#might remake these since were not 100% happy with them

[hcdidterms]

will you be able to make an epsilon flag specifically for canines/wolves? also, just want to say I love these so much, we're visually impaired & just genuinely have an issue typing stuff out so having a flag for it helps a lot :3

Of course, here you go!

We went ahead and made some more

Dog programmed

Cat/feline programmed

Bunny/rabbit programmed

Also, were so glad you find our flags helpful!!!

[my-current-obsession]

Something I both love AND hate about FF7 (the original game and everything after, including the Remake trilogy) is that it is just ambiguous and/or player-driven enough that no matter which side of the love triangle you fall on (assuming you do in fact ship Cloud with one of the girls), the majority of fans for that ship are 100% CONVINCED it's the correct/canon option.

Like, certain scenes are definitely up to interpretation, and people are going to thus have varying reads on those scenes and the characters/relationships the scenes are about. It doesn't help that several scenes change depending on the player's choices, which acts as a confirmation bias as you naturally get more time and romantic moments with the girl of your preference. It really seems to me that MOST people who ship Cloud and Aerith have one solid interpretation (with a plethora of supporting evidence) of the series and the romance, while most people who ship Cloud and Tifa have their own solid interpretation with plenty of evidence that is VASTLY DIFFERENT from the Clerith reading of the game.

This is not a case of "one ship is clearly, explicitly canon and fans of the opposition just like their pick better and/or think it made more sense narratively and WISH it was canon" - for an example of that, look to the Avatar the Last Airbender shipping wars. This is a case where both sides literally interpret the story just differently enough that they come to entirely different conclusions about which girl is Cloud's true love. And if either side reaches out to try and explain their viewpoint to the other, they're just met with "uh, no. You're wrong." Try and explain what Cloud might be thinking in a given scene with one of the girls, why he acts a certain way... "That's not it at all, where are you getting this? Are you delusional?"

Like, I am a Clerith shipper. I have played all the games in the compilation and watched Advent Children. I tried to be as completionist as possible, even. And I came out on the other side of really digging into the story of this game loving Cloud and Aerith's dynamic and pretty firmly convinced they were canon. Or as canon as possible in the timeline where she died.

As any Clerith fan who participates in the fandom would know, if you try and explain your interpretation of these characters and the romance to a diehard Cloti supporter... you're met with a lot of "you're misinterpreting! Cloud and Aerith were just friends! She loved Zack to the end and Cloud loved Tifa since childhood and never stopped! Also Aerith is actually BAD for Cloud because she's too pushy/abrasive. She's not helping him open up, she's just forcing him to go along with her and making him uncomfortable!"

All of this is of course infuriating, but I'd like to think I'm self-aware enough to know we are kind of guilty of the same thing. The majority of Tifa fans are SO happy about the kiss in Rebirth, while we're over here dismissing it because, one it's optional, and two Cloud is "obviously" using Tifa as a rebound or settling for her since Aerith is seemingly unavailable. But that's not how Cloti fans see it at all.

We can talk until we're blue in the face about how TIFA deserves better than Cloud because she shouldn't be the second choice - the one he settles for. But I think most people who really love Cloti genuinely don't see it that way. In their eyes, she's NOT second-best. Cloud loved her all along and this kiss is finally confirming that. And nothing we say will dissuade them, just as nothing they say will actually change OUR minds about Clerith.

It is honestly really difficult for me to try and see the story and romance the way Cloti fans do, but I know the reverse is also true. Both groups of fans interpret the characters and relationships differently. The compilation ALLOWS us to interpret them differently. And this is why the ship war for a game from 1997 is still raging on.

Because both camps are certain they're right, they defend their position viciously. Sometimes that means invading the "other side" to tell them how wrong they are. This discussion/rant was prompted by a Cloti fan on a Clerith vid who wanted to debate MY comment about how wonderful the ship was and how good they were for each other. He was "confused" and "concerned" because Clerith fans were reading the story wrong or warping it to suit our ship.

I wanted to tell him, "buddy that's what YOU'RE doing". I wanted to write a goddamn essay explaining why Clerith is canon actually. But considering in my INITIAL comment that he first responded to I'd already brought up why I thought Clerith was great, and he was IGNORING that... I knew it would be pointless. There is nothing I could possibly say that would change his mind. There is nothing he could possibly say that would change my mind.

As long as both sides of this war are fully convinced they're right, this war is going to be endless and brutal. And that's why my absolute biggest fear for part 3 is an open, ambiguous ending regarding the ships. Maybe it will canonize nothing. Maybe it will canonize BOTH by having the actual ending change depending on which girl the player favors.

Either route will offer no relief to this eternal battle. I would honestly prefer for Cloti to explicitly and unambiguously win than an ending where neither girl does. Because I can accept a loss. I can accept being told that actually I WAS interpreting the story wrong, but I'll only accept it from the text itself. If anything, a Cloti ending might encourage me to go through the entire compilation again trying to view it with that canon couple in mind. I'm sure I'd see things differently, even if I'd always have a place in my heart for Clerith. And I sincerely hope that if Clerith were to win that Cloti fans could do the same.

All I know is that I'm sick and tired of this ship war. I personally have never gone after Cloti fans or engaged in Cloti content with the intent to debate or hate on the ship. But I don't speak for all Cleriths. I'm sure at least a few fans of my ship are guilty too. I have seen many obnoxious Cloti fans invading our spaces to disparage us - mostly on YouTube and Twitch, less here on Tumblr - but I KNOW there are plenty of kind Cloti fans who just happily enjoy their ship and leave us to ours as well.

At the end of the day, regardless of how part 3 ends things, I just wish we could live in peace. Please enjoy your ship. Your interpretation of the text and romance is valid. But so is mine. If neither side can agree, then the best thing to do is leave each other alone.

[captivemuses]

Comfort food(s): If I'm going purely sweets then I'm going to say Thin Mints. I did Girl Scouts for a large portion of my childhood and those were and still are my absolute top tier favorite Girl Scout cookie and I'm not even kidding saying I could polish off an entire box in one sitting and regret nothing.

Comfort drink(s): Hot cup of coffee. Granted I normally drink iced coffee during the summertime for obvious reasons but hot coffee is still my favorite.

Comfort movie(s): Pirates of the Caribbean. More specifically the first three because I heavily prefer those to the fourth and fifth installments. I don't mind the fourth one and I'll willingly watch it if I'm in a mood to binge the series again but I wasn't in love with the fifth one and I just wish certain elements of the movie had happened in earlier installments instead. But I just love the cast as a whole and the soundtrack and I can have it on as the best background noise while I'm doing other things and just be happy. I also have the first three soundtracks at work to use as naptime music and my daycare kids genuinely love the music.

Comfort show(s): Yuri on Ice. I always do an annual rewatch of the show and have done so every year since the show came out in 2016. I'll probably keep doing so just because I'll always love the series even if MAPPA clearly doesn't because the suck-- /gets yanked off stage to not go on an anti MAPPA tangent again

Comfort clothing: Pajama pants. I wear those as much as I humanly can because they're stretchy and comfy, and ngl I'm extremely guilty of wearing them to work a lot only because I'm allowed to wear what I want as long as nothing's stained or ripped or having anything offensive or inappropriate for kids on it. I'm here for comfort not fashion when I clock in to take care of threenagers all day rofl.

Comfort song(s): Anything Lady Gaga. I'm not super familiar with her newest album Chromatica as I am with the previous ones but I'm still a huge fan of hers and I'd 100% go see her in concert again if the opportunity arose, she's worth every penny imo.

Comfort book(s): I don’t really have a set of comfort books to share right now. I might update this in the future with some, but the only memorable story is “You”. I prefer it over the show for sure. The exploration of a man so psychologically twisted that when he finally “settled” and had a kid, he would abandon a son, purely out of disgust, knowing that he would turn out just like him. Also, Guinevere Beck is my favourite. I just perceive her as a human character, somebody with flaws that are outlined clearly, and it was an aspect I really enjoyed. I might even reread the first book, just for her. Side note: the cage is such a cool concept, and I will be taking notes. kidding. not really.

Comfort game(s): Either anything Harvest Moon or old school Pokemon (think Johto region, that's always been my favorite). Those are old school nostalgia for me growing up and you'd have me be happy having to go restart the original Gold/Silver for the 15th time or go start a new save file on Harvest Moon (which speaking of I want to pick up the remake again once I'm out of icon hell and don't have to drag my laptop to work all the time). They're just relaxing turn my brain off games that I love.

tagged by: @iceiclehorned ty for the tag!!

tagging: @gildedsplendors @protectivemuses @reflective-muses @weltenwxndler @ofhope @galactia @crimsononiarataki and anyone else who's been good and hydrated today (and if you haven't you should so you can do this and say I tagged you!)

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Wifey comes home today and the dogs don't know it so they officially hit peak wretched baby behavior yesterday and have slumped into depressed baby behavior today. I do have work today but it's my short day so I'm thinking after I'm done with work and before I head to the airport with doggos to pick up wifey, I'll wash dishes and dogs.

That way wifey doesn't feel like the house is exactly as she left it you know? I definitely know it's not in worse shape I was very careful to always clean up my presence, but I want her to not have to clean up things that were here a week ago when she left either cuz that sucks and just because I was busy and had a hard time getting around to them shouldn't make them her problem. Most things like that aren't a big deal, or are things we specifically planned for (e.g. she emptied the litterbox right before she left and it's self cleaning so it only needs to be done once a week) but the dishes were a fluke that snuck by us in the last couple days before she left and then I literally never once had the spoons to get to them (heh) while Wifey was gone. Which I expected! I kinda figured that I would either do them all on Friday or maybe if I was very lucky do 1 round a dayon the others. So at least I'm on schedule lol.

Anyway, I did also clean the tub this week, and pick up the laundry in the bathroom, so I figure I might also do a quick wipe down in bathroom (sink, toilet, tub, sweep floors, take out trask) since it usually only takes 15 minutes and would make the whole room look really nice at this point. That plus shiny dishes and dogs is bound to make wifey happy coming home.

Anyway, my morning plans are as follows:

throw chili in the crock pot for dinner tonight

maintenance clean of bathroom

first round of dishes

take out the bedroom and bathroom trashes

refill pet water fountains

Extra Credit: unpack the monthly grocery grocery delivery and confirm their allergen listings

So far I'm over 100% on my tasks today and feeling great about it!

In the next hour I've got some work tasks to do, a little documentation stuff to prep for the day basically, and then it's off the the races for my short day with clients, my one on one, and then me getting the dogs ready for the evening!

Managed to finish all of my work prep stuff even the thing I was sure I wouldn't manage! So yay to that! We're still at "all essential AND all extra credit tasks completed" for each phase of my day so far, though obviously I'm not gonna elaborate on the work stuff for privacy reasons.

Feeling good about the day, feeling good about my ability to get shit down now that I've been back on my meds for a week, feeling pretty good overall! I do think I might be headed for a no show today but I'm fine with that because it'll just give me an extra 45 min for dishes and one less note to write before I switch over to household tasks this afternoon.

I am contemplating doing an extra credit task of throwing on new sheets and remaking the bed fresh and clean for wifey since Jaxxine crunched her yams all over this one all week on top of chewing on the fitted sheet like a pacifier to calm herself lol. But we'll see how that goes.

I've managed to get both blankets into the wash, and the quilt is already in the dryer, so I figure I'm definitely remaking the bed now. I'm most of the way through the tough jobs and then all that's left is the easy or fun ones. I do have to leave in about 3 hours tho, so I'm definitely running low on time. Gotta prioritize a bit and wittle down my remaining tasks. Dinner's all set but for some rice if we decide to make it. I may just empty the dish rack and not worry about washing a 3rd load unless I finish everything else in time. Jaxx definitely needs a bath next, then the tub a wipe down, the pets fed, and me a shower. At that point we're likely to be ok the edge of time so I'm thinking remake the bed and then kitty fun den and then prep the dogs for our trip.

After work plans are as follows:

2-3 more rounds of dishes 1 more round of dishes

bathe the lassie (START WITH THE LAD)

Feed the dogs dinner

bathe self

wipe down tub

build kitty fun den with dinner and treats

pick up wifey from her trip

Extra Credit: wash the blankets dry the blankets

Extra Credit: remake the bed with fresh sheets and blankets

[ilovescaredysquirrel2]

My opinions on Disney and non-Disney movies (+ my opinion on the new Mario movie)

Okay I don't know if this is too early or too late to give my opinions but I just wanted to say, since I put out an instagram live and also got caught up since I went to see the new Super Mario movie yesterday. If you want to read all this, feel free to chat with me in the comments section and give me your opinions, I'm here for it!

As someone who enjoys animated kids movies, and hates adult movies with a lot of action and violence, I'm sorry to say that I'm not much of a Disney fan, and didn't have the Disney childhood that everyone else did. I'm 20, and the first Disney movie I watched was Up, so I was probably about 7 or 8 when it came out. As a kid I mostly watched Disney Channel, Disney Junior/Playhouse, and Disney X.D. I grew up in America so we had other channels like Sprout and Qubo too. I didn't grow up on classic Disney movies, in fact, I actually hate a lot of them, and notice a lot of problematic things about them that someone who grew up with them might not notice. There are some of the older movies I like, but it's not most. I'm here to bring up the topic of Disney and how I feel about them, and i feel like they're a very greedy company. I mean, they've been greedy for like 100 years, they are still very greedy more than ever.

Disney is finally getting what they deserve after all these years, with these lesser known companies starting to become the big shots now! Do I feel bad for Disney? NO! They're doing this to themselves. I don't like to hate too much on Strangeworld, even though in my opinion, it looked like a really dumb movie. I don't want to hate on it because unlike all these live action remakes that they're crapping out one after another, Strangeworld was it's own story. Would I ever watch Strangeworld? NEVER! I'm just happy that these underrated companies like DreamWorks, Illumination, Sony, and Aardman are given a chance to shine for once! I thought that new Super Mario Bros and Puss in Boots Last Wish were the two best movies of 2023! I also saw an animated German-British film called "The Amazing Maurice" and I enjoyed it but not as much as the other two. For years, I've only been going to non-Disney movies in theaters (the last Disney movie I saw in theaters was either Zootopia or Moana, can't remember) and my mom and I were always really pleased with them. I'm sure most of you have never heard of Artic Dogs or Rock Dog, but those are incredible and underrated movies for the whole family. My mom and I especially enjoyed the first Sing movie by llumination, and Buster was our favorite! Sing 2 was even better and I wish I could have seen it in theaters with her before she passed. I'm really happy for Illumination and that they're branding is not just a bunch of silly singing minions, but they are now a confident company that creates their own characters as well as use old ones too. I mean, Disney has branded off recycling 200 year old fairytales, and then later on, books that they could buy the stories from. Walt Disney literally tried to buy the Moomins from Tove Jansson, but Tove was smarter than that! And if you think Toy Story was original, might I remind you that the "Talking toys" concept was around for almost 100 years before the movie came out? I'm really happy for both DreamWorks and Illumination that they have been getting so much admiration lately!

Another thing I wanted to discuss was the new Illumination movie, "Migration" and how it looks a lot like Duck Duck Goose, which is another really underrated movie. However, I respect Illumination for creating a completely different story and completely different characters. Duck Duck Goose is an underrated masterpiece by Origin Pictures, that Netflix took credit for, and it was never released in theaters. It deserved so much better, along with Wish Dragon which was in the same boat. I still hope Migration does well, because it looks amazing! As someone who's always loved ducks, and grew up in the northeastern part of the U.S, there's something about the scenery in the trailer that made me feel nostalgic. I know the scenery looked really similar to Duck Duck Goose, which also makes me feel nostalgic even though Duck Duck Goose does take place in China, which I've never been too. (The scenery is a bit different if you look closely, but not that much). Again, I hope to see Migration do really well.

To finish things off, I'll make another post, another time, with my top 20 underrated Non-Disney family animated movies but I think you all want to hear my opinions on the new Super Mario movie! I loved it! 9/10, and the "Peaches peaches" song was the best part! The Puss in Boots one was incredible too, and 10/10 for that one! Bowser and Jack Horner are actually really well written villains, evil and funny! (Bowser a bit more since he had a soft side, where as Jack Horner was just a dumb jerk). I thought that Puss in Boots Last Wish deserved to beat Disney, along with this new Mario one! They both deserve it!

If you learned anything from this crazy essay, just remember that not all movies have to be made by what was always considered "The best" and that smaller companies will often surprise you!

[trishmishtree]

Regency gown project: Part I-lost-count

As what is probably going to be the last thing I sew in 2022, I finally finished the bodice of the gown. Kind of. Mostly.

I’m pinning it in the front and will probably just go with pins for closures for the final dress. I tried button closures for the bodiced petticoat made from the same pattern, and I’ve decided that more buttons on the gown bodice would just be too bulky.

I only made 2 mockups when drafting the sleeve pattern, so I’m happy the process was relatively painless. I have no idea what the correct process for sleeve drafting is, but I just kind of vaguely cut out a shape that I thought would work, sewed it onto the bodice, refitted it until I was happy with it, took a pen to trace out the stitch lines, and then unpicked and cut out the final sleeve shape to trace onto a paper pattern.

As stated in the last progress update, it’s made from a lining of plain modern utility muslin and an outer fashion layer of cotton gauze. The gauze fabric has a floral pre-embroidered border that’s going to go around the bottom of the skirt. The rest of the embroidery on the dress will be done by hand.

There are 440 separate little dots on this bodice, not including the ones that go along the scalloped pattern on the ruffles of the sleeves. I know because I counted how many colonial knots I had to do instead of actually just sucking it up and doing them. The vine on the ruffles is also based on the extant gown, except I don’t think I got the proportion quite right because the leaves look like they’re spaced more closely together on the original gown. Oh well, I guess I’ll just do the vines right when I embroider the waistband.

On the extant dress, the dots and vine work are actually thousands of tiny metal staples, not embroidery. And they were originally silver, not black, but have tarnished over the last 210 years. But I actually really like the look of the darker dots, and the only pre-embroidered fabric I could find that would remotely work for this was the cotton gauze with a navy floral border that definitely isn’t historically accurate, so I’m sticking with navy blue thread embroidery for my dress. Attempting strict HA and making my dress as exact to the original is kind of moot since I’m already taking the liberty of giving this 1810s ballgown an apron-front closure for ease of getting in and out of it, instead of the back buttoned closure that would have been more popular by this decade and that I know for 100% certain the original gown has. Maybe someday I’ll try to make a more accurate replica, if I can source period-accurate cotton muslin and if I’m dedicated enough to attempt to do the entire skirt border embroidery by hand too. (If that ever happens, I might even go for back closures, except I would have to make them hooks and eyes instead of buttons because I 100% cannot reach back there with my right arm. And I’d need to contact the museum and ask if they have more photos of the back of the dress.)  For now I’ll settle for doing a bazillion colonial knots and apron front closures and conjectured side-back seam placements.

Here’s a view from the side to compare to the original museum piece:

You can’t tell from the front view, but I have to use my hand as a censor bar for the side view today. Mostly because my stays are doing exactly what they’re supposed to. I can’t show you what the stays look like (aside from the tiny sliver you can see through the gap in the petticoat) because they are under bust and my shift is translucent, and that would be even more indecent than me not covering my neckline in the above photo. I’m really happy with my decision to remake the stays. I know I was upset because they’re really wrinkly, but it literally does not matter because you can’t see them anyway. I can’t say I really recommend the Bernhardt stays considering how much of a fuss they were to make and fit and remake and refit. I think I made 4 mockups before I was satisfied, and that’s just really psychologically painful when you sew everything by hand. My final pattern required so much tweaking that the shape doesn’t really resemble the original Bernhardt pattern anymore. That said, it was a good starting point and the finished product definitely does the job.

What was not doing its job today was my shift. The neckline kept bunching up in the back and making lumps through the gown bodice, so I tried to redistribute the gathers. That helped, but then it made my front neckline too low. But if I tried to tighten the drawstrings of the shift, then the shift would feel tight in the bust and flatten out the silhouette. So I had to settle for the lower front neckline, which means I just constantly look like I’m spilling out of my stays. (It’ll be fine. It will all get covered up once I make the front bib that will complete the bodice.)

The skirt also still needs to be embroidered with probably 3000 (not hyperbole) more tiny colonial knots before I can assemble the whole dress together, so this feels like a good stopping place to close out 2022.

Until next time then.

[fonulyn]

i just woke up to the re4 remake news and i'm more concerned than happy. is this why capcom butchered re3 remake? to put more energy into remaking 4? and now they're saying stuff like with re4 remake they wanted to pay respect to the original. capcock, just say the remakes make an easy buck

same, I saw the trailed in the morning when I was barely awake yet :'D and same, I'm more concerned than happy, but lol, I've been feeling this way since the very first whispers about the remake were heard so it's not exactly news to anyone. I've got concerns, a lot of them, lol.

honestly though, I don't know if the re4 remake had anything to do with how they went with the re3 remake. I could be way off base, but I feel that they just wanted the re3 remake out while the hype was still big, and wanted to take full advantage of that? I feel that they rushed it just to get it out quick to make that big buck. so the re4 remake might have nothing to do with that. ofc, i don't actually know, so I might be very wrong :'D

also, i am so not trusting the whole "pay respect to the original" thing :'D because like, WTRC? it was advertised at one point as "faithful to the original games" and whether you like it or not, faithful is 100% not what it is. it's all just empty words, might mean something, might mean nothing.

as for the trailer? it's gorgeous, i admit that, the graphics look really good. but i hate how dark it is (this is a bigger overall trend in both games and movies tbh i hate how dark they make things urgh we wanna see shit, c'mon) and it feels very, very serious? like. ofc it's literally seconds, and it's impossible to say much about it, but that's the vibe I got. the graphics might be amazing but ...graphics aren't the be-all-end-all. but yeah, well. we will see.

like I've said before, I'm not keen on a remake for re4 simply because I think the original holds up super well, still, and the game doesn't actually need to be revamped for "new audience". I still would've very much preferred they remake Code Veronica instead. but hey, maybe this still gets us some new blood into the fandom and livens things up a bit, who knows.

but yes, I'll be sitting here, playing the original re4 until I'm 85 :'D y'all can come get me when they remake re6 and Piers lives.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals. 

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi! Hope you're doing well <3 I been reading some of your posts about LO and Greek culture in general! And as a non-greek I think your culture is amazing and it should be respected as any other culture, so, I had this question a little while ago

I made a couple of characters based on greek myth creatures, and I kinda had a story for them in an ancient greek inspired world (highly inspired tbh, I think it might take place in an ancient greek ambience as well), but now I think that might be insensitive (?) I don't know how to express it, but I just want to know, would it be ok if I continue with that idea or should I scratch it?

TIIIME TO FINALLY ANSWER THIS

I am really sorry for the long wait! I was trying to think how to answer this properly and also mustering the energy for it xD I will pin it so you can find it more easily, if you come back to the blog.

For starters, you can write whatever you wish. I am hesitant to say to people “you can't write this and that” because it might make people feel estranged and uncomfortable and I believe that distance serves no real purpose. Yes, it’s likely that a xenos won’t be making the story VERY culturally accurate but if the story is 30% culturally accurate as opposed to barely 5% which we see in the popular media today, then it’s still a win. Not to mention that Greeks themselves are not 100% culturally accurate most of the time in their Greek mythology stories. This happens because 1) Americanization has hit us hard 2) They write them just for fun without bothering to research much. We are also lucky if we have a 30% accuracy in our texts most of the time.

(I love percentages if you can’t tell 😂)

You might have figured out I have the tag #writing (and perhaps also #writing advice ??) where I answer these type of questions, so visiting it might help! I'm not gonna tell you if you can write it or not - you can write whatever you like - but I would advise you to treat the Greek culture like any other real or fictional culture. Do a proper “worldbuilding”, let’s say.

THE CREATURES

As you know, some are more serious and some are more playful. They don’t easily “switch” from their behaviors so it’s best to keep a serious creature serious and a playful creature playful throughout most of the story. Some reading is needed, to figure out how the ancient Greeks saw those creatures. Because assumptions are usually not helpful. If we have no clues about their behavior, that’s free real estate I guess 😂

Now, if you are going for the “almost like Greek culture but not quite” thing, that still needs similar studying. You need to know where you are basing those creatures and how they see their world - or how the world sees them. And what elements make sense to change.

You can still not base the characters nowhere and just have a gal with snakes in her head. You can do that xD However, if you like to be more in touch with the culture you need to use some context and the “ambience” you talked about. It’s another thing to say “this gal has snakes on her head“ and another to say “this is THE Medusa“.

Some Greek culture needs to shine through. I mean, it would be great if it could shine though in general, so your references and basis to Greek mythology are better. It would be safe to assume the ancient folklore creatures have some Greek culture in them since they have Greek names, they have been written in Greek stories behaving according to the Greek societal rules and ethics, and generally being symbols in Greece until our days. And your story is about Greek mythology, so you want to emphasize the Greek aspects of your heroes and world.

THE ANCIENT GREEK INSPIRED WORLD

I don't know what research you’ve done so far but I will begin from the basics anyways. Ancient Greek ambience, as you can probably guess, is not “chitons, wine, vines and white pillars” 😂 The ambience specifically doesn’t come from the aesthetics but from the feel of it - the food, the customs, the symbols, the dances, the language interjections, the behaviors and values. Parts of the culture are also how is reverence and modesty are expressed, what makes someone present “manly“ or “feminine”. So, it’s gonna take some research.

People usually write some of the aesthetic and think they are covered, even though their worldbuilding is bad, precisely because they have only presented the very top of the iceberg. No food, no dances, no certain behaviors, nothing. You could say they are “soulless Disney remakes”. 😂 You can also do that, but you need to know how it will come out. It might be quite bland and, if I am not mistaken, you said you want to avoid that. (And I think most of Greeks would tell you that they don’t mind a Greek “soulless” remake but it would be super extra great if you put cultural elements in).

Ok, I don’t mean make it like an encyclopedia, but presenting some stuff from the culture is how you get the ambience. You might as well take a writing advice list for worlbuilding stuff you must have and see which ones you can find irl from the Greek culture.

Important! Remember that nearby cultures affect each other, so if you change one element from the Greek culture it’s likely it has to be changed in other cultures next to your area. If wearing green makes you manly in Imaginary Greece, it will also make you manly in Imaginary Turkey and Imaginary Bulgaria, let’s say. (there is no “ancient Turkey” or “ancient Bulgaria” as countries - and depending on the era, “ancient Greece” is also not a thing - but you get my point xD)

For the interpersonal relationships/interactions, you can read some ancient translated texts presenting daily life situations of the ancient Greeks (start from Googling stuff, I really don’t have sources for that xD). It’s very likely that the ancient sources won’t give you a very defined feel (try it anyways, if you like). Therefore, I suggest you see interactions of modern Greek people.

Worry not! YouTube - through me xD - has you covered! Searching the tags #greek tv #greek youtuber #greek podcast and #video. On youtube you can even find vlogs of people visiting Greece and see interactions with the locals. (If you have trouble finding them, you can send me another ask).

Similarly, it might take months to find all the Greek language interjections so you can go for modern ones. Besides, many interjections like “popoo“ are ancient. Besides, if you are not making a very “serious” story, the modern touches might help it feel more in touch with the present.

Surely, people are people everywhere and humans between countries share cultural traits, but there are some slightly more predominant stuff depending on the culture. Cultures close to each other share more traits, so, if you can’t find any Greeks around, you might be able to find our neighbors. Middle Eastern, north African, or south European people (and Hispanic/Latino Americans!) around might help to understand the dynamics between friends and family members. If you already belong to some of those cultures, congrats, you have most of the formula figured out!

I gave so much space to the interpersonal relationships because that’s gonna give you an idea where the line of “respect” is. Surely, the ancient interpersonal relationships won’t be like the modern American ones  😂 There is no way a student goes to Chiron being like “hey, man, how you doin?” Knowing how Greek teachers were, as late as the 20th century, that’s gonna earn him a slap 😂

Another thing: saying “Good morning” and “good afternoon / goodnight” when you first and last see people in the day is VERY important and the best social practice! You won’t be considered rude if you don’t say them but in a slightly formal and especially professional environment, better use them. (Other modern Europeans also consider this a good practice.)

The most ancient greeting of Greeks is “be happy” (χάιρε / χαίρετε) but health is also very important and is another old greeting. Xάιρετε is more formal in our days and Γεια/Γεια σας ("have good health”) is the most used formal and informal one. Seeing how people wish health in the middle east, it might be that the Health thing has been here for centuries. Also, if you break something or something bad happens to you, we say “health” because having your health is more important than anything else.

Fun fact, “Charon“ (Χάρων) probably means “the happy one” :P It has the same root with (χάιρε / χαίρετε).

Many other social cues can be found in the tags I mentioned, but you can send me an ask if you need to know something more specific!

As for the food, you can find ancient recipes and even use modern ones (which are usually with the same ingredients). Same goes for dances and symbols. You can google stuff about them, go on Google Scholar and search there, as well. (Also, google pages where you can download those papers for free ;) ) Please do some cross examination to make sure that this element indeed exists and it’s not just one person pulling it our of their a**. 😂

If you can’t find info, you can lean on modern symbols and dances. The dances are similar through the centuries anyways. No one is going to come for you if you say you based an element on a modern Greek thing bc the ancient one was impossible to find with the resources available to you.

I don’t have many more things to add on these cultural elements because I already have tags for the modern ones. #greek cuisine #melomakarona #greek dance #greek custom #greek tradition  etc.

And, last but not least, research the weather!! I can't stress this enough 😩 We are not a desert and we are not the Tropics. If your weather is similar to the Greek one, then your creatures most likely will need some serious covering in Autumn and Winter 😂

All in all, it’s certainly not a piece of cake to write about other countries and cultures but, if they are open to let you in, you can learn stuff and do your best depicting them. It might not be perfect (and no work is actually perfect) but it would be a step to the right direction and might encourage more writers to do the same - instead of throwing some chitons in and calling it a day xD

If you have any other questions feel free to send me another message (dm or ask). You - or anyone else - REALLY WON’T BOTHER ME if you ask me many questions on my DMs or here.

[introvertguide]

In Honor of Bogey

Born on Christmas Day at the turn of the century, the acting legend Humphrey Deforest Bogart is considered the greatest male acting icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was an early Christmas gift to the 20th century and eventually was recognized by the AFI as the greatest male star of classic American cinema. This is quite a title to hold with all the great actors of the last one hundred years, so I wanted to take a little space in my analysis of the AFI top 100 to recognize this acting icon.

He was a kid with a lot of potential and intelligence, but his parents were not very affectionate (according to him) and he grew up with a chip on his shoulder. He went to some prestigious East Coast schools but was expelled or left on many occasions and ended up in the Navy. He joined up following the end of WWI and was part of the time of American Military glory. He loved it. He even tried to re-enlist when WW2 broke out, but he was too old and was instead registered as a volunteer reserve with the Coast Guard. He didn't get started in films until 1930, but started stage acting after his naval service in 1921. He might have gotten his trademark scar on his lip while in the Navy, but he got in a lot of scraps so it is not really certain where it came from.

Scars aside, Humphrey Bogart was a very good looking person that just exuded the ideal of manliness for the time. He started playing roles of young impetuous men and moved on to gangsters and villains. He did some work with James Cagney in a film called The Roaring Twenties. He met many woman with his star power and brutish manliness, marrying 4 times over his life before finally settling down with the fabulous Lauren Becall in 1945. He was part of the famous "Rat Pack" of the 50s. He was just so cool.

Since this is part of the AFI top 100 review, I want to cover the four movies on the list he was in as well as a couple other American classics:

High Sierra (1941) - Nominated for AFI Top 100 but not ranked

This was a big opportunity for Bogart because it was a leading gangster role written by his drinking buddy John Huston. The part had been turned down by some of the great actors of the time, including James Cagney. Bogart had been getting a lot of small roles and appeared in as many films as he could at the time (he is credited in 20 movies between 1937 and 1939), but this was a big break as a leading man. He worked alongside Ida Lupino, which caused jealousy issues with his wife at the time, Mayo Methot.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) - AFI #31

This was a career starter for Bogart as the no nonsense anti-hero with a chip on his shoulder and a heart of gold. This film was also turned down by other more established leading actors (George Raft) because it was a remake of the same story that was done in 1931. He played the part of Sam Spade (great name), a detective in search of a bejeweled object while getting in way over his head. Bogie had a great smoky voice and his film noir narratives set the standard for the genre. It was also the directorial debut of John Huston. Humphrey Bogart was known for downplaying his work (such a hipster), but this was a film for which he openly showed pride.

Casablanca (1942) - AFI #3

This was Bogart's first real romantic lead as an expatriate in Africa at the outbreak of WWI. As far as my generation is concerned, this is his most famous role and cemented the man as a Hollywood icon. This movie won Best Picture and got him nominated for Best Actor, vaulting Bogart past James Cagney as the highest paid actor in Hollywood at the time (half a million a year; that is nothing to sneeze at now much less right after the Great Depression).

The Big Sleep (1946) - Not on AFI Top 100

This was arguably the most well known of the four movies that Bogart starred in with Lauren Bacall. His wife at the time, Methot, was jealous and was afraid that Bogart was cheating on her. He was. He and Methot got a divorce and he almost immediately married Bacall. Bogart also got a little bit weird at the time because he tried to sign up for the Navy and then bought a yacht, allowed use of it by the Coast Guard, and then patrolled around the California coast with numerous weekends around Catalina. The film was actually scheduled to be released in 1945, but had a bunch of scenes of sexual innuendo added in to play up the real life relationship of Bogart and Bacall.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947) - AFI #38

This was a film that showed the genius of Huston's writing and Bogart's acting. It was a chance to for Bogart to show off his grittiness and willing to suffer for his art. He character was one of three greedy men with stake on a gold claim that was more than enough for all three, but constant fear of backstabbing (literally and figuratively) causes problems. The movie was filmed in the Sierras during the summer heat and Bogart looked pretty bad. The movie lacked a love interest and highlighted dissension amongst a group, so Huston and Bogart (an outspoken liberal democrat) were mentioned in the Un-American Activities trial that was looking for Communists. Bogart wrote an article entitled "I'm No Communist" and distanced himself from anyone accused, but still had a slight reputation for being outspoken about first amendment rights.

Key Largo (1948) - Not on AFI Top 100 but nominated for AFI Top 10 Gangster Films

The last film that featured the couple. In this movie, their characters were stuck in a Florida hotel during a hurricane. It was another John Huston directed film noir and featured Bogart's character boating around and taking out gangsters one by one. There is a somewhat racist subplot of hunting down some wanted Native Americans that a known gangster pins a murder on. That aspect of the movie always bothered me. A real standout that somewhat upstages Bogart (interestingly enough with his help) is actually the gangster's girlfriend who sings a song for the group to earn a drink. She plays a great part as a woman attracted by the villainous lifestyle and then becomes trapped in an abusive relationship. Actress Claire Trevor, who Bogart liked very much and encouraged throughout the film, won Best Supporting Actress for her part in the story.

The African Queen (1951) - AFI #65

Maybe the film with the most star power during the Old Hollywood Era, this film starts Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, perhaps the two biggest stars of American film. It was his first film in Technicolor and the role won him his one and only Oscar for Best Actor. The film was shot in the Belgian Congo and once again proved Bogart's toughness. This was again a John Huston directed film and it is interesting that both of the stars of the film had friends in very high places that kept them acting in great roles: Humphrey Bogart had John Huston and Katharine Hepburn had Howard Hughes. I want to note that, in my humble opinion, this was neither actors best work but they both were given a lot of credit for braving the elements and appearing on screen looking haggard.

The Cain Mutiny (1954) - Nominated for AFI Top 100 but not ranked

This was the last film that Bogart was relatively happy with, although he had to drop his salary to get the part and he was bitter about it. The part of a paranoid captain earned the actor his final Oscar nomination, but it did not really bring the same satisfaction as earlier roles. Huston wrote Bogey's characters as a loner and an antihero with an internal warmth and humor. This character did not have the charm that exuded from Bogart, the person.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Humphrey Bogart continued with high profile roles like starring with Aubrey Hepburn in Sabrina (1954) and Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa (1954), but he was starting to get sick from a life of smoking and drinking. He was also in his mid 50s and couldn't play that charming young loner that he was so famous for. He had started to come across as old and didn't have his youthful charisma. He really hated working with Billy Wilder and didn't want to be the distinguished older gentleman in Sabrina. He didn't want to work with Ava Gardner because she had just broken up with his drinking buddy, Frank Sinatra. These films were successful and Bogart was a true professional, but I would not call it his best work by any means.

Humphrey Bogart was a great actor and a true Hollywood icon. Through research and watching interviews, I don't think that he would have been somebody that I liked personally because he drank and smoked heavily while enjoying arguments and confrontation. He came off as a bit of a contrarian in his later interviews and that is something that has bothered me. Don't meet your heroes. It does not lessen his accomplishments as an actor nor does it reduce the number of great films he has starred in. Just because he wouldn't be my best friend doesn't mean he wasn't a great man. I still believe that he deserves the AFI honor of being Hollywood's most famous actor. Check out some of his works and see what you think.

[muqiing]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I got tagged by Sabrina @lanwangiji to share my content creation process for the birthday set I made for Lan Wangji, thank you ^-^ there won’t be screenshots in this tutorial since it’s been a couple months since I made this set, and I am the type of person that deletes psds, gifs, etc. within two days after posting a set ;-; (I’ve also had to factory reset my laptop since then so unfortunately the coloring I’d saved has gone to waste as well...)

As always, the programs I used to make this set are Adobe Photoshop 2021 & Avisynth 2.5!

1. Planning

I made the set for Lan Wangji’s birthday, of course, as part of the birthday event we hosted over on MDZS Network. As with all birthday events I’d done prior to this one I would search “happy birthday” on Tumblr and scroll down all the posts to see if there were any gifsets that I could possibly draw inspiration from. Initially I didn’t get any inspiration from doing that, but then there was a post I saw that sparked my interest. Unfortunately due to exams and school (and me being an idiot and not liking the post) I lost the post and, thus, also the inspiration.

But then one day someone (I think it was Hanyi but I’m not 100% sure) reblogged this gifset onto my dashboard. The person who made the gifset also posted a tutorial of how they got their text to look like that and I, pretty much still being a noob at typography, decided I wanted to try it out for my Lan Wangji birthday post. Eventually, this person’s traits gifset series is where I drew my inspiration from!

For the scenes I decided I was going to use scenes where he doesn’t move around too much, this being because I was also going to experiment with coloring. I ended up with five scenes and five words, and then decided I also wanted to use excerpts from the novel directly. All the novel excerpts were taken from the Exiled Rebel Scanlations translation.

Having gathered everything I needed, it was time to get to work!

2. Creating

I started out by putting all my scenes through Avisynth 2.5 as I always do, and I ended up with five 540x540 videos of about 50 frames each. One of the first things I did in Photoshop was put in around three to four selective coloring layers to turn the background as blue as possible, but even after doing that I wasn’t satisfied with the result so I slapped on a solid coloring layer that I blended into an overlay and then turned the opacity down to 75. The reason why I wanted scenes where he doesn’t move around too much was so that I could do this, because once I put on the solid coloring overlay Lan Wangji himself turned this godawful blue color. So working with a layer mask I erased all the parts where his skin was showing so he would keep his natural skin color.

Once the coloring was (almost) done, I started looking for typography. I don’t remember exactly what fonts I used, but they were very similar to the fonts used in the gifsets where I drew my inspiration from. Following the tutorial (and failing countless of times before I eventually got it right) I was able to get the text to look the way it does! I did end up struggling with the text on every single gifset because no matter how many times I followed the tutorial I always ended up making a mistake somewhere. I think I redid the text on each gif up to five times.

Placing the novel excerpts was probably my favorite thing on this gifset. At first I placed them in a rather standard way, right above and right below the words with ample spacing. I think I originally saved my gifs that way too, but only a couple days before his birthday (and also before the start of my exams, which started on the 25th) I decided it was too boring. So I went back in and placed the excerpts in many different positions before eventually placing them the way they’re placed in the final version.

To this day, I still think this might be one of the hardest gifsets I’ve ever made. In total I spent a little over a week (I did have to study and whatnot during the day so I usually opened PS in the evening) making and remaking this entire set. I’m pretty sure this one also made me cry out of frustration because I kept getting the text wrong.... ;-;

3. Posting

I think I finished the set a day before his birthday so I ended up putitng it in my queue so it would post exactly at midnight. I was incredibly excited to post it because it was one of the best sets I’d made up to that point (it still is) and I remember getting a lot of compliments in the tags that made me really happy :D

I won’t be tagging anyone, but it was fun to be able to ramble a bit ^-^

[love-bokumono-fics]

in your opinion, which harvest moon or sos games are worth playing and which are not? Are the older titles worth it?

So I have to confess, I have played relatively few HM/SoS games to completion. "Completion" meaning: over a year in-game played, got married, had a kid, and/or completed whatever story there is to be done. I am also of the mind that if something makes me happy, regardless of how old, or objectively "bad" it might be considered, it's worth playing. It makes me happy, it's time well spent.

So if you're looking for an actual critical, and well thought out review of the games, I am not the blog to ask. There are lots of other people out there who have given more thought to the matter than I have.

For the record, the games I have played are: Back to Nature, HM 3 GBC, (More) Friends of Mineral Town, Island of Happiness, Save the Homeland, SoS1, Trio of Towns, SoS Friends of Mineral Town, and I'm working my way through Pioneers of Olive Town.

I've played a little bit of Tale of Two Towns, and A New Beginning, but I didn't get very far in either of those before getting distracted with other things. I enjoyed them while I was playing, but also neither of them captured my attention enough to stay invested long term. Make of that what you will.

I never played any of the titles that were released on Game Cube or Wii, and I basically didn't play anything between 2007 and 2014. Which some people will say is when the best games came out, and I missed out on the best titles, but I never played them so I can't offer an opinion on them. And I haven't played any of the Harvest Moon titles since the split.

So of the ~25 games that we have under the Hm/SoS umbrella, I've played 10, and 4 of them are technically the same game remade on different consoles so let's say 6. Several of the games I played as a literal child, and when I upgraded to the next technology generation, I lost my ability to play them. Others I picked up again as an adult and thoroughly enjoyed my time playing.

As for the "worth" of the game, it really depends on what you, personally, want from your game. I've already given you my definition of "worth". I realize it is not Everyone's definition of "worth". Nonny, I suspect, that since you're asking me in the first place, "it makes me happy" isn't the only reason you want/need to invest time and effort into playing a game. I cannot tell you which games you think will be "worth it."

I think each game has it's own value. It offers something that other's don't. Different characters, different farming mechanics, different stories, and I think each one, in its own way has some value to impart on the players.

My long-time favorite game has been the Mineral Town games, ever since we got BTN in 2000 I fell in love with the premise, the characters, the setting. I bought the gameboy versions when they hit stores, and they are the games I most consistently return to when I want something comfortable.

Compared to recent games though, the Mineral Town ones are Really Basic. And while I love the games for their nostalgia, I know some people will be bored to tears by them of they go from playing the more recent games to that. Even when FoMT hit the switch last sumer I had a bit of whiplash going "oh, there's so little on the calendar, and I only have how many different crops to grow? nothing grows in winter? okay." because I had just come off from playing Trio of Towns.

If you want to be busy and have 100 goals to meet, stick to the newer games. If you just wanna chill and do whatever, try some of the older games if you can.

I think, if you have the time/ability to go back and play the old games, and you want to do it, then by all means, go for it!

A lot of them are only available to play on technology that a lot of people don't have floating around their homes anymore. If they didn't get a next gen port to an easily accessible console, so unless you still have a functioning PS2 or GBA, you're not going to have the chance to play them. Yeah, emulators are out there and they work, but in my experience they're also annoying and buggy, and not an ideal way to play the games. If you have the consoles, but not the games, getting your hands on copies can be very expensive.

You are already prone to play the old games. You're gonna play them regardless of my opinions on them. You're gonna shell out the cash or set up the emulator, or dust off the Wii and pray it still works, and i hope you enjoy your time playing!

These games have been coming out over 20+ years at this point, and while many of them are just remakes/reskins/girl versions, that's still so much time covered in video game technology. And comparing the earliest games to the most recent ones is more of an exercise in frustration and futility. You're never going to find the right answer.

(I also don't know what your personal gauge for 'old' is, Nonny. Because Old for me are games that are 20 years old. Old for you might be games that are 5 years old, which was like... last week from my perspective, so...)

All this to say, I guess I'll give a brief opinion on the games I have played, and y'all can make your decisions as you please from there.

Back to Nature/Mineral Town Games: My OG game. Always holds a dear spot in my heart for nostalgia. Love the town, love the characters, love the music, can do no wrong, a very enjoyable, if basic, farming game. Easy to play for a bit, set down for a while, and pick up and play again without feeling like you've forgotten you were in the middle of something important.

HM GBC 3: Pretty sure I was 10 last time I played it, so grain of salt. I found it more boring than the MT games, the town and maps were smaller, none of the characters had portraits, I didn't really get all of the details to make the farm work. I'm sure if I went back now as an adult I would have a better time, but I have no desire to emulate it. If you want to emulate it, go for it, but be warned that if you play as a girl, the game ends after you get married. Doesn't do that if you play as a boy so...

Save the Homeland: I kept going back to replay this game for years. I thought the premise was fun, and I always wanted to try and get all of the endings, but never did. I would buy it again in a heartbeat if it got remastered. Different from other games tho, in that you only get one year to play and get an ending, and once you do, the game restarts you at Spring 1 and nobody knows who you are again. You get to keep your animals and house upgrades, but there's no dating and marriage.

Island of Happiness: I love the setting and the characters, but god FUCK that weather system. Can't get shit to grow unless you obsessively track if it rains and how sunny it is and it completely ruined the game for me. I tried playing it again a couple years back and couldn't be bothered to keep tracking stuff. I never once unlocked all of the crops or livestock on any of my playthroughs. Did manage to play long enough to get married once.

SoS1: The game that convinced me to go back to buying new stuff after IoH kind of put me off new HM games for the better part of a decade (I had FoMT to replay it was fine). Liked it well enough, thought some of the characters were a bit bland, but still enjoyable enough to get married and have a kid. Unlocking all the vendors is a bitch though, and I still haven't gotten them all. A fine game, but if you're only going to play One 3DS game, I wouldn't suggest this one.

Trio of Towns: This one ties with FoMT as my favorite game! I love everything about it. The Characters, the setting and premise, the music, the depth of events. There's so much to do, there's never a boring day, but that can also feel overwhelming if you're the kind if person who tries to do everything at once. Not as easy to pick up and put down as some of the more basic games, but it's very replayable in my book and I keep coming back to it.

Pioneers of Olive Town: It's a middling game for me. Like SoS1, it's fine, but unlike SoS1, there's very little to do in the game. I completed the "main story" in less than a year without putting in much effort to complete things in a timely manner. The characters and the game had So Much Potential, particularly after 3oT, and all of it fell flat in my expectations. Plus some of the technical issues we all experienced at launch. Now, I'm still playing it, I don't hate the game, and the updates have made things better. But with the story done and all of the characters feeling a bit Flat, I'm biding my time between DLC updates to see if I want to marry any of the special candidates instead of the base game characters. I'll probably keep playing long enough to get married and probably unlock everything on the farm, but beyond that I'm not super invested.

My final verdict is, if you have a 3DS, get Trio of Towns, if you only have a Switch, get Friends of Mineral Town. If you want to put forth the time and effort into acquiring the old games, or emulating them, by all means go for it.

[wizardessheartprincess]

Bold of u to assume i have a title in mind (prologue, part 1/?)

Pairing; bakugou katsuki x reader

A/N; new au: reader’s sending out surveys and somehow one respondent makes it into a competition; reader is not paid enough to deal with this. So many wild assumptions, even the economics major in me is reeling. Many corners were cut. I’m mostly sorry. only ooc in this household. shoutout to @lady-bakuhoe whose incredible existence was the impetus for me to write a fic for the first time in 2 years. will i continue this? who knows!

edit: part 2 is here (x)

Your eyes are drawn to the little black text box that pops up in the bottom right corner of your screen - a new email. The subject line - a reply to the email you haven’t even finished sending to all the recipients yet.

You click into the notification, expecting it to be one of the business students critiquing your survey design - but no, it’s… from the Hero Course. Funny, since they’re usually off training, and you have to nag most of them multiple times to answer emails, even with the giant “[ACTION REQUIRED]” tag in the subject line.

You sit up from where you’re lazily draped over the bed, kicking aside the blanket as you decide to act more professional when you’re technically still on the clock for work. You shuffle over to the desk, gently placing your laptop on top of it before you’re much less gentle with how you plop yourself into the chair.

The survey was an exercise for the Support Course - meant to develop your communication skills with the heroes you would one day aid in their work. That meant designing a survey that your heroic audience would actually take the time to answer accurately, while providing you with feedback on your designs. 

Your specialty was in aerodynamics and chemistry - and the Hero Course student you most wanted to design for was Bakugou Katsuki. It was just your luck that he was also probably the worst “client” to work for… at least from what you’d heard from your classmates. Abrasive, picky, and downright destructive of his equipment - those were your classmates’ chief complaints about him. But while of course, you understood their annoyance at having to remake his costume every time he ran off into a new scuffle, part of you was attracted to the qualities that others seemed to hate. He was aggressive, and harsh on his support items, yes, but he demanded the best out of his own performance, too. It went both ways. Personally, you appreciated that he knew exactly what he needed, and you’d be happy to try to deliver-

It absolutely sucked, having two desires conflicting like this - one, to dive headfirst into your inventions, to create boundlessly, to really make an impact on the world through the users of your gifts - but the other, to simply create without having to interact with others. You envied people like Hatsume, who seemed to have endless energy to pour into marketing, to not just make, but also share. You? 

You had an equal ratio of 3D print files and trashed concept art, and a 100:0 ratio of ideas to actually publicized ideas. 

Sure, you’d tossed some small inventions into the metaphorical ring before, to some praise and interest from major support companies, but you’d always been too damn shy to really push anything to come out of those initial sparks of interest. 

You opened the email, drafting the survey you were originally planning to send out to Todoroki. He could wait.

Above the answers - quite thoughtfully composed, actually - was a note. 

“Is this the fastest reply you’ve gotten?” 

I quietly snort. Seriously? Not everything has to be a competition. But based on the way he acted in the Sports Festival (and everywhere else, let’s be honest)… you’re not entirely surprised.

You pause, curiously skimming his answers, slowing down every now and then so you can reciprocate his thoughts with your own, already brimming with fresh concepts to incorporate into existing designs. 

And... as much as you’d like to spiral into sketches and notes on how to buffer the shock wave effect of his large explosions on his own body, more complex biologic drug compounds to prevent any pulmonary issues from his quirk, and the possibility of adding an automatic shock wave source to his hero costume that would provide destructive interference with any aftershocks of his explosions that might put too much pressure on his body - 

First.

You check the reply time - he replied nineteen minutes after you sent the initial email. 

You hit the reply button.

“Dear Bakugou - 

Thank you for the prompt and thorough response! Unfortunately, Midoriya responded to the last survey in eighteen minutes - just a minute before you. 

- Y/N”

You hit send, and navigate promptly to the drafted email you were working on just before this one. While you could just mass email everyone, you’ve found that personalizing the emails generally gets better response and completion rates. Still, you’ve barely typed out Todoroki’s name before another notification pops up - 

“Did I beat it yet?” is the entire contents of the email.

You can’t help but smile a little - and you almost just reply with a short “Yes : )” and leave it at that, but…

This opportunity doesn’t come every day. You look at the clock - technically, you could stop now if you wanted. Even on school nights, you’re encouraged to generally stop working before it gets too late, to refresh your mind periodically. Still…

You open your files, navigating to the folder you have for Bakugou. While you have a folder for pretty much every student in the Hero Course, you’ve spent much more time designing possibilities for Bakugou’s costume, the potential of a better aerodynamic and versatile all-around tool for him to use in battle.

- Not that you’ve ever really shown these designs to anyone, let alone the person they were customized for.

But…

Screw it.

You attach a couple of files to your reply email.

“You beat the record.”

You make no written mention of the files - hopefully, he’ll see them anyway, because you have no idea how to introduce them out of the blue. Honestly, he’s probably too busy to study them too in-depth, and it’s just as well if he doesn’t notice the attachments, anyway. Maybe they’re not that useful after all.

You hit send again. 

It’s hours later when your phone lights up and dings with another notification - you sit up groggily in bed, trying to reach for it while cursing that you forgot to turn your notifications off overnight - when you see it’s another reply from Bakugou. Instantly, you’re awake, as if the man himself had come into your room and directed an explosion into your face.

Did he see your designs?

You scramble to tap on the email in your inbox, accidentally clicking into a reply from Kirishima that you instantly close out of, before you stop, and it’s as if the night has its own inertia in the still silence. 

“Can I talk to you about these tomorrow?”

Your throat goes dry - you swing your legs out of bed, and toddle to your desk again, turning on the room lights on your way. Flipping up your laptop screen again, you open all the 3D print iteration files, the word documents of notes, the code and corresponding comments, the CAD models, from Bakugou’s folder - there’s no way you’ll be able to sleep tonight.

Then, finally, you respond.

“What time?”

[chocochar]

ᴍɪꜱꜱᴇᴅ ᴍᴇ? | ᴅᴀʙɪ/ᴛᴏᴜʏᴀ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | ᴘᴀʀᴛ 4: ʙᴏɴᴅɪɴɢ

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5 | Valentine’s Special | Part 6: TBA

(AN: So part 4, yay! I'm going to be 100% honest, didn't think this was going to even reach this point, like if it wasn't for the lovely readers and comments I don't think it would've been continued, so I'm happy, thank you readers (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄ 

This one may not be as long as the previous parts since it's going to have some father son bonding, kind of fluff with Dabi and Kaoru but part 5 will be longer with what's planned. Also the writing I feel will be kinda weird at first, since it'll be through Kaoru's POV so I was trying to have the mindset of a 10 year old, kinda?? (〃￣ω￣〃)ゞ 

So let's hop in, yeah?)

[Kaoru's POV]

        I was really surprised when I woke up early this��morning and went out to get breakfast. Mom was already awake and getting ready in her room to go to work, and since I have the day off I decided to make breakfast for us both, which I do when I'm off but she still has to go in. After last night I've been worried, well, actually since I saw dad the day before, but seeing mom cry I didn't know what to do. I just stood in place and it felt like my legs got really heavy. I don't like to see mom cry or get stressed, so I wanna do my best to be good and help her!

        Heading to the living room I almost missed dad sleeping on the couch, until I heard the blankets shift and his black hair sticking out which looked even more messy. I froze, eyes wide; trying to be quiet I tip toed over to him and peeked over the arm of the couch. The blanket covered most of him and was raised up to his chin, his eyes were still closed and he didn't look ready to wake up yet. I was still shocked, thinking,'Mom let him stay the night?! Sh-Should I wake him up and see if he's hungry? Or would he be mad if I did that?' 

        I stood there for a few minutes deciding on what to do before shakily making my decision by poking his cheek. Nothing. With a little more confidence I did it again, this time dad sniffs and shifts, my hand pulling back when I jump. 'He's not that scary... Well, he is... C'mon Kaoru, just wake him up and ask him if he wants breakfast!!'

        After the small pep talk in my head I look down to poke him again before freezing up, his eyes open and looking tiredly up at me. I can't tell if he's annoyed or not (dangit, I should've just left him alone!) but his voice doesn't sound like it when he asks,"What is it, Kaoru?"

        "Uh, well, sorry about waking you up so early, but I was wondering if, um, you'd like some breakfast? I was gonna start on omurice for me and mom, want some too?" I ask, fidgeting with my shirt. He blinks, before picking up his phone to check the time I think, before shrugging as he starts to get up.

        "Sure," is all he says, sitting up and scratching his head still looking at his phone. Nodding I hurry to the kitchen to start on food.

        Luckily I finish mom's as she comes out of her room in uniform and I hand her her plate and fork along with a glass of juice.

        "Ah Kaoru, you know you don't have to do this," she smiles, glancing at dad who's looking up from his phone at her. "Good morning," she says, smiling at him.

        "Morning," he yawns, stretching. I catch the way her cheeks turn pink and she steps around me to go eat in the kitchen.

        "I don't want you going to work on an empty stomach, that's not good for an officer," I say, checking dad's which is just about done. Dishing his up I start on mine and watch as mom gulps hers down once she sees the time. She's done faster than I expected and I follow her out to the living room where she stops to talk to dad before she goes.

        "I've got to work today, otherwise... Anyways, are you planning to leave after breakfast or...?" She asks, dad shrugging after locking his phone. It looked like he was texting someone, but I wouldn't know who.

        "Looking to kick me out, already? Even though you offered me the couch last night?" He turns to look at her, I think teasing her, and mom shakes her head with a sigh.

        "No, I was just wondering because... Well, while I'm at work I was going to ask if you'd like to stay and hang out with Kaoru," she says, crossing her arms. My eyes light up although I'm surprised too, but dad looks at me before back to mom and nods. He's really, uh... nonchalant? I think it's kind of cool.

        "Beats my plans today, plus I've gotta get to know my 'mini me' right?" he replies, his nickname for me sounding better than the 'chibi' one Natsu-oji and Rina-oba call me. I hate that one, but I don't try to stop them when they call me it. When he looks at me again I smile and nod eagerly, but I try to reel it in. Gotta be cool like dad! I can't seem too excited, so I nod more slowly. I don't know if he caught it or not, but he turns back to mom.

        "Okay, well, good, I'll be back around 4 then," she replies, getting ready to leave.

        "Okay, go play hero," he says, and mom narrows her eyes at him before she walks back over to him and pinches the good skin on dad's cheek. He looks at her with his eyes widening slightly touching his cheek, while I watch both not expecting mom to do that and dad to look so surprised. 

        "Next time I'll go for the ear," she tells him with a smile, I think she's teasing him, but dad returns to his nonchalant attitude and turns away from her, checking his phone again. He seems annoyed, I think, but not mad at least. "Bye boys," mom says before she leaves. I stand there staring at the door before I gasp and hurry back to the kitchen, forgetting about the food!

        I wound up having to remake mine but dad and me now sit on the couch, the TV on but neither of us really knowing what to watch. We wound up settling on the news, and it's talking about the heroes again; hen they bring grandpa on I cock my head but I flinch when dad suddenly stands and goes to the kitchen. It was really abrupt, and I could see he looked... really mad. It was hard to tell, but his eyes looked scarier than usual. Remembering how he's got the burn scars I look at the TV again and a question comes to mind: How did dad... get his scars? Mom mentioned he... cremated himself? I want to ask what that means but not right now. I think it would probably be best to avoid talking about that stuff until dad doesn't seem as upset.

[Dabi's POV]

                Bastard. That's all I can think whenever I see that mug of his. The smug air around him because he finally got to that #1 hero spot. Even if he won't admit it I'm pretty sure it kills him knowing it wasn't from all the training and work he put in to surpass All Might. But he still got to that top pedestal. Probably regrets all his imperfect breeding and sees it as a waste of time, failures he doesn't need around. Or at least that's probably how he viewed me. Fuyumi and Natsuo got lucky, he didn't try to train them or let them starve if they didn't do well enough in a training session.

        My hands grip the sink tightly and for a brief moment I nearly forget where I am as my flames start to lick at me arms and face. Whether he's only knocked off his throne, or killed, it doesn't matter to me. One way or another karma will bite him in the ass.

        "Dad?"

        My flames immediately disperse hearing Kaoru's voice. Turning around I look at him and he looks worried, my mind settling again as I ask,"So what did you want to do today? I've got a free schedule so whatever you're in the mood for we'll see what happens." 

        This doesn't seem to fully push away his concern, but he doesn't try to push the matter, instead answering my question,"Um... Well I don't mind what we do. We could play video games, or go out and do something, there's a movie theater and park nearby, I'm okay with anything."

        I rub my neck knowing if I even stepped one foot out of this place in daytime I'd be found out, so I can't exactly risk that until I think of something that would make it possible. So looking back down at Kaoru I say,"Let's hang out in here for the time being, I can't exactly go outside, don't want to scare people, y'know?" I point at my face with one corner of my mouth lifting, 'mini me' seeming to understand since he nods and doesn't really seem disappointed. To be honest I've been pretty surprised by the way he's been handling all of this; either he has no idea who 'Dabi' is, or he doesn't care. Like when he first saw me, he looked scared for a second but then that changed to what I'm guessing was amazement maybe? Or intrigue. Anyways, he's pretty calm, I could tell he was eager for me to stay today.

        I follow him to the living room and when he suggests video games I admit,"I'm not really the kind of guy who plays video games, so don't expect me to play well."

        "That's okay! Mom is okay, but it's still fun to play," he smiles, getting the system set up as well as two controllers. I watch him getting it all ready, getting lost in thought.

        It's weird, this whole situation, 10 years living on the streets and becoming who I am today I'm not sure how to feel about this whole 'dad' thing. I still have no idea why I came after (F/n) and him, I don't know what my goal was, if I even had one. I just saw the kid, then her... And before I knew it I followed them home and even broke in, twice. Did I miss (F/n) since I'd seen her all those years ago? Yeah, can't really deny I did. Back then she was the only thing I really had that kept me from breaking down or let me vent all my frustrations about home, while she sat and listened. She once nearly stormed to my house to rip my dad a new one, but luckily Fuyumi and I stopped her. Being able to see her again and talk is nostalgic, even if we're now on different sides of the law. And seeing Kaoru I got remembering everything with him. My own childhood, where I didn't really have a father, more like a tyrant. Something about not only the thought of Kaoru missing a dad along with having that bastard to look up to... That was a huge push for me to confront (F/n) and reveal myself.

        Granted, it was a pretty stupid plan knowing her job. At least it went smoothly, for the most part.

        I blink out of my thoughts when Kaoru hands me a controller and I look it over as he sits next to me and gets the game started. 

[X][X][X]

        "Are you sure you didn't lie to me? I bet you have played this game before!" Kaoru exclaims, pointing at me accusingly as I beat him, again. We've been playing a few hours, it's already noon now, and I briefly think about (F/n). I'll stay around until she gets home, and see if we can talk about the situation more before I go so the League doesn't think I'm skipping out on meetings.

        Smirking I say,"Nope, never in my life, just happened to watch some of my teammates play it but I doubt that's enough for me to catch on. Guess your dad is just that good." He gives a pout, which immediately makes me think of how much it matches his mom's, before he gets up to switch out the games.

        It's quiet for a minute or two while he does this, but he breaks it when he asks,"Dad... Is it true you're a bad guy?"

        I don't respond at first. So he does know.

        "Technically, yeah," I reply, scratching the back of my head as he looks back at me. He looks surprised, probably because I didn't deny it.

        "Why?"

        I take a minute to think about how to respond, staring at the floor a few moments before meeting his eyes again and saying,"It's a lot to explain, but I'm trying to... 'clean up' the hero society, well, society as a whole. There are a lot of heroes out there who aren't as 'good' as they try to pass themselves off as, and I'm trying to get rid of them or show their true colors."

        He stares at me taken back but also confused, looking down and I'm guessing trying to understand. 

        "So, like that one 'hero killer' kind of?" He asks, which I wasn't expecting. I didn't consider he knew about Stain but it saves me the time trying to explain more. 

        "Yeah, kind of."

        He hums, mumbling,"Grandpa is kind of like that, he's really scary but he's a big hero... Mom doesn't like him." Good to know, (F/n) still can't stand him.

        "You're mom is right in not liking him, kid, Endeavor is one of the worst out there," I tell him, my eyes narrowing. Kaoru turns his head back up to look at me before standing and facing me.

        "Is it true, th-that you had trouble controlling your quirk?" He asks out of nowhere. I cock a brow and nod, lifting my hand and turning it over, letting a small blue blaze dance on my palm. He stares at it almost mesmerized as it flickers but doesn't grow or go stray as I control it.

        "I've got better control now, but yeah, used to burn myself a lot growing up," I explain, moving the flame around my hand before it rests in my palm again and I close my fingers into a fist, the flame disappearing. I take notice on how much he's fidgeting, so I proceed to ask,"Are you struggling using yours or something?"

        He scratches the back of his before he nods, explaining,"Y-Yeah, it's getting really bad and I don't know how to stop it from getting out of control... I can do force fields like mom, but they, um, they have blue fire on the outside of them, so when I use them I panic... And they get big and the fire gets worse." He looks ready to show but shaking his head decides not to and instead continues with,"Mom is having Shouto-oji help me this Saturday, b-but I'm nervous..."

        I narrow my eyes hearing this; Shouto is training Karou? It's not a bad idea, I guess, won't deny the brat's learned pretty well how to use his quirk, but something about him being the one training Kaoru bothers me. I don't have a clue why it irks me, but my mouth moves faster than my brain this time.

        "What about me training you?" I ask, and Kaoru's eyes widen at the suggestion and I rest my elbow on my knee and my chin on my palm gauging his reaction. It's probably not a good idea, but too late to take it back now. "Unless you'd prefer someone like Shouto, I doubt I'd be the easier teacher-"

        "N-No, I'd like that!" He cuts me off, my eyes slightly widening. He looks embarrassed, and tries to hide it by acting nonchalant, continuing,"I mean, uh, you've been in my shoes, so I, um, think you'd be the better choice. Plus I'd get to see my dad, which would be pretty cool." He's definitely not convincing me with his aloof act, but I smile and chuckle, finding it kind of cute. 

        "Then I'll talk to your mom when she gets home, okay?"

[X][X][X]

[(F/n)'s POV]

        When I get home I'm fairly surprised Tou- Dabi is still there, and he and Kaoru look like they're playing a board game; the winner is pretty clear, by Kaoru's pout and Dabi's smirk. They both look at me when I walk in and I ask,"Hey boys, did you two have fun today?" It's still a weird feeling that Dabi is here, and it feels normal. Well as normal as it can be.

        "Yeah, but dad's a cheater..." Kaoru huffs, arms crossed glaring at the game.

        "I told you I'm not cheating or lying about playing these games before, you're dad is just that good." Dabi teases. He turns his attention back to me and stands, walking up to me and putting his hands in his pockets. I look up, meeting his cerulean gaze as he speaks,"I was looking to talk to you about something." Puzzled I tilt my head and nod, letting him continue. I still can't read his face, but it at least doesn't seem serious.

        "Kaoru told me about how you were planning to have Shouto train him, which I guess isn't a bad idea," he shrugs, although I'm not sure why he's bringing this up. "But I got a better one: me training him."

        I blink a few times, not sure what to say to this suggestion. It's not outlandish, but it is a little odd. It could give them more time to see each other, I suppose. Although he and I will see each other quite a bit more too... Which has my heart thumping harder than expected.

        "It was going to be Shouto and his friend, but you... Want to train him, instead of Shouto?" I ask, repeating his suggestion. 

        "Yeah. I used to be in his footsteps, remember? I'd know better than Shouto how to help him learn some control. Just let me know when and where and I'll meet you there," he tells me, while I'm still surprised he's offering. But glancing at Kaoru I meet Dabi's eyes again, and with a nod I agree, a little hesitation there.

        "Alright, I guess it won't hurt. We'll have the first training day Saturday, around 2 PM. It's in a training area a friend of mine owns, I'll give you the address," I tell him. My face heats up slightly when he flashes a lazy grin, his eyes never leaving mine.

        "Fine, sounds like a plan, little miss cop."

(AN: So like I'll be honest, this chapter was fun to write buuuut it might not be the most exciting since there isn't much Dabi x (F/n) (〃￣ω￣〃)ゞ But next chapter will have more (F/n) come in since it'll be the beginning of Kaoru's training.

I hope you guys enjoy, let me know if you are? (i feel like i'm makin dabi too soft when it comes to kaoru, if i am i am sorry)

(ps I've got another fic series in mind for Shouto fangirls, it should be started within a few days so keep an eye out (˵¯͒⌄¯͒˵) ))

[qqueenofhades]

so i’ve been following the presidential race closely, and i’ve been a fan of bernie since the start. however, my mom says that he wouldn’t make any big changes, as he’s hard to work with, can’t make the necessary compromises. the example she used was that throughout his senate term, he’s only passed 3 bills, 2 of which were insignificant. i didn’t think of this, as this is my first time closely following an election. what are your thoughts? would a sanders presidency make any real changes?

Oh dear. You really want to get me into trouble this morning, don’t you. Which is 100% not your fault, you are smart to be thinking about all this and asking questions, and by no means do I want you to stop doing that. So I’ll try to explain this as clearly and straightforwardly as I can, and if I get hate for it, alas.

The thing about Bernie is, which certain subsets of his supporters don’t seem to quite appreciate, is that he’s a great candidate, he’s been useful in pushing the public dialogue and political climate of the Democrats further to the left, he obviously inspires a devoted following, and I agree completely with all of his policies. But there’s still a gulf – a very wide gulf – between all that, and actually putting good ideas into political practice in the (very) flawed American system of government as it currently exists. Yes, the system sucks, we know that, and it can feel outrageously frustrating when moderate candidates are offering milquetoast proposals that don’t really get at the underlying structural causes of massive, entrenched inequality, oppression, racism, sexism, etc that these bright young people have rightly identified in the world. That’s why Bernie is appealing as a candidate, and while my primary already happened on Super Tuesday, I would vote for him over Biden if that was my choice right now. But the seeming expectation that we could pick Bernie, he’d win, he’d instantly remake the entire American political system and implement all his changes, and everything would be fine again – and that if we can’t have that option, just not voting is somehow better – is, to say the least, deeply problematic.

I supported Elizabeth Warren for a number of reasons, but one of them was that while she had many progressive policies similar to or almost identical to Bernie’s, she had tangible evidence of being able to get them done (see: the CFPB), to network and form functional relationships with the Democratic establishment, to work within the existing framework of party politics, and to actually do everything she had written her plans for. To certain Bernie supporters, this made her a corporate shill, a heartless witch who wanted to personally kill poor children, an establishment hack, so on and so forth. They attacked her for running in the first place, they attacked her for challenging Bernie in debates, they attacked her for not dropping out before Super Tuesday, they attacked her for dropping out and then not immediately endorsing Sanders, they attacked her supporters, so on and so forth. I’d still vote for Sanders in a heartbeat over Biden, and I will be happy to vote for him if he gets the nomination. But when you’re treating people that way who fundamentally agree with you on all your policies, there’s something wrong. 

And no, it’s not a touchy-feely “we need to hold hands and be nice and listen to each other!” respectabillity politics issue, which also gets used as a straw man. Warren was committed to Medicare for All, but she also recognized there needed to be a transition period and that a public option was a good first step (something which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the other progressive superstar, has also said). Because she accepted any limitations, because she wanted to work in the system, because she didn’t say she’d burn down global capitalism on day 1, this made her a Very Bad Candidate, and people who otherwise agreed with her didn’t think she’d win, so they didn’t vote for her and turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m not saying Warren didn’t have flaws. She did. She’s a politician. There were other reasons people might not have been personally drawn to her. But the flack she got for daring to run as a progressive, while also acknowledging the power of the system and that you cannot uproot these structures immediately (she also planned to use executive power to implement some of her proposals on her first day in office), while challenging Bernie… wow.

Because the thing is, Bernie isn’t going to deliver absolutely everything he promises, and that’s not necessarily his fault. No politician in the history of time ever has. If Bernie somehow does get elected, with a Democratic-controlled House and Senate: great! Then yes, he does have a decent chance of passing some planks of his legislative policy. But there are several things you have to keep in mind here, and this is not “Bernie bashing”:

1. Bernie is not, strictly speaking, a Democrat. He’s an independent, he caucuses and votes often with the Democratic party, and he’s obviously running for their presidential nomination. But he’s not part of the party apparatus, he’s proud of that fact, and this is also a selling point for his supporters: look, he’s not part of the Corrupt Establishment! The DNC obviously has deep and systematic problems and is more committed to the bureaucratic status quo than uprooting inequality in America. That’s not up for debate. But as a candidate and as a nominee for the Democratic Party, Bernie would still need to have the backing of that system. If he doesn’t have it, that makes it harder.

2. “What does that matter?” a certain kind of Bernie supporter might cry. “They’re corrupt and rigging the election for Biden! Voter suppression!”

3. Pause for a deep sigh. Yes. There were long lines in many precincts on Super Tuesday. But voters for all candidates had to stand in them anyway. We’ve already discussed how some Sanders supporters treated Warren and her supporters, the ideologically closest candidate to them in the race. If your entire political ethos involves yelling at people and calling them names on the internet, that’s… not really sustainable as an outreach program and getting them into the hard work of day-to-day coalition building. I say this because I WANT to see progressive politics succeed and actually get put into practice, not just narrowly refined tighter and tighter into a certain tiny subset of Pure Beliefs that never amount to a hill of beans in anyone’s lives. You can have the greatest policies possible, but if you never acknowledge or accept any way to DO SOMETHING about them… really, is that a political ethos based on action and compassion or not? I’m voting for Sanders if he gets the nomination, and I’d vote for him if my primary was still upcoming and my first choice (Warren) was out. But I’m pretty fed up at how some camps on that side have been acting, and I am already a progressive. This… isn’t going to help build support beyond people who are already all in for Bernie. People who you will need to win an election.

4. The usual response here is often to blow off moderates and undecided voters and other people who are apparently just too dumb to see what’s going on. Yes! It is frustrating that half of America still wants to vote for Donald Goddamn Trump! But you’re still not winning an election and getting rid of him that way!

5. Bernie does, in fact, have a thin legislative track record, which may or may not matter if he actually becomes president. America has forgotten that the president is not SUPPOSED to make policy like a king, even though the function of the executive branch has been wildly expanded and bloated since W’s (and honestly, Reagan’s) day. The LEGISLATIVE branch, i.e. the House and Senate, is supposed to make policies, and the president EXECUTES them. That is his/her (ha, if only) JOB. But Bernie doesn’t have the kind of connections in the House/Senate that would help him efficiently mobilize policies, at least on his own initiative. Bills and amendments are slow, boring work. They require committee meetings, drafts, multiple readings, changes, deletions, hearings, final passage, etc. Ironically, the person Bernie could probably most count on in the Senate would be… Elizabeth Warren. And she’d obviously help him out, no matter what the rabid Bernie bros think, but it shows that party establishment politics, no matter how distasteful, are part of getting anything done.

6. Bernie’s plans to pay for some of his big policy proposals, such as student loan debt relief (which I am obviously very into) and Medicare for All, involve, according to him, levying a big new tax on Wall Street and the one percent. Passing a major new tax platform that RAISES taxes is always like pulling teeth. That would require passage in the House and Senate. Cool, let’s say the Democrats control both. Are all of them, especially the moderate ones or senators from red-leaning states, going to vote for it? Probably. But it’s not guaranteed. If you’re funding public policy by raising taxes (the one thing the American public has notably hated since 1773) it’s going to be HARD WORK. Let’s say that takes a year to pass. Let’s also guess that a President Sanders would lose either the House or the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, because sitting presidents almost invariably do. Obama had two years to enact some of his policy proposals. Then came 2010 and the Tea Party, and it was, as a deliberate and ongoing GOP choice, gridlock central.

7. You think the Republicans obstructed OBAMA? Centrist corporate Democrat Obama, whose policies were solidly in line with the American establishment, but who happened to have brown skin and a funny name? You ain’t seen NOTHING compared to what they would do to a President Sanders. And as we said, even if the Democrats take Congressional control in 2020, they would invariably lose at least one branch in 2022. We are already figuring in at least a year for Bernie to somehow get his tax plan through. The billionaires are mad. They pour money like crazy into GOP candidates. Welp.

8. So this leaves us… maybe 12-16 months for Bernie to try to enact all his policy reforms, while being deliberately outside of the Democratic party establishment, while having to work with the House and Senate in a way he hasn’t really done before, and accepting limitations on his policies and his political ability, also not something he has really shown an aptitude for. 

9. So what? Bernie supporters demand. Are you saying don’t vote for Bernie, it’s hopeless! CORPORATE SHILL!

10. No. Not what I am saying at all. Obviously a Sanders presidency would be light years, LIGHT FUCKING YEARS, better than what we’ve got in there right now. But Sanders (and also Biden) are in their late 70s and have underlying health problems. The likelihood that either of them would serve two full terms is… slim. Obama is two decades younger and we saw how much the presidency aged him. I feel like they’re both flawed candidates in different ways, and my deepest fear is that neither of them can beat Trump, that the Democrats by trying to go for Biden, an Establishment Centrist Old White Man, think they’re playing to a “middle” that doesn’t really exist, and that either progressives or moderates will feel left out in the cold if Biden or Sanders win the nomination. The candidate will have to do the post-convention “pivot,” i.e. trying to appeal to those of their party’s voters who didn’t choose them in the primary, but is Sanders going to do that? His whole platform and the reason his supporters love him is that he doesn’t compromise. Which again, great for ideology, but runs into problems with consistent and actual implementation.

At the end of all this, the takeaway is this: yes, vote for Bernie if you believe in him! But also have a realistic idea of what he will be up against! There is simply no way that he’s going to sweep into office, even if he does get elected, and magically whisk away all the parts of America that we hate. He would have maybe two years to ram through most of his policies, it requires a legislative skill set he hasn’t honed, it rests on passing a major tax package that would be deeply unpopular and cause him to get pummelled in the 2022 midterms, and he has made a career out of operating as the lone wolf. Once again, it’s not a question of whether the current system sucks. We know that it does. But it still exists, and one candidate, no matter how much we agree with him, is not going to change that. He would hopefully manage to pass some of his major policy initiatives. But pretending that there would be no opposition, that it would all be magically fine, and that everyone who DOES raise a note of caution is a cowardly defeatist, a secret capitalist pig, a fake progressive, a secret Trumper (and we’re not the ones threatening to vote for Trump or not at all if our fave doesn’t get the nomination) or whatever else is… not helpful.

Ultimately, if we do get stuck with Biden, we have to hold our noses and vote for him anyway. If we can hold the House and flip the Senate, they can make progressive legislation and Biden is very likely to sign it anyway. The presidential system is not SUPPOSED to rest purely on the personal beliefs of the president, like an absolutist monarch – there was a pretty famous war about it back in the eighteenth century. Biden has displayed no initiative to act like Trump and be a megalomaniacal fascist overlord. We need to take a step AWAY from the insanity that is the current administration, we need to get back to NORMAL, before we can keep going left. Which is what we want! But it happens in stages, if it happens at all, and pretending that it doesn’t, that the only options are the Whole Revolution Now or Nothing, is never, NEVER going to work. And yes, Biden’s positions are generally pretty eye-rolling and I’ll be annoyed if I have to vote for him. But I’ll still do it, because he is NOT equivalent to Trump. Biden got the Violence Against Women Act (which the GOP-controlled Senate notably just failed to reauthorize) funded and passed. Trump has been accused of sexual assault by… what, 22 women? RBG isn’t likely to last another four years. The circuit courts have already been stacked with young, wildly unqualified, hard-right John Birch Society-type judges who will hold their posts for at least 40 years, and this has a direct impact on the kind of cases that are reviewed, confirmed, or struck down even before they get to the Supreme Court. Climate change, the end. There is too much at stake to fuck this up for the sake of Not Getting Everything Now.

As a final note, the Russian propaganda/troll machine has made it clear that they’re posing as Bernie supporters who insist that if Bernie doesn’t win, you shouldn’t vote. They know Bernie supporters are already voicing and disseminating that argument themselves, and they’re going to inflame it as much as possible. So that’s something to keep in mind.

[bizarrelovesquare]

Hello, it’s Evie, and this is my new account!

brief explanation under the cut so I can get it off my chest, but it’s not required to read <3

I realized over the last several months that I did not like being perceived the way I was online, and that I have the power to just walk away and start over on a smaller scale and avoid anything I don’t want to be part of. In July, with no warning, I cleared out and abandoned/deactivated any accounts around the web that didn’t make me happy. All I have now are this, pinterest, ao3, and a new private twitter just for close friends.

Being online had come to feel like an expectation, no longer something for recreation, and most of it wasn’t fun. It honestly had been feeling that way for awhile, but I reached the last straw when I briefly got involved with a fandom on twitter (yuck) several months ago that was absolutely horrid. I realized what a mess it all really was, I finally snapped, and I got the hell away from everything and everyone.

It was easy to leave other sites because there was so much that I wanted to escape from--the hostility and toxicity, people’s dumbassery, the feeling of not being adequate enough as an artist, the pressure to get constant interaction, feeling like I was being watched all the time by hundreds to thousands of people who didn’t care about me as a person, etc. Social media was too much for my introvert self. However, I was on the fence about what I wanted to do with tumblr, so I sat on it for two months and mulled it over. I actually love this site because it’s mostly chill and has the best format, it’s creative, and it’s easy to avoid anything you don’t want to see, but I just didn’t love the baggage that I had on my old blog. I’d been on there since 2013 and had grown and changed a lot, particularly over the past year, and there was so much way back in there that didn’t represent who I’ve come to be, and it honestly made me feel stuck, even after I tried changing my url, giving that blog a makeover, and being more myself.

Several years ago, I spent an ungodly amount of time on this site trying to appeal to others, instead of letting myself just exist authentically and showcase all of my personality. I got fandom popular pretty early on, and for a long time, it made me feel like it was my duty to post about the things that got me popular and make original posts that my heart wasn’t even halfway into, worded in a way that would get notes. Keep in mind, I was younger and dumber when doing that and had nothing else going for me at that time (it was a low point in life). I definitely grew out of that mentality, but I couldn’t get away from all the posts I’d made that I no longer cared about that wouldn’t stop getting notes and the reputation I had developed for being known for a particular thing. I felt like there were too many followers who weren’t really there for me as a person or any other niche interests of mine, and it was really holding me back from just posting what I want and as much as I want, even after I quit caring and tried to just present as the real me. I knew it was my blog and it didn’t matter what others wanted, but I think the main thing was that I felt held back by my older ways of using tumblr, and I realized that I don’t want anything from that period of my life still attached to me. I didn’t know who I was back then, so I defined myself by an obsession. These days, I want people to see me as a whole person with a real life who just happens to also really like some things.

On top of that, again back when I was several years younger and at the lowest point of my life, I used to vent way too much about negative things in my personal life that don’t matter anymore, and even though I went through my archive and deleted them all, even though I know nobody else remembers them or is looking at them, I still knew that they happened, and I didn’t want that energy to keep following me. There was also evidence of ex-friendships and relationships I’m not proud of, ways I acted that I just don’t vibe with now, and just too much I remember that didn’t represent current-day me, and I want to actually break the connection to those memories. So with all of that, I decided I’d feel best to remake and start fresh. I got away from negative feelings everywhere else, so why not here, too? Any posts on the old blog that I love can eventually be reblogged over here. I’m going to curate a fresh new gallery of things I love, while feeling at peace about the whole thing.

My life is nothing like it was years ago. I’m actually happy with myself and my life and have been for nearly a year now. I know who I am now. I’ve healed/am healing from a lot of personal things. I have budding careers in everything I love and am working towards my dream life. I’m not ashamed of anything about myself. I still have bad days sometimes, but I don’t live in my misery. I like being positive and want to stay that way as much as possible.

I also never really let me show myself as a creator as much as I would have liked before, and I want to focus more on that from now on. As far as fan content goes, I’ve gotten back into writing fics and am no longer scared to share them. I’ve been working more on cosplay this year than I have in years. I also want to try to get into making gifs. Additionally, I am a writer (fiction and non), photographer, and aspiring designer in real life, so some original work might show up now and then, too, if it’s something I’m really proud of. I also want to post about mental health and recovery. My blog will still have plenty of fan content, but I want to sprinkle in some other things that are important to me as well.

I just want to be in a quiet peaceful corner among good people. Lately, I’ve realized that I want my life to be as lowkey as possible, both online and irl. I just want to vibe and do my thing for myself, surrounded by a few good friends. I learned way too late that fandoms are hell if you branch out too far, and that I also hate being in the spotlight, even in regards to things I create. I don’t exist for the consumption of others, and that’s such a freeing thing to realize. Anything I post/rb is solely because I want it on my blog; I don’t care what happens to it after I put it there. I post for me, I make my art for me (and sometimes my jobs), and if my friends enjoy it, and if I make new friends along the way, that’s awesome! But impressing everybody is just not a thing I can nor want to do anymore. You don’t have to run yourself ragged trying to spread yourself across the internet, whether as a fan or a creator. If a site was to disappear, what do all those likes and followers mean? Absolutely nothing. At the end of the day, all you have is you and how YOU feel about yourself, so spend your time on here (or anywhere, really) existing for you, first and foremost.

I’ve gone back to my very old internet days of not trying to impress anyone, while combining that mentality with the wisdom and sense of self that I’ve gained with age. Maybe you won’t be able to tell a difference, but I’m the one living in my head, and I definitely can tell that I’ve grown, a lot in my life has changed, and I am much more confident in myself, and I want to have a blog that 100% feels like me and has no bad associations attached. I’m not the first person to make a new account and won’t be the last. Things like this are supposed to mostly be FOR FUN, and too many people these days have gotten away from that. Don’t feel like you have to keep living up to some reputation that was built years ago, and don’t feel like you exist for others. Be yourself, embrace changes as you grow, do what’s comfortable and healthy for you and makes you happy, and the right people will like you for that. The most important of them being you. <3