#UGH; I don't like 'vague posting' but since IDK who the fuck the person is doing this that is all I can do BC

[siixkiing]

I know I’ve complained about this in the past, I know I can simply turn beta on and have my posts unrebloggable BUT it seems its not just my HC posts anymore either...so that solution would only solve half the problem.

BUT, I am once again saying this to whomever keeps reblogging my stuff for Sun Wukong to FUCKING STOP. It should be a written rule and just common sense that less stated otherwise, any post made by an RP Account is not FREE to reblog by anyone - Mun Post, Headcanons, IC Post (less you are a fellow RPer), Threads, and such are OFF-LIMITS.

I am getting sick of seeing notes on my posts and noticing the reblog is private, which means I can’t actively find the user to block them. It’s making me want to post less and less for my muse too. 

[starryeyedstray]

my thoughts on dbh as someone entering the fandom in 2024

so just got into the dbh fandom like in aug 2024. i have watched too much gameplay, read the wiki extensively, read an obscene amount of fanfics on ao3, and am in the process of writing my own. here are some of my thoughts (that no one has asked for):

every fanfic writer who started in 2018 and is still updating their works in 2024 are literal saints and some of the best damn writers i ever did saw and the dedication is fucking unreal. one fic had almost 2 million words??????? like BRUH. some are still ongoing and updated this year?? the dbh fandom in ao3 is not thriving as much as it was in 2018 (i say this purely as someone who's looking at the hits/kudos/comment ratios on older v. new works) but they are still alive!!!!

i am puzzled with the obsession with gavin reed. there are like a million fics that feature him and rk900. i am confused bc he did not seem like a redeeming character at all in my opinion and idk, i think he's just an asshole. i like the redemption arcs some ppl write for him but i just can't with him. i mean you ship who you wanna ship but i am not a reed fan and i am confused how he became so popular when all he did was bully our poor boi connor.

i personally don't ship hank x connor bc they give strong father-son vibes in the canon. however, i am obsessed with how jolli_bean writes the pairing on ao3 since its usually a canon divergence or an AU so the pair meet later in life. there are some fics that follow the canon and do a pretty good job with the pairing, but i just tend to keep it familial between them in my head. (but like i said, ship who you want to ship)

i am glad there's a vague consensus that we all wished alice stayed a human bc i feel like that lends itself to a more interesting narrative post-game. tho i guess her being an android is fine bc now kara, luthor, and alice can live as one happy family in canada forvever lol

i am literally obsessed with bryan dechart's acting as connor. like if you haven't seen him play connor in real life for the interactive #detroit2038 premiere event, then you gotta watch some of the live stream. like he doesn't break character the whole time and his physicality just screams connor and i just really appreciate how much effort he put in as an actor to really embody the character. just so impressive and i wish there was more bts of him acting as connor bc its just so nuanced and ugh *chef's kiss* if they ever made a live action dbh it would be impossible for anyone else to play connor

i love the 28 stab wounds meme. when i watched that scene for the first time it was so jarring lmao

i also love how everyone is like yes, we all know connor likes dogs but he also likes fish bc of that one fish you can save in the very first minute of gameplay hahahah. (his name is dewey and it is vitally important you save him). i also appreciate how the "i like dogs" line will undoubtedly find it's way into every fic possible lol

i think the love for simon is very good and well and amazing but i think josh deserves more love in fics too

it bothers me that when north tells markus "i love you" at the church, MARKUS DOESN'T SAY IT BACK??? LIKE BITCH SAY YOU LOVE HER BACK DAMMIT DON'T JUST WALK AWAY

i love how the fandom just latched onto rk900 and rk800-60 and fleshed out their personalities and i love reading ppl's interpretation of these characters and how they incorporate them into their stories. it's funny they only show up like one time and ppl just ran with it and it's so fun and creative and i love it.

i love the hc that chloe deviated when connor chose not to shoot her. that's the best hc. like it's canon in my heart idc

bless all the fic writers who have mastered the art of explaining how androids mind and bodies work bc there are so many gaps and possibilities left open in the lore and it's incredible to see what ppl come up with or interpret based off the canon. (i still feel 50/50 about when they make deviants feel pain cause like androids not feeling pain is such a big part of the canon and yeah i'll give it a pass if the fic does it for the whumps and the angst but i prefer when a fic finds a canon-compliant reason for deviants to feel pain, even if its just like they got a chip or software installed that makes them feel pain or something)

every pairing that i find in this fandom, i tend to be like... "yeah i can see that." (with the exception of hank x connor for reasons i stated in #3). i'm still like ehhh on reed900 or even gavin x connor bc i just don't think it makes sense in the canon but if it's written well i just shrug and say yeah i guess i could see that. some rarepairs i ended up absolutely adoring were chloe x north and rk900 x north (i realize they're both north but she has such good potential for character dynamics)

idk if it's just me bc i specifically look for fics centered around connor, but i feel like there's not a lot of love for kara at least fic-wise. ig it's cause she kinda just leaves so it's easy to not include her. tbh, i am quite well-versed in markus' and connor's stories but i haven't really explored a lot of kara's. i plan on playing dbh with my partner when i see them again in a couple months and i wanted us to take turn playing different characters and i wanted to play kara's storyline so i've been avoiding it for the most part so i can be surprised with my options. plus, in my wip fic, kara is in canada so she's not really relevant to my story which is why i have in depth knowledge about markus and connor and less on kara.

the music in this game fucking SLAPS. 10/10 kara's theme makes me wanna cry.

okay, there is a common trope in the dbh fanfics where connor loses his memory and that shit gets me everytime. i'm always bawling and anxiously waiting for him to fucking REMEMBER and i hate and love it and eat it up every. single. time. usually, the memory loss happens early in the fic and it's pretty expected but sometimes i get blindsided and i'm like FUCK not this shit again but i can't stop reading it and the angst is so palpable.

i think it's so interesting how ra9 is just like this mystery in the lore that never gets entirely explained in the game. it's like something you can totally kinda ignore but it does have interesting lore implications if you decide to really think about it.

i adore all the characters in dbh equally except for connor who is the certified best boi and my absolute favorite (no one is shocked by this declaration). and the characters on my shit list are zlatko, todd, and sometimes reed.

this is an obnoxiously long post and i apologies. i haven't been on tumblr in years and i just had so many thoughts about dbh and i have no friends to talk to so i decided to dump it all here. i still have more thoughts but those are the ones that come to the forefront of my mind.

tldr: i love dbh and its fandom and i have many specific thoughts about it and you should just really read my post if you care about any of it

[yarrowleef-babbles]

anyway I'm at the end of my impulsive grishaverse binge. The King of Scars duology was fun to read and I enjoyed it.. It was also dumb as hell. But honestly I am here for a good time not a...idk, sensible time. Look I’ve been reading almost nothing but warrior cats for over a decade, clearly my standards are low and I can handle a lot of nonsense and still enjoy the ride

 (but rly I still don’t know why the Darkling returning is a thing at all. He’s just a less intimidating shadow of his former self. He went out in a blaze of glory and however he goes out the second time is going to be underwhelming in comparison. I literally KEPT FORGETTING HE WAS AROUND during Rule of Wolves until his POV chapters came up because everything else felt like a more pressing threat, meanwhile he was just. There. Dicking around. I forgot. the *DARKLING* was around. That’s almost impressive. He just came across as so pathetic compared to the constantly looming threatening force he used to be. There were so many enemies and problems to face with the Fjerdans and everything else, why even add him? I feel like I would have rather the main problem just being fixing the mess he left behind, and have Nikolai figure out some other way to solve the fold and his demon problem, considering Lantsov kings being dumb is part of what enabled the Darkling for so long to begin with. He could fix the remaining scars of their biggest mistake before retiring the Lantsov line. Idk, that would require a rewrite since apparently whatever is happening with the Darkling is going to motivate the next plot, but all that junk about the magic tree just felt. Tacked on rather then woven in? if that makes sense? considering how often I kept forgetting about him I feel like it would have been better to just....Let Nikolai have the focus in fixing this issue, no Darkling meddling needed. Darkling stays dead while we struggle with the ghosts and damage he left behind, and he left A LOT behind, he doesn’t need to literally be here as well. I Do NOT want him to get any sort of redemption arc. he Does Not Need One. Can’t we just let him go I’ve had enough of this dude) 

Next point, I am surprisingly fine with Queen Zoya, I think the duology did a good job setting both of them up for this when I look back on it, although it did catch me by surprise at first. Her turning into a LITERAL DRAGON???

lissen, I Do Not understand the fantasy rules of this world at all sometimes, sometimes it feels like crazy things Just Happen when plot needs it, and its felt that way ever since Shadow and Bone (like last book with the Saint Sand Castle. JESUS CHRIST what was ANY OF THAT I feel like I got transported into a different series I kept putting down the book to whisper-yell ‘what the fuck is happening right now’ to myself, I STILL do not really understand how those people were alive, how their magic worked, or where they were, their explanation didn’t make sense)

 but look. Look, sometimes I also Do Not Care, dragon Zoya was SICK AS HELL. You can be as dumb as you want if you’re also sick and hell while doing it, thems the rules!!!

Neutral on the Nikolai/Zoya relationship. It’s fine, w/e. That’s my stance on most MC romances so shrug.

ANYWAY if I’m honest with myself the Crows are my main true emotional investment in this universe so everything else that happens with other characters is kind of a “yeah ok I guess this is happening now, whatever” one way or another. But my crows. I adore their banter. I loved their appearance, even if it was mostly unnecessary fanservice. I miss them all so much.

I have no interest in investing myself in book fandom culture (it seems like its just...not my scene) I’m vaguely aware that Hanne and Nina’s relationship is controversial. (i’m vaguely aware a lot about this duology is controversial but I don’t know everyone elses reasons as to why, though I have some guesses). And Listen, I can totally 100% sympathize if you are someone who was at all emotionally invested in the helnik ship, even though its been over a year in book time, from the reader perspective Matthias like, just died. And to have Nina immediately thrust into a new meet-cute so quickly while she’s literally standing over his fresh grave?? Yeah I get why that might sting a bit. 

I, however, am not rly a helnik stan, in fact the handling of Matthias and Nina’s relationship was by far my LEAST favorite part of the SoC duology, an awkward frustrating stain on books I otherwise adored so much. Their relationship started off making me wildly uncomfortable (I have a lot of complicated and frustrated feelings about Matthias in general, I think i’ll probably end up making an overly long post complaining about him later on) and though it got a bit better in Crooked Kingdom, it still only reached “I guess I will tolerate this” levels, and then he died before i could finish reconciling with it so. I'm just left frustrated by the whole thing.

For me, her relationship with Hanne felt way more natural and less uncomfortable, yes even if its less ~dramatic~ then almost dying together in the arctic.. (I always felt like she and Matthias were attracted to each other in SPITE of who they are rather then BECAUSE of who they are you know? i just don't love that as a basis for a relationship It’s...ugh look again Matthias is a whole can of worms for me, I can’t get into it right now. It just doesn’t do it for me. I never understood Nina’s attraction to Matthias, so being better then that is a low bar for me. ) I’m not head-over heels with Nina/Hanne or anything, but I like it just fine and I think Hanne is a neat character.

I didn’t think Nina could carry a storyline on her own, but I was surprisingly often more invested in her then Zoya and Nikolai? I was only neutral to her in six of crows, I liked her, but less then the others....... mainly again because she was So Wrapped Up In Matthias Whomst I Do Not Exactly Love that it was hard to appreciate her on her own. I’m glad I got the chance to focus on her and grow to like her as an individual. 

 Maybe her crow status gives her my bias, or honestly maybe I just like high risk spy stuff that felt like it had more immediate danger and stakes every moment to her rather then the more big-but-impersonal concern for a whole country and the exhausting political complications of ruling Ravka, which is what Zoya and Nikolai were often grappling with. I still liked that storyline, but my personal preference is with Nina’s type of stakes (thats probably just another reason why I liked the SoC duology most in the grishaverse)

Which aaaaaaaaaaah, leads me to what is for ME causing the most emotionally charged Issues with the end of this book!!!! It’s probably not the biggest issue objectively, but I am not feeling objective right now, I am feeling emotional! While I think the Darkling returning is dumb, I have less emotional investment in him and the characters surrounding him so that, even though I dont exactly like it, I don’t really mind that much what happens to him, I’m willing to follow the story down whatever nonsensical rabbit hole it wants to go

but WOW I am I NOT a fan of Nina suddenly being the queen of fjerda??????HUGELY MASSIVLEY NOT A FAN OF THAT MY DUDES.  And not just beause it came out of left field (which is most certainly did).

i mean people more articulate then me have already probably talked about why this is a miserable future for her, so. that bites.

idk, no end to this post, just lots of words