#aka stuff that may have been better to say on the actual anniversary but I think this is a good way to close out Undertale month

[shimmershy]

Undertale Month Day 30: The End/Surface/Respite

The coloring and everything are a bit messy, but I wanted to finish off the month with something nice. :) Undertale is a game that is so important to me. Not only did it encourage me to draw more things outside my comfort zone, but it's also been a huge comfort for me ever since I first played it. I feel like I would be a completely different person if I hadn't stumbled upon it a little over six years ago. All this to say, I don't think I'll ever stop caring about this silly little game, and I'm really glad it exists. :)

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Overall I liked this week’s episode. It wasn’t quite as strong as last week’s, but that may just be because I don’t like what they’ve been doing with Sah’s storyline. I really enjoyed everything else.

The Dylan stuff was absolutely fantastic. I love it and I love William Beck’s acting. And I am really, really glad the show is finally addressing Dylan’s mental health, because he’s been blatantly unwell for nearly 2 years at this point (going right back to when he was looking at houses for him and Faith in February 2021, a move I’m still baffled that people thought was romantic), and I was really worried it would just be swept under the rug, but no, it’s just been building up really slowly. Look, not that I want to sound happy that Dylan is ill, but I’d rather have him be ill and the show address it than have him be ill and the show not address it, so... yeah.

I also just love that the show is currently in a place where people on Twitter are whining that it’s “too political” every week. Mate, if you don’t want politics, fuck off and stop watching Casualty.

I expected after Dylan’s whole “I can’t fix the NHS but I can fix things here” speech a few weeks back that the show was going to quickly deconstruct that idea and show that Dylan actually has very little power in the grand scheme of everything, and I was right. His speech tonight calling back to that moment was WONDERFUL. I’m definitely gonna gif it. Probably won’t gif it right away, because tomorrow is Johnrik Day (AKA the “One Man And His God” anniversary) and I’ll be focusing on that (might make a little gifset of them, we’ll see), but I’ll gif it at some point.

Also, I said this already, but I find it both annoying and funny how they’re going out of their way to avoid acknowledging that Henrik left the hospital, while also not outright retconning the fact that he left the hospital. Hence, we’re getting all these mentions of the chairman and stuff thrown around, but nothing about the CEO. I’m begging you, Casualty, please just confirm that Henrik left. You don’t even have to tell us the actual name of the new CEO if you really can’t be bothered. Just give us a line that starts with “since Mr. Hanssen left...”, or have someone go “I’m gonna talk to the CEO about this and see what she thinks” to confirm it’s not Henrik anymore.

Anyway, diverting back from that tangent onto the topic of Dylan and his storyline, I loved Betty. I thought she was just lovely.

Paul was worried that what he said about Dylan could get him in trouble - let’s hope it does, because I want him to just leave already. Why is he still on the show? Having him punch Dylan, however unintentionally, just makes me hate him more.

I also hate Marcus, but he’s clearly a short-term character we’re meant to hate. Whereas Paul’s been here over a year and there’s still nothing likeable about him.

I liked all the patient storylines tonight. I especially liked the guy who had been taking his girlfriend’s contraceptive pills because he thought that would make extra sure she didn’t get pregnant. That was so cute. Silly, but cute.

The Sah stuff... the stuff with them being kidnapped was better than I expected, but I really didn’t like the stuff with their family. The kidnapping stuff reminded me of when Henrik was kidnapped just as much as I thought it would. His responses were not dissimilar. If I had a nickel for every time an autistic-coded queer Holbyverse medic got held hostage, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

As for the family stuff, I am glad Kevin survived the episode. I really expected him not to, so I was relieved that he did. But other than that... I am just so tired of storylines where trans people are expected to “make things up” and “reconcile” with their bigoted family members, even if in this case there were admittedly extenuating circumstances (which you can’t say for the similar storyline on Holby with Louis). Especially in this case, because Sah’s mother isn’t just bigoted, she left them alone when they were only a teenager and they needed her. Sorry, but she’s a terrible person. Sah has no obligation to forgive her.

Also, what the fuck was up with them having Jan misgender Sah? Jan has no reason to misgender Sah. She’s never ever had to call them by she/her, because she met them long after their coming out. They’ve been using they/them for as long as she’s known them. (I know some people just tend to mix words up, which could lead to unintentionally misgendering someone even if you’ve always known them by their current pronouns, but we’ve seen no sign of Jan being like that before from what I remember.) Add to that the fact that Jan is literally queer herself, and just... she should know better. Having her misgender Sah is not a good look.

Loved Sah’s new haircut, though, I’ve gotta say that.

There was very little Faith tonight, which pleased me. Honestly, I could almost forget she was in the episode. Hopefully she’s leaving and they’re phasing her out now to make sure no one will miss her - I can dream.

There was, however, not enough Stevie. I wanted more Stevie.

Anyway, there’s no episode next week, because of Strictly IIRC. So... next review whenever the next episode airs, lol.

[plush-anon]

You worked at joanns? 😍 dream job

In all fairness, a large part (and I do mean a LARGE part) of why I enjoyed working at Joanns were the managers.

The store manager was a guy named Richard, one of maybe two or three men who worked there total, and this man was practically a saint as far as retail goes.

This was a man who would, with no hesitation, get on the floor to help customers, or hop on the registers to check customers' purchases out, or pop on to the cutting counter to cut fabric. He remembered the names of regulars, would chat and smile while getting shit done, and was the type of guy to speak slowly and softly when we had shitstains explode at us measly peons for not giving them the full cost of an item back in a return (ex $200) when they used a coupon to purchase an item to begin with and only paid a portion of the cost (ex. $150). No joke, this actually happened to me on Black Friday with a man who stood at about 6 foot with a crewcut and a snarl (the military Karen, if you would)

Richard, of course, stood at about 6 foot 5 inches, and reminded me of a ginger grizzly bear in some ways. Very few customers continued to be assholes when they asked to speak to the manager and Richard came over, smiling wide. He encouraged us to chat with the customers while we worked the cutting counter - it was a good way to learn about what they were making, encouraged general conversation and lent itself to a better environment for everyone, worker and customer alike, so we weren't just awkwardly standing in silence the whole time.

The assistant store manager (aka his second in command - we had two other assistant managers, but she wielded more power than both of them) was Farrah, and she was basically Cool Wine Aunt, but with weed. She was open about smoking it (but not in a pressure-the-underlings kind of way, but more of a 'yeah, it calms me down' kind of way) but never on the clock, and was just really chill in general. She was also a 'jump on the registers' type of manager, and on occasion would take the closing staff out to get a drink from the texmex place next to us in the shopping center, and cover one for each of us - particularly during the Holiday Clusterfuck of October, November, and December (their Frozen Kahlua Mudlslide was my alcoholic drink of choice - they also had these spicy chicken strips that were amazing with it, but I digress).

Both of them were amazing people who would support and back us up without hesitation (if they weren't dealing with corporate or stock trucks coming in), and both routinely worked 15 to 20 hours UNPAID overtime during the Holiday Clusterfuck so that we the underlings could get more hours without Corporate jumping up our ass about going over budget.

They were also refreshingly upfront in our monthly meetings about profits and meeting them, as well as why company policy was the way it was, and how to work within the boundaries so we got more hours. One of my favorite moments was when they said the fabric sales essentially covered their own cost (production and delivery); the rest of the cheap crap in the store was what covered our paycheck and electricity, so hawk it as much as you can if you want extra in the bank (paraphrasing here, but that's not that far off what they actually said tbh).

With some Karen-y exceptions, the customers were honestly pretty chill. There were two women from a nearby church who bought well over 200 yards of cut fleece to make no-sew fleece blankets for children and the poor in December (it took forever to do, but they were so cheerful about it and told some funny anecdotes in between, kept the counter clear as soon as they were cut, etc. Took them three carts to haul everything to the register XD).

There was the slew of quilters making everything from baby blankets to anniversary gifts to quilts for their grandkids attending the local university that they could wear to football games in the colder weather, while still showing team pride. They always bought quarters and eighths and the end of the bolt for half price, digging thru our remnants bin for something they might have missed they could get for half price. They always talked about what they were working on, and spoke in great detail on their kids or cousins or niblings or grandkids. I saw so many pictures on phones, in wallets, and they loved them to absolute pieces.

There were cosplayers making their first costume to comicon, halloween goers trying their hand at making their own outfits, and a few furries making custom suits for order or just updating their own personal outfit. There were the usual school and church Christmas plays that needed costumes, and folks making custom table runners and place settings for family holiday meals.

One notable young man bought out 30+ yards of our 65" inch wide bolt felt for JEWELRY projects he was making as a part of his business and as a part of his art program (you can major in art with a concentration in jewelry making, and he was using it for that). He didn't leave a card, but the pictures he showed us were STUNNING.

We had a few elderly mothers come in with their daughters, to pick out fabrics so they could make their own wedding dresses, or quinceanera outfits, or veils; they showed us the patterns they had, or the pictures they were basing the designs off of, and all of them were STUNNING. (One came back in with the finished dress in the bag, this intricately beaded poofy dress that had to have taken days, hot pink and shiny).

We had local restaurant owners pop in for re-upholstery projects and curtains and vinyl; same with teachers and deck dads and furniture restoration workers that would gush about the design, what they had planned. Some would bicker with their spouses on the pattern, but it felt good-natured on the whole.

We had some elderly men come in to peer over our sewing machines - "How much it run for? My wife's birthday is coming up and her old machine's about done, and I want to surprise her. She had a Singer, but she hates the electronic screens on some of these newer ones, they hurt her eyes." - and moms coming in to sew some custom bed sheets for their kids - "My son really likes the new My Little Pony show, but he's a little shy about it. Do you think the blue's okay? Only he like yellow more, but they don't have any back there and he doesn't MIND blue really but - Actually scratch that, how wide is the fabric? My pattern says it needs to be at LEAST 22 inches wide, does it say on the box?" - and people coming up with some WILD craft ideas that were always a delight to hear them gush about - "So this MAY seem crazy, but I can turn these plastic pumpkin trick-or-treat pails into SNOWMEN heads with felt like this. We fill them with treats for the kids since we don't have a fireplace and they like it fine, but someone said I should sell these on Etsy and people really like them! But I've run out of pumpkins, and you have NO idea how happy I am that you guys still have some left."

The group we had to work with was also pretty crafty; a few were chronic call-outs, some a bit lazy, some perpetually done-with-this-nonsense, but we were mostly on the same page on shift, and all of us were crafty as heck. The employee discount was a blessing AND a curse, lemme tell you.

Stock was the best part, for me. Hours before the store opened at 9 AM, we would rip open the boxes and stuff everything onto the shelves, organizing anything the closing shift missed the night before along the way, updating new stickers or shuffling pegs over for new product arrangement, etc. We could listen to music or podcasts as we worked, and I ended up impressing some of them bc of how fast I tore through everything some mornings (the music definitely helped out there).

I was actually about to be promoted to assistant manager after 6 months, but then I got my job with the university, and they had federal health benefits AND dental, so... yeah, no contest there. Richard actually laughed when I told him I'd been hired at the university and was giving my two week notice, since it meant he didn't have to do the slew of paperwork that accompanied new assistant manager hires. He congratulated me on the job, especially the health benefits - he said that was a perk worth leaving any job here for. I nearly cried with relief that he wasn't mad.

He and Farrah chipped in and got me a small music box that plays Man of La Mancha's Dream the Impossible Dream on my last day. It still sits on my desk at work.

It was honestly my favorite retail job out of the bunch I've suffered through. Surprising at first, since I initially received a rejection email bare HOURS after my interview with Farrah, but about a month later (as I trawled endlessly through interview after interview, desperate for anything those first few months ), I got a call back from them asking if I was still interested (which I was, bc hey a job!). They remembered me specifically bc I had missed my bus to the interview, called ahead to let them know I would be late, then walked the whole way there in the rain to get there. (It was only about a mile and a half away, so not a terrible journey, but flooding is an issue in our flat-ass city; I looked like a drenched afghan hound holding a useless umbrella, so enjoy that imagery).

They were particularly impressed by the calling-ahead part.

Unfortunately, both of them ended up moving on to different paths over the year after I left - apparently they had been friends with benefits (? I say hesitantly, since I ran into one of my coworkers at an art show later on and she spilled the beans there - she was a bit flighty in nature though, and got caught up in gossip a LOT, so who knows. Lovely brocade custom projects though), and his ex girlfriend had called corporate on them and got both fired.

I think Farrah came back some time later, but the damage was done after that - the new manager came in and operated SOLELY to corporate policy. A LOT went to pieces in terms of store cleanliness, order, and general camaraderie after that - the new fabric counter folks look and sound dead inside, and barely interact with customers (not even a 'whatcha making' in passing, which is kind of sad - the stories I got helped to pass the time, and kept me from using up all of my Set Conversation Phrases for customers that actually WOULD leave us standing in silence). Corporate also stopped some of the smaller store policies that made our job easier and gave the customers a little something extra (the 'end-of-the-bolt' discount - if, after the customer orders say, 2 yards of fabric on the bolt, and there's say, a half yard "remnant" left on the bolt, we can sell them the remnant for half-price. A LOT of quilters LOVED this, and we did too, since it saved us from filling out the remnant tag and printing a sticker later on).

Just goes to show how important good management is in a business; especially when it can kick a store previously part of the top 50 stores in the NATION (while being a medium store at that - smaller place, NOT Hobby Lobby size like the Large stores) to something much less pleasant. I could be rose-goggling the situation thought - retail is still retail, no matter how nice some aspects are - but it still sticks with me as to how good he experience was even taking into account that it WAS minimum wage retail.

Food for thought, lads, food for thought.

[blastedking]

State of the Kingdom  - the Plan for 2021

We got some stuff in the pipeline that I'm absolutely excited about!

Comic

Universe Law Of Fire II - Starheart 

Start 29. January 2021

I'm at the colours on this one as we speak, and it is turning out so lovely. I really put a lot into this one and got a bit out of my comfort zone - and it was worth it! 

It's arguably a step up to the first one in every aspect. The story sure is more precise and better paced I think (given I had enough time for this one to really make it round), there are more backgrounds, more dynamic stuff, more everything basically! 

It is set a few days after ULF - I Tale of Moons.

The DSS Hootsforce got a couple scratches during the whole deal, so our heroes go and visit the dwarven space station of Altrada! And trouble soon follows.

It has Space Dwarves - aka. Wind Rose will be the supporting cast for this one!

New pages as always every Friday, 7pm CEST/CET. 

It's 48 Pages plus Cover - so that covers this year Comic wise! 

As ULF: Tale of Moons is now finished the whole thing can finally be decently read over on the @universelawoffire​ blog via the link in the top that I will update to link to the first page once the last page is up so one can click through casually.

Fanfiction

Universe: Wizard of Cowdenbeath

This Saturday, 16. January, Universe: Wizard of Cowdenbeath starts! 

It is the Zargothrax and Ralathor backstory thing I keep harping on about since months - now it's finally time! And I'm so happy.

It got shorter chapters on average but more. Word wise it's the longest story yet, and also with the most chapters. It's 18 main Chapters plus 3 mini Epilogues (the latter I'll post in one go or within a week once we're there. These don't have covers.)

But the other 18 do all have Chapter covers. And all but one are pretty nifty xD (I might fix that one tho. As is it really stands out.)

Upload will be every Saturday at the usual time over on AO3 (but with Link Post here too)

U: WoC will end in the middle of May, and I hope to finish "Kilchoan" till then because it does belong to U:WoC in a sense. If I don't however, there will be a The Warrior reblog run till June or July? I should be done by then. 

Kilchoan shouldn't get too long, but we will see. 

The one after that will bring the story back into more recent events in the Universe. Kilchoan is another jump into the far past. But for now I’m just thrilled to finally upload this one! How you’ll enjoy it too!

Art

Nothing changes for the Sunday art spot - I'm currently burning through my queue because I literally haven't drawn anything else but Comic since Christmas, but once that is done I should be able to keep that one going as usual. (I still got stuff till march so that should be fine.)

Speaking of march. As I have my one year anniversary in this cozy little fandom by then, I'll revive the Wednesday slot for some "old" GH Art reblogs from last year! 

Other

A big thank you to everyone who started following me - I hope you are aware that there is a Twitch streamer lost in me and I actually do greet each new follower personally saying an enthusiastic “welcome [name] thank you” to myself every time. So please do feel welcome! x’)

Big shoutout to everyone reblogging and liking and even leaving comments - it's been delightful so far and I hope we can have more of it! We seem to have fun. I like that! <3

Spread the love! 💖👑

[incorrecthousamoquotes]

IncorrectHousamoQuotes in 2020

read me first please

so the blog anniversary was like... April 16. circumstances in 2020 made it so I feel like I owe an explanation for what I’m doing, and at one time I wondered if it’s necessary for a dumb meme blog but I know people care about this dumb meme blog. so this will be mainly 3 parts:

how narwhal had been feeling about the game in 2020

the future of incorrecthousamoquotes

closing remarks about the Tumblr community

how narwhal had been feeling about this game earlier this 2020 (spoiler alert: bad)

ok before I continue I want to say that I’ve been doing fine for myself in real life. I do acknowledge that I have the privilege of remaining financially stable this year and I am happy that I was able to keep my job I was just hired for in the beginning of the year. that being said please let me be internet melodramatic.

if you’ve known me personally and talk to me frequently in Discord servers then you may already know how I’m feeling in 2020. there’s a lot of people that don’t, though.

as part of me being internet melodramatic I do express the anger I felt toward the game and the fandom (outside of Tumblr) but I do not feel or say that the game, the fandom or anyone in particular did anything wrong. my purpose is not to criticize anything or anyone but just saying my feelings.

other than that, some of these feelings may be exaggerated and I do not guarantee my explanations of my feelings will make sense or be sufficient explanations for myself (then again since when did feelings make any sense)

basically me in 2020 was a result of major burnout in this game and the fandom.

my burnout technically began back in Christmas 2019 aka Mistake Christmas (I have feelings about this event but I choose not to elaborate right now) but I think the first thing that got me feeling burnout was late January with Main CH10 and translated CH9. until this point I liked to make self-deprecating jokes about how I haven’t read story yet but this was when I first began feeling I didn’t have a place in the fandom. like... who knew self-deprecating jokes could have a negative effect on my psyche if I think about them enough. how I can explain it is... in the past I wasn’t particularly crazy about new content in particular but I felt like I can vibe with people who were and I did have an interest towards new content. but CH10 was the first time I actively disliked new content and I took it really personally the fact I didn’t try to catch up with main story, so I started to mentally separate myself from the fandom even though I had no reason to. mostly because I held myself to more expectations than anyone would ever put on me.

so after Mistake Christmas & CH10 I ended up losing a lot of enthusiasm especially towards new content. I ended ignoring Val Timeslip completely but I did really like the Great Gendarme rerun. but my burnout hit an all-time low in April during New Semester 2020 which I will refer to as Worst Semester. now at this point I wasn’t looking forward to anything new at this point and the worst part about Worst Semester is that it was basically CH10 Part 2: about half of each banner was characters directly from CH10.

and this was when I started feeling angry at the fandom like an old entitled fan who hates change and can’t stand when people are having fun; basically it was a mix of envy and self-hatred that I couldn’t find anything to be excited about at that time. how could anyone like any of these characters, is what I felt.

that was even without considering the thing that tanked my mood for my blog in particular: summosnap. like even without considering the self-deprecating jokes about being cancelled it forced me to look back about how I’ve been running this blog and how I haven’t made a single new quote in 2020. long story short I kept comparing myself to the high expectations I put on myself and it ruined my motivation to work on what I’ve planned for the anniversary. so the blog anniversary passed completely burned out.

now I have been feeling better because the next few months weren’t particularly new content: May was just rerun month, and June was technically new but was basically from an old game that I liked a lot, so nostalgia has helped me feel better. now it’s July and we have completely new content and I’m feeling anxious over whether I’m willing to accept new content or not. right now in early July I’m actually focusing on other games right now (and reading main story on the side) so I’ll gradually start making more stuff for the fandom.

the future of incorrecthousamoquotes: the Tumblr

if you followed this blog in the past year, then you would know I didn’t have a regular schedule of making quotes in 2019, even though I did in 2018. in 2019 I did make quotes but it was released in batches every other month or so.

even in 2018 I’ve always made other Housamo content, so I’ve always given the impression that this blog is for whatever I feel like making (at least I hope I’ve given that impression) so when I remake my info pages, I will be taking the focus off of incorrect quotes. I can still make them when I get the motivation (and to clear my drafts of submissions I’m sorry) but my info pages won’t mainly talk about incorrect quotes as much as me just making whatever I want for Housamo.

I would like to make more personal posts like I did in 2018. For some reason I held off on the personal posts in 2019, but I think that contributed to my growing mental self-isolation and my eventual burnout. on a related note I’ve been ignoring my askbox and I’m sorry for that. one of the major reasons is that some of the asks I’ve been sent I have no answer to, but in the future if I have no answer to them I might just publish them anyway hopefully to start a discussion and have other people respond if they like.

I’m also going to be more open to just reblogging things because that’s something I’ve always been hesitant to do on this blog for some reason.

what hasn’t changed over the years is that I’ve always covered game news and game info and have taken time writing guides for this game. this will not change and I’ll continue to cover news in the future.

I still have unfinished projects in general and I hope to get them done this year.

the Twitter

as for my Twitter, I have mentioned before that I opened it again this April and will be using it just for uploading the video memes I make. growing the Twitter is not a priority for me, so I have no plans to change that right now.

--which is what I said before I clowned myself trying to make tweets that never took off so I’ve deleted them, sorry for trying to be an attention hoe

starting this month I’ve also permanently changed the name of the Twitter to summemepedia, which better fits the content I make.

closing remarks: I am so grateful for the Housamo Tumblr community

despite how I felt about this game in 2020 I’ve honestly never felt happier for the Housamo Tumblr community posting and writing about what they love. Tumblr as a blogging platform that encourages creativity is a website I will defend with my life and even though Japan mostly uses Twitter so it’s natural Housamo will revolve there, I will still be happy for anyone that still decides to use Tumblr.

I’ve made a list of blogs here that I’ve been saving for anniversary before I had my burnout so you can check out the list and suggest additions to it if you’d like.

[adaru32]

October 2020 Devil May Cry News Updates

Someone mentioned in September’s news updates about how they don’t like visiting Deviantart due to what’s happened to it. So here’s the full list and links I’ll be sharing here that I’ve shared in the Deviantart journal so you don’t have to visit there.

Hey, how's it going? Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween. Here are this month's Devil May Cry related updates: 1. Asmus Toys has announced a devil Dante Qbitz figure up for preorder. 2. More promo images of Lady for the Pinnacle of Combat mobile game. 3. Rumours of a Devil May Cry 6 in the works are already surfacing. 4. Devil May Cry V getting a SSS pack, which contains a soundtrack, tshirt, and poster. b) Speaking of which, they haven't forgotten about releasing an official Vergil coat. c) Famitsu Interview regarding what may or may not happen in Special Edition. d) Other inclusions and exclusions of Special Edition regarding features, the official Vergil DLC release date, etc. 5. CapCom at one point released stamps to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the 1st Devil May Cry game. Someone got their hands on them. 6. 90 Day Fiance, featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series. 7. Interview of Kyo (aka RedgraveKyo) talking to the voice of Trish from DMC4, Danielle Burgio. 8. Some drama regarding how "casuals" and "elitists" react to different opinions of Devil May Cry 4 and V.

My Thoughts On These Updates:

1. That Qbitz figure's adorable. A friend of mine in my one Facebook group mentioned about how Asmus Toys announces all of these Qbitz figures, but no mention about a release date, which is frustrating. 2. As I mentioned in the previous roundup of updates, Yunchang Games really loves showing off more promo work than their actual work. They are nice images, but they could at least give small tidbits of updates about what's happening with this game. Last I heard, it is supposed to be fully released some time this year. Well, we still have another couple months before the year ends. The other thing I heard for why it's getting delayed again is because of the pandemic, and they're actually listening to feedback from their beta testers so they're fixing whatever they can to please the fans. 3. I'm not surprised that rumours about a Devil May Cry 6 is already in the works. Especially when this rumour is coming from DuskGolemn (aka AestheticGamer1). Sure that person has some history with CapCom, but it doesn't mean whatever comes out of this person's statuses are always 100% true. It's plausible since Devil May Cry V did so well with their sales and such, but I'm gonna be cautiously optimistic about this info given. 4. I feel like for CapCom's SSS pack, they should include a Vergil figure from Prime1Studio or Kotobukiya. Sure a soundtrack, tshirt, and poster are nice, but I feel like there should be more. b) Nice that they haven't forgotten about Vergil's official coat being available for purchase. Sucks that these official coats/jackets are so damn expensive. They're way more than a used or new car for crying out-loud. c & d) Sucks that we PS4, PC, and XboxONE players have to wait longer for the Vergil DLC, but better to be late than never. It's also too bad about Xbox Series S players, but I guess some technology does have their limits. I'm very curious as to what Special Edition has in store. I like how CapCom's not giving away too much info to make up for the mistakes they've made of releasing major spoilers in their trailers for the original game and DMC4. 5. I think I've heard about those stamps before. It's cool that CapCom does things like that. Japan gets really awesome gaming merch stuff...Even their advertisements are more entertaining than us westerners'. 6. Funny how a little tidbit of someone cosplaying as Dante pops up in a TV show. Wonder what was happening down there in San Diego with that guy? 7. I haven't checked out the interview, but it's cool how specific fans can interact with these voice actors to get some more details and such. If any of you watched it, and anything sticks out that seems interesting, don't be afraid to share your thoughts. 8. (Warning: Very long rant, brutal honesty, and swearing ahead)...It really sucks what's happening with the Devil May Cry fandom as of late...More people have been leaving the fandom because someone was trying to be "funny". I'm aware that these kinds of things also happen with other fandoms like Undertale, Bayonetta, etc. for these kinds of drama to occur. I'm just sick of people shitting on one another... Yes, there is good that happens in this fandom as well like fundraisers for good causes, fans supporting other fans, even chill folk that don't like to start drama (Like that wholesome status post I shared in the list of updates for example). My problem is how people are either living under a rock, or are being in denial with the problems that surface with this fandom. Let alone being hypocritical where they share an opinion regarding another opinion that they disagree with in a rude manner, then turn around and  share something more positively eye-opening that's not so rude so they cover their tracks with their mistakes they've made before (Not sure if I worded this properly. Hope you get what I mean. One example is how one of the "elitists" mentioned about how "casual fans" are the most toxic people he's come across. Meanwhile he's complaining and whining in a toxic manner about PC players not getting Special Edition, then he turns around and shares that wholesome post about DMC4 players vs fans to make himself look good). I just want everybody to keep the peace with one another instead of being entitled, egotistical, self-centered, spoiled-rotten, hypocritical, idiots. The other issue this fandom is facing is content thieves. They've been on the rise for quite some time now, and people aren't doing a damn thing. I've been fighting with a few Facebook groups regarding this kind of act, but all they want is clout...Which is ridiculous if you ask me...I ask that if any of you see fan artists', screen captors', meme and mod creators', and cosplayers' content being posted where they state on their images or profiles that they don't want their content shared, or need permission to ask about their content being shared, message these artists or report the images. Even say something to these content thieves. As an artist who's had my stuff stolen before, I don't condone content theft... For those of you who know me in my Original Devil May Cry Sanctuary group on Facebook, and The Red Devil's Chronicles page on there as well, I always credit the content creators for their work, but I am also cautious on who wants their stuff posted or not. And as of late, I've pretty much stopped sharing others' fan art to respect these artists' wishes of not wanting their content shared without permission. If any of you want your stuff shared on the Facebook page, don't be afraid to let me know on here or there, I will give credit. I've been debating about whether to completely delete the fan art album on there and start anew. What do you guys think? As I've said, not all things are bad in the Devil May Cry fandom. We do have the good side of it, too. I'm hoping it gets better regarding that good side of it. It really sucks having to see stuff like this happen. But we good fans can change things for the better if we do something. This may come off as nerdy or cheesy, but as Alucard from Castlevania states in Symphony of The Night, "The only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

[purplesurveys]

1051

Are you between the ages of 30 & 40? I still have to get through nearly another decade to get to that decade.

What was your favorite Saturday morning cartoon growing up? My favorites were The Wild Thornberrys and Little Bill, both on Nickelodeon. My sister and I also enjoyed this wacky show called The Upside Down Show but it wasn’t a cartoon.

What was your favorite toy as a child? I liked any toy that had a lot of buttons or features within it - dollhouses, kitchen sets, cash registers, toy phones, anything that could make me test how much it could do.

In High School did you wear acid washed jeans? No. It’s not a style I would be drawn to, then and now.

How much was a gallon of gasoline when you first started driving? I don’t know; I never paid much attention to gas prices, honestly.

What was your first car? It’s a 2014 (or 2015?) Mitsubishi Mirage I’m still using today, though it was my dad who paid for it and he’s the one who takes it out for oil changes and stuff.

Who taught you how to drive? My dad taught me a few times around the neighborhood, but he also enrolled me for like three classes in a driving school so that I got to learn how to drive in a highway.

What was your high school mascot? Both of my schools didn’t have any. My university does have a nickname for our varsity teams, but we’re simply just ‘Maroons’ and not an animal like what I usually see.

Did you go to your Senior Prom? We had a junior prom, nothing for senior year. I was invited to go to the senior ball in another school by Mike, though. That feels like ages ago; everything is so different now.

What did you do after graduation? After my high school graduation I went straight to college like most kids here. After graduating college, I immediately started looking for jobs; I landed an internship after a month and got absorbed into the company two months after.

What was your first job? I’m currently working as an associate at a public relations agency. This is my first job and for now, I’m content in staying in this career. This is where I set out to be when I was in college and I don’t feel the need to change paths any time soon.

What did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be an astronaut more than anything else, but I remember also wanting to be a firefighter or a vet.

Any posters on your bedroom walls growing up? I had a handful of wrestling posters that my mom was never a fan of. It was never her business since it’s my room, but she always made it the case.

Do you remember the first time you drank a beer? It may have been at Marielle’s debut, five Julys ago. She served beer at the afterparty of her 18th birthday party, and I think I had taken my first sip then.

Did you ever try cigarettes? Yeah, I started this year actually. I’m about to reach my first anniversary of trying my first cigarette :/ I don’t have a lot of them though and I haven’t smoked since like February or March, I think.

How did you spend your summers growing up? At home. My parents were always busy with work, so I had no choice but to myself occupied at home. Luckily I had siblings and cousins, so we were always playing with each other. My summers were never productive until I was in college, when I started making the effort to go out more.

If you could change anything from your teenage years, would you? Ahh idk man I wish I wouldn’t have spent as much time by the computer as I did, and maybe hang out with friends or something instead. < Yeah this hits the bullseye pretty much. I was a very introverted teenager. Not to mention the internet and social media started to blow up during my tween/early teenage years, so I was hooked to my laptop and kept people away as a result. I didn’t start feeling like a teenager until I was 16, when I gained friends and got invited to more stuff.

Do you remember your first time? Yeah, it was during one of my 18th birthday celebrations and she was around.

Ever look back and wish some things were still the same? I do it a lot these days. I do try to stop, because I don’t know what I can gain out of doing so anymore, and because there’s always the danger of being left behind from looking back too much; but most days I can’t help it.

After high school - straight to college or straight to work? University, because you kinda need that credential where I live. It’s unfair, but it’s our reality.

How much did you make per hour at your first job? We don’t really calculate that here...I’ll try to do math for y’all lmao aka Google it, which says I make $2.34 an hour. Wow when you put it that way, it really does not sound high :/ I’m honestly okay with my pay though. I live with my parents so I contribute to the bills and stuff now, but even then there’s more than enough left for me. Favorite home-cooked meal growing up? My grandma’s kare-kare. It was/is always reserved for special occasions; and out of all her grandchildren I was also the one who got attached to the dish especially as I got older, so eventually kare-kare also became the family’s ‘Robyn is coming over so we better prepare this’ dish. I think I’m her only grandchild that she has an allotted dish for, so that makes me feel special :)

Favorite place to eat out growing up? The local Burger King, back when it had a play place for kids. 

Did your parents live in a different country before you were born?: No, they have always lived in the Philippines. My mom has always wanted to migrate but my dad shoots it down every time.

Do you have a preferred coffee brand?: When it comes to coffee, no. I wanna try out everything. But when it comes to coffee shop ambience, Starbucks all the way.

Have you ever dated someone who was terrible with money?: No. I remember Gab as always being very cautious, responsible, and conscious about money. Her parents sustained her debit card and I’m pretty sure they always gave her a little bit extra, but she never took more than her weekly allowance from the ATM.

If so, how did it affect the relationship?: Money was never an issue, mostly because the money we received during the course of our relationship wasn’t even ours lol; we both received set allowances from our parents. If one of us was running out of cash, we never hesitated to cover for each other first, and we never pressured one another to pay back immediately.

How often do you paint your nails?: Never. 

Do you know anyone who's related to a current or former world leader?: Yeah, I went to high school with a relative of Duterte. She’s super secretive about it, which is pretty understandable. I’m friends with/went to classes with people who are grandchildren of senators and other politicians as well.

Do you do your own taxes, or do you hire a professional?: ...I have no idea how to do that...I always just assumed it’s already taken care of when a part of my salary is deducted lol. I may have to ask my parents about this, whoops.

What is something you don't have any natural talent for?: Anything to do with music. Reading it, playing it, singing, writing songs, etc. Also art and anything to do with creativity.

Did you watch this year's Eurovision?: Ah, my favorite time of the year to mute all my overseas mutuals on Twitter at one point lmao. No, I never caugtht up with it.

Have there been any periods in your life that could be described as being chaotic?: Senior year was a big chaotic war zone. The death of my grandpa and my first breakup coincided with all the crucial college entrance exams. Speaking of college, it was also a period of a lot of heavy decision-making due to me having to make choices of what course I wanted to take in every school I applied to. I barely cried during those few months and it still shocks me to this day how I did it. That was the most I’ve been on autopilot.

What is something you frequently forget?: Where I place my car keys and/or glasses last.

If I looked in your fridge right now, what would I find?: Bread, eggs, a bunch of condiments, butter cheese, vegetables, leftovers, and the grazing box I received from my workplace yesterday. I’m sure there’s more, but I haven’t really stopped and stared at our fridge for a while now.

How do you feel about your body?: I used to feel fairly confident about it; like it was never an issue with me. But truthfully, after being dumped, I’ve started to feel insecure over everything about me.

Who is someone you would like to get to know better?: My teammates at work, Bea and Ysa. They both seem like cool and funny people both in and out of work, and I’d love to get to hang out with them.

If you had to move to a new city, where would you move?: Idk, just somewhere with a lot of opportunities to try new things and meet new people.

Have you ever traveled on a double-decker train?: Nope. I’ve never been on anything double-decker, if I remember correctly.

What's your opinion on assisted suicide?: [trigger warning] I’ve looked into it, but it’s a dead end where I live. That’s all I’ll say, as I don’t want to give others ideas.

At what point do you consider a relationship to be 'long-term?': Fuck if I know anymore. We reached six years and it was a point where I was comfortable and didn’t feel the need to doubt anymore; everything turned out to be a lie in the end. I don’t know anymore. I don’t think about these things anymore.

What jobs did your parents have when you were growing up?: My dad has always been a chef, so he went through all the ranks throughout my childhood until he finally got an executive position when I was in high school. I remember my mom being a receptionist.

Do they still have these jobs? Or different jobs? Or have they retired?: My dad is still in that career path but he doesn’t cook in the kitchen anymore, or at least as much as he used to. He does all the menu planning, evaluating, etc. My mom has shifted to becoming an executive secretary, but she’s still in the hotel industry.

Do you own any winter sports equipment?: I don’t. There’s no reason for me to have any.

Do you have a cell contract plan, or are you on a pre-paid plan?: Prepaid.

Would your parents be okay with you dating someone of another race? I can definitely see my mom reacting, but I know she knows I won’t let her get away with saying anything mildly offensive. My dad would just go on with his life and will care more about the fact that I’m seeing someone, lol.

Do you like when friends stop by unexpectedly? No. Schedule it ahead and let me know. I’m not always mentally okay and them showing up as a surprise might just make me more stressed than grateful.

Where are the following people and what are they doing: mom, dad, sibling(s), best friend, significant other, ex, and last person you kissed? My entire family is under the same roof in their bedrooms, either sleeping or having just woken up. Angela is in Parañaque, probably at a cousin’s place; no significant other; I have no idea where my ex, and also the last person I kissed, is. She doesn’t really have anything to do with me anymore.

How strong are your feelings for the last person you kissed? They’re there. I’d still take a bullet for them if it comes down to it, the usual shit. Let’s move on.

What was the last thing someone else bought for you? My workplace gave me a grazing box as the company Christmas gift.

If your parents looked in your purse/book bag would they find anything you don’t want them to see? What about your bedroom? Do you have anything hidden in there? My vape pens. I came home from Starbucks last weekend and my mom thought my breath smelled like cigarettes and she almost got super pissed until I was able to convince her the only thing I put in my mouth was coffee, so I know my 22 year old, employed, self-earning ass would for sure still get in trouble if I was discovered to be vaping.

How close are you to the last person you hung out with? Can you be your complete self around them? It was the first time I met them and they are also my bosses, so I can’t exactly be my complete self around them yet. I had to act super reserved and to essentially make a good impression first before I start whipping out my jokes or whatever.

If you decided to call your ex right now, do you think he/she would answer? How would the conversation go? No, she’d reject it and tell me to text instead. If she was feeling snappy she would also tell me I’m no longer in the place to contact her that way. Sigh. Who is she anymore and why is she so different from the person I was with?

Are you attracted to the last person you exchanged numbers with? No.

Is music a daily part of your life? It’s not. Videos, more like.

Yellow nail polish: yes or no? Bright or neon yellow is a no, but I suppose more muted shades like mustard yellow can work for me.

What do you think of country music? Eh, not a fan. I would skip it in a second, and I never think about it.

Have you ever ended a relationship but wish you could’ve kept it a little longer? I’ve never ended a relationship.

Did you go to your high school’s graduation? Yes...that’s not an event I would’ve wanted to miss out on lol. That was a nice day. My grandparents came to watch me, and we had dinner at a revolving restaurant after.

If you could live the last three months over again, is there anything you’d change? Everything went to shit exactly three months ago, so this hits home very hard for me. Yes, I would change a lot of things for life not to have gone the way it has.

Who was the last person to message you on Facebook? What would you do if that person told you they have feelings for you? My mom. I would be creeped out and tell my dad immediately.

How did you feel when you woke up today? Melancholic.

Who was the first person you talked to today? What did you talk about? I haven’t talked to anyone yet today. I was thinking of replying to Aliyah’s comment on my Facebook post, but in the end I didn’t think a response was necessary.

When you apply your make-up, do you do it in a specific order? I don’t wear makeup.

Did you do anything sexual last night? No.

Do you think the last person you Facebook messaged is a virgin? She has three children, me included.

Did any of your friends lose their virginity before they were 16? If so, did you feel pressured to do the same? I don’t think my friends did, but I probably know other people who did. My baby asexual ass definitely didn’t feel the pressure. I was even scared shitless for my first kiss when it came time for it and I had kept putting it off that night.

Has someone of the opposite sex made you smile today? No.

Does it matter to you if your significant other smokes? With my previous relationship, it did in the beginning; eventually I just stopped caring.

Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? I think it may have been Andrew.

Do you like where you are in life right now? No. I don’t know if a new year would make it better, or if it would help give me a healthier mindset. I just have to wait and see.

Do you hate it when there is a fly around you? Very much.

Is your mom overbearing? She can be.

Is there snow where you live? Never.

[tex-studmister]

Charthur for the ship asks

heyy sorry this took so long but thank you for the ask!!

i apologize now if this seems incoherent bcus im bad at writing and it is also 5am-

also sorry if the organization of this seems off I changed it to help me be able to write it better!

Charthur:

Gives nose/forehead kisses:

Both of them do both tbh, but Charles will do more forehead kisses than nose kisses and I see Arthur doing a decently equal ratio of the two.

Gets jealous the most:

I’m gonna say Charles on this one. Neither of them really get jealous per se, and it’s an extremely rare occasion if they do, but I feel Arthur would just kind of get. Sad? rather than jealous while Charles is more “hmmmMMMM” kind of? Bad explanation sjdghks 

I definitely wanna see the conversation about Charles Chateney to Charles sgjlsdjklf

Takes care of on sick days:

So I’m gonna go with AU style of Arthur has TB but like. it didn’t get the chance to get That Bad (bcus one can live with TB but arthur just got rly fucked over by guarma and R*) and so they are living on a homestead. its mainly arthur but im doing both bcus i adore sickfics and there isnt enough of charles getting sick and arthur taking care of him

so arthur is more likely to be down with something bcus charles never wants to see it worsen. Arthur is decently okay at hiding he’s sick, but once Charles is even slightly suspicious it’s all over, arthur is dragged to bed and is Not Allowed To Work 

arthur complains about the mother-henning but he secretly is flattered that charles cares enough to spend this much of his time on him, HIM of all people. He is of course embarrassed but this is a No Self-deprecation Zone, and charles assures him that he is important to him, he’d much rather be here, making sure he’s okay than doing anything else.

On the other hand, Charles is a lot better at hiding his illnesses. Arthur has gotten good at figuring out he’s sick, but Charles is particularly good at avoiding arthur if he can tell he’s Suspecting. Of course, it eventually comes to a head whether it be Charles’s condition worsening to where he can’t ignore it or Arthur finding him and returning the favor for when he was ill. 

Charles is the worst patient EVER, even worse than arthur. He’s constantly wanting to do things, get up go places, arthur feels like he has to tie him to the bed to get him to rest. If he isn’t trying to escape or go do something, that’s when arthur knows its Not Good and probably should look into finding a doctor

i adore sickfics and it shows sjdkgsldkg

Drags the other person out into the water on beach day:

I’m gonna casually change beach to lake bcus i dont see them ever going to a beach skjdglk

I’m gonna say charles bcus i can see arthur fishing (i love fishing in game dont @ me) and while charles can fish, he doesn’t prefer it so he does something else, but eventually pulls arthur into the water especially if it’s been a hot day. with permission of course, unless arthur was being cheeky earlier. Then it’s payback time sjdgds

Brings the other lunch at work:

Charles, bcus im projecting onto arthur by giving him my inability to tell when im hungry after a certain point dfjdfgjlk

Tries to start role-playing in bed:

hmmm,,,,,, i actually dont know on this one?? i think itd be a standoff on who would come out and say it to the other. I’m gonna say charles just bcus arthur may just be too embarrassed

Embarrassingly drunk dancer:

both of them they are a right Mess when they’re drunk together but they love each other and theyre just so affectionate with each other and dance and jsut,,,,have fun

arthur tried dipping charles when they were both drunk and they just both fell over HDJSLKG

Firmly believes in couples costumes:

I don’t think either of them would FIRMLY believe but I think for certain ones they may just be “heh we should do that” 

Breaks the expensive gift rule during Christmas:

Arthur, definitely. my arthur maxed out the camp in chapter TWO you really think he’ll abide by that rule?? tbh it may be an add-up cost tho if he’s making something for charles, just needs materials or a professionals touch on certain stuff

Makes the other eat breakfast:

Charles because,,,,arthur just straight up cooked meat over a fire and ate it off the knife no spices nothing,,how,, and tbh i love the idea of arthur liking baking more than cooking

Remembers anniversaries:

They both do bcus theyre SENTIMENTAL and SOFT

Brings up having kids first:

Arthur. Eventually I image arthur told charles about Eliza and Isaac, so kids are a bit of a touchy subject for him I think? I feel like Charles would respect that and wait for arthur to say something or at least wait for him to sort his feelings out bcus arthur clearly wants a kid, but hes,,,,just not ready to say it aloud yet.

Kills the bugs:

Both of them, but Arthur won’t touch spiders. Meanwhile, centipedes/millipedes are a No for charles

First to define them as a couple:

I’m dumb and confused on this one does this mean who first calls them a couple? im gonna go with that

you bet ur ass its Dad AKA Hosea he knows his son he has EYES 

hell he knew it before arthur did tbh, ribbing him gently after the hunting trip, while arthur, who Still Doesn’t Realize is just ????? what

hosea subtly gave charles info on what arthur likes and where he is if charles is looking for him, mentions arthur may be wanting to avoid camp go take him hunting will you? 

Who hides their guilty pleasures longer:

Arthur, this dude barely talks about anything that he encounters outside of camp and barely thinks of himself first as someone who should Get Good Things 

Snorts while laughing:

Charles has the snort laugh dont @ me

arthur has the more wheezing laugh and theyre both CUTE

[signor-signor]

Fan-Written First Part of S3, Cold Open Idea, CM Permission, and D23

It’s been 6 years since the sneak peek of the third episode of Wander Over Yonder premiered (The Greatest was first, The Egg was second, The Picnic was third). It’s also been slightly over 4 years since The Greater Hater premiered. And in case you haven’t guessed by now, I recently had one of those “Fine, I’ll do it myself” moments.

Taking into account what @suspendersofdisbelief said about the start of S3 as well as my fan-made premise of The Stranger, I put together a mini-script of how I think the first minute would go. Disney’s apparent inability to appease Wander fans has given me cause to take on such a task. Remember, I came up with it all by myself. I may be a full-fledged Disney employee, but I doubt the majority of what you’re about to read would be used in the real thing if S3 actually happens.

OUTER SPACE - WIDE SHOT

DOMINATOR, livid and ragged, is shown on the left side of the screen, still walking in her orbble.

DOMINATOR: (cursing to herself) Sazza-frazza galaxy...

FULL BODY SHOT of DOMINATOR

DOMINATOR: My ship... My bots... My powers... All GONE! (screaming at the top of her lungs) HOW DID I LOSE TO A BUNCH OF DORKS?!!

Dominator sits down and grumpily sighs.

DOMINATOR: What’s the point? (looking behind her at the recovering planets) That bonehead Hater overpowered me, the planets I destroyed are teeming with life again, and I’ve got nothing.

MEDIUM SHOT of Dominator

DOMINATOR: (pulling out her smartphone) If it wasn’t for that fuzzy banjo guy and his zbornak friend, I totally would’ve won!

Dominator’s POV - The PICTURE she took in The Flower appears on the phone’s screen.

DOMINATOR: Still, I had so much fun tormenting those two...

MEDIUM SHOT of Dominator

DOMINATOR: (smirking a little) ...and I’d do it again if I could. (putting the phone away and standing back up) Well, that’s enough reminiscing. I gotta find something else to eat. (looking straight ahead with wide eyes) Huh?

FULL SHOT of a FAMILIAR SPACE DOOR

DOMINATOR: (approaching the door, quizzically) What the grop...?

Dominator sticks her hand through the orbble, turns the knob, opens the door, gasps in amazement, and enters the VOID, closing the door behind her.

Cross fade to a shot closing in on a DOWNED SPACE POD from the USA, flashing green lightning irrationally.

A faint figure in a space suit steps out. All we see are a silhouette and a pair of eyes, on which the camera zooms in. The eyes very briefly glow green.

The face of the figure fades to that of LORD HATER in a close-up shot.

And that’s my prediction of the first minute of S3. Don’t ask me to keep it going because I still have no idea what the threat of S3 looks like. If someone can make a storyboard of this, great. If we get Noël Wells to record the lines, also great.

Also, since Disney’s still taking WAAAY too long to appease the fans, consider, if you will, a cold open taking place before the new title sequence, which would take place just before the first minute of S3 with Dominator...

In this one, Ms. Myrtle the Eternal Turtle would read from a massive book and give the viewers a recap of the important highlights in Seasons 1 and 2. She would then find the last chunk of pages missing from the book (representing Season 3) and suspect that Phan Gnee (AKA “Dizz” Gnee - get it?), a stubborn archivist who is shown with a large paper bag on his head, was responsible for hiding the pages from the public for a very long time.

Ms. Myrtle warps to a recovered planet that is home to the Dizz Gnee Company and asks Dizz why the book is incomplete. Dizz claims that no one was interested in Wander’s story because everyone was more interested in the more popular properties, including the Mystery Kids Mysteries cartoon, Storm vs. the Demons of Doom anime and manga, the QuackTales reboot comics, and the new Phunnie Phinster (mascot of Phunulon) shorts. He also says he published the book and only he gets to call the shots.

Ms. Myrtle tells Dizz there’s so much more that must be revealed, especially Lord Hater’s origin story, as evidenced in the book’s table of contents. She also states that the author of the book has many years of experience (referencing Craig himself) and most likely worked harder on it than anybody else did on the works favored by Dizz Gnee. Lastly, she kindly asks Dizz to save the book so anyone who reads it will have complete satisfaction and be even more inspired to help folks and spread kindness. When Dizz refuses, Ms. Myrtle menacingly talks him into giving back the last pages or she’ll destroy the universe, and when he does as he’s told, she politely asks him if he would like to hear more of the story of Wander’s adventures in the Watchdogs’ galaxy.

It’s all just an idea. I thought this would be a fun way to summarize the overall story so far, acknowledge the executives’ incompetence (like Futurama once did), and get S3 started. It might turn out to be a 2-3 minute pre-S3 short instead. Who knows? I may even come up with a transcript in the future.

Anyone who loves the show and shows interest in the plans for S3 deserves to know everything about S3. I wonder, are Cast Members such as myself able to take a peek at the pitch for WOY’s third and final season? I mean, I didn’t work over 3 and a half years at Disneyland, sign the highest beam for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, get an education in life painting and engineering technology, spend a number of weeks working on fan stuff with Illustrator, or put together a Star Nomad microgame to be denied to know what was presented in February of 2015. So please, Disney bosses, prove to us Wander fans there’s kindness in your hearts and show the world how @crackmccraigen would make the world a better place (once he’s done with Kid Cosmic, that is).

Here I go again, rambling as usual. Anyway, if I as a Cast Member can see the pitch, I promise not to tell the public.

And one last thing: if anyone is going to the D23 Expo this month, please-please-please spread awareness of the show’s existence and its unresolved cliffhanger. Just be sure you do it in a way that isn’t off-putting, though. Believe it or else, Wander Over Yonder was promoted there back in 2013. This is the 10th anniversary of D23, so it should be a good time to bring up our interest in WOY’s shelved S3 plans. If you find anyone who worked on WOY, especially Frank Angones, let them know that SaveWOY will never surrender! Also, while you’re there, feel free to share my Illustrator images - you have my permission.

The Season Covers (inspired by the Star Wars trilogy VHS set)

The First 5 Years (includes a Hidden Mickey)

The Drastic Attempt to Escape (intricate way to portray ownership)

[noramachwitz]

In the new IS interview with Thomas Atkinson there are quite a few interesting bits but what caught my attention more than anything was the fact that he said they were originally supposed to film the Whites car crash back in August 2017 which would have put the Whites exit in October 2017.

The Whites exit had implications for a few other characters (mainly on robron but on Joe/Graham/Debbie/Dingles in a secondary sense as well) and when you think about it then A Lot of things about how this story was told start to make sense. Obviously this is based on 50% speculation and 50% on quotes from actors and IM so it might not be completely right but it made a lot of sense to me so I thought I’d share it.

There’s a lot to this so this is under a read more if you wanna:

First off, here are some things that we basically know for sure (I’m establishing facts because for some reason this turned into an honest to god essay wtf). I’m going to try and do this chronologically but don’t hold me to it:

According to the IS interview, Thomas knew back in 2016 that he would exit as a killer which means that must have been one of the first things IM decided to do when he came in which also means he came in and knew he’d ax the Whites. All this has been a long time coming.

The show generally storylines about 5 months ahead which is why in April 2017 John Bowe went on his famous tirade on twitter and basically announced he’d been fired. Five months of storylining would have once again put the Whites exit in September/October which fits.

What also says this was the original plan is the simple fact that literally every one of the actors’ contracts would have been up in October since that’s when they all came to the show (the OG Whites in October 2014 and EH in October 2016). And btw that would explain why they treated Rebecca’s character the way they did because she was never supposed to stay around longer than a year originally.

Now what was affected by them pushing the exits back?? A List:

Joe & Graham: Obviously the Whites leaving later meant that Joe and Graham had to move into Home Farm later. That would explain that kinda strange way they were introduced. Joe and Graham had a handful of appearances in September, were introduced and relationships with Debbie/Charity introduced for the most part and then suddenly went off screen for more than 5 weeks. That definitely not the most ideal way to introduce your new characters to a soap format is it? Pretty sure they had to stall and put that sl on hold because of the Whites exit.

Lachlan: Obviously the Whites leaving earlier would have meant that that Lachlan’s descent into Our Favourite Serial Killer would have started earlier and ended earlier. I’d say Gerry dying would have probably happened in January since that would have been a year after his first appearance (since we know IM loved his anniversaries) and the conclusion that is happening now would maybe have happened back in May/June.

Robert & Aaron: Now ... I would almost bet actual money (only like 5 quid tho I’m not mad) that the original timeline for Robron was to break up in July just like they did, then the crash in October and the robron reunion on Christmas (Since Christmas plans must have already been in motion when they decided to change stuff). Remember how IM kept saying we were going to get a summer robron wedding?? I’m willing to bet that originally, their anniversary in February would have sparked the second engagement which would have naturally lead to a summer wedding. (I mean IM is still terrible at timing/pacing but you know this would explain why to a degree).

Steven Flynn (who played Alex #rip) actually said in his last interview that he was originally only planned for 10 episodes on September but his stint got extended to 29 which would fit with them pushing the reunion further back then first intended, so that’s further proof.

Now the most interesting question is of course WHY their exit got pushed back this far. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure but I think there are some obvious candidates:

Short answer: Mike Parr (and also some Lucy Pargeter)

I think Lucy going on maternity leave was the first thing that threw the timing and the scheduling of the robron sl and in consequence the Whites SL and exit off (it actually must have influenced Debbie/Sarah even more but that’s a whole other post).

Mike Parr said at the BSAs that he always wanted to do 4 years and his contract would have run out in April 2017 (since his first appearance was in July) but they convinced him to stay one more year by giving him the accid attack sl. April 2017 aka the same month where they originally must have told JB and co that they were fired. And then the BSAs 2017 happened where everything hinted that something massive must have been shifting because 1) John Bowe said that the production team keeps changing their minds about the Whites exit 2) Danny said that infamous line that he doesn’t think they know what they’re doing. Now if they had long term plans for Ross that included him playing a role in both the Whites exit and the robron sl then wouldn’t that have been the time where they had to scramble everything around? Makes u think. If suddenly they found out Mike was leaving in a year and a bit and they had to setup and come up with a whole “brand new” exit sl for him it would explain a lot (since they love involving Ross in everything)

Lucy’s maternity leave in early 2017 must have thrown the schedule off a lot since at this point it seems kinda obvious that Sarah is going to get Grace’s heart. Remember how Chas slept with Paddy right before the robron wedding and IM said that Debbie has a 18 month long SL coming up when she came back?? Now those stories are running parallel to each other and I think they were always meant to. That’s why when Lucy came back they immediately sarted with Chas/Paddy. I’d also say the Joe/Debbie stuff was supposed to happen once Sarah was better again and had had the heart transplant but you know Ned and Andrew were already casted and they couldn’t wait a year for them to arrive. That’s why they had to drop villain Joe as quickly as they did and how Joe/Debbie getting back together was rushed because they couldn’t have Debbie involved in both Joe drama and Sarah drama. I’m lowkey hoping that they’re going to continue with their original plans for how they wanted Joe/Debbie to go after Sarah is okay again ngl I miss villain!Joe.

Now if you combine both of those aspects then is it any wonder that 2017 Emmerdale was as messy pacing wise as it was? So many Big Stories were affected by this that must have had a ripple effect on the whole show, right? That’s the feeling I have anyway.

Now even more speculation that’s honestly just Speculation™ because we’ll never know but speculation is fun so here we go:

The crash being in October means it would have happened about a month before Rebecca was due to give birth so that leads me to believe that either Seb wasn’t supposed to be born originally OR it finally explains why they casted a premature baby without it ever being mentioned in on screen. The crash being later meant that Rebecca could carry the kid to term after all but they’d possibly already casted a premie so that never went anywhere.

I have some more speculation tbh but since we have no idea how either Ross or Rebecca or Lachlan are going to exit that’s kinda futile so I’m going to leave it at this since this post is already long enough lmao. If u made it this far than honestly kudos, I had a lot of fun typing it.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk while I remembered how to write essays (it’s been a while lmao).

[rkrosememories]

hello everyone, i hope you’re all well. happy rkfifth! five years, that’s a fair portion of time, half a decade in fact! i was contemplating on whether i wanted to write up one of these posts, as i usually do something similar when my own personal anniversary with rookies comes around, but for the sake of this being the big ol’ 5, i’m willing to do it. let’s take a walk down memory lane shall we and see where it all began for little ol’ me ( i got a job interview today, yay! )

i joined the krp community in august 2014, and rookies was one of those rps i considered joining, and a part of me wishes i did. i didn’t though, i found the large size of the roleplay to be somewhat intimidating so i ended up going on to make my own idol themed roleplay; which was fairly successful in its own way! ( r.i.p apollokrp ). but, i did end up meeting steph there, and eventually, i would end up being convinced to join rookies in july 2015; bringing forth my first rk muse, rkseokmin ( that’s dokyeom of seventeen, btw ). he didn’t last for long, and neither did my other two muses rkkyungri ( yes, i roleplayed kyungri prior to this, looking back, she was sort of like rkrose, being from australia and all ) and rksana, who i brought to rookies in july 2015 and december 2015. and now, looking back i don’t really have any strong attachments to these muses, i think i really just brought them in on a whim, and it wouldn’t be until the following year that i truly found my place at rookies.

come may 2016, season three of the mgas had begun and i decided to give rookies another go. damn rp! pulling me in and trying to get me invested! this time round, i brought forth a muse which y’all will definitely be familiar with. rkjuyeon, who was known as rkseo back then. and for anyone newer, that’s rksaercm. it all began with her, my tall dancing gay who had ambitions of idoldom since a young age. she had auditioned with her cousin in a process called the deathmatches ( you guys, if you weren’t around during like ... early 2016, you won’t know the pain of reserving / applying etc. as the old main blog was ancient. anyways, bless the rookies team for keeping everything going for so long ) and she failed to make it through. meanwhile, her cousin ends up winning the whole goddamn program. what a fluke. i did end up dropping her though, although she did return a few months later in september!

and we fast forward to july 2016; enter rkrose. blackpink’s iconic dance practice video was released and instantly fell in love, with one member in particular ( everyone was ranting and raving about lisa, but i couldn’t take my eyes off of the girl with braids in her hair ). that girl, was park chaeyoung, who like me, is a fellow australian! i instantly knew that i had to bring her to rookies, along with rose and keith ( who play lisa and jisoo, and eventually lari would end up completing the rkblackpink lineup that we know today with jennie ). looking back, i don’t really know how i envisioned rkrose to be; i mean, she was signed to royal within her first six months of being at rookies! she won the kt & royal contest, if ya didn’t know! she is probably the muse i am most well-known for, likely for not so good reasons. she’s been through countless “scandals” in her time, things of which are likely both of our faults. i’m not ashamed of her though ( more so of my own actions ). i think she’s a good egg.

when rookies gave us permission to go ahead with third muses, i think we all went a little crazy. i’ve had quite a few third muses, some whom i’m sure i can’t really remember, but rkchangkyun and yugyeomrk come to mind; i’m sure some of you might be baffled to know that i’ve ever actually roleplayed a male before, considering the fact that all i talk about on twitter is girls and girl groups. ah i forgot i did actually bring rkclaudia to rookies, aka moon hyuna. but we come full circle, and in march 2018, we meet rkkyungri, who is my third and final muse at rookies ( unless y’know, y’all wanna open up fourth muses to the public rk, because i’m down for that, i have many stories to share still wink wonk ). she was unlike any of my rookies muses; an ex-idol who failed at achieving her dream the first time round.

so, here we are, december 2018; i’ve given you a rather comprehensive and detailed run down on my past with rookies, muses wise that is, because there is a ton more to talk about. and i shall, because i want to be able to commemorate this special occasion! i think it is healthy to reflect on things that have happened in the past, so we can learn from our mistakes and better ourselves as people and writers. i have had my fair share of negative and positive experiences at rookies, and i think it’s normal to. rookies is a really big place, and people are bound to bump heads and not get along, that’s just human nature. i think that a good portion of my problems at rookies have been because of miscommunication. so new members, please take a leaf out of my book and remember that communication is key! also don’t get swept up in ooc drama and take your problems to the mods! that’s what they’re here for ( and they do an excellent job of it, thank you guys <33 ).

i really am invested in rookies; invested in the plot, the characters and their stories. i think it’s so amazing that we have a place on the internet where things can unfold and happen in real time almost. krp can be so fast-paced and it’s refreshing to see a place like rookies. i don’t think i could ever truly leave rookies behind, well, one day i’m probably going to have to, but that is another thing; rk is always there. rookies has reached five years. five! years! and that is a momentous occasion, because some rps don’t even see five months. as someone who has been an admin countless of times in the past, i have always wondered how rookies withstood the test of time, and now, having been apart of rookies for nearly three years, i think i understand now. many things go into making a roleplay work: the admin team and the members must work cohesively together, and i think we at rookies all do a good job of that. 

i have learnt a lot at rookies, and i think i definitely have a lot more to learn and experience. i must say, going into the new year, i really want to work on being more productive. some of you amaze me! replying every week, getting those points! you get that, pal! it’s really, really inspiring, and i want to be more like that. i’m honestly amazed i’ve made it two years at rk, as i’m someone who gets bored easily ( i also have commitment issues to some extent ). there have been countless occasions where i’ve wanted to give up and drop my muses, be it lack of motivation or drama, but the sole fact that i’ve dedicated two whole years to creating these characters is an incentive to keep going. i’ve always loved writing and i love that i have a space to share my creativity, interests and dreams with like minded people! i think that rings true for a lot of other people, but i’m sure y’all have your own reasons for sticking around.

i don’t think a post like this would be complete without some shout outs, but this part for me will probably be lacking, whoops. maybe i can make that another goal of mine. socialise more.

steph ( @jungwooxrk​​ ), thank you for introducing me to rookies and convincing me to join. we’ve been friends since december 2014!?! which feels like a long ass time. you were my first real internet friend and i’m very grateful to of met you. thank you for writing with me and putting up with me!

rose ( @rklisa​ ), keith ( @rkjisoo​ ) & lari ( @rkjennie​ ), rkblackpink is precious and means so much to both me and rkrose. although we don’t talk as much as much as i would like ( or we should??? ) i’m so happy that we’ve got y’all, i hope that our girls can experience many more things together. 

shinobi ( @rkkangjoon​ ) thank you so much for putting up with me. we’ve been through a lot of crap but i’m really thankful that we’re still able to talk despite everything. i hope you know that kangjoon will forever be important to rose, he was her first real boyfriend after all! thank you for putting up with us both! we love you! <33

peach ( @rkhaechan ) i don’t think rkrose would be who she is today without you and the help of jaebum. after a year of depression i think she’s back on her feet though!! toughest 12 months as a writer! but, despite everything we’ve been through, i’m so thankful we’re still able to talk. i also love your new muses, haech is a cutie & i love him very much :((((

lemon ( @rkyena ) aaaaaah i can’t believe i forgot to put you in here, i’m so sorry. thank you sO MUCH for putting up with me and my forgetfullness. i really love seoyoung as a muse and i’m excited to see her grow as an idol! also saeseo?! 

nana ( @younghyunrk​ ) i’m so thankful that i get to talk to you almost everyday!? i feel as though these past few months we’ve been able to get close which is exciting because you are awesome & i treasure you a ton! i’m excited for whats to come in the following months for our muses! hopefully we meet when i fly over your way sometime soon! i love youuu!!! <33

royal and sphere trainees! i would tag you all, but i’ll be here forever. thank you for making me feel included, even if i don’t participate in the group chat! i love our group antics, like photocard swapping, that was fun. thank you for taking care of both me and my girls, rose and saerom. i would like to work on getting closer to y’all!

and our incredible mod team, you know who they are, they know who they are. thank you so much, for everything you do. you guys keep this place safe, happy and running for all of us, all while writing for your own muses and keeping up with real life stuff like work and school?! incredible! amazing! fantastic! thank you for being so accepting and welcoming and supportive. i love y’all a ton and i don’t think this little message truly explains how grateful i truly am. thank you, for all that you do. 

i’m sorry if i forgot anyone in particular, i probably did and i’m sorry; i don’t have the greatest memory. just know that i’m grateful for you! even if we’ve never spoken to eachother before! thank you for making rookies the place it is! that being said, i should probably work on wrapping this whole thing up, since it’s getting pretty darn long and i would like to do some things today prior to this job interview i have later ( please send positive vibes, i’m going to need them ; _ ; )

these past two, nearly three years have been absolutely wonderful. i’m bummed i didn’t join rk back in the day but maybe the fact that i joined later was a good thing? i mean, everything happens for a reason right? these years have been hard and tiring but also very exciting and rewarding, and i’m very enthused to see where 2019 takes me and my girls, along with you and your muses! lets work hard and be happy, happy rkfifth everyone <3

  - lots of love, from sacha!

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

Some fun stuff for new HikaGo fans:

The reason Hikaru’s clothes all seem to have the number 5 on them is because “5″ is “go” in Japanese, so it’s a pun. This is why May 5th is Hikaru no Go day; May 5th (a holiday known as Children’s Day in Japan) is also the in-universe date of the big Thing that happens in episode 60, and the irl date that the volume the Thing happens in was released in English.

Sai’s former host, Kuwabara Torajirou (better known as Hon’inbou Shuusaku), is a real historical figure widely regarded as one of Japan’s all-time best go players. He’s best known for having 19 straight wins in the Castle Games (an important go tournament during the Edo period), and the famous “ear-reddening game”, in which he played against a higher-level player and appeared to be losing until he made a comeback with a move supposedly so good that his opponent’s ears turned red. Torajiro eventually became heir to the prestigious Honinbou go school, but never actually inherited this role; When a cholera epidemic swept Japan in 1862, Torajiro insisted on tending patience in the Honinbou house, and died of cholera himself at age 33. (His teacher and head of the school at the time, Honinbou Shuwa, didn’t die until 11 years later.) Also, yes, Torajirou shares both his last name and his title with Kuwabara-sensei (although the modern Honinbou title is a title won in a tournament, since the Honinbou school closed in 1940). It’s unclear if there’s any actual connection between them other than their names. Oh and here’s a piece of rare official art that I’m fairly certain is of Torajirou’s death. :)

Speaking of names, Hikaru, Akira, and Akari all have first names that have to do with light or visibility (”shining/bright/glittering”, “clear/light/bright”, and “light/glowing/lamp” respectively), while Sai, Hikaru, and Akari all have last names that include the character 藤, meaning “wisteria”, associated with the Fujiwara clan. (It’s the “dou” in “Shindou”, and the “fuji” in “Fujiwara” and “Fujisaki”). Again, nobody’s 100% sure of the significance of these connections.

Sai’s hat is called a tate-eboshi (standing cap), and his robe is called a kariginu. His clothes are typical casual wear for a Heian-era nobleman. His hair, however, is not how men wore their hair at the time, but rather how noble women did (it’s a style called “taregami”, aka keeping your hair silky and as long as you can possibly grow it). His makeup and earrings are not typical of the period. Sai also uses gender-neutral pronouns (not that this is especially noteworthy, it really just means he’s polite, Roy Mustang uses the same ones ffs), has been shown in flashbacks interacting face-to-face with both men and women at a time and place where that wasn’t really a thing unless you were married or biologically related, and the publishers for the English edition of the manga thought Sai was a lady until the author corrected them on which pronouns to use.

Go is known as “weiqi” in China, and “baduk” in Korea. Yes, there are go leagues in other countries. Yes, there are standardized English go terms. I don’t know WHY nobody in this fucking fandom ever uses them, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING “GO-ISHI” LITERALLY JUST MEANS “GO STONES” AND ISN’T SPECIAL, but here’s a convenient list of terminology for when you’re reading a fic and have no idea what the hell anyone’s talking about.

There’s an old PS1 RPG that takes place in a Heian-period AU in which Akira is an onmyouji (sort of like a wizardy priest I guess), Hikaru is a police officer in Heian-kyo (the capital city), and Sai is an ex-noble and legendary go player. The three of them have to work together to save Heian-kyo from a mysterious, seemingly go-related influx of yokai attacks. You can read my incomplete translation of the game here.

Paper Cranes by @tenspontaneite​ is the most gripping fic you will ever read for any fandom, and blissfully ship-free. Don’t read it until you’ve finished the series, but do read it!! It’s SO GOOD and I really need to catch up oh my god

Everyone loves to mock Akira’s fashion sense, but it’s actually made worse by the anime; In the manga, his hair was black with a lavender tint, so it went well with his lavender/pink/blue wardrobe. Then the anime came along and decided to make his hair FUCKING FOREST GREEN, BECAUSE THAT LOOKS GREAT WITH LAVENDER AND HOT PINK. Sai’s lipstick was also a lot less garish in most of the manga art, and if anyone ever tries to convince you that Sai’s lips are “purple” to represent his death via drowning, they’re an idiot who does not know what a drowned corpse looks like, or what the color purple looks like. Sai’s hair was also black in the manga.

Here’s the famous “long hair Akira” image, a drawing by Takeshi Obata of what Hikaru and Akira would look like 10 years after the end of the manga. I forgot what this was drawn for, I think the anniversary of the manga maybe? Idk. But yeah, here it is.

[filmfreak1994]

Change the Channel

A lot of people have been talking about their experiences with Channel Awesome in the wake of the 60+ page document released by Allison Pregler and several other former content creators for Channel Awesome. I figured I might throw my own experience with the site and its people (mostly Doug) too while the topic is relevant, even considered dusting off the old camera I got for Christmas to film a video but allergy season is upon us and I’m coughing up my lungs so the written word it is.

I was a frequent user of YouTube in the early days of its inception, mostly to look up viral videos and just go on a stream of pointlessness for hours on end with each recommended vid in the sidebar (mostly consisting of parodies to Star Wars, LotR, and entire Simpsons episodes uploaded before the great purge of early 2008). In all that time between 2006 and 2007, reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic eluded me. I saw plenty of the 5 Second Movie clips and thought they were hysterical but didn’t even make the connection that they were made by a “Nostalgia Critic” until around the end of 2009, when a friend of mine at school told me to look up NC’s review of Sonic the Hedgehog (the weird TV show and the futuristic evil Jim Cummings one). I finally gave in which led me to watching some of his other, recent reviews like the “Star Wars Holiday Special” which was freaking hysterical (and still brings a warm smile to my face just thinking about it). By the time the new year rolled around and I had discovered That Guy With The Glasses I was hooked.

For a while I stuck to watching reviews on YouTube when fans would rip them from the main site, but decided to eventually support the site itself where I mostly stuck to NC videos but also watched content from the other producers when it interested me; Spoony and his Final Fantasy reviews, Linkara and any comic with a subject material I was familiar with, Marzgurl and her Don Bluth retrospective, so on and so forth. Like many other people, I wasn’t keeping up with every producer’s videos weekly like I was with NC, but when I decided to watch something else their content was worth it, being funny and informative all at once, even creating new branches of my interest and giving me new perspectives on media criticism.

I watched Nostalgia Critic religiously every week and, sorry to say, started to take his opinion as gospel, and the opinions of other reviewers as well, treating certain movies and shows as bad just because they said so and didn’t have an opinion for myself for the longest time. It was when I started to pay attention to Doug Walker himself and his philosophy that you should like what you like and every movie is a miracle that I started to chill out and even disagree with his opinions at times (I remember his “Little Nemo” review made me seek out that movie and I actually quite enjoyed it).

TGWTG was a formative site for me in my high school years, developing much of my sense of humor and how I look at movies. I watched all the anniversary specials, started to watch a greater portion of producers that included Lindsay and Kyle’s more analytical reviews and Brad Jones’s and Matthew Buck’s mix of cynicism and snark with genuine analytical praise and criticism. I even started to look at music critics like Paw or Todd even though I can’t judge music for shit (if it has a catchy beat I’ll more or less dig it, I’m not picky). I always imagined when I moved out for college (yeah, how’d that work out for ya, younger me) that I would start my own review series in the vein of these online personalities and even be picked up for the site where I too could join in on the anniversary movies and have a swell time and make friends with the people I looked up to and have a good time filming huge crossover events with them (in hindsight I can only imagine what role Doug would have me play in them, if I was even deemed important to be in them at all). Whenever people criticized the anniversary movies I just shrugged it off and said, “Yeah, they’re dumb, but I like em anyway,” and when rumors starting going around about some upside down crucifixion going on I shrugged them off as just rumors (and to be fair it wasn’t upside down but the real thing isn’t much better).

Anyway, around the time when To Boldly Flee came I enjoyed the movie a lot (I only saw it the once and I was eighteen, eighteen-year-old me and present me don’t get on anymore) and thought it was a bittersweet conclusion to The Nostalgia Critic but was excited to see what new projects Doug and the company would do after its conclusion. Plus the other contributors still had their content to keep TGWTG going strong into the foreseeable future. At least I thought.

I didn’t hate Demo Reel, but I didn’t like it all that much either. I only caught around a few episodes before losing interest, saying I’d get back into it eventually but never going out of my way to see them. By accounts they got better as they went along and I was interested in the episode that paid tribute to Elizabeth Hartman (which I think is the same episode that had Mara Wilson and Arin Hanson? I might be wrong (I didn’t even know who Arin was at the time but hindsight is 20/20)), but I just put off watching them until, oh look, NC’s back. At the time I thought this was interesting, there was plenty he could still do with the character given his new ground rules and the emphasis on skits gave the show a different tune that I felt, at the time, kept it fresh from what it was before. I missed the simplicity of the earlier reviews but I happily stuck with the NC again, as well as the same creators I’d happily watched before and plenty more I started to watch like Phelous (around the time he did that weird Aladdin meets Pagemaster movie, I used to rent that from Hollywood Video all the freaking time).

It was around this tumultuous time that Doug actually kinda started to annoy me. Never to the point where I stopped watching NC, but he sort of seemed to forget his whole “Like what you like,” message and outright attacked fans who disagreed with him. Certain jokes in his reviews rubbed me the wrong way (if Irate Gamer can’t get away with blowing up Ubisoft cuz they wouldn’t let him into a conference, you can’t get away with pretending to blow up Happy Madison just because they make shit movies) and he had a general vindictiveness to those who liked movies like “Man of Steel” or “The Lorax” that just seemed mean spirited and not a funny little video meant to entertain (though I guess the signs were always there like when he added in a dig at “Avatar” in his “Conan” review for no reason). But by and by he seemed to mellow out (no doubt dealing with problems letting go of Demo Reel and how big a success he thought it would be) and I still watched his stuff, including the vlogs he did with Rob regarding “Avatar” (the good one, hey I did it too!), “Korra,” “Adventure Time,” and any recent movie that came out. I started to agree with them less and less but they were still entertaining guys and I liked what they were doing.

Some of the shadier stuff going on at the site more or less flew over my head. The game show they did was pretty much “Demo Reel” part two for me in how much interest I had in it and that faded from public consciousness pretty quickly, and it was around the time the site switched from TGWTG to just Channel Awesome that a real shift began to become more noticeable. People were leaving. People I may not have watched all the time, but they were leaving, often times unannounced and seemingly unprovoked (because quite a few of them were). I read about what happened to Allison, aka Obscurus Lupa, who I had watched on and off again and thought that was pretty shitty, and got a general grasp that the management of CA itself wasn’t very good from what she and Lindsay alluded to (or just straight up said, they really should’ve had some NDAs if they cared so much about how they look) in some posts on Tumblr or Twitter but I still carried on watching NC and the other creators on the site mostly because I just figured what every fan figured at the time, Doug was mostly innocent and it was Michaud and Rob who were the real strings behind big decisions like who stays and goes (I liked Rob fine, but even back then I knew he could be kind of an ass).

More and more people from the classic era of TGWTG were leaving or not producing as much for the site as they did and that was a shame. CA was never what TGWTG felt like to me, even if the purpose was to put more focus on the other producers (supposedly (hell, TGWTG did a way better job of featuring producers in my opinion even if it wasn’t perfect)). But whatever, I carried on every Tuesday watching NC, watching other creators when their stuff interested me, but it still wasn’t quite the same as before, and I had become more aware of the general bad experience most people had filming the anniversary movies even if the full extent of that didn’t come until a few days ago.

It was really when Lewis announced that he had left and I found the Change the Channel hashtag that I started to take notice of these stories, finding plenty of them on my own from the links to Twitter conversations many of the former contributors were having before reading them on the Google doc. I was torn, wondering if I should boycott NC with all that I had read and decided to make it a temporary one until the doc came out and to see if he or CA would provide a statement. Well, the doc came out and the apology not long after. And yeah, I moved it to a permanent ban after that bullshit.

I’ve given up watching people I loved before, JonTron and his racist bullshit was the last straw in supporting anything he did, and even with the Me Too movement I’ve given up any kind of support for people like Kevin Spacey who I used to love as an actor (now it’s pretty easy to see how he was able to play such scumbag villains over and over again). I know Doug isn’t a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, and to my knowledge he hasn’t used his position to sexually take advantage of anyone (though he has turned a blind eye to others doing the same and the same can’t be said for taking advantage of people in other ways), but I just couldn’t watch stuff directly made by him and for Channel Awesome with all this information. It wouldn’t be right, even with an adblocker. 

I don’t mean to threaten the livelihood of people on his team like Malcolm or Tamara, I like them a great deal and they’re very talented, heck I even enjoyed the skits on NC a lot more than most because of them (and Rachel, she was great too). But I said to myself until an actual apology is listed and some form of action is taken to truly better the site, I wouldn’t watch them. Others have suggested and I have thought the same, that the best thing to do would be to fire Michaud, though I realize this would create a slew of problems given that he owns the IP for NC and is the founder of CA. Still, some form of acknowledgement from the Walkers would go a long way to bettering the public response to all this. More and more contributors have left in the wake of this document, either out of fear for their own image or to show solidarity with the many complaints levied toward the site (and their reasons are completely valid no matter what, they’re trying to make a living), looking at the site today it’s practically a ghost town. I don’t blame those that have stayed for anything, but the reputation of CA is tarnished and at this point, especially with that piss-poor “apology,” it’s going to take several huge leaps to get it back.

I realize the purpose of Change the Channel was never to create a boycott of NC or any of the Walker’s content, at least by the majority of those who contributed to the docs, and those who choose to boycott do so of their own volition. Well, that’s my volition. No matter how much NC shaped my sense of humor in my younger years and inspired me to look at movies critically myself, I can’t deny the damage that Doug and Rob have been complicit in nor turn a blind eye to the shady practices they, Michaud, and past executives on the site have done. 

I really do wish that what was seemingly apparent in front of the camera, that this was a site filled of talented people who were also good friends having a good time, was true behind the scenes as well. People have been hurt, assaulted, taken advantage of, and tossed aside when they were no longer useful to the site. It’s not right, and I’m literally changing the channel until actual change is made.

[whatanerdgirlsays]

WonderCon weekend has officially closed and while I’m totally exhausted and my feet still hurt and I’m probably still a little dehydrated and I may feel a con cold coming on, I’m sad that its over. I count down the minutes to the con each year and I always have a blast and I’m sad to see it end for 2018. This year was a good one though, full of both familiar and new experiences.

Friday was a short day for me. I ended up having to work in the morning so we didn’t get to WonderCon until about 230 pm, but Fridays are usually slow so it worked out nicely. We figured out a way to park nearby and take Lyfts in, instead of having to deal with the INSANE parking that apparently people had to go through. We did that all weekend and found that to be WAY  less of a hassle and WAY worth the money we paid (which was basically next to nothing because we parked so close). We were also doing Week of Logic last week, which is a week long celebration for the anniversary of one of my favorite breweries (which is NERD themed), Bottle Logic.

 Friday ended up being SUCH a fun day, even though we only had a few hours there to stay but we made it totally worth it. I really wanted to meet both EK Johnston (author of many novels, but in this case, author of the novel, Ahsoka) and Ashley Eckstein, who does the voice acting for Ahsoka in Clone Wars, Rebels and much more. They were only signing on the Friday and I’ve met them both before, but I wanted to try and snag a paperback cover of Ahsoka in order to do a giveaway soon (so keep an eye out!).

They were SO nice to meet again. Ashley actually recognized me, which was nice, since I’ve done my best to try and meet her every year at WonderCon for the past couple of years. My boyfriend, Daniel, gave her a compliment on her audiobook reading of Ahsoka and I think she really appreciated that; she said she was avoiding it since she felt like she did an awful job at the voices for Darth Maul and Bail Organa haha.

We ended up staying in the autograph area immediately after since an author Daniel really likes,  Patrick Rothfuss, was signing as well. He was a super cool guy and I even snagged a copy of his first book for my friend, Alyssa, who is a big fan and could not go. I love watching my boyfriend meet people he admires, especially since he doesn’t get to do so often and he really only started to once he started dating me haha. I’ve met a lot of people so its fun to see someone else do it, especially someone who isn’t so used to meeting famous people.  I definitely enjoyed that.

Mostly on Friday, we wandered Artist Alley, where I get the most in trouble with my wallet. I love seeing all the artwork and I always have a couple goals when looking for art. Last year it was Mei from Overwatch and any Hamilton art, and this year I was all about Wonder Woman and Ahsoka!

Saturday, we ended up in SO many panels, which I super loved because that almost never happens for me. I always end up spending so much time on the con floor that I barely make any panels, but not on Saturday and that was so great!

We went to a panel called the Science of Pacific Rim, with the host Kyle Hill, who works for Nerdist, amongst other things, to discuss the science-y stuff behind the cult movie, Pacific Rim. This just so happens to be Daniel’s favorite movie and the panel was SO much fun. I’ve only seen the movie once but honestly it was a bunch of science nerds, geeking out and discussing the finer points of a movie and I LOVE and LIVE for that stuff. Truly it was such a fun panel and I would’ve never thought to go to it if it hadn’t been for Daniel.

That night, we ended up in three back-to-back fantastic panels. One of them we stumbled to on accident, waiting for the panel after it. It was about Latinx in Comics, and had three woman who run the podcast Comadres y Comics (which I’ve now started listening to and LOVE) and an author Sebastian Kadlecik, who wrote the comic Quince, about a girl who gets super powers at her quinceanera. It was such a fun panel and I’m so glad we got to the room early for the following panel because I would have missed out. I’m sad I didn’t get a picture but it was nice to see woman who look like me, talking about comics and stories like that. One of them even owns a comic book store in Santa Monica with her husband and that’s just the coolest.

We also did the Dark Side of Women, a panel that talked about exploring the darker side of women in fiction, which was incredibly enjoyable and incredibly inspiring. I’m not really nice to my characters and its nice to know that I am most definitely not the only one. We also ended up randomly in a Dungeons and Dragons panel as well. Daniel is HUGE fan and has been playing for a few years now and dedicates a lot of time and energy into it and he’s even gotten me to play and I actually ended up liking it a lot. I love to watch more than anything and get inspired for my own world building and story telling but I truly love playing too. Its really a chance for adults to play make believe and the panel was full of people who’ve been playing for decades and had a lot of cool advice and experienced insight to share, even for someone who has been playing for a bit, like Daniel.

Sunday, I think, was my favorite day though and I may be a little biased when I say so. I was lucky enough to be a moderator at my very first WonderCon panel ever and it was basically a dream come true. WonderCon is my favorite convention and its been a bucket list item for quite some time to be on panel and my dear friend, Alexandra Monir, asked me to moderate the Women Writers in YA Science Fiction and Fantasy panel with Alexandra, along with Robyn Schneider, Kiersten White and Livia Blackburne. Its a subject that is SO near and dear to my heart and it didn’t take me more than a few seconds to say YES.

I was definitely nervous for it, especially when I discovered our panel was in such a BIG room, but the turn out was so great, and the authors were amazing. I felt confident up there and we had great discussions about being women in male-dominated genres and being aware of our own personal brand of feminism in writing and so much more. It felt awesome to be up there and I couldn’t have asked for better authors, a better audience or a better time. It was SUCH a great experience for sure.

All in all, it was another banner year at WonderCon and I’m sad to see it go once more. I always have such a great time, meet great people, see friends I haven’t seen in a long time, and buy too much fan art…if that is even such a thing. This year was even better than usual; I got to discover new podcasts and cross a bucket list item off the list. I am always counting down the days until the next year because, again, I always have such a great time. I can’t wait for next year!

I was in a search for some good Wonder Woman fan art and I saw a lot of it but this is the one that honestly made me the happiest and I had to get it. Irene also had a ton of awesome buttons and some other fabulous fan art as well and you can check her out as beanclam on instagram.

I bought a ton of Hamilton fan art from a sunnydisposish last year and I knew I needed this fan art in my life, especially after Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Rose in The Last Jedi, shared it on International Womens Day!

I had been looking EVERYWHERE for Ahsoka art work and I found a few but none that really jumped out or spoke to me until suddenly, out of nowhere, I spotted this one from Albert Nguyen (albertnguyenart) and immediately purchased it without a second thought. I love Ahsoka and Sabine and was immediately sold on this artwork.

I knew the moment I saw Chrissie Zullo’s booth that I was going to get something from her, it was just so hard to decide. She had an excellent Wonder Woman art piece (which she actually uses as her business card, so I have that in my clear phone case now haha) and an incredibly Leia one as well but I’m a sucker for snow bunny aka Hoth Leia and got my hands on this one. Make sure to follow her on her instagram here.

FREAKING LUNAR CHRONICLES FAN ART! CINDER, SCARLET, CRESS, WINTER AND IKO! I told myself that I was cut off from buying more fan art but how often do you see YA fan art at a con? I had to buy them. HAD TO! Follow the artist here and beg her to do more YA fan art because I’m truly in love.

I didn’t even realize Karen Hallion was going to be at WonderCon again and so I was pleasantly surprised to see her, and I immediately got my hands on her calendar, because I’m totally super in love with her original character. She’s well known for doing her Disney-Doctor Who crossovers but she honestly is my fave in fan art and always draws ALL the badass ladies in fiction.

My last little guilty pleasure purchase is from a vendor called Pixel That. I saw them last year on the last day, after my wallet was tapped out so I was determined to get something from them this year. I definitely want to buy more of them because they’re cute, sassy and insanely comfortable and now they have leggings too! They said the magic words. You can follow them here.

Event Recap - WonderCon Anaheim 2018! #WonderCon #WCA2018 @wondercon WonderCon weekend has officially closed and while I'm totally exhausted and my feet still hurt and I'm probably still a little dehydrated and I may feel a con cold coming on, I'm sad that its over.

[the-desolated-quill]

The Day Of The Doctor - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

50 years, huh? Extraordinary.

Going into The Day Of The Doctor, I was already lowering my expectations. Not just because Steven Moffat was writing it, but also because multi-Doctor anniversary specials are generally never very good. Once you get past the novelty of Doctors meeting each other, you quickly realise that the stories are often weaker than a nun’s piss. While The Day Of The Doctor does fare slightly better than previous multi-Doctor stories, there are still a ton of problems with it.

Let’s start with the Doctors themselves. I was a little bit cross that there were no classic Doctors coming back (and no, the Curator doesn’t count). I wouldn’t have minded except apparently Moffat never even asked any of them. Some fans have given the excuse that you can’t use the original actors because they’re not as young as they were, which caused me to scoff and roll my eyes. Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee were both considerably older when they returned to play their respective Doctors in The Five Doctors over a decade after they left the role, but nobody batted an eyelid. It was just really cool to see them again. There’s no reason why you couldn’t have brought the classic Doctors back. Okay Tom Baker and Colin Baker have both put on a considerable amount of weight since the 70s and 80s, and neither Peter Davison nor Sylvester McCoy are as young and spry as they used to be, but once they’ve got the costumes on, nobody’s going to care about that. Ever heard of suspension of disbelief?

So the Doctors we end up getting are Eleven, Ten and Eight And A Half, aka the War Doctor. (The Ninth Doctor was originally intended to appear, but Christopher Eccleston turned it down, hence the creation of an all new Doctor. Why Moffat couldn’t have just used Paul McGann, I don’t know). It’s about what you’d expect. Three Doctors coming together and criticising each other’s attitudes and tastes in clothing, and admittedly it’s fun for about five minutes before you start getting bored and want Moffat to get the fuck on with it. I think I’ve mentioned numerous times now how annoying I find Matt Smith to be, so i don’t think I’d need comment on that further. While I don’t like Ten as much as everyone else does, it is good to see David Tennant again after all this time. It’s like he’s never been away. He’s got that same boundless energy and enthusiasm that you can’t help but find endearing. This story does however play at odds with where Ten is in his story. Remember for Ten this takes place between The Waters Of Mars and The End Of Time Part 1, where Ten is running from his own impeding death. Surely seeing his future self would affect him somewhat, right? Perhaps that was what all that ‘some new man goes sauntering away’ stuff in The End Of Time with Wilf was about.

As for the War Doctor... I must confess I’m slightly torn. I’ve mentioned before how I really don’t like the idea of a War Doctor that Eleven can conveniently blame so that he can stay as the pure saint with the unsullied past because it just simplifies the character to an insulting degree. And it’s funny because if you stop to think about it, outside of the big decision he has to make with the Moment, the War Doctor doesn’t actually have a character. We never really learn anything significant about him or what really differentiates him from his other incarnations. And yet I can’t help but find myself really liking the War Doctor. And I think that’s for two reasons. One is because of the late, great John Hurt. He gives an extremely good performance and he’s the one that keeps you engrossed in the character even when the writing doesn’t. And the second is that... Look, I have quite a few issues with New Who, and one of them is the more manic interpretations of the Doctor. And yes I know the Doctor has always been an eccentric, but it feels as though New Who have been pushing it to its absolute limit and beyond, to the point where we’ve now got Matt Smith’s Doctor who is just the most obnoxious character I’ve ever come across (in fact there’s a scene where the War Doctor pretty much sums up all my problems with Eleven by asking him “why are you so ashamed of being a grownup?”). And I recognise this is more of a personal taste issue. If you like that kind of manic Doctor, more power to you. I honestly don’t mind it in small doses. The thing is I grew up with the classic series (I used to watch them on old VHS tapes when I was a kid) and while I recognise the War Doctor isn’t very well written and that the reasons for his inclusion are incredibly stupid, I can’t help but instinctively be drawn to that kind of witty, reserved Doctor who can be a bit serious at times, but his hearts are always in the right place. That kind of Doctor just resonates with me more somehow and it’s a kind of Doctor that I really wish we could see more of in New Who.

Plot-wise, it’s all a bit so-so. Let’s start with the B story. Out of all the monsters Moffat could have picked to bring back for the 50th anniversary, why in God’s name did he pick the Zygons? I know classic series fans really like the Zygons, but for the life of me I can’t see why. They’ve only ever appeared in one story, Terror Of The Zygons, which, lets be honest, wasn’t really very good. Yes I know David Tennant loves the Zygons and I’m sure he was pleased as punch to get to work with them, but for the 50th anniversary? Are you fucking joking?

For the benefit of @captainivyb and others who are unfamiliar with the classic series, here is what the original Zygons looked like:

And now here are the new and improved Zygons:

It’s funny, isn’t it? State of the art special effects and a slightly bigger budget, and yet somehow the new Zygons look just as shit as they did back in 1975. I’m going to choose to believe that these new Zygons look deliberately shit so that they could pay tribute to the rubber latex monsters of Who’s past because if I have to accept the possibility that the New Who team honestly thought these new designs were good, I may have to sit in the corner and have a little cry.

I do like the idea of the Zygons hiding inside paintings. Wouldn’t it have been cool if maybe the Doctors went inside the paintings and had a bit of a gander? But no. Instead we get the really bizarre twist that the Zygons, a race of shapeshifting aliens, destroyed a bunch of statues and ground them into dust so they could hide underneath large sheets when UNIT arrives. Yeah, it’s a bit hard to be scared of monsters that have the same mindset as a child who think they’re invisible just by covering their eyes.

And why are the Zygons inside the paintings? Because they want to invade the Earth. Why they don’t just invade medieval Earth, I don’t know. Surely that would be easier than invading present day Earth. Less guns and nuclear bombs for one thing. Elizabeth the First (or at least a version of her that has been Pompadoured into the sassy, flirty woman that exists in all of Moffat’s stories) says that the Zygons are used to a certain level of comfort, but that’s bollocks, isn’t it? What could the super advanced Zygons with their biotechnology possibly want from present day Earth? It can’t be the Black Archive. How would they even know it exists before taking Kate Stewart’s memories? Do they want to borrow our Wi-Fi or something?

Cut to present day Earth and there is a genuinely good moment where Kate stands toe to toe with the Zygons and threatens to destroy the whole of London to prevent them from using the Black Archive. Jenna Redgrave gives a great performance here, channelling the Brigadier very effectively. It’s such a shame Moffat doesn’t do more with her character. (You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned Osgood yet... Well spotted). Then the Doctors show up to chastise Kate for her actions, using their own experience in the Time War to explain why before using the memory eraser thingy to make everyone forget whether they’re human or Zygon, forcing both sides to form a peace treaty. Yeah, because evil aliens hellbent on taking over the world are bound to stick to that once they get their memories back. (Also there’s a major continuity blunder here. Earlier we see a Zygon attack Osgood and assume her form, stealing her asthma pump. Osgood manages to escape and steal the asthma pump back. But at the end, Zygon-Osgood gives the asthma pump back. Huh?).

All of this is meant to cack-handidly tie into the Time War storyline and the Moment, which admittedly is slightly better. But first... is that it? Is that the Time War? Remember all the references that were made in the RTD era? The Jaws of the Nightmare Child. The Could Have Been King and his Army of Never Weres. People trapped in time loops, forced to relive their own deaths over and over again for all eternity. What do we end up getting? Some spaceships, a few lasers and explosions, and some screaming civilians. The Last Great Time War. The war to end all wars... and this is the best they could come up with? Sigh. I guess some things are best left to the imagination.

Also I could have done without Rose. Well... except she’s not Rose. She’s the Bad Wolf. Well... except she’s not the Bad Wolf neither. She’s the same Moffat female we’ve seen millions of times before (Has Moffat only ever met one woman is his life? That’s the only explanation I can think of for why all his female characters sound and behave the fucking same). Billie Piper does an okay job with the material she’s been given, but really, you could have picked anyone to play the Moment. Billie Piper is really only there for fanservice. (Moffat reportedly did not want to bring the Rose character back because he felt her story was wrapped up and he didn’t want to add anything to RTD’s arc. I want you to remember this people. It’ll become relevant later on).

The Day Of The Doctor is really about the redemption of the War Doctor. Him standing at the brink, prepared to make a terrible choice and is shown the consequences of his choice, whilst his future selves learn to accept and finally come to terms with the horrible decision they made. This aspect at least is done reasonably well. I liked the scene with the sonic screwdrivers and the ‘same software, different case’ metaphor. And by far the most powerful scene is when Ten and Eleven arrive to help the War Doctor push the button. It was incredibly moving and actually made me really emotional because it shows the Doctor at his core. It’s something I’ve been saying for years. He’s not a soldier or a hero or a warrior. He’s just some guy. To make the decision to destroy his own species in order to save the rest of the universe would be incredibly traumatising even for a trained soldier. For a simple traveller like the Doctor, it’s practically unbearable. So to soften the blow by allowing his future selves to come along and help him press the button so he doesn’t have to suffer alone is extremely touching. Plus the War Doctor is now reassured by the fact his future selves will do everything in their power to make things right and not allow others to make the same terrible choice.

...

How does Moffat fuck it up?

Oh yeah. You knew it was going to happen. Moffat is so insecure and so determined to trick his audience that he’s prepared to butcher perfectly decent stories in order to shove in some bullshit twist. And this is no exception. Rather than allow The Day of The Doctor to end on a sombre, but powerful note, Moffat decides to do the unthinkable and takes a great big shit all over it. Thanks to an intervention from Clara (ugh), the Doctor changes his mind and decides to use a stasis cube to trap Gallifrey inside a pocket universe, causing the Daleks to destroy themselves in their own crossfire, saving the Time Lords and everyone gets a happy little ending. Now look, I’m not necessarily angry that the Time Lords have been brought back from the dead. I’ve suspected the whole last of the Time Lords thing wasn’t going to be permanent since way back in 2005. What I am angry about is the insulting way in which Moffat does it. Remember when Moffat said he didn’t want to add to RTD’s arc? Well he seems more than happy to undo it completely just because it doesn’t fit with his vision of who the Doctor is. A vision that is utterly warped. Moffat has deluded himself into thinking the Doctor is this all powerful saint that can do no wrong and would never dream of doing something like destroy his own race, even though the show itself completely contradicts that. The Doctor has made morally dubious choices before. The Doctor has resorted to violence before. Okay he’ll always try to find a diplomatic and peaceful solution when he can, but when push comes to shove, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. The Time War is just the most extreme example of that. Yes it’s a horrible choice, but what’s the alternative? Letting the whole of time and space burn? As Eleven himself said, it wasn’t possible to get it right. And the psychological ripple effects of this choice makes the Doctor a far more interesting character. By erasing all of this, all of that complexity and character development as a result goes with it. Moffat tries to cover himself by saying that none of the past Doctors will remember this because of Moffat logic, but that just makes it worse because now Nine and Ten are suffering from PTSD and psychological trauma for no reason.

What The Day Of The Doctor proves without a shadow of a doubt is that Steven Moffat doesn’t in any way understand the show he claims to be a fan of. And if you need further proof of that, in the final monologue where we see Matt Smith standing in front of a really bad photoshopped ensemble of previous Doctors, the Doctor talks about how he dreams about going home. That has got to be the most unDoctorly thing I’ve ever heard.

War Doctor: “If I grow to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed.”

Oh go fuck yourself Moffat!

[thehivemindwrites]

Daria is Good

it Valentine’s Day, generally seen as an opportunity for people like me (aka socially-awkward misanthropes) to trumpet their misanthropy (kind of like people who make SPORTSBALL jokes during the Super Bowl) about holidays centered around romance seems like a great time to talk about how I’ve been watching Daria again.

Which is to say, of course, that the thing I like best about Daria is how its characters avoid being misanthropic stereotypes held up for mockery. Hell, the titular heroine is, for all her displays of superiority and ability to avoid the herd mentality of most of her peers, remarkably normal. It’s part of the joke, I think. Daria doesn’t have her shit together more than those around her, she’s just a little more observant than most. Like her buddy Jane says at one point, the difference between Daria and the rest of the cast is that Daria thinks about stuff more. That doesn’t make her better necessarily, it just puts her outside her peer group. She’s also socially awkward and doesn’t know how to handle feelings (which hey, I can relate to and I’m a grown-ass man).  But really, even her peers are capable of thinking when the situation calls for it (the paintball episode is a great example of this, as the vapid cheerleader Brittany turns into a regular General MacArthur, and in earlier episodes demonstrates an interest in Shakespeare, the quintessential “smart kid” author). 

Really, Daria is just a show about muddling through a world that seems by and large to be absurd - the regular Sick Sad World headlines play just as well now as they did then, and are depressingly prescient at times. It’s about figuring out who you are and what you want to be, which is a process that I am assuming never quite ends. At least I hope it doesn’t because I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Which is, of course, why it’s been so nice to go back to it. 

There’s the obvious nostalgia of course - I would have just been freshly 13 when it started, and at the time had started learning drums, finding out about that whole grunge scene thing which was already basically dead, and beginning to develop a crush on my best friend’s older sister (who was decidedly what got me into the whole flannel and jeans look), while also being an outsider who was most comfortable in the company of fellow outcasts. Gee, I wonder how I could have possibly related to a show about an outsider who was comfortable in the company of outcasts and didn’t fit in to the popular group, and happened to have a crush on her best friend’s older brother. It’s a real goddamn mystery that we may never solve. Puzzling. 

Watching Daria in part is remembering trips to my (much more well-off) relatives where they had cable television and I could flip around a billion (probably actually like 30) channels, one of which was MTV where I stumbled across Daria and was like “oh hey hello there” and then, after figuring out when it was on by reading a TV Guide (which is a thing you used to have to do), plotted ways to be in the presence of a television with cable access as often as I could, with varying levels of success. This went on for years. Eventually I couldn’t be bothered because I was in high school and busy watching Evangelion or Aqua Teen Hunger Force or whatever the hell it was I did in high school. So ironically enough, the point at which I would have probably related more to the show is the point I wasn’t watching anymore. I definitely still caught it here and there, but as it was off the air by my sophomore year I didn’t really see it much. 

Now of course I am appreciating different things about the show - its feminist tone, its message that it’s okay to just fucking go for stuff as long as you don’t mind failing (there’s a conversation between Daria and Trent at one point where she talks about his being in a band as being worth doing even if he fails because he’s at least chasing the dream - again, for a show that uses Trent’s slacker/dropout lifestyle for jokes it is remarkably sincere on this point) or people thinking you’re weird (after all, neither Jane nor Daria really ever budge on who they are or what they want to do - again, there’s a whole episode about their refusal to change an art piece they made on principle). As a dude who is actively in the process of putting together a book that maybe nobody will want or buy, it helps to hear that message now and again. 

It’s also about how messy families can be (both the Lane and Morgendorfer household have their fair share of nonsense) but at the same time they care about each other because, well, they’re family. Both Daria and Quinn help each other out from time to time - not because of bribery, but because *sigh* it’s family and somewhere under everything they care about each other in their own way. I had a far less contentious relationship with my siblings, but we definitely had our fair share of fights. I’d also still probably go to great lengths to help them, even if my older brother has become a giant asshole over the last... decade. I’d just be a little more grumpy about it. 

This had nothing to do with Valentine’s day at all, as it turns out. Though if you want to twist my arm about it, I’m kind of bummed that when they did the whole anniversary thing a few years back and said where the characters would be now Jane and Daria weren’t living together in lesbian bliss. I mean come on.