#it's not a big deal and it isn't relevant to the story yet

[ninja-guy-yo]

There's no way they won't ever acknowledge that Lloyd is part-dragon while having him gain the power of and communicate with God Dragons and train under talking ones, in the show titled after and primarily based around dragons, right

[megamindsupremacy]

something about my Relativity Falls AU (which i have yet to post... anything about) is that the main conflict between Dipper and Mabel isn't intelligence, like it was for Stan and Ford. Rather, it's relevance and obliviousness.

Dipper desperately wants to be relevant. He wants to leave his mark on the world. He wants to become a famous journalist and win awards and influence media and break news stories for the rest of his life. He wants it so badly that he's working himself to death to get there, but it seems like everything in his life is working against him to keep him irrelevant and anonymous. So instead, he's stuck in some backwater town in Oregon investigating some stupid town founder conspiracy, just trying to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, Mabel just wants to be creative and have fun, and she's making huge waves in the fashion industry with her designs. She's getting sponsorships and deals and working with big-name models, and she's only really at the start of her career. And, to Dipper, she doesn't even appreciate what she has. To Mabel, she's just living her best life and making friends and having fun with her designs, but to Dipper, she's achieving everything he ever dreamed of, and she doesn't even realize that she's leaving him behind.

anyways. I still need to post literally anything about my AU to make any of this make sense

[themoodyestj]

bless that anon, isn't that sweet moment proof that Jenneel keep their love to themselves?

the point of the story is that they did not realized they were being recorded.

they are not parading their relationship, they rightfully treat it as something important that's only theirs.

and since you have no part on it, you are not entitled to know shit about it. end of the story.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry at that statement. Jesus, you guys really are delulus, grasping into an idea that's so easily disproven with the little strenght you have in your fingers (and your minds). So let me deal with this very quickly, if there's something Momma loves, is being right.

So, according to what you're saying...

D brought her brother to their honeymoon because she is so very private (hey, maybe he was blocking the camera while they were kissing);

Jensen was high/drunk during their wedding because he didn't want people seeing him getting married, he is that private.

D gave him an ultimatum to marry her, because Jensen was scared people would see them in love, because he is that private.

His own father had to convince him to get married, calling D an investment (a really bad one, but ok) because he was also a very private person.

D shows an incredible lack of support to his husband, because their love is very private, and she likes to keep her love to herself.

Jensen tells stories about D being an ass because he is so very private;

D was in Wales Con and made a fool out of herself and took pictures with her kids when she was basically twidling her fingers (no one gave a damn about her), exposing them.... because she is very private. A hermit. Did you notice how she was hiding behind them so she wouldn't get noticed?

In an interview, D compared her struggles to the struggles of a health care provider during COVID, because really she had been in the trenches all along and she wanted to hide the fact that she has been a hero all this time, and Jensen was so worried she was going to tell the World how big of a Mother Theresa she was he told her to CALM DOWN.

Speaking of interviews, D talks Jensen down in any way she can (by telling him he smells, doesn't help around the house, implying he is not that big of an actor and all his conquests are actually due to her support) because she is so very private.

Her pics of him in her instagram ridiculing him is because. she is. so very private. Exhibit A:

She gushes about how charitable she is (even though she does squat) because she is that private.

In fact, her whole career mirroring the one of a soft porn actress is truly a testament of how private and reserved she is.

There should be more, but it's still early for me and I haven't had my morning coffee yet.

Your theory had a chance to hold up for like two seconds (pretty much the time you can hold a thought) if the Kween wasn't known FOR CRAVING ATTENTION! She even told Jewel, during an interview, that the mugs D and J were drinking from were handmade by them (Jensen's expression definitely giving away the lie) JUST TO BE COMPLIMENTED. First of all, no way that mug was handmade. Second of all, I've seen her cakes. She is an attention w****, she clearly craves people tell her how relevant and beautiful she is, and much to her dismay... she is not. Now, returning to the original thought that they were having a sweet private moment and they just want to keep them to themselves...

Brace yourself, because this will really rock your world. No could have ever imagine it! Ready?

THEY WERE IN A CONVENTION, SURROUNDED BY FANS, WHERE THE CHANCES OF BEING PHOTOGRAPHED OR RECORDED ARE EXTREMELY HIGH, HAVING THEIR SWEET PRIVATE MOMENT WHILE TALKING TO OTHER PEOPLE!

Is my work here done? I think my work here is done.

[weiszklee]

I remember when Knives Out came out and all of tumblr was praising it for being this unmasking of the hypocrisy of white liberals or whatever, and I almost didn't want to watch it because that sounds kinda dull and also I doubt that a movie could be able to meaningfully contribute anything new to that conversation, but then a friend of mine said he had bought it on amazon and asked if I wanted to watch it, too, so I said sure, and I was shocked that it was this really, really good murder mystery first and foremost?

Like, if you put a gun to my head and told me I had to give a highschool interpretation of the deeper themes of it, I would say that it's primarily an examination of guilt and the questionable possibility of justice, with a rather optimistic outlook on overcoming inequality through being a good person and working hard or something. If anything, it's the movie that is liberal in its politics.

But I would feel a bit silly talking about that when the movie isn't actually about that, right? It's about telling a really good story, really well. It's a fresh take on the murder mystery, an attempt to bring this classic film genre back onto the big screen, and it succeeded briliantly in this attempt. It's about how to genuinely surprise an audience that is accustomed to just be waiting for the next twist, and employing unorthodox storytelling methods to do so, while sowing just enough well known tropes to keep everyone comfortable. It's about contrasting the stunning naturalistic performance of Ana de Armas in the role of the nurse, giving us so much inner turmoil while keeping so much reserve, with the high drama of the wealthy family she has to deal with, played by a bunch of A-listers who are just fun to watch filling these ridiculous but somehow believable roles. It's about establishing a new myterious oddball master detective, in a way that is familiar enough but not yet stale.

The subtle racism and stark inequality are certainly important context for the characters, more than just setdressing, but why are people pretending like any of this is news to the audience? It's relevant background to make sense of the rest, and it's really well done, like the rest of the movie.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

do you think NHS will ever be satisfied with the way things have turned out in the end? or is he already? I've seen polar opinions on this one and honestly can't decide which one I like more

oooh, what crunchy questions, anon.

short answer: I think he thinks he's satisfied.

the tl;dr answer: I don't think it's possible for us to know with any degree of certainty how nhs feels about anything post-canon, because the text gives us almost no insight into his interiority outside of wwx's speculation in the aftermath of the guanyin temple sequence. but I think we can make some educated guesses based on what we do know about his character.

rather than just rewrite stuff I've already written on this subject before, I'll drop some links to previous posts that I think are relevant to your ask:

nhs took so long to enact his revenge quest because he could not make up his mind about what he wanted to do. also this one, which includes discussion of his cql performance as well. indecisiveness is as core to nhs's character as his desire for vengeance, and I think that extends to his feelings about his situation post-canon, too.

this is definitely more within the realm of headcanon and speculation but I went deep on this the magnus archives-mdzs fusion reblog speculating on why I think nhs would be an avatar of the hunt, and a big thing about the hunt is that once the hunt is over, the hunters... don't really know what to do with themselves. womp womp.

now on to the point I don't think I've spilt much digital ink on yet:

nhs is, and always has been, a people person. this is extremely obvious when you dip back into the gusu lan summer camp for wayward young cultivators chapters, where nhs is at his most effervescent when he is bopping around the cloud recesses as wwx and jc's bubbly tag-along, lamenting how much lwj and lqr clearly hate wwx while cheerfully offering to give wwx more porn to make up for what he's lost. (it was nhs's porn, too! he'd be justified in being a bit cheesed off about it, but he really isn't!) if he sees a didi-shaped hole in a prospective friends' group, he sees an opportunity to make himself lovably indispensable as the court appointed littlest brother no one asked for, and quite frankly who could blame him? he loves to be spoiled and doted on, but imo there's some clear self-awareness and reciprocity at work in these dynamics that goes beyond a desire just to be pampered and looked after. I suppose an uncharitable read on teen!nhs would be that he's lazy and manipulative and finds easy marks to do the heavy lifting for him so he can sleep and paint and catch birds for his private collection, but tbh I think that interpretation does his character dirty. most people who end up spoiling and doting on nhs in the text are clearly happy to do so and seem to get something out of making life easier for this charmingly incompetent dandy. good for him--and for them!

...and then, post-canon, he is a people person without any people around him. sure, we can presume the existence of some unnamed nie sect subordinates who are stuck dealing with a sect leader who allowed his sect to languish and decline in the years after nmj's death, but I think if any of those unnamed subordinates were inclined to be people nhs could rely on to fill the 3zun and/or wwx and jc-shaped voids in his life, we'd at least know their names. I think it is telling that we don't, and that the last meaningful interaction we see between nhs and the characters who used to be his closest friends in the text amounts to an interrogation. whatever affection wwx used to feel for nhs has clearly withered on the vine and has been replaced by mistrust and suspicion--to say nothing of lxc's dead-eyed silence as soon as he begins to put the pieces together.

also: the last glimpse we get of nhs in the text before he disappears from the story altogether is him picking up jgy's hat and walking off with it. why does he do this? why is this the very last thing we see him do in the story? there are a few different possibilities:

"he's taking the hat to keep as a trophy!" I mean. maybe? I suppose I can't entirely rule out this possibility, but it is the least interesting one to me because it glosses over the complexity of nhs's pre-existing relationship to jgy.

"nhs doesn't know why he picks up the hat and takes it with him. he just does it." this is the idea I vibe with the most because it is most consistent with my read on his character--namely that he is never 100% sure about anything (except what qualifies as good erotica). but I think the part of him that still cares about jgy (it's there! it's tiny and shrivelled and warped by his transformation into the wuxia version of montresor, but it's still there) does not want to see his hat abandoned in the mud and dirt, and also does not want to interrogate his feelings about why he feels that way that closely.

"nhs can't abide littering! he's doing his part to keep the city streets clean." doubt.jpeg

[soshadysoquiet]

TUA S4 Concerns *some spoilers for what's been teased so far*

So I'm concerned about Season 4. I want to be hopeful, but I am concerned. C o n c e r n e d.

It's short. There's bits in TUA that I don't personally enjoy as much and skip, there's bits that could have been taken out and nothing would have changed... but I like having that bit of room for more: did we need the Ikea Mafia's viking foot funeral? No. But did we need it? Yes.

The ball pit. The ball pit concerns me on a number of levels, and I'm sure it will be funny, I hope it will be funny, I just hope it's relevant enough why they're in that setting to not be too gimmicky, e.g. it made sense they ended up in the bowling alley; they probably snuck out there as kids and so it was one location they would all know, but man that ball pit worries me like a sleep paralysis demon.

The potential for germaphobe Klaus (sorry that's probs not the correct term but I can't think of what it might be). I can see why he'd be afraid of death now, but is it germ/cleanliness specific? If so why? Klaus has been one of the least concerned about hygiene up to this point so they're laying a whole new framework that I hope they give sufficient depth to. I'm an OCD sufferer myself, about death anxiety in fact, and I haven't resonated OCD with Klaus before if that is what they go for - I'm open to it, just not a cheap OCD gimmick. There's So Much trauma in all these characters at this point, my worry isn't them exploring new avenues as much as not bothering to look into the trauma they've already heaped on and doing something new for the sake of it. If it's done well, I'm all for it, but there's some previous with trauma getting forgotten on TUA so...

The Jennifer Incident. Please, please let this be more interesting than a romance story.

Lila's baby. I love Lila, I don't have a problem with her being preggo etc, I worry a little that TUA tends to speed run life so what is this actually going to look like? Parenthood is such a big life changing deal that I'm curious / cautious about what they'll have done with the characters here.

Viktor. His schtick is that He's Mr Apocalypse, sadly that limits his character coming to a place of peace in some ways. But mostly just let him have an actual conversation? Please? He'll have had 6 years this time skip, if they bullshit that 'oh no one's really seen each other in 6 years' lazy ass nonsense I'll be fuming.

As above, there's been 6 YEARS here, I want to watch the characters and feel that time has passed, that they've interacted, have in jokes now, shared history, maybe not all of them but that makes it even better; have Diego and Klaus have a cleaning routine together to help Diego understand Klaus and trying to be supportive if brusque, but then defending this to his other siblings. Have Luther share some actually positive moments with his other siblings and not just have been in Sloane-hunting solitude, make him always be trying to host awkward family BBQs that the others force (or pretend to force) themselves to go to. Have literally any of the siblings be on the look out or Five's triggers for him - and better yet actually give him some now that he's had time for the PTSD to swell. I want the small nitty gritty details, I want the filling, I want to feel the expanse of time not just 'oh shit another week and there's an apocalypse and we haven't seen each other hey ho oh look a ball pit!'

Anyway, I'm hopeful, but concerned, and I'm sure I'll love it and don't intend to be negative, it just helps me to voice them. Either way, I pray for the fan fiction that follows the series most of all, the rising of the crowd to give us more of what the series does deliver and flesh out what it does not. Is it weird to almost be more excited for that?

[rickie-the-storyteller]

Steph's Crew - Book 3 Summary

I was meant to post this last year to sort of close the Steph-related content and focus more on other projects. Actually, I was meant to post a lot of things last year...

Bretanie analysis (on here)

Season 1 of AU (on my second blog)

Jekyll and Hyde, but in the modern world (I've been working on that for fun on the side, and I've decided to post the full story on Wattpad)

Revealing the identity of the secret blogger (I'll probably do it in this post, since it is relevant to this part of the story as well)

I've been so busy, y'all. Sorry for the delays.

I just want to make sure I have time to do everything as best as I possibly can, so you can enjoy it. I think it was less pressure posting the Steph's Crew dialogues and snippets because they were old pieces of work, and since the time I first wrote them, I've neatened it up and made it considerably better than it was... I know that the stuff I've shared isn't the final product, so I don't feel the urge to make it perfect. At least not to the extent that I do with all these other projects lol.

Hopefully this can help make up for lost time. I'll get to the other posts mentioned on that list as soon as possible, but until then... here's a summary of the third and final instalment of Steph's Crew!

Enjoy!

Keep in mind that I'm still working on this one. It isn't finished yet, but I wanted to give you guys a rough idea of how it goes. And prepare for this, because it's pretty unhinged lol. I collaborated with my sister on some of the wackier ideas...

Book 3 is titled "Story of a Broken Thing." It picks up where Book 2 ends off, more or less (or at least, it fills us in on what went down since the end of Book 2). If you can't remember how UVC ended, then here's a link to that summary:

But to put it briefly, the crew have successfully solved the mystery, Brelise have split up again, Bret's gone on tour with his band, Dalice are together, Bephanie is over, and Stephanie got arrested... but then escaped from holding. Nobody knows where she could have gone.

Which leads us to Book 3. It is set a couple of years later (I think about 5 years after Book 2 ended), and a lot of stuff has happened in all that time...

Dylan and Alice have broken up. Wasn't meant to be, I guess. But don't worry - they're still friends, and there's no bad blood between them or anything.

Victor and Jen have unfortunately split up as well, leading to Jen moving back to Texas. Alice decides to go with her. She's doing alright - currently taking some classes at a local college, and helping out at her old dance studio in her spare time. She's also still making YouTube videos.

Bret's band is still doing well. They're not touring anymore at the moment, but they are super busy recording a new album, and filming music videos. Plus, they have been asked to perform at the Jingle Bell Ball towards the end of the year, which is very exciting. Even though he has moved back to the UK, because of the nature of Bret's job, he can't just stay in London with his aunt anymore like how he used to... but he still comes to visit her as often as possible. And he and Elise are still close friends, so that's cool. He's been seeing other people over the past couple of years, though.

Elise and Charlie are together. She decided to give him a chance. They're really happy together and they seem to have a pretty healthy, solid relationship for the most part (they've been together for two years straight by the time Book 3 has started). Charlie still harbours some degree of jealousy/wariness towards Bret, though, since she's still really good friends with him. He's never once brought it up to her, though. But it becomes a big deal in this part of the story... more on that later.

Ben isn't really in this part of the story... at least not until towards the end, when Stephanie randomly decides to call him for some reason. But he's doing fine. Moved back to his cooking job from Book 1 lol. It was good money, and now he doesn't have another person to share it with! Wait, that sad-

And by now, Dylan, Connor (who has finally moved on from Daisy! Thank God), Elise and Charlie have all finished their university courses. Yay!

In fact, this is what kickstarts the plot. Dylan's family (we get to see them again in this one! Specifically his mother, her new husband and his younger brother Sam. I feel like we didn't get enough of them last time) is very proud of him for finishing such a long, tough course (3 years, + 1 foundation year + 1 year of masters), and they decide to reward him with an epic summer trip to Australia. And it is during this holiday that he sees Steph again (she's not in Australia btw - he sees her when he goes with a family friend to the Samoan islands).

She fills him in on how she got there. I haven't neatly worked this part out... but basically, Reggie helped her leave the country (idk whether to make him a villain or some kind of loose cannon/antihero type of guy. Like, he's awful most of the time, but he's also one of Stephanie's oldest friends, and he can be genuinely nice when he wants to be. Especially to her. He needs to be in trouble tho lol. I think the thing about him is that he gets away with his awful behaviour easily, whereas Stephanie is kind of forced to be held accountable, even if she actively runs away from the consequences of her actions sometimes...)

After that, she was stuck on her own again for a while and needed a job. So she applied for a job at a local Natia hotel (Natia is a famous line of hotels... kind of like Hilton, to give a known real-life example). She didn't have enough money for a cab or bus, so she had to walk the whole way there through heavy rain. By the time she got there, she looked terrible lol. But when she arrived, she bumped into a handsome young man who kindly helped her out. He got her a room and some clothes to change into, which helped in making a good first impression and whatnot. She got the job!

Later, she found out that the guy's name was Jordan Natia. The son of the hotel line founder (he also owns the hotel she got a job at). She thanks him for her help, and he invites her for dinner... and the rest is history.

And by history, I mean she ends up marrying him lol. Dylan finds out that she now lives at the resort that he and his family friend are currently staying at. She also has a baby daughter named Mia (short for Miranda. Not suspicious at all). She loves her life so much right now. She's always prided herself on being a strong independent woman who can take care of herself, but she's surprised at how much she's enjoying being a stay-at-home mother and housewife lol. She loves spending time with her baby, and she loves her husband a lot, too. He takes good care of her. However, similar to Ben, he doesn't really know all that much about her (Jordan goes through a similar arc to Ben's in Book 2, where he finds out the truth about Stephanie, and it changes the way he sees her. Minus the cheating lol).

Dylan is shocked at how much Steph has changed since the last time he saw her, but he's happy for her at the same time. He can see that she's genuinely happy and seemingly at peace, which is great.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, Charlie has decided to propose to El. He's taking it VERY seriously - even asked for her family's blessing and everything. They all said yes... even Adam lol (he's grown to like Charles by now). One summer evening, he pops the question (in a truly beautiful and romantic way btw), and Elise says yes in the moment, but she doesn't know if she truly feels ready for marriage yet. Something about the situation feels wrong to her, but she doesn't know what it is. However, instead of communicating her mixed feelings to her now fiance, she decides to distract herself with hangouts with her family and friends, as well as getting into her work and other hobbies, preferring to think about anything other than her problems (man, does THIS sound familiar lol). Charlie starts noticing a change in El's behaviour and it begins to really upset him (especially since Bret is one of the people she starts spending more time with, and we all know how she feels about him), causing more strain in their relationship. It only gets worse when they find out about Stephanie's whereabouts...

Dylan messages the others about his trip everyday through a group chat. One night he reveals that he's reunited with an old friend of theirs and sends a picture of him and Stephanie hanging out. The others are shocked. Elise especially.

The situation started becoming somewhat of a controversy in the news... people started talking about it more online, many blogs and news websites (including The Looking Glass) started covering it. Alice made a video on YouTube talking about it (and it came from the unique angle of her knowing the person from school and being their friend and everything. She didn't mention Steph by name, though). It blew her channel up.

The story of Stephanie's escape was quickly resurfacing back into people's minds after being forgotten for such a long time. And this wasn't good for Steph lol. Especially after finally making a life for herself that she was genuinely truly happy in.

But that's not the end of the story.

I'll tell you the rest in part 2 of this summary!

[artbyblastweave]

Due to my schedule I generally only see the new episodes of MAWS the Tuesday after they air, so I haven't seen the latest one yet. That said:

The set-up at the tail end of episode 4 goes a long way towards rehabilitating the traditional 1950s "Lois Lane trying to ferret out Superman's secret identity" plot beat. In the 50s it was just weird superdickery fodder, an extension of the cartoonish sitcom runaround that ate all superhero comics alive from the inside at that time. This iteration of it is more grounded in what's already been shown. In a story that takes itself seriously, there's no way that an antagonistic pursuit of Superman's secret identity wouldn't lead to some kind of disaster. But this version of Lois Lane is A.) pointedly career-focused and Out For Her Big Break, to the detriment of her friends, even if she comes to feel bad about it on reflection, B.) in a position to feel personally slighted because she connects the dots after she seals the deal on a relationship with Clark in his civilian identity, C.) has a specific hangup about people close to her keeping information from her (that's what the scene with the phone call from her father is doing.) The perfect cocktail to intelligently execute a really stupid plan.

And, from the other direction- Clark hasn't exactly been given a ton of confidence that Lois is a person he could trust with information this sensitive, has he? His formative experience with her involved her manipulating him into directly disobeying his boss on his first day on the job because she was so sure she was onto something. She specifically wants to blow open the Superman story for the sake of her career, regardless of how much damage it might do to the guy behind the costume- how much confidence should he have that he'll get any special treatment? Also worth mentioning that the Superman persona in this continuity post-dates Clark having to bust out the powers in public to save Lois and then having to professionalize his persona in a hurry because there was no going back after that; this isn't a long-kept secret, it's an emergent situation that he only sorta-kinda opted into and hasn't totally figured out the significance of. Contrast S:TAS, where Superman goes into his weird situationship with Lois being basically fully informed about his own background and capabilities. Overall the fact that everyone involved is around 23 and all relevant events have happened within a three month timespan is making this work.

On a related note, with the benefit of hindsight- I guess one shortcoming of S:TAS was never having Lois work any of it out on her own time. In theory she was a side character in a show about Superman but she still headlined enough plots that it maybe should have eventually come up that she was dating her coworker in his superheroic identity? Going on picnic dates with Superman in costume and yet it never comes up that he's working at the next desk over from her in his civilian identity? I mean, even if she's making the active decision not to know, or if she suspects but for whatever reason decides to just leave it unaddressed in the relationship-that would say something fascinating about her character, right? About Clarks? An unresolved tension there that always bugged me.

[nobodyfamousposts]

If Adrien didn't have the ring, what do you think he would be doing? For me, he wouldn’t be at school al all, so probably just complaining about his life and doing model work?

Not salt, just genuine curiosity. I mean with the way the writers made him, there’s a 5% chance of him EVER suspecting his father as Adrien isn't curious about him and his relationship with Kagami would basically amount to "she's the girl I have fencer with, oh your mom is friends with my dad?"

So, at most we'd get his poutiness over not being out there or seeing his extra curriculars. It's not like he has a BIG interest in gaming, even when they say he watched anime, we're not really shown that.

It really depends on how you mean. Narratively vs storywise? It differs.

The biggest issue is that narratively speaking, the main source of entertainment in Adrien's scenes is usually Plagg. Adrien himself doesn't actually do much that's interesting. To be fair, he does more as Chat Noir, but criticism has been made that his personality as Chat Noir is so detached from his personality as Adrien with very little cross between the two that the two sides could arguably be two separate characters.

If you take the Ring away from him, Adrien has neither Plagg nor Chat to make him interesting as a standalone character. Most of the Adrien focused scenes are dependent on how other people react to or around him rather than anything he himself does. The stance of the writers and Thomas that he's perfect and never wrong wouldn't work in this way as Adrien is a passive character who is reliant on having others in the scenes with him. As it is, he's too insubstantial on his own to be able to carry a scene.

And made worse by the fact that most of Adrien's relevance to canon comes from the attachments the writers have given him to other things. Son of the villain. Top model. User of the Black Cat Miraculous. Hero of the city. Friend of Plagg. One half of the love square. But taking away the Ring removes a majority of that relevance. He'd still be the son of the villain, but we're going on five seasons now where that has yet to really matter.

So narratively, either Adrien would need to be removed from the story to offer time and energy to other things or some change would have to be made to Adrien and how he acts to make him work as a character. He would have to DO things. And without the Ring—without either Plagg or his identity as Chat to work off of, he would need to be able to stand out on his own. He would need to have real flaws that he would need to address and a range of emotions that isn't stuck on one of three settings. He would need to be a person instead of a plant. And he just can't do that with the current setup of canon.

That's just narratively/meta wise. But if I was to go story-wise...

Treating Miraculous as a real story and Adrien as a person, I'd imagine that without the Ring, other things would fill in the gaps in his life.

Let's bear in mind that Adrien got the Ring because he helped Fu that first day. Let's say he didn't. Fu wasn't there. So there was nothing to distract him from getting into school and he makes it day one. Good news is that this prevents the gum incident that made up his first meeting with Marinette. Bad news is that without that, the classmates really only know him as Chloe's friend and are less than willing to befriend him as a result. Cue Adrien having to make more of an effort to interact with his classmates and make friends.

Gamer would mean more if Adrien was the one to beat Max in the tournament because he only took the time from his supposedly busy schedule in order to try to make friends and it backfires. Same with Horrificator as he would be dealing with Nino trying to use his involvement in the movie for some fame points. Plus all the issues that would come with Chloe still regularly bullying everyone and him being forced to actually witness and respond to it. Slowly but surely, he'd make friends with the others in the class.

But most of all, I personally would see him becoming buddies with Alya. They both like heroes and could bond over that interest and their favorites, as well as their admiration for their city's own hero, Ladybug. Alya canonically likes comics and makes herself into a sort of Lois Lane. Adrien seems to have a thing more for anime, given his seemingly practiced magical girl transformation ready to go from Origins. So I could see the two of them becoming friends. Alya running the Ladyblog and being a journalist. Adrien being her assistant, her Jimmy Olsen if you will.

Cue the two of them having more dual screen time and shenanigans as they record akuma fights and hang out with each other. This would also add to more issues with Adrien's relationship with Gabriel since he would no doubt disapprove of his son's interest. It could also play into Adrien's development of his own interests outside of being a model, especially if he realizes he'd rather be the one on the other side of the camera than the one in the photos.

Then grow into Alya and Adrien trying to track down who Hawk Moth is...and the implications as they start to get ever closer to THAT particular revelation...

[mariana-oconnor]

The Dying Detective pt 1

Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman.

Yes! Mrs Hudson content. The recognition she deserves.

His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London.

Yep, long-suffering. Let's be honest, the woman should have thrown him out long ago. But at least he's paying her good money.

She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.

Have we seen any examples of him actually disliking women? We've seen him frustrated by them, certainly, or rather by his lack of ability to read them clearly. We've seen misogyny, yes, in line with some of the thinking of the time 'can't tell Mary Sutherland she's being financially abused because it wouldn't do any good'. But Holmes has on multiple occasions, only in the few stories we've read so far, championed women in many ways. I haven't reread A Study in Scarlet or The Sign of Four before reading these, so I can't say about them, but this insistence on Watson's part that he doesn't like women is just weird.

Is that just Watson not understanding that Holmes isn't attracted to women? Like, Watson just can't comprehend how anyone wouldn't see a pretty woman and be overcome, so the fact that Holmes is apathetic to that just Does Not Compute and therefore must mean he dislikes them? Like an on/off switch?

Hoo boy, Watson, I'd love to introduce you to the Kinsey scale.

"He's dying, Dr. Watson," said she. "For three days he has been sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day."

Mrs Hudson is not a trained physician... although I'm not sure how accurate actual doctors were during this period of time. Had germ theory made the big time yet?

Wikipedia says that the in-story date (1890s) is about the time when germ theory was taking over from miasma theory, so by the time this story was published (1913) it would have been pretty well established.

That's not really relevant, I just find the history of medicine and disease fascinating in a lot of ways. For so much of history we just made shit up and hoped it would work. Some of it really did and some of it really didn't, but we didn't know why, so we made up reasons. And given that this was set at a major transitional period in that history, honestly Watson's medical expertise is probably half guess work and wishful thinking... sorry Doctor. I mean, hysteria is still a diagnosis at this point.

"He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since. For these three days neither food nor drink has passed his lips."

I think I know why he's not looking too good.

"Stand back! Stand right back!" said he with the sharp imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis. "If you approach me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house."

We've already had at least one story in which 'don't look at me too closely' was a massive red flag. It's sort of a nice symmetry to have Holmes using it here. Why can't he come any closer, Sherlock? Huh? Why?

"But why?" "Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?"

Oh look, that's another red flag right there. Honestly, Holmes, you could have at least made some effort at 'you might catch this illness' or something like that. Although I guess maybe Holmes doesn't believe in germ theory? Is he a miasma kind of guy? Or is this one of the areas in which he's just nonsensical and believes in the humours or something like that?

But 'you can't come closer to me because I don't want you to' to your friend the doctor who was summoned specifically to try to help you is just... No, obviously, Watson isn't entitled to an explanation or a reason. Holmes doesn't owe him anything. But on the other hand, Holmes specified that he would allow Mrs Hudson to get Watson. What did he think was going to happen?

I don't remember this story at all, but based on context clues and knowledge that there are more stories to come, I'm going to guess that he's faking it.

"I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra--a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious."

Ah, there we are. You couldn't have led with that?

Did you get it from a giant rat?

Sorry, I should be more serious, Holmes is dying. He's dying.

(He actually is if he's not drunk anything in 3 days. Holmes, you moron.)

"Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs with me of an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so old a friend?"

I mean obviously Watson wasn't going to listen to him, but whatever.

"Holmes," said I, "you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child, and so I will treat you."

Watson, you're being creepy again. Like, people do need to consent to treatment, my man. I guess, probably not in this time period? You could just say 'they're hysterical' and have done with it, but still. Consent is important. Agency is important. Let's be ethical about this, huh?

Do I think this is all fake and Holmes is only saying this so you won't see through his ingenious ruse? Yes. Do I think you should still respect his wishes and not touch him? Also yes.

✨Consent✨

"If I am to have a doctor whether I will or not, let me at least have someone in whom I have confidence," said he.

Dude, you literally asked for him. Literally. Asked. For. Him.

You are gaslighting him so bad right now. Holmes! Stop abusing your friend. Stop it! Bad detective! No biscuit!

No one in this scene is coming across well, rn, by modern standards.

"In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson, and, after all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say these things, but you leave me no choice." I was bitterly hurt.

Holmes is being a bitch here, and I will absolutely say it. Watson, your ethics are shaky, but your feelings are valid.

"Possibly not. But I happen to know that Dr. Ainstree, the greatest living authority upon tropical disease, is now in London. All remonstrance is useless, Holmes, I am going this instant to fetch him."

Uno reverso, Holmes!

Honestly, Holmes's worst misjudgement here is thinking Watson would let him get away with dying without doing anything. Did you really think he was just going to say 'oh well, that's a pity; I'd best go home and start writing your eulogy.'

His misreading of the person he is literally closest to in the world is just such a massive blind spot here.

"You won't take the key from me by force, Watson, I've got you, my friend. Here you are, and here you will stay until I will otherwise. But I'll humour you." (All this in little gasps, with terrible struggles for breath between.) "You've only my own good at heart. Of course I know that very well. You shall have your way, but give me time to get my strength. Not now, Watson, not now. It's four o'clock. At six you can go."

Such a dramatic bitch right now. OMG. 😂😂😂

"You will seek help, not from the man you mention, but from the one that I choose."

I get that there's a time issue here, clearly, because Holmes is so insistent on 'six o'clock', but I feel like he could have handled this better.

"By all means." "The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you entered this room, Watson."

Wow.

All modern adaptations are based entirely on this scene, huh?

With fairness to Sherlock, it does seem like Mrs Hudson is at least correct about the starvation and dehydration and we all know being hungry makes people irritable. And being dehydrated makes you kind of loopy and gives you a killer headache. So he's not making the best decisions right now, if that's the case.

We all know what he really needs right now:

Then, unable to settle down to reading, I walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated criminals with which every wall was adorned.

I love this description. Imagine sitting in this room with just the worst criminals of all time staring down at you from every wall. True crime chic. Serial killers watching you from every angle. It's absolute nightmare fuel and more what I'd expect from, like, a themed bar that was set up in an old prison.

I' can't imagine it. I'm glad he keeps this to his bedroom and out of the public areas. I can't imagine it would put his clients at ease.

To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor had somewhat weakened, for poor Holmes was so obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous to leave him.

To be fair to Watson here, while often in the stories he seems unnecessarily dense about things, in this case his thoughts are entirely justified.

How much money in his pockets, only half the gas to the fire, pick the box up with sugar tongs. (Poison one assumes)

It may surprise you to know that the man upon earth who is best versed in this disease is not a medical man, but a planter. Mr. Culverton Smith is a well-known resident of Sumatra, now visiting London. An outbreak of the disease upon his plantation, which was distant from medical aid, caused him to study it himself, with some rather far-reaching consequences. He is a very methodical person, and I did not desire you to start before six, because I was well aware that you would not find him in his study.

So this guy poisoned a lot of people with this, huh? That's what I'm getting. And you couldn't have provided this information earlier in such a way that Watson would have stayed with you until then? You had to go the mad route of locking you both in a room together, while not letting him touch anything or talk to you?

"You will tell him exactly how you have left me," said he. "You will convey the very impression which is in your own mind--a dying man--a dying and delirious man. Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem."

I like to think that Holmes always has at least one little tangent like that going on in his brain, and he's just decided that he'll say it out loud right now to increase the impression of delusion and madness. But actually this is just a glimpse into his head on a normal day.

I do something similar, but I actually do ask the random questions out loud. My immediate family take them seriously, but other people tend to look at me like they are worried there is something wrong with me.

But the answer I have to Holmes' question is predation. Lots of things nomming on oysters. Humans, for one.

His nephew, Watson--I had suspicions of foul play and I allowed him to see it. The boy died horribly. He has a grudge against me.

So, he already poisoned his nephew. Good to know. Good to know

Make any excuse so as not to come with him. Don't forget, Watson. You won't fail me. You never did fail me. No doubt there are natural enemies which limit the increase of the creatures. You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible! You'll convey all that is in your mind.

That's what I was saying, Holmes. Predation. I'm glad to know you've done your part to prevent the Oysterpocalypse. Good man.

I have never eaten an oyster, I am falling down in my duties.

I left him full of the image of this magnificent intellect babbling like a foolish child. He had handed me the key, and with a happy thought I took it with me lest he should lock himself in. Mrs. Hudson was waiting, trembling and weeping, in the passage.

Clearly everything is going according to plan, but Holmes you owe these two so much for putting up with you this time.

I still don't remember this story. I am feeling very Gandalf in Moria right now, but my nose says there's something very fishy about Holmes' illness, and it's not the oysters I'm smelling.

[satanfemme]

hello you are really funny and have good takes and I have a puppy crush on you??? can you please tell me more about your visual novel :) what is your favorite page you've drawn so far?

hehe thank u :3c this is so flattering!

since u didn't specify what u want to hear about my visual novel, I'm just gonna ramble about what's on my mind with it if that's ok :-) (and I'll share my fav pages at the end ofc)

first random thought: the novel presents the character Case as the narrator/protagonist, but I think the secret real protagonist is Dane. case is in charge for the first chapter & most of the second chapter, but in the second chapter there's a turning point where dane becomes the center of the narrative (even as the story is still told from case's POV). I think this is fun. dane is the best character, and that's an objective fact.

second random thought: this is subject to change as I continue working and drawing from different sources, but right now some of the media that's inspiring my vn are: psycholonials, echo vn, the last house on dead end street, nekromantik, interview with the vampire (tv), hardcoded, midori, homestuck, fight club (book), and hellraiser.

third random thought: I think a big thing I'm worried about is the story (once it's finished) being misinterpreted. if it gets downloaded by Anyone who isn't one of my immediate friends/followers, I think there's a good chance someone's gonna miss the point or get "the wrong thing" out of it, as is the inherent nature of art. and I try to find peace with this, especially since it'll still be many months At Least before it'll be ready for release (if not longer considering I keep bouncing between different projects). but it's a story about a violent and unhealthy sexual lesbian relationship. + it deals with themes of kink, depression/mental health, transphobia, misogyny, and people living on the fringes of society. these are all themes that interest me, especially in horror, but they're also very prone to sparking backlash especially when coming from a smaller creator. or if not backlash, then the themes being flattened by the force of fandom culture. I spend a lot of time thinking about hypothetical outcomes like "what if I get called out for romanticizing transphobia, because I depict a character experiencing it" or "what if people ship case and dane (<-something that would be fine on it's own fwiw) so hard that they ignore the messier and more thematically relevant aspects of their relationship". or omg I Especially worry about "what if people see a depiction of a realistically messy kink relationship, decide it's wholly bad and evil, and therefor determine the story must be anti-kink or bad kink representation or something".

it's funny that these are the things I worry about actually, because irl I'm always watching horror that's way less sensitive or good-intentioned than my work is, and I'm always finding things to enjoy about it anyway (or often Because of the way it is - sorry for finding the horror genre interesting, flaws and all! as if it's my fault). like really and truly the internet is just a moral OCD generator. and it's my awareness of that that's pushing me to keep working on my visual novel despite my fears <3

also the most realistic outcome continues to be "like 5-10 people download it, only half of them finish it, and they just think it's like.... weird but alright".

as for my favorite page so far, it'd be one of these:

(cw for a guro image under the cut!!)

---

(the second image is censored for tumblr. & I'm hoping what's still visible doesn't get me in trouble.)

this first image is my fav cause case is both scary and kinda hot... and I'm into that. I'm not a masochist but I'd let her tie me up and beat me with her crowbar at least once. whatever. this drawing isn't technically done yet but I just need to add more filters/effects to it basically.

this second image is my fav cause it's just really pretty to look at imo. I did a more painterly style with it (different pages have completely different art styles & I don't care) and In My Humble Opinion I think it captures a really nice balance between horror/disgust and eroticism, which is what I need it to do for the scene it's in. idk what other people see in it, especially in this post where it's removed from context lol oops, but whenever I look at it I simultaneously feel the emotions "wow this is so beautiful" and dread. which is great, that's such a good combo of emotions. I love dread!! give it up for dread!

[thetalentedmrwulf]

Abstracting Money in PF2E

Percolating something in my brain about Pathfinder 2e to abstract money / treasure. I like big damn hero / big damn villain stories, and if we're going to spend a session shopping, I'd prefer if it was because we had to find merchants that had what we needed and gossip about rumors than balance a ledger.

Prototype in my head is as follows -

Pathfinder 2e attaches Levels to most things - settlements, items, et al. Item levels give DMs a decent idea where in the power scale something is, settlement level indicates power level acquirable in that place, generally speaking. Items tagged Uncommon or Rare are harder yet to find even than that and may even be questing foci.

Further, because the game has proficiency equal your level + a bonus equal to how proficient you are (Trained +2, Expert +4, Master +6, Legendary +8), it also has pretty standardized difficulty rolls. The correct difficulty for a Level 10 problem is easy to chart or calculate, whichever you prefer, with stock modifiers for tweaking up or down if its relatively easy or hard in that instance.

So.... just use Level and a money stat to get what you need. First, we abstract money. Make the stat "Coin" (just because stealing from Blades in the Dark is fun.) Quantity of Coin for a task should map right to the Encounter builder - Trivial gives a Meager Reward, Low gives a Modest Reward, Moderate gives a Major Reward, Severe gives an Excellent Reward, Extreme gives an Epic Reward. This isn't an exact science like the encounter builder is; this should be based on the priority a person requesting a problem be solved views it as. Use the already existing "Make a Request" action to haggle over money or request tangible assistance since it already uses the built-in disposition system. Keep in mind, each party member gets one of these when completed. Then, for social, exploration, or combat encounters as relevant, hand out smaller Rewards from 1-3 as the quest progresses.

Now, when you need to buy an item, use the default level difficulty chart / math for any item you need. If the item is more than 4 levels lower than your level, presume you can purchase as many as are reasonably available. Then, as long as you have any "Reward" in hand, you can roll to buy something, adding the bonus of the Reward your risking. Each level of Reward gives you a +1, +2, +4, +6, or +8 depending on the level. Get a Critical Success, you get the Item for a great deal, you can buy a second Item of equal value and the Reward goes down a level. Get a regular success, and it's the same as a Critical, buy you only successfully purchase one item. Get a failure, and you purchase the item, but your Reward goes down by two. If you can't decrease this Reward by two, you owe the merchant a favor in return. If you Critically Fail, the item is harder to come by than you imagined and you're going to have to pull some strings to get it at all, potentially taking a job or quest. On getting the result, I think the player can always choose to walk away from getting the item if the price is too steep.

If you really want to lean into the idea of Uncommon, Rare, and say, Legendary items of certain levels being tough to acquire, make it so services or items rendered REQUIRE a certain level of Reward to make the roll. The important part of this system is you NEVER fail to acquire the item. It's just more expensive than you intended or more roundabout.

Feats that already modify getting a better price can be retrofit or new ones can be created that let you also add Cha, Int or Wis, or use a Skill in place of the Reward to haggle a better deal. I also think this could tie into Crafting nicely with the system that already exists.

That's all for now!

[mechaknight-98]

In defense of the author

A rare literary criticism from a smut writer

Recently I had a chat with my nameless friend who is also a fanfic writer, together we talked about literary theory and criticism.

As usual, he brought up “The Death of the Author” which is the fundamentally worst and least media-literate theory. Allow me to explain using The Boys. Something I can talk loads about because I hate both the comic and the TV show.

For those who don't know what “The Boys” is, it is a multimedia franchise about a series of men killing superheroes. That started out as a comic by Garth Ennis.

Recently I have been seeing the increasing sentiment that the show is better than the comic. Which is super divorced from reality. The comic and the show are two different mediums written for two very different Audiences. The show is a mush of satire directed at celebrity culture and political idolatry that uses the symbolism of superheroes as a thinly (and at times extremely hollow) anti corporate message.

The comic on the other hand is an aggressive send up of every major trend and trope in comics at the time of the early 90-00s. A fact that is completely lost on those who only watch the show or consume very little comic media.

This divide can't be further noted then by the usage of the character Black Noir(pictured above.

Spoilers ahead

In the comic Black Noir is the clone of Homelander the main antagonist through the series and was made as a contingency plan by Voight to deal with Homelander should he ever get out of control. This specific plot point is relevant as around this time many comics were hitting their clone/edgy phase. Where everything had to be as gritty and as dark/convoluted as possible. For example, the death of Superman, the watchmen graphic novel and Spiderman’s infamous clone saga were popular or written around this time. Garth Ennis who had written comics for some time at this point was cynical and jaded about a lot of the industry and so wrote the boys as the logical extremes to a lot of these storylines. This makes the Satire part make more sense as you know what he's satirizing instead of viewing the piece in a vaccum, which most people have done if you have only watched the show or comic movies over the last ten years.

The show takes a different approach. The show makes Black Noir an African American agent of voight who’s main goal is to be their “cleaner” and is unceremoniously killed and replaced. The approisnt bad per say but it lacks a lot of the bite of the comic’s edge because of how its framed in the show, As Homelander is written as one of the true evils and not one of many.

The reveal sucks because the show really hammers home how Homelander isn't special in a way the comic doesn't but doesn't really show it. Like homelander is the definition of big fish little pond and no one can really match him and he can honestly “Do whatever the Fuck he wants” the comic doesn't go as far yet in the reiteration if that point but because it relies on comic logic and reveals the point hits home harder.

How does this tie into death of the author? Well its simple. The show runner for the boys show has gone on numerous rants about how he hates the comic because he thinks its juvenile and edgy for no reason or silly. The issue is that's kinda the point. Is grotesque for the specific point of pointing out how dumb and silly things had gotten in the comic industry. Which was lost as most “superhero” media doesn't follow that trend so much anymore. So the show writer made sweeping changes that are now starting to catch up with his adaption as people begin to lose interest because you can only make the “bad Superman” story so many times before it just gets old. All this is to say typically there is a reason an author goes through the writing process to create a piece and the removal of the author often reomoves critical concepts and context as to a pieces’s point and understanding a piece.

Okay Rant over have a pretty Arin as compensation for listening to me rant

[bat-besties]

Your lili posts have me thinking a lot about Jade and her similarities with Rose. Both come from countries ravaged by war and colonialism and this shapes their childhood- and yet DC ignores it despite the potential for a poignant and meaningful story there.

Rose grew up in a determent camp. Jade’s father was a french colonialist and she was later sold into slavery(and when she escaped she was trained by a chinese freedom fighter). These are interesting stories not only in the way they uniquely affect cambodian and viet women but in the sense they just… are compelling?? Jade works well with Roy and her daughter DOES make her more interesting but her dynamic with her daughter and with MEN has an extra layer there that they just don’t care about.

Rose HAS this unqiue and formative trauma that’s never discussed. Despite who her mother was or the things she saw she is aggressive to other women constantly, she is centrally relevant for her daddy issues,which yea are important, are not the only thing to explore there! I hope this makes sense and I’m not just very tired

This does make sense!

That's a really interesting parallel - I didn't know about Jade's backstory! I assumed the man she was talking with was a fellow assassin and not someone who had such a formative impact on her life.

Yeah, I think it's very telling that DC does a relatively good job with Mia Dearden as a trafficked white girl (and even that has some misses) but when a women of colour has trafficking in her backstory it's not fully explored or explained. Especially when women of colour are more at risk of human trafficking than white women, but don't receive the same attention/horror at their situations.

In way too many DC comics, human trafficking victims are a blur of undifferentiated nonwhite and/or female characters freed from the back of a van by our hero and never seen again, used to show just how evil an organisation or villain is. So yeah, that makes it especially galling that Jade's escape from slavery isn't factored into her relationship to men and her daughter.

Like Jade, Lili escapes slavery and tries to give her daughter the best life possible, and like her, she's erased from her daughter's personality and life.

Intergenerational trauma specific to Cambodia (which was already being discussed in academia in the 90s!!) and Vietnam is completely ignored. The way both have to deal with their own trauma and break cycles of abuse to raise their daughters is never acknowledged, while any way they act on past traumas is heavily punished. [Lili not wanting Rose to know about Slade to protect her leaving Rose unprepared for him/Jade reacting violently to having her daughter taken away from her being portrayed as her being crazed]

And yeah, the Rose who initially protects a woman from an abusive husband as a fourteen year old and has tea parties with Dolphin and Lian is suddenly turned into a sexist.

(Rose not hearing out Jade about Lian because of her own trauma and need to protect a little girl from the assassin parent coming on the scene was so PAINFUL and I am curious if they've interacted since)

Rose's valid and actually nuanced debate with Cassie about morality, the nature of redemption, etc, is portrayed as a catfight. It devalues both characters' arguments, but the racism of making Rose an oversexed Asian girl who says sexist things is much more egregious.

I also hate any Rose line along the lines of "I was raised in a brothel" because it never leads to a nuanced discussion of sex work but always means "sex isn't a big deal", which (a) I don't think anyone on any side of arguments about sex work thinks and (b) frankly would not be said if her mother and her were white. And of course, I don't even need to mention how horrible the Tim scene was for her character and background.

Similarly, you're so right that Rose's problems with authority are often seen as "daddy issues" which is so offensive because firstly, responding to abuse by a parent by struggling with authority is a genuine trauma response many people have. Secondly, she grew up for five years in an environment where soldiers abused refugees, and then she spent the next nine at risk of police abusing her mother and the other women because they were sex workers, and majority women of colour. She has really valid reasons not to trust people in authority, and when Eddie's being manipulated by the Doom Patrol, she's the first member of the Teen Titans to call bullshit and protect him. It's especially interesting because the manipulated members of the Doom Patrol are strongly disability coded and Caulder mimics ableist rhetoric to control them. Eddie, coded as newly disabled and white, is not used to having someone use bigotry to manipulate and control him, and I find it so interesting that Rose as a woman of colour is the first to worry about him. In the right balance, her distrust of authority is useful and insightful.

I honestly don't know enough Jade yet to have similar insight into her but I want to read more!

Overall, the Asian women in DC are so frequently screwed over, and I really think, being white myself, that white people need to stop discussing treatment of women in comics as shorthand for treatment of white women. For example, it might be overdone to focus on a white woman being a mother, but Asian women like Lili, Jade, Talia and more have their motherhood devalued and relationship to their children discounted. There's way too much reading material out there about treatment of Asian women in media to not work towards intersectional discussions of characters like Rose and Jade. Trying to untangle these characters from DC's racism/sexism and discussing them in their historical and cultural contexts is really rewarding and interesting.

[bonefall]

In light of recent DotC discussions, I gotta ask: anything in particular thought up for Owl Eyes, Sparrow Fur, and Pebble Heart? Personally I enjoyed Gray Wing's father-son relationship to Pebble Heart the most of all his kids. And with his siblings I find the positions they find themselves in at the end very interesting as first ShadowClan medic and first ThunderClan and SkyClan deputies. I know you don't like the way Sparrow Fur was brought to SkyClan via Tom, but I also wondered if you could think up any way for her to still end up there. I always thought they were perfectly positioned for drama if there were to be a followup to DotC.

I don't have too much planned for them quite yet, but I do know that it feels weird that the Clear Sky family is so prolific but it doesn't seem extremely relevant. At least not by the later supporting material.

Gray Wing has at least 6 including his adopted kits, Clear Sky has 3 surviving, Jagged Peak has 3, and Thunder has 4. 16 is an utterly ridiculous amount of kits. I'm taking a MACHETE to this family tree.

I really don't care for White Tail, Black Ear, or Silver Stripe. Gray Wing did not need to be finally 'rewarded' with a mate and even more kits, and I'm completely rearranging Moth Flight's story which makes them even more pointless.

As for Pebble Heart, well, in the same breath I'm rearranging Moth Flight's story I'm also reducing his role too. ALL of the original medicine cats are going to be her kits, so Peb's not ShadowClan's first medic.

I can easily find ways to arrange them going to other Clans, though. The Law of Loyalty won't be made for another generation or so with Cloudberry and Ryewhisker, so moving Clans isn't as big of a deal as it will eventually be... although, there is going to be an issue with how absolutely abhorrent Clear Sky's behavior is. It feels odd that people want to go there, even in-canon.

-I could even make Sparrow Fur into someone ambitious, instead of acting for the honor of her crappy domestic abuser dad.

-As for Pebble Heart, he can simply enjoy ShadowClan, or have a mate there. It won't be too big a deal.

-Owl Eyes is Thunder's awesome cousin so that's easy, he's still going to become Owlstar.

(side note; if turtle tail & bumble survive for their children's entire adulthood, I'll re-open the possibility of Slate. But for now I'm considering keeping Tom coming to take his kits back and Turtle dying to get them back, so Gray Wing becomes the parent they've lost, parenting them with Bumble.)

In any case, it's putting the cart before the horse, you get me? There's more important beats to arrange before thinking of where the characters fall into place in the song.

I need to figure out the story I want to tell with Bonefall DotC, and particularly where I want Clear Sky's, Star Flower's and One Eye's arcs to go.

[skaruresonic]

The whole deal with "But Sonic is inconsistent so who cares?" is kinda funny to me because, technically, it's true! The games have tons of inconsistencies big and small! From retcons to plot holes to inconsistent portrayals. God knows it's led to me barely giving a rat's ass to Sonic canon anymore!

Now find me even a single 30+ year old game franchise that doesn't have similar issues

Mega Man has similar issues.

Castlevania had to restructure its timeline in a somewhat arbitrary way to clear up some early fuck ups within canon

Zelda had to turn its timeline into a goddamn tree and even then they barely care

Metroid is pretty consistent as far as videogame canons go and even there you have the occasional "Eehh no this thing actually happened like this, ignore what the character said last game"

If a series is inconsistent wouldn't you want to, I dunno, make it MORE consistent instead of adding to the overall mess?

Maybe by "inconsistent" they mean "there are so many different adaptations out there that it's difficult to keep track," but even then, that wouldn't be the games' fault.

In terms of narrative, continuity, and core characterization, the series isn't all that inconsistent, honestly. Flanderization by its nature isn't part of core characterization but an exaggeration/bastardization of various traits (in other words, bad writing). And most retcons, such as Eggman having a grandfather and cousin in SA2 but not SA1, occur after the fact, revealing new information as it becomes relevant. It's not so much contradictory as it is just that what we didn't know then, we know now. (However, I would argue that of the entire cast, Knuckles is really the only one who qualifies as inconsistent. But that's for another time.) Each game is mostly standalone yet builds upon previous ones in subtle ways. SA1 references the Classic games; SA2 builds upon SA1; Heroes references SA2 and SA1; Battle references SA1, SA2, Heroes, and ShTH; Advance 3 builds upon Battle; SatBK hearkens back to SA2 with a memory Sonic relays about the Biolizard; Generations references all the games and includes a line that implies SatSR is canon; etc. Sure, certain stories aren't as tightly-written as they could be - one issue I have with Unleashed is that Eggman basically doesn't factor in in the middle of the story when he arguably should - but those metacontextual issues don't factor into whether the series as a whole is inconsistent. More and more I'm starting to feel like those who espouse this viewpoint don't pay terribly close attention to the games, because the games eventually explain themselves for the most part, anyhow. Or else you're operating based on misinterpretations of the source material. For example: "The moon blew up in SA2 so why do we see it in full in ShTH?" becomes a nonissue when you play Advance 3 and Riders and realize Sonic's world has two moons. "Money doesn't exist" is simply not true, because "financial communities" are said to be "impacted" by the Eclipse Cannon demonstration in SA2, Vector's motive is money in multiple games, and you can buy things with rings in Unleashed. "Why don't they say 'oh my Chaos'?" Because Chaos is the God of Destruction, not the world's creator? Also, Amy blasphemes "oh my God" and Sonic games have referenced hell before. So on and so forth. As for a lack of timeline... I honestly don't see it. There may be some weirdness with how Battle fits in, though that can easily be explained as it releasing concurrently with Heroes. Also, I thought it was fairly obvious that Mania/Forces represents a split in the timeline where Eggman obtains the Phantom Ruby at different points. But other than that, I really don't see how the series' timeline is inconsistent. Based on how each game builds upon the previous, there's really no reason not to believe that the games don't occur in chronological order for the most part.