#expect i used the LEAST accurate adaptation

[sxnbleachedfiles]

[freakadr0id]

ROTTMNT Charater Fighting Style Analysis - Part 5: April O'Neil

Oh, would you look at that? It's finally here! After three weeks, multiple rewatches, and several pages of notes and drafts in Word, I've made it to the final individual character* analysis.

This is a continuation of my series of posts analyzing each of the Turtles' (+April's) fighting style, their strengths and weaknesses in a fight, and how Rise uses that to highlight different aspects of their character. I highly encourage you to read the first one (Leo's) before hopping into this one for full context. There is a bit of a TL;DR at the end.

[Part 1: Leo] [Part 2: Raph] [Part 3: Mikey] [Part 4: Donnie]

Last, but ABSOLUTELY not least, is our Girl with the Plan and President of the Dorky Pals for Life Club…

April O'Neil: The Scout/Jack-of-all-Trades:

My analysis for this one might be a bit of a surprise for some, considering a few people have said they already have an idea of how I might categorize her. Going into my analysis, I too thought I had a pretty solid understanding of the way she fought, but by the end, I found that there was so much I missed - I ended up coming to a conclusion that was quite different than what I was expecting.

Fighting Style:

Dynamic and Precise

April is a very strong, energetic, and multifaceted fighter, which allows her to hold her own in battle, even when she's the only human present. She is a primarily offensive fighter with a diverse skill set that she is able to utilize in almost any situation. With her bat, April demonstrates a surprising amount of physical strength as her weapon requires a significant amount of force in order to be truly effective. She also has gymnastic skills that make her a notably agile fighter, giving her an advantage in both speed and maneuverability. She approaches battles with great enthusiasm, amplifying her overall movement and attacks.

In this sense, April's fighting style is rather similar to Mikey's, as they are both quick, nimble fighters that excel offensively while implementing acrobatic movements to deliver quick attacks and make up for a defensive disadvantage. However, she distinguishes herself with a weapon that is very different from Mikey's and by having a larger, more practical set of skills that require unique tactics. Instead of mystic powers, she has a wider range of general skills that end up being incredibly beneficial in battle. She has a fluid fighting style that undergoes the most changes in the show as she learns new techniques from both her allies and enemies and incorporates them into her method of fighting.

Despite the energy she brings into battle, April is surprisingly meticulous in the way she approaches her fights. Instead of running wildly into battle, she is actually quite deliberate in when and how she attacks. April doesn't blindly attack enemies and only goes in for a strike at opportune times, aiming to deliver a few quick, accurate hits that efficiently damage her foe. This gives April the ability to participate and contribute to fights as a human without putting herself at unnecessary risk or becoming a liability.

Strengths and Roles in a Fight:

Jack-of-all-Trades

April is the generalist of the team. While the other members of the family tend to stick to one type of technique or a particular style of fighting, April has knowledge and experience in multiple fighting techniques, skills, and occupations that make her an adaptable fighter. This makes her perfect for "rounding out the team" by providing some extra strength and making up for any weaknesses that may be present in the team. Because of her dynamic fight style and ever-growing list of skills and techniques, April occasionally fights with an amalgamation of the other turtles' roles and fighting styles. April is seen acting as the Wild Card by keeping enemies on their toes with fast movements and nontraditional weapons; a Bruiser/Pummeler (a slugger, if you will) by delivering multiple hits in quick succession with her bat; or even a Striker by going for those accurate, singular attacks. If there's a role that needs to be filled in a fight, odds are April can deliver.

April also has the largest set of practical skills on the team, thanks to the experience she has gained from her numerous (former) jobs. In situations where a very specific set of expertise is needed, April can usually provide that to some degree. This makes her a versatile asset to the team in ways that even Mikey can't be, particularly with battles set in urban or unconventional environments. One of April's greatest strengths as a combatant is her ability to use the environment around her to her advantage - that comes with her dynamic fighting styles. Granted, that applies to all members of her family, but because of the considerable variety of knowledge and experience at her disposal, she has more options when it comes to utilizing her surroundings. Some of her skills are incredibly hyperspecific, however, usually limiting which ones she can use at any given point.

The Scout

April also acts as the team's Scout [No - I'm not just saying this because she happens to have a bat]. She is the one that usually goes ahead of the others before, or at the start of, a battle and gathers information about the enemy and their movements. This typically involves April disguising herself in some way and infiltrating the enemy from within, but there are times when more conventional stealth is needed. She is small and quick enough to sneak past enemies and through different environments, giving her multiple options for her investigations. April also provides information to the team during battles, as she can still apply her "stealth" abilities and use her agility to move around the battlefield quickly and mostly unnoticed.

April's precise fighting style also plays into the Scout role as she can quickly get in and out of fights when needed, which is beneficial both when she is by herself or in a group. A scout needs to be fast, precise, and agile to make up for their lack of defensive capabilities - this fits April's fighting style and abilities to a T. The Scout role plays directly to her strengths as a combatant and decreases her risk of harm as a human in chaotic mutant battles.

Utility:

As a fighter, April is particularly well suited for individual, one-on-one battles. Her primary weapon, a bat, is a generally short-range melee weapon that requires a good amount of accuracy and is limited by its small reach and defensive capabilities. Her fighting style incorporates this by focusing on accurate attacks and accurate timing while utilizing dynamic movements to increase her optimal attack range. When combined with her established proficiency with her bat and adaptive creativity, April becomes a formidable opponent in fights with a small number of opponents. Even without her bat, however, April's ingenuity, agility, and large skill set make her an extraordinarily capable fighter one-on-one.

However, due to her overall lack of mystic powers, limited defensive strength, and the natural restrictions of her weapon, April can struggle in fights with more enemies. Not only is she at greater risk of harm with so many moving parts, but it also doesn't work as well with April's fighting style - she simply doesn't have the range or attacks needed to affect a wider area. That isn't to say she isn't able to handle herself in group fights (she very clearly can), but it just isn't her strong suit.

Some of April's numerous abilities that give her the title of "Jack-of-all-Trades" can be incredibly situational and require a specific set of circumstances and environmental conditions in order to be utilized. While she still has these skills to use to her advantage, not all of them can be used at one time, although at least one of her skills will probably be applicable in any scenario.

How it Plays Into Her Character:

As a member of a family full of mutants and magic, it is only natural for April to want to contribute to the team by participating in fights - but as the only human in a family of mutants, this also means she is left at a bit of a physical disadvantage in comparison to the others. Most people would likely feel a sense of inferiority or weakness in the face of such a disparity, but not April O'Neil. One of April's greatest strengths as a fighter and as a character is her persistence and clever thinking, which is seen in her fighting style. Instead of getting discouraged at her apparent disadvantage to her brothers, April persisted and found ways to use her own natural abilities to her advantage. She may be physically weaker than the turtles, but by implementing a fighting style that relies on precise attacks and her agility, she is less likely to get hurt while still doing a significant amount of damage to the enemy. Her dynamic and precise fighting style embodies April's ability to adapt and persevere even when things are against her.

April's role as a Scout is indicative of April's intelligence while forcing her to dial back on her impulsive tendencies. It is essential for anyone acting as a scout in a battle to be intelligent and clever to be able to acquire information and make observations that are actually useful to the team. April demonstrates her intelligence and quick wit by always assisting the team with the knowledge that is essential to their success, and constantly observing different elements of a battle, even when not formally acting as a scout. The Scout role does, however, expose a potential challenge for April when it comes to impulsive actions. As a whole, I wouldn't say that April is an impulsive character - she is certainly the most level-headed of the bunch - but as the oldest sister to a bunch of teenage boys, it is only natural for some of that to wear off on her from time to time. April is usually pretty tactical about when and how she goes into fights, but there are a few times in the show where she can rush right in if she's especially passionate about something. In order to fully be effective in her fighting style and roles, she has to be sure to not give into those impulses and keep a steady head throughout the fight.

In a Team Fight:

In a coordinated group attack, April is best suited for an initial or follow-up attack. Her speed and agility mean she can get in and out of a fight quickly and her precise fighting style creates a perfect combination to provide a solid initial set of strikes to weaken or disorient an enemy. This doesn't provide much in the way of setting up the next attack, but it could be followed up with an equally quick attack from someone else. Her fighting style also lends itself to a quick follow-up attack and is particularly effective if the opponent is disoriented prior to her attack. April's quick movements and attacks can add to the enemy's confusion and deal significant damage at the same time.

However, April does not do well in a position that requires her to set up for the following attack, nor is she fit to go last in a team attack and deliver a final strike. Since her attack style implements a small number of precise hits to damage an enemy, she does much better at targeting specific weak points on an opponent rather than worrying about how someone else could further add to her attack. Her physical limitations and lack of mystic powers also restrict her ability to deliver the last attack (at least, not by herself). While it doesn't mean she isn't a strong fighter, being the final attacker in a team attack doesn't work well with her physical strengths and the advantages she has with her fighting style.

~-~-~-~

[TL;DR: April is a Dynamic and Precise fighter with very fluid and adaptable fighting techniques and a tactical and accurate approach to her attacks. Her large, diverse set of practical skills and flexible fighting methods give her an advantage by acting as a Jack-of-all-Trades. April also operates as the team's Scout by using her intelligence and precise fighting style to gather information and make quick, opportunistic attacks on an enemy. These all demonstrate her tenacity, perseverance, and creativity by presenting it through her adaptive fighting methods and approaches to battle.]

I have a feeling this one may be a bit divisive... I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with here, but it took some serious self-persuasion to get past the titles and categorizations I already established for her in my brain prior to my analysis - and I think that will be the case with a few others. Hopefully I’ve managed to make my case well enough.

Thank you so much for all your support on this little "series." You have no idea how much it means to me to have people actually read these, much less receive such positive responses to them. I'm thrilled that many of you seem to enjoy reading these posts almost as much as I enjoyed making them. DON'T WORRY - THIS IS NOT MY LAST POST FOR THIS SERIES. I have one more kind of "Wrap-up" post planned after this as an overview of their collective team dynamics, miscellaneous thoughts/"corrections", a brief explanation as to what inspired me to dedicate hours of my life writing these silly things, and (if you guys are interested) a small breakdown of my thought process and approach towards my analyses. I don't have a fully planned time to release that, but know it will be coming at some point in the near future.

[c-schroed]

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) Or Why The Probably Most Accurate Movie Adaptation Of Dracula Still Is Not Accurate Enough

I mentioned some time ago - while salivating over the marvellous razor scene of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula adaptation - that there is quite some stuff to unpack here. And now I found some time to unpack. So let's begin. I'll start with the good stuff, firstly the good stuff that's not in the book (i.e., the Flourishes), than the good stuff that's true to the book (the Well-Conserved). Thirdly, I'll make note of things that were, unnervingly, changed (by which I mean They Came Back Wrong), and then I'll deal with what is unfortunately left out from the book (the Missing). And finally, finally I'll rant over that one bad thing that never was in the book in the first place (a section I'll call JUST WHY?).

So. A tragedy in five acts. Here we go.

Act I - The Flourishes

The razor scene. I think I dealt with this enough by now. It's perfection and I'll die on that hill.

The music. Obviously, Bram Stoker's gothic lil masterpiece is lacking some gorgeous score. But mourn no longer, because Wojciech Kilar cooked up some dashing, pushing tune for us, fitting perfectly to this dark tale of spreading darkness and deepening madness.

Some basic knowledge about blood groups. Yeah, Stoker can't be blamed for this, but still. It's a nice addition to remind us that we do indeed live in a world where blood groups exist.

The Westenra Estate. As much as I pity that the lovely town of Whitby did not make it into the movie, I do love Lucy Westenra's house. Because I'm a sucker for hedge mazes. Simple as that.

Those glasses. Those. Fucking. Nice. Glasses.

Act II - The Well-Conserved

The plot in general. Yes, there are a lot of maddening differences, as we will see soon. But still, this movie at least makes the impression that most of the people working on it had indeed read the darn novel. Which is something that I can't say about many other Dracula adaptations I have seen.

The costumes, the sets, the atmosphere. Well done, everyone!

The Actors. The good thing about being not native in a language is that one is not very prone to dialects that seem off. And as I happen to not be a native speaker of English, I have little problems with Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder adding some US touch to what should be very, very, v e r y British characters. I even find Reeves perfectly fitting for the oh so darn young Jonathan Harker. And the rest of the cast is marvellous, too (with the exception of Winona Ryder, see below for details). Especially Tom Waits, who is hard-wired to the name of Renfield in my brain ever since I first saw this movie. And Gary Oldman as Dracula… Well. I think I already made clear what opinion I have about that sexy bastard.

Some lucky few of lovely quotes made it over to the film. Dracula's welcome. The Fowl Bauble of Human Vanity, of course. And Qunincey almost making me faint when saying "Little girl" when I least expected it.

Act III - They Came Back Wrong

The dates. Goshdarnit, the dates! It's an epistolary novel, so why make the effort of making up completely new dates for events that already had a precise date in the novel? I just don't get it. And it unnerves me. Every. Fucking. Time.

Time in general. Watching the movie after Dracula Daily makes it feel so very, very hasty. Jonathan travels to Castle Dracula like it's no thing at all. And the first few days in Castle Dracula are condensed into one weird evening.

Dracula meeting Mina before Jonathan is back. I really, really loved the book for avoiding the most terrible tropes. And then comes this movie, and struts right into this terrible pitfall.

Mina. I'm sorry, usually I love the work of Winona Ryder, but here she was way too bland. Maybe it was because her character had quite a revamp (ha. ha.) and no one cared to tell her what new approach she should take. But whatever reason, the clever, adorable train fiend of the original did not deserve this!

Act IV - The Missing

The Voyage of the Demeter is way too short. Where is "But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship"? Where is the poor sea captain tying himself to the wheel? And where is his funeral? Oh, I really missed all that. And, I mean, I don't mind hearing Anthony Hopkins read the lines, but would it have been such an expense to at least hire an additional actor to voice the correspondent or the sea captain?

Jonathan Holding Mina By the Arm. That's really not an objectively big issue. That's just me who fell in love with JonMina after reading this chapter. And almost no one does it properly. They deserve justice!

(Thanks a ton to @smieska for capturing my mood just perfectly!)

Act V - JUST WHY?

Elisabeta. Don't get me wrong here: All of the oh so tragic Drac backstory they invented for this movie is terribly unnecessary. But in this sea of uselessness, the tragically deceased wife of Vlad Țepeș that just so happens to perfectly resemble Mina Murray is an audience-insulting island of unoriginality. I mean, yeah, I guess someone wanted to add some romance to the story of Vlad the Fucking Impaler. Because, well, nineties or so. But Mina, of all women? Why not invent some new character that can be bothered with such stuff? Why ruin an all-nice JonMina ship? I don't get the whole new backstory, and I especially don't get this aspect.

Dracula raping Lucy in his shitty werewolf form. Everything about this is wrong. And it has no relevance for the plot. Just. Blergh.

Epilogue

It's cruel to watch Francis Ford Coppola's take on Dracula right after finishing @re-dracula. I know that now. Everything is still too fresh. It's a good movie, after all, but especially because it's quite good it is frustrating to be so terribly aware of all its shortcomings. In a few weeks or so, I would recommend it, again, I guess. As long as it's still Dracula Off-Season. 7 out of 10 points.

[barbwritesstuff]

Speaking of Marcel's chess game, it got me thinking about how he thinks, especially in relation to things like duels or what have you. Marcel is skilled at chess and fencing, which are both incredibly strategic activities but also ones that have, for lack of better words, "tried and trued methods". Kind of similar to how video games have "metas" or basically, "a generally agreed upon strategy by the community", which can also be seen by the community as "what is currently THE general best way to play and win".

I played with a Doctor background and chose to train under Marcel to unlock Path of the Shadow, so I don't know if this affects anything regarding blocking mind reading since I assume any mental powers would be in the Path of the Masters.

Regardless! I went into the chess game with this hypothesis about Marcel's character and how he approaches situations like chess matches or even fencing matches (I'm an ex-fencer, so I did consider the connection): as mentioned above, there are "generally agreed on strategies". With that in mind, the thing is, sometimes complete newbies can best masters at their given skill because they have no understanding of which moves are exactly the best. For example, choosing a "non-standard", or more accurately "nonoptimal" starting move at chess to force chess masters to adjust in real-time rather than go by a memorized opening theory. This then may frazzle someone because now their opponent is no longer going "by the book" and they are under pressure to adapt quickly.

It's basically a complete noob beating a master because the noob isn't employing Finklerunger's Gambit even though EVERYONE uses Finklerunger's Gambit! And the master has no prepared counterstrategies against people who don't use Finklerunger's Gambit!

This idea of "noob-fu" can be applied to fencing, and even video games like competitive Pokemon! Because the idea here is that masters at these games are so used to (and sometimes outright wedded to) what is the tried and trued strategies or the meta to the point that they can be blindsided by unpredictability or people who don't play the game by the rules they and other masters like them know. They are confined by the strategies they and other masters typically employ to the point that they hadn't even considered the very possibility of someone doing something that ISN'T The Very Best Possible Move, even if that possibility was always right under their noses.

Where was I going with this? Right. I just thought it was an interesting thought regarding Marcel and his strategic thought process. Since we're still pretty early in the game, I don't think that it's a case of Marcel being unable to think creatively or outside of the box at all, so much as I think he likely tends to put more trust in what he knows. He sees an opportunity and he takes it. He creates situations to put pressure on one of your most important assets and expects you to scramble.

At the same time though, I think the chess match comes down to knowing your opponent. Again, very, VERY applicable to fencing matches (or really any sort of one-on-one martial art) and competitive video games: a big part of the game is knowing your opponent and how they will behave, predicting what they will do, and playing around them.

Skip this paragraph for light spoilers about the Ch5 chess match: For example, you know that Marcel is too good of a player to make simple mistakes like leaving certain pieces vulnerable, so you don't take the bait, which opens up the avenue to win (or at least it did in my file).

It also kind of got me thinking. Again, I may not be 100% right about this read of Marcel's character because it is still fairly early in the game, but it did manage to lead me to victory in this situation. It made me think about the ways in which the MC and Marcel have gotten to know each other and what they may not know about the other yet, if ever. I dunno. I just like him very much lololol

Anyways I am sorry for this gigantic word vomit! (シ_ _ )シ It was just an interesting thought I got while playing against Marcel and I wanted to share it. As someone who has never played chess ever, I was proud of myself for beating him on my first attempt (or I guess technically my character's fourth attempt lololol) I didn't expect to fall this deep for Thicker Than and its characters, especially considering that I haven't played Blood Moon yet! (it's now on my next to play list o(^∀^*)o)

from: @binteractive

💙💙💙

You're right... about pretty much everything. He's been playing this game (be it chess, fencing, or being a vampire) for a long time and is very good at it. The way to beat him (and to seduce him funnily enough) is to be a bit unpredictable.

[picapicamagpie]

Sing Marine Life!

I’ll deal with you at the end.

As promised, here’s the follow up post including the marine animals! We don’t see many in the film, so I’ve broken it down by each species.

Squid

I love these guys. They don’t do much, but they look cool. The most notable thing about them is their bioluminescence, which is indeed a trait some real squid have, though not to this degree. Based off their size, bioluminescence, and spotted patterns, I believe these are firefly squid. The bioluminescence is very inaccurate in Sing, but it’s probably exaggerated for dramatic effect and it’s totally fair because the scenes they’re in look amazing. In real life, only the spots on the squid light up and they are only blue, I don’t believe they can change the colour.

Something worth pointing out is that the anatomy of the squid in Sing is completely wrong. And I mean royally messed up. Squid have a mouth that is more like a beak, no lips, certainly no teeth, and it’s located in the middle of the tentacles. The eyes are also further down the body, basically on the tentacles too. What Illumination has done is use the mantle as the squid’s face, when that’s actually their body. It’s the equivalent of putting Buster’s face on his torso. Soooooo something happened to the Sing squid to completely rearrange their bodies and essentially swap the locations of their head and body. Wild.

Shrimp

This is fairly accurate because some crustaceans can survive on regular air for a short time and don’t need to be constantly submerged. Like the squid, these guys have been given a more mammalian body type and can even wear clothes. I don’t know the specific species of shrimp because my God, they all looked the same to me. There’s also this concept art crab who is just chilling about on land. He’d either be dead in a few hours or Sing crabs can now live on land. But I won’t explore it much as it’s not something that’s actually appeared in the films so it’s not canon.

Whale

He doesn’t appear very much, but he’s there. We don’t see enough of him to determine his species but he wears a neat hat. I have nothing else to say about him. Why is Buster in the sky

Fish

Again, super brief appearance and oh my God this screenshot was so hard to get?! I had to load up the film and grab it myself because no one cares about these fish at all. It’s too blurry to tell what species they are, and again, not much to say on them.

Walrus

I have beef with this walrus because his design interrupted the old, more realistic style of Sing. He really cemented the feeling to me that Sing 2 is no longer using the “rules” set by Sing 1. I remember first seeing him and thinking how odd and out of place he looked. While I thought he was a funny character, his design just bothered me so much, something about him felt so off. The sheer audacity of this man to walk on two feet and basically look like a big ape. Generally, Sing was quite realistic with its body types. Ok except the squids. Although technically four legged, walruses and seals have flippers and such a unique way of moving that I really kinda expected Sing to stick to this, or at least make them more hunched over or do something to make them a bit more real, instead of the weird “walrus head on gorilla body” design we got.

To start with, walruses are insanely heavy and huge. A male gets up to 12ft long. To put it into perspective, a walrus standing up would be roughly the same height as an elephant. Mason really should be as tall as Meena but he’s like, 2 Busters.

Real life walruses could never stand on their rear flippers because of their sheer size, and because flippers are not legs. They’re too large and heavy for their adapted limbs to support. That’s why they do that weird flopping about thing that walruses and seals do. So it’s not a case of just making them stand on two legs like every other animal. However now that I’ve looked at him a bit more, Mason is a lot smaller than he “should” be, which makes me think maybe Sing walruses evolved quite differently. They’re much smaller, lighter, and thus able to stand. Maybe also their rear flippers never reached the stage of being super short and small, and are some sort of weird leg/flipper middle stage rather than just being flippers.

Ok Mason, you’re not as bad as I thought you were. But I still don’t like your design.

Also according to the Wiki there’s seals in some advert somewhere but I can’t find it. I’d love to see if they are designed the same as Mason so please if anyone can find it, let me know!

Here’s the canon “rules” I can gather for aquatic animals:

🐳 Honestly there aren’t any

🐳 ok ok, they generally only wear accessories rather than proper clothes but some do also wear full outfits (shrimp)

🐳 They still need water to survive and it hints that there’s an aquatic biome for them to live and work in, with regular cities having waterways as a method of transportation for them. I like this idea and hope it’s explored more

🐳 Bioluminescence can do whatever you want it to do as long as it looks nice, but it’s still limited to animals who have it in real life (which is basically just some fish and invertebrates)

🐳 Some, like the whales and fish, are essentially just the same as real life ones. Others, like squid and shrimp, are more mammalian now. Somewhere, evolution went wild and completely changed the body design of squid completely, reversing their heads and torsos

🐳 Walruses are smaller than they are in real life, and now able to support their bodies on two… flippers? They are much, much more humanoid now and are incredibly different to their real life counterparts

My main take away from this is that mammalian body types have become the norm in the Sing universe. Take (almost) any real animal, make it sort of humanoid, and it’ll belong in Sing. I reckon it’s some kind of convergent evolution thing where animals end up looking similar.

[39oa]

f1 rpf graphing & archive insights

intro & prior work

hello! if you're reading this, you may already be familiar with my previous post about graphing hockey rpf ships and visualizing some overarching archive insights (feel free to check it out if you aren't, or alternatively just stick around for this intro). i've been meaning to make an f1 version of that post for a while, especially since i've already done a decent amount of f1 rpf analysis in the past (i have a very rough post i wrote a year ago that can be read here, though fair warning that it really does not make any sense; while i've redone a few viz from it for this post i just figured i'd link it solely because there are other things i didn't bother to recalculate!)

f1 is quite different from many team sports because a large part of my process for hockey was discovering which ships exist in the first place—when there are thousands and thousands of players who have encountered one another at different phases of their careers, it's interesting to see how people are connected and it's what was personally interesting to me about making my hockey graphs. however, with f1's relative pursuit of "exclusivity," barriers to feeder success and a slower-to-change, restrictive grid of 20 drivers, it becomes generally expected that everyone has already interacted with one another in some fashion, or at least exists at most 2 degrees of separation from another driver. because of this, i was less interested in "what relationships between a large set of characters exist?" (as per my hockey post) and more so in "what do the relationships between a small set of characters look like?"

process

my methodology for collecting "ship fic" tries to answer the question: what does shippability really look like on ao3? (the following explanation is adapted from my hockey post:) a perceived limitation i have with character tagging numbers on ao3 is that they don’t exactly reflect holistic ship fic; that is, if lando is tagged as a character in a max/daniel fic, it gets attributed to his character tag but doesn’t actually say anything about how many Relationship Fics exist for him on a whole. my best solution for this was essentially uncovering most of a driver's relationships and summing their individual fic counts to create an approximate # of “relationship fics” for each player. so any kind of shippability graph going forward will use that metric.

i used ao3’s relationship tag search and filtered by canonical in the formula 1 rpf fandom and only pulled relationship* fics (“/” instead of “&”) with a min. of 5 works. ao3’s counts are… Not the most accurate, so my filtering may have fudged some things around or missed a few pairings on the cusp, which again is why all the visuals here are not meant to show everything in the most exact manner but function more so as a “general overview” of ficdom. although i did doublecheck the ship counts so the numbers themselves are accurate as of time of collection.

(*i excluded wag ships, reader ships, threesomes to make my life easier—although i know this affects numbers for certain drivers, team principal/trainer/engineer ships, and any otherwise non-driver ship. i left in a few ships with f2, fe, etc. drivers given that that one character was/is an f1 driver, but non-f1 drivers were obviously excluded from any viz about f1 driver details specifically. this filtering affected some big ships like felipe massa/rob smedley, ot3 combinations of twitch quartet and so on, which i recognize may lower the… accuracy? reliability??? of certain graphs, but i guess the real way to think of the "shippability metric" is as pertaining solely to ship fic with other drivers. although doing more analysis with engineers and principals later down the line could be cool)

also note that since i grouped and summed all fics for every single ship a driver has, and since one fic can be tagged as multiple ships, there will be inevitable overlap/inflation that also lessens the accuracy of the overall number. however, because there's no easy way to discern the presence and overlap of multiship fic for every single driver and every single ship they have, and attempting to do so for a stupid tumblr post would make this an even larger waste of time… just take everything here with a grain of salt!

data for archive overview viz was collected haphazardly over the past few days because i may have procrastinated finishing this post haha. but all ship data for section 2 was specifically collected april 22, 2023.

PART I. f1 rpf archive overview

before i get to ship graphing, here are a few overviews of f1 ficdom growth and where it measures relative to other sports fandoms, since i find the recent american marketability of f1 and its online fandom quite interesting.

first off, here's a graph that shows the cumulative growth of the top 8 sports rpf fandoms from 2011 until now (2023 is obviously incomplete since we're only in may). i've annotated it with some other details, but we can see that f1 experienced major growth after 2019, which is when the first episode of dts was released.

something that fascinated me when making this graph was the recent resurgence of men's football rpf in 2023; while the fandom has remained fairly consistent over the years, i had noticed that its yearly output was on the decline in my old post, and i was especially surprised to see it eclipse even f1 for 2023. turns out that a large driver behind these numbers is its c-fandom, and it reminded me that out of all the sports rpf fandoms, hockey rpf is fairly unpopular amongst chinese sports fans! i wanted to delve into this a little more and look at yearly output trends for the top sports fandoms since 2018, only this time filtered to exclusively english works (a poor approximation for "western" fandom, i know, but a majority of sports fandom on tumblr does create content in english).

another thing i've long been curious about with f1 specifically is—because of how accessible dts and f1 driver marketing are to fans online, does f1 rpf and shipping culture skew a bit more "public" than other fandoms? i'd initially graphed the ratio of public fic on ao3 for hockey because i also wanted to see whether it was on the rise (again, apologies for how many callbacks and references there are in this post to hockey rpf... it's just easy for me to contextualize two familiar sports ficdoms together *__*), but i was surprised to see that it's actually been steadily trending downward for many years now. f1 fic, on the other hand, has steadily been becoming more public since 2016.

another note is that c-ficdom follows different fic-posting etiquette on ao3, and thus chinese-heavy sports rpf fandoms (think table tennis and speed skating) will feature a majority public fic—here's another old graph. since f1 fandom has a relatively larger representation of chinese writers than hockey does, its public ratio falls a little bit if you filter to english-only works, but as of 2023 it remains significantly higher than hockey's!

anyway, onto the actual ship graphing.

my ship collection process yielded 164 ships with 57 drivers, 46 of which have been in f1. all 20 current active f1 drivers have at least one ship with min. 5 fics, though not all of them had a ship that connected them to the 2023 grid. specifically, nyck de vries' only ship at time of collection was with stoffel vandoorne at 56 works.

once again because f1 is so strongly connected, i initially struggled a lot with how i wanted to graph all the ships i'd aggregated—visualizing all of them was just a mess of a million different overlapping edges, not the sprawling tree that branched out more smoothly from players like in hockey. this made me wonder whether it even made sense to graph anything at all... and tbh the jury is still out on whether these are interesting, but regardless here's a visualization of how the current grid is connected (color-coded by team)! i graphed a circular layout and then a "grid-like" layout just for variety lol.

of course, i still wanted to explore how ships with ex-f1 drivers have branched out and show where they connect to drivers on the current grid, especially because not too long ago seb was very much the center of the ficdom ecosystem, and the (based purely on the numbers) segue to today's max/charles split didn't really come to fruition until the dts days. so here's a network of f1 ships with a minimum of 75 works on ao3:

before i go into ship breakdowns, i also have a quick overview of the most "shippable" drivers, aka the drivers with the highest sum of fic from all their respective ships. the second bar chart is color-coded by the count of their unique ships to encapsulate who is more prone to being multi-shipped.

PART II. ship insights

first let's take a look at the most popular f1 ships on ao3, again filtered to driver-only ships.

here's another graph filtered to the current grid only, and then one that shows the 15 ships where one driver isn't and has never been an f1 driver:

for this section, i ended up combining my ship data with a big f1 driver dataset that gave me information on each driver's birth year, points, wins, seasons in f1, nationality... etc., so that's what i'll be using in the rest of the post. disclaimer that i did have to tweak a few things and the data doesn't reflect the most recent races, so please note there might be some slight discrepancies in my visualizations.

anyway—in my hockey post i did a lot of set analysis because i was interested in figuring out what made the players who were part of the ship network different from the general population. with f1, since almost Every Driver has at least one ship and it's a much more representative group, doing a lot of set distributions wasn't that interesting and so i stuck more to pure ship analysis. still, the set isn't completely representative, which i noted by checking the ratios of driver nationalities in my dataset and then in the large database of f1 drivers i merged with (though filtered to debut year >= 2000 to maintain i guess the same "dimensions").

while british and german drivers have been the most common nationalities in f1 since 2000, both in general and in my ship data, it seems that ficdom slightly overrepresents/overships them and then underrepresents brazilian drivers. i was also curious to see the distribution of ships by nationality combination (which is actually quite diverse), and though it once again wasn't surprising that uk/germany was the most common combination given that we've just established the commonality of their driver groups, i found it somewhat interesting to realize just how many ships fall under this umbrella.

i then once again wanted to see what the distribution of age differences looked across ships. the ships i graphed yielded a range of 25 years, with the oldest age difference being 25 years between piastri and webber. tbh, something that's interesting to me about f1 ships is not just how connected current drivers are but also how there is a very strong aspect of cyclicality, wherein long careers in combination with well-established celebrity culture and post-retirement pivots to punditry & mentorship position drivers perfectly to still be easily shipped with any variety of upcoming drivers, hence why we encounter a relatively significant variety of age differences.

of the ships with two f1 drivers, 38% were within 2 years of each other, while 44% had an age difference of 5 years or more.

more experimentally (basically i wanted to use these performance metrics for something!), i tried graphing driver metrics against "shippability" to see whether i could uncover any trends, normalizing to percentile to make it more visually comprehensible.

one thing that was interesting to me is that there is a strong correlation between a driver's points per entry and their number of ship fic; really, this isn't surprising at all because it's basically a reflection of whether they've driven for a big 3 team, and we know that the most popular drivers are from big 3 teams, but then i guess it does become a bit of a chicken and egg question... which is something i'm continuously fascinated by when discussing success and talent in sports fandom, especially in a sport like f1 where there is so little parity and thus "points" do not always quantifiably translate to "talent," making it difficult to gauge why and when a driver's skill becomes consciously appealing to an audience. i don't know but here's that scatterplot.

similarly, i also wanted to look at years active vs. fic to gauge which drivers have a High Number Of Ship Fic relative to how long they've actually been in f1, basically a rough rework of the "shippability above expected" metric i'd tried exploring in my old f1 post haha. because the set i merged with attributed 1 "year active" to a driver just like, filling in as reserve for a single race, and it also included drivers who maybe raced one season and then never raced again, but then i still wanted to include current rookies in their first season to show where their Potential lies... i settled on filtering to drivers who were or have been active for at least 5 seasons OR who debuted recently and thus have a bit of rookie leeway. there's a decent amount of correlation here, which is again... in f1, the underlying argument for remaining active for many years is that you have to be good enough to keep your seat, so it's expected that if drivers stay on the grid for a long time they will eventually accrue more fandom interest and thus ship fic. still, we can see some drivers who underperform a little relative to their establishedness—bot and per, interestingly also below the trend line in the points/entry graph–and then those who overperform a decent amount, like nor and lec.

this is somewhat interesting to me because i'd tried to make a similar scatterplot with my hockey set and found that there was... basically nooo correlation at all, but i also had to make do with draft year and not gp which i think might move the needle a little bit. regardless, it's just interesting to think about these things in the context of league/grid exclusivity and then other further nuances like the possibilities of making your niche in, for example, the nhl as a 4th line grinder or f1 as a de facto but reliable #2 driver for years down the stretch, and then how all of that impacts or shapes your fandom stock and shippability.

moving on, here's a look at the current top 20 f1 ships and how much of their fic is tagged as fluff or angst! out of all their fic, kimi/seb have the highest fluff ratio at 38.44%, while lewis/nico hold the throne for angst at 34.74%.

lewis/nico are also the most "holistically" tragic ship when you subtract their fluff and angst percentages (by a large margin as well), while jenson/seb are the fluffiest with a difference of 17.38%. really makes you think.

and finally this is a dumb iteration from my old f1 post but i thought this was kind of funny haha so: basically what if teammate point share h2h but the points are their shippability on ao3.

closing thoughts

that's really all i have! again, i don't know whether any of these graphs make sense or are interesting to anyone, but i had fun trying to adapt some of my hockey methodology to f1 and also revisiting the old f1 graphs i'd made last year and getting to recalculate/design them. i know there's a lot more i could have done in examining drivers' old teams since many ships are based on drivers being ex-teammates and not the current grid matchups, but it would have been too much of a headache to figure out so... this is the best i've got. thanks for reading :)

[subskz]

hello my love! i'm finally here with the requested knowledge, sorry it took so long! ♡ i consulted my book written by the founders of mbti, and here are the results:

entps are original, individual, independent and perceptive. they are tireless at what interests them but find it hard to get other things done. they are full of ideas and operate by impulsive energy. they are very strong in initiative and creative impulse, value inspiration and have the power to inspire others. they are versatile, very clever, enthusiastic and they don't shy away from a discussion/debate! they are also very analytical and would make amazing inventors or scientists. our lovely grindset is very cool indeed 🩷

when it comes to intps: just like entps, they are analytical, independent, full of ideas and very perceptive. however, they tend to be a bit more reserved, outwardly quiet and detached. they are also curious and adaptable, persevering and are thought to be the most intellectually profound of all the types! many intps are university professors or theorists. our beloved catboy anon is a brainiac 🫶

the two types share a deep bond based on their passion for exploring ideas and engaging in discussions together! 😸 they inspire each other and engage each other intellectually. they can grow together and have a very meaningful and long-lasting connection. in a way, the two types mirror each other and can find a space for mutual understanding. 🌸

it sounds very lovely in my opinion. 😸 i hope this has been at least a little bit helpful and accurate! feel free to summon me anytime ♡ -🌻 (the real sunflower anon)

hello hello my angel!! there’s no need to apologize at all the fact that you took the time to look into it and explain it to us is so kind of you, thank you so much ㅠㅠ esp to be so thorough that u read ur official mbti book…as expected of you!! 🥰

the way u describe them is so cool entp and intp almost remind of those misunderstood geniuses you see in movies…and i definitely see a lot of those traits you mentioned in our dearest catboy and grindset! especially grindset w her cleverness LMAO im always amazed by the details she catches on to and how witty her sense of humor is 😭 and she’s always sparking fun discussions here! (remembering the astrology debate of 2022)

our beloved catboy is a braniac‼️ i think the part abt being full of ideas speaks for itself hehe their genius brain never rests and they come up w some of the most deliciously creative concepts i’ve ever seen!! everything has that special catboy anon twist to it~ and they’ll probably try to deny the intellectually profound part but i know firsthand that it’s true >:)

“the two types mirror each other and can find a space for mutual understanding” that really does sound lovely 💗 u explained it so well and concisely esp for me who doesnt know much abt mbti! thank you again my dearest wife i appreciate ur thoughtful analysis so much and im sure catboy n grindset will too <33

[vinxwatches]

fallout (2024)

WARNING: i did not finish this. i didn't want to finish this. do not read or watch if you like happy stories. do not read or watch if you like the darkness in the fallout games. this show is dark in gruesome, permanently damaging ways. fuck this. the show may fucking nail the aesthetic of fallout, it doesn't get the vibe of fallout. fallout is set in a serious world where video game characters go through a video game plots in a world that's also often goofy. an equivalence would be if the mario movie had a serious burial of Luigi half way through and he just stayed dead. a clear sign that it doesn't get it.

trigger warning: gore, dismemberment of the living and dead. the dog dies.

as a big fan of fallout 4, even fallout 76, and a letsplay of Fnv this is very hype. and the references they are putting in straight is so cool to see. and damn, that's how you start a fallout. and now jus the references, seriously the vault hallways looks straight up lifted from fallout 4 (with high definition mods)

a vault having connections with a different vault? so that either is a process of kicking people the fuck out, or the evil experiment from vault tech... probably both. also love that they don't avoid the fucked up lore that really makes fallout fallout.

oh yea, this is how you start a fallout part 2, the personal angle. kind of bummed that she doesn't start with the classic bulky 10mm. and of course there's something about the protaganists family, because this is bethesda fallout (not derogatively, just perfect adaptation)

me, out loud: "ohhh, that's the pridwin, that's so cool" if you get me to talk out loud you did good. petty power politics? how very fallout of you. "i'm bringing him home". i'm very sorry but that's not how fallout works.

also loves that bethesda continues with inclusivity. Dane is nonbinary, played by a trans actor. it's so small, it plays no role (at least i find it HIGHLY unlikely that it will. nb people are just part of reality, and so they are now (finally) entering media.

the fucking junk jet made it in?

just "the ghoul". i wonder if we'll get more info on what ghouls are. i mean i know. i've probably heard more false things then there's true stuff about ghouls to know. but if you're new to fallout i think the vault is relatively obvious, and the brotherhood is pretty well explained. but the concept of a ghoul? practivally nothing outside of them being scary, can go "feral", and are weird. but it is only the first episode.

02

it wouldn't be fallout without skeletons in strange positions and/or environmental story telling. did they use fallout sound effects for the weird man drinking water? it may not be but that is diamond city. at least based of it. it looks so fallout that i can't even remember which of the places i've had a shootout in it reminds me of, it's too many.

not a fan of living gore. like fallout game gore is fine. shooting limbs of completely mindless things? fine. but not on a person, espcially not one that's then crudely taken care of. i'm way too terrified of something happening to me, it tends to roam in my mind anyways, even more so now that i've a reason to give a shit about my body, so the dismemberment of the living... ew, please, no more. at least it doesn't stick around too long (in which case why? just to be gross?)

"cyanide was the most humane product vault tech ever made"... accurate yet horrifying.

03

oh... so that's who the ghoul is. and that, well it'll create drama, and i'm curious how close it's to the story of nuka break. haven't seen that show in too long.

me, out loud, after wondering what that monster was "oh of course it was a gulper. wait, no, those are east coast, this was west coast." not really a plothole, monsters from one side often make their way to the other. harder for a water based creature. unless the same thing evolved twice.

oh, those eyes weren't just more human then expect. that thing was human... once.

the golden rule is severely lacking. don't do onto others as you'd have them to onto you. if i was into bondage and often horney how do you think it'd treat people if the golden rule was. a good rule is "treat others how they want to be treated" or "treat others how you can reasonably expect they want to be treated". the golden rule of the wasteland is pretty accurate though: "thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time". this rule is, in fact, recursive.

of course the waterchip is broken. this is fallout after all.

04

ok, no, i'm done. no dismemberment of main characters. fuck you. even if she does get it back. i'm done.

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Greed Is The Unraveling - Chapter 2 - ao3

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing his eyes. “Do you think we’ve made it – worse?”

Lan Wangji didn’t respond, which wasn’t promising. Normally, Wei Wuxian’s husband could be counted on to respond with an affirming hum at the very least, something which reassured Wei Wuxian of his presence even if he completely disagreed (or agreed!) with what he’d said. But then again, Wei Wuxian supposed that Lan Wangji’s silence on the matter was understandable – after all, he wasn’t just being silent in response to Wei Wuxian.

He wasn’t talking at all.

Wei Wuxian didn’t blame him.

It must have been a terrible shock to meet his father as a young man.

In fairness, it was pretty weird for Wei Wuxian, too. He’d heard of Qingheng-jun, obviously, and he’d formed what was admittedly a pretty bad opinion of the man as a result of everything he’d heard, but he’d never actually expected to meet him – much less as he was now, a proud-looking man of nearly thirty who carried his sword as if he knew what to do with it and who stepped up to meet the political situation with calm dignity and thoughtfulness, reserved and yet still charismatic.

He looked like Lan Wangji, or perhaps more accurately he looked like Lan Xichen, given that he had more of a range of facial expressions than the usually frozen-faced Lan Wangji. He looked like a person, not a myth, not a ghost story or a warning tale.

He was a real person who had a life and a future and freedom.

Qingheng-jun, acting as the sect heir and sect leader presumptive of the Lan sect, had handled their arrival with grace, adapting to the situation and immediately understanding the importance of what they were doing, offering up his support and that of his sect. He acted precisely as Wei Wuxian would have expected the representative head of the Lan sect to behave.

Not like…

“What are you doing?” the young man cried out.

Wei Wuxian had been momentarily distracted from their target by the Lan Xichen lookalike staring at them from his place at the main table beside an older Lan sect man with a touch of grey in his hair and vacant sort of expression in his eyes, and in that moment of distraction someone had thrown themselves forward into their path.

If the man at the table, unmoving and staring, was Lan Xichen, then the one in front of them looked a bit like Lan Wangji, with a frozen expression and eyes averted, although in this man’s case they seemed almost deliberately aimed anywhere where he wouldn’t have to meet anyone’s gaze. He didn’t look quite as similar to either brother as the man at the front table, though his features clearly drew from the same general pattern – like any Lan closely related to the main clan, really – but the comparison was still unmistakable, as his movements were more similar to Lan Wangji’s than anyone Wei Wuxian had ever met.

The man in front of them was efficient almost to the extreme, every gesture neat and to the point, without unnecessary movement, his grace and habits and swordsmanship as familiar as breathing…

Even as the sword he had grabbed from a hapless nearby cultivator clashed with Lan Wangji’s own.

“We’re here to kill him,” Wei Wuxian said, nodding his head at Wen Ruohan, who was shakily trying to stand up once more – they’d attacked him on sight of course, without any hesitation. They’d known that he would put up those impossibly powerful shields that he’d used on the rare occasions he entered the battlefield during the Sunshot Campaign if they let him know their intentions. They’d known that they’d only have one shot at taking down Wen Ruohan, at preventing the tragedy of their future, and they’d taken it. They’d even scored some good hits, injuring him quite badly.

If only this Lan sect idiot hadn’t intervened, he’d be dead already.

“I would’ve thought that’d be obvious,” he added, refraining from rolling his eyes only because he wanted to keep his gaze fixed on their target.

“He is our guest,” the Lan sect disciple said. His voice was stiff and toneless, as if he were reciting rather than speaking. His voice was bizarrely flat and almost discordant to the ear, somewhat unnerving, and for a moment Wei Wuxian wondered if Wen Ruohan had used some sort of mind-control art on this fellow. Why else would a Lan be defending a tyrant? “The rules of hospitality require –”

“He is not your guest,” Lan Wangji interrupted. “This is free land, meant for night-hunting, not the Cloud Recesses. You owe him no duty, and it is necessary that he die. Step aside.”

“I will not,” the Lan sect idiot said. “You attacked without warning or explanation. I have no reason to trust you or your reasons.”

Wei Wuxian was keeping most of his attention on Wen Ruohan, terrified that they’d miss this chance, wholly unexpected but welcomed, heaven-sent – the chance to fix everything, the chance to make it better for everyone. For Jiang Cheng to never have to learn what it was like to lose his home, for Nie Mingjue to never have to know the humiliation of capture and submission to the hidden enemy who would later kill him, for all those massacred sects to stay alive, for himself to never have to end up in the Burial Mounds without even the protection of his golden core…

Wen Ruohan was standing once more, leaning heavily on a table. He’d been hurt, but despite their best efforts he was still standing. Even if he were bleeding from multiple places from all of their attacks, it didn’t matter, because he was still alive – and that meant he was still dangerous.

If they didn’t succeed now, they wouldn’t succeed at all.

They couldn’t let everything fail just because of the Lan sect’s inflexibility, their ridiculous rules…!

“Fine,” Wei Wuxian said, pushed beyond his usual good humor by fear. “If you won’t stand aside, then we’ll go around you!”

He lunged forward, aiming for Wen Ruohan, and the Lan sect idiot tried to stop him, only for Lan Wangji to step in close to block him. As always, he knew exactly what Wei Wuxian needed from him and responded at once, the two of them acting perfectly in time. With implicit understanding like they had, hard-forged after all those years of misunderstandings between them, no one could get in their way.

Well, no one acting reasonably, anyway.

The Lan sect idiot broke away from Lan Wangji and turned to throw his sword at Wei Wuxian’s back, leaving himself completely unprotected.  If Wei Wuxian had had his original body, he would have been able to block it without thinking, brushing it away like water off a duck’s back, but he was Mo Xuanyu instead, weak golden core and all – Lan Wangji immediately abandoned his offense to defend Wei Wuxian, leaping forward gracefully to knock the sword away, then turned and sent Bichen off after the Lan sect disciple, who tried to bat the sword away with his bare hands.

It was ridiculous. However beautiful the man’s sword work was, and it wasn’t half bad at all, this Lan sect disciple was clearly inexperienced with real fighting in the outside world; he was no match for Lan Wangji, who’d learned his lessons fighting in war and night-hunts alike. The only reason he wasn’t dead was because Lan Wangji was holding himself back, not wanting to kill someone from the Lan sect.

Well, whatever. That was his problem.

Wei Wuxian used the opportunity to strike at Wen Ruohan again, using his demonic cultivation to turn the resentful energy into an almost tangible force, a thousand arrows of darkness all aiming at the tyrant. The other man barely managed to get up a defense in time before being thrown back into the wall yet again, and even then some of the arrows tore their way through, ripping through flesh in a very satisfying manner.

He was just gathering up for another blow when the Lan sect disciple acted again, just as foolishly as before – his palms were bleeding, he was wholly unarmed, and Bichen’s sharp edge was only a chi behind him; he was in no state to do anything. But he did, despite it all: he threw himself between Wei Wuxian and Wen Ruohan, placing himself right in the way of danger, and in a voice that seemed too large for his slender frame, thundered, “I will not permit it!”

Wei Wuxian felt as though he had been struck by lightning.

He knew that voice.

He faltered, and the attack he’d been building died like ash on his tongue, the backlash from the incomplete casting sending the blow awry instead of hitting its proper target – it smashed into a table, shattering it into pieces that flew everywhere. Lan Wangji stepped in front of Wei Wuxian, blocking the shards from him, but he also cast forward Bichen to do the same for the young Lan sect disciple as well, defending him.

The disciple had been foolish yet again, turning his back on them both to use the chance to rush towards Wen Ruohan – he had been directly in the way of the exploded shards, right in the line of fire. Wei Wuxian glanced down at the ground, seeing how large and sharp the splinters of the table were, each one as long as his forearm, and he knew that if Lan Wangji hadn’t acted, that Lan sect disciple would be full of holes at this very moment.

That Lan sect disciple, whose movement so much resembled Lan Wangji’s, whose regular speaking voice was strange and unfamiliar but – but his yelling voice, on the other hand…

By the time the shock faded away, it was too late. Wen Ruohan was gone, half-carried by the Lan sect disciple and half stumbling away on his own, and everyone was still staring blankly at them. The Lan Xichen lookalike at the main table was the first one to react, standing up with a swirl of robes and a narrowing of his eyes in thoughtfulness that made him for a moment look nothing like Lan Xichen at all.

“Support them!” he called out, his voice grand and echoing. “Lan sect, Jin sect, Nie sect, the rest of you – join together now to support these heroes! There will never be another moment for such advantage!”

Really, Wei Wuxian should have figured out the problem at once back then.

Advantage – the word seemed almost inappropriate for someone from the Lan sect to be using.

Sure, even Lan Qiren at his most prickly and straightlaced had never shied away from acknowledging the political realities in which his sect lived, but he’d always thought first of righteousness and only second of everything else, and he’d taught his nephews to live the same way. No, more than his nephews, more even than his sect; through his teaching, he’d taught those values to a fair portion of the cultivation world. Even Wei Wuxian!

Wei Wuxian had always thought that that old stick-in-the-mud had just been trudging the expected path set out by his Lan sect’s values, that ancient conservative orthodoxy, but he was discovering that that seemed to be an illusion: now that they were in the past, in a bygone era that preceded Lan Qiren’s long tenure as acting sect leader of the Lan sect, it appeared that there were (or rather, had been) others in the Lan sect who were a little more flexible and easygoing than him.

Qingheng-jun, for one. That Lan Xichen lookalike had looked so similar for a reason, back when he’d looked nothing but shocked, back before the proud and standoffish cast of his face had removed that sense of familiarity – he was Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s father, of course, and therefore it was more accurate to say that they resembled him, rather than the other way around. It turned out that the mysterious happenstance that had indicated that it would take them back in time had in fact done so, only it had taken them back to a time they hadn’t expected – it had been their own foolishness and presumption, Wei Wuxian supposed, that had led them to assume that they’d be taken back to their youth, to a time period they knew, instead of…instead of…

Qingheng-jun had confirmed it later, but it hadn’t really been necessary.

“I will not permit it!” the young man had shouted, suddenly and unexpectedly grandiose, and in that moment Wei Wuxian had known, just as Lan Wangji, who’d immediately stopped attacking and turned his sword to defense, had known. That foolish Lan sect disciple, who was stiff and inflexible and put the sect rules ahead of all practicality, acting to defend the man who – although he had no reason to know it at the present time – would later burn down his sect…

It had been Lan Qiren, of course.

No wonder Lan Wangji had been so shaken, horrified by how he had taken up his sword against his beloved shufu. Even though doing so had been completely reasonable – Lan Qiren was practically unrecognizable! He was clean-shaven, or maybe simply too young for his beard to fully grow in, and he was gangly and awkward, not yet fully settled into his bones. Even his voice hadn’t yet settled into the full tenor of his adulthood. It had only been the sound of his disappointed shout that had made them suddenly see the resemblance.  

Completely reasonable, but Lan Wangji was still upset, Wei Wuxian could tell, deeply upset, and his distress had only deepened the more time they spent with the Lan sect, which had taken them in and helped them try to hunt down the fleeing Wen Ruohan.

Wei Wuxian couldn’t blame him.

Qingheng-jun had needed almost no convincing to agree that Wen Ruohan was a menace to society, now and in the future, and if Wei Wuxian had the sinking feeling that he was agreeing more because of his own aims than for the greater good, then at least he was agreeing. His agreement had been all that was required, even though it turned out that the slightly vacant-looking older man beside him was his father, the current Sect Leader Lan; apparently the older man had all but officially retired, with plans to do so in the next year, and Qingheng-jun made all the decisions. The other sects had been swept along by him, most of the Great Sects represented by second-in-commands rather than the sect leaders and the smaller sect leaders as easily swayed by the thought of dividing up the riches of the great and powerful Wen sect as they had been towards the end of the Sunshot Campaign.

Unfortunately, although they’d all taken part in the chase and the quarry was injured, that old fox Wen Ruohan still had some tricks up his sleeve – he’d somehow managed to summon the wind and rain, literally, and the wild storm that had descended upon them had made any further tracking impossible.

It was as if both Wen Ruohan and Lan Qiren had disappeared into thin air.

“We will catch them once the storm has lifted,” Qingheng-jun assured them. “The disadvantage of this type of array is that it continuously drains the spiritual energy of the caster. Wen Ruohan will be exhausted, and remain so, even as he bleeds out. The storm will calm once he passes out or the sun rises, whichever comes first, and once there isn’t so much interference, we will be able to track him down through Qiren, assuming Wen Ruohan lets him live that long.”

Lan Wangji had startled at that, recoiling. Qingheng-jun had misunderstood.

“My brother has always been foolish and unable to understand people,” he’d said. “He lacks the instincts of a warrior. Once he showed some small talent for music, he was relegated almost entirely to learning support arts, and to my regret the lack of martial experience seems to have only damaged his judgment still further. To think he would defy his own sect in the name of righteousness for Wen Ruohan, of all people…! It’s a poor choice on his part. That’s one who does not respect righteousness, remembering only grudges and never kindness.”

“You think he’ll kill – your brother?” Wei Wuxian asked, only just barely avoiding calling Lan Qiren ‘Teacher Lan’.

Qingheng-jun shrugged. “Wen Ruohan is both practical and ruthless. I have no doubt that he will discard Qiren once he’s gotten all the use he can out of him. Undoubtedly he realizes that we will be able to track his location through Qiren’s presence, and he will not want to take that risk. But you needn’t worry – Wen Ruohan is too clever to simply kill him outright. He’ll probably just break his legs and leave him in some pit somewhere to lead us on the wrong track…but of course even having their general direction will be useful in finding him. We have already reached out to the sects that specialize in tracking and hunting; they will be here soon, and will be able to aid us. We will not let Wen Ruohan escape.”

Wei Wuxian shifted from one side to the other, uncomfortable, and feeling all of Lan Wangji’s obvious (to him) discomfort as well.

“Ah,” he said. “Good. But – about your brother – I mean, it’s because of us that he’s out there. It’s our fault…”

“His foolishness is his own,” Qingheng-jun said, and his eyes had been calm, still as an unmoving pond even when he talked about Lan Qiren being maimed or possibly killed. “He made his own choices, interfering on his own without our support or authorization. The Lan sect will not hold his fate against you, whatever it may be.”

Wei Wuxian had been rendered speechless.

“You should rest,” Qingheng-jun added. “There is little enough for you to do until dawn, when the storm will settle. I will take the rest forward from here. Our allies are on their way – not just the smaller sects or the tracking specialists, but others as well. Sect Leader Jin is coming in person, and Sect Leader Jiang has indicated that we have his support, although personal matters keep him from coming…”

Wei Wuxian knew about the former, having heard some guards talking about Jin Guangshan having already reached the far end of the forest with his retinue, and he wasn’t sure what to make of the latter.

“Jiang Fengmian?” he asked, suppressing the wince that threatened to come onto his face from saying his uncle’s name outright like that, but Qingheng-jun only shook his head.

“Jiang-gongzi is still assisting his father, I believe, but they’ve sent us a number of very strong cultivators in the meantime. I have no doubt that the valiant Jiang-gongzi will be catching up with us soon enough to capture a share of the glory.”

A share of the spoils, more like, since that seemed to be what was driving everyone. Had Jiang Fengmian once been like this, too, and only Wei Wuxian had been too young to notice? Surely not…

“We will need to take care to properly manage Lao Nie,” Qingheng-jun added, missing or perhaps deliberately ignoring Wei Wuxian’s reaction. “He has some sort of personal connection with Wen Ruohan. Still, he’s a rational man, and he prizes his sect above everything else – if matters are made clear to him, I have no doubt he will set aside his scruples to join us.”

Wei Wuxian had nodded jerkily, unsure of what to say. Lao Nie…that must be the Sect Leader Nie that preceded Nie Mingjue, the one who Wen Ruohan had eventually killed by shattering his saber. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have expected that he would have some sort of ‘personal connection’ to Wen Ruohan that would make Qingheng-jun think that he’d be reluctant to take arms against him.

It was their bad luck that he was the one managing the Nie sect, rather than Nie Mingjue – though of course it made sense, since to judge by how young Lan Qiren was, Nie Mingjue probably hadn’t even been born yet, or maybe only just. Wei Wuxian hadn’t dared to ask what the exact year was, not wanting to distract people from their momentum against Wen Ruohan with explanations about how they’d travelled in time.

In the end he’d muttered something, committing to nothing, and finally Qingheng-jun had taken his leave, leaving them there alone with the door firmly shut.

Very firmly shut, in fact – Wei Wuxian was pretty sure they were locked in.

“Lan Zhan?” he said again, and Lan Wangji, who’d been staring at the wall blankly, turned to look at him. “Lan Zhan, do you really think we’ve made it worse..? I mean, after all, it’s Wen Ruohan. He was such a terrible tyrant, causing all that misery and death…I mean, how could attacking him when we had the chance not have been the right move?”

After a long few moments, Lan Wangji shook his head.

“Shufu defended him,” he said hollowly. “Even without the support of the sect, just because he felt it was right.”

He didn’t need to say more to make his point clear – that this was not unlike what Lan Wangji had done, what he’d felt that obligated to do on Wei Wuxian’s behalf, only now they’d forced Lan Qiren to do it instead. And moreover, unlike Qingheng-jun, who seemed to have a very poor opinion of Lan Qiren, they knew that Lan Qiren was very far from being foolish. Stiff and conservative, yes, but not a fool. If he’d stood up to defend Wen Ruohan, then maybe he saw something that they didn’t.

Maybe Wen Ruohan hadn’t yet gone as far as being the tyrant they all knew.

Maybe…

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said helplessly. “What do we do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Wangji said, sounding just as helpless. “I don’t know.”

(At that moment, Wei Wuxian suddenly thought of Nie Huaisang.)

[animehouse-moe]

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 3: Hidden Inventory 3

I'll be the first to say it, this episode is markedly better than the prior two. It's better in quite a few different ways, though is still peppered with quite a few complaints. Would I say that things are looking up? Probably not, no. Would I say there's a chance at this adaptation getting better as we go on? Quite possibly, yes. It's a very weird spot, but this episode does well almost because it doesn't try to be Jujutsu Kaisen, rather it tries to move as far away from it as it can, and it's in the pieces that are central to JJK that you understand something is wrong. Confusing yes, but hopefully I can break down my thoughts into more detail with this post.

I like to call what I've just described the "Tanya The Evil Effect". It's an aspect where the depiction of a story and its events ends up so far deviated in tone and experience, that when under good direction and work you can still value and appreciate it as something disparate from the source material.

The episode director isn't in over their head this episode, Gosso isn't hamfisting excessive and incoherent direction into the content at large, there's just a lot of stuff that greatly divorces this episode from Gosso's vision at large, and is part of why it remains successful.

I still think there's things that are silly and pointless changes for the sake of cutting corners, like this sequence of Kuroi and Geto talking where they're static in the anime vs in motion in the manga. It's just one of those simple things that provides context and agency to the situation. Why would Geto and Kuroi be standing still if Amanai is in danger?

If you take a closer look at the episode, it's actually quite odd. There's a lot of direction that's bog standard, just characters in frame standing still. But then you get random bursts of direction that are surprisingly solid, like this piece of Amanai behind the fence/bars, symbolizing her isolation and feeling of being prisoner to her role as the Star Plasma Vessel. Arguably one of the only scenes that makes proper use of the change of scenery from the rooftop rendezvous of the manga.

Anyways, onto Okinawa. I'm disappointed, but also surprised. Incredibly sad to not see Gojo's summer hairstyle on display, but I also feel like with a lot of these scenes, this is the closest we'll manage to S1/manga humor parity.

Alright, back into disappointment mode. Very sad that they didn't include this pose/panel for Haibara and Nanami. Why don't we just continue to strip the characterization and style of this cast more, MAPPA? Also, poor Haibara man. Nanami's already a lost cause sadly, but I at least had a bit of hope for Haibara in spite of the early showings of their character design. Even worse than I was expecting to be honest. The energy and slightly goofy nature just does not exist within him in the anime.

Have to shout out my boy Asta/Tadano though. Love seeing Gakuto Kajiawara getting more and more VA roles.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Okinawa. This is now a drama anime, plain and simple. The framing/layouts/etc are all very much drama leaning, and it's well done. It's just that compared to what the manga offers.... it's, well, decidedly not it. Also, unsure why, but random scenes in the episode are very low-res? I know Tumblr compression does not help at all, but this scene in particular is incredibly grainy and odd. There's also something wrong here in how dull Gojo and Geto's colors are in the shade compared to how vibrant the scene is in the light. I wouldn't call it bad compositing, but the color design doesn't feel quite right. I mean, the second image is of them in the exact same spot under the shade, but it looks so much better? The environment art is sharper in their vicinity, the character designs are more detailed, there's proper shading, and the colors seem way more accurate/realistic.

Maybe I've just gotten used to the poor compositing/coloring of the series to be honest, because at first glance I didn't actually think it was as inconsistent as I'm finding it to be.

Also, shoutout MAPPA hating on Geto again man. This dude is just stepped all over through these episodes and it hurts me so much. His expressiveness is totally stripped away from him and replaced with some hollow smile that I'm sure anime onlies can even tell carries no weight. Like please tell me, who are these two people in the anime??? It just hurts, and it's the tip of the iceberg for the issues with faces and expressions.

Personally speaking, I think this one is the biggest failure from MAPPA. They literally did this exact defeated smile Geto loves to wear in JJK 0, and they can't repeat it for S2? It's just so painful to see them totally mismanage the characters despite having simpler designs so they can "be more expressive".

That's enough bemoaning what's happened to poor Geto, allow me to return to why this episode is actually better (though it only really borders on good) than the prior ones: that drama feel. They extend what's displayed in the manga of Amanai and co's Okinawa trip, and it's pretty well done. I'd say as a manga reader though? I don't really care, and I don't think it adds a great deal to the experience in the first place with how they chose to add things. The scenes are pretty and some of the best displayed in the episode though, of course. The good old MAPPA special of placing insane effort into original pieces while giving the source material the cold shoulder.

Okay, one little piece of criticism (though it's actually sorta big). MAPPA just can't keep their little paws off of messing up characters for some reason. It's a simple thing, I know, but it's also why I'm complaining about it. There was no need. No need to have Amanai place her hands behind her back, to do something that her character never did even once in the manga. But they do, and it changes the tone of Amanai simply walking through an aquarium, to Amanai placing more thought in the experience. A very frustrating and needless change that weighs down the actual potential displayed in the sequence at large.

Anyways, what makes this piece of the original adaptation good? Well, the use of the symbolism of fish was already strong in the manga thanks to Gege, as its used to further show Amanai's isolation and the lack of a group that she can exist alongside/be with. That part remains clear in the anime thankfully. The piece that adds to it though is the parallel between the aquarium and its customers. They place the idea of Amanai's isolation compared to the fish on top of the people visiting the aquarium. Sounds a little odd maybe but I'm bad at explaining, but the point is to show the isolation Amanai feels from seeing the fish (and whales) in the aquarium as a palpable and noticeable thing that she actively experiences.

Of course, I'm not without complaints, but I feel like it's easier to let it slide if you don't look deeply at this sequence. If you see it as something untethered to Amanai's character, the weird extra cuts of the fish swimming freely in the aquarium is fine, but putting it alongside the context of Amanai's character it's pretty confusing and excessive. Why spend all that time fixating on the movements of the fish trapped in an aquarium, relegated to their current fate? Feels like a tone deaf movement for some odd pursuit of artistry that neglects the function of the sequence.

Alright, on to the next butchered character/sequence! Toji and Gojo. Man, I knew what to expect considering they showed viewers as much of the "good" stuff as they could, but I didn't think it was going to get this weak.

I knew Toji was going to suffer, but I mean, how different can you really get and still call it the same character? What a weird shit-eating grin in the anime versus the far more creepy and naturally twisted smirk that rests on Toji's face. It's just incredibly bothersome to see them fail so miserably with reactions that are so important to characters.

And I mean, they do it again, and again, and again. The whole flashback sequence is meant to be played off like horror, and up until the reveal is well done. It's got tension, a cheesy horror soundtrack. It's got the potential to actually do something with the appeal it's aiming for, but it ultimately fails because what is Toji's reaction here? It's supposed to be the thing that he fears/despises/disgusts, but all that shows on his face is plain surprise? Compare that to the manga, and you see how flat and lifeless this reaction is.

Okay okay last one before I move on. What kind of pose is this? He's so relaxed and standing like he's already superior to Gojo, like he knows he could win effortlessly. It is absolutely not the pose and expression of a man set to go up against arguably the most feared sorcerer of his time.

Anyways, action and stuff. I don't think it's terrible. As I'd already established though it's not JJK action. It takes well done choreography and layouts, and reduces it to flashy cuts that viewers can barely piece together in time. What's more worth talking about is how dim and over processed the sequences are. They just end up looking so out of place no matter what MAPPA tries to do. Also man, the S2 OST really does stink. Even in a tense action sequence there's just zero heart in it. Such a massive flop compared to the electric work on S1 and 0.

Okay, yes, Keiichirou Watanabe's animation for Gojo's Blue is well done. But, if the camera wasn't having a seizure I'm sure it would be better received. Of course, same issues in regards to the prior statement about action with the dimming and over processing too. Wastes a lot of potential that the cut had to be a genuinely great piece of animation in the context of JJK. It still undeniably is, beneath all of the additional oddities that bury it, but it's pretty far removed from JJK.

If you want to understand what I'm saying, take a look at Hanami vs Yuji and Todo (Watanabe did the cut of Hanami's massive branch attack). Yes, the compositing is better for Gojo's blue, but take a look at the camera work. How much effort it places into keeping the duo in frame, how hard it tries to keep things cohesive and easy to follow. It's a night and day difference that shows the importance of a director in delivering the best version of someone's animation.

Anyways, here's Gojo's Blue sequence, as a video. Too long to make into a reasonable quality gif, and also insanely flashy and all over the place so nicer than having seizure material auto-play in two places at once.

Alright, so uh, Gojo dies, Toji pulls up with the gat and domes Amanai right in front of Geto, following it up by announcing that he killed Gojo. And then the episode ends. Honestly? I loved the ending just cause I know it'll cause so much chaos for viewers.

The episode overall though? It's weird that I think it noticeably better than the prior two when I've complained about so much, but maybe it's one of those things where the closer you get to being correct, the more faults you find in the thing being examined. Regardless, it feels like Toji's been incredibly nerfed from a viewer's perspective compared to the manga (alongside Geto and plenty of others), and honestly I had next to no hype for their actual sequence because it all felt so disjointed. The pacing of it felt off, and the action just didn't grab me with it's super flashy, highly processed, up close and personal so you can't quite tell what's going on combat. I'd say it's still a flop compared to what S1 would offer in comparison for big moments, but it's also done better on average when compared to the prior two episodes.

Pacing is of massive concern now though. We're three episodes in, with a total of five. It took us three episodes to make 8 chapters total, and we've got 6 though more likely 7 chapters of content left to cover for this arc, with only 2 episodes remaining. "Oh that's not too bad", except for the fact that there's the massive upcoming fight alongside us still having to get through Toji vs Geto. Even with the 6 instead of 7 chapters, even if they don't add any original content, they're speed-running at a minimum of 3 chapters for the last two episodes, which is pretty damn bold.

Is Hidden Inventory/Gojo's Past going to hold on and make it to the end in its current state, or will it rush itself to an early grave? Next episode will certainly be the deciding factor, but whatever it is, I'm not exactly hopeful of where we're going to be left.

[invested-in-your-future]

Genuinely, why were the hound and leviathan grimm a mistake?

While a concept of dangerous sea grimm is great, The Leviathan's design is honestly a complete mess. And it suffers the exact same fate any remotely intriguing concept does in this show - getting flattened by plot device without doing anything of note. And in this case its done in one of the worst most anti-climactic fights in the ENTIRE show, as a combo between a plot device of silver eyes (hey remember when they used to be a genuine mystery and not just "Break in case of Emergency" plot device writers remember about when they need to delete a monster and don't know how?) and one of the most unlikeable side characters in entire show. The Leviathan could have been literally ANYTHING, even a generic pack of beowulves and nothing would change in the story. What was the point? All it does is to make the hyped-up "underwater grimm" even more anticlimactic and boring than even that one time two teens on a ship randomly killed a sea dragon.

The Hound is one of the least threatening grimm in the entire show that ends up jobbing to a slab of stone. In any other show the concept behind it would have been intriguing, but with RWBY it feels like edgy afterthought as an attempt to make Salem "scary" or "threatening" that then sabotages itself by how freaking easy the thing just keels over. Salem making whaaaaaacky Grimm experiments would truly be fascinating…Were we not aware of her backstory(that show stated is 100% accurate) and her pretty generic set of goals. As it stands The Hound is an afterthought that exists solely to attempt to get some mileage out of Summer drama down the line that will no doubt make Raven look like even bigger anticlimactic idiot. Seriously, "wooo, what if spooky Grimm Human Hybrids!" is something you'd expect of an average fanfic, not the actual main show. And those fanfics likely put more thought into it than the show did.

Both are examples of semi-intriguing ideas being done in the most haphazard, boring and anticlimactic way possible.

The concept of a weird abomination creature of Grimm that develops and evolves IS cool though. One of my ideas involves a cannibalistic kind of abnormal grimm that consumes other creatures of grimm to evolve and adapt, essentially skipping usual steps of Grimm development (which I also kind of wrote up from ground up since this is the "world of bloody evolution" even though MilesWBY kind of forgot). I am not making it some Salem special project though, because in my idea Salem doesn't really have "control" over Grimm, nor ability to make them. The idea of RNG just sometimes leading to "glitches in the system" like that by pure chance is far more fascinating to me.

[my-name-is-apollo]

Have you read the Record of Ragnarok manga? If so what do you think of their portrayal of Apollo?

Because the manga takes quite a lot of liberty with the myths, I went in with zero expectations but was pleasantly surprised with how it touched upon his ties with boxing, philosophy and Sparta. I've never actually come across any media adaptation of Apollo that goes into those less known aspects of his, so it is refreshing. He's charming, cocky but a very capable deity. And the "know thyself" principle being a part of his personality is really nice. His design is also pretty unique (except for that half choppy - half long hair...Apollo has this hair in at least three different Japanese media and idk why XD) he's beautiful, graceful, has loooong hair, and they didn't hold back from making him a femboy here lol

But I don't know if I vibe much with the way he was turned into some sort of a pacifist, especially with the most famous nemesis of his in the myths. And his character isn't fleshed out much (though this can be said about pretty much every god is in this manga :') ) which I suppose is to be expected in a battle manga. But giving credit where it's due - he has really cool techniques and weapons (and I find it sweet that he named a lot of them after Artemis). Like, I was taken by surprise that they made him a string user, but then I realised that yes, strings are closely associated with him via lyre and bow. I felt like it was a clever idea! And it is fun to watch him fight.

Overall, this depiction is far from being accurate and could definitely use more fleshing out, but I still like this Apollo a lot.

[hopeymchope]

Honestly I always saw Chihiro as more of an allegory for trans men more than anything else, in terms of how their storyline was treated. If there were ever an international/American live-action adaptation, I’d expect Chihiro to be explicitly adapted as such, television being television. Same with confirming Hiro is black (which apparently is a controversial idea in part of the fandom, at least on Twitter)?

Note: I'm reasonably sure that this refers to the first point I made in this long answer.

ON CHIHIRO FUJISAKI:

Oy... I find that the smartest move when it comes to Fujisaki is to treat them like the first two rules of Fight Club :P

I love the character, they're a sweetheart, but — as this anthology story accurately stated — the second you refer to Chihiro as either male or female, you're going to cause a, um, "heated debate." (Which is putting it mildly. It can swiftly explode into an outright war.)

It's the touchiest subject in the fandom. People who interpret the character strictly either way tend to not want to hear from the other side and have DNI warnings on their blogs and bios and all kinds of shit. I think this stems in part from just how personally people relate to Chihiro. They can be a very personal source of comfort for people with specific experiences.

Depending on how you interpret them, you might relate to the pressure Fujisaki's under to conform to normative gender roles/expectations OR their difficult experience with secretly being trans and being unable to share their truth.

If we look at the game strictly as it's written in the text, the character is about the former issue. But Danganronpa was released in 2010 into the Japanese market — not only a place where LGBT rights are well behind where they stand in America, but also two years before the issue of trans rights really started entering mainstream discourse in the West. So it's not out of line to suspect Chihiro's a stealth allegory about the trans experience.

AHHH, but the layers of the argument run even deeper! Because even among people who interpret the character as being trans, there's the separation of those who see Fujisaki as transfem vs. those who see them as transmasc. The former seems to be the more popular interpretation among the "Chihiro is trans" crew.

I keep using "them" and "they" because I just don't even wanna be in this debate. Clearly. Shit, I've never done any fics involving the character because then I'd probably have to say "he" or "she", and I just CANNOT. Too dangerous. I wish this wasn't the case, but this is where we're at.

HOWEVER... !

I do have ONE version of Chihiro Fujisaki who I think I can make a strong case for being defined a certain way. It's a post I've started to write twice and never had the guts to finish because, y'know, Chihiro fucking Fujisaki = first two rules of Fight Club. Suffice to say there's ONE particular "official" AU where I think there's an especially strong argument for one specific take on the character.

Maybe one day I'll break down that theory. Maybe. And then lose like a couple hundred followers the next day or something :P

ON YASUHIRO HAGAKURE:

I don't think I've ever heard/seen it posited that Hagakure could be interpreted as black before now, but I find the suggestion intriguing. I can definitely see where you're coming from. I think that'd work really well. Although then again? Maybe it's not much of a compliment to make Hagakure representation of black people in the DR1 cast, given that he's kind of a moron. :P

Japanese people are born into a variety of skin tones that can range from pretty deeply tanned to practically white as a sheet, but the typical beauty standard enforced in the culture is that the ideal = the whitest, most porcelain skin. "Whitening" products continue to be a major part of the beauty industry there today, which I think is a sad situation. So I always just assumed that Hagakure (and by extension, also Asahina and Owari) were representing the under-appreciated/put-upon darker-skinned contingent of the Japanese population.

But you know, when you take his hairstyle into account? It becomes VERY easy to interpret Hagakure as being of some African descent.

Furthermore, he actually looks a little darker-skinned in DR3 than he does in his DR1 sprites, which further fuels that potential.

It does seem logical to me that, if some international adaption were to be made? They'd probably take these darker-skinned characters as an opportunity to represent multiple races/nationalities. Black, Latino, etc.

[thelioncourts]

If the shows gonna do Lesmand, don’t you think they have to go the polyam route? I just don’t see how they go there without it otherwise it kind of makes Loustat, Loumand and Armand/Daniel kinda cheapened

Okay, so I'm going to answer this and I'm going to beg people to not come for my throat; I'm simply answering this with educated guesses as well as general knowledge that I think pertains to this.

So. I don't really think the show is going to do Lesmand, at least not in a full-fledged ship/couple/whatever you want to call it. I truly don't.

If I had to give any kind of guess as to what Lestat and Armand's relationship is going to look like in the show, it's going to look a lot like it does in the book, but with a simplification of Armand's feelings in particular.

I think we're going to get, of course, the TVL/IwtV interactions between Lestat and Armand, namely their first interaction in Paris when they first meet as well as the tower scene and the torture scenes that occur in IwtV/TVL (with Lestat's POV). I think we're, of course, going to get Lestat with the theatre and handing it to Armand, Armand and Nicki, etc. and then, from there, I think we'll get certain aspects of the Prince Lestat era. I think if they're going to do The Vampire Armand (book), they're going to have to do an entire limited series, at a minimum, for him, and, in turn, Lestat will be in at least some of that.

But regarding romance, I don't see them doing a lot, if really, any of it. I think they'll have Armand begging for Lestat to stay with him after that first meeting, but I think that will be done to show some of the odd resentment Armand has for Lestat. Beyond that, I don't anticipate much romance, namely that we don't have much from a Lestat POV anyway throughout all the books combined.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that this is a television adaptation of the books, and it is not fully accurate to the text. These writers are not adhering to a solely book-fan audience, nor should they. They are appealing to a wider set of people, trying to maintain a following there.

Rolin Jones has repeatedly classified IwtV as a gothic romance and has said that they are focusing heavily on Loustat. He's not going to say that if they're going to go on a polyam route. Television works on a very particular set of...expectations, and s1 focusing on the essential marriage of Loustat, and its downfall, is fully setting us up to see them get back together and then be in a romance that is more sustainable for them (I don't want to say 'healthier' because nothing is healthy in this series, just in general).

It also appears that Armand/Daniel (Armandiel? Armandaniel?) is going to be important and, no doubt, focused on, given especially Daniel's current role in the 2022!world.

Loustat is a really heavy hitter with fans. Loustat posts by the AMC account get a staggering amount of likes/retweets/shares/etc. in comparison to literally anything else. Audiences are going to not be super thrilled about Loumand because audiences want him with Lestat; when the truth of Armand's actions are brought to light, fans are not going to like him with Louis or Lestat (killing Claudia, maiming her body, allowing Louis' imprisonment to make sure that happens, torturing Lestat, throwing Lestat's weakened body from the towers, etc.). Even when we see the different sides of him, the softer ones, the funnier ones, etc. we are going to see that predominantly in regard to Daniel.

It'll be made worse when TVL happens and they see what Armand does to Nicki. Audiences won't like Nicki near the end either, not for Lestat, but they especially won't think what Armand did is justified.

Anyway, this is all a very longwinded way to say that Armand is a character that television audiences are going to struggle with. I think they can absolutely sell Armand and Daniel, but there will be a lot of dislike next season with Loumand, and with that I think the idea of Lesmand will be so far from a (non-book mostly) fan's mind that it couldn't even be considered as a contender for Loustat.

So. Yes, long explanation short, I don't see Lesmand really happening on screen. Some moments? Sure. Insinuations? Perhaps. Long-term anything? Absolutely not.

[m-feline]

To adapt, to survive, to live- Ch 22

Silco x Freader

Tags; dirty talk, nudity, mention of smut (non-explicit), fluff, end of Act I.

Previous ->

“Did I tell you that you’re evil?” I asked, lying naked on the bed my eyes closed.

“Many times, my dear,” Silco said as he kissed my neck from behind and moved slowly yet surely down to my shoulder blade. “That’s the second time today.” He kissed every joint of my spine from the neck to the level of shoulder blades.

“Did I call you a beast?” I asked and hummed as he moved more down.

“Yes.” He went even lower.

“Savage?”

“Yes.” He paused and moved the cover from me so he could have more access to my back.

“Animal?”

“Once, dear.” He kept kissing my back and moved the cover again to reach my tailbone and leaving my ass bare.

“Silco, you better not start it again. I'm tired,” I warned him. Blasted him, was that all he could think of? We've been fucking almost every day, several times a day. Good thing he at least let me eat and sleep. “Seriously, honeymoon isn't only for fucking.”

“It is for us to have quality time together without anyone or anything disturbing us,” Silco said and came back up to plant a kiss on my cheek. “It's not like we have something better to do than this. I know you have been enjoying it.”

“Silco, you don't want me to become angry and annoyed. Now put the cover over my ass, I'm freezing,” I ordered him.

“As you wish, dear,” Silco said and did as I asked. But he did add cuddles to that. Now it was only a matter of time before his hands wandered somewhere else and began to turn me on. Again.

To my luck, a message tube arrived. There was a receiving end near the entrance to the room. The question was who would send a message to us and why? Silco got out of bed without a word and walked to the receiver. I opened my eye to see what he was going to do but my eyes landed on his bare ass. Beast. He could at least put the robe on. I rolled my eyes and tried to rest more. But I was interested in the message. Hopefully, Silco would tell me. I heard him open the tube and pull out the content. He made no sound as he read the message nor did he give any signs if the message was good news or bad. I thought for a moment that it was a long message but sooner than I expected, I felt the mattress dib behind me as Silco settled back into the bed and under the covers.

“What was it?” I asked.

“A message from work,” Silco sighed. “But it's nothing that can't wait till the day after tomorrow.”

“Day after tomorrow?” I asked.

“We return then to the Last Drop,” Silco said.

“You better not behave there as you have during these few days,” I said snuggling to the pillow. “We better set rules for that.”

“Don’t worry, I will be too busy to tire you out,” Silco chuckled as he moved to hug me from behind. Since we were both naked and under the cover his hands had no trouble making my skin tingle where he touched. “But on special occasions, I can make you sing like you did yesterday.” Dammit, he is hopeless. And he turned me into a hopeless mess too easily. I don't want others to know that.

“I mean it, Silco,” I said with seriousness in my voice. “Rules. Absolutely not when Jinx is present. And don't even think about doing it in the kitchen. It will be unhealthy in more ways than one.”

“Agreed,” Silco chuckled and I could feel the vibrations of his chest on my back. “And I better add restriction to my office too. It's one thing to imagine it, but to remember you bent over the desk… I will never get the work done.” He had to add emphasis to his words by moving his hands to the right places and making me whine to his ministrations. Dammit, he is hopeless.

“Beast,” I grumbled.

“You are running out of names, dear,” Silco said continuing what he was doing to me.

“Silco, let. me. rest,” I said and pulled my pillow to smack him with it. But since I was tired and I didn't see well behind me, my aim was everything except accurate. I know I missed because I could hear him laugh behind me.

“Then let me propose something, love,” Silco said making me face him. “You could have your rest for the today but tomorrow you'll have the fucking of your life.”

“What?”

“We still have one last runner for tomorrow,” Silco said grinning. Who was left? Hayden was arrested and sent to Stillwater the moment he crossed the bridge. That Seagull fellow was sent to the hospital since he couldn't even cross the bridge. But according to the papers, he will be facing the same fate as Hayden. Who else was left?

“Zain, remember?” Silco reminded me. Oh, him. I forgot him completely. But to be fair he wasn't as bad as the other three. He was just the pathetic guy who was with the wrong company.

“What about him?” I asked.

“He will be set free tomorrow,” Silco said. “And when he runs under our eyes...”Silco leaned closer to me just close enough to kiss me. “…I will fuck you right against the window.” Damn this man. How could… how can… how can he make me so wet with just words? But just thinking about staying up that long made me grimace, I was too tired now.

“Tomorrow will be our last day here, and I plan on making the worth of it,” Silco said setting himself just a top of me. “If you wish to rest today, know that I will keep you up all day tomorrow.” His grin might as well be of the devil.

“You are terrible,” I growled.

“Third time you say that,” He smiled. Considering how busy we will be once we go back. Both of us. I get why he is so desperate but my body has limits. I do not wish for another round now but I certainly won't be able to stand or walk right when we get back if he will knock me up tomorrow the way he said he would.

“Fine, you monster. Once more before dinner and after, then we are done for today,” I sighed and gave up.

“Ten.”

“No way in hell,” I shouted. “Two rounds.”

“Five before dinner and five after it,” Silco said with a smirk.

“That’s still ten.”

“Is it?” Silco asked feigning innocence.

“How can you… How high is your sex drive?” I asked feeling so shocked.

“Oh, you didn't know?” Silco asked smiling.

“Know what?” I asked.

“About the wedding gift Signed sent, I understood he sent one set for you too,” Silco said. Wait, that was a wedding gift? But all I got from Signed was safety pills. What did he send to Silco? Oh no… Oh Janna, give strength with this man. He got that sort of pills.

“You animal,” I growled.

“Only for you, and only for us,” Silco said before he kissed me passionately. “He didn't send me too many, but I suppose you realized now that I have taken one each day.”

“You are an ass,” I said blaming him.

“Worry not, dear. I saved one for tomorrow,” Silco purred and kissed me again. “So I have stamina left in me. Tonight and tomorrow.”

“Three and three today and that's it. I will punch you if you try more,” I warned him.

“Alright,” Silco said kissing me to my forehead. “But tomorrow I will have you against the window.” He kissed me on the lips once more, before he got up to sit on his heels and pulled me to his lap. “And now, my dear. We better get this over before dinner.”

I was happy to be back home. More ways than one. But Jinx had to be the happiest. We barely got into the lounge when she jumped to hug me and warped her legs around me.

“ImissedyouImissedyouImissedyou soooo much,” Jinx said so fast while I tried to stay up. First Silco breaks me and now her. These two will be the death of me one day.

“I missed you too, sweety,” I said patting her back. After a while, I got her off of me. “But weren't you busy with the tasks I left with you?”

“Ummm,” Jinx hummed awkwardly.

“You did do the tasks, right?” I asked.

“Some… of them,” Jinx said.

“Did you even start them?” I asked.

“I… did,” Jinx said.

“Jinx?” I probed her.

“Okay, I didn't even start one of them, okay,” Jinx caved. “But I did finish the other two. Okay. One isn't finished, but one is and I wanted to show it to you.”

“Alright, my little rascal, show me what you got done,” I said and followed her to her room. The tasks I had given her were both to come up with a name and a sign for my housing for children. But I asked her to make it look separate from Silco's properties and different from all the Chem Barons. That should have kept her on her toes for a while. And if it didn’t, I also asked her to build me a little something to hold my mother's journal and possible new products. And if that still didn’t keep her occupied, I asked her to repair my music box. Apparently, she started with that, hadn't even started with the name or sign for my housing project, and she only got plans for my safekeeping devices.

“And here comes your mixture stuff, whatever you plan on making,” Jinx said as she showed her plans for the devices. It looked like a purse that some pilty ladies had around to carry their makeup. But the lock design and the inside of it looked good to me.

“As for the book, we just get a new chest, I just need to set up a new lock and make it look cool,” Jinx said showing her plans for the chest.

“Just don't make it too cool,” I said teasingly. “I don't want others to see or steal it.”

“Okay,” Jinx said happily. “So what did you two do all week?” Wow, she actually asked that? But now, I won't say anything, not till she is past puberty at the earliest.

“Some adult stuff,” I said. I wish I could say something else but Silco didn’t give us another choice.

“Just that?” Jinx asked in disappointment.

“Just that,” I said. I will make him pay for this later, I swear.

“Boring,” Jinx sighed. “I thought you go… like a date or… you know, see a play or something interesting.”

“No we didn’t,” I said but inside my head, I was sighing in relief. She didn't get what I meant. “We didn’t do any of that.” Should I explain to her that we were past dates now? Nah, I'll use this later against Silco. “We only did adult stuff and stayed in our room.”

“Super boring,” Jinx said. “I will tell Silco not to be mean to you like that. You should get to have fun too.” Oh, I would love to see her do that. And I would love to see Silco's face when she says that. I bet he will be shocked as he mistakes the innuendo of her words. And here I thought I was going to mess with his food for a couple of days. No, this was good enough.

A couple of days later we had the re-opening of the Last Drop. And it was so different from before. Now it was so loud as the music went on and the lights were different. It was a club now, and a fancy one at that. The tables, the chairs everything was now finer than before. I didn’t need to go to the lounge anymore. Technically, I didn’t work there anymore. Now as the boss's wife, I didn’t need to do any job at the club unless I wanted to. But that didn’t mean I would be like that.

Of course, I still cooked for everyone, but now they had to earn it by doing the job Silco asked them to do. Meaning, that on the worst days, only Sevika came to get any food. And she rarely did. On best days, I had to ask Lock to bring the pot or whatever vessel I used for serving downstairs after the club went quiet. Of course, I cooked less for others. I still cooked daily for Jinx and Silco but there were days that others had to go out to get their food. One reason was that I was busy with my own business. But I still made time for my “new” daughter and husband. Mostly for my daughter. Sometimes I had to join Silco in his office and do my work on the couch while he did his work on the desk. He did offer me my own desk but I refused. Though the gesture was sweet I didn’t want to find myself on a desk job.

“You should hire some assistance,” Silco said one day while he wrote something on his paper at the desk. I sat on the couch with my own small pile of papers.

“What?” I asked. I wasn't sure what he meant by assistance.

“The way you are doing things now, the nation of Zaun will be free from Piltover before you get anything done,” Silco said. He was right. There was too much work. I had to go through properties for the housing complex, for my import business, and not to mention to make my own products and start selling them. I needed help, and I needed Silco's help in that regard but there was a rule I needed to set first.

“I need my own people,” I said. “People who aren't related to you or your operations,” I said as I set down the paper on the coffee table and took off the glasses. Having a snake signia didn't improve my eyesight enough to read the fine print.

“I know, dear,” Silco said softly. “But you need the help now. I can recommend you some people.”

“Thank you, but so far I need people who can for now help me get properties for the import business,” I said.

“I know what you need, I get them here tomorrow,” Silco said and turned back to his papers. I was about to do the same when Jinx opened the door and marched at me.

“I need help with this,” She said holding a hair brush and two hair bands in one hand and the tips of her hair in the other. Jinx's hair had grown so much just like the girl and was almost as unruly as her.

“Come here, sweety,” I said to her and moved the coffee table away to make room for her. Jinx plopped herself between my legs facing away while I began to brush her hair. “How do you want it?”

“Braids,” Jinx said happily since she didn't have to do her hair herself anymore.

“One braid or two?” I asked as I brushed her hair.

“Make two, I like how it feels,” Jinx said. She has gotten used to braids these days. She liked it because then her hair wasn't in her way and it was easy to push back. I made it a couple of times a single braid but for some reason, she still preferred two braids. Anyway you put it, she simply wanted her hair out of the way and for her to handle.

“What are you doing?” Jinx asked as she picked one of my papers.

“Before your hair, I was working. I need to look for places for the children and my import business,“ I said.

“Why do you need to look house for kids,” Jinx asked.

“You weren't expecting me to let them live here, were you?” I asked teasingly.

“No,” Jinx said loudly. “I meant, why do you have to look after them at all?”

“Because no one else will,” I said as I braided her hair. “You were lucky that Vander got me to look after you. But who looks after them? Besides if no one looks after them they will get into trouble. Or worse they start to pick up fights and steal stuff and get killed.”

“Okay, I get it,” Jinx said reluctantly.

“Don’t worry, I'm not looking after them myself. I hire other people to do it. I just need to make sure they are the right ones,” I said and braided the remaining hair.

“So you will stay here?” Jinx asked hopefully. “And I won't have to get a brother or sister?”

“I will stay here with you,” I said to her and kissed her head. “As for another sibling, I have to talk about it with someone.” I glanced at the desk where Silco sat and pretended he didn't listen to our conversation. He did a good job in the pretending part, but that smirk he had to my last comment was a sign that he had heard us. I finished braiding Jinx's hair and soon the girl was up from the floor and twirled with her new hairdo.

“I'm hungry, when do we eat?” She asked.

“I won’t start the stove for a while now, but I can make you a drink and make you a sandwich,” I said.

“Yes,” Jinx said happily. I needed a distraction from work anyway. I made some snacks for Jinx and I also wiped something for Silco.

When I returned to the office, Silco had stopped working for a while and sat down on the couch where I had sat as he watched my papers.

“You should eat too,” I said and cleaned the coffee table before setting the plate with his sandwich and a glass of juice for him.

“Why do you need property from the topside?” Silco asked.

“It's still this side of the river,” I said and sat down next to him to pluck the paper out of his hand. “And it is for the import business. As much as I dislike them I need to use the Hexgates to take my products to the outside world. Having my place a bit closer to them is necessary.”

“Why not focus on selling only here first and then take it outside?” Silco asked.

“Because I want certain bastards to hear about their clan secrets being sold as everyday junk around the Runeterra,” I said.

“Patience, my dear,” Silco said and leaned closer to me. “We will get there. And they will hear about everyone wearing a signia and you wearing the signia.” Silco kissed me softly on the lips and took the paper away from me to set it on the table.

“But I have to ask, is it true that you don't want a child with me?” Silco asked.

“You want another child besides Jinx?” I asked raising a brow.

“Not now, but perhaps later,” Silco said leaning to the backrest of the couch.

“I have enough with Jinx,” I said and leaned my head to rest on his shoulder. “And I have enough with you. Let's just get this nation up and running. Once Jinx leaves the nest and wants her own life then we will discuss this topic again.”

“Deal,” Silco said and leaned to kiss me again. We kissed and made out to each other for a moment before we were interrupted.

“Eeeeeew!” Jinx shouted. I couldn't help laughing at the kiss and turned to look at the girl who stood at the door. “Get a room you two.”

“We had the room,” Silco said not bothered by the girl's dramatics.

“I meant your own room for doing that,” Jinx protested. I laughed more. Silco seemed like he was about to say something but he dropped it as he realized it wouldn't do any good.

“Right, sorry to disturb you with our… antics,” Silco wasn’t sure how to phrase it but he got the point across. Jinx seemed to accept the apology as she quickly plopped on the couch right between us and showed us her new plans for a new bomb. Something told me our future days would be like this for a long while.

Next ->

[outsidereveries]

Hello there, can I request a reading on how the NewJeans members perceive Min Heejin's scandal about the pictures she hung and the Cookie lyrics? How do you perceive her currently?

I hope that's not an uncomfortable request, thank you.

yes, you can! and it's not uncomfortable at all to me. don't worry.

— newjeans' perception of the contoversies they had (the pictures in min heejin's room? and the cookie lyrics)

i did the reading on 27th february at 2:07 am (till 2:25 am), using tarot de luz deck.

disclaimer: i do my readings for fun. although i do guess sometimes, i might not be accurate bc of my interpretation. energies are also changing always so these are the current ones.

• girls' perception about the pictures

[minji] 2 of wands, the high priestess, 8 of cups, knight of swords, 7 of wands and 7 of swords rx with the wheel of fortune as the bottom card of the deck

she was confused and dissapointed at first. minji might even talked with min heejin about the pictures that was going on but she is indifferent now. possibly something changed between them two.

[hanni] 8 of pentacles, 4 of cups, 6 of cups, the devil and 5 of pentacles w/ strength as the bottom card

oof.. it seems that she is pretending to not care? i feel something like "my virgin eyes" or sth similar, like her childhood is broken? or says something similar? she thinks about it too much. she seems traumatized. these are just her pure emotions :')

[danielle] 10 of cups, the hierophant, the hanged man, 5 of pentacles and knight of cups w/ knave of cups as the bottom card

huh? she thinks.. positive? she's trying to accept the scandal as something good, however she has some doubts and worries about it. honestly, she's geniuenly curious of her way of thinking.

[haerin] 2 of wands, ace of wands, king of wands, temperance, 6 of pentacles w/ 4 of pentacles as the bottom card of the deck

it seems she also thinks positive of the pictures scandal thing. although she isn't like danielle to adapt her point of view, she do talks with min heejin about the scandal. tbh, she's indifferent like minji. however, she hopes that everything will be as stable as possible career-wise.

[hyein] 10 of wands, the moon, 9 cups rx, 4 of swords and 3 of cups w/ knight of pentacles as the bottom card of the deck

oof. it's too much. can think that "everything is a lie" about min heejin? probbaly she expected more from her and that's why she doesn't want to even think about it atm. however, with the years coming by i do think she'll understand her more and accept that scandal that happened.

• girls' perception about the cookie lyrics

[minji] 6 of wands, 6 of pentacles, ace of cups, knight of wands, 5 of cups w/ the world as the bottom card

her perception about it is positive. tbh, she doesn't think the lyrics in that way. however, there's some sadness about that it happened. (the scandal)

[hanni] the lovers rx, queen of swords rx, 7 of cups rx, knave of cups, 9 of pentacles rx w/ knight of wands as the bottom card

hanni however thinks otherwise. the trust she had in min heejin has fell apart? she might've said everything that's thinking about it to her. these two dramatic moments for hanni can be too much. with the years, hanni might change her mind but it is uncertain.

[danielle] 4 of cups, knave of pentacles, queen of cups, knave of swords, ace of swords w/ 3 of swords as the bottom card of the deck

she seems to think positive HOWEVER she might said it to hide that she's dissapointed of the scandal. it seems like emotionally she thinks in 1 way and logically in another, which can be fine. we don't know her perspective after all.

[haerin] the high priestess, 3 of pentacles, the emperor, 8 of pentacles rx, 7 of swords rx w/ knight of swords as the bottom card

it seems she's thinking logical here. although she probably thinks about it positively too, it is so repetitive that she has to talk with min heejin about it at least to remind her to be cautious of what she's posting.

[hyein] 6 of cups, 6 of swords, king of cups, 2 of wands rx, 3 of pentacles w/ the emperor as the bottom card

the scandal hasn't changed her point of view about cookie's lyrics. however, she might have worries of future scandals happening to the group and min heejin. she's fine with the scandal that happened though, she knows it's created by the media.

ps. by positive thinking about a scandal i mean that they do know it's media buzz and they're fine with that bc they expected it already.

i didn't got the last question though. what do my cards think of min heejin? is this what you want me to ask? or what's my opinion? or what the girls think of her? sorry for asking but i really don't get it /gen

by positive thinking about a scandal i mean that they do know it's media buzz and they're fine with that bc they expected it already.