#tl;dr included

[whinlatter]

What’s something about Ron Weasley as a character that you think is underrated?

That Ron is really, really funny, and that his sense of humour isn't a sign of immaturity or gratuitous comic relief for the reader's sake, but an absolutely essential part of what both Harry and Hermione value in Ron as a character as an antidote to their own tendencies (moodiness and seriousness/anxiousness, respectively). Ron makes bad days bearable to get through for the people around him. I think people mistake Ron making jokes for a lack of emotional awareness, but I actually think it’s the opposite. By the series end Ron is literally the most emotionally well-adjusted of the central canon characters. That line about Peeves’ poem right at the end of DH when the war is won (“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?”) is a) brilliant and b) such a great manifesto for how Ron’s outlook on the world — not humour as emotional avoidance, but humour that sits within all the grief and pain and suffering, and makes it that bit more bearable. So yeah Ron Weasley’s love for chuckles is Important and Overlooked and I will keep saying it til I am blue in the face

[awholelotofsad]

normally this is the part where i make some kind of caption that's funny or related to the video, but honestly i'm just so glad i got this done in time

anyway happy valvert week part 2. the song is 命の食べ方 by eve

@valvertweek

[puddii-ng]

shu's new summer casual is so cute to me.. here is a femstars ver i whipped up today :3

[misc-obeyme]

would u consider obey me a dead fandom?

Um. Nope. I sure wouldn't.

If there's anybody out there who thinks Obey Me is a dead fandom, I would say they're probably confused about what a dead fandom actually is.

I think an argument could be made saying that there is no such thing as a dead fandom. But I'm going to assume you mean that fan content is at an all time low.

Friend, I have been in fandoms where the content was like... you get a fic or two every year if you're lucky. This for a media that hadn't put out any new content in decades.

Obey Me? I get an average of five asks per day about Obey Me. I can queue 10 posts per day about Obey Me. I still average over 800 notes a day on this here Obey Me blog. In the past few months, we've had new artists and writers joining the community and posting their Obey Me fan works. The game is still active and updating. There are two apps even.

So no, I personally would not consider the Obey Me fandom to be dead by any means.

It's certainly been more active in the past. I'll never forget the surge of activity that happened when Nightbringer first came out. My Solomon fics seemed to double their notes over night lol.

But we're also in a bit of a lull right now because we aren't getting new chapters. Every time an event happens, there's another burst of activity. And then things die down just a little before they surge again. That's the nature of fandom.

Another common fandom thing is people coming and going. I've been here for almost two years, but there are others who have been here for four. And then there are some people who've only been in the fandom for a couple months. And then there are the people who were here at the beginning, but have since moved on. Maybe they only stayed for a few months before moving on. Maybe they're only casually in the fandom, dipping in now and again. This is also just the nature of fandom. There's no right way to do it. And it doesn't reflect on whether a fandom is alive or dead.

Hell, we even have plenty of discourse and toxic stuff in this here fandom, too. More of that when there's nothing else to do, I think, which is unfortunate, but also kinda... just part of fandom.

And all of this is just how it is on Tumblr. I know there are active Obey Me communities on Twitter/X and Instagram, too. I'm just too old and tired to maintain that many socials. I actually have accounts on both of those apps but I rarely use them.

And lastly, I'm a big proponent of being involved in fandom no matter how active the community is. By this I mean, if I still have an Obey Me hyperfixation in ten years when the apps are closed down and nearly everybody else has moved on, I will still be here posting fic. Because I won't leave a fandom until I am ready to move on from it, dead or not. (Sometimes this can mean you are one of the few people still creating for said fandom, but you might be surprised at how many people will still enjoy what you create.)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

more salty commentary about.... salty fandom commentary, but for a fandom i'm not really involved with

ftr this is about the gay-ass (affectionate) vampire show

squinting at some of super vitriolic anti-armand commentary that tumblr's algorithm keeps throwing at me like 'this? you want this one bestie? no? what about this one instead?' when in fact i want none of these takes, actually. "i don't believe a word that comes out of that lying liar's mouth!!" "of course he could have stopped claudia and madeleine's murders, he's the most powerful vampire in the world!!" (uh, i'll come back to that one later. maybe. if i feel like it) "he was onboard the 'let's murder claudia!' train from the very beginning!!!" etc. if you're even peripherally keeping your finger on the pulse of this fandom's discourse, you've probably seen some of this, too.

and... okay. bearing in mind two things:

it's been about 20+ years since i read the original novels, and

the show's relationship to the original novels, as well as the 1994 movie, is both conversational and subversive,

two seasons into this delicious mess, how are we still collectively failing to recognize that the central conceit of amc's retelling is that, intentional or not, all recollection of louis' past is both catharsis (for louis) and performance (for ???)? that all of louis' recollection of his own actions, as well as the actions of the other vampires in his orbit, is filtered through the lens of his own feelings about those vampires in that moment? like this isn't a subtle storytelling device, this is something the show is repeatedly bashing us over the head with again and again and again: louis' reliability as a narrator of his own experiences can't be trusted even when he isn't so consumed with rage that he tries to drain twenty year old daniel molloy dry for the unforgivable crime of /checks my notes, mouthing off at him like a dumbass, or goes into vulgar detail describing to lestat precisely how he is going to kill him, cut his head off, and then feed his decapitated head to lions at the zoo. which, it bears mentioning, is not the version of events that we were presented with during s1, but it is the version of events that louis himself comes to reluctantly believe is the more accurate recollection of the past.

does that make lestat into The Real Victim™️ who did nothing wrong to louis or claudia, ever? please tell me you're not actually asking me this question. be serious.

the point is that louis is right in the thick of feeling his intensely passionate vampire feelings about armand in real time, in the present day, while looking backwards through time at the 77 years they have spent together, and he is questioning everything. justifiably so, for the record! why wouldn't he question the actions and motivations of the supposed love of his life after discovering that such an important memory from his and daniel molloy's shared past was erased from his mind? but seriously, if you have reached this point in the story and your takeaway from the last episode boils down to "THIS TIME louis' recollection of the past is definitely 100% accurate! the rose-tinted glasses are OFF and we can see the TRUTH about you now armand!!!" then i just. i don't know what to say to you. lmfao.

anyway rather than getting into the weeds with anyone actually in the fandom about which of these diva vampire daddies is right, actually, find me hanging out with claudia and madeleine's ashes giving all of them the proverbial finger. because honestly, fuck all these vampires (affectionate).

[thepromisedbride]

i don’t talk about bridgerton on here but just to clarify. i will not be having ANY eloise hate on this account. i will bite.

[overly-verbose]

Does the Kahoot theme apply at all to the upcoming chapter?

To some of it, certainly!

Some of it not, especially after A Point - but yeah lol, pretty accurate besides that 😂

Everyone's doing some THINKIN' there

(maybe some overthinkin' in places, heh - but honestly one really can't blame them 😂)

Poor SIkuna, man - Sweet Dreams were not made of this 😔😔😔(😂)

[rowanthestrange]

i just read the entirety of your Rogue is the Bad Guy essay, and i’ll admit, you’ve convinced me, but not that he’s the Master, but that he’s trying to cosplay the Master cosplaying whoever. Also, it was really long so, like, i’m asking with full concern: are you okay? it just seemed like it took a ridiculous amount of time /lh

What I think is the case, probably 51% the Master. Just squeaks it.

What I want is Chuldur/Pantheon member ‘The’ Rogue cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack. I’d prefer it by a very large margin. A huge one. But as to whether I think it will happen, I give that 49%. But that’s still good odds.

(I’ve got a lot of Pantheon!Rogue feels, ideas, and desires and have had nowhere else to put them yet, and this is a valid place to share them, rip. And to anyone else who followed the first Essay, let me convince you of my secondary Sub-Thesis in it.)

I’m giving that seemingly crazy high 49% despite the risky complexity of double-layering, because A) that was the Ruby resolution: she cosplayed the bird cosplaying as her - we’ve done it already and everyone got it.

And B)…Is actually complicated literal-meta but hear me out. Since they’re the only other writers this season I think there’s a very high chance they’re forerunners for next showrunners. I know at least one has high level management experience, and if they were given that as a test to do highly complex work to cut their teeth, this would be an incredibly good test that they passed imo. The Master is in themselves hard to write but necessary to fully comprehend because even when not present they are a lynchpin of the show. Here you’d have to write him well. But also effectively set up two twists (that he’s the Master, and then that he’s not he’s just pretending he is). You have to establish a Pantheon member - make an important part of an overarching narrative. And link together with other writers current and past. As well as create a good story with all functioning meta, on multiple levels.

The second you let Rogue be The Bad Guy the complexity of literally everything skyrockets anyway. (And one of the reason I’m a little annoyed that people want to believe he’s so flat - it does the writers a deep disservice to just think they wrote Space Darcy and there’s no shared metaplot there). But while Russell likes a certain amount of simplicity — Occam’s Razor 51% Master — RTD2 has been having fun with more complicated stuff, more prior-knowledge and using that, more thinking needed if you’re going to get the answers early. I think if he was going to give future showrunners something hard to do this would be it. For me Chuldur/Pantheon!Rogue is the pinnacle of that while still being perfectly possible to pull off to casuals without too much brainache. ‘The American accent guys, come on.’

I certainly think they have seeded all they need to, obviously can’t grade without seeing the full execution. And they certainly succeeded in writing ‘the Master’ well. Rewatching that ending? That actually got to me. And I’m a wall. I hated him which is what makes an actually good Master/Master-Proxy - you can neither go too far with that or the character becomes too unenjoyable (Simm!Master), but also too little with the hatred being turned almost entirely into pity (fandom), or even just they’re pretty purely enjoyable (Missy - but she’s an odd duck anyway), also robs them of something essential. This is pitched very well. Test passed on that score.

If my preference and height of percentage seems confusing, to me it makes no difference when talking about them whether he’s the Master or The Rogue perfectly playing the Master. Because if he’s perfectly playing him, as his Pantheon power should presumably allow him to do, it tells us about the Master anyway, so I don’t actually feel any need to differentiate most of the time. Certainly in The Essay it seemed stupid to bog it down with that and risk confusing the people still on ‘but he’s a good guy’ where it wasn’t necessary, because all arguments stay basically the same for a perfect copy. I trusted the reader to apply the level of abstraction themselves for the most part, only coming in with that where I thought something could be particularly relevant/missed in regard to that specifically. Muddying the issue with too repetitiously focusing on ‘remember it called also be a perfect Master cosplay’ and that seemingly complicated (even if I think valid) double-layering didn’t feel like the right call for something where just Rogue Is Playing The Bad Guy was already a hard sell to who I wanted to reach. Ymmv.

The only things that give me pause are that 1: The implication that he’s cloaked seems very high - the earring interference, psychic scents can mask real ones, seeming lack of recognition by allies (until the end I think - they shut up while he’s doing the scene rather than threaten or beg for their lives) etc. The Pantheon seem to have a lot of reality twisting powers. You wouldn’t need to, surely? You’d need to have a reason other than ‘same devices too close’ for that interference which starts the whole thing at minimum and I think ‘he made it happen for the Doctor to come over’ is too cheaty. And 2: The Bag. Why would you need to pack a bag and ensure you have it on you at the end if you can just snap your fingers?

But could be that it actually just contains his dice and he’s a stickler for doing things manually - think of daddy here, rules and ways to do things and following structure while also being creative within those constrictions. Which also very much applies to Dungeon Masters (won’t lie, the ‘Master’ part of that is what eeks it to 51% for just being him). This could come up, it’s feasible.

A Chuldur needing the teleport is also fair of course. And would want the psychic jewellery for the reverse of Ruby - being a Chuldur who needs to smell human to keep the gang on their toes and unsuspecting it’s him.

And there are lots of little things that complement the Pantheon element. We have the dancing scene where the lights dim. We have the fact he’s working with alternate dimension creatures and knows a lot about them. Certainly shows no fear at being sent to an alternate dimension once he’s got what he wanted. We have the American accent. We have him probably having watched Doctor Who like Bridgerton because he’s very familiar with Jack’s introductory episodes with all the references. We have the Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ - Dungeon Masters love making playlists for their scenes, so why wouldn’t he (and also Theme of Music)? Maybe he doesn’t overtly use his powers during The Session because that sort of ugly manipulation of the world is cheap and bad DMing. Daddy liked the Spice Girls, why wouldn’t he like Kylie? He’s a game player like daddy but there’s no winning D&D, especially as DM, which makes an easy natural conflict between them. And we need at least one Pantheon member, cus while I think this is actually just a set-up season for them, there needs to be at least four, really five to truly feel ‘Pantheon’, three would be bare minimum and not enough for when the shit actually starts to go down next season, need at least four by then. I’m assuming we see one: The Writer, or The Audience, or Death or (The Twist At) The End/Grand Finale or whatever else you interpret the oldest one/one who waits to be, in the finale itself.

And this means we get a new (and if Pantheon rather than Chuldur) long-term character. Cosplaying the Master means The Rogue isn’t a copy of them, can just be playing The Bad Guy cus it’s fun right now, but they themselves don’t have to be Master-like, they can be anything. Something new. Anyone who knows me knows I wanted more rogue Time Lords and these guys are like that but with magic powers - what’s not to love? If The Rogue is a Joker, A Wildcard, and they just become a character that fills a void, that’s fascinating. Or they want to create exciting stories whatever that means and become whatever NPCs necessary to drive them on, that’s so interesting. Or they’re guided by being whatever they find cool much like the birds, with all the capricious ‘eh, bored now I’m wrapping this story up’ of a greek god (cus, well.) with all the associated dangers and disregard of these not being characters but people they’re playing with, and also expects there to be no hard feelings after The Session is over and next time it’s a new one. Can they perfectly roleplay a character but still break character if needed, or are they locked in to it until The Session’s done? Do they believe themself to have a ‘real’ personality or is that all fuzzy? Or all of the above. You could go anywhere from standard villain to a full Chaotic Neutral with that. And all the implications you could have of their power being to perfectly roleplay a person. And I use ‘they’ here because surely this is the most genderfluid a character you could get. The Rogue could literally be the red-nailed woman who picked up the gold tooth, think about that. How perfect would that be. Maybe that’s what’s in the bag. Live Tooth Reaction To The Kiss Not Clickbait. A character that could literally be anyone at any time, we would never know peace again. If Susan Twist appearing everywhere is something Pantheony, The Rogue is the inverse of this. Siblings maybe.

And see my Christmas Special pitch. Which is both a joke, but also an example of what fun you could have with The Rogue if you wanted. It doesn’t have to be pure heartbreak and misery Master 2.0. Especially if they are as seems here, a god not just trying to entertain themselves, but also entertain others. D&D requires a group, it’s co-operative, we see Rogue appear to adapt rather than (in any way immediately evident to us at least) externally force the story a certain way like a good DM. He never shoots the birds or threatens to or gets them in actual danger despite the in-character reasons to, and they looked like they all had fun - besides squished beak #5. But also sees NPCs as little more than set dressing as we ourselves would in a D&D game. What a dynamic that could be in a Pantheon god. It’s unique. Which is so valuable. A Chuldur slightly less interesting in that score but still.

If it is the Master I’ll be fine and accept it, but I want this, because it does double duty. It might as well have been a Master episode as it has most of the benefits of one (for me anyway), but also gives us all this new possibility and complexity on top of it. Those options are currently open and I want it.

It’s not popular, but I’m really pro trusting the writers. All of them. They’re smart. And I know these two just seem like randoms, but I doubt they are, they could be our new mothers, and I really think that while the Pantheon Rogue option is complex, it’s viable and has so much scope. If I hate people trying to see Rogue as flat Space Darcy because it shows zero belief in the writers, then I gotta do the opposite and entertain the option that they have intelligently created a deep and complex story, and have taken that to the end of the road. Even if complicated is by nature less likely than simple.

also lol I started The Essay at around 11pm sunday, wrote til gone 4am. Then woke up at 9:30am and wrote solidly plus edits until about 4am, and in-between edited the subtitles into that video. Am I ok? Physically, yes. Mentally, probably not. It is literally 10k and that’s why I made the joke. But I’ve done infinitely worse writing fanfics so...

EDIT:

‘Chuldur/Pantheon member The Rogue cosplaying the Master’ has just flipped into the dominant reading! Alert! Alert! Cus he’d never do this about him literally being the Master. If he’s acknowledging we’re having the feelings we’re intended to have, there’s another twist in it.

I officially move The Rogue Cosplaying The Master to 55% from 49% likelihood, and Rogue Is Just The Master down to 45% from 51%. You may wish to adjust your stock investment accordingly.

[sinfulhares]

I'm so tired of sites self-destructing, PLEASE I am begging there to be just ONE art site that isn't a flaming pile of shit that could go down at any moment

I'm not leaving until the ship goes down, but I would like to hear potential places where people are also posting art

Personally I'm most active on Kofi and Bluesky because these are the only sites that I'm sure won't come crashing down anytime soon but god it's so tiring to have to keep rebuilding because everything turns to shit over the dumbest, most lack-of-common-decency bullshit from people who should never be in power to begin with

[sage-nebula]

Not every positive platonic relationship is siblings. Sometimes people are just friends. Best friends, even! But just friends.

[eastberlin]

Happy Pride Month, my straight ex-girlfriend is now my ex-straight ex-girlfriend, we're on good terms again, and I just introduced her to Caro. Living my best lesbian stereotype out here.

[castlingvanias]

society if tawog fanartists stopped ignoring rocky

[defiedlife]

HC: AVENTURINE AND NAMES.

This is something I've been meaning to make a little post about, as I realized it shortly after playing through the 2.0 story. Names hold a unique significance for Aventurine, both for himself and when he refers to other people.

"Aventurine" is not his real name, nor does he really treat it as a name at all. It's a title, it's an occupational designation, but it's not truly him and it never will be. Though this title grants him some degree of freedom, it also still represents the hold that the IPC has on him. He bears the title, accepting it because it's the only way he's even remotely free, but he resents it too.

He will never simply say "I am Aventurine." He's careful about it, of course, but he'll always word any introduction of himself such that he could be referring to a title, nickname, or even an object—specifically a tool of the IPC—when he tells another person his current moniker.

If he ever willingly tells someone his real name, it is a privilege and a sincere sign of trust that he'll hope the other person does not take lightly. His real name is foreign on the tongue to most, and a door to the past that he barely survived. To say his real name is to open that door and call upon the person he used to be; to look beyond the mask and truly see what's become of someone scarred so deeply by trauma that he still has nightmares of his past to this day.

It's for this reason that if he couldn't call himself Aventurine, he wouldn't know what name to give anymore. One identity is him, and yet isn't, while the other is deliberately hidden away from the majority of the universe. He must protect what's left of his real self, lest he lose it completely.

Conversely, and partly because of his attitude towards his own name and title, he very rarely addresses or refers to anyone only by their first or last name (or both). He typically includes some form of honorific or simply uses a title instead, or else a combination of the two. If neither are possible (or for variety, so that this habit of his is a little less obvious), he'll append some sort of specific description immediately before or after a person's name. If use of a name isn't necessary, he might even avoid saying someone's name altogether.

If he does refer to a person only by their name, it's indicative of either a significant closeness or intentional disrespect, with the latter intent reserved only for those he really hates. (There's only one known person on his "hated" list so far. It's Oswaldo, for reasons.) This all creates a form of distance between himself and others; an intangible barrier to keep any connection or relationship from being too personal. Despite him being a gambler, that's one risk he isn't willing to take until he truly feels it's safe.

[taylortruther]

Bestie you mentioned ciwyw and lover as songs telling “similar” stories.. I get lover but what about ciwyw?

oh i meant the tracks about taylor and joe's love story - throughout rep and lover - each contribute some unique angles about their relationship. and they, at least to me, seem more critical to the album and the story that these two tracks that got left off.

for example, to focus on all of the girls: that song tells us that taylor's grateful for joe's past. and there are parallels to reputation and lover throughout - that he treats her differently, and better, than her exes (this is present throughout but cornelia street, komh, ithk are good examples); he makes her forget their names (rfi); their pasts parallel (first and second verses of rfi); he makes her feel like a teenager again (ithnk); he tries on calling her baby like trying on clothes (komh.) and we also have this recurring concern that both of their pasts would come back to haunt them, such as in daylight, delicate (stay here, honey, i don't want to share), lover (my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue), me! (you're the kinda guy all the ladies want... but you'll never find another like me), paper rings (honey, without all the exes, fights, and flaws we wouldn't be standing here so tall).

i love all of the girls for lines like the one about his mother, the heart drawn around his name, secret jokes all alone, etc. etc. but i think the aforementioned tracks in rep and lover added SO MUCH to the story that this track wasn't absolutely necessary. as much as it hurts to say.

however, taylor is human, maybe those songs felt too raw or vulnerable in some way. maybe she just preferred other tracks. i'd love to learn more about how she edits songs down. i think both of these songs would've been fandom favorites for sure.

[marinsawakening]

TL;DR Breath of the Wild's memories fucking suck at telling its story because the game is deeply bad at understanding what information to prioritize and, by extension, how to effectively utilize its limited time to tell its story. This leads to outright useless scenes that do nothing but waste time, and many others that are just underwhelming and don't do enough with their time. To my personal estimation, perhaps about half the memories are worth including in the game as-is; the others at least needed a rewrite. With about a quarter to half of the story basically wasted, Breath of the Wild's story never manages to live up to its potential, staying infuriatingly mediocre despite an interesting base.

[blujayonthewing]

reading this book on urban exploration and also stumbling onto a youtuber who is doing (and explaining!) literal ancient alchemy is doing something to my brain chemistry (positive)