#despite its constraints it is very fun to use

[autistickaitovocaloid]

Kaito kid pix experiment.

[kelocitta]

what did you think of watcher? i noticed a good few people dropped the dlc because of high expectations and how different it felt from the rest of the game. which is a shame because it gets very good but that's how rain world goes.

[Non-spoiler Answer] I liked it! I was actually one of the beta testers for it and distinctly we were all super thrilled with the overall way it 'felt' because it did actually feel like vanilla RW again. It's not 1-to-1 obviously, but it was super nice to go back to that more esoteric wandering game than what Downpour was- which was very much a very distinctly more 'normal game' experience. Its got a few quirks that need some more evening out, either due to time constraints or just being a hard thing to balance without a bigger playbase, and hopefully they will be. There's also the issue of anti-spoiler rush to finish things before everyone starts posting about it, which means people get irritated easier or frustrated when progress isn't consistent, they only want the big reveals and bits or lore and are considering the process of getting to those a blockade rather than the game. I think a lot of people just forgot what its like to play vanilla Rain World, or at least didn't remember what its like to play vanilla Rain World without a wiki open or a guiding hand. Cause if you were playing RW truly blind, c'mon, this was a game where you wandered through a couple ecosystems until you effectively climb into a plot once you get up the leg and into Five Pebbles and someone can actually talk to you and point you towards a more physical goal, and even then most players who ascended had no clue what was happening, much less why. The pearls are fun but lets be real, most of us read those on the wiki and not painstakingly delivered all of them for the bits of bite-sized region lore. Rain World has always been like that, it was why it was so much more niche prior to DP- some people grew to love that quirk but most people bounced off hard cause of it. I enjoy Downpour but it's design philosophy is miles different, and in a much more accessible and appealing way. With that said, I think it has a great story, and one that is frankly, much more obvious and at the forefront of it than base RW. People saying it doesn't have a plot are insane imo, its extremely there, minus the initial wandering the (at least the first) goal and plotline is not at all vague. I was also pleasantly surprised by some fringe things I got correct, or at least put my thumb on at some point, lmao.

[Small Spoilers about a small game design choice of the DLC, not plot]

One thing I'm surprised lots of people didn't like was actually the region cross-warp mechanic, I get why they don't like- things don't connect into each other in a sensical, worldbuild-y type way, but for me, who was someone who had a pretty big gripe with Downpour's 'Bubble Narrative' choices in how it was laid out it felt super cool to have this implication of an impossibly large, tangled world where you don't and can't know how everything is laid out. Everything in Downpour takes place in Five Pebble's immediate area. The creatures are consistent across the timelines (Not in distribution, things go extinct or change locations, but nothing distinctly new 'comes in' despite the massive world changes.) It makes the whole thing feel like a terrarium, where you can see it all despite the fact you shouldn't, that you don't have the right to know everything about the world. The fact that you aren't getting the full regions, that you really can't tell how they all connect- how much of the world is inbetween them, whether these areas are actually physically connected- its delicious to me frankly! The world is so big, so complicated, and you only ever get snippets of it. You are denied the full picture of life, its impossibly big- the world stretches out so far. Its the kind of the design that says 'hey, all those fan regions people make? Maybe those are all out there, somewhere, they fit into this grand puzzle but you'll never know where or how' I like that! The world is big and complex and unknowable again! We've seen outside the Five Pebbles bubble and were told only a scrap. I actually really like how jumbled up everything is after vanilla and downpour, I like thinking that the world map we have is full of empty spaces and unknowns in how all these places bleed into each other. I can understand why people miss the connections, or the pearls, but frankly I really like the spin they put on the exploration mechanic to spread things away from FP that isn't just 'make the bubble bigger'

[lurkingshan]

Heesu in Class 2: A Lovely Queer Kdrama

This wonderful little show has come to an end, and I want to talk a bit about why I enjoyed it so very much, because it has been one of my absolute favorites of the year. Let's break it down!

Before I jump in, let me address the elephant in the room: this series is loosely based on a manhwa of the same title--and I do mean it when I say "loosely"--which has been the source of much consternation among manhwa fans who were hoping it would be closer to its source material. It's not, and it's not trying to be. The show took a fairly simple BL manhwa and gave it the full kdrama treatment, building out the world around Heesu and altering much of the story as a result. The show is entirely its own thing, and I am reading and judging it based only on what it set out to achieve with its narrative, not on how it compares to the manhwa.

The Narrative Structure

The most crucial thing to understand about this show from a narrative perspective is that despite being labeled as a kbl, it's really structured like a kdrama. Most kbls are two to four hours total and laser focused on the romance, with little time spent on other characters or the wider world. And that's understandable given the constraints they are typically under on both time and budget. Heesu is different. With 10 50-minute episodes, its officially the longest kbl ever made, if still shortish for a mainstream kdrama (those are usually 12-16 hours). And the creators took advantage of that extra time to make what is basically a kdrama/kbl hybrid that largely mimics structures and tropes from mainstream kdrama.

Specifically, the show deploys a really classic kdrama romance trope that I refer to as the love rhombus, where four characters get into messy lines of attraction that start out mostly one-sided and mismatched before eventually settling into two pairs by the end of the story. It also includes heavy emphasis on friendship and family relationships, and uses all its side characters to parallel and mirror the main story. If you watch kdramas regularly (as I do), you've seen this structure in lots of shows and have a good sense of how the story is going to play out. If you don't, and come to this show expecting it to behave like a typical kbl, you may end up confused. This show cares about a lot more than the main romance.

The Lead

Heesu is our lead, and I find him to be such an endearing character. He feels like an actual teenager in the way he's a huge mess of contradictions. Sweet and kind, but also frequently selfish and short-sighted. Generous and committed to helping others, but also kinda mean and quick to jump to wrong conclusions if someone gets on his bad side. He is the core driver of the narrative, as ultimately this is his queer coming of age story. When we begin the show, he is hiding himself from all of his loved ones, nursing an obviously doomed crush on his best friend, and badly misreading many of the people around him because he's so caught up in his own struggles.

The Friendships

There are multiple important friendships in this show, but the rift between Heesu and Chanyoung is at the heart of the story. They are longtime best friends who have started to become distant from each other as Heesu pulled back and began hiding himself upon realizing he has romantic feelings for his friend. Heesu's feelings, and the fear he has about Chanyoung finding out about them, has come between them and started to weaken the trust they have in each other, and Chanyoung begun pulling back in response. We follow as Heesu meddles in Chanyoung's relationships and struggles with whether and how to tell Chanyoung how he feels, and Chanyoung in turn tries to get Heesu to tell him what is going on with him. They are also joined by their mutual friend Hosik, a delightful character who brings so much fun to every scene he's in and has his own little love story.

The other important friendship, and one of my favorite relationships in the show, is between Seungwon and Jiyu, another pair of longtime best friends. Seungwon ends up dragging Jiyu into his mess when he pretends to like her as a cover for asking Heesu for help, and ends up coming out to her to explain himself. I love their friendship and the way Jiyu balances calling him on his lies with covering for him with others until he works up the courage to come clean. She's a real one.

The Families

I also love that this drama gives us a sense of Heesu, Seungwon, and Chanyoung's home lives. Heesu lives with his three older sisters, and his close relationships with them, and the way they've clearly influenced him to be more in tune with his emotions, is delightful. Seungwon, in contrast, has a much more solitary home life. His parents are divorced and his mom now has a female partner and travels frequently for work, so he's often alone. Chanyoung struggles with his father, who compares him unfavorably to his older brother and threatens to disown him for following his passions. These family relationships give the boys more shading and help us understand their motivations and the choices they make, and also set up some important parallels in the narrative, with Chanyoung's struggle with his father mirroring Heesu's fears about coming out. And in the end we get to see Heesu slowly work toward coming out to his sisters and Seungwon talk to his mom about her same sex relationship and how it affects him, both of which I found so lovely and rewarding.

The Romances

Like all love rhombus kdramas, this show has two primary pairs, with Heesu and Seungwon's queer romance at the center of the story and Chanyoung and Jiyu's romance serving as a thematic foil. Seungwon is pining after Heesu the entire time but hiding it, while Heesu is working through his feelings for Chanyoung and getting increasingly confused as his feelings for the two boys begin to shift. Jiyu and Chanyoung connect and get together fairly early on in the show as Heesu and Seungwon struggle much longer to get on the same page and sort out the various untruths they've told each other. And that is entirely the point! The queer characters in this story have a lot more obstacles to overcome and a lot of legitimate fears about revealing themselves; for them it's not as easy as just confessing and moving on if it doesn't work out. I loved the contrast of these two romances and also found both couples so easy to root for, especially given how generous they all were to each other as they sorted out their mess.

The Themes

This show is entirely rooted in the queer experience, with Heesu using his love of space and astronomy to draw thematic ties to his experience of life as a gay teenager in a non-bubble world. The astronomy metaphors the show deploys work so well to make the story feel coherent and connected, not to mention inspire the gorgeous visuals used to highlight these themes. This story is all about Heesu's journey to tell his loved ones his truth, to sort out what he wants from the people around him, and to find the courage to reach for his own happiness. All of the side characters are beautifully fleshed out into real and whole people, and their stories all mirror Heesu's own struggles and inform his emotional landscape. In the end, we get to watch Heesu mature, fall in love, sort his relationships, and achieve comfort and happiness with who he is. It's a great ride, and I highly recommend it for anyone who cares about queer stories.

[charcubed]

Doctor Odyssey thoughts after the penultimate episode!

Or more accurately... Doctor Odyssey "worst case scenario crash out" exploration of a sorts, with some thoughts I've been sitting on without sharing for a bit:

• I'm staying in line for ODY3 and hopefully renewal because I'm incredibly stubborn, but more importantly because I personally find it more fun/rewarding to have excitement and "hope" about the shows and storylines I enjoy until the (possibly bitter) end. I don't find it fun to make myself truly miserable preemptively when watching something.

• I don't think it's an accident that this finale storyline involves a "group wedding" in language even if we don't get to see it in practice (more on that later), and also that the ship's got double booking going on as they're overrun with passengers. I think the intent/setup for some possible throuple follow-through is deliberately all there and so close we can taste it.

• However. That being said:

• We all have eyes and brains. I don't need to recount all the ways the throuple has felt like more of a love triangle and less like a throuple for several episodes, even since the absolute emotional peak and gorgeous cinema of Hot Tub Week seemingly put us back on track. Some of that was for episode reordering reasons, yes... but there hasn't been a ton of effort to course correct since, and overall in the back half of the season we also haven't gotten much Tristan/Max interactions either which has fucked with the characters' dynamics.

• Setting aside the boys' side of the triangle though: the bare minimum hope now is for Avery to choose them both, and for the boys' part to be either hinted at or developed in a second season. This is what we've been reduced to hoping for at this point with one episode to go, right? Manifesting it regardless.

• But!

• Look. Doctor Odyssey's been a miraculous gem of a show since day one that drew us all in because it had clarity of purpose about showcasing diversity in different kinds of people, love, and relationships, and because it was very obviously intended to have the thesis of a polyamorous slow burn love story. That is the show's premise and its point, and that's also the reason why it's felt like it's been floundering a bit as that point became decentralized. The reason why it's so miraculous that the show's been accomplishing all of what it's done so far is that it's on network fucking television. Network TV is infamous for the restrictions it operates under (the cast talked about this in interviews in regards to the threesome choreography a little) and the censorship of queer storylines that tends to befall it because of executive oversight.

• Censorship is why we have subtext and queercoding, and also why people's use of the word "queerbaiting" is nearly always bullshit that erases nuance and the acknowledgement of the constraints queer storytelling is often put under. But I digress.

• All this to say: this ain't my first rodeo. It likely isn't yours either. And there is, unfortunately, a non-zero possibility that – despite its miraculous existence – Doctor Odyssey as a show did not get to evade the crush of the censorship boot and network executive interference indefinitely. Especially after coming back from hiatus.

• That statement ^^^ stands on its own merit, because I think at this point it can be a hypothesis that holds up based on a lot of storyline and character dynamic shifting we've been seeing. It's not a wild thing to think.

• But here is where I also put my conspiracy hat on for a quick second, as a treat. Last episode, when we heard the Captain say to Max, "It got me thinking about the future and life after the Odyssey. Family. Love. But you just can't make someone else want the things that you want. So I’ve taken the next-best course: accept and surrender"... I was like, hmmm. What I'd LIKE for that to mean, in the style of unsubtle typical Doctor Odyssey foreshadowing, is an eventual "accept and surrender" to a throuple scenario. But in the moment, the dark second thing that occurred to me for its potential meaning was a worst case scenario option: that that line is potentially extra-narratively about having to accept and surrender to doing more of a love triangle than polyamory.

• Here's why: The Captain is the consistent mouthpiece of love and support for the OT3 in our show. I adore him. He is the captain of the ship, pun intended. "The three of you take care of each other. I like seeing that," for example. When Captain Massey speaks of what he wants for our trio, it's what we (and likely the creative team behind the story) want too. So him saying he couldn't make someone want what he wanted... It did make me wonder if it was a small warning.

• (Also worth noting that, in a semi-abrupt turn, this was about how the Captain just lost the baby he was so excited to have. The baby and life he accepted he was ready to move forward + embrace in the Hot Tub Week episode, which was also our peak ODY3 indication episode. Captain lost his baby... did we lose ODY3? And so on. He is also about to be removed from his position of authority as Captain in the final episode of the season, based on the promo; whether he'll be reinstated by the end of it remains to be seen, but of course I hope so from a character perspective as part of a happy-ish ending.)

• Yes, this all sounds bananas. But remember, the Captain's lines aside, my point here is that this is still network TV, and there is no end to the amount of things network executives can decide to turn around and stifle when it comes to queer stories.

• Part of this is because I'm still thinking about that Disney exec's quote about a possible Doctor Odyssey renewal. We've all seen it:

"I really love Doctor Odyssey, I think it’s a wildly inventive show, and we’re doing everything we can to support it. That decision ultimately lies with Ryan Murphy, whether Ryan wants to continue to do it, and he feels like there’s stories to tell that he feels confident in."

• I have quietly felt like this quote was some level of bullshit from the moment I read it lol. Again, this is all conjecture, BUT: there is a non-zero possibility that the execs gave Ryan Murphy an ultimatum about no longer doing polyamory, and since that's the premise of the show, he is stuck struggling to figure out where the show can go from here. Which is maybe why it's a decision (but not much of one) that the execs say Ryan Murphy has to make, which positions him as the bad guy who has to take the fallout from fans if he ostensibly ~just decides not to continue the story~ if renewal doesn't happen.

• So. With aaalllll that in mind, this is my Responsible Posting moment before the finale next week (and God I'm tired of having to write this type of post. But this ain't my first rodeo):

• If we do end on some fuckass "Avery chooses Max in the love triangle and Tristan's heart is broken" type of worst case scenario story, and especially if we don't get renewal after that, it will suck so fucking bad. SO bad. It'll be a tragedy after all the potential. In my stubbornness, even as I type this, I still have some level of belief that won't be the case and that even if we don't get explicit throuple we'll somehow get a secret third thing lol. But I'm preemptively holding up the Hot Tub Week episode (and these words from the director of it) and shaking it like a rag doll to remind everyone that that episode was crystal fucking clear and given to us as a gift that works as an optional "I've decided the story ends here" if we need it to be. That is not an accident, or queerbaiting, or whatever-the-fuck-else people will start calling it (and the threesome, and the multiple explicit poly relationships we got on network TV, and all the other queerness this show gave us) if this goes south. I'm saying this now in advance in case it ends up being needed: You aren't insane, this show wasn't stringing you along maliciously, what we did get was still beautiful, shit happens when it comes to network TV even in the big year of 2025, yes we can and will crash out but we can do so with nuance without blaming creatives who fight for the stories we love rather than the people above them who limit their work, Goddammit.

• And! And. If we do get a fuckass ending, I will personally also be perceiving and witnessing and pointing to whatever throuple crumbs we may get in between the fuckery. Because if NOTHING ELSE, I do have faith those crumbs will be there despite any bullshit. The creators of this show knew what they were making, and if they weren't allowed to make it properly anymore, then... it may be a situation where they did what they could, and so I'll be doing what I can to glean the hints at that.

• I hope this makes sense.

• TL;DR: if they leave the throuple behind for a love triangle "resolution" type of ending in the eleventh hour, remember how we got here and understand how we got here and know where to direct your ire.

• Thank you for coming to my TED talk. This was written out of caution and minor foreboding but hopefully it'll all become unnecessary.

• Now let's get this ODY3 + renewal anyway despite it all. Yes? Yes.

[inbabylontheywept]

I love your writing. It’s the type of writing that I love bc other than being easy to read, I admire it bc it accomplishes what I struggle with. It uses few words yet conveys across the idea efficiently, vagueness to its benefit.

Have you heard the phrase “I want to distill myself like poets do”? It comes from a tumblr post of someone trying to express the same thing as me rn.

Anyway the other part of what I wanted to say is that I’m autistic, and when I try to write, I always succumb to the urge to add as many details and overexplanations as possible to avoid being misunderstood. You’re autistic too, but your writing shines in doing the opposite, so I was wondering if you struggled with this too, and how you got better, or if your flavor of autism simply doesn’t manifest in this way and this isn’t a problem to you

Unfortunately, I do naturally tend towards condensed formats. So some part of this is just natural for me. If it makes you feel better, I tried several times to make serials while doing HFY and I never succeeded. I've also tried several times to write books, and I always just get kind of stuck. It's one of my big regrets, so if you have any experience in those, I'd love to hear it. Same from anyone else reading this, actually - if you've made the jump from short stories to long form, I'd like to know how you managed.

Still, despite it being a natural thing for me, I can give you three activities that I've done that improved my short story work very much.

First, improv classes. Attending them will help your writing in ways you will not believe, and also, as an autist, that shit's better than OT. My parents signed me up for some in the summer of my fifth grade year, and they were legit life changing. Way less social anxiety, better writing, I could sing their praises all day. If you do one thing on this list, do this.

Second, write poetry. I do not consider myself a poet, but I attend a weekly poetry writing club, and it has noticeably improved my prose. Find one and go. As you get better, try and constrain the poetry you write to things like rhyme and meter. Writing with artificial constraints is amazing for teaching people to be focused and direct.

And if you have room for a third thing, maybe try finding a way to do extemporaneous public speaking besides the improv. I grew up Mormon, which involves absolutely insane amounts of public speaking from an early age, but I also did stuff like that in middle school NAL and high school speech and debate. Those all helped. They were stressful, and not terribly fun, but they did help, and it's a good skill to have.

I love talking shop, so thanks for asking! And just to reiterate my request from before, anyone that's jumped from short stories to novel length works, please, tell me your secrets. Plz.

[nebrasska-alasska]

when you started making fics do you just kinda raw dogged it and go “whatever words will be typed came from my heart”? or is there a certain structure/script when leading up to key events? im really curious how your writing style works cuz its really good, not too fast nor too slow with situations and dialogue with really good imagery in between and the managing to convey a character’s feelings really well🥹

i wrote fanfics back in like 2021-2022 and i looked back on it to see how very simple it was since everything WAS lowkey just straightforward without any depth into it (if you get what i mean?) i do want to get back on writing someday because it was genuinely such a fun thing to do and it makes me passionate and i can definitely see in your works how passionate you are in yours as well💕truly you are an inspiration

It's a combination! Before I begin, or at least get too far into the story, I will make a comprehensive outline of the entire fic. Usually, it will just be a short list of things I need to hit in each chapter, but how I accomplish these things are kind of raw dogged. And the outline isn't always the greatest or most in depth, which can allow me freedom to kind of go crazy (though truthfully I prefer a pretty strict checklist). Here are two examples directly from my Tethered at the Wrist outline that kind of show the variety of how in-depth I go:

Chapter 10 [The Two Dance]: Sonic drags Shadow to the party. Have a scene where they dance. Gets kind of intimate, before they both realize what’s happening and that they’re in front of people.

Chapter 11 [The Two Have a Movie Night]: Starts with them having to water Shadow’s plants at his place (establishes that Sonic now knows where he lives). Later, movie night with Shadow. Sonic falls asleep and wakes up later, only to find that Shadow (who he had accidentally fallen asleep against) was no longer there. Goes out to Tails’ workshop to look for him, and seeing Shadow passed out on the workbench while Tails tampers with the cuffs, gets sad because he realizes that despite how close they’ve gotten, he still wants them separated. Sonic realizes that their whole friendship is currently focused on how they're forced to be together and that it isn’t real.

So yeah! I use these as a framework, and then play around within these constraints as I go along. In both of these examples, I added a lot more in the actual chapter than what is just in the outline. I try not to rush the pacing to fit everything into a chapter either, so if I need to, I'll split it up. No harm in doing that if it preserves the pacing of the story you're trying to tell!!!

But anyways!!! Please get back into writing!!! It is truly such a fun hobby, and the more you write, the more you'll find your pace, voice, and style!!! <3

[pichongames]

It's time for a new DEV UPDATE! [February 2024]

Let's talk about the upcoming Nintendo Switch port, localization, plushies, and new content coming soon?

It's time for a new development update, we've been working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes so let's talk about some of it, shall we?

The Bunny Graveyard is coming to Nintendo Switch!

If you didn't know already, The Bunny Graveyard is on its way to Nintendo Switch. But this port will not just be any normal port, the game will receive some enhancements and changes both visually and gameplay-wise. Including motion-controls, HD vibration and more!

But do not worry PC users, even though some gameplay features will be exclusive to Switch, any content updates, improvements and future chapters will be released at the same time on all platforms.

More languages!

The Bunny Graveyard: Chapter 1 is currently being translated to more languages, some of these are:

Brazilian Portuguese

French

Russian

Japanese

Simplified Chinese

Korean

...and more!

Boxers Plushie!

You probably heard of this already, but yes! Boxers got himself his very own plushie, which is still available at the time of this writing, however, this is a limited edition plushie so make sure to grab one before they're gone. As of right now, there's still 8 days left, so think about it! You guys absolutely CRUSHED that funding goal by the way, 450 sold so far!

We're definitely making another one... hehe.

This is also our first piece of merchandise and we're open to do more merch stuff in the future! But for now we'll only be choosing things that don't slow us down during development. So, if you got any requests for merch, let us know and we'll look into it!

NEW free content is coming this year...

We are working on a new secret project for the game, it will be released as a free content update at the same time as the Nintendo Switch release. It's a small thing that we wanted to make for a while now, but never got the chance to do due to time constraints. Think of it as the next "4-1-1992" for now.

We'll be releasing a separate trailer for this soon, so stay tuned!

So... how's Chapter 2?

Finally, let's have a quick talk about Chapter 2.

We are still not ready to fully reveal Chapter 2, buuuut we can tell you a little bit about it. It is the most ambitious project we have ever done, we expect it to be about the same length as Chapter 1, but despite the length, this chapter has proven to be quite a challenge to develop... but you know us, we love ourselves a challenge!

The story has been fully written, the gameplay has been finalized, but there's still quite a lot of programming to go, and don't get me started on all the music and animations left. Oh, did I also mention that this chapter will be releasing at the same time on Nintendo Switch and PC? And that it will also release in multiple languages? And that I'm still working on this game mostly by myself?

Yeah, things are not the same as they were back when I was making Chapter 1, The Bunny Graveyard is no longer just a silly lil' indie game, but that's exactly what makes it fun. I seriously can't wait to show you guys what we've been working on, this chapter is going to blow you away. Expect a trailer sometime this year.

You can add Chapter 2 to your Steam wishlist now!

Final Thoughts!

2024 is looking like an awesome year for this game, I'm hoping that this year we can get more people to know about this game. I'm extremely thankful for all of the support that we've been getting lately, it's crazy that I can now FINALLY focus on this game full-time, something that I've been trying to do for a long time now. I'm still processing the fact that this game is coming to the Switch, but it really is! Truly a dream come true. If you got any questions, ask in the comments and I'll try to answer as many as I can! And as always, thank you all!

[kaibutsushidousha]

To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.

[whateverthought]

The Umbrella Academy Seasons Ranked

Season 2. It was weird and wacky, with bright colors and cute moments between siblings. The 60s aesthetic worked well with the oddness of the Hargreeves Siblings. Everyone had their own strong plotlines and character moments while also reconciling in very wholesome and meaningful ways. Similarly expanded on Reginald, Pogo and Grace.

Klaus becoming a cult leader, with his personality and powers makes so much sense! Luther finally making decisions on his own and them being so uncaring of his own wellbeing while also following his trauma in a way that left much to be chewed on. Five dealing with his past actions, all done because of the family and for their safety, while dealing with his siblings' at their most authentic. Ben trying to strike out on his own despite being tied to Klaus and thrashing against those constraints but ultimately loving his family and finally being there for them instead of as an observer. Deigo's obsession with JFK and the Assassination was hilarious. It melds well with his insecurities and need to be a hero, while also reconciling with Luther, an unfortunate object of his problems, and Vanya who he was antagonistic toward despite learning to understand they're both just fucked over by their father and he's the problem. While having an odd relationship with Lila that becomes genuine at least a little. Vanya growing and gaining a human connection and love not tainted by their Powers and Upbringing, learning to stand up for themselves and forgiving and being forgiven by the family. Processing their trauma. Allison fighting for a cause that's selfless, growing to not rely on their powers and only using them for other people. Falling in love with a man that made her better, uplifted her and loved her at her lowest, loving her for her, while breaching the emotional divide from the former season with her siblings. And of course Lila, complex and badass, not a good person not a nice person but one who was only beginning to fight against her abuser.

Season 1. It was good! And it was the closest to a Faithful Adaption. The grim dark aesthetic was odd and weird and it solidified the show as different from others. A very good basis and foundation for the odd characters and World.

That being said I didn't like the grim dark aesthetic as much, not that is was bad but the funky 60s oddness was more fun in comparison. I also understand that the show would need to set up the broken relationships before we can reconcile but I do like the reconciling more. Most of the differences between this and the next is just preference, they're both solid seasons.

Season 3. It had a lot going for it! The Sparrow Academy was a very interesting idea, meeting the other 43 children born was exciting and the heartbreak of getting Ben back but he's not our Ben but he's Ben. Unfortunately it suffers heavily from its 8-episode structure.

There was so much I wanted to see with these new characters and even the other other 43 but they ended up dying in quick succession and leaving me feeling kinda cheated. Not only that but the mothers topic only really being brushed upon was a loss. There were so many What-If scenarios that could have happened with this idea. Who are you if you change your childhood? Your economic living situation? Who could they have been if not for Reginald. I did like the Allison descent, it felt very in character and well done but the follow-through was abysmal. Similarly the way other characters reacted to it felt inexistant. It felt like no one was reacting to Allison's increasingly worrying actions and degrading mental status. Sure Five kills people but Allison is an actress and no one seemed a little perturbed she killed someone important to their sibling without talking about it? She assaulted Luther and no one thinks that's worrying? If my sibling sexually harrassed someone I'd be in their face, asking a million questions. Sure there were other things going on but that's important, Allison is important. I did like her and Deigo beating up racists and trying to connect but its odd that Deigo who arguably had the biggest subplot was checking on her. I did think the Sloane and Luther romance was a little rushed but they themselves were very cute. As were Kalus and Sparrow Ben! So was Viktor's transition! And seeing the Marigold reacting strangely and learning about it was interesting but ultimately everything needed more time.

Season 4. Unsurprisingly the worst. Not only did it have the least amount of time, only 6 episodes, but it felt very disconnected. It felt like someone else made it and they themselves only watched the show once. It had the broad strokes, Lila and Deigo had their kid, Allison had her patchwork family, Reginald had his wife, the Sparrow Timeline happened but it didn't fit.

They did reference something from past seasons, The Jennifer Incident, but it doesn't make sense in context. Sparrow Ben had his Jennifer Incident but he didn't die he was just demoted. So what does that mean? And why didn't He know who Jennifer was? What she would do? What happened to His Jennifer if not a World Destroying incident or Murder-Brianwashing? And the fact that they set it 6 years later takes out things we wanted to see. Luther looking for Sloane, Ben being in Korea for some reason, confronting Hargreeves and Allison, Lila and the baby. I did like the Careful What You Wish For idea for episode 1 but they didn't follow it through with Abigail. She was upset with her husband but we don't see much of it. It felt like something they should have connected more in rewrites, like when you write a story and realize you can foreshadow more in earlier chapters. And that's the overall vibe of the season, its a Rough Daft they didn't work on. The cinematography was amazing but it feels like all their time and money went into CGI and Practical Effects and none into the writing.

The Sparrows all disappearing only to be mentioned by Ben so we get a reason for why he feels disconnected to the others and by Luther, to remind us that he remembers but he never found her. Lila spends the beginning being overwhelmed by her children and not happy in her domestic life but a few episodes later we see her almost let the Apocalypse be rewound so she can spend a little more time with them. The story would have been more meaningful if it revolved around Lila and Deigo realizing they weren't meant for this White Picket Fence life. Not everyone is! Its the reality that everyone gets married and has kids because they think they should not because they want to. Giving Five a romance was unnecessary, it felt forced beyond compare and lazy because they needed someone close to Five, because he's too guarded, to pair him with.

I didn't hate that Klaus became a germaphobe that lived with his richest sibling as he recovered. And Allison who probably felt guilty let him, that makes sense. I was apprehensive about his relapse because despite how odd he was now at least he was clean! And getting better from something like that can take years! Its implied he's only been sober for 4 out of the 6 years which both is and isn't a lot of time. But it didn't matter I guess. Ben forcing Marigold didn't matter I guess.

And the attempt to gaslight the audience into believing that its always been Allison who picked up the pieces of Klaus when we never see it and know she ran off to become famous was frustrating. So was the forced fight they had after the van, it did not have to be Allison she was not the only one with him, but since we wouldn't be getting any real confrontation about the Season 3 finale they gave us this. Because, let's not forget, the follow-through with her descent from last season didn't happen. It was years ago so any lasting hurt feelings feels petty, right? Its similar to her actions in season 1, she did it when she was a child its not her fault even though Vanya/Viktor had a right to be upset and the fact she tried to fix it again with mind control while also implying she always knew and never said anything led to me disliking her but the narrative didn't think that was important. She was punished wasn't she? Why talk about it? It happened years ago, why talk about it? Its forced character development, or maybe forced plot moving? It was something they didn't want to deal with so they didn't talk about it and rushed past it.

And of course Luther, who loses literally everything and becomes just the Butt of the Jokes. No wife, no job, no house, no plotlines, no character development.

God and Jennifer who literally only existed to be a Plot Object. A McGuffin if you will. You could have switched her with a Cursed Ring and nothing would have changed. Ben gets Cursed by a Ring, hears it talking to him, goes crazy. No change. And no reference to Sparrow Jennifer. It wasn't a romance more than it was a mutual delusion. Which would have been interesting if it was played straight.

Much like Viktor and Reginald, it COULD have been interesting. But we had no time! Also, why did he get to live till the end? Why did Reginald get a Good Bittersweet Ending?

The Ending. The ending felt bleak and hopeless, and while the show itself wouldn't contradict a sad ending, the way it was done felt hollow. To be abused your whole life, to struggle with everything you attempt to do, to fight with your family till the end and to have it be said your existence is why all these bad things happen, that you are the cause of all this horror, that everyone you ever met would be better off without you... For a show who's main theme is abuse and living past it and forgiving your siblings for reacting differently than you and fighting you for your abuser's love, that ending sent the wrong message.

[stereogeekspodcast]

[Transcript] Season 5, Episode 11. Toronto Comicon 2025 Recap

The Stereo Geeks were back at Toronto Comicon this year. In this special bonus episode, they share some of the highlights and lowlights from the annual 3-day fan event. 

Listen to the episode on Spotify.

Mon: Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Stereo Geeks! You know spring is near when Toronto Comicon comes around. 

Ron: So to celebrate, we’re recording a quick recap of our time at the convention. I’m Ron.

Mon: And, I’m Mon.

Ron: We always look forward to getting our geek on at Toronto Comicon. This year’s event was a strange one – the programming focused almost exclusively on The Boys and Supernatural. I’m sure there are lots of geeks out there who aren’t interested in either of these shows. Not sure what they would have got out of it.

Mon: Yeah, totally. And this was probably the first time since we’ve been to Toronto Comicon that the con and March break have coincided. So, really, more fandoms should have been considered in the programming. Despite that, Friday was far busier than usual.

Ron: We had a few sessions that we wanted to attend on Friday, but really the draw for us was looking through the vendors and the Artists Alley. 

Mon: The artists are always the best part. And you never know who you’ll find there. 

Mon: We chanced upon George Buza, the voice of X-Men’s Hank McCoy/Beast. We knew he’d be at the con – he was replacing X-Men ‘92 creator Larry Huston, who wasn’t able to attend this year. 

Ron: We fangirled so hard when we met Larry Huston last year, so it was a bit of a bummer he couldn’t come this year.

Mon: Yeah, but we had such a lovely chat with George Buza. I mean, you were wearing your X-Men ‘97 shirt, so it’s not like he couldn’t tell we were fans!

Ron: That t-shirt got so many comments on Friday. It was fun.

Mon: It was. We were gushing about how we like George’s version of Beast because he’s most similar to the early Beast, the one you and I know best. He seemed to love hearing that. He also scoffed at what they’ve done to Beast in the comics, and said he hoped the show doesn’t go down the same route. 

Ron: I hope we can hang on to nice Beast, too. I told him as much. 

Mon: George also reminded us that he, and the majority of the X-Men voice cast, live in Toronto, so really, X-Men is like a local show. But despite that, when it comes to conventions, the creative team gets relegated to the Artists Alley instead of being treated like stars. That sucks. 

Ron: I remember we were confused about Larry Huston being in the Artists Alley last year, but now George Buza is too? I mean, he’s a voice actor – actors usually get a whole different section. It’s a bizarre choice. And how are people meant to know where to find him?

Mon: The entertainment industry is really strange. 

Ron: Having checked out the show floor, we were able to attend the Roger Christian talk. Christian was the set director for Star Wars: A New Hope and he won an Oscar for it. I’ve written about Roger Christian’s experiences making the first lightsaber over at FlickSided.

Mon: I’m so glad we attended that session. It was so great to hear how one of our favourite sci-fi universes came to life. 

Ron: The final session of Friday was Comic Writers Unite with Jim Zub, Fred Kennedy, Michael Schwartz, and Cecil Castellucci. It was a very interesting panel about being a comic writer. Lots of discussion about the importance of independent work and how it builds the drive for creativity, as well as a longing to complete something. 

Ron: But indie work should be done without the hope for becoming something bigger—finding a creative outlet is its own goal. 

Mon: In other words, don’t go into a creative field hoping to get big. That’s… not how the arts work, unfortunately. 

Ron: When talking about IP versus creator-owned work, the consensus was that IP has far more constraints due to crossover events and tie-ins, which makes it a difficult process. 

Mon: Ok, so we’re both writers, but you’re studying screen-writing right now. How surprised were you to hear that creating a comic script is wildly different from writing a screenplay?

Ron: That took me by surprise. Turns out comic scripts are a whole different format. Michael Schwartz described the job of a comic writer as being the writer and the director of the comic. 

Mon: Fred Kennedy shared a great note he’d heard from Scott McCloud - writers tell the story to artists; artists tell the story to readers. That’s a great takeaway for any budding comic creators out there. 

Ron: While the session was informative, I’m still confused as to how one writes a comic. How do you know you can write the comic in 22 pages? At what point have you written enough to reach the page turn? I wanted more technical details and perhaps that was beyond the scope of the session. 

Mon: Agreed. I guess that info would be at a workshop.

Mon: Before we get to our Saturday recap, we can’t forget to mention the Disney+ Daredevil: Born Again installation at Toronto Comicon. We found out about this installation like everyone else – on Instagram. Which, to be honest, is super-weird because we’re press. We go as press. We’ve been getting press invites to these installations for a couple of years now. And now suddenly, no invite?

Ron: Yeah, and the installation wasn’t open to the public or the press when we arrived on Friday. But there were some people already lined up and going in. We can only assume…

Mon: That they were influencers? Yeah totally. Which is so frustrating. But let’s move on to the installation. This time around, the Marvel people realized the line was taking too long to move, so they gave out coupons. That was a better system, because we would have missed out on sessions, shopping, and eating, if we’d had to stand in line. In all honesty, I doubt we would have stood in line for more than 20 minutes. That’s not what a con is for. 

Ron: Agreed. That was a good decision, but when we eventually made it back to the installation two hours later, we still stood in line for ages. They had asked us to return in 30 minutes. So we’d have stood in line that entire time?

Mon: That line was still so slow. And we realized why. 

Ron: The installation involved guests digitally spray painting Hell’s Kitchen. It not only took forever to share the instructions, but then to actually do the painting, and then take pics of the installation, and then pick up the t-shirt with the spray painting on it. I mean, it was fun, but goodness, it took soooo long!

Mon: Listen, I love these hands-on, experiential installations that end with us getting a free goodie…

Ron: Hang on a second. No, we don’t. I want to get in, take a picture, and leave. I don’t want to waste time. 

Mon: Speak for yourself. I love this stuff. I absolutely adore our resin Rings of Power rings from last year’s Fan Expo Canada. And I know we’re going to dig the spray-painted Daredevil t-shirts. But, yeah, things should be faster.

Ron: As fruitful as Friday was, Saturday of Toronto Comicon 2025 didn’t go at all as planned. Despite reaching well in time for the Supernatural session with Ruth Connell, Jim Beaver, and Alexander Calvert, a bunch of people in the queue, including us, were told that there was no capacity left in the room. Not even standing room. A couple of people were let in after that announcement but there was clearly no chance for us once the session had begun. 

Mon: We were a bit shocked that we couldn’t even get into the room. That’s never happened to us before. But we did hear the con staff saying they’d never seen the room that full before.

Ron: We were disappointed but a few other people in the queue were positively devastated. We were all wondering why the con hadn’t used the massive rooms on the lower ground level. You realized why that was. 

Mon: Yes. There was a whole corporate shindig happening on that level and those huge rooms were taken. It’s probably the first time we’ve seen the Comicon share space with another event. 

Ron: It put paid to our plans and our aching feet. We ended up having to sit on the floor and rest our feet. The lack of seating around the con has been a problem. Even the food area has no seating. That’s bonkers. People are on their feet all day; they should get some place to rest. Especially cosplayers. Some of them have such painful shoes on!

Mon: But the lost opportunity at the Supernatural session did free us up to attend our first-ever comic artist sketch duel. It was between Jesus Merino and Pasqual Ferry. We’ve always meant to go for a sketch duel but they usually end up clashing with other events. 

Ron: The sketch duel was great! I’m so glad we got to attend. We were all handed raffle tickets before going in for the chance to win the sketches. That’s fun. The duel started with the audience giving the artists ideas for sketches. Some of them clearly threw the artists for a loop. They didn’t know some of the characters the audience mentioned. Also, both artists are native Spanish speakers from Spain so if the audience wasn’t completely clear in their diction, the artists got confused. 

Mon: There were so many ideas to choose from but the artists weren’t daunted. When it was time to start drawing, they immediately got to work. While they were drawing, the moderator, JM Clark, also asked them questions about their life and work, as well as their origin stories in comics. Both the artists had experienced poorly-created Spanish comics as children and they wanted to make their own as they grew older.

Ron: I was really fascinated by their experiences with American versus European comics. American comic books are more action-heavy and dynamic, they’re fast-paced. But European comics are practically cerebral in comparison, and they want to live in the little moments. That was the shared experience of both artists.

Mon: It was very interesting listening to them talk about their work, all while they were drawing. At the 45-minute mark, they were done. Ferry sketched a stunning OG Iron Man and Merino drew SpongeBob as Batman. The girl behind us who had suggested the prompt was crying happy tears.

Ron: Of course, come raffle time, neither of us won anything. Good on the winners who did get to take those gorgeous sketches home. We have got to attend more sketch duels in the future.

Mon: We ended our curtailed second day of the con at George Buza’s session. Buza is the iconic voice of Beast on the X-Men animated series and X-Men ‘97. We’d met him on Friday but it was great to attend his session. His passion for playing Beast is palpable. He was an X-Men fan from the beginning and his delight at being part of the universe comes through.

Ron: I really enjoyed listening to Buza talk about Beast’s philosophy of life, how he’s a man of intellect rather than violence because his appearance evokes the latter. But Buza did wonder out loud if the events in Genosha in the first season might change Beast in some way. Is that a hint about season two of the show?

Mon: Obviously, Buza can’t give any spoilers but it’s something for fans to surmise about. Speaking of fans, Buza was so grateful to the fans. The voice actors were never informed about the enormous support the show had. They just went and did their job but it was only after the ‘92 show ended that they learned about the ceiling-high fanmail they’d been receiving.

Ron: Yeah, what an odd thing to hide from the actors. And Buza also said that they were kept on tenterhooks about whether the show would be renewed each season. Considering how popular the show is, it’s hard to imagine why the creative and acting teams were put through the wringer like that.

Mon: You can read more about what Buza said in my session recap at Bam Smack Pow.

Ron: The frustrations of Saturday didn’t end with that day. We thought we’d arrived to relative calm on Sunday. We found out we were wrong, very soon. We joined what we were told was the line for Mark Sheppard and Jared Padalecki’s Supernatural talk. There were already a few people before us. No problem. 

Ron: Then! Staff members arrive and ask the line what we’re doing there because nobody was supposed to be outside the room. There were already two queues upstairs just to get into this room. But nobody had told the queue we were in about that. Not even the volunteer queue managers. Absolutely bonkers. People yelling. And everybody wondering what exactly we were meant to do now.

Mon: Toronto Comicon has been going on for how long now? How is it that every single year, there’s absolute chaos around lines? Where to stand? When to stand? Every time?

Ron: Can I just add that this was at 9am for a 10:30am session and people had been queuing for an hour before. What?

Mon: I get that the volunteer staff change every year, but don’t they have staff who can manage these things better? We’ve been on the other side of putting on a huge event, they have got to figure out a way to be more polite to the audience. And they really need to figure out how to manage things better. 

Ron: A lot of people got yelled at for apparently being in the wrong place. But we were all following instructions.

Mon: Yeah. Don’t yell at people. They paid to be here. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of us. If the staff and security can’t get their act together then be polite and remorseful over the mess-up.

Ron: Once we were in the room, the vibe was completely different. I’d say this is the first time we’ve truly experienced being a part of the Supernatural Family. Everyone was so friendly, we were all trading stories about queue management drama. Which was apparently even worse upstairs! We got a great picture with the queue’s loudest advocate, Jessica. She was incredible. She made sure we weren’t penalized for the bad management. And she’s got an Indian connection! Love it. 

Mon: Yeah, shout out to Jessica and the gentleman in the Scooby-Doo shirt for fighting for the audience. Once the tension died down, everyone was so chatty. I can’t say we’ve faced that in any other fandom. Maybe the drama brought us together, or maybe it was just how the SPN family rolls. 

Ron: Also shoutout to moderator Victor Dandridge for keeping the crowd calm and entertained. He was very funny and played with the crowd. Last year, at the X-Men ‘97 activation, we got chatting to him and he was lovely even then. He brings the energy and is clearly one of the fans. 

Mon: Yep. He’s the one moderator at these Toronto shows who works the crowd. The others just turn up and leave for the most part. 

Ron: The session itself was lovely. But it felt so short! 

Mon: Dude, it was short. It was 35 minutes long. 

Ron: What! No way! 

Mon: Yes. 10:35 to 11:10. 

Ron: Dang. Anyway, Victor had wonderful questions for Jared and Mark, who were equally funny and insightful. I first saw Mark Sheppard in 2011 at the Middle East Film and Comic Con. Back then, he was sharing lots of anecdotes from behind the scenes and how Jensen Ackles was called the ‘short one’ because Jared is so tall. And he really is. At 6 feet 4 inches, he fills the stage. This time, I found Mark Sheppard so philosophical and he really wanted to applaud the audience, the Supernatural Family, for being such an important part of the journey. 

Mon: You could feel the love for the fans from Jared and Mark. Much like how we felt it with George Buza. But more than that, I like that both actors talked about the why of Supernatural’s success. It’s fun to get behind-the-scenes stories, but much more interesting when the creative teams attempt to dissect why we love the show.

Ron: I loved the love in that room. So much cheering from the crowd and both Mark and Jared just thanking the fans so much. It’s so interesting that Mark didn’t want to use the term fans for us. Because fanaticism has such a negative connotation. He talked about how the SPN viewers were always there for each other and supporting each other, as well as the creatives on the show. They weren’t fans; they’re a family. And that’s where the term SPN Family came from. Because the group of people who are brought together through Supernatural aren’t fans, they’re a family to each other. And we definitely felt that in the room. 

Mon: For me, it was most fascinating when Mark explained what kept fans coming back, and why fans enjoy the characters of Castiel and Crowley. We love the brothers — Sam and Dean. But so do Castiel and Crowley. They’re like the audience stand-ins; as he said, the audience are living vicariously through Cas and Crowley. That was mind-blowing to me. I’ve always known we stuck with Supernatural through thick and thin because of the brothers, but I didn’t always understand why we found Cas and Crowley compelling as well. Now we know.

Mon: Jared also made a point about the distance between the audience when watching a film in a theatre, versus how we consumed Supernatural – it was a TV show, so we’re watching it in our homes.

Ron: Yes, so that proximity makes the TV characters feel closer, more like a family. That’s not a feeling you get from being at the movie theatre. Because, you need to buy the tickets and transport yourself there and back. But the TV is at home, with you. It was funny that Jared thought movie tickets were $10. I loudly informed him that that was not the case in Toronto!

Mon: Poor guy. He’s a bit out of it with Canadian prices.

Ron: Yes. In general, I thought Mark was so insightful about the show and the people involved in it. And Jared was all emotion. He did get emotional at one point!

Mon: Yeah, Jared teared up talking about the series finale. Can you believe that was 5 years ago?

Ron: Where does time fly? We aren’t even having fun. I kid. I kid. Despite the extremely early start in the morning and the weirdness with the trains and all that drama with the queues, the session was lovely and seeing Jared in person made me a very happy person. My teenage self would be stoked.

Mon: Jared and Misha Collins have been cast in the final season of The Boys, which is also an Eric Kripke show. Several SPN cast members have been on that show, and Jensen Ackles had a big role as well. The three of them will be sharing a scene together on The Boys, so the crowd obviously went wild over that. But Jared also mentioned that he wants Supernatural to come back in some way. I’m not sure how though.

Ron: Yeah, the door seems firmly shut on Supernatural. Dean died. Castiel died. Crowley died. Sam died of old age. God destroyed the multiverse. But it’s sweet that Jared still wants the show to continue in some way.

Mon: The next session we attended was Manny Jacinto’s talk. I lined up for that almost immediately after the Supernatural panel. And there were already people ahead of me.

Ron: My plan was to attend the Doctor Who session, hosted by the Doctor Who Society of Toronto. We have only attended one talk by them before and that was after the first season with Jodie Whittaker. We hated the entire talk and left furious. They were so dismissive of the historical stories that the season focused on. Which was the reason we started watching it, because ‘Demons of the Punjab’ was about the Partition of India. I wanted to know if the society had educated themselves since Ncuti Gatwa took over the role of the Doctor. Anyway, that didn’t happen. Because while I was lined up for that talk, you called me frantically, telling me the line for Manny was already moving. So I raced over to you and managed to join you just as you were entering the room. An hour and 10 minutes before the start of the talk!

Mon: It’s quite ridiculous to miss out on so much of the con because we need to stand in line. But, at least we were able to get into the session. 

Mon: One last complaint, and this issue was corroborated by the photographer sitting next to me. The lighting on the Main Stage was terrible. Jared and Manny were totally in shadow. It was a terrible decision not to put some overhead lights on to light them. The photographer said she’d have to work on fixing all the pictures in post because they were so dark. 

Ron: Wow, you really brought a friendly vibe to this con. Who didn’t chat with you on Sunday? But yes, agreed. The green and purple lights were great for mood lighting, but absolutely terrible for the speakers.

Ron: Moving on to the session. I can’t say we know Manny Jacinto’s entire filmography but we were there to represent all fans of The Acolyte. There were definitely other Acolyte fans in that room but the vast majority were there for The Good Place, a show we haven’t yet watched. But we may finally have to give it a shot. Since we don’t mind comedies so much anymore. 

Mon: We will see. But we were here for The Stranger, and Manny delivered. 

Ron: Manny did talk about The Acolyte and specifically how much he enjoyed being able to do the switch between goofy Qimir and the stoic and deadly Stranger. He kind of did the opposite in The Good Place, and at that time, neither he nor the creative team were sure if he was right for the role. Because he had never done comedy before. But he pulled it off very well, playing out the duality of his characters across two shows. 

Mon: Manny also talked about doing as many of his own stunts as possible on The Acolyte, because he isn’t getting any younger. He also mentioned how his dance skills played a huge part in being able to perform the fight scenes. 

Ron: Yes. The Stranger’s helmet didn’t have much visibility, he said. He was bumping into things all the time. They made three versions — each with larger eye lines — but for the most part, Manny was relying on muscle memory to fight. 

Mon: Manny also mentioned two disparate roles that got him this Star Wars gig. Leslye Headland, showrunner of The Acolyte, watched The Good Place, where Manny demonstrated his comedy skills, and Nine Perfect Strangers, where his character was very stoic. Which is how she realized that Manny was her guy to play Qimir and The Stranger. 

Mon: Should we talk about the Murderville snafu?

Ron: We should but it was very cringe. So, apparently, nowadays at the Comicon, they’ve stopped doing live Q&As at panels. Something happened at another con somewhere. Instead, fans now need to pre-submit questions. Where? How? No one knows. So really, more disastrous management at work.

Mon: There we are at the Manny Jacinto panel, and the moderator asks one of the pre-submitted questions about Manny’s work and experience on the Will Arnett improv show Murderville. And Manny looks so confused. 

Ron: Yeah. And the moderator totally missed Manny’s confusion, because he went right ahead and asked this extremely long question about Murderville. 

Mon: And guess what, y’all. Manny wasn’t even on Murderville! Yikes!

Ron: That was so embarrassing!

Mon: The moderator played it off well in the end. But sheesh, shouldn’t someone vet this stuff beforehand? A real fan question could have been asked in that time.

Ron: Manny took the Murderville thing well and even joked about it right up until the end. But that was how our Toronto Comicon 2025 came to an end. This was probably the least satisfactory con experience of our lives. It was a really frustrating time. 

Mon: Agreed. I’ve never felt so tired after one of these cons, even when they’ve been super hectic or busy. But this one just tired me out. The line-up was depressing, the management was terrible. The experience just wasn’t great. 

Ron: I’m hoping they take all the feedback and make Fan Expo Canada extraordinary, because we can’t do with a repeat of this.

[lgbtlunaverse]

hi! I'm here from your (very hot btw) 'NMJ has to bottom for medical reasons' fic, thank you for writing it! In addition to the stellar characterization and prose, I love how you've delved more into how the Nie sect and the saber curse works! I also really liked the mention of the Nie sect encouraging men from minor sects to marry into the clan instead of the women marrying out, because it helps make sense of why the Nie sect was able to stay as powerful as it does while its best practitioners are fated to die relatively young from qi deviation.

Now, I know the "saber cultivation has the side effect of amplifying yin-essence" effect in your fic is set up to explain why NMJ needs to get dicked down for his health, but... do you have any ideas about what it might be like for female Nie cultivators in canon? like, would it have been equal opportunity qi deviation, or would women be discouraged from training too much/attaining too high of a cultivation level bc sexism (the duty to rear children), or some secret third thing? iirc there's no canon info on female Nie cultivators anyway, so I'm curious about what you would find plausible given the constraints of canon, since your approach to this aspect of worldbuilding is so thoughtful in your fic

again, thank you for sharing this story with us! hope you have fun writing the next part :3

Thank you for the praise, this is so nice!! Anyway sure i love talking baout my overly convoluted and silly worldbuilding.

So in the fic, the yin-excession caused by saber cultivation is generally minor, and only becomes a real problem for Nie Mingjue once xiyao start playing clarity for him. (And even then only because it was enhanced by liu-leaf. It's not relevant but I wanted to say it: Liu here is the character 流 which means "to flow." It's not a real plant. I made it up. But becuase it's my plant I get to say that it's actually a blood thinner, which is where it gets its name from. It was discovered by Wen doctors, who also figured out it made cores flow more easily too, but they kept that part a secret. Until now.)

Essentially: Yin is characteristic of darkness, and of destruction, and therefore is acquired disproportionally via saber cultivation which gains its power from death, as well as blood. (The blood's also relevant because multiple of the "zang" organs (heart, liver, spleen, kidney, and lung.) Either store, contain, or govern blood, and these are the organs which are considerd to be yin in nature, contrasted by the "fu" yang-natured organs: the small and large lintestine, gall bladder, urinary bladder, stomach and the san jiao. So absorbing blood, like he sabers do, is yin-natured)

(please remember this is not accurate chinese philosophy, it's fanfiction sex magic. I'm referencing real concepts but I'm not intepreting them properly!)

Contrastingly, despite countering the buildup of resentful energy that saber cultivation also causes, Clarity doesn't fix the yin-exessive nature. It makes it worse. Because Yin is also passivity, while Yang is activity. Clarity's soothing and claming nature means that it favours Yin over Yang (again i'm just making shit up here.) Essentially: it solves the main problem while accidentally making a secondary problem worse.

For most cultivators, Yin imbalance won't get you before the resentful energy does. But, as per the fic, the imbalance can actually make your core more vulnerable to said qi deviation.

Because dual cultivation helps, female Nie cultivators actually notice less of this problem... as long as they marry a man that doesn't practice Nie cultivation. Marrying within the clan, or not getting married at all, would shave a few years of your lifespan. And would leave you more vulnerable to yin-excessive imbalance than an unmarried man since your core is already naturally more yin oriented.

Now, whether this means that they'd be encouraged to train less? No, not really. In fact, it doesn't seem that "you're gonna die young" is a deterrent to any Nie training less! (of course we hear rather little of uh... any Nies that are not nmj or nhs. But the version of them I've made up is like that)

They hold martial strength in such a high regard that they're willing to take the inherent risk of saber cultivation, and so this risk being slightly higher for unmarried women makes no difference in this ideal.

Of course there is an added pressure for any women who might not want to marry outside the sect, or marry at all, but that's just a stronger version of the pressure that exists for any woman in a patriarchal society that practices arranged marriages like the one in mdzs. It's technically allowed, (Du Kangli, Nie Fengyong's husband, is actually from a family that has been with the Nie for generations, and practices saber cultivation himself) but discouraged, especially if the women in question are strong cultivators who have reached the stage where qi deviation starts to become a real problem.

One thing that does cause a bit of a problem is that, as I mentioned, once sabers get strong enough they also get pissy when they're not fed with beast blood on a regular basis. Baxia only getting fed shitty human blood for 3 years straight is one of the reasons NMJ's qi deviation is coming abnormally early even for a Nie sect leader.

That causes a bit of an issue when pregnant or recovering from pregnancy. Instead of one whiny baby asking to be fed all the time, you now have two! So the Nie basically have "maintenance" hunts, where pregnant women, or those recovering from birth or injuries, are accompanied by other cultivators whose job it is to trap the beast and set her up for an easy kill to satiate the saber with minimal danger.

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

Introducing The Rainbow Book Club

Introduction

In its bid to listen to fans, Storygraph has finally allowed for Book Club and I think it's great as it brings a bit more community into the app. This has been a long time over due and I'm absolutely buzzing with excitement.

For those who don't know advocating through reading is a huge passion of me. I'm a 100% on the train of trying to diversify your tbr and as a queer person I've felt it especially important to get queer literature out there. I've set up an Lgtbq+ Book Club at my college and hopefully at my university. Its a way to have a space for people to explore different queer books and find ones they might not even be aware of.

Its been fun running an in person Book Club so I knew I wanted to do one online so let me introduce you too...

What Is The Rainbow Book Club?

Under a much better name then Lgtbq+ Book Club, The Rainbow Book Club is going to be an online Book Club open to everyone that will focus on reading and discussing Lgtbq+ Books. All books will be books that are labelled as and include Lgtbq+ representation.

The goal of this book club is to get people to essentially read with pride and each month on the Storygraph a poll will go up so that people can vote for the queer book they want to read. Unfortunately it'll have to be queer books I've read as it's harder to do an online Book Club without having read the book.

It'll run entirely online with this year's sessions being sometimes on tik tok live whilst other times zoom. From January 2025 though all book club discussions will be hosted on my tik tok live. Depending on circumstances as I'm aware America is potentially gonna have the app banned all together. I'd love to do zoom but I think larger numbers are more likely to be on live streaming.

When Will The Book Discussions Take Place?

All Book Discussions will take place on the last Sunday of each month from 8:30 GMT in order to give non UK folk a chance to join if they want too. So for example May and June's meetings will take place on the 26th and then the 30th. Unless I get ill or promptly too tired or something comes up, I intend to stick to the schedule.

I'll also be hosting readalongs on the side of Storygraph for anyone who just wants to take part on the reading side and not the discussion part.

For the first meeting we will be discussing Pageboy By Elliot Page. I thought I'd be best to starting with a queer book I've recently read in order to refresh the mind. On the 26th of May I'll be hosting a live stream discussion about Pageboy on my tik tok @fierymelody and will invite those to take part in the discussion on screen if they wish to be part of the live. I'll last from an hour as I won't be constraint by not paying for zoom.

Conclusion

I'm very excited to have set this up and I hope that it can evolve and gain more members once I've got into the flow of things better. Pageboy and Loveless are the first two picks and I'm excited to get many more after June's ended. Although the polls are still gonna consist of books I've read I'm sure the discussions are gonna be super interesting. Won't spoil but I certainly have some interesting thoughts about Pageboy.

I hope things go well and I'm gonna try get my tbr more diverse so that there's more diverse poll choices. I'm very excited to get this started. I've also made rules banning problematic authors and I'm gonna do my best to stick to that. Hopefully despite starting uni this year I can make things work. I'm really looking forward too it.

I'm sorry to say but after having both Storygraph and Goodreads, Storygraph has way better visually looking book club page. Now book clubs are here I hope it gets Storygraph haters quieter about the fact it had no social connections but now it does.

I use both but prefer Storygraph.

For those interested see you May 26th.

-Melody-

They/Them

[byoldervine]

Not really a Miraculous Ladybug fun, but looking in and the biggest thing I'm seeing fans complain about is that the show reads like a comic in that it just can't keep its lore straight.

The second biggest complaint I've seen was ML dropping Chloe's redemption arc

Oh boy you should see the objectively racist disaster of the comics they DID have, trust me turning it onto a comic wouldn’t solve a thing so long as they’re the ones writing them

But yeah, ML does indeed have a problem with keeping its lore straight and avoiding retcons; they latch on to the status quo so much that any progression before season 5 is pretty much undone by the end of the episode it occurs in, and maybe remembered in a later episode (and only that episode in particular) if it has relevance to that new plotline

The show basically operates on unique lore every individual episode, with Miraculous powers being tweaked, rules of the game being altered rather than expanded on, etc. The first one I can think of off the top of my head is the idea that the Rooster Miraculous suddenly has a lot of previously unstated constraints that weren’t in effect before - a retcon on its own, but it included the constraint that Miraculouses can’t copy the power of other Miraculouses, a constraint that the Butterfly and Peacock frequently contradict in the show both before and after this point

And as for Chloé, hoo boy… throughout season 1, Chloé was the stereotypical spoilt rich brat who’d call her daddy to help her fix whatever was bothering her, and she’d exploit this to harass and bully others. But in season 2, she begins to have some character development, both in that we meet her arguably emotionally abusive mother and Chloé finds a lost Miraculous, the latter of which being what kicks off a slow but steady redemption arc where she does indeed show signs of improvement both in and out of the mask; she’s loyal to Ladybug, she can work in a team when she puts her mind to it, she grows a little closer to Sabrina, etc. She’s still far from perfect, but even other characters acknowledge that the improvement is there

And then the season 3 finale basically erases all of that because Chloé is manipulated by Hawkmoth into willingly accepting an akuma, offering her the Bee Miraculous and using her parents as hostages in order to do so. The manipulation isn’t really registered by the writers, or maybe just not cared for, because regardless it’s seen as a full-on regression and betrayal that Chloé is totally all down for on her own. For the next two seasons, Chloé regresses way past her original season 1 levels of harm, and there are a lot of retcons to her relationships with others; suddenly she no longer cares about her dad, Sabrina or Adrien, despite her always caring about them even from the first episode, even if she doesn’t always show it in the clearest ways. Fans feel cheated by it, but Thomas Austruc, the show’s creator, has taken to Xitter to aggressively shut down all the fans implying that Chloé ever had a redemption arc whatsoever

But TA’s Xitter posts are a whole other story, and the Chloé situation beyond this is yet another long one I won’t get into here. But yeah, a lot of fans feel very cheated by the sudden drop of the redemption arc and TA arguing that it was never there to begin with and that fans were deluding themselves certainly hasn’t helped with that. If he wanted a damnation arc, the fall from grace had to be better written than just a largely sudden drop of her newly found morals and a child being blackmailed by the terrorist who has her parents hostage isn’t a compelling villain arc if the point of it is to prove that she was always bad and never good

I could go on and on about Miraculous Ladybug’s writing issues

[greipackagedesign]

Project Rationale Draft

CHALLENGE For this task, I have to figure out how to recreate a product’s packaging more efficiently while maintaining its branding. The goal is to reduce the amount of material you use, reduce the content if needed and find creative solution to the packaging problem. For my project, I chose to recreate the packaging for the Nintendo Switch game called The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. 

I think the main constraint I will have to work with is the amount of information on the box and how to put that into a smaller package. I have to consider that these packages are usually made bigger for marketing purposes. I still have to maintain the feeling and vibe of the game while reducing it quite a lot. I also have to consider protectin for the game inside. 

APPROACH I plan to create a box that is significantly smaller than the original packaging and that can be kept longer, recycled easily and even collected. Since Nintendo has consistency in their packaging despite what game you are buying, it would be cool if when the boxes were put together, they turned into something that looks good when put together, I could even try to figure out a system where they can lock together.

I want to do this because I find that once you buy the Nintendo games and take them out of it’s packaging, the packaging is not very nice looking. I don’t ever want to keep them around but I do just incase I ever need the packaging again. I also keep them because I am simply not sure how to dispose of them and it feels like such a waste. Nintendo is such a fun brand and I’m sure they could come up with a fun way to treat their boxes that makes them desirable not only just a protection for the game.

OUTCOME I anticipate that I will go with a relatively simple box design and focus on illustration and imagery to market the game. Realistically, I think it might be hard to make a box with a different shape because of storage reasons in the store. I believe I will have to end up making a pamphlet to put inside the box that has some of the information that was on the outside to save space and paper. I want to try to make the box with no plastic and completely recyclable materials.

[umichenginabroad]

Week8: Post Dublin Reflection

Hello, hello! Declan McGrath is back for one final time to give you one final post. As the program is now over this is going to be a reflection and overview of the Big 10 STEM Physics and Irish History Program at UCD Dublin. 

Welp, it’s over now. I am back in the United States of America and I am struggling to put into words how I feel. I definitely miss Ireland and all the friends that I made there. I had such a great time in Europe and it has been a process readjusting to America. Back in Ireland there was so much to see and do all the time and now I am back in Michigan where the things to do at the nearest city are go to the movie theater or go to the other movie theater five minutes away. That being said, it is also nice to be home. I have really missed all of my hometown friends and it has been really nice catching up with them all again. If I hadn’t caught a cold right when I got to Dublin airport to leave I would have immediately hung out with as many of my friends as possible when I got back to the US.

Enough sappiness (I am lying, this whole post is going to be sappy), I should tell you all what takeaways I have for this whole program. This program was life changing. Until I was leaving for Ireland I had never left the United States before. Now I have been to Canada, Ireland, Britain, Italy, and France! I met so many cool people from both America and all over Europe. The classes I took here were also very interesting and are helping put me ahead in my studies as they met a bunch of the requirements for my mechanical engineering major. The history and physics II courses I took could be a bit fast-paced (we did only have seven weeks after all) at times but it was never completely overwhelming. I felt that all the professors did an amazing job covering a large amount of content in a short period of time. Despite the time constraints the program also allowed us for a lot of time for field trips, both educational and recreational. For educational trips we did things like visiting Croke Park and Kilmainham Gaol and for recreational trips we visited the 40 Foot and Vico Baths. 

The study week before our final exams was one of the best weeks of my life. My friends and I took advantage of the free time and took a trip to Paris and Pisa, had an absolute blast, and made it back to UCD just in time to cram in some sleep before our first final. We had so much fun seeing as many sights as humanly possible while getting a tiny amount of sleep. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, countless beautiful churches, American Beach, the Palace of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Catacombs, and so much more! 

One thing that I am really going to miss from Europe is its aesthetics. Almost every street corner and alley had something unique about it, whether it was beautiful railings or sculptures or unique designs almost no wall was ever left bare. Heck, even their water fountains were extravagant! This has kind of left me feeling kind of dulled in America. Everything here seems to always be trying to maximize its efficiency which leads to most buildings being in competition with each other to see which one can be the most dull gray concrete building. In Dublin, Pisa, and Paris I found myself just taking pictures of random alleyways in buildings because it was all unlike anything I’d seen back home. 

Despite how much I am missing the sights, experiences, and all of my friends I made in Europe, I will stay strong! There are a couple more weeks of summer left and I am going to enjoy them as much as I can! I still have a lot of catching up to do with all my friends back home and I need to start preparing to move back into Ann Arbor for when my second year of college starts. 

Thank you all so much for reading my silly little blog posts I made every week. It has been a pleasure writing for the University of Michigan and I am so thankful that I had this opportunity. I know years from now I’ll look back on these blog posts and remember all the good times I had! 

Thank you all, 

Declan McGrath 

Mechanical Engineering

Big 10 STEM Physics and Irish History Program at UCD Dublin

[gachaparadise]

i thought ZZZ was launching tomorrow night so. i absolutely did not put aside enough time to play it tonight orz... i started but i haven't gotten nearly far enough to actually review anything. despite that i persist. heres my thoughts for the first 3ish hours lol.

i find the combat. interesting. i think it has the potential to be really fun but i haven't really gotten to sink my teeth into it yet. not only because of time constraints but. the button layout is fucking with my muscle memory from like three different games and i cannot get it right to save my life. attack being x instead of b and dodge being y instead of rb is actually killing me. at least the ultimate button is where it should be so i'm not spamming it randomly.

i've done like. 3 cut scenes so i cannot speak to the overarching story much. i like the comedic vibe so far though. the opening scene with the reporter was pretty funny. i appreciate how they aren't just dumping world building on my head, just sorta letting me marinate in the world first.

environments looked really detailed and lovely but... i need to explore a little more. i need to know if we're getting little fun details like hsr. are there garbage cans for me to interact with. please. my inner trailblazer calls to me.

characters. again. just started. but i do like the sly hares or whatever they're called! billy is a silly goose, the girl is really funny as well. Nicole is cool. i like a stingy bitch lol. i'm really loving the mcs so far. i like their dynamic and their designs are really cute. i almost picked the female mc because i was worried about dialogue differences on the little date sections but... if i pick the guy and we don't get gender differences in the dialogue i can get some really yaoiful stuff and i can't risk missing out on that. plus hes cute. i REALLY love his eyes. the slightly lifted lower lid is a very unique and cute feature.

i think overall its interesting. the vibe is really cool and different from hoyos other games. but to be honest im not sure its for me? the modern techno fantasy thing IS cool, but it's not my favourite aesthetic. i think the arts good, but a little... plain? it doesn't really strike me as much as hoyos other products. that said it may be that they just look way better in motion. in cutscenes and stuff the charters look awesome but when they're standing still they seem a little dull. could be that i'm just used to the maximalist nature of their other games so a more restrained character reads as boring to me now...

there aren't really any designs that make me go ooohh yeah that right there is my WIFE!! and i'm not going to pretend that isn't my primary motivation for gacha games. so. we'll see how future characters turn out. everything just a bit more... cartoony i guess is the word? i dunno. nobody is really Hot with a capital H.

i'm getting off track since it's time for bed uh. one last thing. i feel very strongly i need to stop or minimize my time with others games especially in this launch period. i CAN technically keep playing everything i've got my hands on if i optimize the shit out of what i'm doing but. then i will be having absolutely no fun whatsoever and i need to avoid letting myself do that so. the current plan is

1) drop wuwa entirely for daily logins. i'm not sure i'm ready to quit quit but i don't really get much out of logging in right now so. i'll just stop and see if i miss it.

2) i'm gonna take a break from spending resin in genshin. i'm not even spending it on anything important lately and the battlepass is done so. i'm just going to stop doing it for a while. we're in the pre natlan slump so it's a good time to rest my genshin muscles.

3) as for hsr well. it's quick and we have auto lol. i'll just send my chars to grind for books since i'm literally out and it'll do both my resin and my dailies in one. truly do love this game

i know that SOUNDS a lot like optimizing and taking the fun out of everything but i swear its' not. optimizing would be finding a way to still be doing the dailies and resins for all 3 of those things plus whatever they have going on in pso. which is what i have been doing up til now. no more you hear me!! i may be the worlds biggest gacha apologist but even i can say you know what i've been indulging way to much lately i gotta cut back.

anyway. rant over, i'm going to bed. will continue my review tomorrow ^w^)/