#HOO BOY that took a while

[utterdrip]

aha!

[leenfiend]

noticing the quiet (and maybe wishing you weren’t)

[flyfish1999]

MORE INFO about the Shuji Sogabe ryomina doujinshi !!!

hello ryojihead nation !!!!!!!!!!!!! i hope you're all having a good day ^_^ i'm sure the vast majority of you are aware of the persona 3 manga, it's many ryomina tendencies, and it's author, Shuji Sogabe.

sogabe is also rather well-known for having written a popular ryomina doujin, イチゴちゃん SAY GOOD BYE [pictured], under the penname Kanae Kiryu. SGB was released at Comiket 73 on the 29/12/2007, around 10 months after the persona 3 manga began serialisation in dengeki maoh in february that year.

a few days before comiket, sogabe writes on his blog that he'll be handling books from kanae kiryu's doujin circle, ネコ同然。(like a cat.) on the 28/12/2007, he posts a link to kanae kiryu's blog, http://jlc.jugem.jp/ [pictured]

later, on the 14/5/2008, a post is made to kiryu's blog that he applied to, and then later announced on 22/6/2008 that he was accepted to, the ryomina exclusive event Messiah Recipe ! (webpage being: http://messiah-recipe.com)

alongside his acceptance, he also writes that he's working on a new book for the event. on the 26th, he posts again, saying the book will be called ワルツィング・キャット(Waltzing Cat) [pictured], and it was worked on alongside 蒼麻葵 (i believe their current twitter: @tasotaso_nyoro) !

NOTE: on the kanae kiryu blog it is mentioned that Waltzing Cat's front and back cover join together much like SAY GOOD BYE's does, but since very few scans of the book exist, we only have the front cover (which shows minato's hand, at least ^_^;;)

Waltzing Cat was then released as promised at Messiah Recipe's event on June 28th, 2008. (this exclusivity is probably why it's so much rarer!) SAY GOOD BYE was also reprinted to be sold alongside it. a blog post was made on kiryu's blog two days after, thanking everyone who bought books at the event. he writes:

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all the people who picked up our books at the event. It was the first time for me to participate in an exclusive circle, and I was a little nervous, but there was no big confusion on the day of the event, and the proceedings were very relaxed and peaceful. Thank you to all the staff members! I really wanted to talk to more people, but I'm a chicken at heart and it's hard to build a community.......! Once you get to know each other, you can chat as much as you want. I would like to be a little more proactive next time, since this is a place where people who like the same things can get together.

after a few more posts (mostly about p4), and then a few months of silence, kanae kiryu's blog is closed in March 2009, with a thank-you goodbye message written on 22/03/2009. the only other mention of kanae's circle i found was as part of a persona 3 2009 calendar, presumably made in 2008. link to defunct listing here: https://www.suruga-ya.jp/product/detail/988900972

[pictured below: Messiah Recipe's event information from the website]

i hope everyone had lots of fun at messiah recipe !!!!!!! and i'm glad i could help unearth this information !!!!!!!! let's hope sogabe continues to enjoy persona 3 and ryoji mochizuki for years to come ^_^

[moeblob]

Hello, can i have a modern sylvain pls??? PS: i love how you draw scrimblos

Finally another Wheel Spin and thankfully modern equals I get to draw someone with fish somewhere on their outfit. (Overlay layer my friend how I missed you)

[zu-is-here]

Zu, I was thinking : we have seen Cat!Cross, Cat!Killer, Cat!Dream and Cat!Nightmare, (a another because why not •w•) but we never see Cat!Aim. How does he looks like (⌒▽⌒)

(Like a foundling :'D)

Cross & Dream's cat designs are based on the Lunnar's version <3

[beansterpie]

rewatching LoK, i'm being reminded how much I dislike the.... the brothers, mako and bolin, yanno? they're such underwhelming characters on basically every level. it'd almost be impressive if they weren't in every episode and didn't annoy me so much ugh

[ybcthecomic]

Anything you say can and will be held against you, so we're back!

LATEST PAGE || READ FROM THE BEGINNING

[marypsue]

Ahh also as an addendum to my previous ask about the age swap (which I might’ve accidentally labeled as the body swap fic due to the foibles of being awake unexpectedly early ), I was curious what your criticisms are regarding Robin and Will’s treatments by the Duffers? I know you’ve alluded to being bothered by both but I’d be curious to hear more ( if you have the time/hankering!)

Hooboy. Okay. Buckle in. 

Obviously this is going to be a combination of actual literary analysis and Big Feelings That I Have, so like, please don’t take this as any kind of moral dictum on what to or not to watch, or how to or how not to interpret what you watch. Also, a lot of what makes me uneasy and unhappy about how canon deliberately handles queerness (as opposed to when it does queer things apparently by accident, which as you may have noticed, I have considerable amounts of fun with) has to do with behind-the-scenes context I’ve read about, so there’s a certain degree of Telephone involved. And I’m still only halfway through season four. There’s just so fucking much of it. 

With all that said. 

The behind-the-scenes context I’m most specifically concerned with are the season-one pitch bible(? I think that’s what it’s called) (which, it should be noted, ended up diverging in some quite significant ways from what ended up in the show) where the Duffers first raised the possibility that Will might be gay, and the anecdote that Joe Keery and Maya Hawke were the ones who decided Robin should be queer and had to really push for it and wrote and choreographed that scene in the bathroom. Put the two together, and it tells you that the Duffers planned that there would be One (potentially) Gay Character in their show. 

And that character was the one they spent an entire season directing violent, vicious, eventually outright murderous homophobic hatred at through the mouthpiece of a couple of bullies. You can say what you want about revenge narratives and those characters ultimately getting their comeuppance, but for Me Personally, it sucks all the fun and escapism out of season one to watch it thinking that those bullies only got punished when they aimed that vitriol at someone to whom it didn’t literally apply. Also I still have to sit through however many episodes of that vicious homophobia onscreen regardless, so, like, that’s a walk in the park anyway. /sarcasm 

And then there’s that whole bad business in season three, where it’s never been quite clear to me if we’re supposed to see Mike as having been in any way in the wrong. Kind of scuppers the argument, to me, that we’re supposed to be on Will’s side. And season four, which so far has had Will tagging along after people who are supposed to be his best friends but mostly don’t seem to give a single damn about him, doing absolutely nothing but looking morose and sullen and tragic and *coughcough* Artistic, and causing Problems for the nice straight couple. 

(Tangential to the point I’m coming to, but also, my son deserves better than to be reduced to a soggy cardboard standee with ‘GAY’ scrawled across it in magic marker the way season four seems to be angling toward. All the Byers, but especially the Byers boys, deserve better than season four seems interested in giving them. But I digress.) 

Also. I love Robin. If you follow me, you probably know that. I’m a hardcore, ride-or-die Robin girl. But. With Robin, from what I’ve heard of the context, the Duffers never intended for her to be queer. They wrote a girl who was smart and funny and sharp and talented and a little bit mean and a little bit insecure and a little bit weird but in an interesting, endearing way - as a love interest for Steve. 

And then, as soon as season four rolled around, once they’d been pushed into making her canonically, on-screen queer (in a beautiful, tender, heartfelt, true-feeling scene that they didn’t fucking write), suddenly she’s had a complete personality transplant. Suddenly, she’s an awkward, bumbling, annoying loser who’s only funny when she’s the butt of the joke, who’s no good at anything and who nobody really likes except maybe for Steve, an outcast even amongst the freaks. When she does do something smart or competent, everyone around her reacts with shock, like it’s wildly out of character instead of how her character was originally written. One of these versions of Robin was written with ‘gay person’ in mind, and it unfortunately wasn’t the one we were obviously supposed to like. 

In both cases, I get the feeling that the storytelling issues stem from this like...assumption that queerness equals isolation and misery and tragedy, and that there’s nothing to queerness outside of that. That there’s something inherent to queerness, something pitiable but repulsive, that causes the isolation and misery and tragedy (not that those things are imposed from outside, by, say, violent homophobia). That it would be absurd to imagine that queerness could ever be joyful, or playful, or that someone might ever, given the chance to choose, not choose to be straight instead. Or that there could be enormous friendship and community and heart and pride in queerness, or even that queer people might find friendship and community and strength in each other. Or even fucking talk to each other, ever. 

Which is especially infuriating, because the whole central theme of season one (besides surface appearances being deceiving) is that community and care between people who are very different but discover they have more in common than there is that separates them is what saves the day! That love comes in all kinds of forms, and they’re all important, and that love can be stronger than fear! 

But apparently, according to the Duffers, queer love doesn’t count and queer community doesn’t exist. It’s just isolation, misery, and tragedy, and I guess we the watchers are supposed to sit outside of it and pity Them for it (and be quietly, sneakily, a little bit nastily grateful that it’s not happening to Us). Because of course nobody watching the show is queer. Of course. This show is made for normal people. 

It’s part of the same attitude I’ve also seen play out with the Duffers’ inability to just let a white dude be bad. Oh, they want to talk a big game about how they’re on the side of the freaks, and bullies are bad, and everybody should be respected and appreciated for who they are. But when it cuts down to the bone, when applying that precept to a girl or a person of colour or a queer person makes a straight white guy come off as a monster, they keep trying to dodge it. 

The more antagonists they try desperately to rehab without ever acknowledging why they were antagonists in the first place, the more it starts to look like they simply don’t really believe that the people those antagonists hurt really matter. That, somewhere deep down where the assumptions that are so baked in you don’t even realise they’re assumptions live, they don’t really believe that girls, or Black kids, or queer people are as fundamentally human and deserving of respect and compassion as their beloved awful straight white men are. That what they really think about bullies is that bullies are bad because the bullies picked on them, instead of the kinds of people who deserved it.

(See also: that time a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Sadie Sink didn’t want to have to do a kiss in the Snow Ball scene, so the Duffers, who had just been joking about having her do it, actually made her do it. For multiple takes. Specifically because she didn’t want to. And then later related that anecdote to the press. Because they thought it was funny.)

Anyway. Personally, I’d prefer canon just never say anything definitive on the matter of Will’s sexuality and stop trying to push the narrative in that direction, so I don’t have to watch the Duffers spectacularly fumble yet another attempt at Writing About Marginalised Groups. 

(Also, this is absolutely not me saying Watch A Different Show - I’m here writing fanfic for this stupid show, it’d be pretty fucking rich of me to try to tell people to stop watching it. But I’d really love for many of its fans to get some more exposure to less-mainstream, more deliberately queer literature and film, so y’all can see what it really feels like to be seen and acknowledged and loved by a story, on purpose. I get it! I do! I too have wanted very badly to feel like something I loved, loved me back. 

But you don’t have to content yourselves with scraps. And you definitely don’t have to be so concerned with those scraps that you blame your friends, cousins, siblings, brothers in arms for ‘stealing’ some kind of ‘representation’ from you by asking to be seen and acknowledged and loved as well. The bastards who’ve been withholding that recognition from all of us would love nothing more than to watch with amusement, gorging themselves on a banquet, while we tear each other apart over a couple of discarded bones. Don’t give them the satisfaction. We don’t have to be isolated, pitiable, pathetic, miserable tragedies. Put the hollow promises of exclusionism and respectability down. There is queer art and literature and film and community and joy and love in abundance that you don’t have to beg anyone for, and you are invited to participate. This is me inviting you to participate. 

And cordially inviting the Duffers to meet me in the woods behind the 7-Eleven.)

...

tl;dr the way the Duffers treat queerness when they do it on purpose feels like a combination of othering, contempt, and misery porn, and I hate it. And that, in a nutshell, is the rant I’ve been sitting on for the last two-and-a-bit years. I’m getting down off the cafeteria table now. 

[concyclic]

Red becoming Allen out of guilt and taking care of Mana as he slowly deteriorated has got me feeling some kind of way…

[yifftwiceplz]

[white-boy-bracket]

First of all, it was a complete mess. Big crates! Small crates! Giant cakes! Was that- was that orbeez?? Did someone try to feed her boys orbeez?

That wouldn't do. Everything that wasn't food or a contestant needed to go!

She turned to one of her guards, and drew him close- it wouldn't do for them to hear her voice. She whispered "Get some others. Everything that isn't food or a listed contestant needs to go."

"Sure thing, [O]-...Mistress. Miss Showrunner!" He said a bit too loud! Before turning to walk away.

She straightened her back, turning back to the cabin, careful to keep her head tilted down.

Her boys had fallen silent when the door flung open. She could see their faces, though they couldn't see much more than the bottom quarter of hers.

There was Artemis. There was Firestar. There was Jason- she was pleased to see he'd survived, though he looked quite weak... Blood loss, perhaps? She had seen him hit the spikes. Her Boys, she thought affectionately. Special. Unique. One thing in common.

She glanced around the room, taking stock. There were more- much, much more than there were at the start of the round. She knew everyone, of course, but some of these faces she hadn't seen in quite a while... they must have returned from the resort. Fools. It was much safer there. And they had returned to a very different competition.

She heard some clanging behind her as several guards jogged to the cabin.

Content with her backup, she kicked a chunk of... drywall? out of the way and stepped into her cabin. The guards entered in a line behind her, and she lifted a hand to direct them to the pile filling the conversation pit-

"So, Showie, finally decided to show up?"

Her head snapped up, looking at the rafters, and then -stupid, stupid, stupid- right back down again. He had seen her! Xigbar! She'd forgotten about him!

"Someone's nervous! What, afraid someone'll figure out you're-"

Before he could finish, she raised a well manicured hand to point at him, and several of her guards drew weapons and advanced.

He disappeared.

Coward.

With no target, her guards returned to doing what she'd ordered them to do.

They turned the offerings upside-down. No stone was left unturned. Not even the stone that someone had sent them. White boys can't eat stones! Who was that supposed to be for?

It took them only a few minutes to completely go through the food. They carried out surprisingly few things. A few miscellaneous, non-submitted white boys. Some Cardboard. A pen. A lemur. Some kind of orb.

And-

She held up a hand, pausing her nearest guard as he tried to pass her. He obediently stopped, and after a moment, placed his contraband into her outstretched hand.

A sketchbook. She examined it. Good quality paper. Fit for watercolor and other mediums. Accompanied by watercolors and the corresponding brushes. A note was attached to the spiral top. This was intended for Prosperity.

"Where do you get this?" She murmured to her guard. The paints were still wet. She opened to the first page. A painting of the arena, from the perspective of a competitor. She was pleased to see that Prosper had noted and matched the lovely shade she'd chosen for the banners. A beautiful pink.

"I took it from a boy, Miss."

"Hm. Give it back."

"Sure thing!" He happily clanged back over to Prosperity and returned the book. Prosperity seemed embarrassed. That "tracked".

With a final look at the contestants, she was about to turn to leave when she felt something soft and warm brush up against her foot. She looked down, expecting Firestar, but instead saw someone who wasn't invited.

"Hello, are you the one in charge here?" Asked the kitten, his voice smooth and british. Needless to say, she didn't respond.

This did not seem to bother the kitten.

"Well i must say I like your style- very mysterious!"

She didn't reply. Again he seemed unbothered. he actually seemed quite used to this. She moved her foot away from the kitten, but he persisted.

"I'm something of a story teller myself! Stanley- you know Stanley-" (She did know Stanley, and with the mention of his name she knew exactly who this cat was) "I plan out stories for him, too! I know how frustrating it can be when they don't follow your plan- It's like they don't think you care! I must ask, is that- I don't know his name, Rafter-Hooligan bothering you?"

He was, but she didn't say a word.

"I'm just saying, Miss, I could help you! We could tell the story together!" -Several of the white boys turned to look at Stanley, who looked emba- he had no mouth! When did that happen?! She'd have to fix that-

"It could be wonderful!"

That was enough. She didn't share her story. She certainly didn't need help. She was Everything. And she could do Everything herself. (Her guards didn't count. They were, after all, just guards.)

She leaned over to a guard and whispered, "Put him with our leverage."

And just like that, the little narrator was scooped up by a guard (gently- the guards liked kittens) and carried away to somewhere altogether nice, if quite... dark.

She looked back up at the white boys and flashed one in particular a brilliantly white smile. Clearly, he got the message. His sea-green eyes hardened in anger, but what was he to do?

Behave, her smile said, behave.

And then she was gone.

[mechahero]

//got a better pic of the wallpaper

[akinosenoragami]

Team W plays elden ring

A Blackstar theater starless fanfiction written by me. Tldr I got inspired by a discord convo between me and my friend.

This was written during W's Diety's game event but I had to put I off because of assignments. Apologies for having to finish this so late.

Summary;

Taiga invites Team W to play Elden ring. That's it. Enjoy.

"Is the camera on?" Taiga asks as he checks the Webcam, "It's working." Takami replies.

"Good. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of gaming with Taiga~. With your host Taiga." 

"What kind of an intro was that?!" Akira questions

"Anyway, today I'm here with my team. Team W~, now please introduce yourselves. "

"Team W's top, Kokuyou." 

"...that's it? Nothing else?"

"Yeah so?" 

" Aw~ C'mon man you're no fun!" 

"Akira you're next."

"Hey y'all what's up! Team W's singer Akira! Nice to meet you pretty ladies on the internet." 

"And that's how you do it Kokuyou." 

"Shut up. Who's next."

" I believe that would be me. Hello everyone my name is Takami and I'm Team W's no.2" 

"HA! Takami did it better." 

"Now now you two don't start a fight here. Sin its your turn now." 

"There is a good level of maturity in your words which attracts a lot. I'm Sin."

"I'm sorry what? Takami translate."

"What Sin is saying is that it's nice to meet you."

"Ok whatever I guess…so anyway today we are going to be playing some Elden ring." 

"Whoo! I don't know how to play this game but let's fucking go!" Akria shouted in excitement. 

"Why did I agree to this…." 

"Kokuyou it's for our team PR, to promote our upcoming show." 

"Oh yeah, Diety's game is gonna be showing soon! And you should all be there!" 

"Alrighty…..should we play the game now?" 

"Yeah. We should."

"OK for the record 3 of us aren't really gamers per say. So we're gonna start off in easy mode just so they could get the gist of it." 

"Is everyone in?" Taiga asks

"Yea I think so." Akira responded 

"Shit. How do you control this? How do you go forward?" Kokuyou said as his character starts spinning all over the place. 

"Ahahahahaha kokuyou you suck at this!" 

"Shut the hell up Akira." 

"In the sense of things, Sin and I have both entered the game."

"Alright, so whose the easiest boss to fight…how about the soldier of Godrick?" 

"Yeah sure, why not?" 

"Aight. Let's go."

They get to the location of the soldier

"Time to take this thing down…what are you guys doing?" Taiga questions

"How do you run straight in this?!" Kokuyou starts spinning. 

Takami starts looking up the players manual, "So is this how you punch?" 

"Take that!" Akira shouts as he's faring quite well.

Meanwhile Sin. Does nothing. 

After 30 minutes or so they finally beat the soldier. 

"H-how the fuck are you guys so bad at this?!"

"This is stupid. If we have time to play this, shouldn't we be rehearsing?" Kokuyou says 

"Bitch! This is free marketing for our show alright." 

"Now now, calm down Taiga." 

"Right…*inhales exhales* say Akira since you're doing quite well, you wanna try beating a harder boss?"

"Yeah, bring it on!"

"Alright…let's see here…who is..How about Malenia, Blade of Miquella?" 

"Sure thing."

Taiga and Akira make their way to the Haligtree while the other 3 take a little break.

When all of a sudden disaster struck.

"Ah shit…my controller's out of battery!" Taiga said as he shakes his controller

"What?! How? I thought you had it charged yesterday?" 

"I did but this one is somewhat faulty."

"Well shit man…what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, Solo Her!"

"Aight then, imma solo her! Wait her?!" 

The boss fight begins.  [...Heed my words. I am Malenia. Blade of Miquella. And I have never known defeat. ]

" ZOO WEE MAMA! She's HOT!" Akira just screams. 

"Akria what the fuck-?" Kokuyou said, startled when he turned around. 

"Well I must admit, her character is quite attractive. " Takami said in a calm tone. 

"...." Sin just stays quiet.

[Waterfowl dance occurs]

"NoNoNoNo…"

[Akira Dies]

"Ah…damn it." 

" A loss is a loss, but those who rise above the initial failures are to be crowned the victors." 

"Sin please, that is not helping the fact I lost to a HOT babe." 

____________________________________

"And that's it for today's gaming with Taiga, tune in next time to see us prank the other teams."

"What?! Oh no We ain't doing that!" Kokuyou said as his face looked like he was about to beat up someone.

"Kokuyou...Stay." Takami tried calling him down.

"L-Like, Comment and S-Subscribe if you wanna see me live and don't forget to come to our show…fuck RUN!"

| to be continued >

[prettyboykatsuki]

day 9 of my period 💔

[crossguildcatgirl]

heyooo it's ref time!! kittay was long overdue for a new one

her armor gave me some trouble cuz i really only had like a third of it figured out. heavily referenced fu.ry and stri.fe's armor but i had to take some screenshots of my fu.ry model cuz the dark.siders wiki doesn't have enough good reference images

i was going to spare you from the longness of the third image but tumblr fucked up the order of everything last time i tried to post this

also yeah those are gen.gar slippers i have them irl and they're old as fuck but i refuse to stop wearing them until they've got actual holes in them

[indigowallbreaker]

Wow okay you folks really love your rare ships 0_0; 

Be patient! I shall get to yours! Thanks for all the submissions! :D