#I am mean

[apollo-fizz]

Who wants more emotionally devastating TH headcanons?

Definitely don’t imagine a universe where Phoenix didn’t survive IEYTD2. Don’t imagine A universe where TH was forced to move on because he’s such a great handler and he’s needed elsewhere. Don’t imagine A universe where he’s forced to grieve quickly so he’s useful to more people.

Don’t imagine a universe where instead of prism, he joins Zoraxis because he doesn’t really have any purpose in the Agency anymore. Don’t imagine how much he’s made fun of and shoved around in Zoraxis because to them, he’s just a weak old man.

Don’t imagine how once he is persuaded or forced to return to the Agency, because you know he would, he’s shunned once again. Don’t imagine how utterly defeated he would once again feel.

Don’t imagine how pheonix in this scenario would have had to go against his former favourite person. Don’t imagine how their relationship became on such thin ice TH was almost considering asking them if they wanted to switch handlers. Phoenix would’ve said no, but i digress.

Do imagine how after a few months, their relationship warms a little. Do imagine how everything goes back to normal.

Don’t imagine that the happy ending was a dream, and Phoenix wasn’t there. it was a different agent. don’t imagine that.

Thanks for coming to another TED talk :] It definitely wasn’t emotionally destroying :33

[molekel]

Sometimes he forgets he is not human

[xx-thedarklord-xx]

not to brag or anything but ive been following you from the beginning when people used to call you the FluffLord and after today's story I am here to call you it again. FluffLord. FluffLord. FluffLord

Lmaooo! Nostalgia is like a punch to the gut. It's been so long since anyone has called me that. You really have been around since I started. That was when I didn't know how to write angst and was all baby chick with a knife that swore they were threatening. *cough* And I am totally threatening now and just oozes intimidation, right? 🥺 Thank you for being here so long and not kicking me to the curb! And I am glad you liked the story! And later today (wow it's already passed midnight) I will post another cute story that will make your teeth fall off, so be prepared for more FluffLord

Where to?

[supergraphicultramoderng1rl]

sometimes people get weird in my inbox

like occasionally i’ll get a “hey this thing that you put in your fic isn’t really my favorite💕 no hate btw💕”

Ok so don’t read it. ok so that’s not my problem. not everything on the internet needs to be for you. what a weird way to interact w the world lol

and it’s not even like i did something problematic they literally just don’t personally like it and think i exist as a content machine to pump out fanfic for them specifically

like if you don’t like something feel free to not read it. idk what to tell u babe

[youngerfrankenstein]

I was enabled. And somehow this wound up 1700 words long. And it’s still not everything I want to say.

So I have personally been making my way through several Transformers shows over the last few months and sort of doing writeups. Long story short it's a love/hate relationship. But my most recent one was EarthSpark, a show which was a lot weaker than I'd hoped. But in the middle of watching that show I figured "well Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is also on Paramount+. It might be fun to try out the other recent take on an 80's cartoon." And then the show was so much better I almost got angry.

Now, admittedly the shows are not THAT similar, but they are both about groups of non-human characters trying to get by on Earth with the help of human friends, they are both somewhat fresh takes on an 80's classic and they both have family as a central theme. And Rise just works so much better as a show.

Now there are a couple of reasons. For one I think the split-episode structure keeps the Turtles episodes flowing at a really brisk pace, and the far more episodic structure allows for more freedom, while EarthSpark feels more like it's trying to tell one story that keeps getting broken up. Rise also just has stronger writing. But I think the main issue for the difference in quality is just that Rise, unlike EarthSpark, knows what it wants to be.

And what exactly I mean by that is hard to pin down. A lot of it just comes down to how something ~feels~ and that's not very helpful. But I think it mostly comes down to two things. Clarity of Theme and Consistency of Tone.

-

Clarity of Theme

Stories have themes. They just do. Themes are what a story is about.

So what is EarthSpark about. Well. The two main themes I've seen people mentioning are Family and Identity. Which are definitely major themes! Don't get me wrong, the show is pretty blatant with them. But those are far from the only themes. We also have things like second chances, racism/xenophobia (handled really poorly in my opinion), growing up (which I would argue overlaps with identity but is still it's own thing) and the fallout of a war. None of these are bad themes inherently! But trying to tackle all of them in one 26 episode season means you can't go into much depth with any of them, so all the lessons come off as pretty shallow with kids just kind of being told what to think about the situation. There are also a few laboured political points (and before you jump me NO. I am not talking about Nightshade. A nonbinary character existing is not political. I'm talking about shit like the "undocumented cybertronians" line that make me want to drown the writers in a kiddie pool.)

Overall it feels like the MAIN concept behind the show is using Transformers as a second-generation immigrant story allegory. Which I actually think is a neat idea! But so much else is going on the concept has no real space to breathe.

And what is Rise's main theme? Family …and that's about it! Yeah there's the episodic morals and such but the over-arcing theme really is just family. Largely brought about just by how the brothers and Splinter interact. You just buy them as a family because of how they interact. They love each other, they get on each other's nerves, they support each other, they argue. You can see Splinter becoming more involved as an actual father as the show goes on. Everyone gets through the trials because they go through them together.

And of course, how the villains tie into this. Now most of the villains in Rise are just there to be silly obstacles, but one does stand out, and that's Shredder. In this version, Shredder is a demonic set of armour and the corrupted soul of Karai's father. His defeat means the two can finally reunite. And his long reach and the feud between the Hamato and Foot clans all tie into the theme of family well. His defeat ties every character together and emphasizes the theme.

Krang is the movie villain, and they made him terrifying by the way, and he ties more into the movie's theme. It's a more character-centric arc of Leo being humbled. Learning he needs to give his ego a break and help and be helped by his brothers. Since Krang is all about personal strength it sets him as a fitting foil, ready to be brought down by self-sacrifice and further humiliated by people working together.

Heck even Draxum ties into the theme. He is technically one of the Turtle's parents and is the reason they and Splinter ever became a family. It all ties into the theme.

So what about the villains of EarthSpark?

Well you have Croft, who is meant to represent the institutional xenophobia aspect. She does not like the robots even as she works with them and wants to get rid of them. Fine. Though it is frustrating that there's things she's not really wrong about, but she's clearly meant to be entirely evil. But sometimes that just happens. The bigger problem is she has no real impact on anything. There's no showdown with her, she just dies (maybe???) to try and up stakes. Also they called her Karen. You can't tell me it wasn't intentional and I HATE it.

And Mandroid! Who… well he doesn't like the robots because he lost an arm in one of their battles? I think? But he also sort of wants to become one? And that ends up driving him insane as he gets really sick? And he's just kind of a dick. …Look Mandroid is just a garbage villain who doesn't really tie into ANY of the themes and that sucks. You could argue he represents hate. On a deeper level you could argue he represents a perversion of the Transformer/Human cooperation dynamic. Or that his portrayal is just kind of ableist. But he just kind of wants to kill robots because he's angry at them, and is very boring.

-

Consistency of Tone

And here's where it doubles down on how it feels, since tone can be harder to pin down. But I'll try.

Rise is fully committed to being utterly absurd. It embraces the stupidity of its own concept and sets about building a setting nominally our own world but honestly nothing like it. Its action is completely over the top. Its villains are rarely taken seriously and their general mayhem blends with the mayhem of the world. No concept too ridiculous, we are in a world with teenage mutant ninja turtles after all! The final episode of season 1 has a sixteen year old girl whack a baseball at a toy left in the head of an ancient evil that a rat had been using as a teapot. And the rest of the series set up the world so that I was 100% willing to buy that.

It also helps with the more ridiculous plot points. Baron Draxum getting forcibly adopted into the family after his defeat is stupid. But the tone of the show makes it work, he's just another silly character silly things happen to. And again, it ties into the themes of family. The tone helps it flow better than say, Starscream or Shockwave's random changes of heart in EarthSpark which are played more seriously and with characters who have little to no build up.

Really the only times Rise stops being silly are the season 2 finale and the movie. Which are still kind of absurd but much darker in tone. And honestly by that point? The show had earned it. I care about these goofs and their world. Seeing all that in genuine peril felt awful.

EarthSpark's tone is a little harder to pin down. What it seems to be going for is a deeply idyllic feel that gets shattered by the darker things in the world when they show up. Which is fine, it could work really well! But, likely in part because of the way it released in batches, the darker points largely seem to come out of nowhere and then things go back to idyllic until the next batch opener or finale. Now on a more personal note, idyllic crosses over fast into cloying for me and a LOT of the show crossed over and never looked back. The attempt at a somewhat more serious tone also makes the goofier moments feel out of place.

I do think in large part it's the execution. If you want to have a tone that keeps swapping you want to balance it better. If you want a tone to shift once you have to earn it. And I think the balance was off.

-

Nostalgia Factor

One other note is harder for me to write about because Rise is the only TMNT show I have watched. So any appeal to the nostalgia factor here would be lost on me. Aside from maybe noticing that the two main Foot Clan members were voiced by Pinky and The Brain. (Side note: The more I look at the cast the more I hope the casting director got paid well) Which means I am kind of biased here. But I will say I know most of the villains were new characters the creators made to mess around with. And they are very fun.

Because ES really needed to ease up on the nostalgia. I think part of its problem is being unwilling to let go of the past, to focus entirely on the new cast rather than hyping up legacy characters. If you wanted to write a story about them, then do that! Again, I have no doubt this show was written by fans. What I doubt is whether that's a good thing in this case.

-

P.S. Rise also has significantly better animation. One of the things I did quite like about ES is the action sequences, but Rise completely blew it out of the water with theirs. And stylisation helped make even the simple scenes feel more energetic. Am I saying that Transformers should go back to 2D animation? YES.

[islaytonlost]

Three's a crowd

For a prompt by @madmaxou. This is a four part series, currently being badly proofread. First part, Second Part, Third Part

This chapter contains: Interrogation, hugging

Disclamer: I am no professional in writing OSDD. Please do not use my fanfic to shape your views on the real world.

------- It was weird seeing the Prof like this. Lucy had thought that Fendi was jumpy but this was worse. His sister, who she was lucky to know actually was his sister thanks to Katrielle’s letters, sat in the corner of the interrogation room while Drew sat in the middle. 

She’d been checked at the door by Flora for weapons. Flora was taking Drew seriously and it was maddening that he didn’t believe that him, or at least one of him had saved her life. She couldn't thank him because it could be a lie intended to manipulate him. Lawson had messed him up more than she thought.

“So you claim your name is Lucy Baker.”

“Come on Prof! There are years worth of records to prove it and I know you’ve been through ‘em.”

“Prof?”

“It’s a nickname I had for you. You didn’t like it so much at first you said your dad is a real professor but you warmed up for it because you are my prof, you’ve been teaching me how to be a real detective.”

“Oh.”

“You’ve known me since I joined here and were assigned to the mystery room.”

“Mystery room?”

“The backroom where we work,” this was her worst nightmare. Not only did he not remember her he also thought she was capable of doing something as awful as murdering him like Justin Lawson. He made her who she was and he couldn't even remember it. Or well, a part of him had. Lucy didn't fully understand what was up with this. She thought she had but she didn't.

“You call it the mystery room?”

“Because it’s where the toughest cases get solved!”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, we’ve solved tons, our first were the hand sandwich. That were a fun one. There were this lady and she’d been killed in this hotel.”

“I read the file.”

“I trust her,” Flora pipes up, “Katrielle trusts her too and she’s a good judge of character. She can solve any mystery. Just like you, and Lucy.”

Lucy’s heart rate speeds, please let him trust her, please. If he trusted her maybe they could get somewhere, maybe she could help her friend.

“Hm.”

“Look, I’m not defending him but Lawson couldn't kill you. He had his chance and he couldn't finish you off. He brainwashed you, it’s worse but he used this manual to try to brainwash you. We think it’s where Al comes from.”

Drew laughs, “no! Al’s like me, he just was what Justin wanted because that’s the only way to survive. He’s not a product of some brainwashing!”

Lucy’s eyes brightened, he had answers! “So you came from before?”

“Oh long before I was even adopted. I can't remember ever taking on the last name Layton.”

“So why are you here?”

“To protect Alfendi, wait, you’re not the one doing the interrogating.”

“But don’t you see! We’ve been looking for the answers for ages and you have them. If you won't tell me can you write them down. Al and Fendi need to know, they’ve been so worried that some cheap manual could have done this.”

Drew hesitates, “you’re innocent, you don’t need me, you're innocent. Some suspect really did stab us.”

Finally! Fendi celebrities, suddenly rushing into control. Lucy’s eyes widen when she notices the change.

“Prof?” She asks tentatively. It was all in the shoulders when she saw them switch control and this was so much like Fendi.

“Lucy! I was so worried, are you okay,” he ran across the room to hug her. Lucy rushes to him, they throw their arms around each other and simultaneously wince when they hit each other's wounds.

“I’m fine Prof, thanks to you. I’ve even located the suspect, I needed to prove it wasnt me. I didn’t blame you for blaming me, not after Lawson but I had to prove myself to you!”

“Thank you Lucy. Thank you, and uhm Flora,” he turns to his sister who was already sneaking out the room, “i’m sorry. I was foolish for not contacting you. Drew remembers you. He has memories we don’t have and they’re mostly of you. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s fine.”

“It isn’t fine, don't be foolish! I’ll try harder and now that Drew is around because he still is we need to figure out something for him. You’re smart enough to help us.”

“Thanks, I think,” Flora had never gotten on with Fendi, his attitude was just too aggressive for her. Not that she’d ever told him that, nor did she hold it against him. Sometimes his brutal honesty was helpful when the other people in her life preferred to sugarcoat the truth but overall, he was just a lot to take in, “uhm, I’ll be back later… In person. I just need to,” she leaves. 

Lucy frowns, Flora had been so bold a minute ago, “your sister’s a bit meek Prof.”

“She’s very clever Lucy, just had a weird life. Hopefully you’ll be getting to know each other well but for now, we need to write to Drew, tell that idiot who everyone is and who we trust.”

Lucy’s face lights up, “he trusts me Prof! That means he likes me!” she hugs him again, “all of you like me! I am your greatest friend!”

Fendi laughs, “that’s not an achievement, most people are scared of me. Now, come on. We need to get everything down and a certain someone wants to take control from me and say hi too. He’s not thinking of the bigger picture though!”

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

Flora listens to the celebration from outside the mystery room. Drew had been right about one thing. Keelan Makepeace had a few accomplices within the force. It was the only way Alfendi had been unable to solve the case. There was no way it was Lucy, she was too new but it was someone.

Now wasn’t the time to tell them what she’d discovered though. They were both happy and alive. The mole had no one to report to, he was isolated, it could wait a little while, until they were in a safe location. She pulls the files closer to her chest and heads to the filing room to return them.

“Hello Flora,” Blane smiles. 

[kaatiba]

oracle wip & povs

so i tried my usual third person limited pov and started with ro’s pov and had a lot of fun with it! had sassy footnotes! it was fun but not precisely the tone i wanted (at least, not immediately).

then i tried first person pov, which i hadn’t written in a while, though it used to be my go to for years. i wanted the reader to feel sage. but...it wasn’t getting close enough to the impact i wanted.

and then i hit on the perfect perspective: second person. i write fic, and lately i’ve been writing a lot of 2nd person/reader pov fic which has been great fun and great practice, and it is exactly right for oracle wip.

(or at least, for sage’s pov. jury’s still out on whether im gonna have multiple/alternating povs)

why 2nd person? because i want to inflict the narrative on you, the reader. the narrative tells you how you’re feeling and what you’re seeing and thinking. the narrative hurts you, because sage is hurting. the narrative traps and confines you, the way it does the same to sage, both literally and....metaphorically? i mean, he’s literally trapped in the narrative because it’s an isekai novel, but also he spends quite a lot of time in a literal trapped, locked into his body and aware and unable to move of his own free will.

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[pigswithwings]

the angel staying over at my house asked for a nightlight in their room and i told them buddy, don't you produce your own light? what're you gonna do with more? and they said they wanted to see why people like it so much. and also that the nightlight i own is blue and they've been trying to understand color. anyways i think they've stared at it for an hour now

[normal-thoughts-official]

Please stop seeing politics as an identity and start seeing it as a collective means for change

[greykolla-art]

Imagine spending all your energy being cool and mysterious 24/7.

What an idiot have I mentioned I love him?

Idea came from a cool post @nouverx made about Alastor’s possible sleeping habits. 💕

[mejkosmos]

whichever madman pointed out that the new rift on bill's body in the theraprism is meant to parallel ford's cracked glasses after he emerges out of the portal,,,, MY SOUL IS YOURS TO TAKE ANYDAY MY GOSH

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

bonus !!

ford about bill:

bill about ford:

[throwaway15384]

How do I change?

I am not a likeable person and I know that. The way I talk and act annoys a lot of people and they end up distancing themselves from me (no shade to them or anything), but I can't seem to change.

I have tried acting different, but it's very hard for me to change how I act, at some point I lose my self control and end up reverting back to the unlikable me.

I want to be nicer to people, just be more likeable. I'm tired of having barely any friends (though the 2 I have are amazing ly), and being unable to uphold most of my friendships.

I want tips, thoughts, literally anything that can help me. Ways to force myself to be nicer and more likable in a way that won't be short-lived.

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.