#like. what kinda contradictory bullshit is that lol

[camellcat]

I like how I'm all "I can't STAND river song I HATE river song get her OFF my SCREEN" and then river song is sad for 1 second and I'm in absolute shambles

[fictionfixations]

im BACk at the wuthering waving

ngl i really want to join scar he seems very interesting (unfortunately we dont have that choice. no but IMAGINE a game like this but choices we make matter. like like yknow uhh. i mean the only one i can think of rn is like. detroit become human, which has a bunch of branching paths. so like imagine a choice can lead to a wildly different outcome. and so like. we can choose to trust scar or something. IMAGINE. i mean that'd probably go into spoiler-y territory considering idk one side might say something, the other might say something contradictory. or like something that players on a different path dont learn so its complicated. and also probably very hard to actually do. but i just. really adore games like that ngl)

yes i havent even made it to 1.1 yet LMFAO

anyway i dont know what they did but oh my god its so much less laggier (the only thing of note is that im stuck in the loading screens for longer. but i mean honestly i have other things i can do in the meantime while waiting so its not a big deal)

like. i can. actually go through cutscenes and its not just slideshow bullshit that i have to go watch someone else go through it for the cutscene (you know the cutscene where we see general jiyan(?) fighting while we're like nowhere near him? there was so much delay cause it was struggling to shift to jiyan cause it was showing the other stuff with i think the tacet discords? instead so the voices were playing and im just sat here like wtf is going on i dont even see yall what are you doing)

and and i can actually fight and know that my failings are not that its lagging me so i cant dodge. its just that im bad at dodging LOL

also i cant remember but im pretty sure you cant dodge by jumping i think youre meant to dash from it but uhm

i briefly played the solo leveling game so i keep pressing space to either start sprinting or to dodge an attack. which. its kinda funny cause i find myself pressing space playing hsr which is a game you cannot jump in. man, the confusion of playing games with different buttons for actions so when you switch to another you press the wrong button. funniest shit ever ngl (i remember i played genshin and like this one roblox game. decaying winter. and. so they had different buttons for picking up stuff, cant remember which one was e or f. but so. i press the pick up for genshin button out of habit. and then it causes me to place down a bomb LMFAO. i cant pick it up. and if i press f again [its more if i hold it but still] it explodes so i have to pray i didnt spam it, or pray that i didnt accidentally stick it on me because that can happen haha. ..or even that i didnt stick it on a teammate on accident cause friendly fire is a thing)

i feel spoiled though cause hsr and solo leveling have auto so i can just chime in occasionally while something else fights for me. but its like. games like wuwa and genshin (and solo leveling because even with auto i control me. i just have it on because i tend to forget to use like the skills) you have to spam attack. so my hand hates me LMFAO (me typing all this out doesnt help either but uhm i dont know the meaning of giving my hands a break)

anyway pulling plans: Jinhsi, Scar (hopefully), and Camellya..? i think? the the the flower person who called us a seed LMFAO (i keep wanting to think of her as phantylia because for whatever reason the name 'camellya' is hard to remember so uh if i ever misspell..)

also another thing of note. it kinda keeps tripping me up when the dialogue advances without auto. i mean it makes sense cause its going through it along with the character's movement so its not like they can just stop them from moving waiting for you to go to the next dialogue box

but sometimes im doing other stuff and listening to the dialogue but im going to go back to read it because a mix of voiced dialogue and reading the dialogue myself helps me remember best

but uh i get distracted. very easily. so sometimes i need to reread it multiple times to get it to stick, so i kind of wished wuwa had like a log that you could check to go back through peoples dialogue during the actual convo.

genuinely cant remember if its been like that in 1.0 but to be fair theres only so much room (and its still readable anyway)

i wanted to try speedrunning to act 7 (tbh i dont think im even at a high enough like union level(? i think thats what its called) to go through most of the story) but ive underestimated how tired id be

its probably so pixel-y im sorry its cause i dont play full screen so its all smaller-ized (and probably because im playing on the lowest graphics)

but like im sorry jinhsi its just. scar. is. so. cool. AGHHHh

off topic but it always bothers me how in slowed down scenes like this or where characters are in a sort of stasis where they're doing an action but its slowed down for whichever reason (you can see it in anime a bunch) and the character talks a shit ton and im just sat here like how are you speaking that much in this time frame what ???

like the card cant be moving THAT slow can it?? or if so couldnt someone just strike it down before it hits or something?? maybe i shouldnt be trying to apply logic to this. or maybe it is possible and im just very tired so i cant think straight idk

now this is in no way a complaint (i do like this scene) im just nitpicky and have never had the opportunity to express my thoughts about things like this ngl

anyway uh. upside to wuwa in case this turned out to be a very negative post (in which oops)

its never . i. cant recall the terminology. you know when too much is running and your laptop just turns everything off abruptly?

its never done that solo leveling has (and now i never play it without a fan) hsr has but only when ive put it at high graphics cause i wanted to experience it if genshin has, i genuinely cant remember

i cant read roman numerals except 123 idk what act this is but wooo im stopping here now

[liliallowed]

I went into this trying to cause chaos but now I'm genuinely saying this because they kinda need to be called out.

Crimson, the big demon, the player, is kind of bleugh.

I would say pathetic but in truth the term they need should be more complex and left to interpretation.

Crimson, you clearly have issues and you have a horrible way of dealing with them. That is clear beyond belief. (It's even stated by lili herself.)

You should probably realize that you're never going to get what you want out of things. You clearly want some emotional attachment however the way you determined a "fool proof way" to get it will only lead you to disappointment. Though, personally, I don't care. You did this to yourself and you wrapped all of us into it because you're both selfish and blind. That's not my problem.

I can only be so calm and uncaring about your behavior, though I guess I still don't care lmao.

I don't care what happens anymore, I don't care about if we die(though idk about the others' opinions lol). We've been doomed to a cycle. We'll break eventually. The moment we weren't allowed to die was the moment that proved there is no turning point, there is nothing for us anymore.

God, all I wanted to do was relax.

I wish we were still with Dust, I really want cuddles right now.

Congrats, Crimson. You've officially made things harder for everyone, including yourself. I don't even care what you say to that or how you feel.

(Idk why I got so into typing this lmao)

yeah they're a bit of a self contradictory asshole. (you good bud?/gen/lh I did put the warning tags there for a reason lol. you're absolutely right to call them out for it. I hope it didn't trigger you!)

also not gonna deny them being basically a whirlpool of angst dragging anyone who comes close enough to the bullshit.

but this reaction of yours would... trigger them to go back to being absolutely HORRIBLE to you.

they were being "docile" and "peaceful" to you so far. but they can do SO MUCH worse to you than what they did to dust.

they'd also weaponize sans knowing you care for him. they're toxic most when they're being threatened with being LEFT BEHIND or left alone. if you treat them by ignoring them?

yeaaaah they're gonna fucking lose their shit and go off the rails just to keep you there... they're not yandere for no reason. and unlike most media actual people with yandere like traits aren't cool or bad ass. they're scary and disgusting selfish people who CAN'T see beyond their own desires. trapped in their own head.

dust is the opposite but has the same obsession he wants to save you from their games by killing you.

I know they're mean. and it's okay if you hate them! I didn't make them to be likable. I just made them the combination of being completely apathetic AND obsessed to death...

are you gonna choose death/true reset? that's always an option to weaponize against both dust AND crimson.

I'll wait to see who else is on board.

[1mpulsee]

17?

MUNDAY # QUESTIONS — accepting !!

also asked by @thewomanwholaughed !

17 — fanon interpretations

// okay, it’s time for me to be an absolute hater and not in the way you may think because I’m so sick of people ragging on fanon interpretations . it’s rampant in comic book fans especially, I’ve noticed ever since I (kinda but not rly) joined the deecee fandom . (THOUGH I don’t see people being like this in the RPC, at least the people I interact with, which I’m very very happy about)

// I can’t tell you how much I see comic fans absolutely tearing down other fans because of their interpretations or headcanons, or how extreme the gatekeeping can be . I’ve seen entire blogs that are JUST tearing other comic fans down when they could rly just post their interps without making it a dunk on other people . like, comics are some of THE MOST inconsistent, long form, confusing, and contradictory sources of canon EVERRRR, and yet people still want to pretend like ‘fanonizing’ is a big deal at all when I rly don’t think it is . comics are not easily accessible . there is so much to read even for less popular characters, and not everybody has that time or the capabilities to read that much . AND WE ALL KNOW HOW FUCKASS COMICS CAN BE ………. Like literally nothing is set in stone for ANY of these mfers, literally any interpretation of a comic character ever is gonna be a fanon interpretation . comics should in all fucking honesty be the LAST source material anyone should be harping about “being accurate to canon” or consuming all content there is to consume, especially something as huge as DC . Like . I genuinely don’t understand .

// if someone enjoys reading everything there is to read and knowing a ton about canon, that’s fine . if someone has a certain interp in their head of characters or whatever, that’s fine . but I find it literally SO insane anyone expects anyone, let alone entire fandoms, to know everything about any canon . people don’t need to cater to someone’s interps or hcs because they’ve read more comics, literally just let people have fun, these comics are absolute bullshit for finding consistent characters anyway lol . if someone doesn’t like an interp or hc literally no one is forcing them to look at it or engage with it . if it’s not hurting anyone, it rly should not matter at all to people . we are ALL making shit up no matter how much people think they’re “sticking to canon” .

// people can come up with SUCH amazing interps and headcanons, and usually that’s DESPITE canon and not because of it . no matter how much someone knows about canon, if you can not be a dick about it, I really don’t care . I love fanon interps, I love stuff the fandom can come up with, I love headcanons and straight up making shit up or basically making canons ocs . I also love people who have rly faithful interps or know literally everything about comics, it’s incredibly impressive . but if I hear one more person complain about “fanonizing” or post a gatekeepy ass post on my dash I may pop a blood vessel fr .

// tldr fanon is cool actually, do what you want im the ceo of making shit up trust me bro

[lorz-ix]

Hoo boy I really did watch all of these again

Sort of by coincidence, I kinda felt like re-watching a horror series that I have a lot of fun with, right before a new one came out. So let's recap my thoughts.

I will try to keep my comments on each movie short, because otherwise this would take me ages to wrap up lol

Saw (2004)

No introduction required. Most people praise the merit and creativity in what the filmmakers were able to achieve with a rather tight budget, but some looking for the, uh... "extreme thrills" the franchise is known for consider this entry very weak. They're wrong, of course, because even if the violence and gore was more frequent or graphic, that's not what makes an interesting movie.

The plot is simple enough and easy to follow, it makes for an effective mystery/thriller. The motivations of each character are still unknown to the audience, and the serial killer at the center of everything is mostly just "a terminal patient about to die who tests people who don't value their own lives". No complicated morals or constant retcons and flashbacks yet, though the twist at the end is pretty cool for a first time viewer. A twist that will set the expectations for every following entry.

Saw II (2005)

A fan-favorite sequel that cranks up just about everything that made the first movie famous and sets even more expectations for the future. This entry introduces the setup that many more would follow, where instead of the first movie's humble escape room-like setup, now several people must go through a series of violent and dangerous traps, which are all connected. And it's also an escape room, with puzzles/riddles to solve. Everything is more violent and disturbing too, of course.

I think it's a good one. There's an interlocking A and B plot with a decent mystery going on, and the set of twists/reveals at the end are surprising. We get more of an insight into the Jigsaw killer character and his threatening psyche, which everyone loves. If you can stomach the disturbing parts, I strongly recommend it.

Saw III (2006)

This is where the series starts to introduce elements that I'm not the biggest fan of. The B plot doesn't follow a group of people, but a single guy who must try to release other people from traps, with not much of a threat to himself during most of it. The "protagonist" is traumatized by the loss of his son in an accident, so the test is more psychological: he has to learn to forgive the people involved and save them, even if it means making sacrifices.

The setup is a good idea, but as a viewer it doesn't feel fair to see people helplessly die, their only hope being an outsider who hates them. It doesn't matter how much they wanted to live, or what they learned, they have barely any influence in the outcome. I personally believe the killer's morals are bullshit, so I don't care when they're contradictory (in fact I'll comment on this later), I just think it's unfair to watch.

Besides, even if the main character is traumatized and all, and he learns his lesson during the movie, he still comes off as very unlikeable, especially near the end, so it contributes to the frustrating experience.

What about the A plot though? Well, all I'll say is, even if I had negative opinions on parts of the movie, I can still recommend watching this far to make a nice trilogy. My overall opinion is kinda mixed, but this is a better conclusion to stop watching than the second one.

Saw IV (2007)

A rather forgettable one, but the traps in here are actually kinda memorable in how particularly disturbing they are. Despite the overall story being nothing to write home about, there's a big focus in making the main character of this entry sympathize with the Jigsaw killer, trying to make him understand his morals, so it's fairly interesting for me as a way to understand the villain.

I'm not one of those fans that go "oh he's an insane killer but he has a point". He very rarely does. Sometimes there's some twisted satisfaction in seeing horrible people get punished, but that doesn't mean he's right. In this movie we get to see a lot more that he's just like a cop, once you cross the line for him, you deserve whatever's coming to you. If you die, you were no good anyway, someone had to do the right thing, etc. "See what I see" he says, "you have to let them save themselves" (sounding a lot like "pick yourself up by your bootstraps eh?).

It's all interesting for me as a fan of the series, but the movie itself is whatever. Oh and I guess the ending twist will introduce a new villain that will be all over the A plots for a good while.

Saw V (2008)

Here we go, back to the "several people following a series of traps" setup. Memorable for being one of the most predictable twists of the franchise (so predictable it ruins what would have been a neat premise), however, and for having a B plot that's basically completely detached from the A plot. Up until now, both had at least been somewhat related, but now we have the "soap opera following the actual plot of the series" storyline running alongside a "series of people dying violently" storyline to please the audience.

I don't blame anyone for tuning out either here or by the previous one. I find the overarching narrative to be fun to follow, but the expectations to please audiences by killing off a ton of people in increasingly violent ways, as well as to have a twist by the end, no matter how dumb, among other things, are actually hurting these as actual movies. The next one will be a surprising step up though.

Saw VI (2009)

And out of nowhere, the "subtle" and probably not even intentional political subtext of this series turnt into an entire movie satirizing health insurance companies. This premise itself makes this entry one of the stand-outs outside of the first trilogy.

The soap opera A plot feels like every movie since 4 have been episodes of the same cop drama, so it's not very relevant when discussing the qualities of this specific one. If you were already invested in the villain and his antics, you'll probably want to know what happens next. A lot of people don't really care so that's fine too.

As for the B plot, my interpretation that the Jigsaw killer has terrible morals and he's actually just representing a more twisted version of the current system has more proof than ever. He's "testing" people involved in the insurance company that denied him coverage when he was diagnosed with cancer, so no matter how much he says "it's deserved, it's not revenge", we know it's bullshit when the traps are set up so that someone must always die. Where's the fairness? Every one can win, but it's impossible for everyone to win. Remind you of something?

Unlike in the third movie, the traps are unfair, but it doesn't feel so unfair as a viewer, because in 3 the deaths were avoidable, but in 6 they are clearly making a point. The insurance company decides who lives and who dies, so the killer makes them decide who among them live or die. As I said a while ago, you're not supposed to agree with Jigsaw, he's obviously setting up this "poetic justice" for revenge, he's setting up people to die when their crimes were being an addict, being a janitor in the company and similar stuff. If you think the insurance company is bad (they are), you should think the killer forcing them into a massive metaphor of themselves is also bad. He himself is a metaphor of the system.

Saw 3D (2010)

The end of the soap opera era. The previous entry saw a negative trend in box office returns, so they rushed an ending to the series and possibly came to the conclusion that the very explicit political messaging was partly to blame. I can imagine it may have been unpopular with "normie" horror fans who mostly wanted to watch violent, gory slop and nothing more.

What we have here is broadly considered one of the worst flicks in the franchise. The fact that it's 3D probably makes it feel adequately trashy, and it has very funny side effects, like bad "thing comes at the screen" scenes that look very out of place, or the blood being a weird pink tone because the proper red didn't look good with the 3D effect. It's so trashy it starts off with a public execution where two guys who were being cheated on must decide if they're gonna kill each other or let their girlfriend die (yet again with the "at least one person must die" schtick). The girl obviously dies, because fuck that bitch, right? She deserved it. The fans cheer.

I enjoy trashy horror films so I have a lot of fun watching this one. It's easy to mock and criticize the dumb parts, they're so stupid it's funny. But it's not all that, there's also a few traps here that are among the most disturbing in the series in my opinion, so if you enjoy that side of these movies, you can get some sick enjoyment out of it.

Jigsaw (2017)

After a very much needed break, the series returned with a soft reboot. It still follows the grand plot of the old ones, but after a decent time skip and introducing new characters, ditching most of the old.

I don't have much to say about this one. I don't like it at all, and I don't find it even ironically enjoyable. The violent parts are for the most part not as disturbing or memorable, and there isn't much room for interesting character analysis. The entire plot is setting up for a twist that's meant to shock the audience and feels almost incoherent in-universe, not to mention that it's one that's been done before with a lot more success in this very franchise. No future entry has addressed what happened here, and probably won't do so for the foreseeable future.

Spiral: from the book of Saw (2021)

A fresh entry that I found very promising, it once again ditches most previous characters and goes for the spin-off approach, so it works as a stand-alone film. It feels like it's less held back by previous expectations, so the brand-new copycat killer is also not restricted by someone else's moral code, and uses new symbols (or old ones in new ways) that I find effective.

The broad message of the film is one of criticism of police corruption, similar to how 6 criticized insurance companies. It's not a bad start, but it doesn't go far enough. Now that I think about it, that last sentence might as well describe the entire film, since the new approach is nice, but they didn't turn it into something that memorable. When I first saw it, I enjoyed a few bits quite a lot, but I was more so excited for the future of the franchise than I was about the movie itself.

Turns out the future of the franchise wouldn't follow this new approach.

Saw X (2023)

But in all honesty, as much as I wanted to see something like Spiral done better, the brand new movie ended up being surprisingly good. It takes all the time it needs to actually create interesting human drama and let the plot breathe. It might be held back by the past, turning back the clock in the timeline and bringing back old characters, while at the same time not really advancing the broader narrative, but as a self-contained flick (probably a new self-contained trilogy in the future), it's way better than 70% of these gory trainwrecks.

I'm worried about it making the Jigsaw killer into an even more sympathetic character, more than ever, fans seem to be eating it up. It's obvious that he's the most important and interesting thing in this entire franchise, but I think he should still be clearly a twisted villain and not some freak anti-hero. You still get a bunch of hypocrisy and contradiction coming from his morals, but it's still easier than ever for wacky horror fans to say he has a point.

There is some weirdness to the movie, like the way characters acted. The killer and his accomplice show themselves to the victims as if that's something they normally do, as if they didn't have a clear MO in every past movie. But honestly their actions have a little bit of a justification, and it makes for effective personal drama so I guess I can still cook up my headcanons.

For now, I'm excited about what's next. Not as in "this was meh but it could be better if they went down this route", but like "this was pretty good so I wouldn't mind getting more of this". It's reviewing well so "more like this" is to be expected. I simply hope they tone down the weird sympathy for the serial murderer a little bit.

[kait16xo]

Dance Moms: A New Era Thoughts (Episode one)

For those who care about spoilers they will be under the cut. Also if you’re not watching on Hulu or Disney + the English subs may still be in Spanish?? Apparently that was an issue on Hulu’s end.

Also we’re still doing this unaired dance bullshit…when will they learn??

* I will never understand why the producers feel the need to shove several seasons worth of drama into a 10-episode reboot. Fuckin CHILL.

* We’re not even 5 minutes into the first episode and there’s already kids crying + moms insulting glo 💀 okay

* Will admit that Glo dragging the fuck out of abby in the intro was hilarious

* Bellatrix is an INSANE name lol I love it. Also love Smiley just…not having her real name in the show just yet

* From her being to a Sephora kid to her takis obsession to literally dancing on the table, Ashlan has thrown me into a loop 😭. Her mom also seems like a MAJOR enabler…

* I was really hoping Mina’s mom wasn’t going to be a stereotypical perfectionist mom but…well. This poor kid is being so overworked at just 8

* Ashlan’s cried so many times give this girl a break 💀

* Why tf is this one mom already trying it with Audrey already?? Weird but expected behavior

* “I’m not punishing you, but I’m purposely giving you an aerial on your bad side” ok glo lmk how that works out

* I’m only 23 why tf does Audrey’s mom look my age?? Help??

* “You put your arm down in the side aerial you’re bad at grr 😡 “ SHUT THE FUCK UP GLO IM ROOTING FOR THIS LITTLE SEPHORA KID

* “If you have questions ask Audrey” like there aren’t 2-3 teachers in there at all times… 🤨 and ofc there’s already drama surrounding it

* I mean…Audrey’s mom isn’t entirely wrong. If you’re going to sign your kid up for something this rigorous, you *do* need to practice rigorously. Kinda bitchy about it but she’s semi-right. Idk why they’re trusting a 12 year old to teach them everything

* The bus footage is kinda cute lol. I wish the OG show did stuff like that more often

* In old dance moms fashion, the dance cuts still suck. Also I’m sorry but the slo-mo(ish) dance footage they’ve been recording does not work in the actual routines

* Tiktok being part of the drama is SENDING MEEEEEE

* “It’s not Audrey’s responsibility to help the team!” *literally makes it her responsibility to help the team* make it make sense queen

* “That doesn’t even go on a beauty blender” girl…why these sephora kids got jokes 😭

* The prop for the group is pretty cool but I cannot get past the glass shattering sfx LMAOOO

* I won’t lie that first dance was cool. It’s a shame Ashlan messed up the aerial :(

* This has to be a real comp to some extent because how the hell did the group get almost 6 points from a perfect score and get 7th? 🤨 insane work (also for some reason the show said 6th so we’re still lying about scores in this show ok!)

* I mean at least Glo took responsibility for the dance not placing well which is more than what Abby can do but god she is so contradictory on this show

[thechangeling]

Ok so a conversation @littlx-songbxrd and I were having made me remember something I was ranting about to a friend of mine once.

Brace yourselves this is going to be long. I'm sorry.

The sexism, homophobia and racism of the shadoworld straight up doesn't make sense and here's why. So if we start chronologically with the infernal devices. There is sexism towards Charlotte right? People don't want her running the institute and they don't want her becoming the consul because she is a woman. But the Clave has no problem letting women train and fight. This doesn't really make sense in my opinion.

Now you could argue that it's because they believe woman can be string capable fighters just not rational thinkers. Which is weird because in my experience you don't meet a lot of people who are "partially sexist" in that way. Like if a man believes a woman can't do high profile, high paying jobs then they usually also don't want them in the military. Anyways moving on, there aren't any mentions of homophobia in TID, mostly because they're arent any queer characters except Magnus and Woolsey.

But something interesting to point out is that none of the characters who know about Magnus and Woolsey ever comment on it really. And following this point, none of the mains display any signs of misogyny either really. (Except for what Will says to Tessa at the end of CA but that was because of the "curse.") You could argue that this is because they're the protagonists so they are supposed to be better then that. But accidental microaggressions are pretty common especially during that time period. More on that later.

Moving onto racism, this is the interesting part. Jem says to Tessa that shadowhunters believe that you are a shadowhunter first and your nationality or eace second. Actually Jem doesnt mention race but he says this while talking about being half Chinese so it's kinda relevant. Shadowhunters rarely tall about race throughout the books in general except for a few instances. When Jessamine criticizes Jem to Tessa, she calls him a foreigner and says some other racist shit that I can't really remember. Something about the yin fin and calling him lazy. That directly contradicts Jem's statement about them all being shadowhunters first. Also Will and Jem actually constantly talk about being Welsh and Chinese in the books so that statement is kinda bogus in general.

And if CC didn't want her mains being sexist or homophobic to show them as good people then why was it ok for both Jesse and Gabriel to say questionable shit about Jem? Anyways moving on to TLH. Sexism is still running rampid with their cultural customs and people being shitty about Charlotte being consul. Bots have to ask the girls to dance, girls cannot have sex before marriage or else they will be ruined or whatever you know the drill. But again, they let the girls fight. Cordelia is allowed to carry around a giant ass sword but she can't get some????

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE CASSANDRA!!!!!

Sorry I'm losing it. Anyways. Regarding racism. Alastair and Cordelia have experienced micro aggressions from the mains (Matthew and Anna) but it's never addressed. I'm pretty sure if memory serves, the inquisitor makes a nasty comment under his breath about persians when the Carstairs family sans Elias arrive. And then we have the whitewashing of Ariadne/Kamala by her parents.

But none of this stuff ever gets brought up really. Exceot for Kamala talking about her past and who she was before and sharing her original name, but she still doesn't talk about how it effects her potential coming out. Alastair doesnt mention race when he talks about the bullying he went through at the academy and none of the white characters ever stop to think about how Kamala and Alastsir's races play a part in their crappy situations.

There's probably more I could discuss with this but I'm moving on to homophobia. It's a thing in terms of the heteronormativity and people's judgement of Anna but it's not illegal like in mundane societies at this time. But all of the mains are totally cool with it which brings me to, I'm sorry but fucking bullshit! There is no way every single adult would be totally fine with it in this time period. Like I'm not saying outright homophobia but maybe some questionable comments you know? (CC is perpetuating this idea that good people never commit microaggressions which is untrue and harmful.)

I don't think there's any mention of whether or not gay marriage is allowed in the shadowhunter world at this point. Because the issues surrounding Magnus and Alec getting married were about Magnus being a warlock right? Because Helen and Aline got married before them in TFTSA because she was only half fae. So that brings me to when was gay marriage legalized in the shadow world?????

Is there any mention of this because I don't think there is? Anyways moving onto TMI. This is where everything goes to absolute shit in terms of world building with the standards for these things. Misogyny isn't really a problem in tmi anymore from what I remember. Nobody has issues with Jia as consul (from what I remember,) and that's that. But homophobia is still rambid throughout shadowhunter society so much so that Alec is terrified to come out because he believes that he can't be gay and be a shadowhunter in peoples eyes. Also there is pressure to "carry on the family name" which doesn't make sense because if the sexism has died out then women can have babies with whoever and not even be married and carry on their family line. And not everyone needs to have children, ergo there is less pressure on the sons to carry on the family name or whatever. This also doesn't make sense because homophobia literally cannot exist without sexism!!!!

This is because of colonial gender roles being forced on society. And men being with men and women being with woman totally smashes the whole gender roles, "woman do this and men do that" idea. There's more that I could say on that but this is already so freaking long so please just look it up. And speaking of gender roles it's literally mentioned that Maryse didn't teach Izzy to cook because she didn't want her to be forced into a housewife role like she was (although there's no evidence to suggest she was?) But then Maryse is lowkey homophobic?

It doesn't make sense Cassandra!!!!!

CC doesn't get that you literally don't have homophobia or transphobia without sexism. Indigenous societies pre-colonization didn't care about any of that stuff. Literally two spirit people were revered and respected and no one gave a fuck about gender until my ancestors literally came along and ruined everything. (I'm so sorry.)

But anyways there's no mentions of racism amongst the shadowhunters in tmi. Just Maia talking about her experiences with mundane society as a black girl. When Clary confronts Valentine and basically calls him a n*zi, he laughs at her and basically says that shadowhunters don't see race the way mundanes do which yikes @ CC. Granted this was 2007. This kind of sounds like what Jem said in TID. Only it clearly wasnt true.

Anyways I'm just super confused at this point. In TDA there was basically nothing in terms of all the isms and phobias. (Oh we arent even discussing ableism because my fucking head will explode!) But we do discuss transphobia a bit with Diana. But again it doesn't make fucking sense because transphobia exists because of sexism and clear gender roles (and homophobia.)

Society is still shown to be pretty heteronormative though which I guess makes sense but the Blackthorns have multiple queers in their family! You would think that they would be less so. When Livvy mentions all the reasons that Annabel could have a forbidden love she doesnt even think to mention that it could be a lesbian relationship. When Mark finds out that Jaime was in Dru's room he freaks out but I guarentee you, he wouldn't have if Jaime was a girl. I mean you could argue that it's an age thing and not a gender thing but idk. That scene always bothered the fuck out of me. Because Mark is literally half fae like why is he caught up on bullshit "boys and girls can't just be friends" hetero bullshit.

In QOAAD we see Dane Larksoear being sexist so randomly for no reason. Like it's so strange because CC literally created a caricature of a sexist villian with him. And it makes no sense because no one else seems to feel the way he does. Like Zara is basically the leader of the cohort right? And nobody gives a fuck. It makes no damn sense Cassandra!

And finally, why is the faerie world sexist with gender roles WHEN EVERYONE IS LITERALLY BISEXUAL AND THEY'RE FAERIES CASSANDRA!!!???? THEY'RE LITERALLY FAERIES WHY IS THERE A CONCEPT OF GENDER AT ALL CASSANDRA????!!!!

Ok lol now I'm done. Sorry this is so long. But yeah I'm so confused.

Tldr: CC's world building in regards to sexism, homophobia, racism and transphobia is very inconsistent and contradictory and it makes no damn sense.

[yellowocaballero]

ugh what you said about jon just helplessly missing deisha and despite being able to connect, still ultimately grieves alone forced me to think about this one book that said something like “grief is a room you enter alone” and I just ;_; something I love about your metas so much is that you rlly pick apart how it can be true that multiple things can be happening at once - he’s being understood, but he can’t be understood, he’s monstrous, but he’s human etc. basically I adore these essays and just reading how you build and present flaws in characters I think is genuinely making me a better writer

THANK YOU...I think we all grieve alone, just a little bit. With people, and maybe especially with more intangible things - when we move to another city or country, when we live alienated from our home cultures, when our bodies fail us, or when relationships fail. It’s inherently such a solitary thing.

And yeah, so often in life we’re feeling so many contradictory things!! Maybe even ALL THE TIME! I’ve loved and hated simultaneously, I’ve never wanted to see someone again and found myself constantly seeking out contact. You ever never want someone to text you, but you’re sad that they don’t text? I want to go back to my workplace but also I want to keep working from home forever. So it’s a real, legitimate feeling, I think.

But that’s also not why I write it that way. Stories inherently kind of have to work on both a literal and symbolic/metaphorical level. You said that you were interested in the writing bits, so I’ll get specific - I determine what happens in layers. Some things are the most essential aspects of the story, and everything else has to warp around that. Hope Etc is a very weird and bad example because a) I put no thought in this story and b) the nature of daemons is that they literalize the metaphorical. So basically every physical thing that Jon does is metaphorical for something. 

So what a story is ‘about’ is the most important thing, and this can change and shift throughout the story as you realize what keeps cropping up time again and again (which is kind of oxymoronic). I use monster vs human a lot for this specific fandom, because monsters can have whatever metaphorical significance you fucking want them to, but other stories such as hope vs desolation, optimism vs pessimism, wanting to die vs choosing to live, etc, work too. The second thing is tone - which determines the message of the story dramatically. What a story is ‘about’ can’t be pessimism when you have a light-hearted and comedic tone. Unless you’re getting REALLY creative. You can add a lot of additional themes to that, but a bunch of themes together make is what something is about. Also very important is that for me what something is ‘about’ includes genre. 

Then what’s kind of wrapped around that is the metaphor. Literal things happen, which have metaphorical meaning, which advance what a story is ‘about’. Not everything that happens is metaphorical - sometimes things have to happen to advance the plot - but things that happen need to advance something. Either plot, or a character arc, or they need to have metaphorical significance. In my opinion the most deft writing is when everything that happens has all three. 

I think over metaphor is character arc and character. When something happens in a story it has to advance the plot and advance the character’s arc. The character’s arc forms a trajectory that spells out the theme. A character arc for me frequently means the relationship between two characters, which often really really work to highlight theme. I think people push each other to change and grow a lot. If it’s a romantic relationship I push that ‘growth instigated by the other’ hard. Also, foils. I think the best romantic relationships are foils. I love foils. I always write foils. Just adore them, they’re so easy to write. Just make someone the opposite of someone else but give them the same theme. It’s great. This is also why I’m always saying that I don’t really sit down and ‘make characters’, characters just happen based on what needs to happen. I don’t decide anything about a character when I start out besides “haha exact opposite of canon character” or “haha amnesiac PI” or “haha roleswap”. And that’s coming from someone who rarely uses canon characterizations and who writes everybody as a thinly veiled OC...and maybe that’s why everybody kind of ends up a thinly veiled OC...

Over that is plot. Plot is what has to happen to make all of these other things happen. I can’t plot. I think I can’t plot because I’m too worried about these other things and I forget ‘oh yeah, Things Have To Happen’. Maybe there’s other people who plot first and then figure out these other things based on what happens in the plot? ....why...

So I kind of made that a gumball, layered thing, because that’s how I build the story. And I shouldn’t have, because these things all feed each other. What a story is ‘about’ is highly dictated by what you’ve decided the character arc to be - highly - and it creates a feedback loop as both of these things get changed and twisted and tangled during writing. A story never ends how I intended, because different things crop up. But there is a ‘priority list’ for me, and that’s kind of the layers - these characters have to act in X way because that’s one of the cornerstones I need to hit for the genre, so I have to have their character arcs match this. Characters can’t act in a certain way just because the plot makes them - granted, sometimes they do, but that means that you have to go back and tweak their character arc to match. You cannot have something metaphorically happen that goes completely against the theme, unless that has repercussions. Plot isn’t the story for me, the about is the story. None of this is hard and fast, and there is nothing that you can’t do, you just really have to view all of these things in a complex interplay that constantly affect each other.

I think of it like gears? They all work together and churn together to make the story work. But if you twist one gear, the others move too. You first imagine it this one way, but then you keep on tweaking and tweaking and tweaking, and then everything else has to change too, so then you’re like why did I even bother to outline, outlining is stupid, and also I have this funny joke so I have to go back and change everything, and...

Wow, maybe that’s why I’m so bad at planning shit..

My...goal? Is to make it so that Everything works on every level. You should be able to read a story completely literally and completely miss the metaphorical meaning and still vibe. But unfortunately the way it turns out for me sometimes is that the symbolism outweighs the literal. When I write absurdist/surrealist stuff it’s just me being lazy and not having to have things be literal, lol. What you get when something only works on a symbolic level and not on a literal level at all is Utena. And I’m writing trashy fanfic so I can’t do that. What normally happens in practice is that things happen literally for a bit, and then I’m like ‘oh I’m Sensing a Theme’ and then I start playing into the theme, and then things happen because it’s thematic. Plot is...plot should be more important to me...

And then of course there’s grounding all of this in human emotion and making sure there’s a climax (me, shaking hope etc: THERE’S NO FUCKING CLIMAX), and dealing with all of that stuff that makes it actually emotional and impactful instead of just abstract and dumb. 

I chose not to use examples for all of that because I wanted it to just be broad writing advice? I can kind of point out there examples of that line of thinking in my writing, and I probably can for Hope, Etc, but it would be a bad example - both because the NATURE of that story is that the literal is INHERENTLY a metaphor so you really cannot view anything in that story as literal, nothing in it is literal - also because I put no thought into it. 

Of course that’s not my process. That’s not my process at all. I don’t sit down and figure this shit out. I didn’t read any of that anywhere, it’s just me bullshitting, that entire thing was just me bullshitting relentlessly I am so fucking sorry. My process is that I joke about ideas with friends, I sit down at a computer and I kind of thump a keyboard for a few hours, I live my life and daydream stuff and kinda make little movies in my heads, I go home and slam the keyboard some more, halfway through I walk up to my beta and go “hey what’s the plot of this?” she helps me figure it out by giving me very bad ideas, I kind of slam my keyboard some more, and then it’s done. And then I kinda edit it a little maybe whatever and then I post it. 

There’s not a lot of thought involved. I really can’t stress enough how I don’t think about all of this when I write. I’m really brain empty. When I do these analyses what I’m doing is that I’m looking back over my story and then I’m like...Oh That’s What I Was Doing! Huh! Neat!

Haha that got long. I’m not a good writer. Thanks for the ask!

[fusiioneternal-a]

Anonymous asked: 🎮 favorite game? 🖌️ you artsy? ❤️ describe yourself! (I think it was? Lol.)

Questions for the mun. // closing soon!

🎮 favorite game?

Answered here!

🖌️ you artsy?

Lowkey, yeah. I’ve loved drawing since I was a kid, and while I sadly didn’t practice that often, I started to take art more seriously in the past 5 years. Unfortunately my art isn’t how I want it to look (I’m still searching for ✨My Style✨), and keeping motivation is tough, but I believe I can push out god-tier drawings like a ton of these fanartists out here do; someday.

❤️- describe yourself!

One thing I can say with the utmost certainty about myself, that won’t come across as gassing myself up or being self-deprecating for pity points, is that I’m very sassy / sarcastic. I just love poking fun at things and being a menace kinda dhghskg, but I never mean it in ill-intentioned ways. In the past some people have understandably taken what I’ve said and how I’ve acted in the wrong way though, so I *try to* only show this side of myself around close friends / people who I know will get that I’m just playing around.

Another neutral-esque thing I can say about myself is that I honesty don’t tolerate bullshit that much?? Which might be contradictory with what I said above, but I’m more so talking about people being super childish and petty: starting pointless drama, picking on other people for stupid reasons, or being hypocrites about serious stuff. I’ve dealt with all of these fields during my years on tumblr, and last year, I reached my breaking point with it. 

I personally think I’m easy to at least vibe with, and you’d really have to be doing THE MOST to get on my bad side or w/e. I’ve learned to be more vocal, so I’ll let anyone know or make it clear that they’re heading down that path if it’s needed.

[thirstyforjuliandevorak]

just some random thoughts (I guess this is fandom discourse so if you're not comfy with that pls skip. also this is really just me ranting so don't go into this looking for a debate, i just want to get this off my chest without highjacking someone else's post. Also pls don't reblog cause this is just kind of a hot mess lmao)

If you see people getting upset over something and you can tell them why they shouldn't be upset it, why not tell them in a way that makes it seem like they were overreacting/just doing it to be mean???

I feel like this especially applies to when bipoc get upset over something that kinda seems sketchy but actually isn't and people start getting on their high horse like "oh you shouldn't have been upset bc it wasn't actually problematic blah blah blah" but as a poc myself, i can't really blame my fellow poc for being...wary?? considering the kind of bullshit takes non-poc make all the time. maybe this is an issue I need to work through but when a non-poc takes a poc character I'm kind of always on-guard for how they're going to portray them because of past bad experiences…

I guess basically…give us a fucking break lmao. I know this is just a fictional game but i can't help but feel attached to this fictional man who represents a little part of me. (lol actually not that much bc I'm Southeast Asian and Muriel's inspiration is taken from a different part of Asia) (also surprise this is about Muriel lmao)

also honestly the take "it's just fictional" is bullshit bc we're in tumblr dot com why would you expect anyone to not be sort of unhealthily attached to a bunch of fictional characters. Although that being said, don't dox people for saying something bad about your favorite fictional character. Lmao these statements are contradictory af but what I mean is, it's kind of bull in terms of representation in fiction bc fiction is a mirror of reality or smth like that (I'm not sure what I'm trying to say but I guess basically you don't get to make liberties when it comes to portraying something or someone that is based on a real culture bc it affects the real people who are part of that culture if you even accidentally start a bad stereotype) but at the end of the day don't actually hurt real people for some ink and paper. Actually not even ink and paper cause digital art

Wow I'm not sure if this even makes any sense 🤣

[bella-c1ao]

Recently argued with a TERF (reblogs are on this blog) and I didn’t quite articulate an argument correctly so here goes.

She claims to have dated a trans person before (lol it was the ‘I have a black friend’ excuse). If this is true it’s worth noting that the overall vibe of that relationship could put her at an emotional bias against trans people. Make no mistake: TERFs are just factually incorrect. They fall for the same shit that Anti-Vaxxers, Qanon-ers, Alt Right-ers (in particular the ‘race realists’), climate denialists, etc. all for for. All of these ideologies have a central component in common: distrust of scientific fact.

They don’t all arrive here the same way. Qanon and race realists prey on right leaning people who may have some misconception or another. Race realists may try to convince people that black people are genetically more violent because of recent riots (the riots, which accounted for roughly 7% of all BLM protests where the other 93% were peaceful, were often instigated by police and/or fringe right wing groups trying to harm the messages of the protests). They can then try to convince a person that the media is lying, and these days people don’t trust the media that much anyway so maybe the person bites. Next they’ll say the scientists are lying and they’ll cherry pick a discredited, out of context, or misinterpreted study or article that doesn’t align with the tens of thousands of contradictory peer-reviewed studies that disprove their position or belief.

Eventually the person drinks the Flavor-Aid and thinks that black people are genetically inferior. Anti-Vaxxer’s play to similar right leaning, vauguely anti-establishment people and do the same shit. They’ll take a disgraced and discredited doctor (you know the one dude I forgot the motherfucker’s name) whom they claim was “silenced” or something and suggest at a bullshit conspiracy. It’s like clockwork.

Climate Denialists do the same and cherry pick articles (which often end up having ties to oil and coal industry, it’s a well documented disinformation effort) that contradict MOUNTAINS of evidence with little to no substantial basis.

Qanon targets the right leaning people just like the race realists and convinces them the democrats are a satanic child sex trafficking ring because reasons.

They all target reactionary people who don’t sit down to check the logical basis for arguments and are more prone to emotionally charged logical fallacies.

In the case of TERFs, it’s similar. They target kinda reactionary women who are uninformed and have emotional biases against trans people. The TERF I spoke to said she knew trans people and dated one. If she had a bad breakup or a bad relationship with her trans sibling, she’d be more emotionally predisposed to a logical fallacy. In her case, it was probably the anchoring fallacy, where she heard the TERF arguments first and then went out of her way to defend them without truly addressing the evidence. TERFs often become so fucking vitriolic in their hate that they use dogwhistles to hide their true intentions from normies. Sound familiar?

Now I don’t wanna come off as some kind of facts and logic type douchebag a la Ben Shapiro, it’s just that for someone to take an informed position they need to first contexualize evidence in a reasonable manner. Tell me, what reason does the scienctific community have for siding with one of the most marginalized groups of people in the world? What reason is there for such a conspiracy? Is Bill Gates funding some kind of disinformation effort and the people who wrote the DSM are in bed with him? Fuck off with this shit dude.

In short, anti-establishment+anti-intellectual=conspiracy cult. It’s an equation all too often demonstrated in our modern political climate.

To ask one more question of the TERF I spoke with, I ask why, if you care about people with dysphoria (I doubt it and I think that was a mask but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt), why is it that you do everything you can to invalidate the people who have gone through or are currently going through the most effective treatment for dysphoria, transitioning? Why do you spew so much bigotry and bullshit about how we’re all narcissistic and dirty and gross and are just fetishists who want to prey on women, etc. ? You can’t say you support victims of sexual violence and then mock victims of sexual violence for showing symptoms of trauma.

You can’t substantiate these claims because they’re all from a biased, intentionally negative interpretation of trans people taking care of other trans people. Are you really so nasty of a person that you really think us telling each other positive things about our appearances or saying nice things about ourselves in public to show our pride and ease our minds is fucking narcissistic? We get it, dumbass, some of us don’t look like cis men/women, guess what you fucking dolt, we know. We think about it every day and probably every time we look in a mirror.

Whether it’s incongruence or dysphoria, we notice. Gender and sex aren’t the same thing, and while there’s often a correlation, it’s still not causative. I get it, nothing will change the fact that I was born with a male body, but I don’t care. I’ve accepted that because my biological sex isn’t in my control but my gender is. We’re not denying that fact. We all know this. It’s fucking obvious. It’s just that we don’t care. We’re still going to be happier when we go by different names and pronouns and present in a more feminine/masculine way. What could you possibly gain from telling us off for living our best lives when it IN NO WAY HARMS YOU? Your own sick pleasure from bullying others?

Honestly I hope the person i spoke to gets some fucking help, because she seriously needs it. Her emotional maturity (or lack thereof) gave me second hand embarrassment and she needs to fundamentally reasses herself as a person. Hell, who knows, maybe it’s internalized transphobia. Anyone who doesn’t have her blocked can check my blog to find hers, and send this post to her. Send it to any terf if you wanna, more people to block for me.

Stay well folks, maybe be a little better to each other. Later.

[adam-is-suffering]

What I know of the trolls (pt 1)

KARKAT VANTAS

- Ah, so he’s the 69

- Its the Karkat, wow, have I seen you around Tumblr

- Oh boy while Jade resonates sunshine energy, Karkat resonates a land mine god he looks so fucking angry

- Someone just told me he’s the Homestuck version of Bakugou Katsuki and I agree

- Apparently he goes looking like a gremlin to cute asf according to these images on google and I’m not too sure what the fandom’s view of him is considering that is such a contradictory perception, I just know people like him

- He likes his sickle a lot, I take it

- Ive never seen a character representing feral energy in its entirety before but Karkat is here to disprove that

ARADIA MEGIDO

- Idk much about her but the kangaroo ram anteater behind her is giving me very pleasant vibes. Sparks joy.

- She has ghost powers or something, like a necromancer. Damn, wait, is she?

- Like Dave, she too has a colour kin to red. They also have the same outfit with the gear symbol. Are they trying to match? Yes. Are they killing it? Yes.

- Okay the ram horns make sense, she’s “ram” in the zodiac bullshit, right?

- In some places she has white eyes and in others she has regular yellow eyes (as if saying that is normal) and I’m not sure but maybe she gets white eyes when trying to summon the dead.

- She seems like a very nice character and I kinda dig her for it.

TAVROS NITRAM

- I first saw a buff picture of him and then apparently everyone lied to me and he’s actually a twink so idk what to think about Tavros

- Tho I do know he dates Gamzee? And they’re together?

- Okay he just seems precious, what the fuck, looks like the character who probably gets the least shit possible from the fandom because he would do absolutely nothing wrong

- Also he’s a gamer, so he’s automatically both oppressed and a god to every platform available but Facebook.

- Robot legs?? Goddamn. What a king

- Do I like his horn? Yes.

- Do Iike HIM? Yes. No more questions.

Goddamn right he could be.

SOLLUX CAPTOR

- Nevermind when I said Tavros looked like the gamer, this kid defeats all norms

- Okay but what the fuck does that even mean?

- I can’t get over his hair, what the fuck is it?

- Who is this?

- Blink your matrix pill looking eyes twice if you need help, Sollux.

NEPETA LEIJON

- Ah yes, you can’t be a 2009 comic without including a cat girl.

- I know they are best friends with the guy with too many u’s in his name but the server calls him saggy tits

- Okay she’s kind of adorable

- She’s shipped with Terezi I think?

- And I am pretty sure she is stanned by a lot of people on Tumblr since she fits perfectly to the cat aesthetic that some strive to have

- While she does look cute, the wolverine claws are definitely a more feral vibe

…Huh? what the fuck does teletubbies have to do with a cat girl in Homestuck? And who is Oswald? Another troll?

KANAYA MARYAM

- So she’s the fashion icon, I take it

- And… a vampire? Well I’m not going to lie to you, even if I do have a sister, I have never watched Twilight. So if you expect me to know anything about it, then thats on you and not me.

- Ah, so she and Rose are a thing of course. Lesbians. I smelled it a mile away.

- She is uh

- She likes chainsaws?

- Idk nobody told me much about her except that shes a lesbian lol I mean fair

[thereluctantinquisitor]

2 Cyrus, 5 Ralon, 12 Ana, 15 Hanin, and 20 for YOUU

2. CYRUS - what sort of things does your muse look for in a partner?

Probably the main things are stability and dependability. So much of his life has been mired in uncertainty, that finding someone who represents solid ground for him to stand on is high on his list. It’s not so much that he wants to be dependent on someone else, but being able to trust that they would be there if he did need them is a huge plus.

Patience is another thing Cyrus (unknowingly) looks for in a partner, mostly because he will 100% push away anyone and everyone if given the chance. So I guess it’s more like patience is a prerequisite, because he takes a long time to shed his prickly exterior (or at least, some of it).

5. RALON - how easily does your muse fall in love?

He falls in like with a lot of people, but not love (as in, he finds plenty of people attractive and would love to get with them, but wouldn’t call it love). To him, love is something else again. It comes with a greater sense of devotion, and he feels like he needs to be willing to offer more of himself than he normally would. He’s not opposed to love by any means - and in true romantic fashion, he hopes to find it one day. But until then he’s happy enjoying the company of others, even if it isn’t love, because to him, it’s still pretty damn great.

12. ANA - what is your muse’s love language?

Acts of Service. She values deeds and action over talk of deeds and actions. It’s hard to impress her, but actually doing something, especially unprompted, shows the kind of initiative that will keep her interested.

15. HANIN - if your muse is uncomfortable in a relationship, will they address the problem or keep quiet?

Eventually, yes, but he will probably spend most of the time trying to figure out how he can fix the situation on his end by loosening up, or trying something new, or re-evaluating his approach. Sadly, this means he tends to spend a lot more time being uncomfortable, because at the end of the day he is a creature of habit, and trying to reinvent himself to suit his partner usually just amplifies the feelings of discomfort until he needs to just address it.

20. MOI -  what would push you to drop a ship?

When my characters become side-characters in the other OCs story, or are just vehicles for them to experience Growth(TM) without it ever being reciprocated. I get people like their OCs and their narratives, but I like mine too, so there has to be give and take.

Struggling to separate fiction and reality (e.g. if characters argue/get into a fight or disagreement and they let that spill over into reality. Or they get jealous when an OC has multiple ships, like it’s a kind of ‘cheating’). This is a big ol’ red flag for me, and I’ll back out pretty much immediately because I’m not dealing with that kinda bullshit (again). It’s also the same reason I avoid obvious/declared self-insert OCs when it comes to shipping.

Personality (or lack thereof). I know a lot of people can be eager to please when they start shipping (which is totally understandable), and I’m sure it works a lot of the time! But for me, I can’t stand shipping with characters that just agree to everything my OC says or does for the sake of garnering their approval (especially when it’s contradictory to their personality/backstory/etc.). If I wanted to ship with a character exactly like mine I’d make a really weird AU lol

Sorta following on from the last point, but when the characters just really aren’t compatible. I love a bit of conflict and drama and self-assessment, but I’m also more than happy to just be like “well, we tried, but this just isn’t working/I’m really not feeling it” and call it a day. That, to me, if far better than trying to force something that feels unnatural or OOC. Otherwise all you tend to end up with is one of the characters being expected to change to a large extent just to ‘make it work'.

[pr-ay-the-gay-away]

Anon who requested I not post your ask but answer you with an emoji, here is your emoji lols 🍆

Oh boy, did I have to sift through that blog.

They’ve posted more in the month of July than they have for every other month of 2019 combined. Their posts in July are pretty much all exclusively about Shonmila PR. They are pushing an ‘industry insider’ angle to expose the PR, but did nothing of the kind back for Shon’s PR with Hailey. Why? Well probably because Shonmila BLEW UP IN THEIR FACE IMMEDIATELY and they had to roll out damage-control.

They’re reinforcing the Ewmila narrative and they support Ew. Wait, didn’t we point out this trend before? And didn’t we smell this trend coming from a mile away, like right at the very beginning of Señorita getting released? In fact, didn’t we just recently theorize that Shon’s team may have struck up a deal to take over the contract with Ew for the remaining 6 months of what we originally assumed to be a 2yr contract between Camila and Ew? This blog’s current brand of ‘exposing Shonmila as PR’ combined with their utter willingness to push the narrative that Ewmila was real is just another red flag for contradictory astro behavior - you can’t do ‘exposing’ posts about how PR photo ops are conducted in relation to Shonmila and then turn a complete blind eye to how it was the same with Ewmila. You ain’t slick.

(Aside: even if this person was 100% legit and I knew them IRL to be totally legit, I would still think they’re an idiot because they publicly support Ew, who we have proven time and time again to be a fraudulent fuckwit of a misogynystic scam artist who is undeserving of anyone’s time and attention let alone their money. Y’all know I have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to Ew and that includes his fans and apologists, which by extension includes Shon’s astros/street teamers who are pushing Ew, and all the astro/street team Camilizers who pushed Ew in the past too)

And the real kicker: this blog is strictly staying out of any speculation on Shon’s sexuality - playing the “it’s none of our business” card. Sorry, it’s more like “none of our business... unless it might be about straight rumors” because they will legitimately entertain anon asks from people claiming that their female friend had sex with Shon - LMFAO I CAN’T 🤣

So in conclusion

This astro blog is trying to do damage control to protect Shon’s professional straight-boy image. They’re not too precious about shitting on literally everyone else to do it, including Camila and EVEN Shon’s male friends (let’s be real, Shon’s male friends are part of his gay posse - his team would love to put across that his friends are shitty straight fuckbois and that’s exactly what they’re trying to put across. Well OOPS Shon’s friends are gay). This blog will seriously shit on everyone except for Ew, which is just... I can’t- I just can’t. But as pointed out before, this all falls in line with management-backed PR narratives that they’ve been trying to push since the beginning of time:

reinforce fake leaked texts problematic Camila-narrative? Check

reinforce Camila vs OT4 fake feud narrative? Check

reinforce Straightmila by reinforcing Ewmila narrative? Check

promote and support Ew? This honestly comes across as such an unnecessary angle but is probably required of them as part of the continued contract with Ew, and by doing so it also lends to the (flimsy AF) Straightmila narrative, so check

reinforce Straight Shon narrative? Check - although they do it through omission. They don’t entertain speculation about his sexuality that is unless it’s ‘hot inside goss from anons who have female friends who say they had wild sex with Shon’ ROFL sure Jan.

Sidenote: This blog is answering a lot of asks, but cross-referencing it against other metrics I would look at for how actively they’re being engaged with by followers, I’d say the number of asks they answer is disproportionate to other forms of follower engagement. Especially how many of those asks are “my dad’s podiatrist’s third cousin was at that hotel/works for Shon’s brand endorsement and they told me this goss” so am I saying that this blog is probably sending themselves asks to answer? Yes. Yes I am.

To a casual reader, this blog is mildly entertaining if you’re looking for slightly petty drama (which some people are attracted to) but honestly why subscribe to that? EL told us to stay away from accounts pushing fandom drama because playing into it is what management wants. And honestly, this is a known tactic:

And I’m not just saying that because of this astro’s angle of trying to protect Shon, prop up Ew, and take potshots at Camila - but also within our own CS fandom spaces, when people try to push comments protecting Camila but taking potshots at Shon, it’s really the same kinda deal. And I have no doubt in my mind that the anons submitting asks to CS blogs going “Shon is <insert insulting derogatory shit> because he’s a racist transphobe” are astros, and it’s the same angle as this astro Shon blog reinforcing the “problematic Camila” fake leaked texts narrative.

No doubt, the person posting to this blog may very well be connected to the industry, but not in any way that benefits those of us who refuse to pay entry to the circus. They’re still pushing narratives, even if they choose to do it by calling out Shonmila as PR. It’s sleight of hand tricks - distract you by calling out the fact that Shonmila is PR (as if we don’t have eyes and brains to know that without having to be told by an ‘industry insider’ FUCKING LOLS) whilst they pull out the same tired old bullshit narratives out of their ass. ‘Exposing’ Camilizer and OT4 blogs used this tactic back in 2016/2017 too. Mix a spoonful of truth (”Yes, Camren WAS real”) in with the rest of the lies (”but they hate each other ever since Camila stabbed the rest of the girls in the back”). A spoonful of sugar helps the bullshit go down.

“STOP doing their game! Management just reaches their goals because you are so manipulatible. They use your immaturity and favouritism "against" you. Do not give Laurenizers, Camilizers, any nizer and fake OT4 stans the attention they've been seeking (DONT try to clap back, just report and block them straight forward)! They don't like 5H, they don't want the group's happiness nor their faves' happiness, they're seeking their own (hint: some of them exist to this only purpose, intentionaly...). They will try to disturb the peace in the fandom, don't give them what they want, please!” - EL, 8 Dec 2016

Don’t pay attention to blogs that haphazardly reinforce fake narratives that we’ve already debunked time and time again. This is honestly their PR’s biggest downfall. They keep on insisting on trying to push the fake narratives of the past, and with the internet making everything just that little bit more permanent to look up (if we’ve documented it) it’s just so much easier to blow their house of cards over each and every time.

CS have seen it all. Moving along now

[eyecicles]

Near and L for the character ask

Near:

favorite thing about them:

So after L’s death I needed a little, uh, break from Death Note because I was too depressed to read on. I was in a weird & shitty mental place anyway, so I just deliberately spoiled myself, and that’s how I found about Near, how he was going to convict Light and survive. After a few months, that was also what motivated me to pick up DN again. Near was a source of huge comfort for me from the very beginning, practically before I even came to know him - and then I was pleasantly surprised how well and intriguingly he was written. He was now the second character I could relate to as an autistic! (I don’t think I relate to any character who’s ~canonically autistic~, lol) I quickly came to love him as much as I love L for all the reasons listed above. And it’s difficult to single out just one of the many things I love about him, but if I had to choose one personality trait… it would be how genuinely realistic and level-headed he is.

least favorite thing about them:

I’m definitely someone who loves his favourite characters not just despite but   because of their flaws. I very much disagree with his opinion on Kiyomi, but it doesn’t bother me that he’s a bit judgmental. It’s what makes him… him.

favorite line:

brOTP:

mainly him and Mello…. I will forever cry about what could have been, honestly

OTP:

I don’t have a OTP for him per se, but I like Natebit

nOTP:

him and L - I could never ship L with one of the Wammy’s kids

random headcanon:

his favourite video game is Minish Cap and he once made Vaati and Ezlo finger puppets

unpopular opinion:

he’s better written than L, but I consider this to be a very subjective opinion & totally get why people disagree with me here

song i associate with them:

I have a few, but I think I never talked about how I associate “Ask” by The Smiths with him. This would be a very fun Meronia song! (I for some reasons have so many songs I associate with that ship, even though I don’t really ship it, technically) (I don’t mind it either though)

favorite picture of them:

If you could see my Near folder… you would realise that it’s kinda impossible to pick just one, so I picked one semi-randomly:

L:

favorite thing about them:

My absolute favourite thing about him is how he’s genuinely, authentically eccentric and doesn’t give one single fuck what other people think about him. And he doesn’t shy away from using his quirks against people, confusing them with his contradictory character and just let’s them overcomplicate him. - Without really doing anything. It’s amazing how full of bullshit and authentic he’s at the same time.

He’s refreshingly confident in his weirdness, and inspired me a lot to be more open about my ~eccentricities~ as well. He doesn’t have any cool quirks but is a cool character anyway, and that’s one of the biggest reasons he means so much to me on a personal level. I also think he’s quite hilarious, attractive in a trippy, ugly but natural way, and obviously a huge reason why DN is so entertaining in the first place. It’s difficult to not feel a bit… or a lot in love with him.

least favorite thing about them:

My least favourite thing? That there wasn’t a panel of him looking directly at the reader, saying, “The alias “Ryuzaki” means nothing to me and the only reason I use the name in the first place is because I’m petty and childish and like to collect the names of the (pseudo-)detectives I subdued”.

favorite line:

Because this made me feel….. a lot

brOTP:

Hmmm… him and Soichiro. He’s generally pretty polite and says “thank you” several times, but I like that he even thanks Soichiro in his head this one time:

Their relationship is underappreciated, in my opinion

OTP:

…………….AU!Lawlight

nOTP:

him x everyone who isn’t Light, Aiber or Wedy

random headcanon:

He sometimes draws very ugly portraits of the people he’s talking to while pretending to make notes

unpopular opinion:

He’s not sadistic

song i associate with them:

Don’t Swallow the Cap by The National

favorite picture of them:

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

No Comicstorian, Marvel DOESN’T need a reboot Part 1: DC history

Youtube channel ‘Comicstorian’ recently put out a video detailing why he feels the PS4 Spider-Man game proves why Marvel needs to reboot their history.

I was so gobsmacked by how misinformed his views were I felt compelled to debunk his statements in two parts, the first being a coverage of DC comics history of reboots.

“This game proves that Marvel should do what DC does and soft reboot their continuity every 4-7 years”

 This is the first and probably biggest point of bullshit spoken about and I suspect my points will apply to the rest of the video’s arguments.

 The idea of this one game adaptation ‘proving’ Spider-Man, let alone ALL OF MARVEL COMICS, needs to reboot their continuity is laughable at best. Did Batman the Animated Series prove Marvel needed to reboot their history? Did X-Men the Animated Series? Did the X-Men movies? Did X-Men Evolution? Wolverine and the X-Men? The 1994 Spider-Man cartoon? The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon? The Raimi Movies? The MCU?

 All of those are wonderful adaptations of the comic book characters (mostly) but none of them led to anyone rebooting anything, reorientating maybe but not rebooting. Moreover if all those more public and serialized stories were awesome and modernized the characters why does this ONE GAME prove that NOW we need to do this for Marvel?

 It doesn’t prove anything, it’s just his ‘feelings’.

 But there is a bigger issue with this point of view.

 Comicstorian is mind blowingly out of touch with the nature of DC’s reboots.

 Broadly speaking it is understood that a hard reboot in comic books is something like Crisis on Infinite Earths wherein the majority of old stories for a character are thrown out and the fundamental building blocks of them are changed or remixed in major ways.

Even for a character like Batman his origin as recounted in the Golden Age was significantly different when it came time to reboot him in the 1980s post-crisis, even though it retained the same basic ideas and story beats. For Wonder Woman and Superman this was an even bigger deal as for the most part their whole origins as understood in the 1980s were burned down and started over representing a drastically almost opposite direction for their characters. And of course 90% of their then established history was just outright deleted, in Wonder Woman’s case this being 100%. Every post-crisis WW story is the ENTIRE HISTORY of post-Crisis Wonder Woman, nothing was carried over from pre-crisis.

 A soft reboot by contrast is something more like what happened in the 1990s with Zero Hour. In Zero Hour the then established lore and histories of every character were retained near identically and only smaller details were changed or tweaked. Those could have big knock on affects but those were not deliberate on the part of the authors.

  Why am I defining what a hard and a soft reboot is? Because Comicstorian claims that DC engage in them every 4-7 years and this is objectively untrue.

 The FIRST reboot DC technically engaged in was in the 1950s when they created Barry Allan, a new iteration of the Golden Age hero the Flash, thus dawned the Silver Age of comics.

 Whilst the intention to create a new version of the Flash was deliberate, calling this a reboot as we understand the term today is kind of weird because back in the 1950s the notion of a sequential continuity that mattered in defining who exactly the characters were simply didn’t exist for DC comics. They just had general ideas of who every character was and then just did whatever they wanted, even recycling ideas every 5 or so years because it was felt that the readership would rotate in and out within that time. no mention of such similar plots occurring was ever brought up even though technically they were happening to the exact same versions of the exact same characters who’d experienced near damn the same things before.

 That type of storytelling just didn’t exist for the characters. Basically Barry Allan was created as the new Flash, interacted with Superman and Batman the way Jay Garrick did all the while handwaving that Jay Garrick was just a comic book character because the writers were like “Fuck it. No one cares and it doesn’t matter.”

 Except fans did care and thus it wound up mattering. Fans wrote in asking how Jay Garrick could be a comic book character in the DC Universe when they’ve seen stories where he wasn’t and where he wasn’t and how the fuck Barry Allan thinks he’s the first Flash.

 This is when DC ‘rebooted’ their continuity by establishing that the Golden Age stories happened on ‘Earth 2’ and all the silver age and beyond stories were on ‘Earth 1’, with the exact point of transition for individual characters varying. This was never the authorial intention by anyone. As far as 1950s Superman writers knew or cared up until that point they’d just been writing the same Superman who showed up in 1938. Same deal with Batman though DC tried to claim that Earth 2 Batman was the guy who didn’t have a yellow oval on his chest and Earth 1 was the guy who did.

 With the concept installed they then went wild with it telling stories about Earth 1 and Earth 2 and how they were similar yet different, e.g. they married Earth 2 Superman and killed Earth 2 Batman whilst they remained committed to Earth 1 (their main versions) Superman staying single and Earth 1 Batman obviously staying alive.

  This wasn’t a reboot that occurred due to freshen things up or anything. It was just the Flash writer not giving a shit and doing what he wanted and DC pulling an explanation out of thing air to justify it.

  Their first true reboot was in the 1980s when they did Crisis on Infinite Earths and in the story combined Earth 1 and Earth 2 whilst deleting parts of it and every other universe so that they could reshape their whole line of comics.

 Did they do this just because you know the old continuity had been around for awhile and it was time to freshen things up and make it more modern?

 No they did it because the writers of DC didn’t want to deal with the insane contradictory mess the old DC universe (that hadn’t had much planning and developed haphazardly) and also because they wanted their universe to be more like Marvel’s.

 Remember that. the biggest reboot DC ever did was because they wanted their universe to be like Marvel’s because Marvel’s, which was like 20-25 years old at the time, was more successful.

  Then the next reboot was Zero Hour in the mid-1990s. Did THIS exist to freshen things up and modernize it?

 Fuck no.

 Zero Hour mostly existed to pay off a Green Lantern storyline and more significantly to just clean up continuity snafus that had cropped up because DC hadn’t perfectly planned out everything the first time they rebooted in the 1980s.

 Then came Superman: Birthright in like 2003. This was originally meant as a non-canon update of Superman’s origin by uber Superman fanboy Mark Waid, recycling ideas from a failed pitch he (and Mark Millar and Grant Morrisson) had made in 2000 to also reboot Superman.*

 But then it was folded into DC’s continuity effectively replacing Superman’s origin story from the 1980s by John Byrne although DC kinda sorta pretended like BOTH origins counted and like between them this is Superman’s actual canonical origin and Birthright contradicted nothing.

 Except it did and they later explained that Superman’s history, along with other alterations to the DC universe pre-2006 had occurred due to Superboy Prime punching a fucking wall which causes reality altering shockwaves or some shit like that I don’t know.

 That idea cropped up in the 2006 event comic Infinite Crisis which was a direct sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths and another soft reboot of DC’s history but kind of a bigger one than in Zero Hour. Whilst Birthright was an unintentional reboot of just Superman, Infinite Crisis was a deliberate soft rebooting of the entire DC universe.

 Because it was just again time to freshen things up, modernize the characters and inject some creative energy into the universe?

  Lol noooooooooooooooooooooooooooope!

  Infinite Crisis existed primarily out of the mind of writer Goeff Johns and to a lesser extent Dan Didio, EIC of DC Comics.

 In not so many words both have more or less admitted their desire to work for DC was specifically to restore Barry Allan and Hal Jordan as the Flash and Green Lantern respectively after the former died and got replaced in Crisis on Infinite Earths and the latter went evil and got replaced in the 1990s Ron Marx run of GL.

 And when you know this and look at their statements and work before and after Infinite Crisis along with what actually happens and the unsubtle metacommentary within the story it becomes obvious why the story really existed.

 The story existed because John and Didio, like Waid, Morrisson, Millar and probably other people at DC,were butthurt that the versions of the DC characters they grew up on had been rebooted way back in the 1980s in COIE.

 And there is plenty of circumstantial evidence supporting this.

 In the 2000s DC had slowly but surely already been working in silver age elements back into the DC universe, for example Superman was dealing with lots of different types of kryptonite, reintroducing his cousin Supergirl and his dog Krypto and getting steadily more and more overpowered. This is in spite of the 1980s reboot specifically wanting to restrict kryptonite to just the green kind, powering down Superman and make him distinctly the lone survivor of Krypton.

 The Superman 2000s pitch by Waid, Morrisson and Millar is very revealing because it makes it very clear that the Superman/Lois Lane marriage (something that was born very directly out of the new directions of the post-crisis era) needed to go so they could get back to the Supes/Lois/Clark love triangle. In fact the proposed story of the pitch was all about Superman rebooting his history in order to save Lois’ life which would mean undoing their marriage. Along with that the pitch made Superman even more sci-fi and powered up again evoking the silver age all of them have been on record as adoring.

 Even if you were unaware of this Morrisson’s All-Star Superman story was built off the back of being a love letter to the silver age Superman stories and his Batman run adopts a Silver age story as a key foundation stone for the story he wanted to tell.

 Johns equally makes his adoration of the silver age obvious in almost everything he does, even referencing how great a new silver age of superheores will be in an episode of Smallville he wrote.

 When Johns personally wrote Superman’s rebooted origin after Infinite Crisis he re-established various silver age elements into Superman lore, including his being Superboy as a teen, his membership in the Legion of Super Heroes, Lex Luthor being a childhood friend of Clark’s and him losing his hair as a result.

 The big takeaway from Infinite Crisis? It existed because DC’s staff wanted to recreate the status quos they loved as kids and because they hated the post-crisis stuff for the most part because it erased those versions. This is especially true of Mark Waid who is candid about how mad he was that Superman got rebooted by John Byrne and asked at a panel in his youth when the ‘real’ version (pre-crisis version) was going to come back.

 Wonder Woman herself underwent a kind of reboot too under J. Michael Straczynski’s tenure where her history got futzed with. This wasn’t an isolated incident.

  Then DC did their second (or third if you wanna count the Earth 1-2 shit) hard reboot in 2011.

 The story was Flashpoint and it set up the New 52 era. The Nu52 was again Silver Age inspired but used shitty 1990s tropes at the same time. Because Jim Lee had been given a position of power in DC by this point.

 What followed was for almost every character five years of near solid deterioration. Wonder Woman and Superman got fucked especially hard, not only because they were shipped together (thus fulfilling a stupid Silver-Bronze Age ship born out of Diana being able to not die during sex with Clark) but because their characters were just....broken.

 Diana devolved into this kind of Xena/300 character who had a biological Daddy (just like in the Silver Age) a mother with blonde hair (just like in the Silver Age) and generally began to have her narrative revolve around the men in her life like Ares, Zeus, Orion, her brother, Apollo, Superman, etc (just. Like. In. The. Silver. Age!)

 Now that wasn’t the case for Superman. He just went back to being an isolated alien God whom Lois Lane didn’t think much of and being overpowered as fuck. They just added him this lame young and unsure of himself bullshit to make him more like post-One More Day Spider-Man. A reboot trying to make a DC character more like a Marvel one, who’d have thunk it?

  Meanwhile over in Batman Barbra Gordon went back to being able to walk and became Batgirl again in essentially the identical costume she had in the Silver Age and Bruce Wayne briefly dated rarely seen Silver/Bronze Age girlfriend Julie Madison.

 Barry Allan meanwhile was the one and the only Flash, Wally West the defining post-Crisis Flash had never even held the mantle and was not going to.

  Basically if Infinite Crisis was the powers that be warping the DC universe to more resemble what it was like when they were kids in the Silver Age then the Nu52 was them just erasing the DC universe and replacing it with their shitty Silver Age fanfiction. It was what they obviously had deep down wanted to do back in Infinite Crisis if they’d been allowed.

  And I cannot stress this enough, it failed.

 It failed spectacularly.

 It was the single most promoted DC reboot ever with TV adds, they made an effort to court the digital comics crowd, they had new #1s to entice new readers, they got rid of all their old history to (in theory) REALLY entice new readers.

 And their sales spiked...at first.

  Then gradually died and died and died.

 Except for Batman, the character who famously changed the least  from one reboot into the next, retaining most of his over all history.

 It got so bad that DC reintroduced the pre-Flashpoint Superman (complete with his wife Lois and now with their new son Jon) and had them co-exist in the primary DC universe alongside nu52 Superman.

 Then they killed Nu52 Superman off and had pre-FP Superman decide to fill in for him.

 And this was all part of an initiative called DC Rebirth in 2016. What was DC Rebirth?

 DC Rebirth was an effort to essentially reinstate a lot of the history and directions of the DC characters from the post-crisis/pre-flashpoint era (so like 1986-2011) BACK into the DC universe via you guess it, soft rebooting it.

 Was this just because it’d been 5 years now so it’s time to freshen things up?

 Jesus Christ no. DC Rebirth existed as  an apology for having rebooted in the new 52!

 Again Superman was a microcosm of this. Not only was the pre-flashpoint Superman, the guy with most of the history from 1986-2011, now the primary Superman but in a 2017 story called Superman: Reborn DC cosmically integrated him into the prime DC universe so that his history now stated he had ALWAYS been there as the main defining Superman and all that happened was he wore the nu52 Superman’s costume for awhile.

 His history though was essentially the one we got from after Infinite Crisis so in effect they reverse rebooted  Superman because the 2011 rebooted version of him was so aweful.

 Wonder Woman got much the same treatment with ANOTHER new origin for her but one more in line with her Golden Age and Post-crisis origin that threw out the trash from the 2011 nu52 origin.

 Sales and critical acclaim for DC over all increased after Rebirth and fans were loud and vocal about how much they appreciated DC essentially fixing what they’d broken in 2011, with Superman being perhaps the biggest example.

 Superman had something like 7+ reboots across his 80 year history and the DC universe over all about 6 across the same span of time.

 Meanwhile Marvel between 1961-present has never rebooted their continuity and...has usually outsold DC.

 In fact the only DC title that regularly tends to outsell major Marvel titles is Batman. That character who again has been altered the least reboot to reboot.

 What is the big takeaway from all this? Well

 a)      DC didn’t reboot (be it soft or hard) every 4-7 years. The Earth 1 and 2 concepts showed up something like 18ish years after the DC universe began. COIE occurred around 20 years later. Zero Hour was 8 years after COIE ended. Infinite Crisis was 12 years later. Flashpoint/the New 52 was 5 years after that and Rebirth was 5 years after that

b)      Reboots never occurred for the sake of keeping things fresh or a sincere desire to generate new creative directions. They existed either to plug holes by careless writing (Earth2 and Zero Hour), purely corporate reasons (like making things more like Marvel), an attempt to recapture nostalgia (Infinite Crisis, New 52, Rebirth) or a desire to ‘fix’ whatever older reboots ‘broke’ (Infinite Crisis/New 52, Rebirth)

c)       Reboots are not creatively healthy, they just lead to more and more retcons and reboot turning everything into a clusterfuck

d)      Maintaining a fairly consistent continuity is actually creatively and financially more sensible hence DC is routinely outsold by the company that has never rebooted