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samuraijackenjoyer · 7 months

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sometimes I wonder what the fuck Genndy was thinking with Jack and his mother’s robes. I don’t even know where he got the idea for plain white kimono, considering that’s not really something in any samurai movies and such. The thing that’s especially amusing to anyone who knows abt traditional Japanese clothing is that. that’s essentially long Johns or a slip. It’s the underwear of the actual kimono and is sometimes a sleep dress. I think I know of one Japanese media where a plain white kimono is used as an actual public presenting outfit, and it’s Okami where Kushi wears one as the sacrificial offering. (hold on, getting to that.) If he wanted it to be an actual training gi, for one it doesn’t make sense that his mother is wearing the exact same thing, and two, it’s not a single layer kimono. anything samurai wore was not a single robe— the kimono shirt was double layered (with the white juban underneath normally) and the hakama pants were pants, not an open robe, despite often looking like a dress to outsiders bc of how flowing and wide they are. A gi looks even less like Jack’s robe— think of the white karate outfits. That’s a gi. For Iaido and Kendo and such the training clothing does tend to be the kimono shirt and hakama, but it’s not white on white, and I don’t know that it would be called a gi like the type worn for judo and such. I just wonder where the hell Genndy got the idea of Jack just essentially wearing underwear all the time lmao. I DO understand why he chose white, he wanted the contrast between Jack and Aku, but choosing a single layer plain white robe, beyond just for the sake of simplicity in animation, is the thing that surprises me. (Not in a negative way, just that I wonder where it came from). I have to wonder what people watching in Japan thought of Jack wearing that. No one seems to feel strongly enough to comment, and I believe part of that is just suspension of disbelief and Samurai Jack being such a simplistic cartoon in its displays that it’s kind of easy to ignore, but there have to be times ppl wonder why he’s wearing that lol. Especially bc Genndy KNOWS the proper attire, evidenced by the clothes he puts on Jack’s father in both the opening scenes and Birth of Evil.

I highly doubt this much thought was put into Jack’s clothing, but I do like to think that the reason Jack wears such a shockingly minimal and unarmored outfit is because of his function as the one meant to defeat Aku. Going back to the mention of Kushi in Okami, she wears those clothes bc she is meant to be the “pure, innocent, sacrificial offering”. The robe is not unlike those worn in Shinto purification rituals, or robes worn by Buddhist priests. It’s also very well known for being the clothes a dead person is put in. Kushi was basically wearing her shroud. Tying that in with Jack, I believe the reason Jack wears what he does is because he is meant to be similar. Jack is an offering from his parents, giving up their son to be the nameless warrior in order to defeat Aku for good. They want him to be the antithesis to everything that Aku is, so Jack wears robes meant for purification and to an extent representing sacrifice, a simple, genderless and unadorned kimono very uncharacteristic of the Emperor’s son, because as long as Aku lives, that title is not his. Jack wears that robe because he is meant to be the pure, innocent, forged and powerful sacrificial challenger to defeat Aku, or die trying.

As for Jack’s mother, part of me wonders if she had connections to the monks she stays with in the opening, and therefore from the moment she and the emperor decided on their son being the backup plan in case Aku returned, she was preparing both herself and him in her own way. (That’s the best explanation I can think of bc all things considered his mother should have been wearing some very heavy and ornate court Kimono. Maybe she and the emperor just weren’t into the style lmao.) edit: she DOES wear what looks like a simplified layered kimono in a few scenes, but the ones where she’s with her son, like the opening and I think the scene where she’s making a straw hat, she’s usually wearing a white robe.

#jack #s1-4 #samurai jack #sorry for the slightly disorganized rant I just find that interesting #if anyone keeps up w my main I have a thread where Jack gives a little detail explaining his very un-samurai-like robe #as purified and blessed by Yamabushi monks (very isolated extreme and ascetic style monks)#pushing Jack being the opposite of Aku in more than just physical #and the sword and his robe was clearly being hidden in a Buddhist temple if the giant Buddha statue is anything to go by lol #yet another reason for Jack to wear all white as a method of opposing Aku

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brahkest-fr · 1 year

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do you have any tips on making fandragons? yours are really good in a way i cant quite quantify

oh why thank you! I love my dumb fandergs so much kldjkldd

I'm not sure if I have tips per se, but I can explain how my thought process works when I do make fandergs so maybe that can be helpful 👀

when it comes to making them, the way I do it is first deciding what breed to make em. I consider what details I want to bring out of the fandom character so for example, I made my Johnny Bravo dragon a pearlcatcher cuz I wanted the dragon to have hair but not so much like a tundra. I also had an outfit in mind (to match Johnny's t shirt and jeans) so that ruled out ancients since you can't dress em and I didn't feel like making a skin lol.

and behold: a man™. when I drew him, I thought it'd be funny to actually match the style of the show so he's all angular and disproportionate. I only included features that I wanted from the pearlcatcher like the horn, ears, and tail and tbh he looks like a rhino lol but I decided stuff like the hair tufts on the face and limbs was too much for my taste.

same thing went for my Samurai Jack dragon. however, this guy's actual dragon sprite is a lot more complex just cuz I felt like making him fancy and giving him armor.

but when I drew him, he's just very much like Jack in the show, including the style. and I'm not saying fandergs have to match the style of whatever, I just think it's a fun nod. you can also notice here I didn't draw the smoke gene on him. that's just a personal decision I wanted to keep only on the sprite, in reference to Japanese ink paintings.

my design philosophy in general is "how would x person look like if they were a dragon." but if it's like an animal/creature fanderg (like for example my bazelgeuse derg from monster hunter) then I just kinda combine both elements together.

so for Tasha here, laced and edged look like chonky scales which for me was close enough to the egg-like scales of bazel and I got a skin for the fire theming. no clothes cuz I didn't wanna cover up the skin so sometimes I don't even dress em up if I prefer seeing their bodies.

when I drew her, you can see the combined bits of both the monster and wildclaw - bazel's wings, the chonk claws, egg scales, facial features - wc tail feathers, the multigaze, feather hair. there's a lot of "use your imagination" in my designs so like, I don't usually take things at immediate face value. so some people might see laced/edged as just flat scales or maybe even feathers but my brain went oh those are fat fuck egg bombs kjldfkldkl.

sometimes my fandergs are just inspired from colors like Baja who's a taco bell fan dragon lol. I saw this hat and was like yeah I can do something with that. another example of a derg I didn't really dress cuz I wanna see the baja blast™ capsule. Baja would prolly be one of the more thematically standard flight rising dergs of my fandom ones cuz she's just a spiral without anything fancy pancy going on like the previous ones.

and sometimes it's just fun to make things kinda funky. for my Jacket fanderg, I was like, what if the chicken mask was literally a part of him and badabing it worked out really well with scales. his other colors are like red and white cuz I wanted a sort of basic bitch rooster color scheme. most of the fandom bits come from the skin I made him so he's a bit more involved on the artsy side of things. the art of him afterwards became a literal interpretation of the sprite.

I have a lot more fandergs of course but that's more or less my thought process on designing them! I don't usually have any sort of standard for designs, it really ends up being how much I feel like putting in and how much do I directly want to interpret from a fandom source. sometimes it's very literal and other times it's like a lil nod or so. tbh, you can really make a fanderg out of anything since what you wanna see is entirely up to you. I personally think it's pretty fun to see how close I can get with just what the site has to offer.

I have two more fandergs I'm actually working on rn and am very excited to share when I get to it hohohehe

#I'm so deep in fandom stuff rn it's insane #no one look at me I'm having a moment #fandergs #blood #multigaze #multiple eyes

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roastedstix · 9 months

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2024 (Part 2/3) - MASHED!

Surely you didn't think that I made NOTHING these past few years since Episode 1 of Dark Harvest? Quite the contrary, I think I've made more minutes of animation than I did in my entire life.

So in the previous blog post, I briefly mentioned that I have been doing freelance work here and there. I kinda wanted to post about all of them because I've worked on a LOOOOT of things.

So first off, I've been doing animation for MASHED on Youtube. Maybe you've seen their videos. They do cartoon parodies of beloved IPs like Mario and Sonic. And Sonic, and also sonic (Okay I've done a lot of Sonic cartoons for them is my point). I'm pretty proud of all of these honestly.

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This was one of the first ones I made. I'm not very good at muscular characters so this was a bit of a challenge. I'm only vaguely aware of Jojo's Bizzare Whatevers but I KNOW it enough just from exposure to popular culture. I made this during the COVID lockdowns. I live in the Philippines, infamous for having one of the longest lockdowns so this really was ALL I did during that time. That and playing some Animal Crossing and Death Stranding.

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This is another one I made. This one and the previous one was already storyboarded. Didn't have as much difficulty with this one. I haven't played a single Zelda game besides Majora's Mask (and not finishing it) so I was hoping I didn't draw anything wrong or something. Spoilers: I drew something wrong. Or colored something wrong Idk.

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This one's pretty cool, this was the first one I storyboarded and I had some input in the character designs. Really fun to work on but I barely made the deadline for this one and as I was finishing it, we were hit with one of the worst typhoons in the history of the Philippines. So that was a fun memory. Having no power and hoping to GOD that Dropbox finished syncing the video file.

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This one was also very fun. I wanted to go for the "no-outline" look, kinda like Samurai Jack. I really like how it ended up looking. Definitely one of my favorites. I also got to use After Effects for the viruses.

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Now, this one was a delight. I don't really have anything else to say, it's Thomas the Tank Engine fighting with Postman Pat. They asked me to switch the style to something anime-inspired for some parts which was definitely fun to do. So I can't draw anime for shit, but whatever I ended up drawing, I thought were pretty funny. This ended up doing very well that they wanted me to do two more:

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I had a blast working on all these. Even though they were quite stressful sometimes but I'm here for it. There are still stuff I've worked on which I will discuss in Part 3.

#blog #Youtube

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pynkhues · 3 months

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Hey!! This is for the film ask ,animation addition!! Because I love cartoons and these films, I feel are a bit underrated so I’m wondering if you seen them and what your thoughts were

Coraline

Hotel Transylvania

Monster House

Wendell & Wild

Monsters inc

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Robots

Sry this is a lot 😭 but I absolutely love hearing your thoughts on movies

Hey! Don't apologise, anon, I love getting asked about movies, haha, so thank you, and thank you for your lovely words! 😊

Coraline

Definitely an iconic work in both stop motion and in children's horror. I've been thinking quite a lot recently about how so many fairytales and folklore stories that were historically aimed at children shared tropes and tones with horror. That link is explored amazingly well in the documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, which I highly recommend, but I do love that there are these genre staples still in children's storytelling that brings that back to the fore. Coraline (along with a few of the other movies you've asked about) is definitely one of them, and I think is one of the ones that does it the best. Just a really great film.

Hotel Transylvania

I haven't seen this one, but I grew up with a lot of the director's other work (particularly The Powerpuff GIrls and Samurai Jack), so it's been on my list for a while. Now that my nephews are in the target demographic for it too, I should definitely try and watch it with them!

Monster House

I've heard a lot of good things about this one, but for some reason, I've just never gotten around to it.

Wendell & Wild

You've picked so many movies I've never seen, anon! That's truly a feat these days, haha. I've been really keen to see this one since it came out though. It's such a good cast, and Henry Selick is a giant among men when it comes to animation directors. Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas are obviously iconic, but I'm very partial to James and the Giant Peach too!

Monsters Inc

Easily one of Pixar's best. A lot of this works due to the worldbuilding and voicework chemistry between John Goodman and Billy Crystal, but the script is really strong too and that sequence with the doors is so original and innovative.

Oh man, I remember seeing this when it came out, but I don't think I remember much about it beyond having watched it, so I don't really want to rate it, haha. Mmm, I'm pretty sure I liked it? Might be one to rewatch though.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

I'm going to say never seen, because I haven't watched it in full, but I worked in a kids clothing store for three years when I was at university, and we had a little nook in the back of the store where kids could sit and watch movies. Head office would get us one (1) new movie a year, and this was the third one we got, so there are certain scenes I could probably recite, despite having never watched it, haha.

Robots

Imperfect, but underrated! It's a shame that Blue Sky Studios went so downhill so fast, because their first few releases - particularly Ice Age, Robots and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! - all suggested real promise and an interesting change in tone / pace compared to other animation houses at the time. Alas - they were reduced too quickly to sequels even before Disney shuttered them.

Ask me about movies

#thanks again!#these are fun #my nephews are at SUCH a fun age to watch movies with too so i've been watching quite a lot of kids films again lately #the 8yo is completely obsessed with nimona #last time i was looking after them he made us watch it five times in three days lol #we also watched the og star wars last time i had them too #they were sliiiightly too young for it still i think #but it was fun #they asked twelve million questions and kinda knew the characters already from the lego versions #it was so funny though #because they loved the robots but could never remember the right letter/number combos for r2d2 or c3po #so the random combos you'd get when they asked questions about them left us all tongue tied lmao #'what's p924 doing now?'#'where'd g2b2 go?'#anyway #thank you again haha #movies #film asks #movie ask game #welcome to my ama

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oldguy56-world · 10 months

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The Craft

My wife and her friends have a hobby and they are very good at it. They make crafts. All kinds of crafts from painting to beading to scrapbooking and everything in between.

My friends and I also have a hobby. While we are not very good at it there has been some progress. Our hobby is staying out of trouble and not making a mess. (technically that is two things but our male brains can only handle one thing at a time). If we were to change our hobby to TRYING to stay out of trouble and not make a mess we could say we are good at it as we do try all the time. (yes dear we do)

Actually I am not sure it is a hobby of my friends, but I do know they get written instructions when they are spending time with me containing a lot of dos and don'ts.

All of that aside, I find the world of my wife's 'crafting' an eye opener as I did not realize all the stuff that is out there waiting to be crafted. I know this because I go to the various supply stores to help. I must confess the limit of my helping is to carry stuff but that allows her two free hands to look at other stuff. I am not allowed to touch anything because, well I am me and she doesn't want me pulling a Mr. Bean in the store.

I do not mind taking my wife in as it is like visiting an entirely different world, but I have questions. Lots of questions.

Why are there so many beads? There are billions of beads. I tried counting the different types once but I passed out from hunger.

I found something called body butter and was intrigued. It turned out to not be what I thought. Why is it called this?

They have tiny pieces of wood that are $14.99 each. I can buy a 2x4 for this. What makes it so expensive?

Why are plain wood Nutcrackers the same price as the ones painted? Do they get the paint and labor for free?

I see other husbands also carrying stuff for their wives. We just look at each other and shrug. Why don't you put some crafts in there to keep us occupied? Paint by number nudes sounds like a winner to me.

Similar to the above, you have craft tools like teeny tiny pliers or glue guns. Why aren't there man sized tools in there for us to play with. I can spend hours with a samurai carving sword. Just as a suggestion.

There was a small pkg of yarn balls that sold for $9.99 because they were called gnome noses. Why not put in a gag section? Get some brown yarn ends and call them reindeer balls. That would keep me interested.

Final question. Why do you jack up the prices but every week they are on for 50% off? Who are you fooling?

By the way I don't mind spending time there. My wife watches hockey with me and she is not really into it, so fair is fair.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: It is important to acknowledge what your spouse likes to do even if you do not enjoy it. True love makes adjustments. That is what makes a healthy relationship.

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anime-dub-transcripts · 1 year

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Ace Attorney Episode #6: Turnabout Samurai---2nd Trial Transcript

This episode has the second part of Turnabout Samurai.

Phoenix [narrating]: Maya chose our first case: defending a children’s hero on a murder charge. Backed into a corner and desperate for more time, I accused the chatty old security guard, but she had only begun to talk, and in a rage, dropped a bombshell.

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{Caption: Turnabout Samurai--2nd Trial}

Oldbag: There was something…that I was told to keep mum about.

Phoenix: What? Seriously?

Edgeworth: Is that so?

Oldbag: Yeah. No one tells me to shut up, so I won’t hide it anymore. I SAW MORE PEOPLE ON SET THAT DAY!

Phoenix: Ehauh!

Maya: Ahuah!

Edgeworth: ABSURD! Why was I not told about this?!

Judge: Explain this! Why would you conceal such crucial evidence from the court?

Oldbag: Ah, really, come on! Look, I just told you why I didn’t say anything. They told me that I was supposed to keep my big trap shut, and besides, them being on set had nothing to do with Jack's murder.

Phoenix: Who else was on set that day?

Oldbag: It was those big production muckety mucks: the director, and the producer too.

Phoenix: Is that right? And where were they?

Oldbag: Meeting in the Studio Two trailer.

Maya: That sounds important. We should look into this.

Phoenix: Your Honor, please. We’ve just discovered some extremely valuable information. Seems there may be more witnesses to interrogate. Without questioning them, a verdict cannot be reached.

Judge: Hm. Do you have any objection to that, Mr. Edgeworth?

Edgeworth: Grr…I don’t, Your Honor.

Oldbag: AUOAH! My goodness, I haven’t been looked at so passionately in years!

Judge: Very well. I hereby declare this court is adjourned for the day.

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{Caption #1: May 12, a certain time}

{Caption #2: Detention Center}

Maya: What?! You knew about the other people there?! Why didn’t you say something?!

Powers: Well, I should’ve…but I was told to keep quiet too.

Maya: Yeah, but if you don’t tell us these kinds of things, we’re gonna lose the case! Nick’s a rookie. He’s so new; he’s barely even an attorney.

Phoenix: That’s going too far.

Powers: I’ll do better.

Phoenix: Anyway, we’ll have to go over to the studios again.

Maya: Oh! I hope that little boy comes back.

{Text on book: Steel Samurai Path to Glory}

Maya: He dropped his book last time.

Powers: Wait, you talkin’ about the kid with the camera?

Phoenix: You mean you know him?

Powers: Yeah. He’s been sneaking onto the lot a bunch lately.

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Powers [flashback]: Snore…

(Powers: So I’ve seen him around)

Powers [flashback]: Snore…HUAH! DUAH! Is that a ghost?!

Cody [flashback]: Aw, gimme a break.

Powers [flashback]: Awuah!

Cody [flashback]: How can a grownup be such a scaredy cat? Huah huah huah…

Powers [flashback]: Uhnah, hey!

Cody [flashback]: The Steel Samurai could teach you to be brave! And a lot more than that. He’s awesome!

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Phoenix: Huah…he could teach you, huh?

Maya: Why didn’t you just tell him that you were the Steel Samurai?

Powers: Like I said, I don’t want the kids to stop believing in their hero, you know? It’s okay, I don’t mind. As long as the kids are happy, so am I.

Phoenix’s thoughts: Yeah, there’s no way this guy would put the Steel Samurai’s reputation in jeopardy.

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{Text on sign: Global Studios}

Phoenix’s thoughts: And that means the murder was definitely committed by someone else. But who could it be?

{Caption #1: May 12}

{Caption #2: Global Studios--Studio One}

Maya: The place looks empty to me.

Phoenix: The guard said the director was in here.

Maya: Ewuah?

(Sal: Heh, neheh!)

Sal: Heah…

(Maya: Eum?)

Sal: …heuah, ehuah…score! There you are!

{Text on script: The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo}

Sal: Gotcha!

Maya: WAAAAAHHHH!

Phoenix: Hey! Just who in the heck are you?

Sal: Who am I?!

{Caption: Director | Sal Manella}

Sal: You don’t recognize the great Sal Manella? I’m, like, the man! SUPERSTAR DIRECTOR OF THE STEEL SAMURAI!

Maya: WOAAAAH! You’re the director?!

Sal: Uwahuah! Ohwoahoah…

Female voice: Hehehe!

(Sal: Hoohoo, oohhoo!)

Sal: Nice!

Female voice: Come on!

(Sal: Hehehehehe!)

Female voice: Samurai!

(Sal: Really, really nice, hehe!)

Sal: Woohoohoohoohoohoohoohoo! It’s a buffer overflow! My creative juices are spilling all over!

Maya: Ehauah?

Sal: You! Just incepted the sequel to Steel Samurai! Pink Princess, Warrior of Little Olde Tokyo!

(Female voice: Hehehe!)

Phoenix: What? “Pink Princess”?

Maya: Hey! Why wouldn’t she be in Grand Olde Tokyo too?!

Phoenix: Why does that matter?

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Sal: I see; so you’re gonna defend the Powers. Good luck with that.

Phoenix: Yeah…let me get this straight: as the director, you have to deliver the script to the producer?

Sal: She’s brutal! All during rehearsal, she’s constantly barking out orders and demanding script revisions for practically every line in the freaking show! My pain…is the only thing that makes her happy!

Phoenix’s thoughts: She sounds very hands-on…not to mention extremely demanding. We need to talk.

Phoenix: You were in a meeting with her at the time of the murder?

Sal: Mmhm. I oversaw the action scene rehearsal that morning, then the meeting until four.

Phoenix: You were at the rehearsal too?

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Powers [flashback]: Auh! DUAH!

Spear: CRACK!

Phoenix’s thoughts: That means he was there to see Powers get hurt. He knew about the injury.

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Phoenix: Uahn? Woah, what is that gigantic thing?

Sal: Man, you don’t know anything about entertainment. That’s the Forest Imp, our studio mascot.

Phoenix: I wasn’t asking who the character was.

Maya: What’s its head doing in the road?

Sal: Eh, thing’s super old. All that wind the day the Hammer was killed blew it off.

{Caption #1: May 12}

{Caption #2: Global Studios--Studio Two}

Phoenix: So this is a secondary studio?

Maya: It seems a little out of the way.

{Text on building: No 2}

Sal: Yeah, it’s been mothballed for, like, five years.

Phoenix: Why is that?

Sal: Apparently, there was some kind of bad accident. The old security lady should know all about it. She was around back then.

Maya: Euah?

Sal: Ehuahuahuahuah, heuahuahuah, heuaheuaheuah…

Phoenix: Can you tell me anything more about your producer?

(Sal: Heauh…)

Sal: Her name’s Dee Vasquez. Like I said, she’s brutal…but she single handedly brought the studio back from out of the toilet. SO NO ONE EVER GOES AGAINST HER!

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Sal: AAHAHUAH, AAHUAH, HEAHEAHEAH!

{Caption: Producer | Dee Vasquez}

Sal: HEHEHAHAHA, hahuah, huah…

Phoenix, Maya: Uhah?

(Sal: Huah…)

Maya: Euoh…

Sal: Huah…

Phoenix: Uh…please excuse me, Miss Vasquez. My firm is defending Will Powers…and I was wondering if you could talk to us a bit about the day of the murder?

(Sal: Huah huah huah huah huah huah huah huah huah huah huah huah…)

Vasquez: Stop flapping your gums.

(Sal: Huah huah huah…)

Phoenix: Ehuah?

Vasquez: Can you not see that I’m trying to read here?

(Sal: Huah huahuahuah!)

Sal: Quiet! Or you’ll get punished too!

Phoenix’s thoughts: Definitely don’t want that.

(Maya: Auh!)

Maya: Hey, look! Check out all those movie posters!

{Text on poster #1: Lie of the Wry Samurai}

{Text on poster #2: Dynamite Samurai}

Phoenix: Yeah, and every single one of those films stars Jack Hammer.

Maya: Awuah! I love The Dynamite Samurai!

{Text on poster #3: The Lute Samurai}

Phoenix: Lie of the Wry Samurai makes me wanna cry.

{Text on poster #4: Samurai Summer}

{Text on poster #5: The Bearded Commander}

Maya: I watched all of The Bearded Commander series!

Phoenix: Samurai Summer?

Maya: That was a good one too. A summer romance done as a samurai period drama. Beautiful!

Phoenix: Wow. Seems Jack Hammer was a bigger star than I thought.

Vasquez: So you’re his attorney? And you wanted to know about the day he killed Jack.

Phoenix: Uh, yeah.

Vasquez: I’m sure you probably won’t like hearing this, but at the time all that went down, nobody here could’ve made it over to Studio One.

Phoenix: And why is that? What happened?

Vasquez: The roadway was completely blocked.

Phoenix: Eguah!

Vasquez: On your way over here. You saw it. The Forest Imp.

Phoenix: Yes, we did.

Maya: The poor old thing’s head fell right off.

Vasquez: The winds were strong enough to blow that rusty monkey’s head into the road, along with several large branches. After a while, a crane was called in to move it, but that wasn’t until after three o’clock in the afternoon. It took them about an hour to clean up the mess. We were all stuck over here until the job was completed, so none of us could’ve killed Jack.

Phoenix: But if the head had fallen over after 2:30 that afternoon, you could’ve made it over to Studio One.

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{Text on caution tape: Safety First}

Vasquez [narrating]: Each hour, the Forest Imp announces the time. “I daresay it’s 4 p.m.” and so on.

{Text on clock: 02:15}

Vasquez [narrating]: It’s also on the back of its head. The clock stopped working at 2:15.

Phoenix: It doesn’t add up. That’s before the time of death on the autopsy.

Maya: Which means that no one at Studio Two that day could’ve gone over and killed Hammer.

Phoenix: Ehuam…

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Oldbag: Euwah?! YOU BACKSTABBING, SPIKY-HEADED LAWY---!

(Maya: WAAAAHHH!)

Phoenix: I’m sorry! But I only said that you could’ve done it. By the way, I’m surprised to see you here so soon.

(Oldbag: Grraaugghh…)

Oldbag: The cops took me back and made me try on the Steel Samurai suit and pose for them for quite a while! I think they enjoyed it, but it was humiliating! When they finally got it through their thick skulls that there was no way I could’ve been the one on the camera, they let me go! I won’t forget how you wronged me! If you ever come back here to talk to me about anything, you’re not going to get so much as a peep out of me!

Maya: We’ll get way more than a peep.

Oldbag: I warned you; now my silence starts in three, two, one!

Phoenix: Euh, oh, all I wanted to talk about was how awesome Jack Hammer was.

Oldbag: Mmuhm!

Maya: Mmhm, mmhm! That Dynamite Samurai poster…it’s just so dreamy!

Oldbag: Mm…mm! Hmm!

Phoenix: I’m more of a Bearded Commander guy.

Oldbag: Ooh, The Bearded Commander is my favorite! He was such a hunk in that one! If I could turn back the clock---yeah. To before the accident. Auah!

Phoenix: Wait, the one that happened five years ago?

Maya: You gotta tell us everything you know!

Oldbag: I’m sorry; I can’t do that.

Phoenix: Please, ma’am. What is the real connection between that and Studio Two shutting down?

Oldbag: No. I said I wasn’t talking to you anymore.

Maya: But you’ve been talking to us since you said that.

Oldbag: Well, I’m really starting in three, two, one!

Maya, Phoenix: Aah!

Oldbag: HEY!

Maya: It’s that kid! Eheaheaheah…

(Phoenix: Ehauh!)

Phoenix: Neah!

Oldbag: Wait right---uoah! Geaugh…

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phoenix: Hey, kid! Hold it!

Cody: My name’s Cody! Don’t call me “kid”! You ever disrespect me again and you’ll taste my steel, old man!

Phoenix: Euoh…old man?!

Maya: So anyway, you dropped this the other day. Here.

Cody: Eah!

Maya: It’s such an amazing collection!

{Text on book: Steel Samurai Path to Glory}

Maya: Are all of them your pictures?

Cody: Yeah! You can keep it if you want. I’ve got the originals.

Maya: For real?! Awesome! Thank you, heheheah!

Phoenix: You’re way into the Steel Samurai.

Cody: Duh! ‘Course I am. I go to all the live shows and appearances and stuff.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steel Samurai [flashback]: HUAH! HUH! HEYAH!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cody: And after he totally owns the bad guys, I always get a picture. Pretty sweet, don’t you think? I’ve got killer pics of every Steel Samurai victory.

Phoenix: That’s cool. You didn’t happen to get any the day of the incident, did you? You were here, right?

Cody: Eumph…

Maya: Eum? What’s wrong, Cody?

Cody: Yeah. I saw everything that day.

Maya: Huah!

Phoenix: Everything? Meaning what, exactly?

Cody: I mean the Steel Samurai. I saw him killing the bad guy, obviously!

Maya: Waahah!

Phoenix: Wait! AAHUAHEHN!

Phoenix [muffled due to the grate]: Cody!

Maya: Oh no! Let me help you!

(Phoenix: Euh! Eaugh!)

Phoenix: Would you stop pushing me, I don’t wanna drown in the freaking sewer!

(Maya: Nick, I can help you get out!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phoenix: So we found out who else was there that day, but it seems like none of them could have done it. I’m running out of ideas. Huahungah!

Maya: Check out what I’ve got!

(Phoenix: Huh?)

{Text on DVD cases: The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo}

Maya: Let’s have a Steel Samurai marathon!

Phoenix: Yeah, sorry, but I’m busy.

Maya: Are you crazy?! This is all about the case! I think we might find a clue or two that’ll turn things around.

Phoenix: That’s not a bad idea.

{Text on TV 1a: The Steel Samurai}

{Text on TV 1b: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo}

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maya: Ehuah…please, Steel Samurai, save me…

Phoenix: I binged every last one. Anyway, I guess I need to talk to Cody again. Ehuan? Mm. Wait, hold on…

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cody [flashback]: After he totally owns the bad guys, I always get a picture. I’ve got killer pics of every Steel Samurai victory.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cody [flashback]: Yeah. I saw everything that day. I mean the Steel Samurai. I saw him killing the bad guy, obviously!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phoenix’s thoughts: If that’s true, something is definitely off here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

{Text on sign: Global Studios}

Maya: Steel! Wielding the steel of justice against evildoers!

Phoenix: Uh, you’ve disgraced me for the last, uh---AAH!

Maya: Come on! Put your heart into it! You gotta be the bad guy!

Phoenix: What’s the line? “Dance with some guy in the pale moon”…“the pale moon something”…

Cody: “The pale moon in the sky cries out for your blood”.

(Phoenix: Auh!)

Maya: Yeah, that’s it. See, Cody knows what’s up!

Cody: I thought that everybody knew the line.

Phoenix: Fine, I get it; I’m not cool. But I need you to tell me about something else. Yesterday, you said you saw the Steel Samurai kill the bad guy that day, didn’t you? Did you take a picture when that happened?

Cody: Uh…

Phoenix: You told me yourself you’ve gotten every single victory of his. So that means there should be a picture of that last one.

Cody: I deleted it.

Phoenix: Uhah!

Maya: Woah, seriously?

Phoenix: But you snuck in here just to take one.

Cody: Uh…well, I kinda…who cares? I can do what I want.

Phoenix’s thoughts: Yeah, something is off.

Maya: Hey, so what was it like? It must have been pretty cool to see him! In real life, I mean.

Cody: Oh! Yeah, it was! But it wasn’t the first time, you know!

Maya: So awesome! I would’ve freaked out!

Cody: I actually called his name to get his attention. I think I kinda surprised him or something. But he still turned around and struck a cool pose.

Maya: Wow! I am so jealous! Can you show me what kind of pose it was?

Cody: Yeah, he went like this and waved.

Phoenix: Uah!

Maya: Awaaauah! Wow!

{Caption: Hold it!}

Phoenix: HOLD IT! Hey, Cody, show me that again. And make sure it’s just like the way he did it.

Cody: Huh? He went like this.

Phoenix: I knew it! That’s not the Steel Samurai. The Evil Magistrate does that pose.

Maya: Huh? Yeah, you’re right!

Cody: Not gonna lie, but I thought it was pretty weird that he would do that one.

Phoenix: I see.

Maya: What? Did you just get an idea?

Phoenix’s thoughts: It’s out there, but I can’t think of any other possibility.

Phoenix: Cody.

Cody: Uah!

Phoenix: Even though you got a one-of-a-kind picture of the Steel Samurai, you deleted it.

Cody: Eumph!

Phoenix: And I know why. You told us that you saw him kill the bad guy that day. But actually, it was the other way around.

Cody: Eaumph!

Maya: What do you mean?

Phoenix: I mean that the bad guy was really the one who defeated the Steel Samurai.

Cody: Aahuoah!

Phoenix: The Steel Samurai lost. That’s why you wanted to delete the picture.

Cody: Heaugheaheah…eauagh…heuamph…geahgeah…

Maya: But…the Steel Samurai doesn’t lose.

Phoenix: That’s not my point.

Maya: Huah?

Phoenix: The one who was wearing the costume when Cody saw him was not Will Powers; it was actually Jack Hammer.

Maya: WAAAAAAHHHHH!

Phoenix: Hammer went to Powers’ room while he was sleeping and stole the Steel Samurai outfit. He put it on and walked to Studio One. Obviously, he was there when Powers sprained his ankle, so he knew he had to hobble past the gate. When Cody called out to him, it completely caught him off guard. He did do a pose for the camera, but it was the Evil Magistrate’s, out of habit. After that, the unthinkable happened. The bad guy won. He killed the Steel Samurai, which was actually Jack Hammer.

Maya: Wahuah!

Phoenix: You saw it happen, didn’t you, Cody? You saw your favorite hero lose. That’s why you erased it and lied to us. Am I right?

Cody: Mm! No, it can’t be true. Mmhueah! The Steel Samurai never loses! Mm! Never! AND I’LL NEVER BELIEVE IT’S TRUE!

Phoenix: Cody.

Cody: Ehuah! Yeah?

Phoenix: Why do you think the Steel Samurai never loses?

Cody: Because…he’s stronger than everyone.

Phoenix: That’s not it.

Cody: Aahuoh!

Phoenix: You know what he always says. What is it?

Cody: Eeh, geaugh! “Wielding the steel of justice against evildoers”.

Phoenix: Yes, the steel of justice. It’s not strength alone.

Cody: Huahoh!

Phoenix: He risks his life to fight for what’s right. That’s the reason why you look up to him. So as a fan, you can’t turn your back on injustice either.

Cody: Mm! Euh, euhgeahgeah…WEHEHEHEHEHEH! Weheauh!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cody: You’re right. What really happened after I saw him was, geah, well…I followed him, but he didn’t see me, and then some bad guys showed up. Mm! The Steel Samurai went down…

Cody [flashback]: Geauaheah!

Cody: …and then he stopped moving.

(Cody [flashback]: Geauh!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phoenix: Thanks for telling the truth.

Maya: So…did you really delete all the pictures you took?

Cody: Not all of ‘em.

Maya: Huah?

(Phoenix: Eoh?)

Cody: There’s one more left on the camera. Let me look for it.

Maya: Really?

Cody: Yeah. Here.

{Text on building in photo: 2}

Phoenix: Ahuah! He’s going there?

Oldbag: For justice. Huh.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vasquez: What do you want? I’m rather busy.

Phoenix: This picture was taken the afternoon of the murder. Hammer showed up here, didn’t he? Wearing the Steel Samurai costume. Yes, Hammer was killed at Studio Two. There goes your alibi. Because you were at the exact spot where he was last seen, and you couldn’t leave.

Vasquez: Are you saying Jack Hammer walked all the way here just so he could die?

Phoenix: No, ma’am. Euh? Ahuah! Euahah! What is this? Tell me!

Vasquez: Keep spewing this kind of nonsense, Mr. Wright…and you might end up missing court tomorrow.

Maya: Nick, I’m getting scared.

Gumshoe: Wait just a second, gal!

Maya: Euahn?

(Phoenix: Hm?)

Maya, Phoenix: Detective Gumfoot?

Gumshoe: Miss Dee Vasquez. I’m here to deliver your summons for Powers’ trial tomorrow. But what exactly is going on here?

Vasquez: Well, I think you should be asking the boy lawyer here that question.

Phoenix: Boy? What?

Vasquez: Listen. No matter where Hammer was killed, it’s impossible for me to have done it.

Maya: Why? What do you mean by that?

Vasquez: He was run through with the Samurai Spear, was he not? There’s no way a petite woman such as myself could wield it. I could barely even lift it without a struggle.

Phoenix: Ahuah!

Gumshoe: That is true. The weapon used in the crime was pretty dang heavy. I don’t see it happening.

Vasquez: Jack Hammer was a big star who made my studio a lot of money. Why on earth would I ever want him dead?

Phoenix: Yeah. Good question.

Vasquez: Hm. You should know if you accuse someone of murder, you should bring proof.

Phoenix: Euamph!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oldbag: You can’t turn your back on it. Huh. I’m sorry, Jack.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

{Text on building: No 2}

Vasquez: If you don’t have that, then you can leave.

Phoenix: Okay. But in the courtroom tomorrow, I’ll be ready.

Vasquez: Hm.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

{Text on screen: Ace Attorney}

Phoenix: OBJECTION!

Phoenix [narrating]: The true culprit smiles, smug with the idea that she’s too smart for justice. But no one is above the law, and I vow to wipe that smile off her face. But how? Why did Hammer have to die, and what really killed him? Was his death planned out long in advance? I will wield this steel of justice against evildoers! That’s my job as an attorney. Find the contradictions, believe in the truth!

{Text on screen: Next Episode: Turnabout Samurai--Last Trial}

Phoenix [narrating]: Next episode: Turnabout Samurai--Last Trial! Take that!

#anime #anime transcripts #anime dub transcripts #ace attorney #ace attorney transcripts

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henpendrips · 3 years

Text

2021 Retrospective

Thought that 2021 was as bad as 2020, if not more so? Don't worry, things WILL continue to get worse. Predicting 2028 will be peak Clown World Decade, starting out seemingly okay but going max bonkers past half-time. Precedent's been set, after all.

Now that the doom and gloom's out of the way: without repeating anything I said in previous yearly retrospectives, 2021 wasn't that eventful for me. Probably the biggest blunder might've been not using the Huion Kamvas that I got last year, even though I got it working properly in January. Not a single drawing was done with it, so a waste of money; and I had no excuse, I was locked in the house for the first half of the year, I had plenty of time. Also, my movie list being empty for the first time in over ten years was quite the bummer.

Instead of more demoralizing drivel, figured I'd just recommend some of the cartoon shows that I've (re)watched in recent years which I find to be worth a damn. Maybe if more people watch decent shows from yesteryear, they'll realize why all the horseshit 'content' that's been coming out is fucking atrocious. Not all of them are good, and they're not properly ranked in terms of quality or preference, but here they are:

.Spectacular Spider-Man - One of the best iterations of this IP, and a wonderful example of writing doing proper set-ups. Yes, I'm sad it didn't get its full run. No, I don't want it to continue, even if everyone involved were to come back;

.Futurama - Latter seasons are a bit poopy and less imaginative, but everything pre-movies is top notch comedy and sci-fi storytelling;

.The Batman - The first three seasons are fantastic in establishing Bats and how he handles the job and the Rogues Gallery. Has a weird thing where either character designs or their personalities don't work too well, and the quality drops hard in the last two seasons.

.Johnny Bravo S2 & 3 - Still fucking hilarious, every single episode. S4 was dogshit, so don't watch it, but S1 might be okay, I didn't bother;

.Wakfu - Watch the french dub. Transitions between each season is a bit lacking, I bet they tried to tie the show to the game. Characters are loveable, animation is great, story beats a bit 'ehn' when it comes to powers and reveals;

.Samurai Jack S1-4 - A lot of leniency has to be given to style, but most episodes work really well. One of those shows where it felt like it told every story it could, but hadn't outstayed its welcome (pre-S5);

.Ben 10 (2005) - Fuck everything besides the original series. Has a great blend of all things paranormal, and a kid hero who's properly characterized as a little shit with a heart of gold, learning and training to be a hero;

.Kim Possible - Surprised how decent the characters are, for teen caricatures. Not all episodes work, and some villain confrontations become slightly repetitive;

.Codename: Kids Next Door - Very absurd, especially watching it now, but the world is consistent for the most part. Worst episode is unquestionably the mini-golf one;

.Megas XLR - Pure satire of mech/kaiju/sentai media through an all-american lense. A good enough serving of what we get;

.The Mummy Animated Series - Alternate reality version of 'The Mummy Returns'. Less funny than the film, but the first season's pretty decent;

.Jackie Chan Adventures - Outside of its finale, S4 is the best, S2 is horrible. The show itself is not good, but entertaining. Shame its namesake is no longer with us, RIP;

What I DON'T recommend at ALL: The Mask Animated Series... it's so fucking bad. Not just from the writing, but also from the horrendous pacing and low quality animation in a lot of instances. Don't suffer like I did, just stick with the Jim Carrey movie, because the show isn't worth it. And Freakazoid, to its credit, gets better as it goes on, but not enough to recommend. Sucks that both of these toon-type hero shows don't work out.

Lastly, there's one more thing. One that I probably would consider one the best shows of the previous decade, in spite of its flaws. However, out of principle and spite (30/70 split), I'll never mention or acknowledge which show it is.

1And that's about it for my once-a-year vent session. See you in 2022, only 200 years for the roulette to pay off.

#henlp #text post #yearly retrospective #2021

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robinchan-hananomi · 3 years

Text

One Piece 1023

I have a lot of thoughts here about the new chapter. There is a lot of things to unpack here!

So first, things I loved! I absolutely loved Zoro and Sanji’s dynamic in this chapter. Yes, the two were bickering a bit but honestly it felt like their comments were more to reassure each other than anything. Zoro immediately noticed that something was wrong with Sanji and Sanji responded honestly, that his body has felt funny ever since using the raid suit a second time. Zoro probes to see just how deep the concern is, asking if Sanji is going to slow him down, and Sanji’s answer seems to reassure him enough that he almost jokes, teasing Sanji about his eyebrows. One the flip side Sanji knows better than almost anyone just what kind of shape Zoro is in right now. They both look out for each other and they tease each other during the start of this fight, but it is mostly them being more like ‘look asshole, I know you’re trying to see what the extent of the damage is but I swear I am fine enough to knock this son of a bitch out’.

And make no mistake, Zoro and Sanji are probably going to have a lot of physical issues after this chapter. Sanji mentions that his body is feeling weird. This could be anything from the raid suit being intentionally designed to hurt Sanji to his body just not being able to cope with the strain the new technology is putting on him. The mink doctor also just reminded Chopper that while Zoro is up now, he won’t be for long and that he doesn't even want to imagine what kind of shape Zoro is going to be at the end of the fight. No matter how Wano shakes out, Zoro and Sanji are going to be hurting and will require some serious rest and TLC.

After Sanji and Zoro face off against King and Queen, we also get a small moment for the opponents to communicate. On Queen and Sanji’s side, Queen talks about how Judge experimented on his children and questions the validity of Sanji’s claim of being completely human since he can light his body on fire. Sanji admits he’s probably just that dramatic. On the other side Zoro notes King’s unorthodox fighting and when King points out there is no need to follow technique and method in combat, Zoro agrees and reminds King there really isn’t anything preventing Zoro from ripping out King’s throat with his teeth.

Now Zoro and Sanji are only able to fight King and Queen in peace due to Hyogoro and Kawamatsu’s efforts. Kawamatsu prevented a Beast Pirate from taking a shot at Zoro and Hyogoro explains that anyone who tries to help either side at this point would just be in the four combatants way. While they watch the fight, they comment about Zoro.

The thing is, Zoro has been connected to the Shimotsuki Clan from the start. Zoro’s hometown is Shimotsuki Village. In the SBS corner, Oda explained that the village was founded about 55 years ago by Shimotsuki Kozaburo, the man who forged Wado Ichimonji and Enma. Kozaburo’s son Koshiro ran the Isshin Dojo, which used the Shimotsuki Clan crest as it’s symbol and Zoro had worn that crest his entire childhood. Koshiro’s daughter Kuina was Zoro’s best friend and rival. Then Zoro met and fought Shimotsuki Ryuma, whose family name was again confirmed in the SBS corner. More on Ryuma in a minute. Ever since Zoro has entered Wano, he has been even more connected to the Shimotsuki Clan. The Clan had two Daimyo’s that we know of, Ushimaru and Yasuie. Zoro has spent a lot of time in Ringo, Ushimaru’s territory, and even combated with Ushimaru’s retainer Onimaru a few times now for Ryuma’s sword Shusui. On the other side Zoro befriended Yasuie and his daughter Toko. While all the strawhats were seen to be fond of Toko and quite a few met Yasuie, Zoro spent the majority of time with him.

Now as for Ryuma. Ever since the Monsters oneshot was tied to the One Piece Manga, fans had noticed the similarities between Zoro and Ryuma. The two look very alike in appearance and they had many similar mannerisms. They also have the connection of sharing a sword, Shusui, and both decapitated a dragon in the air. And now, apparently, Ryuma had lost an eye in his adventures and was known as a one eyed swordsman...which I mean his zombie did have a scar on his face that would have gone over his right eye along with bandages covering his right eye so it’s not really a surprise.

The two citizens of Wano comment that Ushimaru is a direct descendant of Ryuma and note that Zoro has a similar appearance and style of fighting to Ushimaru and by extension Ryuma. Now if this is because Zoro is somehow part of the Shimotsuki Clan (which I actually kind of hope not), or if it is just a coincidence about appearance and the other similarities are because Zoro trained at a dojo from the Shimotsuki Clan is still up in the air. Either way, I really do like the idea of developing Zoro more and I have been waiting for someone, anyone, in the manga to finally notice just how much Zoro seems to be connected to this family.

Anyway, back to the chapter! While Zoro and Sanji keep two of the three calamities busy, we see there is a LOT of other things going on. I’m not going to go in order of the rest of the chapter because I want to organize my thoughts a little.

So first, which is actually the last thing to happen, is Momo is now 28 years old. He has Shinobu turn him into an adult because he can only do so much as an eight year old. It is a fantastic way to follow the panels of the battle that came before it, because we see the samurai are willing to die to bring about an age where Kaido’s reign has ended and Momo’s time can start. They believe that Momo will bring Oden’s will and bring Wano to a wonderful future, they believe it so much that they are willing to die for it. Momo answers that belief by giving up twenty years of his life. Understand while twenty years have passed for everyone else, it hasn’t for Momo. Momo just had Shinobu mature his body by twenty years in order to get stronger, bigger, and be able to take a stand against Kaido. There is going to be a lot of issues in the future with having an eight year old in a twenty eight year old man’s body, but just like Zoro and quite possibly Sanji’s physical health; this is a bridge to cross when we get to it. After all everyone has to survive the battle and win before they can worry about what is next. So now as a much bigger and stronger dragon, Momo and Luffy can go face Kaido together.

On a side note with everyone talking about being ghosts and all, it’s kinda fitting that it is implied that Momo looks like Oden. Now we really will have people think they’re seeing ghosts.

We also have Inu and Neko fighting Jack and Big Mom’s son. These fights are not just about defeating Kaido either. There is an element of revenge to them both. As Inu sends Jack through a wall, he expresses recalls all the pain Jack brought to the people of Zou. Just like Neko talks about Pedro while fighting. And yet the two talk about how everything they lost, all that they suffered through, was all part of the road to get there, now, to bring Kaido and his Beast Pirates to an end. And the two are using their badass Sulong Form.

The last big note for this chapter is Marco’s memory of his discussion with Whitebeard. It is implied that King’s race are the Lunarian, and that King is the last one. They lived up on the Red Line in a long ago past. Marco recalls Whitebeard talking about how it was ‘God’s Land’ which is honestly giving me super Skypeia vibes. What exactly is this God’s Land?

Because we hadn’t talked too much of the Red Line, I for whatever reason, always imagined other people living up there. We knew the Celestial Dragons lived on the Red Line, but because it is like a long continent of linked together islands I just naturally assumed other races and beings lived up there. That doesn't appear to be the case. Which to be fair I am a fool for even thinking that because now that it’s put that way I realize a group so pompous and self important as the Celestial Dragons would never allow anyone so lowly as normal people to live so high in the world as they do. So they enjoy their life in the clouds while driving any peoples and race either off the Red Line or to extinction.

Marco brings up the old conversation to Izo, after the latter saves him for drifting off in a battle, and Izo says Marco sounds like Whitebeard when he was drunk. Whitebeard was part of the Rocks Pirates, the Pirate crew that shook the world to it’s core almost a whole generation before Roger even appeared. Whitebeard has seen some real shit. I wonder just what all Whitebeard knew about the world, and I wonder just how much he tried to impart on his children only for them to think he was drunkenly rambling?

Anyway, it was a fantastic chapter and I am so freaking excited to see where we go next!!!

#one piece #one piece 1023 #roronoa zoro #shimotsuki clan #shimotsuki ryuma #sanji #king #queen #inuarashi #nekomamushi #monkey d. luffy #kozuki momonosuke #marco #izo

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lavenderboneswrites · 3 years

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Pirate Shizaya headcannons. I preferably love the idea of Izaya being a coordinator that Shizuo has practically kidnapped because Shizuo held the damn map upside down and is know lost(he is the captain) also I love everything u do

Aaah okay I had to think long and hard about this because really I have TOO many ideas. I’ll preface this with saying that the Golden Age of Piracy actually coincides with the Edo period of Japan where the country was ruled by the Shogunate and was generally closed to outside politics, influences, etc. So with these two periods overlapping there is so much room to play with. I for one am losing my mind about samurai pirates.

Orihara Izaya, Captain of the Dragon Zombie Pirates.

Alright alright. So I think Izaya was probably born in a noble and well respected samurai family of Japan. However this boy craved adventure and to the see the world and to meet all that it had to offer. Not a fan of Japan’s anti-foreign involvement (open the country, stop having it be closed), he led a group of revolutionaries out of Japan to the seas.

During this time I can definitely see Izaya finding his way onto a pirate ship and manipulating everyone in sight until there’s a mutiny and he becomes the new captain, because of course that’s what our boy would do.

However despite this, and after proving his worth, his intelligence, his skill, I think his crew would be fiercely loyal to him. I can see him keeping a few of his original Japanese crew around too. I think Mikado would be his right hand man, Mikage and Ran his enforcers, Shinra the ships doctor, and his childhood friend who followed him out to see in search of ‘true love’. Simon I can see maybe as the quartermaster, I think he’d be good at rallying the crew. Overall I think there would be a mismatch of people from all over the world, because Izaya loves picking up strays.

Izaya is a cunning and intelligent captain. He uses wit and no small degree of charm to achieve his goals. He's fascinated by the occult, especially myths and legends. I feel like he'd love to hunt for the fountain of youth and see the kraken with his own eyes. He dreams of bigger prizes than just the usual gold.

Izaya is showy af and definitely has all the flashy pirate coats, not mention a penchant for ridiculous hats (Captain Barbossa’s hat anyone? And all the tricorns). I think he’d be an adequate warrior, trained with a samurai sword, but his weapons of choice are two daggers and close range where he can use speed, agility, and intelligence to outwit his opponents. (I imagine he fights like Anne Bonney, who I love, from Black Sails). I also kind of think he’d be a pirate like Calico Jack Rackham (also from Black Sails, look I love BS there’s gonna be a lot of BS references). Also our boy is talented as parkour and can parkour around a ship like a motherfucker (thank you Black Flag).

Heiwajima Shizuo, Monster of Caribbean, Captain of the Beast Pirates*.

Shizuo is a powerhouse in the pirate world. Where Izaya is all brains and cunning, Shizuo is brute strength. I actually like to head canon that his violent ways got him cast into indentured servitude and he was sold off across the seas and ended up in the Caribbean. Due to his strength he made a good labourer for the British but also fuck the redcoats. I think Shizuo would have led a revolt against the slavers and started his own pirate crew after that. He would’ve given his fellow slaves the option to go where they want or join his crew and a few probably did.

Tom’s of course his right hand man, they are brother’s in arms and have fought many battles together. I think Vorona would be a good enforcer and I definitely want Kadota to be his quartermaster (with the rest of the van gang on the crew as well - those four are a fierce raiding party). Though Shizuo is 100% hopeless at navigating so he's gonna need a good one on board.

Shizuo is definitely a brawler with his insane strength, and the thought of his weapon of choice being this fuck off massive Warhammer is just too good to pass up. I want Shizuo bare chested with high-waisted pants, pirate boots, half shaved head, long blonde hair in braids basically just looking like an absolute barbarian beefcake. ALL THE TATTOOS. He is the definition of a rough, fierce pirate.

He likes hunting prizes and spending his gold on drinking, gambling, and fucking, really any pleasure he’s for, but his favourite thing is a good old fashioned fight. I think he'd do very well in slave fighting pits and probably even had some experience with them in the past. Though he is adamantly against slavery and has been known to hunt slavers and free slaves (any pirate who engages in trading slaves is not considered a pirate to him but a blight to be obliterated from the map). Because of his past he absolutely despises the British and really any kind of authority. While not on Izaya’s level of intelligence he’s got great instincts and can almost seemingly sniff out a good prize.

* don't sue me Oda

Rival Captains

Izaya and Shizuo both meet in Nassau in the Caribbean. They are the definition of brains VS brawns. These two crews are always running into each other and fighting. While Shizuo is ferocious and terrifying, when in the same room as these two pirates one would consider Izaya more menacing. Shizuo's and Izaya's rivalry is well known throughout the seas and seeing them fight in person is the stuff of legends.

They're constantly going after the same prizes and then fighting over them. Though there are a few times they do team up for an alliance when it's a very delectable prize. Also they will unanimously team up against the British, the Spaniards, the French, the Dutch, etc, because as much as the loathe each other they hate anyone who would try and encroach on their freedoms.

Basically they are both stubborn as hell and don't like being told what to do.

For their ships I can see Izaya having a Brigard, something swift, that at Izaya's hand can outmanoeuvre and outwit any foe. Of course his ship has a dragon as the figurehead! I haven't thought much in the way of a Jolly Rodger, but maybe a dragon skull and instead of crossbones it is crossed samurai swords??

Shizuo on the other hand has a British Man-O-War that he no doubt won after he and Izaya teamed up to launch an attack on British settlement when both their crew-mates were captured and sentenced to death for piracy. Izaya lead an assault on land while Shizuo and his crew snuck onto the Man-O-War in the port and captured it, then turned it's guns on the settlement. For his jolly rodger I think it would be the usual skull and crossbones with maybe his infamous Warhammer running through the center line.

The sexual tension between the two captains is a painful to watch for their crews and each crew even has a betting pool going on when they will eventually get it on. The crews actually get on relatively well during alliances, and the parties and feasts they throw together after a successful hunt is wild. Though they'll easily go back to trying to kill one another one the alliances end.

Also a lil Shinra add-on. In Izaya's quest for the occult they find Celty and Shinra falls in love with her. I haven't thought more past pirate dullahan asgdfhdhjsjf.

And yeah that’s all I have so far. I also had an idea of Izaya being like the son of an important person (governer, prince? Prince Izaya is good) and being captured by Shizuo’s crew. And while they are pursued by multiple pirates, nations, etc, because Izaya is priceless, he learns to love life on a pirate ship and bonds with Shizuo and his crew. So eventually when it does come time for Shizuo to hand over his bounty he doesn’t want to let Izaya go. (He’s gonna, and then he and Izaya will turn around and rob the fuckers blind and sail off into the sunset together). Also Izaya memorising a treasure map and destroying it so he becomes the map and Shizuo has to put up with him. TOO MANY IDEAS.

#pirate shizaya au #pirate au #pirates my beloved #shizaya #orihara izaya #heiwajima shizuo

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ao3-sucks · 4 years

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An Archive of Someone’s Own: my experiences being groomed in fandom circles on AO3

TW: Childhood sexual abuse, grooming, mentions of incest and rape.

I used to be a big writer of fanfiction. It was the logical choice for me. I loved to write and create bold and immersive worlds, and I craved an audience who would enjoy my work as much as I did. Since my writing wasn’t actually good, I needed a community of other amateurs who wouldn’t mind that, and by tweaking my characters and settings into ones from canonical media, I got the audience I so craved.

I started writing fanfiction online when I was 14, posting initially on FanFiction.net and then moving to AO3 a few months later. As I got back into writing original fiction towards the end of high school, I lost interest in this community, and it’s been a long time since I posted anything much on AO3.

I’ve always struggled with the fact I display a lot of symptoms of CSA, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. Throughout my teen years, I refused to get changed or bathe when anyone was even vaguely nearby, constantly paranoid about being spied on; I developed a severe touch phobia, and would have frequent panic attacks from something as small as brushing arms with a passerby; I resolutely identified as asexual and refused to get into anything resembling a relationship with others because the very concept disgusted and repulsed me.

Weird, considering I had grown up pretty normal and all of these symptoms had started around my early teens. It was only when I told my friends about my friendship with a 30 year old I had met online that the pieces started falling into place for me.

Child grooming is usually discussed in the context of one adult going out of their way to befriend a child with the goal of lowering their resistance to sexual abuse, through normalisation and friendliness. I’d like to talk about how that worked on the fanfiction website AO3. Since it’s an open website and most communication takes place between anonymous users or accounts in the comments section of a work, there is very little delineation between spaces for adults to discuss whatever dark topics they like and spaces for kids to do the same.

This frequently leads to pretty inappropriate conversations between people of widely varying ages and life experiences, which is how I ended up talking sex as a fourteen year old with people ranging from a couple of years older than me, who were generally okay, to more than twice my age. The 30 year old in question listed on her profile how many pedophilic ships she loved, and she knew my age but pushed me to keep discussing sexual topics with her. Sounds like a red flag, yeah? Well. I was 14, and very stupid.

This 30 year old woman, who I will call Aku (because it’s similar to her screen name and because it’s funny to name her after the bad guy from Samurai Jack) would start conversations with me whenever I posted anything to AO3 and would refuse to take no for an answer when I tried to back out of conversations with her, and since these conversations were public and occurring within comments, I didn’t want to be rude to her since this was taking place on content I was trying to promote.

I told her my age multiple times and she would either pretend she forgot from last time (saying her memory is super bad) or continue as though it was just trivia about me and not a sign she shouldn’t have been pushing me. My primary objection to what she would say to me (since most of it was just her being annoying) was her insistence on sexualising everything I wrote, and her determination to push me into writing pornographic content, which I eventually gave in to.

Yes, she was a terrible person. She emailed me using her personal email address, so I know her full name and place of residence, because she’s an idiot. These emails also contain sexually explicit materials. Nothing much ever happened between us except for these very creepy interactions and the fact we remained online friends for a few years. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t the only person pushing me into creating sexual content. Lots of people would comment on my writing demanding that I show explicit sexual content when I really didn’t want to.

After a while it felt like I couldn’t write a longer, romantic fanfiction without including explicit sexual content. Like my work wasn’t valid without it. Other, more popular writers were usually sexual in their content, and I wanted to be like them and bring in the views, right? So, when I look at my back catalog of works, I can see how my content moved from completely non-sexual to featuring sexual content over time, and the views usually came with. In this way, I was in an environment that was encouraging me on many levels to sexualise my own work, which impacted the way I thought about my creative process.

Here’s another example I remember. When I was a young sprout, I remember reading down someone’s list of fanfiction recommendations and seeing a work called Hug Therapy, which I promptly read. While the work is marked as explicit and containing the Loki/Thor pairing, the use of relationship and rating tags on AO3 is so poorly regulated that it didn’t really mean anything to me to see either of those. People tag hardcore material as non-explicit and tag friendships as relationships, because there’s no motivation to tag properly. Plus, someone I followed here on Tumblr had recommended it to me.

Now, you wouldn’t know from the listing, but while this piece starts out as comedy, it turns out in the end to include rape, incest, and BDSM in very explicit terms. The fact it was tagged as being explicit didn’t slow me down, because the liberal use of these tags could mean that an explicit tag was just there because sexual content was implied or mentioned, which I thought would be the case based on the rest of the listing. Out of curiosity, I recently tried to report this work to the moderators for containing no warnings about incest or rape, and I got this in response:

“Selecting “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” satisfies a creator’s obligation under the warnings policy. Users who wish to avoid specific elements entirely should not access fanworks marked with “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”. Our Terms of Service note: “You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled. ….. This decision is in accordance with our policy of maximum inclusiveness; we have therefore closed this case and will not be investigating further.”

Which, yeah, I guess. The frustration comes from how ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ is an extremely commonly used tag, and most things that it’s used on are totally harmless.

This fanfiction, which I was recommended by a friend, is hugely popular, in the top 60 most read fanfictions in the entire fandom. You wanna hear the kicker? The author, Astolat, is one of the founders of AO3. They’re not just some random author who isn’t following the rules. They’re a creator of the whole website, and they made the rules. This is pretty telling about how seriously the website actually takes protecting their users.

My final example I want to give is one of fetish content. People in fetish communities generally (not always) say that fetishes are probably something one should work up to after the onset of sexual activity, especially potentially harmful stuff like BDSM. In the circles I was running in, if you weren’t sporting a fetish or two (no matter your age) you were a boring bitch.

Maybe this isn’t true of everywhere in the fanfiction community, but I used to feel that bizarre pressure until I got out. Bear in mind that my main time in this community was from ages 14 to 17. I never made my age a secret, either. I told people outright I was that age, I was in high school, I was playing hockey and studying The Great Gatsby when I wasn’t online.

Since I was in the Avengers fandom and I liked Loki and the Asgardians, I was frequently exposed to incestuous content between Loki and Thor, and a lot of it came out of nowhere or was poorly tagged. This was considered the norm, and while I at first felt completely horrified and repulsed, within a year or two I no longer gave a shit. It’s only in the last few years as I’ve begun to unpack everything that I’ve started to get that strong revulsion reaction to incestuous content.

In the circles I was in, it was relentlessly normal. Normal to the point that people who disliked it were usually shouted down. Even to this day, debate rages on in fandom spaces about whether or not content like this normalises this kind of abuse. In my own personal experience, which I don’t usually like to talk about, it absolutely does.

In real life, this normalisation started to have serious consequences for my mental health and interpersonal relationships. In fanfiction, any occasion when you are alone with someone could become sexual, any familial relationship is possibly sexual, and it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. I became incredibly anxious around male family members for fear of being sexually assaulted, and my OCD, which I had been developing since I was a child, turned from thoughts of physical violence to thoughts of graphically sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone around me.

My fear of being touched got to the point where I would have panic attacks if anyone came anywhere close to touching me. I quit sports, fucked up my romantic relationships, and didn’t hug anyone, not even members of my family, for years. All the while, I had bought my first laptop and was consuming more fanfiction than ever before. I struggled with my sexuality growing up, as I am bisexual, and while fanfiction provided LGBT content to help me, the content was frequently so disturbing that I viewed any expression of sexuality as something evil and predatory.

The community on AO3, whether you like it or not, is often sexual, and provides no barriers between the casual user looking for content and extremely intense fetish material. It’s sometimes called the Pornhub of fanfiction, but considering the wide range of people who use it, it’s more like if you opened Youtube and saw niche hardcore fetish videos just on the front page, recommended and trending.

Sure, you have to click a little button to confirm you’re 18 before you can actually read a story, but the tags and descriptions of readily available works can be extremely explicit. Fanfiction also brings you into close contact with fellow readers and the author, and encourages you to become a content creator, which in some ways makes it more dangerous.

I was affected much more strongly by what I saw than most people would be, because I was already treading shaky ground. But I’m also not the only person out there who has been hurt in this way. Most of my friends who grew up in fandom can report the impact that fanfiction culture had on them. One of my friends from high school knew a panoply of porn terms at age 14 or so due to reading fanfiction, and another of my other friends at high school almost exclusively read rape porn because it was her favourite. I didn’t have friends who watched porn; I had friends who read fanfiction. These are just as troubling to me as any other accounts of young people consuming visual porn from a very early age.

It’s frequently cited that fanfiction gives minority groups the opportunity for creative outlet. It was a great place for me to cut my teeth as a content creator, and a source of acceptance and kindness when times were tough. Fanfiction communities have historically been the domain of women and minorities, and create a space for these people to tell their own stories.

It’s largely because of this that fanfiction communities fear censorship and strict moderation, as they have been attacked in the past on homophobic or misogynistic grounds, resulting in mass deletions of works or the shutdown of websites. But there must be some middle ground between total censorship and the kind of free rein that puts vulnerable people in danger, and I strongly encourage the board of AO3 to seek this middle ground out.

But it’s the community itself that needs to shape up; AO3 is, after all, a community-led website built by fans for fans, so the fact that this website has such issues is a reflection of the issues that run deeply within the people who created it. Aku didn’t talk to me with the intention of doing me harm, or so I believe at this time, and she didn’t pursue me as a lone wolf or in isolation.

She was simply a particularly brazen member of a community that was used to having inappropriate conversations with young people and sexualising everything they did. Even people my own age were jokingly pushing me into discussing and consuming extremely sexual content. It was just normal. That’s what I want to say here. Inside the world of fandom on AO3, the grooming of children with sexual content is normal. And that’s scary.

- Mod Daft

#mod daft post #ao3 discourse #fandom wank #fanfiction discourse #fanfiction wank #csa//#rape//#grooming//#incest//

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skullchicken · 3 years

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On the 30.04.2021, Meinhart Bonifaz Brant, at that point an unassuming spindly 15-year old human reading Stanislaw Lem's "Star Diaries" on the living room couch, goblinized into a giant. About 50 years later, he would go on a few adventures under the street name "Alberich" (you see, it's very funny because he's not a dwarf).

In honor of goblinization-day, I'm compiling all of the art and (hopefully entertaining) stories I have of mah boi and the chicago shadowrun-group - so these are going to be some long posts. Everything under the cut so I don't clog up your dashboards and cut up into chunks. If you don't want to see it, blacklist "goblinization".

Part 1, the first mission:

So, why is Alberich? When I joined the shadowrun-group that would start my obsession, my english conversational skills weren't that great. Mostly trouble finding words and having a really thick german accent. Since I was a bit self-conscious about that, I decided to instead lean into it. Thus Alberich was a german-born ex-museum director turned shadowrunner since he did a Very Stupid Thing and had to leave the Allied German States for Chicago.

What did he do? He made a deal with a dragon. Specifically, he sold a forged piece of art to Lofwyr, CEO of Saeder-Krupp.

Alberich was introduced into the already formed group something like this: "At the entrance of the building, arriving punctually, you spot the biggest troll you've probably ever seen, looking very uncomfortable to be here and slinking as much as is even possible. All in all, he somehow doesn't look very threatening. In fact, he looks as if an art teacher had been stuffed with a 3 meter/10 feet tall horned giant. His face lights up as he sees you, though."

So the first thing he does is shake everyone's hand, politely assuring them that it's a pleasure to meet them and yes, he is Alberich, and who are you? Ah, yes, lovely names, very creative.

For reference, this is the average shadowrun-group:

Speaking of which, the gang's line-up did change a bit unfortunately, but the ones that stayed from beginning to end were:

Speedrun, street-samurai. An adrenaline-junkie who has styled himself after anime. Very much trying to be cool, to the point that he has adopted a deep-sounding voice that's rather obviously not his natural speaking voice. We pictured it as him talking with his head on his chin. Here he is, trying to impress the fighting adept shere khan:

Elf_Queen, decker and elf-poser. An elf-poser is someone who tries very hard to be elf-like - in her case, she wanted to actually *be* an elf. She ran away from home since her parents were metahuman-racists (Humanis policlub). Notably, her online and offline persona were very different. Online, she's very assertive and the guild leader of an mmorpg. Offline however, she's pretty much scared of anything. When Alberich joined the group, she hid behind Speedrun - you don't live with humanis for that long without picking up some xenophobia as well. And trolls aren't well-liked in the game world.

So the first mission: De-kidnap a kidnapped singer called Jericho. First we took a look at the bus-line she had last taken, a task for which Elf_Queen had to jack into said bus. Only three problems: A) She had to get behind a metal covering inside the bus B) her character sheet is min-maxed to hell and back, thus she has ONE measly point in strenght. Which wouldn't be a problem since she's in the presence of three pretty strong dudes if not for C) Massive Social Anxiety.

After looking around like a wet bunny for 5 minutes, Alberich (who has also cramped himself into the bus) finally catches on and goes "... can I help you, little lady?", pops the cover open and she can get deckin'. You might call this strike 1. You'll see why.

After visiting her appartment and some more investigation, we gather that Miss Jericho has been taken away into a bunraku (think brothel but with more brainwashing) to be re-programmed to the liking of her ex-boyfriend whose band she left to make it on her own (and quite successfully so). Which means we'll have to deal with Yakuza.

The bunraku turns out to be disguised as a night club. After I tried and failed to casually infiltrate the place (... I... er... wasn't a very good player at first?) we had to flee forwards, take out the guards at the door and make sure we get in and out of there as soon as possible.

In the club, almost before we made it backstage, Elf_Queen got held up by a guy bent on talking to her and froze up. Well, at least until Alberich very casually bent over the two of them and informed the guy that "she's with me". I tell you this, because this was strike 2.

Backstage, past a kitchen and into the cellar, we finally got into a room with two rows of plexi-glass cells - and in the middle, a bound spirit, a thing that feeds on negative emotions. Our muscle (Speedrun and Baba Yaga - yes, we had a John Wick in our midst. And yes, Alberich technically doesn't count as muscle, he's a mage. It's complicated) were outside, fighting off Yakuza. So it was up to EQ to hack Miss Jericho's cell open as quickly as possible and for me to make sure she wouldn't die while doing so.

After like three rounds of unsuccessful banishing (as I said... not a good player), the cell was open. But...

But.

There were the other victims.

What about the others?

Now, when I thought up Alberich, my core idea was "Daryl Whitefeather and Don Corleone having a mental fistfight". I tend to play good characters and this time around, to honor the setting I set out a morally grey character, someone who mostly looks out for himself and only indulges in kindness when he has the luxury to do so. Being kind and polite, if you think about it, is really just usually the easiest and most pleasant way to get people to do what you want. And if people are convinced you're scary by nature, seeming less so is just a smart survival strategy.

But then he looks at this little socially anxious nerd, who very much reminds him of himself, when he used to be a little socially anxious nerd, long, long ago and she says with big eyes "please! can you give me a bit more time? We need to save the others! We have to try!" and it's just... strike three. He's taken the little decker into his heart. So internally he goes "welp, I'm old anyways" and externally he shrugs his mana-burned shoulders, sighs "okay" and keeps trying to banish.

Unfortunately the spirit almost eats him alive. EQ fails to open any more gates, so they make it out once he as but 2 life points left, run into the elevator and evade the fast approaching small army of Yakuza on the way out.

Elf_Queen jumps into his arms, Alberich holds her like one might hold a chihuahua, Baba Yaga is trying to gauge their time and speedrun's reporting back from outside.

In the end, it was bittersweet. Because while we did save Miss Jericho, the brainwashing still took hold. Her last 1 1/2 years of life wiped away, she asked for her ex-boyfriend as soon as she woke up.

End of Part 1, thank you for reading this very self-indulgent text!

#shadowrun #goblinization #troll #mage #shaman #decker #baba yaga #john wick #cyberpunk #ttrpg

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pallasperilous · 4 years

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Piledriver

Dean/Castiel 1815 words Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair Coda, Fix-It (sort of), Grief is a weird and protean beast, Second Person POV, but also Dean POV, I realize what a tall order that is y’all but I swear it’s mad judicious {AO3 version}

You’re not really sure when you started doing it.

That’s a fucking lie.

You started doing it ten, maybe twenty minutes after.

Not as a conscious thing, not like those snappy comebacks you think of the next day, or like those speeches you practice in your head and then never get the chance to deliver. (Although it seems like other people have better luck in that regard.)

It’s more like a tic — like the way Sam used to pick at his hand, or your mom used to hum the same little bit of Stairway to Heaven offkey. (Which was kind of a trip since she’d come back from, you know. There.)

You think: I love you, too.

It’s just a drumbeat of syllables running in the back of your head. Might as well be shave and a haircut. Which you could use, incidentally.

It eases off a little, after the universe ticks over. You’re so fucking relieved that you basically revert to a lower life form for awhile — you’re like a jellyfish, or a fungus, or a Yankees fan. For a few minutes there, things are pretty sweet.

Then the clock starts running again, and you and Sam are faced with the frankly fucked-up necessity of needing a hot meal and somewhere to pee.

It kicks back in then — during the peeing, specifically, because goddamn did the dude never get over what a fucking nightmare it is to have a bladder. Like it actually made him mad. Even after he got his batteries back and was once more able to, like, effervesce fluids out of his body or teleport them to the surface of Mars or whatever, he never stopped giving you pitying looks whenever he got up to use the can. On the road he’d ask if anybody needed a bathroom break at every single freeway exit. You chewed him out once that you in fact were not a four year-old or an Alzheimer’s patient and could therefore hold it for more than twenty minutes at a time, and he looked at you with such bottomless patience and empathy that you could’ve thrown him out of the fucking car. I love you too.

Instead of a heartbeat, it’s like a piledriver hitting the ground ten feet away.

I love you too. It rattles your fucking thighs as you wash your hands in the gas station bathroom. None of the other dudes do because dudes are fucking disgusting. This attitude was maybe part of the problem.

I love you too. You come out and the car’s moved and you have a hot second of freakout, then you see Sam’s just pulled it away from the pump and parked in the lot and honest to God (go team!) you almost burst into tears. What the fuck.

I love you, too.

That night you do your absolute best to lobotomize yourself (not to obliterate yourself, which is a sign of progress and for which effort you absolutely deserve a round of applause from…somebody), but the piledriver just keeps on pounding away and you realize that it’s either piledrive or get piledriven. Sam’s asleep six feet away after his own inpatient procedure but you’re really fucking starting to panic so you say it out loud, anyway.

I love you, too.

And something gives, eases off like a gas bubble turning a corner in your gut, and you pass out.

So you lean into it. You make it your thing. You figure you can either be losing your mind, or practicing, so you choose practicing. You’re showing the powers that be that you’re keeping the faith. You’re holding a torch. You’re being the change you want to see in the world. You’ve talked to coma patients before and you’ve prayed to this asshole before and this isn’t any different. Isn’t it?

Washing the dishes: I love you, too.

Checking the oil: I love you, too.

Swinging a machete and hitting that sweet spot between vertebrae where the head just pops right off, like a Lego dude: I love you, too.

Pulling on socks: I love you, too.

Burning that fucking jacket: I love you, too.

Not out loud, or at least, not where anybody can hear you. That would be weird.

And you know, you know, that he doesn’t hear you, either. You know that, worst of all, he didn’t even need to hear it. You’ve heard a lot of shit about unconditional love, but it’s never had any goddamn appeal to you because, what? Somebody loves you the same no matter what fucked up shit you do, no matter how you feel about them?

That’s either (a) some seriously poisoned Kool-Aid or (b) so huge it’s useless, like giving somebody a galaxy for their birthday. You want unconditional love? Get a fucking dog.

I love you, too.

Lately you’ve been swapping in phrases that have the same rhythm or meter or whatever, so you can say them out loud without worrying anybody more than usual. The rain in Spain does some heavy lifting for a couple weeks, then ba-DUMP-bump, tissshh! followed by the king of beers for about half a particularly shitty afternoon and then closing out with you bet your ass, which is a much better fit for your lifestyle.

So fine, great. Life goes on. You were the subject of his unconditional cosmic love-boner whatever and getting that off his chest was all he needed to go happily fucking off into the abyss. And you’re still down here (up here? over here?), drinking coffee and hating Mondays. Awesome. I love you, too.

This is around when you discover the best match for both meter and tone yet, one so close that it doesn’t even feel like a placebo for the real phrase. It’s a whole different drug, actually. It makes you feel like a million bucks, it’s absolute rocket fuel. If the original is whiskey, this shit is meth. You turn a whole nest of ghouls into one big ghoul smoothie and then at the bar later somebody nervously informs you that you were yelling it out loud the whole damn time.

The phrase is: go fuck yourself.

You imagine it at night, lying in the empty bed, your pulse hammering in time: him standing there, one big cow-eyed khaki rumple, and you yell: Go fuck yourself. You asshole. You bastard. You smug piece of shit. Go fuck yourself. How many times have we done this, and every fucking time you find a way to make it worse. Go fuck yourself.

I love you, too.

After a few weeks it loses its edge. You kinda knew it would, having some experience with the limits of amphetamines and your own rage-juice glands. It downgrades from a battle-cry to a slur. At some point you realize you’re not even saying it to him anymore. You’re saying it to you. Go fuck yourself.

You try to imagine him saying it instead. Go fuck yourself, in that nutso Sam the Eagle voice that he must’ve gotten out of a box of Cracker Jacks, because it sure didn’t come complimentary with Jimmy Novak’s dry-ass mouth. Go fuck yourself, Dean.

Somehow it’s still the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to you.

So you go back to the OG version, and this time it feels like it settles in. You do whatever the psychological equivalent is of buying it a dog bed and a food dish and a leash, and you take it out for walkies whenever it starts to chew on the furniture. I love you, too.

You get so used to its presence that sometimes you even forget it’s there. You’re joking around with Sam, eating sandwiches at some picnic grounds on the way to Sioux Falls for a social visit, and you say some dumb thing to him, who knows about what. Sam rolls his eyes and shakes his head in disgust as required by the kid brother certification board and snorts “I love you, man,” in the way that means how are you even allowed to exist, and you answer “I love you, too,” in the way that means I love you, too.

Sam has seen a lot of wild shit, but the look on his face after that is a brand new one to you.

“Checkmate, asshole,” you say, in case he’s worried you’re gonna off yourself in the bathroom or something.

You do get to say it, eventually.

Like most things in life, it happens after you’ve totally given up, and then totally given up giving up, and have achieved the spiritual equivalent of that shrug emoji Claire sends you sometimes. When the phrase is well past thinking about, when the words don’t even carry any meaning anymore; they’re like the thought version of blinking, or swallowing. A background process, until something flies into your eyeball or you try to breathe a tortilla chip.

So the tortilla chip shows up one day. Don’t worry too much about the details here, just take it for granted that it either required a heroic effort of years that nearly broke you, or that he just showed up unsolicited on the porch like a copy of The Watchtower. Or maybe you’re both dead; seriously, who cares, because regardless — he’s there, and you’re there, and for awhile other people are there too, but eventually they go away.

And it’s him, and it’s you. And if you hadn’t absolutely digested this thing in advance, if you hadn’t broken each word down into its atomic particles and cut and pasted them into your DNA so that 45th century forensic anthropologists from Mars could extract it from a fragment of the the mummified marrow of your left ass-bone, you might’ve said something else.

You said: “I love you, too.”

You realize, in the moment after you say it, that you have reached the limits of your preparations. You’re a samurai with a single move; you’re the cannon in the 1812 Overture; your photo’s in the dictionary under one-trick pony and you’ve got frosted tips and you’re blinking.

You say it again, and then a third time, and a lot of times after that. You keep saying it, for years, in varying degrees of franticness and horniness and happiness and honestly still-fucking-angriness and whatever else is on special that week. You say it to his face and to his dick and to his back and to the mere concept of him well after he’s left the room, left the state, left the dimension. Eventually you stop bothering to say anything else to each other. There are maybe half a million words in your native language, according to Sam, who uses them all, and with everybody else you keep on using the two hundred or so you feel confident about.

But with Castiel, you make do with just the four.

I love you.

I love you, too.

#spn fanfiction #destiel #deancas #spn 15x18 #spn 15x19 #spn spoilers #pallas perilous fic #fixit fic #15x18 coda

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notable-phlyarologist · 3 years

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so heres a thought slash snippet that wouldnt leave me alone: ladybug's reset power has no time limit. as long as she defeats an akuma or a sentimonster, even if it killed people, everyone and everything is brought back.

so what if an akuma won? broke free of hawkmoth? ruled the world for hundreds of years-- and then someone found the lost ladybug miraculous and defeated them? It would almost be a reverse samurai jack, right? suddenly, this girl from the distant horrible future finding herself in the still pretty shitty but at least not ruled by a dictatorial supervillain present?

anyway here is my noodling on that.

To You From The End Of The World

Serendipity was really the only word for it.

It had been Marinette's eye for aesthetic that brought her into the great hub of Locale Maxima, the capitol of the world. It had been her selected from her learning track by the Observers, each thrumming with one of Superuser Robostus' unfathomable subroutines. It had been her in just the right place, standing in an empty lot decimated by some sort of resistance and trying to visualize the building SU Robostus had brought her to design in its absence.

It had been her to notice two glittering pieces of metal in the rubble, seemingly untouched by the destruction. To hold them, and feel a strange stirring in her as she examined the pins. An ornament, the sort of thing worn exclusively by the upper echelons. Something Marinette, a nobody, a branch of a branch of the most distant social trees, useful to the SU only for her sense of color and shape, would probably never see in her lifetime.

Something she, with a fluttering of anticipation, a sense of delicious taboo, punched through the skin of her ears and fastened there. Ignoring the pain and the way the blood ran down, she admired herself in a shard of broken glass.

These little studs. A sign that she was different. That she was Marinette.

And then Tikki appeared, blinking sleepily with confused eyes, and Marinette's world imploded.

Marinette became something incredible, something superhuman, something that could stand up to the SU itself. Ladybug could annihilate Enforcers, the scattered resistance cells of the city united around her, and Ladybug carved a path straight towards the great Root Palace.

She was fifteen when she put on those earrings for the very first time. And she was seventeen when, impossibly, surrounded by allies armed with jailbroken Enforcer arms, she drove a polka-dotted ice axe through the great processing unit within the palace.

A small insect flew out, something with beautiful wings but dripping with something cruel and evil. On instinct, Ladybug captured it within her yo-yo, to preserve it in a world that no longer held insects like it.

And then her yo-yo opened, and the butterfly flew out in glistening pure white, and it dawned on Ladybug. Something Tikki had told her back when she first became Ladybug. That she could use her lucky charm to undo all the damage the Superuser had done to the world.

She threw the ice axe up into the air with a triumphant cry of, "Miraculous Ladybug!" that all the resistance members joined in on, and then the world was consumed by a flurry of red and black insects glowing with magical power.

And then everything was different.

The palace's sharp lines were gone, the machinery and screens and servers were gone, the architecture of metal and plastic and artifice was replaced with masonry and glass. Images of a bygone age flicked through Marinette's mind, studying she had done to earn her Designation in Construction. This was the world as it was hundreds of years ago.

The world before the Superuser rose to power, Marinette realized.

Her fellow revolutionaries were looking around, lost. Ahead of her, a boy about her age cradled a small, innocuous looking robot in his hands. Someone in a cat outfit which felt somehow similar to her own appearance as Ladybug was looking around, somewhat lost. A girl about her age sat up, blinking, looked down at her hands, and then her hands shot up to her ears, and then she turned to look at Marinette, at Ladybug.

"Who...? How...?" she mouthed. Ladybug strode towards the man in the cat outfit. He turned, his eyes lighting up, stretching a fist out casually towards her, only for his face to be consumed by confusion.

"You're not Seven-Spot," he said. "Who are you? Why are you in that costume?"

"I'm Ladybug. And these are my freedom fighters." She gestured to the revolutionaries behind her who were still looking around in bafflement. "Is... is this the world before the Superuser?"

"Superuser?" If anything, the man in the cat suit looked even more lost.

"Superuser Robostus."

The man opened his mouth, and closed it again, and then said, "You... did we lose?"

Ladybug had no answer for him. Her earrings beeped. "Whatever happened, I'm glad we lived to see a world free of his tyranny." She let out a relieved sigh. "The fighting is finally over. Tikki, spots--"

The man shoved his hands over her mouth suddenly, and Ladybug froze in shock. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "You can't just detrasform, there are people here!"

Ladybug pulled his hands off of her. "So? The Superuser is gone. No more surveillance drones. No more danger. Tikki--"

"No, wait!"

"--spots off!"

And with that, she was just the same old Marinette she'd always been, clad in her standard-issue jumpsuit. She turned to look at the other boy and girl in the hall, wondering aloud, "I wonder where I can get clothes like that?"

The man in the cat outfit just stared at her. "What is going on?" he asked himself, quietly.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupen chang #ml marinette #ficlet #cat noir #ml ladybug #also fun fact that may or may not be relevant if i continue this #the original ladybug seven spot is lila rossi #after this ofc wed get to see marinette get adopted by the dupain-chengs #and shuffled into a weird unfamiliar school #and discovering the joys of fashion and baking #etc etc but who knows if ill continue haha

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frosteee · 3 years

Text

OK, hear me out. You guys remember Demongo from that one Samurai Jack episode, and then that weird, funny-at-the-time but ultimately disappointing cameo in the revived series?

This guy?

I LOVE HIM I have a Blue Exorcist AU for him. And also a Marvel and DC one but let's not go into those. He works better in so many different series!! OK, the AU isn't really that different from BE canon. I just thought Demongo's aesthetic, power and personality fit really well in the universe. HEAR ME OUT OK

Background

Demongo was born from the concept of Death coming into contact with Satan's flame in Gehenna. Armumahel is his uncle through Death, the Baal and Okumura twins his half-siblings. He was born a weak creature in water, with scarcely a hint of Satan's blue flame. Abandoned by Death, he wandered as a wisp until the day a human died following his light. Demongo discovered his primary ability: to collect the souls of the deceased and house them within his body, and use them as his strength. He soon began to actively hunt humans and other supernatural beings for their souls, using his collection as his weapons. This made him an enemy of all his demon kin, especially the Baal, from whom he stole many a worthy human host. As Demongo grew in power, he targeted more and more powerful opponents quench his thirst for power, determined to forget his weakness. His collection soon numbered in the thousands. His rampage was such that Death had to intervene and subjugate him, in the vein of Shemihaza and Amaimon, starting off by ridding him of all the souls he had collected - returning him to his original, frail self. He would no longer be able to take what he pleased. As Death's servant, he imprisons the souls of those intervening with a ghost's journey to the afterlife. It is often said to be worse than any fiery hell - a cold abyss where you are conscious but unable to move and where nothing can hear you scream.

Role

In the present day, he has served Death for many thousands of years. He also serves as a jailer for the souls of traitors of the True Cross Order, acting to ensure humanity's survival and maintain the status quo. Demongo has gone by many names. 'Demongo' is his personal choice (one that Mephisto and others routinely mock him for) but professionally he is known within the Order as 'Onibi-sama'. He is rarely seen by members of the Order outside of Mephisto and the Grigori, but his knowledge of his past deeds have led Demongo to be feared in the world of Exorcists.

Relationships

Illuminati Demongo has no love for the Illuminati, who view him as impure (as a half-breed) and a traitor (for siding with humanity/the Order). He is quick to cite his position as Death's servant as the reason for his interference, but truthfully, his opposition to their aim is very practical as well as personal. Demongo needs souls. He needs humans, so that some may become great and worthy to have their souls taken by him. Demons, as concepts, are things he cannot harvest or control. Lucifer Lucifer's actions remind him of his wild youth, which irritates Demongo greatly. Because of this, however, he cannot hate him, but rather finds Lucifer a figure to be pitied. Mephisto They have a tense relationship of business partners with a lot of history. During Demongo's and his wild youth, they were hated enemies, but circumstances and intertwining goals brought them together. They both love to get one over on each other, and frequently exchange barbs and witticisms when they meet. Demongo is not as calculating as Mephisto is, but he does tend to surprise once in a while. Demongo is aware that he is being used by Mephisto, and revels in how difficult he can make the process while still doing what he's told. Amaimon As with Lucifer, Demongo feels a complicated mixture of irritation and pity for Amaimon. He also bears some guilt for not stepping in before Shemihaza took the initiative and subjugated the rampaging Amaimon. He expresses this guilt by spoiling him, and trying (and mostly failing) to be a mentor figure. Rin and Yukio Okumura Demongo is intrigued by his young, fellow half-breed siblings and amused by their adventures. His great age and pride lead him to treat the boys like children, which angers both of them - Yukio especially. Their insults don't bother him. Past Demongo would have destroyed them, but present Demongo lets things slide, well, like water.

Trivia

Demongo has more in common with Amaimon as far as their backstories go, although they represent two sides of the same coin - life and death.

One of the greatest joys of Demongo's life is being a thorn in Mephisto's side.

The first thing that came out of Rin's mouth when he saw Demongo was "What the hell is that?!". Demongo laughed for about five minutes.

Unlike Satan and Rin, Demongo's blue flame is cold, although it still behaves like fire and 'burns'.

Demongo is perfectly at home in water, an environment that alters his body to suit it better - as shown in this awesome fanart by @sendasan!

#I've had this in my head for ages ok #might be bad but in my head it's cool af #Demongo is cool af and would fit into BE like a glove change my mind #Blue Exorcist #Ao no Exorcist #Blue Exorcist AU #AU #Mephisto Pheles #Demongo #Rin Okumura #Yukio Okumura #Shemihaza

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