#let people have their fun interpreting media even if it differs from your interpretation goddamn girl !! who hurt you

[tubbytarchia]

It seriously feels like there's more bitching about toxic FH in the flower husbands tag than there is actual toxic FH posts. It is really funny though. Man yells at cloud energy

[buck-yyyy]

(sorta?) hot take we should stop being shitty to m!levens and calling them dumb behind their backs because in the end its literally just fictional characters and even if they did it first just hit the block button (its not that hard). 'but they started it-' block them. 'but theyre being ignorant-' its not your job to educate them. block them. literally just stop being an asshole. who cares what they ship. as long as its not some weird adult/minor thing or whatever just let them be. there are real people behind those screens.

my apologies for taking so long to get to this T-T

YES YES YES FUCKING SAY IT

i'm so sick of the blatant bullying from bylers towards milkvans. they are minding their own business on their tag, posting their thoughts and enjoying the characters, and yet there's still so many of us who feel entitled to shit all over them and the things that they like and think, the exact thing that we complain about constantly.

i fucking hate how this tag seems to believe that shipping byler makes you exempt from being a bully. it feels like SHIT to have someone make fun of you behind your back- believe me, i goddamn know! so many of us know! and yet it's still such an issue? LEAVE THEM ALONE! let them make fanart, and write fic, and have headcanons and a deep love for these characters and their ship, because it does not goddamn affect us. it doesn't.

this tag has a serious problem with perpetuating the idea that anyone not picking up on or disagreeing with or even just simply disliking byler makes them stupid or media illiterate, which is NOT TRUE!!! milkvans aren't stupid, the general audience isn't stupid, and we aren't better than ANYONE for looking so deep into this show and finding subtext to analyze that brought us to the conclusion that byler will/should be canon.

maybe they disagree with the way the evidence is presented. maybe they think it means something else. maybe they simply don't want to look deeper into the show- WHO CARES! we all need to stop pretending that the term 'media literacy' hasn't been turned into a weapon that we use against anyone who disagrees with us or doesn't care enough about the show to think about it deeper than a surface level. that's not what media literacy means, but it's been twisted into something it's not, just like with fucking tiktok and 'gaslight' or 'normalize'.

agh. i'm sorry for turning this into a rant, but it makes me SO mad that people can't leave milkvans alone to enjoy their ship and their characters. shipping wars are dumb. have your own thoughts and opinions and talk about them, but don't point and laugh at the people who drastically disagree- because you don't come off looking good, you come off looking like a total twat who can't accept different interpretations of a television show.

anyways. milkvans i love you dearly i hope you're having fun with mike and el and i'm sorry for anyone who makes you feel bad for enjoying them, mwah mwah

[gffa]

Hi!  I went through a similar phase as several of you--I never really connected the dots between my own aro/ace qualities and my gravitating towards the Jedi culture until someone else pointed it out and then everything just sort of clicked together in my head in a way that made so much sense. And I think it can be really useful to view the Jedi through this lens of aro/ace culture, not because people are obligated to agree to this interpretation (they absolutely are not obligated to do so!) but because it provides a framework of reference for why not being drawn to romance and/or sex is not a foundational flaw in characters.  That there might even be an entire group of people who find that to be really satisfying and fulfilling--I mean, look at how many people gravitated to this discussion (or were already here) in just one day on one person’s blog on one social media platform.  It’s not hard at all for me to think, yeah, I’m looking at us building aro/ace culture of our own, it’d be easy for an in-universe group of people to do the same, and the lack of romance and/or sex wouldn’t be them suppressing their feelings or lacking something fundamental about the human condition, either. That’s part of why the Jedi mean a lot to me--there are other things as well, I greatly value their “face the shit within yourself, acknowledge that shit, and then let that shit go, because holding onto it is poison that will hurt you”, as someone who came to the same conclusions long before I was ever a Star Wars fan.  I love the worldbuilding, I love the psychic space wizards aspects, I love how goddamned extra they are about everything, etc. But a culture that not only doesn’t prioritize romance/sex, but actively values other things and finds meaning in those things?  That we see they have friendships and connections all over the place, that they find joy and meaning in teaching their students (and learning from their students, just as much as they teach them), that they find joy in helping others and protecting others, that they love through different ways, that they love the galaxy around them, they love their brothers and sisters in the Force, that they love their community and their culture?  That they just don’t seem to really want love and romance? Even those that do feel romantic feelings (setting Anakin aside, of course) still find the Jedi path to be a fulfilling one.  Obi-Wan may have had romantic feelings for Satine (which was apparently fine, it’s about his commitment and where he places it, I’m pretty sure that was the whole point of the Obi-Wan/Satine relationship, to be a narrative foil for Anakin/Padme, where Anakin does prioritize his feelings for Padme over his morals and judgement, which results in disaster of epic proportions) but he is a fully realized character without them.  He loves--we see that with Qui-Gon, Ahsoka, Luke, Anakin--that he cares deeply, that he’s a compassionate person, that he lives a life that he considers satisfying.  He becomes a Force Ghost and we can see him looking out over Endor, at the things that have finally been set back to rights, and he’s happy. Even within canon, the Jedi that feel restless and like something is wrong in this galaxy, they’re not restless because they want romance/sex, but because they want to do more as Jedi.  They want to help more people, they want to do more good in the galaxy, and do you know how much that means to me?  That even those who are dissatisfied (setting aside those that leave the Jedi Order because they want to have romantic relationships, which are treated warmly by the Order and by the people who left, like Tula’s grandmother) don’t have to be shoved back into the same box so many mainstream properties shove the characters into?  That it’s not about how, oh, they want traditional nuclear families, but instead that they want MORE of what the Jedi are--more love as shown through service to others, more love as shown through helping others. Do you know what a relief it is to have a group of people who find fulfillment in the same kind of things that I do?  Friendships and helping others and learning/teaching about the galaxy around them and self-reflection/understanding and accomplishments the like?  That these are treated, not just as valuable, not even just as valuable, but more valuable to these specific people?  Without demonizing that they’re totally cool with other people wanting romantic love?  DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT MEANS TO ME? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT MEANS THAT THE JEDI DON’T REALLY SEEM INTERESTED IN ROMANCE OR SEX AND INSTEAD FIND SATISFACTION IN OTHER THINGS?  THAT IT’S NOT ABOUT SUPPRESSING YOURSELF, BUT THAT PEOPLE SOMETIMES JUST REALLY DON’T CARE ABOUT THOSE THINGS.  SOMETIMES EVEN LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE. That the Jedi aren’t just “hey, this one Jedi can be read as aro/ace, that’s neat” but instead the Jedi said, “Hey, how about an ENTIRE CULTURE that vibes hard with aro/ace culture?”  That it’s the one mainstream culture that I can think of that really can be interpreted to say, “You’re not just an outlier, but YOU’RE THE NORM in this fictional society.”  Do you know what kind of value that has to me, as someone who only has the tiniest scraps of representation for this character or that character who maybe might be like me, but are rarely confirmed and are almost always The Different One?  Do you know what kind of value it has to me that it’s not just one or two of them, but that THE CULTURE ITSELF is where I would fit in?  That they built an entire society where nearly all of them seem to be Like Me? AN ENTIRE SOCIETY OF PEOPLE I WOULD FIT IN WITH? Which isn’t even getting into the worldbuilding specifics that are so much fun to play with--like, can you imagine what it would be like to have this psychic connection to this vast field of energy in the cosmos?  To be able to sense the feelings of others around you, to feel their presence even when they’re halfway across the galaxy, to just know what they’re feeling?  To be constantly surrounded by the lights of those souls that are gently nudging up against your own?  The warmth and peace of the Jedi Temple that isn’t just what you see/hear/touch, but also what permeates your very thoughts, the soothing balm on your soul that it would be? Can you imagine what it would be like to have this in your head all the time?

A familiar sense of warmth, of belonging, of finding himself part of an endless lattice of connections that held him and everything else, each fixed in its proper place.  A Force. Romance and sex can be wonderful.  But they are not the sole defining qualities of what it means to be sentient or what it means to be fulfilled.  The Force being described as an endless lattice of connections and warmth, that sounds incredibly wonderful and human to me, that sounds incredibly fulfilling and like everything I could possibly want. That is what the Jedi seek and have found.  That is the foundation of their culture.  That is the culmination of their lives. This is why their relationships are so wonderful and I’m so glad that the iconic Jedi relationships, whether we as fans turn towards shipping them or not, whether we joke about how much you can read into them or not, are ones that are all about other aspects that are just as epic and important. Obi-Wan’s most iconic relationships are with Luke, Anakin, Qui-Gon, Ahsoka.  They’re all incredible ones and it’s not to disparage his feelings for Satine (I love them as a pairing, too!), but that his character is defined more by familial and platonic relationships being just as galaxy-shaking as romantic ones might have been in another story?  That means a lot to me. Anakin is, of course, driven by his romantic relationship with Padme, but think about how important his relationships with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are, ones that don’t have to be seen through the lens of romance.  That the ultimate climax of the prequels was Anakin’s fight with Obi-Wan, a familial connection.  That the ultimate climax of TCW was about Ahsoka’s relationship with Anakin, another familial/platonic connection. Ahsoka is a rising star in the SW franchise and her most iconic connections are with Anakin and Rex, both of which do not have to be interpreted through the romantic/sexual lens, that are complete just as they are presented.  That even when she can no longer be a Jedi, even when that possibility is stolen from her, she still doesn’t need to be defined through romance or sex. Yoda has many important, iconic relationships and is such a central character to the mythos and mythology of Star Wars.  His relationship with Luke is one of the most foundational of the OT, his relationship with Obi-Wan is important when you dig further into the supplementary material, his relationship with Anakin creates some of the most memorable scenes of the prequels.  All without ever having him desire a girlfriend.  Hell, the movies had Yaddle right there and you know what?  She wasn’t Yoda’s girlfriend, he wasn’t her boyfriend, that’s not what they were to each other, because they didn’t really seem to have any desire for that. THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS I LOVE THE JEDI.  They show compassion and care and love all over the place, but they do it through George Lucas’ views on how people should strive to be, and they do it not through romance, but through friendship and helping others and seeking greater understanding of self-knowledge and artistry through the Force, and none of that should ever make them lesser, just as aromantic and asexual people seeking those same things does not make them lesser. We are people who love just as much as anyone else, we have fulfilling and wonderful lives, I don’t know any aro/ace person who would really even want to change themselves, we find ourselves to be perfectly fantastic the way we are.  I don’t feel some part of me is missing, I don’t feel I’m less interesting because I’m aro/ace, I love being the way I am.  I love how much my friends and family mean to me, I love how much joy I get out of caring for animals or helping other people or even simply yelling about Star Wars with them.  My connections to people are just as wonderful as anyone else’s, regardless of how they’re not in the romantic/sexual category. And, so too are the Jedi.

[navek15]

So in-between writing fanfiction, working on my novel, work, the upcoming online semester, keeping the house clean, and getting my ass repeating handed to me in Dark Souls: Remastered and Dark Souls III, my increasing disdain for how terrible, unimaginative, and terribly imaginative some ‘fans’ of particular properties can be. And it’s not just from one particular instance, it’s from several occurrences over the years.

Yesterday, I was watching Maj0r Lee’s video reaction to terrible reviews of Final Fantasy 7: Remake. Side note, I’ve respected ML for not being afraid to speak his mind, no matter how much it goes against the nerd fan hivemind. And one thing that quickly got on his and my nerves about the reviews was how repetitive they were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR-1NTCwLr8

“Tetsuya Nomura pulled a Kingdom Hearts and ruined the great story of the original FF7.”

“Nomura and friends turned FF7 into Kingdom Hearts-tier garbage.”

“I was going to give FF7: Remake a ten out of ten until that terribly ending turned it into a zero.”

Tetsuya Nomura this, Kingdom Hearts that, something something the original story was basically the bible. The same points repeated over and over again. It’s like listening to all the same complaints about the Last Jedi. I’d probably take those complaints seriously if it didn’t feel like the same arguments were being copy-pasted over and over because that generates more clicks on YouTube.

If I sound a bit salty, it might be because my favorite video game franchise (BTW, I would never say KH is flawless) is being used as a go-to example of bad writing. This must be how the Call of Duty fans feel all the time.

But there was one particular ‘review’ that pissed me off to no end;

“The more and more I think about it, I feel like Nomura and co. have little to no respect for the fans that have given their work this love, and perhaps even harbour some contempt for them wanting to to see their childhood imagination and memories of the story realised as they deserve to be.

There is a certain arrogance to twisting this world and story to their own whim, as if to say that “this is our world, our characters, what you fans think means nothing to us, we can do what we want with them and you can get fucked if you disagree”.”

You know what this reminds me of? Those laughable Anti-Horikoshi blogs that use the trans flag as their background to supposedly ‘protect’ the female characters of My Hero Academia from their ‘disgusting’ creator. Those lunatics that posted themselves burning their copies of Tokyo Ghoul because the main character banged his female love interest and called Ishida a homophobe. Or the the worst episode of South Park where Trey Parker and Matt Stone showed their disapproval of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by having Indy getting horrifically sodomized by George Lucas and Steven Spielburg.

This might be hard for some idiots to understand, so let me spell it out for you; YOU DO NOT OWN A STORY OR CHARACTERS JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE A “FAN”!

In the end, writers have their own ideas for how storylines, character progression, and character relationships will turn out. If all creators ever did was pander to the fickle desires of the most rabid ‘fans’, all media would be nothing but self-referential bullshit. Hell, we already example how bad this would be. It’s called ‘How the Last Jedi should’ve ended!’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCB8DUGpYQQ

While this video was clearly made to take the piss out of TLJ, it ironically demonstrates my fucking point! This is also why I am 100% certain that we’re never getting a Dark Souls/Bloodborne movie or tv show. Because any interpretation or story that dares to go against the most poorly thought out fan theories will get ripped apart by absolute lunatics with nothing better to do with their time.

And another thing, can we stop treating stories like they’re fucking scripture?! There’s a reason that the ‘Stations of the Canon’ trope is derided by many authors. I can probably name all the Naruto fanfics that aren’t just the same as the original story just with slightly altered dialogue and everyone wearing slightly-different clothing. And I was guilty of this too, until I realized how much more fun it was to go completely off the rails.

Not the mention that this kind of thinking leads to people holding stories to such a ridiculous degree that any sequel or retelling that fails to live up to those unreasonable expectations will get treated like a personal attack and a dumpster fire not even worthy to roast expired marshmallows over.

I’m not saying you should never criticize a story, game or comic for its actual flaws, but don’t try to make it into a sob story like ‘How dare the creator or owners of this story like go about it what they think is the best! These guys are worse than HITLER!’ Hate to break to ya, but no ones goes into a story or long-running franchise to purposely piss off the fans. They’re doing it because they got a story to tell...or to make money. Or both.

And try to come up with your own critiques instead of just copy and pasting the same arguments over and over again.

“Fairy Tail is terrible because all the girls have big tits and skimpy outfits.”

“I’ve heard all that before. Do you have any other complaints?”

“No, but that’s what everyone else is whining about.”

“Well then, piss off and come back when you actually form your own goddamn opinion.”

And I’m not saying that if your problem if a story is the same as someone else’s, then it's invalid. But at least try to say it in a way that doesn’t come across as just copying what the guy before ya said.

One last ramble before I go back to writing and getting attacked by video game monsters; can we stop with all the hyperbole? There are only so many times I can hear the phrase, “This is the worst thing ever” before it loses all meaning. Yes, I’m sure the newest Call of Duty game is worse than Santa Claus Saves the World. That the newest Star Wars movie is worse than A Serbian Film. Or that Black Clover is worse than Eiken.

And that argument is especially soured when the phrase ‘raped my childhood’ eventually rears its ugly head. It was outdated and terribly tasteless when Doug Walker reviewed Batman and Robin, and it’s gotten more disgusting and childish as a phrase over time.

Anyway, that’s my delusional rambling done for the day. Hope you all are safe and comfortable. Have a nice day!

[d-n-battle]

You know... it’s not so much that I hate Naruhina and Sasusaku...

It’s more like I just really don’t get how anyone can really like these pairings?? Like I really just don’t understand the appeal???

Like did I really watch the same series as all you Naruhina and Sasusaku shippers????

Y’all: aaawww look at all of these Naruto and Hinata scenes, he clearly loves her sooo much <3 <3 <3🥰😍😌

Me: bitch where????😂😂😂

(Literally, I could make the exact same joke about Sasusaku)

Like, is it just me, or are these two ships literally just about the girls’ feelings???

I mean I’d be totally fine with these two couples, if they didn’t put this emphasis on the girls, and completely ignore the guys...

I mean ok - serious time now - can the Sasusaku shippers and Naruhina shippers show me any evidence from the anime (or manga if you’re a reader) of Naruto and Sasuke returning Hinata and Sakura’s feelings respectively???

Again, I want to reiterate that this is a genuine request, I’m not trying to poke fun with this one. I’m just genuinely curious as to what you guys can dig up. (But also, side note - please refrain from using the films or Boruto as I haven’t watched them yet. I honestly don’t think I’m even gonna watch Boruto, cause I’m not a big fan of like spin off series, so yeah...But anything from the 720 anime episodes, or any of the manga chapters is fine.)

Anyway, back to my point.

Relationships are about two or more people coming together because they recognise that they have romantic feelings towards each other.

Which is exactly why I, like I’ve said already, don’t understand how Naruhina and Sasusaku are supposed to work???

Like yeah, Sakura and Hinata both like/love Sasuke and Naruto.

But when have Sasuka and Naruto expressed that they like them back in that way???

I mean as a whole the show was never even about romance, sure there were hints at possible relationships throughout, but that was never the point of the show.

I mean I feel like this all harkens back to some points I’ve already seen made by other people, but like why is romance necessary in this situation???

.....siiiiiigh.....😒

Because what else are female characters for??? If not to fawn over the male character then really what are they for??? I mean it’s not like they’re meant to represent real life people just like the male characters right??? It’s not like they’re meant to actually have well fleshed out characters with goals that don’t revolve around getting the guy of their dreams to notice them right??? Nooo, of course not, don’t be ridiculous....

I am seriously just soooo done with this bullshit. Like I’ll be the first to admit that Hinata and Sakura are not my favourite characters, but I mean it’s not like that’s really their fault now is it??? I mean they honestly both had a lot of potential. Like, seriously, soooooo much potential. I’m being completely honest here, I was well and truly so disappointed by how these two girls’ character potential was squandered 😔😔😔

And all for the sake of fullfilling their ‘true’ purpose in the show....

And don’t even try to give me the excuse that because Naruto is a shounen anime aimed at a primarily male audience, female characters can’t be feutured as anything besides the love interst. Like what kind of shit is that - so guys can’t even enjoy female characters unless they’re lusting after the male characters they like to insert themselves into???? I mean if you really think that then you must really hate guys.

Like I’m sorry but that just makes men sound like shit. It makes them sound like they only view women as people who belong to them, and are only relevant when it comes to how they are connected to men.

Women are their own goddamm people!!! They don’t exist solely to appease men!!!

As I woman, I have had to put up with this shit for years, and I am so done with it. If guys get to have characters that represent them in almost every piece of media out there, then why don’t women get to have the same treatment??? We make up a whole half of the entire goddamn population!!!

Honeslty, a bitch is soooooo mad about this 😡😡😡(thag bitch being me of course)

And what I’m also super mad about is that these two relationships imply that the guys feelings are completely irrelevant. Like I’m sorry but no amount of Sakura liking/loving Sasuke makes it okay for her to end up with him - if he doesn’t feel anywhere near the same amount of love or appreciation for her. And the same can be applied to Hinata and Naruto.

This outcome also forces everyone to just completely ignore/forget the fact that Naruto and Sasuke are completely unready to be in a relationship with anyone.

Like, yeah I’m gonna admit here that I am indeed a Narusasu shipper, but I’ll also admit that I dead ass don’t think they’d even be ready for a relationship with each other.

I mean the war and everything else just completely messed them both up, so they would both probably need some time to heal. And knowing those two, it would most likely take quite a while before they’re anywhere near healed enough to date - let alone fucking marry - anyone.

And, also (so that I’m not accused of favouritism towards the boys) - what about Sakura and Himata and the shit that they themselves experienced??? I mean Hinata had to watch her cousin die in front of her - that’s gotta mess you up. And Sakura was a medic - there’s no imagining the shit she must have seen.

War messes people up for a long time, and bassed off of what I’ve heard of Boruto - the timeline implies that these two couples got married and had kids pretty soon after the war.

That. Does. Not. Add. Up. Sis!!!!!

Honestly, the series should have just had what I like to call an ‘open ending’. This is where pretty much everything is left (you guessed it) out in the open. By everything I mean like the final relationships and stuff like the minutiae of the story. Unless, your story is a romance story in which case the romance is the most important thing, but as we’ve established- this is not the case with Naruto.

If you don’t explicitly state that characters X and Y are married with 2.5 kids, everyone who would dislike that as an outcome is free to think that they didn’t.

Like seriously, the whole point of using the line “and they lived happily ever after”, is so that you can leave the ending open to the interpretation of the audience. That’s why I’ve never liked being told how they lived happily ever after.

Because, ultimately everyone has different ideas of what happy looks like.

Some people want to get married because that’s what would make them happy, and for some marriage would achieve the opposite. It’s the same case with having children. Or what job you wanna have.

I mean really, there is soooo many different ideas of what happy looks like.

So why limit yourself and more importantly your audience/readers????

I mean think about it like this. The purpose of a main character is basically to give us a point of view of the story through which we can be influenced. That’s why a lot of the time they don’t really have distinct personality traits - so that the reader can project their own onto them. That way the reader/audience member is able to immerse themselves in the story. We are allowed to image that the main character is us. That’s why we get angry when they do something we don’t like, our first thought is - “well, I wouldn’t have done that...”. So image how disconnected you would feel, from a character who makes a big decision that you don’t agree with. Like say, getting married, when you yourself can’t imagine yourself getting married??? Or say, getting married to someone who you yourself wouldn’t want to get married to???

I think that’s the real issues in case of Naruhina and Sasusake. The majority of us - who are clearly of sound minds - would not want to marry Hinata, Sakura, or even Naruto and Sasuke. Most likely because their characters often times feel like caricatures of people, instead of real life people. They feel somehow unfinished, and so we have a harder time seing the bigger picture, and how these big decisions they have made are supposed to make sense.

Okay, I feel like I’ve rambled enough. I leave you with this -

I don’t mean to offend anyone with this post, and so I hope I haven’t/didn’t/won’t. I’m truly just stating my opinion here. If you don’t agree with anything I’ve said here, please do let me know; I’ll always appreciate constructive criticism.

I will always love Naruto. But in order to truly love something you have to also recognise it as flawed. And this was simply me pointing out some of the things which I perceive as flaws of the show/manga.

Please, don’t think of this post, or any others which I might make in the future, as hate posts. As I’ve said, I do love the show/manga - but that doesn’t make me unwilling to crique it.

Alrighty, this is where I actually end the rant.

Thanks for coming y’all,

Love,

Danny

[chaninfused]

You're definitely not the only one!!! 💀 there are few exceptions where the movie adaption has turned put pretty good actually (lotr for example) but something is ALWAYS butchered up in conparison to when you read it. The original medium is a book, so everything in this book is exactly how the content creator wanted it to be and when you as the reader love the worlds and characters and plot they have created alone with words and sentences, when you have built your own picture of everything, of COURSE the imagination of someone else (additionally restricted by the medium film cause while movies obviously grant other possibilities than books, e.g. music, the story wasn't made for it) is not equivalent to the world one has created by themselves. Also this might just be me but 99% of all times the actors do NOT fit the visual of the characters I have thought of and this - at least for me - takes a big part of the fun (for examply Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or the cast in Emma). ALSO when the script cuts minor (or even major scenes ugh) and they sometimes even have the sheer audacity to change the story and add their own plot??? ALSO when the whole atmosphere of the movie is so very different from what I felt while reading because of the director's personal interpretation (here I'm thinking about Polanski's take on Oliver Twist which was so dark and gruesome because of his own ghetto experiences) hjvtr I'm quite sorry, this became a whole rant but it's a topic that often annoys me deeply 😭🤣💀

no, no, no please rant because this is one of, if not the, biggest pet peeves of mine and it makes me so frustrated every. time. >:(

the thing is, something will have to change, as you said, and that tips the balance more often than not. I understand that directors have the creative freedom and blah blah but PLEASE just call the thing a spin-off if you’re gonna change so much 🤦‍♀️ I hate it. I hate it so much 😭

[big rant ahead whoops 🤪]

I’m a huge fan of a series of unfortunate events, the books obviously, and oh my god, when I tell you the netflix series made me angry, I’m not exaggerating. the opening sequence was good, I’ll give them that, but other than that, everything about the show made me upset (my sister was a huge fan of it, which is why I was forced to watch it and grumble about how this and that were different in the books 🥴). characters that were supposed to be dead were alive, side characters in the books suddenly became crucial acting characters in the plot, original events were altered or entirely removed, new events were added, the original sequence of events was put in a blender and then laid out- and I can go on and on about how the series largely differs from the actual books, but that’s not the worst part. a series of unfortunate events was fun to read because of the series of unfortunate events that occur relentlessly (you can guess where the title came from wink wonk 🤪) but also because of the narrator. the books are narrated by the author, lemony snicket (that is not his real name, lemony is also a character in the series), and his narration added so much to the books. the style, the rhyme, the metaphors, and the references, reading a series of unfortunate events was an experience because you don’t find that kind of narration everywhere. that, unfortunately, was not present in the tv series and it took away so much from the story. it made the series bland :/

and yes, visual representations! let’s talk about that. what’s with directors ignoring character descriptions 😐 it’s fine if your actor isn’t an exact replica of the character, but it’s questionable when the actor doesn’t even fit most of character’s main physical traits 💀 it shows how half of the people responsible for making these adaptations don’t even read the books. and yes I’m talking about the casting for agatha in the school for good and evil and I’m not sorry about it. the girl has been described one way throughout the series and illustrated as such on the covers only for the casting director to pick the exact opposite 👁👄👁 why? I feel personally violated because these are characters I grew up with. next thing I know they’ll make reena white 💀 it’s like all this time, the descriptions in the books were telling you something and based on that you created this character in your head then bam! your entire world is a lie. and it’s even worse when they put these inaccurate actors’ characters on the covers of the books...just don’t do it. it’s cringeworthy, and it has to stop. please. you can ruin things on the screen but leave the goddamn books alone, I’m literally begging 🤲

OH AND ALSO? THE CHEAP AND POOR REPRESENTATION OF CLOTHING. IF YOU WANT TO ADAPT FANTASY THEN YOU BETTER BE READY TO MAKE CLOTHES THAT DON’T LOOK LIKE COSTUMES FROM DAISO. FULL STOP.

another thing that bothers me so much is the media’s need to create romance and sexualize things, it’s a thirst at this point. through books, delicate and complex relationships are portrayed in a way a screen can’t show you in limited time, amid crammed events. there is a certain beauty in the way some characters interact that’s easy, so easy, to mess up on screen. the unnecessary sexualization just destroys it. the random romance ruins it. there’s almost no respect for these relationships. take kaz and inej from six of crows as an example. the two have traumas that hold them back and they try to overcome them throughout the duology for each other. in the end, they don’t kiss, they don’t [censored], but the intimacy between them is illustrated through kaz cleaning inej’s wounds with his bare hands, through inej letting him do that for her, through kaz not holding her back and instead using his resources to aid her dreams, through inej knowing that kaz will come for her whenever and wherever, through them being vulnerable with each other. it’s something so fragile, beautiful, and pure and I know, I just know, they will be having a heated make out scene in the second episode of that future netflix series, and it makes me so upset. 

and I get it, it’s exciting for some to see their favorite characters on screen and be able to share this with the wider non-reader audience but 😔 I just think it’s sad and frankly offensive to the readers when this so called adaptation is nothing like the books. and yes, movies will never do the books justice, which is why I never watch them if I’m a fan of the books. I don’t want to have them ruined by someone’s quick cash grab project 🤐

[heartshapedstrand]

Not meaning to be rude or anything, but I was wondering what makes you see compatibility in Sam and Heartman? I've always seen Sam as too standoffish to reciprocate anything and Heartman being more needy than he could handle.

So here’s the rub, I sincerely hope you weren’t trying to be rude, cause, I dunno, I do still feel like your wording was a bit… rude. But that is okay. Its my choice to be a little offended, but I’m not gonna hold that against you.

Let’s break things down, starting with canon. 

Canonically, Sam shows little interest in anyone, and onlykind of opens up friendship-wise with Fragile, being playful with her over the cryptobiotes, and allowing her to touch him, willingly, because of story-drive necessity.

Canonically, there IS no romantic relationship for Sam, after the loss of his family. Fragile came a hair closer to being a possible canon ship, and I know there are people who can put up a decent argument for Deadman as a possible canon ship, but. Kojima left everything open ended on purpose. He left it open for each person’s interpretation, just like the story, the ambiguity of it gave everyone a different perspective on what happened. Some people saw Amelie as a manipulative, unfeeling monster (me), and some people thought she genuinely didn’t want to end the world. Its opinion, its perspective. Moving on.

Canonically, no, there’s nothing to truly show there’s any kind of interest between Sam and Heartman. But that is the point of fandom, to take what we know of canon and extrapolate from it the possibilities of deeper relationships. It’s true that in canon game story Heartman and Sam’s interactions are few, so those no room to see more development of their friendship dynamics.

So, my perspective on the compatibility of these two starts with these things:

They both have suffered the loss of their families.

Neither of them were interested in the “reunite America” bandwagon. 

Heartman was a father once, he could offer Sam advice on caring for Lou

Sam gave Heartman his first step in moving past his grief and obsession

You used the term “standoffish” to describe Sam, and I can agree for the most part, Sam is standoffish, but to everyone he doesn’t know. He was like that with Fragile, Deadman, Mama, Lockne. But. He did thaw a little to each of them because for one reason or another, he’d come to care for them. Heartman is the same.

However, Heartman is the only person in-game Sam willingly talked about the loss of his family to. Deadman looked up his records to find that information, and when he brought it up, Sam was terse and didn’t want to talk about it.

With Heartman, it was Heartman himself speaking about the loss of his family. Sam relates to his loss, the sentiment that he’s “already dead” by saying “I know that feeling. Lost my family in an accident.” Only then, does Heartman mention he’d read about Sam’s history. It’s that interaction and dynamic that gives me the idea that there’s potential for at the least a deeper friendship than some of the others. 

Stepping to the next thing, the fact that they share the lack of enthusiasm for “Reunited America” also gives them a connection. Heartman’s only desire to work with Bridges and the UCA is that he has access to the chiral network, and research materials. They keep him set up in a remote lab with equipment he needs for his medical issues, and lets him carry on toward his eventual death as long as he’s providing them with his findings in the meantime. I think that gives Sam reason to relax a bit, around Heartman. And, it was Sam’s coming that I think was Heartman’s first step to moving on from his endless search for his family. I wrote all that out in this post a week or so ago, go give it a read if you like. 

And as for Heartman being needy…. I mean? He is starved of human contact, god only knows how long he’s been at his remote lab without contact from another living soul. He’s a bit awkward because of that, and I suspect he’s always been a little strange. Most scientists are in games or other media, pretty sure its a trope, even.

But! Heartman is a grown ass man, he probably knows he’s a bit needy, but also had self-control. It’s clear that even though he does want to talk to Sam about more than the research, Mama’s corpse, and whatnot, he doesn’t invade Sam’s boundaries. Two different times, he tries to shake hands with Sam, and once, he vaguely offers him a hug. My feeling from it was… He’s a scientist, and he’s fascinated by Sam for a number of scientific reasons. Testing his boundaries was just one of the things he could do to analyze him unobtrusively. 

Once he had a feel for Sam’s personal space, he never tries to invade it, just offering thumbs up or down as a gesture of social interaction without the need for physical contact. If Heartman was needy, to an unhealthy degree, he wouldn’t respect Sam’s boundaries.

And lastly, post-game, Heartman was a father once. And as far as we know, Sam’s never actually handled babies or children. He clearly didn’t trust returning to the heart of the UCA after violating a directive by the ‘president’ of the UCA. 

Heartman worked remotely, away from the rest of the Bridges/UCA people. He had knowledge, he had room to spare, and we also know he would spoof the system to hide conversations from the UCA’s 24/7 surveillance. Why not call on him to help?

As for romantic/sexual shipping, well. We don’t actually know what attracts Sam or Heartman to anyone, do we? 

Hell, that crush you had in high school, do you remember why? Was there a reason? You see that one person, and suddenly there’s a flutter in your stomach, but why? Did their smile make your heart skip a beat, did the way they wore their clothes make you a little hot under the collar? I love nicely shaped shoulders, and men with wide hips. Why? I have no clue, but it’s what I like. It just is. It was a spark, something inside me said “this is attractive”. Hell, I had a crush on the biggest bitch in my school. I hated her personality, she was a bitch to everyone but her friends(which i was not), and she was a snobby rich kid. Pretty sure she didn’t even know I existed, but every goddamned time I saw her, my stomach fluttered, and I couldn’t function when she was in my presence, and I’d blush if I was within 5 feet of her, even though she never even glanced my way. Why? I will never know.

Sooooo. Why not provide that spark, myself? No, it isn’t canon, but so what? Neither is Sam/Fragile, or Sam/Deadman. Or Sam/Higgs, which is the popular ship in the fandom so far. Other than the heroxvillain trope, how the hell would we ever see Sam/Higgs together? Hate ships and enemies to lovers ships are out there, though, and they make delicious art. ;]

Ya wanna know an even less likely ship? Higgs/Heartman. Why? Because I can. Deal with it. 

ANYWAY. I’m frank, sassy, and sometimes an ass. But, I hope that this gives some insight into why I think Sam and Heartman could work out as a ship. 

And I keep typing, but that’s just how I go.

The ship isn’t perfect, either. I have shown, and plan to continue to show, moments where there is friction between Sam and Heartman. Sam still has trouble with touch, sometimes. Sam will push Heartman away, and at some points Heartman may feel hurt by that, even though he knows its not his fault.

And Sam does have trouble showing emotion or talking. Heartman will experience frustration with that. Sam broods, and if Heartman can’t deal with it, Sam will run off until he’s done brooding.

Also if this was sparked by the silly post about Samantha Spade, I was having fun, i tagged it with my tag for things that are silly, said tag being “ ;;shenanigans ”. It’s the first tag I put on the post. Please don’t take anything I post with that tag seriously, I like to have fun, and my goofy little hopeless romantic heart was a flutter at the silly idea.

P.S. If you wanna continue to question my view in compatibility between characters, you can keep throwing those question to me. As long as I’m not getting hate, I won’t be giving hate. If you don’t like my answers, I can only politely suggest you find someone else to bother.

If you wanna know me better, I am actually a really nice person, fiercely loyal, and fun to plot and chat with. Come talk to me, I won’t bite, I promise. ;] 

Oh, and I’ve always loved rare pairs. They need love.

[coldtomyflash]

What do you think of Dick's portrayal in the various tv and movie adaptations? I first saw him in Batman TAS and loved him from the start. But the reboot came around and Tim replaced him as deuteragonist. Also the fallout with his relationship with Barbara (which I once loved) got even worse in Batman Beyond (in which he never appeared on screen) and the comic with the Bruce/Barbara/baby storyline. In the end it was like the writers hated him and in recent movies he takes a back seat to Damian.

“various TV and movie adaptations”

... movie adaptations?

We haven’t seen Dick in a movie in like 20 years. Unless you mean DC’s animated films, like Justice League: War, and similar?

But okay, what an awesome question.

If you check out my previous post (here), you’ll discover quickly that pretty much one of my favourite portrayals of him is Young Justice. I thought they did an amazing job in Season 1 with showing the depth of him (and of most of the main characters honestly) and all the different layers he has in terms of identity, including with his friends, with the league, with leadership, and with Bruce. The time-skip from him being Robin to him being an adult, self-assured Nightwing was a bit of a letdown because that transition is messy, but the characterization was still great.

I also loved him in Batman TAS but I haven’t watched that in so long. Definitely what go me originally into superhero media (well okay I remember being 4 years old and watching the old live action Adam West Batman but like, does that count? I guess it has to, because Dick is straight up hilarious in that, but like, characterization wise idk what to even say about that version). Anyway in TAS we get that whole tension of Dick’s role and identity vis a vis being Batman’s sidekick and I’m really into that. That portrayal is probably like the foundation, stone number one, when it comes to understanding Dick Grayson.

As for Batman Beyond - okay I love Batman Beyond, really and truly, but tbh I kind of think of it like... an alt-universe, almost like a... fic. I think of it like someone’s Batman AU in which they created an OC as a protagonist. And I’m into it! But I don’t really connect it with the rest of the Batman or DC canon if I’m being honest. Terry is great, I adore him, he actually reminds me a lot of Dick, but yeah wtf is going on with the implied fallout between Bruce and Dick and Dick not even being in the show. Idk. Doesn’t count. Side-step that weird non-canon.

(I mean, fucking tell me they’re not basically writing Dick with a different name here.)

Don’t touch Bruce/Barbara. Stick your fingers in your ears and sing la la la la la la at the top of your lungs until it goes away. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Do not let DC continue until that storyline is wiped from the face of the earth.

As for the recent animated films, typically they’re not focused on Dick but they do a half-decent job with him. I do like the Son of Batman (or whatever it’s called) animated film where they introduce Damian to the plot; Dick is pretty good in that even though his role is more minor. I haven’t watched the one with Harley Quinn yet where she’s helping Bruce and Dick but I really want to, it looks like it has some potentially entertaining Dick content in there.

(except that hair. What did they do to my handsome boi?)

What I tend to like about the modern animated films is that they get the snark right? They have these people make fun of each other and themselves, they get to be deadpan, they take the comics storylines and bring them to life in bite-sized chunks that are easier to digest. They also tend to have awesome voice-acting. They’re very much designed for pre-existing comics fans and are light on exposition as well, which makes me a good target audience. So I don’t tend to get too annoyed with the characterization in any of them, in part because they’re often pulling directly from pretty good comics arcs.

So the comics - (whoo boy this is getting long!)

I am in the small and Unpopular camp of people who kind of liked the entire goddamn mess that had Dick’s identity revealed to the world in... was that New 52 Forever Evil? i think it was; I have it on my shelf. I mean - we got some of Bruce and Dick’s dynamic and how much Bruce cares for Dick, and I’m all about that, but it was also like a shockwave in the Batfam because holy shit.

That being said, I’m not sure how much I like the direction taken, with the spiral agents and all that. I mean - Dick is Nightwing. And while him going undercover or being a spiral agent is kind of fun, the inherent problem with the identity reveal that they can’t really take back is that he can’t be allowed to be Nightwing anymore. So in that sense I also really fucking hate it. 

And then Dick being Batman for a while when Bruce is off being Not Quite Dead? I like Dick and Damian’s dynamic (kind of) but again it seems like backtracking to me. The way I interpret Dick is so much as his own person that for him to put on the cowl feels... wrong. Like he specifically doesn’t want to be Batman? And it feels like this authorial obsession with Batman, and with their always being a Batman. Like - Gotham needs the Bat fam, not just the Bat man. Y’know? 

I don’t mind the recent focus on Damian, though I think my biggest issue with it is that it kind of felt for a while like “ah yes, Bruce has a true son now, time to give him all the narrative weight, who cares about the rest of these former Robins” and I wasn’t in to that. Which is nothing against Damian. 

(I want more batfam hugs! not just Damian! but also yes this is cute)

But the Batfam is only as interesting and their connections to each other, y’know? I’d love to see more focus on Tim, tbh, on Tim and Jason, on that whole mess and its resolution, on Jason and Dick, on Dick coming to terms with his family colours being passed down, on what it meant for him when Jason died, on what it meant for him when he met Tim. Let’s explore more of that in the movies and animated series, please!!

(I guess we get some of that in DC’s Titans? I hope so. I need to catch up. Dick so far seems complex and angry, which I’m into, but also like... Dick Grayson is a beacon of hope, okay. That’s who he is. A version of Dick that isn’t inherently trying to help and save everyone is kind of hard to wrap my head around. I’m not fully sure how I feel about him yet, but I do like the series).

Oh I totally forgot to talk about Teen Titans. I haven’t watched Teen Titans Go, but boy howdy did I love the original Teen Titans. I was just the right age when it came out to be the target audience and I very much enjoyed Robin in that series, at least as well as I can remember. And Lego Batman which is hilarious.

Okay that’s all for me now. I’ll go back to pretending I’m a Flash blog or something.

[bravest-notts]

”10*″ favorite characters from 10 different things! tagged by @brightandshinynewstories and doing this before i close that tab and forget i was tagged in something

dedicated to all those other times people have probably tagged me in something that i haven’t seen because this is a sideblog and i never check my activity 

*there’s only seven

do i even remember ten individual pieces of media with characters i like enough to be a favorite oh god NOPE!

these are in no particular order because i’m having a hard enough time coming up with ten different fandoms, let alone ranking them.

10: Caleb Widogast, Critical Role [*hurriedly mutters under breath* andyashatoo] - my, uh, dnd character level of Tragic Backstory Life means i relate to, and understand, caleb [and yasha, i can’t pick between them and you can’t make me] heavily. i also really, really, really love unflinching portrayals of grief and mental illness and what that does to you as you deal with, or don’t deal with, it. also i am big gay and caleb is attractive and i WILL die on that hill god dammit.

9: LORD ADMIRAL BABEY Jaina Proudmoore, World of Warcraft - yes i am wow trash, i have been playing for a decade [*long pause while i stare into space and reckon with the fact that its been a decade*], and i have always loved jaina. they very very nearly put her in the same goddamn Traumatized Women Goes PsYchO!1!!111!!!! that they’ve done to sylvanas but by god we’ve escaped that fate [for now...], making her the.... only........... female faction leader of any, uh, relevance who isn’t a barnacle character or undergoing some level of character assassination via bad writing. i could complain for at least five more paragraphs, so i will just end this here and spare everyone. she’s badass and laura voices her and you should watch this right now. 

8: Gollum, Lord of the Rings - yes i know this is a uh, an odd one, but he’s the best goddamn character in the entire series in terms of someone you can really sink your acting teeth into. i did a... god how long was it, ten minute? i think? gollum monologue - 1/3rd i wrote myself, 2/3rds spliced between the LotR movies - for an acting competition and again at a theatre showcase and he is now My Boy. yes i can do the voice. i blew my voice out doing it once but it’s very fun. pretty easy once you figure out how to get into it. 

7: Lup, The Adventure Zone - she’s my absolute favorite character in the whole story, i love her, she’s perfect. i will never forget the jaw dropping horror of that last stolen century episode when you realize and the absolute apeshit delight at her return. 

6: Alistair, Dragon Age: Origins - he’s a sweetie and a dork and he’s Trying His Best and i love him so much. i have to sit on my own hands to avoid romancing him every goddamn playthrough. he’s also the #1 reason i always leave morrigan at the camp, because she’s mean to him and i feel bad. 

5: Utsuki/Kureha, Kuon - another vidya gaem entry bc that’s all i can think of off the top of my head rn. really the game overall, because her story is just half [...ish] of it. her trauma and the rituals she’s undergone warping how she sees herself and experiences the world, namely by seeing herself as her sister, and how it relates to the grudge cycle and the Buddhist concept of complicity, is... fascinating. all of that depends on how you interpret the game and the vast difference between the two storylines, and it’s very hard to explain without context, but. cool shit. 

4: i’m calling it here because it’s nearing midnight and i cannot for the life of me think of four more separate things. i can think of plenty within what i already listed - queen azshara, every single character from critrole, solas because god i love complicated characters, and i couldn’t possibly single out a character from the soulsbornes because what really makes it for me is just the world as a whole so its like... i CAN’T say a fav boss bc they aren’t a favorite character. 

3: thor.

2:

1:

[definitely-not-an-alb]

I think the best thing about TMA for me until now is that it’s the first time I’ve actually gotten into one of those unspoilable fandoms myself. Like that’s the main reason I started it, people kept reblogging stuff about it onto my dash and I was always like ‘??? this makes NO SENSE but it sounds rad and like ya’ll are having FUN and I appreciate that’.

LIke I’m generally the kind of person who does not give a single fuck about spoilers, in fact, I appreciate spoilers. Like I don’t care about A:EG AT ALL right now, and I’ll actually write to a friend who saw it today and ask her to spoil it so that I can have like, emotions about this and enjoy watching it once I get my hands on it. And I only ever got into Hannibal because I read a misfiled fic that spoiled me for every single plot twist of the show. There’s some fandoms I’ve never consumed any canon of, I just exist on the branches of them, consuming fancontent and getting the same kind of enjoyment out of them as out of my main fandoms. So I’m a weirdo and I start 90% of my fandoms because someone ‘spoils’ me for them. 

So not only do I Not Get Spoilerculture, it’s actively detrimental to my enjoyment of media.

But. There’s those fandoms. The ones that make no goddamn sense. I love them.

The SCP-Foundation was prolly the first time I experienced this with, but that one has the added bonus of literally never stopping it’s bullshit. Like you can’t get ‘into’ it, I feel like, it’s too much content, and to disjointed. There’s no canon, there’s not even several main narratives, it’s just An Organically Grown Purposeful Mess hive-minding it’s way, and on top of that it has like seventhousand different internal (some defunct now) subcultures and occasionally you find a relict from the 4chan days (the true horror of the archives). It’s a mess, I’ll never understand it’s writhing, weird mass and I love it.

Homestuck. I have no fucking clue what the fuck Homestuck is (a comic? a webseries? an eldritch abomination beaming content into it’s follower’s brains?) or what it’s about and there seems to be like 100 years worth of canon and it’s own language and logic and I have no intention of ever reading it, because otherwise I might understand the nonsense that crosses my dash and where would be the fun in that. Please, for the love of god, don’t explain homestuck to me, because that’s literally the only way you could make it boring to me.

Animorphs, is kind of the same, though I might actually read it at some point. With that one it’s more like ‘I know the themes, but I can’t name a single character or plot event and I have no idea what those words mean, I only understand the abstract interpretion at the end of your essay’. It’s fuckign great. Please don’t explain Animorphs to me.

And gonna be honest, TMA is kind of like that. Like I’ve seen stuff about it, and I mean text posts and character studies and explenations of plot points ffs, cross my dash for month now, and I’ve read them. And they sound rad but I honestly don’t understand a word? And that’s great!

It’s like, I see the words and I see the letters and they make sense individually, but then I read, and they do not make sense together. I should know what this means, but I do not. But it’s also not nothing, it’s not meaningless babble; it’s something, and there are people, somewhere, who know how to understand this, somehow.

I’m at around episode 40 now, and it’s like, with the very first episode, i picked up this threat and started unraveling it. With every episode, those jumbled words look more and more like the stories and explanations I know them to be. And it’s exilerating, way more then it is scary, to reach out into that darkness and grasp that line of explanation and follow it, episode by episode. I don’t know any of the deep lore yet, but I’ll get there. Let me know, let me be part of this shared hallucination that is Fandom.

Old Wierd Fiction, your Lovecraft and whatnot, always had this problem, I think, that the people writing the stories wouldn’t have picked up the threat. Their horror is less of the things out there, and more of watching their friends pick up the threat, watching them start unraveling it and wandering away from them. They, the writers, and you, the reader, they assure you, are not like that. They are Sensible, the Right Kind of People, who wouldn’t do this out of their free will. They only come into contact with the strange and dangerous through accident, or the choice of others (misguided idiots). They’d never pick up the book, never read the words they can’t understand, never talk to those people (the Wrong Kind of People). They don’t listen to the sounds in the darkness, they don’t find the other half of those barely eligible notes, they don’t ask the people talking weirdly like that and they mind their own, respectable business. They wouldn’t do this, they are the sensible ones, right?

I’ve never been very good at being the Right Kind of People, not in who I am, and not in who I am, and I have very little aspiration, if any, to be. And I think I’m not a very Sensible Person either.

I’m not stupid, of course, I wouldn’t open the obviously creepy door and wouldn’t touch the definitely cursed amulet and wouldn’t read the barely legible, antique book I found that says ‘Here Be Demons’ in Latin.

But I am, in the end, not very sensible. I lay awake at night not saying ‘that was just my birds.’ but ‘Was that my birds?’. I name the things in my nightmares (what a stupid thing to do, don’t.). I go digging for the rest of what those people are talking about, those barely legible posts on a website.

And in the end, this is save, right? It’s just fiction. There’s worse ways to fill this want-to-know-want-to-dream-awake-want-want, like a cult or something, right? It’s a podcast, some transcripts - I can always stop listening.

[aurimeanswind]

Your Favorite Video Game Franchises—Sunday Chats (10-8-17)

I know it seems like I keep using generic questions for my “Alex Asks” Sunday Chats, but hey, bear with me here. You gotta lay the groundwork for all of the best relationships.

This week I asked this:

This comes from a lot of places. This year I’ve especially been thinking about the video game lineages that have affected me or at least left the most with me over the years. Most importantly, the sequels to the two biggest video game worlds in my life, Persona and Zelda, both came out this year. It’s been kind of monumental for me. Both are interesting too, because they have me assessing and looking at what ties me to those two specific franchises.

On one, it’s so much nostalgia Zelda means more to me than most things because it’s really the franchise that made me or helped me like games as much as I do today. Watching my brother Brady playthrough The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past, going to the mall with him when he traded in all his old games to get it, and the story that that encapsulates in my heart and in my mind is critically important to my love of games, and my relationship with the medium as it began. It’s one of those aspects that keeps me tethered to games so forcefully, so completely and utterly in the grasp of the stories and adventures in the medium and that’s where they started for me.

Years later I’d return to A Link to the Past on my own time and play through it to 100% completion by myself. It’s one of the first games I ever 100%’d, and it’s also one of the first times I ever wanted to, a habit that is all-encompassing for just about any and all video games now. I don’t do it as much as I’d like to, because I know the tradeoff of time to commitment, and if I didn’t have to/want to play every new game that came out every day, I’d certainly spend far more time just perfecting and completing them to a near insane-level.

A Link to the Past is where my lineage with games began. It’s one of the first games I’ll play with my kids in the future, if I’m ever lucky enough to have any. It’s massively important to me, and this year’s Breath of the Wild brought not only all those feelings back for me, but entirely new ones as well, as my brothers and I shared a text message thread describing our experiences with the game through the early months of this year.

On the other end of that is Persona 5, which is related to a coming-of-age in a totally different way. Persona 3 FES was one of those games that affected me on a delayed response. I beat it and I felt kind of... hollow. I was so accomplished, and it hit me so hard, and then... nothing. And then when I was laying in my bed alone that night, I just broke down crying. It was something that had genuinely touched my soul, being someone in high school and someone separated from my friends. It pulled all the right strings and hit all the right notes at all the right times.

What’s more, I had never experience any piece of media that had characters grow, and change, and evolve, and relationships with them, in such an intimate way. I loved the characters of that game, I truly did. It impacted me in full force.

Persona 3 was about overcoming insurmountable odds, believing in your friends, believing in what you had done, and fighting until you had nothing left for the betterment of all people. About the selfless act of giving yourself up for all your friends, and Persona 5 revisits a ton of those different themes as well. It’s about those same threads coming to fruition in a completely different, but also globally-impacting way, with plenty of Japanese bullshit along the way.

As I came into adolescence, Persona 3 was the game that made me realize how much I loved all that Japanese bullshit, but also I how much slower pacing worked for me, how much I prefered it. Persona 5 helps rebuild all those feelings, but also ultimately showed me how much I’ve changed and evolved since then, for both the better and worse.

These are the two most important franchises in media to my life, outside of Harry Potter. And I don’t think it’s dumb, or silly to latch onto media and fiction as absolute and important aspects of your upbringing. Myths and stories and franchises are outlets for us to learn new things, experience things we could never ourselves, broaden our horizons, and open our hearts to suffrage that we aren’t privy to. It’s also time for us to reflect on what we like and what we do, and while these two video game franchises may seem shallow to some, they aren’t to me. Whether that’s part projection, or part of something that’s absolutely there, that exact question is precisely what makes media interpretation subjective, and holding those pieces of media close to you totally okay.

So with that said, let’s look at YOUR favorite franchises in games.

Even though Cam is bad at following instructions insofar as “few tweets” is concerned, this is exactly the shit I’m talking about here. This is what I want.

What I love about this story is that this game means something so specific to you because your experience with it was so specific. Just like all games for all people. And there is of course crossover there, but art is reflected in the one who views it, and that’s what makes the discussion around games so fun. That these things reflected onto us in such completely different ways.

What you say about .dotHack reminds me of the way I am with Zelda. That there was this big world out there that only I could save. That I needed to try, and fail, and try again to succeed in that world. That people and tools and deities would help me, and that if my belief was strong I’d hold steadfast and be able to beat the big bad. These are philosophy that, though childlike, you can clearly see reflected in me to this day. And it’s because of a game like that. Without Zelda, I’d at the very least like games in a wholly different way than I do today.

Bravo Cam. I understand.

Well, while I don’t think Roger is being serious about the Frog game, even though I do vividly remember this boxart and that weird frog penis on it, it does make me think of a Frog-related game that got me into a whole different kind of franchise.

Amazing Frog, the Ouya game of all things, is what got me into Game Grumps. And it’s still an amazing episode to this day.

Ahh my old nemesis Final Fantasy Six. And hearing you bring up FF4 here as well is really important, because I have played Four most of the way through and really love it. To know that Six can build on what was there with new and more engrossing depth makes me want to play it more as well. I love to hear when and where the scope of storytelling in games expanded for folks, because like I said for me that was kind of Persona 3, and how it could get under my skin and into my heart without me even realizing it. My view of games and their stories changed in so many ways with that game.

Of course! And Rock Band has grown into something you’ve played with friends and shared with so many others. It’s a wonderful franchise, and of all the rhythm games I’ve been bad at, Rock Band is surely the one I like the most.

Rock Band parties will always be a loving aspect of my most endearing memories with my high school friends.

Katamari is always a game I’ve only ever experience from arm’s length. I love that it not only resonated with one person, but two! I love it.

Katamari reminds me a lot of the weird Japanese games that have somehow crossed over the Pacific and also found their own niche here in the US. Persona I’d say was in the same camp, but that’s all big now. Katamari never had legions of adoring fans, but it had its passionate it ones. Few games are as carefree and fun, but also odd, and, as Jazz said, visually arresting. A game about rolling up big balls, collecting stuff, and then turning them into stars, may seem nonsensical, and it is, but it’s also just endlessly endearing.

Watching the Game Grumps play that game has been the most I’ve experienced with it, and it seems like a game you can kind of zone out and get lost in. Once again: I love it.

Uncharted is a franchise that, in my head, is like those big movie franchises like Star Wars that resonates for so many human reasons beyond its premise.

If anything, those games showed us what masterclass directors those folks at Naughty Dog are. When we look at the story and writing of something like Jak and Daxter, I’d say it’s good, but the leap to the Uncharted franchise is to another level entirely. It’s human, it’s relatable, and it slowly breaks down all the merits the franchise, and many games, are built on. How the search for adventure can become a sickness, when it starts to put so many lives on the line. It’s all with the caveat of Nathan Drake being a “mass murderer”, sure, but the games build such human characters through humor it’s incredible.

Especially Uncharted 4. Because goddamn.

All the Spoopy factor! How topical!

Resident evil is a franchise that I got to so late, it makes me wish I loved horror as a youngun’. But, regardless, Resident Evil 7 is easily one of my favorite games this year, and I adore it. Where that franchise has gone, both good and bad, from its humble beginnings, is stellar. It really sets the scenes for horror games in general, and with Mikami’s legacy continuing with The Evil Within 2 this coming week, you can clearly see that Resident Evil is at the very least one of the most influential names in all of games.

Man. Metal Gear Solid.

Especially MGS3. That’s a whole conversation on its own.

The end of Metal Gear Solid 3, even if it was lost on me long ago, was a game-changer, that’s for sure. Something like Persona 3 helped me go back and appreciate those MGS games even more, because of the more, lets say, steady indoctrination to “Japanese bullshit” then MGS’s full-throttle approach.

Another franchise I totally missed the boat on, until much much later. But I never knew this about you Andrew! Halo is definitely marvelous, and sets the scene for the modern action blockbuster video game, like an Uncharted. If anything, most of the Sony/Microsoft big action franchises wouldn't be the same, I don't’ think, if it weren’t for the Halo franchise.

For me it wasn’t Dishonored that set the scene for strong morality in games, but Fallout 3. The “Karma System” as i think it was in the game, was where I was first introduced to something like that. Sure, inFamous had it, but  such a binary system doesn’t count I don’t think.

I had gotten the want to play passively from stuff like Metal Gear Solid, so that wasn’t new to me, but I love the way Dishonored ties the world to those choices. How it’s reflected not only in Corvo, but in Emily as well. It’s truly a beautiful world in games, unlike anything else out there, from its majesty, to its absolute horror as well.

It’s funny because the political angle of Bioshock is still, to some extent, over my head. Knowing Ayn Rand now and seeing how that is brought into Rapture though, reflectively, has definitely changed that experience for me. I’d have to go back and see Bioshock 2 all the way through to even begin to remember the political commentary in that game.

But Bioshock’s dueling powers that be of Andrew Ryan and Fontaine always frustrated me. Two powers that wished to usurp one another, all for the sake of more influence. with more deeper insecurities laid beneath them. It’s reflective of modern politics in a very unsettling way, and something I could never come to agree with or even empathize with. But that kind of visceral reaction is just the kind of thing video games can evoke out of the player by not just showing you a world, but by surrounding you with it.

Rapture is certainly one of the most compelling settings in all of video game history.

This so fantastic. A game introducing you to a wholly new kind of interest, in such a much more one-to-one way too! Like, I wouldn’t get really into Spelunking from playing Spelunky, that’s not a thing that happens, but Forza to being a gearhead or a car guy or whatever you want to call it totally makes sense.

Forza also has that benefit of being something really approachable too. I think it lays out exactly what it is and how to bring you into its style really well. From my brief experiences with the Forza series, that’s what I’ve taken away at least. That’s so rad!

And hell year EDM. Let’s go to an EDM concert together Jon.

I love seeing how all the franchises roped people wither into game sin a new way or into a totally new thing entirely. It helps evolve relationships, change perspective on storytelling, and more! I just adore it. Keeping play those games. Keep making those stories.

Thanks for placating my question this week everyone. Sorry to the folks that didn’t get it or didn’t read, but no answers from me this week. I will keep writing and be ready to answer them next week, but until then, hey:

keep it real.

[cookinguptales]

okay, so late ‘90s, early ‘00s badfic 101

A lot of fic was either on fanfiction.net or private archives. People would also post things to fic communities or private journals on LJ. (Which was a whole...thing, with some people friends-locking their work because they were afraid of sporking/flames or they were just pretentious.) ff.net had a whole HOST of problems, like a variety of terrible ways your formatting could get borked (like you couldn’t use repeating characters, which made line breaks hard; that’s why you’d get increasingly “arty” line breaks that could be...cringey), policies against allowing any fic of media created by people who didn’t like fic (see: Anne McCaffery, Anne Rice, other crazy Annes, etc.), puritan anti-smut policies which often got applied to slash fic more than het fic, and just...in general, terrible fic. Private archives were often manually curated by their owners, which could be fine or it could lead to cliques and circlejerks. The Harry Potter archives seemed to get especially crazy with this and some truly epic wanks came out of that. You’d also see people hosting fic on their own sites (usually angelfire or something) with big slash warnings and IF YOU’RE UNDER 18 GET OUT warnings. A lot of fic archives wouldn’t host slash or porn, and you were liable to get in trouble in fandom or otherwise if you didn’t strongly label LGBT/18+ themes. Especially if the fic in question contained both. Like. I don’t like the OTW for many reasons, but I have to admit that AO3 is basically a godsend. We lost a lot of fic to purged LJs/deleted websites.

SUPER purple prose. Older fic in general tended to be a bit more “literary” and purple and it sometimes read like J.R.R. Tolkein was having a stroke. By the time the ‘90s/’00s rolled around, you’d just get this sort of halfway point where people would have generally unornamented text except for things being thrown in like this character’s cerulean/azure/periwinkle eyes. The shade would change by scene, and you’d always know because there’d be a lot of stuff like “the cerulean-eyed man shook his head”. EVERY CHARACTER IN THIS SCENE KNOWS HIS NAME, USE HIS NAME. Or they’d refer to a character’s glimmering green orbs or something. It was painful.

In anime fandom especially, you’d get a lot of these epithets that referred to their abnormal hair colors. People saw “brunette” and were like “shit, I can adapt that” so you get ravenette and bluenette and silverette and pinkette and kill me now. Some people got pissy about like -et/-ette endings re: gender, but after you’ve gone to the bluenette place, it doesn’t even fucking matter anymore. Grammar is dead.

Anime fic also tended to have a lot of so-called “fangirl Japanese”. Writers would just sprinkle in any Japanese words they knew for no goddamn reason, which would usually end in glossaries at the end like *kakkoi means cool! *aoi means blue! and goddamn guys, these are all words than have legit English translations.

Script fic. Just... script fic. More on that at the bottom bc I had to use some special formatting.

“Crack” fic. This would be fic that was purposefully OOC (out of character) for comedic effect. Tended to utilize “omg so random!!” humor. It usually was pretty much only comedic to caffeinated 13-year-olds. This was literally all Invader Zim’s fault and you know I’m right.

The “disposal” of female love interests in slash fic. Used to be much more of a problem than it is now. Now, I’m not talking about fics that just don’t talk about female characters or retcon a relationship or are like “they broke up!!! moving on!” I’m talking about fics that turn all female characters into shrieking homophobic harpies that would probably rather their canon love interests be dead than fuck a dude. This was applied even to like the nicest characters in the world, or even to characters who weren’t in canon romances with the male characters but were deemed to be threats. They often got smacked around or died or whatever. Things were a lot more sexist in fandom back then. There was a yenta trope that kind of arose as backlash to this but was really just as annoying in a different way. That usually involved a canon love interest going full yaoi fangirl (for some reason) and shipping her love interest with another guy, then involving herself in their love lives to a truly creepy extent so she could hook her boyfriend up with another guy. These were also sexist. Both situations tended to make the female characters incredibly OOC and prevented them from having any real human reactions/emotions.

Mary Sues. Now, the term has lost a lot of its effect in recent years. Mary Sues (or Gary Stus) used to have a really specific meaning. They were OCs (original characters) that were the prettiest, smartest, most powerful, popular characters in the whole world that had glittering orbs for eyes and usually had some kind of special magical power that made them better than all the canon characters. These were self-insert characters -- in other words, even if they didn’t have the same name as the author, they were wish-fulfillment characters wherein the character was used as a stand-in for the author, who could then write all the canon characters loving them. Now people just use the term for any female character that’s powerful and central to the plot, so...it’s not a useful word anymore. As for the old school Sues, well... I don’t necessarily think they were bad, but I will say it’s a hell of a lot more fun to write a Suefic than to read one. That really goes for most fanfics with OCs that have been elevated to a prominent status. People generally read fanfic because they want to read about the canon characters they love, not shallowly-written OCs that take over the fic. I don’t think OC-driven fic is bad to write... But again, yeah, it’s usually much more fun to write than to read. I think it’s helpful to be cognizant of that.

Reviewer participation fic. Mostly an issue on ff.net. It used to be that there was no way to reply to comments on ff.net, and as I’ve said before, there was a strong comment culture back then. Just not replying to reviews could be interpreted as very rude. (It would be unfathomably rude on LJ, which was more community-driven.) So to get around this, people would include a section to reply to reviewers at the beginning of the next chapter or their next one-shot or whatever. So you’d get long interminably long fics on ff.net with like 40 chapters in which nothing happened, and to get ideas, they’d ask reviewers. Worse, sometimes people would try to incentivize readers to review by offering to put their loyal reviewers in the fic. So you’d have this long section at the top of the chapter which might have a conversation that’s been going on between them and a reviewer for the past 8 chapters (and hell, they might’ve made a new chapter just to reply to them) except multiplied by however many reviewers there are, and then the reviewers worm their way into the fics, too! Oh my god.

Passive-aggressive fic. This was especially an issue on LJ as a personal response, but would show up on ff.net as response to wider fandom tropes. These would be fics where a character is like “WOW I WOULD NEVER DO X, THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING I’D NEVER EVEN CONSIDER DOING. WHAT KIND OF IDIOT WOULD THINK I’D DO THAT?” And X is usually (a.) something a reviewer told them would be more IC than what was in their previous fic, (b.) something another writer just put in their fic, or (c.) a ship they don’t like. (This would also extend to fics where characters would be like I’M NOT GAY, I’D NEVER FUCK A DUDE, EWWW!! as anti-slasher rhetoric.) Back then, you could reasonably expect that people in your fandom would at least see, if not read, your new fic. On LJ, you saw basically all the fics because they were posted in wider communities, and fandom was, as a whole, more community-driven back then. If you insulted another member of the community via fic, they’d know in about ten minutes. It was throwing down a gauntlet. lol

The crack fic genre also extended to crack pairings. It wasn’t unusual for people to dare each other to write weird pairings (often characters who’d never met), the more bizarre the better. This was the era of Hogwarts/Lake Squid. These fics were often sporked, but in a more delighted way than usual. There really was more of a sense that people could and would write anything. Some people came to actually ship these pairings like legit and ship wars would ensue. And sometimes some cracky pairings just became really popular for assorted reasons and that made other fans really mad. This still happens, honestly.

Ship wars now are often dressed up in social justice terms, which is a trend that I find frustrating bc I feel like it denigrates important issues. Ship wars in the ‘90s/’00s, on the other hand, were just balls to the wall insane. I still refuse to engage in ship wars because damn, man, the shit I’ve seen. People were much more open about the fact that they hated people who shipped other pairings because they just shipped something else or were squicked by the pairing or whatever. The Harry Potter shipwars got particularly fucking weird. So it wasn’t generally a slash vs. het thing, like some people will have you think. Some of the worst ship wars I have ever seen were het shippers at war. Never again the harmonian times.

Frankly a lot of other things that my mind is rebelling against remembering.

Script fic (often with author interludes) was eventually banned from FF.net, which kind of killed it in fic because that was the main posting venue back then (unless you wrote slash or porn, which could be taken off if people reported it; technically slash wasn’t against the rules unless it was explicit, but they didn’t often check the reports carefully). What I mean by script fic is like

Karamatsu: wow I sure like these sparkly pants Chibita: I don’t (A/N: I do!!!!111 I have a pair like them at home!) Karamatsu: let’s fuck now Chibita: but offscreen because we want to preserve our soft M rating!

The A/Ns (author’s notes) could get really in-depth sometimes, with an author often RPing the characters OOC or using them as their “muses”. So sometimes you’d get a mess like

Karamatsu: gosh it sure does suck that everyone treats me like dog shit Chibita: true (A/N: serenaxkittyx755: That’s not true, Karaboy! Choromatsu: Yeah, we like you less than dog shit. Ichimatsu: Way less.)

Except my example was honestly more IC than most of these tended to be. You’d often get “muses” saying “ewww” or “that’s hot” during romance scenes, even when this made no sense whatsover. Or offering commentary on some random non-karamatsu character’s fashion choices or something. Purposeful “crack” was considered not just okay but in fact desirable back then.

basically, badfic was hell.