#as I am a person with interest in animals & nature who ended up studying and working with humans their whole life - bc they’re confounding

[uefb]

Falling in love, again, with more OCs 🤷🏼

Yesterday my wife saw the color-coded post-it note tabs in one of my Fantastic Beast companion books and was like, “Can you make your next hyperfixation or special interest housekeeping?” and at first I almost walloped her, because rude, and then she quickly explained, “I’m just saying, in a perfect world where we could funnel your ridiculous ability to obtain and organize massive amounts of information into exactly what we needed, our house would be immaculate” and I was like “yes ma’am, and unfortunately they’re disorders for a reason”

We both had a good laugh. I then posted a fic I’d been working on, confident I’d be able to switch my brain back to another longtime interest (my research) after getting the current FB plot bunny out of my head…

And yet, less than 24 hours later, I’ve started another one. This is exhausting. Make it stop lmao. But 1969 Newt & his 18-year-old son are extremely humorous to me, so whatever

[illubean]

Could I get headcanons for Feitan, Illumi, Leorio, and Chrollo falling for gn!reader who by all means seems like a strong, nuturing, emotionally stable individual but every once in awhile casually says or does smthin that makes people go "Oh you're a little fuckin nuts, actually"

(e.x.: Most of their D.I.Y. furniture is made of different kinds of bone, morbidly interested in the more gorey parts of their jobs, probably works in a field that allows them to be around the dead often like a taxidermist or a mortitian, highkey just unabashashedly a morbid little freak™️ whenever it comes up naturally in conversation but otherwise comes across as just an attentive lil guy you could bring home the average parents would love.)

HXH Men with a Morbid!S/o

Characters: Leorio Paladaknight, Illumi Zoldyck, Chrollo Lucilfer, Feitan Portor Type: Headcanons, Gn!reader

this is so me

Warnings: dead things and body parts and stuff

Leorio Paladaknight

being an aspiring doctor, Leorio thought that your knowledge on both human and animal anatomy was pretty useful

at first he didn't think much about your job and just assumed you were some type of doctor or biologist or something

he often asks you questions as he studies and you're a pretty good tutor

the first time Leorio realized you were kinda weird is when one day you were walking down the street and saw some roadkill

and you were like "aww too bad, the skin and bones are too damaged to harvest"

and you kept walking like it was normal while he was like ?!!??!?

or you guys were having a normal conversation and you say something like

"if you died i'd taxidermy you and re-articulate your skeleton so you'd be with me forever <3"

1 taxidermizing humans is illegal and 2 WHAT

he is cold sweating wtf did he get himself into

when he comes to your house for the first time and sees a bunch of bones, animal skins and wet specimens he damn near passes the fuck out

how do you just casually have dead things and remains around your house!?

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU MADE YOUR COFFEE TABLE OUT OF CAMEL BONES?

he is freaking the fuck out and you're just like "dw everything is ethically sourced :D"

yeah he thinks you're a freak and he is too fearful to break up with you ever (not like he was planning to anyways)

Illumi Zoldyck

whatever drew Illumi to you had to have been some type of power

aside from that power, to Illumi you were relatively normal and had a good grip on your emotions which made you a perfect candidate

that being said he could care less what your job was, you'd just end up working for or with him eventually

when he started bringing you around the estate, you often sought out their guard dog Mike and Illumi couldn't think of why

that is until you came back one day with a human femur and bright smile on your face

"... where did you even get that?" "From one of Mike's victims. If I collect enough I could make a whole set of bar stools!"

he blinked at you and chose to ignore your statement

i mean, to each their own am i right?

so you have ah hobby, big deal

Illumi just thinks you're pretty normal personality wise until you randomly but casually drop information about what you do in your free time or have in your home

so now whenever he has a job Illumi calls you in for cleanup

you get to do.... whatever it is you do and there's no evidence of a dead body left behind, it's a win win

Chrollo Lucilfer

he couldn't care less what your job is because it's probably not worse than his 😭

he didn't really notice anything "morbid" about you until he asked about your jewlery

you wore things like resin caster bug pendants or bird skull earrings and stuff

he just assumed they were fake and you bought them because they looked badass

but then you told him you make it all YOURSELF

he is intrigued

he doesn't really question you past that because you were probably buying the bones and stuff somewhere (spoiler alert you're not)

what really caused him to think was when you casually just picked up a dead rat off the floor in some abandoned building you were exploring and suck it in your pocket

bro was so confused

"What do you need that for?" "To make a new necklace :3"

yeah now he knows that your odd taste in jewelry goes deeper than just that

he won't judge you though, if anything you're a better person than he is considering you don't kill things yourself

he is literally a murderer and a thief and has committed like 3467633788 crimes so he couldn't judge even if he wanted to

so now when he sees dead animals and what not he bags them up and brings them to you

he likes to sit in on your cleaning and making process

you seem like a perfectly normal and sweet person to everyone else but Chrollo knows about your freaky little hobby and it just makes him like you even more

Feitan Portor

I feel like for you and Feitan to even be acquainted you have to be part of the troupe

whatever you do outside of it is your business

buttttttt since you are his s/o and Feitan is probably homeless he crashes wherever you are

thus him finding out about your hobby and other job

out of everyone on this list he is the most interested

he too is a morbid little freak

he goes with you to find things and will help you with the cleaning/taxidermy or whatever process if you let him

what he doesn't understand though is why you don't just kill the things you want instead of hunting for already dead things

sometimes he will go catch like a squirrel or something and bring it back to you like a cat and tell you he found it like that

Fei baby. No the fuck you didn't

after doing what you're doing for so long you can tell what caused an animal to die but you wouldn't tell him that

he's just so cute and wants to be supportive of your hobby <3

[vaguely-concerned]

Stray Gods Character Design Thoughts

In order we're going Pan, Apollo, Persephone, Eros, Aphrodite and a little bit of Venus! Disclaimer that I have no professional experience in character design at all, so these are only my vibes-based ramblings and observations purely for fun and because my brain simply won't shut up about this game haha. Also I will freely admit Pan probably gets the most attention in this because of who I am as a person and where my heart truly lies at the end of the day lol

PAN

Ok, first of all I have so many questions and they all delight me. This guy is the god of the wild places ("Where else would I be, but among the trees and the wild things?"), he lives in a magical garden on top of an office building... and he’s walking around everywhere in an expensive three piece tailored suit (when Freddie accuses him of being a sleaze in a cheap suit he protests mildly that his suit is anything but cheap haha). The cut of it is really carefully thought out and planned, but the bold colours under the grey coat and (studied I am sure) careless details like the tie also make it fun and playful. Which is pleasingly coherent with the general theme of his character in the writing too and I adore it.  

This is not the point, I know, but I’m wondering how he makes that work just like. Practically now. Has Athena fixed up Olympus with in-house laundry service? And other sentences I did not expect to type out today lol. Ah well he’s wily I’m sure he has his ways. 

I can't heap enough praise on it, this design is SUCH an interesting and elegant marriage of the immediately recognizable satyr features and thus animal symbolism with all its added pagan weight in a post-Christianity setting, and the sort of ‘man of wealth and taste’ imagery of the devil at the crossroads they clearly want to evoke, especially in his first scene. And partially through his mannerism there’s also an added element of like… eccentric but surprisingly competent college professor — just look at the way he carries himself whenever he isn’t putting on the charm or when he’s being guarded and self-contained. That little hands resting on his back pose exudes ‘nerd’ so deeply to me haha. (Incredibly fuckable nerd, to be sure, but still!)

you don't fool me buddy I know what you are. I know all the trouble you went to to get a book.

His body language shifts very quickly between wild playful expressiveness and a sort of nonchalant urbane detachment that borders on coldness sometimes, and it fascinates me. Especially since that more refined unavailable side seems to be something he’s deliberately cultivated, to some extent. When Grace calls him out on how boring it sounds to just let yourself go numb and distant to survive, he doesn’t deny that at all, only saying that at least it’s been quite effective. 

Putting the rest under a cut to save people's dashes! I may, as they say, have gotten a tiny bit carried away.

Physically he’s not very imposing — he’s only a little taller than Grace, and the shortest of all of the love interests, which I find somehow very charming and also plays into him being more of a guile-based character. “Seeing as I am neither big nor truly bad, it behooves me to be wary of those who are both” indeed!

I’m fairly sure he’s the character wearing the most layers. Even his hands are mostly covered by gloves. He partially covers up his eyes with the tinted glasses — interesting, as one of the features that most give his real nature away with their sidewise pupils, and the lenses are tinted purple as the complimentary colour to yellow, so it downplays just how bright they are. All together it’s very much a ‘well, he’s certainly got to be in there somewhere’ sort of vibe at times. (Since he also seems to care about his clothes quite a bit — he complains about scuffing his pants during the climb in the Medusa mission if you go the lockpick route — I have drawn the conclusion that getting him out of all of that must take quite a bit of time, no matter how much practice he’s probably put in over the years of meeting 'delicious people' lol) 

It’s a design that manages to give, at the same time: animal-featured ancient god, deal with the devil, teacher, overtones of con man if you’re inclined to be Freddie-levels of uncharitable lol, eccentric rich weird uncle… there’s a lot going on here and somehow it all works haha. He isn’t wearing any jewelry at all unless you count the glasses, which now that I’m looking at the rest of the character designs in this game is actually fairly rare among them!

His eyes really are incredibly bright when uh naked as it were, though. I like the implication that he is aware of this and actually goes out of his way to downplay it, even when he’d normally be wearing glamour anywhere it would strictly matter for it to show. Between that, the meaningful zoom in on him at the Underworld when Apollo says that all the Idols can be themselves there even if they don’t look human, Pan claiming he’s been distrusted and side-eyed by the others basically since the beginning and seeming kind of frustrated and hurt about it, in his deflecting way, and the implication of a hierarchy among the Idols at least under Athena’s leadership in this stained glass painting (notably all the visibly non-human Idols/hangers on are at the bottom, and Hecate, Asterion and especially Medusa are the characters most affected and confined by the oppressive status quo Athena upholds)...

this one! sing it with me now EVERYBODY LEAVES THIS PLACE ALIVEEE ok we can move on

you know, some possible Subtext and Implications going on here, I’d say. (It is only potential subtext and implication, though, so, you know, take my extrapolations here with a grain of salt!) He certainly doesn’t do himself many favors with the persona he’s built up in regards to being trusted and included either, but his status as a little bit of an outsider does seem to precede that so I feel like it’s more of a response than the main cause. Along the same lines he gets much more testy about the Green route of ‘I Can Teach You’ than he does about you just not choosing him in the Red one, he takes that pretty gracefully. So it is the being deliberately kept on the outside and openly distrusted and dismissed that gets to him. (To be clear I don't think openly distrusting a strange guy showing up in your living room like that is at all unreasonable either haha I just think the nuances of his response are enlightening as to where he's really coming from)

this one isn't even to illustrate anything it's just because I love him so much and think he's pretty I'll be real with you all

Anyway I just keep thinking about how incredibly tender it would be if sometimes, when they’re in private, Grace takes his glasses off to see his eyes better and he lets her. That shakes something deep in my soul apparently. That fucks me up but like in a good way.

APOLLO

- Apollo’s style of dress leaves his navel helpfully exposed for the copious amounts of depressed gazing he habitually subjects it to. (I say this not entirely without affection.) 

a crumpled tissue of a man

In keeping with his incredibly emo mode, there’s very little colour involved and he doesn’t take much care to present anything with care (look at the state of that shirt and tell me if Apollo has picked up an iron in the last forty years), BUT interestingly he’s not entirely open and unadorned, he does wear that network of jewelry across his chest and neck. Which I think is to show that the old Apollo is not entirely gone (“There he is, god of the sun”), even if he has been a sack stuffed with sad for a long time now. I wonder how many of these things are leftover preferences from being only Lucas — presumably the tattoos at least are from before he fished Apollo up from the sea? If I’m reading the vibes right on that, the blue of the tattoos and the gold of the sun… thingy he wears with the jewelry are the main splashes of colour in his design aside from his hair, and they’re both ‘leftovers’ from both his previous lives, surfer bro and solar deity recently fallen on hard times. Physically he would be tall and imposing, parodically built, except that he carries himself with all the confidence and panache of a damp depressed dishrag. 

Also I can’t believe this guy is walking around everywhere in sandals. Apollo makes sad flip-flop sounds wherever he goes, including when he steps up during ‘The Trial’. That’s so amazingly pathetic (affectionate). 

We can see from the photo with him and Calliope that he wasn’t always quite this much of a mess. Once, he did his shirt up a whole maybe four buttons and wore something that wasn’t beige!

Intellectually I acknowledge that it's a design meant to provide fanservice, even though I personally could not consider this guy in a sexual or romantic light if you gave me a thousand years to build up to it. (I've said it before but if he's anything to me, he is the incredibly fail father figure continually letting me down in tiny ways I never had.) Godspeed to the Apollo-enjoyers out there, though, Summerfall gave him those abs and that poor little meow meow energy just for you and it's your right to enjoy that

- Pan and Apollo also bring out some really interesting contrasts both as characters and designs when you hold them up against each other:  

Once you scratch the surface a tiny bit Pan clearly has just as much self-loathing as Apollo (“If Athena had taken me up on my offer, the Idols would have been better off” uh. Okay buddy we’re gonna have to process that one together later what do you say), but where Apollo is completely helplessly open in his misery at all times, you need to unbutton Pan at least three layers until you get a honest or straightforward emotion out of him and I think that’s amazingly carried through into their visual designs. It's Good Visual Storytelling Brent   

PERSEPHONE

- I’m fairly sure the colour of Persephone’s suit is supposed to evoke pomegranate seeds. See and judge for yourself I suppose: 

She also has details on her coat that depict foliage and growing plants, but colour-wise they and the rest of the detailing is in the blue-green that symbolizes the Underworld and so death. Her jewelry is gold, which — and I’m about to do some reaching here, I’ll be big enough to own — could play in with Hades being the god of riches as well as of the dead/the underworld. Probably it’s because it works well with the colour scheme, but I’m going to pretend that it’s because even if she didn’t get the throne she did get that motherfucker’s hoard when she killed him <3 Love that for her. Her jewelry is more rose gold than Apollo’s yellow gold, too. Watch me go for even more of a reach: between the necklace and the watch, those round discs of gold remind me of the coins put on the eyes of the dead but like you know repurposed since she doesn't need them to pay the Ferryman. I never promised I'd be reasonable in this did I.  

The short hair works real well for the butch vibe and looks amazing no notes, but I think it’s also a deliberate way to differentiate herself from her younger self — when speaking of Demeter’s death, she says that moment was also the final death of that young her, ‘that girl with the long hair who loved her gardens’. Clearly the Idols do a lot of reinventing themselves over the ages in more and less conscious ways.

She has a tattoo of what looks to be foliage and a skull across her left chest and arm. I really like that idea of her having the testament to both sides of her — goddess of spring, queen of the underworld — directly on her skin, under two layers of clothes that each represent those aspects. The one on her arm looks like stalks of grain tied together to resemble the bones of the hand/forearm, maybe? which is metal as fuck, needless to say. 

She is TALL and scary and the staging always plays that up, Grace tends to look up at her like O.O. I love how sharp she is too. 

Also she is incredibly hot but you don’t need me to tell you that you all have eyes I assume. 

EROS, APHRODITE and VENUS:

- I love literally everything about Eros’ design except his hair. Not even the concept of the haircut and colours or anything, just the way it’s rendered. It looks like one strange flat cap I can’t quite make understandable in three dimensional space as hair in my head lol. Other than that it’s a banging design though, the delicate see-through material over the leather BDSM harness is genius. Choosing this form of sensuality and attractiveness for him to embody -- one that is so deeply queercoded -- also works super well. The warmth and vulnerability of his body language on top of it is *chef's kiss*. just. please define his hair a bit more and it's perfect haha.

- I'm not sure I have that much to say about Aphrodite’s design except that of course she is beauty she is grace etc., it takes a lot of thought to make such a simple design shine and by god did they do it she’s so stunning. Also interesting how her dark blues and greens with cool/silvery details contrast with Venus’ warm reds and pinks and… brass? Idk I don’t really understand jewelry haha. All warmth and soft romanticism, anyway, it looks nice. (Side note but I love Venus’ rose tattoo.) Eros and Venus have much more matching colour schemes and they both bring those islands of warmth standing around Aphrodite in her shimmering ocean coolness. (Which of course is something she has to deliberately put on before going into public these days, and is unselfconsciously glamorous in the way of an old timey Hollywood starlet, as the blue route of 'The Ritual' lampshades)

:') *whisper* everybody...

Venus is wearing pearls, which is pleasing considering her connection to Aphrodite (and the backgrounds of the 'Lost in a Moment' variant of 'The Ritual')! and both of her and Aphrodite's outfits go for a shoulderless look to great effect.

ETA: When the camera is close on Aphrodite you can actually see that she has dark circles under her eyes, only partially covered by the makeup :'( I didn't notice that before I played through 'The Ritual' on a bigger screen today

All in all I just want to acknowledge what a fantastic job the character designers at Summerfall Studios have done! There are some really fresh new takes on these mythological figures here, and it makes so much sense within the world the game presents without resorting to well-worn and tired iconography, I really do admire it greatly.

[themattress]

How Toriyama/Toyotaro salvaged "End of Z"

Let me start this post with a personal confession that may or may not be unpopular: I have very little interest in Dragon Ball DAIMA. I have slightly more than I used to after Akira Toriyama's death since I am naturally curious to see what the last Dragon Ball related material he ever produced is like, but otherwise it still looks like just a different take on Dragon Ball GT, my least favorite Dragon Ball series, except that more characters than just Goku turn young and it's the Demon Realm that's being explored instead of space. It also doesn't help that the head writer, Yuko Kakihara, makes me nervous - she's done fine work as an episodic script writer on anime such as Fresh Pretty Cure, My Bride is a Mermaid, and Pokémon Journeys, and she was fantastic as the head writer of IRODUKU: The World in Color. But in terms of shows closer to what Dragon Ball DAIMA seems like, she was head writer on that god-awful Stitch anime that Disney stupidly allowed to be made. Worse still, she was the writer of Digimon Adventure Tri. So you can understand why I have reservations.

Point is, I consider Dragon Ball DAIMA to be a sideshow, regardless of what its merits may end up being. For me personally, it's the manga/anime trilogy of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super that really counts the most. And as tragic as the circumstances behind the end of Toriyama's involvement on the latter are, I am highly impressed what he and his mangaka protégée Toyotaro were able to accomplish. With three major steps, they have substantially retconned the notoriously underwhelming ending of the original manga series and DBZ anime, known as "End of Z" among fans, in a way that makes a satisfying closure.

The first step was way back in Dragon Ball Online. Toriyama was involved back then in canonically mapping out the future of the Dragon Ball world, long after Goku, his friends and his family have passed away. And a major part of that was how Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Pan affected that world for the better in their adult lives. Gohan in particular has a masterful end to his long struggle between being a fighter and being a scholar by becoming a scholar on ki fighting techniques, publishing a study that makes it widely possible for humans around the world to master ki control and gain flight and energy blasts. It's a perfect outcome for him.

The second step was through Toriyama's involvement in the new movies and Super series. End of Z now cannot happen the way it was presented in the original manga and anime. There are way too many discrepancies, from character appearances, the lack of certain characters who it would make little sense not to be there, and details like "none of Goku's friends saw him for 5 years before then" which have now been completely contradicted. Obviously the 28th Budokai where Goku meets Uub and takes him under his wing for training is still canon, but that event is now free to transpire in a far more plausible and satisfactory way than the famously rushed, haphazard and OOC way in which it was depicted before.

The third and final step was the last collaboration between Toriyama and Toyotaro in the Super manga. The final three chapters they worked on together were an epilogue to the story of the Super Hero film, actually tying its plot together with the side plot featuring Goku and Vegeta on Beerus' planet. Perhaps responding to prevalent criticisms, the movie had already made a major point of showing how the world can still be successfully defended by the Z Fighters even without Goku and Vegeta being there. And in these three chapters, the point is carried even further by having Goku test what the new generation is capable of, a theme that's even reflected in the final chapter's title, "Passing On To The Future". This completely recontextualizes End of Z. Originally made as a laughable attempt to salvage the "Goku passing the torch" direction with Uub in place of Gohan after Toriyama botched it so badly with him, now it makes Uub only the latest in a large field of fighters that includes Gohan. Now it's Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Pan, even Broly of all people, who are being gathered as Earth's next line of defense once Goku and Vegeta finally expire. Uub will join that group. (Oh, and being Namekian, both Piccolo and Dende will still be around to assist, of course.)

So while the narrative of Dragon Ball may have peaked with the Cell Saga, now the Majin Buu Saga -> Battle of Gods Saga -> Resurrection F Saga -> Universe 6 Saga -> Future Trunks / Goku Black Saga -> Universe Survival Saga -> Broly Saga -> Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga -> Granolah the Survivor Saga -> Super Hero Saga -> End of Z together create a worthier follow-up than just the Majin Buu Saga -> End of Z was back in the day. Certainly not perfect, even when leaving the loose ends out of it (so Freeza's just gonna stay loose out there with a new ultimate form?), but feeling much closer to a fully realized ending.

Thank you, Toriyama. You made it up as you went along right to the very end, but as usual, your remarkable creative talent managed to make it all fit together. You are deeply missed.

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Hello, I am the anonymous person who requested Dr. Stone's request, I am a little embarrassed to say who I am, but I seriously adore you, dear author, you are always considerate.

I would still like a request for both Nikola and Beelzebub, and Adam but still platonic. This time with a y/n in her 20s, who works on the alchemy of pixie dust (I don't know if she's seen the Tinker Bell movies).

Basically, y/n was the granddaughter of a scientist and whenever she visited her grandfather he also told her about the fairies and the strange dust that arose from the Blue Moon and a special stone, so as an adult she looked for the stone and recreated her own blue pixie dust and begin the study of this substance. Having her a little assistant fairy that she rescued once in a search for materials. Let's say y/n met her boyfriend during some tests with a plant growth enhancing pixie dust and a large root burst and she ended up landing on the man in question.

For Adam, the same thing happened to him but he began to stay close to her to take care that her daughter does not end up catapulting herself out of Valhalla.

(○｀ 3′○)

My sweet love, you never have to be embarrassed with me. I don’t judge others, unless if you’re mean to me or others then yes I will judge, but other than that, I adore each one of you.

-You sighed softly, looking down at your grandfather’s research notes, he had been long gone from you by the time you died and ascended to Valhalla, learning that he didn’t come to the same place, but you were able to keep his research notes, as well as your best friend and assistant, Luna, a tiny, light blue fairy.

-You had met Luna only a year after the death of your grandfather, saving her from a cat and tended to her wounds, a couple of scratches on her legs and arms.

-After she realized that you, being an adult, could see her, as before only children could see her, she knew you had an affinity for fairies, she knew you were a good person.

-The two of you traveled together, safely, so she wouldn’t be seen by anyone else and taken from you, researching and exploring the world in search of the Blue Moon Stone.

-After confirming with both Luna and the notes of your grandfather, this special stone, that only appears during a Blue Moon, had magical properties, ones that were insanely strong, even by fairy standards, and you wanted to research it and learn everything you could about it.

-This same drive for research is what led to your untimely death, slipping off a cliff and plunging into the ocean far below.

-When you awoke in Valhalla, you were amazed by everything around you, before you cried, hugging Luna close, seeing that she had also died, coming with you but she didn’t care, she wanted to stay by your side.

-You were given a small lab for your research, as Valhalla was able to get Blue Moon Stones easily for you, you didn’t mind the size of the lab, it was perfect for you and Luna, spending your days exploring Valhalla and researching the stones, researching the powers it had.

-Your research was fruitful, finding the stone had properties that worked on plants the best, while other organics, such as people or animals, only worked a small fraction as well.

-Luna and you were working hard, getting this new super fertilizer created, as some gods had approached you, mainly nature gods, who were interested in the results, offering rewards if your elixir would work to help their own plants and trees, and help the nature down on earth.

-You swallowed hard, holding a pipette with some of the liquid concentrated elixir, using a plant you had been given from Demeter.

-You dropped the first drop in and instantly the roots shot out, destroying a portion of your lab and sending you flying out the window.

-Good thing you had a soft-ish landing!

-Nikola- You squealed, realizing you had landed on a person, scrambling off of him as you were quick to cradle his head, “Are you all right?!” he was a bit dazed for a moment or two before he grinned brightly, “Thank you for your concern young lady! I am quite all right? I heard the explosion, were you working on an experiment?” you nodded, and his eyes sparkled brightly, immediately sitting up to cup your hands between your own, begging to see your research. You were stunned that this man, once introduced, was Nikola Tesla!! Luna was returning the roots to normal, using her own magic and Nikola was in awe, immediately greeting her kindly before asking you both tons of questions. He was a bit intimidating at first, as he was very enthusiastic, but he was quick to grow on both you and Luna as he had been looking for something new to research and fairy magic was something so new and unique that he couldn’t pass it up! The more he came around, the more you both grew used to him, and Luna could see the affection you had for him, thinking it was rather cute that you were so shy, choosing instead to approach Nikola first, telling him of your affections as she knew he would take the first step, and he did without any hesitation!

-Beelzebub- Your soft landing had been a person that you knocked out, instantly panicking as you crawled off him, checking him carefully for injuries before you hauled him up and dragged him to you lab so you could tend to him. Beelzebub woke up about an hour later, expecting a headache, but was surprised when he had no pain, as he remembered someone getting blown out of the lab he had been walking by and that person landing on top of him. The first one he saw was Luna, an actual fairy and she was quick to fly off his chest, where she had been watching him, her magic helping take some of the hurt away, flying to you to hide behind your hair. You touched her, feeling her tug your hair and you turned, immediately smiling, “Oh I’m so glad you’re awake! I’m sorry for knocking you out!” you came over as he sat up, rubbing the back of his head lightly, “What exploded?” you scratched your cheek lightly, turning your head and he saw a plant with monstrous sized roots, “When the roots shot out it blew me through the window.” He nodded softly before he inquired about what you were working on which immediately made you beam, surprising him as you gave him a tour, showing him the fruits of your research, including your newest failure, but with it, came more research, as you were able to adjust the dosage. Beelzebub became a frequent visitor to your lab, curious about your work and he wasn’t going to lie, he liked seeing you, your bright smiling face, so full of joy, made him feel so at ease, as he sat with you, helping you.

-Adam- You were quick to scrambling off the man, who was only wearing a fig leaf and you instantly panicked, knowing who this was, a mantra of apologies leaving your lips as you were near tears, helping him up. Adam wasn’t hurt, but he surprised you when he cupped your cheeks, seeing you in tears, “Are you okay? Any injuries?” his concern for you reminded you of your grandpa and you instantly sniffled, tears flying out the sides like geysers, comically, while Adam panicked, trying to find where you were hurt. Adam and Eve both came into your lab, after he called Eve, needing her help to calm you down, and they were surprised you were researching magic to help plants, with the help of Luna. Your fairy friend loved Eve, sitting in her hands and chatting warmly, but was shy with Adam, hiding in your hair as you showed them the results of your research, with the giant roots that had thrown you out of the lab, which Luna and you were now working on reversing so you could try again. Eve praised your hard work, enjoying the idea of this elixir helping plants, as was Adam, feeling proud of your hard work, but he said he wanted to stay around, to make sure you didn’t get blown out a window again, which just made you laugh lightly, but he was serious, not wanting to risk your safety.

[phaerlax]

you as the WolfBoyGuy and me as someone who has just recently seen the puppy light, do you have any tips or what you'd consider Required Reading to get a good grip on writing wolf boys? moreso karu than garu just because i personally have a hard time writing dudes with as much bluster and "doesn't tend to default to conventionally agreed on niceties". i have (admittedly mild) torments I'd like to put him through >_>

Anon is asking me about blorbo... I have been training for this for so long... behold now the ramblings of a man possessed by two wolves. I'll talk a bit about how I approach writing Karu and then include some curated recs.

It took me some time to really get going on wolfboy fics; I also found it challenging to handle Karu's characterization. Two big reasons why:

Tsunderes are just difficult to do if you're grounded in realism. It's a very 'anime' archetype and people don't behave quite like that. This makes it harder to naturally reach for reasonable/appropriate responses when putting the character in situations. The big want/think/say/do splits can also complicate straightforward scenarios (e.g. the character wants something and does what he needs to do in order to get it. This path is often closed to the tsundere).

The game gives little insight into Karu's inner world. NU: Carnival is very dialogue-heavy in its narrative. When we do get introspection, it's often Eiden-focused. This means we basically never get to see the thought process that leads Karu to act this way or that, except in the rare instances in which he talks to himself (like in some H scenes when he goes "ugh it feels so good but-").

The style that I ended up developing for my angry wolf boy writings follows these principles:

Keep him silly. This is because I fundamentally see Karu as a comical character. Yeah, his personality can be traced back to traumas and there's a lot of interesting stuff to explore in that regard, but I am not personally interested in that tbh. The reason I love him is the wacky nonsense and ridiculous behavior that we see in the game. It was at first sight for me. I didn't need depth and I still don't XD Any advice and references I provide are skewed by that. I have a preference for almost never taking him seriously.

Mind his 'narrativization' tendencies. Karu is comically very enamored by the idea/narrative that he's a mighty warrior with many great skills who will conquer humanity and who should be respected and served. On some level, he knows this isn't entirely true, so he will sometimes (try to) avoid situations that would bring attention to his shortcomings. But most often he's trying to prove himself and get others to share his narrative. When something or someone reinforces the narrative, he gets proud, pleased or happy-flustered. When something or someone goes against the narrative, he gets annoyed and angry-flustered. He is very good at ignoring reality, however. Even though he'll seemingly take exception to every little slight, he moves on very quickly and pretends nothing happened. And though he's stubborn, he's also willing to surrender, cut his losses and 'try another day' when he's foiled.

Mix his narrativization with the narration a lot. This kind of free indirect discourse is just my style in general, but with Karu I find myself using it more intensely, to such an extent that the narration can get quite dialogue-like in how it expresses his thoughts. When I want to portray a 'tsundere stumble' moment, I sometimes make the narration interrupt itself as Karu consciously aborts a line of thinking that would lead him to unacceptable conclusions.

Let him just be rude for no reason and with little consequence. Karu's default way of addressing and dealing with people (other than Kuya) is rudeness. At best, he attempts some form of condescension in which the reason he's doing something 'nice' is because you're so weak and he's so awesome or whatever. Most characters seem to simply not mind his behavior and, again, it's usually played for laughs anyway.

Bibliography of Karu Studies

Keep in mind that many Karu fics are kuyaru, and Karu in kuyaru is quite different from the core of the character, since he's uniquely eager to please Kuya. Still, even kuyarus can have some nice insight.

who let the dogs out has a lot of juicy Karu inner conflict, and it even explores the ways in which such hangups make him outwardly grumpier. Due to kuyaru, it ultimately leads him to a place of submission, but his initial thoughts are very in-character.

Baser Instincts is a kuyaru in which Kuya gets to see the pups in a new light, because they help him in a difficult situation. It's another great source of inspiration for Karu struggling to express his feelings.

Bow Down! explores how he might react to Eiden letting him top, in a very true-to-character way.

Lonely at the Top is Karu/Dante, which means you get to see Karu at his prickliest and most insufferable, and how that can be managed.

A Matter of Pride is a good example of the 'concessions' dynamic that can be done in Eiden/Karu.

Goshujin-Ai is an older Karu/Yakumo and a good example of Karu feeling comfortable and doing the 'attempts at condescension' thing I mentioned before.

Slave number one, rub my chest again is me speculating on what it might look like for Karu to ask Eiden to do things to him and try to control sex.

Warden slander wolf Commander is probably a good example of the 'fine I give up but I'll get you next time' potential of Karu, as well as the kind of bleed-heavy narration I talked about.

Master, do you have another wolf besides me?! delves into Karu's potential for jealousy as a way of expressing affection. It's pretty canon-compliant because most of it is adapted from NEON Carnival.

There are many other fics in the Karufic Archive, but I think the ones above are among the best for the purposes of thinking about the writing.

Please feel free to talk to me non-anonymously if you ever want to discuss wolf boy content! As you can see I am cursed with thoughts and need places to put them. I'm also always very happy to do anything that I can to shepherd and sponsor GaruKaru content; if you go ahead with your impulse to write about them (please do) and want a beta reader, don't hesitate to ask~

[hushpuppy5-blog]

Periods? A Bloody Waste of Time 🩸

I'm entirely convinced at this point that anything that they tell us (women) is normal is actually bad for us. While pregnancy from male insemination can be avoided, periods are a different matter. I am certain that they are not meant to be painful at all, nor are we meant to bleed so heavily. If a period is (as some claim) truly the removal of toxins and other fluids, are we not going to analyze what the heck is intoxicating us to begin with?

I saw this documentary a while ago called "Red Moon: Menstruation, Culture, and the Politics of Gender" were several women were discussing the stigmatization of periods. I don't remember which part it was exactly, but they were mentioning how painful periods were an energy thing. For some women, especially those who have suffered from abuse in their past, something may energetically be going on with each monthly release. I think it even goes beyond that.

This world's version of normal seems to be in praise of degeneracy at every corner of life. Pregnancy is normal, yet many women die from it or leave with life long scars (physically and emotionally). Intercourse (which seems to skirt itself alongside pure violence) is normal, yet many women leave with disease or some form of mental disorder. Periods are normal, but many women suffer monthly from it to the point where they can become immobile for a day or two. It seems that just as man has intoxicated nature, he has intoxicated the women as well. Expertly so. Now women have convinced themselves and others that pain and suffering is normal. I found this document online discussing some doctors who observed the difference between the western women and who they called "primitive" women. The western women were described as having highly acidic bodies, whilst the other group of women had alkaline bodies.

During the study, the women who consumed more animal products were more susceptible to bleeding heavier and for a longer period during their menstrual. With the alkaline women who consumed more plant based foods, the menstruation almost ceased to exist.

Modern doctors will claim that the absence of a period is signs of a terrible condition. They'll even suggest that an eating disorder it at play. It's interesting they'll say that losing your periods is unnatural, but popping a pill full of foreign chemicals to "regulate" it is totally not cause for future concerns. Speaking of eating disorders—from a western perspective—arguably many people already have eating disorders. We eat until our bellies our stretched beyond normal, and we consume foods that are lifeless and will end up rotting in our stomachs. I do believe that an aspect of periods is normal, given their spiritual nature. In ancient times, they hinted at a connection between the cycles of the moon. This was when women could be most in tune with their bodies and souls, perhaps harnessing spirtual powers that may have been dulled any other time. Now, women are lying in bed curdling in pain during that time of the month. Not much can be done productively. Of course, not all women have this problem, but plenty do.

This is just some speculation though. For me personally, omitting meat and other animal products from my diet has changed the way I think. I'm only four months in though, and my decision to do this was spontaneous and came about due to some health concerns for mine. I have had asthma and eczema for most of my life. These are two inflammatory conditions that have left me breathless and peeling off my own skin to a gross degree. Since reducing my consumption of eggs and milk and taking out meat completely, I've been breathing better and I've had little to no rashes. As a shift to something completely plant based, I'm curious as to how it will further effect me physically alongside my future menstrual cycles as well. Again, this is just the case for myself and could effect others differently. I just know that society doesn't care for case by case conditions and wants EVERYBODY to do the exact same thing healthwise, regardless of how it effect them personally. They've been choosing death for us for centuries. Now, when some of us choose life, they want to call it dangerous pseudoscience. Spare me. Women need to get to know their own bodies on a personal level. Many modern doctors aren't healers. They're band-aid solutions. This includes female doctors, since they are getting paid too. We need to be in charge of our own health and start educating ourselves.

Periods were once considered the first curse on women. Perhaps they still are. They certainly aren't desired. This isn't to take the Christian perspective of "woman bad", but there are hidden truths within these ancient books that must be analyzed. In the case of Eve, she suffered two curses from God in Genesis 3:16:

"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children."

And

"Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

There's no explicit mention of periods here, but pregnancy and periods go hand in hand on the pain spectrum it seems. The second quote is also intriguing. This desire for her husband is linked to pain as well as "inequality". I believe that her desire for Adam makes them far more equal than we realize. She suffers with him in his degeneracy now, although on a different level. It's also notable that her suffering is more severe and constant. Would she have this pain if she loved "God" more than Adam? Or if she loved herself more than Adam?

There are so many questions, many left unanswered. Regardless, there can be a more optimistic lens to this. Like many curses, perhaps this one can be broken.

[coral-melon]

Ohh could i get an obey me matchup if u have time? :D

Appearance: i’m afab, tall but skinny like a noodle, still have curves tho. i have light brown hair and dull blue eyes i’m pale af and have a slightly larger than average number of moles. i have had purple under-eyes since i was 12 they are never going away

Personality: professionally i’m doing well but every other area of my life is in shambles lmfao. still live with my parents can’t drive depressed as hell and barely any relationship experience💀i hate responsibility but i’m still responsible because i hate letting people down. i make a conscious effort to always meet deadlines and show up to meetings on time and it bothers me when other people don’t. but still i’m pretty lenient with others and give them the benefit of the doubt. i am fairly whimsical and quite unbothered by everything. not afraid to push boundaries and attempt things no one has done before, when ppl tell me my goals sound unrealistic it just motivates me more

Strengths/weaknesses: good at drawing and school, graduated college with a 4.0 gpa and a bunch of honors and stuff, and i am the creator of several viral posts and quizzes. good at taking advantage of opportunities that come my way. and i can see humor in everything i love to laugh. i’m kinda irony poisoned and struggle with sincerity, but i’m also an open book i don’t rly have anything to hide. i always talk pretty casually with people no matter who they are but i get away with it cuz i’m smart and good at my job or something. i may come across as impulsive but i do think through everything i do and say, i’m just a fast thinker. i’ve been told i’m too trusting but i haven’t been hurt yet sooo idc ^_^

Likes/dislikes: i am fan of any kind of creative hobby. i like being in nature and interacting with animals but i’m also a pwetty pwincess who hates getting dirty. i hate doing chores and paying for stuff too 💅🏻 i avoid drama and conflict like the plague, though i enjoy it as a spectator. and i hate office jobs, specifically because i work very efficiently then have to pretend to be productive for my dumbass boss when i finish everything early. i love to hang out with people even if it’s something boring like running errands. for some reason people think i don’t like hugs or texting but i do :( i constantly crave novelty i love new experiences

Other: when i really like someone i’ll take an interest in their interests and memorize every little thing i learn about them to the point where i gotta play dumb sometimes so i don’t sound overly invested. we would probably have to have a strong friendship as a foundation cuz u gotta be patient with my repressed ass. i don’t have a lot of preferences for dates so i’d be happy doing whatever they want, i’m v indecisive so it would be good for both of us if they like taking the lead

- 🦝

Hello -🦝! Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself, it a pleasure to meet you! ^^

This felt really fun for me bc I already had a few silly hc in mind for you, so I hope you enjoy!

I match you with…~

꩜ Never a dull moment when your around him.

꩜ The two of you are a funny duo, to say the least. If it were possible, it would be like you taking care of a leash kid.

꩜ Not to worry, with this jackass over by your side, he will make you forget about your depression with his bullshit and shenanigans! That’s right, The Great Mammon himself! >;D👍✨ ((plz don’t take this too seriously..))

꩜ When it comes to you, he might as well not have any experience either. When others look at you, sometimes they think you’re the one who knows the ropes even if that’s not the case at all.

꩜ He’s supposed to keep an eye on you, but the fact of the matter is that it got twisted real quick and you ended up responsible for him instead. You keep him in check when it comes to his studies and duties he must finish. Oh what’s that? Sike! Even if you didn’t want to, he’ll beg you to help him out before Lucifer catches a whiff that he failed a test for the 1738929th time.

꩜ You’re motivated to want to improve yourself, so why would t you want the same for those you care about? No matter how hopeless someone is, surely there’s always a way!

꩜ Doesn’t matter how much he tries to hide something he did wrong though, Lucifer knows way before he himself does. So you’ll often see him upside down hanging from a ceiling. He temps you first before resorting to begging you to help him out again.

“Are ya takin’ me seriously, human?!”

— “Pfft- Yea yea of course!👌” nah, not really

꩜ As time passes by though, he starts catching your drift slowly without being told what to do. Simply wanting to get your attention and praise is enough to have him determined to want to do better. So in a way, both of you help each other out to get yourselves organized; May it be your actions or mental state. Thriving forward because of it.

꩜ He appreciates you never me giving up on him, thinking about it makes him soft and weak.. He’ll never admit it though! Not the Great Mammon himself! Not in a million years! Pretty obvious tho..

꩜ He, too, is an open book; not on purpose though. He tries to hide it but ultimately just reveals even more.

꩜ But It’s funny watching you two play dumb with each other when it comes to the other’s interests. He is just as invested in what you like — or perhaps even more — like you are with his.

“Oh, you like -insert hobby-? Ha, lame!” *Proceeds to look up everything there is to know about it*

꩜ Lovely to know you like to hang out, cuz best believe this guy is stuck to you like glue. He might try to come up with an excuse as to why he just barged into your room or sent you some random message, but it’s all bs. He just wants to be with you even if there’s no reason. He just really enjoys your company.

꩜ On days he gets paid, He’ll say he’s feeling generous and willing to spoil indulge you a bit. You better be grateful to the Great Mammon! Whenever you go shopping, he’ll keep an eye out for anything you might glance at, even if it was just for a brief moment.

꩜ And even if it’s rare coming from you, he’ll immediately sense if there’s greed coming from you. So he’ll buy you whatever it is that you want so badly! *cough* you just glanced at it.. *cough*

End

I hope I was able to make you smile

Take care -🦝!✨

[meistoshi]

#𝐦𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢.    (   independent   /   selective   /   mutuals exclusive   ) .     CHAMPION SATOSHI AKIYOSHI  from  the  POKÉMON  ANIME.     highly  canon  divergent  &  heavily  headcanon  based.     written  by  edward   (   24,  he / they / it   ) .     originally  established  feb.  4th  2019.     using  beta  editor.

a study in : compulsive wanderlust. satisfaction & fulfillment as fleeting things. hunger as everything, everything as hunger. growing up & out of one's home while on the road. selfishness masquerading as selflessness. dissociation from one's mortality. learning to accept change both external & internal. expanding one's horizons & learning to learn. learning mistrust. stubborn hope. a million second chances & benefits of doubts. love, love, love, always love.

rules. / dossier. / public vs private info. / verses. / insp sideblog. / pinterest. / spotify. / interest tracker. / in-universe wiki (wip). / ao3.

sparknotes version of rules under the cut. please read before following.

general rp etiquette applies, ic interactions are mutuals only, don't reblog threads you're not a part of, so on, so forth.

i'm selective with who i follow in general, & slow to follow back blogs that don't have mobile-accessible rules (& bio in the case of ocs) because i am Mostly on mobile.

due to the nature of the pkmn franchise, & the broader related lore & media i've taken inspiration from, there will be untagged themes of blood, death, drowning & suffocation, body corruption, animal abuse, & potentially more that i've yet to add. i will tag visual depictions best as i can, but be aware of the content.

i will naturally be tagging all basic triggers, using the format of #trigger //

i write satoshi in his 20s for development & fuck-you-mean-he's-eternally-10 purposes, rule of thumb re ships is just ask. absolutely no sexual nsfw on here.

even if you don't read everything in the dossier or the study tag, please note that my portrayal of satoshi has a lot of embellishments of implied canon, disregardings of some canon, & alterations from small to big regarding prominent canon (from league placements & league events, to satoshi wearing red instead of blue & growing out his hair post!show). due to legal reasons he belongs to gamefreak/tpc, due to Personal reasons he is my oc now <3

memes never have an expiration date & ask replies can always be turned into threads, go nuts 👍

[tbenvs3000w23]

My Future as a Nature Interpreter

I entered this class not knowing what to expect; “nature Interpretation” was a term I had never heard anywhere. If I’m being completely honest, I still did not really understand what nature interpretation was for the early portion of the course - I struggled to understand the concept. Here in Unit 10, I now know not only what nature interpretation is, but how I fit into it.

The first concept that resonated with me was that of an “invisible backpack” (Gallavan 2005). I have always known I live a privileged life, but as silly as it sounds, writing about it for this class made me realize how many things I take for granted. Looking solely at my experiences with nature, I’ve had the opportunities to go camping at least once a year, as well as live in a house with a backyard, have pets, trips to the zoo as a child, and so much more. All of these experiences have led me to where I am today - studying environmental sciences in University, which is YET ANOTHER PRIVILEGE! I won’t go into detail on what I need to unpack from my invisible backpack, as I did that in a previous post, but the reason I’m writing this is simply to acknowledge that my audiences in whatever setting may not have had the same opportunities I have had, which might make it harder to use my experiences as topics to relate on.

Here's a beautiful park my family and I walk to a few times a year. This particular morning there were a couple feathered-friends on the water :)

I strongly believe that nature is healing to everyone on earth, and even though I have met many people who ‘absolutely hate the outdoors’, nature appreciation can be as simple as enjoying the sunset, or loving rainy days. Reaching audiences of different age groups, from different places, with different interests creates the need to look further than one's own experiences when presenting information or knowledge of nature.

As I develop as a nature interpreter, I would say my personal ethic is similar to my mentality and beliefs going about my life day to day; trying to make more kind and respectful decisions, considering myself but also those around me. To touch briefly on the invisible backpack concept once more, after completing these blog posts, I now understand how I must change my voice to appeal to more audiences. I also know how there are many different mediums I can use to share stories and information about nature, and how some may appeal to some demographics more than others which is important to take into consideration (Beck 2018).

Growing up, I knew I wanted to pursue a career working with animals. This later developed into a passion for the environment as a whole, and I ended up deciding on environmental sciences as a university major rather than zoology, which had initially been all I ever wanted to do. At a young age, and up until today, I’ve never known what I wanted to do with this desire to work within nature.

My parents have mentioned that they think I would make a good teacher because I am a very patient and passionate person, which I never gave a second thought to be quite honest. But I do think it is a path I would enjoy - I love working with kids, and I get a lot of joy out of explaining the concepts I’ve learned about. When I’m studying concepts for tests I like to get someone who doesn’t know the material to quiz me; I’ll compress what I know into the most useful information and explain it to them to help them understand it, which really helps me for some reason. I grew up with a younger brother, and he would always be interested in whatever I was interested in, so he would ask me a million questions about animals and whatever else I was interested in at the time. The one big difference between us was what we excelled at; I was quite good at maths and science, whereas he struggled with them. When he struggled with a math unit, or science concept, I loved sitting down with him and working through it. We have a 5 year age gap, so it was honestly a nice refresher to go over these things again years later. I would find myself teaching the concepts the way I wanted to be taught them, until a couple years into helping him when I realized his learning style is different from mine. This was a good experience as it allowed me to understand different learning styles, which is yet another topic covered in this course!

While teaching does sound exciting, I am not sure it is what I would want to do for a career. I think it is a wonderful way to spread the love of nature (if that were the field I ended up teaching in). I do however feel the responsibility to use my passion for spreading knowledge within whatever field I enter after post-secondary. I believe that passion is important in any job; even as I worked minimum wage fast food jobs in high school, I would go about my day with a positive attitude, as I’ve always found that a positive attitude makes my entire day better, even if I’m faking it, it soon becomes genuine.

Following this course, I strive to be more aware of my audience in all aspects of life, which will allow me to be more inclusive. My final thoughts on this course are all positive. I have enjoyed creating all of my posts because they honestly feel like a break from my busy schedule sometimes - which I’m sure many of my peers can relate to. I would absolutely recommend this course to others, especially to those not in environmental sciences, as I feel like they can learn a lot from this experience as well. Thanks to anyone who read this post, this one was a lot of fun, and I'm honestly a little sad this is the last one as I've been enjoying writing these. Good luck with your future endeavours everyone! :)

Gallavan, N. P. (2005). Helping teachers unpack their “invisible knapsacks.” Multicultural Education (San Francisco, Calif.), 13(1), 36–36.

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018c). Chapter 7: Serving Diverse Audience. Interpreting cultural and natural heritage : for a better world. (pp.105-123) Sagamore Venture.

[gridbug]

March Reading Roundup

Hello everyone,

March was a slow reading month as well, but I did manage to finish three books, and I did enjoy all of them. They were all fairly recent books too, that came out in the last few years. Also all written by women, very cool

Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It by Kaitlyn Tiffany

As someone who was on Tumblr in the early 2010s for the pictures of kittens and other animals, I was largely unaware of the vicious fandom warfare, the epic highs and lows of the 1 direction fandom. This book is in large part about 1 Direction, the author's obsession with the boy band, and using that experience and interviews with other fans to examine fangirls and how they have shaped the modern internet.

To get ahead of some of the criticisms I've seen of this book, it is not, and never pretended to be, a comprehensive history of fandom, which would be impossible. A lot of the observations that Kaitlyn Tiffany makes about the 1 Direction fandom can be generalized to other fandoms and social phenomena, and she does make some comparisons to other earlier fandoms, while also emphasizing the unique features of the fangirl phenomena, from the birth of consumerism and mass media driven culture, and the ways in which fangirls have taken this seemingly highly commercial work and transformed it into something weird, subversive, sexual, deranged, and just generally a hell of a lot more interesting than the outsiders (or "locals" as apparently they are called per the book) give them credit for.

What I admire most about the book is it manages to both be this passionate personal story, of feeling aimless in your twenties and falling in love with a boy band, connecting with fans, making friendships, while also recognizing how profoundly inadequate fandom culture can be at the times that demands are made of it by fans. The discussion of how Harry Styles did or did not address the Black Lives Matter movement and the L@rry conspiracy theories (are they here, among us? I don't want to incite their wrath please let me be) show how as strange fun and frivolous as fandom can seem at its best, it still reflects the real world and all the problems present in it.

The Way Through the Woods: One Mushrooms and Mourning by Long Litt Woon

This is in part a memoir and a work of nature writing, and a very beautiful mixture of the two genres. Long Litt Woon is an anthropologist. She studied in Norway as an exchange student from Malaysia, and fell in love with Eloif, their marriage and friendship was cut short when her husband died suddenly after going to work. The book is about living through the experience of grief, and grieving, and is also about finding and discovering a new hobby, a love for mushrooms and mycology. While the book is very personal, reflecting on her own experiences with grief, there is an anthropological eye cast on the process of grief, the nature of taboos and customs in the mushrooming world, and an undenaible passion for all things mushrooms.

I have always enjoyed eating mushrooms, but I just get the regular mushrooms from the supermarket, and have not indulged in the wild diversity of mushrooming. This was a great way to learn more about different kinds of mushrooms, and I am seriously tempted to look into a mushrooming field guide and get in on foraging. The book talks about the world of mushrooming with this infectious passion, and seeing how the author grows and learns how to live with the loss, to make it through the woods of grief and find some happiness in an unexpected place. There is a really cute and sappy part at the end I do not want to spoil but I enjoyed it a lot, it's well earned.

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

This is the debut novel by Megan Nolan, who is a columnist at the New Statesman. Most of the time I'm wary of novels, movies, whatever, written by political commentators, as it can seem that their narratives end up serving their politics rather than the other way around, but this book was a lot more well-realized than I expected it to be.

The plot of the novel revolves around the unnamed narrator's relationship with Ciaran, a tall, handsome, big baby of a man. He's like the ultimate shitty boyfriend all of the twitter people of @guyinyourmfa or what have you describe. He's sour, cranky, mean spirited, humorless, controlling, emotionally manipulative, and what's really impressive is how the novel manages to tow the line, to really put you in the narrator's shoes where she is questioning whether she is overreacting to his behavior, before realizing that even if she is somehow wrong and this is just a normal guy, she deserves to be happy and somewhere better. And I think this is one of the great messages of the book and about toxic relationships more generally, things can and cannot work out, and there's no obvious ethical answer, and this sense that being broken up with should reflect on your character (especially when they first break up and the narrator blames herself for the whole mess), there could really be no fact of the matter. Or at least that's what I thought the book was going for in the first bit but then it just goes much further and worse than you're expecting.

The true indignity of it all, the real desperation is that she begged to stay with him, she begged to be needed by this guy. The desperation of the title refers to the narrator's desire to get love out of this beautiful boy who does not, and is perhaps unable, to love her back, through sex, domestic labor, attending to his emotional needs, walking eggshells around this guy. And the really incredible thing, is he criticizes her for being emotionally needy, for acting like a child, for wanting him to talk to her or be nice to her, while himself always whining and complaining about some bullshit. Just as an analysis or a description of this kind of guy, and of misogyny in general its a great read.

One of the blurbs on the book described it as an anti-romance novel. It's a kind of feminist horror story, in the way that Le Bonheur is a horror movie disguised as a love story. There are some really graphic scenes of sexual assault, discussions of self-harm, substance abuse, which is where it differs from something like Le Bonheur, where just the cynical logic of compulsory heterosexuality is being displayed, how beneath the beautiful veneer of domestic bliss there is something that is just purely evil. Acts of Desperation doesn't have that subtlety, or at the least it gains and loses it. Sometimes that loss makes room for something humorous, or shocking, other times it just serves to push the reader away.

I do think that most of it is handled quite well, it's saved for the middle of the book to give it the most impact, and a lot of the just general framing and presentation of the narrative is really skillful. The narrator's description of eating disorders, self-harm, of wanting to be thin, is really effectively done. And the discussion of the way in which sexual violence is seen as banal, or ubiquitous, and how frustrating it can be to communicate an experience that is so common really works. The writing across the board is super stylish and beautiful, there are so many wonderful quotables. I'll quote one now:

I said through my huddling and hiding that I was nothing, and I was happy to be nothing if nothing was what pleased him best. If nothing was the least trouble, then I would be it, and gladly. I would be completely blank and still if that was what worked, or as loud as he needed me to be to take up his silences. I would be energetic and lively if he was bored, and when he was tired of that, I would become as prosaic and dully useful as cutlery.

The narrator dumps Ciaran in the middle of a sentence and as a reader its a really cathartic moment to see the narrator break off this toxic dependency, to finally be free of this mess. There is one scene in particular after the breakup that just felt gratuitous, so if you are concerned about that kind of content I can't fully recommend it on that account. Otherwise it is a pretty good debut novel. I'm looking forward to Nolan's next novel, which is coming out later this year and will probably be a better book so I am looking forward to that.

[aclosetfan]

Thoughts on the Powerpuff Girls reboot? I'm personally way to excited!!

Omg no way!! You’re actually the one who told me! I’ve been so busy studying for my test that I didn’t even know! This is so exciting!!

Truly, I think the most exciting part is Craig will be running it! :) like I can’t be mad 🤷‍♀️ whatever Craig does, I’m just excited that new kids will get to see what we saw and fall in love with the series!! I hope the show gets the facelift it deserves, and we get to see the girls in a new light. Like idk maybe we’ll see something where Bunny is treated the way she should have been, along with a more diverse set of characters, who don’t lean so heavily on stereotypes like a typically 90s show. Food for thought!!!

(Omg I hope they bring back the og voice actors!!! That would be AMAZING! And I bet they’d be interested :)))

But I can’t help but wonder why Warner Bros/Hanna-Barbera is doing this, you know?? The 2016 reboot didn’t do well. The CW, obviously didn’t do well either. And outside of the niche fandom, i don’t think there’s like a huge demand to bring the show back. Maybe Gorillaz helped out since Ace seems to be so popular there??

Maybe Warner Bros is trying to capitalize on viewer lash-back by bringing Craig back, but I don’t think they’ll pull any sizable adult audience if the show remains just a kid show, so there goes the nostalgia factor. But hey, the WB Animaniacs reboot did very good!!

Lmao I also bet Craig is just tired of people tanking his stuff, and wants to set the record straight!! I would be too 🤷‍♀️ except now I’m terrified he’s read bad fanfics of his show and is going to make a few jabs at us lmaoooo 😂😂😂

I am a little worried though, like I naturally am with all reboots, that the things that made the powerpuff girls so great, is something that networks generally dont allow anymore. Cartoon violence has definitely gone down. Stupid toilet humor is hard to come by. And animator ideas are constantly shot down. I mean, it’s Hanna-Barbera, not Disney, so maybe it won’t be so bad, but good cartoons get tanked fast because of conservative tv ideals (look at Craig’s other show Wander over Yander—very popular; cancelled early)

Ik it won’t be the 2016 reboot that tried too hard to get kids to like it, but OOF fingers crossed Craig gets the creative space he deserves to make a really really good show!

Here’s what I’m really hoping for: (1) Warner bros/Hanna-B see that people are frustrated that good shows are getting canceled pre-maturely, (2) starts becoming the network artists *want* to go to, and we get to see real stories again, instead of half-baked ideas b/c Disney sucks lol, (3) Cartoon Network gets back to its glory days! And like maybe Craig can pave the way 🤷‍♀️

Haha, who knows, maybe I’m being too optimistic! I just like animation and I want the industry to remain creative. I’m sorry this ended up not even being a lot about the powerpuff girls lmao but censorship is something I worry about in media, and the og ppg is one of those shows I don’t think would have happened if it were originally made in 2022. Like please, no offense, I dont want to sound like an old grumpy person, but Bellum’s of design wouldn’t fly nowadays even though it’s a satirical critique on how old cartoons drew women. I mean look at Alex Hirsch’s video on his S&P notes with gravity falls. Ik it was Disney, but they couldn’t even say “bottles will be spun” to imply teenagers making out. They couldn’t use the word “crud”, but back in the day on Codename Kids Next Door (which I argue really does need the squeal/reboot people petitioned for) crud was used every other sentence.

ANYWAY, I hope Craig is allowed to stay faithful to his original designs, and make the content he deserves to make 👏 I’ll be there on the sidelines supporting him every step of the way lmaoo

Idk idk what do you think??? What are your thoughts??

[bugtransport]

Tatami Galaxy (novel) finished 2/28/23

yes i am late on this one. okay. if it is not obvious i'm already a really big fan of this series so this is going to be fully biased. sorry! i got this book as a gift; i was originally gonna wait for the paperback version to be released because honestly i typically like paperbacks better than hardcovers... they're cheaper and easier to hold and i like the way that they age and show the love you poured into them over the years (my h2g2 paperback omnibus that i carried around for like 2 years in my backpack and is held together with 3 different kinds of tape and a dream being the prime example of this) but what was i gonna do. say no? it's the tatami fuckin galaxy, baby. what the hell. it's wild to me that i've actually read this now.

first off i just wanna say how cool it was getting to read the translator's note at the end of the book and hearing how passionate they were about this author's work in particular and how they got into translating with the goal of being able to translate his work. it's fun knowing that something was made by people who actually care a lot about it. i think that shows throughout.

for those who don't know what the fuck the tatami galaxy is even about: cringefail pathetic guy college student realizes that he's pissed away the last two years of his life and wishes that he could redo it all over again to stop himself from getting wrapped up in a bunch of bullshit and we (the audience) get to see him fulfill that wish through time loop shenanigans that he (the main character) is only somewhat aware of but actually every choice he makes that could have possibly had him do something different leads him back to the same place he was before: depressed alone in his shitty little 4.5 tatami mat room. important side characters include ozu (best friend/worst enemy, connected by the black string of fate) and akashi (love interest kinda/ruthlessly autistic, girl of all time) among other recurring characters who i'm not going to talk about because time constraints and i think they're better experienced naturally so, there you go. if you're curious as to what the fuck i've been talking about you have a reason to get into it.

one of the things i really loved being able to read the novel after seeing the anime adaptation is being able to contrast the ways that they were able to bring in the time loop aspect which... really is not all that present for as much as i talk about it; it's core to the series but it's not really a mystery that needs to be uncovered, it's just the vehicle for which we can explore the main character's wish fulfillment fantasy and come to realize that actually, all the problems are with him and his pathetic little life, the spineless little worm. however i do love a good time loop and will continue to sell it as such. the repetition of passages in the book, the fact that the main character and ozu have very similar conversations in different places, the deja vu, the way each section ends the same, it all builds a really solid but not ridiculously over the top loop. like i said, it's just a vehicle. in the first 3 parts of the book at least.

as the novel is written in first person we're really able to dive into that unreliable narration more than we were in the anime which, while being narrated by the mc, really has to be third person and therefore gives a little more credence to the reality of what's being shown. the anime gets really out there with its visual interpretations and combined with the mc's narration like, it's obvious that everything you see is biased from his perspective, but... to pull an example out of my ass (and this is not a direct quote because i can't be bothered, don't come for me) there's one point where he's trying to describe himself and he's going off like: picture a guy in your head. a nice looking, smart guy, with a beautiful black haired woman by his side. he's going off about his studies. he seems like the kind of guy who has friends and is natural in social situations. now, that guy's not me, but please picture me like that.

you get what i mean? he's that kinda guy. i love a good kinda cringey main character but i get that that kind of main character isn't for everyone. however it is for me. it's fun watching him fail through life and kind of accidentally learn things along the way and then to have the big culmination of the book (the 4th part, where the aforementioned vehicle crashes and) where he ends up stuck in a literal loop with no way out of his apartment but through all the different tatami rooms that belong to the different versions of himself that he could have been and realizing that whatever path he takes he'll still end up the same but that there are small joys to be felt in life still, that he has the connections he's made in all of these worlds and realizes fuck, i've been dreaming about this rose colored campus life for far too long and i didn't even realize what i had.

and the symbolism with akashi being afraid of moths?? it's just too good. had to throw that in there because every time i think about it i get all hehehe it itches my brain in the right way. i think she got a bit more fleshed out in the anime but i do still love what there was for her in the book.

i love the tatami galaxy! really fun time for me, felt like coming home. genuinely might try and pick up another by the same author. apparently he has a thing for these sopping little wet idiot protagonists and i just love reading about them.

do i recommend it? ^ read it if the above applies to you too lol

p.s. kamen rider V3 is mentioned! THAT'S MY FRIEND KAZAMI SHIRO HIIIIII KAZAMIIIII

[dearestones]

Death Note Matchup: Takada Kiyomi

Warnings: Fluff.

Anonymous Request: Hi! Uh this is for the romantic Death Note matchups if you’re able to :) I do prefer males ideally but I’m always open to some lovely ladies

My name is Sage, I’m 5’0 tho I wear a lot of TALL platforms(except at home then it’s slippers). I dress very alternatively with a lot mini pleated skirts, thigh highs, chokers, and tight shirts. Hobbies revolve around animal and human psychology, I love to analyze lol

Best 5 traits: Im very confident on my body, I flirt in an attempt to flatter and make people smile, I am very analytical/rational, I’m very creative, open to affection yet loves space just the same

Worst 5: struggles with empathy, gets overstimulated with noise easily, gets irritated when things are out of place, prefers a dimly lit room, emotional at times

I’m autistic too but idk if that’s good or bad sometimes haha

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After reading through the information given, I believe that you are best paired with Takada Kiyomi!

When you first meet Kiyomi, she’ll be immediately impressed and somewhat intimidated by your hold and statuesque figure. She stands a mere five inches shorter than you without heels, but with your platforms she feels completely dwarfed by your presence. It’s an interesting situation considering that as a spokeswoman on national television, she has to hold an imposing presence to best deliver the news and goodwill about Kira. Later on, when she becomes better accustomed to you and forms romantic feelings for you, she’ll adore your height and how she feels safe in your arms. 

As a high profile character on television, she has to keep up with strict appearances. Therefore, most of her clothing is very conservative and serves a professional function. She envies your alternative style and wishes that she could explore and expand her closet. She thinks the way your chokers clasp around your neck is titillating and she’s weak for your thigh highs. If you really want to rile her up, you can always model for her or even better… Ask her to model some of your outfits on herself. She’ll end up swallowed in your clothing, but you can’t deny that she’ll look stunning in clothing that doesn’t depict her dour profession. 

You like to study animal and human psychology? What a pleasant surprise! Kiyomi loves it when she encounters people who are more on the intellectual and rational side. She appreciates it when you don’t play up your emotions, often preferring that you are more honest and blunt with her.

That said, her knees will turn to jelly whenever you casually flirt with her. She’s more used to romantic gestures in the privacy of the bedroom or away from the public’s prying eyes. If you kiss her hand in front of fellow reporters or flirt with her in front of colleagues, her cheeks will redden and her professional tone of voice will slip into something that may or may not be considered high pitched and girlish. 

Furthermore, Kiyomi is in love with the fact that you love your body. Your outward confidence that exudes from your very being is magnetic, but at the same time, Kiyomi wants to shy away. She doesn’t think that she deserves you because you’re many things that she isn’t. It’s because of you that she seeks to improve herself. 

After spending so much time with you, Kiyomi embraces and loves every aspect of yourself and that includes your worst traits. As a Kira supporter, Kiyomi feels for the victims of criminals, but she can’t deny that part of her view is skewed by her pragmatic and efficient nature. She can empathize with the fact that you are also not as empathetic. She may not view your lack of empathy as a bad trait, per se, but rather as something that is a part of you. This sort of trait is not always found in good individuals—it’s your actions that dictate who you are. 

Kiyomi is also a fairly quiet and tidy person. She understands getting irritated if things are out of place; she gets a little antsy if her office space is cluttered or if she needs to dust off the surfaces of her apartment. She’ll help you if the overstimulation gets too much via grounding methods or simply holding you if you allow it. 

As for dimly lit rooms… You better be speaking her romance language because she finds this sort of lighting to be the best for certain activities between you and her once the work day is over. 

And don’t worry if you’re emotional at times. Even cold and pragmatic Kiyomi knows what it’s like to need to have some sort of outlet for emotions. She can also be driven by her emotions, especially if she’s driven in the pursuit of love. Since she’s in love with you, she’ll basically do anything for you and if that means giving you tissues to dry your eyes or offering you sweets to stem your tears, she’ll do so.

Congratulations! You found yourself a woman who is as elegant as she is beautiful. Beware of her cold nature because once she takes a liking to you, she will ensnare you with romance and love you forever. 

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If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

DEATH NOTE MASTERLIST

[mi5014tomberry]

Character Design and Modelling - Semester 1

The theme of this module is 'Parades' and it aims to develop my character design skills in conjunction with this them in both 2D and 3D mediums. Whilst listening to the design brief I jotted down any initial ideas that came to mind about the topics of Parades and themed groups:

I slowly added to the list of parades at the bottom both during class and once I got home. I am considering which parades interest me the most and those which would lend themselves to interesting character design. In my other module studying Character Performance I need to make an animation centred around an apprentice of sorts which visualises somebody learning something with both failure and progress included into a short 30 second animation. I have the option to use my character from the Character Design module in my animation for Character Performance and I am taking this into consideration when choosing which Parades to look at. Here are some of the websites that helped me find these parades:

Of the many Parades that I have browsed through, the ones that stand out to me the most for this project are:

Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling

Pamplona's Running of The Bulls

South Korea's Water Gun Festival

Shetland's Up Helly Aa

El Salvador's Bolas de Fuego

India's Holi Festival

I think that all of these festivals/parades have the wide enough scope to create diverse and distinctive characters. They each have their own unique traits and without seeing any footage of real attendees of each event, the nature of the events themselves gives an impression of the types of people that would attend each one. The type of person attending the Running of The Bulls clearly has to have a sense of humour to put their lives at risk so wantonly for the sake of an adrenaline rush. From a description as minimal as this, it is easy to imagine what the attendees of this event would look like: a wild eyed sprinter springing back and forth fidgeting with anticipation, unable to contain themselves as they wait excitedly for the gates to open. It is also easy to imagine someone on the opposite end of the spectrum for this event, perhaps a friend of the previous character, someone that has been roped into the event through peer pressure. A skinny meek-looking man, wiping the sweat from his brow and running his hands through his hair involuntarily. Perhaps muttering to himself and clenching his fists as he tries to psyche himself up for the race to come but ultimately breathing into a paper bag when he realises the mess he's got himself into. The nature of each event says something about the people attending it whether they are attending it passionately, ironically or begrudgingly because they've been dragged into it. The themes and activities of each event help to shape a picture of the attendees whether its a spandex clad fitness freak running a marathon or a chubby nerd in cosplay at a comic convention. The types of people we imagine are informed by learned stereotypes and are informed on a personal level by our own experiences. Suffice it to say that I have listed these parades as examples as I think they have to best scope for me personally to play around with the character design and to create not just visually interesting but more importantly believable characters. An onlooker should be able to infer what sort of people they are from a glance through the body language, the costuming and even the relationship between the individuals within the group.

From my description of who I assumed would attend the Running of The Bulls you can certainly identify people within this crowd who match my description. The man front and centre matches my first description of the enthusiastic adrenaline junky and on the far left, grimacing over his shoulder, this man could certainly be the nervous friend who was roped into the event, immediately regretting that he agreed to come along.

There is a lot of interesting information about costume and themes within these videos and website as a starting point of this project however the brief is not to simply pick a festival and design 5 characters matching the style of an existing parade. It is to go further and imagine our own festival inspired by the themes and associated themes of these real events.