#Part of me wants to say these are edgy by it IS literally based off of my IRL experience so I don't think I can really call it that 💀

[captainsweet]

I keep forgetting about this :sob:

Anyway, random drabbles with edgy titles I didn't feel like changing.

(TW! IMPLIED EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND PARENTIFICATION.)

(IT'S NOT GRAPHIC WHATSOEVER, BUT PLEASE KEEP YOUR COMFORTABILITY IN MIND REGARDLESS.)

These were also made during various stages of being half asleep so sorry if I don't make a single lick of sense lmao

|| Unknown Means to an End || AU: ITERATION LOE || MAIN CHARACTER: Dove ||

There was one thing he always knew no matter what.

He was her little Dove, she loved him, cared for him, saw him as her child for a couple of years. After all, he was a genius, a natural one at that, and he was useful.

Dove was useful, and Mama would love him as long as he'd continue to be.

That was fine though, he loved being with her, he loved the scarf she made him, loved the Dove pins even more. He loved the fact his Mama was considerate enough to get him glasses, considerate enough to let him meet people, to let him play, to let him eat, to let him be happy, to let him exist.

She was so nice to him, allowed him to breathe, to still be around, to let him help his twin brother.

Mama was always so sweet.

She was the reason Dove was alive, that Dove could get his little Mik walking again, that Dove was so happy to simply exist and breathe and be alive. She gave him that luxury, and he shouldn't take it for granted.

So, Dove made himself useful. He would be a good Turtledove for her, and she would give him what he needed to make his family happy.

No more Dad going out for days for food, sometimes coming back empty handed just because he was that worried. No more of his twin staring at them longly as they ran around or simply ate breakfast. No more tears flowing after Leo accidentally broke Raf's arm again.

No more pain, and maybe one day, no more hiding.

But that wasn't now. So all Dove had to do was be a good picture perfect son, and his family would be happy again.

|| There Comes a Time || AU: ITERATION LOE || MAIN CHARACTER: Dove ||

There comes a time where you have to stop holding onto the words of your parents and discover the truth for yourself. A time where you are finally no longer being coddled. A time where you are forced to be just like they were, but better.

And it fucking sucks. Dove can attest to that.

Except this wasn't his father, no, this was his own mother. He dreaded the thought of following in her footsteps, he dreaded it more than the day he lost his Mom, his real one, and he just knew he couldn't do it.

He has a family, people to look after, and he would've left long ago if being in this position didn't give him the chance to save his sibling. His Twin at that, and he'd rather endure this torture and life day by day than have to lose them.

Any of them.

So he stayed silent. He kept to his role of Perfect Son while grieving his Mom, and missing his family. He listened to whatever his Mother requested, gave her what she wanted tenfold and hoped to god it would be enough that she'd stay quiet when he left.

If there's one thing that always stays true, it's that no matter how much of a genius you are as a child, you're still a dumb and naïve kid.

Why would she ever let go of him when she has seen his potential? When she's seen how capable he is? If Dove knew that it mattered, he would've been just as useless as his Mom warned him to be, but he knew he was special, and he was desperate.

It didn't matter. When it came time to go, she had said no. She wanted him to stay, had cried faux tears over a child that was only briefly hers, had whined about losing the only person she had left.

And if there's one thing everyone knows, it's that no matter what, you always have to listen to your Mother.

|| Making Do With What You Have || AU: Robots, Robots, and– Oh! More Robots. (RROMR) || MAIN CHARACTER: Frida ||

She didn’t know what to think when her mother walked in with a little boy. She didn’t even know how to begin to process it when she was told that same little boy was just a robot. A nice little deal someone owed her mother as always.

He was silent, and freaky, and always smiling, and Frida didn't like him. Not at first at least.

If there was one thing clear, it was that he was supposed to replicate someone, but it was not a good job whatsoever. He was supposed to be the leader, he hardly said two words to her, and he seemed to look down on her in a way.

It was only the first time they fought that she realized, that they realized, he wouldn't compare.

It hardly took five moves before he was down, and even less than that the second time. He was made to be talented, but a robot can only compare so much to true years of training and work, even if it's booted in their brain.

That day.. was also when his look completely changed towards her. He didn't talk more, but he practically had stars in his eyes whenever she was around him. It was pathetic, and it showed just how utterly weak he was, how less than, how much better Frida was of a soldier.

And she cared for him.

Not because she wanted to, oh god no, but it was because of how utterly useless he was. He wasn't better than her, he provided no new ideas, no tactics, nothing. He was designed to be a leader, just like her other was, but he couldn't even compare to the turtle before, even if he was probably dead and died as just a baby.

He was a pathetic excuse of a remake and nothing more, but.. Frida could make him better. He was a hunk of metal that didn't matter, but they wouldn't get rid of him. She even got grounded for suggesting so! If that was going to be it, she was going to make him better. Make him worthy of being around her and working for her mother.

To be claimed as her mothers son. To call this robot her other, her brother at that.

He may be an empty shell now, but she would make him oh so much more than ever thought possible.

[shiny-jr]

I know you probably don't want to talk about this anymore, but I'm still really curious. Genshin Natlan characters have been revealed, and I want to know your opinion

Taking a long sigh. The fact that you seem hesitant to ask this means you probably have an idea of what my response would be like. Just so I don't have to end up making multiple posts about this topic, I'm gonna try to include everything here. If I forget something and someone asks later, I might be willing to address it.

So, heads up. This is a long rant. Shiny rants. Disclaimer, I am Mexican-American, so I believe I have some say on some of the cultures involved in this fiasco. Some of them, not all. That being said, I'll try to handle the others with as much respect as possible, but forgive me if I make a mistake somewhere.

I stopped playing genshin when Sumeru was announced. Despite me not having any affiliation with the cultures represented by Sumeru, I remember being livid as some of y'all might recall. So, let's start off with:

THE AMALGAMATION OF CULTURES. This meaning how very weird it is that somehow the european/east asian cultures get their own distinct nation dedicated to one sole peoples while brown/black cultures get meshed into one unrecognizable figure. Mondstadt is based off Germany, Liyue is based off China, Inazuma is based off Japan, Fontaine is based off France. On the other hand, Sumeru is a mix of south asia, the middle east, and north africa while Natlan takes that a step further by involving Incan, Mayan, Maori, Yoruban, and Hopi cultures (of what we know so far).

Why are all these other nations so carefully crafted and picked, but it feels as if for Natlan and Sumeru, the developers put up a map and grabbed some darts, then decided to use whatever culture wherever a handful of darts landed on the board? In the way they're handling it, it feels like these cultures are nothing but an accessory to them. An excuse to make these "exotic" looking characters, but not even make them properly due to the horrible designs and lack of melanin (these are two topics I will come back to).

It feels like they got lazy, and/or they clearly don't care enough to do in depth research properly as they might've done with past nations. The best example I've seen of this is Yunjin and Ororon. Yunjin is a beautiful example of a character done right and respectfully, as she is meant to be a Chinese opera singer. They even went so far as to hire an actual Chinese opera singer for a song she performs in-game. However, Ororon takes the name of "Olorun" which is a Yoruban deity, but when you look at this character's design, there is nothing that would even hint towards the fact that he's meant to be African.

This brings me to the second part, CULTURE AS COSTUMES. As mentioned previously, nothing about this Ororon character portrays the fact that he's meant to be African. NOTHING. If you do not know what he looks like, the character named after a Yoruban god is quite literally just a pale anime boy in edgy clothing and has some type of dog/cat/animal ears. I am not joking. That is what he looks like. If you don't believe me, look it up.

Do you know what the saddest part about all this is? It's the fact that I guarantee you, sometime in the future when Ororon appears in-game, gets his own quest, then his own banner, all that jazz, the chances of images of him appearing when you look up Olorun are high. In fact, when Sumeru was announced, I vividly remember doing research on the characters there were announced, such as Al-Haitham. When you looked up the name Al-Haitham then, google showed an Islamic astronomer. However, if you look up the name now, you immediately get builds and character guides and art of genshin's Al-Haitham, which is horrible when you really think about it. Because the same thing happened to Dehya (a Berber warrior queen), and it's about to happen to Kachina (Hopi spirits), Kinich (Mayan Sun God), Mualani (a princess of Hawaii), etc.

When you look at these characters, Natlan and Sumeru included, most of their designs don't even look as if they're portraying a culture. For now, I'll focus on Natlan.

Kinich is supposed to be Mayan, however, nothing about his design is giving Latino or indigenous Mayan. As a Mexican, I should be able to look at him and say, 'hey, he looks kinda like me or my cousins! Oh, I recognize those patterns, or that type of footwear/shirt/pants/headwear.' SOMETHING to that degree, but if you had shown me him and I didn't know, I would have never guessed.

Another infuriating design is Murata, the pyro archon. Tell me why does she look like a futuristic biker girl instead of a Maori/Polynesian warrior? The level of disrespect, ESPECIALLY because according to what I've gathered, her name is based off an actual entity/deity.

Time to point out the obvious, and I'm gonna say it but WHY ARE THEY WHITE? Yes, I know the argument about how not everyone from latino/arab cultures is brown, I know. But not everyone is white either, so please, get over it. If the entirety of Fontaine can be white because they're French, by that same logic, wouldn't it makes sense to make the entirety of Natlan brown/black because they're indigenous/african?

It lies well within hoyo's abilities to include colored characters. They have millions of dollars and they say they want a global audience, they just don't do it because there is major colorism there. Saying "but they're a Chinese company!" is no excuse either, because then that would be automatically classifying them as ignorant of anything outside of China when they clearly are not if they utilize strong elements of hip-hop and jazz (both with origins in African American communities) in their other games, want to pick these cultures like accessories on a shelf, and make brown/black npc enemies with locs and other poc features. I won't immediately jump to blaming the designers either, because it's probably that they have tried presenting ideas that do actually cater to the wider audience and poc people, but they were most likely turned down by higher-ups.

Anyways, I've been typing this for a while now and my mind is blanking. I'm sure I had more to say but I currently cannot remember it. I'm glad people are FINALLY speaking out against this, it's about time and actually late because the outrage around this should've happened back in Sumeru but better late than never.

If you don't agree with me or my takes on this, don't even bother trying to look for a response because I'm not gonna argue about this. That's about it for now though.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

This will be more of a vent post than it is a critique or review. It’s just something I personally find so agitating and I wanted to talk about it to just get the feelings of my chest.

I hate. And I mean hate. That they named her “Vaggie”

More below cut/includes slight spoilers from released content and leaked audition sheets.

I just. And please keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion and you’re allowed to think whatever you want. You can love her name and think it’s the most creative beautiful name in the world and that’s fine. That’s your opinion, and that’s great!!

But this is my opinion—V’s name isn’t funny. It’s not creative or clever.

It comes off as trying to be “edgy” or daring, but it just flops. And it’s incredibly frustrating to be sapphic (I’m a lesbian) and to see one of only TWO sapphic characters be literally named after “female” genitalia.

And I wondered for a while if I was just being weirdly picky about this, but if this leak turns out to be real (and I am PRAYING it’s not):

Then the exterminators, a seemingly entire female group, are named after genitalia. Like. Why? What is the point of having a group of characters being named after genitals??

I have a hard time describing why this makes me so angry and makes me feel so disrespected. I think it’s because:

1. Whether intentional or not, it comes off as reducing women characters to their genitalia.

2. It’s reducing a sapphic (possibly lesbian, but never confirmed) character to her genitals. Again, whether or not this is intended, the writers have made it so that everyone who hears these characters names immediately thinks “oh like Vagina”. This is even a joke in the prequel comics:

And the FIRST EPISODE:

Apparently the original character that V is based on was actually named “Vagina” just straight up. Oh but they used a Y. Because. That really makes it unique a cool. (Being sarcastic)

3. Again. I don’t care if this was the intent or not. But it feels just so so reductive to name a whole GROUP of women characters after different female genital parts. It’s just disrespectful. And again, I don’t think it was meant to be this—but it just? It’s so reductive and just stupid.

Like. I also want to make it clear that I’d be saying the SAME thing as I am now if it was a male character named “Penissy” or “Scrothomas” or some stupid shit. If Angel Dust’s name was like… “Tainty” or “Schlong” or something I would also be frustrated and upset.

Because that would be the same thing. A gay man character reduced to his genitals. Anyway this is done, it’s disrespectful and feels gross and reductive to me.

But I don’t know what I expected because this is the same writing team that thinks a character referring to himself as “The Dickmaster” and saying “dick” 600 times in a row is peak comedy writing. Ugh.

Again, I’m sorry this is more a personal vent than any sort of review or critique. I’m genuinely hoping that the Lute audition sheet is not anything that will show up in the show, and that Clitorissa and Labianne will never see the light of day. It’s just.

It’s not funny. It’s stupid, and annoying, and I hate it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And V deserved to be called by a real name, not a edgy unfunny punchline.

[alllgator-blood]

MY BAD FOR LIKE SPAMMING I DIDNT CHECK YOUR BLOG IN LIKE A WEEK AND I ATE ALL OF YOUR RAMBLINGS AND ART

I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT YOU LITERALLY KILLED ME WITH THE ANGST THINGYS

FLIGHT GOT DELAYED, I HAVE CHOSEN THIS ASK TO BE THE FINAL ONE FOR NOW BEFORE I SHUT MY PC OFF. I just wanted to say there's absolutely no issue with spamming me because number go up = more dopamine so I'd be insane to complain. If anything I think it's neat when I see familiar names in my notifs/inbox, it's been forever since I've had an online presence so I love going "oh look who's online!" when I see someone liked a bunch of my posts sdfkjhsdfkjs

ABOUT THE ANGST STUFF. I AM SORRY I KILLED YOU WITH MY ANGST COMICS, BUT AM GLAD TO HEAR THEY ACTUALLY LIKE AFFECT PEOPLE?? I bum myself out when I do sad comics but in like a good way. I haven't been invested in anything in sooo long, so I like feeling every possible emotion towards this stupid game. I HAVE...MORE ANGST......SO MUCH MORE. I work on it when I'm sad about irl stuff cause being sad about fictional stuff is more fun.

I'm gonna put a sketch comic under the cut, it's the one where shamura is accidentally gaslit into having a freakout and killing one of their followers. AVERT THINE EYES IF THAT'S TOO HEAVY, THERE IS ALSO SLIGHT SKETCHY GORE WHERE I COULDN'T REALLY CROP IT OUT

I cropped out the part where they explode their follower from the inside out. I was formerly a warrior cats kid so I like drawing edgy violent shit, but I understand not everyone wants to see that SDJFHSDFKJ- it'll be in the final comic if I ever come back to this one (tagged appropriately)

I wonder if it's obvious that I'm projecting hardcore in this comic but also, I feel like if I HAVE to have the health issues I do, I might as well make lobotomy spider comics based on my personal frustration?? I have a few more like this but one of them is...idk if I'll ever post it cause it's more soul crushing the other ones I've posted.

What a way to leave my blog for the next week. ENJOY THE ANGST, SEE Y'ALL WHEN I'M BACK FROM THE BEACH B)

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Part 2 of Episode 3, live reaction (as someone who has never watched or read the series, so this is the only One Piece content I’ve ever gotten into):

1) “Something black”. Zoro is literally just Batman/Frank Castle/Matt Murdock/all the other dark and edgy superheroes that I didn’t list. At some point, I want Zoro to say something along the lines of, “I’m vengeance”.

2) Kaya’s butler reminds me of Jared Leto for some reason loool. Also, his “evil” reveal was pretty obvious.

3) I do like the show’s commitment to the weird anime aesthetic. Everyone looks just a little off, whether it’s their hair color or what they’re wearing. It gives the show a sort of Dr. Seuss/Looney Tunes type of feel, which is appropriate since this is based on an anime.

4) Garp feels a little too obvious to be a villain. I feel like there’s something missing here because he doesn’t strike me as the main villain of this season. I could be wrong though.

5) Usopp feels like the Sokka of the show.

6) So, Luffy is one of those anime protagonists that loves to eat, right? Along the lines of Goku? Because this man is always eating in this show lol.

7) “Not sailors, we’re pirates”. If it weren’t for Luffy being a lovable guy, I would’ve rolled my eyes the same way Zoro did.

8) If this were an MMO, Luffy barely put any points in intelligence since he clearly put most of his points into charm/charisma.

9) So…Shanks is to Luffy, the same way Garp is to Koby? Is that what I’m getting from this show?

10) Ah, this is one of those “kill the heir so that the villain can inherit the fortune” type story. Also, the butler is freakin Reverse Flash and Freddy Krueger?

Alright, continued to part 3.

[thenightling]

Willy Wonka misconceptions

As Charlie and the Chocolate Factory / Willy Wonka has become weirdly popular lately because of the successful prequel film and most recently that really botched / rip-off Wonka event in Glasgow Scotland, it felt like a good time for this post.

Here are a list of popular misconceptions about the book and films.

1. Much of the Internet thinks of Wonka as a "Serial killer of children." I pointed out that at the end of the 2006 film and novel you see the children alive, though altered. And in the 1971 film that version of Wonka says that they will all be fine, but a little wiser. Someone tried to argue with me that he was just trying to placate Charlie. Really!? Since when did that Wonka ever lie to make people feel better?

Based on his previous behavior we have no reason to believe Wonka would lie just to make Charlie feel better. It's just a dark, edgy, annoying headcanon to pretend Wonka killed those other kids when every version tells you they survived.

____________________________

2. Grandpa Joe was not "Faking it" or "being lazy." It seems ironic to me that so many rant and even get genuinely angry about the character Grandpa Joe. It is especially odd to me when the rage is in regard to the depiction in the 1971 film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.

The reason it is odd to me is because in the 1971 film Grandpa Joe very clearly was suffering through severe depression, possibly a long bipolar depression phase.

The depression is clear in his "I've got a golden Ticket" song.

"I never thought my life could be Anything but catastrophe"

"I never had a chance to shine Never a happy song to sing"

It seems weird to me that today people shame characters like Cinderella for not being assertive and empowered when she's a live-long abuse victim. And then you have the people against Disney's The Little Mermaid who say she gave up who and what she is for a man but ignore that she had a song number from before she ever saw Eric, where she expressed body dysphoria and made clear she wanted to be human even then.

And you have a large part of the Internet shaming Grampa Joe for being "lazy" and "faking being sick' while he's literally telling us that he he's been in a severe depression.

It's almost like watching a generation that supposedly respects mental illness and understands depression in ways previous generations didn't... suddenly having a justification to shame someone for having all the symptoms of clinical depression.

Hell, even the song "I've got a Golden Ticket" kind of indicates Grandpa Joe is entering a manic phase. If Grandpa Joe's illness is psychological why do we treat it as not-real? I get so annoyed at how many people mock the character or act like he's a con artist exploiting Charlie.

________________________

3. The Oompa Loompas were not slaves.

It's true that the earliest depictions of the Oompa Loompas were little African people (before the novel was revised) but in all versions he tells the kids that he pays them in coca-beans. That might sound like he pays them in fallen acorns he found in his garden but it's made clear that to Oompa Loompas, in their society, coca-beans are worth more than gold.

Try to imagine you got a job working for aliens who offer to pay you in large bars of gold if you just help him make some gold jewelry. But because gold isn't worth THAT much to these aliens they think you're a pathetic slave, even though Lofty (the Oompa Loompa from the new Wonka movie) probably now has a palace on Loompa Land that he uses as a summer house.

Interesting bit of trivia: Charlie was originally going to be black.

___________________________

4. Wonka (2023) is NOT a remake. A lot of people mistakenly think this is yet another remake. No. It's a musical prequel to the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie from 1971. ________________________

5. Lots of fans have "figured out" that the shoe shine boy Wonka sees early in Wonka is Charlie. One small problem with that. This is twenty-something Willy Wonka. Wonka was supposed to be pushing fifty or sixty when he went looking for an heir. The timeline wouldn't work. The director has confirmed that for this reason the shoe shine boy is NOT Charlie Bucket.

And there you go. A list of popular Wonka misconceptions debunked.

[pleasantspark]

My partner literally defends this show a lot and in VC he tries to "dispute it" so here's the full list of issues wrong with this show, you ALL have the fucking excuse as "no creative control", "endgame and slowburn", "You watch spliced up clips.", "It's Hell!"

No Creative Control: ViziePops characters would have IMMEDIATELY been changed COMPLETELY if that were the case.

Endgame and Slowburn: A ship being fucking depicted as going through a crisis every fucking minute and taking over an episode that was meant for two other characters? While also ruining a Parent Child bond? "Endgame" my ass, also lets not forget a character sexually harassed another character and was not depicted as calling that character out, "Couple Goals" my ass too. Slowburn is non-existent in this world.

You watched spliced up clips: HONEY the only clips I watch are those that ACTUALLY are relevant to my fucking point, Are we even watching the same damn thing? Also edits are beyond that.

It's Hell: Ah yes, so it's hell, no it's fucking downtown Los Angelos thats DISGUISED as Hell, Hell would be more "chaotic" and more "consequencal" most of the demons there are LIVING IT UP, and continiuing their lives much as they were alive. There's nothing different from when they are alive. It seems like Hell is LITERALLY Heaven. The only consequence is that demons seemed to get harassed or at the minimal killed, so next time I stab someone in Jail, I can go and say "IT'S JAIL!"

I feel as though people who compare ViziePops Harassment to Rebecca Sugar's harassment is completely stupid af.

Rebecca was harassed because someone decided to make a 1 hour long video trashing her show and indirectly called her a neo-nazi which caused other people to parrot the accusations as well, Rebecca was harassed by her fans just for standing up for a fan who was getting sent death threats over a FUCKING art style.

Afaik, Viv's harassments is just criticism of how she handled the pilot actors (And apparently Cherri Bomb's pilot VA had lost her Husband due to a medical ailment and she was trying to raise money to help fund the expenses that were left behind and fucking Viv said, Nuh uh, and shut that shit down. KNOWING PEOPLE PAID FOR THAT SHIT, I mean can Viv LEGALLY take down VA who impersonate her characters? Sure it's her IP but it doesn't mean that the VA for the original CB is her.), how she drew something I am not about to get into because quite frankly it's not my business (And I mean MOST of the creators, Rebecca included, had drawn some fucked up shit in the past.). She also apparently mistreats her workers. And afaik Sugar never did any of that.

You can scream "Oh but Viv has a LOT of struggles and [Rebecca Sugar] is just like her!!" all you want, but THERE'S nothing similar to her and Rebecca and the only thing similar is they make tv shows with diversity and are both females.

Don't get me wrong, I love HelluvaHazbin but people needlessly finding excuses for poorly written shows and bad pacing/decisions while also holding Viv on a pedestal infuriates me, and the worse part is, allegedly she never received criticism in her college years.

I ain't gonna sugar coat it, the LGBTQ+ Rep in this show is completely for the fujoshi and as a Trans Male whose Gay, I am HIGHLY disturbed about how most of the Gay characters are depicted as "Uwu Soft boys who could do no wrong"

Like for FUCKS sake, we're NORMAL PEOPLE, we don't get treated any differently by a standard hetrosexual, the only time we get treated differently is by angry Facebook Prudes and edgy fuckers who think being scared of homes is the new norm.

I am surprised most of the fandom (On tumblr) don't call out the problematic shit, when THE LGBTQ+ is prominent here! The more you continue to agree and like these "rep ships" the more you're giving these people the okay to continue to drive the show WHICH WAS BASED OFF OF "Assassinations" now turned into "Arguements between a same sex couple that has one victim and one gaslighter"

A little tidbit for those who stand with Stolas.

An Abuse Victim can be a Abuser.

It's not that difficult. Jfc. Anyways, this is my reason why I made Biblically Inaccurate to begin with.

[machiavellli]

https://x.com/heccinbork/status/1811222183500255666

^^^ Ignorant people like THAT original poster who says stuff like that makes me so mad. Especially when those same people ignore the atrocities that the Sith caused. Anyways, the Jedi are GOOD, and that show is very poorly written and pandered to the haters like that original poster.

girl that scene was so out of any Star Wars physics and logic. I can’t comprehend to save my life HOW stuff like this gets accepted when it comes to create new products. It’s almost as if the new Star Wars directory’s completely lost sight of the actual Star Wars lore and what George Lucas meant. Perhaps because they don’t actually put that much of an effort anymore, since from what I came to understand they are shifting in MCU mode™️ , dropping products like it’s nothing. Because you know: quality has never been a synonym of speed. Anyway, they make money with all of this and they know, doesn’t matter how much we get pissed.

It’s just that it is so astonishing to me how willing they are to make the Jedis, a group of people that suffered a GENOCIDE, look bad.

Why are they using the narrative of the empire/siths, the guys literally based off the nazis, for justifying the mass massacre of the Jedis? Don’t they hear themself? Why are they going full nazi? The sith isn’t some cool edgy goth club. They are straight up villains. Then yes, there are some more prone to evil than others, but still. There is good and bad, very evidently so too (as Lucas intended for the Star Wars universe to be).

Using Palpatine’s narrative, arguably one of the most, if not the most, evil character in the whole franchise to justify violence against an ethnical group of people is…an interesting choice of direction, to say the least.

The Jedi were set up for their failure: it was never their fault. You can make them look as bad as you may want, but what happened to them was simply atrocious.

I want to live in delusions and I want to think that this show will end as someone wrote here on tumblr (sorry I forgot who): with all of this being a story told from Palpatine’s prospective. Otherwise this show, the writers in particular, failed for me.

I wanted to like the Acolyte, I thought it had a great cast and a VERY interesting story to tell…like THIS IS THE HIGH REPUBLIC CMON!! I have been waiting for this for SOOO long. But perhaps I’ll never learn: certain things aren’t made to be put on a screen. I was sad over the misrepresentation of Thrawn in Ahsoka and now the one of Jedi’s here. Star Wars do better pls. (This goes beyond this show’s narrative, I’m talking about the quality in any aspect, such as the writing, the stenography, the costumes,…).

Like I’m sorry, but the hot sith can distract me just for so long, but it isn’t enough to save a show. Nice try tho, Manny and that beach scenes was the best part without a doubt.

Last but not least…YES. Like it has become impossible to criticise on this show openly because you get immediately associated with racist bigots. I just want the jedi to have their good representation and for Star Wars to have good stories. I just want the best for anyone and I despise the people doing hate on the cast. They are just ignorants who don’t care about the franchise.

Let’s hope for the best. Mh.

[misterxsamsa]

Part One

Will write more if you want!

Okay so this is what I’m thinking: JV has used Johnny as a way to vent/tell his truths and gaslit everyone into thinking it wasn’t about him.

There are many things similar between the two: the way they look/dress (90’s mall goth), the haircut, being a cinephile, his viewpoints on humanity, his personality, etc. What I’ve gathered from posts on the internet about people who’ve met him in the 90’s, he was considered to be toxic. Which considering he was still in his teenage years/early adulthood it’s understandable. He literally looks like Johnny!

On the Johnny Twitter account, there are SO many tweets that are just JV venting or talking about things he likes. Short haired girls, talking about women all being insane (which he’s done on livestreams), his views on people, even down to just random bullshit like eating snacks and avoiding sleeping. All of those tweets are just JV. Johnny is a puppet for him to speak and vent through. And you might be going, “well, he HAS to come up with things for Johnny to say”…so why make him completely similar to himself? Surely a creative mind could come up with more.

Think about it, many panels are totally just artwork based on real life with a modification here and there. For example, Johnny laughing at a sitcom/not killing himself because he has something to watch to distract him. If that isn’t JV I don’t know what is. And if you’ve ever been there when he had literal breakdowns on stream, you’d know 1.) he used media as a distraction, clearly and 2.) he’s suicidal. Even though everyone brushes it off as a joke.

There are so many interviews and things JV has said himself that would indicate he: has a sleep disorder/is afraid of sleep, he doesn’t understand people (which Johnny doesn’t either) arrogance and hypocrisy, among other things that also indicate paranoid ideation. Which…I can’t even blame him because some of his fans are…interesting. Seriously, he fathered that whole “zomg I’m so random xD” school of thought. Disorganized thinking but make it funny and marketable I guess.

There are even interviews and I think one of them is on YouTube where an interviewer called it a joke and he looked SO pissed. If JTHM TRULY wasn’t about him, or a joke…why would he selling get angry if an interviewer said it was?

Even observing him in his livestreams, you can totally pinpoint things that make you go “Johnny would totally say that”, and “this is a symptom of [insert mental illness here], and the breakdowns everyone has already witnessed. Now, people brush it off as “everything he does is a joke”, but do you REALLY think that’s the case?

The thing about JV is that he’s the ultimate hipster: he clearly doesn’t care about being understood and wants to be seen as completely original and “too good” for things everyone else likes. He has amazing tastes sure, but *many* people do whether they like the same things or not. Hence why he also has stated he can’t stand being copied before. (Forgot where I saw that on the internet, sorry.) This is why he also hates when anyone relates to his work…because it no longer becomes personal or special. Not even because people read JTHM wrong/think it’s edgy humor/is a phase to them. And think about it…why would you care if people only use your work to LARP if you’re getting paid and it’s just a joke to you anyway? Why would you WANT them to actually get it…if it isn’t something that’s clearly important to you?

Mostly, JTHM is FULL of intrusive thoughts. Most people have them, but to an artist that gives them ideas for their artwork.

This is just SOME stuff I have written but let me know if you want more.

Anon, I will be thinking about this forever.

For my own Jhonen-esque reasons I'm allergic to getting too personal on my blogs typically, but I'm making an exception here because of the work put into this...

I've been JTHM since my formative years, and it's always been a big inspiration towards my art, writing, and interests. You can tie a good 75% of my interests back to JTHM, or the things referenced within it somehow. I've also struggled with a fuckload of mental illness since forever. So, for the longest time, I've accidentally looked towards Jhonen Vasquez as this weird litmus test standard for normalcy? He made my struggles look artistic and interesting, instead of just lame and debilitating. All while being a SEEMINGLY normal-passing dude, despite clearly having some issues. It's been hard, you know, kinda grappling with the fact that I'll probably never be able to maintain that level of presentation and seeming stability. See, I'm not a livestream kinda guy, so my exposure to him is all panels and interviews. So! Imagine my reaction upon you telling me that this guy, at fifty something, is apparently a complete dork who has suicidal breakdowns on livestream! I'm finally free!

Everybody I look up to is just as lame as I am, and I never have to worry about this ever again! ANYWAYS, ONTO THE ACTUAL ASK! I'm pulling a Jhonen and officially declaring everything I just said as an elaborate exercise in brilliant irony!

Yeah, you're right about all of this and you should say it. I've always seen Johnny as being Jhonen's borderline self-insert slash power fantasy. It's done so obviously, that his continous attempts to deny it just make it seem more obvious. Though, I'll say that before reading this I thought Johnny was perhaps a more exagerrated depiction of his personality, but maybe not as much so as I originally thought? In regards to him being perceived as rude in the 90s, I've never been able to pinpoint if he was as callous as everybody said, or just unaccustomed to interacting with people who looked up to him so much. When MCR was on its last leg as a band, I know people used to really tear into Gerard Way on forums for not having his usual energy, when he was just depressed, lol. It's probably a mix of both.

I'd love to see more of what you've written. Please never be shy about sending large essays! I love them, and that's why I write them, and subject everyone on Tumblr to my longwinded opinions.

[tacky-optic]

Had a question about who our favorite Zenigata partner is in a server I'm in and now I can't stop thinking about them. Tis the zaza sickness.

anyway here's literally all of the characters Zenigata's been partnered with that i could find (within reason). if anyone wants to elaborate on any of these guys (cough yata cough) please feel free to go absolutely ham. *(obligatory spoiler warning for a whole lotta lupin specials, waow-- notably zenigata keibu since that's probably the most unwatched of everything i cover. but if youre here im guessing youre as unfortunately well-versed as i am so LETS FRIGGIN GET INTO IT)

Starting off nice n' mellow. I'm pretty neutral on Yata, tbh. I just think he's neat and it's easy enough to write him and not much else. I've rambled about him being a stand-in for the viewer before, but overall i just don't have all that many thoughts on the guy (seriously someone please do yata). ironic considering he's hands-down the most prevalent sidekick to date, but alas. head remains empty.

MARIYA. Mariya my girlie oh how i love thee. finally, someone with a Gimmick on par with Mr. my-sword-can-cut-anything. Plus she's super sweet and smart and sharp and just an all-around endearing character. AND SHE'S DIFFERENT!! she's tagging along with Zenigata of her OWN FREE WILL like gurl what are you THINKING. there isn't a shred of coherent interview material to draw from this man, especially about Lupin. The dynamic they end up developing is on point, though!! Zenigata's initial total miscall of it aside, It's just plain ol' wholesome. If Yata's his surrogate son than Mariya's obviously his daughter. No shot in hell they don't at least keep in contact after the special's done. plus her snapping a pic of him every time he eats shit is peak comedy journalism

MOTHAFUCKIN' MELON COP!! an absolutely magical reefer-smokin' shitbag, especially in the edgy Tokyopop translation. He's a great foil to our otherwise serious(ly neurotic) manga Zenigata. Not to mention the combative potential with a down the line Melon.... ough. A more toned-down "newer part"-esque Zeni getting slapped with an extremely smug and insistent reminder of his angstlord past is such a delicious concept to me. i will be using this guy extensively in that exact way one of these days-- he's too fun not to.

a bit of a sidenote but i've gotta point fingers at gray jacket again (can't recommend it enough) for having my favorite melon depiction in fic; walther recently had him show up in their fic secondhand vanity as well (which i also can't recommend enough), so needless to say i think he has some fun potential.

Sakuraba and Kunikida from the live-action show get honorable mentions, obviously. They're both so different yet learn so much from Zenigata all the same. As far as reacting to the inspector goes, they're the ideal Yatas (again i am so so sorry yata-- surely someone will do you justice). Even though they aren't technically "new" to the force they're new to the Zenigata Shenanigans, and that is where the entertainment factor is. Sakuraba's the traditionalist keibu method-doubter whereas Kunikida's this mousey blue around the gills fella, and over their respective case file appearances, they both gain faith in/learn confidence from Zenigata, respectively. It really is a great bit of development to watch play out.

I'm gonna count The Guys™️ as a collective group/formless mass with maybe one of the Guyest of Guys as Zenigata's right hand Guy, like that one dude in Cagliostro. Apparently the name he's given in one of the dubs is Sam?? That's neat. Sam's neat. for anyone interested in some homework, here's the link to the highly informative lupin forum thread i found that out from: [x]

But yeah the Guys! Right from the start, Zenigata having this army of inexplicably and absurdly loyal cops was always a fun trope and i love to see 'em whenever they show up. I had this idea ages ago for this fake documentary-style miniseries based around them-- all the usual Lupin nonsense goes on in the background while we get a peek at the typically unseen shenanigans happening on the law-bearing side. Getting assigned to the lupin taskforce is probably seen as some kind of punishment, but that just makes the camaraderie all the more tight-knit. There'd be some behind-the-scenes Zenigata/how he interacts with them, what they get up to on their own whack case assignments when they're in a Lupin sighting lull.... hell maybe we even learn why they're all so damn loyal to this one supposedly hyper-independent guy. I think it'd be fun but maybe that's just the Zenigata hopeful in me. Surely he's capable of building some semblance of rapport with the fine group of folks he drags around the world with him....

Let's just rip the band-aid off-- I dislike Oscar with a burning passion. which is weird, right? because i like Melon Cop, the dude who's totally cool with straight-up cold-blooded judge/jury/executioner-style murder. I dunno dude the obsessive daddy kink simping's just too feckin' weird for me. i checked the hell out so fast. If the goal was to make Oscar extremely disquieting, they friggin' did it. Granted he was written to be a bit whack from the start, and getting raised(?)/mentored by THAT Zenigata would irreversibly mess anyone up. I get that the fucked up-ness is part of the appeal, but man. How anyone can gravitate towards Oscar without heavily modifying his whole deal escapes me.

I've seen him written tolerably in fic maybe... twice? He's in gray jacket (there it is again!) and SMRO (needs no introduction nor explanation), so obligatory kudos to anyone who can wrangle [gestures vaguely at all of that].

Vicky though. Vicky Flannigan from Island of Assassins is so goddamn funny. Still can't believe they took one of the most badass Zenigata character designs and actively went out of their way to make him bedridden. I've seen folks call him "Proto-Yata" and. Yeah. Can't argue. He's a glorified babysitter, if anything, and the only reason he's even remotely effective is because he (accidentally) broke both of Zenigata's legs. Funniest shit istg

ICPO LADIES!!! They're cute. Designs could be better but it's Babylon yknow. Despite being an admittedly fun romp, the special has its obvious.... uh. issues. product of its time and all that. iykyk. anyway LADIES. They're competent. They take No Shit from Zenigata. The random little crush that comes out of nowhere between Chinjao and Goemon is cute as hell. Plus, I've seen some pretty rockin' fandom redesigns floating around.... wouldn't mind in the slightest if they made a comeback.

I'm gonna lump all of the Betrayers into one category: Emily O'Brien from Angel Tactics, Kazami from Fuma Conspiracy, and Terry Crown from Alcatraz Connection. Never expected the "Zenigata's partner is the bad guy!!1" trope would be so prevalent, but it tracks in retrospect. It's a neat enough idea-- bummer they never seemed to nail it down, though.

The only reason O'Brien is so predictable is because she's so goddamn unlikable. There's hardly any screentime of them working together and in every single scene, the incompetency just feels so blatantly intentional its almost offensive lmao. Zero surprise in the slightest when she showed her true colors-- just mild annoyance, which tracks for the whole special tbh. Only worthwhile parts are the beginning and the end, and absolutely none of that has anything to to with O'Brien.

Kazami just has that chump secondary villain face y'know. Again, a bit on the nose how obnoxiously dorkish he is-- but them playing up him putting on his glasses so Fujiko can recognize him got a little laugh outta me, ngl. He served his purpose, plain and simple.

I'll never know whether Crown was predictable or not because I stumbled across ""Evil Columbo"" before I watched Alcatraz, but despite the spoiler I can at least say he isn't lame as shit. Pre-reveal, he's probably the closest we'll get to a taste of what Melon might be like in modern Lupin media. He's your run-of-the-mill corrupt sleazebag detective-- steals evidence, generally doesn't give a fuck, takes cheap jabs at Zenigata-- but their final standoff is what puts him above Kazami for me. Just a real melodramatic overdramatic moment of Zenigata Zenigata-ing his heart out.

Welcome to the ELDERLY MEN CATEGORY, OORAH. The old guy from Twilight Gemini, Kogoro Akechi from the pilot, and George McFly from First Contact. I could track down Gemini old guy's name, but I hand-to-god couldn't care less. The only worth a damn thing Gemini's given me is that one jigzeni screenshot, so we're just gonna move on to the next two.

Not much of Akechi, huh. He only shows up in the pilot and doesn't do anything of note besides be someone for Lupin to disguise himself as. Dare i say Goemon was a more effective ally to Zenigata than Akechi...? yeah sure, why not. Goemon's a zeni sidekick. i'll die on that hill. anyway I believe he's also a reference to a pre-existing character...? like Lupin, Goemon, and Zenigata are. All in all its probably for the best that he didn't make it to part 1.

Finally, the only old guy that actually has aspects to talk about. I actually really like McFly and the role he plays in First Contact; it isn't Zenigata learning from whoever his partner may be, but McFly learning from Zenigata. He's a jaded, on-the-verge-of-retirement type that thinks he's seen all the force has to offer, but here comes this young (is he considered "young" in this?? early, maybe) freak-ass foreigner cop with a vendetta he's practically frothing at the mouth to rectify. Neither of them are exactly enthused to be working together, but McFly sticks around anyway and learns to see past a lot of Zenigata's first impression baggage; the tenacity, the passion, the genuineness of it all. Not only does he want to make real change, but the crazy bastard can actually friggin' do it. ...Or at the very least make a sizable dent.

Zenigata sincerely adheres to the idea of what a cop's supposed to be, fundamentally, and not what a "cop" actually is, as a vague collective occupational concept. Zenigata has a genuine effect on McFly-- enough to make him just the slightest bit less soured by the end of it all. It's a nice sentiment; that no matter where you are in life, ideas can still change. It's a small arc that flies beneath the radar of everything else, but i noticed it. I FRIGGIN' NOTICED IT, MAN

tl;dr Zenigata's a lonely guy, sure, but he doesn't have to be.

That should cover all of the significant parts/specials/movies, but if i missed anyone (any notable episodes? manga?) lemme know. Either way, it's nice finally having 'em all in one place.

[hyper-jam]

General SecurityWaiter/DreamTheory headcanons cause I just love them (part 1 cause I will never shut up abt them)

+some other general fnaf movie character (Abby mostly) stuff but mainly still SW/DT related, random timeline order I’m just spewing

-Mike goes to Sparky’s before and after work. He gets coffee before work cause DUH, and then sometimes he’ll get a small breakfast/some coffee in the morning so he doesn’t immediately pass out after his shift. Thats how him and Ness met. First impressions were along the lines of Mike thinking that this waiter talks too much, especially for the hours it is, and Ness just think Mike seems interesting and mysterious (lowkey thinks he might be a cryptid)

-the SECOND Mike lets slip that he works at Fazbear’s Ness is OBSESSED with talking to him more. He already thought he seemed interesting but now he knows he works at the place that he’s being obsessing over for YEARS he is NEVER gonna stop asking him shit and infodumping (Mike finds this very annoying at first, but then eventually realizes that Ness does in fact know quite a bit abt Freddy’s which he finds interesting and helpful so he starts actually engaging in the conversation)

-Ness has asked Mike to take them to Freddy’s multiple times, he has yet to say yes (not like Ness hasn’t broken in before. They’re half the reason they needed a security guard)

-Mike is insecure abt the height difference (and his height in general) but Ness literally just wants to squeeze him and go like ubububbubububu ur so cute ubububbubububu (me)

-Mike is actually fairly strong cause he likes to work out (it’s a coping mechanism) so sometimes he picks Ness up (like bridal style and shit) and it lowkey gives him gender euphoria and Ness just fucking loves it it makes them so giddy

-I saw smth somwhere abt Ness possibly being Sparky’s owner’s son so I’m just gonna second that and say that that’s why he works there so many hours (aka he basically helps run the place) but it’s also why he can kind get off work whenever he wants

-Mike complaining abt this annoying waiter who talks to much and is obsessed with Freddy’s peaks Abby’s interest so she asks Mike to take her to Sparky’s and that’s how Abby and Ness meet (they become best friends ever and sometimes Ness takes care of her when Mike is busy)

-Abby has plushies of the fazgang and a collection of fazcoins and other collectibles that Mike got her from the prize counter (not like anyone else is using them) and she shows them to Ness who absolutely FLIPS OUT about it. She also uses the faztokens as money for when they play pretend

-MIKE has freckles NOT NESS because Josh hutcherson LITERALLY HAS FRECKLES THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT /hj /lh

-Ness has a cat named Skip (cause he’s literally just MatPat /hj)

-Mike has passed out at Sparky’s before (usually like Saturday mornings after his shift since he doesn’t have to worry abt taking Abby to school, I mean not like he does it intentionally but he’s less worried abt it so sometimes he just zonks) and Ness will bring him soft shit to lay his head on and then gently wake him up and offer him coffee, which he eventually starts giving him on the house (totally just cause they knows he’s struggling financially and NOT because they’re flirting /j)

-I LOVE the “Mike can’t cook and Ness loves cooking” headcanon so I wanna say that’s real, but looking at the movie, Mike’s been taking care of Abby for years and cooks dinner for them multiple nights, and Ness is a waiter…based on the information given, Mike would theoretically (hehe theory) be the one who cooks ☝️🤓 /hj

-Abby demands to paint both their nails. Ness more than happily agrees but Mike is hesitant (dysphoria and general “ugh little girl stuff” type energy) but she keeps asking so he lets her paint them black (cause that’s so edgy and cool and masculine /j) and he learns he actually likes it quite a bit

Ok done for now this is getting very long but I will have more don’t yall worry 🤗🤗🤗

[2010s-nostalgia]

frozen hate discussion??? 👀👀 take my hand

no but really. even just aside from how they took a pretty good fairy tale and did... um, nothing with it? nothing interesting at least, frozen is still just a mediocre movie with bad designs and music that's really just okay.

what really bothers me more than anything else is that frozen just comes off as cynical. it's making fun of older movies that are better than it.

every single time someone tries to make a fairy tale edgy/adult or feels the need to point out every unrealistic aspect about it an angel dies. "you can't marry a man you just met" represents a fundamental misunderstanding of both the genre and the disney movies based on it. it's this annoying tongue-in-cheek tone and utter pessimism that quite literally sucks all the magic out of the movie, and then they have the balls to make fun of better films. it's just cynical and grating and honestly coming from disney itself just annoys me. oh you think snow white and cinderella are unrealistic? you think love at first sight is stupid? should we throw a party? should we invite buzzfeed.

whereas movies like shrek, which also try to deconstruct the fairy tale/disney genre, actually work because instead of someone busting out an "erm, actually!" line every five minutes or pulling some cheap twist, they simply tell a story that reverses the tropes. and there's no moment in shrek where the movie turns to the audience and goes "you dumb dumb fuck ass idiots came here to see a fairy tale? well fuck you! twist villain attack!"

I don't much care for tangled either but at least you can tell it was made in earnest. also literally everything frozen was applauded for has been done better before. the sisters thing? lilo and nani have an actual bond. playboy villain? gaston. taking time to fall in love? beauty and the beast? tarzan? hercules? literally like most disney movies? anna and kristoff were together for like a week before saying I love you. get real.

okay thanks mod love your blog <3

I agree with everything. Honestly, making fun of past movies would be okay if it succeeded at all. Enchanted exists, it made the same points, and it worked soooo well. In Frozen, Anna is told she can't marry a man she just met, then gets with Kristoff within like two days. Love's not supposed to be a major part of the story? A whole song is sung by the love interests' family about how they should get together (they get together later). So much of the movie is focused on a romance with so little chemistry instead of being about the sister relationship the film claims to be about!

I should say I don't hate Frozen. It's fine, but I don't want fine, ya know? I want great!!! (Also didn't love Tangled either. Idk what management change happened in the animation department in the mid 2000s, but they really lost the groove around that time. Maybe Bob did a shake up)

[the-halfling-prince]

tell us about harlowwwww plz (if u feel like it)

Yessssssssss it's Harlow time BABEY. I'm just gonna throw out some completely not interconnected thoughts about various things from the series I don't think I've talked about yet.

Harlow Stormrage has a bad case of "I can fix him" syndrome and honestly considering the fact that she got the dude who hated her the most to be her ally in the first book, it's entirely understandable.

Harlow and Tiger's moms were like literally the best friends ever. Just two cool adventurer ladies who go on their little journeys and then like... Disappear never to be seen again.

There are multiple characters who originally were only gonna show up in the last two books but their characters were so flat. I just had them so I could have like... the people, if that makes any sense. But most of them I did create some book plots to throw in there and now they're some of my fave characters (y'all who know how much I love the Karlsson twins would think I was crazy for how they are barely there in the original plots. Holly and Eerikki Karlsson im so sorry)

Also sort of building off of that last point, the character of Harlow's dad was supposed to be like completely irredeemable in the first ideas of the book. He really sucked. And then he was supposed to die in the last book, not even as an act of heroic sacrifice. Just like... Oof he's dead. And it was supposed to be Harlow struggling with the fact that she missed and grieved him even though he was a shit dad. But when I added more than just the three books, I expanded on his character and I was like "okay I can work with this way better" and now he feels like a normal person. And based on how I wrote Harlow's mom, I don't think she would've married someone who was a complete and total asshole. Of course he does still make the god awful decision to disown Harlow at one point but then it's explained later, and while it's not excusable, it does make more sense as to why he did it. And after Tiger "dies" (he's fine. Could you imagine if he wasn't? Gosh that would've been awful if I had actually decided to kill him off. Let's just say y'all do NOT want to hear what I wrote for the original final scene of the books it's depressing as shit) Harlow's dad is way more human and sympathetic to his mourning child and like it's a whole thing where he finally sees her as a child.

Y'all I'm constantly reminding myself "oh yeah these characters are babies. What." Like when I started the books I was as old as Harlow in book one. Now I'm as old as like Careless in the last book. (Also I hated Careless when I was 12. Now he's my fave I love my archer son)

Y'all I need y'all to know the amount of characters that we're originally supposed to die in the last book but I got too attached. Like obvi there was Harlows dad and Tiger (Yeah weird literally why did I do that) but there was also like half of the mentioned adults (I was so ready to just invent some orphans and for why) and also Eerikki Karlsson. Who in this plot líne had like no part and there would've been no weight to his death because who even was that guy??? Anyway yeah I'm glad I got over that. 14 yo me just liked being edgy and torturing my readers ig.

Well that's all I've to say for now, thank you for your time

[lamarckianenterprises]

Sucks to be Me But I'm built Different Now

My work got accepted in a Litmag (technically a Zine, CoinOperated Press to be precise) for the first time today, and outside of being thoroughly excited to announce that my humble flier will be included in their next Zine, Dungeons and Dragons Part 2. (Learn more about it on the following link)

I just want to say that looking back, I think a lot of my opinions about my own creative work is based off of like, no one really praising me for my writing. Like I didn't keep writing because people said that I was doing great or good or was talented or whatever, I kept writing because I wanted to get to that point, in spite of the lack of praise not because of it.

Hell, my mother was basically radio silent on my writing after noting that my very first work, the weird fugue state nanowrimo novel that's lost to the sands of time was, and I'm quoting here, "At least he has good grammar." Admittedly I kinda avoided showing her stuff after that, but still.

Outside of her and my even less present father there was my brother who was barely present in my teenage years, and so I basically had jack all for validation outside of an RPing community I immediately antagonized by being an attention seeking edgy teenager who fired out a self insert the GM immediately recognized somehow.

So while it gave me an easy way to keep writing and a sense of community which genuinely helped me practice and learn the craft among other things, it also meant that I didn't really get praise? Or when I did it was from someone close enough to me personally that my brain could immediately dismiss them and their opinions as being invalid as they are tainted by other people's impressions of me as a person.

I think the one bit of praise I registered as genuine was when people said they had fun in the complete mess of a Shadowrun world plot I ran in that RP which is really just a high I've been chasing ever since with every tabletop game I have ever run.

And I couldn't rely on internal validation either because I spent literal years thinking that I was somehow getting worse over time because for some fucking reason I measured that shit based off of output as in the amount of words and paragraphs written down on (virtual) paper as opposed to like, actual quality.

And how hard it was to write, which uhhh, honestly writing has never really gotten easier for me, like I am far more aware of what constitutes 'good' writing now, but it's not like the actual process has gotten much easier, and honestly as the years went on I ended up constraining my own creativity more in vague pursuit of 'better, more respectable and praiseworthy writing'.

Which meant that on top of the tyranny of time eating away at my ability to remember how difficult it was to write in the first place, I had a growing list of hangups and fears that meant that I could always refer back to some past paragraphs I think are real zingers and go, "Damn, where did I go wrong? How am I worse than I use to be?" while ignoring the veritable sea of word vomit, every little thing I did to piss other people off, and the fact that I unironically just naturally obtained more responsibilities as I grew up and obtained a job that slowly crushed my will to live that just made it harder to sit down and write LMAO.

Now I'd love to say that I've thrown of all of my chains, learned to write the proper way, and focused my life entirely towards mastering the craft without interruptions, or that this one acceptance has fulfilled my lifelong desire for validation from a complete stranger once and for all.

Really all I have to say about all this is what you read at the top, "man it sucks to be me but I'm built different," I am in more ways than one no longer the same man who started writing just to have something to do in November, nor am I the man who sat down and chose to make himself when told to make absolutely anything he could want to be.

But then again I am the woman who started whooping and whollering and going, "OLE OLE OLE" and praising God after reading this so like, maybe I'm not that different after all.

[joshisurcrush]

'The Host' by Stephanie Meyer

🌑

Dawg I'm gonna be really honest, I hated the novel for the first 200 pages. It was so edgy for no reason, the author was so mysterious and cryptic with it, but not in an appealing way; more in an edgy 13-year-old's angst fanfiction. I read this book because it was literally the only English book left in the school library that I hadn't read yet, and I didn't want to sit around bored at break. I'm gonna cover a lot of stuff in the book, that isn't mentioned on the cover or in most reviews, so here's a fat spoiler warning, since I'll be discussing things even more thoroughly than I would in other reviews.

First off, I wanna make it very clear to fellow aromantic individuals that this book is going to be either a) very funny, b) a case study, or c) hard to read. For me it was all three of those things. See, Stephenie Meyer, author of The Host, also wrote "Twilight" which y'all may have heard of. I saw "written by Stephenie Meyer, author of the *twilight saga*" on the cover of the book and gagged. Well, she's good at what she does, I'm gonna say, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I like it. Some parts of the book just had me frowning at the words on the page, the parts where one of the two main characters makes out with her partner (Melanie and Jared), for example. That part had me sitting in my chair thinking "Are people actually like this?" and "What the fu(dge), this is so cheesy." Right? But then there were other parts, (Wanda and Ian), where I found the romantic moments cute/funny. I think it’s mainly because the Wanda-Ian bond is more of the lighthearted cutesy friends-to-lovers bond, and not the “rah hot sexy ownership mmm sex” bond the way that Melanie and Jarend’s is written.

I digress, well, I think I should get to explaining. I'm not going to explain exactly why everything happens, but I'm going to list facts that you just have to believe me. Wanda is an alien parasite in Melanie's body, who controls Melanie's body entirely, but they're friends and can hear each other's thoughts. Jared is in love with Melanie, Jeb is Melanie's uncle and owns a secret underground base where most of the story takes place, and Jamie is Melanie's little (teenage) brother. Then there's super-sexy Ian who's in love with Wanda (the parasite) and somewhat-sexy Kyle, twin brother of Ian, who happens to be really violent and tried to kill Wanda (in Melanie's body) twice. Oh, and there's Doc, the kind surgeon. There's other characters but I don't think they'll be all that relevant to my review. 

Well, I like Wanda, the main character. Ironically, it's in her parasite species' nature to attempt to please everyone, be nice and always keep everyone's best interest in mind, even at her own expense. Also, unrelated, but this is one of the stories with female characters that I thoroughly enjoy. As a guy I prefer stories with strong male leads, it's just my personal preference, and stories with female leads tend to feel flat and weak, or "forced-strong", or stereotypical in some way. Mosquitoland had a good female lead, along with Falling Into Place, and The Host. These are some good female leads/characters that I can thoroughly enjoy because there's inner conflict, backstory dimension and history, more than just a single objective or focus (a lot of love-stories tend to make the female character into this caricature of what a girl is, and I hate it because women have vivid internal lives and a boiled-down simplification simply doesn’t do it justice imo). Back to Wanda, though. 

She becomes more and more human throughout the book (which is supposed to be like, a big thing. I bet Meyer was proud of that one.) It's underlined as the story goes on; Wanda compares herself and her emotions to the human ones and talks about how Earth is so unique and different from the other planets she's lived on, etc. You definitely feel an interesting but slight shift in her narration as the novel progresses, evolving with the number of connections she makes with the people around her. 

Also, I like how Stephenie Meyer managed to separate Mel and Wanda from each other so distinctly. You get a feeling for how different the two of them are from each other, and how they each have their own principles and ideas, and they're like night and day, even though their actions are the same throughout the story. Talking about characters also, I like the way that all characters a) serve a purpose/role, and b) they're fleshed out well enough for me and c) they're not all written the same way, which is a fat pet peeve of mine. I hate when a story has three sarcastic characters, four strong men, and three quirky girls. They're all characterized differently, which makes Stephanie Meyer better at writing than whoever was behind the new arrangement of Marvel movies. Do not crucify me in the notes for having said that, I’ll get very sad. 

LMAO Imagine being a Marvel superfan and trying to read a normal thriller or something, I feel like a Marvel superfan would gasp and flail on the floor like a fish on land if the murderer doesn’t go “erm.. Well that just happened 🤓” after brutally snuffing the lives out of his victim(s).

Plus, the story had the first good love triangle (tm) consisting of one body shared by Mel and Wanda, Jared and Ian. And the thing that makes it interesting to me is the fact that it's two couples (Wanda + Ian, and Jared + Melanie) who sort of have to work around the fact that both of the girls share the same body, which leads to jealousy between the two guys and Melanie and things like that. I found it interesting, it's so much better than the usual, and wildly annoying trope of "who will they pick! woo! two choices!" type of love triangle that I couldn't give two sharts about. 

The one thing, though, that bumps this story up to its rating, from a six, is the ending. The ending is genuinely the happiest ending I've ever read. Nobody dies. Everyone wins. Everyone is happy and complete; nobody is left alone or heartbroken, and it ends on a good note (since this book doesn't and will not have a sequel.) It just wraps everything up really nicely, it actually had me grinning and screaming "Good for them!" internally. It's the best ending to a book I've gotten to read in a really, really long time.

[n7punk]

What is my immortal?

Ohhhh boy. Ok. Sit down.

My Immortal (wikipedia page) is the most famous fanfiction of all time. Couple disclaimers: it's almost not well-written enough to qualify for trigger warnings, but it does touch on a lot of triggers that I won't list off here. It is also, theoretically, tangentially, supposedly, "harry potter" fanfiction. However, harry is now known as Vampire, hermione is now B'loody Mary Smith, ron is Diablo, etc. A lot of the characters are now vampires and everyone is "goth" except the characters the author doesn't like, who are preps and posers. Also in one of the author's notes I think the writer ("Tara") literally says she hasn't read the books and it's based off "the movie". So like, it's connections to harry potter are tenuous at best and I'm not recommending you read anything beyond the first paragraph anyway, just putting that out there.

It's first person, follows a self-insert OC, and is entirely a fabrication of the writer's indulgence. It's one of those things that has gone down in fandom history and most people have read the first chapter, but we hadn't read more (AN: I don't recommend you do) so we had a read in the group chat and I either lost braincells or gained code-cracking skills trying to parse through the misspellings (both accidental and purposeful). A lot of people think it's a troll fic (which like, yeah makes sense) but there's a case to be made for it being a young tween's idea of a cool and edgy story that she and her friend made up and don't understand why everyone is hating on. I also think the world is a more beautiful place if it's sincere. The writer has managed to remain anonymous and undoxxed, which I am VERY grateful for, for her sake, even if I do desperately want to know the "real" story behind it and how she feels about its meme-status. Many people have come forward claiming to be the author and having done it as satire, but every one of them was a lying poser and a prep.

Below the cut is the opening of the famous "first chapter" (which only has a few more sentences in it after this anyway) for your reading pleasure. You really don't need to read any more than that, this is the part that became a meme and it only goes downhill from here. Also, "AN" (or "A/N") is "Author's Note" and yeah people really did used to just stick them in the middle of a fic, at least bad ones.

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.