#and less than $25 for obsession at this point

[disappointmentthemusical]

Draco is a racist in the most literal sense. (Well, former – reformed? – racist, that is. He wouldn't identify as one anymore.)

But he'd nonetheless been a racist – literally. He'd subscribed to the Pureblood notion that Wixen and Man are two separate creatures, made distinct by the inherent magic to one and the lack thereof in the other, which made the latter inferior. It'd taken no less than a week of critical thought to rid himself of the philosophy.

Indeed, his stint in Azkaban between his arrest and trial had been rather enlightening. It'd given him the perfect amount of time to grapple with himself, his identity, and the very fiber of the world as he knew it.

In preparation for his hearing, he attempted to shift the blame for his racism from himself. He'd been a child after all. A child very susceptible to the whims and fancies of his parents, as many children are. So, really, it's his parents' faults for impressing upon him their obsession with blood purity, and no one could fault him – sweet, innocent, young Draco – for taking up family business of slur-hurling and the mild torture of innocents.

Yes, he'd be a free man, for sure.

But then he'd unfortunately remembered that his parents had once been children, too. And at what point did the blame shift from them to their own parents, and then the generation before them?

At what point did Draco become responsible for his actions? Was it between second and third year, the transition into teenager-hood? Or was it when he got the mark? Could he blame his parents – his mother who'd begged him not to – for that decision?

What about the cabinet?

What about Dumbledore?

He'd stared at his cell wall for hours, wracking his mind for an answer other than the one he had. None came.

The day of his trial, he resigned himself to a guilty sentence.

But then, of course, Harry Potter had to muck everything up, as he always did – does. Within hours, Draco was not returning to his cell, but standing in front of the Ministry with all of his worldly possessions cradled between his arms.

Well, then.

The next five years were rather boring, full of strife and struggle. He knew poverty for the first time in his life, an experience he never wished to repeat, and despite the horror that was ages 15 through 18, he learned that it had not been rock bottom.

No, rock bottom was much, much worse.

On the bright side, his Wizard upbringing had been good for a few things. For one, his complete ignorance of the concept of sexuality meant that his open homosexuality made him "cutting edge" and "interesting." Secondly, his impeccable aesthetic taste made him hireable.

At 25, he's the most popular stylist at a bougie London salon, and he's made quite the name for himself among the rich housewives of South Kensington. Gone were the days of dumpster diving and petty theft.

Draco Malfoy is, once again, a god among mortals.

And like any god, he is a master of keeping up a facade, which is why he's able to not visibly react when the last person on Earth he wants to see walks through the salon doors.

Harry sodding Potter.

Draco should have anticipated this. Of course, Potter would show up the moment Draco's life was going well – the prick was justice incarnate. He must have a sixth sense for undeserving people experiencing happiness, and like a good hero, he sweeps in to strip the perpetrator of the feeling.

Draco refocuses on the appointment he's in the middle of, thinking invisible thoughts in hopes that it would prevent Potter from spotting him.

As anyone could've predicted, it doesn't work.

"Draco?"

He spares half a glance toward Potter, who stands only a few feet away now, having bypassed the front desk girl. He looks back to the foil in front of him, checking the color.

"Potter."

"What are you doing here?"

He pauses, gives Potter a flat look, and then continues working.

"Oh," Potter says dumbly, "right. But, I mean, um, what are you doing here, like, in, um, this side of London."

It's a lame and fumbled attempt to ask why Draco was in Muggle London, in a Muggle salon, doing a Muggle's hair, and Draco latches on to the opportunity to turn the conversation around.

"What – you think I don't deserve to be here?"

Potter's brow furrows in that familiar way that says he understands that he's just dug himself into a hole, but he hasn't a clue how to un-dig it.

"No," he denies too aggressively. "You know what I mean. I just didn't expect you to work at a place like this."

He winces at his words, and Draco doesn't bother hiding his triumphant smile.

"I'll have you know," Draco's client, a middle aged woman named Siobhan who has that eccentric look that only works on the uber rich, says with a pointed finger at Potter, "that Draco is a very talented young man, and we here are lucky to have his skill. I'm not sure how you two know each other, but I won't stand to have Draco's talents diminished in my presence."

Potter's face turns bright red, and his shoulders shoot up to his ears. "No– I, I– I wasn't trying to–"

"It's all right, dear," Draco says to Siobhan with a hand on her shoulder. "This just shows how far I've come, the success that I've achieved; I won't let others' prejudice stop me."

"Prejudice?!" Ah, there's the outrage that Draco coveted so much when he was younger. It remains unfairly amusing.

Biting back a smirk, he gives Potter a stern look. "If you'll excuse us."

He doesn't wait to for Potter to leave to guide Siobhan to the back wall where the sinks are. Behind him, he can hear Potter awkwardly shuffle out of the salon, and the tin bell above the door announces his departure.

Draco asks one of his coworkers to take over while he has a quick smoke break. Once outside, he allows himself exactly three minutes to panic before straightening his shirt, wiping his tears and heading back inside with his head held high.

If he knows Potter as well as he thinks he does, this won't be the last time they meet. Potter's horribly stubborn like that. So all Draco can do is prepare and hope that the next time Potter shows up, it'll satisfy whatever morbid curiosity he has.

And maybe next time, Draco won't notice how handsome he is.

#harry potter #drarry #harco #drabble #fuck jkr don't support that bitch

[call-of-ishmael]

The Last Ishmael OCD Post

One of my first times that i dabbled into character analysis was about Ishmael's OCD, people like that post but i really feel i could have done better

Canto V was my last major chapter i was willing to read. As i put more distance between me and the story, i want one final farewell in the form of finally fixing up my analysis

PART I: THE META-TEXTUAL

Before i delve into the writing itself, here is some pointers the story gives to her OCD in the form of flavor text and descriptions.

Firstly we have her Bio

This is easy to miss as its just a tiny blurb above her whole intro blurb.

Now, "obsessive compulsive neurosis" is a very weird way to phrase it, "obsessive compulsive" is clear enough but "neurosis" is odd, this is not TOO odd though, as "neurotic" used to be how OCD was classified as a disorder.

However if we look at her bio in Korean, the particulars do simply straight up say "OCD" very clearly, you'd need to MTL but this was also confirmed to me by a friend from SK

The sinner bios are biased though, and are written through a very corporate lens, so lets see if there's any other pointers elsewhere

Her base EGO, Snagharpoon, actually does just that

Her passives name is called "Compulsion" and in its gameplay design its a very interesting way to also point to it

Ishmael is a very all or nothing person, you do it well or you don't do it at all, and this is reflected on how this passive aids you to play

This passive is excellent for boosting the consistency of playing by only going for "Favored" or "Dominating" clashes, while punishing you for taking chances on clashes you MIGHT win

Base ID Ishmael is also a unit with all single coins, rolling tails puts her in a very unfavorable position so this also adds an extra safety net on top. Worth noting being all single coins is also a high risk high reward type of play style.

Finally we see two more pointers id like to note, both from Canto V

The Compulsive`s Knot, an ego gift themed after a naval rope, one of many in the dungeon all alluding to her struggles.

Most obviously though

Her exclusive status effect, Compulsion. This is in direct reference to her EGO passive, providing an attack boost at the same time it provides a drawback in the form of low SP.

We are gonna talk a bit more about this passive since it ties into another gameplay oriented way to point towards her OCD

During the story dungeon we have an event where a noise is heard, you are given two choices, check, gain SP, don't check, lose SP.

Compulsive checking is probably the most well known (to the conditions detriment we will talk about it later) hallmark of OCD

Notably, this doesn't aid Ishmael, while checking can avoid the combat encounter, not checking only has a chance of triggering it, and most interestingly, her SP will always start at -25 during combat encounters. Meaning the temporary boost in her sanity will just get reset next battle, should you decide to check. Checking wont satisfy her anxiety for more than a brief moment.

Lastly the most obvious ones are all the references to Obsession. These are so abundant i feel if you are familiar with the Canto its redundant to have them, i wanted to draw more attention to the allusions to compulsion, as they are less common.

PART II: BEFORE THE STORM

Even since before her own Canto, we can see Ishmael's ruminating and anxious tendencies pop up during previous chapters, which for OCD is important to explore as OCD is an anxious and ruminating disorder.

So lets talk a little bit about OCD! Its a disorder characterized by repetitive and constant intrusive urges to perform a task or a thought (lets keep this in mind for later)

These thoughts or actions are used to try to relieve stress from an anxiety inducing thought or situation. The most common example is OCD exacerbating germ phobia, and causing people who have it to wash their hands in excess.

While OCD is usually described as "irrational thoughts" i feel that's a pretty limited way to view it in my own experience with it. OCD compulsions and thoughts can be informed by very real worries, the worry of getting sick, of making the wrong moral choices, of hurting others. Being clean is a normal and a good practice to stave off getting sick, its the frequency and intensity that turns it maladaptive, OCD turns your own lived fears and traumas against you, and those might very well be real things to worry about, which makes dealing with it very hard.

Enough of that off to the writing!

Lets start with Canto II

This is the first example of her constant need for a lack of ambiguity, previous to this we see her complain about the treatment the sinners are receiving from Effie and Saude, skeptical of the whole deal.

Until shes shown the plans, they are so well crafted shes able to anchor to that and calm down.

This by itself is not really much other than being very detail oriented, lets look a bit further into the chapter

Here we see that aspect elaborated upon more, this moment is framed as a very important one between Dante and Ishmael in their dynamic later on, Ishmael is incredibly upset at the plan having fallen apart so quickly, while yes this is not unreasonable to be upset at, her anger is remarked on by Dante and Gregor as very intense and unusual. This in my opinion is a minor but clear indication her need for planning and considering every option is due to a deep anxiety, but don't take it from me, lets look at Canto III

Here we are told pretty explicitly, Ishmael moving quickly and asking lots of questions is something Dante has noted as an anxious habit.

And here we have more elaboration on what exactly that moment at the Casino meant for Ishmael, it was enough anger and disappointment she has stopped expecting Dante to perform well and instead taken it upon herself to see things go according to plan, this is VERY important to her.

And her worries, are repetitive enough to annoy others, and to be remarked upon by Dante.

This is perhaps the more notable chain of events to point out previous to her chapters aside from 4.5, as it helps contextualize all her usual ways of acting in a more complete light, showing a lot of this is driven by a deep anxiety

And this all makes S.E.A all the more interesting as it pays off on this.

Something i quite enjoy about Limbus is how it re-contextualizes things characters have previously done and said. And the events of S.E.A and Canto V bring a lot of interesting stuff to the table

Lets get cracking with this chapter

In general shes extremely confrontational, and tense, more than usual

But its her anxious outbursts i wanna focus on, what she puts

emphasis on.

This chapter is so crucial in this whole analysis. We see some behaviors way more clearly now, firstly we see her emphasize her need to be absolutely 100% prepared for this, no ambiguity no risks she wants certainty.

But we see something even more clearly and that's her ruminating behaviors, shes brought up things like this to a smaller extent before like commenting on a lot of aspects but here we see in full display her inner world become externalized, shes started voicing worries shes never voiced before can Dante turn them back always? What if Dante dies? What if the sinners get eaten can that be turned back?

And these don't all get brought up immediately, she mentions them in different conversations, pointing to the fact shes constantly going over the subject in her head with no pause, and she gets frustrated when she cannot work on these worries when she cant do anything to quell the anxiety.

And the last part, when Dante finds her so fixated in her planning its impossible to even talk to her. She has to perform some action do something to stave off the disaster she can see coming in her head

As someone with OCD inevitably i have to mention the personal component that drew me to analyze this was how real this feels to when you spiral

A lot of the times OCD is explained as the compulsions being something you do cause you feel its a sort of ritual to stave off disaster. Its in this way i see it reflected in this moment.

As we see with Heathcliff acting as her foil, he points out her worrying is really not doing much other than just her talking and talking, and by the state shes in when Dante checks in on her, aimless not even paying attention to anything else we see the main objective of the planning really isn't practical as much as a compulsive coping mechanism.

She has to do something

PART III: INTO THE DARK

Lots to cover and honestly i will make a companion post to this with all the examples, so for this section i wanna cover some highlights instead, as well as a general discussion of the tone.

The way this chapter is structured is very interesting, its really reflective of the mental state of Ishmael. The chapter feels really aimless, they wander around not really ever finding what they need, which drives Ishmael more and more tense and frustrate

Its a good continuation to how we see her by the end of S.E.A fixated on one goal one thing

As previously stated shes inflicted with a constant special and unique to her status effect called "Compulsion" as covered in Part I

Her behavior is also reflective of this

For a good part of the first third of the chapter shes in her room, the whole time whetting her harpoon, nonstop

However you might notice compulsion is not as present as obsession, and compulsion is also important to OCD its in the acronym! And i have seen others point to it too

However id like you to remember, in the post earlier i said thoughts can fit into OCD, compulsions can be mental and sometimes almost exclusively or mostly mental. Its even in the DSM noted that for diagnosis the compulsions to count you for a diagnosis can be mental in nature

Its in this aspect that i feel Ishmael shines a lot

In general OCD in media is lacking in representation and is often a trait given to assholes or villains

The normal conception of OCD in movies or TV is of neat freaks or control freaks, Compulsion is usually heavily emphasized when it isn't the whole picture

Often ignored though is the aspect of Obsession, some people can have Purely Obsessional OCD (Pure O), this isn't a formal diagnosis or term but its colloquially used by people who have it. Its a bit of a misnomer, as compulsions are present but internalized as mental rituals or rumination

Usually its harder to diagnose, its harder to treat as there's no apparent compulsions others can see, and the people having it seem pretty high functioning to the people around them.

This can be noticed though in people avoiding certain subjects, avoidant behaviors can be the clearest external behavior.

I personally read Ishmael as having more mental compulsions, the way she tends to be a more ruminating and anxious character than outwardly compulsive

During S.E.A and Canto V we see outward compulsions more but from the examples from previous Cantos we can see that's not her usual and she operates more on anxious overthinking most of the time.

However another aspect that ties into mental compulsions is in the previously mentioned avoidant behaviors, we see her isolate and try to stave of having to deal with her worries in both S.E.A and the beginning of Canto V when shes in her room, in both cases doing some excessive preparation in a compulsive way.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

As previously stated Canto V deserves its own companion post, and ill work on that later, i feel this encapsulates what i wanted to say well enough.

I wanted to discuss the previous signs of her behaviors that make me certain her OCD is an intended textual read, and in my opinion a well executed one

Canto V was hard to read as it felt very real and very familiar to the worst times i have had due to my OCD.

Shes a character that despite my distaste i have developed for the franchise, it will never stop meaning a lot to me same as her chapter will always be a piece of storytelling that affected me deeply in ways others haven't

To close i want to leave off what i feel encapsulates the feeling pretty well, in my favorite moment with the membrane consuming her as a metaphor for letting fear, anger, obsessions and compulsions cloud your mind until you forget why you were even there

To you, dear reader, Bon Voyage

#ishmael lcb #ishmael limbus company #project moon #lcb ishmael #canto V #canto v spoilers #limbus company #lcb

[white-boy-of-the-year]

WBOTY 2023 Wrapped

If anyone's interested, here are some fun statistics about this year's competition!!

Over the course of 31 days, we received 23,704 total votes across 15 polls!

If you take a look at the number of votes for each poll across different rounds, you can see that the number of votes grew exponentially as we got closer to and reached finals, which is pretty cool!

If you take a closer look at the data for round 1's polls, you'll notice that one point is much higher than the others. Care to guess which poll that might've been? That's right, David Tennant and Hozier fans were so passionate about supporting their faves that that poll was a statistical outlier regarding the number of votes it received!! Clap yourselves on the back, depressed queers!!

A lot of these polls were close calls, but exactly how close were they? As it turns out, six polls were decided by less than 100 votes! Most notably, Matthew Lillard beat Josh Hutcherson in semifinals by only 25 votes!!!

You might be thinking, "okay, but who got the most propaganda?" Well, luckily for you, here's a pie chart showing the distribution of propaganda asks we received in our inbox! Congratulations Cillian Murphy fans for really showing up! Your love for your favorite white boy was extremely impressive. It's no wonder you guys won Best Propaganda!

Finally, as a testament to this website's obsession with David Tennant, out of the 23,704 total votes we received, 8,758 were for David in one poll or another! That means about 37% of all votes in this entire competition were votes for David! Wow!!

If anyone else is a statistics nerd, here's a spreadsheet of all the data for your viewing pleasure!

Thank you again to everyone who voted for providing me with data for this very silly analysis. :))

-🐛

#wboty #white boy of the year #statistics #david tennant #hozier #matthew lillard #josh hutcherson

[shipposttt]

The Ship of the Day: Wenclair

Spoiler warning for Netflix’s Wednesday!

Names: Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair/ Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers

Ship Name(s): Wenclair

Original Content: Netflix original Wednesday (2022)

Ship info:

Wednesday is a Netflix original series which aired in 2022, based in Nevermore Academy (a school for outcasts), following Wednesday Addams as she investigates a string of violent murders linked to the school using her budding psychic abilities and how they’re connected to her family history (both the distant history and recent history of 25 years ago when her own parents attended the academy).

Wednesday first meets Enid Sinclair, a bubbly werewolf who has yet to have her first transformation, when she is shown to her dorm room, discovering that the two girls with possibly the most opposite aesthetics possible would be sharing a dorm room that year. At first, the pair don’t get along, with Wednesday’s mother claiming Wednesday is allergic to all the colour Enid has and dividing the room down the middle, removing the colourful vinyl tape that Enid had covered the window with from her half. Despite the antagonistic nature of their relationship at this time the two do bond. For instance, during the full moon  Wednesday is outside on the balcony practicing cello when Enid comes out, prompting the pair to open up to one another as they discuss Enid’s lack of a transformation and the last time Wednesday cried- when her pet scorpion was killed as a child. Following this, the two are with the rest of the academy at a fair and Enid is saying goodbye to Wednesday (as she plans to run away from the school), going in for a hug but stopping herself as she sees Wednesday’s reaction, stating “still not a hugger, got it” which is a call back to when they met and Enid went for a hug, stating the same thing. Though this action in and of itself is platonic in nature, some fans read it as the start of a budding relationship due to the way Enid (who is very tactile and shows love, platonic or otherwise, through physical touch) easily accepts Wednesday’s boundaries without pushing them.

The two bond further during the Poe Cup, a race between the different houses of the academy, wherein Enid is upset at the last minute due to her vampiric co-pilot, Yoko, being sabotaged using garlic bread- resulting in Wednesday offering to take her place and help win them the cup, even going as far as wearing the team costume as a little black cat. This is ironic as this ship definitely fits into the black cat/golden retriever trope. Following their win, they are pictured standing shoulder to shoulder, which many fans claim illustrates Wednesday’s growing care for Enid, as she wouldn’t ordinarily let people touch her.

Despite the fans excitement over the pair, within the very next episode Enid starts obsessing over gorgon Ajax, with Wednesday even using this crush to further her murder investigation. With that, Enid asks Ajax out on a date and is rather excited for it, with Wednesday stating that she would nail gun his heart if he breaks Enid’s heart. Unfortunately for him, Ajax accidentally stones himself by looking in a mirror, making him stand Enid up- luckily for him however, Wednesday is not given chance to hold true to her threat. By this point, her family member, Thing (the disembodied hand), sets Wednesday up on a date with ‘normie’ Tyler for the Rave’N dance, forcing Wednesday to attend. Throughout the series up until this point Tyler and Xavier (Wednesday’s classmate) had made it clear they were romantically interested in her. As a whole, the fandom ignore this odd love triangle (or is it technically a love more than/less than sign? < > im just saying..) as Wednesday largely shows a lack of feelings back to them, using them to further her investigation into the murders. During the dance, Enid comes over to compliment Wednesday, though she voices her dislike for W’s date as she does so, calling him “... interesting”. Some fans read this as jealousy instead of just friendly concern (guys im a wenclair shipper too, playing devils advocate here sucks). Can we just mention how right Enid is here? That dress was impeccable.

Within the next few episodes the pair bond further over family struggles as family visiting weekend occurs, further bonding over a séance for Goody Addams (Wednesday’s ancestor) and Wednesday’s surprise birthday party in a crypt. Unfortunately, everything does not sty this positive, with Wednesday lying to Enid about a girls night out and instead taking her and Tyler to a house to investigate the monster- when they get home Enid is angry and moves to her friend Yoko’s room. Enid is rightfully angry here, Wednesday’s actions almost got them killed by the monster, thought the fandom argues she’s also partially angry cause she wanted to be alone with Wednesday but Tyler had also been there, invited under the pretence of a date with Wednesday. After Enid moves out, Wednesday is show watching her side of the room, showing she missed her despite how she had treated her and her original distaste for them sharing the room. Eventually, Enid moves back in, claiming someone has to look after Thing and Wednesday after the room got broken into- this time round, Wednesday says to not bother with the tape  to divide the room, showing the improvement in their relationship over time.

Now for the big finale, taking place towards the end of the school year. Following a torture plan in reference to the string of murders done by the monster (now discovered to be a hyde), Wednesday is expelled from Nevermore Academy. As she’s packing, we see a scene between her and Enid, where she describes the mark Enid left on her as ‘indelible’ and they promise not to forget one another, resulting in another call back to “not into hugs, got it” as Enid goes for a hug only to claim that not hugging is kind of their thing. Wednesday gets kidnapped before she can leave, revealing Tyler to being the hyde, and leading to a series of events that cause Enid to transform for the first time to save Wednesday and Wednesday defeating the resurrected pilgrim Crackstone whose aim was to kill all outcasts. Many argue that Enid’s first transformation being to save Wednesday was very romantic and truly shows a change from platonic to romantic within their relationship, especially since Wednesday actually hugs Enid following the battles.

Actresses Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers have shown support with this ship, alluding to it multiple times during interviews and having each other as their lock screens, furthering the fans view of this ship and causing them to go beyond it to also ship the actresses irl.

Type of Ship: Queer read and possible queer bait

Now, we all love a good black cat/ golden retriever trope and this pair perfectly encompasses that, with a little bit of enemies to friends to lovers sprinkled in. However,  i would argue that currently, this ship is only queer read and not canonically queer. Though the relationships of Wednesday with Tyler and Xavier respectively were given a lot less work than Wednesday’s relationship with Enid leading to arguments that the pair are ‘endgame’, it is never out rightly confirmed that the pair of girls have anything more than strong platonic feelings for one another within the show. Furthermore, the actions of the actresses during press tours and interviews could be considered queer bait as they encouraged the shipping within the show, encouraging more queer viewers to watch it for that relationship despite it not being canon. Of course, this is just based on season one of Wednesday and the second season of this show may make it canon or further their relationship in unexpected ways, however we cant know at this time what the next season may look like..

Thank you for reading!! (psst any good Wenclair recs? I keep forgetting what is fanon and canon)

Admin🦇

#fandom #gay ships #lgbtq community #ships #shipping #wednesday #enid sinclair #wenclair #wednesday addams

[rosietrace]

Favoritism?... No!..

(Central) Characters Featured: Trinity Valentin, Harlan Westerly

↳ { Harlan belongs to @mystery-skulls-ghost }

Others mentioned/featured: Maxwell Murray, Samuel, Walton Morrigan

↳ { Max and Samuel belong to @terrovaniadorm }

Pairing: Harlan Westerly & Trinity Valentin

Event: Valentine's Day 2024 💌

↳ Type: Birthday Oneshot! 「 Happy birthday, Erin! 」

Synopsis: Trinity does not have favoritism for her boyfriend! What made you think that? (Aka, moments that explain her unabashed favoritism)

Warning(s): Potentially ooc, Trinity being a clingy bitch /j, inaccurate depictions of baking, Walton is his own warning, implied manslaughter, overall very fluffy

[ Apologies for any out of character moments ]

[ Reblogs > Likes ]

†•°•══════ஓ๑「💄」๑ஓ══════•°•†

“Ugh, Walton, shut your face already.”

Trinity ignored the deadpanned look on Walton's face, continuing to mix the vanilla cake batter with utmost brutality.

“I didn't say anything, Trin,” Walton had pointed out, taking a sip of his energy drink. “It was you who was annoyed enough to pretend I did.”

Trinity gave him a sharp glare. “I said shut your face, not mouth.”

Her snarl got a chortle out of Walton. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Trin.”

Trinity rolled her eyes at him, placing the batter onto the baking pan and placing it into the oven.

“You’re lucky you're more tolerable than Samuel.”

“Not that hard,” Walton leaned against the kitchen counter, humming to himself. “The little ingrate makes it easier to be more tolerable than him.”

At least that was something they could both agree on.

“Finally, you say something smart,” Trinity dusted off their hands on their apron.

Walton wanted to retort a reply to that remark but didn't. Bothering Trinity Valentin was less of a hobby and more of an everyday inconvenience — one that he didn't have any energy to succumb to, at the moment.

It was better for him to give them his signature condescending smile and leave than to create an argument that got them in trouble with Maxwell.

When he left, Trinity breathed out of relief. Finally, he's gone.

Then again, Trinity sat near the oven to watch their cake go into its baking stage. I'd have throttled him if he stayed around a moment longer.

While she was waiting for her cake to finish baking, Trinity left for the pantry to get a little snack. The cake wasn't set to finish until after 25 to 45 minutes, at most, so Trinity had little to worry about.

After getting her snack, she returned to the kitchen to find Harlan looking through the fridge.

Trinity's eyes beamed in delight, rushing to their boyfriend's side with excitement.

“Harly!” Trinity exclaimed, clinging to Harlan like he was a koala. He paid no mind to it, continuing to look through the fridge.

“Trinity,” was Harlan's curt response to her koala hug. Noticing the slight discomfort in his stance, Trinity had pulled away from their one-sided embrace and smiled warmly.

“You doin’ okay, Harly?” No one really knew why Harlan put up with Trinity's constant usage of that nickname for him, but he did.

He nodded. “Simply looking.”

Cocking their head to the side, it didn't take long for Trinity to put two and two together and figure out what he meant.

They stifled their laughter. “Main fridge ran out of that abomination drink, Harly.”

Harlan hummed, his eyes narrowing at the internal storage of the fridge. “So it would seem,” he replied.

Trinity giggled, dragging him to their dorm room. “Don't worry, Harly! I have a full stock in my room!”

“You do.”

“Of course I do!”

“That's….”

“Now, before you say anything, Harly,” Trinity opened the door to her room, revealing the 90s y2k fever dream it was to Harlan. “I only bought a full stock to indulge in your weird obsession with it.”

Harlan nodded, entering the room and narrowing his eyes at the y2k vomit that was Trinity's room.

“Your room,” he breathed beneath his… Well, breath. “It's very…”

“Creative?”

“Decorative.”

Trinity pouted. “Harly, is that a good thing or not?”

Harlan blinked. “Interpret it however you wish,” he said simply, being handed the energy drink by his partner.

“You're no fun sometimes, Harly,” Trinity pushed the rim of his glasses back a bit. “Loosen up a bit.”

Harlan stared at them, blank-faced and silent.

A breath was let out, and Harlan ruffled Trinity's slightly messy hair before he left their room — making their hair all the messier.

But to say Trinity was unhappy was a horrible assumption.

•🎀°─────────°🎀•

“I'm telling you,” Walton said honestly, “you, young Trinity, are a person obsessed.”

Trinity scrolled her phone, legs crossed as she laid down on the couch. They chortled to themselves, brushing off Walton's words like they were nothing.

Which, in their eyes, they did meant nothing.

“Bullshit,” Trinity declared, “also— Don't call me ‘young Trinity’.”

“I'm your upperclassman.”

“Doesn't mean you should call me that.”

“I feel like I'm obligated to give a friend of mine a nickname, Trin.”

“When have we ever been friends?” At most, the two of them were civil acquaintances.

Walton shrugged, his expression telling them that he always figured that notion.

The very thought made Trinity want to vomit, which was apparent from the look on their face.

They gagged just by thinking about it for too long. “I'd rather hang myself than deal with you for longer than necessary.”

“Good for you,” Walton's eyes rolled, his focus shifting back to that abomination in his hands that he called an ‘invention’.

Not wanting to waste any more time with her weirdo of an upperclassman, Trinity made a beeline to the dorm rooms to hang out with Harlan because… Well, she can.

She raced around each hallway, disregarding every other room and treating ‘looking for Harlan’ like it was a personal mission; One that Trinity was determined to succeed at.

Of course, when Trinity saw Harlan standing before the door that definitely didn't lead to his room, their eyebrows knitted themselves together.

What the hell? Trinity slowed down their movements, instead of racing towards their boyfriend they strode.

Their head cocked to the side curiously, their arms folded over their chest. What could Harly be doin' there?

“Harly?” Once she got close enough, Trinity called out to him. “Honey, you doin' okay?”

Harlan took one look at Trinity, then turned his attention back to the door in front of him. He was mumbling some sort of observation, but he was too quiet for Trinity to properly hear.

However, based on the scent that was reeking from beyond the door, Trinity knew exactly whose room it was: Walton's.

“Harly,” head cocked to the side in slight concern, they tapped his shoulder to grab his attention.

“What do you think is beyond that door?” Harlan refused to tear his gaze away from the door, a look of intrigue plastered all over the face that Trinity cherished with all their heart.

“Uh,” Trinity paused, considering how to answer that sort of question. “Well, it's Walton's room, plus, it stinks like shit from here, Harly.”

“Why do you ask?”

From behind the lens of his glasses, Trinity saw Harlan’s eyes narrow.

“... Decay,” he uttered, “possibly remains of an unknown specimen, likely rotting for the past two — maybe three — days…”

Harlan found Trinity's hand, clinging to it in such an uncharacteristically gentle manner.

Trinity wondered what was going through his head. After silently speaking of speculated ‘decay’, Harlan was off in his own little world; Monologuing in a comfortable silence whilst holding their hand.

It was both endearing, if not a little unnerving.

Trinity loved Harlan, truly, they did, but it always seemed to frustrate them to no end that — at times — they couldn't seem to figure out what was going on in that unreadable brain of his.

The current moment they shared happened to be one of those happenstances.

Frustrated from standing near the disgusting stench of Walton's dorm room door for too long, Trinity's grasp on Harlan's hand had tightened as they dragged him to the dorm kitchens to help them bake…. I don't know, cookies.

It was only at that moment when Harlan's gaze tore away from the door and drilled itself through Trinity.

The unusually hypocritical and seemingly emotionless boy had always found an interest in the person dragging him to the kitchen.

In a way, they held their similarities. Harlan didn't know what those similarities were, but he could sense them.

Feel that urge to cling to Trinity for God knows what reason.

For once, Harlan was willing to put his own speculations aside.

And it was all for Trinity.

•🎀°─────────°🎀•

Trin, you biased little…

Walton wasn't even surprised at this point.

Seeing Trinity be so enthusiastic about Harlan helping her bake cookies was basically an everyday occurrence.

“Harly, stop drinking that abomination and help me put in the chocolate chips!”

“Do you think-”

“Honey, I love you, but I do not have time to deal with your little theories about fae species. We'll talk about that another time.”

Trinity patted Harlan's cheek, and not even a second later, they kissed his cheek. It wasn't even close to a slap, and yet — there they were — pecking Harlan's cheeks as a form of ‘apology’.

Once the chocolate chips had been set and the cookies were eventually put in the oven, Trinity gave Harlan a winning smile. “Any snacks you want me to make while we wait?”

“Is that necessary,” Harlan seemed to deadpan.

“Oh, let loose a little, Harly,” Trinity giggled. Heading to the fridge, they looked back at Harlan.

Then came the question: “Anything you want in particular?”

Harlan let himself stand still, a sullenness hanging between him and Trinity. He blinked, shaking his head.

“As long as it isn't yogurt,” Harlan answered dismissively.

Trinity sighed, taking out the energy drink she had kept for ‘emergencies’ and pouring Harlan a glass.

“I don't get why you keep drinking this shit,” their face twisted just from looking at it for too long. “It's got the color of a glowstick…”

“We all have our opinions,” Harlan stated, taking a sip.

Trinity hummed, leaning against the counter beside him to drink a glass of water. “You're lucky I love you,” they smiled up at them.

Harlan didn't reply much to that, only placing his hand over Trinity's well-combed hair and ruffling it a bit. This, in turn, gave him the consequence of dealing with an over-affectionate Trinity while the cookies were still baking.

Not that that was anything new.

“And they say they aren't biased,” Walton murmured beneath his breath.

Max sat across from Walton, putting down their slice of pizza so the two of them could briefly share a moment of staring at the couple in the kitchen.

The housewarden and the inventor shared a look, coming to a silent, mutual agreement.

Favoritism is Trinity's middle name.

†•°•══════ஓ๑「💄」๑ஓ══════•°•†

Taglist

Dedicated to: @mystery-skulls-ghost

—

🥥

@starry-night-rose || @jasdiary || @authoruio || @nem0-nee || @fumikomiyasaki || @sakuramidnight15

—

「 Etteilla ♢」

@terrovaniadorm || @twsted-princess || @geminiiviolets || @abyss-wonderer || @twistedsongstressofstarz / @absolutelyobsessedkiya

#[2024] rosie valentines day ❣️ #twisted wonderland oc #twst oc #trinity valentin #『 trinity 💄 』 #harlan #harlan westerly #terrovania #twst fandorm #twst ocs #oc x oc #valentines event #mutuals <3 #walton morrigan #samuel #maxwell murray #birthday gift! #friends' ocs #mutuals' ocs

[11x13kyle]

mcau main four and their birthdays

kenny: on his 30th birthday he hosts a rager on his houseboat and at 11 pm while riding an ecstasy high he falls off the top of the boat and cracks his open on the lower deck. he uses this as an excuse and claims it doesn’t count as him turning 30 because he didn’t make it to the end and everyone nods politely because they don’t want to make him cry. he lies for years about being 25 and the first time he gets carded he starts hyperventilating. he’s obsessed with staying young because it’s CRUCIAL for his career.

stan: in the months preceding his 30th birthday stan falls into one of the worst manic episodes of his life. during this episode he gets into a car crash (typical), has the public urination incident, puts out an ep with some of the most egregious examples of White Boy Rapping that the world has ever seen, and on the birthday itself he gets blackout drunk and totals kyle’s car. he’s an eternal teenage girl, so turning 30 creates IMMENSE amounts of distress for him. he wasn’t ready and he never will be.

cartman: he has a huge freak out when he turns 18 because he realizes that now his actions will have real life consequences. he can’t rely on the minor excuse anymore and that TERRIFIES him. he’s also just generally the type to cry on his birthday every year and on his 18th he cries so hard that he throws up. he spends a good 3 hours blubbering on the phone to liane going “MEEEEMMM ITS OVER FOR MEEEEE WAAAAHGHHH” and she’s like “no it’s not! you’re still just a little boy and you’ll always be mommy’s perfect little poopsiekins! 🥰” which does reassure him and remind him that he never has to be an adult with his mom enabling him always and forever.

kyle: he makes it through his 18th and 30th without any big drama and is so smug about it because he’s handling aging “so much better” than everyone else is. privately though he’s SO freaked out about it, but it’s less about the aging aspect and more about fearing that he’s behind for whatever stage of his life he’s at. this hits particularly badly at around 32 because at this point he’s a father and married and owns a home and pays taxes and yet he still argues with the same guy that he hates that he’s been arguing with for decades now for a living. he’s an eternal tall child and thinks the fact that he wears ironed button ups and drinks red wine for his own enjoyment makes him mature. it doesn’t.

#microceleb au

[ultraericthered]

MASTER NARIX

"Every heart will return to the light, once all darkness is expunged!"

Time to ellaborate on this beautiful bastard! Master Narix is the overarching Big Bad of the third and final trilogy/"chronicle" in the whole KH Divergence Saga, the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle, debuting in KH4 after having been set up by the secret epilogue of KH3, then serving as the chief antagonist in The Missing Links and one of the main antagonists/final bosses in KH5. The founder and leader of the Luminous Vanguard who dissolved the Dandelion Guild and its unions ages ago, Narix and five of his followers chose to enter a state of time stasis once it became clear to them how impossible the task of eliminating all the darkness and Darklings brought into the World by Darxomnious was, so they'd await the day when Luxu fulfilled his mission and the World was cleansed of that evil, at which point the Vanguard would return to construct a new World order.

Narix has long believed that the majority of hearts are naturally weak and susceptible to darkness that begets dark powers that defile the World, and that only the strongest and purest of hearts should set the course for the World and its denizens. Envisioning a reality where darkness no longer exists, light conquers all Worlds, and he reigns supreme as the light’s oppressive guardian, Narix arrogantly looks to use blight to tear down and reconstruct Kingdom Hearts from within its innermost heart, and will eradicate all that would get in his way.

Since the character concept of Master Narix only solidified fairly recently, most of what I can say about him here are some tidbits:

Quite obviously, I designed Narix as a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist to Xehanort by nature. Xehanort was a former Keyblade Master turned darkness supremacist, Narix is a non-Keyblade wielding Master who's become a light supremacist. The quote up there is even a direct parallel/reversal of Xehanort's famous line "Every light must fade, every heart return to DARKNESS!" And it really ought to be stressed how equally dangerous a light supremacist out to erradicate darkness from the World would be, as not only is, in a wise king's truthful words "the World made up of light and darkness, you can't have one without the other 'cause darkness is half of everything" so the removal of darkness would bring only imbalance and instability, but as has been established before, approaching the task of fighting darkness in a violent, hate-filled, stubborn and self-obsessed way only further feeds the darkness and begets more of it, which Narix is actually smart enough to know since he exploits that with the "blight" power and think it a worthy means so long as the ends he aims for can justify them. He's like Master Eraqus’ moral absolutism and ideals of light supremacy taken to the furthest extremes possible.

"Now wait a minute!" I hear some of you asking "You said back in this post about the Star Wars sequel trilogy "Apparently a whole lot of folks just think having this one guy serve as the overarching main antagonist, direct or indirect, for two trilogies and then having a completely different guy from right out of nowhere with no link or connection to the previous guy nor anything from the last six installments step up as the main antagonist for the third and final trilogy is perfectly fine storytelling so long as the second guy comes off sufficiently Big and Bad enough or whatever.", but how is what you're pushing with Narix any different?"

There are three major differences. 1. Yes, KH Divergence reimagines the whole Kingdom Hearts saga for 25 years as a trilogy of trilogies, and yes all of those trilogies are intertwined to connect with each other in some way, but they are not CONNECTED in the same way Nomura likes to do; while they share the same universe, cosmology, history, themes, and basic common elements across them all, each chronicle is still more or less its own complete story than can stand on its own even if you did not experience the other ones, with even the handling of continuity being kept as newcomer-friendly as possible in the way most game series' are. 2. Narix keeps with the running theme of "darkness begets more darkness". Darkness in the hearts of people begat Darxomnious, who begat darkness in Luxu, whose actions led to circumstances that begat darkness in Narix, whose actions led to circumstances that begat darkness in Xehanort, whose actions begat darkness in Vanitss and Maleficent and Braig and Ansem the Wise and many other villains, essentially putting the whole series as it began in motion, and so in the series' present day narrative the arc with Xehanort begets the arc with Darxomnious which begets the arc with Narix. It's cyclical by design. And 3. Xehanort still factors into the last trilogy as the one who created Evanessé. When you get down to it, Xehanort was THE chief antagonist of the first trilogy - the KH Trinity, or the Door To Light Chronicle - and of KH0.1 (BBS) but was just part of the Big Bad Ensemble in the second trilogy (playing second banana to Maleficent and Darxomnious in the second and third games of it), and a posthumous Greater Scope Villain behind one of the antagonists in the final trilogy. So you can't say he ever stopped mattering here.

Narix's name is derived from a double meaning. Like the other Lost Masters names, it's a play on one of the seven deadly sins (Avali = avarice/Greed, Fura = fury/Wrath, Gorgeyo = gorge/Gluttony, Jelus = jealousy/Envy, Ecaed = acedia/Sloth, Luxu = Lust); as Narix's sin is Pride, his name refers to Narcissism. The NAR in his name, with how it's pronounced like that, is also pulled from the word "Lunar", as in the moon, like Kingdom Hearts itself. Additionally, it felt right to put the "X" letter at the end of his name. Xehanort had it as his name's first letter (as did Xemnas), both Darxomnious and Luxu had it somewhere in the center of their names, Narix has it at the very end.

His hair being brown is also a deliberate choice. Sora was a brunette hero whose nemesis was silver haired. Now we have Ephemer as a silver haired hero whose nemesis is brunette. It's poetry, it rhymes! And the weird styling of it where it goes up into double pointed ends is meant to call to mind rabbit ears. Yes, rabbit ears. It's another reference to the whole "lunar" connection: the fabled Moon Rabbit.

Design-wise, Narix is meant to invoke vintage Final Fantasy villains, primarily the evil Emperor Mateus from Final Fantasy II. This would also work coming off of Xehanort, who was either a straight-up Disney Villain (Master Xehanort in KH0.1/BBS), a Disneyfied Final Fantasy Villain (Terra-Xehanort/Ansem), the Disneyfied Final Fantasy Villain so re-Final Fantasified that he becomes fittingly an in-between "neither Disney nor FF villain" KH Villain (Xemnas), or a crappy Shonen villain from a crappy Shonen manga/anime (Master Xehanort in every game since BBS in Nomura's KH Canon).

Speaking of, Narix's motivation should ring familiar. He wants to clean the universal slate so that darkness is no more, the World is pure and bright with the light of Kingdom Hearts always shining over it, and he remains bound to Kingdom Hearts' inner heart in order to forever safeguard that light and reign over all who have hearts in an oppressive way, "to stop the weak from polluting the World with their endless darkness - to dictate their destinies." Yeah, THIS is the sort of antagonist such self-righteous and fascistic motives actually works with as opposed to shoehorning them onto an established immoral researcher who has historically fancied the darkness. Xehanort started out believing he could "tear down a tyranny of light". Narix wishes to instill a tyranny of light. And the way he seeks to do so is truly insane: he wishes to dismantle and reassemble Kingdom Hearts itself from within its inner heart (to clarify, Kingdom Hearts' "outer heart" is what birthed the World. It's "inner heart" is what birthed every other World and keeps it tied to this KH multiverse) so as to eliminate all darkness across the multiverse, all costs be damned. In doing so he ironically creates an evil force called “blight”, light that’s been perverted to the point where it works in tandem with darkness.

Whatever else can be said about him, Narix is definitely a man of strong ideals and convictions. And one prominent ideal of his is his absolute abhoring of Keyblades. The events of Waning Way, learning more about the Keyblade War, and what occured with Luxu all served to make him swear off the weapon, believing such a weapon to not be fit for human hands. He passed this belief down to his followers in the Vanguard as they cracked down on Keyblade Mastery. The reason the Guardian Keybladers in KH0.1 is such a small and secretive order? Yeah, this would be the reason.

(And seeing how out of hand Keyblades got it Nomura's canon, I can honestly kind of sympathize!)

Now, don't confuse Narix for a Frollo or Emperor Belos type of evil, bigoted, hypocritical religious fudamentalist villain who have openly unpleasant personalities that we can all recognize as being evil beneath the superficial charisma - Narix is a very convincingly affable, charming, parental and seemingly noble individual, which makes it all the scarier to see his more pompous, self-obsessed, and even cruel side come out, especially the more he dabbles in blight and darkens his heart and soul. Narix can also be quite humorous and snarky, not in "lol weird and random" way like the Master of Masters, nor even like Xigbar, but in a more "Ardyn Izunia" way.

For Narix's English voice, I had to think of a VA, namely one who's a big name in anime and video games, who was a super veteran in the industry for years now and would be officially middle-aged by the end of the 2010s yet has a voice that retains this youthful quality to it, capable of performing the smoothy, silky, mellifluous voiceover that the character would need. Who could that be none other than the one and only Johnny Yong Bosch. A sampling of how he'd sound:

The nature of Narix's main power, "blight", is quite insidious: the Masters and lower mages of the Vanguard use their staves to steal light from other people's hearts and transfer it into the veins of creatures of darkness, creating this power where the darkness and light intermingling with each other causes one another to go totally out of whack. It effects the new "Demi-Deterged" Heartless so that rather than be attracted to the darkness of people’s hearts with the instict to prey upon those hearts, they seek out darkness and attack it in violent ways that prove dangerous to the hearts they come into contact with and destructive to the very fabric of the World itself.

While the full stories and scenarios for the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle entires are incredibly hazy to me overall right now, one of the things I can see very vividly is the Final Boss stage for KH5. Basically, the final world brings us back to...well, The Final World, right to Kingdom Hearts' doorstep, at which point a fucking enlarged, Demi-Deterged Chernabog starts tearing up the place and becomes the Climax Boss. And then comes the Final Boss, which is, I shit you not, essentially the one famous Kamina line from Gurren Lagann - "the Drill that will pierce the heavens!" An enormous tower-like contraption that is trying to drill its way into Kingdom Hearts to reach the inner heart, and three competing factions for light, darkness, and nothingness are all trying to make it work in their favor. Stage 1 of the fight pits Ephemer and friends against all the strongest "miniboss" tier enemies in the game all at once. Once that's cleared, Stage 2 is against Neodarkness and his powers of darkness. Clearing that gets you to Stage 3 against Evanessé and his powers of Nil. Clearing this advances you to the penultimate stage where of course it's Narix who's the last one standing. The final phase is triggered when the blight at last becomes too much for the unhinged Narix, filling his heart with darkness, becoming darkness itself! Defeating Dark Narix finally brings the whole thing down, freeing Kingdom Hearts and keeping the multiverse still in order. A completely broken Narix still insists on the rightness of his cause and how he could've improved all Worlds, at which point Maleficent enters the scene to zap him with her newly restored dark magic, obliterating his heart and physically transforming him into a basic Darkling who fades to the Dark Realm.

.....Hold on, I feel like I might've heard this story from Disney before.

A character model for Master Narix, and a close-up of his face.

#Disney #Kingdom Hearts #KH Divergence #disney villains #Master Narix #KHIV #the Missing Links #KHV #oc #headcanon #trivia #analysis

[canmom]

Animation Night 119: Dick Williams

heeheehee, dick

So. If you’re an animator, or have even thought about trying animation at some point in your life, you’ve probably ended up recommended a copy of this book...

Which is fair, it’s a fucking great book. It pretty much set the standard for animation pedagogy forever since.

You may also likely know the legend of its creator, Richard Williams. I believe I may even have mentioned him on Animation Night before, but since it’s been some time, let’s set the scene.

Animation is about compromise. On every production, from TV to film, you have to accept some limitation on your vision: drawings you don’t have time to correct, shots that might look better on 1s, CG where hand-drawn animation might look better. Part of the art of the animator is learning to do more with less, like developing a style that demands a more manageable drawing count.

Yet animators are proud creatures. It’s painful to let go of a sequence you know could be better with more time!

Which means... in the great annals of Animation Lore, there are a few times where some industry legend gets enough clout where they can get away with just going completely all out on a film. In the best cases, this results in films like Takeshi Koike’s Redline (Animation Night 19), which occupied Madhouse for a good seven years, but resulted in an exhilarating, one of a kind sakuga feast.

This one paid off, and while it rather strained the resources of Madhouse and they weren’t in a hurry to let Koike do whatever he wanted again, It’s clear that he levelled up a lot from the effort, with the nigh perfect understanding of 3D form becoming the foundation of his later Lupin films. But in these cases, actually finishing the film is maybe more of the exception than the rule...

The next famous case is that of Yuri Norstein - a titan of Soviet animation, who I have regrettably not yet covered on Animation Night! But Animation Obsessive have, in wonderful detail, so please go read what they have to say.

Norstein, famed for his films like Hedgehog in the Fog and Tale of Tales but fiercely independent, had a somewhat tense relationship with his superiors at Soyuzmutfilm. This came to a head when he set out to make an insanely ambitious feature-length adaptation of The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol. In 1985 he was fired from Soyuzmutfilm for working too slowly... but he found private investors after the fall of the Soviet Union... and has worked on it ever since, with an animation team consisting of just Yuri Norstein himself and his wife Francheska Yarbusova whose drawings form the cutouts which Norstein animates. Even now, 37 years later, he is still working on The Overcoat. Occasionally, clips surface.

It probably won’t be finished before Norstein dies, and at that point someone will probably find all the finished footage and edit it into something like a film. But the investors still seem to be willing to indulge him, perhaps because it’s not exactly expensive and it has the aura of a legend so they’re willing to play the long game.

But of course, the most famous of these quixotic passion projects is The Thief and the Cobbler, directed by Richard Williams. So let’s set the stage.

Richard Williams, in his own account, got interested in animation at age 10, in 1943, when he got a paperback book called How To Make Animated Cartoons. He started pursuing it seriously at age 22, while working as a painter in Spain, returning to London and working briefly in advertising while self-funding a short fim The Little Island, which he describes as a ‘half-hour philosophical argument’, released in 1958 when he was aged 25.

After making this film, Williams came to a very familiar realisation: he didn’t know nearly as much about animation as he had imagined. He describes watching Bambi for the second time and ‘crawling out of the theatre’ trying to figure out how they did that. He started idolising the animators at Disney and Warner Bros such as Ken Harris - someone he would one day work alongside, and become a close friend, and in the end be a pallbearer at his funeral. And The Animator’s Survival Kit‘s prose is still soaked in reverence for these animators, with a lot of cute little anecdotes about moments Williams spent with them.

His reverence for the Disney ‘full animation’ school was cemented after seeing the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine (Animation Night 86) and watching an unimpressed audience walk out - something Williams at the time attributed to the jerky animation that didn’t respect the movement principles of Disney. He describes by contrast how completely he was blown away by The Jungle Book, seeing the hand of some of the Nine Old Men like Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston - so he wrote them a letter about how much he was impressed and they invited him to come visit.

At this point his intro drifts away from autobiography, so let’s give a brief summary from other sources. During this time, Williams had founded a studio in London, which mostly made TV ads and animated segments for live action films such as the comedy Casino Royale (1967).

Notably also in this period, Williams animated segments for a film about the Crimean War, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968). The drawings for this sequence were insanely intricate, calling to mind the woodcut engraving style of newspaper illustrations contemporary with the war.

1971 saw his adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which was warmly received in the States. At this point he was frequently inviting talented animators from the States to come and teach the pathetic British how it’s done, including Grim Natwick (who is described as ‘still brilliant’ in the Survival Kit) and Ken Harris, who gets a fascinating little paragraph:

It takes time. I didn’t encounter Ken Harris until I was nearly forty and he was sixty-nine. I had to hire most of my teachers in order to learn from them.

I hired Ken in order to get below him and be his assistant, so I was both his director and his assistant. I don’t know if this is original, but I finally figured out to that to learn or to ‘understand’ I had to ‘stand under’ the one who knows in order to catch the drippings of his experience.

This period in the 60s and 70s was also the beginning of the saga that would lead, eventually, to The Thief and the Cobbler. Originally the film was to be titled Nasruddin, about the folk character Mullah Nasreddin. Williams had a hard time finding any sort of funding for the film, falling out with other production companies at times, so he quietly plugged away at it while working on other projects.

The Nasruddin connection runs a little deeper actually, because Williams was hired in 1976 to illustrate a collection of Mullah Nasreddin stories by the Sufi occultist writer Idries Shah. I’m not sure how this came about exactly - whether Williams went out of his way to draw Nasreddin, or if he happened to get hired by coincidence. In any case, the idea was clearly occupying a lot of his thought - but more on that anon.

The 70s also saw Williams work on animation for the title sequences for two of the Pink Panther movies, during which time he invited Art Babbitt to come to London to teach - Babbitt being the man who had been fired from Disney after the animators’ strike in the 40s, thus evading canonisation as one of the Nine Old Men. Babbitt also did some work on Thief and the Cobbler, and rendered this memorable quote about Williams:

He's a director, designer, animator, and has a good layman's knowledge of music. He's a dreamer. He has more to learn as far as animation is concerned, but God, he can draw like a bastard

By this point, Williams would have been 42 years old. He was still making ads, despite ‘despising the form’, and making the occasional film or TV special such as Raggedy Ann & Andy (1977) and Ziggy’s Gift (1982).

Of course, the real point he became famous was when Who Framed Roger Rabbit came about. The strange Disney/Spielberg collaboration is actually one I’ve written about before, back on Animation Night 40, where I said some kinda mean things about old Dick. What I don’t really talk about there is what the film is about: yes, it’s about the animation industry and full of little injokes, but it is also to adult eyes recognisable as a parable for how San Francisco lost its public transport system, leaning on the idea of the auto-makers conspiring to destroy it. The real story may be a little more complicated, but having now seen the strip mall sprawl in both ends of California, I can see why people would come up with it. It’s grim out there.

I also didn’t talk much about the production. Williams was involved precisely because Spielberg saw footage of Thief and the Cobbler and was so impressed that he approached Williams.

By all accounts, working on Roger Rabbit was intense for everyone involved. Williams writes of drawing scenes late at night in the hotel room, and there was all sorts of goofy studio politics with neither Disney or Warner Bros wanting the film to favour one or the other (leading to situations like the piano scene where Donald and Daffy Duck were obliged to have exactly even screen time; the same goes for Bugs and Mickey.

It was also, I learned recently, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for one young James Baxter, then 20 years old studying animation but frustrated by the more experimental approach taken at his course, wanting to learn - like Williams himself - something more tied down like the Disney tradition. Traditionally animated films on the scale of Roger Rabbit are basically never made in the UK (and odds are, never will be again now CGI is king), so Baxter and some of his university friends dived for the chance.

Baxter joined the production as an inbetweener, working basically non stop on animation for that year (‘eat, sleep and animate’) but so impressed the Disney animators with a brief test he did of Thumper from Bambi that they gave him a few small scenes of feet and hands to animate. His success at this led to him getting more scenes, and this is where we get a little anecdote about Richard Williams (see, this is relevant!):

Baxter: Not being a seasoned animator, not being, y’know, knowing kind of the ropes of that, I did the classic junior animator mistake of going too far with something before you show your director or your supervisor, and I got the beatdown! I got the classic beatdown from Dick, which was great. I had gone way too far on like a shot of one of the weasels and, you know, he said ‘yeah yeah yeah! No, get the drawings, go get the drawings!’ So I had to stand behind Dick for an hour or so while he drew over my pencil drawings with a pen, one by one.

Interviewer: Ohh, wow.

Baxter: That’s kind of awesome. Not on a separate sheet of paper either, just like, my drawing, his pen.

Still, Roger Rabbit was completed on something like a schedule; the animation helped kick off the Disney Renaissance and now everyone wanted a piece of Dick. Off the back of that, Williams was able to negotiate a ‘negative pickup deal’ with Warner Bros: they would buy the film on a specified date for a specified price. Williams believed he could fund the film through a major studio, so rather than seek European arts funding, he went for the Warner Bros deal - a decision that would eventually be fatal to the project.

So at last the passion project, at this point already ‘in production’ for around 25 years starting in 1989, could really get underway. Thanks to the work done by the visiting animators, it represented the final film for a number of notable animators: Ken Harriss, Errol Le Cain, Emery Hawkins, Grim Natwick and Art Babbitt.

Williams’s approach was... utterly uncompromising. Sakugabooru commenter pkoduah provides a nice summary of the issues:

1. The film was led by animation rather than story. He thought of the most technically impressive animation scenes and then tried to shoe horn them into a story. If even half of the care that went into the animation went into the story and clear locked down storyboards it would had fared better and not been such a hydra. Even after the 2+ decades the story is still not fully resolved. 2. Richard Williams had an almost religious commitment to working on 1's, even for relatively slow scenes. If he just changed that one thing he would have greatly increased his chances of meeting the deadlines. 3. The decision by a particular still powerful animation exec to steal his thunder with Aladdin which is heavily based on the Thief & Cobbler, put further pressure on the execs to take drastic measures with William's glacially paced project.

We can also add that the story - with its goofy orientalist framing featuring jokes like Grand Vizier Zigzag and Princesss Yumyum, and an incredibly simple story that simply revolves around a macguffin - feels like a relic of a different era of animated film. Despite Williams’s disdain for it, it feels like it has a similar feeling to Yellow Submarine.

As an animator who’s tried it, the insistence on working on 1s is especially crazy to me. At first glance it sounds like twice as much work, because twice as many drawings, but it’s worse than this - because issues in an animation, inconsistences of shape and line, become much more obvious on 1s than they do on 3s or 2s where you can get away with larger changes of shape.

The modern worldview is quite different, incidentally. Lower framerates, when used properly, can also create a snappy, impactful feeling (c.f. the Kanada school, or Mitsuo Iso’s ‘full limited’). It requires a slightly different approach with stronger poses and a lot of drawing skill, since each frame is pulling more work, so a sequence designed to run on 1s will not look better with half its frames missing, but a sequence designed to run on 2s or 3s can look just as good.

In the Survival Kit, Williams briefly comments on the issue, saying in his entire career he’d basically only found one sequence that worked better on 2s for reasons he didn’t understand - to him, animating on 2s was purely a cost saving measure, and now he finally had the chance to do his passion project, he wasn’t going to accept anything less than the best possible.

But then, I think Williams’s motivation was less about appealing to audiences, and more about showing off to his art senpais - the great animators he idolised. It’s telling that one of the first anecdotes in the Survival Kit is about Williams and Ken Harris:

In 1967, I was able to bring Ken to England and my real education in animation articulation and performance started by working with him. I was pushing forty at the time, and, with a large successful studio in London, I had been animating for eighteen years, winning over one hundred international awards.

After seven or eight years of working closely with Ken, he said to me, ‘Hey Dick, you’re starting to draw those things in the right place.’

‘Yeah, I’m really learning it from you now, aren’t I?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you know . . . you could be an animator.’

After the initial shock I realised he was right. Ken was the real McCoy whereas I was just doing a lot of fancy drawings in various styles which were functional but didn’t have the invisible ‘magic’ ingredients to make them really live and perform convincingly.

So I redoubled my efforts (mostly in mastering head and hand ‘accents’) and the next year Ken pronounced, ‘OK, you’re an animator.’

A couple of years after that, one day he said, ‘Hey, Dick, you could be a good animator.’

The anecdote continues with Williams going down to visit Harris in his trailer when Harris was aged 82, and finding that Harris could still correct his work. He still didn’t have Harris’s ‘thing’. But, at least, Harris said he ‘had his own thing going’.

It’s never mentioned explicitly, but the shadow of The Thief and the Cobbler hangs over the Animator’s Survival Kit. The footage that earned this praise from Ken Harris was footage from that film. By that logic, it should have been an immense success for Williams: finally earning him his place among the canon.

So why is it instead such a negative memory for Williams?

Well, in 1992, the film was still in progress, with just fifteen minutes left to complete - but it was too much for Warner Bros, who didn’t want to be seen as making a knockoff Aladdin. Williams was booted from his own passion project, putting Fred Calvert on to hastily fill in the gaps in the story and discard the unfinished sequences, adding a number of musical sequences with far lowre quality animation performed by a number of subcontractors including Sullivan Bluth Studios, Kroyer Films, Wang Film Productions/Thai Wang Film Productions in Taiwan and Thailand, Pacific Rim Animation in China and Varga Studio in Hungary. A second recut was performed by Miramax, removing even more of the original.

The resulting mess landed poorly in theaters, and Williams, utterly dejected for obvious reasons, shut down his animation studio and went back to Canada, spending the next few years as a teacher while nursing his wounds and starting work on writing what would become The Animator’s Survival Kit, published in 2002. And, in a sense, the story has a happy ending: Williams’s book became a bestseller, the reference on animation; Williams could pass on the secrets of the masters he revered, and trust that he would be remembered as a great teacher and animator.

In 2008 he was invited to become an artist in residence at Aardman; in 2010 he finished a film he’d begun in Ibiza in the 1950s titled Circus Drawings, and then he spent the rest of his life setting out alone on a new grand passion project, an adaptation of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes. The first part of the film, titled simply Prologue, was released in 2015, featuring elaborate hand-drawn camera moves and background animation all done in pencils and photographed directly. You can watch it:

What of The Thief and the Cobbler? Well, the workprint of the film prior to the edits has survived, and the legend of it gradually spread across the industry. Williams showed his workprint in 2000 at the Annecy festival, impressing Roy E. Disney, who started on a project to restore and finish the film... but this fell through as Disney turned away from hand-drawn animation and Roy left the company.

Instead, the restoration effort was led unofficially by fans. A filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist, created the Recobbled Cut of the film, which used all the Williams-era footage that could be found from various sources, including unfinished pencil tests and scenes rotoscoped by Gilchrist to deal with dodgy footage, all edited to basically the structure of the workprint with some added music. As more and more people saw the Recobbled Cut, the film began to be rehabilitated, and Gilchrist created further revisions as more sources of original footage came to light.

So a good ending for Williams, right. But I’ve talked a lot about how it is made, what is the film itself actually like?

In its Recobbled form, The Thief and the Cobbler is very very obviously an animator’s passion project lmao. It’s full of Williams’s homages to Islamic art, with the stark geometric patterns creating some very clever shot compositions.

The actual story is very light on dialogue, and in contrast to Aladdin, it keeps its characterisations very simple. The thief and cobbler themselves are both basically mute, driven by very simple impulses: the cobbler is simple and well-meaning and enchanted by simple things, while the thief is single-mindedly determined to steal the Golden Balls, never mind the consequences. It’s not a surprise it didn’t land well in a time when the rule in animation was Don Bluth and the Disney Renaissance: there are no ‘I want’ songs or really, character arcs as such.

So the Cobbler gets with Princess Yumyum, but... like a fairytale or a Golden Age disney film, not because we’ve been sold on them as characters who have chemistry and want to get with each other, but more because Yumyum seems to find the Cobbler kind of... a weirdly endearing little pet and that’s what the plot demands. The Thief continues his thieving throughout. Late in the movie, a massive army of barbarians shows up out of almost nowhere, leading to a spectacular scene in the cogs of their giant war machine, but we aren’t really asked to believe in them as a culture. It is basically a series of setpieces loosely strung together.

I have said in the past that The Thief and the Cobbler is callous in the treatment of the historical Islamic culture it depicts. It is certainly an Orientalist film and certainly very British in its outlook, there’s no question of that. Still, while I do still think the joke names like Vizier Zigzag and Princess Yumyum are tasteless, I think it would be hard to say that Williams does not have reverence or devotion. It’s a different beast than Aladdin - the way he shows this devotion is through his mad, obsessive craft. I’m not quite sure how I’d feel about it if I was on the receiving end of it, mind you. (I would be quite curious to find out what the Arabic dub does with it, if there is one.)

The thing is that Williams is, far more than a director, an animator. Like, say, Masaaki Yuasa, he loved the medium of animation more than anything - no matter what he’s animating, he’s clearly beyond happy if he can make it move in a cool way. The Animator’s Survival Kit is intoxicating because he really sells you in this fascination with how things move - the nuances of a walk, the effects of timing and spacing and gesture, like what does happen if you make this frame go up and this frame go down? The previous generation of animators was his god, but he also was keen to experiment, find new possibilities. For this reason, Williams is still relevant. Even if he had... fascinatingly strange ideas about how gay people walk!

But this means, unfortunately for this film, that he was far, far more of an animator than he was a director. In fact this ends up a very endearing quality. The Thief and the Cobbler is an intensely idiosyncratic film, a true expression of the worldview of Richard Williams both good and bad... the workaholic maniac that he was, a man with something to prove.

And for a man with a great deal to say about acting, we should look at the acting in this film. Since many scenes are wordless, it falls to the acting to convey the emotions of the characters in the scene. And... they’re certainly not subtle, but they are creative, full of clever and surprising images. It is I suppose a very theatrical mode of acting: a lot of exaggeration and big movements.

On the other hand, the characters’ inner worlds are like... well they aren’t really there. Pretty much everything is right there on the surface. Everyone is really exactly what you see. It’s interesting to contrast this with the psychological turn soon to be taken by anime in the 90s, in Eva or films like those of Mamoru Oshii. A character like Motoko Kusanagi has incredibly graceful 3D movement, yet she barely emotes... and nevertheless through the framing and script, we know a lot about what she might be feeling. Shinji sits still listening to his tape player. Sometimes less can be more.

What of the Thief? He is the most enigmatic character in the film, and yet he too is not complex. We don’t know why he wants the Golden Balls, why he tolerates flies buzzing around him, but he surely does. He’s just a weird little slinky gremlin guy, and in the end he gets away.

Of course, Williams talks a fair bit about gender in his presentations on animation acting. The Animator’s Survival Kit bonus DVD includes videos of lectures, so here’s a clip someone uploaded of some examples of what he’d say:

You can see how his interest here is in really pushing and exaggerating that gender difference - of course, pushed to extremes for pedagogical purposes, but still, it says something about the worldview he was operating under. Especially at the end when he gets a laugh by, essentially, animating a very effeminate walk for the bodybuilder character.

So a character like ‘Princess Yumyum’ is exactly what she appears: curious, vulnerable etc., a feminine ideal. There is little room for contradiction, or even straining against the bounds of this role like Princess Arete. The same is true in a lot of Williams films. Animation is about exaggeration, of course, but Williams was inescapably a man born in the 30s.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from him. Learn a lot, really. Thanks to Wiliams, even though the renowned animators of Disney and Warner Brothers have died, we can get a sense of how they used to think about things, and build on them. We can understand the tricks of spacing he uses to create a sense of impact, and pick up on some of his observations and insights about acting. And certainly, his exhortation to do figure drawing has caught on in a big way since the book has been published.

I feel like, in many ways, I can see myself in the young Richard Williams - well, not nearly as accomplished, but the awe he feels towards those old Disney animators, I feel towards people like Weilin Zhang, Mitsuo Iso, Shinya Ohira, James Baxter... the ‘how can they do that’, but also, one very important line:

Irrepressible ambition made me change my opinion that they alone could attain such heights; I figured, I think correctly, that given talent, experience, persistence - plus the knowledge of the experts - why should everything not be possible?

I couldn’t stand it any more. I had to know everything about the medium and master all aspects of it. Cap in hand, I made yearly visits to Milt and Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Ken Anderson at Disney.

For my part, I joined a lot of animation discord servers and now, starting this month, I’m trying to hit that “James Baxter’s first year” sort of pace. We’ll see how it goes. But like... all these guys are human. My muscles aren’t any different than theirs - I just need to see if i can shape my brain to acquire that power of observation and intuition for drawing. The method is clear enough. Like Williams, I won’t be an exact clone of my idols - I’ll become my own thing. If I just keep at it.

Anyway, I have gotten over my reluctance to screen The Thief and the Cobbler - orientalist as it may be, it is an important movie to animation history, and one worth seeing again, as well as Williams’s earlier animations to see where he came from. So if you fancy joining me, we’ll be at Twitch tonight - please head to twitch.tv/canmom and we’ll begin the movies in 15-20 minutes probably!!

#animation night #richard williams #the thief and the cobbler

[avoicebehindthestars]

My predictions for DFAFM

Is it weird that I’m obsessing so hard over a fanfic? Well, I am. The fanfic being Don’t Fall Away From Me by the spectacular PhoenixRose314. In fact, I’m so far gone that I decided to put together all the speculations I have for the remaining 6 chapters and I decided to publish them because, like, bragging rights if I get any of it right (for the record, I predicted Muriel would be Abaddon as early as chapter 25).

@phoen1xr0se If you happen upon this post (I guess you will now that I've tagged you), it might be better if you don’t read it. I’d hate to influence you in any way at this point! And if you do read it – you know what to do, tell me nothing! ;)

Everyone else: if I’m right about any of these, they will obviously turn out to be spoilers, so yeah, proceed with caution ;) It's 4th March and 37 chapters of DFAFM have been released as I write these. Now, without any further ado…

Aziraphale will be faced with a choice and will choose Crowley against the (presumed) will of god. AND/OR Crowley will have to trust god to save/protect Aziraphale.

Gabriel will turn out to have been the scribe of the Book of Life, or even the original Voice of god, making the Metatron an imposter.

AziraCrow will be forced apart once again.

Crowley will have to accept Baraquiel as part of himself – the way Aziraphale accepted the Pit.

The true purpose of the Book of Life will have been to awaken Abaddon. That’s why the Second Coming can’t start without it. Using it to erase angelic memories was abuse of power by the Metatron.

Muriel will need Eric (or possibly Crowley) to ground them when they’re overwhelmed by Abaddon’s identity. Seeing love in the world previously will ultimately stop them from destroying it. Possibly seeing evidence of Aziraphale and Crowley’s unending love.

Eric will turn out to have been an angel of rebirth – the polar opposite of Abaddon. Or maybe Raphael – the archangel of healing (in a way also the opposite of Abaddon).

The betrayal referenced by Gabriel could’ve been Maggie’s. The sacrifice could’ve been Nina’s, though I’m less convinced there. I’m actually prepared to see another betrayal and *especially* sacrifice since I’m expecting the ominous quote to be a foreshadowing rather than reference to past events. Perhaps Eric for Muriel? Jophiel for Furfur? Crowley for Aziraphale…?

AND NOW THAT WE’RE AT IT. PhoenixRose314 keeps announcing that the oncoming chapters will be dark and she “needs us to be brave”, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Crowley die to be resurrected / reborn in the end. There is a connection between him and Jesus, and Crowley seems to be where Jesus was 2000 years ago (believing in love, ready to fight for the one he cares about). Moreover, Crowley’s been presented as the inspirational figure for the angels, and a beacon of hope – the way Jesus was for early christians. In this light, him choosing to sacrifice himself would make a lot of sense. This may also push Muriel over the edge – without Crowley to stop her from setting on the path of destruction. Of course, Crowley won’t stay dead – there’s a “happy ending” tag on this fic after all (which I personally kind of wish there wasn’t – the tag, I mean!! – since it would make me feel things a lot more intensely).

Alternatively, we’ll find out about the afterlife for celestials (which was briefly mentioned when Aziraphale was in the cell, convinced that Crowley was dead), and that’s where the Ineffable Husbands will be reunited. It makes all the more sense since they have discussed Crowley moving into the bookshop and both of them moving to South Downs, and as per general rule, things that are discussed theoretically don’t come to pass in a narrative.

If my prediction in the previous point is correct, this will turn out to be the reason behind the fall, or at least one of the reasons. Crowley will have always been the sacrifice and the Metatron and Lucifer were doing all they could to keep him from developing selflessness and love.

Super-dark option: it’ll be Aziraphale who ends up killing Crowley. Hear me out! Aziraphale tells Muriel he’s ready to take extreme measures “when needs absolutely must”. He will choke on these words and his conviction when it turns out he has to kill Crowley. Aziraphale was also ready to sacrifice himself to protect the world, and back in heaven he was resigned to not surviving the Second Coming. But sacrificing Crowley was something he will never be ready to do. I don’t think he’ll manage to kill Crowley on purpose. If it happens, it’ll be an accident or Crowley’s decision (piercing himself with the flaming sword that Aziraphale’s holding or something like that).

There are also some bits I’ve fished out, but I have no theories regarding them. Listing them below just to note that I find them significant and expect the remaining 6 chapters to address them:

What memory Crowley lost when he followed Muriel into the lake – it’ll be plot-important.

How Muriel was “twice blessed by god”.

What happened to god. I was trying to come up with something substantial there, but honestly, I got nothing. She may be wicked, playing her “ineffable game” to prove a point to Lucifer. She may be despairing over her creations of love fucking everything up. She may be missing / dead / ensnared by the Metatron (unlikely – Lucifer talked to her after the Fall… although he may have come to see her in prison). She may be metamorphosed under the influence of her flawed creation. She may be the patient parent waiting for her children to finally get it right without influencing their free will (which could also be shown critically – you don’t test your children to destruction).

The purpose of angels’ existence.

The ending of the sentence “Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate, and Crawley, the Serpent of Eden. They should not be…” I’m particularly curious about this one. This could go in so many ways! “They should not be… together”? “…separated”? “…reunited”? “…in love”? “…on opposite sides”? When AziraCrow hear the end of that sentence, it’s bound to be a turning point!

The Metatron and Lucifer’s connection and motivations.

And some miscellaneous stuff I’m expecting to might be important but I may as well be completely off my mark:

Why Rikbiel insists on being called Rikki.

Saraqael (I won’t be surprised if she turns out to be god).

Items in the vault: the trumpet and the wooden chest (I’m suspecting it might be the Arc of the Covenant, but got nothing beyond that).

Why Rikki says to Jophiel “Looks like it’s time” as they’re about to leave Hell. The thread is abruptly cut off by Beez bursting out laughing over Crowley being considered a hero. Seems to be done on purpose, Doyle-wise.

What the orange glow signifies (Abaddon? god?).

Editing, because I almost forgot! Some tiny predictions for There is a Light & It Never Goes Out:

Crowley will prepare a romantic dinner for Aziraphale (PhoenixRose314 kind of hinted it to me in one of her replies to my comments on AO3, saying Crowley "will enjoy a proper meal at some point in this fic").

They will dance to "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" inside the lighthouse. I'm 99% sure of this one - there's a reason we were told of Crowley's CD collection ;) We'll be getting a fluffy rendition of the dance that was painfully interrupted in You Don't Dance - The Story of 1941.

#dfafm #good omens fanfic #phoenixrose314 #dfafm predictions #go fanfic speculations

[atthebell-moved]

7 13 & 25 for the hater game :P

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

unfortunately q!slime fans are like. the most annoying people on the planet to me, in large part bc they act like he's the only person on the server capable of serious roleplay when that is just blatantly not the case. like, i love charlie, and i think he's quite good at roleplay, but the world does not revolve around him and there are many other talented rpers on qsmp.

13. worst blorboficiation

of all time? cwilbur

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

i'll throw out another one even though i already answered this: hate people complaining about the eggs. i get that some people's favorites stopping coming on because of them/because of them dying, but to be frank that's not the fault of the admins nor anyone else on the server, and you would lose a lot more people taking the eggs away than people who are currently inactive, plus there's now more players again that you can get into (who are also all obsessed with the eggs now go figure.).

also they're fun and cute and characters in their own right at this point. i do agree that they should probably hatch or grow up a bit so that they're a bit more independent and the tasks matter less, but they're here to stay and have been, frankly, since a month into the damn server, and we're getting close to six months now.

[ask game]

#asks #meenah #ask game answers #discourse

[gamesception]

lets read rgu, chapter 26

So, yeah, the main story is complete with chapter 25.  Chapters 26 and 27 are in fact side stories incorporating some elements from the anime that didn’t make it into the manga before.  This chapter, we’re bringing in Ruka, a character who ime is often underrated.  People I’ve watched Utena with in real life often see him as a superfluous blue Touga who randomly shows up 3/4 of the way through the show and disappears without a trace or fanfare two episodes later.  Though my appreciation for him may also be tainted by misinterpretation - the first time I watched the show I thought Ruka was the guy who had come between Juri and Shiori in the first place - the guy who liked Juri but Shiori in her jealously had “stolen”.  That’s not the case, but Ruka was still a lot more than just an unnecessary extra Touga.

Unfortunately, the same difference from the anime that made Manga Juri’s own arc so much less compelling and work so much worse will likely hold back Ruka’s bonus chapter as well.  “The guy I like doesn’t like me” is just so much less compelling as an underlying motivation for manga Juri’s angst than “I can’t confess my feelings to the girl I like because those feelings are a love that ‘dare not speak its name’, so I will keep that love secret and obsess over it, while the girl I love misinterprets my increasingly guarded and withdrawn attitude towards her as condescension and contempt and reacts by trying to hurt me by “stealing” the boy she thinks I like, which none the less succeeds in hurting me by making me see the person I love with someone else, but because it’s all based on misunderstanding I’m still left with the thought that if by some miracle she learned my feelings for her she might return them, and so we spiral around each other in obsession and animosity forever.”

There are different ways to interpret anime Ruka, because the show is deliberately opaque about him, but I always read him as playing a villainous role as an affect hiding a princely motivation.  The dude finds out he's going to die, and his only regret is that the girl he liked was all heartbroken over some falling out between her and her best friend that led to them hating each other, but they’re both too proud to resolve the conflict directly.  So with his last few weeks of life he 1) deliberately becomes a villain, 2) torments both the girl and her former friend, hurting both of them worse than they hurt each other 3) defuses the hatred between them by redirecting it towards himself, and 4) literally takes that hatred with him to the grave, giving them the chance for a fresh start.

If you take all this as deliberate, as I do, then it’s a ridiculous xanatos roulette of a plan, but it succeeds.  By the end Juri’s locket shatters - representing either that she’s given up on Shiori returning her feelings or accepted that she can’t keep her feelings locked up if she hopes anything to come from them, and she publicly expresses her anguish by openly sobbing in front of everyone, the dueling arena metaphorically drenched in her tears.

All the duelists in the show - or at the very least all the student council members - highlight or comment on some aspect of the fairy-tale prince archetype, typically by failing to live up to it in some way.  If the core identity of the Prince is in their selfless, even self sacrificial devotion to the Princess, then Saionji is unfit because his devotion is possessive and cruel.  Likewise Miki's is conditional and idealized, Juri's obsessive and fearful, Nanami's jealous and immature, Touga's ambitious and insincere.  They all demonstrate potential tripping points by which Utena might have failed to live up to the Princely archetype.

Ruka, on the other hand, is more subversive and deconstructive, exposing a tragic aspect of the archetype that had previously gone unexamined: the Prince MUST save the Princess(es), even if they don't want to be saved, even if he will become hated as a result, even if he must die in the process.  Where the other duelists demonstrate ways Utena could have failed to become Anthy's Prince, Ruka foreshadows the dark fate waiting for her when she succeeds.

Though of course that’s all assuming that Ruka’s manipulative villain persona was an affect and he actually was there to help Juri & Shiori by drawing their hatred away from each other and towards himself.  You could just as easily argue that he was sincerely after the power of Dios to cure his illness and save himself, that that any benefit Juri and Shiori experienced in the aftermath of his two week rampage through their lives was purely down to their own growth in the face of the difficulties he selfishly subjected them to.

Manga Ruka is playing out a version of this, but it doesn’t work as well because manga Juri’s anguish - ‘My pride is hurt because Utena beat me in a duel and Touga likes her more than me’ - just isn’t as compelling and really shouldn’t require any sort of grand manipulation to save her from.

But Manga Ruka puts on a grand show of manipulation none the less, getting Juri out of her house by challenging her place in the fencing team, stoking her jealousy of Utena by spending time with the new girl, setting Juri up for an unexpected rematch against Utena in the fencing room which she loses, using the shame and disappointment of that to goad Juri into a match against himself where she wins, and from there getting her to challenge Utena to a proper rematch in the dueling arena.

But before the duel Juri overhears Ruka bragging to Touga about how easy it was to manipulate Juri, and this aggrieves her pride so badly that she refuses to duel Utena again after all.

Which, I mean, good for her.  Even if you accept my reading of Anime Ruka’s motivations, that still leaves this gaping criticism over how he goes about achieving his goals.  The condescension, manipulation, and frankly cruelty of it is anything but Princely, and that the anime /rewards/ his behavior with success, again if you’re assuming as I do that the eventual outcome is what he was aiming for in the first place, is pretty sketchy.  Manga Juri gets the opportunity to call out and reject that manipulation in a way that Anime Juri didn’t really get.

Also, I’m literally all for any of the characters in Utena being on the receiving end of a Dramatic Slap with the soul exception of Anthy.  Ruka’s face is exceptionally slap-worthy.

But there’s gotta be a duel, so Ruka duels Utena in Juri’s place, using imitating Juri’s attacks and style to show her that she could still beat Utena if she wished.

Ruka effectively wins the duel, but at the last moment his unnamed illness catches up to him and he collapses to the ground, forfeiting the match by removing his own rose in a nod to how Juri’s second duel ended in the anime.

And like in the anime Ruka leaves and dies without telling Juri.

On the one hand, a sacrifice to spare her pain, but on the other hand a patronizing kind of manipulative move, making the choice for her and denying her the chance to say goodbye.

The duality of Ruka in a nut shell.

Honestly, this bonus chapter was pretty good, probably the best it could have been given how much less Manga Juri’s character had to work with.

#rgu #revolutionary girl utena #ruka tsuchiya #sception reads rgu

[hetaoren]

A (probably rambling) Lan Qiren Appreciation Post

Ok, let me start by saying I'm fully aware that he isn't a "perfect" person. He is a human and comes with human flaws, however, I often find that he gets reduced to nothing but rules and anger, which in my opinion isn't fair. Many seem to forget all the things he has gone through and accomplished, seeing only a strict man obsessed with rules and filled with anger, a hindrance for his nephew and his husband. It's true that he is strict and does like the rules, just as he often appears angry too, but that's not all he is.

(Chapters the "facts" come from are ch. 64, 68, 79, 111 and 117.)

Anyway, let's start from the beginning. We all know Lan Qiren is the younger brother of Qingheng-jun (QHJ), the previous Lan sect leader. It's fair to assume that QHJ was trained and moulded to become a sect leader from childhood, becoming a renowned cultivator with an impressive reputation from an early age, so I bet everyone assumed he'd be a great sect leader, one who would fulfil his duty well. Then, at twenty, he suddenly announces his marriage and goes into seclusion, pretty much throwing all the responsibilities of a sect leader on his younger brother, Lan Qiren, overnight. At this time, LQR is at the oldest nineteen (though I hc him as 18), but since we don't know the actual age gap between QHJ and LQR, we can't know for sure how old he is. However, he is a teen that suddenly finds himself being a sect leader in everything but name. Not only that, he pretty much lost his brother too, since QHJ went into seclusion and unless he visited him there (if it was even allowed), he wouldn't see him.

Like this isn't enough, he becomes an uncle twice within a few years (here too, we don't know the exact age gap between LXC and LWJ, as well as how long after the marriage LXC was born). Although the babies are raised by others at first, they are handed over to LQR "once old enough to be taught and raised", so LQR was their de facto parental figure. And suddenly LQR has a sect to run and two sect heirs to raise and he himself is most likely still under 25. He also wasn't trained for this the same way QHJ was, but the Gusu Lan Sect still flourishes. Yes, it was most likely already doing well before him, but he continued that and also ended up becoming a renowned teacher. On top of that he raised two boys into becoming two of the cultivation world's most renowned members, and let's be honest, both LXC and LWJ are good people. If LQR was such a horrible parental figure, then I doubt both of them would've turned out as well as they do. I'm not saying he's doing everything perfectly (no parents or parental figures ever do), but he did well.

Yes, he was strict with them and the reason was how their mother's crime had caused QHJ to throw away his life (as well as abandoning his duty) and LQR feared his nephews might do the same thing unless he was strict with them. In other words, he didn't want them to do something impulsive that would then ruin their chance of happiness (and maybe because it might also lead them to lose the ability to be with their family, like for QHJ). It might not be the best way to show care, but for a Lan who saw his accomplished brother throw away everything for a woman that didn't return his love, it makes sense. He also wouldn't be the only uncle who shows affection through irritation and scolding, would he? (Yes, Jiang Wanyin, I'm looking at you.)

Another thing that's good to keep in mind is that we often get to see LQR from WWX's point of view, unless someone is speaking about LQR, and WWX is chaos, so obviously anything strict will appear stricter. I don't say that's necessarily the truth, but it might be good to keep in mind.

Let's continue to a less than happy part, LWJ hiding WWX. Firstly, it was LXC who fetched LQR and the elders out of worry, but LQR too was worried, albeit showing it as frustration. I don't think corporal punishment is okay, however in this world, it is and LWJ did severely injure 33 elders of his clan, in the view of that, the punishment does make sense. It also makes sense that LQR is the one sentencing the punishment, since it's only him or LXC who can do it and I believe that LQR doesn't want LXC to have to punish his own brother. I do not see this as LQR not caring about his nephew, as I know many do. I fully believe that whipping LWJ did emotionally hurt LQR, but rules are rules.

Time for WWX's return. As we all know, LQR falls into a coma after trying to play Evocation for NMJ's arm and LXC later states to WWX after they return from the Cultivation Conference that LQR has just woken up. I read somewhere that it was about a month between Evocation and the Cultivation Conference, meaning that LQR has been in a coma for 3-4 weeks. No matter your golden core, that got to take a toll on you, which seems to be true as he is the one leading the Lans during the second siege of the Burial Mounds and he "stood before the crowd, looking considerably more aged. There were even streaks of white in his hair." Yes, this might be due to the stress of finding out that one of his nephews is with the returned WWX and the other nephew is gone (in the claws of JGY), plus the fact that Lan Juniors have been kidnapped. However, if this were the case, he would've aged a lot during the Sunshot Campaign and the First Siege of the Burial Mounds. I firmly believe it's the resentful energy that put him into a coma that took its toll on him. Anyway, no matter why, here he is, maybe a week or so after waking up after a nearly month long coma, leading a group of Lan cultivators. And no, it's not just to fetch LWJ, because he shows care for those under his command:

"Lan Qiren hadn’t wanted to go in, at first. He would rather have remained outside and fought until the bitter end. However, he was not waging this battle alone—there were many Lan and Jin Clan cultivators under his command, and they were not the main force in the fight. He did not want to treat the lives of those disciples with such disregard. If there was a thread of hope for survival, he was compelled to seize it."

As stated later, LQR is not a reckless man. He will do what the rules say is right and what will benefit the most people, even if he disagrees on a personal level (in this case wanting to fight, but knowing others might die if he does, since they would remain as well). He is also not so proud and petty that he won't let WWX speak his mind, instead he remains silent and listens. Many others would not.

He then again, despite probably not being in full strength since the coma and definitely not from all the fighting he's already done and without spiritual power, charges in with killing force to protect people when Su She breaks the barrier into the cave and the fierce corpses attack a again. Though this clearly comes with a prise as he afterwards coughs up a lot of blood and needs to mediate to regulate his breathing (and since LWJ is willing to give him spiritual energy, I have a feeling it's a tad worse than he wants to tell, but since his core is still sealed off, LWJ giving him qi would not help anyway, as LQR states himself).

Now to the aftermath of Guanyin Temple. He asks LXC what's the matter with him and LXC says he doesn't want to talk about it. LQR could press him, he probably could force him to tell him, but he doesn't. Yes he is angry, but the novel also declares that "both were now sources of worry" and it is after also saying that "neither of these two previously flawless pupils would heed him anymore", but I don't think it's just about smudged reputation or control that has him worried. I do believe he is genuinely worried that LXC and LWJ have thrown away their lives. The way he speaks and the way he's irritated with the situation shows signs of someone who acts with anger when stressed (similar to JC). I'm not saying this is the best way to react, but it is a part of our fight or flight reaction. We also can't forget that he did see his brother throw away his life due to an impulse decision and breaking the rules, a life that seems to have been generally happy before that.

And to end it all, after the family banquet:

"Wei Wuxian stroked his chin. If that was the case, they couldn’t blame Lan Qiren for punishing them like this. The man loathed wickedness in all forms. In fact, to be copying texts while doing handstands…they were getting off pretty light."

This is the juniors getting punished for going night-hunting with Wen Ning and if WWX thinks they're getting off pretty lightly, then they most likely are. To me this shows that although LQR adds rules and follows them, he does know there is a degree to them. He knows Wen Ning wouldn't hurt the juniors and that he isn't really evil or bad, but the rules state they shouldn't spend time with him, so he has to punish them, so he does so in a way that clearly is a punishment, but also not as harsh as it technically should be.

This became a long post. All in all, Lan Qiren is more than anger and strictness. He does not lack compassion, he does care about his nephews and I think people forget everything he has gone through and accomplished and that he deserves some more love and recognition (and not to only being the butt of the joke).

#about lqr #headcanon #although most of it isn't #this became loooong

[freakscircus]

i forget which cuba stories i've told on here, but i'm reflecting and it really was a wild month. i had so much fun but i was also in fight or flight mode the entire time so i feel like the oddity of some experiences is just sinking in. like in cuba if you get your american dollar changed with the state, you will get about 25 pesos per dollar while on the street you can get close to 200, which is a wild discrepancy. and of course you can't just go up to a stranger and ask unless you are trying to get robbed, so you have to know someone who knows someone.

this is why staying in a casa in cuba is the move.... living with a stranger is weird but not knowing and trusting a cuban while in cuba puts you in a very stressful situation. anyway, my sweet dueña helped me problem solve multiple times while i was there. but of course she didn't speak any english whatsoever (nobody did) so i was very thankful i obsessively and anxiously crammed my spanish toward passable fluency before i left.

so she told me she can help me change money with a neighbor, but he can't do less than $500 because it isn't worth it to him. now mind you, my casa stay for the entire month has already been paid for in american dollars, so i need pesos essentially to just eat and make photocopies. spending money in cuba is more challenging than you think when you aren't doing tourist things and just living and working, so i knew immediately there was no way i could spend the equivalent of that much money in a month. for the record, i spent about $250 usd on a month of food and miscellaneous things like post cards so i'm glad i trusted my instincts because once you change into pesos, you cannot change them back. and obviously once you leave the island they are essentially worthless. so i asked her to negotiate for $300.

at this point i have the equivalent of $20usd that i've spent for about three days of food and i'm running out of money. my dueña is off to try and get pesos and nobody in my non-tourist neighborhood is interested in taking american dollars. i walk everywhere because there is no gasoline and very few modes of transportation so i am burning ridiculous calories all day, so i should probably be eating. by day three of no word from my dueña, i wonder if i'm going to starve to death. its the end of day three and i've been eating calorie dense keto bars and i would murder someone for any kind of unprocessed food for dinner. finally my dueña comes home with almost 55,000 pesos for me, which makes me feel ridiculous because that is about the monthly wage of the average state worker.

my skin was so thick in cuba that i look back and i am amazed. the archives were difficult to understand and the ranks were very closed. i got treated so much worse as a foreign researcher, but i honestly fully understood and empathized with why and in turn did not care. some archive workers loved me, others thought i was so stupid i wasn't worth much effort because i didn't inherently understand the complicated way the cuban archival system worked. i walked two hours a day through habana central (which i fell in love with... i loved passing quinta de los molinos every day) and habana vieja, i ate alone at different restaurants every night with a book which i loved, although i felt like a weird foreigner. nothing at all that anyone did bothered me as long as i got research done. truly tunnel vision. i had a wonderful time, but my resilience and patience (which i do not have in america lol) totally shocked me. i hope i get to go back one day. it is so wonderful... as long as you are very patient.

#also in no way did i ever think i'd starve but it is a bit of a weird experience to just like.. not be able to pay for anything #lots of restaurants in vedado won't take USD #maybe in habana vieja but that was an hour walk away

[moorishflower]

Trope Game

Thanks for tagging me @sleepsonfutons! :D

There's honestly not TONS of tropes that I'm an extremely hard 'no' on but let's see

Rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 - don't care either way

+10 -> very enticed

nope -> if it's a hard no and you'd never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you'd insta click out of the fic if it wasn't tagged

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it's conditional.

Age gap: +2

It depends on the fic, honestly. I rather like the sugar daddy dynamic sometimes, but it's not something that I go out of my way to look for. And you have to be careful about where the line is. A 22 y/o and a 45 y/o is acceptable (everyone is a consenting adult), but a 16 y/o and a 25 y/o isn't. Like, even in places where 16 is the age of consent, there's fundamental differences in expectations of the relationship, in brain development, in power dynamics, etc.

Codependency: +1

Meh. I like my characters in each others' pockets, but capable of LEAVING said pockets, you know?

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: +10*

With the caveat that the possessiveness is ENJOYABLE to one or both partners.

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): +10

Listen I'm a simple person with simple desires and it becomes infinitely better when the sunshiney one is the one who's fucking INSANE and feral and dangerous

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: +5

I used to like this trope a lot more when I was younger, but these days I prefer the chemistry to start out in a positive light! Still a good, solid trope though.

Friends with benefits: +4

I don't seek it out specifically, but I've seen it written VERY well. Especially combined with...

Sex to feelings: +4

...this one!

Fake dating/relationship: +10

Absolutely. Yes. Give me 5000 fics where the characters have to meet each others' parents because they lied and said they were engaged. Give me all the oneshots where they're both in a club and pretend to be together to avoid being hit on. YES.

Friends to lovers: +5

A good, dependable trope. I'm less interested in childhood friends to lovers, just because I find the way it's presented sometimes boring? But whatever insane shit Neil Gaiman is doing with the characters who are "friends" for centuries, I am ALWAYS there for it.

Found Family: +10

I mean I'm a queer millennial how could I NOT like found family stuff.

Hurt/Comfort: +7

I enjoy a good hurt/comfort fic BUT I am picky about the ratio of hurt to comfort. I...actually get bored if there is TOO MUCH comfort, lol. They have to be equal, or very slightly more one than the other.

Love Triangle: 0/+8

Like for so many others, it's a 0 if the love triangle resolves with only two of the three getting together, but becomes a solid positive if it resolves with poly.

Poly, open relationships: +8/0

I like a good poly fic, I just read for the want of a jewel by @formlessvoidbeast and REALLY enjoyed it. I'm neutral on open relationships, though! Read some good smutty oneshots, haven't really read as many like, plotty long things with that dynamic.

Mistaken/hidden identity: 0

Neutral! Could go either way.

Monsterfucking: +10 +10 +10 +10 +10

Listen I don't know what you want me to say here

Pregnancy: -5/0

Yeah this is such a weird one for me. A few years ago this would've been a solid 'nope' no matter what. Biological pregnancy is VERY weird to me. I'm not against children or babies! I don't care if other people wanna get pregnant! But I am very much not mentally wired for it. Even mpreg or other forms of like otherwise fantastical pregnancy makes me feel a little off. On the other hand, non-biological methods of baby acquisition are pretty neutral to me, and to go with found family, I love when characters ADOPT kids.

Breeding kink is totally separate from actual pregnancy don't @ me

Second Chance: -4

Breakups and divorce make me sad so I don't tend to read fics that use them as a plot hook.

Slowburn: +10

Looking at my AO3 account, I also don't know what you want me to say here like

I have simple needs

Soulmates: +8

I really like when the soulmates trope does some absolutely wild shit. Whoever invented the soulmate goose was on my level. Give me more fic where they don't have their soulmate's name on them but they have like, their soulmate's scars or they share tattoos and so there's a whole culture built up around having unique tattoos in obvious places in the hopes that someone will recognize it. I like the worldbuilding okay?

I'll tag anyone who sees this and feels like interacting! Always fun to see what people are into most <3

#tag meme

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Boruto things that made me lose my mind (ep 25-40):

If I hear "what a drag..." one more time, so help me god, I will lose it

Pointing out clichés in your writing isn't clever, it's still bad writing

Suigetsu @ mitsuki: here's your intel, little gay boy

Boruto: kagura is a good ninja, his ancestry doesn't matter! Bad guy: kagura is a bad ninja, he freaks out and kills everyone when he weilds a sword (if kagura wasn't a ninja he would have nothing to feel bad abt, why is that not an option?)

Naruto 🤝 Boruto making all the boys obsessed with them

Sarada: were u really good friends with lord 7th as a child? Sakrua: ...we were more like family (well... im glad she didnt lie abt being his friend)

Boruto staring up at a beautiful sky: even if I tried, I don't think I could forget this (never say never, kid, ur dad once forgot he had a crow shoved down his throat)

Naruto @ orochimaru: our relationship is one of cooperation (natuto ur past self would beat the piss outta you)

The genin exam in naruto's time looks unhinged in comparison to the boruto extensive testing: if u can shadow clone yourself, u r ready to die in mortal combat (clearly kakashi made sweeping changes in his time as hokage)

Konoha: things have changed in this village, u don't have to be a ninja if u don't wanna :-D But if u do wanna, you make the decision to put ur life on the line at age fucking 12. So, progress but still on the path to dead children. That's our ninja way.

Why does iruka look 20 years older than kakashi when he's like 4 years younger 😭

Wow a sarada/boruto accidental kiss. It's just like the naruto/sasuke kiss, except with 1000% less romantic tension

Orochimaru: I must make sure my beloved synthetic son has free will. Therefore I will lie to his face, force him to confront the horror of his existence and make a high stakes choice about his allegiance, and erase his memory 6 times until I get the result I want

Why are all naruto missions involving bridges cursed?

#i dont kno where were going plot wise. and i dont kno how im supposed to feel abt any of this #im glad were out of the academy bc i find most of the friends annoying but i like team 7 and also i lov inojin lol #but like. i dont kno where were going. bc theres a lot of talk abt: u dont have to be a ninja! the world doesnt need ninja so much #but with a rising tide of enemies like: make ninjas great again #and boruto is like: idk what i wanna do with my life but also i wanna show my dad im better than him #and like i really reallu just want boruto to not be a ninja. like he should be a teacher or a nurse or something #hes extremely talented and fairly emotionally intelligent and he cares abt ppl a lot #so i want him to b like: fuck being a ninja. its ppl i care abt. i dont have to bleed for ppl to ensure they love me #and then b like dad ur life was fucked. u can rest now naruto can come to terms with how fucked #everything was and continues to be. but fucking there r dinosaurs apparently st somw point so fucking i dont kno where we r going #mitsuki is my boy tho. protect him from orochimaru. orochimaru should b in blood prison or dead lol #but whatever. its not a good show but i am enjoying it. its just kinda cursed #unrelated #naruto ramblings #im hardcover procrastinating. ugh.