#But with how often they’re picked to draw characters I DO think other artists deserve the spotlight

[childofaura]

Xander for the best artist ask game. So far there’s Maeshima Shigeki, Suekane Kumiko and the rest of it consists of PenekoR sadly.

Ok so, I think PenekoR fumbled both Summer Xander and Festival Xander.

… But I’m actually gonna pick PenekoR’s Legendary Xander:

It was tough because Suekane’s Easter Xander is good, but the damage pose looks a little weird. Maeshima Shigeki’s Xander is actually pretty cool, but he looks washed out for some reason.

Legendary Xander improved on all of PenekoR’s faults in their previous versions of Xander. Xander’s nose is much more defined, his face has a clear stern look, the posework is nice and strong, and the attention to detail in his armor and cape looks amazing. Really plays into Xander’s regal air.

[antiloreolympus]

9 Anti LO Asks

1. I know nothing about this, I just stumbled onto your blog and started reading, but I saw a post where (presumably) the author said that Aphrodite and Persephone... weren't skinny? They're tiny??? Wtf

2. I love long-haired men so much I never thought I would consider a long-haired man ugly. But goddamn, Hades still looks ugly even with long hair, even to me. That's impressive... are you, like, alive, btw?

3. You know, in the new currently fast pass chapter... Kronos takes over Hades and makes him say stuff to Thanatos? Right, but then he goes, "What's wrong, don't want Persephone to be your new mommy?" Which is terrible writing enough on it's own but then you HAVE to consider that PERSEPHONE HERSELF IS YOUNGER THAN THANATOS, SOMEONES WHOSE MEANT TO BE HADES' SURROGATE SON (who he treats like shit). Like, Hades is more than old enough to be a father but Persephone only JUST turned old enough to maybe be a mother! Which really makes you realize, Hades isn't old enough to be her dad, he's old enough to be her grandpa. Disgusting. Like, there can't be any defense for this 💀

4. tbh i think eris is a shit character and a hamfisted plot device. she could have been added so much better.

5. My personal criticism with LO has mostly to do with the art style. Like yes the writings kinda trashy but trashy can still be good if its coupled with great visuals and characters. The problem is that the arts just pathetically inconsistent. You can't even blame webtoon for it since she has a few assistants. I'm an artist myself and even tho I don't draw for a living, I know it's fairly easy to create simple character charts and reference sheets. Some people say it's not that bad but god the inconsistency in the characters appearances can ruin chapters for me.

For example, the fact that Persephone sometimes has siren eyes, doe eyes, full lips, no lips, extra body fat, less body fat, a button nose, or a longer nose is ridiculous. It drives me nuts when people call the art amazing, because it's just not. And it seems like all of her aesthetic details (IE wardrobe and colors) are all very surface level, aside from Minthe/Persephone and Hades contrasts.

Demeter being green and purple makes some sense, but then her daughter being neon pink ONLY is weird. Hades being blue and winter-esq makes some sense since there's no sun in the underworld, but the ENTIRE underworld being the same blue and black is just ugly. Zeus being a royal purple? Makes sense. Hera being gold? That too. They're the only color pallets that actually correspond with personality, yet they're wasted with basic wardrobes and character development.   Ares being gold makes sense GENETICALLY, but not in practicality. Same with Hermes being red. Plus, she seems to assign colors to characters at random without even seeing how they build off of each other, let alone their own personalities.

I don't think people really get how important color and wardrobe are in stories, especially visual ones. You should be able to look at a character and immediately understand what they're about, even if it's subconsciously. But Persephone is often in bright happy colors and tight clothing even in times of stress or depression. Artemis is always in workout gear or her uniform. Minthe is more in "sexy" clothing, which is fine, but her colors don't change with her mental state.

Another problem I have is again with Persephone. Her wardrobe isn't even picked out by her, it's always by others/magic. She never really gets to visually tell us how she feels other than her glaringly obvious vines and eyes. Like, I could deal with a visual crutch if the writing was good or vise versa, but when they're both lacking it just sucks.

I see a lot of people say the same things I wanted to, like how creepy Perse and Hades are, how Apollo wasn't handled well, yada yada yada. Anyway Hades is creepy and Hera, Minthe, and Demeter deserve the world ✌🏼

6. It's really funny bc I've been reading some of the scenes of Hades' problematic action (esp the latest fast pass) and he literally talks like my abusive dad and my ex groomer. Like hm maybe your male lead having the same verbal manipulation tactics as actual abusers isn't the best. But oh my bad Hades is still a perfect man /s

7. something that makes me angry about demeter is that we are supposed to see her as an abusive or controlling mother ( i know that controlling mothers is an obviously bad thing ) but all her reasons are a good part of the time valid?

Like:

She doesn't want her child dating a 40y + man who she knows for like 11 days +++ someone who was literally a horrible person with her until the point she cried .

And lets not forget about the slaver owner thing 🥺 demeter knows hades more time  than persephone, obviously. It's not something bad if you dont want your TEENAGER daughter next to a grown old man who the only thing he thinks about its her "small petite thicc pink body" 😁

8. i just wanted to say that i really love your blog, like whenever i look at it i feel better. idk if thats kinda weird since its an anti blog but it just kinda brings me euphoria. ty!

From OP: Thank you so much! I’m glad my blog can be beneficial for you. /pos

-----FP Spoiler-----

9. 220 spoiler: full fuckin disrespect, we all know Kronos wants Persephone rather than Hera as his “golden traitor”, because fuck every other god/goddess, the only ones that matter are Hades and Persephone!!

[jjuzoir]

Homare Arisugawa General HCS

request: “Hi Sora! I never see any art/writing for my boy Homare from A3! (Maybe because his dialogue is so ridiculous.) Would you mind writing something for him?” from tlali

a/n: ahhh i don’t think i’ve ever taken so long in a request jdjdndnd but i just wanted to make it right because i love homare so much❕ he deserves everything and more i just HDHSJJA we need more homare love 🤬 his dialogue is hilarious and i feel like we need to appreciate his style more no more homare slander 🙅

word count: 1667

- He smells like earl gray tea. No one knows why since he uses unscented soaps, he says it’s probably because he spends most of his time drinking or around tea.

- He’s very particular about his hair, he uses very specific shampoos and conditioners that he will absolutely not share or change unless he notices his hair needs it. Talking about his hair, it’s naturally kind of dry so he uses a lot of hydrating products which leaves him with the softest, most fluffy hair ever. It’s like touching a cloud.

- One of his favorite gifts given to him is a tie given to him as a birthday gift by his members. Everyone pitched it, including Izumi, and Azuma picked it out. It’s black, much like his everyday tie, but it’s got a small embroidered snowflake.

- He’s got three main pairs of glasses; his everyday ones he keeps at hand when he goes out, his at home ones which are (according to him) less flattering, and his driving ones. Keep in mind he can’t drive, he doesn’t even own a car.

- He can speak french and latin, and he’s super loud about it too. He’ll sometimes slip in french phrases and no one will understand other than Chikage and it’s just a mess - Muku is always so amazed that he knows two other languages too and probably asks him to teach him sometime.

- Definitely has the prettiest handwriting when it comes to the roman alphabet, he writes in ink and with fancy pens that cost more than Banri’s tuition.

- Absolutely has a bunch of business cards printed out, each with its own quote made by him. Sakyo thought it was such a waste printing them until he realized that no matter how many Homare took when he went to run errands he always gave them all, to whom? No one knows.

- He’s very well respected in the literary community, which still shocks pretty much everyone. He gets stopped often by fans or people who’ve read his work, it happens at least once a day and Izumi really doesn’t… she doesn’t understand, poor girl.

- He’s not that good with phone calls, he’s not bad but he definitely prefers texting or just talking face to face. To him there’s just a certain level of discontent he doesn’t like that doesn’t exist in other mediums.

- His favorite shows are either comedies or heavy hitting detective shows, there is no inbetween. You’ll walk in on him watching a sitcom leave the room and walk in on a serial killer chase down.

- About his love for detective shows, his favorite pastime is trying to solve the mysteries with the main character. He’ll rewatch the episode so many times to try and pick up clues, he’ll take notes and come to a conclusion and he loves the feeling of getting it right.

- In the same spirit as the statement above, absolutely got Tsumugi and Sakyo hooked on some of his favorites and they hang out to talk about the latest episodes and the overarching mystery. The conversations can tend to get kind of heavy very quick, more than once Muku thought they were investigating a real crime and almost fainted.

- He looks like he’s probably allergic to wool sweaters, they make his skin itch and he always needs to use a shirt underneath them - so he tends to buy those expensive anti-allergic ones that need to be washed in a very specific way that could probably pay Tsuzuru’s whole college debt and it takes a lot of restraint from the playwright not to steal one and sell in the black market.

- Talking about Tsuzuru, he often gives him writing advice. Said advice tends to be very useful, like keeping a pen and notebook on him in case anything comes to mind during the day or writing daily to help ease him into a style, etc. Homare genuinely wants him to bloom into a writer and is willing to beta-read anything Minagi needs, be it a script or a sleep deprived rambling about the gay subtext in Nocturnity.

- Arisugawa sets himself reading goals each month, he likes to read at least one book. He prefers poetry books or classic english literature, but he also likes to read romance books or really bizarre dystopian novels.

- Has read more books than most people in the company and can give very detailed recommendations if you give him like a day.

- Sings operas in the shower, unless stopped he will keep going until the second act. Surprisingly good falsetto, but one time Tenma thought it was a Banshee for a second and almost cried into Juza’s chest.

- He’s not only an overly emotional drunk but also a loud drunk, he’s already quite loud but when he’s downed half a bottle of wine and a shot of vodka he’s louder than the Summer Troupe combined. Because of this, Izumi tends to restrict his alcohol intake when they’re at the dorm.

- I can see him being very big into musicals, not all musicals but a very specific niche; classic horror novels turned into musicals. He’s a very big fan of both the German and Korean versions of Dracula, his favorite song is probably “Zu Ende” or the Korean version of “It’s Over”. He also likes the Frankenstein musical too, but overall he finds Junsu’s Dracula more interesting thus his preference.

- He will talk your ear off if you mention any musical though, be it a classic like Phantom or something newer like Heathers.

- A very big fan of Ghibli movies, he told me so himself today. He really likes Spirited Away though, it’s a movie he’s watched so many times but he’s still completely enamoured by it; he probably has made the Winter Troupe watch it at least once and Hisoka definitely knows the beginning of the movie by heart now.

- Homare is also really good at drawing, not like Kazunari but he’s probably the second best. He learned by analyzing and looking at artists he admired and picking up on their techniques. A true Renaissance Man™️.

- I feel like he’d also have a bunch of skills that are kind of, useless? He can probably carve wood and make candles, he also took a course in glass blowing probably. Arisugawa just wants to try everything at least once, his motto is probably to explore and learn as much as possible, not just about art but the world (he can be surprisingly smart if you have a dictionary at hand).

- Very observant, just in general. Which can be both good and bad, it’s good because it helps him understand the situation in ways others might not but it leads to him to sometimes overthinking things and behaving in manners which may annoy or hurt others.

- He also has a hard time trying to react to social cues, as seen in game, with certain people. While he’s worked it out with the Winter troupe and the Mankai company he still struggles when it comes to new people.

- Will make little tunes he sings in the shower that kind of become a little daily song, each day there’s a new one he’ll hum.

- He also canonly makes music and he makes contemporary electro-pop, you cannot change my mind. He probably also mixes opera and classical music into his tunes, which can go from 1 minute to 10, so you end up with a very cool mix of orchestra and techno-pop - it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but he’s probably got his own niche group.

- Now, into more romantic HCs...

- He’s a good flirt, a very good flirt. They may sound weird looking back at it, but his pickup lines work and they work well.

- He knows when to stop pursuing someone too. He senses even a bit of discomfort and he’s backing away, won’t ask anything. Very big on consent and unless stated absolutely explicitly he’ll keep his distance.

- A true gentleman, please - he’ll never let his dates pay, always open the doors for them, will even do the “walk on the inside of the sidewalk” when he’s walking you home.

- His favorite dates tend to be ones where you get to know more about each other, not always necessarily by talking though. Being able to go into a bookstore and look at the books, seeing the ones you pick, what you pick at a cafe or restaurant, it all helps him draw a better picture of who you are and he likes to think it helps you get to know him better too.

- He’s very in tune with his S/O’s feelings but is afraid of overstepping any boundaries which may lead to some miscommunication at the beginning of the relationship. But it’s workable and it wouldn’t be that big an issue in the long run as long as his partner is willing to help him understand them.

- Not big on PDA, thinks certain things should remain inside - not to say he wouldn’t talk for hours about his partner to anyone who listens but things like kissing or hugs tend to be behind closed doors. He’s okay with hand holding and maybe a kiss on the cheek though!

- Likes wearing matching outfits with his S/O, thinks it shows how they’re “one in spirit, heart, and mind” and will not stop pointing it out to the point even married couples feel single as they hear him ramble on about the subtle coordination in your color schemes to create a perfect contrast.

- Notices the smallest things like how much sugar you like in your drinks, the telltale signs of when you’re lying or uncomfortable, how you act when you’re too cold or too hot, and learns it by heart.

- Homare is also the kind of boyfriend who’d confront the waiter if they get your order wrong, he’s not ashamed of it either.

- He kind of just wants to make sure you’re doing well and happy, he’s a gentleman.

- Damn… I love him so much

[blacksurvivalnostalgichanges]

My Take On What Kind Of Student Each Character Is

minus the ones that we fully know about and the ones i didn’t wanna write for

~

Adela: She’d be the student that’s very prodigious on a certain subject, but not be very good at most others. Like, she needs help in english, or P.E., but once science class hits she becomes coveted as a project partner. Of course, the moment that someone pulls out a game board she either gets in and demolished everyone else, or is actively let out to level the playing field.

Adriana: She’d be a big troublemaker, the type you see getting switched from classes or on detention at least once until the first half of the year’s done. Everyone knows her as THAT kid. She’s the student that shoves an eraser in the outlet to make the classroom lights go out. She’s the student that burns something, but no one knows what, just knows there’s a suspicious burning smell, flustering the teachers and supervisors. Those are both real stories I have from highschool, by the way. Neither were caused by me, though.

Alex: He’s the kid everyone forgets exists. Either because they’re never present in class and eventually become that one name everyone laughs at because “oh hah the teacher hasn’t realized courtney’s NEVER showing up”, or because they just don’t talk much and turn away or bore folks trying to socialize with him.

Arda: He’s the kid that’s really smart, but everyone gets kinda creeped out by him. Someone looks for him as a kid, and finds him looking at the ground far too close to an anthill. They ask him what he’s doing, and he gets on this weird rant on how ants live and how life is precious but fleeting. People often want him to be in their group on group assignments since it guarantees an A, but fully expect the assignment to not go pleasantly.

Aya: The narc. The tattletale. That kid that no one tells anything to. Beloved by teachers and supervisors, but others usually aren’t that fond of her. Probably gets bullied over it, and eventually gets a huge complex over how she can’t actually make them stop by talking to authority figures. 

Barbara: She’s the kid that knows a lot about how to use the computers when it gets to that. She’d be really good at arts and crafts projects, and get good grades, but be secretly utterly bored by literally everything that doesn’t have that sort of physical building-up and get really excited and happy when tech class starts, or the arts teacher makes an assignment where she can make things beyond drawing or writing about old artists she doesn’t care much for.

Bernice: He’s the really depressed, existencial kid. Bummer to be around. Makes a joke about death that makes everyone fall silent. One of his classmates became a psychologist and sent him their card.

Camilo: The one dude that folks either know as the guy that gets with lots of people, or as really self-absorbed. Passing grades but only that, probably.

Cathy: The kid that wants to be a doctor. Always has bandaids and antiseptics ready, gets called on whenever people get hurt pretty bad (presuming the nurse’s office isn’t available or her school doesn’t have one). 

Chiara: The jehovah’s kid that tries to get their friends to go to the church. Type to show up to a friend’s house on a Sunday, and try to get them to go with her to the church. People usually try to just quietly ignore it or try to just be a good influence on her, since they don’t know how they’d decode her from it.

Daniel: Him being the goth kid’s a given, but he’d also be that really artistic kid that folks admire (because dang his art’s so good) but also get kinda weirded out by. Voted Most Likely to Kill Someone.

Echion: He’s that dude that randomly fights people for no reason, actually winds up creating harm, gets suspended, then next day a teacher starts talking about how everyone should’ve been more patient with him despite the fact that he was hurting people. (hoping this isn’t relatable)

Eleven: She’d be that student that’s always letting others borrow their stuff, has a bunch of friends she helps with school stuff when they don’t get it, and is generally too nice for this world. I know her backstory involves her friends all being fake and only there for her dad’s influence but I’m going to willingly ignore that and say folks love her and are her friends without influence from her dad. Shhhhhh.

Eva: The student that makes jokes during classes, either whispering to friends or out loud when the teacher allows it. She probably doesn’t like science.

Emma: You know that kid that would bring a book about magic to school? And do magic tricks for people mid class? That. Except she’d actually commit to it for more than a week. Teachers hate her.

Fiora: Sword lesbian. She’d likely have average grades mostly, but excel in P.E. Probably in the student council, maybe as the president with Jenny being the vice president because Fiora would trust her with that sort of thing.

Hart: She’d be the type to go through school sort of in a “i gotta” type of motivation, then after graduation you find out she made a mixtape.

Hyejin:The kid that would be able to help deprogram Chiara because she’s also religious but knows the line. I feel like she’d be the arts and crafts kid too, maybe have her dream job be psychology.

Isol: The kid that’s causing mischief, but in a sort of quiet sneaky way. The kid that made the school administration make a huge fuss trying to figure out who the fuck made the classroom lights go out, or stole something. A week passes. No one even knows who the fuck did it because he’s that good.

Jackie: Openly wanted to be a doctor. Everyone silently suspects she’s the murder doctor type.

Jan: The kid that’s really nice and chill. Then he does pushups with no effort and everyone realized that he’s actually really strong and could probably break them in half if he wanted to. Someone asked him why he works out so much. He answered “to pick up big dogs easily”. Nadine nodded in understanding.

Jenny: The theater kid. Probably isn’t that interested in most classes until either english or art decides that making a play would be interesting. Fiora would be really supportive of her and show up every rehearsal, and record the plays every time.

JP: Okay, we kinda know how he was in school but i still wanna harp on it? Like, he hacked into the school system to get test answers. He definitely emasculated every other kid that wanted to cause mischief. And whenever someone got angry at him for it he probably just tricked them into a ligma joke. King. Legend. He probably got held back though. 

Lenox: She probably wouldn’t kick too much fuss in school, be kind of generically nice and fun, but nothing special. Until they meet her post graduation years later and find out the path she took and they now have a good ice breaker.

Leon: The only kid that got excited for swimming classes. Probably has stories about times he went to the beach. I think he’d also be the kid that feels REALLY pressured to get good grades and doesn’t feel happy enough with anything under a ten.

Li Dailin: Got caught doing drugs in the bathroom. Probably is the one who’s picked to organize events.

Luke: The kid that gets really annoyed when people touch their things because of cleanliness. Everyone asks him when they need hand sanitizer because he always has it. Also probably is the kid that makes jokes over what the teacher said.

Magnus: The guy that’s always smoking right outside school. Got caught doing drugs in the men’s bathroom.

Mai: The kid that’s known to be kind of snobby and annoying, that people kinda stay away from. Probably has plenty of material but never lets anyone borrow it. Not even the people that she knows won’t try to steal it. 

Nadine: The cause of the dog that keeps showing up into school. If the school had a mascot she’d likely be the one taking care of it. Also the kid that becomes coveted when teams are being made for sports.

Nathapon: Gets in detention because he won’t fucking put away his phone ever and filmed the classes.

Nicky: She’d probably actively look for fights, but only ones where the other person did something to deserve it. For example, she sees someone bullying the teacher, trying to steal their things, and she’d get into a fight with the person to make them stop. (That story was caused by me. ....oh god is that why i like hyunwoo)

Rosalio: Jock, but a jackass.

Rozzi: Voted Most Likely to Kill Someone. Everyone kinda stays away from her because she looks so threatening, but as the year goes on everyone finds out she’s actually kind of a dork and the facade winds up getting undone. She gave the teachers food as a goodbye gift before graduation.

Shoichi: Very first day, the teachers do the ‘what do you want to do when you grow up’ thing and he says he’ll become a business major. The kid that’s kind of annoying, but since they’re smart the teachers don’t care unless they become fully disruptive.

Silvia: She’d be the kid that gets bullied over not being very smart. She asks obvious questions, tends to not pull her weight on group projects, that sort of stuff. Though, I think she wouldn’t be the type to get low self esteem over it, I think she’d let it slide every time and keep her chin up. She’d likely have a lot of friends because of that carefree disposition.

Sissela: Often misses school, does it online, or leaves early because she’s always sick. May or may not take a depression leave at some point. While her getting bullied over her fragileness might be expected, it never happens because if anyone even tried to bully her, half the class would defend her because DUDE SHE’S JUST A SMALL BUT SWEET KID LEAVE HER ALONE

Sua: The kid that LIVES in the library. The moment a book report is needed she winds up having to help everyone get it. Incapable of being teased because she just takes everything as her sweet gentle self and never actually gets hurt from it.

William: Jock. That’s it.

Xiukai: He’s the kid that sneaks in food during class. The food equivalent of the kid that everyone gets candy from. He once ate soup in class and Nadine yelled “I SMELL MEAT! SOMEONE HAS SOUP!”. No one believed her.

Zahir: Another guy who’s pretty smart, but kind of weird. He never gets any meme reference. He rarely tries to reference any memes he does learn about, but when he does everyone thinks that it might be best that he doesn’t use them often.

[sometownie]

10 Random Questions ❤

Rule: Answer 10 random Questions and tag 10 simmers!

I’ve been tagged by @mrslandgraab, @episims and @roguebotanist, thank you guys ;^;;; ♥

1. If you could travel one place in the world where would you travel?

Right now? To my childhood home to see my parents. 

I’m a little bit of a scaredy cat, and for example traveling abroad is always anxiety-inducing. However, some countries I would love to visit include Iceland, Greece and - of course - Japan! Once upon a time I dreamed of traveling to Borneo, thanks to a travel dvd by two of my then favorite actors. And to be honest, I still wouldn’t mind going!

Another place me and gf have been eyeing for our 10th anniversary (!!!) is the Schönburg castle hotel in Oberwesel, Germany. However thanks to covid19 I don’t know if we can make an anniversary trip this year :(

2. What do you do in your free time away from sims?

I’ve been getting back to reading again! For years (thanks to mental health issues) I’ve had trouble finishing books or even starting them, when as a teenager I loved reading. Now I’m slowly getting back to it, and I’m really happy about it! 

Other than that, I like writing; I have both original and fanfiction works in progress but thanks to aforementioned issues even those have been a little hard. I’m trying to keep up my daily routines so that I can squeeze in writing a little to every day. Other than that, I play video games and draw, I like running and I’ve also tried practicing ukulele!

3. What other games do you play besides the sims?

I like a semi-realistic looking 1st or 3rd person games. Character creation is something I often look for in games. Action, adventure, role-playing. I also love walking simulators with good story-telling and investigation! Some of my all-time favorite games include Saints Row 1 and 2, The Long Dark, Far Cry 5, the Batman: Arkham series and the first Dishonored (haven’t played the others). I also LOVE Mass Effect but I still haven’t finished the third one! Last time I played I got into the point where the end-game is about to happen and I don’t know if I’m ready to do it. 

I’ve also been playing Fallout 4 and Bioshock: Infinite, and I am finally in the process of finishing the first Mirror’s Edge. Lately my fingers have been itching for Tomb Raider, I used to watch my dad and my uncle play the older ones when I was a kid, and then played some of the slightly newer ones myself. I’ve been thinking about picking up the very first game and playing them in order, little by little. 

Oh, and Skyrim also deserves a mention. I’ve played close to a thousand hours of it, and I’m sort of getting tired of it. Once I get that Legendary Dragon trophy I’m gonna uninstall the game and call it a day. (jk I can’t give up my characters)

4. How tall are you?

174 cm. I guess that’s... 5′8′‘ ? or 5′9′‘ ?

5. One random interest of yours?

I started in a running school last week! It’s for complete beginners, for those who don’t know what a running shoe is. I do know what a running shoe is, and I used to run some years ago. However, I got too excited with my new hobby back then, and hurt my leg. After that I was very hesitant about running for a long time, but now I’m going to the running school and they’re teaching us to run, starting with baby steps. So far, I’m absolutely loving it, and to be honest, I love running. Otherwise I’m shit at sports and - to but it in sims speak - my Body skill is at zero. But that’s about to change now!!

6. Current favourite bands or artists?

Hmmmm. K.Flay, My Chemical Romance, Billie Eilish, Electric Guest, Muse, RADWIMPS. I guess I could say these are my favorite artists, currently.

7. Something you’re looking forward to?

Living my life without having to worry about mental health every day.

8. Current favourite films?

I don’t think I have current favorites right now. Recent favorites are Joker and The Martian, I think. I wanted to go see the Birds of Prey movie but, once again, it has already run its course in our local movie theater. I’m always slow at going to the movies and then I miss out on them. I have tons of movies I want to see but haven’t watched them. 

9.  What food could you not live without?

I’m an absolute trash food junkie. However, recently - thanks to my daily routines getting more and more... routiney - I have been enjoying common homely food more. For example, yesterday I made this creamy soup from sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots and onion, and it’s so good and sweet. In general I think I like (Finnish) soups! Nothing beats salmon soup or minced beef soup. 

10. Favourite series (book or movie series)?

HMMM. I always say my favorite book series is The Gentleman Bastard Sequence by Scott Lynch. Still waiting for that next book. I also love love love The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, and Call Down The Hawk from the sequel series The Dreamer Trilogy WAS SO GOOD, even better than the original series for me!! I love the way Stiefvater writes, it’s so beautiful and inspirational. I recently bought All The Crooked Saints by her, but haven’t started on it yet. 

When it comes to movie series, I like to mention the Banlieue 13 duology. I also like Alien movies (I still haven’t seen Covenant, though) and I love love love Star Wars. SW has such a dear place in my heart (been watching them since childhood) that not even the most recent movie can take it away from me. Oh! And even though I don’t know if I’d say it’s my favorite movie series, the Back to the Future is a series I know by heart. 

I’m tagging @taylors-simblr @nigmos @dreadpirate and @jellybeanery! Feel free to ignore this tag, of course :)

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

Practicalities of Censorship

Every so often I see a thread cross my dashboard arguing about censorship with relation to AO3 - in particular people claiming that AO3 is bad because it allows basically any story regardless of content, that people are bad for supporting it, or that AO3 should implement some method by which problematic fics get taken down. These complaints are usually met with explanations around the history or AO3, why it was implemented the way it was, and why thinking that AO3 is fine the way it is does not equal being a pedophile. I want to tackle this from another angle - practicality.

Let's assume for the sake of this post that the people making these arguments are correct and that there are some things which shouldn't be allowed on AO3 (or an an alternative fic platform set up to be a better version of AO3 without all the bad stuff - I'll mostly be taking about "fixing" AO3 in this post but the same problems would apply to setting up a new and "safer" fic site). There are a lot of arguments against censorship to do with quality of works produced and whether this results is less good art when people are scared to produce things that might get banned, or whether there is artistic merit to works that display despicable actions. Let's just imagine for the moment that the whole argument is settled and the "let's purify AO3 for the sake of the children" crowd are correct. What would need to happen next? This isn't something I've seen addressed in these posts.

There are a lot of problems with censorship. Skipping over the ethical discussion of whether censorship is good or bad and in what circumstances it should be accepted, let's focus on two practical aspects: deciding what should and shouldn't be banned, and how you would implement such a ban. Let's start with problem one: where do you draw the line?

Let's assume we have some scale of rating from absolutely sickeningly awful deserving of destruction to perfectly clean and innocent with not the slightest thing wrong with it. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a line and everything to one side of it is bad and should be banned/blocked/deleted from AO3, etc. Everything on the other side of the line is fine and should be left available for people to read. Some things may seem easy to define. Fic A is incest porn, where a child is graphically raped in a way that's cleanly meant to titillate rather than horrify and the abuse is glorified and justified in text, and it's full of poor writing, spelling and grammar mistakes, and has no artistic merit as a work (how you judge artistic merit would need a few thousand words to explore as a subject on its own right). Let's stick that on the bad side of the line since that's the sort of thing that people on Tumblr are crying out to be banned. Fic B is a fluff fic where a character makes another character soup because they're feeling ill and they watch movies together. Nothing remotely sexual, just two adult characters being sweet to each other. So we'll put that on the good side of the line, right?

But the problem comes in deciding where that dividing line should be and what should be done about the things that sit close to the line. You could come up with some simple rules. Let's say, "Everything involving underage incest is on the bad side of the line." Seems straight-forward. But what if you have a story dealing with someone's recovery from incest and CSA? The story has a character who was abused in the past and the narrative deals with them getting therapy and overcoming their trauma. None of the abuse is shown in the text of the story, it all happens off-screen as it were, and the story sends a message that incest and CSA are bad but offers hope to former victims. Surely that story would belong on the good side of the line? So maybe we amend the rule to, "Everything involving graphic incest is on the bad side of the line." That would let us keep the story about overcoming the trauma on the good side but block anything that uses incest as porn. But is consenting incest between grown adults treated the same as abusive incest?

And what if you get a story that's more about the trauma but that has a handful of flashbacks about the rape that would count as graphic. These flashbacks are meant to be horrifying not sexually exciting. Would that be okay? Is it the intent of the scene that matters? But in that case, what happens if the author writes a scene that's intended to be horrifying but a reader interprets it as arousing? Would it be okay if the author includes a disclaimer in the notes saying that this is a terrible thing and shouldn't be done in real life? Is it the intensity of the scenes shown directly in the story? In which case, where do you draw the line between something described explicitly and something merely eluded to? Is it the precise terms used? Which terms? Or how many times those terms are use? Is a subtle allusion to an event okay? In which case, what happens with a slightly less subtle allusion?

The stories that are far away from the line are easy to place, but the ones close to it become a challenge. Any attempt to define straight-forward rules starts to fall apart quickly and you get to the point where you have to argue on a case-by-case basis for each story, which would involve a massive amount of time invested to check each of these stories and decide whether or not they're allowed. Once again the practicalities of "how would you enforce something like this?" rear their ugly head but that's a question we'll address later.

We also have the problem that where I might draw the line between the bad and the good might be different from where you would draw the line, and would be different from where someone else would draw the line. Let's go back to Fic B as described above, our perfectly innocent fluff story. I might think that's perfectly acceptable, but if those two characters are both the same gender, there will be some homophobic people who will say that it's wrong and corrupting innocents because it sends the message that homosexual relationships are good. Or even if the characters are different genders, some highly religious people might think it sends a bad message if those characters are unmarried and living together in a relationship, even if nothing explicit happens within the story. Or what if the characters are married but it's an interracial marriage? A KKK member might say that sends a bad message. Different people have a different idea of what counts as bad content.

In the real world, there have been cases of books that address racism being banned because they use the n word. Harry Potter has been banned by religious groups. According to the website www.banned-books.org.uk a sweet children's book about two penguins hatching an egg was banned by a lot of schools and libraries in the US because the two penguins are both male - even though this story was actually based on a true story. The book Black Beauty, about the experiences of a horse, was banned during the Apartheid in South Africa simply for including the word "black" in the title. If you look at that site, a lot of books have been banned for a lot of different reasons and a lot of good literature has ended up caught up in the censorship usually because religious groups objected to in on moral grounds.

You could say "don't let the bigots and racists be in charge of the censorship," but historically, when censorship has come into play in the past, the people who tend to end up the worst for it are minorities. LGBTQ+ groups and people of colour tend to get censored more than straight, white men. Stories about their experiences often deal with problematic issues and therefore they get banned. The groups that generally end up making decisions about what is and isn't okay tend to be the groups that have the most power to begin with, and the end result is silencing of minority voices. This is one reason I'm very wary of anything to do with censorship, because the people who usually end up the worse for it are those who most need their voices heard.

But let's imagine all of these problems are magically overcome and we come up with a perfectly clear set of rules about what counts as good and bad fic and the dividing line is agreed by good, rational people who aren't remotely bigoted and who are able to define the criteria for what should be banned in a way that will only ever block the harmful stuff.

We still have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement we set aside earlier. We've built our perfect set of rules to define good and bad fics and now we want to put them into practice to ban any of the awful stuff. How would you go about doing it?

We could try and get machine filters to do censorship by looking for keywords and particular tags or using more complex algorithms to judge what a piece of content is about, but this ends up with chaos like Tumblr auto-flagging a lot of perfectly clean content, or YouTube blocking videos that just happened to be by/about LGBTQ+ people. Any software based implementation would struggle because someone talking about a thing as a problem contains the same words as someone glorifying that thing, and machines tend not to be great at picking up tone. You would get a massive amount of errors with things being falsely flagged as bad and things being falsely let through despite breaking the rules.

And people would be sneaky. Someone wanting to include their graphic story wouldn't tag it as for over 18s because tagging something as for over 18s would get it banned, so they would tag it as something else. The terms "lemon" and "lime" used to describe fics by older members of fandoms started from exactly this sort of thing. Websites decided to not allow adult content so people continued to post adult content but they used the citrus scale for tagging it so people would still be able to find it. Which works when people know the terms to look for or avoid, but which doesn't work for people not in the know. Is a "lemon" or a "lime" fic more explicit? Do you know what a fic being tagged as "grapefruit" would mean? By their nature, these tags are coded, which is not great for clarity.

Any sort of system that just blanket bans key words or tags would result in people just not using those keywords and tags but posting the stuff anyway. It would actually make the situation worse because there would still be incest porn and the like, only now it wouldn't be tagged. As it stands on AO3, people use the tagging system very well and people who don't want to see the incest porn can do things like exclude that tag from searches, or just not open fics they see that have the tag. If there were rules in place to not allow anything with that tag, then people would stop using the tag, which would actually mean more people would see incest porn they didn't want to because it would no longer be tagged properly, or it would be tagged using code words which only mean something to the inside group. It would be much harder to avoid the things you don't like.

So let's say we don't let a computer decide what's breaking the rules. Let's say there is a system by which readers can flag a fic as being inappropriate to get it banned. Human beings get to decide, but what's the threshold? Does a thing get banned as soon as someone reports it? Or does it need to be flagged by multiple people to be banned? In which case fics written in tiny fandoms might slip through the cracks because not enough people are reading it to them flag it. This is also open for exploitation. Someone who takes a dislike to a particular person might encourage others to flag their fics as inappropriate, regardless of whether or not they are. Someone might create fake accounts or log in anonymously over proxies to spam a fic with flags.

And even if no one acts maliciously to abuse the system, not everyone will be careful about checking the precise and perfect rules defined to mark the difference between acceptable and unacceptable work. People will flag things incorrectly, based on their own viewpoints of what should or shouldn't be allowed, which we've already said is a problem because everyone will draw the line in different places based on their own beliefs.

So what's the alternative to a community-driven method for managing content? You could have specific people whose job it is to go through content and decide whether it adheres to the rules. Maybe a computer system or community flagging could funnel fics into a review channel where human beings check every one carefully. These people would understand the rules and be certain to always judge fics accurately according to the magically perfect rules defined earlier, which are guaranteed to only ever block bad fics but never block a good fic.

So problem solved, right? We have our perfect rules perfectly implemented.

Except where humans are employed to check whether content is acceptable or not, it involves a large number of people checking through basically the worst content out there. Some social networking sites do this sort of thing now and it can be hugely traumatising for people who do that work. It's not good for them mentally to have to be exposed over and over to the worst content being put up online. There tends to be a high turnover in those jobs because they burn out fast, and that's where people are being paid for this stuff.

A site like AO3 relies on volunteers so it would require a large number of people to volunteer to look at the darkest most gruesome content and decide if it breaks the rules or not. Either you have people who hate those sort of fics doing this out of a sense of duty to maintain the purity of the content, in which case they will probably struggle with having to read a load of stuff they really, really don't enjoy. Or you will have people volunteer because they really like those fics and this is the way for them to read them. And that probably defeats the point of doing this, because it means that the people who would be seeking out those stories anyway would be the ones reading them to see if they break the rules.

There are a lot of problems with censorship, both ethically and practically. Even if you are fully on the side of censorship from a moral standpoint, you have to address the practical concerns if you want to propose an implementation.

As it stands, I think the current system works. There is stuff on AO3 that I would not in a million years want to read, but I don't have to. AO3 is brilliant for its tagging system and I can look at the tags and nope past fics that are full of my personal squicks or that I think endorse something terrible. Readers can exclude tags they want nothing to do with or just not click on ones that include elements you dislike. You can curate your own experience, which actually works with the whole idea of everyone drawing a line in a different place. You and I will have different stories we want to avoid, and we can both choose to avoid them based on author's tagging for them, rather than some other person decreeing what is acceptable for either of us to see.

If you still think that AO3 should be blocking or banning certain content, have a think about how this would work in reality. Because when ideas like that are implemented in the real world, all manner of problems happen.

I think the fact that this post is still a couple of thousand words long with me skipping over several parts of the debate is a sign that this is not a simple problem that can be easily fixed.

[kemetic-dreams]

Ibrahima & Abdoulaye Barry Written by Deborah BachAudio by Sara Lerner

How a new alphabet is helping an ancient people write its own future

When they were 10 and 14, brothers Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry set out to invent an alphabet for their native language, Fulfulde, which had been spoken by millions of people for centuries but never had its own writing system. While their friends were out playing in the neighborhood, Ibrahima, the older brother, and Abdoulaye would shut themselves in their room in the family’s house in Nzérékoré, Guinea, close their eyes and draw shapes on paper.

When one of them called stop they’d open their eyes, choose the shapes they liked and decide what sound of the language they matched best. Before long, they’d created a writing system that eventually became known as ADLaM.

The brothers couldn’t have known the challenges that lay ahead. They couldn’t have imagined the decades-long journey to bring their writing system into widespread use, one that would eventually lead them to Microsoft. They wouldn’t have dreamed that the script they invented would change lives and open the door to literacy for millions of people around the world.

They didn’t know any of that back in 1989. They were just two kids with a naïve sense of purpose.

“We just wanted people to be able to write correctly in their own language, but we didn’t know what that meant. We didn’t know how much work it would be,” said Abdoulaye Barry, now 39 and living in Portland, Oregon.

“If we knew everything we would have to go through, I don’t think we would have done it.”

ADLaM is an acronym that translates to 'the alphabet that will prevent a people from being lost.'

A new writing system takes shape

The Fulbhe, or Fulani, people were originally nomadic pastoralists who dispersed across West Africa, settling in countries stretching from Sudan to Senegal and along the coast of the Red Sea. More than 40 million people speak Fulfulde — some estimates put the number at between 50 and 60 million — in around 20 African countries. But the Fulbhe people never developed a script for their language, instead using Arabic and sometimes Latin characters to write in their native tongue, also known as Fulani, Pular and Fula. Many sounds in Fulfulde can’t be represented by either alphabet, so Fulfulde speakers improvised as they wrote, with varying results that often led to muddled communications.

The Barry brothers’ father, Isshaga Barry, who knew Arabic, would decipher letters for friends and family who brought them to the house. When he was busy or tired, young Abdoulaye and Ibrahima would help out.

“They were very hard to read, those letters,” Abdoulaye recalled. “People would use the most approximate Arabic sound to represent a sound that doesn’t exist in Arabic. You had to be somebody who knows how to read Arabic letters well and also knows the Fulfulde language to be able to decipher those letters.”

Abdoulaye asked his father why their people didn’t have their own writing system. Isshaga replied that the only alphabet they had was Arabic, and Abdoulaye promised to create one for Fulfulde.

“At a basic level, that’s how the whole idea of ADLaM started,” Abdoulaye said. “We saw that there was a need for something and we thought maybe we could fix it.”

The brothers developed an alphabet with 28 letters and 10 numerals written right to left, later adding six more letters for other African languages and borrowed words. They first taught it to their younger sister, then began teaching people at local markets, asking each student to teach at least three more people. They transcribed books and produced their own handwritten books and pamphlets in ADLaM, focusing on practical topics such as infant care and water filtration.

While attending university in Conakry, Guinea’s capital city, the brothers started a group called Winden Jangen — Fulfulde for “writing and reading” — and continued developing ADLaM. Abdoulaye left Guinea in 2003, moving to Portland with his wife and studying finance. Ibrahima stayed behind, completing a civil engineering degree, and continued working on ADLaM. He wrote more books and started a newspaper, translating news stories from the radio and television from French to Fulfulde. Isshaga, a shopkeeper, photocopied the newspapers and Ibrahima handed them out to Fulbhe people, who were so grateful they sometimes wept.

But not everyone was pleased by the brothers’ work. Some objected to their efforts to spread ADLaM, saying Fulbhe people should learn French, English or Arabic instead. In 2002, military officers raided a Winden Jangen meeting, arrested Ibrahima and imprisoned him for three months. He was not charged with anything or ever told why he was arrested, Abdoulaye said. Undeterred, Ibrahima moved to Portland in 2007 and continued writing books while studying civil engineering and mathematics.

ADLaM, meanwhile, was spreading beyond Guinea. A palm oil dealer, a woman the brothers’ mother knew, was teaching ADLaM to people in Senegal, Gambia and Sierra Leone. A man from Senegal told Ibrahima that after learning ADLaM, he felt so strongly about the need to share what he’d learned that he left his auto repair business behind and went to Nigeria and Ghana to teach others.

“He said, ‘This is changing people’s lives,’” said Ibrahima, now 43. “We realized this is something people want.”  

ADLaM comes online

The brothers also understood that to fully tap ADLaM’s potential, they needed to get it onto computers. They made inquiries about getting ADLaM encoded in Unicode, the global computing industry standard for text, but got no response. After working and saving for close to a year, the brothers had enough money to hire a Seattle company to create a keyboard and font for ADLaM. Since their script wasn’t supported by Unicode, they layered it on top of the Arabic alphabet. But without the encoding, any text they typed just came through as random groupings of Arabic letters unless the recipients had the font installed on their computers.

Following that setback, Ibrahima made a fateful decision. Wanting to refine the letters the Seattle font designer developed, which he wasn’t happy with, he enrolled in a calligraphy class at Portland Community College. The instructor, Rebecca Wild, asked students at the start of each course why they were taking her class. Some needed an art credit; others wanted to decorate cakes or become tattoo artists. The explanation from the quiet African man with the French accent stunned Wild.

“It was mind-blowing when I heard the story of why he was doing this,” said Wild, who lives in Port Townsend, Washington. “It’s so remarkable. I think they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for what they’re doing. What a difference they’ve made on this planet, and they’re these two humble brothers.”

Wild was struck by Ibrahima’s focus and assiduousness in class. “He was always a star student,” she said. “He had this skill set and unending patience. He worked and worked and worked in class on the assignments, but at the same time, he was taking all this stuff he was learning in class back to ADLaM.”

Wild helped Ibrahima get a scholarship to a calligraphy conference at Reed College in Portland, where he met Randall Hasson, a calligraphy artist and painter. Hasson was seated at a table one afternoon, giving a lettering demonstration with another instructor, and Ibrahima came over. A book about African alphabets rested on the table. Ibrahima picked it up, commented that the scripts in the book weren’t the only African alphabets and offhandedly mentioned that he and his brother had invented an alphabet.

Hasson, who has extensively researched ancient alphabets, assumed Ibrahima meant that he and his brother had somehow modified an alphabet.

“I said, ‘You mean you adapted an alphabet?’” Hasson recalled. “I had to ask him three times to be sure he had actually invented one.”

After hearing Ibrahima’s story, Hasson suggested teaming up for a talk on ADLaM at a calligraphy conference in Colorado the following year. The audience sat rapt as Hasson told Ibrahima’s story, giving him a standing ovation as he walked to the stage. During a break earlier in the day, Ibrahima asked Hasson to come and meet a few people. They were four Fulbhe men who had driven almost 1,800 miles from New York just to hear Ibrahima’s talk, hoping it would finally help get ADLaM the connections they sought.

Hasson was so moved after speaking with them that he walked away, sat down in an empty stairwell and cried.

“At that moment,” he said, “I began to understand how important this talk was to these people.”

Ibrahima made connections at the conference that got him introduced to Michael Everson, one of the editors of the Unicode Standard. It was the break the brothers needed. With help from Everson, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye put together a proposal for ADLaM to be added to Unicode.

Andrew Glass is a senior program manager at Microsoft who works on font and keyboard technology and provides expertise to the Unicode Technical Committee. The ADLaM proposal and the Barry brothers’ pending visit to the Unicode Consortium generated much interest and excitement among Glass and other committee members, most of whom have linguistics backgrounds. Glass’s graduate studies focused on writing systems that are around 2,000 years old, and like other linguists he uses a methodological, technical approach to analyze and understand writing systems.

But here were two brothers with no training in linguistics, who developed an alphabet through a natural, organic approach — and when they were children, no less. New writing systems aren’t created very often, and the chance to actually talk with the inventors of one was rare.

“You come across things in these old writing systems and you wonder why it’s the way it is, and there’s nobody to ask,” Glass said. “This was a unique opportunity to say, ‘Why is it like this? Did they think about doing things differently? Why are the letters ordered this way?’ and things like that.”

Microsoft worked with designers to develop a font for Windows and Office called Ebrima that supports ADLaM and several other African writing systems.

It was during the Unicode process that ADLaM got its new name. The brothers originally called their alphabet Bindi Pular, meaning “Pular script,” but had always wanted a more meaningful name. Some people in Guinea who’d been teaching the script suggested ADLaM, an acronym using the first four letters of the script for a phrase that translates to “the alphabet that will prevent a people from being lost.” The Unicode Technical Committee approved ADLaM in 2014 and the alphabet was included in Unicode 9.0, released in June 2016. The brothers were elated.

“It was very exciting for us,” Abdoulaye said. “Once we got encoded, we thought, ‘This is it.’”

But they soon realized there were other, possibly even more challenging hurdles ahead. For ADLaM to be usable on computers, it had to be supported on desktop and mobile operating systems, and with fonts and keyboards. To make it broadly accessible, it also needed to be integrated on social networking sites.

The brothers’ script found a champion in Glass, who had developed Windows keyboards for several languages and worked on supporting various writing systems in Microsoft technology. Glass told others at Microsoft about ADLaM and helped connect the Barry brothers to the right people at the company. He developed keyboard layouts for ADLaM, initially as a project during Microsoft’s annual companywide employee hackathon.

Judy Safran-Aasen, a program manager for Microsoft’s Windows design group, also saw the importance of incorporating ADLaM into Microsoft products. Safran-Aasen wrote a business plan for adding ADLaM to Windows and pushed the work forward with various Microsoft teams.

“It was a shoestring collaboration of a few people who were really interested in seeing this happen,” she said. “It’s a powerful human interest story, and if you tell the story you can get people onboard.

“This is going to have an impact on literacy throughout that community and enable people to be part of the Windows ecosystem, where before that just wasn’t available to them,” Safran-Aasen said. “I’m really excited that we can make this happen.”

ADLaM creators Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry in Portland, Oregon.

Microsoft worked with two type designers in Maine, Mark Jamra and Neil Patel, to develop an ADLaM component for Windows and Office within Microsoft’s existing Ebrima font, which also supports other African writing systems. ADLaM support is included in the Windows 10 May 2019 update, allowing users to type and see ADLaM in Windows, including in Word and other Office apps.

Microsoft’s support for ADLaM, Abdoulaye said, “is going to be a huge jump for us.”

ADLaM is also supported by the Kigelia typeface system developed by Jamra and Patel, which includes eight African scripts and is being added to Office later this year. The designers wanted to create a type system for a region of the world lacking in typeface development, where they say existing fonts tend to be oversimplified and poorly researched. They consulted extensively with Ibrahima and Abdoulaye to refine ADLaM’s forms, painstakingly working to execute on the brothers’ vision within the boundaries of font technology.

“This was their life’s work that they started when they were kids,” Patel said. “To get it right is a big deal.”

And to many Africans, Jamra said, a script is more than just an alphabet. ”These writing systems are cultural icons,” he said. “It’s not like the Latin script. They really are symbols of ethnic identity for many of these communities.”

They’re also a means of preserving and advancing a culture. Without a writing system it’s difficult for people to record their history, to share perspective and knowledge across generations, even to engage in the basic communications that facilitate commerce and daily activities. There is greater interest in recent years in establishing writing systems for languages that didn’t have them, Glass said, to help ensure those languages remain relevant and don’t disappear. He pointed to the Osage script, created by an elder in 2006 to preserve and revitalize the language, as an example.

“There is a big push among language communities to develop writing systems,” Glass said. “And when they get them, they are such a powerful tool to put identity around that community, and also empower that community to learn and become educated.

“I think ADLaM has tremendous potential to change circumstances and improve people’s lives. That’s one of the things that’s really exciting about this.”

Keeping a culture alive

Ibrahima and Abdoulaye don’t know how many people around the world have learned ADLaM. It could be hundreds of thousands, maybe more. As many as 24 countries have been represented at ADLaM’s annual conference in Guinea, and there are ADLaM learning centers in Africa, Europe and the U.S. On a recent trip to Brussels, Ibrahima discovered that four learning centers had opened there and others have started in the Netherlands.

“I was really surprised. I couldn’t imagine that ADLaM has reached so many people outside of Africa,” he said.

Abdoulaye “Bobody” Barry (no relation to ADLaM’s creator) lives in Harlem, New York and is part of Winden Jangen, now a nonprofit organization based in New York City. He learned ADLaM a decade ago and has taught it to hundreds of people, first at mosques and then through messaging applications using an Android app. The script has enabled Fulbhe people, many of whom never learned to read and write in English or French, to connect around the world and has fostered a sense of sense of cultural pride, Barry said.

“This is part of our blood. It came from our culture,” he said. “This is not from the French people or the Arabic people. This is ours. This is our culture. That’s why people get so excited.”

Suwadu Jallow emigrated to the U.S. from Gambia in 2012 and took an ADLaM class the Barry brothers taught at Portland Community College. ADLaM is easy for Fulfulde speakers to learn, she said, and will help sustain the language, particularly among the African diaspora.  

“Now I can teach this language to someone and have the sense of my tribe being here for years and years to come without the language dying off,” said Jallow, who lives in Seattle. “Having this writing system, you can teach kids how to speak (Fulfulde) just like you teach them to speak English. It will help preserve the language and let people be creative and innovative.”

Jallow is pursuing a master’s in accounting at the University of Washington and hopes to develop an inventory-tracking system in ADLaM after she graduates. She got the idea after helping out in her mother’s baby clothing shop in Gambia as a child and seeing that her mother, who understood little English and Arabic, could not properly record and track expenses. ADLaM, she said, can empower people like her mother who are fluent in Fulfulde and just need a way to write it.  

“It’s going to increase literacy,” she said. “I believe knowledge is power, and if you’re able to read and write, that’s a very powerful tool to have. You can do a lot of things that you weren’t able to do.”

The Fulbhe people in Guinea historically produced a considerable volume of books and manuscripts, Abdoulaye Barry said, using Arabic to write in their language. Most households traditionally had a handwritten personal book detailing the family’s ancestry and the history of the Fulbhe people. But the books weren’t shared outside the home, and Fulbhe people largely stopped writing during French colonization, when the government mandated teaching in French and the use of Arabic was limited primarily to learning the Koran.

“Everything else was basically discounted and no longer had the value that it had before the French came,” Abdoulaye said.

Having ADLaM on phones and computers creates infinite possibilities — Fulbhe people around the world will be able to text each other, surf the internet, produce written materials in their own language. But even before ADLaM’s entry into the digital world, Fulfulde speakers in numerous countries have been using the script to write books. Ibrahima mentions a man in Guinea who never went to school and has written more than 30 books in ADLaM, and a high school girl, also in Guinea, who wrote a book about geography and another about how to succeed on exams. The president of Winden Jangen, Abdoulaye Barry (also no relation to Ibrahima’s brother), said many older Fulbhe people who weren’t formally educated are now writing about Fulbhe history and traditions.

“Now, everybody can read that and understand the culture,” he said. “The only way to keep a culture alive is if you read and write in your own language.”

‘The kids are the future’

Though ADLaM has spread over several continents, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye aren’t slowing down their work. Both spend much of their spare time promoting the script, traveling to conferences and continuing to write. Ibrahima, who sleeps a maximum of four hours a night, recently finished the first book of ADLaM grammar and hopes to build a learning academy in Guinea.

On a chilly recent day in Abdoulaye’s home in Portland, the brothers offer tea and patiently answer questions about ADLaM. They are unfailingly gracious, gamely agreeing to drive to a scenic spot on the Willamette River for photos after a long day of talking. They’re also quick to deflect praise for what they have accomplished. Ibrahima, who sometimes wakes up to hundreds of email and text messages from grateful ADLaM learners, said simply that he’s “very happy” with how the script has progressed. For his brother, the response to ADLaM can be overwhelming.

Having this writing system, you can teach kids how to speak Fulani just like you teach them to speak English. It will help preserve the language and let people be creative and innovative.

“It’s very emotional sometimes,” Abdoulaye said. “I feel like people are grateful beyond what we deserve.”

The brothers want ADLaM to be a tool for combating illiteracy, one as lasting and important to their people as the world’s most well-known alphabets are to cultures that use them. They have a particular goal of ADLaM being used to educate African women, who they said are more impacted by illiteracy than men and are typically the parent who teaches children to read.

“If we educate women we can help a lot of people in the community, because they are the foundation of our community,” Abdoulaye said. “I think ADLaM is the best way to educate people because they don’t need to learn a whole new language that’s only used at school. If we switched to this, it would make education a lot easier.”

That hasn’t happened yet, but ADLaM has fostered a grassroots learning movement fueled largely through social media. There are several ADLaM pages on Facebook, and groups with hundreds of members are learning together on messaging apps. Abdoulaye said he and Ibrahima used to hear mostly about adults learning ADLaM, but increasingly it’s now children. Those children will grow up with ADLaM, using the script Abdoulaye and Ibrahima invented all those years ago in their bedroom.

“That makes us believe ADLaM is going to live,” Abdoulaye said. “It’s now settled into the community because it’s in the kids, and the kids are the future.”

Originally published on 7/29/2019 / Photos by Brian Smale / © Microsoft 

[littlemisssquiggles]

Hey squiggle meister. What're your thoughts on the flood of people on YouTube who are constantly ranting about the series. And how it's dead after Monty died, and how it's so much worst than before. Etc etc

Tobe honest with you Key, I really don't want to answer this question.I mean it's alright that you asked and I'm going to answer you however I'mgetting a strange sense of deja vu here. Wasn't it not too long ago that youasked me to give my opinion on a similar condition that was happening pre-V6?

Thiswas the issue back then and yet here we are again. You may wanna grab yourselfa snack and settle in because this is going to be one long response post. Let’s just say,this squiggle meister had a lot to let off her chest regarding this particulartopic in the FNDM:

Ihave actually had a small listen to some of these critiques on YouTube and toput it bluntly, I couldn't bring myself to finish most of them. I am a RWBY fan whoalways advocates respecting each other’s opinions regardless of whether or notwe share the same sentiments about the series. I am also a RWBY fan whounderstands that the series is not a flawless show and has suffered more than its fairshare of shortcomings throughout its last arc trilogy. 

Nevertheless, in spiteof this, I’ve also acknowledged some noteworthy improvements in the quality of the show that honestly deserves more praise.As someone who has been with this series since its humble beginnings, I have beenthere for each transformation the show has undergone and in doing so, I haveseen RWBY evolve.

Whilesome of the show’s changes haven’t entirely been welcomed by its fandom (withits main change being something completely out of the showrunners’ control) I’dbe lying if I said these changes didn’t contribute to the show’s success insome shape or form.

Speakingfor myself, initially RWBY earned my attention because, like most RWBY stans, Iwas a fan of Monty Oum before and when I discovered that he had his own seriesproduced by RoosterTeeth, I was interested. I didn’t care what the story wasabout or what it looked like. All that mattered to be me back then was that itwas something from the creative mind of Monty Oum so I expected somethingepically action-packed.

At the start, I joinedthe RWBY fandom becauseof Monty however as the seriesprogressed, my reasoning for sticking with it and staying loyal to the showtranscended my past loyalty to the franchise as a by-product of anartist/animator I admired so much.

Thisbrings me to my main point. You want my honest thoughts onthe YouTube RWBY Rants, Key? To be frank, I’m tired of it. It is exhausting listeningto the tirades of these proclaimed RWBY YouTube reviewers who do nothing butgripe and express their disdain for everything the show does wrong according totheir standards. I am so fed up of seeing this happen time and time again.

Andwhat’s sad is that I don’t think part of this is even due to the show or theCRWBY’s fault. Do you know you are more likely to find a video shitting on RWBYas opposed to one that genuinely outlines its positive elements or at leastpresents a fair and just constructive argument of the good and bad of the show?Do you know how many RWBY hate videos the YouTube algorithm has recommended to mesince V6 concluded? It’s ridiculous.

ButI also know I can’t do anything to stop it. So long as RWBY exists, there willalways be these so-called ---I guess we can call them the ‘hate parade’ type of fans who wait like vultures to a carcass to pick apartthe show whenever a new season comes out.

Anddo you know what the sadder part about watching these videos is?

Thesevideos try to give the allusion thatthey are coming from a practical standpoint---as if the things they’repointing out in their reviews are genuine problems with theshow and that their personal advice to the showrunners are valid enough torectify these problems they indicated about RWBY.

Herein, lies my personal peeve with these types of reviews. The best kind of criticto me is one who can point out a flaw in something, justify why they believesaid thing is a clear flaw and then use their own understanding to outlinetheir concept for a possible solution to that flaw that they respectfully leaveopen to the creators of said property to take their advice or not.

However,this is not the case with these YouTube RWBY Rants; at least from the few I’veviewed. I’ll admit, there are some genuinely good RWBY Reviewers on YouTube. Ofthe top of my head, Thatkaitodan, MurderofBirds are two and believeit or not, I actually like some of EruptionFang’s reviews from time to time. Imay not always agree 100% with everything he says in his breakdowns but in myopinion, I can’t get too mad at the things he says in his reviews/video essaysbecause he’s able to justify it in a manner that I’m able to see where he’scoming from. Even if that justification comes from a place of unbridled rage.Referring to EF, I know he’s been receiving flak from FNDM members regardinghis recent views on Adam’s conclusion and Bumblebee; however if I’m beingcompletely honest here, I feel some of that bashing is unwarranted.

Inall fairness to EF, at least I’m able stomach his opinions a lot better than thatof other RWBY Youtubers. As I said, EF is able to properly defend his pointswell enough for me to grasp the validity of his statements which is the least Ican say for some of the others I’ve listened to.

Oftenat times, on the adverse side of RWBY YouTube, I find myself listening toYoutubers who spend more time outright bashing everypersonal gripe they have with the show as opposed to presenting a good argumentthan gives hindsight to why these problems are such an issue to them. 

Theworst kind are the ones where this Youtubers point out flaws in the show andtry to give solutions to what the showrunners can do to fix these problems. Butmost of the time it’s done so rudely that it comes off more obnoxious thanhelpful. As if these Youtubers are proclaiming to know and understand moreabout the animation production process than the actual people running the showwho have the qualifications and past industry experience

I’llgive you two examples. Not naming names but I recently watched two videos fromtwo RWBY Youtubers---one critiquing the shows character designs while anotherwas a Youtuber’s final video explaining why they were quitting the RWBY FNDMfor good.

 Inthe characterdesign critique, the individualexpressed their disappointment in the recent designs for the RWBY girls and thevillains as of the Mistral Arc. They then proceeded to offer their own tips for how the show could have helped to spruce up someof these designs. However rather than attempting to make their own alternatedesigns to the character outfits, this Youtuber just slapped some rather poorlylaid out flat base colours on top of screenshots of the characters in question.Which from a digital art perspective is…admittedly…lazy.

Iunderstand that not everyone in the world is a designer, much less is a characterdesigner or at least knows how to draw. However…if that is the case then whyare you, as the individual who clearly doesn’t appear to have the design skills,commenting on the work of a studio with a full production team of artists whodo have those required skills and experience and can probably rationalize theirreasons for going with the final designs presented in the show. You get whatI’m saying?

Ifone is going to critique the show’s overall character design then the least youcan do is make the effort to back up your claims. Illustrate your own designsfor RWBY character outfits. Create a mock-up 2D/3D screenshot illustration withproper lighting and atmosphere to see how your design ideas holds up againstthose elements of a scene and then compare that to the actual show’s productionwork. This reviewer didn’t even bother to attempt to maketheir own original designs or even redraw the current designs in their ownstyle and test out their suggested colourpalettes to see if it would fit with the overall design aesthetic of thecharacter.

Youmight be asking now: But Squiggles are you saying I need to know how to draw tocomment about RWBY?

To which I say: No.Being an artist is not a requirement that you as a fan need to really have inorder to comment about something you love. HOWEVER, if you are the type of individualwho has the massive chops to try and dictate a production studio with a team ofeducated and/or industry seasoned artists on how they should handle designingtheir characters without you yourself having the design knowledge to supportyour critiques then… you wonder why the CRWBY often get upset with these typesof fans and don’t take their comments seriously?

Contraryto what others might say, I am not a believer that RWBY is dictated by thedesires of its fandom community. That’s a comment I’ve been hearing buzzingabout since V6 ironically in the face of the recent hate crowd to gather fromwhat transpired with the Bumblebee pairing in the recent season.

Iunderstand that there are fans making the argument that the showrunners onlymade this pairing canon because its popular with its shipping community. Thesame can be said about Neo’s return to become Cinder’s protégé.

Admittedlywhile I might find the CRWBY’s decisions to be questionable at times, this still doesn’t prove that they are run by theirFNDM. If something happens in the show, it’s because it’s something theshowrunners and has wanted to do for some time and picked that current volumeto do so. The mere fact that that thing just so happened to correlate withsomething the fans wanted to see is just a matter of coincidence.

Thatbeing said, I will admit that I’ve noticed one or two members of the CRWBY castwho are guilty of encouraging certain ideas without the show itself officially confirming it in its narrative as yet.

In light of that, Iwill admit this. Regardless of whether or not you as a member of the CRWBY teamsupport a particular ship with all your heart, if other fandoms have taught meanything is that as a cast member you should NEVER encourage anything within yourown fan community. It never ends well and I’m seeing this repeated in RWBY. Butthis is not what I’m here to talk about right now. Moving on.

Inrespect to the video from the individual who was leaving the FNDM, I actually didn’tfinish watching their video because the instant they mentioned Monty Oum and their disdain for the CRWBY not living up to hislegacy and all that stuff, I couldn’t.

Ahyes, the classic ‘RWBY Animation hasn’t been the best since Monty passed away and the RWBYAnimation team are terrible because they can’t replicate Monty’s animation’ debate.How many times is this dead horse going to be beaten?  According to this RWBY Youtuber, ‘replicatingMonty’s style of animation is easy andit is appalling the RWBY Animation Team can’t replicate Monty’s style afterfour seasons’.

Thiscomment not only annoyed me as a fan but also as someone who has studiedanimation before. Again, how many times will this poor dead horse be dug up tobe bludgeoned?  Will these fans everallow Monty’s name to rest peacefully without bringing it up to tarnish theefforts made by the CRWBY to finish the story he started with them?

Iget it. MontyOum was a good animator.He wasn’t the best animator. He wasn’t some genius animation prodigy. He was a creative mind who had his own way of thinking and doing things andfrom that, he established a style about hisanimation that shined through his work. If you were to show me an animatedpiece done by Monty and the same piece animated by another person, I caninstantly tell you which one is Monty’s because Monty had his own style.

That’sthe appeal of Monty’s work, on my opinion. That’s what he became known for by hisfans. However, even though Monty was great at animating fight scenes, his way---hisstyle is NOT the only wayto animate a fight.

Recently,I took the time to go back and count the number of fights that happened overthe volumes. I did this because as of V6, I couldn’t help but feel as if theCRWBY might be shying away including moments where the characters areactually engaged in combat. I omitted the character shorts because onemandatory element of the Character Shorts is a fight scene. I just wanted tohighlight the individual seasons alone.  

Someof this numbers might be a little iffy depending on what I counted as a fight,but here’s what I gathered.

THE VALE TRILOGY

RWBY V1C1:2C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:0C6:3C7:0C8:2C9:0C10:1C11:1C12:0C13:0C14:1C15:0C16:2

Totalfights = 12 Fights

RWBY V2:C1:1C2:0C3:0C4:1C5:3C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:4C10:0C11:4C12:4

TotalFights= 18 Fights

RWBY V3:C1:1C2:2C3:1C4:1C5:2C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:1C10:2C11:2C12:2

TotalFights = 16 Fights  

THE MISTRALTRILOGY

RWBY V4:C1:1C2:0C3:1C4:0C5:0C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:2C10:0C11:0C12:1 

TotalFights = 7 Fights

RWBY V5C1:0C2:1C3:0C4:2C5:0C6:0C7:0C8:0C9:1C10:3C11:5C12:1C13:1C14:0

TotalFights = 14 Fights

RWBY V6:C1:3C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:1C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:0C10:1C11:3C12:1C13:0

 TotalFights = 10 Fights

Why I bring this upis throughout V4 and V6’s runtime I’ve seen one or two all-stars inthe new CRWBY animation team. While not all the fight scenes from the MistralArc were the best, there were definitely some good ones that I stood out to me.

OneV4 fight that keeps being overly praised is the Tyrian vs. Qrow dual. Many fanstend to vouch that fight as the best fight of V4. The only reason that fight isso popular is because it was one of the more important fights of thatrespective season.

However,I’m being completely honest, the Qrow vs. Tyrian one on one was good but itwasn’t the only good fight of V4.

PersonallyI took enjoyment in the small sparring match between Yang and Tai Yang.Believe it or not, I felt like that moment, though small, was well animated andI’d actually give props to the animator behind that small scene. There was a nicesense of rhythm to that small fight that I quite liked.

Notmany folks will agree with little ole me regarding that scene but this just goesto show, we all have our own personal preferences with what we consider to be agood fight sequence vs a not so good one.

Often at times, Ifeel really sorry for the series animators cherry picked to handle the combatmoments for the current seasons because I feel like those animators suffer the most pressure and scrutiny in the eyes of the FNDM. I feel like some FNDM members are sofocused on nagging atthe current CRWBY to capture Monty’s old style of animating fights that they aren’t really giving these new animatorswith their own styles a fair chance toshine outside of Monty’s shadow.

Again.I get it. RWBY was Monty’s brainchild. He’s the creator andno matter how far the current CRWBY takes the series, he will always becredited as its creator.

HoweverRWBY has come a long way since Monty’s days. The show haschanged.The overall look and visual style of the series has changed.Even the production pipeline and the software used to animate the series has changed.The CRWBY hasgrown allowing a greater mix of artistslending their talents to breathe life into the series.

Butwhat seems to kind of still be stuck in the past are some members of the FNDMcommunity. The ones who only watch the show because they are waiting to see thecurrent RWBY recapture that essence of Monty thatthey claimed the show lost after he died.

RWBY is dead after Monty passed away? In some ways, this isboth true and false. The truth is that RWBY did die. The old style that the show was being produced on was laid to restafter its creator unfortunately passed. The false is that RWBY didn’t end withMonty because it’s being continued in its current new style by the people whohelped bring it to life in the first place alongside Monty. The same people whoare diligently carrying on Monty’s project in his place. RWBY isn’t dead. It’sstill breathing. Still going. Because a story still needs to be told.

Ratherthan being judged for how well they can interpret a good fight sequence, theseanimators are judged for how well they can replicate Monty’s style. And when theseanimators don’t live up to that expectation, that’s when the shit storm begins.I myself have been found guilty of comparing the past animation to the present.However now I realized that I was wrong in doing that.

Ithink it’s high time some of these fans let go of the past and accept that theaction fight scenes of RWBY are never going to reflect Monty’s style anymore.

Montyis unfortunately not around to guide the current team with this. And they are doingtheir best to find their own style. To some extent, they found it in V6 becausethe fights in this last season were a tremendous improvement from V4 and V5.

Ifeel like there are some genuinely talented animators workingnow on RWBY who know how to create and sell a great fight and if left to theirown devices, they could really dazzle the audience with their own way of doingthings. I feel like since V4, the CRWBY have been experimenting with how they craftout their fights especially in the new Maya pipeline but it wasn’t until V6where I feel they finally found their footing again.

I think most fanscould agree that the fights in V6 were much better compared to theirpredecessors. One of the best one on one fights was the Neo vs Cinder clash. Whoever was the animator responsible for thatscene should honestly be given more opportunities like thatwhere their work can shine through because that fight was well done. Thesame can be said for the Maria vs. Tok oneon one fight despite how short it was. But the thing is, none of those fightsfelt like Monty’s style to me. It didn’t feel like someone was trying to copyMonty but rather it was someone who probably took a little inspiration Monty’soriginal work and the rest was them bringing their own unique spin to it.

Ifthe CRWBY have been trying to replicatethat Monty style in their fights for the past arc then I’m starting to thinkthat that is what’s been holding them back ratherthan aiding them to move forward.

Thisis why I find the whole point about replicating Monty’s style being easy to be ludicrous. Replicating someone else’s style,depending on the medium is not something you can just do on a fly. It’s noteven something you can perfect in a matter of years. It’s something that takes adeep understanding of the art form you’re using (in this case being animation),time, strict discipline and most importantly of all, guidance and critique from theperson who’s style your copying or someone else who is a master of said style and/orhas a great understanding of it themselves.

That’swhy sometimes you might hear behind the scenes tales about animation studiostaking sometime during their production pipeline to train theiranimators on the style or quality of animation they are trying to emulate in acurrent project. DidMonty do that with the CRWBY? Did Montyget the chance to pass his knowledge and technique onto otheranimators? Did Monty even get to see his story grow to what it is now?

Sadly,no.  Monty was a creator who didn’t evenlive long enough to see his own idea flourish for the six seasons it’s beenrunning; now moving onto its seventh season. As far as I know, Monty passedaway as early as V2. Most people don’t even get the chance to see their ideascome to life but Monty was among those fortunate few who was given the shot tomake his idea a reality.

RoosterTeethgave Monty that chance after he worked with them on some of their otherprojects like RvB. He had made himself a household name within their companyand among that, he had made friends and had formed an in-house family with thecolleagues he worked with both on RvB and RWBY.

Saywhat you will about RoosterTeeth and the CRWBY. The original CRWBY who workedwith Monty between V1 and V2 were the people who knew Montythe most. They were his friends. His family. This is all the more reason why itdoesn’t give us, as fans looking in from the outside, the right to use Monty’sname to disrespect the people who knew him better.

Imay not always like what the CRWBY Writers do with the story but I respect themboth as writers. I respect Miles and Kerry because they are the showrunners. RWBY’s plotstarted with Monty, Miles and Kerry.

TheRWBY hate parade need to stop acting as if RWBY was made by Monty alone.Monty did not make RWBY by himself. Shit, he didn’t even create the plot byhimself.

Montyis credited as its creator because RWBY was his brain child and he will foreverbe remembered as the man who conceptualized this idea. But Monty did not writethe story of RWBY himself. He wrote this story with Miles and Kerry. 

Whatfolks seems to be misunderstanding or downrightneglecting is that Miles and Kerryhave been with RWBY since its start. They are the two people who worked withMonty in developing the story of RWBY

Itis depressing that Monty only got to live long enough to see two seasons of hisbrainchild come to life.

Insteadof honouring Monty’s legacy by showing support to the people who worked with himto make RWBY happen, folks instead use Monty’s name to slander the CRWBY.

Tothe people who are guilty of this, how can you call yourself a fan? Howcan you call yourself decent human beings witha legit conscience by using a dead man’s name to disrespect the people who werehis colleagues and friends just because you were displeased with something theychose for the show? How is mouthing off the CRWBY and claiming that Montywouldn’t have consented to the direction they’re taking RWBY in a definition ofyour loyalty to Monty?

Howwould you know what Monty would have consented to? How would you know whatMonty would have wanted in general?

Didyou know him personally? I doubt any of you did. So why claim that in yourhateful comments?

RWBYis not the Monty Oum show. I've mentioned this before and I will say it again. RWBY is acollaborative effort. Monty may have conceived RWBY on his own buthe birthed this series through cooperation with RoosterTeeth and the talentedpeople who formed the creative team that made this show with him.

Andit’s those same people who are busting their asses volume after volume to keepthe show going. The CRWBY could have easily cancelled RWBYafter V2. It’s not the first time RoosterTeeth has cancelled a series undertheir name. They could have hung up the towel after V2 and called it quits. Butthey didn’t because they wanted tocontinue the show. They wanted to keep moving forward and finish the story theymade together with their friend Monty.

RWBY’sproduction takes time,thought, passion and effort. If the RWBY YouTube Critics community wishto be the type of people who want to tell the showrunners how to properlyhandle their IP, then at least back up your points with the same level of time,thought, passion and effort that is put into the show. 

Andbefore anyone jumps at me and is all like, Squiggles, do you know how long it takes to makea YouTube video essay on my own time? To which I answer with, do you know howlong it takes to produce a full season of an animated production on a studiobudget and a strict deadline within a studio that is juggling multiple IPs?

Anyone can point out a flaw insomething or rather what they perceive to be a flaw in something. But it takes morework to point out that flaw, justify why it’s a flaw by your standards and thentake the time to suggest how it could be improved while throwing in your own workto help boast your claims. But no RWBY Youtuber Critics, at least from the onesI’ve seen, wants to do that. They just want to run their mouths and what’sunfortunate is that they will gather an audience of individuals who do the samewhen it comes to the series.

It’salright if you give your opinion but where it crosses a line is when a fantries to tell the showrunners how they should run their show. It’s even worsewhen they try to do it WITHOUT backing up their claims. You want to downplaythe effort and thought that someone else made without producing your own toargue against theirs?

You want totell the CRWBY how they should write the show? Where are your own retellingsof the show? Where are your own plot breakdowns? Your own scripts possibly accompaniedby storyboards and/or animatics to give others a taste of how your ideas wouldplay out?

You want totell the CRWBY that their character designs are terrible and need rework? Where your own conceptsheets containing dozens about dozens of drafts of redesigns that could betaken?

You want totell the CRWBY that their animation is terrible, that animating like Monty iseasy and the animation of CRWBY would look 100x better if they did x, y, z and123?

WellSkippy, why don’t you prove it? Where is your rendered animation that youpersonally modelled, rigged, textured and animated in your own spare time to backup your proclaimed assessments.

Youmight be telling yourselves, Squiggles why do all of that? That sounds like a whole lotof extra work just to prove points for a critique where I’m trying to tell theCRWBY what to do?

Towhich my response will be, EXACTLY.

Ifthe RWBY Hate Parade wish to make a mockery of the extra efforts the CRWBYmembers put into RWBY, then where is their extra effort? If they at least dothat then maybe I can respect them a little more as people who know whatthey’re talking about because they have the skills and knowledge to back uptheir arguments. 

But how am I as the outsider listening in on some of theseYouTube rants supposed to take any of these people seriously when all they’redoing is making lengthy diatribes slandering the work of others and trying topass off as someone who knows more about animation and how it’s done thansomeone who does.

Dothese fans believe that makes them seem witty?It doesn’t. It makes them seem very disrespectful.

Idon’t understand the fans that are like this and I’m not sure if I want tounderstand. I don’t even wish to discuss them furthermore because at the end ofthe day, I can’t speak for these fans. I can only speak for myself and I knowwhere I stand as a fan of RWBY. If there is one advice I can give to my fellow FNDMfam is that weneed to stop drawing attention to the hate parade. Too often do Ihear more about the negative side of the RWBY community and their opinions ofthe series than the actual good that show and its FNDM has spawned. 

Weas the people who still love RWBY and are willing to accept and stand by it andits showrunners, flaws and all, need to become more vocal aboutshedding light on the positives of RWBY

Eitherthat or just ignorethe haters. Seriously, we need to stop giving these guys anaudience. Similar to how the RWBY Hate Parade spend their time mostly pointingout the negative in the show, we the FNDM often at times draw too much attentionto these folks.

Ina sad way, we’re kind of sending traffic over to them. Giving them moreattention that they don’t deserve.

Thesetypes of fans can talk but we don’t need to listen to them. Because for all theflak they give the series and its showrunners, the RWBY train is still moving;strong and unaffected.

Why?Because I’d like to believe the CRWBY don’t pay attention to the hate paradebut more focus on what they wish to do with the series while looking out to thesmiling fans who help spread good word about their show. And really, isn’t thegood still that’s very much there all that really matters? 

Soto conclude finally, this answer took me way too long to write. Sorry to haveyou wait so long Key. This answer took me some time to put together. Apologiesif it’s a very long-winded answer. I really don’t like discussing any negativestuff in the FNDM. 

I acknowledge that it exists and it’s pretty much alwaysgoing to be there but that doesn’t mean I should give it any attention. But forwhat it’s worth, I hope I said enough to make my full peace with this topic.Cheerios!

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

[flightyrock]

The House Knows

My fill for the Fall Multifandom Challenge hosted by @sporadic-fics and @helplessly-nonstop . Thank you both, this was a lot of fun!

Prompt: They were roommates

Rating: T

Words: 3k

Pairing: Steve Rogers / Bucky Barnes

Other Characters: Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff

Tags: minor injury, stitches, swearing, questioning sexuality, no powers au, there’s no plot, cuddling, cute, roommates au

The place is perfect.

Too perfect.

Enough that Steve Rogers--a guy known for more bad luck than good, who habitually drags himself back to his feet after being kicked down by life and circumstance over and over again, a guy who can’t help but think the best of people--is suspicious. By all rights, he never should have responded to the Craigslist ad. The location, the interior, the number of rooms, even the profession of his potential roommates is the very definition of too good to be true, especially for the listed rent. And it’s in one of the better neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

Except it was so nice, that he couldn’t resist responding. A guy could dream, after all. No one was more surprised than he was when he got a response from a real human being. Or when that same human being answers the door of the gorgeous brownstone that matches the pictures online almost immediately after Steve knocks.

“Hey there, I’m Sam. The landlord,” the guy says, then shakes his hand with a friendly grin.

“Oh,” Steve says stupidly, blinking, willing it all to sink in. Someone actually answered the door. Then he realizes he’s still holding Sam’s hand. He releases it quickly, and rubs the back of his neck, trying and failing to dispel his embarrassment. “Sorry, it’s just. I didn’t think this was actually real. It is real, right? You sure you didn’t mean to throw a zero on the end of that rent?”

Sam throws back his head and laughs. “Oh, it’s real. Don’t worry, we get that a lot.” He steps away from the door. “Come on in. Don’t worry about taking your shoes off, it’s Clint’s week to clean.”

Steve snorts in spite of himself, but takes Sam’s word for it. He follows Sam through the house, and his disbelief grows with every feature. Washer and dryer included. Each tenant has a private bedroom. Landlord pays all utilities. “Even Wi-Fi?” he asks, mouth agape.

Sam clutches his chest like Steve has gravely offended him. “What do you take me for, Rogers? A monster?”

A terrible thought strikes him, and he’s certain his face goes white, because Sam gives him a funny look. “You’re not involved with the mob or something, are you?” Steve whisper-asks.

Sam laughs so hard, he has to bend over to catch his breath. When he’s recovered a bit, he claps a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I like you. You’re going to fit right in here. If you want it, that is.”

Steve gapes. “If I want it? Are you kidding?”

Sam’s face falls. “Yeah, I get it,” he sighs. “Look, if it’s the bathroom thing, Barnes and Clint have offered to share. You can take the upstairs one.”

“What? Why would you think. No,” Steve sputters. “No, I mean, of course I want it, it’s perfect. I love it, just. Why me? I’m sure you’ve gotten tons of applicants.”

Sam looks at him, his eyes piercing. Steve shifts in place. “You have an honest face,” he says eventually. “And you’re safe. I can tell. At the risk of sounding crazy, I’m particularly good at reading people. The other tenants will love you.”

“Wow,” Steve says. Because how do you respond to that. “So that’s it? That easy?”

“Well, almost,” Sam says.

Steve shouldn’t feel as disappointed as he does. He knows better. There’s always a catch.

“Clint and Barnes have to approve,” Sam clarifies. “They’re both vets, and gay to boot. Last thing I’m going to do is make this kind of decision without their input. They deserve to feel safe in their own homes.”

Steve’s not sure why he’s so surprised that Sam is as considerate as he is. The man has been nothing but friendly, but that kind of empathy isn’t something you see everyday anymore. “Wow, that’s. That’s amazing of you.”

“I admit that I have ulterior motives,” Sam smiles at him. “We gay military types have to stick together, you know?” Then he sobers. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

“Oh no, not at all!” Steve says quickly. Maybe a little too quickly, because Sam eyes him suspiciously. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t have any problem with any of that, I swear! Let people be who they are. It’s just. I know I’m fit, but I never actually served, and I’m straight, so I don’t know if I’m what you’re looking for? I don’t want to make anyone feel unsafe,” he says earnestly.

Sam’s staring at him. Steve feels himself shrinking unconsciously under that scrutinizing gaze. Steve’s fumbling for an apology for wasting Sam’s time, because why would he ever accept Steve now, when Sam says.

“Huh. Well, shit. I could have sworn...”

“What?” says Steve, bracing himself for rejection, already resigning himself to another late-night stroll through the housing and roommate pages.

Sam shakes his head. “Nothing, don’t worry about it. Just, you’re probably going to be the first straight person to live here, ever. It’s actually pretty weird; it’s like the place knows. But yeah, the offer stands.”

“Wait, really?” Steve asks him. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Sam grins at him. “I may have guessed your sexuality wrong, but I know I’m not wrong about you getting along with the other guys. You’ll like them, I know it.”

“Wow, uh, great! When can I meet them?” Steve asks.

“How about in twenty?” Sam grins at him. “It is about dinner time. I’ll order pizza.”

Sam is an excellent host. He doesn't even blink when Steve politely declines wine and beer, getting him a fancy bottle of mint-infused ginger ale instead. Sam waves off his stuttered thanks. “Don’t worry about it. Barnes doesn’t drink, either.”

Barnes, amazingly, also doesn’t mind when Steve stares at his prosthetic. The man had dropped heavily into an armchair after shaking Steve’s hand and introducing himself as something that starts with a B, but Steve doesn’t quite catch because holy hell, the guy is gorgeous. He has soft-looking dark hair that falls in gentle waves past his shoulders, a jawline perfectly highlighted by five o’clock shadow, and grey blue eyes that shimmer in the light. Steve can’t take his eyes off of him. It only gets worse when he pulls off his baggy sweatshirt, revealing a broad frame and the shiny, intricate limb. The guy clears his throat, and Steve’s eyes shoot back to his face, embarrassment setting his face aflame.

Steve stammers out an apology. “I’m so sorry, Barnes,” Steve says miserably. “It’s rude of me to stare. It’s just that I’m an artist, and the design is stunning.” It probably makes him a terrible person, but Steve’s glad the prosthetic gives him such a good excuse for staring.

The guy just laughs, grinning at Steve. “Don’t worry about it, pal. Everyone does.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” Steve says.

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Barnes says amicably. “But I’m more offended you’re calling me Barnes, to be honest.”

Steve flushes. Can’t he do anything right? “Sorry. Sam calls you Barnes.”

“That’s because Wilson’s an asshole!” Bucky yells into the kitchen. He cackles at the disembodied profane gesture he receives in response. “Nah, but Sam’s the best,” he grins at Steve. “He’s never in town for very long, but it’s a great time when he is.”

“Aw, shucks,” Sam grins at him when he reenters the room, setting a stack of plates and a roll of paper towels on the coffee table. “I guess you’re pretty okay too, Barnes.” Bucky lets out a dramatic wounded sound, and Steve laughs along with Sam. Sam pats Bucky on the shoulder apologetically. He looks around. “Where’s Clint? At this rate, the pizza will get here before he does.”

Bucky shrugs. “Who knows? Don’t worry, he’ll be here. There’s pizza, and you’re buying.”

“True,” Sam chuckles.

At Steve’s questioning eyebrow, Bucky explains with a smirk. “Clint has a sixth sense for pizza. It’s wild. Just you wait; he’ll be here between the time we pay and the time the pie gets cold.”

The pizza comes, Sam pays, and a guy with short blond hair and chunky hearing aids comes strolling in the door a minute later. “Hey, Sam. Bucky. Ooh, pizza!” he grins, and makes a beeline to the box, rubbing his hands together.

Steve laughs, and Bucky winks at him, a mischievous spark in his pale eyes. Steve blushes in spite of himself.

“What?” Clint says, looking around. His eyes land on Steve. “Oh, hey,” he waves, then goes straight for the food.

Sam laughs. “Barton, put the pizza down for a second and meet Steve!”

“What? Oh, hi, Steve,” the guy smiles at him, then takes a bite of the slice he’s holding. “Ow! Hot!” He makes a grab for his burnt tongue, fumbling the slice. It lands on the throw rug, cheese side down. “Aw, pizza.”

Sam shakes his head long-sufferingly, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

Steve grabs the roll of paper towels and starts to pick it up. Clint shoos him away with a grin. “Don’t worry about it, man. I’ve got it. Happens all the time.”

Steve carries the messed up paper towel into the kitchen to throw it away. “Isn’t he sweet?” Sam’s saying to Bucky when he comes out, and Steve flushes.

“Oh yeah,” Bucky says, turning to face Steve with a grin. “He’s perfect.”

Bucky, as it turns out, is the bane of Steve’s existence. The man’s always smiling at Steve, inviting him to go grab some tea, or come watch a movie. They often stay up later than they should talking about everything and anything. Steve feels like he’s known Bucky forever. So why does the man make him so anxious? At least, that’s what he thinks the fluttering in his chest is. It can’t be anything else. It is distracting, though. Steve catches himself thinking about the guy and that strange anxiety at all hours. It’s really cutting into his drawing time.

Anyone else would have guessed that if any of Steve’s roomates would be the bane of his existence, it would be Clint. The guy is always tripping on the last couple of stairs, or spilling soup on the carpet. Not to mention he’s probably broken more dishes in the time it’s taken fall to turn to winter than Steve has owned in his life.

“You’re the physical manifestation of the term ‘gay disaster,’” Bucky complains at Clint as he helps Steve pick up the shards of the latest casualty, a nonsensical ‘World’s Best Best” etched clumsily on a cheap wineglass.

“I resent that!” Clint pouts. “If anything, I’m the physical manifestation of ‘bi disaster.’” Clint, of course, is banished to the couch. Bucky explained that the last time the guy helped clean up broken dishware, their last roommate had to take him to the local Urgent Care for stitches. “That’s bi erasure!”

“You can hardly blame me. It’s so long that you’ve taken anyone home that I forgot,” Bucky’s saying to Clint, a grin in his voice. Steve’s studiously ignoring them, concentrating on the shards in front of him to try to stop the blush that wants to creep up his neck at Bucky’s smile. It’s just as gorgeous as he is. Steve’s never seen a person so beautiful before, and it’s a daily battle to keep him from humiliating himself. The man was funny, and charming, and Steve has never felt this way about another person before. But they’re roommates, so Bucky’s off limits. And, after all, Steve’s straight. Isn’t he?

The glass, he reminds himself. God, it really had scattered everywhere. Steve has no idea how Clint managed it. Bucky’s laughing. Then something soft but firm hits his face hard, and he’s falling. He sticks a hand out instinctively to catch himself, and is hit with deep regret a moment before a sharp, burning pain.

Clint’s yelling a belated warning.

“Oh fuck, Steve,” Bucky’s voice is saying, and hands are helping him to his feet, guiding him carefully around the glass. Steve chances a glance down, and his stomach lurches at the piece of material he sees sticking out. He fights the haze that’s creeping into his brain, and tries to concentrate on Bucky’s voice, murmuring comforting things as he gets Steve settled onto a kitchen chair. Steve’s mortified at the way his eyes burn as Bucky gently works the shard out, then holds a kitchen towel to the wound, applying firm pressure.

“Oh, Stevie, I’m so sorry,” he says, bringing a spare towel up to dab at Steve’s tears. Steve lets him, still frozen from the event. It’s kind of nice, actually, underneath the embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have been teasing Clint while we were cleaning. Or ducked that pillow.”

“Sorry,” Steve echoes, feeling very small. “I shouldn’t be crying.”

“Sure you should,” Bucky says, putting down the towel and patting his arm. “It was a shock. Completely normal.”

“God, Steve, I’m so sorry,” Clint says miserably from the doorway. “Anything I can do?”

“Grab the first aid kit?” Bucky requests, and Clint nods.

“I can take care of it,” Steve says, embarrassed.

“With one hand?” Bucky raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Just let us help.” The man frowns suddenly, and lifts the edge of the towel. Then his face goes carefully blank.

“Clint?” he calls.

“Yeah?” the man calls back, voice muffled.

“Call a Lyft please!” Then he turns to Steve, and smiles reassuringly. He guides Steve’s free hand to grasp the towel. “Can you hold pressure for a minute, Stevie? I’m going to go grab your shoes.”

“What’s going on?” Steve says, afraid of the answer. But Bucky’s already hurried out of the room. He braces himself, then lifts the towel. Oh, shit.

He ends up getting stitches, Bucky never leaving his side. Underneath the humiliation, Steve feels something warm ballooning in his chest. It’s amazing. It scares him. That feeling only swells when Bucky guides him firmly to the couch when they get back, and settles a throw over him before pulling up Joy of Painting on the TV. They sit together, shoulder to shoulder, and listen to Bob Ross calmly walk them through blocking out sky and ground, then making the space come to life.

They’re three episodes in when Bucky pulls him into a hug. “It’s alright, Steve,” he murmurs, and Steve realizes he’s shaking. “Let it all out.” And Steve does. He’s not sure if he imagines Bucky kissing his temple, but he hopes not. He really hopes not.

He wakes up alone on the couch, eyes sticky, and hand aching. He stares at the ceiling blankly for a minute, before it all comes rushing back to him. God, why is he such an idiot! What was he thinking, crying all over Bucky like that? Now Bucky would never want to go out with him!

Steve’s eyes shoot open. Wait, what?

As he normally does in a crisis, his first instinct is to call Natasha. He hurries to his room, and dials her number.

“Are you in danger?” Natasha asks him, voice tense.

“What? Why would you--no!” he says.

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “What the hell, Steve! It’s almost 2 AM!”

“This is important! I think I like guys,” he says hisses.

“Yeah, I know. So what?”

“You know?” Steve sputters. “What’s that supposed to mean? I didn’t even know!”

“Oh Steve,” Natasha says, fond amusement in her voice. “I’ve known for years. Remember that TA in our Gen Chem Lab?”

Steve does remember. His name had been Brian, and Steve had wanted to impress him so bad. But that was only because Steve wanted to pass, right? He’d conveniently forgotten that he’d lost all interest in the subject as soon as the guy transferred to a new school halfway through the semester. And oh, that would probably explain a lot.

“Oh,” he says faintly. “I never realized.”

Natasha snorts. “Of course you didn’t. So why the call?”

“I’m pretty sure I like this guy, but I just ruined everything,” Steve says miserably.

“Why, what happened?”

“I cut my hand on some glass, and Bucky cleaned me up and took me to get stitches. But then he sat with me on the couch afterward and I cried all over him like an idiot. There’s no way he’s going to want to go out with me now. Not that it matters; there’s no way he feels the same way, he was just being nice,” Steve says in a rush.

“Steve—” Natasha starts to say, but then the door swings open, and Steve jumps, dropping the phone to the floor with a bang.

Bucky’s standing there, face faintly pink and a small smile on his face.

“Buck,” Steve says stupidly. He wishes he could sink straight through the floor. How much did Bucky hear!? “Um. How long were you out there?”

Bucky walks over to him slowly. “Long enough.”

Steve feels himself turn red. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ll move out, the last thing I want you to do is feel like you’re being oggled in your own home and I—”

Bucky pulls him into a firm hug, and Steve falters. “I like you too, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs in his ear. “I have for a while.” He presses a gentle kiss to Steve’s cheek and releases him. He smiles. “Want to go cuddle on the couch? We can talk about it over boba tomorrow.”

Steve’s cheeks ache with the force of his responding grin. “Please.”

They’re so wrapped up in each other that neither of them hear the exasperated yelling echoing from the phone with a freshly-cracked screen laying forgotten on the ground.

~~~

Natasha forgives Steve eventually, especially once he introduces her to Bucky. The two of them bond over classic Russian Literature, and Steve couldn’t be happier. Clint teases them relentlessly, and takes credit for getting them together. Of course, he also pays for pizza the next month as an apology for Steve’s hand. And as for Sam…

“I called it!” their landlord crows during his next visit, pointing at the two of them where they’re cuddled together on the couch watching a movie, neither of them wanting to move to let them in. Steve and Bucky look at each other in confusion. “The streak is still alive! I’m telling you, no straight person has ever lived here. The house knows.”

“Maybe,” Steve concedes, with a grin. “I’m really glad to be here, all-knowing house or not.”

Bucky pulls him closer. “Yeah?”

Steve pecks him on the cheek. “Yeah.”

[thesportssoundoff]

A word on the ole elephant in the Barclay’s Center

Joey

Jan 15th

So I was working on my card write up for the UFC's ESPN debut and there's obviously a big elephant in the room regarding the co-main event. There's plenty of things I wanted to say or believe in saying and it was taking attention away from the card. It was getting way too long and so I figured I'd just do a separate bit on the entire situation. It's probably going to be a bit messy and perhaps a touch convoluted but I'm hoping that I can at least get some concepts out here. It's my "job" on here to be kind of rational and fair. Gonna put it under the read more just in case some people don't want a big wall of text given I've got ANOTHER wall of text coming re: actual fight business.

I want to begin with an irritable point of contention I have about not so much Greg Hardy but of a fake concept in MMA some people keep clinging to. Guys if I could, I would love to shout this to the heavens: There is NO such concept in MMA as earn nor deserve. Nobody earns anything and nobody deserves anything. We've seen it a million times now. Earn and deserve are fake in this sport and the longer we continue to believe in it, the more irritating it gets. There is no earn. There is no deserve.  There is truly no meritocracy here and the UFC has shown us that time and time again. Asking if Greg Hardy has "earned the right to be on the first ever ESPN card?" Idiotic. What has Alonzo Menifield done? Chance Rencountre? Who determines who has "earned" such an honor? Okay who determines who deserved it? The same company that felt has bent its unofficial playbook for dudes like Jon Jones and Conor McGregor? Think of all the fighters who have "earned" title shots and had them taken away or fighters who deserved spots on a main card only to be buried on the prelims due to their fighting style or in some cases whether or not their contract was expiring. I hate to be the dickhead here but we need to stop debating earn and deserve because it's fake. Combat sports make it fake and then revel in us getting tied up about something they don't care about.

Keeping with that point, remember that at the end of the day everybody has the same moral compass. The goal with this show is to get a rating and get ESPN+ subs and I'm 100% sure that if ESPN felt Greg Hardy on the first card was a problem they would've stopped it. ESPN has the authority and the say so here and yet here we are with him still on the card. Every organization has the same moral compass; they're all trying to sell you something. I had this conversation on the DojoTalkPodcast pertaining to the idea of asking forms of entertainment to handle issues they're ill-equipped to deal with---primarily because it collides with the end result of making money. Random guess that ESPN and the UFC had a meeting about it, the UFC said "We think he can generate X amount of interest" and so ESPN sucked it up and went with it. Greg Hardy is probably the second biggest story on this card for better or worse and to be honest if there's interest being driven? It's him. The show looks like it's on path to sell out so it's not like Greg Hardy is sending people away. Again all promotions are trying to make money here and if that means having to buddy up with a guy like Greg Hardy, that's what they'll do in the long run. If this truly irks you then understand that you have plenty of people to get mad at; not just the UFC here. All parties, all involved.  They all dug deep into this together and so here we are.

I object to the idea that Greg Hardy is getting a second chance. It's really more like a third chance and potentially even a fourth if we're being honest. Greg Hardy was talented enough at Ole Miss to be a 1st round pick and wound up going in the 6th round because teams had genuine concerns over his character and work ethic. That's chance one. Chance two came in Carolina where he worked himself up into a potential major payday and then he screwed himself over with the DV incident. In a sympathetic NFL, Hardy could've come back with a bigger long term payday had he just kept himself out of trouble in Dallas. As a Cowboys fan, I can tell you there were heavy rumblings toward the end of the year that he was toxic and divisive that the Cowboys were thinking of cutting him before December was out. Chance three. Hardy was essentially blackballed from the NFL despite his talent level and his response to this was to eventually get arrested for cocaine possession and other offenses. The UFC is not a second chance for Greg Hardy to earn big money. Maybe it's a second chance from a spiritual or personal perspective but I'm not even sure that fits either. Greg Hardy is what he is; a troubled yet talented individual who has historically not learned from his mistakes. To a fault, I'm really big on second chances and multiple chances for people because human beings are faulty machines who make mistakes and absolutely in my opinion capable of learning and improving. At the same time, I do not in any way shun people who don't believe this person is capable of fixing himself or making good on the repeated opportunities his talent allows. They have history on their side.

It's possible to A) feel as though Greg Hardy being on the same card as PVZ/Rachael Ostovich is tone deaf and B) be ultimately okay with is so long as Ostovich is okay with it. I wouldn't of done it, think it's borderline arrogant and invites unwanted controversy but if the person or people most likely to be impacted by it are fine with it then it's whatever I guess. This feels like a self inflicted wound from an organization that has enough scars from its own stubborness/arrogance.

HAVING SAID THAT, let's address a problem MMA has to find a way to correct and I suppose the same goes for combat sports as a whole. We totally need to find a way to get around the "I'm paying/watching to see you lose" aspect of things. Greg Hardy is here probably 50% in part that there's a bloodthirsty audience willing to wait and wait for the day when he eventually loses. It's that weird primal urge people have that feeds the not so good aspects of human nature. It also creates situations like this where people get mad about something, wait for what they feel is the karmic payoff and if it happens then it's this big pop. The problem is this isn't pro wrestling where we can script who wins and loses and so a bunch of folks who want that release get stifled and it turns ugly. I remember Rumble fights being like that; primarily because people who were so vehemently opposed to him would tune in or pay money to see him lose and then break down when he wouldn't. There's something really unhealthy about that aspect of combat sports and the longer it keeps working and promoters can manipulate it, the longer we're going to have to deal with all of this.

Feels pretty cop out-y to not say if I'm watching or not. I'll be watching on Saturday for a variety of reasons. The first is I promised Alex I'd cover just about every UFC card I could and to this date I think I've missed three; one for a power outage, one because I couldn't see after eye surgery and a third because I was sick (and even then I jumped in halfway through). I'm not going to let Greg Hardy force me to slack on what I said I'd do. I'll also be watching because it's a damn good card and I'm excited to see a lot of it. I also do, and I hate to tell people this knowing the response, think Greg Hardy is going to be a serious thing in this HW division when all is said and done. Will he be good enough to win a title? Probably not. I have SERIOUS doubts he stays out of trouble long enough to not even make it two years into the UFC. That said he's my Adrien Broner I guess; I wanna see how good he is before he capsizes himself. Lastly? This is combat sports. No form of entertainment outside of maybe the music industry forces people to separate artist from person so repeatedly. It often times asks us to stomach some pretty rough people in exchange for the violence they put into the cage or the ring. I've been on here for waaaaaaaaaay too long; long enough to have covered fights with people like Thiago Silva, Abel Trujillo, Rumble and so on so forth. I mean hell Floyd Mayweather Jr! Guys like Bernard Hopkins, Travis Browne, Jon Jones, Rumble Johnson all have their personal warts often displayed in the public's eye and yet we still watch their fights because....well we're addicted. Greg Hardy I guess isn't enough to get me to quit cold turkey on MMA.  Hell look at it this way, the alternative for Saturday if you're a combat sports fan is a battle between a guy who seems to get arrested once a year (Adrien Broner) and a guy who has some pretty comments on his record regarding gays and supports using the death penalty for drug offenders (Manny Pacquaio). We all have to make choices, especially in combat sports, about what our lines are or aren't. That's our jobs as consumers.

That said if there's one thing I can say that I hope will stick with everyone, it's that there's nobody wrong here outside of the people in question here. What YOU do as a fan one way or another is ultimately your business. If Greg Hardy offends you as a person then I have zeeero problem with you deciding to sit this show out. There are people I respect who will not be watching and I respect them for having that feeling. It's a totally acceptable feeling to have and no, you're not some SJW/soyboy/snowflake or whatever other terms MMA bros might throw your way. You have your line and I accept that and if anything, I appreciate you sticking to your convictions. Conversely I'd also ask that you not get pissy about people who ARE going to tune in and watch. Watching an MMA event with one dude on it who draws some serious visceral reactions due to his actions doesn't make you a supporter of domestic violence, a bad person or some kind of gooney bird unless you're actively rooting for Hardy DUE to his DV past. In that case, you probably are all those things. At the end of the day, we're all in charge of our own moral compass. Watch if you wish, feel how you feel, just don't hurt your cause by being an asshole about it.

[notwhelmedyet]

More than Meets the Eye, beginner’s guide / resources

This guide is long. Use the headings to find the information you need & if you’ve got resources this post lacks send them along!

Has anyone pitched the comic More than Meets the Eye to you yet? It’s a very gay action-adventure comedic drama with robots and you would probably love it (especially if you’re lgbt and/or have good taste). Here’s a few posts/articles that will tell you why you’d love it:

This article review/retrospective was what got me to read MTMTE. (warning - it has a bunch of spoilers, that didn’t bother me but might bother you)

My semi-jokey MTMTE sales pitch

@zzxid’s salespitch with dancing rats

This full entire page of radical space socialist philosophy

15 Reasons Why MTMTE/the sequel is The Best Transformers Comic (warning - has spoilers, though some will prob go over your head as a new reader)

Kiss me, Chromedome - retrospective article by The Guardian, contains some spoilers

How/Where to Read

Okay, maybe you’re convinced. Now you want to know how/where to read MTMTE. Got you covered:

Detailed guide by @gaymilesedgeworth: How to start reading Transformers Comics

My very short answer: just read MTMTE in trade paperback form. That way all the issues are in order and you get all the extra stuff (there are prose stories after a couple issues that are very important so don’t skip them!) They’re available that way as both physical and digital books.

Here’s some ways to get access, legally (US centric, sorry):

If your local library has Hoopla (digital library subscription service), you may have access to some of the MTMTE trades that way. They’d be here; but check if you library has Hoopla first.

Your local library very well might have physical copies, so check their website!

If not and you’re very patient you can often request inter-library loans (your library borrows the books from another library) or request your library purchase materials.

You can buy digital trades via either IDW or Comixology. Comixology also includes the first 5 volumes in their comics subscription service. I’ve seen the series go on sale on both of these sites at least 4 times in the past 6 months, so keep an eye out! (Sometimes IDW participates in humble bundles, which are great, but those sales are far more infrequent)

You can also buy them in trade form from wherever you can buy books/comics. US links: Amazon, B&N, Comic Store Locators

Character Guides

So you’ve picked up this comic and oh boy there are a lot of robots. You’re a little intimidated. Maybe you’re having a hard time telling them apart.

If you have the paperback, there’s a guide to the characters on the back cover/the last page of the digital volume. See a copy here.

It’s okay if you keep reading not knowing who these robots are. For real. You’ll get the hang of it. Don’t worry if it takes you awhile and you’re confused. Everyone’s a little lost the first time through.

Some helpful posts in case you’re struggling:

Here’s a guide that matches appearance -> name, and one that matches name -> background info (both spoiler free for issues 1-22)

A visual guide by @squireofgeekdom​ and @kscinewt​: here

Another helpful visual character guide by @bluering8: here

If you’re confused and need help, please ask! I’m willing to answer questions, I know @gaymilesedgeworth has volunteered to answer new reader questions. (Willing to help out new readers? Lemme know and I’ll make this a list)

Lore & Background Info

Okay, so maybe now you’ve gotten into it. You want more information, you want to know all the background lore, you want to dig deep. Awesome! Got you covered!

The holy grail of Transformers information, TFwiki. A slightly snarky, overly-minutely-detailed wiki for the digital age.

They’ve also got a tumblr if you’ve got questions.

And Chris McFeely, one of the main editors, runs a Youtube series called The Basics where he explains characters/concepts across continuities

The podcast Sound.wav has episodes talking about every issue of MTMTE in great detail.

The writer of More than Meets the Eye, James Roberts, answers fan questions on his twitter. I’ve archived a lot of those questions at @jrtweetsindex​.

More than Meets the Eye has a soundtrack, because of course it does. People have made playlists collecting it on spotify and youtube.

Further Reading

I finished MTMTE, what’s next?

If you want the direct sequel to MTMTE, go straight to Lost Light, the sequel series. It’s still ongoing and (as of right now) 12 issues have been released. There are spoilers for it EVERYWHERE on Tumblr, fair warning.

There are also a bunch of other series within the IDW comics universe, depending on what you’re interested in.

@zandergb has a chronological listing of all the IDW comics

TFwiki summarizes the IDW comics line

alt chronological guide

another guide/reading order.

You don’t have to read all the books! If you want to just read Lost Light/MTMTE, you can do just that.

There’s also a bunch of animated series, which don’t exist in the same continuity as the IDW comics. Some of them are well liked.

@ponett has a guide that’ll help you decide which you’d enjoy

And here’s a brief guide by TFWiki

There’s also the Michael Bay movies which are awful and so is he. Not gonna recommend watching them, but if you wanted to learn about film theory by listening to Lindsay Ellis dissect them, there’s a youtube series for that.

Fan Stuff

Okay...but what about fan content and fanfic and art and community events?

First thing to know: Transformers content is posted on tumblr under the tag Maccadam. (more detailed explanation why) A lot of mtmte content is also under ‘mtmte’, so look there too. I only use Maccadam if I think a post deserves to be seen by a lot of people but opinions vary.

Second thing to know - the sequel to MTMTE, Lost Light is still being published and you will see ALL SORTS OF SPOILERS for it on Tumblr. To mitigate the damage, try blocking “LL Spoilers” “Lost Light Spoilers” and “Wednesday Spoilers”. You cannot avoid it all, so if you don’t want anything spoiled, get caught up on both MTMTE and Lost Light before browsing around Tumblr.

Fanfiction:

Warning! A lot of Transformers fanfiction is smut. Please take a moment to integrate this fact into your understanding of the universe. If you can handle that, go ahead to AO3.

If you’re curious about all the terminology used in those fics, here’s a guide to it (not every writer uses every word, but this will get you started)

If you’re not into the idea of robots having sex, here’s a link to AO3 with my personal best-effort safe-search (no guarantees, relies upon people tagging properly)

And here’s a blog dedicated to recommending good sfw transformers fanfiction

If you want to know more about Transformers fanfic, I did a whole statistical survey of it, cause I’m a dork.

Here’s an old-school Transformers-only fanfic archive (I don’t see a category for IDW comics but maybe you can find somehing)

Fanart&Fanfic Events/Zines/Gift Exchanges/Collaborative Projects:

As many active projects as I could find - I’ll try to keep this one updated

Fan Artists:

(same warning as the fanfic - there’s a goodly amount of transformers pornographic art, be aware of that and block ‘nsfw’ if necessary)

There are a ton of active fanartists who draw IDW Transformers art. If you search a bit under ‘Maccadam’ you’ll find them.

@iaconlibrary reblogs a great deal of fanart & is a great place to start browsing

Roleplay:

If you’re into roleplaying on tumblr @teletrans-comm-unit runs a master list of active rp blogs

Transformers: Lost and Found is a long-running independent game set on the Lost Light

TF:Galaxy appears to be a forum-based tf roleplay game

My Favorite Jokes:

The best amazon review

Emotional labor (nsfw-ish warning)

Bros with Vows

Hands

Conventions:

There are Transformers-specific conventions, which is pretty cool! I know nothing about them but tfwiki has some info: Official and Unofficial conventions.

Regrettable Opinions:

hey this is just a quick guide of things not to do so you don’t hurt other people in the community

Do not compare Megatron to Hitler. The comparison is both vapid and offensive, as Jewish members of this community have pointed out time and again.

Don’t say transphobic/homophobic/racist/antisemitic/sexist things. You’re better than that!

Don’t attack the creators of the books/harass them on social media/make bizarre unfounded accusations of them acting in bad faith

we’re really lucky that JRo and the other creators interact with us & answer questions and don’t you dare screw that up, I’m trusting you.

on a less serious but useful etiquette note: don’t tag creators into negative reviews of their work/people complaining about their work. It’s rude to the creator & the reviewer.

That was a short list but remember to also treat other people with respect & that it’s okay to disengage with content/people that upset you.

Fandom:

There’s a guide on Fanlore, but it’s freakishly outdated and doesn’t even mention the comics. If you’re a informed tf fan maybe you should update it. 😉

Tumblr!

MTMTE is a pretty small community on Tumblr, but there are a few cool folks. Remember, ‘maccadam’ and ‘mtmte’ are your tags of choice

Various websites!

Since the transformers fandom is super old, there are a bunch of dedicated websites with traditional forums to chat on. (most of these are news sites that also contain forums) idk anything about them but maybe forums are your thing:

TFW2005 - big site with a large community but be warned there appear to be more than a few alarmingly bigoted people on that site

TFormers

Cybertron.CA

Allspark.com

Seibertron

I’m gonna throw the IDW TF reddit on this list rather than make a new section

Discord!

there’s at least two active discords at the moment. I know nothing about them or discord, but maybe one of them would be to your liking:

#1 - run by @zzxid

#2 - run by ??

The community is, like all fan communities, is a mix of good and bad, awkward and friendly, opinionated and goofy, self-serious and offensive. You won’t like or agree with everyone and there are some folks you should probably block.

Just find some people who share your general outlook & are interacting with the books in the same way you want to 💕

-Lynn. I have no qualifications to write this guide, I am not an authority of anything. I just really want you to love these books. Last updated on Dec 24, 2017, click through to check for any updates.

image descriptions below cut:

[image 1: Panel from MTMTE of Rewdind and Chromedome kneeling and holding hands while Chromedome says “Rewind, my love, it’s not for me to say.”]

[image 2: Fortress Maximus covered in small brightly colored robots shaped like various animals saying “Don’t worry, my friend, all taken care of.]

[image 3: Swerve holding a cartoonish drawing of Prowl and pointing at it, saying “No! Prowl with the head spikes and the cruel mouth and the - cross all the time! Epically, preemptively, existentially cross! And cold! Supercilious and cold! Imagine Ultra Magnus without the warmth and people skills. How can you not know who Prowl is?”]

[image 4: Trailgate in holomatter form, holding the first issue of More than Meets the Eye and saying: “Besides, I didn’t say I didn’t like it - I just don’t understand all the words. And it presumes a degree of familiarity with the Autobot/Decepticon war that I still don’t have...I suppose there’s always the wiki. Or tumblr...”

Cyclonus from off panel: “I told you to stay off Tumblr.”

Tailgate: “You’re right: spoilers. I want to enjoy it issue by issue - it only goes up to 43.”]

[image 5: Drift smiling a big fake smile and saying: “Anyway - let’s move on.”]

[image 6: A panel of Cyclonus gazing out the window in his dark and empty bedroom with a panel of narration: “Of course we’re not the only ones. This ship is a refuge for the emotionally inarticulate.”]

[jiminpoppins]

Note: this is a continuation of a post // extremely long

101 reasons why Jikook/Kookmin is my ultimate OTP or 101 times Jikook made my heart flutter (Part 2)

PART 1

51) A jikook compilation wouldn’t be a compilation without THE back hugs.

Hands on waist...

Chin on shoulder...

52) Not long after Jimin tweeted a pic of ramen, Jungkook indirectly replied to him by posting FOUR selcas of him along with a message telling him his ramen looked bland. idk about you but i found this interaction cute.

53) The artistic couple.The muscle pig and manggaetteok drawings that were featured in Snow App. They even drew the chicken drawings on the menu at Isac. I can imagine them sitting and drawing random things together. ㅠㅠ 

54) Jimin posted not one but three videos on Jungkook’s birthday, which means he wished Jungkook three times on SNS and made my head spin thrice.

55) Jimin and Jungkook took photos of each other sleeping.

56) When Jungkook thought there was no camera around when they were rounding the corner so he went up to Jimin and slid his hand around his waist. Little did he know they got caught on camera. I’d like to thank Yoongi’s vj for this awesome footage.

57) The many times Jimin has summoned Jungkook for Armys. In simpler words, Jungkook always tweets something after Jimin, and we all know how seldom he appears on Twitter.

58) “hyung has cute toes” Okay but like who lingers around his friend’s photo shoot and randomly blurts out that he has cute..toes????

59) The look! Jungkook’s expression when he’s feeding Jimin earns him a spot on this list haha. Tbh They’re kinda like eyefucking eo when jimin’s being fed. look at Jimin’s eyes. Apart from that I like how Jungkook fed him.

60) Their interactions the whole ISAC. Masterlist 👣

61)  How can I miss this? Jikook in Japan..this one has a special place in my heart. Back in 2016, it had been just a casual discussion between me and my friends on kakao. Never thought jikook would continue displaying PDA every single time they go to Japan. What’s more when they have very strict no-camera policy during concerts.

62) The amount of heart eyes they shoot at each other.

63) When they had a dinner date in the dorm to promote Mala Hot Chicken. What baffled me was that Jungkook mentioned beforehand he wanted to sleep but he still accompanied Jimin. I’m soft.

64) Jimin has made it very apparent, truly obvious that he likes jungkook. Whether it’s liking him as a dongsaeng, or just someone he’s extremely comfortable with, Jimin always, without failing, reminds us who he dotes on. “Why do I like you so much?” Lately, I’ve been crazy because I like Jungkook so much. I think of this as a start of something beautiful, and I am so glad Jimin didn’t even hesitate in expressing his feelings towards the maknae. I think this might have helped jungkook unwind. Look at jungkook now. That’s some character development right there :)

65) Massage. Quoted line from AHL mentor, Tony Jones “They are very touchy feely and to them, it’s nothing. I’d walk into the room and Suga’s massaging V’s neck or Jimin’s giving Jungkook an intimate back massage..”

66) When Jungkook bent down so he would get closer to Jimin and put the rein-kook headband on Jimin’s head. They’re separated a lot of times during fansigns but somehow they managed to get tgt at the end.

67) When Jungkook blows a kiss, then turns to Jimin whose lips are puckered and does the same to him, using the same fingers he used earlier. Okay I’ve been meaning to say this. Realistically speaking, if you pucker your lips and you put your fingers on them, wouldn’t your saliva stick to your fingers? I’m not trying to imply anything here, just genuinely asking haha. 140529 Ameba Studio

68) When a webtoon artist gave Jimin two dolls, but Jimin decided to give one to Jungkook. She even posted a webtoon of them. To be honest who wouldn’t?

69) *screams to the people in the back* ALL-NIGHTER FRIENDS!!! As written by the man himself, “ALL the time, it’s just the two of us doing something at night. I don’t know what we do”

70) Jungkook scribbling hearts all over Jimin’s birthday drawing. He’s one whipped man.

71) Just other instances Jungkook and Jimin flirting on stage. 

//gif above isn’t mine//

72) When Jimin and Jungkook chose each other when asked “if you were a girl, who would you date?”

73) The shocking fact that Jungkook demanded an apartment from Jimin as a graduation gift. Like, apartment? of all things? What kind of domesticity is this?

74) The way Jungkook takes care of Jimin even though he’s the younger one, and how Jimin is there when he’s the one seeking comfort.

75) I will never forget the Gayo Back hug, ever. I’ve mentioned back hug somewhere above, but this is different.This deserves a point of its own.

76) When Jimin took off one of his rings at the airport and gave it to jungkook.

77) When Jungkook stopped in front of Jimin during his part in For You at Osaka concert, and kind of directed the lyrics for Jimin. Jimin just couldn’t stop smiling afterward :((( The lyrics are: It smells like you The road that I walk on I plug my earphone to my status My true feelings lie beyond there

78) When Jimin and Jungkook steered away from the bunch and instead opted for some alone on the cruise. people say you smile the brightest when you’re with someone you love, yes?

79) The fact that Jimin wanted to become napa cabbage after seeing Kook dressed up as a bunny, so he could eat him, albeit choosing to be cheese initially. What even is that statement lol 👣 

80) The morph of their dynamic. I kind of miss their old moments, when Jimin was bolder, more carefree, and Jungkook seemed to be too shy to reciprocate. (on camera). Now they have matured. They have grown up well. A wave of nostalgia sweeps over me. The transition of their relationship is extremely beautiful.

81) When Jimin became Jungkook’s makeup artist for a day, hovering around the set, even drawing a pic of a bird that’s used as a prop later.

82) their size difference might be exaggerated at times, but you really can’t deny that it is cute, even if it’s not much.

83) When Jungkook changed the lyrics in Spring Day to Jimin.                       Like a small piece // Of Jimin // That floats in the air 

84) When Jungkook showed to the world what a sweet boyfriend he is,making jimin laugh, sitting him on his lap, hugging him on his birthday. Sweet sweet jungkookie.

85) Let’s state the obvious- 21CG choreos!!! i love how they evolved, just like their remarkable, legendary nmd lift.

86) Their sensual dance covers.

87) When Jungkook guides and encourages Jimin during games/missions.

88) The many times Jimin has been spotted wearing Jungkook’s clothes, despite the well-known fact that Jungkook doesn’t share clothes. Newsflash: Jungkook wears Jimin’s too!

89) We know Jungkook knows Jimin like the back of his hand, but that doesn’t mean that Jimin knows any less. I think they spend time together way too much.👣

90) How often the word “JIMIN” trips off Jungkook’s tongue- this what fascinates me the most. At one time he even mistook Jin for Jimin.

91) Jimin’s eagerness to kiss Jungkook for his Coming of Age, being the first one to hold out a hand for a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Bon Voyage season 1

92) When Jimin waited over an hour for Kook to finish filming BTS Flower Boy mini drama, even though he’d finished his part. Jimin couldn’t even stay mad at him for not telling, like how fond is he?

93) The fact that Jungkook is more than comfortable speaking in banmal with Jimin.He once said in Idol Party that he prefers talking in jeondaetmal (polite language) with his hyungs but look at the amount of times he’s dropped the honorific and called Jimin by his name. uhm, let’s talk about treating the other as equals?

94) Jimin and Jungkook, the human embodiment of Piske Usagi.

95) When Jungkook’s bro drew Jungkook as Muzi and Jimin as Con, the inseparable duo on Kakao. Bro knows. 👣

96) In Kkul FM 2016, When Jungkook and Jimin nearly intertwined their fingers . Scoffs bh seemed to think it’s okay to abruptly cut off their scene. What intrigues me most is that they weren’t even looking but their hands still somehow managed to find their way around. Also other instances they hold hands. I love how Jungkook’s slightly bigger hands envelop Jimin’s smaller ones. *Jimin’s pinky tho!*

97) How they’re destined to meet. The fact that they’re both from Busan, have matching moles, Jungkook’s bro named Junghyun and Jimin’s bro named Jihyun..imagine what would’ve happened had Jimin not been the last one to enter Bangtan.

98) When Jimin said he'd be looking at the ocean with Jungkook but Jungkook straight up rejected him and chose to go on a trip with his bro instead. It was quite a strong statement but a moment later Jungkook proved it wrong by reaching out and squeezing Jimin’s hand underneath the table, kinda like a reassurance that it’s all part of a joke. He cares. He truly does.

99) During Jin’s birthday prank at MAMA, these two couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The moment they entered the bathroom, they almost shut everything out-talking to themselves, picking on the cake- until the members gave them the signal to stop w/e they’re doing. Months later Mama kindly revealed another footage, this time consisting of just them, in the bathroom, jungkook right in the middle of buttoning up his jacket, wearing nothing underneath. How was I supposed to sit still?

100) When Jungkook and Jimin take skinship to a whole new level, or simply put, the times Jikook makes us question the real intention behind their acts and excessive skinship.

101) Last but not least, Perhaps my all time favorite moment- When Jungkook was caught observing Jimin’s every move, literally had his eyes only on him.

(Mark 1:17 onward)

I super love this video bc the song chosen matched so well with the situation- like they wanted to reach out but couldn’t so they stayed put, could only observe the other from far...

and that’s it! thank you, you made it to the bottom of this post! In short, everything about jikook makes me feel content. I had thought of doing more  but despite my brain literally screaming at me “Include this! You forgot this!”, I had to stick to 101. Anyway, I hope this mends your longing hearts. Have a lovely day! Thank you for reading!

Bonus because I have to:

when the members revealed on BTS KKul FM 2017 that Jungkook bought a birthday present only for Jimin. Am I your favorite hyung?

When Jungkook, the youngest in the group, called Jimin who is 2 years older than him a baby. 애기야가자 !

[lazuliblur]

Hello. When I found your blog, I pegged you as someone who had a rather deep understanding of what Team Minato's members were like, based on your posts. I wanna ask you opinion, if you don't mind. Madara's expert brainwashing aside, do you think Obito is weak for giving up what he believed in because of the event of Rin's death? And do you think he is weak for abandoning the Moon's Eye Plan after everything with Naruto?

Hey there! First off, omg! Let me just say that you are a super talented artist and I’m in awe of your expressive style, but I still haven’t quite forgiven you for crushing my heart to bits with those beautiful team Minato drawings of yours from a few days back! ❤

Secondly, ahhhh, I don’t know that my understanding is all that deep. I just love these kids and identify with Obito in a way that I’m not sure is entirely medically advisable, so I also have a very personal opinion about them. You’re welcome to agree or disagree with it. I’d love to hear your own take on the subject!

I don’t really know about weakness/strength. You can define those traits in so many different ways. Strength is most often associated with resillience and steadfastness, but sometimes it takes more strength to change than to remain as you are, so that doesn’t work as a definition. Strength can mean folding and weakness can be standing your ground when change is the preferable action, but who’s to say what’s right or wrong (especially in the Naruto world where every one of these guys, even the so-called cinnamon rolls like Minato, have extremely skewed moral views)? I prefer to think of characters in terms of how good they are at following through with what they believe is right and in terms of how justified/coherent/sensible their reasoning for considering something “right” is. That’s what I’ll consider strength in my answer. That said, let the magic of the read more cut begin because this got long.

Was Obito weak for losing faith in the world after Rin died? Well, let’s face it: Obito is not the most refined thinker. He has a tendency to exaggerate and think of the world in extreme terms. (Uchiha’s “curse of hatred” at work right there. These guys have zero chill, they just feel things too damn much, too damn deep!) Rin’s his best friend, so she’s “his one light in the darkness”. Kakashi and he don’t always get along, so they’re “like water and oil”. The shinobi system is broken, so clearly the only thing to do must be to raze it down to subbasement levels and start anew with something completely different!

When you think about all the things that Obito did after becoming Madara, putting aside for a moment the fact that his deeds were incredibly reprehensible from a moral standpoint, you have to admit that Obito accomplished so much. He was tireless. That was pure strength and unwavering determination. Because Obito is the kind of guy who, once he gets something in his head, follows through with it.

Obito, like Kakashi and every other kid in Konoha in their generation (and those before), was a child soldier. Naruto’s generation, the offspring of these child soldiers, the first to not have to worry about going to war in the history of Konoha, were spoiled by comparison. We have no way of knowing what kind of methods Konoha used to prepare these kids before dumping them in the middle of a battlefield, but it could not have been pretty. (Minato admires A for acting like a “true assassin” ffs!) Indoctrination is a pretty staple procedure, so we can assume that happened. Propaganda is also standard during war time. It helps people feel better about themselves if they paint the enemies that they’re going to have to kill as little more than animals and devils.

My point is that, by the time Obito went out to Kannabi Bridge, Konoha had already sufficiently motivated him to want to change the world and make it a better place. He wanted to do it from within Konoha (by becoming Hokage) because he believed with his whole heart that his village was a good place (see: indoctrination). He also wanted to do this with his friends beside him (when he wakes next to Madara, one of the first things he says is that he’s glad that his teamwork with Kakashi is going to improve now that they share sharingan).

Madara chipped away at Obito’s beliefs and forced him to let go of the rose-tinted lenses with which he perceived Konoha, so that he wouldn’t want to return home or keep the village as it was. Madara made a nihilist out of Obito using nothing but logic. He posed the question: if not for Konoha, would your friends have been in that dangerous situation? And the only answer to that was no. Then Madara used the fact that Obito was accustomed to Konoha asking him to sacrifice himself for the good of others to ask him to do the exact same thing for himself.

In a way, Madara did Obito a favour by breaking him out of that close-minded way of thinking that Konoha could do no wrong. Freedom of thought and child soldiers are not two things that typically go well together, you know? On the other hand, Madara took advantage of the mindset that Konoha had instilled in Obito to get him to do what he wanted without Obito realising it.

I believe that Obito showed strength here. He became convinced that the world needed to be made better and he sacrificed himself – his identity, his nature, his connection to his remaining friends – to make sure that it happened.

Obito was not weak for opening his eyes and seeing the world for what it truly was. He was a little weak in accepting Madara’s Moon’s Eye Plan as the only way to fix it. That was naïve of him. However: he was a child soldier who was just learning to think for himself. It would be unreasonable to expect him to be able to start thinking about everything at once. He had to take baby steps. (Besides, he eventually started to add his own changes to the pre-established plan, diverging from Madara’s orders and showing that he didn’t necessarily agree with everything that Madara said.)

What does that amount to? I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, he was both strong and weak here, but he went on to build himself into a strong character over this weakness.

Regarding Obito’s abandonment of the Moon’s Eye Plan after Naruto’s Talk no Jutsu… I’ll be honest. I hate that so much that I rage quit the manga when it happened. I only picked it back up because a friend told me that Obito was doing awesome things with Kakashi and that Rin had made some sort of comeback. And, yes, seeing Obito and Kakashi fight side by side one more time was cool, but… it just wasn’t the same. That wasn’t the Obito I’d come to know any more. His character was done a huge disservice at the end there. The overall story’s need to make Naruto the saviour robbed Obito of the ending he deserved. I would have liked Obito to reach a compromise with Naruto et al. that was like “ok, Madara’s methods are messed up, I see that now, but I have valid questions that will be addressed after we’re done taking him out.”

(Because Obito didn’t really like Madara, you can tell. My guess is that Obito would have rathered bring the old man back to life just before casting the genjutsu, so that Madara could have his happy ending, but no chance to interfere with Obito’s plans. At least, he didn’t seem thrilled that Madara was brought back as an Edo Tensei.)

I get why the plot required Naruto’s TnJ to work and I get why Naruto had to be the one who changed Obito’s mind (because he’s the freaking messiah who can never fail!!one), even though Naruto had no connection to Obito and they were nothing alike aside from the fact that they were lonely as children and wanted to be Hokage (FOR TOTALLY DIFFERENT REASONS!!one *ahem*) Kakashi’s the one who should have had that conversation with Obito (and I will forever be salty that Naruto 100% shut down Kakashi’s attempt to do just that when they first unmasked Obito).

I also understand that Obito was emotionally worn down by this point. He sought out Naruto during the 5 Kage meeting to reaffirm his purpose, so, yeah, Obito had doubts and he took that moment to assure himself that he was on the right path. Naruto was too stupid/concerned about Sasuke to realise that this was his chance to have a heart to heart with Obito and talk him out of his plan before anyone else died, and Kakashi was too much of a ninja, focused on his one job – to kill the enemy/protect Naruto – to consider it a possibility. Towards the end, Obito was also tired from fighting Kakashi and dealing with Kabuto. It’s at the moment right before a plan comes together that it is most frail and most susceptible to falling apart.

Anyway, Obito started out the war stronger and more committed than ever before: he had triple checked himself to make sure that his cause was right and no one had been able to deny that the ninja system was messed up. Even the good guys (barring Naruto), while talking amongst themselves, were all kinda “yeah, well, uhm, yeah, someone should do something about that”. Due to the plot’s need to make Naruto look strong, though, Obito had to be made weak, even though this volte face went entirely against his character. You do not spend years committing horrible acts that contradict your nature (Obito’s true nature was kind) because you feel that there is a problem that needs fixing, only to turn around at the last moment and let a 5 minute conversation with a stranger convince you that that issue you were so desperate to correct never needed addressing in the first place.

Bottom line, Obito was a strong character made weak at the very end by shounen plot requirements (though if Fullmetal Alchemist has taught us anything is that you don’t need to sacrifice character to have a satisfying ending and genre is no excuse for poorly executed plot).

[nicolewrites]

show of hands

For the wonderful @pkmncoordinators because The Middleground gave me so many Wishfulshipping feels and hijacked my motivation.

Rating: T Genre: Romance and Friendship Characters: [Iris and Cilan], Ash K., Misty Words: 5,538

“Cilan is her friend. He doesn't deserve to be psychoanalysed because of his hands.” wishfulshipping one-shot

AO3 | FFN

When Iris meets Cilan, there are a few things she notices right away. He is tall and slim and holds himself with poise. He uses words that are too big and he knows too much about trivial things. Cilan gets excited far too easily and between him and Ash, Iris always seems to be smiling.

When he first offers her a hand up, she's struck all over again. Cilan has long, slender fingers devoid of callouses. His palms are smooth and his lifeline stretches from one side to the other. His nails are shaped perfectly and are immaculately clean and manicured. She would have teased him for how girly his hands are if they didn't suit him so terribly well.

She accepts his outstretched hand and notes the stark contrast of her dark skin to his paleness. His hands are soft and as soon as she's standing, Iris pulls away, her cheeks flaming. Cilan is her friend. He doesn't deserve to be psychoanalysed because of his hands.

Still, Iris doesn't forget how well his long fingers curl around her own.

Iris shakes hands with Ash after a practice battle. She’s won, naturally, and she’s smirking when she takes Ash’s hand in her own. She’s almost startled by his grip. Ash’s handshake is firm and warm and Iris can feel the callouses on Ash’s palm. They have come from days, years even, spent outside being adventurous. She shares them with him. Ash’s skin is darkened from the sun, but she’s still darker. Her eyes wander from Ash’s bright grin to where Cilan sits under a tree, safely in the shade.

He stands up and makes his way over to them. Ash slings an arm around Iris’s shoulders and Iris smiles. He’s a little kid, but his excitement and energy are rather contagious. Cilan passes Pikachu to Ash, and his arm disappears from around Iris. Ash chatters to his partner and Cilan and Iris make eye contact, amused.

Axew drops from a tree branch above onto Cilan, startling them both, and the connoisseur almost falls. He removes the Dragon-type from his head and holds him out to Iris. Her young Pokemon is cackling and Iris takes him in her arms. Her fingers brush against Cilan’s fingertips and Iris draws her hands away like they’re on fire. Cilan’s gaze turns curious, but he says nothing as Ash butts in and exclaims how hungry he is.

Ash disappears frequently after dinner to train and to write in a leather-bound journal he carries. Iris once asked to see inside of it, and Ash clutched it close to his heart, claiming personal information. Iris thinks he’s writing about their journey, but also about the friends he has left behind. He talks about them often, and though he draws comparisons, Iris knows that she and Cilan are drastically different than other companions Ash has had before.

She wants to meet them. She wants to meet all of them, but Brock and Misty the most. Ash speaks the most fondly of them. They were with him for the longest and they seem to be the most similar to herself and Cilan. The way Ash raves about Misty, Iris knows she would like her. Fiery, smart, and fiercely strong. Brock sounds great, but it’s probably biased of her to say she doesn’t see how Brock could measure up to Cilan, despite how great Ash makes him seem.  

That night, Cilan is reading a book near the fire, when Iris realises something.

“Cilan,” she starts softly. “Do you think Ash will replace us too?”

The connoisseur glances at her. He closes his book. “Replace?”

“Well, when he’s done here in Unova, do you think he’ll move on quickly and hang out with a different group of companions?”

Cilan smiled gently. “I imagine that Ash will always keep moving. He’s an adventurous person and if that leads him in a different direction than you or me, then maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.” He pauses. “But, to answer your question, I don’t think he’ll replace us. You see how often he talks about Brock, and Misty, and Tracey, and May, and Max, and Dawn. They’re still his friends and even if we’re not travelling with him any longer, I don’t think he’ll lose touch with us that easily. Besides, we’re not quite like any of his other companions, are we?”

Iris laughs. Cilan has a way with words that makes her feel lighter almost instantly. “It would be pretty hard to be as cool as me,” she teases.

Cilan’s smile widens a little. “Of course,” he agrees. Cilan lifts his book back up and Iris watches his slender fingers fiddle with the edge of a page. She looks away. Ash will be back soon, and she has better things to do than to be caught staring.

“We should stay close together,” Cilan suggests.

Iris peers around Ash into the cave. It’s pitch black. There’s no telling where it leads or how many branching paths they’ll come across. It kind of gives her the creeps.

“Good plan,” Ash agrees. He reaches out and takes Iris’s hand. She blinks at him in confusion, but Ash looks back into the cave. He starts walking and pulls her along with him. She catches on; they’ll hold hands so they don’t get separated.

Iris instinctually reaches back and finds Cilan’s hand with her own. His fingers lace between her own and their hands fit together so perfectly. He doesn’t say a word, and neither does she.

Somehow, Ash leads them easily through the cave and they emerge ten minutes later on the other side. Ash’s hand drops from hers and it takes Iris a second to communicate the message to drop Cilan’s hand to her limb and her arm drops stiffly to her side. Her hands already feel cold at the loss of contact, but she doesn’t look back.

“Have you ever played the piano?” she asks suddenly.

Cilan nearly drops the plate he’s cleaning and he looks at her. “Oh, is this because of…” He trails off and lifts a hand in front of his face, studying his long, narrow digits. “No, music was always Chili’s thing.”

Iris abruptly stops fiddling with Emolga’s Pokeball. “Chili’s thing? Why couldn’t it have been yours too? I know you would have been amazing at it.”

Cilan looks uncomfortable and Iris realises she’s testing uncertain waters. “Chili was always the musical one and Cress wrote beautiful poetry.”

“Did you draw or something?” Iris asks teasingly.

Cilan’s head bobs awkwardly. “A little.” Iris stares. Cilan takes a deep breath. “I mean, drawing was something I was alright at, but it felt like it was doing it because everyone expected me to be as artistic as Chili and Cress, but in a different way. It was the same about training Pansage, Pansear, and Panpour–we could be similar, but never the same.”

“Cilan,” Iris says, “with your brothers, did you ever feel special?”

“Of course,” he answers smoothly. “We were always special, always unique, but I don’t think I ever felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Becoming a connoisseur made me feel like I might have a clue.” He puts the plate down and fidgets with the hem of his vest. “I think that I like to cook, and I was alright at drawing, but those were things that I picked up and developed a liking to because of my brothers.”

Iris steps towards Cilan and brushes the edge of her hand against his. She lifts the plate he had been scrubbing and takes over where he left off. “Well, maybe you just need to find your passion then. You’re the connoisseur, aren’t you? Do an evaluation and find your fit!”

He laughs out loud. “You’re right,” he says, his tone noticeably brighter.

“I’m always right,” she sasses in response and bumps their shoulders together. Cilan returns the action, and neither of them wipe the smiles off of their faces until Ash saunters back to the clearing and declares he’s going to bed for the evening.

Iris curls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. Her head is clouded with different emotions and she’s not exactly sure what to think. She has left her home behind her, and Drayden has placed this crazy weight, this expectation on her, and she doesn’t quite know where to go from today.

A rattling sigh escapes her chest and she shuts her eyes.

“Iris?” a familiar voice calls. Her eyes snap open and she sees Cilan standing before her. The connoisseur looks awkward, and Iris tries and fails to muster a smile. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know,” she admits.

“Is this about Drayden?”

She nods. She doesn’t really have the words to explain what she’s feeling at the moment.

Cilan sits next to her. “Being a Gym Leader is a lot of commitment,” he begins. “I know that is not what you’re interested in, but it is also flexible. It allows for freedom and breaks. You’ll be able to travel around and go to your home almost as often as you’d like, you know. And, Drayden has time before he retires yet. You’re not trapped into a decision, by any means.”

Iris nods slowly. “Were you scared when you, Cress, and Chili became the Gym Leaders of the Striaton City Gym?”

“More terrified than I’d ever been in my life. Our father had been the Gym Leader before us, and my grandfather before him. My dad couldn’t just pass the gym to one of us, so he gave it to all of us and we made it into our own. If you become the Opelucid Gym Leader, no one expects you to be Drayden. We expect you to be Iris and if that means changing some things, then you change some things.”

Iris smiles. “Thanks, Cilan.”

“Just promise me you won’t become Skyla,” he adds as an afterthought.

She laughs. “I promise.”

The battle between Ash and Trip has built up over the travels of an entire region. Pikachu and Serperior both look frighteningly strong and Iris is on the edge of her seat. Really, it’s bad luck that Ash and his rival have been paired off so early, but the tension between the pair could be cut with a knife.

Even from her seat high in the stands, the hairs on Iris’s arms are standing up in anticipation. Without realising it, Iris’s hand seeks out Cilan’s and curls around it. He returns the gesture and Iris stiffens. She exhales slowly and keeps her eyes trained carefully on the match. Today is about Ash.

Ash battles well through the tournament and though some moments are tense, the finale of his battle with Cameron is the most stressful. It is close–far too close to call in anyone’s favour, despite Cameron’s initial disadvantage.

This time, Iris isn’t the one to make the move, but slim fingers wind between hers and she squeezes them in return.

Ash loses the battle and Iris lets go of Cilan’s hand.

Iris has received so many cards. The one from Ash makes her smile, and she recalls the Unova League he competed in three years ago. It hadn't ended well, but Iris had enjoyed watching her friend compete. After Ash had left for Kalos, Iris had gone to Johto. It was eye-opening, and she came back with a decision.

Drayden had been pleased to hear it and after several months of training, it had been time. Drayden resigned and Iris had stepped forwards as the new Gym Leader.

The counter of her kitchen in her new home, attached to her Gym, is littered with congratulatory cards. They're from friends across Unova and Napaj, many of whom she met through Ash.

Her fingers break the seal of the last unopened envelope. She slides the stationery out of the covering and examines it. Her lips curl up at the word written on it.

It isn't signed, but there's no need. She recognises the neat, practised script anywhere. Her fingertip traces the word and she smiles.

Congratulations.

Iris bangs on the door one last time for good measure. She's completely soaked and the rain is still coming down in sheets. She had abandoned the idea of a coat and stands, waterlogged, on the doorstep of a building she’s not even sure has anyone home.

After a long second where she contemplates leaving, the latch slides away and the door is thrown open.

Cilan stares at her from inside the building, his jaw slack in surprise. “Iris, what are you doing here?”

“Surprise?” she replies weakly. She shivers. Raindrops catch in her eyelashes and she blinks them away.

Cilan reaches out and pulls her by the hand into his home. Chili is standing nearby and his eyebrows shoot up as Cilan shuts the door behind her. Nobody says anything for a moment and Iris looks down. She's making a puddle on the clean floors.

“I’ll get a towel,” Chili offers quickly and vanishes away to do exactly that.

Iris looks up and sees Cilan is staring at her.

“What are you doing here? Especially in the middle of a storm with no coat! Iris, I'm glad to see you, but why are you here?”

She lets out a short, shaky breath. “Alder is stepping down and Drayden and he want me to become the next Champion.”

Cilan blinks. Iris stares into his green eyes and waits for him to say something.

“It's the middle of the night,” he says finally. “You're soaked and freezing and I need a minute to process what you just said.”

Chili reappears with a towel and Cress at his side. Iris takes the towel from Chili and starts drying her hair. Cilan remains silent for another minute.

“Iris, you can use my bathroom to shower. I think you left some clothes here from the last time you stayed over. Chili, Cress, you guys can go back to bed. I’ll handle this,” Cilan instructs.

Iris quickly heads towards where she knows Cilan’s bedroom is. She walks through his room into the bathroom and stares at herself in the mirror. She stands there for almost five minutes before Cilan knocks on the doorframe and she realises he’s standing behind her. She turns.

Cilan holds out a t-shirt and jeans that are definitely hers from the last time she slept over. Iris takes them without question and withdraws, but Cilan gently grabs her wrist, pulling her hand back towards him.

“Iris, we need to talk.”

She looks down. “I'm sorry to drop in on you,” she murmurs. They haven't seen each other face to face in three months thanks to how busy they've been.

“I am glad to see you,” Cilan reaffirms. “But, about Alder,” he starts and Iris shakes her head.

“I can't be Champion. I'm 21, Cilan. I can't be Champion when Ash is 22 and still fighting through Leagues to face the Elite Four with hopes of challenging a Champion. Not after the backlash from the new Sinnoh Champion.”

“Iris,” Cilan begins, “you could be anything you wanted to be. Do I believe you’re strong enough to be Champion? Absolutely. Do I believe you could lead Unova to the future? Without a doubt. Should you become Champion? I have no idea. You’re young, but you’re idealistic and you’re passionate. Unova would be hard-pressed to find another person like you. Alder and Drayden clearly believe in you, and so do I. Are you young? Of course, but so was Alder when he became Champion.”

“I don't want to be Alder!” Iris snaps.

“Then don't!” Cilan replies sharply. “When you became Opelucid City’s Gym Leader three years ago, you did not become Drayden. You made the position your own and you would do the same as the Champion of the Unova League.” Cilan reaches out and takes both of Iris’s hands in his own. “You can do anything, Iris. You just need to believe it’s true.”

Iris stares at their joined hands. Cilan’s hands are still larger than hers and slender, but she feels the beginnings of adventurous callouses on his palms and a small, unwitting smile curls up the edges of her lips. His pale digits are wrapped perfectly around her own and she feels safer than she’s felt since before Drayden and Alder called her to a private meeting.

“I don't deserve you,” she says quietly.

Cilan detached on of his hands from hers and brushes it along her arm. “Iris, we established this years ago that this friendship does not go one way.”

“I don't deserve you,” she repeats. Cilan frowns, but she cuts him off. “Let me speak! I showed up freezing cold and soaking wet on your doorstep in the middle of the night. We haven't seen each other face to face in months and I drop a bomb on you like this. I've probably ruined the carpet in your house and you make me feel like this is my home too because you’re here, even though I've never felt a bond with Striaton. Chili and Cress are my friends too, but you’re different because you’re here and you’re holding me like this and I don't know what I'm supposed to say to you.”

“Don't say anything at all,” he suggests.

Iris takes his advice and leans towards him, breaking his grip on her, and hugging him tightly. Cilan’s arms wrap around her without hesitation. Iris tenses as she realises she is still soaking wet.

“Cilan,” she mutters, her voice a little muffled by his chest. “I am ruining your shirt.”

He laughs and just pulls her a little bit tighter.

“I am honoured to be serving Unova as your Champion. Thank you.” Iris looks down at the podium, breaking her gaze with the crowd, and smooths her hands over the paper that carries her speech. There is no way that she would have ever been able to do it without help. Speeches have never been her strong suit, but thankfully, Cilan is much more polished when it comes to his words.

The crowd breaks into cheering and applause, and Iris can’t disguise the smile that spreads across her face. She’s the Champion. Eleven years ago this idea never would have crossed her mind, but now she’s here. Alder and Drayden are standing off the stage and they both look proud of her. She steps away from the podium and crosses the stage. She descends down the steps and stands before her mentors.

“Thank you,” she says again, but this time it is only for them.

Drayden nods. Alder lays a hand on her shoulder. “I would not have chosen you if I didn’t know you would be great. You will be great,” he assures.

Iris smiles. Her mentors leave her then, and her friends approach. Cilan is leading them, of course, but Trip, Georgia, Ash, Misty, May, and Drew are close behind. Trip and Georgia wound their way back into Iris’s life as she began to get more entwined with the League as Trip is an official League Photographer and Georgia has taken over the Icirrus City Gym. Ash had introduced her to Misty and May.

Misty is every bit as fiery as Ash made her out to be, and there’s a sharp glimmer in her eyes that Iris loves. She’s in the running for the open Elite Four position in Kanto, and she thinks Lance, now her colleague, would be a fool to give it to anyone else. May is a huge contrast to Misty. She’s sweet and oblivious and actually a lot like Ash. With May comes Drew, her longtime rival and boyfriend. Drew’s cynical and snarky and everything May isn’t, but Iris thinks they’re a good fit. She likes Drew. His sarcasm keeps her sharp.

“Iris, that was awesome!” Ash exclaims, pushing forwards to hug her.

“Your speech was really good!” May adds, pulling Ash away so she can cram in her own hug.

Iris pats May’s shoulder and makes eye contact with Cilan briefly. The connoisseur smiles at her warmly. “Well, I can’t take all the praise for that one. Cilan helped me out a lot with it.”

“You wrote the main ideas, I just tweaked it to make you sound better,” Cilan corrects. “I don’t need the praise for this.”

“Well, it certainly helped you out there,” Georgia remarks. Her tone is laced with sarcasm and Iris knows that her old rival is only teasing.

She sweeps her gaze over her other friends. They’re all smiling, but Drew’s expression flickers as his eyes catch something over her shoulder. Iris turns but sees nothing. Whatever Drew had seen, has moved on. She clasps her hands in front of her and smiles brightly again. Drew is still scowling, and she’s about to push him on it when he answers her question by taking her firmly by the arm.

“Iris, move!” he demands, pulling her forwards.

She stumbles forwards and is about to chew Drew out when a gunshot rings out. Iris freezes and waits for pain, but nothing comes. Her ears are ringing and she’s trembling, but she wasn’t hit. Iris spins around and sees a figure standing further in the shadows holding a gun that is pointed directly at her. Her mouth falls open.

There’s no way this man, obviously a hired gun, would have missed such an easy shot. There’s surprise written across his face and Iris steps towards him, anger, confusion, and adrenaline fueling her. She takes two steps before another person tackles the shooter to the ground. It’s a G-Men agent from Sinnoh who is part of the security detail. Iris prepares herself to run over when Georgia catches her attention.

“Iris!” Her rival’s voice is as sharp as flint and this time there’s no hint of joking.

Iris spins back to her friends and sees Trip is holding Cilan up, lest the connoisseur fall over. She strides urgently towards them and instantly feels sick. There’s red welling up against the fine material of Cilan’s suit and Iris’s eyes flood with tears. Drew had jerked her forwards and Cilan had stepped straight into the trajectory of the bullet. Iris grasps Cilan’s other arm and together, she and Trip lower him to the ground.

Misty is already on the phone with an ambulance. A pounding of footsteps announces the arrival of more people. It’s Lance, Wallace, and Paul, the newly minted Sinnoh Champion, followed by Alder, Drayden and paparazzi. Cilan is on the ground bleeding out and Iris holds him desperately, her hands staining red with his blood. Iris’s friends form a protective ring around her as Misty hangs up the phone.

Cameras flash.

Iris falls asleep in the waiting room. She doesn’t mean to, but it’s been hours since Cilan was admitted and taken to emergency surgery. She startles awake and nearly falls out of the hospital chair. Her consciousness is quickly noticed by someone, and Iris cranes her neck slightly to see Misty sitting, awake, nearby.

“He’s out of surgery,” she says before Iris can ask. “He’s stable and they say he’s going to be fine.”

Iris breathes out a sigh of relief and tugs at a loose strand of her hair. It's still done in the extravagant style it had been done in for her inauguration. Misty is still dressed formally as well, but her hair is down around her shoulders and messy, like she’s been running her fingers through it. Iris notices, with a jolt, that Ash is asleep in the chair next to Misty, and the Cerulean City Gym Leader’s fingers are entwined with her friend’s.

“You should go in and see him,” a new voice suggests and Iris turns her head quickly. Trip is sitting just across the room, still wearing his suit, and he looks exhausted. Georgia is curled up next to him and Iris is surprised neither of them have left.

“Is he allowed visitors?” she asks.

“One for now,” Misty informs her.

Iris glances around the waiting room. The five of them are alone. May and Drew had returned to Hoenn, unhappily considering the situation, because of prior commitments, but the others had stayed with her.

“Are Cress and Chili here yet?” Iris asks. Ash had called Cilan’s brothers as soon as there had been a moment two and the other two Striaton triplets had immediately made for Opelucid City.

“No,” Trip answers. “They're still on their way. Go sit with Cilan,” he basically orders.

“Please do,” Georgia agrees. Her voice is rough with sleep as she straightens, waking up. “You're worrying enough.”

“Okay,” Iris agrees after a moment’s pause. “But you guys should all go change and get food. I’ll get something as soon as someone comes to switch with me, but you should go now.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Misty agrees. Iris stands and heads towards the private room where Cilan is supposed to be.

Iris hesitates with her hand on the doorknob, but she twists it. The last thing she hears when she closes the door behind her is Misty rousing Ash. After that, she’s alone in the silent hospital room. Her gaze instantly falls to Cilan and she sinks into the chair next to his bed.

He’s unconscious, naturally, but the gentle beeping of the heart monitor is reassuring. His green hair is pushed back from his face and his skin is still slightly paler than usual, but he looks alive. His chest rises and falls slowly as he breathes and Iris wants to cry.

He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her.

Her eyes find Cilan’s hand. It is lying limp on the bed, long fingers curled subconsciously in his sleep. She tentatively raises her hand and threads her fingers through his. His skin is cold, but Iris holds on anyway.

She looks back at his face. He looks peaceful and a pang of something echoes in her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

A gentle knock on the wooden doorframe draws Iris’s attention. She glances back over her shoulder and sees Ash and Misty standing there. Iris smiles at them warily and they enter the small hospital room.

They've both changed into fresh clothes and look cleaner. Misty’s hair is yanked up into a ponytail and Ash is wearing his signature hat. Pikachu is perched quietly on his trainer’s shoulder and Iris knows he understands what kind of a situation this is.

“I brought you some clothes,” Misty says, holding out a bundle of what Iris determines to be a casual set of clothes. “I'm taller than you, but they should fit, if you'd like.”

“I can sit with Cilan while you change and get a bite to eat,” Ash suggests, stepping forward. “I'll call you if anything happens.”

Iris smiles. Her dress is heavy and awkward and wrinkled. She stands from the chair and heads to the door. “Thank you,” she says to both of them.

Ash nods and slips past her to the chair she has vacated and Misty turns to lead the way out of the tiny room. Iris follows her and the two girls walk down the eerily silent hospital hallways towards a bathroom.

Misty breaks the silence. “Trip and Georgia went back to their hotel so that they could shower, change and get some real sleep. They said they'd be back. Ash and I showered at our hotel and decided to come relieve you.”

Iris nods. “I'm grateful.”

Misty pushes into the bathroom and looks around, determining it to be empty. She turns back to Iris and purses her lips. “You don't have to feel guilty about Cilan.” Iris blinks, but Misty keeps going. “I don't think any of us could have predicted what happened and I don't think Cilan would have changed his actions, no matter what went down. I know, if I was in his place, I would have done the same thing.”

“But it's my fault he got shot,” Iris murmurs, almost cringing at how desperate and upset her own voice sounds.

“You love him, don't you?” Misty asks. Iris gapes and Misty gives her a small smile. “I can tell. It's the little things that give it away. But, tell me this: if you were in the same position as Cilan, what would you have done?”

“I would have taken the bullet,” Iris says without hesitating.

“Cilan knows what he’s doing, Iris,” Misty assures. She hands the clothes to Iris and straightens. “I know what he was thinking and I know how he’s going to continue to think. It's kind of a tricky situation loving someone in your situation.”

Iris looks at Misty in surprise. “My situation?”

“You and Ash,” Misty says, “you're both in this place where the media follows you insistently and any move you make, or one that someone makes towards you will be judged and documented and your privacy is always being invaded.”

“So you and Ash are something? I never imagined that Ash could grow up enough to manage a real relationship,” Iris replies, teasing a little.

Misty laughs. “He’s Ash. I'm still not sure he knows what's going on, but everyone knows he’ll be going after Lance’s title soon enough, and you've just taken over for Alder. It's a lot of pressure on both of you, but also on Cilan and I.”

“Misty, Cilan and I aren't anything,” Iris denies. Cilan is her friend. Her friend with a musician’s touch and a connoisseur’s tongue and a smile that makes her heart skip.

Maybe they're a little more to her, but Cilan thinks she's a friend.

“That's Taurus dung and you know it. You've both just been too tentative about it,” Misty replies. She lifts her phone for a second and smiles. “Now hurry up and change. Ash just texted me. Chili and Cress are here and Cilan is awake.”

Iris pushes open the door a little too harshly and it bangs into the wall. The eyes of those in the room are instantly drawn to her. Ash smothers a laugh and Iris glares at him. He’s leaning against the wall near the door. Cress is sitting in the visitor’s chair and Chili is perched on the edge of Cilan’s hospital bed.

Cilan is propped up in his hospital bed and he’s looking at Iris with so much relief in his eyes that it hurts. Iris freezes in the doorway and just looks at Cilan. He looks exhausted, but her eyes find his hands which are limply draped across the thin sheet, but he’s waiting for her to say something. Iris swallows a lump in her throat and steps forwards.

“You’re awake,” she manages.

Cilan’s lips almost twitch into a smile, but he doesn’t get a chance to reply.

“Well, we’ll leave you two alone!” Chili says cheerfully. He practically leaps off the bed and grabs Cress’s arm, pulling his brother towards the door. Ash and Misty, who followed Iris in, also take their leaves and Chili closes the door behind him, leaving Iris standing across the room from her friend who took a bullet for her.

Iris has never felt so scared. The sheer panic that had washed over her when she realised that Cilan took the shock for her is still pulsing faintly beneath her skin. Seeing Cilan staring at her, conscious and probably alright, is a relief, but it makes her eyes well with tears all over again because she can’t lose him.

“Iris,” Cilan calls. His voice is soft and tired, but Iris can almost detect affection in it and it makes heat flush in her cheeks. “Sit,” he requests.

Iris listens without even having to communicate the message to her feet. She all but falls into the chair next to the bed and just stares at the pale green of Cilan’s hospital sheets, unable to even look him in the eye. She blinks away tears that try to burst. A slender, pale hand reaches into her line of vision and curls around her wrist, sliding to hold her hand.

Iris looks up at Cilan.

“I think you’ll have to take the next bullet yourself, Madame Champion,” he says. Cilan’s hand squeezes hers lightly and Iris laughs despite it all.

“I love you,” she says. There’s no warning, no precedent and certainly no explanation.

Cilan’s slender fingers are woven between hers and even though he’s shot and recovering and she’s going to be plagued by danger and stress and the media for the rest of her career, she loves him and it feels good.

“Well, I’ll return your sentiment as soon as you get out of life-saving emergency surgery,” Cilan teases. Iris rolls her eyes. Cilan lifts their joined hands slowly, so he doesn’t agitate himself, and presses a gentle kiss to the back of her hand. “I love you too, Iris.”

Iris squeezes his fingers and thinks about how Cilan’s hands have played her like a fiddle. First, it was a curiosity and then an understanding and now an obsession, but he has wormed his way into her life in irreversible ways and he’s there to stay.

It’s good, she thinks. It’s finally good.

[takaraphoenix]

Best Animated Movies Through the Years

After I threw some shade at Disney with the sequel-thing I did earlier, I figured I’d do a list of what I consider the best animated movies. Not just including Disney. And since I’m shit at picking favorites and properly ranking stuff, we’ll go through them by years, in chronological order. All personal picks, obviously.

Basically, this is just self-indulgent because I want to ramble about my favorite animated movies.

Also, this is going to be really long so I’ll shorten it by making you click “keep reading” below!

And by “really long”, I mean this is literally a list of 65 animated movies through the years - yeah, that is the narrowed-down version because it’s only 65 out of the 282 animated movies I have on my overall “timeline of animated movies”.

I think the way this list makes most sense is... for scrolling through to see titles you might have never heard of before and getting a recommendation for a great animated movie that isn’t necessarily just your average Disney masterpiece (though those are of course also on the list).

1937 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney

It might not be the best story-telling wise and Snow might not be the most fleshed-out Disney princess, but you can not talk about the best animated movies without respecting the first. This paved the way and this is what set the course for Disney. The animation is beautiful, even eighty years later it still looks stunning. And while not a genius in character-development, it is still a very faithful - by Disney-standards anyway - retelling of the fairy tale.

1942 - Bambi, Disney

Thumper will forever be one of my favorite Disney characters. Who watched this movie and didn’t love Bambi and Thumper and Flower is a lying liar who lies. It is beautiful, it is emotional and it’s the start of a wonerful tradition of talking animal movies.

1950 - Cinderella, Disney

I know I said in the sequel-thing that this movie is flat. But you got to keep in mind the time-period from which it is. And for that, it still stands strong. Many shame Cinderella as just being a girl after a boy and that’s it; same for Snow White by the way. All those “new age” Disney fans who think only the princesses from 2000+ are real heroines. That both Snow White and Cinderella were abused half their lives and that literally the only escape from that kind of abuse in that kind of time would be to get married and move out, is forgotten way too often. This girl has been treated as a house-slave all her life and all she wants is one night to feel like a princess - she never even really just wishes for a prince, she just wants to go to the ball - and she fights for it. It’s more a movie about overcoming abuse and issues of self-worth, of friendship and escapism than it is just a bland “That girl wants a boyfriend” movie and it deserves respect for that.

1951 - Alice in Wonderland, Disney

As a very big fan of the books, I hold a special kind of love for this movie because it’s actually a rather faithful adaptation. Of course it leaves out a lot and changes some things, but I think it stands very true to the source material and keeps a wonderful mixture of beautiful fairy tale land and creepy LSD trip in a great balance.

1959 - Sleeping Beauty, Disney

Aurora is my favorite Disney princess so I can not skip her movie. This movie wins on character design alone. Aurora gets a lot of shade thrown at her for being asleep half her movie, but you gotta try to look past that. We have a green-skinned, horned villainess who turns into a freaking dragon and spits fire. Maleficent’s design alone is amazing, but add to that the three quirky fairies and Aurora, as well as Prince Philipp who gets to not just kiss the girl as the princes before him did but to literally slay a dragon and save the kingdom for his princess and you got a real fairy tale masterpiece right there.

1967 - The Jungle Book, Disney

If I had to pick only one Disney movie, out of an artistic point of view, it would be this. Just as an artist alone, I marvel at this movie and the love for detail that went into animating the animals. The way they walk and move was done so incredibly well, you can see the effort that went into making this movie. The drawings are so beautiful. Bagheera will forever be one of my favorite Disney characters. Shere Khan is one of the three best Disney villains in existence - also, vastly misunderstood considering he really should have just eaten the brat and be done with this, I mean come on, like a pack of wolves or a panther wouldn’t have eaten the tiny snack and I still think this movie would have been improved by 100% if they had eaten Mowgli in the beginning because the brat is the only flaw this movie has.

1970 - Aristocats, Disney

This is such a beautiful story of family and love. I feel like it nearly doesn’t even need words to describe it because it’s a given that this movie should be on this list. The humor, the heart, the music, the animation, the characters. It’s adorable, and I’m saying that as a not-cat-person.

1973 - Robin Hood, Disney

It’s impressive if you just consider the fact that it was made with so much rehashed material (they reused a lot of old animation here). But it has a beautiful story, it’s innovative in the sense that it essentially introduces anthro characters and it’s just ridiculously cute.

1976 - The Twelve Tasks of Asterix | Les Douze Travaux d’Astérix, Goscinny & Uderzo

As a German, I can not do this list without including this movie. It is maybe one of the funniest animated movies in history. No one in Germany doesn’t know what a Passierschein A38 is. Growing up with the Asterix comics and other Franco-Belgian comics in the way the stereotypical nerds in American TV grew up with Marvel and DC comics, Asterix was literally the hero of my childhood and among all his movies, this one is definitely the best and the most fun to watch.

1981 - The Fox and the Hound, Disney

This is easily one of the most heartbreaking Disney movies and the only one where the love-interest is the real villain for coming between the main characters? Like? No. This movie would be perfect if not for Vixie. I love foxes, I love baby animals (when they’re animated; real ones creep me out) and I love a good story about friendship. This is really not a happy movie, which sets it apart from other Disney movies, but it’s still beautiful.

1986 - An American Tail, Don Bluth

For me, as a German kid, this was so weird to watch because the concept of immigrants and other continents aside from Europe being A Thing That Exists, it was totally alien and following Feivel and his family on that journey was a great way of being introduced into this literal New World of America. Feivel is such an endearing character, this movie is so heartfelt and has a pure focus on family and friendship that is simply beautiful to watch.

1986 - Fluppy Dogs, Disney

I know this one is a bit of a stretch because technically it’s not a movie but the pilot to a failed cartoon series, but this might easily be my favorite Disney movie of them all? The characters are so amazing, the concept of parallel worlds will forever be one of my favorite things and I was first introduced to it in this movie, the focus of friendship and overcoming differences is great and I’m sorry but this is a movie about rainbow-colored fluffy puppies that can talk and travel between universes, how is that not amazing?!

1988 - The Land Before Time, Don Bluth

Others cried when Bambi’s mom was shot, but to me this one was way worse. The pain and fear of isolation that Little Foot went through, this scary dark world around him. Those diverse, quirky and amazing characters that you met and fell in love with within this really short one hour movie - really, you have one hour and you have five main characters and yet it’s enough to make you fall for each and every one of them. How this ragtag team of dinosaurs finds together and how they become friends. It’s maybe the purest friendship-story among animated movies and I love it. Also, it’s literally the best dinosaur movie ever made and you can fight me on that.

1989 - All Dogs Go to Heaven, Don Bluth

This is so refreshing, because we don’t have this shining, pure golden boy of a protagonist. We have the first anti-hero in animated history, really. Charlie is a selfish dog and he has an amazing redemption arc. The guts to do such a thing, a redemption movie on an animated dog, I marvel at that, considering the time and that it had never been done before. You learn to love Charlie and you feel for him throughout the journey and you also feel for the little girl.

1989 - The Little Mermaid, Disney

Ariel is a brat. Ariel is maybe the only Disney princess that is mainly relatable if you yourself are a child and rebelling against your parents. As a kid, this was the best princess movie for me, I worshiped Ariel, she was so cool. As an adult, I mainly admire Triton and his patience and love for his daughter. This movie, for me, is what shows you if you’re grown up. If you still side with Ariel, you’re probably not as grown up as you like to think, and if you came around to feel for Triton, I got some bad news for you because you are officially an adult now. But even that aside, it has one of the most endearing sidekicks in Flounder, it has one of the most compelling villains in Ursula and it has some of the most beautiful musical numbers. Not to mention, the animation is gorgeously drawn.

1990 - The Rescuers Down Under, Disney

This movie is literally the only sequel in the history of sequel-making that outdoes the first movie. Its animation is beautiful, its story-telling amazing, its characters get proper arcs and are well-rounded and cute, it’s a stunning masterpiece of an animated movie (and I wasn’t even aware that there was a first one until my late teens, so it’s also amazingly done as a stand-alone movie).

1991 - Beauty and the Beast, Disney

Since I included all the other princess movies, I feel obligated to also include this. And it does have beautiful music and animation - outstanding animation, really - and it has endearing sidekicks, but I’m just not really a fan of the story itself. The whole violent, vicious beast kidnaps girl and girl completely changes everything about him and they fall in love with each other but somehow she never even bothers to ask him for his name and continues to call him Beast even though they’re already in love, not to mention this was kick-started because a 10 year old boy was rude to a stranger, what the heck Enchantress way to be overly dramatic... Yeah. That. But aside from that, as an animated movie, beyond just as a movie, it’s really beautiful.

1991 - FernGully: The Last Rainforest, 20th Century Fox

Not the English dub though. This is my third most favorite movie of all time, but I never got over the first 10 minutes of the English original because holy shit, that voice “actor” who plays the part of the male lead has never done voice acting, or any form of acting, before in his life and it’s just painful to listen to. But the movie itself is beautiful. Basically, it’s one half of Avatar, but in good (the other half being Pocahontas, of course). The message of saving our planet is done is such a beautiful, child-friendly way, the fairies and nature and the characters are so amazingly done and Hexor is like one of the best non-Disney-animated-movie-villains.

1992 - Aladdin, Disney

The weird part where it’s all about the hero, but in the end she’s the Disney princess and wins the fame and fortune contest, even though let’s be real, her plot in this is kinda weird. “Oh no, my life is too good”, yeah that’s such a relatable complaint especially for kids, and sicking your tiger onto a political ally is really great, princess, because even if you don’t want to get married, maybe try not to start a war, mh? And Aladdin’s approach of lying to get the girl is not the best either. What really wins wthis movie is, hands down, the Genie. Also the Sultan, who is one of my favorite Disney dads. The character dynamis and the growth of them throughout are also big plus-points.

1994 - The Lion King, Disney

This is one of the Disney movies that just hits the ball out of the park and it’s probably my third favorite Disney movie. The adorable animation. The mind-blowing songs. The compelling, eccentric villain, the emotions as you sob over Mufasa like a little child even when you’re over 20, the character design and the animals themselves, as well as the beautiful set-art. This movie is really very amazing.

1994 - The Swan Princess, Rich Animation

I mentioned once before that Toy Story is a perfect trilogy. So are this movie and its sequels. Yes, the first one is superior to its sequels and thus only it will find its way onto this list but the second and third are definite must-see movies too the others do not exist though and they should not exist. Odette is the original princess who didn’t just fall into the hero’s arms and had a love-at-first-sight romance. Disney gets props for Anna in Frozen like that’s the first time that happened, but if you look past Disney, it happened as early as 19994. Odette and Derek grow up not liking each other and when she’s pretty as a teen, he suddenly wants to marry her and she asks him why - and he answers because she’s pretty. And she flat-out rejects him. He has to fight for her heart and he falls in love with her on the way, really in love, and he makes her fall in love with him. It’s a beautiful love-story, with quirky animal sidekicks, endearing characters and beautiful animations. In many ways, this is superior to most Disney princess movies, really.

1995 - Pocahontas, Disney

I have always and will always love this movie, albeit I have to admit it’s... problematic. For children outside the US, who are only taught about US history in their teens, those “romanticized history” movies are a bit of a danger because we can easily fall to believe them to be true... er than they actually are (that there were no talking trees and that he didn’t learn the native tongue via singing, that much was obvious, thank you very much). But when you’re 14 and learn that her life was nothing like in the movie, that's kind of devastating. I feel like history is not the thing that should be romanticized like that. Still, it’s beautiful and great story-telling and characters and art and songs - even though singing them now makes you feel vaguely racist so that’s also a bit problematic?

1995 - Toy Story, Disney Pixar

I didn’t like this movie as a child. Mainly due to it being computer animated and fuck computer animation, gimme my 2D back. Yeah, I still have that mindset but by now I have learned to also appreciate animated movies. Not to mention, I think that for me as a kid the themes of betrayal and darkness (Sid’s house) were just too much as a child wheras I can very much appreciate them and see the complexity of the movie now as an adult. It’s great story-telling and if you consider that the animation is from 1995, it really holds up great (especially if you compare that with the animation from 2005′s Chicken Little, which might just be the worst animation-quality in all of Disney’s history, really).

1995 - Balto, Amblin Entertainment

Steele is one of the greatest non-Disney villains. This movie is beautifully complex because you get to follow this outcast on his journey of becoming part of society and rising to become a hero. It also got a beautiful arc of self-discovery, what with Balto’s status as a half-blood being what makes him an outcast to begin with. Not dog, but also not wolf. Yet in the end, he has to learn that he’s not neither, but rather both and that both sides are part of him and make him who he is. It’s a beautiful story about acceptance of one’s self.

1996 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney

Speaking of a story about accepting one’s self. This is really daring for a Disney movie, considering the lead is... deformed, whereas all Disney movies so far only include perfect people (unless villain). Also, the main character doesn’t get the girl in a semi-surprise twist. Not to mention, it brings us the first canonically gay Disney character in Hugo. Yes, he’s a gargoyle and yes, his male love-interest is a goat and yes he is not the representation you may want, but he’s the representation you’ll get, at least for now (and stop over-analyzing ridiculous shit like “Oh, two women are at the zoo with one child in Finding Dory. They must be the first lesbians *gasp*”... that is not representation, that is cheap and a throw-away). Not to mention, this movie has the best soundtrack out of all the Disney movies.

1997 - Hercules, Disney

We have a very complicated relationship, this movie and I. I love it to bits and pieces and it’s one of my favorite Disney movies, but at the same time I’ve learned to hate what an inaccurate adaptation of the Greek myths it is and particularly Hades’ misrepresentation makes me angry in a deeply seated way but on the other hand Hades is literally the most compelling and amazing Disney villain in existence. It confuses me. I love it so much, but deep down at its essence, part of me wants to hate it for what it did to my favorite god. But at the same time, I love that character in particular for being such a great villain.

1997 - Anastasia, Don Bluth

This is it. This is the best animated movie ever made. This is my favorite movie of all times. I’ve seen it at least 50 times by now - my guess, I stopped counting roughly ten years ago and I was at 27 back then. Just like Odette in Swan Princess, Anastasia actually falls in love with her love-interest. No love at first sight nonsense. They start off antagonizing each other, but learn to work together and ultimately fall in love. We have friendship, we have a great journey and also a great journey of self-discovery - but not just on Anastasia’s part, because her love interest is not just The Love Interest, he also gets his own arc of self-discovery. We have an intensely scary villain and we have beautiful, beautiful songs. Not to mention, Anastasia kicks major butt. She doesn’t need a man to save her, she saves the man and she literally kicks the villain’s ass. This movie is a masterpiece and a gem.

1998 - The Quest for Camelot, Warner Brothers

The movie is not as good as you remember it, believe me because I experienced the let-down, but it has one very major thing going for it: It includes a disabled character as a lead. Before Toph Beifong, this movie had a kick-ass blind character in it and that’s huge because it still barely happens and that’s a real shame. For that alone, it gets major props. Not to mention, it is kind of quite the unique take on the Arthurian legend and it’s a fun movie. But as a movie itself, it’s not overly outstanding, if you rewatch it now.

1998 - Mulan, Disney

While I said earlier that Fluppy Dogs is my favorite Disney movie, I’m aware that’s a lot of nostalgia talking and I know it’s not the best Disney movie. This right here is, though. The story-telling, the love-story and character development, the stakes of this movie are amazing, the emotions are intense. People cry when Mufasa or Bambi’s mom die, but I think the single most gut-wrenching moment of Disney history is when the most joyful song in the movie stops dead in its tracks and we see this destroyed village and we know that they’re all dead down there. The movie also has the single greatest moment, when all of China kneels before this one girl and acknowledges that yes, she is the one who saved China. She did this. Mulan is a heroine, but she doesn’t start out as that. She just starts out as a girl who wants to protect her father and she actually has to learn to be a hero. It’s amazing and emotional and yet still through it all funny and that is really mostly due to Mushu, who coincidentally was also the first time of me really liking Otto Waalkes (Mushu’s German voice and a very famous German comedian).

1998 - The Last Unicorn, Rankin/Bass Productions

This movie is so artistically beautiful and keeps such an amazing mystical vibe to it throughout. It’s very weird and scarily creepy at times that are maybe too much for a kid and a major downside of its German dub is that the songs are kept in English - I only realized a few years ago that the music actually tells a story, and that’s kind of disappointing to learn so late. But it’s just... breathtakingly beautiful and tragically sad.

1998 - The Prince of Egypt, DreamWorks

I really loathed this movie as a child. Mainly due to its Christan themes and I just got enough of that in class where they shoved it down our throats, not to mention among all the religions, Christian myths are like the most miserable, dark and scary ones, in my opinion. That movie was so not child-friendly. It was so dark and scary and brutal and miserable. Now, as an adult, I can totally appreciate those tones and I marvel at the amazing story-telling, but as a child? I was scared of this movie and I did not like it. But the animation, story-telling and the music are amazing and it really blew my mind when I rewatched it as a late teen.

1999 - The Iron Giant, Warner Brothers

I watched this movie for the first time this year, because my favorite YouTube nerds keep bringing it up during Movie Fights, so I figured I’d check it out considering I never heard of it before. I guess it must have slipped through the cracks. So I saw it for the first time, 20 years after its release. And you just don’t notice that. The animation, the story-telling, the movie - it completely holds up. It’s such a sweet but also sad story about friendship. It’s really great.

2000 - The Road to El Dorado, DreamWorks

I did not like this movie as a child. Don’t even really know why, to be honest. But when I rewatched it as a teen, I really loved it a lot. Miguel and Tulio are such great, complex characters and their journey together is amazing. Not to mention, I will never stop being upset about the fact that DreamWorks chickened out of making them the first canonically gay couple in an animated movie - which yes, was the first draft for this movie. It’d have been amazing if they had pulled through with it, really. I think that is why I hate Chel so much - and my hatred for her might be the root for why I disliked this movie as a kid. Because Chel was literally just created to get between Miguel and Tulio. But other than her, this movie is rock-solid.

2001 - Shrek, DreamWorks

Definitely not the best, but a fun movie and innovative in its parodic nature. Also has fun characters and an original story and I appreciate the way they inverted the original Disney tropes.

2001 - Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Disney

Again, one of those movies that didn’t work for me as a kid but ever since I’ve been a late teen, I watched it probably ten times because it’s amazing. It’s complex, has great character developing and story-telling and it has such a diverse cast and an original idea. I’m really sad that, most likely due to its complexity, it kinda flopped and fell flat. But, if there is one movie that does deserve the Disney live-action remake treatment, it’d be this because this movie deserves the attention and I think that in today’s time, it would do so much better.

2001 - Monsters, Inc., Disney Pixar

This was actually the first Pixar movie that I liked right away. It had cute and fun characters, a fascinating concept behind its story and it was both funny and emotional.

2002 - Ice Age, Blue Sky

They’re completely driving this franchise into the ground, but the first one was really good. I have a weakness for those “ragtag team of misfits needs to band together” kind of stories, if you haven’t noticed. And this movie does it in such a fresh, new setting. It was really enjoyable.

2002 - Lilo & Stitch, Disney

After Mulan, the best Disney movie there is. This movie is so incredibly deep and emotinonal that it never ceases to blow my mind. The sibling-love, this way they deal with the emotions and with Lilo and Stitch and both their arcs of self-discovery is just singular. There is no other movie like this.

2002 - Treasure Planet, Disney

A vastly underrated Disney movie, really. It’s spectacularly done and has such a great story-arc and development and emotional scale, not to mention the imagery that it offers. So beautiful and so much fun.

2003 - Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, DreamWorks

After rewatching and falling for The Prince of Egypt and The Road of El Dorado, I decided to rewatch all the movies I disliked as a child to see if I would actually end up liking them - and this one is another one of those. It has such an epic scale and does the one thing I missed about Hercules; it gives us the monsters and gods in mindblowing sizes and scenes. Eris, also, the greatest DreamWorks villain of all time, while still keeping her mythologically in character.

2005 - Hoodwinked, Kanbar Animation

The animation of this movie does not hold up. It looks outdated, yes. But the story-telling is superb. The parody-twist to the tale of Red Riding Hood, added with how it’s perceived by the different characters, as well as the humor of it. I remember in 2006, after it was released, I was really sick that one week and I literally watched it 32 times in a row. It was just so innovative in the way it was told and I really enjoyed how clever it was. Also, I was really out of my mind with that cold or otherwise I might have also wathced another movie or two...

2006 - Over the Hedge, DreamWorks

This is such a fun movie. I enjoy a good redemption story of an anti-hero who realizes that scamming the good guys ain’t the way to go. The fact that said anti-hero is a racoon only makes it all the better.

2007 - Ratatouille, Disney Pixar

It’s such a cute story and such an interesting take on story-telling that makes me like this movie, even though it’s not very deep and doesn’t have the most fleshed-out characters.

2008 - Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks

The first one ought to be on this list, because it was fresh, it was funny and it was cute. The way the different characters played out and played with each other was really nice. Also, great action, for a kid’s animated movie anyway.

2008 - Wall-E, Disney Pixar

This is an amazing movie. With its message and story-telling, the way it connects to the viewer even though there’s basically no dialogue in it for most of the movie. I think as a kid I would have so not enjoyed it because of the lack of dialogue and its heavier tones regarding the overall message, but when I watched it when it came out -  and I was 16 back then - I really enjoyed it.

2008 - Bolt, Disney

I adore Bolt. I mean, I feel totally cheated because the trailer was cut to make it look like we were actually getting the Bolt series from within the movie as the actual movie and the idea of a super-dog was really cool, but even as it stood, it was a great movie and Mittens’ arc was particularly amazing in it.

2009 - Up, Disney Pixar

Honestly, doesn’t really deserve to be on the list if you see it as an overall movie. Most people get hung up on the first ten minutes of it - and those ten minutes alone are a masterpiece and would totally win as a short-movie. But there is a lot more to this movie. And it ain’t that amazing, really. It’s funny and quirky, sure, but definitely not outstanding. It’s quite ridiculous, even for an animated movie. But for the first ten minutes alone, this movie deserves to be on this list.

2009 - The Princess and the Frog, Disney

Again, doesn’t quite deserve to be on this list in my opinion, because I hate how it completely disregards the original fairy tale - starting a startlingly concerning trend for Disney here - and the blatant plotholes. It gets plus-points for being 2D again and for introducing the first black princess, but personally I think the first black princess would have deserved better than this. I understand why this movie flopped, really. Even if it’s still a cute and nice movie, it is far below average by Disney standards.

2010 - How to Train Your Dragon, DreamWorks

Oh, this movie is glorious. I have to admit, this movie is actually why I went and rewatched all those other DreamWorks movies that I used to hate as a kid, because this movie was the first time DreamWorks became an actual household name, to me. Before that, DreamWorks was just another one of those “non Disney companies” and that was it. With this movie, for the first time, they earned themselves their own name and category in my mind and made me rediscover a lot of actually great movies. The story-telling in this movie is just so great and it gets extra credit for its adorable dragon characters that are so lovable and individual. Not to mention, this movie spawned an amazing animated cartoon series.

2010 - Despicable Me, Illumination

The first one is actually a really great and beautiful movie about family and self-discovery. And then the Minions took over and this franchise sank faster than the Titantic.

2010 - Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, DreamWorks

This might be the most beautifully animated movie in history. It is simply gorgeous and even if you just watch it for the aesthetics, you have to see it. Though it also has a very compelling story. I just think it’s a bit too dark and too realistically animated to resonate with children, which might just be why it flopped too. But when I watched it when it came out, I really enjoyed it because it is more for an older teen audience.

2010 - Megamind, DreamWorks

Such a great, vastly underrated movie. It’s so much fun, it’s so fresh and new while playing with old and overused tropes and the characters are really refreshingly quirky.

2010 - Tangled, Disney

Mixed feelings for that one. Hate how much they altered the original tale, but still enjoy this movie as it stands. It’s so cute and sweet and how they actually take the time to fall in love is just as beautiful. Not to mention, Flynn Rider is definitely the most compelling male Disney hero/prince there is, right after Hercules.

2012 - Brave, Disney Pixar

It’s so nice to have a princess who actually stays single. Though, honestly, with the options offered to her... not a surprise. At least one of them could have been at the very least handsome, to show that it takes more than just good looks to love someone. But that all options presented were also... not nice to look at was just so typically superficial of Disney that it was a bit disappointing.

2012 - Hotel Transylvania, Sony Pictures

This is just so funny and cute. The monsters as dorky characters, the fun of it all. This movie is just a good time, whether you’re a kid or not. And I have to say, after I did mention in many of these entries that they only really connected with me as an adult, I want to include a movie that’s a bit more... simple and just real fun, because those animated movies should be fun for kids too.

2012 - Wreck-It Ralph, Disney

I think this would have been so much cooler with more casual gaming cameos - and I’m saying this as a non-gamer, but seeing characters like Link or Mario or someone recognizable there would have been real cool and I’m hoping for that in the second one. Still, the way the princess trope and the villain trope were handled here was just brilliant and it’s such a sweet story that that alone makes it a must-watch.

2012 - Rise of the Guardians, DreamWorks

And we’ve reached it. The best computer animated movie of all times, my second favorite movie of all times (after Anastasia, the number one spot for 2D animated movie). This is a true masterpiece. I marvel at its animation - the frost in particular is just so beautiful simply to look at, but also the dream-sand and the characters. The story-telling is so gorgeous to watch, the characters are so sweet and amazing - and it gets special bonus-points for not forcing an unnecessariy love-story into this as so many other movies do even though it’s not really a good fit for the overall movie. Also, I just adore Jack Frost as a character. If there is only one movie from this list that you’re going to watch, then please make it this one, even above Anastasia.

2013 - The House of Magic, Touchstone Pictures

This is a smaller scale movie, but it’s very sweet. This story of finding your place in the world, finding acceptance and a family is just one that will never get old. And if it’s told through talking animals and a cute stray little kitten, that’s a simple hook right there, really.

2014 - The Nut Job, Open Roads Film

I have been told that this movie is not as good as I think it is and I don’t care. It’s a heist movie with a purple squirrel in the lead role as an anti-hero with a redemption arc and it doesn't have any unnecessary love-story forced into it; it is as great as I think it is.

2014 - Big Hero 6, Disney

If you haven’t cried like a baby in this movie, you’re dead inside. This, also, a movie I would not have enjoyed that much as a kid because it’s so dark, so much death. Killing off the brother of a boy who already is an orphan and then having that ending, it's just brutal for a kids’ movie. But it’s also beautiful and amazing and the team-dynamics and fun are great as well as the action and it actually deals with the process of grieving and doesn’t just throw it away carelessly as most others tended to do in the past.

2014 - Mune: Guardian of the Moon | Mune, le gardien de la lune, On Animation Studios

This is such an artistically beautiful movie that I would have probably never found if not for a reader of mine who recommended it to me. It’s gorgeous and the mythology created in this movie, about the guardians of the sun and moon, is so rich and amazing. It’s so cute and compelling and I really think more people should know that it exists.

2015 - Inside Out, Disney

Again, not a movie I’d have liked much as a kid. Way too deep and meta, really. This whole psychological aspect and the depth of it are what make it so compelling and amazing, but also why I wouldn’t have liked it as a child. It’s kind of fun, but mostly it’s really deep. Also, a bit questionable in its choices of “emotions in charge of literally EVERY being”... they should have skipped the tagged on credit scene where we see that literally everyone has those very same emotions in charge. How does Disgust beat out feelings like Hatred, Love, Friendship... and also reduces some of those into islands instead of actual emotions? Yeah, a bit problematic there. But overall a great movie.

2016 - Leap! | Ballerina, L'Atelier Animation

It’s such a cute story about friendship, family and finding your own way in life. It’s also really compelling to see a character with a passion about something, but zero natural talent. The way she has to work hard to learn and become a great ballerina is half the fun of this movie.

2016 - Zootopia, Disney

I’ve been salty with Disney since Frozen and though Big Hero 6 and Inside Out were good, this was the one that restored my faith in Disney again after that huge ass disappointment. This is such a great story about friendship and redemption - even if it’s just the redemption in one’s own eyes. Not to mention; a fox and a bunny. Literally two of my three most favorite animals. It’s so good. So much fun. I mean, they totally overdid it when they faked Judy’s death because the kids around me in the theater strated crying and wailing because that was just a little too close to looking real for a child to understand that it’s not. Keep your audience in mind, Disney.

2016 - Moana, Disney

Ah, the last entry for this. The newest Disney princess. I really enjoyed this movie a lot. It was beautifully made, it was a lot of fun, had good musical numbers, was a very interesting story with an amazing pseudo-plot-twist there at the end (I mean, come on, it was really very obvious literally right from the start, but still brilliantly executed and very emotional). Also, again, princess who not just stays single but where finding a husband doesn’t even have to be mentioned. Very refreshing.

[slapegg]

Quick Critique: Battle Chasers: Nightwar

Before I even get to the meat of this: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, IT IS VERY BROKEN. Again, even if you loved the comic and love turn-based RPGS: DO NOT GIVE THIS COMPANY MONEY, THEY RELEASED A BROKEN GAME.

Joe Mad is one of my favorite artists and I read the Battle Chasers comic pretty much just to see him draw pretty things. I only just read it a year or two ago, so I thankfully avoided the whole incident of him bailing on the series and leaving it unfinished after a main plot twist. The actual story (and most of the writing) is kind of just Dungeons and Dragons meets generic anime stuff, but it had enough moments and unique ideas here and there to make the comic series worth it, even this many years after its initial release. So Battle Chasers the comic is pretty good. Battle Chasers the video game, however, is a steaming pile of garbage.

This game is so unfinished and slapped together that I'm just going to list out a stream of the constant issues it has: It crashes. A LOT. It's not just one thing going wrong, it crashes all over the place and multiple times at different spots (inventory screen, leaving a dungeon, changing screens, and so on) I actually had a crash during the ending credits It locks up every time I try to enter the Arena forcing me to force close the game I finally managed to enter the Arena (apparently some of the difficulties work and others don't), it's a series of battles with a 20 minute time limit, I'm doing the hardest difficulty to get the final prizes, get through multiple rounds where I'm one turn away from the entire party dying or I lucked out and a character dodged an instant kill move, I'm at the last boss with 2 minutes left on the clock, deliver the killing blow with 23 seconds left on the clock, I get the Playstation level trophy for completing the Arena, the game showers me with prizes, I leave the Arena, I open the menu, the game crashes and upon relaunching sets me back at the beginning of the Arena having made no progress at all and with none of the prizes. I think I just instantly skipped over anger, sunk back in my chair, and whispered "mother fuckers" to myself for a few minutes After a battle, I lost the ability to interact with any objects. Seeing as how the dungeon required me to flip a switch to advance, I had to quit the game. This happened multiple times Frequent hitches and freezing for a second on the map, exploring, and in battle Menus aren't responsive for a few seconds after opening them I had a story scene fail to load and the game just displayed a screen full of that "missing image" pink I had a different story scene fail to load but I still got the subtitles. This one was a major story sequence so it wasn't repeatable the next time I played the dungeon so I would have liked to have seen that The voice acting is Sega Saturn levels of bad. They're horrible choices for the characters but then poorly acted on top of that. And they apply random odd filters over the readings. There's a scene in the open air in a town where your characters talk to each other but Gully sounds like her lines were recorded in a particularly echo-y bathroom. The only character I cared for was The Collector, a sinister but gleeful little monster that is likely eating the remains of dead bosses that you bring it. The Collector deserves to be in a better game than this one The text size is WAY too small The walking speed is slow. If you doubled the walking speed, it would still be too slow Battles are slow both in animation and action speed and how many hits it takes to kill a grunt enemy The core combat system is tedious and relies far too much on crits and applying status effects. Most end game fights devolve into who can apply the most debuffs to the other team and then spamming special moves that gain extra traits if the enemy has specific debuffs The music is so laid back that it (rightfully) just seems uninterested in being a part of this game, even during battles. The soundtrack is so forgettable and uninteresting that I usually turned the game audio almost off and listened to the BBC while I played. The Shipping Report pretty much matches the pace and excitement of this game Totally unnecessary crafting mechanics By the time you get enough crafting materials to build a weapon, it's worse than what you get from dungeon crawling You can't sort your crafting materials alphabetically, so when you're looking up how many of a quest item you need, have fun sorting through that mess Totally unnecessary fishing mini-game Every time you enter battle, the UI flashes a move description. I think it's loading the last thing you used in the previous battle Occasional multiple second pauses at the start of a battle before the UI will display or you can interact with it in any way Clunky menu UI Loot-based drops that do nothing to make the game more interesting Loot that isn't even interesting or exciting because most of the equipment is very similar and the vast majority of what you find is just crafting materials you won't use Major side-quests and items that are gated by random loot drops. You have to hope the characters show up on the map and then hope they drop the item you need (usually multiple times) or else start a dungeon from scratch and do it all over again Semi-randomized dungeons where the actual rooms barely change but their order does, so combined with the need to grind, the dungeons get really boring and just have you looking for the exits rather than rewarding you for exploring. Later dungeons even repeat pieces of earlier dungeons Items in shops are stupidly expensive for how little they change your stats and for the piddly amount enemies actually pay out or what items sell for. While spending a night at the inn cost me 40 coins, selling a purple rank weapon only got me 17 coins. It's actually faster to play through the whole first dungeon and get the health and mana refill before the boss than it is to grind out the money to stay a night at the inn for a large chunk of the game Just about every item you find in the wild will raise one stat but then lower multiple other ones so you kind of just have to pick one stat for a character to use and min/max the hell out of it Items in your inventory will mark themselves as new even though you've seen them before Items in the world will still sparkle as if they're unchecked even though you already have them If you have to close and restart a dungeon (say because the game crashed or locked up), it will acknowledge that you've been through the rooms but respawn the enemies past a seemingly random point. I had one dungeon where the objective was to kill two mini-bosses, I did so, saved the game in case it crashed at the boss, and upon reloading it, the mini-bosses respawned even though I had the objective that said they were dead checked off Every time the game crashes, it resets your super meter. So you can go through a dungeon, build up your meter, save it for the boss fight, the game crashes, you reload at the boss, and now you have no meter and you're at a serious disadvantage Perks and equipment will unequip themselves (this may be related to all the crashes) I met an enemy without warning that was vastly stronger than anything I'd seen in the game before, I could only do 80 damage to it per turn, and every turn it could heal itself for 84 health. And for some reason I wasn't allowed to run away from the fight so I had to sit there for 10 minutes turn by turn hitting the enemy, watching it heal, and letting it whittle down my party's health. Dying then made me lose a chunk of my money Apparently those are special enemies that offer a special reward if beaten, but it wasn't until I was at the final dungeon that I ever saw them again. I don't know if the game was broken and would no longer spawn them or what Another dungeon had a bunch of enemies that I tore through with no problem, and then I got to the boss and it killed each member of my party in 1 hit. Dying, again, made me lose a chunk of my money. So the lesson is to never sell anything until you can fully afford the thing you're trying to buy because you never know when the game is going to throw balancing out the window and punish YOU for it I don't think you can manually save without quitting the game. But quitting the game dumps everything it loaded into memory or something because when you load the game back up, it can take 40 seconds to load into your first battle. Given all the crashes, you have to save and quit often, so get used to watching the first 15 seconds or so of the opening cutscene because you can't skip to the title screen until that plays out The trophies aren't properly proofread and sometimes won't award when you earn them and instead pop the next time you load the game If a character dies from a status effect at the start of their turn, the UI is not graceful I would love to hear some kind of justification on the game's balancing because the way it's set up is that you beat a dungeon, unlock the next story dungeon, but you're not actually strong enough to progress the story yet, so you have to go back and grind the dungeon a you've already finished to level up a bit. You pretty much have to beat each level on each difficulty before you can move ahead, so by the time you're ready to move the story along, you're really, really sick of the previous dungeon Characters not in your party don't gain any experience from battle, so the game actively discourages you from trying new characters. I was level 10 when I unlocked Knolan, but he was only level 9 and the more I use my normal team, the further Knolan falls behind, so I have no reason to ever add him to my party. Changing team members just means you have to redo all the grinding you've done to level them up and hope you get some loot drops for them. Maybe it's just how I play the game, but there's really only one viable team. You HAVE to have Calibretto on your team because he's the only decent healer. Garrison is the only one that can do any decent damage. Gully is slow and focuses on defense, while Monika has high evasion, good damage, and can bog enemies down with stat debuffs so Monika is way more useful Doing end game clean up, I used my weaker teammates because my main team stopped earning experience from the early dungeons, I met those special pirate enemies with this team, was happy to have a chance to fight them, but the pirates scale to your strongest team not the team you're actually using so my level 9, 12, and 17 characters got destroooyed by the level 30 enemies The team couldn't even do New Game + properly. Starting NG+ causes you to lose all your items, so all that time you spent on random drops to get the ultimate weapons and armor was totally wasted. It's completely unnecessary to do this because all the weapons are level gated. So if you reset the character levels, you stop them from having access to the top gear from the start, but once they level up, they get their hard earned weapons back. That would have been the competent way to handle NG+ here New Game + starts you off with the whole team, but it doesn't properly handle that you've unlocked characters before their normal unlocking event, so the shops won't sell you their perk bonus or costume items. Even if you come back at the end of the game when you'd normally have those characters, the game still treats them like they haven't been unlocked yet

Even with its many, MANY glaring flaws, they have the audacity to not actually finish the game's story. You slog through all of this, beat the final boss, and the ending is barely more than "hey, buy some DLC or a sequel".

So, yeah, don't spend money on this game. The perk system is kind of neat though. You get points when you level up and you can cash them in on an attack path or a defense path. As you buy perks on each path, every 20 points you spend unlocks a bonus perk that can offer some substantial stat boosts. You can respec for free, so you can mess around with different choices as you slooowly grind out levels or boss fight currency to get more points.

Battle Chasers is bad but not in the way that most low budget games are bad. The art's great so the game looks fantastic and draws you in. It's the quality design sensibilities and usability in the game that are godawful, the gameplay is as dry as it comes, and it's an unfinished mess. Everything about this screams that the team got a slew of crowdfunding money but then nobody on the team actually knew how to make a good video game so this got rushed out the door without proper testing or fixes to hit a deadline. Battle Chasers makes me question whether Playstation cert matters. If this game, with its constant crashes and 100% reproducible lock-ups, can be released for sale, then clearly nobody is checking the actual game or doing anything remotely resembling quality control.