#why do i make things complicated

[lonelypersonhere]

alright, story time i guess

so

my dog needs to be fixed

i make appointment for today

drop of is between 7-8

i dont drive and my parents work schedules are weird

my grandfather takes me

we get there and im doing the paper work and stuff then-

the freaking paper says whatever about confirming your dog hasnt eaten since 12 last night

AND IM SO DUMB

I KNEW THIS AND I FED HIM THIS MORNING

BECAUSE EVIDENTLY I DONT HAVE A BRAIN AT 5 IN THE MORNING AND MY DOG IS AN ANNOYING LITTLE RAT THAT KEEPS ME FROM SLEEP IF I DONT FEED HIM

SO I FREAKING FED HIM LIKE I DO EVERY MORNING

so anyway i literally go in to reschedule and im like 'no i cant do monday' and 'i dont see why thurday wouldnt work' but i need to check with my mom

dang i left my phone in the car

then i call her and someone else is helping me schedule the thing and cant do thursday, the only days i can make it that early are wednesday and saturday

but the next saturday it like a month away so i guess ill do thursday and ill find someone

and oml i just felt so complicated

ughhh

and not only did i have my grandfather getting me at 6:45

way earlier than nessessary

but my dog got his nose slobbered all on the window and his HAIR

EVERYWHERE cause hes SHEDDING like CRAZY

ANYWAY yeah

[bixels]

Taking the current topic as an excuse to ask you to tell me all the reasons you love Rarijack. Your art for the ship is so sweet and intimate I'd love to hear any in depth thoughts you have.

Breathes in.

I think what makes their dynamic really strong is that they have opposing personalities but aligned values. It's deeper than just "opposites attract." Rarity's fancy, prissy, and femme while Applejack's modest, rough, and "masculine." But both value hard work (to the point of being workaholics), their families (both have guardianship over their little sisters), running successful businesses, and eventually each other. Their relationship can be boiled down to, "Despite our differences/disagreements, I still like you because we value the same things."

We see their relationship develop so much. In the first season, they can't stop bickering about surface-level differences. By season four, they still bicker, but will mend their relationship because they can't help but do nice things for each other. In Trade Ya, they start off arguing over personality differences (Applejack likes old junk and Rarity likes useless crap). Then they pivot and start arguing that they value their relationship more than the other. In the end, they mend things by sacrificing their needs and buying each other a gift. Even if they don't understand it, they know it'd make the other happy. And that's all that really matters. It's a genuinely sweet moment that shows how arguing can be healthy and necessary for relationships to strengthen.

We even see them dropping their hang-ups about each others' personalities. In Made in Manehattan, when Rarity runs off in dramatics about someone's fashion, AJ doesn't roll her eyes or scoff, she smiles. Oftentimes, their conflicts are very common domestic conflicts romantic couples face. Applejack's Day Off is about a woman's inability to balance work and life and find time to properly spend with her partner, causing her partner to feel neglected.

By season seven, they're actively participating in each others' interests. Any problems or conflicts that arise are dealt with, and they come out the other end stronger and closer. In Honest Apple, AJ pretty much spells out why their relationship works so well: even though she doesn't understand fashion, she can recognize and appreciate how much work it takes and wants to respect that. When she realizes her mistake in the episode, AJ goes above and beyond to fix things and apologize to Rarity. They care about each other so much.

The two go out of their way, sacrificing their personal desires and beliefs and doing things they normally wouldn't, to make the other happy. That's just love.

There's Simple Ways, where AJ gets stuck in an unwanted love triangle between Rarity and her hipster crush. And her frustration and anger can be so easily interpreted as AJ finding herself in a terrible position; the girl she loves wants another man, and that man wants her.

I dunno. I've always had a preference for opposites attract ships, but Rarijack's stuck with me like a brain worm because they have the perfect chemistry. The way they show they care, or do things for each other, I've always read it as the truest representation of romance in the show.

[bearsandbeansart]

I'm just going to make a quick sketch, I said. It's going to be simple and fun and chill, I said, completely forgetting I have no chill.

[nartblartmallcop]

Only one way to stop him from spiraling again

[my-name-is-apollo]

Why is Hera so hostile to Leto in a manner that she isn't with the other lovers of Zeus? I can't think of any other woman who was targeted so much by Hera. One could say she didn't want Leto to give birth because her children would be a competition to Hera's children, but why bother her even after she had already given birth? Is it because Leto herself is also a threat to Hera?

Sort of I guess?

I don't think Leto would ever be a threat to Hera's role as the queen of the gods but Hera might see her as a competitor for Zeus' affection, even though I think Zeus would not marry someone else and replace Hera.

The twins are definitely a big reason why Hera begrudged Leto - it is outright stated in the Callimachus Hymn to Delos that the reason Hera especially targeted Leto was because she was told that Apollo would be dearer to Zeus than Ares is. Zeus is very proud of Artemis as well. As he himself puts it, he doesn't mind facing Hera's wrath for children like her.

But the continued hatred even after the birth of the twins (like sending Tityus to rape Leto) could have been for different reasons. This wasn't like one of those affairs Zeus would have with mortal women where he'd leave them behind once the child is conceived. Neither could Hera, despite her many attempts, get rid of Leto like she did with the other lovers. Not only did Leto give Zeus children that he loves dearly, she also stayed on Olympus despite Hera's hatred towards her (which isn't directed to any of Zeus' other divine mistresses, btw). It might have also been because Leto herself is dear to Zeus, if the way she's treated on Olympus is any proof. In the Homeric hymn to Apollo, Leto stands next to Zeus - in the Olympian assembly - to welcome their son. Hera is completely absent from the scene, as if Leto had taken her place even if temporarily. Now you could say this is because Apollo himself is such a powerful and glorious son in a way that no other son of Zeus is, so of course Leto would get such an honor (the hymn itself presents it this way).

But here's another instance - in the Iliad, when Hera goes to seduce Zeus, he is obviously very smitten but before getting into the action, he lists some of his lovers (I believe these were his favorite lovers, as a lot of others are not mentioned):

"for never has such desire for goddess or mortal woman so gripped and overwhelmed my heart, not even when I was seized by love for Ixion’s wife, who gave birth to Peirithous the gods’ rival in wisdom; or for Acrisius’ daughter, slim-ankled Danaë, who bore Perseus, greatest of warriors; or for the far-famed daughter of Phoenix, who gave me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthus; or for Semele mother of Dionysus, who brings men joy; or for Alcmene at Thebes, whose son was lion-hearted Heracles; or for Demeter of the lovely tresses; or for glorious Leto; or even for you yourself, as this love and sweet desire for you grips me now.’ (Book 14, trans. A. T. Murray)

Notice how when talking about most of them, he also mentions the children they bore to him but when Demeter and Leto are mentioned, he doesn't bring up their children at all despite them being some of the most accomplished kids of his. What's more, he takes Leto's name just before Hera's. I mean, this is an interpretation but it looks like not only did Zeus love Leto the most out of all his mistresses - giving her a place second to that of his wife, but also his love for her wasn't necessarily only because she gave him two amazing children.

Nonnus does something similar in the Dionysiaca (but this time Zeus is enamored with Persephone instead of Hera) but more notably, when Typhoeus attacks Olympus and Zeus is discouraged, Nike takes the form of Leto to encourage him and it's pretty telling of what Leto meant to Zeus.

One interesting similarity between Hera and Leto is that they both had a giant try to rape them. Porphyrion tried to violate Hera (Zeus inspired him to do this) and Tityus tried to violate Leto (upon Hera's order). Though both of them were killed, only Tityus got an eternal punishment in Tartarus of having his liver/heart eaten out by vultures so Zeus seems to have taken a greater offense at Tityus trying to assault Leto.

Again, I don't think Zeus would ever take anyone other than Hera as his permanent wife - she is irreplaceable to him. There's an entire myth about Hera leaving him and Zeus winning her back. Their relationship is obviously complex and involves all kinds of emotions including love and hate. But Leto is continually dear to him as well and that's something Hera can't do much about.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[sneeb-canons]

Headcanon #700: Despite common knowledge, Heart actually has amazing precise aim with things. Even without trying he seems to always have a general sense at what he's aiming for. Guns however are specifically his weakness. Its the one thing he cannot aim well with. Slingshot? A Bow? Darts? Throwing knifes? Even a frisbee? He can use mostly anything & hit the mark shockingly well. As long as it isnt any type of gun [including dart guns], hes got great accuracy.

[callixton]

i think the thing to understand abt martha jones is that even after she leaves she is five seconds away from dropping everything and traveling with the doctor at any given time. bc that itch to blow everything up and damn her personal duty to hell in search of a higher call never leaves her. but martha is smart. and rational. and has spent a long fucking time needing to keep herself safe. (bc he comes when she calls but never before.) and so she has gotten very good at keeping herself on the right side of those five seconds. but i do think if ten was a different person (if he could acknowledge how much he needed her instead of just how much he liked her) (if he didn’t feel this righteous martyrdom when it comes to being left alone) (if he cared enough about her to beg. if he cared enough about himself.) i think that her answer no would come crumbling down pretty quickly is all.

[tacagen]

one of the things that fascinate me about thawne: yes, he CAN be normal with kids! surprisingly normal!

((not at all times, though. his mental illness still spills through and as usual he, in trying to manipulate or hurt others, spits out at them the exact stuff that would hurt him (or have in his childhood/barry's rejection interpretation) the most in the first place lmao))

but at the same time. his like second instinct when doing his bullshit is FUCK THEM (as) KIDS

(and, well. whatever this classifies as)

[biblically-accurate-dca]

it's your/our/my special day!

[smoosnoom]

(tturing)

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[aroanthy]

i love how fraught and complicated discourse around various utena characters ‘dying’ is when anthy is literally stabbed to death eternally by a million swords imbued with human hatred. and then utena gets stabbed to death by them also. like. ‘death’ is incredibly interesting in rgu because most of the time it’s this ambiguous figurative thing that has interesting implications re: ohtori as a closed-off world one can escape. we are all trapped in our coffins. mamiya is the only named character with a grave. nemuro memorial hall functions as one all the same. ruka is implied to have died in the hospital— was he dead all along? who was the boy we saw for these two episodes? is this dead boy the same boy, or is this just another coincidence from the shadow girls, cutting like a knife? it’s heavily implied that akio and anthy murder kanae by poisoning her, adding to the previous implication that they were poisoning mr ohtori too, but there are no perceptible consequences of this. kanae’s absence is not felt. she’s fed an apple slice. what happens to the bodies? we know what happened to the 100 boys, but what about everyone else? and so on and so forth. ‘death’ is a tricky thing in utena, i think it’s constantly functioning on figurative and literal levels in very different ways for very different purposes. dios died. dios was dying. dios didn’t die. he grew up. etc etc

[tsukasalover]

I can think of a lot of reasons why I like and have gotten attached to tsukasa more than any other fictional character and i think if i had to keep it simple (or else id be rambling for hours) id say

1. He’s so interesting. I usually pick up the extremely mischaracterized blonde characters anyways but he gets my brain working real hard. its almost 2am and i cant think straight but theres something about his duality that keeps me glued to him and the amount of Layers he has and how removing even one layer or completely ignoring how both his huge ego and kindness + selflessness coexist can really mess up your perception of him. There was something quite short i wrote about how both sides make him. Well. Him. back when his colofes dropped since i was so annoyed at the people Not getting it (while most never even read the STORIES 😁) anf ive been screaming this for a year now Please. Also the way his dream and being a good big brother go hand in hand have captured me. I really like fictional siblings and they fill something personal i miss and Looove looking at the roots of characters. Discovering where this and that and connecting events to what started their behaviors or helped their personality bloom. So seeing saki and toya play such an important role in his life keeps me HOOOKEDDD. I took the bait like tiny fish. Dont regret it. Never will. I like my fictional characters like layered cake. Thats basically how i see them. I had a yummy chocolate cake with so mant layers the other day 🤤 but anyways. I also really like when characters have to learn and grow as people after making really bad mistakes or being straight up assholes so it really took a while even after mainstory but once i got to see more of him with saki and read dazzling i was like. This is the guyyy. Youre mine now lets go. I dont like perfect characters but.. you see.. when characters who have (sometimes way too much) confidence and are dramatic yet are shown to truly be good people who enjoy making others happy… alright.. now im listening… Sign me up…

But really he has almost everything I’ve ever looked for in a character. Starting with the fact that he’s a theatre kid. And blonde. Of course emu nene and rui + more fictional characters have made their way into my heart and ive gotten attached to them on very Very personal levels but when it comes to this Idiot who wants to be a star and reminds me of a dog its something that i dont even know how to explain sometimes. Why is he here? What are you doing inside of my head. Ill never have one solid answer because he takes up too much space in my mind and i become incoherent too often when talking about him.

2. Ignoring my first answer, He is ugly. My favorite punching bag. Cartoon character. Begins floating when he smells pie. I dont know anymore

3. he just like me fr (Which is terrible i dont like that)

[layraket]

The creature of the Wild!

Aka Wild, cub and champion

Creature: Red fox

Type: Predator

Position: Carries the food with him, helps with orientation

Diet: Mostly meat, honestly he can eat anything

-His paw was too much damaged that he needed something to keep it working, so now with it can collect things and use his functions (basically the sheikah slate but is his extremity)

-At first he seems to be very... Wild. He is, but also is very smart like every fox, even knows how to cook the meat on fire to make it so much better

-He can see with his left eye, but its very blurry

-Likes to hang out with Twilight and Time, mostly to play with Twi

-The first time he meet Four almost get a needle dunk on his paw, but now theyre in good terms

-Sometimes plays chase with Hyrule and Legend, the last one just getting into to make sure the little fairy dont get hurt

-The first time that he put the Light Charm on she almost killed him, sucking his energy from his body almost draining him completely.

-Still doesnt know abt Twi shifting into Hylian.

[right-there-ride-on]

Gyjo in the fandom

cw: light discussion of ableism

Gyjo… what am I thinking about gyjo…

I like them. I like them a lot, actually. They have paralleled narrative arcs, they complement each other nicely, the romantic subtext is incredibly obvious to the point that even the most homophobic fan you know will admit they understand why people ship it… so why do I also have a problem with it?

There’s a lot of good fanart. Hell, I’ve reblogged plenty. Maybe it’s just something that’s more pronounced in fic.

I’m trying to word this correctly. My issue with gyjo has nothing to do with the text itself. I think my problem is just how people portray it in the fandom.

Maybe it’s because it’s so popular, or maybe it’s the sheer prominence of applying ‘Character A’ and ‘Character B’ dynamics without considerable regard for the characters involved, but I feel gyjo is very prone to flanderization. I believe the intersection with how ableist people are toward Johnny (intentionally or not, subtly or not) and the old tropes these two get shoved into makes it so I have trouble enjoying fics in the fandom.

I’m not saying it’s bad to enjoy certain tropes. I’m not saying headcanons are bad either. What I am saying is that writing is hard, but if you’re going to write fanfiction please have consideration for the characters you’re writing. The arcs of these two are complex and multilayered, which is why I think they have such staying power, but I also think they also provide a good opportunity for us as writers and artists to examine our biases when it comes to the portrayal of certain groups, personality types, mental illnesses, queerness, disability, etc. and maybe come out better people for it.