#yeah hi i know i just never screencap this guy

[acarillustrated]

hi my name is august and for the past week or so i have become so consumed by thoughts of avatar the last airbender that it is actually ruining my life and relationships.

yeah so unfortunately i can only be completely insane about this so i have to stop before it consumes me or at least manage the fixation i have for this early 20s zutara au

+ mai bc its really a shame that they didn't resolve her story outside of her relationship to zuko. so i think she starts fight club. which gradually turns into a gladiatorial ring

edit: im typing up everything that i wrote in the drawing bc it just occured to me that not only is my handwriting a mess, but it's also cursive

Image 1

katara: How do you live in this hot ass country.

zuko: What about that literal glacier you live on, hm? Do you see me complaining?

Image 2

Zuko: my plan right now is to soft launch democracy for the Fire Nation. like, i don't think we can do that now because we're so weak, but 10-20 years down the line?

Image 3

Zuko: Honestly, my plan right now is to rule for a couple generations and fix everything that my father and my grandfather did , and then establish a democracy.

Katara: why not a democracy now?

Zuko: because the people of the Fire Nation don't know the truth about their own history. they've been fed propaganda for a hundred years. they need to be able to make informed decisions before i can do that.

Katara: and after that?

Zuko: after that im fucking off to the earth kingdom to take over my uncle's tea house and you will literally never hear from me again

Image 4

from left to right "katara" "need to redo the face" "this is chief katara to me. this is her at around 19/20 to me" "Anime katara. this anime shit is easy" "fire nation katara. putting her at about 14 y/o" "this is a screencap redraw"

Image 5

me: hello greenpeace

katara: after my mother died i had a lot of unchecked rage for the world, so my dad signed me up for tai chi classes to, like, calm me down but i ended up still angry but also really good at tai chi

katara: i feel like im doing well all things considered

me: katara is so special to me. she is a fully realized creation to me. so casual. so passionate about the world. one thing about her is that she is an activist. she has a strong sense of justice. fuck. the train jumped lol

image 6

mai: zuko, im starting a gladitorial ring and i don't know the legality of it so if you could just change the laws as i go that'd be great

zuko: yeah sure that sounds great

zuko, but smaller: wait what.

image 7

mai: REF, ARE YOU BLIND?! WHAT KIND OF CALL IS THAT!

background guy: woah holy shit

captioned: "Mai starts a gladiatorial fight club

#atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko #katara #prince zuko #fire lord zuko #chief katara #mai #atla mai #softboy art time #atla fanart #zutara #yeah so if anyone want to talk to me about this i would Love to #because i think my friends are bored of me going on unprompted monologues about katara #shout out to all the gay men that like zutara #its me and you against the world #bc im pretty sure we've lost the rest of us to zukka

[hey-i-am-trying]

hi, tripoier here! Long text incoming alert and a detailed explanation of the situation for qsmpblr (also sorry if I make some typos I'm writing without translator)

Yeah I also saw what happened today with the og admin of Pepito and I have a lot to say about it. First of all I'm not speaking in behalf of the community but I'm my own experience of the situation. I watched the development of Pepito's story since day one and fell in love with that little guy (and his laggy PC). Then second day arrived and I noticed the admin change bc he was less laggy and I've learned enough Portuguese and 07's (Richas admin) mannerisms to recognize when he's playing a character, even Roier noticed but didn't say anything until the screencap incident lol

Few day passed and 07 created such a cute and wholesome personality for Pepito, that contrasted very well with the role that roier was having at the moment— that it's understandable that it may not be too comfortable for some people but for the ones that had been watching Roier's story in the server + his relationship with Bobby, we take it with humor/hope for him to heal slowly after what happened in Purgatory and with Bobby (and believe me, Bobby had a HUGE impact on how Roier behaved with the rest of he eggs after his death)

So during the days 07 played as Pepito all the tripoiers were in this state of hope because we knew how much q!Roier was trying hard to not to get attached to Pepito, he knew the moment something happens to him he was gonna suffer A LOT, and Pepito was this pure, innocent ray of sunshine that it was imposible for us not to love immediately (Roier also did from day one but he loved to play with us + his lore at the moment was being in depression for the lost of his husband and having Richas and Leo in their comatose state). Also, is worth to mention that after he discovered it was 07 the one playing as Pepito he became more playful and started to tease him just to make him go out of role (and succeeded one time). Which is why he used the chancla a lot with him, as a shield for the feelings that were starting to grow on him again.

Then, Otipep happened.

This is the part I'm gonna be more careful to explain bc there is a language barrier that for the people who don't have Spanish as their first language they cannot understand or got confused

When Otipep appeared Roier noticed that it was another admin playing as Pepito because 07 was busy helping with Q's lore, we don't know if he recognized immediately that it was the original one or just a random temporary admin, but he noticed that this Pepito appeared where the fist one disconnected (in the garden outside of his house). Some people noticed that it was the original one and got happy bc it meaned that finally Pepito had his permanently admin back and bc Richas and the others eggs were also back from the coma we could see them both at the same time (roier used to joke about it every time 07 was around)

We also thought that the og admin had been catching up with the role that 07 has built so far with Pepito (which was not, and we would never know if it was either miscommunication between the admins or the og admin just decided to ignore the actual role to keep their 'idea' for the role), so at first we were a little bit shocked when this Pepito started acting so "dry" (idk if this is the correct word) with Roier, bc we had already gotten used to Pepito's tender way of speaking, but we just let that pass for a bit.

But then that "dry" behavior started going to go down a path were even we as an audience started getting uncomfortable, because roier was trying to socialize with the admin but they clearly didn't knew what's has been going on these past days, so Roier take the time to make a summary of the last days with his typical chill humor, and while he was doing that everything reached its final point with the sign "hueles a culo también hijo de puta" = you also smell like ass son of a bitch.

now This. THIS right here is what destroyed everything. Because you would say "oh, it's just Pepito following Roier's game, it's was in a playful way".

No.

It. was. not.

When Roier starts calling someone with some swears or related words is always in a playful way, and there is context and trust behind. When Otipep put that sign Roier was making a summary of the role that 07 has been doing with Pepito, bc he didn't wanted to let them behind, and while doing that he always explain with his usual humor to make it less unconformable for the admin/ entertained for his audience.

So when he placed that sign we all get out of the loop because it came from nowhere, even Roier kept silence of a few second because 1). it sounded rude, that sign was so out of place 2). Roier was explaining the last few days to the admin so he can keep up with the role, he was not "joking" with the admin, or moving on to another topic, he was helping the admin. 3). We, as an audience, felt so shocked because they weren't saying that to Roier in a playful way, they were giving weight to those words. And this is the part that people that do not have Spanish as their first language doesn't understand. They gave weight to the insult. They didn't wrote that as a joke, they directly INSULTED the streamer.

Then roier proceeded to hit him with the chancla bc he wanted to take the control back of the situation in a humorous way, a damage control in other words, because the chat was filling with "??????" And people getting offended and angry (justified, even I felt offended) with the admin, but Roier is not of those type of persons and he always try to make his streams a safe place for his community, so if you ask me he did a really well job handling the situation even tho he felt offended and his audience noticed that for the rest of the stream (hell, even days later)

And if that was not enough, Roier kept trying to save the situation but the admin was not cooperating, with the "no he preguntado"= I've not asked you and other sign that I just don't remember and is not really worth it (and bc Otipep literally left Roier speaking alone with the "I'm going to look for better parents" and went to spawn zone), he just gave up trying and waited for Richas to come back (which was also chocked w the situation)

And this is me speaking from a non-neutral tone, but I think we could've had a Roier being super loving and caring with Pepito if this situation didn't happen in the first place, bc after this I noticed that Roier stopped tried to get close to Pepito, the situation really affected him so whatever role he was building with the character he just simply stopped and changed the dynamic with another one more limited and less parental, but keeping his usual humor bc it was not the fault of the actual admin or 07, it is what it is unfortunately.

That's why I'm so glad that the actual admin and Ricardão did such a good job saving Pepito because the Spanish speaking community was about to drop him, even streamers friends of Roier that are not part of the qsmp acknowledge the behavior of Otipep with Roier (if that doesn't say a lot about how complicated it was on this side of the road)

And even after all these things there was people out there calling the Spanish speaking community as dramatic or harassing Roier when the situation happened (and it seems they still do it :/ ), but most of us kept quiet because we respect Roier and as he says, mejor pasamos de movidas.

and well, this is it, I know I'm missing some points in the story but honestly getting into fights or hate in general is not my thing, I wanted to give some context for the people of Tumblr because I know, at least here people take the time to read and are more chill unlike twt, and I hope I gave some clarification for the rest of the communities that are not native in Spanish, I really really love Pepito and I'm so glad we had 07 and the actual admin there to play this character, I still can't believe that person had the audacity to come out proudly as Pepito's 1st admin when literally no one from the Spanish community considers his 2 appereances as canon after their blunder xd

Thank you for sharing!

I understand that some stuff are hard to translate, thank you for taking the time. I didn't know that your community was being called dramatic because of that! That is dumb as hell and I am sorry it happend in the first place.

Of course we are no in business of spreading hate. I have always tried to see the other side of situations, I think from what I read in the admin's doc they had some kinda of vision for the character, but I guess they didn't realized that well, they were not going to become automaticly friends with Roier and have room to "joke" like that just because they have become an egg admin. Probably my best guest of what it happend.

It is really weird, maybe they were banking on the support that the other admins have gotten? Or they actually never realized how insulting they have come out as.

Well, I don't have much to say, except I am sorry it happend at all with Roier and the hispanic community.

#qsmp #qsmp discourse #otipep #pepitoadmin

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

All the discussion around AI lately got me thinking about an incident recently in which a guy got his ass sorely beat by the vocal synth community

For those of you not familiar, “vocal synths” in the electronic music sense typically refers to programs like Vocaloid, SynthV, UTAU, Alter/Ego, DeepVocal, etc., digital instruments that allow composers to create, as the name implies, synthesized vocal tracks. The way they work is that they draw from libraries (referred to as “voicebanks” or VB for short) of special studio recorded* vocal samples from singers singing different syllables at a consistent pitch. The program then splices these together and adjusts the pitch to match whatever notes you put in- You want to do All Star, it’s gonna string together “[suh][m] [buh][di] [wuh][n][s] [tO][ld] [mi]” or something like that. Basically it’s an extremely complicated sampler.

(*unless you’re using UTAU or another build-your-own-vocal program in which the “studio” is only metaphorical, and is sometimes somebody’s basement with a Rockband mic plugged into a laptop.)

Now, there is no threat of vocal synths putting actual singers out of a job. Even the best vocal synths always have a bit of a robotic sound to them, and the voicebanks take hundreds of hours of recording time from you know, actual singers. Any piece made with vocal synths has to be worked by a human hand in a process called “tuning” in order to sound any good, whether you’re trying to make it sound human or leaning into the robotic sound. This isn’t something that’s being done on a corporate scale to cut costs- This is something pretty much exclusively being done by small scale indie music hobbyists because we fucking love Hatsune Miku and her weird buddies. Most folks are less interested in doing something that sounds 1:1 like a human voice and more in going beyond what humans can do to make shit like this

One of the leading vocal synths right now is Synthesizer V (SynthV), created by a company called Dreamtonics. SynthV offers fancier versions of some of its voicebanks, which are called “AI” voicebanks. These use machine learning trained on, again, professionally recorded and legally licensed vocal samples to help make songs sound a little bit more smooth, a little bit more in line with whatever singing style you’re aiming for. Everything else previously mentioned still applies: They’re still painstakingly recorded and programmed, you still need to tweak it yourself to get it to sound just right, and it’s still never going to sound 100% like a human. And that’s fine!

For this next bit y’all are gonna have to trust me because the tweets all got deleted, though if anyone wants I’m happy to pull up screencaps of talking shit about it with other vocal synth folks when it happened lmfao

So basically. Since ChatGPT type grifters have convinced people that “AI” means “magic plagiarism button”, back in April some dipshit NFT guy on Twitter started complaining on an official SynthV update post that SynthV (which he apparently believed to be called “Dreamtonics”, the name of the company that makes it) should allow people to make voicebanks from “their own voice”, insisting that it would be easy and PROFITABLE!™ to do so. He also clearly did not actually mean “their own voice” but rather “the voices of celebrity singers shamelessly lifted without their consent”, which was made extra obvious from a tweet on his own page that was like “Teehee people in monitored Twitter spaces don’t realize their voices are being recorded and fed into AI!” which he then deleted after I linked it on the thread about SynthV. lol.

Dude proceeded to get whupped by actual vocal synth people basically saying shit along the lines of “Yeah we can all tell you just want to commit cheap plagiarism, jackass” and “Dude why are you here when you clearly don’t understand the very very basics of what this software even is” and “Go make an UTAU voicebank if it’s so easy then”. (UTAU being a Japanese freeware program that hasn’t been updated since 2013. Creating an UTAU voicebank is complicated and takes a lot of time and technical knowledge.) He still refused to learn the basics of how vocal synths work, and proceeded to ask if “UTAU or Diff is most compatible with Dreamtonics”, a question absolutely no one could make any sense of? Lol.

Anyway, I don’t have anywhere in particular I’m going with this, I just think AI grifters are morons, and it’s obnoxious how the vague and misleading term “AI” has gotten nigh-mythologized by shady tech companies to the point that people can’t tell the difference between perfectly reasonable assistive technology and magic plagiarism.

Btw, fun fact for anyone who’s wondering, there do in fact exist legally/morally questionable UTAU voicebanks spliced from outside vocals. These are called “jinriki” voicebanks and not only do they take the same amount (if not more) of hard work as any other voicebank, they’re far from the insta-Beyoncé this dude was aiming for, and instead they sound um. like this

[iamamythologicalcreature]

Holy fandom this shit is big.

Okay, so I've been exploring the Simon Snow fandom this evening, and now my head is exploding.

I feel kind of old. Or maybe just late. Or both. I mean, the last time I was active in any fandom was...a very long time ago. Things were smaller. Way smaller. We had forums, and email lists. (I hate how I'm likely dating myself, but I was very young and now I'm no longer so young. It happens to most people.) Anyway, you could be a part of a fandom and actually get to know just about everyone in it. Maybe this also had something to do with my choices of fandom, but it was also before the big explosion of social media that brought everybody else to the internet, clogging it all up. (I'm not bitter.)

So now, I'm adult-aged (I hate saying that though, it feels like there are expectations). And I just read this amazing trilogy of books, and I think to myself, "You know what? This is worth it. This is worth diving back in, because I bet this fandom is awesome."

This fandom is awesome. And big. Like. You all have wikis to keep track of things, but this stuff has exploded so quickly those wikis aren't even updated (no shame to the wiki-makers, at all cause as I'm saying, this shit is big). The AO3 count is off the charts. You have discord servers and about a million Tumblr pages, and screencapped memes that have become... What do you call it when it's fan-created and not canon, but it's so well known it's like canon? Whatever it is, there's a ton of it. (Everywhere I look, Penelope has purple hair.)

I have to say, I am simultaneously thrilled with this and intimidated as hell. Every time I think I have something new to say, I find someone else has already said it. This makes me a little nervous about saying anything because this thing is so big I can't possibly know for sure I'm not repeating something that's practically old hat to the rest of the fandom. Like, "Yeah, sure, we see your point, but we saw that point in 2019, here's a link to the original post."

*deep breath*

I will never catch up on fanfic. Not ever. (I'm going to try, and I'm kissing my goodreads yearly read goal goodbye to do it, but still.)

Curse me and my policy of waiting until all the books are out before reading them...

I've never seen anything like this fandom. I've never tried to throw myself into anything like this fandom. If you're at all concerned, I am absolutely still throwing myself into this fandom, and I'm going to write fanfic (slowly), and draw (eventually), and I will quite willingly wear the big HI I'M NEW HERE WHERE IS REGISTRATION? sticker on my forehead. Because, I mean, it's Snowbaz. What wouldn't I do for them?

I just thought you should know. This is big. And I love it. But seriously, freaking huge. (Yeah, I can hear myself. "That's what she said." There you go. XD)

*ahem* Carry on.

(Edit to add: I've continued my dive since writing this and I literally am sitting at my desk, clicking, saying, "Oh my God, you guys are amazing." Just... over and over. And over. So many clicks. So much amazing. This fandom is dedicated and I love it so damned much.)

#yes i made a very lame pun at the end and i'm only slightly embarrassed by it #simon snow #snowbaz #carry on #carry on simon #the simon snow trilogy #fandom #fandom culture #simon snow fandom #i also love Fangirl is that a thing too? #rainbow rowell #this fandom rocks #you all are amazing

[ultraviolet-cello]

Tristamp rewatch, episode 2! Took me a little longer to get to this because I think episode 2 is like,,,, I never have anything to say about it lmao I don't have too many background details.

Nevertheless, below the cut [Not so long today!] are some theories, details, and character traits I've picked up on today's fine tooth comb rewatch! Also once again spoilers for Tristamp and Trimax.

Once again thanks to @tristampparty for organizing this, I'm having fun :]

So! In sharp contrast with yesterday, I realized that we have a little bit more of Knives in that opening crash sequence - his face is less covered and the camerawork less Vashcentric. I am possibly the worst person to analyze expressions (I have That particular Autism Thing where I often misinterpret people's faces) but here are a few I found interesting

He just looks a little. again not good at interpreting expressions but anxious? scared, a little upset? I'm not entirely sure he understood how,,, violent the ship exploding would be - and Vash is clearly very very distressed. Also the dark circles under his eyes in that last one - he might have been crying. Much to think about.

Okay this scene, aside from being really funny, is Frustratingly Overlooked imo. Vash's whole,,, pathetic wet sona thing is often intentionally played up in order for him to get people to see him as less of a threat/weaker/more peaceful. And then to have Meryl and Roberto go yeah no we aren't buying that, Instantly calling him out on his bullshit is interesting.

I guess just as Wolfwood sees through Vash's smiles in 98/Trimax, Roberto and Meryl call him out on his schtick here. I also think that he's doing it more exaggerated than normal to kind of change the subject/alter some perceptions of him.

Rai-Dei spotted, and Nightow! Slightly higher quality because I realized I was watching in 720p instead of 1080 because I,,,, i don't know why lmao. anyway i like that nightow gets his own little poster its cute

I guess now would be the time to talk about children in Trigun. So as it goes on I'll build on this, but the fact that so many characters in Trigun are motivated by children is very very important to me; Rosa and the people of Jeneora Rock go after Vash not for themselves, but so they can have the money for their children. Father Nebraska appeals to Rosa to help him get Gofsef up on safe land again by pointing out that he's a father too.

A common trait amongst Trigun characters is their protectiveness of children - Wolfwood (obviously), Vash, Meryl, Roberto and Milly clearly, but Knives and Legato leave the children alive in that one town in 98, Livio in Trimax learns to see children as kinda cute - and the arguably most unsympathetic character, Chapel, is kinda the only guy that hurts/abuses children with 0 remorse. Hate that guy lmao.

It reads to me like a bunch of people wanting to break the cycle of abuse on this planet. but they don't really know how :(

On a lighter note, some screencaps I grabbed for fun, ft: The Thomas Loaf

my closing thought is about Roberto. So clearly he's, yknow, there instead of Milly (unforgivable /lh), but he and Milly have some interesting parallels and ideas - Primarily their observational skills.

In trimax, when Milly interacts with Vash, a lot of the time she's calling out strange expressions or oddities on him - in legato's appearance, that time she asks him why he's still smiling, and the arc where Meryl gets kidnapped.

Roberto is serving a similar role in observing and calling things out about Vash, but he's a little more,,, rough about it. He's nowhere near as (outwardly, the man's got a big heart) caring as Milly! I think it'll be good for Meryl to have Milly in s2 :]

Speaking of Meryl, I appreciate that she definitely has at least someone observational with her, especially while she's less experienced. I love her very much but she happens to be a very stubborn very impulsive person lmao. She definitely needs a balancing.

#cli speaks #cli analysis #tristampparty #trigun #trigun stampede

[trainofcommand]

I'm just gonna call this post Major Evan Lorne and Agent Malcolm Barrett - So hot together.

Yeah, okay, they've never been in a scene together. Or an episode. But! Imagine if they were! Just picture it.

Agent Barrett, so...agent-y. And dedicated and stuff. Look, the NID is a sketchy organization! But he's an upright kind of guy! He's working to make it more upright too. Thanks, Agent!

I mean. Just look at him:

Look!

With his nice suit and tie, all tidy and earnest, and maybe a tiny bit of snark, and his carefully unremarkable haircut (description courtesy of @chaos-monkeyy). He takes his job seriously! He's up for whatever's about to happen! Maybe that's tracking down aliens! Maybe that's tracking down humans who are up to something they shouldn't be up to, like kidnapping and unethical medical experimentation. Whatever! He's ready!

Now, just imagine if he and Lorne met up. Maybe on the job. Maybe off the job. Maybe in an AU. So many possibilities!

Lorne! All serious and dedicated and stuff. And sometimes snarky! I mean. Look at that face! That's the face of a guy who's serious and dedicated, even when he's in the middle of a terrible nightmare about his CO and he's also sleepwalking. Sleepwalking fully clothed, but barefoot.

It's also the face of a guy who needs some downtime. Like. Immediately.

No, Major, don't look skeptical! You totally deserve some downtime. Everyone knows it!

Imagine if Lorne could get that downtime with nice, tidy, dedicated Agent Barrett? Mmhmmm. Yeah. It'd be hot. Burning hot.

In conclusion:

Yes. Hell yes.

(Lorne screencaps courtesy of @hero-in-waiting and @dedkake, Barrett images from Gateworld and stargate-project.de)

#major evan lorne #malcolm barrett #stargate atlantis #stargate sg1 #yeah I have biases but I'm okay with that #picspam

[outlanderfandomfollies]

Talk about "absurd"

It's been quite a while since I posted a screencap from a SC extreme shipper blog. That's because at this point most of them are so far down the rabbit hole that it isn't worth commenting on the latest pretzel logic they use to keep their fantasy ship afloat.

But I was recently sent the screencap below, and it was so utterly clueless, I just couldn't resist commenting.

"When you put it such words it really highlight the absurdity of what SC did in the name of farce."

Actually, the only thing that is "absurd" here is that even though C & T have been married for nearly 4 years, there are still "fans" around who are so desperate to believe that S & C are together that they would come up with the utterly absurd scenario of S "hiding in plain sight" by wearing a wig during his alleged "father-in-law's" funeral service.

I mean a wig? 😱 Seriously?

Did he have to avoid turning around throughout the entire service to ensure the video camera at the back of the church couldn't accidentally catch a glimpse of his face?🤦🏻‍♀️

And why couldn't S have just gone to the funeral as C's good friend and costar? Why would he have to don a "wig" in order to "hide in plain sight"?

"..I would think that normal people would look upon it with great disgust."

Well, yeah they would--if it were true.

But it isn't.

Anyone who isn't living in an alternate reality (and who doesn't have poor eyesight) knows that wasn't S in a wig at C's funeral. It was C's brother. In fact, at one point, the guy who is allegedly S in the video turns his head slightly, and you can see it isn't S.

The only reason the extreme shippers had to come up with the "wig" scenario was to counteract the fact that T was at the funeral with C and the baby. Meanwhile, there were numerous photos/videos of S in the Southwest (including Las Vegas) and Mexico around the time of the funeral.

It is beyond absurd to believe that S flew from the Southwest to Ireland and then back to Mexico the next day. Talk about jet lag!

All of this is bad enough, but then we have what seems to be further negative assumptions projected onto S & C and other "artists":

"They have lax morals."

Nope.

It seems to me that the only folks in this scenario with "lax morals" are the extreme shippers who insist that their SC fantasy is real, and who constantly denigrate C's real husband T, and claim that S & C are constantly lying to their fans and doing deceptive things (like wearing a "wig" at a funeral) because they have "lax morals."

Never once do these women seem to wonder if the SC scenarios they have constructed are so "absurd" because they aren't real.

[edited]

#sc debunk #outlander fandom

[birdmenmanga]

please talk more about chobits. i am so mentally ill about this show

okay disclaimer that I've never watched the Chobits anime and I've only read the manga. I dunno if they changed any important details but I doubt they changed anything too major (maybe I should check the anime out at some point?)

Usually I like to format my essays in a coherent post but whatever. That's too hard rn. I'm just going to write about it in no particular order with no screencaps of the manga to prove my point you guys are just gonna have to take my word for it

I think it's SO funny that like. The huge dilemma at the end centered around android facial recognition. Like yes this series was written like 20 years ago and yeah it was writing about a time that's basically our present day, and technology has advanced impossibly fast that even their imagined cutting-edge technology looks horribly outdated at this point.

Without the ability to recognize each other, we will only ever be objects. When a robot can recognize your face, only then can love ever be possible. Hideki, did you know you just opened up a whole new world of data scraping and targeted advertising in your universe?

I don't really blame CLAMP though. I think it was never really about robots as technology but rather robots as a reflection of humanity. Like Minoru, who built a Persocom modeled after his sister who passed away in order to cope with his grief, like the baker who loved his old Persocom so much he married her... it's a story dreaming about human connection, how we're always longing for relationships.

Mixed feelings about Chi's backstory with Freya Ichiro and Chitose. On one hand it's very touching that these two scientists just straight up built their own daughters, and naturally they would build their daughters with the ability to love, and it REALLY feels in character (where the character is the field of computer science) and they would forget about biases in the computer's collected data (daily experiences of their robot daughters) that Freya would accidentally fall in love with Ichiro. That's so plausible it hurts. I also think it's mildly funny/heartbreaking that Freya's grief made her fucking shut down like here's that weird intersection between technology and personhood of androids like girl what!! you're like oh no my android is shutting down because of an endlessly recursive loop... ok then close the loop??? edit your daughter's code??? You are literally the only doctors for her in the world? you're just going to let her die like this?????

By the way I don't know if I'm using the correct names for everyone but I'm sure you can figure out who I'm talking about based on context anon

While I think that ^^^ whole thing is sad but also hilarious in a kind of narmy way, I do think that Minoru and the baker's story were excellently executed and are genuinely heartbreaking. The baker's story most of all. I cry every time I read the part where the press is harassing him and asking him about his dead wife and he goes "Stop it. Stop referring to her as 'my wife' or 'my android'. She had a name, and it was Yumi." That was sooo good bestie I go insane every single time... like that IS so terribly realistic, like you can say it's a metaphor for dementia where the person you love can no longer remember who you are, or who they are for that matter, but it's also such a real facet of technological decay where eventually... no matter how much you love a feature, or a machine, or an app, or a whatever... these are all things that are built and maintained by others. And one day that maintenance will stop. And one day it'll go down forever.

Minoru's story too... when Yuzuki (Yukari? I forgor :skull:) tries to hack into the government database by herself and almost gets shut down he gets really mad at her and she goes "sorry I know I'm supposed to be your dead sister and you would be super heartbroken if i died again I'll be more careful" and he goes "no man like yeah you did start off as a horrible coping mechanism but you're a new person now, with your own life experiences and not just a copy of my sister, you matter to me because you're you, not because you're a replacement for someone"

I think that's a theme that comes up a lot, actually. I think this series is meant to address the fear that technology will replace humans not only in terms of jobs and stuff, but even in terms of human connection and affection. Why love me when you can love your perfect android wife who will never argue back? And I think the answer that the series provides is, is that really the horrible future you think it is? Because the truth is that humans are capable of love, capable of so much love... we love and we lose and we love again, we pack bond with just about anything out there... is that really such a horrible thing?

Conceptually I think it's interesting, but once again, I feel like CLAMP's vision failed to accurately account for how technology actually is in real life. The amount of data harvesting that needs to be done, likely unconsensually, is insane, and probably renders this whole operation deeply unethical on a level that they didn't even consider. Yeah I think it's great that we can love robots and that we can make robots that love us back. Not in our capitalist hellscape though.

I haven't read it recently, but I don't think there was ever a point that I felt like the pacing of the story was bad. Yeah, there are a ton of detours and side stories, but they all felt very relevant to the main story.

I know it's like. Chi's story or whatever. But also it feels like Hideki is also sidelined sometimes. It sometimes feels like he was just a necessary component to get this story to work, and without Chi he isn't anything (he's just ken kind of vibe). He's never brought up in CLAMP's other stories while Chi is (multiple times, even! TRC and Kobato I believe), even though the Chobits story is from his perspective. i dunno lol

I also think the art of Chobits is gorgeous. Among CLAMP's works I think it's probably second place, after Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (thought I might be forgetting some; it's not like I have a definitive ranking LOL) and tied with Angelic Layer

#asks #anonymous #chobits #clamp

[charmac]

Ack, sorry for babbling in your inbox but god I just saw Rob's comments on Sunny now and it makes me feel ill, and really just sad, I like to give benefit of the doubt too but, jeez. Do you think it's like... when no one else ever takes you seriously, you start to believe them/not take yourself seriously or you just don't have the energy to argue anymore? So the presses, the Emmys, the media, a thousand random strangers say oh that show's still on air? that show should have ended years ago, and after so long only hearing that side of things he feels he has to agree, and it's not a bad joke, it's a fear that that's the truth, the need to jump ahead of someone else telling him it again by saying it first because he knows they're not going to get it, a defense before even being attacked because that's the response expected of him so it's the response he shills out even if he doesn't necessarily believe it deep down? God I hope he doesn't believe it. I didn't hear him say the actual words so I didn't get to gauge tone or anything, but ouch, especially considering old interviews with both him and the others where they talk about how much the show means, and considering even meta commentary in the show itself where they fought back against this sentiment already. (Shaking head disappointedly at him.) (Shaking head approvingly at you vagueing him on twitter)

Mm, yeah, that's an angle I didn't really consider honestly, and I definitely see that. Especially with the Emmys this year and them trying to like, say they're honouring Sunny as the longest running comedy while never even giving them so much of a nomination over the course of their 10+ years of campaigning... And then on top of that, every article written about their appearance at the Emmys called it a "reunion," as if they didn't talk about how they were coming off 16 Seasons... slap in the face on top of that all.

But yeah, I mean. Yeah, you do get told something so often, over and over, more as the years go on, and you do end up jumping ahead of it. But, to me, it still just hurts that there was no "but and," in play. (Maybe it was said but cut? Who knows.) It was just left on that note of "over for five or six years," which felt annoyingly specific to when he met RR.

On the meta commentary, YES, JFC, people on Twitter responding to my Tweet with Big Mo screencaps "did you not watch this episode, they've been saying it's over since Season 14." DID YOU NOT WATCH THE END? Like, lmfao? That is literally not the "gotcha" you think it is in any way at all! You're proving MY point.

Honestly I think it's just like, with TASP not returning and Rob so absent from most of the Four Walls stuff, Sunny being mentioned on his "more proclaimed" project was such an exciting initial prompt, (especially when we saw Glenn and Charlie go over for a match last season) so for it to just be a backhanded remark, or self-deprecating joke at best, was just in the moment extremely offputting and upsetting.. and made me want to turn off the TV and hence spiral a little and huff and puff..

Whatever, you know? Just gotta cut the tether and go back to being cool. A cool guy who hangs out with his cool show on his cool blog. I'm cool. (I know Glenn and Charlie stand by 16, hard, and I know they're excited for 17.)

#ask #rob mcelhenney #this was a good thought! ty #the emmys shit was fun but also whack #how was that like.. only a few months ago jfc

[maryellencarter]

Here it is, folks -- the last time Tamayama gets to take emotional center stage in the 2014 movie, almost 50 minutes before the end of the runtime. This isn't the last post I'll be making, but he's basically eye candy for the rest of the few moments he gets.

Asshole doppelganger Michael is back, because the plot imagines that he's a thief on Lupin's level and that they have to work together to succeed. (We never see him do any actual thief work or provide any value to the heist whatsoever.) Michael's bodyguard murdered Jigen's previous employer, who was also Lupin's mentor, and Jigen joined up with Lupin to get revenge on Michael and co. They've been hunting him for like a year now.

However, Michael and Lupin both just found out some plotty crap that boils down to "oopsie Michael is retroactively blameless and we hate some other guy now" (seriously, I could waste a lot more words on it but it wouldn't make any more sense), and also "oopsie the guy who actually killed Jigen's boss was working for the new guy we hate now all along". So before we all turn into besties and erase all the bad blood, Jigen does at least get to do one piece of An Drama.

I'm not sure how well this translates visually, especially in screenshots, so here we go. Jigen is working on gun maintenance when Michael walks in. Everybody sort of... freezes, Michael is like "yeah I did a bad but I'mma take down the new bad guy with you, don't kick my ass till afters". (He dies taking down the new bad guy, of course. It's a whole thing. We're supposed to care.) Jigen walks up to him and goes "are you all seriously gonna trust this guy?" and puts his Magnum in Michael's face -- Tamayama is just amazing at this super subtle grief and intensity.

Michael does this gesture I didn't screencap, which would probably be very affecting if I gave one single shit about him, where he puts his hand up to the Magnum and presses the muzzle against his forehead repentantly. (People keep putting their *hands* on her in this movie, I swear to god, what is up with that.) And then once Michael's hand is out of the way, Lupin fucking shoots the Magnum out of Jigen's hand, because nobody here has any goddamn respect!

Jigen, in one of the most commanding moments of screen presence Tamayama gets the opportunity to have in this entire shitshow, just slowly lowers his hand (Lupin follows Jigen's empty gun hand all the way down with the Walther, which would be an amazing bit of characterization in a movie that cared about the relationships among the main five), then takes his other hand out of his pocket, raises it, and does the little "you know it wouldn't have fired without these" gesture of dropping the bullets on the floor. Because something something forgiveness blah blah fuck you.

Then he just turns away -- he barely ever gets to hide his eyes with his hat in this movie, but when he does, he fucking uses it -- and stands there, sulking, while Lupin welcomes Michael into the polycule-that-isn't.

#jigen daisuke #lupin iii #tetsuji tamayama #tamayama tetsuji

[arcplaysgames]

kanji. is. fucking. adorable. like, there is genuinely not a bad VA performance in this game but kanji is just giving me everything. he's bashful and cute and swings into being a punk who wants to fight then right back on a dime, his big intro scene with the investigation team (not as catchy as SEES, that one) is like the game showing off his character like "LOOK! SEE?"

Yeah Chie, to a guy, you are picking up what we're talking about, right? oh shit i forgot that chie only learned gayness existed in the first month of the game, she's probably still percolating. she'll get there. i look forward to Chie chasing Yukiko to the train station when Yukiko finally flees town and professes her love as the music swells.

squints at yosuke

I've only had Kanji in my party for ten minutes but if anything happened to him, I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself, etc etc, he even stops to go "MAN what is with me, i never talk this much" its so patently obviously he's a passionate but lonely guy and I'm going to take him under my wing. i though Yosuke was going to be my new Junpei but it's Kanji. I will guide and protect him. He is dear to me.

and not JUST because he's troy baker okay, he's also just really great. finally we have a party member i would put toe-to-toe with a member of SEES in the battle for my heart.

yukiko it's the food court yukiko. Costco cannot be a secret headquarters. i don't care how cheap the rotisserie chickens are.

(I like yukiko a lot actually, she's in the top of the leaderboard)

he fucking chases them off just like that

you ever just grin so hard your face kinda hurts? yep

WOW LIKE

AS SOON AS THEY SAID IT IT SUDDENLY MADE SO MUCH SENSE

like obviously the characters who show up on the news before the next Midnight Channel show are the ones who get taken, but my brain was stuck in "out of universe story structure" mode, in which the game just wants to MAKE SURE i know the character before they're taken

but IN UNIVERSE it also makes sense

however: it still doesn't explain why they show up on the Midnight Channel and then get taken. at the moment, I am... not suspicious of Teddie, but of other entities similar to Teddie. someone created in the TV World who is tied to it who somehow got into the real world and is throwing people back into it for Reasons, perhaps to build the shadow population.

basically: i really need an explanation of the what/why of that initial Channel showing that predicates the person being thrown into the TV.

beloved!!!!!! also i love and appreciate people who ask. excellent.

THEY JUST

COME OUT AND SAY IT

Sorry I didn't screencap the first bit, but Kanji is like "Oh, Yukiko-senpai, you were saved from the TV too?" AND THEN THIS

HE'S.... JUST QUEER. HE'S A QUEER KID. HE'S USING THE LANGUAGE AND IS P OPEN ABOUT IT.

.... i just felt a tingle of Fear in my spine. /squints at Atlus this time

anyway his TV glasses are shades and i love him more than everyone, good night

#p4 #persona liveblog #this is an entire post about ONE scene lmao i don't give a fuck i love him

[forcebookish]

As much as Top and Mew are currently killing me I do find it hilarious how Mew is telling everyone "yeah I broke up with Top" but Top at any opportunity is like "yeah he's taken, he's my boyfriend". That last scene broke my heart, the way Top was just staring at him and gently caressing his face you can just tell he misses him so so bad. Very excited for next episode, as much as I love seeing all sides of Top's character I am missing his cocky and flirtatious side and it looks like Mew must say or do something which gives him the confidence to pursue him again. Seen a post that said Mew doesn't feel any sexual attraction to Top which sent me into orbit because? His nervousness about doing it doesn't mean he didn't ever want to and erm have we not seen how flirty they are with each other, their sexual chemistry has always been very palpable.

STOPPPP DID THEY REALLY SAY MEW ISN'T SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO TOP?!???? 🤣🤣

omg ok let's quickly skim over the blatant acephobia (unless they're implying that he's instead sexually attracted to ray? in which case, lmaooooooooooooo he may as well have looked into the camera and said he wasn't, see: the first screencap below): even if mew weren't sexually attracted to top, which he demonstrably is, that doesn't mean that he doesn't love him or that they can't have a mutually fulfilling and loving relationship 🙄

(side-note: am i crazy or does this fandom feel more queerphobic than average? maybe it's just the size and that i haven't been around long enough idk but there keeps being stuff that makes me go hmm)

that being said, uhhhhhhhh,

(i wanna remind everyone that this^ was just from touching top's dick and hearing him moan. top's not doing anything to him.)

ok. sure jan

but this is the fandom that thinks flirting is "manipulating" so they'll just say anything to fit their own narrative. if they dislike topmew so much i wish they'd just shut up about it. what's with this obsession? we get it, you have no taste or media literacy, move on 💅 if topmew interfered with their otp i'd get it (boyyyy would i get it lol), but it doesn't so... what's the point? i don't like nickboston, you don't see me whining about it every day. because it literally doesn't concern me. who cares? like, i don't even complain about it in DMs to avoid yucking anyone's yum. it's simply not worth my time. and i fucking love complaining lol

now that that's out of the way, yeah i am delighting in top's Well You Never Said That You Were Breaking Up With Me Sooooo energy. i'll bet that he's only saying it in that preview clip because he knows the guy and wants to protect mew, but still i love when top is possessive *gleefully claps hands* and it looks like we'll get to see a little of his cocky side that we love so much, anon. and they better get back together soon so we can see them flirt more >:(

thanks for dropping in, anon! this fandom is wild, that actually made me laugh so hard 😂🫶

#ofs liveblog #anonymous #asked and answered

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals: Boy Bands In 5 Minutes (post 1/2)

I really love this video (even though I'm not originally familiar with all the songs), and there is so much stuff that happens on screen that either I would have to limit the amount of screencaps I take (and where's the fun in that?), or just break it up into two parts (maybe more, we'll see how we go).

This video premiered in June 2019, Geoff was in charge of both the arrangement and the video, and this includes 14 songs!!! And there are different outfits for every single one! Which is why this'll be broken into multiple posts.

Starting off with a very quick snippet of I Want You Back by NSYNC...

...which transitions into I Want You Back by Jackson 5! (Also I want all of their shirts)

Got some fairly simple choreography (or simple-looking at least, apart from the very precise group timing), which often has me dancing along with them! 😄

Also lol rip Layne

The Beatles! (except it's a Fab Five, not the Fab Four!) Layne is Ringo, the drummer, of course, and I wanna say Geoff is being Paul McCartney, since he plays bass guitar, but Geoff's air guitar isn't left-handed. And Earl and J are just vibing

Looking sharp there, boys! 👌

"Wait where did my backup performers the other guys go?"

"You should see the size of his wallet!"

Left to right we have Ashley Jacobson, Cyndi Stein (I hope I didn't get them mixed up), Nick Perez, and Kathy Castellucci. The Voiceplay spouses!

First of all, appreciation for a very smooth transition:

And second of all, appreciation for those red blazers, they are absolutely styling (and Geoff especially looks really good okay bye)

To whoever had the idea to make the guys do the Single Ladies choreo for Walk Like A Man: I love you 😂

This move is NOT EASY. I've tried it, and yeah I could get about as far down as Earl, despite having a few more physical advantages. J None killed it (made it look easy even), but Geoff actually did a pretty good job of it too (also how tight were those pants, I wanna know) (and rip Layne falling over)

"oh thank god we don't have to do any dancing for this bit"

Not always a fan of fedoras, but yeah nah yeah I can vibe with it here (also J is wearing glasses here!)

"M'lady" (I'm sorry)

"Never trust a big butt and a smile" (the immediate contrast/juxtaposition here is just-)

Love the shoes! Also the choreography for this bit is harder than it looks

Okay well this is the halfway mark of the video (half of the songs anyway), so this is where I'll break it off and make a second part, which you can go to here!

#voiceplay #acapella #boy bands in 5 minutes #boy band medley #geoff castellucci #eli jacobson #layne stein #j none #earl elkins jr #earl elkins #acaplaya analysis #voiceplay visuals

[athgalla-arts]

For the character ask, slightly out of the blue but Manly Dan?

favorite thing about them: I just appreciate his particular brand of aggressive machismo hehe

least favorite thing about them: I have a lot of Thoughts about him and am upset he didn't get more screentime/we didn't learn more about him

favorite line: "I'LL SHOW YOU HOW A REAL MAN FISHES." *proceeds to grab fish out of the water and absolutely whale on it*

brOTP: Fiddleford - I'll get to the why behind that shortly.

OTP: I don't actively ship him with anyone but now I am curious to know who other people ship him with :0

nOTP: Like above, I don't have strong enough feelings to say there is a ship with him I'd dislike for sure. I guess I can't see him being with Bill? adhkgafdh

random headcanon: I headcanon that he was one of the first people that got roped into the Society of the Blind Eye and this was done personally by Fiddleford. I think this began with them talking and bonding over both being rural dudes who do/did work the land, having terrifying local experiences they really would rather forget, and both having ties to Ford. I figure Dan never got *close* to Ford but that he was well-enough acquainted with him to think "Yeah, that guy keeps sniffing around where he shouldn't and it concerns me. I worry about him" (given Ford was comfortable enough to approach him to ask to stay at his family's cabin, I figure they were at least surface level friends that ran into each other often enough). Anyway, I think getting sucked into TSOTBE is also *why* he's so paranoid and seemingly unhinged as of present day and why he drags his kids into apocalypse training and all that. He can't recall why he feels so compelled to do this for their safety, though... I wonder if following Fiddleford and Stan's recovery, they might be able to help him, too. I can easily see Wendy being the one to put the pieces together and figure out her dad was suffering from the effects of the memory gun and working with Fiddleford to do what they could to help him recover as much as possible. Following that, I think it would be nice if Ford could take the time to properly get to know the guy who built his damn house and if Stan might get to be on friendly terms with him too given he's so close to Dan's daughter. In the end I think Dan might be appreciative of Stan looking out for Wendy and maybe they could become at least loose friends.

unpopular opinion: I'm unsure of what the popular opinions of Dan are but maybe that I genuinely believe he is more than meets the eye.

song i associate with them: Honestly I can picture like any Korpiklaani song blasting in the background with him. I figure he's probably *personally* into older country, though.

favorite picture of them: Not sure if this refers to like a screencap or fanart but I do love his little fishing outfit. I am a simple person. I see someone else who likes fishing and I go :DDD Thank you for the ask!

#Gravity Falls #Dan Corduroy #Manly Dan

[katierosefun]

hello hello🌻 i'm puzzled about a scene in beyond evil so i thought about asking you because you always have such great insight! the scene is the one where joo won says he doesn't have close colleagues and dong sik answers back (ep1 min40 something). Now i'd like to start by saying i'm terrible at understanding social clues and my braincells are at an all time low performance efficiency, so i actually didn't bother much about this whole scene, yeah joo won's speech made me sad, but other than that i didn't give it much thought. Then i saw someone saying that joo won and dong sik were flirting and i was bewildered sitting here like ?? what, wait they were what now?! i don't exactly understand what dong sik wanted to say there, so if you have more knowledge to spare i'd be grateful (^^;)

hi anon! as someone who also feels rather sad at joo won's speech, i totally feel you. i think joo won might have thought he was being cool and slick for saying all that (i don't have friends, i don't need them anyways . . . they always want something from me, so i don't care for them), but to me, it just kind of screamed that

a) he's a lonely guy,

b) something really fucked up must have happened in his past for him to develop trust issues against anyone who would show him even the slightest bit of kindness,

c) as warranted as his trust issues might be, there absolutely must have been people who genuinely were being nice to him but he shoved them off because of said trust issues, and

d) this dude is so stuck in his own brain that he probably has no idea how genuinely depressing he sounds.

not a very good combination.

(this got rather long, and this answer includes screencaps because i was feeling oddly motivated, so):

but in terms of flirting, i think there's at least something of that kind going on there. for instance, joo won shoots dong sik a rather smug little look at the end of his speech, particularly the bit about how everyone comes to him for favors--the look he gives dong sik is almost a bragging sort of one, as if to say see, look at how much people want what i have / me / etc, even if joo won might not legitimately like it himself. there's still a weird sense of pride there, kind of like a peacock showing off its feathers.

and of course, dong sik notices this bratty peacock and smirks a little to himself, because he knows how actually, joo won just sounds silly and also like a bit of a brag.

i like to call this the pride and prejudice scene, which is probably a brutal oversimplification of pride and prejudice, but i'm always reminded of that story because the beat in this scene is so similar: rich, seemingly snobby guy comes into town . . . and the witty protagonist seemingly sees right through him and appropriately calls him out in the seconds after. ie. this is where dong sik asks, "is it really all that simple?"

(and look at the little exchange of expressions between them--dong sik's lil' smirk, joo won's quiet surprise because he hadn't actually expected dong sik to fire back in his own way)

here, dong sik actually takes joo won down a few notches ("i mean, are people really all that simple? what could you possibly have that makes you think you're the most important person in the world?")

joo won and dong sik's love language seems to rely on banter + verbal sparring, and this moment definitely captures that. we see a flash of joo won's annoyance (kinda hard to take a screencap of, darn yeo jin goo's brilliant eye-acting that you can't freeze), but we also see this lil' of it here. coincidentally, this is also eerily the same look joo won wears whenever he thinks he's about to catch dong sik / trap him (the whole tongue/lip combo). joo won. bestie. at least pretend to be uninterested.

and, i suppose, the final kicker of this scene and why it def. comes off as something flirtatious is perhaps the fact that dong sik. never. takes. his. eyes. off. joo won. especially when joo won gets all hissy about how he doesn't have mysophobia, dong sik seems the most interested in him. (also, something very . . . HM about this scene)

kinda gay of you to stare that intently at your new partner, dong sik, especially now that your new partner's actually momentarily vulnerable about something he's so obviously insecure about why the intense look buddy why are you just staring at him like that from afar buddy you wanna explain or

so that's why this scene's def. more on the flirtatious side, at least for the first half of this scene. the second half of this scene falls a little more under that quiet pre-longing, taylor swift's "gold rush" type beat.

i hope that clears things up!

#answered #anon #beyond evil #ah yes . . .. i do love this moment they're so funny to me THEY'RE SO FUNNY #but also i'm always reminded of taylor swift's 'gold rush' in this scene #because of the insane level of 'haha you're very pretty but i don't want to like you' type of vibe

[nikkeisimmer]

The Chikamori Legacy (excerpt)

**screencaps so far**

As they started bringing boxes in, River asked, “so…you’re practically a young adult.” She smirked; in her mind, she had forgiven him about Bebe. “So any plans on what you intend to do with yourself?

“No idea….Grandma did tell me that she would like me to try to go to university if I could. And part of me wants to since Grandpa sacrificed for me n’ my….mother.” He spat the last word out as if it was something distasteful. “But I’m all school’d out. I just kinda wanna relax and do my own thing for a year. Maybe take two years off to really get an idea of what I wanna do.” He dumped his box of clothes on the bed. And, I got bills coming so I have to have money for that. So maybe work for a year and see what happens. You got hundred twelve till grad, right?” “Yeah,” River responded.

“Might meet someone you like good enough to go to university with him or maybe you might meet someone at UBC that you fit with.” “Yeah, maybe….” River sounded subdued. Does he only think of me as a little sister type of friend? “What if I already think I’ve found the guy I want to be with?” She asked. Haruo raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” He looked at her…”Well, then, I guess congratulations are in order.”

OMG, you dolt! She thought to herself with a huff of aggravation. She shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?” “What?” Haruo just sounded irritated as hell. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It means, I don’t want anyone else…”.

Haruo looked completely bewildered. First she said she had someone else that she was interested in and then she said that he didn’t understand what she meant. He thought that it had been clear enough to him. And then the I don’t want anyone else. That just confused the ever-loving daylights out of him. He raised an eyebrow in question. “But…I thought…you had someone…and…well…in that case…you shouldn’t want anyone else….right!”

River almost let out a scream of frustration…she wasn’t sure how to gauge his reaction. Was he inexplicably dense or was he just toying with her and did she really want to consider a serious relationship with someone with the cognition abilities of a piece of granite? Aggravation wasn’t the word for this. Did she have to do this the caveman way to make him understand just exactly what she meant. Haruo continued to stand there puzzled at why River looked like she was going to take a baseball bat and brain him. And that was frankly annoying to say the least. Do women know how to just come out and say what the hell they mean instead of playing word games and driving him completely out of his ever-lovin’ mind? Because he was just about to scatter his marbles all over the floor in another minute if something didn’t start making sense soon. After that to-do with his mother, he was plumb out of patience.

“How long have we been friends? Haruo?” River glared at him. “Since we were four and a half, though it seems longer…”. Haruo noted; his shoulders were tense and it appeared that he wasn’t in the mood to be conciliatory.

“And in that amount of time you never in the least felt anything for me?” She looked at him directly. There was the minefield. Mayumi had beaten down his self-esteem to the point where he didn’t feel he deserved anyone, that anyone who would even think about being with him was settling for a broken fragment shell of a man who was just doing his best to get through life the best he knew how, with the least amount of psychological pain. Better to go through life alone than to have to figure out a way to tell River that he was irretrievably broken. He had anger issues and he figured that he was dangerous if provoked. Better that she find someone else than for him to risk being uncontrollably angry one of these days and do something he regretted.

“I’m not good for you!” He snapped frustrated at his wit’s end. He did not feel up to playing word games, he was irritated from all the mind games and abuse that he’d endured since childhood from someone who was supposed to care about him. He was pissed off because his mother decided that she was going to demand money out of him that he had no intention of giving her and that he had made plans to not stay in his parents house a second longer than was necessary. And now River was wanting him to commit when he had no idea of who he was or what he wanted to be, and wanting an answer right now; he was angry and frustrated, “You wanna date a powder keg? What kept me from punching a hole in the wall in my mother’s house was the fact that I had nowhere to go if I didn’t save up whatever money I could scrounge up from selling fruits and vegetables at the corner store. That was my hope; to get away and be able to be by myself; not have to answer to anyone.” The pent-up anger was roiling looking for an outlet.

“And you think you’ll be able to overcome this by yourself?!” River’s jaw set in a stubborn frown. “I see you’ve been doing a great job so far!” The sarcasm in her voice was cutting.

“What I want is for people to leave me the fucking hell alone!” Haruo exploded.

“And pushing people who love you away is the way to go about doing that. Inflict pain so you don’t have to feel a fucking thing?!” River yelled at him the hurt rising up again from hearing about Haruo nearly kissing Bebe. “Is that what you fucking want?!”

“I don’t know what I want!” Haruo snarled viciously. “All I know is that I want some peace and quiet!” Sure it was the complete opposite of how he’d approached Bebe. But to tell the truth, he had no idea about what he wanted, other than the fact that he was getting a splitting headache. They’d managed to get all the boxes in already. “I should get you back to your Mom.”

“Sure, run away from all your problems. That’s not going to get you very far.” River’s tone was bitter. “And pushing away those who cared for you isn’t a way to go through life!”

#River McIrish #Haruo Chikamori #The Chikamori Legacy #Sims 3 Legacy #Sims 3 Legacy excerpt #Sims 3 Storytelling #TS3 #Sims 3 #River and Haruo