#& isn't that worth something?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[egophiliac]

this started as a reply to someone (a million years ago) (I am so sorry) and then very quickly got out of control, as these things do. so...uhhh....here's everyone else at Playful Land!

sorry

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[meidui]

“It kinda feels personal.” | for @catws-anniversary ♡

[kodasea]

Things aren't always what they seem to be

[mikkeneko]

Don't want to put this on the post itself for risk of derailing it, but that post the other day about Terry Pratchett's early work really stuck in my mind. OP had sent in an ask saying that they heard some of Pratchett's earlier works had problematic elements (not unusual for a male english writer in the 80s) and they weren't sure whether to go ahead with reading the work anyway.

What I really want to ask that person, or indeed all persons who are hesitating over whether or not to read problematic works or works by imperfect authors:

What are you worried about happening, if you read a work with problematic elements?

I'm worried that if I read this art, I will run across hateful images or words that will shock or upset me

I'm worried that I will spend money on a work of art that then financially supports a bad person, and that thought makes me uncomfortable or upset

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and comment or react on them, and other people will see what I am reading and will think less of me because of it, or will assume that I hold the same bad beliefs as the author

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and I will enjoy them, and the author will find out about my enjoyment and feel emboldened to do bad things because of it

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and their badness will contaminate my way of thinking and make me a worse person in turn

Because these are all different answers and some of them are more actionable than others

[uncanny-tranny]

Some advice for younger queer folk: please don't make your sense of isolation integral to your queer experience. It might feel cathartic, and it's certainly something I did for a time myself - there's no shame in admitting that you feel that isolation.

It's not a bad thing to notice that you feel isolated, but please don't isolate yourself because you think your only tie to your queerness is that you are alone in everything. There is a community and place for you, even when it doesn't seem feasible. Please hold hope out for that

[redysetdare]

I think there's a genuine conversation to be had about how aro spaces have begun pushing QPRs in a similar way that amatonormativity pushes romantic relationships onto people but a majority of aros just refuse to engage in the discussion because they see it as an attack on QPRs or people saying QPRs are romantic relationships lite instead of actually looking at the fact it's critiquing how some Aros have begun pushing it almost like an alternative to romance and something all Aro's want.

No one is saying QPRs are bad but rather that there is too much push that the idea of a QPR will fix people's problems. "oh you're lonely? just find a QPR!" "You dont have to be in a romantic relationship you can be in a QPR!" "QPR is MORE than friendship" etc etc.

There's a genuine critique here of QPRs being used to continue to push amatonormativity by again assuming that every aro wants a partner - even if not romantic - and I think we can have a genuine conversation about this rather than going at each other throats over a fake argument of "QPRs bad"

[bitchthefuck1]

The thing about Francesca is that it isn't just saying "loving you is worth any punishment," it's saying "a punishment that keeps me with you is no punishment at all." It's not that you can brave a hurricane if it's the cost of loving someone, it's that standing in a hurricane for eternity with the person you love is still an eternity with the person you love, and how could you be happy with anything else?

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[r0semultiverse]

Hey, Jake & Jack fans, is this anything?

Both men imprisoned (literal & metaphorical).

Both offered an out from their current predicament by an outside force (arguably in the case of Brain Ghost Dirk).

Both have loose ties to Lord English visually.

Yellow initial glow & Gamzee involvement too.

Sometimes a guy just needs to explode (same pose too).

Both dual wielding weapons.

That same said weapon type (for Jack Noir) having killed Jane Crocker.

It's really looking like Jake is going to do her in.

I would also like to point out that we've had interactions involving these three (Jane, Jake, and Brain Ghost Dirk) before that consisted of similar topics & themes.

Brain Ghost Dirk implying that he's just there as moral support, a manifestation of Jake's powers, and as a coping mechanism. Jane also talking about ruling an empire with him while talking down to him, similar to how she saw and/or still sees him in Beyond Canon's Candy timeline. Jake also being uncertain about doing anything to harm her despite all the bad things she's doing.

Brain Ghost Dirk going away tells us that Jake's more hopeful than he's ever been. This is the moment where he is the most sure of his decisions than he's ever been in his life, whatever those decisions may be in regards to Jane and how to handle this situation.

He is probably going to shoot Jane down, quite literally. I would also argue that after all this time, the lad isn't beating the Lord English allegations. We might as well have a parallel of him killing Jane much like how Jack Noir killed her right before he got possessed by Lil Cal & given some of Lord English's immense power.

Alternatively maybe we'll get to see what the power of hope or hope bullets can do to someone whose done so much wrong & come so far off the deep end in terms of moral wrongdoings. Maybe with every shot that hits her, she'll begin to be swayed to the side of good & start to self-reflect.

I'm still not fully convinced that Gamzee actually cured Tavros' peanut allergy, I mean just look at the panel.

This could absolutely be interpreted as Jake injecting his hope power into the epipen and by proxy injecting both his power & the epipen into his son! If younger Jake is strong enough to defeat Grimbark Jade, then adult Jake might just be strong enough to defeat a peanut allergy is all I'm saying! In fact, now that I'm rambling about it, this seems like the more likely outcome is Jake's hope power swaying or (in the very least) confusing Jane mid-fight. Hope bullets, they would look cool & would be pretty strong!

The power of believing in others & wanting things to change can be a strong tool indeed, Mister English.

If there's one person who still believes in changing Jane's mind (or bringing her back to proper canonicity depending on how you interpret the recent lore), it would be Jake English, the believer.

Okay, maybe this is something! Tally ho!

[aha-chuu]

Can't stop thinking about the fact that Wriothesley is a former underground boxer.

Was it... legal? Did he do it for money? For the thrill? He's called a "Duke" now, but it's unclear if that was a title awarded for his ascension to the head of the Fortress of Meropide (like the monarch "knighting" outstanding people (Sir Patrick Stuart for example)). It's perfectly likely that he had a humble start in life.

The livestream also confirms that Wriothesley is a somewhat recent addition to Meropide, so I'd say he's only had this role for a few years at most. Does that mean he was boxing up until recently too?

Wriothesley is covered in scars (there's a huge one on his neck)... Is that from his past? Did someone pull a knife out in a fight, or was he attacked afterward from some disgruntled opponent?

If this was an illegal practice, he could have been set up to lose a fight and refused, then attacked by whatever mob bosses he fucked over.

Idk. I enjoy the idea that in his younger years he wasn't quite so upstanding - I have this image in my mind of little twenty-something Wriothesley getting caught when the underground fighting ring got taken down. Everyone's put on trial but really Neuvillette & the courts care about the organisers, not the fighters that got caught in the crossfire. And Wriothesley is all freshly scarred and clearly not guilty of all the financial crimes going on behind the scenes.

Obviously there's some class disparity in Fontaine. Wriothesley has that voiceline "don't break the law... seriously" but he also reformed Meropide and treats the reasonable inmates as equals. Imagine if that came from his history, seeing his peers be punished for actions that society forced them into. And maybe Wriothesley got off lightly, but he'd be able to empathise with all the people who didn't.

And there's that official art of Wriothesley and Neuvillette in the office together, which obviously doesn't confirm that they have met (yoimiya & Kaeya art lol), but they almost certainly have. So I wonder if it was that near miss with a guilty verdict that put Wriothesley on Neuvillette's radar. Neuvillette is caring, so maybe he took steps to help the people who got caught up in the fighting, including Wriothesley. And it's those connections that later allow Wriothesley to take a position in Meropide, making the reformations that treat those who are guilty more fairly.

Anyway yeah. Wriothesley.

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[rozaceous]

been mulling over this obsession ppl have (fanfic, traditional published works, comics, etc - basically any created-character world) with making characters beautiful, and especially singularly beautiful. part of this ofc is the conflation of beauty and goodness, which would then mean the most beautiful person is the most good also. or, in some cases, the most plot relevant lmao.

and if someone isn't beautiful, that's worth commenting on, too, bc that's a pointed choice, especially for a mousy heroine. (for whatever reason I'm thinking of Divergent, and how the ml responds to the mc saying she's not beautiful w "I like the way you look." idk why I'm remembering a mediocre book I read a decade ago, but there it is.) it really reminds me of how there is no unmarked woman.

except it's men, too! the male love interest is almost invariably singularly hot!

and it's the singularly that gets me, I think. even irl hot people I don't think of as 'the most beautiful xyz alive' so much as I just go, 'huh they're really hot.' (also, if you've ever been in an environment w lots of beautiful ppl as the norm - athletics, theater, etc - it really stops registering.)

most people just look... fine? and can go up or down the beauty/hotness scale acc to the amnt of effort they put in. personally, I find the obsession w beauty - which is also an obsession w desirability and thus w worth - exhausting. I'm exhausted.

but god, do we show ourselves in what we use as shorthand.

[dyingtobehim]

rich failson tennis instructor pete x patrick, who doesn't even like tennis and is only taking this class on the chance he'll get to sleep with his teacher

[coquelicoq]

when you're the only person who keeps living through the time loop, the people around you cease to be people and become mere characters. your treatment of them doesn't matter because they're not real and they won't remember. the only way to give anything meaning is to end the loop; their actions don't affect the loop and therefore are meaningless. you're the only one who has the ability to change the future, so anything you do in service of that goal is justified.

but. kim dojka looks at yoo joonghyuk and says no, actually, these characters are people. whether they remember or not is beside the point because they are real right now. and you don't give your life meaning by achieving some accomplishment that retroactively makes everything that came before worth it - you give your life meaning in the living of it.