Fruits Basket Prelude - Favorite Moments

I'm still seeing a lot of angry takes in the tags about how excessive Watcher's current costs are and how all fans really want, apparently, is "just shane and ryan sitting in a basement" back again. While I do think Watcher is probably spending over budget and that's a real issue, a lot of the takes I'm seeing show a fundamental misunderstanding of how video production works and where costs actually lie. So a few quick things that I just keep seeing that are bothering me:

It was never just Shane and Ryan in a basement. BFU did a great job selling that conceit and making sure you never saw anyone beyond them and maybe TJ, but they absolutely had other crew members with them on ghost hunts and they didn't do all the work on BFU themselves. This Q&A from Season 2 lists 36 people on staff for Buzzfeed Unsolved. It's fair to make arguments that Watcher may or may not need 25 people, but those arguments should not be coming from a place of "before it was just Shane and Ryan and nobody else."

If you don't know how many people are needed to make a professional video from a TV/film standpoint, you will not have a reasonable grasp of why Watcher wants to keep 25 people on staff. Sure, some YouTubers get by with a ring light and a contracted editor. The Watcher team have stated repeatedly that they do not want to work as just YouTubers and see themselves more as a production studio—so why do people keep referencing the YouTube model to understand their business? This is like asking the local shake shop why it doesn't function like the kids' lemonade stand down the block. The item category is similar but they're not trying for the same products or process.

The "gold dusted food" is not the big budget sink you think it is. On most TV shows I've worked on it's normal to partner with businesses that are shown onscreen and work out a deal where the price of the product (in this case the gold food) is reduced or eliminated in exchange for the free publicity. Watcher very likely made a deal with every restaurant it worked with to make the Korea trip affordable for the company. The real budget spends are on things you're probably not seeing but that still matter: camera and lighting equipment is expensive, insurance for that equipment is expensive, business overhead and paying your staff are expensive. So again—it's fine to critique Watcher for the streaming plan and the perceived budgetary issues, but go into this knowing the costs might not be coming from the things you see onscreen.

My source is that I work in TV and film and actually have a clue on how the industry functions. Again, 36 people worked on Unsolved (and those were the people mention in Season 2—who knows how big the team blew up past that in later seasons). Entertainment work is real work, and demands decent equipment, competent staff, and the same types of business and budget problems you'd find in any other business (overhead, staffing, etc.). Feel free to critique Watcher's business model, but first try to understand where that model is coming from and what goals it's attempting to serve.

pose making they could never make me hate you

God okay my 4halo brainworms are gonna win real quick hold please

I swear to god when q!Forever took q!Bad to see the sunset every time Forever said, “It’s beautiful” or “it’s such a nice view” Bad turned to stare at him before agreeing. Like that man was NOT watching the sunset. But he’s simultaneously so oblivious arghhhhhh

…

Forever, basically: Do you want to walk along the beach with me and maybe sit on a bench together and watch the sunset?

Bad, completely seriously: Oh is this for a quest?

and I’m just like

NO ITS NOT A FUCKING QUEST HE’S TRYING TO DATE YOU

The newest installment of the Cult AU was so amazing and gratifying! I do have to ask about Dipper's reaction when Bill suggested that next time he hide *in* his bed - should we assume that Dipper just truly doesn't think there's any possibility that Bill would want him like that, or does it potentially reflect some truly non-existent sex ed within the cult? Did the cultists have relationships like that within the cult?

I hope you post this AU and your other shorter works on AO3, id love to be able to bookmark and comment.

Thank you for your kind words!

Dipper's reaction was mostly because the cult had sub-par to non-existent sex ed. Though to be fair, even if he was aware that Bill was, ahem, an option, he definitely wouldn't think there's any way he'd want Dipper like that.

I’m actually curious to see if, and honestly hope, in s2 (whenever that may come out. Studios pay your writers and actors) we get some sort of callback or allusion to the rumor that Jacaerys tried to convert Cregan from the old gods to the faith of the seven.

Not because I care about the gods, outside the religious symbolism they bring. I only want to see people’s reactions. Namely the ones who act as if Alicent is the first woman to ever openly practice the faith. Because I have a feeling those same people will paint Jace possibly doing that as endearing versus Alicent who gets painted as a monster for her connection to the faith. The most we see Alicent doing a redecorating her home. Mind you, not even every room because you can clearly see the tacky tapestries in Viserys’ room in ep 8. Plus we see her praying and wearing religious iconography. Things that are not out of the ordinary… at all. She’s honestly your textbook highborn noble woman during that time. She was born and raised in Oldtown ffs. What is she supposed to follow if not the faith💀

She gets seen as this horrible zealot out to destroy the Targaryens through the faith, and to me that is just indicative on how badly people misinterpret Alicent’s feelings/motivations.

People can have their problems with the writing in hotd. I know there are certain things I have problems with myself. But when can we start being honest about how a lot of the conversations that are regurgitated and argued about day after day have less to do with the writing, and more to do with bad faith viewing. People are watching to see what they want to see, not what is actually in front of them.

Anyone with an objective view of Alicent would be able to tell how much she clings to the faith for salvation and hope. She does it to feel close to her mother, and very kindly/cautiously tries to help Rhaenyra with that too. She then reaffirms her faith after 1. She (imo justifiably) loses her shit at Driftmark and feels guilty about it, and 2. Has to marry her children to each other. Something she expresses thinking is immoral in the past. We even see her cut her hair, more than likely as a means of punishment and repentance. She’s miserable and has very few lifelines to hold onto.

How that gets twisted into her being a bigot because she doesn’t want to see dragons having orgies on her walls is beyond me.

Also the idea she is trying to bring down House Targaryen is nuts, but also laughable. Because between her and her actual Targaryen husband, Alicent is the one affirming her childrens’ Targaryen heritage. She makes sure Aemond knows he will get a dragon one day. She makes sure Aegon gets Blackfyre and his namesake’s crown. It seems like Aemond, and more than likely her other kids, know Valyrian. Ironically, the most anti targ (and frankly valid) sentiments we get are from Viserys. He speaks on the doom, fears what is to come, and how they never should have messed with dragons.

Alicent ‘let the people remember the ancient strength of House Targaryen’ Hightower is not the Baelor y’all want her to be. And if she was, it would’ve worked in her favor more. People tend to leave out the part where the most beloved Targaryens (by their people) were partly that because of their connection to the faith. Ya know the thing Targaryens also practice.

Ah yes, my favourite Gungrave characters, uuuuh...

Black Chapel and Michael Stampede?

(AKA some silly fanart based on that one Trigun cameo in the Gungrave anime)

if you as a fic reader ever become possessed by the urge to do a popularity bracket with the fics other people wrote and shared for fun and for free, consider:

don't ❤️ 

started doing my t injections in my thighs (still subcutaneous) because i got some scar tissue buildup on my stomach and honestly thigh injections rule. i get to take my pants off to do my shot. remember to rotate your injection site 😻

... why he sit like this

I couldn't stop thinking about an AU where Daniel resorts to gathering vitae again, this time to 'cure' Hazel, after his Brennenburg adventure💫, thoughts all mainly derived from this loadscreen text that tells us that Hazel is still in hospice care by the time the game's story began.

As much as I love Daniel, I don't think he really learned all that much from his experience even in the most charitable ending towards him in which he saves Agrippa. I can very, VERY easily see him slipping back into old ways if it meant saving Hazel. The most he seems to approach viewing torture as bad is when he realizes he himself no longer counts as an innocent so he can't justify killing others to save himself anymore. But killing no good, horrible, bad people to save HAZEL? Now, we're cooking with gas 😀 💀

y’all are so weird. if you hate the way i characterized regulus in ahb! then,,, stop reading it? no one is forcing you to read it?? you can just put it down,,, you know that right???? who has the gun to your head making you click next chapter??? you can just stop reading it at any time. no really, trust me!

This flashback shows tooru bragging about his nephew after akira's death, but honestly, I can imagine uncle tooru constantly bringing up his nephew even before he started raising him.

Imagine how annoyed (and maybe hurt, idk, touma is very determined to be a cold-hearted super asshole. I assume some part of him did care about his relationship with akira not working out because he's so bitter towards mahiru who looks just like her. Doesn't excuse his behaviour but that's probably why he acts the way he does) touma must have been to have his team member constantly bring up his sister's son and tooru not getting why this pissed off touma so much because neither of them was aware of the paternity yet.

Touma seemed shocked when tooru told him mahiru was his child and he replied that akira hadn't told a single thing about it to him. So all these years he must have assumed that the father of tooru's nephew must have been another man, which I assume must have caused at least some negative feelings towards the boy in him.

kiryu sitting haruka down for a really important talk and looking nervous but deeply serious about it and when he finally speaks he gives an honest and vulnerable admission that upon much self reflection, as unlikely as it may seem, as shocking as it may come, he is, in fact, gay, and he hopes this doesn’t make her feel any distress or discomfort in-part due to the implication that he likely didn’t have romantic feelings for her mom, he did care very very much for her regardless of labels, and so on and so on. and she lets him give this lengthy emotional confession that goes on for like twenty minutes before he finally goes dead silent anxiously anticipating her response. and she’s just like. uncle kaz I really appreciate you opening up to me like this and I’m really proud of you for accepting yourself for who you are. but me and every other kid at morning glory figured this out like 10 years ago

This was supposed to be higher quality but tumblr didn’t want that thicc gif file

WIP under the cut