#I am making an Occasion (tm) out of it

[goatsandgangsters]

freshly decluttered desk, gin + apple cider cocktail, nice candle

ch 1 of super long fic I've been writing since May 2021 COMING SOON to an ao3 near you

[tamamatango]

“Holy shit they actually froggin did it”: A Keroro Gunso anime revival preliminary info and speculation post (late as hell edition)

Okay first of all,

AWAKEN

That’s right, vanished-into-the-void bastard Kirb here, I am an alive person still, though I’m certain a lot of stuff on this blog is horrifically outdated. Don’t get too used to my presence, I’m a whole ass adult with a 9-to-5 now and don’t really have the energy to put into consistently maintaining this account, at least not to the degree that I used to (took me well over a whole ass MONTH just to write this post). However, I’ve returned for a special occasion, as basically anyone still in this fandom is already aware considering it’s been forever now:

We are so fucking back

It took thirteen years and counting, but here we are, a brand new Keroro anime project is in the works—no “the short anime of all time” Flash series here, this is the real deal, straight out of 2004–2011, and goddamn is it beautiful. I might’ve been off the mark when I called it for the 15th anniversary, but it’s now the 20th, five years later, and the madmen did what was once thought impossible by many.

So let’s break down what the hell is actually going on here, because when this got revealed last month, Keroro fans on all sides of the globe basically started collectively running around like headless chickens. I’m gonna divide this aggregation post into the following sections:

Where did this even come from

Clearing up misconceptions

Okay so like what is “““Project”””

Collection of statements from official accounts, staff and cast, etc.

The Localization Question (TM)

Miscellaneous thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere else

I was originally going to make this a living document of sorts but some small stuff has already happened since I started drafting this the day after the reveal happened, so this should be it for the time being. It’s a hefty enough post as is. I am just a master procrastinator :V

That takes care of all the goofy intro nonsense, now for the parts you actually want to read, starting underneath the cut!

Section 1: The Signs Were There

As previously stated, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the Keroro anime, along with the 25th anniversary of the manga’s serialization but apprently even they don’t care about that since they’ve made no fanfare around it whatsoever, unlike the joint 15th & 20th anniversary back in 2019. Maybe they will as we get closer to the manga anniversary in November, but for now-obvious reasons the anime has been overshadowing the manga side by a lot.

If you’ve been monitoring the Keroro PR account on Twitter (you bet your ass I’m still calling it that) you’ll have noticed an increasing output of Stuff over the last year or two, even compared to the prior anniversary. These include but are not limited to:

In 2021, the series opened an official YouTube Channel, where they’ve been doing reruns of the anime (region locked to Japan), PR podcasts, etc. It’s also where the revival announcement premiered on April 1 at midnight JST.

In 2023, the series opened an official Fan Club with a paid membership. Originally it was a temporary project meant to last for only the two anniversary years (2023 for the pilot oneshot’s anniversary, and 2024 for the anime/manga), but was ultimately extended indefinitely due to “good reception” (my guess is it was always planned to be more than two years but they didn’t want to make it too easy to guess as early as last year that the anime was returning lol). They have a merch store, giveaways, and some kind of social component. I don’t know much about it otherwise because it’s a paid membership that I don’t have access to.

The series has had an overall increase in merchandise and collabs since 2022 or so. This has pretty much always been the case, but there was a bit of a lull between the Flash series ending and the ramp-up period to this (I’d start at 2021 when the YouTube channel opened). Save for the 15th/20th stuff in 2019, for which the major project was Keroro UC, a spinoff manga/plamo line that just…never released all the models and has never been brought up again. Guess it didn’t do very well :V

A number of international releases/rereleases happened as well, but I’ll get into that a little bit more in its dedicated section. For now let’s just say that the anime being finally licensed and put up on streaming in North America may indicate the new series will be English translated in some capacity. It’s also made a resurgence in Korea, its biggest market outside Japan, where it’s had new exhibitions and collab cafes, a redub (that only got through 2 seasons I think), and even a new mobile game.

And finally, a week or so before the announcement, a new Twitter account was created specifically for the anime side of the brand. I think this was really the big tip-off, as Keroro PR has been the hub for all things related to the franchise for the last nearly 15 years, even when the original anime itself was still running during Twitter’s infancy. Keroro PR has posted everything for every other anime anniversary. The fact that now all of a sudden they had to sector off the anime stuff into its own account made it clear something bigger was going on. (Accordingly, the Keroro Anime account has labeled Keroro PR the “original work” account, AKA the manga side of things.)

Essentially I think they’ve been planning this to some degree since as long ago as 2021, the first time the president of Bandai Namco Pictures (animation studio comprised of Sunrise staff that took over the Keroro IP in 2015 and are now producing the new anime) openly acknowledged the possibility. I’ll just link my own tweet with the translation of his statement here. This was right around the opening of the YouTube channel, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

tl;dr Momentum for the anime component of the franchise has been building for the past couple of years pointing toward a new anime around the 20th anniversary, so I wouldn’t say this comes off as a huge surprise, though I was expecting something smaller scale than what we might be getting (more on that in the “what is this” section).

Section 2: No It’s Not April Fools, Guys, Plus Other Clarifications

With the announcement spreading across the internet, I’ve seen a few points of confusion going around that I’d like to clear up before I go any further.

As I’ve made clear in the section title, yes the new anime was revealed on April 1, no this is not a prank. A lot of Japanese companies do post April Fools pranks, but keep in mind April also marks the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, so many legitimate announcements are made as well. Plus, the original anime’s exact anniversary was on April 3, just a couple of days after the announcement.

I’ve seen a lot of people call this a new series, season, etc., but officially, the only term used to describe this so far is “new anime project”. That could mean literally anything, from TV series to movie to ONA and so on. I am leaning closer to a certain interpretation, which is what the entire next section is for, but for the time being, calling it anything other than “new anime” is technically not concrete info.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion on what studio is working on this, but in short: it's Bandai Namco Pictures (BN Pictures or BNP for short). As previously mentioned, this is the studio that inherited the Keroro IP when it spun off from Sunrise in 2015. Sunrise, the anime's original studio, is now a brand name for the larger anime management company Bandai Namco Filmworks. Although they've held the IP for almost a decade, this is the first time they've really gotten to do anything with it besides merchandise licensing and some anti-piracy commercial from a few years ago that they’ve ironically scrubbed from the internet now. If you've seen the name Studio BIND (Mushoku Tensei, Onimai) floating around, they're assisting with the production but are not the primary animation studio. Of course this is all assuming this setup continues on to the final project and not just for the PV, but I see no reason to assume otherwise at the moment. It would be rather unusual for BNP to outsource anything if it was solely for a 30 second trailer.

I think that does it for the main points of contention I wanted to address for now, so moving on to the thing we all really want to know…

Section 3: Okay But What Is It Actually???

Well, as I said in the previous section—we don't know, lol. At least not officially. But if we put our thinking caps on, we can make a few deductions:

The anime project will be broadcast on TV. In other words, it won't be an ONA (original net animation). This is determined based on the fact that TV Tokyo, the network the original anime aired on, is on the production committee. For those who don't know, a production committee for an anime is the collection of parties/companies who contribute to the production and funding of the anime. For comparison, the Keroro Flash Series, which aired only on the TV channel Animax to accompany a dedicated timeslot for the original anime reruns, did not have TV Tokyo in its committee. So, it will likely air on TV Tokyo once again.

It's (probably) not a movie. This is going to be more evidenced by point 3 than anything, but BNP has been pretty clear about when something is a movie specifically in the past, such as when Kaiketsu Zorori had various feature films in the 2010s before getting an actual TV anime revival in 2020. Still, we can't be 100% sure until someone directly says otherwise.

It's going to be more than a one-off. I will post the statement in full in the next section, but the Keroro PR account uses specific wording (“resumption,” “new start,” etc.) that sounds very much like they’re making a longer term commitment, so this is straight from the horse’s mouth, essentially.

The series will be a continuation of the 2004-2011 series rather than a reboot. This one’s probably my flimsiest prediction as the PR statements sort of obfuscate whether it’s one or the other, but the character bios section on the new anime portal site gives away a big hint: the Garuru Platoon, Pururu included, is there. This means that we can reason that, at minimum, all or part of Season 3 has already occurred. The character bios themselves also summarize things that weren’t revealed until a little while into the show, such as how Momoka and Tamama met. That all said, the Garuru Platoon members do not have bios, so I suppose they want to keep what’s being done with them a bit of a secret; perhaps they intend to reintroduce them with some kind of dramatic arc again. Either way, if the series does retread/retell some old material, it probably won’t be the bulk of the story. This makes sense to me, as it’s not like the show has been so hard to find in the last decade that a reboot is necessary to get a modern audience on board—it reruns constantly on kids’ TV channels like the Japanese version of Cartoon Network, is available in full on multiple streaming platforms (movies included), and is now on its second rebroadcast of the whole series episode by episode on the YouTube Channel. Unless you’re a literal toddler, if you’re interested in the series, you’ve probably watched at least some of it already.

In conclusion, based on the above (admittedly sparse) evidence, I am inclined to believe the new anime project is a TV series that will air on TV Tokyo as the 2004 anime did and will be a continuation rather than a reboot; however, there is no way to determine episode length, episode count, etc. at this time. It could be a cour (for those who don't know anime, "cour" is your average 12-episode season), it could be consecutive cours, it could be split cour (in other words, goes on break for a season before returning), it could even be a year-round anime if they really wanna go all the way with it. Granted, I hesitate to believe that they would do the latter simply due to the nature of anime production these days, and as far as I know, BNP has not done a single year-round airing since its founding. Even the aforementioned Kaiketsu Zorori revival was a two cour (24-25 eps) series each year from 2020-2022. My guess is we're looking at something similar here, but Keroro is a pretty big deal, so could they make an exception? Maybe, but this setup would already lead to more episodes than the vast majority of anime these days, so it would still be plenty enough to be happy with.

Considering all this and the list of numerous hints that we were potentially getting a new anime as far back as three years ago as bulleted in Section 1, you might question what made me doubt that it could be a series in the first place. Well, besides just the series being so old and it being so long since the anime ended that it felt a little like wishful thinking, at least three members of the cast said that a new series was not something they were specifically looking to do...I think, anyway. Let me explain.

Last year, on December 9, a Keroro birthday event with Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro), Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama), and Takeshi Kusao (Dororo) was hosted in person and livestreamed on TwitCast for fans that paid for a ticket. There were two timeslots for the in person event, and only the evening show was streamed, with the afternoon one being in person only. Now that I have adult money, and being the impulse driven gremlin that I am, I paid for the virtual ticket. Most of it was just cute little segments like the three cast members doing live commentary on some of the birthday episodes, discussing the results of a “favorite lines from their characters” poll hosted on Twitter a few weeks before the event, and a brief visit from Jashin-chan of Jashin-chan Dropkick/Dropkick on My Devil, a series that Keroro recently collabed with for a series of merchandise. Unfortunately the event wasn't archived publicly and they specifically asked to not upload materials to social media, and I'd like to respect that request mostly out of consideration for the cast, so you will just have to take my word for it :P (besides those who were watching me talk about it in real time on discord).

The reason I'm going on this tangent is because, at the end of the stream, a special prerecorded video featuring the three cast members was shown exclusively for virtual attendees. In it they essentially explained that they still greatly enjoy the characters/series and would love to partake in more events and projects, but "not necessarily a new series." I promise you I listened to this clip over and over the entire time it was available and that's what I heard. Now look, the room they recorded this in was echo-y, and my Japanese is pretty decent (enough for my N2 anyways, yeah I did that while I was away from here clap clap) but listening comprehension is my weaker area, so maybe I just take a massive L here. When I started writing this post there was a sentence here guessing about whether they were just being cheeky or didn’t know yet, but an interview came out last month that gave what’s all but a conclusive answer to that. More on it in the next section but tl;dr, they likely did not know it was happening at all. Well, at least they got to be as surprised as we were :V

Anyways now that the thing has been revealed none of the last two paragraphs even matter, so I just prattled on for no reason besides to admit my own shame. Next bit.

Section 4: SAUCE PLOX??? (Current testimonies from relevant people/entities)

Naturally, when the trailer dropped, we got a pretty decent handful of comments from whatever staff and cast are on social media. Most of these are just people going “yay we’re back hooray!” (paraphrased) but the Keroro PR account statements are actually kinda sorta hints? So I’ll start out with those. There’s two tweets that I want to highlight here:

First is from April 1 (JST), the day of the reveal. In this tweet the account wishes everyone well for the new school/fiscal year, but the important part is the last sentence, This can be translated any number of ways (thanks to yoroshiku onegaishimasu and its 50 potential meanings, every Japanese translator’s worst nightmare), but essentially it’s something along the lines of “we hope you’ll support the restart/resumption of the Keroro anime for a long time to come.”

The keywords here are obvious: 再始動 (saishidou) meaning either restart or resumption. I know you’re probably thinking those are two very different things, but the nuance here is that it’s more of a restart in production than restart of the continuity. For the latter, I think it’s more common to see リメイク, which is just the English word “remake” in katakana. Worth noting that the Flash anime used none of these words in its marketing, but it did use language such as “brand new invasion plan,” “rebirth of Keroro,” and so on…in addition to, you know, having a completely different artstyle and a title change to just “Keroro”, which this clearly does not (the artstyle is relatively faithful to the old one and the project is under the original Keroro Gunso name).

The other big word is 末永く(suenagaku), which…also doesn’t have one exact translation, but implies somewhere between years or even an indefinite period of time. I didn’t want to say a specific unit of time in my translation of the statement because well, we can’t really be sure of anything here, but either way, they’re signaling that they’re most likely in it for the long haul.

Then there’s the tweet from the PR account commemorating the actual anniversary of the original anime (April 3). This one uses 新しいスタート, “new start”—no real multiple definition shenanigans here, this is about as literal and straightforward as you can get. In terms of the reboot or not question, this could lean either way, but it definitely adds to theory that it is a series of some sort.

Okay, that’s all for the individual tweets I’m gonna totally overanalyze, otherwise I’d be stuck here for even longer than I already have been. Here’s a quick list of involved staff who tweeted about the reveal:

Unsurprisingly, Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro) posted that day, reiterating that it is real and saying “believe usssss!” (As a reminder, half the internet was convinced it was April Fools for like a whole week)

Adding to the cast comments, Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama) says, “Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait for more news! Keroro Gunso is still the greatest!!”

Jouji Nakata (Giroro) didn’t make a specific comment about the trailer, but has been retweeting the other official accounts and such and replying about it, so he has acknowledged it otherwise. As a substitute, here’s a picture of him visiting the Keroro Exhbition in Ikebukuro a day early.

Here’s an interesting one—Haruna Ikezawa (Momoka) said about the trailer, “Really?! Is this real?!?!?!” While no cast members outside of the Keroro Platoon were officially revealed to be reprising their roles, I’m assuming they’re going to try their best to reassemble as much of the cast as of season 7 as possible—besides Keiji Fujiwara (Paul/Narrator), who sadly passed away in 2020—so I kind of figured Ikezawa would know about this, but maybe not…? Well, considering that the main five were completely blindsided by this to the point where they weren’t even sure this was a real thing until they were in the middle of recording it (as I said previously, more on that later), I suppose the other cast members were just. Not told. I don’t really doubt Ikezawa would return (she even stated it could happen someday all the way back when the then-final season ended in 2011 and did come back for Flash)…but unless they were like really worried about leaks why even keep them in the dark to learn with the rest of the public, idk man :V (so much for not overanalyzing tweets huh)

On to production staff now, here’s the tweet from Satoshi Koike, animation director of the latter third of the original and also the reveal trailer, indicating that he’s most likely back for the new project. It’s just a simple “Welcome back! (de arimasu)” but the images he used were drawn back in 2019 to commemorate the start of the Reiwa era, spoofing the original lyrics of the first opening. The reveal trailer tweet itself from the Keroro Anime account does this too (“Starting today, the Reiwa era shall be known as the Keroro era!”).

New to the staff is Jouji Furuta (yes we have two Joujis now har har), who did the storyboards and direction for the trailer. He’s relatively new to the scene as a whole, with his most well known project being Shaman King Flowers. Although he never worked on the series before, he did a pretty good job emulating the original, and based on the last line of the tweet, it seems like he will be staying on for the full project as well.

And now for a kind of weird section where I talk about the few related accounts that the Keroro anime twitter is following but haven’t made any kind of verbal acknowledgement yet.

First and foremost is Mine Yoshizaki—you know, the guy who created the fucking series, whose name is on the copyright string and whose explicit permission they had to get to do another anime in the first place? Yeah so it’s been over a month since the reveal now and there has been zero acknowledgement from him. I do know his personal social media account has been inactive for quite a few years now (I feel like the anime account is only even following it for symbolic reasons), but he had multiple other opportunities to say something at this point. He did contribute some signed artwork to the anime-focused exhibition that just ended but nowhere in it does he directly mention the new adaptation, and so far he hasn’t commented on it in Shonen Ace (maybe in the next volume, assuming that’s soonish). I have my theories about his relationship to the anime, especially now that the Kemono Friends fiasco has occurred, but that’s all a story for another day or never. I’m sure he’ll contribute something later, but even so it’s just really bizarre to have nothing to say about your biggest creation’s first new adaptation in over a decade. Oh well.

Character designer Fumitoshi Oizaki, who has been around since the beginning if I remember correctly, has been retweeting things, but no official comment just yet. (He discretely left a message at the expo apparently, but didn’t post it online, so no idea if it mentions the new anime.) He isn’t credited on the trailer, but considering he’s still been pretty involved with the franchise’s promotion over the last few years, I would be very surprised if he wasn’t returning.

Last but certainly not least is Junichi Sato, the chief director for the original anime for the first two seasons, arguably its most well-known and critically praised era. He’s also a very notable director in his own right, having headed other famous series like early Sailor Moon and Ojamajo Doremi. Sato didn’t direct the original anime for the majority of its runtime (though he did direct the first four movies), but he still directs and storyboards on projects to this day, including for other franchises’ major anniversaries (namely Doremi and Precure). Though not certain, I think it’s very possible that he returns for this in some capacity, if not as director than perhaps for storyboarding or general advising.

To close out the testimony section, I’m going to share here the translation I did of the aforementioned interview with Kumiko Watanabe in last month’s issue of Newtype (anime-centric magazine published by Kadokawa). I won’t re-summarize it here since it’s not particularly long, but the main takeaways from this in terms of hints as to what we can expect are that a) the cast was surprised by this and potentially didn’t even know back in December when they last discussed the possibility of working on Keroro again, and b) as I previously speculated, this is going to be a long term enough project that at least Watanabe feels the need to physically prepare for it lol. And thankfully, it seems they’re all excited to go back to the series. I spent a long time thinking they might not be up to it again since it’s been so long and they’re much later in their lives/careers (Nakata just turned 70 oh man) but I’m glad I was wrong! Though I don’t expect this to be another 300 episode commitment anyway; in spite of the PR comments I don’t think we’re going for that long with the nature of anime production these days lmao.

And now for a topic which I think many of you are concerned about…

Section 5: “But what if my 日本語 is not 上手???” (The Localization Question)

If you did not get the joke in the above headline without looking it up, it’s probably safe to assume that if you want to watch this Thing, you will need it in a language other than Japanese (and even if you did get the joke you will know if you are truly 日本語上手 when people stop saying 日本語上手 to you). I’m going to focus on English for this post since that’s the primary language of the audience here, though I would be very shocked if there isn’t at minimum a Korean translation—dub more likely than sub imo, since the most famous version of the show there had different names for the characters and was changed to be set in Korea, and the series is HUGE there to the point where it almost rivals the Japanese market.

So, English. Well, if it were a few years ago (say, if this came during the 15th anniversary like I was originally coping over), I would be markedly less optimistic about getting any official translation at all. At that time, the dub was explicitly dead and the only English sub had been delisted for a few years, and even that was only available in a select few countries in Continental Europe on a pretty obscure streaming service called Viewster for like a year or two before getting pulled. It’s no surprise that this particular sub eventually became more well known as the subs on the torrents compiled by ColdFusion (whoever that was, I’m still not sure myself). That was until…

…the magical year of 2021, when our heroes at Discotek licensed the ENTIRE SERIES (minus the movies) for an official English release using Viewster’s existing translations! That’s right, we got all of it. And not only that, the whole series was also added to Crunchyroll, though only the sub; Discotek had the Funimation dub but it seems it did not get ported to Crunchyroll when the merger happened this year. It does seem that Crunchy has still not made the series available outside of the US and Canada, which is a shame, but man is it still surreal to have the entire series legally available both digitally and physically after nearly two decades of scattered fansubs and hardly accessible official releases. Surely this was a huge win for Discotek, right?

Weeeeeell…no. Of course they weren’t able to say it out loud, but it’s been extremely heavily implied that unfortunately the BluRay/DVD releases flopped for them, and they did say they definitely won’t be getting the movies or the Flash series. They also stopped releasing the discs on a one season a year basis and started bundling them together, with seasons 5–7 coming out all at once later this year, so they’re clearly trying to just get it off their plates. To be honest, this was pretty predictable because…it’s been on Crunchyroll since before the discs even came out. Look, physical media is super cool and all, but who in this economy is going to pay $40-60 per box for a handful of seasons at most when they can get the whole damn thing on their phone for like $8 a month. Crunchyroll isn’t necessarily a disc killer; their release of Digimon Adventure, for example, still seemingly did well despite that series being available on Crunchyroll two years prior, but in addition to Digimon being more popular in the west, it’s one $60 purchase for the whole series versus having to spend like over $200 for 358 episodes. I applaud them for rolling the dice and trying to get this behemoth of a release out there, but I’m not surprised about the lack of financial returns.

However, since Crunchyroll now has set a precedent of having the original series available on their platform, we just might get the new series available on there as well—if not as a simulsub, then at least dropped in batches later on. I’m not 100% confident in this, particularly because technically Discotek still holds the license, but my guess based on the way they’ve talked about the series is that they’re pretty open to someone else taking it off their hands when they’re done releasing the original series (and the translations weren’t originally theirs to begin with anyways, they purchased them and did some touch-ups to the existing translation with added typesetting). As far as simulsubs go, the kids’ shows that get simulsubbed tend to be from Toei, with whom Crunchyroll has a known partnership. But if it is split into cours rather than being a year-round anime, I think the chances of a simulsub go up. Whatever the case may be, it’s for sure in a better position to get an official subtitled release than it ever was before. I’m certainly praying this happens because I believe most of the people capable of fansubbing (with good translation anyway) have gradually moved away from the fandom over the last decade for various reasons—myself included, though mostly I just quit fansubbing/scanlation in general for Personal Reasons(TM). Fingers crossed, everyone.

So subs remain as a not-guaranteed-but- definitely-not-low possibility. But what about a dub? If you recall, Keroro has had a very rocky history in 3D with English dubs, with the American dub being in licensing hell for years before finally falling into Funimation’s lap and subsequently failing to take off despite remaining a beloved cult classic to Some Fans (I am not as high on it, but longtime Kirb followers probably know that by now), and the only other English dub is relegated to the network Animax in Hong Kong + Southeast Asia with no official home release, leaving all of it besides parts of seasons 3 and 4 as lost media (and the voice acting sucked ass but at least the script was accurate). But we’re not in the mid 2000s to early 2010s anymore; this is the screamin’ ’20s, baby! So much anime is getting dubbed now, sometimes at almost the same time as the Japanese release! There must be a chance, right?!

Eeeehhhhhh I wouldn’t bet on it. Even the Toei kids’ shows Crunchyroll started simulsubbing usually don’t get dubs (Digimon is an exception, and the reboot’s dub took YEARS to come out). Anime dubs, as far as I’m aware, are not cheap to produce (though it’d be great if more of what the companies are pocketing went to the actors’ wages >_>), and if the show does have the potential to become somewhat of a long runner, I think they’ll need to see more interest around the IP to fund one, and both Funimation and now Discotek’s releases have proved that the audience for it isn’t always there. I also speculate they’d be doing a lot of recasting; the casting process is not as smooth and (I believe) more expensive than it is in Japan, and a lot of the original cast are not working as often in the field anymore and/or have been involved with some pretty serious controversies—I’m sure those in the know are thinking of a specific drawn-out conflict but I’m pretty sure it’s more than just About Him at this point. So let’s just say that while some of the cast still remembers the show fondly, I think trying to get them all in the same project again would potentially open some cans of worms better off left closed. It’s not 100% impossible it gets dubbed, you never know what the industry can manage to make work these days, but I’d wager it’s like 90% not happening. Just a hunch. If anyone more knowledgable than me on anime localization (this goes for both the dub and sub stuff) would like to argue me with better explanations than I have I’d very much be glad to hear it.

Section 6: The Stuff That Doesn’t Fit Elsewhere + Final Thoughts

There’s not going to be any real organization to this section. Here’s just some bullets of miscellaneous stream of consciousness thoughts related to whatever:

The character bios page on the site linked in section 3 has some WEIRD romanization choices. I don’t expect these to reflect on any official localization because chances are they’ll go with what Viewster used, which is largely what the fandom is used to besides the Kululu/Kururu split. It is indeed Kululu here and Kululu has been the de facto official spelling for a very very long time now but I still have a personal preference for Kururu because “Kululu” loses the onomatopoeia joke and I’m a rebel. But like. “Tololo”? Since when has Tororo ever been called that in any media? And worst of all, “Pole”? POLE?? That’s literally never been a thing what glossary did they pull these from.

Also worth noting, Alisa and the Narrator had merchandise sold at the Keroro expo (will talk about that next btw) despite not being on the characters page. This isn’t a confirmation of anything but I would be very surprised if Alisa doesn’t return at some point since she was pretty prominent later in the show and Yoshizaki seems to have a particular fondness for her, and the Narrator will obviously be there with a recast, though jury’s out on if his little ’sona guy will show up too. It won’t be the same without Fujiwara :(

I do want to touch upon the “Keroro expo”, officially known as the “Keroro Gunso Super Gerogero Museum” (expo is a fine shorthand because the Japanese word can mean exhibition also), since I’ve mentioned it a couple times throughout this write-up. This was an event that was held in Ikebukuro just recently from April 27–May 12 that was basically a walkthrough experience recreating settings from the anime, having artwork and stuff sprinkled in between (all reused, no new concept art or anything sadly). The main gimmick was that the venue had an exclusive app that let you take AR pictures with models of the Keroro Platoon. It also had an AI chatbot feature where you could talk to each member of the platoon, and not too many posted pictures of this feature but apparently the chatbots were uhhhhhh weird. I have no idea how much of it is generative from other LLMs, and I’m assuming they programmed it at least partially with their own original input/databases (which is the only way to make generative AI even close to ethical), but from the few screenshots I’ve seen their speech was just a little bit awkward and some of the stuff they said was really bizarre. At one point users started to turn it into an otome game and successfully romanced the frogs, which I’m assuming is a little bit out of the bounds of what they were expecting from this experiment. If they do release that app publicly at some point—they labeled the version at the expo to be a “test version,” so maybe—I sincerely hope they at least fine tune it because Good Lord. Finally and maybe most importantly, there were new voice lines recorded for the exhibit to give it an audio-drama type simple story, but unfortunately it was probably not archived because video recording was not allowed inside the venue. The platoon all had new voice lines along with Fuyuki and Natsumi, reportedly still played by Houko Kuwashima and Chiwa Saito respectively, so most likely they will return to reprise the roles for the new anime, though I don’t think those two were much in question. That’s really like the only important part of this for the purposes of this post I’m not sure why I mentioned anything else here actually. AI chatbot Dororo wants you to know he enjoys tickles from Giroro and Tamama. Yeah this thing’s a little fucked

I didn’t want to get too deep into this in section 3 because it’s not really a production related question, but…are Shin Keroro and related new characters gonna be in this or not? For what it’s worth the site seems to count the Flash series as part of the anniversary celebration, and screenshots with Shin in them are there even if he is completely absent from the character page. Flash was a total reboot so I don’t think it will be that exact iteration of the character if he is in the new anime, but there must be some way to work his stuff into the existing anime canon even with its many differences from the manga. Honestly I think the main obstacle to him appearing is just that the guy is not very popular lol. He’s hardly in the manga anymore and Tomosu and Myou are in it even less. I’m not sure if it was just franchise fatigue following the end of the anime but the reception to Shin was very meh across the board (at least among longtime fans, kids might’ve liked him I think. Which makes sense). So I could totally see them skipping him entirely. There’s still a lot of post-anime manga-only stories without his involvement at all, some that included him but he could easily be changed to some other character, and for the stories that revolved around him, well, the Flash anime got to a decent amount of them. This could really go either way but for now I’m going to lean toward him not being included. If he’s put in I think it will not be until the “second season” (whatever the definition of that ends up being) so we can be eased back in to the existing cast first before shaking things up significantly.

I like the new artstyle, assuming it carries over from the trailer to the final project. It looks like they hit a happy medium between the early and late artstyles of the original anime. This is the most obvious with the human cast who haven’t received new official artwork by Koike and/or Oizaki in a looooong time, and they look much better than the last time we saw them in season 7 where everyone got weirdly lanky for some reason.

Okay FINALLY I’m done here for now I think. At the time of writing we’re pretty much just in a “wait and see” phase with no other real concrete info around that I haven’t touched upon in this post. Trust me, I’ve tried digging for more, but I couldn’t find anything really interesting staff-wise and very few of the staff credited in the trailer are even on social media (sometimes staff can be a bit loose-lipped so it’s possible to get hints there). I’ve also checked every nook and cranny of the official sites of both animation studios and the companies on the production committee and turned up with nothing of note. I’m hoping we get some more info at least sometime between now and autumn.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end (or speedscrolling here, don’t worry I won’t be disappointed lol). I hope you found it informative even though I probably spent way too much time yapping about dumb shit. It took me entirely too long to write this post, but I don’t have as much time as I did as a teenager and it’s been a good few years since I’ve done a really deep dive into Keroro stuff. Needless to say, I’m beyond excited for this project and can’t wait to see how the last seven years of me huffing unhealthy amounts of copium pays off. I’ve had like a month and a half to sit on it now and it honestly still doesn’t feel real!

I will most likely return to report when we get some amount of substantial info—hopefully with way fewer words lmao. Until next time! Ge-gero~

[deathbxnny]

Omg official first request I've made ever?

Okay so hear me out, Dragonkin Reader, Dragon of war at a point of time in the past who was best friends with Morax in ye olden days. Reader who use to drink Osmanthus wine with everyone and such, ended up in a marriage with the great Morax and over time things got shaky, when he faked his death and took the name Zhongli and decided that having a dragon partner with obvious features of Dragonkin isn't great for his whole Human(tm) brand he has going on so he just neglects the reader except for during meetings with Childe on occasion, and reader just so happens to befriend Childe who definitely has his eyes for the stunning dragonkin...and perhaps even challenges them to a spar in which Reader wins and he just falls over head in heels with them..and perhaps reader shows up soggy in the rain at the inn room he's in when Zhongli presented Divorce papers and essentially kicked them out 👀 or something of the sort. Extra angst extra forbidden(ish) romance 👀👀👀

-----

A/N: Why hello there! I am honoured to be the recepient of your request, dear definitely-a-stranger of mine! I love the idea, but have changed it maybe a little bit too much on accident, so I hope that you'll like it anyways!<33 Content: Mention of non-sexual nudity!!!, some light flirting, neglect, Zhongli being a bad husband (like in most of my writing for him-), some angst, emotional adultery???, hurt/kind of comfort, talks of divorce, Childe being a sly homewrecker, somewhat forbidden romance, romantic tension, characters might be ooc?? idk- Female reader, who has some dragon-like features! Word count: 2.2k ((Not proofread at all!!!))

-----

"Take a leap into the waters below with me, won't you?"

It was a cold and misty morning, when Ajax decided to take a nice swim in an uncharted lake he had found during his travels. It was close to the borders of Liyue city, hidden in a lush field of tall grass, and yet no map seemed to acknowledge it's existence. This intriuged him greatly, as not even locals seemed to be aware of it. And so, whenever the tempratures dropped, he ventured out for a quick dip in the cold water, a familiar tradition from back home. He trudged through the thick grass, his eyes narrowing against the mist. It was easy to miss the lake and so he was always very careful in looking for it, having even gone as far making a small pathway for himself.

A content smile pulled at his lips, when he finally saw the still surface of it in the distance, his steps speeding up, until he stood at the small part of the shoreline that wasn't covered in rocks. His boots came off first, then his shirt and jacket, then his pants. All unceremoniously thrown onto a nearby rock, right next to the foreign silken robes he hadn't seen in his eagerness to get in. Ignorant to what may linger below, he was quick to lower himself into the water, letting out a soft hiss at how cold it was.

Just like how it was back home.

He closed his eyes, muscles tensing and flexing, before they relaxed and his mind drifted into thoughtless dreams of work and his family. It was quiet and peaceful here... perhaps a little too unnaturally quiet. But his apparent fearlessness didn't allow him any doubt or worry. Every now and then, he'd hear the soft movement of the water in the subconsciousness of his mind, until it became a little too often and began near approaching him. He cracked a tired eye open, his arms crossed over his broad chest, as he tried seeing what the source of the sound was. was it a fish? Frog? ... A woman?

The young man gasped softly, his body straightening up in surprise, when he saw her carelessly step out of the water, goosebumps spreading across her body when the cold breeze hit her skin. He opened his mouth to perhaps apologise or question her... yet not a word was able to escape his lips. And she didn't seem to particularly acknowledge him either. Instead, she just now stood next to him, calmly looking off into the distance, before her head slowly turned to look down at him.

The silence was suffocating, but Ajax's mind was racing with millions of thoughts at once. He should be looking away from her nude form. He should get up and... No, he can't do that either, as he was in a similar state. Yet he seemed to have more shame than her. So instead, he could only blink in surprise, when he noticed the scales, horns and cat-like slitted, intense eyes. She was no human, he then determined. A siren maybe? Was she going to rip him apart with the sharp teeth he spied under her lips? Was she going to dig her sharp nails into his heart and take it for herself? Was she going to seduce him and drag him into the depths of the lake as punishment for being so careless? Ajax fidgeted nervously. At least she was beautiful, he supposed. Breathtaking, in a literal sense, if you will.

And yet, his creative imagination came to an end, when the woman finally spoke up, still so unbothered by it all. "It's been a while, since a human decided to lose it's way into my territory..." She hummed, before just stepping out of the water and collecting the robes the harbinger had ignored. "... Have any of them survived to tell the tale?" He asked, trying to retain some semblance of his composure, which seemed impossible in her presence. He heard a small huff, perhaps a chuckle. "Some, yes." She mused, but her voice was oddly devoid of any emotions. Or perhaps, human emotions.

Childe dared to look behind him then, his eyes catching as her bare shoulder disappeared under the silk. "I won't go down so easily, if you happen to be in a bad mood today then." The man near challenged, but he was only met with a slight turn of her head in his directon, as she halted her movements. "I doubt, that you'll ever be a match forme, even in a good mood." She replied, before slowly walking away, her hands gently brushing against the tall grass. But her words only ticked off Ajax's challenging nature, which made him swiftly stand and give her a slight grin. "Then fight me. I assume you are an ancient creature, one with great power. I'd appreciate the challenge-" "-Maybe next time." Was all she said, as her form merged with the mist and disappeared soundlessly. Childe stood in the still water for a while after, his breathing a little laboured from the excitement that had filled him from her words alone.

So much for relaxation...

--

He visited the lake often afterwards, in hopes of seeing the woman again. And every now and then, he'd be lucky enough to do so, even if she never agreed to a fight. Instead, he'd spend his time speaking to her, although that was a little difficult at first due to her reserved nature. Something that Ajax was eventually able to break through as well. He learned three things about her over the few weeks he had spent here. Her name was (Y/N), she was once an ancient, powerful dragon... and she is married, unfortunately. To who exactly however, she refused to say. Not that it mattered anyways, since childe's brewing, selfish jealousy only saw it as a challenge too, if anything. Especially when he learned that your dear husband wasn't very attentive to you in the first place.

"Say, wouldn't your husband get quite angry, if he saw his wife and a foreign man sitting in a lake together... naked?" He one day asked, loosely gesturing between the two of them lazily to empathise his point. But he had learned over time, that dragons didn't care about nudity all that much. They techincally usually didn't wear clothes anyways, right? (Y/N) seemed to have learned some human customs at least regarding that, but her lake, her rules, he supposed. "He forgets I'm there most of the time. I doubt he'll care now." She hummed, her body laying across the warm sand. It was a hot day, the sun shining down and reflecting against the lakes still surface. Ajax kept his eyes away from her, mainly out of odd embarrassment, that he usually couldn't care to feel. But she made him feel alot of similar emotions against his will anyways.

"How can he forget you? I certainly think about you all the time." "About me? Or the duel you are itching to have?" He simply grinned knowingly in response. It was both, ofcourse. "I guessed so... but I'll have to disappoint you once again, I'm afraid. There is a meeting I have to attend with my husband." She muttered, sighing as she sat up with a slight frown. Ajax raised a brow, a silent question she understood. "Appearances are important to him." "I see... but what about your...?" He trailed off, eyes daring steal a glance at her horns, that made her nod. "Yes, I hide them around him... or other people for that matter." "Ah, so, I'm special then?" He teased, making her huff and pull on her thin robe. "Perhaps in a way, you are... but then again, you are in my domain." She said, which made the man smirk a little. He'll take that for now.

She took her leave then, a small wave and bow of her head, before she disappeared in the tall grass. Ajax sighed to himself and sunk deeper into the water. He also had a meeting to get to... but for now, he'll stay in your domain to relax in your comfort, that even lingered in your absence.

--

"Perhaps I shouldn't have done that..." He cursed, when he was running late from falling asleep in the lake. He didn't know how it happened and was quite irritated at himself. This was a mess, but knowing him, he'd always find a way out of everything. So when he arrived at the restaurant, he put on his best, apologetic smile, as he went to greet the man. "Ahaha.... my apologies, Mr. Zhongli! Last minute work came up, that I had to take care of and..." His words trailed off, when his eyes found the familiar gaze of the dragonic woman. He gulped, when it all dawned on him... but then the confusion settled in. Why would such a powerful, ancient dragon be with a funeral consultant? Unless... he didn't know? Yes, that made alot of sense, especially when she looked so human-like now. Somehting that irked Ajax deep down, for some reason.

"That's alright, things happen." Zhongli hummed, ushering the man to take a seat, when he absently waved a hand into the direction of his near stoic wife. "I hope you don't mind my wife joining us for the evening?" He asked, making the harbinger clear his throat. "No, ofcourse not... it's an honour.." (Y/N) seemed less affected by the whole ordeal and so he decided to reel himself in as well and go ahead with the meeting. Every now and then, his eyes would find her calm form picking at her food or idly looking off at a nearby wall. He also quickly noticed how... indifferent Zhongli was to her.

His eyes never trailed to her breathtaking form in her fancy, silken robes. He never spoke a word to her, never asked for her opinion. It irritated Ajax. If she was his, he'd show her off, boast bout the strong, powerful wife he had at his side. He'd never allow her to hide her dragonic features either. She was to be worshipped, just like she told him she once was... but then again, Childe was selfish. He'd rather just worship her all on his own.

And by the end of the evening, it took all his strength to not rip her away from the other man's unworthy grasp. What did he have, that Ajax didn't? But all he could really do, was watch the two walk away, her eyes meeting his briefly, before she disappeared after her husband in the dense crowd.

--

"Even after a nice evening, you can't seem to acknowledge me, Morax." (Y/N) said, although she knew her word would just fall on deaf ears. Especially when she used his old name, actual name. "I don't expect much else from you however.... Would you like it, if I simply disappeared into the depths of my lake forever? Far away from any civilisation, forever alone?" More silence, as the man simply took off his coat and shoes. He only responded when she used that pathetic human name of his. But she'd be damned, before she allowed herself to sink that low. "I will warn you, that I will not be alone however. I have perhaps found someoneelse. Someone who appreciates the war and carnage of love much more than you ever could have."

Zhongli stopped in his tracks, his head tilting ever so slightly in her direction. He wouldn't even spare her a last glance it seemed. He had fully given up on his past and his wife of eons with it. "Then leave." "Very well, Morax." She saw his jaw clench, a last dig at revenge, the sound of a ring hitting the marble floor blending in with the door falling shut.

--

The moon was high up in the sky, by the time (Y/N) arrived at her lake. As expected, Ajax was already resting in it and for a while it seemed. "It's a little late for a swim, don't you think?" He asked, making the woman hum in response, as she shrugged her clothes off and walked past him into the lake, until it reached her hips. "Says who? I make the rules here." The man sat up, his head tilted back a little to laugh softly. "My, when did you get so sassy? Seems like I'm rubbing off on you." "Perhaps so... why are you here?" She finally asked the obvious question, that earned her a smirk. But it was a dangerous one. "It's not for a duel, for once." He mused, the message clear.

This type of burning love he felt was forbidden and perhaps for a good reason. A dragon and a human couldn't possibly be together, and then there was Zhongli, who he still assumed was just a mere human. People would call him a homewrecker, or maybe they'd dare to blame you. But alas... when was Childe ever the one to back down from anything? Especially when he wanted something? It was a risky, uncharted part of life for him... yet that alone seemed to have worked out for him before with this lake, right? "I see... then what is it?" She asked carefully, eyes narrowing a little, when he chuckled.

"I'd like to take a leap of faith." "A leap of faith?" "Yes." His answers were clear and confident, filled with an arrogance only he perhaps could have. But that intriuged the woman, who hummed and reluctantly held her hand out to him then; A final test.

"Then come... Take a leap into the waters below with me, won't you?"

"Challenge accepted."

-----

A/N: Alrighttt, my back hurts! And this took me about 3 hours to write... and I maybe went off the idea alot... BUT I know you'll appreciate it anyways. I hope everyone else enjoyed this too and thank you again for the request, dear!<33

[arcadekitten]

Hello Arcadekitten!!! I read the Stellamb wedding post(s) and it got me wondering about how Stella’s wedding dress would look like… I absolutely love Sweet No Death, so I knew I had to make some artwork of it!! And, because I absolutely suck at explaining things through text, here is my interpretation of Stella’s wedding outfit in traditional art! ✨💫🌟

Materials Used: Mixed Media Paper, Ink Fineliner Pens, Alcohol Markers Gel Pens, Paint Pens, Highlighter and Mechanical Pencil

Time Took: 1 week

I don’t know if you’re okay with people sending fanarts and stuff to you, but I absolutely love your work and well, I’m quite proud of this piece (even if I probably shouldn’t be lol) as I worked extremely hard on this and wanted to share it with you! I hope that’s okay ❤️

A little artist “#Deep Dive tm” because I put WAY too much effort into the tiniest details and I am NOT gonna let them get overlooked 😤 /jk

-Stella’s dress is made with her signature colors rather than white, because I felt that with her being a Star Witch and all, a species that mostly has extravagantly colorful clothes (in my humble opinion) she felt that just going with plain white on what is possibly the most important day of her life would feel… well, a bit redundant, so she opted for a more ‘colored’ ballgown, with lacy gloves and a pearled veil and all. The local tailor and dressmaker is a bit confused, but Lambchop is definitely not complaining! ;) 💕💓

-(Well, that, and I also felt that the color blended WAY too much with her skin tone and changed it, but that’s my little secret hehe 👀😉)

-In my mind, Stella can make her hair look like it has a small galaxy within it! With actual moving stars and little twinkling lights. ✨💫✨⭐️🌟I think that she usually saves it for special, grandiose occasions, buuut since she’s not the kind of person who would THROW a grand, special occasion, she never unveiled it before her wedding day! (Poor Lambchop’s heart nearly gave out on the spot right then and there! 😭❤️)

-I didn’t add her usual Star hair clip because she already has like… 10 stars in her design already lmao /lh ⭐️

-As you can see, her bouquet’s… cloth? Fabric? I’m not sure what to call it… thing? The stuff that her flowers are wrapped in are Lambchop’s colors! Thought that it would be a neat visual detail… also, I can totally imagine Stella requesting that specific color scheme from the local florist! 💐🌷🌸

-Speaking of flowers… I decided to color in one of the moon daisies a little bit… differently hehe ;) It’s a small reference to the beginning of the game, where we see Stella change the color of the one rebellious moon daisy, from orange to lavender, except this time… she keeps it and uses it in her bouquet! 💖💗

-I like to think that it symbolizes Lambchop versus the rest of the townspeople… and Stella’s way of acknowledging him as a “real person”, at least compared to the others… one who is different, one who is unique… the one that she’s going to marry 💍🩷

-(it’s so absolutely sappy when she tells him so that he just couldn’t resist kissing her right then and there)

-And finally… (this is the last one I promise) I cut out the entire drawing to make it look like a potion bottle, partially because Stella is a witch, and partially because I had this cute lil idea that she stores all of her happiest memories into a magical bottle and takes it out whenever she feels sad, so that she can ‘experience’ it again and feel happier. Of course, with Lambchop by her side, she never really has to use it!💞🩷💗

-And yes, I also made the bottle have Lambchop colors as well 🐏 Just a nice little thing tying em together more visually… ❤️

…And I am SO SORRY for ranting!!! I worked incredibly hard on this piece (traditional art is NOT my strong suit, lol) but I wanted to make something special for one of my favorite games and one of my favorite game devs! So here it is, and I hope that you like it! 🤞❤️😁

(P.S: Any ideas for Lambchop’s wedding design?)

Oh my goodness this is BEAUTIFUL!! The artwork itself is just stunning!! You took so much time on it and it really shows, especially with all your attention to detail in it(and I LOVE hearing your explanations for some of the choices you made!! They're just so darling!) Everything about this is stellar and I'm in love with it, thank you so much!! ♡ ♡ ♡

Also I TOTALLY AGREE Stella would not wear white for her wedding!! Color all the way!! ♡

As for Lambchop's outfit...I think I've got it envisioned in my head but I haven't quite drawn anything for it yet! Top hat, definitely. I think his suit isn't black. Probably brown! Bowtie on the neck. His pants are more like shorts and are cut juuuuust above the knee! Still wearing long socks with garters. He looks incredibly dapper--as he should!! It's his wedding!

Hopefully he at least looks good for the photos before he decides to get any mysterious red stains on his outfit. (It's fine. Stella could clean them with the snap of her fingers, but still!)

[periodiccompletionist]

50% of 118 is 59; 75% of 118 is 88.5; 90% of 118 is 106.2

Periodic Symbols are: H He Li Be B C N O F Ne Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe Cs Ba La Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn Fr Ra Ac Rf Db Sg Bh Hs Mt Ds Rg Cn Nh Fl Mc Lv Ts Og Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr

EDIT: As of November 14th 2023, I've decided to start keeping track of when a post does not include a single-letter element. Single-letter elements are, in order: H B C N O F P S K V Y I W U. These posts will be tagged with "missing single".

Spaces, capitalization, emojis, numbers, and punctuation will not be taken into account. For example, the term "lush🍃13garden" would still count for Mercury (Hg). Letters are the only thing that interrupt symbols.

Anything that isn't a tally is tagged with "not a tally", asks are tagged with "Arsenic Potassium Sulfur", and posts people tagged me in are tagged "Thanks for the tag!" (because "tag" and "tags" unfortunately can't be made with only elemental symbols. they could if we had G but we do not)

Some things to keep in mind:

I try to avoid any piece of moving media (video/gif) that has words in it of any kind. I'm already a transcriber as a job, and while I love it, I'm not gonna do it on my silly little side blog.

I usually don't analyze anything fandom-related, since nothing good can come from a fandom post leaving its circle. There are some exceptions I'll make, though.

I use a script to search for the symbols, but it can't read the words in images, so they have to be retyped into the script 100% manually. I'll most likely still do it, but just keep that in mind when sending in posts with lots of images.

I'll only analyze posts where it's very clear what order things are read in; charts, graphs, doodle pages, and other images with words all over the place won't be counted.

When it comes to URLs, I don't count them for the main tally unless they show up in a screenshot or as a tag somewhere in the thread; instead, the URLs of the users in the thread are listed out afterwards in their own separate tallies, with the elements listed in the order that they appear in the person's URL (this does not include URLs that only appear in screenshots/tags).

If you tag me in a post, I won't be counting anything that you added to the thread, though you will still be part of the secondary URL tally.

When I make a tally, I (usually) won't be adding my own comments, and on the occasions that I do, whatever is in my comment is not added to the final tally.

I tend to stray away from analyzing posts with other similar gimmick blogs already in them these days. This is because we all tend to influence each other's results- for example, if I analyzed a post where alphabetcompletionist tallied up all 26 letters, that would (potentially) artificially add Cd, Mn, and No to my tally. If I did end up doing this, I would be highlighting Cd, Mn, and No in a different color to denote that they would not have been there had I not reblogged from alphabetcompletionist directly.

My main account is not disclosed at this time; please do not try and find out what it is or I will block you. Another blog I run that is publicly known is @cantheykillmacbeth, if you just want to see more from me.

There might be times where I will accidentally reblog from someone other than the source of the post, or where I can't due to the source having been deactivated. If you go digging into the people that I reblog posts from, I am not responsible for what you see. If you blame me for what you saw from the people I happen to follow, then you shouldn't have gone looking in the first place. That's on you.

I will not be adding my gimmick to posts about serious topics. This is not because I do not care about these topics, but the exact opposite: I do not want the gimmick of this blog to be used to detract from anyone's message. These sorts of gimmicks are meant to add to the humor of a post, not act as a twisted punchline to a serious discussion. If you tag me in a serious post, you will be ignored (at best).

I don't care how you feel about gimmick blogs. I'm having fun and you can't change that. Seethe.

[tacit-semantics]

It’s a nice change of pace to see someone say Raph is interesting. So many people just say he’s the angry one and leave it at that but not you.

Yess Raph’s my buddy :) my pal :) I am going under the cut because I got perhaps a little overenthusiastic and produced several hundred words of incoherent (and frankly slightly shaky! We will blame the eight hour shift) Raph discussion :)

Anyways I am a firm Nuance Enjoyer (tm) and Raph is like. A goldmine for that kinda thing asdjk like okay so you’re telling me he’s angry! Great, okay! Why! Where does it come from? What does it look like in practice? How does /he/ respond to it? How do others? What’s the underlying emotion, what’s the underlying situation? Characters, people, whatever, none of it exists in a vacuum- there’s Always something going on somewhere sksk. And beyond that, there’s the matter of casual interaction! I’ve said it before I’ll say it again Raph’s my favorite straight man character when writing. he’s a little grumpy he’s a lot confused but- and this is important- it’s ALSO sorta fun for him to be bothered, because then he gets to be annoyed if that makes sense?? It’s a dynamic I pull straight from my own family, actually. Like a game. Call and response or otherwise leaning into a role.

Speaking of! Raph also exhibits a lot more self awareness than people give him credit for, I think, which is ESPECIALLY reinforced by how well he seems to respond when given like a character parallel or foil to work with. I think he’s got a lot of trouble identifying and actualizing emotions, and seeing an externalized version of what he’s experiencing and how it manifests helps him contextualize things to a greater degree. I am also somewhat Constantly thinking about his 2003 dynamic with mikey in because they have a pretty solid balance there where Mikey gets to instigate Raph gets to respond, and the interpersonal issues crop up when one or the other pushes too hard or reacts too harshly. That said for 2003 they seem pretty aware of this; im a fan across the franchise so I like to specifically contrast this with 2012 where for one reason or another- depending on whether you’re looking from an meta writing or an in-universe perspective- they have trouble striking that same balance, which is how you end up with a dynamic where the baseline is the same, but everyone is just a little too out of step with each other for it to work as smoothly so it ends with frustration on everybody’s end. Definite care there but the execution leaves something to be desired, through frankly that’s like the thesis for the (early episode at least) 2012 team so make of that what you will

Anyways, another thing that I feel also gets a bit overlooked is that Raph has his fair share of Polite Young Man moments like in that one 2003 episode where he helps the lady who was gonna get evicted?? I think don’t quite remember. Side note, I Have a headcanon where they keep in touch and she gives him some of her old knitting/crochet/tatting patterns. Anyways, I also once saw someone somewhere compare him to an old man, and I’ve decided that these two can coexist. In the interest of nuance and linguistic contradiction aside sksjsjdj

Very last semi related note is that I’m an older sibling who semi-compulsively Older Siblings everything from inanimate objects to coworkers to my actual siblings (on occasion sksjsj) and also got into tmnt when I was like 19/20 so I adopted those kids On The Spot which Heavily heavily influences a lot of my character thoughts. Like that’s my kid brother. I’m gonna take him to the arcade :) Anyways I SINCERELY doubt that you were after a ramble but there we go!! Raph thoughts.

[deusvervewrites]

The current discussion about how BNHA cant make up its mind over Izuku being "The One" or needing his friends help, made me once again think about several OSP videos regarding the same problem with Superman and how the better DC stories solve it, usually be presenting several problems/opponents that one person, no matter how powerful, cant solve on their own at the same time.

But, knowing that you watch OSP I assume that you already know about the animated Justice League shows or Young Justice and other similar examples, so I am back on my BS and will once again gush about One Piece:

For all its regular Shounen tropes, One Piece is really, REALLY good at making everyone in the crew feel important, both in the in-between moments (without Nami as navigator they would be constantly lost on sea, without Sanji they would starve, etc...) but also in the big fights. Sure, Luffy is always the one to defeat the Big bad, but in just about every case, that alone is not enough. And I am not just taking about the Quirky Goon Squads(TM) that each bad guy brings with them, there are other problems to fix and threats to neutralize in just about every arc. This starts as early as volume 4, when the crew is just 4 people, and has been going on ever since and even gotten better over time, to the point where the story and characters itself openly state this. Luffy has, on more than one occasion, said that he is really good at beating up assholes, but needs his friends for the rest. And they have stated the same thing and trust each other to do just that. Heck, in almost every major arc, even if Luffy defeated the big bad, they would still lose if other cast-members hadn't acted in time to prevent disaster.

Which is why BNHA is so frustrating in this regard, not only is it supposed to be a second-generation Shounen, even worse, one of Horikoshi's first publicly known works was One Piece fanart, Oda specifically called out BNHA when it started being published in Jump as the product of a fan! So Horikoshi KNOWS how this can be done! And BNHA has lots of good and interesting characters with creative powers and talents that could be used in all kinds of ways! They just... dont. And that makes me sad.

I'm waiting for One Piece to wrap up before I read it all the way through because otherwise I will forget pretty much all of the foreshadowing and setup, but I have read a pretty decent amount of it.

And something that I thought was really fascinating was the Enies Lobby Arc, where part of the challenge of saving Nico Robin wasn't just the physical challenge of fighting to her, but convincing her that she wanted to live.

I think one of the problems is that the League is too small, or perhaps that they're the only major threat the protagonists face. There isn't enough room for everyone to have an opponent to show off against while Midoriya handles the leader, something a lot of shonen have.

[kpopwerewolf]

Introduction Post

So, I figured I probably should write this

SO! I'm a neurodivergent dragon (/lh /nsrs) that has a whole mess of conditions (described at the end of the post) and has a passion for reading, writing, fanfiction, languages, conlanging, animals, random factoids I'll never have an occasion to use, and mythical creatures! (Hence the "neurodivergent dragon.")

I don't like to give out my ""real"" name (by that i mean birth name) over the internet, but you can call me Skye because I like her (Agents of SHIELD tv show).

I made a tumblr account on accident, tbh. (I think i was trying to bypass a paywall??) But it works because I've been curious about joining for a while now.

Feel free to send me random factoids (especially about language or animals!) and anything conlang-related!

If you have any mythical creatures you want to share (either from pre-existing mythology or ones you just made up), I'll gladly welcome that, too!

------

Please do NOT send me anything asking for money or links to a gofundme. I sympathize with whatever situation you're going through, but it makes me very anxious to receive such asks and I get paranoid about which ones are real versus scams.

-----

The userboxes below are credited to @critter-stuff(link), @inclusysboxes(link), and @plural-this-user-is(link). (Sorry about the ping! If you want me to remove it, let me know!)

Our system-specific (and rather inactive) blog is @werewolf-pack-system(link)

We also started an emoji blog (mainly for aac purposes): @wolf-pack-emojis(link)

(Also, I'm not a minor, but please treat me as one in the manner of if you wouldn't send it to a minor, don't send it to me. I'm very sensitive and have some religious beliefs that make it awkward for me to see NSFW or related material.)

----------

[ID: a userbox that says "This system user alter and headmate interchangeably" //end ID]

[ID: a userbox that says "This system doesn't switch often" //end ID]

[ID: a userbox that says "This system does not participate on Syscourse." //end ID]

(information/discussion of neurodivergencies under the cut)

(Warning! CW self-harm and suicide; eating disorder mention; brief, vague mentions of unreality; potentially other triggering material)

-----------

Sensory processing disorder

Diagnosed when i was about to enter 4th grade.

Lots of negative auditory triggers, with crowds beings sensory misery

LOVE SPINNING LOVE SWINGING [PT: love spinning love swinging //end PT]

Rain. Just... rain. Rain on my face, my arms, just rain all the time.

If i touch a Bad Texture(tm), i must immediately rub the after-touch feeling off my hand

I like going without socks, but only on carpet. If i walk on hard surfaces, then i start feeling grit under my feet and that's just not cool.

Pain and temperature sensitive

I have many stims, mostly proprioceptive (such as rocking [my fave!]), but also have a few visual and tactile stims as well. Fewer auditory stims, but i do use music to help me calm down after i get stressed

Anxiety

Was self-diagnosed for many years; got my official diagnosis a few years ago

Mix of social anxiety and GAD

Makes it hard for me to talk/initiate in conversations

Doesn't help i'm introverted

Depression

Comorbid with the anxiety

Was a bit of a surprise honestly (though i am a bit suicidal and have self-harmed)

Not really a whole lot to go here as i'm still working to understand my depression

PTSD

Diagnosed along with the anxiety

I don't personally see it, but i also kinda do

Diagnosed due to an incident that happened in 5th grade

(Public school is terrible, btw)

Also not a whole lot to go here as i don't really understand my PTSD either

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Also dxed with the anxiety

Don't know much about it, but having it has made me curious about personality disorders in general, so i hope to learn more in the future!

Synesthesia

I'm sure you've noticed the way each disorder has been colored. That's because I'm synesthesia color matching! (Word-color approximations)

I also have pain-color (mostly red; when it's magenta or pink, it's bad; i've only had white once and i hope to never have it again)

(Later edit: I'm now experiencing pain in my jaw that is orange. It's more mild than red, but also sorta worse somehow 'cause it lingers? That's not really the right word, but it's the closest I can come to)

Emotion-color

Ticker-tape (though this has sorta faded)

Chromesthesia/sound-color -- only certain sounds, though, primarily music. Each song has it's own "color" and i tend to align my music preferences along that (for example, i pefer "dark" songs [those that have a black background color] over "bright" songs [those that tend to have a white or similarly-bright colored background])

Associator. Sometimes wish i was a projector

Fascinated by all things synesthesia

Plurality

Syscovery occured in June 2023

We have non-disordered mixed traumagenic and endogenic origins (we don't like to use traumaendo for ourselves)

There are a little over 35 of us that we're aware of, but I (Skye) am the primary one to use this site :) (The others may make their own accounts if they're interested)

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Confident enough now to officially say I'm self-diagnosing this one

I started thinking it was a possibility when I realized that I tend to have various paranoid ideations and delusions ((tw) such as thinking that the dogs barking as I'm walking home from the park are telling Them where i am [no clue who "Them" would be]), superstitious-like beliefs, and a distinct repulsion of anything social (separate from anxiety or AvPD; just a "i don't feel like dealing with people" kinda weariness)

Schizoid Personality Disorder

Confident enough to now name this one, too.

The things which make me question it include a strong need for isolation to regain energy, periods of finding everything boring and uninteresting, general vague distrust of others, and just a very intense repulsion of human interaction.

---

Eating Disorder?

I've been dealing with something that (from what i've been able to find) looks a lot like ARFID, but I don't really know if i have it

I consider it more "ARFID questioning" i guess

One of the more concerning aspects of this is that I've started to become physically nauseous by the smell of food, even stuff I like. I eat much less than I should and have in the past, and if I try to eat more, I feel sick. I've tried talking to my mom about it, but she just tells me I need to eat at more regular times and all (lately, I've been skipping breakfast and waiting until ~2 in the afternoon to eat because it feels like if I get food any sooner, I'll be sick)

Advice on dealing with disordered eating would be very welcomed

[rahleeyah]

d. c. anon saying hello!

I’m very curious to see if the finales this season (or maybe early next season?) bring together all these little nuggets of wisdom we have been getting all season from benson or if it all was just how it was written, with no connection/complete coincidence, and we were all reading too much into what she has been saying?

Or if we will know what m meant by saying “it’s not like it seems” or something like that. I know I’m getting the quote wrong.

With that being said, im loving this arc. Oscar papa bring brought in was purely for the fans 😂😂 however Amanda? Was she always this amazing profiler? Genuinely asking bc why else would she have been brought in? Like to serve the purpose of highlighting that Amanda clocked Elliot for leaving Liv? Again for the fans?

welcome back anon!

if we were still under wet lettuce's reign of terror, I would not be able to say with any confidence that I think there would be payoff for all the threads that have been woven so far this season, and Olivia's nuggets of wisdom in particular (physician heal thyself indeed). however. the premises are under new management and that new management has so far done a much better job of telling a cohesive story across episodes, and so I am cautiously optimistic that Olivia's lightbulb moment is incoming. it feels, very much, like somebody over there knows what they're doing, and the fact that the last couple episodes of both shows were left in the same hands gives an even greater potential for a satisfying payoff, tho I continue to remind myself of how s14 ended - we may very well be left on a cliffhanger. which like, that's a solid way to insure a big audience for the premieres, whenever they may be. so we shall see.

oh, Amanda. so Amanda's thing has always been psychology - she has, in a few episodes scattered across her decade on the show, expressed a particular interest in getting inside the minds of the most deranged killers. it is her thing, tho it's always bothered me; I am thinking of the machine elves episodes now, and Amanda's interest in and defense of alternate theories of consciousness, an interest which has always seemed at odds with her intensely narrow view of the world (for example, "abuse victims deserve the abuse bc they allow it to happen" is a theory she has espoused more than once, which, lol).

so the thing is, right, is that it isn't out of left field or anything, her wanting to do these things, it sits right inside of the characteristics they have given her. the thing is, I've never seen any reason to believe she speaks with any authority on the subject. she took point on a few interrogations - the Henry Mesner fiasco comes to mind - and has attended lectures - as they all have - but like. My girlfriend has spent a lot of time learning about serial killers. no one is calling her to be a profiler. I feel like Amanda was brought back not for her skills but for the Drama(tm). Some fans like her very much, bringing back a familiar face for a finale is a good way to boost ratings, allowing us to see Olivia interact with Amanda after we have watched Liv grieving her absence is compelling from a character perspective. and that's the thing, right, is that this is entertainment, so it doesn't matter if Amanda has any skill as a profiler - just like it didn't matter that Nick's pivot into science seems super weird. it's a "willing suspension of disbelief" moment, I think, and I may fuss about it on occasion but I'm not like. mad about it lol

I did want to see Elliot and Amanda acknowledge that they have something in common in leaving Liv, so I'm glad we got that, though "I left bc I'd killed a teenager about the same age as one of my own daughters and the brass were going to make me do a number of things I personally find intolerable and even then I might not get my job back and I can't risk my pension and I have a toddler to raise and I can't talk to Liv about it bc I'm in love with her and if I see her face I'm gonna throw everything away for her" and "I took a new job and then never called her again and made my husband, who is her friend and sees her very often for work, promise not to tell her I'm pregnant for reasons as yet unspecified" are not exactly the same thing.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Coming out story time, Γρεεκ edition. With a plot twist. Sorry for the long ass rant I just didn't know who else to tell my story who would get both the Greek Thinking TM and also be accepting of queer ppl.

Apologies for crude language (i think)?? I cannot describe it in a way that's as eloquent and beautiful as I want.

A. Μαμά.

I came out to my mother descriptively, because I knew if I said a Big Gay Word she'd instantly connect it to what she associates with Gay stuff, and I wanted to get her honest reaction, not what she thinks her reaction should be. And also because I Do Not Know what exactly I am (out of the whole LGBT alphabet, I could be Gay/Les, I could be Bi, I could maybe sort of kinda be trans but I do identify with womanhood in the Greek TM way so I don't think I can call myself NB? Anyway whatever, labels don't matter to me and only make me feel weird when applied to me), so there's that.

Specifically I said "Ma, I'm not only attracted to boys." Because that's the best I can describe my hauntingly persistent bisexuality as haha.

After the initial confusion, the first question she asked was "so you'd want to have sex with a woman?" A question I chose not to answer, one because Μαμά τι στο καλό θες να σου πω τώρα :/ and also because the answer is neither no or yes. It goes beyond just Mm Yes Pussy Nice for me. Reducing it to just that is making my skin crawl just as much as Mm Yes Dick Nice. That's dehumanising for me, I'm sorry. :/ My answer was literally "δεν ξέρω/δεν απαντώ" lmao.

And?? She may have accidentally come out to me too??? Without realising it?????

Because she said three things:

1. "Oh, when I was at your age I went through this phase as well." Which??????????? What does it mean if not the think I'm thinking of??? Ma have you really been in denial/the closet for 50 years?

2. "I was fiercely defensive of gay people when I was younger." Which, YES. As you should μαμά. Only it has created this haunting fear in me that in 30 years time, with "experience", I'll change too and I'll go against my gay brothers and sisters as Ορθοδοξία seems to want. Which I won't. I hope. I can only hope my heart won't change, even if I marry a guy and go ahead and have children of my own. Like... it doesn't make sense, HOW did she change her mind in the first place??? How does that happen to someone? Will it happen to me too?

3. "It's okay, I love you for who you are." In the end, all is good. Even if she thinks she's a phase that I'll grow out of, and probably would not allow me to think about dating/settling with another woman, she's not cutting me out of the will! She still loves me!! It's a win for me. :D

Also she approves of cute gender neutral nicknames because she's always called me that. Like: το ζουζουνάκι, το μαρουδάκι (εννοώντας πασχαλίτσα🐞), το κουφετάκι, κτλ.

I really love her little habits I'm sorry. :')

B. Αδερφούλα

I'll keep it brief because there's not as much to say. She's younger than me so she used to have a very much "oh ew wtf" reaction.

But recently?? She's been treating it like an inside joke??? Like, refering to me as "το τέρας" ή "το αρνί" because she knows I love being affectionately/jokingly called an "it". Also making gay jokes in rare occasions, which I love.

She's a little insecure about being perceived as Λεσβία for her fashion sense, and I regularly assure her that she can wear whatever makes her feel good and not worry about how others see her. Can she rock a γυναικείο κουστούμι like a boss? Fuck yea. Does that mean she's a lesbian just because she looks masculine and pretty at the same time? Fuck no, you do you boo. I know how much you like dressing like this. Nobody's opinion can take it away. And lesbians are not Bad either, so she has a lot to unpack in the future. But I'm still very proud of her and how far she's come since I first told her (long before mom actually) and I absolutely love her to death.

Also she called me a bottom. Shame on her. Gah, siblings.

Honorary entries:

C. Dad

I have yet to come out to him because he often ridicules openly queer people on TV. Like, οικογενειακά watching Eurovision the Maneskin year (every year really) was both hilarious and terrifying.

But, like?? He's also lowkey kinda Bi too in a repressed way? In the way that he's loyal to the woman he married but also making strong bromances when given the chance? It's so funny to me, because he has such a soft and fond expression when talking about friends he has sort of trauma-bonded with (term used loosely, but you know how Dads are).

I could also be just tripping and trying to seek comradeship where there's none because Parents are the ones a child seeks to relate to, but I'd rather not psychoanalyse me rn.

D. Granny

Also can I just talk about Passive Acceptance. Because granny (without knowing about my identity) sometimes refers to me and my sister as παλικάρι in a Gender Neutral sense ("δεν είναι μόνο τα αγόρια παλικάρια" she says. granny is a feminist icon without even trying to be. slay.) and it makes my woman-in-a-vague-sense-i-guess(?) heart do the little proud flutter thing.

Also does it make sense to be a non-binary when it comes to speaking English but sort of a woman (actually yes a woman but also yes and no at the same time because I look and act really soft cheery and feminine but I'm mentally also a τέρας από την άβυσσο και τα τάρταρα :D) when speaking Greek??? It's so confusing, how can I perceive gender in two entirely different ways at the same time what the everloving fuck. What AM I...??

Again, sorry for the jumbled thoughts, my last three braincells are busy rn χορεύing Καλαματιανό.

Γειαα! Παιδια με σκλαβωνετε με τα μηνυματα σας τελευταια 💗 Ειλικρινα χαιρομαι παρα πολυ που εχω εστω και λιγο την εμπιστοσυνη σας - εγω μια ξενη στο ιντερνετ - και μου λετε τις σκεψεις και τις ιστοριες σας! Το εκτιμω παρα πολυ!

Να ξερετε οτι ακομα και αν τυχον διαφωνο��με σε καποια πραγματα, μπορειτε να μου στελνετε μηνυματα. Γιατι ποτε δε θα διαφωνησω με το δικαιωμα καποιου να ζει με ασφαλεια και να ειναι ο εαυτος του (το οποιο ειναι ανθρωπινο δικαιωμα ουτως ή αλλως)

Επισης: Δημοσιευω το μηνυμα επειδη δεν υπηρχε καποια δηλωση που ελεγε να μην το κανω. Αν καποιος ομως θελει να μη δημοσιευσω καποιο μηνυμα ή να διαγραψω καποιο μηνυμα, ας μου το πει, δεν υπαρχει θεμα!

Οκ switching off to English!

The whole experience is So Greek, damn! Starting with Mother, telling her Descriptively, her saying that she also liked women "one time", then considering that something is off with Dad as well, then mentioning the accidentally supportive Grandma who gives no shits... Πρεπει να εχουμε ενα σχετικο επεισοδιο στις Οικογενειακές Ιστορίες ετσι για την ταυτιση των τηλεθεατων.

Also, just because I am a nosy dramatic bitch, I would DEFINITELY bring back this conversation if this was my mum, and I would tell her "You know that you like women too, right? You can't just... lose attraction for a whole gender overnight. And they also say that sexual orientation is genetic......" Just to see her reaction and try to convince her 😂 (Don't attempt if you think it won't go well for you! 😅)

I'm really happy about how you handled things with your sis! Being perceived as a lesbian is nothing bad because lesbians are nothing bad! She can rock whatever she wants, like you said! There are lesbians out there who dress like "everyone else", meaning that clothes can potentially be a hint but you can never tell just by the clothes. She has a lot to unpack indeed but with more teaching moments by you, I'm sure she's in good hands.

Oooooh that Dad case! I have a theory here, knowing Greek dads. Perhaps he will be more supportive than you think. Not just because of the things you mentioned, but because he loves you and supports you as his child (from what I read). Greek dads can be ride or die, especially with their daughters. So, if you are confident enough when you tell him, if you look logical and self-aware, he actually might back you up and he might be the most supportive! Parents often dismiss their children because they believe that children are doing it for attention, or because of a whim. Greek dads, I've noticed, want things to be told to them with huuuge neon letters, otherwise they don't act on the situation.

For example, you can be like "Dad, I want to tell you something. (diretor hint: play it sad and worried here, he might feel the need to be protective instead of defensive) I like women too, and I have been feeling it for a long time. I didn't feel it because someone else "indoctrinated" me to it. It's a natural feeling to me. It is not a phase. I cannot switch it on and off like it's a hall light. Most importantly, this is not dangerous for me. I know that you might be concerned and we can talk about it. I just want you to know because this is an important part of who I am."

-- Again, assess the situation accordingly. You definitely don't have to do anything I suggest. And you can make the dialogue more or less cheesy :P In any case, when you talk to him keep in mind that he's an older man who grew up in specific decades and you have to make an effort to set things his way otherwise things will be lost in translation and neither of you will notice.

That's how I got an old aunt to support me. 😂This aunt was the type that says "A woman liking another woman?? Ιησούς Χριστός!!" I noticed what things she valued most (being your own person, having fun in life, not allowing anyone to step on you) and I built my case by telling her that the way I live at the moment gives me all these advantages. I also matched her tone, and I tried to see things from her side, which eventually helped guide her to the mindset I wanted to introduce her to. Sometimes many conversations and subtle hints are needed for this guidance. And they also need to like you because the Greek statement "το δικο μας το παιδι ποτε δεν κανει κατι κακο! το δικο μας το παιδι ειναι χρυσο!" will usually prevail over "A woman liking another woman?? Ιησούς Χριστός!!" 😂

What's more, some parents of queer kids already know what their kids are. They just don't say anything out of fear they will encourage this behaviour. Meanwhile the kids get stressed for decades about how the parents will react, and when they finally come out the parents, the parents are like "eh... we already knew, to be honest. We've been watching you hug and kiss girls since you were like... six. We just hoped that you'd grow out of it, that's why we didn't bring it up. We didn't want you to grow up into a behaviour that would separate you from other kids cause they would bully you and harm you."

The grandma is TOP, by the way! I feel like many older people really know what's important in life. The thought of two women getting married might never be palatable to her but she knows that alienating family members for harmless shit is not where it's at. I love her already!

On the "It's so confusing, how can I perceive gender in two entirely different ways at the same time what the everloving fuck. What AM I…??"

It is a fact that people slightly switch personalities when switching languages. English is a more polite, careful, and tip-toeing language, while in Greece malakas is a word of love if said to your friend 😂 And it's true that cultures perceive gender in different ways. So if you switch to US English and get into their mindset, they have another version of femininity. (Well, the whole country is diverse but I'm talking about the generic, permeating WASP stereotype of the preferred femininity in the US media)

I switch behavior in English too and sometimes I find that I'm more polite and "more feminine" there, which for me... eeeh not my style so much. (English makes us dysphoric, pass it down 😂😂😂😂)

Which brings me to another discussion. I am not nonbinary so I won't want to speculate on what nonbinary is and how it feels. Instead I will speak about a phenomenon sometimes seen in women, who, (sometimes!) need to be seen as a person (who deserves full respect) and not "just a woman" they take up the nonbinary label. Being a woman (or a man) comes with certain expectations and baggage and sometimes as a woman (or as a man) you can totally feel like "fuck it, I want to opt out" or "I already don't do these things and I don't want to ever do them or feel them, so I guess am actually not a woman/man".

I want to stress again that I don't imply non-binary people are this. And I'm not saying that's you. I'm just leaving this out there because it's very harmful when society makes you feel like "failing" at your gender and telling you "you are not a real man/woman because you don't do the X stereotypes", and some people fall for it want to "opt out" of their gender without realizing that in the process they're following the logic of... binaries.

Whatever you identify as should come from the inside, not from what society tells you a woman should be. Because, as you noticed, the Greek and the US society have different notions of what a woman "should be". Heck, you might move to Sweden and find out that out there you feel like Barbie while in Greece you may feel like Babis doing the exact same things😂 Don't rely on society and stereotypes, my humble opinion is. Rely on yourself. And it's okay if you don't have a definitive answer to "what you are". Just live and present as you are most comfortable.

One more thought that I have, which you can also take or leave, is about the sexuality part. I'm not family or a friend, and I don't know you well. I'm not an authority and I don't think my words are scripture. My speculation could perhaps help your brain cells stop χορεύειν τσάμικον γύρω απ τη φωτιά στο δάσος 😂

Sooo... have you considered asexuality?

Heeeaaar me out. Your confusion seems a bit similar to that of people who are asexual but don't know it yet. First of all, there's a difference between aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction. Asexuals usually start thinking they are gay or bi because their sexual attraction to men and women is the same. Zero. 0 = 0 after all 😂

At the same time, asexuals can often feel "off" in their gender and gender expression because automatically they don't subscribe to amatonormative rules and hence, they don't subscribe to gender rules.

An asexual can still have aesthetic attraction to people (just not sexual) and want a romantic relationship. An asexual can have aesthetic attraction to only one gender or many. There's a whole spectrum in asexuality, and there are ace identities like the aegosexuals who are actually not sex repulsed. They are interested in sex as an idea, but they just don't experience sexual attraction for people in real life. (Imagine it like, you like watching football for the rush and the technique, but there's nooo way you want to go down on the field and start kicking a ball.)

Their relationships with their significant others are often "queerplatonic" because the way they perceive gender and companionship (that is not friendship) is queer compared to the rest of society.

I thought about this cause you mentioned the "hauntingly persistent bisexuality", and also because usually the answer to "so you wanna fuck women?" is "eh…yes??" if you are attracted to women in the usual way xD But of course, it might be just your character, that you don't want to focus on sex despite having sexual attraction, and, as you said avoid "dehumanizing" the other. So again, my speculation might be wrong. If you know you are sexually attracted to people, and if you don't have to ask "what is sexual attraction tho?" then that's probably not it😄

Okay, I rambled for too long again but I hope this message has helped you at least in one way. Know that you are already slaying out there and you WILL CONTINUE to slay because you're a cool and kind person with great self-reflection skills.

=================================

Generic message: If my posts have helped you in any way consider buying me a ko-fi 💖

[whentommymetalfie]

Hey again! I‘m sorry, the review took a little longer.

Hang on… you what?!? You wrote a „rough draft currently sitting at 15k for the WTMA-verse“?!? Accidently?!? Uhhhhh, I‘m so hyped now! 🤩 And I just discovered that you posted two whumptober Oneshots and I have to say I love your description „It's basically just an excuse for me to put Tommy in various terrible situations“. YES PLEASE! 😄😎 I can‘t help myself, I love a good hurt/comfort story and you write them so, so well! The two of them are made for it (don't let them hear that!). The way you picture Alfie and his ramblings and thoughts always makes me grin. I really liked your two storys and am so happy you‘re doing this! Thank you! Can‘t wait for more! 😊

Back to Home to you: Can I stand up for Arthur? You somehow want to hug him constantly (or lets say: on some days), even though he has his flaws (big ones, I know). Kudos to Alfie for always just being able to control himself. 😄 And here comes Polly... A really great idea to make Tommy find his voice again! This scene particularly drew me into the story and let me see everything with halted breath. Thanks for that! I love it when that happens! Alfie's reaction is understandable, long overdue and heartbreaking, but at the same time so touching because Tommy is there for him. 🥰

Thanks for the new chapter, it was great to read as always! ❤️

You’re too kind ❤️ ❤️ it really makes my day that you take time out of your day to write to me!

And thank you! I’m loving whumptober (even if I already realize I can’t write short enough stuff to post every day. Have to do stupid things like ’work’ and ’eat’ in between…) and I’m having so much fun writing oneshots, throwing all caution to the wind and reaching new levels of self indulgence. If this is going to be just 31 one fics of Tommy suffering in various ways? That’s highly likely. If not during whumptober, when? I’ve really reminded myself that fanfic is just a hobby and if I want to write like 10K words of the same thing, then that’s okay. Hopefully someone out there will enjoy it. And obviously I do agree -hurt/comfort really is, my Brand TM if I dare to call it that. Might as well embrace it. Another fic will be up tonight:)As for the wtma-AU fic, I’m so excited to know you’re excited about it too! More updates on that to come.

And back to Home to you: Arthur really is trying his best to be a good big brother, here. Sometimes he might fumble in the dark for a bit, but ultimately his motives are good (even if that can’t always excuse his actions). And Alfie, beginning to understand that, can therefore cut him some slack on occasion. Even if he can’t keep his mouth shut entirely, nor should he. 

The scene with Polly has been in the making (aka been rattling around in my brain) since the very beginning of the story, and as always that made it a challenge to get right, so I’m very happy to know you enjoyed it.

Thanks again for your thoughtful message ❤️ 

[suitelifeofzackandmody]

update / where the hell have you been?? (sep 13)

i can't believe my last post was eight months ago. i mean, i can believe it. i do have a history of abandoning blogs and other social media projects, usually for no apparent reason. this time, though, i kind of know why.

i had my first appointment with my new pcp in february. she was lovely, but when i went to get bloodwork done and do the follow-up appointment, my insurance had a meltdown and refused to cover it for reasons i couldn't seem to get to the bottom of. supposedly, this medical group and practice was in-network, and i am lucky enought that i can choose my pcp, but they still denied coverage for the follow-up after they had covered my previous visit with her with no issue. whatever. it took me two months to get it sorted, and by that time i was drowning in exams and homework and i was not in the mood to take care of it. i said i would make an appointment over the summer, but i didn't. i'm a big numbers person, and so seeing the results of recent labwork, whether it be good or bad, is a big motivator for me to eat healthy and exercise. Without having that, and with no doctor's appointment in sight to act as an accountability check-in, i just did whatever i wanted, which was almost always the exact opposite of what i'm supposed to be doing.

i also had a family incident back in march that left me reeling and demoralized. i will not go into any detail as it is private, but it turned what was supposed to be a joyous occasion into something that haunted me mentally and emotionally for months. my mental health in march-june was at the lowest point it has been for a very long time, and i had absolutely no one i could talk to about it. it was scary. i coped by secretly bingeing food (especially sweets, which as a type 2 diabetic is obviously a huge no-no) and ignoring my responsibilities in favor of any distraction that would keep me from having a thought(tm). unsurprisingly, my grades slipped, my physical health went to shit, i hated myself and my body, and i was ten times more miserable than before. i've never really had friends on campus, but i had people from my classes i was cool with that i talked to, but even those relationships crumbled for reasons i didn't understand. my social anxiety shot through the roof, and the more i was pushed away by these people the more i tried to contort myself into someone they liked, to no avail. i was constantly having issues at work, and i was on campus for so many hours per day four days per week around people that no longer liked me, it was all just completely unsustainable. mercifully, the semester did end, but by the time it did i was left with no friends, no job, a substantially lower gpa than i was okay with, and a brain that wanted to off itself. i had orignally planned on taking online classes during the summer session, but it was clear that i was burned out and would need to spend the summer finding a new job and just trying to patch my life up as best i could.

thankfully, there were also some good moments, too. i was able to take a trip over the summer and see some beautiful nature and visit one of my favorite places. it was a whirlwind that was a ton of fun and exactly what i needed, but it was also an exhausting week. i came back with some concerning symptoms that i probably should have investigated further, but i am still alive and they pretty much went away, so idk. i went to the beach for the day a few times, which has always been really good for my mental health. i started a casual creative writing project that i just work on whenever and don't worry too much about writing well that makes me happy. the fall semester has begun, and i decided to take all online classes, and things are going really well. i am healing, and while there are things i am still grappling with like proper diet and exercise or loneliness, i am a lot better than i was just a couple of months ago.

i hope to get back on track healthwise in the next few weeks. i let my gym membership expire because it was expensive and i wasn't using it, but i think it's time to go back. i am getting back into meal prepping, but it is more difficult than usual because right now i am experiencing aversions to the texture and/or taste of most vegetables and fruits (among other healthy foods), so i am trying to find ways to hide them. i am working on a smoothie recipe that is so far going pretty well, but it is still naturally higher in sugar than i want and i'm not sure how to deal with that.

the goal of this blog has always been to document my journey, keep myself accountable, and to have a place to share some of my thoughts on food, physical and mental health/wellness, and what it's like being a young person with type 2 diabetes existing in a fat body. this has not changed in the last few months, but it was just not something i had the capacity to think about or write about lately. now that i am in a better place, however, that is exactly what i'll be doing. i plan on posting something at least once per week, whether it's an update on how i'm doing, a recipe i've created or a review of one i've tried, a story i want to share, or other thoughts i have on these topics. if that sounds like something you want to see, please stick around!

<3 thanks for reading <3

-suitelifeofzackandmody

[spyderslut]

im barely holding it together

Ive by the skin of my teeth scraped together rent for the month, and put 200$ towards next month. Itll be a tight squeeze but Im probably not gonna be homeless. I have several large bags of lentils and wheatflour and oats that ive saved for just such an occasion. It wont be fun, but I wont starve.

But i havent been able to buy medication for close to a month now. Ive got my last couple estrogen patches on me and im gonna just be leaving em on there to try and get somthing outa them. My anti anxiety/antidepressant medication was really nice, meant I didnt just shut down nearly as easily, meant it was much easier to find the will to get outa bed and out of the house, meant I didnt think about wanting to die. But now ive gotta walk on eggshells, around myself. It is so fucking exhausting to be constantly careful/on the lookout for anything that could send you into a badthoughts (tm) spiral. But, ive managed to not do that. Ive not gotten out of the house as much and ive felt consistently worse just about every moment of every day, but no badthoughts (tm) But for how much longer? Many of the things I hold onto as anchor points arent unlimited. Once my last two estrogen patches start itching too much ill probably boil them in water and then drink it to try and get the last bits out, but eh? Maybe ill get some money for my birthday thats coming in the next week. It might even be enough to pay for another month of rent, probably at least for another months hrt/medication. But after that? I dont know. If I like to help people but am unwilling to accept charity myself, then that basically me saying that im better than everyone I want to help, and I am very much not.

I have both a Kofi and a fansly. If you would like to see somthing nsfw and give me money, then go to the fansly. If you would rather not see somthing nsfw, then go to my kofi.

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

Bestie I just found a genuine mink fur coat at the thrift store, for $25. I’m kinda in shock and over the moon about this. I’ve been thrifting for years and never found a deal like this before. Anyways: I’m pretty sure it’s mink but it may be a different animal. It’s definitely genuine, but no tag. It’s knee-length, slouchy, and mostly brownish with darker brown (almost black) lines going vertically. I very rarely wear brown tho and I live in the middle of nowhere with no Occassions™️ to wear a fur coat to. So my question is: how do I style this?? Would it be weird to wear it into my 9-5 office job and/or as I’m running errands?? Do you have outfit suggestions??

Oooohhhh!!!! You hit jackpot my friend! Congrats that sounds like an absolutely delectable coat!

I am very pro wearing fur everywhere and at all times especially if you live somewhere cold so don't worry about finding an #occasion(tm). Absolutely wear it to run errands and to work (any side eye you get is flattery in another form) just be mindful of the weather and make sure you take good care of it. Good fur will last forever but no one likes mange lol.

I dont know what you have in your closet or what your usual style is so I can only speak for my own proclivities IRT styling. It's fur so it's more or less dressed up by default. Any jewelry or bling at all will push it way OTT. If that's your vibe I recommend pearls for the good ol dowager countess look. If you're looking for something a little more contemporary go monochrome (and yes I'm thinking black as I write this but chase your bliss) - turtleneck, boots (heel and shaft height and toe shape will really impact the overall #Vibe so try different combos and see whats comfy for you) and whatever matching pants you have (probably the slimmer the better? Try a bunch of fits but not leggings - thats way too tryhard Aspen slope bunny), big sunglasses and a matching leather bag or tote, hair up in a claw clip if you can/want to, maybe a pair of small hoops in the metal of your choice depending on how you feel - you're good to go. A midi silk slip skirt in place of the trousers would also work (any color but I recommend neutrals cause I'm me) with knee boots but that'll be much dressier. Avoid pairing it with blue jeans or sneakers that will cheapen the coat and also you (imagine Grisabella from Cats), you want a boot, something that doesn't break up your leg so the coat can speak for itself. If you're feeling particularly Brooklyn hipster get yourself a wide brimmed hat, some cowboy boots and a maxi skirt and wear the coat unbuttoned.

I've seen some exceptionally wealthy older women around where I work who wear their fur much more adventurously (plaids or monochrome green paired with big brooches or something) but I wouldn't know the first bit of advice to give about that.

I've never actually owned a fur coat so this is all conjecture on my part. Just throw together a bunch of outfits and try it out and see what works. Always dress how you're comfy and how you feel good. I hope you enjoy your new coat! I'm jealous!

[cleverwinepun]

The Wine ‘fo Today

Forza Moscato! Look at this photo of her, why is it so funny? The closeup shot for no reason in the worlds crunchiest quality, for a quality ($5) wine.

Alrighty, so of course I’m going to dedicate the first “professional wine taste tm” review to the wine that inspired me to start this little blog for myself. This wine was so good to me it got me to start a blog??? Idk at first I snapped a photo of the bottle IMMEDIATELY after having my first sip so I could remember I liked it and buy it in the future and then I thought hey why don’t I write this down? In fact I should write about all the wines I like, maybe even the ones I didn’t like. Maybe … like my own personal wine review journal? A BLOG? Why am i this passionate about wine ? Did I inherit the alcoholic gene? (Yes) I basically just wanted to scrapbook every drink I’ve ever liked for future reference and thought this was a pretty silly and elaborate way to do so.

I’m not sure how those professional wine tasters describe the wines they drink, what the notes are, how the hell they can tell the literal chemical compound of the liquid just by gargling it. All I know is that this wine just tastes like juice, n that’s why mama likey. My favorite wines are definitely the ones that are basically “fruit juice that makes my tummy feel funny” because I’m literally an overgrown child. This one was very lovely! Basically tasted like the white grape juice you find in the supermarket, and is only like 6 bucks. It’s main attribute is that it’s VERY sweet, like salivates your mouth upon contact sweet. I had it warm so this sweetness was probably a little more prominent thanks to that, and though I expressed to myself it would probably be even better chilled, I did not get to try it that way. I’m known to not be the best at sipping in moderation, and fruity drinks are always a very dangerous game because the less it tastes like alcohol, the faster I’m going to drink it, and the faster I will get drunk (This of course does not bother me, but definitely bothers my mother, the one who is actually doing the wine purchasing) Overall, just a very sweet drink I’d mostly recommend for a time you wish to experience a little jolt while you watch a silly show or something, but not really to accompany a nice dinner or anything. Maybe something to stick in the mango slushie you ordered with your Taco Bell meal while you watch Big Brother or some other drivel (slash positive).

Rating

I’m not exactly sure how this bottle got in my house? Some family came over earlier on the same day I tried the wine randomly at 3am, and it was just put out on the table. It was put out half empty though? Like it didn’t seem like my mother went out and bought it for the occasion that same morning, and I swear I’ve never seen the bottle before then? Where the hell could she have been hiding it if that was the case? When was she drinking this, because why else would it be half empty? Lot of unanswered questions with this bottle, but I’ve always liked my women a little mysterious. Anyways solid 5/5, but I am only going to be able to try her like three times because once again the bottle was presented half empty and I’m trying to do some Houdini level trickery to make it seem like the liquid level has not changed by keeping it above the bottom of the logo line so it’s not obvious I’ve been sneaking cups of it while everyone is asleep (how I enjoy most of my drinks). Can’t wait to buy her for myself in like a year and a month. Nummy nummy nummy.

My Sipping Buddy:

I really wanna include this segment to shoutout what I was doing or who I was with while enjoying the drink in question, but my very legit physic senses are telling me most of these are gonna be whatever silly YouTube video I watched while I drank bc I mostly drink alone in my bedroom at odd hours of the night, so…

My sipping buddy for this wine was Jenny Nicholson! Specifically this 3 hour docu-tube-mentary on Evermore; which despite it’s not super long timespan, took me like two whole days to watch?? Idk I kept stopping and attempting (and obviously failing) to watch it in odd places like in the shower. Anyways it left me longing for a alternate dimension where Evermore wasn’t a total flop and delivered on everything it said it would be and I got to go and I would officially be able to die the happiest person on planet earth because I was alive at a time where I could go to the coolest larping theme park on Earth. God I really wish Evermore turned out how it was envisioned. Great video though, Jenny is always a hoot, and I love a good deep dive into the most random shit.

Anyways my tummy hurts because my body is freaking out over not having a baby inside it this month and I am starting to physically feel my eyebags resting on my face so I’m not proof reading this and posting it now. But let’s be honest even if I wasn’t in excruciating pain I’m probably not gonna proofread anything I post here.

[arrancar-anthology]

*slams hands down on the table*

GRIMMJOW PORN

Hello, my Deer-ly beloathed wife. When I asked you to send in an ask I did not mean "send the horniest thing possible right out the gate", but I love you regardless. Here is your catboy porn.

Dominate (Grimmjow Smut Headcanons)

Warnings: nsfw, rough sex, Grimmjow Moment(tm), praise kink

First off, don't expect to get any sleep tonight, and clear your schedule for the day after. Grimmjow takes most things as a competition, and fucking is one of them. If you're able to move afterwards, he'll take it as him not doing a good enough job.

He's a biter. He wants to claim you as his own, and on god is he going to let everyone know it. He's going to give you marks in the hardest to hide spots, broadcasting that you belong to him- and solely to him.

He's almost certainly the dominant one in bed (and in the relationship). If you want something, and he's in a teasing mood, you will have to get down and beg your king for whatever your heart desires. Hell, he might just give it to you, if you act cute enough.

If you're not praising him and his cock, he'll more than happily force you on your knees and show you exactly why you should be doing so. He loves being able to look down at you around him, and loves hearing how much you belong to him.

He's going to break the bed unless you use his. This is a fact of life that you better get used to sooner rather than later. Your bed will be broken. It's better to just constantly share one with Grimmjow, and he won't mind; he loves keeping his things close, and your warmth isn't something he'll decline.

Has sex on as many occasions as possible. Upset? He's fucking you until you both feel better. Mad? He's pinning you down until he gets it out of his system. Happy? He may not actually break the bed for this one, but you can guess what will happen. Sad? Distraction sex. This is a man whose three emotions are "Fight", "Horny", and "Boredom", and if he can't fight anything but you're around and consenting, he's going to fuck you.

Big on consent. Has a safeword, makes sure to double check if your "no" and "stop"s are truly no and stop (if you use them without meaning to, that is), and for the first few times likely asks what you liked and didn't like, and adjusts himself accordingly.

He loves praising you almost as much as he loves you praising him. You're his lover, and he only chooses the best of the best, and he will remind you of that every chance he gets.

I wish I could say he's the king of aftercare, but more often than not he either passes out on top of you, or rolls over and talks for an hour. When he does remember aftercare is a thing, he mostly just cleans you up, chucks some water at you, and demands to know what food you want before getting it. The few times he runs baths for you, he has to get help setting it up, and the fraccion he chooses to help out teases him for a while about it.

I am so sorry to say this but, while mostly humanoid, his penis still has some barbs. Take that how you will (and in what hole).