#genuinely the only good post on this blog.

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

Maybe I’m just getting older, but I really don't get this notion that people have when it comes to media criticism. 

Nobody is sitting here saying that all criticism is good and that you should listen to every piece of criticism you get. Because guess what? Not all criticism is argued in good faith, nor does anybody like getting criticized. 

But it’s important to learn how to deal with criticism, otherwise how are we supposed to improve? 

I also hate how some folks assume that just because I’m critical of Viv and her shows, then that must mean I have some sort of personal vendetta against her. When I really don’t. 

Truth be told, I legit hate that people think that I’m a Viv anti or that I only made this blog to criticize her shows. As anybody who actually bothered to browse through my archive would know that I’ve talked about (and criticized) other things that aren’t related to Viv. 

My life doesn’t revolve around Viv you guys, I don’t wake up every morning and think “I wonder what Viv is up to?” I just go about my day like every other human being. 

The reason I criticize Viv so much is that I’m genuinely curious as to why so many people within the animation industry hold her in such high regard. Is it because she came from an indie background? Do people love the “Indie creator gets her own show” narrative so much that they’re willing to overlook all her creative shortcomings? 

It’s weird watching the same folks who were dunking on Velma praise Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, because you damn well know that if Velma did the “Characters are in a room that’s decorated in dildos and vibrators” gag, Twitter would have a collective meltdown. 

And yet for some odd reason, Viv’s shows are held to such higher standards that I honestly start to wonder if all these industry professionals watched the same shows that I did. Because I’m struggling to think of a single Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss joke that genuinely got a laugh out of me. 

“But humor is subjective” okay, then why does Viv get so defensive whenever someone criticizes the humor that’s found in her shows? 

Really don’t understand why she goes out of her way to complain about her critics when she could easily ignore them. She’s under no obligation to respond to her critics, but she keeps vague posting about all the criticism she gets because she literally cannot handle getting criticized. 

Here’s the thing, Viv’s fans tend to assume that just because I'm critical of something that’s popular, then that means I don’t get criticized. When that certainly isn’t the case. 

I’ve been criticized for being critical of the current state of indie animation, I got a bunch of hate from racist nerds for liking the My Adventures With Superman version of Livewire, and recently someone responded with a full length essay to a post of mine that was critical of Primos. 

But the difference between me and Viv is that I don’t constantly post vague backhanded insults regarding my critics on social media. If I feel a piece of criticism is worth addressing, then I’ll address it and if not? Then I’m not going to bother. 

Trust me, I haven’t lost any sleep over the fact that a bunch of random internet folks don’t like me.

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

welcome to night vale kind of sucks

I can't believe I'm doing this again but here goes: I'm writing a call out post for the behaviors made by my favorite podcasters. I love Night Vale. Let me make that clear. My whole blog is Night Vale. I've cosplayed Night Vale. I've been in this fandom for eight years, and I've been holding out hope that the show will become "good" again for a long time. I've been a fan while simultaneously acknowledging some of their very harmful behavior. But this last episode just really cemented for me how the issues with their writing are not just failures of plot and theme, they are actively harming the communities that support them. Night Vale has turned from the show that canonized a queer relationship in 2013 and celebrated its thousands of fans, to something devoid of passion and almost unrecognizable in its messaging. These issues have been present for a while, but now they are everywhere in the show. They're completely overwhelming.

Why did an abused person not only forgive their abuser and say that he was "doing the best he could"? No, really - we had an entire season about generational trauma, a deeply personal topic for many people, and then you paint an abusive father as "misguided"? It's a slap in the face. Why do prominent female characters, particularly antagonists, always get either killed off or written out of the story by... ascending into the stars I guess? (So Lauren's the most powerful foe ever but then she's defeated by six people telling her they don't like her. Cool cool.) Why did the writers deradicalize a Black woman whose original story was about her courage and opposition to authority? Why was Tamika's role this season to be a caretaker for The Boy instead of her position in local government? Why is there only one recurring trans character in the show?

The worst thing of all for me though is the partnership with Betterhelp. Betterhelp, which sells people's data and has been called out for it time and time again. There was no excuse for them to take this sponsorship, especially when, oh yeah people were calling it out for endorsing conversion therapy. There are doctors on Betterhelp who have OFFERED CONVERSION THERAPY, and that's who they're promoting to their majority queer audience. But there's especially no excuse for this sponsorship when BetterHelp is collaborating with the Israeli Occupation Force. When Betterhelp is publicly associating itself with the army that burns people alive, that bombs hospitals, and is actively colonizing Palestine.

And before anyone says, "Mercury, why are you only writing a call out for the Betterhelp thing now after you didn't like this episode?" Well, I've been publicly calling them out for MONTHS over this. I've replied to almost every episode's Q&A to tell them they need to stop this partnership as well as replying to them on their socials asking why they're still working with this company.

Plus, this isn't just me disliking this episode - I'm seeing posts on the wtnv tag from abuse survivors who got extremely triggered by this and it just breaks my heart. Genuinely, why did they do that? This arc had such beautiful and introspective writing about parenting and it feels like they just threw it all away.

I don't know what note to end this on. I really hope they take their hiatus to reassess some business practices and write a better season. And mostly that they stop partnering with Betterhelp.

@nightvaleofficial

[compacflt]

hey! i was just going through your blog, and i saw a post about ice&carole and mav&goose. i looked a bit more but i couldn't find a post about your take on mav and goose's relationship, so i wanted to ask what it was. if you have answered this, i'm sorry about asking you again. imo i think what they had was wayy deeper than friendship but complex and probably not romantic, but again, i just wanted to know your thoughts on it.

thank you! and this blog has probably been one of the best finds i have ever come across on tumblr, i'll be sad to see you go.

yeah, i was really trying to be suave and subtle and mysterious about it with this parallel

like, you should be able to figure it out for yourself.

but luckily for you i looooove beating dead horses. to a problematic degree.

the full story of my vision of mavgoose (moose?) is in the completed draft of the extras that are coming out on Saturday. about halfway through. But i want to bring it back to the internal craft-of-writing debate i brought up yesterday—my inability to summarize, or to cut superfluous sections that don’t really matter.

I’ll stick it under the cut for spoiler reasons, but i wanna show the simple first draft of this scene versus the complicated, heavier final draft. And I want to ask any of you, if you’re interested—as a reader, which is more impactful? which should i end up publishing?

the simple first draft:

then i kept turning it in my head thinking of different ways to edit it to say something slightly different, to get a little more specific, coming up with things to add, and ended up adding like five extra paragraphs. which is this:

about 1/4 of the final draft (by which i mean, this is about 1/4 of the whole final discussion scene, but the goosemav-specific content only goes on for about another graf [omitted bc spoilers]):

(so to answer your ask explicitly, i actually don’t think they were anything deeper than good friends. imo there’s no evidence that they were anything deeper than good friends, especially with maverick blowing goose/goose’s wishes off soooo many times [‘she’s lost that lovin feelin;’ volleyball; refusing to do the responsible thing at least twice even after goose tells him it puts his & his family’s livelihoods at risk…bro all he does is blow off goose]. see me bitching in the tags for more on this)

obviously in my head the complicated in-depth version ⬆️ is the True version, the version of events that really Happened. i think the writing is in some spots much more compelling. But it just doesn’t make for a particularly good reading experience when it’s surrounded by like 3/4 pages of other discussion of history! sometimes too much of (what i think is) a good thing turns that good thing bad! & this is a major keystone dynamic of my whole series so i just want to get it right, for my own peace of mind. I guess im asking you to be the harsh editor i wish i had sometimes, if ur interested in doing so—this is genuinely a major major problem i have with my writing, i can’t ever just leave well enough alone 😭 please let me know if simpler is better/less is more in this case! do i publish the short vague “the reader fills in the blanks” version or the long boring “here’s EXACTLY how i see it” version?

[kyouka-supremacy]

Today was a good day :)

[anghraine]

I’ve been thinking about the development of Elizabeth’s feelings for Darcy in P&P, and one of the things I find really intriguing is how incredibly careful Austen is in her handling of their physical attraction to each other.

A lot of takes on Darcy’s initial attraction to Elizabeth focus entirely on the physical element, but Austen’s description of it folds together his attraction to her intelligence, her expression, her body, and the “easy playfulness” of her manner. Of these, the earliest mentioned is his realization that her face is “rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes” and her eyes are the physical feature that he seems to dwell on the most.

At any rate, Darcy’s attraction to Elizabeth is established early on (Ch 6) and continues as a thread from that point on. And—I mean, even in 1813, it’s one thing to show a man in his twenties being attracted to the pretty heroine. Austen is a lot cagier about Elizabeth’s feelings.

The narrative is structured so that we know Darcy is physically attractive from his entrance in Ch 3, when the narrator refers to “his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien” along with his wealth. But we’re not in Elizabeth’s head at that point, and iirc, she isn’t shown as saying or thinking anything about his physical attractiveness until she blushingly agrees that he is very handsome forty chapters later.

Even there, Austen leaves the dialogue to stand on its own and tells us nothing of what Elizabeth actually feels about it. The conversation moves to Darcy’s personal virtues, which reveal the critical fact that Darcy is consistently kind and good-natured in the domestic sphere. So Elizabeth’s concession that Darcy is physically attractive is narratively linked to the suggestion that he would make a safe husband, emotionally speaking (although her concession comes first, which may be significant).

Between the initial, omniscient narrator-type description of him and Elizabeth agreeing in Ch 43, we do get references to his looks a few times, but during the period of Elizabeth’s dislike, it’s always either through implication or through someone around Elizabeth rather than Elizabeth herself. So Bingley, for instance, jokes about how Darcy is so much taller than he is, but the narrator only remarks on Elizabeth’s assumption that Darcy is offended by this.

We know that Elizabeth looks for a resemblance to Darcy when she first sees Lady Catherine, and finds it, but this isn’t explicitly linked to her conclusion that Lady Catherine might have been handsome in her youth.

Then there’s the introduction of Colonel Fitzwilliam, when he arrives with Darcy, as “about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman.” Obviously the contrast is with Darcy, who is handsome but has less gentlemanly manners, but this isn’t explicitly spelled out. Austen simply says that Darcy “looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire” and moves to the manner of his compliments to Charlotte.

We do get an explicit contrast later, when Darcy, Georgiana, and Bingley come to Lambton (so, after the critical revelations):

Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother; but there was sense and good humour in her face

Austen breezes past this to Georgiana’s manners and Bingley’s arrival. There are a couple of discussions of Darcy’s appearance earlier at Pemberley, but entirely held between Mr and Mrs Gardiner, who admire his figure while Elizabeth is consumed by embarrassment. She mentions that it was obvious that he had only just arrived via horse or carriage, but not how she knows this or what she feels about it beyond repeatedly blushing.

Then they meet again, he interacts with the Gardiners for awhile, and Elizabeth and the Gardiners leave. The Gardiners discuss the encounter including Darcy’s appearance, and Mrs Gardiner—who at this point, still thinks Darcy has mistreated Wickham—first concludes that Wickham is handsomer, then immediately re-considers and decides that Darcy has perfect features, but not Wickham’s angelic countenance. She (Mrs Gardiner) goes on, “He[Darcy] has not an ill-natured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks.”

Elizabeth does not opine on Darcy’s mouth, lol, and instead defends Darcy’s moral character as far as his financial dealings with Wickham are concerned. We don’t hear much more of it apart from that, and in general, we see Elizabeth’s reactions to Darcy more than we hear about them:

Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush.

She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting.

The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken.

Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with her eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for being so silly!

The colour now rushed into Elizabeth’s cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt

She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke

I do not personally think there can be much reasonable doubt about whether Elizabeth is attracted to Darcy during this phase of the book. But the narrative does dance around it enough (for understandable 1813 reasons, I suspect, given that Elizabeth either dislikes or hates Darcy for a significant portion of the book) that it’s not at all clear when she begins to finds him attractive, especially given that she does not actually see him between receiving the letter and acknowledging his attractiveness at Pemberley. So I think there are multiple valid interpretations or headcanons one could come up with for that.

[seventh-district]

so uh. that 2.2 Special Program, huh

[r0semultiverse]

WAIT- is this one of the alternate timelines created from the space-time sword ("Shintō Amenogozen")!? 👀

I'm an anime-only bsd enjoyer & ever since that damn sword popped up after Atsushi & Akutagawa killed him on the boat but he was able to erase/undo(?) that timeline, I've been thinking that technically means there's multiple timelines. This would be the one where Fukuchi won that conflict we just saw or something else entirely is going on given the way he's dressed (if that even is him)! 👀👀👀

[katyspersonal]

[swiftfootedachilles]

what do i have to do to get people to read my stuff actually like im not about to get in everyones faces begging for attention but i dont understand how im expected to make FREE fandom content without much feedback on my work

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

tw: abuse discussion, intimate partner violence, grooming discussion, power and control. Trying to be vague here and not fly too close to the muse Sun

Re: red tv and the manuscript discourse, I wonder if people realize that it is actually possible to have abusive/toxic/harmful relationships with people your own age, too? Like even if Taylor and jg were 2 years apart, harm still could’ve occurred….? Like it was obviously not grooming bc that is a very specific set of experiences usually involving a child and a person in a position of trust/power like a parent or teacher or coach etc (I know this bc I lived it!!!). But like… that is not the only kind of harm that can happen to young people???? Her youth/naivety was definitely a factor in how fucked up the situation was but it was not the only element. Power dynamics do not begin and end at age. Adults can fuck each other up, too…

[thevalleyoftriumph]

im beginning to think that i am mentally ill and the internet makes my mental illness Worse

[haven-gum-rockrose]

going through it lately. and by it? i mean absolutely nothing actually.

[piutonic]

i may not know the significance within the text of including the story of job in season 2 but it's important to the viewers in building the foundation of why aziraphale made that decision in episode 6 and why it is actually pretty logical given the turn of events: it's hundreds of years of grappling with the boundaries of good and evil and wrapping his head around the faults in the institution of heaven, and yet too early into his journey that a powerful higher entity being minutely considerate could undo quickly — which doesn't exactly discount the famous miracled-coffee theory (i'd say if it were true it just made him more susceptible to certain suggestions, acting less like the means to an end than an insurance) (OR, really, it's just coffee... maybe it's really just the metatron trying to lure aziraphale with food and drinks but obviously not knowing what exactly he liked and disliked but aziraphale considered it a commendable attempt and was nevertheless thankful) but it definitely does provide more dimension to him. he found enough (relative) proof that the systems in place could be changed for the better, found a kind (relative) higher entity in the metatron, and was offered the position to actually make a difference (regretfully also relative... the metatron is too nefarious and God is too #missing and the aforementioned systems in place are thousands of years old of too-fucked-up for aziraphale to succeed as how i imagine he would intend to, but i can sympathize). in his head, he could help the entirety of existence or make heaven a little more compassionate or even altogether call off apocalypse 2.0.

[magentameows]

I really did want to post literally anything else as the first 428 art I ever upload but unfortunately, the heart wants what the heart wants which is for osawa and kajiwara to kiss. apparently.

[nyctarian]

fans of wrestler redacted having to hard pivot to claiming aew is as morally bad as anything wwe mcmahon bc their guy is willing to compromise his stated values if they will give him a job is so funny. like you cant be mad at people for believing aew is better morally than vince mcmahons big conservative fundraiser sponsored by mbs when your guy himself has made his reputation on making the point that wwe bad for nearly a decade now. their are bad people at aew too but it is not systemic to the entire company's existence at the highest levels the way it is in wwe.

also since people on twitter are trying to pretend he was a lone voice of trans rights and got forced out bc of that im also gonna note aew had a trans womens world champion when p*nk was still working for fox's wwe backstage.

[daydadahlias]

Hi! Are you okay? Sorry but you haven’t updated on here in a while and I’m worried.