#yeah there are lots of factors but I think this might be yet another reason you see so much anxiety and depression in gen y and z right now

[theambivalentagender]

WITCH ASK :)

Fuck there are so many things but, uh....

I guess the one thing I would change about the world is make it so that being unemployed isn't essentially a death sentence anymore, anywhere. That you could still have a basic standard of living and just vibe even if you're not employed.

One of my favorite comics is Spaceshipping by Alex Steacy (if you like goofy slice-of-life sci fi, and you're at least ok with porn, I highly recommend it). And I think I recall him describing his world's "boring utopia" as "the worst you could ever do is a small apartment with basic appliances, food, and free healthcare." Or something to that effect, I should try and find the actual quote.

But yeah, as someone who has been unemployed for about eight months now due to factors outside of my control (believe me, I've been working my ass off trying to find employment) this is something I'd love to just wake up one day and see.

[inbarfink]

Hello, Invader Zim Fandom! Say, have you ever found yourself thinking “hmmm.... I wonder how often Zim and Dib skip classes due to their constant misadventures and battles?” Well, whatever you did or not, I am going to do it now! Time for…

Checking Attendance for Invader Zim and Dib Membrane!

"The Nightmare Begins"

Our first major confrontation between the two leads (leaving aside some quarreling in the middle of class, but I am checking attendance - not behavior) happens explicitly right after Skool has finished. So, no class has been missed in the production of this episode. 

(I mean maybe I would ask about how long their Skoolday even is considering Miss Bitters introduces Zim, says ‘Doomed’ for a few minutes and then sends them home. But that’s, like, a common Bug with Schools in fiction. I’m going to assume that we’re not supposed to take the class/Skoolday as literally being that short.)

"Bestest Friend"

Zim takes a whole day off from Skool under the claim that he’s sick.

Zim: I'm sick. I'm not going to skool today.

Which, I mean, he said it to get Keef off his back, but then we do see he stayed in his lab all day to work on his Eyeball Machine. So yeah, here's our first missed attendance. Zim skipped a whole day of Skool right there.

"Nanozim"

Dib: Zim wasn't in class today, Gaz. Gaz: Maybe he's sick. Dib: Yeah, sick with fear!

Another whole missed day from Zim for the sake of his scheme!

"Parent Teacher Night"

Nothing! The entirety of this episode takes place either during Skool, explicitly after Skool or during a Skool-sectioned Afterskool event. 

"Walk of Doom"

Now this is where things really get interesting. Because Zim certainly spent like a whole day on his and GIR’s little City Adventure - but also, you might want consider the possibility that this episode took place over the weekend, or even just that it starts after skool. After all, Invader Zim’s Daytime Sky doesn't change that much between the morning and the afternoon.

However, even taking these factors into account, I still think that it’s more likely that this episode does takes place during Skool Hours and is yet another example of Zim missing a full day of Skool, and that is for one reason - the background extras. 

Through all of Zim’s Urban Misadventure, the City seems to be populated entirely by adults + one baby we saw on the Bus. No Skool-aged youngsters anywhere in sight.

And, maybe that’s a weird thing to get hung up on, but usually IZ Crowd Scenes do include a mixture of kids and adults… including some scenes in that very episode, but only after the transition into night. When Skool would obviously be already over.

Thus, I think it’s most logical to conclude that Zim, for some reason, decided to do this lil excursion in the middle of a Skoolday. Couldn’t wait for the weekend or even just the afternoon for some reason. He got a bee in his bonnet about the Guidance Chip and he had to do it at that very moment!! 

(But I am going to cut him a little slack with the ending. Cause, like, obviously he’s been driving for like a whole night and it’s going to take him some time to get back home… but for the sake of Being Nice I am going to assume this episode takes place on a Friday and he's got the whole weekend to find his way back home and so he only missed one day of Skool. After all, isn’t this what ‘Invader Zim’ is all about? Being nice?)

(This is a rhetorical question and the answer is no.)

"Germs"

As Zim himself states, he did miss a day of Skool due to his obsession with Germs.

Zim: The skool! The skool will know I've been missing! They must be really suspicious by now!

I wondered if that was actually more than one day, but we only see one transition to night near the end of the episode. 

Most likely this entire episode takes place over the course of a single day - Zim watched that movie very early in the morning before getting to Skool (he doesn’t sleep so he’s got a lot more free time in a day) and then got so Germ-Obsessed for that one day that he forgot about that.

And thanks (?) to the workaround at the end, we can be sure this time he only missed one single day of Skool.

"Dark Harvest"

So all of this episode takes place in the Skool, but mostly outside of the classroom. With Zim leaving early on after a lesson started, then Dib going after him a short while later and this whole …. Adventure lasted enough to get to Lunch Break and also probably the climax lasted a bit after it and into the next lesson period (considering how empty the Skool Hallways seem at that point.

However, this speculation is kinda moot since both Zim and Dib were both out there with Hall-Passes officially ‘just trying to get to the nurse’, so I am just not going to count it as skipping class at all. They had permission. 

"Attack of the Saucer Morons"

Okay, so… this episode starts at night, but by the time Zim gets to the Saucer Morons it’s already Daytime. But since Zim was very adamant about getting his Voot back ASAP, I am going to assume this is taking place Very Early in the Morning. It just takes a while for Zim to get back home from the crash site and then back again without the Cruiser, but it’s still probably like… before Skool starts. 5AM-6AM or something like that? You know, the excitement of an Alien Spaceship is going to encourage a lot of people to wake up early.

It’s not entirely clear how long the events of the episode lasted in-universe. There’s a few ‘skips’, like, how long did Zim’s initiation take? How long did it take GIR to get the Government Man robot ready? How long did it take the Saucer Morons to make that lil’ set-up for Zim?

But, Fastforwards to the climatic chase scene at the end of the episode, and we can see Zim has zoomed by a Skoolbus. Now, this might be a Bus taking kids back from Skool, or taking the kids to Skool. Either the implication here is that Zim has wasted a whole skoolday and it’s already the afternoon - or it’s still early in the morning and Skool is just about to start. And… since it’s just down to my gut feelings, I am going to say the second one. I think all of the little-time skips during the episode still don’t amount to more than like, an hour or two. So it being just before Skool starts seems reasonable to me. 

But, well, even for the sake of being nice to Zim…

I am going to assume that murdering all of these scientists (or however he got himself out of that jam) and getting back home to retrieve a new disguise will take like… A Considerable Amount of Time. And Skool was basically just about to start. So… I think that I’m going to mark it as Zim missing at least one class and getting to Skool late. 

"The Wettening"

This episode actually puts a lot of attention into making sure all of Zim and Dib’s confrontations take place after Skool hours and that all the time they spend at home planning is happening during the weekend. This episode is mostly useful for explicitly establishing that Skool is operating with a two-day Saturday-Sunday weekend. 

Now, I was wondering if I should count Zim as ‘skipping class’ for, y’know - not actually showing up to Skool on Monday and basically going straight home to drown to death in the toilet right after he won that water-balloon fight. But since the entire damn Skool was reduced to a ruin by Zim’s victory - I think it’s safe to say that Skool is canceled regardless. So that shouldn't count.

(Remember kids! If you wanna skip school, you should just blow it up with a giant Space Water Balloon first and then it’s okay!)

"Career Day"

The entire events of that episode were a Skool-sanctioned activity, so nothing really to report.

"Battle-Dib"

With the 8PM ticking clock, Doctor Membrane having a clearly very kid-oriented edutainment show that he’s apparently recording live, and all the other ordinary kids trying out for the audience… I think it’s pretty safe to say this whole episode takes place after skool.

"Planet Jackers"

Whole episode takes place at night, nothing for us to concern ourselves about.

"Rise of the Zitboy"

Okay, so this episode starts at daytime, with both Zim and Dib very clearly not at Skool - and usually that would be enough for me to assume this episode starts in the afternoon, but…

After Zim gains the Power of Pustulio, he seemingly immediately goes to Skool to test it out. There’s no reason to assume this is like, a whole night later. Zim’s only thought was about hypnotizing Dib and he knows where his house is. If it were the afternoon, wouldn't he just go to the Membrane household rather than wait for the next Skool Day? So this episode actually starts very early in the morning. 

And, like, either way it seems like this is happening very early in the morning and has no real effect on their Skool attendence and I shouldn’t dwell on it too much for this post but… I guess it still kinda surprises me that Dib got up bright and early just to do this shit like an hour before skool starts.

Most of the episode seems to take place before the first period of the day even starts, so the only actually relevant part to our discussion is the very last line from Zim.

Zim: Bye Dib, and thanks for the information! I've got a few more lawn gnomes to plant!

So Zim is going to skip away before Skool starts to take care of the security problems in his Gnome Field right away. So… he’s probably going to miss at least one class, if he’s even coming back. 

"Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain"

Episode takes place entirely at night, not relevant to our discussion. I am not going to consider the ‘One Year Later’ gag as canon, because, like…. come on. 

"Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy"

As the episode starts with a broadcast of Professor Membrane’s show (which as we have already established, is very kids-oriented, highly-rated and seems to be airing live), it’s a pretty safe bet that the whole events of this episode is taking place in the afternoon, so no Skool-Problems here!

"A Room With a Moose"

So, I am not going to knock Dib any points for leaving mid-class on something that wasn’t really a Skool trip. I mean… everyone thought it was a Skool trip, including the other students and their teacher. I assume either Zim took care of the paperwork while he was sneaking around setting up his plan or there was never any paperwork in the first place because it’s the IZ Earth and No One Cares.

Now about Zim… he has technically not skipped class in the sense that he was doing all of this under the guise of being in the toilet, but… Like, in his second round in the Restroom, he actually just never came back until… well, probably the next Skool day, considering it was nighttime at the end of the episode. Even with how apathetic Miss Bitters is… I assume she can conceive of the idea of a student trying to get out of Skool under the excuse of being in the bathroom, even if she doesn’t know/care about the Alien Teleporter Device.

So I am counting this as just a half day of skipping school for Zim. 

"Hamstergeddon"

Okay, so this was actually the episode that inspired me to make this post, and the reason why I conceived of it as a “Zim and Dib Skipping School” list even though, as you have seen so far… Dib has a pretty spotless attendance record so far. I just saw both Zim and Dib piss off from Skool mid-lesson to follow the Hamster Kaiju and started to wonder ‘hmmm… how often does this happen?”

And since we never see Ultra Peepi, like, outright entirely destroy the Skool - I don’t think the day would be canceled like it probably was in “The Wettning” (if it was, I’d assume we’d see more students running out and not just Zim and Dib). And I assume Dib would notice the Growing Peepi Problem near the start of the day, so they both missed about a full day of Skool just then.

"Plague of Babies"

Takes place entirely during one night, not relevant here. 

"Bloaty's Pizza Hog"

Explicitly takes place during the late afternoon/evening. 

"Door to Door"

Another Skool-Sanctioned activity similar to ‘Career Day’

"FBI Warning of Doom"

Takes place during the evening/night. 

"Bolognius Maximus"

After Zim reveals there is no cure to the Bolognafication, Dib runs out of the classroom screaming. This transition into a whole Zim Fantasy Sequence where he’s Gigantic and stuff. But it does seem like the whole ‘Dib being run out of Skool midway through the Skoolday’ did happen. Since they only re-meet after Zim is going back home from Skool. 

So that’s the first time Dib loses attendance (basically an entire day, since he didn’t even last one whole lesson) but not Zim. (But Dib still has a lot of ‘catching up’ to do).

(This episode also establishes that Dib is often late to Skool due to his various paranormal misadventures. Reliably enough for Zim to incorporate it into his Vengeance. However, that’s not entirely relevant since I’m only counting attendance in this post and not tardiness. But I thought I might as well acknowledge it.)

"Game Slave 2"

Episode takes place entirely at night, not relevant.

"Battle of the Planets"

Same as above.

"Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom"

So I am not going to count Dib being forcibly institutionalized by Skool administration as ‘skipping classes’, obviously. 

However, while Dib was being dragged off to the Crazy House, Zim used the chaos to ‘escape’ this Skool full of ‘Zombies’ and ready his base for tonight. Next time we see Zim, it’s nighttime and he is still readying his base. And even with Dib being late, it still seems like the episode started early in the first period. So Zim is skipping another full day of Skool basically. 

"Mysterious Mysteries"

From the events of the episode, it seems like ‘Mysterious Mysteries’ airs live (or at least semi-live, in regards to the interviewed segments). We already know that it airs in the evenings because that’s always when we see Dib watch it. Even if it didn’t actually air live, they would probably schedule their interviews to afterskool hours when they have three elementary-skoolers to interview. 

"Future Dib"

Episode starts at a Skool-Assembly, and then move to later that day in the afternoon/early evening (Membrane says ‘tonight’, but the sky is always daylight-yellow, so it seems to be later that day after Skoolhour, it’s just that the sun hasn’t quite set yet.) Either way, neither Zim nor Dib actually seem to skip class on that one. 

"Hobo 13"

With this being an entirely Space-Based Episode, we have basically No Data on what Earth Time this episode takes place. Zim does generally seem to call the Tallests just after Skool or during the night, so I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one and not count it.

"Walk For Your Lives"

While I have no doubt in my mind that Zim would skip Skool for the sake of Probing Day and maaaybe Dib would too for the sake of catching Zim by surprise, well…

So remember way way back during ‘Walk of Doom’ when I talked about background extras? Well, I’m doing this again but in the other direction this time!

Because all the city scenes in this episode do actually feature both child and adult extras (including literally some of Zim and Dib’s classmates).

So I think it’s most likely to assume this episode takes place just after Skool hours. Or perhaps the weekend. 

"Megadoomer"

Starts right after Zim gets home from Skool, and lasts through the night. Not relevant.

"Lice"

Takes place entirely at Skool and also classes are canceled due to Lice Quarantine. I don’t really count any of the Nonsense in this episode as ‘skipping class’, it’s fine.

"Abducted"

We don’t have any details about when the episode takes place outside of ‘the daytime’, but again, Zim generally ‘updates’ the Tallest after Skool so I am going to assume this applies here. Plus, we also see Dib and Gaz at home by the end and they generally don’t skip Skool - so yeah, more evidence for this being the afternoon. 

"The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot"

Episode explicitly takes place at evening/night, not relevant.

"Gir Goes Crazy and Stuff"

Episode starts at night, and ends at sunrise.

Not relevant.

(Also hey! Does this imply that we can tell that the City is on the East Coast at least?)

"Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom"

Starts at Skool and then seems to take place entirely at night - since the Wonderful Life of Doom starts with Dib sleeping in bed, I assume Dib kidnapped him and put him in the simulation while he was actually asleep.

"Tak: The Hideous New Girl"

Okay, so we had two fairly-regular Skooldays since Tak arrived on Earth.

Then, after Zim comes back from Skool the second day and Tak reveals herself, we cut to Zim’s battle against the Ham Demon. Which is also happening in the daytime. Although Zim later mentions he’s been trailing Tak for ‘48 hours’ - meaning exactly two whole days. 

And then as Zim realizes he needs Dib’s help, we cut to the Membrane house at nighttime. 

So… was that battle taking place in the afternoon/early evening  and it’s just that by the time Zim got to the Membranes the sun had already set? That seems to be the case from the establishing shot. But then Dib yawns and rubs his eyes as if he just woke up and Professor Membrane says ‘good morning’. 

I mean… with how often Dib seems to stay up late and wake up extremely early, maybe he takes a lot of afternoon-evening naps?

Or perhaps this suggests this establishing shot might’ve been just an art error? The little we see of the indoor backdrops are also kinda inconsistent about the Color of the Sky.

First seeming to indicate daytime.

And then… nighttime? Nighttime with sunset? Nighttime with sunrise?

Then nighttime again?

And then, the whole Giant Evil Weenie Stand sequence is at daytime again.

And it only becomes night again by the climax.

And with Zim’s ‘48 hours’ comment placing the Ham Demon fight at the early afternoon (it should be 48 hours after the Tak confrontation, which happened just after Zim got home from Skool) our scenarios are either: 

Zim battles the Ham Demon, then almost immediately Zim confronts Dib after his afternoon nap (and the Color of the Sky around the Membrane household is just Consistently an Art Error. It should be daytime). And the rest of the events of the episode take place on that same day’s late afternoon/evening. 

Zim battles the Ham Demon, then a few hours later Zim confronts Dib after his early evening nap (the Color of the Sky around the Membrane household is not an art error...for the most part. The sun has set already). Then the rest of the events of the episode take place over the next day.

Zim battles the Ham Demon, then the next morning Zim confronts Dib when he wakes up (the Color of the Sky might be a major art error, or it might be a failed attempt at conveying sunrise, or both). Then the rest of the events of the episode take place during that day.

And when considering which one seems to me the most likely, I took three different factors into consideration.

I wanna minimize just dismissing things as art/continuity errors. I want to be as canon-compliant as I possibly can.

The plot needs to maintain its sense of urgency. Having too many Big Timeskips where the characters just kinda don’t do anything significantly hurts the narrative. ‘

The possibility of skipped skool days which is… hey! Is actually what this post is supposed to be about!

Okay, so to elaborate on Point C: Scenario 1 has Zim spend like two full Skooldays’ worth of time on tracking Tak down and then he and Dib and Gaz stop her together during afterskool hours. Scenario 2 + 3 has Zim spend two skooldays, and then the three of them spend the day after that stopping Tak. And.. it’s not just a matter of considering Zim skipping two days versus three days and Dib and Gaz skipping one day versus zero days. Because also the weekend exists.

I actually think it’s incredibly likely that the Tak Reveal is supposed to take place on a Friday, and Zim tracked Tak over the weekend (so the ending of the Ham Demon sequence is on Sunday afternoon).

Especially as Dib apparently didn’t notice Zim either stalking Tak during Skool or just vanishing from Skool altogether due to the Ham Demon Situation. Like, considering how paranoid he is about Zim normally, you’d think he’d take notice and try and figure out if he is up to anything. Especially if it involved the girl he saw as an ally and friend. But it seemed like he was not bothered by anything or noticed anything Zim was doing in the meantime. Which I think only makes sense if Zim was ‘investigating’ Tak during the weekend. 

So in Scenario 1 that would mean the climax of the episode took place during Sunday afternoon/evening. And Scenario 2 + 3 would mean that those events take place during Monday, and thus all of our main trio is either skipping skool or waiting until skool is done to go on their Earth-Saving-Missions.

And the latter is both unlikely because it wrecks the sense of Urgency in the plot and because… like… did Zim and Dib just go to Skool and Angrily Glared at each other until it was done? It really just kinda ruins the dramatic pacing if Zim and Dib meet between the scene at the Membrane Household and the Weenie Stand. So going to Skool on Monday and then doing the Evil Weenie Investigation afterwards seems unlikely to me.

And as for the former scenario… like, as you’ve noticed. Dib very very rarely skips Skool of his own volition. And Gaz never does. Honestly I don’t think it’s in-character for her. Not cause she’s a goody-two-shoes who would never skip class or anything like that. Just because she never takes all of this Alien Stuff seriously enough to consider it a worthwhile reason to skipping classes. And no, neither is getting her brother beat up by security - even if she does enjoy the latter a lot more. 

I guess maybe just Zim could’ve been skipping Skool that Monday morning to do some more failed ‘investigative work’ before he actually realized the Evil Weenie Stand was important. While Dib and Gaz just attended classes like Normal and investigated the Weenies afterwards.

But then, like, did Tak go to Skool? She cares so much about showing off her ability to Actually Competently Infiltrate Humanity, and it seems most of the Evil Weenie Stand Construction is happening automatically… so I kinda assume she would go to Skool on that Monday? So with both Dib and Tak at class that day and Zim not being… that would be another Hypothetical Dramatic Scenario that is just Inexplicably Off Screen in the narrative.

You know like…. Maybe not Dib confronting Tak about Zim’s accusations if he truly doesn’t believe them at that point, but trying to warn her that Zim is deluded about her and out to get her? I just don’t believe any Skoolday after Zim and Dib's confrontation at Dib’s house could be uneventful enough so that we could just skip over it completely like that. 

So, I really really tried to get a scenario where I don’t resort to the Art Error Clause but… I think the only timeline that makes real sense in terms of narrative and characterization is Scenario 1. So most of the events of the climax of “Tak: the Hideous New Girl” probably take place over Sunday afternoon and thus neither Zim nor Dib actually skipped classes. Zim just had a very very busy weekend. 

"Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars"

Takes place entirely during the night/evening, irrelevant.

"Mortos Der Soul Stealer"

Same as above.

"Zim Eats Waffles"

Okay, so, there’s nothing in the text of the episode that explicitly says it but… since this episode centers around Zim eating waffles and reading the newspaper

I always kinda assumed it was taking place in the morning. And probably, like Saturday/Sunday morning.

This would also explain why Dib immediately goes to sleep at the end of the episode even though it’s the same ‘daytime’ sky-color outside.

 He woke up early for this - but now that his plan has failed so thoroughly, well… It's still the weekend and now he’s going to sleep in for a while. He probably needs it.

"The Girl Who Cried Gnome"

Well, presumably Moofy and the other Girly Rangers don’t go selling cookies during normal Skool hours. So this episode either takes place after skool hours or also over the weekend. The amount of kid extras in the scene also supports that idea. 

Of course, with the episode ending with Dib being tormented until nightfall, there’s a reasonable chance he won’t make it to Skool on the next day… but I’m going to be nice and assume he managed to get himself free, like, at 3AM or something. So he’s fine, just incredibly sleep-deprived and traumatized. So par for the course, really.

"Dibship Rising"

So, Dibship tries to go to school as Dib, and it seems like it could’ve worked

Poonchy: Hey! Dib's bein' all weird and giant again!

But, well for starters, Dibship only managed to get to Skool by the time for lunch break. I guess he’s really just figuring out how to walk and he’s pretty slow and heavy… So yeah, it might take him a While to get to Skool.  Then once he is at Skool, Zim almost immediately takes him over and starts up his Evil Scheme. 

It’s unclear how long it takes until Dib actually wakes up (hey, remember what I said about him being probably very sleep deprived?), but since Dib’s concern is about being late, I assume the skoolday is not yet over. And when he meets up with Dibship again…

Yeah, it actually took me a bit to notice it, but the scene is directed as to always obscure the top of the ship’s cockpit. AKA where Zim is. I thought at first that maybe he sent the ship out on its own and jumped onto it when it was passing through the Skool. But with that little trick of angles and the stick in Zim’s wig and GIR scattering acorns everywhere… yeah he was clearly on it the whole time.

So Dib missed about a whole day of Skool, spending the reminder of that day trapped just over the cesspool listening to the dying Dibship talk about how much of a loser they are. 

Zim got about… half a skoolday done before skipping out for, as Dib pointed out, no real reason other then endangering himself. And I’m pretty sure he, like, died at the end of the episode. So he’s probably not making it back to Skool either. 

"Vindicated!"

The events of this episode start during Skool and then explicitly continue after Skool, not relevant. 

"The Voting of the Doomed"

Takes place entirely at Skool doing Skool stuff, not relevant.

"Gaz, Taster of Pork"

Well, I am not actively counting Gaz’s absences for this post, so I don’t need to worry about, like, the multiple weeks that her dad kept her isolated in his lab (and even so, I don’t think being forcibly being pulled out of the education system by your parents count as ‘skipping skool’?) As for Dib, most of his ‘research’ we’ve seen happen either in Skool

Or at nighttime and thus explicitly after Skool.

The daring breakout from Membrane Lab does happen in the daytime - the day after Dib’s Hobo Encounter at MacMeaties. The question is just if Dib decided to wait until after Skool to get the information out to Gaz or if he broke her out ASAP skool be damned. (And it can’t be the weekend this time, “this Friday” is our explicit Ticking Clock). But since the sun had already set by the time they finished with their chase scene… Honestly, yeah my guess is he decided to procrastinate by waiting after Skool to break her out lol.

So Dib has had another Very Long Night, but he probably didn't skip skool (and since the episode ends on Friday, he technically has two whole days to finish Cleaning the Pig Toilets and still make it back in time for Monday! Fun!)

"The Frycook What Came From All That Space"

So Zim gets kidnapped from Skool at the very start of the episode and , according to Sizz-Lorr, a week before the Foodening starts

Sizz-Lorr: YES!! And that's not all, Zim! In one week, the Foodening begins once more, and you'll be trapped here for 20 years, just like I was!

And Zim manages to get off the planet at the very last second before the Foodening trapped him there.

And we know there’s no ‘time warp’ in place cause Dib did notice Zim was gone for three days about halfway through the episode.

Dib: Um, I noticed Zim's been gone for three days. Do you know where he is?

So, yeah, Zim was absent from Skool for a week.

(I am… going to assume Dib did not spend like 72-96 hours non-stop annoying the Tallest. But rather he went back and to Zim’s house whenever he had the chance so I am not counting absences for him.) 

"The Most Horrible X-mas Ever"

Takes place over Winter Break and thus is irrelevant.

In total, Zim has confirmed 12 missed full days of Skool + about two times where probably just skipped the first period. Dib has three missed days of Skool. So, like Zim might need to repeat the sixth grade if time ever Actually Moved Forwards in the IZ universe - but Dib is pretty in the clear I think.

Really, what I find really interesting, more than just the obvious difference between Zim and Dib’s tendency to skip skool is the difference between the earlier and later episodes. Like, not counting the five days Zim picked up at the second-to-last episode (which were very much outside of his control)…  Zim picked up 4/7 missed days in just the first eight episodes! And after that they are far less frequent. Perhaps the writers deliberately tried to take care to not overuse the whole skipping skool thing too much? Or maybe from an in-universe perspective it just took Zim a few weeks to really wrap his head around how the skool schedule thing even works? 

[linkspooky]

Do you think that Batman could empathize with Tomura and successfully reach out? They are both orphans with a dark side. The difference being is that Bruce was able to work through his darkness to be healthy(er) while Tomura had all his pain cultivated for 15-16 years.

Yes. 100% yes. That’s not even a question for me. I’ve been dying for someone to send me a question like this, because it’s something I’ve noticed in the general fandom response to the pro-heroes and the hero kids. The thing is, the heroes in My Hero Academia don’t really act like good wholesome heroes. They certainly act like marvel movie heroes... in the fact that they have strong superheroes and fight a bad guy and have such a clear delineation between good and evil that many viewers take them to have propagandistic qualities. Like, there’s a reason that marvel movies have degraded to what they are today currently, and besides all the other factors it’s because these comic book heroes are really getting sanded down into a set of superpowers, a costume and a bad guy to beat with no ideals or themes behind their characters. My Hero Academia heroes aren’t really that heroic, they don’t really have any ideals they stand for except the extremely vague notion of defeat the bad guy. Yeah, Deku has “Save people” but Deku is noted several times to be an oddity among heroes. 

The Pro-Heroes and the Hero Kids in My Hero Academia have this weird paradox to them where the story itself, and also in world hero propaganda sells the idea that heroes are incredibly wholesome, always selfless, people who go above and beyond to save and protect. Yet, the heroes in MHA are actually extremely cynical, and pragmatic, and they also really have no guiding principals beyond “Might makes Right.”

You can put all heroes on the scale of Spiderman <---------> Punisher. 

To define them by whether they are a superhero focused on saving innocents, or a violent vigilante who is focused on punishing the guilty, the heroes in MHA are far more on the punisher scale of things than anyone either in setting or the fandom would like to admit. This is a universe where heroes like Hawks and Lady Nagant regularly commit state sponsored executions. This is a setting where Enji Todoroki is revealed to be a heinous abuser of his family and everyone in the superhero community is like... fine with it for the most part. They either don’t bring it up, or they think Enji does such a good job it justifies his position. 

I mean, here to justify my accusation that heroes in MHA are far more on the punisher side of the scale. To compare to another manga, Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia have a similiar circumstance where a villain, Mahito and Dr. Garaki respectively are able to transform unwilling victims into mindless attack dogs by twisting their bodies into unseemly and horrifying shapes. Mahito’s altered humans, and Dr. Garaki’s nomus respectively seem to retain some sense of humanity and are in a state of pain. Nanami Kento, Shoko and Yuji all come to the harsh reality that there is nothing they can really do for the humans that Mahito has twisted, except for a swift mercy killing, and yet a lot of time is still given to the fact that killing something that is a human being is wrong and a heavy task even though it’s their only option, and two that the decision to kill someone is an extremely heavy burden to bear not made lightly. Nanami straight up loses all focus in a fight, and stops to wipe the tear of a former human when he realizes what they are fighting against. 

Compare this to the way every hero responds to the Nomus in My Hero Academia. Enji without knowing whether or not they are truly sentient or even capable of being turned back into what they were, roasts one alive right away it’s his first action with them. Enji then later on meets a Nomu who is capable of intelligence and communication, and roasts it alive even harder specifically because the way the Nomu Acts, reminds Enji of a darker part of himself, and killing that enemy is perfectly satisfying to Enji because it allowed him to take out those personal frustrations. When Mirko learns that the Nomu are former human bsings she has no hesitation at all at bashing their brains in, in fact she’s almost delighted because she doesn’t have to hold back and that makes it easier than fighting regular villains. If the enemy is sufficiently dehumanized than heroes in my Hero Academia very easily resort to murderous methods, and it’s not just heroes like Enji, Mirko does it, heck Present Mic expresses the sentiment that Oboro would be better off dead then continuing his existence as Kurogiri. 

The heroes in My Hero Academia are dark, almost myopic. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy them, but they are very different from the way heroes act in western comic books and I think a lot of people don’t know this because a lot of manga fans don’t really pick up comic books, and their biggest experience with western heroes therefore comes from movies. 

So when I say BATMAN WOULD NEVER dehumanize a villain to the extent the My Hero Academia heroes do on a regular basis, I’m not saying that as a batman fan, I am saying that because Batman is probably THE MOST IDEALISTIC DC HERO. Yes, even moreso than superman. Batman is Clark’s hero. His inspiration. His good time boy. 

Bruce would have noticed there was something off about Tomura right away in the early stages, if not the very first attack he waged on UA. I’m going to use two examples to prove my argument, one the fact that heroes also noticed that Shigaraki was extremely mentally unwell and just decided not to really care about it, and two Batman was actually faced with an extremely similiar situation in BTAS and his reaction is pretty much the opposite of All Might’s. 

1. There’s Something Wrong with That Kid

To those who were paying attention to Shigaraki’s character from the beginning, even before we got to dig further into his backstory in My Villain Academia arc, or even be shown a more sympathetic and human side to his personality in the Overhaul arc, from his introduction Shigaraki shows signs of extreme mental distress. He is constantly exocriating himself, which is a form of self-harm that manifests under circustmances of extreme psychological stress. Shigaraki has a full on skin disorder that many people have because he is so poor at managing his stress he relentlessly picks and scratches at himself. 

When he starts to lose in the middle of the fight, he essentially throws a tantrum, and not only does he immediately want to give up and go home, but he also lashes out at his own ally to try to vent that anger. 

When All Might removes the hand from his face he has a momentary break from reality, and talks to the hand a physical object like it’s a person calling it “father” and apologizing to it. 

Shigaraki also shows a clear grudge against both heroes, the failure of heroes, and the violence that heroes show (no kidding he’s a victim of violent abuse and the cycle of abuse in his family has an origin in his grandmother’s complete and total failure as a mother) that he clearly states in front of All Might once, and then Deku later the idea that heroes do not save people with their violence, and the implication that there are people that All Might have not saved and both times he is essentially brushed off by both of them. 

Shigaraki’s mental distress is so obvious that even the heroes of My Hero Academia, who’s general response to villains is lock them up and throw away the key, noticed it. The heroes notice several of the symptoms I listed above about Shigaraki, but then decide to dismiss him as a man-child and then go on to say that he represents a kind of “pure evil” that villains may find attractive. The enertain the idea for like half a second that there might be more to Shigaraki that makes him different from the regular street villains heroes usually fight, and then they just dismiss the thought. Once again a common theme, the second All Might realizes he is Nana’s grandson he wants to go after Shigaraki to attempt to find him and reason with him only for once again Gran Torino to dismiss him as the kind of villain who’s beyond redemption and All Might to immediately give up on trying any other tactic than beating him down. 

Now why do I say Batman would have immediately gone after Shigaraki and tried to reason with him and get him the help he needs? Do I have proof of him acting similarly? Batman in fact, comes across a similiar enough situation in one of the most famous episodes of Batman the Animated Series. 

2. Man-Child meet Woman Child 

Baby-Doll Batman the Animated Series season 3, episode 4 is one of the most popular episodes, and it shows most clearly the way Bruce’s brand of heroics is ultimately based on saving and empathy for his villains rather than just putting them down for the greater good. I could have gone with a lot of batman villains with much more clear and tragic origins, Mr. Freeze isn’t even trying to achieve anything villainous he wants to save his wife. Two-Face started out as not only Batman’s best friend, but a good guy and an ally of justice who was driven to insanity by a horrifying and sudden tragedy. Harley Quinn is a victim of grooming and abuse similiar to Shigaraki who has her entire sense of self warped and controlled by an abusive narcissist who quite literally turns her into a crude relfection of himself, to act as a pawn in his own evil schemes. I could use a lot of batman villains, but no Baby Doll, we’re going with Baby-Doll. 

Mary Dahl is a washed up child actress with a physical condition that prevents her from growing up past a child, she’s sort of like Claudia from Interview with a Vampire, an adult mind inside a child’s body. Not only will she always be treated and regarded as a child for her physical appearance, due to her child as a former child star who’s show was cancelled and had no success in acting when she tried to do anything outside of playing the cutsey and innocent “baby-doll” on the sitcom “Love that Baby” she has ended up emotionally stunted and stuck in the past. 

Mary Dahl’s fall to villainry is a bit less tragic than Shigaraki’s, she wasn’t like kidnapped and groomed since childhood by a villainous mastermind and turned into his own pet “make your own supervillain” project. She’s not getting work, but she’s not poor or destitute, there are former child stars who lose out on their childhoods and have no money to show for it, but she seems to have enough money to at least have an extremely competent agent and money to blow on her elaborate schemes. Her backstory is not nearly as tragic as Shigaraki’s, yet she shows several symptoms in common with Shigaraki, being a former child star like many child stars she shows severe dysfunction as an adult because it ate up her entire childhood. Child labor is bad people. Children who are not given room to grow up and develop as kids, have problems late into their adulthood.

She is also someone who feels rejected and left behind by society as a whole, it’s clear her only way of connecting to other people was the attention she received as a child star and the connections she had with cast members. She also experiences severe body dysmorphia I would say on level with Shigaraki’s, Shigaraki’s body dysmporphia is so bad he constantly picks at his own skin, his quirk soemtimes even causes physical damage to him and he feels extreme nausea at a near constant basis b/c of his emotional unrest. Baby-Doll literally experiences a same incompatability with her body, she has an adult mind, she craves to be a fully grown normal body, and a lot of her mental breaks from reality seem to come from how easily people mistake her for and treat her like a child. 

Mary Dahl also shows severe dysfunction when it comes to regulating her own emotions. As tragic as Mary Dahl’s fall from fame is, and as much as it mirrors what happens to a lot of child stars in reality, Mary Dahl kind of also dug her own grave by her actions. Everyone on the cast thought she was notoriously difficult to work with, her show wasn’t cancelled on her, she left because the directors added in a new character she didn’t like and took attention away from her because of plummeting ratings. She left the show to try to take a more serious turn as an actor, once again to get attention and because she was on an ego-trip, then tried to get the show running again when it didn’t work for her but by that point it was too late. She’s also someone who just does not treat people well, she’s manipulative, she never engages people as her true self Baby-Doll is a role she is essentially playing, to both allow herself to violently lash out, but also to evade any responsibility for her own actions. It’s also ambiguous how much of the Baby-Doll persona is a genuine psychotic break (I don’t use the word psychotic lightly, I’m also not saying LOL look at her she’s so crazy, but there are genuine moments where Mary seems to mistake what happened on her TV show for reality which indicates that she’s not just trying to reclaim her former glory, that she is full on having delusions) there are also moments where “Baby-Doll” is a deliberate act she’s putting on, and Mary seems aware of what she is doing. 

Mary Dahl is at the same time, delusional enough to believe she can kidnap everyone on her former show, and force them to just pretend to be the characters they were on her show, and playing dollhouse with this pretend family will somehow fix her problems. She is also, lucid enough to carefully plot and execute the kidnapping of several people, control a minion in her agent, and then evade capture from Batman several times. She is both a victim (she’s genuinely mentally unwell) and a villain (but not unwell enough she’s not aware her actions are wrong, she’s deliberately hurting people she just thinks her tragedy makes her entitled to that revenge). Mary Dahl thinks the world has wronged her and left her behind, that her show being cancelled was some great injustice done to her, and something she deserves the chance to rectify, even though as I just explained in detail that Mary was equally as responsible for the cancellation of her show. She is a person not willing to take any responsibility for her actions or see fault in herself. 

You could even argue because of these quality Mary is way less sympathetic than Shigaraki, Shigaraki at least seems to have genuine critques about his society, and feels that he and the people around him have been rejected in an unjust fashion. Mary Dahl is upset her TV Show got cancelled and decided to make it everyone else’s problem. Mary Dahl’s problems are a lot more selfish, and smaller in comparison to Shigaraki’s, and yet the story itself does not downplay Mary’s distress because it is genuine to her. 

In one extent, Mary is a danger to others, but she’s also a danger to heserlf. Like I said, it’s ambiguous how much but she’s clearly a mentally unwell woman. When someone is experiencing delusions on that level it’s a brain chemistry problem, and it’s also not something where it’s fair to go “Well, she has no reason to be mentally ill, it’s not like she was beaten, she’s just having an emotional breakdown because she’s not famous anymore.” I mean, what does it matter the reason whether she’s having a breakdown is a good enough reason or not, she’s clearly in extreme distress. 

Number two, I think society as a whole tends to downplay the suffering of celebrities or child stars and make them seem like they are just entitled or spoiled for acting out, because they’re rich and famous and living a life most people would die for so who cares. But, HollyWood, the spotlight, and public scrutiny has a really bad psychological effect on people. Most people would not do well under such harsh public scrutiny all the time, and also when you make your entire personality around being a star and having the spotlight, also because in Baby Doll’s case there’s really no other career avaiable for her because of her condition then losing that is a pretty huge loss. Like, child stars who cannot either adapt to adulthood, cannot get work as adult actors, or just cannot even function as adults is a pretty common societal problem. 

On top of kidnapping people, holding them hostage, she’s also someone who clearly needs help, like Baby-Doll is not just doing these things because she’s a selfish, entitled brat throwing a tantrum because she’s not famous anymore, she’s experiencing clear mental breaks from reality where she confuses her tv show for reality, she’s mentally sick and in need of treatment. 

Baby-Doll is presented to us as a manipulative child star desperate for the spot light, endangering her cast because she herself cannot let go of the past for most of the episode, people around Bruce are pretty unsymapthetic to her, her attempts to get a more serious career is played off as a joke, the cast members do not like Baby-Doll and found her to be extremely high maintennance and difficult to work with even when she was on the show, Baby-Doll’s clearly not after the cast because of nostlagia, friendship or happy memories she has with her former cast members, but rather because she wants to pretend to be the the sitcom character who was surrounded by family who loved her. People constantly remark how crazy she is for thinking a tv show is reality. Even Robin says that he absolutely despised the “Baby-Doll” show, and it’s dismissed as kind of a cheesy sitcom with no real merit. 

However, the last five minutes turn all of that on its head. Bruce Wayne, my darling, is presented to us as a man of few words. We don’t actually see Bruce’s reaction to what Baby-Doll is doing for most of the episode, we see Dick’s who clearly thinks she’s just crazy, Bruce the whole time is focused on just resolving the incident first, finding the kidnapped people, rescuing them from Baby-Doll’s grip. So Bruce’s absolute first priority is just to stop the villain from doing the bad thing, he stops the bad behavior and makes Baby-Doll unable to hurt others. 

Bruce, the living embodiment of the term “Gap Moe”, because he is so closed off and not reacting to Baby Doll in any way, does not seem to be going out of his way to sympathize with her. That however, changes once the the threat Baby-Doll represents to others is neutralized. Baby-Doll then flees from Bruce with a Tommy Gun out into the middle of the night. The tables have turned and Baby-Doll has gone from a cackling villain, pretending often to be a scared little girl in order to manipulate people, to a genuinely scared and desperate person. Even the image Baby-Doll evokes fleeing from Bruce, is a sympathetic one, Baby-Doll despite being an adult woman still looks like a child, and acts several times like a woman-Child and she is fleeing from an adult man who picked his costume to terrify crimminals into submission. 

Baby-Doll flees into a carnival ground filled with children, she has a Tommy-Gun on her, she’s still pretty much a direct threat to others, but the way Bruce approaches her does a complete 180. Bruce is calling out after her to stop fleeing, when she disappears into a tunnel, he’s telling her to stop not because he wants to arrest her, but because she’s going to hurt herself at this point. Baby-Doll is no longer a danger to others, she’s a danger to herself because she’s scared desperate, and fleeing, and instead of pursuing her to put her down Bruce is trying to stop her from getting hurt as she flees. This is also behavior he has shown to repeat, in Harley’s Holiday he pursues Harley the whole episode not to stop her because she’s on a crime spree, but because she’s freaking out and he doesn’t want her to be sent to Arkham and lose all the progress she made in her recovery. 

Bruce pursues her into a mirror maze and this is where we get the most famous scene in the episode, Baby-Doll is still dead set on killing Bruce (this is also where Bruce shines, Baby-Doll is actively firing a gun at him and he is still calling out at her to stop because she might get hurt). 

Baby Doll fires at the mirrors over and over again, until one of the funhouse mirrors shows her what she might look like as an adult, at which point not only does Baby-Doll come to a complete stop, but she talks not in her Baby Doll voice, but as Mary-Dahl. 

Mary Dahl: Look. That’s me in there. The real me.  Mary Dahl: There I am... BUt it’s not really real, is it?  Mary Dahl: Just made up and pretend like my family, and my life and everything else.  Mary Dahl: Why couldn’t you just let me Make believe? 

She then grows angry at realizing that she is trapped on the other side of the mirror and will never exist in that adult body, she starts firing at every mirror around her trying to get batman who stalks her once again as an unspeaking shadow, until she gets impatient enough to destroy even the idealized image of herself represented in the funhouse mirror. At which point the gun itself runs out of ammo, and Mary breaks downc rying. At that point Batman could say that Mary is just throwing a tantrum, that being a washed up child star doesn’t entitle her to hurt others, he could say  that her tears aren’t even real because Mary Dahl has pretended to be a child in order to manipulate other people and merit sympathy literally this whole episode. Bruce does not do any of that. Bruce’s only action after following her this whole time, is to remove the gun from her hands so  she’s no longer capable of hurting someone, and then when she  hugs him, to return her hug and comfort her. 

Mary Dahl: I didn’t mean to... 

Because, utlimately she’s a human being who needs help. It’s not Bruce’s job to pick and choose who deserves that help, it’s his job to help people who need it. 

So yes, Bruce would have noticed right away that Shigarki wasn’t just a violent child, but a child who is clearly suffering from distress and lashing out. He wouldn’t just dismiss Shigaraki as an entitled man-child because as I’ve just demosntrated, Bruce had a situation where he frankly could have just dismissed Baby-Doll as a selfish an entitled vain womanchild and yet he didn’t do that. He saw a crying person in front of him, and he helped them, and he was even trying to help her before she started crying and asking for comfort like a more standard victim TM. Letting a child who shows clear signs of abuse like Shigaraki has go unhelped is not only out of character for Bruce, it basically is against everything he stands for as a hero. 

And if you still don’t believe me on that, here’s a quote from the director of the final installment of the popular Arkham Series, “Arkham Knight”, a game that features a character Jason Todd who was similiarly groomed over a long period of time by batman’s arch enemy into an enemy for batman to fight. 

[jajanvm-imbi]

⚠️Long Post Alert⚠️

Alright I've seen a lot of (negative) buzz around Disney's new show "Primos" so I'm gonna put my 2 cents in

According to the Primos wiki, the show is about "Tater, an eccentric 10-year-old girl with big dreams and, unbeknownst to her, a certain “it factor” that makes her exceptional. When her 12 cousins (“primos” in Spanish) move in for the summer, they help her discover just what it is. Tater’s aspirations and larger-than-life imagination are seen via entries in her super-secret diary, which turn her deepest thoughts into grandiose animation sequences."

FIRST, it's yet ANOTHER piece of children's media about the main character + their large Latin American family.

Upon doing some research apparently this show is about the creator's personal experiences, which okay valid. But when creating media that meant to represent a community it would be better to offer a DIFFERENT perspective rather than give us the same trope that has been done to DEATH.

And I'm gonna be real with yall, I LOVE Coco and Encanto, but both movies also fall under this trope. Not all Latin American families live with their extended family, we don't need ANOTHER piece of media perpetuating the stereotype.

Also, Disney has been putting out a few shows on Disney Channel and Disney Junior that are clear knock offs of Nickelodeon shows. Some examples:

And...hm....lemme think....a kids TV show about a Mexican girl and her quirky large Mexican family getting into some Mexican™️ shenanigans...where have I seen that before...?

Oh right

Yeah the premises are slightly different, but it's essentially the same trope so already right off the bat Primos feels like a knock off version of The Casagrandes.

SECOND, there are many stereotypes already present in the series just from tbe opening theme. Many of the cousins fall into stereotypes themselves, particularly the names. Some the names of the cousins are Gordita, Big Nacho, Nachito, and Cookita. I've seen people justify the use of these names by saying many Latin Americans are given these names as nicknames, which is true. But then again, having a characters named Nacho and Gordita in a show that's supposed to be about LatAm representation is just in bad taste. It's giving "Marco Diaz from Star vs. the Forces of Evil being half Mexican and being obsessed with nachos for some reason but not representing his Latino heritage in any other way other than him wearing that Day of the Dead themed costume in The Blood Moon Ball ep." It feels lazy, and of course, stereotypical.

On TOP of this, the word "Cookita" in many LatAm countries is slang for pussy and the suffix "-ita" means small. And the character with this name is the BABY. So yeah maybe naming the B A B Y character something that to many Spanish speakers means "little pussy" in a show ABOUT Spanish speaking Latin Americans probably isn't the wisest decision.

Another detail people have been pointing out leans into negative Mexican stereotypes is the use of the "yellow filter".

Now I'm gonna be real and say I'm not 100% convinced about the yellow filter being used here. The show takes place over the summer, so the use of yellow might may be used to give the feeling of how hot it is, but I can totally see why Latin Americans would find this offensive.

Also the name "Terremoto Heights" has been heavily criticized. Terremoto means "earthquake" in Spanish and the earthquakes are common in LatAm countries. Then again, show takes place in LA, where a lot of earthquakes occur too. So Im not 100% convinced that this is flat out racist either, but it's definitely in poor taste.

THIRD, the thing that is being SLAMMED at the most, is the improper Spanish grammar and the creator's response to people pointing it out.

In the theme song, the phrase "¡Oye! Primos" is used a lot, which means "Hey cousins!" The issue with this phrase is that "Oye" means hey but in the singular tense, and "Primos" is plural. If you plug in "¡Oye! Primos" to Google translate you'll get Hey Cousins regardless, but in Spanish the phrase is not grammatically correct. In order for it to be grammatically correct the phrase would either need to be changed to "¡Oigan! Primos", "oigan" being the plural word for Hey, or "¡Oye! Primo" and make primo singular. People have been telling this to the creators of the series and well...they haven't exactly been taking it well.

Here's what the voice actress of the main character Tater, Myrna Garcia Velasco said her on social media (Instagram I think, I could be wrong) in response to the bad Spanish:

(If you can't listen to it I'll just summarize. Velasco says that Spanish is the language of the Spanish conquistadors and the only reason why Latinos are LATIN American and not indigenous is because of the Spanish, and to stay mad if you think her incorrect Spanish is an issue. She also brings up how they're "trying to make a good show" for kids who "don't have a grasp on any language" or something?? Idk that's pretty much what she's saying")

Basically this response doesn't make any fucking sense. "Spanish isn't our original language so it doesn't matter if I speak it correctly or not. I'm a NATIVE Mexican so it doesn't matter if I speak Spanish correctly or not"

???????

Girl what the fuck does this mean??? News flash, but the majority of Latin America has been speaking Spanish for CENTURIES. You go to Mexico or most other Latin American countries and you'll find them speaking SPANISH. Yes it's because of the Spanish but it's part of our culture now whether you like it or not. It's like saying "oh it doesn't matter if I speak English correctly or not cause English isn't the US' ORIGINAL language anyway" ?????

Now, the story IS about a mixed kid. Tater is half white half Mexican, so if Tater is a Latina girl who doesn't know Spanish fluently (otherwise known as a "No-Sabo" kid), then the imperfect Spanish would make sense. If the idea behind Primos is to represent the Latin American kids who don't speak Spanish, then yeah thats fine and it was a directoral choice. But judging by Velasco's response, that doesn't seem like thats the idea?? She immediately got defensive and brought up the Spanish colonizers?? Which is relevant??? HOW???

On top of that, one member of the creative team, (not 100% sure who) called someone a "Grammar N@zi" for pointing out the grammatical errors and, well...

That's def not helping their case.

How the HELL are you gonna make show about a Spanish speaking Latin American family and NOT SPEAK SPANISH PROPERLY??? How the HELL are you gonna start beef with SPANISH SPEAKERS over whether or not it's important to speak Spanish CORRECTLY when portraying SPANISH SPEAKING PEOPLE IN MEDIA??? Yes slang exists, yes different LatAm countries speak Spanish differently, but grammar still exists??

OVERALL: Do I think Primos is this horribly racist dumpster fire? No. Are there MANY choices in this show that are just in poor taste? Absolutely 100%. Are the responses from the creative team outta pocket? Yes of course.

If you ask me, I think the main reason why people are so outraged over Primos is because the stereotypes and tropes are tired and dated, and people KNOW what writers are capable of. The response of this teaser, sandwiched between The Owl House ending and the premier of Across the Spiderverse, which have STELLAR LatAm rep, is proof of that. Luz Noceda, Miles Morales and Miguel O'Hara are SHINING examples of good SPANISH SPEAKING LatAm representation in children's media. We CAN have good LatAm protagonists in mediation, we've SEEN IT. We don't need all the stereotypes and overused tropes, so it makes sense why so many LatAm people feel like Primos is offensive and a step backwards.

Disney is getting lazy, they need to get their shit together

[qqueenofhades]

Am I crazy for thinking DeSantis is overextending on the cartoonish conservative evil in preparation for his presidential run? I feel like he might have drunk his own kool-aid as far as thinking “things that make you popular on Fox News also make you electable across the US”.

Book bans are not popular. They’re being shot down all over the US even in deep red areas. Taking away the liquor licenses of national chain hotels because they hosted a drag show seems like a good way to make big businesses wary of you, thus putting rifts in the evangelical/big business base of the GOP. People keep forgetting that Trump was a cipher when he ran. He had no record politically so both sides could think he’ll be the worst or the best, but there was no pinning him down. A lot of liberals entertained the possibility that Trump as a former democrat might not be so bad and he definitely caught the wave of people who wanted to try ANYTHING new rather than another Clinton.

Point is, even if DeSantis plays the Trump playbook but in a way more palatable to establishment GOP, that to me seems like a losing strategy rather than a winning one. Trump does not suffer competition and won’t endorse him. DeSantis lacks the decades of buildup of celebrity image and cult of personality. He’s got a an extremist GOP political record with lots of bold moves in a culture war that has NOT been fully litigated yet at the polls and might be less popular than the GOP realizes. I think the GOP is desperate to make him their guy since he’s a governor of a valuable state and he’s “reasonable” unlike Trump but at this point, is it possible they’re overestimating his appeal entirely and he’ll completely crash and burn when actually tested? Here’s hoping, but I’d love your thoughts.

Welp. Honestly, the media's relentless push to crown DeSantis "a more moderate version of Trump" is completely and demonstrably bullshit, since he is already a full-blown fascist and the only reason they think he's moderate is because he went to Harvard and can sometimes speak in complete sentences. Except every other one of those words is "woke," which the GOP can't define as literally anything apart from "something I don't like," and yeah.

The thing about DeSantis is that he's managed to curate an extremely hermetic personal bubble in Florida. He's staffed the state government with toadies and only gives interviews to hand-picked fawning conservative outlets. We're already seeing stories come out (and it's been noted before) that when you take him out of his personal comfort zone and make him answer actual questions from non-Fox reporters, he really struggles. He isn't smart or clever or original. He's just a dyed-in-the-wool white supremacist Christofascist who is willing to be "bold" (read: wildly extreme) and that makes him popular with the establishment GOP, who loved all of Trump's cruel policies but didn't like his personal demeanor. They think they can sell DeSantis to the suburban Republicans who really don't want to vote for Democrats (too liberal! Too brown! Too woke!) but were turned off by Trump's vulgar and criminal antics, and unfortunately, because white Republicans are the worst people in the world, they're probably right.

The problem for the GOP (hahahahhahahahahahaha thoughts and prayers motherfuckers!!!!!) is that Trump's base is still fanatically attached to his nasty orange backside and won't vote for DeSantis under any circumstances, as long as Trump is a factor in the race, because they think "respectability" is a dirty word and Trump's total derangement is what they like about him. He is their personal power fantasy and the living embodiment of their worst and most racist/sexist/xenophobic fantasies, and any hint of becoming acceptable to The Establishment would make them mad. So you've got the establishment GOP who wants to get back into power and thinks DeSantis is more likely to get them there, vs. the TrumpCult who will only ever vote for Trump, even as the establishment GOP is increasingly turning on him and treating him as the electoral liability that he is. (Don't forget the big Dominion lawsuit going on at Fox, which brutally exposed their hypocrisy for EVERYONE, even their own viewers, to see. Welp.)

And yes: America as a whole is not a nakedly fascist, deranged, extreme-right-wing white-supremacist Handmaid's Tale theocracy, despite the best efforts of a despicable minority. The GOP has not won one single meaningful election or federal office since Trump himself sneaked into the presidency thanks to the Electoral College in 2016 (barely squeaking out the House in 2022 and then watching Kevin McCarthy lose fifteen speakership elections in a row doesn't count). A recent poll showed that almost 60% of Americans thought "woke" was a good thing, meaning awareness of social and historical injustices rather than political correctness gone mad. The Democrats have continued to vastly overperform in special and state-level elections alike, including the much-hyped "Red Wave" in the 2022 midterms that turned out to be a Big Lol. Even this year, local Democrats are winning by bigger margins than Biden carried their districts. As I say, the reason Republicans try so hard to suppress, outlaw, and discredit the vote is because their policies/candidates will never win in any fair and legitimate election. They just won't. The only way they can bully their way into power is through fraud, fear, and lies. Of course, they're helped at every stage by the American media and its addiction to the "Both Sides Bad/Horse Race!!!" narrative, but even in this climate, Democrats are still winning.

Anyway: DeSantis is an empty suit who can reliably parrot fascist talking points and use his personal fiefdom of Florida to put them into action, but that doesn't translate to any kind of viable national candidate, especially since he implodes the instant you take him out of that bubble. I don't want to make anyone too overconfident or insist that it will clearly be fine, because the 2024 presidential election will be just as consequential as 2020 and there are way too many people in this country willing to vote for white supremacist fascism Because Gas Prices, but the overall sociocultural and political trends are not moving in DeSantis' direction and we need to work our asses off to make sure it stays that way.

[gendrie]

How do you see Sansa’s story unfolding in TWOW? People seem to want to rush it so she can get to Winterfell and kill LF, but she can’t have the Vale’s knights without the consent of the lord of the Eyrie (I don’t know why that’s so overlooked) so SR needs to die so she can marry Harry, but at the same time she’s married to Tyrion and LF is obsessed with her. He brags about taking the Tully girls’ virginity, and I’m sure he won’t be happy with the prospect of Harry having her before he does. And no one can tell me the Vale lords will be fine with SR’s sudden death and have no suspicions. Things won’t be that simple. I’m of the opinion Sansa will only slay LF after she learns what happened to Jeyne. Maybe Arya will return from Braavos with Jeyne? Dunno, but I know Arya will tell Sansa about it. Arya’s mere existence ruins LF’s plans. While there’s a Stark succession crisis going on in the North Arya returns with Robb’s crown and LF’s freaks out and tries to sow intrigues between the sisters. He’s too important an antagonist to be shoved aside that early.

you covered a lot of my thoughts on the subject. most of the fandom is just not engaging with sansa's material beyond a desire to see her as the qitn who never did anything wrong so they cut out the vale shenanigans, not unlike d&d, and imagine her going directly to wf to be fawned as the most perfect lady. for some thats the full extent of their investment in asoiaf lol.

but theres no reason for her to go up up north asap. nobody is checking for her, no weirwood is calling her name, no direwolves howling in her dreams, no magical association, ect. her arc is almost entirely devoid of northern symbolism tbh. she's never even spoken to a northern character on page who wasnt a relative or her bestie. and yet the fandom refuses to even entertain alternative courses for her.

whether or not littlefinger is telling the truth is kind of secondary now that he's revealed his plot to the audience. storytelling convention dictates that it will not come to pass. but i dont think he's being entirely forthcoming anyway. i suspect his plan is actually to frame harry (who seemingly has the most to gain) for sweetrobin's death. thats been his entire M.O. since day one (see jon arryn, see joffrey, see lysa) i agree that theres no way littlefinger intends to marry the object of his obsession to another man too. thats like losing catelyn to brandon/ned all over again. not that he could marry her off even if he wanted because tyrion refuses to die.

i also agree that jeyne p. will play into this. the fact that sansa hasn't heard about "arya stark's" marriage is downright conspicuous at this point. almost everybody (arya included) heard about it in storm. she heard about jon being elected lord commander already too. that was easily brushed off. as was littlefinger's revelation that he intends to kill sweetrobin. i don't think she will be able to brush off arya/jeyne, though. how she finds out remains to be seen, but i do think its likely grrm is withholding this info from sansa for a reason.

littlefinger's got his work cut out for him. he is not accounting for robb's will which names jon a stark and the heir to robb's kingdom, nor for bran, rickon and the real arya stark. this will give sansa a lot to deal with too. for good and ill. her siblings are alive, but she has been removed from the line of succession. that will sting and yeah, arya will obviously intend to give the crown to jon which will create conflict between the sisters.

ultimately, i think a variety of factors will cause sansa to turn on littlefinger. the biggest might be, simply, that he corrupted her for nothing. he's a liar and fraud and he hasnt done anything for her. he's tricked her into forgetting that with a promise of wf, but it won't last. she's going along with his plan to murder a child, her own cousin, but it won't give her what she wants in the end. the fantasy will be destroyed. when that realization hits her she will move against him.

[strideofpride]

How do you feel about the Rufus-Dan parent-child relationship, particularly as it evolved throughout the show? I know there have been a lot of discussions about Rufus and Jenny, which makes sense given how overtly fucked that relationship became, but Rufus and Dan are equally fascinating to me in the way they start out with probably the strongest of parental bonds on the show, yet end up where they are post-Inside. At some point it feels like the show writers started writing the Dan-Rufus relationship as if they were friends or peers more than father and son, and the in-universe implications of that are really interesting I think.

Yeah! I think it's complicated by a lot of different things.

1) Rufus and Alison were clearly very young parents when they had kids, like early to mid 20s young. I personally have always headcanoned that they got married because Alison was pregnant with Dan and Rufus pretty much says at one point that he gave up his music career to be a dad. So I think the fact that the age difference between Dan & Rufus is pretty slim is definitely a contributing factor to how that dynamic operates.

2) I personally headcanon, and I think there's enough to go off in canon to support it, that Dan was closer to Alison than Rufus before she left. And I think Alison leaving put Dan into the mother role for Jenny, which makes Dan and Rufus almost seem like partners parenting Jenny rather than father & son. I think Dan taking on a more parental role towards Jenny after Alison left was entirely his choice, maybe one he didn't even consciously make, but Rufus certainly doesn't seem to do anything about it, and goes on treating Dan like a co-parent when issues with Jenny come up rather than treating him like he's her brother (how Breeland coded of them).

3) I think another big change in Dan & Rufus' dynamic occurs when Dan starts dating Serena, and Rufus starts reliving his past with Lily through Dan. Like I personally think Dan is more like Alison and Jenny takes after Rufus, but with this, Dan is now acting like Rufus (in Rufus' eyes at least).

Anyway all of that contributes to where they are in season 1. Throughout season 1, Rufus constantly gives Dan advice about Serena, but a lot of it feels less like father/son advice and more like advice from a peer. In the Thanksgiving episode, Dan makes a comment to Rufus about how finding out that he and Lily used to date has probably set Dan back months from having sex with Serena for the first time and it's so...It's just such a weird thing to say to your father. Like that feels like a comment Dan would make to Nate. So the fact that he feels comfortable being so blunt about his sex life like that with his own father is very telling of how their relationship is more like two friends.

Honestly, I feel like Rufus almost forgets he still needs to parent Dan until all the Rachel Carr stuff in s2. And the way the show handles that is uh, bad. And it paints Rufus as irrationally angry for being upset that his son is sleeping with a grown woman when he's really being the only sane one. (linking this fic now for reasons)

That might be the first moment when their relationship really starts to turn, because I think Rufus kinda has been going along like "Dan's gonna be fine, Dan's a good kid with no serious issues, the worst thing that ever happens to him is he's not popular at school, I don't need to worry about Dan" and then the Carr stuff happens and he realizes Dan is Not Fine, but at this point Dan is 18 and about to be off to college and Rufus is Too Late (he's not but you know...that's certainly how the show acts sometimes, that these kids don't need to be parented anymore once they're off at college).

And then all the Inside stuff...I think a lot of tension between Dan & Rufus, and also Jenny & Rufus, comes from the fact that Dan & Jenny grew up in a home where their parents' artistic dreams remained unfulfilled. Both Rufus and Alison gave up their dreams/careers to focus on being parents. And I think Jenny and Dan are both very conscious of that and while they love their parents, they both have big dreams and lots of ambition and don't want to see that squandered like their parents.

But while Rufus maybe isn't creatively fulfilled, I think he doesn't regret his decision of choosing being a dad over music. (I think his only real regret in life is not fighting for Lily back then) But when Dan implies in his book that all Rufus has amounted to is being Lily's house husband, I think he's rightfully insulted. He gave up his music career to be Dan's dad. He sold his art gallery to fund Dan's college tuition. He finally got to marry the love of his life, the one thing he's probably done that's entirely for him and not his kids in 20 years, and now Dan's publicly giving him shit for that? Fuck that.

And of course, Dan doesn't really see any of that. He might be ungenerous in his reading of his father, but he's not wrong either, that all Rufus is doing is being a house husband now (minus the whole brief thing with Panic, but the writers were entirely uninterested in exploring that anyway). To Dan, this is a cautionary tale. To Rufus, this is just how life goes sometimes.

Neither of them is wrong. But they're not on the same page anymore.

[idiotsyncratic0]

Dwemer headcanon - Attraction and Affection

⚠️ CW: Discussions of sexual attraction, mental instability, and TW: self-harm mention, but no descriptive details. ⚠️

As per Vicec's Sermon 3, they stated that the Dwemer didn't know Love, and they went on to explain the properties of Love. Which is, of course, what you think it is (tho subjective). I wanted to elaborate on what I think is my interpretation of Dwemer sociology... because, tbh I love deep diving into Dwemer society far more than what happened with le heart incident of '87

As far as I know yet, there are two forms of attraction. Sexual and Romantic, both with varying differences that can Venn diagram for some but not all.

Sexual attraction is relatively popular within Dwemer society, I made a joke in some notes that Vartyr thought all Dwemer were born in glass tubes (hopefully this will make sense at the end LOL) to which Radac called him a moron. Dwemer sexual relations are relatively well defined and ordered. Some even go to lengths to sign papers for evidence of the practice with others. That's the closest thing they have to marriage. Although most agree that to drink with a workmate after a shift can lead from one thing to another. It's usually initiated quickly as the brain reacts, and to show, touch, or kiss the neck of any Dwemer is a blatant erogenous factor of their culture. Sexual practice is known as a 3 stage process, Osculation to Copulation to Post-Coital Debate. Yeah, I said debate. Goofy ass nerd elves. Each of course may be used as an umbrella term for the acts done within each phase.

What's important about this is the lack of "strings attached" in most sexual encounters. That's not to say it's completely absent, e.g., Dumac, and the engineer that fell for an Ayleid. Both had stigmas within Dwemer society. What it is, though, is an extremely long process, considerably longer than any other clan or culture to be found on Tamriel. And I mean on a physiological perspective as well as emotional. I'll actually use the Chimer as an example, I also headcanon them to be extremely emotional in comparison. Almost inately emotional, though that doesn't mean they are empathetic. But love is within every clan one way or another. Monogamy doesn't really exist for the Chimer/Dunmer.

For the Dwemer to explore the inately powerful and overwhelming sensations of romantic attraction is seen as problematic and to fall for a non-dwemeri is essentially forbidden. This is for many factors, including:

Altered Work Effectivness

Inability to think critically

Lack of morale

Mood destabilisation

Seclusion

Grand ideologies that fall out of the previously agreed ideas. This is mostly related to politics, their large-scale egotistical manners, and their anti-daedric attitudes

Pregnancy and health factors related to it

If the emotional stimuli are too overwhelming or a heartbreak ends horridly, they are especially at risk of basically having a sort of Dwarf Fortress fey mood, and reason is kind of thrown right out the door. Soul trapping, murder, self hatred and harm, severe mental spirals, bizarre, dangerous crafts, and even occultism.

To some, sex and love can be as convoluted as complex as theories of relativity are to others.

I'll make another post about this sometime, I think, along with other bits of hcs on the dwemer. I love talking about them tbh, to me they're so fascinating, and there's a lot to uncover what they might have lived like.

[randomnameless]

Post ask: sorry it's giant but u know me yeah??? yeah.

Since that was a response to someone else's post and I don't have enough to say in terms of all or most of the topics to reblog it in response, yeah, I'd say the Agarthans are the lesser of the two evils to Edelgard. If it was the other way around, I would imagine she'd ally with Rhea to get rid of Thales and Friends, but she chooses Thales and Friends over Rhea.

I understand she needs their assistance to win her war and all that, but Edelgard could've just as easily allied with Rhea after telling her the truth about the Agarthans and whatnot (Hopes notwithstanding since that's a different situation and would for another post/ask/etc), and she'd have a power equal to the Agarthans allied with her. By which I mean, Rhea and Thales+the other Agarthans are basically at the same strength, so she more or less had a choice between the two sides to ally with. Having Rhea would also mean having the KoS which isn't a group to scoff at.

So yeah, that said, I think she determined Agarthans were just less evil in her mind (especially considering she has similar values to them, such as saying in the Lonato chapter that she'd sacrifice her own people for her goals, but that's also exactly what Solon does to Kronya, and in Hopes, what Arval does to Solon. In other words them doing that isn't a moral nope I'm out for her/obviously wasn't a deciding factor).

Also, I think it's very likely that she preferred to side with humans over dragons. It reminds me a lot of this one line in FE9, where an NPC says he'd rather side with humans/his own kind because "at least you know what you're getting". Considering the hatred she seems to have (for unexplored reasons) toward dragons, it would make sense that she would choose to side with the people who are human like her.

She seems to have more reasons/goals/things in common with Agarthans overall, and if she doesn't accept Rhea's values and such, it makes sense that she'd have a preference toward Agarthans. No idea if you could say that Thales has a part in it because he's by appearance her uncle, so maybe that plays a part too? Again, unexplored, but it could be a factor since Thales has had her uncle's body for years now and is pretending to /be/ her uncle to the public.

Yet again, UNEXPLORED LOL, but I wish they went more into depth of like, why would she side with the people who tormented her and killed all her siblings? Why would she listen to anything they told her, much less ally with them? I was much more preferable to SB's situation because it felt more like the right thing to do as far as her character. If they had that much of a chokehold on the Empire, there was still nothing stopping her once she was safely in GM and could've talked to Rhea privately, and also asked that she doesn't do anything to raise their suspicions that Rhea and Friends have caught on/know what's happening because it could put her/the Empire/etc in danger.

The whole "they have us in a chokehold" kind of thing isn't really how it goes in CF because she does willingly want them allied with her to use their tech and whatnot, so it's a mutual usage and she does target Cornelia who ends up being collateral damage for being in Faerghus when she attacks Faerghus (again, a technical ally who she ends up killing).

Which like, she didn't have to attack Faerghus at all because Cornelia had so much power there. Again, that was an ally of hers technically; though I guess it gets muddy because Rodrigue still trusted Cornelia and was working alongside her in CF, so it's highly likely Cornelia was fighting /with/ Faerghus to take out Edelgard before truly running the place with an iron fist (which like, that might be true in general; I don't really remember since my memory on CF overall is a little hazy in comparison to the other routes).

Also makes me think that was another thing they should've put more focus on (which they absolutely could have considering CF was cut short chapter-wise). Thales gets mad that they attacked Cornelia, but was Cornelia actively fighting the Empire with Faerghus, or was she holding back (i.e. Faerghus was fighting the Empire but Cornelia personally was trying to mitigate damage because it would benefit the Agarthans)?

If Cornelia wasn't doing anything, yeah, I can understand Thales getting mad, but if she was, then he can't really be mad that they killed an Agarthan in the middle of that conflict. Like, Faerghus was going to fight back no matter what, but Rodrigue was treating Cornelia like a commander or something? So like... what was the Agarthans' role in all that? How much did they help Faerghus fight back? Obviously they want to weaken the Empire for more control, so it makes sense to side with Faerghus in part, but it's just a really condensed arc because it only lasts for one chapter.

This got a bit off topic BUT I wrote it anyway because it was relatively related. I just feel like there were better methods to write out the whole Edelgard and Agarthans thing, but they made CF a lot shorter than the other routes and effectively shot themselves in the foot by doing so with the story.

I feel like they did that with the chapter count because CF was supposed to be much more of a secret route, but since they made the conditions significantly easier by their own admission than they intended to originally, they gave themselves like what, five chapters less to work with the story? Makes it more convoluted than it could've been.

How dare u send me a long ask

jk

for what it's worth, in heroes, she calls them both monsters/beasts !

Beasts hiding in the light. Monsters slithering in the dark.

So she knows they're both non-humans, but having pointy ears is worse than having pale skin ?

And yet, the lizard are just so BaD with their "non human-ess" that she always targets them first - because let's be real, in Nopes, she just kicks her uncle out of Enbarr, but doesn't make sure he's dead or his cult is dealt with, no, she returns to her top priority, make Fodlan a lizard-free world.

Part of her hatred against Nabateans must come from agarthan slithering in Adrestia since... uh, the moment Seiros left? and some of it might also be part of her growing up as an Adrestian Nobles, and being Big MaD (tm) that the stupid church let those barbarians get their own country 400 years ago :( Maybe her rac- specism comes from those two sources?

About Cornelia - in CF Rodrigue seems to work with her, but we have also to be reminded that in CF, Cornelia is still under cover and supposed to be the nice lady who cured the Kingdom - she can't pull all the things she does in the non CF routes or manipulate Rufus like she does in AG because Rhea (and her knights) is in Firdhiad! I personally thing she was mitigating her efforts - not actively helping the Kingdom, and having to prepare her Titanus army in secret because the second the capital, aka Dimitri hears about this, there's a possibility Rhea will know too, and the gig would be up (Rhea herself isn't that familiar with Titanus, but she most likely knows giant robots are either Nabatean, or Agarthan - coupled with Cornelia's permanent youth it could raise way too much suspicions).

Yep, I also think so regarding the chapter count! CF was supposed to be the bonus/bad end route so it'd make sense if it is shorter, but imo, also because the writers wrote themselves in a dead end - if Rhea has to be the main enemy because her ears are pointy, you can't suddenly throw Agarthans in the mix and for Supreme Leader to demolish them at first, and then taking Rhea's head because her ears are pointy!

They already wrote themselves in a bretzel knot with the "nu uh it was Rhea who launched those missiles trust me uwu" where even the CF writers couldn't possibly imagine that no characters would ever call doubts on her bullshit of the day - but imagine if the rest of the cast had to come clean with Flamey's association to Agarthans, what they did (hello war assets!) who they are and what they want?

I know CF operates on a "suspension of disbelief" level - but even at this point I think it would have been hard for the FE16 writers to make any sense of it.

Giving more screentime to Supreme Leader's association with Agarthans (especially since she believes she needs them to off Rhea, after all, she asks her Uncle to come and watch the final battle, so maybe she thought he could summon "reserve troops" if everything failed like what happens in the non-CF versions of the Assault in Garreg Mach?) would also means giving more spotlight to Flamey's actions during White Clouds, and we know FE16 is allergic to that.

So, in a nutshell, I think Supreme Leader targets the lizards before targetting Uncle'n'co because :

Both are non humans but pointy ears are even "less human" than Agarthans because pointy ears are "beasts"! (which would explain why in Nopes she immediately shifts her target on pointy ears after Thales is only "outed" of the Empire and not killed - bear in mind she targets Rhea when Thales is still alive, but in CF, killing Rhea is her top priority!)

She needs Uncle's help to target pointy ears (which doubles as horrifying if she counts on Thales'n'co's abilities to get rid of Nabateans because she checked their resume and/or they told her how they genocided them all save for half a dozen remaining ones)

Getting rid of Pointy Ears means she'll be able to MAGA (one of her main goals!) while getting rid of Thales won't bring her any step closer to unifying Fodlan under Adrestia's banner

She's more pissed at the Goddess not answering her prayers when she was being tortured than at the people torturing her themselves! (Thales lit says he gave her the CoF so she'll become their greatest weapon! So she knows the one who cut her open wasn't Aegir, or acting on Aegir's orders, but the mole men working with Thales!)

Granted, as you pointed out with the PoR comparison, if both are non humans, an usual "racist" human wouldn't want to side with either of them - Thales is a monster, Rhea is a beast, so who should she side with?

That's why I suppose she has some personal grudge against Nabateans (more personal than any grudge she can have against the one who butchered her and her own siblings!!) to make her hate them much more viciously than hating Agarthans. Is it because the Church recognised Faerghus' right to be independant? Or something else?

i still have my au/verse/hc where Emperor Willy named his half-nabatean son Lycaon as his heir, when he had other older fully-human children who felt like the half lizard stole their throne, and since then House Hresvelg harbours a deep resentment against nabateans, who are supposedly better than themselves (else why would Willy have picked his latest kid and not a human one???).

[vtori73]

You know... a lot of people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community seem to have this problem of repeating cycles of being bigots to another group and not recognizing it at all because they write it off as being "progressive to do so," like... no, y'all just found someone you can easily bully because no really cares so you won't face repercussions.

I mean... it was the same with Asexuals/Aromantics but everyone (or more people) seem to agree they are part of the community yet a decade or less ago you would see all these so called "progressive" LGBTQIA+ people arguing and saying asexuals/a romantics were privileged, basically straight, faced no oppression, etc. Then we had Bi lesbians which plenty of "progressive" people still hate but for diff reasons (a mix of continued lesbian separatism + gold star mentality, biphobia +victim blaming rhetoric, ahistorical revisionism). Now a more recent contender being transmasc people and nitpicking anything they do and making it progressive to lump them in with cis men & implying they are privileged in any way for SPECIALLY being trans men (yeah... that doesn't make any sense).

Like, yes, some trans people in GENERAL are privileged but that has to do with OTHER FACTORS, like race, being able-bodied, being skinny, Christian, etc not because being somehow a man benefits you regardless of if you're a cis one or not. Like... this argument HEAVILY relies on not taking intersection into account because what about non-white trans men? What about them? What specifically about Black trans men? For any of you who are actually (or claim to be) anti racist would know that cis Black men don't benefit from being men the same way white cis men do so it would stand to reason that trans Black men wouldn't as well (*psst* thats because the patriarchy is VERY intertwined with white privilege/white supremacy/colonialism, sure the patriarchy has existed forever basically BUT in a lot of places nowadays the two very much go hand in hand & can't really be seperated). So the argument that trans men are just automatically privileged falls flat if you actually just take a second to think further on what you're actually saying.

And if that's not enough what about all the non-passing trans men? What about intersex trans mascs/men? Or nonbinary trans mascs/men? Or what about butches? What about butch woman or trans masc butches who might possibly pass as men but aren't? Are you saying they have cis men privilege? And YES, I'm calling it cis men privilege because THATS WHAT IT IS, that is what y'all are claiming trans men and trans masc people have and yes when you write it down like that it makes no sense at ALL and honestly a lot of the rhetoric around it just sounds like what y'all said about asexual/aromantic people, y'all just found a new acceptable target and honestly its just sad that the community is SO much quicker to engage in infighting then supporting one another and we are just doing the bigots jobs for them.

[modern-inheritance]

Modern Inheritance: Debrief, Pt. 1 (Intro)

(A/N: Politics! Verbal bullshitting! Thinly veiled threats! Overabundance of accessories and unnecessary magic use! POLITICS!

To quote Arya off screen, "I'd rather go through Gil'ead three more times than deal with any of this political hellscape, but *singsong* here I am! Putting on a STUPID dress uniform, about to be, for all intents and purposes, fucking INTERROGATED about being ambushed, losing my mate, teleporting a dragon egg, getting TORTURED while, haha, I was being asked a series of questions, also known as being interrogated, becAUSE THIS WON'T BE TRIGGERING AT ALL! :D GLEN WHY THE FUCK HAVEN'T WE RENOUNCED OUR FUCKING CULTURE YET?!"

Arya is required to attend an official debriefing on the ambush and her captivity by the council of elf lords and ladies. She prefers when she gets stabbed from the front.)

~~~~~~

“I still think this could be done on paper.” 

Glenwing patted his commander’s shoulder and pulled her into his side for a quick hug, never once faltering in their pace as they meandered to the great hall. “You’ll do fine. You can handle questions.” He paused, a grim tilt to his half smirk. “Don’t handle these questions like you did the last ones you got. You’re supposed to answer these ones.”

The dark humor drew a similarly tight lipped grin from her. “I’m not worried about that.” 

Arya raised a hand to run it over her hair and shot her medic a sheepishly appreciative look when he caught her wrist. It had taken both of them an almost embarrassing amount of time to remember how to tie the Flat Crest braid required of elven women when in dress uniform. It was even longer for Glen to do it neatly enough for Rhunön to give the plait a passing inspection, the smith’s obsession with perfection not helping matters. 

They both hadn’t voiced what was on their minds during the entire, rather exasperating, process. The real reason why they had so much trouble tying what should have been a hairstyle they knew by heart after all these years. 

Fäolin had always been the one to do whatever hairstyle was asked of them for official events, even before he joined their squad. He’d laugh at their attempts whenever they returned to the forest, usher them into a chair and deftly weave bright silver or midnight black strands into the designs required in seconds. Arya and Glenwing had simply never had to learn.

Arya let out a rough sigh and tucked her thumbs under either side of the shiny belt clasped around her waist. She missed Wyrda’s familiar weight on her right hip. “This is just another political stunt. I can manage Islanzadí, we’re…I don’t know, figuring it out, I guess. But all of them?” The young elf gestured helplessly, a hint of sharp restlessness and budding frustration in the movement. “Who in the hells knows what they’re going to ask. There’s too many strings here, tangled in too many webs.” She made a face at the metaphors. “At least I’m falling into the stupid formal language again easy enough.”

“And just like that, you’re out of it.” Glen gave the combat liaison another squeeze around the shoulders, pointedly ignoring the open stare of a lone elf sitting in an alcove as they passed. “You can count Iläin to at least be fair. And Rendir’s still pretty fond of you, even if you haven’t really talked since you got back. They’re not all against you, and this is just another debriefing, not some official trial for blame.” 

Arya snorted softly. “Oh, we both know blame is going to be a factor. Valaria looked incensed when I said I wasn’t sure how Durza got through the preliminary wards on the outskirts without triggering an alarm. She’s got a lot to explain, but it’s not like I can question her.” 

Glen bobbed his head in reluctant agreement. “Yeah…Valaria might be an issue. She was pretty harsh on me when I had my own debriefing.” The medic tapped the tip of each mechanical finger against the end of his metal thumb, running through nerve check after nerve check as he realized a troubling fact. “Däthedr reigned her in, but…”

“But he and the Queen probably won’t do the same for me.” Arya shook her head. “Too much personal history. Any interference could be seen as them interfering with the investigation and trying to shield me.”

“It’s pretty clear there’s nothing to blame you for, even a Mani’s Cave salamander could see that.” The image of Lady Valaria of House Teorann standing at her podium as an eyeless, bioluminescent salamander, constantly pushing the useless spectacles she wore just for show up her slimy tube of a snout, made Arya crack a genuine smile. “Just be polite, don’t give them anything to jump on.”

“Or you could light a fire under their asses, see how they like it.” Both elves looked up, startled that there was already someone waiting outside the doors to the great hall. Brom shook out the match still burning from lighting his pipe and tucked it into a small leather pocket sewn into the inside of his armored coat. “Not literally. Why do I always feel like I have to add that on with you?”

“Because you taught me too well.” Arya flashed her former mentor a sharp toothed grin. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a remedial study hall to get to, old man?”

Brom grumbled into his beard, pipesmoke wafting up each time his lips parted. He had let the hairs grow again since they arrived, no longer quite as neat or well-kempt but passable as it grew out into a more formidable piece of facial hair. “As if I’d let you in there without an inspection. You’d probably go in with your boots untied and your shirt untucked if I wasn’t here.” He glanced at Glenwing. “Well, if Glen let you get away with it.” The medic gave him a grin of his own, knowing full well that was a lie. Brom cared far more than he ever wanted anyone to know, the sentimental old bastard. 

The old Rider gave his former ward a going over with his pipe clamped in his teeth. He tugged her sleeves straight and smoothed the lines of her shoulders, yanked the wrinkles out of the formal jacket by the hem. 

“Right. You pass.” His voice was gruff, but there was a certain warmth there. In a move only Glen or Brom could pull off, the man patted Arya’s cheek twice before he clasped her face in his hands. The gedwëy ignasia was rough and warm against her skin, tingling with everpresent magic despite his dragon’s passing. “You did everything you could and more, you hear me? Whatever those high and mighty idiots in there say, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. Understood?” 

Arya searched his face, the determination and buried worry etched into his skin above wild eyebrows and piercing blue eyes. The support she found meant multitudes, the support he had always shown, even when his rage and revenge was all he had in the world. She swore she’d never tell him, but despite the teasing they shared now, the arguments, the sometimes heavy handed tactics to try and prepare her for the world outside Du Weldenvarden…he had been more of a father to her than anyone. 

So of course there was only one response.

Brom felt the young elf just barely relax. She smiled at him, beaming, that little spitfire elfling again being reminded of her worth, of all the things she could do in the world. “Yes’sir. Understood.”

“Good girl.” The Rider released her and stepped back, giving her one last onceover. “Give them hell. I’m late for Oromis and Glaedr’s remedial lessons, or whatever you call them.” 

“Don’t pull a muscle, old man!” Arya called after his retreating back, getting an annoyed grunt in response. 

Glen checked the watch on his wrist as Arya’s smile faded. Two minutes. “You ready?”

The woman sucked in a breath and held it as she snapped to the familiar bearing of Attention, dropping into At Ease for a brief moment before letting the air out in a rush. “No. But it’s not like I can prepare for this bullshit.”

“I’ll be right here. Just yell and I’ll be in there in a heartbeat. Less, even.” Thirty seconds. Glen pulled his commander into one last quick hug before he smoothed out her uniform again. “Verrunsmal äthr.” 

Arya pushed her forehead against his and gave him a firm punch to the upper chest. “Verrunsmal äthr.” 

Then she turned, straightened with another steadying breath, and entered the great hall.

[atthebell]

after you finish learning pt/br (or at least feel like you have a grasp on it) do you have any other languages you want to learn :0??

i think i have a bit to go with ptbr, even though i feel fairly comfortable reading and listening to it. there's just a lot of vocab and grammar that id like to have a better handle on and i want to feel more comfortable with writing and speaking especially before i start learning anything else in earnest.

but to answer the question, i would love to go at french more eventually! partly because i think a really solid pipeline for english speakers is learning spanish then portuguese then french, because ime that helps you understand the similarities across romance languages and helps you get to french and understand why it operates the way that it does, or at least in part. but also french is still incredibly difficult even speaking two other romance languages, even speaking five other languages, so idk really. i have the basics down and i can read some french okay but i think nailing pronunciation is so difficult and i don't have a big incentive/motive to learn it, which i think is THE biggest factor in terms of language learning.

my like ideal lifetime list of languages i want to learn eventually, in no particular order, would be:

arabic

tagalog

mandarin

german

farsi

italian, because why not keep rounding out the romance languages

and probably a ton more i just can't think off the top of my head

i also have gotten to each language i've learned kind of by circumstance, so im fine with the idea of just stumbling upon being another language as it comes to me. like i originally took yiddish because a friend wanted me to learn it with him, then i took hebrew to better help with my textual skills for my degree (i have two degrees in religious studies, both focusing on judaism). the reason i've had a hard time with french is because i had no real reason to learn aside from vague interest and that wasn't a particularly motivating factor, so i worked on the basics and then kind of let it fall by the wayside. and portuguese of course came by way of the qsmp, and because it's so close to spanish i felt far more comfortable with it and have gotten a lot more practice. i'd had something in mind to maybe learn each language as they got added, but it became pretty clear to me that 1. i love portuguese so so much and want to focus on it 2. learning too many languages at once usually means one gets deprioritized or both/several suffer 3. it is VERY difficult to learn french in any circumstances, let alone outside a more traditional academic setting, and the same goes for several other languages added-- i cannot fathom learning korean without the proper cultural context and without a dedicated teacher, and same goes for german despite my leg up with already speaking yiddish (actually because of speaking yiddish i know just how difficult german might be in some regards). so because of all that i kept up with ptbr and set french aside, and decided not to learn the others just yet, though i obviously won't rule them out. i still practice some french every now and then, but for the most part im waiting until i get that motivation, and i think i want to really work at portuguese before i get to anything else. like i want to be really confident in portuguese and i would also really love to visit brazil eventually and be able to speak it without feeling too silly.

anyway yeah atm im laser-focused on portuguese but ill see where the wind blows me in terms of future languages

[pikespendragon67]

Eh, I feel bored so I wanted to share some of my current creative ideas that I’m currently too burnt out to really work on:

First is for an original series that might be called Isolationists Club or maybe a more poetic name if I really wanna put in the effort. (Probably something with wildflowers? idk) It’s about people that usually isolate themselves for various reasons finally deciding to healthily communicate with one another. So far I have the sort of club advisor as a marriage counselor that wants to delve more into individual therapy (and is notorious for actually causing more divorces since he sees how terrifying his clients’ relationships can be) and a woman that isolates herself from bullying trauma that still lingers well into her adult years. (I wanna say she’s in her mid to late 30s or maybe 40s?) I’m gonna lean into more of the emotional trauma side for why people isolate themselves rather than general fear of being outside & such.

Next is some refinement for Octopath 3 OCs! This time with pictures from this Picrew. All of them will have musical names and music will play a big factor into the main motif of the story/final boss hopefully

Octavio the Dancer is a young lad (in his early to mis 20s) that wants to learn as many dance moves as he can, potentially finding a partner or instructor to help him do so. His ability to try to recruit others is him offering a dance, BUT! It comes at the cost of potentially fighting an NPC for that person’s hand. If Octavio loses, reputation goes down. If he wins, he can potentially summon both the original & provoked NPC into battle

Cress the Thief comes from a long line of gentleman/lady thieves, and she basically keeps the Robin Hood principle while still being able to do dirty work. Her uncle is trying to get her cousin to do more nefarious assassinations, so she’s trying to keep the family’s reputation safe. I’d say she’s 19? Also! She can sell the stuff she steals to the black market that the Merchant I’ll introduce later helps run.

Tacet’s a Hunter whose village is trying to find its new Chief. Anyone from the village that’s eligible has to go through 3 trials to prove themselves. His childhood friend’s way more competitive & hot headed about this. I’d say he’s 17.

Don’t have an O or secondary T yet, but I’ll have a placeholder for the time being

If I were to keep his original name, this would be Oliver, but I wanna keep the musical terms alive. He’s like my old OC from an original series I had, which was people with powers just living their daily lives. He’ll be the Apothecary for this, where he can actually control plants. He can concoct using ingredients he creates, but it takes a lot of energy from him. He’s 35

Picardy’s the Warrior of the group, but she’s definitely more of a mercenary than anything. Her former sworn oath partner has passed away, so she wants to fulfill his final wishes for him. I’d say she’s 37-46, depending on how I feel.

Alto’s the Scholar of the group. She may or may not be involved in starting the events for the final boss (still working on that). Like how Cyrus discovered a Philosophers Stone and Osvald had that whole thing™️ in chapter 3, Alto’s also going to have her own Fullmetal Alchemist moment! This time, I think she’s a mix of Van Hohenheim & Dr. Markel. YIPPEE!!! (Also this Picrew didn’t really let me do anything but she has streaks of white in her hair). Potentially immortal or thousands of years old, but physically is 29.

I sadly don’t have an idea for the Cleric yet, so I would like some assistance here, please. Only thing I can think of is something like. Nacho Libre? Eh.

And finally, we have Harmony the Merchant! She’s a clock engineer that’s trying to inspire her family to inherit the clock shop she works at so that she can retire easily. She’s the oldest at like 60-70. And yeah! She helps in a black market of sorts since she knows how hard it can be for people to get needed resources like medicine/engineering parts

[mytalemyworld]

So after the greatest disppointment I've ever felt about a tv show (GHBG) I put a distance between Turkish shows and myself. Also the fact that all Turkish shows seem to be trash lately made it easier for me to follow my decision. But someone recommended me Yargı -again- and because she knows my preferences and likings I gave it another go. I watched the first episode when it first aired back then. Liked the premise however crime suspense is not my genre unless the characters are like Sherlockesque or intriguing. Also crime-suspense is especially hard for Turkish drama industry given the length of the episodes and the amount of the seasons.

Yargı fell victim to that as well. A good first season but then the story got limited by the same pattern. It became so tiring and the drama and stupidity around the main characters made you want to scream “enough is enough”. I mean it's a miracle that Ceylin and Ilgaz haven't lost their own minds -yet maybe. Lots of suffering -which I loathe yet still made sense- happened, the show's genre actually became more and more crime and drama -which I loathe as well, I really would love to see them going into law terriority more- and the law careers the writer chose seem to be only useful for the traits of the main leads. Which brings me to the main point.

The conflicts. The only aspect I find intruguing in this show. The conflicts are everywhere. In romance, in friendship, in family, in work, in life. I really enjoyed it a lot. But I think the show shouldn’t have renewed for second season. Because the characters and the writing started losing their sparks and you just continue watching it not because the story is outstanding it’s because you wonder what the future holds for the characters you started caring about in the first season. It’s more like out of habit you do that and this is not a good thing.

Anyways, what am I talking about...The conflicts, yeah. 

First of all, I think it's important to understand that this character is a terrible lawyer and I am not talking about deceptions and some tricks she is keen to make. I mean I have watched Suits, I know how enjoyable it might be if you write in a good way. However Ceylin is one of the reasons I will never call this drama as a law drama, because she has no respect for law and doesn't seem to understand of the reasoning of some ethical codes. Her being lawyer is just for dramatic purposes not because she has a passion for that. She is unruly and has a problematic point of view about everything. However she explains herself so well and you know where she is coming from.

She has a passion for winning, for money because she had to earn money for her family from the very early ages. Her father had been a victim of the wrong ruling which explains why she has no problem with doing illegal things to find the culprit. She's never known how it feels like to be loved selflessly, be the priority of someone, taken care of. Surviving, that is her first instinct and there is an ongoing war between her and the life.

Also in romance perspective, you can see the roles reversed. You know bad boy glory in romance stories, being dangerous, unstable, unpredictable, morally wrong are some factors for an "interesting" male lead. And in Yargı Ceylin has all of these traits and states that how these make her possible relationship with Ilgaz, the perfect upright loyal fair male lead, destructive for him.

She knows herself, that her edges may end up hurting him.

Let me say this. I loved this. A lot. Very much. 

As for him, what I will say might be a little controversial but here we go.

I think the fact that his family is one of the reasons she is in pain made his feelings develop a little faster. The way he wants to give her comfort and share her burdens...like grief bonding and guilty conscience sometimes may affect the other feelings too. I am not saying he fell in love with her because he pitied on her, no, but he found himself in a dread sitiuation and emotions can be unpredictable in that state.

Also sometimes I feel like there is a reason why “opposite attracts” is fun to watch. Because we usually admire the people we can never be. Like, if you're more like a gloomy person, you can easily find carefree people attractive or if you're not ambitious you may admire the passion and strength people have to be able to get up at 05.00 a.m to achieve their goals. 

I think even though she has some problematic thoughts about law, she feels attracted to him being lawful, honest and acting in ethical ways. They argued a lot about that, I know, but it must give her a sense of relief about trusting and relying on him. She wants to change but I am not sure she will easily achieve that given the traumas she went through.

Lol, also the self-fulfilling prophecy. She was right about their relationship. He started to make some unethical choices because of her.

The first scene -kudos for the amazing shooting angle- is proof for that. They are on bad terms, he is mad at her, she knows that she is at fault, still running to him, asking for another favor which requires him using his prosecutor authority and that means he has to abuse his power but when she holds his hand and says he is the only person who can get her inside, he doesn’t think twice and lets her get what she wants. Tbh, the whole Engin & Ilgaz confrontation is already beyond what the law allows, but he is always strict when it comes to how Ceylin acts regarding the rules. So it gives you the feeling that he has and will have a hard time saying her no.

Man, this may be a small thing for the general audience but as a fan of “he’s got it bad” type of stories, I am thrilled.

I dropped the show after their Kapadokya scenes. The plot became too much to digest. I don’t feel like watching it, but I may write some stuff about season 1 later. There are some interesting scenes I really appreciate.

Also thanks to @brumarchesine​ for the amazing gifsets!

[marshmallowprotection]

as i’m playing ray’s route again(not enough hourglasses for the AE yet lol) i kept thinking about how, in a realistic scenario, i particularly would have a hard time to actually start a romantic relationship with saeran right off the bat you know?? please don’t get me wrong!! i understand everything that he has gone through and his reasonings but after everything is “alright” (in the AE for example) it would be so insane to actually just have a normal relationship 😭😭 partially i blame that on my trust and commitment issues but the way saeran treats MC in his route hits a little too close to home(even if i wouldn’t really be that shaken by the insults etc)

since you are like the saeran expert i would like to hear your thoughts in a situation like that

Mystic Messenger asks you to suspend your disbelief in reality for the sake of the game. That goes for every character you romance, that is not limited to Saeran. Every Route would not happen that way if that situation played out realistically. 11 days? Yeah, no way. That's not the way things would work in our world. But, because it's a video game, I know that all of us shrug it off and go with it because it does a rather good job at making the romance feel realistic with what they have to work with.

So, hey, it's not weird to be like, "Hey, I love you, Saeran. I see myself in a relationship with you in the future once we've had more time to be sure of ourselves and what we want, but I don't want to rush into this while we're still working on finding your freedom and you want to know who you are outside of Mint Eye. Can we not put a label on us while we learn how to be together?"

And by God, that man would respect your decision to wait no matter what. If you told him that you didn't want to be with him, he wouldn't be upset, either. He's happy to be your friend if that's all you want to have with him. it's okay. He just wants to know that you'll be happy in life and as long as you've got that, he's okay with whatever label you want to have with him. You don't need to be afraid or paranoid about what he might think.

Saeran says these things himself during the Route. He respects your autonomy. He wants what you want. GE Saeran is someone you can count on. Ray and Suit Saeran made mistakes along the way but the two of them wanted to make it right for you, and that desire of theirs by the end comes to be a huge factor in who GE Saeran is. You don't have to forgive either of those two right away, either. Remember the night 9 conversation with Suit Saeran? He says you don't need to be accepting of his apology. He wanted to give it regardless.

Ray didn't want to hurt you, either. He fought against the cult and lied to save you multiple times once he began to take your words as what was the actual truth. You were so close to helping him decode his cult programming up until the moment that Rika wrenched him away and tried to break his new-found spirit out of him before she lost control of him. His apology is in there, too. Their apologies aren't excuses for their actions or choices, but it's a part of the journey to be better men in your life.

You get to choose what you want from them. Do you want to take an apology? Do you not want it? Do you want to take a chance on letting them in your life? Do you want them gone? That's a part of what you have to think about when you're trying to make a relationship with GE Saeran. Do you see yourself moving with the past and walking to your future with him after everything that's happened? So, of course, you have the right to define what you want and Saeran will work with you on that.

If I were writing the Route myself outside of the context of a video game, I would say that Another Story would take place over 6 months to a year instead of 11 days. Saeran's After Ending wouldn't be as fast as it is, either. That's roughly a month and some change, I'd probably chop that up into 2-3 months with a lot of bonus content.

[johaerys-writes]

✨ 💝

[Writing asks]

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

I had to think about this for a bit because the fact that once we finish a fic it seems to disappear off the map is so sad sometimes lol. And there’s several works I love that I wish I could get back to somehow! One that I think of quite often is Fall Into Your Tide, the Patrochilles Merman AU I posted a couple years ago for the Patrochilles Big Bang event. I had so much fun writing this, and I've come to realise that writing an Achilles that is a little bit alien and strange and not quite human is one of my favourite things!

Another fic I really loved writing and I was a little bit disappointed by the response was Caught In The Flames, the fic I wrote for the Sheith remix event earlier this year. I know the subject matter is kind of .... iffy and not many people's cup of tea, but it does have a lot more hits compared to other fics that had a lot more comments and it made me wonder if people clicked on it and noped out or if they just didn't have anything to say about it.... I hate when I get too in my head about fics but it is one that I absolutely loved writing and I kind of wish my experience with the remix event as a whole had been better lol. The organisation and modding of the event left a bad taste in my mouth for many reasons, and I think that a more enthusiastic reception of the fic I wrote for it would have remedied that somewhat, but it just felt like a bit of a letdown overall. But YEAH anyway, not to ramble too much, but if anyone reading this is into excessively horny teacher/student AUs go read it and leave me a comment, it will make me feel much better about it LOL

I already answered the second question, so I picked one from the list I haven’t answered yet!

🧿what steps do you take to not take things personally if a fic doesn't do well, or if your writing/posting/sharing experience isn't going how you'd like it to?

Okay so I feel like this one relates a bit to the previous question, because I feel like unless one is an incredibly succesful author with a dedicated readership, there are bound to be fics or updates that don't do as well and it's often the ones you've poured a lot of time and love and energy into, and it sucks when that happens!! It really sucks lol. I don’t think I'm the best at dealing with this (as you might have noticed haha) and it's really hard not to take it personally but what I've noticed is that it's way more likely for me to be disappointed about the reception of a fic when there are other factors playing in, like if I'm not having a good day/week/month in general, if something's bothering me about the story or the writing process. So first things first: I take a step back and try to figure out what is really bothering me with the story/my posting schedule/external factors like tiredness, general crankiness, etc. Step 2: hide all the stats on AO3 and stop obsessing over numbers, and try to focus on the actual process of writing and how I can make it more rewarding or fun for myself. Step 3: whine about it to a friend until I don’t feel like whining about it anymore 😂 That usually works a charm LOL