#Required to ship top two results. lol

[twilight-deviant]

People who have never watched Timeless, pick two characters to ship based on personal preference. Comment below.

If you have watched, point at two with your eyes closed or use a random number generator. 😂 Enjoy your new ship.

[crestfallercanyon]

*🦔 12,22 and 58 for Thomally + *🦔 4 and 25 for Nally + *🦔 59 for both this ships please :) ?

oh this is a bundle -- okay! Also I see that 59 for both, lol. Alright, LET'S GO!

Thomally

12. Do they have heated arguments? How do they smooth things over?

They definitely have big arguments. That's kind of the appeal of these two, lbr, they're both so fucking passionate.

Smoothing things over depends on what goes wrong (and when). In the beginning of their relationship, the aftermaths of arguments usually require a lot of persistence. Gally, if he is in the wrong, is overly nice and helpful in a way that eventually gets on Thomas's nerves (which may result in another argument because Gally is just trying to be helpful). Thomas is a groveler/grand gesture kind of person, which actually drives Gally a little insane as well. Their strategies don't actually work, per se, but it gets them talking again prompting them to act like adults and get over it.

It's actually a pretty quick affair if it's post-tdc safe haven or modern au and they're deep in their relationship. If they really fuck up, these two are pretty straightforward. They both are so stubborn that they don't say sorry until they mean it, so, if the other one is apologizing they know that they can bury the hatchet and move on.

22. What reminds each of their partner?

This could be a very long list I think, so just kind of sticking to vibes

Thomas is a sucker for anything that Gally wears that helps with his building (the stitching in the shoulders of his shirts, his gloves). These are Thomas's favorite things of Gally's that he wears (and Thomas sometimes borrows -- particularly his big industrial winter coat, that thing is warm and smells like Gally and it's his favorite).

The ocean reminds Gally of Thomas. The smell of it, push and pull of it, it reminds him of their relationship. Or any puzzle. Gally will create and weld ironwork puzzles just to watch Thomas solve them.

58. Who's more likely to hold a grudge?

They're both plenty capable of holding a grudge, lol. In the Glade, it's Gally -- he's just so sure he's right and very arrogant about it, I think he has a hard time being wrong. Post-TDC, it's Thomas. Thomas may forgive, but he certainly doesn't forget. He is also the type of person who brings back other arguments into current arguments which would tick Gally off to no end. (Though Gally does this on occasion too). I think Gally's kind of terrified of holding grudges, and also doesn't think that he has any right to hold a grudge, so he doesn't.

59. Who Tops? Who Bottoms?

Gally usually tops but Thomas does every so often. I kind of view everyone as mostly switches, but Thomas does prefer the bottom because Gally's just big and strong and likes to be manhandled and Gally likes manhandling him, so...

Nally

4. Which one is more protective? Who needs to be 'protected'?

I think they're both very protective, actually. However, Gally needs it more.

Newt is just so sure in himself and of himself. He's good with people and can call out bullshit a mile away. Newt is kind of the king of "you can't hurt me if I don't care about you," and those who care about him don't hurt him, so he's usually pretty easygoing. There are some subjects that do get on his nerves though, or that make him feel small, and that is when Gally is at his biggest and meanest and most protective (and Newt thanks him for it, even if he insists he didn't need that -- Gally knows better and knows what he deserves). Those subjects he really does need the backup he gets, but otherwise, he really isn't bothered by what people think of him. He enjoys his own company and if other people don't enjoy it, they can fuck off.

Gally needs to be protected though. Gally may not look it, may not even act like it, but he is fragile. He is desperate for belonging and validation and Newt is one of the few people who understands this. Gally may be bigger than Newt, and he can mean-mug to protect any of his friends, but when it comes to himself he just kind of accepts it because he is plagued with guilt and just assumes he deserves to take the hit. Newt doesn't let any of that shit slide and is on the attack-mode for anyone who treats Gally like he's lesser. They can go take a long walk off a short plank for all Newt cares.

25. Do they have any hobbies they share?

I think they're both pretty artsy, actually. Gally woodcarves and sketches and Newt sketches and paints. They both love music, and actually prefer the radio. They also take a lot of walks. They enjoy being outside (but neither of them are good runners like their friends) so they're more likely to just window shop around towns and explore slowly. (Also it's not exactly sharing a hobby, but Newt loves that Gally likes to create alcohol and drinks because Gally doesn't really drink much but Newt is more of an imbiber so he always down to try whatever Gally's created)

59. Who tops? Who bottoms?

Again, I think they're both switches, but Newt has more of that stereotypical "top" mentality. He also tends to top from the bottom. Gally occasionally takes it on (and that can be very fun) but it's more often Newt (because Newt is also the one who is more likely to initiate sex anyway).

THANKS FOR THE ASK! I love these two ships so always down to talk about them.

The original prompting post here

[theballadoffinchesandsaints]

Let’s talk about the Vaincre trade:

(As I am writing this, only the first full chapter, July, has been published)

I’ve said before that I’m fairly certain it’s going to be Leo, but I want to walk through the thought process that got me there (this is long and unedited. You’ve been warned).

First, since this is going to be such a major plot point, I think it’s going to be a character who’s inner circle had at least a minor spotlight in the first chapter. These were Coops, O’knutzy, O’darwin, Thomas & Noelle (do they have a ship name???), Regulus (tho he’s obviously disqualified for not being a pro player rn), and Cole (with a bit of Dumo).

Additionally, I think a key component of this plotline will be developing characters so that they can stand on their own once separated from a crucial relationship (thematically, it makes the most sense to me).

With that in mind, let’s do some quick (yeah lol prob not quick) disqualifications from the list:

Remus: I know this is a more common theory (and god would it hurt) but Remus’ storyline is already jampacked with living up to the standards of the league, team, and public, as well as adjust to a new relationship dynamic with Sirius. On a more heavy note, Remus will have to navigate how playing hockey will interact with the trauma of Greyback’s attack and the resulting injury. I’m sure most of us inferred that this would be a plot point, but the idea was solidified in a snippet of Remus and the team discussing predictions for the top teams of the season.

Sirius: while narratively, I actually think it would be fascinating to see the lions learn to be a team without their leader and to see Sirius have to learn that there are other parts of the world he can trust, this one falls apart in both logistics and clues Hazel has already given us. Truly, I cannot imagine a trade in which it would make sense for the Lions to give up their beloved, talented, effective captain and first line center, especially after he just led them to Stanley Cup. And when someone asked Hazel about (I believe) what relationships would be highlighted in Vaincre, Coops made the list with the qualification that their storyline would largely center around Remus’s adjustment to the team. A Sirius trade requires long-distance Coops angst which, while possible, would be both difficult and against the spirit of the statement.

O’Darwin and Thomas & Noelle already have long-distance angst happening in July, so trading either Kasey or Thomas would miss some of the emotional punch we know Hazel is going to give us.

Cole: I mean, the kid’s a rookie. It doesn’t really make sense. Threads seem to be being set up with the Dumais’ baby sitter and maybe one of the new PTs? (I don’t remember exactly where I’m getting this from, but I’m near certain it was from Hazel’s tumblr). It seems like physical encounters are going to be a big thing with both of these relationships, plus all the obvious great storylines of a new rookie getting comfortable in the team, make it unlikely Cole will be the trade. Not to mention, there are no guts to punch with Cole. We love him already, but he isn’t close with anyone on the team yet. We’d feel disappointed, not devastated, if he got traded. We all know Hazel’s going for devastation.

Dumo: this one approaches probability for me. Dumo would be heartbreaking for every member of the team, but especially Sirius and Logan. It would also sort of follow through on a previous idea from a rough draft of SW where Dumo has a career-ending injury. All the players would have to learn to navigate life without a father figure, and it would break down the system of where many Lions rookies live. But this one’s all speculation, at least as far as I know. It’s not hinted at in July, and I can’t think of any snippets that suggest Dumo. Plus, it feels like all of the main POVs have been set up in July, and we know from the dreaded “of being a lion” snippet (in which said player gets called about the trade) that we do get POV chapters from the player who’s traded.

We’ll get back to O’knutzy later. First, some people who aren’t on the list that I feel are worth discussing briefly (tho these are unlikely for the reasons at the end of Dumo’s):

Kuny & Nado: Now, I remember Kuny’s “no trades, no trades” thing from Hazel’s tumblr. It hurts. It feels like foreshadowing. But, remember, Hazel has also said that these boys will both play a more secondary role in Vaincre. They’re both safe.

James: I go back and forth on this one all the time. Thematically, separating Sirius and James would be both heartbreaking and deeply interesting. James was a major force in bringing Sirius out of his shell, and Sirius would have to learn to maintain that without his best friend always by his side. James and Lily are also suspiciously absent from July. I know Hazel said they’re on their honeymoon, and I’m not disputing that in any way, shape, or form. However, it does provide ample excuse to become a new POV in August. However, I can’t find any snippets to really support it. And, just, in general, James as a character in Hazel’s fics (or at least in Solntse and SW) provides a stable backbone for the other characters. He’a developed as a character but stable and happy. This could be the thing that changes that, but, at the very least, it doesn’t fit the narrative role he serves in SW, and I think it would change the feel and character dynamic of the fic as a whole (not just of the team) too much for that to be the choice.

And then there’s O’knutzy:

Going into Vaincre, I asked myself: what are everyone’s plotlines going to be? Remus will adjust to the team and playing Greyback. Sirius will largely be his support system, tho some stuff may be done with his relationship with Regulus and/or moving on from any semblance of his parents’ influence. Dumo will welcome rookie Cole onto the team. James will be a new father. Thomas and Noelle will have long-distance relationship feels. Kasey will adjust to O’darwin, and probably also deal with his reoccurring injury.

And the cubs? Are in a happy, stable relationship with everything they’ve ever wanted. The seeds to a storyline regarding whether or not they choose to come out was definitely hinted at in July, but I don’t think it will be their sole focus. Thankfully, there is nothing pressuring them to come out currently. They think about it. They long to do it. But nothing has changed since the end of SW/CtC. If one of them was long-distance, that would change the dynamic. When you can always go home to your two loving boyfriends, it doesn’t hurt quite as bad when you can’t be affectionate when out with them in public. When you’re only in the same city for a day or two roughly every month (depending on which team the trade is with), every second you could spend holding them and don’t hurts more and more. Whether I think they choose to come out or not, I really don’t know. I think so, but I’m definitely not sure. But the real question is, which cub goes away and prompts this?

If it’s a cub, it’s definitely Leo. Hazel posted a snippet that just...says so much.

Do I even need to explain? She practically told us. I’ve spent over an hour analyzing nearly every prominent Lion when Hazel practically told us Leo was going to be the trade with this right here.

But I do have more to say. I don’t think either Finn or Logan would work well as the trade. The plot of them being separated was well explored in CtC, and I honestly just don’t think it needs more examination. They learned to cherish each other, talk to each other, love each other freely and honestly. Them being separated again would just hurt. It wouldn’t serve a narrative purpose.

On the other hand, I do think Leo’s character could actually benefit from some time alone. He had barely a few months as a full-blown adult, working in the NHL, before he entered a committed relationship with his two lovely boyfriends, both of whom had had years more time to live with and explore themselves (tho it’s not as if they were doing that freely). A couple of months or even years dating long-distance could force Leo to have some more adventures on his own and come into himself more. Then, he can fully return to his boys, his “long-lost lover[s],” and be more stable in his love.

In a similar vein, Logan and Finn have only had short amounts of time to make their leg of the relationship stable and happy in comparison to the time they spent yearning or heartbroken. Even in CtC, their reflex is to go to Leo first, which is, of course, perfectly fine and lovely and adorable, but I think they need to spend some time unlearning that knee jerk reaction.

Then, when Leo comes back (because one way or another, in canon or in my head, he will), all three are confident in themselves as individuals and in each leg of the relationship as well as the three of them as group. No one and no couple n e e d s anything, but they come back together because they all love each other, more than anything.

That’s what I think will see in Vaincre. At the very least, it’s what I want.

Vaincre is by the one and only @lumosinlove

[kitkatopinions]

The ethics in RWBY are really weird. I mean, I’m not a professor of ethics and I don’t know much past what I’ve seen on Wikipedia and the Good Place (such a great show,) but it’s so weird to see a show that seems to switch between virtue ethics and consequentialism at random.

(Virtue ethics) may be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.

Of course, it’s a lot more complicated and in-depth than just that, but I’m not going to get into specifics (again, I’m not qualified to do that lol.) But let’s look at some examples of these two ethical beliefs in RWBY.

“Stealing is wrong no matter what,” sounds like virtue ethics at play, and that’s how Blake saw things. That was one of the reasons that she left the White Fang, that was always framed as one of the many things that made it so they were villains, that had to be taken out. Blake regretted her acts of theft in her early life no matter how justified they were. The message is that stealing is always wrong even when you’re stealing from oppressors.

“Stealing is justified in circumstances where you feel you have no other choice,” sounds like consequentialism, if your actions are justified and have good consequences, they’re good. This is put into practice when the group illegally stole the airplane in Argus (although this is actually badly portrayed consequentialism, considering that they didn’t need to do that, but I think we’re intended to perceive it as necessary, but I’ll keep talking about that later.)

“Violence is wrong, even when it’s precautionary or reactionary,” sounds like virtue ethics, and once again, that’s directed towards the White Fang. Despite being oppressed for centuries, even Sienna’s more minor violence is framed as completely wrong, and the Faunus are lectured about how they need to stop committing acts of violence if they want equality. The Ace Ops fighting Team RWBY is meant to be perceived as wrong, despite the fact that Team RWBY had broken the law, proven themselves untrustworthy, and were trying to stop them and Ironwood from doing something that would save people.

“Violence is justified in circumstances where it’s precautionary or reactionary,” sounds like consequentialism. Since the White Fang is hurting others, it doesn’t matter what their goal is (Faunus rights,) it’s totally fine to rip them to shreds, throw them off moving trains, even kill, etc. Since Team RWBY thought it was wrong to move Atlas, they were perfectly justified in beating up the Ace Ops for trying to arrest them. Qrow is perfectly justified in fighting Clover for the same reason.

“You always need to be honest, no matter if you don’t know if you can trust someone or not and no matter if you have good reasons to lie,” sounds like virtue ethics. This is applied to Ozpin in the show, his lying is deemed one hundred percent wrong, full stop, no excuses. He isn’t treated with any sympathy and has to apologize, which is seriously and begrudgingly accepted. Our main characters forcing his secrets out of him is framed as right, their angry responses are framed as totally justified. The message is clear. Lying and mistrusting is wrong. Honesty and trust is right.

“Lying is understandable and even right if you think you have good reason to lie and if you think you can’t trust someone, and Ruby was right about Ironwood, therefore her lying was fine,” sounds like consequentialism. Ruby’s lying is framed as reasonable and understandable. She didn’t have to be honest because she was reacting cautiously instead, putting a virtue on the back burner because she thought being honest might hurt people and wasn’t sure if James could be trusted - as in, she acted in mistrust. Although Yang suggests this was wrong, the show quickly hastens to tell us that Ruby was very right, having Yang walk back on her statements, and having Ironwood turn evil. The message is clear. Lying and mistrusting should be done if you think it will hurt less people. Honesty and trust aren’t always good.

“It’s never okay to willingly sacrifice a life, you must do whatever you can to save everyone no matter the cost,” sounds like virtue ethics. This is the central conflict between Team RWBY and Ironwood in volume 7. Ruby and co considered it wholly wrong to sacrifice the remaining people of Mantle in order to save Atlas and the Mantle citizens already evacuated, they considered the idea unacceptable and we (the audience) are meant to believe they’re entirely right and that Ironwood is - with this action - turning into a villain. The Ace Ops are also seen as wrong for wanting to destroy the whale even though they know that Team JORY is still inside it, because despite the fact that it would save thousands upon thousands, it would result in the deaths of four people.

“You have to do what is right, even if it requires sacrifice,” sounds like consequentialism. Pyrrha goes to fight Cinder despite knowing she can’t win, which is framed as heroic and good. Jaune, Nora, and Ren leave their mission defending the non-evacuated people of Mantle in order to try and rescue Oscar. Our group of protagonists trap a city full of civilians in Salem’s direct line of fire and cause many soldiers to die so that they can try and evacuate the citizens of Mantle. The show frames this as the right choice that the team made in the pursuit of saving everyone they could, and the dead soldiers are a sacrifice that the protagonists couldn’t avoid and therefore aren’t responsible for.

“Being a good person who tries is the most important thing,” This feels like virtue ethics. This is applied to Team RWBY and Ruby particularly all throughout season eight. What really matters is that is that they’ve been trying. What really matters is that they’ve had good intentions. What really matters is they’ve stuck to their guns, stuck to their moral code. The morality of their actions is judged by who they are, what virtues they embody, and what they intended. Ruby is constantly assured by the people around her that she hasn’t really done anything wrong because she’s a believer, she’s kind, she’s brave, she’s optimistic, she’s well-intentioned... She - and we as the audience - are assured that she was still good, even if nothing she did was effective, even if nothing she did even helped people This is also applied to Robyn. She might steal from the government, start fights, and not fix the wall with her stolen resources, but she has good intentions and wants to help, so she’s a good person.

“Your intentions and effort aren’t important, what matters is what you do and if it helps people.” This feels like consequentialism. It’s obviously applied to Ironwood - It doesn’t matter that he’s trying to save Atlas and the evacuated people of Mantle, it still doesn’t excuse what he did even pre-bomb threat. Hacking Penny, shooting the councilman, shooting Oscar, all of that is treated as horrible in the narrative whether or not he’s doing it to try to save thousands upon thousands of lives. Even the things he was doing in V7 were considered not good enough because they weren’t helping enough people. But it also applies to the White Fang yet again. Sienna Kahn might’ve had good intentions (ending Faunus oppression,) but her actions are judged by the harm they do to others. Ilia might’ve had good intentions (again, ending Faunus oppression,) but her actions were considered firmly bad and she had to decide to change her ways in order to be redeemed. On top of this, let’s add Whitley to the pile. Whitley is treated dismissively and coldly by Weiss, but then when he does something good that helps people, Weiss is affectionate with him and starts treating him well. 

This is all very contradictory and weird. It doesn’t matter if you lean more towards virtue ethics or consequentialism, the story keeps waffling between the two and expects its audience to do the same. When they want Team RWBY to do something that might be considered wrong in the terms of virtue ethics (stealing, lying, using violence, etc,) they use consequentialism to justify it, but whenever they want Team RWBY to be morally superior to the people around them even if those people aren’t evil (Ironwood, Oz, Ilia,) they use virtue ethics to do that. Stories that include both as points of contention between characters, but both are framed as justifiable can exist and can be really good, but that’s not what we’re given. Stories that make it clear that they prefer one over the other can exist, but that’s not what we’re given either. RWBY is full of whiplash moments, where you have to go “Wait, wasn’t this framed as wrong just an episode ago?” and “Wait, wasn’t this framed as right and justified just an episode ago?” Because RWBY as a show doesn’t bother to believe in either of them. RWBY as a show is only concerned with saying what they can to make the protagonists look good, which is hard.

When you look at it, they’re bad at being consequentialists.

Let’s look at the first relevant consequentialist action I noted, where I used the example of stealing the Atlas ship to establish that the protagonists considered stealing justified and necessary, therefore morally sound. This was not only avoidable (Cordovin had given them the option of sending Weiss through and she could’ve contacted Winter as soon as her scroll was able to reach her,) but it caused a dangerous Grimm attack. As far as I know, no civilians were hurt. However, this was still an avoidable act of theft that caused negative consequences. Looking at them trapping Atlas is even messier. They do it to save the remaining people of Mantle, putting the people of Atlas (and the evacuated Mantle citizens) at risk so they can save the most people despite the soldiers lining up to die facing Salem and the possibility of Grimm getting in the city of Atlas and killing civilians before they can finish the evacuation. But you quickly realize that they literally can’t evacuate the people still in Mantle because they have no resources to do so. Then they start moving the remaining people of Mantle to the Crater where they won’t freeze to death (logical,) and JORY and the HH start trying to defend them (logical,) but then they don’t send Penny to move Atlas. They know that they can’t evacuate the people in Mantle to Atlas, have a temporary solution to the cold, and know they aren’t going to get more help in defending the civilians in their care and must take care of it themselves. But they continue to keep Atlas trapped there despite knowing that the consequence might be thousands dying. Looking at launching Amity and sending out the broadcast is even messier than that. The broadcast is ill-planned, sloppy, confusing, and hits several of the beats of Cinder’s broadcast, which kick started the Fall of Beacon. This could have terrible consequences in a world where the Grimm are drawn to negativity. People could panic, it could launch Vacuo (the last remaining fully functioning kingdom) into a state of emergency, it could cause people to lose all hope in the establishments or the Hunters themselves, it could make people go out looking for ‘maidens’ to help them. And no one should be able to just travel to help Atlas within a couple of days anyway, which Ruby seems to fully understand at times in how she frames things, but she also asks for help that logic says can’t come. This was something that might endanger people and cause mass panic and Grimm attacks, that didn’t actually do much good. In terms of consequentialism, this was a failure, this wasn’t the Right thing to do.

But when you look at it, they’re bad at virtue ethics too.

Of course, there’s the obvious. They lie, they mistrust, they steal, they’re violent. They point their weapons at Qrow in V6, Weiss points her weapon at Whitley, an untrained teenage civilian, Weiss throws a man in a dumpster for being anti-Faunus to Blake, Qrow punches a teenage body for lying to him about something important. But there’s also the fact that in V8, Ruby and Weiss and Blake don’t do much to help anyone. Ruby sends out her hopeful sounding message that could do very little (if logic means anything in this world,) and then sits in a mansion drinking tea, waiting for Nora to recover. Of course this is wrong from a consequentialist mind frame, the consequence of sitting around doing nothing when you can help save people is that those people might die. But from a virtue ethics standpoint... This action is selfish, maybe even cowardly. Ruby is meant to be selfless and brave, and remember that she’s the one who made it so Atlas civilians and the evacuated people of Mantle couldn’t escape, and then despite the fact that she’s a powerful fighter with a rare super power that can take out tons of Grimm at once, Ruby sits in a mansion and despairs that no one is coming to save her. Look, I’ve heard every excuse. It doesn’t matter if she’s wanted by the Atlas police. It doesn’t matter if she’s trying to take care of her friend. It doesn’t matter if she has no plan. The virtues Ruby is supposed to embody like kindness, bravery, resolve and selflessness would dictate that all of that has to take a backseat when she can save human lives.

This is a big reason why I’m so frustrated with RWBY. They keep waffling between these two conflicting ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong, and they’re failing to make our heroes properly fit into either category. They just then tell us that they fit. They always do what’s right for the most people and don’t look behind the curtain to see them fail to do just that. They always follow their virtues and don’t look behind the curtain to see them make excuses over and over for themselves while they expect everyone else to adhere to the standards they won’t reach for.

And honestly, fans do the same thing the show does, which is one reason why it’s so frustrating to talk to mega-stans that won’t recognize the main casts flaws while they refuse to see that Oz deserved better or that Ironwood wasn’t evil pre-end of volume 7. “Of course Team RWBY lied to Ironwood, they didn’t know if they could trust him!” “Whether or not Oz knew if he could trust them, he never should’ve lied to them.” They’ll say these things even sometimes in the same posts or comments and not even realize the problem. The show and the fans will use anything and any justification to pretend that Team RWBY was right and inculpable, but they’ll use anything and any justification to make anyone who opposes them - friend or foe - seem entirely in the wrong and at fault. That’s why Oz apologized to them, but they didn’t apologize back even though they treated him horribly. The show runners don’t care what Team RWBY did wrong, they’ve already jumped through all the mental hoops to pretend they were right.

Looking at Team RWBY through the lens of virtue ethics, they fail to meet a good standard, and looking at Team RWBY through the lens of consequentialism, they still fall short. And the show needs to stop acting like they’re inherently better than the people around them when they’re not. The show writers are using the excuses of consequentialism and virtue ethics whenever they think it can distract us from the fact that behind their fancy feel good words, they don’t know how to write good protagonists.

[heinzpilsnergonewild]

Vegeta’s Character Analysis Looooooooooong Read

Oh my, what can I say? I just really love to write long essays in a language that isn’t even native to me, lol.

Well, nobody’s perfect, I guess. ... Were you expecting a Cell joke here? I may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean I have to be that predictable.

Ahem, anyway.

This isn't exactly a psychological analysis of the character - more like, hmm, a storytelling analysis. Or something in between, really.

You may not find anything fundamentally new in this text, but I definitely had fun writing it, haha.

It's mostly amateur. I have a useless psychology degree, but not a literature one.

My classic rant about vegebul fics is included, of course.

Summary: proper psychological analysis requires a single continuous personality, which Vegeta simply doesn’t have.

The more I think about Vegeta, the more I come to the conclusion that he is only pretending to be a consistently evolving character.

In fact, he's a bit like 10 different characters in one, which abruptly replace each other (and that's without considering the difference caused by the voice actors’ approach and the changes in his looks). Essentially, Vegeta's a collection of disparate images, arbitrarily lined up by Toriyama and hastily glued together. And the beginning of this line is so far from the end of it that these two extreme images cannot be perceived as belonging to the same person. Well, because human psychology just doesn't work that way.

(Not that Vegeta is unique in this respect – it’s a common feature of characters in long stories that authors compose as they write. Still, his case is quite extreme and interesting as example.)

I mean, take Vegeta in the Saiyan or the Namek arc. He's a complete psychopath. He clearly doesn’t suffer at heart from the unnecessary violence (as, for example, Guts from Berserk). His behavior looks like something natural for him, not an unhealthy defensive reaction. He enjoys it, he smiles happily, killing and torturing weak innocent people. And such a degree of psychopathy is not something that can be healed by a couple of deep personality crises or years of peaceful family life. Vegeta's redemption arc works through strong emotional impact and forgetfulness of the audience, but makes very little sense when viewed in retrospect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the biggest, hmm, splitting of the personality occurred with Vegeta right after the Namek arc. Toriyama had already made a small retcon of the character’s motives before (to include Vegeta in the context of the Freeza army after the Saiyan arc), but it didn't feel that drastic.

You see, until Vegeta was invited to Bulma’s house…..

(Gosh, Toriyama, you could’ve done it more subtly, really. Vegeta killed Yamcha, threatened to kill Bulma, gutted Zarbon in front of her eyes, slaughtered an entire Namekian village... Oh well.)

…Ahem, anyway, right up to Bulma's invitation, Vegeta looked to me like a character who, hmm, has a life of his own? I mean, you have always felt that his motives and behavior were generated by the bizarre social system, not related to the little world of Goku and his friends. Simply put, Vegeta was a natural product of the big space civilization, an organic part of it. His whole personality was formed by it, all his plans, motivation and ambitions were associated with it. And although in the Saiyan arc, he gave the impression of an independent entrepreneurial chief at the head of a small hierarchy, in the Namek arc it was revealed that Vegeta is actually far from independent. He lost his throne and his people, he was in slavery to the tyrant all his life, and wants to take power for himself. So, his social background and the motives caused by it post factum get much more complex. But in short, Vegeta wanted a highest possible position in the hierarchy he knew. In this way, he was… social? His belonging to the Saiyan race was only a small (although important) part of the overall picture. Because the Saiyans were dead, but the Freeza Empire was alive.

But when Toriyama realized Vegeta's popularity and decided to keep him in the story after Namek, it came as a blow to the character's personality. Apparently, the author simply couldn't come up with an elegant way that could keep the character in all its complexity around, and therefore did a very clumsy thing. He roughly cut Vegeta out of his social context and almost forcibly glued him to the main character group like a poorly done appliqué. But although you see rough edges and glue drips, the story moves on rapidly, distracting you with Freeza and Future Trunks, and you don't stop to think about what happened. This is how, almost imperceptibly, Toriyama changed Vegeta's motives (and, consequently, the basis of his personality). Yes, Vegeta's saiyan pride was also significant part of his character previously, but when it became his sole and central motivation after Namek, you feel like a very big and important piece of him has been arbitrarily cut off. This wouldn't have happened if Toriyama had followed the logic of previously established social motives, rather than his desire to make Vegeta a convenient figure. Now, bound hand and foot by the author, the character is forced to behave as the plot requires.

Still, all this can be justified by the fact that Vegeta experienced a deep emotional shock as a result of death, which forced him to rethink his life priorities and wait for Goku (especially in the manga, where he just lived with Bulma for a whole year after Namek, without even trying to use dragonballs) ... And then he waited for the androids (despite the final death of Freeza and his father, which was an excellent chance to try to take over the decapitated empire). Anyway, this rationalization doesn't negate the fact that the character, as a result, has lost a significant part of the fire that he demonstrated in the Namek arc. His new energy, the energy of obsession with surpassing Goku, turns him into a new character – bitter, marginalized and focused on training.

(Ironically, the very splitting that made him a less attractive character in my eyes allowed vegebul to take place. After all, imagining the romantic relationship of the nice Bulma and Vegeta at the height of his villainous ambition is really difficult. That just would be a psychologically implausible story.)

In the Android and Cell arcs, after brief glimpses of the SSJ superiority, Toriyama turned Vegeta into a plot tool, whose personality flaws he could use to spoil the situation favorable for the heroes. As a result, Vegeta continued to be an angry and unhappy character who has lost most of his charisma, but on top of that, he also started to be really annoying. ... Still, also kinda amusing thanks to his truly impressive inability to draw obvious conclusions from the ego bruises he gets.

(If you ask me, the character's biggest contribution to the Cell arc was to ignore the existence of condoms, lol. Although strictly speaking even it was an achievement of Future Vegeta (RIP). But seriously, Vegeta's relationship with Trunks turned out to be one of the few things that I was really interested in about this part of the story.)

And then there was Goku’s death and the 7-year-gap. ... At the end of which Vegeta still didn't look like a happy man who has found his place in the world. Even though he had seven whole years (and a spaceship) to change something. I mean, this is the case when it'd be logical to expect changes in the character, but for some reason they didn't really happen (or they did, but veeery quietly and unstable). I mean, Vegeta trains with Trunks, yes. And he's married to Bulma now, apparently (which we learn only at the end of the arc though). And he hasn’t killed himself yet, which means that he sees some meaning in his existence. Hurray, I guess?.. The problem is that when we first see Vegeta after the timeskip, he keeps walking around with such a sullen expression, as if Goku had died just yesterday. (Remember Vegeta in the Saiyan arc? He smiled quite often. For the wrong reasons, but hey.) Basically, Toriyama tried to sit on two chairs at the same time here - 1) keep Vegeta as recognizable as possible (because he hasn't decided what to do with him yet) and 2) keep him around (which doesn't make sense for the character if he hasn't undergone significant changes during the timeskip). And the result of this hesitant approach is an undesirable effect - it feels as if Vegeta hasn't built a new life for himself all these years, but only waited for Goku to return.

As if the man is unable to evolve without Goku's influence. Until Kakarot does or says something, or is just around, everyone else in Vegeta's life and his own reflection has little or no meaning. Old social ambitions? His wife and child? New insights gained from life on Earth? Pffft. Goku is able to destroy the seven years’ worth progress (no matter how small it may seem) in one day, and at the same time, one fight with him is enough for Vegeta's character development to jump forward explosively. It sounds like a solid ground for shipping, but In fact it’s just a direct consequence of the author's poorly chosen narrative structure.

The thing is, Toriyama tend to avoid romance and slices of life, and shows Vegeta's personality mainly through fights and their consequences. And at the time Goku just turned out to be the only significant character for Vegeta, the fight against whom could be used as an excuse to develop the character in front of the audience. Well, Toriyama couldn't get Vegeta to fight Bulma or himself, you know.

I believe that the plot structure chosen by the author (rapidly changing action events immediately after a long timeskip) is not a very good basis for a redemption arc. For a good redemption, a character had to have screen time during which small changes accumulate gradually, between the big points. And Vegeta simply didn't have it. Besides, the scheme by which Vegeta develops is really messy. Because at first, Toriyama kinda froze his development at the neutral point (thereby partially devaluing the influence of Vegeta's family on him). Then in one moment, the author abruptly reversed even this the-end-of-the-Cell-arc development with Majin Vegeta (this time completely devaluing the family factor, because the betrayal was Vegeta’s conscious decision). God, how I hated the Majin Vegeta idea. And in the next scene, the author made a quick retcon, which gave the family’s influence the status of a ground for Vegeta’s personal growth again for no apparent reason. It's as if a huge bundle of family values was post factum squeezed into the character in defiance of everything that we just saw with our own eyes. This is a complete narrative mess.

But... oddly enough, Vegeta's redemption still manages to work, and work spectacularly. My guess is that it's because by that time the audience is already SO sick of Vegeta, frozen in his bitter anti-heroism, that it desperately wants the author to finally do something new with the miserable guy. Well, at least get him out of his misery. So people are willing to accept it in any possible form.

... And the author chose the form of a powerful emotional catharsis. The explosion was legendary, haha.

I don't even know if this is a good reason to call Toriyama a genius (after all, he found a very clever way out of a difficult situation, in which he found himself thanks to his own bad decisions.)

The only thing I'm sure of is that despite everything I was very sad because of Vegeta's death. I didn't even realize that I had become emotionally attached to this asshole until he made such a spectacular exit, lol. As if something had broken inside of me, and all the analyticity of my mind couldn’t prevent it. I was surprised when I found myself crying really hard - usually my emotions don't reach this level due to fictional stories. (Well, maybe it was due to the fact that my own father was dying of cancer at that time, and the moment just triggered my emotions. ... Oops, it seems a little too personal, doesn't it? Well, at the end of the day, this fact is an integral part of my unique dbz experience. Come to think of it, in dbz, fathers die regularly).

But while this scene greatly affects emotions and forces a new viewer (or reader) to truly reconsider their attitude towards the character for the first time, the absence of a neat gradual movement towards this moment weakens its influence somewhat.

At this point, Vegeta’s character splits once again (perhaps the last time within DBZ). You simply cease to understand who this man really is and who he was before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, when I look at all the images of Vegeta in general, I come to the conclusion that I like this character the most in the first two arcs and in the end of the last arc. Two directly opposite moral poles.

(Funny enough, because my initial reaction to Vegeta and Nappa was annoyance: "Well hello, the next stereotypical villains who like to chat and laugh maliciously instead of simply killing their victims." (Still, against the background of Freeza, Vegeta turned out to be a much lesser evil in every sense, haha). You see, usually I'm not a person who likes villains. Basically, I only distinguish such characters from others as a result of romance or redemption. It’s only after that I begin to see aesthetics in their villainous charisma as well.)

And now, in retrospective, I believe that at the beginning of the story Vegeta is at the maximum of his vitality and charisma. Especially compared to his ever-crisis moody version (who supposedly lives happily with a loving family). In the Saiyan arc, he's objectively the most powerful character (Freeza didn’t even exist in Toriyama's head at the time). Vegeta is domineering, playful and unpredictable, but most importantly - his self-confidence is fully justified. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. He's really in control. These are, if I may say so, quite exciting qualities in a man, haha. Even if he looks like an evil dwarf in stupid armor and bullies some weaklings. I'd even say his demeanor in the Saiyan arc (especially with the voice of early Horikawa) is suspiciously easy to translate into a sexual context (well, until he loses control and gets hysterical, lol).

The Namek arc, placing Vegeta in a broader context, somewhat spoiled his original image (after all the big words, it turned out that he was running errands for Freeza all this time), but gave him a more interesting background and a strong drive. He had ambitions and a socially significant goal, and he actively and passionately fought for them against a clearly superior enemy. In addition, his inability to defeat Freeza by brute force forced him to use his brains from time to time, and not just pull another power up out of his ass, as is now traditionally done in DragonBall. (Needless to say, I consider high intelligence to be one of the most attractive traits). All this made his position in the plot as interesting as possible. He literally sparkled with energy.

Well, we know what happened next. Brain Death, an eternal chase after Goku, and an off-screen family life on a backwater planet that Vegeta is supposedly happy with. Until he suddenly became a really beautiful character without a proper justification for this (well, at least the explosion was spectacular). Really, I like the general concept of redemption, and yet... the way Toriyama portrays it in the story just doesn't work convincingly enough for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another point I’d like to cover in this already too long essay ahhh I'm a monster is Vegeta’s personality in fanfiction.

Reproducing (?) Vegeta is a bit like playing with a lego set - his personality and behavior is always the result of a conscious reconstruction, which is based around a specific point on the long contradictory line. Depending on which end of the spectrum the chosen point is, the author is forced to shade facts related to the opposite end, or to give new context to Vegeta's past (or future) actions. It's always noticeable when the author extends the later, sympathetic Vegeta's image to an earlier segment of the story. Apparently, it's possible to kill the person who raised you (with an evil smile on your face) just because the situation was too stressful lol. Likewise, when the authors allow Vegeta to remain a charismatic psychopath, the story wouldn't work without ignoring some parts of the later canon.

(And, of course, there is always a "medium" type of Vegeta - Vegeta from the 3-year-gap, whose personality is almost entirely based on anime fillers. Yay, here comes the promised vegebul rant

Honestly, I'm pretty tired of this "gravity room exploded again woman grrr" type of Vegeta.

Because if you take the manga, we have no idea how Vegeta actually behaved with Bulma and her parents, what his training regimen was, and what he did in his free time besides unprotected sex. People elevate his rudeness and irrational self-torturing to the absolute because of all these filler patterns, but this is just one of the possible versions of the events and the character's behavior during this time (albeit partly canonical). But... there are also alternatives. There are smart Vegeta, curious Vegeta, civilized Vegeta. Honestly - I don't think Bulma would've married him later if there was nothing in his personality that’d make communication with him enjoyable. I mean, she's a rich modern woman, she doesn't need a husband just for convenience and Vegeta is a marginal freeloader anyway. And if we subtract good looks (which people often attribute to Vegeta) from the equation, then the idea that he has no interest in anything other than training and cannot maintain an interesting conversation becomes completely unconvincing. Toriyama clearly didn't attach much importance to the fact of their marriage, and generally avoided romantic scenes as if they were on fire (and, perhaps, did the right thing), but these two just had to be capable of adequate and mutually pleasant personal interaction in order to take this step.

In general, Toriyama's lack of attention to most aspects of the characters' lives other than fighting and training, on the one hand, can be considered a drawback of DBZ, but on the other, it creates a lot of room for fans' imagination. But not everyone uses it. Most authors generally repeat the same tropes over and over again and don't try to look at the three-year-gap from a new angle, although the canon provides all the possibilities for this. Because of this, fics in this genre often seem boring. But in fact, it's not the setting itself that is boring, but only dusty formulas in the heads of the authors.)

Ahem, so where were we?.. Oh yes.

Actually, Vegeta's inconsistency is a very handy character trait for the authors, as it minimizes the chance of accidental OOC. Indeed, it's quite difficult to make someone to behave out of character if he has many different canon versions of himself, lol. On the other hand, this leads to the fact that the character seems to... kinda disintegrate. You never see his whole face, because he simply doesn't have it. As a result, Vegeta turns into a mosaic that must be reassembled each time. And I keep staring at this crazy kaleidoscope like an idiot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, that's... quite a lot of contradictions in my relationship to Vegeta, haha. Still, life without contradictions would be somewhat boring, I guess.

Thanks for your attention I suppose?..... lol, as if someone really got to this point

The End.

P.S. 1: The antisocial version of Vegeta who doesn't understand stupid human rituals and hates crowds, but puts up with it for the sake of his family is my spirit animal, haha. This is just so damn relatable to my autistic personality. Maybe I'm an alien myself.

P.S. 2: Actually, my favorite dbz character is Piccolo. Yep.

[cruelfeline]

I'm rather new to the fandom but I had a thought/theory I'd like your opinion on regarding Hordak's 'defect'/illness as I think its never specified in canon what it is (correct me if I'm wrong). What if his defect is simply something he perceived about his past that is not real, similar to his perception that he was a top general to Prime. It was something he made up to explain events to himself, and that any illness that he displays by the show is simply the result of a manufactured (1/4)

being that was forced to survive in an environment that it was now designed to live in for 20 or so years. I think this might be the case for a couple of reasons, first I can definitely see Prime send defects to the front line, however in season 5 Hordak isn't simply shipped away to a front line somewhere. He is sent to Etheria but not for long and not what I would argue as the front line considering there are actual battles going on the planet and he's not like in the occupied territory (2/4)

most likely to see battle. And two despite how far he has 'fallen' in Primes eyes, Prime takes the time and resources to remold him rather than just dispose of him, and Hordak seems just as physically capable as his brothers after this. And if Prime was able to repair Hordak's 'defect' easily enough that he would keep him around rather than send him out to die in battle as Hordak had been showed to assume earlier, then perhaps Hordak never had any defect or illness to begin with. He only (3/4)

told himself that after he got separated from the galactic horde because why else would Prime send him away, why else would he even have been in a situation to be separated, he would think he must deserve it, that there had been something wrong with him and its his fault for what happened to him, and not the truth that he just happened to be the cog in the machine that fell out because there was a portal and he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry for the long ask lol.(4/4)

So, this is definitely an idea that’s been floating around the fandom: this concept that Hordak never actually had a physical defect, and that the illness we see is one caused by environmental factors on Etheria.

There’s nothing specifically wrong with this headcanon, and if it’s one that people enjoy, then by all means: indulge! However, it’s not one that I personally subscribe to, for a few reasons.

The first of these reasons is largely meta-based. Removing Hordak’s in-born physical defect removes a huge part of his character arc and a significant aspect of why he means so much to so many people, especially those people who identify with him in terms of physical disability. His arc is very much based on disability and how it affects him, on feelings of physical inadequacy connected to an illness that he cannot control coupled with a “family” and “society” that condemns him for that illness. Removing this aspect of him greatly diminishes the meaning of “imperfection is beautiful” and the lesson that he learns throughout the series.

If there was never any actual defect, if he was never really looked upon by Prime as “inadequate,” then what he learns about failure and having worth as he is, physical problems and all, becomes somewhat meaningless. If the defect never existed, then... the conflict is kind of gone, isn’t it? I mean, in that scenario, it would still be awful to be sent to the front lines to die, but the reason behind it, the thing about Hordak that so deeply hurts him, would be gone. The sort of igniting spark of his entire story would be gone, and with it, a major aspect of his character.

I also think that Hordak sort of rationalizing a position of importance in Prime’s cult is believable, simply because I feel like it happens in real cults. With real victims. Victims who think that, rather than being abused, they are participating in something important and meaningful. Victims who think that their abusers have special love for them (something that we likely see in that clone Prime caresses, in S5E5, actually). But I think it’s less believable that Hordak just “made up” an entire physical illness; I do think that that existed prior to Etheria. Removing it just seems... very odd to me. Especially removing it without coming out and addressing the fact.

The removal would also take away some of the sense of evil surrounding Prime: prioritizing his brothers based on physical ability, rejecting those with defects, is a horrific thing. Take that away, and Prime is still evil, but a certain emotional aspect of it is removed. Which, again, lessens the story, in my opinion.

Now, in terms of in-universe logic regarding why Hordak remains with Prime in season five: in my opinion, this has to do with memory access. 

While Prime is conquering Etheria, he wishes to maintain access to any relevant memories and information about it. Hordak is the only one with those memories. And, as we learn when Prime accesses one of his previous bodies, these memories cannot be uploaded into a server, or put on a thumb drive. They require a mind and body to exist. Therefore, Prime simply (temporarily) fixes Hordak up enough to make him pretty and functional and keeps him around as a memory bank. With this logic, there is a high chance that, once Etheria fell, Hordak would have lost his Healthy Maintenance privileges and been sent back to the front lines, but until that happened, he was useful.

This actually provides another facet to the disability narrative Hordak’s character explores: it’s not so much that Prime can’t maintain Hordak in something of a healthy state. It’s that he doesn’t think it’s worth it. It’s that it perhaps takes more resources, so why bother? Why bother tending to Hordak and giving him the extra care he needs, when Prime can just stick another, healthier clone in his place?

It’s the sort of awful question that, I think, we see asked every day in the real world: why bother making something accessible to someone with some form of disability when they can just be replaced by someone without that disability? Why put in the effort? The answer, of course, is because they’re people who deserve to live comfortable, fulfilling lives by virtue of being people, but for Prime, that’s not a concern. The concern is ease of use. The concern is not “wasting” resources. The concern is never how Hordak might feel, either physically or emotionally.

So that, to me, is how Hordak works in season five: he is useful despite his physical issues, and so he temporarily gets the maintenance he needs because of that use. And, thankfully, we never have to see Hordak lose that usefulness, because Prime dies before he can take Etheria. Small miracles and all.

Anyway! I hope that’s helpful? Obviously, one can headcanon whatever they want. But I think the most common interpretation of this in the fandom, at least the part I frequent, is that Hordak does have an actual physical defect that requires special care. Taking that away just lessens the impact of so much of his story arc, and it lessens a good portion of the representation he offers to many members of the fandom.

Oh, and a quick addition: it can also be both! It can be a natural defect that is made worse by Etheria’s environment! I’ve seen that done, too.

[nitrateglow]

My bottom five new-to-me movies of 2020

2020 sucked. So did these movies. Before I do my customary top 20 favorite movie discoveries list, I wanted to share five very special new-to-me movies that were painful to watch. Forgive me if it all sounds like ranting. It probably is.

(And remember-- if you like any of these movies, that’s fine. I am not attacking YOU. I just didn’t like a movie. I know this is a stupid disclaimer to put on a list of opinions, but combing the venomous old IMDB message boards has me on edge a bit lol.)

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

Whether you love the sequel trilogy or hate it, everyone pretty much agrees this movie was a mess. I thought no movie could have a more structurally unsound screenplay than The Crimes of Grindelwald, but Rise of Skywalker gives it staunch competition. It creates a new artform from making things up as the plot requires: new powers for Rey, new Macguffins to pursue, new motivations and backstories for characters.

I admit I dislike The Last Jedi. I dislike it a lot, actually, and it appears JJ Abrams did too from the amount of retconning he does here (Rey isn’t nobody! Honest, guys!). But you can’t backtrack THAT much. Either plot out your entire trilogy before shooting the first film or play fairly with the cards you were dealt by the filmmakers of movie two.

If anything, these movies have become a cautionary tale about not having a plan when making a movie trilogy. Now, George Lucas didn’t really have one either when he was making the original trilogy, but in that case, he wasn’t even sure the first movie was going to be a modest hit, let alone the biggest movie of the 1970s. He had an excuse and did well enough finishing the trilogy. Here, Disney knew there would be sequels, they knew they had a hungry audience, but they chose to just wing it and the results are just-- so disappointing, especially given the talented young actors and lovely special effects they had at their disposal.

The more I think about it, the more poetic the image of Palpatine hooked up to a life support system/crane is. The best ROTS can do is riff on earlier, better movies and hope our affection will make us overlook the awfulness.

Artemis Fowl

Outside of Animal Crossing, Artemis Fowl might have been the only entity to benefit (if only slightly) from the pandemic. I cannot imagine it would have been anything but a box office bomb had the theaters been open.

Artemis Fowl feels like it should have come out in 2003-- not just because the books were more prominent then, but the whole style of this film in general. In 2020, it’s positively anachronistic. The whole thing is a joyless attempt at dipping from the old Harry Potter well, with a bit of Spy Kids thrown in for good measure. Beyond that, it’s so poorly done as a whole. I have never read the Artemis Fowl books, but I watched this with a friend who has and his head near caught on fire. Apparently, it cuts out everything that made the books cool, like the protagonist basically being a kid version of a Bond villain. Here, he’s anything but that: he’s the usual bland child protagonist surrounded by a cast of slightly more interesting characters. Josh Gad seems to be the only one really trying. Judi Dench shows up and somehow gives a worse performance than whatever the hell she was doing in Cats.

I was actually shocked Kenneth Branagh of all people directed this. I generally like his films, even the less successful ones like his musical adaptation of Love’s Labors Lost. Even the uninspiring live-action Cinderella remake he helmed is at least pretty to look at-- Artemis Fowl has neither brains nor beauty to recommend it.

Bloodline

This film was intended to jumpstart a career comeback for Audrey Hepburn. This decidedly did not happen. One has to wonder what she saw in this sordid material in the first place. Maybe she really just wanted to work with director Terence Young again? Or she thought this would be a good, more modern take on her screen persona? I have no clue. All I know is that Bloodline is one of the worst big-budget Hollywood movies I have ever seen.

No contest: this is Audrey Hepburn’s worst movie. Hate on Green Mansions and Paris When It Sizzles until the stars turn to ash-- at least there was some fun camp value in them. The plot in Bloodline makes no sense, going into unrelated digressions that lead nowhere (did we really need that extended flashback about the dead father? or the subplot with Omar Shariff’s two families?). Oh and then there’s the awful sleazy snuff film subplot that’s also poorly developed and goes nowhere. Hepburn is game, but she can’t save the sinking ship. The best she can do is be charming in a terrible 70s perm.

Luckily, she made the underrated They All Laughed two years after this cinematic fecal matter bombed, so at the very least, Hepburn’s big screen swan song was a film worthy of her presence. (Hint: there will be more about that movie on my top 20 of the year list!)

Halloween III: The Season of the Witch

You all have no idea how excited I was to see this. All the mentions of it on Red Letter Media made it sound like deliriously entertaining schlock. I mean, it’s a movie in which the villain sells cursed Halloween masks that turn children’s heads into bugs and snakes! That sounds awesome! Instead, the movie is badly paced and boring: the main characters are uninteresting and the plot takes an interesting premise then does.... nothing with it. Nothing whatsoever. The second act is the cinematic equivalent of treading water. In fact, so little happens, that the filmmakers squeeze in a pointless sex scene between two character who have all the chemistry of a lit match and a bag of M&M’s.

The thing that annoys me most about this film is that it killed off a great concept: that all of the future Halloween films would be standalone stories centered around the spookiest time of the year. Unfortunately, this movie botched itself so badly that people often think the absence of Michael Meyers was the problem. It wasn’t: it was the absence of a good story.

Blindsided

This is probably the most watchable movie on this list, but that’s not saying much. A bloodless ripoff of Wait Until Dark, Blindsided is an unimaginative thriller with no thrills, humor, or interesting characters whatsoever.

The whole film is just repetitive. The situation doesn’t slowly boil to something horrific, the threat presented by the villains doesn’t escalate, there are no interesting interactions between the characters: no, here the underdeveloped protagonist is interrogated, tortured and/or sexually harassed, tries to escape, is recaptured, rinse and repeat for ninety minutes. I admit there’s some clever resourcefulness on the part of the heroine in the last scene-- but it’s basically just Wait Until Dark’s climax (down to the twist with the villain finding an alternative source of illumination for crying out loud!) without the emotional payoff that comes from slow-burn pacing or the fantastic performances, so even that’s a letdown.

I thought the movie might at least be saved by Michael Keaton as the main criminal mastermind since he’s shown he can be a great villain in other movies (if they had remade Wait in the 80s, he would have been a perfect Harry Roat Jr.), but even he seems to be phoning it in here. Beyond a scene of attempted cat murder (I’m serious-- the bad guys are so incompetent they can’t even kill a cat), there’s not even anything so bad it’s good to enjoy. Blindsided is just dull and by-the-numbers.

[stronghours]

CUSTOMER SERVICE

E T S Y

Darling Fallon    Sep 3, 2013

Sensational (sin-sational!). i write on behalf of myself (S) and my lover (m). we have been ripped off by bulk-produced molded hoods before and i can only say HAND CUT LATEX ONLY never look back!! worth the money and will eventually pay for itself. neck fit like loving glove and adds dynamic intensifier to breathplay. Lovely proprietor replied prompt when “m” had questions re: breathability (she added extra breathing hole at no extra cost). class acts all around (and not just in our dungeon!) will return for more but “m” needs a break first if u get the drift lol1!! thanks to lady j!

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Latex Chrysalis Hood (translucent…

3 Helpful

  myMister   Aug 24, 2013

this one writes on behalf and with permission of MISTER. this one quaked with bliss when package arrived. truly awful to behold in the wise hands of MISTER. this one’s neck is small and delicate For His Pleasure and all item adjustments were made to order and did not affect shipping time. if this one could be so efficient For His Pleasure this one would be in heaven on earth. instead, this one is less than a hole. item truly enhanced <O sensation. without a doubt will be used over and over in this household for due punishments of this very worthless one. discrete pgk’ing. thanks to designer J for deepening this one’s service to MISTER.

(NOTE FROM MISTER – WILL PROPRIETER PLEASE PRIVATELY EMAIL TO DISCLOSE IF YOU ARE MALE/FEMALE/OTHER SO “myMister” (this one) WILL BE ABLE TO PROPERLY ADDRESS YOU IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS FORMAL ROLE)

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Throttle Collar w/ attached Gas…

1 Helpful

  JulieJuice   August 3, 2013

LOL rip-off!!! cant believe all u ppl sucking this guys dick. says everywhere in product descript. (and you guys reviews!!) that custom sizing is no additl. cost but mine cost more!! only small alteration to titty holes cause of my cleave situation. bullshit. not buying from him again.

Response from J

Hi again Julie. If you check our many enlightening inbox conversations from 7/5-7/16 you will be reminded the additional cost was due to your request of more ring hinge insertions as the standard amount in pattern block “was not bling enough”. Cleavage was irrelevant. Sizing related alterations are always no added cost. Custom alterations requiring additional materials/effort and adjusted pricing will always be discussed and approved on client end before any exchange of payment.

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Hexagon Restrictor Harness…

HELPFUL?

  HannahCakes!    Jun 1, 2013

Hey Whats Up I’m Caleb (obviously don’t have an etsy) and using my lady’s account. She got the catsuit for my birthday and she looked so sexy like J-Lo or someone. Didn’t want her doin the latex stuff because I thought shed have to shave off all her pubes and personally i like that kind of thing a lot but no harm done. Anyway she was super sexy and the suit thing looked good and stayed together even when we started rockin. To other full bush guys out there if youre girl wants to wear the latex stuff SHE CAN KEEP HER BUSH she just has to use lube to oil up the bush that she has.

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Domina Catsuit w/ Pussycat Zipper (red…

7 Helpful

  HannahCakes!   3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Caleb Review

Hi J,

Saw my boyfriend’s 6/1 review and I was like uh ohhh. I asked him to leave one because he went gaga over the catsuit, but I wasn’t expecting all the bush stuff. If you don’t want to be associated with that and want to delete, that’s ok on my end. A little embarrassing! – Hannah!

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Hannah. Please don’t worry about it, any positive review is welcome. His feedback has apparently hit a chord with some specific hesitations and concerns buyers have been experiencing but not confiding with me, so I plan on keeping it up for the time being. Enjoy your garment.

  JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Moo-cow snout muzzle thing – (idea i had)

Hi. Is this idea good

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend   Ignore

Hi Joey. Are you interested in a custom cow muzzle/mask, like the pup play masks on my page or are you just brainstorming for personal reasons?

Reply from JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

idk it’s just an idea i had

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

It’s a cool idea

Reply from JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Thanks man i thought so 2

1234Brett10093456    3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

I REMEMBER YOU FROM RAWHIDE

JULES yes I know who you are and I know your name are you scared yet?? I remember when you used to hang with Roscoe out at Rawhide because Roscoe pretended to hire you because he secretly wanted to fuck and suck you till you cried and I saw all that. I have brown flippy hair, blue eyes and am tall/cut versatile but lean TOP. I know you faked being gay. You heard of bi-now-gay-later but have you heard of gay-then-straight-betrayer (you)? That is fucked up that you still sell stuff but pretend to be a gay guy because that makes your stuff sell better because the gay guys want to fuck you. I know you are faking because my muscle bud Tomas (latino) saw you making out with a ginger chick at the wet bar in Entrance last week. He said it was probably a joke but I know it wasn’t because he said he saw tongue. I wont let you be a breeder without a fight. I am willing to tell EVERYBODY YOURE SECRET. But I wont if you prove to me YOU CAN STILL BE GAY. Im attaching a pic of my cock so you know im not lying and can follow through. I will only believe YOU ARE GAY if we can see each other face/face (i can host only on fri- I have two roommates) and our cocks have to touch and you have to stay hard for at least five minutes while I suck and jack your cock and tongue your balls (shave or dont i will leave that up to you). condoms ok but if you want to be a breeder so bad maybe I will just breed your ass but if youre actually a gay guy you’ll like it and cum thick ropes as I fuck your dirty little slut hole and youll tell me youre a hole while I fuck it with the shiny precum head of my cut fucking cock (7inches erect). you will smell my hole and BECOME GAY again IT WILL HAPPEN  - Brett Costino

  TheSteelyDanMan   2 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Latex & Breastfeeding Concerns

Good morning, J I hope you are well. Returning customer, here. My kajira/wife and I are splinter Gor lifestylers (NOT KAOTIANS) [link] but are currently isolated due to our deviation from standard kajira beautification ideals and the arrival of our first child (girl - Gemma) two months ago. My wife’s submission has usually been expressed fashion-wise in various strict latex outfits, a few of which you have kindly provided us over the past couple of years. Naturally, the arrival of a mini-me results in some changes! My wife, insecure after birth, wants to return to strict full-coverage latex, but this desire is at odds with her physical situation of actively nursing Gemma and we both have worries. Does the constriction of latex effect or otherwise harm milk production, or could secondhand latex exposure harm our baby? I imagine you have catered to many lifestyle situations where this might be relevant so I thought I would ask. Thanks very much. LEO

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    2 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Leo. While I have catered to many lifestyles, I’m afraid I must exercise discretion in this situation, as it would be on par with giving medical advice. I will say any allergy is a possibility and one should exercise undue care with a very young infant, not just in matters of latex. I highly encourage you and your wife to discuss this with her doctor as frankly as possible. In the long run it might be worth reevaluating aspects of your wife’s submission and temporarily making do with latex pieces that do not restrict the breasts, while nursing is a part of her daily reality (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you examples are available on my page). Best of luck and congratulations on the new addition to your family.

  NoraBarnacle    2 months ago   Friend   Ignore

A sincere offer…

Several months ago, I bought a pair of latex gauntlet gloves from your shop. Since then, astonishing changes have come over me. I used to be high-powered, highly controlled, a formidable woman (natural ash blond, green eyes, 45”-40”-44”) I was determined to keep these feelings to myself, but I can no longer resist, as I wholeheartedly believe your Dominating spirit, imbued in the gauntlets, is leading me forcefully but masterfully into your care. If it pleases you, know I have not touched my aching slit for one month total as I am uncertain whether you desire me to feel pleasure that is not approved by you. There are no images of you on your site, but I have drawn an accurate picture of you in my mind and I know you are the Man that I never knew I was waiting for, the Man who will lead me, the Man who will hold my neck and strike my forehead to his knee in his insistence that I allow myself to be led. When I wear the gauntlets, they are your own gallant hands restricting my weak bones. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I do not desire to resist. Please message back so I can properly present my acquiescence, body and soul, unto you. I squat disgracefully on my plump thighs, full of whorish tremor that makes me unworthy, but still I desire. I will service your home with my ardent hands and service your thick and striving cock with my wet tongue. Respond to this small soul. I submit to your gallant wisdom – A Secret Admirer

  RicoMetals   1 month ago   Friend   Ignore

Redhead Modle in Pic for Serve Her Serrated Corselette

Hey man-to-man who is she. I love redheads. Does she modle for other people/would she modle for my pieces? there’s no head in the pick – what’s her nose situation? we could all do collab and I think it would be hot. Let me kno - RICO

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    1 month ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Rico. I have not blocked you (yet) because said model wanted me to reply to you first and inform you, she’s already an established performer in her own right and does not want to model for a guy who “thinks I need some sissy seamstress to pimp me out to shitty welders online”. As I only have basic welding experience, I can offer no further comment or defense on your behalf.

  DerryBerry454   1 month ago   Friend   Ignore

Inquiry re: standard leather sleep-sack dimensions

Hello Miss J, quick question:

I will buy this item no hesitation no delay if you tell me right now about your vagina. Questions I prioritize:

1.     Color labia (outer)

2.     Color labia (inner – aroused)

3.     Clit length in centimeters or whatever measurement is most flattering to you

4.     Range of clit engorgement

5.     Depth of vaginal canal (I will allow ballpark figure as I know not everyone has graded speculums lying around)

6.     Percentage of clit orgasms v. vaginal orgasms – bonus points if you describe uterine orgasm, if that is your experience (no pressure to answer last part, as I understand it is not necessarily vagina-adjacent)

7.     Are you hairy? What color?

8.     When you wash your vagina do you douche or do you use fingers to rub through labia folds and that is it?

9.     Color of menstrual blood

10.  If you wear panties, do you find the crotch of your panties degrades due to PH of your vaginal discharge? (give me the qualities and I will calculate this for you)

While a picture of your vagina is welcome (and will only be for my private use) I really do like gathering these stats (I’m kind of a nerd) and would appreciate as much openness on your behalf as possible and you will benefit too because I’ll give you money for your lovely product. Talk to you soon! 😊

  B O A R D

[RUBBERVALLEY FIENDS THREAD 3/3 2006-PRESENT] TOPICS: 850 POSTS: 10,356

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Hey people, we’ve reached the end of the summer and you know what that means – Ivan himself of the halls of Rubber Valley presents inaugural post of their annual sweeps week filming extravaganza – first photoset already up and we’ve got the goddamn brilliant LYDIA SUCKS sons! The greatest bitch on the face of the planet almost psyched us out but she’s here she’s low and she’s ready to blow. Vid upload will probably take till tomorrow to render but we’ve got some great pic galleries already. Ivan really spoiling us pigs lmfao. Seeing lots of setup and dress-up and behind scenes stuff for yall candid pervs. We’ve got full body latex and face coverage hoods and I see a breathing tube and the barn inversion setup. Possible inverted ceiling fuck? The boys can dream. Links to download pics results in PERMABAN – only official links to Rubber Valley site allowed, don’t know how often I have to say it. You want to pass ripped screenshots you do that through email *casts pearls before swine*

GOBgobGOB: no pic of lyds upside down yet ☹

LordJim: Not interested until I see Ivan haul out the FuckRacers from two years ago – wonder why he doesn’t bring those around more often? Great view stats on current vids and who doesn’t like a fat ass getting auto-fucked while she steers the go-cart supine?

SUCKPUNTER: lmfao all views are you bro

GOBgobGOB: D I R E C T H I T

SUCKPUNTER: hey lordjim where’d you learn the word supine

LordJim: Yeah “laugh out loud” very funny guys.

SUCKPUNTER: did you learn it at college

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Lydia looks gr8 folks. Queen pristine and ready to cream. SUCKPUNTER – chill out because I’ve got my eye on you. Don’t take the bait Jim. You’re like thirty.

SUCKPUNTER: at least I don’t get off on bitches doing the pinewood derby

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: LYDIA!

GOBgobGOB: LYDIA!!!

McLovin: LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA

TheWorldofMartinAmis: Goddess. Wish she’d get her boobs done though.

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: same! I’ve been waiting for years for her to get into xtreme body mod. Right up her alley. If she’s at EXXXOTICA EXPO next year I’m going to try to get her meet and greet and ask. I know tattoo guys who’d pay HER to give her first tat.

McLovin: Lydia wouldn’t go. She’s like indie transgressive.

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): nice to see you again lockSTOCK. I see your POV but Lydia has several interviews where she says most of her viewers see her bod as a clean palate in the art of pain – as in, wounds have to go away in order for us to appreciate a fresh ruining ; ) tats and huge implants are a little tougher to work around. Anyway in my mind you can fix bad tits but you can’t fix bad attitude

ThatOneFootGuy: id suck her feet

McLovin: woah fuck 4th latex pic in dressing series with her mouth open and her eyes shut – who the lube guy with his arm right down her front?

SUCKPUNTER: lol hand clear to her pussy and hes not even hard faggot

McLovin: scope the ginger amazon in the background with camera – new girl? Don’t recognize. Didn’t know Ivan was bringing new people around this year’s sweeps.

LordJim: I wondered too when I saw. I’m sure DungeonMaster mod understands if I copy/paste following from Ivan (no pics, text w/actress info):

Newcomers are always welcome in RUBBER VALLEY (especially if they’re lovely, and especially if they’re ladies!) and this old goat is pleased to welcome DOMME LUX, our friendly neighbor down south in that little town called Chicago. Mysterious as she is alluring, you’ll see her shining light sampling tidbits of delight off our Valley Girls throughout the uploads this month (or even taking a crack at a couple!) We’re just getting to know her, but I have a feeling she’s a generous gal at heart as she kindly offered us the services of her Personal Valet, Jules DeMarco, who himself spoiled us all year with devious latex devices for our steadfast daring dollies after the unfortunate 2012 passing of our beloved torture designer Merrick Marvel (memoriam post 03/04/2012). Check out Jules’s Half-Bag Breast Mummifier in scheduled post 7/22 (Heather Bunny in the inverted Wench Wrench) the diabolical Arachnae-Hood (Lacey Jane, spinning in our trusty Landscape(her) Rolling Pin 7/16) and the Double-Fuck Full Body Boa Binder with eerie inflatable bubble hood (Lydia Sucks, finale post 7/31, don’t miss it, SUBSCRIBE). I must confess, we took advantage - the poor fella ran himself ragged helping us with film prep all week. So as an apology we let him get up close and personal with Rubber Valley’s reigning heroine LYDIA SUCKS fitting her in a custom four-limb black latex catsuit with half-face hood, made especially for her brave beautiful bod. He takes a good long time greasing her up before Ivan and Barry get her hoisted and joisted and in her best bitch-bat position among the rafters of the exalted Rubber Valley barn, where we leave her to squirm in terror! (but let’s get real – what scares Lydia? We’re wracking our brains!) Uh-oh, is Domme Lux looking jealous in the background? Is she plotting a little comeuppance for our Lovely Lady Lydia? Only one way to find out – SUBSCRIBE!

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Np lordjim, if you hadn’t posted I was going to. Looks like we’ve got fresh meat in the valley.

TheWorldofMartinAmis: very pretty girl, but always bummed when a new one turns out to be top. Call me old fashioned, I come to the Valley for slaves.

SUCKPUNTER: firecrotch

GOBgobGOB: brb too busy crankin it. milky gingerbread titties come to daddy

McLovin: @TheWorldofMartinAmis, Ivan always has at least one femdom around. Room for everybody in the valley

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: holy shit I know that guy.

SUCKPUNTER: lmfao faggots know faggots

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: no for real. His real name is Jules Marinelli. I worked with him one summer lifeguarding beaches for the park’s district. Our boss found his website where he sells his sex stuff, and it was this whole big thing. Found the kink club Entrance through that (check it out if you’re in my hood ever – huge, clean, not too much gay shit, great ladies of all stripes hanging around, but limits on drinking if you’re trying to access certain levels). He’s bi. He’s either secretly Domme Lux’s slave or Domme Lux is his slave and it’s mega on the DL because it’d hurt her career if it got out she could ‘verse. There’s all this gossip.

SUCKPUNTER: bi guys r fags

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): SUCKPUNTER – that’s strike one. lockstock – not deleting your post because from what I can see JDM doesn’t/isn’t acting in explicit scenes, but let’s cool it with doxxing info. Looks like he’s had an experience with that before, and as a small business owner myself, I know how it can suck. We aren’t gossiping high school girls. Settle back and enjoy what Ivan gives us.

GOBgobGOB: *sees dudes in the chat and stops jacking off*

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: NP mod, feel free to delete it later before it causes problems.

TheWorldofMartinAmis: going back to previous discussion – don’t think a breast job automatically constitutes body modification

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): think about it martinamis, it’s a slippery slope – you want to see some swollen battered fish get destroyed, or a fresh natural girl get destroyed?

SUCKPUNTER: i am not a faggot and a whore’s a whore and im here to see whores fucking destroyed

GOBgobGOB: *tony soprano voice* she was a HOOOOER

SUCKPUNTER: fag or cunt all whores get fucked

LordJim: Mod, step up. This isn’t going to get better. With all due respect

SUCKPUNTER: fag or cunt ALL WHORES GET FUCKED

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): yeah, already done. That should be the last of him. Don’t know why I expected that situation to turn out differently.

  FROM: lydias-verified@terrorproductions.com

TO: JulesDM86@gmail.com

Subject: Debrief – valley week

Jules,

As discussed, attached is current info for my old webmaster service from when I had to run my own fansite. Decent price and decent vendor system. Can only be an improvement on what you have now. That is not an insult, but I know it sounds like one. Stay with me.

[link] [link] [link]

And above, the top three most trafficked boards I’ve found following my own career and the rubber valley gang. We’ve caused quite a stir already and its only July 15th. I wouldn’t count on this causing an uptick in your business, but I think you know that. The standard gentleman at home spending twenty bucks a month for guaranteed links to a woman being fucked inside out while wearing a sensory deprivation hood simply doesn’t translate him to spending 100-200 dollars, contacting a seller, taking measurements, and going through the effort to order he and his special girly the hood itself. But I know you believe you’ve chosen your life the same way I believe I’ve chosen my life and won’t whine. I will say, if your ego is bruised, that your clothes are wonderful. They feel maybe half like death. I’ll wear them again and again.

On a funnier note: I have accounts myself on all the above message boards and post semi-regularly. It might amuse you to do the same thing, but you need to be careful regarding your identity. Feedback from viewers is never relevant, but it needs to be pure (don’t ask me why – my brains are fucked out). I won’t tell you who I am, and you won’t tell me who you are. Maybe we’ll find each other.

I wouldn’t tell your Cathy, since some sensitive (if inaccurate) information is flying around. Your instinct towards privacy, while cute and old fashioned, is an apt instinct. Looks like the good people of Chicago can’t keep their fucking mouths shut. Will you be able to find a straight job if your work now goes up like a dead dog’s gut? Don’t despair. Your nice long cock dropped so well down my throat while your Cathy beat my clit with the edge of your belt (nice touch – whose idea was that?) so while you might not get another chance to perch in a lifeguard’s throne, you might very well have a future in film. You’re vigorous, discrete, disciplined, clean, and a cutie-pie. Have your Cathy make some films of you alone or you two together. It’ll excite her, so you have no choice but to be excited yourself. You’re excited reading this. You believe you chose this.

Anyway – Cathy! Don’t be insulted on her behalf. I loved playing with you both. She’s kind and a lot of fun, which are virtues I still let myself appreciate in others. Let her know I appreciate how she let me use you. She’s a good girl and has a good future in store, especially with her personal valet running her life. Pick her outfits, pick her makeup, pick her clients, pick her laundry soap – is it already like that? I want to be buried alive, but you want to be buried in chores. Please dream big, Jules.

Rubber valley is where I have the most fun out of all the shoots I have in a year, but I really was lucky that you two showed up. Poor old Merrick Marvel (not even that old – colon cancer). But out with him and in with you. I enjoyed our river talk and I felt very safe in the car with you at the wheel, though I know I tormented you a little (but I’m pretty sure Cathy helped you out later with that – will you write back to me what she did to you, and if she let you come?) At one point you were with Ivan in the garage, and I tried to have a little talk with her about oblivion, but she either understood my point and got scared, or simply didn’t understand. It’s unfortunate, kind of soul-sucking, how our dominant “loved ones” transform into necessary evils. Adjust the tube. Grasp the handle. Move the thigh. Use the vocal cord to form the order. But what do they know? I never knew how to explain.

I’ve attached some personal pictures of me. I like knowing that you have them. I won’t contact you again except under strict business purposes, so let me sum up. Serve Cathy well. Don’t let her get bullied. Flourish creatively. Keep that belt. Fuck as often as your body commands you to fuck (if I suspect that sometimes your body is Cathy’s body by proxy, then this number will double, perhaps triple, but the choice is out of your hands because she owns your cock). You have a lot of growing up to do. Don’t despair. More to come.

We won’t see each other soon, but we’ll see each other again. Ciao! 

I expect improvements.

XOXOXOXOXOXOX

Lydia S

[retvenkos]

hi congrats on your milestone! ♥️ can i request a 🔥 with newsies and harry potter? i am a pansexual female, taurus, and my personality type is INFP-T. i am also an introverted hufflepuff and many people say that i have a very calming demeanor. i enjoy knitting, crocheting, sewing and just making things in general especially gifts for other people! i am passionate about the environment, and i have a deep love for literature and also musical theatre. occasionally i would express my feelings through poems. im very much a daydreamer lol but i do love a good adventure now and then. i am also rather optimistic. tbh there isn’t many things at the top of my mind that i dislike as i very rarely get upset by others but i don’t like people who are toxic or very close minded who don’t respect other’s opinions. take care of yourself hun 💕 and congrats again on your milestone!

Newsies:

I ship you with Jack Kelly!

both of you are dreamers, but one main difference between the two of you is that you are an optimistic daydreamer while jack daydreams to escape, but doesn’t see much reality in his dreams. he feels trapped while you can see the possibilities. so when the two of you talk about life, you are able to show how his dreams can be a reality. you can remind him that this is real - daydreams are still reality, just the best version of it.

and on the flip side, where you are too idealistic, jack can bring you down to earth just a bit - the two of you are a great mixture of realism and idealism, optimism and pessimism.

your calming demeanor would be great for jack, but at the same time, you are determined, loyal, and passionate - all of which would challenge jack and help him grow. 

i think the both of you could lean on each other and get help from the other while still being your own, independent people who are strong in their own right, and that’s important.

also! both of you are introverted and adore to do calming, sort of mindless activities. jack definitely tries to get you to draw with him a few times, and while the results may not be the greatest, it was the moment that was really sweet - full of laughter, banter, and sweet words passed to the other.

in response, you try to get jack into knitting and crochet, but it doesn’t go over too well, either. both of you decided it would be best to work on separate projects, just share the same space.

you will talk to the other while you work (although some projects require silence, and you both understand that very well) and you give out really good advice? both of you are pretty emotional people, so being able to talk through your struggles is nice. you’re especially good at giving advice to jack, and he’s the best at getting you to open up.

one of jack’s favorite things is your way with words - he doesn’t think he’s incredibly articulate himself (despite being able to command all the newsies, which is skill, if you ask me) and he loves how you are so talented with words. give him some poetry! he loves the way it sounds and the rhythm poetry has. he tells you it’s like music.

you often give him poetry as presents, and he gives you his sketches (even though he still gets very nervous, which you think is cute).

i think you would provide so much calm and stability to jack’s life, and it’s what he deserves.

Harry Potter:

I ship you with Ron Weasley!

ron weasley deserves the world, and i have no qualms about you giving it to him.

what i think is most important to your relationship is that you are thoughtful and open-minded, and you see ron for the wonderful person he is. ron so often feels overshadowed, and you make him feel special and known, and that’s something that is really important to him.

meanwhile, ron is perfect for you because he can bring the excitement to your life while still thoroughly enjoying the quiet moments you share.

you both support the other and help them grow. you give ron self esteem and he gives you a more adventurous life that’s maybe a bit more vulnerable with a bit more conflict. but together, you support the other through that growth and it’s something really special.

the quiet moments between the two of you are definitely my favorite - after a quidditch match, the two of you head to the party but after the first swell in excitement, you go to head to somewhere quieter and ron follows not too long after, taking your hand in his and chatting with you quietly, under the rest of the sounds of the party.

and on cold days you and ron stay in, hanging out in one of your common rooms, and you teach him to knit - he’s actually really good at it, too, probably from watching his mom for so long. he proudly knits you a weasley sweater of your own, and when he gives it to you he’s all nervous but it’s so very sweet and thoughtful.

and another thing! both of you are so very thoughtful, loving, and loyal - there’s so much trust and care between the two of you, it’s literally goals.

and while both of you are a little shy with your feelings and insecurities, you’re also very comfortable around each other, and opening up comes naturally.

i have the very vivid idea that ron loves to cuddle while you read or write - he’ll put his head in your lap or curl up at your side, and he falls asleep to your steady breathing and the soft sound of pages turning. a lot of the time he doesn’t ask you about what you’re reading, but sometimes, on especially rough days, he does and you’ll tell him all about it. 

and you’re rather surprised when he mentions it later is passing conversation - a hint that he actually listens and maybe even cares about the story, despite him saying otherwise.

and ron actually really likes musicals? he will probably insist otherwise, but he listens to the music all the time, and is actually excited to see shows with you. he will still insist that they’d be better with magic - just imagine the effects - but he actually finds a lot of joy in seeing them with you.

[unrepentant-thinner-part2]

Anyone else feeling overly anxious about election results or is it just me? Ugh!

Okay enough politics, I won’t discuss it on here other than what I just said and I’m sooo over it. Anyway, I beat the threat of my orthopedic surgeon manually manipulating my new knee and feel so much better about it! On the downside, when he checked it, he bent it back to the point of lots of pain & now I’m back to babying the shit out of it. Hopefully moving around better soon!

Tried the Premier shakes yesterday and didn’t mind the taste at all. Kind of reminds me of just a tad bit thicker chocolate milk and a huge plus was no real aftertaste! Downside, I ran back & forth to the bathroom for several hours after. Not sure if it was the drink or just me and the “bug” I’ve been dealing with for several days. I’ll have to try it again and see, when I’m brave enough that is!

Got my dreaded Pap test scheduled. Maybe it’s just me but, as a very large girl the last thing I want is for some stranger to see my most private of parts while I try desperately to hang on the any shred of self pride as I’m spread eagle on a table only to hear “you’re going to have to scoot forward more” followed by some meaningless small talk. I’m already embarrassed and emotional about my size. As if that wasn’t enough? Look, I’m working on loving me inside and right now that’s all I can muster so loving my outside isn’t in the cards right now.

So yeah, everything is scheduled and I’m really wanting to get my mammogram over with and the 11th can’t happen soon enough. I don’t have an issue with getting this one done, although it scares the shit out of me and I’m on pins and needles until I get my results. I have a long history of breast cancer in the family. My mother is a breast cancer survivor, her twin sister is a two time breast cancer survivor and my grandmother on both sides of the family died from breast cancer. There is some speculation that my great grandmothers also had breast cancer but no one knows for sure. Because of my family history, my doctors have always said that it isn’t a matter of if but a matter of when it will rear it’s ugly head my direction. I know, get the test to determine if I have the gene right? Wrong, my insurance company won’t pay for it even knowing my family history and it’s too expensive to pay for myself.

I just realized something. Talk about TMI! This blog officially knows more about my insides than anyone on the planet! Lol! Sorry all but hey, if you were wanting the lowdown and dirty on what happens before wls surgery it’s certainly all here! Lol oh, did I mention yet that I have to poo in a box? Yeah so there’s that medically approved at home colon rectal cancer screening test for those in the low risk category. Better than a colonoscopy I’m super sure of but the idea of basically going in a box and shipping it off isn’t exactly on the top of my pleasant things to do list. Yep, it’s another requirement.

< insert eyeroll here >

[930club]

We recently chatted with Jamie Stillman, owner and mastermind of Akron, Ohio’s Earthquaker Devices, one of the leading innovators in guitar pedals/effects. We touch on everything from general guitar nerdery to how the pandemic is affecting the day-to-day operations of EQD. You can delve more into everything Earthquaker Devices related here.

Dave Kezer [9:30 Club]: There’s a joke that anyone who starts to listen to rap immediately wants to try to rap. It seems like anyone who starts to build guitar pedals immediately thinks they can start a pedal company. What do you think it takes to actually get a company off the ground in a sustainable way?

LOL! I used to make a similar joke that every guitar player with a soldering iron is a pedal company. It used to feel that way, but I think the craze has died down. It takes a lot of patience, hard work, and (possibly most importantly) good ideas to build a stable effect pedal company. They almost always start out as a hobby and it’s good to realize when it has moved beyond that point. In my case, it was very important to realize when I was in over my head and when to bring on people who have real knowledge in handling the business on a day-to-day level and have the ability to look at the bigger picture. I have punk rock business skills which worked up to a point, but I’m better suited to the creative role.

In your EQDQ&A Ep. 1, you joked about how long it took you to truly start understanding the differences/complexities of gear. I nerd out on gear so much that sometimes I lose focus on just enjoying playing instruments for the sake of it. How far is too far when it comes to putting every facet of gear under the microscope?

I think the threshold is different for everyone. There are people who won’t settle down until every piece of gear they own is top of the line and Reddit approved and there are people who don’t give a shit if their cable crackles if it moves a certain way. I put myself in the middle. I don’t really care about the proven quality or name brand of whatever I’m using, and I just make sure it works 100% of the time whenever possible. I make an exception on pickups, cables and power supplies because I think those are the most important part of the equation for me personally. I’ll always use the best I can find, and I decide what is best by putting it to use and seeing how it performs.

Your feature on the Rainbow Machine focuses on the usability of weird pedals. Have you designed something so weird that it is truly unusable?

Personally, I don’t find the Rainbow Machine to be so weird, but a lot of other people do, so we ran with that. I know the “pixie trails” function of the Magic switch is obnoxious, but I think it’s cool. There are way weirder pedals out there, lol. I’ve definitely designed things that I thought were cool but not exactly functional in every setting, but I usually work to make them more multi-dimensional. There’s only one that I’ve been working on for a really long time that has a million controls with minimal functionality. I’m not sure I’ll ever finish it but it’s (kind of) fun to keep trying once or twice a year when the mood strikes.

Are there any guitars that you’re completely satisfied with and won’t continue to modify? It seems like for gear people (myself included), a piece of gear will operate at 99% of its maximum potential, but the search for that 1% will make your brain itch forever and lead to continued modification.

No, I constantly modify all of my guitars lol. I change pickups a lot, more than anyone should. The closest I think I’ve gotten to “perfection” would be my stock Nash Telecaster and a heavily modded Fender Jazzmaster. The Jazzmaster is a 60th anniversary that I gutted and replaced almost everything except the neck and body. It has Seymour Duncan custom shop ’59 humbuckers for Jazzmaster with 500K push/pull pots for coil tapping and the rhythm circuit is removed. It also has locking tuners, a Mastery vibrato, bridge, and string tree. It still feels too new, but it sounds perfect.

Your Reverb “Does This Work?” interview focuses on old effects and their tendency to break down over time. What are the typical things that cause old circuits to stop working?

In my experience it has been dust, humidity, and neglect resulting in bad switches, corroded solder joints, cracked wires and dried caps. I never get around to fixing my old gear though. I’ll get in there if I really want to use something, but I’ll usually turn it over to Joe Golden, our in-house repair wizard. Most of the broken gear in the Reverb video is still broken…

Two of my favorite EQD pedals are the Tentacle and the Acapulco Gold, if not simply because there are one/no options to choose from when getting sounds. I tend to get freaked out when I see a pedal that has 4+ knobs, which is something I’m working on, haha. Where do you draw the line when it comes to simplicity vs. versatility when designing pedals?

I used to have a “whatever it takes” approach to design as long as it wasn’t confusing for the general user, but I’ve been moving towards a “less is more” approach. I don’t think pedals should require hours of reading manuals and menu diving to use. The faster you can get to making actual music the better. That’s not to say I don’t have some elaborate, sometimes confusing, products in the pipeline but I’m generally leaning towards simple design.

Don’t mean to be a bummer, but I have to ask — how has the pandemic affected EQD’s business operations? If I understand correctly — it seems like your builders are assembling pedals at home?

We have taken the pandemic very seriously. We knew the shutdown was coming and some of our employees had already been working to get things in place to make the transition to home building as easy as we could. We had almost 50 employees working from home for almost three months and the production capacity was greatly reduced. We didn’t ship any product for about two months. We kept all the employees on the payroll and had regular Zoom meetings to keep everyone up to date on what we were doing. Now, as of June 16, 2020, we are still mostly working from home but we have a skeleton crew in the shop so we can populate PCB’s more efficiently and start shipping product. We completely rearranged the shop to spread people out and invested a lot of time and money into making it a safe and sanitary workspace. We have gone above and beyond all the recommended protocols — too many precautions to list. It would be very hard to catch any illness inside EQD now.

Do you have a favorite “Let’s Go!” guitar riff? For example, whenever I’m driving and “Unchained” comes on the radio, I dime the volume and start driving like a complete lunatic.

I’m pretty reserved but, oddly enough, “Unchained” is also one of my favorite riffs ever! I think I play it at least once every time I pick up a guitar. Also a big fan of “Siberian Khatru” by Yes once it kicks in. Same with “In the Light” and “Rain Song” by Led Zeppelin and anything on Sonic Youth’s Sister. I guess these are more riffs that I wish I wrote than riffs that make me lose my shit. I guess most of them also make me sound like a real dad rocker too.

Is there a piece of gear you’ve spent a completely stupid amount of money on simply because you had to have it?

Yes, a Sunn Model T and it was worth every penny! It’s the most perfect amp I’ve ever owned.  

Not asking you to talk smack, but do you have a “Dumbest Pedal Ever Designed” award in your head?

I’ll keep my mouth shut on this one.

Finally, have you been through D.C. while touring or seeing shows? Anything about D.C. venues or the music scene in general you’d like to share?

I’ve been through D.C. about six or seven times, maybe more. I’ve always held D.C. in high regard because of Dischord records and bands like Ignition, Bad Brains, Jawbox, Fugazi, etc. 9:30 Club is actually one my favorite venues ever. I’ve been through twice when I was tour managing and the staff was super friendly and accommodating, which is unfortunately rare in the touring world. It also has the best green room of any venue I ever worked in; the bunks are a nice touch!

— Dave Kezer

[alewyren]

tumblr is dead but I’m gonna post my thoughts on Inuyasha here too for archiving purposes. cw for (non-detailed) discussion of sexual assault and suicide wrt kikyo

OKAY. SO. MY THOUGHTS ON INUYASHA. warning for some INCREDIBLY hot takes.

it. sure was a journey. I am not sure if I liked the series overall or not. It had some legit good/touching moments, but it dragged SO LONG and there were a lot of things I thought could've been handled better. But it was fun liveblogging it for sure. And I got NarKik out of it, which snapped me out of my year-long creative dry spell, so it was at least a net positive time investment LMFAO.

I liked... mmmmost of the characters? sango, sesshoumaru, kagura, kanna, naraku, kohaku, K I K Y O, and even kagome were all Good. On the flipside, Inuyasha himself is FUCKING TERRIBLE and he sucks and I hate him. Emotional immaturity ain't cute, he gets everything handed to him on a silver platter, rarely apologizes for being a selfish prick, and the other characters are WAY too forgiving of his bullshit. I got tired of the tsundere het romance cliches between him and Kagome pretty fast, as well as how often he was jealous of her. Like, Kagome's insecurities over Kikyo I can legit understand (despite being #1 Kikyo Fucker). But whenever she's so much as civil with Kouga and Inuyasha's all HANDS OFF MY WOMAN I'm like... dude shut up you two-timing hypocrite. If You Like It Then You Should’ve Put A Ring On It. Credit where credit is due tho, they did chill out over time and some of their moments together towards the end of the series were legit sweet. I'm pretty meh on Inukag overall, and iffy on the resolution of her moving to his era permanently, but that last panel of him greeting her as she came out of the well gave me a Feel.

(Actually, on that note, it... would have been legit kind of hella if the series had ended with Inuyasha himself permanently moving to the modern era? Aside from their friends he had far fewer attachments in his world than she did hers, and there's so much more potential with him having to adapt to the modern era, lol. ALTERNATIVELY, kikyo lives and she switches places with kagome and makes a new life for herself in the modern era. thus letting her truly live as a normal girl. But I'll Get To Kikyo Later. smh)

The premise of the series is actually pretty strong, though of course you can poke holes in it. To my knowledge it was the first isekai anime that really took off, and the driving plot of collecting the Shikon fragments is excellent monster of the week material (though I'm not really a monster of the week fan myself). Also, youkai are awesome. Focusing the series on real-world mythology makes my Shin Megami Tensei heart very excited.

I know the series runs on emotion rather than logic, but I REALLY have some questions here. The fact that the well is explicitly stated to take Kagome back in time rather than to another world makes no sense at all. First of all, where are all the youkai in the present day? Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru are at least a couple hundred years old, right? What happened to them in that 500 year timespan? Surely some creature or another from the series would have naturally survived that long. So what happened? Was there a mass-youkai extinction somewhere along the line? Shouldn't this be cause for concern? Also, do Kagome's time-traveling actions create a stable time loop or a branching timeline? If Naraku won in the past, how would that affect the present? The two eras are just completely isolated from each other and I really don't get it. That kind of stuff. Yeah yeah I know MST3K mantra and all but MAN this bothers me.

Which brings me to Exhibit A of stuff I think should have gone differently: Kagome should have stayed the protagonist, and the modern era should have gotten more focus. Not as in her day-to-day school shenanigans, but stuff touching on the questions listed above. There's just a lot of untapped potential regarding How This Shit Works, rather than confining the story pretty much entirely to the Sengoku Jidai With Youkai. Also there could be plenty of shenanigans with characters OTHER than Kagome and Inuyasha hanging out in the present. LIKE KIKYO. okay yeah my kikyo bias is showing but it would be the perfect opportunity to 1. hide her from naraku (unless he found a way into the present, but that just ties into my previous point), 2. develop her friendship with Kagome. Which would have done both of them wonders. BUT I'LL GET TO KIKYO LATER. (I'm dying imagining Kagome introducing Kikyo to her schoolmates as her cousin and taking her shopping though..... teaching her how to ordinary human... like..... HHH.)

Anyway, Kagome as the protagonist. She was very much the protagonist at the start of the series--she took a more active role in a lot of the monster of the week conflicts, and just had a lot more focus and screentime in general. Then Inuyasha got his sword upgrades and her role in conflicts became reduced to sensing Shikon fragments and occasional use of arrows. It took until the last hundred chapters for her to get ANY sort of substantial power-up, and it felt... unearned? I had been looking forward to her developing her miko powers alongside Inuyasha's youkai powers, and getting bow upgrades to match his Tessaiga upgrades, but it just... didn't happen. Her miko powers having been sealed all along felt like an ass pull, and I wasn't really a fan of the test of character she had to go through in order to get the fancy bow upgrade being solely focused on overcoming her feelings of jealousy towards Kikyo... again... like it's valid for her to feel that way but we've been here already! Surely there's more to her character than this! I think it would've been awesome if she actually got some fights of her own too, and maybe Kaede and eventually Kikyo mentoring her growth as a miko? But as far as canon went, it just felt like she got shallower and less interesting over time as Inuyasha slowly took over the protagonist role and that was a damn shame. Let Kagome be the plucky isekai protagonist she was always meant to be! This, of course, ties in with my assertion that the modern era should have gotten more focus too.

okay, so. it's time. kikyo. Kikyo. I fucking LOVE kikyo, absolutely my fave chara, I was not expecting to love Kikyo this much lmao. All that ship war propaganda was a big fat lie. She has an ASTONISHINGLY mature narrative about the effect of tragedy and trauma on people and relationships, but it was SO under-utilized and shafted in favor of the Love Triangle and Inuyasha's Manpain and I'm FUCKING UPSET. Kikyo was (or at least had the makings to be) the best character in Inuyasha but she was not done justice at all, in this essay I

Like, sit down and think about it. Here we have a woman who lost her parents at a young age, taking on the responsibilities of her household, and training to be a miko on top of it--which in the world of Inuyasha is a very emotionally demanding position that requires her to basically devote her entire life to her duties, ESPECIALLY once she's entrusted with the Shikon Jewel. All while being required to live a life of asceticism and suppressing worldly desires. In short, she basically never had a chance to actually, like. Live. Keep in mind that she was a child/teenager throughout all this (she was 17/18 when she died). That's a LOT of pressure on someone that young.

At this point, she's understandably lonely and depressed, and then along comes Inuyasha. She falls in love with him, gets a taste of a life that would truly make her happy, and has it ripped away. Like, there's some really fucking dark subtext to the whole Onigumo plot. She shows kindness to a random stranger, who proceeds to make a deal with the devil to LITERALLY RAPE HER, and her life is ruined as a result. No, Kikyo wasn't literally raped in canon, because even though Onigumo wanted to rape her Naraku's intentions towards her were... more complicated if still incredibly fucked up, but good lord the subtext is THERE. And as a result of the ensuing incident, believing Inuyasha betrayed her, she straight up KILLS HERSELF. Yes, it was partly to protect the Shikon Jewel, but she did not want to come back to life. Let that sink in. Kikyo was driven to suicide by an incident incited by a man who took advantage of her kindness in order to rape her. (nostalgia critic voice) FAMILY PICTURE!

I'm not gonna pretend Kikyo was the only victim here, though. Inuyasha has pretty clear PTSD from the event too, even after learning Kikyo is innocent. But through his relationship with Kagome, he begins to heal and move on. Then Kikyo gets brought back as a clay zombie, fucks up his whole grieving process, kickstarts the love triangle, you know the story. Kikyo's perspective is actually really interesting to dig into though. She didn't want to be brought back. She's PISSED. Even when the dust settles and she learns that Inuyasha is innocent, the anger and trauma have changed her. She's got a good ol' dose of PTSD herself. She's colder, harsher, engages in risky/self-destructive behavior, and distances herself from her loved ones. Like, think about it. Was there any logical reason she had to separate from Inuyasha and his group to fight Naraku on her own? To keep them in the dark about why she surrendered the Shikon Jewel to Naraku? No. That's a character flaw on HER part. And all this puts real strain on her relationship with Inuyasha. They still love each other, but their mutual trauma has completely changed their dynamic. Their love is based on their past relationship rather than their present chemistry. They don't make each other happy anymore. Neither of them are at fault for that. That's REAL AS FUCK. That's what trauma DOES to people and relationships.

So, yes, I'm a hardcore Kikyo stan who supports InuKag over InuKik. We exist. InuKik does not work as a relationship in the present because they've both changed due to trauma and that's the GODDAMN POINT. It's not a story about true love, it's a story about moving on from first love. The problem is that Kikyo's character is largely confined to her role as a love rival to Kagome. Inuyasha's side of the InuKik narrative, of letting go of the past and healing, is resolved. Kikyo's is not. And boy, I was ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LIVID that the love triangle was resolved through Kikyo's death rather than Inuyasha just... fucking, PICKING KAGOME OVER KIKYO BEFOREHAND RATHER THAN HER NEEDING TO DIE. She can still die after that! I swear, I'm not just salty because my fave died. At least 70% of my favorite charas are dead. I literally don't care anymore. I'm mad that she was killed off in a way that reduced her to being Inuyasha's Woman rather than getting a chance to heal and grow apart from him, as he did from her. And this in turn cheapens the narrative around why InuKik doesn't work as a present relationship to begin with, because he never actually picks present love over past love! He just keeps committing emotional infidelity until Kikyo gets killed off to wrap things up in a neat little bow with no character growth on his part! This shit is why I hate Inuyasha (the character).

Kagome's kindness towards Kikyo also plays a part in why she softens up by the end, yes, but that kindness is entirely depicted as "I want to save her because she's important to Inuyasha and I love Inuyasha." Kagome's character growth in these moments hinges on her picking love over jealousy, NOT through actually bonding with Kikyo. On top of that, Kikyo saving Kohaku over defeating Naraku struck me as out of character (have to show she's not a bad person after all? which she isn't, but still). It definitely made her death feel even more pointless. How come Kohaku gets to live and not her!!! Seriously, the fact that Kohaku gets to live and Kikyo doesn't REALLY rubs me the wrong way. She barely even knew Kohaku! He was willing to die to defeat Naraku! NOT killing Kohaku to defeat Naraku almost cost MORE lives! It could've been a poignant resolution to her character arc, but there wasn't enough buildup for it to be a convincing decision for her to make.

And oh my god, there's SO much wasted potential here. Kikyo's resentment towards Kagome is super understandable, and it's never really explored. Kagome replaced her. Kagome is filling the role she should have filled. What's even left for her except her hatred of Naraku? She asserts that Inuyasha cannot forget her (her being lowkey possessive of him is *chef kiss* my wife is a bitch and I like her so much), and he doesn't, but she still straight up tries to kill Kagome lmao. Like I said they do reconcile, but it's kinda half-assed. Kikyo's feelings are never explored in-depth. She's never truly given a chance to heal and realize that she does have a place in the world beyond her decaying relationship with Inuyasha and hatred for Naraku. That her scarred, flawed existence is still just as fucking valid as Kohaku or Rin or Jaken being able to live after being brought back from the dead. Like lemme stress again that the girl experienced INTENSE trauma and COMMITTED SUICIDE. The notion that she's the only one who needs to die in order to restore the natural order, that her death is beautiful and tragic but necessary, is..... gross, tbh. :U

Like, she can still die, lmao. IMO it'd be legitimately more interesting if she lived, if she had an opportunity to carve a place for herself outside of Kagome like Kagome did Kikyo, but it IS possible for her to die without it making ME want to die. Just resolve the love triangle shit first, flesh out some of her relationships outside of Inuyasha himself (ESPECIALLY Kagome), show her healing and softening, and then she can die protecting everyone or some shit. That would've been fine. But No. She just gets killed off for the service of Inuyasha's character, so he can hook up with Kagome guilt-free, with NONE of this addressed. Because it's more palatable for a woman to be dead than broken up with, I guess? I Hate It Here, You Guys.

her (near) last words being "I've finally become an ordinary woman" rubbed me the wrong way too... it like, tried to wrap her character arc up in a neat little bow while ALSO entirely confining its resolution to being Inuyasha's Woman and discarding the narrative of trauma driving them apart. I love the narrative of the girl forced to be inhuman who just wants to be normal. This just felt like... a really cheap way to go about doing that, at the disservice of her character being about OLD love, for a forced (and false) sense of closure. Didn't like it. God fucking damn, typing it all out just made me even MORE pissed off.

tl;dr: kikyo had the makings of an amazing trauma survivor narrative but it got shafted. she deserved everything. thank you for coming to my TED talk.

SIGH. okay. there are other characters I wanna touch on too. Uhhh I actually thought Naraku was pretty cool, though he became way less interesting after Mt Hakurei (for the most part--he was cool again during the direct lead-up to Kikyo's death as well as the final battle). His identity crisis was pretty neat, as was the way he specifically targeted other people's emotions and relationships as a way to compensate for his own utter lack of a sense of self. Not to mention the cold, detached way he regards his own emotions ("my pp stands up whenever i look at kikyo, wish it wouldn't do that :/") and how this leads him to succumb to the influence of the Shikon Jewel, in contrast to Inuyasha and Kagome breaking the cycle. His lack of motivation is actually kind of the point, and I think it's neat as hell! Things got boring once The Baby entered the picture, and I got the sense Rumiko wasn't really sure what to do with Naraku for a while. His style of villainy got a lot more distant and "just as keikaku," when it was the way he got up in everyone's business and pushed their buttons for his own shallow amusement that made me like him in the first place. His fragments aside from Kagura and eventually Kanna were way less interesting, and I think it would've been neat to go more into his role as basically being an abusive dad, but it's fine. The Baby was a fucking boring and atrocious villain though, jfc. The /idea/ of Naraku's own heart rebelling against him was cool enough, but it means jack shit when The Baby is just a bland-ass villain who doesn't remotely represent the character traits that make up Naraku's "heart" in the first place, even aside from Kikyo.

Speaking of which, his fixation on Kikyo is a LOT of fun. Their interactions (which he was apparently secretly into), how he rejected his own humanity and destroyed both himself and the object of his desires, etc. Which is another reason he got less fun after Mt. Hakurei tbh. I fucking hate the way Kikyo's death was handled overall but I liked that he had to reclaim his human heart in order to overwhelm and kill her. That was neat. Something something toxic desire destroying both yourself and the person it's directed at. Then at the very end he realized that his entire existence was completely pointless and empty and his complicated feelings towards Kikyo were the only thing that ever made him actually, like, give a shit. Pour one out for this absolute dumbass. He's a relatable villain because I too would go to absolutely insane lengths to get over a girl I never even dated.

Uhh who else. Sango and Miroku. Sango was my favorite character in the main party. She's the most level-headed of the bunch, has a super cute design, and her story with Kohaku was responsible for a lot of the emotional moments in the series that really landed for me. Her friendship with Kagome was actually super cute and heartfelt. That scene early on where she broke down crying in Kagome's lap because she was scared of being alone again HURT. Also, Kirara is fucking precious. Miroku I've got mixed feelings about, since on the one hand he's a legitimately interesting character and some of his scenes with Sango did hit fairly hard, but DEAR GOD I hate the quirky pervert trope with a burning passion. If it were played seriously, I'd stan him to hell and back a la Adachi. But it isn't, so it's not. I've got mixed feelings about MirSan too. Their resolution was really sweet, but I was kinda like "wha" when Kagome said Sango had a thing for Miroku in the first place. Like, sure okay, but I think more time should've been spent showing her falling for him in the first place lol. Also the butt-grabbing joke got old fast. And when he proposed to her and basically refused to stop flirting with other women I facepalmed so hard. Can't have character growth when you have unfunny running gags! To his credit, he did chill out for the most part, but still kept making jokes about flirting/scoring that clearly made Sango unhappy and I'm like. Why. Then the bit with Hirai-Kotsu needing to be fixed. I liked their mutual resolve to protect each other, but I thought Sango's comment about how she couldn't live without him was..... a bit much. Like what about Kohaku??? But anyway I'm just glad Sango got a happy ending even if I'm still super *SQUINTS* at Miroku.

Sesshoumaru was pretty neat, I get why he's popular, though wasn't really My Type. Sure he's cool, but his /personality/ was a bit lacking and I think we should have gotten some more insight into his relationship with his father for how much focus his quest for the Best Sword got. His development was pretty good, but I've kind of got an issue with how Rin was more of a plot device than a character. Like, okay, one of the reasons I decided to start reading Inuyasha was because the announcement of Yashahime sparked a wave of Sessh/Rin discourse and I wanted to form my own take on it. And, yeah okay I don't like Sessh/Rin either and I say this as a certified Nasty, lmao. Less because it's problematic (though I find it kind of offputting myself, even aged-up) and more because it's bland. Rin has no character whatsoever outside of being a vehicle for his development and I'm REALLY not a fan of girls being objects for male charas' development. Still, I'm not gonna boycott Yashahime if Sessh/Rin is canon or anything. I prefer him with Kagura or even Kikyo but they're dead, so. If Rin has to be his cum dumpster to make this happen, then that's how it's gotta be.

Thats about it I think. I'd put it a rung or two above Naruto in terms of overall quality, but BOY am I still mad abt Kikyo. 6/10 probably wouldn't recommend, but it WAS fun.

[didyouknowmagic]

Galaxy’s Edge Thoughts

So now having been myself I am gonna give my impressions/feelings on the land as a whole. I’ll try to divide it into attraction, areas, and experiences. 

Falcon Smuggler’s Run

So I had middling expectations for this attraction given the mixed responses I have seen it get and honestly it was cool! The ride is by no means an anchor attraction but the experience of the ride and being in the falcon is VERY satisfying. Couple things to note, this ride is most definitely built so that it can have different missions/layovers so I would expect that to occur sometime within the future. Hopefully right before episode 9. The best experience for the ride is sadly the first two seats which are the pilot potions. I say sadly bc the rarity of getting those job’s is almost entirely random unless you are in a group of 6 and you can haggle with whoever you went with. The other 4 jobs should have had WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more thought put into them to make them fun and practical. I think the lack of any real aiming for the gunner positions drains the fun of that role. And for Engineer's the fact that you are required to look away from the main screen/actual attraction in order to do your job correctly feels like a HUGE oversight in basic ride design. I’d almost prefer if the last two seats were just to watch the screen and not have to worry about tanking the mission. With some tweaking they could elevate this attraction to top tier status but as it is the ride is very cool. 

Resistance Forest area 

This is the area directly built around the future headliner attraction Rise of the Resistance. In the area are an X-Wing and a smaller pod racer like ship that I don’t know the name of. This area is very cool to walk around but it’s DESPERATELY apparent that it was meant to be base for resistance character actors. Rey and Chewie do walk around in this area which is cool to see but again it would be nice to see other spies or pilots walking around maybe trying to recruit guests. Just a fore warning you’re going to see a common theme of the negatives here being lack of streetmosphere. 

Marketplace

Now here is where batuu starts to pick up in excitement is the marketplace area, it’s bright vibrant and filled with cast and guest alike all bumbling around. It’s a bit smaller than I had envisioned and is by no means any sort of diagon alley competition when it comes to shops. But I like that they went for realistic small shops with precise merch for each location the storytelling of the land really shines in this area and it just feels immersive. The Merch is cool, and very pricy but if you are star wars fan there is a LOT to want to buy there I’d say I am a pretty novice/low level fan and even I wanted to walk away with a few goodies. 

Dining Docking Bay 7/Ronto Roasters

Both of the quick service eateries here are VERY cool to walk through and see and though I didn’t eat there I have heard nothing but positive reviews on the food online. The environments of Ronto Roasters compliments the marketplace as it serves as the bookend for it and it’s just really cool to walk by a giant Pod racer engine spit roasting giant slabs of meat. Docking bay 7 entire design was also very cool to look at with it’s giant cargo crates as tables and furniture. 

Oga’s Cantina

Now here is really the only thing that let me down. The cantina’s enviorment itself is pretty cool to be in, but the entire way it’s operated KILLS the experience. There is a time limit of 45 minutes and a drink limit of 2 per person, which is sadly understandable given how in demand the bar is and how everyone wants to go. But here is the thing, if the cantina experience was so pivotal to the star wars mythos and one of the things that people want to experience, It should have HELD PRIORITY IN DESIGN. The bar should have been either WAY BIGGER or there should have been more than one location with different designs. Something anything to help alleviate the issues bc being rushed in ordering one drink and then having my waiter bring my check before I even got the option to ask for another drink just sucked? You get up to look around the bar a cast member finds you very quickly and informs you to move so they can seat someone at your spot immediately. The entire design of this one baffled me and to me seemed like the area most obvious of budget cuts. The cantina should have been a walk through area that was large enough to hold the various people wanting to visit inside but the final result leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Which is funny bc the drinks were fucking amazing and left a great taste in my mouth (I got the Jedi Mind Trick and My friend ordered the T-16 I believe?)

Blue Milk

The milk is good but also something I don’t think I’d ever want to order more than once lol It tastes like bubble gum melted down into a chalky milkeshake? Very interesting, definitely try it once! The green one tasted like a cool candle or the scent of grass on soarin. 

First Order Area

Again while it is cool to see Kylo and two storm troopers patroling this area it is baffling to me that they haven’t moved captain phasma’s first order march to this area of the park. It would elevate the stakes and the feeling of that little corner and yet it’s just kylo and two storm troopers. Also again you can see in this area empty stages, unused stunt area’s, etc It’s very apparent this was meant to be the portion of the land with the most kinetic energy and yet thanks to a bald man in a polo shirt it has none. 

Droid Depot/Dok Ondars/Savi’s 

Walking through Droid Depot is very cool, I didn’t do this or Savi’s as an experience but I have read from other places that people seem to seriously enjoy them! Dok Ondar’s was super cool to see and holds one of the few large animations the land has at the moment! So give it a visit if you want to see! I wish the cast would interact with him more like was promised in the press headlines about the store but as is it’s very cool to see! 

All in all I think the land is freaking amazing and definitely makes you feel like you are someplace else than Hollywood studios. The loss of it’s streetmosphere and dining sadly hold the land back in very large ways but these are all fixable issues! The foundations are strong in this one and with some tweaking I really think it could be the best area disney has done! As is it’s definitely a land you don’t wanna miss! 

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

god it WILL NOT stop bothering me until i talk about it. the way we got here. it’s not just about the book anymore, not at all, and it’s certainly never been about “shipping”, at this point it’s how helpless the tactics of the guy make me feel.

step one: refer to people who have read previous venom books and noticed the trend throughout the nineties to portray eddie and the symbiote as a man and an agender alien in an ambiguously or not-so-ambiguously romantic relationship, which was picked up on and completely unambiguously canonised in the very last run, consistently refer to these people as “shippers”, lovingly condescend to them, do not ever treat “the ship” as existing beyond their imagination

[I LOVE THAT YOU GUYS EXIST]

result: make people forget that this is a complete misrepresentation and he has received no criticism whatsoever for “not making a ship canon” because that is not what he did, he decanonised it and then denied doing so and painted everyone it ever meant something to as essentially deluded - and, considering that that’s all they are, he’s being awfully kind and accommodating, isn’t he?

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step two: actively seek out these no-good shippers on tumblr! tell them that you’re watching them! read their detailed posts in which they express their grievances about your comic book to their friends and misrepresent their points on your twitter so your bajillion followers can affirm that Those People are categorically wrong about everything!

[EDDIE IS CODEPENDENT]

people are mad at him because he said eddie was codependent! not because he’s reframing the extremely rare story of a troubled queer relationship that was ultimately still a redemptive force in these characters’ lives as an unhealthy compulsion that corrupts, hm, what a fresh and unfamiliar take, no reason why this would strike a nerve - and, recently, of course, as something inherently abusive, every bit of hope and change for the better vile and fake.

literally just start vaguing about people’s personal tumblr blogs on your professional twitter account with the little, little blue checkmark and everything, use that to make passive-aggressive references to people’s posts! why not!

[LOVE EACH OTHER]

people talk about how they like a symbiote and its host getting along (and they did, that very night, talk quite a lot about ngozi)? that is so dumb and lame.

[EVERYTHING IS AWESOME]

people get sick of edgy shock factor writing that throws one dark theme after another at them without treating any of them with the consideration they deserve? people expect some moments of levity in a venom book?

they’re asking for stories with no conflict where nothing bad ever happens! but it’s okay, he knows better, he knows you just don’t know what you want! it’s not like endless sadness is just as likely to be dreadfully boring or unintentionally hilarious as endless happiness!

result: o w n e d god he sure is shutting down every point no one has ever made

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step three: literally get so mad at people on tumblr talking about your comic that you not only boil their opinions down to THE SHIIIIP but literally say that their opinions don’t matter because they literally would never say it “to your face” literally because it’s “easy to be brave on tumblr”

literally

say these words

[IT’S EASY TO BE BRAVE ON TUMBLR]

call people chicken shits for NOT talking to you directly! and then! BLOCK everybody who talks to you directly! or quote retweet them so your followers can descend like vultures! actually acknowledge that it takes bravery to interact with you if you’re in the Tumblr Demographic, you know, one of Those People, and frame yourself as in the right for it???

am i losing my mind???

[SIX PEOPLE ON TUMBLR]

get so mad at people on tumblr talking about your comic that you not only claim they’re the only people ever to talk badly of it but imply that you’re one step away from namedropping the specific perpetrators. that’s not ominous at all!

it’s an age-old question: how many times does one of marvel’s top writers with legions of fans have to imply his antagonistic awareness of your specific existence before you’re on a first name basis? and also paranoid?

result: stir shit. be a shit stirrer. faint when your shit stirring does in fact stir shit. you can’t go “you would never” and be surprised when people do, you... can’t...

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step four: whip out your ally card... to whip the people you’re supposed to be allied to with it. try to use your knowledge of queer issues to shut down actual queer people.

[I DON’T THINK IT’S APPROPRIATE TO ASSUME GENDER]

either that, or straight-up make a “did you just assume my gender” joke. i can’t find the original tweet anymore, so it’s possible it was that and he deleted it because it was too blatant, lol.

result: MAYBE YOU GUYS WERE THE PROBLEMATIC ONES ALL ALONG

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step five: remember that interview where he outright stated that he just wants to, just to be the definite venom run? just to put the biggest dent in canon he can? just to break everybody’s toys and emerge victorious as the one person with the valid take on venom?

yeah, those things become more noticeable in the actual book, over time, and acceptance of that is, uh, not universal? not everybody’s up for him spending several issues in a row on e s t a b l i s h i n g  d o m i n a n c e by having eddie sit around as other characters tell him that a ton of stuff other writers from michelinie to thompson to costa to kaminski to slott to jenkins have done actually sucked and was wrong and fake and never happened? through retcons that make no sense, like, factually don’t fit?

people don’t like you walking back character and relationship development to further your end goal of recasting the symbiote as the personification of addiction and abuse instead of itself a survivor of extreme abuse who has been constantly denied personhood in a way that is frighteningly resonant and who has been going through a genuine redemption arc for years now?

people don’t like you acting like eddie never had a reason for being who he is before and you had to make one up? one that doesn’t fit the character at all, which you didn’t realise because you apparently thought the character had no characterisation before you came along?

you can imagine how these things might spark nerd rage?

and you can probably imagine who this nerd rage was blamed on, yeah?

these criticisms inherently require knowledge of venom canon, because they’re largely about disrespect for it, these criticisms are not related to shipping of any kind - but of course the only thing people could possibly be mad about is the "ship", the only ones making a fuss are those “shippers”, those casuals, Those People who only care about One Thing and don’t understand the real gritty reality of the, god you get it i’m making fun

[I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT]

you’re the only one, don. it’s true.

and i know, i know for a fact, that he’s been aware of criticism from other groups all along, that he was, for example, witness to this livestream that spends like a solid hour a month mercilessly dragging him through the dirt, and you know what the extent of his response was?

thanks for checking the book out.

that’s it. that’s all. this guy hasn’t gotten any less loud about criticising him, either. wishing for his book’s cancellation and retconning. but nothing more. he gets to keep to himself. he is #valid.

people have been taking the piss out of him on youtube, on reddit. only tumblr ever earned his ire. only tumblr gets namedropped at convention panels.

and now, now more than ever? you better believe your regular run-of-the-mill nerds, straight, male, utterly uninterested in the icky stuff, everything, are mad. almost everyone who’s truly tits deep in venom lore is mad.

and so he’s said he’s received threats. and i’m sure he has. i’ve received threats. you’ve received threats. it’s never okay. it sure as shit never helps to send them.

he’s gotten a lot of fucking inappropriate personal vitriol! lots of it actually “ship”-related! i’m categorically against contacting the guy for any reason!

but who is to blame? who do people accept as being to blame? who do news outlets report on as being to blame? when, i presume, not every single one of them actually went “i’m doing this specifically because i’m a (thunder clap) shipper”? when large-scale retcons are literally always met with nerd rage? when a shipper-less fandom probably still would’ve had threats?

[THIS IS INSANE]

[IT’S THE SHIPPERS]

result: if all criticism = “shippers”, and “shippers” = harassment, then everyone who has no actual idea of what’s going on but who doesn’t like “shippers” is automatically on his side and nobody who isn’t a “shipper” wants to risk the association by criticising him.

get this stuff out to his followers, to news outlets, to people completely uninvolved and contextless, and watch the bile run over everywhere because lots of people are ready to accept this narrative in comic book spaces.

have people in the replies and comments eagerly discussing how this is more proof that c+o+m+i+c+s+gate was right and they’re the only reasonable ones. how disgusting and crazy "shippers” are. how donny should keep doing his best to trigger the gays. there’s no pushback against these ideas.

and i’m so fucking stuck between wanting to defend the man, wring my hands and apologise on behalf of the other These People, because i don’t see anything justifiable in their actions, and in being... just... just so frustrated... with everything... with throwing everyone out to the dogs... and claiming that he doesn’t mean to... when he has this whole history of belittling "shippers” specifically... of making sure their public image is that of people who just don’t know what they’re talking about and are in no way worth empathising with... of only drawing attention to the aggressive ones and blocking the reasonable ones

when he literally only stands to benefit from doing all this. 

this is massive amounts of free positive pr.

this makes him essentially immune to criticism of any kind.

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes! 

i forgot! somewhere along the line, he did do something very good and disavowed association with co/mics/ga/te!

[C0M1C5G8]

why the fuck am i censoring? tumblr search stopped working decades ago.

anyway, it should come as no particular surprise why these people assumed he would side with them. not that any high profile writer who values his standing would, really. are there any? maybe there are, i’m not up to date on this drama.

i just think it’s funny - genuinely not his fault, but hilarious - that this was apparently enough to inspire a “boycott”? and it was a fart in the wind?

which is the least surprising thing ever because there is actually nothing whatsoever to hold these people’s ire to be found in venom? excluding aliens, there has been one real and present character who isn’t a white guy in 11 issues? it is actively less queer than it was before? donny has never caved to the essjaywoo pressure in any way, shape or form? what were they... thinking? it’s almost like these people are dumb?

all they've done is ensure that, without it actually doing anything, venom gets the commendation for being A Comic The Gators Don't Like?

anyway.

what do we do moving forward? i don’t know. nothing. not harassing anyone. keep being salty on tumblr. do not engage him. i think i’m more about stalling the chain reaction he’s caused than the man himself. if you’re not a “shipper”, of course, keep posting your criticism, maybe stand up for “shippers” who are being dogpiled over genuine criticism, don’t let people say This Is All Proof Of How You Can’t Have Queer Content Because Queers Are Crazy.

and be nice to mike costa.

[bluemoonpunch]

⭐ Relationship Reading for Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook - Tarot Reading

[This reading covers the relationship dynamic between Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook on a subconscious and energetic level. This particular reading can cover romantic, platonic, and familial relationships and is designed to put a connection between two people into perspective, showcasing what is gained from the relationship as well as the highest potential of it. For this reading, in particular, I use 2 decks — the Rider-Waite Tarot deck and the Linestrider Tarot Deck. This spread is an original design by me. This reading lasted 2 hours. ]

This reading was performed on November 28, 2018.

Pre-Reading:

Kook and Taehyung have one of the most complex yet annoyingly simple connections out of any relationship in the group. In comparison to the complexity of Jimin and Kook’s relationship where the connections on all levels are very complex, Taehyung and Kook have this very interwoven connection through the soul as a result of deep energetic imprinting.

This imprinting has to do with their positions and purpose within the Soul Body as well as their individual purpose and development on a soul and conscious level within this lifetime, as well as previous lifetimes. I’ve gotten into the habit of calling them Soul Brothers specifically because they’ve shared many lifetimes together where they were literally brothers, specifically male, specifically brothers. While @lunar-lepus and I were working on decoding all the nonsense with the Soul Body earlier this year, one of the things I kept getting for Kook was that he was a “product of Venus.” I kept getting that over and over again, and eventually, it came up that Taehyung was a “product of Mars.”

-full reading with photos under the cut-

Luckily for me, @lunar-lepus is smart and educated and was able to tell me about Mars and Venus, as in the God and Goddess, and how they had two little babies once upon a time that lined up with the energetic imprinting of both Kook and Taehyung… so yeah, they’re literally PRODUCTS of Mars and Venus. I could get into the whole ~incarnate~ thing, but really, all it is is energetic imprinting. No different than the imprinting you get from Mars if you’re an Aries, or Pluto if you’re a Scorpio, it’s just more intense, and more in the soul. That level of imprinting in the soul will also carry over through many lifetimes as well.

It made a lot of sense to me then that Mars and Venus would play a part within the projected energy of these two as they rule over the projected energy of the Soul Body, with Taehyung in place of the Sacral Chakra and the Kook in place of the Root Chakra. These energy centers are the main connection between the Soul Body and the group, and in turn, make Taehyung and Kook the main connection between the group and the general public. This is why they tend to be the most popular among fans and spectators as well as a very prominent ship. They are literally energetically coded to grab people’s attention through their projected energy.

If you notice, the two main modalities that most people pick up for both of them are these very cute and wholesome characters and then these very sexual and dominating energies… that’s the Mars and Venus thing, lol. 

Obviously, that’s not all they are, but that’s the main thing that people point out or bring up when they are asked what they like most about them, or what stands out the most with them because that is what they are projecting when on display. For Kook, 90% of the time it would be his more cute and babyish personality that people pick up on because he’s mostly projecting Venus, a very soft and loving kind of beauty, whereas Taehyung is mostly projecting Mars, a very dominating and sexually active energy.

This also makes sense in terms of their position in the Soul Body as the Sacral Chakra, Taehyung’s position, is this energy center associated with creativity in all senses, including sexuality. The Root is the base, it’s the comfort and stability, the sure thing that grounds the body to the Earth. When you apply the Mars and Venus energy here you get this Father Sun, Mother Earth sort of connection, which is what anchored Taehyung to Jin and Kook to Jimin in the Soul Body when it was still imbalanced.

Because their energy centers are mostly projecting within the Soul Body, they require fuel essentially in order to keep projecting. They can get that fuel from the conscious levels as the energy being exchanged through that projected modality — sexual attraction and adoration — can be enough to basically have the energy cycling through continuously, but when the Soul Body was completely out of whack, those energy centers were disconnected from the conscious levels of both of them.

This then caused Taehyung’s energy center to latch onto Jin’s energy center for that Fire energy, while Kook rooted into Jimin who carried that Divine Feminine energy and was basically filling in as Mother Earth or Venus. That’s also why there’s that thing where Jimin and Kook have this parent/child vibe in addition to a million other vibes through their very deep and layered connection. If you haven’t already, you should definitely read their relationship reading as well as it’s quite a trip.

Now, the thing about the Soul Body was that Jin’s Fire energy was pretty much shut off because there’s not really supposed to be any Fire energy, at least not as much as there was, in the Soul Body. Fire energy, as in high frequency, fast-moving energy. Things are supposed to go slow, and they weren’t due to the manipulation that was occurring through Hoseok’s energy center at the time. Because of that Taehyung was pretty much not getting anything from Jin other than an anchor to hold him in place while the energy within the Soul Body was shifting around all funny.

That made Taehyung’s energy center move a lot closer to Kook’s energy center to the point where they were almost right on top of each other, and he then anchored into Jimin along with Kook. I think I mentioned somewhere that they were like a secondary, mini-triad because they were cycling energy between the three of them, which actually took a toll on Jimin’s energy center specifically because he was literally doing that with everyone at the time.

Right before the Soul Body Healing, literally what caused all of that shit to go down, was that the manipulation that was occurring through Hoseok’s energy center was somehow dropped down into the opening where Taehyung and Kook were meant to be projecting energy. 

Basically, that Fire energy, that high-frequency energy that Taehyung was already open to receiving just started blasting the hell out of him and would have torn his energy center up the way it had with Hoseok. Fortunately, it was only happening for three days so not much damage was actually done, but in that time, that manipulation was being pushed over to Kook as well because of how close they were. The only reason it wasn’t able to actually get into his energy center was that he was anchored to Jimin who, at that point, was like the only other energy center, along with Yoongi, that was engaged at all with what was happening in the Soul Body, everyone else was like… hibernating or some shit in order to protect the other energy centers. Like, full-on lockdown.

The thing with this was that while the manipulation was occurring through Hoseok’s energy center it meant that all of the transmissions that were entering the Soul Body through Hoseok’s filter were being broken and distorted and virtually unusable, which is relatively fine because ports in the physical sense were still able to be created, which I’ve talked about plenty of times. 

I mean, it was fine but it wasn’t fine, especially with how this started manifesting on a conscious and physical level for them, especially Hoseok, but it was still something that could be managed slightly. However, once it dropped down to Taehyung and Kook, the rulers of the Body’s projected energy, there was this huge risk of that projected energy being manipulated, which it was, but not to the extent that it could have been.

This was why there were so many rumors and controversies happening around this time and why it continued to happen as that manipulation, that projected energy continued to ripple out and pretty much be bounced around by the collective that received it. That’s why I kept telling people not to pay attention or get to riled up over rumors and controversy because it was literally not able to die out as fast as it could have because people were literally keeping it alive even after the Soul Body was recovered enough for the effects to start manifesting on a conscious level.

So, pretty much, Taehyung and Kook are an extremely important part of the group, both within the Soul Body and also in the physical sense. They draw attention and cycle energy to the audience in order to keep their attention long enough to receive those transmissions that trigger the soul connection, if you have one, to the Soul Group. It’s very loose and widespread kind of energy on a conscious level, but in terms of energy and soul, they are the feet of the body, they are what keep everything standing and moving.

Now, the way their energy, their core energy mingles is very confusing to me and that’s mainly because I can hardly ever vibe with Taehyung’s energy anymore, so it’s hard for me to see it mixing with Kook’s. Most of it is occurring through the soul and energetic imprinting of the soul, which can vibrate through to the core energy. It’s what pulls them together, the same as how the energy and soul connection between Jimin and Kook, Jimin and Taehyung, and Taehyung and Jin pull them together. It’s imprinting and frequency matching that literally turns them all into magnets and has them getting touchy feely with each other and wanting to be around each other. They’re feeding each other energetically, they’re keeping each other in balance.

Again, with Jimin and Kook, there’s a lot of layers where they connect at varying degrees, but Taehyung and Kook have a much simpler connection in which they simply match. I don’t know any other way to describe it other than they just match each other, they link up in a very fluid and comfortable way. It’s that familiarity through the imprinting but also having been brothers a bunch of time where they just mesh well together.

They definitely have a protective nature to them, but it’s something that is shared between Jimin, Taehyung, and Kook where they kind of exist in this bubble where things get very smooth and everyone just feels very, very comfortable and in their right place. It’s like they can get into these modes where they’re perfectly matched to the point where they… melt? Like, they melt together into one thing, not really merging energetically, but syncing up through frequency. Lol, I’m seeing something very specific that explains it but I have no idea how to describe it other than they melt together but still maintain individual form through vibration.

I don’t get it either, but I guess it’s a thing.

Really, when I focus on Taehyung and Kook together all I can see is the opposition between them, where they differ from each other rather than where they meet, and I think that really goes into how their relationship differs from Jimin and Kook. 

With Jimin and Kook they kind of fill each other in, give the other pieces that they are missing, whereas Jimin and Taehyung (as well as Taehyung and Jimin) enforce each other through their opposition. It’s almost like they encourage each other to be in opposition, which is exactly what I talked about with Jimin and Taehyung in their reading.

I’m almost tempted to say that they have that specifically because they could merge the way Jimin and Taehyung could, but I don’t think they actually are at risk of that happening specifically because of the energetic imprinting. 

So, on a soul level they can merge because that’s their “natural state,” but energetically there’s no way for them to do that, therefore they could have multiple lifetimes in which they could be close enough to each other to be related, whereas Jimin had to be separated from Taehyung and Hoseok, and Namjoon had to be separated from Yoongi specifically to avoid soul merging through the energetic merging… I hope that makes sense.

Basically, their duality is doesn’t necessarily help them or hinder them and instead serves as this exploratory space where they can develop alongside each other rather than separate the way Hoseok and Jimin or Yoongi and Namjoon had to.

So, Taehyung and Kook have a very simple connection specifically because they’ve ironed out all the wrinkles and issues with it a long time ago due to their imprinting. And, no, I’m not sure when they got that imprinting, how long they’ve had it, or if it was there as soon as they split off. I would assume it wasn’t otherwise everyone would have imprinting like that… maybe? Unless imprinting like that is necessary for the projected energy, in order for that balanced Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine to be present the way it is for Jimin and Jin, or Hoseok and Yoongi.

Seriously, the more in-depth you go with the Soul Body the more confusing it gets.

This was cool to see because the exact same thing came out for all the relationship readings so far in terms of showing the layers of connection due to the integration of the Higher Self, and the combination of The Emperor and The Empress came out for Hoseok and Jimin on the same level of Soul Connection.

More specifically, here with them, it is showing that energetic imprinting as according to the Golden Dawn tradition, The Emperor is Aries, ruled by Mars and the Empress is Venus. So, it’s just straight up that energetic imprinting on their souls that has them well separated. 

The difference between Hoseok and Jimin and Taehyung and Kook here is that Jimin and Hoseok had a specific foundation that showed that they are meant to or want to have that very close connection at all times, whereas here with Taehyung and Kook, they’re embracing their separateness, very in line with their jobs and purposes on an individual level.

I imagine because the two of them are literally the lower chakras that root to the conscious minds, it was much easier for them than Hoseok and Jimin, or Yoongi and Namjoon to accept their separateness and develop as individual souls as they would have immediately been sort of grounded into a physical body within the first few lifetimes while here, which means that once they were imprinted it would have been no trouble at all for them to be together continuously as siblings. 

In fact, it probably would have been more beneficial as they could literally ground into their consciousness so much that they would detach from the soul body… so it was kind of necessary for them to be siblings… and maybe that’s why they got their imprinting…?

Look at me discovering things on the job.

Anyway, on the energetic level, they are merging as the Hierophant, which makes sense since they both carry a lot of Earth energy — Kook with his Virgo core and Taehyung with his Capricorn. This point in the layout is pretty interesting because there’s this space of merging with their cores, this one little piece, and then they split again into the 2 of Wands where you get that “feet of the Soul Body” thing which is where they drop the energy through the Ace of Wands, another merging point, and literally deliver it to The World, to the conscious state, and to the collective.

So, they are apart, then together, then apart, then together, and then apart between levels. See, it’s literally so simple when you compare it to Jimin and Kook’s relationship where there’s a whole new world on every level which I assume has to do with the imprinting and Jimin’s balancing energy and how they get rooted together on that level. It’s all very complicated but still so simple omg.

The Reading:

Energetic Contributions To The Relationship

Taehyung: The Emperor

Kook: The Moon

I’m like 99% sure The Empress didn’t come out for Kook specifically because it would be too on the nose and too unbelievable…

But yeah, the energy that they put into the relationship is that imprinted energy, it’s the mix of projected and receptive energy as well as the aspects of Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine energy that comes with Mars and Venus. 

It’s in a similar realm as to how Jin and Jimin balance each other within their relationship, however here it’s not very conscious. It’s just in their energy, the more conscious awareness of their relationship and how they connect comes through much better with the next set.

How They See The Relationship:

Taehyung: Page of Swords

Kook: Temperance

So, this plays into the levels of receptibility that go into the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine as on Kook’s side he seems to be feeling into their connection more in terms of feeling connected by the soul, being aware of a deeper connection. Taehyung on the other hand, as he is not very receptive to that energy, sees their relationship on a surface level.

For Kook, he really feels into that sense of balance within their opposition. He’s aware of where they click and where they don’t, and how it fits just right for both of them. It almost feels like he’s intellectualized it to some degree where he’s very in tune with it, but he’s more inclined to see this as something that has grown between them since they met in this lifetime rather than seeing their relationship as something they didn’t just build for themselves. 

Actually, that’s a great way to look at it from Kook’s perspective. There’s this appreciation on his end towards Taehyung for being cooperative in building their relationship.

Again, he’s aware of their opposition, but he’s not aware, consciously at least, that it’s supposed to be there and their connection is supposed to be easy, so it’s like he thinks it’s amazing that they are able to be so close yet so different even though they’re literally… coded to be like that. 

On Taehyung’s side, it’s just as cute because there’s this sense of admiration that matches Kook’s appreciation towards him. It’s really well encapsulated in the Page of Swords, where Taehyung is very inspired by Kook, he’s very aware of Kook’s senses, maybe not necessarily towards anything unconscious, but like his senses towards work and how he carries himself, how he treats other people. It’s literally like hardened Mars being inspired and amazed by Venus and how she can be soft and beautiful while still whipping things into shape when she needs to. It’s that fluidity that really inspires him and brings him into that space of kind of wanting to learn from him while also protecting him.

For Taehyung, that’s quite a common thing that I’ve talked about in both of his Elemental Alignment reading and all of the relationship readings I’ve done for him so far. 

Because his core energy is so hot and dry with that Fire and Earth energy, he is a bit lacking in creative prowess and connection to the soul, but he still has a soul, he still has creativity. It’s just the expression of it is blocked off severely and therefore he tries to find ways to get it out by copying other people’s methods and work to try and literally open some part of himself up. 

And the funny thing about that is that it does the exact opposite as he tries to put himself into a mold that has already been set by his favorite artists, musicians, or designers. But he is still creating, so that’s a good start. I’m still waiting for him to take up abstract painting though, lol. That will get him going.

Current State of The Relationship:

Six of Swords (reversed)

This goes along with their current state of Higher Self integration and expansion of consciousness. One of them, Kook, is starting to go through the process of integrating higher frequencies and progressing with the ascension, whereas Taehyung is still kind of stuck. He’s not stuck-stuck, but he’s going to probably be moving slower than Kook. 

Most likely there will be a situation similar to Namjoon and Yoongi, and Jin and Jimin where Kook will kind of be nearly fully integrated and just waiting for Taehyung to catch up.

This doesn’t really do anything to their relationship on a conscious level, in fact, it could strengthen it to some degree as they could start to feel themselves getting further apart and try to compensate for that. I don’t know how likely that is, I just assume that would be the case considering how long they’ve pretty much been at the exact same level.

Highest Potential:

Wheel of Fortune + Page of Wands

This is kind of perfect for them because the Wheel of Fortune suggests that the integration process would be complete and that they would be on the same level. 

The Page of Wands is like the most perfect card for this, especially from this deck, as the energy lines up with them completely merged through there energy. Pretty much you could think about the position of the 2 of Wands in the energy reading as being replaced with the Page of Wands.

Their highest potential would literally be them, on a conscious level, being fully aware of and utilizing their imprinted energy to progress. It’s more of that, “together, apart, together, apart” kind of thing where their next level of progression would be to get a lot closer energetically as the integration process would require them to get out of those lower frequencies that kept them separated, to begin with.

So, it’s like the Wheel of Fortune suggests, they’d have to line up with each other, and then move backward in order to go forward. It seems like that would happen further down the line considering their current states, but with the rate that people are currently integrating and raising their frequencies, it could happen sooner. Still further down the line though, I’m sure.

That’s all I have for this one, thanks for reading!

Shop | Full Blog Navigation | Idol / Celeb Readings | Mini-Readings | Weekly Readings

[pinkletterday]

Writer's Year In Review

This year has been a revelation. I went from deeply, irrevocably believing I can't write fiction at all to knowing that I'm actually pretty good at it!

It's given me the confidence to find work as a freelance writer and editor in real life, after years of unemployment and anxious paralysis resulting from chronic illness and trauma. A lot of other factors also helped but the fic writing played a huge role in getting my shit together.

General Fic Stats:

Word Count on AO3: 92284

Fics posted to AO3: 23

Favourite Fic:

Kiss It Better (Westallen).This fic is my baby. I love little Iris and little Barry in it so much, the hurt and confusion in each other they attempted to heal, how that healing carried into their adult love and family. It will always and always be my favourite thing I have ever written. Wee!stallen is my jam, and the reason I ship them so damn hard.

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). Ngl, I love this for the sheer amount of truly gratifying comments. Every single one of them have been emotional and flaily. It all makes me feel like I may have finally levelled up. Hallelujah. xD

Funniest Fic:

The Care and Feeding (Queenwestallen). This is my ultimate OT3. This fic, written as a list and discussion is 95% humour and contains some of my best banter and (I feel) characterization. An element I'm really proud of is how I managed to center and include all their important non-romantic relationships in their conversations. Iris's boisterous female friends, Oliver's friends, Cisco and Caitlin's snarky commentary all shoehorned themselves into the list with hilarious and wholesome results. 

It's not a popular OT3 but I feel like it's a good first attempt to drag this ship to water. xD

Cutest Fic:

Dancing Queen (Olivarry). Even after a year this contiues to be the fic with the highest kudos ratio (except for the more recent one) and the second most bookmarked. I love getting comments on this because they are all some variation of "my teeth hurt. I have diabetes!" xD Well, I did build it around a rainbow sprinkle icing sugar donut, but there is a significant dollop of angst there in the middle. A flangst donut.

Your Vigil In My Keeping (Westallen). This fic has less than 200 hits but has the highest kudos ratio of all. I guess kid fic isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Wee!stallen is cute af yo. I headcanon the origins of Barry and Iris's steadfast partnership in this story, where her faith and belief in him is as strong as his protectiveness of her, all tied up in the language and innocence of children.

Kinkiest Fic:

WA Smut and Kink Collection. I literally just posted this yesterday lol. So far it's just a face-sitting short, but I have quite a few hard and soft kinks lined up. Westallen needs more hard smut tbh, and they have such a unique powerfully loving dynamic that every kink I'm writing has required me to come at it a little bit sideways with a whole lot of emotional focus.

Saddest Fic:

Three fics I can't choose from.

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). This is basically Iris's grief and fear in a raging tempest, and it's strongly implied that the future Nora has warned them of will come to pass regardless of what they do. The fact is that there already is and will be a timeline where Iris loses Barry, just as there must be one where she won't, because that is the nature of potentiality. 

The Paradigm of Uncertainty (Westallen). This was a drabble almost, that ruminates on the probability that speedsters do not erase timelines but abandon them, along those versions of their loved ones. It's as @rkwago's brilliant comment says: "Iris hurts in so many weird, cosmic ways that her life is almost an eldritch horror house," which is the most perfect description ever of what it means to be a time traveller's wife.

The Universal Constant (Gen, background WA). A lot of people find the way Barry goes off on Joe cathartic in this fic, and so do I. But it's not so simple. I don't think Joe was wrong to form the views he did, or that anyone was in the wrong really. As @sophiainspace pointed out, it's a mediation of grief and love, their parallels and continuations between parents and children and lovers. The fact that it takes Henry's death for Barry to find the adult language to articulate to Joe why he will always believe in his father's innocence is a tragedy that cuts three ways.

(This fic is also the reason I have a folder in my drive marked "how to get away with murder" and probably a likely reason to get me arrested one day. xD)

Most Popular Fic:

Strangers In The Cold (Coldflash). The Coldflash fandom is a joy to feed. This was my first smut fic which was preceded by an entire chapter of banter about nothing in particular (except it ended up establishing a background that gave birth to the Coldflash vs Olivarry polyam series) And holy wow, for a newbie writer, the response has been amazing. Looking back, I wince at a lot of writing mistakes and its undeniably rough, but it really bolstered my confidence.

(I feel a little guilty that all my other CF stories are still in my WiP folder while I update the polyam series at snail's pace.)

The Shape of Us (Westallen). I wrote this on tumblr half-asleep one night, half as a rambly headcanon...and woke up to literally one hundred freaking notes. What the hell. Now at over 260, it's the most popular fic I've ever posted on tumblr.

I never consciously intended it to be a body-positivity fic but apparently women really relate to the insecurities of growing older and watching our bodies change with marriage, children and the sheer hectic pace of life. Even my non-fandom friends reblogged it simply for its representation of "real women". Barry's response is my own wish fulfillment fantasy; the sort of total acceptance and validation that we wish we could hear it the times we can't find it in ourselves. In light of the virulent body-shaming Candice Patton has been subjected to ever since she was revealed to have gained a fuller figure in S5, I'm very glad to have written it.

Least Popular Fic:

Carry On (Gen) This character study of Oliver Queen only has 135 hits a year after posting, which is par for the course with gen. But has a solid 12% kudos ratio, which means it's probably as good as I think it is. It's one of my favourite and easiest fics I have ever written.

Love Me Like You Do (Olivarry) Lordy, if my first Coldflash smut filled me with confidence, my first Olivarry smutfic all but ruined it. I struggled with it for a long time, unlike SitC, which I suppose shows in the over-descriptions. I got carried away with the quipping and I guess Barry topping at all is really not popular with slash fans?

Still, I'm honestly toying with the idea of deleting and rewriting it. At least it was a learning experience - don't write smut unless it makes you feel horny yourself.  

Most Challenging Fic:

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). I think the reason stories you knock off in two hours are instantly popular while the ones you slaved over for weeks barely get any attention is because the process is reflected in the ease of reading. But this one is an exception. It was an absolute monster, taking three weeks and several revisions to wrestle into submission - and it paid off in spades!  Going by the response, I seem to have achieved the wow factor I was going for.

My only regret is that I posted it on tumblr before the last revision that finally made it work, so that too many readers saw the lacklustre version rather than the polished one.

Honorable Mention:

A Stitch In Time (Olivarry for now, eventual Queenwestallen) Baby's first multi-chapter! Admittedly chapters 3 and 4 have been languishing in my drive for a few months now and this thing has 100% more deleted scenes and outtakes posted to my tumblr than the actual story on AO3. But I'm so proud of it! I learned to write action scenes because of it, how to write climaxes, dream sequences, news articles and tell a story in several different formats. It made me rediscover my empathy for Felicity and write her as a PoV character, think deeply on Laurel Lance's losses and give voice to her struggles, and explore how a real friendship and understanding could evolve between Oliver and Iris out of their mutual love for Barry. (Centering female characters within manpain narratives, ftw! Otoh, I centered Iris so much it veered off the Olivarry rails into Queenwestallen territory on its own)

There is so much meaty conflict and delicious looming disaster in this story that I'm determined going to keep at it, even if slow and steady. If only to bring the light of Barry/Iris/Oliver into the world. xD

Holding On (Olivarry). This real-world disability AU deals with chronic and mental illness and the precariousness and personal demons of that reality. I tore out the rawest parts of my life for this fic and put them on display so that I couldn't bear to show it to anyone for a year after it was written.

I'm very glad I did finally brush it off and put it up because it has struck a chord with so many people, especially other Spoonies. The low number of hits on a fic that deals in hurt/comfort rather stings, as I can't help but think the disinterest is because of the "disability" and "neurodivergence" tags. But I still think it's one of the best things I've written and one I'll always be proudest of.

General Reflections:

Things I've learned over the past year of writing:

- Self-deprecation is not my friend. I need to be honest enough with myself to acknowledge when my writing is good, because either I self-validate and build confidence or I become a black hole of insecurity where validation goes to die. And if I think I'm a bit better than I actually am, it's not just okay but necessary to believe it.

- What I call writer's block is perfectionism, anxiety and physical and mental fatigue. If I don't eat, sleep, hydrate and acheive a relaxed mental state, I won't be able to write. 

- Momentum is more my friend than any amount of inspiration and motivation. Sitting my ass down and make it a habit to churn out X number of words a day, even bad writing, will do more to help me than polishing an idea to a high shine. 

- If I don't forgive myself for the stories I can't write I'll never write anything. I am doing this for free, to share the love and joy and therefore obligated to no one. 

- I'm capable of writing things I don't have the first idea how to write. My fingers on a keyboard can paint the picture my brain can't visualize. 

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but I am going to make it a personal goal to write at least 15k words per month, learn to stick to a posting schedule where possible.  and end next year with an additional 150k words posted. 

To everyone who follows this blog, commented, reblogged and liked my posts - I see and remember and appreciate every one of you. You're the reason I feel seen and valued and why I am motivated to keep writing through all the difficulties life throws at me. <3<3<3