#I think addition in reblogs

[kyouka-supremacy]

Actually cutting a loved one's hair is universally such an unspeakably beautiful and tender act, no matter the context, but if possible it's even more so when it's Akutagawa doing it. There's just something so impactful about a man who has lived his life cutting to shreds anyone on his path impulsively and with no second thought, now taking time to dedicate himself to carefully and gently cutting someone's hair. Going near someone's neck with a sharp object, but with no intention to harm. The action of cutting and shredding now revealing itself to be a sign of love. I'm literally in tears

[martyrbat]

hate when a batman artist isn't committed to bruce's lame bat schtick... give that man a bat insignia on the bottom of his boots rn

[rakkiinoko]

[thenearsightedmicroraptor]

Seen a lot of posts about people coming into your notifications out of nothing and liking your entire blog, but here's a shoutout to the people who do Not follow you, who appear out of nowhere, reblog One (1) post that you are Not the op of, and then you never see them again. Where did you come from girl.

[macbethz]

what i think REALLY works about dot and bubble is it plays with the genre conventions of doctor who itself. We've seen doctor lite episodes like this, we know how they work. There's person who needs to be saved who gets indirect help from the doctor, maybe they're flawed and learn a lesson at the end, maybe they're part of some flawed society that is just kind of set dressing or ends up being torn down at the end without examination. About halfway through the episode I was ready to brush this off as a fun but predictable classic rtd ep that wasn't really anything special. Then from the the betrayal of ricky September on its like watching a house of cards that has been built the entire episode without us noticing collapse into a perfect stack

“Oh well of course you could see them being racist the whole time” the thing is sometimes doctor who is just like that. RTD EPISODES have historically just been like that, either in that they are microagressions in themselves or have bigoted characters/worlds that go unexamined. And I think this episode performed an absolutely insane self aware slight of hand that relies on both you and the writers knowing that doctor who and sci fi in general has a racism problem. The ending recontextualizes things in the episode you may initially have brushed off as an unfortunate BBC or science fiction moment (all white cast, manifest destiny language) as symptomatic of larger societal issues, thus in turn recontextualizing missed moments of bigotry in the shows own history

[1pcii]

if Zoro asked Luffy 'would you still love me if I was a worm?' Luffy would be vibrating out of his skin with excitement detailing how he would take care of Zoro and build him a special little enclosure and make him little swords out of sticks so he can still achieve his dream of being the world's greatest swordsworm and feed him worm sized portions of meat and booze everyday and carry him around everywhere so they can still do everything together.

he also delightfully rambles about how he could be a worm also and they'd go on worm adventures together and make friends with all sorts of other bugs and how much fun they'd have.

edit: there's fanart for this scenario now! show it lots of love it's absolutely adorable!!!

[caramellody]

Yall i dont think im gonna be able to stop thinking about usha and g13, actually.

Ushas an old old woman, clueless with tech. Lived long enough to develop various bonds with a LOT of people and relies on them a lot for help. In turn, shes VERY loyal to her close conpanions (a great example would be how she tends to back paula up a LOT, the way she sets up russel and paula to 'fake date' wink and all). She's very warm and very emotionally intelligent even if she's a bit clueless sometimes. Her logic is borderline incomprehensible, but it has heart.

G13 on the other hand, is a hacking prodigy. Hes young, hes sought after for his skills for better and for worse. But in turn, he's essentially lost himself in the process. He may be able to scrape nuke codes, but he'll never make a friend. He lacks any loyalty for anyone and anything except for himself and his interests, and if they dont satisfy those two points, then its worth nothing to him. His logic may be sound, but its cold.

[carlyraejepsans]

an overwhelming majority of the really edgy aus that base themselves on the idea of sans "snapping" seem to work under the impression that there's a proportional relationship between sans' sanity and how many people are killed, so to make things easier, they just go ham with idk 10000 genocide runs and take it for granted that he'd go insane.

when actually, this thing is a bell curve. you kill few enough people? he can continue living his life like he doesn't care about it. you kill everyone? he's finally moved to act and do the right thing to prevent the timeline from ending. I'm tellin ya, it's in the MIDDLE that the fun happens. king mettaton ending, empress undyne ending... when you kill both toriel and papyrus but let the world live on a little more broken without them? now that's where he gets nasty.

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Exposing SVSSS Fanon: 25/∞

VIOLENCE AS COURTSHIP IS A PART OF DEMON CULTURE

Rating: CANON

A nearly universal trope, especially in Moshang fics, is the fact that courtship is performed through violence in demon culture, and that the misunderstandings between the pair are because of cultural differences. The fact that demons mistreat the targets of their affection is canon, however, it is important for fans to note that this sort of characterization and worldbuilding is rooted in racial and ethnic stereotypes.

This is one of the most-requested topics I've ever written on this blog, and I took a long time to think about how best to approach the subject in a way that both keeps to the intention of this blog (referencing canon & providing quotes) as well as raising awareness to the very real problematic aspects of what is a well-loved and often-used trope in fanon that I don't think most western fans are aware of.

First, the canon analysis:

“If you hold unique feelings for a certain person, how can you make them understand your intentions?” Luo Binghe asked. Obviously, no one dared to tear down Luo Binghe’s facade and expose him directly, but this question was really very…unsuited to the demonic approach. After a long moment, not a single person had answered. In fact, the answer was so simple that any normal human could have given it to you. If you liked someone, you should just tell them. Unfortunately, there was not a single “normal” person on the scene—and aside from Shang Qinghua, there also were no “humans” either. Mobei-Jun thought about it. With the paths his mind was given to take, there was no telling how he had interpreted “unique” feelings. “Beat them up three times a day?” (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Most of the fandom remembers this passage, and some may think that this is where the interpretation of violence as courtship comes from-- however, that is not the case. This passage might actually not refer to courtship at all-- while that is one possible interpretation, Mobei-jun could also be interpreting "unique feelings" to mean something different than "romantic feelings," since Luo Binghe didn't specify romance directly.

The "violent demonic courtship" idea actually originates much earlier in the novel, just after the invasion of Qiong Ding Peak:

In truth, Shen Qingqiu didn’t intend to tease; he thought himself very straightforward. The one who’d tampered with Luo Binghe’s dream realm was Sha Hualing. Though she did have some harmful intentions, her underlying motive was obvious. Naturally, she was driven by a young girl’s secret yearning for love. Otherwise, she would have directed her aggressions toward others, not specifically Luo Binghe. Demons were compelled to viciously bully the person they liked. Only if the object of their affections failed to die would the demon accept them. If their target died, that meant they were useless and not worth nursing any lingering affections for. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

This, in fact, has somewhat more serious connotations than the way I have often seen it interpreted in fanworks-- it is not merely beating up a potential partner, but pushing them to their limits, nearly driving them to death, and it is certainly implied that it is not uncommon for the object of a demon's affections to actually die.

Now that the canonical basis of the idea has been established, let us move on to the second, and arguably more important part of this post: the racism.

I would like to add a disclaimer here-- I am going to discuss this in hopes of raising more awareness in the fandom, but I am not North/West/Central Asian myself, so I will only mention things in brief and somewhat generally-- if anyone who belongs to the affected cultures would like to make corrections, or more detailed explanations, or any other additions to this post on this topic, I greatly welcome that, as I feel it is an important issue that should be addressed.

In Chinese fiction, particularly fantasy genres like xianxia/xuanhuan/xiuzhen, but also in historical and wuxia fiction, there is a pervasive, prevalent tendency for authors to use racial and ethnic stereotypes against Central, Northern, and Western Asian cultures such as Mongolian & Arab cultures in their worldbuilding regarding the North, while stereotypes against Southeast Asian cultures are used in worldbuilding regarding the South. These stereotypes are most typically applied to villains and villainous groups, and are so widespread as to be ubiquitous within the genre. MXTX has used these tropes before-- notably with the Banyue people in TGCF, with adaptations of both TGCF and MDZS including design stereotypes, such as CQL's portrayal of the Qinghe Nie (combining their tendency toward violence and 'unnatural' cultivation method, with design traits typically associated with Northern/Central Asian cultures).

It is worth noting, though, that most authors do not intentionally use these traits as racist stereotypes in their worldbuilding, especially when regarding a non-human species-- in the same way that western fantasy authors use goblin and orc characters and tropes without realizing or acknowledging their racist origins and connotiations, these stereotypes have simply become genre tropes without that direct connection to their origins. Nonetheless, it is still worth noting-- and worth trying not to fall into the trap of leaning into stereotypical traits in fanworks' character portrayals.

Stereotypes include but are not limited to barbaric and brutish cultural traits, association with animals/having animal features, dark or corrupt magical/spiritual practices, certain types of braided hairstyles & other fashion choices, and originating from the far north or south.

Some of the prejudice and stereotyping of Northern Asian cultures likely originates from the fact that in the past, China was invaded and subjugated by peoples from the north (under Mongolian rule during the Yuan dynasty, and under Manchurian rule during the Qing dynasty) as well as having many conflicts with these peoples throughout history. In fact, the Qing dynasty only ended in the early 1900s, so some of this oppression is still in recent memory-- nonetheless, people belonging to ethnic minorities in China are still affected by this negative stereotyping today, so regardless of the origin, racism is still racism and should be addressed, and China today is a majority Han Chinese nation-- even if Han Chinese are considered a minority and affected by systemic racism in other places in the world.

Additionally, many tropes specifically applied to the southern demons, but also used for demon culture as a whole, are tied to stereotypical portrayals of Southeast Asian culture, which is rooted in a long history of Imperial China's invasion and oppression.

All of those stereotypes listed above apply to SVSSS' demon culture. Even in Mobei-jun's name-- 漠北 meaning "northern desert," which is the real-world name for a region in the north of the Gobi desert in Mongolia.

Therefore, it is important to remember that though violence-as-courtship in demon culture is canonical within SVSSS' setting, it nonetheless originates from harmful racial and ethnic stereotypes. It would be a good idea for fans to keep this in mind when creating their fanworks, and to treat the topic with sensitivity-- but I will leave any direct suggestions on how to handle this to those who are actually part of the affected groups.

--

(thanks to @flidgetjerome for additional notes regarding SEAsian stereotyping and author intent!)

Also, to be absolutely clear: I am not saying that svsss’ demons are specifically coded as any real ethnic group— it’s only that in many ways the portrayal is similar to the common portrayal of various ethnic groups in cmedia. I don’t believe they are specifically meant to parallel a real life group, unlike for example TGCF’s Banyue— but it’s worth questioning why these traits, why these characters.

[anglerflsh]

[characters co-written with @sheerunfilteredhubris]

When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth No grave can hold my body down

[nadhie]

this website works on the heisenberg principle of uncertainty bc u either hear about or see other people get new features and never get them yourself or you get some new random shit added without notice or update, but you can never have both

[fumifooms]

Helki compilation

Helki is a prisoner-turned-servant. He’s a criminal canary and was implicitly one of Milsiril’s charges, and now that she’s retired he’s become her servant.

He must have gotten into Milsiril’s good graces, wether through attachment or convenience, which is a feat considering Milsiril’s a socially anxious recluse. Interesting since it’s not like he seems like the agreeable type, shifty upbeat delinquent style… We really don’t know much about him, not even what crimes he did, so there’s a lot of space for speculation on all grounds.

Edit: Shanghai QnA with Kui gave us a new juicy morsel of info!

Interesting… The original answer in japanese is: パッタドルと同じような杖を使っていました。今も同じものを支給されているのですが、すぐになくすのでもはや携帯していないようです。 That it’s written in japanese seems to say that there isn’t the same double translation issue there was last QnA, so if someone wants to look at the original phrasing and word choices it can be done. Perhaps Helki-Milsiril has a more protégé dynamic undertone than previously thought… "For various reasons", meaning circumstances that made it so the squad had to choose between saving him and saving their own skin, or like, "man this guy’s personality sucks we don’t really like him"? Likely to be a mix of several things, since ‘for various reasons’ implies the situation was either complex or they had multiple reasonings. In either case, the phrasing is very much that Milsiril couldn’t abandon him herself, and so a relationship sprung out of that. Another instance of outcasts seeking out and sticking with other outcasts in Dungeon Meshi. This could mean that it’s a bit less out of personal attachment and more out of a sense of duty on Milsiril’s side as well though.

Still edit: So then maybe him staying with Rin in that comic isn’t that much because of work ethics or that he cares for kids (or maybe he does because he feels kinship to them, alone and mistreated), but because he didn’t want to join the other canaries in that room chatting and laughing… Maybe the isolation was exacerbated because he became Milsiril’s favorite, teacher’s pet style, but I’d also be careful about assuming the others disproportionately dislike him, it could be that they just don’t really care for him. Why? Could be because of his personality, because he’s seen as shifty or unreliable or annoying, if an event, who knows who knows, but I like to think because of the Rin comic that he generally just tends to be a loner, that he’s "weird" in a neurodivergent vibe, he doesn’t conform to proper social behavior which in elven society seems especially alienating. He’s the only one with Rin to think of her sake, not only worth observing/caring for but also asks her to eat, but he does this with an offputting stare, not really emoting, and then well, the infamous alone with her staring munching covered in blood panel. He stands out. I’m a fan of the theory that it was a "Helki? Not that I dislike the guy but I’m not risking my skin for him" situation… Ok end edit back to older observations.

He seemed to be acting out of his own initiative in the Rin comic, he doesn’t look thrilled to be there in many post-canary comics but he also seems content enough. He restrains Milsiril in the Mithrun cleaning comic which is interesting to think of for their relationship.

It’s fun to notice how he’s the only one that didn’t get bored of looking after Rin, and then reports back about her condition… I’d say he was getting used to taking care of kids which would come with the job of serving Milsiril, but then, not enough for him to clean the blood off himself hah. In this way it’s interesting to think about his relationship to the idea of parenthood, he’s probably the closest thing to a father figure/male role model Kabru had growing up, without mentioning the other kids. I feel like he’d consider himself an older brother, cousin or uncle figure sooo much sooner than a father, but even then I do think it’s just his job and he’s not really invested or forming real relationships with any of them much.

It’s curious to note that he’s dressed in canary uniform presumably after having been pardoned and living with Milsiril? Which you can tell by the armor bits (the yellow strips of spider silk). In the Kabru training montage and the Rin comic specifically. It seems very implausible for him to have still been a canary while being a retired Milsiril’s servant and being with her all the time, and the cleaning with Mithrun comic (where he’s not in uniform) happens after Utaya so it could happen after Kabru was taken in but around the time of the Rin comic. So why uniform? It could be one of the best outfits he has, so it’d make sense to wear it around especially if you’re sparring or getting… Blood on you? Could just be because that's how Milsiril wants him to dress. But yeah we don't know when exactly Helki becoming Milsiril’s servant happened. We do see Mithrun’s charge Cithis be tasked with taking care of him, so a charge being given a servant-caretaker role doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, sometimes even prior to retiring.

Imo, if he doesn't work for Milsiril he goes back to jail/the canaries/has to try and get a job instead of just tending to her, so Helki is staying with Milsiril because she's the best option for him. He’s her milsiril's personal servant and does mostly dull tasks involved in that. He’s not particularly suited to the role but they’ve gotten used to each other to him so she took him with her, and he does prefer it to canary work so it works out decent for him. I think he’s used to reading her and managing her moods and he’s one of the rare social connection she has.

Under spoiler is stage 2 interpretation stuff, bigger speculation, in a reblog I’ll make soon I’ll go over my thoughts for stage 3 interpretation lol. Helsiril I’m coming for you

Translation of the canary hierachy chart used is by Thatsmimi, here

[00-spiriit-00]

Do NOT separate them. It's like slicing an atom in half.

[allthegothihopgirls]

the batfamily would NOT be on social media at all realistically, but of course tim loooooves photography, so i think he'd be a super dedicated scrapbook-mom type instead. (to compensate for the incredible instagram posts he WOULD make)

like, he's got books for each of his friends, one for each family member, and multiple for pictures of parts of the family and all of them together (although rare). he even has separate books for people in-costume and out-of-costume.

every christmas + birthday he recieves a loooooot of scrapbooking materials, he has draws of washi tape and stickers in his room.

he definitely tries his best to match the themes of the pages to the people in them too, and not one book has the same feel to it. he always writes very sincere little captions under the pictures as well. if he wasn't so attached to the books, he'd give them as gifts.

[hamartia-grander]

I know Luis's body was left behind for convenience, because this is a video game after all, but I like to think - or at least, I hope - that narratively, Leon would have carried Luis out of there. Not to give him a proper burial or anything, as that would take way too long and he'd have to carry Luis for a while, keeping him from fighting; but at least just to get him out of the mines, at least onto the elevator, and up to the surface that Luis had been so desperate to reach. At least to let Luis face the sky again, even if he could no longer see it. At least, because Leon's a bit more sentimental than he'd like to admit, to make sure Luis didn't die hidden away, entombed in the only place he'd shown honest excitement to leave. At least to ensure that Luis couldn't be forgotten, especially not by Leon, who would still feel the a phantom weight of Luis in his arms for years.

[charmac]

No right or wrong, doesn't even call for a discussion, I just want to know what you, the general fandom, post-16, currently believe to be Dennis' sexuality (purely sexual)

"Purposefully unlabeled" meaning Dennis understands his sexual attraction to men yet he's actively choosing to not label/disclose it to the Gang (or audience) for his own sake

Any other explanation explanation for Dennis' sexuality being unlabeled (i.e. doesn't understand bisexuality, hasn't thought about it, genuinely just doesn't fit any label/doesn't want to label himself, etc.) would fall under "Unlabeled - Infinitely nuanced"