#[ we about to get sentimental in here ]

[hrtzbeat]

so i was wondering how long the ramshackle ghosts have been at nrc... and how they probably ran into someone there

[benrey-did-nothing-wrong]

i feel like all the benrey discourse is missing the point that scorpy went in, was silly, and left. that was benrey. that was the benrey experience. any attempt to understand benrey would require understanding the sick, twisted psychological labyrinth of scorpy's mind. i dont even think the hand gaslighting was intentional i just think scorpy actually zoned out for the entirety of hlvrai and went into a trance that made him roleplay as a mean gay guy.

[vaguely-concerned]

You're a coward. You're afraid to stand alone.

holy fuck. Julian 'I recognize my patient has made a decision. given that it's a fucked up decision I don't want staining my hands I have resolved to go machiavellian on it it to try to change it' Bashir (SO so deeply affectionate). he went up to the space pope and looked her in the eye and called her a fucking coward to her face after mercilessly picking apart the realpolitik of the situation step by step. baby you and your dubious medical ethics are all to me.

[welcometogrouchland]

I'm going to be so real I do not understand tim & steph shippers who feel that Steph dating Tim again would save her character. You can make an argument that giving Tim a more compelling love interest would be beneficial for him! And you can at least make an argument that the fujo mischaracterization of Steph would stop. However she'd still, inevitably, be treated as a prop character/extension for someone more popular 😭 it also wouldn't make her appear in more books! Tim doesn't have many frequent appearances at the moment either! You can just say you like the couple and want them back together without acting like you have some kind of moral stance

[jesuistrestriste]

hiiii i just wanted to pop in and say how much i appreciate your writing...throughout all my years of reading fics and indulging in fandom culture i've always been inclined towards femdom more than anything; however, they are very sparse...i've also indulged in sub reader stuff too ofc, but lately i can't seem too enjoy them anymore. idk if it's my hatred of the male ego (and the current landscape of the world) that's like making me want to read it less and less (it is im sure lol) so i just wanted to say i appreciate you so much, your writing it's fantastic, and im not just talking about smut (which is just ugh chefs kiss) but in general, you truly have an incredible talent, i mean it. and thank you for feeding the femdom enthusiasts (?) enjoyers (?) lmaooo idk...love you and your writing!! ❣️🤭🥰

(also i want to point out this isn't a dig at sub!reader dom!male character writers AT ALL. everyone is so talented and people are always allowed to like what they like, always!!! this is just my personal preference...so yeah, just wanted to make sure i made that clear because that's the last thing i want to come across❣️)

i wont lie anon this has me slightly choked up !!!! (in a good way)

before i started writing and posting on tumblr, i was in a similar position—searching for fics that fit my interests, but rarely finding them, which would lead to me settling for sub!reader writing or writing my own private pieces just to scratch the itch. finding femdom writing in the wild was like trying to find some sort of rare bird.. i was always so giddy when i would stumble across a blog/account somewhere that produced some sort of dom!reader content (writing, art, etc.) because it was reassuring to know that my preferences were not so obscure. and i am totally with you in terms of why i think i might be more inclined to consume femdom content, as i also find myself really unnerved or numb or bored when presented with the idea of a man trying to be dominant with me. i just never really gravitated towards that sort of thing, and my past experiences with men have only further solidified that for me lol. while i can still find dom!character writing really compelling, sometimes even remarkably desirable, i just normally don’t go for it—but i love and admire my mutuals (and other fic writers in general) who write sub!reader as much as those who write dom!reader ! everyone just has their own preferences, and that’s totally okay !

anyways, my point is that when i started this blog and began writing 90% femdom content, i really wanted to be the kind of writer (loose term) that i—as someone who enjoys dom!reader content—would be excited to find and engage with online. i wanted to curate a space where those who enjoy this sort of stuff could engage in writing that pretty much solely indulges their interests. so, with that being said, thank you so, so much for your incredibly kind words.. i’m honored, i truly am. i hope i can continue to stay motivated to write because id love nothing more than to stay the path and support my fellow dominant!reader enthusiasts in these trying times. much love to you, anon <3 kisses and hugs and pretty-boy tears

[swordheld]

hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?

hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].

but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.

it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.

and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.

the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.

an emptiness, like you said.

but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.

you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.

he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.

but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.

how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.

the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.

think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.

i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.

but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one. wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.

as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛

[kittyandco]

reblogging posts that make me cry because i'm in the trenches right now yet again reassessing my sexuality LOLOL my brain really couldn't have waited til AFTER my birthday tomorrow. these types of questions are not welcome right now 😭

thesis in the tags

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Is CloverWorks entirely at fault for TPN S2's mangled production?

I see so many people default to blaming CloverWorks for being the sole arbiter of S2's horribly disappointing production (sometimes Shirai is added into the mix too, especially by anime-onlys), but every time I do I'm genuinely asking the question of whether that's true and where they're pulling their information from.

I'm not involved in the animation industry at all so I'm interested in receiving input from people who are more familiar with it, but my understanding is the people in charge of the decision to truncate S2 would be The Promised Neverland Committee listed at the end of the opening credits.

(I could not find a single video of the English dub that aired on [adult swim] for the English credits of S1, so a screencap from the Japanese credits)

TPN Committee is comprised of the following entities: Aniplex (Distributor), Fuji TV (TV Station), Shueisha (Manga Publisher), Cygames Anime Fund, Dentsu (ads)

(Sources 1 | 2 | 3)

kViN from Sakugabooru details what a production company is in this post:

"I personally find it enjoyable to see who is involved in a show, and as you’ve seen there is plenty of information to draw from that. Animation production studios are listed in the credits for each show, so it’s understandable why audiences would imagine they have a ton of influence over a production. It’s even natural to think that the company that is actually manufacturing something would have great input! If you start paying attention to these committees though, you get a clearer picture of the finances of production and how each show is actually made rather than assume that studios that often don’t have much of a say are in charge of everything."

And CloverWorks is the more prominent name, especially for English speakers watching the subbed version of the series.

This is also something that Geoff Thew brings up in the last seven minutes of this video around the 18:50 mark:

"I'd bet good money that the last credits were supposed to roll right after that big stone door slammed shut, and I'd further wager that a combination of fan reactions to and dipping ratings for early episodes is what caused the production committee—who are the ones who actually have final say in this, not Cloverworks or even Shirai—to cut their losses and turn that cliffhanger into a skeleton of a conclusion."

I disagree with him on them making the call to retool the series during the clipshow episode between S2e05 and S2e06 though. It doesn’t seem like they had enough time to do that when a single episode of animation takes on average nine months to complete, even with the ridiculous crunch they seemed to be in. My guess is it was made back in early 2020 after Shirai made everyone involved in production aware the manga was ending that year, with the pandemic potentially factoring in to a degree.

He also mentions this a bit earlier:

"It's just such a slap in face to anyone who ever gave a shit about any version of this story. Including the people telling it, apparently, since neither of the anime's screenwriters nor mangaka/series composer Shirai wanted to take credit for the last two episodes. They probably didn't have much say in how it all went down. That's important to keep in mind before you start yelling at animators or even studios on twitter. I guarantee that every adaption that hurts you personally was ten times harder on the people who actually had to make it. As hackishily slapdash as this finale is, a lot of people probably slept under their desks to get it out the door, if they slept at all."

I always come back to this tiny addition toward the end of S2 episode 2 as an indication that on the creative side of things, in storyboarding and animation at CloverWorks, the care was still there at some level.

It was just squashed down in order to cut and condense 146 chapters into 11 episodes for a production that, as ZersEditor puts here, was "bleeding money."

But CloverWorks is less to type out, so they get the majority of the ire over a tragically butchered production in casual conversation.

[ippokampos]

got complimented on my hair by a cool customer:] lalalalala

[faggotcitosis]

this post about immigration and human rights abuse made me think about something i have been going back and forth about which is, "border" countries often have little to no responsability over the situation that caused immigration in the first place, and they often struggle with resources and protection to the people already there. adding a lot of people, often from a place with different culture, language and costumes is not easy at the best of times already

greece had a huge migrant crisis, in which there was the tragic situation where a few boats drowned a few years ago. is greece responsible for the instability in syria or afeghanistan? brazil has dealt with haitian immigration in the past after the natural disasters in haiti, and is currently dealing with over 5 million venezuelans immigrants. did brazil benefit from imperialism in those countries?

the 3rd world countries that stand on the way to 1st world countries act as containment zone for unwanted immigration. none of the financial benefits of imperialism served with left immigration waves - something that requires so much resources, and im not only talking about money. like op described so well, the first world nations benefit from this exploitative dynamic. there's a reason the nordic countries are so clean and cute. the money that funds their social democracy comes from somewhere else. these first world nations are hiding behind other countries, often poorer and underveloped. they can outsource the bulk of the labor of handling immigration to someone else, while providing little to no support. their actions affect the immigrants and the citizens of the place being emigrated to. it completly fucks over public services, access to healthcare, education, transportation, welfare, wages drop etc...

and then the well known pattern starts to happen: local citizens get angry at immigrants, because things did get worse after immigration, be it for an incompetent local goverment and/or lack of funds/structure. and then when you talk about it, how the quality of services has sky rocketed while quality of life has dropped, you're either met with alt right freaks blaming the immigrants or with people who completely refuse to admit there even is a problem, and act like you perceiving the problem is the problem

not a single person or entity opens up the wound and blames the right actors. blame gets shifted around, pinned on different groups, but nobody stops and looks and says: the fuckers responsible for it are sitting in luxury in their paradises while we are getting fucked over here. they cant even do the bare minimum and send in money and resources to help. other poor countries are expected to simply absorb the gigantic cost that comes with dealing humanely with immigration costs, while the powerful nations that caused this watch it from very far, with almost no impact to their own nation

[roomba-mangga]

god actually it's really funny how thistle and yaad had exactly 2 onscreen interactions, only one of which was a proper scene (said scene being weekend at delgal's to boot), and the first was thistle creeping up on yaad complete with scare chord while the second was a heartfelt moment culminating in yaad embracing him while he dies in his arms because GIRL i think i need a little more context into this Situation maybe. would love to know what was up there at any time ever

[thirtyskeletons]

3 am spiraling over how my mom was mean to me. many such cases

[airshipvalentine]

*btw i’m gonna take ‘emma’ off my tumblr for the next little while— still my name, still something i’m cool with being referred to as :) my circle of irl friends/broader acquaintances have been following each other on tumblr and we are approaching the limit of “people i know irl who i feel close enough with to let follow me here without being deeply embarrassed”

[toonbly]

honestly i have a really have a hard time looking at my old vrai stuff. but going through old stuff for grtv fills me with absolute delight, its been so long but i still hold so much love for this story and the people who followed it

[ro-botany]

Offtopic opinions

Awakening is a game that was rushed, and suffered a lot of cuts, but when you pay attention to the history the game lays out, you start to see this rich world they were trying to create. And the plot! It takes a standard "the prince must slay the evil dragon" story and it flips it on its head and uses it to explore cycles of abuse and trauma.

I'm not sure I agree there about the game having a rich world.

There's very little to the world building like Chrom's famous ancestor and Ylisse's First Exalt is just a word for a word copy of Marth without any sort of name. Similarly Chrom's father has no name and the crusade is woefully underdeveloped.

There are also characters like the Hierarch, whom allegedly acted as a mentor to Emmeryn but just betrays her with this big event going uncommented on and the Hierarch having no name, his Japanese name is just the name of his class!

The Taguel are another thing having basically no history outside of things basically copy/pasted from the Laguz and the writers couldn't even get Panne's personal history right; she says in one support her birth mother raised her alongside other taguel, but in another says her mom died when she was an infant so she never knew her or any other taguel.

Compare these all to even the first game having oodles of info on Marth's ancestor and the history of the continent as well as its wars.

Or Orson's betrayal in Sacred Stones to the Hierarch, as well as the long history of the Laguz in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn compared to the Taguel's inconsistent lore that acts as a mere footnote in Awakening.

Also personally I find Awakening follows all the standard FE tropes to the letter without any sort of diverging from them.

...If you find killing vast swathes of virtual human enemies disturbing, then strategy games centered around war may not be the games for you. This is what we call a genre convention. You gotta be able to handle killing the little pixel guys to enter.

Its not that I find it disturbing but more I feel Awakening treats war like a game and isn't interested in explaining why the protagonists are killing people or the ramifications of killing people.

Its simply playing into "kill brown men because they're ugly and rescue the sexy brown women from them."

Like even Genealogy of the Holy War talked about how the cycle of vengeance affected everyone, how its still sad to kill the Loptous cultists as they are human beings and that even the head of the cult, Manfroy didn't start out evil.

Awakening, to me personally, just seemed like it only cared about making the player feel powerful by having every enemy be either forced to fight them against their will or be a piece of crap that absolutely nobody loved (Aversa's storyline goes out of its way to say nobody mourns Grimleal deaths for example), whilst every women around just threw themselves at the player.

(Second debate hour anon ask I got too busy to reply to when it came in; My Bad anon hope you're doin well.)

"whilst every women around just threw themselves at the player" Anon, I can't stress this enough:

This is the game where M/F MONOGAMY IS A STRICTLY ENFORCED GAME MECHANIC I'm. I just. Did we read the same supports? Because most of the Robin supports I remember are like, Robin failing really badly at making soup, or losing stuff, or teaching people funny slang and then regretting it.

All the supports had to be written to believably be building friendships, because you can still A rank characters with each other after they're married. Because of this, the vast majority of supports only pivot into anything even remotely romantic directly in the S support. It's usually not done well, honestly, imo. But either way that doesn't leave room for this like, harem anime AU you're inventing in your head.

"Women throwing themselves at the player" did you read the support where Robin accidentally gives Sully the shits and she threatens to kill him, anon. Did you.

Anyway. It sounds like you're reaching for reasons to object to this game on some kind of moral grounds. You don't HAVE to do that, though. You can just dislike the game for non-moral reasons. Or for no reason. It doesn't have to be that deep.

Anyway to address your other points briefly I mean, uh, with way too many words as usual lmao

I'm not about to argue that the game is perfect in any respect. It's not even CLOSE. I've said before and I'll say it again that there's a lot of unused potential in Awakening, from places where characterization is thin to the massive gaps in the worldbuilding. The way this game treats Aversa is gross as hell and it has plenty racism problems besides. Trust me, I am not unaware of or ignoring the bad and the ugly.

To be honest? It being deeply flawed is what keeps me coming back to it.

If a game is perfect, there's only so long you can gush about how good it is. If a game is GOOD, but FLAWED? You could write a fuckin thesis about it. Hell, I arguably have, the word count on the collection of Awakening-related meta posts I've authored or made big additions to just keeps on jumping.

Yes, Awakening's worldbuilding has major gaps; but what we got was legitimately interesting! Piecing together what we got is fun for me! Filling in some of those gaps by extrapolating from the facts at hand is fun! Headcanoning in the rest is fun!

Sure, some of the characters and relationships are sorely underdeveloped, and there are some inconsistencies in the supports and that sucks. But seriously analyzing what's there is fun as hell! Taking the things we know and extrapolating personality and relationships is a blast! And for the more major characters, what's there is legitimately compelling as hell - the amount of scholarship the mutuals and I have authored about mister Grima faildragon himself is proof of that. As is the fact that we have honest to goodness essays about Validar of all characters. VALIDAR.

I can't really compare it to most of the other FE games, having not played most of them. I can accept it's not the best FE by a long shot. But I'm also willing to give it leeway for how the release dates hamstrung it, I appreciate the clear love and effort that was put into it anyway, and I respect it a lot for the part it played in keeping the franchise alive today.

And to be perfectly frank, it also is a story that I stumbled across when I was in a rough patch, and it helped me deal with the Horrors, so y'know. It's a really important game to me for that reason.

If its flaws are dealbreakers for you I may not be able to change your mind. That's ok!

But hopefully this at least gives you some insight into why I, at least, am so obsessed with it. It's flawed as hell and that makes it capital C Compelling.

[todayisafridaynight]

@ father time can we run it back to june so i can make a joke really quick