#i'm not talking about parody teams btw

[bunhype]

Actually, would you like to know the funniest thing about Teams? They've never won. Ever. Like in all of collective history, they never achieve their goals.

But oh no, this new team you made is sooooo special. It's definitely gonna work this time.

Open a history book. Please.

PSA about the multiverse: Yeah, it exists. Yes, I know there are some worlds/universes where Teams have managed to win. But I want you to look at the collective multiverse that is Rotomblr and tell me how many actual histories you know of where that happened. There aren't many.

[tocomplainfriend]

Some comments about this!

So this threat is to spread positivity showing POC characters from Viv's franchises...

This is a Native American stereotype. It like the third one you put here.

This (the last 3) Show how similar her designs can be. A shit ton of these characters are also gray af. They don't have ethnic features... The same fucking hair except for the wolf girl. That she still covers the "Viv's wolf girl characters look the same". Out of all this examples, the only one with a different nose would be Vaggie.

...

These are Bg characters she didn't design. But people in her team, better at designing characters, that actually look varied.

There is also no way you put Jojo here? The character that is a transphobic parody of an actual trans person? The same person who did originally a lot of Designs Viv bought?

Some people also talk about how many of these designs are stolen from other people too. And also I found that Viv bought Doll Creeps designs? So keep in mind many of these designs aren't purely from her own imagination too.

Also, none of this other random characters are used in Vivs Stories? Most of those are from the 2010s? They are not main characters, all similar.... Also, out of the ones that aren't HB bg characters, around 50 of them are skinny. HOW? Legit, how do you do that? So many of these designs are skinny woman with big boobs. Once again, no textured hair? Beside the wolf girl?

ALSO

Starting the positivity thread with this is disgusting? Like, there are actual people discussing the demonization of a closed religion. That has being discriminated against and misrepresented since the times of slavery??? HELLO?

[ellestra]

Going in circles

There has been a lot of talk about how Gen V is about social media and stage parents but the underlying theme of this season is the cycle of violence that leads to abuse and revenge cycles. It's a positive feedback loop that makes .

Since Gen V is inspired by The Boys comic arc that was a parody of X-Men this is something that was, of course, always staple of X-Men comics/movies/shows. But X-Men stories in their core tend to be optimistic/aspirational. The Boys universe is much more cynical than that. In the end bad guys win or they at least spin their loses their way so they can hold on to power.

Marie, Jordan, Andre and Emma really believed in the ideas sold to them by the marketing team. But the humans they were trying to save were exactly the ones who never treated them to people. Ones who perpetuated the cycles f abuse - from the moment they were given Compound V to all the stages of deciding who is and isn't valuable. They aren't the ones who lead Vought when it all started but they do the same thing again and again because it's profitable. And when it comes to bite them they try to weasel their way out of any responsibility by appealing to the better nature of those who they abused. And so, so many real life abuses seem to use this to escape culpability. Using the "be better than those who wrong you" as the most cynical way to save their own asses.

It doesn't mean that the rest of the non-powered humans don't have a reason to blame supes. Both the Boys and Shetty are not wrong in the assessment that supes always will a leave a trail of blood behind them - both intentional and accidental. From powers manifesting in the disastrous way, through accidents while using them to abuses of power to avoid consequences and finally malice. Supes are human and do exactly the same things but their impact is so much greater and so is their body count. It's gets horrifying because she's not blaming Vought who created this whole problem. Instead she's uses Vought's own torture factory to try her hand at genocide. It's hard to really feel bad about Cardosa and Shetty's death when we just saw them killing some kids in even more horrible way.

Cate was betrayed by every human she trusted. And the worst was that even though Shetty loved her she still drugged her to dampen her powers (those blue pills reference even more clear after latest Matrix movie) and then used her to help with genocide of her own kind. So she gathers all other abused supes and they all go on a rampage because how you can ever trust any one of them if they even corrupt love like that. Being one of "the good ones" didn't really work out. And because this is the time where the ultimate power of Vought propaganda machine lies with a supe it's all swept under the rug by Homelander.

He's done appealing to mudnon-powered people . The one place X-Men doesn't really go in stories like that is the people who go against their own interests because the ideology allows them to feel superior to another group. And they think they'd be spared. It's the voting for Leopards Eating People's Faces Party all over again. Homelander knows now that there are humans who still will follow him (steeped in American exceptionalism and dreams of ubermensch as he is - BTW I don't think it's a coincidence that both Cate and Sam are the kind of Guardians of Godolkin Stormfront would approve of unlike original versions). He just needs supes who think the same as him instead of believing things like non-powered humans are human too. Someone who is not going to bulk at thing he wants to do.

And the boys would do anything to stop him. I'm pretty sure the virus is not out of the picture yet. Between Neumann container and Butcher finding the infected bodies there still might be attempt to use it. After all it's still in pre fully genocidal form. And Marie surviving Homelander's blast may have taught Neumann she might have enough time to pop Homelander's head - especially if he's a bit sick.

In this cycle people who try to stop it are also part of the problem. It too often leads to letting those in power stay in power so the injustices can carry on. Marie uses the system that was designed against her to stop the massacre and it hurts her too. Andre risks brain damage saving helicopter coming to rescue Vought Board. Jordan almost gets overwhelmed and mind controlled protecting them. And Vought will continue doing what they did to babies and any supe they deem faulty product. Believing the heroes will come and save them gets them locked in a doorless room.

We see how appealing to their opponents better nature doesn't work. Maverick cannot break mind control. Sam chose it over conscience. All Emma gets for trying is being made to feel small.

In the end all trying to be heroic got them is being labelled as traitor and scapegoated. And I don't think it's an accident that of this group only Emma is white (although it's nice that the only couple that survived this in neither includes white people nor is straight).

And so the cycle goes. Non-powered humans abuse supes and supes abuse those humans and each sides has a list of atrocities perpetrated on them they use to justify to atrocities they commit. While the people who caused and profit from it this stay in power.

This is even made even more relevant by real life events reminding us about the real, horrible human toll of such cycles hatred. The real excuses that are used to justify violence against innocents by feeding populations a revenge fantasy dressed as justice aren't all that different. And so isn't using it to keep power and gather more assets. But in stories we can hope good guys will eventually win. History teaches us that, in real life, it always ends with those having power behind them getting all the spoils. Everyone can count themselves lucky if they get a half-assed apology too late to count for anything.

[dinoburger]

i keep thinking about your brief criticism of how australia is portrayed in tf2 and you cant imagine the feeling of comfort and reassurance that i felt. i always thought it was just me fixating on the comics too much, but no yeah australia (and also new zealand) definitely do have issues in terms of wasted potential and iffy writing. i suppose it could be from the team being more familiar with american stereotypes, but, still. it got me thinking, and i do apologize if this is a bit much, but how else would you change the australians in tf2?

(btw the comment about how the emu should've been the queen instead is one of the smartest things i've seen in a while. love that)

HEH - oh, I've been thinking about that...

I've mentioned how I think that in being a parody, TF2 becomes quite a scathing criticism of capitalism and the American war machine, I think British imperialism too if the Mann family is anything to go by

TF2's Australia could definitely form a scathing criticism of colonialism, if handled right.

So, I come from European immigrant families on both sides, my grandparents talked about how Australia had literally been described as streets "paved with gold", but you also get like, the town my paternal grandmother lived in still had a blacksmith up until the 1960s

there's a lot of clashing ideas about seeking prosperity there versus just how badly some of the first settlers struggled to actually get their footing, white colonists had great trouble growing non-native crops in a hot, desert country like ours. A lot of ships came in with passengers diseased, starved and dying.

Simultaneously, poor families could go from being impoverished to being fairly well off and eventually middle class, as with my family. By virtue of being white immigrants, of course.

to me, it IS the contradiction of Australia that makes it interesting, how it can be percieved as both an untapped resource and a hostile, barren waste just to suit the fantasies of the outsider.

maybe it's not a futuristic fantasy land, but people speculate and circulate these increasingly absurd stories. Maybe indigenous folk have always known about the presence of Australium but knew better than to fuck up the land by harvesting obscene quantities of it.

The Hales have glutted themselves on a resource that never belonged to them and thus elevated themselves to the same depravity of rich British folk, like the Manns.

I like this kind of contradiction of like, Barnabus is a wild man of the harsh Australias, but we only ever really see him in the context of posh English Zepheniah and his family. He's just one lucky bastard who survived long enough to take advantage of what was available to him.

Australium is a genuinely valuable substance, but the further it gets from its home soil the more it gets bastardized and exploited. Rather than researched for its medical properties or anything else, it's used to paint stuff, as a vanity item.

...Barnabus also being an illegitimate child to a convict and a settler is something I think I like, he's a traitor to the poorer side of his lineage. Another of his contradictions. There is struggle in his past, but a lot of it he was willing to put behind in favor of working with a man like Zepheniah, who ruthlessly exploits the working class.

Australia is supposedly a savage, wild country, but a lot of the men who claimed to have "tamed it" are in bed with the English and their ilk.

I'm sorry this partially became a rant about Barnabus but I guess like, I more have general ideas about what I would want to glean from TF2's Australia than anything concrete...

[rye-in-a-coat]

Hiii Rye, how does your tagging system work? I'm guessing it has something to do with Toki Pona but I'm curious

That's a great question, let's go through some of the tags I use in this blog.

Also. This will be a bit long.

GENERAL TAGS

The most well known and used is ofc, #ryeblog ,which is given to any post I reblog. It comes from "rye" and "reblog". Another interesting fact is that when I reblog many posts in a short time, I call it a "ryeblitz" (ryeblog + blitz [German for lightning).

For original text-based posts of mine, the tag is #handful of grains, which comes from the fact that I am Rye; but also because originally there was a tag called #sack of grain that never got used and was intended for large text-based original posts.

Images and videos get #pics and flicks, except if these are art. If the art was posted by the artist it gets #art of them and if it's someone else's art it gets #art of those.

#letters to rye will be the tag used in this post, as it is for the asks I answer.

#poll #tag game #ask game #quiz Self explanatory.

Prev tags get marked with #Previously on Tags: and then I mark my answer to those with a #My reaction to that information:

MEDIA TAGS

Quite self explanatory, if I'm reblogging some cute art from blorbo from my shows, tags would look like

#ryeblog #art of them #my shows

Must be understood that this system isn't 100% reliable. If I don't have a tag for a media because I have no knowledge of it or even interest; it won't get a tagged or have a tag.

Imagine this, a fanart featuring characters from the shows A, B, C and D. I only have tags for B and C. Only appliable media tags are #B and #C.

This is why you can find stuff like few Chainsaw Man fanart in my blog, but a tag for Chainsaw Man doesn't actually exist. When I reblog Out of Touch Thursday, I don't do it with a tag for the Lucky Star anime. Characters don't have tags in my system.

I can't give a full list of all of them, but here's the top 45 as of now:

#moomin

#deltarune

#sparklecare

#toh (The Owl House)

#sonic the hedgehog

#dhmis (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared)

#su (Steven Universe)

#tf2 (Team Fortress 2)

#pokemon

#lwa (Little Witch Academia)

#hatsune miku [Ok. It's ironic that this is a character. There's no tag for Vocaloid btw. Cuz of my lack of knowledge on the matter.]

#mlp

#minecraft

#fnaf (Five Nights at Freddy)

#undertale

#bluey

#danganronpa

#homestuck

#breaking bad

#cunk on earth [It applies to other media with Philomena Cunk like "Cunk on Britain"]

#neil cicierega [Technically a person. Applies to all his work. Forgot to mention, artists and bands also fit in this category.]

#tove jansson [Again. A person. This tag exists to not tag her with #moomin in non-Moomin issues.]

#talking heads [Again, a band.]

#jerma985 [A person.]

#spiderman

#undertale 2 [Yep. That's a game. A parody fan-game RPG of Undertale. This tag isn't for Deltarune. I found many people tagging Deltarune as Undertale 2.]

#animal crossing

#hetalia

#loz (Legend of Zelda)

#adventure time

#epithet erased

#lemon demon [Again, an artist; also not everything Neil Cicierega does is for Lemon Demon. This is why this tag is also a thing.]

#omori

#mcyt (Minecraft YouTuber)

#tally hall [A band.]

#barbie

#doctor who

#ghibli

#tetris

#touhou

#ytp

#ella minnow pea

#ena

#they might be giants [A band.]

#alexkansas [Applies to all his work. Currently MISTERMANTICORE]

NOT THAT SPECIFIC TAGS. THEY ARE THE SAME LEVEL AS THESE

#the past for the stuff about the past. The limit of how old has to be the thing to be tagged with this is 20 years.

#language is for everything linguistics, scripts, phonetics, anything of that matter and related. This tag isn't for swear swords, those bitches don't fucking get tagged.

#chemistry #geology #toki pona [An artistic constructed language by Sonja Lang] #handwriting #cursive #flags [Because vexillology was too long and I never knew if I was writing it right] #maps #biology #philately [#stamps is out of use] #reaction image ,etc.

MEET THE SPECIFICS

These tags exists because I have decided to.

TAGS THAT USE TOKI PONA WORDS

#pilin This Toki Pona word describes many concepts, like feelings, emotions, the heart in its both physical and emotional form. However, in this blog, this tag shall only be used for the heart (organ or not) and heart shapes and heart-shaped things.

#kili This word describes fruits and vegetables, all the edible parts of a plant. I also use this tag for stuff made with kili, like French fries, jam and jelly or milkshakes.

#mun This word doesn't just describe the Moon but also all night-sky objects and space objects. This tag replaced the now abandoned #astronomy as stuff like a blanket with sun and moon motifs or the fanart of a furry on the Moon aren't quite related with the science of space.

#kala This word describes fish and all the aquatic animals. Axolotls, whales, jellyfish and crabs may not be fish, but they sure are kala.

#pan As a Spanish speaker you probably have realised this word is for bread. That's right, it's for grains and all grain products. Stuff that is pan but not bread: tortilla, beer, peanut butter, crackers, communion wafers, tejuino. This tag isn't for pansexuality, Tumblr just colours it like that.

#pipi The word for insects and all the little bugs and crechurs, so it includes stuff like spiders and worms.

#waso The word for birds, flying animals and winged animals.

#soko The word for fungi. This tag replaced #mycology.

#akesi The word for reptiles. This tag isn't used for "non-cute animals" as the original meaning of the word expressed and was corrected in 2021.

#kijetesantakalu The word to describe procyonids and musteloids, like ferrets, racoons and tanukis. For the non-Toki Pona speakers. The reason why this word is long and very specific is because it's an April Fools joke that just got too popular.

#in front of them sensors I wears glasses, I like characters that wear them too. So this tag is for that. It also applies to stuff like sport/lab goggles, sunglasses and other eyewear.

#the florist's For flowers. The name is as in a flower shop, just like the butcher's or the chemist's.

#city made of light For photographs of, or art depicting urban light during the night. The night scared us, so we killed it; some beautiful examples of this massacre to our health are Times Square, the Las Vegas strip or Hong Kong neon capital of the East.

#KÖT For cats! The word "köt" isn't for cat in any language btw.

#i do the squeaking For ratas and mice. Tag name based on that one post with the mousegirl house wife.

I don't tag furries for some reasons: First is, what is a furry? Are Moomins furry? Are Sonic characters furries? Furries' opinion on what is furry and what is not a large broad spectrum of thoughts. Second is so people don't block furries from me. If you don't wanna see furries, go and try and see how many tags you need to block to see none, and you will still see some cuz not everyone tags. Also, furries don't get tagged any of the animal tags.

#boyfriendposting Those posts that are like "yeah, sorry that your boyfriend..."

#fake posts Those posts that are made to look like many and have some theme.

#fauxnetics People trying to spell pronunciation using non-standarized methods like the IPA, usually just causing more confusion. Example: "How do you pronounce Chara? Car-uh, Care-uh, Chair-uh or Char-uh?"

#illinois chess Games (doesn't have to be chess, but if chess, funky non-standard chess) [usually board games] with strange setting or rules, impossible to understand. Tag named after this thing from 20020.

#present as the past from the future Meme/joke posts describing modern/contemporany history or the current world as how we speak of the past. Example: "Cowboys were a sort of itinerant warrior class common in Meiji-era Texas."

#rainbow #emoji #ethanol [Alcohol found in drinking alcoholic beverages] #radiation #tbh creature #tea #picrew #9/11 #plush #tell-o-phone [Telephones] #tell-o-vision [Televisions] #jesus #gastronintestinal issues #isobutyl propionic acid [Ibuprofen] #rain #butane [Alkane of four carbon atoms, fuel in cigarette lighters] #loss ['Loss' by Tim Buckley for Ctrl+Alt+Del] #snow #blåhaj #R-Ë-PLANE [Airplanes and similar aircraft.] #ZUG [German for trains. Anything on rails.] #mpreg [Male pregnancy] #cool S [This one.] #aspirin ,etc, probably there are more.

I hope this ask has answered your doubts. There's probably more tags out there.

Now for an example.

Example.

Tag-relevant details: A Sparklecare Cometcare AU fan art piece made and posted by Edward featuring Barry Ill and Uni Sock Cornelius in a night picnic. Uni is wearing her rose-tinted goggles, holding a milkshake with a cherry on top, there's another one present next to Barry. Barry is holding a sandwich with visible lettuce and tomato, there's another one next to Uni. The picnic blanket has the colours of the rainbow. There are stars and hearts around them, the picnic case also had a heart detail. On the field there are white small flowers.

Tags: #ryeblog #art of them #sparklecare #in front of them sensors #kili #pan #rainbow #pilin #mun #the florist's

The tags after the Sparklecare one could be in any order.

And this is an ideal case. As I have stated, I'm not 100% reliable and this sytem isn't either. I sometimes miss some tags.

As a final detail. Comments about the post will go after all of these tags and will have proper sentence capitalization and punctuation. This is the hierarchy the tags go which I sometimes miss too.

[tiredgoodomensfan]

GOS2 hillywood + poster dissection (spoilers!)

so, i think we all lost our collective MINDS today

when I saw that we have the release date I actually started SCREAMING (I got lots of dirty looks.) anyways I have lots and lots of thoughts that I just need to get down somewhere so buckle up cuz this will be long, rambly, and prolly won't make a whole lot of sense.

First of all, huge props to the whole hillywood team, this was a really high-quality production and I loved every second of it. I'm watching the behind the scenes vid while writing this and it's really interesting to see how such an amazing video was produced. so much work was put into it and it really paid off. Thank you guys so much for making this!

So, the scene where Crowley falls. this could just be something fun hillywood decided to do, but the fact that they worked so closely with Neil makes me wonder if this is something that we might get more of in s2. The scene with the fire (which was awesome btw) maybe not be so much, but Crowley falling from what seems to be heaven into a puddle of what I'm guessing is maybe meant to be sulphur? (I don't really know what sulphur is so correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just spewing stuff here so it could be complete nonsense) idk to me it seems like foreshadowing, especially considering that Crowley's fall isn't discussed in that much depth in s1. idk that could just be me stretching cuz I want pre-fall Crowley SO BAD. and OH MY GOD IN THE VIDEO THEY JUST CONFIRMED ITS MEANT TO BE SULPHUR I FUCKING SGHA ITS THE FALL FROM HEAVEN I KNEW IT.

The post-parody scenes AHHH. first of all, I loved how they stayed pretty much word accurate to the show, with only necessary things changed. I loved Neil in this, Maggie, and Daniel. Does more Daniel mean more Adam? he could just be there for like a fun cameo roll but it got me thinking. if weird shit was happening the first thing Crowley and aziraphale are gonna think is 'Ah shit it's the Antichrist again innit' So maybe more adam s2? idk.

(Maggie was literally me. 'DO THEY HOLD HANDS??' girl is literally the entire good omens fandom)

('the wait and see clause' SO FUNNY BUT ALSO SO MUCH PAINN)

Ok, poster time.

First off, the way they're sat back to back?? no space between them?? and IS AZ READING TO CROWLEY?? :( They make me wanna vomit /pos

Also, I noticed something in the back. a shop outside with 'give me' on the front? this could just be a generic shop but I feel like everything in the poster is deliberate. doesn't seem to mean much now but I reckon we should keep our eye out in the background of any other posters and teasers and stuff we might get. this could just be me going bonkers cuz I've been deprived of new content for SO LONG but idk I could be onto smth.

I also wanna talk about the lighting decisions. the bright light shining on aziraphale, cuz yk- he's an angel but also a little glimmer on Crowley? now it could be interpreted as like 'Oh not all hope is lost for him' but I see it differently. the fact that Crowley's light is coming from below and Azi's is coming from above?? bit on the nose. I think the fact that we've been told that Gabriel is gonna feature heavily in this, is gonna make us primarily focus on heaven (the biggest light being on Az) but that doesn't mean hells gonna be out of the picture. I think, that through the first few episodes, we're gonna be focusing on Heaven harassing Az and we won't notice hell spying on Crowley (Crowley's light being smaller, yet still very much there)

More on hell, something I didn't notice at first was a lil tiny lizard in the bottom left-hand corner. I'm pretty convinced this is supposed to be shax. I mean, we've been shown that like all the demons have some sort of animal form (Beelzebub- fly, Crowley- snake, ligur- chameleon, etc., etc.) but as far as I know, we haven't had a lizard like that yet. it has a little fire tail and it's pretty deliberately hidden (either that or I'm fucking stupid cuz I didn't notice until like 10 mins ago) I think the fact that he's not the center focus is again about how through this hell will just be kinda spying on them rather taking a center focus so that we have our guard down and are like 'WOAH' when hell does smth. but you can't fool ME Neil, I'm expecting it.

Final little closing thoughts on stuff that could be irrelevant but maybe isn't. The clock- both hands on 6, 6 episodes, what else is 6? Is half 6 a significant time? or is it just cuz 666 and like haha devil number? the old ass camera in the bottom right-hand corner, eluding to maybe olden days Crowley and aziraphale pictures?? I would die. maybe also references a scene abt the invention of the camera?? or is it just there cuz Az is nostalgic and likes antiques. am I going insane or is that a new Crowley haircut?? Crowley and Az being back to back they LOOK SO DOMESTIC ILL SOBB

again, thank you so much hillywood for this amazing parody. and thanks Neil for FINALLY answering our prayers while leaving us with like a MILLION more questions, love you Mr. Gaiman

if you actually read this, thanks! that means that someone else is as obsessed and slightly mad as me. let me know if you've got any other ideas or annotations, I love literally everything good omens so even if you think it's a reach I WANNA HEAR IT!

Edit: I'm a fukin idiot and also blind. there are 3 lizards, and literally everyone noticed them (I can't find the third one (I'm pretty sure I need glasses)) BUT YK I still reckon it's shax. or maybe the erics?? oo it might be the Erics now im thinking abt it

Another edit: I'm actually REALLY fuckin stupid. the give me sign outside is Nina's shop 'Give me coffee or give me death' (I kinda forgot there were new characters this season) BUT YK maybe still smth?? idfk

[fallensnowfan]

You said you finished Utena recently, correct? I'm curious what you thought of it.

Do you know? Do you know? Have you heard the news?

Sounds like you got this week's edition of the fallensnowfan times. I honestly wish Wano had had odd ball narrators like the shadow girls, to make a stronger point of important aspects of the story/character motivations. The CP0 guys placing pieces on their board game feels like the right idea, though was too restrained and factual to capture the effect the shadow girls have. Who honestly gives a hoot about the number of background fighters each side has left? Close but no figar cigar, Onigashima narrators.

Black Maria did it better, so it's kind of a shame she also was a fighter. Maybe one of the oirans Sanji encounters later could have filled the role of bizarre narrator the entire battle? (I think Maria was talking about Luffy and the retainers being unable to team up btw, though like that no definitive answer is given.)

I think the show had a strong start, my investment wavered somewhat in the middle, then really picked up in the final third. Secrets kept out of shame feels like a big idea in for the final third, and the music goes hard all throughout.

With the show having many character vignette episodes and theatrical flourishes, it feels like the kind of series where an episode telling a story entirely without dialog would have worked well. Perhaps with the point of view belonging to Anthy. Or heck, how about an entire episode centered on Chu Chu? Have the little fella play out a parody of a day in the life of several of the human characters? Contrasting their various motivations, with some animal antics mixed in.

Really love the way the show can throw in some totally nonsensical ideas and just roll with them. Nanami's egg is one of my favorites. On the surface, what? But the episode pretty smartly tackles the feeling of needing to perfectly fit to any number of social norms, to be accepted/not be an outcast. Nanami is such a wild card in general, she feels like a character that could be placed in any kind of story being told and just work.

As for the ending, I like taking parts from episode 39 and mixing them with the movie's ending. The swords of humanity's anger are visually rad. As is the visual flair of Utena slowing seeing Anthy's pain(the swords stabbing through her,) yet being totally unprepared to face it is shown effectively.

Utena is still trapped in her own coffin, how could someone still trapped in their coffin be the one to free another from theirs? Akio anti-climatically falling out a window with little focus given to the aftermath is fitting for such a character. And chase sequences in anime can be so fun and energetic. This one being one of the better ones I can think of, off the top of my head. While also being about the two breaking free from Akio's influence.

[applestorms]

i just binge-played off over the course of a couple days so let's relate that back to homestuck now

exactly what the title says. WARNING for spoilers of off, undertale, & omori (and homestuck. obviously), all fairly minor but involving some of talk about endings, as well as warning for canon-typical suicide talk (distri moment)

TLDR: off & undertale both use meta elements in a neat way, especially for their more horrific/fucked up parts, ult. dirk is definitely being puppetted by something (lord english, it's lord english).

so just as the title says, i've recently spent the last few days playing through the game off (also yume nikki but i haven't found a homestuck connection there so i guess you all will have to wait for that essay), and after poking around a bit for other interpretations of the themes & story i stumbled across this video that's given me some ideas about the post-canon content again, since i apparently can't stop relating everything back to that. specifically, the conclusion that he comes to near the end about the "real" story of off being a kind of parody of other rpgs where you mindlessly follow a protagonist's divine mission while actually just brutally exterminating/destroying an entire world of beings reminded me a lot of a criticism i heard of the epilogues that said it felt like the creators just watched the hbomberguy undertale video and decided to do that, but badly.

i talked about this a bit in my last essay about the post-canon stuff (don't be surprised if you missed that one btw, i got nervous and buried it under a mountain of reblogs ;v;), but one of the things that really fucking gets my goat about the epilogues & hs^2 is the fact that the creators both 1. talk down to the audience so goddamn much, and 2. are actively antagonistic to the audience, in a way that even homestuck proper never really felt, which, just to say, is also weird as hell to me because homestuck wasn't exactly nice to its audience either?? there has always been this back and forth between audience & creator in this fandom that is a prominent underlying dynamic in both the story itself & responding fanworks (a notable example being theater of coolty, which i personally interpret to be more of a character study of hussie rather than dirk), but even ignoring the history of twitter battles & literal petitions to get creators off the team, post-canon homestuck wants to make you fucking hurt and it refuses to be subtle about that fact.

anyways, here's a couple sections working through my thoughts on all that into something slightly more coherent.

1. off & purification (ft. undertale, omori, & yume nikki)

one of the things that really stood out to me throughout my playthrough of off these last couple days is the ways in which "purification," as a concept is associated with the mission of the batter, and, more broadly, all of the heavily religious connotations associated with his extermination of/destruction of the world.

a cool feature of the games that i've been playing recently (e.g. off & yume nikki) is seeing retroactively how they influenced other wildly popular games that i've played before that came out after (namely, undertale & omori). in particular, this more recent generation seems to take huge inspiration from the previous specifically in some of their most fucked up/horror-related elements, largely through the use of similar imagery/ideas that are then incorporated into the context of a new, clearer storyline. a good example of this is how black space in omori takes a lot from the imagery/mechanics of yume nikki (sleeping, doors, fucked up rooms with weird floors, etc.) but re-contextualizes it within the storyline of sunny's trauma/mental state as presented through the earlier sections of the game.

undertale does this too, taking both from yume nikki and, for what i'm focusing on here, off. from what i can tell, undertale seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from off in the creation of both its genocide route and the more meta elements of the game in general, which is interesting to me specifically in the interpretation of off it gives back retrospectively.

if you haven't watched it (though you really should it's only like ten minutes long) the key point that the hbomberguy video about undertale revolves around is the idea that at some point the game actively wants you to stop playing it and let the story & characters go. this is most obvious throughout the genocide route where characters in the game repeatedly & explicitly tell the player to give up, go back, and leave them the fuck alone, but notably also at the end of a true pacifist run where upon reopening up the game flowey pops up to tell the player to leave everyone be & let them enjoy their happy ending.

the divine quest of purification that the batter goes on throughout off (as is implied through his own words) is a lot less overt about the fact that its just murder & destruction but that element is definitely there, especially when revisiting the zones post-purification. the batter, bluntly speaking, gives no shits about the fact that he destroying everything in his path, even when enemies start switching from ghostly specters to "burned" people (or coughing children). if anything, destruction of the world is his outright goal as evidenced by the ending w/ the titular flipping of the switch "off," and he seems more surprised to come across people that claim to be happy when running through the area of cannibalism sugar drugs in zone 3 than all of the typical misery elsewhere. the repeated use of the word "purification," & heavy religious symbolism found throughout the game give this path of destruction a very different connotation to undertale's genocide route, however.

this ties into the use of meta elements in both games, which are also quite different: where undertale explicitly appeals to the player in quite a few instances when it's trying to get players to stop playing/taunting them about saves & whatnot, off only breaks the fourth wall in a few notable places, primarily through the judge & batter's dialogue at the start & end of the game as well as the character zacharie, all of whom directly refer to the player as a separate entity in control of the batter, slightly different to how undertale distinguishes the player character both as frisk vs. chara but also as powerful player/human vs. npc/monster* (since flowey is also equated w/ the player through his ability to utilize saves).

*deltarune also hammers this shit in even more w/ the opening character creation sequence & the fact that you have to enter two names, for creation & creator.

so- how does all of this relate to homestuck's post-canon? one word: puppets. (and dirk. it's always dirk)

2. homestuck^2 hates you & wants you to know it (dirk & puppets)

the epilogues begin with a nightmare wherein john watches the entirety of paradox space, reality as he knows it, begin to fall into a crack in the void. the meaning of this dream is made very clear over the course of a conversation with rose soon after: the story is in danger of becoming "non-canon," after too many years without an official continuation, and if john wants to stop that from happening he's going to have to make a big decision. meat or candy: either john directly tries to deal with the leftover major plotholes of the original story, enacting the previously foreseen events of the masterpiece in order to stop lord english, or he can choose to stay on earth-c and continue with the rest of his life as is.

one thing that only gets more and more overt the more i read through the post-canon content, whether that be the actual material released or authors notes from the patreon archive, is the fact that these two timelines were built from the start to be nightmares of slightly different flavors. i've talked about this many times, and there's honestly so many things pointing to this that i think it'd be more helpful if i just wrote it out as an actual list by this point, so here you fuckin go:

calliope compares the decision between meat & candy to a coin flip, invoking the image of terezi's coin flip that led to the killing of vriska & thus the game over timeline (HS^2:406)

in the smut drawing conversation, caliborn strikes down the idea of a dirkjake drawing specifically because the colors green & orange invoke the image of pumpkins which he doesn't like, instead preferring meat & candy (A6A3:4971), thus tying the epilogues to the whims of homestuck's biggest endgame villain

another connection to caliborn: despite having 43 & 40 chapters for meat & candy respectively, each route of the epilogues is split into 8 sections, reflecting the fact that LE gets 8-ball eyes midway through act 7

meat & candy also reflect the kind of content that caliborn (as a stand-in for the kinds of annoying fanboys hussie hates) loves, w/ brutal violence, death, & a power-struggle involving alt. calliope in the meat route, and the horrors of heterosexual marriage & reproduction in candy

ult. dirk in particular seems to take a lot of influence from the more LE/caliborn-connected splinters of himself- the fact that there seems to be more of a focus on dirk & jake's relationship in particular in the post-canon content also points to more of caliborn's underlying influence since they're very connected to him (both thematically through their struggles w/ masculinity & their literal connections in the lore as the boys that caliborn is the closest to as he literally looks up to them as inspiration e.g. LE's outfit matching jake's, etc. etc.)

also when it comes to narrators, note that in meat the fight is between ult. dirk & alt. calliope for control over the story while in candy (as the archived patreon commentary notes very pointedly) it is unclear who the narrator actually is

the routes are also just. fucking bad, to an extreme that is both phrased initially like a joke through the numerous ao3 tags & very carefully, thoroughly executed. we begin with a timeskip and every character is just spontaneously the absolute worst version of themself w/ quite minimal explanation as to how they got that way other than "adulthood is just Like That". even ignoring Absolute Horrors like the dirk suicide chapter & the gamzee/jane breast milk thing, you don't tag and execute the concept of gerrymandering for no reason

anyway, there are two main ways that this connects to the undertale genocide/off discussion from before: meta elements & nightmarish world destruction. but first, speaking of meta elements:

2.1 the post-canon creators don't understand the concept of what "canon" means and they ain't gonna let us forget that

homestuck is really fucking good at making up the weirdest shit imaginable but presenting it in such a natural, meticulously careful way that by the time you're saying sentences like, "He took the hammer which had been captchalogued into his sylladex and made it his strife specibus," you barely even realize you're doing it. the singular exception to this is the use of the word "post-canon" in all content created after the run of the original comic, which fails so incredibly to establish itself as a new term that it's honestly kind of embarrassing. every single time i have to write the term "post-canon" in relation to homestuck i cringe a little bit inside at just how unnatural it feels and frustrating it is to type. imo there are a few distinct reasons why the attempt to call the epilogues/homestuck^2 post-canon fails so badly:

"canon" as a term already has a very strongly established practical use within fandom: namely, to distinguish between original ("canon") works & fan-made creations like fanfiction, fan art, etc. this is to the point that an alternative, related term, "fanon," is also used to distinguish creations on the other side of the line.

the use of "canon" in fandom is thus typically quite intuitive, in that a creation is either "official," (created by the same person & set within the same universe, created by a person closely related to the original creator & clearly established to be connected to the original work, etc.) or not. there is no in-between of canon vs. fanon, it is simply a clear line distinguishing between what is considered official and what isn't.

in the cases where it isn't necessarily as clear if something is canonical, whether that be due to the work being done by a different creator, long after the work is over, etc. (e.g. the yume nikki comic, jk rowling's dumb baseless twitter ramblings, etc.) the word "canon" is often dropped entirely with the context of the new works instead being invoked to clarify the distinction

people tend to only feel the need to distinguish between the original/"canonical" run of a story & its new content/additions when they fucking hate the new additions. nobody says that deltarune is not canonical just because it doesn't connect to the original undertale universe, they just say its in a different universe & take note of the implications. on the other side of things, even ignoring rowling's stupid ass tweets, people have been ignoring the epilogue to the final book of harry potter for ages simply because it sucks & many people hate the kind of future it presents

"post-canon" does not make any goddamn sense. no amount of ao3 formatting or desperate pleas from the creators can take away from the fact that the epilogues & hs^2 show up on the official website, were in part outlined by the original creator, & pick up the story right from where the comic ends. i can turn around in my seat right this second & look to my right to see a shelf where the words "THE HOMESTUCK EPILOGUES" is printed twice on the spine of the official goddamn book (don't ask why i bought that thing. i was in a distraught mental state in 2019 okay) printed by viz fucking media, come the fuck on you guys.

this is all to say that the meta elements of the epilogues & hs^2 (okay i'm gonna start saying post-canon again but remember. remember) is pretty fucking weird to begin with, and that's not even accounting for the direct antagonism that the continuations take when addressing the audience.

a key quality of the epilogues that make them come across as particularly nightmarish comes from the fact that so many aspects seem to be specifically designed to hurt the audience as much as physically possible. characters like jane & dirk fall into villainy and become the worst versions of themselves and more with very little regard for the reasons why they might've been sympathetic originally. even outside of those two obvious examples, there are a lot of elements that seem to only exist to make the audience hurt. the most overtly edgy example of this is the chapter in candy where dirk very graphically commits suicide (which comes entirely out of nowhere with basically no warning- the trigger warning wasn't added until later), but there are a shitton of minor examples that slowly build up to make even just reading through the epilogues an agonizing experience if you ever bothered to care about any of the characters involved. imo even characters like dave, karkat, & vriska, all of whom are generally considered to have gotten through alright by the greater fandom, suffer when it comes to characterization, dave & karkat from how much it feels like they've backtracked on character development when it comes to self awareness, and vriska because the creators are frankly unable to face any of the major character flaws that made her actually interesting, instead preferring to depict her as this tired hero above everyone else come back to earth to save everyone from the horrific versions of themselves the authors twisted them into to create plot.

what really stands out throughout all of this though, and is the reason why that connection between the epilogues & the hbomberguy undertale video was originally made, is the fact that the epilogues contextualize all of this suffering as a punishment for the audience wanting more out of the story- a point which especially stands out since, as far as i can remember, end of comic homestuck fans really didn't give that much of a shit about a continuation? while the response to act 7 & homestuck's ending was fairly disappointed, and there was some talk about a continuation after it got teased by some elevated fans with a closer connection to hussie, the consensus that i remember was that the epilogues were the snapchat update and that was it. lasting homestuck fans from 2016-2019 seemed to have come to understand that the ending was unsatisfying due to being planned far in advance and/or executed quickly so that hussie could get the story fuckin finished already after the last few years of long breaks & legal disputes surrounding what would be hiveswap, and many of the people who stuck with the fandom after the comic ended were late fans that were already well-acquainted with archive reading & thus cared much less about the original ravenous upd8 culture. the epilogues coming right out the gate trying to punish readers for wanting more therefore not only felt cruel, but confusing considering the more recent vibe of what the fandom felt like.

so, to link this all back together- between these three stories (off, undertale, & homestuck's post-canon) we end up with three different takes on how to incorporate meta elements w/ horror:

for off, meta elements are largely incorporated through the separation of the player & the batter, with certain notable characters referring directly to the player (or even referring to the game itself, as in the case of zacharie). the destruction of the world is given the connotations of a religious crusade through the batter's talk of "purification," with the supposed "official" ending of the game leaving the world entirely destroyed and gone, and the "special" bonus ending (where you pick the judge) leaving it desaturated and depopulated. a potential interpretation of this can thus be that the game acts as a meta commentary on other games of the same genre, twisting the typical routine of, "play as a dude going a something something vague mission for justice while destroying/murdering everything in your path," into something more explicitly horrifying. the path of divine destruction that the batter goes on w/ little to no regard for the suffering of the world is something that typically makes players quite uncomfortable, many people choosing to side with the judge by the end of the game despite siding with the batter being the "official" default ending.

for undertale, meta elements are utilized through characters like flowey & sans, most obviously in the genocide route where characters actively ask you to stop playing but also in true pacifist where flowey asks you to let them keep their happy ending. the horror of the game comes from the fact that the player has power unmatched by any of the characters in-game through the use of saves, clarified within the lore as a distinction between humans (players) & monsters (npcs) with some timeline fuckery thrown in for flavor. "punishment" of the player is introduced through sans & his genocide-run boss battle following the judgement of the player, which notably only happens when someone explicitly goes through and grinds out the killing of every single major & minor fight in every area of the game.

for homestuck's post-canon, meta elements are utilized through characters directly engaging with the concept of what it means to be "canon," and narration fuckery, as seen most notably through the character of ult. dirk taking over the narration in the meat timeline. nightmarish elements are present throughout the structure & content of each timeline largely through how they relate to LE, homestuck's main villain. "punishment" of the reader is introduced by contextualizing the inclusion of the most terrible elements as a way of punishing audiences for wanting more, enacted by the continuation's creators.

SO. puppets fuck i forgot about the puppets

3. what kind of villain is dirk trying to be, actually (okay we're actually talking about the puppet thing now)

at the end of off, the separation between the batter & the player is again emphasized through the final decision where you choose between siding with the batter (the "official" ending) or the judge (the "special" ending). no matter what you choose, the battle ends up fairly easy, affirming the fact that it is up to your choice as the player to decide who wins the fight. the player is fairly explicitly denoted as the puppeteer, and if the batter succeeds in his mission to destroy the world, the blame is placed on the player for going through with playing the game.

in undertale, the identity of the human moving through the underground is different depending on which route you take: frisk in the pacifist route, and chara/the player-entered name in genocide. at the end of the genocide route, chara takes over entirely, stopping the player from even being able to get the final hit in to kill the final boss before killing the player themself.

there is a pretty distinct difference between how off & undertale are able to tell their story in the context of a game vs. how homestuck tells its story as a mostly set-in-stone comic (at least now), but the key theme continuing throughout all of these stories as far as i see it comes down to one thing: puppets. WHICH is especially significant considering the fact that dirk, The Puppet Guy, is now one of the big post-canon villains, in part taking on the role of LE in parallel to jane taking on the role of HIC.

this post has been fucking long enough so i'll get to the point already: the whole path of destruction and quest to purify the world that the batter goes through in off feels very reminiscent of some of dirk's actions in the post-canon content, and that seems significant when considering who dirk is likely being puppetted by, LE (homestuck has a reader, but no player, so who is controlling who is marginally less obvious).

that's probably not too big of a surprise, especially considering that long ass list i wrote out a couple sections ago, but i think it could be notable in trying to contextualize dirk's actions throughout the story. in particular, it stands out to me that dirk's first big action within the meat timeline before going totally batshit is helping jane with her political campaign against karkat, which as we can see in the candy timeline is a terrible fucking idea considering she seems to be going right down the same path of fascism & troll eugenics in meat.

dirk isn't stupid, but here especially it's weird that he would be so down for jane getting political power, considering 1. he knows jane very well (very well, if we consider his heart aspect & ability to read people due to that), and 2. he knows the condesce very well. dirk is a fucking historian combing through documentation of the end of humanity, he's aware of what a global dictatorship looks like. he's smart, but as i said in my plato intelligence post, he's not necessarily on the same level as other omniscient narrators. it's the same problem as before, dirk is pretending to be the puppeteer but really has very little control over the actual situation. the idea that his "ascent to power" in the epilogues is actually just him becoming everyone's brain ghost has a lot of merit to me because of this.

in a similar vein, i've been thinking about this post a lot in terms of how ultimate dirk has taken on a lot of the traits of dave's bro (who also could fit in w/ the "who's the puppet/really in control" theme w/ how he is potentially being puppetted by a literal puppet. god there's too many fucking puppets). that leads me to a pretty major & interesting question to consider too: does ultimate dirk even have a soul? lots of implications depending on how you answer that. i made a joke not long ago about ult. dirk being just another dirk splinter that he created while attempting to deal with all the dirk splinters, but that idea might have more weight to it along these lines.

counterpoint though, i have to question if ult. dirk's goals really fall along the same lines of "purification" as the batter. his goal of creating a new sburb session (? iirc)/world creation is pretty much the direct opposite of the batter's world destruction, but i think we all know the prince's relationship with destruction by now. conclusion: the baby is 2 was the correct timeline all along. babies are the true ultimate creation, let's make this shit text already. (sorry, i've been watching a lot of evangelion lately.)

anyways. this post has been a WIP for a couple days and i'm starting to seriously lose the thread of the original thought, so i guess i'll just cut this off here with a couple minor sidenotes. this all came to kind of a simple, somewhat obvious point, but i think the exploration itself was decently interesting so. yeah!

sidenote1: sugar & lollipops

what is it with sweets being the most fucked up drugs imaginable in these stories. actually no, i get it, sugar is the closest you can get to the idea of drugs as a child, that kinda works. homestuck does have a surprising lack of cannibalism though, like even the trolls-eating-grubs thing is pretty weak. sad.

sidenote2: jake & religion

just thought it was interesting that the batter's purification quest has so many religious undertones (the add-ons having the roles of "father, son, & holy spirit," the names of other characters, etc.), though i don't have much of a connection here other than that jake (& karkat, really) also have a lot of the same thematic associations. not that big of a deal considering, but kinda interesting to note nonetheless (maybe w/ some interesting implications for ult. jake???)

sidenote3: davesprite & namco high

absolutely could not find a place to shove this in but the davesprite route in namco high is so fucking meta, has anyone still in this fandom even played that thing? the justification there is that davesprite gained meta awareness as a sprite & game guide, which i guess carries over to namco high too. feels very reminiscent of a lot of ideas to show up more prominently later, at the very least. hm.

[safyresky]

Dani: reblogs a thing about ask box shenanigans

Me: M Y T I M E H A S C O M E

It's a me. Lurking. About to hop on that art train when I spotted the post. You don't have to do all of them but here are a handful of fanfic titles that I wanna see what your vague ideas about them would be

Happy meal

The footloose sensation

Paranormal piracy

The golden ticket

Four eyes

The shortest day of the year

Anyway, I hope you're doing well my friend and if you aren't I hope it gets better for you! 🤗💕

(cracks knuckles, stretches neck) HERE WE GO

Happy Meal

In which Fino and Fiera's attempt to go buy themselves happy meals goes very, very awry!

They decide to go to a mall to get their micky dee's and get very horribly distracted, and also, they are on fire. This is a normal human mall, btw. The Magical Bureau of Investigation has their work cut OUT for them lmao

The Footloose Sensation

I have never seen Footloose, and after reading the plot page for it I'm like "oh my god I cannot believe this is a real movie based on a real town" so here's THREE IDEAS for you

Footloose the movie craze hits the North Pole. Shenanigans ensue

A hypothetical experiment goes wrong, and now everyone is dancing to the Footloose song and it's really getting in the way of the day's work tbh (or any song. Maybe it's like the SINGING episode of shows, but with DANCING. Jack's like MY TIME HAS COME and single-handedly navigates them all through the final dance number of footloose to break the dancing curse)

A Bad Santa bans dancing. Elfsburg Footloose parody/rip off ensues 😂😂😂

Paranormal Piracy

Well past her days of Piracy, Jacqueline finds herself in WAY over her head when a ship of ghost pirates kidnaps her, hoping the famous Bruexa de la Niege can help them navigate through and onto the perilous, once thought mythical, Endless Winter Island to find the supposed lost treasure that resides there that would surely set them up for the rest of their (after) lives.

Do they know they're dead? I am unsure at this time, but it is somehow FUNNIER if they DON'T. I know for certain though that Jacqueline very much thinks the entire time, holy snowballs, I hope this treasure is real so that when they find it they can move on to the Great Beyond and I can go back to bed.

The Golden Ticket

A teleporting mishap lands teeny-bopper Jacqueline in a secret room of the family home. A secret room that is a treasure trove of magical knowledge. For the briefest of moments, she has her brother back.

Four Eyes

Fino's magic school frenemy gets glasses. Everyone teases the poor orc until he snaps and accidentally makes a magical beast with four eyes that attacks EVERYONE. He and Fino team up to stop the magical beast, and put some bullies in their place!

The Shortest Day of the Year

Winter sleeps through her own birthday 🤦🏻‍♀️.

People keep trying to talk to her. Blaise has to fend off a LOT of people to make sure she gets her rest! winter wakes up, realizes she slept through the entire day, shrugs and goes "Well, I've had thousands of birthdays, and there's plenty more to come, I'm sure." Meanwhile, her hubby looks like he has fought a whole entire second and third war while she slept.

Thanks for sending one in! And for others who are like "tf is this ask box shenanigan?" send me a made up fic title and i'll tell you what i'd write :)

(thoughts and general musings under the cut)

SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! Meant to post yesterday but got distracted by errands, and today we tackled the Fear Ladder I created to get over a new fear of driving on the highway thanks to the dealer comparing my car to a sick PUPPY that needs to be put down--and yes, they said puppy. IT'S BEEN. AN EXPERIENCE, THIS WEEK! DON'T GO TO DEALERSHIPS IF U CAN AVOID IT. FIND URSELF A GOOD MECHANIC THAT WON'T TUG AT UR HEARTSTRINGS WITH PUPPY METAPHORS.

But yes things are going okay and I think I've got the wedding invites almost ready to go which is a RELIEF ANYWAY, YOU DID NOT ASK FOR MY WEEKEND LIFE STORY AND YET. MY MOUTH IS A MOTORING. AS PROMISED, MUSINGS:

I got stuck on the golden ticket one and had to do a think and a half, lmao, but then it popped into my head yesterday before bed and I was like "oh god the angst. the hurt comfort. holy fuck."

I may actually write some of these up??? ANYWAY the musings I promised:

please someone ask me about Fino's orcish rival I am BEGGING i could go ON (I say that now but in the event someone asked I think I'd be like ... uhh. he exists??? but i love him even tho he is a hazy concept)

y'all don't even KNOW my brain has been PLAGUED with thoughts of Frost kiddos and their SOs, specifically the twins

i have no idea if there is a dance number in footloose, but given the titular song i have to believe there is, y'know? and I HAVE to believe Jack knows it and to defeat the dancing curse they gotta reproduce the number PERFECTLY. Jack's like "MY TIME HAS COME"

Fino and Fiera get HELLA DISTRACTED at the mall and it is chaotic as FUCK. Fino walks by an electronics store and is like "I am going to fiddle and click every button". Fiera keeps running into the little like, hallmark esque shops like "is it magic or not" and BOTH kids meet their doom with clothing, oh my god. they didn't even KNOW they liked nice clothes until the moment they lay eyes on the pretty dress shop! Shame ordibeing clothing isn't usually fireproof ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

anyway they 100% get banned, 3 fire trucks and several casualties later

AND to tug at ur heartstrings: I realized that once Jacqueline found Jack's secret library, she had like ALL of his magical knowledge at her disposal and could KEEP TRAINING PAST THE WINTER MASTERY WINTER KNEW?! So now when she says "I learnt from the best!" she truly does mean it bc even tho he wasn't there she STILL learnt from him

and u bet ur ass when they reunite and he picks up that she learnt from his shit Jack's like "cool! ur form is sloppy and that's not being done right" and helps her refine her skills, yo

i am SOFT for these siblings

anyway ty again for the ask andie! also, LOVE that u love the shenanigans tag lmao. i dont even remember how I came up with that one but my GOD shenanigans is such a fun word

[kob131]

Have you read Ironside by GodHand96? Do you have the patience to write a review?

I have read nine chapters of Ironside.

...And that was about four more chapters than I should have given.

It's basically a retelling of Volume 7 so far that, as the author puts it, is supposed to make Ironwood out to be smarter and Winter more proactive.

... In reality, it's one long dick slurping. I'd say it's Ironwood's dick that's getting the fellatio but-

"It's just... so good to see them all again!" Ironwood said, the smile crossing his face was uncontrollable. "I was so glad to see Qrow, I actually hugged him!" he beamed there, "I couldn't see myself doing that before, and Penny looked like she was having the time of her life with her friends back! The ace-ops also apologised to Ruby's group with them working together, our forces will be next to unstoppable! Also with you Schnee, ready to fulfil your role as the Winter Maiden, we finally have a chance of beating Salem! and we have Oz back!"

Does THIS sound like Ironwood?

No, it doesn't. He sounds pure. Innocent, blameless. Without fault.

That is not who James Ironwood is. James Ironwood is a flawed man, a man who wants to do good but finds compromise to be a burden and, unable to overcome his flaws, falls into villainy as a tragic but honest depiction of how good people become bad.

Tl;Dr- HE IS NOT BEACON-RUBY ROSE.

Then again, maybe James is still around. There is this character that talks of trust while using underhanded methods to expose people, someone who talks of taking a hit for their reputation for sake of doing what is right. Granted, it comes across less as someone living their life by a 'greater good' philosophy and more like them getting slurped too because there's no awareness to this even as they joke about manipulating others while professing 'Tell the truth' but hey it's at least better than Not-Ironwood-

It's Winter. The author transplanted a WORSE version of James into her and ignores anything that isn't positive to Steelstone.

And of course, the heroes are all portrayed as being whiny, entitled, annoying brats who have no grounds in correcting Lord Steelstone on such trivial things like 'public relations' or 'serving the people you preach to protect' or 'the fucking theme of the show'. The only ones who don't get this treatment are Oscar (mouthpiece for the author), Qrow (rip off of his Volume 7 and 8 character so no credit), Weiss and Ren. ... BTW, did I forget to mention that these characters are treated as siding with Ironwood and the more staunchly anti-Ironwood characters (Yang because fuck you the author didn't watch Volume 7, Blake, Nora and Robyn) are all portrayed as far worse with no real reasoning beyond 'fuck you, I don't like them.'

It's all just so self in-fucking-dulgent. You could not find better examples of Ron The Death Eater outside parody. The original show had the characters split because of their personal experiences creating slightly different variations of the same ideology, crating natural conflict as they naturally repeat the same mistakes their predecessors did. The clash between Team RWBY and Ironwood was one of differing, uncompromising beliefs rooted in the themes of the show.

The difference here is caused by the author emptying everyone out and turning them into meat puppets.

And no I don't care that they've 'admitted' to these issues or say they'll justify them later- This SHOULD HAVE NEVER happened. This stuff is inexcusable. And the refusal to fix these mistakes by justifying them as 'well, at least I'm not gonna kill the characters I hate' is childish. Right up to the fact that the writers DIDN'T HATE IRONWOOD.

This is the delusion that RWBY stans have of Ironwood fans: deifying Ironwood while demonizing team RWBY with no nuance, just blind obedience or else. Just now, it's real.

[shelobussy]

Bestie I've done some research and come to the conclusion that watching the last two and a half seasons of 12's era over the course of like three and a half days is not the move. Got any headcanons or the like that won't emotionally damage me any further?

HELP BESTIE I'M NOT JUDGING YOU BECAUSE I'VE DONE THE SAME THINGS BUT ALSO PLZ

(Btw, I'm assuming you mean TwelveRose headcanons as you and I are in mutual Timepetal hell, so I'll stick to some of those. :D)

Some Twelve Era headanons:

Clara, Twelve and Rose as the new Team Tardis lives in my head RENT FUCKING FREE. The shared chaotic energy between these three is too powerful.

Twelve doesn't care for tea. I definitely see him as a coffee drinker and although he tries to convince Clara (and Rose) that he drinks it black, straight, he actually likes tons of sugar and cream in it.

There was an incident where Clara wanted to ride a space dragon. It didn't end well. They don't talk about it.

Clara and Rose being best friends??!!?! It's more likely than you think. (Okay, but in all seriousness, if I were to write a sorta love triangle with TimePetals and Clara, I would have Rose and Clara have feelings for each other instead of Rose and Twelve. Clara is literally bi and Rose is 100% her type don't @ me.)

CLARA AND TWELVE SOLVING SHERLOCK HOLMES-ESQUE MYSTERIES TOGETHER. THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE OUTSIDE OF THE CONTEXT OF MY HEAD, BUT THEY HAVE HUGE SHERLOCK + WATSON ENERGY.

I know Jack shows up in Thirteen's era, but lets pretend for a minute he shows up in Twelve's. Imagine the off the charts chemistry he and Clara would have. IMAGINE. (And don't get me started on him and Twelve.)

Not even a headcanon, but Twelve taking Clara to see her favorite literary authors.

Speaking of which, The past few Doctor's get really flirty with historical figures, which is why Clara is the PERFECT companion for Twelve. Someone on the Tardis should be snogging famous people, and it's not going to be the tired, grumpy guy who's one incident with Clara and a pretty boy in a supply closet away from retiring. Anyway, the headcanon is Clara gets to make out with famous people whenever she wants.

Headcanon that the Doctor actually stays in contact with companions who have left (aka Mickey, Martha, Jack, etc.) and we get to see wholesome interactions between them and Clara and Rose.

Clara demands they solve the mystery of the Bermuda triangle. Twelve objects. Rose likes chaos so she sides with Clara. The three of them accidentally cause the Bermuda Triangle.

OH MY GOD HEAR ME OUT I know TwelveClara already did a bank heist, BUT what if they did an Ocean's 11-esque parody. I want an intensely bisexual fic/episode where TwelveRoseClara recruit prev companions into pulling off a heist with them.

Twelve and Rose going on dates and having soft moments with Clara setting buildings on fire in the background.

Rose and Clara going on dates and having soft moments with Twelve setting buildings on fire in the background.

That's all I have for now!! I hope this gave you your fix for Twelve Era headcanons. <3

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

what do you think the winx's biggest character flaws are? like, not in their writing, just like how someone can come off as cold or standoffish accidentally or don't have a brain-to-mouth filter or any insecurities really (not for the au, i'm geniunely interested on your take on their characters)

I think once you disregard all of the stuff that's a side effect of the writing you do lose quite a few flaws which are primarily just writers making characters dumb and obtuse for The Drama, but the flaws left are still pretty connected to the writing.

It's been a while since I've re-watched the show, (I'll have to make time for that at some point this year (happy 2020 btw)) so I'm kind of at the point where I'm forgetting how the canon characterisation is, so some of this might be the fanon slipping in. Apologies.

But primary flaws from my POV?:

Stella is pretty self-absorbed, she's very focused on her image to the point where she can say some hurtful stuff because she's forgotten how to empathise with the people around her in her pursuit of 'the perfect 'it' girl'. I feel like that comes from a childhood we only get hints about, she's spent so long trying to become what people want, she's failed to become someone people like.

She's not unlikable, she's just given up substance for style, and it can make her act childish and spoiled at times, and she can't (or won't bother to) read the room before speaking.

It's something she was getting over in the earlier seasons, being around the Winx she was learning to tone down her need to be The Popular Girl and empathise more, but unfortunately, the writing is intrinsically linked, and this trait became Flanderised to the point of parody by season 7.

Bloom is incredibly self-righteous, she believes she's always in the right, even when she's not. Despite some early self-doubt, she believes she knows better than everyone else to a dangerous degree. Within minutes of passing Diaspro in the hall at Red Fountain, she'd decided with no evidence but her hunch that Diaspro was Icy in disguise. Rather than ask around about the young woman sitting with royals who didn't seem to find her presence odd or suspicious, Bloom tricked Diaspro into a private place and attacked her with no further questioning. Despite the fact that Bloom had asked 'Icy' under false pretences that 'Icy' would have absolutely every reason to doubt, Bloom decided she was right and went full steam ahead.

The problem isn't that she's self assured and confident, it's that The Drama, Bloom never considers the possibility that she could be wrong about something, and most of the time she's right about things, which makes the whole thing worse because it lets the confidence become arrogance with no one the wiser until things go Wrong.

But the writing likes to sweep that under the rug. It also feeds into part of her Drama with Sky, she's convinced that X is happening to affect their relationship and they're doomed and blah blah blah, and rather than consider the possibilities and even try to wait until she talks to Sky she stews and works herself into a (self justified) anger which makes it harder for the duo to communicate. (The relationship Drama is not all on her, but it's not entirely on Sky either. Just mostly, because he's a jealous cheater type.)

Aisha is kind of a mix of Stella and Bloom, she's selfish. No, that's the wrong word, she's very 'my way or the highway, you're with me or against me' in her world view, she's convinced a lot of the time that her way is the 'best' way. But again I think that was a product of her youth that was being tempered until the writing got in the way.

She spent so much of her life having to 'go it alone' I don't think she ever entirely got out of that mind set, a small part of her always had that instinct of 'how do I do this by myself, what's best for me,' rather than 'how do I help this get done, what's best for us'.

Not to say she was uncooperative, she integrated to the team really well, (and this is where the 'I haven't watched the show in ages' really starts being a problem because) but I feel like by the time she was finally letting go of this completely, she was being forced face first into “my boyfriend is dead now, time to rage for a few hours and then spend a season or two being angry and hating all male life”.

Musa had a similar problem, she was also so quick to anger. And yes that came from a place of deep hurt and trauma, but she never really got over that. Someone does something that might be considered a slight against her (or her friends) and boom: rage time.

Again the writing brushed it off or justified it, but Musa has anger issues that sit pretty tight with trust issues. She and Riven have been dating for a few years, she sees him talking with another girl and 'he's cheating there's no other explanation, he is about to be sorry!'

It doesn't help that the writing is always pulling that shit, but the fact that it always turns out to be nothing, or nothing more than foot-in-mouth disease, this shouldn't be her first assumption.

Tecna and Flora are a little harder to talk about because they feel like they're edged out a little for the louder personalities, and even up front, they feel like they're not as in the spotlight as the other girls.

Flora has self-confidence issues, but she's also a big sister, it has this weird clashing effect of Flora being almost a doormat at times, giving way to whatever everyone else is doing, and at others she's very much a caregiver. When Flora does put her foot down on an issue the, the writing almost seems to go out of its way to make her irrational about it.

I feel like the writers wanted a mediator type personality – how do I de-escalate this situation, how can I make sure this works out for the most number of people, how do we find a compromise – but they just gave her a 'yes man' personality instead of a 'I will go this far but you have to meet me half way' type.

Tecna's flaw, until the writing decided to disregard personality for boys, was that she was a very logical person, her entire world was run on strict rules and regulations, it was a safe environment. She comes to Alfea and bam, all the chaos and she couldn't quite get the hang of it. It runs parallel to Aisha's flaw, in that Tecna's upbringing has embedded this sense of restrain and regulation in her, and when this runs counter to how she's certain they should be, she digs her heels in and doesn't let up.

Basically she's very stubborn, and if she's convinced she's right she'll need in-arguable proof to change her mind.

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For the most part, their flaws are positive traits that were done wrong, or taken too far in the wrong direction. (from my perspective at least.)