bedes | Entries tagged with blog

Challenge #2

Pets of Fandom: Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

This is the perfect opportunity to talk about something I have spent far too much of my life thinking about... If I had a Pokemon, what Pokemon would I have? As I have always thought that, if I was in the Pokemon world, certainly I wouldn't be a battler. Any Pokemon I had would be my companions! Pet Pokemon!

For those not aware, my favorite Pokemon is Celebi, with Zorua following close behind... but, I don't think either would be my partner. Celebi is, of course, a mythical Pokemon. I think that, if given the opportunity to, I wouldn't want to capture a mythical Pokemon in-universe. It would feel disrespectful, you know? Especially since Celebi is something as important as the protector of forests and time! And, as fun as Zorua's shapeshifting is in concept, I would find it to be rather difficult to manage in real life.

I believe that my partner Pokemon would be one of my other favorites: Sylveon! It actually seems like a perfect service Pokemon. As stated in its Pokedex entries, it likes to wrap its feelers around its Trainer's arm, and walk with them. These feelers can also emit a calming aura, and can be used to read its Trainer's emotions. It's also a surprisingly large Pokemon (please see its official life-sized plushie, pictured below), which is great, because I love big pets the most!

I have pets in real life, as well! I have 3 dogs in my household, one of which is my own. My dog is named Sammy! He is my beloved, retired service dog. He's a rescue mutt, and is the sweetest guy ever. I love him so much, it makes me feel like exploding!!! He's pictured in his Christmas vest below. Isn't he handsome?

A photograph from the promotional shoot for the life-sized Sylveon plush, showing a woman taking a selfie with the plush. The Sylveon plush's head is bigger than the woman's head, and the bow on its chest is around the size of her hand. This is to say, the plush is surprisingly large.

A photograph of a dog wearing a green vest and red collar, sitting and looking up at the camera. He has brown, tan and black coloring, and a graying muzzle. He has a big head, and ears that fold back like a bulldog's.

Current Mood: affectionate

Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Howdy-hey! I'm Azure, but I also answer to Bede and Siffrin! I use he/she/bun/fae/moon pronouns (if you don't know how to use neos, I totally understand; just alternating he/she is a-okay!), and I'm a queer 20-something who's been into fandom since before I hit double digits. I am what you might call an "interdisciplinary artist": a webmaster, artist, author, and editor!

If you'd like to know more about my fandoms/fannish likes and dislikes, I recommend checking out my 'fandom ID card' on my personal site! (Since I'm multifandom, if I wrote it all down here, we'd be here for ages...) The TLDR is that I'm most often a video game fandom participant, a shameless wearer of favorite character goggles, and a connoisseur of the internalized homophobia trope!

Why am I doing this challenge? Well, I did it last year, and I loved it! It's a challenge which seems to bring a lot of people out, and I loved how many strangers were up for discussion with me. A lot of those strangers turned out to be super-cool people, and I hope I can meet a lot of super-cool people this year, too!

Current Mood: excited

I saw this being used by

tinkaton and thought it looked fun! I love statistics.

Go to your Works page on AO3, look at the tags, and see what the answers to these questions are. (Or any other site that has tags)

( Continue? )

That ended up... a lot more reflective than I expected it to. Stars, I have GOT to shake off this perfectionism and just WRITE MORE!

Current Mood: reflective

Finn's physical degradation is being paralleled by the degradation of Fionna's moral backbone.

She's losing herself. She agreed to work with her friend's abusive, power-hungry mother (thus pushing him away), and is obsessively chasing this fantasy with Phelix despite him having a girlfriend. She doesn't recognize the effort her friends put in to the event. She is single-mindedly chasing this fantasy of being a hero, while, in reality, she is hurting those she is trying to "save".

The threat looms — both of a physical death (Finn), and a symbolic death of the self (the "Fifi" future).

Current Mood: thoughtful

I can see the parallels between Marshall Lee writing a song about how Gary is like his mom, and Woke Up.

Specifically, I can see Marshall Lee’s song ending up leaning more heavily into addressing his mother, since Woke Up can easily be recontextualized into being about their relationship, ESPECIALLY if Marshall Lee finds out that his mom has been stalking him. ("I'm sick of livin' under your thumb!", "I should say / That you're kind of a dictator, in a way / You're to blame / You're a constant source of misery and pain! / What a shame / That you're so stuck up, I know you won't change / Out of frame / No, I don't believe you cared about me! / 'Cause you left me drowning”) Which Gary could then misunderstand as being entirely about him.

I’m gonna cross my fingers and hope that Gary's secure enough to take it in stride, especially considering it was his suggestion. Woke Up: Good End, mayhaps.

Current Mood: excited

Whilst I very much align with the idea of "art is about your personal experiences with it and your own interpretation", I do understand how some artists (especially indie artists) may begin to demand that nobody else interpret their art in any other way than the intended vision.

Creation of art is a deeply personal process. So to see others saying that the artist's intent doesn’t really matter can feel very disrespectful. It can feel like their art is being taken from them, while leaving the artist themself out of the picture. As if their art is a piece of content, and while everyone loves the art, nobody cares to consider the person who made it.

I don’t think this point of view is correct at all, but I can understand why it's so common with artists. I think that more artists should view others interpreting their art in a way personal to them as a way that art is successful, rather than a failure at the supposed objective of “making others understand my intention”.

Current Mood: thoughtful

I looove that Silent Salt isn’t able to see White Lily as separate from Dark Enchantress. It reinforces the flaws that were already established previously, via his treatment of the Virtues.

His beastly traits are that he is ruthlessly unforgiving, and that he dehumanizes others. Silent Salt sees others as their duties and their duties alone — their struggles do not matter.

Current Mood: accomplished

It's funny that "a Berdly" is now used colloquially to mean "a character who is obnoxious in a funny/silly way, used affectionately", because for those first few weeks after Chapter 2 released, the vast majority of people were saying Berdly was transphobic and lesbophobic and killed their grandmas. The Weird Route’s discovery did insane PR work for him. Crazy what almost dying can do for an autist!

Current Mood: reminiscing
Current Music: Smart Race - Deltarune OST

( Contains spoilers for Pokemon Legends Z-A... Continue? )

Current Mood: pleased

Moved my fandom list page from Rentry. The huge-ass porn banner ads, and the un-closable “support Rentry!” banner when you have adblock, was the final straw. That said, the "URL reclaim" system having its rules be stupidly inconsistent, and, thus, causing multiple of my pastes that I thought followed the rules get deleted with no warning also didn't help. Plus, I've been seeing some people saying that, when they click on links outside of the ad, Rentry treats it as if it was a click on the ad. So if you click any link in Rentry, there's a chance it'll just straight up send you to malware or a porn site. As a treat.

I've moved this information to pastry.diy. I considered a lot of different pastebin sites, but none of them won out over Rentry, given that it is probably one of the best-known pastebin services with decent customization. Pastry.diy relatively new, so I could get all the same URLs as I did on Rentry with no problem, and it's a pastebin service that uses HTML and CSS, which means better customization, as well. My fandom list is at pastry.diy/chara now.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

You know what they say about three times making a pattern. So, if every trial 3 song is going to close with addressing/referencing another character, here are my predictions for who shows up in whose MV:

Kazui: assuming that the addressees are limited to other prisoners, Shidou — but if not, I could see him addressing his wife or the man he was interested in

Amane: Shidou and/or Fuuta — if Kazui's ends up being Shidou, then most certainly Fuuta

Mikoto: John

Kotoko: Es, Jackalope, and/or the audience — most likely Es

Current Mood: speculative

( Contains spoilers for Pokemon Legends Z-A... Continue? )

Current Mood: cheerful

I am extremely cross with the MILGRAM translation team for translating "可哀想" (kawaisou) as "baby", when Muu refers to Haruka. "Kawaisou" is a word that means someone who is pitiful. You use it in order to express sympathy with someone who is in a sad situation. It does not imply age.

"Poor boy" would be a much more accurate translation. And it doesn't have the unfortunate side-effect of infantilizing an intellectually disabled character, and implying motherly feelings on Muu's end that she pointedly does not harbor. (Haruka saw her as a mother, but Muu viewed Haruka as a friend.)

I will ALSO say, though, I 100% commend the English translation team for localizing that one line as, "I won’t stop hurting you, ‘cause I’m a mean girl."

They seemed to understand the weight the phrase "mean girl" holds with English-speakers. The blonde girl, the "rich bitch". These ideas, these stereotypes internalized as facts in English-speaking audiences due to misogynistic teenage fiction, have been held against Muu from the release of her very first MV.

This is the idea that they invoke as they humanize her, show her trauma, show her love for Haruka.

"You thought I was nothing but a mean girl. That’s why you chose to punish me, even when it came at the cost of someone else's life… So I will become the villain from the PG movies of your past. I'll flatten myself into someone so 2D like that, as long as you apologize to him."

It turns the mirror back on the audience, and shines a light the misogyny Muu has been facing from the very start. I've said it many times, and I will say it again: Muu Kusunoki, they could never make me hate you!!!

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Pain - MILGRAM Muu (CV: Arisa Kori)

Information on the Fount of Knowledge is 110% being purposefully obscured.

In Beast Yeast 11, all mentions of Fount are avoided. His name is only brought up once — to refer to Shadow Milk as "fallen Fount". Fount doesn’t have a pre-corruption sprite like the other Beasts. We have "Strong Flour Ridge", "Garden of Delights", and "Land of the Spices", but only "Fount of Knowledge's domain." While minor characters refer to the other pre-corruption Beasts as "selfless" or "kind" or such, there is nobody who mentions Fount. We have no idea what he was like. It's almost as if he never existed.

Only one question remains: is this choice Devsis trying to keep the mystery up until the big reveal? Or is it a narrative choice? Is the big reveal about Fount, in part, that he has been forgotten or erased?

Current Mood: curious

God, I love the Beasts. Wretched little creatures. Fallen angels who have been abandoned by God. Objectified at every turn as solely their duty, even by one of their own — being called Beasts when they fail at their job. Presumably having very little contact with each other (or Silent Salt would have known more of their plights), leaving each individual Virtue feeling isolated and uniquely broken. And then, their bodies are shattered.

Holy emissaries filled with so much pain that they'll destroy what they were made to protect.

Honestly, I don't think that Kris being nonbinary invalidates the idea of the Weird Route being a metaphor for compulsory heterosexuality. Nonbinary people can play the part of binary genders, socially speaking, even if that doesn't match with their internal sense of gender.

Even aside from that, I also don't think that the genders have to line up with what you're commentating on in order to be effective commentary, either. Het couples can be queer-coded within their story.

Also the majority of people I see getting angry at people who interpret this NB/F relationship as a commentary on male/female relationships are the exact same people who call that same NB/F relationship "yuri" so, like. You can't have it both ways, you know? Either it's erasure to see Kris as a gendered figure for the sake of viewing their relationship with Noelle in a certain way, or it's not. (And saying that it's a comphet metaphor doesn't even imply that Kris fully is a boy, just a metaphorical stand-in for a boy.)

I think it's interesting that the Beasts are conform to traditional gender roles, especially when compared to the Ancient Heroes. The warriors are men, and the women are in more nurturing positions. While Shadow Milk is far from traditionally masculine now, while he was still a Virtue, he was an academic – a position often seen as strictly for men. (And I feel it goes without saying that he almost certainly wasn't a shapeshifter until after his fall, given that his shifting is an extension of and aid for Shadow Milk's Deceit. That means no fluidity between masculine and feminine forms.)

Compare this to the Ancient Heroes. Pure Vanilla is an effeminate male healer (often voiced by women in different languages), and there are two strong warrior women. Dark Cacao and White Lily are the closest to being gender-conforming, but they still fall short, so to say. Dark Cacao is a strong king with a noted soft side, and White Lily is a delicate woman with a thirst for knowledge. (Remember: academia and knowledge are traditionally seen as men's territory.)

Furthermore, the Beasts have a majority of men, and the Ancient have a majority of women.

I like to imagine this is has to do with the fact that the Beasts were made for their roles, while the Ancient Heroes grew up as normal people before being gifted their sacred status. When the Virtues were hand-crafted, they were imagined up as 'suited' for their designated roles in every way. But, once these attempted manifestations of perfect ideals failed, it fell to normal people. And normal people are much more variant, much more diverse. But one can argue that it is also through the Ancient Heroes' upbringing as normal people that they are able to thrive where the Virtues once fell.

Current Mood: thoughtful

A scribbled/doodled comic of Siffrin and Isabeau. In the first panel, Isabeau is waving Siffrin over with a big smile, saying, 'OMG Sif come look at this!' Siffrin sits right next to Isabeau, shoulder-to-shoulder with a calm smile, and asks, 'What's up?' Isabeau says, 'Uh-', which transitions to the next panel, that shows him sweating and blushing. He's thinking, 'So close OMG they are so close OMG how do i react WHAT DO?' The final panel shows Isabeau sweating, blushing and panicking in silence, while Siffrin remains sat next to him, also blushing but significantly calmer. Siffrin is thinking, 'We're friends. This is friends behavior.'

Cannot stress enough how integral this comic in the artbook was to understanding Isafrin for me. So many questions I had regarding Siffrin's actions/feelings towards Isabeau can be explained by "We're Friends. This Is Friends Behavior. *blushing*"

"Why does Siffrin say he doesn't know how he feels towards Isabeau, despite his internal monologue showing that he does with decent clarity?" They simply believe that it is Average Friends Behavior. Thinking about Isabeau when shown a buff man in a romantic evaluation context? Friends Behavior!

This, of course, interacts with him saying that he hates that he feels romantic attraction. They don't want to experience it. So he tells himself that anything he feels isn't romantic; it's Friends Behavior!

TL;DR: me when I'm in an "avoiding confronting my feelings" competition and my opponent is Siffrin

Current Mood: amused

Shadow Milk's laughter was more imposing with the silence. Now that Recluse's husky-ass voice is actually in the game, every time Shadow Milk laughs it sounds nervous like he's kicking his feet and twirling his hair like a schoolgirl.

Current Mood: amused

"Woaw I can’t believe that (XYZ thing that happened in the MVs) is 100% true, canon and real" So there’s thing funny thing called 'the whole concept of the MVs is that they are based off of how the prisoner feels, not facts'.

We know that the end report cards can lie, too. The thing that we can trust the most is what comes out of the prisoners' mouths, and even that comes with the caveat that they can lie, have their feelings/viewpoint manipulated by others, etc.

There is no reliable narrator in MILGRAM, and there is no 'canon' information about their crimes. At least, not yet.

Current Mood: thoughtful

You're afraid to be corny, but I was born on the cob

Entries tagged with blog

Snowflake Challenge 2026 #2

Snowflake Challenge 2026 #1

AO3 Tag Game

Finn/Fionna Parallels

Upcoming Fionna & Cake Song

Death of the (Indie) Author

Silent Salt IS a Beast

"A Berdly"

The Ages of Team MZ

Another Site Falls to Internet Enshittification

MILGRAM T3 Song-Closer Predictions

Thoughts on Two Pokemon Legends Z-A Characters

Pain's Localization (The Good and the Bad)

The Obfuscation of the Fount of Knowledge

Feeling Normal About the Beasts Again

Weird Route Thoughts

Gender and Cookie Run

"Friends Behavior"

So Pure Vanilla's Voice Was Added Into the Latest Events

There Is No Easter Bunny, There Is No Tooth Fairy, and There Is No Reliable Narrator in MILGRAM

Profile

Links

Custom Text