#message to the audience;; psa

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Feeling very violent rn so here's a very controversial opinion:

Everything after season one of Young Justice sucked.

Look, I know I'm obsessed with the show but that doesn't mean it's good, it means that I'm too deep into it at this point to get out. There are good moments within the other seasons but in general? They were not good.

I'm sorry. I understand that they wanted to be creative and have a neat narrative and deep lore and all that. And they do! The narrative and lore is extremely deep.

But the plot? The characters??

Season one was an actual functional show that balanced character development, plot and dialogue with world building, lore and messaging.

The other seasons do not do that.

Season two bounced back and forth between like 16 characters. We got some development for some characters but even that was minimal compared to the character development in S1. And this isn't me complaining that the og group wasn't in S2 enough. That's not my issue. I would've loved to focus on a new group and I think that Jaime, Bart, Ed and Gar would've been super cool to focus on. I loved what character development they did have and I craved more.

But the problem? The problem is when you have 16 fucking characters that you are trying to develop and shove into a coherent plot and have actual meaningful scenes. There just wasn't enough focus on S2. Imo, S2 was meh because the characters got left by the wayside. The plot, dialogue, world building, lore and messaging was fine, there just seemed to be a lack of heart/warmth in the show because of the characters. It's hard to get invested.

Then holy shit. S3 introduced more characters. And the plot got more contrived and 'big picture' to the point that it started to abstract. It felt like nothing mattered. There were no stakes, you were just watching things happen. There was 50 fucking things happening an episode and 80% of it was lore/world building. It felt like I was studying for a fictional history exam.

I'm pretty sure the main character in S3 was earth 16. Just the entire universe. Because goddamn. We checked in on almost every living being and EVERYTHING was a plot point. Most of it wasn't even relevant to anything happening in the season. Man it was.... it was bad.

And at that point it just wasn't enjoyable at all to watch. I probably should've stopped watching but at that point the sunk cost fallacy had already kicked in. I knew it could be good. Maybe it could be good again. And people were constantly praising it as cinematic genius so I was like 'okay well maybe I'm missing the point? Maybe you aren't supposed to enjoy shows? Maybe this is fine?'

But season four broke me.

The creators heard that people were frustrated by the lack of character focus and the episodes following 72 characters and the episodes switching between 50 different subplots every episode and their solution? Their solution was to take allllllll the different unconnected plots and, instead of evenly spreading them throughout the season, jam them all into 'arcs'. So you had a bunch of mini seasons consisting of 3-5 episodes dedicated to a cast of ~5-8 characters (some of them new). And each of these episodes had unconnected a plots, b plots and c plots.

THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION

Holy shit that is not a solution.

Not to mention the overarching plot of the season, in which we had no fucking clue what was happening until the final episodes where everything became a speedrun to wrap everything up. We literally had no idea what the main plot was until it was ending.

Good god it was bad. It's bad writing!

I know people liked it and good for them. You should like what you like and you don't have to justify it. But for me it was insanity. I'm sorry I actually don't want a season long subplot where Beast Boy is depressed and sleeps all day. I would be cool with it if it had anything to do with the larger story but, surprisingly, spending five minutes watching Beast Boy sleep every episode didn't make for compelling storytelling.

I'm still not over how we didn't even know who the main villain was until the end of the season. And then all of a sudden he does a villain monologue to tell everyone his evil plan and his motives. Super cool actually. I love it when I have no idea what the stakes are for the majority of a show. It's incredibly good storytelling when you leave the audience in the dark about a major player in the plot for all of the plot. And then doing an info dump evil monologue in the final episodes to rush through the explanation??? Fucking fantastic and not a sign of terrible pacing at all.

I'm just so frustrated. The show isn't about being a show anymore. The show is an entire cinematic universe shoved into 20 something episodes. It's desperate to tell every single story at once, audience, pacing and good writing be damned.

I'm so tired of the constant praising of Greg. His whole 'i don't write endings because life doesn't have endings' and 'i don't write cliffhangers, I just leave things open ended' thing is pretentious bullshit. I'm tired of pretending it's not. A good story has an ending. Stories are not life! Some of the best shows I've ever watched had planned endings. And oh my god. The cliffhanger thing... that's just semantics my guy. Greg you write cliffhangers. You can insist they aren't but I'm going to call a spade a spade.

It's also.... I'm fine with explaining things, in fact I love it because it's an excuse to talk about the stuff I love, and I have a fairly decent knowledge of comic book lore. So, I could not only understand what was happening in the show but I was also super enthusiastic about explaining it to people. But hey Greg? Hey buddy? If 90% of your audience doesn't know what the fuck is going on and needs to be familiar with super specific obscure comic characters from the 70's then you might have a problem.

I think I realized halfway through s4 that the most enjoyment I got from an episode was when an obscure comic character would cameo in it. But then I realized that a) they generally weren't explained at all and b) 50% of the time they weren't just hanging out in the background and they were vital to the plot. So to understand who the fuck they were and what the fuck was happening you had to be familiar with... well all of DC comics actually.

Anyway this rant is getting long and unhinged and I don't think there's a point so I'm going to cut myself off even though I have so much more to say on the topic. I think my general point is just that I didn't enjoy watching the later seasons and it's chill if you did and we should all respect each other's opinions ✌️

[gentlemanthiief]

Tag Dump #2

♛ Blog Tags

[theweeklydiscourse]

Why is nuance dieing?

The younger generation seems to be so much more obsessed with moral puritanism in fiction and irdk why. Could it be because kids these days don't interact with real people and are just chronically online so they repeat what they see on the internet?

Actually saw someone saying people who like fictional bad boys are the reason why men get away with sa & rape irl and countries are criminalizing abortion...

It's just so depressing to see that. This line of thinking is scary actually.

I don't remember people going this mad over morals when shows and movies like Vampire Diaries and Twilight saga were huge. It's like people have regressed.

The media we consume is becoming more and more didactic as we enter an age where it seems like every piece of popular media is obsessed with delivering their messages and themes like an after school PSAs. Media is becoming increasingly more sanitized and “family friendly” to appeal to the broadest possible audience to create more and more profits for corporations. This obsession with sanitized fiction has become commonplace with many younger people who parrot what they see online and on the media they consume and proceed to deliver underdeveloped takes on subjects they don’t fully understand yet.

It becomes even more interesting when people point to fictional narratives as the cause for societal problems when there are already larger institutions that have historically been responsible for what they claim fiction causes. They displace the blame for societal ills like SA, abuse, patriarchal violence and misogynistic legislation onto fiction, fan fiction and media that explores taboo subject matter. While I don’t deny that fiction has power, 90% of the time these people have no idea of the ways literary works influence our culture and default to a 1:1 “monkey see, monkey do” explanation for why people must consume the “correct media”.

Another factor is the way that people have become accustomed to moralizing their content consumption. They have convinced themselves that they need a concrete and righteous justification for their likes and dislikes and this has ruined the way fandom interacts with literature, film and other art forms. With this in mind, they can no longer dislike or even hate something without creating some moral justifications for why “hating this thing is actually progressive and righteous!” and in the process, conflate consumerism with activism.

The comparison to Puritanism is quite fitting in this case. After all, the principles of that religion were based in purity, obedience and censorious beliefs for self-indulgences and we can draw comparisons with the way people online discuss certain subjects. There’s a phenomenon where people will say something along the lines of: “It’s alright to like (insert problematic character here)! But you need to acknowledge that they are a bad person.” To them, it seems like a gesture at fairness and magnanimity when in reality, it is an attempt at exerting unearned moral authority over the tastes of others. It is a demand that a person proves their moral innocence to them in a performative manner that validates their need to feel superior. But it’s all performative purity because even if a person did explain/justify their fictional tastes, these people wouldn’t care and would continue to demand purity from others.

People can’t even discuss certain characters anymore without running into people accusing them of being terrible people who would approve of real-life violence and abuse. And I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t always like this, when did it change?

[sourrcandy]

how arcane taught me to outline — on character

inspired by @/schnee1 on youtube ; i’ve learned a lot from what he talks about in his arcane analysis video series and took inspiration from him to outline my wip, here are some of my notes on them! i’m also a film student so it might lean not so writeblry!

psa: this is my interpretation of arcane and the many helpful resources i found along the way + the things i learned from the show but i hope you find this helpful xx

i’m sure many of you have seen the award-winning hit netflix series arcane, league of legends fan or not. if you have to seen it, spoilers ahead if you keep reading and GO WATCH IT! whether or not you liked it, surely you’ll agree that its plot, characters, worldbuilding, conflict, etc, are on the next level. to say the least, i’m obsessed. so here’s a small writing help series of the many things arcane has taught me (with the help of the internet + youtube). this series is all thanks to you guys who said “yes do it” to me <3

— CHARACTER ARCS: arcane’s magic formula

arcane has a lot of common themes, but what the show really asks is: “how do different characters react to the same/similar situation?”. arcane’s characters make decisions on morality, technology (hextech), identity, politics, violence, family, and etc. arcane creates every character arc throughout the show with a very simple formula:

foundational question/choice ➞ story adds weight and stakes to choice (struggles) ➞ takes a turn (the twist!!) ➞ final pivotal decision.

let’s see how we can apply this formula to arcane’s cast:

powder: she wants to prove her worth ➞ she finally succeeds in her inventions but at the cost of losing her family ➞ vi abandons her ➞ she joins silco

vi: she chooses to sacrifices herself for her family ➞ she loses her family ➞ she finds out powder caused their deaths ➞ she abandons powder

jayce: he risks his everything to develop hextech ➞ he is isolated and betrayed by his closed ones ➞ he partners with fellow inventor outcast viktor ➞ together, they make a gamble to successfully innovate hextech

caitlyn: she is ostracised by her peers ➞ her relationships with family, co-workers, and vi deteriorate ➞ she is kidnapped and reunited with vi ➞ to save the cities she has to choose whether or not to hurt jinx

each character relates to each other in some degree. “corruption” is a theme in arcane that every character experiences, in society or themselves. vander, silco, singed, cassandra kiramman, ambessa medarda, and even heimerdinger “the father of the city” experience “parenthood”. the cast goes through “transformation”, powder loses her innocence and became the psychopathic jinx, jayce went from a humble researcher to an arrogant innovator and politician, and vander was a violent rebel leader who became a pacifist and central father figure to the zaun kids. every theme is explored by multiple characters in utterly different ways, and they can be compared and explored in parallels through the story.

— PROPS: crafting an extension of the character

if you’re thinking, but they’re league characters, of course they have a signature weapon/prop, it’s a game. you’re right, BUT in the storytelling sense, each character’s prop tells a story to enhance and further express each character’s core elements, values, beliefs. i, myself, am a writer who uses a lot of descriptions, props, and even fashion, to express who my characters are. as in arcane, there’s the following:

jayce’s hextech hammer: he brute forces his way through life (his hextech innovations) and causes unintended harm along the way

jinx’s giant guns: unpredictable and traumatic, she’s dangerous and her weapons reflect that. her final shark rocket launcher tells us her final choice of destruction that will lead to war between piltover and zaun, toppling the balance of the two cities.

vi’s iron gauntlets: she values force and it is a calling back to vander’s influence on her, as well as renovating the old to new as a symbol of her growth

caitlyn’s sniper rife: being a sharpshooter expresses who she is — direct, honest, and someone who doesn’t cut corners.

but how did a prop become so important? take vi’s flare. at the end of act one, vi gives powder a flare gun and tells her: “wherever you are, light it up and i’ll find you, i promise.”. then in act two, powder (now jinx) lights up the flare and vi reunited with her. now this is a plot device known as chekhov’s gun. chekhov’s gun is the dramatic principle about making a promise to the audience and keeping it. in its roots, it is setup and payoff.

— NOW WHAT?: on practical application

so i’ve said all this stuff, given examples and wow made points. and you have read through that giant chunk of text and now you’re thinking: but how should i use this to outline my characters? to summarise: 

creating a character arc! — use arcane’s formula to create a basic outline of your characters’ journeys. remember that actions have consequences. 

connect your characters! — your wip should have common themes and a message you want your audience to walk away with, whether it is redemption, corruption, betrayal, trauma, family, power, friendship, hope, love, transformation, the list goes on. this theme should be the soul of your wip. write about the way your characters react, the different roles in their settings, motivations, feelings, what do they base their decision-making on, etc.

but i can’t pinpoint my theme >:( — don’t worry! sometimes themes emerge in your wip later. look for patterns, similar details in your characters, or even just write down a specific theme you want to explore with your characters, it will help guide and create your narrative. your work will convey an underlying message no matter what.

look into chekhov’s gun! — don’t make promises you can’t keep to your audience. use the details in your wip to add impact to your story, foreshadow something in the early chapters, but make sure to not overemphasise on it too much or the payoff will not be impactful. remember with the introduction of the gun means that at some point the gun must be fired. 

REFERENCES/INSPO:

youtube: schnee - the secret to arcane’s depth

youtube: schnee - character development without the character

youtube: schnee - arcane’s weapons tell a story

youtube: amateur analyst - arcane: an analysis

upcoming: on character pt. 2 (show not tell, time, a character-driven plot)

feel free to send me an ask if you want me to further elaborate / other aspects to touch on! check out the masterlist here!

[p-redux]

PSA and Update: Regarding the Sasnak City private fan event on August 26, 2023 with Sam Heughan, Duncan LaCroix, and Charles Vandervaart...

Predictably, I woke up to some hate Anons in my Inbox. And also to an Ask from a go-between person sending me screencaps of a message from the Sasnak City ORGANIZER herself. The message was directed at me and my event source and she gave the go-between person permission to share the screencaps with me. The organizer is very upset that my source shared the event info with me and that I posted it publicly. And she goes as far as saying that because the info was shared, that this will be the end of any more Sasnak City events with Sam et al. C'mon now, I know I'm dramatic, but that's a bit over the top.

Lets' be real, people talk. It's human nature. And A LOT of people talk to me and share things with me. It's naive to think that an event with Sam Heughan will remain completely private. I heard at least a handful of other people who were at the event were also sharing info with people. I have a big audience and my blog is public, so it will have a wider reach, but still, others besides me did the same thing. I didn't sign an NDA and my blog is literally about posting insider info, scoops, etc. That's the way celeb blogs work.

As for the source who was at the event and gave me the info. She asked me to not post until 9:00 PM PST because that would make it 12:00 AM EST, which is the NEXT day. I could see being upset if any info about the event was posted AHEAD of time, or even DURING the event...but NOTHING was posted until AFTER the event was over.

As for Sam et al still being in the city where the event was held and fans possibly going to the airport to wait for them today...um, that's showbiz, baby...Sam has been photographed with fans waiting for him at airports for YEARS. He knows it's part of the deal of being famous. An airport is a public place. This does not put him in "danger," dramatic much? IF any fans go to the airport and get pics with Sam et al, that's literally ALL that it will be--a pic with a fan, not an assassination attempt FFS.

As I was in the middle of writing this, I received a message from someone else saying that the organizer is thinking of "suing." Um, suing WHO? I'm Anon and I didn't sign an NDA, so I can't be sued. And my source is also Anon, I don't know her real name, and I NEVER reveal sources, unless they give me permission. That's why people trust me and know they can come to me with info. You can only sue for breach of NDA if you can serve an identifiable person. There is no identifiable person here.

But, now I'm the one getting angry. The organizer is worried this will be the end of any Sam related Sasnak City events and is making a HUGE stink behind the scenes. It would be in the organizer's best interest to let this go, and stand down. I'd be worried about Sam finding out that she's THREATENING other fans, i.e. ME and my source who was at the event and provided info AFTER the fact.

I won't share the screencap of the organizer's message to me, but let's just say, it's very apparent she overestimates her importance. No one is curing cancer here, it's an expensive, exclusive fan convention. Nothing more, nothing less. Sam goes because he gets paid. Simple as that. Sam is super chill about everything, he doesnt care about any of this drama. I literally know people in L.A. who know him. Keep paying him and he will continue to attend. 🤷‍♀️ Just like any other celeb. Sasnak City events will continue.

It seems to me the organizer is more upset the info was posted before SHE could post it. I outscooped her about her own event--I get that would piss her off. But again, we're talking about a celeb con here, not state secrets.

I've been here a long time, I know how to play this game, who the players are, and people who can relay messages directly to Sam. You don't want to mess with me. Trust.

Again, I would just let this go, chalk it up to, "the event was a success, Sam knows we try our best to keep things private, but leaks happen, it's just how it is," and MOVE ON.

Deep breaths. I'll be at a pool party for a few hours, will check in here and there until later.

People are dying out there in this country and all over the world...let's keep things in perspective...

[do-you-have-a-flag]

the thing about the barbie movie is that while the production style and cast is great– on a script level it’s just okay.

 and it’s not a gotcha to quote the film’s message at people critiquing it because every work of art can be critiqued even when the work itself is in conversation with the unrelenting standards women are placed under

like yes women are criticised for being too feminist and not feminist enough and that also applies to barbie dolls..... it’s still valid to point out the film’s limited perspective presented when it comes to feminism and intersectional issues because those flaws are a part of the film as a whole work of biased art, identifying the shortcomings and biases is not invalidation it’s simply engaging with the work on it’s own terms. 

and not everyone who is criticising the film is going at it in bad faith or on a misunderstand of it’s themes (although plenty of people are, it is a real problem) it is neither as revolutionary nor as radically dangerous as proponents and detractors would have their audience believe.

but i would like to be able to critique the script for being a little comedically stilted at times and missing a few opportunities or delivering a couple bland morals and going for a few plot beats and characterisation that i found predictable and flat and more nit picks.... without the assumption being placed on me that i either hate the film or didn’t get it

like,

psa:

[puddle-nerd]

Ollo… I’m Riley and welcome to my blog!

(Please, let me know if any of the links don’t work and I’ll fix them ASAP.)

First things first, this is a 🔞NSFW / MDNI🔞 blog

Just in case it needs to be spelled out:  Not Suitable for Work / Minors Do Not Interact so don’t read this if you’re underage or at work… Most of my posts will be written for adult audiences and the characters will either be of age already or they will be aged up. I’ll make sure to mark my works properly with warnings and labels so:

CONTINUE  AT  YOUR  OWN RISK.  THANKS

Right now, I currently only have works for our favorite James Cameron big blue aliens, specifically for Luna’s Kinktober, Neteyamsyawntu’s Avatar12DaysofKinkmas, and Crybabies-heart’s 14 Days of Love and a couple of requests but I’ll eventually expand out into more original works and into other fandoms. So, if you don’t like the Na’vi, keep on scrolling. (I’ll update this as I add to it.)

This post is so you can navigate my blog a lot easier. I’ll have links to all of my lists and individual works that I may add and to my different reblogs that I think you might enjoy too. Please don’t post my works as your own – I do not consent to this. Please don’t post my works on other sites, even if it’s meant as a translation – AGAIN, I do not consent to this.

My Masterlist for Luna’s Kinktober 2023

My Masterlist for Neteyamsyawntu’s Avatar 12 Days of Kinkmas

My Masterlist for Crybabies-heart’s 14 Days of Love

𖥸 · ─────── · 𖥸 · ─────── · 𖥸

If you’re looking for something specific within the individual posts, I made a genre key to help you find what you might be looking for better:

Angst – ✂️

Character D3ath (Detailed) – ☠️

Character D3ath (Mentioned) – 👻

Friendship  – 🌻

Romantic – 💘

$mut – 🔥

Viol3nc3 – 🧨

Request:  jakesullywhore:  Avatar (Cameron Movies) Fandom – You’ll Do (Dark Jake Sully/Human Reader) 🧨☠️👻✂️🔥

Request: jakesullywhore: Avatar (Cameron Movies) Fandom – The Price of Silence (Dark Jake Sully/Human Reader) ✂️🔥

Request: thatonepansexual2000: Avatar (Camerona Movies Fandom - Our Sweet Paysyul (A/B/O verse JakexreaderxNeytiri) 🌻💘🔥

Request: ana-maria456913: Avatar (Cameron Movies Fandom - Jealousy Can Be a Wild Thing (Tonowari/Ronal) 🌻✂️💘

Writing Prompt > bethanythemartian > a short story about a daycare worker when the end of the world is announced

moribundanchor > an image for MIDSÖMMER (one of the best psychological horror movies, in my opinion)

euninieboo > a beautifully drawn friends to lovers comic

typhlonectes > image of a very, very cool Mountaineer’s axe

outpastthemoat > ATLA personal opinion about dear, old Uncle Iroh

cruelgay > “shipping” Shuntaro Chishiya and Kuina Hikari, lol

chishiyashoodie > Nijirou’s message about taking a break

chishiyashoodie > my very loud opinion as to why America SHOULDN’T remake Alice in Borderland

emergencybitch > PSA about the upcoming Polin scenes in Bridgerton Season 3

newhologram > one of my all-time favorite scenes in ATWOW (don’t get me wrong I love Ao’nung but when he gets punched? *chef’s kiss*)

eyweveng > her MUST READ ‘Knife Kink’ submission for Luna’s Kinktober

oakbuggy > her NSFW art depicting Ao’nung. Makes a girl drool

Writing Prompt > rabbityfrogs > a short story about a morally gray villain putting the “hero” in their place

dontlistentothemmoose > the moon is stuck in a time loop short story

yourstrulybluelover > her MUST READ Lo’ak/Reader heat fic (trust me, it made me melt it was so hot)

oakbuggy > her NSFW art depicting Lo’ak. My knees are weak!

artsofmetamoor > their must read comic depicting Spider’s adoption as a baby into a loving Na’vi family

artsofmetamoor > their continued depictions of Spider’s adoption into a loving Na’vi family

artsofmetamoor > their sneak peak into the Avatar/W.I.T.C.H. crossover universe when Spider was adopted as a baby into a loving Na’vi family

neteyamssyulang > her Na’vi dictionary (not all of it is canon so proceed at your own risk)

oakbuggy > the artistic rendition of pandoraslxna's steamy Neteyam x female human reader x So’lek that has me absolutely drooling

Jakexneytiri > do we think Jake ever had flings before Neytiri? (And the debate that followed)

hoechloin > DC version of “you and me and your friend Steve” featuring Lois, Clark, AND Superman

[nymphomatique]

just an fyi, a minor is interacting with your posts. their user is @corgioo

thank you for telling me nonnie, they’re now blocked!

just as a general psa: if you are under 18, do not follow me or interact with my nsfw content! it gets hard to go through all my notifs and followers but just know that if i catch you interacting with my shit and i explicitly told you not to, ur getting blocked 😭 respect my rules because it is the one of the only things i ask of my audience as a writer!

if anyone sees minors interacting with me please don’t hesitate to tell me in messages or through my ask box.

to my writer mutuals, if they’re interacting with me, they may also be interacting with you as well, so i advise you all to block as well.

[piracytheorist]

Some bits from episode 10/chapter 16:

Fake dad totally not caring about his fake daughter developing a social conscience. Giving Anya lifelong lessons For The MissionTM and only.

I wonder how natural it is for him to be so understanding. Despite his stress multiplying with the realization that Anya can't earn Stellas from volunteering, he's still got enough wits and/or sympathy about him that he's being supportive of Anya. He thinks Anya doesn't know of his Stella plan, and that he has to tread carefully so that she won't be discouraged so he knows he has to control his feelings and be as supportive of her as possible... But I think we're meant to see that as part of his real self coming out. Even in his thoughts, he doesn't burst out on or blame Anya. And he knows both how to recognize the mistake without sugarcoating it, and how to show support even though he's starting to lose hope of Anya ever getting eight Stellas.

Then, the moment of Anya fearing Loid's reaction if he learns about her powers.

This one also connects to her later on not admitting her powers to Yor or Loid and instead depending on her ketchup message in order to stop the bomb from going off, her dad from dying, and the war from breaking out. She'll do her best, even take the most desperate measures in order to help as much as she can, but she seems genuinely terrified of her secret being known. She's already aware of how it could break the family apart - as I mentioned in another post, if Loid and Yor find out she knows about them, high chances are they'll leave - or at least, that's what she fears at this point.

The scientists at the lab used to tell her that they wanted to study her powers so that they could achieve world peace, and that's something she wants too, but she seems to be so traumatized by her experience there that she'd rather take some very dangerous matters into her own little hands over exposing her secret and risking going back there. Something that would make her almost unlikable if she wasn't a five-year-old acting her age. She doesn't appear selfish and senseless, she appears terrified of being caught again, yet kind, smart and brave enough to find a way to save someone from dying without anyone becoming suspicious of her.

And her realization that her powers can help people...

That's another thing that makes me wonder, especially since the flashback of the scientists telling her her powers can bring world peace occurs at the very first chapter/episode. Sure there's a chance that the scientists were lying, but Anya doesn't know that... Or does she? Was one of the reasons she escaped the realization that they wanted to use her powers to hurt others? This would make her realization here even more meaningful. That she went from a tool the government would use to gain more power, to a fighter for peace who can also individually save lives.

And finally, the very important PSA Loid delivers about children drowning.

I mean, he's probably very serious about it because it is a very serious subject (and even if the physiotherapist in the story didn't need it, it's never a bad reminder for the audience). So that's probably me again looking for opportunities for angst, but I can't help wondering if he has personal experience with that.

(No manga spoilers please)

[seleniangnosis]

A little psa for people who aren't tarot readers themselves, but consume a lot of pac readings, collective readings on tumblr and/or YouTube....

Don't force yourself to interact with every reading that a reader posts. If you do follow someone in particular, whose readings you find/found extremely helpful but at some point they make readings on subjects that aren't really of interest to you ,or you don't feel drawn to, don't force yourself to pick a pile.

As a past consumer of such readings, I've found out that it happened at some point for a specific reader's content to stop resonating with me, no matter what pile I was choosing, or reading they were putting out.

This can happen and it's not your fault for not being able to choose a pile, nor the reader's fault for being "inaccurate". Maybe there's no longer a message for you in their readings. Don't worry about your intuition not being accurate, or hate the reader for not having a message for you.

It's also possible that you aren't part of that reader's audience. There is no channeled message for you in there. I found a lot of readers on YouTube I wanted to watch the content of and interact with, but no matter what they posted, their readings never resonated. And that's completely fine.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Alright so thoughts on YJ Dark Crisis after having read it:

1) Most importantly, Bart Allen.

Amazing. 10/10. An inspiration to us all. But seriously though, Meg writes Bart really well and seems to understand his core character. While I take some issues with how his powers were represented in this issue, I can excuse it because I understand that stranding a speedster anywhere is difficult and Meg had to tweak some aspects of Bart's powers for the plot to work. It annoys me because of who I am (a Flash fanatic) but I can understand that it's for the sake of the plot.

2) The Weird Imp Guy

Yeah, I didn't like it. I don't like this character or what he represents at all. For starters, this is a Dark Crisis event and this guy is completely unrelated to the rest of the crisis. This book might as well not be a tie in. Actually I think it'd be better if it wasn't. Making this series a tie in to Dark Crisis and then making it have nothing to do with Dark Crisis really hurts the series in my opinion. Write a good solo YJ book or write a good tie in. Don't half ass both.

Also, I just don't think the imp was a good villain. I know there are people who disagree with me (and that's valid, people are allowed to have their own opinions) but I don't think what he represents makes any sense. He was written to be a stand-in for the audience. He's someone meant to represent DC fan's ideas and attitudes so that the characters in the story could address those ideas/attitudes within the narrative. It's a meta text and it's not inherently a bad thing. However, I do not think that this was a good application of that at all.

The imp is supposed to represent toxic DC fans. He's homophobic, sexist, ableist, racist and just generally bigoted. He doesn't like that Tim is bi, he belittles Bart and implies that his neurodivergent behaviors/traits make him dumb, he dislikes when Cassie speaks her mind and prefers a brainless puppet of Cassie, he creates racist caricatures for the boys to fight, he says that all the new diverse characters have 'replaced YJ', ect, ect. The imp is just generally a bad person with bad ideas and he wants "everything to be like it was in the 90's".

The problem here is that this is addressing Young Justice fans. The text is accusing the Young Justice fandom of being sexist, homophobic, racist, ableist and bigoted. Maybe I just surround myself with good people and maybe there is a lot of toxicity in the YJ fandom that I'm just not aware of but I haven't seen any of this.

Have I seen DC fans in general get upset that Tim is bi? Yeah, I have. Have I seen DC fans in general be racist. Yep. Are DC fans in general sexist? Absolutely. Is there rampant ableism in the general DC fandom? 100%. These are absolutely problems that exist within the DC comics fanbase but this isn't a YJ issue.

YJ fans have been calling for Tim (among others) to be LGBTQ+ for a long time. They've been calling for Bart's neurodivergency to be canonized for a long time. YJ fans get angry when Bart is mischaracterized or when there is a sexist interpretation of Cassie. Sure, YJ fans get nostalgic for old comics but being nostalgic for old dynamics does not mean we want those dynamics back. Young Justice has undergone so much character growth and I don't think there's a single YJ fan that wants to reverse that.

Additionally, saying that YJ fans are mad that 'Alan Scott, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, ect' have replaced YJ is just... what? When has that ever been a complaint? In what way is Alan replacing YJ? It just feels like they took all the LGBTQ+ characters and threw them on one page to really drive home the homophobia.

I guess my point is that I don't think it's a bad message, I think it's a bad forum. Do this in a Batman comic where the majority of DC fans will actually see it. Don't take what little Young Justice content we've been given and twist it into a PSA about why we should feel bad for even asking for YJ content.

3) Conner Kent

Are we just not addressing what an asshole Conner has been in this series? Not even a little bit? Not gonna state that the world has been affecting his mind? Not going to have him actually apologize in any real and/or meaningful way?

We have one issue left so this might be addressed next time but jeeeeeeeez.

[westwing19]

Hi all; just a PSA that going forward I will not be posting art here on this tumblr account! Any new art will instead be posted to https://cohost.org/westwing/tagged/my%20art.

---

If you've been following for art posts: sorry for the change-up. Long story short, I've sort of lost confidence in putting things I care about here on this site, and after trying a few things out I've decided to use Cohost as an alternative.

This sort of coincided with both a drop in motivation for drawing in general and a waning interest in Kirby, which I know is the main fandom I've been centering all my activity on this account around for the last few years. So I figured (a) I won't have a lot of new art to share, and (b) it may not be of interest to my current audience. For those reasons I opted to just move platforms entirely to get a bit of a fresh start. This applies only to personal posts; I'm not 100% sure what things will look like between these two accounts but I expect I'll be staying here to continue enjoying the birbs, the memes, and supporting other folks' works here.

Thanks to all who interacted with me & my posts here in any way! I've had a lot of good times here and appreciated every like, reblog, reply, ask, and of course all the tags. Posting here was something I looked forward to a lot and I had a hard time with the decision to let go of that.

Feel free to drop a message over on cohost (prompts are the main thing I still get motivated to draw for, so I'm still open to those over there) and also feel free to unfollow! All the power to you :)

Thanks again for reading, and have a lovely day!

- West

[dipshit-dot-com]

Hey friend, I hope I can ask a favour from you. I’m a black non-binary lesbian going through a tough phase as Both of my parents are openly homophobic and transphobic. I've organised a crowdfunding to solicit for support to evacuate my home, it's been help for me. Please consider to donate to my pinned link on my profile if you can Reblog and share my pin post to reach a large audience with support . Anything helps at the moment.🙏❤️

Hey guys just wanna have a short PSA here! This is a scam.

I don't want to dog on anyone who answered this ask in support, because it's a very sympathetic situation.

However, if you take the time to look through the blog of the asker it's pretty clear. Their oldest reblogs and likes are from January 5th, 3 days ago.

Also, I messaged them just to clarify what I had seen and was immediately blocked, so, take that as you will.

Please take the time to vet the asks you get, especially ones asking for money.

[zelda7999]

Hello sorry for tagging. I am very sick, my asthma is at its maximum level, my nose freezes, I have no medicine or food. I am in bad shape financially, I am a black disabled, who uses multiple medications, I pay for my food and lodging

Unfortunately I do not have all the resources to keep me safe, that is why I need your help, whatever you can contribute to me will be of great help.

PSA!!! EVERYONE!!!

THIS IS A BOT!!!

No one likes a bot, but some people don’t know what to look for and get anxious at the prospect of someone asking for help! So this is a perfect example of what to look for!

1.) They will try to make you feel bad/empathetic towards them first. Usually describing whatever horrible situation they are trying to sell.

2.) Once they have you feeling bad they ask for you to give them money. There’s usually no link, they just ask you to pay/fund/contribute to whatever cause it is they described in the first half.

2.1) IMPORTANT! If there is a link DO NOT CLICK IT!

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, a person on the Internet, not to click on suspicious links. However! Just in case, I am saying now. Do not click on suspicious links.

If get messages like this and are worried it’s an actual person and they do need help, I want you to ask yourself these questions:

“If they need help, why is a trustworthy fund raising site not mentioned?”

“Why are they sending this specifically to me instead of posting to reach a wider audience?”

“Why is there no goal as to what amount would help them?”

“Why are there generalizations and not specifics? Why are there no prices or numbers involved?”

And if you’re still unsure it’s OK to ask a friend to look it over! Or if you’re too anxious, remember, it is not your job to look after people. It’s okay to be unsure and it’s okay to take care of yourself first! Keep yourself safe first and foremost.

If you know it’s a bot after then report the ask and delete it, if you’re not sure it’s also okay to report and delete it! Your safety comes first!

Also normal people in need of help don’t typically send it 4 times in a row…

This has been my “Ask Bot” PSA, stay safe out there ya’lls and know that it’s okay to be confused or concerned! Being empathetic isn’t a crime, but people trying to steal your money because of it is.

[steampunkforever]

Rushing this to print as I’ve just seen Barbie. Frankly, it lived up to the hype. Did not exceed it.

When people talk about how Continental (read: mostly French) philosophy and art movements precede American ones by roughly ten years, they aren’t kidding. Which is to say that the Barbie Movie (2023)’s fresh whip-smart metamodernist style can be found in what French surrealist horror comedy Rubber was doing in 2010.

Barbie’s plotline exhibits this through a hyperselfawareness that utilizes childlike naïveté (like Elf on five degrees of abstraction) and genre-savvy metacommentary (Existential Ken Doll Dance Offs) to communicate directly to the audience in explicit and unspoken fourth wall breaks. There is the sense that everyone knows they’re in a movie yet they’re still participating in said movie and they cannot just break the fourth wall and escape the narrative despite their knowledge that there is a narrative in the first place.

I’ve got to say that Rubber did it better. This is partially because Barbie doesn’t know what it wants to be (a symptom of a lot of metamodernist texts). One minute Barbie’s getting sexually harassed in stylized but very adult ways, the next minute oversimplifying serious subjects in some attempt to remain child friendly. I feel the other part of this is that, with all respect to Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, the movie didn’t stick all the landings.

With the caveat that this is Mattel’s Capitalist Propaganda Film and so Greta had a corporate veto hanging over her head, there were some places that could’ve been improved. Chief among them was some of the messaging. The movie had a lot to say about the Patriarchy and the female experience (something Gerwig is an expert at communicating) but toward the end the movie abandoned the narrative excellent social critique and delivered the equivalent of a 30min 50’s anti communist propaganda PSA but for twitterbrained feminism. It wasn’t bad, it was just lazy, preachy writing from people who I know can do better.

The overall length should’ve been 20-30 minutes shorter, and the movie could’ve tightened things up and cut unnecessary plotlines that felt like fluff padding out an extravagant runtime that could’ve been leaned out some.

The ending (up until the very last couple scenes) itself was structurally mushy. Partially as a symptom of the Barbie Movie not knowing what it was, partially as a symptom of mismanaged pacing, but too many loose ends gave it a disorganized feeling that was only saved by a fantastic final sequence.

And that’s the kicker. Greta Gerwig is one of the best directors of our generation and despite some noticeable missteps I enjoyed the movie on both a personal and artistic level. The script is whip smart. The art direction is to die for. The film is beautiful and the performances are fantastic. There’s an extended Ken Doll rock opera song. Barbie visits the gynecologist (Twitter moment). The final sequence had the audience in tears.

Everyone’s gushing over the film already but I need to stress it’s artistic and narrative merit, and that I give Gerwig and Noah a lot of leeway because a Mattel-funded blockbuster of the year is a take the money and run once in a lifetime chance to overindulge, and Gerwigs ambition really paid off even if the landing was bumpy. For a movie with supercharged hype, Barbie satisfied me and made watching the capitalism machine print money feel better than it ever felt this side of Reagan. This is worth the watch, but there’s no need to rush to beat the opening weekend crowds to it either.

I hope they get Werner Herzog to direct the Polly Pocket Movie

[lunar-years]

literallyyyyy like between jamie in tonight's ep and sam in the strings that bind us my main takeaway is that radical forgiveness is dumb as hell actually

No I agree, it's not a principle I believe in personally at all, because I do think it is largely dumb as all hell lol.

That said, I think radical forgiveness is a philosophy that can work for certain types of people in certain situations, but it's like, a very small percentage of people. Out of all the characters on the show, Sam actually works best for me as a person who would realistically adhere to the principle and use it well, and I also really enjoyed his talk with his dad about it, so it sort of worked for me in the strings that bind us (though of course that episode has the same problem as so much else on the show including Jamie & his dad, in that it hasn't been brought up since, which makes Sam's decision to forgive feel like a neat conclusion instead of the start of a conscious daily effort, and that's bad).

The idea that everyone on the show is going around radically forgiving one another, though, is so stupid and unrealistic. For one it's just not how people actually operate, and for two, it also shouldn't have to be.

With Jamie...Look, I can believe he would hear Ted's words and decide in that moment to forgive his dad. I can even believe he would text his dad afterwards. He has people around him telling him it's the right thing to do, and he's just coming off of a depressive episode where his mental state is still in a very vulnerable place. I can realistically see the character making that choice. But what makes it so bad as a show plot point is knowing we are never ever going to hear about it again, and having no character on the show telling Jamie (and thereby the audience) that reaching out is in fact a bad idea and not something he needs to do.

Which makes the whole thing come off not as the reality of what it is: Jamie making a choice that is deeply unsafe for him because of the state of his head, but instead as the extremely warped PSA of: "Jamie needed to forgive his physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive dad in order to heal. And look, radical forgiveness works! James Tartt Sr. was already in rehab! This is the first step to repairing their broken relationship :)" They're painting it as good idea, the right thing to do, instead of an unsafe one. Which is a message I completely loathe. I hate that it's what the show has chosen to convey.

Another thing I've been thinking about this morning is how this reframes my thoughts about the show's intentions in last season's Man City episode re: the Higgins and Jamie conversation. I have always chalked that up to crossed wires, Higgins not having the knowledge necessary in that moment to understand that "I like to accept my dad for who is and forgive him for who he isn't" or whatever he said was a very bad thing to say to Jamie given the circumstances. Now I feel like even if Higgins had canonically known the reality of James Tartt Sr., the writers STILL would've had him say the exact same line. Like, they actually want the audience to think forgiving James Tartt Sr. is the right and best thing to do.

Which, frankly, fuck that.