#I was not 100% sure whether to include yuri or not

[yugioh-polls-because-yes]

villains, can you feel the power?

Time for the ARC-V Main Villain Poll. Vote for who you think is the best Main Villain in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime.

Let's see where the pendulum swings!

[ddlcbrainrot]

What are your ships in ddlc? I noticed you do all the ships- If you ship all then what’s your favorite ship?

Now, whoever you are how did you that i was thinking of talking about my ship opinions soon?? mind wizard

SO, here’s the thing : when it comes to ships in genera it takes a lot for me to actually have OTPs and stuff and this is especially true in ddlc for me. For me shipping is more of a “sure, i could get behind this” sort of thing, except if once in a blue moon i find that one ship that alters my brain chemistry but believe it or not that has not really happened to me with any of the ddlc ships. It has happened with the game as a whole, but not really with the ships. The only one that has come close i’d say is sayonika but that’s more bc they happen to be the characters that i think about the most

That being said, i’d say i ship every ship in the game, simply because i could honestly see all of them working out in one way or another. Sure, they’re are some i like more than others but generally all of them work. And yes, this includes the Mc ships even though i like them less bc the side stories blew it out of the park with the chemistry between the girls

Speaking of the side stories, they are the sole reason i got into the shipping side of the fandom lol. The base game, as influential as it was for me, never really ignited any shipping sparks ig. I actually could not care less for the shipping before the side stories, bc most of it felt kind of trope-y ironically enough. Like, Natsuri was the big one, which was only popular bc of the whole opposite’s attract thing (not that there’s anything wrong with that ofc, it just never really resonated with me). Sayonika was a victim of what i like to call the “leftovers syndrome” where two characters are shipped bc they are the only ones left to be shipped with.

And Mc.. well let’s talk about that actually. Mc x Yuri is well… how do i put this. They have absolutely nothing in common. I don’t necessarily hate this ship however, if i see it done right i can like it. Mc x Natsuki was alright, the banter was fun, they actually have things they can talk about, it’s overall a nice ship. I will say i prefer them as close friends, but if i was to see media (fan art, fics, mods etc) where it’s done right, i can appreciate it. Mc x Sayori is also a ship i can enjoy from time to time, probably the most out of any Mc ship. Again, i do prefer talking about their friendship more though but now that i’m writing this down i realise i’m just a slut for male/female friendships. Mc x Monika truly depends on what context the characters are given. Are we talking about non-sentient Monika x Mc? Bc that can be pretty fun. If we are talking about sentient Monika x Mc, i see a very interesting dynamic (not a particularly good one) where Monika is basically using Mc as a vessel for the player in her desperation. Can Mc feel this dynamic? Does he understand in some way that he’s the second choice, even if he doesn’t know the truth about their world? How does it affect him? Its fun to ponder about this ig, but it doesn’t really make for a healthy relationship

Then the side stories came out, where the characters evolved from their one-dimensional tropes into actual personalities with enticing dynamics between them and i was immediately sold. That being said, i still don’t really have an OTP per say, bc as stated before all of them could work out. Which is definitely bc of how we get to see each of them interact individually in each side story. In every side story, we see each character interact with the other and learn how to grow as individuals because of it. I could see each pairing happening individually, i could see them being a poly couple, maybe even a qpr, or just a very close friend group too! There is a lot of love between the characters, whether that is romantic, platonic or something in between im not 100% certain on, but the love is definitely there.

Anyway, you also asked what my favourite ship would be, and i’ll probably say Sayonika since most of the media I consume tends to be with them

WOW this was a long post. Hope i didn’t bore you too much. Thank you for the ask!!

[mouseinamushroomhouse]

@starfishlikestoread's Ezar quote board has actually infected my brain, and it reminded me I have this whole backstory timeline thing for Ezar that fits approximately 15% of actual canon about him (which is embarrassing considering how little there actually is, you'd think I could get it right) but I shall now inflict it on all of you regardless.

Part 1: First Cetagandan War Basically we pick up roughly a year into the war the Cetagandans. (Inaccuracy 1: in my brain the ninth satrapy's base of power was mostly in the southern continent (SC), and Dorca lived through/during the Cetagandan War. He also isn't fully emperor yet - he's building a powerbase and Yuri and Xav (and therefore the Betans) see him as the planet's independent leader, but the actual remaining Vor families of the Northern continent (NC) are … split, to say the least. He's got maybe 70% support among the Vor, and plenty of that is purely opportunist. Major holdouts include Fyodor Vorkosigan and most of the northern huntsmen, a rabble of anti-monarchist types led by eighteen year old Ezar [unknown].)

So a year into the war, most of the fighting is focused on the southern part of NC, with Xav off on Beta running weapons and Yuri leading guerilla attacks in SC. Shortly before Yuri left for SC, he formed a temporary alliance with Piotr Vorkosigan without Dorca or Fyodor's knowledge. Piotr is leading a warband of Dendarii hillmen and his thought process is basically 'well, I don't want this Vorbarra upstart's family pretending they control me, but this is the best chance we've had to throw off the Cetagandans in my lifetime, so fuck it.' Fyodor has thus far refused to commit any support to Dorca and most of the Vorkosigan loyalists have retreated into the mountain caves. Piotr splits his warband, sending half of them with Yuri to the satrapy and the others with one of Yuri's riders to rendezvous with Dorca, who is in hiding with his command squad and his younger children. (Xav and Yuri are essentially the weird older stepbrothers of other women, and no one's 100% sure whether Yuri or Dorca's new legitimate son will inherit, but that's not important right now ;). Dorca's family tree in my mind is a whole other can of worms.)

Piotr meanwhile takes a small group of hillmen and heads north to attempt to convince the huntsmen to join them in fighting the Cetagandans (very Nakia going to M'Baku for help, in my mind). He assumes he's going to negotiate with an old warlord, very like his own father, but instead finds Ezar the weird forest child.

Ezar things: he's not the blood son of the former leader. No one is in fact sure where he's from. The former chief, Xandor Borisovich, brought him back from a solo hunting trip on the ice sheets and no one was brave enough to ask. The huntsmen aren't big on social classes or standards, and Vor/prole social dynamics don't really apply. Ezar ended up as their unofficial leader after he hunted and killed the mountain lion(esque thing, ik it's an alien planet) that killed his foster father. Ezar uses Borisovich when he feels like it, but largely doesn't use a patronymic at all.

Ezar is a year younger than Piotr and has no interest in supporting Dorca or any sort of leader who outranks him. They go back and forth on this for a while, and Piotr probably ends up dueling Ezar's champion to prove himself. Eventually, Piotr convinces Ezar to join him, with the understanding that Yuri won't hold either of them to a true oath after the Cetagandans are thrown out. Also he promises Ezar a bunch of land that he definitely doesn't actually own, because like grandson, like grandfather.

The reason Yuri even wanted an alliance with Ezar is that Ezar's people had a better understanding of ships (the sailing kind) than anyone else on their continent. The Cetagandans have most of their power concentrated on SC, but they also hold most of the coasts of NC - the resistance is almost all inland. So Piotr and Ezar spend most of the next year working their way down the coast, liberating coastal cities - Ezar with his fleet, Piotr with his ever-growing calvary troop as farmers and merchants in the cities behind them join him. Piotr and his lieutenants train them to function as an actual calvary troop, and trains Ezar as his military apprentice, etc, and by the time they rendezvous with Yuri, they have nearly three times his numbers.

Yuri has been generally wreaking havoc in Cetagandan territory, and also has been stealing lightflyers, guns, and other technology he can get his hands on. Dorca is back in Vorbarr Sultana acting as supreme commander, and Xav sent a group of mercanaries to rendezvous with them and train Yuri's men how to operate spaceships.

Anyway, then some battle stuff happens, IDK that part because battle logistics are so not my strong suit.

Point being, when the dust settles, the Cetagandans have bombed Vorkosigan Vashnoi halfway to hell in retaliation for Piotr assassinating some higher-ups in their command and getting captured. This pisses Fyodor off so much he joins Dorca and swears loyalty to Dorca's 'empire.' Fyodor dies defending Dorca's family in battle, leaving Piotr the last man with the Vorkosigan name.

While this is going on, Ezar does something devilishly clever to get Piotr free and Yuri lets loose Betan bombs on SC in revenge for Vorkosigan Vashnoi, wiping out tens of thousands of native Barrayarans.

At some point after that (seriously I have no idea how battles or timelines work) Dorca, Yuri and Piotr bring the Cetagandans to a standstill, and Ezar uses Yuri's stolen Cetagandan ship and flies for the wormhole, threatening to the Cetagandans that he'll blow himself up and collapse it, cutting off any Ceta reinforcements. To be clear, Ezar has no idea this will work - he barely knows how to control a spaceship at this point. But the Cetagandans fall for his bluff, and accept Dorca's terms in return, leaving the planet altogether.

In the aftermath of all of that, Dorca rides a wave of support to become emperor in truth, although admittedly only of the NC. Piotr agrees to abide by his father's oath, and becomes Dorca's first official Count. Ezar, in the process of threatening to kill himself for Dorca's cause, finds to his own surprise that the idea of a unified Barrayar is actually something he believes in, and also swears loyalty to Dorca. Refuses any countship, but agrees to stay with Piotr and help define what kind of government the Imperium is going to be.

End Part 1.

[noonvania]

Contenders for the best melee Mario player in the world (2023)

most fighting game characters in the competitive scene have representatives. this is true for "super smash bros. melee" which has 26 characters. characters like fox, falco and marth are played on the highest level by their best players including leffen, mang0 and zain. even mid- and low-tiers like dr. mario and zelda are played by top 100 player franz and rienne (she 3-0d aura). you can clearly see which player represents their mastery over their character and how they establish themselves as such.

however, this isn't applicable anymore to mario. since the absence of [redacted], the mario discord asks themselves monthly who the true best mario player is. the current super mario mains all have their own unique peaks whether it was taking sets off top players or having placed highly in tournaments bigger than locals. it doesn't help that they don't or can't travel to majors/nationals, which makes it even harder to pinpoint the exact best mario in the world. this was my motive for making a list of contenders for the best melee mario main in the world back in may 2nd 2023.

disclaimer:tournament results listed below are based on startgg only

🇺🇸 Sozin - according to pgstats, this dude is the only player here that played ONLY mario in every bracket he entered. sozin is notable for being a clip monster; putting out combo video after combo video and farming twitter likes. In addition, he placed 3rd at The ScrapHouse Colosseum, 9th at Spacewalk and Bloodmoon and 17th at Low Tide City 2022. He has also taken games from Westballz and a set off SquidTheCat. There's only a big time gap between the previously mentioned tourneys, so who knows what comes next when he enters tournaments on a regular basis?

🇺🇸 $limchang - he is not necessarily a mario main, but his mario has a lot of potential, placing 1st at SLO Smash Arcadian Fall 2022, 2nd at Grassroots #2, going game 5 against Umarth and a lot of top 3 finishes at online and offline locals. To be fair, he might've dabbled a lot between luigi, mario and dr mario at those tournaments. this makes me ask the question: what if slim made the full-time switch to mario?

🇺🇸 totally butts - Personally, I'd consider the philadelphian mario main as the public face of the mariocord. That doesnt mean you can underestimate this man's skill when he has placings like 13th at Creed, 17th at Gigaschwab 3, 49th place at Apex 2022 and consistent top 8 placings at philly tournaments. Long story short: when butts travels out of town, he makes it big time... rush.

🇳🇱 пooп - This is best european mario, no bias. In addition, noon is also the most active mario at the moment, placing 3rd at Somnio 2, 17th at Dreamhack Rotterdam, 25th at HFLAN 2020+1, 33rd at Fete 2 and HFLAN 2022 and more. Just like slim, noon also plays doc for floatier characters and luigi (editors note: for fun or mental damage i guess lmao). The european plumber could make big waves, but we can only know for sure if he comes to North America.

🇺🇸 yuri lover / Pineapple - The floridian is one of the more modern mario mains. Starting off as an online grinder and labber, she has online wins over zuppy, younger, totally butts and more. Since all of her results are online tournaments (besides smash the scene where she placed top 8 regularly), it will be very interesting to see how far she can go in big offline tournaments.

🇺🇸 SmallHandsBrian - This is the mario with the best resuts (online) having wins over bbatts, polish, dawson, nofluxes and bobby big ballz TWICE. unfortunately, brian hasn't attended much events since the beginning of 2022 and no offline events since the pandemic began. There have been talks about brian making a comeback. if you'd ask me, that would be a dream come true

[olderthannetfic]

Here’s my portion of the GGC fandom stats panel. This is what my charts from a few weeks ago were for.

I’ve gotten increasingly weary of fujoshi-haters moaning about AO3 as though it’s The Establishment and needs to be rebelled against. The preponderance of m/m on AO3 is impressive, but it’s also unusual. Sometimes, people try to pit m/m and f/f against each other, but I don’t think actual site stats bear out that kind of approach.

The reality is that AO3, like parts of tumblr, is a rare island of amorphous queerness, floating in a vast ocean of het-as-default spaces. If I never again see a hand-wringing thinkpiece about what AO3′s m/m percentage meeeeeans and how it must indicate that No One likes female characters, it will be too soon.

Put simply, AO3 is full of m/m and has a high proportion of fics with multiple ship types as well as a higher proportion of f/f than many spaces (though still not a high percentage).

FFN and Wattpad are both popular, both active, and both full of het and gen. They also both have more fanworks, arguably, though Wattpad works tend to be very short, and FFN’s rate of new works is falling behind AO3′s. Some people who prefer AO3 themselves will take this to mean that only AO3 is relevant, but that’s like standing in the gay bookstore going, “Gosh, it sure is sad that there aren’t any STRAIGHT bookstores! Think of the hets!”

Any fool you see doing this is helping the people who hate queer content to shit on that queer content. Anyone who repeats the myth that most fanfic is m/m is furthering an anti-queer narrative whether they mean to or not. (Yes, even those of you complaining about “straight girls” and “fetishization”.) I’m tired of these bad takes being given a pass.

AO3′s metadata is designed to put queer content on the same level of importance as straight content. It also makes it easy to get shipping stats. Other sites don’t give a fuck about queer content and make it hard to get shipping stats. This has led to very skewed understandings of what fic fandom as a whole looks like--skewed understandings that help bullies go after m/m content with the pretense that they’re striking back against The Man.

It’s time those of us who like fandom stats took responsibility for lopsided, AO3-centric narratives and the social damage they can do.

Here is what fandom looks like actually:

Notes on the chart data below the cut:

These are stats showing, to the best of my ability, what is extant on these sites in 2020. (So it’s fic posted throughout the archives’ histories, not fic posted in 2020.)

The AO3 numbers were compiled by going to the ship type tags and pulling the actual numbers. The Wattpad and FFN numbers are from randomly sampling those archives, then hand-classifying the sample. A quick check of the posting dates and fandoms represented suggests the samples are pretty representative, but it would be good to see other people repeat this exercise for comparison data.

There is some inevitable gray area between het and gen, and the vast, vast majority of these works were not clearly marked for het even in cases where they have graphic het sex scenes. The m/m and f/f fics were typically marked more clearly. In cases where headers mentioned a ship name or words like ‘slash’, ‘yaoi’, ‘bl’, ‘yuri’, etc., I used that as the classification. In ambiguous cases, I skimmed the fic and did text searches for ‘kiss’, ‘fuck’, etc. to see if I could find shippy content.

The “Multi & Other” category includes anything with more than one ship type (e.g. separate M/M and F/M ships in the same fic) as well as m/m/f, masturbation fics, tentacle monsters, etc. I did this because the numbers are so low on Wattpad and FFN that pulling out a separate slice for m/m+f/m or m/m+f/f would unnecessarily complicate the graph. It also helps weed out background ships on AO3. The m/m, f/m, f/f, and gen slices are works that are only tagged with that on AO3, and the whole pie chart adds up to 100%, like the other two do.

[nonokoko13]

SXF Chapters 49-51

It has been a long time since I made a recap, but I wanted to wait until the arc had enough info to give my opinion about.

Starting with the sub plot of the Forgers, all I have to say it's that it was well constructed.

While Yor protects Olka and Gram, she subconsciously wishes to be with Loid and Anya, but wonders what she's going to do next. Not only about her job, but about her role as Forger: she accepted being Loid's wife to not worry Yuri, then she caught herself feeling threatened by Fiona enough to consider the murder for one moment.

As well as Loid, she got carried away by her feelings to the point she forgot why she was being there, as Forger and assassin, to begin with. After her talk with Yuri in chapter 44 she realized that her main goal was finished; Yuri has already grown up and she doesn't need to be a hitman to support anyone economically. But she has being an assassin for a long time and she somehow takes pride in what she does. Probably that pride will be supported by this arc if she saves Olka, Gram and Zeb.

The dilemma is complicated: she enjoys being part of this family, however, she remembers it's a facade. Being assassin has made possible the survival of her and Yuri, and she believes it helps to clean the streets of people who can harm the new world the peace has created, although it carries many consequences to her life and those around her.

One day she could have to choose a path, but she can't tell her family what she does in order to protect them and because she may be afraid of them leaving her. Mr. Forger or Thorn Princess? Maybe both?

Loid is in a similar situation: with a job he knows he helps others, getting off guard by his feelings towards his family and unable to tell them or understand Anya. I'm 100% sure he never had to face a mission that include taking care of a child, less raise one. Because of Anya's telepathy she knows what happens around her, but he doesn't; this leads him to misunderstands her attitude and think the worse.

At first he tries to act like a normal, good dad, getting as answer harsh words. In chapter 50 he cools down and return to his Twilight side for round two, failing again until Anya calms him down. Meanwhile Anya has another conflict: as any child would do she decided to obtain the tickets to have fun, believing she can help Ma on her mission.

Although she still wants to, I think it's clear in some panels that she's realized her selfishness and now she wants to help Ma to compensate it. After all, imagine being at her shoes: having parents who hide their identities from each other and put both on a cruise while your mother is on a mission that could doomed your family if your father finds out this would be a really bad thing, and the fault of this was because of her.

But she's so focused on helping Yor she forgets about Loid's feelings after all those reactions coming from her frustration that she paid with him.

Zeb and Olka, although being on screen for short time, have a good presentation. She's just a woman caught in the crossfire of a conflict between mafia groups, paid with the loss of her husband and all her sons except Gram.

Seen from afar her desire of a normal life, she's in this because she was born the daughter of a mobster, although her group may not be as bloody as one would think about mafia. I find curious the parallels between Olka and Yor: Olka didn't choose her family, fell in love with a man and became mother because of this love; Yor chose that life because of her family, became wife and mother because of it and probably it's her love towards Anya that will keep her in the family until she falls for Loid.

Zeb is the childhood friend that fell for the "bad guy" 's daughter and stayed by her side because his loyalty to her and the family that helped him become the man he's today. A coward and apparently dumb nice guy, he maybe is not qualified to protect her but knows Olka well enough to know how to reassure her, even if it means making a fool of him. I'm sorry for Olka, but I hope they get safe and someday his feelings are reciprocated.

The informant has his own problems too. It seems not all assassins respect the client-provider relationship, it's a rough job where anyone is expendable. Will he be able to scape from the boat without being killed? Will we know more about him? Only time will tell

Giving his grey morality I'd like him to survive. He already stated he gives information to who pays better so he could be a good ally or a minor antagonist.

About the chapters, this arc had been felt slow to me. However, the arc is constructed to present many things and for that Endo needs to take his time. Along with the biweekly updates the dynamic action scenes that seem short it's why the pace feels slow.

However, whether it's good for ones or bad for others, this arc is important to the story's development and I prefer that Endo doesn't overwork so I'll wait patiently to have a further understanding of how this arc contributes to the general plot.

Next chapter comes the day after my birthday. I can't wait!

+ Bonus

"A different frequency than the secret police's line". Loid's aware of the informant's transmitters placed all over the boat, mistaken them with the secret police aboard, which it doesn't need to be entirely wrong. How it would have been the arc if Yuri would have been there too? It's a good writing idea

Talking about romance, someone's going to propose. Wish you the best buddy!

That's all. Bye!

[mindmeltonabun-blog]

Tale of the Nine Tailed: Explanation of Lee Rang’s Death and Lee Yeon’s Ending Scene

Well folks...here we are once again. I did say that I would not write another TOTNT post unless there was anything worth discussing in the finale. I know many of you may feel utterly devastated or somewhat confused by how TOTNT ended, but I hope my post will be able to comfort you somehow. Anyways, let’s put on our thinking caps one last time for TOTNT!

Lee Rang’s Death

One of the biggest complaints many have had is the death of Lee Rang. Many said that the writer did him dirty while others wished that Lee Yeon and Ji Ah would’ve died instead. However, when we looked at his character arc’s as a whole, his death was justified. We mustn’t forget that he murdered hundreds possibly thousands in wake of his anger. 

Yes, he did do some good towards the end of his life such as taking in Yuri and Kim Soo, but that shouldn’t discredit all the atrocious acts he had committed in the past. Saving the life of two people doesn’t make up for all of the lives he had taken. Additionally, it is noted that Lee Rang did also assist the Imoogi’s group to bring the Imoogi back to life which caused for a slew of horrible events to occur in the first place. 

In the end, it was Lee Rang’s turn to sacrifice for the one he loved. Everything in TOTNT is cyclic if you think about it. First Ah Eum died to save Lee Yeon then Lee Yeon died to save Ji Ah. Therefore, it was only logical that it was Lee Rang’s turn to die for the one he loved which was Lee Yeon. 

Everything in life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine, what matters is what you do despite being dealt a bad fate. Both Lee Yeon and Ah Eum/Ji Ah weren’t dealt with a particularly good fate, but yet they still remained good people. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Lee Rang. Yes, he was dealt with a bad fate with having been born with a mother who didn’t want him, but he was also lucky because he had been taken in by a brother who greatly cherished him. Instead of appreciating the time he shared with Lee Yeon and remaining a good person even after the events of Lee Yeon leaving for the Samcheon River, Lee Rang still decided to take a turn for the worst. 

Over and over again, Lee Rang had escaped the punishment he so rightly deserved. For example, even after killing those villagers, Lee Yeon spared his life. Lee Rang had been basically living off on borrowed time. In a way, Lee Rang was lucky that during that borrowed time he was able to resolve the misunderstanding he had with Lee Yeon as well as have a small family of his own. Finally, if there’s anything TOTNT has taught us, it’s that if something is the will of the afterlife judges, it will be carried out eventually. One can’t escape their punishment.

In my opinion, things could have gone a lot worse for Lee Rang in the end. Meaning he could have been reborn as a shrimp. Instead, the afterlife judges granted him reincarnation as a boy who had a mother who cared for him and granted him his last wish which was to meet his brother again. He got all of wishes fulfilled. Thus, it was a satisfying ending for Lee Rang. 

Update 12/07/2020: Does Lee Yeon Meeting Reincarnated Lee Rang Indicate Many Years Have Passed?

No, it doesn’t. The team probably wanted to use the same child actor (Joo Won Lee; DOB: 05/03/2011) as to imply that Lee Rang had been successfully reincarnated. Sure, they could’ve used someone who was a few months old, but how then would Lee Yeon recognize Lee Rang ? Remember that Lee Yeon only met Lee Rang when he was around 9 years old. There would be no way for Lee Yeon to recognize what a few months old Lee Rang could’ve looked like. Get it ? Again, Lee Yeon meeting reincarnated Lee Rang happened in 2021!

Why Does Lee Yeon Still Have His Gumiho Powers?           

Initially, when I first watched this I was beyond shocked, left confused, and was rethinking my opinion of Lee Yeon as a good person. However, once I watched it with subs and then did a little research into how Gumihos can become human, the ending scene made sense. Again, everyone should’ve taken Jo Bo Ah’s advice of looking up myths and see to how they pertain to whatever happened in TOTNT.

Anyways, in legends, Gumihos can become human in the following ways:

1)    Refrain from killing and eating humans for 1000 days

2)    The human who found out a Gumiho’s true nature, must tell no one of its secret for 10 years

3)    Over a period of 100 days (other versions say 1000 days or ~3 years), Kumiho must not be detected by the human they are married to.  If the Gumiho fails on this quest, they will lose any chance of becoming human and will be a Gumiho for 1000 years

4)    Gumiho must consume the livers of 1000 humans over 1000 years. If they do not do this by the end of 1000 years, the Gumiho will dissolve in foam/bubbles

In particular, the ending scenes was in reference to #3. When Lee Yeon had came back to life, he was still technically a Gumiho hence why he could enter the Office of the Afterlife. I know you might ask well why didn’t Taluipa or Shin Ju sense he was still a fox? Because at the same time Lee Yeon was human, but only during the day or nights when there wasn’t a full moon (read further below for an explanation). Additionally, Lee Yeon probably didn’t tell Shin Ju because he didn’t want there to be any possibility that information would get leaked to Ji Ah. Better safe than sorry was Lee Yeon’s personal philosophy!  

Although, Lee Yeon did come pretty close to being discovered as a Gumiho when he let it slip that he knew that their child would be a daughter. This all goes back to the intro in Ep 1 where it is said that Gumihos have the “ability to see miles ahead”. Luckily for Lee Yeon, he convincingly tricked Ji Ah and played it off as he was just saying weird things.

Until his 100 days were up, Lee Yeon had to keep his Gumiho nature hidden from the only person who mattered which was Ji Ah. Let’s be honest here, it’s really hard to trick Ji Ah so Lee Yeon had to be super careful around her. Usually in legends, Gumihos fall short of reaching the 100 days because they are discovered by their betrothed. During Lee Yeon’s 3 months transitional phase of becoming human, a situation arose that could’ve have caused Ji Ah to discover that Lee Yeon was still a Gumiho aka Mr Samjae entering into Ji Ah’s life. 

This caused a problem because whatever misfortune befell on Ji Ah it would also inadvertently affect Lee Yeon too. Meaning that if Lee Yeon didn’t get rid of the Samjae, it could cause Ji Ah the misfortune of finding out Lee Yeon still was a Gumiho, thus ruining his plan of ever becoming human. 

The only way anyone could tell Lee Yeon was still a Gumiho was to have seen him during a full moon. This was in reference to how in legends, werewolves (also in the same canine family as a fox) can only undergo transformation into a wolf when there was a full moon (symbolistic of metamorphosis). So while in the transitional state of Gumiho and human, Lee Yeon was able to take advantage of there being a full moon to be able to transform into a Gumiho. Subsequently, Lee Yeon then used his Gumiho abilities to rid of Mr. Samjae Spirit. Thus, Lee Yeon eliminated a potential threat that could have caused Ji Ah to find out his Gumiho nature before the 3 months of remaining undetected was completed.

Flash forward approximately 3-4 years later after Lee Yeon’s face off with the Samjae, Lee Yeon is now seen as having been successful at becoming a full human as well as having daughter with Ji Ah as seen here in the following pictures (family picnic). My only complaint is that the production/editing team ended up deciding to not include the following scene. I do not know whether it was their decision or the writer’s to not include this. There could be numerous reasons why such as they had wanted to leave the possibility of there being a season 2 or there was limited time allotted for the length of ep 16 or the writer had wanted to leave an open ending. Whatever the reason, I do hope we will eventually show this to us. In doing so, they would give so many of us the proper closure we needed for TOTNT!

Side note, it looks like Lee Yeon and Ji Ah did end up introducing their daughter to her adoptive grandparents. Awww!

Updated 12/07/2020: Timeline of Samjae + Lee Yeon’s Transitional Period

There were also a bunch of questions concerning when exactly the whole scenes with Ji Ah and Lee Yeon had occurred. This occurred in 2021.

Samjae is believed to occur over a three-year period, and follows calculations based on the twelve zodiac signs. The first of the three years is known as deulsamjae (Kor. 들삼재, lit. entering the three calamities), the second, nuulsamjae (Kor. 누울삼재, lit. middle of calamities), and the third, nalsamjae (Kor. 날삼재, exiting the three calamities). The first year in this three-year cycle is supposed to be the most unfortunate. 

Source: https://folkency.nfm.go.kr/en/topic/detail/4151

So doing a little math, one will be able to see what years the Samjae entered (deulsamjae), remained (nuulsamjae), and then exited (nalsamjae). So the Samjae entered into Ji Ah’s life in 1994, 2003, 2012, and 2021. The cycle of every 9 years refers to the time period from one Deulsamjae year to the next (not every 9 years from her year of birth). For example, 1994 + 9 = 2003, 2003 + 9 = 2012, and 2012 + 9 = 2021.

What the show was trying to convey is that when Mr. Samjae came into Ji Ah’s life, it also coincided at the same time as Lee Yeon’s 3 months transitional period. Additionally, there were some who asked, “Aren't we to assume that many years have passed because Lee Yeon did say first root canal, first picnic, first snowfall, etc ?”. No, I took that scene as him mentioning things he either already did or will eventually experience.

Anyways, I really didn’t think I needed to point all of this out because I had assumed you all would’ve put on your thinking caps by now!

Last Remarks.

I hope that this post was able to resolve any confusion many of you may have had about the last episode. The writer did truly keep us on our toes until the very end. But with a little research into myths as well as analyzing everything as a whole, one should’ve been able to understand where the writer was coming from. Again, I want to give a big thanks to the cast, crew, and writer for all their hard work to give us TOTNT!

[love-toxin]

If you make the nsfw alphabet for yuri or adrian ellie I am legally allowed to get on one knee and propose to you right there idc idc

yuri curry time 💕

A = Aftercare

Caring for you after sex is a bit of a war of attrition for Yuri. He loves to comfort and cuddle you and take you down from your high slowly, but he'll constantly be fighting against the exhaustion wearing down his body from all that heated exercise. But when he can handle it, he's the king of soothing you afterwards. 

B = Body Part

He's not especially fond of anything in particular, but he takes pride in his skin since he works very hard to keep it smooth and soft to the touch. The thing he'd love most about you would be your hands, because of the way they warm him up wherever you touch him. 

C = Cum

He doesn't cum a lot all at once, but he cums for a long time and it always causes him to be oversensitive. Milking his cock as he orgasms is one of the best ways to finish him off, especially since he'll be liable to pull an ahegao-like face while you take everything he has to offer. 

D = Dirty Secret

As much as he likes things clean, neat, and organized, he has a bit of a fantasy about making a mess and having you clean it up for him. Or, if he's feeling even more sadistic, having you jerk him off and lick his cum off the floor, which he'll surely wash beforehand to make it a little more pleasant for you. 

E = Experience

Yuri has very little experience with anything more than some gentle fooling around. He's been committed to the idea of marriage since he was very young, so he won't lose his virginity until he's wed to his true love. 

F = Favourite Position

Missionary for sure. It's easy, simple, traditional, and that's the kind of man Yuri is--as much as he pines for elegance, there are some things in life that just work without any pomp and frills, including what happens in the bedroom. 

G = Goofy

He's very rarely silly or goofy in bed, as he prefers to give you the best time he can and make it as special as possible. If you tease him about something or embarrass him, however, he might give it right back or even start tickling you if he's in an especially playful mood. 

H = Hair

He hasn't got much hair down below, and even what he does have is so fine and pale that it's difficult to see. He doesn't mind having a hairy partner, though--in fact he might be a little in awe of them for being able to grow so much of it, considering he can't even grow a mustache or a beard. 

I = Intimacy

Yuri tries so hard to be romantic during the moment, but he honestly doesn’t have to try at all. He wants every time to be as good as the last, he wants you to feel his love in every cell of your body during every second--so lovemaking is very sacred to him, and he’ll do his best to make you crave him even when you have to be apart. 

J = Jack Off

He doesn't usually have a strong urge to masturbate unless he's plagued with thoughts of you, in which case he'll stick to his hand and might use some pictures of you on his phone to help him along. That might also be a time when he texts you some rather lewd pictures of himself and hopes you'll exchange them back, or calls you if he's especially turned on and needs to hear your voice to get off. 

K = Kinks

Yuri can be pretty vanilla, but he will enjoy things like light bondage, daddy kinks, and roleplay--but that will probably be reserved for one particular scenario, in which he'll have you dress up in your wedding attire and re-enact your wedding night. 

L = Location

Home. Bed. He's not going to scrub cum out of his couch cushions and he'd like to have a glass of wine or several if he feels like it, so your bedroom is where most of your sexual encounters will stay. 

M = Motivation

Telling him you love him will turn him on, seeing you wear his clothes will turn him on, even hearing your voice will get him going--you can arouse him just by being his, though he’ll try to keep himself under control so you can save your intimacy for the perfect time. 

N = No

He doesn't want to be choked--it gives him too much anxiety and he'll start to panic if he can't breathe properly. He'd be fine if you wanted to be on the receiving end instead, though he's still not going to like it 100% when he watches you struggling to breathe, even if you like it. 

O = Oral

He has to take a breather every so often, but for the most part he's quite skilled in that area and loves to lavish attention on you. He'll always get rather excited when you offer to return the favour, too, and tends to get pretty whiny and undone when you do so. 

P = Pace

He likes to take things slowly most of the time, and he doesn't like to finish too quickly, but if he's teased a lot or you don't have a lot of time, he'll pick up the pace and work himself harder. It'll definitely result in him being much more tired afterwards, though. 

Q = Quickie

He's not an especially huge fan of quickies, but sometimes when you tease him too much he just can't stop himself. It's one of the few times he'll probably indulge in some rougher sex against a wall, or maybe even a table or over a chair somewhere secluded. 

R = Risk

He’s not a huge risk taker, but he’s fine with trying new kinks once in a while or doing something a little more adventurous. Risks with pregnancy are a little different, though--he’s much more apt to indulge in some of that. 

S = Stamina

Slow, drawn-out endurance he has, but short bursts of energy he does not. He'll try as hard as he can to keep up with you if you've got more stamina than him, but there's only so far he can go before he'll have to stop and let his body rest before he can try to continue. 

T = Toys

He doesn't own many toys, but if there's anything he will buy, it would be either some very fancy, expensive lube, or a pair of handcuffs for you so he can lock them around his bed frame. 

U = Unfair

He teases more with his words than anything else, his praise often peppered with much lewder compliments and promises for what’s to come. If it embarrasses you or makes you shy, he’ll do it twice as much as he would otherwise, just so he can make you blush at every opportunity. 

V = Volume

He's naturally pretty quiet, his noises more in the realm of little gasps and soft moans--but if you rile him up he can get loud, whether it's because he's crying out your name or begging you not to stop making him feel so good. 

W = Wildcard

If things get really intense, passionate, or maybe even during his first time, Yuri might shed a few tears during the act. Nothing as much as full-on sobbing or crying, but his eyes will water and he’ll get extremely embarrassed if you point it out, or try to comfort him and kiss them away. He doesn’t usually like to be babied, but those times will be one of the rares ones where he’ll enjoy it a little bit. 

X = X-Ray

7.5 inches of raw Yuri pleasure. It has a bit of a curve to the left, cut, and a few veins running up the underside to the tip, which flushes pretty darkly when he's aroused. His balls are also pretty sensitive and soft. 

Y = Yearning

His sex drive isn't terribly high, but it's not non-existent either. He can usually go at it about 2-4 times a week. 

Z = Zzz

He's embarrassed about how quickly he falls asleep after the act, though he can at least get some aftercare in before you find him passed out on his pillows, totally worn out. 

[rickyriddle]

AnR: a study of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder

Hey there! So here’s another analysis, not about a specific character, but AnR characters that would fit the psychopath/sociopath/antisocial personality disorder/conduct disorder. Those who are familiar with my other analysis would probably guess that I’ll be talking about Otoya. But I also referred to Nio and Hitsugi as sociopaths in previous analysis. I want to correct certain things I may have said that was incorrect as well as used more recent discovery I made about those disorders. I also want to include another character I didn’t really talk about regarding psychopathy/ASPD: Yuri Meichi. Without further ado, let’s take a look at those four characters and if weather or not they fit the diagnosis.

First I’ll explain the different distinction between the different conditions based on my understanding of those:

Primary Psychopathy: Most commonly referred as psychopathy. When specialists talk about psychopaths, most of the time they mean those who have primary psychopathy. Primary psychopathy is innate, meaning that primary psychopaths are born that way. Primary psychopathy is characterized by callousness, shallow affect, manipulation, and superficial charm. Not all primary psychopaths have antisocial personality disorder. They all have certain narcissistic traits (such as grandiose) but again, not all primary psychopaths could be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder either. Primary psychopaths have a defecting empathy, meaning that they can’t and will never feel empathy. They are usually viewed as high-functioning.

Secondary psychopathy: Usually referred to as sociopathy, even tho the term sociopath is outdated. Secondary psychopaths are made, they have been mold that way by their environment and possible trauma. Secondary psychopathy is associated with impulsivity and lack of long-term goals, and is related to hostile behaviors. Unlike primary psychopaths, secondary psychopaths are often emotionally unstable and can experience guilt and empathy. Their empathy isn’t defective but instead dysfunctional. All secondary psychopaths meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder and they are more likely to also have borderline personality disorder. They are also more likely to be low-functioning.

Antisocial Personality Disorder: Also often used as a synonyme of sociopathy. The criteria are failure to obey laws and norms, lying, deception, and manipulation for profit or self-amusement, impulsive behavior, irritability and aggression, blatantly disregards the safety of self and others, a pattern of irresponsibility and lack of remorse. The person needs to be at least 18, have conduct behavior before 15 and the antisocial behaviors aren’t related to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. People with ASPD can feel empathy and love towards those they bond with and their level of functioning depends of their IQ, education and environment.

Conduct Disorder: Considered the precursor of ASPD. Conduct disorder is characterized by antisocial behaviors in children and teenagers. The causes can be diverse, such as genetic, environment or even a low IQ. The signs of conduct disorder are bullying, aggressiveness, use of weapons, cruelty (towards humans or animals), stealing, forced sexual activities, vandalism, deceptiveness and serious rule violation. Whether those issues are treated or not can determine if those antisocial behaviors will continue in adulthood (and become ASPD) or not.

In this analysis, I’ll refer to primary psychopathy as PP, secondary psychopathy as SP, antisocial personality disorder as ASPD, conduct disorder as CD and narcissistic personality disorder as NPD.

In two of my recent posts I mentioned something Minakata said in KnR Room 4: “Recognizing that Otoya is an intrinsic psychopath and that Hitsugi is an acquired psychopath due to the environment and breeding.”

To me, there was no doubt that Otoya is a psychopath (PP). Minakata confirmed that Otoya is born that way therefore, she’s a primary psychopath. Then for Hitsugi, in her analysis I interpret the acquired psychopath as secondary psychopathy. And when I made the analysis, I thought that SP = ASPD and refer to Hitsugi as a sociopath, but given what I learned recently it might have been incorrect.

So, Minakata wrote psychopath “サイコパス” (saikopasu), which is based on the English word, therefore an anglicism. It sounds more like the pop-culture term instead of the medical term, which is 精神病質 (seishinbyō-shitsu). Therefore, I can be 100% that Minakata used the term psychopath in the medical sense and instead may just be a catch-all term for PP/PS/ASPD/CD. So, “acquired psychopath” doesn’t necessarily mean “secondary psychopath” but rather that Hitsugi acquire traits that are often associated with the whole psychopathy/ASPD spectrum. But, I firmly believe that “intrinsic psychopath” means “primary psychopath” since it’s the only condition among the spectrum who is innate.

So now that I correct that, let’s analyse the said characters and see if they fit any of those diagnosis.

Otoya, Hitsugi and Nio would all technically fit the CD diagnosis. They tend to be bullies, aggressive, use weapons (granted they are assassins but still), cruel, forced sexual activities (for Otoya, may or may not be applicable to Hitsugi), they are extremely deceptive and do violate rules. All of those behaviors are way more serious than a regular teenager rebellion and does harm others. But, even if they could all be diagnosed with CD (given that they are all underage) those three are all different and will probably have different diagnosis as they grow older. So let’s analyse them separately.

I’ll start with the easiest, Otoya. As I said, we know Otoya is born that way, therefore a PP. But just to be sure, let check if she does fit the criteria:

Callousness: I think it’s pretty obvious that Otoya has no sympathy or empathy for anyone and a total disregard for others. She’s insensitive and has no issues with abusing, torturing and killing people.

Shallow affect: This one mean shallow emotions. It doesn’t mean a lack of emotions, just that the emotional responses are low. I’m gonna base it on the manga version and say that despite Otoya’s cheerful attitude, she’s pretty emotionally shallow. Her cheerfulness is just an act. We can see after she failed and during KnR 5 that she’s actually quite cold.

Manipulation: Manipulation is basically Otoya’s middle name. All she does in the series is deceive, lie and manipulate to achieve her goals and simply for her personal pleasure. It’s as natural as breathing to her.

Superficial charm: I’d say Otoya is rather charismatic, she can easily charm people and gain their trust, but we know it’s not sincere. She’s smooth, engaging, charming, slick and voluble.

Otoya also have a defective empathy. You can’t possibly have empathy and commit all the atrocities she did, and she also show no remorse for her actions. She’s incapable of feeling those emotions. PP are born with a thinner amygdala, which is responsible for empathy, stress and fear. Her brain is incapable to feel empathy and remorse and never will.

But, Otoya’s actions show that she might not only be a PP. Otoya is a sadist who feel sexual pleasure from torturing and killing women. I don’t think we will argue if I say that she probably have sadistic personality disorder and sexual sadism disorder, as well as erotophonophilia (paraphilia of sexual arousal and gratification from the death of a human being, also known as lust murder). Those are not always linked to PP. In fact, unlike what people think, PP are rarely killers or even sadist, most of them are high-functioning and have normal jobs and aren’t committing any crimes. But, it’s true that most serial killers were either psychopaths or have ASPD, or both.

As I said earlier, Otoya would probably be diagnosed with CD. CD isn’t necessary to be a PP but it is for the ASPD diagnosis, meaning that in addition of being a PP, Otoya also have ASPD (well, technically she’s 16 so she couldn’t be officially diagnosis, but it’s safe to assume her behaviors won’t change at this point). At the very least, we can say that Otoya is antisocial, and PP and ASPD are often comorbid. Let’s see if she fits the criteria of ASPD:

Failure to obey laws and norms: I mean… she’s a goddamn serial killer who kills for sexual pleasure. 

Lying, deception, and manipulation for profit or self-amusement: This is a trait that overlap with PP. I already explained her manipulative nature.

Impulsive behavior: This one may seems to contradict the shallow emotions. Impulsive means making reckless decision or spontaneous decision. It means that if she has a sudden desire, she may not resist it. Impulsive isn’t a synonym of hot-headed (being easily or constantly mad). You can have low emotions and still be impulsive. So yes, Otoya is rather impulsive, she tends to make decision on a whim without thinking of consequences. 

Irritability and aggression: Again, even if someone is emotionally shallow doesn’t mean they have zero emotions. With the right trigger, even someone cold can get irritated and aggressive. In Otoya’s case, she can be quite aggressive if someone interrupt her when she’s having “fun” (aka torturing and killing) as we saw when Tokaku saved Haru from her.

Blatantly disregards the safety of self and others: In the manga Otoya was getting her ass kicked by Tokaku yet she continued to laugh and enjoy herself despite her injuries. The girl doesn’t care about her own safety and given her occupation, she doesn’t care about others’ safety either.

A pattern of irresponsibility: Otoya went overboard with killing and ended up attractive the attention of a detective, reason why she joined Class Black. Instead of recognizing that what she’s doing is wrong, she blames the detective for ruining her fun and literally want a serial killer insurance so she’ll never have to get into trouble for killing. I think it’s a form of irresponsibility, instead of fixing her behaviors or at least be more careful, she prefers to just have someone to clean up her mess forever. 

Lack of remorse: Another trait that overlap with PP. I don’t think I need to explain this one again.

So in conclusion, Otoya is born a psychopath, but acquired antisocial behaviours due to her environment as well as sadism. Her natural lack of empathy probably make those easier to acquire. Otoya will never genuinely change as a person, she may change her behaviour to get what she wants but she will always the same. Right now, she would be diagnosed with PP and CD, but it makes no doubt that when she’ll be 18 she would be diagnosed with ASPD. So my final diagnosis: Antisocial Primary Psychopath.

Then, we have Hitsugi. So let’s throw the PP out of the possibility since we know she isn’t born that way and was mold by her environment. I would also discard SP given that Hitsugi seems pretty high-functioning as a person. SP tend to be anxious, fearful, hostile and emotionally unstable and it doesn’t seem to be the case with Hitsugi. On the contrary, Hitsugi said that she doesn’t feel much, showing that she does have shallow emotions (not a lack of emotions, mind you). As I said earlier, Hitsugi would most likely be diagnosed with CD. Hitsugi has no problem with hurting and killing people if it suits her or even just for curiosity and she didn’t feel any remorse for that. She’s deceptive, manipulative and a pathological liar. Regarding the forced sexual activities I mentioned earlier, I’m not saying that Hitsugi is a rapist or a sexual predator like Otoya seems to be. I meant it in a way that Hitsugi seems somewhat forceful and assertive when it comes to intimacy, kissing Chitaru even if the latter may not fully consent or be comfortable with it (I’m mainly referencing their second kiss after Chitaru learned the truth and was distressed, it was, in my opinion, inappropriate for Hitsugi to kiss her and seemed like she was taking advantage of Chitaru’s vulnerability).

It’s true, however, that Hitsugi loves and feel regrets for hurting Chitaru, but that’s because she bond with her. Hitsugi doesn’t feel remorse for any other people than Chitaru. Also, it’s true that Hitsugi shows signs of low-self esteem, which is not mutually exclusive with CD. In fact, from what I read, it’s common. I suppose that those with CD who grow up to have ASPD eventually lose their low self-esteem, but Hitsugi is still young.

We don’t know exactly Hitsugi’s past but we can assume that she was brought into the assassination business at a young age and that she eventually lost her capacity to have empathy and started to feel empty. But, thanks to Chitaru, in a way, Hitsugi was able to reconnect with her lost feelings and there may be some hope for her to outgrow her CD and not develop ASPD. But, if Hitsugi never met Chitaru or met her as an adult, there’s no doubt in my mind that she would have ASPD (but not be a SP).

So in conclusion, Hitsugi isn’t born like that, she was mold by her environment, and she does exhibit a lot of antisocial behaviours. So my final diagnosis: Conduct Disorder with chances of antisocial tendencies in adulthood.

Now let’s analyse Nio. In my analysis of her I did say she may have ASPD, but I clarified that given her age she would rather be diagnosed with CD. Nio is unlikely to have PP given that she’s capable of bonding and feeling genuine love. So, when she’ll be 18, would she still be more likely to have regular ASPD or SP?

First, let’s see if she does fit the ASPD criteria:

 Failure to obey laws and norms: Even if Nio is following Yuri’s orders, she doesn’t seem to be someone who follow rules in general or the law. She doesn’t listen to her teacher and did broke the Clack Rules (she tried to kill Haru without sending a notice). I don’t have much example for this one.

Lying, deception, and manipulation for profit or self-amusement: Nio’s whole character is about deception. She acts all cheerful, enthusiastic and friendly while truly she doesn’t care about others, she even said she hate them, and enjoy seeing them fail and suffer. She did lied several time and manipulated Haru, all of this mainly for profit or just for fun.

Impulsive behavior: I wouldn’t say Nio is particularly impulsive nor do I really have example, except maybe her decision to kill Haru.

Irritability and aggression: Even if Nio acts friendly, she clearly stated hating all her classmates and got pretty angry with Haru at the end, probably because she was tired of pretending.

Blatantly disregards the safety of self and others: Nio did choose to fight Tokaku one on one even tho Tokaku is a much better fighter. Nio is ready to take risks. She doesn’t care about others’ safety as she gladly accepted to let Haruki try to commit suicide to win (with a huge grin on her face). 

A pattern of irresponsibility: Not much instance in the series except in her flashbacks where we see she was a really undisciplined child. We can assume that even if she used to be irresponsible, with Yuri’s strict education it wouldn’t weird if Nio lost this trait over time.

Lack of remorse: Nio never showed genuine sympathy or empathy towards anyone (except Yuri) and doesn’t seem to have any remorse for any of her actions.

She fits most of them but not perfectly. But as I said, ASPD can only be diagnosed as an adult and Nio is only 15. So it’s possible that she might not have developed fully all the ASPD traits. To me, given that she’ll remain with Yuri, who basically abused her as a kid and groomed her, it’s unlikely that she will change. She’ll most likely have ASPD in adulthood. And, given that her relationship with Yuri is unhealthy, there’s a chance that she might end up more emotionally unstable. Abusive relationship on long-term have terrible effect on one psyche. So to me, Nio eventually turning to a secondary psychopath would be a high possibility.

The differences between Nio and Hitsugi regarding their respective relationship is that even if ChitaHitsu is also toxic, the abusive one is Hitsugi, not her partner. So there’s a chance that thanks to Chitaru’s influence she might change and outgrow her CD. Nio on the other end is the victim, Yuri being the abusive one. If Nio grows while still being affected by Yuri’s abuse she’s unlikely to get better.

In conclusion, Nio currently has CD and will most likely have ASPD as an adult as well as SP. She’s not born that way and was mold by her environment and Yuri’s abuse. My final diagnosis: Conduct Disorder with future Antisocial Personality Disorder and possible Secondary Psychopathy.

And now, last but not least, Yuri Meichi. Now you might remember that in my last psychopaths/sociopaths anime characters list I said that Yuri was either a psychopath or a high-functioning sociopath. Well, let’s break it down.

Yuri being an adult I won’t mention CD for her. So let see if she’s born that way or mold by comparing PP and SP criterial.  Callousness? Yuri doesn’t seem to care about anyone and is pretty insensitive to others pain. Shallow affect? Well, Yuri is pretty emotionally shallow. She barely show any emotion except what appears to be mild-interest. Throughout the entire series she almost only smile calmly, even while beating up a kid. She’s a calm and cold person. Manipulation? There isn’t much instances that show if Yuri is manipulative, but we did see that she manipulate Nio as a kid and basically groomed her. Superficial charm? Yuri is quite charismatic. She can be smooth, engaging, charming, slick and voluble and we know it isn’t sincere.

What about the SP traits? Impulsivity and lack of long-term goals? Yuri pretty much succeeded in life and is one of the most powerful person in the world who is always calm and rational. Hostile behaviors? Yuri can be intimidating as a person, but she isn’t acting in a hostile and aggressive way.

So it doesn’t seem that Yuri have SP and is more likely to have PP, therefore be born that way. But could she also have ASPD? Let’s see.

 Failure to obey laws and norms: Yuri makes me think she’s lawful evil. She makes the law.

Lying, deception, and manipulation for profit or self-amusement: She does that, but it’s also a trait that overlap with PP.

Impulsive behavior: Nope.

Irritability and aggression: Nope.

Blatantly disregards the safety of self and others: Disregards for others perhaps, even thought she didn’t let the injured assassins dies (yet let countless people die for the clan).

A pattern of irresponsibility: Not really

Lack of remorse: Yes, but again, it overlap with PP.

So it seems that all the ASPD traits Yuri has are also PP traits. So therefore, I don’t think she would qualify as having ASPD. And given that she’s 30 now, she’s unlikely to change.

So in conclusion, Yuri is most likely born that way. My final diagnosis: Primary Psychopathy

Phew, that was long. So, among the four characters I analysed, they are all at different places on the spectrum. Here’s a good diagram to illustrate it. I’ll show on it where the characters are or will be in a couple of years:

Thanks for reading, if you have any comments or questions feel free to ask me and see you next time!

[quartings]

PokeSpe English fancast!

These are the voices I usually try to imagine in my head whenever I read the manga! Some of these I came up with myself, others I just accepted after looking up videos of the same topic on YouTube. I also know most, if not all of these castings would be impossible, since some of the listed actors have aged out of the roles and others would not conceivably work for an anime.

Try these out whenever you next read the manga! And if you have any suggestions for voices you think fit better, feel free to tell me about it!

(Long post, so it’s under the cut!)

Red (Gen 1-2): Veronica Taylor (Original Ash Ketchum)

- Since they start out pretty similarly and are counterparts anyways, why not?

Red (Gen 3+): Bryce Papenbrook (Origins Red)

- I’m not a hardcore fan of the guy’s work, but he fits well enough and is easy to recall!

Blue (Gen 1-2): James Cathcart (Gary Oak)

- He definitely isn’t the best choice for his more edgy counterpart, so any generic shonen rival voice would also be just as good!

Blue (Gen 3+): Johnny Bosch (Origins Brock)

- Taken off a YouTube suggestion, I think this one’s pretty fitting!

Green (Gen 1-2): Tara Strong (Kitten Walker- Teen Titans)

- I think this one fits very well with Green’s cheeky and flirty personality!

Green (Gen 3+): Michelle Knotz (May- Pokemon AG)

- I feel Green could keep Tara Strong as her voice actress throughout, but I included this for equality in case anyone wanted to see!

Yellow: Laura Bailey (Maka Albarn- Soul Eater)

- Another YouTube suggestion which really impressed me! Laura has a lot of range, which is needed to play Yellow!

Gold (Gen 2-3): Maddie Blaustein (AJ- Pokemon episode 8)

- While his accent was a bit much, I like him as a spunky counterpart to Ash! Any better versions of a similar character would be appreciated!

EDIT: Now that I think about it, Ben Schwartz would actually be a good choice for Gold!

Gold (Gen 4+): Scott McCord (Dan Kuso- Bakugan)

- (YouTube suggestion) There’s probably many other voices that’d fit here too!

Silver: Julian Rebolledo (Paul- Pokemon DP)

- Any super-edgy anime guy would fit (I saw Sasuke as one suggestion and agreed), but I’m going with the closest existing Pokemon comparison!

Crystal: Janice Kawaye (XJ9, Ami Onuki, etc)

- I think Janice’s peppy voice and strong “voice of reason” tone would be perfect for Crystal!

Ruby (Gen 3): Scott Menville (Robin- Teen Titans)

- Scott’s capability of playing both a campy loon (Er... thanks, TTG?) and a young badass was what really motivated me to choose him!

Ruby (Gen 6+): Todd Haberkorn (Hikaru- Ouran Host Club)

- While I still think Scott could voice Ruby all the way, the many occurrences of Todd on other people’s list and the voice clips they provided convinced me to begrudgingly put him here for his sheer skill.

Sapphire: Carolyn Richards (Sandy Cheeks, Cindy Vortex, etc)

- I think she would pull off Sapphire’s tough attitude, southern (?) accent and semi-tsundere nature based on the two roles listed above!

Emerald: Tara Strong (Ben Tennyson- Ben 10)

- Maybe I’m biased because he also has the green and #10 motif, but I think Ben 10′s voice would be a perfect for a spunky little kid like Emerald! I don’t think most usual anime dub voices would fit him very well otherwise...

Diamond: Zach Eisen (Avatar Aang)

- For a pure boi like Diamond, I think he’d 100% need an actual kid actor voicing him. And for ease of imagination, the rest of the Sinnoh Trio’s voices will also line up with the Gaang’s, because they actually fit quite well!

Pearl: Jack DeSena (Sokka)

- Barry’s voice also fits really well since the two are almost identical characters, but this works pretty well, too!

Platinum: Mae Whitman (Katara, many other roles)

- I think Mae Whitman’s impressive repertoire of wise and strong girl characters speaks for itself. For more anime-oriented folks, I’ve also seen the great Christina Vee on other people’s suggestions!

Black: Michael Reisz (Takuya- Digimon Frontier)

- For the longest time I imagined Black played by Yuri Lowenthal, but when I saw Michael’s voice clips from a YouTube suggestion, they immediately won me over!

White: “Miss Paradox Space” (White, PokeSpe BW Fandub)

- While certainly not the most professional actress on this list, hearing her in the YouTube fandub series for the manga was a great pleasure! She has a very unique voice that fits the role very well! If you know a similar and better actress, make sure to tell me about her!

Blake: Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke Uchiha, teen Ben Tennyson, Mercury Black, etc)

- Similar to Scott Menville as Ruby but more adult, Yuri has the range of playing both a badass and a dweeb (for Blake’s campy playboy facade.)

Whitley: Haven Paschall (Serena- Pokemon XY)

- Haven’s amazing skill at conveying “sweet anime girl experiencing despair” was what led me to choose her for this role!

X: Mike Erwin (Speedy- Teen Titans)

- I know there are many roles that fit better than this, so let me hear them! Personally I never liked that X and Y were aged down for the manga, so my choice here might be a bit biased.

Y: Ashley Johnson (Ellie- The Last of Us, many many other roles)

- One of the best tough girl voices for one of the toughest Dex Holders!

Sun: Jacob Hopkins (Original Gumball Watterson)

- It was super-tough deciding whether or not to give Sun a kid actor or not (I was dead-set on Ben Schwartz for a while) but I think this probably fits? Gumball’s personality of a well-meaning kid with a slightly askew moral compass should work well for Sun! Any better suggestions?

Moon: Kimiko Glenn (Peni Parker, Lena DeSpell, etc)

- Kimiko’s voice really fits a friendly and composed yet badass girl like Moon!

[rkhendery-blog]

━ episode 1 ; june 27th, 2019 •  callbacks

singing : HISTORY MAKER by DEAN FUJIOKA (1:22 - 3:07)  playing : electric guitar outfit :  ☀

honestly, guanheng was pretty surprised when he got the email to say he’d made it through the cut and was in callbacks. only 100 people, and he was one of them? it seems pretty surreal, and each time he got that little bit further he realised just how excited he was for this, to see where it took him; if not to a training contract, then to some self-discovery? 

all he wanted right now was to be able to perform again. 

he had a week this time to come up with a performance, and make himself presentable for it - aka not looking like some eboy that jumped right out of instagram. it was pretty easy to pick a song; one he already knew the lyrics too, and how to play on the electric guitar. it didn’t take him long to fiddle around until it fit the time restraints. 

the outfit was a tiny bit more troublesome, so, he asked an instragram friend for help and within a day or two he had his outfit ready - a fancy white shirt, floaty black cut-off pants, and some sparkly kitten-heeled boots. it wasn’t super out there, but at the same time it wasn’t boring - a perfect match for the kind of person he’s like. 

finally, the day arrives, and he pulls himself out of bed, fixes his hair to look presentable, then tugs on the outfit that’s bound to get him some stares on public transport. slinging his guitar in it’s case onto his back he heads out, hands already clammy at the realisation of what he’s heading off to do. 

the studio is odd, unlike anything he’d ever seen before, really - it’s like seeing the bare-bones of the things he watches on tv. it’s odd, like he’s seeing something he’s not meant to, almost. the sea of unfamiliar faces is, thankfully, broken up by a familiar face here and there - he spots dejun’s cousin, xuxi, clearly dressed to impress, across the room. then, taeil, who he’s exceptionally surprised to see - he didn’t know he had any interest in performing. even so, he takes the seat beside him with a friendly smile, quiet greeting, and then leaves him be, wondering whether he’s as nervous as guanheng himself is. 

he should probably be more in awe of the judges, he realises, as people gasp and exclaim in loud whispers when they’re revealed. he’s probably not paid enough attention to the industry to be intimidated, as it seems many other people are, but then he supposes that might be to his advantage - if he’s not already terrified of them, he’s less likely to mess up. 

time passes, and people perform - a girl called heejin does well, in his opinion - a fellow guitar player, so he already both likes her, and sees her as competition, though more so in a lighthearted kind of way. he makes a mental note to keep an eye out for her later on, before his attention is pulled right back to worrying about his own performance. 

it feels like forever, yet no time at all before his own name is called - he thinks by baek jiyoung, though he’s so unfamiliar with the ceo’s that it takes him a couple seconds to be sure that it’s her and not katie lee. he takes a deep, shaky breath, his guitar already pulled from it’s case, and with it hung across his body he makes his way to the stage. 

it’s a little difficult to bow with his guitar hanging in front of him, but he makes it work, smiling a small smile at the judges. “hi, i’m huang guanheng, i’m 21, and i’ll be singing for you today. thank you.” he speaks into the mic, set up on a stand, and then takes a step back, hanging his head to prepare himself for a moment. 

then, with the first few plucks and strums of the strings he sways a little, working his way into the song. 

can you hear my heartbeat? i've got a feeling it's never too late i close my eyes and see myself how my dreams will come true

it’s a slow start, and he knows it’s probably a well known song after yuri on ice became such a huge things a few years back, so he tries his hardest todo it justice, knowing it holds a special place in many people’s hearts (his included). he picked the second verse to start on, rather than the first, because he liked how there was more variation to the well-known tune; the higher note on ‘see myself’ for example. 

there'll be no more darkness when you believe in yourself you are unstoppable where your destiny lies dancing on the blades you set my heart on fire

the next part has a nice, but clear build-up, just as it should do. his fingers easily strum the notes, though his hands are mainly on autopilot, having played the song so many times before that it’s merely muscle memory now. he’s able to focus on his voice this way, not that he needs to - singing the song is it’s own kind of autopilot. 

singing, though, he knows, takes more concentration - because you can’t just sing, you’ve got to put emotion in, make the audience feel it. 

don't stop us now, the moment of truth we were born to make history we'll make it happen we'll turn it around yes, we were born to make history

this part, in guanheng’s opinion, is probably the prettiest part of the song, not only because the music almost raises goosebumps on his arms, but because he likes the way determination fills the lyrics. he likes the message this song sends; he hopes it makes him out to be a little more confident than he really is. 

the chorus repeats, and his body moves, almost bounces to the music, a determined smirk gracing his lips (though forced there, past his reluctantly accepting barrier of nerves), trying to put on as much of a show as he possibly can. 

we were born to make history we were born to make history yes, we were born to make history

then, as he nears the end, that determined phrase, trying to drill it into people that he is a history maker, repeats. the affirmative statement of yes, we were born to make history is something he wants people to keep thinking after his performance, if not for him, then maybe for themselves - it could very well be an anthem for every contestant there. it’s we and not i for a reason. 

he drags out that last ‘history’, then stills, hands letting the last note ring out, before he drops them and breaks into a somewhat nervous looking smile. he bows, thanks the judges for watching him again, and then scurries off the stage and back to his seat, clutching at his guitar as though it would keep him grounded. 

though it was scary, he notes again, performing really is amazing. no wonder he’s still chasing that dream of performing somehow, in some way. 

[animesavior]

"We face everything together. Caulifa, you don't think I’m interfering, do you? *Cries* Now you make it seem like I’m not good enough for her again, like I’ll always let her down! This is your fault. Yours Goku! You're taking my one and only away from me and you're going to regret that, Goku. I'll make you pay!"

-          Kale, Dragon Ball Super (Ep. 100)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for March 2-3, 2019. We commemorate 100 episodes of Dragon Ball Super on Toonami as Caulifa and Kale challenge Goku to a fight, while Kirito and Eugeo play the role of Goblin Slayers to save Selka and subsequently finding a faster way to chop down the Gigas tree, Megalonia begins as Yuri fights Pepe in the first match, and My Hero Academia begins its 3rd Season, among other moments.

On Twitter, #Toonami would trend in the US alongside #MegaloBox and #JoJo’sBizarreAdventure, while on Tumblr, #Toonami would trend along with #BNHA and #Hunter x Hunter. The full list including statistics and tweet counts from the twitter app and Amr Rahmy’s Fanscreening analytics app can be seen below.

This week’s feature is a new music video from the band Oozing Wood titled “Tween s**tbag”. You can check it out by clicking here.

Other notable news relevant to Toonami viewers include:

To commemorate 30 years of Dragon Ball Z, Funimation and Toei will be releasing a Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, which will include all the episodes as well as a full art book, an exclusive figure, and other content to be announced. The release date and pricing is still to be determined.

Good news for Kill la Kill fans this week as PQube Games, the European distributor for the upcoming game: IF, has said that an English dub and a sub is being planned for the final release. Dubs of anime based video games are quite rare due to cost considerations among other technical issues, so having Alex von David, Erica Mendez, and the entire crew being tapped to be a part of it is pretty good news.

Cartoon Network as a whole will be a part of a corporate reorganization as part of the AT&T-WarnerMedia merger, as Turner Broadcasting will be split up into 3 separate divisions in the Warner corporate family. Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies will join Warner Bros. under a new unit for "Global Kids & Young Adults.", while HBO, TNT, TBS, TruTV and a future streaming service will form "WarnerMedia Entertainment", and CNN, CNN Digital and HLN, will be joined with Turner Sports, Bleacher Report and the AT&T Regional Sports Networks to form "WarnerMedia News & Sports".

And for all the Canadian viewers out there, the Canadian version of Adult Swim is being expanded from a nightly block to a full-fledged channel. While it is assured that Adult Swim originals will air on this new channel, whether they do plan on showing other productions including Toonami programming is to be determined.

Finally in One Punch Man breaking news, Viz Media will be simulcasting the upcoming second season on Hulu beginning on April 9th. There will also be a special programming that will air on April 2nd in Japan, but details and availability regarding licensing are currently unavailable. No word yet on the dub's production and a return to Toonami as of now.

Daylight Savings Time will begin next Saturday, but much like previous years, Toonami will largely be unaffected as Black Clover, Hunter x Hunter, Shippuden, and Attack on Titan will each technically move down 1 hour from their regular timeslots due to the transition. So if you normally watch the whole block from end to end, you’re viewing should be unaffected, just you’ll get an hour less sleep. If you can’t stay up past 3 however, make sure to set your DVRs.

Not much else to say other than see you again next week for another round of the better cartoon show. Later.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#10]

#DragonBallSuper [Trended with #Toonami, #DragonBallSuper and #MegaloBox]

#SwordArtOnline [Trended with #MegaloBox]

#MegaloBox [#11]

#JoJosBizarreAdventure [#10]

#Shippuden [Trended with #Toonami and #JoJosBizarreAdventure]

Tweet Counts:

#Toonami [5,549 tweets]

#DragonBallSuper [5,009 tweets]

#Boruto [2,846 tweets]

#SwordArtOnline [2,163 tweets]

#MegaloBox [1,306 tweets]

#JoJosBizarreAdventure [3,191 tweets]

Fan Screening Counts:

#DragonBallSuper [#7 with 3345 tweets]

#Boruto [#19 with 1,445 tweets]

#MyHeroAcademia [#8 with 2316 tweets]

#SwordArtOnline [#12 with 1473 tweets]

#MegaloBox [#18 with 865 tweets]

#JoJosBizarreAdventure [#15 with 1025 tweets]

#BlackClover [#21 with 991 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami

#BNHA

#Hunter x Hunter

Notes and Other Statistics:

#DragonBallSuper: @WhoTrendedIT reported that @DawnMBennettVA and @ToeiAnimation started the trend in the US.

#SwordArtOnline: @WhoTrendedIT reported that @BandaiNamcoEU started the trend in the US.

#JoJosBizarreAdventure: @WhoTrendedIT reported that @DC_Douglas started the trend in the US.

Special thanks to @coreymbarnes, @sdurso5, and others I forgot to mention for spotting some of the trends on this list.

Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[shazzeaslightnovels]

Reading Log - February 2019

Mostly Saekano with some first volumes thrown in. As per usual, there will be no spoilers, unless tagged otherwise.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 4 by Fumiaki Maruto:

With this volume Blessing Software is now complete! But before I talk about our new member, I want to say that my favorite thing about this volume was seeing just how close Katou has become with Eriri and Utaha, especially the former. I have mixed feelings on Michiru: on the one hand, purple colour theme + short hair + can’t-read-the-room + genki gal = moe; on the other hand, I would hate her if I met her in real life. She constantly invades Tomoya’s personal space, belittles his hobbies and dreams and is way too disrespectful to the person who is giving her a place to sleep while she fights with her dad. I think she’s an enjoyable and interesting character but an awful person.  I really disliked how the anime handled her first episode. The constant shots of her boobs and ass made me so uncomfortable, especially seeing how that kind of outfit is actually pretty typical hot weather wear in Australia. It became a bit better in the following episodes but I still despise it. Overall, I’d still call the anime adaptation a good one, though. It succeeded in making Katou feel more like a boring heroine than the novel and manga did and I still love the café scene in episode 2. I won’t be covering the second season in this section anymore because AnimeLab doesn’t have access to it and I mostly only watch things using AnimeLab these days. In any case, I’m interested to see where the story goes from here.

Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 1 by Okina Baba:

Well, this book was certainly a struggle to read. Most of the book is written in a stream-of-conscious writing style, meaning that 90% of the volume is purely narration. It’s a hard style for me, both to write and read but I think it works well here due to the protagonist’s personality being incredibly fun. But my attention did wander quite a bit while I was reading and I struggled with deciphering the skill names in Japanese. I also found the S chapters that occur after every few main chapters to be unnecessary. One of the things that can really kill my enjoyment of a story is knowing something before the protagonist does. I like to experience the story and world along with the protagonist and it’s frustrating when something important is revealed to the reader long before it’s revealed to the protagonist. This is not the most irritating example of it but I think the manga was right in skipping these chapters. It keeps you in suspense for longer. While I certainly enjoyed this volume I may continue the story through the manga instead of the light novel. The visuals in the manga are hilarious and really added to my enjoyment of the series and I don’t think I’m interested enough in the story to be annoyed with the slow pace of the manga.

This series is currently being released in English by Yen-Press as So I’m a Spider, So What? so pick it up if the series interests you.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 5 by Fumiaki Maruto:

Definitely my favorite volume so far. It was incredibly interesting to the point where I stayed up late just to finish it. It also included a lot of my favorite elements of the Koisuru Metronome spin-off: a conflict the centred on writing issues, information on how to improve writing and Utaha being really interesting and complex. All that was missing was Mayu. In any case, I think what I want this series to do is to challenge it’s own genre and tropes. It’s a great romcom but it’s not much more than that yet.

Bishoujo Sakka to Mezasu Million Selleraaaaaaaa!! 1 by Takeru Kusakabe:

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure why I bought this book. I think I was looking for something easy to read at the time and this ranked in KonoRano 2018. Anyhow, this is written by the author of Noucome, which I remember as a series with an alright premise that got old fast but had good girls. Million Seller isn’t much different. The protagonist is a guy who becomes an editor and wants to be able to be put in charge of a series that can sell a million copies but gets put in charge of light novel series, which don’t sell as much. So he gets put in charge of two ladies, one who’s a high school student and another who’s an office lady. And it’s… fine. The characters are likeable and I was impressed that the author made the characters distinct enough that if you were to pick out a random page from the volume, you’d be able to tell who was talking to who by looking at how they speak. The thing is, the series doesn’t stand out. If want a romcom with a harem, there are better ones and it’s really not that informative on the light novel industry. There are some funny interactions but I’d only recommend it if you really liked Noucome’s sense of humour or are looking for some easy light novels to read to improve your Japanese. I won’t be reading the second volume.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 6 by Fumiaki Maruto:

This was a really satisfying volume in terms of what it did for the plot and Eriri’s character. And, like vol. 5, every time I finished a chapter, I wanted to hurry on to the next. Iori continues to be a delight and Izumi has really grown on me. I’m excited to see what these characters do next.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata F.D. by Fumiaki Maruto:

Going into this, I knew that it wouldn’t have much to do with the main story but I ended up wishing that it had even less to do with the main story. All it is is a bunch of short stories taking place in between chapters of the main light novel that were previously published in magazine + an interview with Maruto and Misaki (the illustrator for the series) that is really hard to read on an iPad. I thought it would be a bunch of non-canon icharabu scenes between Tomoya and the heroines but there wasn’t much of that at all. Furthermore, Sayuri, who appears on the cover, doesn’t actually appear in the volume and I get the feeling that she’s only on there because Misaki created an amazing character design that wasn’t able to get shown off in vol. 6. Interestingly, some of these stories appear in other versions of the story; I recognized some of them because similar scenes appeared in the anime and Koisuru Metronome. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had read it while I was reading the main volumes but I really don’t think it’s worth buying unless you’re a diehard fan of the series and want to know everything about the characters. This volume did make it clear how much Maruto has grown as a writer though; the first few stories were written the earliest and felt really jarring to read and definitely felt more like the type of writing that would be used in a galge but the later stories were much better.

Baccano! The Rolling Bootlegs by Ryohgo Narita

Note: I read this in English a few years ago and loved it and the anime was one of the first that I saw and I loved that so reading this volume in Japanese has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

As much as I enjoy the Baccano! series, this volume has never been one of my favourites. Even in the anime, I tended to zone out during these parts. But I did enjoy it more this time around. Narita really knows how to set the scene and make you really absorbed into it. The thing that surprised me the most about rereading this was Ennis. I remember that I used to find her really boring but I LOVED her here. She’s a genuinely interesting character and her scenes with Miria and Isaac were my favorite part of the volume and I loved the scenes that were narrated by her. My favorite thing about Baccano has always been the lack of a true protagonist and that’s certainly true here. Firo’s probably the closest to it in this volume but you could definitely argue that the protagonist is Maiza and Isaac and Miria have always been so iconic that they’ve always felt like the protagonists to me. That being said, I found the scenes revolving around the Gandor siblings and Dallas to be really boring and I can see why someone might not enjoy a series that has this many characters to follow. I’m looking forward to reading the 1931 arc, in any case.

This series is currently being published by Yen-Press as Baccano! so pick it up if the series interests you.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 7 by Fumiaki Maruto

Well, this was certainly an emotional volume. It starts off seeming like it’s going to be pretty cute valentines day volume but it becomes an emotionally taxing one by the end. But I didn’t mind it too much. The drama elements worked for me and I was so shocked by the first epilogue that I thought my eyes would pop out of my head! Indeed, like the previous volumes, I set off to read one chapter and was half-way done with the volume before I knew it! One thing that Maruto does really well in this series is balancing the heroines. I still think that end girl could be either Katou or Eriri at this point and, if not for Koisuru Metronome’s existence, I would say that Utaha still has a chance too. And part of me is still holding out for a surprise yuri ending with Eriri and Katou. Their relationship is so well written that I can’t help but wonder whether Maruto just really wants to write a yuri novel but hasn’t for whatever reason. This volume marks the end of the manga adaptation (though it looks like they also adapted the GS side novels so I’ll probably talk about that at some point) and it was a good manga adaptation. I think the adaptations of the first 4 volumes were not great but 5-7 have been adapted really well so I’d recommend it.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata Girls Side by Fumiaki Maruto

The volume is split into two parts. The first part focuses on how Utaha and Eriri first met and it’s an amusing side story and definitely worth the read if you’re a fan of those two. The second scenario’s premise is more spoilery as it focuses on events that the reader heard about but didn’t see in vol. 7. While this volume isn’t required reading to understand the main plot, I still thought it was worth reading and would recommend it to most Saekano fans, especially those who like Utaha and Eriri. As for the manga, it only adapts this volume and it’s a 1:1 adaptation so no complaints from me.

Assassins Pride 1 by Kei Amagi

If I were to describe this volume in one word it would be ‘weird’. It has weird pacing in that most of the chapters could have been made into their own volume though I suspect that the reason for the fast pace is because the writer wanted to grab the readers’ attentions straight away. It has a weird protagonist because I can’t read him at all. I can never tell when he’s acting and when he’s being genuine. Finally, the future volumes look weird. From this volume and the covers of future volumes I assumed that this series would have a central OTP with possibly a slight harem element but the colour illustrations for the future volumes make it seem like it’s going to become an ecchi lolicon harem series so I don’t know what to think so I’m approaching this series with cautions and won’t be buying volume 2 until the anime comes out so that I can find out whether this series will go in that direction or not. As for the volume itself. It was fairly interesting and held my attention when I was reading but I would have preferred a slower pace. That said, I enjoyed the manga a lot. The illustrations in it are really something and the pacing is much better so even if I don’t end up continuing the light novel, I’ll likely be reading the manga anyway.

[theloreofwhatilove]

Thanks to this recent post I've been thinking about how I'd like Drag Race in Mexico to go down, and I don't have everything figured out but I've made some decisions:

**The Host**

I'd love for Paris Bang Bang to host because I think she's a great mirror of RuPaul, as in a lot of queens know her and respect her, she's iconic, she's been fighting for drag to be taken seriously and has been creating opportunities for drag queens.

If it has to be a Ru-girl I think they'll definitely choose Valentina to bring in the numbers (although I'd love to see Denali, Lolita or Crystal even more), if that's the case I want and need a local queen (Paris) to be her Michelle Visage.

**The Judges**

Whether this are guest judges or just special guests I don't care, I just want to see this people make an appearance:

- Alejandra Bogue

- Susana Zavaleta

- Tatiana

- Albertano

- El Capi

- Thalia

- Gloria Trevi

- Niurka

- Danna Paola

- Salma Hayek

- Angelica Vale

- Mario Ivan Martinez

- Gilberto Gless

- Maria Leon

**People I DONT want to be involved by any means**

- Yuri (homophobic and misogynistic even tho she says she ain't... 👀 if they invite her she will accept but don't be fooled)

- Ricardo Montaner (the whole Montaner family make me uncomfortable, including Camilo)

- La Guereja (homophobic)

- Jaitovich (I don't know how to explain this one but if you know him you know)

- Lola Cortes (I don't like her approach to "judging", she's rude even though very knowledgeable, I do think she'll be invited if we get the show tho)

**The Queens**

There are MANY mexican queens that are extremely talented and more than capable of doing Drag Race and succeed that I want to see but I think this ones specifically are great options for a strong first cast:

- Alexis3XL

- Jobstar

- Paty Piñata

- Paper Cut

- Rudy Reyes

- Deseos Fab

- Aviesc Who

- Iris XC

- Rebel Mork

- Soro Nasty

- Wynter

- Judas Love

- Danaconda

- Matraka Traka

**The Songs**

If there's something in La Mas Draga that really bothers me is the terrible lipsync song choices, so this are songs I'd like to see:

- Arrasando (Thalia)

- Dr. Psiquiatra (Gloria Trevi)

- Mudanzas (Lupita D'Alessio)

- Grande (Gloria Trevi & Monica Naranjo)

- Acelerar (Timbiriche/Paulina Rubio)

- La Vida es un Carnaval (Celia Cruz)

- Anything from Selena Quintanilla

- Suavemente (Elvis Crespo)

- La Incondicional (Luis Miguel)

- Mis Ojos Lloran Por Ti (Big Boy)

- Que Tire Pa'lante (Daddy Yankee)

- El Baile Del Gorila (Melody)

- El Aventurero (Pedro Fernandez)

- Suavecito Suavecito (Laura Leon)

- Que Nadie Sepa MI Sufrir (Margarita)

- No Me Arrepiento De Este Amor (Gilda)

- Asereje (Las Ketchup)

- Pepe (Jeans)

- De Mi Enamorate (Daniela Romo)

- Aún Lo Amo (Dulce)

- Querida (Juan Gabriel)

- No Querías Lastimarme (Gloria Trevi)

- Ven Conmigo (Christina Aguilera)

- Más Buena (Gloria Trevi & Alejandra Guzman)

- Dopamina (Belinda)

- Abranse Perras (Gloria Trevi)

- La Putivuelta (Manelyk & Karime)

- Bombom Asesino version reggaeton (Ninel Conde)

- Mermelada (Mariana Seoane)

- Quédate Con Ella (Natalia Jimenez)

- Baila Casanova (Paulina Rubio)

- Media Naranja (Fey)

- Lo Que Tenias Conmigo (Maria Jose)

- Como Tu Mujer (Rocío Durcal)

- Ingrato (Gloria Trevi)

- La Gran Señora (Jenni Rivera)

- Pobre Secretaria (Daniela Romo)

- Te Estas Pasando (Lupita D'Alessio)

**The Challenges/Runways**

We need a Telenovela challenge for sure. Also a mexican pink runway. A morning show parody challenge. A Diva challenge (Dulce, Rocío, Daniela, Marisela, etc). A News tv show challenge. 100 Mexicanos Dijeron which is our Family Feud. A typical regional folklore costume runway. Catrinas runway. Legends runway or challenge were they have to create their own mexican legend. A recycling challenge were they have to create an outfit with cardboard and plastic bottles. We can have our own sugar ball, we have tons of traditional mexican candy. Mayan and Aztec culture/heritage inspired runways would be cool and nice to see. A runway inspired on natuve animals like the axolotl and coati. An "if the states were outfits runway", this is different from the typical regional costume but I don't know how to explain it. A viceroyalty runway. A Quinceañera runway... the options are endless. Everything La Mas Draga has wonderfully done already and MORE.

[kathleenseiber]

Is anybody down there?

The question of whether or not we are alone in the Universe has always fascinated me, but when I was a student the idea of searching for aliens was regarded as decidedly crackpot. One might as well have professed an interest in looking for fairies. The prevailing scientific opinion in the 1970s was well captured by Francis Crick, who thought life so improbable it was “almost a miracle”. The chances of finding a second sample somewhere else was surely vanishingly small.

Credit: Shaocheng Yang_Inhaustive

Nevertheless, a tiny band of gung-ho radio astronomers had begun sweeping the skies with radio telescopes in 1960, hoping to stumble across a message from an extraterrestrial civilisation. Pioneered by Frank Drake, SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – limped along for decades on a shoestring budget. NASA pulled out in 1993, and the whole project was forced to rely on private donations.

Then came a dramatic reversal of fortunes. In July 2015, the philanthropist Yuri Milner, founder of the Breakthrough Prizes, announced a commitment of $US100 million to boost SETI research, with more to follow. Previously sceptical scientists caught the new mood of optimism and decided that maybe SETI was worth a try after all. Even NASA has begun to warm to the idea.

However, in spite of the extra cash, traditional radio SETI remains hampered by a fundamental scientific obstacle: our biggest dishes lack the power to pick up an alien broadcast unless it is directly beamed at Earth. Why would an alien civilisation deliberately send us radio messages unless they could be sure that our planet hosts a civilisation with radio technology? They would of course know this by detecting our own radio transmissions. But these have scarcely penetrated 100 light-years into space, so unless ET is extremely close by astronomical standards, we can’t expect anyone to be purposefully signalling us.

Still, we don’t need to pick up a customised radio message to discover that we are not alone in the Universe. All that’s required is evidence of non-human technology – a “technosignature”, to use the latest buzzword. Earth abounds with technosignatures: ecosystems modified by agriculture; the Great Wall of China; CFCs in the atmosphere; night-time illumination. Astronomers are confident there are millions of Earth-like planets in the galaxy, offering potential targets for these sorts of technosignatures.

Unfortunately, anything on a planetary scale is likely to be way beyond our current capabilities, so researchers have focussed their speculations on two other avenues: megastructures and probes. An advanced alien civilisation might have extended its technological footprint beyond its home planet and modified its astronomical environment in some conspicuous way.

Previously sceptical scientists caught the new mood of optimism and decided that maybe SETI was worth a try after all.

An early suggestion, made by the physicist and futurist Freeman Dyson in 1960, is that an energy-hungry super civilisation might build an enclosure around its host star to trap all its light. Such a “Dyson sphere” would show up as a strange infra-red stellar-mass object.

Nothing quite like that has been found, but in 2015 there was a flurry of excitement when Tabetha Boyajian of Georgia State University identified a star in the constellation Cygnus – KIC 8462852, nicknamed Tabby’s star – that keeps changing its brightness in an erratic way. Is it being partially eclipsed by some sort of artificial megastructure? Although graphic artists had a field day with this concept, most astronomers think there is a natural explanation.

Another weird object is named after the Polish-Australian astronomer Antoni Przybylski. The spectrum of Przybylski’s Star suggests the presence of a host of unusual radioactive elements, including thorium, uranium, plutonium and einsteinium. How they got there remains a mystery. Is this some sort of alien nuclear waste dump?

A civilisation able to build a megastructure would presumably also have the knowhow to send probes to other star systems. So, could there be an alien technosignature in our cosmic backyard? If so, where do we look?

A few years ago, I tested the feasibility of finding an alien artefact on the Moon.  The lunar surface is relatively unchanging, and a moderate-sized object might remain exposed for many millions of years. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft operated by NASA with help from Arizona State University is photographing the Moon to half-metre resolution. The pictures clearly show technosignatures. To date, however, they are all of human origin.

The Moon isn’t our only close astronomical companion. There is also a handful of small asteroids stalking our planet. Physicist James Benford has suggested that these co-orbital “lurkers” would be handy places to locate a probe designed to monitor Earth. For long-term parking, a good location is one of the so-called Lagrange points – regions of space where the gravitational forces of the Earth and Sun are in balance, thus obviating the need for orbital corrections.

If a nearby alien probe were to “wake up” and start communicating, our job would be easy. But finding a defunct or dormant probe somewhere in the solar system is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

SETI is plagued not only by the vastness of space, but by the immensity of time. At 4.6 billion years old, the Solar System is only about one-third of the age of the Universe: there could have been planets inhabited before Earth even existed. If interstellar missions are feasible, an alien probe could have arrived at any time in our planetary history.

Few physical traces would remain discernible for many millions of years, but if aliens – or their robotic surrogates – paid the solar system more than a flying visit, they may have carried out largescale projects such as asteroid mining and modification, nuclear processing, or even biotechnology on terrestrial organisms. In principle, the downstream remnants of such activities would still be detectable today.

Who knows? There could be an ancient alien technosignature right here on Earth, hiding in plain sight.

This article features in Issue 87 of Cosmos magazine. You can subscribe here.

The post Is anybody down there? appeared first on Cosmos Magazine.

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[iohourtime]

Everything is Ready

Pict Up #108  2017.10

Thanks to weibo user 草莓要配白巧克力 for the clear scan.  I am paraphrasing parts of the article for better flow, so hopefully I don’t mess up anything.  Please let me know if you see any errors and I will update the article.  As with the other translations, I will include comments (snarky or serious) in the T/N and Asides.

Starting from here - “Namiya Zakkaten no Kiseki”

---- "The Miracle of the Namya General Store" is key setting where the "replies to trouble consultation" takes place. Does Yamada-san have any problems that you want to consult someone through letters?

"I do not have any, but I am doing a radio show, so I get letters of consultation."

[Aside: He did not seriously mean his corner in Ultra Jump where he tells female listeners how guys think about issues they write in, right?]

---- So there are opportunities to answer questions after all.

"Those questions cannot be answered. After all, it is up to the person to arrive at the answer by him or herself. What I can do is to offer some possible paths for them to consider until they get there."

[Aside: I guess he did learn something from the novel! That's pretty much what Namiya said.]

---- And respond with a hint.

"However, don’t complain about what I said during your consultation with me. Because I say all my thoughts clearly. Of course, I said those words with the person in mind. Perhaps you may feel hurt, or perhaps you may wonder what the heck I was thinking, but because you are consulting me, it cannot be helped."

----Is that so? I will be careful when I am consulting you (laughs).

"(Laughs) Because it is important, please submit your queries in writing. As a precaution."

---- Do you hear about your members' troubles?

"For example, "What should we do for the production of the live tour?" That's ... rather than [personal] problems, they are job related, because we have to do it.  Since we have to work hard on it, we think about the “what should we do” question together. "

---- In a number of issues [of this magazine], I had opportunities to interview members of Hey!Say!JUMP. I feel the momentum not only of Yamada-san, but also of the group.

"I think the awareness of our group is gradually rising, but I guess we are not quite there yet.  We are able to have a dome performance and I am happy about it, but we are not a level that I am satisfied with."

---- Strict, right?

"No, there are still many levels to clear.  There is no end.  I do not know where we want to get to. Going forward, we need to think about how to continue to push ourselves to new limits, as a group."

It is not a bad thing to desperately want to grab on

---- Looking up, the members are climbing the cliff, there are nine people trying to reach a considerably high place - that kind of image?

"Surely the feeling of "we are almost there" is not there. However, if you noticed, it's been 10 years since (Hey! Say! JUMP’s debut). "We are doing surprisingly OK?"”

---- Absolutely.

"But still, from a public recognition perspective, Hey!Say!JUMP is pretty green. In actuality, we are pretty inexperienced."

---- There are too many senpais above you.

"Oh yeah, our agency has so many great people, we can climb and climb but cannot reach their level. While we are moving forward, our senpais are also moving forward."

---- Yamada-san et al seems to be gaining momentum at considerably speed though?

"I feel that we are growing steadily, but at the same time, there is always a feeling that we have to aim for even higher heights, and the [current] assessment as to whether we are successful or not is irrelevant. It's about relative evaluation and it's inconvenient to think about yourself. "

---- So "I have to speed up my pace more" (No. 97), right?

"I want to crossover but there are still plenty of walls I cannot overcome. I am desperately fighting to get there and I am desperately grabbing on.  Working hard to maintain this attitude, it’s not a bad thing, I think?"

---- Although there may be impatience, there is no sense of distress there, is there?

"If I say that we can afford it, it will be a lie ... ... Hey!Say!JUMP has gotten a certain degree of recognition, [and at this point], I think that there are only two choices: "Maintain the status quo" or "Moving to the next level". Well, would everyone aim for the top? That is the story. "

---- You have climbed up to this point. But don’t you think about doing different things to further your journey?

"I do. There is merit in [challenging these heights] with the group. I think if it was only me, I would have reached the limits [of my potential] a long time ago, but because there are encouraging members ....... For example, (they were also interviewed by Pict Up before) (Nakajima) Yuto, Chinen (Yuri), and Inoo (Kei) chan who are playing lead roles in movies, they give me great motivation. I am also inspired when I see everyone do their best in the variety shows [they appear in]. "

---- You mentioned that "the members are rivals" (No. 93).

"That did not change. Each one of us is growing and I think none of us wants to lose to one another, so I feel that "It’s nice to be [a group of] nine people" especially in [our] 10th anniversary."

Change in the timing of feeling "You did a good job"

---- In addition to 'rivals', you have said a few other things in previous interviews. When you were talking about your work as an actor, [it always feel like] "I have entered the sumo ring" (No. 99).

"About being an actor, it is true. I am always studying. Working as an idol, especially during live tours, I have "to use all the skills I have right now." When the show is finished, I will prepare for the next live event."

---- You used up your stored power, and then you let it build again

"On the other hand, in the acting world, you must always do two tasks in parallel: "to use everything I have right now" and "to absorb new skills" ---- this is my opinion. I think that it is a very difficult job. "

---- But it's fun, right?

"It's exciting, is it not? I must always keep my head in “on” [mode], I cannot afford to think about other things. It is tiring, but ... after doing that, I like to fully slack off (laughs)."

----What do you mean?

"For example, [after] a person runs at full force in a 100 meters race, [then] Uwaa and that person falls down, right? It is a great moment, is not it?"

---- [You are an] M?

"I am a masochist, absolutely.  Or perhaps I'm just absorbed in my own world. When I left the theatre after watching the film, [I said to myself] ‘You did a good job.’ ”

---- Before you watch [the movie] at the cinema, did you go to the internal preview screening?

[Aside: I think this was held for people related to the production back in June.]

"[Usually,] when I go to the previews, I cannot look at the film objectively; I begin to search for flaws [in my performance]. But this time it was different.  When I saw the preview, I was thinking "You did a good job".  There are lots of moments when I noticed “I'm doing a lot of acting that is important for myself”. This is the first time [I felt that way]."

There are no better words than what I received from a dai-senpai (revered actor)

---- Did your attitude towards the acting world change?

"It did. I wonder if I can finally say to myself "You are an actor.” I wonder if my preparation of the “ready, go”-ness as an actor is finally over.”

---- Still, it is somewhat humble (laughs).

"I have worked hard so far, I am slowly becoming more confident in my acting, but to those who are working solely as an actor, I was not able to wipe away my guilty conscience [if I call myself an actor].  However this time ... I felt like there was a breakthrough, I felt like I got to the start line. Perhaps it was great that we were able to work with Nishida Toshiyuki-san."

---- Without acting together in a scene? The scenes that Nishida-san appeared was in a different era, right?

"That's right. Being in a movie together is like going to the same battlefield. Whether you are acting opposite each other or not, it does not matter. Of course if I have the opportunity, I would like to share a scene with him next time.”

---- Can you tell us something about the completed work?

"At the launch party after the preview, Nishida-san said,"After I watched this movie, I cannot be alone.  I want to share my feelings with everyone." There is no better, more appreciative words than that. I wonder if this also led to my confidence."

For the first time, I was able to understand "Crying while being angry"

---- As you mentioned before, "The acting world seems to be an exploration”, and "Every time, I discover a part of myself that I did not know" (No. 93). What did you discover in this film?

"Crying while being angry ... that kind of feeling. Because I have never experienced it. There is a member [in JUMP] who cries while being angry. Okamoto (Keito), that’s who. "Why is that?" I used to wonder ... When I started to become angry, various emotions came out, then I started weeping ...... So that is how it feels."

---- "This!"

"After that, I feel that I want to learn how to suppress one’s presence. When it is time to shine, I will shine; and when it is time to pull back, I will pull back.  Even though I was the lead, and while some of it depended on how it was filmed or blocked, I was able to pull back on my movements and emotions, and I felt that it all went well.

---- Incidentally, "Fullmetal Alchemist" will also premiere in December, but what was the order of shooting?

"It’s “Fullmetal Alchemist”, “Cain and Abel", and "The Miracles of the Namiya General Store". So Atsuya is the newest Yamada Ryosuke."

The only certain thing is to always be prepared to be painted with different colors

---- In order to further your journey as an artist, what would you impose on yourself....

"Nothing at all."

---- There. There is no such thing as "I have to do this".

"Working hard and being impatient are two different things. I am not impatient. When I'm given a task, I will be serious and give it my all, but I don't find the "well, what should I do to prepare in advance" type of thinking is a good use of time.  Depending on the person, some may find that "sweet", I don’t do anything. I think that's just my style."

[Aside: Some people like to plan things to death, but the downside is that if any piece falls out of place, your whole plan could collapse.  Others might leave everything up to chance.  I guess in his case, he will work hard but at the same time not map out the detailed plan in advance.]

---- Even though I know Yamada-san’s style is "I will not set a goal", I'm going to ask anyway. Whatever the final goal is, do you think about [what you want to accomplish] in the next year or foreseeable future?

"I have no idea ...."

---- Do you have a goal like "For now, this”?

"Oh, I wish the movie is a huge hit (laughs)."

---- So first, for "The Miracles of the Namia General Store" to be a hit.

"I hope that you can love this film I appeared in. However, as a goal, I don't have an image that I "want to be like this". I want to be the canvas that can be painted with any color, I do not want to be the paint. I want to get [the opportunity] to be painted over constantly. "

---- Please let me interview you again when you have become a different canvas.

"Thank you (laughs)."