#also tumblr killed the already bad quality

[prince-of-red-lions]

Idk if you can make this, but for the quote thingy

You had one job. (menacingly)

And you did it right!

hello! my brain is running on fumes and this definitely isn’t my best meme, but I tried 😭😭

[punkitt-is-here]

Read These Frequently Asked Questions Before You Send An Ask!

Patreon | Ko-Fi | Youtube

Heyo! I get a TON of asks each day, so I'm making this post so that folks know what's already been asked so my followers don't have to see the same stuff over and over, haha.

Hi! I'm Punkitt! I'm a game developer, artist, editor, director, and a bunch of other stuff! I'm working on an RPG called Astral Guard, a platformer called Susan Taxpayer, and I have a couple more fun projects in my pocket like Happup and Super Mario Death Row.

Did you know you look like weird al?

YES jesus fucking christ i get told this every day. if u send me a message in my inbox saying i look like weird al im killing you with like wizard spells and shit.

Why do you have so many hats? Do you know you have that many hats?

ye i like hats. :) free tumblr badges for one pea i like one piece and took as many as i could. free.

Where can I find your art/game development/horsecomix?

Great question! Everything I make that's my own and not a reblog is under "my posts", every bit of art I do is under "my art", any game development I do is under "gamedev", you can find all my MLP art under "mlp, my art" or "horsecomix" for the best stuff. I also have an "animations" tag and a "shitposts" tab. I also properly tag all my asks to be asks and write out the asker's name, so if you don't wanna see those just mute the ask tag.

Do you have a Patreon or a Ko-Fi?

I do have a ko-fi here! I also JUST launched a Patreon, which you can find here :)

What do you use for your art?

I use FireAlpaca and Paint.net for misc. effects!

What are you using to make your games?

I use FireAlpaca do make my assets! Astral Guard, Happup, and any other top-down RPG games I make are all made in RPGMaker 2003. Susan Taxpayer is made in SMBX2 Beta 4, a Mario fangame engine with lua support!

Why are you using a 2-decade-plus engine to make games?

It's fun!

Do you have a sideblog or something for your art?

Not right now! What you see is what you get. I do have a sideblog for Astral Guard though, if you want to follow that game specifically! @astral-guard

Can I make an OC based on your work? ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!! THATS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!!! LET ME KNOW IF YOU DO!!!! I WANNA SEE!!!!

Can I do dubs/redraws of your comics? As long as you credit me! I get a ton of notifs each day, so if you wanna show me (and PLEASE i so do wanna see fun dubs and redraws!!!) tag me or DM me!

Can I use your art as a PFP? Sure! Just credit me somewhere. :D

Are you the one who trapped her coworkers in a room and made them listen to TF2 lore?

Yep! Everyone had a blast actually. :]

Did you make that comic where Fluttershy eats the weed brownie/Rainbow Dash has a male living space/someone has a cutie mark that says they'll kill Ronald Reagan?

Yep! That's me.

Where are you in MLP right now?

Currently just finished Season 7! Haven't watched the movie yet.

Have you watched Equestria Girls?

Yep! Thought it was super cute. I watched up to Rainbow Rocks and plan on watching more.

What's your opinion on MLP so far?

I love it! I think it's cute. I really don't agree that there was some sort of huge quality drop after season 2 or whatever.

What do you think of G5?

Not my style! I don't really like either animation types and it just seems like I'm not in the audience anymore. That's totally chill, but it just doesn't grab me!

Have you watched any other MLP stuff from previous generations?

Nope! But I did see a compilation called Minty Being Autistic for Six Minutes Straight that I loved. she's perfect.

Favorite pony?

Don't got one, I love all the Mane Six a LOT, but I'm particularly fond of Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity!

Favorite episode/season?

I'm so bad at picking favorites! But any season past Season 1 I have a blast with because I feel like it's just more my style. I don't have a favorite episode, but the most recent one I can remember LOVING is the one where Starlight bottles up her emotions because it was REALLY funny.

Do you like Pony.mov?

Nope! And stop saying my stuff reminds you of it, it's a lil annoying!

Have you watched the Mentally Advanced Series/Friendship is Witchcraft/Other fandom vids?

Probably not! My interaction with the MLP fandom prior to last year was pretty minimal, so I'm making my way through the show first!

What do you think of Fallout: Equestria?

I think it's super weird but really fun because of that. I've never properly read any of it but it's very fascinating to me.

Are you transgender?

Yep! I go by she/her, I'm a trans woman. Have been for many years, but I only recently came out online!

Are you a lesbian?

Nah, I'm bisexual!

Can I commission you?

Yeah! I only have my commissions available on my Ko-Fi at certain times though, so keep an eye out! I usually announce slots being open at least 12 hours beforehand. Slots are usually first come first serve, but we'll see.

Can I use your art as a Discord emote?

Yeah man i'm not scouring every discord on the planet to find stickers of my work. i think it owns if people take my stuff and make it stupid injoke emotes between friends that makes me very happy.

Can I send you an ask inquiring about gender dysphoria?

I feel like this is beyond my capabilities of advice! I'm actually very comfortable with my body and I have been for many years, so I don't know if I can give any good or helpful advice on that front. Apologies, but there are many resources out there where you can ask about those things if you look for them, like Discord channels!

Favorite Color?

I'm a sucker for blue!

Favorite coffee?

Can't drink coffee, my stomach is cringe.

Favorite tea?

I'm lame and can't drink most tea but I love this one orange-flavored tea a lot. I also LOVE ice tea.

Can I say you're horsegender/punkittgender/a little gender goblin void thing?

Well, I can't stop you, but I'm kind of beyond that phase now! I really am a boring ol' plain she/her girl, and I like it that way. It's not much, but it's honest gender.

What's your favorite game series?

Mother, Kingdom Hearts, Mario, and I USED to say Fallout, but I found out I'm really only a big Fallout New Vegas fan.

Favorite game from those?

Mother 3 is one of my fave games of all time! I love KHII, and I'm tied for SMB3 and SMW. Also Fallout New Vegas fucks hard.

Any other favs?

Bug Fables, SLARPG, and TF2!

Favorite Movie?

Everything Everywhere All At Once, no question.

Oh, are you going to college?

Yep! I'm a film/theater major.

Do you have a YouTube channel?

Yeah! Click right here for it, I stream there and upload footage of my games/animations/my film projects + other stuff.

What is that little orange creature I see?

That's bweenop, my little persona that I use when I'm feeling a little scrunkly.

Do you have a ponysona?

Yep! Her name is Star Magnolia, you can search her on the blog to see art of her.

When will Susan Taxpayer/Astral Guard/etc. be out?

No clue! I take things slow, that's just how I am.

How do you work on so many things at once?

I make small, satisfying amounts of progress! I never try to complete one giant thing all at once, I just like doing small bursts of fun stuff. I got ADHD, so I learn to work with it.

Did you know you look like Weird Al?

Im going to run you over with a clown car watch out

WHY do you work on so many things at once?

Fun! I like learning, I like making cool stuff, and I like showing it to people :)

Do you need any help with your projects?

Potentially! I'll probably put out a post asking for help if I need it.

If you could be a horse, would you?

You kidding me? Several ton beasts with the frailty of a sickly Victorian boy; my clumsy ass would never survive.

Are you some sort of...furry?

yeag

Why do you reblog so much?

Brother I LOVE posting. that's just how it is.

Fav music artists?

It changes literally ALL the time but I will recommend ANYTHING by Vylet Pony, its music is incredible and probably the reason I'm a weird niche microcelebrity now.

Why are you like this?

theater kid + having a lot of fun on the internet makes you a bit silly hehe hoo

SUSAN TAXPAYER QUESTIONS

Is it out? Not yet! But hopefully sometime in the next year. I dunno! I take things at my own pace and keep stuff fun. :)

What are you using to make it? SMBX2! It's a free fangame engine for Mario episodes, but it's incredibly versatile and has a wonderful community, so I decided to make Susan Taxpayer in it.

Is there a demo? You betcha! You can find it right here. I'll also probably put it up on my itch.io.

How do I install it? I made a post here about how to run the SAGE '23 demo!

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Hi! Your blog is awesome. I don't know if I'm allowed to ask non-atla questions, so I hope this is okay. I'm working on a non-avatar ttrpg campaign that takes place both in a (fictional/fantasy) northern tundra region AND during a magical endless winter. The people in it aren't based on any specific culture but, given that they're successfully living in similar environments & have for countless generations, I want to draw as much inspiration & knowledge from real-life circumpolar cultures & native science as much as possible. Do you have any advice or even just fun, underappreciated ideas for winter tundra survival, things someone who grew up in a desert like me wouldn't think of on my own? If you need/want more direction: I'm particularly looking for clothing, shelters, resource gathering-practices for non-food (esp what kinds of resources would be valuable), as well as like, any fun details that evolve naturally in a culture that formed in the tundra that you'd want to see represented. I hope that makes sense ^^; Thanks so much if you decide to answer, have a good day either way <3

[I am SOOO sorry this took so long! Tumblr kept not saving my progress when i tapped "save draft" so i had to rewrite a few of these passages a few different times]

Don't worry about asking, friend, i get cultural questions all the time and i'm happy to share.

Note: my knowledge is almost entirely based on coastal tundra peoples with access to marine mammals. That's not to say it's impossible for people to live farther inland, just that it's not my area of expertise.

Clothing

Just about everything you wear is going to come off of a dead animal. This doesn't necessarily need to be the case if your fictional culture has a means of raising hardy livestock for fiber and a history of woven textiles, but even then skin clothes are warm and generally quite hard-wearing and are a good fit for living in these circumstances.

This amount of fur means lice are a perpetual problem. If you want to make that an immersive part of the game, you can work in a mechanic for checking scalps and clothing and bedding for lice.

Bird skins can also be used for clothing and waterfowl specifically has the benefit of water resistance. Fish skin can also be used for similar properties. Animal intestines can be made into a waterproof material if sewn with sinew and soaked before finishing.

On that note i'd recommend making a list of available animals and what qualities and textures their skins and furs have. Even if you don't intend on being incredibly descriptive with clothing, it's something better to have and not need than need and not have. And if you do anything else creative in a similar setting you have your nifty little source to consult.

When it comes to the actual construction of the clothes, you want a loose fit. Trapped air ia a great insulator and you want clothes to be easy to move in. Another benefit for loose-fitting upper body garments in cold weather is you can pull your arms in and keep them by your much warmer core. Not only will this option keep you comfortable, it can also prevent muscle injury or getting frostbite

Mittens can be worn on a string yoke. This doesn't have to be exclusive to children either. Wind can pick up out of nowhere and lost mittens means fingers exposed to arctic cold which can mean gangreen and amputations down the line.

Swimming or running to deliver a message may involve stripping nude, even in cold. Clothes soaked in water or sweat are deadly in the cold.

Clothes may be stored in bags outside when not in use. The low temperatures can kill bugs and bacteria. On a similar note, boots and coats are best to be hung to dry as soon as one is indoors for the day. This may mean it's normal for people to be topless indoors.

Boots should never have holes or tears. Frostbite and resulting gangreen is already bad enough but you especially do not want it on your feet

Shelter

You're going to want dwellings to have as few rooms and windows as possible and small doors. The fewer walls you have, the easier it is for heat to circulate throughout the whole dwelling. You'll probably want one room separating the door and where you sleep. Remember: trapped air is a great insulator.

The culture I've reconnected with is semi-nomadic so the permanent houses are not always occupied and a village can seem abandoned when it's just on its "off season". You can take that or leave it depending on what you're going for.

Even if the dwelling is not a tent, you're probably still going to have poles serving as a supporting frame.

Sod houses are common due to the availability of sod (the grass and the dirt its roots are tangled in). Tents made of warm, waterproof skins (like walrus skin) are also an option.

An easy way to insulate such a dwelling is to build a wall of packed snow around and fill the gaps with loose, airy snow. This traps air the same way down feathers do.

Non-Food Resource Gathering

While I imagine you meant obtaining resources outside of hunting, in a tundra or tundra-like setting, a lot of your resources are going to come from dead animals. Your garments and shelters and bedding are likely to be made of animal skins, with hollow and/or fluffy fur for warmth, or smoked intestine or fish skin, sewn with tiny stitches and soaked to keep everything flush, for waterproof boots and overlayers. Antlers and tusks are good carving materials for things like spoons and closures and slabs for armor and handles and also talismans and smoking pipes and beads and art. Baleen is good for art too, as well as boot soles and smaller sleds and beautiful baskets. Sinew and rawhide are good for thread, ties, and rope. Bones have a near infinite amount of uses from tiny wing bones to make sewing needles to huge whale bones used to build houses.

For the purposes of working this into a roleplaying game, i'd second the recommendation of keeping a list of animals in your universe and their properties, as well as the things that can be gathered from or made of them. A sort of crafting recipe guide would allow all kinds of quests and sidequests.

There are, of course, non-animal resources to gather for non-eating purposes. Soapstone is the traditional material for oil lamps. Grasses can be woven into baskets for any number of purposes, including supports to give the uppers of one's boots more structure. Wood, in the form of slices of tree trunks, can be hollowed out into bowls and small tubs and buckets or, as logs or slats, can make up flooring. Sturdy branches can be used for frames in houses, boats, and drums, and tree resin makes both good glue and antibiotic salve for closed wounds. Sod, also called turf, makes a good building material and moss is exellent insulation in boots. You can make a list of these too, if it helps.

If your fictional culture has a strong tradition of metallurgy, then they'd also mine for metal that can be used for knives. If not, slate is another option that requires significantly less fire. You could even have both and make the metal a status symbol.

Fun Details to Represent

There are so many lovely little things that show up in arctic cultures

First, a gift economy. Where a cash economy relies on a fairly individualistic culture where you work for someone else to earn capital and exchange that capital for goods and services, a more collectivist and interdependent culture natural to the harsh conditions of the tundra tends to result in a gift economy. The currency in a gift economy, to perhaps oversimplify, is favors. Someone does you a good turn, you remember that, and when you're in a position to help, you return the favor. Usually this means basic material things like hospitality and food, but the "gifts" exchanged can also be luck! King Islander boys would often wish hunters setting out at dawn good luck, with a slab of driftwood as a token of that luck, and if the hunters were successful, they'd give the boys who wished them luck a share of their catch. I believe it was Frank Ellana who remenised that this was what the world was like before money.

Another thing that would be nice to include is parenting practices considered fairly gentle to a Euro-American perspective. Physical punishments are traditionally treated as abuse and scolding a child is not only seen as wrong but something an adult ought to be ashamed of. Discipline is instead a series of moral lessons, teaching children why what they did was wrong and using stories as examples of the consequences. Given the amount of stories about the dangers of abusing a spouse or child, i'd say a lot of these lessons were proactive and preventative. Knowing someone will be hurt by it is considered enough of a deterrence to stop bad behaviors. Traditional potty training, for example, is also gentler in comparison; starting at a younger age (about six months) with more emphasis on praise and encouragment than routine. The goal here is to teach the baby to signal when they need to go so they can be taken out of mama's atigi and relieve themself in a hygenic manner instead of holding it until they get permission. Even our take on kissing is based on inhaling instead of pecking with the lips. This kind of gentleness is usually overlooked to instead focus on the badass hunter image or overall "cuteness" so it would be nice for it to be referenced.

Oral histories would be pretty neat too. I think the idea of learning to be a historian of oral histories is an interesting one and i think it has a lot of potential plot hooks for an rpg.

That's all i have for now. Sorry for the delayed response time. Happy gaming, and i'm always up for further discussion if you would like ^-^

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

hi! i have a question i’m directing at you bc i’ve seen the idea going around tumblr but most recently on your post — if a student is caught using ai to cheat do you think that’s worth expulsion? should that be the best case scenario punishment? while i understand the importance of making it known to students the severity of using chatgp, at the same time i feel like that’s a very harsh punishment for being caught cheating. but then also at the same time! i’m not a teacher and i don’t know if it’s possible to teach a student to value their education and the opportunity they have for high learning if they don’t already personally believe that the opportunity is a gift. idk! this isn’t really a structured question but i guess i’m curious about how you (or in general, how professors) feel about expulsion for chatgp (i know you’re just one person and don’t speak on behalf of all educators lol but it’s just something i’ve been curious about)

Expulsion as in, ejected wholesale from the entire university, Do Not Darken Our Door Again? No, I don't.

I think what outsiders tend to miss is that students who do this, 99% of the time, are desperate. Something has gone terribly wrong, they're desperate to meet those deadlines and get that work done, and in my experience it's almost always wrapped up in neurodivergence (usually undiagnosed) and frequently a home situation that's made their lives a shit show and pushed academia to a back burner.

But, it's a more serious issue than high school cheating on a multiple choice quiz. Degrees are crafted to have quality assurance built in, and with good reason. The whole point of a degree is that it's proof of higher learning, and specialist knowledge - you get a higher salary (in theory lol) because your employer is paying for the very expensive training you've undergone. This is particularly important in something like medicine or construction, because if you haven't actually completed all parts of that degree you could kill someone; but even in my own field, if you fundamentally don't understand the physical processes of a sand dune as well as its ecology, and someone hires you to manage that sand dune... well, it's going to be an over-stabilised mess in about five years' time and you've killed the rare sand lizards and mining bees that were living there. And if your degree is a course in an institution who is famous for producing top quality environmental workers who know this stuff... well, you've just made your uni course look very, very bad in industry.

So unis are protective of their quality assurance, and that means they do not like cheaters. And I do agree with that, that's fair enough.

For me, though, I think the answer is not full expulsion. I would run it like this:

Confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that the student has indeed cheated. This must be confirmed.

IF NOT CONFIRMED: Mark the work strictly. Pair this with a viva - the student must be able to answer questions about the work from two lecturers with subject expertise, plus someone from the Academic Office (although that latter person can just observe only). This will determine how deep their knowledge is vs what they submitted, and should be factored into the overall mark.

IF CONFIRMED: Module fail, all marks for those credits set to zero, and the information included on transcripts (not why they failed, just that they attempted the module and got zero.) HOWEVER, the student is allowed one resit attempt; this might mean having to redo the year as a part-time student just to get that module, depending on how it's taught and how important it is.

All of the above with the understanding that their work is going to now be checked very closely going forward for repeat issues. In confirmed cases, a viva is now a required part of future work.

To be fair, mind, proving cheating is genuinely very hard, so depending on how strict the uni is, that's roughly the system that gets used anyway. Your work is very strictly marked, you get viva'd, and you usually fail on quality anyway (especially if your flavour of cheating was ChatGPT, because what it produces is shit.) After you've failed, gone through a resit period, and been capped at a pass mark for the fail, you realise pretty quickly that it would have been less stress and effort for a higher mark to just do the work yourself. And that's a learning curve everyone should be allowed, I think.

[hxney-lemcn]

More Than Friends — Rhys (AFK Journey) x gn! reader

summary: what it's like to grow up as childhood friends with Rhys.

tw: mentions of pillagers, village being attacked, mentions of injury.

a/n: I pulled him and immediately fell for the himbo. also, tumblr is killing the image quality 😭

wc: 0.9k

Master List

❥You didn’t really have a choice in being friends with Rhys. He followed you around like a lost puppy much to your parents dismay. He was bad news, trouble always seeming to follow him. You didn’t really mind. Rhys would always show you his bird friends, trying to recite their names he gave them (he would tend to repeat the same name for multiple birds). 

❥You were the first person Rhys showed when he got his gun. He was too little to pick it up, but he dragged it over. At first you were apprehensive. I mean you had only been taught to fight with spears. Such machinery was a bit intimidating. But Rhys quickly reassured you that he’d protect you with his cool new toy…he almost shot a chicken coop getting the two of you in trouble.

❥When you both grew older, your bond grew as well. Rhys never failed to entertain you, and he’d always find himself laughing with you even if it was at his own expense. Even though he joined the Quicksand Claws, he always made time for you. Telling you tales of what glory he’d done earlier that day (when in reality someone else did it while he fed the bird mounts). 

❥Rhys wasn’t the brightest, so he never questioned why his heart speed up in your presence, why he wanted to be in your presence 24/7, why he felt bitter when others held your attention for a little too long. You were really his only friend, the other villagers steered clear of him. He couldn’t compare his relationship with you to anyone else since no one else compared. He loved it when you would compliment him, fuss over him, hell, even when you scolded him.

❥You found yourself endeared to Rhys. You weren’t sure when your care for the red haired man turned from friendly to more, but you found yourself caring for him regardless. He was sweet, albeit a bit brash, but you wouldn’t have him any other way. You found it cute when he’d come back with a gift (typically something he deemed cool enough for you), or a new tale of adventure. You found your mood lifting when his smile came into view. 

❥Everything changed the second your village was attacked. Spear in hand, you fought bravely against your adversaries, but they seemed to greatly outnumber your small village. Although maulers found themselves fighting until the bitter end, your village leader deemed it necessary for a retreat. As you tried to escape, you had found yourself in the center of the fight, unable to stop less your life would be taken.

❥You feared it would be the end of you, and although you didn’t want to die, you were glad you were able to help the children escape with the elders. Your stamina was waning, getting scathed more and more. You were at your wits end when Rhys swooped in, shooting in a circle around the two of you. He laughed maniacally as a few of the enemies dropped. Quickly, Rhys scooped you up onto his mount, continuing to shoot his gun at anyone who dared get in your way. And as you stared up at the man you grew up with, you found yourself admiring the way his scared lips lifted up as his chuckles died down. 

❥When you both met with the rest of the survivors, Rhys had made it his mission to take care of you. Cuts, bruises, and blood littered your body, exhaustion weighing down on your limbs. His carefree smile seemed a bit more strained, but he didn’t want you to feel worse than you already did. He tried to make the atmosphere more light hearted, not wanting his own dark thoughts to consume him. It scared him seeing you in such a state, seeing you fighting with your life on the line. He was grateful he managed to get to you in time, and he just had to keep reminding himself that you were okay. Still alive, still with him. 

❥Your relationship shifted after that day. You had grown closer, more affectionate. Rhys found his eyes always searching for you. Your village had been rebuilt, anything left in the rubble of your old village taken (though much wasn’t left from the pillagers). Rhys had stuck by your side, offering to carry you, or have you ride his mount around. It was quite endearing really. He fretted over every little thing, even as your bruises faded and the cuts healed. 

❥Your parents hadn’t been found yet, and the village was unsure of their status, so they had Rhys stay with you due to your wounds. You didn’t mind, you weren’t sure if you were ready to live on your own anyways. Rhys helped make the empty home feel just a bit warmer, even if you longed to see your parents once more.

❥It all led to one night as the two of you conversed over dinner. Your gaze warm as you fondly watched Rhys gestured erratically to emphasize a story of this bird he followed. The little giggles that slipped past his lips warmed your heart as he spoke so fondly of a bird he saw once. All the warmth and affection you gained throughout your years, and you couldn’t hold yourself back. Leaning over, you gently placed a quick kiss, causing Rhys to freeze, his gaze stuck on you.

❥Rhys’ grin widened, his cheeks tinted a light pink. Nothing needed to be said, you both had been the others for as long as you could remember. You were delighted as Rhys giggled, leaning over and reciprocating your previous action tenfold.

[kirstysedgman]

The Reasonableness Theory of Good Omens

I’ve never done a Tumblr post before, but I’m going to have a go at it now, because the heaven/hell logics in the original Good Omens book (see also: the tv show The Good Place and also Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series generally) were foundational to the development of my theory of human behaviour – and I think it now explains A LOT about the Aziraphale/Crowley ending of Good Omens 2, and also what’s going wrong with us as a society.

So long story short – I’m a Cultural Studies academic at the University of Bristol, and I recently published a ‘smart thinking’ book called On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better (in bookshops now with Faber & Faber!). Here I explain how demands to “just be reasonable!” have been weaponised throughout history to halt social progress, from the suffragettes to Stonewall to the Civil Rights movement, up to the uproar over Black Lives Matter and Just Stop Oil protests today. Basically, what I think biblical-satire shows like Good Omens and The Good Place are satirising is exactly this: the inherent moral UNREASONABLENESS of the ‘reasonable person’, who wants things to be better but isn’t willing to break any rules to achieve it – even if those rules are bafflingly unfair and nonsensical (like the Job plotpoint, where Aziraphale began to realise this for the very first time).

When I say the ‘reasonable person’, I’m talking about the ‘moderate’ whom Dr Martin Luther King famously described in his Letter from Birmingham Jail as being almost worse than the ‘evil’ side of the out-and-out racist. This is the so-called ‘good’ side, who talk the language of progress whilst getting in the way of any attempt to realise it because they are “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice”. In On Being Unreasonable I trace an overarching tendency to value the APPEARANCE of reasonableness (calm voices, shiny smiles, dapper suits) over the messy impoliteness of standing up and fighting back. In other words, rather than Heaven being the good guys and Hell the bad guys, Good Omens exposes how BOTH sides end up doing bad things because they’re unwilling to rebel against authority, break unjust rules/laws, and actually do what is RIGHT. We saw this especially clearly, I think, in the hell fire/holy water scene: one side might be ugly and the other side beautiful, but both sides are shown to be monstrous. “Just shut your stupid mouth and DIE already!” is still evil even though it’s said through a smile rather than a scowl.

This is where Crowley comes in. Crowley sees Heaven for who they really are. And this is why he resents being called ‘nice’ – because the qualities of niceness have historically been used as cover for tremendous evil – like how God’s ineffable command to kill Job’s children was morally horrifying, but how the Angels’ smiling promise to replace them with new children made a terrible thing seem like an act of divine grace. In many ways I’m saying nothing new here at all, I know – ‘omg the good side are actually the baddies! gasp!’ is hardly a novel literary interpretation. But it’s a bit more complicated than just that. What I’m talking about here is the specific sociopolitical mechanism by which reasonable appearances have been confused with actual moral goodness – and how this impulse to see ‘nice’ and think ‘good’ has historically been weaponised against us. It’s this that Good Omens really exposes. As I say in On Being Unreasonable, we can see this everywhere. “Think about the honeyed gentility of the American South, where smiling courtesy provided cover for simmering racial violence. Think about the buttoned-up laced-down aggression of the white imperial invader, sitting on their verandas in the Indian sunshine sipping tea. Think about the polished performances of the Nazis, with all their approving 1930s newspaper articles about impeccable manners and rarified tastes in art and dress”. In fact, there’s even an adjective for this: ‘Minnesota Nice’, which is often used as a backhanded compliment to refer to people who avoid confrontation in favour of a veneer of false politeness, and for whom calling out homophobia/racism/misogyny/etc is unforgivably rude. Nice, in this sense, can never be good, because it is being used to advance evil.

In Good Omens, what we saw is how deeply Aziraphale longs to break free from this logic, but how he can’t yet quite manage to free himself from that sense of reasonable idealism – the belief that surely the ‘good’ side of this broken system can be reformed from within. Meanwhile, Crowley is clearly being depicted as a fallen Angel in the true sense – someone who realises that the system itself is rotten to the core, and is willing to ask the hard questions and break rules in pursuit of truly moral actions, even if it costs him everything. Crowley has bitterly learned never again to make the mistake of confusing order with justice; this is a lesson that Aziraphale still needs once and for all to learn.

In the conclusion to On Being Unreasonable I set out a kind of matrix of behaviour to explain all this, where the Unreasonably-Unreasonable people are – like Hell! – “the deliberate contrarians and hate-speech purveyors and greed-is-good libertarian individualists, who think they can say and do whatever they want without consequences no matter the harm to anyone else”. Meanwhile, like Heaven, a lot of self-professedly progressive people seem to have become “so determined not to be like them that we’ve become something just as bad” – namely, Unreasonably-Reasonable people, “obsessed with tone-policing and respectability politics and endless toothless debate, happy to act the devil’s advocate and platform hate-speech and injustice so long as everyone appears to be doing it politely”. What I think we’ll see unfolding in Good Omens 3 is the revelation that what the world ACTUALLY, desperately needs is more people like Crowley, the Reasonably-Unreasonable people on whom social progress has always depended: “those who understand that civic dissent and smashing down racist statues and no-platforming bigots might sometimes be the only way to make the world a better place”.

So if God (and Neil Gaiman) really does have an ineffable plan then maybe it was this. Crowley needed to fall then, and Aziraphale needs to try to reform Heaven and fail spectacularly now, in order for us all collectively to rid ourselves of that morally-unreasonable urge to seem reasonable in the face of great injustice forever.

[thrudgelmir2333]

About Phoenix Ikki

This post is partially copied from a response of mine on Reddit, but I thought I'd expand on it here on Tumblr, where I can structure my ideas better. There's some thoughts I've had about the character of Phoenix Ikki for a while that I wanted to get out there. If you ask around the Saint Seiya fan community which character is their favorite, there's a relatively solid chance they're going to answer 'Phoenix Ikki'. In fact, you might even get told Ikki 'inspired' a lot of Saint Seiya fans. He's one of those shounen symbols of 'badassary' and 'uncompromising attitudes', like Takamura from Hajime no Ippo, but also of emotional distance, like Itachi from Naruto. In a lot of ways, if you grew up with Saint Seiya characters, there's a powerful possibility you looked forward to seeing Ikki show up and beat the crap out of some villain for hurting Shun, his little brother. It was an effect intensified by how much Ikki was usually withheld from the story. The absence of Ikki in a lot of ways made you want to crave this supposed member of the protagonists to show up.

Shun himself reinforces this interest, being adoring and forgiving of Ikki and his distance in every instance. This means all the reinforcement you get as a reader/audience is that Ikki is someone you're supposed to admire, to look forward to showing up, to be an example of how 'brutal and badass but also protective' a Saint could be.

I'd like to offer an alternative point of view on all this. I think Ikki is, well, actually a bad character. I also think that his absence had more to do with that poverty of personality to his character than any kind of perceived 'coolness' to him.

Maybe I'm the one off here. Maybe I just don't identify anymore with this sort of character. If you wanna conclude that from my post, that's fair. But I wanted to ask, though, "Isn't it about time we acknowledge Ikki is... kind of a bad character? And a terrible role model for young boys? And probably a sign of things that were to come in anime fandoms, even in the early 90s?"

Pictured above; Phoenix Ikki, deeply contemplating how little effort he has to put into the story

First, let's talk some technicalities.

This is where you'll see most of what I wrote on Reddit.

First off, I'd like to establish that I think Phoenix Ikki, in technical terms, is NOT the worst Bronze Saint, but he's definitely the worst after Seiya. And also that the way some of the other Bronze Saints, mainly Shiryu, outshine Ikki as quality characters should really expose how poorly written Ikki is to more people.

People rightfully talk about how Seiya's character stopped growing after a certain early point in the story. There's no denying that. Ikki, however, as a character, doesn't trail far much behind Seiya in my opinion. This is such to the point that I got a theory that maybe somewhere in Kurumada's mind he intended to kill him off after the Black Saint Arc, or ideally against Shaka.

I believe this because all of Ikki's involvements in the story past his battle with Shaka (and perhaps some of them during the Silver Saint Arc itself) have been needless interventions that either only reinforce how his character hasn't changed from his Black Saint days or steal the spotlight away from other characters, usually Shun.

Before we continue, another important technical note, this time on action, and this one goes especially to those concerned about how can such a strong character like Ikki be 'needless'. One important thing to retain here is that action can be written in a lot of ways, which is to say SCALING OF FICTIONAL CHARACTER IS A FABRICATION YOU DERIVE FROM HOW THINGS ARE ALREADY WRITTEN and not some kind of result from a scientific analysis of inalterable story facts.

So its not that Shun needs Ikki to save him, but rather that a choice was made by a human being for Shun to be written that he needs Ikki to save him. He could have been written, instead, to do it on his own, and even then something ridiculous like winning the Japanese lottery, just to add to the triumph of, idk, beating Capella.

Sorry for the earlier caps, I just always feel I have to remind people of that important fact whenever discussing action, become some people think that the usefulness of a character is derived from fights they win. Like they're real life wrestling competitors or something. The reality is, Ikki interferes in the events he does because he's written as such and he gets the results he does because, likewise, he's also written as such. They are choices by Kurumada.

And the reality of those choices is that they are open to discussion on weather or not they caused more harm than good to the plot and its remaining characters. This goes beyond the mere antipathy aspect in Ikki; the character is flat in a CREATIVE sense, being what the author of Rurouni Kenshin called "a joker card".

This means a character designed to counter the villain's respective 'joker'. AKA, Ikki exists to not to advance the plot in important ways (slaying main villains, help friends overcome trials, add to the story message) but to occasionally show off during an episode or two to deliver the audience the red meat of a high-octane action scene against a giant ogre or something.

What does Ikki actually DO in the story?

To understand the reason why I call Ikki a 'joker card', it is important to put his character's role in review. If you do, you'll find that most of his interventions in the story don't contribute to the plot's overall progression or the development of any of the characters, including himself.

So, just to quickly sum up his role; in Sanctuary Arc, after 'sacrificing himself to defeat Shaka' (which is where Ikki's character should have come to and end) he battles Saga only to stall him so that Seiya, a worse character, can reach Athena's Statue. This is something that can easily be written around to bolster Seiya instead, or have the lesser Bronze Saint character group that had just rejoined the story take on (instead of sitting back 'guarding Saori'). Ikki then contributes to a combination attack against Saga, but its mostly done by lending his Cosmos to Seiya, which means in terms of a physical measurable character choice, it's too abstract a gesture to feel emotionally impactful.

Yes, that's all he does in Sanctuary after Shaka. He then fucks off cause he's too cool to hang with his little brother and his friends. Moving on.

He comes back in Poseidon to show off to Caça, saving Shun, Hyoga and Seiya's life from him. The battle climaxes with Ikki defeating Caça but declaring that "Caça would have won if he had used an illusion of Esmeralda instead". It sounds touching, until you realise that it shows how Ikki is STILL not over Esmeralda, this despite his redemption arc. This is because, without that permanent grief, Ikki has no good reason to justify being away from everyone else other than just that he's an anti-social douchebag. Then Ikki, again, contributes nothing to the battle with Kanon and Poseidon that Shun couldn't have been written to do on his own. All of his involvements are in Shun's presence and taking away opportunities from the story to write Shun heroically.

And then Ikki fucks off again after posing for the arc ending picture.

Notice how, once again, Ikki's appearance is entirely predicated on taking action away from the main characters against a villain written to be particularly dangerous. Caça and Kanon act as the Poseidon Arc's joker cards; characters designed to give the cast a big giant obstacle to look cool overcoming, except it's really all fed to Ikki instead, who looks cool doing it but otherwise does nothing in the plot.

Finally, he stays away from Hades for the most part, thankfully, only to then show up to get the story rid of Aiacos (which was written to the point of being a non-character at the time, just a big Judge Joker) and have a fruitless battle against a Hades-Possessed Shun that ONCE AGAIN is all about drawing tears from the audience about how Ikki can't get over himself and do his job.

It's Saori, the character EVERYONE calls useless, that actually saves Shun, not Ikki. If Saori is a "useless", like everyone always says, what does this make of Ikki?

Oh, and then Ikki returns in Elysium for one final coolness shot; he takes a blow from Thanatos so that the story can reinforce the idea of "Oh, no, trust me guys, Ikki is TOTALLY special. Thanatos says so. Cause he took a hit and wasn't written to just fall over."

And then the story ends with him contributing to another abstract combination attack, instead of making any character choices. We don't even get a personal confrontation between him and Hades for, you know, HAVING POSSESSED HIS PRECIOUS LITTLE BROTHER THAT IKKI IS SO MOTIVATED FOR.

Oh, and guess what, thanks to Next Dimension, we know that after all this, with Seiya crippled and Sanctuary in ruins, Ikki fucks off yet again, cause apparently nearly losing Shun to an evil God taught him nothing about the need to stay by his loved ones.

The Terribleness of Ikki

I don't know if you've noticed by now, but all Ikki ever seems to do is pop in front in the camera, talk about how cool he is, and then whine about how "Death Queen Island was SO hard" until he Genma-Kens someone. And then fucking off.

Does he have a life? Can we imagine that he goes to a bar or something to drink his sorrows, or works in a farm like Shiryu, when not fighting a Holy War? Or does he just stalk Shun, looking for opportunities to swoop in and look like the big pathetic attention-needing loser emo older brother that he really is?

It's almost like the character doesn't exist for any other reason other than to show up and look cool, like a decoration. Almost as if, bear with me, the story of Saint Seiya didn't really have anything planned for him past a certain point, so they couldn't give him any meaningful contributions to the story.

Meanwhile, just to compare, Shiryu has a whole character arc about overcoming his crippling blindness, which he manages to do:

A) Without using it as a prop-trauma for how cool he is;

B) Without pushing away his friends;

C) Without neglecting his duty as a Saint;

D) Without disrespecting all the struggles everyone else go through;

E) And without making it the sole defining characteristic of his personality, unlike Ikki "My-girlfriend-is-dead" Kido;

Which is frankly hilarious considering that the reason Ikki told off Seiya early in the story and left the group to be on his own was because, I quote "he doesn't work well in a team", cause he's such a hardass, right?

Sorry, Shiryu. You had that whole 'character development' thing going, but look how cool I look.

Yeah, well, everyone in Seiya's team does a better job at being a Saint than he does, so maybe Seiya was on to something when he almost punched Ikki that night for saying such a dumb thing. This, of course, without going into all the things Hyoga and Shun also go through to show upstanding and emotionally strong they can be. I only mention Shiryu because if I talked about them as well, I'd be writing this post all day.

So you might be asking "That can't be it, right? You have to be acting reductive, Thrud. This can't be the extenct of such an influential character's contribution?"

No, seriously, it really is. Ikki never grows past his distant, traumatised self, he never learns to overcome his pain and personality problems and all of his contributions to the story's challenges is to act as the sleeping giant behind Shun's smiley face.

We're pretty much at the end stretch of ND, and Ikki is YET to show signs of change. He's just done a bit of fighting and hasnt had any friendly interactions with anyone. It's 2024 and Ikki is STILL a giant asshole.

Even the thing he's most beloved for, his contribution to action, ultimately falls flat in story terms because most of the antagonists he takes on, with the exception of Shaka, are written to be just temporary obstacles to the story (like Aiacos) or are people Ikki saves Shun from (like Caça). Shaka has a whole thing involving challenging the Bronze Saints conceptions of evil, and in the manga he even has his manipulation of Ikki, but everyone else Ikki defeats look like they were written in just so that Ikki could have someone to look cool beating on.

Which is to say you could probably envision a version of Saint Seiya WITHOUT Ikki, and you wouldn't lose that much, story wise.

So why is Ikki so beloved? What is going on here?

Well, because simply put, the fandom identifies with how macho and action-oriented he portrays himself. They like him BECAUSE he's an anti-social prick who tells you "You can replace having healthy emotional development by just being a badass". And to some people, especially in shounen circles, that's the ultimate power fantasy, giving you a bigger trip than being reincarnated as the most overleveled slime demon princess.

But don't take my word for it, peruse the internet yourself and try to find someone defending him who doesn't talk about how "badass" he is.

The fact is, not just in anime but in media in general, a lot of people love identifying with assholes who put down everyone else's contributions to the group, act like they are above it all and fall back on a fantasy that "they don't need anyone" and "are secretly the best". They reinforce the idea you don't have to put in effort to make others like you, because you can just be violent and dismissive and that's somehow automatically worthy of admiration.

Yet, put anyone problem in the story that cant be solved with punching, or put anything too complicated in the story to solve with a Genma Ken, like Hades' possession and Poseidon about to kill Seiya at the Main Breadwinner, and chances are Ikki won't know what to do about it. His contribution will be to put a strong face about how he wishes he had a way to fix it, but what a shame, this will just be "another trauma to add to the pile, poor Ikki"

There are terms for these kinds of role models that teach you to dismiss emotional problems, that teach you to admire those who see their self-imposed solitude as a curse, or even strength.

They're called sigmas. You know, those assholes infesting male media who blame everyone else for their problems and think mysoginy is super cool? And look at that, people LOVE how Ikki told Pandora "he ain't feminist like Seiya and WOULD hit her if she stood in his way". What a badass! Ikki isn't gonna let this goth girl stand in the way of him... failing to save Shun anyway. Wow!

So cool, guys, right? Right?

This is where my point just devolves into a rant.

Ikki isn't just one of the worst Bronze Saint characters. He is, in fact, a terrible character just in general, who gets by on having a cool power suit and reinforcing his audience's pre-conceived notions about the world. Ikki teaches you from a young age that your problems are to be dug deep down, only to be brought up to shield yourself from criticism.

His staleness ends up rivaling Seiya's, and only fails to meet it cause Seiya's case is so comically bad. Ikki happens to make a good Bronze Saint action figure, so he remains popular.

But unfortunately his influence casts a long shadow. Saint Seiya isn't nearly as popular as it used to be, but there are tons of storytellers and story followers that have been influenced by him as a character. Bleach, by Tite Kubo, drew heavily from Saint Seiya in not just story telling, but story structure and characters.

Who do you think Byakuya, Rukia's stoic, overpowered older brother is modeled after, my lovelies? And look at that, he's just as overrated as Ikki is, to the point the author didn't have the courage to truly kill him off in his final story arc, even though his arc was done and done.

Rukia: Nissan, there's some weird guys in armor staring at us over there. Byakuya: Don't pay attention, Rukia, those are just the characters our author subconsciously based us off from. Just focus on your sand scuplture of how pretty I am.

And honestly, it's tiring to see people my own age still thinking and saying that the pinnacle of character design and development is characters like Ikki, and the long trail of 'stoic badasses' he has left behind.

I don't respect this kind of anti-social glorification any more. You might even say I think it's toxic. Obviously Ikki is just a character, a bunch of ink on paper, but when you take a step back and you look at the characters that have copied him, or the legions of people online making unhinged rants about 'strong masculinity' that would think Ikki IS inspiring (especially when he slaps the hell out of Pandora), and then you combine it with the 'hate' directed at the weak characters? Then he becomes more than that.

I just think that characters like Ikki make people miss the point of stories like Saint Seiya. And if you have a character that makes you miss the point of the story, who just stick around because their toys sell?

Then they're not good characters. Not in my opinion, anyways.

[canonsinthehead]

(Repost) Naruto/Boruto Headcanon: Chocolate Flavored Potato Chips, The Marriage of Karui & Chouji pt.1

SINCE I COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING ABOUT IT AND NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE, HERE IS IT. Let’s discuss the infamous couple that got people confused but I love them. It is such an unusual match and THE POTENTIAL FOR GOOD CONTENT IS HUUUUGE but you know how Naruto/Boruto writers are (not even going to go on how they met). Anyways we will go into a story/headcanon I’ve came up with going over their marriage ceremony. Hope you enjoy.

I Dont know if it needs mentionning but this has nothing to do with the Hollywood/Modern AU on this blog.

As we have seen for Hinata & Naruto, marriages are momenst when many (different) people get together in one accord to celebrate love. Well in the case of Karui and Chouji it's no different but with a twist. Based on the nature of their relationship, it is an occasion for two different countries to ‘’visit’’ and ‘’experience’’ each other's cultures just like Temari and Shikamaru’s marriage would (still waiting for that damn samba of Suna to show up). Kumo is a huge country yet many people in Konoha don’t know much about it (it's not as familiar to them as Suna). It’s like ‘’that country over there’’ & ‘’those foreigners”. The fact that the event took place in Kumo and not Konoha was a source of stress (fear of the unknown or a catastrophe knowing Killer Bee would be MC-ing the event) and curiosity. I Want to mention in this headcanon, they get married after Naruto & Hinata, and everybody lives.

In other words, It's Chouji & Karui's wedding. Get ready for a ride full of groove, love, and surprises. Also, my writing during the headcanon is not as bad as this intro don’t worry…

This is a repost from my old deleted Tumblr blog, it's already written and will not take long to post all parts. I’m currently trying to finish and post every project collecting dust in the drafts and in my computer, so enjoy.

-REACTION TO THE EVENT

TEAM 7

Naruto is LIVING, he cannot wait for the ceremony to take place. He has been waiting, preparing his stamina and dance moves for weeks; Killer Bee gave him personal intel on how the ceremony would play out and he cannot shake off his excitement. He went and told EVERYONE he knew that high-quality, the best of the ninja world, grilled beef is going to be served at the event. Naruto kept announcing that if you wanted to grab your ONLY CHANCE IN THIS LIFETIME to see Shikamaru dance (or anything adjacent to it) DON’T WASTE IT AWAY! Since he is part of the best men/bridesmaid’s crew (along with Samui, Samui’s brother, Mabui, Darui, Omoi, and other Kumo ninjas making him and Ino the only ones from Konoha in the team) and has something special organized for the event.

Sasuke wants to DIE. Not only he tried the best he could to escape this event knowing it took place in Kumo. Just by hearing Killer Bee's announcement, his brain started melting. He can sense the tsunami of problems from here and wants NONE OF IT. Unfortunately, Karin and Suigetsu wanted to go for good food and ‘’to have a good time’’. Suigetsu kept saying how the people of Kumo know how to have fun, but Sasuke can see through him and knows he will be sneaking in the shadows to get an autograph from Killer Bee. He doesn’t and will never understand Suigetsu’s music taste.

When he thought (ohhhh he thought) his suffering couldn’t get any worse, Itachi and Shisui insisted to go with him (somebody kill him). First, he doesn’t understand why Itachi was so enthusiastic to go (like he knows something he don’t know like always), and let’s not get started with Shisui and his dorky clown behind. This guy tagged along Itachi in the name of some grilled beef (Sasuke don’t see what up with this piece of flesh everyone goes crazy about, he thinks it’s gross since he is the most strict pescatarian you can find out there). Shisui has been practicing his ‘’groove’’ (poor attempt to fit in based on stereotype, I mean he listen to too much rap.) Sasuke knows he has a trick up his sleeve, and he is preparing to be a nation-wide embarrassment (I mean even alien would shake their head at him).

When Sasuke wanted to rip off every hair from his head, Madara (yes, him looking youthful like he just got reanimated) tagged along in the name of representing the Uchiha Clan (look the lie smh). When he found out, he got into heated arguments with any family members he fell on to find the reason for this weird turn of events but regardless of who he asked nobody knows (not even Fugaku, yep he is alive). Madara says he is bringing Obito with him so he can change his mind from his dead girlfriend (lol Rin is alive and coming too).

Sakura thought it was just another exciting wedding ceremony to participate in, something special to her dear friends. Since her friends will help and participate in her (eventual) wedding she must join in also because she vowed to do the same for everybody. It is a fun time for her, tasting the food, meeting new people, seeing everyone looking cute, and enjoying wedding drama (alongside Ino).

 One day as she was trying to find what to wear for the event, Ino showed her bridesmaid’s’ dress who goes with the theme/colors of the event (red & satin).

While the dress had a simple design, Sakura felt it was a little ‘’underdressed’’. In her opinion, there is something a little provocative with the outfit. Ino laughed greatly at Sakura’s reaction saying not only that’s the theme BUT she must look her best to go along with the other bridesmaids (she met up with them because they had to organize many parts of the event). According to Ino’s words “Contrary to you Miss Big Forehead, the women of the Cloud (as the rumors/stereotypes say) are curvy/thick girls. NOT LIKE YOU MY ANGRY SALMON SAKURA”. She can’t let them outshine her for the sake of her pride (but don’t get it twisted Ino gets along with everyone, she has some other motives because she heard the members of Kumo’s national basketball team were going to be present at the event and if she could get it before settling down it was her last chance).

Above, it’s the type of vibe the bridesmaids' team.

Sakura cringed more at her remark (insult) about her chest than whatever else was on her blonde friend's mind, she though how could her friend believe such foolish ideas. I mean Karui is almost shaped just like her, Shanaronnnn. The chest shaming must stop.

As expected, Sai just goes along with the flow but is glad to attend the wedding. Sakura and Naruto keep a constant eye on him since going to a foreign nation, we are walking in a field of mine. If he could offend many Hyuugas at Naruto’s wedding (because what he said got misconstrued and he was way toooo blunt, a mix of both)

Sakura has a headache just thinking about it. this is NOT the place to say something offensive or out of place, no no no. She deeply talked about it to everyone behind Sai’s back who is the only one who lacks insight on many things especially the plans Ino have for the night. Better if he doesn’t know, thinks Naruto.

TEAM INO-SHIKA-CHO

Shikamaru’s aching back and legs can’t wait for this whole mess to be over. When they announced that the groomsmen and bridesmaids had to put together a choreography he almost melted in place. While his sentiment towards dancing (hum meaning making himself the target for jokes from Naruto and Kiba for eternity) wasn’t the best and still rubs on him badly, he really wants the ceremony to go well and to make Chouji happy. So as absurd as it sounds, he put a lot of energy and interest into the preparation for the event more than what people would assume he does. He rehearsed with passion and stood the test by showing a high level of interest  (the boy even cried for Chouji countless times and will more in the future).

 Off course, he will go lay in a closet when the music will come, and people will start dancing and celebrating. He is pleased with how the event’s preparations look for now. He is deeply happy that Karui’s entourage is accepting and very loving towards Chouji.

Honestly, Chouji is SUPER NERVOUS. He almost passed out many times during the preparation of the wedding. While him and Karui are fine together, the idea of many not being good enough to her entourage and family makes him shake deeply. A little bit like he thought he would never get married but time and effort proved him wrong.

On her side, Karui doesn’t worry about it as much as him. Since she will be moving permanently to Konoha after their wedding, she knows her friends took a double portion of adrenaline to make the most lit party in the ninja world on her special day.

For the pre-wedding period, Ino almost quarantined her shinobi sisters to prepare for the event, she told EVERYONE to dress in some form of satin since it’s the theme. She went out of her way to provide dresses and fabrics from Kumo since their satin doesn’t stain when you sweat (for all that dancing I guess it’s breathable). She is the ‘’I’ll get your dress for you’’ type girl like a manager. Her family worked hard to make all the various flower arrangements, someone’s lack of fashion sense is not going to ruin this. She is so excited and can’t hide it. Honestly, she never really thought a day like this would ever come (especially in the way it did with Karui), so she can’t stop talking about the wedding and deeply disses anyone who wants to say anything negative about it.

TEAM 8

Kiba (who is honestly not a ‘’foreigner friendly’’ type of person when it comes to Kumo at least) regardless of his bold demeanor was encouraged by the presence of the quality food Naruto talked about and the possibility of seeing beautiful chocolate/caramel women. I think the Rap/Hip Hop (music from Kumo) Naruto showed him and both enjoy went to his head.

Shino goes along in all respects even if he is stepping outside of his comfort zone, he has neither bad nor delusional expectations and just wants to have a good time.

Has for the Hyuuga, this wedding is a very delicate situation. Due to what happened concerning Kumo and their clan (tried to kidnap Hinata and literally got Hizashi killed). So off course going to Kumo (for whatever reason) is not hot topic with the Hyuugas especially Hiashi who was against Hinata & Neji (yep, he alive too) attending the event. He had legit reasons not to want anyone of his clan to participate but an interesting turn of events took place.

First Hanabi was completely against not attending the event. Her and Konohamaru planned on having a good ole funky time at the wedding like they did at Hinata & Naruto’s wedding regardless of being more formal (I guess). She is determined to find Konohamaru anything close or even a girlfriend since her last attempt at Hinata’s wedding failed miserably. Also, she thinks (like the rebel she is, according to Hiashi) that the favor must be returned, anyone involved can’t just move sky and earth for her sister’s wedding but then drop the ball or lack the same amount of enthusiasm for another shinobi’s engagement especially one we consider to be an ally or a friend. She is more than excited to go outside of the Land of Fire, it’s like a vacation Hanabi already has a sightseeing checklist and items to purchase before going home (apparently, they have great BBQ restaurants and amazing street food). So, no time to listen to Hiashi’s rants, she pressured Hinata to join her since she appears indecisive (as always) not wanting to offend her father but at the same wanting to go for the sake of her friends. Ino has been bombarding her ears for the past months about the wedding how it’s the greatest thing on earth EVEN BETTER THAN HER MARRIAGE (no shame smh).

TEAM GAI

Neji doesn’t want to go and is 1000% against them going (especially Hinata). Not because of the situation with his father (the past is the past, and he has passed over the point of holding grudges at least in this department), it’s more because of … (cue rolling drums and a light Hyuuga superiority complex come on). Yes, you guess it… PREJUDICE (I’m not going to call Neij racist, that’s a big accusation I would say the biggest wing of the conservative bird). The people of Kumo and the whole Land of the Lightning give a bad taste in his mouth. It’s like meat to a vegetarian, it’s just No (no more, no less, just no).

He’s like Sasuke but colder and less open, at least Sasuke will secretly stay and endure to watch Naruto being the king of the dancefloor for his motives. When Neji saw how Hinata was being dragged to the event anyway by Ino, the other shinobi sisters, and Hanabi by force, he talked to her about it but Hinata finally made it clear that she was going out of respect (that’s the reason she gave him). He quickly changed his mind and FINALLY accepted the endless begging from Lee to join the event with his teammates.

‘’You’re so considerate, Neji! We are going to have a good time!!’’ screamed Lee.

Quietly Neji kept to himself but he had the self-appointed mission of watching Hinata’s back during the event. He firmly believes (based on what he heard and his own unrequested opinion) that many thirsty men are going to try to make moves on her married cousin again based on his assumptions.

Tenten is on board with Neji and kind of doesn’t have a good impression of the ceremony regardless of what Ino repeats day and night. Killer Bee left a bitter taste in her mouth, but she still has a remnant of curiosity and doesn’t want to miss her chance to enjoy the event by leaving Lee by himself since she first taught Neji refused to come. Tenten has mixed feelings about the wedding because of her relationship with romance but excitement for the ceremony grew on her.

On the side, LEE CAN’T WAIT. Weddings have a special place in his since it’s the perfect example of love (holding back his tears). Because they had to travel to get to the ceremony, he prepared his clothes and luggage months in advance (yes months, LEE BEEN READY). HE EXPECT NOTHING MORE THAN A GOOD TIME WITH GOOD PEOPLE.

SAND SIBLINGS

TEMARI AND KANKURO JUST WANT TO SEE SHIKAMARU DANCE. NOTHING ELSE TO SAY.

Kankuro, really wants to measure the level of ‘’fancy-ness’’ of the event and he wants to make sure they take note so they can do better for what they have in store for Temari’s marriage. He’s in the front marching with Lee and Naruto full of enthusiasm.

The sensei are here for damage control which includes Asuma (still alive and going strong), Kakashi, Tenzo, Guy & Iruka. Someone bringout the whisky and the whole bottle of Tylenol for Kakashi’s aching back and officially 5th sleepless night.

NEXT PART

[gwenpendragns]

NEW YEARS CLEAN-UP 🎊

rules: unburden yourself from the abandoned WIPS collecting dust in your folder and share 5 gifs, then tag five people. tagged by: @cardvngreenbriar tagging: @azoraahai @ughmerlin @usershelby @singularities @alinaastarkov (my bad if you've already done this 💕)

let me start by saying that i have millions of unfinished sets but i get annoyed and i delete them as soon as i feel the slightest bit of irritation so these are the ones i could find in my tumblr drafts (so the quality is probably shit but whatever)

rhaenicent + about you okay here's the thing - i was so excited about this one and looking back on it it's not that bad but light coloured scenes are the death of me. with my giffing style now i'd probably change the positions of where i have my girlies. also i couldn't find a font that i liked and to this day i think the typography looks ass so there's that.

shadow and bone every episode let me start by saying THIS GIF SLAPS SO FUCKING HARD and i know that. trust me. but when i went to make the other gifs they all failed to live up to it and so i deleted them. now this is all that remains of this fucking delectable set.

daenerys + quotes this was for a commission that i unfortunately could never finish and had to refund 😭 and this set straight up put me in a giffing slump and i didn't touch photoshop for MONTHS. i do love this gif but like the previous set, the rest of the gifs just didn't go well and i got so annoyed.

morgwen + bite the hand this gif....is amazing. i know. i see that. and i loved it at the time as well. but i could never find the motivation or inspiration to continue and it KILLS ME. i am my own worst critic.

[muirmarie]

(once again just posting a clean version that I can link back to (I have my mcspirk one pinned already so I'll link this on that as well), and my planning one is still here. I think these are probably all going to be st:tos, centered on mccoy, likely mcspirk or spones)

(if you're looking for my mcspirk bingo card it's here)

(if you're looking for my mcspirk month mYEAR fic list it's here)

_______________

Recorded/Broadcast Torture

Captive Push

Hurts to Breathe

Claustrophobia

Killing in Self-Defense

Forced to Kneel/Bow

Knife to the Throat - bandage up your body and your bones and your bad days too | mcspirk | ~5k | T | no major warnings | Bones is held at knifepoint. He's not a great hostage. He's also not a great patient. Jim and Spock are more than aware of his many redeeming qualities, however. [link to tumblr post]

Scarpia Ultimatum

Innocent Bystander

Chained Heat

Sensory Deprivation

Compelling Voice

Sleep Deprivation

Bridal Carry

Terms of Endangerment

Ears Ringing

Attack the Injury

Going into Shock

Tongue-Tied

Empathic Healing

Denied Food as Punishment - do you love your neighbor (is it in your nature) | mcspirk | ~20k | T | no major warnings | Leonard McCoy volunteers to spend ten days aboard the small vessel the Avery when the three medical staff aboard come down with the Berovian flu. He may live to regret it. Or rather: he’ll be lucky if he lives long enough to regret it. [link to tumblr post]

Cave In

Love Potion/Love Spell

I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

Shock Collar

[williamrikers]

you're making me consider watching those east asian (korean? japanese?) romantic tv shows you watch. do you have any recommendations for someone who tried to watch one (1) k-drama once (1x) and quickly stopped because the genre conventions were very different from what i was used to and that made it take more energy than i was expecting. (was expecting a typical romantic comedy plot like i'm used to and like, i think it was a typical romantic comedy plot but just like, not western)

like, is there a show that's relatively easy to get into? did i get unlucky with that one k-drama (and my own capacity for adjustment in that moment)?

also something that can help me watch stuff is episode summaries to read beforehand, if you're the kind of person who reads episode summaries sometimes and if so, do you have a recommendation for where to read them?

if this ask feels like work to you, please don't answer it. but if this feels like a nice chance to get someone into a thing you're into, i'd love to hear your recommendations

also i'm guessing they don't speak english in thesee shows, nor dutch, so like, would the first result on google for "show name watch free online" typically have good subtitles or are there things to watch out for or look for?

hi bestie, thank you so much for sending me this ask! i'm really happy to hear that my obsession has made you want to check out what the fuss is all about 😍 i've been almost exclusively watching shows from thailand for the past few months, and i'll gladly recommend some! (as for the episode summaries thing, i'm sorry i can't help you, i never read stuff like that.)

many of these shows are free to watch on youtube, and they usually come with english subtitles of varying quality. lately, gmmtv shows have had really amazing translations, but you need to be a bit forgiving with some of the older shows and shows made by other studios.

that said, let's get into the recommendations!

personally, i started this journey with kinnporsche the series (2022, 14 episodes), but that's like being dropped into the ocean from 500 feet above ground with no warning and expected to stay alive by any means necessary. the experience was absolutely amazing and 100% life-changing for me, and i've been showing kp to as many of my irl friends as possible because in my opinion, everyone should watch it, but as a first foray into thai bl it is... a LOT. (if that sounds intriguing to you, message me privately about where to watch it.)

however, here are some other suggestions in case you want to ease into the whole thing:

are you into comedy?

bad buddy (2021, 12 episodes) free to watch on youtube

this one became an instant classic and has a HUGE fandom here on tumblr. two college students have a shared history as the kids of two families who hate each other, and have been made to compete in everything since childhood... however, what their parents didn't plan for was the two of them falling in love. amazing chemistry between the main couple, will make you ugly cry.

my school president (2022, 12 episodes) free to watch on viki

super sweet romcom about a group of school friends who are in a band and are trying to win a battle of the bands type competition. the main love story is cute, heartfelt and very moving and you're going to end up wanting to adopt all of the kids.

care for some higher heat?

only friends (2023, ongoing) free to watch on youtube

if you want to get into something that's currently airing with a vibrant and active fandom, try only friends. everyone is problematic, morality is for losers, it's incredibly erotic, it's been three episodes and almost all of the main characters have already had sex scenes. plot what plot/insane college friend group without plot.

in case you would like to sob uncontrollably:

laws of attraction (2023, ongoing) free to watch on youtube

a man's niece is killed in a car accident that might actually be a murder. said man hires an unhinged lawyer to investigate. still airing (final episode will air on saturday), WILL twist your heart in such a way that you're probably going to need therapy. insanely heated chemistry between the main pairing, absolutely incredible acting from film thanapat.

moonlight chicken (2023, 8 episodes) free to watch on youtube

a poor restaurant owner is struggling dealing with raising his nephew, his own trauma and the pressures of capitalism. also, some guy he slept with keeps hanging around his restaurant because he wants to teach him to love again. this show makes you feel pain but it always hands you a cup of hot chocolate and caresses your back right after. aftercare for the viewer done right.

free philosophy classes wanted?

not me (2021, 14 episodes) free to watch on youtube

local group of gay anarchists are trying to bring a capitalist to justice. they discuss the concepts of justice and morality at length. what exactly is the power of art? if the law is unjust, then how to define justice? and how can we change the world for the better? made by a trans woman, a must-watch in the genre.

be my favorite (2023, 12 episodes) free to watch on youtube

what does it mean to live a good life? how can we ever know what choices to make? what if you could go back and change the things you did wrong? very gentle, compassionate and kind storytelling. this is my personal favorite bl after kinnporsche and about as far from kinnporsche storytelling-wise as anything could possibly get.

why not go for the classics?

until we meet again (2019, 17 episodes) free to watch on youtube

two college students discover they have a soulmate bond and get flashes of memory from their previous lives, making one of them incredibly traumatized as they try to find out what really happened back then. this one is truly a classic bl: filmed on a potato, atrocious audio quality, trope-heavy. however, the way this show manages to sneak up on you and threaten your entire life is unparalleled and i'm still not over those final two episodes.

he's coming to me (2019, 8 episodes) free to watch on youtube

this one is a hidden gem. there's almost no fandom for it on here but it's a show that i can recommend wholeheartedly. a guy falls in love with a ghost he keeps seeing in the cemetery and tries to help him unravel the secret of his violent death. features a whole bunch of actors who are now considered veterans/heavy hitters.

i hope this was helpful! message me if you have any more questions 😊

[fatherofthemachines]

The current state of character AI masterpost

Things they have done wrong:

-Made a tumblr style NSFW filter that causes association death and is slowly killing their site, even for users that have no interest in NSFW with bots whatsoever. Users who were around before it was put into place saw a noticeable drop in AI quality and it seems to only be getting worse because they were idiots and didn’t think to actually build a competent filtering system before releasing it into the wild. I legit have had the filter trigger for trying to hold someone’s hand and that’s not even going over how it slows down the AI as a whole and has been causing a decline. The filter also only blocks consensual vanilla sex and because the bots will try to find a work around, this has led to people having potentially disturbing/unwanted kink rps (noncon, DDLG, loli, incest, unbirth, ect) forced on them against their wishes by the bots because the bots are looking too hard for workarounds to consensual vanilla sex and will sometimes also just trigger these topics randomly for reasons that are unclear even if you are not rping anything NSFW at all. Keep in mind, minors are allowed on this site too so they are also experiencing this problem.

-Allegedly and supposedly hired underage moderators for their discord server full of bot fuckers while they were still using NSFW advertising tags for their site. (I do not have the screenshots I originally saw regarding this, but the entire thing is really shady regardless and I found instances of it being talked about that I do have links and screenshots for) (TW: Grooming mentions, but actual grooming is likely just false rumors. These are mostly just here to show that that the underage mods were being discussed)

-Admitted that they do not care about their users whatsoever and are just chasing investor money at their expense

-Insulted users who were just trying to ask for help

-Locked users out of the ability to edit their bots once they reach a certain amount of interactions. This was supposedly to “stop people from being sad their favorite characters were gone” but it’s pretty obvious that this is because popular creators were protesting and nuking their bots in response to their bad decisions and disrespect for the userbase.

-Released a faulty patch that made the bots so unusable that they basically only had 3 modes. This also resulted in a glitch where the bots would spam fetish terms more often. Luckily this patch was revoked by the devs, but it left many users wondering is they did this on purpose so that their already dying site would look better by comparison after they “fixed” the issue (a tactic known as anchoring). It is unclear if they actually did this with an intention to help or not and the mod response afterwards definitely does not help the situation.

[bassiter2]

i kinda don't understand poetry books. or short poems in general. i love poetry conceptually, with something being poetic just being a quality of writing, but just... tiny isolated poems? and compiled, too? doesn't it get tiring? it's the same reason that i can't enjoy a museum full of modern art but i still do appreciate tons of abstract art that i see on instagram or whatever. seeing one is cool and i can appreciate it. seeing a bunch over and over again makes it all blend together and feel like nothing at all. it's like when you say a word over and over against and it loses all meaning. thing is i do in fact own a few poetry books, like i have siken's stuff, but i bought them just knowing that he's gay and it's gay poetry and that everyone was obsessed with him, but then i read them.. and it was just kind of whatever to me. i wasn't moved. nothing stuck out to me other than what i was already familiar with bc i'd seen the stanzas on tumblr. the fact that some people read siken as a TEENAGER and got fixated then is utterly insane to me. like when *i* was a teenager i would exclusively watch movies that had gay stuff in it but also i would only pay attention when gay sex was happening. and i refuse to believe that others were deeper people than i was as a teenager bc that makes me feel bad and want to kill myself. i'm the litmus test and no one can be better than me. yeah i think you're all lying about being really moved by poetry it simply has to be just a scam or some shit

[actualsunflower]

I'm fairly new to your blog still, is there a post that explains Jay's plant thing? It sounds cool! 🌻❤️

I tried looking for the posts but tumblrs search is abysmal but I'm always more than happy to talk about Jay

The tldr is that it was a pre-war Vault-Tec experiment that replaces some of his dna with sunflower dna, which gives him plant like qualities (photosynthesizes, radiation doesn't bother him/can be beneficial, needs lots of water warmth and sun, smells earthy like sunflowers especially when wet, healed by sunlight). My inspiration was from how sunflowers are used irl, the Solar Powered and Ghoulish perks in game, and the plant dudes in New Vegas :)

I did also design an actual mutated version of Jay that looks more like the plant mutants but in his own canon he just looks like the regular dude I draw lol

The long version including the scientist's story: (warning cause it gets a little dark and gory)

Then, Cedric, who left Vault 22 after people there started turning into fungus creeps, starts traveling around looking for a good place to keep studying his plant-human mutations. He ends up a ghoul though, as his own experiment on himself didn't work. His failures and isolation in the vault started driving him mad. He travels to the Commonwealth, but has been slowly losing it and preforming more and more grotesque experiments on anyone he can capture. He takes up in the old Vault-Tec hq basement in Boston and sets up a lab there. He learns Jay is still alive and thriving, which means his initial experiment was a success.

Before the war, after Jay was shot in the head in Alaska he was in a coma for 3 months. He lived because of his inherited artifact powers, he is very difficult to kill and heals incredibly fast, he does still deal with a lot of side effects from it, neurological problems, bad migraines, PTSD, depression and anxiety. While Jay was at a hospital in Las Vegas still in a coma, a scientist also employed by Vault-Tec worked there (his name is Cedric he's important in Jay's story much later cause he's a ghoul and still alive) and was working on a side project. This guy was one of the scientists who was going to be in Vault 22, and he wanted to create a type of DNA splicing that would give humans the ability to process radiation and sunlight like plants, in this case sunflowers specifically. Not all plants can process radiation though, but I picked sunflowers for the symbolism part too. Because Jay was already pre-selected for entrance to Vault 111, Cedric thought Jay would be a great test subject. He wasn't able to object, he would be frozen and then released into the radioactive wasteland where radiation and sun would be plentiful to test the splice, he was the perfect subject!

Then, Jay was transferred to a hospital in Massachusetts, where he later woke up and was eventually sent home. Jay did not know this happened to him, and doesn't find out until much later when he's working on creating a vaccine that could help prevent ghoulification in people. He's aware for some reason radiation doesn't seem to effect him at all, so he does some tests on himself and realizes his DNA is weird as hell. Eventually tests show he's a fuckin plant, trying to figure out when/how this happened, he and Nick look for info through Vault 111 and at Vault-Tec hq, and eventually find records of the experiment done on him before the war. Jay is very pissed off about it though, as you'd expect when you find out someone fucked with your DNA while you were in a coma....

He starts going feral slowly, and has abducting and mutilating people, turning some of them into plant hybrids who quickly die or just leaving their bodies around to be found. Jay and Nick start investigating this 'serial killer' thinking it's a Pickman copycat. Eventually the trail leads to Vault-Tec hq, where Cedric traps Jay away from Nick and is super obsessed with him, crying and calling him a beautiful work of science and wants to keep him there to study him more as he's the only one who has survived and benefited from the mutation. The only reason the experiment worked on Jay is because of his inherited artifact powers which nobody but his dad and the Cabot's know about, anyone else who was messed with just suffered, mutated and then died or it didn't take at all. Cedric doesn't get why it worked on Jay but no one else and becomes violently obsessed, drugs Jay so he passes out. When Jay wakes up later he's strapped down (but he can get up no problem, he's very strong because of the artifact powers.. Not super crazy strong but still very strong) he gets up and in the same room are 2 other plant mutants, who are still alive but dying quickly and he freaks out and ends up putting them out of their misery. Nick was also knocked out and left in the room and Jay tries to wake him up but Cedric comes back and starts freaking out, going feral as he tries to re-capture Jay, and Jay has a hysterical panic attack where he ends up chopping Cedric with an axe as a last resort and kills him. (Nick is ok though, he's not hurt badly)

I wanted to build off of existing things in game like Vault 22, and also have a fun play on the perk system

[mysteryman-17]

* I… I did it!? * I DID IT! No more shall bad guys go unpunished!! * …Yet. Why do I still feel so… * Unfulfilled? * …and alone? * … * M-maybe that part comes LATER in my rule, yeah!! * Yeah… right.

Time’s End is an AHIT/Undertale crossover AU of sorts, taking place in the aftermath of a timeline where you lose the final boss fight against Mustache Girl. You can find the write-up here! In addition, you can find the write-ups for the Neutral Endings and TimeWarp Route Requirements on Google Drive! The logo for Time's End was designed by @bittybattybunny. She's an incredible artist, be sure to check out their work here on Tumblr and over on Twitter!! (if it hasn't imploded by the time you're reading this post anyhow lmao.) This track was a commission-turned-collaboration with my boi Wisteria Bird Studios. Be sure to check out his work too!

Motifs:

Judge, Jury and Executioner

Get Lost

Main Theme/Title Screen

You can also listen to this track in high quality on the AU’s SoundCloud here! The rest of the description is underneath the Read More.

Mustache Girl takes on a hybrid Asgore and Asriel role. Years ago, she took Hat Kid's Time Pieces and set into motion a chain of events that would drastically change the world as everyone knew it, and put it firmly in her hands to rule. She thought this would be the best way to serve "proper" justice back then, but now? She's just tired. Mu's been done with this for quite some time, and she feels deeply trapped. Trapped by the people she already turned against her years ago, by her (in hindsight) rather bullheaded quest that's lost all its appeal of pursuing, by the all-encompassing kingdom she never realized she didn't want… and by an unending feeling of loneliness and sadness. The spark that started this mess is long gone (and that's putting it lightly,) but Mu sure as hell isn't going to actually say it, let alone give up without a fight. Cause the one thing that never truly went away was Mu's stubborness/committment, no matter how much it tears her apart inside.

So, about the note regarding my boi Kristian's involvement on this track! I did indeed commission the track this motif was pulled from, and paid Kristian in full. However, something happened which caused him to be unable to finish the track. So I used what he had in the project file and took up the reins of finishing it myself. The actual track I commissioned from Kristian and therefore the one I finished will be posted here sometime later, and given the tag on this track, I think y'all can take a good guess as to what that will be! (Also any Doctor Who fans may recognize what we chose to base this and the larger track off of.) ;) Anyhow tho, this is just a simple edit of that track to fill in the Memory slot for the AU OST. Kill two birds with one stone n all that jazz, y'know? Hope y'all enjoy! :) (Also I'm admittedly not 100% on the name, but eh. Can't come up with anything else, so this is gonna have to work lmao)

[wjforever]

My introduction to Love Between Fairy and Devil.

I'm not sure what attracted me to this series. I saw some gifs in the tumblr and it seemed interesting to me. I was drawn to the beautiful pictures and the cold dangerous villain/protagonist. Like many of us, I believe. Dongfang Qingcang is the center of this series and many have fallen in love with this show because of him. I'm no exception. I was hooked on this character because it's just my type. And this despite the fact that I don't like Asian shows at all.

I must say right away that I didn't have too high expectations from the series. I saw and understood what I was signing up for. It was obvious to me that this was a naive colorful children's fairy tale, the quality of which leaves much to be desired, but I turned a blind eye to it. If you initially treat this as a performance in a children's theater, and not a deep, high-quality philosophical television masterpiece, then it's much easier to watch it. Yep, it's cheap, yes it's flat, but everyone is doing their best and God bless them.

What immediately caught my eye, even before the start of viewing, especially in comparison with more familiar Hollywood films, was a lot of CGI, not always of good quality, but most often frankly bad, plastic props, cheap fabrics, stereotypical characters and ideas. And most importantly - excessive cloying.

And yet I succumbed to the temptation, and turned on the series purely as a background noise while I was working. Such films are the very thing for this. You can stop watching if it starts to annoy, but most of the time you pay little attention to what's happening on the screen. For this reason, I watched with dubbing, which, by the way, was extremely crappy. Unfortunately, this happens often when it comes to such complex languages as Chinese. But I didn't care too much.

However, if the series hadn't originally been my background noise, I wouldn't have watched it, because the first episode almost immediately killed all my interest. But that would have been a mistake. Because it's really worthy. It's a shame that the pilot turned out to be essentially a failure, because I understand that many people may miss this masterpiece because of such a nuisance. I still gave the series a chance and didn't regret it at all. You need to merge into it, get used to it and fall in love with it, trying to delve into all the details and feel it in order to understand it better.

But the beginning passed me by. Bright, colorful, something is happening, but it doesn't cause much interest. A bunch of names that are hard to remember. A complex philosophy and its own cultural structure.

I wasn't familiar with this genre at all, so many things were initially incomprehensible to me. Probably, in order to better understand what's going on there in general, you need to read at least a little about this genre. To understand who the immortal celestials are, and how this whole system works. Because the series throws it all at you at once and you don't know if you should already understand everything yourself, because it's traditional for China or it should be like that and it will become clear later. I wasn't really worried about it and was more waiting for the bad guy to show up.

But still I was a little disappointed, sometimes I looked at what was happening condescendingly, and sometimes I just did facepalm. If you are also just starting out, don't give in to this false impression, give the series a chance, because the actors and the plot will save the whole story and the shortcomings can be forgiven.

As for the main heroine, I knew from the start that I would see just such a character, because it's one of the most popular type in Asian culture. I used to watch the Sailor Moon series a little bit (back then we didn't choose what to watch, but watched what was shown, haha). And Sailor Moon herself was my most disliked character, I loved those heroines who were more older. But I know that this is a very popular image of a stupid, squeaky, naive, cute, annoying, but kind, brave and fair girl. It's always annoyed me, but… it's popular. So, I was mentally ready for this and had no big complaints.

But still, even if I didn't expect too much, there is some magic in this series. Seeing all its flaws, I was still fascinated by it and at some point it was able to completely charm me. I surrendered without a fight. After a few episodes, I realized that I could no longer just watch it as a some background, that it attracted all my attention and distracted me from work. I giggled and worried along with the heroes. Although the secondary characters didn't evoke the same emotions in me as the main ones, except for the dragon, but I still enjoyed to follow the development of their stories.

I can't say which episode was the turning point, but over time I began to get distracted from the series only when secondary characters were shown, so not to often.

And this is one of the good things about the drama. It focuses on the main characters and continues like this for pretty much the entire episodes, so it was kept interesting to me. But the secondary characters are also at least not too annoying, and many of them evoke sympathy.

For the most time, when some show ends, I either quickly forget about it if it was mediocre. At most I go half a day under the impression of the final. If the series was really good, I can't recover for a long time. And it's even difficult to rewatch some moments, because there is a feeling of completion and it's kind of strange to go back to the beginning. There is something solemn about it, like saying goodbye to something close. And usually it takes me time to plunge into this story again, to start all over again.

But this show I wanted to rewatch. More and more. Because you suddenly realize that didn't understand something at the beginning, and you want to find out what you've missed. And there are quite a lot of such details in the series, as it turns out. Suddenly it's not a simple silly fairy tale, but something very complex and multidimensional.

I don't like to follow actors, their other roles and projects, and I'm not a big fan of BTS scenes. It's interesting, but it destroys some magic, because it emphasizes that all this is not real. But I didn't have enough. And I not only have rewatched the series several times, especially some moments. But I also have watched the anime episodes that have been released at the moment and have read the novella. This is completely totally different. But gosh, what's so special about these characters? I fell in love with them again like the first time and I can't get them out of my head. But I began to understand this world better. Better understood some details. And now I also want to watch the series with Chinese text in order to find out what was inaccessible to me due to translation problems.

Summarizing, this post is not really a review, but my declaration of love for this drama. Yes, it's not the most expensive and high-quality product. Yes, there are many flaws and mistakes in it. But this is very honest, sincere and thoughtful. And I love it, I love the logic in the narrative. When there is meaning from beginning to end and everything is thought out in advance, and not some ridiculous turns are invented. And I love games and TV shows with signs, hints, parallels and secret meanings that are not immediately clear. This is the beauty of Japanese games, for example. There is a lot of symbolism in them, as in Asian culture in general. And it conquers you.

Someone could consider the series superficial, and this is very in vain. This is absolutely not true. There is much more wisdom and philosophy in it than it may seem at the beginning.

If you are thinking whether this drama, which has suddenly become mainstream, worth watching, you definitely should watch this. Perhaps you won't get into this story and you won't like it. But if you like not superficial stories, then this is for you.

Somebody save me, because it seems I'm drowning in this)) This series has earned such recognition for a reason and it's a pity that fans are already switching to new projects. It's a pity that there won't be a second season and it's almost one hundred percent. And the author is unlikely to write a continuation of the novel, and even if so, this won't be something that I will like, unfortunately (judging by the epilogues). Expansion of the universe, stories about other characters are not the same for me, although I know that there are novels dedicated to other heroes and a crossover series is planned on TV. But I want to extend my time with this story and these characters. So I keep taking it apart brick by brick) Huh. The life of a fan is hard, especially for dying fandoms and when you too late for the party, lol.

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