#i am SO TIRED of people calling a character morally gray

[jegulus4444]

hi! so u asked for unpopular opinions about marauders, so here i am, ready to deliever them

james potter was bully. he bullied not only snape but other people, he sexually assaulted snape. "oh, but that's because snape is a nazi!" yes, he is. i am not defending snape, he is an awful person. but james started bullying him, making fun of him, calling him names and stuff, when they were ELEVEN. he literally started making fun of him in the train. they haven't even talked to each other yet. he just overheard some boy in the train telling his friend that he would like to go slytherin and automatically decided to bully this boy. and that is something unforgivable and i hate that some people in this fandom try to portray snape as pure evil, because HE IS A MORALLY GRAY CHARACTER. he did a lot of awful things, he also did some good things, he also is a victim of abuse, of bullying and of sexual assault. and probably there is someone who's going to come to me and tell me that he was never sexually assaulted. well, james potter held him down, and took of his clothes against his will, including underwear, in front of a lot of people. basically he exposed snape's genitals against snape's will. he also tried to choke snape with soap bubbles, he heavily bullied him. his age is not an excuse, being 15 is not an excuse. if it was all really about snape being a nazi then that would be james's explanation for lily when she asked what his problem with snape was. if it was really about how much james hated purebloods supremacists, then he wouldn't focus on snape, but on mulciber and avery and wilkes and people like this. but instead he chose snape, because snape was an easy victim. and because of that: fuck james potter, i never really started to like him, i can only tolerate him in certain fanfiction

i couldn't care less about jegulus. i've read some awesome fanfictions, i've seen a lot of awesome art, but the ship on it's own doesn't really speak to me. it's a worse version of drarry, honestly, and i never was a big fan of drarry. i get with people like it but i'm just really tired of the fact that you cannot find anything about marauders without jegulus

this fandom has a lot of really toxic parts, especially when people talk about liking some rarepairs, there are so many people who attack them and threathen them and stuff. someone shipping james with barty is not a reason to send them death threaths.

also the fact that someone doesn't headcanon james as poc does not make them racist. someone not shipping a lesbian ship doesn't makes them a bad person and a person that hates lesbians. someone. a lot of people in this fandom just get really mad at people for no reason and it really should stop.

i don't really have any opinions on dorlene. i know that it's popular and stuff but i just don't get the hype. i prefer dorlily lilylene marylily and marylene and dormary and all other combinations between these girls, but dorlene... it just doesn't stand out to me that much.

so now it's time for all the rarepairs that i like:

peter x xenophilius

lily x marlene

james x sirius

james x peter

peter x sirius

lily x sybill

mrs zabini x rita

lily x regulus

lily x barty

lily x barty x evan

evan x barty x xenophilius

this fandom really often portrays walburga as the abuser and orion as just... well, just being there and not really caring, or sometimes people just make him a good father, and honestly? it's the 70s. walburga is a woman. orion he is a man. you really think that she is the one in control here? i'm not saying that she is innocent, because she obviously isn't, but he isn't either and it annoys me that it's always "walburga's a+ parenting" and it's always her being abusive, and her being mad, and her being an awful person, and orion, oooh, poor babygirl, he wants to protect his kids from her but she is the one controling everyone in this house because she is in a position of power as a WOMAN IN 70S. nothing against walburga being portrayed as abusive, because she was abusive, but don't make orion innocent

i would love to hear your opinion about all that i said here (but u don't have to obviously it's just a stupid ask you can just answer it with a dot, but if u have time and energy i'd love to hear ur opinions)

maybe i will come up with something else later, if it happens i'll send another ask

(quietly praying that i won't get death threaths over this)

First of all James Potter is my favourite character ever. He is my sweetheart and I kin him. So yeah, for me he is the perfect imperfection. I agree his made some mistakes, but I don’t view him the way you do. I’ve been there in high school, humiliating people that bully other innocent people or even my friends. I’m not proud of it, I’m just saying I know where he comes from. It’s not easy to stop a bully and I felt like putting them down was the only way to protect others, and I think James thought the exact same thing. Again I’m not proud and I don’t know if I’ll do it again.

On that same note. I hate Snape. I think nothing justify bullying an 11 year old. And he wanted to be a death eater. So I always hate him, in fanon and canon.

2. I loooove Jegulus, it’s my fav ship and I would only read something if it has Jegulus. lol. Total opposites. Mmm i think it’s a great love story and i never get tired of reading it. I’ve honestly never been a fan of Drarry but I don’t mind people shipping them.

3. I know! We should all stop that and just spread love and some legs, lol, jk. But seriously guys, everyone has the right to a different opinion and if you don’t like it, just look the other way .

4. This is so true, I actually hc him as Aaron T Johnson jut bc I think he is the perfect James Potter, but of course I’m not racist like at all. I even love the Reiky fancast bc he is part of skam and so bloody perfect.

I also love to mention I love Mary, Dorcas and Kingsley and all the fan art.

5. I honestly looove dorlene but i do hc lilylene bc it seems natural to me, I first saw them tw as the og bffs and I feel like girl friends are meant to fall in love or at least have crushes on each other. At least that always happens to me w mine.

8. THIS I LOVE (send fics pls)

10. This I like very much (and if anyone has fanfics pls send)

18. I mean I don’t know how to view this as a feminist. You know, I like the woman being the powerful one, but hence again, is I misogyny to blame her for everything and call her a bitch just bc she is a woman and let Orion of the hook?

I JUST FIGURE HOW TO RESPON TO THIS, IM SORRY IT TOOK ME FOREVER

AND PLEASEEEEEEE DONT SEND ANY DEATH THREADS ANYBODYS WAY!

THANKS FOR YOR QUESTIONS

[thenotebookwizard]

She-Ra | A Fanboy's Tale

The odd story of how I ended up in the She-Ra fandom. Because I would have put money down on that not ever having happened, but here I am.

So, to frame this story - a few things you should know about me.

My (main) job is Professional Adult™ - which is to say, I teach life skills to folk with neurodivergence, physical disability, and mental illness. I love my job. It lets me be a disability advocate. It lets me work with amazing people. It lets me discover, explore, and understand the world a little better every day. It lets me teach things I am very good at and learn things I am not. And it forces me to examine myself a lot.

I don't watch much TV. Or many movies. Anxiety about things. Lack of time. Lack of interest. Even fewer things I watch are cartoons. There are some older cartoons I love, but I don't really watch many cartoons. Not because they're bad or aren't entertaining or I have a prejudice against the form. Just - usually - I'm not exposed to ones I like.

Or they hit on the thing that makes me really wary of TV shows and movies these days. Which is - I love unironically heroic characters. I am so tired of the gray-area, morally compromised characters. I am tired of gritty, the bad guys win, the good guys have to be bad guys to win, the antiheroes, the Walter Whites (I loathe that show. And that character. It's awful.) Game of Thrones and ASOIAF. (Terrible people. Doing terrible things. For terrible reasons.)

I have worked with some families for more than a decade. Close to two decades, in some cases. Parents who needed to learn things to teach their kids. Kids with neurodivergence who needed someone to be able to fight for them at school when the parents didn't know the right code words and the laws. Siblings and niblings and adopted clans have all asked for my help over the years.

One such family has three kids, two parents and a bunch of adopted aunts/uncles. They are amazing people. Supportive. Accepting. Creative. They work hard, play hard, and find joy in ways I never have been able to.

The oldest kid loved Stephen Universe. They wrote fic. Drew fanart.

The oldest kid is autistic. Some social rules - are hard for them. Understanding the vagaries of fandom culture was just as hard. We never did find out what they did wrong (maybe it was their gemsona. Maybe it was a fic pairing. Maybe it was a youtube ramble. We really don't know.) But they did or said something that got a faction of the SU fandom riled up at them.

This is not an indictment of that fandom. I've been in fandom long enough to know that you can't blame all for a few. These few did some real damage, though. Threats. Mockery. Told my student to kill themselves. Slurs. Online stalking. Doxxing. Threatening phone calls. Threatening letters. Glitter bombs. False allegations called into their school. To police. Their home was vandalized. Their cars were vandalized to the point they were totaled.

They had to move. Both parents had to get new jobs. My student did not graduate from their high school. They were home schooled. They did not go to college. They did not get a job. They went into residential treatment for a year and some change. They have not yet recovered.

So when the youngest kid found She-Ra and the Princesses of Power a year or two ago and dove in with a powerful hyperfixation, their mother called me up in a blind panic. She could not go through it again.

She paid me to watch the show. To explore the fandom. To read the fic. To do what I do as a fandom person online.

So I did. To be fair, I was pretty much coasting along at that point. Coming out of a breakup, a health crisis, and COVID. No real new fandoms in years. Poking at a fic here and there. Not active on tumblr anymore. One or two servers. But my skills were there - I knew how to find fandoms. Servers. Fics.

The youngest was thrilled to find out their Mom wasn't going to take their hyperfixation away. They sent me a list of fics to read. Notes on the show. Youtube videos to watch. Articles to read. Blogs to read. Posts to read. Fanart to admire.

I watched the show - and my old fandom heart woke up a bit. The show had great villains. Great characters. An unironically heroic protagonist. A love story. At least, I thought it was a love story. By the time I was through season three, I figured that there was no way they were actually going to go through with Catradora. It was based on popular media properties from my childhood.

(Full disclosure: I loved She-Ra as a kid, more than He-Man. Mostly, because I saw her show first and Skeletor creeped me out. But I loved both and watched both. I love the Dolph Lundgren live action movie and I used to read the He-man and She-Ra comics. So I wasn't uninterested in my new work assignment.)

Then season four hit, and i was devastated. Glimmer had gone the 'dark hero' route. Adora was a sad, lonely mess. And the writers had taken Catra and, in the coldest, most brutal, purposeful, deliberate way taken her apart. Taken everything away from her. When they'd already given her so little. She always lost. Not just the battle or the war, but - herself. Her confidence.

By the time I started season five, I realized Catradora could never happen, because the things the writers would have to do to fix it, redeem them all and not leave me with the normal pyrrhic victory TV shows give these days wouldn't happen. No writers were that brave. No one breaks the cycle that way and gets away with it.

I was wrong.

Glimmer was saved by Catra, who apologized. Who sacrificed herself doing the right thing. Glimmer apologized. Glimmer owned her shit.

You have no idea how important that arc is to me. They took a character who had morally compromised themselves and had that character say: I was wrong. I messed up. I'm sorry.

And mean it. She didn't do it again. She didn't go back to her old ways. She stood her damn ground and stayed a hero. Hells yeah.

Adora - the titular hero of the show, without her magic, without her sword, said: Fuck it. We ball. And she walked right up to the big bad guy with more courage and heart than anyone since Luke Skywalker staring down Palpatine and said: Give me my friend back.

She rescued her arch-enemy. No one would have blamed her for leaving Catra behind with Prime. Catra was the enemy. Catra had broken the universe to get Adora back. Catra had tried to kill Adora and her friends over and over again. Catra had saved Adora as often as she'd tried to hurt her.

She stood before the Emperor of the Known Universe and defied him. She jumped off a cliff after Catra, and then when she stood back up, she had her sword. She had her power. And she kicked ass.

(Best episode. Season 5. Episode 5. Save the Cat.)

Then the writers doubled down and had them save the universe with love - through a kiss. Not only did all of that fit the old show, it was what I have wanted from a show for a long time. Unironic, unabashed, unashamed radical belief that doing the right thing and being a good person matter.

That you don't have to compromise yourself to beat the bad guys. It's when you accept yourself, you deal in radical acceptance, radical forgiveness, and the idea that people can change, grow, get better, become more -

Then you can save the world.

So, of course, I dove into the fic. And I found out where all the fic I'd been craving for ten years had gone. It was in the She-Ra fandom. Epics. One-shots. Love stories. AUs. All of it was right there, and more and more was being posted.

I read the fics my student sent. I joined servers. I read through tropes. Blogs. Posts. Articles. I even made myself watch videos.

And when I went back to that Mom, I told her the truth: there's controversy there, but here always is. There's a fight between ships. There's a lot of pain. A lot of hurt. Because this show touched on some big things - everything from growing up queer to growing up during war and disaster. It gave voices to a lot of things most shows and media won't touch or even look at.

But it's also a fandom full of beautiful people. People finding themselves, people expressing themselves, and people using story to redefine the world just a little bit at a time.

Which is what fandom has always done. When you scrape away the layers of hyperfixation and obsession and naked want for more of what the media gave us, you find people who believe, very strongly, in something the show expressed.

Just like Star Trek, so long ago. (And, not so long ago. I love you, Star Trek Discovery!)

So, I guess with that, discovering the She-Ra fandom turned me into a Professional Fanboy, because I got paid to do what I should have already done.

[venting-corner]

This is just a vent session/ideas that I don't how to express other than ranting and complaining about it like a Karen, don't mind me

We all know that the world building and rules of bnha are bullshit and I get tired of fics using the same trope with the same people and the same place. I am looking at you vigilante!Midoriya fics. Of course there are some exceptions with original content like green guide and viridian(time travel fic), but most of them are the same with slight differences.

Where am I going with this? Well generally 90% percent of fics and canon itself is focused on one place,Musutafu. Even though, our heroes go to other cities, generally they're there for one fight and then go back to the capital of bnha. While ocs are not interesting to some people, they could be used to take a breath of fresh air from class 1-A and explore the world of bnha even more.

For example, who does investigations? We don't see heroes investigating most of the time (except nighteye). They are more like responders and generally do not act before a criminal does. Obviously it would be police and investigators, as stated in canon, they are above heroes and can call them to take action. However, we don't see the police that much except for Tsukauchi and the Chief of Hosu police. Wouldn't it be cool to see stories about police without showing all mha characters into the police department?

Who works in the underground? We are told about the power AFO has on the underground, but not shown. At most we saw 3 organizations that get involved in a big battle and go out with a bang. What about others? Organizations that establish their power in one place, trade with others, make deals with legal departments and generally stay hidden. Okay, I admit, those are shown in canon, but not that great. I want to see underground doctors, mafias, weapon smuggling, illegal trade with other countries, corrupt police and politicians (not HPSC), law battles, brokers (not Giran), contingency plans for the destruction of the hero industry, bars, casinos, smart criminals that know their limits and so on. I need to search a little bit more for criminal and underground info.

What about other cities? You can take vigilante! Midoriya and have him protect another city with less to none heroes. Just look at Deika city! It doesn't have heroes that are not part of MLA. Have Midoriya go to a reputable high school in the desired city to have an excuse to go there and protect it. Have him make deals with some shady, but harmless businesses, if you want to make him morally gray or make his character develop to not see everything black and white. Have him meet other underground heroes, aside from Aizawa!

What are other countries doing, while all of shit show is happening in canon? If this is Japan 200 years into the future, then you can bet that everyone already knows about what is going on there, because internet🤌. Why did only America respond? What were their motifs for helping Japan, because politics. Where the fuck is military? Most of those villains would be dead from a military grade weapon!

TD;LR Mha world is an ocean of potential that only was slightly explored

[bigbobbiehorror]

I think after finishing the game and then watch my brother beat it on his own, I've got a few thoughts in regards TOTK's story and a few nitpicks, so All Spoilers beneath the cut:

First of all, I feel like the game just kind of wasted a lot of potential gray morality that you could've found in the conflict between the Ganondorf and Rauru. Because, regardless of whether Ganondorf was a good leader to his people or not prior this, the fact that Rauru was looking to unify all lands and ultimately, to have them swear fealty to the Hyrule kingdom, it's all glossed over. From that point of view, at the very least, you can understand Ganondorf's hostility towards Hyrule (and this is where I get pretty mad: he doesn't need to be redeemed or even be justified in his evil, but I would've loved to see Ganondorf be written like a more layered villain. I was very excited to see him, but he just feels a lot like TP's incarnation: he looks cool and does memorable shit, but he doesn't feel like an 'interesting' character outside being a force of evil. He's definitely the most intimidating Ganondorf to date, but even with Matt Mercer's great performance, he comes across as very flat).

Also, how the only living zonai that we ever see before the imprisoning war are Rauru and Mineru, and there's never a clear explanation about what happened to the rest of them. It is assumed they once were living in Hyrule long before their times, so what happened to them to go extinct? There's no hints given on whether it was because of Demise or was it something else. And the fact that there's a lot of new facts that contradict previous lore doesn't make it easier to figure out (which isn't new for a Zelda game, but man you would think that they keep track of their own lore at this point).

Ultimately, I feel like the ending is wrapped up very eagerly with a positive note, with both Zelda and Link recovering what they lost (her humanity and his arm). Though this isn't new for a Zelda game, I felt like it would've been more impactful to have Link lose his arm forever in exchange of bringing Zelda back to her human self.

And to be honest... I am kind of getting a bit tired of having pieces of the story given to me out of order. It wasn't so bad in BOTW, but in TOTK I wish I could've watched these important events in their chronological order, because it's kind of anti-climatic to watch the scene where Zelda meets Sonia and Rauru for the first time and the next one I get is of Ganondorf killing Sonia. so.... yeah, not a fan.

Gameplay-wise, this game is my favorite out of all Zelda games. I loved the amount of freedom that the game gives to you, but after doing 90+ shrines, I think I'm starting to miss the old long dungeons.

(Also, feel free to disregard the following paragraph, that's mostly just me being old and complaining about things that aren't necessarily bad or a real concern for others) And about the open world: I loved exploring the world and doing the little side quests, but you know what I'm not a fan of? The amount of hours I spend doing the exploring. I'm a bit of a completionist and combining that with my reduced my free time has become and all other games I wish to play besides this, an open world this big is not a great thing for me. I think that this is why I don't play Wind Waker as often ad OoT in spite of the former being my favorite: the world is too big and I only have so much free time to dedicate to a videogame in which I could spend 30-20% of that time traversing a map from one objective to another. And WW is a pretty linear game: TOTK is not exactly linear, in fact, I may get a dozen of new distractions while I travel from one objective to another, so that's my problem amplified.

But other than that, TOTK is a great game, and if people wanna call it the best of 2023, it's very well-deserved. But personally, I think I'm a bit disappointed with how some things came out and how this may be the new direction they want to take new Zelda games, if there will be more in the future.

[caribbean-ace]

Once again i’m here with the latest of Station 6x02 (a bit later than expected bc life gets in the way sometimes) with my thoughts about the episode (i literally just watched it so i think i won’t forget many details as usual spoilers ahead:

Maya and Carina going through a rough time is not even annoying me as much as what the team is treating her. Yes, i love Maya Bishop and yes we’ve already established the whole blackmailing thing was wrong but is she going to be punished forever for that? For wanting her job back? For being ambitious? Are women just supposed to sit back and wait for oportunities to come? That’s not gonna happen, so i still don’t know why they call her ruthless for going at a job she was damn good. Like honestly i’m just so annoyed at it. Like if Andy was able to move on from that, why don’t the others move on too

Beckett, the chief & Sullivan is a thing that sooner or later will come out and will blow up in everyone’s faces and i’m so ready for it. I hate how they will go: oh we’re a family and we stick together and we’ll fight anyone that tries to hurt our family but the same thing does not apply to Maya, go figure. With that being said, i get that Jack needs help and he does but it’s quite difficult to help someone who does not want to change, it takes effort, and it’s hard and painful but it’s worth it.

Which brings me to: Carina i adore you with my soul, and you’re too kind for your own good. Talk to your wife, when you’re home try to figure this out on your own. Not in the middle of the station, not with Jack who already has a lot going on and should be on his way to get help, not with Andy or Ben, with your wife. As much as i love Carina i don’t want to see her in this role of “fixing people” you don’t fix people, they get the help they need and all you can do is support them, it goes for Jack and it goes for Maya, Carina’s character should go beyond the whole “fixing people thing”

I like how Travis is aware of how dangerous politics can be because power corrupts people, he just wants to help and i love him for it. We’ll see how this goes + i just want the team to go back to their old self with the teasing and banter they used to have + it was nice to see Andy defending(ish) Maya like things could have been better but oh well

I hate Beckett and Dixon. No need to elaborate on that one

That last scene got me thinking so much, if you see that without context you’re going to think: wow she’s a bitch for playing with someone’s addiction like it’s nothing but knowing all of it i like the huge scale of a gray area this covers. Beckett dealing with that type of problem doesn’t make me jump up and down since alcoholism is super dangerous but he’s not playing nice either, Maya has always played by the rules and that lead her to her team kinda turning their backs on her (that episode where two black girls where kidnapped) and when she decides she’s gonna ignore that because of the greater good it costs her job so i get how she’s pissed because she was dismissed so hard by everyone, but knowing how addiction hits too close to home for her i don’t think that’s in character for her. I’m interesting to see how this is going to unfold, i enjoy those situations where morality can be put up to test.

Overall drama has been escalating i can only hope the truth comes out because dear lord i am tired of beckett

[avrablake]

5 Things You Never Get Tired of Writing

Thanks for the tag @the-finch-address and @whimsyqueen

@writingonesdreams also wanted to know the answer to this question

Sympathetic Villains - Don’t get me wrong, I love a good villain who is just completely evil and terrifying. I don’t think every villain needs to be relatable or have a sad backstory, and sometimes it annoys me in media when villains get an unbelievable redemption arc or a sad backstory that is supposed to make them relatable but is actually just stupid. And yet here I am over here giving all my antagonists sad backstories. I just really love morally gray antagonists and antagonists who could have been heroes if they’d chosen differently or been given different chances or if someone had believed in them. One of my favorite antagonists of all time is Lex Luthor form Smallville because he tried so so hard to be different and to be better but ended up a villain anyway, not because he was doomed from the start but ultimately because he chose to give up on believing he could be a hero.

Sad Backstories - they aren’t just for my antagonists. Everyone gets a sad backstory! No one is safe from the Angst Hammer or the Mighty Blade of Trauma. I put my characters through so much emotional pain.

Hurt/Comfort - especially of the emotional variety. Yes I also love when one character (Nix) gets injured and someone has to take care of them, but what I love even more than that is when one character (Nix) is struggling to deal with all their angst and emotional trauma and someone comforts them.

The dark-haired, angsty, brooding character trope - I just can’t stay away from them. I love to watch them. I love to write them. I love to torment them. I love to give them a found family.

The brooding one and the sunshine one but as best friends - Two people who seem like they would never get along but are best friends and found family. YES PLEASE. The sunshine one calling the brooding one a dumbass as a form of endearment. The brooding one acting all annoyed all the time but would actually die for the sunshine one. YES PLEASE. I will write this dynamic into every story and you can’t stop me.

-

Yeah a lot of these are related to each other. Yeah based on this list my wip is basically the most self-indulgent thing I could possibly write.

Tagging some people. I know this has been going around and I’ve been kind of checked out so sorry if you’ve already done it. Feel free to tag me in it so I can see it, or just ignore me. @emelkae @psychic-timetraveler @bloodlessheirbyjacques plus Open Tag for anyone who wants it

[lex1nat0r]

The flaming skull of judgement turns its hollow gaze on: Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland.

Look, I didn't expect to be here today either. I thought the skull would be quiescent until I got around to reading Before They Are Hanged. But when the flaming skull of judgement intrudes upon your consciousness claiming it has found grimdark in an unexpected place, I admit I get curious. The Basilisk called Genre can strike from anywhere, I guess. So is Five Broken Blades grimdark? Well… I have trouble calling it that, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone else labeling Five Broken Blades as grimdark. So come down to the lab and let's put it on the slab, feat. a tangent about assassins. Some light spoilers.

Five Broken Blades stuck out to me from before the first page. Someone had nicely thought to put a content warning before the book proper, let's take a look:

Five Broken Blades is a dark adventure fantasy full of deadly liars, gray morals, and kingdom-destroying secrets. As such, the story includes elements that might not be suitable for all readers. Violence, blood, death (including the death of parents, children, incarcerated people, and animals), poisoning, substance abuse, alcohol, sexual activity, animal abuse, gender-based violence, sex work, suicidal ideation, and indentured servitude are depicted. Rape, assault, and graphic genocide are described.

(Sidenote: love a good content warning. I love grimdark, I don't think people should be exposed to content that makes them uncomfortable without a fair warning. You can be an edgelord and still be kind.)

So that's quite a list of ingredients, and with that content warning in mind I read Five Broken Blades with an eye towards assessing its grimdark potential.

It is useful for my purposes to contrast Five Broken Blades against The Blade Itself. That works nicely because they both have 'Blade' in the name. Talking about The Blade Itself, I declared that it didn't hit grimdark for me because there's no hint of the kind of overwhelming darkness that characterizes grimdark. The Blade Itself certainly features a kind of ambient suckage to the world, but what grimdark requires is ambient misery. And what Five Broken Blades does better than The Blade Itself is provide that aura of misery.

Five Broken Blades does two things differently. The first is that the characters feel noticeably more crushed by the system than The Blade Itself. With the exception of Farro the characters in Blade (singular) are pretty on top of things. And even Farro has the patronage of a powerful wizard from the chapter she's introduced. Logen's on the run from Bethod but he's still a Named Man with a reputation feared in the North, Jezel's a privileged nobleman, West has a decently prestigious military job, and Glokta is still the one doing the torturing for all that he has to worry about ending up on the other side of the table. Compare to 5Blades, even Mikail the spymaster is actively trying to work against the government of Yusan. And his background ain't that privileged to begin with. Each of the main characters in 5Blades feel like they are actively in the process of losing something which is why they need to go in on this scheme to kill the king.

Which is the other thing 5Blades brings to the table: we know what the plot is. The world may not be as bleak as I like, but this quest to kill a king who may also be a god sure feels doomed. The story takes these miserable people, none of whom have clean consciences, and puts them in the pressure cooker of this long shot to maybe make things better, which is at least the bare bones of a grimdark plot.

In terms of morally grey characters, I do confess that I rolled my eyes a bit at Sora being an assassin coerced into the job, a character type I am still tired of after finishing the Throne of Glass books (do not ask me if the Throne of Glass books are grimdark). It's an eating-cake-and-having-it-too thing, I think. Like, you want this character to feel badass and dangerous so you make them an assassin, but you don't want them to come off as too bad a person (the specter of Gygax looms) so you say it's okay, they were forced into it. So oh look, they've got all these cool assassin skills, but they feel real bad about all the people they were forced to kill who were mostly nobility anyway so maybe they shouldn't feel too bad. I like it when an author fully commits to making a character a Bastard, I guess is what I'm getting at.

Anyway, Sora's character is redeemed by her plotting to maybe betray the party later in the book, she's fully capable of being a Bastard on her own recognizance. And it's not like 5Blades is afraid to make characters Bastards. Euyn straight-up chose to hunt people for sport, which holy shit is not a thing I've seen in a protagonist's backstory before. Sure he's remorseful about it but it's a thing he chose to do on his own, and that's a hell of a weight to be carrying around.

So: Five Broken Blades is borderline grimdark for me. Importantly, I think in who its characters are and how it sets up its overarching plot it gets closer to full-blown grimdark than The Blade Itself (if you want to stone me for that opinion you'll have to catch me first).

Tune in next time when I weigh in on whether, I dunno, the Gormenghast novels are grimdark I guess.

[sun-is-a-square]

Hot take, the reason so many people think c!Dream is 100% pure evil is that term “morally gray” has been reduced by media to “commits atrocities but they were sad so its not their fault” or “perfect good hero but they make mistakes sometimes”

Like, as much as I love c!Dream and joke about him being a poor pathetic meowmeow who did nothing wrong, I know he has done some HORRIBLE things. But he has complicated motives, he does morally right things that don’t aid his motives, he has fears and trauma and acts according to his own moral code. He may be on the darker end of the morally gray spectrum, but the fact that people insist every emotion and action he takes is some directionless chaotic evil outburst just goes to show how much media literacy is failing people.

Fandom is so much more fun when you just relax and let yourself enjoy exploring the spectrum of fictional morality

[ohmygeese]

Hi! Welcome to our new segment called "The SMP has morally gray storyline so stop treating it like everything is black or white: Rant Edition"

The reason why Tubbo was compared to Schlatt in the first place was because he didn't inform his cabinet of his decision of exiling Tommy. This is a valid reason for his cabinet to be upset but unfortunately, they took the situation as an opportunity to manipulate Tubbo to do their bidding.

Knowing the full story, Tommy had no right to call Tubbo "a monster" but looking at purely Tommy's perspective, he was pretty valid in saying so (allegedly kicking Wilbur out of NLM, putting Phil in house arrest, planning to execute Techno, and of course, his entire exile). Same goes to the times Tubbo called Tommy "selfish and a liability." Both are unfair portrayals of each character's actions but are completely understandable since their relationship has been tainted by miscommunication and "hear-says" from biased/unrealiable sources.

During the El Rapids storyline, Dream had the right to call Quackity a terrorist although we know it wasn't purely because of the fake strike and the siege of the throne but as a political tactic for his own benefit. However, Karl also had the right to call Dream a tyrant because why else would you get yourself involved in an affair of two nations of which you aren't even a part of and go as far as to speak over the king and use your godly powers as a threat. Like :D

Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo are the only ones who actually care about maintaning peace and justice in the server. I could not stress this enough: "The fate of the entire server rests on their hands." Quackity? On a power high. Fundy and Niki? Running away from their problems and building a new country to sastify their own desires. Phil? Protecting Techno is his #1 priority, anything else nada. Techno? On a revenge arc and owes a favor to a person who goes against the very core of his anarchic (?) ideals. These three are the only ones willing to call out bullshit eveb if it means a loss in power or comfort but, currently, they're all facing difficulties to do so. Tommy is literally overloaded with trauma and is questioning the world as he knows it. Tubbo is being manipulated by Dream and his cabinet. Ranboo has memory issues, is easily peer-pressured and is isn't really taken seriously by the wide majority. The SMP is fucked if they don't pull their shit together.

Tommy has the right to say that nobody cared about him during his exile because he has said multiple times in passing how depressed and tired he has been since living in Logstedshire. He even has mentioned Dream's manipulative tendencies multiple tomes. But even after all that, Ranboo was the only to actually recognize and do something about it (Sapnap as well but he's too pre-occupied with El Rapids). Not even his own father did.

Canonically, Phil is a terrible father and grandfather. He calls out bullshit but never makes an effort to fix them. Old man disowned his furry grandson for wanting to kill Techno but doesn't explain to him Techno's reasoning with the war crimes in the first place. Old man also did nothing to save Tommy from exile even after witnessing the shit his son is going through. (I know its not in the script and I respect that but we gotta call out bs. Hope they give Phil redemption other than being a good pal to only Techno :D)

Both Pogtopia and Techno are at fault for the government clash incident. Pogtopia has expressed multiple times of how they want to reclaim L'manberg. It was Techno's mistake to not infer that it included the government especially since the heads of the operation were the ex-president and vice president of the nation. Additionally, Techno kept saying stuff like "We'll burn the bridge when we get there," whenever he gets asked on his opinion about the revolution. And that is called miscommunication at its finest. However, this does not discredit the fact that Pogtopia did use Techno as a literal weapon without further inspecting his stance whatsoever.

On the topic of Pogtopia and Techno, in the moment where its revealed that Techno is going to betray Tommy, don't say its karma. They were both used as weapons during that era, Tommy far beyond that. He wasn't even the one to institute the government when they won, it was Wilbur. Think of it as Tommy as the handle and Techno was the blade. It fits perfectly to their dynamic during that era. Also, don't try to reason out manipulation wth.

Last point, to the people who were disappointed that Tommy never got to "learn his lesson" after he escaped from Dream, do not become parents. Just don't. You really expect a literal teenager who just escaped from an abusive relationship to think about that? Bitch, Tommy never had time to even think about his trauma and you expect him to be like "ye, i was irresponsible," in a snap? If anything, the exile just showed him that he and his discs are being used a political leverage (he even said that he's the only one Dream is scared of) so of course, Tommy is going to try to take his discs back as a way to end the bullshit he and everyone he holds dear has gone through. We don't even know if he's going to put it in an e-chest or burn it (probably the latter). Guys. Please. The child literally went through hell and back. Give him therapy before lecturing him about being "selfish." (Again, you have no right to call him that in the first place.)

Appreaciate the storyline for what it is and stop trying to fight each other over who was right and who's in the wrong like please. The only redeemable (by redeemable i mean saints amongst men y'know maybe should not have used that word to begin with but ahhhhhh) characters here is Ranboo (Edit: Also Niki haha woops, thank you for reminding me) if I'm completely honest. (I am going against everything I stand for to not include Tommy and Tubno in that sentence but I said what I said.)

/dsmp /roleplay /nm

[sevlgi]

bubblegum pop

requested: no

group: twice

pairing: sana x fem!reader

genre: fluff

contents: rich girl!sana, college!au, cashier!reader.

warnings: none

synopsis: An unfortunately hostile encounter with the school’s sweetest rich girl might just lead to more than you ever expected.

a/n: inspired by @pearicot​‘s mean girl rosie series! (by the way, i’m not trying to feed into the “dumb sana” stereotype with this; i just thought that her personality fitted the character i was trying to achieve! does anyone wanna request continuations or scenarios in this universe 👀

word count: 3.3k

Something about Mondays the week of finals always got you in a bad mood, especially when you had  to work double shifts at the same stupid ice cream shop you’d worked at for the past 2 years of college. 

So maybe, just maybe, there was reasoning behind you snapping at the love of your life during your first meeting.

Actually, there really, really wasn’t.

There were plenty of mean girls on campus who you wouldn’t regret yelling at whatsoever, but you just happened to blow up at one of the considerably nicer rich girls.

Minatozaki Sana didn’t mean anything bad when she innocently held out a hundred dollar bill to pay for a $5 ice cream. She didn’t mean to seem pretentious, nor did she mean to mock you and your minimum-wage job, but you just so happened to take it that way.

“Really? You have to rub it in my face like that?”

Sana stared at you, the money that she held out wavering in the ear. “Sorry?”

Pinching the space between your eyebrows, you huffed out an exasperated breath. Luckily, there was no one else in the shop about to witness the stupidest meltdown of your life. “You think I don’t know that I’m poor? It’s five dollars for God’s sake, no need to bring out the big guns. Oh, or are you doing this to avoid seeming more pretentious with your daddy’s black card?”

The brunette’s hand retreated quickly, the heels of her Louboutins clacking softly against the pastel-toned linoleum of the ice cream shop. Fuck, you hated that linoleum. “I... I didn’t mean any of that, I swear! Um, is there an ATM near here?”

Once again, the girl meant well, and you took it badly. You scoffed, glaring disbelievingly at her. Some part of you was screaming out that you were putting your entire job at stake, and your morals as well, but you disregarded any common sense remaining in your brain. “An ATM for 5 bucks? Dude, just don’t.” Dipping your hand into the tip jar, you scrounged out a lousy crumpled bill and threw it down on the counter, shoving the bubblegum-flavored sweet to Sana. “Okay? Now get out, I don’t want to see your privileged ass anywhere near here.”

The dense gray clouding your mind somehow missed the hurt expression on the girl’s face as the staff door swung open. Wendy’s hands, though gentle on your shoulders, shoved you behind her with surprising force. “I am so sorry, Sana, it’s finals week. Surely you can understand? The ice cream’s on the house.”

“No, of course it’s okay!” Sana sounded genuine enough, that was for sure; you caught her glancing worriedly at you a couple times, nothing malicious whatsoever in her eyes. “I can pay though, are you sure?”

“I’m sure. See you in class,” Wendy called out, smiling all the while until the girl disappeared into the Lamborghini parked by the curb. As soon as that happened, she turned back to you, concern tugging at the corner of her lips. “Y/N...”

“Yeah, I know,” you mumbled as you crossed your arms. Already, you were regretting what you said, though you were far too stubborn to actually apologize on the spot. “No arguing with customers about capitalism. Sorry, Wendy.”

The girl bit her lip, scanning the store to make sure that there wasn’t about to be an influx of customers. Usually she enjoyed working with you; you just had absolutely terrible mood swings sometimes, and those days were nothing short of hellish for her to deal with. “Just head home. Focus on your finals, and come back next week. Okay?”

You hesitated to agree, knowing that you needed the money, but the grim expression on Wendy’s face told you that you had no other option. “Okay. Sorry.”

As you snatched up your stuff and shoved the door to the street open, you missed the sight of Sana watching you through the tinted windows of her 6-figure car.

“Really? Sana?”

“I know,” you groaned, biting down on the plastic spoon in your mouth. The flavor of the month (the only one you could eat completely free) lingered unpleasantly on your tongue, the taste of it oddly salty. “She was so nice about it, too.”

Jeongyeon and Mina exchanged glances, not touching their respective cups of “Ocean Caramel” either. It was extremely kind of them to come and accompany you on the slow days, both of them even offering to suffer through the gross ice cream with you.  “If it was Park Roseanne I might understand, but Sana,” Mina winced. Jeongyeon nodded in agreement; after all, everyone on campus knew about the reputations of Roseanne and Sana.

On one end of the “rich girl” spectrum, Roseanne was quite possibly the bitchiest one of all. She and her Bugatti Veyron, the college upgrade from her old McLaren, absolutely weren’t to be messed with. People who went to high school with you often told story of the G Wagon she smashed, the locker room she lit on fire, and so many other horror tales of a spoiled girl gone wild. You were sure that had you gone off on her, even Wendy wouldn’t have stopped you.

But on the other end, Sana was notoriously kind. Sure, her family raked in an income close to that of the other girl’s, and her wardrobe was just as expensive, but she made a point to donate to charities every time she went shopping. She tipped in the hundreds, and she didn’t ever ask for her designer clothes back when she lent them to strangers. She paid any dinner bill in full when she was there, and sometimes even when she wasn’t invited.

No one was entirely sure about the relationship between the two, but Roseanne seemed to hate Sana more than she did other people. The two fought publicly occasionally, but Sana’s kind heart made it so that even Roseanne couldn’t carry a fight very long. She didn’t respond to insults, it seemed, nor did she ever seem to actually take them personally. 

Stirring her half-melted soup, Mina continued, “Hopefully she doesn’t hold it against you. She doesn’t seem like the type, but...”

Jeongyeon shook her head, opening her mouth just as the doorbell rang. You froze when you looked up to find a designer-dressed bombshell, a sweet smile outlined in Chanel Rouge Allure. She looked completely out of place amidst tired college kids spending their last paycheck on ice cream, white gauzy sleeves and blue dress shimmering under LED lights. If you were being honest, you’d say that she was the most beautiful person you’d seen in your life, but you were always well versed in lying to yourself. “Y/N, you better go.”

“Why?” you whined, pouting at your much more responsible friends. They ignored your puppy face, though; Jihyo was usually the only one you could sway, Momo sometimes if she was feeling merciful. “I’m on break.”

“Only when there’s no customers,” Mina argued, shoving you to stand. Jeongyeon smiled at you, waving you away. “Go, and don’t screw it up this time.”

You forced a smile onto your face when you reached the counter, bowing and adjusting your name tag. “Hi, what can I help you with today?”

“Hi, Y/N!” Sana grinned, bowing back. The fact that she remembered your name only made your guilt worse; if she forgot who you were, you could at least pretend that she didn’t remember the incident at all. “Ah, could I have the same thing as last time? Bubblegum Pop ice cream, on a sugar cone today. 3 scoops?”

Nodding, you moved to open the case, avoiding the girl’s gaze as you did. “Of course.” She was quiet at that, staring at the ceiling so as not to rush you. Without prompting, you blurted, “I’m... I’m really sorry about last week, by the way. I don’t know what I was thinking, blowing up at you like that.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay!” she protested, waving a manicured hand in the air. “I promise I understand you. We all have our bad days.”

You wanted to apologize again, if just to assuage your guilt, but you held off on it, joking, “How do you deal with them? Yell at Gucci assistants?”

Sana looked honestly offended as she accepted the cone proffered to her, eyes widening in shock. “I’ve never done that, I swear! Besides, I don’t like Gucci much.”

A light smile quirking at the corners of your lips, you handed the receipt to her as well. She didn’t ask for it, probably not caring about the measly price or having the space for it in her tiny bag, but took it anyway. “I’m sure you don’t. Your total is $5.23, will that be cash or card?”

“Cash!” She held out a 10 dollar bill, pride shining behind that gorgeous face as you raised your eyebrows in surprise. When your hands brush together, you were reminded of how much better she was than you, how you probably weren’t worthy at all to be touching her with your shop-issued baseball cap and grimy apron. But Sana doesn’t seem to mind, still smiling that airy smile at you and not moving away. She broke your stare by offering, “I don’t want to sound rude, but keep the change.”

“Not rude at all,” you fully laughed that time, dishing out the remainder to stuff in your tip jar. You still felt terrible that she felt the need to apologize about such a normal comment, asking, “Are you sure it’s okay? You can have this one free too, if it makes up for me shouting at you...”

Sana shook her head, sugary light pink already mixing into her lipstick. She walked away, still waving with that gorgeous smile on her face. “It’s okay. I’ll see you soon, Y/N, you look really pretty today!”

Turning back to your friends, you whispered, “Damn. She’s really nice.”

You planned on spending your one day off from school and work cozied up with a good book and your favorite hot drink, but you supposed that getting into a fight with Park Roseanne wasn’t the worst way to go either.

As soon as you entered campus, book in hand and blasting music in your earbuds, you found a crowd of at least 3 dozen people right in front of the library building. It was unlike you to butt into others’ business, especially when it might lead to a ruined day, but Roseanne’s voice carried loud over the hushed whispers of everyone else. “--huh, Sana?”

It wasn’t any of your business, but for some reason, Roseanne’s tone when saying Sana’s name angered you immensely. Frowning, you shouldered your way through the crowd. The closer you got to the center, the more expensive the clothing that brushed against your own rough jean jacket was, cotton and leather becoming silk and velvet. You originally planned to just fit in with the other spectators, but with a shove at the small of your back, you were thrust into the center too.

To your shock, Sana’s eyes were red and shining with tears, the tip of her nose cherry-colored as well. Her head was almost bowed as she stared at her shoes, but she looked up to you when you almost bumped into her. You stuttered out, “H-hey. What’s going on?”

Instead of an explanation from the Japanese girl, though, your gaze was drawn to the blonde across the courtyard. “Didn’t you hear? Little Miss Perfect here got broken up with,” Roseanne scoffed, an infuriating smirk on her perfect face as she tilted her head at you. “By a future CEO, no less. I guess she isn’t a gold-digger, or maybe there’s some other reason that he didn’t want her anymore.”

Your hand shot out to protect Sana, a scowl making its way onto your own face. “Excuse me? From my standpoint, any future CEO is still way outta her league, so forgive me for doubting that he’s the one who didn’t want her. You’re the one dating someone who makes a tenth of what you do.”

Roseanne rolled her eyes, lips thinning. “Don’t talk about my girlfriend like that, Y/L/N, or you’ve got another thing coming. There aren’t many lesbians in this damn school.”

“You know me, don’t you?” Sana’s voice was wavering as she spoke, but it was strong enough to echo in the courtyard. To your surprise (and somewhat satisfaction), the blonde  girl’s eyes widened as Sana stood forward, her lips jutting forward. “That’s why I’m not dating him anymore. I like girls, too.”

Somehow, you’d never expected that Sana was attracted to girls, but it made perfect sense. An irrational part of you wanted to cheer, but instead, you forced yourself to speak.

“R-right.” You continued to glare at Roseanne, who finally seemed to be speechless. “Yeah, so how come you’re tearing Sana down? We should be supporting each other, but you’re being so rude to someone so kind, and that says all I need to know about you.”

Reaching out, you latched onto Sana’s upper arm and pulled her out of the circle, people parting to let the two of you through as Roseanne wasn’t able to conjure up something to respond with. You didn’t stop walking until there was only silence surrounding you under the shade of a swaying tree, finally stopping to let the girl sit. “Are you okay?” you asked, brow furrowed as you knelt to be mostly face-level with her.

Somehow, there was a smile on her face; a slightly snotty smile, but nonetheless the most beautiful one you’d ever seen in your life. You ignored the uncomfortable leap of your heart when you reached out to take her hands into your own, somehow forgetting about the hostility you’d felt towards her from the beginning. “You- you stood up for me.”

“Yeah. I did, I guess,” you shrugged, smiling slightly. “I’m sure that was rough, though, to come out. How’re you feeling?”

“Honestly, much better,” Sana sighed. She leaned back, fingers curling slightly around yours as the afternoon sun shone golden brown in the locks of hair spread out on her shoulders. “It was good to get it off my chest. I didn’t even know you were into girls, you know.”

Reaching up to scratch your head, you chuckled, “Well, I am, if it makes you feel any better. What happened between the two of you, by the way? She seems to hate you so much.”

The girl laughed, as bubbly and airy as her regular voice. “I may or may not have dated her girlfriend before. But it was a long time ago, and I’m still friends with her! Roseanne just can’t forgive me.”

You feigned shock, swatting at her arm. “How terrible of you! I’m so disappointed.”

You were stuck simply smiling at each other for a good minute or so before you looked away, picking at your shoelace for something to do. “So. Uh, Roseanne knew the whole time?”

“She did,” Sana confirmed, nodding. “She just never talked about it.”

“Well, it’s good to know that she isn’t the only other one in the school with me,” you sighed, sitting back on your heels.

Sana lurched back forward, hands clasping together at her chest. “Then we should celebrate! We can go shopping or something, and we can just be happy that we aren’t alone anymore.”

It suddenly struck you how quickly you could change the girl’s entire outlook, a smile coming onto her face with no effort from you whatsoever. But even more surprising, you smiled even larger than she did just looking at her. 

Laughing, you sat back on your heels and shook your head lightly. Seeming to take it as a rejection, Sana’s eyes widened. “Oh, only if you want to, of course! We can go wherever you want, we don’t even have to go shopping if you don’t want to!”

“No, we can go shopping,” you answered, reaching back over to squeeze her hand and pulling her up with you when you stood. “Come on, then. Let’s go celebrate.”

Sana wasn’t a great driver, but you didn’t expect much else. You were practically sick to your stomach by the time that you reached the mall, face green as you swayed out of the car.

“Ah, Y/N, I’m sorry!” Her hands rubbed lightly at your back as you squatted in the parking lot, fist held tight to your mouth. It wasn’t like you were actually going to throw up, but you didn’t want to risk ruining the girl’s expensive shoes. “I’ll let you drive next time.”

Next time? you wanted to ask. But you managed to stand, nodding quickly to ease Sana’s worry. “Yeah. It’s fine, I’m fine. Should we go?”

Immediately, she latched onto your hand, swinging between the two of you as she started to rush forward. “H-hey, lock your car first!”

Sana had unsurprisingly expensive tastes, but also surprisingly understated ones. She was fun to shop with, that was for sure- she loved to offer you clothes and also to offer to pay for them, but you didn’t necessarily hate a pretty girl telling you you’d look gorgeous in a certain sparkly dress.

She didn’t do any of the typical stuck-up things you expected her to- Sana carried her own bags, and she never forced you to follow her instead of doing what you wanted to. She did like to try on outfits and show them to you, but that could be ignored when it was just another opportunity for you to stare at her.

Eventually, you ended up having ice cream at one of the stores in the mall. You balked at the price, but Sana swiped her credit card without hesitation. “I have to admit, this bubblegum doesn’t taste as good as yours,” she pouted.

Chuckling, you savored the rich flavor on your own tongue. “You should’ve picked an expensive flavor then. Vanilla and chocolate are always good in these kinds of stores.”

“You know a lot about ‘these kinds of stores’ for someone who claims to be poor,” she teased, eyes widening as soon as the words slipped out of her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean-”

“Nah, it’s fine,” you smiled, leaning on your palm. “I’m good with it, since we’re friends now.”

Sana grinned at that, her eyes curving charmingly. “We’re friends? Most people don’t want to be friends with me, I’m really glad you’re willing to.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

Looking down for once, the girl mumbled, “They say I’m dumb. You know that everyone says I’m nice, but they also think I’m dumb because I pay for everything. I just want to be kind, but no one takes me seriously.”

A wave of guilt rushed over you for previously feeding into the stereotype. The more time you spent with Sana, the more you realized that she was as brilliant as any other, and far more kind. “Well, that’s stupid. You are kind, Sana, and you’re amazing. I’m lucky to be your friend.”

She clasped your hand over the table, soft skin warm over yours, pink flushing in her pale cheeks. “Thank you, Y/N. You know, this is the best time I’ve had in a while. My boyfriend didn’t even listen to me this well,” she laughed.

Despite the fact that she treated it as a joke, you felt horrible. She was all too used to thinking the worst about herself and not believing that she was worth any better, and that was the worst possible thing you could imagine for a girl with a heart of gold. Jabbing your spoon into the remaining ice cream, you blurted, “Then go on a date with me. A proper one, not just a normal hangout like this.”

Sana instantly blushed, looking down as if it’d hide her face at all. But she missed the heat that rose to your cheeks too, the nervous biting of your lip as you waited for a response. “I would love nothing more,” she smiled, her eyes shining brilliantly. “And I can’t wait.”

[louisapennyfeather2021]

AFTG Headcannons of Neil and Disney movies because I feel like projecting and this man would love Disney movies. This is also based on the current U.S. Disney+ library.

So we all know Neil didn't watch movies or TV shows growing up. It's a welcomed idea that the Foxes all introduce him to all the movies/TV shows the internet had to offer.

When they start the Disney movie phase, Neil immediately has favorites(even if he won't ever admit it).

They watch all the Disney Princess movies first because of Nicky. He argued that Snow White was the first Disney movie and that they had to watch all the other Princess movies.

Neil's favorite Princesses are Mulan, Merida, and Rapunzel. He never tells the Foxes, but they figure it out because they'll occasionally see him watching the movies or asking about those characters.

His favorite Princes are Naveen, Shang, Flynn Ryder, and Philip. He only really likes Philip because he really liked the fight scene with the dragon/Maleficent. He briefly hints to Andrew that these are his favorites.

Andrew admits after years that he also somewhat likes Flynn Ryder.

Neil is a huge sucker for side characters. Specifically, the animal side characters.

He absolutely loves Iago(Parrot from Aladdin) and Mushu(Mulan). Something about red colored, smart ass side kicks who don't stop running their mouths even when they should.

Neil's favorite Disney animated movie is probably Lilo and Stitch. Even if he won't admit it out loud to anyone except Andrew and maybe Matt, he likes it because it reminds him of the Foxes. A Dysfunctional family made up of very different people.

Dan gets him an "Ohana means Family. And Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten" tshirt for Christmas one year.

Neil wears it almost all the time.

He has compared Andrew to Stitch multiple times.

Andrew has threatened to throw Neil off the roof of Fox Tower just as many times.

One time Neil was super tired and convinced Andrew to watch the movie with him.

They were sitting near each other on Andrew's bunk with Andrew's laptop between them. Andrew wasn't in the mood for touching, but he was okay with sitting near Neil.

Neil's eyes were half closed throughout the entire movie and he had almost fallen asleep multiple times.

"Y'know, 'Drew? You're a lot like Stitch?"

"Neil, it would take very minimal effort to drag you up to the roof and make it look like an accident."

"No, I'm serious. Everyone said you were a monster and that it wasn't smart to be around you. Really you were just trying to protect what you knew as family and make sure your world kept spinning."

"168%, Junkie."

Neil fell asleep after that and didn't remember what he said.

Andrew was secretly very touched by it. He knew people called him a monster and a bad influence, but hearing Neil explain that they were wrong made his chest warm.

He'd never admit to that though.

Anyway, Neil would also love Treasure Planet purely because the line between good guy and bad guy was so blurred. He liked the morally gray characters and how there wasn't an unrealistic redemption at the end.

The day Allison convinced them all to watch Up was definitely interesting.

Nicky begged her not to watch it because it always made him cry.

Allison told Nicky to suck it up because the movie was a cultural experience Neil needed to even be seen with her in public(Allison's words).

Neil thought the movie was okay, he didn't get super emotional with it.

However, things didn't bode well for Kevin.

Allison making them all watch Up started a joke that Neil carried from college into his pro career and even after.

Specifically because of the bird in the movie being named Kevin.

On the court, Neil would taunt Kevin just to mess with him;

"Here Snipe! Come on out, Snipe!"

"Kevin, do you want some chocolate?"

"What happened to your bird babies?"

"NEIL, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T SHUT IT WITH THE DAMN BIRD JOKES!"

"..."

"Oh he's an angry Snipe."

"JOSTEN!"

Andrew does nothing to stop Neil because he finds it amusing to see Kevin get so angry at being compared to an animated bird.

Matt convinces Neil to watch Avatar and Neil loves it.

Matt has to explain that it wasn't always a Disney movie, but Neil doesn't care. He thinks the fighting and CGI is cool.

Nicky tried to get them all to watch Bambi or Brothet Bear once.

Andrew threw a knife at him and immediately shut down the idea.

Neil hadn't been paying attention, but Andrew had done it because in both movies, a main character loses their mom. Even though Neil had started to accept that his mom wasn't as great as he had initially thought, Andrew knew the movies would probably make Neil uncomfortable.

Renee convinced everyone to watch the Narnia movies.

Neil enjoyed them mostly because he thought the music was cool.

He also thought it was interesting how Renee explained the religious symbolism.

And then, of course, thought it was hilarious when Nicky talked about how he'd let Prince Caspian step on him any day.

Kevin was the one who got Neil to watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Kevin was "gracious" enough to warn Neil of Claude Frolo before the movie start. Meaning Andrew threatened to break his other wrist because Andrew knew Neil might be uncomfortable with Frolo being an older abusive, obsessive, controlling man.

As for TV shows, it was Dan who got Neil stuck on the Kim Possible TV series.

Nicky would make comments on how Neil only liked it because Kim and Ron reminded Neil of himself and Andrew.

Yet another time Nicky narrowly missed getting hit with a knife.

Aaron was the one who introduced Neil to Ducktales(2017). Although, it was an accident.

Aaron had it playing as background noise while he was working on notes for one of his science classes.

Neil had been hanging out with Matt in their dorm, but Matt had to step out to talk to Dan real quick.

Neil ended up watching Ducktales on Matt's TV, Aaron unaware because he was so deep into his science notes.

Surprisingly, it was Andrew who got Neil to watch first Gravity Falls and then The Owl House.

Andrew never said why he liked the shows. In fact, he never said he liked the shows. Neil only knew because Andrew wouldn't watch them in his free time if he didn't like them.

Neil watched them because he wanted to understand what Andrew liked.

In the end, he also greatly enjoyed the shows.

While Neil wouldn't say he loved Disneg movies/TV shows, he'd definitely say he enjoyed some of them.

[theseerasures]

oh i guess i'm starting the gay Fire Emblem tomorrow, here's what i know about it

BYLETH MORE LIKE BI-LETH wow nailed it Helen i'm sure no one has thought of this joke in the almost two years this game has been out

other than Byleth there is exactly one other character in the game, she is a white haired fascist lesbian who may or may not be a fascist and may or may not be a lesbian but DEFINITELY (maybe????) has white hair unlike some other fascist lesbians i’ve met

look. LOOK. i know

i don’t want to talk about it

honestly it’s possible that i’ll break my streak with her, from what i know she’s like. actually in charge as opposed to just stumbling after the guy in charge wearing a paper bag with a frowny face drawn on it over her head

i love me my Well Intentioned Extremists but usually i love the self-negation flavors more than the self-absorption ones is me point

her name is Edelgard von Targaryen, she has long ivory white hair with a weird crown thing that makes her looks like a ram and purple eyes like limpid tears. she was walking outside whatever the fuck the school is called and a lot of preps stared at her so she put up her middle finger at them and then...idk, War Happened

it’s very weird that characters in Fire Emblem have last names now actually. what am i supposed to do, tag them properly???

oh yeah there’s a school

i know this because i know there’s discourse about whether it’s problematic to ship her with Byleth because of i unno facism age difference teacher student toxic and wow i just got so tired typing all that

please do not clarify the discourse i don’t want to know

wait there has to be more than just two characters because there’s also Race discourse

i don’t know anything about the Race discourse other than that it exists, please do not tell me about it

aw remember Benny from Fates i liked Benny from Fates

Gay

but not enough??? or maybe Too Much

okay hang on hang on there’s like. definitely other people. one of them is Draco Malfoy and the other one is cute and brown so everybody probably hates him

uhhhhh branching narratives but actually interesting about it unlike Fates? i think? insofar as i can’t read a spoiler free summary of all of them and immediately go “well i’m definitely playing Revelations i don’t have the time or heartstrings to spare for the other routes.” everyone loves Edelgard but is the Edelgard story the best story feel free to tell me

i might not listen tho

gray morality (tm)? which i’m. lmfao

look i’m SORRY but historically Fire Emblem navel gazing about morality has had about as much sophistication as a seven year old talking about the importance of coloring in

Awakening is good but not because it had Moral Quandaries it was good because it doubled down on the campy simplicity and gave it heart

A for effort i guess??? but if there’s not a twist at the end of this one that everything has been because of a Shadowy Illuminati Dragon God Thing i will eat my shoes

there isn’t a child husbandry mechanic, which @professorspork will be relieved about, she was getting a little concerned about my spreadsheets

that’s it

i still don’t know what a Fire Emblem is

it was a shield in Awakening but it was a sword in Fates so. what is the truth????

[exposicion-narrativa]

The use of color in The Last Of Us Part II: Symbology and parallelism

(This short analysis is intended to focus on the symbolic meaning of colors, alluding to the emotions and psychology they convey to us. Color Theory is not an exact science and its meaning varies according to culture, but I will try to explain my thoughts on what the ND team wanted to convey with this cinematic resource. However, I am always open to [healthy] debate and get different opinions about it. If you want to add your own thoughts, feel free to do so.)

(Most of the illustrative images, such as the gifs that we will see below, are not my property. Thanks to @userjen, @nikolai-stavrogin, @boozerman, @harringtonbuckley, @neillblomkamp, @bahtmun, @ifans and @gameplaydaily for your contribution.)

It’s been eight months since I finished TLOU II for the first time, and every day the game, the themes it deals with, how it does it, its infinite of symbolisms, the characters and their development, hover at in the back of my head like a pack of hungry wolves (in a good sense). There are many analyses of The Last Of Us Part II, but unfortunately I didn't find any focused on this particularity, so in the last days I set out to talk about this, even if it was only a little bit, scratching the surface, for later conclusions of other people, as is the use of color in this game.

The monochromatic of The Last Of Us Part II is supported by the gray color for various reasons: It represents the desolation and devastation of a ruined and silent world. The gray color could also speak of the human being and their moral nuances. No one is good enough to be called a hero, nor evil enough to be called a villain in the eyes of the whole world. There are exceptions like Sarah or David, but here we are talking about Part II.

If we go a little deeper, perhaps gray is part of the soul narrative that tries to convey the game, which tries to tell us that the path that Ellie is taking isn't the most appropriate to find peace; A color that tries to tire the player and makes them want to end all this.

On top of the grey colour, two highly distinguished and easy to see colour spheres are superimposed because they lack the neutrality of grey:

The first colour dial I would like to highlight is the RGB (reg, green and blue). According to my interpretation, this code in color theory would represent Ellie, the Wolves and the Seraphits respectively: The Wolves' military vests and outfits are light green, while the Seraphits usually wear brown vests, color that comes from red. Both colors, green and red, are opposite colors on this chromatic dial, two sets facing each other. Ellie, on the other hand, who wears blue clothes, finds herself in the middle of this war and must fight with both enemy groups to survive. In this case, this range of colors would represent the three main factions of the game: Wolves, Seraphites and Jackson.

The next chromatic dial is RYB (reg, yellow and blue), which forms a triad centered on the two main characters, Ellie and Abby.

Ellie (light)

Abby (abyss)

The yellow and blue colors go far beyond the dichotomy between good and evil (or moral light or moral darkness). These two colors reinforce the idea of the enormous parallelism that exists between the protagonists and their respective character arcs.

Both, without pretending to, begin a path to redemption, although with different methods and results. This time the blue or yellow colors aren't defined to represent one or the other protagonist, but sometimes they are exchanged according to the moment in which they are each. Ellie is sometimes defined by yellow or blue, and so does Abby.

(I must thank a reader with whom I exchanged views on the game and shared the latter, but incredible detail with me).

Before continuing with the complementary colors, I must mention one last color that both share: red. This red in The Last Of Us Part II is characterized by covering all the shots of the scene in which it finds itself, with some degree of saturation to reinforce the idea of violence, anger and even discord. Personally, these scenes are one of my favorites in the game for their great recreation and excellent combination of cinematics and narrative gameplay.

Coming back with the colors yellow and blue, I think there is a clear reference to light and darkness as such. In both Part I and Part II, "Look for the light" is used as an analogy for seeking hope, or a purpose in life. In our first game we see this boat in the middle of the fog, being impossible to see what is beyond because we can't distinguish the horizon or where we are. It's almost oppressive, like a veil that keeps us from seeing at all. For me this is talking about the psychology of Abby and especially of Ellie, who is self-decepting on this trip and her trauma makes her suffer cognitive dissonance and contradicts herself as a person.

The fact that she have to get to the bottom, to this very beach, to the abyss, in order to regain what little humanity she has left, her light, as it was to remember the promise she made to Joel, is absolutely poetic and beautiful to me.

What She Had to Do.

...

If you’ve made it this far, congrats! Here, have a candy!

In the future I may, and I may only, I’ll write a thematic analysis of the Part II soundtrack and I may also finish and publish my own analysis of the game and my thoughts on it.

(It will take longer than Joseph Cooper to save the Earth).

Thank you so much for reading!

[melo-efcarist]

// dsmp fandom neg , rants , cussing , all caps in one sentence

im usually a really positive account but i really need to blow off some steam rn, sorry. so now i will be listing off things that annoy me to death in this fandom. sorry guys, just skip this post if you're not interested.

1) Double Standards

Jesus Fucking Christ, both of the characters did the same thing and yet you call the other worse for that thing. Both characters did the same thing and yet you call the other better for doing the same thing. Stop it. I am so incredibly annoyed.

2) The Polarization

This isn't a C!Dream apologist vs C!Sam apologist, nor is it a C!Tubbo apologist vs C!Techno apologist. Not everything has to be a war all the time. Calm tf down. You can be an apologist for many characters even if they are enemies in the lore.

3) Black and White Mentality/Morality

Some of you genuinely do not fucking know what morally gray means. ALL of the characters are morally gray. They do good shit, they do bad shit. They believe in good shit, believe in bad shit. Why are y'all treating morally gray as if it meant "good" or something? Some shades are lighter than others, sure, but bro. Come on. Morally gray is morally gray. I can't with y'all.

Not only that but when someone critiques your fave, you immediately jump to thinking they're calling that character evil. Like, bitch, no. This fandom will be the death of me istg.

4) No Proper Fandom Etiquette

JESUS CHRIST JUST VAGUEPOST INSTEAD OF REBLOGGING IT'S NOT THAT HARD. If you're on twt then subtweet instead of qrting them. Stop going into people's askboxes/curiouscats/dms and say stuff you know they won't appreciate.

I won't even get started how some of y'all treat c!dream introjects like shit. Hating a character? Absolutely fine. Calling a REAL PERSON horrible things and sending them borderline death threats? Not fine. Not fine at all.

5) The superiority complex of some of y'all mfs

This one is rare for other people to encounter, but I've had many interactions like these. You do not have moral highground. You do not have any highground. I don't have any highground either. We're all gay nerds on the same flat field trying to enjoy characters. Stop it. Get some help.

------ end ------

This is more of a rant which I don't think my followers were expecting,, so sorry about that. I'm just tired. I'll try to post more analysis posts soon but man does school hit hard.

Note that if this is the first dsmp fandom post you've seen, not all of them are like I've mentioned above. It's just my personal experience which doesn't really say much on the actual reality of it.

I wanna end this off with a positive note but that just seems really fake after all the shit I said. So, uh, I'll end it with a neutral note ig. Goodbye, have an okay day!

[windstorm64]

Attack on Discourse I Guess

I swear to god if I see one more post on tumblr dot com saying that Attack on Titan is “pro-fascism” or “pro-imperialism” I’m gonna lose my freaking...

*deep breath*

Listen, I absolutely want people to be critical of the media they consume, especially from Japan. Due to their role in WW2 and their glorification of past military actions from their conservative side, there’s a lot of Japanese media that contains themes and imagery that would (ideally) not at all fly in the west. Sometimes it’s harmless, being simply misguided, other times it’s bad, containing some pretty horrific subtext regardless of the author's actual intention. Attack on Titan absolutely does contain themes of imperialism, xenophobia, propaganda, extreme nationalism, and more. But the all important distinction here is that Attack on Titan does it

with.

a.

purpose.

It’s NOT condoning them. Just like how Lolita isn’t promoting pedophilia, or the clockwork orange isnt promoting whatever the heck that movie is about, simply having these themes present in your story does not mean they are being condoned.

Do I blame people for not understanding that at first? No. AoT takes its sweet time when developing its themes, and is constantly overturning what you thought you knew about its worldviews. That’s just the kind of story it is. It will go incredibly into detail about a plethora of opposing views, some being downright deplorable, and takes extra care to make them all look inviting and sweet. You don’t realize it at the time, but what seems to be the only right answer at the time is secretly ushering in the worst that man can muster. That’s how it is in real life. That’s how these evils get into real society; “with thunderous applause”. The difference here is that AoT, even if it takes 100 chapters to do so, slowly but surely will overturn all these themes and let the right way show itself over the course of the series. It doesn’t hold your hand, it doesn’t sugarcoat it, and I’ll even admit that I was a little nervous during some parts over what exactly the author was trying to say, but every single time Isayama chose to let the reader decide what was right in the moment, until AoT’s own in-universe marketplace of ideas eventually worked as intended and snuffed out the unsavory.

Does that mean you personally have to enjoy seeing it? No. The marketplace of ideas approach often does not work in real life (punching nazis is good) and seeing it used in fiction might not be your cup of tea.

Does that mean I think all of its themes are handled well or tactfully? Absolutely not. There are some stories that I think are handled VERY poorly, with the redemption of Magath’s character, for example, being downright horrendous. But those aren’t the complaints I hear from you people. All I hear are the same tired arguments that have been countered in-universe time and time again.

You think the survey corps are an allegory promoting imperialism? Then you’ll love the part where the real villains are revealed to be actual greedy governments invading foreign lands to oppress and murder the populace and steal valuable resources. And how the main characters, in-turn to learning that there’s more people out there in the world, switch their goals from expanding their territory to understanding and allying with the outside population.

The titans represent xenophobia? Then you’ll love the internal conflicts of the main cast when they realize that the titans are just like them, and the constant struggle thereafter against the prejudiced countries outside the walls who seek to punish them for their ethnicity.

Nationalism? Propaganda? The story has just spent the better part of 2 arcs displaying just how evil, dangerous, and reality-warping these things can be.

Fascism? Y’all’s favorite arc would probably be the one where the main cast literally overthrows their own corrupt fascist government because it was, in fact, fascist and corrupt.

German influences glorify nazism? Germany does not equal nazi. The author is clearly a fan of all parts of German history, and is a fan of war memorabilia in general (which admittedly becomes pretty risky when looking through the lens of conservative Japan’s notoriously glorified WW2 outlook), but nothing about it supports Nazism, or any of their ideals. Misguided? Perhaps, I can’t say I’m a fan. But it doesn’t denote anything about the author's character that we can reasonably glean. Eventually the true villains of Aot were given clear similarities to Nazis, clarifying Isayama's true moral priorities.

And before any of y’all start trying to point out what the author said in the past- I KNOW what the author has said. Or rather, what he was rumored to have said. But even if the rumors are true, and that shitty ignorant take on Twitter about Japan and Korea was from him, it's 100% the kind of thing that can be called out and learned from. The tweet was like, what? 10 years ago? Maybe more? Even if it was him he has clearly been educated on the deeper implications of his statement, as evidenced by the way these themes are handled in his story. Attack on Titan directly condemns eugenics on multiple occasions. It tackles it in a surprisingly on-the-nose way too, compared to how the series handled its serious themes prior to that point.

That's why I WANT y’all to be critical of the media you intake. So you CAN call out the glorification of unsavory themes and bring them to the attention of those in charge of them. Because that’s how people learn and grow. That’s how you create an educated populace that understands the implications of the things they create. I am 110% convinced that all these themes were tackled in AoT BECAUSE of all the criticism he got in the past. 10 years is a long time, and we are still getting new developments to this day that challenge the themes introduced in the first couple of chapters. Whether or not these themes were planned to be tackled from the start, or were introduced later on after being called out, is something we’ll probably never know. But please do yourselves a favor and learn what the heck you’re talking about, and the context around it, before going off for years about misguided claims. Don’t cheapen words that should be reserved for the most grievous of behaviors when you really just want to make a point.

Attack on Titan is a brutal nuanced story that shows off the worst that humanity has to offer, and how hard it is to do the right thing in a world where the right thing doesn’t always work. But taking an honest, elongated approach to exploring how these themes interact with humanity and society is NOT the same as promoting it. If you like your stories more black and white, where the good and bad of real world themes are more clearly defined as opposed to AoT’s more nihilistic and gray approach to morality, then by all means go enjoy that other story. I’m not trying to convince anyone to like it. I’m not expecting everyone to enjoy seeing these themes shoved in your face every installment. And I’m certainly not expecting anyone to understand all of this right away, hell I’m constantly arguing with dudebro AoT fans on reddit who are SURPRISED that Armin and the Alliance are taking an anti-genocide stance. And somehow I’m the crazy one for seeing this plot line coming for literal years. There’s simply just a lot more to this story than you can understand at a glance, and I implore anyone who thinks that’s they can simplify the real world themes dealt with here in such a menial way to seriously reconsider.

You are welcome to dislike Attack on Titan. You are more than welcome to criticize it’s possible mismanagement of sensitive real world themes. I am not so enamored by Isayama’s writing to expect a young manga artist to be the forefront of knowledge on such complicated, disturbing topics. But please, cut it out with the crazy claims. I’ve been hearing these things for so many years and it’s all the same. AoT has risen to become one of the most popular anime/manga of the current era. If the story was really as deplorable as you claim it would not have become as popular as it has been. The fans aren’t stupid (well, not all of them. Together, we can beat the reddit dudebros and save the world). This didn’t happen by mistake. The fans aren’t ignorant of the messages it’s sending. Attack on Titan is just... good! Even if I can’t get you to agree with me on that, at least look at it honestly for what it is, and what it’s trying to be. It’s really, really, not at all what you think, or what other tumblr users are trying to get you to believe.

[wadey-wilson]

Into the Spider-Verse is, undoubtedly, a Miles Morales movie, yet I can’t help but feel sympathy for Peter B. Parker and relate to him more than to Miles as the twenty something kid that I am. The moral of the story the movie presents is there, and it’s Miles’ moral, but Peter’s character story and arc is also there and it’s maybe sadder than you think in that funny, light movie, but so important to me.

Gen Z and Millennials can definitely relate to the older Peter, even if he’s 38 years old. He’s tired, he’s done, he just wants some rest, he resents his responsibilities, he’s screwed up more times than he remembers, he’s not much of a fan of kids, he doesn’t even care about proper spelling (”There's always a bypass key, a virus key, a who-cares key, I can never remember so I just call it a goober.”). Honestly, mood. And I’m only in college, people.

See, there is this moment in the movie that is supposed to serve as a comedic moment: Miles tries to say “with great power comes great responsibility” but Peter abruptly cuts him off, almost screaming “don’t you dare finish that sentence, don’t do it!”. Then he follows with “I’m sick of it.” And then he says “My advice? Go back to being a regular kid.”

Peter still tries to live by the words of his uncle, but where at the beginning they were his motivation and something that gave his life meaning, now they’re a resented responsibility drawing a circle he can’t break out from. He’s been slowly losing his passion for being Spider-Man, just putting the suit on because he feels like he has to. He even says that Mary Jane scared him by her wanting kids. He’s scared to move on and to be something else, something more than just Spider-Man. There's also the reason of him not wanting to see his kid go what he's gone through, and that being a parentless family, but that's half of the problem.

When you get a close up

you can see the determination on his face, but there are also a broken nose, bags under his eyes, the hair he doesn’t even care to pull back, the gray skin, the scruff, a few wrinkles even, and... sadness. He’s genuinely sad, he’s depressed, and so done with everything. But he’s not one to quit. He’s still living by Ben’s words.

Those words have become his curse because he lost his way somewhere along his life, because he overdid it with understanding the words. It’s like with Titanic where they were supposed to have women on the lifeboats first, and then men, but they just let the women step into the lifeboats because they didn’t understand the command. That being said, instead of being just a motivation and inspiration, Ben’s words became something he can’t let go of, almost like a drug, like a sick addiction, and maybe he does see it, maybe he doesn’t, but it’s there, and it’s determining his life. He can’t help but loathe them. He doesn’t allow himself to be something else but these words. He is those words, nothing else.

There’s a moment in the movie where Aunt May tells him, “you look tired.” And he genuinely replies, “I am tired.” I may or may not have shed a tear, because that was the perfect reflection of how he felt and how lost he was. He was tired of being who he was and still pursued that path. Sounds relatable? Because it is.

Things happen, movie ends, and while Miles’ moral of the story is that everyone can wear a mask and nobody’s ever ready to be a hero, that they just grow into it, and all you need is that little spark, Peter B. Parker learns that the words he’s lived by aren’t what should make his life sad, broken, and resentful. He learns that he’s just a person like any other, not just words. Thanks to the little journey with Miles he learns over again that being Spider-Man is supposed to be fun and a responsibility among other things, not only a responsibility determining his day-to-day life 24/7. Peter learns that being a hero does require a lot of sacrifice, but it’s just a part of who he is, and that he has the right to be happy.

I don’t know what you got out of the movie, but in my opinion, Peter B. Parker teaches you in this movie that you have the right to be happy. You have the right to live a good life despite one or more responsibilities that set up your daily basis, whether it’s a job or a problem you’ve had for a while. You can still be happy.

I stepped out of the movie theater thinking, “goddammit, why don’t people remember that you can still be happy nowadays? Why do people determine their lives by only the bad things? Why are we like this? Why am I like this?” And honestly? Despite all the bullsh*t, all the crap, and all the small or big problems, I deserve some happiness, man. And so do you.