#edit: and ALSO guy has far far less of a role than he did before the breakup

[nobodysomeday]

whats your beef with guy chambers🤓 whats the teeaaaa

lmaoooo the tea is I’ve read Feel and Reveal and watched Rob's Netflix docu-series and Nobody Someday and tons of tour and studio behind the scenes, as well as dozens of concerts and tv performances where Guy has played with the band, both in the early days and since they've reconciled.

… And I decided I like what he’s contributed to the music, but I don’t like him very much as a person. I think he’s insensitive and rude and I don’t like how he treated Rob. I also think he intentionally took away a lot of the credit that should’ve gone to Rob who is a brilliant songwriter on his own. Like it’s obvious that it bothered him when songs Rob wrote without him did so well. I also think he was oblivious to his mistakes for YEARS even though Rob made it very clear how Guy had hurt him, and he became bitter about being fired from the partnership that was said to be the greatest since Elton and Bernie and refused to take accountability for being an asshole. He just didn't understand why Rob was so upset with him. Which is insane to me because Rob is very in touch with his emotions and is very good about explaining them, yet Guy was just like ??? idk what I could've possibly done to deserve being outcast ??

I do think he’s gotten better, he's matured. I mean he's 62 years old now you'd hope that's the case. And Rob has forgiven him so ya gotta respect that, but to me he’s still awkwardly out of place in the band personality-wise. He just doesn't get the vibe. So he bothers me.

[the0ther-side0f-dawn]

anyway i have some thoughts

and yes im still talking about Kathryn Hahn and i know I'm several months late to the party

but what i cannot get over is all the comments on things saying that 'regrettably she is straight' or quoting her as being straight

now there are a number of reasons this irks me

and this broadly applies to other celebrities and public figures, and even characters too

but basically i think it endorses heteronormativity

and unfortunately i never have a thought that isnt an entire essay

anyway these are my reasons

1. not that im passionate about my logic here, but allies are important. and she has shown nothing but appreciation for women and her queer audience.

2. she's played several queer characters and uuhh... maybe that is typecasting. like she knows she gets cast as the quirky best friend, and not the pretty main girl love interest. she fits those roles better. but also being open to those roles, and queer roles too, and comfortable in those roles says something as well.

3. and i am willing to be proven wrong here... when tf did she say she was straight?? or are y'all making some assumptions just bc she has been happily married to a guy and has kids??

like what kind of heteronormative bullshit?? like this woman has never explicitly said she is queer so therefore she must be straight??

this logic is the whole reason the trauma of coming out even exists. like so many fans get mad about other fans 'speculating' or 'projecting queerness' and saying that we shouldn't make assumptions and she's a real person blah blah blah.

and this happens with other celebrities too. but all of that defensiveness is built on the foundation that queer is the 'other' and that there is inherently something scandalous or negative about associating queerness with someone.

and to call that out, is again, portraying double standards, since it's all to just uphold the status quo and advance the narrative thay straight is the default.

and im not going to ignore the elephant. she is a real person and entitled to her privacy. now hacking into her social media or going after her friends/family etc. or any other forms of harassment or stalking, or spreading lies in the form of bad journalism or defamation- that would be inappropriate (not that i have heard of this happening to her. but i know it has happened to other celebrities or public figures before).

but normal fan engagement and showing up to conventions and being silly on twitter and making little edits and engaging in forums and discussions- which yeh may involve speculation or projecting. thats fairly par for the course. thats normal behaviour. people want to feel represented and seen and that's okay.

now, for as far as what i've actually seen when it comes to Kathryn's sexuality...

when that one journalist actually asked her outright about her sexuality (bold. also so uncomfortable and not really cool at all)... her response definitely highlighted that it was a private matter but also in no way did she give an easy answer of 'yeh, i have a husband, im straight' (tho i know she was talking to a queer journalist. and so thats a less easy anwer when you're marketing yourself and your movie to a queer audience, but there would never have been backlash for affirming the assumption of heterosexuality - like he asks the question by acknowledging she has a husband...)

anyway, what she says is "we're all grown ups and it's all real fluid and it's all nobody's business"

like, that is a very queer response.

like utilising words like fluid, rather than just distinct notions of straight/gay/bi... and she talks in other interviews about her characters being open and fluid with their sexuality, and jokes about polyamoury... like that level of comfort with queer ideas and identities comes from engaging in those spaces. and yeh, maybe thats her allyship but also, we arent here to make assumptions.

she describes her character Agatha's sexuality as 'gender doesn't matter. love is love. sex is sex. I don't think you can pigeonhole Agatha' which honestly kind of reveals her own values, that any kind of 'monosexual' attraction (straight/gay) is restrictive and limiting - by use of the word pigeonhole.

and then there is her very well documented attraction to Rachel Weisz. like she has no fear demonstrating or even directly talking about her attraction to women so why would anyone assume she is straight???

and she clearly even has an in joke with her friends that she has this unspoken attraction to women and propensity to take on queer roles (see her appearance on Amy Poehler's podcast, when Amy references her "lesbian tendencies")

also she is so so proud and enamoured by her lesbian army of supporters. like she has talked several times about the joy of having this audience and the way her face lights up at the mention of it.

like there is a plethora of evidence to suggest she could be queer and yet fan spaces want to argue that acknowledging that is inappropriate or invasive or jumping to conclusions?? personally, i think propping up assumptions of straightness, by ignoring and shutting down any talk of queer tendencies, is what is uncool- it's homophobic tbh.

[mariana-oconnor]

After a short break to do... I don't even know. I am back on my bullshit with Roar (1997), the 90s fantasy show starring Heath Ledger I never even knew I'd missed out on.

Episode 4 is titled "Banshee" so there had better be some screaming.

Okay... fair bet that the banshee is a beautiful woman wearing very little clothing.

The thumbnail has Heath Ledger doing his best kicked puppy impression, which makes sense because banshees herald death. Who's going to die? Moustache? BFFOC? Potential Love Interest?

I'm guessing probably not potential love interest, but alas both of the others are distinctly possible. Given the era, I'm not holding my breath for BFFOC (I think his name was Tully? I genuinely don't remember any character names in this show yet, not properly.) But I would have expected him to get another couple of episodes of character building before his tragic demise. Moustache (Fergal? Fergus?) has had the most character work done so far, so he might shuffle off the mortal coil.

We shall have to see.

We're just starting out with the wailing. Which, not to put down the sound designers at all, sounds more like a cross between a wolf and a cockerel than an eldritch unearthly being.

We're forging an alliance with a new clan while the Banshee provides backing music, very nice of them to lend their voice to this. Heath Ledger (Conor! I remembered his name!) gets a nice piece of new bling.

While Fergus serves the role of Mr Exposition. Repeating what I already said. Death is coming, no one knows who. He's a real hoot to have at your parties, ol' Fergus.

"What does this Banshee look like?"

Well, I'm going to guess they look like a woman who just raided the bondage aisle of the nearest sex shop, but I'm prepared to be wrong.

This is the chief of the clan they just allied with. I'm not holding out much hope for his survival. He just doesn't have that Main Character Energy, y'know?

But this guy?

Also doesn't have main character energy. But he wants to.

He also took it personally that the Banshee foretold his father's death and now he wants to hunt them down and kill them, which is just rude. Banshee's just out there, doing their job. Think of how sore their throat must be. No lozenges in 5th century Ireland, and a whole lot of death. This Banshee is putting in the hours and what do they get for that? No respect. They should unionise.

Also, his hair is a choice. Someone said 'mullet, but while the party's still at the back, the business end is the business end of a mace.

I'm calling him Sonic. I'm sure he has another name, but I will not remember it.

Which brings us to the world's least stealthy hunting squad.

OMG

Fancy seeing you here. I didn't recognise your name in the opening credits, but I definitely recognise your face. Guess our banshee's going to be more of a misunderstood person with a curse than a leather mommy type. But maybe both? Who knows.

Back shot of Sonic's hair because it needs to be seen to be believed:

Notably no one is asking for Brigid Branshee's name. She's not saying anything at all, just being fought over then letting Heath Ledger and pals walk away with her. Maybe she can't talk. Maybe she can only scream. Her poor vocal cords.

Maybe she isn't even the real banshee...

Oh wow, we found someone less stealthy than the hunting party.

This Roman soldier literally rattles when he walks. You can hear every step. They didn't edit it out. It's hilarious.

Oh no! Heath Ledger just got shot! But Brigid Branshee had a premonition of it just before it happened. She's not evil, she's just misunderstood. But Sonic wants her dead. God forbid a woman do anything.

I'm beginning to think I did late 90s fantasy a disservice by assuming the banshee would be wearing a skimpy leather outfit. In my defence, I watched all of Charmed.

I know we're not getting lesbians, but this episode has now actually passed the Bechdel Test and these two are bonding more with each other than either has with any of the other characters. Over sheep, admittedly, but the rituals are intricate. Which is all to say I think there should be ancient irish lesbians and one of them should be a banshee. (Seriously, love interest, whose name I still can't remember, has barely spoken two sentences to Heath Ledger and I am still fairly certain they were intended to end up together by the end of this show. She's had an entire conversation with the banshee.)

Oh, there's a woman having a baby. I'm sure everything will be just fine. No harbingers of death anywhere near here. no sir. totally normal lesbians only. Banshee? Never heard of her.

...yee-eah... saw that one coming. And now they're all going to be like 'hey, you screamy lady. you did this' I swear to god, not a one of these idiots understands the nature of cause and effect. Although, it being the baby not the mother? On 90s TV? Ballsy fucking move, Roar. And then showing the funeral? Kudos for committing.

To be fair to them, one of them did point out that maybe harbouring a woman who screams uncontrollably isn't the best idea when you're in hiding. An actual reasoned argument.

Meanwhile Evil Queen is sloppy drunk:

And sexually harassing another rattling soldier.

Who is about to be defenestrated, I'm pretty sure, because he doesn't want to fuck her. Oh... he's going to rattle all the way down.

Oh... no, she's going to hang out the window and scream at Sebastian Roche instead.

This is the face of a man who has just realised there isn't enough money in the world to make this job worthwhile.

Having a major villain whose entire quest is wanting to die is an interesting choice. One that really makes you question why Sebastian Roche and Heath Ledger are on different sides. They both want Sebastian Roche to fuck off and leave everyone alone. The only person who doesn't want that is the Evil Queen, who is the definition of a toxic relationship.

And realistically all Sebastian Roche has to do is leak the fact that the Spear of Destiny is the only thing that can stop him and Heath Ledger et al will find it for him. And even do the stabbing for him, if it comes to that. Genuinely not sure what the conflict between these two is. Or why it is. I'm sure we can all work together to kill Sebastian Roche.

"They say that demons rule up there." "They haven't met us yet."

Strong words for a man who when he came across an actual demon five minutes ago ran screaming like a little boy.

But apparently none of the banshees has ever seen Sebastian Roche's death. Shucks.

Apparentlt if a banshee drinks some river water their visions might not come true. Makes you wonder why the whole banshee village (yes there is a banshee village) doesn't just drink the damn river water. It wipes your memory, sure, but also might save lives? I know, I know, don't think too deeply.

No, but seriously tho...

They're definitely lesbians. This is not the way you say goodbye to the friend you met a couple of days ago. I have friends I've known for years I wouldn't be this upset to have lose their memories of me.

She's going to die, isn't she? She's going to wipe her mind and then Sonic's going to shoot her with a crossbow. Maybe any banshee who drinks the water dies and her mum just sent her to her death.

Ohp, yeah, here we go.

And her lover screams and shoots him through the heart in revenge. Istg. This is the gayest shit ever.

The river water memory stuff was bullshit, wasn't it? Her mother had seen her die and sent her to the river knowing that was where it would happen.

Well, that was significantly less misogynistic than expected. I'd better go and change the gif at the start of this post.

[maiji]

I'll request a reading if you're still doing them! why not. for my little guy Hana. what is he afraid of with regards to... his own history? 🤔 numbers.. 11 and 23. and if you're not still doing readings.. i hope you have a great day regardless!

I am absolutely delighted to do a reading for Hana from the webcomic Kings of Sorts! Hana seems like such a sweetie but from his very first appearance it's clear there's so much more to him than meets the eye. I'm nowhere near caught up on webcomic so this will be interesting, to see whether any patterns/interpretations we pull out manage to touch on anything that readers can already experience, or whether it just veers off into another direction of far-off general speculation. So if there somehow manage to be spoilers in this reading, I'm sorry, I had no idea either. lol

#11 was The Whip (which, by the way, is actually the eleventh card in Lenormand as well, interestingly enough), and #23 was The House. This combination actually made me gasp in light of the question. Kind of an "oh! / ohhh??" gasp. I think there's a lot of potential in terms of delving deeply into creative writing inspiration or character analysis!

The Whip is a card associated with many things that can cause pain: conflict, violence, shame, anger. And The House has already come up before, so we know it's used to represent a lot of things that seem like the exact opposite of The Whip - warmth, stability, things that make you feel cozy and happy and comfortable. But it's also associated with private matters. In other words, the exterior facade presented to the world may be brightness and cheer but there may be something much darker happening behind closed doors. I am reminded of when we first meet Hana in his home, and the scene where he talks about wanting to be able to help the people in his community in some way, any way...

In short, looking for a connection between the two cards that could be a cause for fear in Hana's history seems like we have a plethora of options. If we're being super dark - was there past punishment and suffering that separated him from things he considered home or family? Did they hurt, or were they caused by, people he would consider family? And whips are also things used to control - there's a lot of symbolism for a whip as not only a weapon and instrument of torture, but also a stereotype of a tool used to manage things seen as dangerous, wild and/or "other", like some kind of beast tamer. It has a lot of cruelty associated with it.

We don't have to go down the path of only super dark places, by the way. The Whip doesn't have to be interpreted in an extreme fashion - though I suppose with creative writing/inspiration we can often feel like that's an obvious or exciting and dramatic route to go down. It can also represent an argument, a physical activity (an injury?), something much less overtly traumatic but still play a major role in a core memory/event. Also, this Whip has flags added to it for greater control and sound effects - there's a sense that it can be for show, engineered as part of a performance.

I hope this was helpful! Thank you for the opportunity to read for Hana. Please don't be too mean to him!

---

Thanks for requesting a limited time free reading to celebrate the new edition of the Fortune Lenormand oracle/art deck!

Want to dive deeper?

Fortune Lenormand oracle/art deck - there's a free downloadable overview of card meanings!

humangray.com/lenormand - more info and resources/links!

(Note: these readings are being done with my old card deck from the original printing. There's not much difference with the new edition available in the link above - the biggest one is that the new edition has a custom box ooh ahh!)

[beyou-black]

A Complete Account of the Hive Mind: Volume 1 - The Torture Branch // A Note & Account 1: Mason Moore

Now that the War on Misfits is coming to an end and I have finally settled down with my partner, I have decided to publish these interviews I got from the four branches, as well as a few friends. These are supplementary to the logs that some of the survivors of the time are doing, but not necessary for the understanding of the story itself. The first volume of the four is the accounts of the torture branch, the oldest of the four. As they were illiterate at the time of the interviews, these were recorded on tape and then transcribed by the late Colin Scroll and edited by yours truly. I hope that you  all may be enlightened by these accounts, and possibly see these peculiar characters and their actions in a new light.

-Anette Scroll, mate to (The name has been colored over)

///

Important Vocabulary

Diversum - Diversum Academy; One of the 13 professional warrior academies across the solar system

Rai - Rai Academy; A preparatory academy located in the human city of Liela Pilsetta

IP - Internal Power; The power unique to an individual, usually linked to their personality or place in the world

///

Mason Moore

Human, He/Him, Pure Orange

Dad was never really present. Sure, we kept in contact with him as he traveled, and he came back for birthdays and big holidays and such, but it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t there when I toured Diversum, he wasn’t there when I graduated from Rai, he wasn’t even there when I died. Marco’s mom was more present than he was.

Mom was there for the most part. She had her sleeping spells (self-inflicted) when things got too much for her, and those would last hours, but she was fine otherwise. Did all the things a mom should.

I really shouldn’t complain. Compared to the other guys, I had a perfect childhood. I wasn’t bullied or had bad grades, and I certainly wasn’t abused. It just felt like it wasn’t… enough, y’know?

I think the hardest part was having to see Laura go through all of that and not being able to help her. Human vs Demon never ends well for the human. It was a miracle he had managed to get arrested. Of course, the cops did have access to things to neutralize him, I guess. A gun, for one. Probably some other fantasy shit I didn’t know about. Luckily, Gareth and I had distracted her while her father was getting cuffed.

Gareth had been my rock before I went to Diversum, but now that he was engaged and ready to settle for once in his life, I had found a new rock.

Stephen had been assigned to me because he was the leader and I was the weakest. I wasn’t particularly weak, he was just stronger. Not to say he was the strongest, hell no, that was James. By a long shot. He was one of two magic users, and since Ethan has a lot less magic, and James’s style is also heavily physical, James is our strongest.

Stephen wasn’t bad, though. He was a good fighter and a better leader than any of us could ever be, even Peter. Peter wasn’t a bad leader, per se, Stephen was just better. He learned to work with his blindness and he was like the father I never had.

He sometimes took his role as a father too far, though.

Not this time. This time, him being a father was completely warranted, necessary, wanted, and expected.

“Mason, can you hear me in there?”

I could. Not very well, the voice was muffled and distorted, but it was Stephen’s and I knew what he would be saying in this situation.

“Who’s brain are you in?”

I don’t know. It looked so familiar and yet so distant.

“Can you say anything?”

I tried to let out any noise, any at all, but none came out. Not even a squeak.

“Shit…” There was no voice for a few seconds. “Okay, I’m going to have Ethan send a message through all of our brains, then I need you to alter what this person remembers it as, okay?”

I could do that. That was easy. Simple.

“PINEAPPLE.”

Okay. Ow. That hurt a bit.

I wandered around the brain until I could find the memory, neatly aligned in a line with other short term memories, though this one was being focused on. I quickly changed it. Stephen went down the line, asking us what word we heard. Six pineapples, then…

“Uh, strawberry?”

James. I was in James. I didn’t go in James very often, it was uncomfortable. His memories were all weird and a lot of them were fuzzy. And all of his thoughts are about that boyfriend of his, Vic. He’s obsessed. Honestly, I don’t even understand what he sees in the guy. He’s nothing like my Mallory.

At least now they knew which brain I was in. Hardest part would be to get me out. I mean, it wasn’t too hard. We had done it before. A couple times, actually. It just took some water and sleeping pills. I couldn’t go into a sleeping person’s mind no matter how hard I tried, and we learned that I would be kicked out if someone fell asleep while I was in their mind. It sucked, but it was hard to train my IP, especially when it activates out of panic.

Stupid centipedes.

I wandered a bit more around James’s mind as shit happened around me. Shit I had no control over, nor could I see because for fucks sake where the hell is James’s current view?!

Wait. Fuck. Right. It’s James. He’s fucking scatterbrained. It could be anywhere.

I finally decided to take a good look at his mind. I never have, really. It was a light blue, the ceiling was kind of short, and every here and there, there were columns. It was very empty, and I could see piles of memories in the distance. I stood next to one, too.

I looked up, thinking maybe his perspective was up there. It was not and I looked stupid.

I decided to just lay down and look up until eventually, without warning, I closed my eyes and was back in my own body.

I hate my IP.

[jessikast]

Rūrangi Season 2 is out!

Out. Haha. See what I did there?

I enjoyed it a lot, even though I was dubious about some of the recasting, I was brought around. My main problem is that while Season 1 felt like a complete story (hence them being able to re-edit it into a movie) - albeit one with character arcs open to exploration - Season 2 is really only the first half of several stories.

There had BETTER be a Season 3, is what I'm saying.

More thoughts, with spoilers, under the cut.

My biggest worry was the recasting of Jem. Arlo Green was just ADORABLE in the role, and I didn't know if anyone else could exude that kind of sweet earnestness. Liam Coleman does a pretty good job! I think that he's sometimes anxious rather than sweet, but Jem's social anxiety is explored this season anyway, and I loved seeing Jem awkwardly flirting with Caz, and I also loved that we got the 'ride or die, we've been friends forever' vibe.

We also had Gerald recast, with Kirk Torrence leaving in favour of Cohen Holloway. Holloway is the "Werewolves, not swearwolves" guy from the WWDITS movie, but once you get past this I thought he was okay. He seems about 10-15 years younger than Torrence, and some of his lines I could imagine coming better from the original, but he DID manage to give us the dad (and DILF) energy the role needs.

I enjoyed Anahera's arc, which moved on beautifully from her Season 1 arc. I especially loved how it went from her reciting her pepeha to actually going out and putting her hands in the awa (river). Also her cousin is Anika Moa. Love it. Less love for the suggestion of an interesting supernatual ancestor-connection storyline which didn't have enough time to get off the ground this season.

Poor Caz! I'm so glad he's finally opening up about Andy Ainofo, but he's got SO much processing that he hasn't been able to do, and I really want him to get through it so he can be the awesome devoted boyfriend Jem deserves. I thought there was such an interesting contrast in the way he was immediately all-in on supporting the queer youth of Rūrangi, and didn't quite see that Jem was actually at the same stage of coming out and exploring his identity and probably needed that same support.

I absolutely cheered at the end of episode two when Jem and Caz made out! I felt bad for Jem - he was having some body issues in comparison to Caz, and THEN finds out he's competing with the memory of an actual pro athlete? Poor guy :-( I can also see how from Caz's POV this is something they've done before, Jem is safe and familiar; whereas for Jem it is kind of all new for him.

So as far as I can see, these are the plot threads left CRUELLING DANGLING:

Gerald's heritage - he seems to have been adopted as a baby by a Pākehā family, and is very wary or uncertain about what his Māori heritage means for him and how to interact with the local iwi

Caz's trauma - he needs to process A LOT, for someone good at being emotionally astute and supportive with The Youths, he has some blind spots (like taking Jem for granted)

Jem's confidence, and his relationship with Caz <3

The phosphate ballot (and Gerald's bees)

The housing development

Whatever Anahera's grandmother did, and her connection to her tipuna who she resembles so closely

Anahera and Ellie's flirtation

The little baby queers, including the homophobic mayor's kid

Whatever the supernatural fuck is going on in Rūrangi

Me figuring out where exactly this was filmed

Did I miss anything?

[nellie-elizabeth]

What We Do in the Shadows: Go Flip Yourself (4x08)

I mean... absolutely hilarious in every way.

Cons:

This episode was relatively light on Guillermo, and I kind of missed having the Guide around, but honestly I don't have much I can really complain about! Oh, I guess even though Young Colin Robinson isn't my favorite part of the show, it was a little odd that he wasn't around for this, considering that it seems like the kind of boring show he'd be into as much as Lazlo. No acknowledgment that he also lives in the house was kind of odd!

Pros:

I just... I don't even really know how to articulate the cleverness of how this episode was framed and scripted and edited. It immediately sent me back in time to being a kid and watching shows on TLC, remember TLC? My favorite was Clean Sweep. Obviously now all this kind of thing is on HGTV which I don't really watch much of, but I still recognize the trappings of the genre. The editing, the logos, the way they'd show a misleading preview clip from the next scene after the commercial break, the intro song with the attempt at being bad-ass, played over clips of comically small renovations and stock footage of demolitions, the style of the interview, the moment of decision where we cut back to earlier moments of the characters considering their changes, the big "reveal" and how obviously disappointed they all were, the post-credits scene they all film for the purpose of getting like $1,200... I could go on and on. It all felt like a spot-on parody of something I wouldn't have even said I knew much about to begin with.

And then we get our plot twist, that Bran is actually Simon the Devious, who has created the entirety of this TV show, gotten Lazlo hooked on it, all to gain access to their home in Staten Island and steal back the cursed hat. I'll admit that the final scene where all this is revealed was a little less funny to me than all the parody stuff that came before, but I also think it's what will make the episode stick in my head later, and cement itself as a hilarious half hour. The sheer lunacy of the plan really shines through when you remember that the hat these two have been fighting over is in fact cursed and makes everything immeasurably worse for whoever has it. Simon immediately flies into a wall in bat-form once he has it. I feel like Simon's whole plan really speaks to the nature of vampirism in this world, the way you have infinite time to make some truly weird decisions and just run with them for as long as you need to. The gag where he lists all of his crew, the various vampires we've met in the past, really worked for me, as did Simon's continued disdain for Staten Island.

As far as our core cast, I love how even when the episode is focusing on this larger meta gag, we still get to see our favorites playing out their familiar roles. Guillermo is attempting to be devious and get something that he wants out of the bargain, once it's clear the vampires won't be saying no to the renovation, but in typical sad sack fashion he doesn't actually get the renovated room of his dreams. Nadja gets over-excited and acts impulsively, actually killing the co-star of the show before things get started, and has to use her hypnotist powers to clear things up for the crew and the viewers at home.

Marwa gets a prize for being the smartest: since she now likes whatever Nandor likes, she is really excited about Nandor's new wish for a "man cave," which Nandor definitely thinks is a place where he gets to hang out and get fucked by his guy friends, which is hilarious and perfect... anyway, she gets the "man cave" all set up and then locks herself alone in there, because since Nandor wants time alone in this room, so does Marwa. Honestly, that wish is the gift that keeps on giving. What you've basically got now is a setup where Marwa and Nandor have the exact same desires, but Marwa is just... much smarter than Nandor, and therefore is going to get her way more and more as time goes by. Genius! I love it!

As is always the case when I'm trying to write about this show, I really could go on and on in praise of its comedy, but describing jokes is never as funny as experiencing them yourself. So I'll just leave by saying my favorite gags were: Vampire Elvis, always a classic, and Lazlo's delivery of the words "New York Citayyyyy."

Can't wait to meet Guillermo's special friend next week!

9/10

[astaroth1357]

AYE requests briefly open you say? Then here ya go: MC (female or gn) turns into a child for a day courtsey of Solomon (maybe around 5) with the Brothers. I think it'd be adorable, what with finger painting on spell books and things, but there ya go!

The MC is Now Five Years Old, Thanks Solomon...

Oh boy…. A little kid in Hell sounds like a train wreck admittedly, but at least they'll have some pretty strong guardians right? I heard It'll Be Okay by SMLE & Helen Tess and decided that was JUST the feel this sort of request needed.

Intro:

Solomon really doesn't mess up spells often. He's been doing this for a while (at least as far as my headcanon is concerned) so he's gotten pretty damn good at magic over the years. It takes a looot to make him mess up. Like say, a natural disaster, an unexpected surprise… or a whole-ass MC getting knocked into what sigil he's using at just the wrong time. Yeah. That'll do it.

How in the world is he going to explain this to the brothers…?

Lucifer

His anger toward Solomon is quite severe… tempered only slightly by how utterly adorable kid!MC is. (Well all know he's got that soft spot for cute things 🤭) It reminds him so much of his brothers at that age…

The man basically reverts back to being Dad!Lucifer sooo fast.

He's the one tying their shoes, checking on them throughout the day, making sure they're not running with scissors… that sort of thing.

Weirdly enough he's not that bothered by it… In fact, his brothers find it a little unnerving just how at peace he seems when he's keeping track of kid!MC doing this or that… It's like he's just put on an old pair of gloves and found out they still fit.

Speaking of his brothers, Lucifer can't turn off "Parent Mode" so it starts spilling over to them too...

When he started telling Levi "It's bedtime" and used a napkin to wipe Beel's face for him in public, they decided to hold an informal intervention. They're grown demons now, damnit!! 😖

Mammon

The first thing kid!MC did when they saw Mammon was fling themselves at him while screaming "MAMMIE!!!" at the top of their lungs… Regardless of his confusion, the man could probably die happy now.

He only gripes a little bit about being saddled with babysitting duty… Because everybody knows he's not the babysitter now. He's the playmate.

"Mammie, I wanna play House!!" "I ain't playing House with ya, kid. How 'bout Tag?" "No way, you're too fast!"  "Hide'n Seek?" "Luci said we can't play that no more…" "Well don't hide in the oven again!" "You didn't find me!!" "That was the problem!!!"

Pretty much the Man-Child/Actual Child Duo. He's perfect for keeping up with them and they'll whine incessantly when they can't find him for too long...

Totally the brother to take them to the amusement park or really any of those super fun places kids love. He will be just as excited as they are to be there, too.

It's not uncommon to find Mammon passed out on a couch or something with an equally exhausted kid!MC sleeping on his back. The two can really wear each other out…

Leviathan

He's probably the least perturbed by this change. Sudden de-aging of characters is a pretty popular anime trope, after all...

He's not all that taken with kid!MC though to be honest… Largely because he's too worried about keeping his stuff out of their grubby mitts. 😖

"Levi, what's this?" "GAH! Don't touch that!! That's my limited edition Ultra☆Rainbow Witch figurine!!" "I wanna play with it, though!" "It's not a toy!!" "That's not fair! You have nothing but toys, Levi!! You need to share!!" "NO I DON'T!!!"

In those times where Lucifer forces him to share, Levi goes full neat-freak. He handles all the discs and games himself, everything gets practically sterilized, and kid!MC HAS to wash their hands before they touch ANYTHING (especially the game controllers). He ain't risking any random kid-gunk getting on his precious possessions… 😰

He does enjoy playing games with them well enough, at least. No one's going to pass up a game of Devil Kart after all!

Sometimes he'll let them win just to see how happy they get… Though, then they start getting a big head about it so he has to remind him who the actual gamer is with another string of losses... Sucks to suck, kid! 😌😏

Satan

… You know, five year-olds ask a lot of questions… A looot of questions…

"Satan, what's that?" "An umbrella. You use it so that rain doesn't get on you." "Where does rain come from?" "Evaporated water collects in the atmosphere and-" "Is rain like the sky peeing?" "...." "Satan? Does your face hurt?... Satan?"

Please Lord, they may not be on speaking terms, but someone has to have mercy on his patience...

In truth, Satan's kind of charmed by how curious kid!MC is, he just wished they'd listen more to his boring explanations…

"Satan? Why does everyone listen to Diavolo?" "Lord Diavolo is like a king to us demons." "Where's his crown?" "He doesn't wear a crown." "Oh… You don't wear a crown and people listen to you. Are you a king too?" "I mean, you're not wrong… 😏" "Satan, get back to work."

Eh, maybe having a little MC isn't all that bad. They don't lie, after all. 😌

Asmodeus

OMG he hasn't seen a child this cute since the twins were in diapers!!!!

If Mammon isn't around then Asmo takes over babysitting duties (like an actual babysitter) and he's more than happy to do it. It reminds of him of taking care of baby Belphie!

If kid!MC has any interest at all in makeup then he's happy to foster it. He won't give them the good stuff of course, but he'll show them how to do blush, eyes, lipstick, nail polish, whatever!

He also dabbles in a bit of facepaint so do they want to look like a kitty, panda, or dragon? He's got them covered.

Asmo just likes to let them be creative in all forms, really. He's going to be the one to break out the paint and markers and just the kid!MC go to town! (hopefully not on the walls…)

Takes pictures of whatever they draw, good or bad, and happily displays them to everyone. There's not a big enough fridge to hold all the art he's going to collect (and zealously protect).

Beelzebub

Playmate #2 right after Mammon, but he's the less excitable, more responsible one.

"Beel! Beel! Watch me jump off this slide!!" 😰 "Please don't… You could hurt yourself… You slide down slides. That's why they're called that." "*GASP*... That's right! You're a genius!!" *sits back down* "Not really, but thank you." 😊 *waits for them at the bottom*

If the MC is with Beel, they're doing one of two things. Either they're playing together or gorging themselves on junk food.

Beel actually likes "domestic" games like House and Tea Party because it's an excuse to raid the kitchen. He'll play "house-husband" all day as long as he gets to actually eat at every imaginary dinnertime.

He'll play active games too, of course. Especially action-oriented ones like "Cops and Robbers" or Superheros. No one's better at roughhousing than Beel! Though he'll go easy on them, cause they're small and all… 😅

Everyone can always tell when Beel's in charge of them because he carries them around on his shoulders. He's the tallest one of the family so it's like getting to be a giant!

Belphegor

Belphie was introduced to kid!MC when they started crying during one of his naps. They couldn't wake him and they thought he was dead… Followed directly by them declaring their tears were magic when they noticed his eyes opened.

He proceeded to close his eyes again and purposely play dead just to get them all worried again. It was the smile creeping up onto his face that eventually gave him away… 😏

He likes to play with kid!MC and Beel but he's not going to let it get in the way of his nap schedule or anything. When they play "Knights" he gets to take the role of the world's laziest dragon… Rawr.

Kid!MC will only settle down for naptime if Belphie joins too since he'll read them a book like he used to do with Lilith.

Satan's usually the go-to guy for storytime, but Belphie's a close second (largely because he just imitates what he remembers Lucifer doing for him, voices and all 🤭).

He deals with their myriad of questions by just making shit up and pretending he knows what he's talking about. It's around the time that he told them that little men live inside the freezer and shave ice cubes to keep things cold that Lucifer started getting on his case about it… Killjoy. 🙄

[lokiondisneyplus]

Yes, Loki series director Kate Herron knows about your fan theory about the show, the analysis you posted to social media. No, she won’t tell you what she thinks about it, or whether you were right.

“I follow all the conversations on Twitter,” Herron told Polygon in an interview shortly after Loki’s season 1 finale. “I don’t always weigh in on them, because I made the show, so they don’t want me weighing in like, ‘Actually, guys…’ I think that’s the whole point of art — it should be up for debate and discussion.”

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Loki.]

Loki has been a hit for streaming service Disney Plus — episode 6 of the show, the final installment for this season, was reportedly watched by more households than any of the platform’s MCU finales to date. The series has been a popular source of fan conjecture and argument, with one particularly big rolling conversation focusing on whether the budding romantic relationship between trickster Asgardian Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alternate-universe counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is a form of incest.

Herron is willing to speak up about that one. “My interpretation of it is that they’re both Lokis, but they aren’t the same person,” she says. “I don’t see them as being like brother and sister. They have completely different backgrounds […] and I think that’s really important to her character. They sort of have the same role in terms of the universe and destiny, but they won’t make the same decisions.”

Herron says thematically, Loki falling for Sylvie is an exploration of “self-love,” but only in the sense that it’s Loki learning to understand his own motives and integrity. “[The show is] looking at the self and asking ‘What makes us us?’” Herron says. “I mean, look at all the Lokis across the show, they’re all completely different. I think there’s something beautiful about his romantic relationship with Sylvie, but they’re not interchangeable.”

Directing the final kiss between the two characters was a complicated process because it had to communicate something about each of them over the course of just a few seconds. Herron says the primary goal was creating a safe, comfortable environment for Hiddleston and Di Martino, and after that, she had to think about how to bring across Loki and Sylvie’s conflicting goals in that moment.

“It’s an interesting one, right?” she says. “Emotionally, from Sylvie’s perspective, I think it’s a goodbye. But it’s still a buildup of all these feelings. They’ve both grown through each other over the last few episodes. It was important to me that it didn’t feel like a trick, like she was deceiving him. She is obviously doing that, on one hand, but I don’t feel the kiss is any less genuine. I think she’s in a bad place, but her feelings are true.”

Herron says directing Hiddleston in the scene mostly came down to discussing the speech Loki gives Sylvie before the kiss. “That was really important, showing this new place for Loki,” Herron says. “In the first episode, he’s like, ‘I want the throne, I want to rule,’ and by episode 6, he isn’t focused on that selfish want. He just wants her to be okay.”

Loki writer and producer Eric Martin recently tweeted that he wished the show had been able to focus more time on two of its secondary characters, Owen Wilson’s Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer. “I wanted to explore her more deeply and really see their relationship,” he says, “But covid got in the way and we just didn’t have time.”

Asked if Loki and Sylvie’s relationship suffered from similar necessary edits, Herron says it’s true that the show’s creators and audience still don’t know everything Sylvie went through to make her so different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original version of Loki. “We’ve seen her as a child, but she’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, in apocalypses on the run,” she says. “I think there’s so much more to delve into with Sylvie […] You’re filling in the blanks. You see [her on the planet] Lamentis, and it’s horrific. And you’re like, “Well, what kind of person would she be, growing up in apocalypses? What kind of personality would that give her?”

Herron says Sylvie’s backstory actually reminds her of the 1995 movie Jumanji, where a young boy is sucked into a magical board game in 1969, and emerges 26 years later as a full-grown man, played by with typical manic energy by Robin Williams. “It’s such a weird reference, but…” she says. “He’s a little boy when he ends up captive in that game, and when he comes out, it’s obviously been a life experience. With Sylvie, it’s similar. She was a child when she had to go on the run, so she’s had a very difficult life. I would love to see more of it. As Eric said, she’s a rich character, there’s so much to be explored.”

Herron says, though, that during her time on the show, material about Sylvie was added rather than cut — specifically, those scenes of her as a child, being kidnapped by the TVA. “This was before my time, but I know in the writers’ room, there were lots of avenues exploring Sylvie on the run and what her life was like,” Herron says. “I wouldn’t want to speak more to those, because I wasn’t there when they were being discussed. But something wasn’t in there that was important to me — I felt we should see her [history] in the TVA. Me and the team were talking about how it made complete sense, because episode 4 is all about twisting the idea that the TVA might be good on its head. And so that’s something that came in later, once I joined, was seeing her as a child. I think we needed to see that, not to understand her completely, but to get an idea of her motivations, why she’s so angry at this place.”

Talking more broadly about the series finale, Herron says the last few episodes weren’t as heavily referential as the first episodes, which she intended as “a love letter to sci-fi.” While early images like the TVA’s interrogation rooms had specific visual references from past science fiction, episode 6’s locations were drawn more from collaborations with the crew.

“The idea of the physical timeline being circular, our storyboard artists came up with that,” Herron says. “I had in the scripts, ‘We move through space to the end of time,” and then me and [storyboard artist Darrin Denlinger] discussed how we could play with the idea of time, while also adding MCU nods. He was like, ‘What if the timeline is circular?’ I think that’s such a striking image, like the Citadel at the End of Time is the needle on a record player. I just thought that was such a cool image, but it wasn’t necessarily taken from anything.”

Episode 6 focuses heavily on the mysterious figure He Who Remains and his citadel, a space she says was largely conceived by production designer Kasra Farahani. “I remember he brought in the art of the Citadel, and I thought it was beautiful,” Herron says. “He said, ‘The Citadel has been carved from an actual meteorite,’ which I thought was such an inspired idea. And He Who Remains’ office is the only finished portion of it.”

She says there are only a few direct homages in episode 6, including the zoom shot through space, which directly referenced a similar sequence in Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 film Contact.

“And then I have my Teletubbies reference for episode 5,” Herron says. “I wanted the Void to feel like an overgrown garden, like a kind of forgotten place. And I realized I’d pitched it as the British countryside. I remember trying to explain it to ILM, who did the visual effects, and saying, ‘Oh, you know, it’s like the Teletubbies. It’s just rolling hills, but they go on forever.’ That actually was quite a helpful reference in the end, which is funny.”

Asked for her favorite set memory from shooting the season, Herron says it comes down to Tom Hiddleston starting a mania for physical exertion before takes. “Sometimes he runs around set to get himself in the right mindset before he performs,” she says. “He does pushups. You know, you’re going into an action scene, you want to look like you’ve just been running. And it became infectious across all the cast. We’ve got so much footage of — I think Jack [Veal] ended up doing it, who plays Kid Loki. I’ve got [shots of] him and Sophia doing pushups and squats, just to get ready. It was so funny watching that echo across all the cast. I think all of them ended up doing those exercises with him at some point. It was so funny.”

“That might be my favorite set story, but it’s honestly, not a sweet one,” she adds. “I would say my favorite thing is his enthusiasm. He’s a very kind empathetic person. We were filming this in quite tough circumstances, a lot of people were far from home and isolating, and he brought this warmth and energy and joy to the set every day. And I think that made everyone feel very safe and very bonded. I’m forever grateful to him for doing that.”

[uhlikzsuzsanna]

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read if you haven’t seen all of Season 1 of “Loki,” currently streaming on Disney Plus.

Ever since “Loki” first premiered in June, Kate Herron, who directed all six episodes of the Marvel Studios series, has had to pretend like she knew far less than she really does. For one, she couldn’t acknowledge that the homages to sci-fi classics like “Blade Runner” and “Brazil” that she’d baked into the elaborate sets for the Time Variance Authority — the cosmic bureaucracy tasked with maintaining the sacred timeline — were “meant to be sinister” rather than just “playful and quirky.”

For another, Herron was delighted to see fans theorizing after the very first episode that Kang the Conqueror — a character already set to appear in the Marvel Studios feature “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” as played by Jonathan Majors — was really pulling the strings of the TVA. But until the finale streamed last Wednesday, she couldn’t even hint that those fans were only half right: Majors does play the mastermind of the TVA, but he’s a variant of Kang referred to as He Who Remains. It’s only after He Who Remains encounters Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his female variant counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and Sylvie plunges a blade into his heart, that the multiverse is reborn, creating the possibility for Kang the Conqueror to emerge.

Again, though: Herron couldn’t acknowledge any of that, even to those closest to her.

“Nothing has prepared me better for working with Marvel than playing tabletop games with my friends,” she says with a laugh. “It definitely taught me how to have a good poker face. You have to hide your hand — and sometimes lie.”

Now, thankfully, all of that is behind her — as is “Loki” itself. Despite receiving widespread acclaim for her assured, ambitious, and visually sumptuous work directing the show, Herron says she has decided not to return for Season 2 of the series.

“I gave it everything — in my soul, in my heart, everything,” she says. “I feel so proud of the work we’ve done. And yeah, I’ll be enjoying Season 2 as a fan.”

She’s quick to sing the praises of everyone she worked with at Marvel, and she says she’s “sure” she’ll work again with the studio. For now, however, she’s ready to take a holiday, and then turn to a project she’s writing herself “that’s really close to my heart that I really want to make.”

“It’s my own decision, but I just feel like my part with ‘Loki’ is finished now and I’m just excited to see where his story goes,” she says.

Before she parts ways for good, however, Herron spoke with Variety about bringing Jonathan Majors into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what she thought of the shocking revelation about infinity stones and what she would like to see happen in Season 2.

She always knew “Loki” would introduce Kang and the Multiverse…

From the very start, Herron says, she and head writer Michael Waldron knew that their six-episode run of “Loki” would always end with Loki and Sylvie meeting He Who Remains at his citadel, the result of which would cause the creation of the multiverse.

As Episode 6 makes clear, both of these events were massive turning points for the future of the MCU — and Herron still can’t quite believe she got to be the one to make them a reality.

“We were just, like, waiting to be told, ‘Actually, guys, we’ve had a change [of heart],'” Herron says. Instead, Herron says she and “Quantumania” director Peyton Reed participated in casting Majors in the role.

“I was just like, pinch me,” she says. “I can’t believe I was at the table for that, because I know it was such a big decision for them all.”

Herron also decided to have Majors provide the voices for all three “Timekeepers” who are supposedly at the head of the TVA, but are revealed by Sylvie to be nothing more than “mindless androids.”

“We didn’t have someone cast for those voices,” she says. “I remember thinking, well, ‘Wizard of Oz’ is clearly a reference for us. We should have the wizard. It’d be great if it’s Jonathan. So we sent him all the art of the timekeepers. And he just kind of came up with these incredible voices for each of them.”

…but not with a cliffhanger.

The most significant decision of the season, though, may be that it ends with a giant cliffhanger, when Loki discovers he’s in a brand new reality for the TVA in which Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) don’t even recognize him. But while Herron knew how this season of “Loki” would end, at first, she did not know that there would be any more seasons after it.

“When I started, there wasn’t a discussion of Season 2, exactly,” she says. “It was just that season of ‘Loki.’ As we got deeper into production, everyone was very happy, and obviously there’s so much to explore with Loki. It felt like we should continue the story. So I think the cliffhanger ending came in later in the process.”

Herron says she sprinkled in some hints to viewers that Loki is in a new timeline, like redressing sets to look slightly off, and recasting Eugene Cordero’s TVA receptionist Casey as a hunter headed to the armory in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. But her favorite bit is that the final line — said by Mobius to Loki — is the same as the first line spoken in the show, by a woman in the Gobi desert, also to Loki: “Who are you?”

“That was kind of the question of the whole first season,” Herron says.

She was just as shocked about the Infinity Stones as everyone else.

In the first episode, Loki discovers to his horror that not only does his magic not work inside the TVA, but Infinity Stones — heretofore believed to be the most powerful objects in the known universe — are just inert rocks there. The revelation sent shockwaves across the Marvel fandom; Herron was right there with them.

“That was in Michael’s script when I first got it to pitch [for the directing job],” she says. “I remember being like, ‘WHAT?! You put me through so much!�� But then I thought, ‘Oh, it’s kind of genius, because it shows how powerful the TVA are. Who are these people? What is this place?'”

Herron especially appreciated how her shock — and the audience’s — mirrored Loki’s own as the rug gets pulled out from under him. “I was quite excited by it,” she says. “It really shows you that there’s a new power in the MCU — and it’s not what we we spent the last decade dedicating our lives to.”

She told Kevin Feige she wanted gender parity among her crew.

Prior to “Loki,” Herron’s most high profile job was directing the second half of the first season of the Netflix dramedy “Sex Education.” She got the “Loki” job thanks to a 60-page pitch memo that filled out just about every detail of the world of the show. After hiring her, she says Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige asked her, “What are your terms?”

“This was the first time I was gonna get to hire my heads of department on a television show I worked on,” she says. “I was like, I’d really love [the crew] to be 50/50 across gender.”

Herron says she wasn’t out to fill any jobs on the film with a specific gender. But, she says, “There aren’t enough women in these roles. They’re out there. It’s a lack of opportunity. It’s not a lack of interest.”

She did end up hiring two women for critical roles that are still rarely occupied by women: cinematographer Autumn Durald (“The Sun Is Also a Star”) and composer Natalie Holt (History’s “Knightfall”).

“I felt like she was inside my mind,” Herron says of Durald. “We have the same taste. And I love the way that she talks about light as a character.”

Herron hired Holt unusually early for a composer, after she’d completed editing the first episode during the pandemic shutdown. She knew that the particular sci-fi film noir look of the show that she was developing with Durald needed similarly unique music, and she liked that part of Holt’s pitch was focusing on Loki’s identity as a character.

“Her music then started to inspire how I wanted to shoot other scenes,” Herron says. She’s especially enamored of Holt’s vision for her dynamic and foreboding theme for the TVA.

“She was like, ‘Oh, let’s have that theme be Kang’s’ — well, He Who Remains, I guess, in our show. But I hope that will go on to be Kang’s theme. That was the real fun of it is that you feel like he’s really played a hand now across the whole show, because you realize that music is his music.”

Herron, Durald, and Holt all deliver distinctive and superlative work that’s nothing like the MCU has quite seen before — and nothing quite like anything previously in their careers, either. And that’s entirely the point.

“I think for us, it was about just showing people what we could do and that we could do it at this level,” Herron says.

The episode in which Loki comes out as bisexual was inspired by Alfonso Cuarón and Richard Linklater.

Every episode of “Loki” features multiple extended scenes of two characters just talking to one another, a rarity in a comic book production. Herron says that cutting Episode 1 together during the pandemic lockdown and seeing the scenes between Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) play out so well “definitely gave us confidence” to continue that rhythm for the rest of the show.

That was especially true for Episode 3. Written by Bisha K. Ali (who went on to create the upcoming Marvel Studios series “Ms. Marvel”), the episode is essentially an extended meet-cute between Loki and Sylvie as they get to know each other on a planet doomed for total annihilation.

“Bisha’s reference was ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Children of Men,'” says Herron. “And it lit my brain on fire. It was kind of weird. It was almost like a bottle episode in the sense that we’re just with the two characters, but obviously, it’s Marvel, right? So they’re bonding in this Apocalypse, which also feels very Loki at the same time.”

That episode is best known for making Marvel Studios history, when Loki casually mentions that he’s had dalliances with both men and women. Herron says that when she first interviewed for the job, she asked if the show was going to acknowledge Loki’s sexuality, which had long been established in the comics as bisexual or pansexual.

“I think everyone wanted to acknowledge it,” she says. “It was just really about giving a care and consideration and doing it in the right way. I think everyone knew it was gonna be quite a big moment. So it was just really about doing it in a way that felt respectful. And honoring it.”

Herron also confirms what many fans had suspected, that she deliberately made the lighting scheme for the scene evoke the blue, purple and red of the bisexual flag. “We knew what we were doing with that scene,” she says with a smile.

She has a lot of ideas for what she’d like to see in Season 2.

Since Herron will be watching Season 2 of “Loki” only “as a fan,” she is also free to wildly speculate as to what she’d most like to see happen — like how, wherever Loki story leads, “we’ve opened the door” for the character to explore his sexuality with men as well as women.

Otherwise? She says she wants to know where Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) goes to when she leaves the TVA in search, she tells Mobius, of “free will.”

“I love her,” Herron says. “Gugu used to always call her an indoor girl, which made me laugh, but she is. She’s in the office, but she used to be this kick-ass Hunter. So I’m like, Okay, well, where’s her path going?”

Herron is also keen to learn more about Hunter B-15’s backstory — since she deliberately decided to hide it in the scene in Episode 4 when Sylvie shows B-15 her repressed memories as a variant.

“I was like, we shouldn’t see her memories,” Herron says. “It’s a character that thought they had power and realizes they have no power. It felt really powerful to at least give her some power in that scenario. The memories are private. They’re hers.” She pauses. “Also as a fan, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, who is she?!'”

“And obviously, you know, Loki and Sylvie?” Herron continues, on a roll. “He’s in a completely different reality. What’s going to happen to him? How will he get back? Or will he get back? And where’s Sylvie? She’s still in the Citadel? And the multiverse of it all. What the hell is going to happen?!”

Herron chuckles at her own excitement. “So I think there’s so many questions to be answered, and so much more road to travel with all our characters,” she says. “You know, I’m really proud that I got to set up Loki’s story here. But there’s so many different aspects of his identity and personality that’s yet to be explored. I’m excited to see where it goes.”

[imgonnapanic]

Third gym squad with a theater kid s/o:

Kuroo Tetsurou

Tbh, he knew what he was signing up for when he started dating you.

He’s just not used to it, because he doesn’t have many extroverted friends who aren’t annoying pieces of-

I can envision you both going on the hub to watch pirated musicals. Hamilton, Heathers, Dear Evan Hansen, you name it.

He loooves your singing voice, even if it’s your nervous purposely bad one.

You love the musicals that include allll the good stuff (trauma, death, tragedy, etc.)

Or the iconic ones. You can’t forget about those.

So you’re less-than-thrilled when your school chooses “Honk! The Musical” for this years play.

It’s a spin off of the ugly duckling that no one has heard of.

And when you come up to Kuroo sulking about this boring play you’re emotionally obliged to do, he can’t help but laugh a little.

But his laughter stops when he sees your eyes down at your shoes.

And then he shuts the fuck up because you’re actually upset.

After assuring that you will still be Broadway material even if you’re dressed up as a goose, you feel a little better.

In the two weeks leading up to auditions, Kuroo is starting to get caught humming “A Poultry Tale” at practice.

I mean, his Spotify feed went from Kendrick Lamar to Legally Blonde within one month of dating you, so cut the guy a break.

The day of auditions, you’re a bundle of nerves as you go over the dumb song again and again.

And Kuroo is like “calm down babe you’re gonna do great.”

That sure did a ton.

“Shut up Heather”

...

“Sorry Heather”

He’s also a bundle of nerves at practice, though. He just couldn’t let you see it.

By now, all of the Nekoma team knows you’re auditioning today, and the minute he walks in he just holds up a hand.

“They’re auditioning as we speak”

He’s not surprised when you get the lead.

He looks like the cat who ate the canary he’s a little amused when he figures out the lead is named “Ugly” but by now he has learned to keep it on the inside.

Your schedule is now jam packed, but that’s okay, because Nationals are also coming up for Kuroo and needs to put in some extra hours at the gym anyways.

You better believe two months later Kuroo is making his entire team buy a ticket.

Kuroo didn’t even get to see you on opening night because of dress rehearsals, but that’s okay.

He cleared his entire schedule that day and now has time to wallow in his own excitement and buy you some flowers.

He’s there with the squad team at 6PM sharp, dressed up, and trying to keep his dignity.

When you first walk on stage, the team snickers a little bit at your costume, but Kuroo was completely enraptured by your singing voice, your blocking, your makeup, everything.

This was much better than the demo CD that they had given you.

Afterwards, he gives you your flowers and is glued to your side for the rest of the night, babbling about how proud he was of you, and how talented you are, Nekoma team be damned.

Tsukishima Kei

Tsukki-poo already had a soft spot for the arts before he met you.

Not that he would tell anyone, ever.

When you started dating him though, it gave him an excuse to share his favorite soundtracks.

“you can hit that note, you know.”

*cue the arguing about how you aren’t Barbara Streisand*

When you two are walking through the hallway with him and you see the poster reading “Auditions for Karasuno High School’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ are open!” You start freaking out.

You love that movie! And Kei tolerates it!

Kei honestly thought you would be Ariel/Prince Eric when he first heard you singing “Part of Your World”

Like, you have the voice of a fucking lark. The directors have to be batshit crazy not to cast you.

In his humble opinion.

So he’s a bit taken aback when you get the role of Flounder, but he’s very proud anyways. Especially after you explain that there’s musical numbers that you’re in that aren’t in the movie.

He just hates your director for no reason now.

Practicing your lines with him in your free time becomes almost inevitable because you both have nothing else better to do.

And he can see how into it you are.

And let me just say that you are killing it.

Seriously. You have no problem getting into character, and Kei doesn’t say this much but-

It’s fucking adorable, okay? He has little goth moths in his stomach.

And he can’t wait to see the show, because then he can show you off.

That doesn’t mean he likes the other first years prying at your progress.

Hinata’s incessant questioning about theater anatomy and the memorization of your lines gets really annoying.

Even for someone with a normal temper like you-

“Yes it’s called the right wing. NOT wing spiker. Yes they’re off book. Now will you shut your trap already?”

Dress Rehearsals come, and you’re spinning around his room, face morphing from complete concentration to happy, go-lucky Flounder.

You, Kei, and Yamaguchi (your little third wheel-) all know the soundtrack pretty much up and down, left and right, backwards and inside out.

He still shivers remembering the time you just walked into his house not registering that Flounder’s makeup looks kind of scary up close-

All of his pride was sacrificed that day. All of it.

On the morning of opening night, Kei was walking you to the school, pretending to be bitchy about it being on a Saturday.

“C’mon, what am I supposed to do all day?”

As luck would have it, he’s stuck sitting next to one Hinata Shoyo. Lovely.

So he sat down next to him, and ignored him the whole show. I mean, it worked, he shut up after thirty seconds.

After the show, Kei has to wait a bit for you to take your makeup off, but when you come running out, he can’t hold back a tiny grin.

“That was good. I’m proud of you.”

And then he took you to dinner because singing makes a bad bleep hungry 😌

Bokuto Kotarou

Listen, you’re loud, Bokuto’s loud-

So basically you two are on a mission to not annoy Akaashi for as long as you can before inevitably getting yelled at for your affection and love and shit.

Now, both of you would love for this to be possible.

But the Frozen soundtrack makes it too difficult.

Especially when you can edit the lyrics just to piss off Konoha.

“Turn away and slAm the door *on Konoha”

“The wind is howling like the storm inside *of Konoha”

The possibilities are endless, really.

The game changer is when you two are belting out the song where Elsa and Anna are arguing.

And you accidentally hit the “I-i-I CANNNNT”

Akaashi is like for the love of GOD just audition for the play.

He quickly realizes that his suggestion was not a good idea.

Since guess what the musical is.

You’re auditioning as a joke, okay? You love Frozen, but this is a Fukurōdani Academy level play.

You didn’t expect to land the role of Olaf.

Your director sat you down and bluntly told you that he thought that you had the charisma and energy to be Olaf, but he knew that you were auditioning for a joke.

He needed you to be committed.

And hell yeah, you were gonna be committed.

At first, Bokuto was super proud of you! His s/o as a lead role? So impressive!

You even taught Bokuto your choreography for “In Summer”

He only retained half of it, but eh.

He’s a volleyball player. He tried.

As rehearsal times became longer and longer, Bokuto was a little upset at himself because he didn’t realize how committed you were until it hit him in the face.

Akaashi is there to get him out of his funk when you aren’t, though.

“They feel the same way when you need to be in the gym longer. It’s just a part of having a passion. Just utilize your time with them wisely.”

This bitch knows full well Bokuto doesn’t do ‘wise’ though, so he also sets to him a little more.

Dress rehearsals start, and Bokuto is always waiting for you to come out of the auditorium to ride the bus home.

You’re just bubbling over with stories about the magic of being on stage.

The lights, the microphones, the costumes, just talking about it makes you nostalgic already.

On opening night, Bokuto and Akaashi are there in the front row, going through the program.

“There’s y/n!!!!”

And you can’t see him because of the blinding spotlight, but you can hear Bokuto cheering for you after you finish “In Summer”

Afterwards he gives you a big hug, and you guys go home and watch Frozen.

Akaashi Keiji

When you start dating Akaashi in your second year at Fukurōdani, you’ve been on stage for the last ten years of your life.

Singing, acting, dancing, you love it all.

You’re even considering making it your career.

Akaashi doesn’t know much about theater at all, but he makes sure to do his research since it’s such a big part of your life.

The company you take acting classes with is having their winter show soon, and you couldn’t be happier when you figure out it’s ‘Into the Woods.’

Akaashi makes the mistake of asking the plot of the story.

“So basically there are these two infertile bakers with dead parents and there’s this witch that’s old and wrinkly and she comes to their house because fifty years ago the bakers dad stole her veggies and took the magic beans that made her look old and wrinkly-“

(A/n: this isn’t even half the plot)

He decides he’ll figure it out when he sees the play.

Akaashi knows that it’s a difficult one, though.

Sondheim doesn’t fuck around.

So you shouldn’t be beating yourself up about cracking on some of the high notes and screaming into your pillow.

He feels like an idiot every time you ask him to give you constructive criticism.

He doesn’t know what to say. “That was good” is obviously not what you want to hear.

When the date of your audition rolls around, he has early morning practice.

So he sends you a text saying how far you’ve come already and he’ll be proud even if you end up being a tree and break a leg (he’s very proud of that part. Theater lingo with Akaashi 101)

He’s very pleased to hear through your extremely fast and animated chattering that you killed it.

You were going to be Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

He’s still not sure how that correlates with infertile bakers, but he’ll go with it.

You also have a notoriously hard solo, “Giants in the sky.”

Akaashi is very impressed.

All you two do is practice that song, until Akaashi is half sure he could sing the song if he really gave an effort.

(He tries seriously one time. He can’t sing. To save his life. Sorry Keiji and RIP y/n’s ears.)

“Maybe you’re just not a soprano?”

“I’ll leave the limelight to you.”

Rehearsals always leave you drained. There are so many dance numbers in the play that you have to go over.

And songs, oh god, the songs are pieces of work.

But you wouldn’t trade it for the world, so Keiji stays close, and is endlessly supportive.

You sent him a picture of your Jack costume, and Keiji is like that is kind of adorable ngl-

He walks into the auditorium you’re performing in, and even he’s nervous to be in there. It’s huge.

But when you walk on the stage, and start belting, all the breath leaves his lungs.

Oh. Ohhhhhhh. He understands the plot now.

[buffintruder]

can you imagine what the untamed would have been like from Lan Sizhui’s pov because that would have been so funny

like first of all, you’re just going about your regular business, hunting evil spirits with your squad, and you meet this guy who used to be part of the Jin sect but got kicked out and apparently is crazy and always wears a mask? but he’s also clearly being mistreated by his family, and you know that whatever got him kicked out, he does not deserve this humiliation and abuse

you feel sorry for him, even when he stomps a spirit-summoning flag into the ground and runs unprotected into the middle of a fight and generally causes mild distress and irritation to your fellow juniors.

except then it turns out he actually seems quite competent and he even figures out a lot of what’s going on with the goddess statue, and sure he has weird habits, but he is nothing like how Jin Ling describes his bastard uncle. also maybe he summoned and sent away the Ghost General with his flute? but that’s impossible because the Ghost General should be ash, and anyway, the only one who could control the Ghost General was— 

And that’s not even the weirdest part, because then Hanguang Jun arrives. You are certain the two of them have not been close in the past, because surely he would have mentioned it, and besides, when would their paths even have crossed? 

But Hanguang Jun is your adopted father/mentor figure, and even though he has shown you nothing but kindness, you know how stoic and reserved he is to the rest of the world. Yet he treats Mo Xuanyu with a care you have never seen him offer to anyone besides yourself and his brother. He is never like this around strangers, and you don’t understand what is going on. 

(edit: now on ao3)

You part ways, then meet back up again not too long afterwards, and any pretense Hanguang Jun might have had at not being incredibly close to Mo Xuanyu dissolves. When they fight together at Yi City, there is a familiarity in the ease of their movements, the way they never have to look to make sure the other has his back. Sometimes when Hanguang Jun looks at Mo Xuanyu, you see more open emotion than you possibly have ever seen before. Hanguang Jun never flinches away from Mo Xuanyu’s touch.

Any pretense Mo Xuanyu might have had at being anything less than an expert cultivator also vanishes. He slips into the role of mentor and protector with ease, joking to keep all of you calm while he teaches you how to save your lives, always putting your safety above his. You wonder if it would be weird to consider a near-stranger fatherly.  

He feeds your poisoned fellow Juniors ridiculously spicy congee, and it does cure them, despite all their complaining about how it murdered their mouths. You had tasted some when helping him make it, but even with how strongly it burned your tongue, there was a strange part of you liked it. For some reason it taste familiar, like home somehow, even though you have lived in the Lan sect for as long as you can remember and they only have bland, spiceless food. 

That’s when the memories begin coming back, slow and weak, like a faint flute melody in the wind, too quiet to fully make out.

You do not remember your early childhood. This is hardly an unusual phenomenon, but you still feel its loss. You were not always a Lan. That development came when you were around four or five, according to what others have told you. Four seems an old enough age that you always thought that you should have at least some idea of what happened before, but you never have.

But now you have the faint impression of a different vendor in a different city selling a similar grass butterfly to the one you bought on impulse despite being far too old for toys. You think of the familiarity of congee, of the reedy melody you heard the night you met Mo Xuanyu and then again as the Ghost General stopped attacking the juniors and ran off into the trees. You have a handful of clues, but they paint no coherent picture.

These thoughts haunt you for three months, but since Mo Xuanyu returns to Cloud Recesses as you continue on your night hunts, there is nothing but the occasional sparks of familiarity around random items or phrases to fill in the missing parts. 

And then the word comes out that Mo Xuanyu is actually Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, the founder of demonic cultivation. This is the man who killed thousands, who betrayed the clans, who murdered his own family, including the parents of your—your friend? the boy you’ve run into a few times and survived life-or-death situations with?

Except when everybody else reacts with anger and fear, you... don’t. You can’t explain why, but the name Wei Wuxian brings an echo of comfort, half buried under all the horrible stories you’ve heard about him. 

Part of you wonders if it has anything to do with the whispers of memories, that faint deja vu that has started haunting you. Or maybe it’s the way that Hanguang Jun has always turned sad at the mention of Wei Wuxian, how he never speaks a bad word about him despite their alleged rivalry. All your fellow juniors are terrified and furious and hurt at having been deceived, at having grown to like this eccentric man who teased them and saved their lives then turned out to be the monster from all their childhood bedtime stories, and even though you understand them, you feel none of that.

He saves all of you not too long afterwards, and you can’t say you are surprised. Even when all evidence pointed to him being the one to trap you and your friends in a cave for days, it never seemed quite right to you.

It was a set up you learn, as he and Hanguang Jun and the Ghost General save you from an army of corpses and reveal the true traitor. All those terrible deeds you’ve spent your whole life hearing about are not explained away, but this one is, and you have faith that Wei Wuxian is not the villain everyone has made him out to be.

His Ghost General, Wen Ning, certainly isn’t. A living corpse who has slaughtered armies sounds terrifying, but in reality he’s rather sweet. There is something so soft and hopeful in his eyes as he approaches you and asks you for his name. Your friends keep their hands on their swords, but you offer him a smile and an answer. There’s something familiar about him too.

Maybe that’s why you talk to him, despite the intense look in his eyes. Or maybe because he seemed so sad, alone, separated from everyone else, and the intensity seems anything but dangerous. “You—look like my cousin,” he says, and you start to wonder, everything so close to sliding into place.

You don’t know who your parents are or where you came from, but there is something about the clan name Wen that feels so close to something right, despite all the tales you’ve heard about the destruction they wrought.

Then he gives you a grass butterfly, so similar to the one you bought at the market, so similar to something you know was important to you long ago. And like one last pebble taken out from the base of a wall, this small token brings everything above it crumbling down, and suddenly the memories start spilling in. You look at him properly now, because this was your relative, and you once lived with and played with him. He sees the recognition in your eyes, you know, because he steps forward, trembling.

Of course, Jin Ling has to ruin the moment, but now that you know, there is nothing in the world that could keep you from talking to him and finding out more. You were a Wen, you think. You must have been raised in the Burial Grounds by Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch. You were one of the people he betrayed all the clans to protect. No wonder you never feared the stories of the monstrous Wens and Yiling Patriarch. How could you when they were your family, when you were one of them?

You never could have lived among the Lan Sect if people knew, so you understand why it had to remain a secret.

Still. You have to know more.

“Did Master Wei really put a five year old child in the soil like a turnip?” you ask Wen Ning, at the nearest opportunity. That child was you, and both of you know it, even if you can’t say it out loud, not this close to all these people who would be willing to turn on Wei Wuxian on any excuse, who would be willing to turn on you if they knew the truth.

Wen Ning smiles and nods, and there is more life in the glow of his eyes than any corpse has the right to have. “Just like this!” he says, gesturing, as sparks of memory come back even stronger than before.

And then of course everything goes wrong. Wen Ning throws you into the temple where all the leaders of the four main clans plus Wei Wuxian and Hanguang Jun and a few others are. Jin Guangyao is holding a thread around your friend’s (you think you can call him your friend by now) throat and there is blood, and so many secrets spilled, confessions made.

In the midst of it all, you see Wei Wuxian for the first time since you started to remember, and now there are more memories, sharper, clearer. You remember his spicy congee, the toy butterfly so similar to the ones you hold now that Hanguang Jun bought for you that day Wei Wuxian took you out into the city. Back then, you hadn’t really understood the significance of all those things, why you lived on a mountain full of buried bones, why Wei Wuxian hadn’t bought that toy himself, but now you are older and you know some of the history behind it. Not all of it, you are sure, since so many assumptions of the past have just been proven wrong tonight, and the history you were told had never mentioned the existence of a small child among the supposedly evil remnants of the Wen clan. 

You do not know the full truth, but you want to.

Even once everything is over, with the enemies dead and gone, there are a million things going on, relationships being broken or repaired for the first time in over a decade, injuries to be treated, people to reassure that you are okay, that you made it out alive. It takes a bit for you to peel away from everything, to speak to Wei Wuxian, but you find Wen Ning, and the two of you manage to catch up before Wei Wuxian and Hanguang Jun can go far.

Your thoughts and memories are still chaotic and scattered, little bursts of images and sensations that only barely form a coherent picture. But you summon all your determination, sixteen years of questions that are now clamoring for answers in your brain. You take a deep breath. “I have something important that I must ask you.”

Your heart is pounding, and in the past few days, you have faced an army of fierce corpses and fought against the Ghost General (for which he has apologized a thousand times) and helped confront a master manipulator, and somehow this is the most terrifying thing you have done. You are so sure of the truth, but some part of you doubts. How can you truly be sure when you were so young? And even if the man in front of you helped raise so long ago, how can you know if he still has any affection for you, that he is willing to recognize you? These are irrational fears, you know, but they weigh heavily.

Still, you meet his gaze with eyes that are already starting to water and begin to speak of your long-buried memories, the words spilling out with more and more ease as you continue to talk, as his expression changes from confusion to something full of grief and slow realization.

“Wen was my surname,” you say, now confident of this fact, your previous doubts melted away in the face of Wei Wuxian’s teary eyes.

He looks away, blinking as if he can’t believe it and mutters, “Wen was your surname? Isn’t Lan your surname? Lan Sizhui... Lan Yuan... Lan Yuan.” Then he looks up at you with so much hope, full of a scared longing that you know is the same as what fills your own heart. “A-Yuan.”

It has been a lifetime since you last heard your name called out in that voice, and you wonder how you could have gone so long without even knowing you were missing it. You nod. Tears threaten to spill out of your eyes, but you can’t be bothered to fight them.

You can tell it doesn’t seem quite real to him, the way he looks so afraid to believe it. He thought you were dead this whole time, you realize when he turns to Hanguang Jun for confirmation. And that breaks your heart a little more. He had lost so much, and you had lost so much even if you weren’t fully aware of it, but now you have found each other all over again, and the miraculousness of that is almost too much to bear.

You rush forward to hug him, sixteen years of Lan propriety forgotten. You are a child again, clinging onto a man you have always loved, except you are also an adult with so many years of separation only hitting you now that you are finally reunited. You are both and neither, and as his arms come up to wrap around you, you know that all that matters is that you are home.

[chernobog13]

SUPERMAN: LAST SON OF KRYPTON

I remember picking this up at the stationery store (the closest bookstore to me was too snooty to carry books like this; honestly, their “science fiction” section had less than thirty books in it) and being excited because I recognized the author’s name.  I became even more excited when I realized that this was not just some insipid novelization of Superman the Movie, but an honest-to-goodness original story.

Elliot S! Maggin was one of the regular writers for Action Comics and Superman in the 1970s under the guidance of legendary editor Julius Schwartz, so he had the bona fides to write a Superman story.  The thing is, writing for comic books is an entirely different animal from writing a novel.  Would Maggin be able to handle the change?

I’m happy to answer that he did.  While Superman: Last Son of Krypton will never go down in the annals of great literature, it is a good, fun read that I revisited many, many times before my copy was sealed away in a storage unit for over twenty years.  Luckily, I was able to retrieve it a few days ago, and eagerly re-read it.

Maggin does a good job of writing a Superman story that any Joe Schmo non-comic book fan can read without getting lost, while at the same time incorporating details from the DC Universe to please even the most ardent of fanboys.

There’s Superboy patrolling Smallville.  There’s Lex Luthor, Superman’s arch-nemesis and smart-ass, although (thank goodness) he is nowhere as annoying or schticky as Gene Hckman’s portrayal.  There’s Albert Einstein.  There are the Guardians of the Universe.  There’s an ancient prophecy that predicts Superman’s death while battling a galactic conqueror.   There’s the absolute best explanation as to why so many outer space bad guys want to conqueror a backwater planet like Earth. And much, much more!

Maggin even cleverly inserts the major point from his story in Superman #247, “Must There Be A Superman?”  

He also includes a character he created in Action Comics #420, albeit this time with a much larger role.

Oddly enough, Maggin did not originally set off to write a Superman novel.  The story began as a Superman movie treatment that Maggin was trying to convince the higher ups at DC Comics, and their overlords at Warner Brothers, to make.  This was a year before Mario Puzo was officially hired to write the long gestating Superman the Movie.  Puzo even met with Maggin for a few days  to get educated in all things Superman because, apparently, he knew practically zilch.  (And if you ever read Puzo’s original script - I have - you’d realize that isn’t an exaggeration.)

Knowing his movie treatment wasn’t going to be made, Maggin showed it to an editor at Warner Books.  The editor was impressed enough that Maggin was told to write the story up as a novel.  Warners then held on to the novel until the movie opened so they could release it as a tie-in, without having to pay another author to write a novelization of the script.

I do have one minor, ultra-fanboy quibble with one detail in the story.  At one point Superman has to travel to another planet to uncover the scheme of the would-be galactic conqueror.  The planet in question orbits a blue sun which, we a re told, will cause Superman’s powers to be halved. 

In the Superman canon of the day, it’s an orange sun, which is weaker than Earth’s yellow sun, that would halve Superman’s power.  A blue sun, having far more energy than our yellow one, would actually cause Superman’s powers to increase!

A minor quibble, I know.  I put it down to lazy editing.  I also corrected it by going through the book and crossing out “blue” and replacing it with “orange.”  So much for “mint condition.”

The book is available, in multiple formats, on Amazon, or you could track down a copy on eBay.

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH46

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

-----

Chapter 46: Star Death Reality Show (XXIX)

All of the blood in Qi Leren’s body had solidified, and every cell was screaming silently, "No, don't, don't be it"! But this useless prayer could not help their current dangerous situation.

The sound from the vent became clearer and clearer, and it came out through the metal shutters. Qi Leren suddenly woke up from the stiffness that was like being thrown into a freezer, pointed to the door, and shouted, "Open the door! Fast!"

Dr. Lu was closest to the door, and rushed to open it. As a result, as soon as he raised his leg, his left foot stumbled over his right foot, and he fell hard on his face. Du Yue reacted quickly and rushed to the door to unlock it urgently. However, Leviathan had opened the metal shutter in the vent, and its tentacles wrapped in tinfoil stretched out from the black tunnel.

Qi Leren fired three shots at the tentacles. Two shots missed and one shot hit, but like last time, with an ordinary gun’s offensive power, it was impossible to break through the octopus’s shell.

The monster fell down from above like a pool of mud and expanded to a size larger than before. Its mass had exceeded that of a human, and after it fell, those branching tentacles spread across the ground like dead roots, motionless.

Qi Leren retreated slowly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the door. Dr. Lu was struggling to get up from the ground while Du Yue was sweating as he struggled to unlock the door, because it had been Qi Leren who had locked the door just now, and Du Yue was unfamiliar with this type of lock.

No, I can't get out yet. I have to stall for time... But it would be difficult to stall by fighting. The best way is...

Qi Leren shouted: "Du Yue, use your skill!"

By the time the two rookies reacted, Qi Leren had been chased by the octopus and didn’t hesitate to jump into the vent!

"Stop, don’t move! There’s a kind of charge up!" Du Yue quickly launched this bug-like skill card [Protagonist Halo]!

[Protagonist Halo: When you use this skill card, you instantly become the center of attention, the protagonist of the story, and the fearless saviour! You, with the frightening aura of a king, can easily move people’s hearts, but you can always keep your last breath when you are beaten by a powerful enemy, because the enemy can’t help but explain his motives and modus operandi to you (although there may not be enough time). This skill lasts for one minute, with a cooldown time of three hours. During the start of the skill, persuasiveness increases by 20% and some people’s IQ decreases by 20%. You will not die if attacked. After all, you are the protagonist of this one minute.]

With He Yi’s brain, Leviathan was like any boss who had been faced with the lead character. It had forgotten who it was, where it was, and what it was going to do. It just stood there and listened to this guy who was 1.9 meters tall and 18 years old and could barely act as the teen protagonist. He shouted at it with a cracking voice, and sincerely advised it to abide by human laws and surrender itself quickly.

Ah, there was an invisible and intangible mysterious aura on this human being, which made everyone who saw him believe that this was the legendary protagonist! Although it was very angry, it still had to listen to the protagonist's words!

If it wasn't for its lack of vocal cords, it would probably explain its criminal motives and criminal record. Qi Leren took this opportunity to rush to the door, grabbing Dr. Lu with one hand and unlocking it nervously with the other.

This lock should be like this, wrong, so like this, wrong, how is it unlocked?

Under the Protagonist Halo, Qi Leren, whose IQ had plummeted by 20%, went crazy. It took half a minute to unlock the door and kick Dr. Lu out: "Run!"

Dr. Lu clutched his kicked ass and ran away in three steps.

The most delicious one had escaped the danger. Now there were less than 20 seconds left. Qi Leren shouldered the rocket launcher up off the ground and grabbed Du Yue to drag him out. Watching the "protagonist" run away, the monster finally woke up from the unexplained state of wonder, and the huge mouthparts hidden beneath its tentacles let out a sharp cry, rushing to catch up!

This speed was too fast! Qi Leren kicked Du Yue out with another foot, braced himself against the door, and aimed the rocket launcher at Leviathan, but it was too late. The monster had already jumped in front of him, and its tentacles suddenly stretched. He was dragged to the ground by his feet!

As soon as Qi Leren's hands loosened, the rocket launcher on his shoulder immediately smashed down and landed on his instep, causing a tingle of pain, and his left arm was swallowed by Leviathan's sharp-toothed maw!

"Qianbei!" Du Yue cried, looking back to pull Qi Leren out.

At this time, it was too late to save, and even if he loaded the file, he couldn't go back to the time before his left hand was injured. However, Qi Leren still saved. He felt the pain as if his arm was stuck in a meat grinder, everything below his elbow being ground by countless tiny teeth.

But this was also an opportunity. Qi Leren, who almost fainted in pain, used his quick wits, and a miniature bomb from his item bar appeared directly in his left hand—that is, in the belly of the octopus. Only six minutes were left before his privacy time ran out!

This explosion was even more devastating because it happened directly in Leviathan's body! This terrible explosion made the inside of its body turn inside out, and the brain hidden in it was more fragile than any internal organs. After the explosion, the human brain was useless.

Qi Leren's situation was not much better. The heat and impact of the explosion came out of Leviathan's mouthparts towards him, slamming him against the wall and breaking his neck. He died on the spot and was resurrected at the save point.

Du Yue, who witnessed the death of his senior, was still dumbfounded. Qi Leren had already judged the current situation—he couldn't continue to play! To say nothing of his left hand that was basically wasted, he would die in a few minutes if he didn’t stop the bleeding. Leviathan, though badly hurt, obviously did not lose its fighting power, and even became more violent!

At the moment when Qi Leren resurrected, it had already become like a giant spinning top, spinning wildly on the ground and rushing towards them!

Qi Leren, who suffered from the pain, relied entirely on willpower and kicked Du Yue out the door with one foot. After he slipped out of the door, he threw it closed. The sound of heavy objects hitting the door sounded behind him. Leviathan's bloated and heavy body hit the door directly, but it didn't open the door.

Because its brain had been destroyed in the explosion just now.

One destroyed hand, but he lowered the enemy’s IQ. This round was not a loss!

Damn, you shouldn't have forgotten to shoot He Yi's head before, otherwise, how could you play so badly?!

Because of the severe pain from the intense trauma just now, Qi Leren's right hand covered the elbow of his left arm. The part below the elbow has landed in Leviathan's stomach. The blood was spraying out like a broken faucet, reaching half a metre away. The ground was as horrible as a murder scene!

Du Yue looked at Qi Leren at a loss: "Qianbei, your hand is gone! What should we do! It's bleeding!"

Qi Leren glanced at his privacy time of only five minutes. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay awake. If he passed out now, with Du Yue's rookie first aid knowledge, he might really fall to the fate of bleeding to death. At this crucial moment, I have to rely on myself. Qi Leren took out the first-aid supplies that Chen Baiqi had once enthusiastically recommended from his item bar, and gritted his teeth: "Help me hold it."

Du Yue held his arm and listened to the thumping sound behind him. He helped Qi Leren to tie the rubber hose with trepidation. Qi Leren pulled hard and tied it around the middle position of his upper arm. The wound finally stopped bleeding crazily, but it still couldn't be stopped altogether.

Qi Leren remembered that Chen Baiqi had once said that if no measures were taken within three minutes, this kind of limb injury was basically equivalent to signing a death certificate. If there is no teammate who can treat it, take a soldering iron or flamethrower and burn it against the wound. Only when the blood vessels cauterize to necrosis would it stop the massive bleeding.

"Go, Dr. Lu certainly didn't go far, and time is running out," Qi Leren said, suffering from dizziness and severe pain, and hurried in the direction Dr. Lu had run away. Along the way, he was still thinking. He had had a fight with the big boss, and was injured and dying. He also ran away with the protagonist. It was like a life mentor of the leading role who was going to croak.

Bah, it's so unlucky!

Before running far, Qi Leren heard Dr. Lu’s voice: "You ran too far!"

Qi Leren and Du Yue stopped, looked intently, and Dr. Lu, who had opened the [Free WIFI] skill card, was squatted in the corner without any presence, shouting at them. Looking at Qi Leren's injury, he was shocked: "What's wrong with you, don't move, don't move, I'll give you quick first aid! Oh come on, this injury is too heavy!"

"There’s still four minutes left," Qi Leren reported the time, in too much pain to speak.

Dr. Lu immediately used "Doctor’s Orders". In the milky light, the continuously bleeding wound miraculously stopped. Although the amputated limb could not grow back, the wound healed quickly and new skin covered it. It was completely healed.

Dr. Lu was also shocked: "This effect is too good... Am I so powerful? Am I really a genius nurse?"

Du Yue said faintly on the side: "You’ve never had such a good effect in treating my injuries..."

"No, no, no, this must be because your IQ is not enough to affect the performance of 'Doctor’s Orders'. The skill card says that the more impressive the patient is, the better!" Dr. Lu said convincingly.

"But your treatment for others isn’t this good," Du Yue refused to accept it and refused to admit it was an IQ problem.

"Right, why is that?" Dr. Lu was also confused.

Just then, the pain that made him feel close to blacking out finally faded away. Qi Leren untied the rubber hose which left a bruise on his arm. He stared at the healed amputated limb on his elbow for more than ten seconds, and then he came back from the state of high tension just now.

Although he had died before, thanks to S/L Data, he has always completed the tasks with intact hands and feet every time, and this was the first time that he has lost a hand directly. He thought he would be disgracefully frightened, but because of these two rookies, he looked much calmer.

"Don't worry, there are people in the Twilight Township who can do limb regeneration. I know them. If you go back and pay a few survival days, you can grow it back." When Dr. Lu saw Qi Leren staring at the amputated hand, he thought he was sad, so he comforted him.

"Is it expensive?" As a poor player who has consumed a lot of survival days in the process of competing with Su He, this was what Qi Leren is most concerned about.

"It's okay, I remember it was just over a hundred days," Dr. Lu said.

Qi Leren, who had only seventeen days to live, didn't want to speak.

Du Yue was not rich either. He said gloomily, "That’s a lot, I only have thirty days..."

There was no harm without comparison, and Qi Leren suddenly felt that he was impoverished...

"It’s nothing, if you don’t have enough, I’ll pay for you. I usually charge for treating others. Healers are quite scarce, so I’ve earned a lot. Right now I have about two hundred survival days!" Dr. Lu said generously.

More than two hundred days… More than two hundred days… More than two hundred days…

Du Yue would be silent when hearing this number, and Qi Leren would cry when hearing it.

-----

Editor’s Notes: For anyone (me) who has forgotten the exact details, here’s the description for Doctor’s Orders:

[Doctor’s Orders] (Non-Binding Skill Card): The ability to work miracles comes with a price – a price for your patients. There will be no mercy given to those who do not deserve. Allows the holder to heal all who meet the following requirements: attractive, not a Virgo and an IQ over 100. The number of requirements met will determine the effectiveness of the treatment. Skill cooldown: 2 hours. (translated by Sigma)

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[tsukikoayanosuke]

(Temporary) Final Thoughts of Pomefiore Arc

Since this is my official first-time experience of playing this 'live', I haven't read the translation fully. So, I'll probably re-doing this after reading/watching everything.

Essentially what I like and what I'm mixed with.

I will first address something that has been bugging me since early update. And that's about the delay. Now, I'm not going to talk about the actual delay, but the reaction. Lots of people complaining and blaming the staff and just... Guys, give them some slack. Do you know what happens when you rush production? You'll get something like Frozen 2, where they had to edit so much stuff in just 6 months before the release date because of the failed test screening. As someone who once made an RPG, coding is hard, especially something massive like Twisted-Wonderland. Sitting in front of your computer for six hours straight, coding and beta testing over and over, making the OST, scripting, voice acting. This is a massive group project and it can't be rushed even if you want to unless you want it to be glitching so bad like the Ghost Marriage incident (or was it Fairy Gala?)

Especially during this pandemic and all its protocol. My parents are professors and even they don't go to campus every day, instead, they use zoom to teach and for work meetings. I barely go out from my own house except for physical therapy and volunteer work, which usually once in two weeks because we take turns. Are you saying the staff must risk their health just for a gacha game? Guys, they might be a professional, but they are still human. Cut some slacks. Be grateful we haven't gone into absolute development hell. Yes, the Halloween event was big, but Pomefiore Arc is part of the Main Story, of course, they will give extra care compare to filler event (which might be created in the first place to give them more time in Pomefiore Arc development, which is why we don't get any Christmas event)

On to the story, I don't know how to rate the scale, but it might be slightly lower than Scarabia Arc. Can you really compare a school talent show to a rebellion? Also, in paper, this should be more light-hearted than the four arcs before it.

However, the lack of stake didn't reduce the content quality. From what I remember, there is not a single chapter that can be count as filler, from Yuu's befriending Mickey, the understandably training arc, Vil's unique magic, Deuce and Epel bonding, and the actual VDC (but I do think the tour around the campus with Riddle and Trey was a bit boring)

Also, slight worldbuilding. We finally see Sage Island in its full glory and found out RSA is a freaking Disney Castle and on the same island!

This also gives us possibly the longest rhythm game, plus chibi Jamil rapping. There's just a lot of singing in this episode, which is understandable.

I appreciate Yuu finally taking notice of the Great Seven dreams, which I hope we can get more of this and actually do something with this and not just Disney Movie references, which later in the Episode shows Yuu sort of connecting their dream and Vil's poisoning attempt.

Speaking of Vil, he's a fantastic character. Okay, I aware that we can't like all characters, there will be haters anywhere. But it seems like Vil is hated a lot because he's 'arrogant' and 'only care about beauty'. Guys, he's not Jeffery Star. This Episode shows Vil as someone much more: a hard worker, passionate in acting, and a great teacher. I always see Vil as the more mature of the cast, the mentor. And he's also basically bullied when he was a child. "TV told me how to feel" as they would say, and children believe everything they saw on TV, so of course they would see Vil as the villain. It's also interesting, as someone mentioned earlier, how Vil is a foil to Leona, where Leona just gave up, Vil doesn't stop and keep striving, and that's an admirable trait. He just wants to get the protagonist role for once and break the norm.

Another character that I like is the new combo, DeuPel (Deuce and Epel). I should've known that they will be bad boy buddies with one trying to get away from the past, while the other wants to embrace it but can't at the moment. The shouting moment at the beach is wonderful despite I haven't read the full translation. Separately, Deuce shines so much with his willingness to learn. Meanwhile, Epel finally respecting Vil and all the training is probably one of the best character development so far.

Why one of the best? Because Kalim has great character development. How he grows to be more mature in this Episode really warms my heart. Again, I need to read/watch the translation to appreciate this more. The way he reassures Jamil to take the part as the main singer, but at the same time work hard to maybe get a spot as well is great.

Sadly, because Epel taking the spotlight as Deuce's partner, Ace was sort of underused. Same as Jamil, but sort of worse since he overblotted in the last chapter but has less development than Kalim. Rook also might seem doesn't do much, but he's more as Vil's support, which is why I kinda forgive him.

But, the highlight of this is probably our very own Snow White, Neige Blanche. Can I just say how much I appreciate that Niege doesn't have a dark side? He's a sweet boy and I just really appreciate that considering we're surrounded by a cast of not so great people, it's kinda refreshing to see someone just pure. The dwarves' design are also adorable, can't really say more since we haven't seen them in depth.

And since this is a School Festival Arc, all 22 students have a cameo. I know some people who are thrilled to finally Idia in the main story and to meed Che'nya again since Episode 1.

Unfortunately, Crowley proved to be useless again. When he finally appears in this final update I screamed: "SIR! Where were you?!"

Let's go back with Rook. What he did in the last update was definitely shocking. I knew something is wrong when he smiles after Vil's monologing. So this is the only time through the update I read the translation. And I sort of get it.

So, Rook and Vil's relationship should mirror how the Evil Queen and the huntsman. I mentioned above that Rook is Vil's support and I mean that. Rook and Vil's relationship is another level of prefect and their vice. It's just fascinating. Rook is just as reliable as Jade, but also not afraid to against his perfect like Jamil, also is not afraid to say something against his perfect, unlike Trey.

And it shows in this finale. Rook is always praising the beauty of things and Vil's hard works is truly a sight, but the way Vil unable to believe in himself, it clouded what is supposed to be something truly beautiful. Compare to Neige who is basically Snow White, the purest Disney Princess, there's just no way Rook would not pick RSA. I admit, I was pissed when RSA win, but when Rook started talking, I knew there was something more. And I finally found it. Rook's message is basically "believe in yourself", the most Disney-thing ever.

Saving the best (or worst) for last, I was terrified when Grim happened. We already guess that Grim is the same monster in the prologue, but I never thought it will happen so soon. The flashed of the monster and Yuu's carriage is also a point, but we have so little info that he can't pull a conclusion yet. Is this a timeloop? Is this a vision? This is the darkest ending we've gotten and I'm scared of what will happen.

Overall, Pomefiore Arc is an enjoyable Episode, definitely a step up emotionally. The cast are wonderful as always, the theme of hard work and believing in yourself are spot on, Vil's hero journey is great (I'll give more explanation soon). Great job, team.

[canmom]

Animation Night 44: Makoto Shinkai

Spinning the auteur director of the week roulette once more, and this week we’re landing on... Makoto Shinkai! This dude:

There’s a pretty good chance that if you have even the mildest weeb-nature, you have heard of this guy, because he’s become one of the most popular anime directors around - among the candidates hailed for the rather reductive category of ‘next Miyazaki’. Presently, he’s best known for the m/f bodyswap epic Your Name (Kimi no Na wa), but he’s got a loooong list of films stretching back to 2004 (and short films before that).

What makes Shinkai such a hot ticket? Lots of things, but the most distinctive is perhaps the innovations he’s made in the final visual render (‘photography’ in industry parlance). Much like Kyoto Animation’s Naoko Yamada, whose work we first saw back on Animation Night 13, Shinkai puts a huge amount of effort into light falling softly through a scene, reflections and water droplets, lens flares, and backgrounds that are lush to the point of hyperreality...

As Sakuga Blog write about Your Name, Shinkai’s best-known trait is his “pursuit of static beauty”:

While as a young indie artist he did animation work, it was more out of necessity as a one-man army creator than out of desire to focus on that. He quickly dropped out of any animation roles, while his hands-on work when it came to other aspects continued; he kept on commanding the backgrounds as art director until 5 Centimenters per Second, handled the color design until Garden of Words, and as of Your Name he still has a direct hand on matters like editing and the composite that most directors wouldn’t do themselves. The elements that define his aesthetic almost entirely relate to the pursue of static beauty, so as you can imagine, animation isn’t high in his list of priorities. It’s always been the lavish, shiny sceneries that made many people hold Shinkai’s work as visual accomplishments. Even this film, which is his strongest character piece as far as I’m concerned, might have been nothing more, nothing less, than a beautiful view. Presenting gorgeous if perhaps still worlds has always been more of a priority for Shinkai than populating them with life, as shown not only by the results but the tasks he chooses to undertake himself.

And people really eat this up. There’s something breathtaking about Shinkai’s films, feeling almost ‘realer than real’: every surface is so sharp and perfect, every shot meticulously lit and composed. This is the result of a very elaborate compositing process - here’s a breakdown of a shot from Your Name with all of its effects layers. And it’s really paid off: I’d say the ‘look’ of late-2010s and early-2020s anime seems to increasingly be taking after the lavish digital rendering of Shinkai and Yamada.

So where’d this guy come from? Shinkai got his start as a ‘one man army’ indie short film creator, finding a wide audience with films like She and Her Cat (1999) which he originally distributed on CD-R and the web while working a day job as a graphic designer at an RPG company. This film, shot in black and white, shows a number of elements of his later style already: it’s mostly static shots of meticulously drawn backgrounds with voiceover, with After Effects pans and very brief animations, but these simple elements are put together into a calming, touching atmosphere; there’s a clear emotional arc, and a lot of carefully illustrated simple moments like cutting nails and tying hair.

Also the cat is cute! Here’s a youtube version (sadly without good subs):

This short film managed to catch quite a bit of attention, though it would be a little while before Shinkai would leave the game industry to become a full-time film director. His next major project came as the sci-fi project Voices of a Distant Star (ほしのこえ Hoshi no Koe), about a boyfriend and girlfriend separated by an interstellar space war, connected only by a phone. (This theme of lost romantic connections and forced separation is one that recurs constantly through Shinkai’s work as we’ll see!)

Voices is another one produced nigh singlehandedly by Shinkai over the course of seven months in vfx software. Initially voiced just by Shinkai and his girlfriend Mika Shinohara, it was picked up by a company called CoMix Wave Inc. and given a new dub for a DVD release. This company would soon go on to spawn a film studio, CoMix Wave Films - one not quite as tied to the work of a specific director as Anno’s Studio Khara or Hosoda’s Studio Chizu, but definitely primiarly a Shinkai outfit.

Well. Now equipped with a studio, Shinkai’s productions could really kick into gear. His first full-length film, in 2004, was The Place Promised in Our Early Days (雲のむこう、約束の場所, Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho, literally Beyond the Clouds, the Promised Place). Like most of Shinkai’s films, it’s a character drama with a sci-fi twist: in this case, three school friends are separated by the fact that 1. half of Japan is occupied by the USSR and 2. a mysterious tower is swapping matter into other universes.

Though he had a full art team supporting him now, Shinkai would still take a pretty heavy personal hand in the film’s photography, keeping that characteristic Shinkai look. The same would go for his next few films, such as Five Centimetres Per Second (2007)-  a romantic drama, developing the themes of passing relationships and separation in Voices in a more mundane setting, named after the speed of falling cherry blossoms; and then in contrast the extremely fantastical Children who Chase Lost Voices (2011) (星を追う子ども, Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo, lit. Children who Chase Stars) about a girl who pursues a supernatural boy into a strange mythological realm [a delightful film I need to see again honestly].

The Garden of Words (2014) took Shinkai back to character drama, mundane settings, and melancholy mood... and it was also the point where that photography I was talking about went from ‘gorgeous’ to ‘absolutely goddamn bananas’. The film’s ability to capture the feeling of wet surfaces, the beauty of rim-lit raindrops, the ripples in water... it’s a film about a teenaged boy and an older woman who meet at a park and form a tenuous, ephemeral connection... and it’s also a film about incredibly beautiful water. Look at this stuff:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that better captures the beauty of a rainy day, I just sit there captivated...

Shinkai is not Oshii; while some of his films are slow and melancholy, he can also make one that’s incredibly lively when the moment calls. And that brings us to Your Name, the one that took him from ‘major director’ to ‘one of the biggest in the industry’. It’s a tense story about the connection between a boy and a girl (mm hmm, that theme again) who unexpectedly find themselves swapping into each others’ bodies. But that’s just the initial premise, so much keeps happening. (Apparently the film’s pacing was in part to create a flow that would stop modern audiences looking away at their phones, and it works lol.)

With Your Name, Shinkai got really lucky: Studio Ghibli, which for a long time had been a world apart from the rest of the anime industry (with animators working long term careers on Ghibli projects instead of the industry’s usual pattern of hiring on people for a specific project), was no longer able to sustain that kind of exclusive system. Which meant suddenly there were a lot of Ghibli alumni looking for new jobs on other animated films. Shinkai got Masashi Ando on board, and Masashi Ando knew a lot of Ghibli people; the whole thing snowballed as kVin describes:

His mere presence enabled the arrival of dozens of animators who used to work exclusively with Ghibli, as well as artists simply linked to the studio like himself; the aforementioned Megumi Kagawa, Takeshi Inamura, Atsuko Tanaka, Hideki Hamasu, Hiroko Minowa, Shunsuke Hirota, Naoko Kawahara, the list goes on and on. This congregation of skilled people also caused another well-known industry development – if you want a term for it, let’s call it the talent magnet. As long as it’s open to freelancers, any project that accumulates enough high-profile names becomes exponentially more attractive to their similarly skilled peers; directors and animators talk amongst themselves constantly, so industry members are always fairly up-to-date when it comes to succulent opportunities. And so new waves of excellent animators kept on arriving to Your Name. Some of them could still be traced back to Ando – like the master of realistic animation Hiroyuki Okiura – but plenty of them were simply industry celebrities like Norio Matsumoto, Kazuchika Kise, Takashi Hashimoto, Naoki Kobayashi or even Atsushi “goripon” Nishigori. What started with an ex-Ghibli animator joining the project led to a veritable avalanche of talent. This is the true Post-Ghibli Industry effect.

The result of all these Ghibli-associated animators piling on was, well, suddenly Shinkai’s meticulous backgrounds and photography was fleshed out in the character animation department, which was absolutely vital for a film about multiple people occupying the same bodies. The result was a film that was lavish in just about every respect, from the recurring low shots of opening doors to the meticulously semi-rotoscoped dance sequence and the spectacular climactic effects sequence. Not to mention multiple great songs, complicated language stuff, some of the best anime food (which takes some doing)...

In terms of plot, though, it’s also an absolutely delightful film - so packed with dramatic tension and charming character moments, teasing us with resolution so many times that you might feel rather wrung out by the end, but hey, I like that.

And last, a little over a year ago, Shinkai came back with another incredible-sounding film, Weathering With You (天気の子 Tenki no Ko, lit. Child of the Weather): a girl has weather control powers and a boy (I know, I know, they are all the same boy in more or less the same relationship) runs away from home to join her. I have not learned much about this film because, though I missed a chance to see it in the theatre, I still want to remain unspoiled; what I have heard though is that it faced a rather tight production schedule, and touches more explicitly on climate change themes than some of Shinkai’s other films. And the clips I have seen suggest that both Shinkai’s usual standbys (gorgeous water etc.) and the character animation are going to be a treat.

Look at this.. 🤤

and look at that! a classic ‘running out of breath’ scene in the manner of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. and honestly the film looks like it will be absolutely packed with gorgeous character animation much as with Your Name.

So! Tonight for Animation Night, here’s the plan: I’m going to show some of Shinkai’s really early short films, and then I’m going to hit you with the late-Shinkai Your Name/Weathering With You combo: the classic, and the one I’m most eager to see. But I definitely plan to show more of the older Shinkai projects down the line.

Animation Night 44 will roll in like a beautifully rendered cloud at 7pm UK time (1h40m from this post), over at twitch.tv/canmom - and I’d love to see you there!