#how do i even begin to tag this context-specific mess

[flightyalrighty]

making this its own post bc i kinda just want it here to have

[cheapshrimpysheep]

Meaningful Kiss 4

SUMMARY: Would they make Public Displays of Affection? If not, are they protective instead? And how do they show you how much they truly love you through their kisses? 💋

CHARACTERS: Cater, Trey, Floyd, Rook

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Established Relationship, Kissing, Flirting, Slightly Suggestive

WORD COUNT: An average of 430 words per character.

COMMENTS: The last part of the Meaningful Kisses series. These were the four least voted characters, however, I had a lot of fun writing them.

I hope you enjoy reading it too. 😘

Meaningful Kiss (Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, Vil, Idia, Malleus)

Meaningful Kiss 2 (Ace, Deuce, Jack, Epel, Sebek)

Meaningful Kiss 3 (Ruggie, Jade, Kalim, Silver, Lilia)

CONTEXT: This can be seen as if you were at the beginning of the relationship, or already in an established relationship.

Cater is into PDA for sure! He likes to be lovey-dovey and flirtatious. And especially enjoys showing it on his social media. EVERYONE knows about your relationship. You are "that" couple. Or at least that's what Cater's photos and PDA suggest.

Whenever you two are together, you are glued to each other. He will always have one or both arms around you. Especially if you are on a date. Of course, if you're not that into PDA yourself, he'll respect it, but in that case you'll have spoil him with cuddles in private, kay~?

However, this fact that Cater likes to show his feelings for you in public and on social media will end up bringing you some "hate". People saying he's only with you because your relationship is aesthetic pleasing. That you like to have coordinated clothes is just a facade for an exaggerated and false romanticism.

He gets a little sad and hurt when people say bad things about him in the relationship, like when they imply that he's just using you. But whenever an attack is directed at you, like when saying that a person like you doesn't deserve a boyfriend like him, the people pleaser side of him disappears. And he starts using his social and conversational skills to defend you, even if he has to insult the other person to do so. This is if it is IRL, which rarely happens. On social media, he just deletes the comment and blocks the person. Good vibes only.

But of course you also feel bad when you read or hear things like that. A lot of people criticize the fact that Cater only shows the good parts and that's why it's all fake. Of course he only shows the good things, that's what social media is for. He likes the popularity and all that, but, unlike certain influencers, he knows what limits are. He would never publish anything bad about you, much less humiliating like an argument or you crying. Mainly because at these times, if they happen, he will be more concerned with consulting you or making you feel better to the point of forgetting his cell phone somewhere.

This can lead to his most meaningful kisses. The ones he gives you when these things affect you, to prove that those things people say are lies and they don't know anything. When he is hugging you and saying cute and funny things to make you feel better. Everything he does in public he also does in private, including kissing your cheeks and lips. But this specific kiss is one that is exclusive to the private sector.

It's not extravagant like the ones he usually gives you, this one is soft, sensitive, and slow by his standards. Basically the opposite of what he usually shows himself to be. You feel that they are calm and that he is enjoying the moment.

Trey is not really into PDA. I mean, it's not like he's averse to it, but it's just not his thing. He is a simple man, he shows and knows how to see love in small things. That and he's not, shall we say, the flashy and extra type. Too much attention can embarrass him.

However, even though he's not much of a show-off, he thinks it's fun to mess with you in public without anyone seeing. Like kissing your cheek discreetly and casually when no one else is paying attention to you and surprising you in the process. Beside that, you continue to behave like good friends. Nothing very different from how he would treat any other friend.

In private, it often doesn't change much. Just like I said, he's a guy who likes his peace and quiet. So the two of you end up looking like a long-term couple even if you aren't yet. However, it is also in private that he feels most comfortable hugging and kissing you. He's more welcoming to you doing the same to him.

If there's one type of surprise he's a fan of, it's you hugging him from behind when he's cooking. Many of your cutest moments happen in the kitchen. He likes to have you as a tester to his food and sweets.

The problem is when he feels more naughty and takes advantage of your trust in him to use his signature spell to change the flavor of what you taste to play a trick on you. For example, you're expecting to taste the sweetness of strawberry cake, but instead you taste the saltiness of an oyster. He will laugh at your reaction and your sulky face.

Then he will apologize, without regret for what he did, and that won't be enough for you. By feeling comfortable being himself with you, you'll end up getting to know his cheekier side. He hugs you around the waist with his rare smug expression and his gaze fixed on you. He's "really sorry" but maybe he can redeem himself. He runs his thumb over your slice of cake to remove some of the icing and puts it on his own lips. Why don't you try it again? No tricks this time, he promises.

And this leads to his most meaningful kisses. Not the soft, sweet, affectionate ones he usually gives you in private, but the ones that show that sassy side of him that most people don't think exists.

It depends on Floyd’s mood, obviously. But as a general rule, he likes PDA, more giving than receiving. He likes to be in control of these things, he doesn't like to be the one being "squished", you know.

He does what he wants, if he wants to hug you, he will hug you, if he wants to kiss you, he will kiss you. And no one will even have the courage to look at him the wrong way. No one wants to get in trouble with an Octavinelle student, especially Floyd Leech. This ends up guaranteeing you instant security and a sense of immunity. Everyone will know that you are together, not in a gossip way, but more in a sense of warning other students of the danger of messing with you.

He will hug you and kiss you however he wants, whenever he is with you. This part doesn't differ much from public to private (with one or two exceptions of course, chill!) If anyone can be embarrassed by PDA here, it's you, because he's never embarrassed. If others have a problem with it, that's their problem, and if they upset him... well... let's just say it will be the first and last time.

His affection only fluctuates when he is in a bad mood, and he becomes even more unpredictable. You can never predict whether he's in an "I want to be alone" bad mood or an "I want to hug you like a stuffed animal" grumpy mood. Either way, you don't need to know because he'll tell you. When he's in a bad mood he's not one to make people guess what he wants, he'll tell them directly and specifically.

Floyd’s good-mood kisses range from casual and lazy kisses just because to passionate and cheeky kisses to mess with you. But surprisingly, his most meaningful kisses are when he's in a bad mood and wants to be with you.

Just like he secretly likes to entertain and cheer you up when you're in a bad mood, he loves that you can do the same for him. He can be very clingy when he's in "I want you to hug" grumpy mood. He likes that you let him hug and kiss you however he wants to make him feel better.

This may lead to him starting to kiss your cheeks, moving on to your neck and finally your lips. His kisses are like his mood, in this case, grumpy, but not for long. Kissing you is fun for him, so you'll start to feel the kiss change at the same time as his mood. His pout starting to change into a lazy smile. And if you're not “careful” and he ends up in a REALLY good mood...

If words of affection could be considered PDA, well, I think you know. Rook is a man of words and everyone knows it. Some even know it too well. Prepare to receive the same treatment as Vil.

Surprisingly, he's not much of a toucher. He’ll never think twice before greeting you with charming words and a tender kiss on the cheek, or on the back of your hand like a prince, but never on your lips. At least not initiated by him.

He won't take the initiative to hold your hand or hug you. He will only do so if you ask or in response to your initiative. In this case he will gently hold your hand and caress it with his thumb, or hug you gently as if you were a precious little thing.

And why? One of the reasons is because he likes it when you ask. There's something about the need for his touch that he enjoys. Luring you with words to deliberately make you fall into the “trap” of wanting his touch. And the more “difficult” you are, the more he loves it.

Another reason is that, when hunting, touching the prey is usually the last step, right after finally catching it. He's a hunter, not a pet owner. He uses words because they are his bait, physical touch is the prize. And he likes that each other's touch is as much a reward for you as it is for him. He wants to make you want him as much as he wants you.

And that's why true physical touch only happens in private. He likes to show through words how much he likes something or someone, but he is also a man of secrets, and how he enjoys the prize of having you in his arms is one of the secrets between the two of you. Especially because his touch manages to be as flattering and appreciative as his words.

He likes to run  his hands over you like someone appreciating a work of art. Kiss your neck and lips like someone savoring an exquisite delicacy. And these are his most meaningful kisses. Kisses of appreciation, of care, of passion and at a certain point, of desire, for a prize that can slip out of his hands at any moment because you have your own free will and that is exciting.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[fangirlanxiety74]

Please tell me about your IHNMAIMS headcanons!!! :3 I will eat them up

HEHEHEHE HIHIHI!!!

:3 multiple people asked me to talk about it and I talked about it with people in DMs too so here's the post for group discussion where I tag you all @average-hyperfixator @paig-does-it @infectiousliterature @a-st3r hello!!

God where to begin?

I was mainly talking about Ellen last night. I like. For context, I have this huge ihnmaims doc just *filled* with headcanons, how I would rewrite their backstories and psychodramas and such. Things like that!!! I only have like. Ted filled out coherently at this point, but I've been thinking about the others too. Like Ellen!!!

I really want to write her in a light where she's not. That soft-spoken, sweet, submissive and cowardly person that she's like all across the franchise. Like, she is, but not until AM messed with her, yk???

The Ellen I imagine...

Grew up in a very loving and very supportive family. She definitely doesn't come from money, but she's not really well-off either. She's kind of in Ted's situation in terms of financially, maybe a bit worse.

But!! That doesn't stop her or her family. She was loved. She was taken care of. She was encouraged. And as such, she's a very confident, strong-willed, determined woman when she grows up. She loves to learn, loves to do whatever she can get her hands on; stem, psychology, anthropology, history, computer science, engineering, etc, etc. She just wants to know all she can!!!

And man, with that type of determination + love of learning, it gets her places. She's a high achiever, maybe a bit of a perfectionist and hard on herself, but she's done so many great things in her life, she's admirable!

The only issue is... While family and friends may support her. While she's still achieved so much. It leaves a bitter aftertaste knowing that...

Well, she's still a black woman. Yk?

And that means she has to limit herself. Keep her light dimmed. In order to really... get anywhere she wants. Even if she hates it. Because, society only sees her in that light and nothing more. No matter what she does, her race and gender will still hold her down. If that makes sense?

She's kind. She's caring. She's a good person. She always has been, but wouldn't you also be kind of snarky and passive-aggressive if people diminish the things you do, just because of what you are? Being constantly compared to a white woman, or even a white man, being asked when you'll finally settle and start your "true calling" (marriage and kids), etc?

I like to think she's witty and cunning and just so smart, and seldom few people want to accept it due to their racism and misogyny. And it's awful

And then... The world ends. It blows up. Now you're the only black woman left on Earth alive, surrounded by men, and a sentient AI strips you of all those things that made you *you*. Turns you into someone you don't recognize.

It was AM's doing. Her becoming that soft-spoken, motherly, cowardly woman. That's not who she is. That's AM forcing her to take on a more traditional role; a wife, a mother. An accessory to a man. Because what would be more humiliating than that, to a woman who was so much more?

She's trapped in a box she can't get out of. One with a sliding door, always reminding her of what she could be, but it's too far out of reach. Trying to grab it will risk in your arm getting chopped off, or worse. (Thank you to paige-does-it for this idea specifically <333)

But still

The door can open. And she can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So she has hope. She keeps it, close to her chest, and tries to give others the same. That they can survive this. That things can be better than they are now.

Not necessarily because she believes it, but...

She'd go insane without it.

[noirapocalypto]

First and only time I will ever speak out directly about fandom shit. Not tagging, reblogs off. Once this is posted, I'm moving on.

Since when is voicing a complaint about something concerning me-- that, let's be honest, I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel that way--attention seeking? I'm not at all asking for people to come coddle me. I was posting on my own blog, I wasn't tagging anyone, I wasn't naming names. But, venting and confiding in our own created safe spaces is a bad thing and a cause for vague posting? What's the logic there? Why was it hard to just quietly unfollow and just leave, without saying a word? I wouldn't have even known or noticed, honestly. It would not have been any problem what so ever. But I saw it, and I know it was aimed at something I said in my tags. And yeah, I'm sure me posting this is hypocritical as fuck. But Jesus Christ, I've kept 'neutral' and stayed in my lane far enough. For once, I'm standing up for myself.

It's not about 'attention seeking', it's not about 'Why am I not getting any notes??', it's not about any of that. It's never been about any of that. It's the fact that there's no sense of community anymore. Look at how things were two-three years ago and look at how things are now. We're missing a lot of names we used to see way more often. People that have withdrawn and now quietly share without interacting--how is that an enjoyable fandom experience? And yeah, I'm part of the problem too with how much I withdrew from people (withdrew...NOT vague posting about, not target, not messing with anyone)--but is that a cause for taking one of my personal posts--that wasn't even meant to be a jab towards anyone specific--and fucking vague posting about it? Goddamn, it wasn't even a direct insult to anyone either. I didn't say "People who do this suck", I said "this is a trend I personally believe does more harm than good".

Look man, we can try and deny it until we're all blue in the face. But this fandom isn't the way it was when it first started. It's not the same vibe, not the same comradery. Those of us that have been here since the beginning, we see it.

And if you don't see the difference, then congrats. You've stayed safe in your own little bubble. The same can't be said about others, unfortunately. Hide your heads in the dirt if you want, but I'm sure there are others barely hanging on as well, if it weren't for the love they have for their OC's and creations and the friends they've made.

It's really invalidating--and a huge violation of trust for that matter--to open up and express sadness or concern, then go and see someone make a public post about how it's just 'attention seeking'. It's not the first time I've seen this happen either--even worse when it's done in private and not on tumblr--yet it gets posted about. How is that okay? How is that productive at all? Fucking ignoring it and going about your day does far more good than making others feel like shit for expressing sadness that something they enjoyed is now far different.

So I dunno. I tried holding onto the hope that things can change, that people can start being friendly and understanding again. Or that, at least, people will be mature enough to just coexist and be civil to one another. But I'm think I'm ready to throw in the towel. Unfollow me if you want, block me if you want--I'm just done. I think I'm well within my right to voice frustration about the current state of a community I once loved, as well as being within my right to react to something I posted that was taken out of context.

We're adults. Grow up and leave people be.

The parts that were fun, were fun. The rest? Yikes.

And to my friends and mutuals, I'm sorry for putting this shit on your dash. Like I said, first and last time.

[relaxxattack]

hi im asking u this bc u seem to be bee duo enthusiast so

ive been calling c! beeduos relationship platonic because i thought that was what their cc’s said, and i thought they had said that they were uncomfortable with ppl shipping the characters. But ive seen a lot of posts that say their relationship is canonically romantic? and i absolutely do not want to come across as homophobic by watering down a mlm relationship to just friends because that happens so much in media so.

what is the canon state of their relationship / ur opinions on the platonic thibg

dont worry abt answering if u dont want to!! i see a lot of differing opinions and i trust yours :)

aw it’s totally fine, im flattered you asked me about this!

let me put it simply: it’s a whole mess, lol.

first im going to talk about what’s happened fandom-wide that caused differing opinions, and then i’ll explain my own opinion/interpretation. :]

(this got really fucking long im so sorry)

ranboo and tubbo initially proclaimed the relationship was romantic, specifically in argument with the wiki editors who had set it as platonic by default. (you can see this in the vod where they decide they’re canonically married— it’s very funny. chat tells them the marriage is already on the wiki, they check, tubbo is jokingly offended that it says platonic and asks if he needs to up the romance).

tubbo also makes jokes about adultry, which sort of implies the relationship is not necessarily a platonic one.

(theres definetly more in that stream alone but it’s been a long time since i watched it so i don’t remember a lot of it.)

the wiki, because of this, suffers from going back and forth on platonic and romantic, seemingly unsure where the joke ends and the canon begins, or if its canonically a joke! a mess, as you can already tell.

this gets more complicated as the marriage bit goes on: outsiders, such as phil and scott, both at one point say “platonic marriage”, which then ranboo and tubbo agree with. however, when chat asks them if they’re platonic, they say the opposite. so there is a lot of confusion there.

there’s also the difficulty of being able to tell streamers and characters apart. ranboo and tubbo both don’t like being shipped irl, and that’s their boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. (they’re also minors, but tbh when they’re 18 in a year i will still be following their boundaries regardless of their legal age).

due to people not wanting to be accused of minor shipping, they started adding the platonic tone indicator to most of their drawings— basically a way of saying “no homo”. meanwhile, tubbo frequently on stream flirts with ranboo and makes quite a bit of nsfw comments towards him that are frankly hilarious.

this goes on for a while with nobody really sure what’s canon, but a lot of people assuming it’s probably platonic, until: the drama of the mods night. a few mods dmed all the wiki editors telling them ranboo wanted his canon character relationship officially set to platonic.

unfortunately for those mods; the very same day, a few hours later, ranboo on stream makes fun of puffy delivering him and tubbo “friendship flowers”. because, and i quote, “bruh. we’re literally married. this must be how the ancient greeks felt.”

in case you don’t know, the internet often jokes about how historians will call ancient greeks ‘very good friends’ when they are quite obviously gay. so in this context, ranboo is joking that people will call him and c!tubbo, who are married, “close friends”, when he doesn’t think they are.

basically, ranboo canonized romantic bee duo, the very same day the mods told everyone he’d wanted a platonic one.

chaos and drama immediately erupted everywhere. on tumblr, we were talking about how weird it was of his mods to do something like that without asking him first. we ALSO talked about how weird it was of them to assume that ranboo can’t make his own decisions, or assume teenagers cannot be in relationships without it being sexual. twitter did the same thing but in the opposite direction: called ranboo mods homophobic, or said they were mad ranboo felt pressured into making a romantic relationship canon ‘just so people could have mlm rep.’

i dont want to go into detail about the drama that happened that night because apparently official people follow me and i dont want to stir it up or have them come “clarify” things. im just saying what we talked about.

ranboo in typical ranboo fashion apologized quickly and seriously. he was deeply sorry for possibly offending anyone with how he’d portrayed his rp relationship with tubbo, and he also assured everyone the mod thing was just a miscommunication.

he said he would talk to tubbo and they’d decide once and for all whether it was platonic or romantic, and then announce so everyone would know.

it’s now been a few months and we've had no word from them on that development. we still have no clue.

-

now, here’s my opinion:

i want to take ranboos word for it that it was a miscommunication with his mods, but... we had it on good authority from people on the wiki team and people in the discord with the mods that (while it was happening) they were really going after the wiki admins, and also made some weird comments about it. that combined with the way ranboo seemingly had no clue (considering he canonized their romance that very same day).... it’s very. sus of the mods.

then there’s the canon we’ve got since then. although occasionally adults in the room have called it a “platonic marriage” and tubbo once (back when it first started) called it a “plankton tectonic” marriage, in roleplay it’s been... kind of not that. tubbo and ranboo make nsfw jokes about each other in character, and their characters also share a master bedroom and bed in the mansion. there's also the way c!tommy really thinks it’s a romance between them as well, and they agree with and play off that— for instance confirming that they “fell in love” when he asked, or ranboo confirming that they “make out on occasion”.

people will still put platonic on their art and posts, imo, because they’re worried about breaking ranboo and tubbo’s irl boundaries by looking like they ship them. or even just being accused of shipping real life minors. and that’s a valid fear to have.

the thing is though: c!bee duo are not cc!bee duo. they’re roleplay characters. cc!bee duo are not okay with being shipped, but they made their characters get canonically married, and call each other “husbands”. so it’s okay to write the word “husband” in your comic without adding “platonic” to it, i promise.

telling the ccs that their characters have to be platonic is... weird. it comes off as not only babying them, but also as saying teens can’t date without it being gross. which isn’t true.

(this is why seeing people overuse “platonic husband” so much bothers me. like, they ARE husbands. you can just say it. what are you trying to hide...?)

-

do i think they’re canonically romantic? ehh, its likely. it’s still okay to interpret them as platonic, because again, it’s hard to tell where jokes end and roleplay begins. like, maybe it’s jokes in the rp too, and c!bee duo are just friends. friends can and should be allowed to make jokes like that with each other! aro & ace marriages exist!

or, maybe it’s actually part of the rp, and they’re very much romantic. we don’t know!

some people say they could be a qpr (queerplatonic romance), which i could see. (a qpr is a relationship that fluctuates between, or can’t quite be sorted into, “romantic” and “platonic”. people in a qpr can do romantic things while having platonic feelings for each other). in my opinion this is a very valid interpretation as well!

-

CONCLUSION (sorry this got so long omfg):

are c!bee duo romantic?

its likely, but you can still interpret them however you like!

should i put /p on bee duo content?

ehhh? i find it annoying when it’s overused (as do others), but if you’re worried you can. its up to preference. putting it too much is weird though

should i put /p on things cc! bee duo do?

no. you’re not the one saying it so you can’t decide the tone tags for that. imagine you said something to your friend and a random stranger came up and was like “haha but that was /p right...?”

can i ship c!bee duo?

mmm. i’m not sure on this one. they are canonically married and very flirtatious, but the ccs don’t like being shipped and they’re close enough to being the ccs that actively shipping might be against boundaries.

can i treat c!bee duo as romantic?

yes. literally just don’t be weird about it. it’s not that hard! you can understand that two characters are husbands without making it weird

here’s the most important thing: boundaries. cc bee duo still haven’t told us what their preferences and canon is about this whole thing.

right now, i am assuming based on what they already show us they’re comfortable with, but! the second they give us any more info! all these opinions will change!

i am only going off what they do. i would never want to cross boundaries at all. i just wish they would make theirs a little more clear.

..... i hope that helped anon, i went way off the rails... i need to go to sleep.

[onebizarrekai]

v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

[amelee23]

Fool | J. YH

Genre: Fluff

Tags: Best friends to lovers, Suggestive themes and sexual jokes, Wooyoung is an accidental wingman, Nerdy gamers having at it, A lot of Need for Speed references

No. Words: 3.5k

⭐⭐⭐

She always loved when they got completely absorbed in their little bubble - engrossed in what was making them tick in the most passionate of ways. Since Yunho came to pick her up and take her to the dorm, she didn’t even realize when they got there - or even that the house was empty -  because they were too caught in a conversation about the new-coming video games of 2021. The small task of taking off shoes or their jackets, the walk to Yunho’s room and the struggle to get comfortable in the gaming chair; these were not memories in her mind. All she could remember was the way he smiled without stop and the sparkle in his eyes as excitement took over his entire being.

Only after Yunho told her he’s been playing old games lately - specifically racing classics, of the Need For Speed series - had she realized the house was too quiet. Yunho then informed her they all left to eat at a restaurant with the manager team, but he asked to be left behind so he could spend time with his best friend. She couldn’t help the warm smile raising her lips at the sweet sacrifice this man made for her.

A few minutes later and she felt the usual competitive side of her kick in, seeing Yunho with a controller in hand, playing Need for Speed: Underground 2, a game she remembered dearly from her childhood. She couldn’t help but feel she could do so much better than him - and that’s how the challenge came to be.

“Yeah, you want to bet?” Yunho suggested, his cheeks raised in a cheeky smile, but his lips expressed something a lot more smug. 

“2 out of 3: sprint, Street X and drift.” The boy laughed at his best friend’s confidence, finding her determination very charming, like always.

“Deal.” He announced, raising his hand so she could high five the deal to completion. It never failed to amaze him, how gentle her high fives felt to him, even though she’s the only woman he’s ever seen break a controller before. “What are we betting on, money?”

“Money is boring.” Taken aback, Yunho had a healthy laugh at her statement. He couldn’t wait to say this sentence again, out of context, and turn it into both teasing material and an inside joke.

“Okay, then what do you suggest?” He asked, still cackling with a half lidded eye smile.

“Let’s do something more… daring.” Trying to act surprised, Yunho opened his eyes in curiosity and hummed. They both got to thinking for about a minute, then she snapped her fingers exaggeratedly to show she had an idea. “Let’s randomly ask Wooyong to give the loser a punishment!”

“Like, with no context?”

“Exactly! After one of us loses, we ask Wooyong to give out a spicy punishment-! No one would be better than him at coming up with something totally ridiculous that one of us will regret for a lifetime!”

“I mean, you’re not wrong. But I’m starting to think you’re a masochist.”

“It’s a 50/50 gamble, so who knows?” She rebutted, wiggling her eyebrows at Yunho suggestively. He could feel his ears heating up so he pretended to need to face his computer for a while. “So, what do you say?” She questioned him, moving closer to where he was, probably intentionally, because she knew how to tell when he was turning shy. 

“I say you’re both crazy and a genius … a crazy genius. But I’m all on board.”

“Yas, leggo baby!” Yunho shook his head as he took in the image of his best friend leaning back into her chair, controller in hands, legs somewhere in between the right armrest and the air. Her enthusiasm dripped from the way she was grooving to the OST of the game. Warmth and an electricity-like feeling began filling his chest.

It took them perhaps a little too long to decide on the first track to play. Eventually, after long minutes of bickering, they chose a winding long race and swore to not try to mess the other up.

Yunho was the first one to drive, his engine roaring as he continued to hold his acceleration button. He had some lucky escapes from running into traffic - and easily overcame his competition. Now in front, he was taking short cut turns, but to her, they looked too time consuming. Yunho was trying to drive as properly as possible, and it was affecting his time; she couldn’t help but puff up as she realized it would be an easy win against him. With a record of 2:27:34, Yunho rolled his chair away from the screen and let his best friend take over.

Hands grasping the controller, she took a deep breath to overly-dramatize the situation even further.

“Eat my dust.” She mumbled, and Yunho gave her a curious side eye.

Swiftly she overtook all the NPCs, climbing up to first place. She wasn’t even worried about them to begin with. As the turns approached, Yunho realized she wasn’t showing signs of taking her fingers away from the acceleration button - not until the last second, at least. Her turns were either taken with the help of crashing into a wall or into a stylish, speedy drift. Yunho was baffled, thinking that crashing on purpose to finish faster should be considered as cheating. But he accepted his defeat as her time was 2:14:58, over ten seconds less than him.

Cracking her knuckles, she wore a smug smile as she let Yunho choose the next race for them to play. It was 1 to 0 currently, so he decided he should spice things out now - by choosing a ‘random’ Street X race. He probably forgot to mention to her that Street X were his forte in this game.

Yunho put his focus face on from the moment the cars showed up on screen. For most, this Street X race was difficult to even beat on first place - but he knew what he was doing. 

“I hope you had your fun.” He threatened, hands moving effortlessly on the controller to take him through the sharp, abrupt turns which were in Street X - a race type specifically made about taking those turns right, not about speed. Raw talent was dripping off of his fingers, but she didn’t want to feel discouraged just yet. Perhaps her method of using walls to take turns could work here, too-

Now that it was her turn, she realized it wasn’t the case - in here hitting walls was the worst thing you could do. Eyes dashing in between her car and the timer non-stop, she realized she was losing a lot of time correcting her direction if she didn’t brake properly before a turn. By the last lap, she already lost hope, as she reached Yunho’s record and wasn’t done with the race yet. 

“Tight game.” She stated, trying to ease the thick competitive air in the room. Yunho just smiled, a sparkle of something naughty in his eyes.

“Would you like to do the honours?” He asked, referring to choosing the drift track, the last race of their competition. He looked so sure of himself, to even offer that she chooses the track; she couldn’t help but feel even more frustrated by that cockyness. 

“Yeah.” She answered, not even looking him in the eyes. She knew what track she wanted - the one on the actual streets of the city, which had two off road areas - those were bomb in doing drifts over 50.000 points. 

Yunho was surprised she chose such a difficult track, but didn’t really complain. He had recently unlocked this track since he was nearing the end of the game, and so he knew the trick of the off road areas too, especially because he failed them enough times. He collected small drifts here and there on the way to the first special area, then he made sure to catch enough speed to send the back of his car in a beautiful curve, following the form of the turn. He didn’t need to, but he took the risk of connecting that turn to the next one that followed and gathered around 74.000 points in that area only. She was biting her lip, wondering if she still had the nimbleness to beat that.

The next special area gained him about 37.000, and with all the other points collected from smaller drifts, he was able to gain over 130 thousand. 

She was already pinching the bridge of her nose, knowing that she would probably lose. It’s been a while since she played this game, and the special drift areas were always a gamble. Yunho couldn’t help but laugh at the tension in her back, giving her a friendly pat to brighten up.

“You got this!” He cheered, because even if he wanted to win, he didn’t like seeing her so discouraged. He often times also got mad when he realized he was being too competitive and not giving anyone a chance to win against him.

She started out just like Yunho, gaining some small scores on the way to the main attraction of the race. As she saw the goal in her eyes, suddenly she struggled to regain control of her car in the midst of the big drift. She was headed straight for the edge, meaning her score would be neutralized if she hit it - so she was forced to stop her car. The special area unfortunately only brought her 55 thousand, a weak number compared to Yunho. She brushed it off and continued on her way, towards the second special area. She had a better feeling about this one, as her car was being much more responsive, and even if the space was smaller, she gained another 50 thousand there too. 

But unfortunately, as she hit the finish line, she realized - they both scored in the range of 130 thousand - but hers was exactly that number. Yunho was closer to 140.

With a little dance celebration, Yunho announced he was the winner of the tournament. Seeing him act so goofy, she couldn’t even bring herself to sulk. It’s not like it was unusual for Yunho to win their dumb little competitions, but it would’ve been nice to win one anyway.

“I acknowledge your driving skills, Mr. Jung.” She said with a smirk, offering him a hand to shake. 

“You weren’t so bad yourself, well… except the part of taking turns with your face.” Now that the tension was lifted, they were back to being all smiley and supportive of each other.

“What can I say? I like using my head.” Yunho chuckled, grabbing the controller to quit out of the game so he could find some movie to watch while they eat. Remembering that he needed to order some food, he pulled out his phone - and read Wooyoung’s name.

“So… do I need to ask Wooyoung to give you a ‘daring’ punishment?” He used air quotes to express the idea of something naughty. For a while he forgot that this was the penalty of losing, the thought completely slipping his mind as he focused too much on doing well in the game.

“I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders, secretly hoping that he had forgotten and she could’ve avoided doing something so embarrassing. 

Hesitant, Yunho opened the messenger app and tapped on Wooyoung’s name. He didn’t know if he was excited about what was about to come.

[Yunho]: Hey Wooyoung, can you come up with a ‘daring’ punishment a girl could do for a guy for losing a game?

[Sent 18:46]

A thick silence enveloped the two as Yunho stared at the screen, waiting for Wooyoung to see his message. They were both hoping the resident jokester of the group would go easy on them this time.

[Seen 18:51] 

Five minutes later, Wooyoung saw the message and Yunho watched the three dots dance for a very short amount of time. And, as it turned out, Wooyoung didn’t ask any questions - he gave a straightforward answer.

[Wooyoung]: Oral

His answer had Yunho opening his eyes in pure shock. He glanced at his best friend, who was looking at him expectantly, and then back at the screen. 

“Uhm…” He couldn’t even bring himself to mutter such a word to her. Before he knew it, he let his phone down and stared into the distance like a deer in the headlights. 

Yes, asking Wooyoung was a bad idea. 

“Uhm? Did he answer?” She pressed on, and Yunho couldn’t do much more than nod. 

“Look for yourself.” He showed her his phone, and she felt as if she just got hit with a soccer ball in the stomach. Blinking at Yunho in disbelief, she let out a confused puff of air.

“I mean, I expected something like a sexy dance…. But not this. Wooyoung really is another level.” She complained, suddenly looking as lost as Yunho. They both looked like ghosts, the colors drained from their faces. 

In truth, both of their heads were racing at that moment - imagining what could happen if they went through with it. Yunho’s face heated up and his body grew heavy, and she was biting her lip. But a common thought was keeping them both grounded; that they were just friends, and nothing more.

Moments later, Yunho was able to collect himself and focus his vision again. She was in distress, even in a haze. He pulled out his phone again, texting Wooyoung to rectify the situation.

[Yunho]: How about something a little bit… more decent. This is my best friend we’re talking about.

Wooyoung read the message instantly after, his fingers fast on the keyboard.

[Wooyoung]: Oh my God it’s her! Why didn’t you tell me! I thought you were finally scoring a lady with those video games of yours!

[Yunho]: I told you guys I was spending time with her today

[Wooyoung]: You did? OOPS

[Yunho]: Yeah, oops. You almost gave me a heart attack

[Wooyoung]: *boner

[Yunho]: DUDE

[Wooyoung]: Okay okay I’m sorry, but you’re the one who asked me outta the blue

[Wooyoung]: Something a little more tame… HMMM

[Wooyoung]: You’re a tall dude, right? How about you have her wear one of your shirts for the rest of the day… but like only your shirt. I bet she’d look cute ;)

[Yunho]: That doesn’t sound that bad, thanks

[Wooyoung]: I can’t wait to get home :P

She dragged her voice suddenly, bringing Yunho back to reality. He didn’t realize how focused he was in his conversation with Wooyoung.

“Uhm, so, yeah! Wooyoung gave you a more tame challenge. He said you should wear one of my shirts for the rest of the day… like, as a dress type thing.” Yunho tried to explain, but he was still nervous from the previous shock and tripping over his own words.

“So wear a boyfriend shirt.” Yunho felt his being vibrate once again at the mention of the word ‘boyfriend’.

“I… guess so.”

“I can do that! That sounds more like a prize than anything, to be honest. You know I have a fixation for your clothes.” She said with a laugh. She seemed to be back to her cheerful self, already walking her way to Yunho’s closet. “Can I choose any shirt?”

“Sure, go ahead.” Still no intonation in his words, Yunho’s mind was not present in the conversation at all. It wasn’t long before he zoned out again.

He couldn’t possibly be attracted to his best friend in such a way. They had a strong spiritual bond, for sure, but it was never anything physical for them. They appreciated each other for who they are, so he never asked himself questions like these before.

Or at least that’s what he wanted to believe. He heard the door handle move and then saw her come back in, legs bare and sexy, her small frame basically swimming in his large shirt. She sat down on her chair and melted back into it without a care in the world. She looked comfortable, even.

“So, are we ordering that food?” She asked, but in Yunho’s daze, he missed the smirk playing on her lips. If only he knew how much she was enjoying this.

Forcing her to stay put, Yunho was the one to receive the food at the front door. He sighed in relief when he managed to put a blanket over her, as they nestled up in bed to watch a movie and enjoy their food. Out of sight, out of mind, they say.

His torture began again as soon as they got back into gaming -  this time choosing to do their usual foolery - playing Minecraft together, one being in charge of the mouse and the other in charge of the keyboard. No wonder they never made any real progress on their world, since they could never be in sync with each other to actually defend themselves from zombies. ‘

Time flew by as they laughed and played, but the rustle of keys at the front door still managed to startle Yunho out of his mind. Panicked, he got up to throw her pants back at her, words leaving his mouth a little too fast.

“How about you put those back on now.” Cocking an eyebrow at him, she hung them on the chair, clearly refusing to do so.

“Why would I? The punishment says for the rest of the day - or as long as I’m here.”

“Yes, but-” Yunho pursed his lips to the side. He didn’t know how to word his thoughts. To add more pressure, the door to his room swung open and San came inside to throw his phone on the bed. He glanced at Yunho’s best friend briefly and they exchanged hellos before he went back to the living room, where the boys were being loud over something.

Yunho breathed out in relief that San was nice enough not to stare. Something about other men seeing her like this irked him, even more so that she was wearing his shirt. 

“But?” She urged him to continue speaking, getting off of the chair to stand in front of him. Being the tall guy Yunho was, it wasn’t often that she had the opportunity to stare him down like that. Yunho gulped as he felt his throat dry up, taking in the image of his friend - no, an attractive woman - looking at him with such a suggestive expression.

“I don’t want anyone else to see you like this…” He mumbled, the beauty before his eyes already making him breathless.

“Why not?” She teased.

“Because…” There wasn’t any logical answer in his mind, or even a concrete idea. “I think we need to reevaluate our relationship.” Letting out a healthy laugh, she wasted no time to climb in his lap. Yunho was happy, perhaps the most relieved he’d been the entire day. He didn’t know there was such a sexual tension in between them until it finally dissipated. 

“Finally!” She exclaimed.

“You think so too?” She hummed in response, eyes locking with his lips as she did. 

The kiss itself felt good - like two magnets clicking into place. What felt even better though, was being able to accept all the feelings he’s been burying deep inside himself. He was wrong in thinking something more wasn’t possible between them.

A loud knock echoed from the door, and Wooyoung’s voice could be heard screaming from the other side.

“You two decent?” 

“No!” Yunho yelled back. They certainly weren’t a sight he’d want his bandmates to see - his shirt was hiking up on her thighs, their arms tangled around each other’s bodies. 

“What do you mean ‘no’??!” This time it was HongJoong’s voice, and Yunho knew he messed up. Almost effortlessly, he got up with her still around his hips and grabbed her pants on the way to the bathroom. 

“Okay, but seriously get dressed now.” Yunho said, and only got a wink from her in response. He rolled his eyes and went back into the room to let her change. 

He really was a fool to think this wouldn’t work out - he already loved every second of it.

[theangryjikooker]

Hello again! I posted an ask to you before and earned myself a DA tag <3 which made me stupidly happy btw hehe.

Anywho, soft hour is open. I want to know your top 3 “uWu snatching/just hits you in the feels” jikook moments. The ones off the top of my head that never fails to make me ☺️🥺😭 (and not in that order but a disgusting mix of all those emotions at the same time) are (also, in no particular order):

1) gimbap Vlive, that moment where jimin nudges his head against jungkook’s, asking again “how do you want your eggs?” and jungkook’s SOFT giggle (gosh, I love when they are being such dorks messing with eachother 🥺)

2) that one concert where jungkook turns around only to cry harder and jimin wiping his tears for him (ughh. What more do I have to say? 🤧)

3) that one bday message to jimin. the one with ‘sorry’ after every line (yeah idk that one just gets me. Just undeniable sweetness overload)

So…looking forward to your list of ONLY 3! Okay? Just. Three. :P

And p.s. I am loving all the positive engagements and discussions happening here. I’m impressed by all the different kinds of asks you are getting, with some being much more thought provoking (well, thought provoking for a nincompoop like me). I wouldn’t even know where to begin answering those asks! But you are so good at articulating how you feel in your replies, and it’s been really interesting lurking around your blog and seeing what kind of ask you get hit with. Anyway, keep it up! Hope you have a good week <3

Hello, anon! Darling anon is just a catch-all tag for all my sweetheart anons that I don't know if I should tag as a supporter or in the anti-jkkr jikook club (all of which are based on my own arbitrary assessments lol). If you want a specific tag so I know which anon you are, just let me know and I'm happy to give you one! You can pick one or I can make one up based on previous posts you've submitted. 💜

I love soft hours 😭 thank you for letting me participate because it's not always soft up in here lmao. But three? ONLY THREE?!

1. Same as you, when Jimin gets all up in Jungkook's face for not being more specific. 💔 Literally a what the hell, not while I'm eating! moment. This moment and D3 Jikook are on the same level of suspicious for me.

2. In the Japanese interview where Jungkook speaks for Jimin in a question addressed to Jimin, and he says that Jungkook is the one that makes him happy? I AM SO SOFT. He doesn't often do stuff like this (and this is pretty relevant to an upcoming ask that I'd received), which explains why I LOST MY MIND when it happened.

3. My last moment is kind of the odd one out because I think it was a fan cam that caught it, but it's when they're done with the choreography, and before moving off-stage, Jungkook clearly waits for Jimin to take his hand before taking off. I don't know if there was any context behind it (e.g., was it too dark for Jimin? Though this seems unlikely), but it looked like an extremely tender gesture for an environment that they would be comfortable in and know how to navigate well enough. Admittedly, I project a lot when I watch this because it reminds me of my partner who will do this when we're in a crowd, for example, and when I tell you THE WAY my heart flips when he does this. It's so alpha energy (and I don't mean in an ABO way, please keep that away from me lmfao), and I die every time it happens.

Again, thank you so much for your lovely ask and also for your kind words. I WILL CRY. Also, I know I said you can pick your own tag, but I've decided that you're soft anon anyway. 😭😋

[kitkatt0430]

Armageddon Revised - Episode Two

Welcome back for the next episode outline. As a quick recap as to what this is about, I'm writing revised outlines for the Armageddon event from the Flash. There were a lot of problems with the original episodes and this is my attempt to fix fic it. Some of the scenes may find their way into one-shots over on Ao3, so if you enjoy the episode outlines and are interested in reading the eventual expanded scenes then keep an eye on the tag #ArmageddonRevised specifically.

Episode two is where things really start to get shaken up. While my first episode was quite noticeably divergent from the original in numerous ways, this one is even more so for reasons that'll be explained below the cut as I discuss some of the big problems I had with the original episode's plot.

What Went Wrong - Episode Two

There's never a compelling reason given for Team Flash to trust what Despero tells them. There's a lot of hand waving that he just feels trustworthy, or at least that's how it seemed to me. Which was so bizarre when everything Despero does during his screen time gives lie to his claims of heroism. While it'd be interesting to have actually gotten a morally dark gray anti-hero type from Despero, I never felt like the text of the show justified Team Flash believing that's who Despero was. It's also really weird that Despero knows about events happening in the current timeline when he's from a timeline where Barry was the Reverse Flash and Eobard was the Flash. Admittedly, it's not really clear what Eobard's plan was in the long run, but Despero's knowledge of two different and non-compliant timelines was clearly intended for plot convenience and not because the actual implications down the line were considered.

That all being said, I really liked that Allegra was, for a brief moment, the voice of reason for distrusting Despero. Unfortunately her xenophobic reasoning for voicing her mistrust of him was not great. Given all of Team Flash's alien allies, it's a series faux pas that either shouldn't have made it into the episode or should have been immediately called out. Allegra should have been firmly, if gently, reminded that Earth has plenty of non-human immigrants who adopt this world as their home and would defend it to their last breath.

As a personal nitpick about the episode, I don't particularly like ableist narratives where the protagonists are being gaslit into thinking they're crazy. So I was pretty predisposed not to like this plot line to begin with. And, to be honest, there's no sign of Eobard in this episode - so while I might've accepted the 'gaslighting Barry' plotline better if he'd been there and clearly personally responsible for it, there's no sign of him actually pulling any strings for any of this. Quite frankly, it all seems more like some cosmic coincidence than an actual part of Eobard's evil plan.

In that same vein, there doesn't seem to be any real point to shutting down STAR Labs. Sure, it cuts off Team Flash from their resources and acts as an additional stressor on Barry. All of which is leading towards Barry voluntarily invoking the Injustice Protocols himself. But if Eobard needed Barry to do that in order to solidify the timeline changes he was causing, then where is he during all of this? And since Eobard didn't think what he was doing would destroy the world and the whole 'gaslight Barry' plotline seems to hinge on Despero showing up and claiming Barry was about to go evil crazy... basically the whole premise of the episode being Eobard messing with Barry from afar falls apart.

So while I could see Eobard cutting the team off from STAR Labs to be petty, it doesn't really fit with the context of the episode.

It also begs the question of how outside sources identified a radiation leak without the Team discovering it first. Sure, Chester finds the dead scanner, but there should have been alerts that the scanner wasn't working anymore. There should have been redundancies. And what radioactive material would they be talking about anyway? Once again, Chester has the plans for a potential radioactive gun in his lab, but this place was built on a particle accelerator, not a nuclear generator. On top of all that, if the team really had been exposed to that much radiation that the building is potentially going to be destroyed and the remains safely disposed of outside of the city... then Team Flash should have spent the rest of the day in decontamination. At minimum.

The Xotar plotline as a red herring isn't too bad for what it was. But so much time is spent on the radiation leak at STAR Labs and Despero being all 'ahaha, you're going crazy' that it doesn't get a chance to breathe. Xotar is built up as a big bad villain from another city and Barry attacking the team at his apartment could have been an interesting moment... but instead we don't see it for ourselves. Our point of view jumps with Barry from his confrontation with her to the aftermath of his attack on the team. While clearly intended as a jarring moment to emphasize both Barry and his teammates starting to question his sanity... it's not really utilized all that well. For starters, it's weird that Barry has to remind his team that they're looking for Xotar... which he told them before he went to talk to Iris about using the Central City Citizen reporters to look into Xotar for him.

Once again, it shouldn't have taken Barry nearly two full episodes to realize Joe is dead. It's really insulting to Barry's relationship with Joe that it takes him so long to realize Joe is dead.

The fake Flash attacking City Hall would actually be a really interesting plot line on its own, but as part of the gaslighting Barry plot it feels like an after thought at best. It's like the writers for this episode had a lot of really interesting ideas, but were trying too hard to incorporate all of them instead of looking at their overarching plot to see what actually fit with Eobard's actual plan. And given that Eobard's ultimate plan was to reverse his identity with Barry's, to make himself the Flash and Barry the Reverse Flash, nothing in this episode actually furthers that plan. At best, it keeps Barry so busy dealing with his current timeline that he doesn't consider visiting the future to see what Despero is talking about for himself.

Additionally, while ruining Barry's reputation is absolutely something Eobard would love to do personally, ruining the Flash's reputation when Eobard plans to become the Flash runs counter to Eobard's goals. So framing the Flash for an attack on City Hall doesn't work in context with the broader Armageddon arc.

Armageddon: Revised - Episode Two

The episode picks up the morning after the last episode with the team having reached out to Alex about Despero. While Despero himself doesn't exist in the DEO database, his description might match a known species. She promises to keep a search running on the database and to reach out to Kara and J'onn, but they're off world and it might take a few days to hear back from them.

Afterwards, the team debates their next step with the timeline problems. It'll still be several hours until Gideon can tell when and where the timeline altering event will occur and Cisco's restored powers indicate that the ripples are coming faster. Iris wonders if maybe her time sickness is somehow related to what's happening, like an early warning of some kind, and she decides to reach out to Deon, since temporal manipulation is basically the Still Force's wheelhouse. He might be able to help them learn more about what's happening.

After Iris leaves to meet Deon, Barry gets called in to the station by Captain Kramer. She tells him about the Federal investigation into a potential second mole in the CCPD two years earlier as part of Carver's network... Barry. He, of course, denies the allegations, but she tells him she's been ordered to suspend him until the investigation completes. Chief Singh has all confidence in Barry's innocence and so does Kramer. But there's photographic evidence of the two of them having a clandestine meeting, so it's not looking good for him.

Back at STAR Labs, Ryan takes Ray aside and tells him he's working on a project similar to the Atom suit, but has run into some road blocks. He was hoping that, with Ray retired from the Legends, he might consider collaborating on the project. Ray is interested and says he left the Legends because he wanted to put his focus back on research as he feels like he lost sight of an important part of himself during his time with the Legends. He's missed being a scientist first and a hero second.

Barry returns to the team to tell them what happened and they're convinced that this is just yet another symptom of the shifting timeline. Allegra points out that investigating Joe's death found them valuable information. Maybe investigating this too would yield something useful. Barry agrees and Allegra and Kamilla head out to investigate again.

Meanwhile, Iris arrives at the train station where she plans to meet Deon. Only Cecile is already there. She apologizes to Iris and admits she's been struggling these last six months, but suddenly her grief feels new all over again. She never wanted to be a single mother again. But her difficulties handling her emotions doesn't excuse how she reacted to Iris or Barry yesterday. She came to the station today because it still bothers her that he was there that day. Joe had intended to remain retired and she still doesn't know why he didn't. Just that Joe had been interested in reopening a case at the station for some reason. He'd promised to tell her if his hunch panned out... but he'd tripped and fallen to his death instead.

Deon arrives at that point in a similar fashion to his arrival in the third episode. Iris fills both Deon and Cecile in on what Allegra learned and the fluctuations they've encountered with the timeline. Deon says he hasn't noticed anything, but that just means the Still Force isn't at work in this. Iris also repeats her theory that her time sickness might be connected to the timeline fluctuations. Deon doubts it and, with great reluctance, removes his treatments from her, warning it'll set back her recovery and lead to her shifting across timelines again. However, when Deon goes to use his powers on Iris, he shifts his vision to see through the Still Force and realizes the station is covered in what look like Still Force residue, but is somehow negatively charged compared to what he's used to.

Despero's transport belt can only shift one person, so he's been delayed in his attack based on how fast he can get Jefferson from Freeland to Central City. They attack at STAR Labs and Barry teams up with Cisco to fight back. They expect Ray to join them but both he and Ryan are suddenly nowhere to be found. And Caitlin tells them Ray's been dead for years. All the Legends have been.

During the fight, Despero attempts to use Jefferson to drain Barry's powers, which he succeeds at to some degree. Cisco is able to disrupt Despero's control of Jefferson with Frost arriving just in time to help incapacitate Despero.

After they fill Jefferson in on the current circumstances, he agrees to stick around and help out if he can. Despero is sealed within a pipeline cell where he gives his speech about having been a freedom fighting rebel banished to Earth. He claims he's only trying to protect his new home from the threat the Flash represents. He seems to think Barry's only been the Flash since shortly after the accelerator incident in 2018, however, and is surprised when Barry corrects him, saying he's been the Flash since about nine months after the accelerator incident in 2013.

Frost and Caitlin discuss Frost's ongoing search for Blaine and she admits the trail had actually already run cold. She misses the steadying influence of her friendship with Ralph and Caitlin commiserates with her over the difficulty of having a long distance relationship with their best friends. When Caitlin asks why Frost didn't come back sooner, if Blaine's trail went cold, Frost blushes and admits she ran into an old acquaintance of the team's. She doesn't say who and Caitlin doesn't push too hard for an identity, just saying that she's glad whoever it was could help Frost move on from Blaine.

Allegra and Kamilla track down the PI from Episode one's flashback and he tells them that Eva's family had hired him after Carver's increasingly shady behavior made them suspect he'd murdered her and was covering it up. The PI didn't even realize he had evidence of a corrupt civil servant until he received an anonymous tip urging him to bring that information to the FBI. He gives them the phone number used, but as far as he can tell it was spoofed. A dead end.

Without Deon's treatments holding her time sickness in check, Iris slides from the current, destabilizing timeline, into the one that's being created by Thawne. There she finds herself mid conversation with Linda Park at the CCC... and Iris has no wedding ring on her finger. Linda asks Iris what the Flash is like and she tells her he's kind... but Iris has never seen his face. She wonders, sometimes, what he looks like. There's a disturbance outside and when Iris and Linda reach the windows at the front of the building they see that there's a fight happening between the Flash and Reverse Flash. The Reverse Flash narrowly escapes and Iris runs out to ask the Flash what happened. He's vibrating to obscure his identity, but it's clearly not Barry wearing the suit. When he reaches out to touch Iris's shoulder, there's a red spark of electricity that jolts her back to the real timeline - like some kind of rejection of that version of the Flash and the timeline he represented. Iris tells Deon and Cecile that she knows what Eobard's plan is now.

FBI agents show up at STAR Labs to take Barry in for questioning and the team scrambles to hide the evidence that the Flash runs out of STAR Labs from the agents casually poking around. This is right as Iris, Deon, and Cecile arrives. Cecile is quick to point out the agents don't have a warrant to look around STAR Labs, so they need to leave. And if Barry is to be questioned, then it will be with his lawyer present... which is her.

The agents question Barry about his whereabouts on the day the pictures were taken. Barry has a flashback to the day in question, which was when he'd been contaminated by Bloodwork via the method they'd used to save Ralph. Since Barry had spent most of that day alone, hallucinating due to the contamination, he doesn't have an alibi. The agents ultimately don't have enough to hold Barry and have to let him go, but he's left shaken by the memories dragged up during the interrogation. The memory of his hallucination of baby Nora in particular having caused him to realize that whatever Thawne is doing is threatening to erase his children from existence. Cecile feels Barry's distress and apologizes to him for her earlier reaction, but he tells her he understands. Finding out that his mother's murder had been caused by time travel, that it shouldn't have happened, had dragged up all his grief for his mother anew when he'd found out. And it was still difficult for him to live with. But unlike his mother, they may still be able to save Joe and Barry promises he'll do whatever it takes to bring Joe back to her. Cecile gently corrects him that he'll be bringing Joe back to everyone who loves him, not just her.

At STAR Labs, Iris reveals what she saw in the other timeline. She can't be completely certain, but she thinks it was Eobard in the Flash suit. Which means it would have been Barry in the Reverse Flash yellow. Eobard is attempting to rewrite the timeline to swap fates with Barry. Coupled with what Deon tells them about the Still Force particles and Cisco's earlier vibe, Chester speculates that Eobard was creating an artificial Still Force. Cisco concurs - after all, they know Eobard's created an artificial Speed Force once before. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility that he could create artificial versions of other Forces too.

The Still Force is inherently linked to time. Deon can use it to freeze time, create temporal loops, or rewrite time altogether. But where a speedster has to run to a specific point in time and then alter events with their own presence, Deon can just alter the circumstances of the present, causing the past to rewrite itself to match. If Eobard did that at some point in the future using an artificial Still Force, then it would explain how Eobard has been able to destabilize the timeline in the future. Now they know for certain the the who, the how, and the why... but they still don't know when. Or how to reset the timeline to filter out Eobard's changes.

Allegra and Kamilla return, complaining of hitting a dead end. But Iris recognizes the phone number from somewhere. She's just not sure when she'd seen it before. She pockets the number for now.

Gideon finally gets back to them with the year the temporal disturbance is coming from: 2031. Which is also the year Despero said the Earth will be destroyed by the Flash. The only problem is, Barry's speed hasn't regenerated enough yet for him to make the trip on his own. Deon supplies the Still Force, telling Barry that combined with the Speed Force it should act like a magnet, dragging Barry to the source of the disturbance in the timeline. But once there, Barry won't be able to come back for help because odds are that by then he'll be traveling back to 2021 in the new timeline. But in order for the negative Still Force to work, Eobard can't erase the existence of the real Still Force which means Deon may still have his powers in 2031. If Barry can find Deon again, the Still Force remnants in Barry should be enough to convince that version of him to help. And Deon doubts any version of him would be happy to have a speedster playing fast and loose with an artificial Still Force. It's not a great plan, but as they're running out of time Barry goes for it.

Barry uses the STAR Labs pipeline to build up enough speed to time travel, trusting in the Still Force to propel him fast enough to reach ten years in the future. Moments after he disappears into the Speed Force, Despero escapes his cell and attacks. This time fighting against Cisco, Frost, Jefferson, and Allegra as he demands to know where the Flash is.

The stinger is essentially the episode three stinger moved up an episode. Barry arrives in the future and finds himself at Robern's. After finding some regular clothes to wear, Barry walks in to realize he's at the rehearsal dinner for Eobard Thawne and Iris West's immanent wedding...

Wrapping Up the Episode

This is probably a weaker episode for both plot and pacing, but it fills in some of the plot holes from the real episodes - most notably that the negative Speed Force was established as an artificial Speed Force, so how could there be a negative Still Force unless it too was an artificial Force? - and cuts out the entirety of the Xotar plotline, the loss of STAR Labs, and the fake Flash's attack on City Hall.

Jefferson doesn't really do much after Cisco frees him from Despero which is too bad, as his scenes with Barry in the third episode are really good and I would have loved to keep those in some form in the revised episodes if I could find a place for them. But unfortunately they didn't fit here, as the circumstances surrounding Jefferson draining Barry's powers and Barry's decision to run to the future were quite different.

I feel like Iris' foray in the alternate timeline would be a really interesting story to write, as it would be a very disorienting experience for her. While I liked the way Iris time sickness turned out to be useful in episode, I was disappointed that we still haven't actually seen Iris' time sickness cause her to experience alternate timelines. It's been a lot of show and no tell. And considering that Iris had Deon revert his treatments and he warned her she could become untethered from the timeline and the only consequences were... Deon making the Negative Still Force logic leap, I didn't really feel to bad about replacing that with a little wish fulfillment scene instead.

[smp-live]

Was scrolling through c!Wilbur crit blogs again and it got me thinking about why exactly I argue in favour of him so much so here’s a random ramble (that got long) about it:

Most c!Wilbur critics (at least, in the tag, not directly post-lore stream. The ones that do actual analysis on him) are like... really reasonable about it, actually, lmao. Like it’s mostly just calling him a bad person because of power hunger/manipulation/being a bad dad/whatever else. (Not talking about antis. I mean people who are really critical of him, but recognize that he’s a well-crafted character with nuance.)

Which I agree with! I consider myself an apologist, my writing and analysis leans really sympathetic, and I still agree that he’s a shitty rat bastard that I would run far away from irl. Even at the beginning of the story, he’s very morally grey, sometimes using underhanded persuasion tactics, doing ehh things like stealing, and it only gets worse from there.

But on the other hand, he’s... not that bad. Like I saw one person say about c!Dream, “My reaction to most critique of him is... so what?” and that’s how I feel about c!Wilbur, I suppose. Yeah, he tried to rig an election - but it was a last-ditch effort at not going full dictator, he didn’t follow through, and later on he - in part - decided to blow it up because they couldn’t get it back while being democratic. And yeah, he manipulated people - all in all, it wasn’t really really bad things, mostly to paint himself in a better light because of his insecurities, and people sometimes fall into manipulative language without even outwardly realizing that it’s a shitty thing to do. Of course, that shows a bigger underlying problem in their mindset and the way they interpret relationships and possession, but then that’s a different discussion - and definitely one that applies to c!Wilbur.

(Not saying he doesn’t ever intentionally manipulate people. I think that a. sometimes it might be accidental, (”If you wanna be President you’re gonna have to get on my good side,” mans was Not thinking straight,) and b. other times he falls into old habits/coping mechanisms that happen to be manipulation, (Tommy at Las Nevadas.) Other than the election and maybe some times in the early founding of L’Manberg, I can’t think of any moments where I’m like, “Yeah, he is Purposefully Manipulating here.” And even then, it just doesn’t strike me as a terrible thing. People manipulate, it’s a thing they do. That’s it. A morally grey action.)

And I think the majority of the reason I make more posts painting him in a positive light and don’t really discuss my critique of him is because it feels like the fandom has an overwhelming bias of hatred/crit, even if a lot of that isn’t, y’know, proper analysis of his character. I instinctively want to balance it out for this character I love/relate to, because a lot of what I see straight-up ignores the lighter side of his moral-greyness.

Like, a while back, I posted a couple clips from late-election arc, of Wilbur talking about how he feels about Fundy siding with Quackity and against him. And the way I initially saw it while watching was, “Okay. He feels betrayed by his son who disagrees with his politics - and thus, him as a person, because your politics are a reflection of your identity, especially in Wilbur’s mind - and it’s perfectly understandable that he’d want to vent about that in private to a close friend. On the other hand, he should be able to recognize that Fundy’s allowed to be his own person and shouldn’t be babied. Fundy is in the right, here, but Wilbur’s feelings shouldn’t be dismissed.”

But then 90% of the tags were just straight-up hate for c!Wilbur, going as far as to say that he should die again. (And this was after we found out how bad the afterlife was for him.) That fucking floored me. I just couldn’t understand how they took this nuanced character aching for ‘the son he knew’ back (hm. very similar to c!Phil, actually) and turned it into ‘wow. This suicidal man sucks and should maybe die.’ I was so close to making a post defending him before realizing - I was letting fandom bias against a character push me further onto the sympathetic side.

And that’s such a fuckin’ weird thing to have happen, because you’d think that exposure to negativity about a character would make you feel more negative about them? But without fail, every time I scroll through the crit tag, or read a critical post about c!Wilbur/L’Manberg, I maybe lean a bit more towards that side for a few hours before swinging back hard onto the apologist side. Because a lot of the critique, to me, is really just, “so what?” after I let it stew a bit.

Then there’s the whole mental health issue. Obviously it doesn’t excuse the shit he did - I know people who have been in the middle of breakdowns and the stuff they say still fucking hurts, even if they didn’t truly mean it. But recognizing that he needs help? That for pretty much all his time on-screen, he was depressed and paranoid, which obviously affects the way he acts? That’s obvious. And were he in the position to get professional help - which he deserves - everything would be much better off. That’s the root of my apologism, I think: He deserves to get better. He’s not inherently evil, or bad, just a fucked up little man who’s ruined his own life and needs help. I want to see him, specifically him, get better.

Narratively, his punishment has been extreme and disproportionate. Every mistake, every choice - good or bad - has led to suffering, on his part. Start a fun little rebellion, maybe to gain some power? War and betrayal. Declare an election to consolidate said power? Lose, and get exiled. Blow up a nation? Die, and even in the afterlife, he can't catch a break. Purely as a sympathetic human, it feels like he deserves to rest. Deserves to heal.

But even medicated and less anxious, or going to therapy for his neuroticism and depression, or whatever, he still would be quite morally grey. A lot of his manipulation, his power hunger, comes from this neuroticism; from needing to feel safe and needed, (just like Quackity.) Not all of it, though. He’d still have his unhealthy ideals about relationships and possession, for example. Less prominent, sure, but still there. Some people, I feel, discount how tied up with his mental illness it is, while others don’t really recognize that it’s also a personality problem. Like, changing those beliefs is changing part of who he fundamentally is, as a person.

Actually, I think the c!Wilbur apologist community, in general, tends to scapegoat his mental illness a little too much? Not in that we explain his actions with it or ask people not to villainize it, (although sometimes I feel that what we call villainizing mental illness is a bit excessive, but it’s not my place to talk about that as someone who doesn’t really relate to Pogtopia!Wilbur,) but in that we use it in discussions a lot. Which is fair, because it permeates every single aspect of his character, but even without it he’d have toxic traits? Like his possessiveness is not purely a byproduct of his mental illness, imo. Nor is his treatment of Fundy. It’s amplified by it, surely, but that little seed of it is there in the first place. Just as c!Dream’s abuse needs to be addressed as a central part of his character, c!Wilbur’s possessiveness does too - and also outside of the context of their mental health, because they’re both brought on by an internal personality flaw, some fucked-up belief, if that makes sense.

As I said before: c!Wilbur is a mess of a human being that I would hate if I actually met. (irl I would’ve been a SWAG supporter, based on policies, but since this is fiction, I was POG.) But because he’s a character, that flies out the window, and I can love him - not even just as a character, in the sense that I appreciate he’s well-crafted, but in terms of personality and all that shit, while recognizing he’s a kinda crappy guy. Because he’s a character. That’s the fun of it.

[magpie-of-a-birb]

@paint-the-ravenclaw tagged me in on sorting Sanders Sides characters (that post is here), and I decided to make a whole new post for it. Here we go-

Editor Magpie here! It's a good thing that I made this a post of its own, cuz boy is it long. Patton's section took up three pages hand-written, if that tells you anything.

(Also, beware spoilers. If you're not up-to-date, I may reference things you haven't seen yet)

Patton

I'm starting off with Patton because, quite frankly, what he's got going on is fascinating. Sad, but fascinating.

He's a very obvious badger primary, but he also has a badger performance layered over top of it. If you've seen The Good Place, or listened to the @sortinghatchats podcast episode where they sorted TGP characters, you'll be able to see that this is the same as what Tahani did.

Patton's primary is for his community, but he also has an idea of what his primary should be. Not "should" as in aspirational, but "should" as in expectation. So he makes a badger primary performance, something that says "look at me! I'm a good person!" but creates self-loathing because he believes that he isn't living up to that performance. And here's the kicker:

His performance is exploding.

He thinks that, to be a good person, he (and Thomas, by extention) has to sacrifice everything for others. That is the badger primary performance that he thinks he should be.

Disclaimer: this is an unhealthy example of badger primary. No house is inherently healthy or unhealthy. There are many healthy, thriving badger primaries, and they are beautiful, just as every other house is.

And his exploding primary put a lot of strain on his badger secondary (he's a caretaker and loves courtier badger). He has to work hard and show up for everyone all the time and he... can't. It's not possible.

The fact that he cannot humanly live up to his own expectations makes his secondary start to burn. You especially see that in the courtier aspect of his secondary. He feels like he should be the "optimistic, goofy dad-friend" and he loves using courtier badger for it. But he burns out from being there for everyone, that face becomes unreliable in courtier badger because he can't feel it all the way down, he's not happy. So his badger starts to burn, and what does he do?

He takes up an actor bird model to handle the strain. He's used to the "happy, goofy dad" mask that it's easy for him to shift it from courtier mirroring to an actor role.

And whew boy, is that actor bird obvious in Selfishness vs Selflessness Redux. When it's clear that the others aren't siding with him, Patton isn't able to shift to match the change to make a stronger argument - as a snake or mirroring badger could - so he doubles down on his role.

"Remember, guys, I'm morality. My role is to make correct moral choices. Look! This is my good and helpful mask! I'm good and helpful!"

He does that all the way until he's sure that it's a lost cause, and that's when he snaps. But his snapping isn't drawing what he knows of the others, it's not using things that he knows will hurt them, not as we expect him to (especially since he uses similar tactics to manipulate Thomas into doing the right thing).

He transforms. Because he can't be angry. He's not allowed to be angry. Being angry is wrong. If he's angry, according to his exploding primary performance, then he's not a good person.

So he transforms. Because he can only be angry if he isn't himself. Patton chooses not to be Patton. He chooses to be a monster. Instead of translating his thoughts to fit the role (like with his dad role) he's using the role to justify the feelings.

Another disclaimer: like with primaries, no secondary is inherently healthy or unhealthy. There's even an example of healthy actor bird later in this sorting.

Logan

First off, his bird secondary is obvious. He loves collecting and using things. He loves lists and plans. His insecurity stems from his tools not being enough. He is a bird.

His primary is a bit more difficult because he doesn't usually make decisions from a moral standpoint, that's not his job. It's clear that he's not a felt primary, and due to the lack of intensity in general, I think snake can be ruled out. So, bird primary.

Virgil

His system is very lion primary. His gut says that something is wrong and he acts immediately.

His tactics are very bird secondary, preferring to construct a reasonable argument about why Thomas should be anxious over forcefully shoving panic at Thomas (which he does do when he sees the situation as an emergency and he needs Thomas to stop/do something now, but it's not his preference).

On top of that, Virgil has a birdy mask up at the beginning of the series. It's one born out of duty (lion primary), so he embodies the role that he's expected to play as anxiety (a bad guy who's goal is to make Thomas scared) instead of being himself (someone who's trying to keep Thomas safe). So he plays the role until he's shown that he doesn't have to.

Also, look at how he acts in the debate between him and Logan. All of his snap-back retorts are of the same type: general, playground insults. They're predictable and formulaic, like a default response a bird may have when they don't know how to respond while in a given mask. Basically: he's falling back on pre-set common phrases that the character he is embodying would say when he's not "translating" his thoughts into those of his character fast enough.

On a side note, I think that's how you differentiate between actor bird from the other forms of masks: playing a role with a tangible name.

Anyways-

Roman

LION BIRD LION BIRD LION BIRD

He hoards music, plays, movies, and musicals like a corvid and references them like nobody's business. His quick wit is in wordplay ("panic at the everywhere" much?) which, while not indicative of a bird secondary, is bird-flavored icing on the cake.

He lives in actor bird, and while his role isn't always applicable, I think that Roman is an easily-visable example of healthy actor bird. He loves and takes pride in his roles and doesn't solely use them as a shield (like Patton and, to a lesser extent, early Virgil).

He's a bit of a glory hound, he's attracted to the glamor that being a well-known creative and a hero entails, and that feeds into his default Hero/Prince in Shining Armor role. But it's wrong for him to pursue that at the expense of those he loves being miserable (see: Selfishness vs Selflessness).

Remus

Remus shares his primary with his brother. However, he's a horizon/fey lion. Everything that is fun is good which, when combined with his loves-to-mess-with-people snake secondary, spells pain for everyone else in a garish neon-green sign that smells vaguely of a landfill and intentionally leaves glitter everywhere.

Janus

Janus is a double snake. His person is Thomas, and anything is okay (especially deception) if it's to protect him.

Bonus sort: Thomas

Thomas is an interesting character. Because he is a character, within the context of Sanders Sides, that is. Sanders Sides!Thomas is not the same as Real Life!Thomas, even if the former is heavily inspired by the latter. As such, I think that there's enough to sort Character!Thomas.

Character!Thomas is very much a badger primary. It makes sense that he'd match primaries with Patton, his morality, but more so, the entire premise of the show has heavy healthy badger messages. Most episodes are about choosing the right thing to do, and Thomas makes that decision depending on what his community (the Sides) think. He's clearly a felt primary, but if he were a lion, then the "get input from others" aspect of the show would not be as effective.

His secondary is less obvious, but I have to go with bird. Most of the Sides have bird secondaries, and as they're aspects of Thomas, that would logically reflect his secondary to some degree. And he has many of the same hoards as the others, joyfully drawing on and pointing out references to things.

There may possibly be a badger (particularly courtier badger) model in there, but I can't confidently say that it's the case.

In Conclusion:

Patton: badger primary with an exploded badger primary performance. Semi-burned badger secondary with an unhealthy bird secondary model (specifically actor bird)

Logan: double bird

Virgil: lion bird

Roman: lion (glory hound variant) bird

Remus: lion (fey/horizon variant) snake

Janus: double snake

Thomas: badger bird with a possible badger secondary model

[chalkrevelations]

WELL. Episode 3 of Word of Honor.

First of all: If you are NEW or JUST VISITING, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep, but for the ENTIRE SHOW. A lot of them, actually. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled.

So, this ep feels a little disjointed. I don’t think it actually is, not in the way the back nine are a speedrun where the writing starts to feel like it’s thisclose to coming off the rails, but it feels like it, in that we’re now getting a double handful of threads thrust at us that are only just starting to be woven together into a plot, and it’s the kind of hot mess that any fiberwork looks like before the pattern starts to show itself, particularly when you’re using 15 different color threads from jump. There’s generally a major theme or issue or overriding concept that stands out to me in each ep that, you may have noticed, gets primacy of place in these reactions, but honestly, y’all, I really struggled to figure out what that might be for this episode, because a lot of this, on re-watch, strikes me as groundwork for later developments. Wen Kexing gives us an “as you know, Bob” speech about the Amory and the Glazed Armor, we meet approx. 3.2K new characters, and I feel sort of like I should start keeping a chart of who’s supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor and who actually does have a piece of the Glazed Armor, but it’s already so confusing that it might be too late.*

ANYWAY, on re-watch, I can absolutely see the value of spending Eps 1 & 2 on introducing us to Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing and getting us pulled into their orbit, because then we have scenes we’re already invested in to maintain our interest as the background politics begin to frustratingly play out with a bunch of people we don’t know or have any investment in yet. I mean, y’all. I forgot just what an ill-tempered gremlin ZZS was in these early eps. He is so fk’n put out that these people will not let him drink himself to death in the gutter in peace! Or, you know, in occasional Nightly Nails Torment. And the exasperation from both ZZS and Chengling over WKX’s antics – both of their faces are priceless in the scene when they discover he’s the one who’s bought out all the rooms at the inn. I literally lol’d. Again. Even knowing it was coming. All of this interaction is so delightful. This is actually the ep that provoked my very first WoH keysmash flailing Tumblr post and inaugurated the “wen kexing’s thirst is practically a third character” tag. I guess the biggest throughline for this ep is that we can continue to see how everything changes when we know about their previous relationship – things like WKX’s insistence that they have a “deep bond through fate” take on additional layers of meaning rather than just sounding like some dude who’s trying to pick you up at last call. Interesting that ZZS describes WKX at one point during their push-pull conversational dance as “like a wretched soul that keeps haunting around.” You mean, like a GHOST? Like a Ghost Valley ghost? Like the almost forgotten memory of a past life ghost? ZZS wants to know why WKX keeps following him around, and it would be nice if WKX would just come clean, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

ZZS, re: Chengling: I do my best to ensure what was entrusted to me.

WKX: :makes (already! in ep 3!) yet another in a series of bad decisions not to say anything about the fact that he, himself, was in fact entrusted to ZZS:

Show: Here’s the first of many helpings of heartache to come. EAT IT. EAT IT ALL.

(Me: Well, here’s another AU idea: What would the course of this relationship be like if WKX flat-out asked ZZS what ZZS’s relationship to Four Seasons Manor was, and bare-faced claimed sanctuary as long-lost shidi Zhen Yan at this point? Because I bet there are plenty of ways that could actually go wrong. Not to mention the deliciousness of just watching them navigate a relationship shift that sudden. I feel like, at this point, WKX would have to be actively confrontational about it, would have to throw it in ZZS’s face – it would need to be something he did in the heat of anger, in order to have this pushed out past all of his fears. Like, you say that, but where were you when I needed you? Also, you think so, well what if your responsibility actually turned out to be the TERRIFYING GHOST VALLEY MASTER, what then, huh? And ZZS, still pretty actively suicidal over all of his failures, having to deal with what’s now being presented as YET ANOTHER FAILURE.)

Also, the theme of “knowing” (zhiji, the one I know) is starting to slide in sideways – we’re seeing a lot of back and forth between them asking about seeing the other’s “true face.” WKX says that he’ll tell ZZS what he (WKX) wants from him once he gets to see ZZS’s true face (LIES, it’s going to take a lot longer than that). ZZS asks to see WKX’s figurative true face, and WKX looks kind of sad and contemplative as he warns that it may be unappealing or terrifying. So, you know, we’re starting to poke at all the softest, most tender places and the issues that are going to stab me repeatedly in the heart for the rest of the show. We’re also already seeing the way Xiao Chu just layered in references throughout the script when she wrote it that call back to each other – it’s like almost any line of dialogue references three other lines of dialogue (and that’s without even getting into all of the literary references that I’m missing because I don’t have cultural context). You get things like WKX’s little speech right at the end that it’s hard to tell a ghost from a human, which on its face might be referring to the two “ghosts” that were coming for Chengling that he took care of and act as an admonishment to ZZS not to be so quick to assume they’re actually from Ghost Valley, but it also refers to WKX, himself, and specifically lays the groundwork (“someone wearing a ghost mask is not necessarily a ghost”) for his conversation in a later ep with ZZS when he asks if ZZS thinks he’s a good person, and also calls back (“someone who looks human may not be human”) to the line from earlier in this ep, itself, when WKX tells ZZS that perhaps WKX’s true face is terrifying. And so we get a nicely little wrapped package of the dichotomy of WKX and his issues. (As a somewhat related aside, A-Xiang’s little face when Zhou Zishu says all of the ghosts of Ghost Valley are full of evil (at 6:55). D: This reaction is obviously for herself, but also may be the first time she acts as proxy for Wen Kexing, as well.)

What else, what else?

So, nobody has a good opinion of the jianghu. WKX is going to be constantly all, “You killed my father, jianghu, prepare to die,” but ZZS also goes off about how it’s just about greed, hatred and ignorance, and yeah, I guess he’d have a pretty bad impression of it, when Prince Jin and Tian Chuang seemed like a better option than the pressure he was facing, trying to keep Siji Manor Sect alive back in the day. We talk a lot about WKX’s childhood trauma, because it’s so awful and right in our faces, but I don’t know how much we actually talk about the fact that ZZS was a teenager not much older than Chengling when he inherited a sect and tried desperately to keep it from being torn apart by the rest of the jianghu. I think we see some bitterness come out in the first few episodes – frankly, in this ep, he doesn’t seem to make much of a distinction between Ghost Valley and the rest of the jianghu. Also interesting that the metaphor he uses about the jianghu’s and Ghost Valley’s greed for the treasures of the Armory is “reaping without sowing,” given what we find out is actually in there in Ep 36.

We see our metaphor of light get pulled out again – this throughline strikes me as more like beads on a string than a thread, at this point, but maybe I’ll notice it more on this second time through … Anyway, WKX’s comment at 9:11 that it’s almost dawn is notable. Indeed, but is it because your plan is beginning to work and you can see the destruction of Ghost Valley and the jianghu coming down the pike, or is it because you’ve found your shixiong?

I notice WKX has color-coordinated ZZS and Chengling in the robes he bought for them, has already grouped them together, marked them as belonging to each other – he’s already subtly treating them as each other’s family. The show, with a particular lack of subtlety, also will have ZZS there to wake up Chengling from nightmares later in the end of the ep, as Chengling calls out for his dad in his sleep.

OK, Deng Kuan is the guy in charge of the Yueyang sect contingent that arrived in time to see the Mirror Lake chaos in Ep 2 and has taken charge of cleaning up the bodies in this ep. I actually overlooked him, pretty much, the first time around, but here, he’s already got Shen Shen yelling at him (in a completely ridiculous fashion) for not getting there in time to save the Mirror Lake Sect, so he’s just going to be a punching bag through the whole show, apparently. Shen Shen is wu-di, fifth (little) brother, and he refers to Chengling’s dad as si-ge, fourth (older) brother, so Shen Shen appears to be the youngest of the Five Lakes sworn brothers, leading me to believe that some of what makes him so insufferable through a lot of the show is baby brother syndrome. Also, Shen Shen and his group find the Soul Winding Threads of the Hanged Ghost … supposedly. I mean, the Hanged Ghost was the guy who we saw get got in Ep 1, soooooo …. (remember these Soul Winding Threads, btw).

*This got super long so I’m’a put this last bit under a cut, but I did try to start a running tally of who’s holding a piece of the Glazed Armor:

Each of the Five Lakes Alliance sects is supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor, yes? So, as of the end of Ep 3 (hierarchical bro-titles are from didi Shen Shen’s POV):

- Yueyang Sect, led by Gao Chong (da-ge) - presumably still has his

- Tai Hu Sect, led by Zhao Jing (er-ge) – presumably still has his

- Danyang Sect, led by Lu Taichong (san-ge, presumably) – apparently the sect has already been attacked off-screen (by “Ghost Valley?” and WHEN?), as we learn in Ep 3 that Lu-zongzhu has been killed and his remaining two tiny disciples have fled to the protection of Ao Laizi and Tai Shan Sect, one of the lesser sects, and are believed to have taken Danyang’s Glazed Armor with them. We learn this from Tao Hong, Lv Liu and Begger Gang Chief, but I notice that Gao Chong only mentions the Mirror Lake massacre as the precipitating event for the Hero’s Conference and total war on Ghost Valley – he doesn’t even mention Danyang Sect, so does Five Lakes not know about this yet?

- Mirror Lake Sect, led by Zhang Yusen (si-ge) – Zhang-zongzhu killed by “Ghost Valley” in Ep 2, Glazed Armor “missing” and speculated POST EP 2 to have been taken by Ghost Valley (but will turn up in a few eps, thanks to our little Goldbean)

- Dagu Shan Sect, led by Shen Shen (wu-di) – presumably still has his

And then we move to:

- Tai Shan Sect, led by Ao Laizi – in-world speculation is that he now has the Danyang Glazed Armor. We do see him near the end of the ep with the two tiny Danyang shidi, where he makes the intriguing comment that he’s going to follow their shifu’s last wishes and keep their Glazed Armor from falling into the hands of the Five Lakes Alliance, so what exactly was going on between San-ge and his sworn brothers at the time of his death? This group also is apparently being pursued by Shen Shen to get their Glazed Armor, and they make him sound awful. You need better PR, Shen Shen.

- Ghost Valley – POST EP 2, speculated to have taken the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor (FALSE)

NOTABLY, “Ghost Valley Master” set a lot of this chaos in motion in Ep 1 when he claimed that Hanged Ghost (who got got a scene earlier) had stolen HIS piece of the Glazed Armor, although he shouldn’t have a piece (supposedly) until after Ep 2, when he’s believed to have taken Mirror Lake’s. So, what piece would that be, exactly, Terrifying Ghost Valley Master? You wouldn’t be lying in pursuit of chaos would you? (Somewhere, WKX gasps theatrically behind his fan, and he doesn’t even know what motivated it, this time.)

[bitchapalooza]

Romano :)

First impression

Early fandom, I really did just jump right into fanon portrayal. Asshole. Conceded. Lazy. Ect. I actually disliked him. I didn't hate him, but I did dislike him to a degree.

Impression now

Oh no yeah I hate him, you guys should know this by now.

Jk jk, I love him, obviously! After actually looking into his character and analyzing it, he's complex and well written, when before I thought he was just a poorly written character. It's pretty obvious he has some serious issues to him, one of which could be intentional or unintentional emotional abuse from those around him or specifically from Rome— I say this because most of what he does, putting himself down and having low effort and cowering behind his brother/others during conflict, could be a result of such kind of abuse. You really don't get that way randomly. Through his interactions with his younger brother, I can tell he deep down wants to actually make a connection, its just he doesnt know how. Its in his nature, most likely learned nature, to push people away so as to not mess things up and lose them. But really he does want to get close to people. As shown with his interactions with Spain, both younger and older, and America.

Favorite moment

SO MANY TO CHOOSE.

Its a tie between:

Him asking Spain for fun stuff to do with the ladies, specifically bullfighting, and then Spain responding with saying he'll be the bull. I like it because it really does display how Romano's view and relationship with Spain has progressed since he was a child when he absolutely detested Spain. Thats growth :)

And then there's when Prussia reaches out to a crying Romano. He cheers him up and then they try to make a movie together. It doesn't work out but it was a nice character detail and interaction nonetheless!

Idea for a story

Oh I have tons.

I have a scrapped three part story for all three Italy brothers, each one focusing on one brother. The first part would have been Romano's. He and his brothers lost their parents to a home evasion gone wrong, to which they were hiding in Seb's nursary/shared bedroom(amongst all three of them) closet that was left alone(what would baby stuff be worth anyway?? It was an unspoken fact that his parents told the robbers they were away at their grandparents). It was Romano's self assigned job to make sure his brothers were then safe after the crooks left; his several months old baby brother and deaf little brother(I wanted to explore how to write a deaf character at the time). After all thats done, it shifts to modern day where Romano wakes up from the dream as described above, an indication he bears a great deal of trauma over it despite what he stubbornly says. I reveal he's a pediatric nurse and he's currently taking care of his grandfather with alzheimer's(again, was trying to explore things) while simultaneously dealing with his now rebelling teenage brother and preparing for Vene's return from a semester off from college. He also had his relationship with Spain to maintain, to which he also is looked at as a kind of father figure by Spain's six year old son. It was a lot to deal with for one person. The message for his story was supposed to be Mental Health First as his nelgected trauma would be a significant factor into why things were falling apart near the climax of the story before completely collasping then being solved once he takes that big step into recovery such as seeing a therapist and actually communicating with his family.

Unpopular opinion

I've already stated it all before, but Romano isn't stupid nor is he not creative. I believe he excells in science and math more, as well as astonomy as side hobby/interest. I think he's just better at sculpting than drawing/painting too. He clearly compares himself to, who he refers to, his more successful brother Veneziano, plus others around him and puts himself down quite a lot. So he most likely has imposter syndrome.

Favorite relationship

It kinda varies in context.

In canonverse, Its Romerica. @thatsamericano (hope you dont mind the tag) has a lot to do with why tbh. They just work really well together! Every canon interaction is like a hug to my soul! I feel as though America hypes Romano up A LOT. Like Romano sets out to do something but then gets anxious about it. So America swoops in and lists all the obvious pros and few of the cons just to make it seem legit(whisch it always is either way). Meanwhile, I think Romano actually keeps America grounded to reality? America is a dreamer and seems to act on impulse a lot. Romano is the opposite. Before America ever sets out to do something extreme that might not actually pan out, Romano might sit down and get him to talk it out and write everything down. Then they'd go through together and cut things so its more realistically reachable and doesnt end in America's dissapointment.

In a human au, its Spamano. I tend to like Spamano in the context of established relationship and just general partner stuff. I've never really branched out of this comfort zone, however. I think their personalities mix really well together. Its the grumpy one with the sunny one! I can see Spain being the early bird and making Romano a surprise breakfast before work begins. He probably gently wakes Romano too so hes still not so sleepy later on. Then theres Romano who's probably the type of partner who checks in on Spain on his schedualed breaks, when hes not also working of course. He just strikes me as the type who likes to know his partner's overall health and mood and likes to hear how things are going for the day so far, even if he wont admit it.

Favorite headcanon

Trans man Romano baybie✌

He's had top surgery already but he's waiting a little bit for bottom surgery. He's a little nervous and not entirely sure he's ready to go thru with it yet. But to combat his bottom dysphoria, he uses a packer or just lounges around the baggiest sweat pants he owns.

[thattimdrakeguy]

Why, uh, do ppl hate Tim so much? I just fell down a hole of anti tim and I can’t find a..valid reason for the hate besides that fact tht hes rich and white?

From my experience it’s one of those things where Tim has antagonistic relationships with other Bat-Family members like Damian, Jason, and even partially Steph. So they just crap on Tim, because it’ll make their favs look better.

Like that’s genuinely been the main reason I see, and they use the fact he’s rich and white to make it seem like it’s a social justice thing, even though in the end it really isn’t.

I sort of rant for the rest of the post going in more detail, and mentioning things I’ve been shown, and why I think a lot of it is dumb, but basically it’s just people being petty and insecure, and being unable to handle things in any other way than childishly.

For some Jason fans I’ve seen them talk about how much they hate Tim because they replaced the poor kid with a rich kid, but I’m really freaking poor myself. Obviously I’m not homeless, but there was a time in my life where I slept on the floor, and later on after I did have a bed my bed room had a hole in the floor. But, they’re just looking too deep into stuff just to find a problem anywhere they can.

I’ve also seen some say Tim bullied his way into being Robin after the poor kid died. When 1) that isn’t even an accurate description of what happened and 2) they’re obviously just trying to word it the worst way possible, because they’re pretty freaking childish.

Damian fans try to make Tim and his fans out to be racist cause Tim doesn’t like Damian, when that’s actually because Damian got so close to killing Tim I’m pretty sure Tim actually did nearly die from bleeding out. I think also because Tim once said “what about his biology” when referring to Damian, when Tim wasn’t referring to his race, he was referring to how he’s related to criminals and Damian literally had his biology messed with to make him a fierce warrior and a good body for Ra’s.

Steph fans also try to make Tim and his fans out to be sexist. But their reasoning is really weak, because it’s literally just boiled down to Tim being mean to Steph sometimes, but it’s not like that’s cause of her gender for that to make sense. It’s because in context she is an untrained citizens constantly putting herself and potentially others in-danger without any training to feel safe with her constantly being out there. Plus she flirted with him so much to the point it made him uncomfortable and fit the literal definition of sexual harassment.

And they always do that thing where they gotta make their favs sound better, and Tim sound worse. Which admittedly Tim fans do the same thing, but I’m not really here to pick a side. I’m just here pointing out how freaking annoying fandoms can be, because ultimately I don’t really care what fandom does it. At the moment though I can confidently say, that other fandoms are doing it a lot more than Tim ones lately, because I’m in the Tim tags at least twice a day most days and I’ve barely seen it lately.

It’s kind of a thing to project a lot of stuff on the Tim fandom for the same faux-social-justice kind of jargon they try to do. When you see it from a view like mine, where I’m not on any side of any fandom, even if I am a Tim fan (cause I never really been into deep fandom stuff), it just comes off as hypocritical frankly.

(If you want to hear some dumb things some Tim fans do to even it up, they make him the most frail, emo, emotionally unstable kid ever sometimes. They can focus way too much on making him sympathetic (but even then, literally every fandom does that, but the Tim fandom always does it in a very notable depressing way). They also focus so much on coffee and practically act like he’s all pilled up on anti-depressants he just acts weird that it just seems obsessive and very out of character.)

Like as some examples they’ll bring up how Tim doesn’t trust Damian and put him on a list of potential threats. But Damian literally nearly caused Tim’s death, nearly caused it again in the same story, and at the end it’s shown that Damian isn’t on there because Tim considers him a villain, it’s because he has potential to be dangerous. Wonder Woman and Red Tornado are also on the same list.

To me, I just look at that story as ridiculous, because Damian isn’t dumb, and Tim literally spoke against contingency plan stuff before. Damian’s going to need more than to be on a vague list as a potential threat, especially when he’s visibly on the hero side of it. Damian’s not that thinned skin. He’s got a temper, and obviously really doesn’t like Tim, but even when he felt Tim was insulting him or being patronizing to him before he didn’t try to kill him then immediately. He tried to kill him because he thought that’s what he was supposed to do to earn his place beside his father.

The story’s just dumb in-general.

And then they pull out the New 52 story where Tim is just being a dick to Damian for no good reason, but it’s the same kind of thing. Tim was never that much of a dick without being provoked. The only time I think Tim started a fight was in Red Robin where he was on pills that messed with his mental state, and again had everyone out of character regardless. Because 1) Dick wouldn’t just give away Robin from Tim, because he knows better than that. 2) Damian acts like he’s happy his dad is dead and just acts like a generic child and not even like Damian. And 3) I legitimately can’t see Tim just hitting a kid, even Damian, unless a fight already breaks out.

For Steph fans they point out how Tim is passive aggressive to her, constantly doesn’t want her to be Spoiler, and yada yada. Probably because her Batgirl run portrayed that as being mentally scarring to Steph. Even though one of the panels they chose of Tim being upset and not wanting her to be Spoiler, was after Steph caused Tim to be disfigured and on the pills that messed with his mental state to begin with. Which inadvertedly just makes her look self-centered and narcissistic. But again, I don’t even consider that in-character, because 1) I don’t buy that Steph would listen to Batman especially when it puts Tim in danger, because she never gave a crap about what Batman said till they needed to villainize her before she died. 2) Steph can be arrogant and self-centered, she has it in her, but she wouldn’t ever be that self-centered, to the point she just looks narcissistic. 3) I’m pretty sure at the actual time it happened, Steph is shown being aware she messed up. 4) Steph never cared what others thought. She trespassed on other people’s property to party. She’s a very confident person the majority of the time. Batman tells her to knock it off, she might as well flip him the bird because she just finds him more annoying than anything else. It’s literally in her origin that she doesn’t even like Batman.

There’s also the context for in the 90s when Tim first started doing it. Steph was portrayed as a reckless citizen that could potentially get herself and others into harm because she didn’t know what she was doing, and didn’t have the highest morals. That’s not anything any of the bats would encourage. If Tim was extra passive aggressive, he’s a literal thirteen to fifteen year old boy during that time, no duh he’s going to be immature. That still isn’t a sexism thing. Steph may had saved him twice, but that wasn’t portrayed even in-story as a sign she can handle it like a pro. It was always portrayed as “thank goodness she was with Tim at that time, and knew where he was to save him”. Not to say she was completely unskilled, because I’m not taking that far, but just speaking in generalizations.

She was originally added into Robin to be a very specific foil to Tim, and be a general pain in his side. That was their dynamic. If that makes it seem weird that they eventually had them date then I agree.

And at the same time for both of their characters they also ignore what the character they’re trying to defend has done, because Damian literally nearly killed Tim. They act like Tim should just get over it, because Damian was a kid in a cult, but that explains why Damian did it, it doesn’t excuse it. When something like that happens the person who was nearly killed is probably going to be traumatized (rather or not Tim was can be argued, I’m not saying he was or wasn’t), and not ever trust the person. Like that is the natural and most accurate response for it.

It’s just villainizing for the sake of being petty.

With Steph they ignore the fact she essentially sexually harassed Tim all the time and straight up emotionally abused him for an arc. Which her fans hate to hear, but that is stuff that happened. It was written by her creator. I don’t really care if Tim took her costume away or kissed her first, because I’m aware, and I know the contexts, and it doesn’t take away from what she’s done, because that’s not how that works. They also ignore she caused Tim to be disfigured by saying she was just doing what Batman said. But at that point she was also an adult, and would know better.

Like Steph can be reckless, that’s part of her character, but she isn’t an idiot.

In the end, from what all I’ve seen, it’s literally just fandom pettiness. There’s a lot of fans out there that act childish, treat people like idiots, blatantly lie about things, or exaggerate stuff.

It’s all very dumb, but I find it hard to take serious, because if they can’t acknowledge what their own favs have actually done, it just comes across like they genuinely don’t like the character and can’t admit it. They prefer to stay in their candy land so they gaslit others instead.

For me it’s as easy as paying attention to the story, seeing the contexts, and a lot of the time it’s not even a thing that’s in-character for any of the characters involved, or at least the very least not nearly as serious as they treat it.

Especially for around the past 15 or more years or so. By then the care in making everything is crafted and makes sense went down the drain so it’s often that a story doesn’t even make sense to begin with.

They think fandom is about making everyone else look bad apparently, or at least they sure act like it.

Like it’s comics. I think the fandom in-general that gets so worked up over stuff needs to relax, deattach yourself to look at it from the grander view, and calm down over it. Because things aren’t always what they seem. People try to convince themselves of so much stuff, or bully others for so much stuff, and it’s all so petty and unhealthy.

My personal philosophy in the fandom to avoid any toxic behavior is to just keep it real. I don’t lie to myself, I give everything the same standard, I definitely don’t bully or gaslit anyone, I don’t treat my favorite like they’re a real dang person either, and I look at it all like how it is, fiction.

It’s the reason why I get upset at writing and not fictional characters. I don’t ultimately care when a character does a bad thing, unless it’s out of character. To me the only thing I get upset with is the writing, because it’s the only thing that’s real.

Don’t be obsessed, and keep the peace essentially.

[elizabethvaughns]

reasons why i absolutely adore the musical if/then and why you should watch it(or a recording) if you haven’t already

this might get a little long. please message me or something if you’d rather have a properly punctuated and spaced out version for whatever reason. i don’t want to inconvenience anyone. 

ah yes the essay(kinda sorta not really) that absolutely no one has been waiting for which i used to get over my boredom in french and physics class. fun :)

alright people it’s if/then ramble time. again it’s a little long(i think it may be longer than essays i’ve written for school) so uhh it’s under the cut. 

all righty let’s get started

1. the humor. while one or two jokes might be, well, to put it lightly, dated(like liz’s vaguely biphobic comment), they are, all in all, good jokes! some of my favorites include

“i’m a fucking great kindergarten teacher” “do you use language like that in class?” “only when it’s called for.”

“i don’t think it was fate so much as it was you”

and this is just from the first song! there are so, so many more. 

2. the characters. i think it’s safe to say that to some degree, i can relate to most of them. more on that later. but even so, the most important thing is that they’re grounded in reality. each of them have virtues, shortcomings, biases, etc, etc. and it’s understandable and relatable because it’s human! i’ve noticed at times that characters end up being caricatures of a particular demographic. this is not the case here, and i’m, frankly, thankful for it. 

3. the score. okay okay okay. it is absolutely amazing and beautiful and i’m here for it. the vocals? chef’s kiss. the music? chef’s kiss. the motifs? CHEF’S KISS. i love it when specific parts of the song, such as the music or just some lyrics get reprised to a different song. it just gives a sense of congruence and continuity to the whole thing. bonus points when it breaks my heart(like how the opening notes of “here i go” and the closing notes of “i hate you” sound eerily similar increasing the emotional impact). 

3a. side note: as amazing as the songs are, i do need to admit that they truly show their magic when you properly know their context. allow me to explain. so before listening to any musical, i read the wikipedia synopsis so that (a) i have some amount of context before listening, and (b) i don’t get hit as hard emotionally when i finally end up listening to the soundtrack(now obviously that’s not the case--my eyes began to water during “unlikely lovers” of falsettos and “i hate you” of if/then during my watch throughs, for instance). well, i’m getting a bit off-track here. but anyways, i’m certain that people have expressed this before, but the wikipedia synopsis of if/then gave me absolutely zero useful context for listening to the songs. i was so confused half of the time! based on the synopsis, i thought that all songs following “what if?” (except for “surprise”, of course, which signified an intersection of timelines) were either exclusively liz songs or exclusively beth songs. for example: the songs that i thought were exclusively in the beth timeline include, “a map of new york”, “ain’t no man manhattan”(i explained my confusion in the tags of one of my reblogs this is already getting really long sorry), and “what the fuck?”; moreover, i thought “you learn to live without” was exclusively a liz song. also there’s a lot of dialogue in between stanzas of the song that’s not in the cast recording. so i guess what i’m saying is that if you have not watched/listened to it yet, watch first, listen later. don’t make the same mistake i made. 

3b. another side note: this is absolutely not relevant but i came across a recording of the dc version over spring break and i watched it and can i just say <3 <3 <3. i can certainly see how it was improved over the years but i still love both versions equally :). also anne in her pantsuit in “this day” could step on me and i could thank her. my disaster bi ass goes brrr.

4. the lighting. pretty self-explanatory. i love how the lighting distinguishes between the timelines. also the “happy birthday elizabeth” banner that lights up different letters according to the timeline. beautiful. 

5. the choreography. maybe i haven’t been looking in the right places but i haven’t seen much appreciation for this but...yeah. i’m in love with the choreography of this show! i don’t know why. it just strikes a chord with me. especially the scene near the end of “this day”. it’s so cute!

6. the representation! now this has most definitely been mentioned before by other folks, but i feel a need to highlight it as well. i guess this actually ties into my second point about the characters. it goes to prove how society is not homogeneous however it may appear to be. lovely. 

7. and most of all, the ending. my absolute favorite part about the ending is the fact that it is somewhat ambiguous(i guess that’d be the best way to put it). there’s hope, especially in the beth timeline. i love how both timelines essentially cycle back to the beginning( “here’s how it starts / and here’s how it ends”) and “switches” the roles for both of them--liz gets the job while beth finds love. while i’m not a big fan of the job/love dichotomy, i do know that one can’t get it all all at once. so i’m glad that their arcs concluded with the beginning of the other’s arc. moreover, i love that liz/beth isn’t stuck in the what if’s and what not anymore and is, overall, more decisive. we love character development! and...about the ambiguity of the ending. i think this is one ending that i am happy about and that’s certainly saying something. i mean, the main reason for canon divergence fics is the fact that (a) someone’s character arc was severely messed up, or (b) someone died. well, yes, josh technically died but he is alive in the beth timeline, so that counts for something! and i don’t really feel the need to read any canon divergence fics(not considering the fact that they don’t exist! people please the fan fiction potential for this fandom is IMMENSE). so i guess what i have to say is i’m satisfied with the ending, a thing i can’t honestly say for many of the fandoms i’m in(...not gonna elaborate on that). 

idk if i missed anything but i think that’s it.

[everything-laito]

Hello, 💖💖so I have question for you. I am writing a fanfic about Laito but I need help again. Do you know what might make him feel sad or concerned for someone? Could he possibly fall in love? And if he fell for a girl and if she wasn’t virgin how would he take it? Has there ever been any evidence that could possibly show how he’d react to these situations? Thanks, sorrry about this. But u are an expert on him sooo idk who else to turn to😅

Hiya anon! First of all, best of luck to you writing!! I can’t write creatively so I have such appreciation for people who can do that! If you don’t mind, I’d love to read it when you’re done! Just tag me when you post it if you don’t mind! :)))

Also don’t apologize after all! I welcome any ask in here, even if I can’t give a definite answer. Anyone’s welcome here! 

Thank you for calling me an expert on him too alsjflksad people have called me that recently and I’m always surprised by it but I do appreciate the sentiment :’’’’)

As always, let’s just jump into it!

As for your question, its a tough one; I don’t think I’ve seen Laito feel sad or concerned for someone genuinely, except for Yui. Even when Shuu or Reiji (or his other brothers) die in front of him in some endings. Edit: I did make an analysis how Laito probably would mourn internally for the death of his brothers, but I don’t think it would be on the same scale of him and Yui; considering he was pretty external about those emotions. You can read it here! He did cry in More Blood when Yui killed herself, and even when he killed her in his brute ending? I think he just said he felt empty, but I am unsure specifically. But I do know that when Laito gets emotionally attached to something genuinely, he will feel emotion for them. He can be quite an egotist and a self centered person, but when he loves someone (Yui in this case) he’s definitely attached. Lmao throwback to my whole week or so about analyzing and theorizing his chart with anons; he’s a pisces and those signs can get pretty sentimental to begin with. He can get pretty emotional in the main drama cds as well, especially Para-Selene and the more recent ones. However, he doesn’t seem to have any friends (sobs) and I think it would do him good if he had a good family bond or at least a good platonic bond too :’’’) Here’s an analysis I wrote on him dealing with some of those emotions too

And yes! He can definitely fall in love. It’s just a bit odd how he is currently, but I’ve made analyses on this before! Here and here. As for the virgin question, Laito doesn’t prey only on virgins, he just likes virgins more because it feeds his corruption kink. But he wouldn’t be opposed to messing around with them. Regardless, there are many vanilla non-virgins and Laito would be entertained by their reactions to his kinks and all that. Yui just had the “pure” package: Roman Catholic, innocent, and a virgin. She wanted to be a nun for christ’s sake pun intended, so the girl is pretty damn pure. There was no evidence suggesting that Hilde was a virgin, for example. She definitely could not have been, or she could have, we don’t know. I wrote an analysis on that too, and it’s the only other girl we see Laito with in that context that’s not Yui. However, if Laito comes across a kinky ass non-virgin, I do think that he’d take that as a challenge: how far could he push them until they start struggling. However, he’d probably have to have his interest piqued first. 

Hopefully that helps, anon! Once again, I’d love to read that fanfic if you want to privately send it to me or tag me when (or if; I know some people just write private ones :)) you publish it! 

Have fun writing! -Corn