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coyoteprince · 1 year

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more of an open question but what are some fun worldbuilding things you can think of off the top of your head? I want to hear more owo

Sorry for this novel

Waite has a grey (the kind that looks white) mare named Seraphim, who will make a minor appearance in comic. She's based on a Suffolk punch and Narragansett pacer.

All horses within Widderwood story have a dorsal stripe, no matter if theyre earthly or fae or whatever breed.

Likewise, almost every fae within Widderwood have ear tufts

Degare got his hat in a trade for sex from a Darlington priest, though it is a farmer's planter hat. His shoe style is also called a winklepicker.

Every person's soul is represented by a flame and each person has their own lantern (or lamp, or candle holder...) in Sandman's garden. From a design point, his garden has two principals: the light must always be a flame (no electric light), and time doesn't matter so modern lanterns are okay to depict, but only in this space.

Widderwood is technically steampunk, but I don't think it's going to be super obvious in comic unless you look super closely? Time rules are also funky: I've delayed invention of something yet moved up other things. It technically takes place during the 1880's, but plenty Edwardian and even modern day things pop up. No cars, but gramophones will soon be released. Coal is starting to die off in use and steam and some electricity are quickly becoming king. Prosthetics & aides are heavily decorated and become a hot tool to customize and be proud of. Women wear pants (though high society finds this disturbing) and can own land. Queerness & gay marriage isn't outlawed but its pretty weird to traditionals and queer identity is refered to as "the third sex" as is historical for that period. Those sorts of things

Primary community of Darlington is Caucasian, Black, and Native American, but all manner of people pass through thanks to the nearby port city

What is equivalent to the americas in Widderwood is made up of "territories", which I've been leaving vague because I cannot manage to care about building political empires, I just want two dogs to kiss. Either way, Darlington is ruled by English-equivalent, but original England-equivalent got overthrowed and wiped off the map. Southern state-equivalent, Eastern Canada-equivalent and some of the plains are under similar but different self-governing rule. Much of the western territories are aboriginal-ruled and the entire continent is much smaller than our world. These territories are all mostly on good terms with each other because this is just background flavoring. I'm trying to figure out a naming system for these territories or if it even matters since this story is pretty contained.

My partner bought me a vintage prosthetic leg from a firehazard of a thrift store just so I can use it as reference for Simon's false leg. It literally floats about the house in different spots and we just call it "Simon's leg"

Speaking of Simon, partner also bought me a Victorian book all about prosthetics which surprisingly is very empathetic and includes sentiments from actual disabled people of the time. I used this book to help me figure out what exact style of prosthetic Simon has, as well as his injury. His amputation took place mid calf and despite some mobility issues and how he looks, he's decently strong and has good endurance.

Waite is an Aries with pisces moon & taurus rising, Degare Gemini with scorpio & leo, Simon is Capricorn but idk his moon and rising. I don't give much thought to astrology but I think using it to build character personalities is very fun.

Widderwood mermaids are a combination of selkies and mermaids. They have front & back flippers and inhabit the same role as selkies in that there's many stories of marrying humans and their spouse stealing their skins.

Nuckelaaves are essentially slenderman to fae and no one knows what exactly they are

Darlington is known for their abundance of daisy wheels as a symbol of protection, which comes directly from my colonial cemetery special interest. They often top the margins of colonial tablet graves and have been historically used as a protective symbol against magic worldwide. In my personal practice, I've reclaimed them and they act as my main "religious" symbol, much in the way a cross or pentacle works, and despite the fact they were once used against witches

Darlington & Sullivan Forest geography is set in fantasy Massachusettes with influence from the entire region of New England and forests in Northern Georgia. Locations & buildings in the story will be based on a variety of locations I've visited and documented in person including: Salem Witch House, Bulloch Hall, Root House of Marietta, Atlanta History Museum Gardens & internal exhibits, and Allen County Historical Society & House Museum (the most important museum in my life and the reason why I am the way that I am today). I'm still picking the cemeteries I want to base on, but will likely be a mix of a cemetery I accidentally ran into outside of Salem and a variety of local Georgia + Ohio cemeteries from my childhood. I am hoping to visit Colonial Williamsburg as well as Historic Westville as further reference for town scenes. Yes I am really that intense that I've traveled states wide just to gather research for my gay dog boy webcomic

I have much more I could give, but I need to be careful with what I share to avoid spoiling all my work.

#widderwood

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purplekoop · 1 year

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Alright, let's break it down:

Overwatch Figure Collecting: the somewhat definitive breakdown

If you're a fan of Overwatch and want a cool way to showcase your love of its characters without actually playing the video game (a very fair predicament), then my utmost recommendation would be to get your hands on some of the variety of fantastic poseable figures available for... a good majority of the cast.

See there's one hang-up when it comes to collecting just about any cast of characters from an existing franchise in physical form, especially one as large and varied as Overwatch's: not every character gets to be in every lineup. While some get close, as of now there isn't a single series of figures that contains every single Overwatch hero, even just from the original lineup from the initial 2016 release.

To help alleviate this as much as possible, I've charted out every single current character (meaning this is a week away from being at least somewhat dated) to try and find the best option available for every character if you want a collection of figures designed around a 1/12th scale collection. If you're not familiar with the term, this scale means every inch of figure is equivalent to one foot of a life-sized character. These figures also tend to be called 6-inch figures, since most action figures in this scale are designed around fictional dudes that are around 6 feet tall. This is the standard scale for most modern action figure lines, such as Marvel Legends, meaning it fits the best with the most other lines of figures. This'll be helpful for when we have to mix figure lines, since it provides a standardized base with only slight deviations between the lines.

I'd also like to clarify: This will only be a discussion of figures, with at least one point of articulation. Yes, that low bar is important for later. This does still rule out several things that I don't feel fit this type of collection, such as keychains, other minor collectables the ungodly overpriced statues on the official Blizzard store.

All that said, let's start with my favorite Overwatch figure series, and my highest recommendation, especially for a beginner collector like myself:

Hasbro's Overwatch Ultimates series

Released in 2019, the Ultimates series is a line of figures produced by American toy juggernaut Hasbro. Hasbro has a long but somewhat shaky track record of making 6 inch figures, being particularly infamous for the aforementioned Marvel Legends line, a massive collection of Marvel figures that have a somewhat negative stigma among hardcore collectors for cheaper production value relative to their $25 USD price point.

Those complaints however are much harder to carry over to the Ultimates as far as I'm concerned. Every single character looks fantastic and extremely game-accurate, packed with detail and accessories, making them both great display pieces and fun to just play around with.

The line was released in two waves, each consisting of both individual character boxes and two packs. Each character came out at about 20 USD, with two packs predictably being about 40 USD. Reinhardt is a bigger figure in a big box, so he costs a bit extra, but you can find him for decent prices still.

Wave 1 consisted of Tracer, Sombra, Lucio, Reaper*, and Reinhardt individually, with two packs consisting of Pharah+Mercy (teehee) and Soldier 76+Ana*.

Wave 2 introduced Zarya, Junkrat, and Cassidy individually, and a two pack of Genji and Hanzo. It also has several recolors, with the only notable one for here being a 4-pack of Genji, Zarya, Pharah, and D.va, all featuring Carbon Fiber/Midnight skins.

So. Slight hiccup: Reaper, Ana, and D.va don't get their default skins in this line. Reaper only has Blackwatch Reyes look (seen above), Ana has her Shrike design (her masked vigilante look), and D.va only has the Midnight skin. She also doesn't come with her Meka, in addition to not being available by herself in-box. Reaper and D.va have alternatives that are higher quality and have the default skins, but Ana's only 6 inch figure is the Shrike design, so it's unfortunately my best recommendation.

From here, we're gonna keep a running total of how many characters we have figures for. I'm only going to keep a total of Overwatch 1's roster of 32 heroes, since OW2's new heroes have next to nothing as of now.

So with the Ultimates line, we have 12 characters with their default skins, but 3 more if you're willing to accept an alternative skin as a substitute, bringing us a "generous" total of 15 out of 32. Already almost halfway there!

If I didn't make it clear already, I highly recommend the Ultimates line, it's super affordable for such a good quality set of figures. I said before each figure was priced at 20 USD MSRP, but especially with online secondhand listings, the average is really closer to 15 per figure. Thanks to listings of multiple figures (called a "lot" if you're looking for them on those sites), you can pretty easily find multiple figures bundled together for less than they tend to be individually. Personally speaking, I've gotten 3 separate lots for less than 150 USD total, and already have the majority of the unique figures, and most of the extra recolors to boot. Seriously, don't slouch on this line, the value of what you get for what you paid is great. Just don't expect to find too many of them in physical retail stores, but maybe nab them if you manage to get lucky and find one for a good price.

But if you want something that's a bit higher quality in exchange for a higher price point, while still roughly fitting in with the Hasbro line, then that brings us to our next set of figures

Good Smile's Figma

Good Smile is a Japanese company that makes high-quality collectibles based on a variety of franchises, primarily anime and games. Their Figma line consists of 6 inch scale figures with extremely high-quality detail, extensive articulation, and tons of accessories to enable a variety of poses.

...If your first instinct as a collector is "wow, that sounds like it'll be really expensive!", then good job, you'd be correct! Between production costs and the extra complications of importing from another country, Figmas are pretty pricey to come by.

But what of their Overwatch offerings? Well...

We have 10 figures total here, 6 of which are familiar faces. Tracer, Genji, Pharah, Mercy, Soldier 76 (though he seems rare, don't count on finding him easily), and the cowboy guy are all here if you want a premium alternative to the Hasbro line for those heroes. For the extra money, you get better sculpting detail, better and more thorough paint jobs, more articulation, and more accessories, including better quality weapons, more hand poses, and even alternate face swaps. You can also take off Pharah's helmet or the cowboy's hat. These are substantial improvements, which... you'd hope for with the money, but whether they're worth it compared to the Ultimates alternatives is really up to you.

Speaking of alternates though, we get to the default skins for D.va and Reaper that I alluded to earlier. Reaper is about all you could hope for, while D.va comes with more accessories like a can of Nano Cola, her hat from the Shooting Star cinematic, and... still no Meka.

We do have some new faces here too: Widowmaker and Zenyatta. Both of which are fantastic figures with tons of accessories... and also the Figma price tag in full swing. Zen in particular I've rarely seen listed for less than 100 USD. He's probably my most wanted but least likely to get soon official figure.

So, back to our running total, we can add 2 more brand new figures, and also get to add the default designs for Reaper and D.va, making our generous total 17 of 32, and if we feel like being mean to Ana then we're at 16/32, exactly halfway.

And if we stick exclusively to official 6 inch scale figures... that's where the list stays.

But if we're willing to bend our expectations a bit, then we can look into some alternative options, starting with Good Smile's smaller scale line...

Good Smile's Nendoroids

Nendoroids are Good Smile's smaller figure line, featuring chibi designs of a wider range of characters, but with the general production value you'd expect from Good Smile, with the details and accessories not far from the Figma line. According to the website, most go for about 45 USD from the start, but secondhand listings may vary. The figures are on average about 10 cm, or about 4 inches for my fellow americans. They definitely don't fit exactly into our collection, but let's look at what's on offer for Overwatch anyways:

15 figures total, the majority of which we've already seen before in a more proper scale.

With that said, I do want to point out a special note with one hero here we've seen before:

We finally got a Tokki!!! Designed so D.va can fit into it and everything!!

...Sold separately. For. A lot. I haven't seen many listings either, so don't get your hopes up too high for nabbing this one.

As for the others, we have 3 heroes we haven't seen yet: Mei, Torbjorn, and a surprising appearance from Ashe, the newest hero we've seen so far. All of these come packed with accessories, including... B.OB.!

Well. I didn't say you get all of him.

Now, getting a high-quality item for Ashe is cool, but the real highlight of the line for me is Torbjorn. He comes loaded with articulation like a movable welding mask, and tons of accessories including an articulated turret, and even an armor pack from before his rework! The real reason I mention him though is. Well. It's Torbjorn. Aside from the one anime eye and some slightly off proportions, he's not gonna be too far off from what you'd want from Torb in a 6 inch scale. Better than the solution on my shelf currently at least, but we'll get there.

So, again, this line isn't exactly what this kind of collection is for, but if you want high production value, good accessories, and a better (but still a bit high) price point than the Figmas, then I think these would be a nice addition to the collection, if you don't mind a couple heroes being a bit on the stubbier side than usual.

Adding these to our gratuitous estimate, we're up to a clean 20/32 heroes! Not too bad, but there's one more note I'd like to touch on here before we move on to the last set of "figures" I'm gonna go over.

We've actually gotten confirmation that nendoroids for Kiriko and Sojourn are on the way!

Kiriko looks to be coming sooner, which makes sense considering. Japan. But hey! Cool to see OW2 heroes get something!

But to round out our cast of OW1 heroes... I dunno. I think we might have to take some... drastic measures.

Funko pops.

I don't think Funko Pops need as much of an introduction as the other stuff we've talked about today. The menace of every fandom-pandering mall store, it's hard to like anything even tangentially nerdy without one of these blank-eyed menaces taking the semblance of its cast.

Now, okay, these barely quantify as "figures". Even most dedicated Funko Pop collectors would be self aware enough to admit that. But remember my "one point of articulation" rule from earlier? Well. You can move the head around. That's. Something.

The main reason we're here though is that we're getting desperate. We've got 12 more characters to find, and have already ran out of actually decent figure lines with more characters. If they don't have a Funko of the character, they don't have anything for 'em.

And well, good news: almost every OW1 hero has a Funko Pop! And not only that, they're some pretty above-average Funkos to boot. Not just in quality, but even size for a few of them. Bastion, Roadhog, Winston, Orisa, and Wrecking Ball are all 6 inch "super size" pops, which at least helps them feel a little more in line than just the standard 3.5 inch ones. There's also pops of Symmetra, Doomfist, Moira, Brigitte, Baptiste, and even Echo. Every other hero we've already discussed also has one too. Even B.O.B. has a 6 inch funko! Currently the only one I have is Torb, who's on my Overwatch shelf as a rough proximity to scale with the others.

There's also more skin variants than I care to count, including OW2 variants for Tracer, Genji, Reaper, and Cassidy.

But yeah, add those new heroes up, and that brings us to... ...31.

31 out of Overwatch 1's cast of 32 heroes has a Funko Pop or other, higher-quality figure.

If you haven't been keeping a head count, that leaves Sigma out as the only one with nothing.

Don't feel too bad for him though, he's got every single Overwatch 2 hero keeping him company. Sojourn and Kiriko included, but at least they've got Nendoroids confirmed on the way. If you're curious why they skipped him but not Echo, it's because Echo is in a small wave of Overwatch 2 branded pops.

Now, if you feel like I've been too kind to Funko here, I'm gonna fix that real quick, because there's one more officially licensed series of figures right now. Good news, they're actual, non-chibi figures.

Bad news?

Funko's Overwatch 2 Action Figures

If you ever want to know what it sounds like to have a wet fart in Action Figure form, then pick up one of these things.

Other than featuring the Overwatch 2 designs, making them the only real poseable figures to do so right now, these things are completely worthless. First off, they're 3.75 inch scale, noticeably smaller than either of the other proper figure lines. They're also much, much, MUCH lower quality, not just in terms of looks (the style for Tracer's face makes me mad) and lacking accessories, but just general production quality. I've heard it's EXTREMELY common for limbs to be so loose on these things, the legs tend to fall out.

they're... technically at a lower price point. But they're still such mediocre figures, I can't in good faith recommend these to basically anyone. Get the decent pops like Bastion or Orisa instead if you for some reason insist on giving Funko money, at least those won't literally fall apart on you.

So, I said earlier Funko was our last stop, but there's one more thing I want to gloss over that some of you might've been thinking about already

Lego Overwatch

I didn't bring these up earlier since They don't quite count, and they feel like they warrant a full separate post once I get my hands on some of them where I can go into more detail, but Overwatch has a variety of Lego sets, featuring a good chunk of the cast in minifigure form, and some of the cast in a form that's slightly less "Mini", with Winston and Roadhog being special "bigfigs".

Reinhardt and D.va come in a set together featuring their armor and Meka respectively as the main builds of the set. It does mean that Rein outside of the armor is disturbingly normal size relative to the rest of the cast, but hey, cool builds aside from that. Hoping to get these soon actually.

I don't know how well these measure up to scale with the proper figures, but I wouldn't count on them fitting with anything besides the Lego sets, and in that context they look a little too big, but it's whatever.

Wrecking Ball also has a buildable mech, again not counting on it to scale great with the non-lego figures, but it's a fun-looking set still.

Going even bigger though, and we reach Lego Bastion.

Yeah this is why that cross promotion skin exists. It's a buildable Lego Bastion! It transforms! It's so massive it might actually fit close enough to the 6 inch scale! Ganymede looks... less than great, but hey, I'm not complaining too much besides that!

Obviously it's not DX9 Freeman (again, check my last post), but it's still really neat, hoping to get my mitts on this one soon too.

So... yeah! There's my breakdown of every major official series of Overwatch figures. Hopefully this helps someone out there get a better idea of what's all available and how complete of a collection they can expect to get. Again, I highly recommend the Hasbro Ultimates series, but really just get whatever you want with your budget and quality standards as a collector. If you get all the Funkos, reskins included, then hey, more power to you. Or if you just think this is neat and have no intent on actually buying any of this stuff, then I hope this rambling was at least entertaining.

(also I accidentally lost the Figma and Nendoroid sections of the post before needing to retype them so yeah this post took way too long to make, so seriously, thanks if you made it through this far.)

#overwatch #overwatch figures #figure collecting #action figures #action figure collecting #long post #like. wow it's long.

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awlumii · 2 years

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Speaking of Ancient Greece…

I don’t know whether someone has said his before a while ago, but how about Greek myth aus for Genshin characters?

Kazuha is Orpheus, without a doubt. And I love angst, so yay!

I can imagine Cyno or Xiao in Hades and Persephone if we perhaps cut some of the unhealthiness away from the relationship…

This one isn’t particularly romantic, but Albedo would definitely fit the bill for Pandora’s Box.

There are probably some other ones I could think of but my brain’s a little too dead for that at the moment…

-🎻 anon

i stopped in the ancient egypt section to take a break but GOODNESS, NOT ORPHEUS.. I'M EVEN MORE ANGRY BC IT FITS

i personally would try and stick cyno in some ancient egyptian myth for the sake of accuracy, but because i don't know them very well, i'd probably say xiao would fit the hades and persephone myth (but only if we're using the modernized, romantic versions because the actual myth is intended to be horrifying thanks to its purpose as a depiction of the fear that women and their mothers experienced with marriage back in those days).

pandora... y'know, i actually see very little of her in my studies of greek mythology — Iike despite her being reportedly the first woman and infamous for basically causing all of the world's problems (fun fact: she'd be the equivalent of christianity's eve) (fun "fact"2: the more colloquial term used now to describe causing a bunch of problems is "opening a can of worms"; "opening pandora's box" is used less frequently nowadays) she doesn't make much of an appearance.. she's also apparently zeus's other method of punishing prometheus for giving fire to mankind

sorry abt the infodump;; (its not like my knowledge is very useful anyhow, i'm generally wrong abt these kinds of things) but i'll happily discuss more later once i find some kind of bookstore or café to hole myself up in! rn, i think i'm gonna go look around the museum some more and then i'm gonna go on the hunt for food n whatnot 🥰

#[ 📭 — incoming! ]#🎻 anon #[ 💭 — thinking! ]#someone says greek myths and i'm like a dog with perked ears

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tactful-kind-daedra · 2 years

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~~Modern Verse Headcanons~~

[[So a lot of stuff is pretty standard for most Fates Modern Verses: Nohr siblings working under a huge family corporation. Hoshido is a rival one etc. So going off that- Part 1: The Standard]] -----------------------------------------------------------------------

-Garon is still the head of the company, and it’s probably one that deals in stocks. Lots of buying and money involved in all sorts of things. He may not be possessed by a dragon god, but Garon is just as likely to be charismatic for a deal as he is cut-throat and shady.

-Xander is, of course, set to take it over, but currently he’s really the one keeping it running. He tends to make sure things line up and all that. Usually the face of it more than anyone else, though his siblings come in as needed. Xander actually hates it since he’s very stressed under the pressure but rarely shows it. As expected. Bottle it until you crack~

-Daedra has her usual ‘modern story’ of being an orphan and basically just working her keister off the moment she can start/live on her own (16/18). She eventually gets to enroll in a college in her mid 20s, through full scholarship. Said college and scholarship are ... you guessed it: sponsored in some fashion by Nohr Corp. It’s not so much because Daedra is that smart (she’s intelligent enough but not a genius you know) but more as like a ‘be the best example of a student’ type thing. Basically Daedra’s roped into a crap ton of extra classes and school jobs and is basically living off caffeine, the need to keep straight As, and sparkling starshine. She’s handling it.... well-enough.

-Daedra actually has no idea who Xander or his siblings actually are. She’s vaguely aware of Nohr Corp and Garon as its head, and mostly for scholarship waffling. Thus, cue her mistakenly trying to get Xander to join after school clubs and activities while he’s there to oversee some things with the schoolboards. He, amusedly, finds it charming and just lets her go on for awhile. She’s very spirited and friendly (and also clearly has no idea he’s ‘famous’ or rich).

-Xander probably drops in on her for awhile, seeing how far the ‘act’ goes on. Daedra’s always happy to see him as she probably doesn’t have many friends with her busy schedule demands. Boy, can Xander relate with that~ I imagine Leo probably spills the beans - strictly out of annoyance. It doesn’t matter much, to Daedra anyway. She’s understandably very shocked but not upset. At first she’s sad, as she thinks she won’t get to see him anymore, as he’s clearly not going to attend the school.

-Their time together was basically dates without realizing they were dates. With their schedules, Xander and Daedra min-max by going for food or on shopping errands. This is where Daedra introduces him to the joys of Sonic’s (or the FE modern equivalent of a Sonic’s) because it’s 11pm and where else would you go? Get to have burgers and milkshakes and all fun things from the comfort of a car with your favorite tunes on the radio. ~Romantic Magic~ Xander’s first introduction to ‘peasant food’.

-Xander tries to treat her to very high class things, but it doesn’t go very well. Mostly because Daedra feels so bad about it as she absolutely can’t afford these places. And even though Xander assures her it’s his treat, it’s still a pressure on her. He does convince her to spend a weekend with him in a very exclusive and high end hotel though. Mostly because it’s very late when they’d have to part (it would be easier to just go to the hotel instead of dropping her at campus and him going back- Xander explains to her rational side) and at this point, he’s probably fighting with his Dad a lot. Xander claims it’s for business, but Daedra find out otherwise when they get there. Too late now~

-I haven’t pinpointed on what details I exactly want in this scenario. Other than Xander orders them lobster dinners for the room with the casual aloofness like they were Big Macs from McDonalds. Probably some serious life talking: wants and the future and supposed plans. Overall, he was initially stressed and angry and upset, but now he has a relaxing weekend with someone he genuinely enjoys spending his time with~

-I could probably use more stuff to fill out this area in time. Though, it’s notable that Xander absolutely does NOT ever bring her home. She gets introduced to his siblings early on, but it’s well established by all that Garon will not like her. Daedra is absolutely willing to bite that bullet though, either by going and putting a brave face or just... not ever meeting him for the foreseeable future. Xander makes the call for everyone’s sanity to choose the latter (minus his own, as Garon verbally rips his ass a new one constantly - for one reason or another).

-The major turning point is when Daedra graduates. Despite all this, she does manage to come away with excellent grades and a 4 year degree. It’s probably nothing too outlandish - I’d have to think something equivalent to tacticianing lol. ‘Business Strategist’ or something like that. -wink wonk- But now that she’s off campus life, she’ll have to find somewhere to live... and a job to pay for that ‘living’.

-Xander, obviously, is willing to just pay for something or get her work in the company, but Garon would be pissed. Xander knows it, Daedra knows it, they all know it’s a terrible idea. (Part of me thought having her apply to Hoshido Inc or whatever but I think that’s too messy) --------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Part 2 coming in another post for length purposes~]]

#headcanon #Modern Verse #Daedra and Xander #its been some rough brain days so i took to writing for my own enjoyment

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berrylover0571 · 2 years

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Fuck it it's time to vent my geeky Star Wars posting bullshit:

In no fucking universe outside of maybe a parallel reality within the Star Wars continuity are the fifth ever the good guys and should they ever be considered the good guys. The dark side unequivocally is a bad path that hurts everyone involved, and no amount of military might or Supreme Firepower can outrun the cosmic power of the sentient life force of the universe. There's no such thing as Jedi plot armor, Rose is not a bad character, you just fundamentally misunderstand what's plot armor is and what a bad character is.

The reason why Jedi plot armor supposedly exists is because Jedi are the good guys and they need to succeed, even when they fail fuck up and betray what they are supposed to do in the prequels, they're still unequivocally the better choice compared to the sith. The reason why is because the Sith want to eliminate anyone who opposes them, create a Galaxy built on might makes right philosophy. And the best part is, Jedi plot armor does not exist, there are bad jedi, fundamentally bad Jedi who do not understand the ideology of their own religion and utilize it in a weaponized manner against people, and they end up getting their just fucking desserts in every single instance they exist. From the bastard who decides to embrace the dark side because he thinks it's balance in Jedi Fallen order, to pong krell weaponizing the Clones against each other, they get their Just Desserts and are swiftly and justly dealt with. The reason why Reva survives? She forsakes the dark side she has embraced. The bad guys lose because they try and dominate people though and then attempt to dominate people because they are cowards and conquistadors and try and one up each other. We literally fucking see this in episode 8.

If you find it boring that the good guys win because the Star Wars equivalent of God is on their side, then go to a different universe and enjoy something else. I cannot express how much of a baby thing it is to bitch about the good guys winning. You literally have an entire Trilogy and TV show dedicated to the bad guys winning in the end, you're going to get another fucking one in acolyte. Imagine seeing wonderful stories, beautiful art, epic scores, probably one of the best illustrations of modern mythology in our lifetimes, and bitching about how the good guys win. If you want the bad guys to win go to Warhammer 40K, you get all the fun shit you want and more, because clearly you want to think about nothing but military tactics and cool evil Mystic space bullshit. This is so God damn frustrating, how could you watch 10 movies, several cartoons and TV shows, and still walk away with the wrong conclusion? How can you Huff your own goddamn paint that much?

Darth Vader's tragic! Not cool, tragic!

As is Darth maul, Darth tyrannus, they're all betrayed in the vainglorious attempt from a Mystic fascist to maintain an immortal Empire that is a delusion. By the time he gets to power he is a delusional monster that has no grasp on reality and an entire cult dedicated to his worship.

I utterly and deeply despise the Sith because they destroyed beautiful and wonderful people with complex stories who could have healed so much sooner than they did in order to build a massive Empire that crushes people under its foot under the vague gesture towards peace and freedom. The only freedom under the Empire is the freedom to die. Everything else is fought for.

How could you watch Andor and walk away with the idea that the clone wars were fine and that no one was manipulated and that one side was good? How could you walk away with anything other than a very heavy hatred for the machinations of war and a desire to destroy them?

Never mind the fucking dark side, how could you look at the jedi, who are in pretty much all Canon media depicted as pretty sensible and stable people, who give a shit about everyone they love including the Galaxy and it's strangers, and walk away with the idea that they don't and they are emotionless monsters?

Star Wars fans quite literally cannot grasp the idea, the very simple idea, that war is bad and that these giant machinations as cool as they look are fucking Cosmic level Horrors crushing you underfoot in the attempt to subjugate you?

Why in God's name do you think the good guys have smaller ships which look much more lived in and with far richer histories? There's a reason why the enemy ships are clean and the good guy ships are dirty, it's visual storytelling in its simplest form.

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dizzysdomain · 2 years

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Making Weight Loss A Reality: Advice On How To!

Many people want to lose weight. The thing is, a lot of people aren’t sure how to go about proper weight loss. Your progress along the road to weight loss will be sped up considerably if you use this article’s tips. You don’t necessarily need to do exercises when trying to lose weight. If you don’t like to exercise, this is especially important. Try to trick your mind by doing activities that are fun like riding a bike, going on a hiking trail, or throwing around the football as exercise. This can be rewarding and may not seem like work. A good way to lose some weight is to go for an outdoor hike. Hiking allows you to enjoy the beauty of nature while burning calories. The tougher the hike, the bigger amounts of calories you will use. If you are exercising to lose weight, focus on cardiovascular exercises to get the job done. Cardio exercises keep your heart rate elevated, which in turn burns fat more quickly. There are many different cardiovascular exercises you can do to keep it fresh and fun. You don’t have to give up taste while trying to lose weight. In the past, most healthy food was bland and didn’t taste very good. Today, modern sweeteners and preservatives allow you to enjoy diet food that tastes just like its high-fat, carbo-loaded conventional equivalent. This can mean you still enjoy the taste of what you are consuming, while continuing to drop some pounds. Finding exercise that you enjoy is crucial if you are going to be successful. Incorporating something smoothie diet plan fun into your exercise routine can help increase your level of motivation. Walking with family members, pets or friends can help add to your level of enjoyment. Add an exercise program when trying to lose weight. If you have time and money, become a member of your local gym. Other excellent exercise alternatives are Pilates, jogging, walking, or Zumba. Talk to your doctor before you begin any exercise program, especially if you have health issues. Some exercises can be completed at home, which is convenient and effective. When dining out, share the meal with your friend. Usually, the portion a restaurant gives is too big for just one person. Ask for two plates and split your meal with a friend or family member instead. You’ll save money and eat fewer calories. Treat yourself. If you’re sticking to the diet you chose, it is okay to reward yourself every now and then with a slice of cake or even with a small glass of wine. This does not mean you have have failed at your diet. Rather, it means you have earned the right to a minor splurge, having done so well with your dieting efforts. Don’t overdo it with rewards, though. Remember that your weight loss program is not intended as punishment. Instead, you should look at it as a lifestyle change. Make sure to include plenty of fresh, healthy foods in your diet plan. When you are dieting it is easy to fall into the trap of eating low calorie foods with little nutrition. Eating foods that are nutritious for you will help to not only shed unwanted pounds, but will also make you healthier. Sometimes, you may engage in a diet that is not successful. Make sure that you sign up for a gym, or at least commit some kind of exercise program. You must complement any diet with exercise. This way, you can burn all of those calories that you are eating. Before you start losing weight, find out how much you should lose. Then stop and think boroughs the fact that you want to lose that amount from your own body. You should have the inspiration needed to get rid of it now. If you start to feel hunger pangs, do not eat for at least fifteen minutes. Often times boredom or thirst can be mistaken for hunger. Go for a fifteen minute walk and have a glass of water. If you are still hungry after this, than it is time to eat a real meal. When eating at a restaurant, tell the waiter to hold any complimentary chips or bread that comes with your meal. Temptation is to hard when it’s sitting right in front of you. No one diet will work for everyone. By eating a diet that is low carb, many people experience results within seven days. But, you need to select the diet that is most likely going to bring you success. You should always take a before picture in just your under clothes even though it will make you uncomfortable. Before and after photos are helpful tools in a weight loss program, as it can help you build your confidence, and increase your motivation to continue on your program. Perhaps one of the most important elements in weight loss is understanding that you can have items you crave, but in moderation. If you feel the need to eat fries, buy a child’s portion. However, you must remember this is a treat, and you should not eat them every day. Take an odometer everywhere you go. Health experts suggest that you walk at least 10 thousand steps during the day to stay healthy and lose weight. If you discover that you are under 10,000 steps, add more to your routine. Incorporate dips and sauces onto your snacks if you are eating fruits and vegetables. Try using natural apple sauce in order to get a great tasting, low calorie dip perfect for melons and bananas. The food that you eat will then become more tastier, and you will be able to easily reach your weight loss goals. Get sexually active! Having a healthy sex life can offer a bit of exercise and curb your appetite, as well. This advice pertains to your own situation and beliefs, but it can benefit you greatly in terms of fitness. You should feel much more confident and be ready to lose weight after reading this article. Remember that the hints here only work if you apply them. Start working at it today and you’ll see results soon.

#the #smoothie #diet #plan

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absolutebl · 3 years

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This Week in BL

April 2021 Part 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Second Chance Ep 3 - this is proper YA, they are dealing with actual high school issues, picking uni, first crushes, online dating, etc... We even got a senior prom trope which almost never happens in Thai stuff (just the freshman uni competition variant). Standard plot pacing means PaperFah’s kiss was too early, might indicate we’re moving to uni in the second half of the series? Tropes included: let me feed you, hand hold, black & white striped shirt, floppy drunk & first kiss.

Y-Destiny Ep 3 - the first MaxNat ep. Such fun to see them playing different characters. This one is enemies to lovers, tutor/student, but it’s using the “poor little rich kid loose cannon” archetype. Nat is doing his best, but it’s leaving me cold. Lots of tropes tho: boyfriend’s closet, floppy drunk, pillow clutch, the loom & water bottle.

Lovely Writer Ep 8 - solid installment, good use of many tropes. I really like the leads and I’m glad there isn’t much side dish action, SibGene gave us: punish, touch your face, boyfriend claiming, kissing, sleep cuddling, symmetry, rooftop, cheek kiss, hand hold, and pillow clutch.

Call It What You Want Ep 3-4 - couldn’t find the subs, don’t really care, will watch if it crosses my radar, otherwise I’m just not into it.

Brothers Ep 11 - the “everyone wants Chol” show continues (but WHY?), he and Tri are cute together, and now I kinda just want Prab to end up with the twins. I’m confused by the teachers, but Boston showed up (from UWMA), and my boys KhunKaow got together (YES!), so I’m ultimately delighted with the episode.

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 2 - the makeover happened, and we go from cute with glasses and braces to cute without them. (I’m reminded of those 90′s Pygmalion teen movies where the girl has glasses + ponytail and then *GASP* does not and *GASP* she’s HOT. This was the BL version.) Meanwhile, writers better be careful with Pi, he’s getting too tsundere to like. Did you see they gave AJ a 2gether music intro & pick up line? Well, it’s actually his brother JJ who plays Ohm in 2g. I cackled. GMMTV - you so cheeky.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 5 - half way point. My poor confused babies. It was a really sweet episode... if what happened before hadn’t happened in the way that it had. Also, these boys have a GREAT friendship but are probably the worst advice givers ever.

Most Peaceful Place (Vietnam) Ep 3 fin - so cute! Our boys confessed and got together. There was an adorable mutual kiss (I love me a mutual, like Ingredients). Afterwards, they actually seemed to communicate with each other about both sex and their relationship. OMG. How original for BL! This was the last episode, so the series is short, but I still enjoyed it very much. RECOMMENDED.

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 1-2 - oh boy this one is rough, we started out with homophobia child abuse and moved on to family drama + drunken dub-con one night stand. But production values and subs are better than normal for Vietnam (You Are My Boy levels) + our queer babies are out & proud + it’s higher heat + I’m weak. So I’m watching.

Word of Honor (China) Ep 25-27 - honestly not much happened, lots of back story. Things are looking dire for the ghosts unless they can turn the Scorpion (I LOVE HIM, he’s my precious deadly baby). Don’t know how they managed to make loosing a battle with an immortal sword god ex-friend cute... but they did. Did some calculations and at 36 eps, mathematically speaking, ep 30 will be the equivalent of a standard BL ep 11. Should I be scared for next week?

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 1-2 - it’s so effing adorbs, soft bois do old fashioned tropes like arranged marriage + evil stepsisters meets the more modern fake relationship + secret identity in a surprisingly comfortable mix. It launched with baby is a floppy drunk, forced proximity, performative I saw you feed him, and some fun gay panic. It’s a lot lighter and faster paced than I was expecting, but this is Korea so I don’t know why I’m surprised.

Stand Alones

K-pop band OnlyOneOf dropped a new MV that is basically BL bait, using many of the tropes we know and love. I promise I’m not trying to lure anyone into K-pop I just thought it was interesting how consciously they’re yaoi dipping.

Spin-off We Best Love Fighting Mr. 2nd, Shou Zhen | the Only Love Letter Once Written (SERIOUSLY WITH THE TITLES TAIWAN?) anyway there’s a something or other 25 minutes featuring Pei Shou Yi and his boy that aired Friday. It’s about 10 minutes of reboot footage with 15 min of new content, mostly set in the past. It entirely rests on Chih Tian Shih’s acting, fortunately for us he’s great. However, it doesn’t substantially change or add to these characters’ arcs from the finale of WBL season 2. I don’t know if there will be more or if this was just an extra footage fan service.

COLOR RUSH GOT ITS MOVIE!!! Okay this is almost the tipping point for me to get Viki Standard. It’s listed at 1:56 minutes long but the original series had only c.120 running time - that is a lot of new content. Although i was disappointed by To My Star’s movie I loved Wish You’s, so I am hoping Color Rush got Wish You level treatment. That said, I feel Color Rush the series is damn near perfect already, hard to improve on perfection.

Breaking News

Close Friend the series got an updated trailer featuring MaxNat (no subs) so if you like them in Y-Destiny or in Why R U get ready for them to play different characters again, this time for a sports romance segment. Like Y-Destiny, Close Friend looks to be another series of vignettes (Original trailer) coming April 22.

2gether the movie (Thai trailer) was intended release April 22 but is now postponed due to a surge in C19 cases in Thailand.

Tell the World I Love You, a Thai BL movie that was supposed to release last week, is similarly delayed.

My Ride has been postponed indefinitely with no airing date.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear got a teaser vid, no eng subs.

Gossip

Thai BL actors Nanon (Bad Buddy), Yoon (YYY), and Mark Siwat (LBC, Bite Me) have tested positive for C19. Press releases stated they’re fine, tho filming has paused fore their various projects, obvs. (No word on whether Nanon’s current project was Bad Buddy or not, although it seems likely given his recent Arm Share episode.)

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

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egg-emperor · 2 years

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Been thinking about modern, Boom, and Casino AU Eggman being three dads raising Chao together and I really want to start to share some of my ideas so far right here 🥰

Casino AU Eggman's Chao garden designs are still a work in progress that I hope to describe in much more detail in a future post but basically, because of the sign indicating it in Unleashed during Skyscraper Scamper, there's a public Chao Garden in Empire City and it's where Casino Egg got his first Chao a few decades ago. Since then, he's made his own private gardens with the main two being at Empire City and the world's Vegas equivalent but he still occasionally visits the public ones to show off his Chao to others and lets them make friends, also because of his nostalgia for the public Empire City one. He's got other less significant areas of work around the world and travels for Chao races, so they also commonly get taken to many other public gardens and he may also have a couple of private ones in other places too. But those two are his main and biggest ones as the places he goes to most often.

Casino Egg is especially excited to show Boom Egg his Chao as no such creature exists in his world and he knows he has the shared interest of liking cute things. He keeps it a secret and only tells him he has a surprise. Boom Egg walks into his big beautiful private garden in Empire City to find a big shiny pink egg and wonders if it's a joke but Casino Egg tells him there's something very cute and fun inside and urges him to help it hatch because it's ready but needs a little nudge. He guides him to encourage it by rocking it gently while Modern watches and blurts out "You can just throw them at the wall to crack it open and they'll be fine." and Boom is like "WHAT why would I do that‽‽" and Casino Egg sighs "I told you not to bring that up. >:\" he knows modern prefers it as it's quicker and he knows it's safe but both Casino Egg and Boom wouldn't dare take such an approach lol

It hatches as a pink and white Chao that can become shiny as it evolves and they've always been Casino Egg's favorite type, as rare and expensive they are to obtain, especially for them to hatch that way instead of purely through evolving. Before Boom Egg even has any idea what it's supposed to be, it's love at first sight. How small it is, its cute round shape, stubby arms and legs, squishy marshmallow-like feeling to it, and the pretty color. He's so shocked and fascinated by this strange cute little thing that's unlike anything he's ever seen. He's even more delighted when Casino Egg whistles and all his other Chao that are also all pink, purple, and white come running in to surround him! Casino Egg tells him all their names: Strawberry, Donut, Gumdrop, Cane, Sugarplum, Amethyst, Cutie Pie, Jewel, Jelly Bean, Soda Pop, Cupcake, Kirby, and Candy Floss.

Casino Egg lets the other Chao greet their new brother and they huddle around him and cheer in their cute little voices. Casino Egg tells Boom that they should name this new extra special addition to the family Sugar Cube because it's his favorite special exclusive pet name to use for Boom Egg as his sugar and this is their new baby, so it's like he's a part of him! And when Casino Egg pulls closer in for a cuddle, lets him hold their new Chao, and gives him such a cute and silly but thoughtful and sentimental name, Boom Egg doesn't expect to suddenly feel emotional and for a moment he has to try his hardest not to cry. He's really glad his glasses hide the tears that are pricking at his eyes sjsfnsgsmgh He immediately very enthusiastically accepts the offer to join modern and Casino Egg in raising this new Chao and also joining in with caring for all the others too!

He's pleasantly surprised to find out how Casino Egg treats his Chao, he can tell right away that he cares deeply for them by the smile on his face when he lovingly strokes Sugar Cube's chin and pets him for the first time, making the heart appear above him. He immediately charms his way into this little Chao's heart just like he does with people! He offers Boom to have a go at it and he's a bit nervous about how he will react because he doesn't think he can have that same effect on anything but a heart immediately appears above Sugar Cube's head and he giggles cutely in reaction to being petted by him too and even nuzzles against his hand for more, making his heart burst with joy. Casino Egg notices he looks surprised and relieved so he says "Of course the little guy loves ya as much as I do, how could he not?" and Boom Egg is even more touched by it then!

He loves seeing more of Casino Egg's sweet side that he admires. How he spends the whole time with Chao in his hands and arms, climbing all him and trying to play with him. He pets them and snuggles them and Boom Egg can see his love and adoration for them in his eyes. Multiple Chao latch onto the legs of his pants and try to drag him off to do activities with them to no avail as he's way too big and heavy no matter how many of the little guys try to team up, but Casino Egg plays along and follows them while pretending to be shocked, laughing and saying they must be getting really strong like their daddies to be able to pull him. He's clearly used to it, so it tells Boom it must be a common thing and he's told to join so they can start to bond. Casino Egg also likes to watch them draw, play instruments, fly around, and swim in the pool and openly cheers and praises them a ton and Boom easily finds himself joining in with him and modern and has a blast.

The Chao like to sit inside the open part of Casino Egg's shirt that he leaves unbuttoned because his chest is warm and soft and hairy, it's very cozy for them. When a Chao snuggles up there, he turns to modern and Boom Egg and teases "Bet you wish you were this Chao right now" because he knows they love to be between his titties too. XD He likes how they make him desirable to other men but also how it can be a comfort thing for his Chao because it feels cozy and safe, so he lets them sit there and will walk around with them like that. It's also convenient for carrying them along with other ways they may climb him when his hands are occupied, though he does also have a type of wearable baby carrier type thing for them that he lets modern and Boom use too.

They wonder how his Chao don't appear too overfed considering his tendency to spoil people with money and anything else they want, plus he's the heaviest of the three because he loves to eat and spends a lot of money on food, so they're a bit surprised that it doesn't extend to his Chao. But it's because he doesn't have time to care for them by himself often as he's very busy and has to hire people to look after them for him most days. He does spoil them a bit too much with food when around them but the reason he doesn't accidentally overfeed them too much then is that he has so many Chao that he makes sure they all get some equally, plus he also likes to eat the Chao fruit like I headcanon modern too, especially because he likes fruit even more than him, so he eats more of the extra than he gives to them!

He likes to sit and eat with them, he doesn't do the best at teaching them to share as he certainly doesn't know how to do anything like that himself lol. But he is good at breaking up the fights they have over the fruit, he can easily finish it by putting a large bear paw of his between them and telling them to behave. Boom Eggman sees this is a problem for them though, so he tries to help them learn. The Chao look so cute and curious as they listen with their heads tilted to one side as he shows them how to be fair and share. They soon calm down and are sensible with each other as they finally succeed in sharing, Casino Egg is very thankful because he and modern were the last two that could've taught them and Boom is proud of himself for teaching them something so important that will forever be useful to them. He tells Casino Egg and modern to be careful not to influence them to steal from each other again. XD

Casino Egg is a very proud owner of his Chao for being so talented and smart because of the high-quality training and care he hires for them to happen at the pastel pink Kindergarten he had made for them. He has a huge play area made for them with a little slide and things for them to climb safely and tons of toys for them to play with, so they can have fun and be creative which helps even more with their development and it's how they're so highly evolved. He's clearly put tons of money into every aspect, showing how serious and passionate he is about what's best for his Chao. He's delighted to have another thing to put his money into and how it gets them everything they could ever want and need, making up for how he doesn't get to see them very often.

The difference between Casino Egg and modern is that he displays affection very differently. They're both cute with their handling of the Chao but Casino Egg is more the type to fuss and coo over the Chao and express affection very vocally, which isn't modern's style. But modern's quiet more reserved way of doing it and how he shows it through subtle but cute gestures instead, like this for example, is still just as cute and admirable to both Boom and Casino Egg. He makes a good third owner as the second most experienced with Chao, as he has his own separate ones in his own world that Casino Egg has helped him out with raising too.

At some point, the three Eggs get in the pool to hang out and swim with the Chao! They also want to teach Sugar Cube after getting him prepared. He looks a bit nervous at first and Boom knows what it's like to once be scared and unable, unlike modern and Casino Egg that has always known and enjoyed swimming, so he understands and helps him especially with that. He holds him so he feels safe while he watches modern and the other Chao give an example and he's very patient with him as he learns how to paddle, only letting go when he's sure he's got it and praising and encouraging every little bit he manages to do on his own. It keeps the little Chao motivated and puts a smile on his face that makes Boom Egg feel such joy.

Modern is the one that then teaches all of the Chao some of his skilled Olympics level swimming. Casino Egg can only do the basics, so he likes to just hang and mess around, play with the Chao in the water, and give them basic guidance if needed. He also unsurprisingly gets cheeky and comes up behind modern and Boom Egg to grab and squeeze their butts because you can't expect him to keep his hands to himself when he's with his two favorite boys shirtless and in shorts. They playfully slap his hands away and tell him to stop being a perv and remember this is about the Chao and he does but he can't help but get a liiittle distracted by them as usual lol

The Chao also like to do karate, which modern also teaches them as he's also the most knowledgeable of the three as he's done it in the Olympics. They also of course do a lot of racing and Boom Egg joins them in ruining to try to set a good example and help them improve even more and modern Egg tries for as long as he can too because he's also raced in the Olympics but he can only do it for so long with his weight and osteoarthritis. Casino Egg appreciates the help from both of them because it's one of the only things he can't teach them by himself at all, he always has to rely on the trainers he hires to teach them the best they can on their own. The money is well spent as they do a great job but it's even more special for them to improve more from two of their dads.

Casino Egg loves to watch modern and Boom Egg interact, teach, and bond with his Chao like this, he feels it brings them together even closer than before. He's had many boyfriends and is constantly involved with more but he's never shared moments like this with any of them because these two really are very special to him just like his Chao are. It shows them that they're worthy, very important to him, and fully trusted by him, as he wants them to be a part of his Chao's life as much as they can just like he tries to, despite how busy he always is and how modern and Boom Egg have to go back to their own worlds. But the Chao having three owners that give them lots of love all at once really makes up for any absence.

Casino Egg praises and thanks modern and Boom Egg tons for doing so well with them and says that he's feeling even more confident in his Chao taking part in more of the future special championship races, karate matches, and swimming events around the world where they can win huge medals and trophies and loads of money. He says that they should totally join him and his Chao at one of the many huge events around the world with him in the future!

After all that, the three are worn out so they sit and cuddle up and the Chao immediately flock to them as they don't want to part with them. Boom Egg can totally understand why the Chao love to hug modern and Casino Egg as they're so huge, soft, warm, and cuddly to them like they are to him but to an even bigger extreme. Boom thinks they won't like to cuddle with him because he doesn't have a big soft pillow-like tummy like them but plenty cling to him too, even Sugar Cube and he feels so loved. He loves how quickly they all accept him despite having two daddies already. Whether it's partially due to being used to it as they already know two or not, they can also sense a softness that modern or even Casino Egg doesn't have, as we see in the Boom show. Since Casino Egg and modern also interact with Sugar Cube he becomes a dark type but had it just been Boom alone, I feel he would've been a neutral.

Modern looks to see Boom with Chao hugging him and Sugar Cube in his arms, smirks at the cuteness, and whispers "Don't tell the other Ivo but I think you're Sugar Cube's favorite." and that makes Boom even happier.

They relax while the Chao cuddle, climb, and mess with them which they allow as long as they don't start pulling the mustaches but they do have to shake off a couple of the rascals at times. They like to play with modern and Casino Egg's hands and fingers as they're fascinated by their amazing size but they also nudge at Boom's smaller hands because they like to be petted by him. They're also mesmerized by Casino Egg's pretty and shiny jewelry and he lets them admire it, as long as they don't try to steal his expensive rings and watch or pull on his gold chain. They do try when they're feeling cheeky but for the most part, they just look at them and it's another good way to keep them occupied while he gets a chance to rest after all the activities.

The three Eggs eventually can't help but fall asleep in the cuddle pile of them and all their Chao so they take a nap. They later wake up to their sleeves being tugged by the Chao because they want to show them something. They're led to a big piece of paper that has a cute scribbly drawing of what they can still tell is supposed to be the three of them holding hands and every single Chao took turns to draw themselves alongside them! The three each react differently, modern chuckles and says it's cute while he gives them a thumbs up, Casino Egg totally gushes and tells them he's going to get it golden framed, and Boom leans down to scoop up armfuls of the Chao to hug as he tries not to cry and can't stop smiling. He feels so special and welcomed and like he really is the new third dad of the big family. 💕

Then Casino Egg finally says "I love our kids, the three of us are going to be the best dads together" a few happy tears accidentally escape Boom Egg at last at the thought of them being like a family. When they're about to leave, he jumps into Casino Egg's arms to squeeze him in a big hug and kisses him. He blushes hard as it takes him by surprise from how unexpected it was but he soon smiles wide because Boom really didn't expect him to be such a great father figure to anything and finds it really sweet and attractive. He's also delighted by the honor of raising what are pretty much now their kids. Modern teases "Hey what about me?" and joins in so they all hug and kiss!

Boom Egg is so happy when Casino Egg announces that it's completely decided that they're going to raise him together along with modern Egg because the three of them together are the best dads these Chao could ever have, proven by all that they did together that day. Boom feels so deeply honored to get to be a part of something so special, they feel like a family and he thought he'd never know what that felt like but it means the world to him that his dreams could come true. And having his two boyfriends that he loves so dearly in his life to share it with makes it even more special than anything he could've ever imagined! 🥰💜💖

#asks #casino au #dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #chao #my post

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wangxianficrecs · 4 years

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Follower Recs

Stories I haven’t read yet, but clearly need to put on my ever-expanding List.

~*~

Welcome back queen [Thank you, it’s so lovely to be back!] if ur still doing follower recs I gotta recommend I would wait for a thousand years by bleuett it’s soooooooo good

[This one was actually recced to me by two different people, the other of whom said, “ Maybe I'm crying a little so I feel like a should recommend ‘I would wait for a thousand years’ by bleuett on ao3.”]... it’s def. on my List!

I would wait for a thousand years

by bleuett (T, 10k, wangxian)

Summary: During the worst of winter, a traveler comes to stay at Lan Wangji's inn. He wears a red ribbon in his hair.

“Do you see the rabbit?” Wei Ying asks and points at the moon. “That’s the moon rabbit, he helps make Chang’e more immortality elixir. He keeps Chang’e company.”

“I do not wish the rabbit for company,” Lan Wangji says tightly. “You are the one I want by my side.”

“And I’m here, Lan Zhan. If you go to the moon, I’ll follow you, I’ll always be here now.”

~*~

I just read a great fic by aisthuu "every love story is a ghost story", didn't see it in your recs so wanted to recommend it! LWJ is a guqin composer and teacher, buys a cheap guqin off eBay which ends up being attached to WWX's spirit from canon era. It's bittersweet, LWJ deals with Lan's homophobia (implicit in a Lan way) and his feelings towards the ghost. This is author's only ao3 fic and honestly I don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but I'm happy I did and hope you will enjoy it too! [I’ve recently read this one, and loved it!]

every love story is a ghost story

by aisthuu (M, 59k, wangxian, my bookmark)

Summary: The man is in Lan Zhan’s bed. Did they—he begins to wonder, eyes trailing to where the man’s body lies under the blanket. Had Lan Zhan—?

Then the sleep-fog clears and Lan Zhan realizes that the young man isn’t quite opaque around the edges.

“You’re a spirit.”

The spirit narrows its eyes. “I’m so much more than that.”

(Lan Zhan buys a guqin off eBay for a suspiciously low price, only to find that it’s haunted. And now there’s a ghost in his bed.)

~*~

Ok so I absolutely have to rec "see you yesterday" by glyphic. It's a wip, but it's currently at 101k so there's a whole lot there, and it's terrible and wonderful and beautiful all at once. The way the backstory of canon events is adapted to the modern-with-cultivation setting is brilliant, and then there's the amnesia, and then there's the time loop. This fic lives permanently rent-free in my brain.

see you yesterday

by glyphic (M, 101k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary:

Wei Ying 21:09 hey lan zhan what’s the weirdest way youve died

Lan Zhan 21:11 Falling encyclopedias.

Wei Ying 21:12 omg no way that’s so rude turning books against you???

Lan Zhan 21:13 A betrayal I will never forget.

On Halloween night, an exiled demonic cultivator and a Lan disciple get stuck in a time-loop, find each other, and try to figure it all out.

~*~

If you are looking for recs for yourself I absolutely love (the complete!) story Just as the Snow Melts by draechali on AO3. It's a canon divergence where everyone lives, even WWX! ~ @airmidcelt

Just as the Snow Melts

by draechaeli (T, 67k, wangxian)

Summary: Like a snowy mountain top in spring the residents of the Burial Mounds trickled down the mountain and joined the flow of society.

“I went to the Burial Mounds,” Lan WangJi said.

“Ah, yeah… I’m sorry Lan Zhan,” replied Wei WuXian, “I hadn’t thought anyone would come to visit. I am still not sure how it happened; I brought A-Yuan to Yiling to play by the river and then ended up somehow teaching a bunch of children swimming and writing along with him.”

~*~

Hello! It's come to my attention that you have not as yet read Grandmaster of Meme-onic Cultivation! Please do! It's the only thing that gave me joy during 2020 😆 like proper belly laughs and disney villain style cackling. It is a wip, and it is long but so so worth it!! The author has reworked the entire canon through these message crystals and still conveys complex characters despite the tricky format. It's just so good!! Highly highly recommend it! ❤ ~ @theladypeartree [Oh! I’ve been subscribed to this one, and know that @swaglexander-the-great is a reliable provider of Hilarity, so I’m excited for it to be finished!]

Grandmaster of Meme-onic Cultivation

by Hades_the_Blingking (T, 49k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary: The Untamed universe is exactly the same, except everybody has magical crystals that have a suspiciously familiar messaging system. The story is pretty much the same as the show, except everyone lives!! (so minor changes).

or in which Wei WuXian tries his darndest to date Lan Zhan, Jiang Cheng possibly has a aneurysm, Jin ZiXuan is still the most awkward human alive, and Xue Yang makes me write some VERY cursed things. Written in chatfic format! :3

~*~

Chomrafy on AO3 deserves love and encouragement; she’s written a body of compact, poetic, and eloquent shortfics each of which can stand alone, but that comprise an intricately cross-referential and mostly internally-consistent universe. They’re grouped as chapters in works according to theme; for example, “in cupped hands” focuses upon Jin Ling and his second-generation baggage; “Departure in Autumn” portrays the last years of WWX’s first life. Follow the tag “Chomrafy’s MDZS shortfics.” [I don’t see this tag?]

in cupped hands

by chomrafy (G, 2k, wangxian)

Summary: Of secrets, of futures, of love. A Jin Ling-centric collection of 200-word fics.

Ch.1: Jin Ling repays a debt (JL, JC, & WWX). Ch.2: Jin Ling and a ghost in the mirror. (JL & JYL) Ch.3: A matter of friends (JL & the other kids) Ch.4: In this house we don't keep dogs (JC & WWX) Ch.5: In the end, he remains silent (JL & uncles) Ch.6: A first night hunt, of sorts (JL & the other kids) Ch.7: Jin Ling, forgiving, forgetting (JL & LXC & JGY) Ch.8: Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling argue (JL, JC, & WWX) Ch.9: Jin Ling and his father (JL & JC) Ch.10: Jin Ling speaks up (JL, JC, & WWX) Ch.11: Jin Ling and a piece of home (JL, JC, & WWX)

Departure in Autumn

by chomrafy (not rated, 6k)

Summary: Four perspectives. A steady march to the end.

Ch.1: Because if anything happens to them, Wen Qing would never be able to heal with these hands again. Ch.2: As long as this is still home, Jiang Yanli will wait as long as she needs to. Ch.3: Five times Jiang Cheng reaches for Wei Wuxian, one time he turns away. Ch.4: Whether the road is broad or narrow, bright or dark, they would have to keep walking. Wei Wuxian digs Wen Qing's grave.

~*~

Hello, hope all is going well. I don't have an ask, by I do have a recommendation. I read this fic a while ago and found it again. I just wanted to recommend this for everyone. Let me know what you think please. Thank you. [Oh! This one’s in my To Read list, but I’d forgotten about it. Mmmm, fox!wwx and dragon!lwj.]

Ten miles of Lotus Flowers

by Yukirin_Snow

M, 274k, wangxian

Summary: He was a mischievous fox spirit, wreaking havoc where he went, about to depart on a journey that would span centuries.

He was a heavenly prince, a proud dragon destined to ascend the throne to become emperor.

Neither expected their paths to collide over the span of three lives.

~*~

I forgot if it was your blog 😥 that recommended “Bestseller” (when Wei Wuxian writes the Xianxia cut-sleeve equivalent of Fifty Shades of Grey, based entirely on his experiences with Lan Wangji, he doesn’t expect it to become the next big hit) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/21528316/chapters/51318766)

But OMG IT WAS HILARIOUS!!! I LOVED IT!! And if it wasn’t your blog, I’m so sorry for how weird this sounds 😭😭😭😭 I just loved this fic so much that I have to tell it to someone 😢 [It’s on my List, but I haven’t read it yet!]

Bestseller

by pupeez4eva

M, 8k, wangxian

Summary: He had written the book to prove a point. It was never supposed to be a big thing, and he certainly never intended for everyone — Jiang Cheng, Zewu-Jun, the Juniors, literally everyone— to be reading about his sex life.

Oh God, he definitely needed to make sure Lan Zhan didn’t find out about this.

(Or, when Wei Wuxian writes the Xianxia cut-sleeve equivalent of Fifty Shades of Grey, based entirely on his experiences with Lan Wangji, he doesn’t expect it to become the next big hit).

~*~

I’d like to rec On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! by @blackwiresgrowonherhead

It’s one of my absolute favorites and I laughed out loud so many times when reading it

on your marks, get set, bake!

by BlackWiresOnHerHead

G, 41k, wei wuxian & juniors

Summary: Jin Ling resumes thumping on the door to room 721, and the small collection of freshmen starts chanting “Senior Wei! Senior Wei! Senior Wei!” with increasing volume until finally Wei Wuxian opens the door.

“Yes?” he says with his widest, most innocent eyes.

“Senior Wei!” demands Lan Jingyi, shoving himself to the front of the group. “Why didn’t you tell us you’re a contestant on this year’s season of The Great Gusu Bake Off?!?”

Several months ago, college student Wei Wuxian secretly competed in the most popular reality show in the country. The show starts airing in the fall. The freshmen in his dorm collectively lose their minds.

~*~

If you're in the mood for v. short ridiculous fun fic, may I suggest My chain hits my chest/When I'm bangin' on the radio by x_los It's 2k modern cultivators AU, featuring WWX calling LWJ's sword Bitchin' [omg I’m laughing so hard] and I think it's more fun going in blind?

My chain hits my chest/When I'm bangin' on the radio

by x_los

T, 2k, wangxian

Summary: Lan Wangji finds he doesn't even need to call for help for Wei Wuxian to come running.

#follower rec #wangxian fic rec #I HAVEN'T READ THESE YET #wangxian #mdzs

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ceasarslegion · 3 years

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Ive said it before but Valve games contributed so much to video games as an entertainment medium that I can see people studying Half Life and Portal alongside the Lumierre brothers centuries from now

Half Life had such a simple concept if you take HL:2 out of the picture for a second. You play a top scientist at the world's most prestigious research facility, an experiment goes horrendously wrong, all hell breaks loose, fight your way out and try to piece together what the hell's going on along the way. That's an extremely simple concept for today's standards, but it practically invented the first person shooter, the use of first person POV in video games, and the story based RPG. Plus, so many minor but essential elements of so many other genres that I don't have the damn time to list them all.

You can see Half Life's nuclear influence to some extent in almost every game you play nowadays, right down to idle NPC dialogue and physics puzzles. You can wittle everything in modern games back to Half Life again. Half Life was the blueprint for today's gaming industry, and it would look very different if it never happened. I'm Half Life. You're Half Life. We are Half Life.

And speaking of physics puzzles, where Half Life revolutionized the mechanical aspects of games, Portal did something similar, albeit to a lesser extent, with game narratives. There were many narrative-driven games before it, but the first Portal game dared to ask if the narrative could be made stronger if it was written with player agency in mind, which is this incredibly unique thing that games have over other storytelling mediums. And I don't mean that in the sense of having multiple endings or lots of things to do, I mean that it used the act of playing the game to strengthen its narrative.

Portal has a simple, linear plot: you're a human lab rat in a facility run by a robot turned mad scientist, now escape. Except that you feel trapped with Chell, you feel strung along and desperate and long to see the outside again right there with her because of how the dialogue and the surroundings are structured. The only speaking character is the antagonist, but if you're really clever, you can find hidden rooms with scrawled warnings and mad ramblings all over the walls. But all of that is player-driven. You have to have a keen eye and sometimes do a little outside research to figure everything out.

Meanwhile, I would sincerely argue that Glados is the game villain equivalent of Darth Vader in level of recognition and general knowledge of her. Even the most unplugged, game-hating people I know recognize her voice, her name, and the iconic cake being a lie. Glados was a masterpiece in writing a perfect video game villain. She was brutal, unforgiving, chillingly intelligent, and fun to come back to, which is the most important thing about games! A well-written game will make you want to keep playing because you want to interact with them more, not because you hate them and want to see them burn, which is the difference between good game writing and good film writing: player agency has more power than you think.

#gaming #half life #portal

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about-faces · 4 years

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The director Joel Schumacher has passed away, and everyone's reactions have boiled down to two topics: 1.) "He was the guy who made the bad Batman films," and 2.) "Hey, he did lots of great films besides the bad Batman films!"

Thing is... I get it. I remember being a teenage comic fan in the 90's. Not just any comics: especially Batman! But ESPECIALLY Bart especially Two-Face. I remember how "Joel Schumacher" was a name that could invoke white-hot rage in myself and everyone in the fandom. He was our modern equivalent of Dr. Fredrick Wertham, the boogyman who had (far as we were concerned) single-handedly destroyed the mainstream credibility of superheroes.

Look at that picture, and try to imagine that this was the face so loathed and mocked by Batman fanboys in the 90′s.

Never mind that Schumacher didn't WRITE the Batman films. The main credit for that goes to Akiva Goldsman, who has gone on to win an Oscar and continues to find A-list success despite ruining other geek properties like Jonah Hex and Dark Tower. Never mind that Schumacher was at the mercy of producers who wanted the movies to be nothing more than merchandise machines and toy commercials. No, Schumacher was the only name associated with the films, and he was cast at the villain.

The fact that he was openly gay played no small part in making him an easy target.

One year after the disastrous release of the infamous Batman & Robin, the beloved fan-favorite cartoon Batman: The Animated Series (then rebranded as The New Batman Adventures on the WB network) produced an episode that featured a pointed jab at Schumacher. The episode was titled "Legends of the Dark Knight," a reworking of a classic 70's Batman tale where a group of kids share their own ideas of what the mysterious Batman is really like.

Halfway through the episode, the kids are overheard by another kid, who shares his own ideas about Batman. The kid, whose name is Joel, has long dirty-blond hair, and works in front of a store which bear the sign "Shoemaker," despite clearly being a department store. He waxes dreamily about the reasons he loves Batman: "All those muscles, the tight rubber armor and that flashy car. I heard it can drive up walls!"

This last line--a reference to a silly bit in Batman Forever--he says as he flamboyantly tosses a pink fur stole around his neck. To drive home the joke, one of the kids dismisses, "Yeah, sure, Joel."

At the time, it seemed like a cathartic joke for us REAL Batman fans. Now, it's clearly just cheap and gross. Instead of any actual criticism about the films, Joel Schumacher was just seen--even if just subconsciously--as the fruit who ruined Batman.

Over time, the hatred for Schumacher lessened. Starting with Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man, on through to Batman Begins, Iron Man, and onward, superhero movies became huge mainstream successes, with greater fidelity to the source material than most adaptations we saw up to the time that Schumacher "killed" the superhero movie. There was no point in hating him anymore, if there ever was (again, Goldsman more deserves that ire, if you're gonna be angry about anyone. Why does he still get work?! WHY IS HE NOW WRITING FOR STAR TREK?!?!).

But even still, especially among Millennial and Gen-X fans, Schumacher is still--at best--considered a low point for fandom. Even though the same generations have come to appreciate and love some of his other films, such as The Lost Boys, Phone Booth, and the chillingly-prescient Falling Down, there's still this need for people to dismiss the Batman films as embarrassments that are best forgotten in favor of Schumacher's better films. And if they're to be remembered at all, it's to trash them all over again in a tone suggesting that the films are objectively, irredeemably bad.

Except they're not. Oh sure, if you go in looking for a grim and gritty capital-M "Mature" take on Batman, of course you'll hate them, just like you probably also hate the Adam West Batman show. Remember, that show also used to be hated by decades of Batman fans because of how it didn't take the comics seriously.

... except it did. The show was VERY faithful to the Batman comics of the 50's, which often out-weirded and out-sillied its TV counterpart. If anything, the show made some of those stories even more entertaining with camp value and jokes that added different levels of enjoyment to the adults watching. Comic fans resented how Batman became a pop culture joke, and increasingly fought against anything that was colorful and campy (which makes me wonder if this might also be related to latent homophobia). Whether or not they admitted/realized it, the Batman fans of the 70's and 80's carried a chip on their shoulder about a show that DARED to make Batman FUN.

And really... how is that any different than Schumacher's two films?

You don't have to agree, but I think Schumacher's films are fun. I think Batman Forever is highly entertaining, that Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey are bringing their hammy A-games as much respected actors like Burgess Meredith and Caesar Romero brought to their roles. Same goes for Arnold and especially Uma in Batman and Robin. They KNOW what movies they're in, and they're all having a blast.

(How many of us remember the exact line Eddie says at this moment? I bet you probably do too, which should tell you something about how memorable this movie is)

Now, BF and particularly B&A are by no means GOOD movies, but you can't tell me that you couldn't have a blast putting the latter on at a party and riffing it with friends. It's not a pretentious, ponderous, self-serious slog like, say, the shit Zack Snyder cranked out (apologies to the one or two cool Snyder fans here, I just find his films interminable). Even besides the many things I could say to defend Schumacher's Batman films (that's a whole other essay), you can't say they were boring. They were entertaining, even if on a level of making fun of the film, and that is NOT as easy as it looks.

Let me put it to you this way: Batman Forever has, objectively, one of the worst takes on Two-Face I've ever seen. He's one-note, he's kind of a rehash of Nicholson's Joker, he gets completely overshadowed by the Riddler, he gets killed by Batman in a way that completely betrays the whole “DON’T KILL HARVEY” arc with Robin, and worst of all, he CHEATS on the coin toss. That alone would be enough for me to condemn this depiction in any other Two-Face story.

And yet, even I--the most passionate, opinionated, and picky Two-Face fan you will EVER know--still have a soft spot for Tommy Lee Jones' take on ol' Harv. He’s just too fun, too flamboyant, too damn extra not to love. If only all bad takes on Two-Face could be this fun!

But that’s the thing: it’s not because the script was good. Oh god no. I've read the script, and if it were put on the page like a comic, I would have hated it just like any other bad Two-Face comic. I have to imagine that, as director, Joel Schumacher deserves the bulk of the credit for pushing the restrained and laconic Tommy Lee Jones into that oversized performance, and making it a delight to watch despite everything it does wrong.

I'm rare for my generation to have learned how to stop worrying and love Schumacher's Batman. But the younger generation, the up-and-coming Gen-Zs getting into Batman, don't share the same grudges we did. There's a genuine, shame-free enjoyment of those films among The Kids, many of whom are LGBTQA+, who love the jokes, the silliness, the camp, the Freeze puns, the swag of Uma Thurman, and the homoerotic subtext between Two-Face and the Riddler. Maybe it's just a reaction to so much GRIM, SERIOUS shit that DC and their fanboys are trying desperately to push even today.

But comics--especially Batman--have a long history of colorful, stupid, fun shit. Schumacher's films carried on in that tradition, and they should be appreciated on their own merits by those of us who aren't limited by narrow ideas of what Batman "should" be, and who still remember how to have fun.

Schumacher's Batman films should no longer be seen as embarrassments. They didn't ruin superheroes. They didn't ruin Batman. They didn't even ruin Two-Face. Nor should they be disregarded in favor of Falling Down, like losers in a respectability competition. They're fun. They're entertaining. And they didn't pretend to be anything else.

And if you still think they're bad... I mean, objectively, you're not wrong! But be mindful of the reasons WHY you think they're bad, because on another subjective level, you may not be right either. And it's certainly not worth holding a geek-grudge over after twenty-five years.

#batman forever #batman ampersand robin #long post #homophobia #slur

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vidavalor · 3 years

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SamBucky opinions & things...

I’m not going to say who people should ship as it’s everyone’s own opinions and it’s a tv show/film series so it’s not like this is the most important thing on the planet... That said, I’ve seen a few posts from Stucky people who say they actively want to understand what SamBucky shippers see in the pairing and since I’m gone on these two, here are some thoughts...

If you take a long view-- which the MCU is having you do now because these characters are outlasting Steve Rogers in its canon-- Steve & Bucky, while fun to play with and full of a lot of really great yearning/angsty possibilities back in the day, are really just the formative chapters of Sam & Bucky’s romance. If we got more Sam flashbacks in the story-- and I really hope we do in his canon in the wake of the end of TFATWS (S1?)/CA4-- a Sam & Riley story would be the equivalent to The First Avenger, in terms of it sets up some backstory that leads to where the story is going, as opposed to is the entire story itself.

A main factor for me in liking Sam & Bucky over Bucky & Steve is that Sam is a healthy, mature choice for Bucky-- a guy who has gone through a hell of a lot here and deserves all the good things-- whereas Steve, while not a bad man, is a regressive choice. It stems from the fact that Steve was never really comfortable with Bucky’s sexuality-- at least not when it mattered-- and that’s because Steve was not comfortable with his own... or much of anything about himself. This still wouldn’t matter so much in terms of who to ship Bucky with if it weren’t also for the fact that Bucky is perfect *for Sam*, who should get all the good things, and we’ll get into that a bit more below. Have to do Steve & Bucky first because chronology and also because that’s the other ship in question here, really. (Sorry, SteveSam people like if you are asking for stuff too and anyone cares, I don’t think I have enough for a whole meta post on why it’s kinda blah, if full of cute friendship moments, but I touch on it a bit further below.)

The entire plot of The First Avenger is about how Steve is obsessed with being Mr. America 1940-- and how he gets to that point is understandable. He was born with a ton of heart, a truly good man, but he’s small and sickly and he doesn’t love himself. He lacks confidence in himself because he holds himself up to a standard of masculinity put forth by a country on the brink of war-- and then, at war-- as physically strong and very, very straight.

While Steve is desperate to change how he looks, Bucky hides behind how he looks. Steve might look at Bucky and see a lot of what he wishes he was-- the good-looking soldier with a dame on each arm-- but at some point, he becomes aware of how Bucky is playacting. He’s not as he appears to be. He’s a man trying to survive a world that does not accept him and working to pass in that society, all the while with an eye to the World of Tomorrow. Not just the technology that grips his imagination but the idea that things could improve, things could change and he’ll fight for America because he, like Steve and later, Sam, believes in it but while Steve worships it, Bucky can love it while looking at it critically. It’s not built for men like him.

Steve never fully understands this because while Bucky is trying to show him some of the World of Tomorrow, he’s off making plans to get injected with super serum to fill in the gaps of what he feels he needs to become the man he is supposed to be.

The key difference between them is that Steve will do anything to be that man-- and that includes shoving any potential feelings he has for Bucky so deep that he won’t even acknowledge them (if he has them at all). Bucky, on the other hand, even in 1940, had more strength. He wasn’t as tormented by who he was. I’m sure he had some of it at some point but by the time we meet him in the movies, he’s fine with who he is, even if the country he serves and the society in which he lives is not. He could basically give af. He doesn’t think in the ‘40s that he’s going to live to see an America that will ever really accept him and he fights for it anyway because Mr. America is really, fundamentally, more Captain America than The OG Captain America.

Steve is not a bad man by any stretch of the imagination but it’s clear that, at some point, he began to understand that Bucky liked men and while he didn’t do anything horrible about it-- like have Bucky arrested or told anyone else, both of which could have destroyed Bucky’s life at that time-- he never completely approved of it, either. Guaranteed he told Bucky more than once that if he just stopped, if he just found the right woman, etc-- he didn’t mean any harm with it but he was happy to think the way of his era, whereas Bucky was born ahead of his time. Still, Steve is probably the only person that Bucky knew then who knew his secret and that he protected it earned even more of Bucky’s loyalty and devotion.

Now, consider what happened when Steve Rogers was pulled out of the ice and found himself living in the literal World of Tomorrow. It’s imperfect, for sure. It’s overwhelming for him, especially at first, but it’s a world that he has to feel the wrong guy from the ‘40s has lived to see. How many times did Steve wish Bucky could see this world? How much was he thinking of Bucky when he met the literal son of the creator of the World of Tomorrow in Tony Stark-- a man who would challenge everything Steve thought was true about what it was to be a man? How guilty did Steve feel when he would sometimes get a little closer to being more open about himself in this world of Tony’s, when he’d think of how there had been a man who loved him in their own time, who was his best friend and gave him an unconditional love, even when Steve didn’t love himself, and how Steve just couldn’t love him like that in return?

Then, Steve’s journey results in him meeting Sam Wilson. They have some things in common-- they both know war and what it’s like to feel like like they might sink to the floor through a mattress. They both know the solitude of the floor and have not seem to have figured out a way beyond that. They both are runners-- literally and figuratively-- as they try to outrun the men from their pasts that they left behind... the fellow soldiers that didn’t make it home and died before their eyes. Sam is a good listener and Steve is Captain America-- they are able to help one another. Steve needs some counseling and Sam needs to feel a connection to the country he’s feeling has left him behind but that he loves. So, naturally, this is of course when Bucky resurfaces in the story.

The Winter Soldier’s existence breaks Steve in half because, for the first time, Bucky isn’t the strong one of the two of them. Bucky is in trouble and Steve never saved him. Have you all considered that The Howlies should have known Bucky was missing because back then, you left no man behind and they should have hiked down the hill for his body? If it wasn’t there, they should have realized he was *missing* and not *dead*? But they never did. Because, as crushed as he was by the loss of his closest friend, some dark part of Steve let Bucky be dead from that fall and couldn’t face seeing it for real because he couldn’t look at the unseeing, dead eyes of the man who loved him and accepted him, even when Steve was unable to give Bucky the latter in return. It was guilt and then that guilt pops up right as Steve is in conflict with Tony and has just met Sam not that long before-- these relationships with men in the modern era that challenge Steve to be a better version of who he was and who pops up but Steve’s living, breathing, prowling, raging guilt in human form.

And, man, is it ever causing some serious havoc...

So, why is Sam ultimately better? The guy who advised Steve that sometimes you couldn’t save them all and Bucky might be gone now and just needed to be stopped?

Steve couldn’t give up on Bucky because he felt he owed him. He had been on his own journey and realized a lot about how he used to think and act and here was Bucky again and a chance to make it up to him in some way. What’s of note, though? Steve does not act like someone who got a long-lost love back. He’s still running for Peggy the moment he has a chance. He’s still not capable of looking at Bucky as anything beyond his oldest, closest friend. What he wants for Bucky, though, is the World of Tomorrow.

Suddenly, there’s a chance to give to Bucky the thing he’s been thinking all the time since he woke up-- that this is a world for Bucky Barnes. Steve, out of his sense of loyalty and his decades-long guilt, moves heaven and earth to give Bucky that chance and is grateful when T’Challa will help to bring Bucky back. The irony of all of this is that Bucky Barnes, the man who used to hide his true self beneath an exterior identity, is now a man completely trapped beneath The Winter Soldier and when Steve sees a glimmer of that, he *has* to save Bucky.

What Sam learns along the way is that he and Steve have some things in common, sure, but he has more in common with Bucky Barnes. Sam is a man who understands what it is to have PTSD and the struggle to overcome it. He used to think he was the Steve of this story-- the one who watched his old soldier friend fall to his death-- but he has quickly realized he’s actually the Bucky... the guy who loved a man who couldn’t love him back and who was lost to him, leaving him spinning. Sam knows what it is to have to act in a different way to try to be accepted by a society that doesn’t have your back, even if you love the country with your whole heart anyway. He knows what it’s like to be a veteran who was left behind and forgotten about, discounted and forced to find his own way. For sure, Bucky has enjoyed more privileges in his day (pre-Winter Soldier) by virtue of being white than Sam has but neither of them are ever going to be what Steve Rogers wanted to be. Neither of them are that outdated ideal of 1940s blue eyed blond Star-Spangled Man with a Plan kind of masculinity.

Sam is also something Steve still really isn’t, even in the modern era, which is a man who is comfortable with the fact that he is attracted to men. In this World of Steve and Bucky’s Tomorrow that is the present, that is something that is no longer needed to be kept as hidden as it once was. It is not an era of complete change, especially in places like the military and when it comes to celebrity-- the nexus of Captain America’s world, really-- but it is an absolutely revolutionary transformation from when Bucky was last in control of his mind in the 1940s.

Sam is a quieter guy, even if he’s cheerful and amiable on the surface. He keeps a lot to himself. He’s clearly not gotten seriously involved with anybody in awhile when we met him and hadn’t between then and TFATWS, either, despite being a smart, gorgeous, kind and empathetic Avenger. The one who has caught his eye is the once-brainwashed assassin who keeps showing up to save his life (often from an annoying teenager with webbed fingers, much to their chagrin). It’s Bucky that he’s stuck with and that’s not just because he feels like Steve would want him to. Both he and Bucky think that the other might just be caring because of Steve but they prove to one another that this isn’t the case-- that their instincts that they have something that might be independent of Steve is true. They’re both afraid. They’ve both been through a lot and do not trust easily so it’s a thrill when they realize they really can trust one another-- and that they actually do *see* one another there. They don’t just see Steve’s shadow. They understand what the other needs and get better at it the longer they are together because they are fundamentally more alike and better suited than either of them are with Steve.

TFATWS has Bucky telling Sam that he and Steve talked about giving Sam the shield and since Steve’s shield in the present was broken in the battle with Thanos in Endgame, it means that Bucky knew the plan in its entirety (which goes along with how he doesn’t seem surprised by it in Endgame as well.) It means Bucky knew that Steve was going to go back to the time they were from and find Peggy after he put the stones back and have that dance. It means that Bucky standing there while Sam spoke with Steve knew he would see Old Steve that day, knew the whole thing. Steve, being the fundamentally decent man he is, had to have offered for Bucky to come with him. He probably really wished he would because he would love to have his friend back then with him for the rest of their lives. It would be a way to do it all over-- to go back to where they began and this time, Steve would try to be more supportive. You know he would have tried to be different, even if he couldn’t feel any thing different than what he did. But Bucky...?

Bucky had to see a life of more hell in that. What was the plan there for him? He goes back with Steve, they put the stones away, they find Peggy and then what? The rest of Bucky’s life is him married to some friend of Peggy’s they set him up with? Stolen moments with some man, if he was lucky enough to meet one? A family made not from love-- not the kind of love, anyway, that Bucky would like to have? What was waiting for him back then? Nothing.

Because he’s been through sheer hell but, somehow, he’s been given something he never thought was possible then: the chance to not only see what the future might be like but to live in it, as a part of it.

For sure, Endgame!Bucky, who had just gotten his mind back not that long before The Snap and just came back from dust to fight a battle and go to a funeral and that’s about it, hasn’t the first clue what the first step he should take to sort himself out enough to figure out how to live again is... but even then, even in that place of nothing but vulnerability and pain, he’s hopeful. He’s strong enough to say that’s what he wants. He wants what Steve wants, in a way-- to live in the time he belongs in and be able to find a life for himself. He wants the love and the family he never got to experience and wouldn’t in the same way in the era he was born in. Staying in the present to work though his pain and figure it out-- to have that choice-- means more to Bucky than following Steve because while Bucky believes in Steve’s goodness and would follow that to the moon and back, Steve cannot give him what he once might have wanted, which is to look at him the way that Steve looks at Peggy. Bucky wants that. Steve might not understand not wanting to live in the 1940s entirely but he wants Bucky to have whatever he wants. He feels uncomfortable not being there to see it through-- hence, that kind of awkward hug before he travels back in time. There are things that Bucky wants and needs that Steve doesn’t fully appreciate but he can appreciate him needing to make the choice to live the way he wants to live and deserving the freedom to do just that.

Consider the rush for Bucky when he realizes that Steve’s snarky friend might have just looked at him when he thought he wasn’t looking, that maybe that heat between them isn’t one-sided. That they live *now* and while it’s not free of challenges, it’s paradise compared to the 1940s. That maybe, just maybe, he lived through all this hell because he’s supposed to be here now and maybe that also means he’s supposed to be with this man who not only understands him but who is everything that Bucky couldn’t have been in his day-- openly attracted to men? If you were Bucky, there’s no way you couldn’t be entertaining fantasies about being able to take Sam for a romantic walk by the water somewhere and no one calling the police if you were to kiss him at sunset...

Not to mention that if you’re Sam? Who is going to get your PTSD and understand when you get a little quiet more than the guy you met while he fell out of the sky and tried to murder you while brainwashed? Who is so annoying because he’s dryly funny and annoyingly hot and more good than anyone who has been through that amount of hell should have a right to be? Who is enough like you to be made for you but different enough that you’ll never be bored? Who makes you feel safer than you’ve ever felt-- safe enough to give over a lot of the trust you are hesitant to give much of anyone because you know he won’t abuse it? You have to be entertaining thoughts about spending a lifetime making him feel as safe and finding new ways to make him laugh...

Sam and Bucky are the ones that will protect one another’s hearts. Steve is a great guy whose arc with Bucky is about making up for hurting him and growing as a person as a result, not about Steve’s undying romantic and/or sexual love, IMO. Among other things, Sam is the first man Bucky has been able to consider building a life with and I’d wager it actually works in reverse for Sam, despite him being born much later than Bucky-- Riley could have been Sam’s lover but there is enough pining regret there that I think he saw Sam in the way that Steve saw Bucky. There’s enough there to suggest that Sam had not met someone he saw a future with until Bucky, which would also account for the occasional nervousness. They seem like opposites but, in many ways, they’re exactly alike and in the ways that they are not, they compliment one another. Sam and Bucky are each other’s chances at happiness and peace so if you’re still saying Bucky should be sobbing in Steve’s notebook waiting for him to come back from the woman he left him for... why are you wishing such hell on this poor guy? Bucky deserves the smiles and the lightness in his step and the sister and the nephews and the community cookouts and, most of all, *Sam*...

...and Sam deserves the sun, the moon and the stars and seems content having found his way to the shield and to Bucky so let them be happy for the hot minute they will be until their movie conflict. ;) Steve’s getting his dance-- Bucky and Sam deserve theirs, too.

#sambucky #stucky #captain america #bucky barnes #sam wilson #steve rogers #the falcon #tfatws #thewintersoldier #thewhitewolf #marvel #mcu

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duchessofferia · 4 years

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Isn’t she just delightful?

Catherine of Aragon has one of the more fascinating media legacies of anyone in the Tudor period, not in terms of how her image has fluctuated over the years, but because of how notably it hasn’t. Other hardcore Catholics of the Henrician court are inevitably vilified in stories from Protestant perspectives - Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Jane Seymour and above all else Mary I, to name a few. “Protestant perspectives” doesn’t just refer to reformation texts, it includes books from the perspective of Protestant figures; usually Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I, and more recently Thomas Cromwell with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall books. Despite her unwavering faith in both the Catholic Church and her own position, Catherine’s reputation has, up until the past twenty years or so, remained close to stellar; her marriage into the English monarchy at a young age did well to divorce her from her parent’s religious persecutions, and her death some fifteen years or so before her daughter took the throne kept her from being tarnished by association to Mary’s resurrection of medieval heresy laws.

As a Tudor queen, Catherine has largely gone down in history for her irreproachable conduct, even after that history began to tilt towards the side of a religion she opposed - she is known for her charity, her piety, and her belief in her husband’s good nature no matter how vile his behavior grew to be, even at the expense of her own self image. According to Chapuys (who in this case there is no reason to disbelieve) she went to her grave questioning wether Henry’s actions after their divorce was her fault, wondering wether, if she had given him what he wanted, he may not have felt the need to break from Rome, mistreat their daughter and execute two men - one a long term friend and one his own grandmother’s religious advisor. Catherine is a noble figure, she is a tragic figure, she is most of all a dignified figure, and in Tudor media she is always given at least a sympathetic nod if not a complex or three dimensional portrayal.

The key phrase there, though, is as a Tudor queen. Whatever else she was, Catherine was decidedly not a modern woman, just like all of her female peers living five hundred years ago were decidedly not modern women; her unflinching religious beliefs, her many attempts at producing a male heir and her devotion to her marriage are admirable traits of a female noble of the sixteenth century, less so of a twenty first century wife or businesswoman. She was a product of her time, and modernized or semi modernized Tudor media’s attempts to portray her - specifically the brand of modern Tudor media that sets out to depict Anne and Henry’s relationship as one of Sexy High Romance - always end up turning Catherine into a misogynistic caricature of herself, historical legacy be damned. The blog anneboleynnovels describes it best:

“Catherine’s greatest hurdle has been not Protestant novels, but modernized ones. These are the one subgenre in which her character at best is severely degraded and at worst is completely unrecognizable. It’s not surprising that it should be like this — finding modern corollaries to Anne and Henry, whether in an office, a Hollywood mansion, or a high school, is doable. As for most of the people who surrounded them, while some some people are harder to wrench into modern poses than others, it’s relatively easy to cut and alter those characters to make them work better in a modern setting. Catherine, however, is completely lost here. She needs to exist, or else the central conflict disappears — but she simply doesn’t have a real modern equivalent, at least not in the kinds of societies that modernizers write about; her determination that God had put her in her position and that she had to safeguard her daughter’s legitimacy, and thus her inheritance, is impossible to convey fully, especially since Henry’s historical behavior — taking a presumed inheritance from Mary, forcibly separating the two women, and confining them in residences of his choosing — can’t be precisely replicated in a modern novel without making him at best a creep and at worst a criminal. In neither case would that Henry be an appealing love object for a modern Anne, so his behavior is inevitably made more standard — he’s simply a wealthy man divorcing his wife of twenty years, and instead of taking her settlement and moving on, his wife just refuses to let go.”

As the post on Catherine’s fictionalized history points out, attempts to judge her through a modern lens, particularly in stories that center around that grand, not-at-all-murderous love affair of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn inevitably fail to produce a balanced assesment. Susan Bordo’s highly modernized study the Creation of Anne Boleyn treats her like a footnote at best and a self righteous fool at worst, while the Catherine of Suzannah Dunn’s The Queen of Subtleties is disgustingly nicknamed “Fat Cath” (stupid cow, how could she let herself go like that after six pregnancies?) and features its leading lady, another ahead-of-her-time portrayal of Anne Boleyn, going out of her way to condescendingly paint Catherine to the reader as vengeful and delusional. Anne of Hollywood and Anne and Henry present the worst portrayals, one a hideous, deliberately unsympathetic drug addict and the other a teenage psychotic forced on Henry by his father, leading her poor, brow beaten boyfriend by the hand.

That’s not to say it would be impossible to write a well rounded modern Catherine of Aragon, but most modernized Tudor novels simply don’t care to try and make her well rounded; she exists solely to be the convenient road block to Anne and a whitewashed Henry’s happiness, a flat example of the Hysterical Woman trope rather than a Queen, a mother, or a politician. It isn’t Anne Boleyn’s fault that this happens (she can’t exactly object) but this version of Catherine never fails to rear its ugly head in Tudor media that aims to portray Anne, literally or figuratively, as a “woman of the future.” Since that reading of Anne has gained momentum over the years, this Catherine inevitably does so too.

What makes the Spanish Princess so unbearable is how blatantly Emma Frost is trying, and egregiously failing, to flip the script on this. Whatever her personal dislike of Anne Boleyn, she is very obviously trying to take this fictitious version of Anne Boleyn that has sprung up over the past few decades - that of the rebellious, sexy, pseudo feminist Modern Woman™ - and apply it to Catherine of Aragon, who was neither rebellious, a feminist or, after six pregnancies, five infant deaths and a battle with heart cancer, all that sexy. The intimacy and very real affection she and Henry shared in the early years of their marriage is stilted and unemotional, replaced by an absurd number of sex scenes and a very out of place “warrior kween” nickname. It isn’t enough for Catherine to organize a massive military campaign and give a speech to an assembly of soldiers while heavily pregnant, real life accomplishments of hers which have gone largely unacknowledged - no, the Catherine of the Spanish Princess needs to literally fight in battle, pregnant belly armor and all, subtly implying that her many miscarriages were the result of her own behavior, never mind the fact that Henry’s later wives had miscarriages as well. The deeply devoted friends Catherine actually had, one of whom served her for decades and risked royal punishment to be with her on her deathbed, are either erased entirely or put into invented conflicts with her. Her relationship with the only one of her children that survived infancy is perverted into a cold, uncaring motherhood, marked by disappointment and a refusal to even hold her daughter, let alone personally teach her Latin, commission scholars to write books for her, and request those same scholars take charge of her education.

In place of all these details, the things that make the historically minded audience love Catherine in the first place, several sordid aspects of Anne Boleyn’s fictional representations are assigned to Frost’s Catherine of The Upside Down: the ~unnatural~ blowjobs and poorly designed French hoods, the general air of cattiness, the excessive nudity, the hatred of her daughter, the inability to sexually please her husband, and the weird sense of anger at all the women in her life all stand out as hallmarks of Anne Boleyn’s less flattering portrayals, but so too do the clear attempts to pander to a feminist audience and sell itself as new age and progressive.

The fouler examples of Catherine as a modern woman aren’t yet the prevalent perception of her; a gaggle of misguided twenty first century books isn’t enough to erase the near spotless reputation she’s maintained for half a millennium. But the Spanish Princess fails to depict a more positive modernization of Catherine because it’s lazy in the attempt - it sees the habit of trying to turn sixteenth century queens into anything but sixteenth century queens and tries to replicate it by taking a handful of theatrical trends and having their protagonist perform them. Those trends have been apart of Anne Boleyn’s portrayal in the media for so long it wouldn’t be that strange to see her acting that way on screen, no matter how historically inaccurate they may be, but to assign them to someone with such a vastly different public history as Catherine is just jarring. She wasn’t like that, nobody thinks she was like that, Tudor media has always known her as being not like that, and the result is something that’s confusing at best and outright offensive at worst. It’s not fun to watch, but it’s interesting to examine, broader context in mind.

(Also credit to @queenmarytudor for that image of Meg and Mary, and seriously, check out anneboleynnovels. They’re great.)

#the spanish princess #Catherine of Aragon #the Tudors #henry viii #also I should say that I am not in any way a historian and you should take what I say with a massive grain of salt #this is just what I think

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airlock · 3 years

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it's inadvisably early in the morning and I just finished watching a video talking about the public perception of Twilight over the years, and it got me thinking about some things that I figured I might as well inelegantly ramble about in my limited platform that one or two people like to read my text posts on

but before I take this to the inside of the readmore, I have a small confession to make. you see, when I was a teenager...

... I fucking hated Twilight actually. that's barely a confession, but hey, I told you it was going to be small

anyways, onto the disorganized reflections about the deceptively simple matter of disliking things in media and fandom, typed from my phone and likely riddled with tpyos

in this day and age, I think it's very unlikely you'll uncover a person, especially a mature one, who likes Twilight without at least harboring reservations over its more tres problematique aspects or the simple fact that they're not really the most fascinating thing that a monkey has ever committed to a typewriter. at the same time, though, the phenomenon of vociferously disliking twilight is long gone; for the most part, Twilight either your guilty pleasure, or something you don't think about very much at all anymore.

this has made it rather easy to construct the retrospective narrative that, even if being a twilight fan back in the day might have been a little bit cringey and embarassing, everyone who vocally disliked the books back then was someone pathetically hanging their entire identity onto bashing a thing just because teenage girls liked it.

now, I'm not here to stand in defense of the whole of the phenomenon that was Hating Twilight, because hoo boy, not all was right in that kingdom. it led to an immensurable quota of bullying and harassment, and much of it was rooted in sexism, queerphobia, machismo, the works. still, some part of me doesn't see how exactly it's fair to forgive Twilight for being imperfect while also casting that other coin of olden times only ever in the worst possible light. it's not an exact equivalence by any means, but I think it's something comparable.

it's also just kind of like... when I think about to what exactly I disliked so much about Twilight, when I try to get to the core of it in the most honest way I can... it comes down to the sparkly vampires. yeah. it's not that I hated it because it was effette (although I wholly admit that I was there on board with people taking the mockery in that direction), so much as that it seemed like this story was written about vampires that weren't vampires in any interesting way. not nocturnal bloodthirsty undead monsters, just attractive guys with a couple of superpowers. might as well have set it in smallville.

you might be thinking, that's such an unimportant thing. and it absolutely was! but nobody is any longer pretending like they had a deep and interesting reason for liking Twilight; why should it only be Valid (TM) to have disliked it all along if you were one of the people who actually had a good reason to feel that way?

there are certainly some things that the sentiment doesn't justify -- doesn't make it right to give the people who did like the books a hard time, and doesn't make it right to talk about these dislikes as if they are objective assessments of quality, to name a few things. again, it's not an exact equivalence. but I think this unwillingness to just let people have their petty, personal dislikes is one manifestation of a deeper and more insidious phenomenon in modern fandom culture.

one thing I also remember from those yonder days is that, from time to time, people would take me to task on why disliking Twilight seemed to matter so much to me. whether it be because of times when I was genuinely being uppity about it, or because of times when people simply projected this sense of caring very much at simple expressions of dislike and/or some rounds of having fun lambasting the disliked thing. at those times, I'd do the thing that many people did and fall back on concern trolling over the book's ostensible romanticization of abusive behavior. (which, to be clear, is not something I am now categorically saying Twilight doesn't do, I'm just now past the point of pretending like I know enough about the series to make such a serious accusation affirmatively. maybe I should have just stuck with calling out the part where a dude falls in love with a newborn. I know that that's a thing that happens, unfortunately)

thing is, that particular strain of behavior -- deflecting with social commentary as a response to being taken to task on your petty dislikes -- reminds me quite a bit of something else. like, say, the fact that most people in fandom these days are absolutely unwilling to ever admit they dislike something just because they do and instead always have to make it out to be a cause of social justice instead.

one of the bigger reasons why this happens is purity culture and the desirability of signaling wokeness to others even in situations where it does not fucken matter, but I think another of the biggest reasons is that, if someone simply does come out and say "yeah, I dislike the thing for reasons that aren't very deep", they tend to get responded to like they grew five heads. best case scenario, they get labeled a killjoy. worst case scenario, they get the woke-fu turned on them, because hmmmm, how suspicious that you dislike this character who is a minority of some sort. (if the character is not a minority of any sort, then naturally, people have written slash fic about him, therefore you are homophobic for disliking him. it always works!)

now, there is a certain amount of etiquette that is fundamental to not being a dick about disliking things -- the golden rule being that you don't ruin the fun for people who do like the thing -- but I think it's high time we recognized more broadly that pettiness creates as much community and life as love does. somewhere beneath all the chest-thumping and celebrity harassment, there were once people genuinely finding community in their shared distate for this tedious little book that it seemed like the world couldn't get over. I think that, whenever you give people that opportunity to bond over a shared dislike, they'll bite; it's better we just figure out how to wield this, with etiquette and honesty, and accept it. it's leaps and bounds better than making people feel like they have to destroy something before they're allowed not to like it.

hell, I'd say that the best thing out there is when fans and haters of a certain thing can still find common ground. can you imagine how thrilled I was when I heard about how the Twilight series apparently has a whole lot of more interesting-sounding side characters who were just unfortunately shunted to the background of The Love Triangle Of Mr. Obssessive, Ms. Everygirl, And Mr. Secretly Actually In Love With An Ovum?

#my stupid text posts #maybe after I sleep I will have the power of cohesive writing returned to me #anyway this was rambling AM at airlock dot tungle

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