#except they do it without all the weird discourse lol

[greensaplinggrace]

sorry but the funniest little splashes in this fandom to me are still the people that are like "how can you ship _!!" okay well first of all, gladly. and second of all... do you not know how shipping works.

"how can you think this ship is morally acceptable?!" i don't. "how could anyone think this relationship is ok?!!" they don't. " how could shippers condone such actions-!" we don't. "how could anyone like something so terrible??" maybe go out in the real world. idk. or join a non tiktok braindead bookclub.

[iiapple]

do you hate knife as a character or what the fandom/his relationship with suitcase has turned into /genq

both

theres aspects to him i enjoy though usually its paired with another character's interactions with the general juvenile violence in season 1 - early season 2. knife and trophy's whole deal is so ridiculously stupid its laughable but in an enjoyable way where im kinda entertained. it can make for a lot of funny interactions that are just jabs at one another (and trophy getting the short end of the dick which is always funny). he and pickle are fun too even without the romancey shippinf component, they can be at a base just stupid gay bros that chill. while he was caught up in mic's business and did lend a hand in her arc, i do prefer how it is now where again, its just slight jabs and non melodramatic fun (add in soap to grill his ass, soapmic knickle video game sesh and soap is crushing everyone at it like hell)

however its the push of him needing to be this "philosophical deep guy who analyzes everyone correctly and its soooooo interesting how much hes changed" that really irks me. because i honestly dont buy it and just see a man who self pities under the guise of "learning and growing i help others now because ive changed". hes like balloon to me in that sense except hes able to keep it composed and together without becoming outwardly desperate. its honestly irritating how much of an involvement he has now and again, how much of a push there is to him being in the top 2 after "all his growth". i just dont give a fuck. why should i give a fuck about a man who burnt and harassed and bullied and tortured a woman in season 1 for fun, and had others try to join in on it too? and the GALL of him to even apologize to marshmallow for it too LOOOOOL... "ohhhh poor me im sorry marshmallow for hurting you before" pussy couldnt even state what he did to her, weak ass self fellating apology im SO glad marsh didnt accept it and was NOT kind about it in front of him. she shouldve start throwing rocks at him. all this "change and teaching" i will never forgive that man for what he did to women

not to mention, how practically of little to no help he was towards suitcase who, was dealing with bigger issues than he was as if hes fuckin get it. such bullshit advice and "lessons" hed tell her when its like dude, shut the hell up!!! youre saying the dumbest shit and still pinning it all against her somehow when shes been tossed around her supposed alliance because those 3 idiots couldnt get shit together for once. that AND her psychosis coming onto the foreground of it all of course shes not gonna talk about it further because you keep pushing in shit that she has no fault in, as if shedve trust you with that. its sweet that theyre working now against everything now but god lol, i just dont buy their newfound ammends and friendship of sort personally

what the fandom has done is REALLY hyopcritical. now im not gonna say its every single person who does this, nor am i a fan of monolith-ing (?) a group of people because of a common pattern, but its just really REALLY funny seeing people going after pairings like lairy or whatever saying its "proship" while shipping a man who has a history of violence on women with a psychotic woman who he has offered piss poor assistance to in the name of his own weird beliefs of changing and helping. idgaf for discourse around a bunch of pixels over trivial shit that really isnt THAT big of an issue (lairy discourse), especially because well, theyre wrong as fuck, but how are people gonna say one thing then turn around and do The Same Shit under another flavour. knifecase is such a kick in the balls to women and another example of how fandom greatly prefers men over women WHATEVER the situation is. theyll fawn over a man whos done shit and think "yeah hes my poor onglydoople poop. only HE suffers in this work of media" while greatly ignoring the issues the women in the same piece of work deal with by writing (misogyny) and circumstances (misogyny again). this world is founded immensely on misogyny and we're never getting the fuck out of it and while yeah im ranting about object character violence being sexist/misogynistic, you gotta get that its all a repeated pattern of these behaviours these mentalities this culture. you can argue one thing about writers intentions and beliefs, we dont know these people well enough to point fingers and label. however, how are YOU digesting it? shitting it out? what is your overall take and without using gay fandom buzzwords and misogynist thinking describe the women in the show (rhetorical)

[dmbakura]

Aight so, literally this is just a "thanks for the discourse on Astarion." Also for putting me on the IGN interview with Vincke, Smith, and Ding. I don't think I actually have a question except maybe "do you take commissions for your visual art?" But also it's great to see some really nuanced takes that engage with the source material earnestly. This is a weird fandom and I'm not one to yuck anyone's yum, but I appreciate engagement with all the complexities of a character as complicated as Astarion on a level that's not dealing in binaries, wild fantasy (lol) or excoriation. So thanks for putting it on the internet. :)

I don't take commissions but thank you for the interest!

And yes I agree. I wish people could discuss Astarion without turning it into some dumb spawn vs ascended fanwar when it's actually more about how both endings reflect off of each other. At least that's how it seems to me

[ne0nwithazero]

🌊🌸 Welcome! 🌸🌊

Commissions • Carrd • Neocities • Twitter

Hihii! My name is Jay / Robin / Neon, I'm a Non-Binary and Aromantic Digital Artist from Portugal, though I also have a lot of other creative hobbies such as writing, sewing and coding! :)

My passion is Character Design and I love writing stories and characters that can connect with people 💗

🌊🌸 Some notes! 🌸🌊

You CAN use my art as profile pictures, banners, etc, provided that credit is given to my account.

You CAN tag my art as "kin", "me", etc. I really don't mind. The one exception is art of my sona (The blue and pink raccoon), because like… That's just weird lol

You CAN tag my art as ships. Say I draw two characters together even if they're not a ship, you're allowed to tag it as such! (DO NOT DO THIS FOR UNDERAGE, INCEST OR ANY KIND OF PROSHIP GARBAGE UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET AN INSTANT BLOCK. HAVE SOME COMMON SENSE PLEASE)

Spam liking/reblogs is OKAY and welcome! So is liking without reblogging 💙 I appreciate you visiting at all!

I read all the tags I get, so like… Keep that in mind if you're going to be weird on them lol

🌊🌸 Tags I use 🌸🌊

#My Art - Self-Explanatory, all art that I make goes here

#Jay Talks - Posts where I just talk about whatever stuff comes to mind.

#Jay Asks - Where I respond to people's questions. I will also tag the person's username, or #anonymous if it was an anon

#For Me - Gift Art and things like that! I love looking at what people create, please always feel free to share!!

🌊🌸 Deltarune OC Tags 🌸🌊

#Mike - 🎙️🌸 - Tiny microphone darkner in a duo with Host

#Host - 📺🙌 - Mute TV darkner in a duo with Mike

#Tenna - 📺💫 - TV Darkner from the Flower Shop, Mike and Host's kid

#Omega Host - 👁️📺👁️ - Host's secret boss form

#Klieg - 🎞️💡 - Pretentious spotlight darkner and Film director

#Clippa - 🎨💜 - Swatchton daughter, Clip Art Swatchling/Addison hybrid

#Speckle - 🖤🤍 - Swatchton son (Non-canon to my AU)

My current biggest interest and fixation is Deltarune, primarily the characters Swatch and Spamton, as well as my OCs Mike and Host from my fanmade Chapter 3 take! You'll likely see me post and reblog a lot of stuff surrounding them.

I also tend to reblog posts about aromanticism and aromantic positivity because it's something that's very important to me. I take a lot of pride in being aromantic and always love to share people's takes on it and try to educate others on how varied the aspec community is!

There's also the occasional unrelated fandom post, and I try my best to tag everything I come across, with the names of the characters and the associated fandom, so not only are they easier to find in my blog, but also easier to filter for anyone uninterested! :)

I'm very awkward when it comes to making friends and talking to people, but you're always welcome to reach out and chat!

DNI

I keep most of my info and DNI junk in my Carrd, which you can read here. But the TL;DR is:

NO transphobes, terfs, exclusionists, proshippers are welcome here. Go away. If I do reblog from someone like that, please let me know!

No ace and arophobia. Seriously, like??? *Gestures vaguely* Don't??

No discourse. Seriously I'm 26, basically a senior citizen. I don't want to know about dumb drama and just want to chill out on the internet and share my art with people.

[comradegeorgemoved]

gnf cooking stream highlights

saw some people say they wouldn’t be able to watch george’s cooking stream because of school/work so i took note of some things that happened (with very rough timestamps. like really rough and it happened ~around~ that time) so they could relate to jokes/etc being made on the dashboard/timeline without having to watch the entire 4 hours of the stream immediately :) hope this is helpful in any way ? lol

quick stats: george beat his highest concurrent again this stream with 307k viewers by 133k and gained more than 10k subs :o

0:00 cooking stream start. cute thumbnail and music!

5:10 starts talking

8:00 shows self, fixes his camera/s (he has two different setups) and talks to chat for a bit

11:30 what is on the menu? a starter (mozarella sticks), main course (steak), dessert (a secret!)

18:40 the first step is to hands with…. dishwashing liquid

20:00 actually starts preparing steak. “it’s got good marbling ? idk how to speak chef they just say marbling”. attempts to rub seasoning into the steak...

28:00 starts preparing the mozarella sticks

34:40 “dont swing your knife around >:(” “I WILL SWING MY KNIFE IF I WANT TO SWING IT [swings knife]”

39:00 “these are probably going to turn out terrible… but as long as we’re having fun, then we’re fine! right? i guess? probably.”

45:00 he puts paprika into the egg mixture while trying to make mozarella sticks........... he throws out the eggs and has to reset

52:00 “that’s pretty bread-y! that’s pretty bread-y!”

53:00 calling chat donuts because they keep trying to backseat cook lmao

1:02:20 dream calls. “you’re the worst chef ive ever seen in my life what’s wrong with you? you suck!”

1:03:00 sapnap calls. "you look cute with that hat on :)" george hangs up on him to talk to dream lol. “i’m ditching you for dream.”

1:05:37 dream calls again

1:11:30 thinks the breadcrumbs are too thick, which is why they aren’t sticking to the cheese. he attempts to “squish” them.

1:11:45 “is there a hypetrain? choo choo!”

1:12:00 dream calls again

1:18:55 “gogy ramsay? yes that’s actually me!”

1:21:13 karl + chris calls “everyone comment if you think george should be in tales of the smp tonight!”

1:24:00 dream calls again to give advice about double dipping the mozarella sticks

1:30:30 starts preparing the fries. george is impressed by a potato peeler. he eats a raw potato later on ?

1:40:00 he makes funny gestures! introduces the ~air fryer~! (which he says he bought specifically for this stream!)

1:44:00 starts cooking steak

1:45:00 “what can we do for 5 minutes?” and then holds up a fucking knife?? i dont understand him

1:48:50 dream calls again. “be careful when you’re frying it’s very dangerous!” george: “he’s FARMING AWWS guys”

1:52:30 HES PREPARING FOR AN ACTUAL FIREE HELP MEEE

1:56:23 sapnap calls

2:00:00 people started gifting subs because dream tweeted about it :) sapnap talks about his new video, sapnap thanks george’s subs for him so george can focus on his cooking :) sapnap also helps him calm down when he’s visibly nervous about what’s happening and is overall just super supportive!

2:13:20 actually starts cooking steak

2:13:50 sapnap’s hot take about sugar cookies: people who hate sugar cookies can go to hell

2:15:28 “i kinda burnt it… it’s not bad.. it’s grilled..” he starts panicking a bit n is a bit dangerous with the hot oil it scared me a little lol

2:17:55 carries the fucking steak with tongs across the kitchen

2:18:00 shows his steak. it looks good!

2:21:45 george hyping up his french fries

2:24:30 karl joins the call

2:25:20 george talks to the camera to thank karl

2:25:50 george excitedly jumping around to announce something! karl (jokingly) announces george will be on the tales of the smp

2:26:40 fit check! george puts his feet on the table to lift up his entire body? also they are talking about boogers ? idk i can’t hear

2:28:40 george talking to the camera to twitch prime

2:28:58 dream calls him to cut the steak

2:32:00 FINALLY CUTTING THE FUCKING STEAK. it looks good!

2:34:25 taste test “not gonna lie, best steak i’ve ever had, ever! ok it’s not the best, but it’s actually really good”

2:38-39:00 ish bad joins

2:40:00 bad built chef gnf in minecraft! cute!

2:43:50 karl: “george i love you” george: “thank you ^-^”

2:44:47 apparently dream messaged their discord chat for karl and sapnap to stop making fun of george’s mozarella sticks “his cheese sticks are fine.”

2:45:30 dream joins to tell him to put the mozarella sticks back in the freezer

2:47:10 starts frying mozarella sticks. he isn’t being too cautious with this too so everyone in the call is worried he’ll get burnt skdhsk. burns a mozarella stick

2:53:00 dream and sapnap heat transfer discourse. sapnap thinks he can dip a fork into molten lava and it won’t be hot (immediately). he is wrong.

2:57:00 quackity joins

3:08:20 george lore: apparently doesn’t care if his food is hot or cold

3:09:15 looks into camera again

3:11:00 apparently dream was the first sub on george’s channel! so he has the founders badge!

3:13:00 karl teases dream for saying he’d kiss george if puffy hit 11k subs yesterday lol. they were also teasing bad about being weird about the maid dress throughout this.

3:14:00 the secret dessert is pancakes!

3:18:00 “will be... like wilbur (wilby)”

3:30:00 flipped a pancake! worked. around this time they’re making fun of george allegedly calling a “crepe” a “pancake”, when this is what they call pancakes in the uk.

3:38:30 george wants to stream with gordon ramsay lol

3:44:10 everyone leaves the call except for george and dream. “it’s just us.. alone together.. with 200 thousand people”

3:45:00 sub count is at 18550 and dream wants it to reach 20k! george is just sitting there getting subs

3:47:20 george trying to take a picture!

3:49:27 dream tells chat to keep subbing

3:52:00 dream gifts 50 subs to help reach the sub goal. again george is just standing there getting gifted subs lmao

3:53:00 ish they hit 20k! george gained more than 10,000 subs this stream!

3:57:45 fridge reveal lol

3:58:45 fit check again

3:59:11 making a tiktok

4:02:50 dream REALLY wants to see george with messy/fluffy hair for some reason???? he farms messy hair pics. “wait WHAT oh my gosh holy cow WHAT i’ve never seen your hair like that. now that’s a good instagram photo.” apparently “it’s a look”... from the end of the extras shirt video ? someone help him

(george looks really good though. this is something best experienced yourself...)

around this time i think they say how can they get to 500k views and they say what if they streamed the meetup! and they say that they will!

4:13:00 BIG GEORGE LORE PLANNED ??

4:14:00 ish "thank you dream" is trending. it’s obviously for the pictures but neither of them seem to realize that.

4:14:30 dream tells george to get hair gel so he can look like this all the time. my god

4:17:00 stream over !

[makeste]

I saw this take on twitter about Hana & Kacchan having “reverse parallels” and since they both have apologised to Tenko/Deku (but one was more or less sincere and the other was absolutely sincere) and they said that, while Hana moved away from Tenko, Kacchan ran to catch Deku. There was also more to the thread abt Kacchan & Hana’s differences. They were sorta trying to argue that this is a clue that Hori intends for Bkdk to be sibling-like/brotherly. As a bkdk shipped, I’ve accepted that it makes sense.. cause it’s an established fact that Tenko & Deku parallel each other. Tenko having his own “Kacchan” makes sense. Tho yes I am a little sad since I’ve held a little bit of hope for romantic bkdk becoming canon. I just wanted to ask your opinion if Hana was really meant to foil Kacchan or was it just a reach?

okay so I have a couple responses to this.

1. while it's true that Horikoshi has woven a lot of deliberate parallels between Deku and Tenko's characters, that doesn't mean every single thing about their lives and every single person they interact with is a part of those parallels. which is to say that no, I don't really think Hana and Kacchan are meant to mirror each other in any kind of significant way. Hana's apology to Tenko was under completely different circumstances than Kacchan's apology to Deku; I really don't see any connection between the two situations. you might as well be trying to compare Hana to Endeavor, or Deku, or Hawks, or Aizawa, or any other character who's apologized to anyone over the course of the story.

2. please pardon the forthcoming rant, anon -- and I hope you know that none of this is aimed at you in particular -- but for me personally, this whole obsession with ships becoming canon is one of the most exasperating types of discourse there is. like, don't get me wrong, I totally understand people wanting to see their favorite ships validated by the author, and not to mention there's also the issue of having more LGBTQ+ representation. but speaking as someone whose own orientation (aromantic) has almost no representation in fiction whatsoever, it gets frustrating to see so many people dismiss non-romantic relationships as being an inferior type of ship, to the extent that calling a relationship "sibling-like" is now a commonly-used attack in ship wars. so many people view romance as this completely transformative element, to the point where two characters can literally tick every other box on the intimate personal relationship checklist, and none of it will matter to some people unless they actually confess their love and kiss.

and again, I'm not saying I don't understand it, especially since queerbating is a thing. it's one thing if a writer is genuinely just trying to portray a close friendship, especially in series where romance isn't really a focus. but it's another thing entirely if a writer is deliberately hinting at a romance in a blatant bid to attract a larger queer audience, while all the while having no intention whatsoever of having those hints lead anywhere. the issue, I guess, is that it's not always easy to tell which scenarios are the former, and which are the latter. and of course, you also have people who think that the former is a type of cop-out as well, because the thing is that romance is always viewed as the default. so for a lot of people, allosexual and alloromantic relationships are the only ones that get considered as far as representation goes.

but you know what, I'm just gonna say it; even knowing where people are coming from, it's still discouraging to know that so many people are so dismissive of aro and ace relationships that the thought of a favorite ship not becoming romantic in canon is considered a profound disappointment. and it's even more discouraging that the thought of a rival ship becoming canon is considered such an existential threat to some that they will literally use "oh, they're just like siblings" as an argument against the ship, rather than a point in favor of. because siblings are a downgrade. friendship is a downgrade. any kind of close relationship that isn't inherently romantic or sexual in nature is less important, and that's just how it is.

so yeah, that's kind of a pet peeve, ngl. especially since the truth is I actually do think Bakugou and Deku's relationship is very akin to siblings. and so I do sometimes get weary of not being able to just outright say that without having to first pepper the statement with all kinds of disclaimers so that people don't think I'm invalidating the ship. I feel like I have to walk on eggshells if I ever want to talk about their relationship in terms that I can personally relate to.

but I mean, here's how I look at it. they've known each other since they were small children. they call each other exclusively (or almost exclusively) by childhood nicknames. they have an openness and an unspoken, almost taken-for-granted trust in each other to the point where they'll share closely guarded secrets ("I got my quirk from someone else") and personal vulnerabilities ("why was I the one who ended All Might?") with barely a second's hesitation which they would never share with anyone else. they have a comfortable little bickering type of rapport ("I'm getting stronger"; "well I'll just have to get even stronger then"; "you'll never surpass me"; "we'll see about that") which they can fall into with ease and which looks weird af to outsiders, but is "normal" to them and something they're both grateful to have.

they're so intimately familiar with each other's personality and behaviors that they can predict them with perfect accuracy. they're so in tune with each other that they can whip up elaborate coordinated attacks right on the spot in perfect sync. their admiration for each other is so strong that they each think of the other as being the epitome of winning and saving, respectively. their mental images of each other are so vivid that they subconsciously mimic each other's speech patterns whenever they start falling into a particularly strong Win or Save mindset themselves. they take no small amount of pride in showing off for each other. they go apeshit any time the other is in danger or hurt. and each of them would literally die for the other if it ever came to that.

all of that is already canon. on just about every metric imaginable except for "now kiss", the two of them already have a canon intimacy that rivals just about every other great relationship out there. and so to say that none of it actually counts unless there's an actual love confession involved frankly just boggles me. again, maybe it's because I have no personal vested interest in romance myself, though. I'm literally just not wired that way, and so I'm really not the best person to vent to when it comes to these kinds of concerns.

but look, no matter what happens from here on out, these two care about each other on a very deep and personal level. they're going to continue to be a part of each other's lives no matter what. and each of them, no matter what, will continue to occupy a space in each other's lives that no other person can fill, regardless of how we or Horikoshi or anyone else choose to label and define that space. and so in my book, that's already a win.

anyways, apologies again for the impromptu rant. again, this wasn't particularly directed at you in any way; if anything it's mostly just a generic response to the constant shipping discourse in this and every other fandom, and a more detailed explanation for why I personally don't like to get involved in it. this is just one of the myriad reasons why I try my best to stay very far away from BnHA twitter lol.

[1ddotdhq]

💀Wed 28 Oct ‘20🏡

Zayn is back, Louis has pink hoodies (sort of), Liam is tik tokking like a pro, Harry feeds fish, Simon Cowell’s surgery recovery has stalled and is going poorly (great! couldn’t have happened to a more deserving human), but we’ve got too much real news to waste anymore time on that asshole! 

We ended last night with ZAYN SINGING TO US!! Beautiful black and white footage of beautiful Zayn and his perfect voice; he shows us little snippets of himself crooning James Bay's Hold Back the River and Paolo Nutini's Last Request (not for the first time on this one, he did this song before in the lead up to Icarus Falls... more on that in a minute) while reading lyrics off his phone, captioned 'Cover Sessions.' Good god but I have missed his ethereal warbling! The post alone is an unexpected blessing and a gift but the implied promise of more to come?? YES PLEASE I CANNOT WAIT. Some wonder if it could be for a Spotify Sessions, others are screaming about how Icarus Falls' drop was preceded by weeks of black and white cover song videos on instagram (when asked at that time if he was releasing something he said “yes why else do you think I'd be on here singing for you??” LOL, adore this man, but also, hello!) Anyway yesterday we got not only music and the promise of more to come, but also interaction! He chatted in comments, offering a coy 'maybe' to a comment saying 'acoustic', posting laugh cry emojis at his own jokes (“no YOU stop”), and sending love back to his happy zquad, who were of course overwhelmed and over the moon. He's cut his hair off but with all he's given us today can we be sad? It's a small price to pay. James Bay reposted the cover of his song-- “nice one man x.”

Then, Louis officially dropped his Kill My Mind Lyric drop (on the 28th!!!):  the lyric being represented is “the devil in my brain”, and it is indeed a skull with a tophat over a cauldron. The new stuff features the cute little logo embroidered on various black cold weather wear items (including a sweater!) and says 'lyric drop 2' inside the collar of the shirts. BUT! There’s more! We’ve got some more wavy walls hoodies in pink lettering, as well as fuzzy red lettering and a marble red and pink design. Love it! However, it was discovered that this new merch does not ship to India or LATAM (except Costa Rica) and honestly?? RUDE!! Louis’ LATAM fans are the FUCKING BEST (no I’m not biased wdym???). They do, however, ship to Vatican City for some reason so catch the Pope in his Walls merch! Louis did respond to this issue on twitter, though, and said, “I’ll get more info on this ASAP. Anywhere else?” so dioceses all over the world will soon be able to rock out in their KMM merch. Celebtm also came back for round three to tell everyone that they were removing themselves from the narrative until January (good riddance), but not before leaving a message from Michael Straus (ugh) to Louis and his “son” (the quote marks are theirs, not mine, in case you’re wondering where they stand on the issue). Straus’ last hurrah included claims that Briana gets a direct deposit from Louis (or his team) on the first of every month, spends it all immediately and is left destitute for the rest of the month, and that neither Briana nor Freddie have health insurance. He then offered to help Louis get custody of Freddie. Um, right. I’m sure his help would be invaluable. Also, we all agree that he’s a liar and likely doesn’t know shit and is trying to make himself seem like the hero instead of the gross misogynist he is right? 

A story was also released about Harry’s car breaking down in the UK over the summer. He did what anyone would do (I suppose?) and knocked on someone’s door to see if they could help. Well, it turns out their daughter is a fan, so they invited him in for a cup of tea, and allowed him to snoop around her room. They even took a picture of him feeding her goldfish! The photographer who took the picture is (coincidentally?) a professional, who has worked with Kasey Musgraves before. The fan did not get to meet him, but he signed her album, and left her a note promising to meet her at a concert, which he would be inviting them to. Harry has done some other cool things in the last few days (being politically active IS cool), and has started filming DWD in Palm Springs. He was spotted by a fan (though no pictures were released) and he signed her phone cover - it reads “Golden” with a little heart. 

Harry also ignited discourse by *shuffles papers,scratches head in confusion* his endorsement of Joe Biden? Well, there were a few layers to this condemnation. The first were the people who... thought he might be a Trump supporter and were disappointed that he was not? Well, uh, clearly they have not been paying close attention, because this man has been seen this year in a BLM rally, has shouted “fuck Boris, fuck the government”, and has waved multiple different pride flags (including the trans flag!) at his concerts. IDK how that screamed Trump supporter to some people. And then there were the people who were angry that he captioned the tweet “I would vote with kindness”. The words I have seen thrown around are “disingenuous” “privileged” and “this is not enough.” Well! Harry has often been criticized for encouraging fans to simply “vote” without talking specifics; now he's endorsed a candidate, just as requested! And while no one actually LIKES Biden there is no question (in any world except absurd fandom wank circles) that this endorsement is the correct one out of the viable candidates. He is not saying that Biden is himself kind, which yes would be weird, he is saying that voting for Biden is the kinder choice and you know what? He is correct. If you think that we at 1ddotd are gonna condemn him for taking a stance against a fascist, uh, THINK AGAIN!

It was confirmed that Liam’s mystery collab is Dixie D’Amelio, of tik tok fame, and I’m going to refrain from commenting until I hear the song! Liam continues to lean into both Christmas and Halloween by doing his spooky tik toks and NOT putting jump scare warnings in ANY OF THEM, thanks so much for that one Liam, love it loads! His fun, spooky, dorky ones (in full AWESOME looking makeup thanks to MUA Abby Roberts who’s quickly becoming a regular) are amazing though, and I will miss it when Halloween is over. And Niall was on the Elvis Duran show, mid-golf game with his cousin actually, to talk about them about his concert, the venue, the cause (calling his crew “like family”), and calling out the government (go Niall!)! He ALSO took to twitter and said, “I wish I could vote”. He would also not be voting for Trump, in case anyone actually needs that spelled out.

[marmarparadoxa]

Hi! I was quite surprised to see even tho hanji is loved in japan, she is heavily criticized even among her fans. they say hanji is too idealistic or too soft to be a commander or indecisive and bad at negotiation or too weird to be a diplomat. Being compared to sannes and shadis (gets in the way of progress, lies to ppl or bystander). she couldn't throw away any important things, so she couldn't change anything (references Armin quote).

(same anon) she couldn't move forward that's why she died. she can't understand others feeling. being naive/easily deceived. There's also this image of levi being selfish who made hanji suffer as commander to make erwin rest not caring about humanity and became passive post time-skip leaving her do most of the work, took her feeling and presence for granted. I'm sorry for the negativity but I hated these takes and really wanted to know your opinion.

Do you think Yams purposely ignored Hanji throughout the story or reduce her character to a bad commander? She didn’t get enough screen time and she was mainly shown as an insecure and overwhelmed commander and not having a plan or a solution to all the mess that was going on. I also felt like she seemed to be just a placeholder between Erwin and Armin. Do you think yams hated her maybe b/c she is an idealist or he thinks she is an unimportant character?

Hi anons! I’ve decided to answer your questions together, since they both broadly revolve around the same topic. Hope you don’t mind.

About those takes about Hange in the fandom...well, while some are funny enough (like “too weird to be a diplomat” what), others are nasty (“she couldn’t move forward, that’s why she died” you mean it wasn’t because of Eren’s Rumbling that Hange had to die? ...), and none of them makes any sense to me. Anyway, I think one can have quite an idea about the mindsets, and the sympathies associated with these ideas.

For one thing, I feel like a lot of Hange hate probably comes from those who think that what they were trying to do wasn’t right in the first place. In other words, those who support Eren’s actions, and thus think Eren was right in committing genocide, and killing millions of innocent people as the only sensible way to save Paradis. Consequently, I imagine they think of Hange as a traitor, and indecisive because they couldn’t throw away anything, aka accepting to massacre the rest of humanity just for the safety of their own island? To be honest these are mainly suppositions because my fandom experience is basically restricted to safe spaces only lol, so I don’t really know what these people's thought processes are.

As a second reason, I guess that, probably, there still are some that wonder at Hange’s alleged incompetence as commander, without taking into account that what they were dealing with as commander of the SC weren’t mindless titans or Paradis’ politics any more, but a world-wide racial conflict backed by a two-thousand years long history of hatred between Eldians and the rest of the world. And while their only external ally, Hizuru, wouldn’t raise a finger to actually help them but only thought about exploiting their predicament for their profit, they also had to deal with Eren, which suddenly turned their back to them, and decided to attack Liberio, thus cutting away forever whatever hope they might have had of resolve things peacefully. Ah, yes, how incompetent of Hange not having been able to resolve all this.

As regards the Levi towards Hange part, then, I see that there are some persons who not only hate the ship, but would also try in every way to downplay, or deny the significance of Levi and Hange relationship in the story. There’s no point in engaging in this kind of hateful discourse, I think.

Getting to what was Isayama’s purpose about Hange, and why did he choose to show them like that… Well, very simply, I think Isayama needed the Rumbling to happen in this story. Also, and this is what’s troubling me, I kinda got the impression that his intention was to make the Rumbling look like something unavoidable, the only realistic solution Paradis had. As a consequence of this, anyway, he couldn’t have other characters, such as Hange, having concrete plans and solutions for all this mess (except for Zeke’s euthanasia plan, which however was supposed to be thought of as an unacceptable and cruel plan by the majority of the readers). It had nothing to do with reducing Hange’s character, and showing them in a bad light, nor with any other character not having been able to confront Eren (till Mikasa killed him), and having Eren had his own way till the end. All this is about the story Isayama wanted to draw, what kind of obscure message he’s trying to convey, and where his sympathies lie.

As regards what I think in particular about Hange’s arc post time-skip, and their role as commander, you can read my thoughts in this meta and here.

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

Lately, there's much weird energy going on regarding jm related things. Since his OST something or the other is happening, the whole insurance bill followed by company sayin "no comments" but they were backing up that bully girl and also billboard didn't posted any article on his proof video but they posted all the other members till now (surprisingly I haven't seen BTS is 7 trend yet lol) Even him in that Spotify video just sitting without much enthusiasm like he always had is all making me feel like is everything okay??! Also I'm new to this all hate/negative discourse on a celeb (haven't been in any fandom except bts) so it's bit weird to see a particular member getting hate for whatever he is doing. Would like to know your thoughts on this if you have any??

- hybe's treatment of jimin's ost is especially abysmal. i shift back and forth as to whether he'll resign with them when the time comes but it just gets more and more blatant that something's up due to the way they go about everything regarding him. it's not isolated either, they just do all they can to not care about jimin and his work.

---

It reminded me there was another similar ask so I'm including it. Eventually I would've gotten to it but now that we're on the subject 😅

It has certainly been nonstop. The change in the time release for the OST was very random, didn't and still doesn't make sense why would they do that. Everyone else released their Our Blues OSTs at 6pm. It has been a while but so it doesn't sound like the time is something crazy to care about, and in case it hasn't been made obvious by how, days after, Psy released his album at 6pm and not 11pm LMAO, I saw this explanation by traceofjimin.

And they said the time release was discussed and decided on by the artist's agency (or agencies). They know how it works and they still decided to do it. BTS used to release their stuff at 6pm kst too, it changed to accommodate USA time of release but it was 6pm until ON.

Aside from that, I really think the insurance bill and filter issues were done by akgaes. Hybe/bighit has never exactly handled any "scandal" BTS were involved in, probably the tattoo shop thing was the most they gave statements on or said they would do anything about. But usually it's just one single "we deny this" and they move on. So I'm not surprised and I don't think it's weird that they disregarded the bill issue so quickly. And also, to be honest, I don't know what else was there to say. I genuinely think the articles and the way it was dragged out was an akgae thing. Same with the filter credits for that man. Whether his personal info was leaked because someone from the company was "careless" when managing his documents (that's a very sarcastic careless), there's no way to know that. If it was leaked or sold by people that work close to him, I hope Jimin is aware and is handling it.

It also all just piled up over the already existing and recent enlistment controversy, so it's possible that media are just taking advantage of it, you know the saying "when it rains it pours".

Now, the billboard articles........................ It's fishy af. I don't know who's deciding that and if it's hybe, I don't know why would they want to alienate Jimin from album conversation like that but it definitely looks like a conscious choice to not do an article about him. It was deliberate.

About the hate, yeah.. kpop is like that, unfortunately. It definitely does not happen this often or this seriously when it comes to western celebrities. You can google "kpop anti-fans" "kpop anti-fans incidents" and you'll see for yourself. It's crazy. It's an industry and fan culture that for some reason or another has always begotten a lot of hate.

As for Jimin, I think he was like that for most of 2021, sadly. I mean, he was quiet and seemingly uninterested for a lot of their interviews, especially during butter promo. And last year he actually said on few ocassions that he wasn't feeling that happy or excited, it wasn't anything alarming but he did subtly mentioned being too lost in his thoughts and things like that. He's probably got a lot on his plate, honestly. I guess we should just wait and see; he's a person like anyone else and being under the weather sometimes it's completely normal, but it's also not too logical for us to make conclusions based on one or two clips, imo. I would like to know what he really, really, really thinks of this album tho.

Before, the times that anything controversial happened, there was always positive, good BTS content to push that negativity back or even completely ignore it; now, there's nothing like that and even the album-related content released so far is honestly nawtttt making a lot of noise so it's easy to get carried away with the negative stuff.

[gammija]

Does 170 confirm Martin’s domain?

I know, i know, it’s been 5 weeks since MAG170, and meta/discourse online currently moves at the breakneck speed of one week/episode... But! recently while discussing tma theories with people the idea came up that 170 definitively confirmed Martin’s domain as the Lonely.

I don’t think that that’s the case however, so I wanted to write this post to explain why I think that.

(Not primarily to convince anyone that I’m right, though that’d be a nice bonus ;). More just so I have all my thoughts down in one spot that I can link to in the future, hah. Also, this post is not necessarily arguing that Martin’s domain is definitely not the Lonely - though that, to be fair, is my bias - only that 170 didn’t confirm it one way or the other.)

[Spoilers up to 175] Okay so

there are a few other assumptions/theories about domains and avatars I’m using for the final conclusion above! So I’ll first try to prove those, and then show how 170 does or doesn’t fit them.

1) Martin actually has a domain, because the question was raised and left unanswered in 167:

Martin: “What about me?” Jon: “Would you… like me to -” Martin: “No, no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

If we aren’t meant to wonder which it is, I’m sure there would’ve been some sort of answer or guess from either Jon or Martin. It would’ve been easy to have either of them suggest the Lonely (or even another Fear), or to simply say that Jon only meant full avatars, and Martin doesn’t have one. So from a meta standpoint, the lack of an answer makes it more likely that there is one, and it’s important.

2) Saying that a domain is “[Someone’s] domain” requires that someone to be (on their way to becoming) an avatar of that fear. This is the only way that the word has been used in relation to people in s5, otherwise it’s used as [Fear’s] domain. Never is the domain the property of the victims.

167: Jon tells us explicitly that domain means “the place that feeds us”, and that Gertrude would “have resigned herself to - ruling her domain.” 168: “This is Oliver Banks’ domain.”  

3) An avatar, while they might be conflicted about their actions, does genuinely like some essential aesthetic of their Fear and indulging in it. That’s shown in basically all the known avatars’ statements, and in 111: 

Gerard: “Do you like [compelling people]? Jon : “[...] Yes, I… I suppose I do.”

The only avatars that don’t follow this are Michael and Gertrude. But then again, the Distortion is a unique case - it existed long before it became Michael and was forced to become him, and was forcibly taken over by Helen, who does seem to follow the trend. Gertrude, I admit I have less of a good defence for, though she’s also just canonically hard to read in general - and it is implied that she’s not (as good) an avatar to the Eye as Jon because she doesn’t really have an affinity for it.

The difficult thing about this one for Martin is that our only model for a full, confirmed Lonely avatar is Peter. We definitely know that he enjoys being lonely - but it’s hard to say for certain whether that’s a prerequisite of going full avatar, or just. peter.

4) Avatars enjoy a position of privilege in their domains. That’s evidenced in basically every domain for which we’ve seen the avatar; Jude wasn’t stuck burning, Jared wasn’t stuck in the ground, Simon wasn’t fleeing ‘Junior’ or stuck in it.

(I realize I’m talking a lot about specific word choices and such here, so, sorry for being pedantic :’D But I’m not going to stop, since in my experience, with tma it pays off to be pedantic. (‘why hasnt any ritual ever succeeded’, ‘why are people being weird about Elias being head of the institute’, ‘hey if you count jons scars he's almost got one from every fear lol’, etc are all questions based on small details that turned out to have legitimate answers. specificity matters.)(... Excluding timeline stuff))

Regarding 170

So, combining those three, if the Lonely really is Martin’s domain and he's partaking in it, I'd expect him to have a position higher than those of the other victims, and to be somewhat enjoying himself (even though he’d definitely hate it if he were) or at least not dislike the core idea of the Lonely.

There certainly are a few parts in the episode in which Martin admits to not finding this domain so bad: 

“Sometimes I wonder if I forget things on purpose. Easier not to think about them, I guess. Easier to just let them… slip away. They can’t hurt you if you don’t think about them; they can’t shout at you or call you names.”

“I’m losing myself, and I - and I don’t know if I mind? Maybe I deserve it. So much of what’s behind the fog hurts. So much of it just makes me wanna curl up with pain and embarrassment and - Maybe the fog’s here because I want it here.”

“Honestly, I - I wanted to believe it.”

“It’s comforting here, leaving all those - painful memories behind.”

“It’s the Lonely, John. It’s me.”

… Except that almost all of those are followed up immediately with refutals: 

This one peters (hah) off into Martin panicking over forgetting his Mom’s face, and saying he shouldn’t be there.

“Maybe I asked the fog to come. No. No, no - no, no, no, that’s not true!”

“I wanted to believe it. But I didn’t.”

“But - It’s not a good comfort, it’s - i,it’s the kind that makes you fade, makes you dim and - distant.

“Not anymore.” “- No. No, not anymore.”

On top of that, there are all the times that Martin reiterates that he doesn’t like this place, or being alone in general:

This, This isn’t my house! [..] I don’t like it here.

I don’t like it. Why does my house smell like that, I - It can’t be my house. No, no, no; my, my - My house doesn’t smell like this! My house smells… s-smells different.

I shouldn’t be alone; there should be people!

I don’t know why I’d decorate my house like this; I don’t like it! I like - (breaking off) Wh- I, It’s not my home; it can’t be. [...] I don’t like it here.

Where am I? This isn’t right; I shouldn’t be here.

I don’t like this place.

It certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of place that somebody called Martin would live. Martin. It feels like a small name. One that wants to be warm and happy. Not like here.

[The entirety of his last paragraph before Jon finds him]

I should add that a lot of Lonely victims (13, 48, 108) like their solitude, so Martin occasionally liking being alone doesn’t preclude him from being a victim.

Furthermore, Martin doesn’t seem at all to be in any better position than any of the other Lonely victims: 

“They’re all trying to remember. T-To recall, to picture someone, anyone who loves them, and their hearts are all full of fear. Afraid that those people are gone forever. That maybe - maybe they never existed at all.”

That describes Martin’s experience this episode almost exactly, except that he hasn’t been there as long, and has both an Eye avatar and some tape recorders looking out for him.

He doesn’t sound to me like an equivalent to other avatars in their domains: he sounds like the victim.

Other counter arguments: 

I’ve seen the argument that the privilege Martin gets here, is the knowledge of all those other victims.That him knowing that they exist, and what they’re struggling with, proves that it’s his domain. Honestly though, I think that’s not a very strong argument, seeing as he explicitly says he’s seen them, which makes sense as he’s been able to see victims in other domains as well. And describing their experience isn’t that hard either, seeing as he’s just had a similar one (and has prior experience with the Lonely to boot). So there’s an easy explanation for how he knew this, without the Lonely having to be his domain.

There’s also the idea that in 170, “house” is a metaphor for domain, and since Martin occasionally thinks that it’s his house, that means that it’s his domain. Two problems there:

he spends just as much time saying that it’s not his house.

the (other) victim he runs into also thinks it’s their house at first.

So while I think the idea has merit as an analysis, it still doesn’t definitively prove Martin’s domain one way or the other.

*DEEP INHALE*

SO! In the end, 170 to me is anything but conclusive about what Martin’s domain is, and hopefully at least was able to show why I think that way. TL;DR: 

If the Lonely were Martin’s domain, he should be like the other avatars in theirs, not stuck in it as a victim;

Martin in 170 seems to be a victim;

Therefore 170 doesn’t confirm that the Lonely is his domain.

[stylesunchained]

Thanks so much for answering the ask about the 'no comment' from Harry's team! I was also wondering, are these articles about Holivia being fed by Olivia's team or can tabloids generally just create articles (aka fake stories) without permission from people in the article?

I'm just curious how Harry is 'private' but we're hearing how their families are spending time together and if Olivia is feeding this to press, why hasn't he shut it down or told her he doesn't like it as she's been doing it all year? I understand that 'all press is good press' but I'm finding it really hard to navigate how he's 'private' but I know he's spending Christmas with her kids? Just so weird 😂

I’m gonna be honest, I genuinely don’t know lol it could be a “tip” fed by her people to tabloids and tabloids just pulling stuff out of their asses to have *something* to talk about - the possibilities are endless.

If you look at everything about that situation that came out in the press for the past year, every single article is just a reheat of what was first said or a contradicting version of the past articles - because no one can agree on a timeline (cause all of them makes both of them look bad at the end of the day) and not one of them actually have true information/insights or real sources into them. They’re just repeating what they were first fed and then fighting about which narrative to follow. There’s always a tip from a source to add something different - he’s meeting the kids, they’re living together - but no real proof except five thousand different pap walks of her in Harry merch.

Vehicles, especially People magazine and JustJared and DeuxMoi will post whatever the fuck they need to get clicks - especially if they get tidbits from her own team. All of it follows the same tone if you analyze, which means it probably comes from the same sources and those sources want the public to believe that she’s happier than ever with her rockstar boyfriend. You want to look into those things, the devil is in the detail - all you gotta do is pay attention.

All of that to say is: it isn’t advantageous for him to shut it down, because it isn’t a good look for him either or. In any way you look at it, Harry and her come out as cheaters/liars - no matter what. And there’s no point in dispelling one rumor, cause then it’ll start yet another discourse about “why isn’t he dispelling everything else”. Speaking up and shutting down what her team does or what tabloids do will never be a priority for him or his team cause everyone will talk whether they like it or not. Saying something will just add fuel to a fire they’ll eventually have to address so they prefer to say nothing and not deal with it ever. It’s as simple as that.

And I don’t know what his motivations to saying/not saying shit are at the end of the day, cause I don’t know him. All I know is that talking won’t do him any good.

[vampish-glamour]

Loki anon! They copyrighted everything to do with illegal Disney merch and shit that was getting posted on places like Etsy. As long as my Loki character is provably the Loki from the myths, and not the Loki from Disney MCU, my writing is safe. All mythology is in the public domain!... until Disney figures out how to change public domain laws again haaaaaa

And gender fandom/fandom mess... well, I dont want to say what media it was exactly, the main character was a short high-school boy who let himself get bullied because he thought that would make him a stronger man. Part of his character arc was realizing that he could be strong in his own way, without being rough like other guys. Now, I don't have an issue with trans headcanons in general. However, it gets annoying when every. other. person. headcanons that this soft spoken male is AFAB. Biological men can't naturally be gentle, loving characters, apparently - except when they needed him to have a dick for gay fanfiction. There were a few, vocal people in particular who headcannoned him as afab non binary with he/him pronouns (completely ignoring how he wants to be seen as more manly, not less) After I saw them I lost interest, the sexist undertones and rampant fetishization of gay men came to be obnoxious.

I'm just going to leave it all behind, distance myself completely from my Ao3 name, and start turning my fandom blog into a discourse/LGBT blog while I work on writing evil and morally grey characters. With original fic, I don't have to worry about character-defenders accusing me of character bashing lmao, so I can go wild.

Oh, I see. I guess that makes sense. Would suck for artists doing commissions and such though!

I’ve noticed that the majority of trans headcanons are entirely based off sexism. Like you described; you’ll have a soft male character and people will assume he must be female. Or he must be nonbinary. Same with having a character who might be a more feminine man or a more masculine woman… people will do their best to make them Not A Man and Not A Woman. And fandom has some really weird ideas of what makes somebody feminine or masculine in the first place. I have seen tight jeans being a qualifier for feminine and “gender? Who’s she?” Jokes.

And then sometimes trans headcanons will be used for fetish reasons, which means making a character trans so you can write PIV sex and still call it gay. From what I’ve heard people tend to treat the trans man character like the “woman” of the two… it always rubs me the wrong way from both the transphobia angle and the sexism angle. Because they’re fetishizing and arguably dehumanizing trans people… and they’re also contributing to the idea that female = submissive, male = dominant. It’s like they feel the need to add that in order to establish a dom/sub dynamic. There’s also the homophobia of the attitude I see a lot towards gay sex, often implying that straight sex is cleaner and more natural—therefore the better option. (Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this with the GO fandom. *puts a dollar in the “mentioning go” jar* People will just straight up be like “well they can shapeshift so of course they’d choose to have straight sex over gay sex, it’s cleaner!! Gay sex is gross why do it if you don’t have to”)

So it’s interesting that it goes the other way, too—headcanoning a character as trans until you want to write the gay smut. In that case it makes trans people less of a fetish and more of a placeholder if that makes sense? Both are pretty transphobic.

Lol that’s a good idea, good luck!! I still kinda lurk around fandom because it’s not like I have anywhere else to indulge in my interests, but I’ve learned how to avoid things I don’t want to see to the best of my ability. Which really just means staying out of tags and abusing the hell out of ao3’s filter system.

And the evil/morally grey characters?? Hell yes. Those are the best kind and I want all the evil and/or morally grey characters I can get!!

[murasaki-murasame]

Since everyone got a free T3 ticket to try and compensate for how much of a shit-show this entire event was, I decided to just go ahead and use it on Grand Narmaya, and while I was at it I got Vane from the new suptix.

So I guess I may as well take the opportunity to give my own two cents on this whole debacle, lol.

Firstly, just to go over why I chose those two units from the free ticket and the suptix, I chose Narmaya over Belial because wind GW is relatively soon, and I currently have over 120 gold moons, so it won’t be that long before I can just get a sierotix normally and use it for Belial, so I just decided that Narmaya was the better option. I’m also just the sort of person who’s always going to be more interested in getting a new character in a game like this compared to a piece of equipment that just boosts my damage.

I was actually genuinely tempted to get Grand Jeanne instead, since I at least thought that it was much more rare for that gala pool to line up with big free summon events and stuff, so it’d be more annoying to try and spark her later, but after going through the records of past banners, I remembered that at the end of each year we get a flash gala at the end of December during roulette season, right before the new years premium gala. I was already planning to try and save a spark for around then anyway, so I figured at that point I may as well get Narmaya now, and just commit to sparking Jeanne at the end of the year. If I get lucky I might also have a full spark saved by the time the regular December flash gala with new Christmas characters comes out, so I could maybe spark her then and get some new Christmas units along the way.

As for the suptix, I’ve been wanting Vane for ages just because I like him, so even though there’s definitely better options, even within the water element alone, it was a pretty easy choice. I was kinda tempted to pick Shion instead to make fire GW easier, but that’s the only place I’d ever use her, and since I’ve already started switching over to my Ixaba Agni grid, I should be able to OTK there pretty easily without her, and I don’t think I have the overall grid strength needed to achieve a one-button OTK with her, so there wouldn’t even be a huge difference between what I could accomplish with her now and what I can already do with the characters I have.

Anyway, all that aside, the lottery sure was completely awful in every way, lol. I guess there’s no point going into much detail about it since there’s already been so much discourse about it, but I’m 100% in the camp of hating how it was handled, and I empathize with everyone who decided to quit over it. I’m not as upset with how they handled the compensation as a lot of people are, but I get where they’re coming from, and I don’t think it’s entitlement to complain about how everyone got given a free T3 ticket as compensation, when the whole point was that there was a big disparity between the people who got nothing, and the people who got a T3 or higher prize. I think it would have been fine if everyone got the free T3 ticket when the results got announced, but the fact that this only happened because of the backlash does a lot to change the situation.

I don’t really think there’s much they could reasonably do to fix the situation after this, though. If they try and provide even more compensation, it might just get out of hand. The bottom line is just that the whole set-up of the event was fucked up from the start, and everyone should have been guaranteed this ticket right from the start so we didn’t end up in this mess.

But really I just think that the whole issue of ‘you can’t just expect a free high-tier ticket, since that’d be like everyone getting a free Belial/free spark/free Sierotix!’ just goes to show how badly the event was set up. Usually in events like this there’s a fairly linear progression in value between reward tiers as they get rarer, but I honestly think that all three of the higher tiers ended up being effectively the same value because of just how insane the sierotix, the 100k crystals, and Belial were. If they had even just moved the unticketable summons up to T2, it would have been a lot easier to justify giving everyone a free T3 ticket, since everything else on that tier is a lot less valuable. But they decided to include at least one insanely high-value reward in each tier, which completely fucked the balance of the tiers.

There’s also the fact that, with how the lottery worked and how they rigged people’s first 10 cards, it made the actual probabilities of winning different tiers a lot more unbalanced and weird than you’d expect. Like, it basically meant that your chances of getting at least one T1 or T3 prize were basically the same, and that you had a surprisingly high chance of getting at least one T2 prize. Which just feels like a weird way to design a lottery in the first place, and it also set up this situation where a much higher amount of people than you’d expect got high-tier rewards. I think it basically ended up being a coin flip as to whether you only got T4 prizes, or if you got at least one ticket higher than that, which is completely different to how any normal lottery works, and it meant that basically everyone who ‘lost’ was surrounded by people who got super massive prizes.

If I was in charge of it, I would have adjusted the event by taking the current T4 reward tier and demoting it to a consolation prize assigned to all of the ‘losing’ tickets, while replacing it with a tier of rewards that includes stuff like non-limited SSR characters, ticketable summons, a sunlight stone, a damascus ingot, or a medium amount of crystals. And then everyone should have gotten the guaranteed T3 ticket when they announced the results. Even if they still decided not to give everyone a T3 ticket, making the T4 pool better would have at least made the rewards closer to the guaranteed rewards we got last year. Like, if they added 10k crystals to the T4 pool, then the combo of the guaranteed two T4 tickets plus the random 10k crystals they gave out on that day would have amounted to at least 30k crystals, which is what everyone got last year from treasure rush.

I also think it was a mistake to let people get multiple of the same high-tier reward if they got super lucky, since it’s just kinda absurd to think that you could get *multiple* free sparks or sierotixes from this. But that’s relatively minor compared to everything else.

Also, the negative attitude people have towards the players that chose to quit the game and burn their accounts is genuinely really weird and gross. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly fine to cut ties with something that was becoming a negative part of your life, and deleting everything in your account means you’ll be less tempted to go back to it later. It’s not like they’re hurting anyone except themselves, at the very least. And all the people I’ve seen complain about how this is going to give crews a worse time in GW if lots of their members quit are just highlighting the fact that yet another part of the problem is that the endgame in GBF is inherently designed around scoring and racing content that’s decided by who has the most advanced account.

Anyway this got longer than I wanted it to, but I just have a lot of thoughts about this, lol.

[iaintyourbro]

Hey I just wanted to make a statement many fans worried about the LTD but as someone who watched and read many animes/mangas with LT genre as a main theme in every of these works the LT end up at the last episode or chapter but with FF7 if it was a main theme to the game why did it end in disc 1 why didn't it end at the last disc despite the OG having 3discs it should have been the climex of the game but it didn't because it isn't important what important is C real identity that the real theme .

Hey anon.

AGREED. The love triangle was meant to enhance the illusion aspect of Cloud’s issue. 

They game even tells us he created an illusion of himself. SOLDIER Cloud was meant to waver between the two women... I do think people make this a bigger thing than it actually was. I’d say, for me, it’s a very small aspect of his personality struggles. I do find it interesting in Remake they took the wavering aspect out. 

I’m of the opinion that Cloud didn’t do anything obvious to waver or attempt anything with EITHER girl. I think he had a thing for both of them, I don’t think as SOLDIER Cloud it was a deep thing. I think his desire was mostly to be a hero and save the damsel in distress. What’s funny is, neither of them really were damsels in distress...

Aerith in OG actually gets pissed at him for saying something like “I’m not gonna let a girl help me.” She pretty much is like “lol buddy okay you’re dumb.” Tifa just is Tifa and can kick all the ass - even in OG. The romance in FFVII OG to me wasn’t really a thing. Even all the GS dates were kind of weird. Aerith’s hints heavily that Cloud isn’t Cloud. Then you get this confirmed later and start unraveling the illusion and are in a state of “WTF IS GOING ON!” At least that was me.

This is the first time I remember going oh shit, what? The one thing in OG that they missed was building up his relationship with Tifa up to this point. The focus was to get the player attached to Aerith, so Midgar was focused on that, and then if you get her as a date option for the GS, that’s your next time. Personally, I never got attached to Aerith in OG because I didn’t like how she was. Remake Aerith is amazing and hilarious. 

I am not a fan of love triangles. FFIV had one, but it was obvious that Rosa had already chosen Cecil to me - so it wasn’t a huge thing. FFVII’s love triangle was vague and almost felt forced at times.

The only reason I honestly knew there was a love triangle was because of the user booklet that came with a game and what it said under Aerith’s description. 

The prison scene was always nasty to me because of course Tifa is like wtf. Aerith is like why are you and Cloud in the same cell? Cloud is like “I have no idea what’s going on.” Cuz he was oblivious - he had no idea that these two were in a “rivalry” over his affections... And honestly only Aerith really shows effort to me. Tifa isn’t confrontational, so isn’t going to do anything. Cloud doesn’t make an effort either way. 

This is another scene where you’re like wow okay. I mean, the whole Lifestream is like that, honestly. You’ve been playing this game and suddenly find out the guy you were playing with wasn’t actually who you thought he was. He’s a dork who never made it into SOLDIER and has somewhat of an obsession with this girl, Tifa, who you may or may not have even paid attention to the first part of the game. 

They make sure to leave up the “...I was devastated. ...I wanted to be noticed.” I took this screenshot out of my four up there cuz I didn’t have room and since they left the text up, but the kid was desperate to get her to notice him. To prove himself to her (and I assume her father). 

I mean, this is an accurate representation of his head when you go into it. The Nibelheim incident includes some memories of Zack and Sephiroth, but Tifa is also over there. I do think in Remake they will expand on this scene and show more about his mother, maybe his father, some other stuff that happened in his childhood, expand on the Mt. Nibel incident, and I think the CC elements of the Nibelheim incident will also come into play for the final part of this sequence once he remembers Zack.

To me, once this happens, it was clear that Cloud was in love with Tifa. That the first part of the game was an illusion, so I didn’t really think much else about it. Then I found out about all the fighting and I’m like... “Why though?” 

Real Cloud was all about Tifa and still was after he’s back. I felt no wavering after that point. Aerith dies, it’s permanent. It’s supposed to be realistic. Dead people don’t come back in real life, no matter how badly we want them to and no matter how many tissues we use to mourn for them. 

I do NOT think the love triangle was supposed to be a main theme OR stick has hard as it did. I think the fans did that, and now with Remake they’re clearing it up so... HOPEFULLY... it’s done. 

I think it’s a shame, because my best memories of FFVII as a teen weren’t the romance (cuz it was like non-existent) but Cloud revealing who he was, Vincent (of course), killing Hojo, the Northern Crater and the Lifestream, the discourse between Cloud and Barret... It wasn’t thinking about who Cloud liked more when he was SOLDIER Cloud. 

People I’ve talked to in real life who played the OG feel the same way. They didn’t even know this was up for debate... and these are casual players, so they didn’t play/watch CC or DoC and maybe the watched AC back in the day, but it didn’t seem to change their opinion. The only time I’ve seen people staunchly saying that it was player choice are those that couldn’t accept the fact that it WAS part of the illusion. And I’ve only ever seen it online. 

For people who actually played remake, nobody even thinks Aerith was a love interest (this is especially true for new fans that did not play OG). And I can tell you, the only people in real life that know I’m a shipper are my husband and my sister. The rest of the people I talk to don’t, because most of them are my co-workers and they don’t need to know this crazy fandom side of me. 

I think with the death of the LTD in Remake, it just opens things up for more interesting subjects regarding the entire cast. It makes Aerith much more lovable because she doesn’t seem to only give a shit about Cloud like she did in OG. I’m sure she won’t be so nasty to Barret when they go to Corel - I’d be shocked if they leave that in. I’m sure she’s not going to ask for a fortune from Cait Sith, and I’m sure she probably won’t even ask Cloud to go out at the GS. 

So that’s my thoughts...

In closing (long closing), I also think it does somewhat of a disservice for us to obsess over who Cloud liked more when he was SOLDIER Cloud. Both women are powerful on their own. They don’t need no man. I think sometimes when we get too extreme into this discussion, we almost feel like we’re defending these women to say because Cloud loves her more, she’s more important. That’s not the case, in my mind. Aerith is important because she’s Aerith. Whether Cloud loves her or not doesn’t impact her importance to the plot.

Same with Tifa. Now, Tifa’s role IS to be by Cloud’s side and ultimately save his life (multiple times). However, Tifa herself COULD function without Cloud. Cloud cannot function without Tifa prior to getting himself back in the Lifestream. If he falls into the Lifestream and there’s no Tifa, that’s pretty much it for him. 

In Cloud’s case, we can get to a point where it’s like he cares about nothing else except women, which we know is far from the truth. Cloud doesn’t seem to say much at all about women or dating in OG - in Remake they do some stuff with Wall Market and him acting like he knows what he’s doing (he doesn’t), but they have him acting like at typical arrogant teen. He’s an awkward dude, and it’s adorable, and it’s not that he’s blind. He obviously is attracted to Tifa early on. If you get Aerith’s red dress he stumbles over his words. 

That’s not to say we don’t care about how Cloud feels. We do. Which is why it’s important that we help him get himself back and get him through his complete breakdown. But the bigger focus should be the fact that Cloud isn’t fully Cloud and the romantic implications of that shouldn’t be weighed as heavily as the importance of getting his mind back.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 304: The Council of OFA

Previously on BnHA: Hawks and Best Jeanist were all, “what up Todofam, we are here to apply for the positions of ‘son #4’ and ‘weird uncle’, respectively,” and then proceeded to insert themselves into the family drama without waiting for an answer. Hawks briefed Endeavor on the nation’s current status of “totally fucked”, promised to help him sort that out, and then asked him about OFA. Endeavor was all, “oh do you mean One For All, the mysterious thing that my intern Deku was apparently being targeted for?” and then we cut away, presumably before Endeavor could clarify that it never occurred to him to follow up on that, and Hawks was all “no of course not, why would it occur to anyone other than me to follow up on any of this super weird and ominously important shit.” Anyway so meanwhile Bakugou was all “LET ME SCREAM AT DEKU UNTIL HE WAKES UP” and the other kids were all “NO”, and then the chapter ended with All Might being all “I wonder what the vestige!me is currently chatting with Deku about.”

Today on BnHA: Deku drops in on the Vestiges, who are all “sup Deku, how do you like our fancy chairs.” OFA II and III are all “if you need us we’ll just be standing here silently in the corner pretending to be invisible and sparking endless discourse with our mere existence.” OFA IV is all “and now I will explain to you in a very convoluted way that you being quirkless was actually a good thing, since it means that you are probably not going to suddenly drop dead at the age of twenty. But also you’re probably going to be the last user of OFA for that very same reason.” Deku is all “that is wild. I’m just gonna stand here and stare at my hand.” Nana is all “so now that that’s settled could you please do me a small favor and kill my grandson for me”, because having just one topic to discourse about this week WASN’T ENOUGH, apparently. Thanks so much Horikoshi.

(ETA: okay so just a note before I start, this week’s RHA translation was a huge mess, so I followed up this chapter by reading a couple of other translations. the main one I’m using for reference is the one by @hanashimas​, whose weekly posts I highly recommend. anyway so you’ll see a couple of ETAs in this post in places where the initial translation was off.)

how many layers of bandages did they wrap this poor kid’s fucking hand in omg

jesus Deku. are you holding onto a bouquet of flowers under that thing?? or a tennis racket??

omg yes, finally

is he reading these names off a teleprompter lol. and if so, what has Jeanist ever done to slight you, Deku? “god bless Kacchan and Aizawa-sensei and Todoroki-kun and everyone else in the whole wide world... except for Best Jeanist. fuck that guy.” actually this joke would be funnier if half of tumblr didn’t legit feel that way lol but anyway

OH MY GOD

I NEED TO HAVE A TALK TOO. ABOUT, OH, EVERYTHING

I got immediate KHR vibes from ALL OF THIS. this is seriously such a Vongola aesthetic. “let’s use the luxuriously cushioned chairs with the seat backs that are ten feet high, and arrange all of the handsome ghost people in a big circle” like come on

that said there are also some slight LoTR vibes as well. “bring forth the ring, Deku”

I like how Six is sitting there with his feet drawn up all casual, but with his arms inexplicably sticking STRAIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF HIM and dangling over his knees like he’s doing some sort of zombie walk

apparently the Fourth wasn’t a big fan of shoes huh

interesting that All Might is the only one who’s still faint/indistinct, and and that Two and Three are fully visible

(ETA: the rest of my speculation about Two and Three has been moved into a separate post, the better to focus on the shit that’s actually happening in this chapter lol.)

and lastly, interesting that all of them are talking now, except for All Might (and I guess the Second and Third as well). to the best of my knowledge Deku hasn’t unlocked the Sixth’s quirk yet, so I guess the quirks don’t really have anything to do with it

oh and it looks like Deku’s mouth is still covered. I guess that’s convenient for the vestiges since we all know it’s hard to stop Deku once he gets going. but on the other hand it’s very inconvenient for people like me who wanted to see some interaction. alas

so First says that OFA’s power has grown a lot in the last four months (i.e. since Deku unlocked Blackwhip), and now the vestiges can communicate with each other as well as Deku

so even when Deku’s not around they can all just chill with each other. this is such a weird thing to me lol. like it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also strange as hell to know that you’ve got eight other people hanging out in your head spying on everything you do and having conversations with each other about it. it would be like if Dark Shadow had someone to hang out with other than Tokoyami. good thing you weren’t triplets, Tokoyami

First says that it’s become easier for the vestiges to interact with Deku ever since TomurAFO barged into the OFA Domain back at Jakku. huh

(ETA: apparently this is because AFO forcibly pulled out OFA’s power when he was trying to steal the quirk, so I guess that makes sense.)

okay thank you Banjou for addressing this concern which I initially brought up as a joke, but which was apparently real enough for you to reassure Deku about

“don’t worry, even though we’re awake and hanging out inside of you at all times, we’re definitely not secretly watching and making fun of every single thing you do” hmmmmm

(ETA: “not that you could do anything about it even if we were, since you’re probably going to be the last OFA holder ever!” I don’t trust anything this asshole says lmao.)

OH SHIT??

YESSS DEKU now you can hold them accountable for all of their bullshit! because I do not doubt that there will be bullshit lol but let’s see how that goes

oh damn

well okay then. you didn’t have to stand up and walk over to him and loom all threateningly like that but okay sir

this guy has kind of a Kimimaro vibe to him. remember? that bone-growing guy from Naruto? except I’m pretty sure he had eyebrows. and wasn’t twenty feet tall. speaking of which, that explains the chairs

why are you wearing only 3/5ths of a shirt

lol what

someone’s gonna have to explain this to me. is he just redundant or something lol, or is he strangely poetical or what

(ETA: apparently HE’S MAKING A PUN omg. I immediately gained +10 love for him lol. also it flows a lot better in Japanese. this is one of the things Caleb is usually good at, so we’ll see what he does with the wordplay.)

omg the hermit theory is true!!

“I’M NOT WEIRD, IT’S SOCIETY WHICH IS WEIRD.” lol whatever you say buddy. also love how Banjou tried to give him a big hearty slap on the back but Hermit Boy was not having it lmao

IS HE TRYING TO CAPTURE HIM WITH BLACKWHIP

AND ACTUALLY, NO, SIR, AS A MATTER OF FACT, WE ARE NOT AWARE. SO SPILL!!

?!!?

okay my first response was LOL ARE YOU SERIOUS, THAT’S THE BIG SECRET!? -- and then it hit me what the significance of “died from old age... AT AGE FORTY” meant. at which point it was like “!!!!!” and then “OH, SHIT”

(ETA: there’s also an Iida joke here somewhere but I’m just too tired to make it.)

oh my god oh my god

did he somehow get a copy of the coroner’s report or something? like how does he even know that he died from “old age” as opposed to any number of other natural causes? ??

but anyway. so this is the quirk singularity coming into play then I guess. but then how come All Might is still alive and ticking?

(ETA: so this is one example of where this week’s translation is a mess lol. apparently the Fourth explains here that he didn’t know what the fuck he died from until All Might researched it. and it turns out there actually was an autopsy lol so there you go.)

so Fourth says he held OFA for eighteen years, and since he knew he would never be strong enough to defeat AFO on his own he basically just spent all his time punching rocks in the woods and training to power the quirk up

oh shit

is he implying that his body literally fell apart?? like that’s how he got the scars on his face? -- IS THAT WHAT KEEPS HAPPENING TO TOMURA, THEN. oh shit

DUDE

so you’re telling me that this quirk actively shortens the lifespan of anyone who uses it?? and my little boy here has had it now for a year already?? fuck me, I have immediately have a TON of thoughts about all this but let me save it until he’s done with his explanation

THANK YOU, DEKU

right?? how come All Might didn’t die then. even after he got injured. please don’t tell me he actually is dying still and is just being slow about it because I SWEAR TO GOD

what does this mean??

so what you’re trying to say is you all have NO FUCKING IDEA how long Deku’s gonna be able to hold this quirk before he SUDDENLY DROPS DEAD?! five generations ago this dude was able to hold it for eighteen years, and then four generations later All Might was able to hold it for thirty-odd years or so, and now Deku has it and you all have no clue which way it’s gonna go? actually this makes it sound like it really wasn’t OFA that killed the Fourth at all and you guys are just really bad at forming hypotheses. but since you’re making a big plot point out of it I guess it must be true

and don’t think I didn’t notice the part where you said you didn’t have OFA very long and then “died while fighting”, Firsto. I want to hear more about that. specifically who you passed the quirk onto before your death

and yes, if we are agreeing that OFA was the cause of the Fourth’s death, then the conclusion on this next page is the natural one to draw

so that’s a bit of a relief then, because Deku is quirkless too. so it means he won’t be able to hold OFA forever (and will probably have to find another quirkless person to pass it on to), but at least he won’t be randomly dying out of the blue next Tuesday or something

oh my god now he’s talking about OFA and AFO and user consciousnesses and all sorts of good theory stuff but it’s so much exposition. you’re really gonna make me read all this lol

wait what. why would All Might being quirkless have anything to do with the presence of his vestige in OFA Outer Space Party Land

but Deku is also quirkless and he’s clearly visible and chatting with you guys. so what gives. like how much of this is verified fact and how much of it is you guys just shrugging and making stuff up lol

SERIOUSLY, GUYS

BUT DEKU IS ALSO -- you know what, never mind sob. none of this shit makes any sense but whatever

(ETA: seriously, this all seems like an awful lot of speculation on their part. for Deku’s sake I sure hope they’re right.)

FSSKDJFLSKLKJLKJL ALL MIGHT IS FIFTY-FIVE?!

lol that’s a full ten years past my closest estimate, wow. but this pretty much confirms his age now at last! or at least confirms it within a couple of years, because we know All Might and Nana met when he was in middle school, and he presumably had the quirk by the time he took the U.A. entrance exam. so yeah. gonna go with fifty-five

so they think that because All Might was quirkless, OFA was better able to adapt to his body and became his true quirk, as opposed to being an extra quirk that stacked on top of the one he already had and overwhelmed him. ties in back to the whole “AFO used to bend people to his will by forcing quirks on them” thing, as well as the “Noumus are all mindless because of the strain of having multiple quirks”

Two and Three are really ruining the serious vibe of this scene here lol

they look like they’re doing the counting for hide and seek

and is this Deku talking now? I was about to get mad at First for implying that quirkless people are somehow freaks, as opposed to “normal�� people jdslk

so in other words, don’t go giving it to your best friend all casually for shits and giggles, Deku. even if it would make a really cool climax for a movie. well shit. maybe that’s why they were so quick to nope back into Deku’s body afterward

so First says that because quirkless people are becoming rarer and rarer, the fact that All Might just happened to stumble upon Deku is “nothing short of a miracle.” which, yeah, that was definitely a stroke of luck there. being quirkless saved his life. but being quirkless is also part of why he was chosen in the first place, and we’ve always known that much

“in other words, kiddo...”

looks like there was some hurried clone stamp usage going on here lol. but props to RHA as always for putting this scan out so fast, especially given how exposition-heavy this week’s chapter has been

“anyways, that was the main topic” ARE YOU SERIOUS. there are like ten other topics imma need you all to get to here, people

(ETA: seems like this is a mistranslation; the line should actually read something more along the lines of “and now for the main topic.”)

FFFFFFFFF

“ENJOY YOUR CLIFFHANGER THIS WEEK.” dskfalkjlkjwlgkjl you really went and dumped this discourse on us yet again. fucking...

(ETA: forgot to mention, but as several people mentioned, this seems to be another mistranslation -- rather than asking Deku to kill Tomura as though it’s doing her a personal favor, Nana is asking “will you be able to do it.” in other words more of an “are you capable of doing it” type of thing. which is a very reasonable question to ask given that Deku is, well, Deku.)

anyways, and the answer is obviously going to be “no” of course. this isn’t going to end any differently than when the previous Avatars all told Aang to kill Ozai. but I guess it means we’re in for a fun conversation next week

so Nana looks pretty grim here though (nothing at all like the person who once taught All Might the importance of saving people with a smile), and I’m wondering if this means she believes that her grandson is already beyond saving. as in killing him would be a mercy, as opposed to him continuing to live with AFO bending his mind and body to his will. except if that is the case, I think she’s underestimating Tomura’s own will. and definitely underestimating Deku’s will to save

and also, just... I’m so fucking sick of AFO screwing the Shimura family over, honestly. this is exactly what he wanted. well fuck you, guy. you don’t get to have what you want. go out there and save Tomura, Deku. for his sake and for Nana’s. give them some hope. do your thing, boy. can’t wait for your big speech all about it next chapter lol

[multsicorn]

book-and-show

My preferred mix of the two canons is basically ‘The Untamed, but Wei Wuxian lost control of his zombies by his own goddamned self, and also plot/logic holes are taped over by explanations from the book when needed and possible.  And we know that wangxian are together and will be married, but we're left with spaces to fill in the details.’  (One of the cool/interesting things about having multiple versions of a canon is that one can mix and match!)  But there are definitely things that I prefer, separately, about each.

[two very long lists.  all of which are all about personal opinions/preferences, and none of which are looking to start discourse!]

Eight Things I liked better about the show:

1. "Who am I to you?"  "I had thought, that you were the one who knew me for my whole life."  "Still, I am." is *twenty zillion times* more romantic than a stolen blindfold kiss, in a way that pretty much encapsulates why I so much prefer show to novel wangxian overall.  And in this TED talk - I mean, in another post, hopefully, in not too long, I will.

2. Lan Wangji's explicit questioning of and overturning his understanding of 'what is right, and what is wrong,' rather than simply being motivated by 'if loving Wei Wuxian is wrong, then screw everything else.'

3. Introducing so very many characters earlier in the chronological timeline, and showing us more about them and their relationships prior to Wei Wuxian's death - and outside of the key moments in which they're involved in the plot.  Wen Qing and Wen Ning, Jiang Yanli, Mianmian, Songxiao, Xue Yang, Meng Yao - this list could also be its own post.

4. More focus on the Sunshot Campaign and its aftermath, pre-death, specifically on the period when Wei Wuxian is the feared necromancer, and he and his loved ones are dealing with that, against a background of war and then possibly more war.  It's by far my favorite part of the narrative, just because of my preferences re: genres, so I appreciate it being foregrounded rather than just a backstory that's shown in flashbacks.

5. The successive confrontations between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji over 'leaving the right path'!  In the courtyard, when Lan Wangji pulls Bichen on Wei Wuxian to make him listen; in the sad umbrella rain, when Wei Wuxian holds Chenqing out in front of him, defying Lan Wangji's efforts to rein him in.  These things probably fall under the umbrella of the TED talk from the first point, but they're the beating heart of WHY I LOVE THIS STORY.  And they're not even in the novel...!  I thank the CQL team for my life.

6. Also, THE COMB STORY.  I'd never have thought either that 'how do we improve an m/m romance novel?  By adding a het romance subplot, of course,' but the fact is that I love the dimension it adds to both Jiang Cheng's and Wen Qing's stories.  Highlighting their shared loyalty to their clans - except not shared, because they're from different clans! - but their shared *understanding* of what righteousness, justice, etc., is, and the way it leads to their tragedies, and the way it's a counterpoint to Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's different and ultimately shared understanding of 'what is right' and the way *that* brings *them* together is just... so good.  I am getting over it approximately never, and, again, it's show-original.

7. And I think the last big thing - other than, the acting's wonderful, imo, the visuals are great, (even the 'bad' special effects? I like 'em kinda ridiculous?), and when the prose-in-translation of all versions is iffy at best, (not judging MXTX's prose! or the scriptwriters'! but I unfortunately cannot read or understand it) it's REALLY NICE to have other major dimensions of the story that aren't lost or diminished in translation.  Honestly, I am only watching cdramas and not reading cnovels (I only read MDZS so I'd know what's in it) for that reason alone.  But in terms of *story* stuff -

8. I think that censoring wangxian's relationship down to the '(really really loud) subtext' level counterintuitively also makes the rest of the story seem considerably gayer.  If wangxian exists in hints and looks and narrative parallels etc., then likewise, so do the 3zun and Yi City triangles.  Not as much as wangxian, but they're more minor characters, and they're on the same continuum... to the extent that I legit thought that songxiao and xiyao would also be novel canon.  (They are not.)  If Wei Wuxian shocking Lan Wangji by showing him gay porn in the library, and commenting on Lan Wangji's beauty, is because he is actually into guys, then maybe Nie Huaisang lending Wei Wuxian that same porn, and also commenting on Lan Wangji's beauty, means the same thing, if that's all we have to go on. etc.

Nine Things I liked better about the book:

1. There's something about Wei Wuxian's narrative voice, the running commentary that he gives about others and most of all himself that is... funny?  Yes, it is, but that's not the part I love.  It's hard to pin down, but the pattern of the things he judges and the things he doesn't judge at all, even though maybe he should, but he really has so much empathy - in the literal sense, I mean, as well as the magical - is very specific and endearing?  He's exactly like that in the show, too, but we hear much less of it when he's not telling the story.

2. Getting to hear A-Qing in her Empathy fleshes out her cleverness and her bravery, again, in a way that's not easy to replicate seeing it from outside of her head.  (I think we may have more of all of the ducklings/juniors, actually, but I'm just not all that interested in their friendly banter.  Not when there's life-rending trauma in the OG of the same story!)

3. From the chronological start of the story, the Wens' domination and power-hunger is portrayed in a realpolitik way that's both more interesting and fits the rest of the story better, with the Jins later filling that same vacuum, and fearing Wei Wuxian's potential to do the same sort of thing to them, etc., as chronologically following and competing different takes on the struggle for power, without any need for the flat fantasy mcguffins of the Yin Iron or the 'spirit snatch.'

4. Wei Wuxian ~appreciating~ Nie Mingjue's dead body parts is hliarious. I love him hanging out with the corpse girls.  I love the Wens risingout of the blood pool for him ;___;.  Overall his relationship withthe corpses that he magics is such a cool weird fun part of the book,that is missing in the show except his friendship with Wen Ning for'let's make a show about necromancy but pretend it's not' reasons.

5. The fact that Wangxian don't split up and go their own ways at the end of the story, even temporarily!  I could go either way on 'Lan Wangji becomes Chief Cultivator' - I like the way that it moves into 'the future will be better than the past, and we'll work to make it that way', in the same way that 'the kids are alright' does, and the fact that Lan Wangji hates diplomacy and is bad at it can make for good amusing stories!  But I also approve of the fact that the personal win condition for so very many of these characters is to peace right the fuck out of sect politics, (like Mianmian our true hero does <3), and I believe in that as a happy ending.

6. Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's complementary ~ravishment~ kinks.  I don't like the exact way they're written in the novel (and extras), but I *will* take and run with the existence of them, nevertheless.

7. The post-resurrection plot makes, um, sense?  Let's not forget the importance of that!  (But, honestly, 'must a plot make sense'?  It's not all that important to me, lol.)   Going from one place to another to collect the pieces of 'our dead friend's' body rather than seemingly at random makes the journey feel purposeful rather than direction-less, and gives an indication of progress that's not simply 'amount of the story read as per chapter count.'  Though it's still not clear to me why the juniors squad needs to be in Yi City!

8. It has more of Wei Wuxian's inventiveness.  Whether founding the Diabolic Path rather than 'just' inventing some tools and talismans within and also outside of it, or figuring out/explaining how some sort of magic works, whether lecturing to the juniors or working it out for himself, or something like that one night-hunting extra where he's being a supernatural consulting detective... it's fun to see more of his ~mind at work,~ in a way that doesn't fit as well either into an audiovisual medium or under the constraints of 'what is happening? definitely not corpse magic!' that censorship imposes.

9. The structure of revealing what happened in (what I can't help thinking of as) the main portion of the plot - who Wei Wuxian is, what his life story is, and Lan Wangji's part in it - through interleaved and not even necessarily in-order flashbacks is... so interesting?  Unfortunately I can't tell how well it would've worked for me in terms of changing my understandings of characters etc., because I watched the show before I read the book, so I came to it knowing the outlines of the story.  But it's a cool idea, and I wish that I could experience it properly!  (Though I would never have read the book without watching the show first, I would've failed out at the start due to translation issues and then if I'd persisted past that due to all the gay chicken stuff.)