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fandom-thingies · 3 years

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My Complicated Feelings Toward JK Rowling

I think everyone who’s read Harry Potter and likes to talk has written something like this by now. It makes sense, right? She wrote possibly the most influential book series to come out in the last century. For me and many others, those books are an unforgettable part of our childhoods, and it hurts for the person who took us on such a journey of magic and wonder to be so unmagical herself.

So, here’s my take.

I think the thing I hate most about JK Rowling is how close she came to greatness.

There’s a reason her books became so popular, after all. For all her faults, (and there are many) she’s an amazing writer.

Every one of her characters feel like they could walk off of the page at any time and into your life.

Dudley Dursley with his absorption of how his parents treat Harry and how his friends treat him, with his slow growth throughout the books into a person beyond who he was raised to be.

Molly Weasley with her overbearing mother henning, sometimes harmful but oh so clearly coming from a place of love, and her complete willingness to adopt any child that stands still long enough for her to do so. (Except Fleur)

Narcissa Malfoy with her belief in the horrible things she’s doing, without that stopping her from being entirely willing to do anything for her child.

Sirius Black with his tendency to unintentionally echo the sentiments he was raised with, and the tragedy of him losing his chance to ever truly grow as a person after being thrown in Azkaban for twelve years and then dying so soon after, and his complete, unconditional love for Harry.

I could write essays on any of them, and my point is that while JK’s treatment of certain issues and characters makes me want to hate Harry Potter, her characterization itself is both consistent and magnificently human.

Her world, too, is beautiful.

I first read Harry Potter before I turned eleven, and I was one of many across the nation who awaited my letter with eager anticipation.

Can you blame me? The world she created filled so many children with wonder, made so many of us want so badly for magic to be real, to be ours-

It was beautiful, and I hate her for what she could have been.

She had this fully realized system of prejudice that canonically created genocidal maniacs and put them in power every two generations or so, and she had this very realistic way of writing horribly flawed people that pronounces them as people without exonerating them for the awful things she’d have them do, and I can’t help feeling like “the horrors of war”, as well as she wrote it, wasn’t the story her world deserved.

But that’s a big idea to tackle, and I think it will be tackled best if I start small. I’ve spoken now of the beauty of her world, of her characters. Now I’ll speak of what marrs it.

Like I said, I want to start small.

So, let’s talk about the house elves.

TL;DR? Hermione was right. They’re indoctrinated from birth into believing the only thing they’re good for is housework, as well as being raised to abhor any elf who chooses to do otherwise. It’s a neat little self perpetuating system that bears absolutely no similarity in ideology to the mythology JK built it off of, and as such loses the aspect of choice that’s so significant to brownies.

Add to that the socially acceptable abuse, and you’ve got something that looks far more similar to slavery than it does little fairies who come to clean your home and get mad if pay them because they’re doing it as a favor.

And that’s why it’s so concerning, when JK brushes Hermione’s campaigning off in canon so casually.

It’s honestly hard to say when I started to be leery of JK Rowling, except that it was several years before the TERF scandal occurred. I think this was probably one of the earlier areas, though.

The first time I remember wondering if Harry Potter’s greatnesses were in spite of her intentions, rather than because of them, though, wasn’t the house elves.

It was, rather, a different contentious issue in the fandom, and one I’ve always fallen quite firmly to one side of, as someone who’s been bullied myself.

The first time I remember being suspicious of JK’s beliefs was when I realized she didn’t write Snape with the intent for him to be a villain.

Snape is not a person anyone in the fandom seems to be able to agree on. Some see him as a flat, cartoony villain, while some see him as a tortured soul who only did all those terrible things because he was hurting inside, don’t you see?

Personally, I drew the line at him being a child’s boggart, as well as the time he attempted to kill Neville’s toad, Trevor, because seriously; what the fuck.

It had always been my belief that while him being obsessed with loving Lily motivated him to work on the side of good, it was more like Narcissa’s willingness to betray her cause for her son than anything else, being a sympathetic trait without absolving his cruelty.

Then I realized that a bunch of people (likely including JK) view Narcissa similarly to how they view Snape, seeing both as people who do bad but are good, rather than people who do good but are bad, and I honestly don’t know what to say to y’all.

You know having good traits doesn’t make a person good, right? Being capable of affection doesn’t absolve people of cruelty or make it your responsibility to forgive them and try to get them to change, it just tells them that they can do bad things without being punished for it.

Do you guys need an abuse hotline?

Anyway, that’s when I stopped liking JK, since I’ve been bullied myself and seeing her treat such a horrible bully as a good person kinda soured me on her. I’m not mad at her for letting her bullies grow and change- I love Draco’s and Dudley’s character arcs. I’m just mad at her because unlike those two, Snape is an adult and she kinda wrote it like forgiving him was an expectation of Harry, rather than a personal choice (and not an easy one either! Forgiving bullies is hard and it’s not always healthy!)

I’m getting off topic, but I genuinely believe that discussing this kind of thing is important, so I’m leaving that in.

Getting back to what this is actually about, I’m the kind of person who sees potential in things, often before I see the work itself, (it’s why I write fanfiction) and Harry Potter has so much potential it hurts, because so much of it is just wasted.

I said, earlier, that “the horrors of war” wasn’t the story best suited to this world, and I stand by that.

The first reason I believe that is because I don’t think that the black and white morality this kind of narrative often creates was well suited to JK’s writing style. JK has a tendency to put her characters in boxes of “good” or “bad” and as someone who doesn’t really believe in inherent goodness or evil, this will always feel unrealistic to me.

Because in the end, it’s JK’s minor villains, the ones not directly involved with Voldemort’s war, that really shine.

My favorite villains in the series were Umbridge, the Dursleys, Draco Malfoy, and Cornelius Fudge, because they were the villains who felt real, who felt like flawed people making flawed decisions because we’re all fundamentally products of our environment-

These are the villains who stuck with me, who I still want to take and shake because they were the kind of cruelty we’ve all faced.

Voldemort, as the main villain of the story, would have been more powerful if he’d been an amplified version of these people. In fact, the story would have been better in general if Fudge or Dumbledore had been the villain, because the problem with Voldemort is that unlike the good villains in this story, who feel real because we’ve all met people like them, Voldemort is and will always be larger than life.

A genocidal maniac is a villain few of us have faced societally, and one none of us have faced directly.

Also, rather than being a worse version of Umbridge or Fudge, Voldemort is more akin to a worse version of Snape. He’s a tortured soul who does bad things because bad things were done to him, rather than being cruel through his choices, his own agency.

That’s the first reason why “the horrors of war” wasn’t the best choice of a narrative for this world.

The second is that I don’t think JK sees anything wrong with her muggle hating characters.

She clearly thinks killing muggles is wrong, of course. She’s not that bad.

But, well, the muggle characters in Harry Potter are consistently kind of awful.

First there’s the Dursleys, selfish, entitled, egotistical, and cruel to anyone different from them. Then there’s Snape’s muggle father, who was horribly abusive, as well as cruel to anything different from him.

Then there’s the muggle prime minister, who despite being an important figure, is left completely out of the loop for anything concerning wizards, pretty much only used when the ministry needs the muggle news to say or do a certain thing, like when Sirius Black was declared a criminal.

There’s also the family at the quidditch world cup, of whom who only meet the patriarch, a somewhat stupid man who remarks uncomprehendingly on the oddness of wizards trying to assimilate into muggle society, a man who is canonically obliviated ten times a day.

And that’s it, that’s all the muggle characters I can remember. Aside from the Dursleys, none of them are given more than a page or so of screentime, and none of them do anything significant.

No, wait, I did actually forget two.

Hermione’s parents, who are obliviated and sent to Australia when the war starts, because the only thing they could ever do in a war is be victims.

Muggles in Harry Potter are consistently stupid, ineffectual, and cruel to anyone different from them.

Out of the entire massive cast of Harry Potter, there are few enough muggles that I can list them all off the top of my head without googling and the only muggle in the story ever given the all important chance to be kind is Dudley Dursley, who is taken out of the story the moment he stops being an awful person.

I’m sure you see the problem.

The issue with Harry Potter is that JK acts like the problem is solved when muggles are no longer being actively persecuted, when in reality that’s only the beginning of solving the prejudice that plagues her world.

Voldemort is frequently called “wizard Hitler” and I think that’s more accurate than people realize, because as with Hitler, people easily see the problem with Voldemort committing genocide, and they’re fine with working to stop that, but the moment they’re asked to examine their own biases, their own small cruelties and exclusions, the ten thousand cuts they’ve inflicted with their own hands…

The moment people are asked to examine themselves, to look close at the mirror and point to what allowed someone like Voldemort to gain a following in the first place, they turn away and go back to turning a blind eye to the fact that if you don’t address the societal issues that made him gain a following in the first place, there’ll just be another when it’s been a few years and people have forgotten.

In the end, Grindlewald is wizard Hitler. Voldemort and the death eaters are wizard neo nazis.

I’m not Jewish, though, so I’ll let them be the ones to expand further upon this, as many have.

My point here is that JK’s story would have been more powerful if it had been about addressing the issues that underpin the death eaters, rather than killing their leader and acting as if that’ll solve anything.

JK Rowling is antisemetic, racist, and a TERF, among other things, and while I’m glad it shows in her work as little as it does, it does show, and I’m not going to cover that in this because a thousand other people have covered it better than I ever could.

Suffice to say, I’m nonbinary, and I’m glad I was disillusioned with her before I knew she was prejudiced directly against me, because loving her before she said the things she said and did the things she did would have hurt.

The fact that her world shows so clearly the consequences of her beliefs, even in the context of a prejudice that doesn’t exist in our own world…

I guess she’s always been too good a writer for her own good, in the end.

#harry potter #jk rowling #harry potter meta #harry potter criticism #tl;dr i hate harry potter because it came SO CLOSE to greatness and then JK just SQUANDERED it and i'll die angry

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rotationalsymmetry · 2 years

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No queer people (barring some radfems) will actually admit that they’re effectively pressuring bisexuals to only act on their “gay” attractions and not their “straight” ones, and generally not call attention to being bi at all. (Or rather: to either do that or the exact opposite: to either pretend we’re gay or pretend we’re straight.)

And yet all the time: “bi now gay later”, “gay or at least bi”, ew gross bi women bringing their boyfriends to Pride, ew gross m/f ships ugh the straights are so boring, straight this het that, ew straight girls kissing other girls while drunk for attention, men are gross, cishet men are especially gross, being attracted to men is gross, throw the whole man out, men who date women are so predatory, wlw relationships are so pure and wholesome, hey check out this asshole boyfriend on Reddit/facebook/TikTok/whatever (while never sharing examples of asshole girlfriends — they’re there, I promise you), 20 “gay” books in the bookstore for every one “bi” book, and when they’re fiction the books with canon bi characters get called (and often marketed as) gay/lesbian fiction, not noticing when groups or whatever just say “gay and lesbian” and not “bi”, completely ignoring bi issues (invisibility/erasure, harmful stereotypes especially around promiscuity and cheating, lack of representation, sexual health (hey guess what, people who have sex with men and women have different sexual health concerns than people who don’t!), rampant DV rates, high rates of substance abuse, need for discussion groups and studies and so on focused on us, intersectional issues with being bi and also poor, poc, disabled, trans, immigrant, homeless, incarcerated, etc), talking about bi celebrities as though they’ve betrayed the community or stopped being queer if they get into a m/f relationship, calling probably-bi historical figures “gay”, using terms like “wlw” and “lesbian” interchangeably or using “wlw” or “queer” but in a context that implies all wlw don’t ever date or have sex with men, assuming gay people can represent bi people but bi people can’t represent gay people, accusing bi people of playing oppression olympics and claiming we’re more oppressed any time we suggest we might have any issues at all that strictly gay people don’t (ie merely making the case that we’re not strictly less oppressed in every single regard), bi people can’t use butch/femme terms those are lesbian only terms and it’s appropriation, that comphet doc that’s basically “hey if you’re bi but want to convince yourself you’re actually a lesbian, here’s how to do it!”*, etc etc etc etc.

It‘s not always/usually actually cutting someone out of your social circle, telling someone to leave the group, or literally saying “there’s no such thing as being bi”, any more than terfs actually say “yeah we just hate trans women” or ace excleiionsts say “aces aren’t queer“ (they say “cishet aces aren’t queer”, which literally has the same meaning because it means aces are only queer if they have a queer identity other than being ace! It defines ace as not inherently queer.) It’s usually just… erasure and “ugh, men” and “straight-passing privilege” (ie: you’re less queer, you’re not really in need of attention and resources, and if you disagree with other queer people you’re speaking over people who are less privileged.) But that still has a huge effect.

(again: yes, there are things you experience/risk in relationships straight people see as gay that you don’t in relationships that they don’t. but there’s a huge gap between that concept and “so you’re basically straight”, but often when queer people say “straight passing privilege” they mean “not really a sexual minority/queer person, and someone who by definition doesn’t experience any downside to being bi relative to being straight” and that is not true.)

*I‘m sure there are many actual-lesbians who take a while to figure it out and need some help with “how do I know if I was dating that guy because I’m attracted to guys or just because I was expected to?” But the doc never once mentioning “and some people are bi, here’s a sign you might be bi” is kinda sus actually. Almost as though it was coming from a mentality of nobody is actually bi, ever.

#Bi bitterness

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do-not-careissa · 3 years

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Now that Men in Black has reinvaded my mind so have new plot bunnies. So have 2 Jason joins the min ideas/options.

1. Sort of a Mr and Mrs Smith type thing, jaykyle, only sadder and angstier:

Post death and resurrection Jason wasn't picked up by Talia, instead it was MiB. Using their alien tech they're able to heal him and put his mind back together. They know who he is, just like they know who Bruce and the Justice League are (for how much the Kents believed no one noticed their sudden baby acquisition, they were wrong. MiB's known all along, if anything they're the reason the Kents and other alien adopters and adoptees have done so well at staying hidden.) They give Jason the choice to either return to Bruce, go with a normal family (in both cases he'd of course have his memories wiped), or stay and work with them. Now while Jason might not have the Lazarus Pits affecting his emotions and mental stability here, he's still a teen/young adult (say like 18 or 19 by the time he's healed enough to leave) and his last memories of the bats and his bio mother weren't exactly the greatest. Add on top of that the feeling of being forgotten/replaced that would undoubtedly come at seeing the addition of, what, at least three more people to the batfam. He doesn't believe there's a place left for him there, decides to stay, at least he can do some good while he's at it.

Cut to a few years later, Jason's moved up the ranks, he's one of the organization's best agents (could be just that branch, division, or overall) but of course the job doesn't really leave much for certain other needs. So on his rare time off he'll slink off to this nice bar or something and just enjoy himself, feel human, all that good stuff. And that's how he gets involved with a certain Kyle Rayner. The guy seems normal enough, an artist with laughably bad pickup lines but a smile and eyes that make you want to laugh with him rather than at him. They have a night together, and that one night turns into two, then three, and by the fourth Jason's sure he's making a mistake here. Regulation says to keep contact with non-mib individuals to a minimum and don't give them a reason to remember you if you have to interact more than once. He shouldn't be doing this, really, but he's also given up so much over the years, both to mib, to the bats, to the universe, can you really blame him?

Between the two of them rain checks are a regular, either one or both claiming a sudden work trip that couldn't be skipped. It made Jason guilty every time but he couldn't just not go. This was his job after all. And Kyle, well he was just a normal guy who happened to be a bit loose in the head sometimes, it made sense for him to forget to call off meetups and hookups, that's just what normal people their age did right? It takes far too long for him to admit that he's in too deep, that he's fallen for this loveable dumbass. But the same could probably be said for Kyle too.

The moment they meet not as Jason and Kyle but as MiB and Green Lantern you could hear a pin drop. Jason couldn't believe this, not in a million years. Kyle? A fucking Green Lantern? Are you kidding?!

Because you see, while the general population and even the capes might be unaware of MiB, MiB is more than aware of them and they have a very big problem with them, especially the Lanterns. Because they know the GLs and Guardians would argue that earth is their terf and that minehas not right to set up rules and protocol, byt MiB has been on Earth longer, they've existed since Roswell if not earlier, GLs haven't touched Earth til maybe 15-20 years ago. And MiB's work is to protect not just the humans of Earth but the aliens who've made a home here, or even just those ones that are here for a visit. Thanks to the GLs, and by extension the Justice League, not only is MiB and its agents in so much more danger of being exposed or attacked, but so are those aliens.

Suddenly Jason's happy go lucky secret relationship has been soured if not ruined. Kyle, he'd trusted him, even l-, he actually liked him as more than just a fuck buddy, but this? He's devastated, he's angry, and while he's sure Kyle's feeling something like that too, he doesn't get to, not when he's siding with the group putting innocent people in danger, not when he's siding with the bats and Tha Guardians and everything Jason stands against.

He manages to catch Kyle off guard, taking him down and neuralyzing him quick enough that him can't take him down too. It hurts to see that blank look take over Kyle's face once the light fades, but he can't let that affect him. Kyle made his choice, and he needs to make his.

Idea 2: much angstier in the "fuck Bruce and the JL" sort of way

Post rhato 25 and Roy's death, Jason's health is deteriorating quickly. Maybe he lied about how well he was out of guilt so Roy wouldnt feel like he had to stay with Jason instead of going to Sanctuary. Now with no one there to help him, along with the mental and emotional toll, Jason's body is shutting down. This is it, he's accepted it, he fucking hates that this is how he goes, but well, it's kinda poetic that Bruce would ultimately be the reason for his deagb this time wouldn't it? Between the physical injuries he gave Jason and the mental ones he's caused, everything all ties back to Bruce.

So Jason's just there, accepting his fate, but then out of nowhere these suits just show up and they've got an offer for him. They know who he is, what he's gone through, they know how to help him and keep him safe. They can heal him. But the only way they can let him know exactly what they're doing or who they are is if he joins them. They say they've been watching him for a while, we're actually planning on approaching him, but the situation with Batman and now with the League and Jason's health has pushed their time table up. He's obviously skeptical til they really go in on everything, breaking down mib, breaking down what they try to do, and you know what, he's in. Fuck Bruce, fuck the JL, fuck them all.

None of them stepped in to help him, none of them did anything to stop Bruce, no one except Roy, Roy who's now dead because of them. They don't get to tell him what to do anymore, they don't get to control him.

So they bring Jason in for the procedure, and there's a few ways this could go. A) They just use whatever alien tech they have that heals him no issue, maybe need to replace a few bones or joints or something, whatever it is he's healed. B) they need to meld his DNA to a sample from an alien species that heals quickly (personal favorite, could go down the route of this giving Jason superhuman abilities, or even something akin to energy absorption as the reason he's able to heal which would make him a massive threat to everyone especially the gls (imagine him just draining their rings in minutes and then using that power against them)). C) the Lazarus Pits are actually of alien origin, and since Jason's already been dipped in one before and had his brain and body altered/healed by it, it still remains dormant in his system, they just need to activate it.

Whatever they do it works, and soon enough we get Jason as MiB and Bruce and the others all believing Jason to be dead ala MiB tricks. Months or even years later there comes a confrontation, the "I thought you were dead!" Shit. Or the GLs/guardians learn about them and try to impose their bs on them, try to scare them into disappearing, and guess who MiB sends to deal with them? Why their star agent of course.

#hoping to at least write something for that first one #just struggling through the words like usual #jason todd #fic ideas #jason as mib

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routeless-writer · 2 years

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Request Rules .・。.・゜✭・.

Welcome to Routeless, an otome/dating game imagines blog, here to fulfill your fantasies!

I’m Mod Mezzo, and I am the only moderator running this blog, so rule number one is please be patient with me, lol.

𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚁𝚞𝚕𝚎𝚜:

Be polite. Rude or threatening requests will be deleted, I will block anyone who tries to stir trouble. Abide by the rules list. Easy peasy! Just don’t be an arse.

If you prefer to stay anon, and plan to send in multiple requests one after the other, requests sent in parts, or need to request a re-do, please claim an anon by using a word, emoji, symbol, etc. It makes things easier for me, and if you send me more than one request at once, I can publish them all at once for you and/or give you updates! I don’t want to leave anyone hanging. This will also allow me to start a tag for you, so you can go back and look at your past requests easily without having to crawl through the master list.

Since this blog does accept nsfw requests, it is an 18+ only blog. I say this because I don’t want to turn anon off for you guys, so I’m warning you now. Minors DNI for my comfort and safety, and your own safety.

Other DNIs should be obvious. DNI if homophobic, transphobic, racist, acephobic, MAP/SOMAP/whatever the hell pedos are calling themselves these days, “””super straight””, sexist, TERF/SWERF, n*zi/n*zi sympathetic, just fuck off if you subscribe to any of this. Leave. Exit. The door is RIGHT there.

Also just anyone who comes here to harass me or my anons. I’m anti fucking bullying.

TWST characters that are 16/17 have been aged up to at least 18 in all my works. If you want to get mad at me for aging up characters at all, don’t. I’ll block you, delete your inbox messages, whatever. I am literally never in the mood for fandom discourse ever. I am quite literally minding my own business.

Anything that is not a request will be put under the tag “not a request”.

nsfw will be put under the “secret stash” tag.

Anything from me that is a notice/update will be under “mod mezzo”. Anything from my inbox that is not a request or posts unrelated to writing that aren’t notices will go under “mezzo mumbles”.

My inbox is always open to talk, even if i'm not taking requests. I'd appreciate if we could keep things friendly and chill, so general rules of politeness/no harassment of me or anons/no trauma dumping apply.

For questions about the rules, masterlist, the blog, or updates, the inbox is always open.

Other important tags are on my tag list, which you can view by checking my navigation page (pinned post).

𝙵𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖𝚜:

Court Of Darkness

Dream Daddy

Ikemen Prince

Ikemen Revolution

Ikemen Vampire

Monster Prom

Mystic Messenger

Obey Me! One Master To Rule Them All (please note that I HAVE NOT started Nightbringer)

The Arcana

Twisted Wonderland

𝙵𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖𝚜 𝚃𝚘 𝙱𝚎 𝙰𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚍:

games i will add to the requestable list once i play them!

Touchstarved

Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp

Monster Prom 3: Road Trip

Ikemen Villians

What In Hell Is Bad?

Lovebrush Chronicles

Tears of Themis

𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚆𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎:

Fluff

Romantic

Platonic

Smut/nsfw/suggestive

Angst WITH comfort

Comfort

^^^This includes most mental illnesses/disorders, but if you’re not sure, feel free to ask. I will let you know if I am uncomfortable. I’d like to be clear, I myself am autistic/ADHD/PTSD, but I don’t speak for everyone who is neurodivergent or mentally ill. However, if you are in need of comfort, I’m willing to put in the proper research to properly fulfill a request.

All gender identities, presentations, and AGABs are accepted, and I specify in my writing what gender or AGAB the reader is when necessary.

Any variation of a queer/lgbtq+ s/o (i.e. s/o comes out as pan, react to ace s/o, s/o comes out as trans, etc) I am queer myself and will write GAYS being SILLY AND GAY

Littlespace (sfw only, I do not write ageplay)

BDSM/subspace/domspace centered asks

^^^ both nsfw and sfw

There is a kink specific whitelist under the rules tag for nsfw requests

Character limit of 5 (unless requesting a whole group, i.e. the demon brothers, monster prom girls, the arcana LIs, dorm leaders, etc etc)

Once again, feel more than free to ask me if I am comfortable writing something! I will answer you! 🫧

𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚆𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎:

Pedophilia

Incest

Non-con I’m iffy on writing, I do enjoy cnc though most cnc based writing will likely be done by me, not requested.

Yandere. A slightly possessive/overprotective character or s/o is fine, but this isn’t a yandere blog. To clarify, I have no problem with darkfic, I just don’t write much myself beyond mild angst. (And I read quite a bit I am looking at yandere blogs directly hello you’re doing a good job)

sexual age regression, sfw littlespace is fine, but that’s in a sfw context.

Kinks involving bodily fluids/“functions” outside of c*m (from either partner of any gender), sp*t, and bl*od. Simply put, no bathroom kinks.

𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝:

Guy Avari (Court Of Darkness) (unavailable)

Oliver (IkeRev) (only available as an adult/during nighttime in story)

Luke (Obey Me) (only available for platonic requests)

Ortho Shroud (Twst) (Only available for platonic requests)

Cheka Kingscholar (Twst) (Only available for platonic requests)

#rules #blog rules #request rules #not a request

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tabby-shieldmaiden · 3 years

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I have come back from hiatus to make one (1) post, simply because this topic has been on my mind for a while, and I need to get this thought out.

I’ve noticed that in discussions talking about feminist tropes, there’s a tendency to talk about what not to do or a tendency to talk about how something ended up being a feminist work because of what it didn’t do. Like. “Don’t sexualise your female characters”, “don’t just have her be some guy’s love interest”, “don’t have your only female characters be evil femme fatales”. So on so on.

And the stuff that isn’t a list of “don’t”s is all extremely generic writing advice. Like, “having multiple women in a story” not only isn’t applicable in every story (having too many characters in a story can be a problem), but there’s still a lot stuff to consider when talking about how to even develop all those characters that goes beyond “stuff it with multiple girls”. “Write women with complex motivations and agency and so on and so on” is decent advice, but that’s only because that’s good advice when writing characters in general. That’s like telling people about the basic principles of art when they ask how to draw better flowers. It’s likely that they already know about this, but there’s something specific about drawing flowers that’s tripping them up, and they would like some advice about how to do that particular thing better specifically.

So, which brings us to the question: why do people, even other women, tend to have issues writing other female characters? It’s easy to blame it on internalised misogyny, but there’s also other issues at play here, I think. And I have a couple of theories on it.

The first is because a lot of people’s ideas on what is a female character tends to be, well, underwritten, if not poorly written. The archetypes that they have in mind are of things which would make a lot of writers uncomfortable to work with if they care about making art empowering to women. And you can see it in that genre of post that’s like ‘there needs to be more female characters who are like [insert archetype typically associated with male characters]’. Which, don’t get me wrong, I support, if only because this type of thing results in more types of female characters for all to enjoy. But it does show at least one reason why people who care about making art empowering to women might still have trouble writing female characters. Because their prior experiences with female characters have not been all that great. And that colours the way they view the writing of female characters.

And honestly, I think the solution to this is if we could also have more conversations about how to reclaim certain misogynistic female archetypes, or of what archetypes typically seen in male characters we would like to see more of in female characters. That would be pretty fun imo.

The second is that there’s lots of contradictory opinions at play here. And that’s because ‘what makes a good female characters’ is something that more or less everyone who really cares about stories has thought about at one point or another in this day and age. (Or at least it seems that way tbh.) And some people give a generic answer of ‘one who has agency and unique motivations’, some people give specific answers like ‘I like women who aren’t sexualised and I don’t know if you can write sexual women in a narrative in this current day and age without making her for someone else’s consumption’. Or ‘I like women who are sexual in a way where they own their sexuality, because I think that slut-shaming is a pretty awful thing and female characters should be allowed to be sexy or sexual because that can be empowering to some women, especially if the art in question is also made by women’. Or ‘I like soft and motherly and girly women and I feel like people tend to brush aside female characters with these qualities because femininity is undervalued in our society and that makes me upset’. Or ‘I like women who aren’t feminine in the slightest and I think that pressures women face to be feminine are harsh and gnc women need to be told that they’re alright just the way they are’. And all of these are points which different people would agree with or disagree with to differing degrees.

And ultimately, I’ve gotten quite a lot of experience writing women and thinking about writing women, and I have all my opinions about what makes a good female character and how to write women laid out in my head already. But a beginner writer, who maybe hasn’t spent half their life thinking about female characters, but still cares about making art empowering to women, is gonna walk onto the scene and get overwhelmed trying to appeal to everyone’s demands.

(And there’s also the fact that not all advice is created equal and bigotry of other sorts may flow into writing advice, intentionally or no. It’s hard to discern what advice is unintersectional when you’re starting out, especially when there are concern trolls [like terfs, white feminists(tm), abled feminists(tm), etc] out there.)

I feel like, why this has become an issue is because there’s still an underlying assumption that one story should be able to appeal to all women everywhere. And that there’s certain narrative that women will like, and there’s a certain narrative that women will not like. So all advice gets seen as equal. Which isn’t true at all, because by virtue of all being different people with different life experiences, different pieces of art and different narratives are going to resonate with different women.

And so. I guess my conclusion after this bigass infodump is... there’s probably more conversations we could have about how to write better female characters. But most of them start with thinking about what’s not working and trying to come up with solutions for them. Instead of stating what’s not working and leaving it at that. I think now, it is a time for action and doing instead of not doing. And sure, 90% of the female characters and the art that’ll come out of trying and experimentation will be trash, but that’s the case with most art. It doesn’t mean that it’s not worth doing, or that the trash won’t find their audience anyways. The issues that I brought up, why women also have trouble writing female characters, they can’t be solved by women learning everything not to do. I think they can be only solved if we encourage women to write the type of female characters they want to see, regardless of whether or not it fits everyone else’s tastes.

In conclusion, in 2021, let’s just write the girls that we've always wanted to see, regardless of what anyone else thinks!

#tabby says something #female characters #writing #feminism #writeblr #long post

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karliesbuzzcut · 3 years

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Okay, hi. I’m back from my expedition and I’m reporting back, as promised.

So, the Gaylor Subreddit has been gaining some popularity for quite some time. Which I’m honestly happy about since I always thought it was sad how deserted it used to be. When very rarely a brave new member would write a queer analysis, post it and then someone there would proceed to answer with a“yes, Taylor is gay and a liar and her face is puffy” — leaving everyone there a bit confused.

Now there’s a lot of activity and people actually seem to like Taylor. But as with any civilised society there needs to be rules.

Which doesn’t work great for PrettyAliens since she’s a proud TERF (or “turf” as she calls it🤷‍♀️), who’s predicting everyone will hate Taylor in 2022 for supporting Trans rights in 2019. Or something. To be honest, I’m not sure what she’s rambling about.

But she gives us her best material on her last posts. Messages which obviously were deleted (because again: ✨rules✨) after everyone else started looking at each other, wondering ‘who invited this person?’

PrettyAliens hasn’t been seen since then.

Moving on... yeah, PrettyAliens isn’t our only character this time around.

There’s a pinned post from a Mod introducing themselves and a new rule that goes something like “guys, let’s chill with all the body shaming going on here”. Which I think it’s fantastic but then again I’m a fucking snowflake.

Most people are okay with this but then Popparts — who in the past I’ve theorised she’s just one of PrettyAliens’ multiple personalities — writes a bloody essay on ‘why this is not okay’. I’ll spare you but it goes something like this:

“Body image is an integral part of Pop Music and if you don’t like it you shouldn’t be a Mod on a Taylor Swift board. You only have as much power as we want to give you”

Yes, it got very political — so much that she suddenly started going on about how the mod is silencing different cultures? Because Koreans don’t have any problems discussing Body Image? And something about Latin people being sarcastic? And as a Latina I feel identified with that statement but I don’t see how that’s relevant? Anyway I’m very confused so I’m just going to skip to the next part.

“What do you mean I can only speak positively about Taylor Swift’s body? What about MY rights? If you don’t like that talking about Taylor means talking about the way she looks, blame Madonna. It’s Madonna’s fault”

And that’s Popparts’ last relevant interaction.

Then, a new character comes in. Are you excited? I’m excited. This one is called CasuallyCruelHonesty which truly: great name. Really, ChefKiss of a name. But that’s my only compliment.

Anyway, CCH is also very angry about the new rules. What kind of dictatorship are we living in where I can’t say that Taylor Swift’s face looks puffy?

They went ballistic on the Mods. I’m talking “YOURE NOT MY REAL DAD” kind of tantrum.

Hey guys, are you still with me? Okay, good! Because CCH is about to make their grandiose exit. Ready?

In general, I just find it hilarious when people take silly matters on the internet so seriously. I mean, let’s all take a second to remember that these people are standing up for their ‘basic human right’ to call Taylor Swift “fat”.

Most of those comments were —of course— removed. Which led to this:

I’m sure most of you didn’t find that to be as funny as I did, but I freaking cackled because to me it read as that typical lousy comeback, e.g. “that looks like a parking lot” “your face looks like a parking lot”. Anyway, it’s funny OKAY? You just have to be inside my tiny curly head.

That would conclude the Gaylor Subreddit Saga for now...

But you know me, at that point I had to know more about CasuallyCruelHonesty. I’m just fascinated by people being so openly ~eccentric~ on the internet.

So I went into their profile and... they’re also a motherfucking TERF.

Serious question, here: WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM? Who forgot to close the Gate Of Hell on their way out?

Not only that, but just like PrettyAliens, Popparts and Rio211 before them: this person also feels really comfortable using the word “retard”,

Seriously guys, is it just me? Was I brought up inside a beautiful bubble? I honestly do not interact with anyone who uses that word these days. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe people around me know that if they say something stupid in front of me I’m going to write about it on my blog.

Whatever.

I wanted to leave on a high note, so here’s the best comment I found from them. I have no idea what they were replying to, nor do I care. All that’s important to me is that CasuallyCruelHonesty sat down and said to themselves “the fact that someone puts up with my bullshit on a daily basis is a great comeback”.

Apparently, they also take their mastubation lingo very seriously. I guess we all have matters we’re passionate about.

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canarycontessa · 3 years

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in no particular order, things I've learned having PCOS

1. Root cause, root causes, ROOT CAUSES.

Do you know what the course of treatment looks like if you don't address root causes? It looks like a bandaid for each individual symptom: progesterone to "jumpstart" your hormones (which you can only take for a few months before it starts fucking with your bones), metformin for your insulin issues, electrolysis or waxing for your facial hair, etc.

NONE OF WHICH gets down to root causes or is in any way approaching a permanent solution (with the possible exception of laser hair removal or electrolysis).

I’m not knocking these things; if they help in any way and fit your course of action, go for it. But these things are not a cure. There is no formal cure for PCOS, but the thing that puts it in a kind of remission is a complete sea change in terms of how you eat, sleep, exercise, and just generally live your life. Everything from the eggs you buy to the type of pads you use is up for reevaluation.

2. Exercise does not (directly) affect fat loss, only muscle gain, body comp and hormone regulation. Know it’s benefits and its limits in your regimen. Or, you cannot out-exercise a poor diet.

Your particular relationship to the scale is something you need to nail down and fast. If you know you’re obsessive and prone to daily weighing, get rid of the scale entirely. If you like tracking yourself week to week, go ahead. Either way, please know that your progress wrt: diet and exercise aren’t always going to be reflected on the scale.

Unless you’re doing some sort of bodybuilder bulking/cutting thing, then you’re typically going to lose fat WHILE gaining muscle if you have a sensible plan. This can translate to looking better and losing inches while staying the same or even going up on the scale. Don’t be fooled.

All of this goes for everybody, really, but it goes double and triple for people with PCOS. Get the “calories in/calories out” mindset out of your head. Focus on your hormonal balance. Go by how your clothes fit, how you look naked, how you feel when you move, the feats you become capable of that you weren’t before.

3. Your desires are not shallow. No, not even your "shallow" ones. Wanting to look good naked, wanting to not have stubble or hyperpigmentation, and wanting a sex drive that’s more on-point is just as valid as wanting to have a baby or wanting to prevent your prediabetes from becoming full blown diabetes. Period. No buts. I said what I said. And if anyone tells you otherwise or tries to make these things seem frivolous?

Tune them the fuck out.

You’re the one who has to live with this disorder, not them, so they can fuck right off. Yes, even your doctor or your mother or your boyfriend or your minister or whoever the fuck. Yes, even other people with PCOS.

I say this as someone who never has and never will want children, and is more concerned with preserving my health and beauty well into my middle age than I am with fertility. I’m not curing cancer, but neither is any broad that wants to get knocked up.

We each want what we want. Let’s leave each other to our own wants, shall we?

4. There's a limit to what a doctor can (or sometimes is even willing) to do for you here, so you have to take the wheel. Remember what I said about band aids? Unless you go to an endocrinologist or someone who specializes in hormonal/reproductive health or just a general practitioner who gives a damn, you’re not going to find an abundance of help with a doctor.

It’s sad to say, but a lot of general practitioners are either unequipped, underqualified, uninformed or (worst case scenario) just flat out uninterested in helping with what they consider a nebulous disorder at best, or a series of low-priority nuisance issues at worst.

My main solution to this is to understand deeply and unwaveringly: They may be the doctor, but you are the expert on your own lived experience. Find a doctor that not only knows their business, but who knows that you two are a team.

I’ve been lucky enough to experience both ends of this spectrum. Yes, even the bad ones.

I’ve had the best insurance money could buy utterly wasted on a doctor that spent months of my time telling me my kidneys were shutting down due to blood in my urine when I already made it clear that the “blood in my urine” was actually my menorrhagia. He completely discounted my lived experience of menstruating for a full 15 - 20 days out of EVERY MONTH and came up with a disorder of his own, wasting so much time sending me back for renal scans whenever the “blood in my urine” didn’t correspond to my test results reflecting perfectly normal kidneys. This guy outright told me that he was more concerned with my hypertension than he was with addressing anything else going on with me. As if it wasn’t all connected.

I’ve also had supposedly lesser medical staff that took my concerns seriously, conducted examinations promptly, listened to what I had to say and actually laid out what my options were so that I could decide how we should proceed from there. It was one of these places that actually found out that what I’d been dealing with for years was PCOS, giving the beast that tormented me a name so I could draw a target on its back. They broke down their methodology for determining it into layman terms I could understand:

“your period has these abnormalities, you have these visual markers (skin tags, facial hair, hyperpigmentation), your insulin is up in the prediabetic range and you have multiple benign but problematic cysts on your ovaries. We’ll test a few other hormonal markers in your blood and urine panel but otherwise it’s safe to say you have PCOS”

5. There will be people will treat your illness as trivial, not real, a product of unclean living, a product of hysteria and/or all in your head. Even loved ones. Even doctors Even yourself, at times.

6. Hopelessness and discouragement are almost literally parts of this illness, so treat them as you would any other symptom. I say almost literally because mood swings and a higher probability of depression come with the turf. Also, the uphill battle you’re facing from medical professionals (see Item 4) and even your loved ones just piles onto all this. Overall, this hormonal disorder just wears you down. Self care becomes even more important than ever before, as does finding a community of other women dealing with this.

7. Don't get sucked into terf shit while trying to reclaim your femininity. This isn’t really about the disorder itself, I just really wanted to sound off on this right quick (keep in mind I’m a cis woman saying this, I’m not as informed about trans issues as a trans person, but I’m trying to be a good neighbor here. Please do your own research and please understand that hitting up your nearest trans person doesn’t count as research. Google is free and there are literally so many academic and anecdotal resources).

My POV on this is as a cisgender black woman with this disorder. I’ve had my femininity questioned, mocked, and outright denied (misogynoir at its finest) since I was a child. I’ve seen people both overtly and subtly project their weird ideas about gender onto me. And yet I know I don’t go through even a TENTH of the bullshit and violence that trans women of color do. My pain may be legitimate, but it does not give me or anyone with any integrity a free pass to turn the trans community into one big punching bag for my own frustrations.

There’s nothing terfs love more than preying on vulnerable women that they feel they can recruit. Learn to spot the dogwhistles and reject the sales pitch. They’ll try to court you and make you feel so understood and welcome. Don’t fall for it. I don’t care if J.K. Rowling herself becomes your best buddy. Don’t go there.

#pcos #menorrhagia #misogynoir #transmisogyny #transmisogynoir #hyperpigmentation

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deliriumsetin · 4 years

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So here’s the thing...

I’m really freaking hard to scare. Unlike my cat that just booked it into another room when our UPS guy dropped a package off at the door. Perfect timing, Percy. Perfect timing...

Anyways! I have NOT had a good scare in probably two decades. No matter what fiction I pick up that promises to chill and thrill me, neither happens.

Now keep this in mind.

As of right now I am launching a business and yes, this will tie into the weird opener. Be patient, please.

I am launching Vox et Liber, a publishing house for ALL kinds of stories and ALL kinds of voices. I started working on this in November 2019, what do you mean that was only 8 months ago?! I originally thought the publishing house up after learning a bunch of facts about the publishing world over the summer.

VeL publishing will be a new kind of publishing and I can say that with 100% confidence because I am building this beast from the ground up, with the help of @hazandlouwho, my fiance, and a few other amazing people!

Because this business is getting started independently, which means no investors, we are working with a VERY small amount of cash reserved for start up. Initially all works will be published digitally. We do plan on launching a Kickstarter in September/October to get enough funds to keep this going and to do it right which means getting stories published physically and sold to both indie bookstores and Barnes and Noble. Please be on the look out for that.

If any awesome people want to donate to help us not break my own personal bank, which will be easy to do since Covid-19 forced me to quit my job working with the public because I’m high risk and unemployment has kept me in limbo for going on 3 weeks, you can tip us on Ko-Fi by clicking here. ALL donations and funds raised go towards launching VeL and all projects under the VeL umbrella.

Bringing it around to the scares. VeL is launching our first project and we need all you awesome writers’ help. As of today we are opening submissions for our first ever anthology, Graveyard Visits. It’s horror with the theme of marginalized voices written as Own Voice fiction. Meaning stories written by marginalized groups with their marginalized groups as main characters.

Submissions are going to be open from July 1st until August 12th 11:59pm EST. Stories are expected to be between 2.5k-5k words in length. We will be paying $.02 per word as well as giving you a digital copy of the anthology. Submission Guidelines can be found here.

Now the whole me being hard to scare; I want to be scared. Submit your best, your scariest, and most bone-chilling stories.

Also, not so subtly gonna add a nudge to @thebibliosphere because I feel like she might have something up her sleeve. If not for this anthology then definitely our erotica one that will be announced later this summer.

We also have a podcast series in the works but I will do another post on that once I or my awesome soon to be brother in law (that’s STILL weird) have a moment to do up some graphics.

Click below for my rant on why traditional publishing right now is a soul sucking leech on EVERYONE.

On average with hardcover books an author is lucky to make $1.50 off each one sold and that’s only AFTER they sell enough to cover their advance. I also found out the average advance is like 3k per book. Some (not including the wicked big names who get a shit ton more) can get as high as 5k but others can get as low as a 1k. An author is lucky to see that twice a year (selling 2 books) because they have to spend time MARKETING book 1 instead of writing book 2.

Keep in mind fiction hardcovers are generally sold between 19.99 (usually YA) or 29.99 (usually adult). Wicked big difference, huh? I get there’s a lot that goes into making a book, trust me I do but the split between should leave the authors getting around $4 per copy instead of less than $2. That $2.50 is just extra that the publishing house takes because it can.

Then there are the mass paperbacks which an author gets paid 50 damn cents per copy. Yes, those books retail for anywhere between 7.99 and 14.99 per book and sell way faster than hardcovers. Take it from an ex-bookseller.

Most books take on average 500 to 1,000 hours of work put into them before they even get handed off to the publisher for the FIRST time. At minimum that author sees an hourly return wage of $6 which is BELOW the United fucking States shit-tastic minimum peasant wage. We devalue the arts so fucking much- arg! But that can be a separate rant for another day.

Then after doing more research I realized just how off balanced the publishing world STILL is in the year of hell 2020. Don’t believe me click the link. Sarah Park Dahlen did a great article with a great graphic on it.

As of 2015, yes I’m paraphrasing to continue to rant, children’s books had ALMOST more books about anthropomorphic cars, household items, and animals than there were books about Black kids, Asian Pacific kids, Latinx kids, or Native American/First Nation kids combined. Talking teakettles and their kindred got a whopping 12.5% while if you add up all the groups above you get 14.2%. None on there own beat out the freaking Easter Bunny! Of course books about White kids are the highest at 73.3%. Yes, this was as of 2015 but as an avid reader who reads middle-grade and up books for fun I can tell you nothing much has changed. Books about black kids maybe SLIGHTLY higher since the BLM movement (fuck yes progress!!) but I’d be heartstoppingly shocked if they beat out talking fucking trucks.

And that’s just race. From what I gathered with all the publishing houses less than 100 books with LGBTQIAP+ main characters are published each year. Wtf? And among that as of 2015 55% percent are about cisgendered males and 31% are cisgendered females. (Thank you @malindalo, you are awesome and I’ve enjoyed meeting you at the Boston Teen Author festival the last few years.) So, just focusing on those 2 first letters, huh? I want to read a story about a kickass transwoman that has to deal with transitioning WHILE demons have torn their way out of hell. That would be badass! Holy shit, someone trans write that!

Same goes for people that live with disabilities whether they are physical or mental, including mental illness and neurodivergents like myself. If you haven’t figured out by this rant just how ADHD I am than you might need an ADHD in your life. My brain works differently and I would have killed growing up to read about characters that have to deal with what I deal with. We have Percy Jackson now and his all ‘verse but it’s not enough and it wasn’t published until I was on my way to college.

All that aside we now have all the bs coming out about what’s been going on in traditional publishing. About all the dickweeds that have been using their power and pull to sexually harass new authors, most often the new authors are young women. I unfollowed people and canceled a pre-order because fuck that shit! Also, I don’t give a fuck how big a name someone is if the hate they spew makes all their trans fans collectively feel like shit for not believing the simple fact that transwomen are women then they deserve to get dropped like the bag of shit they are. TERFs can fuck right off.

All the publishing bs has made me more determined to get VeL off the ground because no, no, no. We’ll have none of that. All the listed above reasons can go play in traffic. We will be paying our authors better and taking care of them from day 1. We will be making sure our catalog is so damn diverse that you’d have to be looking at the wrong website to not find a story that you can’t see yourself in and lastly, if we hear of any of our authors pulling a Myke Cole or a Sam Sykes than they are dropped. It is in the best interests of our authors futures that they aren’t shitbags. /end rant

If y’all have any questions about anything of this, I think my dms are open or if I’m wrong just tag me. My days lately have been chained to my shit dell computer with one or both cats pinning me to the couch. I finish this up as Percy settles in on my legs. Also, thunderstorm is starting up and both are sleeping through it? If only I could be so lucky when the fiance and I have kids...

#publishing #anthology #writing #writing challenge #writers unite #supernatural #horror #writblr

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weaselbeaselpants · 5 years

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Hazbin Hotel Review part 2: Mistakes were made please don’t kill me

This pilot is polarizing at the moment. In between the two sides of the anti-fanbase (ppl crying “if you like HH you’re homophobic”, or the BWW with it’s cringey politics), you have lots of fans who are falling over themselves about how good this is. If you love Hazbin unconditionally that’s fine, but here’s the thing:

I like it too.

I’m the kind of person who’s naturally critical, pokes harmless fun at what I like, and is always rewriting and reimagining things within the fandoms I like. I want to be a ‘Hazbin’ fan but I don’t know if I’m allowed to since the fanbase can be so staunchly overprotective and Viv herself has said she doesn’t like criticism, no matter how valid or done in good faith.

Tbh, that’s why the drama revolving around @frootrollup1 upsets me: the fandom is fine with lumping all criticism or redesign stuff in the realm of ignorant hate, when redesign, rewrites, revamps and other fan dribble are kind of a labor of love onto itself in other fandoms. Guess that’s a talk for later though.

With all this in mind, let me go over my thoughts:

There’s no PROPER establishment of Hell as a place, setting, world, or proper establishment of the characters.

The armor-piercing question Hazbin needs to be asked is this:

“is this a generic version of Hell we should all be familiar with and need no introduction to, OR is this a unique take that requires it’s own rules?”

^ It feels like the latter but we don’t get a good rundown of said rules. Besides that, characters are one note and serve either no purpose or become flies on the wall to other characters’ purpose.

Things were said and places were shown but we honestly don’t get a good idea of Hell by the end of the pilot. It’s a ritzy(?) place where souls of the damned literally become demons and then get purged. I THINK. I THINK, that’s what the writer’s were going for here. TBH, it feels like they’re skipping ahead and thinking of the show as a finished, fully realized product with developed characters and plots already, and not an introduction to a series/standalone piece.

If I didn’t have some inkling or the lore prior to watching it, I wouldn’t have known that the demons sans-Charlie were once human. Angel says in passing in the car that he’s already dead, but really references to the fact that they were once human are rare.

Now I’m a simple woman - I ain’t picky with mah demonology - But, call me crazy, when I think Hell I don’t think of the people who end up there turning into demons, I think of people going there to be tortured. That’s the hell I’m used to seeing and is prevelant in like every religion that has a hell. Taking a spin on that and making demons the souls of sinners trapped in hell? A-okay, but I NEED MORE. Instead of talking in a car or spending time on this lolsofuny demon turf war, we really needed more time given to the fact that Vaggie, Angel, and others were once human. No, I don’t want a full flashback, but it would give us a better grasp of the mechanics of sin in this world if these two characters told a little bit more themselves than just having some lines offhandedly explaining how everything works.

EX- How to do revamp of a familiar setting right while still leaving certain details vague? One Word: Hadestown.

Hadestown doesn’t need to give you all the details of it’s setting cause that’s not the point. You don’t need to know if the workers of Hadestown are literally dead, metaphorically dead, or both or where other gods live. Those aren’t the things we need to know for the musical to progress. What we need to know is Hades’ underworld is a mining colony of doom, that Hades buys peoples souls so the workers can never leave, that Persephone and Hades are on the rocks which is messing up the seasons, and that oop! Eurydice had to go back. Between the commonplace to complex knowledge westerners have of Greek mythology and the revamped Prohibition-era setting, all is explained that we the audience need explained.

I have the feeling Hazbin Hotel wanted the same thing: explain what needs to be explained for the currant plot and leave bits and pieces in the dark. It just didn’t really work.

The flow of the narrative was bad.

So apparently on the PizzaPartyPodcast Vivziepop admitted there were things that were moved around or turned out rushed.

Fair enough but even with that excuse can someone please tell me why they thought it was a good idea to start the story after Angel has already been made a patron of the hotel?

Getting to know not only how the world works first and foremost, but who our main character (Charlie) is and what she is doing (the hotel), would be the easiest way to drop us into the action of the story and get the ball rolling. But instead we start off with an intro song that sort of shows us what this world is like but doesn’t explain anything about who or what we’re seeing until the newscasters come in. Angel’s introduced in this time and the build up and execution of this character is poor, rushed, and feels more like writers fudging around with a character they like than giving us, the audience, a proper introduction*.

After that, I’m sorry to say the spots where the story picks up, drifts off, lulls about, or comes around all kind of melt into this big slurry the characters are drowning in, without any real care for telling a story. BUT THIS IS A STORY!!!

This is not a little menagerie of random characters ala the Pastoral Symphony from Fantasia. This is not a collection of little things just for the fun of it to get to to know these people (it does a bad job at getting you to know these guys). This is a three act structure. I can tell where the intro, rising action, climax, and falling action are SUPPOSED to be, but they don’t stand out, don’t do their job, and melt into the fluff in a way that makes the emotional impact we’re supposed to feel null somehow...

The pacing was bad.

While some scenes go by far too quickly others go on for faaaaaaar too long. These are the bits that don’t surprise me when I hear this pilot was changed around, cut down, or fudged with a bit.

Scenes like this include Charlie’s back and forth with Katie Killjoy before and after her song, Charlie and Vaggie’s fight in the car, Alastor explaining himself to Charlie and Vaggie trying to talk him out of it, ALL of the Ser Pentious/Cherry Bomb terf fight bits.

Oddly, it feels like these parts are trying REALLY hard to get a point across but they end up being more of a hindrance to this otherwise snappy dialogue and supposedly simple set up. This pilot is 20+ minutes, but the bits we need to endear ourselves to our main cast are squandered on what the writers thought was “fun to write” at the time.

Too many characters, even in a 20 minute pilot.

Instead of getting a good idea of our leads, everyone is treated with the same level of importance or interest in a world that hasn’t even been fully introduced yet.

The truly important supporting characters to Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, and Alastor are Husk, Katie, and Nifty. Katie provides conflict to the first half of Charlie’s story, while Husk and Nifty are hires by Alastor for the hotel; they establish his power over other demons and his influence on the hotel and it’s success. Sir Pentious and Cherry Bomb needed to be cameos. Their characters should be glorified plot contrivances/resolutions, No More. I ain’t gonna care about a cast of billions from the start. We gotta start small first. Not only do we have four mains, we also have a bunch of little guys who need to eat up screen time...except they absolutely don’t need to and should be simple background cameos for now.

Sir Pentious and Cherry Bomb get as much character time as the four mains even though Angel is underdeveloped and Alastor is overdeveloped. When it comes to storytelling - unconventional or otherwise - priorities, is what this pilot needs.

Angel basically does nothing after Alastor is introduced.

Of all the characters in Hazbin to get left in the dust (lol) and be underdeveloped, Angel Dust would be my last guess. He’s popular with his creator and with the fandom but because of how the pilot is set up, his character falls to the back-burners and is kind of unnecessary: (Charlie uses him as an experiment to see if she can reform a sinner but he doesn’t hold up, so when Alastor comes into play the focus of Charlie’s plan switches almost entirely to Alastor and Angel is unneeded). If this were two episodes of a series; one about Charlie getting to know and trying to “fix” Angel, and another about Alastor coming in and taking over, that’d be fine. But this is a pilot so the plot and character development is kinda crushed in and neither Angel nor his existence amounts to much of anything.

I honestly forgot Angel was even in the latter half of the pilot. The poor demon-spider whore dies on the way to his home planet.

Not to fan-blurb here but I think it’d be more interesting if the conflict in the latter half wasn’t Vaggie trying to warn Charlie away from Alastor but Angel feeling shown up by Alastor and him being the one protesting to Alastor’s take-over of the hotel. It would have given Angel more to do and would cement him as one of our four leads.

Alastor gets a backstory because he is A) not the character I thought they were going for, or B), they’re jumping the gun on him. Alastor is a maddening character in my book because if he’s the character I thought he was supposed to be - our main villain - then they royally messed up a good villain by explaining his story. If he ISN’T the main villain, than color me confused on what he’s supposed to be.

It goes without saying that a good villain should remain somewhat mysterious throughout the rising action, which is what the pilot is building up to (I think?). Alastor’s personality makes him an absolutely wonderful villain and probably the most outwardly “demon”-like of anyone in Hell. Him being a rogue demon that scares the inhabitants of Hell should be alluded to, not stated.

Vaggie and Angel get passing “we dead” bg but our villain gets a backstory dumped on him? For the standalone pilot this episode is, his backstory doesn’t do anything for the plot. For the rest of the series, this feels like a big waste to reveal this guy’s history over anyone else. The rest of the HH cast are sorta small stereotypes and cliches that the writers want to endear to us because of what they do and what they go through, though since there’s too many of them they end up just being there. Alastor, on the other hand, is where they hit gold and really have a character who oozes personality and the feel of their show...but they kind of taint him by giving him an unneeded (at this point) history.

Big problem with him not only being explained but him outright stating his intentions with the hotel.

Maybe I’m wrong and Alastor is not the bigbadvillain in a cast of villains...in which case I don’t know what the pilot wants us to think of him or where the show’s going with him. Is he a demonic version of Harold Hill who learns to care about ppl and gets redeemed? Maybe that will change with future episodes....

Hazbin is confusing as a person not privy to the franchise/development prior ,and feels disappointing from the pov of someone getting hyped for these characters. As a follower of the project it feels like a let down to the respective characters and plots we’ve been anticipating. While, as newcomer, it’s hard to care about anyone. My sister, who had far less info on the pilot than me, was watching it the whole time going “who are you?” and by the end said “why should I care?” Really good summary from this IMDB review here:

Little harsh but my thoughts exactly.

TL;DR: The writers need to really rethink how to introduce their world to newcomers AND fans alike. -

There’s so much passion in Hazbin Hotel but I feel it’s misaimed and a prime example of why “write/draw what you like and what sounds ‘fun’!!!!” isn’t a good idea for storytelling.

There’s technically a story in Hazbin Hotel, but because of the bad pacing and lackluster approach to world and character development, for the kind of project that it is, it’s not very good.

Again, for the people in the back: if you think I’m a bully because I happen to be harsh with my criticism, sorry but harsh critique isn’t the same thing as bad faith criticism (CinemaSins, NC, Bad Webcomics Wiki) and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lump me in with those turds because I don’t love every second of this. I may not be the best writer, but storytelling is my passion and I think this dropped the ball. IT DOESN’T MEAN I HATE IT. - Alternatively, if you love Hazbin unconditionally or disagree with me on these things: great! Like what you like as long as everything’s safe, which it is. Stuff is problematic but hey so is everything look at the stuff I like. Also, if you’re one of those people who unironically says “if you like HH than I’m blocking you teehee unfollow me”, you fittingly have a very special seat in hell set up for you. Don’t threaten my friends cause you don’t like something they like. =)

#hazbin hotel critique #vivziepop #hazbin hotel

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toaarcan · 5 years

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Sonic X, Sonic Heroes, and IDW, or: How a bad anime from 2004 spoiled a comic from 2019.

Now, I haven’t been following IDW Sonic all that closely. I get regular updates from Nemesis via Discord, and additional info from some of the Tumblrs I follow that are invested in it, but I don’t really have a desire to touch it myself. Here’s why.

There’s a multitude of reasons for this. Starting with the background of Sonic Forces wasn’t really a good place to begin from, and being based on present-day game lore in general was always going to hurt it, mainly because SEGASonic canon is currently a confusing mess of retcons brought on by Iizuka taking the J.K. Rowling approach.

Wait, no, he’s just saying stupid shit that contradicts previous canon, not trying to score woke points and hoping nobody notices the frankly terrible stereotypes and TERF tweets. Iizuka is taking the Greg Farshtey approach.

Added, as anyone that’s had experience with my opinions will tell you, I started falling out of love with Ian Flynn’s writing somewhere around Issue 200, and moved to outright dislike during Mecha Sally, and to make matters worse I started noticing that some of the flaws in the 200-247 era were also present in the 160-199 era, retroactively making those harder to go back to.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I kept up with Archie for the SatAM cast. SatAM reruns back in 2004 were my Sonic, moreso than anything else, and even now I still have way more attachment to those two seasons of animation than I do to most other aspects of the franchise, warts and all. So Archie providing me with additional content for said characters was a major draw for me. I’d generally put up with a lot just to get myself more SatAM content.

That in itself is a large part of why I fell off the Archie train during Mecha Sally. The entirety of the SatAM cast were removed from the regular lineup, just leaving three SEGA characters with their personalities stunted, even if that didn’t make sense in-universe. But that’s a discussion for another day.

So being written by someone whom I no longer enjoyed the writing of, set in a mess of a canon with a thoroughly shite game as the main basis, without the cast I read the previous comics for gave me little reason to invest in IDW Sonic. It wasn’t for me, I’d just keep reading Transformers and move on.

Then MTMTE/LL ended with a heart-twister and Ex-RID ended with a giant Unicron-shaped fart, and the new comic is dull as fucking dishwater and started by killing off one of my favourites, who was also one of the franchise’s confirmed LGBT characters. So now IDW is getting none of my money. Which is good because I’m broke.

Tangents aside, my lack of interest wasn’t something set in stone. If it turned out that the comic was actually really good, then sure, I’d try it. I was up for being proven wrong. But so far, I haven’t felt compelled by the responses from the internet. If anything I’ve been more turned off.

I could talk about how zombies are really fucking boring. I could talk about how SEGA’s recent confusion over what to do with Amy has combined with Ian’s need to include a Sally-esque character to make IDW Amy into Sally Lite. I could talk about how Ian seemingly fundamentally misunderstood everything that was cool about Neo Metal Sonic and somehow managed to reduce him to a boring Eggman minion in an arc where Eggman was out of action due to amnesia… But I won’t.

Instead I’m going to talk about how the comic has done something that would legitimately make me think twice about picking it up even if the FF were to debut tomorrow.

Yeah, I would pass up a SatAM fix because of this, that’s how much this ticks me off.

Now, I presume that if you’re reading this, you have a favourite Sonic character. And you probably feel pretty strongly about how your favourite character is portrayed. If they get a bad run in a game or two then you probably get a little salty about that. Tails and Knuckles fans in particular, as of late, seem to be the ones getting the short end.

Well, my favourite character in the entire franchise is Emerl the Gizoid. I will take Gemerl as a worthy substitute, they’re basically the same character. And the comics have been doing them dirty since the Archie reboot.

(Sidenote: I will be referring to Emerl with male pronouns from this point on. The Maria-soul thing isn’t as widely known as I’d like it to be, so I’m going to compromise for the sake of keeping the focus on the actual point)

However, not everything about this can be laid at the feet of Ian Flynn. Arguably his portrayal of said character is merely a symptom of a long-running issue that has plagued Sonic storytelling for roughly 15-16 years now.

But before we get into that, let’s get into something important: Why Emerl is my favourite Sonic character.

Part 1: Emerl in Sonic Battle, or “How I learned to stop worrying and love the Gizoid”.

This game doesn’t get enough love.

Now, I totally understand why it doesn’t get enough love. There are game design choices, like the grinding and the repetitiveness of the story mode that really drag it down, and because of that, Battle can become a slow-going and tedious experience, and that’s a real shame, because the story that’s hidden in this game is a thing of beauty.

Like most Sonic games from the 2000s, this game introduces a new character to join Sonic’s list of friends. Unlike the games that aren’t SA2 and Sonic Rush, this new character is actually good (This is hyperbole, Omega, Silver, and Shade were fine too).

Emerl enters the story as a mute, barely-functional robot that doesn’t do much of anything for a while, and only seems to come to life when Sonic locates it and attacks it. However, as the robot absorbs more Chaos Emeralds, slowly a personality starts to form, largely pieced together from other characters’ traits.

Emerl, as he is dubbed, is initially childlike and naive, but as he grows he develops a sassy streak, and his speech becomes a lot more developed. Maturity sets in, as Emerl grapples with his own nature, particularly the legacy he carries from the ARK, and Shadow’s ongoing turmoil with regards to the whole “Living Weapon” deal. Ultimately he becomes a hero, following in the footsteps of his mentor, parental figure, and closest friend, Sonic.

That’s right, Sonic, not Cream, is Emerl’s closest friend. We’ll get to that.

But this heart-warming story of Sonic becoming a dad for a robot doesn’t have a happy ending. Despite Shadow and Rouge finding a way to neutralise Emerl’s destructive Gizoid programming, Eggman has a way to reactivate it anyway, driving Emerl into a berserk rampage. This is kind of the one sticking point I have with the game’s plot, Eggman shouldn’t have been able to do this after Shadow and Rouge neutralised Emerl.

Additionally, while Emerl was on the ARK getting Maria’s soul crammed into him, Gerald also added a self-destruct mechanism that would trigger if he ever went Ultimate again.

So with Emerl quite literally exploding with all the power of the Chaos Emeralds, but his destructive programming forcing him to turn Eggman’s latest Death Star knockoff on Mobius/Earth/Sonic’s World, Sonic races up to confront his mecha-child, and things take a turn for the Old Robot Yeller.

In a moment that really deserves more attention, Sonic confronts his own child on the bridge of a space station, while Emerl is running on the power of the Chaos Emeralds and outputting more energy than he can physically take, and they fight. In the space of thirty seconds, they have a ten-round knock-down, drag-out brawl, and at the end, Sonic stands triumphant. Without using a single transformation. Yeah, that’s how powerful this guy is, that’s not travel speed, that’s combat speed. Looking at you, Death Battle.

It’s not really clear whether Sonic outright defeats Ultimate Emerl, or just survives long enough for his opponent to reach his limit and self-destruct, but the end result is the same. Sonic cradles a robot that became his own child over the course of the past few weeks, someone he raised from a baby-like state into a mature and heroic individual, and Emerl looks up at him and asks “Sonic… am I going to die?” And despite Sonic desperately trying to get him to keep it together, Not only does Emerl die, but he’s aware that the end is coming, and bids farewell to all of his friends as Sonic pleads with him to hold on. Shadow is equally distraught, his only friend with a connection to the ARK, someone he can call a brother, someone who carries the soul of his deceased sister within him, is dead.

Emerl: “Sonic I don’t feel so good.”

Like it’s canon that Eggman basically murdered Sonic’s kid.

And goddamnit this ending hits me hard. It frustrates me that Eggman was able to pull a means to drive Emerl into his Ultimate freakout mode out of his arse, but other than that, it’s so gutwrenching, I love it.

Gamma’s story from SA1 gets a lot of praise on the Internet, but for me, this is even better. It’s like Gamma’s story, but if Gamma was actually central to the plot of the game and the characters other than Amy gave a shit about him, and gave a shit about him for longer than a single cutscene, after which they are never mentioned again. Hell, due to Chaos Gamma being a thing, Gamma gets more love from the other characters in Battle than he does in SA1.

But, unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.

Part 2: (Sonic) Anime was a Mistake, or: “Sonic X ruins everything.”

I’ve made my dislike of this anime quite clear in the past. The characters are flanderized, Sonic is a B-lister in his own damn show, the villains are weaksauce or boring or both, the plot is only remotely close to good when its cribbing from two videogames which told the stories in question better, and for the first two seasons the entire show actually revolves around not Sonic, but the least relatable audience surrogate ever made. The third season would continue to include him, but shove him (And everyone else) to the side in favour of a Pokemon whose only move was “Flashback”, making audiences the world over question why he was even there in the first place.

Oh, and it also near-singlehandedly destroyed the thin shreds of character development that Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Eggman had received in Sonic Adventure 2.

All four of these characters had been significantly enriched by the then most recent console game. Eggman had been revealed to be motivated by an admiration for his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, but in the same game learned that Gerald had lost his marbles and programmed the ARK to smash into the planet and kill everyone on it, probably including his surviving family, i.e. little baby Ivo Robotnik. Gerald betrayed Eggman posthumously, and it’s clear from Eggman’s interactions with Tails during the credits of the game that this is giving him a lot to think about.

Knuckles is a weird case because most of his characterisation in SA2 is conveyed via… the lyrics to his rap music. Yes, really. He gets minor growth through the cutscenes, most notably in his decision to shatter the Master Emerald early on. Having already reassembled it once after it was broken in SA1, he’s now confident that he can do it again, so is willing to break it to prevent Eggman or Rouge stealing it. Via the rap lyrics, however (Yes I just wrote that), we also learn that Knuckles is slowly warming up to Sonic, gaining a greater respect for him, that he is more in-touch with his history and ancestors after SA1 (Though fortunately not in a Ken Penders way), and that he’s also struggling with feelings for Rouge, a plot element that went completely out of the window after this game.

Tails and Amy, however, get it the worst, as both went through arcs in SA1 that are followed up on and expanded in SA2. Amy had come to the conclusion that she didn’t need to rely on Sonic for everything, and that she would make him respect her as a hero in her own right. And while Amy is clearly in way over her head throughout the events of SA2, she still makes a significant difference, not only freeing Sonic from his cell on Prison Island, allowing Tails’ invasion to be a distraction and stealing a keycard to facilitate it, but of course, she later saves the world by motivating Shadow to join the fight to stop the ARK drop.

Tails had a similar plot, about learning to believe in himself as a hero, without having to rely on Sonic, and in SA2 he gets to prove it, not only partaking in the same rescue operation as Amy and fighting Eggman on even footing, but effectively taking command of the heroes and becoming their new leader, and for the first time, Sonic defers to him.

And then Sonic X came along and fucked it all up.

Eggman became a clownish antagonist with no semblance of nuance, and he actually got off the easiest.

Knuckles became a loud, dimwitted loner who got tricked by Eggman constantly, which would go on to be his personality for the rest of the franchise, ultimately culminating in the travesty against all sense that was Boom Knuckles.

Tails was reduced to a wimpy taxi driver, incapable of doing anything without his giant mecha plane to sit in. This was largely exacerbated by the presence of Donut Steele, who usurped his role as Sonic’s best friend and sidekick for two seasons, a problem which only got worse in the third season when Donut Steele suddenly became a genius inventor too, encroaching even more into Tails’ territory. Tails did get himself some more focus in S3, but only to make googly eyes at the Pokemon, a role which frankly could’ve gone to literally anyone else and would have made no difference on the plot. I would say that Tails being involved in a romance story at all is weird, but given the comics and Boom the weirdest thing about this latest tragic love story for the kid is that the Pokemon was actually close to his own age, because outside of this it really does seem like Tails goes for older ladies. Though she did turn into an adult at the end so I guess that counts?

But Amy arguably got the worst of it. Not only was her crowning moment in SA2 taken away from her and given to Donut Steele, but the poor girl had her promising character arc cut short and replaced with an obsessive, unhealthy fixation on Sonic, combined with a violent temper and an eagerness to smash anything that displeased her, Sonic included, with a giant hammer. Her admiration and crush on Sonic were warped into her being a possessive, mean-spirited stalker, whom only got away with it because she was an anime girl and therefore it was cute rather than creepy.

I want to take the time at this point to stress that stalking is not okay, under any circumstances. A girl obsessively following an older guy and threatening him and everyone around him with violent assault if they ever so much as imply that he isn’t interested in her is not cute, it means it’s time for a restraining order. Sonamy is not cute.

Now that I’ve swatted that particular hornet’s nest with a cricket bat, let’s move on!

I’ve always found it ironic that, despite being the adaptation with the most oversight from SEGA and Sonic Team, and the most endorsement from them too, Sonic X had easily the worst characterisation of any of the shows at the time. But, for all its faults, I can’t blame everything that went down in the aftermath on it. It had a comrade-in-arms. Mediocrely-written arms.

Part 3: Partner in Crime, or “Sonic Heroes also ruins everything.”

Sonic Heroes has a lot to answer for. And I mean a lot. It was the beginning of the franchise’s obsession with references to the classic games, it codified the really awkward ages for certain characters, and it seemed to be dedicated to completely unpicking everything established in the Adventure duology.

Shadow’s sudden resurrection is one thing, at least they had the graces to include a means to preserve his sacrifice via having him be an android, the blame for that not taking should be laid at the feet of his own game.

But the rest of the cast? Ohhh boy. Sonic’s still fine, he didn’t change much in the Adventure games, but then there’s Tails. Despite all the development he went through in SA1, in this game he needs to turn to Sonic when Eggman returns, and honestly this whole setup could’ve been fixed if Tails sought Sonic out not for the sake of having him lead the charge, but rather simply to recruit him into the counterattack he was already planning. Nevertheless, throughout the rest of the game Tails is almost as wimpy as his X counterpart, not helped by the voicework he’s given. No offense to William Corkery, who was probably like six when he recorded his lines, but this what you get when you choose actors via nepotism, rather than talent. But at least he does something.

How about Knuckles? As the other side of his derailment, Knuckles just turns up in this game, buddy-buddy with the characters he was only just starting to warm up to before, and blatantly not caring about the Master Emerald until Rouge mentions she’s going to steal it at the end. This will combine with his becoming a dumbass in Sonic X and become basically his entire character for… ever. Even in Forces, where he’s supposed to be doing slightly better as the leader of the resistance… but he’s a dumbass, and even Ian Flynn, who kept Knuckles as competent and intelligent in the Archie comics (Making the best version of Knuckles we’ve had in forever), kept this ongoing in the IDW comic. The Forces prequel portrays him as deciding to become leader of the Resistance (To an empire that hasn’t actually formed yet) purely to be a glory hound, and then goes on to establish that he was basically a figurehead while the real work was done by Amy, of all people.

And speaking of Amy…

Yeah, poor Amy is basically her Sonic X counterpart. But worse. I didn’t think that was possible, but at least X’s Amy seems to care about her friends. In Heroes, we’re treated to an equally violent and stalkerish Amy, who ostensibly starts searching out Sonic because he’s implicated in the abduction of Cream and Big’s pets, but when they actually catch up to him, Amy clean forgets why she is looking for him in the first place and tries to force him to marry her. Despite being twelve.

Y’know when Amy said she wanted to marry Sonic in SA2, she was joking, right?

This is why I find the idea of Amy being the real leader of the Resistance frankly absurd: Because the only time she led anything, it was a team that consisted of herself, a small child, and a man less intelligent and aware of reality than said small child, and she completely forgot their actual objective the moment she set her eyes on Sonic. Add in an unfortunate stint of very poor eyesight that got less and less understandable with every instance, and we got Amy’s rough personality for the next decade.

While Knuckles mostly stagnated at the same level of stupidity during that time, Tails got worse and worse, losing all of his badass traits with every game, a factor only increased by the “Sonic only” mentality costing him playable status, until he reached his nadir in Forces, cowering in terror from Chaos 0, and crying out to Sonic to save him, despite knowing full-well that Sonic was captured already. Amy, meanwhile, limped along at the same level until about 2014, where it seemed someone at SEGA finally realised that A) Having the only female character you regularly use be a pink-coloured gender-bent version of your male hero whose only function is lusting after said hero doesn’t and shouldn’t fly in this day and age, and B) violent stalkers aren’t cute, and dropped this trait. Unfortunately, this has been more of a lateral move than a fix, as, much like Antoine in the comics, they forgot to give her anything substantial or fitting after she lost her negative traits, leaving her a bland and dull character, and when you’ve had a character be consistent for ten years, even if they were consistently bad, then changing it without cause or warning is still going to be jarring and awkward.

Part 4: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right, or “Why the fuck did this happen?”

As I said in Part 2, Sonic X was made under heavy oversight from Sonic Team, and was heavily endorsed by them at the same time. There were promos for the show inserted into Sonic Adventure DX, a few episodes were released on GBA cartridges, and it received a long-running comic from Archie that ran alongside the main book, even after the show had ended. Additionally, characters that debuted in games from 2002-2004 were restricted from appearing in Archie’s main book for years afterwards (Which will become relevant later). The third season was commissioned solely off of the response to the first two, and primarily overseas response, hence why the original sub was never aired in Japan.

Sonic X was huge. And with that in mind, it’s plain to see that the portrayals of the characters in Sonic X were intended by SEGA. Yeah, all that horrible characterisation was intended as the vision for the franchise going forwards, and subsequent games were adjusted to match it.

And unfortunately, not only did this have a serious impact on the main cast of the games, but it had an even worse effect on Emerl.

Part 5: Emerl in Sonic X, or “Emerl vs. ‘Emel’”

Sonic X’s original mission statement was to adapt Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Battle. Why they skipped Sonic Heroes, despite Shadow being a major player in Battle’s story, I don’t know.

For whatever reason, the show took a full season to actually get to the first game adaptation, SA1, and instead spent the first 26 episodes on bland episodic “adventures”, in some kind of strange reverse-Isekai series. However, once it got there, the adaptation work was fairly faithful to the source material, which the exception of Donut Steele’s being crammed in to the plot. However, he mostly followed Big around, and since Big was the least involved in the game’s plot, he didn’t disrupt too much.

Sidenote, after 26 episodes of filler, the actual SA1 adaptation only lasted six episodes.

SA2 was likewise only six episodes, but with the exception of Amy’s big scene, it likewise wasn’t too bad. Tails suffered this time around too, which is somewhat surprising since he was mech-dependent in the anime anyway.

After some more filler, which introduced the Chaotix and then did nothing with them, Emerl finally made an appearance, albeit they got his name wrong.

‘Emel’ looks like Emerl, and somewhat works like Emerl, but might as well be completely different. ‘Emel’ stays completely mute for the entire time he’s around, never advancing much beyond Emerl’s initial silent, pre-first Emerald persona. He does get better at fighting, but he’s limited to only absorbing a single skill at once (Except for when he isn’t).

Dispensing with Battle’s interesting, rich, and heart-twisting plot, Sonic X instead has ‘Emel’ linger in ensemble for three episodes, before condensing the entire game’s premise into a two episodes of really bland tournament arc, where Sonic himself doesn’t actually fight and we get two rounds of Donut Steele being a dick to his friend and his father.

‘Emel’ wins the tournament, and is given a Chaos Emerald, and just when you think it might kickstart him becoming an actual character, instead it just drives him insane and he immediately becomes a pathetically weak version of Ultimate Emerl. After kicking the crap out of the entire cast, he is defeated by Cream and Cheese, because even though he can take on Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge at the same time and win, along with Tails, Amy, Donut Steele and everyone else, he… can’t handle two opponents at once.

This is stupid.

You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about Sonic’s relationship with ‘Emel’, and that’s because he doesn’t have one. The wonderfully-written parental bond that these two characters share in the games is completely excised, and instead the focus is put on Cream. Bare in mind, Cream is so inconsequential to the actual game that she doesn’t even get mentioned individually in Emerl’s dying speech like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow do. Instead she’s just grouped in with Amy.

This is also stupid.

And as a result of this, it means that what is arguable base form Sonic’s most impressive feat just doesn’t happen in the anime, instead Emerl dies because he is lightly kicked a bit by Cream. Yeah, unlike the Advance games, Sonic X’s Cream is not an unstoppable engine of destruction, she’s basically just a small child who can sometimes fly.

Instead of Emerl’s tragic speech and Sonic’s desperate attempts to keep his son alive, we get treated to a prolonged scene of Cream crying over the death of her “friend”, something that is probably meant to tug at heartstrings but doesn’t because Cream’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

And Shadow isn’t even there! He doesn’t come back until a third of the way through Season 3, and never meets ‘Emel.’

This is really stupid. And, for those keeping track, that means of Sonic X’s originally commissioned 52 episodes, and the full series run of 78 episodes, a stunning total of seventeen of them were actually adaptations of the games that the series was supposed to focus on, leaving us with 61 episodes of what might as well be filler.

And, unfortunately, that franchise-wide initiative had damning consequences for Emerl.

Part 6: Gemerl and Sonic Advance 3, or: “An incomplete resurrection.”

So, Gemerl. I know his name is apparently G-Merl now but fuck that I’m calling him Gemerl. If the comics can do it then so will I.

Gemerl is the worst thing Eggman has ever done to Sonic. Like, there is no contest. Some of his other schemes might be more destructive and generally evil, but in terms of personal pain inflicted, nothing has topped this.

Eggman salvaged Emerl’s corpse, and brought him back to life as a mindless murderbot under his control. So not only did he kill Sonic’s robo-son, but he also brought him back as a weapon.

Come the conclusion of the game, Gemerl predictably betrays Eggman, steals the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and goes on another rampage. I have… headcanons about this fight, but that’s something to worry about later. What’s important is that, once again, Sonic is victorious, and Gemerl’s defeated body plunges into the atmosphere.

Fortunately, Tails is able to bring Emerl back properly this time, presumably using the Chaos shard that was left over at the end of Battle’s finale. So, it’s all a happy ending, right? Sonic has his child back, Shadow has his connection to his history restored, and Emerl is alive and well, right?

Wrong.

See, the vile spectre of Sonic X rears its ugly head once more, and sabotages this conclusion. Gemerl doesn’t return to Sonic, in fact we never see him reunite with his father. Instead, Sonic X’s version has enough clout now to take precedence, so Gemerl is now Cream’s playmate.

Bear in mind that Emerl’s idea of a fun game is all-out combat against his friends, and Cream doesn’t like fighting (Even if she’s really good at it in Advance 2 and 3).

And then he never shows up again. Even when Cream is part of the game’s plot, like in Rush or Generations, he’s not there, and most egregiously, in Sonic Chronicles, where Cream is not only an active player in the plot, but so are Gizoids, the creators of said Gizoids are the main antagonists, and Emerl himself is mentioned… Gemerl is not there.

But he did make it into the comics, for better or worse. Mostly worse.

Part 7: Embargos, knock-offs, and misused tropes, or: “Ian Flynn dun goofed.”

For a long while, Emerl/Gemerl was barred from the Archie comics, due to the Sonic X embargo, and when it was lifted, he didn’t appear until the reboot. We did, however, get a suspiciously similar substitute in the form of Shard.

Shard was the original Metal Sonic, but when he was brought back and rebuilt for the Secret Freedom arc, he was given a colour scheme ostensibly derived from Metal Sonic 3.0, but one shared with Gemerl, and a personality that was a lot like a watered-down version of Emerl’s own.

On some level I can understand Ian’s decision to bring back Metal Sonic v2.5, rather than use the character that seems to have been an inspiration for this new incarnation in some way. He’d need a fully-formed Emerl, necessitating a skip over the whole story, since there wasn’t room for an adaptation during the Mecha Sally arc that the Secret Freedom story was framed within. Heck, for all we know, the similarities between them may simply be a pretty sizeable coincidence.

But then the reboot happened and Gemerl finally joined the comic cast. And to say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.

You’ll notice that I said “Gemerl” rather than “Emerl”, because his entire story was indeed skipped. The events of Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance 3 had both happened already. This wasn’t Ian’s decision, as far as we know, his intention was for the comic to start over from the beginning. However, due to the interference of Paul Kaminski, who wanted a softer reboot, Ian was forced to fill the characters’ active histories with a large chunk of the games’ stories. Battle and Advance 3 were among those that had already happened, so Emerl made cameos in both incarnations via flashback… which unfortunately led to a plot hole.

See, Advance 3 and Sonic Unleashed are rather difficult to keep in the same continuity, because both share a common plot element: The world breaking into seven pieces.

For a long while, it was generally assumed that the handheld games and console titles were only semi-canon to each other. This avoided the awkward question of “If the Gaias were already there, why didn’t they emerge when Eggman broke the planet in Advance 3?”

Ian shoved them blatantly into the same continuity, and gave no attempt to explain what was different about the Advance 3 world-break compared to the Gaia incident, which served as the backbone to the reboot’s three year long Shattered World Arc. Why didn't the Gaias wake up during Advance 3? Because that's now a question we have to ask of the comics' world.

When Gemerl finally showed up doing something other than yard work for Vanilla (Despite allegedly being Cream’s friend, Cream spends all her time with the rest of the cast, and Gemerl is basically Vanilla’s maid), it was to get effortlessly dispatched by a brainwashed Mega Man with a terrible name in the extremely lacklustre Worlds Unite event.

This one was more than a little bit of a slap in the face, considering that Emerl and Mega Man are very similar in concept- robots that can copy the abilities of other characters- but Emerl is demonstrably more powerful. Now, if Ian had established that Gemerl had been nerfed when he was rebuilt, either by Eggman or by Tails, that would be fine. But he didn’t. In fact, Gemerl is given the title bubble “Super Gizoid”, implying that he’s stronger than a regular Gizoid.

Worlds Unite is generally pretty bad for having its corrupted heroes easily curbstomp every other character around, to the point that the only thing that can stop them is each other, but in Gemerl’s case it really serves no purpose.

This is the only thing that he actually does in Worlds Unite. He shows up to get beaten up and make Mega Man look stronger. That’s it.

This is something that TV Tropes refers to as “The Worf Effect”, a trope wherein an established powerful character is defeated easily by a new character, in order to demonstrate the latter’s power. Now, there’s nothing wrong with using this trope, but please note that I said establishedpowerful character, which Gemerl wasn’t.

At the point that this comic released, Gemerl’s last appearance in any Sonic media was over ten years prior. None of the comic’s intended target audience would remember him, and they wouldn’t know why defeating him was impressive. And this was, in addition, a terrible way to introduce him to new fans. Though the worst part is easily that this was unnecessary. Mega Man had already defeated everyone else, and had established his power pretty well just on them, and he was about to get removed from play permanently in the next issue. There was really no reason to throw Gemerl under the bus for this.

He made one more appearance in the event, getting controlled by the Zeti along with every other robot, and after that he got bopped on the head and just flew away.

Later, he’d make another appearance in the Panic in the Sky arc, and while his portrayal was far from the worst thing about Panic in the Sky, it only adds to the issues caused by the previous showing.

Gemerl makes one appearance, and promptly gets pinned down by the Witchcarters and Team Hooligan. Bear in that one of those groups are the joke villains who nobody takes seriously, and the other are a gang that was defeated by Tails before he met Sonic.

Archie Gemerl was a character who only existed to lose to villains in a vain attempt to make them look better, and that’s legitimately all Ian ever did with him, which makes me wonder whether he disliked the character. And it didn’t even make the villains look good, when you think about it. For anybody that was actually the intended audience for this book, Gemerl had no significance. He was just a robot that got beat up all the time. But for anyone like me, who does remember the games he appeared in, it stands out, not as good writing, but as a blatant narrative device and misused trope.

In this situation, I would simply rather Gemerl never appeared in Archie. At all. If Ian wasn’t going to give him time to shine, or at the very least be an adequate member of the supporting cast, he shouldn’t have used him at all.

Part 8: A Fresh False Start, or: “Wait, how did this get worse?!”

And now we arrive at IDW.

The one nice thing I can say about Archie Gemerl is that at least his personality was mostly on point. He read like a generally accurate take on the character that Emerl was at the end of Battle, which is what he’s supposed to be.

The same cannot be said for IDW.

In the pages of IDW, Gemerl acts like the most generic robot. He speaks in emotionless, stilted sentences with little in the way of actual grammar, leaving him to read like a poor man’s Soundwave, or Soundwave in one of those comics where the writer can’t decide whether they want him to speak normally or adopt his speech pattern from the G1 cartoon, so they just sort of do both.

Emerl pretty much never talked like this, as far as I can recall. His speech development is much more reminiscent of a child learning words, and the only time when he did adopt a more robotic speech pattern, it was a clue that he was slipping back into his destructive programming. He only spoke like a generic robot when he was in mindless destroyer mode.

He gets thrown for a loop by a simple logic flaw, unable to reconcile “Protect Cream and Vanilla” with “Don’t kill the zombots”, and has to be talked out of killing everything around him, when the entire point of Gerald’s modifications to the Gizoid was to make him a bringer of hope rather than destruction, and give him a compassionate heart.

The part of Battle’s story where Cream imparts a pacifistic mindset doesn’t frame her as being right. In that part of the game, they are cornered and under attack by hostile but ultimately mindless drones, and when she convinces Emerl to stop fighting, he almost dies. It’s Cream that learns the lesson there, that sometimes fighting is okay.

This character is already compassionate, he shouldn’t need to be talked into not killing the zombots by a small child, nor should he need her to point out that they’re innocent people who have been made this way by Eggman, because he was made into a killing machine by Eggman twice, and the first time he did die because of it. The character that lay dying in Sonic’s arms, scared and bidding his last goodbyes to his loved ones shouldn’t be the one experiencing this struggle when Omega is also in this arc.

That’s it, really. He’s not Gemerl. He’s a second, less goofy Omega. And it boggles my mind that, despite getting Gemerl’s character, if not his combat abilities, down almost perfectly in Archie, Ian is now subjecting us to this travesty.

Like with the Archie example above, therein lies the crux of why the steady decline of Emerl/Gemerl that began with Sonic X is pushing me away from IDW: I don’t want to read Ian’s take on this character, because, to me, No Gemerl is better than Badly-Written Gemerl,

This isn’t the first time I’ve said this, either. Way back in 2016, when I complained about Ian’s portrayal of Gemerl in Panic in the Sky, I said that the way he handled characters that I liked tended to make them the least likeable parts of the stories he wrote. As well as stating my dislike for his handling of Gemerl, I also stated that I used to really like Fiona Fox, moreso in concept than in execution, but under Ian’s pen she was largely an insufferable antagonist, little more than a trophy to make his pet recolour look better, and almost every story she was in only added to the “List of reasons she needs to stop lying to herself and just start the redemption arc already”. Additionally, I said that I didn’t want to see him bring back Neo Metal Sonic or Mephiles in any context, and we got the former, and it was exactly as bad as I thought it would be.

So, that’s basically why I don’t want to read IDW. That’s why, even if the aspect that was a big sticking point for me back when the comic launched was to be undone soon, I still probably wouldn’t pick it up. Because I don’t want to see my favourite Sonic character continue to be written badly by a guy that should know better, and has done better in the past.

If he were simply screwing up Gemerl’s personality the first time he wrote him, I would file it away under the same category as “Emel”, but the fact that he’s done better before, in a book where he had greater restrictions on what he could do with the characters, really settles this as an interest-killer for me.

Well done, Mr. Flynn. I legitimately didn’t think you could make me actually miss SEGA’s tighter control, but you somehow managed it. I would be impressed if it weren’t so sad.

#Sonic #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sonic X #IDW Sonic #Archie Sonic #Emerl #Gemerl #Emerl the Gizoid #Gemerl the Gizoid #Critical #Sonic Heroes

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kittywolves · 5 years

Note

1-200 if you want lmao If not then just your favourites

200: My crush’s name is: don’t have one tbh, not romantically anyway

199: I was born in: west virginia, 2000

198: I am really: dumb

197: My cellphone company is: idk man

196: My eye color is: blue w/yellow bursts but they just appear green if you’re not super close

195: My shoe size is: 7+1/2-8

194: My ring size is: 7+1/2-8

193: My height is: 5′5″

192: I am allergic to: sesame :T

191: My 1st car was: N/A

190: My 1st job was: N/A

189: Last book you read: uh, Percy Jackson? i think

188: My bed is: warm, cozy, full of plushies & cat fur

187: My pet: CALCIFER!!!

186: My best friend: uh,, i don’t have one?

185: My favorite shampoo is: idk fruity scents that aren’t watermelon

184: Xbox or ps3: PS3

183: Piggy banks are: cute or terrifying, no in-between

182: In my pockets: my phone

181: On my calendar: birthdays

180: Marriage is: cute

179: Spongebob can: CAN SPONGEBOB FINALLY END PLEASE

178: My mom: can go die

177: The last three songs I bought were? uhh, i haven’t bought any songs,,

176: Last YouTube video watched: DrawingWiffWaffles newest video

175: How many cousins do you have? 1

174: Do you have any siblings? yes, 2 alive 1 dead

173: Are your parents divorced? no,,

172: Are you taller than your mom? around the same height

171: Do you play an instrument? no, but i wish i could play the harp tbh

170: What did you do yesterday? uh, i went shopping with my mother and then watched Futurama

[ I Believe In ]169: Love at first sight: ? i dunno anymore

168: Luck: i guess so, yea

167: Fate: yea

166: Yourself: no

165: Aliens: YES

164: Heaven: yea

163: Hell: yea

162: God: ? yea?

161: Horoscopes: not really

160: Soul mates: YESSSSS

159: Ghosts: yep!!

158: Gay Marriage: %100

157: War: no >:(

156: Orbs: what

155: Magic: yep!!

[ This or That ]154: Hugs or Kisses: hugs pls

153: Drunk or High: never been either, both sound fun

152: Phone or Online: usually use my phone tbh

151: Red heads or Black haired: all are adorable!!

150: Blondes or Brunettes: a d o r a b l e ! !

149: Hot or cold: uhm, comfortable warm,,

148: Summer or winter: SUMMER

147: Autumn or Spring: HALLOWEEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

146: Chocolate or vanilla: CHOCOLATE

145: Night or Day: NIGHTTIME

144: Oranges or Apples: apples

143: Curly or Straight hair: both are great!! i have slightly wavy hair uwu

142: McDonalds or Burger King: neither >:(

141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: MILK PLS

140: Mac or PC: um, idc

139: Flip flops or high heels: F L I P F L O P S

138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: SWEET AND POOR PLS GIVE ME A KIND BAB TO LOVE @ UNIVERSE

137: Coke or Pepsi: coke !!

136: Hillary or Obama: obama!!

135: Buried or cremated: cremated so i can’t come back :’)

134: Singing or Dancing: i can’t do either :(

133: Coach or Chanel: ugh, coach ig

132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: who or who

131: Small town or Big city: i live in a city, but a town sounds nice tbh

130: Wal-Mart or Target: TARGET

129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: what

128: Manicure or Pedicure: PEDICURE PEDICURE PEDICURE

127: East Coast or West Coast: i live on the west, so west

126: Your Birthday or Christmas: MY BIRTHDAY BC I GET TO PICK THE THEME !!!

125: Chocolate or Flowers: flowers die and give off the aesthetic but chocolates are delicious so both

124: Disney or Six Flags: i love disneyland it’s just SO EXPENSIVE and six flags is gr8 for the thrills, plus i currently have a pass so

123: Yankees or Red Sox: who? which sport is this[ Here’s What I Think About ]122: War: blehhhh no

121: George Bush: idk american presidents lmao

120: Gay Marriage: YES YES YES YES YES YES

119: The presidential election: ew

118: Abortion: i’ll allow it lmao, i don’t think it’s great, but ik people will still get it whether it’s legal or not so might as well legalize it. also some cases actually need it so like,, yea!! let it happen!! pro-choice!!

117: MySpace: never used it lmao

116: Reality TV: ew ew ew ew EXCEPT FOR COOKING SHOWS

115: Parents: mine or just in general? bc eh

114: Back stabbers: M U R D E R T H E M 113: Ebay: lmao shipping expenses

112: Facebook: haven’t used it in years, do use messenger tho

111: Work: i like wedding coordinating with my aunt!! that’s about all the work i’ve done, oh and i’ve babysat

110: My Neighbors: don’t know em, they probably think we’re crazy tho, always yelling

109: Gas Prices: too!! high!!

108: Designer Clothes: eh, clothes are clothes, and some clothes are ugly (a lot of times it’s designer clothes blehh)

107: College: i mean i guess

106: Sports: go team! hit the ball! score the points! woo

105: My family: dysfunctional,,

104: The future: nooooooooooooooooooo

[ Last time I ]103: Hugged someone: uhhhhh....

102: Last time you ate: uhm, around 4?? maybe?? it’s 7 now

101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: uh?? i never see anyone OH i guess on wednesday last week,,

100: Cried in front of someone: ???? idk??? i cry while everyone’s asleep usually

99: Went to a movie theater: last week !! um, thursday?

98: Took a vacation: uhh, february, early march? i went to ohio

97: Swam in a pool: uh, last monday

96: Changed a diaper: um, not this year lmao, maybe last year tho idk

95: Got my nails done: ???? i dunno

94: Went to a wedding: last november?? or wait no,, uhm i dunno sometime recently lmao

93: Broke a bone: never! did drop one in water tho :/

92: Got a piercing: december!

91: Broke the law: ?? i don’t wear seatbelts when i sit in the back seat lmao

90: Texted: around two hours ago[ MISC ]89: Who makes you laugh the most: um,, my friends

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: MY KITTY BABY

87: The last movie I saw: missing link! the stop motion- i’m a wh*re for animation lmao

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: changing my name, moving out, getting married & having a stable life :’)

85: The thing im not looking forward to: being stuck here forever and eventually kmsing due to stress and depression :’)

84: People call me: Kitty!! Kiki!! (birth name) karebear!!

83: The most difficult thing to do is: exist within the same room as my mother without bursting into tears or storming off

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope

81: My zodiac sign is: Virgo! Viriborn for all you homestucks! and dragon in the animal one!

80: The first person i talked to today was: my dad :’) and then i messaged @deanilise even tho she was asleep

79: First time you had a crush: uh, as far back as i can remember i had a “crush” on Daphne Blake :D but i was like a small child and didn’t know what love was so anytime i saw anyone who i thought was cool or pretty or i wanted to befriend i had a supposed “crush” on them :/

78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: i try to be pretty open, but sometimes i just wanna close off

77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: yikes idk

76: Right now I am talking to: like talking to or talking to? for the first, just some group chats for the second, no one

75: What are you going to do when you grow up: i wanna be an artist! i would love to be a youtube artist, but i fear i’m not creative enough for such things.. i would also like to be able to tell my stories!

74: I have/will get a job: i dunno,,

73: Tomorrow: church

72: Today: overslept, did some chores, been online

71: Next Summer: hopefully i can go back to colorado to visit my brother !

70: Next Weekend: ugh, church activities & then actual church, as well as other easter festivities

69: I have these pets: baby kitty, and some dogs....

68: The worst sound in the world: FORK SCRAPING ON BOWL, ERASER SCRAPING ON PAPER, DOG’S SNORING, MY MOTHER’S VOICE WHEN I’M HAVING SENSORY OVERLOAD

67: The person that makes me cry the most is: my mother, she’s like the only person that makes me cry unless someone says they’re attempting and i can’t get through to them

66: People that make you happy: @onedirtysock @aliaitee @deku-is-tired @deanilise @awkward-scarfy-boi @fourth-best-jeanist @bnhaworld @bnhya @helloiliketits @trashyfxndoms

65: Last time I cried: last night oops

64: My friends are: (see 66) they’re all very nice & supportive which is amazing & i love them all dearly

63: My computer is: a MacBook air with a galaxy cover

62: My School: not in one but the one i’m gonna go to in the fall is just a community college

61: My Car: N/A

60: I lose all respect for people who: hate on anyone, racists, homophobes, transphobes, pedos, terfs, ableists, etc

59: The movie I cried at was: uh, i dunno, but i was crying abt futurama the other night

58: Your hair color is: orange-y with dark brown roots, supposed to be dyeing it soon :)

57: TV shows you watch: BNHA, HIMYM, Bob’s Burgers, TUA w/ @deanilise Futurama, The Simpsons, Fairytail, Runaway’s, Adventure Time, SVTFOE, etc

56: Favorite web site: Tumblr!

55: Your dream vacation: Ireland,, ofc i always dreamed of going to paris when i was younger, and Britain sounds cool too, & i’ve heard belgium is pretty && japan sounds fun && new york city sounds super cool as well so idk any of those places ig

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: uh, probably when i broke my arm, although i can’t remember it, i did used to get growing pains in my legs when i was younger & could hardly sleep so there’s that option as well

53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium or medium-well

52: My room is: messy, but it’s home & also warm

51: My favorite celebrity is: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i dunno

50: Where would you like to be: idk, in my bed ig

49: Do you want children: yea! i wanna adopt!

48: Ever been in love: uh, i thought i was, but it was just an intense crush on this girl lmao

47: Who’s your best friend: already answered this lmao

46: More guy friends or girl friends: girls,,

45: One thing that makes you feel great is: laughing, music, & seeing my friends

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: any of y’all would be great tbh

43: Do you have a 5 year plan: survive

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: lmao no,

41: Have you pre-named your children: uh, i have names picked out that i like, but idk depends how young my kid is when i adopt them, and even then idk if i could bring myself to change their name uwu

40: Last person I got mad at: my mother,,

39: I would like to move to: IRELAND OR SOMETHING I DUNNO I WANT OUT OF THIS GODFORSAKEN COUNTRY

38: I wish I was a professional: artist!! youtube maybe!![ My Favorites ]37: Candy: hmm, i like smarties, m&ms, gummy bears, & sweetarts

36: Vehicle: uhh, vw beetles? WAIT NO JEEP WRANGLERS I THINK

35: President: uh idk

34: State visited: the one i live in lmao, California :)

33: Cellphone provider: idk a lot about them

32: Athlete: N/A

31: Actor: eeeeeeee

30: Actress: eeeeeeee

29: Singer: Case! Patrick Stump!

28: Band: FALL OUT BOYYYYYYYYYYY

27: Clothing store: Hottopic

26: Grocery store: N/A

25: TV show: Arrow! Adventure Time! (ripip) i haven’t seen Arrow in a long time tho so idk if it’s still any good...

24: Movie: Heathers!!

23: Website: Tumblr,,

22: Animal: CATS

21: Theme park: DisneyLand! it’s just sooooooooo expensive ;-;

20: Holiday: HALLOWEEN

19: Sport to watch: Soccer!!

18: Sport to play: none

17: Magazine: i don’t read them

16: Book: The Hunger Games

15: Day of the week: probably friday or saturday

14: Beach: uh, maybe seal? or hermosa?

13: Concert attended: i’ve been to exactly one (1) and i didn’t enjoy it bc it was for Ariana Grande

12: Thing to cook: well you don’t cook them but, COOKIES!!

11: Food: Ice Cream!! Burgers!! Mashed Potatoes !!

10: Restaurant: In-N-Out probably

9: Radio station: 98.7 alt radio

8: Yankee candle scent: uh i dunno

7: Perfume: Vanilla Bean Noelle from bbw

6: Flower: daffodils

5: Color: pink! purple! green!

4: Talk show host: no

3: Comedian: Bo Burnham or John Mulaney

2: Dog breed: Retrievers !

1: Did you answer all these truthfully? yes!

here’s my baby for reference & for putting up with all that

#kitty answers #200 asks #deku-is-tired #calcifer

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creemedicooke-blog · 5 years

Text

me/beliefs

I’m a 14 year old centrist/right wing, and these are what I’m for and against. (No offense to anyone else/my values do not hurt anyone)

ANTI MAP/NOMAP/PROMAP If you have the desire to touch kids, your time would be better spent touching the cold inside of a jail cell. All pedophelic relationships are abusive even if the person claims to be a “nomap.”

Anti tucute and transtrenders Mental illness is never something to ignore so you can have an “aesthetic.” You invalidate trans people who have struggled, and you are inherently sexist by further instilling that male and female is just a “culture” rather than the safety you feel in your body.

I am transmed Meaning I believe gender dysphoria is something in the brain, which can lead to a longterm feeling of discomfort in your body. I completely support those who want to help themselves and will back any trans person looking for surgery. The choice is theirs to make. Even though transmed technically implies surgery is needed, I will respect the persons pronouns even before they get surgery as long as they are considering it. Because I know three issues off the top of my head: it could be unsafe at their age, it could be unsafe due to familial reasons (transphobic parents), or they could want to consider it for years to make sure they don’t back track. There are also more reasons so of course no matter how long it takes, I will chose to use the pronouns they want.

I only believe in two genders. However, I accept those who do not wish to disclose their gender. I mean, it’s your private parts. Of course I won’t force you to talk about them and I hope you live the happiest life. I also totally understand those who wish to go by they/them, just ask me so I know to not misgender you.

I’m not a trump supporter

If I don’t know too much about a subject, I won’t talk about it but I am curious to learn someday. (This is why I won’t say I am or am not a Hillary fan. I actually never got to learn much about her therefore idk)

I do not like illegal immigration but DEPORTATION IS FUCKING ATROCIOUS. Here is the simplist way to explain why I don’t like illegal immigration: Imagine you work hard, and someone else slacks off and recieves a promotion. That's infuriating. But I now stretch this to a larger point, you work hard to make money to leave your country and go through the entire legal system tediously. Then another guy sneaks into the same new country doing zero of that work. Do I think the illegal immigrant should be punished though? Heavens no. Absolutely not. They could have been escaping poverty or war, drought or famine, a harsh family life, anything. And they could be an amazing person. I just think the legal way to immigrate should be made more open and friendly for people in rougher countries. I have nothing against the illegal immigrants themselves.

Anti terf An mtf who has gender dysphoria, a serious condition, is curing herself. Not robbing your three year old daughter’s tea set. Chill tf out, Sharon. And an ftm who has gender dysphoria, a serious condition, is curing himself, not writing “women have cooties” on your feminist pride parade sign and then ninja'ing into a male, Terri

“Radical” is the scariest word to hear before anything involving politics. I’m sick of “radical ___.” I believe compromising is much safer and a healthier viewpoint to live by than extremism of either side. This mindset shoukd stem from childhood with things like "sharing is caring."

Guns and clothing depicting real guns should not be allowed in schools, period. The gun part is a “no shit” moment, but if I could change the school dress code, I would add this rule and get rid of the truly bs “no crocs” rule.

I’m pro choice

I want to better the foster care/adoption system

Anti-anti vaxxers That kid’s life has been given to you and it asks for protection, not to model your ill-thought-out agenda.

Anti incels

Companies should be regulated to reduce pollution, and they should contribute to a greener earth.

If a company distributes paper or glass to an area, that same company must be willing to pay the price to make it recyclable at their plant. Otherwise, it cannot be in that area. This practice will be repeated until eco friendly companies begin popping up all around us.

In a perfect world, an opinion’s value is based on how well informed the person is of that opinion. Not on race, class, religion, gender, or orientation.

Bi/pan are the same, and if you prefer the term “pan” because of the spelling or flag, then alright. But like again, meaning wise, they are the same and the only difference is superficial.

I’m all for body positivity that supports people who have lost limbs, burn scars, or are recovering from an unhealthy lifestyle like anorexia, bulimia, or obesity. Body positive does not equal “oh you look beautiful killing yourself” so I personally would never congratulate someone for cutting themself, or severely under or over eating. I will offer help until they tell me they want to end it like this, in which case I wont force you to do something you don’t want me to.

Abusers should serve for half or more of their life! All if it lead to fucking suicide. Domestic, child, animal, relationship. Abuse is disgusting from mental to physical. Go ahead and block me if you believe abuse is not an issue.

Rape is one of the worst crimes in humanity. It can happen to anyone.

The three crimes I hate the most are MURDER, RAPE, and FALSE RAPE ACCUSATION. the first two are obvious, but the third one is up there for a good reason. False accusation means "fake." You are lying to fuck up somebody's life on purpose. A rape claim can damage somebody throughout their entire life and that's not even the end of the problem with it. You invalidate true rape claims. You think rape is such a sweet little subject that's so "fun" to toy with. And you know what? Fuck you with all of these murderers and rapists and abusers.

Though I am not anti-gun, more control is needed. For example, training, liscenses, harsher punishments to those who obtain a gun by illegal means, and a gun should not be carried outside of your household unless you have a specific reason for that too. Like a farmer, police dude, or hunter

Do not slut shame prostitutes.

Making prostitution illegal only makes it harder for these people to seek help and get other jobs. It does not end prostitution.

Marijuana is not a criminal offence, quit locking people up for it.

Tax is not that hard to write on the damn price tag. Please mark it as $5.12 if it really isn’t $4.99

Gender dysphoria is a valid health issue so trans people should still (and always) be supported in the military.

There should be more sidewalks. And bridges that go over roads with ramps for people in wheelchairs or strollers, this is to reduce car emissions from the car needing to stop, and even better, it reduces the chance of a young child being hit at a crosswalk. Getting around by foot will be so much easier.

These are the most important things to teach in school

-how to prevent stds

-mental health

-why vaccines are safe

-how to get a job

-how to take care of your home and life after you're 18

-the core subjects

-civil rights movement in full detail so the newer generations are impacted by the struggle and where we are now in america

-secondary language

-world cultures

(This is just what i can think of off the top of my head)

You dont have to block me if you disagree. Infact, im open to anyone who wants to be friends. I dont care if we're different politically because thats not the first thing i see abour people. If you want to debate with me then lets do it. Also if you have questions, hmu. :)

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