#I feel like our equivalent of this would be the Internet

[oldtvandcomics]

Peter Cashorali's work is so interesting, because yes, it's fairy tales, but it's EDUCATIONAL fairy tales written with the explicit goal of passing down knowledge within the gay (men) community. Also, these books are almost thirty years old, so it is lived experience by what it now pretty much a previous generation. Fascinating read. Also makes you wonder what today's queer wisdom would look like.

[therainscene]

I've described myself in the past as "overly-queerbaited" as a way of explaining why it took me so long to come around to Byler endgame as a legitimate possibility... but that's kind of a misleading way of putting it.

Truth is, I've always been too much of a cynical fuck to fall for queerbait... or any other story that promises positive queer rep.

[Sherlock couldn't touch me; I saw this cringe homophobia coming from a mile away. Fans mistaking straight anxiety jokes for meaningful gay subtext was clearly doomed to end in mockery. Nobody deserved to be treated like that... but god, it was easy to predict.]

I think it's a symptom of having grown up under Section 28 -- feeling like I'm being unreasonable for wanting to see queerness normalized is such an ingrained habit that even today I instinctively recoil like a vampire touching sunlight whenever an optimistic queer story falls unrequested into my lap.

But I'm hardly alone in feeling this way -- many queer Millennial and Gen-X fans of Stranger Things are against the idea of Byler because it would ruin the catharsis of watching the gay boy growing up in the same era as we did slowly succumb to the same despair that we did.

[For those who haven't played the VR game: Vecna is speaking in this screenshot.]

There's genuine comfort to be found in painful stories -- this type of catharsis is practically the cornerstone of horror as a genre -- so I can't really fault myself or anyone else for wanting it, despite the obnoxious oversaturation of disappointing queer endings in media.

This is the nostalgia show, after all -- and like it or not, for many middle-aged queers in the target audience, nostalgia is shot through with the pain of homophobia and loneliness.

But do you know who else is a hurt queer(-coded) adult who resents happy endings? This cynical fuck:

Henry personifies despair and loneliness and the dark urge to take our pain out on others -- and when Will is in the picture, I would argue that he also represents internalized homophobia.

Will might represent who we were -- but Henry represents who we've let ourselves turn into.

And I don't think many of us want to admit to that, because that would involve questioning why we have so much in common with the literal villain of the show; why we're still so consumed with self-pity after 20+ years that we're obsessing over the fate of some kid.

I'm not suggesting that wanting a less-than-fairytale ending for a fictional gay boy is equivalent to being a child killer lol. It's perfectly valid to want to see your pain acknowledged, and stories which appeal to that desire deserve to exist.

But between Henry's connection to Will and the cycle of abuse themes of the show, it's clear that this particular story simply isn't about wallowing in the bleakness of growing up gay in the 80s, but about self-actualizing in spite of it all.

So I just can't bring myself to want a "relatable" ending for Will.

As much as I struggle to enjoy positive queer rep, I don't want to be so cynical. I'd thrown up so many walls to protect myself as a teenager that I forgot how desperately I wanted to see just one of those painful queer stories end on the same uplifting note that straight stories were always entitled to: with true love overcoming the odds, saving the day, and living happily ever after.

[But I'm A Cheerleader, a surprisingly fun movie about conversion therapy, is proof that stories like this did exist when I was a teen... but finding them in the pre- and early-internet days amidst so much censorship was a tall order.]

What makes Stranger Things different from most queer stories -- and what allowed it to pierce through my defenses and stab me in the gut -- is that it perfectly mimics those bleak, acceptable-to-the-censors stories from my youth -- only this time, the secret uplifting gay plot twist is real.

Not for the sake of shock value or of grabbing some empty woke points at the last second, but because the plan all along was to slap the audience in the face for believing homophobic lies about the existence of queer happiness.

That's some gourmet catharsis, if you ask me.

Just the possibility that my inner child might finally be vindicated has allowed me to truly let myself want the things I want for the first time in 20 years -- and that's the first step towards finally crawling back out into the sunlight.

Happy Pride Month, everyone. 🌈

[taffywabbit]

"why not just make your own website?"

with the announcement of cohost's death and amidst all the other tumultuous shit currently going on with social media as a concept (i am AMAZED twitter has survived this long given the circumstances), one suggestion that i've been hearing a lot is "we should just go back to the good old days of personal websites. let's all just make neocities pages!!"

(this is gonna be a long one sorry)

and like. idk! it's certainly something i've considered, i think it would be a fun thing to have, but it also feels like the equivalent of "capitalism sucks so let's all just run off into the woods and live in a cabin outside of society" to me. like it would be nice, it would be fun, but it doesn't ultimately solve the actual problems that are present with the modern internet, it just evades them. more importantly in my case and many others, it does not really help people who rely on the modern internet and the connections they're able to make there for their income. sure i can make a website and host my art and blog posts there, but who's going to see it? i can't build a consistent audience and make a living off of random passersby who peek at my website once, say "huh, neat!" and MAYBE add it to an RSS feed or whatever if they really like it. there's minimal potential for meeting and impressing new people outside my existing circles if i don't ALSO still have some manner of social media platform to promote the website on.

a lot of the "solutions" i see people proposing for the slow, painful decline of social media as a user experience keep coming back to old-fashioned, more isolated/insular systems. we miss forums, we miss personal webpages, we miss newsletters, etc etc. but like... those things were ideal in the "old web" because the old web was more about sharing hobbies and interests with whoever happened to pass by and check them out, and even just USING the internet was a niche hobby in and of itself for a lot of people. if you wanna be kinda cynical about it (and not unjustifiably so), web 2.0 is much more blatantly business-oriented, and its algorithms and carefully crafted UX's are primarily meant to funnel you towards viewing ads and spending money on products. looking at it that way, it sure does suck and Everything Was Better Before! but the modern web is ALSO more powerful than anything before it for just like. connecting people. spreading information and news. showing your art/music/writing/thoughts/etc to strangers who never knew you existed an hour ago. putting the tools to reach out to someone and tell them you think they're cool right there on the same website where their art is hosted, just a comment or a message away.

if you're able to avoid patterns of engagement-bait and obsessing over follower counts as a measure of self-worth (a big "if", i realize, but i view it like installing an adblocker - it's just kind of a basic prerequisite for modern internet safety and survival), a lot of these systems can genuinely be really positive and life-changing in ways that were simply not possible 20 years ago! almost all of my current closest friends are people I met through sharing our art on platforms like Twitter who were complete strangers at the time. all of the art clients that regularly pay my bills and support my work came from places like that too! the "social" part of "social media" is really what makes it ultimately worth keeping around in any form, and makes the pursuit of a Good social media platform still valuable.

there's a lot to love about the old web - its aesthetics, simplicity and freedom for personal expression - but every time someone says "just delete your socials and make a personal website" i am forced to confront the fact that i could never do what i currently do or be the person i am on the old web. if i was stuck hanging out in my own little space and only ever interacting with people who openly and loudly share my interests, i couldn't support myself with art full-time, i probably would never have met the kind and quiet strangers who are now my best friends and have made me who i am, and i'd just generally get a lot less insight into the vast range of experiences and perspectives that exist outside of my own. my life would be on a fundamentally different trajectory in countless ways without the advent of web 2.0.

and that's not to say "well twitter and facebook and tumblr all suck but you kinda still have to hand it to them" cuz you don't, obviously. they're corporations, and their job is to take the personalities and thoughts and art of the people who use their products and try to scrunch it all into something uninform and marketable that generates profit and pleases their shareholders. but like, you CAN still make a good thing out of them! these websites are tools just as much as geocities or myspace or IRC used to be. and the one thing these newer tools are pretty much all REALLY good at is discoverability. if you're just a hobbyist at the things you wanna share on the internet, then you likely don't have a lot of use for those tools, and perhaps you WOULD genuinely be happier just keeping a personal blog site or hanging out in private groupchats or sticking to specialized federated Mastodon instances or whatever. it just isn't feasible for me, and there are a LOT of people in my same situation. my entire industry of online freelance artists barely existed 20 years ago, and the web culture of that era is largely incompatible with my continued survival in the mid-2020s. i would LOVE to run off and live in the woods in concept, but all my survival skills are adapted for city living and i would just eat the wrong berry and die out there. i want- i NEED people to try and improve the spaces we're in, and support better forms of social media (like what cohost was trying and largely succeeding to do!) instead of just complaining that it all sucks, everything was better when we were kids, and digging ourselves little holes to hide in. much like all the other problems and frustrations and systemic issues of the world we live in, the modern web isn't going to go away if you just ignore it, so we may as well try to make it better for everyone.

anyways tl;dr i probably WILL make a neocities at some point. it could be fun, even if it doesn't help my career stability or whatever. but i do also need ALL THE SOCIAL PLATFORMS I USE FOR MY JOB TO STOP EXPLODING PRETTY PLEASE, and failing that, some actual half-decent alternatives that aren't going to fizzle out in a month would also be great thanks ✌

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

Do Timelord’s have their own curse words?

Do Time Lords have their own curse words?

Gallifreyan society has a lot of slang and common phrases, and we'll focus on the ruder ones here - y'know, the ones you probably don't want to use in front of your Gallifreyan grandma.

There aren't so many 'direct' translations of swear words, but rather phrases and slang more attached to their culture.

The conlang can offer more, and also provide translations for these (mostly English) phrases, but we'll just look at these canonical ones for now.

🤬 List of Swears

D'Arvit: Unspecified curse word, might be something like "dammit!"

Fall off!: Possibly equivalent to "get lost" or "f--k off".

For Rassilon's sake!: Similar to "for God's/f--k's sake".

Gjara'vont: "of darkest thought". Possibly used as an insult to call someone sick-minded.

Little sheetsnacker: Likely directed at someone considered annoying or insignificant.

Old Pythia: An insult for females, like "old hag." Due to its context, it's probably used as a derogatory term against powerful women.

Omega’s Orifice: Self-explanatory.

Otherf--ker: Self-explanatory.

Rassilon’s Blood/Rassilon's Death: A couple of particularly strong phrases for obvious reasons - don't wanna be insulting Rassilon.

Rassilon's Rod: Cruder one.

Scares the staazula out of me: "Scares the s--t out of me".

Shobogan: Gets used occasionally as an insult for people who are perceived as particularly stupid or uncultured.

Rot in a black star: "Go to hell".

Shell snacker: Referring to someone who consumes hallucinogenic substances, particularly cerub nuts.

Sweet mother of Chaos!: "Sweet mother of God!"

We’re scrubbed: "we're screwed/we're f--ked"

What the Omega!?: "what the hell/f--k!?"

Yssgaroth curse you: Pretty gnarly threat, where the speaker wants you to turn into an abomination.

I should note that during the Time War any use of the names Rassilon or Omega was considered blasphemous.

🔞 The Untranslatable Curse

There exists a Gallifreyan curse that has no English translation and is considered so rude that it's been deleted from the Matrix:

🏫 So ...

While there's not so much in the way of direct translations, Gallifreyans attach plenty of cultural nuance to their profanities. So if they insult you, they're doing it in an irritatingly clever way.

Related:

Can humans/non-Gallifreyans learn to speak Gallifreyan?: How possible it would be to see a human speaking Gallifreyan.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[curiositysavesthecat]

“Art of any kind” means of any medium. illustrations, movies, books, fursuits, video games, etc.

Additional comment from the submitter: ❝i’ve recently been getting really annoyed about people who think being a furry is nothing but a kink, or worse, something equivalent to bestiality, so i wanted to have a poll both to correct that misinfo and to gauge how many people actually think it is those things.

there are furries who are kinky about it, but being a furry isn’t inherently sexual. and those who are kinky about it aren’t the same as literal animal abusers. it’s a fandom, basically, just one centered around the concept of anthro animals instead of any single piece of media.

it’s also not the same as identifying as an animal; that’d be therians and/or otherkin folks (who are also not inherently sexual), though they can be furries too.

as an asexual furry myself, the mainstream perception of furries just really pisses me off. especially when there are so many minors in the community. it’s frustrating and alienating at best and dangerous at worst.

(extra note mostly for the mod, but it’s okay if the public sees this too: i didn’t want to add an “i am a furry / i am not a furry” dichotomy to question 9. i have a feeling all that would do is inspire trolls to press the “i am a furry” option for the shock value and lol's.)❞

This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).

[johnwickb1tsch]

ok: pro vs. anti...where do you think is the line? would you ever stop following or tell anyone to dni do to diffrence of opinion here? what makes a thing that is bad irl ok to write and read vs. not ok even in stories? i know this is a awkward topic thxxx

Hoo boy! That is a big question! Several big questions.

So, first off, I guess I feel like so long as you post your warnings properly, you can write whatever you want, and people are on their own. That "keep reading" cut is a beautiful thing. For example, dubcon and noncon. It's icky in real life. In fic, obviously, a lot of us love it, and I think it's actually a lot healthier to read/write about it than maybe get yourself in a situation in real life because you're curious about it. And a lot of the time, people are working through something that happened to them in real life. Fic is therapy. Like seriously.

If someone posts things you don't like...don't look at it! Block them. It's fine. I think it's silly people feel like they have to police things or argue with each other or attack each other about their differences in preference in fandom. Or "report" things just because it's not their cup of tea. It's the tumblr equivalent of "I'm telling Mom!"

It's petty, really.

Fandom is silly, of course, but at the same time it's something we all take very personally. We're attached to our characters and our headcanons and the things we create. It's like baring a piece of your heart to a million people from all corners of the world over the internet. When someone goes out of their way to be hateful about it, it really does hurt. Why do that to someone when you can just keep scrolling to find something you actually like?

Everyone can play in their own little sandbox. And if you're lucky, you find other people who like the same toys in that sandbox, and everyone has fun. If you don't like the toys, leave the sandbox. There's probably another one out there for you...it's a big world. We don't have to go out of our way to make each other miserable in it.

Just be safe and have fun!

[yuriskies]

The Queer Ultrablue Sublime

"Over two and a half years, I honestly don't know whether it's all over or not yet. In the end, I still don't understand why it happened, and nobody has been able to help me, nor is there anyone close to me who knows something about it. Was it summoned by some uncertain knowledge gained from somewhere, or perhaps there is some casual relationship to it? I don't know anything. 

The only thing I can say is that it happened purely by chance. But if that were true, it's too harsh for something that happened entirely by chance. Am I being punished for some crime I committed? I never did anything bad though? And even if that's so...why? It's unfair. That's honestly how I feel."

Anonymous 2ch user, November 2009. 

This quote, taken from the relatively famous Japanese netlore horror tale "Real" (translated by Tara A. Devlin in Kowabana: Origins), was written by a man who on the joking suggestion of a friend performed an action that allowed an entity to attach itself to him. The entity can be understood, lived with, and mindfully directed into a position where it can cause no harm, but will always remain a permanent fixture in his life, a constant source of looming dread both for himself and perceptive folks around him.

I'm a big fan of the story because the narrative voice seems to map the intersection between horror and queerness in a way I've seen few other horror stories do. I would guess a fair number of queer people reading this have expressed thoughts along the same lines of the above quote at some point in their journeys. If so, that connection between horror and queerness might feel intuitive. Don't worry if it doesn't, I'll take a moment to talk about it.

Horror thrives on exploration of the strange, the uncanny, the unknown and unknowable. Horror stories are our anxieties given narrative, and thus, given form and power. Our continued engagement with horror tests our comfort zones, prodding us to discover and settle our boundaries - self and non-self, acceptable and unacceptable, safe and dangerous.

A normative identity carries with it an expected set of social behaviors. In this system, personal boundaries are delineated like parcels of land and the amount of control one can expect to exert over those boundaries is tied up in the social status associated with the identity one is assigned. When a person attempts to escape this normative identity - defining their own boundaries, subverting expected behaviors - it is a constant outward battle to find a compromise between socially safe and personally acceptable allowing the self to thrive. In effect, embarking on this journey is akin to entering a horror story in which one is the protagonist. 

The Internet has been profoundly impactful in enabling people to explore their own sense of self. In the past, a lack of outside support and affirmation may have once pushed someone into unhappily settling for a normative identity. However, modern connectivity means support and affirmation is accessible. The increased access to support has also allowed people to discuss and hone the language they use to describe themselves. These factors have resulted in a comparatively rapid erosion of old norms, and with it, exhumed deep anxieties around identity and one's place in the world. For better and worse, rejecting the old answers means dealing with the uncertainty of the new.

Netlore (short horror stories posted anonymously to Japanese boards) and its Western equivalent, creepypasta, often reflect this sense of dislocation and disorientation. Glimpses of forbidden knowledge drive one to insanity. The legacy of monstrous creatures and objects created in the past creates a lurking danger in the present. A wrong move saddles one with a lifetime of consequences. And yet, the possibility of a better future is often also embedded within these stories. Exorcisms can lift the weight of the past. Curse-casters can be identified and dealt with. In some stories, people are even provided with the knowledge and training to hold their own against the unrelenting presence of horror.

So with this connection between horror and queerness in mind, I want to talk about Iori Miyazawa's lesbian romance/horror novel series Otherside Picnic. Miyazawa's writing understands this connection at a fundamental level, and does an astonishingly good job at wielding the connection to explore the structure of human relationships.

The series is centered on Sorawo Kamikoshi, a 20-year old university student in anthropology. As the story opens, she exists in a socially fragile state - fixated on netlore in hopes it will lead her to an escape hatch from the crushing pressure of daily life. She finds that escape in the Otherside, a mysterious world seemingly generated around the most surreal and puzzling aspects of netlore. She quickly gets herself into trouble on her first real foray into the Otherside and is narrowly rescued from a near-death experience by Toriko Nishina. Toriko is another university student wandering the Otherside in search of her missing tutor, the woman who introduced her to the Otherside. Sorawo quickly (and begrudgingly) develops a strong bond with Toriko and the two start traveling to the Otherside together to unravel its mysteries and the strange entities that lie beyond it. Through their exploration, they increasingly find themselves surrounded by small community of other women with a connection to the Otherside.

On the surface, Otherside Picnic is an often silly action/adventure story which at first glance comes off more as a love-letter to netlore than a romance novel. However, as the story progresses it becomes clear that the horror is the scaffolding that supports the romance's growth. Badly traumatized by her previous cult life, Sorawo flatly rejects the common relationship structures that allowed her to be harmed. In the absence of those existing structures, she struggles to give form to her interpersonal relationships. Whether it's a quietly thrilling moment of holding hands in the midst of exploring a new world or a terrifying near-death experience while helping a friend, events push her to put words to the unspoken.

Sorawo understands netlore far better than she understands herself, and horror is necessarily the mirror in which Sorawo sees herself reflected. Nowhere is this dynamic more clear than with Sorawo's blossoming feelings for Toriko. Her discomfort with the direction Toriko wants to take their relationship often leads her to treat her own feelings on the matter as something just as mysterious and incomprehensible as the entities on the Otherside. It is only through overwhelming fear that Sorawo's comes to terms with how to properly approach her relationship with Toriko.

The power of queerness to terrorize and transform is thematically conveyed through the Otherside itself. Deep contact with the Otherside is repeatedly shown to irreversibly alter minds and bodies. Sorawo's eye, mutated by an encounter, is empowered to see the hyperdimensional aspects its landscape and phenomena. What at first might seem to be one thing turns out on closer inspection to be another. Looking too closely - trying to understand an object's "true" nature - is punching a one-way ticket to insanity. Entities so alien and incomprehensible that terror seems to be the only form of communication unexpectedly bleed into both Sorawo and Toriko's daily life. And yet, the fearful moments of truly understanding the Otherside, where the last ragged shreds of sanity and self-image hang by a thread, are the moments which Sorawo and Toriko take giddy joy and move forward from together. Their newfound knowledge makes them stronger, more resilient, more prepared for the next time, and most importantly, closer together.

The increasing feedback between horror and queer love over the course of Otherside Picnic's eight volumes provides Miyazawa with the opportunity to delve into themes of outsiderness, the shortcomings of normative identities, and the anthropological workings of social narratives. The story jumps - seemingly effortlessly - between Sorawo's bizarre internal monologue about the people and events unfolding around her, psychedelic (and genuinely unsettling) horror scenes, extremely sweet bonding moments, discussions about the nature of cognition and anthropology, and punchlines that would be right at home in a sitcom.

As disparate as the threads Otherside Picnic juggles can be, they all build towards a greater narrative purpose. The eighth volume of the series masterfully weaves them into a novel-length tapestry depicting the inner workings of loving relationships. By its end, the queer and sublime resonate so powerfully that they become indistinguishable, a narrative simultaneously formless and deeply structured.

Taking advantage of its position at the crossroads of horror and queerness, Otherside Picnic launches itself off in numerous directions to explore the process of discovering oneself and one's place in society. Where lesser works might be content simply reaffirm cultural norms through this process of discovery, Otherside Picnic often asserts that to categorize a thing necessarily loses something. It is the discovery and wholehearted embrace of what we find unique and special that gives something importance, not the labels we use to describe it. Call it romance, call it horror. Call it silly, call it serious. Call it a light novel, call it literature. However you want to categorize it, Otherside Picnic is worth a read.

[nyxelestia]

Girl shut the fuck up you have the political literacy of someone who tunes in once every 4 years the DNC made their own bed by being spineless fascists and that Macklemore can fucking mackle

I almost deleted this out of habit and principle, but I'm honestly too amused by your assumption.

I'm politically active for a living. Not only do I "tune in" to politics well beyond 'once every 4 years,' that is often literally my job, depending on my exact position and employer. My degree is literally in political science, with one of my two lower degrees being in history.

My life would be so, so, so much easier if I paid as little attention to politics as the majority of this hellsite's users.

Meanwhile, you don't have the guts to send me this signed-in.

You hide behind anon while crawling into my askbox and you have the audacity to tell me to shut up. You equate weak-willed progressivism with fascism when telling me off for begging people not to put the actual fucking fascist back in office. You rely on buzzwords while regurgitating the politics of the latest Tumblr viral posts and accuse me of not paying attention.

Did the itty bitty dopamine burst from being mean to a stranger on the Internet make you feel better about yourself? What exactly did you expect to accomplish with sending an unsigned Tweet to an audience of one?

You are a coward.

Tell me, anon: How many doors have you knocked on to talk to the voters behind them? How many voters have you registered? How often have you gone to your city council or local equivalent? How many phone calls have you made to your representatives? How many of your representatives can you even name without looking it up first? How many campaign postcards have you written? How many hours have you volunteered for the candidates and causes you care about? How many constituents have you convinced?

How many minds have you changed? How many votes have you gained?

Anyway, Vote Biden. I don't like how soft he's going on Israel, either, but I know he's still a hundred, a thousand, a million times better than whatever the fuck Trump would do in his place. It sucks that these are our only two options, but these are our options, and people are fucking dying in Gaza right now. Your self-righteousness will not help them. Your moral purity will not help them. Your snide sanctimony will not help them.

Your money will help them and your vote will help them. Everything else is just performative, and if you're not getting more votes in the right direction with your performance, then you're wasting your time.

[ryuichirou]

Replies

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Anonymous asked:

I’m sorry you went through all that crap. I hope things are better for you. ):

Oh, if you’re talking about the situation from my past, then yeah, it’s much better now! Thank you so much for your concern <3 It is very sweet of you.

However, we do have a more serious situation on our hands right now, but I won’t go into details. This blog is for discussing the colour of Idia’s nipples, not this.

Speaking of which…

Anonymous asked:

I want to lick Idia’s chest. Apologies.

Quickly, Anon, Ortho is holding him just for you to lick! Ahh shoot he ran way…

Anonymous asked:

a lot of people tend to forget we’re asking you about /your/ hcs. and it’s perfectly ok if we disagree! what fun would the internet be without different opinions (the only valid hc is rook’s love language is stalking lol).

anyways who out of the cast do you think would own yaoi manga/doujins? personally i think idia would. maybe. if it’s physical/paper he can hide his naughty stuff from ortho and his mom…

Exactly! A lot of things influence the way people come up with ideas, this is such a complex thing, of course not everything is going to cater to everyone – this is simply impossible. Picking and choosing and reading stuff that interests you while avoiding things that annoy or hurt you is always the way to go.

(Rook’s love language is stalking, fuck yeah lol)

Oh, that’s a fun question. I feel like Idia would be the only one, and he would also probably have this excuse/explanation, like he really isn’t into BL, but this particular work is just very good, it has great art style, good writing + Idia’s favourite artist was influenced by this manga/series of doujins, so of course he had to get it, this is an important otaku artifact! And OF COURSE it’s paper, that’s the whole point! Even if it’s smutty, it’s art!

Ortho could start getting into BL himself; he would start by reading this one manga that Idia owns lol Idia was sure he’d hidden it well.

The rest of the cast strike me as normies… but hey, Lilia could have some! If he has any manga at all, I can imagine him owning a BL book just ‘cause. But since he probably bought it years ago when he was traveling around the TWST equivalent of Japan, it might be a bit outdated lol And probably a little cursed, which is why Lilia got so into this book back then.

Anonymous asked:

I just think it’s cool how you’re so detailed with the characters and their personality/psychology etc. You could even explain how each of them would go skydiving and I’d think, “yeah, they would do that.” Toodles.

Thank you so much, Anon! It truly means a lot. This is one of the most fun parts of writing replies and drawings stuff, to be honest: the cast is so good that the jokes write themselves sometimes lol

If only I knew enough about skydiving to write or draw something about it…but thankfully, we have a lot of other things to do. 💪

Thank you for enjoying our stuff, I am very happy to hear that.

Anonymous asked:

That's just fucking wrong. Jade is EXTREMELY well behaved for a Leech. "ill behaved" my ASS!!!

+Anonymous asked:

TO BE CLEAR IM JOKING JADE IS A FUCKING FREAK MENACE

LOL YOU’RE GOOD ANON, no worries! <3

“For a Leech”!!! Exactly! Which means he isn’t well-behaved at all!

Anonymous asked:

my guy, my friend,, my buddy,,,,

a hetalia mention? in 2024? why would you do this to us? 😭

Anon dear… Hetalia is a party that is never over 🥳🥳🥳 It forced itself into our lives in 2009 and has been there ever since.

In all seriousness, we do come back to it from time to time; some of the drawings that we have for it are pretty recent!

[bullet-prooflove]

StolenMoments!Series Part Two: Christmas in Afganistan - Vostanik Sabatino x Reader

Tagging:  @kmc1989 @novamariestark @words-and-seeds

Part One: First Date

You end up in Afghanistan over Christmas.

You’ve been embedded in the country for over a week now, using your contacts to track down a terrorist cell with ties to an attack back in LA. In the past you’d worked with humanitarian groups, delivering a very specific form of aid to villages in the region. You’d built a lot of trust amongst the natives; it gave you access to information that the military personnel you worked with couldn’t get their hands on.

You’ve been living in a makeshift base, created especially for the task force that you’re a part of. On the outside it looks rundown and ramshackle however inside it’s the equivalent of huge modern-day motorhome, with up-to-date tech, hot running water and internet speeds that rivalled the ones back home.

The place had been haphazardly decorated for the Christmas season before you got here, there’s tinsel around the whiteboards, fake candy canes hanging on the equipment lockers and a makeshift tree has been put together in the corner by a would-be carpenter. Someone’s managed to dig out some multicoloured lights, wrapping them around it. It’s magical in its own way.

You’re the only one staying over the holidays, Granger has sent the other members of the taskforce to Istanbul for some R&R. You’re the last one in, so you get to man the fort in their absence. You’ve been on your own for a couple of hours, reviewing the latest intel and making notes when the door opens and Sabatino steps inside.

You haven’t heard from him since the night he left for Washington. He looks a little more rugged than the last time you saw him. His jaw is lined with stubble, his face more weathered. His clothes are filthy, the remnants of the Afghan desert clinging to his hair and skin. The expression on handsome features tells you he’s just as surprised to see you as you are to see him.

“I need a shower.” Is the first thing he says to you. You smile as you take a sip from your coffee cup because you detected just the hint of a blush across his cheeks when he stepped past you.

You have more coffee brewing when he steps out of the bathroom. He’s wearing a t-shirt and combat pants, his hair still damp from the hot water. He tosses his dirty clothes into the laundry hamper in his bunk room before he follows you into the kitchen space, opening the fridge and pulling out a variation of food.

“I’ve been living off the land for the past three weeks, tracking our targets through the mountains.” He explains as he opens a container and pops some veggies into his mouth. “If I have to eat another rodent, I think I’ll become one.”

You push the mug of hot coffee towards him, and he picks it up gratefully, his dark eyes fastening on yours as he takes a sip.

“When they said they were bringing in someone with local connections I had no idea it was you.”

There’s something in the way he says it, an undertone in his voice. You read the tension in his body, the way his shoulders hunch just a little as he averts his gaze focusing on the containers.

“You don’t want me here.” You realise.

He sighs before he places both his palms on the work surface and tilts his head up to look at you. There’s a torridness in his eyes, it builds like a storm before he finally allows himself to speak.

“The last guy who had your job, I found his body.” He pauses for a second, allowing you to process that information before he continues. “What I didn’t find was his head.”

 “He was tortured.” You conclude and Sabatino nods his response.

“I don’t want that to happen to someone that I…” He catches himself before the words can slip out of his mouth. “I don’t want the same thing happening to you.”

It’s an admission of something that the two of you can’t talk about. Realistically he’s known you for a total of seventy-two hours but in his heart, it feels like a lifetime. If something were to happen to you, if he found you brutalised the same way that Sanders was, he doesn’t think that he would be able to recover.

“Are the risks any different than you going out there and tracking them over the mountains?” You ask him pointedly.

He hates this and so do you, you’ve worked with each other in an urban setting before, where you have resources and back up, but Afghanistan is a different playing field. The thing is you’ve both been here before, you know the pitfalls, the dangers, the consequences. You’ve survived Afghanistan before and so has he.

“It looks like we’re both in the same predicament.” You say when he doesn’t respond, setting your coffee mug down. “Because I actually give a shit about you too.”

It shouldn’t warm his heart but it kind of does. He sees the honesty of it in your eyes as you look up at him. He lives in a world of deceit, where everything has a double meaning, where every move is a manipulation and then there’s you. This beautiful, spirited woman who says what’s on her mind and means it. He can’t help but fall in love with you just a little more in that moment.

“Hey.” He says quietly as he reaches for you. He wraps his arms around your body, drawing you close. You fit against him perfectly, the same way you did the last time, when he kissed you during that stakeout. “Despite the circumstances I am happy to see you.”

Your palms chase up the muscles of his back, soothing over the fabric of his shirt as his lips brush over your hairline. Christ he’s missed you, he’s forgotten how good it feels to have your hands on him.

“I’m glad to see you too Nik.”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[yakultii]

who's your human equivalent to frozen cherries, yakult, and aldi cheese

excellent question! you win an award 🏆…. ummm I’ve kinda forgotten how to feel human connection so passionately the way I do my beautiful delicacies, nevertheless …

frozen cherries = my internet bestie @silentquils-blog we randomly met on wattpad late last yr (I since deactivated and moved us here lol) and I think she unknowingly saved my life! we live complete opposite lives but we share the same levels of empathy, humour & open-mindedness? I’ve quite literally never come across anyone so caring and understanding, she’s insanely patient w me while forever hyping me up/reminding me that I’m still of some value and has taught me sm ab the world, not to mention she’s basically the only reason I’ve met the rest of you on here bc her daily og comments on wattpad were the reason I wanted to continue getting back into writing and was able to stick w it and wanted to share it/remembered this app exist - she’s my frozen cherries bc she reminds me life is still sweet 🍒 (& I hope her life gets even sweeter❣️)

yakult = my irl friend Elizabeth (who lives back in Indo now so we are a 9hr flight apart 🥲) she’s the most put together human I know, a mega chiller, always a good time no matter what we’re doin,I could go on and on and on .. she’s a talented painter, poet and has travelled sm of the world already! she’s a few yrs younger than me and I literally flew over to her wedding (which I was supposed to be bridesmaid in but I was too unwell at the time but I still went to her wedding as a guest anyway lol) and now she has a lil baby boy which she sends me photo updates every few weeks when I finally answer my messages lmao.. anyways she is my yakult bc she reminds me of what the life of a healthy person is like and innocently holds hope that one day I’ll feel it :,) ironically on the rare occasion I’m around her it’s the only time I feel half normal, the way I drink yakult and am reminded there is still life to be had, even if that just means to drink another yakult, even if that means the nutritional value is kinda a hoax, it doesn’t mean it cannot be enjoyed!

aldi cheese = my mum <3 I think the complexity of our relationship kinda sums it up… you know there’s a lot of love there and always has been but there is a lack of clarity in its expression. We’re both trying though, always have been. Complexity aside it’s her first time living too and I’ll always find my way to forgiveness without disregarding the hurt and I hope she can too. She is my Aldi cheese because if I consume too much it makes my tummy hurt real bad and sometimes I wish it were different but I can more than appreciate it for what it is because in short stints it is so sweet and interesting and has great intent! in fact I never want it to change because then it won’t be so iconic. Even if I can’t consume it as much as I would have liked, I’ll still appreciate it immensely and think about it for a long long time.

but honestly I could probably assign one of these to all of you I’m sure hehe <33 hmu if u wanna know which one u are lmao

[olderthannetfic]

I'm in a fandom with a lot of virulent antis (surprise surprise, it's heavily dark source material and I don't know why they're here at all) and a lot of the pairings that aren't the main badwrong ship on ao3 now have DNI tags on them for shippers of the badwrong ship. I guess not enough to break the TOS (no direct threats?), but still full of stuff like "x shippers DNI", "get help you freaks", "You're disgusting" etc etc.

Its just... so frustrating. Like that's a pretty red flag for me that a fic probably is going to be in an immature writing style so I probably won't read it anyway, but every time I see it I just.... heave a big sigh. Why these people are in this fandom or on Ao3 at all I'll never know. Its not even helpful - the tags are there to help describe the fic, if I didn't want to see that kind of content I could just... avoid content that's tagged that way. Why even add that to a fic that's not even about those characters at all?

Honestly, my real question is.... Olderthannetfic, how do you do it?

I feel like I do it "right", in fandom, or at least I try. I always just block and move on. I don't follow the discourse where I can help it and block a lot of the relevant tags. I keep to a small circle of folks that have the same fun brainrot I do and have fun, generally. But this kind of stuff still slips through the cracks in a way that's unavoidable if you're ever online at all. To be honest, it still hurts a lot to see each time, and be reminded that some people seem to literally want me dead over reading a story. And I can't help the doubt and the self-flagellation that creeps in. Despite my best efforts, and all my research, and living to the ripe rip van winkle tumblr fandom spinster age of 27... I sometimes have a moment where I think, maybe I really am a freak or a degenerate, or an evil predator waiting to bloom.

Do you ever experience this? Does this feeling ever go away, or at least dull to a more bearable exasperated eye roll? Do you ever see these anti idiots grow up or grow out of this mindset? Is it just a matter of time, age or experience? Is there a point at which you felt like it affected you less, or perhaps it didn't affect you like that at all? Is there a secret to navigating it calmly and with confidence? Do you have any advice to give in the, er, art of not giving a fuck?

--

Why would I quail at a stupid child on the internet after coming out as queer when I was 14 in the 90s?

I grew up with very open-minded, supportive family aside from my mother's conviction that BDSM was something people were into because they'd been abused. Even then, I remember privately snickering because I was super kinky, and wouldn't that upset her given this silly world view?

I had it easy compared to most in the 90s, but I still saw a lot of nonsense, like good old Mom on the topic of kink or murders in the media. But I also spent a lot of time reading educational sexuality books that debunked myths about fantasies and kinkiness.

Maybe a firmer grounding in sexuality stuff would help you? Nancy Friday's work on women's fantasies is a common starting point. I'm partial to The Topping Book, which is full of "it's great to be a top, actually" and not "you only do it for the sub".

Getting older does usually help though. Most 20-somethings are insecure in their sense of self. Middle age is when people's fucks generally run out, and that only continues to grow. Watch a stupid child go after some 60-something zine writer lady. She's going to laugh in their faces. Some people remain insecure forever, I suppose, but not anybody who had to woman up to be in fandom in the first place.

It's not just that these little idiots are wrong about us being predators: it's that they are the morally degenerate ones for spreading the psychological equivalent of "vaccines cause autism" or "Jews want to steal your Christian babies".

This idea that The Bad People are infiltrating our minds with their propaganda overlaps heavily with anti-semitic conspiracy theory right wing fundie nutjob ideas, and yet these young fools claim to be pro-queer and pro-civil rights. They're an embarrassment to any progressive movement and it disgusts me.

When someone goes "You're not a Christian, so you're going to hell", do you have a moment when you wonder?

Because that's the level of absurdity here.

Even if they don't bully, even if they don't include threats in their DNIs, the fact that they're spreading myths about sexuality that have been thoroughly debunked many times means they're doing something unethical, anti-intellectual, and anti-science.

I'm not afraid or guilty. I'm embarrassed for them.

--

Do antis grow out of it? Yes, frequently.

They are—either literally or functionally—victims of right wing Christian cults. They have the same trajectory of realizing they've been had and slowly trying to work through the raging guilt and religious trauma.

I have limited patience but some sympathy. Like other victims who were indoctrinated to hurt people, escaping the cult is hard. It means not only giving up your false sense of safety and all of your friends but facing what you've done.

[thesilversun]

Five Lines Fic Meme Tagged by: @howdaretrashships Thanks for the tag!

Rules: find five lines in your fic based on the prompts you are given, then change one of the prompts at the end!

A Line You Think is Hilarious

from

Mainframe, HEX and the Temporal Trouser Error

a Torchwood/Discworld crossover where two computers talk to each other despite a difference in programming language.

It' a few lines really (and tbh pretty much all the fic - it's by far the silliest thing I've written.)

Mainframe gave the electronic equivalent of a shrug, and then sent her next message. [Please identify date of three leg trouser formation] Hopefully Hex would understand it if it was sent in terms it understood.  +++14 Grune. Year eight. Century of the Anchovy+++ Which could, Mainframe computed, mean anything from ten thousand years ago to a week last Tuesday. So she sent back [Sync calendar function?] A calendar page from the previous May appeared on screen, then across one of the days flashed the word +++Wrong Trouser Day+++

A Line About Mysteries

Time Enough and Life (Torchwood, Jack/Ianto)

By 1969 the Electro was threatened with closure. It managed a stay of execution thanks to the British Film institute scheme supporting regional arthouse cinemas, and was renamed the Cardiff Showhouse. Even so, as the 1970s wore on it struggled to turn a profit and it finally closed its doors on the 22nd of February 1977. Jack stops and reads the sentence again. Simple, factual and easy to understand it is also completely incomprehensible in relation to what Ianto has told him about it. There had been such genuine fondness and affection in Ianto's voice at the memories of Saturday mornings spent there with his father that Jack finds it incredibly unlikely that it is a lie. Yet if it's not a lie Ianto is a great deal older than he looks and had lied about his age when he joined Torchwood One. Either that or his father's idea of a nice day out was to zip back a couple of decades to see a film. All the options are preposterous, yet a quick search of the internet confirms the 1977 closure date. The only thing that’s clear is that, for whatever reason, Ianto has been lying to him, and maybe to Torchwood from the outset. The question is why?

A Line About Love

From All the Lies (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley) (written after S1, not seen S2, so if there is an angel in S2 call Uriel it isn't this one)

Uriel watched them for a moment surprise growing on her face. "You love him." "We are meant to love," Aziraphale said, pulling the fuzzy, midnight-blue fabric around him. "More than anything that is our purpose. I cannot and will not be sorry for being as She made me." "Not you." Uriel pointed at Crowley. "That...thing. The demon. How can It do that?" "Thing. Demon. It. Well isn't that just charming. It's Crowley. Crow-Ley. Two syllables. Really not that tricky." He gave her an irritated look that somehow managed to be conveyed despite the glasses. "You know the one who helped screw up the whole end of the world thing for you." "But you shouldn't love him," Uriel persisted. "You can't." "Why not? We were all angels once," Crowley said, quieter than usual. "Falling didn't change..." He stopped, genuine raw hurt on his face. "Falling was a punishment and what better punishment for a Fallen Angel than to still feel love, but know they'll never, ever deserve it. Never." He turned away, swallowing down millennia old hurt. "Seriously I thought all you angels knew that. Just something else for you to be smug about." It felt like a punch in the gut. Had Crowley thought that about him too? The things he'd said to him...Some of them had been so thoughtless, cruel even. "Oh Crowley, my dear, you should have said something," Aziraphale said, catching his hand in his own. "Of course you're loved. I love you." Panic, fear and desperate hope, radiated from him as he looked at their clasped hands. "You....you do?"

A Line About Dreams

From Before the Dawn (Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Difanghua - a nightmare rather than a good dream, unfortunately)

There is water all around him. Ice cold and dark. It is full of hands. Some tiny, some huge. Men’s hands, women’s hands, things that may or may not be human at all. Gripping, grasping hands that pull at him, at his hair, at his clothing. Not clothing. His clothes are gone. He can’t open his eyes, but Di Feisheng can see them all the same. Nothing but hands. No heads or faces. No bodies or even limbs. Just innumerable hands, their sharp nails, talons, claws, red painted, like cinnabar, like wedding clothes. they hook into his skin, tearing it open. The water turns redder still. Like blood. Perhaps it was always blood. Either way he’s soaked in it. Drowning in it. He always has been. He struggles against the tide of clawing fingers. They swarm up his body, no part left untouched. They close around his throat, squeezing, crushing the air from him. They pry his mouth open, blood rushing in and out, they are in throat from the inside, choking him. He wants to scream, but there’s no air left in him. “A-Fei!” It’s distant. He tries to kick out, but his legs will barely respond. There are hands on his shoulders pinning down. He’s going to die. He doesn’t want to die. “A-Fei! Wake up!” It’s closer. More urgent. Familiar. The hands, which aren’t the same as the ones in his dream, shake him. Careful, rather than rough, as they pull back to wakefulness. To safety.

An Atmospheric Line

from Three months and a thousand miles of sea Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Dihua.

He turns to the wide horizons. “Li Xiangyi! Come back and face me!” Only the echo of the mountains answer, taunting and hopeless. He sits amidst the snow and shattered rock. The sun sets and the cold moon rises. Frost settles on his hair. His hands heal. Still the empty ache inside will not ease. The sun rises and he leaves. The cold of the mountains seems to have seeped into his bones, like he will never be warm again and still he aches for what could have been. What should have been.

Tagging: @yletylyf @galexibrain @cheesybadgers @killerandhealerqueen @momosandlemonsoda if you want to that is, and any one else who wants to do it even if not tagged

Prompts:

A Line You Think is Hilarious

A Line About anger

A Line About Love

A Line About Dreams

An Atmospheric Line

[ghostinthegallery]

Nearly all of my writing projects require a fight/battle scene right now...

I am not in the mood to write a fight/battle scene...

I know! I'll write about fight/battle scenes instead!! That's productive, right?

Truth be told, in general I do love writing action. One-on-one, small scale fights, huge battles. I love it! The movement, the drama, the tension and release of it all. But I do hear some people struggle with it, so here is my approach. Maybe it'll be helpful.

Golden rule: writing a fight scene is just like writing a sex scene. It is physical and emotional. The action should build on and be based around the characters. And it is very important to keep track of how many limbs everyone has and what they are doing.

I am lucky to have experience as a fencer, some martial arts, I've shot firearms, and I am a general history nerd. It is very helpful to have a baseline understanding of how weapons are used and how they feel. But with the internet this information is easily acquired! Go to youtube, search for the weapons your characters are using (or the closest equivalent for magic/scifi weaponry) and watch people fight. SCA and historical fencing tournaments are great for this. Trust me, weapon nerds love explaining how their stuff works.

Now, the main thing to remember when writing action is that you are balancing believability with entertainment. Note I say believability and not realism. Because in reality, most fights are short, brutal, and not fun to watch. This is not our goal as writers. However, you want your audience to believe the action on some level, so I like to go in vaguely knowing the most grounded version of how a fight would go, and then building off of that to make it actually fun.

Okay, that's all the background but what about the actual writing? At its core, an action scene is no different from any other type of scene. Your character has a goal and they are taking steps to achieve it. So in the fight, what is your character's goal? Don't just pick "survival". Get more specific. How are they going to survive? Escape? Kill their opponent? Disable them? Or is their goal something different, like holding an enemy back or reaching a destination? Protecting someone or something? Once you know that, it is much easier to come up with the beats of a fight because that goal will determine the actions your characters take.

This also works for large scale battle scenes. In fact, I would say a clearly defined goal is even more important in that context! Otherwise the audience will get lost in all the moving parts. Star Wars, great example: the final battle against the Death Star gives everyone the explicit goal of firing torpedoes into the vent before the DS blows up the rebel base. Simple, easy to to follow, orients the audience so we know what they heck is going on.

Make the stakes clear. What will happen if your protags win the fight? What will happen if they lose? Usually this is easier in smaller encounters (life or death, losing mcguffins). But battles have stakes too. Will a lot of people die if the enemy takes a city (Lord of the Rings, Helms Deep great example). Will your character be shamed if they lose? Do they have something to gain in victory? Or are they a soldier on the front lines just trying to find a way to stay alive? If the goal and stakes are clear, it is much easier to make your audience care about the outcome of whatever you have set up.

As for the actions your characters will take and how to write them? That is where you draw on your research plus your knowledge of the characters. Are they bold and reckless? Cautious? Write their fighting style accordingly.

When I write, I try to vary up action with reaction. A character lunges with their sword, describe the physicality of that. Describe how they feel when their sword is parried or their opponent leaps out of range. Describe the counterattack, then how your character reacts. Use these moments of outward action and internal reaction to set the pace of the fight.

Short sentences mean faster pacing. More frenetic. Faster, desperate. They build tension. Whereas longer sentences will slow things down and give the reader a chance to breathe and absorb what has just happened. You will use both, but use them deliberately.

Mastering the pacing of an action scene takes practice, like everything else, but you will start to get a feel for things after a while!

Battles can be harder because most of us are not generals schooled in military tactics, so they seem quite intimidating. However, most battles come down to two things:

do not get flanked

do not break formation

If the enemy surrounds you? Bad. If the enemy messes up the formation of your army? Bad. All battles pretty much come down to that. The rest is just flavor based on your setting and what people have access to in order to inflict violence on people they do not like.

(One trick I enjoy is to find major historical battles and just...copy them. Trust me, nobody will know ;))

Do not forget the environment in which the battle or fight is taking place! It is vitally important (and will give you things to write about besides just punches/blows or whatever). Watch the John Wick movies for super good examples of this for fight scenes. And remember, clever use of terrain has changed the course of history (*cough* Agincourt *cough*) so do not neglect it!

That is pretty much it! Feel free to ask me questions, I love talking about this (and procrastinating. what? who said that?).

[mixed-up-media]

HOW THE LAIKA MOVIES CONNECT TOGETHER!!!!!

Also known as history of the beldam!

Warning: most of this is just crack. This was my shower thought this morning and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. None of this is canon. This is just dumb crap. It is held together by 2 strings, 3 old gum pieces, a roll of duct tape, and a used bandaid I found behind the school bleachers. This post is also a long one. You have been warned.

Ok, let's start off with something that has been bothering me, and the rest of the Coraline fandom, FOR YEARS! What is the Beldam? As far as the internet is concerned, she's the villain in Coraline, not much more than that. However, other sources say that another meaning of beldam is "old hag" or "witch" which makes sense. Something that also stuck out to me was another website stating she was an evil fairy. I feel like a beldam is not a singular term for the other mother but rather a species of evil fairies. Once again this connects to one of our favorite detail in that movie, the mushroom circle.

Mushroom circles are known throughout folktales as gateways to fairy realms. Keep this in mind! So what other thing is connected to fairy realms? OH YEAH, TROLLS!

So, I have not read "Here be monster," that is my summer reading goal, it just has to come. So I don't know what lore drops are in there, all I know is that the book is the reason people say Egg's real name is Arthur, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯! What I do know that that in most mythologies trolls are evil and here that is not the case. Something that I noticed in Boxtrolls and in the little info piece on amazon for "Here be monsters" is that both towns end with a bridge. Cheesebridge, Ratbridge, you get the picture. So that means to me is that the trolls are connected to bridges. If you don't know what I'm going for here is the trolls that live under toll bridges. You know that thing that we were all terrified of happening to us from Monty Python and the Holy grail, yeah that thing. They make it very clear there is some sort of connection." Lindow states that the etymology of the word "troll" remains uncertain, though he defines trolls in later Swedish folklore as "nature beings" and as "all-purpose otherworldly being[s], equivalent, for example, to fairies in Anglo-Celtic traditions". (Wikipedia)

Otherworldly you say? Well as a fandom, WE KNOW PLENTY ABOUT THAT! So I'm getting that there is some sort of fairy world situation going on. Like there's a world with magic separate from our own where creatures come from, K.

Some else I noticed was the similarities between Kubo's aunts and the other mother.

Notice the white faces,red lips, and lack of eyes. Now I'm aware that the sister's designs are biased off of the Geisha, however there is something else that connects them, the obsession with ripping a child's eye out, which I would assume is something Geisha women don't do ( I could be wrong.) So I feel like there is some sort of connection between the Beldam and the moon king. A partnership, a teacher of how to remove the eyes of kids, the biological mother of his children. (Low key shipping them)

Then there the witch situation. Witches have been known throughout history as evil, but we watched ParaNorman, and we paid attention! WE KNOW THEY'RE JUST MISUNDERSTOOD! So we've established that there's magic, but we've never really come up with where the magic comes from. I have a whole theory on why Norman can see ghosts, ( I'll post that one later) but I'm pretty sure the magic effects genetics. Now, hear me out, what if the magic comes from the magic fairy realm thing from earlier.

SO POSSIBLE TIMELINE, MAYBE!

A LONG LONG LONG LONG TIME AGO, the Pre-Beldam Fairy was just livin her life. She discovers some sort of dark magic and turn evil. She goes down to earth but uses a portal thing to get there. Out from that portal thing comes some trolls that find a home under a bridge. After years of evolution they become boxtrolls. Then Beldam fairy meets the moon king and has his daughters helps him tear his grandsons eye out. The fairies in charge are like: Dude, the frick is wrong with you, and banashes her to what would become the american continent. They also strip her of her powers which then finds its way to the other side of the soon to be continent. There her magic connects to several families including the one of a little girl with long black hair. Over in Oregon country the beldam finds herself hiding for years and years. Eventually a family of pioneers show up and build a house. Not wasting any time, the beast uses her dark powers and finds a small hole in the wall. She discovers that it's made out of some of the magic ripped from her and uses it for her advantage. Eventually she develops the persona of "The Other World," and The other Mother. She eats kids souls until a blue haired girl defeats her. Who knows if she actually killed her or not!

How does Missing Link fit all this? Well TADA

Lionel found an old monkey carving from a old Japanese town, a newspaper clipping from a few years back about "Boxtrolls" and an old book from back when the mayflower first set sale (I feel like the book was something Aggie's mom brought with her to the new world and read it to Aggie for years)

THE END

People who might find this humorous

@evenceflux18

@officermaddie23

@kpyeeper

TAG MOREEEE

[blortch]

UGH! Once again, Mike "Both sides" Stoklasa not recognizing that there isn't an equivalency to right-wing conservatives who do not want representation, and progressives who do. He is either a secret conservative who doesn't want to piss off progressives, or really that stupid that he really thinks there is a equivalent both sides argument. The internet right wing conservative trolls far out weigh any troll like behavior on the left. The left mainly just say they want more diversity, and the right does not want that. There is no middle ground in discrimination. I applaud Rich for mainly keeping out of it, and/or leaning more to the left on the issue.

When I first was watching the video, I thought Mike's stance would be what he said in a previous star wars video about andor, where he listed off the different star wars shows on disney+, and he basically said there is so much star wars out there now, that each show has its own audience. His example was that there is a star wars show for babies, another for adults, like 'Andor'. I really thought he'd say something like "this show 'the acolyte' is a show for the left... who cares about the internet outrage... [and that the people complaining about diversity on the show should] just get over it and watch one of the other million star wars shows." Not give this mealy mouthed, both sidesism bullshit where by not denouncing it you're giving it oxygen.

More and more Mike shows his true colors. Like how he kept editing Rich. He literally cut off Rich's very valid, very coherent point about Ghostbusters and Robocop, I surmise because he did not want Rich to seem smarter. And idk, just the way he kept editing Rich seemed more vindictive than normal. Like yes he's done that alot, but Idk, it felt way more personal, maybe because Rich was not completely backing his both sidesism crap.

Sorry. Rant over. I had to complain to someone. Would love your always reasoned take on it.

I apologize for at first thinking this was a copypasta jaksjdfkj I haven't gotten a long ask in a good while. anyway. I feel like I Have to watch the video now even tho I wasn't intending to do so. We shall see. So for now bear in mind that I'm going off of your ask alone for my reply.

I think your assumption in how they would handle the Acolyte was a completely fair assumption to make so I'm surprised as you are from hearing Mike handle it differently this time.

You've touched upon something pretty interesting which is the editing perspective of them and I personally haven't noticed much of a discernible pattern in editing except for the occasional mike-making-fun-of-jay-in-editing or making fun of himself, so what you say of Mike editing anyone but himself kinda poorly is something I've heard claimed before that he does to Jay too. If this is true the fact that we, from our perspective, very rarely see Jay disagree as well as for Rich kinda takes an interesting turn doesn't it ? My point has often been, "well they work alongside him for a reason, they must agree with Mike on quite a lot" but this hints towards that maybe they aren't quite as uniform in perspective as one might assume from what we've seen and that it's a manufactured truth that we've been shown - but this is safe to assume either way by the sheer fact that the video has been edited and Jay and Mike themselves have said numerous times about how powerful editing is in terms of making things go numerous ways.

Pattern-wise in editing, in the past few years Jay has long been in charge of editing HITB and the Re:Views that have him in it + somebody that isn't Mike. Mike takes over "special episodes", to bring a recent example: the Death of Movie theaters video, or movies he deems important/decisive for their channel and analogous to Jay, his "own" Re:Views, while they alternate with editing BOTW more or less (cough whenever a BOTW is said to come out soon and Mike's editing cough you can count on it taking longer cough). Though as I've mentioned before, they supposedly check the other's edit before letting it air, I imagine this in videos where they both appear.

Now. This doesn't quite support the theory that Mike's this over-controlling maniac that pushes his own agenda more than Jay's or Rich's views through videos, though to perceive such a sentiment whenever he takes charge of editing could possibly imply that he, in other ways, does not allow opposing views from them. Admittedly, I can't quite paint this sinisterly because he Will take charge as the sole owner of the company (somehow for years I used to believe Jay co-owns RLM but wherever you look, Mike is listed as the ONLY owner) and of course he'd want his videos to reflect what he thinks and I mean, I can't think of many people off the top of my head that would cede on their views on important matters or would allow opposition without rebuttal, so to expect this from Mike wouldn't be fair. Though to us, who don't share his views and the topic of the Acolyte seems quite trivial compared to other matters, it seems like an overbearing, uninformed asshole move haha. I imagine in his eyes he justifies it as him being the director and him enforcing his vision.

As for the Acolyte to call it leftist media is hmmmm it feels a bit dirty and slimy to say that about a Disney product lols. I heard Andor brought up some super interesting points to analyze from that lens, which I find super baffling, that "pandering to the leftists" has become a Thing at all. When I read that the controversy was from casting Abigail Thorne (among other stuff) I realized how overt the Move was to do this. I guess with somewhat of a tendency to virtue signal through fandom nowadays it became profitable by accident? I wonder how long it shall last if so. But maybe that's putting on my cynical thinking cap too much instead of surmising as you said, leftists or people branded anti-right-wing/conservative for existing simply want media that shares their views or represents them to discuss and have fun with.

And finally. Super flattered that you'd think of my takes as "always reasoned", I try to take my time and think about what I'm putting out there so to see my efforts being acknowledged warms my heart.