#literally not worth reading

[egophiliac]

I DID IT I GOT MY PINK HAYATE now I am never doing that again!

(at least until they give me, like, a frilly unicorn Kamui or something)

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[lazylittledragon]

hi i'm unw el l

[honey-doc]

urgh i love how kabru showed no reservations or disgust when holding mithrun here even though he's covered in sp*der guts cuz he's too concerned about him to care lol

i love them ahh🥹😭

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)

[emblazons]

"Do you not see, Eleven?"

El & 001 + Mike Wheeler & Martin Brenner Parallels see also: Vecna' using El's trauma to manipulate(!) her ⤷ inspired by @heroesbyler & my own commentary (x)

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[sapphicherri]

toxic ex fling broke no contact this week and i didn’t respond who’s proud of me🤞🏻

[jackshiccup]

to celebrate my otnwasversary last week i watched httyd in orchestra concert and got a custom tiny toothless tattoo like woah.. we used to pray for times like these 12 year old me would be ecstatic to know this is what we’re upto now

[bl-bracket]

Anyways I know we settled that Pit Babe is the most unhinged BL today, but I can't close the book on talking about unhinged shows without talking about what is probably the most insane show of them all (at least in the ql-adjacent world)

like the first couple episodes is like "oooo spooky museum, cursed artifacts, bit of monster of the week but like with cursed items, is Dome Katha's reincarnated brother?" and then the last episode is "Katha has become the new Christian God. the moon has literally exploded and is going to end the world. Dome is actually one of the 4 horseman of the apocalypse and shot down from the sky to take over a normal guy named Dome's life. Dome isn't Katha's brother, that's Chan, another horseman of the apocalypse, who is from a different universe and also looks the same as Dome because all celestial creatures look like Dome because God made them all look like that across universes and God is Katha but not really. Dome and Chan were both from different universes (there's currently 3) but were all mixed around because Death (who also looks like Dome) killed his God and destroyed his universe so he's been hopping around trying to find a new God also he's possessed the body of Adam (like from the Bible) who had become a mannequin." and they made that jump in like 10 episodes

Truly one of the most unhinged pieces of television ever made I wish they made Katha and Dome kiss so I could include them in this bracket.

[oceans-beloved]

Meme dump yayyy🥳✨️

(off to make more now muhahaha >:3)

[marimbles]

does anyone else obsessively scroll through their own art tag or reread their own fics scrutinizing every detail and trying to determine whether it’s Actually Good or not or am I just a freak lol

[the-modern-typewriter]

Just a brief anecdote based on your most recent posted anon that I thought you might find amusing- one time I was talking with someone about protag/antag dynamics and how they're some of my favorites in media. They mentioned that they hadn't seen that dynamic very often and I was like "huh, weird! I've read so many, I see it all the time!" And then when I was thinking of examples I realized that. I was just remembering your whole catalog of work which I love dearly and have read all of (I'm a long time subscriber to your patreon as well). A slight spiders georg moment

oh my god

am I villain spiders georg

not exactly the same, but here are four books with good protag/antag vibes:

Summer sons by Lee Mandelo

Dark Rise/Dark Heir by C.S Pascat

The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue by V.E Schwab

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

[radarchives]

[bonefall]

i'm ngl depicting thunder's prosthetic as a burden is pretty uncomfortable even if it is something some amputees experience because like. there's a huge stigma around prosthetics already you know? it's like having a parent forcibly strap a child into a wheelchair when they don't need it and having a horrible experience with it and that being your only character in a wheelchair. some full-time wheelchair users do resent their wheelchairs but when that's the only time you're bringing it up at all it feels like you're playing into our society's perception of wheelchairs and mobility aids in general as useless and best and divine punishment at worst. idk do let me know if i'm wording this wrong because i really do love better bones! it's just that this detail is... strange.

I mean, I'm open to feedback if that's not something I should do-- but I do actually have other characters in prosthetics and mobility aids! A lot of them! Thunderstar's actually the only one who ends up rejecting his own, because I also wanted to depict that it's bad to force a device onto someone who does not want one.

Especially in circumstances like Thunder Storm's, where that sort of device would be actively unhelpful for his lifestyle. It might help in open field environments like moorland, but then I got more feedback and realized that it would just make a lot of unwanted noise in a forest (since cats have carpal whiskers to help them figure out where to place their paws). Then I figured it was a good way to show how BB!Clear Sky doesn't actually listen to his son's needs and acts differently when he's not "grateful" enough for his gift.

But he's far and away from the only one with a mobility aid or prosthetic!

I haven't figured out Frog entirely yet, but he's going to be the first cat with a "wheelchair" type device, to set up a long line of cats through the generations improving on it (Probably not much more than a reinforced canvas or durable leather, as this was the age of very early flax processing)

Wildfur's the next in the big advancements, even making the Great Journey in his own and getting a side story based around Littlecloud and Cinderpelt collaborating over this

The device is then improved upon by Jessy for Briarlight, giving her a level of independence and confidence that she needs to finally cut her mom out until she learns how to behave

Deadfoot has a brace for his front paw because the joint is loose (it was based on a friend's carpel tunnel bracelet) which is affectionately referred to as The Bonker; his name is also now an Honor Title (Old name: Hoprunner) for inventing a battle move by distracting with his good paw, and then SLAMMING his other limb down hard on his opponent. It's called "deadfooting."

I think mobility devices are super important, usually massively improve quality of life, and I just enjoy designing them, so the choice to portray Thunder Storm's as negative was a very deliberate one that I did in response to what I thought was a desire in representation. Even the fact it's a hind-leg prosthetic was thought out, since those have a much higher satisfaction rate in humans than hand prosthetics, but in a cat would probably be the opposite.

Still, I'm not missing a limb, so now with all of that context presented, do you still think the same thing? Should I just add even more limb prosthetics to make the ratio of satisfied prosthetic users vs Thunder Storm even steeper?

Sunlit Frost is actually going to have a bite on his good paw go septic (the other side has permanent damage from the fire). I could have that paw get amputated and have Thunderstar "return the favor" for how Sunlit Frost created the prosthetic he rejected by helping him build his own. A pawsthetic, if you will

OR would it be better to just remove the subplot of Thunder Storm grappling with/rejecting a prosthetic that is unfitting for him entirely, and have all prosthetics be 100% treated as positive in the narrative?

[lucradiss]

Existing in more than one fandom space is like having more than one group of friends but both of them being so wildly different that any overlap at all would be like getting shot in the head