#and knowing it’s a pretty common response of audiences in general

[novelconcepts]

Okay, everybody dug the “art doesn’t go bad” post, so I’m gonna make a follow-up that probably won’t go over so well. If you find yourself getting constantly angry or frustrated at the way someone else is telling a story…maybe consider…that story just doesn’t have to be for you. It isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just the way the storyteller is choosing to do their thing. And maybe a good deal of why you don’t like it is a sense of ownership of someone else’s story being told as you personally wouldn’t tell it. Maybe you’ve got an idea in mind of how you want it to go, and they’re taking a different path. Which is okay and very normal to feel! But it does mean you might want to move on to another story, or tell one yourself, instead of insisting the thing you’re watching/reading/etc is just absolute garbage. Your interpretation of someone else’s story is not gospel; nor should it be. Making peace with that is just part of the deal.

[skythealmighty]

Alexander the Terrible - a 1987 TMNT Separated AU

I've come to throw my hat into the ring! Hello, hello hel-lo out there! (And a special hi to @getindumdums, who I know was very interested in this.) I made this AU because I'm pretty fond of '87 TMNT, and I haven't seen a Separated AU for them yet. So, here we are!

I'm kinda gonna explain some parts of this AU in detail on their own, so hold your horses, it's gonna be a hot minute here.

Design

There's not much changed in terms of design for- mostly everyone, but I did want to explain a few design choices with our brand 'new' turtle! First and foremost, I designed him like everyone else was designed- for an action figure. He takes a lot of inspiration from Shred-head, mostly with the arm guards and facemask, but my main goal was to cover most of him in dark colors to indicate 'villain'. I know that's not always the case, but you do have to admit you would assume that at first glance.

Dynamic

Heroes

Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo stand alone against the forces of evil! They're a great team, even if they do butt heads sometimes... mostly Raphael and Leonardo. Leonardo is the leader, Michelangelo is the humor and heart, and Raphael is... the street smarts!

Stepping up in place of the missing Donatello as the logical one, the whole team is slightly more morally gray. Without a turtle van of their own, sometimes the next best option is to hotwire one for a little bit, or just get there on foot. Leonardo tries to stop this from happening, most of the time, but he concedes to Raphael when he points out that it's a necessary evil. They're even more careful to stay out of the public eye because of that, since while they are heroes, public opinion of them is extremely mixed.

That being said, Raphael is still kind of alone on his distrust for humans. Even if he is listened to, he's bitter when they have to help some people- and he's generally a little more snappish with more responsibility on his shoulders.

Leonardo is also a bit more cautious as a result of Raphael's mild paranoia leading their logic, and Michelangelo is a little less likely to take things at face value. He's still a massive optimist, as is Leonardo, but the general wariness of the team makes for a massively different dynamic.

The show's tone is generally a tad bit heavier because of this, opting to actually have teaching moments and morals in the form of common sense lessons. It's both a tiny bit more edu-tainment and also aimed towards a slightly older audience- that doesn't stop it from being a hit with the kids, though!

Villains

So... what's up with Donatello, then? He's clearly with Shredder, and on the side of evil. His vindictive streak is given a chance to shine, and he often takes things to the max, almost comedically, but he's still sharp as a tack and almost more formidable than his sensei.

Just one thing- Shredder's the one to pick him up since the very beginning. He was the one who spilled the ooze on them, true- and in this timeline, he aimed to take one of those creatures for himself. That being said, Shredder wouldn't name a turtle after a renaissance artist- he's more of a war history buff, as seen with the Punk Frogs.

He instead names the turtle Alexander, after the great warlord in Rome.

(Alexander as a name was chosen because it uses all sharp-sounding vowels, rather than Donatello's round vowels- this sounds obscenely stupid on paper, but say the names out loud and you'll understand.)

Alexander is first and foremost Shredder's student, but he quickly picks up on Shredder's nature and learns to snipe back when disrespected. He's the favorite student, too- his literal creation, smart and savvy, and with a mean streak to match. Being the favorite, he's allowed to get away with a lot more, and though it wasn't the case at first, Shredder begrudgingly views him as something akin to an equal.

He has a lab, as well- Shredder, the traditionalist, doesn't take any upgrades to his precious armor (other than maybe a communication line in his helmet), but he lets Alexander make other sets of armor for fun, and sometimes wears them. Alexander also keeps eye on scientific progress- this time, Stockman isn't brought in to be the sole inventor Shredder relies on, but rather Alexander's lab assistant. Their relationship is strictly professional- Alexander is a bit disappointed that someone with so ingenious inventions is a massive pushover, and Stockman is more than a little terrified of Alexander, but starts to learn to admire him over his time there.

Even after the accident that turns Stockman into a fly, he still has a kind dismissal to Alexander while he hates Shredder. Alexander, blunt as he was, was never unnecessarily cruel, so he's mostly exempt from Stockman's schemes. Hooray?

As for their dynamic with the heroes, Shredder still despises them and is salty they didn't choose his side, Alexander mostly dislikes them because they trash his inventions, and Raphael gets on his nerves easily. He's fine with Michelangelo, tolerates Leonardo, and has a rivalry with Raphael. He's also aware of their relation, while the Turtles are not. (Raphael has a hunch, though.)

Plot

What, plot? The '87 show doesn't have that much plot! I know, but as with any Separated AU, there's got to be some way they meet up again other than the daily Saturday cartoon fights- no, not just meet up, reconcile. So, here's sort of how it goes:

It's a slowburn! ...NO NOT IN ROMANCE. EW. Let me explain:

Alexander and Raphael start out hating each other. Know Bratty and Catty? Remember their Deltarune versions, specifically? Yeah, kind of like that. They're extremely similar and that's why they get on each other's nerves! It's an easy pattern- every episode Alexander is in, you can count on him having some witty snipes shared with Raphael. Except...

Eventually, the insults turn to banter without them realizing, and they're closer than ever. Alexander lets loose that he thinks they're all related on an off-hand joke, and that gets Raphael thinking. Was he supposed to be with them from the start?

Obviously, this doesn't change what ended up happening, but he knows Michelangelo and Leonardo would be upset if he didn't at least try to win Alexander over to their side. Thus begins the "Convincing Arc".

[Allan please add details]

The Convincing Arc ends with Splinter's help, really. He's the one who takes the time to sit beside Alexander and talk, and while Alexander cares for Shredder, he starts wondering if Shredder really cared for him beyond their plans and lessons.

He begins to poke at that relationship, prod for answers, and he eventually finds out that while Shredder did 'care' for him, it never was anything but shallow. He didn't want to lose Alexander, true, but it was never because the government could take him away, or because he was worried he'd get hurt. Worried at all, really. It was because he would be seethingly jealous of whoever else had him.

Had him. Like some sort of tool.

Alexander left the next day, walked into the Turtles's sewers, and declared himself a home there. He would not help them fight Shredder. He would just be going stir-crazy without any companionship, and this was the first thing he thought of- allegedly.

(He doesn't miss Michelangelo's genuine happiness at him being there, Leonardo's immediate acceptance, or Raphael's relief. He also doesn't miss that it takes Shredder three days to realize he was gone.)

As for what comes next? A rocky relationship, a healing dynamic, and a lot of interpersonal conflict and fluff.

I don't have anything planned ahead of this, but if I were to start answering asks in character, it'd be in the middle of the Convincing Arc, so you guys could see that in action! Feel free to send asks about that, by the way. I'd love to answer (eventually).

Fun facts:

Alexander still loves purple. He just tends to like darker shades

He's also a massive astronomy nerd and wants to explore space

Raphael has not killed a man on screen. However, off-screen is... up to viewer interpretation

Alexander has killed off-screen too- mostly lab intruders. He's jumpy

The Punk Frogs get along surprisingly well with Alexander

Since Shredder is a war history buff, Alexander is also a little bit of a history nerd, but mostly with inventions and the arts. Ironically enough, his favorite historical artist is Donatello

Michelangelo loves to force everyone into movie nights. When Alexander is added into the mix, he clings to him

Having not grown up with the other turtles, poor Alexander is a little thrown off by their pizza tastes

Irma starts showing up a lot more when Alexander joins the good side

Baxter Stockman is eventually convinced to leave everyone alone!

oops this got way longer than i thought

[cringecompanionapologist]

Some Observations About Tegan

I have the classic fandom problem of paying more attention to the boys than the girls. I know. But here's some stuff about a woman. Well, not really, since it's above a dynamic between that woman and a man, but it's not in a romantic sense, so maybe that helps? I don't know.

But I do wanna say some stuff about Tegan.

Looking at both the show and fandom response to the character, I can't help but think that Tegan is one of the most screwed-over companions in the history of Doctor Who. The same could be said to some extent of every Saward Era companion (Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Peri, and Mel), but it's frustrating with Tegan in a way slightly different from the others, especially among Five's group.

Every companion from this era was screwed over by the writers, the fandom, or both in their own unique way. Some of it was fixed in hindsight, especially with Nyssa, favorite companion of Peter Davison and beloved of Big Finish that she is. By the time we get to Peri and Mel, it feels like the companions were being set up to fail and doomed from the start. Adric and Turlough, as male companions, have to fight an uphill battle to justify their existence, especially since they both break away from the traditionally male companion role of "handsome man of action who does the fight scenes and convinces women to watch the show".

Tegan was the most "normal" of Five's companions, which is why she stuck around for as long as she did. She could fill a sort of generic companion role that you couldn't convincingly do with the alien companions. She had more in common with the audience. But, having her just exist to ask "What's that?" over and over didn't do much for her characterization.

Looking into the show's history and what the team behind the scenes seemed to want to do with it at the time, it all sort of makes sense. Most of the writers seemed more interested in sci-fi concepts than in characters. The characters were kept generic to avoid distracting from the worldbuilding and complex plot exposition. This is probably how Five got his reputation for blandness. A lot of televised Five stories have the Doctor as a generic Doctor and the companions as generic companions. They didn't have to be written this way. They had personalities. But most of the writers had little interest in actually using them.

The isn't as big of a problem in EU media. You got a new generation of writers with more interest in the characters, so the characters got developed in a way the show never really let them. However, that doesn't mean that the EU just came in and made everything perfect. This applies to pretty much every character but the way it applies to Tegan is interesting. It's my belief that Tegan, though written well at times, was never utilized in the way that would've worked best.

To explain what I mean by that, we'll have to step away from Tegan for a moment and look at the Fifth Doctor. Since the Doctor is the main character for most eras of the show, the companions are usually written to compliment them in some way. The male companions of the 60s were made into action heroes because that was something the Doctor couldn't do. The companions often have different moral positions from the Doctor, creating situations for them to learn from each other. The plot of the early seasons was basically all about the balance of the worldviews of the Doctor vs. Ian and Barbara. And from them, the basic ideas behind how companions are supposed to work were established.

But, as the Doctor regenerated, you ended up with different personalities and different skill sets. The Second Doctor had better social skills than the first and was often easier to get along with. He occasionally needed his companions to call him out, but the tone of it had changed. Compare The Edge of Destruction, where the Doctor is definitely in the wrong and needs to learn to listen to Barbara, who talks some sense into him, to The Evil of the Daleks, where Jamie calls the Doctor out for lying to him and risking his life, but the audience is given enough context to know that the Doctor is doing the best he can and tried to avoid risking Jamie to the point of offering himself up in his place, making the situation more of a misunderstanding. The Doctor was being dishonest, but he put more thought into Jamie's safety than Jamie was aware of. The conflict is now far more two-sided.

We could go into the whole history of this process, but I think I've made my point. Now we've got to ask how this applies to the Fifth Doctor. Every Doctor sort of serves as a response and contrast to the previous one. Two is more socially aware than One, but this awareness allows him to manipulate people and be more dishonest. Now we look at how Five contrasts with Four.

The important thing here is actually a trait of both Three and Four that Five seems to lack, but that he doesn't really know how to solve problems without, something I could describe as a Vibe of Authority. Three and Four could show up in a room full of strangers and make them all shut up and listen to them. It was in their force of personality. Five doesn't have this trait. He tries to make people shut up and listen, but they don't and then people start dying.

The thing is, the Doctor is perfectly capable of saving the day without the Vibe of Authority. We already know this by Five's time because Two pulled it off easily. He was a funny little man in shaggy clothes. When he showed up in a situation, he didn't feel like an authority who needed to be listened to. He was just a traveler who happened to be in the neighborhood, noticed that there seemed to be some trouble, and now he's curious. Two would often stay on the sidelines, ask questions, learn about what was going on and the motives of everyone involved, and only take action once he already knew everything and had been around for long enough for the locals to realize that he knew what he was talking about. They'd notice that the people who dismissed him tended to be killed by monsters more than those who listened to him, and they started listening.

Some Doctors have the Vibe of Authority and some don't. Some are a bit more vague about it. 3, 4, and 6 definitely have it. 2 and 7 don't and know how to get by without it. The new series tends to give the Doctor the Vibe of Authority or the ability to gain that authority with one good speech. Midnight is about what would happen in 10's usual Vibe of Authority failed him. 13 has the same problem as 5 with the added implication of sexism being involved. 15 has the Vibe of Authority unless racism is involved.

So you end up with three (2 and a half, really) lose categories of Doctors with Authority, Doctors that lack Authority and can make it work, and Doctors that lack Authority but can't make it work and thus suffer. 5 invented this category.

The thing is, the audience wants to see the Doctor save the day. A few tragic failures here and there are memorable. You have the occasional Midnight where things don't work like they're supposed to, the occasional Dot and Bubble where it's all outside the Doctor's control, and it works. But, if it happens all the time, it's just depressing. You don't wanna have too many be losses in a row. You'll notice that Midnight and Dot and Bubble are both stories where a Doctor with Authority gets into a situation where their authority is compromised. This isn't the norm for them. But, with Doctors like 5, people not listening and dying tragically is the norm. It's very cynical and no fun.

So, how do we get around this? Companions. If the Doctor can't take control of the situation himself, you get a companion who can do it for him. Get everyone to shut up and listen to their friend the expert.

Tegan is perfect for this. We see it from the very beginning. In Logopolis, when she ends up in a situation, she tries to take charge. This clashes with Four's authority, but that's not a problem with Five. He thinks it is, because he expects to be treated like Three and Four, but instead of trying to be like them and failing, he could learn that Tegan could help him out. The flight attendant keeps the passengers calm and instructs them on what to do in an emergency while the pilot sorts out what's wrong with the plane.

In this format, Tegan is a sort of update of Barbara designed for a Doctor like Five. The Doctor has to learn that, despite her being an ordinary human, she's someone worth listening to. They develop a sense of mutual respect and start working as a team. They get into situations. The Doctor is the one who knows how to fix it, but Tegan is the one makes sure it gets done.

If you look at Castrovalva, you can see that Bidmead, season 18's script editor who wrote season 19's first story on the way out, seemed to be aware of this. It's kind of funny that Bidmead basically wrote the instructions for how to manage the new TARDIS team into the script and either no one noticed or no one followed them.

Tegan takes charge and keeps the group together. Nyssa is the STEM genius who handles the technobable. Adric is the show's connection to the past, connecting the Doctor to Tegan and Nyssa kind of like how Susan connected the Doctor to Ian and Barbara. Also he can sort of fly the TARDIS with his math powers.

But, instead, we got Tegan being portrayed as an obnoxious complainer, Nyssa as a borderline non-entity, and Adric refusing to get along with anyone and none of his skills amounting to anything.

Between this and Frontios, which gave Turlough an arc without being his introduction or exit, Bidmead was obviously one of the most competent writers of this era.

Anyway, this is the part where I blame sexism.

This TARDIS team set-up would be based on its own version of The Edge of Destruction, a crisis that gets everyone working together for the first time. Specifically, it would involve the Doctor learning to listen to Tegan, like the First Doctor learned to listen to Barbara.

Yes, the third story of the Hartnell era was basically about the Doctor learning to listen to and respect a woman. Yes, the Hartnell era is dated, and that includes its treatment of women, but by Classic who standards, it was one of the most progressive eras in that regard. You started off with Verity Lambert as producer, a woman with a major role behind the scenes and it pays off. Yes, the women screamed a lot and needed to be rescued sometimes. Susan was particularly bad about this, despite having the potential to not be. But, Susan is recognized for her intelligence. Ian and Barbara are treated as equals and treat each other as equals. The Doctor learning to respect humanity is somewhat based in respecting Barbara in particular. By The Edge of Destruction, Ian had called the Doctor out on his bullshit multiple times. The Doctor would behave better for a little while, but he kept being a bastard. It's Barbara calling him out that causes him to change. Basically, when the Doctor thinks about his love and respect for humanity and how great humans are, he's thinking of Barbara.

Tegan was basically Barbara for a new generation. An ordinary human woman who was still intelligent and capable as a leader. But, Tegan's more assertive side was consistently portrayed as something annoying, with the implication that she needed to shut up and listen to the Doctor. It's the opposite of what you got with Barbara twenty years prior.

And, though Tegan has been given more depth and written sympathetically, this aspect of the character still hasn't really been recognized. To my knowledge, there still isn't a story where the Doctor has to put aside his pride and listen to Tegan. And I think that's kind of sad.

A lot of new series companions (especially Donna) have worked to make up for this. It's not the 1980s anymore. But we can't fully dismiss this as "people from the past sucked" when the show was more progressive in 1964 than it was in 1984.

Anyway, tldr: Tegan deserved better

That's all I got.

[the-fallen-blue]

bury your gays

So after being in the trenches of this specific fight for longer than most people on Tumblr have been alive, here's the conclusion I've ultimately come to.

To begin with, let's be clear: your motives and your intentions and the ~artistic value~ of your buried gay are as completely fucking irrelevant as the well-meaning beauty of the fireworks you set off next to a school shooter survivor. There is zero argument that "oh but cast restrictions/story beats/it wasn't ~really~ the trope because it didn't fill X/Y/Z requirements that sometimes people complain about." You killed a queer character, full stop, and that is a trauma trigger for a huge section of your potential audience. That is real people, real pain, real harm.

Of course, in fandom, we (mostly) recognize that "this is a common trigger" is not a good reason not to write something at all. It's as important to be able to write the entire diversity of human experience as it is to not retraumatize people. Not only because different people have different needs from their representation, not only because what hurts one might help another, not only because we as a community can never have a mature and fully-developed artistic expression if there are things we religiously avoid, but also simply because you can write whatever you want forever is a pretty fundamental principle of art! (especially in a time of rampant fascism 🙃)

So we have these two conflicting pressures: we need to be able to write about anything we want, but we also need to not cause people to spiral and hurt themselves and feel that they've been murdered by proxy, again. In fandom, our solution to this is very elegant; with common triggers, echoes of experiences that we know that a lot of people will be set off by because those experiences are, tragically, known to be widespread trauma... we use trigger warnings. We give people the information they need to decide whether or not to engage - or, how to engage and to prepare themselves, if there is a risk to them.

Now media outside fandom does not, typically, have trigger warnings, but it still actually does have a pretty strong language of intent. People with years of media savvy can generally tell within the first few episodes of a TV show what kind of show it is, if it's a muppet universe where the good guys never really get hurt and any absurd injury is survivable or a rollicking adventure where likable red shirts can have small arcs and still die but main cast will always get a happy ending or a horror fest where no one is safe even if their name is in the title of the show, or anything in between. This is very much like a trigger warning; it gives people the information they need, the ability to know whether to invest in any given character as a story of triumph or as a potential tragedy.

And my ultimate conclusion, after all these years of this argument, is that the moral and ethical culpability of a storyteller rests there. If you are a competent writer, you understand the tone and expectations you have set; those choices are an implicit promise, a contract between you and your audience. It is possible to break that promise responsibly - for example, much as you might promise to repair a shared table for a housemate over the weekend, and instead, as a deliberate shock, purchase a new, nicer one, you could promise your viewers a sitcom about heaven, and then make a sudden swerve into a character drama in hell in the season finale. Perhaps your housemate would rather have kept the ratty old table, or your audience would rather have watched the sitcom. But the possibility for harm is minor and remote, the possibility that they'll actually appreciate it a lot more than what they expected is very high, and the surprise is an important part of the positive experience. You should expect most people to consider you reasonable for your choice.

But promising a queer character will have a happy ending and then killing them off is more comparable to committing to monogamy and then, as a deliberate shock, bringing home a unicorn to have a threesome with you and your partner. Some people will think this is a neat surprise, yes. Other people will be hurt and offended, and people with trauma from being cheated on will be devastated, and you would have to be incredibly stupid not to anticipate those responses. You should expect many of your friends, or your audience, to consider you unethical, idiotic, or even cruel for what you've done.

So, long story short, at this point in my life, when I look at a media narrative that kills off a queer character, the one and only important question in my mind, is what promise did this narrative make about this character, leading up to that moment. What ending should a reasonable reader or viewer or listener have anticipated, based on the context of genre and role and any other information the story provides, not for any generic character in the universe but this exact one. And does that reasonable expectation match what happened. And if it does, probably as an audience we should all step back and breathe. And if it doesn't, then yeah, someone fucked up.

[total-drama-brainrot]

i dont know whether youve established this or not but for ur p!noah au, what does phobia factor look like? (if he makes it that far)

I've got a few ideas for how Noah (both in general and in this AU) would behave in the Phobia Factor episode!

My first idea, which works better for a more canon-adjacent Noah, is to have him either genuinely fall asleep at the campfire or feign falling asleep at the campfire- so he doesn't have to divulge his "greatest fear" in front of the others.

Because Noah's a very private person; both his fellow competitors and the audience at large know very little about him, and those who try to are often met with his sour, prickly exterior. Why on Earth would he ever willingly share his greatest fear on international TV with a bunch of people he doesn't even like?

(And, as we saw in the Awake-a-thon episode, pretending to pass out is something Noah would and does do to get out of uncomfortable situations.)

Of course, that scenario could be ruined by having one of the mlre confrontational characters (like Heather) shake him awake to hear his answer. But, ideally, it'd end up being more of a Courtney situation, where he never does give an answer, but Chris finds something in the shows footage that indicates Noah has a fear of [insert phobia here].

Then there's the second scenario, where Noah just straight up lies about what he's scared of (and I'm surprised no one else did this canonically). Again, why would he tell people what he's actually scared of? So he picks one of the most common phobias and runs with it- something innocuous, like a fear of the dark, or claustrophobia. Or maybe he decides to be a smartass and chooses some obscure or 'ridiculous' phobia instead, like ailurophobia/cynophpbia (fear of cats/dogs), on the off-chance that they'll have to face them as part of a challenge.

In the case of p!Noah, I think he'd do something similar to the second scenario, but claim his 'biggest fear' is hemophobia (fear of blood)- a bold claim for someone's who's decidedly Not Afraid Of Blood, in fact he's quite fond of it. Of course, no one else has any way of knowing this, so it's accepted as truth.

As a side note here, I kind of touched upon this before but p!Noah doesn't really experience fear like others do- that's why he's so amused by other's fear responses, since he lacks one of his own. It's also why he's such a thrill-seeker, he gets all of the adrenaline and none of the actual fear.

And then the Phobia Factor challenge happens. Noah's tasked with submerging himself in a pool of blood, similar to Beth's pool of worms, to earn his team a point.

Noah's fine with this. (More than fine, really. Red is a pretty colour.) But he can't let the others know that, or he'd be caught out in his lie. But he also doesn't want to lose this challenge. So he gingerly climbs into the pool, doing his best to fake fear and revulsion to... mixed results. He doesn't understand things like fear, panic and terror at a personal level, so for the most part he just looks like a soggy unamused cat. Despite how much he really wants to splash about, or get lost in the sauce.

(Maybe the more switched on of his team mates pick up on the maddened glee in his eyes as he floats in a pool of blood, or his almost carefully crafted stoicism- a far cry from everyone else's screams of terror.)

He wins a point for the team, and that's that.

Remember, Noah's strategy here is to be as unremarkable as possible; he wouldn't go out of his way to draw attention to himself. Especially not when Izzy’s still around to cause chaos for him.

...That doesn't mean he won't later make a confessional, still dripping in 'blood', where he complains to the audience that Chris used the 'fake shit' for his challenge for the budgets sake. Noah can tell! He knows the feeling of being covered in real blood.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

Which cars are most bisexual?

Ever get the chilling feeling that you made a grave mistake long ago and you are about to reap what you sowed?

In short, I hit some of my friends up to ask for help. In random alphabetical order:

@jettacar suggested the fourth gen Nissan Quest:

"It's like, no one really bought these. They aren't particularly common. But also, there's no one type of person that buys a car like this. Rationality would have you believe only families are buying this, because it's a giant minivan - but i can't immediately think of another car with a wider variety of types of people that own them right now (excluding cars that just sell incredibly well)"

Unfortunately, that made the conversation derail into minivan talk.

Up next, @rabidragon suggested the Fiat Multipla, due to its peculiar seating arrangement of two rows of three seats:

"3 seats in the front for you and your man and your woman".

Indeed, the peculiar thing about the Multipla is its row of three full-sized seats in front (many old cars had a front bench with some having three lap belts, but the Three Individual Front Seats club is as exclusive as it is devoid of prestige) and the many peculiarities that it caused, like off-center pretty much everything (mirror included) because the driver is further to the side than usual and where most of the centered things go there's now a passenger who would like to be.

But the even more peculiar thing about the Multipla is how spectacularly ugly it is. It's one of the few cars I've ever actually seen that manages to be full-on ugly not just outside but inside. Click on any list of ugliest cars in the world and if it doesn't contain the Multipla I can promise you that list was created by a machine that has since been physically shot. And if you're thinking "Well, it's not bad enough to warrant that hyperbole" - you are looking at the second generation. This is the pretty one. I put the first one and its interior at the end of the post under a read more because I genuinely did not want to be responsible for you seeing it.

I noted that Honda's FR-V managed the same seating layout with downright smart looks inside and out...

...and unfortunately that made the conversation derail into engine swap regulation loopholes.

Finally, @chevyventure suggested multiple. In (roughly) his words:

First generation Mazda 3 "It's a hatchback, good for many different uses - and Mazda is a little silly, charming and off the beaten path (if you were getting a Japanese hatchback you'd probably get a Toyota or a Honda) with a cute lil' smile like a Miata"

1988 Volvo 240 Wagon "Volvos are frequent hand me downs from family like all the cool childhood trauma the LGBTQs get"

[Editor's Note: bro.]

Renault Clio "It's peak hotness while also being cute in its own way, not necessarily preferring a masculine or feminine audience. I've never seen an ad for a Clio before, but if my assumptions about the car market are correct my guess is the normal one is kinda marketed towards women"

[Editor's note: So, I wanted to check that, so I just looked up "Renault Clio ad". These were the first two ads I found.

So yeah. I feel it qualifies.]

Unfortunately, talking about the Clio made the conversation derail into TWR's involvement in- oh wait, you're not gonna know about that Clio variant, are you.

So, many racing series can only be entered with racecars based on some production car - which is great for manufacturers, because they get to advertise their brand and one of their models simultaneously! But since there are rules on how much of the base car can be changed and how much of it must be retained, the stricter they are the more what you want as a base for your racecar is something high performance. So when you want to go racing with a dinky little thing like, say, first car to ever use plastic bumpers and only car to ever be called Renault Le Car in America Renault 5...

...what you are going to want to do is what, among many others, Toyota did with the Yaris GR and Lancia did with the Delta: the homologation special. Basically, you make a special version of the car with the characteristics you'd want in racing, sell enough to clear the rules's bar for "production car" (or at least, convince the officials you've done that), and go racing with that. So Renault did that to the 5 and hit up one Marcello Gandini to redesign it around the changes. You know, Marcello Gandini, guy most famous for designing mid-engined Ferrari-slayers:

Which makes sense, because the Renault 5 Turbo was a mid-engined Ferrari slayer. It was faster than the top-of-the-line Ferrari both in acceleration and in cornering speed. This thing.

(sidenote: The Interior. end of sidenote)

Well, twenty years on, some legend at Renault thought "You know what? We were onto something with that. Let's do that again but HARDER." Presumably, into the headquarters of Tom Walkinshaw Racing, a racing team that developed for Aston Martin, F1 teams, and made Jaguar's Fastest Production Car Ever record holder, and of course a fuckton of the most exciting racecars around, showed up uninvited that Renault madman saying "Y'all wanna work on something REAL prestigious?" before chucking them the keys to a second generation Clio and walking off with a "Don't thank me".

The result was the Clio V6, most notable for HAVING A FUCKING V6 WHERE THE BACKSEATS WERE. This car is genuinely incredible. Like, you see it and you go "Ooh ahh, the Clio V6!" and you look inside to see, you know, the huge V6 compartment thing and you see the interior and you realize this thing cost good sportscar money and when you got in it was a fucking Clio.

Mental stuff- wait shit this post was about bisexual cars wasn't it? How did the conversation derail like this? I swear this never happens. Well, I guess it's time for my pick.

Personally, chatting with Mr. Venture about hatchbacks, I realized that I cannot think of a more "girls car" than a Fiat 500 Cabriolet (which actually is called 500C) and cannot think of a more "boys car" than a Fiat 500 Abarth (which actually is called Abarth 500)...

...so how about the Fiat 500 Cabriolet Abarth?

It actually isn't called that but I think you could piece that together. As though a spoiler on a canvas roof wasn't weird enough, it contains the third brake light, probably making this the only car out there in which it can change position during use. Although I assure you, you're not gonna be thinking about that when driving it. Thing's a RIOT.

But honestly, that wasn't what I started off wanting to answer. So, last but most definitely not least, I candidate my first, gut-reaction answer: the NA Mazda Miata.

See, to me bisexuality (and pansexuality, but awareness of the nuances between them is so low they may as well be picked over flag preference) is someone appreciating all the beauty in the world, seeing no point in gatekeeping themselves out of half of it. And is that not what a spider is about? Is it not about saying "this world we're in is so full of beauty, who would rather blind themselves to half of it?". And look at the damn thing. It's bursting with exactly the kind of joie de vivre one would associate with such sentiment. It oozes enthusiastic curiosity. OwO what's this?: The Car.

Also, just look at this picture.

It can drift. IT CAN WINK. IT CAN WINK MID-DRIFT. I mean, what more than this degree of flirtatious playfulness can you possibly need to be convinced?

Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

...

...are they gone? I think they're gone.

The Multipla pictures are down here. Go on then if you're gonna, you sick fuck.

If you have dealt with traumatic tumor-related experiences and seeing that dashboard caused you genuine discomfort, well, do not say I didn't warn you.

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

This originally was going to be a reblog to another post, but it happened what it always happens: It got too long.

This is the post in question.

The response I wanted to talk about was that a lot of people were defending Peter's actions in the context that he has good intentions because he believes that this is the right thing to do. There was a mistake I didn't address in that initial post, so I will say the quiet part out loud for this post.

Despite being about Peter, I will talk a lot about Miguel, because Peter is doing what he is doing because he believes in Miguel, which is a problem.

(Disclaimer: I don't hate Miguel, I honestly think he is a great ambiguous character, and I am just going as hard as I do in this post because I'm very passionate about this subject not because I think Miguel should be hated. Fans may want to stay away just in case.)

Pls don't kill me.

This is false, and that's a problem.

Okay, so let's start with this: Miguel is wrong by his own standards. I had already talked about this in other small posts but let's dig deeper into it.

Did you catch the issue yet?

Here is the thing: How a canon event can happen if the person who caused it wasn't supposed to be there?

Miguel is blaming the hole on Miles, saying that it happened because it disrupted the canon event; yet what caused the canon event?

Spot. He did it.

However, Spot is not the arch-nemesis of Pavitr, Spot didn't even want to talk to Pavitr and was mostly ignoring anyone who wasn't Miles. And again, MIGUEL SAYS HOW SPOT SHOULDN'T have EXISTED TOO.

How come Captain Singh was supposed to die in that bridge, if this wasn't the canon event?

Because remember, Miguel says it needs to be a battle against an arch-nemesis too; meaning that if this needed to happen today, THE CANON EVENT WAS ALREADY DISRUPTED BECAUSE THE WRONG PERSON DID IT.

Now, I think the audience not catching this is pretty normal; I think it took me until like my fourth watch to notice that detail. In terms of writing, is supposed to be a small little hole when the next movie talks about what's going on.

(Because yes I am convinced this is the proof that Miguel is wrong about the canon and not just a mistake the writers didn't think of. Like the fact that in Into the Spider-verse Miles's spider glitches; and then in the next movie we realize it was from another dimension.)

However, is one thing the audience to not figured out this thing; another is that Miguel is doing what he is doing when this is the situation.

Let's mention other things Miguel got wrong, not because I want to dunk on Miguel, but because those mistakes had something in common that we need to address.

This is wrong, regardless of how you sliced it, this is wrong.

For starters, Miguel is blaming Miles for being bitten, which is...dumb. Like Miguel doesn't need the context that Miles didn't try to get bitten, it just happens; that's literally what happens to most Spiders, they just got bitten. Someone who objectively has learned about the story of multiple spiders in order to create an algorithm should have noticed that.

Second, this is stupid because now that we had established Miles was going to get stuck in this situation no matter what; let's go said this: The anomaly issues started before Miles was involved.

Miguel establishes how to travel between dimensions and anomalies in general fucks things up; and guess that: there was a spider from another dimension before Miles was involved. Actually, there are more!

Is hard to see, but as you can see, there are OTHER spiders! And considering 42 is the one that says decease yet not the rest, this means they are alive!

This fact I don't know if it will be canon, because it wasn't stated in the movies; but in the artbook is stated that Dr. Oct from 1610 stole John's designs to create the collider; Spot literally created Miles because the Spider was brought by his work.

Not only is Miguel blaming Miles for this mess, but if Miguel thought it was bad that a spider bit someone when they weren't from the same universe; well how good it is to have MULTIPLE being in the hands of one lunatic scientist that is the REAL reason this mess is happening?

Fact aside Miguel is hellbent on catching anomalies yet this slipped past his radar, let's remember that he should probably be aware of much of this.

Call me crazy but when you can get footage of all the spiders and what they are doing, and then you hear about the multiverse almost falling apart; wouldn't you try to look into EXACTLY what happened?

Speaking of exactly what happened-

Oh really? Because if you ask me.

None of these are the same.

Let me break it down.

Miguel's second universe: Things glitch briefly before they start crumbling and disappear entirely.

Pavtir's universe after the Spot: Hole starts sinking an entire building and it is led to believe more can be dragged.

Miles's universe in ITSV: Things glitch before making things from another universe take the place of the original thing.

None of these behave the same, which would be weird if these ones were all truly, made because the canon was disrupted. But what a coincidence that they start to make sense the second you put some context in two of these.

Pavitr's universe is being swallowed by a hole just after the guy who creates holes and wants to open some more became a multidimensional monster thanks to a big Collider who of course can magnify the Spot's effect.

And Miles universe has buildings and the like being replaced because they are trying to bring things from another universe.

So no, I don't believe Miguel's universe is falling apart because 'Canon.' I am sure there is more to it.

I am pretty sure I could find more things if I needed to, but I think this showcases my point. Miguel is wrong, on multiple levels; you can even see this in this post early on with how Miguel blames Gwen even when a perfectly available excuse was right there. Miguel is shown to be in the wrong constantly.

Here is the thing, I am not bringing all of this up because I want to trash Miguel (if I am honest considering how many of the things he does become retroactively worst when you think about it, this is pretty tame.) I am bringing this up because the information is wrong, and they are doing decisions on the basis of that.

Because Miguel doesn't know. None of them do.

They all believe in this.

I don't believe Miguel is a villain, I don't believe he is giving the wrong information because he wants to trick everyone into whatever he would want to do. There is no one in the organization that believes in this more than Miguel.

And that's the problem.

Seeing this movie the number of times I had and rewatching parts for certain things, one of the conclusions I got is that Miguel is hellbent that is his way or the highway on this one. Everybody else? I feel they are being strung along.

For example, Miguel believes Gwen and Miles shouldn't have been involved at all. Jess thought Gwen was okay but sees Miles as an issue. Peter thinks Miles is a fine, anomaly or not.

The cardinal Sin I didn't mention in my original post wasn't left out not because I knew that Miguel, Jess, and the others are just trying to avoid the multiverse from collapsing, and ergo deserve that defense. (Though to clarify, I do believe it is something to consider because is not the same as doing things for selfish reasons than for altruistic ones.)

It was left out because I firmly believe that making a mistake in good faith is wrong by default and doesn't need an explanation.

Also because for reasons I'm going to delve right now, I just can't be normal talking about this topic.

Look, without deviating too much and making this about myself, in real life, I am sick of "But they have good intentions!" Excuse. Is actually laughable how many things that are wrong with me started with good intentions.

But! That sob story only affects one person, right? And is different when it affects others!

My mom saw in me someone with potential, she saw someone smart, that may be able to achieve things, if I just push myself hard enough, I could get the best marks in the class. I just needed to apply myself.

This meant my mom ignored the difficulties I had, chalking them up as excuses, that I wasn't trying hard enough. She loved me so much that she didn't want to believe there was something wrong with me that could stifle my potential.

Without giving unnecessary details, what ended up happening is that I have mental scars that are not going away. Some of the things that happened left irreversible damage.

I think is not a surprise to hear that I am part of the LGTBQ+ Community, in more than just being trans. Do you guys want to know how many times in my life I had heard of "think of the children!" from parents that legitimately believe presenting content that isn't cishet is actually harmful?

I lost the count years ago.

"But that's bigotry! Is not the same if you are doing it for the actual good of the people!"

Sure, hey had you ever learned about the father of gynecology, J. Marion Sims? Without his contributions, we wouldn't have the knowledge we have today, he has been praised for years for his work especially since is an under-researched field.

Did I mention the guy had almost a messianic complex believing he had every right to do what he did, which was torture black women who were slaves?

"Oh but this is fiction!"

For those who don't know or don't remember, this is Tony Stark with Bruce Banner, talking about creating an AI that could help save humanity from the next catastrophe. Bruce was reticent, yet Tony wanted to do this as a response to the events in the first Avengers movie, because he wants to have something that can stop another float of aliens from invading the world.

This thing becomes Ultron, the supervillain of that movie and a villain that created a domino effect that catapulted multiple plot threads later on.

Now class, what do Tony Stark and Miguel O'Hara have in common?

They both have good intentions, and they are trying to save the world/multiverse, yet because they are still wrong, the consequences of it are still their fault.

Let's remember who are the ones paying over this.

Ah yes, basically everyone!

Miguel has noble intentions, he suffered a great tragedy that scarred him for life, and the burden of what he did has driven him to do whatever it takes to save the multiverse, so his mistakes can't happen again. He has been focusing on this entirely, refusing to focus on other things (including his mental health because he needs extensive therapy,) yet for some reason, call it hasty conclusions, call it hubris, I honestly don't know why; he ended up coming up with a flawed theory.

Because here is the thing, is fine for the audience to not catch the logical fallacy as a newcomer who is just new to all of this; yet imagine someone who created an entire theory that they are using as the baseline of rules in order to protect the entire multiverse, and yet somehow he doesn't catch a mistake that you can figure out if you say it slowly.

This is a problem because Miguel has the entire multiverse pending on a wrong theory, because if he focuses on keeping 'canon intact' instead of the real reason why stuff like this happens, it means resources, time and effort are poured into the wrong thing.

This is a problem because has a team that I believe is over a thousand people, including teens that honestly need more help than what this SpiderSociety is doing for them; being accomplices in reinforcing the suffering they had lived. Not to mention the moral dilemma everyone here is going to have.

Speaking of this, let's circle back to how this affects Peter too.

Because he is reinforcing this.

Yes, this is not his theory, yes, clearly how things are being run is not how he would do it. But he still lets this happen, EVERYONE is letting this happen.

This is the problem with Peter, Jess, and everyone else being strung along. Basically, everyone gave one look at Miguel, saw his theory, didn't think too hard about it, and went with it.

Let me remind you, Peter isn't stupid, he knows a few things, about the multiverse. Remember how in the first movie, he was the one who knew why he was glitching? Remember how he was planning to make a new goober himself, meaning he understands enough about it to know how to make it stop?

Here is my thing, "Good intentions" depend on how many people were harmed by those "good intentions." If I decide to bring a glass of water as a courtesy, and I drop the glass; I may have good intentions, but the glass is still going to be broken. However, this is just a glass, which makes it not that big of a deal.

Miguel, by deciding to take care of the multiverse and dictate how the interdimensional travel should be done and by who, is responsible for any mess his rushed conclusions had caused. And anyone who reinforces his ideology is an accomplice.

Now imagine I am a doctor, and I am convinced I found this miracle cure to cancer, and somehow I am able to bypass trials and legal bullshit and launch it into the market, and then is when we realize my cure's research was so poor it ends up making people actually get sicker.

In this scenario I rushed to get the cure to the public so people could be saved quicker, yet by doing so I ended up harming a bunch of people; which meant no good intentions should save me for a trial and judgment for the people who suffered.

Look, I am not a philosopher, and no one is asking me to give a class on Morals and Ethics. You are free to see the situation as you see fit.

The reason I decided to do this entire post, is because I as a person, can't and will not accept "Good Intentions" as an excuse.

I am not saying Miguel is as bad as Kingpin, of course. Again, I truly feel it for his character and his tragic nature; but Good intentions stop being an excuse and become an explanation the moment other people are affected. And at this point, that number is unmeasurable.

Miguel, Peter and Jess, and everyone else decided to preserve canon to save the universe, but if preserving a fake canon ends up making the lives of people worse if not contribute to letting people die; all that means is that the mistakes are marked in blood.

And the pain the people feel from those mistakes isn't erased by good intentions.

Again, sorry for coming way too strong in this one; this is just one of those topics that like the strike, I just can't contain how much it makes my blood boil.

[evelhak]

Aaaaa, this!!! I literally cried, I am so happy to see some actual common sense!! I am so, SO tired of this trend, it's not just Rory either, there's a really unfair pattern going on where the "renaissance" on a piece of media is basically just fans ripping a protagonist to pieces for things that these fans do not hold other characters, particularly beloved antagonists and rivals, accountable for.

This video perfectly illustrates the dynamic: Rory, who tries her best to both achieve her goals and be a decent human being while doing it, who never was a perfect human if you paid attention, gets held to the standard of an angel, so every time she makes a mistake that mistake is treated as disproportionately horrible and irredeemable. Meanwhile, as a good example, Paris, who consistently treats other people horribly, gets downright babied, and how she deserved better is repeated, her own responsibility over her actions downplayed or completely ignored. Only her good qualities are remembered, and highlighted.

There's an excellent quote in the video:

"The audience loves Paris because she is so over the top that she becomes a non-character. But when you take her as a real person and judge her with the same standards as you would Lorelai and Rory, she is pretty terrible."

This. This happens with so many characters whose traits are so much that they are viewed as inherently comedic or unbelievable, so they don't count in people's eyes. Paris having a fit in her college entrance interview, yelling over the interviewers and defending eugenics, gets brushed off as "poor baby, she's clearly mentally ill, she just deserves better, she should have gotten in", while Rory, who got manipulated into an internship by the BIGGEST journalism figure just so he could tell her "she didn't have it" was JUST weak and entitled for getting upset and discouraged over it.

Paris cheating on her boyfriend for months with a college professor gets pushed under the rug because people are too uncomfortable to even acknowledge the whole thing, meanwhile Rory is THE WORST for sleeping with a married guy after she repeatedly asked him if both him and his wife agreed their marriage was over, suggested they could try counselling, and was lied to by said guy that both he and his wife knew things were over between them.

Yeah, Rory made mistakes, and definitely didn't act perfectly after either of the situations I mentioned. She was emotional and people generally make mistakes when they are. But for some reason certain characters get a free pass all the time, while it feels almost like Rory gets punished for even trying to be a good person. Like "See, I caught her making a mistake, that means she's the worst." As if trying to have morals and be decent is inherently arrogant and hypocritical. Like trying and failing is worse than not even trying. It's like, her mom and grandparents and home town expect her to be perfect, so fans did too, and now they're mad at her for being human because they put her on a pedestal. Meanwhile characters who consistently don't care about their impact on others don't get scrutinized, their actually horrible behaviour is just taken as comedy or proof of their victimhood.

Basically, people are desensitized to horrible things from certain characters, they expect it, so they don't react to it, but when Rory who is "supposed to be good" makes a mistake, it's suddenly the core of her character and all she is. Geez.

And don't get me wrong, I love both Paris and Rory. I love every character in the show. But this double standard drives me nuts. So many characters in the show have done very similar things as Rory gets accused of, some of them while feeling no remorse. Some of them have done a lot worse things that get forgiven easily.

And don't even get me started on what a hot guy with a tragic backstory gets excused for. Yeah, some things are understandable when you know the backstory. That doesn't make those things not wrong.

It's like people are obsessed with the idea that someone who appears good on the surface must be bad, and vice versa. Nuance be damned.

[spotlightlowlife]

Stolas Missed opportunity. He's a Helluva good villain.

Imagine a story where we have a someone who is respected royalty but doesn't hold the same degree of responsibility of others, a nepo baby who doesn't run a region and doesn't appear to run a business, free to chill in his palace and deal with his boredom and frustration by abusing his power and status, by calling on someone to entertain him, entertaining being of the sexually nature and the entertainer being of the uncomfortable corner commoner trying to better his life variety.

Once an innocent child who made a friend for a moment with a kid who was paid to hang out with him, he would form his first ever connection with another, however after decades of absence this one sided friendship would escalate to the transactional exchange mentioned, initiated by him when he was sad and mad and could do with a pick me up. He had no issue using someone he had a taste for but was ultimately disposable as a springboard to cause a scene and fallout.

This same someone grew up in his palace void of any parents but with servants who, are as far as this society is concerned, a social class just a step up from animals who superiors are welcome to treated as objects.

The awkward fuckbuddy is of this class.

All this alone would be the making of a great powerful villain. All this is Stolas content.

Only there's much more to it and it only makes things worst.

His backstory that was clearly intended to make us sympathize with and like him more, only it all added to his villain origin story.

There is no sex positivity surrounding his character, he was betroved as a small child following rare quality time with a powerful, very out of touch parent who just got done buttering him up, he was forced into a marriage where there was mutual dislike and forced to have a child as a teenager. This chaos was bought into his home. He remained in this marriage where he is regularly berated because he wanted his child, the only person he's decent to aside from his superiors, to live a normal life..

What does he know about normal?

At this point his perception of every and any relationship could be off.

Stolas is a lot like two fictional villan characters the audience root for dispite their victims being totally innocent.

Stolas is pretty much Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) and The Beast (Disney's Beauty and the beast).

With Patrick, so many similarities, hanging out at the social mixers he has no place being at, decadence and superiority, existing to work, the meaningless sexual relationship, sex negative interactions with sex workers, zero relationships with family (excluding Octavia who Stolas was made to have), many acquaintances to tolerate, zero regard for those with nothing and little proof of self awareness and understanding decency because both are very privileged and powerful individuals living in a hell like place where they can do whatever they want with no consequences because those they hurt don't matter.

Only this Patrick has had a spark light in him when he finally saw a plaything as a person and someone heroic, this was after Blitzø helped find Octavia, not that he had any choice in that matter, not like he was ever at fault for her absence i the first place that occurred on Stolas's watch at home as he entertained himself bickering over the phone during a visit and the grimoire she stole is her dad's property which he fails to safeguard away from home.

Accountability is lacking with him and generally highlighted when it comes to Octavia, the previous occasion he failed to hear his daughter the first occasions we saw him think about his ways.

His love for his daughter is evident, yet these examples show how much she is needed in his journey to decency.

Still there's a common audience trigger right there, he's not a great dad.

Stolas is comparable to The Beast as someone else who grew up in his own castle being raised by the workforce who would one day have an 'agreement' of sorts forced upon him. Years pass by and it takes that one person who he trapped but began to warm to for him to learn some decency, over time he wanted the best for this person even if that ment giving them freedom.

Though Disney's Beauty and the beast is child friendly, the beasts was pretty ferocious (totally lost in that bland live action) and Belle did have few options but to reluctantly be in his company. Belle, like Blitzø, is a strong willed and quick thinking individual (with an attraction to books), they may not seem the typical victims but this doesn't take away from their situation.

In other news.

Stolas has the most beastly looking transformation.

Mammon has been put forward as the leading powerful villain and as interesting as whatever his revenge could be, he's quite frankly adorable in comparison to Stolas. Ozzie, Mammon and Bee pretty much got bigger and a little more detailed whilst Stolas has the most intimidating looking transformation, one that appears to step outside of the artstyle.

His other form also got the most sinister introduction, he truly got to be creative and show us how twisted he was when he went to rescue I.M.P, the company run by his plaything who has his grimore, the transaction for sex.

He has been right there the whole time. It's unfortunate that the tone and a lot of the audience seem so opposed to a character intended to be a loved and charismatic figure also being controversial and certainly in the wrong. We have a sympathetic predator who appears to be learning and growing.

[lyledebeast]

Villains, Fairness, and Narrative Structure

I think most villain fans would agree that one of the worst parts is the unfairness. The villain is smarter and more competent, but due to some Deus ex Machina narrative contrivance, the hero wins anyway. The cavalry arrives at the last minute. A weapon just appears within easy reach from out of nowhere. These are pure dumb luck conveniences the audience is meant to accept because, well, we don't want the villain to win, do we?

Sometimes it's not about the villain winning so much as the hero facing consequences for their choices. I know I already write about double-standards in The Patriot like it's my full-time job with health insurance and a 401k, but it is a particularly good example of this. Obviously, William Tavington makes some disastrous choices, particularly his ill-fated charge at the end of the film. But Benjamin Martin makes some disastrous choices too, although the consequences for these all seem to fall on other people.

His plan to rescue his captured men is successful in its primary objective, but the dick-measuring contest he draws General Cornwallis into here produces a much larger civilian body count than anything Tavington accomplishes on his own. Not only does Martin get himself recognized by the man who burned his house, and who is able to find where he left his children in the time it takes to locate one of Martin's neighbors and ask him, but his bravado costs them the protection of the man with the power to restrain Tavington. Moreover, in spite of joining the conflict himself in response to a British officer targeting civilians, he has no contingency plan for British officers targeting civilians! When the Green Dragoons arrive at Charlotte Selton's plantation the only protection in place is a single little boy with a musket. Even after the dragoons burn seven miltiamen's houses and Martin responds to sending his men to their individual remaining ones for a week's furlough, he is too busy enjoying his son's racist Gullah-themed wedding to inform his new-inlaws about Tavington's dastardly doings.* Tavington may order the doors locked and the church burned, but he did not summon all these people to gather under one roof.

No one within the narrative comments on any of this because every man or woman within it is Ben Martin's hype person. Even Tavington is his hype guy! Meanwhile, Tavington is despised by everyone (except Wilkins, I guess) and still manages to get shit done. Cornwallis only has militiamen in his custody in the first place because Tavington's plan to trick Martin by exploiting his own guerilla tactics is so successful. Even though Cornwallis loses the prisoners, Tavington is still able to manipulate the situation to his advantage. He gets his atrocity privileges restored, and this leads to the militia being disbanded just when the British Army is mobilizing for the Battle of Cowpens. It should be clear by this point that Tavington did not get from a penniless. landless gentleman to a dragoon colonel just by being pretty.

The final commonality Tavington and Martin share is being trapped within a narrative that judges their means by the ends they achieve. Tavington and the British lose, so their mistakes along the way are made to justify that. Martin and the Americans win, so their mistakes are erased, however egregious and costly they are. The need for fairer, more thoughtful, more interesting outcomes is why we have fanfiction. What if Martin had to negotiate his men's release with Tavington instead of Cornwallis? There's a fic in that!

*I suppose someone might say, "But we don't know what Martin said or didn't say about the Green Dragoons to the Howards and other Patriot sympathizers at the wedding," and that's true. But if the audience is meant to draw that conclusion on our own . . . that's an extravagantly generous assumption! Particularly in light of how consistently negligent Martin has been regarding civilian protection throughout.

[venusianc0mplex]

Children of Aphrodite

Children of Aphrodite are elegant, captivating, mesmerizing and artistically gifted geniuses. They are also sensitive, quick-tempered and love a good banter from someone they like. They are made to captivate an audience through beauty and learn from their multitude of experiences in love.

Gifts

EXTREMELY gorgeous people

Very talented songwriters

They ALWAYS know what kind of clothing or style looks good on them

They naturally know how to charm the pants off the opposite sex

They know what to do to get what they want

Veryyy good at social climbing

They know how to utilize their social powers very well

They have very good taste in art and knows what the mass like artistically

They have people lined up for miles chasing after them

They are usually blessed with beautiful or well-off friends

They usually spend most of their days enjoying food, art, and beauty

A lot of them are gifted with very nice bodies that fit the modern beauty standards

When healed they are extremely loyal and very attentive lovers, the men are usually huge providers

They understand what to do in love naturally

They usually have a very good relationship with their masculinity/femininity

They either have very good physiques naturally or they build up their bodies very easily

They naturally make very good gurus

They are v

Very charming speakers who grab other people’s attention easily without trying

Very good tastes in clothing

They are charming without trying too much

They are allowed to be indulgent in the beautiful things in life

They have a very good eye for photos

They are blessed with very lovely voices

They are very persuasive people

Common Themes

They usually thrive the most in some kind of art or fashion related industry

They are usually very generous to their friends

They love giving advice or becoming other people’s guru

They usually don’t stand out very much aura-wise but they are very beautiful people who are noticed for their visuals

They are very popular people even if they hate 80% of the people in the room with them

They LOVE sweets ;)

They usually have very nice aesthetics going on their social media account

They usually treat their partners very well but some people can resort to cheating to move on fast from their ex-partners

They tend to move on fast from their relationships while their exes still longs for them

Their relationships tend to go very public

They are usually very spiritually inclined even if they are not the most gifted ones

They would be the type to cast a love spell on someone

They usually THRIVE opening some kind of beauty item business of their own (makeup, skincare, candles, or perfume)

They love to hang around gorgeous people, they usually treat their pretty friends very well

They are usually very responsible parents or they will think things through before having kids

They can be very very sharp-tongued and they LOVE a good banter

Their flirting consists of you complimenting them + banter

They LOVE memes or are huge memers

Either very serious or super unserious for the most part

They tend to have a good work-life balance

They are meant to learn from all of their relationships instead of chronically indulging in them and jumping from one relationship to another

They are usually huge realists

They usually stick to the aesthetic they like the most and they are not really open to switching their aesthetics or style up

They don’t tend to see themselves in a bad light

They usually have a logical/practical approach to life

They grow to understand that they attract the energy they put out there

They usually have a relationship in life that is their greatest challenge

They usually learn to take VERY good care of themselves

They usually do end up manifest their dreams very successfully by taking practical steps to make things happen

Challenges

They need to learn from the mistakes of their past relationships

They can be very superficial, in friendships and with people in general

Escapism through relationships and materialism

Inability to resolve things properly because they don’t want to offend people by having hard talks with them

Inability to dive into deeper topics until they’ve suffered the problem in life

They aren’t the most considerate people until they’ve suffered some hardships and criticisms in life

Stubbornness and refusal to change, very hard stuck on their ideals

Too idealistic when it comes to relationships

They can be too giving to the wrong people because they think being nice to that person will bring them social benefits

Refusal to create genuine friendships due to fear of opening up, fear of not being accepted, and fear of abandonment, life feels much easier when they keep everyone at a distance

Genuine refusal to change

Surround themselves with the wrong people because they want to be with the “cool kids” or they surround themselves with too many yes men

They have trouble finding their fault until they truly fked up in life

Keep everything too surface leveled

Avoidance

Exclusivity because the person doesn’t bring what they want in life or doesn’t embody a certain aesthetic

A lot of them are a best friend to no one when they are younger

They need to learn to use their charm responsibly

They tend to close up and withdraw during the times they need to reach out to people the most

They can be very nice on a surface level to strangers and spill all of their worst sides to people closest to them and end up burdening the people closest to them

The girls can be VERY vengeful and they will choose vengeance over talking things out even with people closest to them

The Aphrodisian girlies can be very competitive and jealous of other girls despite being very blessed people

One of their biggest lessons in life is to not give excessively to their partners and remember to always love themselves first

They are quick-tempered

They can be very sharp-tongued to people that don’t deserve that treatment

They have trouble seeing why the wrong things they do are bad for others especially when they are young

They are usually quick tempered and like to complain a lot when things don’t go as expected, however, they also like to hold their anger in and suffer as a result

Disclaimer: Everything I mentioned above are based on my own observations, I do not claim to be 100% correct

[mightyflamethrower]

In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, in which he secured the popular vote on top of an Electoral College landslide, Democrats have been hosting tough conversations about the future of the party in its relations to transgender issues, specifically transgenders operating in women’s spaces, including bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletics. While Democrats like Bill Maher, Ben Dreyfuss, and others have called for Democrats to move away from transgender advocacy, others like John Oliver have argued they should move even further left.

“The Harris campaign failed to formulate a response, especially when it’s pretty easy to do,” Oliver said in a recent segment on his show. “There are vanishingly few trans girls competing in high schools anywhere, even if there were more, trans kids like all kids vary in terms of athletic ability, and there is no evidence they pose any threat to safety or fairness.”

Author J.K. Rowling (the Harry Potter series) publicly called the comedian’s arguments “bullshit” and cited a plethora of anecdotes to support her case. She also made clear that her criticism of John Oliver stemmed from nothing personal.

“Nothing about this feels good, because John Oliver generously gave his time for my charity Lumos and I liked him very much when I met him, but God knows, if you ever need an example of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, this video’s for you. An undoubtedly intelligent person spouts absolute bullshit to support something he wants to be true, but isn’t,” she said in a post on X.

“According to the UN, female athletes have lost nearly 900 medals to trans-identified men competing against them in women’s sporting categories. Girls have been ousted from teams to make way for boys. Women have suffered serious injury playing against trans-identified men,” she added.

J.K. Rowling cited the case of Payton McNabb, who suffered a severe head injury after a transgender athlete spiked a volleyball into her face during a high school match.

“Again and again I’ve come up against men who argue exactly what Oliver does here, using the very same talking points. With a straight face, the ‘believe the science’ guys will say ‘actually, we don’t yet have enough data to say whether men and boys are stronger and faster than women and girls’. The ‘be kind’ crew can’t see what the issue is. ‘Why are you bothered, it only affects a tiny minority of females?'” argued Rowling.

“To prove to their progressive credentials – and (coincidentally, I’m sure) indemnify themselves against repercussions from cultural elites in the media, academia and publishing who’ve showed themselves more than ready to kick people to the kerb for failing to mouth the approved mantras – people with a lot to lose are currently prepared to make idiots of themselves,” she continued. “They’ll stare unabashedly into a camera and insist that their audiences’ eyeballs are incapable of seeing what’s plain as day, and that there’s something wrong with the great unwashed for believing that girls are being robbed of opportunities and put at physical risk.”

Rowling concluded her post by calling on those like John Oliver to at least be intellectually honest by admitting that women will be hurt through the initiative of transgender inclusion.

“If you want to tell the world you’re happy to watch females suffer injury, humiliation and the loss of sporting opportunities to bolster an elitist post-modern ideology embraced by a minute fraction of the world’s population, fair enough; you’re allowed your opinion,” she concluded. “But if you’ve just told girls they don’t deserve fair sport, maybe rethink using all too real and common sexual predation against young women as a punchline for your ‘edgy’ closing joke.”

Sara Higdon, who identifies as transgender, thanked J.K Rowling for her insight.

“I’m trans, and a high performing former athlete, including 7.5 years in the army. Been on HRT for 5.5 years, and I can still prove that if I competed against women in sports, I still have an advantage. I was on path to prove it by breaking the female squat record until an old Army injury sidelined me. But I still perform in the 80th percentile on a spin bike after never riding before 2020,” said Higdon. 

[harrenhalyuri]

A decade ago we were already discussing on this webbed site gurm's apparent disinterest in giving handmaidens and the infrastructure of court life (where it concerns women at least) proper roles. We know handmaidens/ladies-in-waiting exist, but they're often swapped with each other and it's never clear who's who and what the Queen's household entails (my point here is to say that this is an oooooold discussion and I'm far from the first to be bothered by it)

so!!! since I was already fiddling with lots of things in Fall I decided to tackle this by expanding not only the Queen's duties/privileges but also her own household

it's undeniable how targ women's power, influence and autonomy is basically proportional to the existence of dragons - it gets worse and worse post-Dance until 299 AC and I think that's why c*rsei had little to no official roles and duties before becoming regent

however, back to the golden age, good queen aly held her women's courts and was incredibly influential during her time

although her role was that of a consort, there's absolutely no reason that she wouldn't effectively rule in her own sphere, as she was already holding courts for women during royal progresses and what not

since aly and jaeh*erys's combined efforts were concentrated on strengthening their hold on the kingdoms through sociopolitical means (plus transforming KL into a proper court) I do think she was the one to expand and organize the Queen's household:

this way, she would gain important wards (to be raised along with her children), strengthen their ties with the small council's wives and arrange suitable matches for the unmarried women at court - not to mention govern her household AND the court (more on that later)

so the first distinction is:

-Lady-in-waiting: married noblewomen who attend the queen

-Maiden-of-honor: unmarried noblewomen who attend the princesses

-Handmaid: servant (commoner) who attends all noblewomen at court for tasks such as fetching water for baths, serving meals, cleaning their rooms and so on

So now moving on - since the queen has her court and household to rule over, subordinate titles were created and distributed as great honors. The queen has a private council essentially, which is composed of the following roles:

-First Lady Chamberlain: pretty much the queen's Hand, as she will overseer all the other offices and be in direct contact with the Queen on a daily basis. Her tasks include: supervising the female courtiers; controlling the budget; organizing accounts and staff; supervising the daily routine and attending both ordinary and ceremonial court functions (even attending the King's small council if summoned for financial reasons); escorting and introducing those seeking audience with the queen, (be they foreign dignitaries or vassals) and organizing the queen's schedule, arranging appointments and so on

-First Lady of the Bedchamber: responsible for the queen's apartments. Upkeep, maintenance and organization are her domain, as well as renovating and commissioning carpenters/artisans

-Mistress of the Robes: responsible for the queen's clothes and jewelry, as well as dressing the queen and arranging the proper garments for every occasion. She's the one in touch with seamstresses, dressmakers, textile merchants and on

-Mistress of the Household: responsible for the holdfast’s general upkeep and management. Kind of an overseer of all departments across the RK, as the heads of each department report to her

-Governess of the Heirs: responsible for everything concerning the royal children. She chooses nannies, wet nurses, tutors; decides the children's schedule and is responsible for their chambers and wardrobe as well

-Mistress of the Royal Vault: essentially a curator of the dynasty's relics, she's responsible for the storage and proper care of clothes, armor, furniture, jewelry, art and so on. These are stored beneath the RK, in the vaults below

-Mistress of the Queen’s Purse: responsible for financially managing the queen's projects, charities and patronages. If a septa needs funding for an orphanage, she'll reach out to the Mistress of the Queen's Purse, who in turn will confer with the Lady Chamberlain, who may or may not bring the matter to the Queen personally

good queen aly was the one who created the private council, which was maintained through the following queens until ~at some point several decades after the Dance~ the titles slowly ceased to exist. Either because of the dynasty's decadence, funding or the queen's autonomy being slowly taken away from her to the point she couldn't even organize her own household (which we saw happening to rh*ella unfortunately)

[olderthannetfic]

EOTWR is at heart asking for common decency and trying to appeal to the fandom community's sense of common good. Racism is an issue in fandom, let's be the good people we proclaim to be and rally behind a righteous cause. Yay!

Amazing how call out culture can turn a good thing into a shitshow.

We just went through a global pandemic that pretty much proved that common good stops being a priority when people feel inconvenienced or think their freedom is curtailed. I certainly fantasized about screaming out all my rage at any anti-masker I encountered. Would have felt amazing. Not gonna change minds that way though.

I don't understand what results they were expecting when taking this exact approach with their campaign. It's all call out culture language! The very thing that is making fandom a general nightmare for everyone right now! The very thing that watered social justice language down until you genuinely can't tell good actors from bad actors anymore.

How were people supposed to know different when their language, the language of the supporters and the language of their most infamous member are basically indistinguishable from the language of the bad actors.

They're tired, they're angry, they're just trying to enjoy fandom in peace. It's not their job to educate us, answer any questions or perform the emotional labour to handhold white fragile hands through confronting their internal biases.

Ok, then don't be an activist because that's kind of the job description.

The people EOTWR failed to connect with are just as tired, just as angry and have also never known peace in fandom.

They're not going to perform the emotional labour to check if this callout is genuine when it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.

And they can just not reblog, simply not engage, just not react AT ALL because we're on the internet and block functions exist. And from what I have seen everyone who DID engage but had questions and concern was immediately suspect.

Perform more rage at them while not gaining enough support to make a blip on OTW's radar. Keep wondering why they feel in no hurry to even REPLY. They probably took one look at the Campaign and breathed a sigh of relief because THEY know their audience well enought to know exactly how this would go.

I don't get the circular logic here. They approached the community call out first, got the entirely expected backlash, doubled down on calling everybody out and then performed more outrage because the response proved what they were saying all along!!

So they KNEW they were asking a bunch of awful racists to implement anti-racist policies in an awful, racist organization and decided the best approach was... *gestures*

The counterarguments will be all about tone policing, respectability politics, etc.

But that's just a lot of noise from people who are embarassed that they fell flat on their faces with this. I'm sure it's also a lot of genuine disappointment that fellow fans seem to care about other fans welfare so little. I get that.

So I'll be on the lookout for another campaign that is willing to meet people where they're at and for arguments that actually speak to the target audience. I'll reblog that one.

--

I'm sure some people did feel that way...

But this kind of "failed" campaign also operates how sending your cult members door-to-door does: it reaffirms that Outsiders are all Bad People who are against them and sucks them in tighter to the group. If someone's looking to recruit loyal followers, this is exactly how to do it.

[onenettvchannel]

BALITANG ENTERTAINMENT: Hawaiian Indie Animation Director and Storyboard Artist 'Kiana Khansmith' discusses behind-the-scenes of "Pretty Pretty Please, I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl" [#OneNETnewsEXCLUSIVE]

HONOLULU, HAWAII -- Japanese-American indie animation director and storyboard artist from the Hawaii state named 'Ms. Kiana Mai Khansmith' treated fans globally during a virtual home media conference last Sunday afternoon (March 9th, 2025 -- Hawaii local time). Known for her work with 'Disney Television Animation' in Glendale, California, United States of America; Kiana recently hosted a LIVE Q&A session on a video-sharing and broadcasting platform 'YouTube' (Google's parent company 'Alphabet'), in which she spoke about her premiere project, the animatic pilot "Pretty Pretty Please, I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl". The event attracted as many with a lot of excitement going on, looking to know more about her creative process and the future of the show.

A smoothie-like approach to "Pretty Pretty Please, I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl" brings something new to the genre. Aika reluctantly fulfills her role as a magical girl at the age of 15 in high school, while trying to maintain the normal responsibilities in real life. Helped by her magical sidekick 'Hoshi' (voiced by 'Christine Marie Cabanos'), and her new friend 'Zira', Aika battles the good fight of her dual life against the antagonist suspects 'Eclipse' and 'Lady DeVoid'. The animatic pilot has humor, heartwarming scenes, and a touch of subversive storytelling, which makes it a great project for indie animation.

Just this past Monday morning ago (Manila local time), her animatic pilot video gained an astonishing 2.5 million views with an estimated uploaded video revenue of U$D3,462 to U$D8,655 (or PHP198,670 to PHP496,676 Philippine pesos) based on global viewing shares survey from our research and analytics team of OneNETnews.

Kiana started her speech by expressing gratitude to everyone who welcomed the animatic pilot positively after its independent release debut. The animatic was originally a portfolio piece but turned into something more to discover from her. Online netizens received widespread appreciation from audiences because it introduced fresh ideas to this said genre.

The virtual home media conference featured Kiana's explanation of how she made 'Aika' and 'Zira' (voiced by the actress duos 'Anairis Quiñones' and 'Bennett Celine Abara') as fictional main characters. She described how she formed her main characters from personal experiences and demonstrated themes common in magical girl shows. She also addressed, in this said conference, how hard it is to find the perfect voice actors that fit the entirety of the series, and how teamwork is necessary to bring her vision to life. Offensive swearing occurs briefly in this animatic pilot.

If requested to turn the animatic into a full-fledged web animated series, Kiana expressed that she would consider the possibility. She mentioned issues of raising funds and corporate licensing but envisioned the possibility of the show and was hopeful. The fans speculated that the series would be picked up by a web-streaming site like YouTube, and by our internet television station 'OneNETtv Channel' (which soon-to-be the first public broadcaster) in Dumaguete City, or on independent crowdfunding like 'Kickstarter' or 'Throne', where it would be able to reach more people without the constraints of children's traditional TV.

Entertainment insiders suggest that the animation process from an animatic pilot to a full indie cartoon series will soon become a reality. Kiana talked about storyboarding and gave advice to up-and-coming creators to chase their dreams and make original content without using any artificial intelligence for the laziest individuals.

In the end, her craft of animation-inspired indie creators adds up from your heart of storytelling and dedication for several generations. Kiana's future, pursuing for excellence looks bright in our eyebrows which deserves for this indie animation gem. The whole animatic pilot is now available to watch for free on YouTube!

PHOTO COURTESY: Kiana Khansmith ( @kianamaiart ) via PR

SOURCE: *https://x.com/kianamaiart/status/1895226009609478299 *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHW5cDpghSc *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf7bsmT-Jn0 *https://x.com/kianamaiart/status/1897874861445595663 *https://otakuusamagazine.com/pretty-pretty-please-i-dont-want-to-be-a-magical-girl/ and *https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/532786/pretty-pretty-please-i-dont-want-to-be-a-magical-girl-pilot-youtube

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[angelinthefire]

As someone who's been around the fandom longer than i, what do you think of the claim that destiel shippers were the reason female characters got killed or kicked off the show? This seems to be a really common narrative in gen fandom spaces like r/supernatural but there's never any mention of wincest shippers and idk I find it kind of dubious. I mean obviously when it's applied to characters like bela or ruby it makes no sense but what about others? Like the claim usually goes oh they could never keep around a love interest for either of them because the hellers would throw a fit but did that happen? Usually it's brought up with Jo, Lisa, Meg, and Hannah. I know that is not actually why Meg left the show, but what about the others? I also know Alona and Cindy Sampson in particular are cited as receiving harassment for their roles but did this actually have anything to do with destiel seeing as it wasn't that popular of a ship back then? I only started watching in 2014 when destiel was the biggest ship and it never seemed to me like they were trying to set up romances that were shot down by the fans. I mean did anyone actually expect hannah to be an endgame love interest? And no one really makes this claim about Amara either. And it also wouldn't apply to characters like Charlie or Missouri either who both still got killed off. Idk I've just been seeing a lot of narrative recently about fans being primarily responsible for the killing off of female characters but I feel like it's shifting blame a bit, even more so to apply it solely to destiel fans (I mean did destiel get Sarah Blake killed??)

Yeah blaming destiel shippers is ridiculous. Destiel shippers didn't even reach preponderance in the fandom until s8. The worst of the misogyny of the fandom was solidly concentrated in the first half of the shows life. Attitudes changed as societal attitudes changed, and as the show itself finally broke down and developed more of an ensemble cast.

The wincesties/bronlies were always far more venomous when it came to characters who threatened to get between the bros. No matter the gender. As can be seen from the segment that tried to keep Misha from coming back. Were there destiel shippers who hated on Meg or Anna or others? Yes, but to a degree that is pretty typical across fandoms, especially in the 2000s. Not to the degree that they actually tried to launch a campaign to get any actors fired. Which, again, is what bronlies did to Misha.

In general I think it's incorrect to blame the fans for female characters being killed off. If the writers are committed to a character and a vision and it's working for them they can make it work for the audience too. The thing with Jo and Bela is that, to my understanding, their existence is the result of network notes to try to include more female characters, so Kripke was never super committed to them in the first place.

You point out why Hannah and Meg don't make sense as examples. Alona's role was in s2, and in s5 she was basically brought back in order to be killed off. Same thing with Sarah Blake, which is a useful counter example. She was also brought back to die. Since neither of them had a recurring role when they were killed off, it doesn’t make sense to blame shippers. Again, it's the writers deciding that the most useful thing a female character can do is die to further the main characters' motivation.

Few people liked Lisa at the time s6 aired, she was seen as boring and as detracting attention from the brothers.

I think there's a relationship between the sexism of the writers and the fans. When the writers don't care about characters and see them as fridging material, fans can pick up on it. And then fan hatred of the character is cited as an excuse to write them off. This is a simplification, I do think there are parts of spn fandom that are particularly toxic, but I also think it's true that fan opinion is never the only reason why writing choices are made.