#and i understand why the aesthetics and vibes appeal to people so much but it's like.

[beemovieerotica]

Hadestown is NOT bad explain yourself this instant

ok so. it felt very concept album, like it still had a ways to go until it was a fully fledged production. they had the idea of the railroad station and the whole mining town aesthetic, but it was kind of window dressing to the story and didn't really mean much beyond imparting vibes and accompanying the genre of music they chose.

there was the whole theme of industry and greed from hades which i guess was an attempt to create political relevance but it didn't fit snugly anywhere? we're supposed to just understand that hades is a bad man who is doing bad things because he's bad - and then this creates the predicaments that eurydice and persephone find themselves in.

so basically the industry & modernization didn't have a purpose in itself, it was just a set-up for other things to happen narratively. i don't think they had to stick with the original myth or anything like that at all, they can make hades whomever they want, but i feel like i had to fill in the gaps in my head for all the character motivations to understand why they were doing the things they did. the hades / eurydice bit just happened and then was never addressed again, it seemed like something they threw in just to say "look, the capitalist boss also uses people for sex" - again, just to make a point to the audience but it didn't mean anything in the story.

so it did click with "oh! hades is creating warmth and brightness down below because he misses persephone's warmth and brightness, but he's doing it in a way that is harsh and glaring and deeply misguided and destructive, and it deprives the surface of trees and it pollutes the living things that persephone cares so much about, so he's ultimately driving her away by trying to replace her..." but they...did not explore that. they did not get into the deeper meaning and themes behind what was happening in either song or dialogue. i found myself kind of taken out by some of the lyrics just at the simplicity / cliche, i was wondering if it would go deeper at all and it really didn't for me. and then persephone and hades made up instantly at the end? just with a hand hold and a couple of meaningful words / looks? like there was so much potential to have some gut punch moments of meaning and heartache and reconciliation between them, and it just didn't transpire, like they ran out of time at the end.

so they seemed to have gotten halfway through developing the characters; all i know about eurydice is that she was cold and hungry. and hungry and cold. orpheus was a little bit more of a person at least in terms of making him a "head in the clouds" character, but they wanted to use shortcuts to just get to the love story without spending time on it. i get that inclination because, yeah on one hand it's a classical myth and we can accept that they just fell in love and all of it unfolded from there...but if you're going to stage it and make a musical at all, then why not explore how they fell in love, who they were, and what they actually meant to each other? there was no dimension to it and it just relied on the audience's acceptance of "this is how things happened in the myth."

i'm not completely sure what was going on with the wall other than it being another appeal to topical politics---and i don't like pedantry in media analysis BUT they chose to craft all of this in a deliberate way and they established multiple times that their world worked this way, so i have to ask the question: if there are supernatural forces that keep people from going in and out of hell on a whim.........what's the point?

like they were hovering between the subtext of "shhh this is actually busywork to convince the people that their labor is valuable" and "actually we want to keep people from trying to leave because it sucks here" with the latter contradicting their established rules of the world; all while hades is textually saying "we don't want people taking what we have" but people COULD just kill themselves to get down there anyway and be allowed through the wall. which eurydice did. which all dead people get to do. which makes me circle back to the conclusion of, yeah, some of these songs / plot devices got thrown in as a "this is so relevant wink wink hi audience" moment rather than actually enriching or making sense in the world of the story.

specifically for the broadway production, i can count on one finger the number of times the set was used in an interesting way [the crack in the wall]. it was very black box theater and i'm not opposed to minimalism, but it only works if there's something very engaging and compelling going on with the characters and the performances themselves, and a lot of the blocking & dancing was just not...interesting to look at. they moved chairs and tables around. god i would have loved if the final moment between orpheus and eurydice actually used the original lines where they say "You looked back" / "I missed you" like it would have meant something but they just had this weird tendency throughout to not lean into full emotional dialogue.

tldr; i think the vibes and intentions were good but it was messy narratively and the depth of character development and songwriting wasn't there for me. i think the Fates served cunt at every turn and i loved them, though i would have liked them to be used much more to really deliver those gut punches i was expecting but didn't get from the story. i'm a snob. sorry.

[yennas-stuff]

elriels seem completely incapable of making any arguments for their ship on a meta level. like all of their arguments always rely on picking apart the text in a very literal manner, misrepresenting the text out of context, or just straight up biased takes on what the characters are thinking/desire (like idc what elain wants.... she's a character walking in whatever direction SJM wants). never in all my time lurking have i seen a single compelling meta argument from them outside of "elriel has already been set up", and "it would make no sense to casual readers if elriel didn't happen", and my favorite outright false claim that they love, "sjm said the series is about the archeron sisters".

idk how they champion so hard for a ship that they can't even make a good narrative argument for--because it doesn't make any sense from a storytelling perspective and they either know it or are too ignorant on the technicalities of writing a novel to understand that.

they take people's arguments like mine (saying idc what elain wants) and misdirect people's attention by calling it misogyny or whatever other stupidity they spew, and COMPLETELY miss the point everyone's making that it's not that we "don't care about elain" and "hate elain" but that we understand that narratives need to have a little something called dramatic irony, which only exists if characters are in opposition in some way (elain resisting the mating bond).

elain is not a victim of people's misogyny, she's a fictional character who some people would find less interesting if her endgame romance was as simplistic as "she likes azriel so she's going to end up with azriel", and all the drama for the book has to come from outside factors like Rhys keeping them apart... and... what? Breaking the mating bond before they can be together? Even though they already were happily going to touch each other seemingly without any regard to the mate bond/lucien being around? The book would be as big of a disaster as CC3 because it would rely completely on external plots... but that's just my biased opinion on a different topic, anyway.

It just doesn't make sense and it would be completely random for them to end up together, narratively. I know they argue the opposite but they just can't back it up with any logical arguments. I think that's why it confuses me that there are so many of them... i guess lotssss of people really read at a very surface level depth

First of all, thank you for the message!

Agreed about their theories. They also never make sense to me and seem to be based more on vibes than anything else. I could see how, to some people, their aesthetic can be appealing, but personally, I don't enjoy soft girl/bad boy trope. But it doesn't matter much since it's about what sjm enjoys and gravitates towards... and the whole point of the series is LIKE CALLS TO LIKE. It's about choosing a partner to match your energy, to help you meet your fullest potential.

We HAVE enough evidence to say that Azriel wouldn't let Elain do much about her powers. He speaks for her. He wants to duel her mate, which shows us he doesn't understand her on a deeper level. Elain also couldn't help Azriel heal and get better mentally. He wouldn't share his darkness with her. He doesnt plan any future together.

Is that the forbidden romance they are fighting so hard for? Lucien is so far away, respecting her boundaries. Rhys has already promised to keep Elain safe if she decided to reject the bond. So, who would they be fighting? What's forbidden about it?

You are so right that it reads very surface level. Their possible plot seems to be rejecting the bond, and what else ???? Koshei is connected to Lucien and BOE. So they would completely destroy Lucien and their connection to human lands. He will not just get over it and be with Vassa (lol). Mating bonds are a serious business. ONLY THE IMPORTANCE AND INEVITABILITY OF MATING BONDS HAD 4 BOOKS OF BUILD-UP. Not their ship.

Do they want the repeat of Nesta's warrior training arc? How would spy training look like? Didn't Az himself say it's boring? You just sit and observe...

Elain's visions seemed to be connected to Lucien's closeness (coz acowar). Also, Cassian's presence grounded Nesta and helped her out. Wouldn't Lucien be needed for Elain to wake up her visions back? Az would just sit in the corner and silently fume and spiral about not being her mate...

It's just... how can they not see that they are fighting for the losing side. And what for? Some smut scenes? That's what ao3 is for, babes. And they will get canon Azriel smut. They dont need to worry. Just not with Elain. (Gwyn seems more likely to keep up with his stamina. They do work out a lot, lmao.)

[kitkatopinions]

why do you think Yang and Weiss should've been endgame in lieu of Yang and Blake?

First off I do want to note that I think Blake and Yang could have been a perfectly fine ship that I might've liked if I thought that the writers were better. I'm not sure, but I think I haven't actually said 'Blake and Yang shouldn't have ever been a thing' before. I think the concept of Blake and Yang is fine, but they were just badly written, which is something I also think about Renora and Arkos so I'm very unconvinced that the RWBY writers can manage any romance and write for it well.

With that being said, there are a couple of reasons why I think going with Weiss and Yang would've been more appealing to me personally.

Obviously rwde and anti-bumbleby under the keep reading. Please do not read this if you can't see criticism of the show or the bees without getting angry.

Number One: I like the ship better. This one is pretty self explanatory, but yeah personally speaking, I tend to like rich out of touch person/down to earth person of the people ships, I tend to like the type of ship Yang and Weiss fit into.

Number Two: I really like the idea of Yang and Weiss's aesthetics, I think they look good together and compliment each other and this would especially be the case if the people in charge of RWBY had Weiss kind of throw off some of her 'rich princess' vibes as she broke away from her family and turned her into a bit more of a rebel, which is something I think they're wrong to have not done.

Number Three: Before the Fall of Beacon, I did not think that Blake and Yang were close, they barely even felt like friends, more like.... Yang wanted to be friends with Blake and kept trying to be, and Blake wanted to be friends with Yang too but she (understandably) was taking awhile to open up to and trust all of her teammates. After the Fall of Beacon, the writers kind of speedran a badly done (imo) 'they're awkward around each other, wait no they're fine now, now they're caressing each other's cheeks and can't be apart' thing and I cannot stress enough that the time between Blake reuniting with everyone at Haven and the post-Adam-fight face caress is like three weeks. Imo this makes their relationship feel pretty shallow and based in trauma considering that prior to reuniting at Haven, they'd had like three important conversations, one of which was shared with Weiss, one of which involved Yang leading Blake around with a laser pointing and angrily hitting her, and one in which Blake is actively trying not to think Yang had done something horrible. Yang and Weiss didn't have very many big important moments either, but unlike with Yang and Blake, we saw them seem to have fun in more relaxed settings more, like they planned the Vytal dance together and played board games together, and Yang's the one that kind of tried to talk to Weiss about how Weiss was acting when they found out Blake was a Faunus, and Weiss would try to make Yang-like jokes, and they fought Neon and Flynt together. For me, Yang and Weiss felt way more like friends before the Fall of Beacon than Blake and Yang did. And then after the Fall of Beacon, Weiss and Yang meeting back up in volume five and spending most of volume five interacting with each other really made me start being like 👀 because with them having actually felt like real friends, things like the hug and Weiss taking Yang's hand to try to calm her down and comforting her over Blake having left... All that actually felt natural, and it seemed like they were really connecting and helping each other. I much prefer ships where they're friends first and connect in natural ways, and I feel like with Blake and Yang, they weren't really friends and then the writers wanted to just brush aside everything that happened between them without talking about it so they could get to the 'and now they matter more to each other than anyone and they can't be apart' phase, and it left them feeling more forced.

Number Four: As someone who has sisters I care about more than anything in the world, it's very important to me that characters with close family members (or super close best friends that may as well be family like Shawn and Gus from Psych) have romantic relationships that don't come above the family members or feel like they have to compete with family members. It's important to me that the romantic partner of whoever has a family member really loves and wants to include their partner's family. So when Yang and Ruby opened their arms up to Weiss, and when Ruby sat with Yang and Weiss to drink coffee together, and with Ruby being 'besties' with Weiss, it feels like Weiss and Yang being in a relationship wouldn't actually come above Yang's relationship with Ruby but would instead keep her welcome and in the circle. Like Shawn and Abigail Lytar going out to the movies and Gus being in the backseat ready to watch with them. I know people are going to get furious with me if I say this, but the RWBY writers have written Blake and Yang to care more about each other than anyone else in a way that feels like it comes above Yang's relationship with Ruby, and to me that's annoying. They're more like Juliet telling Shawn not to bring Gus with him somewhere because she wants to go, and Shawn feeling like he has to either choose between them or lie to Juliet. Apathy Grimm are attacking? Yang grabs Blake's hand to pull her out of the room, leaving Ruby behind to haul their drunk uncle (who Yang is also supposed to care about btw) out by herself. Someone suggests that Yang and Blake ever do anything without each other? Yang gets so mad her eyes go red. Yang has a fight with Ruby but then also she's apart from Blake who she didn't fight with? She doesn't think about Ruby, she's too busy wondering if Blake thinks less of her. Ruby's having a very obvious mental breakdown after losing a close friend? Yang is off flirting with Blake and barely takes the time to say 'are you okay' and always gets distracted from the answer, leaving Ruby without the support of her big sister. Ruby pretty much tells Yang that she feels like people don't care about her and she can't fight and be the leader anymore? Yang steps in front of Blake to defend her without doing anything to help Ruby and then just gets mad at Ruby! On top of that, Blake and Ruby have only actually spoken once since season one, and it felt super forced, so Blake and Ruby don't even sort of feel like they're friends. The way that the writers have been writing Blake and Yang's relationship feels like Ruby is excluded from it and has now become less important to Yang. That makes me like their relationship a lot less.

Number Five: Almost every single step of Blake and Yang's relationship has come in a bad moment where their lives were on the line. Now don't get me wrong, I do like a certain amount of trauma bonding and tension in my ships, but when every single step of their relationship growing is accidental, unwanted by at least one of them, or filled with trauma and tension, it makes their relationship feel not only unhealthy (which can be fun,) but also kind of forced - and not in a writer forced it way (though I'm not not saying that,) but in a way where it feels like the characters themselves feel like they wouldn't have picked the relationship if they hadn't been pushed every step of the way. They teamed up on accident, their first 'moment' happened because Yang forced it, Blake rejoining the group only happened because she coincidentally came across them, the first instance of handholding involved Blake feeling guilty about Yang's arm, the first face caress and promise to not leave happened after a deeply traumatic experience with Adam, their 'big moment' in volume eight happened because Yang and Blake both felt guilty for ??? not being glued at the hip I guess, and their confession and kiss in volume nine was literally forced on them by the world around them putting them in a life or death situation where the win conditions of getting out of it was confessing their feelings. Their whole relationship feels like it was more or less forced every step of the way. I'm not saying this wouldn't be the case if the writers had gone with Yang and Weiss (because the writers are bad at romance) or that it couldn't have been different with Blake and Yang (again, I think they could've been a really well done and compelling ship.) But as it is right now, it felt way more natural for Weiss to grab Yang's hand than it feels for Yang and Blake to kiss, because it feels more like if Weiss and Yang were together it'd be because they wanted it, and the entire world around them wouldn't have to force them into a kiss.

Number Six: Fans of this ship have made it a lot harder for me to get past my frustrations about this ship. This is one of those fandoms that try to insist that everyone needs to like certain characters or ships and will scream bloody murder about anyone who doesn't conform to the fandom enforced rules, and shipping the bees is a big one. Of course people will say "it's okay to not ship Blake and Yang" but then they always follow it up with a "BUT" and then proceed to pretty much say that you do have to like it. Like they'll be like "it's fine to not ship Blake and Yang but you better not ship either character with a man and if you ship Yang with Weiss it's just because you hate when sapphic women are actually together and you only like wlw in theory, and also you still have to think that everything about bumbleby is good and just not your thing, AND ALSO if you prefer any other ship than you hate queer representation and women too probably and deserve to be sent hate anons." So like... When you get attacked by enough bees fans for daring to not like one single ship, it kinda starts just further dampening your enjoyment of the ship. Like when Blake and Yang kissed in volume nine I was thinking a lot of things, but right along with "well any canon confirmed queer characters helps normalize it" I was thinking about the fact that Bees fans were probably going to try to bully me about it and use it to insist that me and other queer people were no longer allowed to criticize RWBY. It really made a bad (imo) ship worse.

Now, there's also a couple of reasons that I think aren't just personal preference. These might not be deal breakers for everyone, but they just add to why I don't like the ship.

Number Seven: Yang was anti-faunus towards Blake with that whole laser pointer thing. This was never addressed or apologized for. This alone wouldn't make me hate the ship, but coupled with everything else, it just feels especially bad.

Number Eight: The writers aren't good at emotional weight, pay off, or dealing with serious topics and serious baggage. And there are so many conflicts that Blake and Yang specifically should have worked through that instead constantly got shuffled off to the side and forgotten and never got worked through. Yang having reminded Blake of Adam? Never dealt with, despite the fact that Yang is actually more prone to anger and blow ups now than she was and specifically wants to solve things with violence which makes Blake cringe as she tries to handle Yang's moods. Is this going to be addressed? Almost definitely not, and frankly it should've been talked about before volume nine anyway. Blake having left Yang without a word to explain or a goodbye at least, thus hurting Yang's feelings, but Blake not actually being obligated to have stayed with her like Yang wanted her to? That definitely should've been talked about! Yang could've explained how she felt, Blake could've explained what had happened and apologized for pushing Yang away and leaving without saying goodbye, and Yang could then say that she forgives her and also that she understands that Blake needed time to recover too and that she didn't have to stay with her. Blake treating Yang like she was fragile and Blake needed to take care of her because Yang had lost her arm? That should've been talked about! The fact that they had to kill Blake's ex-boyfriend together after he revealed his face was branded and screamed about how Blake was going to leave Yang and all that? That should've been talked about! And the things that should've been talked about just keep mounting and now include how Yang's little sister tried to kill herself after basically saying that Yang no longer cares for her and is too busy flirting, which in any good show would create problems and tension for Blake and Yang as they deal with that and what that potentially could change in their relationships. But the writers never actually address any problems or baggage that Blake and Yang have. One reasons why I think in a post-V3 planning sesh that they should've gone with Weiss and Yang is for similar reasons why they shouldn't have killed Penny, or why they shouldn't have given Ruby suicidal tendencies, or why they shouldn't have tried to do a 'fall into villainy' arc with Ironwood. Because they aren't good enough writers imo to properly handle serious emotional weight and depth and real baggage and problems. Imo Weiss and Yang would've been a better choice post-V3 simply because writing them to have a good relationship would take less work.

Number Nine: The writers wrote Blake into a different character in order to ship her with Yang. She has almost nothing in common with who she used to be as a character. This could've happened with Weiss, admittedly, but also I kind of think it would've happened to a less significant degree because of the connection Weiss had with Ruby prior to the relationship. With Blake, once they got rid of Sun her closest friend and confidant in the show and dropped her WF plot, she kind of didn't have much in the story outside of Yang. I think it would've been harder for the writers to completely reinvent Weiss's personality, especially because I truly think a lot of the fandom doesn't give a crap about Blake past her romantic relationships, but a lot of people seem to like Weiss and liked her connection to Ruby, so the writers probably would've felt pressure to not change Weiss up too much.

Number Ten: The relationship feels like the opposite of what Blake needs as a former abuse victim. Weiss is also an abuse victim, but it's very different. Blake's abuser was her romantic partner, who was aggressive specifically in the blowing up way, who got angry at her for leaving and was possessive and controlling, who made Blake nervous but disregarded it. And although Yang could've grown into a character who was more grounded and less prone to angry outbursts who learned to let go (which was where I thought she was headed after V5,) Yang instead has just seemed to grow angrier and more prone to outbursts, has been pretty possessive herself, and despite making Blake nervous often and despite knowing Blake's history of giving up, Yang filled her 'things I like about you' moment in the V9 confession scene with things like "you've never been intimidated by me" and "You don't run from things." And when Adam was screaming about how Blake would leave Yang and then in a moment born of trauma Blake promised not to ever leave Yang again, Yang was just like "I know you won't." Like ??? Blake as an abuse victim needs space, she needs a partner who is fine with her independence, not one who goes red-eye at the thought of them doing a mission apart and freaks out that Blake's opinion of her has changed when they're apart for a day. Blake should be with someone who isn't so quick to anger and have outbursts, Blake should be with someone who pays attention to her actually instead of going into what they like about her by saying things that aren't true. Blake needs someone who would be fine being apart because they know Blake is independent and they're fine with it. Either they should've taken Yang in a different direction like I thought they were going to, or they should've gone with a different ship. Because as is, I'm sitting here like "Wow Yang is really not the healthy option for Blake here, it's so sad to watch Blake cringe while Yang loses her temper."

Again, Blake and Yang could've been well done, but yeah I prefer Freezerburn tbh. I just think that since the writers apparently didn't want to put in the effort with Blake and Yang, it's put a damper on what could've otherwise been a good ship. Anyways, please nobody send me some stupid hate anon over this post.

[beevean]

"You can't convince me Rough & Tumble, Jewel, Clutch or Mimic have any fans. You can't."

Hi, a whole one fan of R&T here and.... yeah even I have to admit that most people's enjoyment of characters like these (mine included) stems mostly from the "I just think they look neat" factor. Granted I will say that I actually like the (very small) bro moments between the two because they remind me of how the comic sent that aspect of Sonic and Tails' relationship down the drain.

Anyway I brought this up because I can confidently say something that only gets worse with every issue: the stans don't actually like the OCs the way they claim they do. They like the aesthetic, the ideas around the characters, the vibes. The comic simply gives you a minimally cared for but still very much empty field with just enough promise of something of value growing there eventually, that you just end up growing a whole plantation of your own with just your headcannons. And that's the thing. The vibes, the ideas, the headcannons. Those are a constant. The moment they get imprinted onto a character, they are always there. That's why the new issue screenshots can only procur a reaction like "omg them". Because the character in the comic as is doesn't matter in the long run. In their minds, said characters already went through a fanfic's worth of screentime with all the study attached, they are already "complete" basically. Appearances in the comic are just visual stimuli to clap, point fingers and go wooooooo and any changes in the actual plot will only incur cosmetic changes on the character's image. At most, that's just an additional tag to the vibes list.

lmao, well I appreciate the honesty 😂 Rough and Tumble being more of an evil Unbreakable Duo than Surge & Kit is wild, man.

But yeah, what you said. And look, listen. After I got into the CV fandom, I saw so many people adopt the most minor of characters and turn them into their beloved blorbo - characters that are lucky if they have any sort of personality detailed in the manual, let alone on screen. So I get it, I get the appeal of taking a character that is nothing more than unexpressed potential and unraveling it, because hey that concept really really appeals to you. Look, I am intrigued by Surge and Kit's concept as well, and Whisper started out well as a quiet, introverted girl in a mostly extroverted cast, so yes I understand.

It's the pretentiousness I can't stand. It's people celebrating IDW as being well written and so much better than the games, when their appreciation boils down to basically gushing about ship teases or funny faces, or memefying their personalities to make them fit better into the prepackaged blorbo molds. The story wants to take itself seriously, so I take it seriously, and it's so obvious that characters are bent down in function of the plot.

Plant all the headcanons you want! But always keep in mind what is your headcanon and what is actually on paper.

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

i saw your skz hand rating(which i completely agree with btw but the pics of their hands made me–*gunshot*)

anyways!! decided to ruin myself further and ask you if you could do one for svt? i know it'll be a lot harder since they’re 13 so feel free to ignore this if you don't want to!!

I needed to supply the visual aids lol. Funnily enough, after answering the Stray Kids one, I started thinking about how I'd rank Seventeen. Thanks for reading my mind lmao.

Going to put the actual ranking under the readmore but a few things:

1. I am deeply indecisive. This was very hard lol and will likely change but, this is my very tentative ranking for now.

2. I realised with the Stray Kids one that I have two criteria I unconsciously use. The Stray Kids ones was just vibes lol and not as bad because there are only 8 members. However, I realised I based these rankings off of 1. Attractiveness and 2. Aesthetics. That's why Jeongin was so high despite me not viewing him sexually. The man has pretty ass hands.

3. I can only post 10 pictures a post so, I'll reblog this and add the last 3 members as well as visual aids for them too.

Let's get into it.

1. Joshua

I hate myself. I have nothing to say.

I'm joking. However, this is pure horniness I'm not even going to pretend. I think I'm just so viscerally attracted to his hands that it negates every other criteria and everyone elses' hands. That's really it lol.

2. Jeonghan

I think putting him this high is going to surprise a lot of people and mayhaps even be controversial. However, I think Jeonghan's hands are massively slept on. I think they're so beautiful and, I think the way his fingertips bend is fascinating. Elegant hands for a beautiful man. Very fitting.

3. Minghao

Another potentially controversial placement. Minghao is the marriage of my opinion on Josh's hands and my opinion on Jeonghan's hands. I think his hands are really pleasing to look at but, they're also very, very hot to me. Based on my Stray Kids ranking, I seem to have an affinity for long fingers/big hands generally lol and, it likely shows.

4. DK

Very strong contender for most beautiful hands in the whole group. I already knew when I thought about this that he'd be at least top 5, and I was correct lol. I honestly don't have much to say, I think his hands are gorgeous.

5. Woozi

I remember Hon (a mutual of mine) saying she was attacked by his hands and, I understand why. Another strong contender for most beautiful hands in the whole group. I honestly haven't paid much attention to his hands but, after today I definitely will.

6. S.Coups

Shoutout to my man for making it to the top 6 lol. Okay so, I actually have very similar feelings about Josh and Cheol's hands BUT I do think Josh's are a tad more aesthetically pleasing. Cheol still has that massive hands appeal that makes me want him carnally though. Oh, I've also noticed thick fingers tend to be a plus in my book so, that partly explains why he's so high too.

7. Seungkwan

I can already feel tomatoes coming because I ranked him so low. HEAR ME OUT. Another member of the most beautiful hands in the group committed but, I think where I appreciate them a tonne aesthetically, the carnal appeal isn't there as much I think? That's the best wai I can think to explain it. Still has stunning ass hands though.

8. Mingyu

Honestly don't have much to say. Very similar thoughts as Cheol actually. I like big hands lol and he had the thick fingers going for him too.

9. Wonwoo

Ngl, I think this is where my opinions on the members hands get a bit same-y so, apologies in advance for that. Wonwoo's hands are fine. They're not bad by any means but, I guess I just don't have a real reason to put him above everyone else listed so far?

10. Jun

Similar sentiments to Wonwoo. I think why I might have put Wonwoo's a little higher is because his hands look slightly bigger lol but, honestly the gap between Jun and Wonwoo is pretty minimal.

[northwest-cryptid]

So I "don't go here" so to speak, but Drifter's gameplay made me fall in love with Warframe again and I'd like to talk a little bit about why.

See Warframe is a game that advertises itself as being this high speed game about space ninjas. That's cool and all, I'd argue that especially early on that kinda seems to be conveyed... at least aesthetically?

Yea I'm gonna rip the bandaid off quickly, as much as I like Warframe I really don't like Warframe. The gameplay just doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel bad either... it doesn't feel like anything.

I don't think I'm particularly good at the game, I'm not particularly strong, I don't use the best gear, most my stuff isn't even upgraded and I have, and continue to run some of the higher end missions. Yet the thing is, the game switches almost instantly from me instantly decimating everything unfortunate enough to be visible on my screen, to not being able to put a dent in enemies even when I unload an entire clip into them.

This is all Warframe ever has been for me, and even watching other people play it... yea that's the game. The whole "ninja" thing is pretty much an aesthetic gimmick to give reason to all the various katanas and kunai you'll be tossing around. Thing is, you'll quickly replace those with stronger weapons, primarily guns, or sci fi scythes and swords. Maybe you'll pick up a pistol that shoots rockets or you'll use the silly disc launcher... none of these things are really "ninja" and that's the bulk of the game.

Now yea I get it there's a lot of reason behind that, I'm not going to say there's not reason for that. But if we're meant to be ninjas let us use more thematic weapons or maybe make the Warframes themselves look more Ninja-esque? There is a total of maybe 3 - 4 Warframes that even look like they could be ninjas, most just give off alien sci fi vibes.

I think if Warframe was to lean more into it's sci fi aesthetic nothing would change. It wouldn't hurt the game nor help it. It would just be one layer of early 2000's marketing they wouldn't have anymore.

Now that I've likely accidentally upset (not my intention mind you) a lot of people by saying I don't think the aesthetic remotely holds up throughout most of the game, allow me to explain as well that the gameplay in Warframe goes from being the strongest thing in the known universe to being unable to deal damage almost immediately.

There's almost never a flow state for me, I'm either entirely overpowered or I feel like I can't put a dent in anything and I just resign to spamming abilities that deal any amount of damage and basically spinning around using my melee weapon since hey it deals decent damage. Mind you this isn't for a lack of understanding the game and it's mechanics, this is just a matter of how the game's scaling works.

Nothing about the aesthetic or gameplay actually fits what I feel like Warframe promises in it's advertisements and generally speaking I think it's all or nothing gameplay is lackluster. Why do I bother pulling off different melee combos when at the end of the day all it comes down to is how quickly I deal damage. Things either die in the first hit or survive the whole combo so I may as well just do whatever combo deals the most damage the fastest and sometimes that's not even doing a combo.

I really feel like this game is marketed in such a way to appeal to early teens and kids who just want a power trip fantasy of being a space ninja. To that end, sure it gives them that power trip fantasy; and nothing else. There's nothing there for people who want more nuance without agonizingly understanding systems that are literally never explained to the player.

I LOVE getting to discover new things, but I think there needs to be an understandable method of discovery. Not just saying "get better mods" and then leaving it up to your players to understand exactly which mods are the one and only meta.

Now I know most people already stopped reading because they likely disagree with me on this, that makes sense considering most people who would even bother to read this far into a post like this probably like the game. Those people probably forget what it was like to be new to this game or have no idea what it's like as a new player being introduced to every mechanic at once, something I sorta get from having taking a long break when my old computer literally couldn't handle the open world segments without lagging so much I'd freeze for 5 minutes and come back to being dead.

What I'm getting at is, if you like the game it's probably because you're playing on a level that suits you, and more importantly you probably just enjoy the "number go up" power trip the game feeds you, nothing wrong with that; but I think it's nice to have a break from it once in a while.

Something we didn't have until we got the Drifter.

Drifter's gameplay is actually really fun to me, because it strips away all that power and artillery you have, it gives you a small pistol and a sword and says "learn to be methodical" and I really enjoy that.

For those who don't know, Drifter doesn't even have shields, they get very weak weapons but they get a slew of ways to keep themselves alive.

For example, most enemies you'll fight as the Drifter are melee users, blocking their attacks opens them to a parry, this will execute them outright. Your weapons are easily blockable, including your gun which is slow and can't be quickly fired over and over again to whittle down enemies. You need to actually slow down and pay attention to your opponent.

And that is cool since again SPACE NINJAS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A THEME HERE.

I have done years of HEMA and various other martial arts, and I will say that Drifter feels the closest to a simulation of actual swordsmanship.

It's not these flashy back and forth thousand strikes whipping around in mid-air flying and cutting a dude in half. It's methodical, it's parrying a blade away and quickly following up with a stab that instantly kills the opposition, it's shooting someone who's prepping a big attack to stagger them so you can gain the upper hand; it's knowing when you need to dodge vs when you need to strike.

Drifter's gun allows them to knock enemies down when they prep larger more devastating attacks, which is clearly shown to you with a large target icon appearing over the target that can be staggered this way. You only get 9 shots per reload, and they're slow. They only deal like 30 damage or so with headshots taking off maybe half the health of an enemy.

Your swords are your main source of damage and they are clunky. Most enemies will punish you for spamming attacks by guarding, but if you use a heavy attack you can break their guard and knock them down.

Fighting as the Drifter is fun because let's look at the following:

If I'm playing as my Warframe and I see 5 enemies at the end of the hall I press Shift to sprint forward, then while holding Shift I'll tap Ctrl to commit to a slide, when I'm in range I press E and my Warframe pulls out their blade and does this really sleek and fast spinning cut slide that instantly kills all 5 enemies in a single hit.

Or maybe I press 1 and just kill them all with my primary ability.

But when I'm playing as Drifter?

I have to approach with some level of caution, I don't have enough health to take many hits and my weapons don't deal a lot of damage.

If I try to commit to a heavy attack the enemy might retaliate with a hit of their own, sure I'll deal more damage than them but it likely won't kill them and I'll be punished for it. Instead I'll wait to see which of the enemies approaches first, and I'll quickly shoot him; he might just get hit but hopefully he'll block it. Now that he's guarding I can commit to using a heavy attack to punish the block resulting in an execution of my first enemy bringing their numbers to 4.

At this point another might approach and launch an attack, I can quickly guard with proper timing to parry that attack into another execution attack which brings them down to 3.

Perhaps one of the ones who isn't in the front lines is attempting to hit me with a ranged ability, they shoot a bow at me which I block to parry the projectile back at them and I can then turn my attention towards the other enemy who is charging up to use an AoE; I'll shoot them to interrupt their attack which leads into another execution.

This system of watching for what my enemy is doing, reacting to them in a way that makes sense given my situation and my kit; and then moving onto the next enemy based solely on who's the biggest threat keeps the action up.

Sure I'm still 1-tapping enemies, but I'm not literally pressing 1 button and being done with it. I'm reacting to what they're doing, I'm constantly assessing which is the most threatening, I have to be present and aware of the fight.

If I had a warframe all 5 would be dead no matter what they were doing. Oh you're prepping this big attack I could easily counter with a gun shot? That's cute I have a sword and I'm just gonna spam my spin attack because it will kill everything here easily.

Now the other fun thing about the Drifter is that as you roam around and clear essentially mini games ranging from puzzles to horse races to playing Go against a small animal; you get to choose random passive buffs that make you stronger. They power up your existing kit, maybe your heavy attacks send out a shockwave; or whenever you slide everything nearby takes toxic damage.

The more time you spend clearing these little additional bits of content the stronger you become and the more trivial these fights get. It absolutely gets to the point where you're not even really worried about enemies, a single headshot could take out a swarm.

Guess it's not fun anymore right? Well, kinda. See all of this has been earned slowly and it will go away between runs. You get to figure out a fun build for the run, fight the boss of the mission; and then go back to the basics to start fresh every time.

Once a Warframe gets powerful, it's done. That's it, you need to fight harder and harder enemies and well, let's be real it's all or nothing, there's no need to be present in a fight even when you deal considerable but not too much damage; you just have to hit them again.

Now sure I get it "that's every game" sure that's fair, that's literally how a game works.

...

...

...

But like if we look at Mabinogi- Hey wait no come back I'm serious!

Mabinogi is like if the Drifter didn't have the roguelite element.

In Mabinogi I could be the strongest son of a bitch around, and suddenly that doesn't matter at all because I got careless and threw a smash attack at an enemy who was countering. Sure I might not instantly die from it but I'll be knocked on my ass and take a sizable chunk of damage from it because hey would you look at that, counter returns your own damage back at you.

Mabinogi isn't a game where even the most powerful can get entirely careless, sure they worry less and less the more power they gain; that makes sense. However if you ever fully lower your guard you're going to eat dirt.

Mabinogi's strength comes not just from stats but from the knowledge of how to apply those stats in a manner that fits the situation you find yourself in. If something resists Magic, it doesn't matter if you're the strongest wizard ever, you're going to need to figure out a counter to that. If your whole build revolves around knockback and the enemy has heavy stander you're out of luck unless you adapt.

However the other thing is, Mabinogi isn't all or nothing in how it's scaling functions.

Like okay let's look at the answer to crowd control that Warframe gave us, eximus enemies. They have this hefty overshield (at higher levels at least; pretty flimsy early on) and while that shield is active they do not obey the laws of crowd control.

Does your Warframe command the laws of gravity? No they don't. Not for this special little man and his big ol' overshield. Not until you get rid of that by other means.

Okay cool in theory... but in execution it just means I need to hold left click for 2 seconds with my Soma or spam E a few times to get rid of that overshield and suddenly I can go back to spamming my crowd control abilities.

Mabinogi has similar answers to it's problem of people just spamming things like Fireball or big crowd control melee attacks. Things like Heavy, Mana, or Natural Stander exist to negate knockback, and then you have armor resistances to various types of damage such as ranged, melee, or magic.

On the surface these two things might feel incredibly similar, it's the same thing as Eximus overshield but with a different coat of paint.

However I fully disagree with that notion, rather it's the fault of my ability to give you all the context. Which is hard because Mabinogi is such a large game that it would be no easy task to fully explain to you how the inner workings and mechanics actually function.

However let me explain this, an enemy having heavier armor that resists melee isn't an issue for a player who has a bit of ranged or magic under their belt, and most every player does. Even a wand or staff can be used for melee if needed, they can smash, windmill, or most importantly counter. An enemy typically only resists one type, meaning the most a player needs to invest in is 2 types of damage, and you might think that's a lot to ask of someone...

Well, yes and no; because Arcana exist mixing magic and melee for elemental knight who can imbue their blade with lightning to cut through armor, or who can use ice to freeze targets and deal magic damage on their windmill. Likewise Alchemic Sharpshooter mixes alchemy and archery to apply various buffs. They too can freeze targets, or they can apply corrosive acid to their arrows to melt through enemy defenses, cause them to deal less damage, or even deal damage over time. Dark Diviner allows mages to have plenty of tricks up their sleeve including a chain blade to handle melee necessary combat.

However more specifically all of these mechanics have a mechanical counter. If an enemy has heavy stander and cannot be knocked back I need only fight them in a manner that does not necessitate knockback. The game isn't just asking me "do damage before you do more damage" it's asking me to approach this enemy differently than I would others.

Eximus doesn't feel FUN it feels like a tedious extra step I need to take.

Drifter doesn't really fight enemies who have those sorts of extra gimmicks because they don't have any kind of crowd control like that. It brings the scope of the game down to you and your opponent, but you need to be aware of the enemies around you and be constantly present to account for threats and punish enemies for misjudging your awareness. If something tries to attack you, counter and punish that with an execution, if something tries to guard you; use a heavy to open them to further attacks. If something is launching an attack that you cannot parry then dodge and attack them when they are recovering.

Look, Warframe's brainless power trip gameplay CAN be fun, but it gets old fast in my opinion. Railjack missions or Drifter's gameplay ask just a little bit more of the player and I think that is a very welcome break from the monotony of "I press [button] and everything dies" at least for someone who actually wants to feel powerful through an understanding of mechanics and my abilities rather than just seeing a big number pop up when I press [button].

But hey, remember that's just my opinion.

[astroboyanalysis]

11. A Day to Remember

Hi again, I just finished student teaching, so I'm sort of back but I wouldn't anticipate more consistent posts just because of that, lol.

This comic has a very strange vibe to it that shifts repeatedly, I think I have to read over the whole thing first and then immediately reread it to give my thoughts (this is not how I normally do it - normally I just read the comic for the ""first"" time (its been a while since I reread all of these) and comment as I go).

It's a really, really strange comic, and it doesn't particularly appeal to me specifically.

I think this is one of those things that you're not supposed to think about too hard. But we here at AstroBoyAnalysis dot tumbler dot edu overthink everything.

This is messed up. I think it's pretty self explanatory. The robots are alive. Where do they go after? Why is it not simply a reskin and rental? I understand the similarities with obon festival customs but the sentience of robots makes this really strange (and also, "replacing" your dead family member for three days, although I can't say if this is something that strikes me as strange for cultural reasons where it might not for someone else. If I think of it more like a metaphor its less weird, but would come with its own set of consequences. This is also like, one of the main emotional cruxes of Astro Boy as a whole, that you can't replace someone who is gone, but what do I know)

THIS IS MORE THAN A FUCKING FAVOR THIS IS HORRIBLE

Also, Ban says "just for a day" but soon after the family establishes it is three days. It just doesn't feel that well thought out, or maybe it's a bit of a translation thing.

Atom is really cute in these panels, but the whiplash of the emotions here is very strange. It goes from sentimental in describing the festival (with, you know, the qualms I described a moment ago) to like horrifically sad and upsetting and then right after this it goes right back to normal adventures it's all very strange. This is kind of the first one that I'm coming at with something closer to criticism and I want to make it clear that I think I just don't get it. I assume some people, especially at the time and in Japan, probably got it in a way I don't, and the fact that I don't get it (it being a kind of difficult to place emotional truth) is an unsolvable issue.

>three days

Also, I don't know, it's really sad that they've lost a child but also it's really, really strange to me that you would want to be reminded of that loss in such a way, although they're clear that they're "imagining" on purpose.

I feel a need to describe what happens. Atom goes upstairs, finds a time machine. A debt collector comes in and says that he's here for the money Jiro borrowed, and that the amount the parents paid him was not the full sum.

he's so violent. What the hell. I do really like the panel where he's just standing there as the man hits him and it does nothing.

"I couldn't help acting like a robot" WHAT.

You just harmed a human, that is explicitly against the laws of robotics - In what way is that "acting like a robot"? Also, all ideas that its self defense go out the window (get it) when he was capable of just standing there instead. Also, destroyed that window.

Yeah (deep, tired sigh) yeah that's basically right

It's a poignant ending panel and I imagine that this aesthetic is the full reason Tezuka wrote the rest of the comic - Both Atom looking at the river in the first panel and this final one - but it feels very strange, doesn't it?

I suppose, at this point, the manga didn't have as much of a strong conviction to the theme of loss and grief, so this comic likely didn't feel as out of place when Tezuka was writing it. As the series developed, I do think it took on more of those themes as central - That life is precious and people are unique - and a person's uniqueness is why they can't be replaced. I think those themes blend well with the themes Tezuka did seem to like, at this point, which were things like making a better world through conservation and technology.

Anyway, not my favorite. Just by process of elimination, probably one of my least favorites so far in this read through, but it isn't bad per se, just not to my liking, I guess?

Next up: Ghost Manufacturing Machine

[opalsiren]

things mako mermaids got right that weren't featured in h2o:

a large supporting cast: by the time we get to season four numerous land people are aware of the existence of merpeople and are able to support them in hiding the secret. i understand why the h2o writers chose for the girls to only tell their boyfriends about their identities, and obviously budget constraints are a concern, but i think the extended family ensemble just works

older mermaids: this is only something small, but i like that we get to see slightly older mermaids like rita and veridia actually in their mermaid forms. it’s something that we didn’t get to see on h2o that i personally would have vibed with *shrug emoji*

some of the particulars of mermaid-ness like mermaids having beautiful hair, being terrified of cats, and having a penchant for seafood couldn't exist in h2o for obvious reasons, but i'm going to shout them out here since i think these were clever and creative choices on the part of the writers especially poseidon’s existence since i maintain that the only thing missing from h2o is cats and have assigned rikki an elder lady cat named gramps

characters's parents being told about their mermaid status: of course this is only something hinted at the end of season four. still it’s something i would have liked to see on h2o. i’m glad that zac’s parents eventually learned about his true identity and could presumably help him to navigate both worlds to which he belongs

land person-turned-mermaid losing their tail, but it's a good thing: in the og series the audience is meant to read gracie giving up her tail as a bad thing, since it caused her relationship with max and her friendships with the girls to end. charlotte losing her tail is not supposed to be a bad thing for the audience, but as a charlotte sympathizer it’s pretty heartbreaking to watch. evie’s admittedly half-hearted arc in gaining a tail and then losing it is quite refreshing in comparison. she is able to go back to her normal life and is no longer burdened with the secret when she finally accepts what has happened to her

mermen: the concept is yawn-inducing for me, but considering the amount of 'lewis/zane/ash/will become mermen' fic which circulates, i'm going to go ahead and say that introducing mermen was a good choice. dissenting opinions accepted at this time!

things mako mermaids got wrong that h2o also got wrong:

the stringent heterosexuality of every single character: i understand that we’re talking about kids’s shows which aired in the early 2000s, but must near every single character end up in a heterosexual union?

lack of racial and ethnic diversity: most of the characters in h2o are white, and the characters of colour are periphery at best. there is more diverse representation in mako mermaids but it isn’t always handled in the most, ahem, tactful way (e.g the whitewashing of mimmi, the miscasting of weilan, etc.)

misogynistic writing resulting in pointless female rivalries: see, for example, nixie and evie getting into a cat fight in early season one over a pair of shoes. that scene was written by a man, i just know it

characters that are not from australia having australian accents: i can kind of give h2o a pass for this one since bella (and will, now that i think of it) may have spent a good chunk of her childhood in aus and picked up the accent, but why does weilan, who has never set foot there until the final season, speak with an aussie twang? no seriously, if anyone has an explanation for this bar 'casting an actor to do a chinese accent would have been too much bother' i'm all ears!

the ever-evolving cast: why does no one who acts in the makoverse want to stick around for more than one season? half the supporting characters of h2o season one don't appear in season two, and half of those remaining characters don't appear in season three. it's worse on mako mermaids as the main trio of mermaids is constantly changing. how is the viewer supposed to get attached, let alone watch characters develop organically over a number of seasons, if the mains keep getting replaced?

things mako mermaids got wrong that h2o managed to get right:

the visual appeal of its magical jewellery: this one is entirely subjective, but i’m just going to say it: the moon rings are ugly. especially compared to the iconic h2o lockets. i suppose it could be argued that the lockets were designed by a human to blend in with the world of land people, while the moon rings are from the mermaid world so must appear more bright and fantastical. this doesn’t detract from the face that they are garish and artificial looking. also, if you're attempting to hide your mermaid identity on land, why wear a ring that has a mermaid on it? the mind boggles

mermaid tails: someone else made a more detailed post on this, but the mako tails suck, especially compared to its predecessor. they look weirdly discoloured, almost unfinished, don’t have the same dexterity, and are too light to the point of flimsiness. what i will say is that the silvery-blue merman tails are cool. still, if it ain't broke and all that

i don’t know how to summarise this point into a snappy sub-heading, but the way that each h2o mermaid has unique powers particular to them that just adds something to the world. not to mention the hand gestures! of course northern mermaids, eastern mermaids, and southern mermaids have different strengths, while individual mermaids may be proficient in different areas. it also makes sense that a large pod of mermaids would share the same powers, rather than having individual powers specific to them. still i think the elemental associations in the original series helped to round the characters out better, and it’s something i missed on mako mermaids

i don’t know where to include this bit, but the different aesthetics of the show lend themselves to two entirely different experiences. the visual aesthetic of mako mermaids is sharp and vibrant and colourful, with a higher production value. however as a zillennial there’s something comforting about the crappy production value of the og series and the muted tones used in the colouring

feel free to add!

[icegoddessrukia]

The big ones: IchiHime and SasuSaku

S*suSaku

The scene you started to dislike them in

From the moment the characters were introduced. She was just fawning over him because of his popularity and it was so superficial. I instantly got the worst impression of them. They got worse the first time he called her annoying (I think that may have been episode 3 if I'm not mistaken when she was talking about parents). Bad vibes

The worst scene of them

Him stabbing her in the genjutsu

Something about them that just makes you annoyed

The way her self-esteem is terrible around him and she just lets him treat her like garbage because she thinks that's what she deserves. The writer romanticizes that.

Which one is the worse in the relationship

They're both really really bad for each other in different ways but Sasuke is worse because he's more violent and has done worse things to her.

If you can see any appeal to why others ship them

Not really. Literally the only thing I can think of that's remotely appealing is the blue/pink aesthetic but that's entirely superficial

If there is any scene of them that you actually think is ok

I can't think of any off the top of my head but any of their semi "decent" scenes were in the context of Team 7 acting like a family unit in part 1. They were the most civil to each other during that time but I still think it was more like a family relationship

Ich*Hime

The scene you started to dislike them in

Like SS, from the moment they first interacted I disliked them because I hated how Ori acted like this idiotic fangirl around him and their interactions were just uncomfortable the first arc

The worst scene of them

Orihime begging IchiThing to save her during The Lust Arc. That was the moment that proved without a doubt how terrible they are for each other.

Something about them that just makes you annoyed

I hate how Ichigo just never ever showed any evidence of liking her romantically throughout the series and yet we're supposed to buy that he loves her and would want to marry her out of nowhere.

Which one is the worse in the relationship

Orihime for sure. Ichigo isn't all that kind to her and doesn't put any effort into understanding her emotionally but she is downright obsessive and absolutely refused to let go of her infatuation

If you can see any appeal to why others ship them

Nope. There's just nothing. They don't look good together. They aren't entertaining. It's just a ship for people who want to project themselves onto Ichigo so they can get the submissive moe chick or project themselves onto the "nice girl" so they can get the hero. It's extremely creepy just like SasuS*ku is.

If there is any scene of them that you actually think is ok

Not off the top of my head. They had a few good friendship scenes but usually in the context of the entire friend group. They were okay to each other most of the time as friends. They didn't have much friendship development overall though so it's difficult to even remember their good moments

[space-city-traffic]

yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she��s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

[skunked-up-kicks]

Wait so is Neil demisexual or demiromantic? I thought they were the same thing but apparently not? But I thought it was demisexual

demisexual- needs to form a strong emotional bond to feel sexual attraction

demiromantic- needs to form a strong emotional bond to feel romantic attraction

similar but different, the same thing exists for all sexualities e.g. bisexual/biromantic, homosexual/homoromantic. often when ppl say something like "i'm bisexual", they're simultaneously saying they are biromantic. because for most people they go hand in hand.

for me neil specifically being asexual and demiromantic is just a lil hc i have mainly brought on by the fact i hate the way most people write neil experiencing sexual attraction because it is so far removed from his canon experience.

neils gaze in the books is distinctly non sexual, there is no drooling even in the slightest. people took one of my favourite paragraphs from the book, the one where neil gets pushed into andrew in edens, where neil talks about how relieving and liberating it feels to be held up by someone else, to be supported finally. and they turned it into "neil was drooling over andrews muscles🤪" in the same way they sexualized the scene where neil puts andrews hand under his shirt. in the same way they somehow astonishingly managed to sexualise jorts. fucking. jorts. by making said jorts extremely short despite how inaccurate it is to the way neil likes to dress and early 2000s fashion. or even the way people call neil an unreliable narrator and a dumbass for not giving us much detail on how people look, instead of maybe considering neil might not immediately attempt to characterize how attractive he finds someone upon meeting them, or that he simply just.. doesn't care about how people look? why would he?

they have the same vibe as allison watching andreils reunion and coming out thinking about them 'hate-fucking'. taking something that is not sexual and putting in an effort to make it so. this i think, and as others have mentioned to me, is part of the allo gaze. (allo meaning allosexual- someone not on the asexual spectrum).

i would like to make it clear that just because neils gaze in the books in not sexual does not make him immediately asexual. he can obviously still be demisexual because he would still not look through the allo gaze. in my hc i view the moment neil does appreciate andrews looks, the scene on the bus, as an aesthetic attraction which imo fits because of that scenes non sexual nature.

even in the scenes where andrew are kissing of getting off, to me it seems like neil focuses on how he feels for andrew emotionally and the physical feeling of the act itself. think about the line "everything about andrew was hot. from the hands holding him down to the mouth slowly taking him apart."- not 100% accurate cuz i couldn't be bothered finding it but ayo close enough. anyway, the use of the word hot could easily be interpreted as referring to a physical feeling. how andrews hands and mouth feel hot. not look hot. especially considering the fact that neil doesn't even have his eyes open in this scene. we all know neil likes to look at andrew, but anytime he does in canon it never feels sexual. it feels the same way as when someone looks at a painting. there is no hunger. no sexual tone. just a respectful gaze of how something looks aesthetically appealing.

one thing i think people need to vitally understand is that demisexual does not mean allosexual for this one person. what i mean by that is that the way neil experiences attraction will be different from allo people because he is demi, on the asexual spectrum. neil does not form a strong enough emotional bond to someone and then immediately start drooling over them, or ever start drooling over them necessarily.

i'm not intending to bash people who write him drooling, because i myself used to enjoy reading those things. i didn't always know about the difference between the allo gaze and the aspec gaze. i'm allo myself so i first saw neils attraction through that gaze myself. the best thing for people who want to write neil and stay true to his identity is to please listen to the aspec people in this fandom. they know better than anyone else.

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

I will, again, do the unthinkable and say HYYH is my least favorite concept of theirs (or maybe their earlier albums were worse). 

I hate nostalgia. I don’t like the sentimentality of it. I don’t like how BH commercialized the loneliness/pain/hardship of youth and portrayed it as equal parts beautiful and sad. I don’t like Young Forever that much (regardless of the intent behind the song, we won’t be young forever, and I know people who were cruelly robbed of their youth), I don’t like (more like *love*) the lyricism of many HYYH songs. I just don’t like poetic lyrics, I can’t understand or relate to them. There’s no beauty in loneliness and pain, even if you grow stronger from it or discover things about yourself in the process. There’s only been one year of my life that came close to the idea behind HYYH, and the rest of my youth has been miserable. I see no beauty in wasting away my “golden years” as I have done, and I find that romanticizing youth is toxic, but BTS didn’t waste their youth away at all, which is why HYYH is a story of triumph. I would much rather talk about how overhyped being young is, or how any stage of life can and should be beautiful in its own way. And in saying this, I don’t mean to imply BTS themselves were romanticizing youth *in a bad way*, but aren’t the aesthetics of HYYH doing that? Like, for example, the pictures of Jikook sitting back to back wearing youthful clothing, gazing sadly and prettily at the sky?

I can’t relate to HYYH as a concept. I love a lot of the songs, mostly the fun ones (Dope, Fire, Silver Spoon, Ma City) and a few of the more emotional ones too (Run, Love is Not Over, House of Cards, etc.), so it’s not that I don’t love the music, I just can’t relate to it as a concept. I much prefer the pure, polished, pop sound of Love Yourself. It feels so much more genuine to me, even if it’s not really better. It’s commercial, but they’re not “lying” to you about it. HYYH just feels like one of the most commercial decisions they’ve done as a group -  appealing directly to younger fans by making the switch from bad boys to soft boys - and as much as I understand why people love it, I just can’t love it. To be clear, I’m not saying BTS sold out or anything like that - I understand why they would try something new if Dark&Wild didn’t get them the results they wanted - but HYYH is seen as the peak of BTS’s musical integrity and creativity, when, really, it wasn’t. The introduction of the BU meant that the lyrics to their title tracks, like all lyrics which are based on concepts rather than personal experiences, lack some of the sincerity of, say, Black Swan, which is also based on a concept but draws more directly from RM’s experiences without being about a “girl” (I Need U). RM probably wrote I Need U sincerely, using romantic love as a pretext for the deeper meaning he was trying to convey, but that’s exactly why I can’t connect to the lyrics. BTS’s albums are based on concepts, and on that note, I don’t fully get Wings either. I haven’t looked too much into it, but I take lyrics at face value, which often doesn’t work... I don’t mind the MOTS:7 concept, because it allowed them to express themselves fully, but I wonder if all of their songs do, when they’re “stuck” on concepts? Idk.

I believe BTS were genuine with their lyrics and that HYYH era means a lot to them. This is purely how I feel about it. I hate indie music for the same reasons I can’t connect with HYYH. It’s not the music or the era I don’t like - it’s what it represents. This isn’t a critique of the era as much as an explanation of why I don’t fully enjoy it. Of course they weren’t trying to romanticize loneliness in a bad way; people write beautiful poetry about their pain to make it better - I just don’t enjoy that kind of mental exercise. I feel somewhat *repulsed* (not grossed out, more like I don’t vibe with it) by nostalgia and sentimentality. BTS were writing about the hardships of youth, and were hoping to help and comfort us, but I don’t like the aesthetics of HYYH - you know, the boys in Run who rebel against the world by spray painting cars, and who always have each other’s backs. What does that mean? Nothing, probably, because it’s part of the BU, which is a fictional story, not actually representing BTS themselves. HYYH is inextricably tied to the BU, and I neither know nor care for it. 

I don’t know if this opinion is ignorant. I don’t know the lyrics to all their songs and I haven’t explored their symbolism. There are a lot of songs with nice lyrics that I don’t find meaning in, and RM can write lyrics in a way I don’t know how to properly digest. I also feel like a bad Army for not knowing all the theories about HYYH or the concept behind Wings. I don’t like concepts... I like lyrics that are literally about people’s personal experiences, like Agust D - lyrics that I can relate to and that help me understand the artist better. When there are concepts involved, the truth gets mixed up with the aesthetics of it and it takes too much effort for me to detangle it. 

[yammoba]

you are literally so fucking right about ranfren that I made a tumblr account after over a year clean of not having one to tell you so. The whole situation makes me so fucking upset and I hate that people feel this sick sense of entitlement that every single creator is a completely flawless saint who has never so much as had an impure thought.

Yea, its really tough because i think its worth having these kinds of discussions. Its part of why we have progressed as much as we have in terms of media and such (which in the grand scheme of things isnt actually all that much, but ehh, baby steps i guess...) But i really think its important to keep the context of the past in mind when having these discussions otherwise any critisisms are just gonna fall flat.

I also do get frustrated people seem to want to apply the same kind of standards to every work and every person. A single someones indie project that is specifically taylored to a specific demographic is not going to have the same kind of reach and "responsabilities" as something like... the marvel movies idk. Im really fighting back a disney industrial complex rant, but I'll persist.

Its also like... yeah... sometimes a work is just not "for you" like in the sense that it was written in a way that is just not going to cater to "you". I dont mean in like a traditional demographic way nessecarily, like obviously people can enjoy things outside their -demographic-, adults can enjoy kids media etc. But i more mean in like a deep aesthetic and content sense. For example i dont write my stuff with straight people in mind.

I dont know... like... i think Rent the movie/musical is problematic. I dont like it. It doesnt appeal to me even though the idea of it sounds cool, nothing about the exicution or the actual content compels me and i have a lot of issues with how the queer characters are depicted. But Rent is really important for a lot of people, even straight cis people probably, for a lot of contextual reasons that just dont apply to me. Rent is not for me. We can talk about the ways the harmful sterotypes can have real world impacts, and keep those thing in mind when crafting new stories, but theres context to why its like that and why it means stuff to people. And even though i do Not like rent, i understand theres content in it, outside the stuff that is problematic and, or the stuff that is "problematic" resonates with people in ways that arent nessecarily "yep that sterotype is true and i hate bisexuals now". Im being glib but i hope my point can come across.

And, im speaking pretty generally for all of that but it feels important to the underlying vibe of the conversation? If that makes sense.

It is tough when you find something that has parts that appeal to you extreamly deeply, but parts that you just hate or cant deal with or cant get past. Its deffinatly happened to me, and ive had to treat it differently pretty much every time because no case has been the same. No peices of media are the same, especially when taken in context. Its up to the individuals (or their gaurdians i guess) to determine what the lines are in what you can deal with at what times.

Also its frustrating because in these types of situations (lumping every troubling thing someone has ever done into a google doc with shorthand explinations and getting people to spread it around as proof that x-person is human garbage and anyone who supports them is too) people always end up having multiple converstations at the same time. Converstations that have different needs or requirements. Like with this situation theres issues of when and if certain types of depictions play into harmful histories and stereotypes and what harm that can cause and if intent matters or not, which is a media depiction issue. Issues of how fan/internet culture veiws certain things and the "generational" descrepencies that cause confusion and hurt among people wich is a media and social structure issue. Issues that arise out of some very foundational aspects of meme and internet culture, foundational in the sense that its still baked into how people act and veiw things which is a social structure issue. Discussions of how forgiveness(using that world loosly) of harmful individual action should happen, how much responsability can be placed on an individual when so much of how we act is a reflection of our place in time and space. Which in particular is a massive fucking thing and is often best understood differently from media anylisis-type jam because there are different factors at play.

They do all have stuff in common but when it comes to analyzing what harm has been done they just are not the same...

I also just... i kinda gotta rant... i know that stuff people get turned off by is very personal. So i think its understandable for people to have internal "double standards". <personal example> i cant get down with ancheint magus bride. The way the main relationship is framed and the way the main girl is treated just kinda bug me, even though i did want to like it because the designs are so good. Theres other stuff to it that makes it unappealing, but eh, it is what it is. But i fucking love cardcaptor sakura. Damn it makes me so happy. But that series is full of very -problematic- relationships, that i still kinda think are cute in the context of the story. Sakura's parents were teacher and student, touya has a past romantic realtionship with a teacher, i could keep going, lots of relationships that in that show would be horrible or strange if they happened in real life. Its interesting to think about why one put me off and the other didnt. (And i have, but its not worth going into here) But in terms of being "problematic", pound for pound card captor sakura is probably "worse".</personal example>

But... when presenting your issues with media as issues of justice, and presenting them in a way that condems anyone who doesnt fall perfectly inline with you, its weird....... to see them..... be into.... stuff thats.... also got similar.... or worse issues...........

one of my main fandoms is one thats widely detested and i have a hobby of looking at the blogs of people who complain about it, and its pretty common for this to happen.... im choking back the disney rant but.... ill make that its own post. Its not really about "what about x thing, isnt that problematic too???" Its more like... i have a concern for this mindset when paired with using it to declare people that like or produce "irredemable" media to be scum who are -litterally killing people-. because its so often unhelpful. On the surface it tends to confuse and alienate people. It can wind up making real world issues seem much more trival than they are because they are being used to explain why you dont like someone over the internet, who may be related to those issues, but is in no way a substitute for the weight of systematic opression. It leaves fertile ground for people who are truely against social justice to sweep in and use it to explain that "caring about social justice is dumb, racism is over anyways~ actually did you know white people are in danger of loosing our majority status--". Im not saying we need to taylor arguments and speech to soften the reality of things. But its important to be aware of orders of scale and reach and other factors of reality. And its important to understand where people are at. And if you are interested in fighting for justice, and explaining the problems inherent in everything. You have to actually... do that... which is a long and difficult task. And it can be hard to articulate, and stressful. And you, or people you admire, might fuck up. And burnout happens extreamly easily, especially for thise who have to deal with real world consequences of systematic opression while trying to fight it. (And itll happen way faster if the first insinct when someone fucks up is to harrase and dox them) Thats why its important to... pick your battles. Obviously you can care about more than one thing at a time, but you also dont have to try to be an avatar of expertise for every fucking thing. There are a lot of people, and we're stronger fighting together because we can all use our perspectives and expertise in the areas that suit us best.

All this to also say nothing of the very real concern trolling that happens still pretty regularly. Im not saying that is the case in this specific instance here, but its worrying because these kinds of live or die mindsets will leave people venuerble to certain types of coordinated concern trolling campaigns that have already done real harm to innocent and often mrginalized people.

Uuhhh... sorry for rambling so much, also sorry for enabling your return to tumblr... i hope you have a good time at least xD im glad you and others were able to get something out of my nonsense. I mean ultimately i just dont want people to harrase each other, thats really the bottom line with any fandom/media-spawned debate.

[sawwyouuinadream]

FIFTH HARMONY EXPOSED

Isn’t this the type of headline that intrigues people? Well, here I will expose some myths that the so-called Exposing accounts go on exposing. Just declaring something here in the beginning: I love all my Fifth Harmony girls, OT5 that is, and read it at your discretion. The thoughts stated below are opinions of mine, gathered over months and years, and I firmly stand by them.

Cutting to the chase, here we go:

1)      Fifth Harmony the Band Image:

This group was manufactured by Simon Cowell on the X-Factor, back in 2012, and it broke up in 2018. On the show, Lauren Jauregui, the green-eyed white Latina was given the majority of solos and they performed songs in Spanish and garnered Hispanic fans banking on the fact that there were three Latinas in the group.

After they signed to Syco/Epic when the show ended, we saw Camila Cabello, the more convincing Latina, who was born in Cuba, get more and more solos. Normani Kordei was promoted as the “dancer” of the group, Ally Brooke as the “unproblematic one”, Lauren as the “broody edgy girl” and Dinah Jane as the “relatable Polynesian”.

Not surprisingly, Camila was the first one to do a solo venture with Shawn Mendes, the song I Know What You Did Last Summer, which, according to me, was a song to test the waters for both Shawn and Camila.

As more time passes, Camila was portrayed like the lead, not by HERSELF, but the trademark that Fifth Harmony was. She stopped talking in interviews, started doing more and more solo stuff, and even signed to a different manager. Voila, we were getting the rift in-band vibes galore.

Now here’s my verdict:

Fifth Harmony was made by Simon to not get the next One Direction, but to get the next Taylor Swift. Little Mix was already there in the U.K, and people know Girl groups don’t do as well as Boy Bands, mostly because of the inherent Misogyny in the society.

They wanted the next relatable girl next door who could influence teenage girls.  Camila being Latina, could now have an even larger fanbase, in Latin America as well as South Asia, because South Asian music is quite similar in a groove to Latin Music.

Why Not Lauren or Ally then?  Well, they were simply not interesting or Latin enough.

Why Not Normani? Do I have to tell? Those bitches are racist as fuck.

Why Not Dinah? Same thing. Less Appeal to a large fanbase.

That’s why Camila was the goofy dorky most relatable person on 5H. That’s why she readily had a high budget tour all set up for her the moment she left the group. That’s why they promoted her. 5H was never the long-lasting plan. Camila was. 5H was just an excuse to get her a strong fanbase and give Epic 4 more mediocre artists. I am really happy that Normani proved her worthiness and released smash hits as well. And mind you, this was done without Camila herself wishing for it. It was just the label’s decision.

 2)      Camila- the beauty or the bitch?

Camila Cabello is a very intriguing person to me. At the first glance, you haven’t seen a more dorky, goofy, and relatable celebrity like her, eating bananas and tripping on air. But then she starts talking about profound and deep experiences, and you go on her Tumblr and find quotes from books and aesthetic pictures. But then you see her leaked text messages and old Tumblr and all those images crumble before your eyes.

Think about this. Among the 5H girls, Dinah, Lauren, Ally, and Normani have friends outside the industry whom they talk to and hang out with. They have family they post about. Camila? She seems to have no friends apart from Sandra and Marielle Guzman, and those are the people we got the leaked texts with. What about her school teachers and school friends? Nothing.  All she hangs out with is Shawn Mendes and Taylor Swift and her mom who follows her like a hawk. She doesn’t seem to have a social life at all except for events she goes for business.

In my opinion, Camila has a pretty big secret that is guarded closely by everybody but her.

Is she racist? Yes. She was. She didn’t have any sensitivity to Black people or their struggles whatsoever. But you have to understand she is Hispanic, and not born in the U.S. And she has sort of always been a big mouth. I am from a country that doesn’t have a single black person in the near 30000 miles. We grow up using racial slurs as if it's nothing. I had to unlearn my indoctrinations and consciously undo the wrongs in my head and implement them in my actions. Bit it doesn’t undo things I said as a child. I bullied one friend of mine in middle school simply because her skin tone was darker than mine. But I was not canceled. Because I am not a celebrity. Have I learned? Yes definitely. I will never dare to act like that again because now I understand the pain of being ostracized and I recognize the struggles of black people. But that happened over time.

I feel like Camila is a changed person now, and tries very hard to educate herself. She is not perfect, but she doesn’t deserve so much hate. She deserves a second chance.  If she was indeed like that, Normani wouldn’t post a photo with her in IT on the eighth anniversary of 5H.

As far as her being a jealous bitch goes. The rest of 5H always had good things to talk about her after 5H dissolved in 2018. Lauren, the activist, even praised her. Dinah still seems pretty close to her.

Did she do solo stuff without 5H knowing?

No. If she did, and the whole not attending meetings thing happened, Dinah wouldn’t go to her Bad Things concert one day before she left the band. Lauren wouldn’t laugh with her in the VMAs like that if they weren’t friends and just work colleagues. The whole 5H vs Camila feud was planned by management because apparently shade helps sales. For both parties. Another manipulative misogynistic example of society.

 3)      Are/ Were Camila and Lauren romantically together?

All the roads lead to Rome honey. Camren has too many coincidences to NOT be real. From song lyrics to shady potato photos to weird comments and body language in interviews, I am pretty sure the Camren blogs will keep you covered.

Why does Lauren hate it so much? Why are we being invasive?

Lauren is supposed to nix it every time because she is contractually bound to do so. She needs to be the one to keep Camila’s straight image intact, although we have more than tons of evidence that Camila is anything but straight.

To everyone who says we shouldn’t force sexuality on people. Heterosexuality is not the default. Don’t force straightness on her. She never said she was straight. We’re just speculating she is with Lauren, and that’s it. Lauren just happens to be a girl. That’s IT.

Why did the nosy shippers out Lauren?

Nobody did. They just speculated on her sexuality based on assumptions. But no fan posted photos of her and Lucy from her aunt’s Facebook, because it was password protected. It was most probably intentional. Note that she shot a coming-out photoshoot with her “ex-girlfriend” Lucy Vives even before the Wedding where she was supposedly outed. Why shoot a photoshoot TO COME OUT and then hide behind the closet? Her coming out was planned as early as 2015, and so was the bearding of Camila simultaneously.

To me, Lauren and Camila are contracts bound to lie, at this moment. But they have a very grown-up and well-communicated relationship that is very sacred and private, and only the two of them know everything about it. Lauren and Camila are still related to the same contract, and this intuition of mine was confirmed yesterday. She was shooting something for Roger gold’s label. I hope the best for both of them, and I would love it if they were together. But them going public would be huge and in my opinion, detrimental to them.

4)      Who’s Shawn Mendes?

A really career-oriented artist. Shawmila is for him and his promotion only. Not his fault though. He is just a conceited boy with good guitar skills who wants to be extremely famous. I will not talk about his sexuality, because unlike Camila, I can’t trace him to anyone in particular.  But I can say this, Camila’s solo career had plans for Shawmila since the very start. I also believe it will end like Jelena and be back and forth for some time for minor promotions.

 Final Verdict:

Nobody is perfect. Don’t make this about Shawmila Vs Camren. Every artist has their struggles. But please break out of the shell of heteronormativity, misogyny, and racism. Love human beings. The 5H girls and Shawn Mendes are teenagers, now adults, who have been oppressed and manipulated by a capitalistic racist homophobic industry, for money and money only. And only the fans have the power to see the truth and choose the right stuff.

[emilycollins00]

Hello there :) How would Juza, Tasuku and Omi react if Azuma asked what your type was and you casually mention the masculine type and mention them (they have a crush on you). Separate reactions of course 😂 Thank you! Here's a cookie for you 🍪 ~

Thank you anon, that’s very sweet of you! 💕

I was surprised at how into this ask I was that I went over how much I had initially thought to write. Hope you and everyone enjoy it!

Juza, Tasuku and Omi discovering they are reader’s ideal type

Juza

I think he would feel a bit self-conscious, not knowing what to feel.

We all know this young boy has the face of a troublemaker and pretty dominant first impression.

But poor thing couldn’t be more different.

“Mmm… I’d say… manly? I haven’t really thought about it that much. but I would say I like having someone protective and strong with me.” you drank a bit from the tea Azuma and you had prepared.

The cuddling expert hummed at your response, smiling. “Never thought you would go for that type Y/N,” he rested his cup on the table. “I guess Juza fits that description coincidentally, wouldn’t you agree?”

You gave it a thought. You had known Juza for a while so you were used to him now, but it was true he gave pretty strong masculine vibes. “Yeah, he’s actually a pretty good resemblance” you laughed.

“Heard that, Juza?”

A clumsy noise of stumbling feet alerted you of something moving behind you. Turning, you discovered the tall boy looking at the ground, frowning face and red ears.

“Ah, sorry, do you feel bad I used you as an example?” you tried to make contact with his eyes, not that he was letting you. “Don’t worry Juza, it’s just a comment! We all here now you’re the sweetest guy around ah, not that it doesn’t go well with being manly of course! You are good at both.”

The high schooler glanced from the corner of his eyes at your face. He felt his palms sweating and his heart beating fast in his chest. He deepened his scowl at the floor again, too shy to look at you “Uh…’thanks.”

“Really, you have amazing traits!”

“…’thanks.”

You tilted your head, still confused as to why he had gone quiet. Azuma on the other hand sipped contently his tea, enjoying the oblivious cute exchange between you two.

                                               ..............................

Tasuku:

 I don’t think he would react too much if he heard it. 

He has always been on the heavy side of what people call “masculine”

 Maybe if it’s you, he would feel happy knowing he was on the safe here.

“Oh come on Azuma-san, that’s their biggest selling point! You have to see that.”

Azuma leaned in, looking again at the magazine. His eyes went trhough the pages while you started expectantly. "Well?"

“Mmm… who knows.” he finally chuckled. You sighed, it was obvious you had to resort to more sources to stan on your argument.

"I'm back- Ah, It's been a while Y/N."

Tasuku stood holding the doorknob to the living room, surprised to see you and Azuma chatting- an unusual pair given that you worked with another theatre. You lifted your head smiling at the actor and he told himself to remain composed. It hadn’t been long since he felt he was starting to develop affection for you and it wasn’t good for him to see your face so suddenly.

“Oh hi Tasuku! I came here to grab those props Izumi-san said I could take from your last performance, she told me you knew where they were.”

Catching his breath from all the running he had just done, he nodded mindlessly going to the kitchen to get some water. His gaze changed to other troupe member, still immersed in the magazine. “You also know where they are Azuma-san, shouldn’t have kept Y/N waiting.”

“Mmm? Fufu we were not waiting. Y/N had this magazine and we were discussing important matters.” the long-haired man turned it to show the content. “Look, these are the top 10 men models of the year. I have to say, I like their smooth aesthetic, what about you?”

“I couldn’t care less about it, honestly.” after sipping on the bottle, he closed the fridge and turned to get the things you had asked.

You shrugged browsing through the photographs. “I’m not saying they are bad just that someone with a strong and assertive masculine profile is better. Many people could definitely see the appeal in that.”

Tasuku stopped for a second before humming uninterested, however his movements became duller, as if he didn't want to completely leave the room.

“So that would be your ideal type.” he heard Azuma's usual teasing tone followed by a soft giggle. “Good to know.”

“…Sure? Uh, Tasuku, everything okay?”

“What? Ah yeah, I… I will get going.” cleaning his throat, he resumed the usual pace.

He would never admit it, but after you took the props leaving the magazine alone, he scrolled through the pages you two had looked at.

Just checking, nothing else.

                                           .....................................

Omi

I’ll be honest, more than getting flustered or anything else...

This wonder of a man would just feel happy hearing he was close to what you were into.

He’s so precious.

“Ah… that was a really good movie!” you leaned back on the couch. You and Omi had been encouraged to watch this film from the photography club president. The angles and backgrounds had received really high praises after all. “Wish I could record and photograph such beautiful sceneries too!”

Azuma hummed, agreeing with your statement. Both him and Yuki had decided to watch it with you two and it had been a success. “The world was very well built and the main character also had a good story.”

“I’ll have to ask Minagi to think of a script for these types of men. I would really fall in love with a play similar to this one!”

“What, do you like those beefy type Y/N?” Yuki frowned confused, getting up and grabbing what was left of the popcorns, which wasn’t much.

“That’s not what I meant.”

The comment caught the oldest one’s attention. “Oh…? Then what type of guy do you like?”

You crossed your arms, deep in thought. “You know, it’s the…” you tried to gesture, although to no avail, “the independence, strength… like- like Omi! That’s what I like.” you turned to the university student.

“Um?” said boy smiled, feeling your gaze on him. He had been watching the last images from the credits, not really listening. He failed to understand what the conversation had evolved into. “What about me?”

You briefly explained what you three had been talking about. “…and so I decided you’re the closest to what I’d aspire a perfect man to be”

The cook laughed sheepishly, not thinking you would say something like that with such a straight face. But that’s what he liked about you. “Well, that’s good to know.”

You sighed from your side of the sofa. “I want to watch something similar, maybe I should look for other recommendations,” you opened your phone, already browsing. “A play would be good too, Autumn troupe really would crush it.”

“I see… if you make Tsuzuru do it and we get written a comparable play, I will do my best to remember today’s talk.” he looked at you in a sudden good mood. "I'll go make dinner."

“Come on, stop joking!”

What you couldn’t imagine was how true the his words were.

_________________________________________________________

Aaaah they are just too cute. I love them so much. Hope you guys liked them, have a wonderful day! 💕

[thebeastofblackmoor]

Hey can I ask why you hate the witch!Bess subplot? Is it because they didn't fully utilise her skills or something?

Of course you can! My dislike for the general witch plot as a concept is definitely a matter of personal taste. I don’t like too much reliance on magic in general and I’m just never into the witch vibe/aesthetic. (I’m especially disappointed because I really liked the tropes and plots associated with her early in the series, so much so that she seemed almost tailor-made to be my favorite character… but now so much of her character is being eclipsed by one of my least favorite tropes.) But my dislike of the witchy stuff in general is almost entirely a matter of personal preference! I totally understand why it would appeal to other people.

Personal taste aside, I do also think the way it was executed was flat-out bad; too easy, unemotional, and unrelated to her established past. If they had executed it better, I probably personally still wouldn’t have liked the change in her character to focus on occult stuff, but at least I could respect it from a narrative standpoint.