tag teaming the project where one person would lift and the other would rummage. It was at the bottom of a box in a 3-box stack that mom deemed the box incorrect by only shoving her hand inside. She said she felt a box, but it didn’t feel right so she moved on. I felt a pull and tilted my head so that I could see into the only sliver on the box, a tiny crack. I told her ‘I saw a box that looked kinda like a shoe box and is that what she meant by a hinge?’ She said she wasn’t sure, but we made quick work taking down the stack to reveal the smaller box. Upon closer inspection she said this had to be it and as I opened it there lay the entire 11 volume series. I tell you, I almost sobbed right there on the spot. What are the chances that I would try to sell the series, it wouldn’t sell (I listed all 11 volumes for 40$!!!), I would give it to mom to give away, she wouldn’t do so (she wasn’t sure what the age range for the books were), and then years later we would happen across it and mom would dismiss it while I pressed to check, to find these books. They were meant to stay with me is the only conclusion I can make and after re-reading the series I can say this is totally true, so let’s get into my renewed feelings:

So, looking at my old review, I know exactly what my younger self meant by rereading the same bit 4 times to understand. Arina Tanemura has a penchant for putting 1000 screentones over every page and sometimes she swiftly moves through conversations and even locations between panels on the same page. It’s a breakneck speed to try to give every character of this ensemble class a time to shine. There’s also the hurdles of Tanemura’s style that can’t be ignored. When my partner saw the manga, he asked me if all the art really looked like that and I showed him that, yes indeed, and that was almost a pretty standard art style for shoujou manga from that time period. He was aghast and didn’t believe he could read something like that and I can totally see how that would be off-putting for the average reader (I’m not average in the sense that I’ve read it so many times I know all the ins and outs). For example, in middle school Haine cut her hair off and dyed it blond. She dyes it back when she goes to high school, but halfway through the series she cuts it and dyes it back to blond for Ushio’s sake. Tanemura doesn’t change ANY screentones during this time and you only find out that Haine dyes her her back ONCE AGAIN in a throw away line. I’ve held the pages up side-by-side and it’s totally indiscernible when Haine’s hair is blond vs. brown.

That being said, one of the greatest parts of this series is how it was translated. There was so much love and care put into these Notes on the Text that it was the perfect series to start shaping my understanding of Japanese culture and writing. Instead of just a glossary saying what ‘-san’ meant as a suffix, these sections go so far as to explain why certain phrases were translated as they were and explain what the original Japanese text said and how it was a joke or a play on words. That is so rare to see in manga and I feel like it should be more standard.

Now to face the elephant in the room head-on: let’s look into the LGBT+ themes in the series. 2007 Alex was quite afraid and prejudiced against queer culture. I can’t tell you where exactly it stemmed from because I don’t really remember feeling that way. I know it happened, I have evidence and my friends’ testimonies, but it doesn’t feel like I had that much hate in my heart. It’s systemic to our culture and that may be why, but regardless, I feel awful that I once felt that way. I was scared getting into this series that the LGBT+ themes would be handled so poorly as it often is in manga. Thankfully, that didn’t end up wholly being the case. In her author’s notes, Tanemura stated multiple times that she was not a fan of mlm or wlw content, but she wanted to use this series to push herself to do a lot of things she didn’t like otherwise. I want to put an excerpt on her final thoughts on those themes in the series here:

I don’t know how the readers feel, but I’ve never been very fond of reading guy x guy and girl x girl relationships. But that was another reason for me to have done this series. I thought the series would have a nice twist to it if I tried to draw something I didn’t like.

I regularly challenge myself to eat things I don’t like. I don’t like the idea of having dislikes, so it became an opportunity for me to get over that.

And the result was... I still couldn’t get myself to be interested in it. So it’ll probably be a topic I’ll never write about again. But I think it was still worth it that I found that out.

I won’t take the time to break down homophobia in Japanese society, but I find it interesting that Tanemura sees queer relationships not as a real thing in her stories, but instead as a commodity that she can compare to tastes in food. I found the story lines really compelling. Take Maora, for example. Tanemura refers to Maora as eccentric for cross dressing in her author notes, but in story Maora is actually characterized with a surprising amount of care on the subject. While some may view Maora as a ‘trap,’ I would instead posit that he’s genderfluid. Obviously he goes by he/him, but I think it’s so interesting that when told that boys couldn’t marry, Maora goes to great lengths to present as a female so Maguri and him could be together as they always wanted. When Maguri rejects this because he’s gay and prefers male presenting individuals, Maora holds on to his ‘femininity’ because it means something to him. All the work he put in is a representation of his love and later becomes something that he enjoys doing. There are, of course, a few pitfalls. I’m not a fan of the fact that when going to the Emperor’s Association meeting, Maora feels like he must dress more masculine because it’s a serious event (giving the connotation that dressing feminine is just a frivolous thing). I also really hate one of Maora’s final lines in the penultimate arc when the student council is breaking into Shuichiro’s house and he says “Don’t you blush! I’m a guy!” before kicking someone. I think Tanemura meant for that to be a cool one-liner, but instead it just undercuts who Maora is.

On the flip side, I really like how Ushio’s love of Haine is characterized. While Ushio’s means of capturing Haine aren’t the best, I think her love is a beautiful arc. Ushio fell in love with a blond yanki that happened to break into her house to hide when she was at the lowest point in her life. When Haine has her night with Shizumasa and decides to ‘move back into the light,’ time stops for Ushio as Haine leaves her. Ushio is left looking for that person who saw her when everything else in her life was filled with hate. There is a beautiful story there where she realizes her love for Haine isn’t romantic or sexual love, but instead the powerful love in friendship. This story always holds the different types of love in high regard. It is stated multiple times that Takanari and Haine both hold their best friends in their hearts higher than their romantic partners and I adore that. It’s such a healthier way to represent relationships. Your romantic partners shouldn’t just supersede your other loves just because.

The development of loves on the other hand can be a bit rocky. The bonus story between Kusame and Komaki is always one I held in such high regard because it’s characterization of changing love. Kusame, who’s been in love with Haine, starts dating her sister Komaki out of obligation and he ends up falling in love with her not because she’s similar to Haine, but instead because of how different she is and how those were things that he grew to appreciate and love about her instead. Can you say relationship goals?! Contrasting that, you have the relationships between Itsuki Otomiya, Kazuhito Kamiya, and Maika Rikyuu. Maika and Itsuki were secretly dating in high school and Kazuhito sweeps in, steals the position of emperor from Itsuki by underhanded means and ensnares Maika in a marriage due to obligation for her family’s failing company. Over time, Maika grows to love Kazuhito and the whole thing always left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe if the pages had been given a little more time it could have worked, there’s small signifiers, like how Kazuhito and Maika met and were friends before he pulled his repulsive plot. There was a precedent that the two got along and could have fallen in love, but instead it went full Stockholm and that is painted as ok. I do want to take a moment to say that scene where Itsuki returns from visiting Maika for the first time since all that happened where his current wife Ryouka stayed up because she was afraid he was going to leave her and he reassures her that he would have never done so was downright incredible.

The timeline of Maika losing her memories confounds me as a way to keep her away from Haine. I know Kazuhito didn’t give her much choice in the matter, but she had a whole other child before she started to lose her memories and there is quite an age difference (like 7+ or so years) between Komaki and Tachibana, where Maika had her memories (for a few years?) and just made no effort to contact Haine in any way. It just seems overly cruel and unnecessary when Maika wrote a letter to Haine saying she would continue to write even though she couldn’t see her. I know a maid was watching her, but she couldn’t send a letter? She already sent one letter! Kazuhito’s goal was to give Haine back to Itsuki so she could live freely without the burden of his influence because he knows he’s an asshole that only cares about Maika and clipped her wings. He wants to atone for still keeping Maika trapped by letting Haine soar, but keeping Haine from at least talking to her mother through letters is just erroneous. That didn’t keep her free from him, it only made her miserable from not being able to talk to her mom. Ugh, just writing about it makes me so mad.

It’s interesting to me that in her distaste for LGBT+ themes, Tanemura was about to have a polyamorous ending to the series. It’s disheartening that the only reason she didn’t do so was because she could only imagine there would be a power imbalance where Shizumasa would have been a pitiful party in such an arrangement. It’s not like I was rooting for a threesome (especially since two of them are twin brothers), but it’s an outdated view on what polyamorous relationships are actually like. Also, Takanari is the clear winner and I’m not sure why it’s ever a question for Haine. When you break it down, Haine really only spent one single night with Shizumasa while she actually had months and months of time built up with Takanari to build the foundation of a real relationship, but that’s neither here nor there.

Overall, I’m so glad I re-read this series and I will never try to resell it ever again. It means so much to me and even though it’s CW levels of dramatic happenings (I can’t believe Toya pulled a gun on and shot Haine), there is a market for those things and they’re enjoyable in how bizarre they are. There’s obviously some failing to the story, but as a whole I still love it, even nostalgia aside. I think it’s a great series for those new to shoujou drama’s to read!

Verdict:

Read Right < Left

#me #manga #manga review #review #The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross #Gentlemen's Alliance Cross #Shinshi Doumei Kurosu #shinkuro

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black-wolf066 · 6 years

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Well, You Do Have My Chin

Update: OMG!!! MY TIRED 36 HOUR LACK OF SLEEP BRAIN ACCIDENTLY DELETED THE STORY I POSTED THIS MORNING!!! I meant to hit edit, and apparently I hit delete and when it gave me the prompt to hit yes or no, my tired brain that it said “would you like to edit: yes or no”.... so here goes round two... so sorry guys. I wanted to add that i have this on Fanfiction.net now too (under my account Wolf-shadow666) but I just curfunkled everything... ANYWAY underneath is pretty much the post that got deleted... thankfully i save everything on document...

First off, let me just say. I’M ALIVE!!! It is now 8am in the morning, I’ve been working on the better part of this little shit that wouldn’t leave me alone i mean piece since 9pm last night…. i have TO GO TO WORK IN AN HOUR!!! HELP ME!!!!! *flails all over the place* I swear i can adult right sometimes… just not today apparently…. keep this in mind as you’re reading cause even though I’ve proof read this thrice, I’m sure some (or many) things have escaped my brain’s notice.

anyway….

Here is the comment that inspired me to write this one-shot:

@timetravelingpotatoast said:

All I really want from this season is for Killian and Henry to become good friends and talk about Lucy’s “conspiracy” only for Killian to ask who she thinks he is. However, somewhere in the translation it’s lost that Killian is his step-dad, so Henry just says his dad, leading to a “well you do have my chin,” commentary from Killian.

When the curse breaks they just squint at each other for a really long time.

Now, for the sake of the prompt, this is gonna be very heavily AU from season 7. This is by no means a “fix-it fic” because I really am enjoying season 7; I’m only writing this because I really wanted to see something like this be a thing after reading the comment. I absolutely love father/son bonding fics between Killian and Henry and I need more of it in my life… (Seriously there aren’t enough Captain Cobra centered fics to satisfy my craving for it). And I know that I said “I wish I was creative enough to contribute to the fandom of Once Upon a Time”, but after posting my last little snippet; I figured “what the hell I’m gonna do it anyway” because that’s what fandom is (I still feel like I suck terribly but *shrug* if you’re having fun doing it than screw being good at it, right?). (((Also something that should have been maybe 2000 words or less, ended up running away from me toward 4000 (my brain projecting my need for more Captain Cobra moments I guess)… I realize a lot of it is probably considered filler and I could have done away with it, but I kinda wanted to build that relationship between cursed Killian and Henry much like the relationship between Snow White and Emma in season 1)))).

Anyway, here’s a bit of backstory that I came up with for the AU universe of this fic…. If you don’t care and simply just want to read the story, than you can simply scroll down to the Continue reading link:

So in this AU, I’ve pretty much figured that Rumple, Killian, Regina and Emma came to save the day for Henry (Henry may have asked for Killian, Regina and Emma, but the three probably went to Rumple for help or something and Belle urged him to go). I’m thinking the timeline in the realm Henry is in moves faster than the timeline that is Storybrooke, so Henry might be 25 and not 18, but to the rest of his family only 1 year has passed since Henry left in search of his own story((((wondering if this is actually canon considering how shocked they were at seeing him so grown and I don’t believe for a single second that it took Emma and Killian that long to have a baby)))). Emma wasn’t pregnant at the time but eventually as they all stay and help the resistance against Tremaine and Drizella (after finding a way to send word back home that everything and everyone is alright and that they’re staying to help… maybe Rumple being pushed by Belle to stay and help them too), she and Killian end up having twins, and barely a year later Henry has his own kid with Ella. When the curse comes and separates them all, the curse spans the whole state of Washington (Tremaine or Drizella wanting to separate as many of them as they could and not keep them all in the same place… especially the true love couples. But they didn’t bank on Lucy remembering or Rumple finding a loop hole so he didn’t get cursed along with everyone else), so HH is the main hive so to speak but the fairy-tale characters are scattered across other cities and towns. Emma is off in one city (maybe Walla Walla), their twin daughters are in a group home in another city, Henry lived somewhere in Olympia (which is close enough to Seattle and HH), Robin (because I need Regina to be happy damn it! And I figure maybe they found that his soul wasn’t destroyed but simply stuck in the crystal, even across all alternate versions of said crystal in any realm, so he ends up getting freed) is also scattered somewhere, and Rumple, Killian, Regina, Ella and Lucy remained in HH where Tremaine and/or Drizella could keep an eye on them and make their lives a living hell. When Lucy finds Henry, and Jacinda steals his car (much like in the show and what not), he decides to stay at a motel for a week, finding the place interesting (and spurring a bit of creativity that he hadn’t felt since his failed first book) and eventually that week turns into him finding an actual place to stay once he gets to know the people in the neighborhood (made hard by the outrageous prices being asked). When Detective Rogers hears about his search, he offers to turn his den/office into a spare room (the only reason Regina/Roni didn’t offer is because she lives in a small studio apartment above the bar with the only closed room being a bathroom)…. Eventually Rumple as Weaver manages to get everyone back into the neighborhood (((he was the one to give Lucy the book. He was the one to find and bring back the cursed versions of Robin—Kevin Adams, who is a struggling lawyer that ends up helping Jacinda, by Rumple/Weaver’s prompting, get custody of Lucy back—and Emma—Danielle “Dani” Stevens, who was a sketch artist for Walla Walla police department. He was also the one to find which group home the twins were staying in and try to adopt them, since he wasn’t sure how long it would take to break the curse, and he didn’t want them staying there… Rumple and Killian might be civil borderline grey area friends, but he likes the twins and it’ll get them back to their family that much quicker once the curse is broken if he does it like this…)))) and the curse gets broken the same as in season 1 with Henry and Lucy (cause I’m unoriginal and my brain can’t think of anything else right now) ((((That should be enough of a background right? I don’t know… I’m terrible at this… don’t question the plot holes too much okay? You might get sucked into its black hole…))))

(((I looked at apartment averages in Seattle as a guideline (got rid of link since it wasn’t working)… and even though almost 3000 is very high for a one-bedroom apartment that Henry was looking for; I figured that Tremaine and Drizella were trying to weed out the people in the neighborhood slowly so they could bulldoze and improve and bring forth a ‘richer’ environment and a “richer” culture of people to surround themselves with, therefore causing more suffering and separation for those cursed and gaining something else for themselves….))))

((also when it comes to ages, I’m probably way off from canon, but these are my head canon ages for them here so… Emma was 28 at the start of season 1; Killian was 29, Regina 32. Adding 9 years considering Henry left at 18 and only a year passed in Storybrooke whereas 7 years passed where Henry was, that would make them 37, 38, and 41. With another 11ish to 12ish years they are now 48, 49, and 52 with Henry being 37ish.

tagging @superchocovian since she kindly asked me to (hope you enjoy it!!!)

Anyway, without farther ado, i give you this Captain Cobra one-shot in all it’s (step)father/son bonding glory!

Well, You do have my chin

Word count: 4203

Rating: pg-13 for my potty mouth

The din of Roni’s bar was oddly relaxing to Henry as he searched on his laptop for available apartments to move into, but after another site herald the same results, he sighed, closed the screen, and dropped his head into the crook of his arm. Was it too much to ask for a place within his price range? Hell, he was sure he could find something cheaper in the heart of Seattle than he could here.

But no, he stubbornly wanted to stay in this part of the neighborhood. There was something about Hyperion Heights, something that spoke to him, and not just Lucy’s crazy theory that his book was real and they were all fairytale characters scattered across the state (never mind the even crazier theory that he was her father—there was no way he could ever forget meeting a beautiful girl like Jacinda or be stupid enough not to fight for more than a one night stand with said woman).

The scraping of a chair across from him brought Henry’s attention up to that of the arrival of Detective Logan Rogers. The cop’s eyebrow was raised at him in silent question and concern as he sat down and nabbed the untouched bear claw from his plate.

“Bad day?” he asked finally with a tilt of his head as Roni approached with his usual beer.

When Henry still didn’t move to answer, simply groaning and hiding his face back in the crook of his arm, Roni supplied. “He’s looking for places to stay… and failing by the looks of it.”

“The asking prices are outrageous! How do you guys survive here?” he griped into his arm.

Roni snorted and Henry peeked up at her with a perturbed eyebrow raised. “You’ve seen the state of the neighborhood and the state of my bar before I decided to fight back. Isn’t that answer enough for you?”

“What’s your budget?” Logan cut in with his query before Henry could snark back and start an argument with the ornery bartender.

“Well,” Henry’s eyes shifted to him just as the older man took a bite out of the pilfered pastry. “With Seattle, I kind of figured I’d be lucky to find something for twenty-two hundred, but there is no way I’m paying almost three thousand for a place that’s barely in the city’s limits.”

“Welcome to the land of Belfrey greed.” chimed Roni as she walked back to tend the bar and the new arrival of customers.

Henry scowled un-amusedly at her back as she went.

“I have space,”

Startled, Henry gazed, wide eyed, back at the Detective. “What?”

“Well, it’s not really a ‘room’, but the den can easily be turned into one.” Logan continued, his good hand going up to scratch nervously behind his ear.

“Wha—Why?” Tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, Henry pressed on. “I know the three of us are ‘kinda’ working together, but we barely know each other. Hell, for all you know I could be a serial killer.” at Logan’s snort and raised brow, Henry rolled his eyes and said defensively. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I trust you.” Logan relented simply with a shrug of his shoulders. “Besides, I have a gun I’m not afraid to use, and you look to be out of options, mate.”

Still eyeing the older man with suspicion, not used to blatantly kind gestures from others, he asked. “Can I swing by to look at your place before I decide?”

“Of course.” taking a swig of his beer, Logan gestured with his head to the closed laptop. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

(***)

Walking into the apartment after Logan, Henry took in the sparsely decorated living space with a familiar pang beating against his chest. It was neat and orderly, everything he considered the detective to be, even after a week of working covertly with him and Roni. But seeing it so bare, devoid of… well, devoid of life and personality; it all just resonated with him. There wasn’t even a single picture or photo on the walls or table tops (Henry knows there are photos of Logan out there. He’s seen the pictures Roni hangs proudly on the walls of her establishment, knows that the picture of Logan and Roni—two best friends, he’s come to learn, that grew up together in the neighborhood—has a special place right behind the bar where she works). There was nothing, other than the books neatly tucked into a shelf, to give Henry a glimpse into what made this man Logan Rogers.

Walking through the 900 square foot space, he knew it wasn’t just the home of a bachelor; it was the home of someone who was just as lost as Henry himself felt. A space made entirely out of necessity rather than be made to feel like an actual home. It reminded him of his years after the foster system, before he had met his late wife, where he had had nothing of that old life worth keeping. Anything he had gained afterwards had been destroyed by the fire that took his wife and daughter three years ago, and after that he had just never bothered to start over (it wouldn’t bring them back and honestly they were all Henry wanted, not materialistic things).

As Logan led him through the kitchen toward the open den, Henry wondered what kind of past the man must have had, wondered if he too was an orphan looking for a place to belong.

“Here it is.” Logan stated with a flourish of his hand and ultimately cutting Henry out of his thoughts.

His eyes roved over the small space, at the neat and tidy desk underneath the window and the wall lined with more bookshelves and books and a single three-drawer filing cabinet.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much… doesn’t even have a door.”

Henry’s eyes cut to the older man just as he saw his good hand go to scratch behind his ear (a nervous tick he’d come to realize early on in the week). “No, it’s perfect,” He reassured as he walked around the opened room; envisioning where his stuff would fit. “I don’t really need that much space anyway.” he moved back to the opened archway and gave the man a small smile. “And privacy can be fixed with a curtain,”

“Does that mean you accept my offer?”

“If you don’t mind me for a roommate, than yeah, I’ll take it.”

(***)

A little over one month since his move into the neighborhood, and not once did Henry regret his decision (well, maybe a little; after all, Victoria Belfrey and her daughter are a force to be reckoned with… and good god did those two give him a headache sometimes). He genuinely liked it here; he liked most of the quirky people and he could clearly see why the neighborhood was worth trying to save. He also found rooming with Logan to be better than he originally expected. Sure they had their moments (like the kitchen incident that nearly gave the detective an aneurysm, or how scarily grumpy Logan could get when he’s had a bad day at the station), but their camaraderie was easy going between them, and for once after three years, Henry felt like he had a true friend again.

It was because of this easy camaraderie that Henry and Logan, one Saturday morning, found themselves planning a Star Wars marathon and arguing over the order in which to watch it (“They’re my movies, Rogers!” “And it’s my TV, Mills.”).

Somehow Henry won the argument, which found Logan sitting on the couch with the large popcorn bowl settled on the middle cushion and a beer in his hand, while Henry squatted down in front of their combined movie collection to find the first disk.

As he skimmed the neatly ordered DVDs for the one he wanted, his finger froze on a particular title and could barely contain the Cheshire cat grin as he pulled it out and pivoted to face the detective.

“The Princess Bride: Special Edition.”

Logan scowled and pointed his finger at him as he defended. “Shove off, mate, it’s a good book and a good movie; leave it alone.”

The grin on Henry’s face turned impish as he pivoted back and added as he went, “As you wish.”

The couch pillow thrown at his back did nothing to curb his mirth.

(***)

It was almost three months after his move to Hyperion Heights, that Henry managed to work the nerve enough (more like getting the quadrant that was Roni, Logan, Sabine and Lucy to shut up, and to stop hounding him to try and move on and be happy) to ask Jacinda on a date.

Glancing at himself in the hallway mirror, and trying to ignore the grinning idiot leaning against the wall a few paces behind him; he felt the bubbling of nerves roiling in his stomach as he finally turned to face his roommate.

“You’ll be fine,” Logan soothed with the utmost confidence. “You didn’t have any problems when you were flirting with her, one date isn’t going to kill you, mate. Just be yourself.”

“Yeah, be myself.” Henry snorted and rubbed his sweating palms against his jean clad thighs. “Cause any girl would swoon at a failed writer, a widowed husband, and a nerd for all things 80’s, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Tolkien related.”

“Henry,” Logan stepped forward than, placing his hand and prosthetic firmly on his shoulders as he earnestly stated. “You’ve told Jacinda all of this already and yet she still accepted to go to this concert with you. So cut yourself a little slack, give her a little more credit than that, and go out tonight and have fun.”

(***)

It was almost six months after his move, and during one of their covert meet ups at the bar, when Henry felt a little friendly revenge against Roni and Logan was in order (because dear god, if they didn’t stop and take their own damn advice, he was going to go crazy… or take Roni’s bat and beat himself or them with it… really, he wasn’t picky).

It hadn’t been long after his and Jacinda’s first—or even their second— date that Jacinda decided enough was enough and it was time to try and win custody of her daughter back from her step mother. Detective Weaver had recommended a Lawyer from Spokane, and ever since Kevin Adams stepped foot into Roni’s bar, the two had done nothing but snark at each other.

Within the same month, a missing person’s case had popped up that apparently Weaver thought required the work of a sketch artist from Walla Walla… or so Logan kept griping to him to no freaking end. Honestly, Henry thought Danielle (or Dani as she asked to be called) a rather nice woman, maybe a little too bubbly and Chatty Cathy at times, but if Logan was to be believed than she was the worst woman he had ever had the displeasure to work with.

Yeah… right…

Denial, she is a river, and both of them are currently drowning at the bottom of it.

“So,” He began innocently around a mouthful of pizza. “When are you both going to stop pussy-footing around and ask Dani and Kevin out?”

The soda Logan was drinking and the pizza Roni was currently chewing, both ended up spat out on the table and floor, and the word vomit that followed as they tried to deny it had Henry rolling his eyes so hard he was surprised that they didn’t just roll right out of his head.

“Uh-huh,” putting his slice back down on his plate, he folded his arms across his chest and stared them both down, feeling for all the world like the no nonsense father he should have been to the daughter that would have been thirteen now. “Guys, I’m not stupid… and the last I checked my vision was perfect, so not blind either.” He cut them off before they could rush to deny it any farther. “If I have to sit here and watch you two continue with this charade a moment longer, I will either be checking myself in somewhere or Detective Weaver will have not one but three missing person’s cases to contend with.”

They didn’t try to feed him any more bullshit after that, which he was grateful for, because seriously there was only so much a person can take.

And if he caught his roommate dressed (rather nicely) in a blue button up shirt, black iron pressed slacks, and trying to rush past him and out the door before Henry could say a word with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in hand.

Well… he could only thank whatever deity listening for small miracles.

(***)

It’s at elven months since his move, that Henry felt for all the world a content man. Jacinda had won her battle against her step-mother, and Lucy had become a constant presence in the apartment, especially since he had offered to watch her after school while Jacinda worked. He loved Lucy and her precocious nature, found her imagination beyond incredible for an elven year old and even began to look forward to hearing her crazy theories about them being cursed.

Sometimes they would be alone, with him helping her with her homework and other times Logan would be there, smiling and humoring her and her theories like they all had agreed to do.

It was during one of these nights, after Jacinda and Lucy had eaten dinner with them and left, that Logan’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. They were in the kitchen, Henry washing the dishes while his roommate dried them, that Logan broke the comfortable silence.

“Who does she think I am?”

“Huh?” Henry glanced over with a brow raised.

“Lucy,” he elaborated. “With her theories, who does she think I am? She never tells me when I ask.”

Henry snorted out a chuckle as he handed over the plate and proceeded washing the next one while answering. “Captain Hook.”

“You’re kidding.” The dry look Henry gave him caused him to roll his eyes. “It’s the hand isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Henry shrugged. “Or it could be the fact that she thinks you’re my dad.”

“What?” Logan froze mid swipe with the towel and Henry could practically feel the man’s eyes burning his profile.

“Yeah, crazy, I know.”

“Mate, if she is to be believed and you are my son; I would have had you when I was 11…”

They both chuckled at that.

“Again, crazy, I know.”

They went back to the comfortable silence as they worked, but the occasional contemplative side eye he would catch Logan giving him in his peripheral as they cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, eventually had Henry turning to stare blatantly at the man’s profile with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Do I have barbeque sauce on my face or something?”

Startled, Logan shifted his attention away from the stove top he was wiping down, and met his eyes with that contemplative expression still in place.

“No, you’re fine.” He distractedly answered.

“Than what’s on your mind? And don’t tell me nothing; you’ve been staring at me off and on for the past five minutes?”

“I was just thinking.”

The other brow rose to meet its twin as he deadpanned. “Clearly,”

Logan rolled his eyes and elaborated. “I was thinking about what you said, about who Lucy thinks I am.”

“Logan, none of that is real.”

“No, I know that… but—now that it’s been said, I can’t help but see it. Hell, Henry you can’t tell me that you can’t see it, not even a little bit.”

Henry tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at him; his eyebrows practically at his hairline now.

“We do look a little alike, mate; long lost cousins or brothers or something. I mean you do kinda have my chin, our noses are almost similar and the brow structure too…” he trailed off.

With a snort, Henry joked. “You’ve been hanging out with Dani too much, you’re even starting to sound like a sketch artist.”

“Shut up,”

He dodged and caught the wet rag thrown at him, before tossing it back; both chuckling at the ridiculousness of it all as they finished up and moved to the couch to see what was on TV.

Expect, as the days and weeks progressed (and Weaver shockingly adopted two pre-teen girls from Aberdeen that looked eerily like Dani and Logan), Henry found that he couldn’t stop thinking about it too (no matter how hard he tried to shake the insane notion from his head each and every time it sprung back into the forefront of his thoughts).

He’d often catch himself staring at Logan when the older man was distracted and—illogically enough as it was—could practically see what the other man was talking about.

It was crazy.

It wasn’t conceivable.

But damn it all if Logan wasn’t right.

They did share the same freaking chin, and though his nose was a bit larger than Logan’s, it was the same freaking shape.

Maybe he needed to check himself in somewhere after all…

(***)

Sixteen months after moving to Hyperion Heights, the curse was broken.

It had been an emotionally exhausting week beforehand, with Lucy suddenly falling into a coma that the doctors couldn’t medically explain. Jacinda had rightfully been beside herself with worry, and all Henry could feel was the crushing feeling of losing another loved one… another child. It had been the very reason why he didn’t like opening up, didn’t like taking these leaps of faith when it came to his heart and feelings. Yet he had stupidly allowed himself to get close to all these people, and stupidly thought he could have a second chance at a family, but those dreams had gone up in flames the first time and now plummeted back down from the stars a second time with the flat lining of the heart monitor as Jacinda brokenly wailed her heartache.

He didn’t feel the hand of his roommate trying to console him as he numbly watched Jacinda break down in the waiting room they had been forcibly moved too when the doctors came swarming into the room. Didn’t hear the words being spoken as Jacinda fought and then bonelessly collapsed in Sabine and Roni’s arms; her wails gut wrenching and shredding his already scarred heart to pieces. The flood of his emotions and his own tears didn’t come until after the doctor told them that their precious, precocious little Lucy was truly and utterly gone, that the defibrillator failed to restart her heart.

It was Logan who caught him when his legs refused to hold his weight any longer, when the world suddenly came crushing down around him and nothing felt right anymore. And it was Logan who helped him into the chair; the warm presence of his roommates hand at the back of his neck guiding his head to lean on his broad shoulder. And he took the comfort and sobbed for all he was worth. Sobbed for the loss of the wife and daughter he had had to bare losing and moving on from all on his own, sobbed for Jacinda and how much she didn’t deserve to know the gut wrenching pain that losing a child brought, sobbed for Lucy who had been robbed of her own dreams, who had been robbed the chance to live and grow.

His heart hurt as he followed Jacinda into the room to say goodbye, the tears blurring his vision at seeing the white sheet lying over Lucy’s little body; so final in its position that it made him want to collapse all over again. But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for Jacinda as he was the one to hold her upright as they moved toward the bed.

Her sobs as she pulled back the sheet to view her daughters pale face tore at him even more, her words a broken, jumbled mess as she climbed onto the bed and wept onto her daughters unmoving chest.

Running on autopilot, Henry’s feet moved of their own accord; one hand going to Jacinda’s shaking back and the other to card the bangs off of Lucy’s forehead.

“I’m sorry Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.” He whispered as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her crown.

The whoosh of wind startled him and before he could right himself to wonder where it came from, the overwhelming flood of memories came next; slamming everything back into place and causing the air to deflate right out of his lungs. The watery, startled gasp from Ella (his wife, his true love) told him she remembered too, but it was the choked rush of life from his daughter, his daughter (his beautiful and very much alive little girl, his other true love), that was bloody music to his ears and heart.

“Papa? Mama?” she wheezed out as her eyes foggily and confusedly took them and her surroundings in.

“Baby!”

Everything was alright.

Everything in the world was right again.

(***)

The moment Lucy was cleared to leave; the overdue reunion of their family came afterwards. The battle was far from over; not with Tremaine and Drizella currently in hiding and no one knowing where they had run off too, but they were together again, and at the moment that was enough for them all as they celebrated at the bar that had been his adoptive mother’s home for the last eighteen months.

Henry had his wife and daughter back, his half-sisters, both his mothers, both his step-fathers and his grandfather. To say he was over the moon would have been an understatement as the din of fairytale characters and his family filled the industrial styled establishment.

It was all so overwhelming still that he had to take a seat at one of the tables; simply content to watch as he sipped at his beer. Killian soon joined him with his own glass, rum he was sure now that the man remembered who he was, and the thought of step-fathers in general had his mind venturing to their conversation once again.

It must have been on Killian’s mind as well because before either knew what they were truly doing, they were starting at one another, eyes narrowed and the rim of their drinks to their lips as they tried to see what apparently their cursed selves had been able to see.

“Man, I hope this is the last curse we ever have to face. I’ve lost count at how many cursed memories we’ve had forced into our heads at this point.” Emma groaned, yet her arrival didn’t completely break their staring contest as she dropped into the chair next to Killian; her eyes not yet looking at either of them but at her daughters who were laughing along with Lucy near the corner of the bar. She blindly but efficiently snatched her husband’s glass out of his hand and downed the last shot of the dark amber that was left as she continued. “Seriously though, can you imagine the identity crisis we’ll have in our old age if we get Alzheimer’s?” Finally glancing over at them, and realizing she had neither her son nor her husband’s attention, she raised an eyebrow and asked with trepidation. “What’s up with you two? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah love,” Killian briefly met Emma’s eyes, before he was squinting back at Henry as he continued. “Apparently while cursed, and thanks to our lovely granddaughter, the two of us got it into our heads that we were blood related; something about seeing similarities in our features and what have you.”

Blinking once than twice, Emma’s eyes bounced from one to the other, before she was tilting her head and squinting at them as well. Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded to herself, shrugged, and stated. “I can see it, especially when you wear your hair like this and stop shaving.” She grinned and chuckled and leaned forward to ruffle her son’s gel slicked hair, which Henry swatted away with a scowl as he tried to fix it back into place.

However her statement only proceeded to have them squint even harder at each other, and Emma could do nothing more than laugh at her first two goofy true loves.

As the celebrations began to die down and people started heading home, Henry and Killian simply shrugged and let it go as they hugged each other goodbye for the night (each having every intention of spending this night with their loved ones).

“Well,” Killian began softly. “Blood related or not, you’re still my son Henry; always have been, my boy.”

The smile that stretched Henry’s face, nearly threatened to split his skin from ear to ear as he replied just as softly but no less sincerely. “Thanks, dad.”

And if they hugged each other just a little tighter and their eyes shone just a little brighter with emotion, no one that witnessed the moment commented on it.

#captain cobra #captain swan #henry x cinderella #glass believer #hooked queen friendship #outlaw queen #once upon a time #ouat s7 AU #ouat ff #once upon a time fanfiction #my fanfiction

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