#no because the way they deal with the same topic in different manners

[loveontherocks]

beautiful liar is the boy is mine's older, wiser sister. ​the boy was NOT WORTH IT!

[epiphainie]

why do you think bucktommy has been "hitting differently"? i love them don't get me wrong, but i don't think it's been written much differently than buck's previous love interests (yet)

Hi anon, 

I don't think I agree with you there. Well, first of all I think talking about all of Buck's previous romantic relationships as one thing is doing injustice to those different arcs and Buck's character journey. All served different purposes, all were written differently from each other. When I make the distinction that BuckTommy has been "hitting differently" what I mean is that it has what worked in those previous relationships as well as what was lacking. And I think the reason is twofold: the writers being intentional with their choices and how it's all been executed. 

Intention:

Just to be clear, I don't mean anyone has had endgame BuckTommy intentions. Tim has been very clear about how he doesn't plan that far ahead and it's hard to talk endgames with a procedural format like this. But we know they wrote the bi Buck arc with more care, hence being more intentional with their choices than some of his previous relationships. We know that their first kiss had taken multiple shapes before it ended up being this gentle, surprising but still mutual kiss. We know that they wanted to create a story where Buck felt connected to this guy but also safe and light. We know that they wanted to make Tommy a character who can be understanding and lead Buck as he stumbles. We know that Tim thought Lou's buy was important because he didn't want to repeat the same mistake of creating a LI who didn't fit with the rest of the cast etc.

Now you can say some of these fit previous LIs one way or another but it brings me to execution:

Many people talked about this before me, obviously, but I think the execution of everything they planned with Tommy has been great. I mean before their first kiss, this guy goes out of his way and shows up at Buck's to "clean the air" with this virtual stranger because he believes he caused bad blood between him and his friend. Not just that, he reassures Buck about his place in his friend's life and apologizes for making him feel excluded. Now as the audience we know Buck is the kid who'd get hurt on purpose so his dad would pay him attention, he's the guy who sued the fire department because he felt pushed out and isolated, but Tommy doesn't. I think an LI addressing one of Buck's core insecurities in such a direct and reassuring manner before even knowing him is a great way to set up why Buck would feel safe with and understood by him.

Another is that Tommy immediately meets Buck at that vulnerable place when he admits to being jealous of the 118's bond and Buck reassures him back. This for example, is something Abby had done with Buck imo but Buck back then didn't know himself enough to embrace his own insecurities and at a maturity level to address Abby's despite his best intentions. With Taylor, their whole issue was that they couldn't be honest and vulnerable with each other. BuckTommy in this aspect feels different because from the get-go as they're being honest and are on the same frequency when it comes to this.

Episode five, we see them on their failing date, then we see Buck being nervous that he fucked it up in the coffee scene. We've seen this Buck before, when he got into that anxious mode to make sure Abby knew he wasn't cheating on her. Obviously, the context and the stage of the relationship are very different and they both reassure Buck about it not being his fault. Great on both Tommy and Abby.

But then, the immediate follow-up in Abby's case is that she's leaving for abroad. I don't think Abby is being evil or mean with this decision (where I have a problem with is when she starts ghosting him and doesn't just end it, but that's another topic) but again knowing what we know about Buck as the audience, we know this is a big deal. We know this - and later Ali leaving - adds on his issues of feeling like he's not worth it, we know it leads to him basically trapping Taylor because he's so afraid she'll leave. Again, Tommy doesn't. But Tommy gives him a second chance and then shows up at the wedding.

You can say showing up on one date is not proof that Tommy will always be there for Buck, but I think the execution is so good in painting Tommy as very reliable concerning this. Because Tommy doesn't just show up. If the writers' only concern was to write Tommy out of the A plot of episode 6, he could just come to the ceremony and be like "my shift just ended". No, Tommy says he'll try his damnest to make it to the wedding and then he enters the hospital all rushed, haphazard, covered in soot, hair a mess. The dramatique of that entrance immediately validates in the audiences' mind that yeah this is a guy who will do his damnest to be there for Buck. It, again, addresses a core insecurity of Buck's.

Back half of the season doesn't do anything different but we again see Tommy notice Buck's emotional state, meet him in that vulnerable place, and also match his flirty vibe. They're comfortable; it feels earned even in such a short span because of the well execution of their initial arc. This to me what Buck said about Natalia when they thought the show wasn't coming back (and before that relationship was recontextualized as being a dud), about how he feels seen and comfortable etc. Only this time, there's intention, effort, and execution.

One final note in execution - and this is very ymmv because I've seen even from some BuckTommys that they wished they did this differently - I genuinely love how little BuckTommy there is in 7x03. More specifically, I love that Tommy's reintroduction to the series is not through being Buck's potential love interest. He's there in that episode for Hen, Chim, and Bobby. In 10 mins screentime he's quickly established with motives and personality quirks, is involved in the main plot, bounces off of other characters. Again, great execution of a thing Tim intended to do: a love interest who can fill more roles than just the love interest. This basically makes him in his own category in how purposeful and functional he can be as a character in the greater narrative. So yeah I think both as a person in-story and a character, Tommy has been hitting different.

[taylortruther]

I actually agree with you 100% on all long-term relationship breakups being pretty much the same. When you've loved someone for so long, it means they're also part of your routines, part of your comfort, part of your home and part of your family. Their family becomes your family, their friends become your friends, their hopes and aspirations become things you care about as well as their struggles. The reasons why the rs starts falling apart aren't as simple as one or both parties no longer "being in love", but rather a combination of issues: career ambitions intolerable to the relationship for various reasons, incompatibility of personalities or of extended families, growth at different paces, the goals and wishes agreed at the start of the rs changing with time, loss of trust and connection, etc. I thought of this the other day when an anon mentioned the movie Blue Valentine, and I think the reason why that film feels so realistic (and devastating) is because all long term relationships slowly desintegrate in similar manners to what happens to the couple in the movie. And piggybacking off the discourse we had on The Alcott, it's quite desperating and frustrating to slowly realize that things that once were profoundly sacred have come to feel like a curse; you no longer feel like you're choosing everyday to be with this person out of love, but rather that you're emprisioned to them.

What we know about TTPD department so far makes me think this will be explored but not in the way many fans seem to be expecting (not you guys lol but I have seen ppl that expect the songs to be sassy, petty, and accusatory). Instead, I think we will see her show and deconstruct all the ways she fought for it to work, compromising, committing, twisting herself into a pretzel, and making herself smaller, not because he was "forcing her" like some fans think but rather from her own decision bc that's just how much she loved him. Which is even more devasting if you think of it: she locked herself away, tried to dim her shine, beared emotional burdens alone because of her own conviction and desire to make things work, not as a result of him "making her" do all of that. So imo one of the reasons this album will be particularly devastating is bc we will learn in a very raw manner just how much she loved this man and how much she was willing to give up for him, and how much regret she probably has about things she did for him that at the time felt like a no-brainer but in hindsight seem ridiculous (which is a very common thing for everyone bc that's simply what you do when you love someone; love isn't usually rational). And this will undoubtedly be very relatable for ppl who have been in ltrs that ended bc, as you say, most of them end in the same way and most of us realize how much we actually sacrificed for it only after the fact.

i agree!!! also, we know taylor never does anything by halves. we know love is basically a religion of drug to her. we know she felt that he believed in her and loved her for her at a time when she felt she was distinctly unlovable. we know she fought hard to deal with her baggage. we know she was reflecting on fame, how fickle it is, and why she wanted it so badly (miss americana doc, mirrorball, midnight rain, to name a few.) we can look at midnights to see the things that were haunting her and they were things like: dealing with fame, choosing the hard way, reckoning with loss of self, wanting to protect love that felt fragile, blocking out noise, the empowerment and loneliness of relying on oneself. midnights feels like a very honest and logical progression past folkmore, which discussed those topics as well as infidelity, taking up space, confronting depression and pain and other sticky human desires. ttpd feels like it will further touch on these complicated and sticky and dark topics, with the added "bonus" of the specter of a breakup, and the breakup itself, haunting them. anyone whose ever lost a part of themselves to try and save a relationship of any kind will understand, i think. love is a beast that way.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #44 – The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

This was a book I went into with no hand holding or preconceptions, and so I very much dove into the deep end of the pool. This is, frankly, a mess - but a beautiful one. There’s a lot to love, a lot of meat to chew on; but Candon’s reach really does exceed her grasp in ways that show, and I cannot blame anyone in the slightest for finding the narrative alienating or hard to follow. But shoot for the moon and you still end up among the stars, right?

The book follows Sunai, a deeply traumatized drifter and guide, who absolutely never got over the apocalyptic collapse of the AI-governed city he grew up in – quite literally, as he was interfaced with the AI-god at the time, and has spent the decades since hiding his nature as a Relic despite his stubborn refusal to age and tendency to heal from all injuries in a matter of minutes. Should his nature be known, he would be conscripted as the pilot and adhesive for a towering killer mech, and used to protect and oppress the new city now growing in the ruins of the old. Instead he fled half-way across the world and spends his days helping salvagers and refugees and his nights on drunken benders. After receiving a letter from his past he goes on a particularly intense one of those, and wakes up having both slept with and accepted a job from Veyadi, a former Archivist of the same AI who he’s clearly already told too much. Despite his heroic efforts to avoid honest conversations or emotional connections, from there he’s dragged straight back into the world of dead gods and killer science.

This is a book that hits the ground running and never stops, without much in the way of care about whether you’re able to keep up. The setting has both history and politics that are clearly important but are never explained beyond the bits that are directly relevant, with the expectation that you’ll figure the rest out through context clues (or not). There’s all manner of words being used as technical terms and basically none of them are ever actually defined. Sunai spends half the book explicitly trying to head off or avoid revelation-heavy or important conversations and, while he might know what topic he’s evading by turning the conversation into a quickie, I at least did not. Which is something I enjoy, honestly – I felt I had a solid grasp on most things by the end, and the world was fascinating (if occasionally absurd) – but I really cannot hold it against anyone who checks out.

The narration doesn’t help, either. Technically speaking, the entire book is told from Sunai’s POV. He merely has an unusually porous consciousness, and so spends a large fraction of the book being directly spoken at by one of a couple different voices in his head, or else semi-conscious and seeing the world through one of several different people’s eyes. When he’s not just outright hallucinating or trapped in a VR simulation, or spiraling into flashbacks (some of which are even his). This I found harder to adapt to and more frustrating, and in many cases felt like Candon was trying to show off and not quite managing it, but when it worked it really did work (the playing with the narrative voice in the second act, especially).

The book’s most saliently about trauma and (failing to) deal with it. It is not especially subtle about how Sunai’s relic nature is just a literalization of how he latches on to the plans and hopes of others to avoid even considering the idea of what his own might look like, and makes no bones about making him the whole thing’s beating heart. The book, then, depends a great deal on how compelling you find him. Personally I found the broken wreck of a man endlessly endearing, even when he was also deeply frustrating to be stuck in the head of.

The book’s other characters fare less well, sadly. The other major characters, despite (or maybe because of) all the time spent looking through their eyes and ruminating on their motives, still end up feeling opaque and a bit arbitrary. There’s only so many world-shaking revelations you can layer on top of each other before they stop having much impact and you stop being that invested in the characters. Ruhi and Imaru especially suffered here, the former for having so many story beats stuffed into him he ended up feeling more like a plot device than a real character, the latter because she felt like the story highlighted her importance to Sunai and general significance and then didn’t really know what to do with her past a certain point. In both cases (and like, this is clearly intentional) you end up knowing quite a lot of what Sunai think of them and not that much about the characters themselves.

Veyadi does better, if not always consistently. His romance with Sunai (osculating between unhealthy coping mechanism FWBs and all-consuming devotion as the story progresses) is another of the book’s main throughlines and it largely worked for me – Sunai’s wilful refusal to accept either of their obvious feelings was well-done and didn’t last quite long enough to be frustrating, and it was always entertainingly unhealthy in one way or another. ‘adi’s character outside the romance is significantly more opaque. Partly for reasons of plot and preserving tension, but still – I ended the book caring that Sunai cared about it, but not really about him for his own sake.

I admit I feel personally let down by the ending less for what it does than what it teases at then fails to do. All that buildup and ominous foreshadowing about losing your identity and being subsumed and synthesized into a greater hole as the walls come down and in the end they and the remnant AI just end up being able to DM each other’s brains. My expectations of a perfect lyctorhood or even some original examination of codependent relationship realized as the literal synthesis of identities, entirely dashed.

The ending in general was also just, well, messy. Too many plates in the air, too much ambiguity and nuance that then needed to be forcefully resolved to tie things off, too much sublime technology and miraculous agency in conflict for the final result not to just feel arbitrary – especially since the neat resolution arrived at makes absolutely no sense at all unless the ‘AI’ in question was actually just some kind of incorporeal demon the whole time. The emotional beats do work, but the result feels like a bit less than the sum of its parts. But then I may need to accept that my standards for a good ending are just impossible for 99 books in 100 to hope meeting.

Still, mess aside a thoroughly enjoyable read and one I’m deeply sad doesn’t seem to have gotten more attention. Though it also definitely doesn’t need to be the first in a series (many such cases, these days).

[utilitycaster]

(I haven’t watched C3 in a while (the party had gotten back after being split into two after Vax got orbed) so my info is a bit dated)

I often wondered about how little info there is about Orym’s husband known to the party, how little has been asked or shared.

And I get that BH is very different from M9, BH tends to be very non-confrontational and doesn’t poke at others pasts much, but we do have another character who had a dead spouse: Yasha.

And M9 did know about Zuala because Yasha shared it and they knew little things like she likes flowers and they gave tribute to her when they could. The mural, the flowers, the remembrance and asking if Yasha would share her stories.

And I dunno, maybe I’m not remembering right, but there hasn’t been much of the same with Orym. I feel like most of what I know about Orym and his dead family comes from monologues or times when Liam sets aside a character moment to act solely. Orym doesn’t share, the party doesn’t ask and some of it feels like because a Orym has often has to defend himself against the Pro-Vanguard debates.

They had to go to Zephrah to get to know more about Orym’s dead family and a lot of that info came from NPCs!

I dunno. I haven’t seen the show in a while but I felt it when more then 50 episodes passed and still felt a difference between how gently Zuala was treated and remembered vs how Will is only brought up to prove bad guys are bad guys with only Orym trying to keep his memories in a soft place.

Hi anon,

I actually disagree with most of this! I think the fandom has a lot of issues with Orym, which I'll talk about below, but I do not think Bells Hells are dismissive of Will. I think the reason it comes up is very simple, namely, the manner of Will's death is core to the conflicts and factions within the campaign, whereas Zuala's death is obviously a huge factor in Yasha's backstory, but the Mighty Nein are not dealing with the Dolorov tribe in any capacity. Will's death, is, in fact, a symbol of the Ruby Vanguard's brutality and callousness as well as Orym's husband within the narrative; whereas Zuala is just Zuala.

I don't think Bells Hells has been particularly unfeeling towards Orym with regards to Will and Derrig's deaths when they come up, nor do I think their discussion of the Vanguard is borne of not caring. I think that the Vanguard's harm is particularly real for some party members, and until FCG's death just now it felt a little bit more distant for others. I think the conflict in-game stems from that: when you combine how viscerally real the threat of the Vanguard is to Orym and the way it's not so direct for others (and, obviously, that Imogen's mother holds a position of power within it) and also consider the characters' differences re: how they bring up (or don't bring up) difficult topics, you get some painful conversations! When I say I understand why Orym might not want to talk to the rest of Bells Hells because this is a topic of discussion, I don't think the rest of Bells Hells are bullying him or being deliberately unkind; I just think that there's a lot of misunderstanding and hurt feelings. When Will has come up as a topic of his own - and the conversations I specifically remember are with Chetney in the Heartmoor and with Fearne and FCG at Will and Derrig's graves - those party members have always been incredibly kind and supportive. It's the fact that his death is fundamentally a political one that adds a wrinkle, and that wasn't how Zuala figured into the party.

I also would add as an aside that the Mighty Nein did ultimately have a much more open arena for discussion, as witnessed by them eventually bringing up the possibility of partnering with Trent; that feels far more analogous to the discussions about the Vanguard than anything regarding Zuala, since the issue isn't ultimately "dead spouse", but "organization that is directly responsible for causing a character's life-altering trauma for the purposes of conquest and deliberately stoking unrest." I think there's a number of reasons why the Nein are able to do this, notably that the first time anyone considers it, it is very much a guarded thing; that no one but Caleb is personally impacted (whereas Imogen and Orym are placed at odds solely by their familial connections); and that it comes much, much later after the party has spent months clearly detesting Trent, so there is an increased sense of trust from Caleb.

Now, the fandom is a different story. Or rather, it's more similar than you think. The CR fandom (and probably others, but this is the one I've observed) has, since I started lurking in mid-2018 and actively participating about a year later, always had its share of people being extremely weird about grief. Some of it is shipping motivated (people who didn't like Beauyasha claiming Yasha wasn't ready and was too hung up on her dead wife; people who don't like Dorym or who resented the fact that Orym was resurrected before Laudna claiming either Orym isn't ready or, more chillingly, that he'd be happier dead). Some is not - I've mentioned before, but my favorite member of Vox Machina is Vex, and after I finished Campaign 1 I started looking for Vex content (again, this is mid-2018) and was inundated with "what if she can't braid her HAIR because she's too SAD because Vax is DEAD." Even now, I must admit, I look askance at the people claiming the throw to the Crown Keepers is good because it's a break - I don't think you need a break, unless you're extremely uncomfortable with grief or strong emotions! The first Campaign 2 episode I watched properly live (at least to the break) was episode 27 specifically because I wanted to see Beau and Caleb and Nott deal with that death now and didn't want to wait until Friday morning. I'm going to a concert this Thursday and won't be able to watch live and I can tell you what, I'm watching the back half of episode 93 Friday morning and the Crown Keepers half when I get to it, because this is what interests me, and it's fine if it's not what interests you, but someone you love is going to die one day and I have found that working through this through fiction lends a lot of meaning and catharsis. This is not, in fact, an unusual position; I highly recommend finding Liam's tweets from after Molly's death, and reading Ashly's essay about losing her partner, which she had written earlier but shared at that time as well. A core part of experiencing grief is that there is no break; there is only time.

In short, grief is complicated and unpredictable and it is indeed a part of Yasha and Orym (and no shortage of other characters) and will always influence them and be a part of them while also not serving as an end to their lives, and I think many people struggle with that. I suppose usually the response is more sympathetic within the fandom as it is towards Orym (though as discussed various fans used it to sideline Yasha's desires, to sand away Vex and Keyleth's ambitions and genuine excitment to live and grow, and don't get me started on Caleb or Vax). But it's always been a problem.

Ultimately, I think the reason Orym is treated so coldly is that, again, there's always been an issue within fandom of treating one's favorite characters as unimpeachable and any conflict with them or discussion of their flaws as a violent affront; but it does feel particularly pronounced in this campaign, particularly with regards to any obstacles (real or perceived) to Imogen or Laudna. [I could write an entire history of this campaign because it started with Laudna being The Untouchable One and only flipped to Imogen around the time of the solstice.] Hence such statements that, I truly cannot stress enough, I would rather give up internet access forever than admit to harboring such callousness within my heart as "Orym would be happier dead because his husband is dead" or "He has an obligation to recuse himself from discussions surrounding the Vanguard because he cannot be objective, a thing that is normal to expect of people with emotions and experiences and possible to achieve." (The latter really does pose a fascinating loophole. If the Vanguard just senselessly kills one or two family members from everyone's family then no one can oppose them, because it would then be biased and motivated by revenge. Life hack! It also reveals a pretty fundamental hypocrisy; if Ludinus is a Calamity survivor, maybe he should also be recusing himself! What's the math on how many people directly connected to you must be killed for your opinion to be right and good, rather than wrong and subjective?)

I think all of the above is, while, as discussed immediately above, not objective in that I'm a human being with personal experiences and emotions, fairly self-evident. I'll conclude by going into something that is within the realm of opinion, but I think is relevant to the discussion.

I personally believe the Vanguard's methods are sufficiently vile so as to cast doubt on all of their goals, but even if one doesn't, I find the idea that the Predathos should be unleashed and the gods should be killed is, ultimately, short-sighted, deeply self-centered, ahistorical within the canon (ie, unsupported by the text both in terms of canon events and, if we're counting them, appeals to emotion and authority - not terribly useful in real life, but very much the truth in a D&D actual play narrative), and a far less interesting story to boot. I think it would be devastating on a cosmic level in-world and that "oh it will sort itself out, probably" is perhaps the reddest flag one can wave in such discussions. So I do think that while Orym is acting on the basis of emotion, I also think he's right, and so the callousness is, as I've said elsewhere, a last-ditch effort by those with no capacity to construct a meaningful argument, because they think he's wrong and pointing out he's acting on the basis of emotion is their only ammunition to discredit him. At best I think the people who are arguing that the Vanguard is cruel but their cause is just have an extremely poor understanding of the setting and the specific narrative structures of this medium. Which isn't to say some of Bells Hells might not still make that choice, though Imogen telling Orym "I want you to know that that for a while it may have felt that you and I were not seeing eye to eye or maybe you felt that I, I didn't have the same goal in mind that you did. But don't worry about that anymore, all right?" in the wake of Liliana's conversation and the death of their only divinely-aligned friend feels rather indicative of their direction. But I do not think it is a choice defensible on the basis of morality; only defensible on the basis of "something a very hurt and angry and damaged person might choose to do."

People are specifically like this towards Orym because he is the mouthpiece for an opinion they don't like but ultimately cannot meaningfully argue against, and part of his justification in-world is the death of Will. While there was no shortage of people who hated Yasha, either for "die for our ship" reasons or your normal Reddit Bro misogyny, Zuala was mostly irrelevant to that discussion, hence the difference in how they're treated.

[wingsdippedingold]

I couldn’t reblog this normally since I have the og poster blocked, but this is a pretty common sentiment in the community that I want to put my comment on:

Now I’m not gonna sit here and argue that there aren’t people who like Feyre more in the first book and consider her to be “better”, because people do, and I think it’s valid to think that as well as valid to not think that. To clarify I think neither, but more on that later. This is also a decently long post, I tried to make it concise but it’s anything but that 💀

I think comparing her character in the first book to her sisters (this post is specifically Nesta, but I’ve seen it done with Elain) is purely made in bad faith. Equating them in this manner blatantly ignores the obvious differences in characterization and nuance in their writing.

It is widely known that SJM has said that Elain and Nesta were just made to be caricatures and cartoon evil sisters and that she didn't initially plan for them to become anything more than background characters. They were meant to be flat and evil, because that’s all the purpose they had at the time. They were there to give Feyre a hard time and make us sympathize with her, and they did that.

No one is saying that that it’s silly to get hung up on Nesta’s actions because they “happened a long time ago and she had development”, they’re saying that because her actions were literally meant to be cartoonishly evil and not to have any actual depth or reasoning to them.

However, Feyre at the time was still a fleshed character that was supposed to be in the spotlight. Her character traits and depth were continuously shown off, whereas her sisters only existed to give her a backstory and struggle. Her character in the first book cannot be written off to the same degree as her sisters, and it’s false equivalency to think that it can be.

At the time the way Nesta and Elain was written was fine, but in deciding to change them to be actual characters with thoughts, feelings, and backstory, Sarah majorly fucked herself over. This is why she had to retcon things and add their own struggles later on and why you’ll see a lot of people defending them for their cabin actions; and as a side of the fandom who take her retcons as canon, you can’t pick and choose which ones you don’t want to take as canon solely because they change the your notion of the character. It’s a packaged deal, either you’re down with SJM’s narrative and story, or you’re not (I’m not), because guess what? The other characters around said character will also comply by these retcons.

But when you hammer it down so hard that these girls are horrible people in the first book because you couldn’t give the time of day to make sure you’re actually creating a cohesive storyline, rather than just trying to push out a character for people to immediately sympathize with, it’s hard to rectify that, and I often find it the mark of a bad writer (and poor planner) regardless if you weren’t planning on ACOTAR being a series.

I 100% understand Nesta hate, it’s hard to change your idea of a character when you’ve already been made to dislike them and like the character they initially antagonized. If she, or any other character, is not your cup of tea, that’s fine. Like what you like. Hate what you hate (assuming you stay in your lanes and tag correctly, which many of you do not do, and instead tag specifically to push your anti content into pro spaces and make people mad, but that’s a different topic) u, this circles back to my original point that you cannot equate the validity of the characters and writing of Nesta and Elain to Feyre in the first book.

Now do I agree that Feyre was her '"true self" in book 1 vs the others? No.

I think a lot of people, and a lot of antis, earlier Feyre lovers, and probably some of my mutuals, will disagree with me on this, but Feyre's character progression has always made sense to me. That's not necessarily to say that I like it, but considering her circumstances, the people around her, the environment, and her own personality and beliefs, her change and progression from ACOTAR to ACOSF makes total sense to me. I do think there's some inconsistencies, and I definitely think there’s a lot of situations where ACOTAR Feyre would react differently than later Feyre, but that’s just a product of her being a character with an arc and overall I can understand how she got from point A to point B.

I won't get into the details here, but if anyone's curious on why I think so, Imk, l'd love to talk about it

There’s also a good chance that the original poster of this will try to argue my way directly from my account, which is weird because I have you blocked, so I won’t see it, nor do I care to… so don’t? Idk man, save your energy, the stalking is crazy

[blazehedgehog]

Do you agree with Gaming Journalists and what do you think of gaming journalism in general?

What does this even mean, dude.

"Do you agree with gaming journalists"? On what?

Do I agree with Shacknews that Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a 10/10, and with Digital Spy that it's also a 7/10? Do I agree with Let's Clear Up Those Halo Battle Royale Rumors?

Like, I've gotten some bait on this blog before, but this is 2/10 stuff, man. This is some hot 2014 garbage. Like no matter what I say, you're gonna go all

"Very interesting. Then do you care to explain why..." No thanks.

My real answer: Something I learned during my time at TSSZ and being around a few people who were deeper into "the biz" than I is that everybody needs journalism more than they realize. Corporations are pushing for consumers to become their personal cheerleaders more than ever before, which makes criticism and the journalistic exposing of information seem villainous.

After all: Xbox is my friend now, so how dare you attack the Xbox. Behavior that used to be reserved for the most dedicated fanboys is now the expected room temperature. I've talked about "The Cult of Naughty Dog" before, and that's the same thing. If a corporation can get you to be parasocial with them, then they have won, and being parasocial with a corporation means shunning real investigative journalism that would otherwise undo them. Journalists and critics used to be marketing tools, but by undoing the press pipeline and talking directly to fans, journalists and critics are painted as untrustworthy for being wildcards that don't always toe the company line.

And there has been more than a decade of people with a "I choose to be stupid and ignorant on purpose" outlook, which just makes that more frustrating. We've all seen screencaps where some brainless rando tries to explain something to a person who is an expert in that field. The rando thinks they're flexing their brain, but in some cases they are arguing with the person who literally wrote the book on their topic of conversation. Some people don't want to know anything but still pretend like they know everything, when there are real people out there doing real work to uncover real truths.

Misinformation is the real problem. It should not surprise anyone that there are people out there deliberately eroding the foundation of journalistic integrity, because the less people trust journalism, the easier it is to get away with lying. The easier it is to lie, the easier it is to control the mainstream, the easier it is to scam people out of their money, so on and so forth.

And misinformation is more than just "this one news article is fake." There are long running campaigns to install people into news organizations themselves to publish false information for all manner of different goals, but it's all the same: nobody trusts anyone and it's making everyone dumber.

That's when we get crypto currency. And NFTs. And now people claiming that generative AI will save humanity. Grift after grift after grift where the people at the top of the snake oil food chain make off with billions of dollars while the rest of the world is left scratching their heads.

The law isn't going to catch them. If they do, it'll take years. Look at how long it took for Sam Bankman-Fried to get caught -- he operated for almost half an entire decade. The amount of damage somebody can get away with in five years is significant.

We need journalism. Real journalism. Good journalism. Watchdogs that keep an eye on things and blow the whistle when it goes bad. Somebody to enforce accountability that isn't a cop.

Where do you find that? That's the hardest question. I'm lucky enough that I know people I trust because they are long time friends, or friends of friends, and thus they've been properly vetted in my circle as The Real Deal. But there are a lot of outlets out there who claim to champion "truth" and "intelligence" in a way to prey upon insecurity. I mean, c'mon, Trump's social media platform is called "Truth Social" and is basically the furthest thing from the truth you will ever get from anyone, ever.

The more obsessively they try to convince you they're telling the truth, the less likely it is they actually are. Which in itself could be an attack meant to undo the foundations of trust in people who actually know what they're talking about. By casting doubt on the very concept of truth itself, they can lie with increasingly greater efficiency.

Any advice I give feels like it is incredibly circumstantial. Which is the point, and is why we're in the state we're in.

Here's a good pdf by The News Literacy Project that's probably a good place to start. The general gist is "you'll have to do a lot of fact checking for yourself" but that's unfortunately where we're at these days.

But by and large I would say life is a lot harder for real journalists right now than I think some of their critics have ever thought about. There are people out there trying to do actual good work and being a bubble-brained moron about it just makes everything harder for everyone.

[summerongrand]

Just wanted to say I appreciate your take on the whole white man/woc imbalanced power plot issue. This is something that I had a big problem with in season 4 and others definitely seemed to pick up on the same when all the storylines were Wesley, Nolan or Tim centric, and Nyla, Angela and Lucy were seemingly left as the 'other'. However I feel like I saw the issue be forgotten in the fandom a little. It seems this show has consistently favoured highlighting the male struggle and treating female storylines as trivial and unworthy, other than that of Bailey, the then newly introduced and now main cast white female character. I thought this would change with Lucy's story now being written consistently in s6 but it's clear that Tim's potentially the more favourable storyline. Now I can't speak from a psychological standpoint on what Tim did to Lucy but from a plot pov it's definitely making the white man vs woc power issue glaringly obvious. He is the one that gets to start or end their relationship. He's the white man with issues that is allowed to feel what he wants and grow his character while the asian woman is left behind despite her own depth and trauma. Let's hope that Lucy is given the same grace of dealing with her issues and growing as Tim, and Lucy gets her power back.

Hi Anon!

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful message. And thanks for patiently waiting for my response. I agree with everything you said. I believe the post you’re referring to is this one and possibly this one too.

It’s clear that the show has favored male storylines, particularly those of Wesley, Nolan, and Tim (and Bailey a non-WOC), while sidelining WOC ones. And even though the focus here is on Lucy and Chenford, I’m equally happy and willing to talk about race through the POVs of Angela/Wopez and Nyla/Jayla too.

I don’t think the actual act of Tim breaking up with Lucy has a racial dynamic to it other than the obvious. Them being of different races is just who they are. But their overall relationship (TO/Rookie, mentor/mentee, sergeant/gofer, friends, couple, etc.) does. And Melissa, bless her heart (affectionate), codes so heavily as Chinese in her mannerisms too and this gets projected onto Lucy. But that’s not talked about very often either. I say all of this to agree with you, Anon, because the “white man vs woc power issue” as you described has existed the whole time.

Let’s look at S5b and S6. A WOC masterminded the career progressions of at least two middle aged white men. One of them derailed her career progression. The other one broke up with her. Both broke her heart in very different ways. We did get some of Lucy’s character development and growth in S6 on the front end of the season. But even within that, her storyline has been about the 5 player trade (made to benefit Tim primarily) and Tim not being comfortable with her in UC. Tim gets demoted but he has a cushion to fall on because Lucy trampolined him into the Metro clouds and now the show’s able to use what Lucy did to benefit Tim again and use that to give him room to fall back on. This is part of the whole ‘using a WOC as a plot device to further a white man’s story’ which I’ve shared about in regards to the breakup (which is different than the act of breaking up) and you've detailed out too. We’ll see what happens to her story in the next few episodes, and I too hope that Lucy is given the same grace and that she does get her power back. But no matter what happens in future episodes, that trope was used so the genie’s already out of the bottle.

You did bring up the fandom, so I am going to talk about it a little more. This next part may be hard to hear, Anon, but … I have received negativity from Chenford fans for talking about Lucy and Melissa O’Neil’s race. This shows me that this topic is so worth talking about because there are people who feel a certain way about seeing race-related discussions about Lucy (they don’t want to be anywhere near it) and I do believe it’s unhealthy for the fandom to have these beliefs about a WOC. Others in the fandom have also encountered negativity and pushback when discussing this topic. Maybe it's even happened to you. People have shared their fandom experiences with me privately, but you’re the first to do it Anonymously which is great because that means you’ve given me the opportunity to respond to you publicly. 

Challenging this negatively held belief within our fandom and embracing Lucy/Mel’s racial and cultural identity is a worthy endeavor so let’s move the dial on that. It starts with talking about these topics in the context of The Rookieverse and keeping an open mind if these topics are unfamiliar to us. I mean, Mel wants more of that too.

Thanks again, Anon!

[nomoretumbler]

I dont go to wordgirl and I am asking out of genuine curiosity but what is the general Deal with Dr.Two Brains?? Idk he looks cool. feel free to ramble.

HEHEHEH OHH YOU KNOWW IM RAMBLINGG

ok first I would like to make a formal apology to my alan becker moots/followers for my wg spam, now that I tag everything if it bothers you you can block the “#wordgirl” tag, ik it seems a bit silly to apologize for this but yeahhh.

OK NOW LETS GET TO WHAT BROUGHT US HERE.

Dr two brains is one of the main villains in wordgirl and he’s a cheese obsessed scientist!! He will steal only the cheese btw, he buys everything else. His usual plan is making some sort of ray to get cheese, he also over complicates most of his machines lol (for example, making a ray that runs gold into mashed potatoes….. and then using a ray to turn those mashed potatoes into cheese….. he’s smart enough to make all that stuff but not smart enough to just use the gold to buy cheese, he gets made fun of by wg for that in a /nsrs way 😭😭).

ANYWAYS he’s also part mouse!! He has some mouse traits like strengthened smell, mouse mannerisms, boggling, love for cheese and all the other obvious stuff.

Now why is that?? Well he actually used to be a normal (as normal as he can get) scientist called steven boxleitner!! He only appears in the wordgirl shorts (and has a small flashback scene in the main series) and has an amazing!! ~3 minutes!!! of screen time!!! This definitely does not make me want to kms!!!! /silly.

Anyways from those shorts we can see a bit of him pre accident. He would use over complicated machines for simple tasks (such as using nuclear fission……. To grill a cheese sandwich……. I love that scene so much 😭😭). He can also be a very distracted fella since he bounces from one topic to another (especially if food is mentioned) (have I mentioned how much he loves food in general? Now you know).

Now one of the most important things from these shorts (specifically the what’s up doc? short) is the relationship steven and word girl (becky botsford) have. They used to have a mentor and student relationship that literally everyone just treats as father and daughter/uncle and niece/friends. It is very implied that becky saw steven as an inspiration and main role model when it came to being a superhero (everything she learned came from Steven’s superhero guide, I haven’t mentioned that book yet?).

So you can see how deep it can get if you think about their relationship for more than two seconds, however the show doesn’t do much with it, only showing bits and snippets of what their relationship was before/how wordgirl feels about all this/how two brains sees wordgirl now/etc.

Oh have I mentioned that squeaky/dr two brains and steven used to fight on what to do? Yeah… the fighting died down and steven basically just started being bossed around by squeaky (give this man a break 😭😭).

Like I’ve mentioned on some posts before a lot of stuff isn’t really explained with him. Some people believe that two brains is a separate identity from squeaky and steven, some that two brains is a mix of both and that boxleitner basically merged with him, and other think that two brains and steven are the same person, just under different circumstances (me personally believing the latter).

I would yap more but I also don’t want to spoil the whole show and all his moments because it was pretty shocking for me to see some of the episodes by myself.

so yeah that’s all I have to offer, if you want to know more feel free to watch the show!!!! There’s also other amazing characters, like wordgirl herself, scoops, tobey, chuck, the bucher, Mr. big, leslie, lady redundant woman, miss question, invisibill, and a lot others (these are just my favs heheh).

[plantify]

TOONTOWN HEADCANON LORE POST THINGY NUMBER 2

(Like last time, this is also cantered around TTCC, and is mostly just me rambling like a lunatic about my headcanons.)

Topic: Toons

(This is sorta like the Toon counterpart of the Cog post I made earlier)

Basic Details

Toons are generally very silly beings, and are a very social species by nature. They come in a variety of sizes, shapes, etc.

They can be a singular species, or they can be a mishmash of different parts, there is not much limit to what a Toon can look like.

Variation in "animation style"

Their mannerisms and motion is usually akin to that of the kind of cartoons Toontown was inspired by (rubberhosey, vibrant and colorful) but there is also much variation in this as well. One Toon may move around/look like they're "animated" differently than another.

Toons are spread out far and wide, but when I say spread out, I mean it. Compared to how much of the world is inhabited by Suits, there aren't as many Toons, to the point where many Suits don't even know of their existence.

(This is largely because Toon culture/Toon subjects aren't really taught or talked about in Suit societies, both due to lack of knowledge on them, and the deliberate desire to stamp them out of public knowledge)

Regardless, there are notably other significant populations out there (think stuff like where Ducktales takes place and whatnot).

The Toons at Toontown aren't the only ones who have had to deal with the whims of Suits and their expansion, desire to take land, etc.

More Biology Stuff

There isn't really much that is concrete to the biology of Toons. Like stated earlier, they're extremely diverse and have many differences across each other.

Some might have skeletons or bones and whatnot, but whether they do or not probably wouldn't make too much of a difference.

Probably something like cartoon logic, where whatever is funniest at that moment will be true. That's probably the answer to a lot of things about Toons now that I think of it

Sillyness

Just about every Toon by nature needs to be happy to be healthy. The Laff meter is an invention that helps track a Toon's sillyness/happiness at a certain time. This is measured/quantifiable with the Laff formula. (I'm literally just making that up cause I thought it sounded funny so make of it what you will)

Laff increasing is essentially a sign of increased resistance to negativity, in a way. Not that high Laff Toons will never get sad, angry, or otherwise never feel negative emotions, but a Toon with high Laff may have a better time faring against deliberate attacks to one's happiness. Laff is generally increased by having fun, and is often boosted when experiencing that fun with someone else.

Sad or otherwise unhappy Toons often have very low Laff, whether it be that they have less than others, or that they have lost a lot of their Laff.

Some Toons are more serious than others, and may not show happiness/joy in the same way, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're a scrooge. Like us humans, (which don't exist in this world) they have wide ranges of emotions and may experience them/show them differently.

Despite this, some Toons might be edgy........... and reject happiness or something IDK why you'd willingly want to be miserable

Culture

It varies a lot. There's quite a lotta Toons of all shapes and sizes out there. Lots of communities. They all got different cultures! But they all most often share the same general traits (happiness, sillyness, helping each other out, etc. How nice.) i really dont know what else to write here.

Fin (i dont know how to end this)

:3

Previous

Next

[wilderebellion]

On the one hand, I know that folks don't necessarily NEED to have seen A Crown of Candy to enjoy The Ravening War. On the other, there are definitely some common questions that new viewers are going to ask, some of which ARE answered in the Adventuring Party episodes for ACoC.

Answers below the cut in a spoiler-friendly manner. No significant plot elements of ACoC are discussed, but there are some character names and candy type that are identified if you haven't seen that series.

Today's Topics include: Caloran Biology, Imbalance of PC Levels, Campaign Tone and Setting, and Is Calorum in a Fridge?

On Biology:

"[. . .] Is there a genetical logic as to what type of candy you are born as?” Part of a submission by Sir Pengy

Brennan: I'll let you guys answer what candy you wanted to be. In terms of genetical logic, just remember one of the people that you met in this episode is a talking slice of cake.

So biology, we take some liberties with biology here. I think that that gets played with pretty fast and loose. Sometimes that matters, and other times it doesn't. You know what I mean?

Like Caramelinda is Carmel, Amethar is Pop Rocks. And their two daughters are licorice. So it's not a hard and fast thing, otherwise after a couple of generations, there wouldn't be, you would be like, I'm a mix of vegetable and whatever else.

And by the way, people from different kingdoms, they're all the same species, so a vegetable person and someone from Ceresia, who is a grain person can absolutely start a family and have children, that's no sweat.

On Imbalance in PC Levels:

Brennan:  Because I saw some tweets and stuff like that and people were going, what's the deal with the level imbalance? We have first level characters, one second level character and some third level characters. [. . .] What we wanted to communicate was a difference in levels based on experience. Amethar and Theo are veterans of the Ravening War.

[. . .] Basically I went to all the players before we started playing, and I was like, you guys can start between first and third level, whatever you think makes sense for your character.

On the Vibe and Tone of the Setting:

Brennan:  [ . . .] it is inherently unfair, which is a vibe of this season, it is communicating that this is not a balanced party. I didn't get these dungeon encounters from a module that are appropriately balanced for a group of X to X level adventurers. That is not the vibe this season. The vibe this season is not about fairness, it is not about things being easy.

[. . .] In a weird way we went the most technical munchkin land, candy land kind of setting. And I would describe this as a low fantasy setting.

All of the characters are mechanically just a human variant, with plus two stats, skill, feat. And that goes for all Calorans in Calorum are all the same species, even though there are slices of cake and apples and stuff like that, it's just one. It is that kind of Westeros vibe of we're all one species and magic is rare, and there is definitely this vibe of combat is scary, the world is not fair or easy. And that tone is something that you all should expect.

On the Fridge Idea:

"...Also, does this season just take place in a fridge?” Part of a submission by Ezra Davore

Brennan: Maybe you've caught onto my little bulb joke. [. . .] Calorum, there is like a refrigerator joke within the world of Calorum. That is like, the bulb is the sun.

One of the things about Calorum is there are no human beings that eat the people of Calorum. So when I was thinking if people know they’re food, but there is no human beings to eat them, how do they know they’re food?

One of the world building things that happened was them basically going like, their belief that they're food becomes a religious conviction. So what ends up happening is all of the faiths of Calorum, the main one being Bulbian Church, but then the older more pagan beliefs revolve around a religious conviction the people are food, and what that means in terms of their cosmology. We get more into that later in the season, but that's the basic idea there.

"Are the Dice Scripted?" Adventuring Party Ep 1

[story-weavr]

In reference to previous post of mine:

How might Lex Luthor fall for reporter Clark Kent?

Assuming Lex Luthor (to his knowledge) never met Clark Kent before Superman came to Metropolis, how might attraction grow?

Lex Luthor is an apex predator who desires to have control. He’s suave and charismatic while also being intellectually superior to most. Lex goes for the following:

- trusted female employees,

- women whom fit the bill for upper echelon via beauties, talent, &/or pedigree

The ones he chooses to marry are only because marrying them serves his plans in some way. And as far as I know, barring Angela Blake/ Ardora/ Gertrude, they all ended in divorce.

When he first meets Clark Kent, he underestimated him at first due to his appearance of being mild-mannered and “second banana” to the alluring yet infuriating Lois Lane.

Clark Kent, however, asked questions that were to the point whilst still being respectful as opposed to Lois’s sharp wit. They make a good team; perhaps why Clark’s name is usually the by-line of a Lois Lane story.

His writing was also rather engaging, albeit infuriating at times when the content is not what he would prefer.

And he is rather non-opportunistic as opposed to others of his profession, hence why he has gained the trust and friendship of many big names such as Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen, & senior scientists of STAR Labs.

But in the end, Clark is just another human; imperfect albeit moral. A pawn.

What would change Luthor’s mind?

A) Perhaps, one day an attack by one of Superman’s other foes cause structural damage in the building or mine they are in, forcing them to wait for rescue while another Metropolis hero (Steel perhaps?) is busy dealing with said villain.

Bored, perhaps Lex would spark a conversation, not hoping for much, only to find Kent was rather intellectual and had a sharp wit.

B) Perhaps Lex Luthor would discover & adore the work of one Atticus Clark. He can’t help but read The Janus Contract over and over again. A bit silly to enjoy a mere adventure novel, but it just spoke to the inner daring boy that Lex often has to squash. He is so impatient for the next work that he actually gets someone to look into Atticus Clark.

He becomes utterly shocked that said author was mild-mannered Clark Kent. The writing styles, albeit of the same engaging prose, are quite different!

Why on Earth would a brilliant author hide his identity in such a way that his own publisher doesn’t know his real identity?

A means to protect his private life? Shyness?!

Lex manages to have a private conversation with Clark, asking for his autograph. At first offended that his privacy was invaded, Clark couldn’t help but give in to Luthor’s genuine admiration.

Lex, having admiration for someone of such talent, even offered to have his publishers replace Clark’s current ones. Clark explained that while honored, he had no complaints about his current publishers who respect his privacy and don’t push him for more works.

For him, writing novels was an escape, a thing of joy, release, and introspection on both himself & humanity. His job was uncovering the truth and doing the right thing.

Perhaps their conversation falls into philosophies which then turns into other topics. Lex becomes shooketh and intrigued at the amount of knowledge & understanding Clark has. And the other man just brushes it off?!

C) Perhaps an incident happens at LexCorp event, where a child or incapacitated person falls into the water and Kent dives in immediately after. Coming out of the water, the person in distress is safe.

Lex meanwhile is forced to question his sexuality when he does not see the expected drowned rat.

Clark Kent, having thrown his jacket off to dive after, is more muscular than one would think. Not that of body builders or that damn alien, but of a proportional slimmer variety.

His skin is glowing in the sunlight.

His eyes sparkling due to the wetness clinging to his glasses.

His hair, usually arranged in careful bangs or covered by a hat, settle around his head in messy curls, framing his face and clinging to his skin.

Skin that was surprisingly smooth and free of dense hair usually associated with men.

Lips, where before Lex had not noticed, were pink, seemingly soft & plushy, and trembling as water droplets caressed them

A face lightly dusted with a blush matched the stuttering words of an obviously cold and embarrassed man asking his partner Lois for his coat.

Lex Luthor needs a drink and a moment to think.

D) Perhaps Lex Luthor receives a message that a certain individual who was related to an employee of his late father has special information that might interest the billionaire.

What that information is, the girlfriend of said individual didn’t know. Just that it was about Lex’s past.

Lex, annoyed at the reminder of his “dearly” departed father & what seems to be a clumsy blackmail attempt in the making, has the man watched.

Much to his confusion, he received a report that nothing was found in the man’s apartment or place of work. The man also never made any attempts to get in touch with Lex Luthor. If anything, he seemed to be waiting for something.

Then one day, the man drove out of town. He first stopped somewhere and came out with several files. Because it was crowded, the Luthor agents could not approach or steal from the man.

The man immediately went back to Metropolis, to a diner in a bad part of town. Soon, Clark Kent walked in with the brief case.

Sitting down in front of the man, the somber faced reporter slid into the booth.

The smirking man merely slid the files across the table. Clark then took them. He then slid the briefcase onto the table.

When the other man touched it, the reporter didn’t let go. Instead, he quietly said that a friend of his had already wiped the backup data and that another had already stolen the other copies.

The reporter continued that if the other man ever came looking for money again, his friends have given him enough dirt that if he published it: the cops would be involved.

The only reason he didn’t already and instead paid the money was because he didn’t want mutual destruction. Clark went on to tell the man that he has friends in high places that will keep tabs on him for the rest of his life.

The reporter went on to remind the criminal that “the other party” WILL kill him if he even tried to blackmail him like he did Clark.

The criminal smiled and reassured that he isn’t that stupid hence why he chose to blackmail Clark. Now that he has the money, he has no desire to get dead because he was greedy and stupid.

Clark released the briefcase. Getting up, he stated that it would be a good idea if the blackmailer left Metropolis, never to return. He then left.

The other man, smug, left the bar as well.

Luthor’s employees opted to wait. The next time Superman was busy or out of Metropolis, they tracked down and captured the blackmailer (arrested for another crime?), covering their tracks with a false digital trail + false ID.

The blackmailer not wanting to die, said he would only tell either Luthor himself or someone Luthor trusted.

Lex, curious but not prioritizing, sent a member of his inner circle (Mercy, Hope, Spaulding, etc)

When his trusted minion came back, Lex Luthor was told a story that he wouldn’t have believed if not for the fact Clark Kent literally paid over a million dollars to the man to keep it secret.

Apparently, the accident in his youth that cost him his first independent business and most of his hair was also used as an opportunity by his father. Lionel Luthor hired a hypnotist so that young Lex Luthor would forget about his male lover. Lionel would go further and threaten the other boy to leave the US, wanting to make sure Lex never saw the other.

The boy would go on to flee. Lionel had the boy monitored. Many years later, his death, however, ushered the return of the boy now man to his hometown, a young child in tow.

One would think that the farm boy found love again overseas. Except, according to the sporadic reports of Lionel’s goons, the only females he was in close contact with were never pregnant. Plus the baby was practically a newborn when he first appeared.

In addition, the hometown of the boy had some very strange rumors and incidents: ghost sightings, skin walkers, succubi, a lot of deaths or disappearances.

The investigator went on a limb & threatened to expose Clark Kent as Lex Luthor’s former lover. He also made insinuations about Smallville’s weirdness and how Conner Julian Kent must have been named after Jules Luthor, Lex’s uncle who had lived in Smallville.

What do y’all think?

How might the villainous Lex Luthor see mild-mannered Clark Kent as more than a pawn?

[karniss-bg3]

Thank you for this blog, your answers are so well thought-out and insightful it's a pleasure to read. Here's something I've been pondering lately: Karniss with a Tav who also has some serious body image trauma, maybe due to being a race that's not very well liked, like tiefling or something.

Thank you for the compliment!

I thought this over for the past day and admittedly I was a bit nervous about giving an opinion on the statement. Not because it isn't a good head canon or idea, but because I know the topic of body image is a sensitive one and I don't wish to breed animosity. As someone who had body image troubles in their youth I know the struggle and it's a difficult part of yourself to come to terms with. Especially in an era where we're bombarded by unrealistic expectations on every media platform available. So I want to preface this response with a bit of a disclaimer. While I have thoughts on this head canon, it is not indicative of fact. It's not meant to represent everyone's personal struggles with body image nor is it all encompassing. Everyone is different and this is strictly a personal opinion.

With that said, I do like the idea you've pitched here. My thoughts are that while both struggling with their appearance in some manner would help them relate, it may also prove a hinderance in terms of moving forward. What I mean by this is there is a chance they could feed off of each other's insecurities. It can be difficult to try and lift someone else when you feel so very down about yourself, at least in my experience. That lack of confidence creates a wall and if both parties have those walls, one can't hear the other.

As an example, if Tav tries to tell Kar'niss he is beautiful and Kar'niss denies it vehemently refusing to hear it, then if Kar'niss says the same to Tav in return then they may very well deny it as well. It's difficult to get a foothold when both parties have such a great deal of self-loathing.

But!

This does not mean all is lost. I've always believed that light can pierce even the darkest corner and the same is true here. Over time perhaps either Kar'niss or Tav have a moment of clarity, a realization. Tav might see Kar'niss chiding or belittling himself and come to understand that this is what they've been doing to themselves all this time. It may have taken a while to see it but once they do their mindset begins to alter.

It's not a smooth climb to the peak of Mt. Confidence, in fact it's a long and rocky road. Yet Tav has found new motivation, a reason to fight the intrusive thoughts rather than allow them to emerge victorious. Now when Kar'niss compliments them they resist the urge to deny it and instead accept it with a humble thanks. I know that is a hard lesson I had to learn over the years and I've become far better at it. It's not arrogant to accept positive feedback or to even feel proud, it's something more people should do.

With Tav starting to accept themselves more then Kar'niss may follow suit, especially if the pair have grown close and formed trust. Suddenly that negative feedback loop morphs into a positive one and steadily both learn to love themselves for who they are rather than what others want them to be. This is, of course, a loose summary and they'd still have bad days along the way. Personal progression isn't a straight line, it's full of peaks and valleys. Two people that have been through such strife will travel that winding road often. Still, I think it is very possible for Kar'niss and Tav to find a happy medium, one they can live with. Sometimes it's the best you can do, and that's okay.

Thanks for the ask!

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

Those leto fan girls are so annoying and pathetic actually. And I'm off anon because I don't want their asses to say I'm "weak". No one cares you're not part of the fandom anymore. And yes the evan fandom can be awful. But so much of the toxicity was often caused by them. And sorry we are gonna call you out for stanning someone with multiple allegations against him. It is not the same as when people slander evan to defend emma. There are actual allegations against that man. People are not obsessed with them just pointing out how stupid it is to complain about EVAN'S fandom when you stan a man like that. Like it's laughable actually.

well! happy sunday night all. i have dozens and dozens of messages about this topic and i don't want you guys to think i'm ignoring you - i am not. but i don't think it serves anyone to dogpile and make post after post about this. @evanboodaddy @letsxriot i received your messages as well so i will address this here:

i just want to start off by saying this: i'm not here to police who anybody is a fan of. i really do not care if someone is a fan of jared leto, not because i believe he is innocent of the allegations against him - quite frankly, where there is smoke, there is fire. the odds are very likely that he is a nefarious person who has done things that would be unforgivable if proven. but they are not proven at this time - no arrest or charges, and i am not familiar enough with him to make a conclusive judgement and even if i was.. he would be one of like, a million men in hollywood who are guilty of just as bad and worse, so i do not have the time nor mental bandwidth to be concerned with his proclivities.

but outside of that? look, no one can constantly troll/make remarks intended to inflame, and not expect to get a reaction. it's disingenuous to act as though you are minding your business and evan's fans are being unfairly critical. to be honest, i am well aware the only reason you both have taken a turn and are speaking against evan's fandom is because you feel you were essentially pushed out because people ''hate'' and want to cancel you. every time you logged on it was like you were fending off people upset with you, but if you were truly above it, you would not be incessantly speaking on evan and his fans in a derogatory manner, - you'd simply move onto the next male celebrity you stan, as you both have done previously, no big deal. your accounts did not begin as evan fan accounts, in fact, before dahmer you both never mentioned his name. what is happening now, you becoming fans of someone else and moving on, is par for the course and nothing to apologize for. no one should be mad at someone quietly moving onto a different fandom, for any reason.

i hope you will consider that you can participate in fandom and not feel the need to dedicate the majority of your time to engaging with people who hate the celebrity you stan. and to be fair, you have no right to talk down to the anonymous people on my blog when you created numerous troll accounts to argue with ''haters'', per jessie herself. you perpetuating a cycle of making remarks to anger people and then being frustrated you're disliked is not serving you in any positive way and it doesn't have to be like this. fandom is to enjoy, and i don't see how this is enjoyable. you are setting yourself up to be in a constant loop of hate and defending your fav against every person who speaks negatively about them. i will not disagree that there are some very toxic and draining people in this fandom, but allowing them to affect your enjoyment of it is a decision as far as i'm concerned. if you two stop addressing the fandom i'm pretty sure all would be forgotten by most in a couple of weeks, but the tit for tat will just keep things continuing in perpetuity.

either way.. only you can decide that. i understand a lot of folks are riled up but i just don't see there ever being a resolution to this and it's just ridiculous to me, i don't see the point in continuing to address inflammatory tweets that are obviously baiting you to do just that.

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth is a science fiction novella that's a retelling of Antigone. Roth's prose has improved since I read Divergent almost 10 years ago, but the way she handles the story of Antigone and its setting is... Odd.

In the story, the kingdom of Thebes is the last bastion of civilization in a post apocalyptic world. In order to prevent genetic bottlenecks in a small population, it's mandatory that citizens 1. have children and 2. do not procreate but instead use preserved sperm and/or eggs from a library of long-gone donors. They've created a faith out of this process, attributing to reincarnation. It's better to pick the genes of a long-dead hero because it means your child will grow up the same, etc.

Antigone's brother dies, and the plot kicks off because King Creon bans his genes from being added to the gene library, and Antigone wants her brother to have a chance at reincarnation. Sure, I guess this is one way to do the plot in a science fiction manner.

It's just that this is used to sidestep the incest entirely.

The crime of Antigone's-- and her siblings'-- birth is not through incest and the degradation and tragedy and horror of the family unit, but because Oedipus and Jocasta have a natural birth-- Oedipus impregnates Jocasta naturally and has 4 children. Because they're the reincarnation of nobody, the children of Oedipus are claimed to not have souls, and this is the reason why so many people believe their family line is broken beyond repair. But like... This doesn't have a real-world counterpart. There's not really any believability in a society that considers genetic relation between siblings as a degradation of the family, let alone as a metaphor of incest.

This would be a cowardly action to begin with-- this is a book for young adults and adults where they say fuck-- but the biggest offender is that they DO allude to incest, somewhere else-- Eurydike's mother recently passed away, and Eurydike wishes she could be reincarnated, but if she used her mother's DNA for a new child that'd be incestuous. So instead of one of the core pillars of conflict in the story, incest is relegated to an offhand comment about a completely speculative fiction element.

This book wants to talk about abuse, about misogyny, and lesbophobia (there's a weird tangent where Antigone observes a lesbian couple at the gene bank, and ismene is gay) about marital violence, about filial piety, but is actually really afraid to, because these topics are scary. Roth's prose may have improved since Divergent but her political literacy very much has not.

On top of that, the book gets 33 pages of preamble before Polynikes and Eteocles actually kill each other. The play of Antigone starts with those two already dead in the field. I cannot stress this enough, we have PLACES TO BE. The story should not start a THIRD of the way into the book. it's also a matter of personal distaste but i dislike the fact that chapters are written from the perspectives of different characters. i dont actually care about ismene's inner monologue, or to watch the siblings talk at a cafe. Why does Eurydike have a POV chapter before the "play" even starts??? Her entire role is one of futile passivity. She has no relevance until the point of no return. She has 4 lines of dialogue, a fact several better adaptions comment on and explore (Antigonick and Antigone Will Take The Stairs Today) and her presence this early in the area adds nothing.

Antigone's anger feels toothless and performative no matter how many f-bombs she drops. The narrative is unfocused and meandering and is overinvested in justifying its science fiction premise. Despite the attempt to characterize them in a story that doesn't need it, Polynikes and Eteocles and Ismene feel flat.

It's a bad adaption of Antigone that's fundamentally inequipped to deal with the source material and elects to disrespect the care it requires and the emotional core of the original work, and this just makes it, in general, a bad book.

[mejomonster]

Some of my favorite (recent-ish) Thai bl were:

Bad Buddy: if I'm going to recommend any coming of age romcom college set bl it's this one. The way it uses so many staple tropes in a fresh way, Ohm and Nanon are great actors and really bring a whole other level of energy, the actual conflict in the story is very realistic and heavy and a real topic I think a lot of young adults deal with regarding their families and expectations. So it's mostly romantic comedy, but the heavy moments resonate so that it doesn't really feel unrealistic. It's very high brightness overly kind of fantastical rather than real in presentation and tropes used (quite common in fluff bl like 2gether and My School President and Theory of Love etc), but the chemistry of the leads feels executed very realistically and again the actual delivery of tropes and conflicts feels very grounded in a way. Highly recommended to most peoples tastes tbh (and special mention to My School President, while it was a little Too fluffy for my tastes, it also did a balance of romcom and a grounded heart to the conflicts which I think is part of why it had such big appeal, along with really solid leads that are going to be bringing a lot to any project they work on in the future)

Never Let Me Go: THE action bl as of recently. Gave me everything I could ask, from the leads in The Gifted Graduation bringing their acting game with roles that let them truly show off what they can do, to a high body count of murders and action scenes, mafia sons falling in love with people oh so different from them, a batman esque lead, rich boy falls for poor bodyguard whipping boy trope but also Not quite because the show Really wants to comment on class issues and inequality and makes sure the audience gets the point (a core issue in the relationship is how to be equals given who they are), and a reference to the quote about soulmates that Xena Warrior Princess also uses. It also has Chimon. It's also aesthetically pleasing af. Idk what to tell you, I love when Jojo directs something and this Gave me WAY more than I thought I could get. I'm happy to say that in the post Not Me world we are seeing more action romance bls, not just romcom/fluff ones (though there's always plenty of those too). I personally am eagerly hoping this trend continues and we keep getting at least a few action romance bls a year like this one, Kinnporshe, Manner of Death, Not Me. I've started Laws of Attraction and that's looking similarly promising. (And while I highly recommend Not Me the series, one of my top shows PERIOD... I'm only listing newer shows than that right now).

The Eclipse: this show was exactly what I'd hope it would deliver, and more frankly (because I was hoping for at minimum the Blacklist quality and at max dream hopes The Gifted quality). Well it delivered closer to The Gifted. Politically heavy, really well done in that regard from the overt to the subtle, amazing entire ensemble cast (even the side actors are strong actors that have been in other things), Khaotung and First are both particularly amazing (Khaotung impresses me no matter what role he's given frankly). Aesthetically it's exactly what you'd hope if your hopes like mine were The Gifted but only real evil people no mutants, and explicitly gayer. If you perhaps are willing to have a high school setting, but very much do Not want fluff dominant story and instead a tense mystery with at least half the characters already out and proud queer people (but still some of the cute romance tropes executed a bit less fluffily) then this may be your jam.

Moonlight Chicken: if you'd like multigenerational queer stories, centering on a family slice of life realism piece, this show is <3. The second main pairing is the same actors from My School President and I think they really shine here where the romance relies less on tropes and the dialogue is more realistic so the intensity of scenes really leans on actors. I love their characters in this and they stole the show for me. The first main pairing is messy and adult, with adult problems (like actual ones not just romantic drama: like raising a nephew, running a store, working for a company that's destroying your lovers neighborhood). But also not actually that messy, I'd say in terms of messy it's for the most part wholesome and soft. If you liked 1000 Stars (I did) then this shows realistic slice of life feel will be comfortable and homey, and the amount of skinship in this show is less conservative for even more of a cozy natural feeling.

And the one I'm most anticipating coming out: Only Friends. Khaotung and First lead it, so I'm basically certain the main story will be absolute gold (since I eat up every role they play their acting is just <3 like dude I watched the Shipper for First okay and 5555 Never too Late for Khaotung which was an Amazing show btw). Now.. Only Friends is directed by Jojo (yay for me) and in theory it IS going to be as messy as it looks (and it looks at least as messy as Friendzone). So if Moonlight Chicken is too fluffy and tame for you, then you might want this show on your radar. I think it is slated for August but I'm not sure as I try not to get too hype for things until theyre out so I avoid most news.