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geckomoon · 4 years

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Yuri!!! on ice as irl skaters (part 1???)

Its 2020 and I miss yoi so here are my personal headcanons about which irl skater the you cast skate &/or act like because why the hell not.

(photos at the bottom of the post because I couldn't get the format to work the way I wanted it to)

Yuri Katsuki ➡️ Boyang Jin (China)/Evgenia Medvedeva (Russia)

Yes, 2 people because PARALLELS.

So my reason for saying Yuri is like Boyang is because, his step sequences are always gorgeous and his jumping power, oofttttt, and that one scene where Yuri tries a jump and lands in the wall, you know the one. Boyang Jin is known for jumping super close to the boards and scaring the hell out of us all, seriously, just watch one of his skates, it's amazing and terrifying. Also Boyang is a bit of a nerd and Yuri is canonicaly pretty into video games, nuff said.

Boyang is a two-time World bronze medalist (2016–2017), the 2018 Four Continents champion, a two-time Four Continents silver medalist (2016, 2019), the 2017 Asian Winter Games silver medalist, and a five-time (2014–2017, 2019) Chinese national champion.

Evgenia however, this is more of a parallel in how her 2018/19 season went and how Yuri kinda flopped. Zhenya had a crappy start to the 18/19 season, she'd just switched coaches and mover halfway across the world, for the 1st time in her senior career she didn't make the gpf. However by the end of the season she had bounced back and won bronze at worlds and my god what a skate that fp was. Remind you of anyone huh???

Evgenia has a lot of medals (and actually made a cameo in the end credits of episode 10) She is a two-time Olympic silver medalist (2018 ladies' singles, 2018 team event), a two-time world champion (2016, 2017), a two-time European champion (2016, 2017), a two-time Grand Prix Final champion (2015, 2016), a two-time Russian national champion (2016, 2017), silver medalist at the 2018 European Figure Skating Championships and bronze medalist at the 2019 World Championships. Also, she is a huge Anime fan and has a sailor moon exhibition program and its adorable.

Victor Nikiforov ➡️ Yuzuru Hanyu (Japan)

I know a lot of people compare Yuri to Yuzu but I think Victor is a better fit.

Yuzuru has a legion of super duper dedicated fans, they are pretty scary at times. If you watch the 2018 Olympics, the ice literally was covered in Pooh bears after his skate. People love this man, and rightly so. Clearly Yuri isn't the only one who loves Victor, he's very popular in the yoi skating world and almost everyone loves and looks up to him.

His skates are almost immaculate every time. Not only is his technique amazing but his artistry is what really sets him apart from other skaters who may have higher bv on jumps etc. Not that he dosent have high bv, seriously he tries combos that are super wierd just for the bv (see the wierd 4t-3a combo thing he does idk). Plus he's dead set on doing a quad axel. See Victor's super high bv with all the quads and also the fact everyone goes nuts over how his skating is 'like no other'.

Also his medal collection is absolutely mad, he is a two-time Olympic champion (2014, 2018), two-time World champion (2014, 2017), four-time Grand Prix Final champion (2013–2016), Four Continents champion (2020) and three times silver medalist (2011, 2013, 2017). Just like how Victor is canonicaly an Olympic champion and 5x world champion and probably many time euros champ.

Also, he's a sweetheart, he literally crawled behind Shoma Uno because he didn't want the attention taken away from Shoma. I love him.

Victor Nikiforov gives big Yuzuru Hanyu energy.

Yuri Plisetsky ➡️ Yulia Lipnitskaya (Russia)/Alexandra Trusova (Russia)

Again, 2 people.

It's canon that Yuri P was modeled after Yulia for the flexibility and artistic portion of his skates so I feel like I don't need to elaborate much in it however his determination and his wanting to back load with quads reminds me a lot of Sasha Trusova.

Sasha only started juniors the year after yoi came out (she had a Makkachin tissue box which was given to her by Evgenia M which is adorable) so she was not really that popular when the show was being made but she really made a statement when she became the 1st woman to land 2 quads in 1 program (4 salchow and 4 toeloop) at the age of 13 at 2018 junior worlds.

She has just started senior and this season she had 5 quads in one program and I think I cried. She now has a quad sal, toe, flip and lutz and is apparently working on a loop. On top of that she can land a 3 axel but has yet to do so in competition. Did I mention SHE'S 15 AND I'M TERRIFIED.

She currently holds the world record for the free skate (166.62 points). She is the 2020 European Bronze Medalist, the 2019 Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, the 2019 Skate Canada champion, the 2019 Rostelecom Cup champion, the 2019 CS Ondrej Nepela champion, the 2019 Russian national silver medalist, and the 2020 Russian national bronze medalist.

Her determination to win and high TES reminds me of Yurio a lot.

Phichit Chulanont ➡️ Nam Nguyen (Canada)

This one is fun.

I love Nam with all my heart, he's actually my favourite male skater and not just because of his skating. However his skating is great. He is the 2014 World Junior champion, 2019 Skate Canada silver medalist, and two-time Canadian national champion (2015, 2019). He has placed as high as fifth at the World Championships, in 2015. He's not the best skater ever, kinda like Phichit but his personality shines through so much when he skates and I love it.

My main comparison to Phichit is the fact that Nam Nguyen is a huge meme. His Instagram is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen (@ namnamnoodle). I can't explain it with words seriously just go look at it, he makes memes using professionnally taken skating photos of himself and honestly it's just a giggle. He's almost always posting on his story and half the videos he takes end up on fan twitter and everyone freaks out.

Also he's good friends with Evgenia, thought I'd mention that seeing as who I compared her to :)).

Yeah, Phichit and Nam are memes and I adore them both.

Jean-Jacques Leroy ➡️ Nathan Chen (USA)

Jj is definitely more of a technical focused skater. He tends to put all his eggs in the '800000 quads' bucket and isn't as artistic, in my humble opinion.

Just like Nathan surprisingly, though Nate isn't as egotistical (not a dig, just an observation).

Nathan is compared to Yuzu a lot, and had actually scored higher than him a few times in competition. He is an amazing jumper and is the first skater to have landed five types of quadruple jumps in competitions: toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip and Lutz. Currently he is two-time World champion (2018, 2019), a 2018 Winter Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, the 2017 Four Continents champion, three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2017, 2018, 2019), and four-time U.S. national champion (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

So yeah, he's good.

However at the 2018 Olympics (he was only 18 at the time) he bombed under pressure in the team event and in the sp, only to come back with a WR free skate, but didn't medal because of his sp score,kinda like how Jj bombed at the GPF. (Ngl, I cried in school when I saw Nate bomb at the Olympics, I was so upset).

Also, Nathan is super smart and is training to be a doctor. Not related to Jj but I thought I would point it out.

Christophe Giacometti➡️ Adam Rippon (USA)/Javier Fernández (Spain)

Chris is a hard one to pin to an irl skater because he's just so... Chris.

The closest comparison I can get is Adam Rippon but dialed up to 11 because Adam is quite a bit more tame than Chris is. However he did have a point in his sp where he literally beckons the judges to him in a way that can only be described as vaguely sexual. Seeing that at the Olympics was an event I'll tell you that.

Adam was the first openly gay man to make a U.S. Winter Olympic team, and the first to win a medal at the Winter Games. (team bronze).

Plus, I'm pretty sure he owned a Chris plushie at one point or another.

However other than the obvious Chrissness, his technique and medal winning achievements most closely match up with Javier Fernández (who may I add is pretty much Yuzuru Hanyu's best friend). He is the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time World champion (2015, 2016), a two-time World bronze medalist (2013, 2014), a seven-time European champion (2013–2019), a two-time Grand Prix Final silver medalist (2014, 2015), a three-time Rostelecom Cup champion (2014–2016), a two-time Grand Prix in France champion (2016–2017) and an eight-time Spanish national champion (2010, 2012–2018). Javi is an amazing skater but usually ended up playing 2nd fiddle to Yuzuru on the world stage, but with euros, he literally won 7 times consecutively. Anndddd, he was the flag bearer for Spain at the 2014 Olympics and I still cry about it.

Otabek Altin➡️ Denis Ten (Kazakhstan)/ Matteo Rizzo

So it's canon that Otabek was based on Denis (rip Denis) so like Yuri and Yulia I do not feel like I need to elaborate much as you can read it on the wikia page. But Otabek also reminds me of a less talkative version of Matteo Rizzo. Matteo is the 2019 European bronze medalist, 2018 NHK Trophy bronze medalist, 2019 Winter Universiade champion, and 2018 Italian national champion.

The reason he reminds me of Otabek is that they just joth exude the same level of cool and I can't explain it any further than that. That's it. Just watch him skate and you'll see.

So that's all I have for now because this post got pretty long so if this gets enough attention I'll do a part 2 :)).

#Yuri on ice #Yoi #katsuki yuri #victor nikiforov #yuri plisetsky #phichit chulanont #jean jacques leroy #christophe giacometti #otabek altin

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televisor-reviews · 5 years

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Everything Of Note I Have To Say About “Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil” Season 4!

As I’m sure you’re aware, the great animated series Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil has recently concluded and I have a ton to say about it... So I made a list!

1. Spoilers...

2. Duh...

3. Before anything, I absolutely loved it! This was the finale this great show really deserved.

4. Let’s start from the beginning: I’ve been watching Star Vs. for a few years now when a good friend of mine recommended it to me. At first I was resistant because the advertising for it at the time was god awful, but luckily I was convinced otherwise and been loving it ever since.

5. The show premiered when I was a teenager, going through all the cliche teen shit. So seeing a show that portrayed the overly dramatic life of a teenager without being one of those stock teen dramas was a good change of pace.

6. In particular, I remember being amazed that it could be so relatable while still being able to have it’s upbeat and fast-paced fantasy/sci-fi action sequences and world while also having a good mixture of mature and juvenile humor. I mean, all of that would seem to work against each other and yet this show made it work in spades.

7. Actually, the way Star Vs. uses it’s fictitious setting to complement its down-to-earth characters while juggling great humor reminds me a lot of a different Disney property: Guardians Of The Galaxy. GOTG, I think, is the perfect film to study if you want to ever write for sci-fi or fantasy because director James Gunn understood that you can have as wild and crazy of a world as you want but you still need to write your characters as genuine as possible. If you don’t, you’ll get something like Avatar (the movie); a film that everyone remembers liking because of the incredible world and even better effects, but no one can name a single character or plot-point. The universe still needs to be grounded by the characters or else it’ll become forgettable and un-relatable. Star Vs., thankfully, does not have this problem. I love the characters, their trials, their tribulations, all because they feel real despite the world in which it takes place.

8. That isn’t to say there isn’t a reason to set a story in a fantastical world or that there isn’t an issue with being too relatable. If anything, the world of the show helps to make it more entertaining, less monotonous, and more unique. Without it, Star Vs. would be another Pretty Little Liars or Zoey 101 or Dawson’s Creek or any other boring teen drama out there. They’re practically identical because they start off too similarly! They all follow around relatively normal teenagers in a relatively normal world with their relatively normal life and god do none of them stand out. So Star Vs. separates itself by still keeping its characters pretty wacky and the universe as crazy as Daron Nefcy’s imagination!

9. Even by a storytelling perspective, this makes more sense because there is objectively more that can be done! By the end of Zoey 101, Zoey and her lame crew basically did everything they could do without jumping the shark too much. In comparison, there are countless adventures Marco and Star could go on even past the series finale.

10. And because the number of future adventures are countless, part of the tragedy of the show ending is that we (the audience) don’t get to experience them alongside these characters we’ve learned to love so much. Keeping that door open leaves a much longer lasting impression on the audience, as apposed to the ending of Zoey 101 in which... wait, what happened again? I don’t remember. Anyways!

11. I love the comedy in this show! From the very beginning, the humor was very lighthearted and yet mature because it had to be. It had to have a tinge of maturity to it because the target audience isn’t little kids like it would be for a show like My Little Pony or SpongeBob. Star Vs., with it’s doomsday atmosphere and constant teen drama, was definitely geared more towards older children/preteens. The ones more likely to watch a show like Gravity Falls or Rick And Morty and this audience will not tolerate childish humor. They can appreciate it sprinkled in here and there but if used too much, they’re taste will sour. This is because as they are maturing to to start maturing into adulthood, there is the natural need to separate from childish things with the added childishness of wanting to totally separate from it. That’s why on The Loud House, a punchline could literally be poop and why that is not something you’d see very often on Star Vs.

12. With that said, the show still needed the humor to be incredibly lighthearted because otherwise this show would be so depressing! The worlds in which these characters live in and know are constantly changing, evolving, and almost blowing up. For Christ sake, many important characters die in this finale! The only one who died in Gravity Falls was the villain and in this, the villain isn’t even one of them! Seeing Marco and Star still be able to crack jokes to one another and making each other laugh keeps spirits high. God knows Hekapoo can’t do that now!

13. Speaking of Marco and Star, I have been a hardcore Starco defender from the very beginning despite the show constantly trying to convince me otherwise! There are so many perfect pairings in this cast that any one of them could’ve worked if Nefcy were top change her mind. If it ended with Star x Tom or Marco x Janna or Star x Janna or Marco x Hekapoo or Marco x Tom or Marco x Kelly it would’ve worked perfectly well.

14. But lets not kid ourselves, it was always going to end with Marco x Star. Their relationship and chemistry is unmatched, they might be the only couple in existence to say a joint line like “With or without magic, we were always meant to be together,” work and come off as not only sincere but true. I don’t even believe in the whole “soul mate” mumbo-jumbo, but I’d be damned if they are not that!

15. I audibly squealed in delight when they finally got together. It was like the build-up of four season culminated in one scene.

16. Though it wouldn’t really surprise me if I was alone in this assessment because I am a sucker for a good romantic movie. I saw La La Land in theaters, I cried at Love, Simon, I actually really love Love Actually. And though I do think Star Vs. pulled off relationships better than most, take my opinion with a grain of salt because the build-up itself was a little grating.

17. I have a huge issue with “will-they, won’t-they” stories! It’s the same issue I had with The Office and Friends and The Big Bang Theory and Sailor Moon and That ‘70s Show and every other show that has this dumb trope! Of course they’ll get together because otherwise I wasted several hours of my life wondering about it! Star Vs. isn’t as bad about this as most others but it’s still there and it’s still annoying.

18. It does this better than most because of three main components: it’s relatively short, we get plenty of Star and Marco being all lovey-dovey with each other once they do get together, and they do have genuine chemistry together. They have so much chemistry that Star’s ex literally told Marco that they were clearly into each other. If only they could’ve avoided the trope.

19. Okay, this next point is a little personal but it did effect my feelings towards this show’s finale so I think it’s kind of important that I mention it. Around the time the Star Vs. was ending, I was just entering my first real relationship and around the time I watched this finale, we lasted long enough that we could start taking the relationship a little bit more seriously. Now before anyone says anything: everything’s going great (she actually made me my header) and I am absolutely still in a honeymoon phase with her. But I think you could imagine how a lovesick teen just entering a serious relationship would be effected by this show that ended with lovesick teens so in love that they’d happily sacrifice themselves for the other.

20. I may or may not have also been high while watching this and that may or may not have effected my viewing experience. Don’t be a narc!

21. I love what this last season did with Ludo. Push away the fact that they somehow keep talking Alan Tudyk into these rolls he clearly does need to do and yet still does a great job at it (did you know he was King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph? Why? Why did he do that? Why is he so good in it? This guy’s casting decisions are so weird). The character of Ludo was a generic comic relief villain (see Doofenshmirtz) but was usually fine if only because he made for a good contrast and was way more interesting compared to Toffee (played by Michael C. Hall, another actor who does not need this job). But season four made Ludo a million times more interesting by showing his obsession with the wand exactly what it is: and unhealthy obsession that he needs to get over. And I like where he’s left by the end, clearly still not doing too great but is making strides to get better. As someone who has known many addicts in my life, this hit home a little.

22. Actually, I think a large part of season four was specifically meant to fix the first two mediocre seasons. Just look at my new favorite episode of the series: Britta’s Tacos. In this episode, Star and Marco find themselves back on Earth after a year of being on Mewni and catching up with all of their friends and seeing what’s changed. Watching this episode, I was reminded that as good as the first couple of seasons were, the latter half of the series was a ton better! The characters, character arcs, stories, everything, everything was better once they went up to Mewni. So seeing them go back to Earth and challenging the writers with rewriting their past characters to be more interesting showed just how much the series has improved. Could you imagine characters as uninteresting as those nerds I don’t even remember the names of being introduced in the much more interesting latter seasons? I couldn’t! So I appreciate that they went back and made sure every character in this show was interesting... except for Toffee, he still sucks.

23. And of course, the character that improved the most, hands down was absolutely Jackie Lynn Thomas! She was as bland and boring as a love interest got and that bothered me from the very beginning. How is it that in a show this imaginative and unique they still felt it necessary to use this tired cliche. So bringing her back, the writers had to do something to make her more interesting and it was apparently really easy. All they had to do was keep the character herself basically the same but now she’s a lesbian. And somehow, just adding that one extra layer made her feel so different, so interesting, so complete. I think that’s what it was, she just felt like an incomplete plot point and giving her a girlfriend completely separates herself from being important to the plot and adds that extra layer to make her seem more finished as a character.

24. I’m actually really surprised by this recent trend of LGBTQ+ characters in kids cartoons. You’d think that of all mediums, kids cartoons would be the last to fully integrate a controversial minority but they’ve been some of the first. Steven Universe really started this trend but I feel like The Loud House was the first to show and say it outright. Star Vs. doesn’t do it that well (and I’m willing to bet that was because of higher-ups over at Disney) but I appreciate the sentiment anyways. They never call Jackie and her girlfriend a couple or show them kissing, the most they do is have them hold hands and though I guess that’s enough, I wish they were able to go further. Whatever, I already wrote about why this representation in kids media is important, go read that.

25. For a while, Star was my favorite character in this show. I just have a real soft-spot for upbeat female badasses (and I am very happy this has become more of a trope recently), I think Janna might’ve taken the throne. It’s not that Star stopped being interesting or anything like that, I just really love Janna and her “Jannanigans”. Plus, I do really like the “cute girl who’s into weird shit” trope too. She’s not my favorite version of this trope (see Raven from 2003′s Teen Titans), but she was always a delight whenever she was on screen.

26. Tom is probably the most obvious example of “boring character was made interesting” that the show has. In the beginning, he was the standard bad boy archetype but, over time, was given more personality and started working off the other characters much better. Sure, he and Star worked great with each other as to be expected, but I think the real standout relationship he had was with Marco. I have never seen bromance as strong as what those two have. Their little musical number at Queen Moon’s cornonation turned talent contest might have been the greatest piece of animation ever made (change my mind). And this I know people agree with me, I cannot exaggerate just how much literally everyone I have ever spoken to loves Marco and Tom. It just works so strangely, it has to come off as genuine.

27. I think the series was supposed to go on for another season. I say this because Kelly was too good of a character to waste like they did! She was a great character with tons of personality and amazing chemistry with Marco that was seemingly building up to something... only to drop the ball at the end. She isn’t given much to do, she doesn’t have a final scene with Marco, she isn’t even given a good ending. The most we got was Ponyhead theorizing what her life would be like just to cheer up Star. If that was all they were going to do with Kelly, that’s just a waste of perfectly good build-up.

28. It’s very strange how on the nose these metaphors in the show got at times while still seeming perfect. I guess it had to be on the nose so that the younger audience could catch on to them but I’m not sure what the’ll do with the knowledge that magic=nuclear power. Also, the monsters kind of changed metaphors, originally they were clearly meant to be Native American stand-ins but later on they kind of changed into African American stand-ins. Not that they’re histories (in America) are all that different but it was a noticeable switch. It’s not like Zootopia where any given animal could represent any number of races depending on the scene in question, this was definitely what Star Vs. was going for and I’m not sure if it totally worked. It didn’t NOT work, I guess.

29. I actually don’t like the whole “blowing up the magic” thing. It was something Star made up in a temper tantrum and goes totally against the theme. The whole time, the show was going on about how important integration is and how “separate but equal” doesn’t work and whatnot. So destroying the only way they know how to travel through different dimensions seems contrary to that point. I get that drastic times need drastic measures but I get the feeling that in a theoretical season five, Star and Marco would work to bring back the magic. Or maybe find a more scientific way to travel through dimensions... like some kind of portal gun. We already know this takes place in the same multiverse as Rick And Morty, it’s not that crazy an idea.

30. Another reason I think there was originally going to be another season is because the whole “Mewmans are humans” thing that came right out of nowhere! I mean, it makes total sense and I’m totally down with this plot point but it seems like that would be a much bigger deal than the characters make it out to be. My god, they don’t even let Marco finish explaining this. How the hell did that cave painting get to Earth if they didn’t run into Glossaryck until they got to Mewni! Explanation please!

31. I wish destroying the magic didn’t also mean killing off Glossaryck and Hekapoo. I don’t really care about any of the other characters literally made out of magic, but those two are just so likable and such fan favorites, it’s just a shame to see them go. Though I do really like that they’re reaction to the whole thing seems to just be a mild shrug. I get the idea that since they’ve lived for millennia which would make them more okay with dying. It’s easier to live a full life if you can’t die.

32. I like how Mina’s story ends: defeated and yet still refusing it. Her whole speech about having good ideas really says something, like these issues will never be fully defeated because everyone thinks that they’re right. It’s a bit more of a bittersweet moral than “bad always loses because they’re bad” but is an important lesson that I think kids need to learn. Especially in this political climate. Good god, just end me!

33. Holy shit, I’m up to 33! My Wakfu one only made it up to 25 and I am nowhere close to done yet!

34. A psychotic part of me really wishes the finale had Star and Marco die in each other’s arms in the Magic Dimension. It’d be the ultimate show of love as they’re sacrificing each other for one another and be the ultimate ending. I mean, what more is there to care about after the main two characters are dead? It’d be very bittersweet and much more emotionally taxing on the audience but it’d also be more classic. Like Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde, they’re love was just too strong for this world.

35. With that said, that part of me is absolutely wrong! Having their dimensions merge was clearly what the series was building up to with it’s hopeful tone, the power of love being a big theme, the message of integration, and (of course) the promise they made to Meteora and Hispanic Meteora. It seems so obvious in hindsight and yet I still didn’t see it coming, I guess that’s a sign of a really good plot twist.

36. My god, everyone is such a dick to Queen Moon. Like let her be in love you jackasses. I had such a hard time liking anyone who worked against her (which is why I really like that Hekapoo had reservations on both sides the whole time) and this includes Ex-Queen Moon. I really can’t grasp my mind as to why she thought this was a good idea, it clearly wasn’t from the very beginning. Maybe if the show gave her time to explain herself I’d be singing a different tune but she never really does and I have a hard time forgiving her even after her apology.

37. This is just a reminder that Starco is best ship. Repeat, Starco is still best ship.

38. The ending reminds me of Titanic. I mean, two young lovebirds meeting each other, growing closer, and falling in love all the while a looming threat of destruction and death is above them. The epic scale of their problem being brought down to earth by the almost normal love story happening in the midst of it all. Their ever ready willingness to sacrifice everything for each other. Their world forcing them to cling to each other for protection. The grand scale of everything around them making their love seem grander than it would be without it. Yeah, there are more and probably better examples I could turn to for comparison (Romeo And Juliet, Les Miserables, Spartacus) but Titanic was the first one to come to mind and I’m sure my subconsciousness has a good reason for that.

39. I continue to have problems with this finale but I get the sense that I’m nitpicking because this was still an amazing end to a great show. When I think about this ending, the first word that comes to mind is deserves. This is the ending that the story deserves, that the characters (minus Kelly) deserves, that the show itself deserves. It really is a fantastic finale and I’m so grateful that I got to experience it.

40.

#star vs the forces of evil #marco diaz #star butterfly #daron nefcy #disney #disney channel #disney xd #animation #cartoon #finale #season 4 #starco

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devintrinidad · 6 years

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10 GIFs of Anime that You Love, Then Tag 10 People

Just got tagged by @chemicalflashes.

Durarara

One of the first few anime I watched. I adored how the intricate stories were intertwined with others; how a bystander in one scene could be a hero or a villain in another. A choice that one makes can easily have devestaring consequences. And of course, the mastermind himself: Orihara Izaya.

Death Note

Oldie, yes. Overrated, probably. Completely worth watching and still able to discuss a decade after completion? Along with a few movies, musical adaptations, and a live action remake? Oh, yes!

Favorite characters are Near and Misa. The former for his cool nature that resembles L’s, but ultimately serves as a better allegory for Justice because he doesn’t find Kira for fun. No, he captures and probably would have him imprisoned for life because it’s his duty as L’s successor. He’s also heavily under-appreciated by the fandom. The latter for her adaptability and unpredictability in situations. Did you guys watch the Yorsuba arc? The girl was calculating how cute she was going to be. Plus, she’s not mentally well (her parents were murdered in front of her), but she still managed to handle herself SO WELL during her time as a prisoner under L’s inhuman methods to seek out the Second Kira. Again, she’s under-appreciated.

Death Parade

Brilliant idea. Has a possible tie in to Death Note. The opening was laughably so misleading!

There are some flaws, like plot holes and unfinished storylines, but it held up pretty well. We learned about the characters through how they interact with one another—especially when put under pressure. The Arbiters are amazing in that they can’t question the system, and yet, in the end, Decim tries to understand and formulate how Chiyuki is going to be finally put to rest.

If nothing else, just watch for the skating scene and the opening sequence.

Cells at Work (Hataraku Saibou)

How could I not add this show??? I’m not that great science, but I have been intimately acquainted with how the body works (I’m frankly disappointed no one has called 1146 a granulocyte yet and we haven’t seen any neurons in the manga 😞). Also...3803 is basically me: I’m terrible at directions, I’m continuously learning new things because I moved away, and the way she met 1146...is kind of how I met my best friend, hehehe.

That said, I’m really in love with this anime/manga fandom and hope to continue writing for it. (Insert self promotion: please read my fanfics on my main platform which is ffnet!)

Another reason why I love CAW...

The neutrophil squad.

...and wbc x rbc...and by that, I mean any or all of those wbc squad can get paired with 3803. Because I have a soft spot for reverse harems. *cough Ouran High School Host Club*

Hetalia: Axis Powers

This show made me love geography and my country so much. It’s funny, it’s hilarious, and it’s so heartwarming how the fandom likes to make all sorts of fanmade stuff to expand on what Hima-papa gives us. (YES, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2018, I SHALL REFER TO HIMARYU-SENSEI AS HIMA-PAPA. FIGHT ME.)

Is Hetalia dead? I don’t know, but the fandom and one particular FanFiction by @cultureandseptember really helped me out a few years back.

Bungou Stray Dogs

I love literature, good looking animation, and smarmy little know-it-alls who like to play the fool. Hehehe, I’m planning on reading No Longer Human when I get the time. Does that mean Osamu Dazai is my favorite character? Well...

Can you blame me if I said yes? He’s so charming and enigmatic that you can’t help but love him. However, I think I really love him because I struggle with dark thoughts and suicidal ideation from time to time. I haven’t actively sought it out quite like he has in the past, but well... hehehe! I can also relate because he’s kind of like an outsider in the Agency due to his past—he’s different because he can’t actively cancel out your abilities, which always makes him a threat.

Anywhoozles, I’m still waiting to see the movie...Le sigh.

K Project

This. This is not the best anime out there. Seriously.

The animation gets wonky here and there, they do the women in here a huge disservice, and they put too much emphasis on how great Mikoto Suoh. Like, he’s great and all, but the dude has no effect on the story except for the last season.

With that said, I think the main selling point here isn’t the anime, but the side materials like the manga/novels. You get to appreciate the backstories of so many of the characters and you get to feel for them because some of them have suffered so much! (Read: Fushimi Saruhiko).

I think you can get the same amount of enjoyment if you stick to the novels/manga.

Favorite characters: Scepter 4 Alphabet Squad. They are the best boys. Also, Lieutenant Awashima Seri. And Fushimi Saruhiko. You know what? Just put down Blue Clan here. They’re all nerds and they enjoy it.

Also: Domyoiji Andy reminds me of U-4989 from CAW. So...

Violet Evergarden

Remember how I said that I liked literature? This entire anime is about the power of not only the written word, but of also the act of writing, sending, and receiving those words. The anime may be episodic in nature, but you can really connect with the character through her terrible backstory and really feel for her when she realizes that she needs to face her past. PTSD is real and I think the anime really handled the post war aspect of this torn down world really well.

I’m also a sucker for typewriters, steam punk, and characters that don’t really know how to function in society (but learn over the course of the story).

Watch this if you want feels...and get ready for episode ten.

Samurai Champloo

This takes place in feudal era Japan.

But there’s rapping.

And breakdancing.

And guys spraying paint everywhere.

Also, there’s a sunflower samurai we gotta look for???

Hahahah, while episodic in nature, this was a joy to watch. You never get to know the characters really well and when we reach our mission’s end, it seems to fall short, but it’s not about that. The journey is what makes this anime worth it simply because the characters interactions are rife with hilarity and all three mains balance each other out. There’s a fanfic out there that describes them in detail, but in a succinct manner that had me melting. (https://m.fanfiction.net/s/2351750/1/The-Order-of-Things) check it out when you have the time.

Anyway, for those of you who have watched it, I sincerely hope that they meet again in the future.

(But, let’s be real. They probably didn’t).

Tokyo Mew Mew

Guys.

This isn’t a joke.

I have a soft spot for this anime because this was my first ever anime I watched where I realized that this was anime. This was like my gateway anime. Not Sailor Moon. Not Naruto.

This.

Looking back on this, it wasn’t the best—it’s your typical monster of the week deal with some environmental activism involved but for what it’s worth...it’s good??? Like, even the 4Kids dub (DONT CRUCIFY ME) even added some songs that were really great??? Bree Sharp’s Don’t Wake Me Up was my jam??? It fit better than the original Japanese counterpart???

TMM also introduced me to shipping, FanFiction, and amvs. That’s right, without this little gem, I would be writing/writing/thinking about FanFiction. I probably wouldn’t have been an anime watcher without this magical girl anime from the early 2000s.

So, yeah. This anime will always have a place in my heart because without it, I probably wouldn’t have become the person I am today. Thank you, Tokyo Mew Mew.

(This was also the birth of my first OTP before I knew what OTPs were: Kisshu/Ichigo...although nowadays, people are calling them Quiche/Strawberry? Hehehe, there’s so many things wrong here, I only like interactions, not the implications. That’s why I’m completely okay with Aoyama/Ichigo being endgame—and they’re actually really cute in the sequel manga???)

Honorable mentions (because I only thought of these now after I wrote analyses and gifs):

Five Centimeters Per Second

Ouran High School Host Club

Kimi no Nawa

Wolf Children

Psycho Pass

Trigun

(There’s like a dozen more, but nah. I’m good).

Aaaaaaaaaand that’s a wrap!!!

I’m tagging everyone who reads this! MWUAJAHAHAH!

I’m kidding; I don’t have that many friends here (if any) who are into anime so, umm...try it!

Thanks to @chemicalflashes for this amazing opportunity to find out why I love anime so much!

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vintagegeekculture · 7 years

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Dead Fandoms, Part 3

Read Part One of Dead Fandoms here.

Read Part Two of Dead Fandoms here.

Before we continue, I want to add the usual caveat that I actually don’t want to be right about these fandoms being dead. I like enthusiasm and energy and it’s a shame to see it vanish.

Mists of Avalon

Remember that period of time of about 15 years, where absolutely everybody read this book and was obsessed with it? It could not have been bigger, and the fandom was Anne Rice huge, overlapping for several years with USENET and the early World Wide Web…but it’s since petered out.

Mists of Avalon’s popularity may be due to the most excellent case of hitting a demographic sweet spot ever. The book was a feminist retelling of the Arthurian Mythos where Morgan Le Fay is the main character, a pagan from matriarchal goddess religions who is fighting against encroaching Christianity and patriarchal forms of society coming in with it. Also, it made Lancelot bisexual and his conflict is how torn he is about his attraction to both Arthur and Guinevere.

Remember, this novel came out in 1983 – talk about being ahead of your time! If it came out today, the reaction from a certain corner would be something like “it is with a heavy heart that I inform you that tumblr is at it again.”

Man, demographically speaking, that’s called “nailing it.” It used to be one of the favorite books of the kind of person who’s bookshelf is dominated by fantasy novels about outspoken, fiery-tongued redheaded women, who dream of someday moving to Scotland, who love Enya music and Kate Bush, who sell homemade needlepoint stuff on etsy, who consider their religious beliefs neo-pagan or wicca, and who have like 15 cats, three of which are named Isis, Hypatia, and Morrigan.

This type of person is still with us, so why did this novel fade in popularity? There’s actually a single hideous reason: after her death around 2001, facts came out that Marion Zimmer Bradley abused her daughters sexually. Even when she was alive, she was known for defending and enabling a known child abuser, her husband, Walter Breen. To say people see your work differently after something like this is an understatement – especially if your identity is built around being a progressive and feminist author.

Robotech

I try to break up my sections on dead fandoms into three parts: first, I explain the property, then explain why it found a devoted audience, and finally, I explain why that fan devotion and community went away. Well, in the case of Robotech, I can do all three with a single sentence: it was the first boy pilot/giant robot Japanimation series that shot for an older, teenage audience to be widely released in the West. Robotech found an audience when it was the only true anime to be widely available, and lost it when became just another import anime show. In the days of Crunchyroll, it’s really hard to explain what made Robotech so special, because it means describing a different world.

Try to imagine what it was like in 1986 for Japanime fans: there were barely any video imports, and if you wanted a series, you usually had to trade tapes at your local basement club (they were so precious they couldn’t even be sold, only traded). If you were lucky, you were given a script to translate what you were watching. Robotech though, was on every day, usually after school. You want an action figure? Well, you could buy a Robotech Valkyrie or a Minmei figure at your local corner FAO Schwartz.

However, the very strategy that led to it getting syndicated is the very reason it was later vilified by the purists who emerged when anime became a widespread cultural force: strictly speaking, there actually is no show called “Robotech.” Since Japanese shows tend to be short run, say, 50-60 episodes, it fell well under the 80-100 episode mark needed for syndication in the US. The producer of Harmony Gold, Carl Macek, had a solution: he’d cut three unrelated but similar looking series together into one, called “Robotech.” The shows looked very similar, had similar love triangles, used similar tropes, and even had little references to each other, so the fit was natural. It led to Robotech becoming a weekday afternoon staple with a strong fandom who called themselves “Protoculture Addicts.” There were conventions entirely devoted to Robotech. The supposed shower scene where Minmei was bare-breasted was the barely whispered stuff of pervert legend in pre-internet days. And the tie in novels, written with the entirely western/Harmony Gold conception of the series and which continued the story, were actually surprisingly readable.

The final nail in the coffin of Robotech fandom was the rise of Sailor Moon, Toonami, Dragonball, and yes, Pokemon (like MC Hammer’s role in popularizing hip hop, Pokemon is often written out of its role in creating an audience for the next wave of cartoon imports out of insecurity). Anime popularity in the West can be defined as not a continuing unbroken chain like scifi book fandom is, but as an unrelated series of waves, like multiple ancient ruins buried on top of each other (Robotech was the vanguard of the third wave, as Anime historians reckon); Robotech’s wave was subsumed by the next, which had different priorities and different “core texts.” Pikachu did what the Zentraedi and Invid couldn’t do: they destroyed the SDF-1.

Legion of Super-Heroes

Legion of Superheroes was comic set in the distant future that combined superheroes with space opera, with a visual aesthetic that can best be described as “Star Trek: the Motion Picture, if it was set in a disco.”

I’ve heard wrestling described as “a soap opera for men.” If that’s the case, then Legion of Super-Heroes was a soap opera for nerds. The book is about attractive 20-somethings who seem to hook up all the time. As a result, it had a large female fanbase, which, I cannot stress enough, is incredibly unusual for this era in comics history. And if you have female fans, you get a lot of shipping and slashfic, and lots of speculation over which of the boy characters in the series is gay. The fanon answer is Element Lad, because he wore magenta-pink and never had a girlfriend. (Can’t argue with bulletproof logic like that.) In other words, it was a 1970s-80s fandom that felt much more “modern” than the more right-brained, bloodless, often anal scifi fandoms that existed around the same time, where letters pages were just nitpicking science errors by model train and elevator enthusiasts.

Legion Headquarters seemed to be a rabbit fuck den built around a supercomputer and Danger Room. Cosmic Boy dressed like Tim Curry in Rocky Horror. There’s one member, Duo Damsel, who can turn into two people, a power that, in the words of Legion writer Jim Shooter, was “useful for weird sex...and not much else.”

LSH was popular because the fans were insanely horny. This is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the thirstiest fandom of all time. You might think I’m overselling this, but I really think that’s an under-analyzed part of how some kinds of fiction build a devoted fanbase.

For example, a big reason for the success of Mass Effect is that everyone has a favorite girl or boy, and you have the option to romance them. Likewise, everyone who was a fan of Legion remembers having a crush. Sardonic Ultra Boy for some reason was a favorite among gay male nerds (aka the Robert Conrad Effect). Tall, blonde, amazonian telepath Saturn Girl, maybe the first female team leader in comics history, is for the guys with backbone who prefer Veronica over Betty. Shrinking Violet was a cute Audrey Hepburn type. And don’t forget Shadow Lass, who was a blue skinned alien babe with pointed ears and is heavily implied to have an accent (she was Aayla Secura before Aayla Secura was Aayla Secura). Light Lass was commonly believed to be “coded lesbian” because of a short haircut and her relationships with men didn’t work out. The point is, it’s one thing to read about the adventures of a superteam, and it implies a totally different level of mental and emotional involvement to read the adventures of your imaginary girlfriend/boyfriend.

Now, I should point out that of all the fandoms I’ve examined here, LSH was maybe the smallest. Legion was never a top seller, but it was a favorite of the most devoted of fans who kept it alive all through the seventies and eighties with an energy and intensity disproportionate to their actual numbers. My gosh, were LSH fans devoted! Interlac and Legion Outpost were two Legion fanzines that are some of the most famous fanzines in comics history.

If nerd culture fandoms were drugs, Star Wars would be alcohol, Doctor Who would be weed, but Legion of Super-Heroes would be injecting heroin directly into your eyeballs. Maybe it is because the Legionnaires were nerdy, too: they played Dungeons and Dragons in their off time (an escape, no doubt, from their humdrum, mundane lives as galaxy-rescuing superheroes). There were sometimes call outs to Monty Python. Basically, the whole thing had a feel like the dorkily earnest skits or filk-singing at a con. Legion felt like it’s own fan series, guest starring Patton Oswalt and Felicia Day.

It helped that the boundary between fandom and professional was incredibly porous. For instance, pro-artist Dave Cockrum did covers for Legion fanzines. Former Legion APA members Todd and Mary Biernbaum got a chance to actually write Legion, where, with the gusto of former slashfic writers given the keys to canon, their major contribution was a subplot that explicitly made Element Lad gay. Mike Grell, a professional artist who got paid to work on the series, did vaguely porno-ish fan art. Again, it’s hard to tell where the pros started and the fandom ended; the inmates were running the asylum.

Mostly, Legion earned this devotion because it could reward it in a way no other comic could. Because Legion was not a wide market comic but was bought by a core audience, after a point, there were no self-contained one-and-done Legion stories. In fact, there weren’t even really arcs as we know it, which is why Legion always has problems getting reprinted in trade form. Legion was plotted like a daytime soap opera: there were always five different stories going on in every issue, and a comic involved cutting between them. Sure, like daytime soap operas, there’s never a beginning, just endless middles, so it was totally impossible for a newbie to jump on board...but soap operas know what they are doing: long term storytelling rewards a long term reader.

This brings me to today, where Legion is no longer being published by DC. There is no discussion about a movie or TV revival. This is amazing. Comics are a world where the tiniest nerd groups get pandered to: Micronauts, Weirdworld, Seeker 3000, and Rom have had revival series, for pete’s sake. It’s incredible there’s no discussion of a film or TV treatment, either; friggin Cyborg from New Teen Titans is getting a solo movie.

Why did Legion stop being such a big deal? Where did the fandom that supported it dissolve to? One word: X-Men. Legion was incredibly ahead of its time. In the 60s and 70s, there were barely any “fan” comics, since superhero comics were like animation is today: mostly aimed at kids, with a minority of discerning adult/teen fans, and it was success among kids, not fans, that led to something being a top seller (hence, “fan favorites” in the 1970s, as surprising as it is to us today, often did not get a lot of work, like Don MacGregor or Barry Smith). But as newsstands started to push comics out, the fan audience started to get bigger and more important…everyone else started to catch up to the things that made Legion unique: most comics started to have attractive people who paired up into couples and/or love triangles, and featured extremely byzantine long term storytelling. If Legion of Super-Heroes is going to be remembered for anything, it’s for being the smaller scale “John the Baptist” to the phenomenon of X-Men, the ultimate “fan” comic.

The other thing that killed Legion, apart from Marvel’s Merry Mutants, that is, was the r-word: reboots. A reboot only works for some properties, but not others. You reboot something when you want to find something for a mass audience to respond to, like with Zorro, Batman, or Godzilla.

Legion, though, was not a comic for everybody, it was a fanboy/girl comic beloved by a niche who read it for continuing stories and minutiae (and to jack off, and in some cases, jill off). Rebooting a comic like that is a bad idea. You do not reboot something where the main way you engage with the property, the greatest strength, is the accumulated lore and history. Rebooting a property like that means losing the reason people like it, and unless it’s something with a wide audience, you only lose fans and won’t get anything in return for it. So for something like Legion (small fandom obsessed with long form plots and details, but unlike Trek, no name recognition) a reboot is the ultimate Achilles heel that shatters everything, a self-destruct button they kept hitting over and over and over until there was nothing at all left.

E. E. Smith’s Lensman Novels

The Lensman series is like Gil Evans’s jazz: it’s your grandparents’ favorite thing that you’ve never heard of.

I mean, have you ever wondered exactly what scifi fandom talked about before the rise of the major core texts and cultural objects (Star Trek, Asimov, etc)? Well, it was this. Lensmen was the subject of fanfiction mailed in manilla envelopes during the 30s, 40s, and 50s (some of which are still around). If you’re from Boston, you might recognize that the two biggest and oldest scifi cons there going back to the 1940s, Boskone (Boscon, get it?) and Arisia, are references to the Lensman series. This series not only created space opera as we know it, but contributed two of the biggest visuals in scifi, the interstellar police drawn from different alien species, and space marines in power armor.

My favorite sign of how big this series was and how fans responded to it, was a great wedding held at Worldcon that duplicated Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa’s wedding on Klovia. This is adorable:

The basic story is pure good vs. evil: galactic civilization faces a crime and piracy wave of unprecedented proportions from technologically advanced pirates (the memory of Prohibition, where criminals had superior firearms and faster cars than the cops, was strong by the mid-1930s). A young officer, Kimball Kinnison (who speaks in a Stan Lee esque style of dialogue known as “mid-century American wiseass”), graduates the academy and is granted a Lens, an object from an ancient mystery civilization, who’s true purpose is unknown.

Lensman Kinnison discovers that the “crime wave” is actually a hostile invasion and assault by a totally alien culture that is based on hierarchy, intolerant of failure, and at the highest level, is ruled by horrifying nightmare things that breathe freezing poison gases. Along the way, he picks up allies, like van Buskirk, a variant human space marine from a heavy gravity planet who can do a standing jump of 20 feet in full space armor, Worsel, a telepathic dragon warrior scientist with the technical improvisation skills of MacGyver (who reads like the most sadistically minmaxed munchkinized RPG character of all time), and Nandreck, a psychologist from a Pluto-like planet of selfish cowards.

The scale of the conflict starts small, just skirmishes with pirates, but explodes to near apocalyptic dimensions. This series has space battles with millions of starships emerging from hyperspacial tubes to attack the ultragood Arisians, homeworld of the first intelligent race in the cosmos. By the end of the fourth book, there are mind battles where the reflected and parried mental beams leave hundreds of innocent bystanders dead. In the meantime we get evil Black Lensmen, the Hell Hole in Space, and superweapons like the Negasphere and the Sunbeam, where an entire solar system was turned into a vacuum tube.

It’s not hard to understand why Lensmen faded in importance. While the alien Lensmen had lively psychologies, Lensman Kimball Kinnison was not an interesting person, and that’s a problem when scifi starts to become more about characterization. The Lensman books, with their love of police and their sexism (it is an explicit plot point that the Lens is incompatible with female minds – in canon there are no female Lensmen) led to it being judged harshly by the New Wave writers of the 1960s, who viewed it all as borderline fascist military-scifi establishment hokum, and the reputation of the series never recovered from the spirit of that decade.

Prisoner of Zenda

Prisoner of Zenda is a novel about a roguish con-man who visits a postage-stamp, charmingly picturesque Central European kingdom with storybook castles, where he finds he looks just like the local king and is forced to pose as him in palace intrigues. It’s a swashbuckling story about mistaken identity, swordfighting, and intrigue, one part swashbuckler and one part dark political thriller.

The popularity of this book predates organized fandom as we know it, so I wonder if “fandom” is even the right word to use. All the same, it inspired fanatical dedication from readers. There was such a popular hunger for it that an entire library could be filled with nothing but rip-offs of Prisoner of Zenda. If you have a favorite writer who was active between 1900-1950, I guarantee he probably wrote at least one Prisoner of Zenda rip-off (which is nearly always the least-read book in his oeuvre). The only novel in the 20th Century that inspired more imitators was Sherlock Holmes. Robert Heinlein and Edmond “Planet Smasher” Hamilton wrote scifi updates of Prisoner of Zenda. Doctor Who lifted the plot wholesale for the Tom Baker era episode, “Androids of Tara,” Futurama did this exact plot too, and even Marvel Comics has its own copy of Ruritania, Doctor Doom’s Kingdom of Latveria. Even as late as the 1980s, every kids’ cartoon did a “Prisoner of Zenda” episode, one of the stock plots alongside “everyone gets hit by a shrink ray” and the Christmas Carol episode.

Prisoner of Zenda imitators were so numerous, that they even have their own Library of Congress sub-heading, of “Ruritanian Romance.”

One major reason that Prisoner of Zenda fandom died off is that, between World War I and World War II, there was a brutal lack of sympathy for anything that seemed slightly German, and it seems the incredibly Central European Prisoner of Zenda was a casualty of this. Far and away, the largest immigrant group in the United States through the entire 19th Century were Germans, who were more numerous than Irish or Italians. There were entire cities in the Midwest that were two-thirds German-born or German-descent, who met in Biergartens and German community centers that now no longer exist.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a lot about how the German-American world he grew up in vanished because of the prejudice of the World Wars, and that disappearance was so extensive that it was retroactive, like someone did a DC comic-style continuity reboot where it all never happened: Germans, despite being the largest immigrant group in US history, are left out of the immigrant story. The “Little Bohemias” and “Little Berlins” that were once everywhere no longer exist. There is no holiday dedicated to people of German ancestry in the US, the way the Irish have St. Patrick’s Day or Italians have Columbus Day (there is Von Steuben’s Day, dedicated to a general who fought with George Washington, but it’s a strictly Midwest thing most people outside the region have never heard of, like Sweetest Day). If you’re reading this and you’re an academic, and you’re not sure what to do your dissertation on, try writing about the German-American immigrant world of the 19th and 20th Centuries, because it’s a criminally under-researched topic.

A. Merritt

Pop quiz: who was the most popular and influential fantasy author during the 1930s and 40s?

If you answered Tolkien or Robert E. Howard, you’re wrong - it was actually Abraham Merritt. He was the most popular writer of his age of the kind of fiction he did, and he’s since been mostly forgotten. Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has said that A. Merritt was his favorite fantasy and horror novelist.

Why did A. Merritt and his fandom go away, when at one point, he was THE fantasy author? Well, obviously one big answer was the 1960s counterculture, which brought different writers like Tolkien and Lovecraft to the forefront (by modern standards Lovecraft isn’t a fantasy author, but he was produced by the same early century genre-fluid effluvium that produced Merritt and the rest). The other answer is that A. Merritt was so totally a product of the weird occult speculation of his age that it’s hard to even imagine him clicking with audiences in other eras. His work is based on fringe weirdness that appealed to early 20th Century spiritualism and made sense at the time: reincarnation, racial memory, an obsession with lost race stories and the stone age, and weirdness like the 1920s belief that the Polar Arctic is the ancestral home of the Caucasian race. In other words, it’s impossible to explain Merritt without a ton of sentences that start with “well, people in the 1920s thought that...” That’s not a good sign when it comes to his universality.

That’s it for now. Do you have any suggestions on a dead fandom, or do you keep one of these “dead” fandoms alive in your heart?

#fandom history #lensman #robotech #prisoner of zenda #mists of avalon

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azuresquirrel · 7 years

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Snow day Flash marathon continues!

Episode Four - WHAT IS THIS, A CROSSOVER EPISODE? Unfortunately, Yes.

“TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD I’M AN ORDINARY SCHOOLGIRL FORENSIC SCIENTIST BUT SECRETLY I’M SAILOR MOON I USE MY SPEED TO FIGHT CRIME AND FIND OTHERS LIKE ME.”

Also DEAD MOM.

Ah and here’s the “last time on The Flash” that’s actually “last time on Green Arrow.” Oh, it’s real cute that you think people would not only watch but also remember Green Arrow.

Pfffffft Barry’s like BEFORE I WAS HIT BY LIGHTNING I WAS A LONELY NERD BUT A NEAR-DEATH AND COMA GAVE ME FRIENDS!!!!!! Oh my god, he IS an anime character.

And Barry is fucking playing ping pong with Cisco and like this is literally my own fanfic. Also at the same time he’s playing Operation with Caitlin and chess (THE INTERNATIONAL SYMBOLIC GAME OF GAYNESS) with Harrison because HE FAST. And of course Barry says it’s for fun when Caitlin (who is COLD LIKE SNOW and DEAD FIANCE) asks why they’re doing this. Harrison of course says it’s also an experiment to see how much Barry’s powers can do. So that means as per usual, Harrison totally has a boner right now.

Cisco did not contribute any lines because HE’S PLAYING PING PONG WITH BARRY he probably had this fantasy like at least five times before this.

Cut from happy fun fanfic time to motorcycles going after an armored car for whatever Badguy of the Week nonsense is about to happen. To the surprise of no one, the armored car is broken into.

“Checkmate. Guess you still have a few things left to learn, Mr. Allen.” Yeah, Harrison just came.

Also we can now add BAD AT OPERATION to Caitlin’s non-dead-fiance characteristics.

Barry GOTTA GO FASTs it to the robbery and the robbers get away while Barry gets the injured drivers to the hospital because Barry is a good egg.

Apparently this was an attempted DIAMOND HEIST which Barry still shows up late to the investigation despite being the fastest man alive because ANIME PROTAGONIST. Captain Poor Man’s Santino Fontana continues to be deeply unimpressed with Barry.

Joe calling Barry out for referring himself in the third person – GOOD.

Iris is officially starting her LOIS LANE BLOG reporting/stanning The Red Streak (because he’s not actually The Flash yet though this seems to be the episode that Barry makes that stick).

And this person in Barry’s lab is Felicity Smoke. So Green Arrow woman. Hooray. I care so much.

The Badguys of the Week think they were attacked by a drone – TOPICAL! And the Badguy of the Week’s superpower seems to be MATH. EXCITEMENT.

BARRY’S SHOES CATCH ON FIRE SOMETIMES.

Oh great is this whole episode going to be Green Arrow Woman watching Barry do shit while also wanting Barry’s D? SNORE.

And they show up to STAR labs and Cisco immediately says “RUDE” I love him.

And now Cisco is geeking out over “the Arrow” while chomping on twizzlers, MORE CISCO ALWAYS.

Harrison comes in to be AMAZINGLY CREEPY by having stalked Felicity’s entire life because “keeping an eye out for promising talent in scientific fields” is how he kidnapped Cisco and Cailtin and IS A HUGE CREEP. (seriously do Cisco and Cailtin have lives outside the lab?)

“Everything we do here in STAR labs is to protect Barry Allen” HE SAID LIKE A CREEP AND A LIAR.

Oh great another scene with White Bread because I’ve already had SO MUCH to say about this episode. The point of this scene is that White Bread is a dumbass and continues to be a dumbass. (okay I did laugh quite a bit at the radio gag)

Iris is SUPER EXCITED FOR TRIVIA NIGHT I love her and also I CAN DATE YOU, IRIS. And Barry DO NOT knock $75 worth of cappuccinos, that is better than literally any other trivia night prize I have personally witnessed.

Oh god, this whole Green Arrow woman subplot is “OMG ARE YOU DAAAATING” be still my fucking beating heart.

I am officially more invested in the outcome of this trivia night than I am in 1. Green Arrow woman and 2. Whatever the fuck the Badguy of the week is doing. Also this trivia night has a VERY high budget.

BARRY IS EXTREMELY PROUD OF “E=MCHAMMER.”

Green Arrow woman shows up in a “DO ME NOW” dress. Sigh.

And Harrison just ~totally only now~ discovers that the weapon that Badguy of the Week now has is missing.

DON’T YELL AT CISCO!!!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!

NO!!!! MY SON!!!!!!!!

Apparently Cisco made this weapon (which makes Harrison MAD AND ANGRY because he “doesn’t like weapons” YEAH SURE MR. STABBY MCSTAB) and HE LOOKS LIKE A KICKED PUPPY. I’M NOT HAPPY.

I would much rather talk about the team named PRIDE AND PADAWANS and dresses accordingly.

Oh yeah that Badguy of the Week took the diamond or whatever and we now learn that Cisco made an Elsa Gun.

(GET IT??? TO *SLOW* BARRY DOWN??? GET IT????)

I’ll give them this – the special effects look pretty decent.

And Barry ends up not quite fast enough to save this one guy that gets frozen-shot. Awwww noooo, now Barry will be a sad kitten.

BARRY FINDS OUT THAT CISCO MADE THE GUN AND IS VERY MUCH A SAD KITTEN.

CISCO MADE THE GUN TO THEORETICALLY STOP BARRY IF HE TURNED OUT TO BE AN ASSHOLE. HO SHIT, ACTUAL DRAMA IS HAPPENING NOW!

BARRY THOUGHT THEY WERE FRIENDS! IF BARRY HAD KNOWN ABOUT THE GUN HE COULD’VE SAVED THAT DUDE! CISCO NOW HAS THIS MAN’S BLOOD ON HIS HANDS!

HI EVERYONE IS NOW A SAD KITTEN.

Summary of shit I don’t care about - Papa Joe and Iris have dad talk about dating his partner –more boring Badguy of the Week stuff

Barry is now trying to GO FASTER because EMO and extends his YOU DON’T TRUST ME to Green Arrow woman who is here to give him a pep talk about how getting a team together is rough at first and BEING A SUPERHERO IS LONELY SO DON’T MAKE YOURSELF LONELIER ALSO MY VAGINA IS RIGHT HERE

Oh I guess Captain Cold didn’t take the diamond before which just goes to show how much I’ve been paying attention to this plot.

“I DON’T FEEL LIKE TALKING RIGHT NOW” Emo Barry says as he turns off his headset. Oh my god Barry, just listen to some Linkin Park and get over yourself before going after the guy with the bad gun that can hurt you.

We do however get a pretty great scene of Barry saving an entire train worth of people before said train crashes.

OH NOW. THE BADGUY CAUGHT BARRY. I WONDER IF TEAM SCIENCE WILL COME AND SAVE HIM???

Cisco holding a fuckass big gun = GOOD!!!

Cisco threatening to maybe kill a guy = I’M SO PROUD OF YOU, SON!!!! Clearly I’m a great mom.

“This is actually the STAR labs vacuum cleaner with a lot of LEDs.” I LOVE HIM!!!!!!

And Badguy gets away with the gun but THE TEAMS TRUSTS AGAIN! HOORAY!

And Green Arrow Woman goes back to her crappy show.

DON’T TOUCH MY SON, HARRISON!!!! YOU’RE ON REAL THIN ICE!!!!!!

(Harrison being creepy towards Barry = that’s our Harrison! Harrison being creepy towards Cisco = DON’T)

And Iris says “no more secrets” to her father which her father WILL NOT HONOR because of Barry’s superpowers and HEY I’M NOT THRILLED ABOUT THIS CONTINUALLY.

Ugh, Barry comes to visit Green Arrow woman on the train because I guess this still isn’t over. She makes the AMAZING DEDUCTION that Barry is in love with Iris, truly the Sherlock of our age.

THEN THEY KISS FOR PRETTY MUCH NO REASON. GOD.

And I thought we’d get our weekly Crazy Ex Boyfriend check in but WE DON’T EVEN GET THAT, instead we got this boring-ass Badguy of the Week recruiting a clear future Badguy of the Week. NO. I LIKE CREEPY HARRISON WHEN HE’S BEING FUN CREEPY NOT CREEPY TO CISCO CREEPY.

What a weird fucking episode. The entire part that was about the gun that Cisco made was the best part of the show so far but it was sandwiched in the worst/most boring episode of the show so far with a Badguy of the Week who DIDN’T EVEN HAVE ANY SUPERPOWERS and a crossover with a crappy show. God.

There’s a reason we left crossover episodes behind in the 90s, folks.

#Azuresquirrel Watches The Flash #so the theme of this episode SHOULD have been friendship #(ALSO MAYBE TRIVIA NIGHT)#but instead it's 'there's a reason crossover episodes are 90s relics'#and 'there's also a reason our badguys usually have superpowers'#HARRISON BEST BE STEPPING AWAY FROM MY SON

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sveasauvageon · 4 years

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I can't go when you look this freaking beautiful || GW

☾♔; March 14, 2018 ☾♔; sotd: idk ☾♔; comedian otd: idk ☾♔; GW: Side Character Audition ☾♔; {G} https://goo.gl/XSTtMc ☾♔; mod(s): @themadmonarchist @maybones et moi

FINALLY DONE WITH THIS

Me every time Russia sends a "love, love, peace, peace" type song to Eurovision: *rolls on the floor laughing my arse off and literally dying from the irony*

GW SIDE CHARACTER TEMPLATE

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀Viggo Asbjörn Rasmus Sauvageon, (21)

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour je suis prédateur ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour je suis la proie ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour j'ai chaud au cœur ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour j'ai tellement froid ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀-⠀Au Coeur de moi - Amir

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ THE BASICS

Nickname: Vig, V/Vi, Vígi, storebror (Svea and Lili) Gender: cis-male Date of Birth: December 24 Place of Birth: Lake Mälaren (it's in Enköping, and next to the Sauvageon estate. He was born in an underwater cave) Nationality: Swedish Ethnicity: caucasian (swedish/frankish descent), also half-fish person. Accent: Swedish Blood Status: half-blood/half-breed, he's half-merperson (hey, theoretically, it's possible in the wizarding world, plus, see; Shape of Water, The. 😛)

Profession: Curse-Breaker for Rökstenen Wizarding Bank (the Swedish counterpart to Gringotts)

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Mooms-mooms, I mean Måns Zelmerlöw

Hair: short, black, sometimes dark brown, soft

Eyes: brown, turn into a deep sea-green when he's angry or feeling like a huge surge of love (as in the emotion, don't be gross, also, not limited to romantic love, basically any love that would qualify for "save the world" level up's in anime characters)

Height: 1.74 m/5'7"-ish (he's so short, I mean, I can't really judge being a measly 5'2", but still)

Weight: idk

Body: slim, fit, super hot swede, wannabe James Bond tbh (did he dreaming of being bond as a child? Maybe.)

Any Scars/ Marks?: not scars exactly, but he has sort of scale-like cravings. Like groves in a stone wall, except on his skin and in the shape of scales. He has a large section on the right side of his rib cage, left shoulder blade going down in a slight diagonal angle to the right back of his hips (decreasing in amount as it moves down his back), left angle, and left wrist.

Any Tattoos/ Piercings?: n/a

Quirks/ Mannerisms: - not really a mannerism of his, but always ends up as a thing for Svea to lean on, since they're basically the same height, and in heels, she's taller than him.

Style: as "erratic" as his cousin's, but generally well-tailored, and figure-flattering. Likes wearing shirts that are a bit too tight (ala Marvel superhero tight), but generally walks around either in suits and ties, or a superhero shirt (as in the fit and not a graphic tee) and jeans. Favours Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, and Guess (because he's a fu.cking nerd).

Additional Information:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ PERSONALITY:

Head cannon: Super dorky, super cute. Like Svea, he's super Swedish (ie liberal socialist), but he's a lot nicer and pleasant (well, she's not, not nice, but she's also not nice, ya feel?, less elitist is the phrase I'm looking for). Literally sunshine, he's pleasant and joyful and a lot of fun, somewhat reckless, quite a mess, very loveable. Tiny bit of a wh.o.re (manwhøre, yes, but why do men get a different word that doesn't really have a negative connotation), he's never single. He's always dating someone or "causally" seeing someone. The longest he's been single (since joining the dating game) is a week.

Personality (+ 5, - 5): dork, nerd, smarter than he looks/acts, playful, thrives in stressful situations, prefers to have leadership "thrust" upon rather than actively seek it out, sweet, thoughtful, bad at flirting (seriously, it's embarrassing), lazy magic user (like that stupid scene in fantastic beasts when Tina's sister used magic instead of just sliding her hands into the fu.cking robe herself, that's mooms-mooms. I mean Vig), more vain than he cares to admit (spends a surprising amount of time on his hair every morning), act first-think later type of idiot (will jump into a dark tomb for the # adventure without even checking for curses first), adventurous, reckless, silly, quick on his feet, adaptable, resourceful, loyal, protective (though, usually it's him getting protected, he's more of a sweet summer child with a somewhat hidden armour of steel, valyrian steel)

Any mental health issues: - bursts into eurovision songs spontaneously, usually with Svea. Like, it's technically not an illness, but at this point, I'm pretty sure I've got it.

Favorite Quotes/ Sayings that your character would use: - "I am Thor, God of Hammers." (Probs Syn: You are Vígi, god of the losers) - "I miss when I had two feet of authority over you." (To Svea, also Syn tbh, pretty she and Svea are the same height) - "you wanna be my Waterloo?" (Vig, attempting to flirt. Tbh, Svea would say the same thing. They have a Eurovision problem) - "a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor" (someone off in the background: you're half-fish, and a curse-breaker)

Additional Information: - I was originally thinking of "Au coeur de moi" as his theme song, but it's so definitely "I can't go on" by Robin Bengtsson

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ BIOGRAPHY

Relation to your OC: paternal cousin, like once removed? No, twice removed. he's the son of her grandfather's sister's son.

♣️ Family Background

:: House of Sauvageon ::

The Sauvageon's are a very family old wizarding family, they were originally French, and later immigrated to Sweden in the late 1700's. Unlike most ancient wizarding families (particularly the British ones), they have never shied away from breeding with muggles and muggleborns, often gaining the label of "blood traitor" from the British families, but they're Swedish, and blood density is irrelevant there. There are as liberal and socialist as their country. Despite being loathed by the blood purist-type families, they are still approached very few generations for marital matches, as they are exceedingly wealthy and when the aforementioned house runs out of options.

One could say he's from a branch family, they're no longer the main family, technically, but are still closely related and also still have the same name. So it's more like a developing branch family. His grandmother (Frida) was Svea's grandfather's (Ludvig's) younger sister, so I think that makes them cousin's twice removed? Or is it three times? I don't know, this sht always confuses me (in my defense, I do have around 6000 cousins, and I don't know how I'm related to any of them. Not even joking about that tbh).

Sauvageon aesthetics (with a tiny bit about both Vig and Svea's maternal families, still editing it though): https://goo.gl/u4nRiU

--only father-side relations listed here-- ▪️ Father: Acke Bengt Adrian Sauvageon | Alex Jennings | 56 | former socialite (kind of missing, lives underwater)

▪️ Grandmother: Eira Katja Karita Sauvageon | n/a | deceased former politician (in the muggle world, rose to mayor of Enköping)

▪️ Grandfather: Danil Benjamin Sauvageon née Vengerbojrn | n/a | deceased (muggle businessman - ran KronLund, which specialized in developing luxury estates, hosting events, and owns far too many wineries. He changed his surname upon marrying Eira, half-Icelandic)

▪️ Uncle (father's brother): Edvard Ragnvald Fritjof Sauvageon | n/a | missing, disappeared whilst exploring Geiranger Fjord in Norway

▪️ Cousin (closer than Svea and Lili, biologically): Frej Egil Fredrik Sauvageon Bernadotte, Duke of Västergötland | Matthew Goode | 36 | businessman/royal consort (took up control of KronLund after Danil's death, later married the crown princess of Sweden and added her house's name to his. All children of the marriage shall take the name of the royal house)

▪️ Cousin-in-law: Crown Princess Kristina Ulrika Viktoria Margareta of the House of Bernadotte, Duchess of Västergötland | Vanessa Kirby | 32 | heir apparent to the Swedish Throne

Main Sauvageon family/extended family: ▪️ Great-uncle: Ludvig Sauvageon | Patrick Stewart ▪️ Great-aunt-in-law: Linnéa Sauvageon | Judi Dench ▪️ Uncle: Petter Sauvageon | Colin Firth ▪️ Aunt-in-law: Iliana Drubetskaya | Lena Headey ▪️ Cousin: Svea Sauvageon | Cara Delevingne ▪️ Cousin: Lena Sauvageon | Dafne Keen ▪️ Aunt: Brigitta Sauvageon | Gillian Anderon ▪️ Uncle: Kåre Sauvageon | James D'Arcy

:: Maternal "family" :: A merwoman calling herself "Freyja", whilst he's visited his mother and her "family" many times, he's still not quite clear about which merpeople in the Lake he's related to, and which not, nor even how he was born (*cough* conceived but ew *cough*). They basically just sing and sht when he's underwater, and then he goes up, kind of in a haze and with a mild euphoric feeling, like he's been drugged.

Although he doesn't know much about his mer-family, according to Swedish mermaid legends, they're known for helping lost sailors and are generally considered a friendly peoples. They largely help deal with the lake's grindylow population.

♣️ Family Affiliation: Swedish Ministry of Magic, Durmstrang Institute of Magic (not a happy association, but it's their homeschool, and most Sauvageon's have attended it, including Vig himself), House of Bernadotte, House of Châteaudun (and their successive houses), and the Riddarhuset (The House of Nobility in Sweden -- don't really have any power or special tax exemptions anymore, basically protection of historical titles and coat of arms), Rökstenen (that's more his personal affiliation though, since banks are seperate entites run by goblins who employ some humans)

♣️ Socio-economic status: meh. He technically has a lot of money via family, and earns quite a sum from Rökstenen, but he's one of those rich people who are oblivious to how much things cost (making him slightly disaffected, though, in his defense, he was rasied in palace, basically)

Quick facts: Vig was born underwater in Lake Mälaren to Acke Sauvageon and a merperson who calls herself "Freyja", they're still not sure if it's her real name. He was born with mostly the physical features of a regular human, so he was taken above water to be raised by the Sauvageon's, his father, however, remained underwater (originally he sustained himself via gilly weed and the bubble head charm, but eventually became an animagus and lives as a blue tang because Dory). Closest in age to Svea out of her generation of Savaugeon's, they essentially grew up as siblings, and even attended muggle school together for a time before it was time for him to go to Durmstrang. To say he did not like it there would be an understatement, he nearly flunked out of his dark arts classes out of pure protest, but later actually tried since the information would come in handy when he decided he wanted to be curse breaker. In his 6th year, he attempted to petition the school to change their rules and let muggle-borns in, but lacked support from his fellow students and was ultimately unsuccessful.

Additional Information: n/a

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ HOGWARTS INFORMATION Hogwarts Stats: N/A

Whilst a (half-)wizard, Vig did not attend Hogwarts, but instead went to the Scandi homeschool; Durmstrang. Like the other Sauvageon's who attended Durmstrang (as well as Swedes in general, because JKR didn't even fu.cking google Sweden before making it the Scandi school, it's a socialist country, and unlike Denmark and Norway, isn't allergic to migrants!), anyway, like the other Sauvageon's and Swedes, he did not like the school, especially it's attitude towards muggles and muggle-borns (his own grandfather being a muggle). Despite his hatred of the school, he did well, earning the equivalents of Outstandings and Excellents in his exams. Svea jokes that he would've been an "uncool Hufflepuff" (probs would've been in Ravenclaw though, he's smarter than he looks. And acts).

Any Pets?: does Lili count? Not really, she'd reducto his as.s if he said to her face.

Reputation at Hogwarts: doesn't really have one, he only shows up to the events that open to non-students/family, and would really only interact with friends of Svea and/or the Lothbroks. I guess his rep would be "hot dude that sometimes shows up". Also, just to be clear, he literally has nothing to do with the Hogwarts social hierarchy (just in case anyone got confused).

Additional Information:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ INDIVIDUAL MAGIC

Wand: Rosewood Wand Core: Unicorn hair Wand Length: 10½" Wand Flexibility: Swishy Patronus: Arctic Fox Boggart: drowning (appears as his almost-corpse, like pale and wet, but like seizing and struggling to breath) Amortentia: burning wood (like the scent that arises from a bonfire), cinnamon, sea salt Affinity to any particular magic?: not exactly, but he's naturally drawn towards water related spells and sea type plants. It's not super special, they were just the easiest for him to learn and work with when he was still in school, having completed his education, he's perfectly skilled with other stuff now too. Additional Information: - great singer both above and underwater, underwater it becomes more ethereal, known to occasionally leave listeners with an ecstatic, somewhat loopy feeling, like marijuana does to muggles - he's incapable of performing any of the unforgiveable curses.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ USER INFORMATION

Username: @drownedinmoonlight Activity Level (Scale 1-10): 8

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ OPTIONAL Playlist: Moodboard: Social Media (instagram, facebook, snapchat, twitter, etc) : Storyboard: Aesthetic Collection: Wardrobe/Style Collection: Plotting Set: Story:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

When you have completed the audition, please tag the mods: @.drownedinmoonlight @.themadmonarchist and @.maybones and use the hashtag #GWnpc

Also, don't forget to add it to the group. Happy character creation!

#polyvore #audition #mine #gw #viggo sauvageon #template

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pixie-skull · 7 years

Text

# 12 Post: Top 10, OFFICAL Animated Men List, part 4

So to explain myself, I made a list of men from different studios, yet unlike my women’s list ( https://nerd-indigo.tumblr.com/post/168587304582/post-12-part-2-finally-top-ten-2d-animated ) from different animation studios I can own up my list, I felt my men was not as official who I have crushed on ( https://indigo-psyduck.tumblr.com/post/168600736687/post-12-part-3-finally-top-ten-2d-animated-mens ). Yes spoiler, mostly Disney and Dreamworks. XD Rules - - - > https://indigo-psyduck.tumblr.com/post/167091245072/post-12-part-1-rules-for-animated-crush-list and a few repeats, as well one tie.

10. 1978′s The Lord of the Rings: Frodo Baggins

Yes went from honorable mention to actual member of list. XD Now if someone can look at me like he does to Samwise. Now on to why I like this Hobbit. One huge reason, younger me was borderline (or was) obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. I rewatched all the movies a lot (I first saw the movies when I was maybe near five-seven ( I am blanking, yet was somewhere in this age range by the last movie) years old,in theaters. No shaming my parents, one of my older siblings watched the movies for a birthday movie thing), blush like an anime character at the mere mention of Frodo. So in attempts I guess find a kid friendly film, my family found this animated gem. XD Years later watch this video (as in video cassette. Yup 90′s kid here) and read the books, this animated Frodo closer to books, which earns more cute points. Even Frodo thanks for your part in my taste in men.

9. Ben Ten Ben Ten, series of both Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, Ben.

As the first list with men before, his reasons still apply. Only 10 for combined with personality, younger me did crush, yet not as much as the rest. Here is the reasons: “He is kinda a smart alec (or donkey), yet not too bad. He is funny, a good family member and quick on his feet. Plus his green eyes so cute. I enjoyed the show started to let him grow up and found fun see how it is grow almost together.“ It is nice too he has green eyes. :D

8. 2004′s Howl’s Moving Castle, Howl.

As the first list with men before, his reasons still apply. Here the given reasons, “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwROgK94zcM Please note I do NOT count for my Disney entry. XD So this character starts as a womanizer or something similar (which not a fan of), yet he clearly wears a mask of insecurities, and grows. Also, has colorful hair (blonde[not a fan of blonde look], ginger, maybe an odd ball color, and black). I like how he willing have adventures, I enjoy someone take me on one, as long not overstimulated due to Autism does that to me. :( I see him as Pan. I have as 7 for as much I like his design and his arch, I am not a fan of a mask, just be yourself, unless that means you hurt others, then no. XD”. I am typically attracted to a something like androgynous and feminine, so Howl fits this so well.

7. 2003′s Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas Kale tied with Proteus

Yea a new character crush that differ my old list, well two. XD Now besides being tied for being in the same movie, they do differ. Both are just drawn to be sooooo attractive (Kale seems to be a love child of one of my formally dated [that smirk and muscles, kinda voice, who was my first guy kiss {my first kiss was with a woman} ] and a guy friend who I have a crush on. [playful nature and go with flow, pierced ears, and hat taste] XP and Proteus just from long hair ( @thenamelessdoll you get this struggle XD ) to willing to help citizens, sacrifice his life, and more. I am sadden these two get such little love. Yes Kale does win by a few slim points. Yes this movie is jammed back with so many attractive characters (not counting Sinbad for he comes off to Brad Pitt like and I am not attracted to Pitt).

6. 2002′s Treasure Planet Jim Hawkins

Like 10, started out as honorable mention, then bumped onto list. So besides being voiced by the inspiring feminist and cutie Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the baby blue eyed Jim liked for; how sincere he cares about others, smart, has a nice punk edge, and many other reasons other swoon him.

5. Static Shock series and DC Comics, Virgil Ovid Hawkins AKA Static.

Here are the reasons of why I liked him on my other list, “Even though not shown on the show, Virgil’s best friend, Gear, is openly gay, yet the shows does show and explore issues of life. I crush on Virgil for he showed more a realistic at high school, he had a similar humor like Spider-Man, only not as mean jabs at the baddies. He was not as much a dork, actual more the calm and fun laid back friend everyone would maybe want. I do like nerds (like movie and comics), yet I rather have a heart than just a brain.”

4. 2003′s Brother Bear’s Sidka

I am aware he has less than most on this list, yet he still showed traits I find attractive. Caring about his family, a voice of kind reason, funny, a relax nature, and more. Plus his long hair and voice. ^_^ Without spoiling, so sad what happens to him. :(

3. 2001′s The Road to El Dorado, Miguel.

^ First can someone please make that character he flirty with an edit of me? Just swap gown to be indigo and hair a lighter brown (like Don Bluth “Anastasia”) with violet tips. Back on to the list, so yes the fact he and Tulio were originally meant as a couple do not escape my mind. So with this fact and my headcanon he is gay, why is he on my list? Because even if gay, he is cute. XD Also not the first time for me to crush on someone who happens to be gay. Miguel is one of very few characters with a full set of facial hair I can like. I tend not to like that. Any ways yes, unlike most top tens, who ties him with Tulio, I personally can not like Tulio. He just seems not as genuinely kind as Miguel. Also Miguel just a goofy goober and that is good be funny and understanding. Plus he seems to love life and not need to steal to enjoy it. Also dark green eyes are a nice bonus.

2. Sailor Moon (90′s Version), Mamoru Chiba AKA Tuxedo Mask

Reasons from other list, “I admit the English dub (the bad one, where they take away lots of LGBTQ+ themes and characters), his American dubbed name and since then very much like the name Darien. So he would have number 1, if after rewatching the show (yes I got a gift from a family have all five seasons, three movies, and more goodies) I realized how unnecessary Tux’s teasing went. Luckily by season two and mostly afterwards become the cutie I know little kid me had a crush on him. He is likable in how romantic, supportive, had his funny moments, was both a hero and could be fine being saved too. Plus physically he is attractive, from messy dark (sometimes deep green), tux, Prince and King outfits, (mini spoilers) a nice dad, and more. I want to say he could be Bi, I am not sure why, just a feeling. Like Biromantic Hetrosexual.By the way not sure, yet these gifs make the Sailor Moon characters seem more white, sadly not Japanese”.

1. 1998′s Moses, Moses.

That smile is so precious. Also his speaking and singing voice are both so kind and can be powerful. I admit he looks better with facial hair.

Now on to the reasons from my past list, “I have to admit he or Joseph (Prince of Dreams) were both runner ups. I ended up with Moses because when upset and even hurt by loved ones, Joseph felt a sense of revenge. To an extend valid for (spoilers) sold to slavery and mistaken as dead, but to want hurt someone just feel equal, not fair at all in my book. To be the better person to me, means try to forgive, maybe talk out, and think ahead. That momentary sense of revenge could take a life and that is something to never get back. Yes maybe after a lot of pain and the person seems there a limit, but again think ahead. Also, yes in the Bible Moses I know an old man, yet that is another reason like this film, it does not follow that, so to enjoy the few changes, make me feel it is fair to like Moses more. I like him for the above, personality, love for family, sense of right and wrong, and more...”

LAST ONE

0. 2002′s Lilo and Stich David

“... Any who why I like him. He a HUGE romantic and supporting person. He is also great with kids and animals or I suppose Aliens is more accurate? David understands no and gives Nani time to figure out things before he feels she would be ready to date. Plus so much more. :D Looks, well he has the plus having little body hair, not that little is bad, yet I tend not like chest hair. XD ... “

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I admit I tend to like my men lean or not have a lot of muscles, not sure why, I do know I like being stronger. XD As long in good shape then that works for me. XD I task @thenamelessdoll @sailorzelda94 @myhollie1911 AND ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO :D

#The Lord of the Rings #lotr #ben ten #cartoon network #howl's moving castle #Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas #Treasure Planet #Static Shock #Brother Bear #the road to el dorado #sailor moon #Sailor Moon 90's version #moses #lilo and stitch #disney #dreamworks

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battlegeekplus · 7 years

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Battle Geek Plus: 6 Years Later

Hey guys, Ryan here.

It’s been 6 years since we’ve launched Battle Geek Plus into the wild. On October 1, 2011, we launched the official BGP website with 10 videos on our old YouTube Channel and now defunct blip account. Around March of 2012, we lost our adsense account and decided to move to our current channel in August of 2012. Alot of people think we started in 2012 due to our channel stating that in our about page, but we really started in 2011 and I wanted to clear up that confusion.

After six years, we have over 5000 subscribers and over 700 videos, so where do we stand now?

Battle Geek Plus is not my first foray as an internet content producer. I’ve been through the ups and downs of internet success and failures, but I have entertained millions of people worldwide in various different ways.

I want to talk about not only the origins of Battle Geek Plus, but a bit into my background and to do that, we at least need to go all the way back to my childhood and teen years, most specifically 1997-1999. This is reflection on my nearly 2 decades of content creation.

As a kid, I always loved being creative. I did everything from write stories, draw pictures, make comic books about video game characters, etc. None of these things I was particularly good at, but I had so much fun doing them anyways. From an early age, I always *had* to be making stuff and being creative.

In 1997 as a teenager in high school, I got into making webpages about various subjects like video games and Sailor Moon. In 1999. had achieved my first *real* success, a Dragon Ball Z website called “Vegeta Insane” dedicated to the character of Vegeta under my old nickname “Castor Troy” from the Nicolas Cage movie, Face/Off. You can still find remnants of my DBZ work by looking up “Castor Troy DBZ” on google.

Since Dragon Ball Z was exploding through Cartoon Network and even topped the search engines over Britney Spears in 1999, I garnered a massive audience of fans and it was the first time I felt I received real recognition for the silly ideas in my head. Later in 1999, I made my first AMV (Anime Music Video) and that literally skyrocketed my traffic to the point where I had to leave free website hosting services like Geocities and accepted a hosting deal with the prestigious planetnamek.com, which was the biggest Dragon Ball Z site on the web at the time.

In 2000, I rebranded Vegeta Insane as “Ginga GIRI GIRI” in order to cover all of Dragon Ball other than just Vegeta. Sadly the Internet Advertising Crash of 2000 happened which forced me to move Ginga GIRI GIRI off planetnamek. The early 2000′s was a pretty horrible time to have a website. Many of the free providers like Geocities were enforcing a 1GB bandwidth limit for their webpages per day. Homestead, Angelfire, Tripod, and Fortune City would literally plaster your pages with ads, and many people we knew who had hosting and servers didn’t wanna touch us. Those who hosted us would literally kick us off within a few months so our site URL was always changing.

In 2001, my site partner Mike aka Dr. Bond decided to finally get us a dedicated server that he was paying out of his own pocket and by 2002 they gave us our final bandwidth warning and shut us down. We finally decided to close the doors on the DBZ web as I moved onto AMVs.

Working on Vegeta Insane and Ginga GIRI GIRI not only let me express my creativity and love for Dragon Ball, the skills I learned making those sites landed me jobs in both the web and graphic design fields, allowed me to have a casual business relationship with FUNimation that we still maintain to this day (They put me on the DBZ Resurrection F Blu Ray Extras!), and helped me develop a large audience and make more friends than I could ever dream of.

In the early 2000′s, AMVs were starting the take off, especially digitally edited ones on computers as opposed to 2 VCRs. I wasn’t an early generation AMV editor like Bobby “C-Ko” Beaver, Maboroshi Studios, Kusoyaro Productions, Kevin Caldwell, etc, but I was lucky enough to catch the AMV ride on the advent of the digital age and the massive influx of AMV contests at conventions. A friend of mine convinced me to enter AMV contests at conventions and over the years AMVs provided me a ton of great opportunities that I would have never dreamed of. I’ve won over 2 dozen awards, coordinated several Multi-Editor Projects, was a guest at conventions, spoke on panels, had an AMV play in the Nokia Theater (now the Microsoft Theater) where the winners of American Idol were announced, ended up working in the film industry as a paid professional editor, entertained packed rooms of 6000+ people, and made tons of fans and close friends that I still remain in contact with to this day.

In 2005, the AMV community wasn’t prepared for the advent of a new and upcoming website:

YouTube.

Now AMVs existed in a legal gray area where we were protected by fair use as our AMV work was transformative in nature, so the anime companies would usually turn a blind eye to them. However, the music industry was not so forgiving as we usually used full, unedited songs as we mashed up anime footage to the rhythm of the songs. Anime Music Videos.org, one of the biggest resources for AMVs on the web was hit by a cease and desist letter by the record label of Creed, Seether, and Evanescence forcing the .org to remove all videos containing songs with those bands, regardless of the lead singer of Evanescence being a huge fan of AMVs to her work.

People were also uploading our AMVs to YouTube without our permission, usually gaining thousands upon million of views, so we had to begrudgingly join YouTube in order to combat these unauthorized uploads. I started my first YouTube account in 2005 and gained millions of views for my AMV uploads.

After google purchased YouTube in 2006, things began to change as YouTube began rolling out “Copyright Violations” which was what Content ID was called back in the day. I remember getting my first copyright violation in 2007 and was forced to delete one of my AMVs from my channel. A year later in 2008, I got my first copyright strike from TOEI animation. Throughout the years, my videos would constantly get both copyright violations and strikes, but never hitting the 3 strikes needed to terminate my account. Sadly, in 2011, my first YouTube account finally bit the dust as TOEI finally gave me my third strike. I’ve tried to appeal various times, but to no avail.

Also in 2011, my interest and passion towards AMVs was dwindling down because I had wanted to finally start moving onto filmmaking and directing. I tried to convince myself to pursue filmmaking and do AMVs on the side, but I realized I couldn’t do both, so I had made the decision to finally retire from AMVs in 2012 and go out with my final video “Naruto Ball Z Shippuden: Heroes Come Back” which was a crossover between Dragon Ball Z and Naruto Shippuden. It went on to win over a dozen awards, including Best of Show at Sakura Con in Washington and my home con of Anime Expo. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to go out with a bang.

Even though I’ve been on YouTube since 2005, I was still very unaware of how the algorithm worked and what audiences liked, I was a huge fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd, The Nostalgia Critic (who was on blip at the time), Angry Joe, Mega64, etc. Back then, YouTube was just a dumping ground for my AMVs and never thought it was something people could make a living off of.

In early 2011, Josh had created the original Battle Geek Plus as “Wild Project Battle Geek Plus” which was a parody of Japanese sounding titles. He only recorded 5 episodes and asked me for feedback on them. He also said he was going to be moving to California from Indiana and asked if I wanted to be involved with BGP. My initial reaction was we were going to continue the current “Wild Project Battle Geek Plus” show and I would be a supporting character.

When Josh and his girlfriend (now wife) Heather came to California to do apartment hunting, we had dinner and Josh explained he wanted to do a reboot of the Battle Geek Plus brand from scratch, so I proposed that we follow the structure of The Nostalgia Critic’s site: thatguywiththeglasses.com where we would have a site featuring videos.

When Josh and Heather finally made the move to California in Summer of 2011, I had just won a $1500 prize from the Anime Expo 2011 AMV Contest and used that to buy our first DSLR camera, the Canon T2i which was highly recommended by our friends. We filmed several videos over the summer and finally launched the BGP site on October 1, 2011.

Our initial audience was just our family and friends at first, but we had our first semi-viral hit in Nov 2011 with our “Batman Arkham City Addiction” skit which got over 10,000 views overnight. I was still very unaware of how successful content creators released videos on YouTube since the only thing I knew from The Nostalgia Critic was to release a video weekly.

As the weeks went by into 2012, our videos were only averaging 60-100 views even after the success of Batman Arkham City Addiction. By 2011, the YouTube Algorithm had changed to cater to longer videos and the majority of our skits were on the short side. Sometimes we would get 500-1000 views if we got lucky, but the traffic was never consistent.

In early 2012, we got an email from former MMA fighter Bas Rutten who saw our “Boss Booten” parody videos and complimented us. Bas was awesome enough to send us free shirts and even invited us to hang out at the beach with him. This was our first real celebrity encounter from doing Battle Geek Plus.

In March of 2012, there was an exploit going around YouTube called “clickbombing” where people would use programs to massively click ads on videos to raise the revenue and would end up getting your adsense account shut down. This happened to quite a few YouTubers, most famously Markiplier’s first channel. I remember checking our adsense account and noticed we had earned several thousand dollars from a Skyrim parody video. Hours later, when I tried to log into our adsense account again, I got the dreaded “Your adsense account has been suspended” message. I’ve tried to appeal several times, but was denied each time. We stayed on the old channel to at least try to get more of an audience until August of 2012.

It was really difficult having to start again from scratch because out of our 2000+ subscribers we earned from the old channel, only about 200 of them followed us to the new one and less than 50 watched our reuploaded videos.

In 2013, I tried to apply to attend E3 with the Battle Geek Plus website and YouTube channel, but was denied. A friend of mine from the AMV community put us in touch with Team Kaizen Games who were able to get us into our first E3 and we’ve been great friends with them ever since. At E3, we were able to meet alot of developers and even had dinner with developers and executives from Eidos Montreal and Square-Enix.

Later in 2013, Screwattack used to feature user content on their front page and advertised several of our videos which brought us some good traffic. I had also decided to send some of our videos to the newly developed Smosh Gaming Alliance and they praised and awarded several of our videos on their channel.

The biggest prize of all in 2013 would be when Capcom was hosting a Ducktales Sing-Along contest for their Ducktales Remastered release, so I went to Disneyland and filmed a video there dressed as Scrooge McDuck. Not only did I win the contest, I was featured on the Ducktales Remastered Homepage and I was given one of the rare Ducktales Remastered Press Kits. Thanks to the Screwattack, Smosh, and Capcom promotions, we earned about 1500 subscribers about a year into our new channel.

However, because I didn’t have an adsense account anymore and I couldn’t monetize any of these new opportunities. I got a partnership with Maker for a 50/50 split which was a big mistake. Luckily I was able to break away from Maker in 2015 and joined the much better Screenwave Media MCN.

2014 was one of the toughest years of my life as I was fired from my previous full time job in 2013 and after getting nothing from applying to every job I could, I went with a temp agency that placed me at jobs only lasting from one week to one month. It was stressful for me that year because I never knew how long my jobs would last and if I would be able to pay the rent.

However, 2014 was also probably the most important year for BGP for the following reasons:

- We made our first business deal with PDP and Nintendo at E3 2014 to promote their Wired Fight Pads for the Wii U.

- We applied for the thatguywiththeglasses.com (Now Channel Awesome) talent pickup and were accepted out of 1200+ applicants.

We were still a small channel at 1500 subscribers and only getting 10-60 views a day regardless of the Screwattack, Smosh, and Capcom promotions from the previous year, but we were able to make our first real business deal and get a chance to work with one of my idols, The Nostalgia Critic months within each other.

However, all of this was short lived as 5 days later after our acceptance into Channel Awesome, I was let go from my current job which added alot of stress to my life. Unfortunately, we were still months away from our debut on the site, so my main goal was to not starve/be homeless/etc. to finally see our videos get posted on Channel Awesome.

Throughout most of 2014, I started to feel tightness in my chest and muscles throughout my body, regardless of keeping up my workout regime consistently. In October of 2014, I had finally felt my first full on panic attack which literally felt like I was having a heart attack. I called 911 and was immediately rushed into the ER. I was informed by the doctors that it was a panic attack and not a heart attack and there hasn’t been a day since October of 2014 where I haven’t felt tightness and numbness in my body due to stress. I’m taking medications now, but the main culprit of all of this was the stress I was feeling not being able to keep a job and wondering if I was going to still keep a roof over my head.

In 2015, I wanted to finally do a big crossover with all of the other Channel Awesome Producers which was the Capcom Bidding War. While the video didn’t get the reception I expected, it was hands down, the most beneficial video I ever did for the channel as it helped me get in contact with the rest of my Channel Awesome producers, it helped land us cameos in the TMNT 2014 and Hocus Pocus Nostalgia Critic reviews, and tons of other cameos with the other producers. I still remember how excited I was when I got my first email response from Doug Walker himself only a few hours after I emailed him saying that he was totally cool with cameo-ing in the Capcom Bidding War and getting his footage days later.

Shortly after E3 2015, Josh sat us all down and tried to explain why our channel wasn’t growing as fast as we wanted it to. It was mostly because we weren’t focused and were trying to release a different video every week. I always thought just as long as you had a consistent schedule, that’s all what mattered, but our schedule would be a different type of video each week and audiences weren’t always into different videos. Josh also explained we were a small 4 person team trying to make enough shows to become our own network.

For example, one week would be a sketch, the next week would be a Kung Kwon Todd video, then the week after that would be a Jimmy Buckrider video, etc. Even though we were posting consistently week after week, our content wasn’t one consistent show that our audience was expecting every week.

Josh saw that one of our old Let’s Play videos got a decent response, so he suggested we stick to doing a Let’s Play video every week and we called the show just plain “Battle Geek Plus” which was eventually re-branded to “Battle Geek Plus: We Play Games”.

The reception to “Battle Geek Plus: We Play Games” was modest, but nothing spectacular. I had alot of difficulty editing the show mostly because we agreed to keep episodes 15 minutes or shorter, but we had over 30+ of footage each time and it was *very* difficult to cut that all down to 15 minutes. Also, “Battle Geek Plus: We Play Games” was on a much tighter deadline since we could barely have episodes done ahead of time due to our different schedules.

In 2016, our main gaming review show, “Awesome Video Game Memories” was beginning to pick up some steam and Josh was also pushing us to have a podcast for many years. Seeing the feedback eventually made us decide to focus on “Awesome Video Game Memories” as our flagship weekly show and we also released our first “Waxing Pixels” podcast episode that year as well.

Josh also recommended that we start playing games live on twitch and I started streaming daily, but burned out heavily midway into 2017 trying to balance streaming and producing edited content.

After the reception to the Capcom Bidding War, I was pretty discouraged from doing another big crossover with my fellow Channel Awesome producers which is why we didn’t do one in 2016. I decided to bite the bullet and wanted to create a documentary based on our own experiences with the Nintendo vs. Sega war. I came up with an outline, a script, and asked Doug Walker if he wanted to be part of it and he immediately agreed.

I was incredibly afraid to release a big video on this scale due to the reception of the Capcom Bidding War, but to my surprise, the Nintendo vs. Sega video with the Nostalgia Critic not only received a massively overwhelming positive response, which was a complete 180 from the Capcom Bidding War. It became our most successful video to date which still gets us views to this day.

Now that it’s been 6 years since we began Battle Geek Plus and 20+ years since I started doing internet content in general, where do I stand now and what are my reflections of all of this?

I would have to say my internet content “career” in general has been alot like Kevin Smith’s (my favorite director).

DBZ Websites: Clerks AMVs: Chasing Amy Battle Geek Plus: Tusk

DBZ websites were my first initial claim to fame which got me millions of views throughout the years, AMVs while a much smaller community, was my most well received work critically, and Battle Geek Plus was my more experimental phase with mixed results, but nowhere near as well received as the previous 2 efforts.

I left the DBZ web site community mostly because of bandwidth problems in the early 2000′s, but I brought back my DBZ site in 2010 as an archive of all my work at http://www.3gkai.com

Alot of people have criticised me personally on why I left AMVs when I was at the top of my game and the main reason was to pursue filmmaking. Like “Why did you give up all that fame and fortune to do YouTube videos in an already saturated market?”. My declining interest in anime and amvs was already beginning to become apparent as far back as 2006 after the big YouTube boom with members of the AMV community quitting altogether to pursue other things and it was hard to stay motivated without the community I was used to. I was also going through that phase in 2006 where I was entering my last 2 years of college and had to wonder “What am I gonna do with my life?”. When I was managing the 4th Video Game AMV Project in 2007, I *really* felt the massive dissonance of working on that as opposed to the 3rd Video Game AMV Project in 2005 where we had a more dedicated and motivated group. An archive of the 5 Video Game AMV Projects I helped coordinate is at: http://www.vg-projects.com

2005 was the year I felt was the last really big year in AMVs in terms of community, innovation, and general camaraderie before the YouTube boom and every one I knew moving onto different things. After seeing AVGN, The Nostalgia Critic, and many other webshows, that was the path I wanted to start moving towards.

I still put every bit of energy into all of the AMVs I did from 2006-2012 and announced my retirement when my Naruto Ball Z: Shippuden video won the Best of Show at Sakura Con 2012.

When doing Battle Geek Plus, my absolute favorite part of any AVGN, Nostalgia Critic, or Angry Joe video were the sketch parts, so I wanted to mostly focus on different types of sketches with wacky characters based on video games.

Unfortunately, when we entered the webshow scene in 2011, the YouTube algorithm had already changed to cater to longer videos and reviews were still king, so we were kind of doomed from the very start in a way.

Shows like Battle Geek Plus Adventures, Kung Kwon Todd, Jimmy Buckrider, Boss Booten, Totally Tubular Tim and many other of the wacky characters we made are shows I could *never* pitch to anyone convincingly, so I always made those shows for myself because *I* wanted to see how they would turn out. I do admit that I cringe watching alot of my older videos, but I actually started rewatching alot of the older videos while vodcasting them on our twitch channel and had a good time watching them again because I remember I loved the “new-ness”, the excitement, and remembering the happy person I was years ago working on them.

There are many times I felt that I wanted to turn back the clock and just begin with reviews right off the bat instead of sketches, but now I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything in the world because of the great memories and excitement I had coming up with and working on them to see the finished products.

Every time I feel sad and frustrated due to the lack of views and growth, I always have to remind myself: I chose this path. I could have easily stayed on the top in the AMV community, but I would see AVGN, Nostalgia Critic, and many other webshows through the looking glass and say “I wish I could be like them.”. Now, my group and I are part of that.

Without the sketches and wacky characters me and the crew have created, Battle Geek Plus would not be where it is today. We certainly would have not been praised by Bas Rutten himself, get our first business deal with PDP and Nintendo, and get on Channel Awesome. Even though we were a much smaller channel back in the day, they all saw a potential in us through our work itself rather than the views and subscribers.

This is why my stance on views, subscribers, and especially *the numbers* have changed and they don’t mean to me as much as before.

Let’s be honest here. It’s not difficult to get views.

We can simply start making drama videos, calling out other youtubers, capitalizing on controversial topics, etc to easily get the clicks.

Or we can simply ride on the latest fads like Spider-Man vs. Elsa, and many of the other ones throughout the years like reply girls, Gangam Style, etc.

In all honesty, the content we make would have been far more relevant in 2007-2008. Who wants to see another “Mega Man 2 review” in 2017? Why not focus on all the newer games?

Because I wanna make the content that *I* want to make without trying to cater to the YouTube algorithm or trying to get those clicks. Yeah, people have done tons of Mega Man 2 and Super Mario Bros reviews before, but I wanted to explain my personal memories with them because they are my own and nobody else’s.

It’s *very* easy to manipulate the system in order to just get views, but I don’t want to do that. I tried reviewing newer games while they were still relevant in the past, but would always get far more traffic for videos covering older games.

I want to make content that I’m passionate about and want to be proud of. Audiences can EASILY see when you’re being dishonest and desperate for attention and relevance. I never want Battle Geek Plus to be the center of any drama or anything controversial. I simply came into this just wanting to express the weird ideas in my head rather than trying to be the next *big youtuber*.

I’ve been through the highs and lows of internet fame multiple times before and it’s *NEVER* easy to be in a big position no matter how much views, subs, and money you get. Everything on YouTube is dictated by advertisers and constantly changing algorithms. YouTube is honestly in a weird place right now where it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Back then, YouTube was a place where you could put your cat and family videos, hence why their old motto was “Broadcast Yourself”. But with the TV and Movie Studios constantly imposing their copyright rules, people abusing the system for clicks and views, YouTube is trying to move into being more of a corporate TV station rather than a place where people used to post videos for fun, so I’m very uncertain about the future of the platform.

I feel that I’m very fortunate to have gotten into content creation far before we were ever able to get paid for it. I never earned a dime for any of my DBZ websites or AMVs (except the $1500 prize money from Anime Expo 2011′s AMV Contest), but working on those led me to actual paid jobs and careers over the years. DBZ websites and AMVs were never about the money. It was always about just having fun and expressing myself.

When it came to YouTube and the promise of a monetary reward, I do admit I used to be really obsessed trying to make YouTube my living for a long time and even tried to make content catering to *their* rules with mixed results. I would feel discouraged and jealous at times saying “Why did that guy who filmed himself falling off a bike get far more traffic and a sponsor deal than the videos I spent hours on?”.

I’ve seen a ton of people trying to get into the YouTube game feeling all gung-ho at first and after the first few months or years without any progress, they immediately quit. It pains me to see people not live up to their potential because of the prospect of being able to become famous and make money was their major goal and not doing it for the fun. I had a friend who made really good comedy videos, but he quit due to the lack of views.

Personally, I’m just “wired” to make content and be creative. Playing games is fun and all, but I’ll go absolutely *nuts* if I don’t create something. I absolutely love the entire process of making content from the initial thought process to the finished product.

Do I still want to do videos for a living? Absolutely, but I’m not as concerned or obsessed as I was about it before. If it’s gonna happen, I’ll get there *my* way without catering to short lived trends, advertisers, and algorithms. I want to create a body of work that can still be evergreen no matter when you watch it. I want an archive and a library of work rather than quick videos nobody will watch in the future.

I’d rather do a review of Bubble Bobble than Destiny 2 any day of the week.

I got into DBZ Websites and AMVs just at the right time, but I entered the realm of webshows in 2011 which was already far past the prime date to grow. But, I don’t let that discourage me.

Battle Geek Plus is in a weird position on YouTube where we don’t get that many views on the initial releases of our videos, but over time, people begin finding alot of our older stuff. While the view count still isn’t huge for our archive, it shows that people are still finding our work regardless of it being years old.

I know we’ve slowed down alot in the variety of shows we do mostly for time reasons and my personal health. I really want to approach things from a more relaxed and chill perspective rather than trying to chase the shiny object that will get us the most views. I’m at the age where I really need to be more concerned about my health and don’t want to stress out over things like subscribers, views, and numbers that take away from me creating videos.

As we move into the final months of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, here are few things I have planned that I can disclose right now:

- There’s going to be a major step up in quality for the “Awesome Video Game Memories” series as we’re planning to make bigger, better, and more in-depth episodes. We’re also going to slowly incorporate alot of the classic Battle Geek Plus humor like we did in our Nintendo vs. Sega video in a way where it won’t disrupt the video. I know alot of people have been asking “When’s Kung Kwon Todd or *insert character here* coming back?” and even though our original characters haven’t been a main priority for a while, you’ll see them come back in many ways as we really step up the quality of the Awesome Video Game Memories series.

- We’re going to focus alot more on twitch streaming and also doing alot of special stuff to make our streams more fun and interactive. I burned out on streaming a few months ago, but now I feel that I’ve found a good pace for myself without feeling forced or mentally exhausted. The other BGP crew members are also planning on streaming on days that I won’t be streaming.

- We’ve moved our Waxing Pixels Podcast to a live broadcast on Twitch with audio only versions being released on YouTube and itunes. We also plan to have special events and guests in future episodes.

- Since the Battle Geek Plus Universe is so huge and expansive, there will be a huge emphasis on our “Universe” with our new channel trailer and special videos and events that will reference that.

- I’ve already spoken with Doug Walker and there’s going to be *several* collaboration videos with the Nostalgia Critic next year as opposed to only one per year. I also plan to do more collaborations with my fellow Channel Awesome producers and other producers.

As they say, the journey is always far more important than the destination and doing webshows felt like the fresh start from the bottom I needed after being on the top in the DBZ and AMV communities for several years. I do admit there were times I felt discouraged about my lack of growth, but nowadays, I’m grateful for every little victory and opportunity I’ve had with Battle Geek Plus. Starting from the bottom again has really made me appreciate the hard work that me and the rest of the BGP crew puts into every aspect of our production and now it’s time for us to scale things up to *our* liking and not for any trends, advertisers, or algorithms.

I’m still excited for the show more than ever. Not in the “OMG new-ness” way back in 2011, but from a more refreshed and relaxed perspective. I want to work smarter and not harder. I still want to do this as my living, but I realize even if it never happens, I still have a massive body of work for over 2 decades or more that I’m going to be really proud of.

As for wondering if Battle Geek Plus has been successful or not? Well, I work with some of *the* greatest content producers on the internet, work with various gaming/tech/anime companies, and got the attention of a celebrity like Bas Rutten. We get to go to tons conventions and events, meet new people, and BARELY any of this has to do with views and subscribers as our work speaks for itself. Even though we have small fanbase, I’m always happy to chat with them on twitter, our comments, and twitch. Whether we have 10 or 10000 subscribers, I’m always willing to take time out of my day to tell them how I’m doing and ask about how they’re doing as well.

Right now, I work a really stable day job that I enjoy, doesn’t stress me out, and pays me well to still invest in the show. I live in a nice apartment that’s a short commute from my job, and I exercise regularly to keep my stress levels down. All of this is a major positive change from 2014.

Battle Geek Plus sits at over 5000 subscribers and while that’s still considered small, it’s far leap from when we struggled to even get our first 50. I’m here to continue the journey to grow as both a producer and person with the simple mission of expressing the wacky ideas I have in my head.

Here’s the links again to all of my old and current work:

3G Kai - Ginga Giri Giri Kai: My DBZ and AMV archive: http://www.3gkai.com/

Video Game AMV Projects: http://vg-projects.com/

Battle Geek Plus YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/bgpawesome

Battle Geek Plus Website http://www.battlegeekplus.com/

Battle Geek Plus Twitch: http://www.twitch.com/battlegeekplus

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThatRyanMolina

BGP Twitter: https://twitter.com/BattleGeekPlus

Thanks for reading and stay awesome!

- Ryan

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raitrolling · 8 years

Text

i fucked up and answered the wrong symbol but fuckit im still doing this

☾ - What was the first idea that inspired the creation of each of your trolls, and do they still embody that idea now?

listed in order of creation, and some of these answers are gonna get really fuckin long so prepare yourself for masses of textwalls

charon: ive gone over his history in this ask here, so tl;dr version: i wanted to make a light greenblood who was creepy and loved blood and fighting. thats it. why people like this guy even though his origin is literally being Edgy(tm) is beyond me. while blood and fighting are still his main interests, his creepiness is no longer being creepy for the sake of being ‘ooh hes so evil and InSaNe xD xD xD’ to actually having motivations and becoming a legitimate threat to others.

skathi: I DONT THINK IVE EVER ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT OLD!SKATHI BEFORE SO ONLY FORMER MSPAF MEMBERS REMEMBER THAT DUMPSTER FIRE LMAO. but basically skathi’s original concept was vaguely inspired by The Importance of Being Earnest since i was studying that play at the time, but rather than being a british gentleman who invents an alternate identity as an excuse to fuck off to the country or invents a sick relative as an excuse to avoid boring social events, she was a lowblood posing as a highblood because people she fucked over burned down her hive. however that idea didnt work at all because she was complete shit at hiding her blood so that got scrapped, and shes been completely remade twice. now the only concepts that have stayed through the revamps is that she’s an axe-wielding Flarper who uses poisons and got her hive burned down.

cvetka: cvetka’s another character who’s been completely revamped and reset, but her concept hasnt really changed as much. originally she had chlorokinesis that went awry all the fuckin time because whatever man im 16 i can write whatever bullshit i want (aka no reason at all). also she was inspired by the Victorian Era + the language of flowers because i was studying that at the time (you will see this becomes a common thing). then i cant remember if it got confirmed in the comic or if it just because a commonly accepted headcanon on mspaf that highbloods didnt have psiionics at all (whats a vriska) so that got scrapped. then in her revamp she became a complete recluse because pacifism is a no-go on alternia, and while i find that shes become a much better written / well-thought out character as a result, my chances to rp her have become severely limited.

katrin: was my self-insert. originally she was painfully shy and couldnt really talk to anyone without get super embarrassed, and also she was an artist instead of a writer. then everything changed when the fire nation attacked she got a boyfriend. its kinda funny tho because she had no interest in working or getting rich until she met gerrel, yet she ended up on the complete opposite path to him by becoming a thief and running scams with her moirail at the time. then a shitload of events occurred (most of them retconned out of her backstory but their effects on her character still remain. also we dont talk about 90% of those events because i was a Bad Writer at the time and im embarrassed by everything and nearly anxiety-vomit whenever people go ‘hey remember this’ BYE) and we got the piece of shit raccoon thief we all know and love. also ive mentioned this heaps of times before but at one point she had robolimbs cuz both her arms got shot off but i retconned that to having the bullets graze her because i hated drawing her cybernetics lmao. the only things that’ve really stayed with her is that she’s still really awkward and a little shy, as well as still retaining a lot of my negative traits from her self-insert days.

viltau: ive also talked about vil’s history in another ask, but tl;dr wanted a Gatsby troll cuz i was studying the book at the time, ended up making an Edgelord. he’s still pretty gatsby-esque, being a rich guy who worked his way up to the top (tho nowhere near as drastically since he’s already a highblood) and throws a lot of parties, but since he’s a huge literature nerd now he’s a lot more self-aware and aims to purposely embody tropes from his favourite novels. i still like the idea of yellowblood!viltau (and his old sprites are adorable i mean look at him), but i have a lot more fun writing him as he is now. he’s almost a parody of himself, yet simultaneously played completely straight.

somerl: he was originally inspired from me going through my photo albums from times ive been to Hamilton Island on holiday, and in particular the one night i went on a cruise on The Banjo Paterson. i liked the idea of a cute sailor troll, and that was all he got characterwise. then, like katrin, he developed as a result of a bunch of events occurring to him and that’s how he gained a personality. he’s still a cute sailor troll, but now he’s a paranoid insomniac sailor troll with an obsession for superstitions and hatred for seadwellers and women. seadweller women are his worst nightmare.

dismas: his origin is actually kinda funny cuz i was watching this amv, and around about the time that Birthday Massacre song starts playing there’s this white-haired kid who appears and i thought he was the coolest thing ever. to this day i still have no clue who he is or what anime he’s from. also because it’s still 2011 and I Was A Teenage Edgelord i had an embarrassing obsession with Izaya from Durarara so of course dismas had to be an informant who fucks with everyone. originally he was yellow!viltau’s assistant who carried out all the shady jobs and was my go-to troll for killing off ocs i got bored of but they had history with other people’s trolls so i couldnt just get rid of them. then his original concept got combined with vil when i retconned vil into being an indigoblood. when i brought him back i kept the informant stuff and the Edgyness, but now he’s edgy to make fun of the fact he was a legitimate edgelord played 100% straight back in the day. also his roboarm switched sides because i forgot which arm he lost lmao.

aegiel: did a complete 180 in terms of character concept, and went through a bunch a revamps before i even started rping her. originally she was inspired by Hollywood Undead (particularly the song city), and was actually a super hemorebel who managed to escape capture and culling by having probability manipulating psiionics that ensured luck was always on her side. then i scrapped that entirely because at the time i was studying the Chinese revolution and the topic of the cultural revolution came up. so then her concept switched to being based on the Chinese Red Guards, as well as partially the Russian Cheka since i studied the Russian revolution the semester prior. I thought the concept of a super hemoloyal lowblood with a fanatical dedication to the Empire would be interesting, since most hemoloyalists tended to be highbloods. the only things thatve stayed from her original concept are her name and symbol, as well as her laughing quirk being a remnant of how her lusus was originally a cheshire cat.

aiolos: i dont really remember where his original concept came from, apart from i remember seeing a fanart of a 1920s style Scout from TF2 and liking the idea of a courier troll. i know i drew his original design in history class while watching Doctor Zhivago but i dont remember anything about that movie to know if that had any bearing on his character lmao. originally he was pretty rude and kinda sleazy, which ended up morphing into the sass you see today. he hasnt really changed much from his original concept, but its more that his character has grown over time.

kalpan: ok i have a confession to make. the reason why i made kal was because there were a shitload of anonbloods on mspaf that were either A. really bad at hiding their anonblood status, or B. were all almost always tyrianbloods in disguise who would pull rank every time someone gave them shit for being anon. and me, being the egotistical piece of shit i am, decided that i wanted to make a good anonblood. so kal’s blood was kept secret and she stayed out of trouble so that itd never get revealed, and her reasoning for being anonymous was just that she didnt really care my dude. she hasnt really strayed too far from her original concept, but rather expanded on the reason why shes so casually apathetic and gave her more of a backstory.

leithe: leithe’s original concept was something i dreamed up, no joke. from what i remember from the dream, i went to like a superhero school or something, and there was this one kid whose power was to cancel out other people’s powers so he’d be the one to save other kids when they lost control of their powers. his power also looked like a bubble that’d envelop himself and the other person whose powers he was cancelling out, so when i made him a fantroll that turned into an invisible field in which his psiionics were constantly active. and instead of being a hero, leithe was just an average dude who’d take up odd jobs here and there so he could have the skills to get a good job in the fleet. conceptwise he hasnt changed much, although hes become less tolerate of other lowbloods over time and he grew 500% more eyebrow.

pratap: was the first new troll i made after starting this blog. his first idea was a cute little seadweller who didnt really understand why other trolls were suspicious of him and his innocent offers to take them to his cafe for coffee. then shortly after making him, I studied Great Expectations in my uni literature class, and loved the idea of pratap getting a mentor who turns him from an innocent little kid to a typical shithead member of high society. that plot was going pretty well but fell through because of Reasons (read: i no longer associate with the other rper), so now he’s stuck in limbo characterwise but id love to pick it up again sometime.

errett: i say this every time i bring up errett’s history but haha remember when this guy was supposed to be cute. so errett was supposed to be in a group of trolls inspired by the four main elements from the game OFF., but pwo and i never got anyone to fill the spots for the elements of metal and plastic so it was just errett and his troll karnvr. and yeah, errett was supposed to be cute and his rudeness was meant to just be cutesy ‘ill puff up my cheeks and get angry and everyones gonna think im adorable’ but that got thrown out the window the moment i started rping him and he became a complete cunt. then we started thinking up a backstory for him and he became even more of a Bitter Angry Baby, so now the only elements that’ve really retained are his design and references to the game OFF..

sigrun: was inspired by those gifs of penguins falling over and the fact that i fucking love penguins and cry whenever i see cute penguin-related things. apart from being a bit more aggressive in their first draft, they havent changed much at all (probably because i never use them ever oops).

kisert: i have another confession to make. the reason why i made kisert was because i thought the whole ‘creepy little kid who talks to ghosts’ troll was overdone to hell and back so i wanted to make a parody of it by making a troll who pretends to be creepy and talks to ghosts to con people. he’s always been a massive childish brat, but his brattiness and childishness has gotten even more apparent over the years. tho at the same time, because those tendencies have been played up, he’s become a lot more emotionally stunted and stuck in the past as a result, which i think is more interesting than his original concept.

raesul: also hasn’t really changed from her original concept. i had the Danger Days album on repeat and really liked the idea of a hemorebel radio host, and so rae was born. she’s also partially inspired by Motorcity which i was watching at the time (and never finished oops), hence her radio station being called radio BRNR, after the Burners group. while rae was always supposed to be completely different from her miss summertime identity, the differences have become a lot more pronounced now that rae is super awkward and insecure while miss summertime is loud, proud, and always in control. also miss summertime’s wardrobe went from being super girly to more punk and rock-and-rock inspired, originally i wanted to avoid that because i thought itd be too cliche but then somewhere along the line i decided ‘lol fuck it’.

shirei: is based off the pokemon pangoro, cuz one of it’s pokedex entries states how its tough and aggressive but doesnt tolerate bullies, so i thought the idea of a tough but almost motherly gang leader would be neat. i was also watching Kill La Kill and Revolutionary Girl Utena at the time, so she gained some tomboyish but also princely/fairytale-esque qualities as a result. she hasnt changed much in terms of concept and ideas, but she kinda retroactively got inspired by quite a few of the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure protagonists (particularly Jolyne and Giorno, but also a bit of Josuke) because they were kind of similar in concept.

redeti: was made as being a part of a group for trolls based on santa’s reindeer that i was doing with pwo. red is a combination of the ideas i had for Dasher and Vixen, and when i first designed him we joked that he looked like a lovechild between viltau and kitaer, so his interests became snowcones and murder to reference that. while he’s still a part of the Northern Lights crew with all the other reindeer inspired trolls we made, he’s become more detached from everyone else as a result of making friends with people outside the community. but in terms of original concept and ideas, he hasn’t really changed apart from probably becoming a lot more naive and dense over time.

fannar: is another troll from the Northern Lights crew, although they were made about a month after. they were kind of based off my idea for Donner, but also a mix between one of my older trolls i got rid of and my old Hetalia oc Antarctica. since they werent going to be a reindeer troll, i wanted them to be an outsider to the group, hence their polar bear lusus and their sickly constitution making it difficult for them to live in their current environment. originally they legitimately hated redeti’s guts and wanted him dead, but over time it’s become more of just a simple blackcrush that’s made them very protective of him.

nancor: ive mentioned this before, but his original concept came about because of this video and me deciding i really liked xatu. i had also seen The Book Thief recently, and loved the character of Death (i havent read the book yet tho dont judge me), so that’s where nan’s whole ‘pleasant but morbid angel of death’ came from. he’s also somewhat based on a couple characters from Hamatora (which is an alright series but the 2nd season is a complete dumpster fire and you should only watch if you want to watch a show fly so far off the rails it becomes hilarious), such as Ratio’s power requiring him to cover up his eye, and Moral’s design (as well as Izuru Kamukura from Danga Ronpa being another design insp). he’s always been kind of a silly character with his dumb puns and the fact that he walks around wearing a blindfold and fights with semaphore flags, but the more serious aspects of his personality didnt come in until much later.

eichio: another troll that started out as a huge fuckin joke, i saw this vine and wanted to make a troll who used noisemakers as their strife weapon. his mimicry and talent with musical instruments was just random brainstorming, and his whole ‘mimicking other trolls so he can learn how to act properly and pick up their behaviours to become likeable’ became a thing because i didnt know what personality or interests to give him. then i really started to explore the concept of a troll who has been raised to be nothing but the perfect people pleaser and even more perfect servant, and the effects that would have on someone’s mentality. he also developed an anxiety disorder cuz i got diagnosed with GAD and realised how much of myself id unintentionally put in him. its kinda amusing how a character who was originally supposed to just be a blank slate ended up so complex, but i really like how much hes grown as a concept.

davitt: dav was made for that meme that went around where you and a friend had to come up w. 2 ocs in secret and not reveal them until they were both done, and then you had to figure out how to ship them together, so i came up with him while pwo made walker. i was watching How To Get Away With Murder at the time, so i really liked the idea of a corrupt lawyer who used loopholes to get all his clients out of being found guilty, and was only in the job field for money and the fact it was really easy for a tealblood to become a Legislacerator. but, since im incapable of making trolls that arent also huge fuckin dorks, he was also a huge lazy piece of shit cat who hoarded random garbage and came up with dumb ways to be efficiently lazy. over time his corrupt and greedy ways have fallen to the wayside in favour of the more comically serious side to his personality, though they’re still slightly there since he is primarily a defense lawyer and we all know those types of lawyers are the devil.

ananta: ana is based off the game OneShot, which i played and fell in love with instantly. a lot of their concept stems from the game, ranging from superficial stuff such as their appearance resembling Niko and how their strife weapon is a lightbulb, but also the technical aspects of the game such as their unforgiving personality being a reference to how you only get one shot at the game, and their hobby as a hacker referencing how the game does shit to your computer as part of a puzzle. the resemblance was apparently so close that the creator of the game reblogged my concept art for ana, which im both still flattered and embarrassed about. like a lot of my recent characters, their core concept hasnt really changed, but rather ive focused a lot more on aspects of their personality like their extreme bitterness to hide their vulnerablity, and their loneliness as a result of the events in their life and the facade they put up.

soroll: is a literal meme. hes based off the ‘scream at own ass’ opossum meme, and is part of a group of meme animal trolls owned by pwo, who is also a huge memer. again his concept hasnt really changed since hes always been kinda dumb but with a huge heart, but over time hes become more of a mother hen type since he ended up unintentionally gravitating towards trolls who never took care of themselves so hed fuss over them. also i have no clue what happened to his quirk over time or even what accent its meant to resemble now lmao.

benrii: is based off Sanetoshi Watase from one of my favourite anime of all time, Mawaru Penguindrum. like ana, he’s not so much a direct rip of the character (apart from appearance) but more of an amalgamation of references to the series, so you have things like his obsession with fate mirroring the theme of the show, his apple bombs referencing the symbolism of apples that appears constantly, and the fact that he’s 9.5 sweeps refers to the 95 arc number in the show. also at one point i fell into a huge rabbit hole and ended up reading up about cults and biblical shit so that’s where his god complex came from. the whole ‘being addicted to praise and acting out for attention’ aspect of his personality didnt come about until much later, and thats now the dominant part of his character as a whole.

rosato: is another troll based on memes and joke posts on tumblr rifp, but this time its those posts on modern vampires and people not recognising they’re actually vampires and seeing things like their sudden aversion to the sun and garlic to just be weird coincidences. so then i came up with the idea of a forgetful rainbowdrinker who refused to believe theyre actually dead because they forgot how they got killed and assumes all the associated Weird Vampire Shit are just coincidences. he’s also got a shitload of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure references in him because this was around about the time i got into the series. after errett failed, rosato was my second attempt at making a shy and cute but kinda mean troll, but once again he ended up becoming a full-blown rude asshole.

zotick: i was reading Vento Aureo and thought ‘you know Gold Experience is a fuckin cool power, what if I tried to make it less OP and turn it into a fantroll’. thus, zot was born. like rosato, his design and personality are a bunch of references to Giorno, and his love of bugs/scorpions/lizards/etc came from the fact that whenever Gold Experience turned something into an animal, its always something gross and dangerous. like eichio, i couldnt decide on any interests so i took the cheater’s way out and made it that he got bored easily so he doesnt stick to any main hobbies apart from bugs and pranks. Over time, he became more obnoxious and annoying, which was mostly because every single bug-related post on this site i could find was a fuckin meme.

Indi and Kaiman: im putting these two together because i came up with their concepts at the same time. firstly, i wanted to make trolls who were interested in the paranormal and aliens and shit, and secondly, i wanted them to be not quite siblings but grew up so closely they could basically be considered the Alternian equivalent of brothers. They were supposed to look similar in appearance and clothing too, but when i drew my first concept of indi i really liked what i came up with but it didnt suit how i envisioned kai so they ended up becoming completely different. i also wanted indi to be the quiet one and kai to be the loud one, but then i liked the idea of them being completely conflicting in terms of first impressions and ‘real’ personality. while their concepts never strayed away from their original idea, they definitely became a lot more developed and evolved once i started talking about them to ez, who was designing mauban at the time. from their interactions with mau, indi became a lot more extroverted but also trusting and optimistic, whereas kai became more judgmental and standoffish than i had initially intended, which i thought was a neat contrast.

mikiel: he’s Ghiaccio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. that’s it. character analysis over. ok i lied, but a lot of his character concept came from the fact that i really loved Ghiaccio’s design, personality, and powers, and really wanted to make a troll like that. funnily enough his gang affiliation is not a reference to Passione / La Squadra, but rather because i wanted to add more characters to the red scarves. the whole mutant thing is because i really wanted him to have psiionics but also wanted him to be a blueblood, and the fact that his powers are nigh uncontrollable is me reusing original!cve’s chlorokinesis idea, this time the reason being because his body cant handle an ability that supposed to be only seen in lowbloods rather than just Because Shut Up. he was actually supposed to be aggressive and Angry(tm) all the fuckin time, but after a while i considered that his life is actually really fuckin depressing so he gained ‘depression’ as his second emotion. now i try to focus more on his defeatist nature as opposed to anything else because otherwise he feels just kinda one-note.

aislin: is based on Alphys from Undertale, because i really like making characters based on my fav indie rpgs apparently. i got to that part in the game when you realise that alphys has been watching you from the very beginning, and thought a troll with surveillance-based psiionics would be a really neat concept over making Yet Another Geeky Scientist (although ais is interested in science to reference alphys, she just doesnt practice it). in terms of personality, she’s katrin 2.0, because as much as i love kat how she is right now, i really missed her adorably yet painfully shy personality that she used to have. i am also v. protective of ais and the types of trolls she interacts with because i refuse to have another Incident. so its more of a return to original concepts that earlier characters once embodied.

lanthi: came about because A. I was watching Owarimonogatari and i fuckin love Ougi and B. it was finally time for me to make a subjug. her chucklevoodoos are a play on the fact that Ougi is scarily good at prompting people into figuring out the exact answers they’re looking for, and especially in the Sodachi arcs how she was able to make Araragi remember everything about his past that he’d blocked out of his mind just by asking the right questions and the right time. for lanthi, i interpreted that as fabricating memories through suggestion, so her targets become more receptive to listening to her since they suddenly recall her as a familiar face they can trust. i havent really done much with her so i dont rly have anything to say, other than i still have no clue what the fuck she is.

velour: oh boy, velour. i had so many concepts for this fucker that it was hard for me to settle on one. along with being a celebrity fashion designer and vlogger who happens to be a lowkey con artist, other concepts i had in mind were a matchmaker, and a borderline yandere who uses his celebrity status to lure in targets to fall in love with him. i scrapped the latter two ideas (tho now the yandere thing gets referenced by the fact he gets fans paying him to act out their own weird celebrity stalker fantasies LMAO), and somehow managed to mash together all my concepts into an actual troll. he took the longest for me to figure out, and it wasnt until after i made liiore and gave him a past with him + mikiel where everything started to click, but now everything works and im super happy w. him.

liiore: was somewhat of an offshoot of my many velour concepts, since along with the celebrity idea i was also thinking of an ex-celebrity concept as well. also one night i was reading the PokeSpe page on Bulbapedia and it mentioned one of the main characters being an ex-celebrity who became a shut-in after he got too overwhelmed by the lifestyle, and i really liked that concept. so then liiore was born. he was also my 3rd attempt at making a cute shy boy character, except this time i nixed the ‘but also grumpy in a cute way’ so i wouldnt end up with Yet Another Errett or Rosato. now hes a huge dopey ball of adorable shyness.

daimon: so when i first played Awakening i made a Fire Emblem-inspired troll who didnt really click with me so i scrapped them almost immediately. then Fates came around and I fell in love with every single archer but especially Niles and Takumi, so i was like ‘yknow what lets try round 2 for an FE troll’. so dai is a mishmash of all the Fates archers (but Niles remained the main inspiration so that’s why his appearance and personality is closest to him), as well as kinda more Arthur than Setsuna simply because i thought a troll with impossibly bad lukc would be hilarious. and also hilariously tragic, hence his backstory. since i havent really rped him that much he hasnt really changed in concept, but he also became inspired by Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine after i started watching that and now i cannot unsee dai in jake help me.

callan: is based on a combination of ‘The Phantom Thief’ trope, Bungou Stray Dogs (particularly Dazai and Chuuya in terms of design), and the fact i was talking about my faceblindness issues with my parents and thought ‘hey a character who no one can remember what they look like would make a great thief’. and i was thinking about rosato’s backstory and really wanted to make an npc to fill in the gaps re: how he died but whoops i got attached to the concept and now ive got a legit troll on my hands. i was also thinking about how i have way too many pretty + well-dressed + cultured male trolls so i kinda made callan a different spin on my own predicability by making him look smart and cultured but really not giving a shit about anything of the sort. he loves the theatre but only if theyre musicals with a lot of comedy, he steals art and knows his art history but only so that he can definitely steal something of worth that isnt going to end up a forgery, he’s sharp dressed because it attracts attention given his caste, and he drinks beer because he looks like a guy who’d prefer wine.

#headcanon #EVERYONE #jesus christ its finally done #im going to bed now its 5am and my parents are already awake RIFP

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ninthextrication · 8 years

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random tv, movies, and language headcanon dump

i’ve mentioned before, but junpei’s a huge movie buff and will pretty easily geek out when movies are mentioned. Some of his knowledge is near-encyclopedic, and you can convince him to watch anything so long as it’s considered relevant to movie history. gonna list off a few things that I know he’s fond of, obviously i can’t list everything because it’s not 2029 yet (and ironically i don’t watch that many movies)

back to the future. his absolute fave movie. This fucking nerd even bases his underwear choice off of that movie. i love him.

The Matrix, Alien. Both are referenced in canon, they’d be pretty old by the time 2029 comes around but both are considered pretty revolutionary movies and he’d be a big fan.

Wall-E. I’m not sure why, i just really feel like he’d love Wall-E. it’s a brilliant movie and a cute love story, i feel like he’d watch it a lot as a kid.

his fave 2d animated disney film i could actually see being Lilo and Stitch. the themes on family and friendship would’ve resonated a lot with him as a kid, because his parents weren’t exactly there that often.

he doesn’t tell anyone, but he does really enjoy the disney princess movies too. He loves Mulan, and I could see him really liking Beauty and the Beast.

there’d be a lot of Japanese films too, but I’d need to do a lot of research and watch a bunch before I could accurately guess which Junpei’d like most. As well, I have a feeling he’d enjoy Hong Kong action movies quite a bit. For horror, I feel like he’d probably prefer psychological horror pre-999, and post-999 he ends up watching more jumpscare/gorefest movies as a coping mechanism.

for TV:

he’s definitely a fan of Giant robot shows. Probably watched Evangelion a good few times, and he keeps up with every Gundam series. (probably has a model collection of Gundam garage kits at home)

He also likes sentai shows, especially when he was a kid. (he found out about the power rangers as a kid and was like ‘whoa cool more sentai stuff’)

he watched smile! precure as a kid once, after Akane gave him a precure barrette for his dog Pluto as a gift. It actually got him into magical girl shows, and he’ll watch an episode if nothing else is on. He genuinely enjoys sailor moon, and he’s got a soft spot for all the precures due to nostalgia.

that’s all that comes to mind off the top of my head, but yeah. Junpei is a tsundere nerd who’d never admit to liking most of these, and he’ll take the fact that he likes precure to his grave. He’s a huge fan of older movies and likes to watch all the classics, he genuinely enjoys black and white movies and silent movies also. (He’s got some parts of Casablanca memorized from rewatching it).

I like to think that Junpei actually first learned to speak english a lot from movies. He had classes in school but he only really started to understand it through media, because it gave things context and was actual conversations. As well, he didn’t really use social media much until he was in middle/high school, and he’d equally explore english and japanese websites (but he did stick a lot more to the japanese ones, at least until late high school).

By the time he’s in university, he’s clearly fully fluent in both languages, if you asked me the events of 999 probably took place in Japanese, but VLR and ZTD are clearly in english. ( i know santas got that line where he’s like “any of you fuckers speak japanese? no? well listen up you little shits” but i just find it even funnier if they’re actually speaking japanese at that point so sue me). It’s never made entirely clear where he lives when (just that he grew up in Japan), but for the sake of this blog he lived in japan both before and after the nonary game, up until the point where he was brought to citta.

spoilers under this point, because im going more into his future.

for post safe!ZTD, it completely depends on the ending for where he ends up living. for first come, first saved, he ends up staying in america with Carlos to train with SOIS, and after some time moves in with Carlos and Maria. For Apocolypse, he also stays in America, in a fallout bunker with Carlos and a few other survivors. In CQD-1, he returns to Japan after finally speaking to Aoi, and in CQD-2, he goes to wherever the fuck Crash Key’s HQ is. I can’t think of any other endings where Junpei gets out alive...

adding to that however, if we go by infinite timeline probability, there are probably plenty more where he dies, either killing himself to let Aoi and Carlos out, or he gets murdered. Throwback to the time where he attempted to commit suicide directly after proposing to Akane and telling her that he loved her, and directly after she got furious at him for dying to save her.

(you bet your ass I included that in the safe!au with Aoi, they dont get engaged but he still piiiissed)

for VLR timeline jump, he ends up being the drunk uncle of the survivor community he lives in. He’s very good at finding alcohol in the wreckage of humanity, just as good as he is at finding spare parts and other things worth money, and nobody really bugs him much about it because who can blame you for drinking afte rthe shit they’ve all been through.

#headcanons #long post #vlr spoilers #ztd spoilers #(i clearly mark where the spoilers are so you can stop reading at that point; not all is spoilers)#Voice from the Speakers [OOC]

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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The English Voices of Naruto, Boruto, and Sailor Jupiter Offer Their Advice to Aspiring Voice Actors

VIZ Media held their World of Voice-Acting panel this past weekend with special guests from the English voice casts of Naruto, Boruto, and Sailor Moon. The guests were led in a guided Q&A by Urian Brown from VIZ, and fans were given the opportunity to ask questions as well. The panel began with a rundown from Brown of VIZ titles releasing next year, such as Fushigi Yugi: Byakko Senki, How Do We Relationship?, and Ping Pong. He also announced that VIZ would be releasing Splatoon: Squid Kids Comedy Show and Junji Ito’s Venus in the Blind Spot collection in summer and fall of 2020, respectively.

He then introduced the first two guests from Sailor Moon: Amanda Miller, who plays Sailor Jupiter, and Erika Harlacher, who plays Sailor Star Maker, and began the Q&A by asking how they became voice actors. Amanda said that she had always been a theater nerd, so she ended up taking some classes from Tony Oliver when he came to her college. She enjoyed dubbing over anime and video games in those classes and Oliver saw her talent and recommended she pursue voice acting. She ended up getting an internship at a studio in LA where she occasionally filled in for bit parts until they started letting her audition for better roles.

Erika said she’d gone into college leaning towards graphic or computer design because she wanted a job related to cartoons and games. She also ended up taking classes with Tony Oliver who suggested she pursue voice acting as a career, got a studio internship, and filled in for bit parts before eventually auditioning for bigger roles. It just so happened to be the same studio Amanda was interning at too. “Know Tony Oliver is the secret here,” Brown added.

He asked Amanda if playing a role like Jupiter is fun at all. “Jupiter was my favorite character as a kid,” Amanda answered. She’d grown up relating to her as a taller, more athletic kid, and Jupiter helped show her that you don’t have to be just a tough kid or just a soft kid. When asked about her first recording session for Sailor Jupiter, she admitted that the whole process had made her incredibly nervous given her history with the character and the fact that approvals for the dub voices had gone through the original creator Naoko Takeuchi herself. The director had to take her aside to call her down, and Stephanie Shea, the voice of Sailor Moon, had to call her and tell her to “suck it up.”

“Also, I accidentally punched her in the face at AX backstage,” she said. “I had just met her that day.”

Brown asked Erika if she was as cool and aloof as Sailor Star Maker in real life. “I am the opposite of both those things,” she said. “I’m not cool at all and very high strung.” She said she had to reach deep down into her “acting database” for the role.

When asked who their favorite weird monster they fought in the show was, Amanda said there was one monster they all called the Katy Perry monster because it was themed around sweets, which reminded everyone of Katy Perry’s “California Girls” video. “It’s true. All girls from California can shoot frosting,” Erika revealed.

Brown pointed out that the Starlights in Sailor Moon are only around for one season but are still fan favorites, and asked Erika what she thought their appeal was. In addition to their fashion sense being “on point,” Erika said that their arc felt bigger and more impactful than one single season. Amanda added that there’s a “forbidden fruit” factor to it, given the season they appear in wasn’t originally dubbed before, meaning the only way to watch it as a kid was to somehow get your hands on the Japanese version. Erika admitted she hadn’t even known they existed before.

When asked if there was any pressure coming into a role that already had so many fans, Amanda said there was “a lot of pressure” given how many fans relate to the character as she did, but that the fanbase has been extremely welcoming and supportive of her.

Both were asked what their most practical advice for anyone serious about pursuing voice acting was. Amanda suggested that you pursue acting on a screen or stage first since the restrictions of voice acting add even more challenge. Theater and singing lessons are good for helping you maneuver your voice, and improv would help as well. Erika seconded the improv suggestion since oftentimes as a voice actor you won’t get scripts ahead of time or be forced to entirely change direction with a character on the fly.

With the Sailor Moon questions out of the way, Erika went backstage and Brown introduced another guest: Maile Flanagan, the longtime voice of Naruto Uzumaki. Amanda Miller, as the voice of Boruto Uzumaki, remained for the Naruto portion. A clip of the two performing together in Boruto: Naruto the Movie was played, showcasing their voices.

Brown noted that Naruto is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary and asked what that journey from the very beginning has been like for Maile. “A long one,” she joked. “I’ve aged considerably.” He then turned to Amanda and asked her what it’s been like suddenly jumping in with Boruto. She said that it’s been one thing with Sailor Moon where it ran and ended, whereas Naruto has been running for 20 straight. Fans have grown up with Naruto into adulthood, she said, so they’ll chastise her for being mad at him as Boruto. “It’s good, but it’s also funny.”

When asked about how she got into voice acting, Maile revealed she had never wanted to become an actor. She’d gone to college for math and polyscience, but ended up joining an improv group that did well and relocated to Minneapolis. She started working there before moving to LA and doing commercials. She eventually began taking voiceover classes and got her very first roles in the Men in Black and Jackie Chan cartoons within the same week.

Maile was asked what the first recording session for Naruto was like, she admitted that it had been really hard and that she wishes she could do them over again since she hadn’t gotten to know him as a character yet. She’d also found out how huge the series already was in Japan and it made her nervous.

Brown asked Amanda if she tried modeling Boruto’s voice after Naruto’s. “I couldn’t even try,” she said. “Maile has such a unique voice.” The voice she uses for Boruto is more like her natural voice, and she also realized it’s nearly identical to her “making fun of people” voice.

When asked if she sees Yuri Lowenthal as a rival at all considering he voiced Sasuke, Maile said she doesn’t consider anyone her voice acting rival, and added that men in voice acting get more work than women anyway, though the inequity is slowly getting better.

Amanda was asked if she thinks Boruto has grown at all since his story started, to which she said that it’s still too early to really tell, though she sees his frustration with Naruto as motivated by the fact that he still remembers a time when his dad was much more present before he became Hokage.

Maile said her advice for aspiring voice actors is to have confidence, because if you don’t they’ll never give you the job. Amanda added that changing your posture can help change your performance. Erika came back out on stage, and as the panel closed all were invited to give some final advice. Amanda said to be yourself instead of trying to be like someone else. Maile stressed practicing and putting in the work. Erika echoed Maile, adding that it’s both a lot of fun and a lot of hard work.

While the panel held a great deal of good advice for aspiring voice actors, it also served as a great example of how dubs can breathe new life into an old series. Sailor Moon may have ended long ago, but the recent dub delivered something entirely new to longtime fans everywhere. Meanwhile, Naruto lives on through Boruto, adding new members to its illustrious cast with every season. Who knows, maybe someday you could voice the same characters you look up to now. All you need is a little luck, a lot of hard work, and the personal tutelage of Tony Oliver.

Are you an aspiring voice actor? Do you know Tony Oliver? Let us know in the comments below!

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Danni Wilmoth is a Features writer for Crunchyroll and co-host of the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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uterusclub · 5 years

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What better way to kick off the month of May then with fresh, awesome tattoos! I mean, we made it just about 2 months since our last ones so we were clearly, well overdue! And as always, we booked our appointments with the most talented and awesome, Jackie at Stained in Pain! Designs? Sharon opted for a Sailor Moon wand (nerd!) and I acquired yet another animal (bunny) on my ‘spirit animal’ forearm. While we waited in much restless anticipation, we played a ‘which one would you get’ game with the tattoo panels on display. “You have to pick one” Sharon said as she turned panel after panel and we met with much horror and often, disgust! Once Sharon was up, I hung out in the threshold lobby and quickly became friends with some older, Latina ladies. The one woman was getting her noise pierced and had been considering getting a tattoo for quite some time so she pelted me with just about every possible question involving tattoos which I hardly minded – especially since she was most complimentary about mine. After Sharon finished up, we got started on mine at which point, I was lulled into a complete state of calm. Probably could have taken a nap had I not been starving. Tattoos complete, we thanked Jackie and made our way a few blocks around the corner to BATL Chicago for some free axe-throwing.

Yes, you read that correct. And actually, we had been meaning to try this out for quite some time but the scheduling just never panned out. This time, all was perfect – even if we anticipated staying for just a few moments to get some good videos and pictures. The place wasn’t crazy crowded when we arrived but there were definitely clusters of people hanging out at picnic tables situated behind the axe-throwing stalls. We proceeded to the front counter and ‘registered’ ourselves before acquiring wrist bans and being directed into a stall. So there we stood, bandaged like potential drug addicts with no idea as to how any of this worked. Some very nice people chilling in our line explained that everyone rotated turns. They even pointed us out to the instructor for our section who told us to ‘listen in’ as he explained procedures and rules to another couple throwing before us. Seemed fairly easy. Throw the thing and like, hit the thing. Once we stepped up for our turn though, self-pressure was ON! I managed to hit either way too high or far too low. Sharon was merely trying to stick something ON the actual board. At some point, Sharon got a hit and I ended up on a bullseye that was conveniently not captured but I promise you it was legit. And on both of those notes, we were satisfied to end our night of merriment and unbandage ourselves at the home front.

Our adventures this month have not only brought us physical endeavors but musical ones as well. For the past few months and out of disdain for my ‘usual’ programmed stations, I’ve been listening to a college radio station, 88.7. As a result, I’ve come across many awesome bands and singer/song-writers one of which, Sharon also became invested. After completely falling in love with the soft, buttery sound of Bruno Major, there was no hesitation in purchasing tickets to see him perform at Lincoln Hall. We pregamed the evening with dinner at Red Lion Pub because, well, it’s allegedly haunted and literally down the street from the music venue. We were seated in a quiet, fireplaced room with a tall ceiling and vintage decor which was all ours for a few minutes. Food was absolutely stellar. To kill time, we made our way to Sprinkles Cupcakes down the street which I wasn’t impressed with (not enough sugar in the frosting) but Sharon was a huge fan of. Having killed as much time as possible, we finally headed to Lincoln Hall where we grabbed a couple drinks and made our way to the upstairs balcony to perfect viewing. Ah, balconies and sitting – two of our most beloved and logistical preferences for concerts. The opener for Bruno Major was a young girl by the name of ‘Eloise‘ we would later see performing with our headliner. She was, magical! Her voice was mesmerizing and we were both blown away. Unfortunately, the asshats sitting next to Sharon weren’t of the same persuasion as they began talking and messing around with their phones for the duration of the entire time we were there. Fucking RUDE! But moving along. Once Bruno Major took stage, I couldn’t help but feel a little under- whelmed. His voice was well, from what I could tell, just as stellar as the radio but it was drowned out by the instruments surrounding him. He also wasn’t as charismatic on stage as his predecessor. But he did perform two of my ‘favorites’ of which I couldn’t have been more please.

May could not be complete without a celebration of Cinco de Mayo or rather, Cinco de Meow Meow as we call it. And this, was like no other you will EVER hear of. It is a tale of danger, violence, courage and above all things, ridiculousness. We had previously discussed the idea of making a Uterus pinata to commemorate Cinco De Meow Meow for quite some time. Why? Well, why not? That’s the short answer. The long one, we’ll leave to your imagination. In any case, with my hectic schedule and Sharon’s abundant, craft activities, it didn’t appear likely we would have time to make said pinata. Instead, I rallied to purchase one online which DO exist, mind you, but they’re fairly expensive – at least the shipping was. So I did what any resourceful individual would do and turned to the sideshow that is Facebook Marketplace. If you’re unaware, you can basically buy anything online from anyone. People sell home-made food and hair-braiding so it wasn’t unheard of to attempt to purchase a Uterus pinata there. Added entertainment? The lady I contacted only spoke/wrote in Español. And although I’ve had an embarrassing amount of escuela throughout high school and college, I turned to trusty Google Translate to help pave the way! So we went back and forth. She wasn’t charging me much but she was located in an area I’d consider the ‘ghetto.’ So who was to be sure we wouldn’t be murdered upon arrival? But obviously, this was going to still happen. The morning of, Sharon was surprisingly calm about driving us into the ‘hood’ of the southside. Apparently she was semi-familiar with the area. I was having literal heart palpitations. We arrived at our destination and a man came outside to meet me with a ginormous Uterus pinata! I joked that I hadn’t expected it to be so big and felt almost bad we weren’t being charged more. Throwing it in the backseat, we made a quick stop-off to my parent’s house to borrow some old bats and rope and grabbed some red, dollar-store candy to store inside our masterpiece. Once home, we changed into our ‘get-ups’ ie. Mariachi t-shirts, hats, and mustaches and carried the pinata with our bats across the street to Wilson Park. I wanted to hang the pinata up in a nearby tree with kids in the background for irony sake but Sharon’s embarrassment forced us to walk farther into the park towards a more deserted area. Once we settled on a spot, I rigged a pulley system (which surprisingly worked – mostly) and we set up our camera for much anticipated violence. Passer-byers gawked but I could care less. Sharon felt the need to attempt explanation which, well, was futile. Destroying that Uterus didn’t take much. It was hilarious and very therapeutic and in all truth, I’d love to begin and end each and everyday that way. After cleaning up the remnants of victory, we made our way back home and made food and drinks while taking in some most appropriate, Three Amigos.

Remember 2006? Yes, I agree, very vaguely but I DO recall the birth of a band called Hellogoodbye. Yes, I bought that album with all the smash hits and never thought of them again . . . until the here and now when I realized they were touring at The Chop Shop. Being most intrigued and expecting nothing short of throw-back central, I Spotified the crap out of what I discovered to be newer albums of theirs? Obviously I had lost track of them but was pleasantly surprised and awed in the sound transformation. They definitely didn’t sound like 2006 anymore but it felt as though they had ‘matured’ in the same sense that I had. It was more mellow and a bit, more complex, dare I say? In any case, I sent my new ‘favorites’ of theirs to Sharon for a once-over who was equally awed and impressed. This was going to ROCK! If you’re unfamiliar, Chop Shop is a fairly intimate venue situated inside a butcher store/restaurant in Wicker Park. We took this opportunity to blue line it for the purposes of hitting up the Robin Williams Mural located randomly in Logan Square. Were it not for the obstructive vehicles in the parking lot, the sight, I’m sure would have been even more magnanimous. The blue pop of genie carries a sad, yet empowering truth and conviction to it – if you ask me. I donned my L.E.D. shoes for the occasion which I switched to color-coordinate for the evening. For pre-game, we hiked it over to Sharon’s most beloved, Big & Littles which always makes me think of Role Models. The joint was deliciously empty and the food, most appetizing. Stomachs full, we back-tracked to the Chop House where we, you guessed it, headed straight upstairs to the balcony area but were met with no seats. Doh! Instead, we teeter-tottered back and forth from both ends of the room to finagle an ideal viewing area. We finally settled on an off-center position where we grew more and more haggered in stature and morale as the night wore on. Not only was the opening bad terrible, but the in between set-up took an ungodly amount of time. By the time Hellogoodbye appeared, we had neither time, patience, or will to stay much longer. Sharon was ultimately pissed that no ‘older’ songs were played while I basked in listening to two, newer ones I had become most familiar with. And I’ve gotta give credit to the band for the ostentatious set-up with lights and balloons and colorful curtains but all in all, 2006 called far too late.

Now I’m no marathon runner by any means, but sometimes, I can pull off a 19 hour activity extravaganza! It’s a rare occasion but a truly worth-while one. The morning began with a little update to our patio decor. If you’re unaware at this point, we create ‘scenes’ outside our apartment windows in which our ‘old lady skeletons’ are showcased. With the upcoming summer and our trip to Hawaii on the horizon, we felt it appropriate to hula the crap outta everything. And so we coconut-braed and lei-ed our ladies with an attempt at including a life-size, pink, inflatable coffin in the picture but this became far too burdensome for space and picture purposes – although our neighbor across the way heartily agreed with our overambitious endeavors. After running over to my dance studio for a quick rehearsal, I drove back home and picked up Sharon to make our way over to Skokie for some Bunny Yoga. And let’s be honest here, yoga is one of my least favorite things in the world. I respect those who do it, I just don’t understand it. So having said that, we were most obviously there for the bunnies and nothing else. We arrived early (as always) and set up our mats in a smallish room where other people had already began to gather. As the time wore closer to the start of class, the room became almost claustrophobic with bodies. There was no pre-registration which made this free-for-all, just plain dumb! Three bunnies arrived and upon being released, kept mostly to the front part of the room. Eventually, the ladies running the operator, placed them in other areas of the room for a more interactive experience. I was in absolute heaven! The yoga – I vaguely recall – as my only focus was relocating bunnies and their proximity to me. Best yoga class ever! But never again.

The day proceeded with more, fun-filled activities. Our most beloved friend, Tina drove to our apartment at which point, we all made our way to a restaurant by the name of Short Fuse. The joint was super spacious and the wall art was quite the sight! And while the drinks were mostly beer, the food was dece and the service impeccable. Sharon and I salvaged our thirst for the next stop on the agenda – a bar in Schiller Park that had piqued my interested – Sway Bar. I had enjoyed their promotional images and had read many good reviews so it made sense to take a trip out to see it. I can’t say I was impressed – nor was I let-down by actually going there. The place was artsy and chill – major points for Banksey paintings on the walls. They also had a pool table which we took advantage of. Our bartander was outstanding and I felt quite at home hanging out there – people watching many strange individuals inbetween pool shots. At some point, an old school-mate of Tina’s and future acquaintenance of mine appeared. Small world indeed.

But wait, there’s more! After adequate booze consumption, we now headed over to Triton College’s Cernan Earth and Space Center for a Motown Laser Show! That’s right. If you didn’t know about this, you’re welcome. I’ve actually known about this for quite some time but hadn’t been in the longest. Tina was also aware of it’s existence. So we showed up, early again, and ventured into the gift shop to purchase tickets which Sharon got for a crazy, discounted price (pretend to be a student or senior). We then sat and chilled for an hour (felt longer somehow) of explosive shapes coordinated to groovy Motown tunes. People clapped in between (we’re too cool for that) and I may have yelled out ‘Stevie!’ when Superstition kicked on. All in all, it was a decent time. As Sharon put it, I’m sure it would have been more enjoyable on drugs. If that wasn’t enough, our night still wasn’t over.

Fortunately, a second wind kicked in as we made our way over to Native Bar in Logan Square for their 90’s themed Silent Disco. If you’ve never done this, you simply must. The concept is this. You get headphones to switch between three different DJ’s all playing different styled music. Our options? Alternative, pop and hip-hop. The different stations are designated by ‘color’ on your headphones – which is how you decipher who is listening to what. We arrived right at the kick-off hour of 10 p.m. The set-up was actually outside in the backyard area of the bar. We began immediately jamming out right in front of the DJ tables accompanied by lights and fog. For the next three hours, we dance-partied our asses off and I’ve never had more fun! Let me, at this time, remind you that Sharon and I generally go to sleep at 9 p.m. By the time 1 a.m. rolled around and we were met with an alien-voiced announcement over headphones that the event was over, we were very disappointed and could have gone on for hours. Sharon and Tina complained about knee discomfort (there was lots of jumping) but I was in tip-top shape (thanks, dance) and had zero complaints. It wasn’t until the next morning that my head may have had an alcohol-induced complaint or two. But all in all, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Going a bit out of order but I’ll clump them together, we hit the movies twice this month. The first show we saw was The Hustle which if you’re unfamiliar, is basically a girl-rendition remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I’d grown up on this movie and can repeat several scenes by memory so I was super excited when I first saw the trailer. Sharon was unfamiliar with the original movie so we made a point to watch it the night before. When we arrived at the AMC in Norridge to watch it, we noticed slight chaos inside the theater. A younger, hoodlumy fellow was outside and informed us that there had been a fire and everything was shut down. “They aint even got any popcorn!” he also proclaimed which I responded with much incredulous-ness. Still, we had 30 minutes til our show so we figured it was still salvageable. Once inside, we headed to the ticket line which was ever-growing with a frustrated, angry mob for refunds. Behind us in line, we listened to the altercation of two gang-sounding members who threatened to what I can only assume, murder each other, in so many words. Talk about your wholesome activity. The only highlight was seeing our friend, Sue towards the end of line whom we lost track of and didn’t get to actually say ‘hi’ to. In any case, tickets purchased, we watched what I would review as a very fun, accurate portrayal of the original which I would most likely watch/purchase in the near future.

The second, more recent movie we saw this month was Aladdin. And let’s preface this by saying our expectations were low. Very low. Solely based on the previews and the fact that Robin Williams can never been trumped. We even pre-gamed at Park Tavern in Rosemont for some $8 mimosa carafes before the show to guarantee less annoyance/viewing pain but alas, the movie was still fairly dreadful. Granted, this IS a children’s film and all, but as the ‘children’ who grew up on this movie, it paled in comparison in terms of magic and authenticity. Let me also take a moment to discuss the forced ‘girl power’ message attempt that the world of today keeps shoving down our throats. It’s too much, it’s too obvious and it’s too annoying. Due to alcohol intoxication, my bladder needed several breaks during the movie which I was not reluctant to take as I knew I would be missing absolutely nothing.

In closing and only because it’s coming to an end soon, I mentioned attending a dance rehearsal earlier. The whole point of this was, indeed, for rehearsal but more specifically because of our ‘bring a friend to dance‘ week which occurred just last week. This is both fun and nerve-wrecking as we get to finally ‘show’ but we’ve been working on since November and what is to be expected for our recital in a few weeks. The nerves are a results of people sitting fairly close to you – not to mention Sharon sitting in the exact area I dance the most around. I forewarned that I would most likely, almost die after our lyrical piece, ‘Survivor’ which ended up being the favorite of the crowd. Everything else was a blur really.

All in all, the spring or rather, pre-summer has proven to be of much consequence. Music and dance were most substantial. Exciting and disappointing endeavors were had and much was shown for it all. And as we kick-off the summer of 2019 with even higher expectations of future trips, I’ve no doubt, we’ll find some charming nitches in between the cracks and cranies of this life.

Charmed, I’m Sure What better way to kick off the month of May then with fresh, awesome tattoos! I mean, we made it just about 2 months since our last ones so we were clearly, well overdue!

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addhunter · 8 years

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Mutants: Edgelord Supreme

March 20, 2017

Getting started writing is always the easy part. It’s the keeping at it until it’s finished that’s the super hard part.

I could probably list about a hundred stories that I started and never finished. Some of them had super cool plots, really well thought out characters, even amazing settings and circumstances, but for some reason, inspiration would just fizzle out. I think it was that I lost a lot of motivation after the first few stories, which is why after a while I just started writing one-shots and short stories. (Until Transcend, that is.) But it wasn’t college or even in school where I learned to write well.

It was on Neopets.

Honestly, I haven’t even heard the name Neopets spoken out loud in like, five years. Every once in a while, it comes up on tumblr, but apparently it’s so so SO different now. I don’t even know if I’d like it anymore. Originally, when I signed up, it was because the eyries were dope as hell. Then I found the roleplay boards, and I was a goner.

Okay, starting at the beginning.

I’ve always been a great reader. The summer before kindergarten, I got grounded, and as I spent the week in my room, I taught myself how to read. (I think is was Amelia Badelia, if I remember right.) By first grade, I was reading the Harry Potter series, and when I was in third grade, I was reading at a college level. (Not to toot my own horn, but I was a big nerd.)

I think a lot of me being able to write well (at least in my own opinion and my Creative Writing teacher for a semester in high school) comes from being able to read the harder books. At a younger age, I was reading those complex sentences and words and learning how to make things sound good. (That last sentence is a terrible example of that.) Combine that with an imaginative mind, and I was writing crazy stories since I was barely potty trained.

I’m shit at grammar, though. Absolutely terrible.

Around third or fourth grade, the internet started becoming a bigger thing, and we had a tiny computer at home that took five minutes to start up. (I remember the good ol dial up days. Fantastic. I was a much more patient person, then.) After getting a McDonalds toy, I logged onto Neopets to see what it was all about. A few months in, I found the roleplaying boards, and was like, “Oh, it’s like writing stories but only with one character at a time, cool.” So I did that. I loved it. Existing in those little stories and creating a new character every time was fascinating, and I did it as often as I could. I had a few recurring characters, and an embarrassing few as well, but I kept at it. When I was ten, I somehow found myself in a roleplay guild with a bunch of college friends, and they believed me when I said I was 16 because of how well I wrote. (That was wild. I had a lot of fun in that guild. Eventually I told them I was going into fifth grade, and then they were even more impressed, and it was cool. Huge ego boost.)

I wrote my first ‘official’ book when I was in fifth grade, and it was called Mutants. It was about these kids who had been trapped and experimented on and given crazy animal-like powers. They escaped the lab and went to live by themselves and it got weird for a bit and the story’s end made no sense at all, but it was cool. It also had a finished sequel, and I think that one was called ‘Mutants 2: On the Run’. (They disguised themselves as normal humans and things got weirder, but it was more well-thought out than the first one.) Honestly, for an elementary schooler, it was pretty good, but looking back on it is downright mortifying. The main character, Flame, is an emo edgelord, and vague as hell, and nothing she does makes sense. And she’s possessed? By something??? And her boyfriend man dude (whose name I have no idea how to pronounce) is basically a velociraptor-human with wings. He’s an emo edgelord as well. He’s constantly like “She’s so cruel but I have to help her but I’m sad but she needs me we’re SOULMATES!!!!!” The only non emo dude is Feng, and he’s a big wolf boy and can’t speak English.

Now that I think about it, Blaise might be the modern day version of the edgelord. He’s so angry all the time, and he wears black sweats every day and he swears like a sailor. Shit, I can’t get rid of him.

I got a bit off track there.

After the roleplay boards on Neopets, I moved onto a roleplay forum-based site and was a pretty high-ranking member because of my coherent posts and because I didn’t try and make every thread about me like everyone else did. And after that, I quit roleplaying and just started writing all my stories out by hand until I could get on my mom’s laptop, and then my own when I got to my senior year in high school. Some of my stories from even two years ago are pretty bad, but they still are leagues better than Mutants.

The point is, everyone has a shitty starting point. Mine was on Neopets roleplay boards. Now, I’m publishing a book about superhero kids. (Full circle, am I right?) But I learned a lot of tips along the way, and I got better. Sure, my writing isn’t like, Jane Eyre or anything, but I don’t think it needs to be.

That’s another point, honestly. Like, yes, my writing is a little more casual and relaxed, but it’s still good. I can do the flowery prose, I can do the crazy extended metaphors and page-long comparisons to galaxies and whatever else people compare love and eyes to, but I don’t think I need to. Not trying to bash those writing styles, but everyone has what works for them and their stories, and I don’t think my stories need super long descriptions about the way “his fingers grazed his arm like the way a gentle summer breeze dances across the top branches of a young sapling”. Like, no. My stories are about superhero young adults who are trying to figure out what the hell is happening in their town. They can focus on each others galaxy filled souls later.

(Or maybe I’ll write some moody side pieces. Those would be fun.)

I lost track of the point of this post. To sum it up: I taught myself to read like a nerd, learned vocab and read stories that no third grader should ever read, and wrote my first trashy action-romance at the tender age of ten. After that, I got better at writing through sheer practice alone.

And I STILL have only finished like, six stories, out of the hundreds I’ve written.

Two of those six are the Mutants stories.

Shit.

#blogging #lmao everything i write is a MESS #i'll post some snippets of mutants sometime #or maybe i'll rewrite it for practice #who knows #the prehistory of transcend

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