#I do that a lot. I save things from a media because it seems I'll get around to watching it and then I can reblog it

[visdiefje]

Went from 150 to about 40 drafts AW YEAH

[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles—02/August/2024

Blimey, it’s been a hot one here this week in the UK! But it certainly has set the mood for Book Four, which has a lot of heat to it…in more ways than one! ;D

I will keep it a short one this week, because although it was a fantastic week where I was on a serious roll, there is the most important thing I want to mention:

Chapter Two of the Book Four demo will be up on Saturday for early access on Patreon to $5+ tiers!

The post will be out around 1:30pm-ish (UK time) :D

Public release will be some time late next week/end, I would think!

The new editing system seriously seems to be working! Although it means taking more time at the end of each chapter, there are WAY fewer issues coming back from the editor and readers, which in the long run will hopefully make Book Four’s writing and testing process go so much smoother, as well as a much quicker testing phase at the very end—which is always one of the most time-consuming and stressful parts!

But it was super nice to settle down to do the edits and comments from the readers and testers, only to end up looking at them and realizing there was hardly anything to adjust or edit!

Unfortunately, things always still manage to slip through (I’ve found a bug myself I will be fixing today before tomorrow’s demo release!) but it really is so much more polished at this point than where the books have been in the past.

Wow, after saying I was going to keep it short I still managed to write a longer update than planned, hehe! I’m just incredibly happy to feel like I’ve finally found a process for editing that actually works and will save so much time at the end, as well as making the books that much more clean and polished!

Next week, it’s social media days! So I'll be working on those before diving right back into writing! <3

[white-sinner]

yandere nerd classmate

x male reader

WARNING: willing reader, sadic reader,yandere getting caught, dom reader, sex, dirty thoughts, dirty dreams

A/N;so my younger brother gave me this idea we were basically talking and all of a sudden he blurts out “you know sometimes you scare me with these macabre things you say” several times he described me as sadistic so thanks little brother for the idea?

❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁

a very shy boy meets a goth boy who will save him from bullies in his freshman year of high school only to find out that they are in class together the innocent nerd's obsession turns into something perverse but he is sure that he will take the decisions?

yandere nerd classmate:who has a crush on you since you two started high school now you're in your senior year and he's so sad he knows he needs to make you his but every time he tries to talk to you or get close his cheeks are all red and smears himself with his own words….poor stupid puppy

yandere nerd classmate: who gets distracted in class by his dirty little thoughts of you fucking him without caring about his enjoyment while you fill him full of your cum and he under you crying and sobbing

Yandere Nerd ClassMate: who is very good at digitally drawing literally a whole folder dedicated to porn drawings about you

yandere nerd classmate: who got a boner when you protected him from a bully your tone of voice so dark the threats towards the bullies and him on the ground behind you luckily he was on his lunch break so he had time to go to the bathroom to basturbarsi as he wanted at that moment to make a video of him masturbating and moaning in a public place thinking of you and then send it to you

“you are really pathetic to bully a person because your stupid dickheads can't even do two math exercises... *smile* let me just say it once and make it clear if you don't leave him alone i'll read you first on a chair cuts your friend's neck and I'll watch his blood flow as he screams in pain, then I'll remove his internal organs, slit his belly and make you choke on them, that would be a fun scene to watch, right? well maybe not for you but for me definitely yes”

yandere nerd classmate: that i start following you to your house stalking your social media well let's just say he wasn't really good at this stuff he was really pitiful but you didn't seem to mind of course he could have been a slut normally and told you he liked you but you decided to let him do it unfounded and let your prey live in his fantasy before killing him

yandere nerd classmate: that one day he decided to put his plan into action by following you in the school parking lot (you could literally hear him shaking and stumbling in his footsteps) and then attack you with a syringe full of sleeping pills but you caught him and crushed him at the wall

“w-what”

“what were you trying to do with this syringe, puppy”

“n-not-“

“don't lie I know exactly what you've been doing since the start of the new semester Logan*

*Logan looks down embarrassed*

“get into my car ”

“M/N wh-“

“I don't think i asked a question it was an order, enter in the car NOW”

after leading him to your house you let him in and kissed him by dominating him with your tongue making him almost suffocate

"well look at the drool that drips from his mouth"

*you slap him on the ass*

"you look like a puppy in heat"

"M/N please"

"mmmh? please what Logan do you need to use your words “

“come on you know don't make me say it's awkward”

Logan was mystified nothing had gone to plan but he really liked this twist so he decided to turn things around by looking away from you and trying to take control to which you replied slapping his ass again

“HICK”

“who told you you were the one in control”

at that moment Logan couldn't take it anymore he really wanted you to fuck him

“please… . you can fuck me…”

“ well finally you seem to obey “

having said that you dragged him with force creating a mark on his wrist to which he did nothing his crush was about to fuck him and branding him his what more could he want?

"Let's take these clothes off"

it was now past what seemed like hours to Logan you were overstimulating him and you weren't into him yet!

“M/N please put it in me!”

“aww but you're a little virgin if I put it inside it could hurt you”

“I don't care! I do not care!"

"ok little bitch calm down"

so you stuck all your cock inside him he started crying and you fucked him so fast that by now his mind was mush "well if you like him so much you could become my malewife by now the studies are finished"

"yes!yesyyes! i want eswhe your housewife M/N perfaw *moan*”

“you're such a slut”

and with these words he came and you looking at his face I did the same your hot sperm that mixed with that of before and before in short now Logan and Logan really realized all his dreams

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[echo-and-dust]

now that my brain has somewhat unscrambled itself i have gotten most of my thoughts in order about season 3.

and the first thing i will say is: i loved it.

while it was gutwrenching and polarizing in some ways and i feel that i am entitled to financial compensation for what its done to my mental health, i loved this season for pretty much almost everything it did.

i cannot fault people for having issues with much of the characterization and plot choices made—that’s been the trend during the entire run of the show after all, and imo it’s a testament to the phenomenal way it generates nuance—but i wanted to share my feelings on the recurring opinions i’ve seen about some of these things.

first, i do not blame simon at all for the things he said in the final scene. he’s a child who has been receiving endless verbal and physical harassment on top of all the trauma he is still trying to heal from. he just watched his boyfriend lash out in anger and hurt—while not at him, but it must’ve been a close resemblance of how he might’ve seen micke act. at least, that's what i thought, though i've seen others say otherwise.

and yes, wille is not micke, but just because wille’s source of outbursts is different from micke’s doesn’t mean simon is wrong in drawing similarities. at least he's finally getting a true glimpse into what wille has had to deal with. i've honestly grown to like that they didn't have simon immediately comfort him though; wille's mental illness is not his fault, but it is his responsibility, and instead of pushing a message of unhealthy co-dependence, the show has simon be honest: "but i see that everything hurts you and that hurts me too." and to me, that's so important.

plus, it doesn't make their love any less genuine. wille is a victim of the circumstances; he is not evil, and he is not undeserving of simon. he just has a lot of growing and healing to do, a lot of unlearning and exposure therapy because he's still blinded by privilege even when he tries not to be.

speaking of, i have so many thoughts about wille that i feel like i need to save for its own separate post, but to sum them up: i'll still defend him with my life, and he needs to get the fuck away from that institution.

also, the fact that the responsibility of controlling simon's media decisions was placed solely on wille confused me at first like—why wouldn't they get a professional to give him proper media training?

then i realized, this could be the royal court's way of sabotaging their relationship. they knew that making wille the one to tell simon what he can and cannot say or post would create distance and animosity between them. despite the ramifications of simon's behavior on social media, it seems they still thought it best to have his boyfriend be the one to try to mold him into the system. because they knew that's how they could get rid of him. in conclusion, fuck the royal court (we been knew but still).

one of the standouts this season was their transparency regarding the show's politics. it not only works well with the show's arc (wilmon is public, everything's out in the open now and there's nothing to hide), but also it felt necessary at a time where censorship has been rapidly gaining momentum. it felt so refreshing for these characters to talk so openly about racial discrimination and queerphobia and class disparities, forcing both character and viewer to acknowledge that they exist and you should feel uncomfortable about it.

i don't think i can add much more to what was already said about it—most of the fandom is more eloquent and observant than i am anyway—i just wanted to reinforce how important this season is to myself and the story even with how controversial it is to fans right now. a lot of people may disagree with me and that's fine.

[shuinami]

Jess and Hobie: their defining strengths + their weaknesses

I had a thought about Hobie while I was writing, have been thinking about Jess for a while and then this post about Miguel came out and it made me kind of want to yap. I'll only talk about Hobie and Jessica here because I'm biased + Peter & Gwen have been talked about a lot + I linked a post about Miguel + Miles & Pav have simpler, more obvious flaws that basically come down to youthful naivety.

I also find it really interesting that their flaws are basically opposites, Hobie's comes from "inconsistency" whilst Jessica's comes from stubbornness. And again, both these flaws come from their greatest strengths.

TL;dr

Jess' defining strength is her resolve when it comes to fighting for what's right and tussling with destiny but it causes her to have a one-track mind, even if it comes to dedicating herself to something wrong (from being misguided).

Hobie's defining strength is his optimism (e.g. anarcho-communism) but the extreme difficulty of pursuing those ideals and the struggle against systems can bring that optimism to a breaking point, causing him to be inconsistent or, more directly, to give up.

I think people forget that Jessica's pregnancy is by design and not just a 'feature' of Jessica Drew as a character. She was deliberately chosen to be represented in this stage of her life and I think it is so important to her character, even if it's not in the traditional way that pregnancy is typically portrayed as in media.

I think her pregnancy shows the kind of person she is: most obviously, it's cold, hard evidence that she's a bamf who takes care of spidey business even while pregnant.

More importantly to me, though, there's an implication that, as her universe's one and only spidey, she has been the one to save the day and been the change she wishes to seek, effectively enough that she feels comfortable bringing a baby into the world.

Unlike someone like Peter, she does not make the choice between bringing her child to work with her or leaving them behind. She just has to do what she needs to do to make sure her kid is safe, there's no failing for her. During her pregnancy, it's always going to be a matter of life and death. Jess is well aware and, instead of shying away from action, she's just committed to not making those kinds of mistakes. To get over her losses. She's going to take charge of her own world's destiny as she has always done and she's going to make sure it's good.

Her strong allegiance to Miguel's ideas is her most glaring flaw to us as an audience because A. we're seeing things through Miles' eyes, she's standing in the way of him saving his father and B. we know that Miguel can't be right about canon events - we know they wouldn't make the movies as bleak as that.

Of course, taking a step back from our perspective, it's also a flaw because she is being antagonistic to a teenager as a grown adult. It might make her seem cold and harsh.

However, Jess was the one to vouch for Gwen, to take her in, even though Miguel didn't want her to and they could have left things up to the web of destiny. Jess trusts her own capabilities but she doesn't trust the world to be kind. She doesn't assume Gwen can handle things just because she can, either. On top of being sympathetic, I think her dedication to being the change she wishes to see is why she accepts Gwen as a student; she trusts that a young girl can make the world a better place too, it's not a thing where she wants to micromanage everything. She just wants to know the multiverse is in safe hands. That's her "great responsibility".

The only reason she is following the anti-Miles agenda is because Miles, as far as she and anybody else in-movie knows, is jeopardising the existence of every universe (insidiously via the holes). Maybe, in another position, say, a bright-eyed teen who mainly worried about high school and puppy love, she would be more willing to risk things, to see how it goes.

She's not in that position though. Her world that she felt confident she had the power to keep safe has been made uncertain. One day, it could just go poof, along with her baby, and she wouldn't be able to stop it in the moment. If she makes the right decision now, if she doesn't make a mistake, she can prevent it. It's understandable that she's going to do whatever it takes to prevent anomalies.

What was the canon event chosen to represent her?

Her version of the moment from "The Final Chapter".

It comes from a story that largely focuses on Peter's personal life before spiralling into action to make up for a mistake that has made Aunt May fatally ill. In the panel, Spider-Man is trapped under machinery with the cure - the thing that will absolve the mistake - just out of reach. As the lair is flooded, drowning is imminent.

Against all odds, though, Spider-Man pushes past what should have killed him and rises to the occasion, with the thoughts of saving Aunt May and refusing to have a repeat of Uncle Ben.

"I won't fail you. No matter what - I won't fail."

Jess has had to handle her own fate as well as her world's. Now that the multiverse is involved, it's not going to stop at her own universe. She has to stop this. She won't fail. As per the dialogue between her and Gwen in ATSV, she's made a mistake before (by getting too close to someone) but she tells Gwen "I got over it". Sounds so savage in the moment but she still gives Gwen a chance to make her own situation right before letting her get kicked off the team. Helping Gwen in spite of the anomaly would be a mistake if she couldn't handle this.

And when the Spot gets away and Miles enters the picture? The gloves come off. It's tempting fate at that point. Jess' no mistakes mindset pushes her to even prepare to roll up on a teenager.*

Her greatest strength is her resolve - I mean, hell, she doesn't let even pregnancy slow her down when it comes to saving the world - but it causes her to be stubborn and leads her down a misguided path.

*By the end of the film, she seems to be questioning Miguel's method, though. On top of the fact that BTSV is obviously going to end on a good note, I think Jess' fight against destiny is going to have her come around in the end as Miles is doing the same thing.

Onto Hobie:

I luv luv luv Hobie as much as everyone else, he's definitely my favourite but I feel he has his flaws too (which tend to make me love my faves more lol).

In fact, I think he says what they are when we first meet him, though they are veiled as jokes.

I find that the audience tends to position him as a perfect distillation of anarcho-communism at its best. I think the teen spideys see him in a similar light; they see him as effortlessly cool & charismatic, a wise mentor figure ("use your palms" + his play fighting with Pavitr featured him taking on the stance of a boxing trainer as Pavitr tried to punch his palms) but he's not like the adult adults - he's relatable, he's cool, he's anarchist, he's not always on their case like Jess and Miguel.

He neither calls himself a hero nor a role model... but he is the perfect hero and role model, right? He's the best! He's the only one who's looking out for Miles and, when Miles is getting chased down by the entire society, what does he do?

He... quits.

Wouldn't that perfect hero we all believe him to be swoop in with his cape, know exactly what to do and save Miles, the underdog? He can't have possibly known Miles would manage against the society and, if he knew it was possible, then why wouldn't he lend a hand? He didn't drop off the watch in Miles' dimension, he gave one to his bestie, Gwen, likely in the scenario that she wanted to quit or got booted because 'it [didn't] work out'.**

I think Hobie's major flaw is his lack of consistency, as he famously said himself.

He has a strong moral code - he believes in the right things for the right reasons... but communism and anarchy are pretty much impossible to properly/entirely employ in a system that is consumerist, capitalist and authoritarian. He riots, he fights, but it's never over. London isn't free. In my experience, people with strong moral compasses tend to have issues with themselves because they hold others to higher standards than most and hold themselves to even higher and impossible standards (think Diane from Bojack Horseman).

One of the first comic panels I encountered of Hobie was him getting real with Captain Anarchy about losing morale because, despite killing President Ozzy Osborne, the face of fascism in his dystopia, nothing changes. He wasn't able to save the world like a hero in a movie or like a proper role model. He 'failed'. When you give your everything and nothing changes, no matter how optimistic, clever or read-up on theory you are, it can be hard to keep going.

And what is chosen as his defining canon event?

His version of Spider-Man quitting in "Spider-Man No More". Rather than being fed up with the world antagonising him as 616 is, Hobie is done with an antagonistic world.

The Hobie/Spider-Punk that has been built up externally, as far as I understand, would never give up. He'd keep raging forever and ever because that's the cool thing to do, because it's the heroic thing to do - because it's the right thing to do.

But under the mask, he's just a teenager, imperfect as any other.

He's still a Spider-Man too. Before the bite, he was another lanky black boy in racist-af, peak National Front, send-the-blacks-and-the-Asians-back, '70s England. He's a nerd, as evidenced by his ability to build such a high-tech watch, especially as a teenager who wouldn't have had access to anything like it until joining the society, meaning he had to pick it up quick. And I'm to think he didn't have any Flash-esque characters in his life? "Come out of it."

As Spider-Man with the mask on, he yells to the rooftops; as Hobie with the mask off, he mumbles and whispers. Sure he looks cool now but people don't tend to come out of the womb as Spider-Punk. On top of that, he's still so young and surely has plenty of room to grow.

I believe he joined the society in earnest, optimistic that he could help the multiverse but eventually reached his limits with actively facilitating death and trauma, with saving the multiverse not meaning freedom in his own universe, with being shackled to the web of destiny. I'm not convinced he made the watch in one day; I think he had been planning on quitting for some time and was waiting for the right moment (as he also wanted to support Gwen because friendship is important to him). That's why he tries to dissuade Miles from joining but, when he does leave, he doesn't go out in a riot, he doesn't even leave knowing that Miles has people on his side other than him. Hobie just quits.

I think his greatest strength is his optimism (his anarcho-communism & adamance about "love, joy and freedom" as per the un-permitted performance art pieces in his montage) but he's smart and he's been through shit - he isn't naive like Pavitr or Miles - the great heights of that optimism lead to intensely low lows.

**(I don't really see why or how he would have been able to predict everything that happened in the chase. I know that the watch is set to 1610 but if Hobie believed Miles would make it out of 928 and get back to 1610, would that not be things 'working out'? Or did he predict that he would get to the go-home machine but was the only one who considered that he would be sent to the place his spider came from. Why? And why wouldn't he set the watch to 42 if he knew Miles wouldn't be in 1610? I feel like the 1610 on the interface is just there to be there and that Hobie gave Gwen the watch so she could have the freedom to leave 65 if she wanted to, in the event that she quit the society because they captured Miles or because Miguel kicked her out as Jess kept warning.)

[snowdropluck204]

A Date With Death - Spencer Reid x Unsub Fem! Reader

Hi my lovelies! After a lot of people seemed interested in this story, namely a few that commented who I am tagging below! If anyone wants to be tagged in these chapters from now on, let me know! I am going to try and plan this out okay, I'll post a separate post with the release dates of the chapters! With that! Enjoy!

Also, I'm a Brit writing about America... Specifically Colorado! So if there is anyone from there that would be willing to help me, please do!

Tag List: @vexis-world @inexplicableeee @flowercrownsandtrauma

TW: Murder, gore, blood, vomit, mentions of rapists, pedophiles, abuse, y/n being mistaken for male.

Spencer pov

The BAU hadn't had a case like this for a while...

This case had gotten media attention across the country, further even. All because this unsub was doing things that many a soul had thought about, hell even acted upon, the difference between their unsub and the average person, is that he was getting away with it.

For the last month, bodies had been cropping up all over Denver, Colorado, all with the same MO. People, both men and women, had been found dead in different locations, the only things that the victims had in common were the ways they were killed and that they were all once convicted of a crime. These crimes have ranged from rape, domestic abuse, paedophilia and stalking, but each of the victims had been killed using three consecutive methods.

As the car arrived at the scene of the crime, the body being found outside his own home, I wasn't massively shocked to see the crowd of media representatives surrounding the scene, I was a little perturbed to see a separate crowd of protesters.

"How many of them are there?" I asked confused, "God the street is crawling with them!" Morgan nodded from beside me, as we both stepped out of the car. Hotch grumbled under his breath, "Clearly the local cops didn't secure the area very well." The reporters seemed to have noticed us, we weren't exactly inconspicuous in our suits and sunglasses, but we still flashed the badge, asking them to move as politely as we could.

Immediately we were swarmed, questions being fired at us left and right, "Do you have any idea who was behind this killing?" "What is being done to keep this community safe?" "Why has it taken this long for the FBI to become involved?"

We tried to answer as many as we could without giving away too much of the investigation, including how little had been discovered so far. The police here had no leads, so we were working off of very little, and, until we had analysed the crime scene, we had no working profile of the unsub to make up a suspect list. This was square one...

Morgan walked over to the protesters, myself following close behind, they were all carrying banners or picket signs, they each read various forms of propaganda, 'He's Saving Lives', 'Let Him Live', 'Grim Will Save US.' I tilted my head as we walked closer to the crowd. Derek very clearly hadn't assessed the situation as strongly...

"Don't you worry folks, we'll have this guy behind bars soon!" He called out, trying to get the group to leave peacefully, only to get angry faces and practically being spat at.

"Why? He's doing what our government is too scared to do now! I say let him go!" A woman cried, beginning a chant of, 'Let Him Go.' The chanting became louder, Hotch began seeming more nervous as they advanced. He turned to shout over his shoulder at the local police.

"Can you hold them back please?" At the authority in his voice, the cops quickly rushed to attention, herding Morgan and myself into the front yard. The crime scene.

The body had been placed, almost gently, into the flowerbed in the front yard, some of the blood that decorated his body had even been mopped up. "Do we have an ID on the victim yet?" I asked Hotch, receiving a negative, apparently the neighbours knew of the victim, knew that he lived here, but rarely spoke to him and didn't know his name, so I crouched down to see what we were working with.

This victim's demise, also followed the same MO of the last seven victims the unsub had killed. Each of the victims before this one, had been killed with three separate methods, asphyxiation, the throat was slit and then the victim was garroted. "Reid." Hotch asked from behind me, I turned to look at him, showing him he had my attention, "What have we got?"

I looked back to the body, fiddling with the gloves on my hands, "The victim seems to have been killed in the same methods of the unsub's MO, it's called the threefold death, it's a religious method of killing going as far back as Druid-Irish folklore. The threefold death obviously entailed a person being killed three separate times, in this case, asphyxiation, a form of stabbing and then a mixture of the two... It was said that this method of death was saved and used as a punishment for those who didn't deserve to die only once..." I told them, trying to be as concise as possible.

Hotch nodded, whilst Morgan began taking a closer look at the garrote around the man's neck. Each of the previous victims had been convicted of a crime, violent and sometimes sexual in nature. Each of the garrotes used seemed to be personalised, a single word scratched roughly into the wooden handle of them, this garrote in particular had the word, 'ABUSER' carved into the grain of the wood.

Morgan pulled out his phone, pressing it to his ear, "Babygirl, newest victim apparently has a history of abuse or domestic violence, can you work your magic?"

I focused back on the body.

Like all the previous victims, the body was as clean as the unsub could get it, he seemed to have cleaned up any blood that pooled on the skin, before laying them to rest, in an almost respectful manner. Laid flat on their backs, hands and arms crossed over their torso, with a single white lily laced delicately between their fingers. The only thing that didn't seem as respectful, was the plastic bag tired around their face, using the same garrote that was used to kill them. I decided to speak up my thoughts to Hotch.

"The unsub almost seems to have feelings of remorse, the funeral like way of displaying the bodies is another part of his signature, strange for what we would assume is just a spree killer, it's more likely that he was targeting these people, or that there was an extreme trigger involved.

"The white lily represents the transience of life and the emotions of grief and mourning, also strange for your average serial killer. There is the possibility that the unsub knew his victims before he killed them... That could prove that he has anti-social personality disorder, he's trying to replicate an emotion he has seen around death, like copying the process of mourning at a funeral." I finished, even I felt confused...

Hotch nodded along, before the three of us walked over to the front door of the victim's home, judging by the track marks through the blood, the victim was murdered in the home and dragged out to the garden. "The unsub must have been surveying the house and the neighbours, because most of them work nights or have late night activities, the victim was found outside his home at around one in the morning. Somehow, the unsub made his way into the home, killed this guy using three separate methods and dragged the body out of the home and positioned it the way he wanted in a small window of about three hours." I told the room.

Hotch nodded, following the trail of blood around the house, leading to a chair in the middle of the kitchen, the kitchen tile had a clear tarp laid over it, the chair on top, both were coated in a thick layer of dried blood, the knife used to slit his throat wasn't at the scene, so the unsub still had it...

(y/n) pov

The sting in my throat and eyes was horrid as I retched into the toilet bowl, the tears running down my face were falling hot and fast. Eventually, the vomiting stopped, I took a deep breath, now that I could, I flushed the toilet and shuddered.

I stood up, my legs shaking, almost buckling underneath me, I stumbled my way to the sink, looking up I saw myself in the mirror, the blood spattered across my face, my arms, my hands. My eyes were different to how they used to be, they were clouded by this grief, this agony I didn't know how to get rid of anymore. The colour was faded, the whites were blemished with deep red veins and my pupils were so dilated, so scared. Memories of the night flashed behind my eyes.

I was walking slowly, stalking forward, making my way to the front door of the house. I'd been watching the house for the last few weeks, he was a monster. Beat his previous wives, now he was alone. Beat his children, now he wasn't allowed to see them. The bastard was too scary for those poor women and children to keep charging him with the abuse, so now he was a free man...

Once I got to the door, I smiled seeing the electronic lock, I pressed a small device to the side of the lock, hearing a small buzz before the door clacked open. Taking my time, both so as not to alert my target and also partially dreading what I was about to do, I pushed open the front door, sneaking through the hallways, until I found the kitchen. The pig was drunk, he hadn't been home longer than half an hour, and he was almost passed out wasted, beer bottles lying around where he was sat on the couch, staring listlessly at the television.

I wobbled over to the shower, flinging back the curtain, my head reeling, I waddled carefully in, trying not to slip. I turned the shower head on, full blast, almost blistering hot, and began to scrub at my skin as hard as I possibly could. The water ran off of me in dark red waves, before they faded to pink and then clear. Once all the bloody water was sucked down the drain, I finally began to relax, which was a mistake.

I slunk up to the guy, leaning behind him before pulling out a plastic bag, the crunching sound of the bag alerted him. He turned and met my face, hidden by a mask, a cheap, crappy masquerade mask, a candy skull, hiding my face. A flash of realisation on James' face made me fear he had recognised me, instead, he began to stutter. "You're h-him, aren't you? The k-killer, t-the Reaper?" He whimpered. Coward. I leapt forward, wrapping the bag around his face and pulling.

I curled myself into the corner of the shower floor, the hot water making me more dizzy and in a deeper haze as tears filled my eyes.

"Please..." He kept begging, pleaded with me to spare his life as he tried to rock himself back and forth in the chair he was now tied to, "I'm sorry! I haven't gone near my family since the restraining order!" He shrieked, the most pathetic sounding noise. I almost spat at him, "Then your a liar as well as a beater." I growled, once he heard my voice, he realised that I wasn't the guy everyone was thinking of. "You're a pathetic excuse of human life, weak. You target the people who you're supposed to care for, children, your own wife." I snarled, stalking forward with a small, but extremely sharp, hunting knife.

The blood went everywhere, the walls, David James' face and clothes, the floor, me. The smell was metallic and bitter, it made me feel vile, hideous, tainted.

He was gasping, struggling for breath as I wrapped the bag around his face again, pulled out the garrote, bound the bag taut around his neck and began twisting, the wire digging painfully into the deep gash already across his neck. Eventually, he stopped struggling, stopped breathing. I let go of the garrote, the handle provoking me with my own handwriting, PAEDOPHILE. Taunting both David James, the beater and myself. (y/n) (l/n), the reaper.

I placed him in his car, and drove the short while down to the cemetery, I huffed as I pulled James' body out of the trunk, dropping him rather unceremoniously outside the gates, in a patch of half dead grass. I closed his eyes through the plastic bag, crossed his arms over his chest, and threaded a single white lily through his hands. After I had finished, I stood slowly, bowing my head, a moment of silence for the deceased, however undeserved it may be.

I left the shower, the water still dripping off of my body quickly becoming cold. I knew there would be little to no physical evidence that I was at the scene. I shuddered once again, the shiver continuing down my body. I quickly got changed and curled up in my bed, trying to remember who I was doing all of this for...

Spencer pov

After examining the crime scene, we all went back to the station, Garcia's face appearing on the laptop screen as we began to review the case, what we knew so far. Gideon was writing on the whiteboard, pictures of the victims taped to the surface, annotations lining them. Elle was pacing the room, fiddling with a pen as she asked about the scene and, in turn, the unsub.

"The protesters outside, they sounded like they were supporting him, how popular is this unsub?" She asked, Garcia quickly typing up on her computer, finding the information in quick keystrokes.

"Oh, he's huge, most of Denver population believe that he's saving their children and friends, he's only killing off people who were convicted of a crime, there's never any witnesses, never any tips called in. These people believe that the government was wrong to get rid of capital punishment in Colorado, that these people deserved it.

"A lot of people also think that the unsub deserves the death penalty too, but that he's some sort of public figure, he knew the risks and the punishment, but took out those who were a risk to their society. The unsub has a lot of names, The Grim Reaper, Charon, The Wraith, lot of mythological connotations..."

I sat, stuck, staring at the whiteboard. "What's going on in that big, beefy brain?" I heard Garcia ask, I finally looked up at the team, all looking at me worried. I felt my brow furrow further as I stood and walked quickly, over to the board. There were seven victims up on the board, the ones we had found, who knew if there were more. Now there was an eighth.

"None of this makes sense." I murmured, "All of the evidence contradicts itself, we can't make a linear profile of the unsub..." I trailed my hands along the pictures, "The unsub should be someone who shows little to no emotion, but he sets his victims to rest in a nice place, with flowers, almost mourns them. He gruesomely murders his victims with an ancient religious process, only to have no showing of any other religious motif or ritualistic killing.

"They clearly have been watching their victims, their neighbours, their homes, but there is no physical evidence of that! The places the victims are left were proved by relatives to be special to them, so the unsub leaving the bodies there shows some sentiment and that, somehow, the unsub knew them but none of the victims had ever met each other and have no social circles in common with one another!"

I had never felt so frustrated and confused. Hotch patted me on the shoulder as I sat down again, running a hand through my hair. He began a pep talk that always begins the investigation, "True remorse from the unsub might only be capable if they were compelled to commit the killing for reasons unknown to even them, or he's being forced to..."

[minniiaa]

Sorry if this seems repetitive but I haven't been active on social media in yearsss

Is it true that there's a lot of lawlu hate on tiktok and Twitter? I'm so confused because there used to be so much love for the ship back in 2017/2018 from my perspective (Amino era).

The short answer: yes and no. Let me start by saying I'm not the best person to answer this since I purely consume on twitter. I made my personal twitter in 2007 like it's everyone I've ever known irl and has nothing to do with shipping or hobbies and I follow approx 0 accounts related to anime, manga, or lawlu. I just looked up lawlu a few times and browsed and suddenly it's my whole fucking timeline and there’s no going back and now I have a lawlu twitter (This makes me very happy).

So if anyone else has an opinion on this that is more in the community, please feel free to comment away. Otherwise, below are my observations.

First off, there IS a ton of love for the ship. Most of what I see is beautiful art (they got the nsfw ayo), memes, fanfics, and headcanons just like tumblr. There are tons of comments of people swooning over these posts, Lawlu IS one of the most popular OP ships after all.

There's just a vocal minority that are very against the concept of shipping and in that subset there are those who are very against Lawlu. There people out there that will literally list accounts to block that ship lawlu or write lawlu DNI in their bios. The same can be said for other ships, it's not just this one it’s any they deem a ‘pro ship’ (problematic ship) and Lawlu is generally considered one of these. Below as is an example:

The biggest issues I’ve seen with Lawlu are the following 1. luffy is aroace and cant be shipped period 2. law groomed luffy and the age gap is gross. IMO I think most of these people are just infantilizing Luffy as some goofy autistic kid that doesn't know what love and sex are when in reality he's very self-aware and happy does not equal stupid. Also he's 19 he’s not underage. He met Law twice when he was 17, one of which was saving his life as a doctor and Luffy was unconscious most of this time. Let's not forget Luffy's a war criminal kicking the asses of people 4x his age in a pirate world, age doesn't really work the same as irl.

BUTTT Not that any of this matters because you can ship whoever the fuck you what because guess what? It's ~fiction~. I could rant about how people can ship whatever the hell they want all day but I'll save my breath for now. (my opinion of course)

Also there are just mentally ill people who enjoy telling others to kys if you like something they like do. Lawlu shippers are just their chosen target demographic. Creators get foul messages in their inboxes, rude comments, just general hater behavior. Twitter is just a firey cesspool and all fandoms have 'fans' who do nothing but hate. We live in an age of negativity where being a hater is the cool thing to do.

HOWEVER, I see more people posting about why those people are wrong and stupid than the actual negative tweets but maybe that's because I actually support the ship and the algorithm sees that. Not sure how twitter works, nor do I want to know about that dumpster fire there's a reason I came over to tumblr.

As for tiktok, I don't really consume a lot of tiktok so I can't speak on it besides seeing cosplayers and cute animations/art. I'll leave that to the tiktok people to look into.

For argument's sake, I went through the lawlu tag and picked some lovely tweets to share with you so you can see the toxicity for yourself. Sadly only 10 images per post but I think you get the point. Thanks for the ask hope this was informative. :)

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[flower-boi16]

Why Belos' Fell

I previously teased a post like this before in my post on the topic of Belos' being "boring" to some people and well, here it is. Belos is probably one of my favorite antagonists in a lot of media, there's a lot of depth an complexity in Belos you can draw from him, and here I want to analyze Belos as a character and what let led to his ultimate downfall and demise.

Flaw I: Bigotry

There are two major flaws that caused Belos' downfall, his bigotry and his pride. I'll focus on his bigotry first since that one's fairly obvious. Belos is strongely bigoted towards witches - he did come from a 1600s pilgrimage after all, and so his bigotry drives all of his actions.

Belos is consumed by his bigotry and hatred towards witches - viewing them as monsters who he must wipe out, which is where his pride comes in later. The thing I find interesting is that Belos shows what happens when you never grow out of your bigotry, when you cling onto it for years and never choose to open your mind to other points of view and when you decide to purely view a specific race of people as evil.

You become enrinched in that bigotry and there isn't any way to get out of it. Belos' actions are all driven by his bigotry - which is obvious enough, but he spent centuries in the Boiling Isles, in that time, he could have decided to let go of his bigotry and actually take in the boiling isles and grow a real connecting to it...but he didn't, he chose to cling onto his bigotry for all those years, and plotted a horrifying genocide on all life on the isles out of hatred for witches. Yet he viewed himself as the hero in this sitatuon. Speaking of that...

Flaw II: Pride

Belos' second core flaw is his intense sense of pride, which is a flaw that is heavily tied to his bigotry. This section will be a bit longer since there's more to analyze about Belos' pride. Belos likes to view himself as the hero here, the savior of humanity who will rid the world of all witches and demons, and his intense sense of pride is the one of the main things keeping him growing out of his bigotry which has comsumed him.

His bigotry towards witches is just that strong, their the evil who he has to slay, and there isn't anything that can change that. Further more, Belos seems to view any one who disagrees with him as inherently deluisonal or "crazy", mainly Luz. Something I don't see talked about much or at all is how Belos' sees Luz, in Hollow Mind Luz protests that Belos is evil for he plans on doing, and Belos mutters out "can't reason with crazy" before attempting to strike her.

Then in King's Tide, we get these lines:

"It's Philip. And despite our differences, I want to help you, Luz. I can send you home. I have just enough Titan Blood for one more trip. Please. I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place."

"I do pity you. These monsters have warped your sense of reality"

Belos belives that Luz is corrupted, someone who the demon realm twisted and whose life was ruined by it. He believes that Luz was corrupted by the demon realm, because he is not only consumed by his bigotry but also is so into the idea that HE is right about witches, that he is the rational one here free from any form of corruption and the hero of the story, Luz is just a girl who the demon realm twisted and corrupted.

However, the irony here is that Luz isn't the one who is corrupted here, Belos is; he's been corrupted by his sense of bigotry for years and he's never allowed himself to grow out from that. Belos then sees Luz as so corrupt, being beyond saving, and so, he tries to petrify her as a way of "putting her out of her misery", seeing her as fully corrupted by the witches.

Remember that earlier line where Belos says " I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place." He says "another" human life. Gee...I wonder who he could possibily be refering to here...

...yup, it's Caleb. Belos killed Caleb not only because he felt betrayed by him when he chose to hook up with a witch, but because he saw Caleb as so corrupted by the witch he hooked up with that he decided that Caleb was just too far gone to save, put him out of his misery just like what he almost did with Luz.

When Belos sees someone as too corrupted by the witches, he kills them. Because he believes that he's the hero in the story and anyone who forms a connection with the demon realm is either corrupted or just crazy. Further more, Belos has done many horrible things throughout the series; he's lied to and manipulated many people to get what he wants, he's cloned, abused and killed his brother over and over again whenever he felt "betrayed" by him, he led years of oppression and comformity by dissallowing the citizens of the boiling isles to properly express themselves in favor of conforming to one specific coven, and he's plotting a mass genocide on a whole race of innocent people all for being a race he sees as evil, but in Hollow Mind, Belos says that he'll "Do anything to protect humanity from evil", meaning that he believes that he's justified in doing all of that.

Because he believes that all of this is for his noble cause of ridding all witches and demons from Isles, so he can be the "savoiur of hunamity".

Belos' Downfall

Belos' inability to let go of his bigotry and sense of pride was what ultimately led to his downfall. Belos parralels Luz in the sense that both of them cling onto fantasies which involve the idea of them being "special" in some kind of way, and they actively choose to pursue those fantasies, however, Luz grew out of her fantasy fairly quickly while Belos didn't - he never grew out of his sick, twisted fantasy of being the hero of humanity when really he was the villian.

Belos never grew out of his bigotry, instead he took what was once a beutiful land and twisted and turned it into a land of comformity, all in part for his sick, twisted plan of destorying all of it's inhabitants.

In the end, Belos is ultimately defeated by the entire owl family + Raine, people who he hurt and damaged heavily through the series; Luz, the girl who he truamatized by revealing she helped him with his plan, Eda, the women who actively went against his rules and who he tried to petrify at the end of the first season, Raine, the person who he tormented by possesing them against their will, and King, the little titan who's father was used by Belos as a way to push his propoganda.

They stomp the shit out of Belos after his last pathetic attempt at manipulation, ending his reign for good.

Belos' story is cautionary tale - serving as an example of what happens when someone never grows out of their bigotry or pride and never let's his fantasies go.

[bloggingboutburgers]

First of, I'm a big fan of your work. I love your comics and art and was happy to hear about the engagement 😁

As for my question, I love writing stories and creating OCs/characters. In your recent comic you called out that the only ace/aro rep always seems to be "the creator said so on Twitter" (a problem with a lot of rep. in media).

So I was curious, if I wanted to create an aroace character (and write a story with them), how could I naturally show them being aroace? Do you perhaps have any idea?

Thank you so much for the kind words!^^

Arguably my complaints are ironic because I myself haven't done proper aroace rep in my own fiction thus far – though I guess I'm compensating for that with my current comics, haha 🙈 But also, I've said it before and I'll say it again cus I'm annoying like that – Bojack Horseman did it, in my opinion, so that gives the rest of the media less excuses I guess.

So, again these are my personal views, and they're possibly demanding, but this would be my checklist for ideal aroace rep:

The aro/ace character needs to... BE a character. Actually have arcs, that matter within the story. Whether they're about being asexual or not doesn't really matter as long as THEY matter as a character.

...Ngl I feel they need to matter BEFORE they're revealed as aro/ace too, and obviously after. If they don't, they'll just feel like a placeholder who's just there to tick a box to me.

The fact that they're aro/ace needs to be addressed and not pushed under the rug or left up to interpretation. Leaving things up to interpretation will have so many people interpret them as allo for sure (just like in real life). And conversely, saying they're aro/ace may spark some curious questions and possibly awkward conversations (just like in real life). (...Again tbh Bojack Horseman was great at doing it naturally. The confusion from the ace character themself, the ace character's friend assuming they're gay because yeah that always happens, the MC having a friendly yet clueless "haha you're lucky that'd save me so many problems if I didn't have sexual attraction"... I could go on.)

By that I also mean... Actually NAMING the orientation at some point. If it's not named people who consume the media and don't know such an orientation exists will be none the wiser. (I'm guilty of that myself tbh. In one of my webcomics I had an alloaro character but never had the orientation mentioned within the story, I left it at showing he has sex and him having a conversation with his family explaining he doesn't have a favorite person because he just can't, but I feel like that's not enough, and I've been feeling a bit bad about it.) A good way of bringing that up fairly naturally would be to have the character figure out their orientation within the story, as a way to have the audience learn alongside them; but it could also be played for drama, which I don't think I've ever seen and would like to dabble with myself at some point – like, imagine you have a friend you hold dear who's key to your personal development and suddenly you find out they see you as sex / romance prospects and not as a friend like YOU do? That'd be crushing but that could definitely make for a good conflict. I should try writing that. I'm rambling anyway. Bleh.

Another thing that, to me, is key to the aro/ace experience is that the character may have some moments of questioning their place in the world. Our world is obsessed with sex and romance and fiction exacerbates that to the point where some characters barely even exist if they don't have romance. This could range from "Do I NEED to even identify myself as something" (again, Bojack Horseman did that great) to "Friendship is the most important relationship to me but not to my friends, what if they all abandon me once they find the one person they consider 'more important'". I dunno. I feel like there could be some interesting storylines there. I definitely would love to dabble into that myself a bit more, though I lack the time and talent – those concepts and the lack of things that are done with it live in my head rent-free.

...Actually I feel it could be good to show aro/ace characters as full of heart (if it fits their personality), having their own feelings and emotions outside of the usual romance spectrum, to show that they're just as human and compelling as the other characters. (...AGAIN Bojack Horseman did that great imo, I feel bad that I'm only ever quoting that show but that's still the best example I can ever think of.) Like – betrayal, loneliness, grief, kinship, literally ANY other form of love than romantic love... We feel all of those too, and those deserve to be addressed in stories just as much (if not more) than the pining or simping that's kinda everywhere.

Oh yeah and speaking of being human... Yeah, human. We need more human aro/ace characters. Making it so that only the aliens/gods/demons/robots/whatever are ever allowed to be aro/ace only serves to dehumanize these orientations.

...IIIII think that's it. I might be forgetting some things I'd wanna add on later but I think that covers everything that would make for ideal rep in my own opinion

[lo-toh-takes]

What is your opinion about the episode ranking video?

It's bad. REALLY fucking bad. I'll admit there was a handful of things in the video I agreed with but 98% of it was just pure bullshit. Here are my full thoughts on it (Warning, this post is very long):

POSITIVES:

-Lily’s picks for the best list are completely reasonable. Knock Knockin on Hooty’s Door, Eda’s Reqeum, Young Blood Old Souls, Looking Through The Glass Ruins and Witches Before Wizards are all pretty good episodes.

-Her analyses of Eda’s Requime and Looking Through The Glass Ruins are particularly insightful with how she talks about what the episodes do for the characters. You made an insightful analysis for once Lily, good job.

-Some Witches Before Wizard’s appreciation is nice, it’s a pretty underrated episode imo. Would’ve been better if this wasn’t a Lily Orchard video, though.

NEGATIVES:

-The best entries for Knock Knockin on Hooty's Door and Young Blood Old Souls suck. Not because of the placements of the episodes, but because Lily's analyses of the episodes is compeltely surface level. For KKOHD, Lily just sums up the episode as "one of the, sweetest most heartfelt stories in a animated show ever told". She never really goes into why the episode is good and what does for each of the characters, her anaylses is solely surface level, which just shows that Lily still has this surface level viewing of media even when it comes to things she likes.

-The Young Blood Old Souls segment is particularly awful as well, not because Lily's pick as the 3rd best episode is bad or anything, but because most of the segment is spent less with Lily actually praising the episode and more with Lily throwing a bunch of spite at season 3's characterization of Luz. The entire segment is just comprised of Lily just praising the episode for making Luz look like some kind of badass "girlboss" in response to her truama, slinging more shit towards season 3's characterization of her for changing her truama response. I already talked about before on my main blog why Lily's argument about Luz's truama response doesn't work but Luz's truama response did not change in season 2B and Season 3, the only thing about Luz that changed was that she was despressed now, which Lily's true problem.

It's telling throughout this whole segment how Lily wants Luz to respond to truama. She doesn't like when Luz experinces actual emotions, she only wants Luz to be "fun", and when Luz stops being "fun" she gets mad and rights Luz off as a bad character. She only wants Luz to respond to truama by being a violent girlboss because when Luz is being that she's a "fun" character to her, and when a character stops being "fun" and experinces any kind of deppressive emotions or sadness, Lily gets pissed. She only wants Luz to be a violent girlboss and that's it.

And may I remind you that Luz is coping with the realization that she helped a dictator + failing to save the boiling isles when she has NO IDEA what's happening to her found family AND seperated her friends from their parents. Of course she's going to be depressed from all of this, Luz being a girlboss isn't somehow going to solve that. Lily's lack of empathy towards Luz here is disgusting. All because she stopped because the cinnomen role she was in season 1 and started experincing actual negative emotions.

It's the same shit she did with Hunter; she only likes characters when they are fun, and when they stop being fun they just become completely angsty to her.

-The best list generally while being positive still has a lot of spite levieded towards season 2B and season 3. It really seems like Lily can't praise something without tearing down something else.

-Lily further shows no empathy towards Luz when she says that in Season 3 she became "another type of insufferable teenager". At this point I've already grown numb to it.

-The blandest entries for Very Small Problems and Once Upoun a Swap are also fairly surface level; she doesn't do anything to explain why the episodes aren't good. For Very Small Problems she doesn't even talk about the episode's quality and just gives a summery of the episode first THEN makes joke about King suppousedly getting sidelined and that's it. And for Once Upoun a Swap Lily just makes a joke about body-swap episodes being overdone and moves on. That's it. She says nothing of substance in these segments.

-That's at least better than what she says in the Wing it Like Witches segment, where she writes off the episode as a pinning episode between Luz and Amity. Then she says that the episode started out as a Willow plot before devolving into an Luz and Amity plot....

....literally what???? The only real Lumity content Wing It Like Witches has is a bunch of small scenes of Amity blushing around Luz. That's litteraly it. The episode does not develove into a Lumity plot and I do not know where Lily is remotely getting this.

-The Hunting Palisman segment is where we start getting to Lily's hatred of Hunter. The segment features Lily blathering about her usuall wrong take about how Hunter became boring after Seperate Tides and that Hunting Palisman is the begining of this. Notice how Lily reducs Hunter down to base his base archetype in order to call him "shallow", when in reality he's a character with quite a few layers to him.

She clearly shows her bias here with how she only labels the episode as bad just because it the episode that began giving Hunter real depth beyond being the "fun" sassy character she wanted him to be. Like I already said, Lily only wants characters to be "fun", and when they aren't "fun" she whines and complains. Hunter stopped being fun to Lily like Luz and so she complains. It's all cuz of her bias against Hunter's archetype; she wanted a sassy antagonist and was mad that wasn't the direction the show was going for, rather it was an archetype she didn't care for, so labels Hunter as objectively bad because he no longer meant her rigid standards.

-The For the Future segment isn't nearly as bad as the other segments in the blandest list but the takes still aren't particularly good. Lily simply just sums up the episode as "nothing happening for the first 30 minutes where the characters angst and refuse to talk about their problems".

This is a very disengenous description of the episode, as a lot of things DO happen in that 30 minutes. The scenes with the collector and King, Willow's arc this episode, the begining scenes foreshadowing the big moments in the episode, Boscha's redemption (as bad as it is), and a lot of other things. Lily only seems to be mad at the episode because to her it's comprised of characters "angsting", and as I've said before, Lily doesn't like it when characters go through arcs that involve them expressing negative emotions in anyway, she'll just call it "angst" and that's it. Lily's analysis of this episode is also fairly surface level. She also complains about Stringbean's reveal being dragged out after she hatches and like. Lily. Of course the show wants to save the big pay offs for the end because...that's how story telling works...? But Lily clearly doesn't have an understanding of how basic story telling works so why am I suprised.

-The Reaching Out segment is god-awful. We are now getting into the worst list and this is by far the most painful third of the video. This segment is just under a minute, but there is SO much bullshit being slung in here it gave me stroke for a sec. Buckle in, because there is a LOT to unpack here:

-Lily first claims that Reaching Out is an example of an "issue" she has with Luz's characterization in Season 2B and Season 3, where Luz starts being "angsty" rather than proactive in response to her anxiety/truama. Lily doesn't seem to realize that being proactive isn't going to magically fix Luz's issues, this is another case of Lily only wanting Luz to respond to her truama in a particular way rather than actually experincing sadness or, "angst" about it, which is, ya know, a fairly reasonable response to truama that anyone would have

-Lily also seems to miss that this is not the same as before. Luz is being reminded of the death of her father and it's the anniversry of the day where he died, and she can't be there for mother on this day due to being in a different realm. That's a lot of mental weight on Luz's shoulders and being proactive isn't going to fix that. It's not the same as Eda getting captured in Agony of a Witch or Young Blood Old Souls. This further shows that Lily only wants Luz to respond to her truama as a violent girlboss even when that isn't going to fix anything. We are only 17 seconds into the segment and there is already so much bullshit being spewed. Joy.

-THEN she makes the horrendouse claim that Reaching Out is an Amity episode and Luz gets sidelined. HUH???? Reaching Out is an episode directly centered on the development of BOTH characters, Luz and Amity both share equal spotlight here. Just because Amity shares some focus with Luz doesn't mean that it's solely an episode about her. Luz's issues get just as much focus and time as Amity's. She's not being "sidelined".

-Lily then claims that Amity is a supporting character and so she shoulden't get much spotlight or her own episode, even though Amity is a MAIN CHARACTER of the show and gets a lot of spotlight in both season 1 AND 2. And like I said earlier Amity gets eaqul amounts of focus in this episode as Luz. This is continuing Lily has had for a while about Amity suppousedly being a character with little depth, and that she was just a supporting character to Luz. She reduces Amity to just that to further her racism narrative but I won't get into that here.

But Amity is a character with enough material to get several episodes dedicated to her, hell this same season has Escaping Explusion, an episode which while dedicates a lot of screen time to Luz, is an Amity episode due to furthering her development and kickstarting her arc this season; her reletionship with her parents, which is the natural continuation of her initial arc in season 2, yet Lily insists on reducing Amity like this which is part of how she furthers her narrative about the fandom.

-Her Edge of the World takes are also bad. She begins the segment with more slander towards Luz's characterization in Season 2B and Season 3 + some random spite thrown towards steven universe.

-Then she makes the claim that the reveal of King being a titan has no effect on plot and is just Dana wasting time again....even though the revealation of King being a titan is LITTERALY THE CONLCUSION TO HIS WHOLE ARC IN SEASON 2. Not to mention it becomes very important in the season finale and all of season 3. Dana isn't wasting any time here, she's resolving a major character arc she put for one of her characters.

-The Any Sport in A Storm segment is just as awful as the reaching out one. Immediantly begins the segment by once again reducing Hunter as a character as a character to just Amity's backstory + angst in order to make him sound shallow.

-Her description of Hunter's motivation here is innacruate af. He wants to prove his worth to the emperor's coven, he's not trying to be "as good as the other golden guards".

-She claims that Hunter got bodied by Willow and was then stuck onto her flyer derby team. Saying that Hunter got "stuck" with the flyer derby team implies that he was forced to join Willow's team, however, he was not. Hunter willingly joined Willow's team once he saw how capable they really were.

Lily's description here of Hunter being forced to join the flyer derby team makes it sound like Hunter has less agency here than he actually does, which is likely done to further her claim of Hunter being a "passive" character. However, when you actually watch the episode and pay attention, you'll see that this isn't the case. Hunter is not a passive character and Lily is deliberately chosing to lie here to further her narrative.

-Lily then says that the entire episode is about Hunter moping about to the right thing, which is a very rudective description of the scene.

-Lily then claims that the episode is the third time of Hunter going through the same arc of moping around to do the right thing until he does at the end. TF you mean third time? I'm assuming she's talking about Hunting Palisman and Eclipse Lake but that was not what was happening in those episodes.

Hunter initially going to betray Luz but backing down not him waffling around to do the right thing. Hunter having a mental break down and stabbing Amity in the back is not him waffling around to do the right thing. This episode is the ONLY TIME where Hunter is remotely conflicted about doing the right thing. Lily is once again lying about Hunter to further her narrative about him by giving out a completely disengenous description of his whole arc.

-Lily then makes a remark about Hunter being Dana's favorite to remind you of the many narratives about Hunter she pulls out of her ass.

-She then claims that Hunter has no importance to the plot and you can remove him and lose nothing, which is also completely objectively wrong. Removing Hunter would change major things about the show and course of how each episode would go, he plays a major role in each episode he appears in. Not to mention his purpose in the plot is to add more depth to Belos with the whole story of him being a grimwalker.

There should be an award for spewing so much objectively wrong shit in just one minute. Two more segments to go and I'll finally be done with this trashfire of a video.

-Two more segments to go and I'll finally be done with this trashfire of a video. Unfortunetly it's only going to get worse from here. She immediantly begins her Labrynth Runners segment by misrepresenting the moment between Gus and Hunter in climax where Hunter comforts Gus by saying it's "Gus being told to overcome his insecruities by Hunter".

This is a grossly innacurate description of this moment and once again Lily is lying about what happens in the show. Hunter does not tell Gus to just get over his insecruities, that's not the point of the fucking scene. He tells Gus that he knows what it's like to be in Gus' position, and says that despite what Gus might tell himself, he's not as stupid as he thinks he is. He's comforting Gus by refuting the negative thoughts Gus thinks of himself, not telling him to just "get over it". Lily is once again misrepresenting and lying about the content in the text.

-She then claims that Gus' insecruities are used as a vector for Hunter even though they aren't, and like I said that was not the point of the scene between the two. The episode spends as much time developing Gus' arc in this episode as Hunter. If anything, Hunter is being used to further Gus' arc here by being directly involved in it's resolution.

It seems that Lily thinks that whenever a Hunter is paired up with any other character, he instantly sidlines that character just by existing, even when that other charater gets equal amounts of focus and development to him.

-Then she claims that the subplot between Amity and Willow goes unresolved even though it litteraly doesn't. You can clearly see that by the end of the episode Amity respects Willow as an equal to her.

-And then the rest of the segment is just devolves into Lily going into a tangent about Hunter once again being Dana's favorite character and how she sidlines other characters in favor of him when that isn't true.

-And then Lily claims that Hunter has "no likeable character traits" or "interesting things to do" and that the writers just "staple" him onto other characters. At this point I don't think I need to explain why this is just objectively wrong. Hunter has many interesting things about him that make him a layred and compelling character, but Lily constantly choses to reduce Hunter to one-dimensional traits so she can make him sound like a shallow character. She's lying about him once again.

And her claim about Hunter being "stapled" onto other characters also falls flat because she's simply describing Hunter interacting with other characters, yet she twists it into making it sound sinister and like it's bad writting.

-Guys. We've made it. The Hollow Mind segment. The final segment of both this list and video. Finally. The suffering is nearly over. Unfortunetly, it's the longest and most painful one yet. She first starts off the segment by slandering for the future more by claiming that nothing happened within the first 30 minutes. I already explained why this critique holds no water so I wont do it again.

-Lily then sums up Hollow Mind as " wasting the audience's time by giving vague hints until the end where it reveals something the audience already knew". Lily is once again giving a grossly disengenous description of the episode, as major things and character development's do happen here.

It's a turning point for Hunter as a character where he breaks from the emperor's coven as he's faced the reality of Belos being evil. It's a turning point for Luz she's faced with the revelation of helping Belos which utterly breaks her and sends her down a downwards spiral. We even get confirmation of the grimwalker twist here. Things DO clearly happen in this episode.

-Lily randomly throws slander towards Amphibia even though from what I've heard she haden't even watched the show. Cool.

-Lily clearly shows her impatiance as a critic as she complains about it taking "too long" for us to see what Luz's palisman was for "no reason". Lily clearly doesn't want the build-up for impactful moments, she wants those moments to happen quicker, ignoring the fact that there needs to be build-up and development for these moments to end up being satisfying.

If Luz's palisman hatched before FTF than the understood scene would've just felt rushed. It's too early to resolve her arc about her palisman like this. But since when did Lily care about pacing? She only wants things to happen quickly rather than letting stories take their time.

-She ends the segment off by saying that Hollow Mind only reveals things that other episodes already revealed to the audience...keyword, to the audience. First, Lily misses the fact that the reveal of Luz being Philip Wittebane serves as a revalation to Luz, not the audience.

Second, Lily thinks that a blink and you'll miss it piece of writting on paper in Them Break's Kids is somehow already enough confirmation about Belos' plan. Ya, sure. You really expect people to just pause on the screen to look at that tiny ass text, Lily. I'm sorry but it's a lot better to have explicit confirmation rather than blink and you'll miss it confirmation.

THIRD, the point of this reveal was not that Belos was evil, the point as that it was meant to be a revelation to Luz about Belos' true identity as I already said. FOURTH, there is new information being given to us about Hunter's origin and the fact that Belos is repeatedly killed his brother over and over again. Sure it's being kept in paintings but it's still there and is referenced in later episodes.

And FIFTH, Lily once again gives a fairly disingenuous description of the episode here. Many things do happen in this episode beyond a bunch of big reveals as I already explained. Lily's reducing the episode to make it sound like it's bad.

-Lily ends off the video by making a very sexual comment about a 16 year old boy. I don't think I need to explain why that's gross.

This was painful. Genuinely a god-awful video and one of the worst TOH videos Lily has ever made.

[yume-x-hanabi]

Life update

Posted on DW, but I figured I could update this blog as well now that I'm semi-getting back into social media...

I've sorta fallen off from the fandom and social media space, because life has been a lot these past few years. To sum up briefly:

- I made a couple of posts about it last year, but I bought an apartment in a new building (construction wasn't finished at the time). Running left and right to choose stuff such as flooring etc, getting things organized on the paperwork side (banks, notaries...), plus the move itself, took me a lot of time and energy. I've been living here full time for 10 months now though, and it's been great. Love the building (even tho it's not entirely finished orz), love the neighbourhood, and it's so great to have your own place. Missy seems at ease here, too, which is important. The balconies' guardrails are huge glass panes that go all the way to the floor with no gap, so that means I can let her out without supervision without fear of her falling/jumping off.

- Work, the main culprit for my withdrawal from fandom. I think I mentioned before that I took on more admin tasks a couple years ago, and while I enjoy the actual work when I get to it, it's a huge huge drain to my mental energy, esp when combined with everything else (class prep, exams, meetings etc). So it's pretty much killed my drive, and my already bad work-life balance just became worse and worse. Like, it's not that I don't have free time (perks of teaching = lots of holidays), but when I do I'm so mentally exhausted that I was pretty much only able to play mindless games like Solitaire or Civilization VI (which became like an addiction lol) or doomscroll on twitter or reddit. I pretty much lost my ability to engage with hobbies, except for the ones below, and I'm trying really really hard to come back and make it stick this time around.

- Speaking of hobbies though, I've gotten really into classical music and started attending concerts regularly. By perfect coincidence, my new place is at a 2-minute walk from my city's philharmonic hall, and I've been enjoying the heck out of that perk. My city's orchestra is really good, and their program so varied. When it was time to choose my subscription for next season, it was harder to choose which concerts not to attend (but a choice had to be made ;v;). Also I'm super stoked because they're playing my favorite symphony next year, I didn't expect to be able to hear it live so soon!

I think this really saved my mental health this year. Like, it's a bit hard to explain, but there's something really unique and relaxing about the atmosphere there. It's a bit intimidating at first, and I was really self-conscious about not making noise at the beginning, but I've gotten used to it now. Mostly, I think it helped me rediscover what it is to just sit down and enjoy the moment, without constantly looking for stimulation to my already overstimulated mind (silly aside, but before that I'd sorta lost the ability to binge a series without mindlessly checking my phone in the middle of episodes. Being "forced" to keep my phone away for the duration of a concert has really helped me recover my attention span). I think it helps my mind rest, if that makes sense? Also there's nothing comparable to listening to the music live in a hall with great acoustics x3

I followed the Queen Elisabeth Competition closely this year, live for a few finals performances when possible, the rest on TV, and it was really awesome. I think in four years I'll get the subscription for the whole finals week :p

- Relatedly, I've also started taking violin lessons. I'd always wanted to learn an instrument since I was a child (loved those mandatory recorder classes we had at school lol), but it never happened (partly because I was too passive as a child to actively ask for it, partly because my parents probably didn't want to have their eardrums massacred, so didn't offer it (wouldn't have said no if I'd asked, but as I said I wasn't good at asking back then)). It took me a while to actually make the jump, because I thought I'm too old now and there's no point, but I finally did with some encouragements from friends and colleagues and I'm really glad I did. Violin is... hard lol. I sound absolutely terrible. But it's also really fun? Like I feel like I'll never be good, but also I've made so much progress since I started. I don't have much time to practice (I aim at at least 10min a day these days, which isn't a lot, but it's better than nothing and it's more important to do it a little regularly than a lot once in a while). I'm really looking forward to the day I'll be able to attempt to play Xillia songs 😄 Also I really love my teacher<3

- Lastly, niece is 3 now and so fun to interact with. It's not always easy, she's very stubborn and willful, but she's also really sweet and funny. Love her ❤️ And she's just got a little sister! who's a very chill newborn, so different from niece#1 lol. I can't wait to see them play together when they're a little bit older.

Anyway, that's pretty much the main things that have been going on the past couple of years. Like I said I'm not sure I can be totally back, I think it's gonna take a lot of adjustment, but this time I really don't want to let another year pass by like that. I'm really gonna try hard to have better balance this time!

[homestuckreplay]

ending the world to have something to rap about?

(page 286-291)

"you've got to fill me in on what's going on so i have something to rap about besides all your dumbshit movies"

turntechGodhead is back, and worse than ever. I do want to like this guy, but he makes it very challenging. John and Rose definitely kind of suck in their own ways, but TG sucks in a less tolerable way. He's the absolute king of having no self awareness, and has a massively inflated sense of his own abilities and importance in what's a life threatening situation for his friends. He seems extremely attention seeking as well, and while it's sweet that he likes talking to John so much (and I get the sense that maybe TG doesn't get the attention he wants from his very cool brother so is leaning on his perhaps less cool friends), I don't really have the patience for it given that John has explained the importance of the situation. Homestuck has shown a lot of openness to believing in the strange phenomena that characters in other media might question, and it seems like TG does believe John, he just wants John to take time out to talk to him anyway.

That said, I'm not going to criticize his rapping simply because I think that's a difficult skill to master, especially improvised rapping, and everyone's got to start somewhere. I couldn't do what he's doing, so who am I to dunk on these ill rhymes?

In the same conversation, John becomes movies once more claiming to be 'haunted by my dead grandma'. By sharing his home with the prank-loving ghost of an older relative, John's now living out the plot of the unthinkably awful Ghost Dad. Can't wait to see him help her with the big business merger she was never able to complete in life.

The loss of Dad's car and the Sburb server disc within is definitely today's most important event. It leaves a real question of 'now what?' and it's also the second thing we've seen plummet into the abyss - the first being the dark portion of the Kernelsprite - so basically guarantees that John will have to attempt a journey down there. Based on the Kernelsprite, I don't know if up and down (represented by light and dark, and perhaps heaven and hell) are the two possible paths the game offers, in which case John choosing the dark path but doing it to save someone he cares about would be a cool story.

John being willing to attack his dad with a hammer to get a copy of a video game but being reluctant to break a car window is extremely good. He draws the line somewhere, and smashing a window isn't funny, so it's off limits.

I felt like the sprite zooming into the living room right at the moment of the quake and accidentally prototyping with the ashes was really narratively convenient, and Rose losing connection right when she's lifting the car feels the same way, especially with her 'I promise I'll handle the car with velvet gloves.' I think it's necessary to take short cuts like this when the writing is happening so fast, and when there's not much forward planning.

And it leads to some very fun art. I feel so bad for John on page 291, and I'm always impressed at how genuinely expressive Homestuck art is. The sprite style we see on most pages is so static but John's facial expressions are the best every time.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

You: *writes two small essays clearly, cleanly, and thoroughly going through issues you have with the writing in Miraculous, and how they affect what the show is actually saying vs what the writers are going for vs what the audience is taking away from the show, without treating the characters as autonomous people who actually exist a single time*

Someone who pisses on the poor: 'oh so you think this abused child, who was magically created from a feather, deserves to be maliciously lied to by his lifelong romantic partner and fellow 14 year old? After everything he's already been through?'

Media literacy classes should be a requirement everywhere

Thank you for your kind comments about that post. Comments like yours have been very validating after what was initially a really disheartening series of events.

I was quite pleased with what I wrote and thought that I had done a good job focusing on the writing and emphasizing that I was talking about the big picture of the narrative, not chastising or praising specific characters for what the writers had them do. But after I had multiple people go off on rants defending Alya and Adrien, I started seriously questioning my own sanity and communication skills. I even looked up the definition of betrayal to make sure that I wasn't somehow misusing it since that word really seemed to upset people. In case anyone was wondering:

Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict

After verifying that I hadn't been using "betrayal" wrong for well over a decade, I got a little annoyed and did my angry rant in the hope that it would save me from further backlash.

While it has been super validating to see that my two initial essays did in fact make sense to a good number of people, that last post did go a little viral, which I didn't see coming, so I want to take a moment to make it clear that I DO NOT want anyone go after the people who did the rants that spawned my rant. Nothing they did or said was worthy of any sort of pile on. They were just expressing opinions and that's fine. I even get it to some extent because a lot of people have unfairly salted on Alya, acting as if she's the problem and not the writing. And that can be really upsetting when you like her because she doesn't deserve those pile ons any more than Marinette does. They are both victims of bad writing!

I get the desire to treat fictional characters like real people, I really do, but Miraculous is frankly not a good enough show for you to do that. The hand of the author is far too blatant, making characters do whatever the writers want instead of what makes sense for what has been established. One of my favorite quick examples is that the writers gave us a full episode where Gabriel "proved" that Adrien wasn't Chat Noir only to have him figure out Adrien's secret identity because he heard his son use the words My Lady as if that's a super unique pet name that would make Adrien's secret undeniable.

It's all nonsense, which is why I focus on the writing issues, treating the characters like the tools they very clearly are. I simply can't do the kind of character analysis you can do in well written shows where the characters feel real and their actions make sense in the established narrative.

I'll close with this statement to explain how I try to run this blog: the characters in the show are fictional, the people you're talking to on here are not. In the grand scheme of things, nothing about Miraculous is bad enough to be worth fighting over. That's why I enjoy talking about it. With all the truly important fights going on in the world, it's nice to come on here and relax by talking about writing - a topic I adore - without having to care if people agree. It's also why I have this as a side blog. I want people to be able to avoid my content if it upsets them as my goal is first and foremost to have fun dunking on a show that is bad in interesting ways. If I only ever got upset replies to my posts, then I would not run this blog because Miraculous is not worth being miserable over. No piece of fiction is.

[copperbadge]

Have we found a tumblr replacement yet? Apparently the latest “live” shenanigans were the thing that it took to break me. I’m not trying to stir shit, I’m just mostly here for you and a couple other blogs, so I’m going wherever you go.

I wish, but unfortunately not so far. I mean, I've talked a little about how I'd like to find one but there aren't really any viable ones right now, and there may not be a fandom mass-migration for years still. I'm more likely to follow the crowd than blaze a trail in this case, so it may be some time. For now my only real tactic is to simply not engage with staff or support at Tumblr in any way, and accept the changes as gradual steps towards the site's demise with as much serenity as I can muster.

I've already accidentally opened Tumblr Live twice while trying to navigate the app, which I'm sure is intentional, given I've now suddenly opened Tumblr Live twice since its inception instead of Zero. Relatedly, I would love to see them redirect that passion into making the "Mute Notifications" button actually work, but mine is not to reason why.

Anyway. There are options available, like obviously there are other social media platforms, but none have quite the combination of "easy to use" and "has a lot of people on it" and "Offers the same functionality" (photo and video hosting, an app, etc) even with an "ease of use" and "functionality" that are as crap as Tumblr's.

For example, Dreamwidth is great, but it's a Livejournal code fork so it's a very different format from Tumblr, more labor-intensive to make and share posts (no reblog function, image embedding can get a bit complicated, etc). CoHost is new and very promising but a bit of a ghost town right now -- I'm there and I've had a bunch of people find me there but still exponentially less than are on Tumblr. Pillowfort I still need to re-investigate; I'm there as well but it's been a while since I looked in, and I was struggling with the functionality previously. I had a look at Mastodon, but as positive as decentralized servers could be for the future of social media, I actively dislike the idea, and it also seems difficult to set up and complex to maintain. Discord is....there, and a lot of fandom stuff has shifted there, but its structure is very different and it's also decentralized, and also I hate it passionately and refuse to use it, so that's a no-go for me, though I suspect it's where fandom might end up.

If you're struggling with accessing tumblr directly, you might consider feeding the blogs you follow to an RSS reader -- I know people who do that and find it pretty functional, because then if they want to comment they can just pop open the specific post and deal with it directly. I don't know how much you know about RSS and I don't have the energy to fully explain it right now, but NetVibes is a pretty decent free RSS reader and it's what I use for certain blogs outside of Tumblr.

In any case, if I do find a place, or if I see the migration beginning, I'll sound the alarm :) In the meantime I'm still reading through my tumblr, stashing away posts to save off when I leave, even if that'll be a while.

[blazerwyvernmaster]

So uhh

I like In Stars and Time. You should play it if you haven't already. It's extremely good. And I will be subtly spoiling a lot of it during this analysis.

Recently I have thought of thr trend if assigning tarot cards to characters in media, or my on characters. So I thought...what if I did that to ISAT?

...so yeah. I'll be doing that. Please tell me if I mess it up, or give me your opinions.

Again, spoilers under the cut.

Siffrin(Fool of Hanged Man)

Fool: The Fool is generally seen as the start of a journey. Even though he is at the end, the time loops and the fact that they have a lot of things to worry about/trauma means that they have a long journey ahead of them.

Hanged Man: A reversed Hanged Man, to be precise. Siffrin is INTENSLY afraid of change. To be more specific, he's stuck in this time lopp because he doesn't want to forget or leave his friends behind. His family behind, his country, his memory. The hanged man is about sacrifice and moving forward, and they do NOT want to do either. But they must.

I would also like to add that they may also be linked to The Devil card. Mostly because it's about desire and stuff and Siffrin desires amny things and can do a lot of selfish and cruel things to his family members.

Mirabelle:Lovers or Chariot.

Lovers:Mirabelle is aroace and perfectly fine with that. It’s a shame that she lives in a society where being perfectly fine with staying stagnant forever is discouraged.

Mirabelle is very religious. She believes strongly in the word of Change. So strongly that she is willing to ignore her feelings of being happy with who she is. She loves expressing platonic and familial love, but...romance and sex ain't it.

I chose the Lovers because it is about choice. Crossroads in one's life, that decide your fate. She was about to make the wrong one, the one that would make her miserable. Luckily, she didn't.

Chariot: Mirabelle may not be the Fool, but the thing that helps the fool move forward is a trusty chariot. From the beginning she's been trying to move forward and save Vaugarde from the King, and especially in the clocktower and higher levels of the house, she is determined to bring her home to its regular state.

If she doesn't, she will let everyone she cares about down. Also, again, she loves in a society where she feels she has to change, even if it means being in a romantic/sexual relationship and hating it. It's all for change, it's all for moving forward.

Isabeau: Strength.

Before the story, Isabeau may have been a reversed strength Arcana. Or at least that's how would see it. He was weak, and had low self-esteem and self-worth. And he hated it. He hated it so much that he became...well,*he*.

While he doesn't necessarily appreciate being treated as an idiot now, he seems happy to be a stronger, more confident, and upright version of himself, both inside and our. Though...judging by the fact that Siffrin's comments got to him during their uhh..darker moments, there may still be some doubts left in him.

(Sidenote I think Isabeau may be my favorite character besides Sif and Loop)

Boniface: Sun and Magician

Sun: Bonnie is a ray of positive energy wrapped in a small little crab with a potty mouth and I love them for it. And so does the rest of the party. They support the others with their cooking and miniscule damage. And it's good.

The rest of the saviors would do anything to keep that ray of positivity alive. Even if it meant they would die in the process.

Its no wonder that when they die to the king in the end of Act 3...Siffrin considers that the end.

Magician:This is mostly coming from their hangout quest. Bonnie can heal and cook, but they can also fight...barely. The fact that they are technically the only other party member who can use rock attacks at base(without using a spell like Odile or Sif) shows that they have some potential. And they want to use and grow that potential to go on kore adventures and help their friends.

Odile: Hermit

Odile, while serving as the party's mature voice of reason, and probably fitting for roles like The Empress or Hierophant, I personally see her as a Hermit because of how isolated her story is.

The only one who ever knows what she's doing with her research is Siffrin, and only if/when you do her quest. Every other time, she seems to be isolated and actively hiding it. Its not that she doesn't rely on her friends,but...she's simply doing this alone.

It's a very personal journey for her about being more connected to your heritage and reflecting on yourself.

To be honest, Hermit works REALLY well for Siffrin, too.