#i was originally going to use this for creator's choice

[goldentigerfestival]

Honestly, I've found myself really concerned again with how some people view translation.

This is, uh, indented in parts because as you guys know, I write a ton, and I just do this for easier consumption.

The recent part:

Recently, I met someone who firmly believes translators hold no responsibility to anyone with their work (not to the original author and their intent, nor to the audience of the work that trusts them to deliver an honest translation). This person was also fully using machine translation for an English translation patch, with extremely clear and evident signs that they don't even know very basic JP, or JRPG dialogue lines (the patch wasn't released. I just saw a spreadsheet of the existing work).

When I approached this person and mentioned wanting to translate the dialogue (how I eventually found this stuff out), they took a hot minute to even realize I meant, well, translating it. Their first assumption was that I approached them to mtl it, eventually saying "unless you meant translating it yourself". It's like they basically told on themselves, with "translation" in their mind equating to mtl and not even real translation.

Essentially, I was looking at a situation where someone did not know a lick of JP, was fully using mtl for an "English patch", and places no value whatsoever on translation quality and does not believe that translators are responsible for an honest translation.

Worse, they were using three different mtls and trying to mesh them together. ...With no JP knowledge. And I know this because I saw a section with dialogue that was a cut off, mid-sentence bit of dialogue (something mtl can't translate, because it was one of those "someone's talking far away and only bits are heard" things), that to someone who knows JP, or even basic JRPG lines, would've been obvious what it was. There was even context following up that had the whole phrase, making it even more obvious to someone who knows any JP and JRPG lines, and the person still evidently had no idea what the cut off phrase was. They were relying fully on mtl, did not even attempt to disclose that (to anyone, bc they brought the patch concept up to others before), and they were just mashing together three different mtl translations and using that as their in game "tl" (basically, taking bits from each one to "make" a "tl"). And, frankly, between this and them thinking someone saying they plan to translate something meant "I plan to mtl this", says a lot about their view on translation on the whole.

And this same person holds no value in translation accuracy, does not think it's a big deal, and thinks translators hold no responsibility. Would you trust that sort of person to translate games and make English patches for them? If you were a translator, would you want to work with someone like that?

Other cases:

This actually terrifies me. I've seen cases with manga where I had the original script and saw a translation. The translation completely made things up, added non-existent dialogue, had character voice entirely wrong, and seemed to be just trying to make the dialogue out to be "funny" and "quirky" at the expense of the authorial intent. Reading the translation, as compared to the original script, actually shocked me.

I've also seen actual translators who abuse their work as a translator to insert non-existent dialogue. To make up personality traits of characters, so that other people perceive these characters the way the translator wants them to, and not based on their actual dialogue (ex. if someone doesn't like a specific character, they'll change their dialogue to make them sound worse, so that unknowing players don't like the character either). Actual translators who completely change the context of something, or fully willingly, with full awareness, remove context that the author placed there because they, the translator, did not think the context intentionally placed there by the author was important enough to deliver to the audience. People who want their translations to be "unique" and ultimately end up straying from the original intent completely.

My stance:

And I hate this because it breaks trust between readers and translators. It makes people not know who they can trust. It makes people unsure if the content they're looking at is even the actual content that was originally created.

I've seen people vague-bitch about me because of how hard my stance is on localization, and how definitive my stance on dubbing voice actors changing context because they feel like it, is.

Here's the thing: dubbers aren't translators. It's not their role to decide what the dialogue says. And this is extremely important lately, because several SAG VA members recently came out saying that "the process of localization is to change dialogue", which is inherently incorrect and completely false. Rather, that statement twists what localization actually exists for, and hides behind it to defend their views. It's to have the excuse ready of "you just hate localization!" if you criticize them for fucking around with translation and putting in whatever dialogue they want to put in, when translating dialogue is not even their job.

My point here is that this is even infecting professional spaces now, and has in the past. The reason you guys have seen me complain so much about Troy is because he's admitted to changing dialogue and "getting away with things", which is now extremely relevant with some of the more batshit SAG members (not all SAG members are doing this. It's a select group involved in a lot of drama, including harassment and bullying or being bystanders to their colleagues doing such, while trying to claim all their woes are the fault of a company who they had no reason to strike from in the first place. Not gonna get into that here because it's a whole other topic, but the people in question for this post are relevant). If dubbers want to create dialogue, they need to go do voice work in western created media spaces, where they can have more input on the creation process.

And again: this amount of "no fucks given" attitude breaks trust. How do I know I can ever trust dialogue from any of these voice actors again (which really upsets me, because one of them is Ben D (trying to avoid using his full name so Tumblr search doesn't toss this in with his content on here), whose voice work I REALLY adored, and now I can't look at him the same. This is what happened with Troy for me, too. I used to love his voicework, until I realized how fake he was in some of his interviews, with all the lies/misleading/talking out of both sides of his mouth... and then I found out he ran a scam on his fans, among other things)? I'm always going to feel the need to check the original script just to verify if their dialogue is even accurate.

Looping back:

Back to the first point here, I will continue working on translating the game in question, but I can on longer associate myself with a person who feels that translators hold no responsibility to their work. The entire point of the job is the name itself: translation. You are not making things up. You are not creating. You are giving an audience the words of another person in another language. It is not the place of a translator to make fanfic out of official works.

How would any of these people feel if they created something, say, a book, and it got "translated", only for them to find out someone just fucked around and made the whole thing up? I doubt any of these people would be happy, and would probably even take legal action if they had the money for it. But when it's someone else's work? Well now they don't give a fuck.

As a translator, this all genuinely disgusts me. People making things up and treating someone else's work like their own personal sandbox is disgusting.

MTL situation:

To be clear, I am not saying people who use mtl are a problem. On the contrary, mtl can be a good tool for translation as long as you know the language. As long you can spot its mistakes and use it with the full understanding that it is not all powerful, it's a tool no different than how translators often use dictionaries to assist their translations. The key point is that it is merely a tool. It is not a replacement.

If you're just using mtl to read something yourself really quick and sharing it with anyone, that's also totally fine, whether you know the language or not. If it's for your own personal consumption, it's fine. Mtl (at least GT, I'd side eye most others including DL) will generally give you the baseline of the context, with some likely mistakes and the voice of the person not being present.

My advice is simply to not share anything you used pure mtl for as "news" (ex. if Tales gives news about something, don't mtl it and then tell everyone you know without disclosing that it's mtl. If there's a mistake in the mtl, the spreading "news" is now inaccurate somewhere, and fans who become upset by this may take their unwarranted frustration out on the company that genuinely did not do anything that would've upset them. A mistake in translation can unfortunately cause people to lash out at the wrong person, thinking that the original person behind the news or whatever it is said something they didn't actually say).

Basically, if you're fully using mtl and don't know the language, just disclose that. Also, it's probably very helpful to mention which mtl was used, because they all have varying degrees of accuracy.

Accuracy:

Those aren't the only reasons, but they're some of why accuracy in translation is extremely important with news, or interviews with real people (you do not want to put words in a real person's mouth. Mistakes in translations are reasonable. They happen. But you'll want to do everything you possibly can to be accurate and sincere in interviews. If you have a mistake, don't just correct it. Inform your audience of it separately, so they have the updated information. But when it comes to real people's words, always be very transparent that you're simply translating at your best, and correct mistakes by relaying it to people and not just quietly fixing it). When it comes to media, it's just as important because you're trying to relay authorial intent. You're relaying a story that was not told by you. You're relaying the words of someone else. Creating is not your job.

Translators themselves:

Translators aren't perfect. Language is extremely tricky and difficult to learn, because there are all sorts of nuances and cultural barriers (even things like idioms). We're always still learning. Even people who are fluent in a language are still learning. Heck, even native speakers continue to learn. I've seen plenty of native English speakers who still confuse very basic grammar and phrases/sayings, and learn new words and phrases all the time.

What about localization?:

Translation is a process in localization. Sometimes, things do need to be changed for all sorts of reasons. If you're someone who played Mario RPG back in the day and played the remake of it, you'll notice they replaced Mario's peace sign with him removing his hat for his victory pose. This is because the peace sign is actually offensive in some cultures. While the remake itself was made in Japan and is not a result of localization, this is the sort of thing localization handles in dialogue. It changes potentially offensive content and makes it culturally appropriate.

Back in the day, Pokemon changed rice balls to sandwiches when dubbing anime was still relatively new in the west. Back then, they weren't sure kids (or even teens or adults, most likely) would be familiar with Japanese culture or the foods they eat. Nowadays we've had more exposure to anime, and the internet has helped bring cultures together and inform people of other regions' ways of living. Nowadays, we don't have the same cultural blindness to eastern created media. Learning is much more accessible. Nowadays, we no longer need that sort of localization change.

There are also complicated things like jokes. Rays, for instance, has Cless makes a joke/pun about "courage" and "snow", because they're the same word in JP. In English, that joke is completely lost. A translator could try to rework it to the best of their ability, but it can't be exactly the same and would be better off TL noted, whether they find a good resolution or not. Of course, for a fan translator, it would also be understandable to leave it as is and just TL note it, but in official localization, they can't do that. They would likely just change it. I always prefer when they keep something similar of course, but it's not always possible. Language barriers make some joke translations more or less impossible.

Localization is not "changing dialogue". It's adjusting necessary points of something while still doing its best to retain the same story and intent. Examples of good and bad Tales localizations:

Graces' localization is not word for word by any means. It's not a super direct translation. It's accurate though, and it doesn't change characters' traits/personalities/relationships, and it doesn't change the story beats.

By comparison, 360 Vesperia is closer to the original wording/phrasing (besides for Yuri, and sometimes Flynn, as I've mentioned plenty of times). Some of the lines are basically word for word. There's nothing wrong with it being like that, and it retains the story and plot properly. It did make some minor speaking changes to Estelle that I don't agree with, but it's not necessarily wrong and isn't something drastic (basically, she's less polite/formal in English, and in JP she speaks more refined and polite/formal, which is still possible to retain in English to a degree). Basically, it's nothing I would side eye. Raven was given a manner of speaking that helped characterize him and give him individuality as a character. DE Vesperia is significantly worse than the original dialogue in the 360, with subject matter being incorrect multiple times, old dialogue not being corrected for the updated information (ex. seven Fell Arms should've been updated to nine, which it was in JP, but the English release didn't change it), and inconsistency with the 360 version keeping Adecor's speech tic but dropping Patty's, possibly among other things I'm not thinking of right now. Basically, 360 Vesperia was really really good with the exception of Yuri and sometimes Flynn (and Yuri was, as I understand it from available information, mostly Troy's fault. The voice director too though for allowing it. The translation team doesn't seem to have been the issue in Yuri's case). The DE additions, in loc, seemed very rushed and/or with limited budget, and was a huge mess (including volume being too high or low among other things). It was a stark, stark contrast to the 360's localization.

Hearts R's localization is notorious in JP speaking western circles for trying to be super quirky at the expense of the original dialogue, and sometimes changing some key points of the plot. Basically, it's a black sheep in JP speaking circles in the west and a "do not do" example. Hisui, for instance, is more aggressive in his speech and meaner in English. In JP, he's informal, casual, and speaks in a way that is "rude" (which like with Yuri, actual rudeness is determined by actions/tone, and not in the words he's using). Hisui isn't actually just a mean person, but I find him over the top in English (which is especially painful to hear, when I can hear the audio and have to see the localization text, because Hearts R was never dubbed. That's the case for all of Hearts R though and not just Hisui). Shing, for, instance is ridiculously quirky instead of just silly and upbeat.

Zestiria I can't speak super directly on beyond Edna. I've been informed that English Zestiria did some story/plot changes, but I myself have only watched some of the game on YT, as the camera was infuriating and I didn't want to play it. I didn't want to not engage with it because it's Tales, so I started watching it. I haven't finished it due to translating, but I've been informed by others who know JP that the English version contains a lot of inaccuracies. As far as Edna goes, I was informed about her from a good friend of mine who adores her, and when I provided her a link with the game script, she pointed out direct comparisons and how much meaner and edgier they made Edna in English. She's like a mean bully in English. In JP, she teases, but not with the aggression included in English. I can't speak for main plot Zestiria stuff, but having seen Edna's lines side by side, they did add dialogue to her sentences specifically with the intent of making her more mean. Mean comments were added that didn't exist in JP. So, to my understanding, Zestiria was a case of bad choices in localization.

So yeah!

Basically I'm just trying to explain how important translation is and that it's just... not viewed as important by so many people, including some fan translators, and even some professionals in voice work (which while it is not their job to be involved in dialogue changes, if the voice director allows it, it can happen, so it's still an issue that anyone is even considering it or allowing it).

Translation is based on words that are not your words. They become your words when they're intentionally wrong. That becomes a translator inserting their own words into someone else's (or worse, just completely making it up, or removing context which will either confuse someone or still ultimately change their perception of the exchange or comment in question). That's like if you were telling a friend "xyz said this", but you included your own phrasing, intentionally, to change your friend's perception of the other person's comment.

Localization is not translation in and of itself. Translation is a process of localization, and localization does not exist for the explicit purpose of changing the context of anything. It's there to properly relay the context to a foreign audience. Sometimes that context needs adjustments due to language and culture. Dubbing (another section of localization) can also affect people's perception of characters, so it's still equally important to make sure the tones don't make someone go "wtf" instead "aww, that's really cute".

Localization is not bad. People who hide behind it, as a shield to avoid criticism because they know their behavior should be criticized, are (you don't need a shield to hide behind if you know you're actually sincere and holding to good values and beliefs. If you need a shield, you already inherently know there's something faulty with your sentiment).

Translation can be hard. But that doesn't mean just insert whatever you want when you don't understand something, or use pure mtl and not disclose that. If something stumps you, research. Learn. Ask a friend who knows JP to help you understand and learn it. But don't toss in the towel and just put whatever you want. Those words become your words, because they're not the words of the original content... but a foreign audience isn't going to know that. That is 100 percent abusing the trust of the audience and their lack of knowing the language. It's literally the mindset of "I can get away with this because they won't know anyway". That is exactly the mindset I got from my interaction that made me talk about this. That is exactly the mindset that makes translators', especially unpaid fan translators', integrity come into question. It makes us all look bad, because people can no longer tell who is trustworthy without knowing them/their beliefs first.

My followers know me and where I stand. But will people who just play TL patches I work on and don't know me personally? No. And while I can explain my translations if asked, not everyone is going to ask, or know where to find me to ask. On the other hand, people will play these patches just assuming I'm being sincere in my translations and not just making things up. They'll assume the story they're experiencing is the one the writer(s) told, and that I'm simply relaying their story. Unfortunately, those same people will give their trust to people who are insincere, and they won't realize it unless someone else happens to know JP and can bring it up. Again: it's abuse of trust on the tler's part.

Boop.

If I sound "too" passionate about translation, just remember it this way: I'm not giving you my own words when I translate. I'm telling you someone else's words. And I don't want people twisting my words to other people. I want people to know my own words. Nobody wants their words to be intentionally twisted when told to someone else.

I know other people translate accurately and sincerely and don't share this same level of passion about it. I'm not asking for anyone to. I'm just asking that people don't fuck around with another person's words and act like it's literally no big deal, fictional media or otherwise. You'd treat it as a big deal if someone told someone something you said and completely changed your intent. Don't treat someone else's words as no big deal, and don't try to sneak in your own words or fanfiction into someone else's story.

You wouldn't want someone doing that to you, but you should also just have respect for the creator(s) and the audience that trusts you. If you can't respect other people, I can't respect you either - and being sincere about what they're saying is part of respecting someone. Intentionally mistranslating something is just disrespect to the creator(s), plain and simple.

If you don't understand or value what translation actually is, don't do it.

[perilegs]

oughohuggiig i got the 2nd volume of sanctify in the mail today, im so excited to read it

[thesaltyace]

Y'all I did NOT know this about Harris, and I think it's really critical that we all listen and understand as we approach this election. Video at the end.

This creator's video describes how progressive Harris was as a prosecutor -- actively going against the grain to the point she was accused of being soft on crime. Accused of being a social worker, not a prosecutor. She calls it being smart on crime. She's pushing for systemic changes to give real pathways to reintegrate incarcerated folks back into society and prevent their past from continuing to haunt them moving forward.

"Kamala's a cop" is a catchy dismissive response usually used to shut down conversation rather than add nuance. But this kind of reform is ESSENTIAL to work towards a present and future that treats incarcerated people with value.

I fell for it in 2020 and have thought "Kamala's a cop" without further inspection since - and I'm sobered by the realization that (you guessed it!) I'm not immune to propaganda.

A better system only follows liberal democracy, because library democracy allows for exploration of better systems. If authoritarianism takes hold, it will not allow for the exploration of better systems. We will have to fight tooth and nail just to try to get back to liberal democracy, and I suspect we could not achieve it in our lifetimes.

Harris isn't perfect. But she's a hell of a lot better than many leftists have led me to believe. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good. Don't let perfection be the enemy of harm reduction.

We can either help elect Trump and usher in authoritarian fascism, or we can help defeat him and pull things back in the direction we want to go. Not liking the choices doesn't absolve you from participating and doing the most good you can with the options available.

I'll link the original video in the replies. The original video has captions if you need them.

[darthsuki]

After getting a lot of positive feedback from this post, I wanted to do a more proper voicing/edit for Pierrot from The Freak Circus by @nekoboydreams!

You can find Harlequin’s version here!

Originally I had used a default voice filter with minimal editing, but with this one I did try to more fine-tune the effects and give Pierrot a bit more raspiness or texture to his voice since he doesn't tend to speak a lot. I also read through the lines with the gender-neutral MC for those curious!

This follows the choices in-game if you don't pick the candy apple at the circus and tell Pierrot that you'll visit him the following day which is, so far at least, my favorite route to take :3c

Like what you heard? Then go check out The Freak Circus and support the creator on his patreon!

[sofiatarot]

PAC: Whispers from your future spouse’s soul: a message your heart needs to hear

TIP JAR - FREE READINGS - PAID READINGS

Sometimes we miss someone we've never met

1->2

3->4

Group 1:

My love, I know how hard it’s been for you to keep standing tall when the world feels like it’s crumbling around you. You’ve carried so much responsibility, always striving to maintain control and stability even when chaos surrounds you. I see your strength, and I admire it more than you could ever know. But I want you to know it’s okay to let your guard down with me. You don’t have to be the one holding everything together all the time. I’ll be your steady foundation when the storms come.

You’ve been going through transformations that feel heavy, almost unbearable, but trust me when I say you’re shedding the old to make room for the new. I want you to look at these changes not as endings, but as doors opening to a brighter, more secure future for us. There’s a seed of something beautiful sprouting in the cracks of your old life—trust it. I’ll be here to nurture it with you.

I know there have been moments where you’ve felt like giving up, where your efforts seemed wasted. But don’t let those doubts consume you, my love. All the work you’ve put in, all the pain you’ve endured, it’s leading you somewhere incredible. I see you as a creator, even in moments when you feel lost. Together, we’ll turn those fragments of hope into something solid.

There’s something you’ve been avoiding, a decision or a truth you don’t want to face. I see you hesitate, afraid of what might happen if you choose. But I want you to know that you are stronger than the fear that holds you back. Whatever you decide, I’ll be beside you, ready to catch you if you fall. You don’t have to figure it all out alone.

When your world feels like it’s falling apart, remember this: sometimes destruction is necessary for rebirth. You are rising from the ashes of what once was, becoming the person you’re meant to be. And when you look around and feel lost, know that I’m here, already searching for you, ready to hold you when we finally meet.

Group 2:

My dearest, I feel your frustration and your impatience. You’re caught in a cycle that feels endless, like no matter what you do, things just won’t fall into place. But please, don’t lose hope. You’re not stuck—you’re learning. Every step, even the ones that feel like missteps, is shaping you into the person you’re meant to be. And I want you to know that I’m so proud of how hard you’re trying, even when you can’t see the results.

There’s chaos around you, and I know it feels overwhelming. It’s like you’re juggling too much at once, trying to keep everything balanced, but it’s okay to let some things go. You don’t have to do it all alone. I’m coming, and when I do, I’ll help you carry the weight. Until then, please don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing better than you think.

I sense that you’ve been questioning yourself, your intuition, your path. You’ve doubted your own wisdom, wondering if you’re making the right choices. But trust me when I say that deep down, you already know what’s best for you. You don’t have to second-guess yourself so much. You’re more capable than you realize.

The wheel may look like it's not turning in your favor right now, but this isn’t the end. Life isn’t a straight path; it’s full of twists and turns, and sometimes we have to lose our way to find it again. I believe in you, in your strength to keep going even when the road is unclear. And when we finally meet, I’ll remind you every day of how far you’ve come.

You’re a fighter, my love, even when you feel like you’re losing the battle. Your resilience is one of the many reasons I’m drawn to you. Hold on to that fire inside you, and don’t let the world dim it. I’m here, waiting for the day I get to tell you all this in person, and I promise, it’ll be worth the wait.

(IM SO HAPPY THIS ONE CAME OUT FOR YOU it's one of my fav songs 🤧)

Group 3:

My love, you’ve been feeling like your efforts aren’t paying off, like no matter how hard you try, it’s never enough. But I see your heart, your determination, and I want you to know that it’s not in vain. Every step you take is bringing us closer together, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. Trust the process, because I already see the beautiful life we’re going to build together.

I know you’ve been hurt before, and it’s made you cautious, maybe even a little guarded. But you’re learning to trust again, to let go of the fears that once held you back. I see you opening up, little by little, and it’s one of the most beautiful things about you. When we meet, I’ll make sure you never have to question my loyalty or my love.

You’ve been moving so quickly, chasing your dreams, your goals, and sometimes forgetting to take a moment to breathe. I admire your drive, but I want you to remember that it’s okay to slow down. Life isn’t a race, and we have all the time in the world to create something amazing together.

You’re surrounded by love, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Your friends, your family, they see the light in you that I see. Celebrate those connections, because they’re a reflection of the joy you bring to the world. And when I finally step into your life, I know we’ll create a bond just as unbreakable.

You’re on the brink of something incredible, my love. A new chapter is waiting for you, full of opportunities and second chances. Trust yourself, and trust that the universe is guiding us to each other. I can’t wait to meet you and tell you all the things I’ve been holding in my heart.

Group 4:

My dearest, I know how much you’ve been searching for answers, for guidance, for something to hold onto. You’ve been so strong, navigating the challenges life has thrown at you, but I see the exhaustion in your soul. You don’t have to do it all alone anymore. I’ll be here to support you, to guide you, and to remind you of the beauty in your strength.

You’ve been feeling stuck, like no matter what you do, you can’t move forward. But I want you to know that this is just a pause, not an end. Sometimes we need to step back to see the bigger picture, to understand what truly matters. Take this time to rest, to heal, and to prepare for the incredible journey ahead.

You’ve faced heartbreak, betrayal, and disappointment, but you’ve never let it define you. That resilience, that ability to keep going even when it hurts, is one of the things I love most about you. I promise to honor that strength, to never be the source of your pain, but the one who helps you heal.

There’s a part of you that’s afraid to let go of the past, to move on from what’s familiar, even if it no longer serves you. But I see your potential, your ability to rise above it all. Trust me when I say that the future holds so much more for you than you could ever imagine.

When we finally meet, I’ll show you what it means to be truly loved, to feel safe and cherished. I’ll be your partner in every sense of the word, and together, we’ll create a life filled with love, passion, and endless possibilities. Until then, know that I’m already loving you from afar, cheering you on as you take each step closer to me.

xoxo🌙

[artist-issues]

Let’s be real. Rachel Zegler is responsible for her own actions and attitude and bad taste, and she’s hurt her own image.

But the Snow White movie isn’t failing because of Rachel Zegler alone. It’s failing because it sucks as a whole. It’s failing because these remakes are Disney trying to flash colors and names and sounds we recognize in front of our faces and go “we made the sound you like, now beg for a treat,” instead of making a good story, or at least paying genuine tribute to one. But their audiences (most of them) are not going to shell out for a bad product, and that’s it.

I hate how Rachel Zegler talks about the real Snow White.

But I also think if she were 100% respectful and wanted to pay genuine tribute to the original and really understood the character, it still wouldn’t have saved this remake. Because the story got changed. The effects are bad. The songs are worse.

I also think the company is totally fine subtly pinning the entire disaster on Rachel Zegler as a way to make it look like her fault and distract from the fact that they made another bad movie and this time nobody went to see it.

If they can get everybody talking and commenting about the 23 year-old who won’t stop running her mouth, and how “Even Disney is pulling her from the press tour!” then they’re painted in a slightly better light and then nobody’s talking about the fact that they made another bad movie. They’re talking about how insipid one actress is.

I have lots of posts defending the original Snow White or analyzing it or talking about why load-bearing parts of it shouldn’t be changed…but by far the one that gets the most clicks and reblogs is the one that’s focused on Rachel Zegler’s comments.

So Disney’s strategy is working. Yall would rather make hubbub about a 23 year-old girl’s immature lack of understanding than you would the bigger problem; there’s a whole company of executives and producers and shareholders who think they can buy your time and repurpose your nostalgia while they corrode the original—and then when it goes wrong they let you eat one actress alive instead of taking the blame, themselves.

Rachel Zegler is an actress. More than anybody, she is responsible for her own mannerisms and choices when it comes to how she presents what she thinks and what she supports. She’s responsible for her own actions. She’s not responsible for all of the company’s actions, though.

And again real quick—the reason any of it is important is because stories convincingly harness your emotions to argue for certain values. Values strung together make up a worldview. A worldview fuels your choices. And choices have eternal consequences, they make or break the world we live in and the world our kids live in. Therefore stories are a hammer in a storyteller’s hand: they can build or break the audience.

Disney’s been using the fact that they are a unique storyteller—they have the upper hand, they raised us on their older stories so our emotions from being kids are tangled up in their older stories—to take advantage of us. They’re using their “hammer” as a weapon to make them money, not a building tool to make the world better.

But watch Disney keep subtly pretending to “be on our side about the whole Rachel Zegler thing, boy isn’t she the worst?” until the next Live Action gets cast, when they cast someone vaguely conservative-leaning or someone who’s still amazingly liberal leaning, but has been coached to say all the right things about the original in press tours. So that bloggers and content-creators and influencers can start their reels with phrases like, “looks like Disney has finally learned its lesson in casting after the Rachel Zegler mistake!”

And that’s so not the point, also it’s super underhanded. Don’t fall for it.

[stygiansun-totaleclipse]

Public Demo Update! 🎉 Chapter 1 Part 3

It's finally here! Adds ~61,800 words to the story plus ~6,700 words in codex character entries. Reblogs and shares very appreciated! ❤️

Play here on itch.io!

I would HIGHLY recommend you start on a new save as I have had to make some changes to variables and stats which will be detailed below, but starting from an existing save may break some things later in the game for you and you won't unlock the codex or stat pages if you don't.

In this update, you will:

Meet Lady Safina (Parim and Aurora's mother) and talk to Aurynn

Meet Lady Najaat (Nour's mother) and speak with your own mother

Play a flashback scene involving you, your mother, and Luca from your childhood

Speak with Samira

Get your food and bed stolen by your greedy little hog of a serval, Farwah

Meet the rest of MC's siblings (Aurora, Castor, and Ember) and Something or Someone Else™️ in a dream sequence

Speak with Luca in a dream

Use your divination to have a vision

Ouchies T-T

(Mostly) Accidentally snoop through Aurynn's mail with Samira

Find Aurynn in the library vault

Detailed changes below:

Changed the Straightforward stat to "Sincere"

Added "Aloof" stat

MC's personality is now divided between two types of stats: your main stat (charismatic, gentle, confrontational, dignified, imposing) and your secondary stat (manipulative, aloof, sincere)

Minor edits throughout demo and Character Creator

Added custom pronouns to Character Creator

Added cis/trans option to Character Creator (originally, this was going to be a choice introduced in chapter 2, but upon further thought I felt it would be easier to establish cis/trans early on and then in chapter 2 there will still be a scene that reflects on and clarifies mc's gender identity)

Added new music tracks

Updated UI

Added main menu

Added OpenDyslexic font to Settings

Added options to be able to rename saves to the Settings or have them autoname for you for ease of keeping track of save files

Added Stats page

Added character codex entries (codex is currently still a WIP in terms of UI and content and more entries on lore/history/magic etc will be added later)

Thank you so much for all the support you've shown the demo this last year and I am so sincerely grateful for all the kind messages people have sent! I hope you enjoy the update--I worked very hard on it! :D

The next update, Chapter 1 Part 4, will finish off chapter one.

@interact-if

[lilybug-02]

I'm gonna THEORY CRAFT for a second about Animator vs Animation 11. Because there's something SUPER WEIRD I've noticed about the way camera shots are orchestrated in recent animations. Specifically about -

THE LAPTOP SCREEN.

And even more specifically what Alan (and the real world) may look like to the stickmen.

We've known for a while now that 3D space was possible outside of the Laptop since AvA 7 (March 11, 2019).

But the camera angle on the Laptop has always been in 2D space until very recently!

Our first introduction to a 3D environment in Alan's Desktop was Green's Influencer Arc (Uploaded Sept 7, 2024).**

(Look how insanely massive the inside of the laptop looks now.)

But throughout the entire Influencer Arc the camera was NEVER pointed towards the outside of the laptop, to the real world. It is always tilted so that we can't see it.

((And even more weird in this Green's video, is which the left most wall is covered a solid white, whereas, us - the audience - can see through this wall when looking through the screen. wth is happening))

--------------

Our most recent scene of a 3D Laptop space (as of writing this) is in AvA 11, where Victim is drawn and killed.

Again, the outside world, through the screen, is never shown. Although we do get extremely close with Mitsi's Creator. But it's coincidentally obscured by the internet explorer window.

--------------

And last of all- the thing that got me really questioning this camera choice - is something I noticed back in AvA 10 (Nov 4, 2023). When The Chosen One is having his memory scanned, he purposefully causes the screen to blur as he enters Alan's Laptop. (You have to put it in .5 speed to really notice.)

And guess what The Chose One does the second he gets to Alan's laptop. He stares daggers at Alan.

--------------

So what does this mean?

It means the camera is being specifically shot at angles to never address how the Stickfigures see Alan and the rest of the world.

And what does that mean???

I HAVE NO IDEA. But I kinda hope it's leading up to a scene where we DO see the stickfigures addressing it. BECAUSE HOLY HELL THAT WOULD BE SO SICK.

..........

Wait-**

Wait wait wait wait wait-

This ACTUAL SHORT from August 2023 shows the screen??? Are you fricking serious.

I am going to explode now <3. --------

Nah, in all seriousness, I would still LOVE to see the camera angle change for dramatic effect in the "main series". Because it just feels like the hints are leading up to it. ❤️❤️❤️ I'm really enjoying the series either way and was having fun theorizing here :)

_______________________________________________

And don't even get me started on why almost all animations/stickfigures are oblivious to Humans or strait up don't know about them. LIKE- wtf are all these posters

"Are We Being Watched?", "Tiles in the Sky", "What's Beyond Our World?", "Origins of the Stick Figure"

DUDE WHAT THE HELL. Are Alan's stick figures the only ones who've seen humans??? Do any other stickmen know humans created them? Ahhhhhhh

[felassan]

"BioWare Details How Previous Choices Will be Imported Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard"

"Good news, you'll be able to recreate your Inquisitor. Here's how."

--

"Yes, you will be able to carry over your decisions from previous Dragon Age games into The Veilguard — it'll just work a little differently this time. In an interview with IGN, Dragon Age: The Veilguard Game Director Corinne Busche says the ability to import your choices is "fully integrated into the character creator this time around." What's more, Busche confirmed that you'll be able to customize your Inquisitor if you want to remake your protagonist from Dragon Age: Inquisition. "What's not lost on us is that it's been 10 years since existing players have played. They might not remember [what they did in previous games]," Busche explains. "They might need that refresher and we don't want new players to feel like they're missing out on those decisions. So in the character creator, I like to call it last time on Dragon Age, but you can go into your past adventures and it, actually through tarot cards, tells you what the context was and what decision you want to make." When pressed further about if all the previous characters would be woven into The Veilguard, like Hawke, Busch says, "I won't say everybody, but yes, some of them." What it sounds like is that BioWare may be abandoning Dragon Age Keep, which would allow you to export your world state from previous Dragon Age games into Inquisition through your save files. When asked if The Veilguard would read saves from Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age II, or Dragon Age: Inquisition, Busche confirmed that it wouldn't. "The technology is so different and we wanted it to be in the client," she says. Indeed, Busche also confirms that The Veilguard players won't have to link to their accounts for this option, as you'll be able to play the game fully offline. And, yes, it's a single-player game and has no microtransactions."

[source]

[truthscrapper]

Devlog #2 📚 Research Trip

Already a month since the announcement?! Time passes by so fast. I hope everyone is staying cool in this dreadful weather.

In case you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.

This month, I took a trip to Paris, and reworked the memory gameplay a bit!

📚

So, as you perhaps can tell, TS’s backgrounds are collages of photographs. I’ve been using royalty free images from websites like Pexels, and it’s been going relatively well. Unless I was looking for pictures of Paris that weren’t taken by tourists, or looking for pics of stairs taken from the top of the stairs for some reason.

In light of that, I decided to go on a trip to Paris for a couple weeks to take reference pictures <3

Ok it might look like I only took pictures of food BUT IT’S RESEARCH OK IT’S RESEARCH OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Not an actual screenshot– this is how my illustration template is structured!)

[MORE UNDER THE CUT]

The rest of the month was taken by rewrites and replays. Unlike with ISAT (my previous game) where I worked chronologically with minimal backtracking during development, I feel like for TS I keep going back to previous days to add things, change a scene, remove a bit of foreshadowing that was too obvious… It’s not a bad way of working, but it’s so different from what I’m used to that it stresses me out anyway!!! 

(Old screenshot. The hardboiled eggs aren’t here anymore)

I also reworked the memory gameplay. The only way to impact the story in TS is not through choices, but with which memories Sosotte decides to remember day-to-day. I originally had some memories be dud memories, or memories that are just here as flavor, but playtesters seemed to keep them anyway… So now, I’m making sure all memories will give you a little something something!

This is how the memories for the prologue look now. Note the icons! 

So, if you pick that “funny cloud” memory, you will gain the “sight” perk, which allows Sosotte to, uh, remember to use her eyes. Yippee!

In July, I will finally finish that goshdang script for Day 4, and get it implemented. 

kthnxbye

DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Links! 📚 Official Website 📚 Join the Discord 📚 Sign up for my mailing list 📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky 📚 Follow ME on Bluesky

[seventeendeer]

something I think is super neat about the Sonic cast is just how many of the major supporting characters serve as narrative foils to Sonic himself, and how each of them plays with the series' central theme of "freedom" in different ways. in the past, a common criticism of the franchise has been that Sonic's character doesn't have much depth, or "lore", but when paired with more complex foil characters, I actually think keeping it simple works excellently for our main boy.

at the core of his character, Sonic is just a chill, friendly little dude who takes each day as it comes. he believes in everyone's fundamental right to choose for themselves how they want to live their lives, and he's ready to fight anyone who infringes on that right. this stands in contrast to ...

... Metal Sonic (introduced in Sonic CD, 1993), a robotic replica of Sonic designed by Doctor Eggman to match his speed and combat prowess. Sonic and Metal's relationship circles the franchise's core conflict of nature VS industrialization. Sonic, a flesh-and-blood animal, protects the natural world from a machine puppeteered by a human, with the goal of preventing said human from gaining control over natural resources.

throughout the series, there are many signs that although he is a machine doing exactly what he was designed to do, Metal Sonic is a deeply troubled character. he struggles with his identity as a hollow imitation of someone else - just as physically capable as Sonic, if not more so, but empty inside beyond what Eggman has programmed him for. this calls back to the origins of robots in fiction and their thematic association with slavery; the word "robot" can be traced back to "labor" (as in "work") in multiple Slavic languages. Metal Sonic exemplifies what Eggman wants the world to become: a perfectly predictable, orderly machine serving only him and under his complete control ... but even this small-scale execution of his vision is unsustainable. Metal's emotional troubles cause him to rebel and act on his own on multiple occasions, and no matter how often Eggman tries to patch out the "bugs" in "its" code, Metal will always long to be more than just a tool to be used by someone else. that need for emotional fulfillment and self-actualization cannot be destroyed, even in an allegedly "perfect worker."

though Sonic and Metal Sonic are superficially similar, one of them is trapped in a system built on labor exploitation. because he either will not or cannot leave his assigned role (depending on how you interpret a robotic character's "programming"), he cannot be satisfied with his lot in life the way his counterpart is. to be a cog in a capitalist machine is to be denied your freedom, and no matter how you excel within this system, there is no fulfillment for anyone except for the guy sitting at the top. you can really tell Metal is a 90's character, because these themes were everywhere in children's media during this decade.

... Shadow the Hedgehog (introduced in Sonic Adventure 2, 2001), an artificial super soldier who may or may not have been created in Sonic's image somehow (this is never fully explained). like Sonic, Shadow is a heroic figure who fights evil to protect the weak. however, while Sonic lives in the now, Shadow is defined by his tragic, complicated past. unlike Metal Sonic, who is actively being exploited for someone else's gain, Shadow's barriers to freedom are mental. his creator, the military that funded his creation, and his biological father all had different motives for bringing him into the world; his character arc revolves around making sense of his origins and which choices they now leave him with going forward.

in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow has to navigate false memories implanted by his creator, who wanted to weaponize him as part of a revenge plot against humanity. Shadow ultimately rejects his false memories in favor of a real memory where he promised to protect the Earth and everyone who lives on it instead. in both Shadow the Hedgehog and Shadow Generations, Shadow's biological father returns, asserting that he is entitled to use Shadow for his own plans because he made a deal with his creator before Shadow was even alive. instead, Shadow kills him, recommitting to the promise he made to protect the world in the process. in Sonic '06, a time traveling villain from the future claims humanity will one day scapegoat Shadow for something he didn't do because they're afraid of him. empowered by his new friends - friends who are still alive, who care about him because of who he is, not because of what he is - Shadow says if this future comes to pass, he is ready to abandon his current path and fight for his own life if he has to.

at this point in time, though Sonic and Shadow fundamentally have the same values, Shadow's past consistently hampers his ability to forge his own path. for him, the key to achieving freedom involves working through his baggage, making peace with what he lost, forging new connections and taking a stance against those who try to use his origins against him. his story arc associates "freedom" with "living in the present", and not letting your past define you.

... Silver the Hedgehog (introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog, 2006, AKA Sonic '06). although less of an explicit parallel to Sonic compared to others on this list, he is nonetheless placed into a trifecta with Sonic and Shadow in his debut game, where they work together to protect the past, present and future. Silver is a time traveler with destructive psychokinetic powers, who is willing to do whatever it takes to avert the post-apocalyptic future from which he originates. while Shadow, depressive and cynical, ruminates on the past, Silver, anxious and naive, frets obsessively over the future. aside from reinforcing the connection between spiritual freedom and living in the present, Silver's character also interacts with the freedom-theme through his and Sonic's contrasting perspectives on how to deal with their enemies.

notably, Silver is one of the few sincerely altruistic characters in the series who is consistently willing to kill even defenseless foes if he's sufficiently convinced it's for some greater good. in his first appearance, one villain takes advantage of his desperation to save the world and almost successfully manipulates him into killing an innocent person, which would have caused the apocalypse he was trying to prevent in the first place. in a later game, he leaves a villain who's begging for his life to a painful death simply because he's sick of dealing with him, he has no reason to believe he's going to learn anything from their most recent encounter, and the only person around to see it happen agrees with his decision. in the IDW comic series, he helps a friend hunt down her arch enemy to prevent him from terrorizing her further. while the first incident is portrayed as a mistake on Silver's end, the latter two deaths are played as unambiguously justified.

Sonic himself has a strict no-kill policy, which he sticks to to the very best of his ability. murder is depicted as the ultimate violation of a person's autonomy, so it's at odds with his personal values. at times, this attitude is shown in a positive light: something like half the cast are former enemies he made friends with, who now help others in turn. other times, letting his enemies live comes back to bite him, and questions are raised around how much responsibility he carries for the problems they go on to cause. Silver serves as the inversion of this theme - his willingness to violate this sacred right to life does, at times, cause more good than harm, but leaving this decision to the flawed judgment of a single person is also portrayed as morally gray and extremely dangerous.

the fact that his main power is literally "mind over matter" - which he often uses to seize, lift, crush, throw, and otherwise physically manipulate living bodies - seems to reference this theme as well, as does all the collatoral damage he causes whenever he uses his powers in battle.

... Blaze the Cat (introduced in Sonic Rush, 2005), a pseudo-counterpart to Sonic from another dimension, who draws on the power of her own world's magical gemstones to fight evil in a direct parallel to Sonic's ability to harness the Chaos Emeralds. Blaze is in the inverse position that Metal Sonic is in - instead of suffering under someone else's rule, Blaze was born into a position of authority, and she overworks herself trying to do right by the people she holds power over.

interestingly, while the series' core themes revolve around freedom and most authoritarian factions are portrayed as morally gray at best, an exception is frequently made for monarchies. monarchies almost exclusively appear as fancy set dressing to prop up princess characters, which ties into the series' history with misogyny. princesshood is used as a narrative device to inflate the perceived "importance" of female characters, which Blaze is an example of. as is common for the fantasy genre, well-intentioned characters born into royalty are depicted as uniquely burdened by the responsibility they feel toward their people; they are hard-working and selfless, and they are kept awake at night by the very real possibility that their own shortcomings may end up ruining countless lives. in Blaze's case, these problems are compounded by her duties as the guardian of multiple magical artifacts - and she may or may not have the powers of a dead god sealed away within her soul as well, which would destroy the world if unleashed, just for good measure.

while Sonic is nothing out of the ordinary beyond his super speed and his willingness to stand up to injustice, Blaze was born into circumstances that have been detrimental to her ability to live for herself, similar to Shadow. however, unlike Shadow, Blaze accepting her destiny is portrayed as a noble, righteous sacrifice, as there are still-living people actively relying on her who need her to fill the role she's been assigned. at the end of the day, although her position is portrayed as a heavy burden to bear, Blaze is proud of the work she does to ensure her people can live their lives in peace, even if it means she herself cannot do the same.

in accordance with this characterization, it's also worth noting the elemental symbolism surrounding her powers. Sonic is commonly associated with the element of wind, both literally (he can create mini-tornadoes in combat) and metaphorically (as in "free as the wind"); meanwhile, Blaze mainly fights using pyrokinesis, and her association with fire is variously used to emphasize her social estrangement, her unapproachable nature, her temper, her ability to dispel evil, and eventually her ability to nourish those around her. and I think it may also be significant that - unlike the wind - a fire cannot be truly free without causing devastation. by virtue of what she is, there is a limit to how much Blaze can allow herself to cut loose without causing harm to other people. instead, she chooses to forgo a certain level of personal freedom in order to, in metaphorical terms, keep others warm.

... Surge the Tenrec (introduced in Imposter Syndrome, 2021), a normal girl who was experimented on by an evil scientist to turn her into a fake "hero" to replace Sonic as part of his plan for world domination. like Sonic, Surge is a rebel at heart, and she craves freedom more than anything else - but only for herself.

while in the scientist's custody, Surge was brainwashed and manipulated into following his agenda, and even after breaking free and setting out on her own, she remains terrified of falling under someone else's control again. her emancipation is subtextually played as a child escaping an abusive home environment, complete with a tragic vulnerability to re-victimization. her trauma causes her to push away those who genuinely want to help her, suspicious of their intentions, but it also makes her unable to identify genuinely dangerous situations, likely because they simply "remind her of home." as a result, she repeatedly finds herself manipulated by those around her, and she only grows more desperate to assert control over her own life as time goes on.

because Surge's wish to be free is born from traumatic experiences rather than personal values, she couldn't care less about protecting anyone else's right to autonomy. this is best illustrated in her relationship with her younger brother figure, Kitsunami, who was brainwashed into following her lead in all matters, in a twisted interpretation of Sonic's friendship with Tails. despite her hatred for the people who have taken advantage of her in the past, Surge has no qualms about upholding the power imbalance between herself and Kit in turn. it seems she likes the idea of both of them being "rebels" in theory, but in practice, she has no other friends or systems of support, so his willingness to give up his own personhood to protect hers is simply too valuable of a resource for her to jeopardize. she needs him, and the easiest way to keep him around is to make sure he continues to believe that he needs her too.

similar to Blaze, the contrast between Sonic and Surge is accentuated through elemental symbolism. in reference to the feuding god-brothers Fūjin and Raijin from Japanese mythology, Sonic's element of wind (tenacious, evasive, impossible to catch) is contrasted against Surge's element of electricity (bold, destructive, self-erasing). Sonic is free as the wind, but Surge is free as a freak lightning storm: out of control, doomed to destroy herself over and over, and willing to take everyone around her down with her.

the way I see it, Metal Sonic, Shadow, Silver, Blaze and Surge are Sonic's most notable narrative foils, though others do exist. Jet the Hawk is another parallel character to Sonic, but only in the context of a series of spinoff racing games; the character contrast here revolves around Sonic and Jet's opposing attitudes toward sportsmanship rather than the main series' themes of autonomy. I actually think you could also make the argument that Amy Rose is sometimes played as a narrative foil to Sonic, though this is inconsistent. similar to Sonic, Amy is heroic, determined and extremely tenacious, but her juvenile attempts to trap Sonic into a romantic relationship with her are at odds with his dislike of being tied to any one person. Amy's role as a kind-of-semi-foil-character is more noticeable when she appears alongside Cream, as their relationship (especially in their early appearances) can be described as "Sonic and Tails, if Sonic was a lot more headstrong and Tails was too meek to meaningfully balance him out." in a roundabout way, Amy and Cream occasionally read as a much more lighthearted, purely-humorous precursor to Surge and Kit's dynamic.

other foil characters have shown up in alternate continuities, but this post is already long, so I'll leave it here. I love Sonic and all his weird buddies, their relationships are such a fun way to play around with the series' themes. the interplay between a protagonist who is simple and thematically to-the-point + various more complicated takes on the same theme creates such a fun little web, I think!! it'll be fun to see if more characters like this show up in the future <3

[glasskey]

Season 6 - Critical Mass

Fuck me. Season 6. Some loved it, most hated it. Episode 9 in particular really brought the whole house of cards down for this season, and left the writers and show runners with nothing but angry fans and a thousand questions to answer. I started making my own list sometime ago and episode 9 just tipped me over into critical mass. Because it involved the death of not one but two beloved characters, fans were let’s say, a little miffed. The choice to off Nick Blaine in particular has drawn considerable heat and there’s plenty of reasons why. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest reasons that Season 6 broke abso-fucking-loutely everything.

Firstly, I don’t think that it’s an exaggeration to say that at times season 6 just felt surreal and not in a good way. Previous seasons had set up the rules and guidelines for this world and season 6 simply didn’t care about any of them. For instance; how were people just waltzing in and out of Gilead now? That place used to be fucking locked down. Spot lights, dogs, guard towers, drones, Eyes….anyone remember how Emily had to swim over that freezing river with Holly to get to freedom and it was scary AF? Baby Holly nearly drowned. Now June Osborne, Gilead public enemy number one is just jumping in the car to go shuttle Lawrence across the border to a completely abandoned aircraft hangar. But season 6 didn’t stop there, it also didn’t respect the laws of gravity when it dangled Osborne from a crane 30 feet in the air and then hurled her to the ground without a scratch. In addition to disregarding the very laws of physics, Season 6 also gave characters amnesia on multiple occasions, cited off screen occurrences as lore as some sort of “fail safe”, sought to rewrite characters very natures, violated original texts, assumed knowledge, disregarded plot holes and selectively altered the basic moral compass by which characters would be judged. In fact, there really isn’t much that season 6 didn’t do in terms of just breaking all the guidelines that keep a world intact. I can only hope that it will be used as an example of what NOT to do by future writers, because quite honestly the disbelief and anger by audiences has been visceral, and personally I’ve never wanted to smash my television more.

This season was meant to be about people showing their true faces and I am STUNNED that somewhere, somehow these writers have justified that a woman who participated in multiple rapes, stole a baby, and had her hand in the conception of Gilead, has a benevolent “true face”. On Serena’s wedding night she was astonished to learn that her new husband, King of all the High Commanders was a die hard loyalist who liked to keep a handmaid on staff. She had a bit of a whimper but next morning she was ready to kiss and make up, and then her new hubby left for a morning appointment to execute her bestie. Despite this, Serena the baby snatching rapist, was afforded a redemption arc. I was and am, horrified.

Show runners have seen fit to state that Serena and June were actually the love story all along and I cannot tell you how much it disgusts me to hear that they would actually think that a victim / abuser relationship should ever be described as such. I am deeply disturbed that the creators of this show believe it is appropriate to describe the relationship between a kidnapper, rapist, physical and psychological abuser and their victim, as a love story. To say that June is able to forgive her abuser is one thing, to say that she loves her is quite another. If Serena had been a man, a father, she would have pushed her aboard that doomed plane. As it was she was a mother and therefore untouchable so she ultimately walked away virtually unscathed. So the writers message was we could be forgiven anything, even the vilest acts against our own gender, as long as we reproduced. If they intended me to feel all supported and warm and fuzzy as a woman, they well and truly missed the mark. Women like Serena Joy are fucking traitors, because they know full well what it’s like to be a woman, to fight for every single tiny square inch of freedom, and yet they seek to seize power by crushing their fellow women beneath their heel in order to get it.

Next in line is Aunt Lydia, who sanctioned and carried out torture, rape and murder. She arranged for Janine’s eye to be ripped out and farmed women into slavery. Suddenly she was pleading ignorance over what actually happens to the handmaids in their retirement? Are you fucking kidding me? This woman was so far up Gilead’s arse there was literally nothing that demon didn’t know about what was happening to those Handmaids. Atwood’s text reveals the aunts kept secret detailed files on all of them, and having Aunt Lydia now whining about her “poor girls” after tasing them for 5 seasons is laughable. She’d chained a pregnant handmaid in the basement and informed June she’d be shot after giving birth, so all of her sudden crocodile tears about the ex handmaids being sent to Jezebels was the weakest bunch of bullshit I’d ever seen for her entire character arc. But she’s needed for The Testaments, so she had a benevolent face slapped on her at the last moment and was given a redemption arc of sorts as well. Writers also failed to explain how Aunt Lydia was going to be embedded back into Gilead society now that she’s blown her cover.

Next victim is Lawrence. Last season Lawrence shot down the rescue planes for Hannah and told Blaine that it was a free for all to use June Osborne as target practice. He’s responsible for inventing a world of slavery and death, and he kept his wife imprisoned for years, but Lawrence has a strong papa bear vibe with some punchy one liners, so he gets a redemption arc and a heroes death. It’s worth mentioning that Joseph was actually the one responsible for dragging Serena back to Gilead and NOT Blaine as the Show runners would have you believe. Blaine actually spoke up for her, asking if “it was really necessary to drag her back into this”, however this was painted as Blaine’s decision to bring Serena back……despite the fact it was Lawrence who suggested it…..and physically went and got her…..and virtually strong armed her into the car. It’s also worth noting that Lawrence was all aboard the Gilead train, chowing down on that delicious power as a newly appointed High commander, until he learned that all the other commanders (except Blaine) were gunning for him. So it’s really not like he gave a shit about Mayday out of some sense of righteous justice, he just thought it might save his own neck. The martyr’s death / self sacrificial death are the highest value character deaths and quite frankly I’m not sure he deserved that quality of death but he’s cuddly and Whitford didn’t want him to die a villain, so there you go.

Finally we come to Nick Blaine. Out of the Gilead four this season, he was definitely the one most deserving of a redemption arc, but you know clever plot twist, scapegoat required….and guess who gets fucked after 5 seasons. Nick Blaine had spent 5 seasons risking his life on almost a bi seasonal basis for the protagonist, was deeply in love with her and had connections in Mayday. But in season 6 the writers decided to transform him into nothing but a greedy, power hungry, little fascist over the course of 3 episodes, and then unceremoniously had the protagonist kill him off as some sort of true measure of her strength. The writers not only made him the villain and had him killed, but gave him a death befitting a coward. I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to serve up this pile of revenge to a fan favourite who’d been a benevolent companion to the protagonist for the last 5 seasons….but it hideously back fired. I foresaw this when I viewed the original trailers and I prayed that they hadn’t been so stupid as to destroy both a character and a couple that over 80% of the audience were deeply invested in with a spin off waiting in the wings….unfortunately they were and the backlash has been brutal. It was around the time that they decided to bring it all home, that I couldn’t help but notice that out of all of the Gilead four, they’d actually taken the lowest socioeconomic character and seen fit to make him the sole villain and then grind him into a fine powder. It was one thing in season 1 when they illustrated how the poor and uneducated masses could be easily targeted and recruited, it was quite another to make the statement that because he came from “nothing” he was more likely to turn to villainy. Reality is, the well spring of most of the worlds evil fuckery lies deep in the hearts of those born to wealth and power. They’re used to it, they don’t like to share it, they’re terrified of losing it and they’ll do anything to get more of it. My nomination for most likely villain out of the Gilead Four was actually Serena. She's used to wealth and power and desperate to send her little spawn of Satan to a decent private school.

Meanwhile in Mayday central the folks there could do no wrong; Tuello fed civilians into the meat grinder that was Gilead’s highly trained military against Blaine’s advice, and yet remained untouched by any moral judgement from the writers. While everyone cheered as Tuello strode purposefully into the room to find Serena breathless at the sight of her little thirst trap, I ground my teeth and felt my fingernails digging into my palms. I just couldn’t help but wonder why on earth would Tuello trust Lawrence after that little incident with Hannah last season either. He’d just been burnt by Nick and his first response is to go pal up with the Architect of Gilead himself? I also didn’t understand why Tuello was skulking around in No Man’s Land in the first place. All the other diplomats were welcome in New Bethlehem, so why wasn’t he running recon or checking in with why Blaine suddenly wasn’t answering his calls? Why not set up a diplomatic embassy in New Bethlehem? Perhaps because IT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE. This season saw Blaine give up Mayday’s plan. He’d chosen his side apparently and it wasn’t Osborne….after 5 seasons of choosing Osborne (sigh). So I couldn’t help but wonder why this hideous traitor didn’t just tell the other commanders where Mayday central was? He knew approximately where it was and yet there they were all hopping on a plane to DC to work out some intricate plan to curb the rebel operations. I mean the guy could virtually draw a map with a sign that says “bomb here” pointing to the Mayday camp and yet…..Urgh.

The character transformations have gone from zero to a hundred with nothing in between this season. Luke went from wanting to join Mayday, to planting bombs, to running around screaming with a machine gun and hand grenades. Rita went from not wanting to get involved with Mayday, to poisoning the cake with sedatives, to running screaming down the street shooting wildly. Serena got engaged and married in like a week and went from “I didn’t really think about what happened to the handmaids”, to teary eyed demanding to know the “real name” of her new one. Nick proclaimed his undying love for June, 10 seconds later they had a brutal break up, next episode he virtually skipped down the aisle with his wife singing about his new baby and renouncing the parentage of Holly, then he completely ignored the fact that the love of his life was about to be hung (can we just pause and consider how absolutely unbelievable THAT is please), said some BIZARRE shit about commanders being the winners and promptly exploded. Fuuuuuuuck. I mean it would have been hilariously ridiculous if it wasn’t just so fucking tragic to watch all that potential come to such a pointless end. Like so many things this season, this plot line doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean how were these commanders the “winners”? The rebels had just bombed their city and killed most of them, they were practically an endangered species. Somehow the audience was convinced into believing that if the Boston commanders ever made it to DC, Gilead would win and rule over the earth forever and ever. I guess that must have been where they had been keeping their secret special map room and chanting circle. I mean where is the plot? Is the plot in the room with us now? The trajectory on Blaine’s character arc comparative to other seasons, felt like the pilot had suddenly decided to fly the plane into the mountain (excuse the pun). He’d been building to something huge and both of Atwood’s texts indicated that Mayday was in his future, however it was at this point that the writers took incredible licence and deviated from the source material completely. It seemed a huge violation that Blaine’s character was altered from the version in both texts and while all the other characters were carefully manoeuvred into place, he was killed off. Granted Miller and co. had, had the freedom to fill in the blanks between season 2 - 6, various elements of the texts still acted as a guide for these characters natures, journeys and ultimate destinations and there was just no way around the fact that they’d chosen to completely ignore it. Insultingly I was asked to ignore Blaine’s death on the basis that he “had it coming”. Not only was that NOT an answer as to why such liberties were taken with the source material about his nature, depicted allegiances, and you know the fact that he was fucking ALIVE in the book, but that reasoning was also completely riddled with holes.

Throughout the seasons Blaine had been firmly established as an ally to the protagonist via a multitude of mechanisms which were now being blatantly discounted. For example; ALL of the acts of violence that the audience had been shown that were directly and voluntarily committed by Blaine were all performed AGAINST a member of Gilead to either protect the protagonist, at her request or as a form of righteous justice for her cause. Now I was being told that off screen he’d been sneaking around the protagonists back committing horrendous acts on behalf of Gilead….but we just hadn’t seen it….and didn’t know about it…..and SOMEHOW the writers couldn’t understand how that would be confusing..…or even believable. Urgh. The more I looked, the more holes appeared and the more it all just reeked of rewriting history for the sake of a plot twist and a quickly constructed political narrative. For whatever reason it was done, it was sloppy and completely contradictory to the characters original nature, both on screen and in the texts. Even if I did give these writers the benefit of the doubt and BELIEVED their spiel about this character, I’m not sure it worked in their favour to be constantly pointing out that they had neglected to fill in the audience properly on vital character elements during previous seasons.

For some reason the writers and show runners were now under the illusion that their audience had not actually been paying attention while watching the previous 5 seasons, that they had developed some sort of selective amnesia. They also deemed to give the protagonist amnesia, thus making her seem unempathetic, heartless and deeply unlikeable. Blaine had turned up for her countless times and yet was given no quarter. She had simply developed amnesia about what it was like to try and survive in Gilead after a brief stay in Canada. The writers may have intended to make her look strong and assertive, but her failure to extend any measure of compassion or even seek to dig further, made it seem as though the entire relationship had been transactional. It was as if now that Blaine had ceased to serve a purpose, he was being abandoned. This effectively destroyed any integrity to their former bond, it simply made him look like a liar and her an opportunist. I became a bit suspicious that it was not entirely unintentional that these creators were now seeking to change the very nature of this relationship in retrospect, when June attributed Serena responsibility for their relationship in the first place. It sought to completely discount the fact that these two had been circling one another prior to Serena's interference, or even that they continued their relationship despite her objections and efforts to seperate them later.

It was simply more evidence of an almost desperate attempt by the writers to erase this loving connection and replace it with something convenient and superficial. They’d forgotten that Nick and June’s love was actually an act of rebellion, forbidden, a place where both Blaine and Osborne sought freedom and autonomy. Had they remembered this, they might have understood that for a true depiction of a successful rebellion, Nick Blaine should have joined the underground and the two lovers destinies remained intimately intertwined. His true character narrative was as an Eye with connections to Mayday. June / Offred was unsure if she could trust him, but he remained a source of hope, love and quiet rebellion within Gilead. The Handmaids Tale afterword revealed that he’d risked his life to help June escape and gone on to join the resistance. Gilead had tried and failed to kill him at least once and he was later reunited with June and his daughter. The successful depiction of a rebellion that used their relationship as the intended metaphor, was one that had Blaine subvert Gilead as an Eye turned agent for Mayday. Instead his death indicated the success of Gilead to eradicate collective rebellion….by somehow encouraging rebel forces to self sabotage. It simply made no sense, particularly given the rebellions success in the area where Blaine had been stationed. It was like someone had either failed to understand the metaphor completely OR had simply been so desperate to destroy the character and the relationship, that they didn’t care if it meant tearing apart a central theme. Which was absolutely fucking insane.

Fans had followed the writers cues and had understood the underlying message of rebellion in their bond. They’d waited years for the rebellion to succeed and the symbolic narrative to reach it’s natural conclusion, by having Blaine cross the border to join June and Mayday. So when instead the writers chose to start labelling Blaine as a loyalist and gut this relationship, slaughtering this manifestation of collective rebellion, the audience was understandably angry and confused. His role as an embedded Mayday agent in The Testaments stand as evidence that this was precisely who Blaine was and not some dubious fascist all along. Atwood consulted during season 2, but it was only during season 3 that show runners decided to whack a commander suit on Blaine and start using him for statements about patriarchal power that had nothing to do with his original character construct. He was never a commander, not in The Handmaid’s Tale and not in The Testaments either…..but these writers thought they knew better than the author, so here we are. I think about the potential for this story line had it been completed correctly and I could just weep. I could write a book on why the destruction of this character and relationship was one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve ever seen a writer do to their own creation, and how this is one of the biggest violations of an authors symbolic narrative I’ve ever witnessed, but honestly I’ve got a lot to get through today.

The writers and staff scrambled to provide clarity about who Nick Blaine was all along, but what they failed to understand was that it was utterly irrelevant. If they had to tell audiences after the fact who their character actually was and what their true motivations were, then they’d failed their mission. Writers cited story elements that supposedly occurred off screen, as lore when they either should have been clearer from the beginning or just followed the established on screen character arc through without trying to get clever. Now for clarity I believe the rot started in season 5 but only truly set in in season 6.

Come season 6 Minghella would be lucky to get a few minutes of screen time in 6 episodes, and in that time they had to convince the audience that he’d been a totally different person than the one they’d been shown all along. Consider the characters nature, established relationship with the protagonist and everyone around him….over 5 seasons….now with ALL of that think about how impossible it actually is to flip that character in the space of approximately 10-15 minutes, and how insane you’d have to be to green light that shit. And yet SOMEHOW it was my fault for not believing them. Probably because I’d read the books.

Writers asked audiences to reassess characters 4 episodes from the end of a final season. That’s neither realistic or wise and they shouldn’t be surprised if people feel like they’ve been duped and cheated. The fact is that they told audiences that a character had a particular motivation for the last 5 seasons, etched it into to him like it was the very essence of his being, and suddenly they wanted audiences to believe that he was forsaking it in the last moment. That he would simply give it up at the first sign of adversity. That he’d be just kosher with not only giving it up but destroying the object of his obsession within 2 brief episodes. It’s utterly ridiculous, I don’t believe any of it and these writers shouldn’t be surprised by that. You can’t tell me that someone is deep and sensitive in one breath and then tell me they’re angling for an upper management position in a society that enslaves the vulnerable in the next….particularly if the bottom of barrel is exactly where they come from. It makes no fucking sense.

Because of his core nature as a sensitive, loving and loyal individual, the ONLY parts of Nick Blaine’s character that actually EVER made any sense were the ones attached to Mayday, those that loved June, that “would do anything for me and for Nicole”, that were trapped and tricked into signing onto Gilead, anything else just seemed in direct conflict with his personality overall. Blaine cried over a dead handmaid and refused to call June by her slave name, he had contacts in Mayday that he referred to as “friendlies”. What made the writers think I would believe an individual this sensitive and obviously invested in rebel operations, would seek a higher position in this society for ANY other reason than to subvert it? Ambitious greedy ghouls do not smuggle out letters of imprisoned handmaids and they don’t baulk over sleeping with their child brides. They just don’t give a fuck.

Right now show runners are working overtime to create a narrative in which they write off Nicks damning choices in episode 6 as the result of both full autonomy AND coercive control. If he acted with full autonomy, Blaine was a monster who knew what he was doing, sought power and subscribed to Gilead’s rhetoric of slavery. If he was acting as a result of coercive control he was frightened, abused and controlled with little to no recourse. The reason that the writers couldn’t decide which one it was, was because they wanted it to be the first, but they knew full well it was the second. Season 1 and 2 had already shown that Blaine was indeed stripped of his autonomy and yet in 5 10 Tuello claimed that he could have run away with her while he lived at the Waterfords. They were trying to alter the narrative around how much power he had possessed, but it was too late, we’d already seen the dogs, the drones, the spotlights, the checkpoints and all those guardians. We’d already seen all that old school Gilead terror and we weren’t about to forget it.

Show runners claimed that Blaine had full autonomy on the basis that he had many chances to defect, but again there was plenty of evidence to discredit this theory. In season 2 when Blaine took Osborne to the Boston Globe he said "I'm risking my life to save you", indicating he was monitored, restricted and had just about as much autonomy as she did. Had Blaine exercised full autonomy, there was no question he would have been captured and executed. When June boarded the plane to leave, a driver also attempted to sneak on board. He was hauled off the plane and shot by Gilead guards, this heavily implied that Blaine would have died if he’d tried to accompany her. In season 3 Eleanor told June that Lawrence could never leave because he’d be imprisoned for life. In season 4 Fred was arrested at the border and jailed, when he tried to negotiate immunity he was traded back to Gilead and ended up dead. In season 5 Blaine WAS offered a deal from Tuello which he took, but it did require that he remain in Gilead indefinitely. Throughout season 6 the presence of Wharton was inserted specifically to create an environment of coercive control that restricted and monitored his movements. So no I don’t believe he had full autonomy. It also seems incredibly odd for the writers to say that Blaine has full autonomy and THEN have Serena tell June “If he ever thought he had a choice, he would have chosen you”. I mean in what alternative dimension should an audience NOT be confused by this constant mixed messaging?

I was informed through various forms of PR, that the second Blaine knew his relationship was over with Osborne he’d simply sought to lose himself in power, but this was utterly ridiculous. Blaine had been confronted with the reality of losing her many times before and he still hadn’t stuck his face in a bucket of Kool Aid. The idea that Blaine had failed to show up and do anything about June being executed because he considered their relationship over, was laughable. In season 4 he’d strong armed Lawrence into keeping her alive even though he knew she “was never coming back to him”. In season 5 he dashed across the border and signed a contract with Tuello just to ensure her safety even though “she already has people who care for her, I’m nothing”. It didn’t wash. NONE of it washed. Now I MIGHT have been able to swallow that he’d taken solace in Gilead after his relationship with Osborne completely dissolved but there was no period of mourning for the loss of a deep abiding love he’d carried with him for 5 and half seasons. No tears, no despair, nothing….Instead Blaine immediately started rambling on about Gilead like it was Sale of the fucking Century and he couldn’t get enough of those Nazi war spoils. It was utterly baffling. Mid season we all travelled deep into the Twilight Zone when Blaine made some sort of schizophrenic switch from prioritising June to an unquenchable thirst for power. It was impossible to reconcile with his previous manifestation, but somehow this all remained my fault for failing to grasp it, rather than the writers for either not communicating it in earlier seasons or an ill advised quick change.

We were also told that Blaine was a villain because of his role in the original attacks and that well, because you had to be a bad guy to be promoted to a commander. Firstly; scenes of Blaine actually participating in the original attacks were cut and are now being cited as part of the character history, and I’m not sure that works in their favour, as the original ones show him being sick and stunned at the violence anyway. It read more like someone who’d been roped into something that had quickly turned nightmarish and of which he now couldn’t escape. In season 3 Blaine said about the government “they don’t give a shit about us” and “once you get in bed with the government, it’s not so easy to get out”, not REALLY the words of an enamoured loyalist. Secondly; Blaine was promoted from a Eye to a Commander as a form of punishment from Fred for his insubordination, to have him sent to the front to die. These two singular moments should have been definitively painted to follow the writers intention from the beginning, but they weren’t and as a result his characters role in Gilead's conception and growth remained hazy at best. Again, not the audiences fault, the writers. Creators can't keep claiming they had an active loyalist on their hands all along when everything they ever showed their audience said otherwise. They can't keep claiming it in the face of the source material which completely contradicts them.

It’s pretty telling that audiences aren’t so much sad as angry about it. Writers are doubling down because well, they don’t have much choice. What’s done is done and they’re never going to take any of it back or admit any shortcomings. They’re never going to admit they sidelined and significantly altered a character from the source material. They’re never going to admit they out right IGNORED their audience and then proudly claimed to be listening to them. After analysing all of the diatribe and reasoning that the cast, writers and show runners have put forth I’ve come to a few simple conclusions about why Blaine was killed off. Firstly: Certain individuals could not tolerate the idea of a woman leaving her husband for another man, I believe this stems from a deep seated theological indoctrination that is ingrained into American society and consequently into ALL of their writing. It’s most evident in their attitudes to sex and love and these moralistic shackles severely restrict all of their plot and character development. My advice, go and learn from some of our British friends, they know how to write and their final seasons don’t look like a dogs breakfast. Secondly: He was used as a scapegoat for the rest of the Gilead four. Put simply, they had to have at least one bad guy. They needed Aunt Lydia for The Testaments, Serena was a mommy and Whitford baggsied "Not It" apparently. The death of Fred in season 4 created the lack of a necessary antagonist for the protagonist, and these writers simply couldn't use Serena, Lydia or Lawrence. One was a mommy, one was performing a redemption arc and the other was too cuddly. Nick, as the "other man" made the perfect candidate, he was mysterious, inconvenient and could be twisted into a loyalist with some sneaky back tracking. Unfortunately the source material and previous seasons said otherwise, ultimately they should have gone with Lawrence or even Serena as the fall out has been horrendous. Thirdly: they wanted to make a political statement about young males being recruited into neo fascism in America today. They were not concerned about breaking with literary integrity, character construct or even narrative symbolism in order to achieve it. As someone who has taught analysis of media and literature, I can honestly say, they should have been concerned, because it definitely looks fucking broken and it will cost these creators.

I’m still reeling from the fact that so many gossamer threads in this vast story line which could have been pulled together beautifully, were instead clumsily tangled or just abandoned. Replaced instead with plot lines delivered with a clumsy ignorance of how the audience would actually feel. Which sick fuck thought that plane trip into the abyss should be the Casablanca ending they were referring to all along? I’d prefer to leave The Handmaid’s Tale behind me at the end of season 4. Even though some of the constructs of Blaine’s character were already incorrectly portrayed by this point, it was during season 5 that show runners decided to truly begin Blaine's slide from ambiguous ally to Gilead loyalist. One of the biggest appeals of Nick Blaine was his mystery but it seems that during these last 2 seasons show creators were intent on stripping him of it and reducing him to nothing but a 2 dimensional family man who just turned to water at the mere sight of a strong father figure.

Miller’s Wilderness was possibly one of the most amazing television season finales I’ve ever seen, and it just never got any better than that. It set the story line up beautifully to lead into The Testaments, and he could have simply walked straight into his spin off with a few cameos to smoothen the transition. I don’t know why those writers were so afraid of the character dynamic between Nick and June, it was extraordinary and we’ll be lucky to see one like it ever again. From the beginning there was something about these two that the audience emotionally engaged with and if the writers had been smarter they would have truly acknowledged and embraced it. Instead their relationships sudden end, and the death of Nick Blaine, will become the one thing that follows this series around, and sticks in the craw of many viewers for years to come.

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

Do you think there is a way to ethically watch Sandman and Good Omens? What about Dead Boy Detectives?

Andddd this was why I originally turned off anons. I knew this was coming eventually, but I guess I'll respond just this once so everyone knows where I stand.

I don't love that I feel the need to disclose this, but I have personally experienced grooming and sexual assault in the past. So this post is coming from someone who has Been There and understands the importance of supporting victims. I also love all of the efforts NG-related fandoms have been putting into raising money for sexual assault charities. It's wonderful to see people rallying behind the survivors and supporting them so vocally.

- DEAD BOY DETECTIVES: NOT A GAIMAN WORK

I do not think that there is a world where Dead Boy Detectives would be unethical to stream. It has virtually nothing to do with Neil Gaiman, by his own admission, and is the brain-child of Steve Yockey.

Besides the first chapter where Charles and Edwin were introduced (with no development), he didn't even write the comics! Several artists did, including Toby Litt and Mark Buckingham - whose run the show is based on and who the sprites are named after.

Yockey was the sole person to pitch DBDA to Warner Brothers. Gaiman did not do that.

Streaming Dead Boy Detectives primarily supports its writers, cast, and crew - Gaiman, who only wrote 2 scenes, is getting essentially nothing in terms of royalties.

Someone on Twitter did a really good job of unpacking why Dead Boy Detectives shouldn't be lumped in with Gaiman stuff - I'll link it here.

But this leads me to the next section.

- HANDLING GOOD OMENS AND SANDMAN

I think that there are a lot of valid reactions to the way people handle the consumption of Gaiman's shows after what he has done.

Some people are going to be unable to stomach anything he has written, and that is okay. Others whose lives have been massively impacted by his work aren't going to be able to let go since - and I know people like to deny this, but it's true - the art you love more than love itself is going to have a serious material impact on your personality.

Both of these approaches are alright! The only incorrect approach is to harass those who disagree with your personal choices.

It also is, in my opinion, Bad to give Gaiman money. Purchasing his books and buying Good Omens official merch puts cash in his pocket.

Streaming the shows, though, is a little more nuanced to me.

I'm going to use Good Omens as an example here. I personally will not be continuing with Good Omens. It gives me a Yucky Feeling. I may one day change my mind and stream a pirated version, but I don't think so.

However, I don't think Sheen and Tenant's fans are wrong to stream it in support of the actors who have brought their favourite characters to life.

But this leads me into my next point, and the point that will probably get me Canceled.

- THE IMPACT OF SHOWS ON PEOPLE

The way that people handle their favourite shows post-allegations is going to depend on the impact that the show had on their life.

I like Good Omens. It's a fun show. I enjoyed it while watching it, and think (see: thought) positively of it. But it had no real deep impact on my life - it's not part of me. When I look at Good Omens now, I see Gaiman's work above the finished product. It puts a sour taste in my mouth.

But in a hypothetical world, if Dead Boy Detectives were a Gaiman production? I have the self-awareness to know that I probably would still stream it to support the cast and crew. I am attached enough to it that I think I would divorce it entirely from Gaiman (if he were the creator, which he is not.) My point is that other people who are still streaming Sandman and GO probably don't look at it and see Gaiman. They see something that they have absorbed into themselves.

The part that's going to get me canceled is that if George cameos in Sandman, I will stream that one (1) episode to support George Rexstrew (Edwin Payne's actor). This is because Edwin has had a material impact on my life (hilariously, because I am a sexual violence survivor who did not get justice, and Edwin did not get justice for his murder and fights for that.) I feel that Edwin is part of me and my life, because Edwin (and George's work as Edwin) has made me feel less alone.

A lot of people feel that way about Crowley and Aziraphale.

I think that asking people to ditch a show, characters, and performers that have had a deep impact on their lives is unfair to them. Like, yes, Neil Gaiman is a bag of shit! Anyone who defends him is also a bag of shit! But I don't think that it's fair to stop people from supporting works that have had big material impacts on their own lives.

- HOW TO PROCEED

TL;DR

My personal ideal outcome here would be:

Wrap up Good Omens with the 90-minute movie and nothing else.

Wrap up Sandman with season 2, and do not renew.

Revive Dead Boy Detectives WITH THE CAVEAT that Gaiman gets his name removed from it, even if he currently isn't making much money off it. Take the Sandman characters and references from DBDA and let it become its own standalone thing.

Cancel all future Gaiman productions and never hire him to work on television or anything else again.

Let Gaiman's career die entirely and let him fade into obscurity.

Arrest Gaiman, which will never happen but it should.

I think people should:

Stop giving Neil Gaiman money through books or merch.

Make their own decisions about whether or not to officially stream the shows in support of the actors and crew members who have worked hard on it.

Not harass anyone for either their decision to stream the show, not stream the show, or stream a pirated version of the show.

Engage as much as they want with fandom and fanworks, as they are divorced from the source material's creator.

Vocally speak up against Neil Gaiman. Amplify the voices of the survivors, and don't let fear for the future of your show get in the way of that. At the end of the day, real women were put through the most traumatic and horrifying experience of their lives, and that's what matters most.

[liliesdiary]

➢ Face Of An Angel, Body Of A Porn Star

➢ MASTER LIST

PLAYLIST → Perverted Angel Playlist

SYNOPSIS → Ghostface develops an extreme obsession with you, the infamous porn star named soft angel who so happens to be his classmate. The face of an angel and the body of a porn star.

view in light mode for a better reading experience!

(all endings, multiple parts, dead ends)

➢ [◉°] ⌞ Face Of An Angel ⌝

➢ Angel's Inbox

➢ Dispose Mail?

➢ Wrong Fucking Choice

➢ Chatting With Lovesick Anonymous

➢ Dead End

➢ Keep Chatting With Lovesick Anonymous

➢ Don't Block Him Again.

➢ Lovesick Anonymous Will Remember That

➢ Be My Valentine

➢ Body Of A Porn Star

➢ Living Dove Route

➢ Angel's Inbox

➢ Cancel

➢ Lovesick Doll (coming soon)

➢ Dead Dove Route

➢ Hide In Bathroom

➢ Psycho Killer (coming soon)

🖱️ CLICK TO READ CREDITS & UPDATES 🖱️

જ⁀➴ I also used Pinterest for the other dividers, gifs, and templates. I can't find the original creators of some of these templates so if it's yours please let me know so I can credit you! The pink streaming template that says starting soon in the first chapter was made by @moshimochico, I found it on Pinterest <3

જ⁀➴ ♡ most dividers, templates, pngs used in this series were made by: @bernardsbendystraws @nicodefresas @kimjiho1 @dollywons @anitalenia @uncoffins

જ⁀➴ I used PicsArt as well to create some of the pictures. I use the stickers section of PicsArt to add different things onto the templates and photos I've found from Pinterest or Tumblr.

જ⁀➴ I use Emoji Combos for cute symbols, emoji combos or symbol combos જ⁀➴ key words I use for combos: cute symbols, star symbols, arrows, hearts, divider symbols, coquette, scary/horror symbols

જ⁀➴ I use Lingojam for different fonts, it's a font generator and you can use it for anything! there are a lot of different and unique fonts but I mainly use the fancy or basic ones (you have to scroll a bit to see them)

જ⁀➴ I use bbcode & html text colorizer for the colored text. I only used it for the first chapter for the light faded pink but I do plan on using it more for my future chapters. original tutorial by @hanasnx (can be found in his FAQ) → ✩ bbcode & html text colorizer | follow the prompts -> copy the bottom box aka the "html code" -> go to tumblr on desktop -> create post -> click top right gear for settings -> scroll down to "text editor" to select "html" -> paste your clipboard -> scroll up to the select "html" or "preview" to both edit html and see how it looks after you do.

all parts of this series will be under જ⁀➴ ᴘᴇʀᴠᴇʀᴛᴇᴅ ᴀɴɢᴇʟ

[marzipanandminutiae]

All art reflects the period it was written in but like ...

It shouldn't be right now but everyone is dressed oddly. I'm currently writing a book series about surviving abuse and becoming an adult and being autistic and disabled and queer that's set in the 1850s/60s. And guess what?

All the points I'm making are through the lens of 1857-1862! That's the point! If you want to write about today without filtering it through the time period the story is set in, then don't do it!

Imagine if Mad Men had every character and character conflict be something that you could find identical today. Cool then why is it set in the 50s.

And I keep asking myself this when looking at period dramas. Why is it set then. What drove you to exploring this time period. Because clearly it's not the time period itself, so what

y e p

like OP of that post made another post last year, that my friend found and showed me, complaining that "costume accuracy people [I guess they can be gender-neutral about it when they want to]" hate when women are Allowed to be even a bit gender-nonconforming in period dramas

and like. that's a common misunderstanding of a critique that boils down to "period dramas are often lazy about when and how they use gender-nonconformity in female characters' costumes, preferring to fall back on modern norms rather than contextualizing the characters' dress and behavior within the era"

which, once again, comes back to Why Period Drama If Not Period

sometimes, indeed, it's obviously a commentary on the time in which it was made- one example OP cited was the Crucible, which is indeed basically using Salem to comment on McCarthyism (although why it had to age up a historically 11-year-old girl and turn her into an Evil temptress is uh. beyond me. HUAC didn't do that, my guy). or even Pleasantville, which isn't a true period piece but is definitely using a quasi-historical setting as a commentary on the romanticization of pasts that never existed

but like...that doesn't apply to ALL period dramas

adaptations of things that weren't originally historical pieces, for one thing. My Fair Lady doesn't have inaccuracies because it's Really About the 1960s- how can it be, when the plot was written and set in 1913? and if it's not being used for Deep Commentary On Its Era, then costume/technology/speech/whatever inaccuracies are just...an imperfect understanding of the past, a lack of research, or an active choice to make things more familiar/appealing to modern audiences

and in that, yes, every period drama bears the fingerprints of the era in which it was made. and studying them as historical artifacts in their own right can be really cool! but there's no Unassailable Deeper Reason for all of the elements that were modernized, all the time, which seemed to be what that post was saying

and far from this being a narrow view that can't handle a movie without a "perfect empire waistline" as OP said (hmmmm discussions of centuries-old misogynistic associations between women, clothing, fashion, and "silly frivolity" ABOUND there, but we'll leave it for now), I see it as expecting media to provide a fuller interaction with the real history it's chosen to portray, and an understanding of and appreciation for the era in which the creators elected to set their story

it's easy to put Jo March in menswear from the waist up and call it a day, costume-wise. it would have been a lot more complex, nuanced, and interesting to explore why she couldn't just wear that to essentially a job interview, in 1869, and the historical (and sometimes current!) link between ability to buck gender norms and socioeconomic privilege. or to put her in clothing actual 1860s women wore when they wanted menswear inspiration but couldn't- or didn't want to -go all the way with it

and I don't think saying that makes me a silly narrow-minded ~*Costume Accuracy Girl*~ who just doesn't understand film-making, personally

[smytherines]

To me, the most exciting thing about Space Baby is that its format allows starkids living outside of LA, or who haven't been in Starkid stuff recently, to actually participate in this big beautiful creative enterprise they love and helped to build. Plus it allows them to incorporate all the amazing and talented people that they've been working with for years!

I'm excited to see Meredith and Brian, and Denise Donovan, and Jae Hughes! I'm excited to see Sean & Sinéad Persaud! Nick Gage's theme song is a banger! The idea of Mary Kate Wiles and Tessa Netting in a Starkid project makes me want to scream and jump up and down and cry tears of joy!!

The musicals are great, that's what pulled me in initially, but they are limited in the sense that they typically have pretty small casts, and the cast has to live in LA. Almost everyone is playing multiple characters because the shows are so expensive to produce. They require so much time and effort, and some starkids might have to make difficult choices to take work that pays more.

But with the format of Space Baby, while I'm sure the creators have spent an obscene amount of time and effort to make this thing happen, it has a much lower barrier to entry for all those people we love in the starcanpulpwrecked orbit. They don't have to live in LA, they don't have to be able to commit weeks or months to rehearsal and running a show, some of them may even be able to do the filming on their own and send it in.

It's just a really rare and precious thing to have such a large and long-running group of creatives, that seem to have such genuine respect and affection for each other and for their craft. That can pull in new talented people, and find ways for original starkids to participate, *and* incorporate people they've been working with for years outside of Starkid.

Watching Starkid shows on youtube led me to TCB, becoming a fan of TCB introduced me to Shipwrecked and smosh and dropout. It's the reason my partner puts on Shitty Broadway songs when he knows I've had a bad day. That willingness to collaborate benefits all the individuals and companies involved, but it also benefits us as fans.

I think Space Baby itself is going to be weird and trippy and funny and maybe a little bittersweet sometimes? And that's exciting for me, but I hope it succeeds because finding ways to keep everyone in that big creative family and keep producing accessible, independent original works is a project worth pursuing

Anyways I love this beautiful space child