Trying to recommend people watch Yu-gi-oh is always an insane pitching experience because the basic premise, what the show's about, and the actual meat-and-potatoes plot mechanics are all extremely different from one another.
The premise for DM is that some kid has an amnesiac ancient egyptian ghost haunting him and various billionaires are going to try to divest him of his jewellery. What DM is about is platonic devotion, staying true to your friends, the all encompassing power of love, and the eventual burden of moving on from death. This entire thing is painted in the aesthetics of 90's punk and visual kei.
The premise for GX is a kid attends card game high school and goes on wacky adventures. What GX is about is growing up, about seeing the world get more and more dark as you get older until you don't think you are the same person anymore, and having to hold onto the things that make you you. The later seasons draw heavy inspiration from lovecraftian cosmic horror.
The premise for 5Ds is a street punk has to team up with new friends and old enemies to fight on behalf of ancient south american space gods. What 5Ds is about is classism, and tools of oppression in a hi-tech futuristic society that is literally powered by magic. The visual language ping pongs between classic cyberpunk grunge and ultra sleek hypermodern.
The premise for Zexal is a different kid with a different amnesiac ghost that lives inside his necklace team up to find his memories. What Zexal is about is human connection, about reaching out a hand into the dark, about not being alone, and the pointlessness of war. This entire thing is themed with elements of the christian bible.
The premise for Arc-V is a theatre kid who travels the worlds spreading cheer and smiles with his circus performances. What Arc-V is about is child soldiers, and indoctrination into the military industrial complex, and the emotional dissonance that forms between events of trauma and day-to-day survival. One of the characters is inexplicably a traditional japanese shinobi.
The premise for VRAINS is a depressed highschooler cybercrime-ing his way through the internet so he can find answers to why he was kidnapped and tortured when he was 8. What VRAINS is about is the future of corporate greed, about healing, about what makes a consciousness, and the poisoning power of hate. A solid 50% of the story is just really good goofs on modern internet culture.
But if you just throw on a random episode of any one of those, the actual construction of any given one are going to be pretty much the same: It's all Card Games babeeeey
the situation with harry potter is kind of unprecedented in some ways imo because it is maybe the largest media franchise in history to be created & owned by a single person who still has direct creative control over it. who is also a billionaire with significant cultural/political influence. like the usual "no ethical consumption under capitalism" type excuses shatter on impact when the bigoted author in question is logging onto twitter every day saying explicitly that when you buy the tim hortons ravenclaw donut she is using your donut money to fund the genocide of trans people. like with big franchises usually there's at least a little more diffusion of responsibility than this
#sometimes people will do a harry potter comparison to say ppl are morally obligated to join an informal boycott of another author's work #when that author is revealed as sleazy or abusive or bigoted #and i will be real: i just don't think that's true. #go ahead and stop engaging with that other person's work if that's what your conscience dictates #but it's not a very meaningful choice one way or the other #outside of what it means to YOU. #but harry potter is different. you actually do have to eschew that shit. #you can't even 'be a fan' without paying for anything-- you're still feeding into the cultural phenomenon #that allowed and allows this woman to act like a petty tyrant #and pump money into hate groups #it truly is unique. singular. unlike any other situation in literature. (tags via @flameswallower)
JK Rowling isn't just a bigot, she's an oligarch, and has been for decades. She's personal friends with Gordon Brown, Keir Starmer, and several other major players in the Labour Party; she single-handedly funds virtually every queerphobic hate-group on this island. She single-handedly provided most of the funding for the No Campaign in 2014, meaning that she bears more personal responsibility than any other person alive for Scotland's lack of independence. She has BBC and ITN at her beck-&-call.
JK Rowling is to British politics what Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are to American politics. Indulging in Harry Potter at this point isn't the equivalent of indulging in something like Ender's Game; it's the equivalent of buying a Tesla, or stock in Palantir. Everyone who was going about blowing up Teslas during that weird six-month period when Musk was Trump's de facto co-President should've been blowing up Harry Potter shops, too, if they actually had a consistent belief system, but since most of her money comes from Americans who have no idea just how broad, and sinister her influence is here, there's nothing the people whose lives she ruins can do about it.
harrow the ninth Book Of All Time actually. gaslights the audience immediately. doesn’t answer any of the questions from the last book until like 300 pages in. complete perspective shift. complete tonal shift. god is making poe references and meme references in the same breath. blink and you’ll miss it lore drops that are actually critical to understanding what’s going on. so so much grief. Book Of All Time.
first few months of alectopause: damn can't wait until atn comes out
2023 alectopause: you know it's ok we can wait. i got some fics to write
2024 alectopause: here is 30,000 words on how john's characterization as emperor and lyctorhood interplays with colonialism, imperialism, sexual assault, and misogyny, featuring a full bibliography, a reading list, and peer reviewed by three mutuals
2025 alectopause: gideon would not fucking say that
2026 alectopause: what is everyone's blood pressure headcanons for the characters. i think harrow is orthostatic and gets a regular 90/50
Come to think of it, it really is insane that my entire country is burning alive and literally no one in the rest of the world cares. Thousands of Indians are dying every day from the heat, it's 45+ degrees in multiple areas, the government couldn't give two fucks, we're getting severe warnings and red alerts, and not a soul outside of South Asia is speaking about it because why would you ever care about brown people
USA folks, that is a consistent temperature range hitting 113°. Death Valley temperatures. In Banda, it hovered between 116°-118° (47°-48° C) for a week straight.
This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:
Make sure to wishlist Episode 3 if you haven’t already. It helps us a ton~ (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ Link
And if you (or your oomf) isn’t caught up yet: take advantage of the Steam Summer Sale to get Episodes 1 and 2 at their lowest price yet! Link to the bundle
Happy 20th Anniversary of Neil Banging Out The Tunes!!!!!
More rarer images of Neil, my beloved:
20 years.
I find it so beautiful that this little rat's life has been remembered with love for 20 years and will be hopefully for decades to come. Truly a marvel of the internet.
and not one sunrise more - a Roots of Chaos fanfic
Gen | No Warnings Apply | 2k | Sabran/Ead
Summary:
"How strange that I might find you here, Sabran," she teases, and amusement sparks in Sabran's eyes. Something holds her back. A need to ensure that this is real, perhaps. That they have made it.
"Ead," the last Berethnet replies, and Ead has missed her voice, the soft silk of it washing over her. Her name has never sounded better on any tongue but hers. "I heard rumour of a woman wearing a cloak red as blood who docked today, and had to see for myself if it was truly you.” She eyed the distance between them with distaste. “Do I have to demand you kiss me, lover?"
****
After ten long years, they reunite.
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Reunions, Pining, Love Letters
Read on Ao3, or below the cut <3
The sands of Perchling glisten under the light of the mid-afternoon sun. Waves lap at the shore, and the skies are a brilliant, crystal clear blue. A rare sight for autumn in Inys, where rain often collects in puddles and clouds conceal the sun.
That is something Ead has not missed about Inys. Even in the summer months, the isle is so wet, nothing like the dry heat that blankets Lasia. When she spent seven years in Inys, desperate for the familiar comforts of her home while learning to navigate the treacherous waters of the Inysh court, she had thought the heat of summer in Inys a particular kind of hell.
The air remains heavy even now, despite the cold carried in by a breeze of seawater that tangles her hair. Eadaz uq-Nāra stands upon the shores of Perchling and breathes in deep, allowing the sea air to fill her lungs, clear her mind. The bustle of the city doesn't reach her here, where the beach stretches for miles, undisturbed by workers and tradeships.
For ten terribly long years, she has dreamed of standing upon this beach.
Each one had passed achingly slow, and time refused her requests to move faster. Her promise to Sabran had not left her mind in that time, no matter how busy she found herself in the Priory. Even now, it comes to her mind as easily as their first kiss. Sabran's hand in hers, and a vow as weighty as those whispered between companions exchanging loveknot rings. Ten years from now, I will find you on the sand of Perchling, and we will find our somewhere.
She has held that promise close to her chest, even while the miles between them ached, temporarily soothed by stolen nights spent in one another's arms. Not nearly enough to stop Ead from wanting, her heart a traitorous, aching thing beneath her ribs—but enough to remember the promise of somewhere and find the strength to endure until the next letter, the next visit to Inys in the guise of diplomacy.
The last letter she received from Sabran sits in her pocket, the sword and crown of the Berethnet seal broken weeks ago. She'd opened it with fervour upon receiving it, the sight of the red wax sealing it shut making her heart flip behind her ribs. She has memorised its contents already and she can hear the words in her mind, spoken in Sabran's own voice.
Dearest Ead, my love,
Our tenth year since our defeat of the Nameless One approaches. By the time you receive this letter, I will have abdicated the throne in favour of Roslain. I trust she will serve Inys well, as I have, without the burden of the Saint to hang over her. I will leave her in the care of Loth and Marian, both of whom will support her in her transition to her new position.
It has been too long since I have glanced upon your face and held you in my arms, my love. Our somewhere calls to me, and I hope you might meet me upon the sand of Perchling, so that we might find it.
Yours, always,
— Sabran Berethnet
As though there has ever been any real doubt that Ead would meet her here. She’d read that final sentence in her room in the Priory, beside herself with joy and triumph, and immediately set things in motion for the next Prioress to take over. As soon as she oversaw the ceremony, she climbed atop Aralaq, who already knew where to take her. Across the world itself, to the person she spent a decade waiting for.
She knows Sabran has never doubted her conviction and her devotion to their vow. It is written across ten years of letters exchanged between the Priory and Inys, again and again. The word somewhere scrawled in Sabran's elegant hand became a familiar comfort on the nights Ead stared at the ceiling above her bed, wishing for nothing more than her love by her side, her bed achingly empty without her. Proclamations of adoration, well-wishes blanketed in longing, Sabran's recollection of recent events at the Inysh court—all of it kept her company on those nights.
Never had Ead known loneliness until returning to the Priory again, the sisters calling for her to be made Prioress. Growing up, she always had the sisters of the Priory and a duty to protect the orange tree, to honour the Mother and defend the world against the Nameless One as she once had. She'd had Jondu by her side, to train with, to hunt down the wyrms that slept undisturbed in the great many mountains around the mapped world, waiting for their master to call them to rise again. They were a family, all of them, and loneliness had no room to grow roots in her when her place in the world sat solely with the Priory.
She had not felt it even when serving the Mother in the court of Sabran Berethnet, a mere maid of honour in an unfamiliar court. While the customs were unfamiliar to her and many there saw her as little more than a heretic, despite her public conversion to the Six Virtues, she'd still had her task—protect the Queen at all costs, in case the Berethnets truly did keep the Nameless One chained as the Deceiver proclaimed. She'd found friendship in Marian and Loth, who welcomed her brightly, who taught her about court and cared not for her heretical origins.
But there, in the ten years spent as Prioress, Ead learned what it meant to be lonely. To want something out of her reach, and to look forward to something she could not yet have.
She endured, as she always knew she would. The Priory flourished under her charge. Prioress was never a title she expected to earn, though she had always dreamed of it, as every woman who grows up in the Priory does. She never imagined it would be her hand wielding the sword that would end the Nameless One, that she would hold one of the two keys that imprisoned him once more beneath the crashing waves of the Abyss, and that these actions would see her rise to Prioress.
Under her care, the Priory healed. Scars still remain; gorges upon stone where wyrms dug their talons, scorch marks that will forever remind them of what they almost lost at Kalyba’s hands.
With the Nameless One vanquished, Ead set her sights upon the remaining High Western. Her initiates hunted Fýredel to the ends of the known world, towards the Gates of Ungulus. With the defeat of the Nameless One and the loss of Yscalin, Fýredel withdrew to a cave within the mountains to slumber, and found his end at the hands of the sisters of the Priory. Many were made Red Damsels the day they returned, dying their cloaks with his blood as the first Red Damsels had.
And with the last High Western defeated, the Priory hunted down remaining wyrms, whatever hadn't been defeated on the Abyss—as many sisters as Ead could afford to send.
Throughout it all, she only wished she could have Sabran by her side to witness it all. She poured all she could into her letters to the Queen, in carefully written code, keeping her informed. Her love’s admiration and pride soothed the aches of her absence, but it was never quite enough.
Ead took every opportunity to visit Inys that she could, accompanying Chassar under the guise of diplomatic relations. Sabran Berethnet greeted her every time with a familiar gleam in her eyes that Ead so adored and a softening of her features, imperceptible except perhaps to those closest to her. Every time, the court and their responsibilities bled away until it was only them—the pretender and the Prioress, the blood of the Saint and the heretic. And every time, Ead snuck her way into the Queen's bedchambers where Sabran waited, as beautiful as ever, and they exchanged kisses that set Ead's heart ablaze until the candles burned out and sleep dragged them under.
Ead misses her like she missed the tree, the Priory, after spending seven years in the Inysh court. Her skin retains the memory of tender touches, her lips burn with the memory of Sabran's lips, and her bed is empty without Sabran nestled against her, head tucked under her chin and Ead's arms around her middle.
The Priory is her home, and it always will be—but Ead's heart has dragged her back to Inys, to Perchling as she promised. She has found a second home in the heart of Sabran Berethnet, and cannot keep herself from it any longer.
Ten years, and not one sunrise more. That was the promise they made, once they returned to normalcy after the battle of the Abyss.
When she hears sand shift under weight behind her, the excitement that had been gathering in her chest since first receiving Sabran's last letter unravels until she’s ready to burst with it.
She turns on her heel, her heart an aching thing in her chest. The sight of Sabran standing there, bathed in sunlight and draped in finery, is greater than all her dreaming, than anything her imagination could've concocted. The smile she wears is far more glorious than anything else Ead has witnessed in her life, reaching her jewelled eyes with an unrestrained joy the likes of which Ead rarely sees on her. In court, she kept herself guarded, for a Queen cannot be perceived as weak—but here, where only Ead may see, she allows herself to wear her joy freely, and the flower behind Ead's ribs blooms once more.
"How strange that I might find you here, Sabran," she teases, and amusement sparks in Sabran's eyes. Something holds her back. A need to ensure that this is real, perhaps. That they have made it.
"Ead," the last Berethnet replies, and Ead has missed her voice, the soft silk of it washing over her. Her name has never sounded better on any tongue but hers. "I heard rumour of a woman wearing a cloak red as blood who docked today, and had to see for myself if it was truly you.” She eyed the distance between them with distaste. “Do I have to demand you kiss me, lover?"
It is all she needs to fling herself across the small stretch of sand holding them apart. Her hands cradle Sabran's face, and her lips are soft as rose petals against Ead's. Sabran clings onto her with as much ferocity as she kisses with, and Ead cannot help the laughter that bubbles up, delight lighting her up like a sunray. It banishes the shadows that clung to her in Sabran's absence and her lungs burn for air and she is so wonderfully alive in a way she only feels in her lover's arms.
Breathless, Sabran pulls away to rest her forehead against hers. Their breath mingles in the small place between them, and Ead wants nothing more than to remain there until the tide comes in. This is her second home, and she has waited too long to have this.
"My love," Sabran murmurs. "My rose. I have missed you terribly."
"As I have missed you." Ead pulls away only far enough to meet Sabran's eyes properly, so that she might commit the wonder written so clearly upon her face to memory. She will revisit this moment a thousand times over, she knows that already. "Are you ready to find our somewhere?"
A sharp intake of breath, and another kiss, sweeter than even the fruit of the orange tree. "My dreams have been full of nothing else, Ead."
Ead takes one of her hands. Even now, Sabran's are still slightly cold, and she supposes the chill coming in from the sea doesn’t help matters. "Then let us find it."
Hand in hand, the two of them leave behind the beach without a particular destination in mind. It matters not—Ead is content to discover where they will end up, so long as Sabran is by her side. And she knows without a doubt that Sabran is, too.
i started a snowbyrd comic and then lost all my notes again so i'm posting here to get some motivation to rewrite my notes and draw some more for it c:
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