#i dont think ive ever seen so many people be so possessive of characters and also averse to anyone not a female oc/si shipped with them

[ashendalia]

Hypmic selfshippers stop being afraid of non-fem characters being with these dumb rappers challenge 2k22

[lesbaurinkos]

its literally so sad that so many people in this world dont understand that riverdale is the show of all time ever. because cheryl blossom is the Most character of all fucking time and everyone in the entire universe should know about her and cherish her. shes clinically insane. she experiences female hysteria like no other. she is the most seen ive ever felt by a lesbian in television because she is just off her fucking rocker at all times and thats the best representation i could ask for. she constantly talks like shes possessed by a victorian ghost. she once WAS possessed by a victorian ghost (her ancestor, also a lesbian, because lesbianism is genetic like being a serial killer is). she was also haunted by the ghost of a triplet she thought she absorbed but didnt actually absorb in the womb possessing a porcelain doll and then when they went to the 50s that porcelain doll became a real boy. her having lesbian sex saved the world. she faked stigmata for clout while canonizing herself as the first living saint in order to take over the musical theater cult her mother had started around her dead twin brother as a christ figure and maple syrup as the blood of christ, but cheryl succeeded in taking over the cult because she and gay kevin wanted to sing songs. she’s also committed to ruining gay kevin’s life just for funsies most of the time. she lives in a creepy gothic mansion and goes about wearing flowing dressing gowns and carrying candelabras despite fully living in the 2020s (except for right now bc everyone got zapped to the 1950s) because her life is a gothic horror. she kept the taxidermed corpse of her dead twin in the basement for a while just for funsies because she is balls to the walls insane. when her uncle found said corpse he attacked her and her girlfriend accidentally killed him so the two of them plus her creepy haunted grandma decided to gaslight the man’s wife and child into thinking they had cannibalized him over thanksgiving dinner (it was awesome). also shes really good with a bow and arrow for funsies. shes one of the few characters on tv that actually says “im a lesbian” out loud. she has magical witch powers and can blow people up with her mind, literally, actually. once she got so fucking mad at a the leader of a different cult she had gotten roped into because he said that she couldn’t run for prom queen that she managed to deprogram herself basically overnight. for a while she was building her own version of the winchester mystery house due to being plagued by hysteria. shes an incredibly skilled artist who did forgery for a while. she can control bees with her mind. She’s The Queen Of The Bees. she had a collection of small witch girls in the splinter universe rivervale that were all dressed like rei from evangelion for no clear reason and went about performing ritualistic sacrifices in the woods. she’ll say shit like “my dear antoinette thou hast beguiled me” and “im cuckoo bananas for you, obvi” and “do you think these loubotins are too flashy for kombucha brewing?” with the same level of utter conviction. she is so, so haunted. she has suffered more than jesus. she is a girlboss she is a lunatic she is a war criminal and she is never going to die.

[damnfandomproblems]

https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/739064506502791168/fandom-problem-4499-i-think-sometimes-people-get

Thing is op

People like to use "coded" as an excuse to harrass others over a fictional character

"this character is minor-coded therefor if you like them or draw them sexy then you are a pedo"

"this character is gay-coded so if you ship them qith the opposite gender your homophobic"

"this character is autism-coded so if you dont see them that way you are ableist."

"this character is poc coded and if you dont portray them that way then you are racist"

And then they go and rip people to shreds over it. And most of the time they are actually "coded" as anything.

Ill give you a good example as to why coding should just fucking die in fandom.

In transformers (all of them afaik) there is a sentient ROBOT named Jazz. He is often voiced by a black voice actor, even in the early days of Generation 1 in 1984. Though it changes a few times Jazz is well known for his accented voice. Jazz (the music) is also known to be pioneered by black people.

In a way jazz is black coded. He is designed with all these elements related to black people.

The thing is. Jazz is a fucking robot. "Jazz" is the name he chose for himself because his cybertronian name does not translate or cannot be spoken by humans. Jazz is also a type of music he only heard when he arrived on earth and is something he loves, hence why he chose the name. He chooses to express himself in such a way because its what he enjoys.

It does not mean he is black. A white person can do all that because they have a love for jazz music. It isnt going to make them "black coded"

He is also again, a robot. Not human. Not even organic.

However of all the problems ive seen in the TF fandom the one about whether you should draw a human version of Jazz as black or white is probably the one thats sets people who give a shit off the most.

It doesn't matter what characteristics a character has. It doesnt matter if Jazz is drawn as black or white. Cuz he isn't human. Its literally up to fan interpretation and none of them are wrong but people want to shit fling, and react hostile over others not drawing him as black anyway.

Same could be said about a certain more popular pink skinned character (who is also human and japanese but when have people ever viewed japanese people as important.)

You can have your queer coded villains. Doesn't actually say they are queer. Hell in the past it would be done as a way to demonize queerness and traits. But queer people still loved those villains because they could relate to their tragedies.

What "coding" actually is, is a part of the design process to add depth and character. It's an inspiration born from reality. But it's not always that the character is meant to be that thing.

Theres a character from genshin impact i could say is "DID-coded" because when she falls alseep or is so stressed she passes out there is another version of her that takes her place that she doesnt know about.

In the same vein theres the game "At Dead of Night" (recommend it, its a horror game) where the main antagonist is possessed and murders people. They even had to put a disclaimer that the character didnt have DID and the game wasnt made to demonize people with DID or portray them as unstable serial killers. However despite the creators saying that, fans still "DID-code" the antagonist, not out of hatred for people with DID but because some people with DID still relate to the character. Not so much the killing people but the struggle the antagonist has with "being possessed". Having DID can be a frustrating and tiring experience and not many cope with it very well even when they do no harm. Feeling of loss of control is very relatable even without DID.

Regardless the rampant "coding everything trend" in fandom has caused a new "ship war" like wave of harrassment. If you dont view a character this was your a horrible person and you deserve *insert graphic content and threats of harm and suibaiting and more*

coding can be a cool thing to discover while analyzing a character or even creating one. But its become hated with good reason because people have no reason left in them. Coding is a cool way of adding depth and nuance to a character and would actually REALLY help beginners with their "bland" characters. Unfortunately even thats discouraged, since it can be seen as "baiting" or "stereotyping" and sometimes appropriating culture. (But a giant sentient robot making his entire personality about jazz music isn't? Lol)

Posting since this is a response to a previous problem.

[zxal]

howww about a 🔥 for your fav character from each yugioh series youve watched! >:3c

🔥 bakura - people tend to like, woobify him & treat him like he's totally helpless and has no agency or say in what happens to him, and it's not even a ""wrong"" interpretation necessarily i just think it's so........BORING. I reread the manga recently and so many times bakura CHOOSES to put the ring back on even when he doesn't have to and he lies about it and he gets upset and hurt when the others keep it from him. but even after 20 years no one is ready to hear the "more complex than a generic anime sadboy" bakura takes seemingly

🔥 yubel - i'm late enough to the party that there seems to be pretty widespread acceptance of yubel's transgenderism but i still Only ever see people using she/her or they/them. which is like, fine, but why not try something else?? I'm on the no pronouns/name-only bus myself but would also be partial to he/she (yubel is visually half-male half-female, practically split down the middle. bigender king) & even the dub uses he/she/it depending on who yubel is possessing at the time. Throw some neopronouns in there for good measure. Mix it up a little

🔥 kalin - not sure how unpopular this opinion is but i'm sorry this man should NOT be a single father. he's 21 he's suicidal he doesnt know how to fucking cook. king you should not base your entire desire to live on two kids who are realistically only a year or two from screaming "i hate you" at you when you tell them theyre grounded

🔥 vector - i'm not sure ive seen too many vector takes I disagree with actually. usually with a character like this I expect to see people making him regret what he did, apologize for it (blergh) etc. but I've actually seen like, none of that. So shoutout to zexal for being so fucking well written that ppl aren't even mischaracterizing your villain all that much (that I've seen as a latecomer)

🔥 yuri - any take about yuri being misunderstood because he was groomed/manipulated into being evil is really really boring to me. also anyone who looks at yuri like "we need to make him get therapy so he can be Normal" i'm blowing up with my mind. he would not fucking benefit from therapy sorry. he might enjoy fucking with the therapist for a few weeks but then it would get old. ALSO ALSO I'm not a huge fan of the take that yuri and celina would be friends (or more) if circumstances were different. like I think they just dont like each other and that's Fine - the idea that all of the girls need to have the same kind of relationship with their boys as each other does a disservice to each of them as individuals with their own identity imo. THIS ONE GOT LONG SORRY. THINKING MUCH ABOUT HIM.

🔥 jin - much like bakura jin is a character who gets treated quite like shit by canon and fandom alike. given that he has like 2 lines of spoken dialogue there's a lot of room for interpretation, but i feel like most of the (very very scant) jin interpretations I've seen depict him as sort of clueless and naive and vapid, and that is, again, very very boring to me. i think people want him to be ""okay"" because of what he went through but it comes at the cost of absolutely any interesting characterization or meaningful relationships with other characters

[peppermint-moss]

Who/what is your biggest inspo for poetry or art?

aagh i dont think i'll ever have one biggest inspo for poetry n art i just have a lot of lads which i like specific things about + those likes are still always ongoing and changing lol (which btw ty for askin bout poetry cause i LOVE it n i never get asked abt poetry hehe)

I have a big ol google doc where i have lines of fav poetry i write down when i come across them (usually when im just scrollin the internets) and atm I've been noticing that a lot of lines i keep enjoying are all by Mary Oliver even tho i've yet to read her collection of poetry!!! so that's on my to-do list C: other poets who's names keep poppin up in that google doc are ocean vuong, richard siken, chen chen and uhh flatsound? they do more music but they've done some spoken word stuff and their songs just feel close enough to the realm of poetry to me u know

Art stuff... lol which medium?? /lh I really like thomas jordan's photography (the COLOURS my DUDE) mmm shelia berger's kinetic sculptures and KICKASS "Bird Show" encaustic paintings (i watched the rlly short like 5 min documentary on her and i was enraptured) Spencer finch has got a lot of cool conceptual art stuff like i think CIE 529 418 (CANDLELIGHT) is rlly cool!! Holly warb and @/vchienart both got some lovely lovely illustrations/paintings with soft beautiful colours... @/emilienunez has some really pretty and elegant yet v cute ceramics!! and @/soonthemoon some really like cute warm n cozy ones... Oof there's so many digital artists i love ;-; and i keep finding new cool lads aghh @catnippackets has such a good grasp on like form n shape if that makes sense?? like drawin people in these rlly fluid poses in like silky lineart aaa i found @milkdudz 's art recently and i LOVE their art style and their cats are just. perfect balance of spiky and soft n very very Cat which is so good @everydaylouie u gotta know louie right ?? how can someone make such lovely 2d and 3d art and music and also know how to code n make lil games. that is too much power for one soul to possess nifty-senpai's art n animations and designs ofc!! are incredible!! and i REALLY love their concepts for what the wc clan territories look like (this moonpool are you kidding me???? gorgeous) @thunderc1an's lineless art style my beloved...... yall clammorin about my lineless art style u GOTTA check out theirs so good (also the everchanging never the same designs for wc characters is so good so freeing so interesting to look at!!) SmallButera's animations omg... literally speechless (also have u seen their series baman piderman?? its so precious it might be on indefinite hiatus im not too sure but its still my favourite thing) chadisms, Riley Ellis, Asha Phaedra and Cherrydusk also got some BANGIN animation skills and o my god this post got so long n theres still so many ppl ive gots to stop and do homework LOL

[miksaslut]

hello i see you lack some historia from attack on titan fics, so may i request camgirl!historia and the reader putting on a little show live for historias viewers? if not thats fine thanks a bunch <3

put on a show — by miksaslut

type of work: smut + fanfic

character: camgirl! historia

CW // smut, sex work (live streaming), reader gets kind of jealous (its not very serious or sad dont worry), use of vibrator, slight voyeurism kink, edging (only happens once)

a/n: this is the best thing ive ever seen wtf. camgirl! historia lives in my mind rent free tee bee aich ☹️ also im sorry this got a little intense i hope this is what u were looking for <3

“come on love, put on a show for us” you bit your lip and looked back at your girlfriend, nervous. historia was a pornstar. to be more specific, a camgirl. you didn’t mind her job and you supported her throughout her career. work is work, after all. you had never seen one of historia’s livestreams. why should you? she’s your girlfriend, anything she did for thousands of viewers, she could do more for you privately. while she was streaming one day, you got bored and curious. you had clicked into one of her streams. the way she had rolled her hips against the pink vibrator, the way she had moaned, biting her lip and eyes rolling to the back of her head, it was enough to make your hand sneaking down towards your already throbbing clit. she was perfect. you had checked the comments, a mistake really. you couldn’t help but glance over towards the racing, ongoing chat.

“slap your thighs”

“show us a blowjob”

“anal please”

“choke yourself”

“be my good girl historia”

so much money, so many people. little did they know she was yours. work is work. yet you couldn’t help but feel a pang of possessiveness in your chest. that night, when historia had finished up her stream, you lay in her arms, still feeling that pit of jealousy. “‘toria baby” you said, unsure if you wanted to say what you were going to say. “yes lovely?” she said, hands running up and down your waist calmly. “can i… can i do your next livestream with you?” you fiddled with the sheets and avoided eye contact. “of course baby,” she said, a grin on her face. “i thought you’d never ask”

so here you were, legs opening wide and facing the camera. you had historia’s pink vibrator in your hand, it was already on. you sat between historia’s legs, one of her hands playing with your tit while she watched the chat intently. she giggled at one of the comments but it was gone before you could look, buried by the others. “yeah i know they’re cute,” she said and gave you a quick kiss on the neck, “and all mine too” you gushed at the last part, suddenly feeling the urge to give the viewers - and your girlfriend - the best show they’ve ever seen. you loved being good for your historia. you put the vibrator on your clit, the new sensation sending shivers down your spine. “oh shit” you rasped and pursed your lips. you bucked your hips on the vibrator, fighting the urge to set it to a higher setting.

“someone’s needy already, arent they?” historia quipped, smiling widely. your eyes glanced to the chat before rolling to the back of your head briefly as you tried to keep your composure. “it feels- it feels really fucking good” you manage, breathing heavily. “you’re all worked up and its hardly been two minutes” your girlfriend says, hand trailing to your wet pussy. she rubbed your slit and you flinch against her touch. when she brings her hand back up, your wetness drips down her ring finger. “so fucking wet” she says and then looks at the camera. she licks her fingers clean and laughs.

“slap them” someone in the chat says and historia grins. “baby can i slap you?” she breathes out so no one can hear and you nod. you don’t care, you just want to cum. you want to cum hard. before you can think, she delivers a hard slap right on your thigh. you moan in the burning feeling and your thighs shake. historia looks at the vibrator, looks at the chat then asks, “should i turn it up?” the comments whiz by, too fast to read. “yes please t-turn it up- fuck its- ngh please” you say between moans. historia takes the vibrator, holding it for you and still pressing it against your pussy. she turns it up a notch and you moan loudly. “shit it’s so good”

“yeah you like that?” she asks, pressing harshly against your clit. “you like people watching you fuck yourself like that?” you nod and roll your hips, trying your best not to shake but failing. “fuck y-yes i love it ‘toria i love it s-so much” she turns it up another notch and you practically scream. your knees feel weak and you look to grab onto something. “please i’m gonna fucking- i’m gonna cum so hard fuck y-yes” you feel the build up in your stomach, it feels so good. right as the knot was about to snap, historia turns off the vibrator. your chest was heaving and you whined for her. “‘toria f-fuck wh-why’d you stop-“ before you could finish your sentence, your girlfriend took the clear dildo beside her. “shh baby” she hushed, taking her silicone cock and easing it into your sopping pussy. “yes it’s- god it’s so deep please” the way it slides in and out, following a perfect rhythm. your jaw goes slack, unable to think about anything but cumming. your moans echo against the walls, making you shudder. “tell me how good it is y/n love” historia said, her voice like honey. “it’s so fucking good i- fuck it feels amazing” your thighs press against historia’s hand, pounding the cock into you. “come on, open wide for me,” historia massaged your tits and kissed your jaw and encouraging you to open your legs, “show the viewers your pretty pussy” you’re breathless. you cant do anything but do what she says. you love it. you clench and unclench around historia’s cock as you feel your orgasm building and building. the chat flies by and you only caught a couple of comments.

“they’re so hot”

“fatter cock next time”

“make them cum”

hundreds of dollars blink in the corner of the screen. you love being watched like this. you love everything about it.

“i’m gonna- shit i’m gonna cum” and yeah.

it’s enough to make you cum.

“y-yes i’m cumming ‘toria” the knot finally snaps and you can feel yourself creaming on historia’s hand.

“fuck baby you’re doing so good” historia thrusted one more time before slowly removing it and laughing. “what do you think, did they do good?” every comment you see says yes. your cheeks turn pink. one comment catches your eye.

“you should have them on your livestream again next time”

and you completely agree.

[blookmallow]

Can you do a rating on child animatronics like you did with the clowns

i sure can

welcome to animatronic nightmare preschool

theres a trend ive discussed about spirit before where all their female animatronics tend to be either the “old hag” type, or “creepy little girl” - and now that im thinking about it i actually couldn’t think of any boy characters ive ever seen. i dont know why this is exactly. theres something to analyze there but im not really sure what it is. i found a few but almost ALL of them are little girls. i dont know what to say about this but i did notice it 

there IS a boy in this group though: 

ring around the rosie

enter the ritual 

just some nice kids having a fun time. it may be cliché at this point but i love the “spooky nursery rhyme” trope anyway (and y’know, ring around the rosie was already creepy to begin with. im not sure if the theory that it’s really about the black plague is actually true but its still highly questionable to include the line “ashes, ashes, we all fall down” in a childrens rhyme with no explanation either way) 

for some reason the fact that none of them have hands and its just their sleeves tied together is really funny to me and i dont know why. they also dont have feet and im not sure if its a technical limitation for convenience purposes or if they’re supposed to be little ghost children but it definitely comes across like they’re little ghost children who tied their sleeves together to try to feel like they’re holding hands which is very cute. 10/10 big fan of this one 

i already mentioned harriet hustle in this post, shes fantastic 

angeline

i LOVE this one shes SO cute

i dont really understand how she's supposed to be scary, the description is like "she'll scare the lights out of your guests" or w/e but like, she's just. a kid who can see ghosts. she herself isn't even a ghost. i like her id adopt her i think she'd be a fun addition to a graveyard scene 10/10

abandoned annie

ok technically this one is a doll but im counting her anyway, shes one of my FAVORITE spirit animatronics bc A) i love creepy dolls B) shes cute and most importantly C) her entire fucking face unhinges i need y’all to watch the video on this one its so good 12/10 ive said this before but animatronics that do something completely fucking unexpected are my absolute favorite 

broken girl 

completely batshit. horrifying. shes actually initially standing upright and then snaps backward and screams and the image does not do it justice i highly recommend the video for this one. not much there as a Character but as “really effective way to scare the shit out of someone” its, i would imagine, incredibly effective. 9/10

there’s also menacing molly who looks similar and has the same kind of “facing away from you but then snaps backward” scare but is on a swing and sings “I see dead people, I see ghosts 💖i see the things that hate you the most” before she does her jumpscare which is incredibly funny to me 

double trouble

creepy little girl trope meets creepy twins trope, at first glance i thought this was just like, discount grady twins (which it looks like they also have, in blatant knockoff form. they’re uh, not good) but it looks like their description backstory is that they killed their mother and disappeared with their rumored-insane father so its slightly different. one of their phrases is “daddy says we have to play outside :( he doesnt want any more blood on the floor” and i love it 

they have a pretty good sense of personality and character to them even if its not necessarily groundbreaking. 7/10

ellie hatchet 

i love this one bc so many of the creepy little girl animatronics are just pretty much standing there being creepy but not ellie. she’s fucking DONE with all of you. you come near her she will swing an axe at your face. 6/10 not really a big stand out but i appreciate her undying rage 

lunging lily 

shes spooky. she jumps out at you. thats about it. i dont really have anything to say about this one. that sure is a creepy little girl that jumpscares you. i like that she goes “help me... help me...” before she jumps out but i feel like it would be hard to get the timing right for that to actually work as a lure to make guests curious where the sound’s coming from since most of these are motion activated. anyway 6/10 shes just not very interesting 

johnny punk 

one of the rare boy characters, i have actually seen him in store and just completely forgot about him because he was that uninteresting. he doesn’t really do much and his backstory on site is just like, “He's got a nice house, loving parents and a severe attitude problem.” 

like this isn’t an undead child back for revenge against those who wronged him or a crazed circus runaway or anything. he’s just a bratty kid. hes like a 13 year old who just saw Joker and has decided to make it his entire personality. this comes across less as a threatening figure and more just like some shitty kid who thinks he’s cool. i glanced at the comments on the wiki page and it turns out absolutely everyone hates him which is completely hilarious to me 

2/10 nobody likes you johnny go do your homework and apologize to your mother 

i also found limb eating zombie boy, who is considerably better 

gross. bloody. would probably be pretty effective if you had him like, placed among some boxes or something so people dont see him at first and aren’t expecting him there. pretty standard zombie. i dont have much to say. He’s Fine. 6/10

mommy’s favorite

ive seen this one in the stores several times, I think we have her there now, and i just don’t. get it? she just moves back and forth with the “shhh” gesture and it’s like, ok, she’s vaguely creepy, but what’s going on here. she just says “don’t wake my mommy! she’s been sleeping for a long time!” so i guess the implication is that her mother is dead and she doesn’t understand, which is just sad rather than scary. the description says she makes mommy’s tea just how she likes it with five drops from the special skull bottle, which could imply she killed her mom, which would make more sense as a horror character, but if that’s How Mommy Likes It that implies the mother instructed her daughter to unknowingly poison her, which is horrifying but in a way darker sense than a spooky halloween prop lmfao 

anyway if i have to go digging into descriptions to try to figure out what this character is or what shes supposed to be or anything i just dont feel like its a very effective character design. and i did read it and i still dont really get it. 2/10 i just feel like im missing something here 

anyway there’s a bunch more variations of “scary possessed child” that are all basically the same, so im just gonna close this out with:

swinging skeletal boy 

allo there, guvna 

look at this dapper little victorian child im gonna cry he’s so cute 

he just swings but has this surprisingly endearing soft little voice which COMPLETELY contrasts the weird shit he actually says. hes this precious little skeleton kid with a sweet little voice who goes “your skin is so nice :) can i have it? haha. that’s okay. I’ll take it when you’re sleeping” 

absolutely love animatronics with that “wait WHAT did that thing just say” factor to them i love this guy 11/10 good boy my new son 

i would also like to mention that people are also continuing to dunk on johnny punk in this guy’s comment section too fsadkflj people hate that shitty joker kid so much their hatred has bled into other completely unrelated swinging children

[luminous-shifting-vibes]

*sequel* to actual fucking quotes from the shiftblr coffeehouse discord server

once again, it's out of context because x1000 funnier

also x1000 longer than previous post

"ur satan is gnc af"

"Bestie I’m already having gender envy over a fucking demon please"

"O_O ODEPIJHFbavevisdpvfhzdcnjawedsidjksjdkoeirjfmkdsoeirujdksodifjndmksoidfjdksidfj ITS" NOT IN MY FRAFTS IS SPEDNT 1 hour PN THAT SHIT"

"AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"ohoho sexy"

"I am very proud of myself"

"himbo x edgy fuck"

"YOU COULD SQUISH HES CHEECKS"

"he has teefs"

"SQUASH"

"good for biting 📷"

"he's a himbo basically"

"B͂̒̄iͫ̍̈tͧ̓ͯè̄̇"

"bifth"

"i havent watched blue exorcist in years but mr okumura my beloved </3"

"MY LIFE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED"

"is it important information to mention that the person i put up for my turn is the son of satan" "I know like 1 thing about everyone who isnt ranboo lmfao"

"crimes"

"tumblr sexyman"

"idk why but my first thought was cowboy onceler"

"I vibe with him but he is very long and twisty"

"steampunk e-girl"

"steampunk tumblr sexyman"

"Canonically bi crimelord I agree!!"

"OOO FRIEND SHAPED"

"ARTIST SIGHTED"

"they look like someone i would want to be friends with but is way cooler than me so i'd never actually talk to them"

"babby..... would die for him"

"honestly i probably kin him"

"i'm sure he's lovely but he looks way too much like my ex i'm sorry-"

"i'd be down for another rotation! i have another twink to show y'all"

"Also :00 blonde friend"

"Let us all infodhmo"

"Hsjagdvbs shhh im on phone"

"Nix woukd you like to joon?

"skitters away"

"I have two braincells and they both drink dumb bitch juice"

"oof wait whats the order again i have 0 memory"

"i want to bond with him over cosplay-"

"Awkwardly watches in band kid"

"One day I'm gonna a broadway star"

"which isnt to say they were bad. they were just fortnite dancing during rehersals"

"I threw it so hard my glasses flew off and slid under the stage right divider"

"anyway heres my boi"

"emo"

"haha emo"

"virgil sanders kinnie"

"he looks like he listens to my chemical panic at the fallout boy"

"Bro I bet he'd kick my ass with his deck"

"bird man my beloved"

"fuck i had so much to say and then i forgot it all"

"Birds!!"

"guiguhuh"

"crabrave"

"She sounds like someone I would end up stealing her personality"

"yess name collector gang"

"alias glass aiden haven absinthe fish brick rice"

"But I have Cypress, Remure, Genesis, Lemres, and Comet"

"And she's named after a mars candy bar bc alien"

"Hey, if plato went by plato, you can be king thief"

"im not dissing my gramma like that shfojd"

"My dad has seven legal names" "bitches be like *looks at fictional character* *steals their name* it's us we're bithces"

"coraline lowkey traumatized me but i adore it regardless"

"mmmmmm magic man :]"

"°0° green man"

"criminal (affectionate)"

"he would shoplift a candy bar from walmart and then brag to all of his friends about the sick stealing he did"

"despite the fact he's canonically been capable of overpowering a minor deity"

"i would commit so many crimes for him"

"Very babey"

"Yes please tell green man he is very pog"

"he also keeps a lot of dumb secrets"

"but I will sorely miss the chaos and energy of this here chat until I wake again" (by request XD)

"i just say words and if they're funny then they're funny"

"* or extremly chaotic either works"

"at this point we are just taking turns rambling"

"oH--"

"bc my brain has a schedule"

"Hopefully they have gyoza there or I will lose my mind"

"hehe yes spooky man"

"my ghost glucose guardian"

"the head of the undead group that lives there, and we end up dating. (yes I date a ghost, no I will not be taking constructive criticism /lh)"

"ghosts r just inherently sexy"

"i mean im becoming a squid thing so"

"Raven quirk raven quirk!!"

"ł â m p"

"łæmp"

"mothman: ooh lamp you look very nice today! do you come here often? mothman: wait shit no"

"I'd date a ghost"

"mine is still accurate, i am still sobbing (/j)"

"p e e p e e"

""@nick wilde is a tumblr sexyman" is the best thing i have ever seen"

"im sorry im cackling like a dying hyena"

"you're all 12 year olds"

"PEENIE"

"He once caused global warming on accident so he could get a tan"

"god, what a himbo. i love him"

"that reminds me of my friends kin assigned me jesus"

"Man outside of battle be like: princely crying but then in battle hes like: "CATACLYSM! DISASTER! DEVASTATION!" Chill out man"

"Every time I talk about satan it never fails to shock people it's my favorite thing to do"

"im kin assigning him roman sanders" ""Oh yeah he caused global warming because he wanted to get girls" "he what""

"oh damn i forgot satan was straight"

"twink appreciation club"

"give us the twinks"

"my first thought was bottom-"

"so many people to try and get his dad to love him"

"daddy issued"

"OH MY GOD ITS WILBUR"

"Big boy but"

"anyways janus is swagggg"

"........................."

"gib twink"

"give twink then i will share"

"holds him gentle like hamburger"

"This dumb bitch opened a book that said "do not open" and got possessed by a little bastard"

"he is. fragile creachur"

"klug is beauty klug is grace i would let him step on my face"

"If I'm playing swap and I have to hear one more "Pwanet Powew" Im gonna lose it"

"Who is to blame? Pandora or the box?"

"Bakugo isnt my type but I respect the drip"

"i say like my type isnt long-haired pretty boys and girls that look so gnc that people have a history of confusing them for men"

"hes a gremlin and i can appreciate a pretty gremlin"

"that is to say i am attracted to VFlower vocaloid. This is a confession."

"note i am a lesbian"

"You may like Schezo wegey"

"why does he have one single expression"

"soul soul eater passes the vibe check"

"magic wand"

"I Want To Hold His Hand"

"i would commit a war crime for him any war crime idc which one"

"my favorite one is when he sounded rlly gay because he said "Muscular bodies keep me satisfied""

"p e a n u t"

"Klug is a homophobic homosexual its just facts"

"grug from the croods is peak male performance"

"jaw drops to floor, eyes pop out of sockets accompanied by trumpets, heart beats out of chest, awooga awooga sound effect, pulls chain on train whistle that has appeared next to head as steam blows out, slams fists on table, rattling any plates, bowls or silverware, whistles loudly, fireworks shoot from top of head, pants loudly as tongue hangs out of mouth, wipes comically large bead of sweat from forehead, clears throat, straightens tie, combs hair Ahem, you look very lovely."

"tag yourself im the fireworks shooting from the top of the head"

"i like essays"

"central time gang"

"11:11 pog-" (wait... is that a suprise angel number?? yes it is lovelies just for you <3)

"Then again im also a dumbass bitch who wonders what the souls in soul eater taste like. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. THEY LOOK TASTY AS HELL!!!! LIKE GODDAMN BRO YOU'RE MAKING ME FUCKING HUNGRY. Like. that shit- it's Bone Apple motherfucking Teeth. hell yea my guy. Im hongy now.... shlorp I'm seriously considering this. Like. They seem kinda like a liquid? But a solid? Are they like jello? The fuck they taste like my guy???? I keep imagining they're like sour, like sour candy maybe? Or do they taste salty? Sweet? Maybe some combo of two? Do they even have a taste or is it about the texture? The sensation? God my mouth is watering what the hell. I am starving. I think I need to go get a cookie. I'm gonna go get a cookie. Brb. I'm better. I'm still craving souls though. Which is a weird-ass cringey thing to say but I'm being dead-ass rn. They just.... look tasty???? And I wanna eat one. Thus. I am shifting to Soul Eater for the express purpose of satisfying my fucking cravings. enjoy"

"points were made"

"jello? more like helloooo schloooAHFJDSDAIDWNALDHSJKDAIDANDM"

"WAIT I THINK I HAVE AN ANIME GIRL BITING VIDEO TOO"

"anime girl voice: mmm! mm... ahhhhmp!! mmm, mmm... aaahmp!"

"i think it sounds great i'm going to start eating like that"

"several people are typing"

"do these look edible to you"

"forbidden gummies"

"when I was on lsd I couldn't eat my fruit gummies because I thought they were alive because they had little faces on them"

"oh shit yeah don't do drugs"

"anyways general consensus is puyos are edible, ty for your input everyone"

"everypony is a word so powerful it can bring nations to its knees"

"pls the self control it's taking me not to say "hewwo everypony" in gen chat when someone new joins-"

"hewwo evewrypony uwu deaw cewestia i hopwe it doewsnt wain owo"

"ive cooked up a sowution wiwth the knowwege ive acwued. they say a kitcwen time saves niwne, but im just savwing two. Ive gathewwed the inwedients to make a time sowbet. Thewe's hawdly woom fow seconds when the seconds mewt away."

"I had a ten year old sister... you know what happened to her??? very sad, very tragic... she turned eleven....."

"NIIICE"

"Guts dont say the secks word :( /j"

"watch your fucking language in front of the president"

"im so sorry lumi"

"i think you're like ehhhh 8/10 funny"

"now me???? 10/10. Hilarious"

"sometimes i have to take a step back and remember that this is the same guts i follow on tumblr /lh"

""ok every here's some good shifting advice!!! uwu have a good day" "yeah i did lsd and ate fruit gummies""

"i have one setting and it's whatever this is"

"my bitch ass cat just pushed the door open with his fuzzy face and now my sleeping dad is being lulled into dreams by Cosmo Sheldrake's 'Pliocine'."

"me on discord: nick wilde"

"me on tumblr: shifting water! haha funne! me on here: my hermit crabs are cannibals also i want to eat souls."

"im sorry yOUR VIBESA RE JUST SO DIFFERNT"

"u give off older cousin ive never spoken to but always admire at the family gatherings vibes"

"what the fuck"

"BC I HAVE LIBERTU"

"If you adopt me then yes"

"am I qualified for dad jokes???"

"we're all a lot smarter on tumblr"

"I'm like "awww... sweet... sweet little shiftlings... posting such sweet shiftling content... so pure, so wholesome... does not even know abcs....""

"can't think before you speak if you never think B)"

"I'm not responsible enough to be a mom"

"cat pet"

"show us pictures of the cat or i will do Crime"

"maybe thats me being a coward tho"

"MOTH!!!! MOTH MY BELOVED"

if y'all want I can make this a series bc shiftblr keeps giving me more content

[kingjasnah]

actually. actually let’s talk about diversity in fantasy let’s give that a go. im mad and im gonna be that way for a while

don’t want to read all this? fair. tldr: fantasy writers who rely not only on the medieval europe model but also hide behind historical accuracy in 2020 (fuck it, from ‘95 onwards) are lazy and unimaginative and should be held accountable no matter how many white 20 year old dudes jerk off to whatever power fantasy is embedded in the plot. so lets chat about that lads. (slightly) drunk rant under the cut

now prelim shit: we know fantasy is used both as escapism and as a way to deal with various traumas via magical metaphor. staples of the genre. even if jk rowling busted out the laziest and at times offensive metaphor for ww2 and racism ive ever seen, she still adhered to time and true tropes. whatever.

so why have we, in this post game of thrones era, become insanely obsessed with realism? i can hear sixty 20-something year old men crying at me rn like oh ohh oh its based off the war of roses oh wahh all medieval fantasy fiction is based off england and the crusades anyway so women should get raped and people of color should be demonized its not racism its xenophobia and also gay people dont exist and disabled people are systematically killed off and if we stretch the magic fixes mental illness thing a LITTLE further we have straight up eugenics.

we all know where the england but myth thing came from. now the thing about tolkien is that while i will always absolutely love lotr, looking at the LAZY state of fantasy? damn i kinda wish he hadn’t revolutionized the genre. the bitch was still racist. he still didnt give a shit abt women (eowyn was just a vehicle to show how much he fucking hated macbeth anyone holding jrrt up as a feminist icon for that needs to sit the fuck down and explain to me why i can count the woman speaking roles in lotr, a story with a name and fleshed out backstory for every minor character, on one hand but thats! another post). he had something to say abt class with sam i’ll give him that but he is still 100% NOT what we need to hold our standards to in 2020. 

i dont want to talk about old school fantasy, like 80s early 90s cause theres literally no point. its sexist, racist, ableist for sure, this we know. david eddings (not even that old school tbh) can rise from the grave and explain himself to me personally and i still wont forgive him for ehlana. 

so let’s talk historical accuracy. quick question. who the FUCK gives a shit? WHO is this elusive got fan who’s out here like blehh actually??? this method of iron production is TOTALLY anachronistic of the time. ummm these vegetables in this fictional world were NOT native to english soil so how are they here? cause i know this is the classic argument but ive never actually met someone who cared about the lack of dysentery as much as they care abt the women getting raped on screen/page. 

god forbid you have to worldbuild for a second god forbid you can’t rely on the idea of fantasy readers already have in their head god forbid you have an original idea god forbid you spend more than two seconds thinking about ur setting (oh i should mention i dont....really blame GoT for its setting cause of how long ago it was og written but trust me i sure as hell blame grrm for writing a 13 yr old giving ‘consent’ to sex with a grown man within the first couple of chapters) 

If we accept the basic premise of fantasy as escapism, and i AM drunk so i will NOT be finding fuckin. quotes and shit for this but come on tolkien said it himself and as much as i’ll drag him he crafted the simplest and most powerful fantasy metaphors on the board rn. But if we know its escapism. If we know. then who is it escapism for? certainly not for me, the gay brown woman who busted through all of GoT in 10th grade. 

modern fantasy lit used as an excuse for that white male power fantasy is literally disgusting. calling historical accuracy is so fucking dumb ESPECIALLY cause we, as ppl in the 21st  century, KNOW women have been consistently written out of the story. poc ppl, gay and trans ppl, anyone with a god forbid disability has been WRITTEN out of history as we know it, INCLUDING the fucking war of the roses so HOW can we hold up testimony we know is flawed to support our FICTIONAL. STORY. just to??? support the white power fantasy?? literally noah fence but if you are a white guy who felt really empowered by every time jim butcher described a woman tell me: how do you think that’ll hold up in classic HisToRiCaL fantasy. you think thats a fucking noble pursuit? or are you grima wormtongue out here. 

(side note: jim butcher stop writing challenge i dont need to know abt every woman on page’s nipples. anyone who hides behind subgenre like that? ‘ohhh its a noir story thats why hes sexualizing everyone’ shut the fuck up an author isnt possessed by a fuckin muse and compelled to bust out 500k they have agency and they have choice and they MADE the choice to reserve said will for none of their female characters)

which brings me to point 2: target audience and BOY is the alcohol hitting me rn but WHO is this for? this isnt the fucking 80s we know poc and other marginalized folk read fantasy FOR the escapism. on god ive had a cosmere focused blog for nearly three years and. im just gonna say it im interacted with A LOT of yall and ive managed to talk to VERY few white straight ppl as compared to everyone else. 

like....who deserves to see the metaphor on homophobia or racism. joanne rowling? the bitch who literally tried to sell us happy slaves and the disgusting aids metaphor and the worst case of antisemitic stereotypes i ever saw in an nyt bestseller? yall think that was for US? or was it for the white guilt crowd. 

literally white people can find any book about them that they can relate to. but hmmm maybe theres a reason gay women care so much about stormlight archive’s jasnah kholin, a brown woman who’s heavily coded as wlw. or kaladin, the FIRST fantasy protag ive ever seen with clinical depression. hmm i wonder why a bunch of millennials are vibing all of a sudden. im not saying sanderson is perfect--but its the best ive seen from a white author tbh

maybe theres a reason a lot of poc vibe with a literary way to express trauma, and maybe thats why i specifically get so pissed when its not done well. theres a REASON books about outcasts pushing through and claiming their own lives are popular with people who arent white and straight and able bodied. Junot Diaz had a point. maybe lets STOP catering to those assholes who think theyre joseph campbell’s wet dream personified. ive lost respect SO many authors who are objectively talented. pat rothfuss can write so beautifully that ive cried to bits of name of the wind but literally i will never pick that series up again (not just because of the felurian. women in general tbh. mostly the felurian ngl) cause 1) i personally KNEW men whod jerk off to that shit and 2) there was no need for it there was no plot reason for ANY of that shit 

so like obviously thers an issue with authors of color specifically not getting recognized for fantasy and genre work but on god??????? im still mostly mad at the legions of white authors churning out the same medieval england chosen one books year after fucking year. have an original thought maybe. also im sorry that you as an author lack the basic empathy needed to examine the way that women? or any group of people that youre explicitly writing about see the world and would specifically see YOUR made up world. 

yes your fantasy should be diverse, but more than that it should be kind. if you as a writer cant respect groups of people who deserve it....what the hell are you doing in a genre that traditionally is about finding ways to express injustice through metaphor? tolkien’s hero was sam. fantasy was NEVER about the privileged. yall know who you are so stop acting so fucking entitled. peace out. 

[zenosanalytic]

People What Aint From Round Here Is The Problem...

So I just watched Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood and I have THOUGHTS:

Ive read a few reviews&ruminations on this film at this point and I can’t believe that none of them got(or at least, mentioned explicitly) the primary thesis of this movie, spcl given that Tarentino flatly states it out the mouth of his primary protagonist within, like, the first 15-20mins of the film: “...most important thing in this town is when you’re making money you buy a house in town. You don’t rent... Hollywood real estate means you live here. You’re not just visiting, not just passing through. You fuckin live here.” i.e., the most important thing in Hollywood, to Hollywood, is the people FROM Hollywood; Everyone else is just a filthy, trouble-making tourist or profiteer who is “Passing Through” and “Doesnt Get It” and  “Is Fucking It Up”(It being the film industry), and probably “Secretly Hates Movies”. There are places and aspects of this movie that are basically a Nativist Angeleno rant, written by a life-long Angeleno film-nerd-turned-film-maker, against Hollywood’s critics(and his critics which he just totally conflates with the former), and probably non-Angelenos(and non-Californians?) in general.

There are two ways to read this thesis: Straight and Subverted/Satirized.

The evidence for reading it straight is pretty plentiful. Lots of reviews have puzzled at where the line connecting the constant hippie-bashing, the weird focus on knocking Polanski’s Polishness & preference for shooting in London, and the inexplicable pot-shot at Bruce Lee is, and I think this is it. “The Hippies” are repeatedly presented as a corrupting force: digging through trash, living in squalourous filth at the Spahn Ranch dragging members of “Old Hollywood” like its owner into it with them, selling drugs, and using sex to “control” men. And attached to this is presenting “The Hippies” as foreign; not only from another place, but refusing to assimilate with the LA way of life and hostile to it. The Manson family are the only explicitly identified “Hippies” in the film(other than, possibly, the one who sells Cliff an acid cig). The only “positive” portrayals of Bruce Lee in the film are silent ones of him teaching anglos kung fu, which has some fairly obvs and well-understood Implications.

But there’s also good evidence for reading it as subverted and satirized. Both Tate and Dalton are NOT from California, let alone LA, and Booth’s origins are left unclear. Dalton’s the only one of them explicitly id’d as being from elsewhere(Missouri), but Tate’s easy to google and she was a military kid who grew up all over the place. When Dalton returns from Italy, that sequence and his look in it are VERY reminiscent of the scenes introducing Polanski at the beginning of the film. The side-characters around Tate, perennially shown in a positive light, are also non-Angelenos. Doing Spaghetti Westerns revitalizes Dalton’s career, despite his disdain for Italian cinema. Tate and her crew, while not explicitly ID’d as “Hippies” and often shown in Mod and other fashion styles, are also presented in “Hippie” fashion, shown listening to “Hippie” music, smoking the “Hippie” Reefer(Im sorry, but Comedy Demanded this phrasing and I am Devout u_u), and implied to be living a polyamorous “Hippie” life.

It really is difficult for me to say which predominates. On the one entirely metaphorical hand, the ways in which Dalton’s Angeleno chauvinism are subverted and mocked are fairly obvs, but on the other emh, the film is FILLED with LITERALLY GLOWING nostalgia for this pre-Hippy, pre-Lefty, pre-70s, Conservative and Republican California&Los Angeles. Dalton’s focus on property-ownership&the film industry in the opening thesis could easily be seen as resolving these subversive contradictions to allow for a straight read(ie: Tate, Booth, and Dalton are “Hollywood People” who’ve both bought real-estate in LA, and who’ve grown up in film or film-adjacent fields and choose to center their adult lives in the film industry). So much, in fact, that I kinda started to wonder abt QT’s politics while watching it. And, if it WAS satirical, then what’s the point of the knock to Bruce Lee and focusing criticisms of Polanski on his Polishness and shooting in London? Is that just meant to characterize Dalton and Booth as nativists and racists?

It really cannot be said enough that there are REALLY MORE APPROPRIATE CRITICISMS to make of Polanski than 1)begin Polish, 2)possessing boyish effeminacy, and 3)preferring to shoot movies in London instead of LA. Which are this movie’s only problems with him(though it also takes the time to show him bitchily smoking a cigarette in an evening gown while being rude to a dog). Obvsl I dont object to villainizing an ACTUAL REAL LIFE VILLAIN like this shitstain, but I DO object to being asked(albeit gently) to participate in this film’s understated nationalist bigotry.

It’s possible that Cliff’s turning Pussycat down during the drive to the ranch was intended to be this but I highly doubt it. And if it was it’d be misrepresenting Polanski’s misdeeds enormously, considering that Pussycat, the too-young girl, is the sexual instigator in this film. Polanski liked to manipulate, drug, and rape underaged girls(he pulled the same shit with models in Europe before getting busted for it in LA, btw, then continued doing it after fleeing back to Europe); really not the same situation.

There’s another irony in that, while the film goes out of its way to call Polanski “boyish” and imply that makes him feminine and that this is Bad, there’s also a subtle under-current that... Tarentino sees himself in his youth the same way? He’s certainly never been short like Polanski and Jay Sebring are/were, QT’s 6 1, but the actors he cast to play them and the description made of the pair in-film are more than a bit reminiscent of how Tarentino looked&was discussed in the press back in the 90s when he was starting out. AAAaaand the film explicitly calls that Tate’s “Type”; leaving me with the question: would Tarentino be able to stop himself from implying a dead starlet would have been attracted to him? I leave the answer to your imaginations, Dear Readers u_u

Having said all that it IS a really good film, which I liked, I dont think it’d be very hard to set aside this political stuff while watching, the driving sequences are especially emotive&exhilarating, and there’s some seriously great acting in it. IDK if I’d say I liked it more than the recent Emma movie, tho.

I feel like each of the trio, Tate, Dalton, and Booth, were meant to symbolically Embody LA/Hollywood/California? Like Pitt especially seemed to be channeling movie characters and CJ from GTA: San Andreas throughout his performance, while I couldnt help but think of Ronald Reagan watching DiCaprio(spcl given the character’s likely politics). So there’s this sense in which the film is a fantasy of “Old Hollywood”, embodied by these three, Vanquishing its “Enemies”, represented by The Hippies(moralizing, pretentious, gross leftist) and potentially Polanski&Lee(foreign film ppl who refuse to integrate into the LA scene). Again, given the political history of Cali after this era, this embodiment raises some questions for me abt the film and QT’s politics(particularly in re: misogyny and feminism).

Also DiCaprio is totally going to get pitched a Reagan biopic off of this role and I sincerely hope he has the good sense to turn that shit the fuck down.

Circling back to the ranting at his critics, this movie was definitely and consciously a response to them. Like: up until the last 5-15 minutes of the film, and aside from a handful of too-lingering too fetishistic too on-the-nose creep shots of the female cast that Tarentino simply could not stop himself from making, OUATiH is precisely the sort of “Serious” film Tarentino’s critics have been saying he should make for decades now(of course he did Jackie Brown, which was that and which he blew Completely out of the park). And then there’s that bloody, gross-out, exploitation-movie ending. I dont actually think it was as bad as many critics were saying it was? For some reason I was thinking there was gonna be a massacre of the ENTIRE Manson family, which would have been totally out of left-field. But it WAS clearly a stinger of a major tone-shift thrown in as a Fuck You to the ppl who’ve called out his violent and exploitative preferences throughout the years. As for me I generally like his movies and think he’s a great filmmaker but he absolutely does go too far sometimes.

Rick Dalton, in an evening-gown, with a mixer full of iced-margarita in one hand, getting all up in the face of the driver of a loud exhaust-spewing jalope in his PRIVATE STREET was TOTALLY Tarentino himself :| By which I mean NOT ONLY that That’s ABSOLUTELY the sort of cameo he would have given himself 30 years ago and if it made any sort of sense at all in the film(which here it wouldnt have, obvsl), BUT ALSO that I feel 94% confident that Tarentino has actually done that at least once in his lifetime :| :|

I think the monologue&interactions T gives Bruce Lee leading up to the fight were probably more insulting to him than the fight itself. Contrary to popular discussion, it isn’t Pitt’s character totally trashing Lee, he gets in one good throw after Lee repeats a successful attack at his request(which I doubt Lee would have ever done from what little I know about him; not being predictable in a fight was his whole Deal), but rather an even duel between them(most of the fight is just the two blocking each others’ attacks). I dont think the film was trying to say “Lee was full of hot-air”, if it wanted to say that it’d have shown him getting trounced instead of showing him knock Booth down then trade him blow for blow, but more “Lee was pretty arrogant and a bit pretentious”.

OK, that’s abt all that I can think of right now: thanks for reading ^v^

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[luxexhomines]

Hello! I was reading through your blog and wanted to ask if you could write for Tsumugi with a female S/O who is the Ultimate Witch? In or out of the V3 universe is fine. Thank you!

Hullo, anon! Thanks for the request!! Although Tsumugi isn’t my favorite character, I so enjoyed writing this. I put it out of the V3 universe, so there are no spoilers for anyone wondering. Wasn’t sure if you wanted the reader be doing “real magic” or magic tricks, so it’s a little vague, haha.Icon credit to 64pxs! Also wow my third request finished in one day although it’s past 1AM & technically a new day here now!

Guess I’d classify this as fluff, too. It’s not that long, so it’s not under the cut. Here you go!

Tsumugi x Female! Ultimate Witch! S/O

You knocked on her door and grasped the doorknob, fully intending to open it and peek in the gap, but your plans were abruptly foiled by her voice.

“Don’t even try,” she cackled. “The door’s locked and I’ve got a chair keeping it closed, you know?”

When you tried to turn it, it was true. It wouldn’t budge an inch.

“Oh, come on, Tsumugi!” You whine right outside the door, making sure she could hear you loud and clear. “I haven’t seen you leave that room for a third day now! I know that you’ve got snacks and a bathroom connected to your room, but that can’t be healthy,” you beg. “Please come out…”

Either she’s ignoring you, or she’s ignoring you. Two perfectly possible options. You could even hear her plaintively humming a random tune, a tune that seemed reminiscent of a folksong–but what did that matter now, when part of her reasons for doing so was to drown out the sound of you?

“Can I at least come in, Tsumugi?” You knock on the door again, but you’re soundly rejected.

“No! You’re not allowed in here for the rest of the week, even if I do come out of the room,” she says firmly.

She was getting strangely obsessive about hiding the contents of her room from you, and you were extremely worried. The only times she ever pulled stunts like this was when she hadn’t finished preparing a cosplay for a con coming up soon, but the problem was that there were no cons coming up soon. As you understood it, she had taken a leave from work to do whatever it was she was doing in that room, and you had no clue what was so important that she’d take a week off of work to do it. She thrived off of that income to make living wage and make cosplays in addition to all her the money from her sponsors.

You could only sigh at the plain white door and walk back to your own room, resigned to your lonely fate for the rest of the week. It was anyone’s guess what she was doing or why she was hiding it from you, including your own, despite being her girlfriend.

You supposed you’d go practice your magic for the upcoming magic show you were holding while Tsumugi did…whatever it was she was doing. There was no time to waste at her doorway, calling her name to a silent answer or pounding on the door in exasperation. 

You took a deep breath and gathered your focus for the first act, a rather simple attention-getter with birds flying from your sleeves like colorful ribbons spewing from them. Somehow, it was always the easiest magic that was easiest to mess up, so you ended up practicing the act for at least an hour, worried about the possibility of success in a live performance.

Falling back on the bed, you pant slightly in exertion. Who said magic was as easy as waving a wand? That’s only what magicians wanted other people to believe, after all. If the magician was dropping dead from exhaustion, no one would enjoy the show–no, it was much better for them to believe that the magician possessed unlimited amounts of mana and could continue performing magic for an entire day but just ended it at around an hour for the audience’s scheduling convenience.

But even magicians weren’t immortal. You decided to take a break and walked to the kitchen, grabbing a drink of water to hydrate yourself before returning to practice, throwing a bitter, yearning look toward Tsumugi’s closed door.

It was going to be a long week, just you and your magic.

On the day of the magic show, you hoped Tsumugi would emerge from her cave, maybe make an appearance. But it was fifteen minutes before the show, and she still hadn’t come.

You let out a sigh of disappointment and return to your dressing room as you pick at your ratty, ripped seams of what used to be a smart looking, black long-sleeved tailcoat and matching pencil skirt. You’d had it since your very first show, and you liked it very much, but it was ready to retire and had been for a while now.

In fact, you were surprised Tsumugi hadn’t commented on it–she usually would make note of any clothes you owned that were no longer serving a functional and aesthetic purpose and bring you out to buy new ones. Speaking of Tsumugi, your dressing room just burst open with a long, blue-haired girl in spectacles and carrying what looks like a newly pressed outfit in black.

“Tsumugi! You’re here,” you gasp. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

She rushes over to you, out of breath and frenetic.

“Oh, good, you’re in your dressing room! Take this,” she thrust the plastic protected outfit at you along with a box of what you assumed to be shoes. “Sorry I’m late, it took me so long to finish this. Go change, your show is starting in ten minutes!”

You look at her in confusion, but do as she asks. You’re used to her frantic nature, even if she was rather laidback most of the time. When you finish dressing, she claps her hands together in delight, and swooning.

“Oh, I knew you’d look great in this! I’ve had this idea for forever, I’m so happy I finally get to see you wear it. I can die happy now,” she declares passionately, almost drooling with excitement, her blue eyes glimmering brightly.

You examine the outfit, which includes a pair of white gloves, black heels, a black top hat, and a similar black tailcoat, black dress shirt and pencil skirt, along with a tie of your favorite color wrapped snugly around your neck that curves over your bust gently.

“Tsumugi, you made this for me?”

She nods proudly.

“I think I did a bang-up job of it, too! It’s absolutely perfect for you,” she beams at you, as lovely and warm as the golden sun, and you can only grin like a fool in response.

“You sure did. You sure did,” you repeat, amazed by her accurate, neat needlework and toiling dedication she had offered you in making the outfit.

“Now, go out there and amaze the crowds,” she encourages you, giving you a light push on the back and going out to join the audience below.

The magic show goes splendidly–you don’t know if you’ve ever done a better job, and all kinds of flowers, roses, daffodils, daisies, skyrocket toward your lone figure standing at the center of the black stage, hoping to be caught by you. You wave at the audience happily and skip on and off the stage to the standing ovation before exiting for good.

Luckily for you, Tsumugi is waiting at your dressing room, so there’s no need for you to push through the masses to find her, and you immediately envelop her in a hug, tackling her, and her breath leaves her with the impact you’ve come at her with. She wraps her arms around your back, and you can feel her pride for you simply seeping out like radioactive waves.

You don’t let go of her for a long, long time, and when you finally let go of her, you smile at her in a daze. You can’t believe your girlfriend is this gorgeous, kind, devoted, thoughtful girl standing in front of her.

“I think I’m in love with you, Tsumugi,” you say, staring straight into her eyes, endless pools of blue.

She smiles back, pushing her spectacles up slightly.

“A good thing, too, because I think I’m in love with you, too. That is, if you couldn’t tell after I spent over a week cooped up in my room to make this ensemble for you,” she replies, gesturing at your outfit.

You pat her on the head.

“Yes, yes, I know, good girl. But I was so lonely,” you pout. “Did you have to leave me alone like that for such a long time? I could have died of loneliness!”

She simply laughs full-heartedly.

“I suppose we’d be in trouble if you were a rabbit, huh? But there’ll be no more loneliness on my watch. That sounds rather presumptuous of me to say, but you can trust me on that,” she smiles charmingly as she puts a hand on her hip.

You laugh back at her, sharing in her joy and playfulness.

“You’d better live longer than I do, in that case,” you tease.

Tsumugi bends toward you and places a small kiss on the tip of your nose.

“Your wish is my command, royal magician of the court,” she chuckles.

You smirk and slip a hand around the small of her back, pulling her in closer so that both of your bodies are pressed against each other, and kiss her on the lips deeply. 

“Then, my first command is that thou shalt stay at my side for the rest of our mortal lifespans.”

You can feel the corners of her lips stretch out and upward at this, and you take that to be her response as you draw her in for many more sweet kisses.

[sangriatimes]

Nintendo Switch saves Valentines Day

Can you believe that we are almost half-way done with January? Maybe it’s just me and the countless hours I put into reviewing the latest titles for the Nintendo Switch...which is our focus point that can change the tide if you hit a hard spot this V-Day. Maybe you don’t have enough money for that dinner, movie and gift. Maybe you thought that restaurant you made a reservation at is more expensive than you though. Maybe you just started a new relationship but you still have some awkward silences that seem to kill the mood. Whatever the situation may be a Nintendo Switch can get you to second base and home plate...trust me.

So let’s look at some of the titles for switch that are great to play with that special someone. (Games are listed in no particular order; games are not based on “)sales”; Games are mainly hidden gems)

1. Monopoly | 9.5 out of 10

Hear me out. I was one that grew up playing the original board game with my family and the overall appeal of the game was astounding, but I lost interest when I got older and noticed how long it takes to make everyone go bankrupt. ...but this is something...otherworldly. The first awesome thing you will notice when you pick up this title is the use of the Joy-Con controllers to shake the dice and throw them. Though this is still the same mechanic in spirit as its predecessor but with the newly animated boards populated by Mii’s and watching a living city grow as you play and add properties adds an entirely new respect for Money Bags. Our team lost track of time having so much fun with this one and before we knew it, we had seen 5 hours pass. (No one wants to play Monopoly for that long.) 

2. Uno | 8.5 out of 10

Uno is another one of those games I grew up playing with family. When I purchased the game, I was expecting some sort of controller mechanic similar to Monopoly’s dice...but with cards instead...but I was let down. None the less, going into this, I didn’t even know that there were so many ways to play Uno besides the normal rules. Once again, I was amazed at how much more fun this was than the physical cards themselves. Rules like “Stacking. Where Player 1 can play a “Blue Draw 2″ card and Player 2 can counter play a “Draw 2″ card as well. ...but if Player 3 doesn’t possess a “Draw 2″ card, Player 3 then has to pick all 4 cards from the previous turns” was so exciting to try and there are many other ways to customize rules and play styles. 

3. Super Smash Bros | 9.0 out of 10

I really don’t need to go into detail about this one. My only issue with the Smash series is I would really enjoy a multiplayer adventure mode or campaign. I was quite pleased with the full roster of characters though. Disclaimer: Make sure your partner isn’t a sore loser. We all know about SSB’s steep learning curve for beginners. “Don’t be a butt...”

4. Diablo 3 | 9.0 out of 10

I remember having this title on my old PS4 and being able to enjoy it on my PS Vita while I was in a relationship with someone who liked the game as much as I and we would both take our Vita’s to the restroom with us so we could keep the experience going. This title can definitely be used to understand the mindset your partner has by the way they customize their character and the actions they take in response to events. It’s a top-down action-adventure-role-playing-hack-n-slash (inhale.) It is a port of it’s original released on PS3 & 360...the price tag is still $59.99. That’s a deal breaker in my book.

5. NES Emulator | 7.5 out of 10

I honestly chose this one because of how many gamers I know and how 89% of them are males. This is something for those who don’t game to get their feet wet. The emulator is free on the eShop for a 7-day trial but comes with a subscription cost after. Pretty inexpensive for the titles they have. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Metroid, and many more. It even comes with special versions of some of the games which gives the player the experience of playing with Game Genie cheats.

6. 99 Vidas | 7.0 out of 10

Your probably thinking, “ Why is this even listed?” Well, just in case that partner your with doesn’t dig the 8-bit look or the low-res adventures of the NES Emulator and desires a little more action and has a fetish for Streets of Rage and Beat ‘em Up’s. Simply. The available characters are cool enough to get players to find a favorite out of them. ...so...that’s good!

7. Oh Sir...The Hollywood Roast | 8.3 out of 10

After seeing the Samuel Jackson clone named “Bad MotherHugger” who’s personality is totally canon, I had to dig deeper. If you didn’t play the prequel, you don’t need to. I honestly only used the first title to learn how to play. In this installment, you and a co-star face off on a movie set where your scenario is to insult the other the worst. It plays like a fighting game, complete with health bars, special insults, tag team insults and so much more. For the price it is, I was expecting something way less entertaining. Oh, and one point or another you will joke against a Deadpool copy...a less funnier Deadpool but funny enough.

Consider this the American version of The Office.

8. Oh Sir...The Insult Simulator | 7.8 out of 10

Obviously, this is the European version of The Office. I won’t say this is better than the sequel and I can’t say it’s worse either but I will say “I am an American...” What this game does is teach you how to layer your jokes and how lay the foundation for repetition in your topics to create combo’ s. I like to let the opponent bombard me with little weak jokes and build a super mean and super long insult that grants victory for only one joke. I call it, “The Kamehameha Effect!”

9. No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back

The third installment to the series hits the eShop and retailers in a few days and I am super excited to get my copy. If you aren’t familiar with the series, let me fill you in:

Travis Touchdown is the protagonist of all three games. In NMH1 we find Travis at his lowest moment in life. Jobless, hopeless and drunk, he runs into a mysterious woman who offers him employment with a sketchy syndicate group he knows nothing about. Luckily he had lost all his money by winning a bid at an online auction for a Beam Katana,  his main choice of weaponry. Not long after, you find out you were hired as an assassin in a shady game by her higher-ups. Travis takes the job after being promised some passionate TLC if he can take out all 10 of the already top ranking assassins all over the world. Travis is a pretty simple guy. He likes mecha anime, luchador wrestling, old school video games, porn, sex, and sleeping on the toilet.

In NMH2, Travis finds out that after becoming the #1 ranking assassin in Santa Cruise, he finds out that he actually has hundreds of more assassins in a new ranking system where Travis is the lowest ranking.

This time around, Travis is joined by the father of one the assassins he killed in NMH1, and the co-op option is something that would have been outstanding to have in NMH2 but none the less the developers always deliver great content in their titles and this one will not disappoint. Couples will enjoy the kinky nature of the series for sure. It has been proven many times.

10. Broforce | 9.5 out of 10

Every wanted to play Super Mario Bros on NES but with guns? Ever want to change Mario for, let’s say...any huge action movie star from the 80′s, 90′s, 00′s? Ever wanted it to be a co-op experience with up to 4 players with local and online co-op? As a mercenary for the USA, you are sent to 3rd world contries to liberate them from the evil control of Satan and his hell spawn. Before that, you will have to fight through waves of kamikaze soldiers, war dogs, giant helicoptors, aliens (...from the movie “Aliens”) and much more. Along the way, you will recruit an entire cast of badasses. From Rambo to Robocop, you will find Chuck Norris, Neo, Blade, Bruce Willis, Terminator, Preditor, Machette, Michelle Rodrigez, The Bride (Kill Bill) & so many more including Mortal Kombats Raiden.

Very easy to pick up, very hard to put down.

11. Nidhogg 2 | 8.0 out of 10

2D-Side Scrolling Fighter. You start of with a sword. When you die, you respawn with a dagger. When you die, you respawn with a bow and arrow. Die again and respawn with an ax. Die again and respawn with your fist. This cycle will continue until you our your opponent makes it to the opposing end of the map. Maps are relatively small and consist of about 2 to 3 different frames. Sounds easy on paper right? 

Tons of laughs to be had!

12. Tales Of Vesperia

If your looking for an in-depth RPG you both can play while she sits between your legs and you both focus on the Switch screen laying in front of you: this is for you two. The co-op system usually only functions when you enter battle. Player 1 will always be the one running around the world map but this is still fine if you keep an open-mind and communicate on decisions that impact the story and more. (Keep track of your own money.)

side-note: All Tales games are co-op in this sense, even the Super Nintendo picks.

13. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope

I’ve been a Harvest Moon fan since Super Nintendo and got my first copy on the N64. I know a lot of people see this game and hate the thought of a farming simulator but unlike it’s counterpart with the same name-sake; Harvest Moon is so much more. This can easily tame the craving for an adventure-rpg-dating sim with a very rich story and characters that actually grow on you. I have not had the chance to play this particular version yet, but I saw it was multiplayer and that sold me. If you want to try a good yet cheaper version, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is by far, one of the best, next to Harvest Moon 64.

So there you have it, our picks of love for your love to love with their love! Honestly...I don’ t celebrate Valentines Day (poly-gang), but I love exposing partners to new things that they can enjoy together.

OUT!

[shachihata]

i liked the style of the sugar festival by paul park a lot his writing style was enjoyable to me personally because im a huge fucking fan of long and elaborate metaphors and strong descriptions and the sugar festival was so rife with both it created such a distinct atmosphere to the historical-narrative style of storytelling that i dont think ive ever seen done in a novel before. all of the dialogue felt very natural every character had their own register of speech and weird-guy-complexes that made them super compelling (even if they were, most of the time, Meant to be unlikeable). the way the world was set up was interesting too, it's cool how he essentially just dumped you into a highly-elaborate world with a unique political and religious climate and a deep deep history-turned-religious-propaganda that had clear ramifications on everyone's actions and thought processes that you literally just Do Not Know At All and expected you to muddy around in there in order to figure out what the hell was actually going on for yourself... it mirrors the actual plight of the antinomials in the story and really makes you Feel the misery and religious fervor of the strictly-stratified charn like you're an actual outsider to the city (which all of the main characters are in one way or another).

abu's arc and execution was very well done and definitely one of my favorite moments in the book. the violence of the ending to book one and the way his ritualistic execution set up the main conflicts of book two (the criticism of the very catholic idea of "taking your suffering" as a form of redemption and the movement of charity and thanakar away from their original social ranks) was very fun... the plot of the book is complex (like a political-historical narrative would be) but none of the characters do anything that feel super Out Of Character, even if they do act incredibly irrationally, following religious traditions that we would never understand in the real world. which really just speaks to how well park immerses you in the novel, i was very lost at the beginning but by the point of the climax i like. I understood it yknow. like i took all of the characters' actions to be natural even though there's such a clear dissonance between charn and the real world that simply cannot be reconciled.

which is one of the criticisms i have about it, park's universe is complex and multifaceted hut at the same time... strangely one-dimensional. it's like he can't decide between writing "objective historical narrative about a political system on an alien world ruled entirely by religion" and "character-driven novel zooming in on the lives of three highly-ranked members of society and seeing how their psychologies change in response to political turmoil and revolt." all the social groups in charn act like huge masses... he mentions moments of supposed dissonance but in reality they're all "painted" the same way. he also relies way too heavily on sexual imagery as the "driving point" of the religion that all of the characters follow when, really, i think it was for shock value to sort of set charn apart from the real world. there was some commentary made about the way sex sort of "possesses" the spirit and corrupts even the purest of religious origins or whatever but the constant constant constant description of phallic statues and imagery was grating at times. even if it was supposed to be a form of immersion, it didn't feel like a "backdrop" to the story itself. it was front and center the whole way through which... is kind of the point, i guess, since the religion is meant to have such a strong hold on the people? but there were so many other aspects To the religion (ideas about predestination, ranking, etc.) that just were brushed aside in favor of "sex description of statue with phallic imagery sexual pleasure of the prophet ankghdt" i wanted them to focus on yknow. the other parts of this mystical otherworldly political-religious cult for once even if sex was supposed to be what united their beliefs you feel.

also the way that the antinomials were presented in the book felt sort of fucking weird. the way the class system as a whole was presented felt really fucking weird tbh. like on one hand, it's meant to be a criticism of classism (you get to see how paradoxically dissonant the psychology of all of the upper-ranked starbridges are as they try to justify their own excesses), but that... ironically feeds into classism itself. park is trying to divorce the socioeconomic issues of the real world from the socioeconomic issues of charn but it's painfully obvious that he has this romanticized, western view of what the "lower class" is like and how the "lower class" lives irl that shaped the way he depicts the lower strata of his book... like fuck, i praise the abu character arc but to put it bluntly, abu is a highly-ranked prince who mingles with lower-class people and becomes worshiped as a virtual god for "daring" to extend mercy to the poor. On one hand yeah that's an allusion to jesus. On the other hand, like i mentioned before, park "paints over" these complex topics and opinions in broad strokes, only alluding briefly to potential dissension before returning to his focus on the psychologies of his main characters. and the whole concept of the antinomials being a LITERALLY DEHISTORICIZED PEOPLE (they are mentioned multiple multiple multiple times as having "no past or future" and it's canon that they don't conceptualize anything besides the present and have no way of communicating with each other beyond song) who are chased out of their lands by the priests of charn and forced into the lower strata of society or otherwise arrested/discriminated against... it feels like an Incredible caricature of native americans and indigenous peoples that's central to, once again, developing one of the upper-class main characters of the novel. idk! park Tries to criticize and mirror some very very complex irl issues in the politics and history of his world but ends up either making broad generalizations about a lot of them or coming off as ignorant, if somewhat well-meaning. the book itself was published in the late 1980s so obviously it shows its age in matters like this, but it was still definitely a bit off-putting at times.

would i recommend this book? honestly probably not, unless you love your complex fantasy religious political history books. i think it takes a lot of inspiration from the style and worldbuilding of dune, but dune just. does it better in every way possible LOL. park tried to distinguish it by having it focus a lot on sex and creating a hypothetical religion where the divine act of sex and procreation and predestination based on your family line is the centerpiece of every ritual and belief but it's so heavy-handed at times with its descriptions that it can get grating. at the same time i did really enjoy the deep-water immersion of the world, he does a really good job at making you feel the misery of charn down to your very Core. you are NOT going to be happy reading this but on god if the misery doesn't feel good to read about. the main characters are highly compelling, but the book waffles a lot between objective-subjective viewpoints about the role they played in the warfare and turmoil and doesn't always do the best job at reconciling these distinct perspectives... they bleed into each other in ways that don't always make sense, i think. it wasn't like i don't think it was worth the read (i was pretty immersed in all 600 fucking pages i mean), i would just be Highly hesitant to recommend it to anyone who like. isn't into fucked-up pretentious writing styles and who i don't know already likes this style of content. because like, i Do, and even then it grated on me at times with how heavy-handed and long-winded it could be.

[sonreiv]

i absolutely despise when ppl paint katsuki as an abuser when horikoshi doesn't even say he's an abuser. Bullying and Abusing has some similar aspects but they are different at the end of it. Katsuki is. a. bully. Izuku recognizes that Katsuki is a jerk and what he did was wrong/bad (and he actually has stated that he hates katsuki, twice) but still sees his strong qualities that make him admire him

(This ask has been sitting in my drafts for the longest time and I thought with the upcoming episodes it was the perfect time to stop procrastinating and finally finish it. Sorry for the wait, nony! I mostly agree with you, but I want to further discuss some points so I hope you don’t mind I got a bit lenghty. You got me an excuse to ramble up some meta haha.)

A TL;DR beforehand: canon analysis supports that Katsuki should not be interpreted as an abuser, but an early bully at most. I also did a little analysis on the early middle school chapter and how it shows BNHA’s society/the peers Deku and Katsuki grew up around set up a bullying enticing enviroment, and how bad translations have us interpret their relationship as more aggravating than it really is - Deku NEVER said he hates Katsuki, for instance. Not once.

I agree that Katsuki is not to be interpreted as an abuser. He does not want to pursue Deku in order to hurt him; instead, he wants to push Deku away from himself. There’s a difference between “I want to possess you, to make you stay around me and hurt you emotionally and physically” - and “I don’t want anything to do with you, go away, don’t interact with me or else”. The first one is abuse. The second one is what Katsuki felt about Deku for most of his life (albeit very simplified). At the times when Katsuki did hurt him - threatening him in middle school, getting out of hand during the heroes vs villains team trial, punching him during the end of the term exam, etc - was because he felt threatened; so his response was to push him away with violence, with an attempt at “teaching” Deku to stay away from his lane.

This is not to defend Katsuki’s actions; this is only a reasoning, not an excuse. His violent behavior towards Deku is still inexcusable. I only want to make clear there’s a difference between “I want to go out of my way to hurt you” and “I will smack you if you push me”, even if his concept of being pushed is distorted to his own experience and it still does not make his violent actions okay. He fears and despises what Deku did at those times: talking to Katsuki as if Katsuki isn’t on the pedestal he grew up believing he was on. This is the core of Katsuki’s feelings. He does not want to abuse Deku. He wanted him to go away, and he WOULD physically/verbally assault him if that meant pushing Deku away from him. And the rest of his threats/aggressive banter is just really how he talks to everyone else.

Even in canon it’s explicitly stated Deku was the one who insisted on following him because of his admiration, and that was what Katsuki couldn’t stand; he wanted him to be away.

And that was way before. The game is changing, and the development of their relationship is one of the core points of the series. Katsuki recognized him as someone who is not allowed to lose, someone worthy of All Might’s trust, and just very slowly started talking to Deku like he does to everyone else.

I also believe that affirming Katsuki would be an abuser in a romantic relationship with Deku misses the point if the person is okay with it if it’s a friendship/platonic relationship, or if they ship Katsuki with other people. Someone who is abusive does not isolate their behavior to one single person, nor does abuse happen only in romantic relationships. Abusive friendships exist. If one thinks katsudeku is okay as long as it’s platonic, if they believe in their growth and healing enough to believe they can start and share a healthy friendship, then the same should be applied to a romantic relationship. Also if Katsuki were to be an abusive partner to Deku, he’d be the same to other partners. If he were to be emotionally manipulative, possessive, constantly putting him down and hurting him while also keeping him - he’d do it to any other partners. The thing is people who ship katsudeku usually don’t ship it hc'ing that Katsuki keeps his ill behavior towards Deku in the relationship - we cherish the character’s growth and development. The canon Katsuki, the Katsuki with the bad behavior in the older chapters, as stated above, didn’t even wish to keep Deku around as a peer, let alone to form some kind of deeper bond. The romantic katsudeku ship I personally want is the kind where Katsuki grows and changes (as it’s slowly happening in canon) enough past his insecurities towards Deku to be okay with approaching him like he does to other peers. No possessiveness, no emotional abuse, because I personally don’t see that coming from him.

Since we got to this point, something interesting and relevant that I don’t usually see being pointed out is that in the very beginning of the story, it wasn’t only Katsuki opposing to the idea Deku could enter UA while being quirkless. The entire class laughed at him, and the teacher didn’t bat an eye.

This is not to gloss over the fact Katsuki did show unexcusable behavior towards Deku, but I think the scene was set up that way to show it was not only Katsuki’s isolated behavior, but the system, BNHA’s society is shaped to mock and discourage individuals who believe they can become heroes or achieve certain things despite the conditions of their quirk(lesness). The way the society is shaped was Deku’s childhood bully. He was mocked by his peers as young as 4, while at the same time Katsuki was put in a pedestal because of his quirk - which led to his massive ego complex. We can’t analyse their personalities and relationship without taking in account the context they grew up in. Many people frame Katsuki as the single-handed culprit for Deku’s bullying background without taking this whole context into account, while also casting Deku the role of a submissive, persecuted victim when he deliberately chose to stick around Katsuki, and just generally shows to be a character with a lot more agency than that.

And what’s interesting in this scene is that Katsuki didn’t laugh along with everyone else when Deku says he wants to apply and he might have a chance. Because Katsuki takes that seriously. He takes that as a personal offence. The whole point of Katsuki’s ill feelings towards Deku were always that he

feels as Deku is mocking his efforts by believing that himself, a quirkless boy who didn’t do any kind of physical preparation for a heroics course - has chances of becoming a hero as much as Katsuki, who is a born genius AND presumably prepared himself to apply to UA, with training and studying, going as far as scolding his colleague for smoking because he wanted a clean student record.

he feels threatened by Deku because ever since they were kids, as much as Deku admired him, he also saw Katsuki as someone who was able to get hurt and could have a hand offered to like anyone else; Deku saw him as superior in terms of skill, but an equal as a human being, while all the other kids did not. And that made Katsuki not stand him. Because he’s scared of being anything less than the very best, he’s scared of being someone who can be offered help - in his eyes, someone who can be pitied and looked down onto.

And that’s why he reacts with hostility. He wants to intimidate Deku out of even trying to apply to UA. It’s even stated by Katsuki’s colleagues he got out of hand this time, implying it’s not normal behavior for Katsuki (and I’ve seen people saying it was confirmed by Horikoshi himself, though I don’t have sources so don’t quote me on that). Again, he will only seriously smack Deku down if he feels threatened. He does not go out of his way to put him down on a daily basis because he doesn’t want to interact with Deku to begin with.

Also, Deku actually never stated he hates Katsuki. Not once. What he actually says is closer to “he may be a jerk, but-”, which is how the official english translation translated it, as seen above (stole the picture from this post by @kiraelric because it’s where I found it faster :P). Here’s a post explaining it, and I quote @sugarmagic who gently broke down the first panel - which FA translated as “I hate his guts” - for me:

Basically the word 嫌う, the verb form is “to hate” but 嫌な奴 is “unlikable/disagreeable guy.” So what I’m pretty sure happened is that they didn’t realize な was modifying the word to be an adjective. It’s not describing Deku’s feelings, it’s describing Kacchan’s character. The reading of the kanji is written as “iyana yatsu,” versus “Kacchan ga kurai” which really would be “I hate Kacchan”. Then again, even if they read it that way, the furigana explicitly shows the reading, so I don’t even know what they were thinking.

 The translation group Fallen Angels takes way too much freedom and completely distorts some lines, and the dislike of Bakugou/his relationship with Deku in the western fandom was heavily influenced by interpreting it via FA’s aggravated translations. I had people who know japanese tell me how gratuitously innacurate the translations are - as an example, FA translates Deku thinking Katsuki is difficult to deal with as Deku thinking Katsuki causes him to be aware of his own flaws (source). The translations paint Bakugou’s character and his relationships, specially with Deku, unnecessarily harsher than they really are. In fact, something the localisation usually fails to translate is how Bakugou’s “die!” and similar threats are not be taken as seriously in japanese as one would in english - but rather pretty immature and petty (source).

So! If you read up to this point and you’re interested in reading other meta on Katsuki and Deku’s characters and relationship, you should check @explodo-smash’s meta tag. They’re a pretty smart team and can explain/analyse things better than me - in fact their meta helped me a lot understand better their dynamics post my bloody Fallen Angel readings. That’s all for today, and thank you for taking the time to read.

[youfoolishlyfoolishfools]

All the characters?

oh my god

Phoenix Wright: Has anyone ever inspired you to take a particular path?mostly cooking food channels that i watch i guess

Miles Edgeworth: What is your biggest fear?rejection of course but i also have this weird fear of randomly throwing up when im talking to someone. i dont know why i am scared of that but i am

Maya Fey: Favourite food?anything sweet, especially reese’s and sour candy

Mia Fey: Are you good at teaching people new things?if i was good at explaining and not just showing them how to do it/doing it myself lmao

Pearl Fey: Who’s your special someone?haha

Apollo Justice: Do people often tell you that you look younger/older than you are?i was at a uni on my city once and a few people were wandering around and they asked me for directions because they probably thought i went there and then i met this person i havent seen in a long time and she thought i was in grade 9 (im in grade 12)

Athena Cykes: How many languages can you speak?uhh english, and some punjabi

Godot: Favourite beverage?tea but also ginger ale

Juniper Woods: Are you good at arts and crafts?yes! its super fun to make shit

Franziska Von Karma: What is your most valued possession?every electronic i have currently and also my friends

Klavier Gavin: Favourite song?because i can just choose one im really into rock but also game soundtracks

Ema Skye: Is science the answer to everything?yes gimme some luminol

Trucy Wright: do you have a talent?sewing and baking i guess??

Dick Gumshoe: Are you a saver or spender?im a saver if im not at dollar tree or walmart

Simon Blackquill: Have you been wrongly accused of something?one time my cousin had this little jewelry box that had a flip top and a drawer and the drawer went missing and my aunt thought i did it and she kept yelling at me and then my cousin was like ‘no i took it’

Larry Butz: Relationship status?someone’s platonic wife (i hope) which is amazing

Kay Faraday: Have you ever stolen something?personality traits yeah

Wendy Oldbag: Are you a chatterbox?if you talk about something i really like then i will talk more than usual

Bobby Fulbright: What’s your catchphrase?right now its yo yo yo i guess

Adrian Andrews: Have you ever lost a very close friend?i have had a few good friends that ive come apart from but mostly because something happened or they went to a different school

Steel Samurai: Favourite TV show?voltron and atla/lok!

Dahlia Hawthorne: Have you ever deceived someone?all my friends by making them think that i have baked everything when ive really just bought it from the store (jk)

Manfred Von Karma: Are you a perfectionist?yeah and it really fucks me up

Maggey Byrde: Are you clumsymy mind says no but that dropped cake says otherwise (thats another story)

Kristoph Gavin: Do you like to paint your nails?i used to but it really distracts me so i tend not to

Rhoda Teneiro: How do you put up with something you don’t like?i kinda just ignore it??? or like try to get rid of it

Shi-Long Lang: Favourite quote?‘you fool’ -franziska von karma

Clay Terran: Do you like to follow your dreams?i sure hope so

Robin Newman: Are you more masculine or feminine?probably more feminine

Phantom: How good are you at acting?terrible