#YouTube but also like… she was taken off YouTube for a reason ?

[nameissmile]

Gah,,,

I’m on like five different discord servers (and trying to keep up with them especially after the tmnt au competition started again and the server is more active than it was the entire last year) and then also an irl friend group chat (while also trying to be normal in the FOR SCIENCE gc, which is the same friend group but in a separate chat so my one friend can observe our behavior like little bugs (it’s fun)) whilst also trying to keep/make friends at my new school and be social and stuff and then I’m running around on tumblr making art and keeping two blogs separate so I don’t have a freaking crazy panic attack or something stupid AND I’m going INSANE over this litrpg book about a wolf (that doesn’t have a big fandom/a lot of fan content) WHILE I’m also reading a book by Robert Louis Stevenson for class and I’m working in this big pretty painting of all my irls and that I want to work on and just finish already but I also have like *counts* five?? Different assignments due friday and-

It’s so much fun!!! But also Jesus I’m fucking stretched thin I need a break haha

(And for all of this to be out of my system) ((mostly))

[jazzmasternot]

Hazbin hotel college AU head cannons

Note: decided to write these out after reading @sprainedwriting’s fanfic about Adam being a frat boy and I took that concept and ran with it.

Obviously this is based off of my own university experience where I attend a really big public university in the southern US. so that’s where my takes are coming from.

This is also my first time writing anything on here so there’s that aswell.

Charlie

Majors in musical theatre, but not performance education. She wants to be the unhinged theatre teacher that everyone loves. Lives in one of those really fancy student apartment lofts with keke. And is part of the cat club where she feeds the cats on campus

Vaggie

She probably does something super hard like biomedical engineering (let’s go women in stem!) which takes up allot of her time already. Is also an RA for one of the dorms on campus which is good for her bc free housing and gets paid to do her homework at the front desk. Met Charlie in an English class and have been together ever since. When she’s not on call she’s spending the night at Charlie’s and Charlie’s almost always sitting at the front desk with vaggie even tho she doesn’t work or live at the dorm and no one says anything bc it’s just not that deep.

Alastor

Majors in audio engineering and runs the campus radio station that people definitely still listen too. He went to community college first then transferred to a four year (to save money ofc) and is a commuter where he still lives with his mom. Does work study where he works the front desk of the library where he does his homework and works on his scripts for his radio show. Has no interest in working with Vox since he runs the tv channel simply bc he doesn’t want all that extra work. Still takes his notes on pen and paper and still has a nightmare of a time figuring out to electronically submit all his assignments and take his tests.

Angel dust

Okay so hear me out he majors in math ikik it sounds crazy but every gay math major I’ve ever met acts just like Angel dust. Goes to raves and frat parties even tho the guys don’t want him there but he always brings girls with him so the kinda have to let him in. Does nude modeling for extra cash at the art school so he’s kinda a celeb over there even tho he’s not in anyway related to that major.

Husk

Majors in Restaurant and hotel management and is one of those college students that are in their late twenties so already has more life experience than most other ppl here so he doesn’t do allot of the stupid college that allot of other ppl do. Lives in some off campus apartment that’s just a large house rented out to students made to look like a apartment (yk the ones in talking abt) works at the dive bar located just off campus that everyone goes to atleast once in their four years.

Sir pentious

Majors in mechanical engineering or industrial design I can’t really decided. Definitely uses the 3D printer all the time and is on the robotics team, which wins every competition they go to.

Nifty

She’s changed her major so many times nobody knows anymore. Is part of the kpop club and has biases complete with intricately decorated covers, like she has so many photo cards. Also runs the campus hotties account where it’s just a bunch of candids of cute guys taken from far away. Will also get really pissed if you don’t wash your dishes bc it will attract bugs so if ur her roommate you better do the dam dishes.

Cherry bomb

Art major and is the one who got Angel the nude modeling gig. Is always pulling all nighters bc she kept postponing the assimgment till the last minute. Has probably vandalized a couple buildings surrounding the university but hasn’t been caught. Goes to raves and the aforementioned frat parties with Angel. Also has a traffic cone in her dorm room for no other reason than just bc.

Vox

Majors in multi media marketing, runs the campus tv and YouTube channel. Definitely the president of a frat that inflates his ego more than it already is. Always at sporting events at the front row with all the frat guys giving everyone the inside scoop and game commentary. Is very pissed that alastor won’t work with him. Treats himself like a campus celebrity even tho ppl could care less and are just trying to get their degree.

Valentino

majors in film and media productions yeah he’s one of those. Always asking if you’ve seen pulp fiction and telling you that you need to watch some random black and white movie that’s only in French. Will definitely invite you over to watch something with you but we all know that’s not the case. Also all his film projects has allot of unnecessary nudity and sex under the guise of artistic expression, even when it’s so not relevant to the plot. Unless it’s a film that he’s making for the university in which case Vox is controlling every aspect of it which in this case is a good thing. Smokes in his dorm room without a care in the world and has really loud inconsiderate sex at any random point in the 24 hour day cycle.

Velvette

Majors in public relations and runs the university’s Instagram account. She’s always walking up to ppl with a lil microphone to ask you to tell us what you’re wearing. Speaking off she always comes to class dressed up (like the international students) no leggings and tennis shoes for her. Also is definitely in a divine nine sorority, and runs their insta too.

Carmilla

She’s a professor for the aerospace engineering dept and shes here bc she got sick of making rockets for Lockheed Martin and reatheon. Hella smart and ppl are baffled that she chose to give up a seven figure job to teach a bunch of college kids but she’s so chill abt it tho.

Zestial

Definitely English lit professor, makes you read the books no one’s heard of and not the classics. Always brings his own open regular coffee mug from his house to sip his tea from instead of a thermos, everyone asks how he doesn’t spill it on his ride to work. Also just straight up has an electric kettle in his office so he can have tea whenever he wants. Takes turns with carmilla eating lunch in each other’s offices.

Rosie

Studies agriculture sciences and food processing. Will probably run a slaughter house when she’s done with her degree. Hangs out with Alastor in his radio booth from time to time just to gossip about whatever drama is going around lately. Wears long skirts and a tote bag all the time. Is always sweet to Charlie and Emily, also loathes Vox just as much as Alastor she just finds him annoying.

Lucifer

Is probably a religion professor that’s not religious at all and is super laid back in his class like one easy discussion board post a week. The kinda guy to be like “it’s so nice out let’s have class outside today guys” or “if I make this shot ur all getting extra credit on the quiz this week”.

Adam

Definitely majors in finance and is a frat boy. And his band plays at all the said frat parties. Is very insufferable to talk to at parties will try tell you how crypto is the currency of the future and how wolf of Wall Street is his favorite movie. Has a Saturdays are for the boys flag in his room and navy blue sheets. Oh did I mention he vapes he definitely vapes those Mike Tyson ones that taste awful and look like bricks yeah those. Always gets drunk at the tailgate way before the game is even started.

Lute

Yeah she’s in premed and wants everyone to know she’s better than you bc of it. Everyone else’s major is easy compared to hers so don’t you dare complain about all your assignments in her vicinity. She’s basically made it her whole identity like she’s in the premed honors society, future doctors of America. Types her notes on her laptop and then rewrites them with all her gel pens and fancy highlighters, like thee be so colorfull and pretty then the title would be something like blood clots. Still friends with Adam bc they went to the same highschool together and always helping him with his homework in turn he gets her into the tailgate tents and frat parties so she always gets free alcohol.

Emily

Majors in Elementary education and looks like it too, with the Stanley cup, James Avery charm bracelet, and all. She also takes super pretty notes but she does them in class which is super power all in itself, like her desk is scattered with gel pens and highlighters of every color and swears by her bullet journal. She also feeds the cats on campus with Charlie and runs the arts and crafts club on campus where they always host events like tote bag painting in the grass area of the university. Also doesn’t drink bc she’s not twenty one yet even tho she’s in college and definitely won’t smoke even tho most of the ppl that show up to her events are total potheads

Sera

She’s like the university president who doesn’t actually GAF abt the students and just fund’s athletics and raises tuition every year under miscellaneous fees. She tries to come off as supportive when she’s out in public but no one’s buying it.

[steddieas-shegoes]

Request: video gamer Steve who is very very private & constantly has competitions with his friends/followers. But one day he does & q&a and someone asks him about his ring/necklace (or something that is noticeable) & he talks about his partner. & Eddie who is a well known musician who talks about his partner Steve. And somehow their fans put it together that Steddie are together. Then they do a really cute q&a on Steve's channel all about their relationship & its really cute

MY LOVE!!! Honestly, if Liam didn't watch so many gamers on YouTube, I would be so clueless. I never got into video games (because I'm so so bad at them you guys it is actually embarrassing) and I never really watched streamers on YouTube or anything. But I know that some of them have like a cult following and so I am picturing Steve to be one of those here. Please don't ask what games he would play because this is a choose your own adventure part of the story. - Mickala ❤️

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

Everyone made fun of Steve for how much he talked with his hands. Even on camera, his hands were constantly in the frame, moving and emphasizing his passion for whatever game he was playing for that stream.

He should have realized that wearing a ring on his usually bare hands would have given him away.

It was his first livestream competition since Eddie proposed on their trip to the Maldives.

He was still a little high off of, well, everything, and he wasn’t thinking clearly.

He ignored the first question that popped up.

who got you that ring?

He shared some basic personal stuff with his fans and followers, but he kept most things private, especially his relationship.

But then questions kept coming in.

R U ENGAGED???

usually the girl wears the ring right

If you’re taken I might have to unsubscribe

The last one made him pause.

It’s not like he was an idiot, he knew that there would always be a handful of people who followed him because he was attractive. He didn’t mind, especially because some of them would message him and explain that they ended up getting into games because of him.

“Okay, wait. Sorry guys. Um. I wanna address something before we start the actual stream.” He held his hand up, looking over at the ring Eddie proposed with. “I share a lot with you guys. I came out about a year ago during a stream as bisexual, and it really shouldn’t have been much of a shock, but it caused a bit of a…thing.” He grimaced. “And I guess most of the reason that I came out then was because my boyfriend had come out as well, and it felt like something we could do together without actually doing it together. Most of you know I was just gone for a week on a much needed vacation. I was with my boyfriend, and he proposed while we were there. I said yes because he is the only person I’ve ever wanted to spend my life with.”

Steve put his hand down, sighing.

“I understand if that makes some of you unfollow me, but I do hope you look at yourself and try to come to terms with why that is what makes you unfollow someone you enjoy watching. Anyways, the ring is beautiful, and it's a simpler version of one he wears every day, so it means even more.”

He felt relieved, but also a little stressed, and knew he’d be calling Eddie as soon as this was over to talk to him about everything.

“Let’s get gaming!” He gave his best smile to the camera.

—-------------------------------------

“Yeah, we had a nice week off together, alone, and I finally got to propose. I don’t think we left the bed for 24 hours after that,” Eddie laughed.

The interviewer laughed too, used to Eddie’s jokes and blunt answers.

“I’m glad you got to spend some time just the two of you. This has been a busy world tour for you and Corroded Coffin and you’re only halfway through!” The interviewer, Hannah, stated. She smiled at him when he nodded. “Anything new planned for the second half of the tour?”

“We can’t give out secrets, Hannah, you know that,” Eddie smirked. “But Gareth did say I should tell you about one thing.”

Gareth definitely had a crush on Hannah and had pouted endlessly about being scheduled for a different interview at the same time as Eddie’s interview with her.

“Oh?” she leaned forward, eyes gleaming.

She maybe had a crush on him, too.

“He actually wrote a song that’ll be on our next album. He doesn’t usually get bit with the writing bug, but someone’s inspired him,” he winked at her, smiling at her blush. “Anyway, it’s been added to the setlist for the second leg of the tour and we’re all really excited for everyone to hear it.”

Eddie felt his phone vibrating in his pocket multiple times. All the guys knew he was in an interview and couldn’t answer a call, so who the hell was calling him?

It was easy enough to ignore through Hannah’s next question, until it started again.

He reached in his pocket and checked to see who it was, eyes going wide when he saw ‘Stevie’ with a picture of them on their vacation lighting up his screen.

Steve never called twice in a row unless it was an emergency. He knew if Eddie didn’t answer, he was truly busy.

He felt his heart racing as he looked back up at Hannah, who instantly seemed to catch on to something happening.

“We’re going to a commercial break, but when we’re back, Eddie’s gonna share a few hints about the next album!” Hannah said, immediately shutting the mics off and gesturing for him to get up.

Eddie took off his headphones and stood, walking out of the room as he answered the phone.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, I just-”

“Hey, no, it’s not bothering me. I was just in a radio interview with Hannah so we had to cut to commercial break before I could answer. What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned that something terrible had happened.

“Fuck, I forgot that was right now. I’m sorry. Call me back when you get to the bus,” Steve seemed like he was trying to rush off the phone.

“No, Stevie, wait. What’s wrong?” his tone was firm enough to let Steve know he wasn’t going to let this drop.

“Um. I just had a livestream thing. And like, people asked about the ring, so I told them I was engaged and some people just didn’t take it that well and then I went online and some people have apparently put it together that the Steve you talk about is me because of something I mentioned about my vacation and something you posted about the vacation and so I think everyone’s gonna know and I’m sorry,” Steve was panting by the end, speaking a million miles an hour literally taking the breath from him.

“Okay, well, we knew this would probably happen eventually, my love. I’ll just call the guys and we can talk to Chrissy about it if it gets picked up by the media. No reason to panic,” Eddie tried to calm him down while watching through the window to the recording booth where Hannah seemed to be introducing a song to kill more time.

“But I ruined our plan!”

“No, love. People ruined our plan. And it’s okay, anyway. We’ll figure it out.”

“But your fans will be mad that it’s me. I’m just…me!”

“You’re not just anything and any fan of mine who says or thinks that, isn’t a fan,” Eddie sighed. “I love you, and we will figure this out. Whatever we gotta do, okay?”

Steve let out a long breath before responding.

“I love you too. Tell Hannah I said hi?”

“Of course. I love you so much, okay? ‘Til death and beyond.”

Steve let out a small laugh.

“You’re not allowed to use those lyrics in the vows. But I love you so much, too.”

“We can discuss that later. I wrote you a very metal love song that I fully intend to use some of in the vows. Okay, bye!”

He hung up before Steve could argue and walked back into the studio, mouthing an apology to Hannah, who just waved it off with a smile.

Everything would be fine.

—-------------------------------------------

“The lighting isn’t ideal, but it’ll be fine,” Steve was pacing, double checking his set up while Eddie watched.

He tried helping, but kept being told not to touch things, so he ended up just sitting on the hotel bed.

Steve had traveled halfway across the country to do this, his stress was at an all-time high, and Eddie didn’t need to get his head bitten off.

“Five minutes,” Steve said, shaking his hands nervously.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Eddie said, waving him over to the bed.

“No, you’ll distract me.”

“Yes, which is exactly what you need for a minute. Come here.”

Steve sighed, but went over to him, dropping onto the bed and resting his head against Eddie’s shoulder.

“What’s got you so worried?”

“Everything.”

Eddie sighed.

“But specifically.”

“I just don’t want you or the guys to lose fans because of me,” Steve was playing with the edges of the hole in Eddie’s jeans absentmindedly.

“Sweet boy, we lose fans because we endorse a certain amp brand over another. We’ll be fine.”

“This is bigger, though. I’m just a nobody who got lucky on YouTube playing some games,” Steve whined.

“And I loved you before that. If they don’t want me to be happy, they aren’t real fans anyway. You’re my future, not whatever woman still thinks she has a shot with my gay ass,” Eddie said.

“But it isn’t just you who suffers.”

“None of us suffer. We lose some homophobic, idiotic fans who shouldn’t ever have claimed to be fans at all. None of us want people like that around.”

Steve’s alarm went off to signal one minute before the livestream started.

He jumped up and pulled Eddie up with him.

They’d already gone over everything together, discussed it with Chrissy and the guys, even Steve’s manager, Robin, about how this would work.

Steve would pretty much act like it was any other livestream, but Eddie would be there for the first five minutes or so so they could do a quick explanation of things.

Eddie would do a phone interview with Hannah in 30 minutes while Steve was gaming, covering a bit more and answering some questions about their relationship.

Then they’d both have a night off to decompress in the hotel before Steve had to fly back home and Eddie had to head to the next tour stop.

Hopefully, the buzz would die down relatively quickly.

Steve did his normal intro, but Eddie’s hand rested on his knee out of sight, squeezing once when he heard his voice start to shake a little while introducing Eddie.

“There’s been some rumors about us, and we just wanna be completely honest about things so that the rumors stop,” Steve continued. “First of all, we’ve been together for almost four years. Way before I got anywhere with YouTube, before Corroded Coffin had even released their first album. And we were friends long before that.”

“Even though I had the biggest crush on him in high school, I didn’t admit I was in love with him until we both moved to Chicago. Wasted years,” Eddie shook his head.

“Second,” Steve smirked, looking over at him for a moment. “The week off in the middle of his tour had been planned for Jeff to go home and be with his family for his wife’s birthday and daughter’s graduation.”

“Anyone who thinks Steve threw a fit about needing a vacation and made the band take a break is just saying so out of spite that we had to move around one of the tour dates to make the week off work. It’s not up to you to come up with a narrative,” Eddie added, brow raised like he was chastising children.

“And finally, most importantly, what either of us choose to share is up to us. We do not owe anyone any explanations. Our relationship is ours. Being public figures already takes away a lot of our autonomy, and this is something neither of us will budge on. We are willing to share our happiness, but we are not willing to let everyone become a part of our life together.”

Sometimes, Steve said things in such a way that Eddie couldn’t do anything but stare at him in awe. He loved him more than anything, and sometimes the only thing he could do was kiss him.

He did so now, not exactly forgetting they were live streaming, just not really caring.

Steve tensed for a second, but then relaxed, cupping his cheek and smiling into the kiss.

Eddie pulled away and looked back at the camera.

“On that note, I’m gonna leave Steve here to his gaming. If you aren’t nice, I’ll ban you from Corroded Coffin shows for life,” he waved before standing and leaving the camera’s view.

Steve rolled his eyes, but smiled fondly as Eddie walked out of the bedroom, blowing kisses back at Steve the entire way.

—-------------------------------------------

After that, Eddie made random appearances on Steve’s live streams, and Steve flew out to a handful of shows to support Eddie.

It’s not that they were hiding before, but they just hadn’t felt like they should have to try to.

Now they didn’t.

Steve even did a Q&A with the band on tour while playing games with them.

They were all pretty terrible at it, complaining most of the time about how D&D was so much easier than this. Eddie didn’t play, but he sat next to Steve and braided his hair while he kicked their asses, asking them all the questions that popped up from people watching.

When he got to one for him, he smiled and kissed the top of Steve’s head.

“This question is for me. How did you know Steve was the one?” The guys all groaned, but they were smiling. “Well, I knew he was the one back in my first senior year. I tripped on the step into the gym and Steve was the only one there. He helped me up and smiled at me, and I was a goner.”

“He’s lying to you all,” Steve said without looking away from the game. “He knew when I made him homemade banana bread. His exact words were, ‘I’m gonna marry you so hard someday, Harrington.’ and then six months later he proposed.”

“Both can be true,” Eddie pouted.

Steve paused the game and turned to him, kissing the tip of his nose.

“Every moment I have with you proves you’re the one for me,” he said before turning back to the game and leaving Eddie silently shocked.

“This is the last time we come on this thing, Steve,” Gareth said.

“Yeah. You broke him,” Jeff agreed.

[snowyh2o]

So, saw a video on YouTube that was analyzing if Alastor exhibited traits similar to someone diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. It was interesting, if a bit superficial and missing a lot of the smaller blink and you’ll miss it details (as well as for some reason omitting his past relationships and focusing only on his current ones), but it got me thinking about how much we know of who Alastor is.

And I think that we actually know a lot more about who he is as a person and what makes him tick than we think we do. What we don’t know is what his situation currently is, and that’s sort of conflated with not knowing or being sure of him and his motivations.

So to list what we do know of him in no specific order:

He claims he’s sponsoring the hotel because he wants to watch other people fail for his own entertainment, something that we know for sure now is not the case, or not the entire reason.

He was very desperate when making that deal with Charlie, this is something he was probably aiming for and has been waiting to do for a long time.

His disappearance is a sore spot that he doesn’t want others to be prying into.

He’s trapped in a deal that appears to be restricting either his actions, power, or both and he desperately wants to get out of the deal.

Related, the deal appears to be new, based off Husk’s comment and Alastor’s reaction/surprise at the comment.

Related, he HATES being reminded of his deal.

All his shown past friends are women. Conversely, he seems to get along well with women over men.

Related, he lets Mimzy, Nifty, and Rosie all touch or manhandle him around without showing discomfort or distaste. He also lets Husk poke him in the chest, and appears to have grown equally as comfortable around Charlie.

Related, he offers Charlie his microphone twice when she needed to do a big inspiring speech.

Related, his microphone appears directly linked to some of his powers, and could also be considered a weakness of his should it be broken.

He knows that Mimzy only ever comes to him when she needs something, and doesn’t care that he’s being manipulated and taken advantage of into taking care of her problems. In fact, Mimzy stated that he loves taking care of her (problems).

Related, the hotel is important enough that he can’t risk having that kind of behavior with Mimzy here, that he’s willing to shoo away one of his few friends he’s genuinely happy to see.

Rosie is his best friend, he’s the most comfortable with her and while in Cannibal town. It’s the only time we’ve seen him so cheerful and relaxed and smile like he means it. His smiles here are wide enough to show his gums, but his eyes and lips reveal its not just a well disguised snarl.

Related, he’s very excited to show off Cannibal town to Charlie when he brings her over.

Related, he hasn’t gone to see Rosie since the overlord meeting despite having had 5 months to do so after coming back from his hiatus.

Related, he doesn’t ask for Rosie to help during the battle, he specifically restates his favor to “well your cannibals help at least”. She’s seen sipping tea and listening to the news in the aftermath.

His beef with Lucifer started way before he ever met the guy. In his advertisement, he makes a note to say there’s no tacky circus decor at the hotel. When he sees the welcome sign he visibly sneers at it. When Lucifer finally shows up and hugs Charlie his eye is twitching.

Related, whatever beef he has with Lucifer is unrelated to Lucifer’s attitude towards him when they finally meet, though that certainly does not help.

Related, it’s also clearly not about being the most powerful person in the room because he doesn’t behave that way when speaking with Zestial, or during the overlords meeting.

Related, he’s bothered when Carmilla reveals she wasn’t curious about his absence (which fair. I’d hope my colleagues would ask where I’ve been if I went MIA for 7 years).

He offers Charlie advice on projecting confidence and control when she’s not, a tactic he employs every minute of every day.

He tends to be helpful but in a backhanded way. He helps Charlie get out of her funk by being mean about it and mocking her for accidentally landing the hotel in hot water. He summons an old fashioned mint condition camera for Vaggie at first before replacing it with a beat up and bandaged video camera. He helps Vaggie with the advertisement after watching her struggle. He does get rid of the eggs, but only for a day by taking them with him on his overlord meeting trip.

Related, more miscellaneous menial labor is usually done straightforwardly, like fixing the wall, for the umpteenth time and apparently unclogging the toilet when nifty gets stuck.

He likes listening to people vent about and struggle with their situation.

He does not like listening to people vent about and struggle with their love life.

Whatever he’s up to it appears as though he’s truly thrown his lot in with Charlie and the hotel, at least for now.

Apparently used to be friends or friendly with Vox. And will let people take a picture of him if it’s with an old fashioned camera.

After the battle, instead of returning to the others he drags himself to his radio tower, the one that fell down off a cliff after Adam destroys the hotel. This means he didn’t head there first when he retreated, and only went afterwards once the fight was over. He was probably staying close enough to see how the fight was going, evidenced by how he knew where to go to find his radio tower.

During his mental breakdown, he’s smiling harder than ever before, and only seems to regain some semblance of control when he’s restating his current goals.

Related, Alastor’s current objective is to free himself of the deal or find a loophole around it. He’s probably planning on using Charlie’s favor for that.

Related, Alastor could’ve also wanted a favor from Charlie as general insurance in the off off chance she ends up betraying him. He seems to let his guard down around her more after the deal, and even helpfully supplies her an army without any more prompting or deal making.

Alastor’s expression when talking about making soul deals in general.

Related, Alastor’s expression when talking about how Charlie still has her soul specifically.

Used to take out last overlords for slighting or doubting him, doesn’t do that anymore. There’s a chance he stopped doing that before his seven year absence.

Related, apparently Sir Pentious also didn’t know about what Alastor did to overlords back in the day??? And they’ve fought 20+ times??? Strengthens the assumption that Alastor stopped killing overlords after he’d established himself as a top dog. Deer. And before his disappearance.

Related, while Carmilla was surprised to see him at the meeting, she and the other overlords like Zestial weren’t scared of him and accepted his presence without complaint. If he were still actively hunting down overlords I doubt, as overlords themselves, they’d have been so comfortable in his presence.

Didn’t appear to have any plans in announcing his sudden return until Vox provoked him.

Related, his broadcasts might’ve been about overlord gossip, aside from the screaming.

Shared what he can do to help during the battle with the rest of the hotel. Specifically the shield he conjures.

Related, likely volunteered himself as the one to take on Adam, since he’s the most experienced and strongest fighter in the group (Charlie’s inexperience with using her power means she’s unsuited for the task).

He speaks fondly of the group as a whole when talking to Nifty when she speaks about how much she likes them (and can we keep them, please?).

Apparently he doesn’t just enjoy watching people’s suffering but also the bonds these wayward souls form with each other.

He does, still, enjoy kicking people when they’re down. Or rather kicking people when they try to challenge him and think they have a chance.

He really knows how to get under people’s skin.

Shark snacks go nom.

Additional points from the replies:

If Alastor was sent to the hotel against his will, then whoever sent him there also did not stipulate that he couldn’t make deals with the residents, which is a huge oversight. (Peppersnap79)

Husk and Nifty appeared to stay behind and help the hotel of their own free will, Alastor did not appear to order them to stay in any way. (Peppersnap79)

My Conclusions based on more things than just what I’ve listed out: he’s probably insecure about his status in hell after the seven year absence. Whatever happened during that time is also a sore point for him, something he doesn’t want others to know about or pry into.

His reputation as the Radio Demon is very important to him. He put a lot of effort into crafting the Radio Demon’s reputation and persona as someone to be feared and not to be fucked with. This is put at risk when he nearly dies protecting the hotel.

He smiles to put himself in control, to trick both others and himself into thinking that he’s got control of the situation or himself more than he actually does. He does not like being reminded that he is not in control of his life at the moment, and his current greatest desire is freedom from his deal. The more out of control he feels, he harder he tries to smile.

He is very soft and forgiving/tolerant with the few friends he has, and has grown visibly attached to or fond of the rest of the hotel. He also appears to be protective of them, in his own weird way. Constantly defending Mimzy against whatever trouble she brings and ultimately leaving Rosie out of the actual battle. This is counterproductive to his plans, and interferes in a way he hadn’t been expecting it to. Part of his breakdown is a direct result of this unexpected interference, that his own emotions had gotten him to risk his life defending the hotel (the group).

Restating his goals to eventually escape seems to reassure him and calm him/act as a grounding mechanism when he feels like he’s losing it. He’s using the Radio Demon persona like it’s a lifeline, because the Radio Demon is who he wants to be, needs to be, if he wants to get out. The Radio Demon’s always in control, he’s the one who holds all the cards, pulls all the strings. Nothing scares him, and nothing controls him.

He’s sadistic, calculative, intelligent, spontaneous, a showman, a softie, arrogant, egotistical, insecure and paranoid. He gets attached to things more easily than he’d care to admit, and lies to himself as much as he lies to everyone else. His Radio Demon persona is just as much a part of him as it is a mask to hide what’s going on underneath. What’s there to hide if he shows them what they want to see? The audience should only care for the play, not the actors behind the scene.

[ultra-violet-heart]

Fanfare for Frieren (a fan translation)

This is the English fan translation of Fanfare for Frieren (奏送), the accompanying short novella for the opening theme of the Frieren anime, Yuusha by Yoasobi, written by Jirou Kiso with the supervision of manga writer Kanehito Yamada. The images here are from its print/digital version, which has been a bonus from the special edition of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Volume 12.

Disclaimer: This translation is made by me for fandom purposes only. This unofficial translation is not affiliated with the official Frieren franchise or with Yoasobi. All rights reserved for Frieren: Beyond Journey's End to its respective committees, committee members, staff and rights holders.

Please ask my permission and credit me+this post if you will be re-translating this to other languages. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST THIS OR ITS IMAGES TO OTHER SITES. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE ESPECIALLY ON YOUTUBE AND TIKTOK. Please take the fan translations here with a grain of salt. 

I'm posting my Ko-Fi here as currently, I've been having financial trouble regarding my medicine, so if anyone can donate, I would be much grateful for the help, thank you very much.

1.

Five years after the death of Himmel the Hero.

Central Lands, the Capelle [1] Region.

A small city, commonly referred to as “Music City”, was located not far off west of the Royal Capital.

Many renowned musicians, who had established the foundation of court music, went there to study, and they each created orchestras there which continue up to this day. Day and night, orchestral and operatic performances kept theatres crowded, and these performances were well-known in the Central Lands.

The hymns that could be heard from the church also evoked such amicable ties between culture and religion. The singing voices and the performance, both tranquil and powerful, were pleasing to the ears.

There’s unexpected magic in places like this, huh, Frieren thought while walking through the streets with light steps.

She couldn’t visit this place during her journey to defeat the Demon King, but she thought it would have been nice to have taken a detour on the beginning. The journey started from the Royal Capital to the east, she recalled with a little regret.

To that extent, the city was much of a beautiful and isolated place.

The cobblestone pavements reminded one of a flowing music score, while the radial houses reminded one of a well-organized orchestra. The entire city had this atmosphere of welcoming people, so that there was music there for people to listen to.

There might be a wealth of music-related magic in this place. She wasn’t particularly knowledgeable when it comes to music, but folk magic rooted in a distinctive culture was worth collecting for that reason alone.

Following the signboards that were shaped like sheet music and musical instruments, Frieren continued walking.

Just near were an opera house and a museum adjacent to it, and the sound of some rhythm coming from somewhere.

Various sounds overlapped the whole city, however, strangely enough, there was no cacophony at all.

Suddenly, among those sounds, one of the most awkward sounds caught her ear. The timbre sounded like it was carefully walking on ice.

Apparently, a small marching band was passing by in front of the church located in the city’s center. The boys and the girls were preparing for their practice that day, carrying brass instruments too big for their stature and with more percussion instruments than their hands could handle.

A boy wearing a red feathered military hat―or rather, was made to wear one―had this desperate expression as he continued blowing his horn, unconcerned about his reddening face.

Even though from a very young age, all this city’s people had been living together with music.

The sound the boy made while carefully holding the horn, which was said to be the most difficult instrument in the world for humans to play, was not the clearest at all.

However, sometime in the future, that sound will reverberate gallantly and kindly.

Frieren felt it was a timbre suitable for the city.

Frieren continued to walk, as if the small orchestra was pushing her back.

The rustling of leaves, the gurgling water of the fountain, the happy hubbub from the cafeteria. All the sounds of nature and the noise of daily lives here and there gave the impression they were all pleasantly tuned.

It might be said she could stay in here for years while exploring the city thoroughly.

In one corner of the city, there stood an old-looking music store. Its appearance, reflecting its long age, made it stand out.

For some reason, she entered the store. It was a place she wouldn’t normally stop by, but her feet were strangely drawn into it.

Beyond the store’s creaking door, however, a strikingly different but still atmosphere hung about.

Beautifully polished wind instruments. Stringed instruments without a speck of dust. They were placed on a cramped space, lined like capillary vessels. The store’s appearance made it feel like one could hear the breathing of the old craftsman running the store alone.

As she searched for a narrow foothold and was about to head deeper,

“You.” A voice said. Frieren felt it was a matured voice that carefully aged over many years.

An old man, whose white hair was tied up clumsily, peeked out from the back of the store. His sleeves were still rolled up, as if he was still tending to his instruments a short while ago. She caught a glimpse of the old man’s muscles, which were well-toned for his age.

“You… seemed to have lived a life unconnected to musical instruments.”

Adjusting the monocle on his eye, the old man fixed his gaze on Frieren.

“How can you tell?”

“Because you are a face I have not seen before. Those who love music and those who are loved by music will have visited this place sooner or later.”

The old man asserted his words with such sincere belief.

“Those who love music will immediately be obsessed with the instruments here. Those who are loved by music are people my eyes immediately recognize. So, yes, I can tell. Will you let me see your face?”

And then he beckoned her to come closer.

“My, my, I am surprised. It seems like you are the latter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your ears, the corner of your eyes, your features. You appear to be an elf.”

“I am an elf, but…”

Frieren didn’t immediately catch the drift of the conversation.

“I have something I want people like you to have.”

After saying, “Wait for me,” the old man turned on his heel and took out a small wooden box from the back of the store and opened it. Inside was a palm-sized ocarina-like musical instrument.

The instrument’s intricate design was obvious even to the untrained eye.

“This is the Möglich. [2]”

“Möglich?”

“Its other name is ‘the Impossible’ [2]. It’s an instrument said to take a hundred years to master.”

“I once heard the horn is said to be the most difficult instrument in the world for humans to play.”

Frieren replied, recalling the boy from the marching band earlier. She remembered him struggling to play.

“That is a topic for ordinary humans. This instrument, however, was originally made by elves. You seem to be unaware of this.”

“That’s right. I didn’t know. Though it’s not strange if some elf did invent something like that.”

Frieren knew some of her own kind who spent so many years just killing time. [3]

“My great-grandfather inherited the Möglich, and he analyzed its structure. Apparently, it is impossible to produce a sound with this instrument unless they continue infusing in a small amount of mana while maintaining a perfect equilibrium. It would take more than ten years to produce a proper sound on this instrument. Fifty years is not even enough for an experienced mage to play one tune with it.”

“Really?” Frieren replied vaguely, not making it clear whether she was interested or not.

“I heard after one hundred years of diligently studying it, the sound one can play from this instrument is unparalleled.”

In fact, the old shopkeeper spent his life trying to master it. However, it was impossible for him to master the instrument as he did not possess any magical power. He could not even make it produce a sound.

“There is yet no one who has mastered it, much less know how to play it, so this instrument is still for sale, waiting for a buyer.”

The instrument had this eye-popping price tag. It was an amount that could already buy a house, and there was no way Frieren could afford it, not with the travelling-expenses-money she had on hand.

Of course, Frieren had no intention to buy it.

Certainly, it was rather interesting a fellow elf spent part of their long life in the form of developing this musical instrument. What kind of elf are they? Why did they give it to humans?

Most likely, she felt that this might be no more than a prank. It was an instrument that made sounds that could not be produced within the very short, fleeting lives of humans, after all.

“I am here because I want to hear the Möglich’s melodies one day. I have long sought for that timbre no words can describe. For so many years, this whole time. I eagerly awaited any who loved music or is loved by music to come here and finally fulfill my wish. It might be an impossible dream now, but I feel the guidance of the Goddess is at work that I am able to meet you, an elf.”

“I’m sorry, but…”

“I have no need for your money.”

“I can’t pay, then.”

“I want an elf like you to have it.” The old shopkeeper said with a strong tone.

His eyes held no arrogance on them, as if he was pushing his impossible dream onto someone else, but instead were filled with unadulterated hope.

“………”

After some hesitation, Frieren replied.

“If there’s no other buyers, I’ll think about it. This should be bought by someone who should own it though.”

“I see… Come back. I am sure you will.”

“I’ll be back. I plan on staying here for a while.”

The old man, as if to remind himself, called out to Frieren as she was about to leave.

“What is your name?”

“Frieren.”

“What a fine name. A name loved by music.”

2.

The dusk was casting its shadow over the city by the time she left the music store.

Frieren felt how the city’s tune changed between day and night.

Unlike the bustling daytime and the soundless midnight, the comforting evening was like a soft breeze caressing her cheeks.

Let’s have dinner, Frieren thought.

During the time she traveled with Himmel and their party, Himmel always decided where they would eat. He had this exceptional ability to find out any restaurant that had what Frieren and the others wanted without them telling him what they were in the mood to eat.

How did you know? She once asked him at the dinner table.

“You all have this way of showing what you’re thinking on your faces.”

Himmel smiled as he said this.

“Heiter’s face now has the color of a ditch.”

Eisen took a glance at the drunkard next to him.

“What?!”

Heiter looked back at Frieren, his face looking like an undead. He was so dead drunk he couldn’t tell the difference between Eisen and Frieren.

“You reek of booze.”

Frieren kicked him while Himmel laughed.

“Frieren, you see, I enjoy nothing more than having a meal with the four of us like this. I choose the food every one of us like as I want to make sure we all have a good time.”

She recalled wondering even then if it was the answer to her question.

She then looked at the restaurant now in front of her and thought it had the same appearance and atmosphere as the one from that time.

This restaurant, called Parlante [3], was such a calm place it was like it was not her first time entering it.

“What did Himmel like?”

Thinking back, Himmel always ordered his food last. It was often a different dish from theirs, or he would choose a dish that was easy to share between the four of them.

After that, he would portion out his food little by little, share that, and say, “Isn’t it more fun to have a variety of dishes at once?”

They had eaten around the table in as many places as she could remember. They partook of seafood when they were in coastal towns, they ate wild greens and hunted game in campgrounds, and they particularly were fond of each region’s local specialties.

“The food that can only be eaten in the place you’re in becomes a shared memory with the people you went in with. Even if you forget, you’ll remember again when you go there and eat the local food. That’s how I want to travel.”

Frieren remembered them talking about this one day, so she then called the waiter.

“Is there any dish you can only eat at this restaurant?”

Would Himmel be surprised to find out she had started thinking like that? Or would he laugh and say, “It’s written on your face,” as if he had already predicted this would happen?

The waiter flipped carefully through the menu pages.

“Our specialty is the l'oeuf omelette [4], made of ten chicken eggs. This dish has four servings, so shall I bring you a quarter of that?”

“No, I’ll order it as it is. If I can’t finish it all, I’ll have the rest on take-out.”

This dish, which was loved by well-known musicians, was bigger than expected and took up a large space on the table.

The evening for one person went on, her recalling that lively dinner table she once shared with others.

3.

It has been a month since she stayed, but she had been so distracted by the magic tool shops and the cityscapes, she wasn’t able to fully explore the small city.

Every time she passed the music store, however, the old shopkeeper would enthusiastically call Frieren’s name.

It had become routine for both of them to exchange small greetings.

It wasn’t particularly a trouble to Frieren, but somehow, she felt like going somewhere a bit different for today.

Not far off the city center, there was a street lined with monuments of musicians. Some were well-known, but others were unknown to Frieren.

At the end of the line, however, she found a rather out-of-place statue.

It was a bust of Himmel holding a violin. It was probably commissioned by the time he was travelling alone in neighboring countries after the Demon King’s defeat.

“He was here, too…” Frieren muttered unconsciously.

His eyes were closed, but his facial expression on the chin rest conveyed such a strong will. This must be the work of a skilled craftsman. One could tell a lot of time was spent making the statue. The finish it had was unique even among the more than one hundred types of heroes’ statues.

“So, he could play such a musical instrument.”

She muttered those words to herself, not wanting anyone else to hear, but from behind her came an unexpected response.

“It’s just as Master Himmel said.”

When Frieren turned around, she saw the speaker was an old woman. There was quite a gap between the woman’s voice, which was quite youthful, and the woman’s elderly appearance. The woman continued with a well-projected voice.

“Might you be Lady Frieren?”

“……?”

For a few moments, Frieren couldn’t understand the words directed at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Master Himmel said that when he came here before.”

The old woman, using skillful vocal acrobatics, reenacted her and Himmel’s state during that time.

“One day in the future, a mage named Frieren will visit this city. I want to make a statue that will serve as a landmark for her.”

“A landmark? Won’t everyone just stop in front of Master Himmel instead?”

“I’m sure they will. But I’m also sure they’ll recognize her immediately as she gazes at me.”

“Is that how it is?”

“Yes, it is.”

The old woman cleared her throat once, ending her little performance. Frieren felt it was strange, given the woman was surprisingly good at imitating voices. She was then told the woman was a former star performer at a circus troupe. It was no wonder that the woman’s voice carried through strongly.

“My apologies for the late introduction. My name is Flöte [5]. I got too excited at meeting you, Lady Frieren. This is embarrassing…”

Her cheeks blushed, a complete change from moments earlier when she was still acting with different voice tones.

“I witnessed a good performance.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Flöte smiled like a blooming flower.

“It seems like the statue was worth making.”

“Master Himmel lamented the statue wasn’t enough to convey his charm to the public.”

“Himmel would probably say that.”

Frieren then wiped the rust off the bronze statue’s flowy hair with a rag she carried.

“If only there was a ‘spell that removes rust from bronze statues’, this clean-up would be easier.”

“Let me help you.”

“It’s all right. I can do it on my own. So, why did Himmel say that?”

As all the rust was wiped off and the statue’s smile returned, the old woman answered Frieren with a mysterious look on her face.

“I have a favor to ask of you, Lady Frieren.”

She said it so apologetically that Frieren got an anxious expression.

“…What’s the reward?”

“A grimoire with the ‘spell to record sounds in a book’.”

At that point, Frieren broke into a smile.

“All right, I’m in.”

4.

“So, you want to dispel a spell that will not dispel until the caster dies?”

Frieren asked again, repeating the old woman’s words.

“That’s rather difficult. Nearly impossible, even.”

 “’I’m sure Frieren will do it’, that’s what Master Himmel told me before.”

“That’s absurd.”

“I’m also embarrassed to say… I am the caster in question.”

“I’m not getting the situation. What do you mean?”

“I ought to speak in order, then.”

 As the old woman said this, she began narrating her personal history.

Flöte was not born in the Capelle region, but in a family of mages, and her parents moved to the area as they hated the horrors of war, and there they established a magical circus troupe. She didn’t originally want to join the troupe, but due to the education she received, she was able to use various magic spells back then.

One of those spells was the ‘spell to erase one memory until death’. It would be a terrible spell if abused by others, but the spell was restricted so that it can only be cast on oneself.

There were many rumors about its effectiveness, which were never true. Some people said it reminded them of the moment of death where one’s whole life flashed before one’s eyes, while others said it meant like being buried in eternal darkness.

In any case, it was a mysterious kind of magic.

One day, when she was 15 years old, having mastered the spell at such a young age, she then cast it upon herself.

Since then, Flöte had lost that one memory, even until now.

“In short, I want to dispel that oblivion spell I casted upon myself.”

“What memory did you erase?”

“That’s the thing: I don’t know. I did erase it, after all.”

With downcast eyes, she connected her words.

“However, I began to wonder if I did lose something important on a whim, especially as I grew older and get closer to death. If, due to the heat of the moment, I buried that memory I shouldn’t have lost with the magic spell I learned, at least, I want to remember what it is before I die. I’m sorry, you might think of this as a selfish request.”

The old woman finally spoke in a voice appropriate for her age.

“When Master Himmel was in the city, I got an opportunity to tell him about it. He then told me about you, Lady Frieren. That Lady Frieren is sure to do something about it.”

Observing Frieren carefully, the old woman then appealed to her.

“Please, will you grant my request? I want to spend the little time I have left, which will pass in the blink of an eye, without any regrets.”

The old woman spoke eloquently, but Frieren didn’t reply, seemingly getting lost in her thoughts.

She walked through the city after, letting time pass, and when night came, she booked a room in a tavern.

Late at night, when the tavern earlier filled with cheerful music finally went quiet, the events of the day came to Frieren’s thoughts as she leafed through the pages of her grimoire.

5.

“This journey must have been a blink of an eye for you,” Himmel said.

The comment came as perfectly natural as picking vegetables in the market.

“I’ve almost died so many times, but now that I’ve made it here, everything feels so nostalgic.”

After the Demon King’s defeat, Himmel continued on as he rode the shaky carriage back to the Royal Capital.

“Frieren. I know you don’t think of this as nostalgic yet, but the day will come when you remember this journey, us, and this moment. I don’t know when that will be. Maybe after I die. Even so, I’m sure you’ll be able to laugh and say, ‘That was a silly journey, wasn’t it?’”

“It’s too early for the serious talk! We haven’t truly defeated the Demon King until we return home!”

Heiter continued to tease them while smiling.

“Well, we still have requests to fulfill.”

On his return to the Royal Capital, Himmel received many requests. He took on small tasks to help people, fixing roads, even searching for lost things.

Their current request back then was from the village undertaker, who asked them to eliminate a monster that only reacted to human corpses.

When asked for more details, the undertaker said there was a dragon blocking the only bridge that connected the village and the town. Since the dragon damaging the area only occurred when corpses were carried away, it was concluded that the dragon had the tendency to target only corpses.

It didn’t respond to scarecrows, and pretending to be dead didn’t work on it either. Since it only paid attention to real human corpses, Frieren guessed it might have eyes that could detect whether a person is alive or dead.

“I’ll act as bait.”

Himmel spoke resolutely, as he always did.

“You just defeated the Demon King, and you want to die here?” Eisen said. “Stop being reckless!”

“Even Eisen, who doesn’t die even if he was eaten by monsters, is useless this time, huh.”

“Heiter, shut up.”

Frieren looked at the two badmouthing each other and then asked.

“Can’t we just borrow a corpse?”

“We can’t do that, Frieren.”

Himmel continued, as if to admonish her.

“A dead person is the image of a life lived fully. We can’t recklessly put that in danger. Besides, even if I’ll be acting as bait, I won’t truly die. Frieren, you can put me in a state of suspended animation, yes?”

“A state of suspended animation?”

She once casted the ‘spell to encase a living creature on ice’ on a ferocious enormous fish. Himmel must have that time in mind when he said this.

“Are you sure? If I make a slight mistake, you’ll truly die.”

“You can do it, right?”

“I don’t know.”

Frieren shrugged her shoulders and…

“Just do it this time. You’re capable of it, after all.”

“Go for it!”

Heiter and Eisen happily cheered.

“I don’t know what will happen.”

Himmel stood on top of the bridge as Frieren took out her staff.

“Frieren. Fire at me.”

A flash of mana concentrated on the staff’s tip then enveloped Himmel. The air around froze, and Himmel quietly collapsed.

Soon after, a very large shadow appeared on the bridge. A dragon came on sight. As it circled the sky above, it went straight at Himmel, as if it had set its sights on him. Its piercing eyes and the sharp claws it brought out now loomed nearer.

Facing that, a large swing of the warrior Eisen’s axe violently exploded.

A heavy, dull sound echoed throughout the area.

White smoke and cold air blended, then wafted away as if they were thawing. One could see that Eisen was the last one standing.

Frieren then promptly used the ‘spell to warm up the skin’ on Himmel’s cold body.

Regaining his breath, Himmel smiled at Frieren with a reddened face.

“See? I told you; you can do it.”

6.

Frieren snapped her grimoire shut.

“The ‘spell to erase one memory until death’, huh.”

The next day, as the morning sun rose, the city became slowly filled with sound.

Frieren woke up on the hard floor far from her bed, and with bed hair she went to Flöte’s house.

It was to put a theory into practice. This was a drastic measure, but in Frieren’s opinion this measure would work.

“Lady Frieren, good morning. Did you find out anything?”

The old woman’s voice seemed refreshed.

“You’ll have to die.”

“Huh?”

“That’s why I’ll put you into the state of suspended animation.”

“……”

There was a moment of confusion from the old woman, then silence. However, after a while, she looked like she had made up her mind.

“Please. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

As soon as she heard those words, Frieren gently raised her staff.

“Lie on the bed. I’m starting.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes, indeed, but are you all right with this…?”

“I’ve done it once before. I can do it.”

“If Lady Frieren says so, then it will be all right. Please do so.”

The spell Frieren casted on the old woman enveloped the latter’s body, and for a moment her body stiffened.

Soon after, however, the old woman’s body regained movement, just like how coloring paint flowed when dissolved in water. She then wore this childlike expression, showing a trace of the young girl she once was.

“How are you?” Frieren asked shortly after. “You technically have died once, so your memory should be back.”

“Hahaha… I was worried like a child…”

The old woman seemed to have recovered her lost memory.

As an adolescent, she didn’t want to join the magical circus troupe. Instead, she yearned for a particular musical instrument.

“The Möglich, the instrument said to take a hundred years to master…”

She strongly yearned for it, but it was too expensive, and she could not spend a hundred years on it, so as a child, she thought she could just forget it existed.

So, she sealed that memory instead. She put the lid on that unattainable wish and began to live on reality.

“I’m glad I remembered… I’ll put my life on the line even if it takes years before I reached my dream, and I’ll start learning from now on.”

“I see. Then, you should have that instrument.”

As the Möglich was an instrument which used magical power to produce sound, without doubt, it would be a good match for Flöte, who was a mage.

“I’ll tell the music store shopkeeper. That there is this customer who has wanted it for a long time.”

“Oh, no. Are you truly sure?”

“I want someone who loves music more than me to have it, you see.”

“Thank you very much. Lady Frieren, I cannot thank you enough.”

“I get rewarded anyways, so…”

“Yes, you’re right.” The old woman took out a grimoire from her bookshelf. “This is the grimoire with the ‘spell to record sounds in a book’. I’m ashamed to say I have already recorded various sounds in this book…”

Flöte’s eyes went downcast as she said this, just like when she and Frieren first met.

“It sounds like a strange hobby, isn’t it? As it was routine for me to travel to various places as part of the magical circus troupe, I had a lot of once-in-a-lifetime chance encounters, and I wanted to preserve them in some form. The local people and the sounds from nature became my source of support. Among these are the recordings of my meetings with Master Himmel.”

“This isn’t a strange hobby. Himmel would have said the same.”

Frieren said she would return the grimoire when she finished reading it, then left the room.

On the same day, Frieren went to Restaurant Parlante, which was now a completely familiar place for her, and ordered an omelette. When she went to bed with a full stomach, she then opened the grimoire the old woman gave her.

Just as Flöte said, the grimoire had sounds from various ages, places, genders of people… some of them were sounds from nature, some being the noise of daily lives.

“You… you look familiar.”

Was this how the old music store shopkeeper sounded like when he was younger?

“I’ll have the ten-egg l'oeuf omelette, please!”

The voice of a very well-known musician continued.

“This time, I’m thinking of starting a marching band in this city.”

“One day in the future, a mage named Frieren will visit this city. I want to make a statue that will serve as a landmark for her.”

She heard Himmel’s voice as she turned a page. His voice was a bit different from the last time she met him, but it was still Himmel’s voice from her memories. It felt nostalgic, too.

And she realized that Flöte’s voice imitation before was a bit exaggerated.

“Please pose quickly! You’re just holding a violin…!”

This was probably the heartbroken cry of the craftsman who made that Himmel bust.

It seemed like Flöte, as a young girl, followed her interests and recorded these sounds from the various places she went, and the chance encounters she cherished. Frieren could just imagine how she looked like during then.

“………”

It might not be a bad idea to retrace that journey with everyone, she thought, looking at the east towards the Royal Capital.

In the end, Frieren decided to leave after staying in the city for around three months.

When she said goodbye to the music store shopkeeper, he excitedly said, “Flöte loves music and is loved by music.” He said the old woman mastered producing sounds on the Möglich at an extraordinarily fast pace, something that would have normally taken ten years.

After all, it was appropriate for those who should own it to have it.

As she was preparing herself to leave with these thoughts in mind, a marching band passed by in front of the tavern.

The boy playing the horn had grown taller in a short time, and his hat now fitted him better. His fingers holding the horn now had calluses on them, and his blowing on it sounded less labored than before.

The sound was brave and gentle, but eventually became grainy.

A celebratory fanfare sounding like a parade salute echoed on Frieren’s back as she left the city.

(END)

Translator’s Notes:

[1] Written as カペッレ in katakana. I decided to translate it as “Capelle”, as the word means “the private orchestra or band of a prince or church”, which is a reference to the marching band in this short novel.

[2] Written as メークリヒ in katakana. In German, “möglich” means “possible”.

[3] Written as パルランテ in katakana. “Parlante” means “a piece of music to be sung or played in the style of a recitative”.

[4] In French, "l'oeuf" means "egg". In short, this word is just a fancy term for "egg omelettes".

[5] Written as フレーテ in katakana. In German, “Flöte” means “flute” or “whistle”.

[6] Frieren was most likely thinking of Milliarde, an elf friend of hers who first appeared in Chapter 69.

[rainbowchaox]

Qsmp Characters Analysis: Wilbur Versus Missa

A common thing I have been seeing off and on is people not really understanding why Wilbur absence is treated more harshly in canon than Missas. Therefore I wanna explain in more detail the reason why. Yes, they are both absent fathers because of In real life commitments. Wilbur canonically being forced to go on tours by the federation and Missa having to be off island for reaper duties (always imagine Philza saying YouTube as him being like reaper job never done).

But the fact of the matter when Chayanne and the rest of the eggs had to be taken care of at the start. The egg missions were daily. So Missa and Chayanne gained a strong connection. Tallulah only had a couple days. The main issue is that yes Tallulah does love Wilbur. She’s hurting but does love him. They don’t really have a connection. And it’s visible clearly how much Philza and Chayanne care for Missa. Despite him being gone for practially four months. People are easy to forget why Chayanne and even Philza cares so much for him.

In the time since Wilbur went away he popped in like once while Missa popped in about four times. Not to mention the times he went on off stream. If one wants to consider absence as something to measure. Then Wilbur is the more absent parent. Missa actually gets on more.

Missa is trying his best. He doesn’t want to be considered a bad dad. His character is openly trying to be better. For Philza and Chayanne. For his family. Even though his family don’t need him to show that he is a good dad. He already is. He loves Chayanne so much. Missa is just good. Even when he met Tallulah he wanted to know more about her. He wants to be part of their life.

And it’s stupid to think his family doesn’t know this. They know he is trying. So yes they always forgive him with open arms. They mention him off and on missing him. But not upset at him. They understand. Philza if anything is always thinking of him. He misses him so much. You can miss someone and selfishly want them to be with you. And not be upset and not be angry. And Philza and Chayanne can never be upset or angry at Missa.

But with Wilbur? Tallulah only had him and he left. He only came once when she was going through the worst time of her life. When she was scared. So of course she is upset. Of course she is angry. In her point of view her dad failed her again. And worst of all she doesn’t have that strong connection she can see other parents have with their eggs. So she’s jealous that she is the only one without her actual dad. Of course this isn’t true. We know that Wilbur canonically loves her and wants to be back on the island. But she is a child. She can be upset and still love her dad.

So despite being similar being absent dads. They are utterly different. Missa is loved and will be loved. Wilbur doesn’t have the connection with Tallulah anymore. It’s sad but Philza is her dad now. Philza has that connection with her. So completely different situations. And we shouldn’t really compare them.

We also know that the first week that Chayanne had a favorite dad and it was Missa. There’s reasons why Chayanne never say anything bad about him. Solidified by Philza openly missing or mentioning him. Tallulah only had letters and eventually memories to remember him by. But she does love Wilbur. She loves Wilbur so much. That’s why she so upset.

[ztarduzted]

So like the Illymation drama????

vile take I support illy like fully I don’t get the people who don’t rn

So like ok ok don’t get me wrong, illy isn’t like perfect 100% by any means but who is??? That one carrot and chocolate thing she said in her video could have been worded better but cmon, it’s really not that big of a deal, for the most part you out understand what she was saying. The video that TBYS posted wasn’t “criticism” the way that people are trying to say it was. People are trying to play it off as just a normal constructive criticism video, but if your “constructive criticism” includes like two whole minutes of making fun of someone’s appearance for no reason, I’m concerned. Illy’s response was a bit immature, but I understand where she’s coming from. She said not to send hate and to just take down that one video, not his whole platform, because it was damaging her reputation and mental health because TBYS never even tried to make a statement telling people not to harass illy and she got sent hate for it. People are blowing it way out of proportion saying she was trying to “deplatform him” when she just wanted one video taken down because it was causing her to be deplatformed, and she never even talked about it to her actual YouTube audience, just the small community on tumblr, then TBYS made two more hate filled videos and people just kept dog piling on her. If your gonna get mad at someone for “deplatforming” a known homophobe and transphobe, maybe practice what you preach. And alongside that, I know that some sources were shown in TBYS’s original videos, but there were no links in the descriptions, and absolutely nothing in any of the response videos I’ve seen. There was one video I saw just speculating that all of her doctors were dumb and lied to her, and TBYS also said that most doctors that specialize and make money from being good at nutrition were just wrong. Also, that one response video I mentioned tried to claim gym bros were better at health than licensed professionals???????? It just feels like this is all a massive, overblown hate campaign to a creator because of mistakes. There’s a difference between constructive criticism and just making fun of someone, and while some things that TBYS said were understandable, he made a point to straight up make fun of illy in the middle of his video, not even attempt to stop his fans from harassing illy, then when she replied (and barley received any backlash mind you), he blew up making more videos sending more and more hate and trying to ruin illy’s career. I know illy could have clarified that one point in her video and acted more maturely about the situation, but people are entirely overlooking the fact that TBYS was no where near “perfect” in this situation. (Also, final note, yes, you can absolutely be fat and healthy, saying otherwise is just wrong and makes no sense. Do your research before making half hour long videos making fun of someone)

I assume this drama will just die eventually and people will move on, but either way, I’m going to continue watching and supporting Illy no matter what. She’s a fantastic content creator, and when that video first came out (and there wasn’t some dude bro on the internet telling me it was bad) I absolutely loved at and had a great time watching it. It made me feel really good about myself (since I’ve been exercising daily and been working on myself a lot, but I’ve seen little to no weight loss despite eating healthy and going on a calorie deficit and working hard. It turns out I have something up with my thyroid, and along with that, part of it is just genetics.) I’d started feeling really bad and was trying to eat the bare minimum and it was making it harder to work out and I was feeling sick all the time. One day I was staying home because I felt sick, and I watched illy’s video. It’s not like one video is going to fix my relationship with food, but it has helped. I’m still not losing weight, but I’m getting stronger, feeling better, and eating healthier. Despite all this drama, illy’s videos have helped me feel more comfortable being myself and I will continue supporting her. And Illy, if you’re (somehow) seeing this, just know that there are some people that want to see you fail, but there are so so many more people that love you and your content.

[heartlilith]

My Placements and How They Manifest

Capricorn Ascendent:

My mother told me that when she gave birth to me, it was worse than my other 3 other siblings by far. She had to be induced because there was no sign of me wanting to come out into the world (lol). She said she was in labor for hours and when I finally came out, she started hemorrhaging. It wasn't fatal obviously because she's alive today but yeah, I kind of associate that with my Capricorn rising. Still to this day, change is very uncomfortable for me especially if I have no control over what's happening. My childhood was great until my mom divorced my dad and remarried, that's when shit went south! I had new siblings, a stepfather, and had to see my dad heartbroken while also battling melanoma and being laid off (2008 recession). My sister stayed with him and I went with my mom. They were always fighting and spiting each other but it was my sister and I that missed out. It was always "what is your father saying about me?" yada yada yada. Growing up, I was bullied by my sister a lot, in my opinion, it was more than the usual sibling fights. My mom also took a lot of her anger out on me; she ended up getting a divorce not too long after remarrying, became an alcoholic and filed for bankruptcy. Being a Capricorn rising and dealing with the backlash of that, I always have money saved, ALWAYS. I'm like a squirrel hiding nuts I stg. If I'm completely broke I'm an anxious mess. It's also why I strive to be independent and self sufficient. It's why I manifest being filthy rich. High school was terrible tbh and I battled with depression and anxiety. College was a lot better and moving away from my mom and chaotic family did me well, I went from a 2.6 GPA in high school to 3.85 in college. Rereading this it sounds kinda like a sob story and that's not what I'm trying to accomplish so I'm just going to move on.

1st House Neptune, Uranus, Lilith:

I made a separate post either on here or Reddit about how my features have changed so much over the years. As a child, my hair was blonde then it turned blonde/red in late elementary school. Since then, it's turned darker and darker through the years. Now it's dark brown. My eyes were dark blue as a child and now they're light green - I attribute this to Uranus and Neptune being on my Ascendent. In my opinion, I'm not photogenic at all (Cap rising?) and I think I look different in every picture I take or is taken of me. With Lilith being in my first house, I was sexualized a lot growing up by older guys/men. And also bullied by boys my age; I remember they thought I was "too girly". Guys, I shit you not after I had enough of it, I started showing up with boy shorts and those tank tops guys wear HAHAHA to be more of a "tomboy"... I'm not really sure what that is but yeah, I must've been 10 or 12 or something. People would always say "it's because they have a crush on you/because they like you!" and I would be so confused. Nowadays, I think I rub some people, specifically men, the wrong way and they dislike me for "no reason", or maybe they have a reason but they never come out and say it. My Uranus in the 1st shows up as being quirky I guess? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's that my parents were never disciplinary at all, I could do whatever I wanted. At the time I loved it but deep down I think I wanted to them to care, so I would act more and more reckless. Today, maybe that sets me apart. One last thing about Neptune/Uranus in the 1st is that I can't stand to see people treating people/animals/or what have you, the wrong way. I can't even watch Youtube videos of animals starting off abused... even if the videos end with them being happy and healthy, I CAN'T DO IT. It deeply disturbs me.

Side Note (1st House Lilith):

As a small child I was obsessed with being naked all the time and skinny dipping LMFAO like it was a problem. Luckily there were no creeps and I was fine but would this placement indicate that in anyway? Let me know because it doesn't really fit with my Capricorn rising.

(I'm really sorry this post is so long and detailed I think I'm having word vomit)

Virgo Moon:

As a child I was really reserved and "chill". I already talked about my relationship with my mom and she was critical and whatever. One thing that sticks out about this placement is that she would always push the idea on me to "stay pure" and to "stay innocent", especially when I was a teen. Always pushing this on me. Always telling her friends I was "naive" and yeah maybe I was in a sense. I don't know it's weird how that fits. My mom wasn't all bad though. She definitely had many faults but she was a great mom in certain aspects. Growing up, I realized she's just a human like me, with problems of her own. I don’t hold it against her. Today, my Virgo moon makes me sooo anxious and worrisome. I definitely see the negative qualities it brings but the good qualities out weigh them. I love buying people gifts and I'm a great gift giver if I do say so myself. With my Capricorn rising and Virgo moon, I hate PDA and it can be hard for me to be lovey dovey (even with all my Leo), so I show love by buying gifts - kind of like my dad. My parents were never there for me emotionally but they bought me great gifts hahaha, I guess that's why. Also I tend to "mother" my partners; I do their laundry, do the cleaning, make their doctor appointments, and take care of them in a sense - like my mom did for me. Writing this out I can now see why I am the way I am lol.

Moon square Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn:

Ooooff. Well I won't dive into it too much. I will say it affects my mental health greatly and I've had a lot of trouble in that department. My Moon square Jupiter really makes my moods go up and down. Like high highs and low lows for sure. I try to look at it positively even though it's hard sometimes. Having the high highs brings out my inner child (Jupiter in the 5th). When I'm happy I'm really happy and giggling and silly. And of course the flip side is low low :( But I like the high highs so I deal. Also with this, I tend to avoid being sad at all costs. All costs. I'm a true escape artist when it comes to emotions. With Pluto and Saturn squaring my Moon, I am infact a MOODY BITCH. LOL, hey at least I can admit it. It brings intrusive thoughts, obsessive thinking, insecurity, and guilt with it too - all that great stuff. Moving on.

Cancer Mercury:

I like my Cancer Mercury a lot, even though it's paired with my all my Leo placements which can make me a ~smidge~ dramatic. I wasn't the best student in high school but I did take the hardest English courses they offered, which in hindsight saved my GPA lol. In college, I studied English with a concentration in creative writing. I mostly wrote and studied poetry which I loved so much. I'm a great listener and if I could write an advice column I would. I love how my Cancer Mercury makes me empathetic and how I'm able to put myself in anyone's shoes. One negative about this placement is that I get hurt easily (paired with Leo Sun and Virgo Moon esp), but I won't let you know I'm hurt, I'll just get angry and mean. I don't like that about myself and I wish I was more vulnerable in that aspect but it's easier to be angry than sad... right?

Leo Venus and Mars:

After talking about all the above placements, my Leo side is definitely my ray of sunshine in a way. I feel like with my Virgo Moon and the aspects it makes, it kinda settles my Leo ego. That's not to say I don't have an ego, I definitely do... just look at this post it's all about meee :) I have pictures of when I was 3-6 years old and flexing my muscles hahaha and I thought I was so strong I would go around and show everyone that I could pick my mom and older sister up. So weird. Other than that, when I dislike someone I tend to go on rant for awhile about everything I dislike about them. My least favorite thing is when someone makes me feel inferior or small, that will put me on 10 easily. I don't get mad all that much, it takes a lot but when I do get mad, I see red. Maybe cause I have Mars at 0 degrees. I do get over things quickly though, emotionally anyway, but I do hold a grudge. Also yesss, I have Leo hair. It's long and thick and hard to manage. Growing up, my mom would never let me color or cut it and I'm kinda glad now looking back on it.

8th house Moon & Venus:

This is why I hold grudges hahaha. In my opinion, the 8th house can be hard to understand/put into words until you experience it (in synastry, transit, natal, etc), then you just know. With Venus here, every person I'm romantically involved with transforms me but also takes a piece of me as well. In my experience with the 8th house, you can gain a lot of good things but it comes with a price. Whether its a mix of my placements or just these placements specifically, love really hurts! Break ups have put me in dark dark places. When I do love someone, I want to merge with them, like become "one" if that makes sense. So when it comes to an end, I have a huge hole left. In my life, this has manifested as when I ran away from home to a different state and ghosted my family and friends just to get back together with my boyfriend, all on a whim. I'd give it all up for someone I love. With Virgo Moon being in my 8th house, my anxiety mixes with my obsessive behavior which manifests as dermotillamania. I struggle with it so bad. I'm working on it but yeah that's kinda interesting looking from an astrological sense. Moon in the 8th house gives me great intuition though... I'm always right about the vibes. But this comes at the cost of feeling things extremely deeply.

Scorpio MC:

This is another placement that I like about my chart because my Capricorn rising makes me come off as intimidating and my MC makes people see me as powerful and mysterious. I don't know if people actually see me this way but even it being a possibility gives me like Olivia Benson vibes. I love her. Anyway, one thing I will say is I don't have social media anymore and haven't for years (besides Tumblr and Reddit) because I really value my privacy. I don't like people knowing things about me unless I decide to share it with them, even small things. Tumblr and Reddit are okay in my mind because I don't know anyone in real life. But even this post I'm already thinking of deleting and I haven't even posted it yet lol. When I did have social media, I would overshare and then delete the post an hour later. I was always deleting pictures and revamping my aesthetic. I became obsessed with likes and comments and scrolling that it was too much and I didn't like the power it had over me. Something else that I think manifests from my MC is that I love psychology, astrology, and things that tie into personalities.

5th house Jupiter & Saturn:

It always confused me on how to interpret having Saturn, the planet of limitations and responsibility, and Jupiter, the planet of expansion and luck, in the same house. I thought that they canceled each other out in a way, or level each other out... is a better way of putting it.  I actually messaged @astrosky33 and asked how they interpret it. Her (?) answer was interesting and made a lot of sense. Jupiter and Saturn in the same house gives off both energies at the same time (why didn't I think of that? lol). So for the 5th house, in terms of my hypothetical kids, I would be a parent that has fun and is silly but also strict in some ways and responsible. One way Saturn in my 5th house manifests is that I don't want to do anything creative unless I feel it's productive in some way, which I don't like about myself. Meaning, I don't want to read a book if the genre is fantasy, I would rather read non-fiction or a self help book; something that I can learn from. Also, I really like hobbies where I can produce something, like making candles or making spell jars. If I can make money from a hobby that I love then even better. Jupiter in the 5th house manifests as being child-like and also loving kids. If things are going well and I'm happy, then I can be excited and goofy like a child. If things aren't going well, then I can throw a tantrum like a child. I love kids because my early childhood was the best time of my life before life hit me upside the head (lol). This past Halloween, I made goodie bags for the trick or treaters and got so excited when the doorbell rang. I don't know, I just want to protect kids and shield them from the bad in the world. Kids, out of everyone, deserve to be happy.

Sun sextile Jupiter:

Things tend to work out for me, well, as of lately anyway. I struggled a lot growing up and I was always wishing my life were different. I couldn't wait to leave home. Now, I have a boyfriend who I love very much and we live very comfortably. I have a great job and I am so much happier than I was before. Of course, life isn't always perfect and there are problems at every turn. I wish I could go back in time and tell 15 year old me that everything is going to be okay, more than okay actually. I have a dog and two kittens who I love very much and I'm very fortunate to have the life that I do. I try to stay positive because there's no point in being negative and sulking all the time. Plus, you never know what can happen so be thankful for what you have, even if in your eyes, it isn't enough. I believe in being nice to people, you never know how far one act of kindness can go. Lord knows I needed it during some pretty tough times in my life.

Venus square Saturn (TW: Eating disorder, drug use, phobias):

Going back to having fear of abandonment and being uncomfortable with PDA... well here is the culprit. Or some of the culprit. Since Venus is in my 8th house, I feel like this aspect plays into my fear of my family dying, more specifically, my parents. Whenever I visit home and I see they look a little older, move a little slower, I get really sad. Their birthdays are supposed to be for celebrating but I can't help but get sad. It takes over me and I obsess about what I'm going to do when the day comes and they're not here anymore. I put on a brave face though and I buy them nice gifts and send flowers on holidays... but it's always in the back of my mind. This aspect also manifests as having low self esteem and growing up this was very prevalent. I didn't care about myself at all; I did drugs, I put myself into bad situations that I get anxiety just thinking about what could've happened. I had an eating disorder, dated boys that were awful. I'm fortunate that I made it out okay. I still have insecurities today but during that time in my life it was so intense because even as a teen without this aspect, you deal with insecurities. It was like double trouble.  

If you read this far, thank you. I hope it was semi-interesting and Im really curious to know what you guys think. Should I make a part 2? I’m feeling a little “out there” by posting this so I hope it's not too much. Thanks again for taking the time to read this.

(let me know what you think!)

[hazbin-but-good]

another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

[anim-ttrpgs]

An absolutely incredible review of the beta version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by review Willy Muffin on youtube, complete with visuals and actual analysis!

I'm going to also add to this post a comment that I left on the video, offering further insight into the design intentions of the game, though the comment might not make as much sense if you haven't watched the video yet.

Hey, lead writer of Eureka here, first of all I wanna say how good and professional this review is, it’s almost indescribable how it feels to see our project taken so seriously and given real analysis, complete with visuals and everything! We would be super impressed and happy with it even if you didn’t like the game—but luckily it sounds like you loved it hahaha

I’d also like to address a few things throughout the video, not as arguments or rebuttals, just further developer insight for everyone

Re: “Urban Fantasy.” “Urban Fantasy” is basically just another term for “modern fantasy”, just a fantasy story that takes place in the 20th or 21st century and deals with the intersection of contemporary life with the supernatural, and it might be an Americanism, or even a Southern-ism, since it has a lot of connections and origins in the living folklore of New Orleans, so I shouldn’t be surprised it isn’t a term everyone is familiar with. Just think of it as the kind of genre where instead of the vampire living in a secluded scary castle, his name is Phil and he’s your roommate haha. What We Do in the Shadows, Shadowrun, and the World of Darkness games are all some other good examples of “urban fantasy.”

Re: Scooby-Doo. Oh we would LOVE for you to run a Scooby-Doo-like wacky mystery with Eureka. Even though the main tone is dark and gritty and noir, we did intentionally build it so that it could run more lighthearted stuff as well! There’s even a few Scooby-Doo references to be found throughout the text, and if we hit a certain stretch goal on the Kickstarter, we’re going to be adding a bunch of Scooby-gang-inspired traits, including the option to play a Talking Dog!

Re: Combat being the largest section, even larger than Investigation. First of all, that’s kind of an illusion that is the result of the game being unfinished. I have a tendency when I write rules to use really long sentences, overexplain things, repeat myself, etc, and that dramatically bloats the rules text and page count, but that’s why we have an editor! She goes through after the fact and trims most of the fat off my bloated writing style to make it flow smoother and read faster, and take up less space. The PDF that was read for this review has had the Investigation chapter copy-edited (and cut down in size by about 25%!), but the editor hasn’t gotten to the combat chapters yet, so they still have a hugely inflated page count. When she’s done with them, you can expect each combat chapter to also be cut down in size by about 25%, so they won’t be nearly so large a chunk of the book.

Secondly, I’ll explain our reasoning for why the combat chapters and advanced combat rules are such a big chunk of the rules text, it’s intentional design which I will now explain. If anyone still doesn’t agree with that design, that’s fair, and that’s why we made the Basic Combat Rules an option.

The reason that the advanced combat rules are the default, and the reason they exist at all, is because it incentivizes and rewards Investigation. If combat is super deadly, it makes Investigation, snooping, and spying more appealing than kicking down the door and getting your head blown off. But of combat is super deadly, it also needs to be very deep and tactical, because if it’s deadly but shallow, then there’s no player agency. “Combat starts, roll some dice, okay your guy is dead.” That’s no fun. So by adding rules and modifiers for cover/elevation, distance, the difference between a pistol and an assault rifle, etc. we make it so that not only is combat its own high-stakes puzzle, but make it so that when the PCs HAVE to engage in combat, all their investigation can really pay off and save their lives. Spying on a building to find out the number of goons stationed there and how they are armed helps you plan and assess risk, stealing the blueprints to the building helps you know how to get the drop on the goons, and know the best places to attack from so that they are stuck out in the open and you are not, etc. and having rules for those things means that all the PCs’ snooping and planning makes a real mechanical difference in whether they live or die.

That’s just my opinion though, and one of the biggest reasons WHY we decided to write the combat with as much depth as we did.

Anyway, thank you again for this review and analysis of our project, our Kickstarter jumped up by about ten more backers in the evening when this video went up after several days of no new backers, and we have to assume we have this video, and all of you watching and reading this, to thank. You’re really making our dreams come true. :)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[thechaoticplayer]

that anon wasn’t me but they are absolutely correct and i feel like i should give my two cents worth about all of this among the sea of hate towards the nijisanji livers. i’m not bootlicking the company, but i feel like it’s hypocritical for people to sent hate to the talents after doki said MULTIPLE times not to since she was also a victim of such behavior (and plenty of dragoons no longer even feel safe in her community because of the immense amount of people who are only there to harass and don’t even care for her) this is a rant that just shows that the issue is gray and that we’ll never really know what’s going on as outsiders

tell the remaining members to graduate because their fanbase will follow them is stupid, acting like they didn’t work their asses off to get where they are and haven’t invested so much in their current persona. ike, elira, and vox are some of the most popular talents so that it makes sense for anycolor to force them into making the stream. saying that vox doesn’t care about mental health after his charity stream and saying that it was just for show need to shut up because we’ll never how how he’s really feeling behind the avatar. elira specifically doesn’t deserve the disproportionate amount of hate and disgusting things she received from it from what was essentially revenge porn to art of her being abused, have these people not been taught that if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all? it costs NOTHING to spam hate on your private account instead.

while i agree that the 2% merch sales and 1/4 (after youtube) of the supas should be raised, that doesn’t mean that the livers aren’t making any money and are poor as several of them have mentioned being able to pay off student loans and have turned their lives around with the money. while it sucks that selen made no profit after investing 200k into projects, maria has mentioned before that covers were more of passion gifts to fans rather than something to make money off of (i DO think that they should be paid for their projects, but that’s just how it goes unfortunately). last cup of coffee was taken down because she didn’t have all of the proper permissions and rushed posting it as a sweet gift to fans, management had full intentions to put it back up.

accusing livers of being bullies based on speculations is idiotic as it just hurts innocent people in the crossfire. these may just look like anime women and men to you, but they are REAL PEOPLE and streaming for nijisanji is their main livelihood! have some empathy, it’s hurting their mental health (the mental health some “dragoons” seem to care about so much)

this goes to say, i am on doki’s side because NO ONE should have to go what she went through, but i just want to show that there are two sides to a coin. i think that nijisanji needs better management, to allow their talents more freedom and a higher percentage of merch sales/supas, and stop treating their livers like shit! stop the harassment and move on, it’s what doki has mentioned multiple times that she wanted! don’t be one of the reasons another liver may have to go what she went through because you have an irrational hate boner for the company

also stream mani / gilty x gilty by maria marionette, finana ryugu, POMU RAINPUFF, meloco kyoran, and kotoka torahime

guys this shit right here

This right here

We need to like post this everywhere bc holy shit people need to understand

You are 100% right!! I agree with everything you just said, esp the "graduate and get out of the company" because they really did bust their asses off to get where they are now and it's a childish way of thinking

[theyanderespecialist]

Yandere Velvette X MtF Reader Headcanons: Velvette's Trans Woman (Hazbin Hotel)

[Hello, My Sexy Muffins! I am back, back Again~ Queen is Back, tell a friend, Guess who's back~~~ Dananana~ This one is Velvette X Male To Female, Trans Woman! Now please do enjoy this!] 

(Disclaimer: Velvette is not yandere in canon! This is just for fun and Not to be taken seriously at all! Simping for fictional characters and yanderes is fine! Just do not be illegal or gross about it! Yanderes are not ideal partners to have in real life! Also, remember to separate fiction from reality and headcanon from canon!) 

(DISCLAIMER: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN AND TRANS MEN ARE MEN AND NON-BINARY ARE THEY/THEMS but can also be considered trans cause yes some Non-binary do transition as well!

RESPECT MY TRANS MUFFINS Or You will be blocked if you spread hate or bigotry on my page you are done! You can keep your belief to yourself thank you!) 

-Yandere Headcanons With Velvette X Trans Woman Reader- 

.Velvette is a woman who does not mind her friend and the love of her life, also being a woman. 

.She also was very supportive of helping dress you, gurl she cannot let the woman of her dreams not be styling. 

.Even if you are a basic bisch pumpkin spice-loving type of girl, she is going to make you a sexy-ass basic bitch! 

.She also LOVES to go on dates with you and show you off. 

.She supported you when you came out. 

.She supported you when you started to socially transition. 

.She made all your clothes by hand, taking extra care of love into them. Being so proud when you break out into a smile of wearing the dresses. 

.She also loved when you had your first spinny dress moment. 

.She also loves making dresses with pockets for you. 

.She would be the type to make trans-inclusive dresses and suits, such as built-in padding or binding and or tucking for the trans muffins that need it. 

.With you as her model for MTF clothing. 

.She also would be helping you get your hormones. 

.ALL The bills for transitions, will be paid for, from clothes, to hormones, to surgeries. 

.If you did not want bottom surgery. 

.She would understand, and you would be no less of a woman in her eyes. 

It just means you and her can do extra sex stuff. 

.She would be BRUTAL With anyone that EVER misgenders you, you are walking down the streets with her and someone says something. 

.They are dead on the spot right then and there. 

.Girl she is protective of her little lady you. 

.She is the dommy mommy in the relationship and loves and adores you. 

.Of course, she does get a wee bit jealous when people notice how much of a sexy woman you are! 

.Like that sexy ass belongs to her thank you very much. 

.So she will not want you to go out without her. 

.Another reason she wants you not to go out alone is because of transphobia. This is hell and there is for sure A TON Of transphobes in hell. 

.So she would get you security guards. 

.If they fail to protect you? 

.Well Valentino can do whatever he wants to them. 

.To her you are the most precious thing and she will slaughter anyone who hurts her little lady. 

.Some would say that you were besties, pals, even roommates! Heh, But you are full-on lovers. 

.It is beautiful! 

[YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS the headcanons are done, Now I might record this and if I have time do an audio scenario for YouTube! I hope you all enjoyed all my sexy muffins whether you are trans or not! Stay Sexy, all My Sexy Muffins!] 

[kimdokjas]

why you should read Mystic Prince if you enjoyed ORV

Mystic Prince / Prince of Myolyeong (묘령의 황자) is a fantasy and action-adventure manhwa with art & story by Aheuredal (아흐레달) and in my humble opinion, an absolute hidden gem. it's literally one the best manhwas i've ever read (among the top 2) and i've finally gathered my thoughts enough to try to articulate why i love it so much, and hopefully convince you to give it a chance!

here's the official summary on webtoon:

An immortal emperor rules the Kingdom of Yeol, a divine country blessed by gods with awesome powers. After a thousand years of peaceful rule, the time has come for a new emperor to be chosen. This is determined by a series of trials, in which twenty princes with special powers who have trained since birth must compete. As all princes of varying personalities and agendas gather to partake in the trials, intrigue and possibly even bloodshed seem all but certain. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the other princes, the Fourth Prince Jeok-yeon Ryu hides a secret he must guard with his life.

anyway i literally made a carrd for this, that's how much i care about this manhwa and i worked very hard on it!! you can find the carrd here*

(* also if you hate daily pass like me pls note that there's a fan translation as well! just keep in mind that some episodes have ost but you can find the links to youtube on the carrd as well. but if you enjoy it please do try to leave likes, comments, and a good rating on webtoon to support the creator!)

Mystic Prince is incredibly unique in terms of story and execution that i can't really compare it to anything else but here's why i think you'll enjoy it, especially if you also liked orv:

strong-willed MC who's not naturally skilled but works extremely hard

said MC is willing to suffer and hurt themselves to achieve their goals (aka kim dokja-esque tendencies)

seemingly cold and aloof ML with yoo joonghyuk vibes at first, naturally gifted and seems to look down on everyone

...but is actually head over heels for MC and just doesn't know how to express his feelings

ensemble cast of incredibly complex and well-developed characters with different personalities and motivations

MC seems a little dense at times but they have a tragic backstory that explains why they're Like That

incredibly bisexual vibes !! like literally off the charts

slowburn romance that is cooking up such a great meal

MC and ML have actually known each other for centuries

characters go through trials that involve risking death

extremely unique lore and world-building

i said ML before but there are actually multiple potential MLs with how much complexity all the character dynamics have

beautiful character designs (literally over 10+ within the main cast and they're all so unique)

evocative writing and heartfelt monologues that seem taken out of a book of pure poetry

narratively significant motifs of fire and water (à la orv's black/white and reader/protagonist)

profound and realistic depiction of the inner feelings and troubles that the characters go through

incredibly heart-wrenching original soundtrack! (actually made me cry)

some of the most gorgeous art i've seen in any manhwa (seriously pls just open the 1st episode and look at the first few panels)

[spoilers below for chapter ~10]

delicious gender fuckery

MC is actually cross-dressing afab (i personally hc them as genderqueer; korean doesn't have gendered pronouns but the official tl uses she/her pronouns)

bonus: they're built like a fucking tank (as seen here) like hello??? which is so refreshing to see for an afab MC

plus they're also canonically lacking in empathy but still deeply compassionate which again is really refreshing

i'm sure there's even more stuff i'm forgetting but these are just some reasons off the top of my head why i think this manhwa is so amazing

please do give Mystic Prince a chance, it's an absolute delight!! there are multiple beautiful covers but here's a couple of them, BE ART BAITED <3

and finally some of my personal reactions to Mystic Prince and also a note regarding the content warnings under the cut!

feel free to skip this part lol but personally when i look for recs, i love when people tell me their emotional reactions and how passionate they are about it! so if this tells you anything,

this is the ONLY manhwa to have made me cry so far (yes that includes the orv webtoon, but not the novel ofc) like actually ugly sobbing with snot and tears and everything lmao

(it's not all sad though! this manhwa will have you clutching your heart one moment and then cackling out loud the next)

and it's also the ONLY manhwa i've ever spent actual money on before the fan tl picked it up just so i could read the advanced chapters (i'm notoriously cheap so this says a lot imo)

and i'm not alone in this, every other comment on webtoon is people saying the exact same thing. the general consensus is that this is 100% a hidden gem (webtoon DP my behated why'd you have to shoot yourself in the foot like that)

also regarding the content warnings on the carrd: this was my first time making a list of cws (i don't think anyone else has made one yet?) and i was a little hesitant to add them, so i sincerely apologize if i missed anything!! if anyone else has anything else to add (cws or otherwise) then please feel free to send me a message and i'll be happy to edit it!!

(btw this was inspired by this post which is also a great summary for why u should read a cnovel called mist unlimited)

[hidingoutbackstage]

Still in shock that they took all the songs down BECAUSE??? IT JUST LEAVES US WITH MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS???

I KNOW?? Like okay here’s everything weird about the situation because it’s only 7 am I feel like I need lay it all out to process this. So, timeline time I guess! (I combined several images into one a few times bc of Tumblr’s 10 image per post limit but I hope everything still makes sense)

Starting January 5, the Ever After High Spotify (and Apple Music I guess although I was only checking the Spotify) began posting songs as singles. The first was called “Can’t Get Me Down” which had a screenshot of Raven from the episode “Rebel’s Got Talent” as the album cover.

Following that, two weeks later, on January 19, we get a song called “Unbreakable” which also has a screenshot of Raven from the show, from the “The Tale of Legacy Day” episode. At this point the songs are gaining attraction because what the heck, Ever After High content in 2024? Is it coming back?

People are also pointing out that Mattel renewed their licenses for some Ever After High stuff, but also companies do that all the time and I think they did it specifically for their webisodes so that they couldn’t be reposted/reuploaded to YouTube or whatever by a party that wasn’t them. It makes sense (Also I can’t actually verify which if any things they did actually renew because all I heard was people claiming that I never saw any proof)

Also at this point, both songs have given Allison Bloom composing credit, which fans thought made sense since Allison Bloom was also a composer on Ever After High content before

ONE week after “Unbreakable”, instead of two like last time, on January 26, we get the third song, Destiny, with a screenshot of promo art for the Epic Winter storyline of Briar, Crystal, Ashlynn, and Rosabella. Once again, composing credit to Allison Bloom. People are so confused, lots of people are reaching out to Mattel’s social media trying to make sense of it all. Also this song in particular had the trademark misspelled as “Ever Aftert High” which could be the reason for something happening later

Actually, before Destiny was released, someone on Reddit apparently got in contact with Bloom and asked if she had any insight as to what was up with the songs, and Bloom said, “I honestly don't know because I am not currently working on the project. Your note was the first I had heard of it. Wish I had more to tell you!” which led people to suspect Mattel was making AI generated songs but using Bloom’s name to release them, possibly because they still had a contract with her (though that is purely speculation)

Same Redditor also emailed Mattel customer support, who gave a very corporate response, but in their email used the phrase “AI-generated songs uploaded to the EAH Spotify list” blatantly calling the music AI generated in this email

One week after “Destiny”, on February 2, we get “Brand New Day” which is another single with another screenshot from the show as the cover, this time of Crystal Winter from the Epic Winter episodes

Three days after “Brand New Day”, on February 5, people realize that “Destiny” has been taken down, but ONLY Destiny. Some speculate this is due to the typo in the trademark upon release. The rest stay up

One week after “Brand New Day”, on February 9, the song “Forever Friends” with art of Raven and Apple as the cover is uploaded

Later that same day on February 9, “Forever Friends” and all the other remaining songs, “Brand New Day”, “Unbreakable”, and “Can’t Get Me Down” have all been taken off the Spotify (and Apple Music) list

[naavispider]

have you seen the extended son for a son scene (its on youtube and i think it's been posted on here as well)?? im going INSAAANE

Okay, I haven't commented on it yet because I don't know how eloquent I can be - @hyperfixatedfandomer is your go-to blog for that!

Here is the scene. And here are my thoughts:

My heart was in my mouth when I first watched the stand off. When Neytiri placed her blade back against Spider's neck it was a visual masterpiece. The acting from Zoe was incredible and I could honestly feel the fear Spider was experiencing. In that moment, he's realising his whole life has been leading up to this betrayal. He thinks he is about to be murdered. Neytiri, the woman he's sought approval from for 16 years, is about to kill him in an act of rage fuelled revenge. And you know what he does? He doesn't say anything. He is too afraid to even speak, to beg for his own life, and I believe it's because he knows (he's always known) how much she resents him. He knows that in that moment, the sound of his own voice could drive her to actually do it.

And so he can't say anything. That is the saddest part to me.

The moment when Kiri first tries to reason with Neytiri was impactful as well because Kiri was clearly hoping that by bringing Neytiri's focus back onto herself, it would calm her down and reassure her that Kiri is safe, that it's okay, that it's over. Instead, Neytiri lashes out in a moment that must have been terrifying for Kiri. She will surely have nightmares about her own mother behaving like that towards her for years.

I am so mad that they cut this scene because as we all saw, Spidr faced so much backlash from fans for saving Quaritch. Well... now it has been made even clearer why exactly the choice was so difficult for him. Quaritch has protected Spider. Throughout the movie, in various setting, that's what he's done. Of course he's committed other sins and put Spider through Hell in other ways, but it is abundantly clear that Quaritch cares about Spider. Neither of them want to acknowledge it, but unfortunately it's true. He has ascended to a parental role in Spider's life.

Neytiri on the other hand has never shown an ounce of protectiveness over him. For right or for wrong, whether her reasons were understandable or not, she has shown time after time that she does not care for Spider.

So Spider sees the most care-giving, protective person in his life dying. Of course he's going to save him. There's no doubt in my mind he would have also saved Neytiri if it had been her at the bottom of the ocean, because that's just the type of person he is.

To those of use who empathise a lot with Spider, it was never difficult to understand his decision. However, there was a sizeable fraction of the audience who unfortunately did not empathise with him as much. This deleted footage would have reduced that fraction.

They did Spider dirty by deleting it. So much unaddressed tension is going to be explored in A3 and future films, and this was such a crucial character moment for all of the people involved. They could easily have taken out the violent stabbing that Neytiri did to the soldiers, while keeping this vital character moment in. However, never mind. I'm just glad we got to see it now, a year later.

[king-magnifico-haven]

🌟 King Magnifico: Hero? Or Villain? 🌟

🌟🌖 There’s no shortage of red flags that come up whenever King Magnifico’s on screen, but in my opinion, none of them have to do with him being a villain. They all have to do with him being a fallen hero, a character that’s taken advantage of at every opportunity.

The Youtube video ‘Wish is Everything Wrong with Disney’ and the most vocal of Magnifico Defenders have already beautifully explained my reasons for thinking this, but after watching certain scenes and listening to ‘This is the Thanks I Get’ (even with its agonizingly horrible lyrics) I just wanted to share my opinions too, as a Magnifico Defender. 

The scene between him and Asha is meant to portray him as a villain, but there’s absolutely nothing in this scene that shows him off as evil. Instead there’s quite a bit showing him crying out for help. He confides in Asha about his wish, but is promptly ignored. She quickly jumps into asking for her grandfather’s wish to be granted.  

The frustration and disappointment in Magnifico’s voice at that point is crystal clear (hats off to Chris Pine). And keep in mind just mere moments ago, he confided in her about his wish. Something he probably doesn’t share often. He even mentioned her father. There was so much potential for a positive friendship, or maybe even relationship (if the movie had been written without Amaya), but everything’s completely skewered. 

‘Wish is Everything Wrong with Disney’ exquisitely gets a couple of points across, this being one of them: the scene between Asha and Magnifico was meant to portray Magnifico as this heartless bastard of a villain. It was also meant to villainize his system. But as we can clearly see, the citizens of Rosas aren’t suffering under his system. It’s a well-known, established system in which the citizens are merrily thriving. Outside of Simon, the only thing the citizens are suffering from is an addiction to wish ceremonies. 

And it’s stated, several times, how the wishes are given up willingly. Not just by Magnifico himself, but by Asha. Who happily sang about the very same wish system in ‘Welcome to Rosas’. 

It would’ve made a lot more sense if Asha had just moved to Rosas, and was told something incorrect about Magnifico’s wish system, only to find out everything’s a lie, but that’s not how it went. She ends up being like ‘omg Magnifico’s wish system is the greatest’ to villainizing the same exact system in her interview. 

In regards to Asha’s interview: Magnifico loses a couple of points for mocking Asha because ‘you’re young, you don’t know anything, really’ and for pretty much telling her ‘haha, I’m not granting your grandfather’s wish, sorry, loser’, but it was at that point he came off as more of an irritated hero than a villain. Nothing about either of those actions has him come off as anything even remotely close to Scar or Frollo. Maybe more of a Gaston?  

But not even really him. Magnifico’s just pissed at this point. Disney doesn’t really do death that often but he could’ve easily banished Asha and her family from the kingdom. However he pretty much just said ‘sorry, not today’ and walked off. 

Then there’s several scenes in which he speaks with the townspeople. Here lies the fault with how Amaya was handled. In my opinion, she pretty much doesn’t do anything but stand beside him. He speaks to the townspeople about a potential threat, they immediately go into a frenzy about another wish ceremony, and then we see him with his ‘OMG I’m so done’ look. Perfect opportunity for her to step in and take the baton. 

Amaya says absolutely nothing to comfort him during these critical scenes either. We get the ‘you’re such a handsome king’ and the hand kiss scene but there’s nothing deeper than that. Nothing that says ‘I love you, my dear Magnifico’. It’s about as surface level as the citizens of Rosas worshipping him because he can grant their wishes.  

Then there’s ‘This is the Thanks I Get’. Amaya’s absent throughout the entire song. She could have intervened at any point to comfort him. He was heading downstairs with the Evil Book. She could’ve have found him and said something along the lines of ‘oh no, please don’t do that, my love, we can work this out’ or ‘it’s okay, my love, Asha doesn’t mean any harm, she just loves her family’. Or maybe something like ‘it’s okay, my love, the star doesn’t mean any harm’. She could’ve been the very person that changed the course of the movie. 

You know, the power of true love and all that. 

We’ve seen her calm him down before. It worked. He was receptive towards her. He continued being receptive towards her. Even as he surrendered to the Book’s influence! 

Come to think of it, Simon’s the only thing that indicates Magnifico’s any bit of a villain. Not even The Book points to him being a villain because of course he was kinda possessed by it. He was terrified by a potential threat against their kingdom, due to his past, and went into Panic Mode. Unable to find any answers on how to deal with said threat in his books, he turned to the worst option available: The Book. He even said he didn’t want to be ‘tethered’ to The Book, but ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’. 

Without anyone around to convince him to put the book down.

Not Amaya, not Asha, not Valentino, Simon, a royal guard, the ghost of Asha’s father-no one. Magnifico was all alone. 

It kinda seems like he was alone the entire time. 🌖🌟