#???? Why?? i get this when i make a ton of stuff unless it's extremely basic like plain spaghetti
Elaborate on your beef with Typhon
it is Extremely Petty and Extremely Personal
tldr, it's a combination of a bunch of factors:
i do not enjoy what ive seen of her kit and think it's actively boring. we do not need a 27th bosskiller. we peaked with ebenholz. we can be more creative than that. why does she need to deal so much damage and track things across the map. who let her do that
i do not enjoy her design, like, from a personal standpoint. this is just extremely messy and cluttered and bad and does not feel at all like an arknights character. this feels like if you described how ak characters dressed to a blind man and told him to go off designing one. why are her thighs out. why does she have a giant incomprehensible bow. why do her horns look like headbands instead of actual horns which exist in this world completely normally and without issue. she's just a visual mess and i cannot tell apart any part of her aside from blurring together in my mind as visual garbage. she feels like she's trying too hard to appeal to a crowd i am very much neither a part of nor member of
especially extremely pettily: i do not like lm7's arknights stuff in general. they're clearly very talented and this isn't meant to be a jab at them as a person but i really don't think they make any of their operators work. they all have the exact same moe blushing squinted face and it's both extremely jarring and extremely hard to take seriously. why is ceobe giving me bedroom eyes when she's basically an escaped looney toons character. i, personally, Do Not Enjoy It and it's an entirely subjective opinion that stops me from liking typhon even more than i already kinda didn't
arguably equally as petty, i don't like that she's basically the star of is4 in the same vein as phantom and mizuki are for their own modes? there's tons of already existing characters you could make a sami arc around. mallagan is literally right there. why do we have to get a new purple girl just for this when there's tons of operators with stories just waiting to be expanded on. im expecting some kind of explanation for this in her event when it hits global but for now it's just really bothersome to me
finally, most petty of all: her skin fucking sucks im sorry
this is mid as hell. worse than mid. this just sucks. this is the exact same visual noise i feel when i look at her base art but in full force. it's bad and very samey palette-wise when you compare it to her og form and i don't like it and i already don't like typhon so that bias certainly doesn't help. i don't like a perfectly good opportunity for mallagan to get some much-needed love with an l2d upset by some big breasted purple girl who released like yesterday comparative to is4 going live
TLDR; i think typhon is badly designed and boring and i do not like her or her weirdly emphasized tits and moe eyes. that's not to say either are strictly bad, they just do not appeal to me whatsoever and i will be skipping her banner unless her event story COMPLETELY wows me with her lore
64 notes
·
View notes
Why do you think in shuggy break up Luffy would be on buggy side?
I think it's obvious, isn't it? The core purpose and inspiration of Luffy are dreams and freedom. Luffy's character quite literally is just about that (and more, but those are his main character traits). As the story progresses, we see him helping others, not because he wants to or because he's nice like that (he isn't. He is a fucking menace to society) but because those are the specific buttons you have to press for him to be empathetic or resentful. Luffy is pretty much a selfish person. He's not helping others just because he can, but because of the unfairness of the world or how they treat others. If he doesn't get along with you, he gives zero fucks about what happens to you UNLESS a dream or freedom is involved. Because it's not really about you, then, but about this precious concept he has of life and freedom and how everyone should be able to choose and live however they want. He isn't selfless but he does fight for what he thinks is right. And what Luffy perceives as something everybody should be able to have is both dreams and the freedom to achieve them. So, basically, Luffy is empathetic and helps if he likes you (basically if you're cool or show signs of being a nice person) or if there's something keeping you from being free.
Anyway, why am I telling you all of this? Because I think that, if Luffy knew about what really happened between Shanks and Buggy from Buggy's perspective, he'd side with Buggy without any hesitation. Well. Maybe a little hesitation. Maybe a ton of hesitation because of Shanks. Let me explain-
Let's just make a hypothetical situation in which the three of them are together and Shanks and Buggy start arguing about what happened that day. Yadda yadda yadda, it doesn't really have to make sense for me to explain this. The thing is, Buggy tells his side of the story, and Luffy hears it. I think his first reaction would be about Shanks. He would have SO many questions about his decision. "Why didn't you go for the One Piece right away, Shanks?! Why did you hesitate?! Why did you let Buggy run away and not run after him?!" Because, due to his impatient and overly protective nature (and abandonment issues, cof cof) of the ones he loves, Luffy would instantly ask himself these things. Because Luffy wouldn't have done it this way. Luffy wouldn't have hesitated. He makes impulsive decisions on the spot. If he wants something, he's gonna go take it. And if his best friend leaves without explaining anything (WATER FUCKING SEVEN) he's gonna run after them (STRONG WORLD!!!!!!!) and make them come back to him because he knows something's wrong (WHOLE CAKE ISLAND MY BELOVED). So I personally think he'd be defensive at first with Shanks and Shanks would look away with the most painful of stares and avoid Luffy's hurt eyes. You know when he gets angry at him for what happened to Uta because he can't understand anything and Shanks can't tell him what happened and Luffy has to learn to be mature and accept that sometimes he just won't understand/agree with some of Shanks' decisions? Well, that's him right now. Shanks tells him there was something deeper going on (because of fucking course Oda is gonna go full drama and turn Shanks' hesitation at the time into something extremely painful). Or maybe he just says they weren't ready yet and Luffy just has to understand that patience is a virtue (something that Shanks has actually been teaching him for a long time). Yadda yadda yadda, I think Luffy wouldn't be mad at Shanks for a long time but he wouldn't really truly get it. And besides, the Buggy thing has no excuse. He should've followed him. That's it. End of the discussion. Because that's Luffy's mentality and he'd rather starve to death than let his family go.
Then, I think Luffy would have mixed feelings about Buggy's POV. Because he doesn't understand it, but he gets the important stuff. He doesn't understand why Buggy wouldn't follow his dream even if he feels inferior. He could've just told Shanks. Or maybe just?? Idk. Not feel inferior in the first place (such good fucking advice from somebody like Luffy who gives zero fucks about that sort of thing). But I think he would remember Water 7, too? And Usopp in general? And also all the times he has felt weak and powerless? And I think he doesn't quite understand Buggy's reasons for staying in Shanks' shadow, and that makes him furious and angry at Buggy for giving up so easily, but he would also be kind of sad. I think he'd get the important stuff. Like. The simpler way to put it is that Luffy sees Buggy with this new POV and just sees somebody who lost his hope for X thing and gave up on his dream. The inferiority complex took away his freedom. In fact, the devil fruit and losing the map? That actually was what took away his freedom. Metaphorically and literally. And Luffy sees this and says "Well, it's never too late! You might be a coward and a whiny loser but nothing can take your dream away from you and I'm sure you'll make it! Cheering for you but not much because I'm the one who's gonna be King of the Pirates, but yeah! Good luck! You can do it!". And Buggy takes it as an insult, but I'm pretty sure Luffy would get serious about this at some point and say "Shanks should've run after you... But you were the one who gave up first. There's nothing stopping you now, though!". And... Turns out the damn kid is right?? And Buggy is never going to say that out loud but damn.
I think he'd get along with Buggy, then. Luffy would want to help him achieve his dream all he can. Or at least encourage him and see him as a fair opponent and enemy, which is the most respectful thing he can do as a pirate. He'd be on Buggy's side in the sense that "both parties were acting silly and stupid and should've done things differently but the world has treated Buggy poorly and that is unfair and Shanks should've been the one going after him instead of doing nothing" because he sees himself in Shanks' shoes and it just seems odd to him not to go after the ones you love when this happens.
And also, to put ALL OF THIS in an easier, simpler way: If we're talking about romance exclusively here. About an actual breakup and not just these two parting ways. I think Luffy would be on Buggy's side without hesitation because you don't let go of somebody you love that easily (he's having WCI flashback. Lusan moment. Or Water 7 Lusopp moment. Just choose whatever). Imagine explaining this to Luffy like "Shanks and Buggy had a huge fight about going after the One Piece and Shanks hesitated and Buggy ran away and they broke up" what do you expect him to say?????? Of course he would get angry at Shanks. Even if Shanks had his reasons, Luffy is just fundamentally different in some stuff, even if there are parallelisms between these two. They're different, and Luffy often doesn't agree with Shanks' decisions. Like letting Buggy break up with him. Luffy didn't go through Water 7 and WCI for him to not side with Buggy, honestly.
91 notes
·
View notes
The 911 fic writer’s guide to LA
I asked if anyone would be interested in a short little guide to LA for fic-writing reference, and surprisingly I got a lot of replies. I lived in LA for 20 years so while I’m not an EXPERT per se I thought there might be some knowledge I could share for people who want more info about the city of Los Angeles to add a bit of realism to their fics. I can’t cover everything, so this is just a sampling of stuff that may or may not be useful. I got some additional help from @swiftiesisters14 who added some great insights and details. YMMV of course!
Weather and climate: for the most part, yes, it is very warm and sunny in L.A. the majority of the year. Rain is very uncommon, especially from May - October, and when it does come it usually lasts a couple days up to maybe a week on and off. Rainstorms and thunderstorms are very rare. It does not snow but it does, very rarely, hail. Within a few miles of the ocean, mornings will be quite cold and cloudy thanks the marine layer–this is true even in the summer. “June Gloom” is a phenomenon in LA where we get a lot of cloudy weather in May/June (usually just in the morning although it can sometimes last all day). It can get fairly cold at night during the winter (though almost never below freezing). Even during the summer, nights aren’t as warm as you might imagine, as the dry air makes temperatures drop quicker once the sun goes down (if your characters are going anywhere during a warm day and expect to be there until night, they will most likely bring a jacket).
There’s a HUGE difference in weather/temperature between the coastal parts of the city and areas further east (and especially into the Valley, where it is frequently over 100 F degrees in the summer). Closer to the ocean, highs typically don’t break 90 unless there’s a heat wave, lows typically stay above 50 except for some nights in the winter. September is often the hottest month of the year (this surprises a lot of people). This also coincides with wildfire season, which used to be roughly September-October, but has started earlier and earlier and lasts later and later into the fall (hello climate change).
Most people from LA are fairly sensitive to the cold and will definitely wear jackets and such the minute it drops below 68 degrees. Many Angelenos do not own a proper winter coat or snow boots or rain boots. Air conditioning is very common in homes and businesses, so hot days are less of an issue if you’re staying indoors. The heat here is DRY, so if you’re used to sticky East Coast heat, this is a totally different beast. Hot weekend days result in swamped beaches and tons of beach traffic. When it DOES rain, even just a little drizzle, the entire city tends to go fucking nuts, and everyone forgets how to drive (a stereotype that is unfortunately very accurate). I imagine the 118 gets LOTS of calls on rainy days because Angelenos just do not understand how to deal with rain.
Santa Ana winds: you may have heard of these. they suck. Basically an extremely hot, extremely dry, extremely high-speed wind that blows into LA for a week/up to a few weeks at a time and make your allergies go crazy. Trust me, it’s miserable. It usually happens in fall, although they can happen at other times of the year (and doesn’t necessarily happen every year. They’re unpredictable). A weather advisory will go out discouraging from making outdoor fires/doing fire-related activities during this time, as fires can spread extremely rapidly in these conditions. The Santa Anas have a somewhat mythological status in LA, because people sort of think they make people crazy and unpredictable (i mean, it’s not hard to see why--who wouldn’t be irritable in these conditions?) In addition to the Santa Anas, wind storms in general are not uncommon, especially in fall, and winds can cause a lot of damage to powerlines/trees/etc.
Wildfire season: Usually at its peak in September/October, can last all the way into December some years. Areas that are susceptible to burning are the hilly/mountainous areas that surround LA, including Topanga Canyon, the Santa Monica mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, Malibu, etc. Even if there is a fire that’s miles and miles away, depending on winds it can cause the air in LA to be very smoky and dangerous to breathe. There can sometimes be ash literally falling from the sky...like you go to your car and it’s just coated in ash. Again, this doesn’t happen every year but it’s becoming more and more frequent. 2020 was a particularly bad wildfire year.
Water: California has basically been in one giant drought for the past two decades. Water conservation is a big deal, especially in LA which literally imports a lot of its water. There’s restrictions on when/how long/how you water your lawn. When conditions get really bad, they will place restrictions on commercial water features (fountains and the like) and do stuff like make it so that restaurants only serve you water if you ask for it. There’s always stuff about shortening showers/washing dishes more efficiently/etc. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily something Angelenos think about on a day-to-day basis but it is part of living in LA.
Earthquakes: small earthquakes happen fairly frequently and most people won’t even notice them (what often happens is you’ll be sitting there and you’ll be like was that an earthquake? And then you google whether there was an earthquake nearby). Occasionally a small-to-medium earthquake might wake you up in the middle of the night. Larger earthquakes that actually cause injuries/fatalities are much rarer.
Driving and Traffic: traffic in L.A. is no joke. If your characters are driving virtually anywhere during the afternoon, they WILL be stuck in traffic or they will worry about getting stuck in traffic. Fridays are the absolute worst traffic days. Something can be “10 minutes away” and take half an hour to actually drive. (For instance, Buck’s drive to get to Eddie’s? during peak traffic hours that could take easily 30-40 minutes). Traffic is a huge consideration in most Angelenos daily lives–-there are certain places you just DO NOT GO during certain hours of the day if you can avoid it, or you have to budget in extra time in case there’s bad traffic. Gridlock in main arteries of the city is extremely common.
LA drivers are known to be aggressive, decisive, and rude. If you display a single second of hesitation or indecisiveness on the road (whether thats making a turn or changing lanes or running a yellow) you WILL get honked at. Maybe this is why Eddie prefers to have Buck drive him around. Pedestrians on the other hand are incredibly timid and cautious. You will almost never see people in LA jaywalking the way they do in East Coast cities.
A common topic of conversation in LA is various driving routes (yes, it’s a stereotype, but at least when I lived there it was true). Why? Because it is essential to know multiple routes to get from place to place because one or more of them will be congested, and knowing alternate routes can be a lifesaver (although everyone uses apps now, but that is its own topic of discussion amongst Angelenos.)
Freeways are referred to as “the ___” (so the 10, the 405, the 101, the 5, etc. Although the Pacific Coast Highway is just PCH--almost no one calls it the 1). There are very few toll roads in LA--in fact, I don’t know of any.
Parking in L.A. also sucks, and knowledge of little-known, cheap and/or questionably legal places to park in popular neighborhoods is social capital. Restaurants with valet parking outside are very common in certain upscale neighborhoods (Cher Horowitz was right about that).
Public Transportation: has improved somewhat over the past decade when they built out the Metro a little, but is still pretty paltry and inconvenient given the size of the city. L.A. remains a very driving-heavy city. Truthfully, in my 20 years of living in LA i almost never took public transportation except when I was too young to drive and took the bus. LA is also not a very bike-friendly city, and there are only a few streets with dedicated bike lanes. BUT you will often see people biking on dedicated bike paths near the beach.
Geography of the city: It’s hard to fathom just how big and sprawling LA actually is unless you’ve lived here or another geographically huge city like it. You can spend your whole life living in L.A. and there will be parts of the city you have never set foot in and know virtually nothing about (and that is partially because traffic makes getting around to these different enclaves extremely arduous). It is a sprawling behemoth, like six or seven cities smushed into one. And actually, there ARE in fact five other cities/unincorporated communities that exist within the borders of Los Angeles: Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Marina del Rey, as well as surrounding municipalities that many people consider “L.A.” (such as Compton, Pasadena, Santa Clarita, Malibu, Long Beach, Burbank, Glendale, etc. etc.) As it would be impossible to run through every neighborhood in L.A., here are just a few popular areas near the downtown area where the 118 firehouse is (apparently) located. This is roughly moving east-west but you can look at a map for more precise geography:
Downtown: definitely the most dense “urban-y” part of L.A. with tons of skyscrapers, high-rises, etc. Downtown LA is huge, with lots of sub-neighborhoods and districts, including the Fashion district, Chinatown, Skid Row, and Little Tokyo. Like any downtown, there are a lot of attractions here, like the convention center, sports arenas, theaters and music venues, nightlife etc. This is where Buck’s loft is according to this helpful guide and based on the establishing shot they use, which includes the East Columbia building, a notable Art Deco building that is smack downtown. (It’s the greenish building with the clock on it that you can see in many episodes). To the southwest of downtown is where you’ll find the University of Southern California (USC) where May is starting college.
Silverlake/LA River area: includes Silver Lake, Echo Park (home to Dodger Stadium), Los Feliz, Little Armenia, Westlake and the Griffith Park area (home to the LA Zoo). To be honest I don’t know this area very well because I lived in West LA and didn’t spend a lot of time over here, and also it has gentrified quite a bit. Silver Lake is pretty artsy and trendy, with a lot of small local businesses, and also has historical ties to the LGBT community so there are lots of queer-friendly bars and community spaces.
Koreatown (aka K-Town): pretty cool/trendy neighborhood that was historically home to L.A.’s large Korean immigrant population. The makeup of this neighborhood now is actually a majority Latine, but you’ll still find a lot of Korean food and markets in K-Town. A very commercial area with lots of bars, restaurants, clubs, and shops as well as apartments. Koreatown has an extremely fascinating history, which I will not go into here.
Hollywood: super touristy, this is where you can find the walk of fame (the stars with celebrities names on them), the Chinese Theater, and like, Ripley’s Believe or Not museum. Used to be where most of the major film studios had their studios, but most of them have moved. Best place in Hollywood in MY opinion is the Hollywood Bowl, which is a beautiful outdoor concert venue tucked into the hills.
West Hollywood: a fairly upscale residential and shopping area, but not a bougie as Beverly Hills and not as touristy as Hollywood. West Hollywood is actually its own city/town (although Hollywood is NOT), and is well-known as a historically LGBT+ village/district (historically much of L.A.’s gay population lived here...these days it’s a bit more complicated thanks to gentrification.) As such it’s got a little more of an “alternative” reputation than Hollywood and Beverly Hills, although to be honest it’s lost a lot of its “edge” so to speak. This is where you’ll find the Sunset Strip (historic nightlife area on Sunset Blvd--I would say its more touristy nightlife). Nearby you’ll also find The Grove shopping center, and the La Brea tarpits and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), both of which are popular field trip destinations.
Beverly Hills: actually a separate city from LA but it’s kind of right in the middle of it. Very upscale. Home to Rodeo Drive, Lots of upscale shopping, big beautiful houses, luxury hotels, trendy restaurants, etc. It’s basically where all the rich people live and hang out and it’s very, like, bougie and curated. Parts of Beverly Hills are in fact hilly, but most of the commercial areas are flat.
West LA: Lots of smaller residential neighborhoods interspersed with commercial corridors (this is where I’m from). You’ll find Sawtelle Japantown here (kind of a smaller Little Tokyo with Japanese markets and shops), as well as “Little Tehran”/Tehrangeles (lots of Persian markets, shops and restaurants. There’s a large community of Iranian-Americans in this part of the city and you’ll definitely see signs in Persian/Farsi.) Brentwood is another upperclass/rich people neighborhood around here, as well as UCLA’s campus in Westwood. I believe according to this guide that Eddie, Bobby and Athena, and potentially Hen and Karen all live near West LA (looks like Athena and Bobby’s house might be in Culver City? idk)
Culver City: another city within LA. Culturally speaking I’d say Culver city is pretty much like West LA and it has gentrified a LOT in the past decade or so. Idk what else to say about Culver City...it has a romance-centered independent bookstore called The Ripped Bodice. And an ice rink!
Santa Monica: this is slightly further afield but still significant because Santa Monica is where the closest beaches are located, and is obviously home to the Santa Monica Pier (RIP). Parts of Santa Monica are pretty trendy and upscale, and is also kind of “business-y” because a lot of entertainment companies are headquartered here. 3rd Street Promenade is a pedestrian-only shopping district that’s quite popular, with 3 blocks of shops, restaurants, movie theaters, and more. Lots of buskers and street performers. A popular hangout for families and youths (or at least it was when I was a youth). There’s also a huge mall at one end of it.
Other beach communities: Venice Beach (has a very weed and art and hippies vibe, and is where you’ll find the boardwalk with lots of artisan stalls and shops), Marina Del Rey (lots of restaurants and boats and water-based activities), the Palisades (beautiful oceanside cliffy/hilly neighborhood where lots of rich people live), Malibu (very bougie, touristy, and upscale.)
LAX: not a neighborhood, but I thought I’d include the infamous airport of Los Angeles. (There are actually something like 4-5 other nearby airports, but LAX is the biggest). LAX is kind of infamously terrible, because it’s huge, often congested, annoying to navigate, and not very well-planned. Getting in and out during peak travel times can be a nightmare. Driving someone to/from LAX is a true act of love (I only do it for my most beloved family members and friends). The best thing I can say about LAX is that there’s an iconic art installation as you drive in/out, which are these pillars that light up in different colors.
The Valley: directly north of the other areas I just covered. Referred to as one entity by people who don’t live there, but the Valley is actually comprised of many different cities, including LA, Burbank, Calabasas, and San Fernando. It is MUCH hotter here than the rest of LA and a little more suburban-y. My experience of the Valley as someone who does NOT live there is mainly “ugh I have to drive to the Valley.” AKA, it’s to be avoided. Burbank has its own airport and a lot of the film studios are headquartered there.
Demographics: L.A. is one of the most diverse cities in the world. About a quarter of residents of Los Angeles are white (non-hispanic). Latine people make up about half the population (mainly Mexican and Mexican-Americans). There are also sizable Black, East Asian (mainly Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), Arabic, and South Asian populations. Additionally, LA is home to the largest concentration of Armenians and Iranians outside of Armenia and Iran, respectively. There is a significant and diverse Jewish population.
Food: as you might imagine, the huge amount of diversity in L.A. means the food is equally diverse (and extremely delicious). You can find almost any kind of cuisine in L.A., but common types of cuisine include: sushi, thai, Persian (my personal favorite food to get in LA), chinese, pizza, Jewish delis, shawarma, pho, Korean BBQ (particularly in K-Town) and of course, tacos and other Mexican food, along with your standard “American” fare like burgers (you might find yourself wondering why everyone is so obsessed with In-N-Out even though their french fries are such garbage....), seafood (lots of nice-ish seafood places near the beach where the food is overpriced bc you’re really paying for the view), sandwiches (Bay Cities my beloved <3), etc. as well as lots of trendy fusion cuisine. Additionally, everyone who lives in LA has gone to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles at least once their life--it is an institution.
Housing: Expensive. I mean, what did you expect? Single-family homes are quite common in LA vs. apartment buildings and condos. In addition, there is a HUGE population of unhoused people in Los Angeles (in fact it ranks No. 2 for the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in the US). I won’t go into all the political hows and whys here, but this is a huge humanitarian crisis and a powder-keg issue amongst LA residents.
Most houses have a backyard and a front lawn and may or may not have a fence/gate. Few houses have basements. I don’t really know why that is.
Lots of houses and apartment complexes have pools, but mainly in richer/upper-class neighborhoods who can afford the upkeep. Many LA parks have a community pool. Some schools even do, too.
Trees and flowers: I personally like knowing what kind of plants there are in any given setting, so here are some noteworthy trees and flowers found in LA:
Palm trees -- of course. The classic. Particularly common to the Venice, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills areas, but you can find them all over. There are actually a lot of different types, but the most common is the extremely tall skinny Mexican fan palm variety.
Jacarandas -- certain neighborhoods in LA will burst into furious purple bloom during jacaranda season (usually April-June) and the sidewalks will be littered with squished flowers for weeks
Ficus trees -- idk maybe these were specific to my neighborhood but we had a LOT of them
Birds of paradise -- I think this is the official flower of LA. Found in a lot of gardens.
Bougainvillea
Night-blooming jasmine -- smells incredible
Other notes: trees don’t really change color in the fall--you might see a few here and there with orange leaves, but for the most part we don’t get that nice fall foliage (nor do we really...have a fall season...). Grass lawns are common in residential areas (sadly) but more and more people are replacing them with succulent gardens and native gardens (yay!).
School: Public schools in LA go Grades K-5 for elementary, 6-8 for Middle School, and 9-12 for High School. The school year starts mid-August and ends mid-June (evidently they changed this since I was in school). Kids get three weeks of vacation for winter break (usually the week before Christmas - week after New Years) and one week for Spring Break (around Easter).
Sports: there are TOO many sports teams for one city, even one as big as ours (absurdly, four of them share the same arena). They are as follows:
Baseball: the Dodgers are the main L.A. team (who are doing EXTREMELY well this season). They play at Dodger Stadium in Echo Park, and their fans tend to be more die-hard and stalwart. There’s also the Anaheim Angels, which some Angelenos root for, who play...idk somewhere in Anaheim.
Basketball: the Lakers, of course, and the Clippers. They both play at Staples Center which is located downtown (and as of last year is called Crypto.com Arena, ugh). In my experience Lakers fans are the most fair-weather of LA sports fans--they get super intense when the Lakers are good, and when they’re not, well... Clippers fans tend to be more die-hard and less fair-weather because, well, they have to be (sorry). The Sparks are the WNBA team. They ALSO play at the Staples Center (aka Crypto.com Arena but I refuse to call it that).
Hockey: the Kings. They ALSO play at The Stadium Formerly Known as Staples Center. I don’t follow hockey so idk anything else about them.
Football: the Rams and the Chargers. They both play at SoFi stadium in Inglewood (near the airport). Both are recent additions (2016 and 2017 respectively I think). When I lived in LA we had zero football teams and now we have two so I have no idea whats going on there.
Soccer: LAFC (Los Angeles Football Club) who play at the Banc of California Stadium near downtown and LA Galaxy who play at Dignity Health Sports Club near Compton. There is also a women’s team, Angel City FC, who also play at Banc of California Stadium. I know virtually nothing about soccer but hey, the stadium is going to feature heavily in the season 6 premiere!
Hollywood/celebrities/the Film Industry: you will absolutely see celebrities roaming around L.A. from time to time, especially if you frequent certain trendy areas like West Hollywood/Melrose, Santa Monica, Brentwood, etc. I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it’s not super rare. (I’ve seen like a handful of celebrities in the 20 years I lived there.)
You will DEFINITELY see filming happening all around the city. Usually you’ll see signs posted (usually with code names for whatever project it is), trucks, and tons of crewmembers walking around. Occasionally a street or other location might be blocked off for filming, but usually not anything too disruptive.
You will also see those “star-watchers” bus tours (where people go on a tour bus and they like drive around celebrity neighborhoods and look at celebrity houses) in and around the Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and West Hollywood areas. I use to see these tour buses every single day on my commute through Beverly Hills.
There’s also, of course, many people living in LA who work in the industry or are trying to make it as an actor or writer or what have you. There are disproportionately attractive waiters/baristas in certain parts of LA because many of them are waiting tables to support acting careers. This is a stereotype but it’s also pretty true in my experience.
Studios are kind of sprinkled all over the city--there are some in West LA, some in West Hollywood, but the biggest concentration of studios is in Burbank, which is actually its own city in the Valley.
Places to go: in case you want some ideas for fun outings for fic purposes, here’s a list of places in or within reasonable distance of LA (not an exhaustive list obviously):
Disneyland
Universal Studios
Knott’s Berry Farm (this is a small-ish theme park, not an actual berry farm in case that’s unclear)
Six Flags
The Long Beach Aquarium
The LA Zoo (of course)
The Griffith’s Observatory (and Griffith Park in general)
The Getty Museum (very beautiful museum up in the hills with a gorgeous view of the city)
The Getty Villa (different place, also a museum)
Huntington Gardens/Library/Museum
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Echo Park Lake (they have SWAN BOATS 🦢)
LA Science Center/Museum of Natural History
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab): this is where Karen works. Located in Pasadena. Once or twice a year they’ll do an open house where you can go and learn all about the types of stuff they’re doing. It’s very cool!
Catalina Island
Various beaches--closest would be Santa Monica, Venice, Will Rogers (Pacific Palisades), Playa Del Rey, Dockweiler (to my knowledge this is the only beach that allows bonfires). A bit further: Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Malibu, Huntington Beach
San Diego! Technically close enough for a day trip, but due to traffic you’d most likely want to stay the night.
Palm Springs (same kind of deal, although I’ve done it as a day trip)
If there’s anything I left out that you want to know about, please shoot me a message and I’ll add it! If you spot any errors, please also let me know. This is based mostly on my knowledge/experience of living in LA, but I did some additional research for stuff I wasn’t sure about or just needed a little more detail on (shout out to @swiftiesisters14 for her help!)
The geography might be a little generalized and I left out a LOT of the city, mostly because I just don’t think anyone wants to read a twenty-page paper on LA neighborhoods. If you want any additional details on a certain area/topic feel free to shoot me a message and I’ll do my best to help.
In general, if you ever have questions about LA while writing fic, I am happy to answer to them (if I can).
429 notes
·
View notes
In regards to my last reblog on the scale of Thedas, latitude and stuff. I’ve been thinking about how much thought I give all this. Especially because this topic is one I’ve been talking with a lot of people about lately. It crops up a lot with people who, like me enjoy natural world building or are fanfic writers. Or really anyone who sits down and reads the lore at length. More times then not the question of Thedas’s scale comes up.
So, I want to establish I am very well aware that I’m likely giving it more thought than the devs. I have that luxury as a fan and consumer of the series. It is extremely relevant for me because I like making maps for the series, plotting out travel paths, and scaling things for da ttrpg campaigns I write.
So because I think about it a lot, I notice all the many different scales of Thedas in terms of travel time. How the scale they gave the ttrpg doesn’t match up with any scale they established in the main games or books. I think if the devs sat down and thought about establishing a standard scale and also considering just basic stuff we also wouldn’t have the Deep Roads be 2-4 miles / 3.21-6.43 km below sea level and display a lack of geothermal qualities. I think they’d consider how they built a world with at least 9.1 million people and tons of mega fauna such as giants and dragons and 14’/4.26 m tall bears that hunt dragons, all squished into roughly 1/4 of Europe and how much that isn’t really sustainable. How there would be much more impact if nature encroachment in civilization and how common things like that would be in places. Which they do consider it to a degree, I’m not saying they don’t. But I think if they thought about it just to make the world something that holds up a little better to idle musings, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. That the world would feel more real and alive and also narratively give them more to work with.
The contradictions and lack of consideration for the natural world has always been one of my critiques of Dragon Age, among other things. The reason why that is, is mostly because of a noticeable trend the lack of natural world building in fantasy. It’s a topic that has been discussed elsewhere and at length by other people, but to summarize nature is slowly having less and less impact in fantasy even in an ambient quality. Obviously this isn’t a universal statement, nor a universally required thing for a story to explore and have. That there are things that do focus on and explore it, but speaking in general terms, it is a trend in the majority of media.
Which for me is a bummer as it is an aspect of writing and world building I enjoy. I really like themes of man vs nature and to have that you need to have a basic level of natural world building. Which BioWare doesn’t really explore in Dragon Age despite having elements of it - such as how regular raw lyrium is explosive, mages get sick around all lyrium unless it is diluted to a safe amount for mages, and raw lyrium straight up kills them if they’re in the same room.
So then you have questions of how do mages go/handle being underground with such a risk? Dwarves have stone sense but would mages be able to tell when they’re getting close to large lyrium deposits because they’re getting sick? Does this impact grey warden mages? Darkspawn mages?
Things that don’t get fully acknowledged or explored despite being mentioned casually in codices most people don’t read. And they don’t for a couple of reasons such as potential coding issues but also all the questions you’d have to ask:
How would you implement that as a mechanic? Would you lock mage players out of entire areas featuring raw lyrium? Would they take environmental damage if you wanted the players to explore it regardless? Would it be a mechanic only applied by in harder difficulty modes? Do you acknowledge it in banter but not in any other way? Create a way to explain why the pc mage and their mage companions aren’t dropping dead?
BioWare’s answer seems to seemingly just ignore it because it would make gameplay too challenging/punishing and likely might not be fun for a player to deal with. But they compromise by keeping the lore active in the canon through codices and low impact additions. Which is a completely okay solutions, not my preferred but I get why they do it.
When I approach this lore, I do so without expecting them to fully flesh out each nation or know which city has the most resources and the geologically rich lands in said country. Dragon Age, and BioWare in general, relies on semi-soft world building. The world was after all designed for a game. They only need to build out what they need and what hopefully won’t paint them into a corner with future installments.
Additionally, the writing style for Dragon Age doesn’t suit the hard world building that I prefer, I’m quite aware of that but also know that when it comes to talk about world building in any media, there is always the issue of people (like me) who world build for fun and consider all these small aspects but ultimately they aren’t always needed and necessary for the story a game like Dragon Age is telling.
Dragon Age is told with the intention of things being given from an unreliable narrator. Built on the concept of: there’s three sides to the truth, what x thinks happens, what y thinks happens, and then what actually happened. Which works and I love the premise.
That said, I think that it also impacts lore that shouldn’t be subjected to the unreliable narrator. Foundation or anchor lore points to be specific. Which, as we know, BioWare has always struggled with consistency in their lore, particularly with Dragon Age.
Distance is one of those foundational points that shouldn’t change, and it’s also one of those points that you don’t have to give exact travel times. You can leave it vague and stick to the official statements like the ones we have of Ferelden being the size of England (or Ireland depending on the source you use). If you’re going to be giving specifics, then I think being consistent with how long it travels to get to point a to b and not changing it multiple times in one game should be a basic expectation that is met.
Other ones the series has and is pretty consistent with is how we know Thedas has 24 hours a day, they have seasons like we expect, and are in the southern hemisphere.
Do they sometimes slip up because editing doesn’t catch they’ve made a reference that applies only to the northern hemisphere? Yeah, and that’s not bad. There are a lot of people working on the project and things slip through.
I know I have the luxury to think about Thedas in a capacity that allows for the hard world building that I like. I also know I focus on and enjoy aspects of lore that are not exactly popular for their main audience and are pretty niche.
I don’t expect BioWare to world build how I do because I’m not world building for a massive and varied audience. Not even when I do world building for my tabletop games, because I’m catering to a smaller and more specific audience.
Still I think it’s valid and worth pondering these little elements of the world building. For fun, appreciation, and to nurture one’s own creativity and understanding of media, the world, and what they think makes a believable world.
Devs might not have time to consider it but we sure do and that’s half the fun of enjoying media I think.
14 notes
·
View notes
Complete guide to Flickr and why you should use it
bc I got some things wrong but it’s still a very good website that we should all use instead of Instagram
1: Flickr isn’t tied to Meta or any of that Facebook bullshit, from my knowledge it doesn’t share your contacts so no one will get a notification that you joined, it’s safer that way and more private than Instagram.
2: It’s built for photos. Instagram kills quality of photos, if you’re an artist, especially a digital one, uploading to Flickr would be way better for people to actually see detail and the color.
Going on with this because it’s built for photos, while it can host video, it doesn’t have TikTok/Reels and lives which is soooo nice. Like I don’t hate that stuff, but I like that Flickr isn’t trying to catch on the latest trends.
3: There isn’t likes. Flickr is mainly for sharing and LOOKING at photos. The most interaction you can get one on one is commenting, following, and favoriting. Favoriting is basically the public saves, no one really faves things on there unless it’s a recipe or for a reference or something.
4: Groups. Flickr does have an option for communities to make groups in where you can share similar interests MOST OF THESE ARE DEAD BUT WE CAN BRING THEM BACK!!! (IM BEGGING)
5: The bios are unlimited ( I think ), I copy and pasted the entire Bee Movie script three times along with my own bio that was already in there. I’m always pissed when I have to trim my bio, so bitches who like to put everything in their bio this website is for YOU
6: It’s in chronological order. Everything. You can even look up when certain posts where made by year, month, even fucking day. The archives of Flickr are so fucking fun.
7: Its not a contest. The main reason as to why I fucking hate Instagram (other than they took away chronological order and being able to see the recents under a tag) is that it focuses too much on “#aesthetic” even on the casual Instagram side people are still posing and trying to make an aesthetic of it. Flickr is just for photos you like, which yes can be aesthetic, but it’s mainly for daily life. You will see older people just posting what they are working on, maybe a cat they saw at the store, nothing planned. Just a quick unprompted click.
8: Organization, Flickr let’s you have Albums which is where you can organize all your photos in much like Pinterest. Most do it by year but others do it by topic too.
9: You can upload photos in bulk. You don’t have to upload them one by one, or at a limit of ten, you can upload a FUCK ton of photos at once.
10: if you don’t like ads and want more storage space, the pro version is extremely cheap compared to Netflix. Netflix without ads is fucking $15.49 and Flickr is $8.25 a month. There are also two other payment plans if that’s still too much for you.
11: It allowed adult content. In like. Every form. Enough said
CONS
1: You can’t DM (this is not a con to me and I hate when people complain about this just fucking use a email it is so fun to email people please for the love of god)
2: You can only upload 1,000 images before you run out of space. (You can always delete images later, I personally like to delete images at new years for a fresh start and archive them somewhere else)
3: it’s dead. No one really uses it.
4: to upload your bio you have to use a desktop version of the app.
THANK YOU FOR READING PLEASE SWITCH TO FLICKR AND SHARE THIS SO WE CAN START TO REVIVE OLD PLATFORMS TO SAVE THEM TO REBEL AGAINST META AND THIS NEW AGE OF CREATING SOCIAL MEDIA APPS AND SHIT
9 notes
·
View notes
Hi Krow, I was wondering if I could request platonic Kanade with a reader who is just always there for her such as reader constantly delivers meals to Kanade cause well she can't survive off just instant noddles and reader always accompanies Kanade to the hospital to see her father. Thank you for seeing this if you do write this tysm and have a nice day or night.
{Kanade with a reader that supports her with trips!} [P]
Probably one of the biggest brain moves to do as a good friend of the little shut-in is to do all of the stuff she can't do, as a little shut-in! Her lifestyle comes with tons of drawbacks, and, as a good friend, it's a pretty good idea to help her with mitigating a few!
For example, it's of no surprise to anyone that Kanade's cup noodle diet is extremely unhealthy in the long run, with all of the nutrients she's missing out on! However, it's not only easy to buy, but also easy to make!
Thankfully, with your involvement, the former is of no concern, and with good choices the latter won't be either! She will have various types of foods delivered each day, and won't have to rely on just noodles any longer.
You can't send her varied food at first though, since she has to get used to other types of food again! She can be a bit sensitive to flavours and textures thanks to eating the same meal for so long, so the repertoire will have to start out small.
You're also gonna have to teach her about the food itself! She lacks a lot of general gastronomic knowledge that is obvious to most, so it's important to help her learn about it all! Of course she has basic ideas, but it's good to help her as well!
Why? For her to be able to choose, of course! Once she gets used to the foods, she will sometimes ask you for specific meals! At first she won't memorize the names, but once she has you know that she can't go back to just noodles again!
"Thanks for the delivery... Why is your smile so wide? Oh... That's right, I remember them not believing it. Is it that strange tho-... Ah, I see. I guess they thought that your endeavors were doomed to fail... Fufu, yes, I think I see now, how we surpassed their expectations."
That's not your only form of helping however! Kanade always gets tired out when making trips to see her father at the hospital, and sometimes she can get a little lost on the way, since the sun takes her attention away.
However, with you here, that's no longer a worry! You can guide her along, and take her to the hospital at anytime! You know that it's sort of a routine, and you always set up the visiting times in advance for her!
Sometimes, you bring a parasol to cover her up! It doesn't matter whether other people find it weird or not, if it makes the composer's experience better, then so be it! She is quite grateful for that as well.
Once you're in, you will lead her to the room, and wait for her outside. After all, you don't want to involve yourself in her personal life unless she lets you. You sometimes message her from outside with words of encouragement though!
If her dad asks about you though, she will definitely be ready to hand out as many compliments about you as she can! After all, you're improving her normal life so much, even though she never asked much from you!
"Mhm. Right now, they're outside of the room. They know that this place is a little... Personal, let's say, for me. Isn't that kind of them? They respect my privacy while also making sure that I take care of myself every day... Such a kind friend I have."
In exchange, Kanade will try to do anything for you! You've done so much for her that the least she could do is to share a few sneak peeks of her compositions, or bring you a flower sometimes when you come over to deliver!
In fact, your kindness may inspire the composer to make her next melody a little brighter, as if the light she's been fighting to reach is getting stronger, inspiring her to continue stepping forward!
So, those are honestly a few of the best things you could do for the little shut-in! She leads a slightly careless life, and it's up to you and the rest of the group to ensure that she gets to enjoy a better one, step by step!
34 notes
·
View notes
related to previous reblog. the most important thing i have found about playing video games with too much free time is that they have to earn my time. i have a thousand games i can be playing, if yours happens to be the one i picked, then at least for a moment, if only for the novelty, I'm having fun with it. the moment the novelty wears off, or when i stop having fun, i stop playing and find something else. sometimes I'll keep playing for a bit every day and kinda wean off it, but when that happens it doesn't look good.
so, how do you retain my interest? there's a few ways.
first. novelty. i love new things. i love playing around with stuff i don't understand and figuring out how it works. that's important, however; i like figuring out how it works. once i understand it, it becomes a lot less interesting, and unfortunately my brain doesn't work in a way that lets me just allow things to go un-understood, i need to figure out why things work the way they do, unless the complexity is out of scope of my interest; eg i wouldn't bother trying to catalogue every planet in starfield, I'm not that interested in the game.
second. fun. if the game is fun i will play it. if the game is not fun i will not play it. obviously fun is subjective, and everyone has different amounts of fun with every activity. but fun is the reason i will play picross for hours, it's why I'll play tons of games that give me checklists to fill out (recent examples: pokemon legends arceus and power wash simulator) because i greatly enjoy filling out checklists. it's why i tend to lose interest in a lot of turn based games; the mechanics are simple enough that i grasp them quickly and the execution isn't very interesting once i know what's going on under the hood. little things that break up the mechanics and make them work a little differently, such as most of pokemon's gimmicks, are extremely interesting - for a time. once i find a meta, i stick with it. why would i do something worse for no benefit? the obvious exception to this would be challenge runs, which i tend to not be very interested in doing, because they're usually just "do the worse thing for the whole game". in the case of action and shooter games, i need to have weapon variety and enemy variety. there's a longer post i could make about the types of games, but out of scope for this one; in general, i need to have options and i need to have different potential challenges. if I'm just given a sword and basic attack, it doesn't matter how many enemies you put in front of me, they all die to my sword or are invulnerable. if I'm given a million different and unique guns, it doesn't matter when there's only three enemy types, my interest will only last as long as i keep trying new and mechanically unique weapons; that is to say, all full auto guns are functionally the same, they just differ in attack speed and damage output. give me a machine pistol at the start and an lmg at the end, they're used the same way. just changing the stats isn't mechanically unique.
third. story. obviously, a good story will hook me, as it would hook most people. and obviously, different people like different stories. once i get hooked on a story, i need to see it through, and that will keep me playing a game - it's why i finished starfield, it's why i finished horizon. at the same time, a mediocre story that doesn't hook me but gets in the way of me having more fun - such is the case with disgaea - tends to turn me off, because i don't particularly want to do the story i don't care about, especially - as is the case with disgaea - when I'm far more powerful than the story expects me to be.
fourth. replayability. this one is really complicated for me, as a lot of infinitely replayable games don't interest me, such as the entire roguelite genre, while a lot of infinitely replayable games do interest me, such as a large portion of the roguelike genre and most 4X games. i think, for me, the replayability comes from starting from nothing and building up to something great based on what's currently available on that run. this is the draw of the rogue derivatives, but roguelites tack on meta progression, so i can unlock items or characters or mechanics or whatever, but i really really really hate it when things are arbitrarily locked away from me. if I'm playing cataclysm and i see a gun store with a really cool rifle in the window, i know i probably can't get it just yet, until i find a hacksaw to break through the window, or a jackhammer or pickaxe to break through the wall, or a lockpick to get in through the back door, or some heavy bashing thing like a sledgehammer to break through the doors, and so on so forth. the important thing at that point i see it is that i know that i can get it, i just need to get some other key item first. with roguelites, i don't get that experience - unlockables are silhouetted behind arbitrary challenges, and then added to the random pool of items. that's not interesting. i don't want to kill fifty enemies with a certain damage type to unlock something i don't know the effect of. it's a checklist with no clear reward - it's a weapon, or an item, but what does it do? why would i want it over my current weapon which I've been using for the whole game so far? if i end up wasting my time doing the challenge to get something worse - which then reduces the odds I'll get a weapon i like more - that feels awful. it's a similar but different thing with 4X games; in those games, i have immediate access to a small pool of resources, and as i explore and expand, i gradually get more, and the resources i get in abundance inform how I'll grow my empire; this is especially noticeable in games such as the endless series, where unique resources tend to have two opposite paths, and you decide which path to follow depending on which resources you have greater access to. and, of course, it's different with every game, so i can't plan ahead knowing I'll have access to a particular material, or i need to specifically seek out that material if i really really want it and expand to them (or conquer over them) when they are revealed.
fifth. graphics. personally, i don't care about fancy graphics. i need to know what I'm looking at, i need to be able to reasonably interact with the world, and ideally i don't hate what I'm seeing. i tend to play roguelikes with tilesets so i can more easily understand what's what, and i don't much like the appearance of ascii, as pretty as it can be when done right. i like stylized graphics a lot - borderlands, team fortress 2, disgaea up to 5, pokemon up to gen 5 - they have particular styles that stand out and make me like them a lot. it's especially noticeable once those styles are uprooted - as in disgaea 6 and pokemon gen 6 - and the artists have to figure out how to emulate the old style with a new medium that just can't match the old style. i think so far pokemon still hasn't recovered from the switch to 3D models, but from what I've seen, they are actually starting to improve. a lot of gen 9 models look a lot better than the models in gen 6. one game series which i think has fully recovered - or, indeed, never failed - from the switch from 2D sprites to 3D models is dragon quest. dragon quest 11 looks fantastic, and the 3D models look incredible and just as stylised as the 2D sprites. even in dragon quest 9, on the DS, the models look incredible. according to a bit of research, the 2D->3D change happened in dragon quest 7, and even in that game the models looked great. the point I'm making here is, stylization and some intangible Thing makes graphics great, not realism; i refer to that intangible thing as soul, but it's what makes a particular game's appearance read as that game's. for example, you can look at the models of link in the 3D Zelda games, and as long as you have a bit of familiarity, you can instantly recognize which game he's from based solely on his model. the main exceptions are the sequel games which use a very similar model and the same stylization. when we get the next Zelda game, i bet it's going to be an entirely different style from all the prior 3D zeldas.
what's my point with all this? i dunno. there's a lot of potential in a lot of games, and there's always so much done so right, and most often the reason a game fails is because they did so many things so wrong. i predict the avatar game is going to flop because a lot of people are starting to get bored of the ubisoft formula, i expect it won't be mechanically interesting enough for me, and it's seventy fucking dollars. I'm probably gonna enjoy it once i get it on sale for like twenty bucks in a few months, because i still tend to like the ubisoft formula (checklist of towers to unlock and outposts to clear!) but it's gonna otherwise be pretty underwhelming. and I'll probably get bored before i finish it and play something more entertaining.
4 notes
·
View notes
❤️💜❤️Please check out my Ko-fi shop💜❤️💜 for my merch! I'm trying to make my art my career so that I can stay home with my cats and pursue a less stressful life as conventional employment has proven extremely difficult if not impossible for me with my neurodivergent disabilities.
Buy my merch on Redbubble! Tons of sticks, shirts, mugs, awesome fluffy comforter blankets and more!
I'm also on TeePublic now; still uploading art there!
Looking into more forms of ecommerce too. Here's my Linktree for finding me everwhere online.
______________________________________
🐺Beneath the cut I blather a bit about myself. Beware. 😂
🐺 All About Me (jump to the end if you wanna see my citation library about wolves and wildlife, arhrooo!)
- My birthdate is March 18th 1990 and I am therefore in my mid-thirties. I am therefore no longer a whippersnapper despite my youthful appearance (I get miss-aged constantly) which is due to my autism.
- I am autistic and I have ADHD but I am currently struggling far harder with the autism. Derpy short term memory and happy distractibility? Squirrel! That's my ADHD. Fundamental NEED to hyperfocus strongly on a task without interruptions of any kind whatsoever for hours upon hours upon hours? That's my autism and it is fucking up my life because I get extremely stressed extremely quickly when I have to spend all day masking/fawning (aka pretending to suck up to people who don't have my best interests at heart,) instead of passionately writing, hiking or drawing all day, often while happy as a clam and forgetting to eat. I have Pathological Demand Avoidance which explains why commissions make me extremely uncomfortable, but I'm perfectly happy selling prints! (Pleeeease buy my prints and shirts and stuff! I put a lot of heart into making them awesome!❤️)
- I am permasingle. Please don't try to convince me otherwise, as I am now in early middle age and aromantic asexual I have no capacity to imagine a life where I am devoted to another adult human. Become a mom? Maybe. I have no idea how to flirt and I would never do it if I did. I find the idea of someone looking at my body and wanting to sexualize it is incredibly disturbing to me. My body is nought but a vessel for mine powerful spirit, nothing more.
- I am a grumpy socialist (which is not the same thing as communism, mainly it means that I genuinely care about others,) who supports Universal Basic Income, wildlife advocacy, climate change education, LGBTQA+ (after all I am part of the 🏳️🌈 community,) Transgender🏳️⚧️ (learn about the biological science of transgender here,) Universal Basic Income, neurodivergence, Black Lives Matter, Every Child Matters, Children are People, Housing First/Safe, Comfy Housing as a Basic Human Right, immigration, racial diversity, animal rights (for example tail docking is cruel unless it is done for medical reasons as per the SPCA,) and medical science (trained in the veterinary field, so, y'know, fully vaxxed against all the things.)
- I am trying to base KNIFE EDGE as much as possible on actual wolf biology. I'm doing my best to veer away from the usual fictional wolf fare which is usually very mythical or scientifically inaccurate (or both.) I want KE to help people care about wildlife and the threats that they face like habitat fragmentation, loss of genetic diversity, and climate change. That being said, some artistic liberty has been taken for the sake of my sanity. Production of KE is slow right now for reasons.
I will never censor the sheathes of my male animal characters or their bumholes. The latter because bumholes are hilarious. The former because censoring a blatantly obvious bodypart is incredibly illogical and stupid.
- My favourite Cybertronian (Transformer) is Starscream!✈️ I definitely sympathize with the Decepticons. I don't draw Transformers stuff very often though because bipeds scare me (despite the fact that I can actually draw them quite well,) and I am a wuss. 😅 I sometimes write depraved little stories about Starscream and his trine (as well as other seekers,) and post them here.
- I'm obsessed with horses and I collect (and customize,) model ones so you'll see me share my collection and post customized ones from time to time! 🐎
- I freaking adore my cats and I default to talking about them when I am tired. They are my beloved surrogate children and with my repressed maternal instincts not a day went by while my mom was alive that I did not incessantly show at least one of them to my mother. ("This is my child, please appreciate my child, isn't he cute? Yes, yassss, he is cute, the cutest of the cute, I love him. Please pet him and appreciate his softness with me. Yes.")
- 🪸I have a 30 gallon marine reef aquarium which I call Purrling Reef II. Sometimes I write about it! I really love my fish and invertebrates just like my cats.
- I identify as not-quite-female largely because while I identify with being female in some respects, enough to use female pronouns, in many other ways I just don't. My brain is pretty male - not enough for me to call myself trans, but enough that I was extremely affronted when my chest lost its preferred parking lot-flatness of my childhood. Gender is truly a spectrum!
My Favourite Educational Youtube Channels
- SciShow (Youtube channel of much sciency goodness)
- PBS Eons (paleontology and evolution)
- Dr. Polaris (paleontology and evolution)
- GeologyHub (volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes and other tectonic plate stuff explained!)
- Knowing Better (American history and various religions explained in extremely detailed but entertaining, well-cited videos)
- The Financial Diet (much of the same content - minus the religious - as Knowing Better, just in much smaller doses)
- Second Thought (Capitalism, human rights)
- Jackson Galaxy (for domestic cat behaviour content)
- The Kitten Lady (for feral and neonate kitten care content)
- EDGE Science (for natural history, science communication, weird biology and dinosaurs.)
- Tidal Gardens (for in-depth information on individual species of coral, hosted by the owner, Than, whose soothing voice is pure ASMR.)
- Adam Ragusea (cooking and food science, occasionally fish!)
- Stephan Milo (anthropologyyy)
- Today I Found Out, Into the Shadows, Sideprojects (fascinating and often hilarious history tidbits with Simon Whistler, yes he has multiple Youtube channels)
- Trey the Explainer (fun history)
- Zoe Bee (education in the US)
- Snake Discovery (learn about reptiles!)
- Clint's Reptiles (taxonomy of species and winners like Human Children: the best pet mammal for you?)
- Sheffield Made Plants (plant keeping with humour)
- Thoughty2 (random facts)
- ASAP Science
- Reef Dork (saltwater aquarium keeping)
- Mad Hatter's Reef (same as Reef Dork)
- Reptiliatus (Canadian reptile keeping and especially tokay gecko keeping, tokay geckos are hilarious)
- Howe's the Hike (Hiking in the Canadian Rockies)
- Abroad in Japan (learn about Japan!)
My Favourite Podcasts
- Ologies with Alie Ward (science podcast, nerdy goodness)
- Science Versus
- Against the Odds
- Legends of the Old West
- Factually with Adam Conover
- Real Survival Stories
- Real Dictators
- A Short History Of
- Detectives Don't Sleep
- Abroad in Japan (the Youtube channel came first but both exist)
- Backpacker Radio (thruhiking, many poop discussions, no I am not kidding)
Interesting Stuff
- The Sargasso Sea (Thoughty2)
- Hilarious Snowplow Names
- How to Eat Acorns (Adam Ragusea)
- Supervolcanoes (GeologyHub)
- Meet the Most Mysterious Man to Ever Live (Thoughty2, hilarious account of Rasputin)
- Walruses are Terrifying (Henry the PaleoGuy)
Links I Keep For Arguments
I'm opinionated. These are the scientific sources that my opinions are based off of.
🐺Wolves & Wildlife
See the citation library here.
❤️🔥Human Rights
- How to identify a CULT (and avoid recruitment.)
(LBTQIA2S+, women's/uterine, climate, economic survival, & more.) - see the citation library here. (Coming soon.)
❤️🩹Human Medicine & Nutrition
See the citation library here. (Coming soon.)
🐶Neurodivergence
- Struggling to Get Stuff Done? Maybe it's More than Motivation. (How to ADHD)
- Times I Should've Realized that I was Autistic (Illymation.)
🐈Mammalian Pets (Mostly Cats)
- A global synthesis and assessment of free-ranging domestic cat diet (keep your cats inside)
- Why You Should Adopt Another Cat (Jackson Galaxy)
- How to Introduce Cats (Jackson Galaxy)
- The Problem with French Bulldogs (thoroughly explained by veterinarian DVMCellini!)
- How to Kill a Shelter Dog
- How to clean a wound on a dog or a cat.
- How Cats Purr
- Why cats go nuts for tuna even though it isn't natural for them to eat.
- How to Make Your Dog Puke in Emergancies
- Both dogs AND cats will eat your corpse if you die and they are desperate. (And there's actually more historical evidence of dogs doing it!)
- Domestic cats are obligate carnivores who eat meat and only meat. Hannah Shaw, aka the Kitten Lady, explains this beautifully (and adorably,) here. Do not feed them a vegan diet, doing so is cruel. Cats do not need carbohydrates in their diets; carbohydrates' only use in kibble (dry food,) is as a binder which holds all the other ingredients together. Cats have just one copy of a gene which codes for starch (carbohydrate consumption) meaning that biologically they really haven't changed from their African Wildcat ancestors.
- Dogs are not wolves and therefore are not carnivores; they are omnivores. While dogs do descend from wolves (sorry, your chihuahua does not descend from coyotes or foxes,) wolves possess just two copies of a gene that codes for an enzyme capable of digesting starches (which carbohydrates contain,) dogs can have up to 22 copies of it. Dogs who do not consume some type of grain as part of their diet can develop serious health problems which can become life threatening. (Note that legumes like lentils and peas do not count as grains. Neither do root vegetables like potatoes, yams or sweet potatoes.)
🐍Non-Mammal Pets
- Reptile and amphibian keepers are NOT an animal rights issue (and actually are developing better husbandry for these largely harmless animals, are NOT contributing to invasive species, and are even helping to save endangered ones. Most reptile and amphibian pets are captive bred and the community is constantly advocating for ALL species to be captive bred! Additionally, since most species are TROPICAL, they simply cannot survive outside in northern climates. Far more endangered reptiles are killed for their skins than are ever captured to be pets.)
- Snake Discovery Reptile Keeper Cleaning Hacks (works for aquarists too, and keepers of anything with a water dish!)
- Reptifiles - concise and well-researched reptile care sheets!
- DIY Reef Dry Rock! Yes, you can make your own! (Australian Aquarist)
--------------------------------
7 notes
·
View notes
does anyone else like cook good food, soup or stir fry or whatever for example, and then just not be able to eat it like it disgusts you for some reason.
4 notes
·
View notes
Hello I love all your works your a really good writer and not a lot of people write for males.
Can I have headcanons for giyu and rengoku and tengen with an male s/o who fights with guns and is really badass. They also use machine guns, shotguns rocket launchers, and flamethrowers basically anything that shoots are makes a giant kaboom. They also have a hard time trusting people so they work alone and isn’t a hashira. He’s just a really badass marksman and I think it would be cool out of no where there fighting a demon and just pull out a rocket launcher and the whole area blows up.
Warnings: None, unless talk of guns make you feel uncomfortable
Pairing: Giyuu, Kyojuro, Uzui x male!reader
Note(s): I had to change a ton of things so that they make sense in the KNY universe. That's why I'm only going to talk about you using a shotgun because Genya uses one as well.
Giyuu
» He's probably going to question your tactics for a while because he always thought that you need a nichirin blade to eliminate demons.
» However, he accepts your fighting style when he finds out that you use nichirin bullets instead. It's actually kind of neat how you can kill demons as long as you shoot at their heads.
» Giyuu's a bit sad that he can't teach you any fighting stances, though, because he wants to help you in his own way. (And in this case, it's by making sure that you can survive different fights and stuff.)
» Luckily, though, you two get along kind of well, even when Giyuu's silent!
Kyojuro
» Kyojuro's going to make his support much more known than Giyuu did by yelling something along the lines of "Holy cow! My boyfriend's so talented!"
» He didn't know about nichirin bullets either, so please get ready to explain how they work and how they're made, etc.. You can literally see how his eyes light up in excitement as you talk!
» He's so supportive of you!! He doesn't know a lot about shooting or how guns work in general, but he's always ready to lay down some targets for you to shoot while he looks at you with proud eyes.
» He's extremely happy if you trust your guns to him! He also loves to clean them for you to show his love and support.
Uzui
» This man will probably grin widely while he looks at you because while he knew something about guns and such, he never knew that you could use them against demons.
» "That's my husband/boyfriend!", Is probably the first thing you'll ever hear from him when you show off your shooting skills in a battle, especially if you're the one who managed to kill the demon!
» He's a bit excited as well, but he's much calmer about it than Kyojuro is, which is a good thing in itself.
» However, he still asks you to explain a thing or two to him because he's interested in how the whole thing works.
Author's note: Thank you so much for sending me this request - please remember to stay hydrated during this hot weather! My inbox is closed, but you can still send me a request if you buy me a hot coffee!
206 notes
·
View notes
OKAY I'm gonna ramble in your ask box for a minute. about ghirahim in the context of demise. we don't get a ton of screentime for demise, right, we dont have a ton to go off. but what we DO see is that he has the similar pseudo-gentlemanly manner as ghirahim. maybe it's game mechanics, maybe it's maybelline, but he creates the lil world and waits for link to restock n stuff instead of fighting him on the spot, and that is VERY reminiscent of the first battle with ghira where he basically teaches you how to fight. and you know what ELSE we see is a singular interaction between him and ghira where demise doesnt even acknowledge ghira. which ik has been played on in a lot of fics, but hear me out. a lot of people have demise being very overtly abusive and outright sadistic, which does make some sense but. towards his /sword/? lets work under the assumption that he absolutely doesnt consider ghira a person. which /makes sense/ with how he treats him when he's revived. so i think, instead of sadistic abuse (physical or otherwise) of ghirahim by demise could actually be seen as less realistic. it might be more accurate to characterize their relationship with APATHY. demise doesnt care. he "punishes" ghirahim to the extent you'd sharpen a sword, or put it away when you dont need it. and imagine the effects of extreme neglect ON A PERSON. ghirahim, with the emotions and personality and /needs/ he was never supposed to have. was going through my quotes folder and i found this, which is one of my favourites for the info it gives (from a book called The Child Finder):
Her friend Diane explained to her later that, in the spectrum of hurt, it is better for a child to attach to an abuser than to experience the blind hole of neglect. Babies raised in orphanages without touch become like little monkeys, shrunken from inattention. Without a face to see, they can even become blind. At least in abuse, Diane had explained, you have someone to fight against. Abuse starts with the premise that you exist, even to be mistreated. It's a running start, she had said.
anyway, you dont have to respond to this, i just thought it might be cool to read. also that paragraph just slams, doesnt it???
Yeah, I definitely got that impression, too? Demise seems to abuse more from apathy. Hell, it's evident in his motives, too-- Yes, he's aiming for subjugation... but it feels more power for power's sake than any personal bloodlust. The fact that Ghirahim seems almost ashamed about flying off the handle, deeming it "beneath him" speaks alot, also.
And like you said! That's a far more insidious type of abuse. The fact that it can leave you physically underdeveloped-- It does make me wonder, are any of the sword spirits we see "fully-developed"? Fi was constructed to have a limited range of emotions, and sealed away right after the Surface War. But I suppose also she did have what would eventually become the Sage Bloodline to take care of her, and by the time the game starts she already seems largely aware and fluent in human communication. Hell, she even throws in a bit of snark.
Ghirahim, on the other hand... You get the sense he's had to build it all up from scratch. I find it funny how Ghirahim gets characterised as this insidiously emotional empath while Fi gets tossed into Blunt Robot Box, when functionally it seems to be the other way around?
(Well, maybe not the insidious part for Fi.)
(Not unless she wanted to...)
Fi was, in the least, constructed with the ability and even emotional capacity to guide her master-- Which requires a heavy degree of empathy: cognitive, and, it would seem, emotional. Ghirahim, on the other hand, was given no such purpose, because why would Demise need guidance? He's just meant to be there, to kill; and when he's not needed, to be put away.
Thrown away, even.
But not yet.
Not while he's useful, yet.
44 notes
·
View notes
CHOOSE YOUR YANDERE ●_●
HAIKYUU BOYS EDITION (Part 1) ✧
PART 2 ✧ PART 3
Here’s your new round of yandere selection featuring some of our hq boys!
Reminder: I love ‘em boys and this is just for fun!
Rating: T+
Warning: Mild psychological triggers (mentions of kinks and stuff)
Selected characters only ~(⊕⌢⊕)~
HINATA SHOYO aka THE ANNOYING TANGERINE
(but still loveable tho)
This fella’ follows you all the time!
Asks you tons of questions and invites you to a lot things
Pretty persistent about getting your heart and making him a part of your life
Very chatty and energetic…Will never leave your side
If it’s possible, he’ll tie himself around you (please don’t inform him of this idea, he might actually do this)
Calls you when you finally gets home, he’ll climb your window if you won’t answer
Attempts of avoiding him is close to impossible
He’s like…everywhere
Literally threatens and challenges all the other guys who come near you (they better not!)
He’d do anything and everything in his power to win
He’s pretty delusional too thinking that you might actually like him back if he keeps on “trying his best” to win you
Tbh, he thinks you’re actually liking him back O_O
When you’re being hard to “talk to”, he has that look on his face like he’s so in it for the kill
Despite it all, he can never bring himself to hurt you
“Oh, Y/N. Why haven’t you answered my calls? I’ve been calling you for like…78 times already! I got so worried that I sneak into your bedroom. Hehehe~ I’ll talk to you ’til you fall asleep. Then…I’ll watch you.” Eyes wide staring into you.
Danger level: 40%
Pet peeve: You avoiding or ignoring him
KAGEYAMA TOBIO aka THE CRUEL KING
He’s not called ‘The King’ for nothing, y’know
When he’s set his eyes on you, no one’s stopping this guy
At first, he was in awe of you and puts you in a pedestal like some kind of an idol or sum’n
You liked that about him add that he knows you like it’s natural
You thought it was a soulmate connection but think again!
Little did you know that he followed you and studied your every movement
Also knew your daily schedule and routine and imitated your way of life
Once he finally got you, the King shows up
He saw many errors in your way thus he wanted to bring out the “best” in you
Doesn’t hurt you tho, but he lacks consideration
Or he may actually hurt you at times when he got totally irritated
Loves pushing you to the limit…more than your body can bear (and it’s not volleyball we’re talking about here)
Will rile you up until you lose consciousness (doesn’t matter if you’re hurting or what)
You’re wondering where that stamina was coming from and…
Don’t think it sexy cuz you’re basically a slave here who just does what he orders you to do (unless you really like it, yknow)
Worst part of it all, you’re starting to like it and before you even know it, he got you all wrapped around his finger
“I’m doing you so good so keep up with my pace! Too slow! You’re too slow! Are you even moving?” He lashed out on you then followed up through his gritted teeth. “What are you saying you can’t feel your legs anymore? We’re not even getting there yet.”
Danger level: 50%
Pet peeve: Your sheer incompetence
TSUKISHIMA KEI aka THE SCHEMING BLOCKER
This guy’s smart, so he’s probably planning an effective course of action to monopolize you without you even noticing it
No, he won’t eliminate anyone (not that we are aware of??? srsly, this guy could stage his innocence for a murder)
But he’s so good at setting you up that you can only see him
You will not know what makes you follow him around and he’s even acting so nonchalantly about it
You don’t know why but he has you begging for his attention
It’s all part of his intricate plan as he carefully analyzed your behavior
And telling your mind creeping into your subconscious what you should believe in
When he has you all under his control, he’ll waste no time to tease and deny you
This guy’s degrading kink gaming is strong
Will call you names, literally belittles you for his amusement (just bc he’s tall lololol)
Yet you kept liking it more and more
Until he’s seriously the only one on your mind and on your sight clearly blocking any aspect of this universe in your perspective BUT HIM
Loves playing you around
Secretly turned on when you talk back (it makes him want tease you even more)
“Oh, I never thought you like me that much, huh, midget.“ He evilly chuckled (it’s sexy don’t @ me) and grinned at you looking down. “What if I say I’m not convinced enough? What would you do? Ahh, don’t talk back to me with that stupid little mouth of yours. You might not like what’s gonna happen next…”
Danger level: 70%
Pet peeve: Your stupid ass (but he kinda’ likes that too)
YAMAGUCHI TADASHI aka YOUR HUMBLE SERVER
Like Hinata, this guy will follow you around but…
He possesses a beyond normal amount of servitude (which will only show when you get to be with him for longer)
Worships you and offers to be your servant
For him, there’s nothing more beautiful and wonderful but you
It’s not difficult to like him back, he’s really adorable and gentle and normal (?)
Until, he’s gradually getting overboard with lowering himself before you
Very obsessed with you like everything he does is for you in an extremely overrated manner
Like if you’re a girl, he’s even more aware of your period more than you are
Even this sweet being can have a possessive side tho he seemed like can’t hurt anybody
You wouldn’t know it but people who try to cross you are shivering in their legs under his rather stealth intimidation
Will lie for you, steal for you and kill for you
Loves you that much he showers you with affection in a way you can never let go of him even if his moments of self-deprecation is disturbing
Adores you even more when you talk down on him
Even if you want out, you can’t cuz you’re scaredt of what he’ll do to himself if you leave (TT-TT he’s such a bean)
“It’s raining, you can use my umbrella if you don’t have one. I’m perfectly fine under the rain, it’s just a little drizzle. Oh there’s a puddle! Here, you can step on my-“ NO PLEASE DON’T! TT-TT
Danger level: 30%
Pet peeve: Things and people that makes you uncomfortable
⁺˚*·✧ request guidelines ✧⁺˚*·
863 notes
·
View notes
I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?
--
Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.
Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.
The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.
There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.
We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.
That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)
Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.
Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.
A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.
--
The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.
New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.
Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.
But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.
In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.
--
There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.
Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.
In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.
A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.
(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)
--
Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.
A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.
--
Now... fandom...
I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.
As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.
People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.
A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.
--
Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.
But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.
166 notes
·
View notes
Secret Brother Pt2
Continuing Ian and Mikhail gonna keep the same tws unless someone's asked for changes
TW: mentions of abandonment. Later parts will have mentions of a borrower being treated like a pet this is entirely painted in how fuckin wrong it is and how it added to the trauma.
Part 1 Part 3 (Final)
Secret Brother Part 2
Mikhail started living a double life after that. He was making good progress with Ian. He wasn’t sure how Ian had made any kind of home before, he seemed to struggle with basic bits of borrowing. It was becoming the highlight of most days to go home and sneak in to his own house the size of a borrower. Ian seemed almost nervous to be left in a house with a human alone, it didn’t make a ton of sense. The thing that started his move before must have been pretty bad.
The last few months had been a bit stressful too. At least one of his students seemed aware that the dorm ‘ghost’ had left with him. She claimed it was discussing her thesis, but it seemed to be highly focused on borrowers. Although she kept calling it a hypothetical idea of small beings. A study on the folklore of creatures like that which pop up in a lot of cultures. Finding ways to push her to new topics was becoming hard. Mikhail was looking forward to his afternoon with Ian.
“Ian, you around bud?” he called out. Ian rushed at him, covering his mouth. Mikhail looked at him curiously. Ian slowly slid his hand off him, seemingly happy with the silence. “What was that about?”
“I, uh, I thought I heard the human before,” he said nervously. Mikhail had been quiet, he hadn’t even opened his door. “I figured we should be extra quiet today, or just stay here, I have enough supplies for at least a week.”
Mikhail studied him, this wasn’t normal. Even if he made noise on his way, he can’t hear the noise in the walls as a human. Well he couldn’t hear them this far in, he made Ian move to make sure of that. Ian was jumpy, looking around like something would show up out of nowhere. He’d go with it for now, they’d hang out in the walls. He could teach him better sewing and they could work out the paths a little more.
“All right bud,” he said, hoping the smile would calm him. “We can stay in the walls just get some chores done in here, set up some extra paths you may need.”
Ian visibly calmed hearing that. He grabbed Mikhail’s arm and dragged him to the makeshift table. He had plenty of projects he started and needed guidance on. Mikhail was happy to oblige. They worked in a casual silence, Ian showing the parts he struggled with and Mikhail guiding him. It was a pretty normal day as far as life for a borrower is concerned, but Mikhail couldn’t ignore how terrified Ian was. It couldn’t just be that he thought he heard Mikhail, or well the human sized Mikhail, in the house. He was trying to think of how to bring it up when Ian dropped his project.
“Mik,” he started. “You’ve been coming to this house for a long time right?”
“Yeah it’s a normal stop,” he answered. He didn’t think he wanted to know where this was going.
“What do you think of this human?” Ian looked at him, his eyes had something in them he couldn’t read.
“I’m not sure what you mean bud,” he knew the right responses, but didn’t want to give them. He didn’t want to encourage Ian to be afraid of him.
“L-let’s say, there was a human you knew was bad, like really bad. If you had to pick between them and the human here, which would you pick?”
“I mean, as far as I can tell with this human, they wouldn’t do anything bad,” he started slowly. “I don’t know how bad the bad human would be in this scenario, but I’d pick the human who lives here. I’ve known them for an extremely long time, they don’t seem the type to do anything cruel.”
Ian nodded solemnly. Something was going on and he wasn’t telling him. Mikhail was tempted to push, but there wasn’t a good way to ask. He didn’t like leaving like this, but he had some work to get done this weekend, he couldn’t stay. He ruffled Ian’s hair standing to stretch, then started gathering the few things of his he brought with him. Ian grabbed his shoulder tightly.
“Mik, can you stay? For a few days?” his voice was small. Mikhail wanted to stay, to help him with what he wasn’t saying, but he couldn’t. He had to grade assignments and review thesis topics. He turned with a sad smile to Ian.
“I’m sorry Ian, I can’t. Honestly I may be gone for about a week this time. I can’t put off this work much longer. It won’t f-”
“Can I come?”
Mikhail sighed, “Ian I can’t take you with me for these trips. It won’t feel that long promise.”
Ian let go of him. Mikhail turned and saw he looked close to tears. He pulled Ian into a hug, holding tightly. Ian melted into it, seeming to need some sort of reassurance. Mikhail was more reluctant to leave, but he had to work so they could keep this up anyway. He let go and moved towards the exit, relieved to see Ian sitting back down at the table. He’d tell Ian the truth next time, he had to know he wasn’t as alone as he thought when ‘Mik’ wasn’t around.
“We’ll talk about some important stuff when I come back too all right?” he asked. Ian perked up, nodding with a look of relief. Things like that seemed to calm him, promises that meant he’d return without that being the promise. Once outside the house Mikhail waited a few minutes before shifting back. He needed to make sure Ian wasn’t planning to follow him. Once sure he focused and the world returned to its usual view. He took slow steps toward his car, climbing in to move it. Next time he saw Ian wasn’t going to be easy. He pulled the car off to the side, hidden completely from view for the weekend.
He sighed as he walked in, far from excited to deal with the guilt he’d be feeling. He went straight to his desk, if he could make it through the papers fast enough he could talk with Ian sooner. He pulled out the first and got to reading, blocking out the world around him. Ian wouldn’t come out for a while based on how he was acting. Hours passed as he worked through the assignments, a number of which would need to be completely redone. The black ink on white paper getting to him, he walked out to get a drink. The house was dark, he never bothered to turn on any lights when he came in. He reached the kitchen and flicked the light on, nearly screaming.
Sitting at the center of the table was Ian, his hook placed clearly out of reach. Mikhail couldn’t believe his eyes. He decided to act like he saw nothing, continuing on to get his water. He would go back to his desk and then Ian could keep up whatever crazy thing he was planning. Unless this had to do with the question earlier about trusting the human here. Did he know it was Mikhail who lived here? Ian must have figured it out. He turned to leave, trying so hard not to let his concern show.
“H-human!” Ian called out. There went any hope of pretending not to see him. Mikhail locked his eyes on Ian, the boy flinching as he gained the attention he wanted. Mikhail crouched down, getting himself eye level with the borrower. He was barely ready for whatever this meant.
“Hi?” he said. He had no idea how to do this. Wait he called out human, does Ian not know?
“I-I want to make a deal with you.” Ian was trying to be confident. Mikhail felt a lot of pride at that. He was so much more confident than he was a few months ago.
“What do you need?”
“I-if you’ll keep the bad human from me and my friend I’ll stay with you.”
“Wait what? What bad human? What do you mean stay with me?” Mikhail was utterly lost. Ian was here in front of him when he was human. Offering to stay with him in exchange for protection from the bad human. Now he really needed to know what was going on. He leaned down on the table, arms as a pillow, to be a little closer.
“I-I ran away from a human. They were keeping me as a,” he paused a mixture of fear and disgust on his face, “as a pet. I’ll stay with you as one if you’ll keep the bad one from me and my friend.”
“First no to that whole pet thing, you’re clearly a person. Second, I need to know about this bad human to help.”
“I-I can be good. I won’t run from you. I’ll be the project thingy for you they were talking about. I can-”
“Whoa slow down buddy, I just need information.” Mikhail was trying hard to stay calm. This is what scared him so much. Some human kept him as a pet and brought him to the school. Mikhail was going to deal with this, later though for now Ian had to calm down.
“I can do tricks, I won’t complain really. You can go get a cage now and I’ll wait right here. I won’t move at all. I won’t fight if you try to show me off either. I’ll be a good pet just as long as you protect us.”
“Kiddo, I just said the pet thing isn’t happening. I’ll just help you if you talk to me about this bad human.”
“I’m not stupid. I know you’ll want something eventually. I’m giving you something. I know you spend time at the place the bad human had brought me. I’ll be obedient for anything you need just keep the bad one away. I put the only way I can get down far enough away. Just admit you like this idea and-”
“Ian, knock it off! I’m not entertaining you talking about yourself like that’s all you’re good for. You’re a person, damn it!” Mikhail shouted. He hadn’t meant to, but hearing Ian thought he’d like this idea hurt. Over the last few months Ian felt like a younger brother, he’d do anything for him.
“H-How do you know my name?” Ian’s eyes were wide. Mikhail didn’t realize he used his name, he’d gotten lucky until now. Ian seemed far more scared than before hearing the human knew his name, starting to back away. Mikhail stood up and backed off. This wasn’t what he wanted to happen. He was going to have to show him as much as he hated it. He made his way back over to the table gripping the edge with both hands. He focused on them as he willed himself smaller. He pulled himself onto the table then sped up how fast he shifted. Focusing his gaze on Ian once he was done.
“This,” Mikhail gestured to himself, “would be why you couldn’t come with me.”
42 notes
·
View notes
Can you do a headcannon with the undateables now dateables please?? 😁 with an mc that wears a ton of make up and one day she doesn't cuz she forgot and they are like astounded by mcs looks and compliment them and tell them they don't need to wear so much cuz they are beautiful! Thank you!!!
I'm sure you didn't mean it for it to be like this, but this ask has a "I got stuff that's internalised" vibes and so I'm going to make this a teaching moment.
To Everyone who follows, wearing makeup or not is up to you - how much you wear is your bussiness. Besides, what is considered 'alot' could be a natural look depending on how many products you use.
I personally don't use foundation or concealer, my face is spotless and smooth and I incorporate my eyebags into my eye looks. But there's still the amount of eyeshadow I use as contour, actual eyeshadow, eyeliner guide and even to add more vibrance or odd colours to my lips. I also use eyeliner. Which doesn't seem like alot but its full face look.
Your makeup is your business and you shouldn't shame those who do wear it or those who don't nor should you rely on a man or woman to tell you when you look good. Your always look good, period. The trope of girls who stops wearing loads of makeup turns out to be naturally pretty just links to a mindset that people who do wear makeup only wear it because their ugly or trying to hide their true appearance.
Which is stupid because unless you're going out your way to do face morph looks, makeup is used to enhance features you already have. It just helps to bring attention to how pretty your features are.
"they don't need to wear so much because they're beautiful!" You don't stop being beautiful when you put makeup on. Again how much you wear and what you do with your appearance is your bussiness.
But I think that's enough of me going on, let's actually get into this.
Diavolo:
"ah, what a surprise, you're not wearing your makeup today, did something happen?"
He looked at your curiously
You dissmivley waved your hand, smiling
"Oh-! Yeah- I forgot to do it this morning and didn't want to run late for class, that's all."
"you look stunning might I add without it, it's a refreshing change - that sounded rude...I didn't mean for it come out like that."
He immediately looked guilty
Hand over his mouth realizing his words, he his lips pursed
It looked like he was internally beating himself up about it
You decided to be nice, patting his shoulder, seeing he didn't mean for it come out like that
"You're right, I am stunning but yeah, I get what you mean, it's new and I look good without it but I also good in it! It makes me feel good and lets me show off my favourite features."
You used your hands to shape and point out said features
Diavolo intently watched your hands but still had a guilty and apologetic expression
"I see, forgive my rudeness I never intended to imply anything, I'm glad you have something that makes you feel confident and happy."
"it's okay, Dia, perhaps I can do a look on you aswell? Show you the appeal."
Diavolo could be a child at heart and he almost squealed
He has been interested by your makeup ever since you've arrived
But instead of letting himself show his full excitement he nodded, grinning
He was aware of his butler's eyes on him aswell as Lucifer's
"I'd be delighted to."
Barbatos:
"I had a feeling I'd see a surprise today, it appears it was you, is there a reason you've decided to not do your usual look?"
"it sounds silly but just forgot, I was so tired this morning I'm pretty sure I dreamed doing my routine and couldn't tell the difference."
You laughed at yourself, gently scratching your cheek
You were embarassed by how easily tricked you were by your tired mind but you couldn't really blame yourself
You haven't been sleeping much so after finally getting the best sleep in your life you were bound to get groggy
He smiled, tilting his head to the side
His eyes looked as if he was scolding you
"thats abit alarming, get your needed sleep though the change isn't uninvited, you're very pretty."
You could tell he meant no harm by his words
But you've dealt with situations similar to this where the person was being very passive aggressive
It made you feel bitter and have a need to explain yourself
"I'll be sure to sleep, thanks but this isn't going to be a permanent thing, I'm very much happy with my usual look! Makes me feel more pretty~ I don't think there's such a thing as being too pretty."
You both chuckled at your end statement
"Fair, I do not control what you do but I advise you stop spending so much with asmodeus, you're starting to sound like him - I have actually done makeup myself, perhaps you'd like to see some examples? I'm intrigued if you have any feedback or tips I could use."
"asmo is just truthful! But on a serious note, I'd actually love to see that and feel honoured you'd want my feedback! You better not back out on this."
Solomon:
"I almost didn't recognize you, what a stray from your usual look, it's very off brand - I'm afraid viewers might be displeased."
You couldn't help but smile
He was using an inside joke you two made
After refering to one of the years as a season you two started making a few jokes about it
But it became a habit and now you two just had a thing were you pretended you were self aware TV characters
"Oh no! We can't have the ratings go down! Haha- I don't look that different, don't be ridiculous, I think it's just your eyes old man."
You poked the side of his face, near his eye
He frowned, he let you have passes on calling him old due to favouritism
But still got grumpy when you joked and brought him his age
You did only say it to tease and if he got genuinely upset or mad about it you'd immediately stop
"I'm not old, just wise - just for that your fanbase has shrunk but sadly, your good looks will bring them back."
You had a light blush on your cheeks, waving your hand
Acting as if you've swooned for him you leaned against his shoulder
"you're so kind yet so mean~ but I'm sure they'll prefer my normal form than this one, I kinda feel naked without my makeup - it's almost shameful."
"don't say that so loud, who knows who'll turn up naked, I'd rather not experience that today."
You bursted out laughing
Meanwhile he looked like he was experiencing Flashback'
Simeon:
"I like the new look, it's very natural! but is that makeup or your actual-"
"My face is bare, I forgot to put it on, not really bothered today."
His slender finger was pointed to your face, squinting to see if he could see
You almost wanted to laugh but you just lazily shrugged your shoulders
"oh! You're still look just as beautiful, I can't believe I couldn't tell, ever since I saw your more extra looks I've been looking into makeup and I saw people could make it look like they weren't wearing any."
"Thanks but don't worry, I'm not Insecure without it or anything, just really enjoy it! - oh? You're looking into it? Is there any looks you like specially, some people are really amazing at looking extremely natural or being really artistic - it's amazing."
He nodded
"pardon me then, I didn't mean to imply anything I just saw how much bad press was around it all and wanted to say incase but yes, I'm extremely intrigued by high light! It's so sparkly!"
He looked apologetic before his expression turned into one of awe and inspiration
You smiled, happy to see he was interested in something you were already passionate about
It was good to see him wanting to learn and gain interest
"You're sweet Simeon but this human is very happy! I see~ let me do your makeup later or a day you're free, I can give you my extra shimmery high light to really make those cheekbones of yours pop!"
His eyes were sparkling so brightly
Grinning from ear to ear with excitement
"I'd love to! Please, I want you to show me all your amazing ideas."
Luke:
"Your face is different, you're not wearing makeup!"
"And your face is still childlike, you're correct though, I forgot to do it."
You both pouted at each other, glaring
The moment quickly ended as soon as he started to speak
"oh, I thought this was going to be a thing now....you're pretty, why do you wear it? You don't need to especially the amount you normally wear."
You frowned
Annoyed no one has taught him about this kind of thing and how what he was saying was rude
Mentally noting to speak to Solomon and Simeon about this
But you couldn't be too mad, he was a child
You decided to make this a reaching moment for the young angel
"Well you see Luke, anyone can wear makeup even if they're super confident with their features or super Insecure, it makes people feel good and extra attractive or it can make you look dead and gross - really up to the person - and I'm just someone who really likes wearing makeup and alot of it, what may seem like alot to others could be basic to others, it's all about your personal touch and wants."
"I see....I'm sorry I didn't really understand-"
He looked absolutely devastated
Ashamed and guilty and extremely apologetic
"It's okay, I know you're still learning about these things - hey, how about I do your makeup and we can see what you like?"
You lifted his puffy hat, ruffling the messy hair beneath it
He didn't even swat your hand away
He was too excited and relieved by what you were saying, he jumped up and down as his hands turned into fists
"Really?! I'd- I'd like that, I'll go ask Simeon if you can come over and do it for me! Maybe we can try out your kind of style?"
"Sounds perfect, now go ask~"
He hastily rushed off to find the older demon
You watched from slight afar him asking permission but gave simeon a 'we need to talk' look
126 notes
·
View notes