#currently on arc 29 as of writing this post

[operator-report]

cw: ableism, Worm spoilers through Scourge 19.7

Thinking about Marissa Newland in the club tonight (Saturday afternoon). What a fast track for needing to go lie down.

Do you ever think about what it takes to be able to kill your best friend? What would your relationship with that friend need to be like? ("Sundancer spoke up, calling out, 'Remember the promise we made together.' Noelle didn’t reply.) How would you need to think of her? ("Hate these runs. People look at me funny when I bring a cart of meat and only meat.") How badly would you need to want to go back to your old life? ("How's life among the Travelers?" "Intense. Violent. Lonely.")

The Travelers entire team dynamic is a hideous torment nexus, but the collapse of Noelle and Marissa's friendship really gets to me. Going from Marissa always making sure Noelle ate to Marissa being ashamed of the food runs is agony. Marissa was Noelle's friend who cared for her, and cared about her, the most. Now, when Marissa talks to Noelle, she doesn't respond. Marissa can hold Dinah while she's sick in Noelle's cage, but can no longer reach out to Noelle. All care is completely cut off - Noelle is only a disease, who needs to be managed and grieved.

Marissa hates hurting people, but she can kill Noelle. Taylor just has to first tell Marissa that Noelle is no longer herself. (“She’s… she was my best friend.” “She’s not Noelle anymore.”)

Of course, it's so much more nightmarishly complicated than that. Marissa isn't a bad person, here - she's handling a horrible situation imperfectly. Marissa still loves Noelle. She insists to Taylor over and over again that Noelle is her friend, despite everything. But for one hideous moment, Marissa has to believe that Noelle isn't there, that the thing that Noelle has become isn't really her friend, isn't a person, before she can do the deed. And then Marissa goes right back to mourning.

It's awful. It's an incredibly well-executed tragedy. I don't really have much of a point beyond that, other than, damn. It really does suck that Noelle's friends - even her friend who best understood her struggles - no longer see Noelle as a person. Can't believe that's what killed her, in the end.

[bambeebirdie]

This is for @bluepeachstudios ‘s Ghost in a Shell. It’s really good you should read it.

I looked at exactly one picture of Jupiter Jim and went “yeah this should be enough to draw him.” I will not be answering if it actually was

Have some bonus content under the cut!

And sketches

(I love any character who can say “I don’t want to go back to prison” it’s like the funniest thing to me)

[hamaonoverdrive]

How to get into Hokuto no Ken, A Guide

Hokuto no Ken, localized as Fist of the North Star, is the wildly popular and influential series penned by Buronson and drawn by Hara starting in 1983. It is a timeless tragedy about the power of love that taps into imagery from both Catholicism and Buddhism, while also being an homage to a variety of western 80's pop culture from Mad Max to Blade Runner to Rocky.

In the current anime fanscape, HnK is perhaps best known for being one of the key influences behind Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Berserk, however it should be known that the series' influence permeates the entire Shonen genre. Traces of the tropes and dynamics that it popularized can be seen throughout Shonen today, from Naruto's drive for love and friendship that contrasts with Sasuke's rejection of the idea and desire to sever any bonds of love, to the implementation of Haki in One Piece.

So with all that in mind, let's get into the specifics.

The place to start with this franchise is very straightforward: read the original manga or watch the anime adaptation. There are a number of movies that retell parts of the original story, but they all have different downsides and cut important aspects of the source material and thus are a bad place to start.

This primary canon is broken down into two (three) parts, as follows:

HnK or "HnK1" is the core of the series, starting at the Shin arc through the originally intended ending at chapter 136/episode 108. Most of the time if someone is referring to HnK, this is what they are talking about. The beginning of the series is a bit of a slow start, bouncing between villains of the week before actually kicking off the primary conflict (especially in the anime, more on this later). This is somewhat typical for the era-- these early arcs were written while the authors had no idea if they were going to get dropped from Shonen Jump. For this reason, I highly recommend sticking with the series until the Fang Clan Chieftain and Jagi arcs even if the beginning hasn't clicked with you yet.

HnK2 is the continuation of the series, where the authors were pressured to continue working on the series because of the money it was raking in. This naming convention comes from the title of the anime for this portion of the story, chapters 136-210/episodes 110-152. Quite frankly, the fact that this is past the originally intended ending is very evident; Buronson has been quoted as never re-reading it after publication.[1] It's very much worth checking out at least once if you enjoyed HnK1-- there are absolutely memorable characters and fights, as well as some of the best art in the series-- but be prepared for a general drop in writing quality.

"Post-Kaioh HnK" or "HnK3" is the last leg of the original manga, which has never been adapted elsewhere. Chapters 211-245.

Content Warnings

Explicit Sexual Assault

The elephant in the room when discussing this series is that some social aspects of it are very of-the-era. There are two instances of explicit sexual assault, which get dismissed as "well the perpetrator didn't have the best execution, but he did have the right idea..." The pages/timestamps to avoid this are:

Manga volume 02 pages 287-289; volume 03, pages 063-066 (Ultimate Edition numbering)

Anime episode 24, 13:04-13:53; episode 26 08:29-09:22

Mild Gore

I almost feel like it goes without saying, but this is famously the series where the protagonist makes baddies heads explode. While this is never depicted in graphic detail, HnK as a whole is going to be a bad fit if this distresses you in any way.

An early example of the aforementioned head asplosions.

Photosensitivity

The anime makes period-typical use of flashing lights in nearly every episode. If you are photosensitive (and can't take measures to mitigate the flashing), you should read the manga instead.

If you want to read the manga...

The manga is the way that I personally recommend getting into the series due to Hara's absolutely gorgeous art.

The manga is also generally seen as the true 'canon'; For example, colorschemes used in subsequent works typically draw from colored chapter/volume covers rather than the Toei anime. For this reason, this version of the series is what the Japanese audience usually thinks of when they think of HnK.

I know some people are very passionate about redhead Mamiya and crest toothpaste-head Rei, but the Toei colors functionally exist in their own separate continuity.

Reading the manga in English is far better now than it was even three years ago, as there are multiple English versions now available.

The official VIZ release is the defacto highest quality out there (support the print copies if you can). While there are a few odd translation choices and the SFX have been replaced with English ones, it has the highest fidelity copies of the original art and even has the original color pages that have not been published since the original Shonen Jump release.

To think that these wonderful colored pages were completely inaccessible, even to JP audiences, until Viz started rolling out the English volumes.

However, the Viz release is ongoing and only covers until volume 11 at the time of writing. If you want to read the rest of HnK2 (or highly value the original SFX and a smoother translation), you should seek out the official eOneBook release. This is sometimes labelled as "Digital - 2018" and is a rip of an official English translation that was released for a specialized eReader, copies of which been floating around online since about 2020.

There is also an older set of scanlations out there, which I would not recommend reading; The image quality is low-resolution and muddy, and there are a number of edgy translation choices such as inserting a homophobic slur that was not in the original text. I only mention this translation because it's the one on many online manga sites. Please love yourself and look elsewhere if you realize that you are reading these scans.

(left) English-language scanlations (right) Viz release from 2022. I distinctly remember first reading these pages and then immediately scouring the web to find a version of it that didn't have the contrast blown out, only to discover that this quality was all that available. Now, newcomers to the series don't have to worry about this at all.

There are two different versions of the complete manga, the original tankobons (27 total volumes) and the Ultimate Edition (17 volumes).[2] Both the Viz release and the eOnebook release are derived from the Ultimate Editions while the old scanlations are from the original tankobons, so this can be an easy way to identify which version you are reading.

As to what makes these versions different aside from chapters per volume, the Ultimate Editions clean up some of the art in the last few volumes and also includes "Last Piece", a one-shot by Buronson and Hara inserted between HnK1 and HnK2. This was written as a part of the 30th anniversary celebration, and Hara's art looks quite different 30 years down the road, making the abrupt change in style rather jarring-- consider this your heads-up.

TL;DR Read the Viz version for volumes 1-11, and the eOnebook rips for the rest.

If you want to watch the anime...

The 1984 anime adaptation of HnK is an all-time classic. It's often what western fans will think of first, between the manga being legally inaccessible in English until very recently and constant anime reruns in some markets (especially parts of Italy and France).

Toei has a tendency to copyright-strike anime clips on Youtube, so hopefully this clip of the opening will stand the test of time.

The anime genuinely excels in a few departments, namely: music, sound design, and voice acting. Even if you don't decide to watch the anime, I highly recommend looking up the OPs/EDs and putting on the OST while reading the manga.

That said, there are definitely some downsides to the anime, a lot of which were typical for Toei animations of the era. Character models and direction are all over the place, some of the animation itself aged like milk, flashing light effects make the series difficult to get through for photosensitive viewers, and stock footage gets reused many times. There also isn't a complete English dub of the show, as it got cancelled after episode 36.

And the biggest caveat to the anime: Filler episodes. Oooooh boy, early HnK filler episodes are baaaad. They don't match the rest of the series tonally and completely botch any sense of pacing. Remember how earlier I said that the series takes a while to get its footing because of early bad-guy-of-the-week format? The anime drags this out for about twice as long by adding new bad guys of the week.

The infamous "Nanto Cannonball Fist", where users are launched from a cannon and descend on their opponents with a sword. Yeah, I don't know how this counts as a school of martial arts, either. [img source]

For a first watch through, I highly recommend following a filler episode guide to skip these episodes in the Shin arc and get a better feel for what the series is about. Post Shin-arc filler tends to be a lot better, as these episodes match the manga's original tone and often fix pacing problems in the source material rather than worsening them.

That said, there are a few early filler episodes that are well-liked by fans for one reason or another, which I will detail here.

Episode 17: A (non-canonical) view into the internal politics of Shin's army.

Episode 18: In which Kenshiro fights a tank.

Episode 19: The goofiest of the goofy filler episodes. If you want to watch one filler episode to get a sense of what they are like, watch this one.[3]

Episode 21: A continuation of some of the conflicts from episode 17.

Episode 38: Features one of the best-written woman martial artists you'll see in this franchise. (This is after Shin arc, but I had to point her out. Watch this one.)

Rage Quitter 87's fansite also has an excellent episode-by-episode guide covering anime and manga differences, which can be very useful for highlighting some of the more subtle differences between the two.

An anime remake that more closely follows the manga has been announced, but we have no further details on it at the time of writing. (I wouldn't hold my breath for this, it could be several years before we know more.)

TL;DR skip the episodes listed here under "Shin arc".

So I got through the main canon, what next?

The sheer amount of secondary content for HnK out there can be overwhelming. It's one of the most profitable IPs of all time, with the bulk of those profits coming from pachinko machines that will never make it to the west outside Youtube phone clips and asset-flip games (more on this later). When the series isn't being used to sell soap, there are a number of supplemental works that are absolutely worth checking out. In this guide I will focus on works that are currently available in English.

The Official Gaidens

A series of manga with different protagonists and created with different creative teams, the Hokuto side-stories fill in some of the gaps in the primary canon. Most of them are very loving additions to the continuity and are a good place to go after finishing the primary material.

Toki Gaiden: Silvery Savior follows Toki starting from the founding of the Village of Miracles and ends after his climactic final fight, providing his lens on the events of the series and his relationship with Raoh. This gaiden does a good job of understanding what fans like about the series, and has a lot of secondary character interactions that were missing in the original work such as conversations between different Ken-oh underlings.

Jagi Gaiden: Flower of Carnage follows Jagi through his childhood, interspersed with the events of canon. This gaiden does a lot to explain why Jagi ended up the way he did, provides additional context to what the Hokuto children's training looked like, and how the world changed when the apocalypse happened. cw: rape

Yuria Gaiden: The Affectionate Mother Star follows Yuria before the apocalypse happens, giving us a snapshot of domesticity with Kenshiro, a better understanding of her abilities, and illustrating how her life was always influenced by those who had fallen for her.

Juza Gaiden: The Wandering Clouds follows Juza as meanders around canonical events, giving insight into what he was like as he shifted from wandering without drive or purpose to becoming a sworn guardian to the Last Nanto General.

Rei Gaiden: Bloody Wolf's Darkness is one that I wish I could leave off of this list, but that I will include for completeness' sake. It follows Rei before his appearance in HnK as he goes through the exact same character arc that he has in canon. The city that he wanders into has a setup directly out of a porn plot, thoroughly justifying the manga's ecchi genre-tag. cw: sexual assault. repeatedly.

Souten no Ken and Souten no Ken: Regenesis

Souten no Ken, otherwise known as Fist of the Blue Sky, is a prequel series that follows Kenshiro Kasumi, 62nd successor to Hokuto Shinken and uncle to the Kenshiro from HnK, as he has martial arts adventures and tumbles with gangsters in 1930's Shanghai. The series revisits many of the character archetypes from HnK and plays around with the same plot points in different contexts, ultimately dealing with themes of friendship and fate.

Souten no Ken is a complete manga, drawn by Tetsuo Hara with plot supervised by Buronson. Souten no Ken: Regenesis is a direct sequel that is currently ongoing, drawn by Hideki Tsuji and written by Hiroyuki Yatsu. Regenesis has been on hiatus since 2020 due to Hideki Tsuji's ongoing health problems.

While there are animes with both of these names, here I am referring specifically to the manga-- neither anime is worth your time.

There. Now you've seen the only things that matter from both animes.

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

Released in Japan as "Hokuto ga Gotoku" (Like a Big Dipper), Lost Paradise is an action-adventure game from the studio behind the Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Ryu ga Gotoku series. Fans of the RGG franchise will immediately recognize the game structure and mechanics, which balance advancing the main story thread with a semi-open world where the player can stumble into comedic sidestories and play assorted minigames.

Bartending is just one of the jobs that Kenshiro can take up in Lost Paradise.

The core story of the game features an entirely original cast, but most of the main characters of HnK show up for just long enough to have fights and cutscenes full of loving references to the source material. It's pure fanservice, in the non-horny sense of the word.

Team RGG really knows how to nail dynamic fight intros and epic QTEs.

Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage and Ken's Rage 2

Even though some of the character design choices for this game are painfully mid-aughties (looking at you, tribal tattoo pattern Ken), this intro still goes hard.

For many years the Ken's Rage series were the definitive HnK games, and with good reason. A Musou game much like the Warriors series, you can play as most main characters from the series and mow down waves upon waves of bandits. Some may find the gameplay repetitive, but it can also be relaxing depending on how you look at it. (If you've played a Warriors game before, you know what you're getting into.)

Ken's Rage 2 in particular brings "Dream Mode" to the table, which is a "what if" story mode told from the POV of each playable character. This gives us a lot of interactions that we didn't get to see in canon (such as the delightfully shippy Jagi story featuring Amiba) and also expanding on some characters that should have gotten more screentime in the original material.

Hokuto no Ken (1986 animated movie)

It's the movie produced by (largely) the same team as the anime, created simultaneously to the show. If you want to know what the anime would look like if it wasn't trying to stretch every yen as thin as it could, this is your ticket.

That said, there are some odd choices made to carve a 110 minute long arc out of the early manga. The movie starts with Ken receiving his iconic scars, and ends with the first confrontation with Ken-oh.

DD HnK

This officially kicks off the "HnK comedy series" part of this list. I feel like comedy in particular can be subject to personal tastes, so keep in mind that each of these projects approaches the series from a different angle and that some may resonate better than others.

DD HnK is a comedic take on what the Hokutobros would get up to if the world didn't end. They end up working at a convenience store managed by Ryuken (voiced by Akira Kamiya, the original VA for Kenshiro), where hijinks ensue when other characters from the series show up.

It's worth noting that there are two animes and a manga with this name. The first anime is a Flash-based ONA (which is hard to find nowadays, for understandable reasons) and the second anime is the TV anime; Both of these series as well as the manga are very largely different. All series are complete, although the English fan translation for the manga is ongoing.

DD stands for "Design Deformation", evidently.

Ichigo Aji (Strawberry Flavor)

An average day with the Holy Emperor.

Ichigo Aji follows Souther on his quest to make some good friends. :) No really, that's more or less the premise of this spinoff.

While there are animated IA shorts at the end of every episode of DD HnK2, the meat and potatoes of this series are in the manga. The manga is ongoing (albeit on long-term hiatus) and the English fantranslation is currently incomplete (also on hiatus). Each volume of the manga also has a serious chapter following different characters from the series, serving as "mini gaidens" of sorts.

Genius Amiba's Other World Overlord Legend - Even If I Go to Another World, I Am a Genius!! Huh? Was I Mistaken...

In what originally started as an April Fool's Joke, the Amiba Isekai is perhaps one of the most unexpected additions to this franchise. The story begins after Amiba's death at Kenshiro's hands, where he finds himself transported to a fantasy realm where magic and creatures like dragons are real. He decides to use his self-proclaimed "genius" to learn magic in lieu of the martial arts that he studied earlier.

This manga series started in 2021 and is is still ongoing, although the English fantranslation is incomplete and has been on hiatus.

End of the Century's Drama Shooting Arc

The End of the Century's Drama Shooting Arc, more colloquially known as the Actor AU, is a retelling of the series as though it was a live-action TV show, covering the efforts and foibles of the actors and production crew as they struggle to produce the series.

The manga for this series started in 2021 alongside the Amiba Isekai and is ongoing, although the English fan translation is currently incomplete (Noticing a reoccurring trend here? a12 and Sakura Leaves, if you're out there, we really miss your work 🥹). If you can navigate the points system (new chapters are free within a few days of release) and use Google Lens, you can get a rough translation from the official Comics Zenon website.

The Winckler Dub

While not intentionally a comedy spinoff, I'm including the Winckler Dub in this section. There are apocryphal stories about this dub being produced as a means to teach Japanese schoolchildren basic English, interviews point to this dub being a sincere project to create a version of this series palatable to an English-speaking audience.

Please, just unmute this series of clips.

The only editing I did here was to append the files. They just. Speak with pauses like that.

With several downright bizarre directing decisions (Raoh is a pirate now, evidently?) and some of the strangest line-reads I've heard in an anime, this relic of an older localization industry can easily fall under "so bad it's good". Watch this with a group of friends after having a few drinks or late night at an anime convention, ideally.

The dub does not cover the whole series, instead bundling sets of 4 episodes into a series of 6 movie-length "sagas": Shin, Ray (sic), Souther, Toki, Raoh, and Kaioh.

Hokuto no Ken: Legends ReVIVE

I feel like it would be a bit disingenuous to finish this list without mentioning Legends ReVIVE, the current ongoing gacha for the franchise. (Worth noting: I am the admin for the unofficial discord server for this game, which is also the largest and most active English-speaking community for HnK.[4])

This game is possibly one of the biggest lovenotes to the franchise as a whole, with character releases that reach into the most obscure pieces of fiction, from Last Piece to (formerly) Pachinko-only Gento practitioners. Early character models and story cutscenes were entirely asset-flips from pachinko models, but things have grown far past that in the game's past 4.5 years.

As a part of the 40th anniversary celebration for the manga, it was mentioned that there would be a new continuation of the manga's plot featured in-game, but at the time of writing we have little elaboration on this.

For a gacha, the game is relatively F2P friendly and doesn't ask much of your time on a day-to-day basis. But at the end of the day, it is a gacha that relies on predatory monetization and exploitation of gambling addictions. Caveat emptor.

But what about [x]...?

Legend of the True Savior: this movie series is another adaptation of the manga's plot, but this one doesn't really bring anything novel to the table. The same caveats about making a movie out of the manga apply, in that some odd choices get made to get arcs to fit in a movie timespan. It's there I guess, if you can stomach the artstyle.

Shin HnK/New Fist of the North Star: is victim-blamey rape apologia. There really isn't any reason I can recommend watching it, outside maybe looking up the final fight (where Junichi Hayama's direction really stands out) and the closing song (Oasis by Gackt).

Animated Gaidens (ex Ten no Haoh, Kenshiro Den, etc): these are one of the few things I haven't seen, and for the most part they don't come up in discussion. They're probably fine, but I just don't have the knowledge to comment on them.

Live Action Movie: don't. It's not even so-bad-it's-good, just don't.

In Conclusion

I hope this guide helped take the edge off of trying to figure out how to navigate such a sprawling series, and that it was genuinely informative about both what each work entails and the general context around it. This franchise is something I've really enjoyed digging into over the years and I did my best to convey that love and enthusiasm in this guide.

I may write more meta about HnK in the future, because I absolutely have a lot more to say. There's a lot for me to go on about regarding what the series means to me and why more people should pick it up, as well as putting together standalone character analyses from assorted ramblings on Discord.

Thanks for reading!

References

[1] From running the provided link through DeepL:

Buronson: By the way, I don't read much when a work is published in book form. As far as Fist of the North Star is concerned, the second part has never been published. Interviewer: What? Not even once? You didn't read it at all? Buronson: That's right. But I read the whole book from the beginning the other day.

[2] Not to be confused with the unrelated Master Edition, which was the first attempt to bring the manga to the English market. This version is a full-color version of the original tankobon release, of which only the first 9 volumes were completed. It can be a neat novelty to check out once you're familiar with the series, but the non-Hara colorings can be a mixed bag.

[3] There is a story that this episode was so goofy that it made Hara and Buronson visit Toei in person and tell them to cut that shit out. This claim comes from the book "Our Favorite Fist of the North Star" , which is a fanbook that featured some interviews with members of the anime studio staff, with absolutely zero input from Hara and Buronson themselves. Between the fact that Hara and Buronson were both stated to have been incredibly busy with producing HnK and did not have time to watch the anime and the fact that this claim directly contradicts how they barely met in-person during the production of the series, it seems likely that this bit was made up as a gaff and/or hyperbole by the interviewee.

[4] There are also smaller, more fandom oriented, centers for discussion-- but I'm not about to link them on a post that gets recirculated publicly.

Special Thanks

@/KiliHito (discord) for helping me source the interviews, digging into the truth about the fabled Nanto Cannonball episode, and giving me context for some of HnK's influence in modern shonen.

@takis-breathing-dragon for having the Winckler Dub clips on hand and spotting some typos.

[desceros]

You just posted a chapter of symphony, so what's next?

What's on your brain atm?

Dredge au? The dayjob Leo? Another thing? uwu

i took the week off to rest my wrist (much to my annoyance; i've been itching to write for several days), and i'm currently (literally, in another tab) writing a quick thing for dredge au. as soon as i get it out, i'll be diving into my house of leaves-inspired leo fic, which is a stand alone piece i've been very very very very excited about. (<- visibly vibrating)

after that, here's the current docket, barring something smacking me in the face with a steel chair:

symphony 26

day job leo

symphony 27

day job raph

(somewhere around here i have a summer fic for an event i signed up for that needs doing.... maybe here? maybe sooner? question mark)

symphony 28

day job mikey

symphony 29

...and probably i'll push at this point until i get to arc 4 in symphony, since it'll be close enough that i'll get excited about it!

i'm not going to assign a time table to this since i'm really really swamped right now outside of fandom stuff and my wrist has been flaring up again, but that's the current order. chin hands i hope you're all as excited as i am!!!

[sakuplumeria]

Moriarty the Patriot / Yuukoku no Moriarty Ask Game

Choose a number and put it in my ask box! I’ll answer the question. Feel free to reblog if you want to answer questions too :)

1) Your favorite character from the series

2) Team Moriarty or Team Sherlock

3) Who is the most underrated character?

4) Which character do you think should appear more often?

5) Do you have a character that you liked but currently not anymore?

6) Do you have a character you dislike at first but grew on you along with the development of the series?

7) If you ship characters, which is your favorite pairing?

8) Most ruthless character

9) Sexiest character

10) Make me choose [character] or [character]

11) Which character is still a mystery to you?

12) Do you agree with the Moriarty plan if you lived in that era?

13) What is your favorite arc?

14) What is your favorite quote or scene?

15) What is your favorite episode?

16) What is your favorite song or soundtrack (from the anime or musicals)?

17) Do you prefer manga, anime, or musicals?

18) Do you prefer subs or dubs?

19) Which is the funniest moment in the series?

20) Which is the scariest moment in the series?

21) YNM produces another OVA. Which story do you want to see getting animated?

22) Do you enjoy writing/drawing/creating fan works for the fandom?

23) When you read YNM fanfics or see fanarts, what genre do you enjoy the most?

24) An alternate universe you’d like to see

25) Your favorite headcanon of YNM

26) If [character] turns into an animal, what animal do you think she/he will be?

27) If the characters are stranded on an uninhabited island alone, who do you think will survive the longest?

28) Which character is best at the art of disguise?

29) Which character do you think is the most like yourself?

30) Which character do you think is the least like yourself?

31) If you HAD to choose one character to die (for real), who would it be?

32) Your favorite character has magical powers! What powers do they have?

33) Your favorite character creates a Tumblr account. What do they like to post?

34) What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of your favorite character or you think she/he would use a lot?

35) You're in the team! Who do you think you'll get along with the most?

36) What other anime/manga do you like?

37) Do you read ACD’s Sherlock Holmes?

38) Do you read or watch any other adaptations of Sherlock Holmes?

39) Which adaptation of Sherlock Holmes is your favorite so far?

[delawaredetroit]

Looks like I'm about one third of the way through my reread of the manga at this point.

So to commemorate that, here are the current character post rankings:

Izuku Midoriya: 373 posts

Katsuki Bakugou: 157 posts

All Might: 149 posts

Shouto Todoroki: 129 posts

All for One: 94 posts

Tomura Shigaraki: 84 posts

Tenya Iida: 64 posts

Ochako Uraraka and Endeavor: 46 posts each

Eraserhead: 39 posts

Eijirou Kirishima: 36 posts

Himiko Toga: 33 posts

Sir Nighteye and Mirio Togata: 29 posts each

Touya Todoroki: 26 posts

Yuuga Aoyama: 24 posts

Momo Yaoyorozu and the Hero Killer Stain: 22 posts each

Overhaul: 17 posts

Inko Midoriya, Tamaki Amajiki, and Yoichi Shigaraki (despite not being formally introduced yet): 16 posts each

Nana Shimura: 15 posts (despite getting more panel time than Yoichi)

Nedzu: 12 posts

Minoru Mineta: 11 posts

Gran Torino, Naomasa Tsukauchi, and Yoarashi Inasa: 10 posts each

Mina Ashido, Kota Izumi, and Hawks (despite not being introduced yet): 9 posts each

Rei Todoroki, Eri, Twice, and Mei Hatsume: 8 posts each

Fumikage Tokoyami, Tsuyu Asui, and Kudou (despite not being introduced yet): 7 posts each

Magne, Spinner, and Hitoshi Shinsou: 6 posts each

The 5 post club: Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, Mezou Shouji, Itsuka Kendo, Denki Kaminari, Thirteen, Tensei Iida, and Larceny and his pals who fought Suneater

The 4 post brigade: Nejire Hado, Mr. Compress, Present Mic, Recovery Girl

Shoutout to Satou and Kouda for being so irrelevant despite being in the special plot important class that I have written nothing about them after rereading one third of the manga. Jirou, Ojiro, Hagakure, and Sero were on thin ice with less than four posts each...

Miscellaneous Commentary:

This included posts tagged with each character's name. Reblogs weren't counted but asks were included. Just Bakugou critical tagged posts were counted towards Bakugou's numbers.

I don't see the top three changing. Izuku is the protagonist despite how he was neglected in later arcs by the manga. All Might remains important and Bakugou is the deuteragonist despite his ineffectiveness in that role.

Shouto will probably keep the fourth spot until act three and then fall rapidly because that was when Horikoshi dropped the ball on his character. Ochako will fall in the rankings until the third act where she'll make a comeback. Somehow, after the first act, it seems that Horikoshi could only handle writing Shouto or Ochako but not both at once.

There's no way Iida remains in the top ten despite how much I like his character. Kirishima isn't going to overtake him though either.

Endeavor is going to fly past Ochako. He is so messy he caused the entire Todoroki Family Subplot, so there's a lot to talk about with that messy bitch.

Touya's position between Mirio and Aoyama is sending me, but to be fair the plot sidelined him early on to smack everyone in the face with the reveal in the first war arc.

Momo sharing the same amount of plot relevance with Stain is killing me, and honestly I think they'll probably continue to be around the same place going forward.

Nedzu and Mineta having more posts than Hawks is also sending me, but Hawks hasn't had his introduction yet.

I'll probably do another one of these around the halfway point in my reread for the fun of it.

[equestrianequivalent]

QuintSum has been finished. What now?

Yes, you read that right. I've finished the first draft of QuintSum. I'm done. I told you, I said I would be, and I finally am! So, what now?

Well, the short answer is that I'm going to release it all on Ao3, but there's a few things to discuss related to that process, because that won't be done in a day either.

How will you release the fic?

These will be the 8 arcs that are currently NOT on Ao3, and a rerelease of the first 4 arcs and finally releasing the last chapter of Goldenhills (29). This is how this will work in more detail:

Currently, I have reuploaded chapters 1-18. The next batch, as you can see above (at the time of writing), is 19-24. Then we will simply follow suit. All in all, it will be 18 individual releases, with 15 yet to come.

First things first:

Chapters 1-28 will be rereleased. Chapter 29 will be uploaded. This will happen first. I will not announce when the chapters are being rereleased, but once I have uploaded chapter 29, which I will announce, you can be sure that the rest of the fic is up to date.

ALSO, IMPORTANT: Remember how I said that you wouldn't need to reread the reuploaded chapters? I lied. You should probably reread the fic. Just saying. I have changed way more than I ever could've predicted that I would, and it shows. You're probably not going to understand a Solid amount of basic knowledge the characters hold at certain points, nevertheless what each character is thinking and why, especially not how we got to this point, if you don't reread the first 28 chapters. But also I'm not your mom you can do whatever you want.

After this, we will go 1-3 releases Per Arc. Most arcs will be released in two halves, as you can in the screenshot above. The short explanation is that this means there will be less releases with more chapters. (And don't let the low chapter count fool you, the wordcount goes haywire sooner than you think.) There is 135 chapters in total, it would take me over a year to upload this entire thing even if I released two chapters per week. And I don't want to do that. Therefore, I will release them per arc, which is a collection of chapters about the same part of the story, pretty much. Those releases will look as follows:

Arc 5: Chapters 30-35. (One release)

Arc 6: Chapters 36-51. (Two releases)

Arc 7: Chapters 52-59. (One release) (<- Most subject to change, this bitch is a complete mess in terms of chapter length already. Stay tuned to see how I deal with that I guess!)

Arc 8: Chapters 60-84. (Three releases)

Arc 9: Chapters 85-103. (Two releases)

Arc 10: Chapters 104-109. (One release)

Arc 11: Chapters 110-116. (One release)

Arc 12: Chapters 117-135. (Two releases)

I cannot say when these will be uploaded, but this means that there will be 15 releases of chapters. This is how it's going to work on My end of things:

I will edit and finalize the chapters in each release, and then upload that entire batch on Ao3 together. This will take however long it may. I have no deadlines and no goals to hit. It'll be done when it's done. Then I will release a post announcing that this arc has been uploaded, with a link to the First chapter in that arc. This will repeat until we reach the last chapters. And then we're done. It is Way less complicated than it sounds, all you need to do, really, is remember that I will release things less consistently, but when I do release, believe me, you will have stuff to read.

How long is this fic?

135 chapters. And the wordcount of the first draft ended up at 280k words. It will probably be a little more on Ao3 because I always add stuff when I revise. So far I'm 100% on track to double the final draft, but don't hold me to that. I'm personally assuming it'll be somewhere between 350-450k words.

What is important to keep in mind?

The tags. The fucking tags. Please. PLEASE. Read the tags. I have consistently talked on my main about how the biggest goal of QuintSum has been to "make Elizabeth's death worth it". Third-party sources would agree that I have done just that. Deia is also written with pretty heavy anxiety at times, and considering that Deia takes from my own experiences with both anxiety and autism, I can't exactly promise that it won't hit close to home for some people. Other than that, you can expect pretty standard things from the game. And a few near-death experiences here and there. Nothing is explicit, you're not going to get any detailed descriptions for anything, I don't think. While the final version does contain third person narration and description now, we're not going that far with it, I promise.

I will also release a little arc summary with each new arc released, this will be in the post on tumblr, and in the chapter summary of the first chapter of each arc. I will say tho, remember that I rate this story T, that rating speaks louder than Most of the tags. The tags aren't lying, but the severity of it is dictated more than anything by the rating.

Anything else?

Tell @jorvikzelda that you love them because they're the entire reason that I started, nevertheless finished this fuckass fic of mine. Stay tuned for the release, boys, we fucking made it.

(If you want some sporadic updates because I can't shut up, I'm always yappin over at @shiroselia and otherwise you can find me at Ao3 as per usual)

Cheers!

[accio-victuuri]

tomorrow, may 3rd is the last day of the “may day” holiday and i hope that btf remains on the #1 spot and will be the may day holiday champion. this holiday ( april 29 - may 3 ) is truly more of a golden week for tourism and not everyone will have the time to watch. may it pick up once they come back and more of em see the good reviews. having said that, i noticed today how people’s daily weibo account posted about btf. then CCTV 1 in the evening, reported about the may day films and only showed clips/mentioned btf. also the front page of beijing daily? btf.

part of the article that talks about btf :

Jing Runcheng said, "In terms of quality, "The King of the Sky" is best, it not only expresses the main theme, but also balances the needs of the audience. The rhythm of the film is good, not procrastinating, suitable for young audiences’ watching habits. There are laughs in the first half and tears in the middle. There is a burning point at the end, and various elements that mobilize the audience's emotions. The protagonist's growth arc is well done, the lead actor Wang Yibo brought traffic dividends to the film, and the performance also received approval. The special effects of the aircraft in the film is a breakthrough. It can be seen that director Liu Xiaoshi has a deep understanding of aircrafts.

One thing i was so nervous about when BTF was ( finally ) released was how it will be taken by the government and the air force community. So far, it all seems positive. Notice how their roadshows were private screening for military personnel too. As much as this is a movie for entertainment purposes, it also wants to send a message to the people & to the world. This was further explained in LX’s interview released today where he said,

Liu Xiaoshi believes that only by being close to the current group of test pilots, feeling, seeing, and observing can their stories be written well. "We must write the stories of the Chinese themselves. We cannot blindly imitate western movies. They ride motorcycles, and we ride motorcycles in the movies. Chinese soldiers don't do that; They go to bars, and we go too, and our troops don't like that. .” ( source )

Even in earlier interviews, LX was saying yibo was afraid to make a mistake in a “movie like this”. Yibo understood what as at stake in taking the lead role for a movie like BTF. One reason why there was virtually no training/filming leaks was they were at a secure base. and of course, he wants to give justice to the story of these men & women who protect their country.

My point is — Yibo does not shy away from projects that may be sensitive/ high stakes. or stories that no one has ever done before ( one & only for example is the first break dance themed movie in mainland china ). This is why I adore him. He does the exact opposite of what people think he should do. He could have easily chosen to do a straight up comedy movie or even a romance and call it a day. That could easily rake up some money, cause historically, movies in this may day season are of that genre and gets the top spot. But no. Even off season, he can pick traffic-star friendly themes and be done with it. Less strain for him. ( no shade to other actors but you all get the point ) No. He wants a challenge. I’m honestly in awe of what he’s been doing with his acting career and it’s a joy to be an audience for all of it. I’m excited where he takes us next 💕

[fellamarsh]

— about the author✨🌈

Howdy! I'm Fell (he/they), a queer trans indie author, and one half of the Estraven Homosexual Literature Society writing collective (with @b-a-pigeon.) You can find out more about us - as well as all of our books, both published and in-progress - on our website, homoliterature.org.

I write character-driven, often romantic fantasy for adults, usually set in original worlds. Mysterious gods, magical monster-people, and gay misfortune abound!

— about my writing🖋📚

Both Sides of The Moon, my very first novel, is about a werewolf cowboy and an amnesiac vampire falling in love... and the trauma, guilt, and fear - plus one particularly nasty man from the past - that they must overcome to be together.

Poised in Either Eye is a collaborative novel written with @b-a-pigeon. It follows two dragons who have taken human form: Mateo, who has abandoned the monotony and homogeneity of dragon culture, and Zephyr, who intends to prove that he's worthy of his family's name by using his powers to steal from humans.

Taker of the Third Path is a novel currently undergoing revision; the first draft is available to read on Patreon. Directed by the voice on the wind he calls God, the traveling hedge witch Linmiru settles at an old crossroads to watch for the next person to follow the overgrown third path - it is imperative that he find them, as the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Hierarchy of the Unseen is a collaborative novel written with @b-a-pigeon, about a devout demon hunter and a shiftless demon who have to team up to avert the apocalypse. It just finished serializing on Patreon, and is scheduled for release in early summer 2023. ARC signups for HotU are now open!

What From the Water Rises is a collaborative universe built with @b-a-pigeon. A series of short stories that focus on the inhabitants of Isle Ezu, and the forces that shape their world. The first story drops on Patreon March 29, 2023 - and will soon be available to read for free!

Working Title: SOUP is a story still in development. The first half takes place in the Well, the realm of humanity ascended; the second in the Expanse, the alchemized remains of the physical universe. Two individuals awaken in the Well and begin to dream of the other. When they meet, they disappear, and manifest in different parts of the Expanse, embodied for the first time.

— how to support💫🙇‍♂️

The best way to support my work is to buy my novels and subscribe to my (shared) Patreon!

Not able to support me with cold hard cash? No worries! You can still...

Sign up to beta read! Be one of the first to read a new novel and help shape the final draft. We currently have no projects open for beta-ing, but keep an eye out for future opportunities by checking the #call for betas tag!

Sign up to be an ARC reader! Get a free copy of a novel, before publication, in exchange for your honest review. We're currently offering ARCs for Hierarchy of the Unseen - sign up here!

Leave a review! If you've already read one of my works, leaving an honest review can help tremendously. The more reviews a book has, the more visibility it nets from the almighty algorithm!

Tell a friend about my work! Know someone who might like what I do? Send them this or another of my posts so they can check out my books!

Leave me an ask, reblog my posts, and follow me on social media! Not only does it please our internet overlords (and therefore make my work more visible) I genuinely enjoy interacting with readers and writers alike. You can find links to my twitter, tiktok, and instagram here.

💖 Thank you for reading 💖

[youkaigakkou-tl]

The Hatanaka Time Travel Theory

Despite this being a thing I bring up often, I realised recently I don’t have a neat write-up about it with all the evidence in one place. (that I could simply link to people, since I had to explain it 2 separate times in the past few days) Also this would serve as the comprehensive I CALLED IT post when it does inevitably happen.

Also, with the new info in chapter 98, this was a good time as any to write this.

TLDR: I think Hatanaka (and probably Haruaki) will end up 100 years in the past somehow, when Takahashi, Yamazaki and Ibara were in school. This is supported by stuff that those 3 say, as well as something Ranmaru says; most of this is from the spin-off, yoseito, but I think this will be a future plot point in the main story.

Background info

(Not going to bring up info from chapter 98 until it gets to that part of this post)

Just to be thorough about evidence, we know Takahashi was enrolled at Hyakki about 100 years ago from chapter 29.

We also know Yamazaki and Takahashi were classmates from chapter 36 and that Ibara was their schoolmate in yoseito chapter 28. (I wonder if we’ll see this classmate who runs a haunted cafe ever?)

Yoseito chapter 28: Yamazaki

This is the single most helpful image to this theory because it clarifies that it is, in fact, main story Hatanaka. Note the hairstyle, scarf, most importantly, the bandaged arms.

His arms, which were injured during the Kyoto school trip.

Yoseito chapter 21: Ibara

Kyaaa I don’t wanna spell out the implications of this I’ll blush its too cute 😳

Just ponder on it for a moment and you’ll figure it out. Actually, it’ll end up getting spelled out at the end of this. Anyway, 2nd (actually 1st chronological) instance of someone from that class 100 years ago knowing Hatanaka. I think the Yamazaki scene is the best one to start on though, since it shows more info than this scene.

(Just for reference, this chapter dropped 3rd December 2020)

Yoseito chapter 31: Ranmaru

There he is. Mister Exposition. Guy who outright says shit and doesn’t elaborate. In any case, 3rd nail in my theory.

Small intermission. This also ties in with my other theory that “Hyakki Academy” was only started around 100 years ago, despite the principal having been teaching on his own for the past 1000 years. In this same yoseito chapter, Ranmaru talks like Douman being a “respected principal” is a relatively recent development. Also, we never get any numbers higher than “around 100 years ago” when talking in relation to the school: the other teachers have been teaching for “over 100 years” longer than the teacher trio, Takahashi & co were in school 100 years ago. The real world timeline lines up as well, Japan started using the gakuran and sailor uniforms in schools around 100 years ago. How this is relevant is, the principal said he had Ranmaru help him teach when he first started the school which, if this is true, would line up with when Takahashi & co were in school.

Main story chapter 79-80

YOU THOUGHT THIS WOULDN’T BE BROUGHT UP IN THE MAIN STORY DIDN’T YOU! After all it isn’t as explicit as it has been in yoseito. Ohhhh man this has bothered me for so long about Haruaki student arc, but IT’S ALL CONNECTED!!

These two chapters point out TWICE that Hatanaka isn’t married to Ibara, and the ending of chapter 79 is spent pointing out that Takahashi is missing. I was wondering about the point of the policeman panel before, but it’s to show that Yamazaki is missing as well.

To go to such lengths to point out that these 3 are missing… (My current theory is that without the time travel, these three… you know…)

How are these two related, I hear you ask. The entire point of these 2 chapters was to show how different the world would be if Haruaki isn’t the exact age he is, in the exact place he is now! If time travel does happen, 5000% he’s the cause of it. Aging him down inadvertently affected Hatanaka’s future, which affected the past 100 years ago and all the people from that time, which then affects the present.

(Just for reference, these chapters dropped around August 2021, so after the first appearance of this idea in yoseito.)

Yoseito chapter 28 again

Now this isn’t exactly a piece of evidence, but it is a very suspicious conversation. Do you know what kind of manga and author we’re dealing with here??? This is the manga that was dropping hints about Renren in the volume 5 character profiles, 6 volumes before Renren arc.

This is the manga that had this in chapter 11, 3 volumes before it ever elaborated on it in chapter 26.

This is the manga that snuck Suzaku and Douman into chapter 47 right under our noses.

Most importantly, this is the manga that dropped this in chapter 51, volume 8.

I could go on all day. Point is you can’t take anything this manga says too lightly! It’s always “haha jk! …unless?”

Yoseito chapter 29: Principal

This counts as half an evidence, I think.

In yoseito chapter 29, the principal was about to say why he hired Hatanaka when he was cut off, and never actually answered it over the course of this 3 part mini-arc. Tamao and Mame come to the conclusion that it’s for his fighting ability, but that’s just their own conclusion. It might be one of the reasons, but it’s definitely not the whole story.

In main story chapter 71, Haruaki says he, Miki and Hatanaka were nepotism hires, and specifically the three of them. “Why Haruaki” is obvious, Miki is the shutendouji’s kid and worth keeping close, but why Hatanaka? If it was just because the principal knew him as a student, why not any other alumni from any other year?

Also, the principal and Hatanaka are close enough that he was one of 3 people at Hyakki who have seen his face before Kyoto arc (the other 2 are mouse-sensei, who’s the 2nd oldest at Hyakki after the principal, and Takahashi, who would have been troublesome to hide from, source), also Hatanaka is the principal’s right-hand man who reports to him about stuff (see chapter 57) (also see this tweet)

Hatanaka, the principal’s dog? Not any of the other teachers who have been there for 100 years? Something’s clearly up here.

It would be another story if, say, the principal already knew Hatanaka from 100 years ago, which would also explain why he trusted that Hatanaka would clean up his act and be a proper teacher when he had a track record as a delinquent.

Main story chapter 98

THIS WHOLE CHAPTER IS DRIVING ME INSANE. TANAMAI SENSEI??? YOU’RE GOING TO DROP THIS IN THE MAIN STORY????? HOLY SHIT????

FIRST OF ALL, info that was revealed in yoseito (like Yamazaki transforming to eat, the three of them being schoolmates 100 years ago) is being reiterated in the main story for people who don’t read the spin-off, and also reiterates old main story info like the 100 years ago thing, MEANING THIS INFO WILL BE RELEVANT.

We also get a more precise timeframe, 120 to 130 years ago, which could also have been deduced from knowing Takahashi is around 140 years old and presumably looked his age as a teenager.

Look at the way the quote specifically blocks the wrist. On the right hand. Where Haruaki’s bracelet would be. Also look at those sleeves. Those are Haruaki’s sleeves. I would recognise them anywhere.

Haruaki thinking “don’t know who that is” immediately after MAY AS WELL BE CONFIRMING IT

Immediately after THAT is this page. What do I even need to say.

In conclusion. This has been the Hatanaka Time Travel PSA. When this inevitably comes true I WILL be yelling I CALLED IT SUCK IT FOOLSSSS from the rooftops. Sorry for getting so aggro at the end here I’m very sleepy.

[littleholmes]

Hi, I'm Monique 🌸 I do a lot of writing and rambling about manga and anime! To make it easy to find my posts, I've included links to my analysis posts, writings, and my AO3 below!

Note: This blog and these posts are not spoiler-free. Please do not repost or post on other websites, tiktok, etc. Sometimes there's a tag glitch so just be sure to please remove my tags first, or write ‘prev tags’ if you agree with my tags, before rbing (this includes specialty sorting tags)

-> weekly/monthly manga & manhua I read: Jujutsu Kaisen, Bungou Stray Dogs, Spy x Family, 19 Days, Kuroshitsuji, Astro Royale, Chainsaw Man. Series Ended/Complete: My Hero Academia, Dr. Stone (main & 4D Science ended), Tokyo Revengers (main ended), MHA: Vigilantes, Demon Slayer, Haikyuu!!

☆ I keep this navigation post and all lists regularly updated so check in weekly! For Viz titles, I read the official translation via the Shonen Jump app.

🌸 My Analysis/Ramblings Main Tags

A small note that my longer posts are my analysis & typically delve into actual meta/analysis and are tagged as analysis. My shorter posts are random thoughts that come to mind as I read instead of a deeper analysis, they’re light and I will elaborate in the tags if I have more to add. In my thoughts tags, you will find a mixture of both thoughts and analysis.

• weekly/monthly manga thoughts tags (newest!-> 22 Sept 2024): jjk thoughts* || sxf thoughts* || 19 days thoughts* || bungo stray thoughts* || nna thoughts* || bnha thoughts* || dcst thoughts*|| csm thoughts* (still read but no longer posting thoughts)|| [next new sxf viz: 29 Sept] • long analysis/rambling main tag: idk I'm rambling* || Monique answers things* || see each series navigation list below for more posts and tags

🌸 My Analysis by Series

I've organized my analysis & thoughts posts in lists for each series below, and I also update each series link regularly! Also, reblogging my posts helps more fans find them, so consider rbing if you enjoy!

• Jujutsu Kaisen analysis posts (newest!-> 22 Sept/Ch 270)|| thoughts + analysis about Yuji, Megumi, Toji, Nanamin, Gojo, the current manga arcs, & more [next new ch: 29 Sept— final chapter] • Bungou Stray Dogs analysis posts (new!-> 3 Sept/ Ch 118) || thoughts + analysis about Chuuya's corruption, Dazai, the aftermath of Odasaku, Akutagawa's health, the current manga arcs, & more [next new ch: ~3 Oct] • BNHA analysis posts (new!-> 4 Aug / Ch 430)|| thoughts + analysis posts including recent arcs, villains, the Todoroki fam, & more [manga ended 4 Aug] Dr. Stone || Tokyo Revengers || Sk8 the Infinity || Yuri!! on Ice

🌸 More Thoughts/Ramblings by Series

A Sign of Affection x || Atarashii Joushi/My New Boss is Goofy x || The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons x || Link Click/Shiguang Daili Ren x || Blue Lock x || Buddy Daddies x || Food Wars + some Toonami x || Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan x || Haikyuu!! x

🌸 Gifs I made x || Rather read a fic? My AO3

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Mercury enters “Storm”

Timeline (current events in bold)

Friday, April 7, 12:01 UT - transiting Mercury enters pre-retrograde shadow, 5°51’ Taurus

Wednesday, April 12, 02:15 UT - transiting Mercury’s greatest eastern elongation, 11°14’ Taurus

Saturday, April 15 - transiting Mercury enters Storm

Friday, April 21, 08:35 UT - transiting Mercury stations retrograde, 15°37’ Taurus

Monday, May 1, 23:27 UT - Mercury-Sun Inferior Conjunction, 11°19’ Taurus

Monday, May 15, 03:17 UT - transiting Mercury stations direct, 5°51’ Taurus

Thursday, May 25 - transiting Mercury exits Storm

Monday, May 29, 09:39 UT - transiting Mercury’s greatest western elongation, 13°08’ Taurus

Wednesday, May 31, 19:39 UT - transiting Mercury exits post-retrograde shadow

“Storm” was an unknown Mercury issue for me until I started buying the annual Llewellyn’s Daily Planetary Guides. I’ll let them explain what’s going on:

Mercury enters its Storm (moving less than 40 minutes of arc per day) on Saturday, as it slows down before going retrograde. The Storm acts like the retrograde. Not favorable to start new projects - just follow through with the items that are already on your plate. Write down new ideas with date and time they occurred.

We write down the ideas because, after Mercury exits its Storm, we can re-evaluate them. And notice that Mercury doesn’t exit its Storm until May 25? This is taking longer than usual (I checked), and I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Depends on how one chooses to approach it, I suppose. Keep that mind calm.

Anyway, although technically Mercury won’t be going backwards yet, it will feel like it. Wonderful! At least Mercury neither makes nor receives any aspects, except those from the Moon, until after its retrograde station next Friday; that should help with the calm mind piece.

[distortedclouds]

I'm here for the writer's ask game :)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16, 27, 28, 29, 30, 37, 39

Well, hello there! :D

Questions 1,3,5,6,7:

Answered here

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Memory loss, but also growing old together. I think both tropes would require a lot of care and nuance to go into characterization that'd be very interesting to me

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Quite a few, actually! A couple of one-shots I'm working on, but also long-fics that I'm not sure whether I'll have the time or energy to tackle

The one most likely (still unlikely) to see the light of day is a post-rumbling, fake-dating fic because everyone's trying to get the new ambassador of peace to marry their daughter and Armin is (and Annie) just getting sick of it all

I mostly want it to be Armin-centric, everything that "Take my hand" fic was meant to be but couldn't (sorry Moon)

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

This probably wont' be the most honest/accurate answer, but since my brain has been flooded with ch 20 for the past 2 weeks-ish straight, it's gotta be this:

“I knew it, you and your plans,” Annie breathes with a small laugh, and it’s enough to make him smile, too. It always is. “What? You’re planning on marrying me on a remote beach somewhere?” “I will,” he promises. “You’ll get sand in your shoes.” She smiles. “Our friends will all be there.” He hopes. “The cake will get dirty.” She frowns. “I’ll promise to love you,” he vows. “We’ll spend the whole night brushing sand out of our hair instead of anything fun.” she pouts. “Yeah.” “I think I’d like that, Armin,” she murmurs, voice soft in his ears as she shuffles closer.

Dialogue is already not my strongest suit, so whenever I find myself writing bits that just flow between the two characters, I'm immediately pleased!

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Is there a difference between the two? I've been writing stuff and imagining worlds and scenarios since as far back as I could remember. I find writing to be an excellent practice of empathy and compassion, for not only people I may otherwise not fully understand, but also extending it to myself and how I may be feeling at specific times but having a hard time realize

definitely a passion!

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

I wouldn't say an episode/chapter, since I'm mostly consuming aot as whole arcs. But definitely the final arc, not only for aruani, but also as a life philosophy, if that makes sense lol

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

I mean... I wanna saw BW, since that's the apple of my eye, but I also fail to see how so much internal monologue and emotional writing can be distilled into an image (but then again, I'm not well versed in the visual arts)

It's gonna have to be I'm begging for you to take my hand

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

I may be biased to my current writing, but I can totally see myself exploring a wide variety of human emotions and circumstances with Armin and Annie in the aot universe and outside it

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

Never been in one before. It's intriguing but also the perfect opportunity for my imposter syndrome to step in and fear of disappointing other writers I may be working alongside

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

It'd be hypocritical not to mention @/you first! Not only is your writing incredibly poetic and artistic in nature, it also delves into the very depths of a character's emotions. It feels like I'm writing something that should be categorized as literary, instead of just writing or fiction

@moonspirit (come get yo praise!)

It's the movement and animation in your writing that always captures me. Everything always feels so vivid and alive even if it's inanimate! You're like of Ghibli studio was a literary publishing house

@/ackermom on AO3

the emotional pull is out of this world HOLLY FUCK! I can't just casually read any of their fics, I need to mentally prepare (maybe even have a full day off :| )

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

@dudewhy3 give us more of deep cuts!! (no pressure :) )

30. Do you accept prompts?

Yes and no. When I do I usually only do it for very short drabbles just as an exercise in writing and have some "mindless" fun so I don't have to stress over every single word I write

37. Talk about your current wips.

Well, I wanna finish BW sometime within the next month or so, A couple of... one-shots that I wanna write (IYKYK) but I also really wanna get back into Slow and Steady

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

If it's on tumblr:

Similarly on AO3, I just don't give them the time of day. People like that 99% of the time are just looking for a reaction because they have nothing better to do IRL and want to feel important online. I just don't engage

[heartfulselkie]

Fanfiction Writing Asks: 38, 46, and 61 (for Penumbra)

Thank you for the ask!

38. What is your most self-indulgent posted story?

I think all of my fics are each a little self indulgent in their owns ways! List of things I love to include in a fic as a little treat for myself is: - There Was Only One Bed trope - Dancing (especially ballroom) - Flower language and symbolism - Angst, Hurt/Comfort, More Angst

Really fic writing is me just indulging myself as I drag the blorbos through The Horrors™.

46. If you could only write one type of AU for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Oh wow that's a really hard one. I think my favourite kind of AUs are fairytale/fantasy AUs and I could easily come up with numerous fics based around that!

61. In [Penumbra], what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

Another hard one lol oof there were nemerous scenes in Penumbra that I really loved in the end. This scene is one of the smaller ones, but ones of my favourites as it's really where Adrien's arc started to move forwards in a positive way.

For the first time since he’d woken up, Adrien felt the consuming black waters that flooded his mind calm a little. They were still there and ready to drown him with one misstep, but as he sat there on the couch with Marinette a short space away from him he felt the effects of her soothing presence. He liked how excitable she would get over how good the pizza was or the bizarre visuals of the film. He was Adrien and not Chat Noir currently, but her attitude towards him wasn’t all that different to how it would be otherwise. He felt guilty that she was probably trying so hard for his sake. But even with the lingering questions between them, she’d told him that she could wait again. She was there with him and she didn’t expect anything of him than to just be there also. Maybe just a little longer… he thought. He could keep Adrien’s existence just a little longer.

-Penumbra, Ch. 29

Fanfiction Writing Ask Game

[duhragonball]

Nanwum Schemin'

I finished my August writing challenge tonight, and I'm pleased to say that I managed to hit 20,000 words and that's actually enough to cover this year's Christmas special. I tried this last year, but I only wrote 15k in September, and Red Christmas ended up being 32k long, so I wound up writing more than half of it in December anyway. This time, I took that into account, which is why I used August instead. I figured if Blue Christmas ran long, I'd be able to use September to finish it off, but it looks like I managed to fit the entire plot in 20k, so that's satisfying. I need a little more to finish the ending, and there's some stuff I'll want to add and take out, but overall, I have a working first draft that I can have ready for AO3 without much trouble.

I still have to figure out what the hell Yellow Christmas will be about. I saved that one for last, since yellow is the Luffa color, but I think I've used up all the good fanfic AU tropes by now, so I'm gonna have to get creative. But that's a problem for 2024, and I'm here to talk about the fall of 2023.

Concerning the Apocrypha Liveblog, I plan on wrapping up some loose ends in September. Super Dragon Ball Heroes episode 50 came out last week, so I can write about how the Aeos arc (we won!). I also want to knock out the DBS movies, and I think the DBS Manga will probably be done with their Super Hero adaptation, so I'm penciling that in as well. Whatever's left over I can deal with in October or later.

November is NanoWriMo season, and this will be my 7th entry in the event. I don't count my ill-fated attempt in 2003, since I never logged it with the website, and I had no idea what I was doing and flamed out by the second or third day. But I've been doing these since 2017 and I've been racking up wins ever since. I'm feeling confident at the moment, so I'm going to try to set some goals for myself, which I'll put under the cut.

Looking back at my past runs, I've had some good years and some difficult ones where I didn't reach the 50k goal until Day 29 or 30. I always find it more satisfying to finish early if I can. My preference is to have things wrapped up by Day 20, so I can write more stuff in the overrun, or start editing and posting, or just slack off for the next ten days. It's always enjoyable, so I think I need to make this a priority.

For a number of years, my objective was to boost word count and reach certain milestones in the Luffa storyline, but I passed one million words last year, and this year I've nearly finished the Xenoverse 1 adaptation, so things are a little different. I think I can afford to think about how to improve productivity, rather than how to hit certain plot points. So we'll aim for that.

Currently, my earliest win date is Day 17, which I pulled off back in 2021. So I'm going to try to hit 50k on or before Day 16. Here's how.

This month, I learned I can get more done by breaking up my large word goals in to 500 word chunks. To finish by Day 16, I'll need to average about 3000 words a day, which is something I've always struggled to do consistently, but now, I think I can make that work. The idea is to devote six hours across a day, where I write 500 words in each of those hours. It really seemed to help me out this month, so it's time to see if that technique can push me further.

One other thing I want to try is to break my personal record for one-day writing totals. Currently, that stands at 7023 words. So I've chosen three days where I can attempt to do that. I'd like to do more than jut hit 7024, though. 9001 would be pretty sweet for the meme value, but it sounds really daunting.

The important thing here is that I give myself permission to fail. If I can't maintain 3k per day, that's fine, because even falling short of that goal still makes good progress. If I can't make it to 7k or beyond, that's fine too, because wherever I land, it's still a lot of progress. And if I'm not done by Day 16 it's fine, because I'll have two weeks left.

But I think I can do this. The rewards would be sweet. AEW Full Gear is on the 18th, and it'd be pretty great to just have a lazy Saturday where I watch that instead of writing. NJPW will probably run their World Tag League shows between November 15 and December 15, so I'd have the whole second half of November freed up. And mostly, I like the precedent it would set if I could consistently land 3k in six hours or less. I feel like that's something I need to prove to myself.

If this is going to work, I need to do some solid plotting in October so I'm ready. I do reasonably well with "they fight" as a prompt, but if I have a list of spots and story beats to work with, that would cut down on the indecision that usually holds me back.

[noegrets]

We posted 3,879 times in 2022

That's 1,814 more posts than 2021!

12 posts created (0%)

3,867 posts reblogged (100%) (to be fair, this is indeed our reblog blog)

Blogs we reblogged the most:

@organicgold

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@acidshadow

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We tagged 3,874 of our posts in 2022

#pokemon - 232 posts

#capitalist bullshit - 185 posts

#cats - 154 posts

#art - 135 posts

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#tumblr - 110 posts

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#motivation - 95 posts

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Longest Tag: 138 characters

#the only sadness is people thinking you're writing fantasy when you're writing about your childhood in a place that's not america.........

Our Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Next on Staircase Spirit, we have a review of House Flipper, a fun game where you renovate houses in first-person.  You walk into the house, whip out the paint roller, and get painting.

❖ Read the article…

9 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

#4

We watched the whole of the Detective Conan anime for the first time starting in 2018, so we're relative newcomers to such a long-running series. But we got into it. After we watched all of it up to its current point, we decided to go back and rewatch it from the beginning, and, while rewatching it, we've been taking some notes episode by episode. We wrote these notes primarily for ourselves, but we think they're pretty nice episode reviews, and when we reread them, we'd like to do so in full formatted glory, so we thought they'd be fun to share on Staircase Spirit.

We’ll be dividing these into smaller chunks because we’re not about to review 1000+ episodes all at once and in the same page. And before anyone thinks, what kind of endeavor are you saddling yourselves with, stop before it’s too late... actually, we’ve written everything up to episode 150 already, and we’ll be polishing these reviews and releasing them bit by bit over time. You can’t stop us!

❖ Read the article: Detective Conan anime reviews - ep. 1 - 11

10 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

#3

While we are big fans of the Generation 2 Pokemon games, not even our favorite games are exempt from a well-deserved booing. Today, we’re going to insult the Apricorn Balls, which are so broken that even when they work, they don’t work.

So, just in time for chestnut season, we’re going to roast some nuts!

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12 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

#2

More Detective Conan anime episode reviews, covering episodes 29-43. This batch contains the part where Shinichi’s parents are introduced. Those bastards.

❖ Read the article: Detective Conan anime reviews - ep. 29-43

15 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

Our #1 post of 2022

Our latest endeavor on Staircase Spirit is a massive review of the Orange Islands arc of the Pokemon anime. We hadn’t really watched this back in the day, and we heard it was bad... but, when we watched it, we thought it was cute.

❖ Read the article…

24 notes - Posted May 1, 2022

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