#the series was just an integral part of my childhood

[bioswear]

Some things I really like in ToTK as someone who considers Zelda games loadbearing:

the reuse of the Dragon Roost Island theme strikes an extremely specific feeling in my heart and it makes me want to cry from an emotion that isn’t quite nostalgia (it’s like the equivalent of seeing an old friend)

The reuse of parts of the tune of Faron Woods from Skyward Sword in the Korok Forest

That drop-down into the Great Deku Tree threw me straight back to the first time I dropped down the Deku Tree in Ocarina

Seeing Gohma back was like “oh fuck yeah this bitch!” And knowing exactly how to fight her 👌

The reintroduction of Sages but I wish they had kept 7 as the number of Sages as a True Callback to Ocarina of Time

The Stable Trotters really bring a Spirit Tracks/Phantom Hourglass kind of vibe and it’s probably bc of the tiny little chocolate chip of a Hylian Man that’s the conductor - his design is just so DS zelda and it tickles me

That Ganon is an Active Threat again and that the world feels more reactionary to the events and ongoing caused by his return. It feels like Classic Zelda problems

The way Hyrule Castle is suspended above Hyrule is really reminiscent of its sectioned off fate in Twilight Princess

The phantom soldiers that hold weapons down in the Depths feels like the spirit soldiers from TP

Love that the Depths mirrors the Overworld like an homage to ALTP

[xxbimbobunnyxx]

Sugar and Spice: Part 1

(E.M. x Fem!Reader x S.H.) Part 2 Series Masterlist.

Summary: Steve has massive crush on you, Eddie’s childhood bestfriend who just came home from collage. The only problem is you despised him in highschool and he’s pretty sure Eddie’s in love with you.

Warnings: Eventual smut, pining, love triangle, no upside down, eventual steddie x reader, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, fluff, no use of Y/N so definitely a billion pet names. There’s not really any for this chapter, it’s mostly setting the scene for the rest of the story. Mentions of sex and some swearing. I will add additional warnings each chapter! But still my work is always 18+MNDI

A/N: Okay I found this in my docs and I was reading over it and got inspired to keep writing it. I’ve had this idea in my head for a long time about a Reader who has a kind of like pastel goth type of aesthetic. Like she plays D&D and loves horror but also really loves chick flicks and pink. She listens to Black Sabbath but then will turn around and listen to Blondie in the same 10 minutes. Collects Care Bears but has read every Anne Rice book. I feel like both Eddie and Steve would lose their minds over that. There will be no physical descriptions of reader besides the outfits she wears, which will be things like big chunky goth boots and fuzzy pink sweaters. Ngl it’s kinda self indulgent of me but I hope there’s others who can relate to her.🤭 divider I used is by: @firefly-graphics

Steve wasn’t obsessed with you, at least he tried to convince himself that was the case. He hadn’t seen you since you graduated and moved to the city. But ever since you’ve been back it’s like he sees you everywhere. You come into his work sometimes and rent horror movies, or on rare occasions you rent something totally cute and left-field like The Little Mermaid. You wore outfits that were somehow the hottest and cutest thing he’s ever seen at once, his favorite he’s ever seen you in was this short little black skirt and a pink button up cardigan that you replaced the buttons with little skulls all brought together by the big platform boots you’re usually wearing. That contrast just made him more infatuated with you. You were like sugar and spice wrapped up in one really beautiful girl.

But there were TWO major problems, one being that you hated him In highschool. He was an arrogant asshole who thought he was better than everyone, could do whatever he wanted and looked down on the kind of people you hung around. You were pretty quiet but outspoken and opinionated when you wanted to be, kept close to the few friends you had and always had your head in some kind of horror or vampire book that Steve would definitely not understand but would’ve totally listened to you talk about all day just to hear you talk about something you loved. He always thought you were pretty, even in highschool when you used to dress a lot more reserved. Mostly ripped jeans, the occasional Care Bears tee, and shirts of bands he didn’t know. He even asked you out once Junior year before he got with Nancy and you laughed in his face and said “yeah fucking right Harrington, good one” But now? You’re always wearing those little mini skirts, low cut tank tops, and ripped up fishnets. Steve literally feels like he can’t think around you.

Which brings him to problem number two…Eddie. You and Eddie are bestfriends and have been since middle school, he’s part of the reason you never liked Steve because of the way he and his friends treated Eddie. Even though Steve was never directly mean to YOU, his friends were and that was enough. But Steve and Eddie had a recently developed… acquaintanceship due to their mutual friendship with Dustin. It took some time and convincing but once they got past their preconceived notions of each other they were able to be civil. Eddie being in the group meant when you came back naturally you were integrated in as well. Which means Steve has seen you in an actual social setting multiple times now.

You think that would be great, right? Wrong. Eddie was constantly touching you. Holding your hand, putting his arms around your waist, you sitting IN HIS LAP. It drove Steve fucking crazy, especially because he knows that Eddie loves you and he feels just a little bad about it because he had actually started to really like Eddie and maybe even began to see him as a friend. But seeing him all over you drove him insane and made him have a bad taste in his mouth every time he heard his name. He was pretty sure you loved Eddie. The way you looked at him and the gentle way you handled him and spoke to him like he wasn’t the resident metalhead drug dealer but a giant teddy bear that needed to be hugged and cared for.

Steve would’ve given up in an instant if you said you were Eddie’s girl, but you always said you guys were bestfriends despite the fact that Eddie definitely called you his girl on multiple occasions to the entire group. You definitely had feelings for him. He could see it but there was also something keeping you from making it official and that gave Steve hope. Especially once you warmed up to him and started sitting on HIS lap sometimes. You would just come and plop down across his knees looking at him all sweet like it was the most casual thing and you didn’t just make his brain short circuit. You started calling him cute little pet names and kissing his cheek every time you saw him.

Again, these things would all be fantastic IF you didn’t do all the same things and more with Eddie. Every time you sat on Eddie’s lap he literally wanted to rip you off of him and kiss you right in front of Eddie’s smug face. He was always smirking at Steve over your shoulder because he knew Steve liked you. He confronted him about it last week when they were at the arcade with Dustin and Mike.

“So. You like her don’t you?” Eddie just asked him out of the blue. Steve looked at him with a confused look on his face not really registering what he meant at first “Huh? Like who?”

“Don’t play dumb man, you know who I’m talking about” Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes

“Why would you think she would ever like you back? You treated us like shit in highschool and just because she’s more confident and can stand to be in the same room as you, now you want her? Fuck that. She deserves better than that, she is so much more than how she looks.”

Steve was kind of taken back at first, knowing he wasn’t exactly wrong “You don’t think I know that Munson? I don’t just like her because she’s hot. She also has this confidence and energy about her that’s just really attractive. She’s fucking funny and not afraid to be herself. She’s got that whole sugar and spice thing going on where she’s so sweet and gentle one second and the next she’s cussing like a sailor going off on these cute little tangents. I thought we established I’m not the guy I was in highschool anymore. I’m not some player trying to go through women. I like her.” he kind of didn’t mean to say ALL of that but it just kept coming out once he started talking about you he couldn’t help it.

“Okay I get it, you actually like her. Either way she’s never going to go for you, you aren’t even her type.” He grabbed the sleeve of Steve’s bright blue crew neck “I’ve never seen her be into a pretty boy like you, she likes dudes who look like they’re part of the lost boys clan or the dudes she sees on MTV.”

Steve couldn’t help but roll his eyes “Sooo, you then? If you love her so much then why aren’t you with her?” Eddie flushed and his face fell slightly “because man, she’s the most important person in my life. Imagine if we got together for real and then we broke up? Things wouldn’t be the same between us, I might lose her entirely”

“When you say ‘for real’ what does that mean?” Steve asked him, hoping it didn’t mean what he thought it meant.

“I mean we do a lot of couple things, we go on bestfriend dates, we are super affectionate with each other, we fuck sometimes, but both of us are scared if we decided to be together for real it would ruin it” Eddie shrugged like he didn’t just metaphorically punch Steve in the chest with that information.

“So what? Are you guys exclusive or what? Because if you’re not, I’m going to ask her out.” Steve just shrugged trying to play it off.

“Dude. Are you seriously going to ask out my girl after what I just said!?”

“Yeah, DUDE. You just said she wasn’t yours so is she or isn’t she?”

“Now that I finally have you around without Eddie I can ask the question I’ve been dying to ask, what’s the deal with you two? Are you like, together?” Robin suddenly asked you out of the blue.

Her and Nancy finally convinced you to have a girls day with them. You went and got mani pedis and picked up lunch so you could eat it back at Nancy and Jonathan’s apartment while you watched some movies Robin got from work.

“I mean… Technically? No. You could say we are like bestfriends with benefits I guess? We have kind of been fooling around off and on since sophomore year of highschool when we lost our virginity to each other.”

“And you’re… okay with that?”

“Yeah Robin, I’m okay with it. We decided a long time ago that us being together for real wasn't really an option. Imagine if we broke up? I couldn’t handle losing him.” You bit your lip, just the thought of losing Eddie made you anxious.

Now you had Nancy curious “So have you ever been with anyone else? Or are you guys like exclusive friends with benefits? Because if you’ve only ever been with him I’d say you’re pretty much together anyways.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve had hookups and flings, so has Eddie. I had a few guys I went on a couple dates with when I was gone at school but I’ve never had an actual relationship really. Neither has he.”

“So you’re telling us, you’ve been fucking on and off and on for almost EIGHT YEARS, never had a real relationship, and yet you guys still aren’t actually together? Don’t you think that’s maybe the reason neither of you have ever had a relationship? You’re stuck on each other?” Nancy, always the voice of reason.

“I absolutely know that’s why, I compare every guy to Eddie and no one has measured up. He treats me like a princess, why would I want a boyfriend who treats me anything less than that?” You shrugged and took another bite of your egg roll.

“Okay but what about when you do find that person? Or he does? What then? Things will change either way.” Robin questioned. She had her own reasons for bringing this all up in the first place. She knew Steve liked you, and he made her promise not to mettle but just asking if you were single isn’t meddling, right?

“I don’t know Robin, we’ve never talked about it. We will cross that bridge when the time comes.” You hoped they would let it go after that. It’s not that you necessarily didn’t want to talk about your relationship with Eddie, it’s just whenever anyone brings up that it probably has an eventual expiration date you feel like your whole world is crashing down.

“So there’s really no one you’ve ever thought you really really liked?” Okay, maybe she was reaching meddling territory now.

“Nope. Never. Can we just watch dirty dancing now?”

You didn’t feel like elaborating more than that, especially since recently there was someone you’d started to like. It was confusing and very much against your will but you had started to develop a small crush on Steve. You tried really hard to give him the cold shoulder when you first got back, you spent years with feelings of animosity towards him but if even Eddie could give him another chance you figured you could too. Then of course he had to be just so sweet, and such a gentleman, always telling you that you looked pretty and he smelled so good. It honestly made you want to punch him in the face. Or kiss him. Or both.

Robin narrowed her eyes at you but decided to drop it for now, even though she could tell there was definitely something you weren’t telling them with how quickly you decided to change the subject.

“Yeah okay, let’s watch the movie. But I’m not letting this go forever.”

“I didn’t even think for a second that you would.” You laughed and pressed play on the VHS.

Your love life wasn’t brought up anymore after that but that didn’t keep you from thinking about it. What would happen if Eddie got a girlfriend? You and him were never exclusive but the thought of him actually loving someone made you feel sick. Did he feel the same way? You hoped he did. Does that mean you want things with him to be exclusive? You’d never really allowed yourself to have those thoughts but now you were starting to wonder.

Then there was Steve, who just added to your confusion. Something about him just drew you to him, even back in highschool when you felt nothing but negative feelings toward him it was like he was everywhere you looked. Maybe you always had a small crush on him but would’ve never in a million years admitted it to yourself back then. It’s not like you would’ve ever had a chance, he treated everyone like you like dirt under his shoe. He never bullied you directly but him picking on your friends was enough to tell you how he probably felt about you too. Then you remember that one time Junior year when he asked you out, did he actually mean it? The thought that he might like you made your insides heat up and you felt like one of those girls you used to make fun of in highschool for swooning over him.

Robin could practically see the gears turning in your head, it was very obvious you weren’t watching the movie at all and she knew she told Steve she wouldn’t involve herself but she just had this feeling…

“You like Steve don’t you?” Robin’s voice snapped you out of your cycle of spiraling thoughts and you whipped your head around to look at her.

“What!?”

[nikikikiko]

hello it is 3 am today we talk about kid’s humanity and how it is vital to him being the way he is mainly by comparing him to the other two shinigami we see in the series. if u expect a coherent structure my excuse is that it IS in fact 3 am and i just woke up from my slumber

but Kid is a character who is mainly defined by three things:

1. He has a huge amount of skill and power alone

2. It is typically overshadowed by his need for perfection

3. He is human. He is also Lord Death’s son.

now, one of these holds seemingly conflicting traits: how can Kid be human if he’s Lord Death’s son? Well, he’s not. He says as much. He’s not human and he’s very easily able to identify this fact. So, how IS he human? How can something inhuman become human?

This , listeners in my walls, has an answer that can be considered very simple:

Lord Death INTENDED for Kid to be human. He intended for humanity to become an integral part of Kid.

At the time of Lord Death’s creation, we understand that inhumanity is needed to deal with immediate threats while humanity is still trying to thrive. This is showcased to us by how Lord Death creates Asura, deals with the Witches, and overall eliminates threats. He’s quick, decisive, and seemingly without any regret. Lord Death does what is best for humanity with a stern hand because that is his purpose initially: to be a present god for humanity, to light the way. Now a god is not, and never will be, human in the ways that they need to be. Especially in Soul Eater where almost all depiction of a god or god like character have them be inhuman in some shape or form. Eibon, Excalibur, the Great Old one of Power, and even Asura have appearances that can be considered monstrous: they are not human.

Speaking of Asura, I would like to call Asura a case of incomplete humanity in the wrong era. Asura is the embodiment of Lord Death’s fears culminated into a person, he did not grow up with a childhood, he simply just was. This, as everyone knows, has had a very negative effect on Asura and led to him becoming paranoid and yearning for power. He is an incomplete human who’s not quite god in the way Lord Death or Excalibur are, but not quite human either. But since he’s not quite human, Asura easily falls into morally wrong temptations to achieve power that would take some or most people at least a few more days of contemplation, and he does so without a drop of guilt or remorse. Can you imagine the absolute betrayal Vajra must have felt in their last moments? The horror and dread? The sadness that this is who Asura is? That it only gets Worse?

Now I mentioned Asura’s incomplete humanity but what exactly does that mean? In my opinion, Asura has some mechanics of a human— the shape to be exact and the general self preservation instincts of one. But where he fails at being human is how he operates. His own paranoia and fear drove him to madness yes but he acts in a way that feels logical to HIM. He does what feels best for himself in incomprehensible wonderland noise, the same way that Lord Death does what feels best for humanity. And because they are gods, they are correct at the time even if they are wrong eventually. Asura, despite having human-esque things about him, is no different than the other gods that walk among the soul eater world.

So how does this all tie back into Kid? Well, Kid is the reverse of Asura. Kid, rather than being an incomplete human, was made to be an incomplete GOD. Intentionally so, since it was the most logical thing to do to keep another Asura from happening. Lord Death created Kid to be an heir but he didn’t want Kid to become Asura 2.0 somehow, so he figured out that reversing the way Asura operated would do the trick. Instead of creating an incomplete human, he would make an incomplete god and that is the Kid we start out with in the manga.

This allows Kid to be human and a god at the same time, allowing him to learn humanity and understand it in ways Asura and Lord Death really just /can’t/. They CAN’T understand it, they simply just aren’t able to. Kid acts emotionally, he takes logical routes yes but he’s very emotional too. He can be impulsive, reckless, everything a human is expected to be. He has a drive to protect humans not because he simply should but because he has walked among them. Kid is friends with and cherishes so many humans, he finds the good in even criminals and that, in a new age where Humanity no longer needs immediate protection of it’s present god, is necessary now.

Kid can create peaceful solutions in place where Lord Death, who can only ever ensure the survival of humanity in a direct way, cannot. He can change and react and evolve in ways Asura cannot. He is human, and the two other shinigami are not. Not to mention, Kid is extremely indulgent in smaller human behaviors: we are shown time and time again that Kid has hobbies he has put time into like skateboarding and he will not hesitate to simply engage in his hobbies, but in comparison, we’re not really shown the hobbies of the other god characters. We don’t even know what Lord Death even does for fun, even though we know what Spirit does for fun.

But Kid’s also not human, and there’s no dissonance created either in this because he simply was made to be human. He knows he’s not human, he admits as much constantly, but he’s not broken up about it. He doesn’t feel disconnected from being a shinigami or from being human, he is both and he is what he is. He is what he was made to be, and his humanity is vital to make him who he is. Without that humanity, we’d most likely be left with something similar to what Kid became under the influence of the Madness of Power: a god determined to make the world into perfect nothingness.

But uh, this is all a 3am ramble ? so. take it with grains of salt LMAOO

[comicaurora]

What do you think might be fun urban fantasy elements to use in worldbuilding?

That's up to the individual, I think!

For me, the appeal of urban fantasy is that it adds a layer of supernatural weirdness to otherwise completely familiar environments. Because of this, "familiarity" becomes kind of a limiting factor on the specific worldbuilding. The setting of The Unsleeping City works as well as it does because it was created by dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker Brennan Lee Mulligan, who clearly looked over the city he was so familiar with and went "what parts of this could easily be hiding something else?" The public library, the train line at night, Santacon, the poem on the statue of liberty, the angel of bethesda fountain, noted historical shithead Robert Moses and his habit of bulldozing minority neighborhoods to build highways, etc etc. These work because they're ingrained into the familiar aspects of the setting, and the real aspects are integrated with a lot of love and affection.

For me, at least, the question "what urban fantasy elements do I want to use" starts with "what things do I think would be cool if they were real?" and continues into "what things in the real world already have additional meaning that could easily be extended into a supernatural force if such things were real?" There's a bookstore I went to a lot as a kid that's mostly underground and a bit of a maze; in my head it made perfect sense that this cozy labyrinthine environment could be a doorway to something bigger, like a wizard sanctum or an infinite library dimension. Planetariums and museums set out to transport you to other worlds and other times - what if we push that just a little and make them gateways or places of power? The one really quiet street that's overshadowed by trees and maybe bends just slightly so you can never see one end from the other feels like it should lead somewhere else if you find the right way to walk down it. Maybe in this story it does.

I think urban fantasy as a genre incorporates a form of yearning that most people feel as kids, before they've quite learned the axioms of how the real world works. When you're a kid, before you've learned that something doesn't work, it feels like anything can work. There could be a monster in the dark corner of the hallway, these construction paper wings could let you fly, that pendant necklace could give you magic powers, that puddle could be a portal, that door could open to another world if you just open it right, that one teacher could be a werewolf. If you have a love for the fantastical, the process of growing up involves a lot of small disappointments as you gradually process that certain things just aren't part of our reality and can't happen. And no matter how logically we can reason that such a reality would be objectively nightmarish, there's still a bit of heartbreak that comes with accepting the rules of the world we live in.

Urban Fantasy as a genre gives writers an outlet for that. They can construct a world where those childhood suspicions and more grown-up "wouldn't it be fuckin sweet if"s can be real. From that approach, I think the specifics are really dependent on the wishes of the individual writer. "If monsters were real I would love to study them" produces settings like those Dragonology books and Seanan McGuire's InCrypted series. "If magic was real it would definitely hide in secret double-meanings in these locations" makes things like The Unsleeping City. "If there were vampires I would want to be one and also make out with one" is how we got the post-Twilight supernatural romance craze. "If there's a magical world, there would be secret portals that would let normal people go there" gives us things like Narnia. "What if there was magic literally anywhere and it just randomly turned up and caused adventures" gives us Edward Eager's Tales of Magic. "Ancient myths and legendary wars are still being fought in secret today" gives us Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence.

Urban Fantasy draws so strongly on the supernatural what-ifs that specifically fascinate the writer that I don't think there's any way to make a masterlist of All The Cool Things To Put In There. It's a fantastical extension of reality - of course it's going to involve a little personal wish fulfillment.

[coralinnii]

Thanks for answering my ask.... If you don't mind me asking (again), who are your favorite romantic relationship's couples in books/ manga/manhwa/ anime/movies/tv series (can be canon or non-canon)? And why you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks.

Hmm it’s been a while since I care much about romantic relationships (yes, I see the irony of me, a primarily fluff writer, saying that) but there are some memorable ones that I still love for their dynamic. These are the 5 that I can really remember at the top of my head, I’m sure there’s are many iconic ones but these are just my personal “couple goals” people

1. Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist/Fullmetal Alchemist Brother (manga, anime)

Soulmates, More than Lovers

Yes, there is Edward and Winry and they’re great too but Roy and Riza, even when they weren’t officially canon? Oh wow, I absolutely idolised their dynamic growing up. They have to maintain a professional relationship as officer and superior but everyone can tell that they care so much about each other. It’s the trust between, it’s the way they understood each other so much and the faith they have of their partner’s competence. They bicker and annoy each other like old comrades but their bond goes beyond being brothers-in-arms, it’s the way they support each other knowing that they both wish for a world where no one has to go through what they did again. Riza believed in Roy not just because she cared about him but also because she truly believes in him making good on his word in building a better government, and Roy believed in Riza because of her integrity, that he knew she will never be swayed and keep him in track of his dream because that’s just the amazing person she was.

2. Sawako Kuronuma and Shota Kazehaya from Kimi ni Todoke (manga, anime, live-action film)

Friends to Lovers

While romcoms aren’t really my thing, this series was my favorite romcom growing up that I still remember it pretty well after all these years. No hate to the other shoujo animes but Kazehaya was the greenest flag and I can’t be convinced otherwise. He was genuinely kind to everyone, didn’t believe in the crazy rumours and saw Sawako as the sweet person she was, and be that supporting friend to her even when he could tell he had feelings for her. Kazehaya had better emotional awareness and understood how he felt pretty early in the series but never pushed the topic on Sawako when she was still new to a lot of social experiences. Sawako was aware of all the support he has given her and in response, worked hard to make sure his efforts weren’t wasted. It was cute, supportive, and the results felt so deserved and not abrupt.

3. Takeru Takahashi and Hikari Yagami from Digimon (anime)

Will they, won’t they, Childhood friends

I’ve been shipping even before I knew what shipping was. I didn’t know why I love them so much growing. Maybe because I really like the aesthetics, maybe because I’m a sucker for childhood friends, maybe because of all the connections of the crest of hope and light. I thought I grew out of this shipping phrase but nope! I went crazy over the crumbs we get from Digimon Tri. They are such a “Will they, won’t they” duo. I can see them work so well as friends as they do as a couple. They tease each other and are so comfortable together but they are always there for each other when either one of them goes through something.

4. Nomoto and Kasuga from She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat

Neighbours to ???

This is a fairly new series in comparison to everything else on the list, but I do love the characters of this series. Not only are the main duo relatable as individuals, they found support in each other. This is a personal plus, but watching Nomoto learning she’s an ace lesbian growing these sweet, wholesome feelings for her neighbour makes the dynamic stand out to me more since this helps show to whatever naysayers that believes that the feeding food part of the story is a kink play of theirs. Like dudes…what? It’s really nice to watch two realistic individuals in a grounded relationship (whatever it is at this point), while going through some heavy topics about societal standards.

5. Seo Dan and Seung Jun from Crash Landing on You (Kdrama)

Villainess x Conman

Seeing that Seo Dan was in the position to be the villainess because she was the second female lead and the male lead’s arranged fiance, everyone would think that she would be evil like all the other second leads in Kdramas, but NO! Seo Dan never outright harm the female lead but instead tried to spend time and win over the man that was her fiance. When she realized she couldn’t and her love is turning toxic, she chose not to continue the path of unrequited love and move on, even though it hurt her because she truly loved the male lead, her first love. Seung Jun was in a somewhat similar villain position being a close-hearted conman who’s not the type to stay for anyone. But he starts to fall for Seo Dan, and hated seeing her break because of a man who couldn’t see how amazing she was. This made me tear up to see that Seo Dan found someone that truly love her, and that Seung Jun found someone who he could truly cherish with all his heart. They got to be the realest and best versions of themselves with each other and were a couple that met the right person, there were just some mistakes to realize it.

[therobotmonster]

My Retro-Cartoon Ramblings, Part 7

STILL MORE ANIMALS!

As a kid who was gettin' up to watch Beast Wars, I got used to getting a dose of the weirdest attempt to sell plastic mecha-cat model kits in human history, repackaged into a work of comedic redubbing art.

I may be overselling it a little, but Samurai Pizza Cats does not give two whits about the original its based on and focuses on being funny, being essentially a series-long What's Up Tiger Lilly with animal-robot-samurai restaurateurs.

The whole thing feels like someone watched another, real show, and was a huge fan of it, and then told someone else all about it over a weekend, and that person went on to make this approximation of that description.

Of all the cartoons I've been accused of having dreamed, this is the one I had pegged. "this cat gets down-down with a mild hangover?"

This isn't a real show.

This is very clearly a fox, but we believed he was a rat! By gawd! The calls are coming from inside the mouse!

Originally requested by @siphersaysstuff, here's the Get-Along-Gang.

See, in the world of battle animals, there's bound to be some narcs. And those narcs are these representatives of the saccharine council.

Going wholly on memory on this, I do not owe these things journalistic integrity. A greeting card company spawned a licensing empire around anodyne vaguely-anthro animal children who learn wholesomely in very easily parodied ways.

What? I just described the Shirt Tales? What?!?

If I had a nickel for every time that happened... well, you know the rest of the meme. I remember these from childhood. They were just not-playing-outside-in-Oklahoma-heat-good enough, but either I was too old or they were to treacle-y.

I recall being rather easily entertained by the Snorks, however, so I wouldn't give either set of overly pro-social anthro-creeps the benefit of the doubt.

I do vaguely remember that an arcade machine tried to eat the Shirt Tales... or was it the Get-Along-Gang? Gah!

[libbee]

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT SERIES: 8th house and psychosis. Trigger: mental health

This is my understanding of "psychosis" that happens to 8th house natives. I have venus in 8th house & I experienced psychosis. Carl Jung had sun in 8th house, his psychosis is well known. Friedrich Nietzsche was scorpio rising with rahu and moon in 1st house & sun in 12th house in libra. More on this later but today let us discuss psychosis. From my understanding, it is triggered by two things: planet and time period of the house ruler. Venus in 8th psychosis is triggered by romantic relationship. Sun in 8th house by father? Moon in 8th house by mother? My understanding on this is not clear but I have definitely experienced the relationship and mom connection (venus + moon in 8th house). Next comes, time period of 8th house ruler. My 8th house is ruled by Gemini and my psychosis was triggered in mercury antardasha because it probably activated the 8th house. Someone with pisces ruling 8th house will be activated in Jupiter mahadasha or antardasha etc.

What exactly happens during psychosis? Since 8th house is to do with intense emotions, these natives go back and forth highs and lows to the extreme levels throughout the day. Psychosis occurs when they are overwhelmed by the unconscious content and have a weak & insecure ego. It happens either in early youth years or when they have not dealt with a challenge before in life or unprecedented misfortune. For eg, if venus in 8th house is in relationship, she will be her usual rollercoaster emotional ride. 8th house will bring a not suitable person to life. Native is her usual intense self but the romantic lover causes many emotional and mental issues by lying, manipulation, inconsistent behavior etc. This gradually drives the native to emotional distress. There comes a flood of negative emotions in them like extreme anxiety, fear and panic. They start obsessing about the whole thing to the point of mental breakdown. Since they are young, naive, early age or inexperienced, this emotional distress is too mentally and physically draining to live in. It gets harder and harder to live life in a hyper emotional state every day. This is when native starts to isolate herself.

Then occurs psychotic break. It is when the native starts to perceive reality differently and lives in delusions. For eg, delusion like I am pregnant or I am being stalked or somebody is trying to hurt me, seeing mental images of people hurting them and ridiculing them. The last one happened to me. This is very frightening and confusing to native. She does not know how to explain the strange things happening to her.

Then happens spiritual awakening. Something in her pulls her to occult and related things or psychology or therapy or hospital or anything else as per life path. Next step is the reordering of her psychic world which blends delusion and reality. Which means she has to face the trauma from her past and heal herself. Synchronicities begin to happen. Unlearn the trauma and relearn new things. 8th housers are called BRAVE SURVIVORS for this reason.

Depression and psychosis wipe her memory clean. Time to integrate the parts of herself now coming to consciousness. What parts? Shadow, animus, parts of herself she did not know she was, changing the old habits, changing the hobbies, career etc. These things are very crucial to mental development. We often hear "eh school sucks, I hate democracy, why do we have to do job.." but try living in jungle doing nothing & you will realize how system, rituals, patterns, routine, order are very important psychological needs. They are not just manmade institutions but strong psychological impulses.

Time to fix what is broken. Make peace with your childhood trauma. Acknowledge everything you hate in yourself and give it time (months, years) to integrate and heal. Read more about it in books because I cannot go into detail here.

Also, strengthen your ego. Intense women lack strong ego. Ego means self identity. Assertiveness. Stand up for yourself and your rights. Ego means to achieve or try to achieve your highest potential. There is no other way to live a fulfilling life. Ego means to putting yourself first, not being doormat and clingy.

This psychosis is life changing, catastrophic, sudden, unpredictable, similar to death and rebirth. It is the shedding of previous reality and creation of a new reality. It is why 8th housers say "I have lived so many lives in one lifetime."

Once they have overcome this psychosis, their ego is better able to handle next bouts of intense negative emotions and handle them positively with physical, intellectual, mental efforts. They also attract better quality of people in their lives because people can sense their maturity and character. 8th house still brings sudden twists and turns but they are able to handle that.

I personally went from browsing nonsense porn to turning pages of philosophy books. It is total life changing self development work. Painful but very rewarding.

[justforbooks]

CJ Sansom

Lawyer turned novelist who enjoyed huge success with his bestselling Shardlake historical mysteries

The novelist CJ Sansom, who has died aged 71, saw the dream of many aspiring writers come true when in mid-career he swapped a routine occupation for the life of a widely acclaimed, chart-topping novelist. By 2020, the former lawyer’s Shardlake historical mysteries had sold almost 4m copies. He built up a fan-base vast enough to guarantee that a new title would enter the UK bestseller charts at number one.

Sansom’s switch, however, was no lucky break but the fruit of deep thought, hard work and struggle against stiff odds. He overcame the blight of intense early suffering to create a much-loved series of novels conspicuous for their intelligence, integrity and humanity. An underlying idealism united the two, very different, halves of his professional life.

His debut novel Dissolution (2003) introduced the hunchbacked Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake, who investigates a death at a Sussex monastery menaced by the assault on England’s religious orders led by Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Over the next decade, further Shardlake titles appeared, and succeeded, at regular intervals: Dark Fire (2004), which won the Crime Writers’ Association award for historical fiction, Sovereign (2006), Revelation (2008), Heartstone (2010) and Lamentation (2014), with a plot set in the paranoid, heresy-hunting atmosphere of London during the final act of Henry VIII’s reign.

Set in London, Sussex, Norwich, Portsmouth and York, the books map not just the topographies but the mentalities of mid 16th-century England. They indirectly mirror, too, the political ferments of Sansom’s own age: Heartstone sees a spin-obsessed king unleash a disastrous foreign war. The seventh Shardlake novel, Tombland, its writing delayed by the author’s serious illness, appeared in 2018.

He claimed that the character of Shardlake, the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer disfigured from childhood, dropped into his head “fully formed”. Shardlake finds himself reluctantly immersed in the cruel and devious political intrigues of the 1530s and 40s. He remains a reflective outsider who seeks to help those bruised or crushed by the upheavals of an age of tumult. His disability gives him solidarity with outcast people.

In an interview, Sansom once spoke of the depression left by his early anguish as “the monkey on my back all my life”. The connection with his series hero could hardly be clearer.

Shardlake is both a man of his times – all the books rest on a bedrock of thorough, sometimes original, historical research – and a credible proxy for the 21st-century reader in the dogma-driven era of Henry VIII and his heirs. Sceptical, curious, free-thinking, he has sympathy with the Protestant reformers but feels alienated from the savage realpolitik practised by his patron, Cromwell.

Shardlake dwells in a sharply rendered, richly detailed Tudor England but stands outside it by virtue of his inquisitive, open-minded humanism. “I’m not saying a man like Shardlake did exist then,” Sansom commented, “but he could have, where even 20 years earlier he couldn’t.”

Born in Edinburgh, Chris was the son of a Scottish mother, Ann, and English father, Trevor, a naval engineer. An only child, he remembered his upbringing as Presbyterian, constrained and conservative (“with a small and a capital C”). Later, this private man who shunned attention-seeking gestures would nonetheless emerge as a vehement opponent of Scottish nationalism – part of his general distrust of any “politics based on national identity”, which he found “anti-rational, demagogic” and always destructive.

His Shardlake novels depict the dilemmas and ordeals that face a sensitive, compassionate man in a brutal and treacherous society. Sansom’s own, formative experience of persecution and survival under a despotic system took place at school. At the elite George Watson’s college in south Edinburgh, he endured sustained bullying that left him on the brink of suicide. Much later, he revealed that his “inattention” – which today might be diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – had made him the scapegoat of “vicious” teachers and pupils alike.

He described his school-age self as “seriously mentally ill: completely isolated … consumed with rage, plagued by migraines and tormented by thoughts of suicide and burning down the school”. At the age of 15, he took a “massive” overdose of his mother’s sleeping pills. Despite, or perhaps because of, this teenage misery, he developed a profound interest in history, politics and the workings of state power that would fuel both wings of his career. While still young, he recalled, “I arrived in my head at a sort of radical, independent socialist position which … I’ve basically retained.”

Sansom’s harrowing schooldays led to a spell as a voluntary in-patient at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. “I think the staff there saved my life,” he remembered, “just as Watson’s almost destroyed it.”

At Birmingham University he studied history as an undergraduate, then stayed on to research a PhD on mid-century Labour party policy towards South Africa. Rather than continue with academia, however, he qualified as a solicitor and spent much of the 1980s and 90s devoted to legal aid work, seeking to help vulnerable people. Living in Brighton, he attended writers’ groups as a hobby but never considered literature as a means to earn his living.

In 2000, his father’s death left him with a small legacy. He decided, without much hope, to try his hand at full-time fiction, though allowed for the possibility that: “I would be back in the law within the year.”

To his surprise, Dissolution rapidly found an agent. Publishers bid eagerly for the title (with Pan Macmillan becoming his UK home). Inspired in part by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, it reached two prize shortlists, and won over not only crime-fiction fans but a broad span of readers fascinated by the Tudor period and the distant mirror it holds up to our own fragmented times. Sansom had discovered, as he said, “how like the 20th century it was in its anxiety and uncertainty, even though people thought so differently then”.

Dissolution preceded Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall by six years in its portrayal of Cromwell and his circle – although Sansom’s chief minister is a much darker figure than Mantel’s. Among authors of historical mysteries set in medieval or early-modern England, he became a rare male luminary in a genre dominated by women, from pioneers such as Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) to Sansom’s contemporaries, such as Susanna Gregory.

Over the next decade, the Shardlake titles became regular fixtures in the bestseller lists. Adapted versions for BBC Radio extended the books’ appeal, even though Sansom – who continued to live in Brighton – experienced more than a touch of imposter syndrome. “I still half expect to wake up in a meeting about the latest legal aid forms,” he once said.

His mass-market popularity won him some unlikely fans. Shortly before she resigned in 2019, the then prime minister Theresa May bizarrely inaugurated a miniature library (housed in a redundant phone box) in her constituency by donating her copy of one of Sansom’s books. No figure, and no event, could have been worse suited to a writer who believed in a properly-funded public sector and detested the politics of nationalism and xenophobia.

Sansom’s two non-Tudor novels proved the breadth of his talent: Winter in Madrid (2006), with its accomplished depiction of a captive nation, set in the Spanish capital during the gloomy aftermath of Franco’s victory in the civil war, and the remarkable Dominion (2012), which reanimates the hackneyed genre of counterfactual history with its chillingly believable account of Britain as a satellite state of Nazi Germany in 1952. “Given the right circumstances fascism can infest any country,” a character in Dominion remarks.

That novel presents Scottish nationalists as accomplices of fascism and ends with an afterword that excoriates the policies of the (actual) Scottish National party. In all Sansom’s books, history’s convulsions test thinking people who try to stay decent and honest in tough times. He acknowledged that he had “found myself particularly drawn to the moral dilemmas the literate classes often find themselves in at times of ideological conflict – whether Reformation England or the second world war”.

In 2012, Sansom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable bone-marrow cancer, and began to receive chemotherapy. Lamentation followed two years later, but medical treatment inevitably slowed his pace of work.

Yet the voluminous Tombland, published in 2018, proved one of the most richly imagined and researched of all his Tudor mysteries. Shardlake is caught up in the wave of rebellions that shake the realm of the boy-king Edward VI in 1549: “A colossal event that has been much underplayed”, in the author’s words. The typically scholarly essay attached to the book framed this emphasis on poor and marginal people as an overdue antidote to “the ‘royalisation’ of popular Tudor history”.

Sansom lived quietly in Brighton, on his own, and worked with a fierce dedication. Illness put a brake on his output but never doused his determination. He avoided the limelight, and once listed among his pet hates Facebook, Twitter and Christmas – as well as the “really ridiculous” television series, The Tudors.

In 2023 Sovereign, the third Shardlake novel, was staged by York Theatre Royal as a large-scale community production at King’s Manor, York, where much of the novel is set. A four-part television adaptation, Shardlake, directed by Justin Chadwick with Arthur Hughes as the eponymous lawyer and Sean Bean as Cromwell, is due to be screened on Disney+ this week.

A good man in trying times, his Shardlake became a firm friend to countless admirers. Erudite but approachable, his creator spoke engagingly about his work in a voice that bore soft traces of an Edinburgh upbringing. Above all, the one-time solicitor ceased never to explore the meaning of justice – or to tell timeless truths about power and its victims.

🔔 Christopher John Sansom, novelist and lawyer, born 9 December 1952; died 27 April 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[just-pie]

📍WARNING📍: Do not read this if you love the Ninjago season "Dragons Rising" too much, negative things will be said here in his direction.

You have been warned.

I love Ninjago, it is an integral part of my childhood. I used to be biased towards some seasons after 7, but it was in vain. A month ago, I just watched this 17th season, I fell for these excerpts of the series from the posts. A beautiful picture, graphics, I thought, "here it is, the fish of my dreams."

And my God, I'm sorry I wasted my f*cking time on him. I have never seen such a secondary season in all my time, I still need to look for more cliched techniques and plots.

I do not condemn those who sincerely love this season, everyone has their own taste, as they say, for example, I did not like it, it happens, it's okay.

I'll start from the beginning what ruined the viewing. Too much of a nagging person.

I'm sure you have a friend who wants to slap in the face for such words, simply because they talk about it too often and do not work on their self-esteem, but only wait for encouragement from you.

She's such a type and damn, if Lloyd had done that at the very beginning, the plot would have gone down a different road, I don't know, this story seemed funny to me .3.

The second reason is this b*tch

Who prescribed for her the peculiarity of every time seeing the enemy shouting the same phrase in the hope of laughter, he knew where he was shooting, right in the head.

Well, okay, say it once, well done, okay, the second time is tolerable, but constantly??? No, just no, buddy.

The third one is a dragon

Because they don't explain to us in any way why they are hunting him, why, and most importantly why he is so special. This is a walking toy advertisement that carries nothing more than sweetness, it's some kind of arrogance, it's sad.

It was all designed for the second season and I understand it perfectly well, but damn, the longer they keep milking this cartoon, the less hope there is for the minds of those hungry people. Just let the franchise go already, finish it once and for all, don't become SpongeBob🚬

[nanowrimo]

30 Covers, 30 Days 2023: Day 3

Day 3 is here and it feels like things are just heating up. Today's feature is Code 51 by Jill Chapman, a Young Adult novel full of mystery. This novel cover was designed by the amazing returning artist, Cookie Redding!

(For those of you who don’t know, 30C30D stands for 30 Covers, 30 Days in which 17 Wrimos and 5 YWP Participants get the chance to win a professionally designed cover! The rest of the days are being filled by community features. We’ll be posting a cover a day throughout November, so make sure to check them out!)

Code 51

Jacqueline Kolby wants to get through her senior year in high school to get on with better things. She doesn't want attention in or out of class from anyone. Jac, as her friends call her, ignores headlines and surely doesn't want to be one. However, when an arsonist seems to target her family, staying in the background isn't possible anymore. Jac's dad gets burned in a barn fire after several of their corn fields are razed. Now she's had enough. The police and fire marshal don't have any suspects. Her mom is busy caring for her dad while her grandpa mourns the recent loss of her grandma. Jac and her two friends set out to solve the mystery before anyone else gets injured. Who would want to hurt her family? Why now?

About the Author

Jill resides in Southern Indiana with her husband of forty-five years. They enjoy their country lifestyle and visiting with their children and grandchildren. Her life centers around her family and her yellow lab, Indy. She is an avid movie watcher and loves Mexican food and watercolor painting. 

She has published a middle-grade mystery series titled The Bomb Squad. Code 51 will be her first venture into young adult mystery/suspense books.

Jill’s interest in books began in childhood when reading provided a wonderful outlet for her wild imagination. She loves to tell stories about her life experiences with humor mixed in to convey the sense of adventure she feels daily. Jill says her life is like a good plate of nachos, a tiny kick of spice, and a whole lotta cheese.  

About the Designer

Cookie Redding is an artist, designer and lecturer with the School of Visual Arts at the Pennsylvania State University and teaches courses in the Digital Art and DMD Programs. Her work encompasses the art and design world, with a focus on multiple media forms of expression.

Redding's influences are from a diverse array of disciplines spawning from the classics and antiquities, to history and tech. Her explorations integrate these elements into a study of symbols. The imagery she deals with within her work is a study from the beauty of words and by being within nature. Her explorations show how the literary world meets the natural work with color and texture. Check her out on Instagram and Facebook!

Cover Design Process:

This year. we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here's Cookie's:

My process typically starts with some sketching, brainstorming and listmaking. Then I start to hone my composition concept while also searching for imagery that would be ideal for the cover. I went through around 8 iterations and then my concept adjusted a bit to include the grid--that's when everything fell into place! Thanks so much for letting me be a part of 30 Covers 30 Days again--it's the highlight of my design year!

[pynkhues]

I don’t know if you’ve seen the cut lines from the S4 script yet (where Stewy references some semi-ominous sounding games he remembers from when he and Kendall were growing up like Punch-Chess and Dinners for Winners) but this kind of made me think back on the games throughline (motif?) with Logan. We get to see how insane Boar on the Floor was in real time and we’ve gotten a pretty good sense throughout the series that Logan has a penchant for framing violence through the lens of games (not dishonestly might I add – I think there’s a reasonable read of Logan whereby he himself doesn’t view his games as a means for violence at all but just as tools or in some cases, truly just games).  

Recently I’ve seen some discussion that kind of lumps together games the kids played (Bitey, Dog Pound) with Logan’s games (Boar on the Floor, Dinners for Winners) and that struck me as kind of odd. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve been mentally distinguishing between the games the siblings play with each other as different from the games Logan concocts. It might just be me, but Bitey and Dog Pound read to me as within the realm of reasonable kids games (noting that a ton of kids play kind of insane games lol). I also just feel like the power structure is…different when it’s just the siblings? Does that make sense? Whereas when Logan invests games for his kids, there’s something more…uneven and off-kilter about it to me. Idk – do you think they’re all part of the same motif or that there’s some level of distinction?  Maybe I just to think about it more haha – I guess this is a super long round-about way of asking: how do you view the use of games (“games”?) within the context of the show?

Oh, yeah, I totally agree that the games the kids play with each other are very different from the games that Logan concocts, anon, but I’m not surprised to hear that people consider them in the same sort of discourse. After all, the games that the kids play with each other, now that they’re all adults, are viewed through the prism of the power dynamics in the current family unit.

In other words, even games that are on paper the sort that any kid plays (Dog Pound being a good example – my five and seven year old nephews actually play a pretty similar game at the moment called Puppy and Person, although I think their game involves more patting and cuddling than Roman and Kendall’s probably did, haha), because we’re encountering it with Kendall and Roman in their late-thirties and through the lens of undealt with sibling resentments and adult competition, they can be mistaken for the same sorts of games that Logan played / still plays with the kids.

In that sense, I think the clearest point of distinction is the fact that Logan is never really a player in the games, he’s the overseer of them – the judge, jury and executioner – and we’ve seen that twice. The first time with the baseball game in the pilot, and the second, of course, with Boar on the Floor. Interestingly, the only time we’ve actually seen him participate in a game as a player was in I Went Shopping in the Thanksgiving episode back in S1, and well, we all know how that ended.

Games are integral to the show, and it’s interesting because I don’t think they have any one particular meaning. I think the writers like them as a shorthand to convey certain themes and relationship dynamics, I think they’re an efficient and compelling way to move plot forwards, and I think the writers like to use them to trojan horse the history of abuse within the Roy family, which is exactly what that new excerpt from the script of 4.04 demonstrates.

Critically though, I also think they’re significant thematically in depicting both childhood and masculinity, and I think that’s really where the distinction comes in when it comes to the games the kids play together (yes, even Dog Pound, as much as that game [and Kendall] wants to pretend to be about masculinity, I personally don't think it is at all), and the ones Logan does.

So, let’s talk about childhood.

Games are integral to childhood, there’s no getting around that. Games are what teach children social skills and curiosity, strategy and the ability to both win and to lose, which is, of course, also the skill to enjoy success and sometimes embrace failure too. One of my current jobs is in a company that does play-based theatre for children, with a special focus on traumatised children, so I could talk a lot about this and the evidence behind it, and how crucial games are in empowering children and helping them develop agency away from the family unit, but that’s kind of where this story stops, because while games should help children to grow into playful, empathetic and inquisitive adults, the Roy children do not play games with outsiders.

The Roy children have lived in a completely insular world – a playground their father has built them, as Marcia so aptly put it – and so these games don’t evolve. Instead, these games like Bitey and Dog Pound and even Kendall’s LEGO become manifestations of current anxieties, insecurities and resentments, and an encapsulation of Shiv, Roman and Kendall’s arrested development.

(Maybe interestingly, I consider Connor slightly less arrested than his little siblings, and I do think a part of that is from his parentification, but also a proxy result of effectively having been raised in those formative childhood years as an only child, especially if he was, as Alan Ruck has said, about fifteen when Kendall was born).

Of course, Logan encourages this.

Logan’s inability to face his own mortality or seal off his own legacy requires him to keep his children, well, children. He needs them under his thumb, sure, but he also, I think, needs to keep them young so that he can feel young. Needs the promise of his own future reflected in the length of their own, and his frequent infantilisation of all four of them is a part of what keeps them regressed and reading meaning into games they played and places they lived when they were too young to know any better.

Let’s talk about masculinity.

Funnily enough, I actually talked a little about this in the context of Tom and Greg back when s3 was airing here, but a few years ago, I read Anna Krien’s Night Games which is one of my favourite non-fiction books of the last decade.

The book itself is about masculinity, sport and sexual assault, in particular patterns of gang rape by teams in Australian football and cricket, but she goes a lot broader in terms of games and male intimacy, and in particular how team sports give men a sense of community which, as a result of toxic masculinity, is generally reinforced by ‘othering’ outsiders of the team / environment, whether that be players on the opposite team, perceived interlopers, women, or even members of their own team who don’t participate in the right way with the group.

I don’t know if any of the writers would’ve read Night Games (it’s an Australian sports journalism book after all, haha), but I think they do understand deeply the way masculinity operates in these circles and the ways games of any sort can be utilised as a shorthand to exert power and solidify connection. Boar on the Floor is, of course, the clearest example of this, where Logan utilises the context of the game to dig out his betrayers, and while the first round has everyone as an unwilling participant, once a smaller group of 'others' are picked in Tom, Greg and Karl, the safety of being on the right team makes everyone becomes complicit in the second round.

This is something Logan’s a master of and what he does routinely with his children in general, but also in the rules of the games Stewy talks about in the 4.04 script. Those games are about the othering of a person and the increased intimacy of the rest of the team. If Dinners for Winners has the loser acting like the help, the winners are the rest of the family celebrating their renewed bond as, well, winners.

I don’t think the kids are immune from this in their own behaviour. In fact, I think the biggest examples we see of the kids engaging in this particular type of game play is in Roman’s treatment of the child during the baseball game in the pilot (and I actually am reading the scripts [albeit very slowly, haha] at the moment and read 2.01 last night and was pretty fascinated to discover that the boy’s father is one of the landscapers at The Summer Palace), and in the sequence throwing back to Kendall’s bachelor party with the tattooing of the homeless man’s head with Kendall’s initials.

These aren’t complete games, and interestingly they don’t create the same sense of shared compliance and group intimacy in the way Logan’s games do – no one’s fully on board with Roman’s behaviour, and Roman betrays the group bond in terms of Kendall’s bachelor party by telling Gerri and trying to use it against Kendall – but I view that as more a reflection of Roman and Kendall’s failures in masculinity and authority than in anything else.

It’s that failure there though which, in many ways, further separates the games Logan plays with them to the games they play together. Roman and Kendall continue to fail to imitate their father in his particular brand of games, because Logan knows how to divide and conquer, which they simply don't.

That also though is a direct contrast to the games the kids play together, because those games, whether they be Bitey or Monopoly or even Dog Pound, those games are about shared connection. After all, Kendall wasn't the one who sent Roman away, Kendall was just playing a game with his brother, no matter what they both have inferred in it over time.

[irlkdj]

I dunno who needs to hear this but Yoo Joonghyuk did not regress ONLY to meet Kim Dokja again. I think to reduce it to that is to minimize his character—it was a lot more than that. I think the moment he chose to regress in the 0th round was an important act of agency. Throughout the novel, Yoo Joonghyuk is constantly characterized through Kim Dokja’s eyes. We don’t have a good sense of who he is until about the 200s I would argue. But the reason for that is not just Dokja’s assumption that he knows him best because he read about him, but also because Yoo Joonghyuk /himself/ doesn’t understand who he is as an individual. He’s the regressor. Protagonist. But never just Yoo Joonghyuk. It’s always what he can offer other people. He even says himself he started to identify more with his role as a regressor than as a person with autonomy:

“He realized that, if he were to get to the end of all the scenarios, he needed to kill off his emotions, that he must not live his life.

And so, he decided to become not 'Yoo Joonghyuk', but the 'Regressor', instead.”

Here he lays it out plan and simple. In order to continue, he cannot feel, he cannot be an individual with agency, he cannot live his life. He is trapped in this never ending cycle—and even in times of success and relief, he cannot see the merit in his efforts:

“What was 'happiness'? That term felt so very alien to Yoo Joonghyuk. He thought he might have felt such an emotion from somewhere within the memories of the 0th turn that he managed to steal a glance earlier. However, that was no longer his life.”

So this brings us back to him regressing in the 0th round. 

"One day, I suddenly came into existence in this world."

A man who came to exist in this world without a warning.

"Without any memories of my childhood, I was suddenly cast into this world. I wandered around an illegal work site, and through sheer luck, got spotted by the director, and thus became a pro gamer. But then out of the blue, someone abandoned a child on my doorstep. A child, supposedly my younger sister."

A conveniently-crafted life, a series of adversities created solely to become a tragedy later.

"Once, I searched for my parents. However, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find them. Even the professionals that could unearth the president's hidden illegitimate child couldn't find my par-ents. It was as if such things didn't exist in this world, to begin with."

[Constellation, 'Demon King of Salvation', is...]

"So I ask you, 'Demon King of Salvation'. Who am I?"

My heart was in pain. The fact that Yoo Joonghyuk had eventually reached that question was endlessly tormenting me.

I needed to say something. Anything...

"Does the secret of this world lie beyond the wall, where you are?"

Yoo Joonghyuk does not understand himself. He is happy, something he proclaims to Kim Dokja. But he feels as though something is missing. Some integral part of himself—the part that he desperately wants to explore and understand but never had the chance to do so. Obviously, the 0th round took place before the 1864th round, but the backstory we looked at earlier shows his character. He is on a journey of self-discovery, that’s what his story is about. He says: “I'm curious about the reason behind all the goodwill you've shown me. I'm also curious about the meaning of my life, where I was born, and why I had to come here. If I had one more chance…” So while meeting Kim Dokja again definitely could’ve been a factor in his decision to regress, I don’t think it was the end all be all. I think to minimize it to such a reason is to ignore his struggle with agency and identity.

[eliasyourlocalcryptid]

Chucky/Child’s Play info dump :D

tiny little disclaimer :]

*these were compiled from a bunch of old separate/individual Chucky rants of mine *

a majority of this is just be gushing about behind the scene details and character quirks with SOME synopses about some of the movies (mostly focusing on my favorites,curse and cult)also i learned a lot of this info from dead meats yt channel,they do kill counts and go in depth about horror movie productions n stuff!!if you like my little ramble and wanna hear a more concise in depth summary of the story with added behind the scenes info I’d suggest checking out their Chucky franchise recounts !! I do paraphrase some cool parts that I noticed only after watching dead meats kill count so again,highly recommend checking out their video if you want a better in depth look at the Chucky/childs play series!!!

(also fyi not beta read ,pretty much word vomiting about my favorite horror franchise)

Chucky ramble ⬇️ : D

(Spoiler warning and tw for canon typical violence/violent scene mentions)

Offshooting from a Scream tangent discussing favorite horror movies,Chucky (for me atleast) just handles the characters much better. the way that they never stray away from the main antagonists and also manage to introduce new protagonists in a way that they relate the the ever growing franchise lore/plot just amazes me not even to mention the way that Don Mancini directs the franchise and continues to integrate the same actors in a way that i havent seen a lot of horror franchises do. EX: using Jennifer Tilly to play the non doll Tiffany Valentine,using her voice after her character's normal human self dies,and using her as a full actor again to play herself in the later Chucky movies i just adore how Don finds as many ways as possible to give the actors that have been loyal to him and his franchise new roles/work also it really helps out with the franchises actual story too Also i just think it’s cool that Nica Pierce is played by Fiona Dourif,daughter of Brad Dourif (Charles lee ray's actor + Chucky's voice actor) I can go on for hours about Cult and Curse of Chucky :v

When Nica Pierce,a traditionally fem presenting person,gets possessed by Charles lee ray/Chucky,a visceral traditionally masculine serial killer,the way her mannerisms change to reflect that change in mindset and personality makes me go fucking wild genuinely most of my favorite parts of the franchise is when she's possessed by Chucky Also Devon Sawa has appeared so much in the Chucky franchise and he plays different characters almost every time(since the characters he plays keeps on dying) and when he appeared in the 2nd season of the Chucky franchise he makes a reference to his earlier horror comedy work (Idle Hands) and i hshdjajdnkkajs makes me so happy cause i love that movie so much Also the way that all the movies vary tonally makes me so happy.its like sampling a little bit from each horror genre. from horror comedy,to the traditional slasher esc moments,to the utter suspense of the cult and curse movies,then not even to mention how it (in my opinion) works so well when being integrated to the tv it just works so well for me also just i love the gore effects so much Dr.Foley's death was genuinely one of my favorite parts of the franchise like the way his head gets bashed in with Nica's stiletto heel was really well executed,I love the practical effects used !!!

okay actually getting to each movie (and a little bit of the TV series)

The 1st movie was just a cult classic and it deserves all its recognition and it's premise and plot has still held up pretty well to present day the 2nd movie does so well letting the audience see how the events of the 1st film plauged the young Andy Barclay into his late childhood,it's also excellent when introducing his new foster sister Kyle (best character in the first 3 movies ong) can't say too much on the 3rd movie,it's not bad by any means,it still excels at practical gore effects and the characters and pretty solid but it's nothing compared to the movies that follow it Bride of Chucky. LORD

Don Mancini's turn in directors chair after overseeing the franchise since the first movie, and he does not disappoint I've seen a lot of people claim that Bride is the worst in the franchise because of its overly silly tone but that's one of my favorite parts about this era of the franchise The way that Don isn't afraid to play around with the characters and plot makes way for so many outlandish moments in the franchise that help it out so much overall Anyways god i adore Jennifer Tilly Bride being the first film that i had ever seen her act in,it was like a whole experience the way she played Tiffany Valentine just stuck with me,then her voice acting as Tiff in doll form is so well performed,and Bride has some of the most iconic/best lines and line deliveries i have ever seen!! Btw im trying to speed run talking about the earlier films because i really want to talk about Curse and Cult but i think that Bride is such an interesting movie when you step back and compare it to the ones the come and the ones that came before it

Anyways any film with Jennifer Tilly is a win and im so glad that she remained a mainstay in the Chucky franchise because her acting skills and her character are so much of the reason that im infatuated with this series Okay but anyways Seed of Chucky! Putting aside the lovely queer representation (something that will become a running theme in Mancini's work with the franchise) I lovelovelove Glen/Glenda's character(s) so much as a juxtaposition to Tiff and Chucky's.Their strange family-esc dynamic allow for so many comedic moments that let me just relax and genuinely enjoy the movie so much. Also the fact that Glen/Glenda's voice actor is the same one that played a hobbit in lord of the rings/hobbit (i forget which) just adds a bit of silliness to them OOO And the scene when Tiff calls a help hotline is a masterpiece on its own The concept of a killer doll calling a help hotline because she feels like shes goiing to relapse on killing already has such a comedic premise to it but the way the movie plays it dead serious always amuses me,it adds a layer to her character that's so entertainingly nuanced

OKAY NOW ONTO CURSE + CULT Okay so Curse of Chucky is one of my favorite movies of all time (no surprise) starting out with the mere fact that Fiona Dourif is in it AND she plays Nica Pierce.Fiona Dourif being the daughter of Brad Dourif,the actor and voice actor for Chucky/Charles lee ray,is already fantastic but Nica's character by herself serves as an astoundingly well written and complex figure in the Chucky franchise She's strong,witty,kind,resourceful,and downright badass at times and i adore her to bits The way her character is portrayed in Curse and Cult makes for such an interesting viewing She's a woman whos been looked down on/pitied for all of he life,on account of the fact that she's handicapped and wheelchair bound,despite that she still manages to carry herself with a sense of self confidence that doesn't make her come off as arrogant but headstrong When shit hits the fan she's downright distraught when her sister dies at the hands of Chucky,showing that although she has a sarcastic attitude she's still very much a well fleshed out character

Throughout the movie she's shown to be compassionate but still not taking anyone's shit and she makes for a really interesting character to nitpick Despite her horrid situation she still manages to (almost) best Chucky at his own gritty game,she's shown to be able to both take and throw punches,even against someone/thing that's killed the rest of her family (except for alice,niece,but well get to her later) The end of the movie is bittersweet in the sense that while Nica does manage to survive Chucky,she's left to take the blame for the massacre he left behind. Her screaming "i'm still alive" to an unmoving chucky while in court at her own sentencing is a scene that never gets old to me Also i cant talk about curse without mentioning the Andy Barclay cameo end credit scene because when i say i went absolutely feral to see his character come back into the franchise,still played my a now grown Alex Vincent anyways CULT OF CHUCKY!!!

This movie take so many stylistic liberties which i dont mind,heavily reminds me of experimental artistic late 70s-early 90s european films It also fully brings back Andy Barclay as a mainstay character + a cameo from Kyle!!!

This film taking place a few years (i believe) from the last movie,still following Nica Pierce The whole premise is that she's thrown into a mental/psyche ward and after a while accepted the false truth that she was insane and hallucinated the whole Chucky is alive thing.Eventually Dr.Foley,the main doctor at the ward overlooking Nica brings in a Chucky doll as a sort of exposure therapy and Chucky shenanigans ensue All while Andy Barclay is trying to kill all the Chuckys (because theres more then one because of voodoo soul splitting across multiple vessles) and Nica is just trying to survive The movie ends with Chucky shoving part of his soul in Nica Pierce,possessing her and the possesed Nica runs away from the asylum with Tiff I could go on and on for hours about the practical gore/sfx/effects,and the great stylistic choices in the movie but i'd just be rambling more at that point than i already have But like lord The one scene when Dr Foley's head gets bashed beneath Nica's heel is one of my favorite parts of the franchise,both because of Fiona Dourifs and the awesome practical effects !!! anyways

Can you tell i really like the chucky franchise- I just realize i didnt even mention the practical Chucky animatronic effects Throughout the whole Curse and especially Cult movie the amazing work of the puppeteers really shines through in the scenes with multiple chucky dolls! Also how Brad Dourif decides to voice the different chucky dolls makes me so happy,like he makes the newer created Chucky's have voice cracks and a slightly pitched voice to indicate the new life brought to it and its just so well done in the movie(noticed this after it was pointed out in the Chucky recount/kill count on yt :D) also also the multiple chucky shenanigans makes me so happy lord I could go on about the practical effects in the franchise,i havent mentioned it a lot but the puppeteering and animatronics and effects have been spectacular since the beginning,and the way that the animatronics evolve with the innovation with technology and also the bigger budgets with the movies

Rahh also also if anyone ever wants me to go into the filmography and special effects of the Chucky franchise just tell me because i will go crazzyyyyy i really need to find a clip of the scene when Nica bashes Foleys head in underneath her heel because it will never get old for me trust i could write a whole essay on the complexities and nuances of dynamics and the strained relationship between so many of the characters 🙏 Tiff (especially in Bride) really encapsulates a lot of what I love about the series,I just adore how she’s written Omg and don’t get me started on Brad Dourif. He plays Chucky so well and his character both as the human Charles lee ray and in doll form as Chucky is so amusing More on the actual franchise,i have so much to say about the tv show but i still havent finished it yet (on season 2) Mini ramble abt Nica and Tiff,their dynamic in the show and plot wise has always interested me The strained dynamic between Nica and Charles/Chucky in Curse ultimately culminating in Nica being possessed by Chucky in Cult,the on and off relation between Chucky and Tiff,and the absolute infatuation between Nica and Tiffs (or well at least Tiff’s infatuation with Nica)carries so much of the character driven plot in a way i wouldn't have expected initially,in something i thought was going to be a silly slasher series

Wooooo okay mini mini rant on the tv series because its so good even though i havent finished it yet As mentioned prior i adore how the franchise handles introducing new characters to the ever growing plot and lore or the series,one amazing example of this is how they bring a new generation of protagonists into the show while not throwing aside Andy Barclay's character Jake serves as a great stand in for Don Mancini himself (admitted as much in interview) and the striking conflict that he has with his sexuality mirrors Don's own personal experiences with his own life.While Jakes sexuality is a part of his character it isnt the only thing about him (which i adore,i dont like when a characters whole personality is just being queer) but his sexuality creates great context and depth to his character and his struggles anyways the way that the characters keep on evolving as the series progresses is highlighted in Nica and Tiff's relationship compared to them at the end of cult to them in the ending of season 1

Oml and not even mentioning the sapphic twist on the traditional killer couple,the interactions between Chucknica (Chucky possessed Nica) + Tiff and Tiff + normal Nica make for some of my personal favorite scenes in the series,having the characters written and interacting in such a way allows for so much more comedic and sometimes downright suspenseful scenes !! i.e. the scene when Nica overcomes the possession for a bit,gaining control of her body,but she's still in a room with Tiff,Chucky's girlfriend,being forced to play cards with her to make sure Tiff doesn't notice its Nica in control Tiff’s giddy psychotic personality really creates the sense that Nica is in genuine danger when around her,like when she giggles about her murders with a smile while nica has to act like she's still possessed by chucky WHILE playing cards with her.

The scene comes to a somewhat sudden shift in conversation when Tiff reveals that she's known Nica was there since she first regained control of her body.She knew it was her since she stabbed Nica in the thigh and Nica didn't feel a thing (paralysed by the waist down) then comes the shocking notion announced to Nica from tiff,being that Tiff actually likes her more that she likes Chucky.All of Nica's cunning acting,trying to seem like Chucky in front of Tiff was for nothing because Tiff was just playing with her all along the dynamic between the 3 is so interesting to analyze and it gets even stranger in the 2nd season

Since Tiff is still a psycho and a killer at heart,she can't handle the idea of letting Nica go,but, since Chucky's soul is still in Nica's body Tiff had to find a way to "disarm" Chucky The most heart wrenching scenes in the tv show,to me at least,is the one at the ending of season 1.It reveals that Tiff drugged Nica and cut off her limbs,making it so that Chucky cant harm Tiff in Nica's body Nica is one of my favorite characters and to see her headstrong resolve shatter when she realized what had happen to her is so unnerving Her character doesn't disappear from the show though,she's kept alive in Tiffany's house,captive the beggining of season 2 reveals that tiff had been keeping Nica and taking care of her for the better part of a year Nica still keeping with her character of sarcastically witty even in the face of insanity,she suprisingly still has the energy to keep her bitterness towards Tiff despite the horrid things she'd been put through Thankfully Nica gets back on her feet (pun intended) when Tiff's kid,Glen (in human form since should transfer to human body + Glenda's there too) breaks Nica out of Tiffs house and gives her her wheel chair back with the addition of prosthetic arms to help her use her wheelchair

[pendulum-sonata]

I've watched the Netflix Atla...

And I actually really enjoyed it and now I can say for certain that some of you are either:

Just mad from the moment the creators weren't involved and feel some sort of proxy need for retribution.

Salty because "it isn't exactly the same as the cartoon", uh, yeah? Maybe that's why it's an adaptation?

Your eyes have fused with the the nostalgia lenses of your childhood, and somehow you're proud of it?

An angry k@taanger, who despite having won what some people call the first ship war ever in fandom ( sw and xfiles fandom are all side-eyeing you btw) have the need to remind everyone how your ship is supposedly an integral part of the series (it isn't)

Mean, some of you are just plain mean, and are obsessed with spreading as much vitriol as possible.

I'm not gonna claim it's perfect, but you know what? The cartoon wasn't perfect either, you people have put it up in a pedestal for too long, and believe me, I very much was 13 when the show first aired, I was the target demographic of it, it was my very first online fandom, it was a formative part of my teens, and even so, here I am, telling you guys, that you really need to chill.

Anyway, I enjoyed it I'm really hoping for a second season :P

[immortaljailor]

9 People to Get to Know Better (Tag Game)

alright...this year I'm resolving to be more of an active participant in fandom...this year I'm resolving to be more of an active participant in fandom...thank you to @dustykneed for tagging me, I'll try to do my best with this!

3 ships you like:

Outside of the obvious (*cough*persistent star trek brainrot*cough*) I'm gonna say Winterbaron (Bucky Barnes/Zemo), Barmaro (Nick Amaro/Rafael Barba from That Cop Show That is Still Somehow Being Aired), and LinSu (Lin Chen/Mei Changsu from Nirvana in Fire aka 琅琊榜). What do these have in common? Almost nothing lol, but maybe there's an argument to be made about a common "on the surface we seem so different/present ourselves differently, but deep down we understand a part of each other in a way no one else does (whether we like/admit it or not)" dynamic.

First ship ever:

I legitimately do not remember this, but I've kept a journal/diary since I was 7, and once I went to look up the entries around when I first discovered fandom (early teens, 12-14 ish) and would you believe it, there's a page of me yelling very passionately about Spones and Mckirk, which...is just mind-boggling to me because I've always thought my first ship was Stanner (Tony Stark/Bruce Banner). So I'm still claiming Stanner, but...LMAO

Last song you heard:

...to answer this honestly, it was technically a rather...sub-par rendition of Eminem's "Rap God" by my very dear sister during last night's post new year's dinner living room karaoke. The last song that came up on my phone playlist though was apparently "San Francisco" by The Mowgli's.

Favorite childhood book:

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (a collection of recorded conversations between Ralph Leighton and the titular Richard Feynman)—yeah you can tell I was a fun kid 😭

Currently reading:

"The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought" (《现代中国思想的兴起》) by Wang Hui which is like...an analysis of the connection between Chinese political culture and classical Chinese philosophy. I think. I'm only like 50 pages in and I'm discovering that I may be too stupid to really understand what's going on. Also, "Like the Argonaut" by trash_heron on Ao3 which is a (still in-progress) Spones epic that's in the middle of going through all of TOS with some really interesting worldbuilding things and integration of other Trek series with the TOS events.

Currently watching:

The Bear, which I'm enjoying a lot even though I'm watching it...incredibly slowly due to constantly getting distracted by other things 😭

Currently consuming:

Leftover dimsum from breakfast/brunch 👍

Currently craving:

Bones McCoy content, always craving more Bones content 💙💙💙

Tagging (absolutely no pressure!! ...I only have like 20 mutuals so to reach 9 about half of you are being tagged I'm so sorry):

@chucktaylorupset @themf-scholar @youandthemountains @fluffy-leech @fely-v @endren @milarca @bogwarg @hopefulcanary (and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it obviously)

[thefandomsociologist]

I just can’t believe the Percy Jackson show has finally released! These books were a huge part of my childhood from 5th grade all the way through high school. When the movies came out, I remember being so disappointed with how they changed integral parts of the story in order to have some cool CGI fight scenes. My friend bought the movies when they came out on dvd just so we could roast them together. My mom thought the movies were okay and I can now admit that they were pretty cool (so long as you had no idea about the books).

But now, NOW, I can finally share the story I love with my mom. This story is such an integral part of who I was and still am and now I can share it with my friends and family who don’t like to read. The first 2 episodes are just so well done. The casting is incredible, the acting and cinematography are great, and most importantly the story still contains all of the parts that are actually important! Maybe some small things have gotten changed here or there either to make it work better in a video format or because Rick Riordan has thought of a way to improve on a scene, but that’s also the important thing, the original author is one of the executive producers and script writers!

These last few years have started a great trend for book adaptations that have provided a shining light in the bleakness of this industry, the original authors are part of the adaptation. Starting with Good Omens and now Percy Jackson and probably some other shows I’ve forgotten about in the moment, we get to see what happens when authors get a large amount of say in the adaptation of their work. We get a higher quality product that gets applauded instead of laughed into stopping the series halfway. There are a lot of things that make me nervous for the future of art but this is one of the rare things that makes me hopeful.

During my first watch of episode 1, I was enraptured the whole time, but as soon as the credits were over and I got a moment to think about what I had just saw, I immediately started sobbing. I was just so happy. I hope with all of my heart that this show is met with great success, gets green lit for a full adaptation of all the books and that we end up with good adaptations of the entire Riordan-verse