#and I would like to see a bit of a nicer discourse about it

[hauntedobservationobservation]

it's hard to explain to a certain kind of readers that sometimes I want to read something really messed up and wince and cringe and stare at my empty wall for a bit... and it's fun for me

obviously everyone gets something different from reading

but sometimes when people start talking about "why do people like this messed up shit?" I just... I can't help but sigh and wonder, if the typical reader simply does not have a taste for the weird like I (and others) do

of course I don't mind not reading whatever others read, I don't do it for other's approval, but side eyeing others with darker tastes than yours is a bit alienating towards readers that could potentially be your friends, if only you understood that everyone reads for different reasons

of course I like cozy and happy things every now and then, but I like grimdark, I like gore, gritty sci-fi and worlds of hopelessness and despair

and there's nothing wrong with that

[gauntletgirlie]

Adding my two pence in to the Sauron shipping and sexuality discourse since I am a fan of Tolkien’s written works and The Rings of Power show whereas quite a few people debating this seem to fall into one camp or the other (not all, I will clarify, just from what I’ve personally seen).

Before I start, I’m not out here trying to cause strife, I’m trying to advocate for people to be nicer to one another about their conflicting views.

I love The Silmarillion. When I first read it, and in subsequent readings, I did not interpret either Melkor or Sauron sexually at all. I just didn’t. Not that I thought they were asexual or aromantic, I just didn’t think of them in terms of sexuality. It’s not what I was focussed on when I was reading and it’s not the vibe that I personally got, even when looking deeper at subtext and in between the lines.

I heckin love Angbang though. The art, the headcanons, the crack, the writing, the goofy stuff, the sexy stuff, and everything in between. I arrived on tumblr, stumbled upon Angbang and that was me seduced! I have space for my original interpretation of Melkor and Mairon and then the Angbang interpretation. I enjoy both.

I had fun watching The Rings of Power. Admittedly, Season 1 was a bit “eh” for me, but Season 2 slapped in my opinion. I think Charlie Vickers is doing a fantastic job of portraying Sauron. I was, and am, excited to see one of my favourite characters given more exploration on screen.

Charlie Vickers’ depiction, along with the writers’ and directors’, is just one interpretation. One based on limited and often vague literature (the appendices of The Lord of the Rings). The same way that Peter Jackson’s all-seeing, fiery eye atop Barad-hûr was an interpretation.

Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, TROP, Haladriel, Saurondriel, Angbang… they’re all interpretations based on Tolkien’s works, people’s own worldviews, people’s own preferences, and how people view Tolkien as an author. None of them are wholly “correct” and none of them are wholly “incorrect”.

So please for the love of Eru and the sanity of Tolkien lovers everywhere, stop acting as though your definitions, your ships, your perceived ideologies of a character, are the only correct ones. Let people enjoy what and how they may, without attacking one another.

Also as an added aside, when I make TROP memes, crack, and headcanons, they are solely for the characters as portrayed in TROP. I have my own headcanons and crack for written work Tolkien characters. I enjoy both. I love hearing other’s ideas and analysis, even if I end up not seeing it the same way. I appreciate not everyone can compartmentalise like that, but for me it allows me to enjoy more of Tolkien’s works. Heck, if I didn’t, I would not enjoy Angbang and what a sad world that would be for me because Angbang is ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥.

So go forth and ship and let ship!

[spinosacha]

OK I'm sorry I didn't intend this to be a mini essay but it became one

I think the person who's going on about moral purity to you isn't aware that one of the major aspects of media literacy is being able to identify propaganda within media.

I'm not saying that arcane is propaganda, not intentionally anyway, but that you need to be aware of how things are portrayed, and that's a major part of identifying propaganda, writer intention, and even how your own internal bias effects how you interpret things. Depiction isn't endorcement, but positive portrayal is. It's not a case of moral purity, its understanding what the show is trying to tell us by how the characters actions are portrayed.

Yes Silcos death is a pretty clear cut sign that the writers dont think he's the good guy, so let's go for singed instead, singed gets the happiest ending in the show but nobody believes he is meant to be taken as the good guy. Why? He does bad things for a righteous reason (his daughter) so what's the difference between him and how caitlyn is seen?

I'd argue its the fact that the writers don't commit to caits bad actions. Cait uses a chemical weapon on the undercity, but the writers intend you to believe she doesn't harm any civilians in the process. The logistics of that don't really match up, realistically civilians would be harmed, but the show portrays it so that they were not. What's the reason for this difference between how chemical weapons act in real life, and how they act in the show? Well, if the gray was like real chemical weapons, caitlyn would have more blood on her hands, why are the writers actively avoiding that?

Then she is manipulated into becoming the Head of martial law- but even then, she's still shown to be the one in the right, she criticises Ambessas methods at every turn, is willing to betray her the soonest opportunity she gets. Police violence? She's very against that!

So you get this character who should by all means be truely morally gray, she is using a chemical weapon, she is a dictator, for what she sees as a good cause-but she's somehow still as blameless as she possibly could be. This creates the feeling that the writers aren't trying to portray her actions as all that bad. She has tbe aesthetic of a morally gray character without the backing of one.

Compare that to singed. He does horrible experiments, there's a reason for that that is arguably noble (saving his daughter), but there isn't a "but". You can't say "singed created shimmer, but actually nobody got hurt by shimmer!" Like you can say "cait gassed the undercity, but nobody got hurt by it! (Who didn't deserve it)"

Without this distinction how do we differentiate between depiction that IS endorcement and depiction that isn't? How do you identify that a piece of media is condemning far right ideology or promoting it? This has nothing to do with puritanical thinking, and disregarding how things are portrayed is textbook poor media literacy, unfortunately.

(As is not being able to convey your thoughts in a civil and responsible manner funnily enough, which looking at her blog.. she doesn't excel at that one.)

Anyway! Sorry for the essay lol, the weird moral highground people are taking over media literacy when not even understanding what it entails has been bothering me and her response to you and others embodies that so much I had to say something haha. Hope you don't mind :)

You put it really nicely! I tried to add to your take but I think you explained it really well, it’s def the propeganda aspect that I also wish more people would be aware of and how to be critical of the ways things are depicted in media and what bias that could reveal.

But yeah, most of the time I don’t engage in discourse fights but I was feeling a bit feisty yesterday lol. I think Arcane lents itself well to talk about morality in a very interesting way but I think we in the fandom could stand to speak in a bit nicer tone to each other but I get that people are passionate.

[icedragonlizard]

I've mentioned about this before, but I think the Kirby fandom has over-sanitized Taranza to a ridiculous degree.

Honestly? I dare say that he's been done just as dirty as Susie when it comes to how he's been treated by the fandom.

Over the years, it's been common to see people heavily soften Taranza down and make him out to be this total sweetheart after Triple Deluxe. Heck, the softening down of him doesn't even stop at post-TD, as it even happens for during the game as well. I've seen people legitimately trying to excuse his actions because "he was just following orders!!!" and I'm not even kidding when I say that I've seen people say that he did nothing wrong and that he was never a villain to begin with.

I think it should go without saying that Taranza was 100% a villain in Triple Deluxe. The guy was literally the right-hand man of a tyrant. He did bad things in Sectonia's name. That he was infatuated to her and is upset about her death doesn't excuse his actions. And whether or not Taranza redeems himself after Triple Deluxe doesn't change the fact that he was still a villain in that game.

He's a war criminal, but it's like people have been pretending that he's not. Susie is also a war criminal, but at least people have no problem admitting that. I wish they'd do the same for Taranza, too.

To be fair, I understand that HAL can easily be blamed because they've been sort of just bullying Taranza over Sectonia's death, but the fandom has absolutely NOT helped matters and instead has made the problem worse over the years. And quite frankly, I think it's been embarrassing to have seen people sand Taranza down so much.

I'm not saying that you can't feel sorry for him. I think it makes perfect sense as to why someone would want to sympathize with him, considering his lore. And I'm also not saying that you can't make him nice at all. I have no problem imagining him having a nice side. But I'm also.... not a fan of the idea of, like, completely defanging him.

Personally, I think he deserves to be flawed moral-wise even after redemption. I like the idea of making it to where he has a nice side and is in fact upset about Sectonia's death, but is also a snobby, pretentious, theatre-kid type of guy that's not afraid to do some unhinged shit from time to time. He's not immune to being a little shit alongside being a guy that has a heart for some people.

I'm generally a big fan of a "redeemed but still morally grey and can even still be a bit of an asshole" approach for many of the Dream Friends that served villainous roles throughout the Kirby games.

I make it no secret that I'm easier on Susie than some other people are, but I also make sure that she's still clearly rough around the edges even despite redeeming her. I also do this for others such as Magolor, Marx and the Mage Sisters, and I don't make Taranza an exception when it comes to this. To be clear, I have him being nicer than the other characters that I just listed here, but even he still has his rough edges and I'm not one to defang him completely.

Triple Deluxe literally shows Taranza being an arrogant, smug little shit that even loved playing the villain. Now, I can see how Sectonia's death certainly damaged his ego and how he'd be somewhat softer than before, but what if he were to eventually regrow his ego over time after he's able to start moving on? I dunno, I just feel like letting him continue to have silliness in him.

People are free to headcanon what they want in Kirby, as it's an open franchise. And I won't lie, I've seen great Taranza content with him just being a total nice guy. But I'm also... not a fan of how overly babied he's been, and comparing how he's been treated vs. how a certain other character has been treated shows some rather blatant double standards.

Taranza and Susie both deserve better than how the Kirby fandom has treated them at large. I've talked about the disproportionate Susie discourse before, but in my opinion the over-woobification of Taranza has been just as frustrating.

Both characters have been done really dirty in different ways.

[liskantope]

I think a pretty simple explanation for why some people like to treat "straight white male" as a packaged-together epithet in discourse, which hasn't quite been directly suggested in the recent discussion on this blog, is that even if only one of those categories is relevant to a particular discussion at hand, belonging to the rest of those categories is perceived as a sign that you don't know in general what it's like to be in an oppressed category and therefore are more likely to be ignorant about people on the other side of the one particular relevant axis.

Or, in other words, straight white (cis) males are thought to be unique a sort of primary, fundamental way, as the people who never have to think about oppression.

Which I find a really offensive notion, for multiple reasons, among them that (1) maybe there are axes of oppression that our discursive culture so far hasn't added to the List of Relevant Axes such as neurotype which do affect some of the straight while males that you know (such as myself); and (2) being straight, white, and male doesn't somehow lock you in a bubble of Straight White Maleness where you don't care about or share concerns with gay people or people of color or women, especially if you're in very liberal spaces like academia. (As recently as ten years ago, a cis person could certainly live without being so much as aware of trans people or their issues, and maybe in some geographic/social regions a white person may live mostly outside of the company of black or brown or Latine people, but...) I would point out that men generally don't live lives disconnected from women and women's concerns, and in fact that is especially true of straight men and female reproductive rights concerns.

This all reminds me of one of the distinguishing features in my memory of 2011--2014-era online SJ rhetoric (contrasting with the writing styles from later in the decade, let alone today), where "straight", "white", and "male" were jammed together as much as possible -- usually artfully as "cishet white dude" -- so as to create a fairly narrow category implicitly labeled The Enemy, with constant references to those of us in that category growing up getting EVERYTHING handed to us on a SILVER PLATTER.

And I remember finding it obnoxious but overall not taking it as badly as I would today, I think because during 2011--2014 my life was actually going quite well and I was overall a happy person: I was enjoying a lot of nice things I haven't been able to since, while the things I didn't have (like money, or freedom from roommates, or my advanced degree or assurance that I could really do math research on my own) all felt a bit too much to ask for in my mid-20's but assured of coming to me in the near-ish future (which mostly they did). The major exception was my (self-perceived) inability to get a dating life or a partner, which is why I coped quite badly with the anti- Nice Guy arm of early-2010's online SJ-ism.

Whereas today, during a chapter of my life when I feel far more dissatisfied and exhausted and hopeless about everything (better money and nicer living conditions nonwithstanding) including the partner thing, I react a lot worse than I used to when I see some vestige or even vague reminder of the "cishet white dudes get everything on a silver platter" concept show its head.

(Especially as some growing part of me suspects that -- not in every way, but in some crucial ways that apply to me individually -- I might very possibly be better off if I were less straight, or less white, or a (cis) woman. There, I said it.)

[utilitycaster]

Hey! Because I have seen various, various, various takes on Ashton’s actions in ep77– both on twitter (whew) and on here— and I am loving all of the different perspectives on it, I was wondering what your opinion was on the take that Ashton may have manipulated Fearne in the conversation they both had right before absorbing the shard.

Personally, I feel like it may be a bit more complicated than that, but I still don’t know.

Hey!

I think this post I made sums it up. It's not. Ashton tells Fearne precisely what they intend to do. He then does it. Fearne has the opportunity to refuse this request, or to tell the rest of Bells Hells, and she chooses not to. Yes, he compliments her and tells her that he trusts her to do the right thing when most wouldn't. Laudna asks Imogen to kill her if Delilah takes over in virtually the same exact language earlier than episode, and I don't think that's manipulative either:

Laudna to Imogen: And if anything happens and I become her little puppet, I trust you to make the right choice. (Implication this is a request for a mercy killing in the context of Delilah and Laudna's lives being inseparable; is understood as such by Imogen as demonstrated from her response and her later scene in the temple)

Ashton to Fearne: Things are going to happen, and I trust you to help me make the right decision, and I hope you trust me to help make the right decision.

The fact one is being brought up and not the other really points out that the Twitter talks out their collective ass ten times more often than they do their collective mouth; and the fact that they cannot distinguish "put Fearne in a somewhat uncomfortable position" from manipulation really points out that touching grass is not enough; they need to develop meaningful relationships with a wide variety of people in the real world.

Going along with a friend's stupid-ass decision that they encouraged you to join in and immediately regretting it is not, in fact, manipulation; it's your friend at most being kind of a dick and you exercising your agency to make your own stupid-ass decisions. It would have been wiser and nicer of Ashton to ask the party who wanted to take the shard, sure, but Fearne actively agrees with them that they should get it, and Ashton is not really defined by wisdom and being nice, and also, the above would be way more boring.

I don't want to go into this because it's a massive out-of-scope rant not limited to this particular situation, and I'd like to drag my sleep schedule back into a reasonable place tonight, but I think a lot of the more rancid discourse, whatever it may be but especially about interpersonal relationships between characters, arises for the following reasons, and I have little patience for any of them.

Thinking the only way to be a Good Person is to use 2023-approved therapy speak (and, frankly, frequently 2023 Rando on Tiktok claiming expertise who is actually a freshman psych students with no friends and a D average approved "therapy speak")

Relatedly, an all-consuming fear of any conflict, fictional, real, or otherwise, and the accompanying lack of any conflict resolution skills; this is also why they think this is manipulative, because if Fearne said no, that would be Conflict which is bad so positioning someone where conflict might be required for them to express themselves must be evil.

The genuine belief that you can only understand someone if you get everything right on the first try; either you read their mind perfectly or you have failed and are probably a manipulator or abuser for potentially leading to misunderstandings which lead to conflict which, as we see from the above point, is evil.

A refusal to admit that sometimes people are merely 1. assholes or 2. stupid. I frequently talk about opinions I cannot stand, and I almost as frequently get questions about how this opinion is problematic, and the vast majority of the time? It's not. I think it says something quite worrying, actually, that people are more comfortable and even eager to assume that a stranger is hateful or bigoted rather than merely inconsiderate or not that bright. Ashton made a poorly informed decision and made Fearne party to it. It was dumb and it wasn't really nice. That's literally it.

Anyway here's the five geek social fallacies; I recommend reading any Twitter Take(TM) and deciding how many of them they are applying to the narrative, cast, and fandom. See if you can get a full house.

(also upon re-reading this I'm pretty brusque and I promise it's not directed at you; I just genuinely think that the majority of the Twitter fandom, and certainly the loudest voices thereof, are so stupid a Detect Thoughts spell on them would fail on the basis of intelligence alone and the fact that their takes gain traction baffles and infuriates me)

[irrevocablecondition]

How do you get the confidence to post yaps about issues in fandom or slightly controversial stuff?? Like I just wrote a whole yap in my drafts about public hate and fanfics and all that shit. And im scared to post it like what if people hate me 😖 what if I didn’t go back and specify a certain thing enough times and people who should go back to school come at me 😖😖

I post about silly gays this is not my forte

PFFT hi hello noone would ever use confident to describe me. like, ever. the app stays open for like two hours straight after a yap so i can see what is said 😭 (and i don't even think they're up atm because i got embarrassed of my own voice lolll)

so if confidence is what you need,,, hi. not me. BUTTT i do yap and say controversial things and i think the main thing is being nice about it? which sounds like common sense but,,, well. ahem so like ending a yap video asking for what other people think instead of just yapping away about my opinion. that tends to make them nicer. but also my comment sections are a facade and i have restricted so many words. you get put in purgatory if you say the word "hate" for example, and i have to manually approve it LMAO. so if they're not constructive disagreements and just hate for the sake of hate, you don't see it :D

also things will alwayssss get warped and you have no control so this isn't v encouraging at all actually! but that's just fandom really. "i like pancakes" "oh so you hate waffles? that's wafflephobic" ahhhh energy. which is why my yaps (spoken or typed) tends to be SO long because i have to expand on everything. if you've specified something and people continue to say you're wrong, it's either a matter of hearing them out or accepting that they aren't listening, and then you move along.

i think really it's just,,, i like yapping. twas never meant to get any traction, i just yapped away at my phone because i wanted to and now it's just a matter of monitoring my space so that i can keep doing that. people are always going to disagree but as long as you're nice about it, they don't have anything over you besides viewing a character differently and then it's like. it's wizards LOL it's never that deep. but i think most of the time it leads to really interesting conversations in comments and that's FUN!

so in conclusion,,,, no confidence whatsoever, but rather just that i enjoy it and when it's something like the reboot or fem sirius discourse? i know that i'm right 😭 so that gives a bit of confidence because if anyone disagrees, i know they're simply just not a person i want around me

bottom line is that it just ebbs and flows, and there is nearly always going to people that dislike whatever you say, but if it's important to you and you enjoy saying it? then it gets easier over time - it's your space! you can do whatever you want! (as long as it doesnt harm others ofc but i don't doubt that with you)

[madzilla84]

Emerging from spoiler cave

This was gonna mainly be about Veilguard lol but then I realised I wanted to talk about something else first.

I’m back - sort of, not really - after going into Dragon Age spoiler-avoiding self-imposed social media exile, and honestly it (leaving social media) has been … GREAT. I’ve been so deeply addicted for so long that I thought it would be much harder than it was… I was almost dreading coming back after finishing Veilguard, before I realised I - don’t really have to, at least not to the same extent I was before. (Hit Da Bricks, etc) 

My screen time numbers, especially for social media, were truly horrifying lmao - and if I’d been having a good time for all of those hours, talking to friends, posting stuff, seeing art or meta or fun/interesting stuff, then fine. But I wasn’t, the vast *vast* majority of the time was mindless scrolling on twitter and it was just making me feel anxious and miserable. The first day after I left it felt like coming out of a trance.

I don’t think I’ll ever leave 100% because I have friends on the various platforms I want to keep up with, and I do want to keep up with fandom stuff in *some* way, but I don’t think I want to go back to the way things were before. I also know it’s very easy to fall right back into it due to my all-or-nothing personality so I need to be careful not to do that now I’m out of Spoiler Jail.

I finished Veilguard last night, so today I sort of peeked around the door to see what was happening and honestly it is SO rancid everywhere. I don’t know where I can find the *good* stuff yet; I’ve only been on Bluesky properly for a very brief time and I haven’t been on here for weeks, but I think those two are my best shot (thinking of things like fan art, good meta, etc). I don’t want to be all Toxic Positivity about it but I am simply not interested in the Takes, the hate, the constant *constant* criticism. Talk to the wall.

I left DA fandom once before (2016? 2017? something like that) because of all the discourse and the terrible vibes so it’s not *entirely* surprising, but I do hope I can find some folks who actually *liked* the game and want to talk about it in good faith. 

It’s weird to leave, or mostly leave - especially twitter, which I’ve been on for 17 years - but everything has changed and not for the better, and sometimes you have to prioritise your own fucking sanity. I do feel like tumblr will be a nicer place to hang out from now on so I might post more of my stuff here like I used to; I’m still feeling out Bluesky, so far it’s fine but it’s - kinda just quieter twitter 2.0 a bit, you know?

It was very excellent to come back to Phan vs. Jedus, though. Never change, tumblr.

[sburbian-mechanics]

SBURB Info: Part 1.75, Froggernet Groups Part 2

I'm back!!!!! Here are more of everyone's beloved and beloathed froggernet juggernauts. If you're looking for an interesting site, or maybe some Great Game Theory, this place is full of groups and factions to pledge your allegiance to. I guess nothing really is new in Paradox Space! Previous Part Found Here

Redgear.net: A…interesting site that was originally created to provide strifing techniques and strategic combat discussion to the general masses. Along the way, it became a hotbed for Berserkers and Entitled Assholes who somehow manage to Not Die despite going against every point the game ever made. It’s annoying as hell to navigate, and has perhaps too much anonymity, but unfortunately, it tends to be the only place where a lot of the more obscure or mechanic-based SBURB info is found. Alas, I unfortunately have an account here, and I regret it every day.

Classpect.com: Yeah, this is exactly what it sounds like. A website all about disscusion and anyalsis of everyone's favorite mythological roles. What can I say? People love classpects. Honestly, it's been kinda interesting to see the different factions and philosophies growing here- it's kinda like all the old philosophy schools I used to read about as a kid. They're petty too! Just as the ancestors would have wanted. Go Platonic Aspect Theory! Fly in the face of those dirty Deterministic Truthers! Ah. Discourse. The thing that unites us all.

Wayfarers of the Outer Ring: So you know how traveling Paradox Space is super dangerous? Well, it's also super fun, at least to these guys. Full of wandering souls, adventurers, and those looking for a priceless artifact, Paradox Space may be virtually unnavigable but it's technically possible, so here comes the adrenaline junkies! Although I may be making fun of this group a bit, they're no joke. I wasn't kidding about the priceless artifacts- Paradox Space is full of slowly decaying sessions and odd remnants from both the past and future. There are great and terrible powers banished here, hopefully lost to the void. But these guys? They'll risk life and limb to find that treasure, perhaps to change the multiverse forever. Who knows what they'll find, or how they'll use it? Who knows what is drifting in a space beyond time itself? It keeps me up at night. Sometimes.

HorrorTerrorTeaParty: You know those eldritch monsters that whisper to you in the depths of Derse? Turns out, they're really not that bad. As one of the only sites with built-in mortal mind protection, this funny little corner of the 'Net is all about hanging out with the embodiment of the end times and maybe playing Minecraft with them. It's really chill here, and honestly super fascinating to interact with the Horrorterrors in a nicer environment. They are really not all That Different from the rest of us sapients, if you ignore the whole infinite knowledge thing. This place also serves as a great place for Horrorterror and Infohazard Advocacy Groups, and a lot of helpful info on Grimdark. However, it's mostly just a protected chat client that prevents involuntary psionics from affecting other's minds. I still highly recommend though! Especially if you have some curse placed on your communication through speech or text. This can be a sneaky workaround! All the better to beat the game with.

Sapiformers: Upon getting your own planet, most people just remake their own species. This is pretty obvious, given that most people would not like to be an endling of an extinct culture and species. Additionally, making a new culture and species is really, really hard. Extensively complicated. Challenging, even. Oh. Oh NO. That's right! If you've ever wanted to play Spore (human thing) irl, here's the group for you! Extremely opinionated and picky people, (who hate being associated with Frogseeders more than actual Frogspawners,) these guys make spreadsheets on planet planning and tier lists on which biological features contribute to the most or least harmony. Frog, they can be control freaks at times, but some of them are actually really cool. I mean, if you're a god, might as well create something wonderful, right? Just please remember that they are sapient people with agency, even if you made them. Forgetting that is a dark, dark path to becoming a Frogseeder, dictator, and then a Just corpse.

Refractals: Lore. We all love it. Or at least, most of us do. However, SBURB has a complex time-crossed swan pond of lore, which is never consistent or explains its own existence. Just why is the Green Sun there? What are the constant traits of the Carapacians culture? What does that say about them? The game? For the love of Frog, Who Made The GAME?? Yeah. When you have questions about what it all means, it's the Refractals who search for the answers. Fevorous about cataloging every connection or hint, they are the ones with the red-stringed corkboard of Game Theories. Shame they don't actually care about the mechanics of the Game, just why they are there or what it means. Means to who? Them, I guess. But they'll claim it's about finding the meaning of the universe or whatever. Trying to find a peg to every hole reeks of a fool's errand to me, and although some of it is interesting, most of their "theories" are just rampant speculation. I don't think we'll ever really know all the mysteries of Paradox Space. But I guess I can't blame them for trying.

----------<I>----------

How am I still not done??? This post has been long enough. Part 3 coming soon I guess. There are way too many groups on Froggernet!!

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 playthrough - CAZADOR

Spoilers and my thoughts on spawn vs ascended Astarion below.

But let’s begin with a disclaimer, because everyone is taking this discourse way too seriously: these are MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS, I am talking about MY PREFERENCES AND MY OBSERVATIONS. I think everyone should play the game however they like and leave everyone else alone. YES, EVEN IF they are doing things you don’t agree with.

My poor little computer continues to chug its way through the city, but I’ve been getting a bit bored with the little random arbitrary quests of act 3 and I wanted to do something fun this weekend, so I decided to go to Cazador’s palace.

It definitely does feel like there was initially a plan to have more content in there that they weren’t able to get around to finishing… stuff like the unresolved threads with Amanita Szarr, stuff like the bizarrely empty basement, stuff like the aftermath of the big party, Victoria’s body (which I understand you used to be able to talk to, which was since cut out since her lines contradicted the plot in other spots?) sure, unfinished, but I’m really not THATbothered by it. I dunno. I’m still enjoying the game a lot. I can feel how much work and care went into it, I understand how long it was in development for and what a risk they took with it and how they almost went bankrupt trying to get it finished. In a perfect world I wish they could have had all the time and money that they needed to make act 3 as slick and organized as act 1, sure, but am I still enjoying myself? Am I still emotionally invested? Do I appreciate the work they did? Yes yes and yes. I’m not bothered.

Ok thoughts. The lore here is only fragments so you really have to flesh it out in your mind. It’s interesting how long Cazador managed to survive compared to his ancestors. I think it can be assumed that this is because Cazador was much more reluctant to make other vampires than his predecessors. We get only a tiny glimpse into what Vellioth was like, and I think it’s very interesting to think about how the game shows us that Astarion was punished with a year of being locked away, while Cazador was punished with eleven years of impalement. I’m sure in Cazador’s mind he is a more benevolent master, and his ungrateful spawn don’t understand how good they have it. It’s like an abusive parent who doesn’t understand why you complain so much, because when they were a kid they got the strap, look at how much nicer they are to you, you’re just being ungrateful! Cazador is really strikingly unimpressive for all the buildup he got, and I can’t decide if that’s funny, or a lost opportunity. Ever since I since I started playing, I wished there was an element of cycles of kindness and apology mixed in with Cazador’s abuse, because in real life that’s such an important part, these moments of calm where you think things might get better and things could work and you want to believe the bullshit that they’re saying. There’s none of that at all with Cazador, but maybe it just would just make the narrative more complicated, and also more disturbing, so that’s ok if it’s not there, it’s just a thought.

The fight was a lot easier than I was expecting and I found that a little disappointing. I skipped ahead one night just to see what the fight at the House of Grief was like and I was really challenged by that… Cazador is a whiny little asshole, comparatively. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more of a challenge. And yes I know I can bump the difficulty level any time I want, but I haven’t had to do that for any other fight. I’m just saying, I think the fight could stand to be a little trickier.

So here’s Astarion’s big choice - similar to Wyll, and different from Shadowheart and Lae’zel, you can’t just leave him to decide by himself and see what he picks to do. You must decide either to help him, or you must decide to talk him out of it.

I did the spawn choice first, because this is what my Tav would do. Wow, beautiful scene, so emotionally satisfying and cathartic. I really like that there was no attempt to be like, well, you can’t kill Cazador because then you’d be just as bad as him… no, even with the spawn route you are able to at least get that piece of revenge. I like it. I chose to release the 7000 spawn. It’s supposed to be a difficult choice, and for sure it is, but for me there really isn’t any other option in the end. After learning it isn’t 7 souls on the line but 7 fucking thousand, Astarion stubbornly tries to justify his commitment to going through with the ritual by saying these spawn are so far gone they’re better off dead now, but I disagree. That’s not at all the impression I get talking to Sebastian and talking to the Gur girl. I think that’s him feeling uncomfortable with suddenly being shown the consequences of 200 years of collecting victims. 100%. Sebastian has been there almost since the beginning and he is coherent and can express that he doesn’t want to die. It’s heartbreaking. I can’t condemn 7000 people to death because they MIGHT hurt people later. Look, I know, 7000 spawn loose in the underdark, they are going to hurt people. I’m not naive. But the last time I checked, even in places where capital punishment is a thing, you’re not actually allowed to execute someone preemptively because you think they MIGHT do something wrong EVENTUALLY - you have to actually wait until they do something wrong! It’s not a good situation, for sure. I can totally understand why other people in the world would be angry at me for it. I can totally understand why the Gur are angry at me for it. Totally get it! But like. The bottom line is, I can’t decide to destroy 7000 sentient people.

(I’m ok with the Gur being angry, but I DID really appreciate that at the very very least, Gandrel is talking about wanting to go and find their missing children. Yes thank you, at least one single person who wants to at least TRY and see if something can be done)

Everything after this is just so breathtakingly lovely: Astarion’s confusion about feeling numb afterwards, which ties nicely back into Aylin’s feelings after she cracked Loroakan in half, and the beautiful act 3 romance. Man. Like. It all really got me thinking about just how much Astarion has changed since act 1, how he’s being so honest here, so vulnerable, so sweet. His act 3 romance is all about moving forward and becoming free and why it isn’t easy. I’m so proud of him. Man. Man.

After this, his conversation dialogue changes yet again, and a dark urge has the option to try and break up with him because you’re afraid you might hurt him, which prompts him to give this amazingly sweet and supportive dialogue, man. Just. Babe is so sweet with a dark urge tav, I can’t stand it.

So some people have said they wish Larian had added in an option to hug Astarion while he’s wailing after killing Cazador - adding my disagreement here. This moment is all about Astarion. He’s letting out 200 years worth of grief and anger and pain, this is his moment, it feels really odd to me to insert myself into that, leave him alone with it. He wants to let it out, not have a hug. There is plenty of time for comfort later, there are two conversations about it post-fight, even.

Some people have also expressed discomfort with how Astarion uses the line “I could be persuaded” (to have sex). Personally I do not have an issue with this line the way it’s used here. I think his word choice is meant to be funny and to deflect the seriousness and significance of this milestone he’s suggesting, because he’s still working on this whole vulnerability and honesty thing, and I think people are getting too hung up on the literal wording and missing the contextual cues. I think Astarion’s intentions for the night were clear in his mind from the beginning. I think his entire plan for the evening was to have this chat with Tav and try sexual intimacy again. If you tell him you’re not in the mood, he acts surprised. If you go along with it, he is very much in control and setting the pace. “I could be persuaded,” he says, as if he wasn’t the one who asked Tav to meet him there, as if he hasn’t just turned to them expectantly and taken their hands like he wants to talk about something very important, as if telling him you don’t know what he means causes him to clarify that he wants to be sexually intimate, as if he doesn’t express surprise if you say you don’t want to. He doesn’t need persuading, this is the whole reason he’s set up the little graveyard date. I think……. I think people place too much emphasis on literal words. In real life things are rarely so neat and efficient. That’s totally valid if some people are bothered by the line, but I do think it was NOT the intention to suggest Astarion HAS to be persuaded. This is just how Astarion likes to talk.

While talking to the imprisoned spawn, a certain path of dialogue leads to Astarion having a bit of a revelation about how up till now he’s always clung to the reassurance that he’s not responsible for any of this because he was enslaved by Cazador. “Yes this was horrible what happened, but it’s got nothing to do with me, I couldn’t help it. While we’re here we might as well make the best of a bad situation, right?” But now he realizes… it’s very true that back then he didn’t have a choice, and I don’t begrudge him that at all, not for a second… but now he does have a choice. And he needs to think very very carefully about what he is going to CHOOSE to do. I’m so happy he realized that. He’s always clung so stubbornly to this rationale as we learn worse and worse things about the ritual, and I think this is the first little light shining through the crack that he needs to challenge himself.

After that was all done, I decided to try letting him ascend.

I knew what happens, I knew how things change, I’d seen clips of the alternate romance so it’s not like I didn’t know what was coming. Somehow though I was still surprised, much more than I thought I would be.

Cause ouch, it hurt. It hurt WAY more than I was expecting.

And hey kudos to Neil, A+ acting, this is why he’s winning all the awards: man, ascendant Astarion is a totally different character. Immediately, and completely. He immediately begins speaking to me differently. He SOUNDS different. He talks different. As soon as I heard him laugh for the first time I knew that I would never be able to do this in a normal run.

Ascended Astarion is very sexy. He’s very much now the hot bad-boy vampire, the bad guy from the movie that everyone writes fics about. He’s now very much the sexy bastard with the delicate little love interest sitting demurely on his lap while he rules a kingdom with an iron first type thing. I’m all for that, normally. If this was the Astarion we met in act 1, I’d probably still love it.

The problem for me is that IT’S NOT the Astarion we met in act 1, and that HURT MY FUCKING HEART.

The Astarion I have traveled with for two and a half acts is a bit of a bastard, yes, but he’s also silly, and cranky, and insecure. He’s been struggling with allowing himself to be vulnerable around me, and as he’s gotten more willing to drop his guard, this really beautiful personality has been emerging. He has a capacity for empathy that Cazador couldn’t even torture out of him after 200 years. The BEAUTIFUL things he’s said to my durge! The BEAUTIFUL thoughts he has in the spawn romance scene!

That is GONE. It’s dead. As soon as I heard him laugh for the first time, I knew how much of a mistake this would be. My precious, mean, beautiful, sharp, silly, sad Star was gone. Ascended Astarion will never be honest or vulnerable ever again.

I was shocked, very shocked, how quickly and completely Astarion changes with his dialogue and how much of a bad taste in my mouth it left. He sound different but he is also very much above everything happening, very much above me. After we left the palace and I had the chance to have a conversation with him, at first I tried to roleplay the conversation naturally, and I responded to him in a less than enthusiastic way, the “wrong” way, and he fucking shouted at me, and it just. It made me sick, absolutely sick. It reminded me of accidentally saying the wrong thing to my abusive ex husband and suddenly I’ve triggered a fight and I’m scrambling to say all the right things to placate him. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it SO much more than I was expecting.

The ascended romance has some of the same beats as the spawn romance and I think it’s obvious that’s on purpose. Again, it’s a contrast that hurts my heart. Rather than taking the lead because he is exploring his desire, allowing himself to HAVE desire, here he is taking control because he’s enjoying the feeling of having you underneath him. Rather than being honest and vulnerable and sharing this last piece of his history with you and pondering the trajectory of his life and his future, he’s talking to you in this syrupy voice and putting on a grander performance than ANYTHING he ever did in act 1 and there’s nothing behind it except possession and control. HURT! MY! HEART!

Astarion is strong and powerful now, and no one will ever hurt him again, that’s for sure, but here’s the thing: being alive means being hurt sometimes. You can’t make yourself strong by stepping on the backs of people the same way you were once stepped on, and you can’t prevent your heart from being broken by just burning out your heart. That’s not freedom and that’s not happiness. Without honesty and vulnerability, there can be no love, and it makes the act 3 romance feel depressingly hollow.

My resisting durge tav’s entire story has been about how he’s trying to resist his dark urges, resist his biology, and be a new, different person, and Astarion has been helping him. Similarly, my tav has been trying to help Astarion to do the same. The only reason my tav would ever NOT stop Astarion from ascending is if he tried and failed to convince him, and he now has to watch sadly as his love makes this terrible choice and lets his fear win.

So yeah. That’s my thoughts on that. I’m usually 100% all for the bad guys, I love the bastards. If that was the bastard we started with, I’d probably love it. But I fell in love with a different bastard who is already beautiful exactly the way he is, and who is basically totally destroyed if you go down that route. It hurts me to see him change like that. I do really enjoy that the game gives you both options, so you can play how you want to play, and so you can explore and see what happens down each path. I love how people have different reactions, I get how some people find a kind of catharsis or satisfaction in putting Astarion down that darker route. For me it’s a hard pass, hard pass, a much harder pass than I was expecting. Kudos to Neil and kudos to the writers for developing everything so beautifully.

Phew.

I still can’t get over how silly and sweet Astarion is being in the dialogues with me now though. I think as they explore more sexual intimacy, my tav would tease Astarion a lot about how it must feel to be a little vampire spawn who has bhaal’s own son at his complete and utter mercy and I think Astarion would get off on that, haha. Up next I guess I’m going to head over to the Elfsong and do the Emperor’s bullshit errands. Man this is such a good game. I’m so glad it’s being so recognized with awards, but I also hope it’s been selling a lot?

[thirdeyeblue]

Don’t mean to be intrusive but why do you engage with tenrose and rose haters?? All these tenm/rtha fans that you’ve been reblogging slander Ten, Rose and their relationship. And they pretend to support 9/Rose to not look so bad, but it’s sheer hypocrisy, they are straight up Rose antis in disguise and you can tell that because they always say they love “s1 Rose specifically” (which usually it’s said by people who hate Rose but don’t want to look bad, so they come up with that ‘I used to love Rose in s1 but she became so selfish, annoying and awful in s2’), then they call tenrose ‘shallow’ and ‘forced’, ‘downgrade from Nine/Rose’, ‘irritating’ etc. It’s also not rare to see them mocking Tentoo by calling him “a clone”, and dishing TentooRose. Don’t mind you liking the ship, but its fanbase don’t deserve our attention.

First of all, I apologize for the lengthy thought vomit in advance — I just woke up!

To be 100% honest with you, I’m such a casual Tumblr user that I’m a bit of a sweet summer child, here. 98% of my fandom engagement happens on Discord. 😅 I have occasional days that I might scroll for 15-20 minutes, but it’s usually more like a few minutes, if at all. This website stresses me out, makes me insecure, etc.

My point is: I don’t actually know any of the assorted tumblr beefs floating around, and I don’t really care. I try to avoid “anti discourse” like the plague if I do (see above: stresses me out)— So if I’ve been reblogging haters, it’s gone right over my head, because I just don’t think about it. It’s one of those “if I don’t see it, then whatever” things. I’d rather just be kind to everyone unless I’m given a reason not to (e.g. someone being a piece of shit to one of my friends)(which I probably wouldn’t have seen anyway).

Also… I’m not the most prolific person or anything. I don’t have a lot of followers, I came to game late, etc, so I didn’t necessarily think anyone cared one way or another what I was posting? For real, I feel a bit invisible on Tumblr most of the time 😂 I didn’t realize anyone would look twice at me reblogging something from an apparent “hater” when they can obviously look at my page and figure out what I’m really about. I’ve got a petition to bring back Tentoo, FFS, obviously I don’t deliberately subscribe to any anti-TenRose nonsense.

I’ve been told by a friend (one who is far more enmeshed in Tumblr than I am) that most T/M shippers hate Rose. So inherently, yes, I’m aware of that much — and realize that if I get one of the “based on your likes!” posts from someone who is clearly out there shipping that pairing specifically, they probably don’t care for my actual OTP… But if I’m reblogging something by one of these people with these blissful blinders on, I’d much rather look at it like “perhaps they’ll realize not all T/R girls are bad, and they’ll be nicer to them” as opposed to “I’m engaging with haters”.

Anyway — apologies if I upset you by supporting these people who’ve bummed you to anyone else out 💖 That wasn’t my intention, all I ever wanna do is spread love.

PS: The whole T/M subject is already a hairy one for me, because I didn’t even ship them at all (and I mean at all) until I was well into writing a fic about them. It just sort of happened organically/accidentally, and then I was like “Shit.” That being said, if you see my posts, you can probably tell that I’m extremely selective about what T/M stuff I do share here. I try not to reblog anything too shippy of them, because I do know my audience, even if it’s not a huge audience. My focus was always more “don’t reblog super romantic shit”, not “don’t reblog that user specifically”. If that makes sense. 😅

[periwinklecosma]

wait what's up with kintsugi. i wanted to read that is there untagged shit in there too

warning for mentions of racism and weird shit regarding minors

nah afaik kintsugi was fine - i never got to read the last couple of chapters but i don't remember there being anything that made me uncomfortable. i'm more so referring to chibi's actions outside of her fics.

overall she's one of those "don't like, don't read, just block, and if you call anything out then you're being immature and condoning harassment" types. like essie, she's deactivated everywhere from twitter to tumblr to a03 (so you can't read kintsugi now even if you wanted to lmao), but the other day on tumblr, she was hopping onto posts pointing out essie's racism and weird shit wrt to minors to defend her. i had already known they were good friends so it personally wasn't too surprising to see her do that but it was still one of those "lmao ok now i know you suck too" moments.

i wouldn't be singling her out along with essie if that was all there was to it though. since the whole blowout yesterday, i've seen people talk about her own questionable behaviors, such as following minors despite claiming her account was 18+, defending people from rightful criticisms regarding racism and drawing 18+ content in front of minors, and inserting her opinions on discourse topics that she had no say in. and while i don't have a link for this, i've also heard that she had no qualms rting from r*imob artists as long as the art was good despite having it in her bio that these people shouldn't interact with her; this isn't me accusing her of being pr*ship in secret, i believe her claims that she's uncomfortable with that shit, but she definitely was very "it's okay if you ship this, it's just not for me!!" about it.

i'm not particularly interested in comparing her against essie and determining if she's "just as bad" but in some ways they were definitely um… birds of a feather? this is a bit of an afterthought admittedly but supposedly she also had a habit of throwing tantrums when faced with criticism, even if she came across as a generally nicer person.

and believe me i liked kintsugi when i first discovered it, perhaps even loved it. if you asked me a few months ago what my fic recs were for the fandom i probably would have included it. BUT i also have a very limited amount of patience for 30+-year-old white woman bullshit and she's run out. i've said that i won't hold it against those who simply didn't know or were too scared to say anything, but announcing that you're going on an indefinite hiatus from fandom activities before quietly deactivating and running away is not it. because all that tells me is that chibi isn't sorry at all.

[cr2032powered]

Speaking of the profs scrunglies: i feel in an au were the profs and the villains switch places... Retired Prof Ghetsis harmonia w current professor Natural Harmonia and good friend Dr. Colress vs Team Plasma Sage Cedric, current queen/leader/ruler/IDK A and dubious scientist Fennel

ANON!!!!! I'm screaming because not only (assuming ur the same as last time if not sorry lol) have you been talking to me about profs but for this one especifically I want you to know I have actually thought of that au concept before!!! How are you reading my mind? Haha tbf villain prof swap aus aren't a new unique thing invented by me lol, I've seen it before! But so far mostly with Kukui and Guzma (back in the sumo days... seems it slowed down :( ) and one or two about Rowan and Sycamore. (curiously, while with the Alolan ones I saw prof Guzma, I haven't seen professor Cyrus and Lysandre I think?)..

I think the other profs (and villains too but I'm more into the professors..) deserve a swap au spotlight too... *slams fist in table* where is swap au villain Birch that wants to... idk, build a perfect utopia in the sky by invoking Rayquaza while he dresses in a very fashionable uhh pilot-inspired green suit?

But I digress:

First, I'll go over your idea: while we have the same swap concept we have some differences and that's exciting! I hadn't thought of professor Ghetsis being retired but I like the idea. N being the current professor is so good.. Isn't he like on his 20s? He'd make for a young, prodigy professor... While not bearing such a heavy weight on his shoulders as normal "soon to be king, no big deal" N Harmonia Gropius you could draw some parallels about him spearheading a new generation of professors and taking it super seriously...

Hadn't thought of Cedric especifically as a sage but I really like that concept, while I was sure he'd be related to Plasma I hadn't delved much into it.

Colress, I had thought the same! I guess he'd be in charge of the c-gear/dream world then?

You read me right with Plasma Boss/Queen(?) Aurea and "wanted in every region" scientist Fennel... That's the good shit!!! There are so many ways their characters could lend themselves to evil versions...sorry if I sound like the joker "bad day" discourse lol. Being fair, I'm still green with BW's story, learning about its world and progressing when I can, just now. (I didn't pay much mind to Unova back in its day...), so currently I'm not as versed on how would N, Ghetsis and (esp) Colress' characters work in these roles, but it'd be interesting to say the least! I think some traits of characters can be neutral, only being good or bad because the character acts like that.

Like say, Ghetsis would still be quite the ambitious fellow he is, but rather than world conquering it'd show with him having a big drive for his job. Perhaps he'd be more stern than Juniper, he seems more serious, but still charismatic, and concerned about the next generation carving their way, though more genuinely rather than kind of wanting them to be his mouthpieces.

I think N would still be adopted, a bit mysterious and more in home with pocket monsters than with people, however uhh he'd have an actually good dad here! (sigh.. poor normal N) we already see more of N acting nicer than Ghetsis so I imagine it'd carry over, albeit he might be a bit more open and free.

See, in my take on the au, Ghetsis is still the current professor, and his assistant and son, N, becomes your cool, older friend/rival. The aus (a bit divergent) "N figure" would be... Bianca! No, not because Juniper adopted her from the woods, but because she was a passionate, dissatisfied runaway teen in search of her identity (and a grudge w her dad) that decided to join Plasma, with nothing to lose, and she became one of Juniper's better soldiers. Idk it kinda reminds me of how Gladion joined Skull even though it def isn't the same lol?

Aurea, I imagine her looking pretty in a royal garb, perhaps a bit more knight/warrior queen inspired because I think she'd be a more active, less "in the shadows" figure than Ghetsis, maybe prefering to change people's ideologies by actions rather than campaigns idk.. This is indulgent. Maybe her hair is more elaborate or is free and resembles horns a bit like G's, food for thought.. She still has this archaeologist formation and maybe Cedric was the old plasma boss... And she has to be "better" AUGH. Maybe her aim is moreso dig into the legendary dragons origins/story to discover the truth and ideals.

See with aus like this, I wonder if some things'd stay the same or be changed, like... would Aurea's signature critter be Ghetsis powerful hydreigon or a wickedly strong cinccino? haha. Would Colress' dream world be less.. dream-themed and more, idk. virtual reality inspired or would he be your chill dream scientist?

FENNEL ! she already has enough canon material to imply a concern abt how herself or others see her ethics so I'm STOKED. I think she'd have a lot of potential as a villain.. dream yard smth smth. Tragic, even. Would she be involved with nightmares? Darkrai? Are she and Aurea still wives besties or work with eachother mostly for convenience?

10/10 au, anon

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 288, Replies Part 2

1) “Welp, sorry miss, but he’s dead. If not literally right now, he’ll be in a few minutes, there’s a fucking mountain about to meet him”- Well, if the husband was real, then Toga almost certainly had to stab him too before getting a sample of his wife’s blood, so his odds of surviving are slim to none.

2) “….

no… it can’t be Toga, right? I mean, Machia is still a bit far, there’s no way she would get here that quickly considering he’s moving around 100km/h

…right?”- Toga’s drive to answer her burning questions apparently gives her super-speed.

3) “Oh no wait there she is

and she seems to be a speedster

We found koichi’s cousin, and she’s about to fucking die.”- Or was dead all along. 4) “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK I FUCKING KNEW IT FUCKMOTHERFUCKING FUCK

HOW IN THE FUCK’S NAME DID YOU GOT HERE THAT FAST TOGA, EVEN IF YOU USED THE QUIRK FROM THAT WOMAN I DOUBT YOU COULD OUTRUN THE MOUNTAIN”- Toga’s disguise bursting when Urarak says she’ll save “Takeo” – who is basically a stand-in for herself and her own attraction to Izuku and Uraraka – all whilst blushing and naked because of her Quirk certainly caused some….interesting discourse on the internet when this chapter first came out. It almost looks like she couldn’t keep control of herself when she thought (in her own head) Uraraka was reciprocating her feelings. 5) “Nice face there Uraraka, unfortunately, remember that Toga is a ninja”- Were it not for the circumstances, Uraraka’s reactions almost feels like her dealing with a clingy girlfriend who keeps popping up in her life when she least expects her. It’s certainly a nicer way of looking at their situation than one traumatised girl desperately seeking support and affection from the only other person in her very small social circle she can think of to help her deal with the loss of a dear friend.

6) “Yeah see? She’s probably standing right by your side, but you can’t see her because she’s just that good at being stealthy.”- Toga prepped this battleground in advance before luring Uraraka into it. Tight confines to limit the extent she can get lifted about by Zero Gravity, dark rooms to help lower Uraraka’s visibility, and multiple connecting rooms to allow her to move into her blind spots quickly. In retrospect, she moved even faster than expected from Machia to find this place and set it up before reaching Uraraka.

7) “Which kinda describes how he’s looking 80-90% of the time. Honestly, that boy could look like he fought a bear and lost badly while coming out of the shower.”- The only fight that Izuku has walked away from where he didn’t look like he’d fought a combine harvester and lost was against Overhaul, and only because he was getting healed non-stop during it.

8) “Alright, it’s time for it. Time for her to put the cards on the table and know the truth, is she a monster to be killed, or is she a human to be saved”- Toga sadly needed more advice on how to actually frame her question, without it coming across as ambiguous flirting with the object of her interest. Another thing she might have had an easier time with if anybody had given her the help she needed.

9) “Oh thank god you had some clothes thrown around Toga, but still, that was quite the fast change you made, were you practicing this?”- Between this and the speed boost she’d have needed to set up this battlefield ahead of Machia, I choose to believe the power of Horny transforms Toga into the Flash. I mean sure she has other motivations, but you know that’s at least a contributing factor as well.

10) “Toga please can you be a bit more specific it really looks like you’re flirting with her rather than making a deep philosophical question about your own worth

I mean, you are kinda flirting with that knife and all, but please focus girl”- Toga is, for all her skills and abilities, still a young girl that was raised in an environment that didn’t put in enough effort into understanding her needs and perspective, instead expecting her to be the one to eventually understand if the lesson was drilled into her time and again. All this did was lead to her repressing her instincts until they exploded, and as a result, Toga is very bad at expressing herself when it comes to conversations like this. She’s good at showing her emotions and acting on them, but bad at explaining why this matters so much to her, especially since she doesn’t bring up Jin’s fate, still too damaged by processing his loss to realise that Uraraka wouldn’t assume that a hero would kill somebody in the line of duty, and thus that Toga’s asking her if she’s somebody who deserves to be saved or destroyed like a rabid animal. 11) “See Toga, that’s why you need to be more direct with your questions, Uraraka thinks you just did a really roundabout way of asking her out”- I couldn’t help but notice that Uraraka didn’t say no to the idea of another girl asking her out, just that it was neither the time or the place for it. 12) “Uraraka didn’t knew what was going on in Toga’s heart at the moment, she just stated a fact, she needs to stop her since she’s a villain endangering innocent people, but… Oh god this is not end well”- Uraraka is motivated to act by the loss of Nighteye, feeling that she failed to do something that could have saved his life, whereas Toga is motivated by Jin’s loss, feeling like her life is now in danger from the same heroes that deemed it necessary to kill him and wanting conformation from someone – anyone – that they see her as more than a monster to be put down. Neither fully expresses their innermost thoughts, so neither fully understands the other. 13) “I’m kinda hoping she’ll go back to the league, but at the same time I don’t know if she’s willing to do so. This is being quite the hellish day for her, and Dabi is there being an asshole, not helping at all- I don’t know if she won’t go her own way. If she’s a monster, what reason does she have to be with the rest of them? Because I know that Toga doesn’t see them as monsters, as villains, she sees them as people first.And, that is the one thing Uraraka implied by accident she isn’t.”- At the end of the day, the League is the only place where Toga can not only be herself without judgement, but feel safe and protected by her friends. And now those friends are all being taken away from her one by one, to her mind all of it resulting from the oppression of the same system that demonised her ever since she was a child. You can’t help but feel sorry for her, because in many ways, she’s just as much a victim of this war as Twice.

@thelreads

[sugawarassoulmate]

pls elaborate on bullysamu if you dont mind 👀

no pls let's have an open discourse on this 😩

words: 518

cw: fem!reader, bullying, name-calling, oral (f receiving), hair pulling, dubcon, coercion, minors dni

ugh it all started back when you were 4 or 5 when your mom picked you up from a playdate at the twins’ house. lil samu had spent the whole day tugging on your ponytail and you were whining to your mom that tsumu was your favorite twin and samu overheard :(

people have always liked his brother more than him and now you did too. i don’t think the poor baby knew he had a crush on you yet but now he’s being extra mean and possessive

ever wondered why you never had a boyfriend in high school? how could you get one when the big, scary wing spiker is always in your shadow, glaring at any boy dumb enough to talk to you. meanwhile he’ll tease you for not having a date on saturday night and make you spend the night at his house watching movies. “stop ya whinin” he’d grumble, forcing you into his lap.

he’d get annoyed every time he saw you in makeup wondering who you were getting pretty for. he’d have to lie and say you looked stupid to make you insecure and forget all about your plans for going out. but that’s okay because you can stay in with him right?

of course you went to all of his games!!! atsumu gave you his jersey to wear but at the last minute samu snatched it away and gave you his instead. not like his idiot brother would know the difference.

ohhh but he’d never do anything mean in front of tsumu. never would shove you around because you’d go running to your “favorite twin” in a heartbeat. some of the twins’ biggest fights in their childhood stemmed from samu making you cry.

but after tsumu went off to train for volleyball after high school ended, samu had you all to himself

he caught you crying the day tsumu left and pinned you to his brother’s bed. normally he’d mock you for crying but he was pissed. “i’m still here, whatcha still bitchin for?” he growled before kissing you. he was so sure you’d push him away but you never did.

and samu’s always been a bit selfish so he’d see how far he could go… kissing on your neck? your chest??? his lips are moving further and further down until he ends up eating you out on his brother’s bed for an hour

for so long samu’s had to share you and now you’re his—don’t expect him to get any nicer 🥴

he’s still shoulder checking you and slapping books out of your hands but now he’s holding your phone over your head (bc atsumu called and you really wanted to talk to him and now samu’s jealous upset) and the only way you can get it back is if you sit in his lap and let him finger you while you talk to tsumu. your dumb protector has no idea what’s happening to his childhood friend

calling you “baby” and “love” in between “whore” and “bitch”

oh and lord help anyone else who can bully you in front on samu

©sugawarassoulmate 2021 all rights reserved - please do not repost/translate my work on other platforms!

[toovirgins]

I stumbled across this comment on YouTube earlier—and at first I was like haha nice but then I actually thought about it and I think there’s a really interesting opportunity for mclennon conspiracy discourse here. (yay!)

Under a cut because it’s a bit lengthy.

Nowhere Boy (2009) with Aaron Taylor Johnson and Thomas Brody Sangster: In this film about early John and his path to the Beatles, there are (arguably) new, nuanced details about his familial life and childhood/background that haven’t typically been conveyed in prior film portrayals of Lennon—and this “new, nuanced” bit comes from reading reviews and hearing comments about how many people watching the film (what I would consider, like, a “general population” of Beatles fans) didn’t even know about the details of his mother’s death. In the film, there’s a scene where Paul’s playing Julia’s banjo, and long story short John gets in a fight with someone and tosses the banjo and storms out. Paul follows him out there and he punches Paul in the face, who goes crumbling to the concrete. So, that’s the “punching scene”. The point is, Paul McCartney reportedly made it very clear that that never happened (i.e., that John had never hit him) after he saw the film and was not happy about it. (I’ve heard this “not happy about [the film]” narrative over and over, but I can’t seem to find any great direct quotes from Paul, other than people saying that Paul wasn’t a fan and suggesting he wasn’t happy about certain other portrayals [lol]- so if anyone has any, I’d love to hear about it!). Essentially, in response, Taylor Johnson tried to defend the emotional validity of the film and suggested, like, well we think John probably wanted to hit Paul a lot of the time, and the movie is just activating an interpretation of that. But, yeah, the point was that Paul was pissed about the punch scene and was reportedly very adamant that John never, ever hit him. And it’s not as though Paul had issues with the violence of it, because if it was that, why would he discuss it as an inaccuracy? Is there a nicer way to punch someone in the face? And, that would be completely neglecting the 0.2 seconds later when John realizes what he’s done and pulls Paul into a tight hug, which forms a very beautiful street shot of one morphed being shortly thereafter (side note: creative decision meant to emphasize the oneness in their bond of losing their mothers? anyway).

Two of Us (2000) television drama with Jared Harris and Aidan Quinn: First off, I feel like it’s worth mentioning that this is directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg (who is also the director of Let it Be (1970), so... guy who spend hours upon hours with and watching the Beatles?). In this movie, there’s an elevator scene where John and Paul are messing around, cracking jokes and getting in a playfight and whatnot, and in the midst of it all John kisses him. After a couple of seconds, Paul pushes him off and doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, he just makes a joke (”Just ‘cause Yoko’s away doesn’t mean you have to stop brushing your teeth”) and they laugh it off. Contrary to Nowhere Boy, Paul rather liked Two of Us as remarked on by Aidan Quinn in an interview on April 18, 2004: “Just after I finished the film, I went on holiday and Paul McCartney was staying at the same place. I met him and we became quite friendly. Later, he saw the film and fortunately he liked it. It would have been terrible if he'd hated it.” It appears that Paul is very complimentary of Two of Us - hence, the joke in the fandom that like “paul likes the kissing scene”. Paul hasn’t said anything about the kiss directly that I can find (sus in and of itself), but there’s been reasonable arguments made for the validity of the scene in that all of the other portrayals of John and Paul in the film are so accurate and realistic and truthful (see: Martin Lewis quote)—why would this detail be any different?

We could analyze these films and creative decisions separately and in comparison for hours and hours, but I find the McCartney responses a particular area of interest. Because don’t we think if Paul was adamant about setting the narrative straight on things that did or didn’t happen between him and John, and if he wanted to continue to push his ever-insistent narrative of ‘John wasn’t gay bc if he was he would’ve made a pass at me (or someone else) in 20 years’, he would also want to make it very well-known that the kissing scene didn’t happen either? With the same level of insistence? Though the movies themselves aren’t reduced to these two polarized scenes, is it not worth considering why Paul chose to speak out about one, but not the other? If it was an issue of setting the record straight (no pun intended), would Paul not wish to exercise the same amount of caution with kissing scenes as with fighting scenes, especially given what we know about how he has typically viewed and discussed sexuality? 

Or, could it possibly be that the kissing scene—in its presentation of playfighting, spontaneity, a brief moment of confusion and realization, then laughed off and construed as a joke—isn’t an inaccuracy?