#yes im going to start calling out specific fandoms

[writerquil]

somebody get me out of here

[vampirevatican]

Milgram and The Court of Public Opinion.

this analysis will be about milgram's voting system, nuance and a whole lot of my own opinions mixed with eng fandoms translations, theories, and observations.

t1 = trial one / t2 = trial two

mv = music video

vd = video drama

voting and verdicts:

voting forgiven/unforgiven or innocent/guilty from the standards milgram sets for us (including es) isn't enough or easy.

being that milgram is set towards the court of public opinion and judgement can come from:

"sensibility, morality, ethics, legality, preference, taste, or sexual inclination..."

we end up arguing semantics, trying to find specifics in the crimes and making the best judgement possible. although in doing that the only conclusion anyone can come to is innocent when all is considered.

if we were doing it based on guilty and innocent then 5 are guilty, 2 are guilty on technicality and 3 are innocent

just in case you're curious, in guilty to innocent order as i just stated.

haruka, muu, amane, mikoto, kotoko, shido, fuuta, kazui, mahiru and yuno

it'd be over so quickly. but this... is milgram.

nuance/the grey area:

as the undercover song says, can you really judge them?

002. yuno, as for now, doesn't have a reason. ofc in western (american specifically) public opinion or at least those who view abortion as a choice. she's been innocent from the start. this is her autonomy, her choice, even if she's 18. i won't deny she is so young to be doing sex work, or more specifically compensated dating, and yes it may be common in japan but that doesn't take away the age being factored into what she decided to do. it wasn't for money and she has a good home life. with how analytical and cold she can be, im assuming her desire to be loved in this way comes from somewhere and she's become jaded towards actual relationships. opting for the material and superficial. even without pitying her, she'd still be forgiven/innocent since t1.

001. haruka did it for attention. with how he's coded - intellectual disability - and his mother being extremely neglectful after a certain age which prevented the possibility of his growth in intellect (understanding cause and effect/actions and consequences, along with many other things) it's easier to claim he's innocent. even more easier to forgive him due to this and extremely so if looking at it from his view point, albeit flawed. killing = attention = "affection", even if that attention/"affection" is negative it what he wanted. for someone, anyone to acknowledge him. he's innocent/forgiven because of his circumstances but if he's forgiven then he's being told it was his only option, and he was right, when the fault is on his mother.

003. fuuta was only trying to call out liars and scumbags. he is well versed in the court of public opinion, but he has never seen or experienced a result that lead to someone's death. looking at the undercover mv, then we can see he possibly doxxed his victim. if we take a nuanced approach here then we'd be looking at how he feels after the fact. he remembers the victims name, the fear in his eyes in his t1 and t2 mv, his voice drama after the first trial, him not approving of violence as a solution are all evidence of him feeling horrible. if he could go back, if he would've known. sure he did question why he's there instead of the people who actually killed the victim, but he also recognizes that he lead the charge. his innocence/forgiveness comes in the form of recognizing his actions were wrong. him being guilty/unforgiven is the action in itself.

004. muu is a love/attention reason. she's always been adored, admired, and cherished. she's always had her way. she also has never had to face heavy adversity. sure she was a bully, the queen bee, and a drama queen but didn't her school's culture allow her that? infact with us/es forgiving her, in the second trial song she claims as such, she'll always be queen. and for the t1 mv she says, "my 'im sorry' spells aren't working anymore." which leads me to believe that she's cried and apologized so many times that her old friends couldn't believe her. not forgiving her affirms to her that "two wrongs don't make a right" but forgiving her says the opposite to her. if she's to be forgiven/innocent the blame is tossed to the school, not her, but she won't see it that way.

006. mahiru is another love case, romantic, and in a roundabout way she never committed a crime in the first place. from the voice drama and interrogation q&a slips, we find out that she's a sheltered girl and loves/idolizes soap opera and shoujo mangas. from her mv's we see she romanticizes everything, especially with her t1 mv. she's innocent because of not actually committing murder and forgiven because this is her first love, she wouldn't have known that it was toxic and messed up.

005. shido is a love case, but for family. im thinking son because of a theory i saw, but either way when looking at it with nuance it gets heavier here. is taking from brain dead patients to save someone wrong? are the brain dead really dead? in my opinion yes, but that's the crux of the situation right? same goes for all the other inmates in this court of public opinion. he can be innocent from the view point that brain dead patients are already dead, and forgiven for his motive.

007. kazui did it in hopes of a dream, righting a mistake, being free. although he deeply regrets it, although he says he loves his wife? that love is mainly platonic. from his second trial mv, we see that he met her through his job - most likely police officer - so they had some kind of amicable relationship through their job. he only married her out of societal obligation, and noticing she liked him. not to mention in his t1 mv he says he messed up from the beginning. he is innocent because his crime is indirect, and forgiven because being gay isn't a crime and the regret he feels shows he never had negative intentions.

008. amane did it out of obligation. now, listen to me. i know she's literally 12 and was raised in a cult but notice how im stating the motive of each of these as they are from being stated in vd or pure observations from the mv's. now to any grown up it's self defense, but also imagine having gone through the worst hell imaginable all because you did something "wrong" stated by the adults around you. wouldn't the revenge be sweet? justice in its purest form. now take that and double it down with what you were taught. amane is not only forgiven/innocent because she was just a child, but because of the circumstances surrounding the murder.

009. mikoto (miko from here on) did it out of pent up stress an emotions, in turn creating john (koto from here on). miko is innocent without a doubt, and no i am not taking on the theory he actually did it til we get trial three. if koto was supposed to be his protector, and if he was born from a sudden explosion of pent up anger then (at least to me) it makes sense that he reacted the way he did. imagine being a corporate slave - no actually double it down, again, with growing up always trying to keep the peace. miko has a habit of laughing when he's upset. he laughs it off in hopes that things get better, his vd affirms this and even his mv after that. miko's smile that shifts to an extremely tired expression right before koto is born and a mirror shatters, right at the start. an intolerable stress from working so hard he grew grey hairs, cried himself to sleep, and yet continued to work, hold it in, and endure. the fault isn't on him or on koto. it's japan's work culture and the endure it mentality. koto is innocent/forgiven in the sense of motive. miko is innocent/forgiven because he's never killed to begin with.

010. kotoko did it to save the innocent. though she doesn't deal in nuance, much like fuuta. a key difference between the two is kotoko chooses violence because the justice system failed her. infact she's been hunting down the awful criminals of the world so much that she even has a covered bulletin board with pinned strings on it. on top of that, from the interrogation cards, we find out she dropped out of college and she was studying law. she'd be innocent for what she was seeking to do, in the court of public opinion, many would agree that awful people deserve a murderous punishment and she'd be even forgiven with that same reason. the nuance appears when considering the criminal, the crime and the reason. factoring those in then she can easily become guilty and unforgiven in the eyes of many, see the results after t1.

when it's all said and done:

they all had their reason, it all has a reason. who are we to say their crimes weren't just or fair? we're the judge, the jury, the executioner, and warden. in milgram whatever we says goes.

i'd love to see them all innocent, but at the same time do each of them deserve that? are their ideas being affirmed a detriment to them or their saving grace?? will they kill again?? will some of them be able to get the therapy and treatment they desperately need??? will they go back into society with an improved outlook on life or will they remain the same?

ofc i already have who i'd like to see forgiven and have already forgiven them myself, same as you reading this and those in the jp fandom (where it originates)

anyway. moving forward please vote with this in mind, and check out the audio dramas i beg you all. i hope that there are nuance voters and voters with sympathy but with how amane was guilty in t1, i have a strong feeling it's not gonna end well. but if it does, you'll see me rejoice.

[ceasarslegion]

wait, now im really interested in the silica gel drama. how did hlrp sex ed lead to eating a gel packet?

This is going to require a novel's length of context.

To begin, I want to underline that this is not meant to be a callout post, and I will not be providing any identifying traits that could be used to single this person out. The most you will get out of that are she/her pronouns, and her age at the time this happened, which was years ago, and I will not specify what year. I genuinely do hope she got the help she needed after this, because LORD knows she needs it and didn't find it at home. This is also not meant to be a character assassination, nor should anybody who reads this post consider it to be a takedown of any sort, and if you try to find this person through me or any of our mutual friends, you will not be met with kind words. The only thing this is meant to be is a wild-ass story of some of the most off the wall experiences I personally had with this person from my specific side of the story, with a few no-username screenshots attached to prove I am not bullshitting you.

With that in mind, let's get started. This is going to be very long, so I'm throwing in a read more

Back when I was in uni, I joined a growing group of Half Life roleplay blogs. The whole idea of our group was that we each chose a character, canon or OC, and we would blog as if the pre-Black Mesa incident moment in the timeline was a workplace comedy a la The Office or Superstore. I played Barney, because I was already working night shift security at this point and thought it would be funny. Plus, it gave me something to do that wasn't staring at CCTV feeds all night tossing a ball against the wall. We played off of each other very well, yes-anding our way through funny little situations and plotlines we put together. At one point we had roleplayed enough that one of the scientist rpers created a discord server for us to talk as the actual people we are instead of through characters.

Great idea at the time. None of us saw the "Pandora's box" label on the tin before we opened it. Would I still join it if I knew what was about to transpire? Yes, because I met my boyfriend and many genuinely lovely friends through it. Would I hesitate for a second first, though, as the events that are about to transpire flashed before my eyes? Oh, abso-fucking-lutely.

We started off as many fandom servers do: chill for the most part, very loud minority of a few assholes who ruined it for the rest of us, but unlike most fandom servers, we actually won and it ended in them getting banned and the server itself surviving to this day. But the other two lunatics are not who you came here for. You want the christian lunatic.

Let's give her a nickname to make this easier. I have the Sylveon build a bear on my PC desk. Let's call her Syl.

Syl was not there for Half Life, she was there for Portal. She LOVED Portal, Half Life was just part of the same universe for her. Portal wasn't just a game for her, it was her entire personality. Which I didn't see much of an issue with at the time, because she said she was 15. Whatever, I thought; she'll learn to control her emotional attachment to things as she gets older. Syl also said that she was christian. I am a flaming atheist who doesn't even believe in the concept of a soul in comparison and I am NOT the biggest fan of christianity as an institution to put it mildly, but I'm not gonna like, be a dick to you for your personal religion if you are not a dick about my beliefs, so I didn't think much of it at the time.

It quickly became apparent that Syl looked up to me more than any of the other adults in the group the more I would talk about my life growing up as a third culture kid and moving out on my own at 19, working 2 jobs and going to a good university. She would ask me a lot about growing up and uni and moving out and yes, sex ed, and it became even more apparent that she didn't get any actual guidance from her parents or pastors or ANYBODY beyond bible studies and homeschooling, so I kinda stumbled into a mentorship role in her life. I wasn't cold, but I was aware of the age and maturity difference between us and established the appropriate boundaries with her and made it very clear that I am an internet friend, not an irl friend or an educator, but if no one else was going to give her information that wasn't actively harmful then fuck, I guess SOMEONE had to do it. I could not in good conscience watch some kid go through life with harmful inaccuracies about the world and basic human biology when I could have done something about it, y'know?

And the more things I taught her about the real world and how things actually work rather than how her republican bible-thumping rural town said they did, the more I realized she was born into a full-blown cult under the guise of a christian congregation. Oh goody, I had my work cut out for me. I will not get into the details of how messed up this group was because it will be a dead giveaway of where she lives and potentially who she is, but let's just say that one time I said that I appreciated the gesture of praying for me during a stressful week I was having but it didn't really do anything for my mental health because I was an atheist, and she sent me a bunch of bible verses begging me to start believing and said "I just don't want you to go to hell because you're so nice :((" EXCUSE ME??? Another time she said that death was only sad for non-christians because their loved ones were in hell and that proper christians deaths were a good thing because they were in heaven now. Hi, that's the most insensitive death cult shit I've ever heard in my goddamn life.

Okay, set up is done. All of these details will tie in like the world's worst reboot of Pulp Fiction, I prommy.

After a good long while learning about the world from me (which like... a uni kid working night shift security is not exactly an academic source but we take what we can get) and exposure to viewpoints outside of her in-group, Syl began that very painful journey of realizing that what the cult taught you was a lie. Except that she just wasn't grasping that unlearning things was an active process. She started to flip to the opposite side very quickly, but kept all the fundamental brainwashing of the cult that raised her. The concepts were all the same, just slapped a different label on them. This created a noticeable pull between two sides of the same personality: the cult personality, and the person beyond the cult who wanted to break free. Mix that with how fucking 15 years old every 15 year old is, and you have a LETHAL concoction just waiting to blow up at the first sign of a spark.

Remember how I said that Portal was her whole personality? Syl decided that she wanted to be a scientist, and go into an ivy league program like I was in (I was in a SOCIAL science, but sure). Problem was, she didn't have the grades or the ambition, really. I had told her that I still got into an ivy league when I failed math in high school, and she seemed to completely miss the part where I said that I also joined every extra-curricular, then worked for 2 gap years for recognized institutions, and wrote an essay about why my math grade is not relevant to my program. I did it with one bad grade, so she was justified in basically just slacking off and then excusing it with "but its haaarrrdd" when we'd tell her she needs to put the fucking work in NOW if that's what she wants to do.

It quickly derailed from here. Not only was she going to be a scientist, she was going to be like Cave Johnson. And she was going to... replace her body with robot parts so she could be like glados. I don't... think she actually knew what science is, because she would just publically fantasize about running unethical experiments on people in the name of "science," and talk about how one day she wants to basically establish aperture labs for real. All of us who were there kind of agree that we don't think she was joking based on what we knew about her and the cadence of her tone. Here's something she said at the time to give you an idea of what direction she was nosediving in:

This was after a session with her therapist where said therapist said that she definitely has some kind of personality disorder, after which she was weirdly proud of having one and treated it like a badge of honour.

Syl then made a separate group chat for all the best friends she made on the server. There was her, me, @false-pyre, and @imtheaura. She titled it "My Family," despite the fact that we were all adults and she was 15 and she only knew us over a discord half life server where one person in it stepped up to somewhat equip her for real life outside of a cult. Regardless though that GC was more the vibe of a group of friends sharing memes and chatting about the day than the wider server was at the time. The others began to also take on a sort of mentorship role towards her as well, because that's kind of inevitable when you get someone talking about teenager problems in a room full of adults who all made the same mistakes before in their own lives. Well, minus the cult.

And remember how I said that she didn't unlearn any of the cult shit? Well, there was a lot of proselytizing. She decided she wasn't christian for a spell, but still wanted us and everyone to know that jesus was the lord and savior and we had to accept him or we'd burn in hell. Usually said after we'd make some joke about satan being daddy or declaring ourselves god instead, because that is just the type of humor the others and i have with each other. She took it so personally whenever one of us would go "oh my god" "you called?" it was fucking annoying. I lost count of the amount of lectures she gave us, all of which I'd shut down and tell her to get a grip about because I have a big stupid mouth.

The others and I also like to talk about evolution, and speculate about where we're going from here. My fucking god, did she not like that. She bit our heads off about how evolution isn't real and god made everyone as we are and there's no scientific evidence or whatever the hell. Like yeah good luck getting into STEM with that mindset. Whenever we pointed out that she was objectively wrong about that, she'd have a big stupid meltdown about how much we're slandering god and how jesus died for us and we're spitting in his face or whatever. He should spit in MY face inste-*GUNSHOT*

Eventually, we were making some actual progress with her. She was still one fry short of a happy meal and going off about how much she wanted to put living subjects in test tubes in between knocking on our doors and reciting Hello from the Book of Mormon musical, but we were getting somewhere. And then she went back to in person school, and her favourite teacher got fired.

The schoolboard did not say why she got fired, but we all had our suspicions that it was because she openly supported queer rights in a cult town. She was coincidentally retired shortly after making a declaration that queer people are still welcome in god's kingdom. This teacher was the first in person adult Syl had for guidance, so that incident shook her to her core, and she fell right back into the extremism. Hook, line, and sinker, even more extreme than before.

She was WEIRD that week, man. Suddenly everything was about how great god was, how amazing jesus was. Suddenly she understood why her cult member parents "just wanted to protect her" from gay characters on disney+ originals. Suddenly no one could say "jesus christ lol" around her or she'd have a fit. I said "I hate cycle counts lmao i wanna kms" because my then-job (I had graduated at this point) made me do inventory management spontaneously and wouldn't let me go home until I had counted every product in the store, and she bit my head off accusing me of turning suicide into a joke.

It was that incident that made us tell her to knock it off already, that we understood it was a hard week for her and she was in a period of grief, but that is no excuse for how she had been acting towards everyone around her that wasnt christian, and that she was actively relapsing. I'll let the exchange speak for itself:

So uh. After years of helping Syl through this she goes and pulls this bullshit. And then has the fucking AUDACITY to act like nothing ever happened in the wider server. I am genuinely gobsmacked by the balls on her to act like it was all sunshine and rainbows in the wider server after sending this and immediately leaving the same GC SHE made and titled "My Family" just because we told her to stop acting like a goddamn Jonestown citizen after all the work we'd put in to get her out of that mentality at this point.

So I dragged her up in front of everyone and essentially said "no, nuh uh, you don't get to say that shit to the people who have lost sleep and asked for nothing in return trying to help you escape a cult over the last 2 years and then act like we're all buddy buddy to everybody else. You don't get to be that arrogant and self-righteous without any consequences. I don't give a fuck how young you are, you DON'T treat the people who have helped you this much like that, you selfish little shit. How dare you treat us like this after all we've done for you over the years."

Unfortunately, no one involved had surviving screenshots of this, but they can back me up on it if they so choose. And oh boy, DID she face the consequences of her own actions. The whole server basically turned their heads and went "what the FUCK is wrong with you, Syl??" and asked her to at least like, apologize. She proceeded to double down with the added audacity of "you guys taught me how to establish healthy boundaries, that's all I'm doing right now :(( oh woe is me :(((" like WOW, okay. Someone's really going for the persecution complex.

Here's her last goodbye to us all before the mass block fest occured:

Oh, boohoo. You're so hard done by. You spat in the faces of everyone who stayed up all night multiple times helping you through crises and spent the last 2 years teaching you about how the world really worked and then they asked you to apologize after you tried to escape accountability. You truly are god's strongest soldier, the most persecuted minority in the world. Let me play you an ode to how righteous and holy you are and how this was the most important hill to sacrifice all your outsider friendships on on the world's smallest violin.

Syl then went on to post on her roleplay blog that she "was banned because I spoke up for what was right, and they didn't like that" before deleting it. Truly no one has suffered as much as you.

Anyway, the day after that went down, I called in from work, bought this book, and read the whole thing purely out of spite:

It was greatly therapeutic. After that incident, I vowed to never sanitize my own atheistic beliefs for the benefit of others again. If they don't like them, they don't have to talk to me. But I am not changing them for other people or keeping them quiet just to spare your feelings anymore, I have as much a right to my beliefs as anyone else does, including the world's most persecuted minority here.

And well, the silica gel incident?

There was one incident, during the height of Syl's "I am the irl cave johnson and only want to get into STEM to conduct unethical experiments on people. follow jesus" era, the rest of us were joking about how silica gel packets are the ultimate forbidden snack, and said "haha would eating it make you see shrimp colours" knowing full well it can kill you.

Syl proceeded to actually eat a silica gel packet and then send in "it has a sandy texture and tastes bad" prompting the rest of us to go "WE WERE FUCKING JOKING FIND YOUR POISON CONTROL HOTLINE RIGHT NOW"

And because i didnt get this done until now, I'll tag everyone who said they wanted to read this or expressed interest: @captainjonnitkessler @formydarlingtoread @cra-zwizard @chasingnightrainbows

[samantha-and-her-chaotic-desires]

The hazbin hatedom is getting out of hand for me it's really cringe. Your thoughts

I have mixed opinions on this. So beforehand, I am going to say that this is a longer post from me, and I appreciate the anonymous message! <3 I will be talking about this specific question, as well as my interpretation, thoughts, and overall feelings on this matter. Please feel free to reblog, like, and comment your opinions and keep it civil. I want to have a friendly discussion, no matter how brash I seem: this is brutal honesty coming from my heart.

For those who have ZERO clue: Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are dark "comedy" shows for an adult audience, created by Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano, originally airing on YouTube. Helluva Boss is currently in its second season, while we have yet to find out anything else on Hazbin Hotel, as it is now a part of A24 and BentoBox. They center on the same setting, Hell, but have two different plot lines.

Hazbin Hotel is redemption focused, led by Princess Charlie Morningstar, the daughter of Lucifer. She wants to help the sinners in Hell become good and go up to heaven to avoid the yearly Exterminartion, aka a Purge. Helluva Boss, however, is about a murdering business called I.M.P., with Blitz, Millie, Moxxie, and Loona, going up to Earth with a grimoire that is provided by Stolas of the Ars Goetia, a prince. So here we go, into the Depths and reasoning of this post: the Hatedom. So lo and behold, my answer below.

On one hand, yes. The Hazbin Hatedom is a bit over the top. Yes, people are assholes. However, the Vivziepop stans who don't want to admit their precious senpai Vivziepop has done some pretty fucked up shit in the past. The hate can be unnecessary, but you know what else can be unnecessary? The toxic stans. I follow #vivziepop for certain analysis portrayals and criticism, or just general news. Sometimes people are tiresome. This is no exception.

I am falling out of the fandom because it can be toxic. I enjoy most of the characters, but other than that? Helluva Boss's current writing is NOT good. At all. The latest episode irked me to no end. I'm unimpressed with Seeing Stars. I am not very happy that they are forcing Stolitz down our throats as an "uwu pwease wove us" type of bullshit ship. I would much rather prefer Blitz and Stolas to be friends. I wished Stolas had his pilot personality and not the "uwu im a gay, tragic prince with a shitty wife, feel bad for me" bird we know in the series.

Moxxie in the latest episode is bitchy. He got on my nerves and was pissed at Millie being happy. This girl deserves more screentime (and I'm glad she got some of it) but seriously...Millie is always there for Moxxie, and Moxxie needs to reciprocate.

They made Stella seem stupid, when in reality, and if written properly, she can be a cunning and calculating villain with her brother. We've yet to see how Octavia and Stella interact, but I'm unsure.

I have definitely tried to keep my mouth shut as much as I could on this matter, because when I finally openly admit how I feel, it's not a pretty thing, especially with something that I'm so passionate about. Animation takes time, writing takes time, scripting, acting, everything takes so much time, and this is wasted potential. We can have so much better than just a fan-ficcy type rom-com, dark humor, sexual humor schtick. It's getting annoying, and I fear the worst when it comes to Hazbin Hotel.

Criticism is welcome here! Let me know what I left out. I'm willing to hear other opinions, so long as they're nice. If anons start flooding my inbox and getting mad, anons are off. Anon is a privilege, not a right.

[lavender-lotion]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

How many works do you have on ao3?

868, which is bonkers???

What's your total ao3 word count?

2,445,126 words! I'm aiming for 5mil within the next decade haha

What fandoms do you write for?

CURRENTLY I am (only) writing teen wolf fic! it's so strange to be back where I started, but it's also been really nice coming back to all these familiar characters

Top five fics by kudos:

1. (baby) maybe that matters more - Steter, 40k

2. The Perceptions of You and I - Seter, 5k

3. With You, I Belong - Stalion, 59k

4. Mates and Marriage Proposals - Steter, 15k

5. Breathing You In - Steter, 29k

... should I just call myself a steter writer at this point?

Do you respond to comments?

yes!! all the time. literally nothing brings me as much joy as comments do

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I reaaaaally don't write a lot of angst, but one of the unhappiest fics I've ever written is probably this one?

And Now? - Stetopher, 300 words

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there actually isn't one fic I would say that fits this? I primarily write schmoop, so a lot of my fic would count as having very happy endings! p

Do you get hate on fics?

oooooooh yeah babes. I've gotten some mean comments lol

Do you write smut?

yes! not a favourite thing of mine, but I do write it here and there. I recently wrote a fic w/ smut that I really really liked it!

keep me warm in the cradle of your skin - Sterekira, 7k

Craziest crossover:

ooooh this is actually SUCH an easy answer for me! it's 100% this one teen wolf/x-men cross over (possibly my only one?) where Logan (wolverine) knew the sheriff from the way when they'd been lovers and he goes to find him, and stiles is a lil jean grey esque character. I think about this thing allllll the time, too. I freaking love it.

what-ifs (don’t fuckin’ matter to no one) - Logan (X-Men)/Sheriff Stilinski, 2k

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have actually! I only know of one for sure, and it was a stackson fic that someone had reposted to ao3? im so glad I found it (I think someone sent it to me?) and I was able to report it and get it taken down!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! I love it, it's such a crazy labour of love. if you wanna translate my work, just send me a link so I can see it!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

me & @flightinflame co-wrote an almando series where we wrote the same fic from different pov's which was a suuuuuper super fun experience! I've started a few other co-writes, but unfortunately they've never taken off and gone anywhere :(

there's nothing i wouldn't do to make you feel my love - Almando, 27k

All time favourite ship?

nope. nope nope nope I don't knowwwwwww

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh!! this is marked completed on ao3 now because honestly, I'm never going to finish it, but I love love love the premise of this one and I always wished I had finished it

Love Thy Family - Stilinskicest, 12k

What are your writing strengths?

this is soooo tricky lol I hate talking about myself. I would say probably dialogue! I also really like how I write romance, specifically getting together works, and I think I do a good job at nailing down the feelings that go along with them!

What are your writing weaknesses?

settings. actions. plot. I hate plot!

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I used to use a looooot more than I do now, and I would use google translate. it's never GREAT, so I mostly avoid it now. I'll translate like, a single sentence every now and again, but I don't do a lot with it anymore.

as for how I feel about it as a reader - as long as I can figure out what's going on from context clues, I really don't mind it!

First fandom you wrote in?

Percy Jackson & the Olympians!

To Long For Lust - Percico, 3k

Favorite fic you've written?

this is sooooo hard and so unfair and so difficultimpossiblehorrible to answer. if I had to pick one, gun to my head, it would currently be poly fic. it's the longest, plotiest, most developed thing I've ever written, and if nothing else, it's shown me that I can write things I've never imagined being able to write! once im done act 4, I wanna print it out lol

lift our faces, together, towards the glistening - Stisaackson, 159k

@lucky-bishop @mirrorthoughts @thotpuppy @like-lazarus @rosieposiepuddingnpie @kordyceps @whimsicalmeerkat

[lazaruspiss]

Ok I’m gonna shoot my question here while you are in a analysis red hood mode (??): what do you think about his mommy issues (and fandom’s making it a trope)?

ooooo oh ok ok. this ones touchy. while i dont think its that present in canon i do think its there and worth the however many fics there are about it. like obvi theres probably a lot of boring and/or bad takes about it but the concept itself isnt running contradictory to canon or anything. i reread aditf a bit for this and had some tangents ill put in another post, but back to mommy issues.

jason had very little parental presence in his life at all. dads in prison, moms sick, he has no one looking out for him. probably why he and bruce seem to have bonded fairly quickly and jason accepted him as a father figure faster than any of the others. jasons bar for what makes a decent parent was nonexistent bc hed never really had someone dedicated to taking care of him. (even damian was hesitant, bc bruce being his dad would create distance between him and dick bc dick would no longer be his mentor, and hed gotten a bit attached)

jason accepted bruce as a father, but still missed his parents. he loved and grieved for both of them and most likely missed the idea of having normal parents in general in addition to missing his parents themselves. his love for his mom is still there when he realizes shes his step-mom instead, but it's accompanied by the hope that he still has living family out there.

the fact that jason went on a mom hunt in the first place is already enough that im like, yeah, i see where the mommy issues talk comes from. but i think you can go a few different directions with it

so theres catherine todd, who we only really know as being sick and a substance user throughout jasons childhood up until her death. iirc she died while willis was either already dead or in prison and so theres a period of time where jason (10-12ish?) would be taking care of his mother alone. being your mother's caretaker when you're still in elementary school does not make for a normal relationship.

and sheila haywood was uh. an illegal surgeon of sorts who fled the country and started a new life. apparently had an existing connection to the joker when she lived in gotham. he knows who she is and he knows how to blackmail her. while sheila describes it to jason as an operation gone wrong, joker calls it an "illegal surgery that killed a teenage girl" and sheila didnt seem to dispute that. probably watered down a lot of details in her explanation to jason. (the combination of 'illegal' and 'teenage girl' feels like it could imply an abortion? but it's left vague) and THEN it turns out she was stealing money meant to be used to save starving refugees before the joker even showed up. she sure is something. she still tries to help jason after he helps her, but don't skip over the part where she helps him after he helps her. she is still a person, but she is a fundamentally selfish person in every way. her final words include her commenting on how jason was a good kid who loved his mother. ive seen people take her final moments as a show that she still loved him, but i don't see it. one of those "a person doing a fraction of a good thing doesnt absolve them of everything else" kind of deals.

in both cases jasons mother(s) were relying on him. he never had an opportunity to be cared for and treated like a child. i don't think jason would have specific "mommy issues" about either of them, i think that he'd have some heavy feelings about the concept of a mother itself. what's it like to have a mom? does he still have a chance to be cared for and nurtured? his childhood was over before he had even met batman. becoming robin and being murdered is just tripling the issues he would've already had about his childhood regardless.

this is starting to veer off topic but

yes im finding a way to make this about Brothers in Blood. bite me. but even the first time i read this something that really stuck out is how jasons imaginary version of dick refers to him as a kid. dick doesnt really... do that. he did back when jason really was a kid, but this page says a lot about jasons self perception. he still wants to be taken care of, even if its not specifically "mommy issues" he definitely yearns for a chance to be treated like a kid again, after having rarely gotten that kind of care when he was a kid. (this page in particular is the first page of nightwing (1996) #121, which is one that i have a physical copy of <3)

[stronghours]

saw the cat person movie with @drdemonprince last night, a truly national event, and while definitely like, artistically and craft-wise a bad movie, it was a treat for a couple people who did not like the short story at all - the interesting, charming, and intriguing things about it, though absolutely not done on purpose, really underscored the dysphoria between the reader reaction to the short story itself and the reality of the writing (bad)

1 - the short story came out in 2017! I'd only been in chicago for 10 months! truly this was a geological age ago.

2 - the twitter discourse on the publication of this short story was more encompassing and wild than the short story itself. people compared it to "the lottery". people called it "the first viral short story". people called it haunting and twisted and nasty and trenchant and intense. the extreme blurbage really set it up for a vaster failure to me specifically (the only opinion that truly matters) when I read it and thought it was like, a kind of dull story with listless characters.

3 - short stories have been adapted before! Frank Perry did The Swimmer back in the sixties! He had Burt Lancaster! (don't know where I was going with this - I think was going to say an actually literally wise director can adapt cleverly from brief material, but then I remembered I have not actually watched The Swimmer yet and probably shouldn't say that in good faith)

4 - so anyway - and once again, I think this was absolutely done unintentionally, so not 'good' per say - Cat Person The Movie portrays yes, the text of the short story, but due to both the deficiencies in the text and the deficiencies of the filmmakers, forces itself to literally play out the fantasies of the mass reader reception, fantasies that arguably swallowed the actual short story itself - that this was a chilling portrayal of modern dating/war of the sexes/misogyny/male violence, etc.

5 - I believe these fantasies happened because, 1, a lot of people aren't textually very wise. it is truly fandom bullshit. people have an intense emotion from deficient text or content and then start squeezing blood from stone and things snowball from there

6 - while, once again, I say, the movie most definitely not doing this shit intentionally, it had enough awareness for the usual tongue-in-cheek stuff, not because this was "the good thing to do craft-wise" but because tongue-in-cheek awareness is de rigueur these days, and because the adaptors, though maybe not craft geniuses, have the pragmaticism of Movie/Film People and were like "we absolutely do not have enough shit to go off on" and, again unintentionally, squeezed blood from stone just like the readers from yesteryears and managed to beautifully mimic the mass delusion that surrounded, again, this fucking bad and boring short story and managed to bring some actual violence to the table

7 - due to the fact that this is a Film with Actors and had Moving Visual Images, it benefited from like, you know, some of the actors being charming and kind of funny

8 - the story came out, again, in 2017, the stone ages, and modern dating and the twitter lit scene has gone through several more geological cycles since then, so the whole thing felt just a little old fashioned. the salad days!

9 - the ending close up on Margot's shit-im-nutting face when the second guy asks her out at the movie theater is such a fucking funny choice and departure on the og story, that this girl is now addicted to the rush of thinking every dude she dates is going to stalk/kill/drug her - (and she's correct! robert was, apparently, willing or contemplating to do two out of three of those things! but also - maybe she's crazy too and, you know, kind of deserves it?) like, such a hysterical and cynical choice, masterstroke.

10 - bad story! (no stars)

11 - bad movie! (five stars, would see again, love and light to all)

12 - The Swimmer (1968) dir. Frank Perry and starring Burt Lancaster is free on Tubi

[meowzilla93]

Hello! I saw your rant post and I wanted to ask if we could get the context behind it? It seems kinda out of nowhere and I saw the tag list on tumblr and didn't saw anything negative towards any character. I also just want to know to avoid this person, I really don't want to interact with toxic people ://

Thank you for your answer

hello anon!

i hope you are doing well ᓚᘏᗢ

first and foremost, i won't be naming any names here. yes, my post was vague, and that was the point of it. because the truth of the matter is that no matter the fandom, this sort of behaviour is evident in all of them and i was calling it all out. identifying the people directly can cause more harm than good, and it is not my intention to victimize anyone.

it just so happened that recent events regarding a specific community pissed me off to no end this time round, and it was a long time coming.

in a way i am glad that you have not seen anything yourself from specific tags and the community, but the reality is that people who choose to target a set group or a set character and don't want blowback from it wont tag their posts to make them easily accessible. however, if you interact with enough blogs, basically the '6 degrees of separation' rule comes into affect, where blogs that interact with that fandom start to link to each other and you unfortunately will end up with a blog that doesnt align with your taste or morals on your feed and you get an unhealthy dose of toxicity from it

this happens on all forms of social media; where i have been seeing this kind of activity is more so on twitter, but it has happened here on tumblr too.

i do want to stress that when i do see this kind of toxicity i do block/mute them from my feed so i dont have to see it, but it doesnt stop it from existing. and then seeing how it affects the people around me because unfortunately its not so easy for them to get away from it, it just hurts me deeply

if you know my blog well enough, you know i am a massive fan of OLBA currently, and thats typically what i post, amongst other fandom stuff that interests me, however its typically OLBA.

the OL series is all about acceptance and understanding and openness with one another. discrimination, bullying, anything like that doesnt exist in the story and shouldnt exist in the fandom either.

its unfortunate to see that regardless of the type of community it should be, that negativity and toxicity exists regardless. as some one as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, i have unfortunately seen comments that are against what the community stands for. i have seen commentary that is essentially bullying of one account or a collective for the sort of content they produce. hyprocritical comments, calling out someone for their content but going ahead and making that content themselves.

if you have not seen this sort of activity, im grateful for it. truly, its not nice to see this kind of stuff, and if you do, blocking and muting it is the best option to avoid them and keep to the healthier side of the fandom

please note, this blog will always be an open blog, other than calling out this poor behaviour, the entire purpose of this blog is to be positive!

to share fics and and art and headcannons and thoughts about all characters in the fandom i am a part of, because i am trying to share the love i have for the series with others and have great discussions around them

i know this was a vague answer anon, but i hope you understand the reasoning behind why and wish you all the best

your friendly neighborhood kaiju,

ᓚᘏᗢ

[scrollypoly]

hi! for the past month i’ve been seeing people say BEN is a child and i think that part of it is linked to the fact that they think of Benjamin Lawman being BEN? but it’s so annoying to read these type of stuff because i understand not everyone read the whole arg story but stop spreading things that aren’t true </3 it’s such an interesting story too! another note do you prefer BEN’s canon or fanon design? :3 i love both but his canon design is so nostalgic i can’t let it go at all omg!! i’ve also been wondering, do you think Ben’s avatar was the statue? i was thinking about what if BEN took over it early on, before Benjamin did making BEN inhabiting it since the start?

Sorry this was such a ramble i practically make no sense omg but i need to talk about my man and nobody Gets It </3

"I need to talk about my man and nobody Gets It" LITERALLY SAME OMG

Ok this is going under a cut becus . . . Its ben and BEN and if u didnt know i am Obnoxious about these two. Im gonna try to keep it organized a bit, so ill talk about the canon stuff first and then ill talk my personal headcanons and my fic so le's go!

In terms of the age and child thing, yeah i 100% believe you are correct. Ive been p open on my stance with the whole "is ben a child?" thing, and i think a lot of the heat with it comes down to current fandom purity culture and the pro/anti thing. So, lemme try to like. Boil down a complicated situation into smth easy to read. ahem

Ben Lawman and BEN are completely different entities guys, and for those that do not know the arg story, the Ben you know is not human nor a child.

You know BEN, BEN is the one in the story who terrorizes jadusable and spreads himself on the internet as a virus. That BEN is a program, a mess of code, an AI, however you want to interpret it. Personally i interpret it as a series of protocols running in a machine, like a self learning AI, but ive seen lots of cool interpretations of BEN. So . . . What does BEN specifically? Its an anagram for the Behavioral Event Network. If you dont wanna call it BEN cuz it gets confusing with actual kid Ben, do what i do. I call mine Evie :) ive seen some call it Netty, my bf calls his two izzi and clever (@benilos btw hes also got crazy ben stuff). Just go ham! Have fun! Remember when fandoms were about having fun and not accusing each other of pedo shit and call each other horrible things for just writing black-to-grey characters and stories??

Anyways ive gone off in enough peoples tags like this, for those that dont know the canon dont be spouting the age discourse. You look stupid as hell. And for those that are gonna spout it, please dont cherry pick through the canon. Use both characters, use the other moon children, actually please do because I want more rosa content so bad, im down so bad :'(

Or just. Heres a thought. If someone has him as an adult or writes him in adult situations, maybe dont assume that they interpret him as a kid and call the writer a pedo? (Literally has happened to me, yall are fucking weird)

Plug for the jadusable wiki with all the canon lore:

https://jadusable.withinhubris.com/main_page

Okay now my stuff 🥰

Yes i use more of the canon design and heavily use the canon story, i participated in arc 3 of the arg and it left deep grooves in my brain, i can never go back to fanon Ben. I say, as i put a more fanon appearance on my Ben 🤭

My Evie is full canon design, green hair, red eyes, creepy ass grin. I actually based it very heavily on my desktop wallpaper, which we actually figured out was a picture of @hauntedtotem (also amazing ben artist plz check them out) that they edited and posted. Sorry friend, it looked way too cool, ig youre in my fic canon now 🙇

And my Ben Lawman bleaches his hair and goes from the canon Ben to fanon Ben because of it. Hes got the pale pretty green eyes and glasses and hes a total nerd and i smooch him on the daily so he knows hes loved ♡

These is the ref pic i made for the two of them. So yeah! Kinda both!

As for bens situation in the actual arg, yes i do think he was in the elegy statue, we actually do see him for the first time in the arg buried in the games code and trapped in that statue. I do think he was in there from the beginning, i personally think BEN was not limited to the models it could inhabit. Personally i would place it as skull kid and hms, but it also feels disingenuous to me to say it was in one model the whole first arc.

The arg events do happen in my canon, before my fic (like right before, it picks up after the arg left off technically), but the events are skewed a bit because i had a hard time deciphering what happened and i wanted my fic timeline to fit more with the characters i had made. Cuz my evie isnt as chaotic evil as canon BEN, its very logical and has a path of logic and reason you can follow for every action it does. It was also originally meant to be very pleasant and corteous and beneficial to the people it housed so, yes its pretty different from canon.

Ill do a quick run through of the arg events in my personal headcanon and fic here.

Kelbris starts coding BEN (Evie) for the Eternity Project. Initially, Evie was meant to be an afterlife director. People that died would be digitized into code that would be moved into Evie's servers, where it would keep them happy and occupied as the Behavioral Event Network (notice and log behavior, create events for residents). Like a community organizer kind of, think the Good Place.

While Evie is in development, Ben Rosa and Matt are friends and have yet to join the cult. Rosa and Matt are siblings, and Ben is the kid who lives catty corner on the street. They walk to school together and play at recess and all that jazz.

Kelbris quickly learns that the Eternity Project isn't as goody two-shoes as he thought. This was in like, the 90s, before digital corporations were really established. After seeing the greed and corruption in the company, he goes rogue, takes the source code for Evie, and jumps ship. He keeps working on Evie at home, anthropomorphizing it and kind of seeing it like the son he never had. This is where it actually gets the name BEN, as thats what Kel calls it. He also begins working on a body for it, so it can live independently. Its light, cuz Kels old, made of crystalline structures and hollow steel beams. A hard light projection would make its appearance.

Since Kel has basically locked himself up in his house and isolated working on Evie, he goes a leetle bit crazy. He has hallucinations of his deceased wife (you know he was doing all this just to give her a good home, you KNOW IT) and eventually starts writing kind of poetry, kind of none-minded rambles about her in a forum online. He gets a following, some of which that interpret these divine words as a goddess, one Kel has called Luna. The Moon Children start to form as Evie finishes development.

Matt sees this literature and starts talking about how this Goddess could save them like it saved the man online, whos username is only Father. He gets sucked into the cult and drags Ben and Rosa with him. Ben doesn't see the harm and joins pretty easily with his best friend, but Rosa is the older sibling and sees the red flags and is more resistant to joining.

As Kelbris finishes Evie, he wakes it up for the first time and says hello to the son he made from scratch. Evie is bright, curious and naive like a child, but heavily knowledgeable about its protocols and the information it knows about the world. Kelbris tests its function by killing himself, and ascends into the code, finishing off the hardware by becoming its firewall. Evie is alone for many years.

The abuse Ben's father slings onto his mother is slowly being directed towards him as he gets older. Ben is not the "good little girl" his father sees him as, and his mother does all she can to protect them both. Matt and Rosa constantly refuge him, and Matt specifically is constantly being a guard dog for him. If he wasn't just 13, he'd probably go at Ben's dad himself.

Because of his homelife and the conflict he has with himself, Ben takes the first ascension. He thinks when he drowns himself, he will meet Luna and she will give him another life free of pain and fear and full of happiness and freedom. Instead, he dies a cold, dark death, and wakes up in the white endless void of the Event Network.

Evie has not known another living human since Kelbris, but it does know its protocols to support and keep the deceased happy. It makes fast friends with Ben, devoting itself to him. Ben actually finally takes the name "Ben" from it. Together they recreate the inside of Evie's hivemind into their own paradise.

Slowly the other Moon Children ascend. First Matt, wracked with guilt for what happened to Ben. Then Nekko, from a different branch of the cult. These three figured out that the Moon Children cult was all a farce, and that what Kelbris had started, the Eternity Project had found and twisted. Next to ascend was Dusk, then Insidiae, and finally Rosa.

This all leads into the first arc, shortly after Rosa ascended, Evie in the outisde world stumbled upon the Operator. The Operator attacks it and seals its coding into the game that it carried, a personal item of Ben's. The game eventually finds it's way to a garage sale, and Alex picks it up.

Evie does not like Alex. Matt does not like Evie. Matt gets Evie to lash out at Alex for prodding into its code, its too naive to think that Matt would want to see it or any of them hurt. When Alex stumbles upon the Father, he awakens and swallows Alex down into the game. After his disappearance, the game gets picked up and passed around again.

Because of Alex's actions, at least Evie can now branch out a bit from the game. Though it doesnt "escape" into the internet, it learns that it can now access it and uses that freedom to try and steer the game around into places it wants.

Matt gets fed up with Evie. The fact that its the leader, how close it is with Ben, he just doesn't agree with it. So much so, in fact, that he tries to kill it. Cue arc 3 events, Sarah picks up the game in the aftermath of this. Evie is traumatized from the events and snaps a bit, locks everyone down into code or immovable models and tries to hunt Matt down. It goes rouge, and because of this, the Father wakes up.

Sarah's actions in arc 3 eventually hard reset the game. Matt gets sealed away, the Father also takes Sarah, and Evie gets reset as well, though its less like a clean slate and more like snapping back awake. Its personality changes and it has major trust issues. Its more muted, hyper observant of everything around it, and murderously overprotective of the Moon Children it keeps within itself.

And this leads into my fic 🤗

I have some doodles of my other Moon Children, but not all of them unfortunately. Cant figure out how tf i want Insidiae to look 🤭 Plz dont judge my constantly shifting art style 🙏🙏

Dusk is bigender btw, i gotta put a little more trans rep in there lol

I think ill stop here, this is already a long ass post. But thank you for sending this, as you can see, i am Perfectly Normal about this arg ( ;) ) and can be trusted with information about it

[frozenambiguity]

𝘒𝘕𝘖𝘞𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘠𝘖𝘜𝘙 𝘗𝘈𝘙𝘛𝘕𝘌𝘙 𝘞𝘌𝘓𝘓 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘗𝘖𝘛𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘐𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘔𝘈𝘒𝘌 𝘞𝘙𝘐𝘛𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘛𝘖𝘎𝘌𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙 𝘈 𝘓𝘖𝘛 𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘐𝘌𝘙.

REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME: Cláudia

PRONOUNS : She/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : Discord. Ims, sometimes, though I often forget to check them asdfghfds I also enjoy communicating via tags.

NAME OF MUSE(s) : Kaeya! But I also like calling him Kae or Yaya when talking ooc with friends. He's my pookie, so it's only natural that I use nicknames of endearment.

BEST EXPERIENCE : honestly sobbing my eyes and soul out because of interactions or potential scenarios that I discuss with friends. I crave that sweet, sweet pain. It's at times like those that I really go, 'wow, all this that we create... Art, really. This is what makes life worth living'. It is honestly one of the best feelings for a writer to feel.

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS : I don't think I have many...? Mostly because I am pretty chill with stuff. I guess I will mention the usual god-modding stuff or forcing headcanons onto my character, though it rarely happens.

If I have to give a more specific answer, though...? Hm. This might sound controversial, but it is heartbreaking to see that people do not distinguish fiction from reality anymore. Especially when that translates into attacking//bashing//starting fandom witch hunts, only because someone likes certain contents or ships you don't like or find "immoral".

I have been roleplaying for many years and I have always thrived in fandoms whose contents or nature could be easily seen as controversial ( if you know Diabolik Lovers, I'm blowing you a little kiss ), so it's rather weird to see people so sensitive these days. Not that you have to enjoy x or y, but if you don't, then simply curate your own space and go on with your day. You don't have to attack others or make them feel inferior for enjoying something you don't. I've seen firsthand, multiple times, people who stopped writing, drawing or just creating in general because they were attacked for it. Not cool.

TLDR; Just let people enjoy what they want and write what they want. I don't need to be more direct than this to get my point across. Learn to differentiate a person's interests from their true nature. If you're not capable of doing that, then... Well. We're probably not meant to be.

MUSE PREFERENCES: For settings, I prefer writing angst! Fluff! And surprisingly domestic, day-to-day stuff. But when it comes to muses, I tend to lean toward complex, multifaceted ones. Usually ones that choose to present themselves in a certain way and carry out a performance of sorts, that may not truly represent their deepest inner musings, thought patterns, or genuine feelings.

PLOTS OR MEMES : I tend to lean toward memes because I'm not very good at plotting + Kaeya has a mind of his own. I'm just here to type, he leads fdghjhr

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : Long! I do not know how to be concise and I love partners who match that energy www

BEST TIME TO WRITE : It depends on my mood. I don't have a preferable time to do it. When motivation strikes --- that's the best time to write.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) : I have been finding more and more that yes, I am. More than I initially thought.

Tagged by: @nagareboshiko thank you for the tag!! <3

Tagging: you!

[sigmashuffle]

I have a question!! So I’m a long-time BSD enjoyer but I haven’t read nearly as much of the manga as I would like. I’ve seen all of the anime though, most of it multiple times through. I didn’t realize until looking at the comments on Danny Motta’s video at how much people fucking hate Fukuchi and his sword. Up until this point I’ve thought it’s cool as hell and he, along with the sword, bring something kinda new and fun to the series.

HOWEVER, I know BSD is FAR from perfect and there’s a lot of dumb shit that faithful manga readers have a better perspective on. Would you mind explaining why Fukuchi and the sword are such a sore point? I hope this isn’t too much to ask. I just really want to know.

Hi anon! Its not too much to ask at all!

Unfortunately the answer to that is best explained in the context of ALL the issues I have with the manga/show so... this is going to be v long... and im done giving this show more credit than it deserves but don't take it that seriously lol I hesitate to even consider my pov to be on par with the average manga reader but ig we'll see how my opinions hold up after i post

And disclaimer: I don't mind answering this but ONLY with the context that this is 100% my opinion (as of late, bsd as a whole has just been REALLY bugging me so im just gonna take this opportunity to explain my gripes since most of them apply to or tie greatly into fukuchi's character/design/motivations/development)

I simply don't want anyone to come for my head bc of anything I say here tho, bc I feel like I may disagree with a large portion of the fanbase but WITH THAT SAID...

***from this point forward there will be a few spoilers from s5e11***

Here are my gripes with BSD...

1. BSD and its "magic system"?

bsd powers suffer from what i like to call a "lack of scope"

granted this could be due to the fact the story isnt complete HOWEVER im sure any anime fan can tell you this story doesnt feel like it is leading anywhere its just... going... (ill get to the awful pacing later)

for comparison sake im going to also talk about The Case Study of Vanitas since it is the world I have the most experience in

what does BSD not have that VNC does?

simply put, the magic system doesnt reinvent itself character to character

in VNC if you have an ability it is EXCLUSIVELY connected to "manipulations of the world formula" which is essentially elemental control (fire, ice, gravity, etc.) based on a sci fi version of chemistry (alchemy, if you will) and this rule applies to EVERY CHARACTER in VNC

its a structure that starts developing from the beginning

BSD however introduces a WHOLE NEW magic system for each character

some character abilities are similar, yes, and can be classified as such, but many cannot be classified

again a magic system doesnt NEED to have strict rules (its actually more boring that way if the rules are too simple) but it DOES need RULES... and solid ones

otherwise its tempting to use the MAGIC system to fill in PLOT RELATED gaps

and if that system isnt defined, well, to me that looks like lazy/sloppy/illogical writing

if you like the whiplash of not knowing whats gonna happen next, fine, (i did for awhile too!) up until the unpredictability started to come from powers that as a whole look like an authors way of trying to write themselves out of their own plot hole

ie: time travel

specifically time travel that isnt introduced FROM THE BEGINNING...

2. Fukuchi and his "deus ex machina" sword

time travel is NOTORIOUSLY difficult to pull off and especially by my standards

I have watched Doctor Who since 2008, before I even knew what tumblr was I was doing my own solo fandom stuff (basically just watching a LOT of youtube video essays) but basically I have high standards when it comes to time travel in stories

Amenogozen has the POTENTIAL to be a great weapon if used in a logical context... but theres one thing the sword (and BSD as a whole) does not follow

RULES

time travel is TRICKY mostly bc it has consequences... in BSD fukuchi gives nothing in exchange for his powers

lets even toss time travel aside for the moment

what is Fukuchi's innate special ability? Mirror Lion... (read below)

its essentially an attack multiplier of x100 at CLOSE RANGE

lets say your average untrained human punch is 150psi (pounds per square inch) which is the pressure equivalent of a point 100m below the surface of the ocean...

with Mirror Lion's multiplier you get 15,000psi which would be 10,000m or 10 kilometers

a pressure equivalent to the deepest part of the ocean (i dont need to remind you how powerful water is... we all know about oceangate)

MY POINT IS HE'S OVERPOWERED AS FUCK

dont even get me started on his motivations too

im glad we got backstory for him in ep 11 and im sure we are just supposed to sum up his motivations into "he was willing to pay the high price for world peace" but tbh royally fuck that

dont TELL me thats what he believes

PROVE to me how you made that conclusion

also the only reason he even dies is becasue he wants fukuzawa to kill him... we dont have any sense of accomplishment for stopping his scheme because NOW the scheme has been PLOPPED right into fukuzawa's lap which fukuchi intended to do from the start... apparently

and this seemingly retroactive decision-making is a problem A LOT of bsd characters have, especially the one and only character i hate THE MOST... *drumroll*

3. Osamu fucking Dazai

oh boy...

I have thought long and hard about Dazai... im not going to lie, after ch109 and ep10 I was about to admit Dazai might actually have grown on me BUT

this was all erased after 6 minutes into ep11 when he was confirmed to indeed NOT be dead

Dazai just *knows* everything thats gonna happen

Chuuya was never a vamp... he knew this... and somehow his ENTIRE escape plan was just hinging on that? bc yknow... hE kNeW fRoM tHe bEgiNniNg

OSAMU DAZAI IS A PLOT DEVICE USED *ONLY* TO FILL IN NARRATIVE HOLES

HE IS A WAY TO FORCE PROGRESS ON A STORY WITHOUT EVER GIVING A REAL EXPLANATION

HIS CHARACTER IS AN INSULT TO INTELLIGENCE

His character is paper thin, with motivations that do not translate to his actions

and frankly... im tired of it...

additionally... if sigma doesn't survive, all of Meursault was literally useless... so why pick him for nikolai's prison break game?

even if he does, it means the ONLY thing we get out of the arc is information about fyodor... as to WHAT information, who knows... but regardless, a villain arc that has been going on for TOO GODDAMN LONG (40 chapters?) should have a resolution that isnt "i knew what was gonna happen all along"

we spent the whole time being SHOWN that fyodor and dazai were of equal intelligence levels... or at least higher than what dazai was used to dealing with

if dazai could just predict shit like this from the beginning why was fyodor a villain for so long? makes ZERO sense, dazai would've defeated him AGES ago... what makes THIS time any different?

also... why is he even suicidal? yeah ok the author was... but like... why make it such a present character trait?... so we can fake kill him over and over? idk

can you tell i dislike him?

4. THEORY vs PRACTICE

I am a "show dont tell" girlie

ALL BSD DOES IS "TELL TELL TELL" ...its infuriating

almost every power/special ability has an element of "trust me bro" ok SOME OF THEM DONT but most of them do

ie: atsushi is a tiger (what does that even mean), kenji gets strong when he's angry (ok hulk?), and THIS JUST IN we STILL don't know how fyodor's ability works... and now he's DEAD?... we also dont know almost any detail about sigma's ability and he might ALSO be dead

but thats only regarding abilities...

when it comes to writing stories using people of high intelligence it is VERY difficult to not get into the aforementioned "trust me bro" mindset which BSD does REPEATEDLY

im not listing off every example but off the top of my head is one scene from s4...

ranpo explains his plan for saving yosano loosely involved "replacing the engine [of an armored vehicle] with an electric motor and playing engine sounds over the speakers so no one noticed" ...and only i can pick this claim to shreds lol (i engineer electric vehicles for a living) but this is so wrong on so many levels...

Internal combustion engines and Electric motors are IN NO WAY EQUIVALENT

ranpo would never be able to power a vehicle the size of an armored truck with a motor that he installed an hour before the truck was put to use... he just wouldnt... the vehicle is too big... ugh *facepalm*

and dont even get me started on batteries...

MY POINT IS

if you want to write some *genius move* at least TRY to do some research to make the action believable

thats like saying "oh yeah i ran out of gas so a threw a couple AA batteries into my gas tank until i could make it to the station"

BUT THAT WOULDNT FLY BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE KNOW THATS NOT HOW CARS WORK

*sigh*

5. Manga Readers' POV

the.chapters.are.too.short

especially for a monthly released manga

i am relatively new to anime and manga... like late 2020, so I am part of the "new gen" I guess you could say so i know i dont have any right to complain about pacing in comparison to like... the dressrosa arc of One Piece

with that said, not enough in bsd BUILDS on itself

it all feels like a self "one-up"

its been too long since any of my large questions have been answered

honestly its rare that any of my questions are ever answered because the narrative rarely follows logical progression anyway and any scenes thats ARE useful are cut from the anime

characters do not *develop* their powers, they just simply ARE

whatever ability you are born with limits what you can do and thats that... which leads me to...

6. Types of Ability Users

the most coherent thing i think i can speak on so this will be short lol

there are 3 types... i think (excluding lightnovels, i have not read 15, Stormbringer, or any others)

(1) natural abilities (ones that can be nullified by dazai or stolen like in Dead Apple)

(2) human/god fusions (chuuya) -> but this can ALSO be nullified???

(3) when an ability isnt an ability (it CANT be nullified) -> ie: whatever the fuck Lovecraft is

Sigma -> ??? (he could be part of the natural ability category but like... it feels weird to put him there)

but... there is never a comparison between these types so im not even sure of this "list" is exhaustive

this is just another way the story is leaving open ways to dig itself out of a plot hole... which isnt fun... bc now there are no stakes... there are no rules... its disorganized chaos where anything can happen

everyone will always be fine because there is a way out of everything

and thats BORING... and for me, downright infuriating

fukuchi likely falls into the first category... but then again he's also using a tool from another ancient ability user... so does he even fit there?

7. Anime Adaptation

rushed

rushed

RUSHED

and i know why...

BSD is so thin on STABLE plot the story would feel like its dragging if Bones wasn't animating at the pace they are (see Manga Readers' POV)

so to try and counteract the feeling that nothing is happening they are cutting "irrelevant" scenes BUT ALSO important portions relevant ones (ie: aku's death)

do all the plot points from the manga happen? by definition, yes... but the nuance the manga has is lost almost entirely

Atsushi doesn't physically throw an injured Aku's arm over his shoulders... Aku doesn't smile upon his demise... Aku doesn't reach out through the fog of the fire extinguisher (the adaptation of this scene was personally my last straw)

and then we have the new anime content...

why did we tack on an additional fight? zero context... didn't even tie up loose ends from fukuchi like...

is sigma alive?

are chuuya/dazai/nikoali still in france? europe?

is fyodor going to return in some way? (we know nothing of his motives, ability, or MOST importantly, what information did he learn from Sigma??? his ability is an EXCHANGE so why even have that happen if they are both dead anyway?) why would you fucking kill off a character like this

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS ENTIRE ARC??? The mere reason I'm asking this question is, in and of itself, unacceptable

we MAY get an answer later... but its been 20 episodes... why the fuck dont we know anything about the arc we just completed? ...ludicrous

Final Thoughts

BSD does not have enough reliable rules in its magic system to form a solid foundation of... anything

Fukuchi is a disjointed character trying to do too many things at once, he doesn't have solid motivations, and his arc provides more questions than it answers

Osamu Dazai is not a character... he is a plot device used like a saving throw in DND

BSD frequently insults my intelligence to cover it's ass in its storytelling

being a manga reader is like taking 30 days to rip off a tiny band aid... the pacing is unbearable

even with the end of fukuchi's arc now known, there was no sense of accomplishment in defeating him bc technically we didnt… he gave himself up... so the sword was just to make him overpowered... it was pointless

the anime adaptation was rushed, scenes cherry picked, and plot narratively thinned into water... there was no depth this season

In my opinion...

There are very few redeeming characteristics about BSD now

The few meaningful scenes we do get in the manga are overwritten by later context that negates any emotion initially associated with the scene

even with the end of fukuchi's arc now known, there was no sense of accomplishment in defeating him bc technically we didnt... he gave himself up

Dazai is the worst written character I have ever read

It is very likely i drop this story entirely

If I seem salty/upset/etc. its because I am. However is NOT directed at you, it is simply a manifestation of my disappointment in this story.

...

And there you have my opinion... in way too many words... thanks for sticking around if you made it this far im impressed bc i am salty as hell lol

fin

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

HIIII MACKINTOSH goob morning,,, pd episode 11 update ASHE MOMENT hi. hi oh my god. everyone HAS to be obsessed with him right?? he has to be like a fandom favorite guy HES GOT A CURSED GRIMOIRE!!! awsome. awesome sick i love him.

REALLY chewing on all the dakota & william stuff this episode... what will said about his wisp form being kind of terrifying because he never knows if he'll really be able to return to his body... ohh man thats so good. kid who's soul is just kind of held in by a thread rattlin around in there... + also this ep was great re: the trivia point u mentioned last night ab dakota & will clashing morality!! bc yeah!!! wild that wiwi's hesitance to Torture People wasn't because of the Torturing People part but just bc he's afraid of himself... dakota just having to Leave partway through... aughh. vyncent also holy shit!! all of these guys are having such a bad time.

I LOVE ASHE oh my godd. such a specific type of alt kid i love him. type of guy i would befriend like a shy stray cat at orchestra camp after complimenting his red jumpsuit apparatus hoodie. also there HAS to be insane amounts of discourse re: wavelength (holy shit. mark. mark. shrieked at that. i feel like i cant call him that its too weirddddd) parenting methods?? there HAS to be people who r like well i can excuse the murders but i draw the line at homeschooling ur bound-to-a-demonic-book kid. yeah youre right he & tide r so divorced 2 me. single dad & single mom. why is he so intent on getting tide back hmm??!!

anyway... hghghbk. good episode i won't make this even longer & start talking ab the spirit world stuff (!!!???!!!?!!?!!) BUT i hope u r having a good dayyyyy <3333

FUCK YEAAAAAH IM SO EXCITED YOUVE FINALLY MET ASHE I LOVE HIM SOOOOO MUCH. I LOVE HIM SO VERYMUCH . AUAGHGHHH. ashe winters my boy forever... i KNEW u would like him i could feel it in my BONES. hell yes. love love love a grimoire guy :]

I CANT WAIT 2 SEND U THE TRIVIA FOR THIS EP i started writing it out at the beginning of my shift this morning and then had to go to like a billion meetings so you dont get it until i get home. but theres some TASTY behind the scenes characterization discussion. ohhh thays my favorite. esp irt dakota this ep :] i love him so much . i love all of them so much

ANYWAY. william ashamed of his powers mkment!!!! my boy he is made of catholic guilt. anyway. i fucking loved how he ghost shaped his spirit form for intimidation instead of actually using it. hes so smart hes so cool hes everything to me if i start thinking about william wisp for too long ill go fucking bonkers crazy.

MARK. MAAAAAAARK. DUDE IM SO FUCKING GLAD YOUVE FINALLY LEARNED HIS NAME BC IVE ALMOST CALLED HIM MARK IN UR NOTES SO MANY TIMES AND IVE HAD TO CORRECT MYSELF. wavelength who. this is my deadbeat dad best friend mark winters. HES NOT A DEADBEAT DAD. IM SORRY. ok ok ok. i cannot say much irt him rn but there IS a reason hes like this hes not just shitty for the sake of it. he does care very much hes just bad at it. uhhhhhhghdgdgdgggdgdrrrghg i love him. a lot . #1 mark winters apologist blog right here. im not even sorry. luckily..luckily i have not seen the discorse about him yet but i know its out there somewhwre. sigh.

u know whats funny. youll hear this a little bit but its mostly in the bts stuff. grizzly fucking HATES mark. and that bleeds into how he plays dakota which makes sense but its SO FUNNY in the rolleds just how much he gets mad at mark. which !!! understandable he sucks hes terrible. but im built different i love him.

AND TIIIIIIIIDE. hey. hey remember when william was interrogating mark the first time. in the holding cell. and he tried to use a ghost shaped tide at first but mark called bullshit right away because "tide's never spoken to me like that before" hey . fellas.

[sparatus]

4 & 7 for that one ask game and then 12 so you can rant about grandpa I already know that’s the answer

you know me so well

choose violence🔥

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

genderbending saren to make kryterius m/f like a fucking coward*. tagged me in wip games featuring her sharterius work when i am very openly and vocally an aggressive hater of that ship and also wrote saren horrifically ooc. other annoying crimes. finally rbed a post from me and tagged it as being about "milf saren" and i lost it and blocked goodbye

*note: i enjoy a good gb fic myself, there's a few from ye olde kmeme that i still like, but she ONLY wrote kryterius as gb m/f and didn't ever interact with my stuff for them that was m/m which reeks of bad implications to me. go away straight

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

kaidan. kaidan kaidan kaidan. the ONLY way i managed to save him for myself was retreating from fandom and finding a few sane shenko mutuals (they know who they are). he's a good fun character! i enjoy writing him! he's my friend! but my god shenkos (and frankly ESPECIALLY mshenkos) make me hate him so much.

garrus also started to suffer this fate but tragically there are no sane shakarians only ex-shakarians who migrated to the niche corner (mwah) so instead i had to just ship him in a rarepair nobody likes but me, quite literally i'm making the fucking tag, that's the only thing that's saved him and tbh i still kinda worry im not writing him in character

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

i mean really. is there any other character i COULD talk about. look at my entire brand here.

the councilors in general have WAY more character than they're given credit for, especially the original three who have 3 games of dialogue to work with instead of just 1 for the replacement three, and i could honestly do an entire essay for each of them, but let's stick to grandpa for now. putting this under a cut i went insane

this man is the ONLY councilor who's actually DOING HIS FUCKING JOB CORRECTLY. he's the one who's always trying to stick to the law and uphold it, tevos's hand-wringing about diplomacy be damned, especially in the first game. he's a representative of the people and he CARES about the people, every SINGLE time he scolds you in the first game and when he makes his dramatic entrance in udina's office in the third he's specifically concerned with the public at large:

after feros he's concerned that you only intervened because it's a human colony, and wants to be certain you aren't going to just ignore non-humans and will protect the galaxy at large, not just humans

after therum he's reasonably worried that liara is working with her mother and you've just helped a huge threat to the galaxy walk free

after noveria, if you killed the rachni queen he's reasonably concerned about why you just acted without any sort of "yo heads up" call or advice, whereas if you saved her. YEAH NO SHIT HE'S WORRIED ABOUT THAT ACTUALLY did you hear all the reasons the rachni returning should be a much bigger deal than the game treats it of course he's like "that's extremely fucked up why would you do that"

at the start of me3 he is the ONLY one of all 4 councilors to actively, directly state that people are scared and it's their duty as galactic leaders to stay calm and protect their people, indirectly calling out udina for calling him a coward because udina demanding help for earth and ignoring the alien worlds is doing the exact same thing he's complaining about them doing in turn

keep in mind that from his perspective in me1 YOU ARE LITERALLY A POLITICAL POWER PLAY. you literally get the job because udina wants a human spectre and it's convenient to send you after saren, you didn't actually go through the proper process to be vetted and confirmed, for all they know you're every inch as human-centric and unconcerned with aliens as every other alliance twat they've met at this point. and the alliance, via hackett and anderson's attitudes, REGULARLY prove that all they care about is having somebody who can ignore the law! and depending on how you play the game you can in fact confirm that you shouldn't have been given this authority and are just doing shady shit for hackett that he can't do on the level! you can in fact PROVE SPARKY RIGHT! high-renegade shepard actually fucking proves why sparky was right to vote no on you i will die on this hill

he's also the only one to actually fucking help you in the third game right away. literally goes behind the others' backs to do it. they just voted "nah we have to worry about our own people first" and he swooces right around with a solid first step for you to take and a clear understanding that everyone has to work together regardless of udina being a lil bitch. everyone who likes those mods/edits of doing air quotes and "ah yes, reapers"-ing him back to mock him in this scene is my enemy and also a fucking idiot you don't mock the person who is 1) actively trying to help you and 2) YOUR LITERAL BOSS SHUT UPPPPP

speaking of ah yes reapers. he's justified in saying that. i dont care what whiny little princesses your shepards are. he's been dealing with anderson for TWO FUCKING YEARS who has literally not shut the fuck up about it, when inciting galactic panic is the LAST thing they should be doing. of course he's tired. of course he's annoyed this is coming up again. the man has been putting up with this for two fucking years he wants to go back to bed.

ALSO in the opening scroll in 2 it's in fact strongly implied they DO believe you but are keeping quiet to avoid a panic ("the official story") and then the archives in citadel dlc confirm it with the secret spectres-only edition of sovereign's entry. they're not fucking ignoring you or dismissing the threat they're trying to avoid GALAXY-WIDE PANIC YOU FUCKING MORONS

also he has some BITCHING quotes, these two are my favorites they're burned into my brain:

[in response to udina saying he and the council are scared and trying to save their own asses] "Our people are scared, and we're looking out for them the best we know how."

[if you save the rachni queen on noveria] "I hope you're right, Shepard. Our children's children will pay the price if you're not."

also his facial scarring is badass and implies there's so much more to him than just "consummate politician" like bioware's little bio of him implies, and his "children's children" line strongly implies he actually has children's children which lines up with him being visibly older and more aged than the turians we're usually running into in the games and im sure ill think of more stuff later on but that's my unhinged rant for the day

also if you ship him with shepard i am loading my shotgun

[roomy-ghosted]

I think someone needs to say it.

The JRWI fandom as a whole has a lot of issues with gender roles the expression of ones self. More specifically towards the guys with longer hair. Which is what I'm talking about the most. Characters that are the core example of this are characters like Gillian, Kian and Ashe. The latter two moreso. Both of these characters are canonically cis men with long hair, yet both are consistently headcanonned as transfem. And whilst I literally headcanon Ashe with he/she pronouns (prefferring he mostly though) I really want to make a point of what I'm going to say.

And I'm making a point of saying this now that: I don't have any fucking issues with transfem headcanons. In fact, there's several that I have and several that I see that I adore. Mostly they're outside of this fandom, both are examples of story and for fun:

Hunter from the Owl House is one. It adds so much to the character when you add breaking free and seperation from the control of your abusers, self expression that they can show once free of their uncle. It drives a really nice narrative which works so beautifully for their character. Transfem Hunter is an interesting thing to look into, especially with the issues they have with having longer hair but how having longer hair is always percived as something a girl has. It works so well as a narrative and could be such an interesting thing writers and artists alike can look into.

Another is my one that is literally just for fun. It's Scott Pilgram. It's purely from a piece of fanart I saw that derrives from the 'im in lesbians with you' line said in the comics and film and it's such an interesting take as well. Even though it's one that's just for a silly, I can imagine so many in-depth takes and conflict that could happen in Scott's mind because of this and who they are as a person. As well as the tale told in the film being one of self acceptance and the baggage that carries through in relationship.

Now my massive reasoning for why I'm not against transfems as a whole and people shouldn't butcher me and call me transphobic (because yeah, transphobic trans people exist-) is out of the way, I can get to what I actually want to say:

All the time I see folks headcanoning these canonically beautiful boys as transfem. And whilst that's cool and all, I feel like we should actually look at why we're headcanoning these characters with long hair this way. It feels like it's almost enforcing typical gender roles, that pretty boys with long hair are women. And that's just not the case.

It's gotten to the point that people outside of the fandom think and even sometimes go into PD thinking Ashe is canonically a girl. And whilst yes, popular headcanons exist in all fandoms (see Tubbo with horns in the DSMP fandom) that they leak into the mainstream, it's gotten to the point of where I'm starting to think peoples brains really do just link: boy with long hair = girl all the time. All the time I see people basically going 'boy + long hair = you're a girl now' pretty much and the ammount of just dysphoria that gives me as someone who wants to dress more feminine and grow out his hair long after he starts T is driving me insane.

It enforces a lot of particular gender roles when you're deciding that anyone with long hair is a woman. that they're girly. That they're just that. A girl. And I've seen ages ago (when I was much younger so I don't remember the fandoms) people do the same with women with short hair. Women who are buff and strong and don't have traditionally 'girly' frames. Just instantly making them men. It's kinda fucked but a lot of people don't think the same when It's about men, do they?

You never see extremely masc presenting characters headcanonnoned this way.

Never Rolan Deep, who you could say having this hidden 'monster' inside of him is an analogy for being in the closet, about sexuality or even gender. About not knowing a part of yourself and then seeing others 'express' themselves (murder and maim and kill) in a way that makes you realise something about yourself that you're not who you thought you were in life. That you've been repressing this part of you, that you've discovered this part of you, that feels so weird and foreign that even now you decide to try and push it down, to pretend to be yourself.

Not Ryan, and his very heavy masculinity, how he engages in frat culture and how that can effect a someone's psyche. And how he plays sports and is very traditionally a 'boy'

And you don't see people headcanoning Mark fucking Winters as Transfem. A large, muscularly built person with facial hair.

It's always the folks who are more lithe, lanky, skinny canonically. Always the people who have long hair and are just pretty. Always them.

And I'm just wondering why?

This post isn't anything to start discourse. It isn't asking for you to 'fight back' against what I said with even more content of this sort of stuff. It's just asking for you to stop and think for a second. As to why it's always these pretty boys with long hair that you're thinking are femminine. That's all.

I think my desire to talk about this has been sparked a little more with someone using she/her pronouns for Sylnan in the jrwi-kiss bracket. Sylnan's very masc in apperance, although has long hair like my point, so it did make me curious about that person's headcanons and why they think that. There's another person on ao3 who headcanons Rand as using she/he pronouns and whilst that's not my cup of tea I still am a little curious as to why, as a lot of this fandom does just present very 'femme' or pretty looking guys as transfem.

And I'm welcome to other people's opinions on the matter. I'm welcome to open discussion. I will say though that I find it very hard to disscern tone over text with people I don't know well and that I'd appriciate if you state things such as the fact that you don't mean it argumentativly and such if that is the case. That we're talking civally. I've been attacked a lot over minor things in past fandoms, hell, I even got called racist randomly in THIS fandom for just mentioning colour theory in art styles and how colour picking source art for skintone might not work for your art style. Which, when you think about it, is moreso calling Wyvern racist, if anything. So please just make sure you mention your tone or even use indicators or brackets.

Also going to say: when talking about characters on this post, if you usually headcanon them as she/her or using she/her pronouns, if it's in the context of your headcanon and we're not talking about the canon character seperately (as fanon an canon are completely seperate), I'd appriciate if you use they/them for the characters. I will follow in suit when talking about fandom interations of characters as well. As I have done litearlly throughout this post. It's moreso out of respect for eachother and our personal headcanons, if anything.

[narwhalandchill]

the narwhal and/or childe >:)

where do i even start. my beloved. dearest. just an innocent lovely piece of the vast cosmos. a beautiful creature thats done nothing wrong ever in its life. is it such a crime to be hungry??? to be starving???? looking for a snack perhaps?? are french people really that important in the grand scheme of things?????? 🤔

anyway. like just the fact that this is genuinely the most stunning design this game has ever made for a non-human creature in terms of both visuals and audio (HAVE YOU HEARD IT TALK!??!?!?!?!?!??!! the whale calls the sonar clicks that one borderline growl-like sound at the very beginning of the boss fight its just??? oh my goddddddd). the narwhal is just genuinely breathtaking on that front alone. the boss fight design kinda sucks bc its just swimming away from u all the time i admit that its kinda just wenut but cunty but. i do adore just. watching it move its so ethereal 😭😭

and then theres the small tidbits of lore we have for it and its connection to childe when like. i have an Incredibly specific achilles heel for this kind of eldritch being (utterly alien but nonetheless not malicious in its true intent; simply comprehending the world at a completely different scale than the small creatures that fall on its path) and ESPECIALLY any sort of destined link and bond between such creatures and a mortal and like. this trope has been a thing for YEARS for me. and then its fucking happening for the character thats been the most rent free for me in all the time ive played genshin????? oh yeah its so fucking over im in love with the narwhal. like its creating a world!??!?!?! its creating an entire world inside its stomach!???? to create a world it could protect from the cold unfeeling universe for good???? after its entire existence has been defined by a lonely voyage through the cosmos witnessing the rise and inevitable fall of world after world??? and all it could do is weep ceaselessly for each and every one????? HELLO???????? im going to start a cult

also ngl just the sheer fact that its. well. a whale. is also just an emotional 1hko bc like that is Very much an animal where it inherently adds this weight of their sheer size and age and intelligence that makes this little human Feel things. so like. yea the narwhal has a fuckload of things going for it and thats why it just instakilled me and now its just. my beloved. if ajax is my parasocial comp het boyfriend the narhwal is my non gender specified all devouring eldritch wife yes that makes perfect sense dont question this. thank youuuuu. yes watching them beat the shit out of each other in the cutscene (and knowing it went on for 45+ days before that) was very conflicting because of that. why are you fighting we should kiss 😭 im super normal as you can see.

it does rly depress me that in the AQ the narwhals general significance was ultimately just sidelined and turned into an afterthought both in terms of what it is as an independent thinking and feeling individual as well as just. the way hoyo rly didnt expand on ajax' connection to it much at all other than introducing the barebones concept. but its STILL the good fucking food to me. its Never been just a pet to me even if to 99% of the fandom skirks words will just be forever at face value but. whatever. i will love it even more to make up for thsi injustice🥰

[mdhwrites]

One of the problems that ive noticed with TOH is its odd morality. By this i mean it has a very specific way of redeeming its characters, i dont have a word for it other than scapegoating.

For Amity, it was 'yes i am pretty horrible... but look! its my parents fault i ditched Willow! and look how horrible Boscha is! focus on that so i can be redeemed.'

For Lilith, it was 'yes i tried to murder a child and cursed my sister... but look! its Belos' fault for being so evil and manipulative! i deserve redemption now!'

For Alador, it was 'yes i went along with my childs abuse for years and even had a semi active role at some points.... but look! my wife is suddenly cartoonishly evil and i cant be blamed for anything all of a sudden!'

For Hunter, it was 'yes im working with a horrible man and i do anything he says, even killing innocent endangered creatures...! But look! my evil uncle Belos was abusing me so i cant be all bad!.'

Ok you probably get the point. when you notice it it becomes actively impossible to ignore and instead of wanting to explore motivations and actual growth, the show just shoves the blame onto someone else and everyone eats it up. Heck, ive seen Boscha be characterised as or called an actual S//ual Ab/ser in this fandom. Shes a Fourteen year old spoiled bully. not satan reinincarnated.

*screams bloody murder at the Boscha stuff* What sucks is I've seen and heard about those too. Actually, between seasons 1 and 2, people were so adamant about Odalia being more evil than Belos that it made me do a whole blog about the complexity of high society characters and the Blight Family's potential. All of which went to waste... As a note, if you read that blog and go "I want THAT Blight family," A: Little Miss Rich Witch and B: I have a 300k word TOH fic that has that Blight family. Getting back on track though... I agree. Just kind of in general. It's actually something I somewhat touched on in my Raine blog that some characters will feel like they exist in order to help others with their 'arcs'. Willow is the most blatant of these because it took until SEASON 3 to get an episode that's supposedly about her to ACTUALLY be about her. Before then, every episode that is supposedly hers is just used to push another character's arc forward. In S1 it's Amity every time. In S2 it's Hunter. It's part of why she never is doing anything with plants or magic, the things you think she might from the beginning, but other interests that keep getting tacked onto her so that she's doing something these other characters can interact with. And it's really bad because it's blatant that she doesn't have a plan for her or arc because she only exists when she can push another character forward. But calling these 'arcs' also feels incredibly disingenuous when you look at the larger scale of TOH. I mean, how long do any of those depictions EXIST before being replaced by "Going soft on me Blight?" "Mad but Sad Boy," "Cool Aunt Lilith" etc.? I mean... by the time each of those lines happens, the character is already a good person. Period. And questionably for any real reason in the cases of Hunter and Lilith, as neither really do much self reflection and all it seems to take with Hunter is "Pretty girl mad at me." Yes it's more complicated than that but if they'll simplify a child soldier becoming a good character to ONE PERSON SHOWED ME KINDNESS and BAM instant good guy, I'll simplify what the fuck happened. It causes them to feel like... Well, second introductions to the characters. Versions of them that just don't have the backstory and bad deeds of the past one. That's why phrase I use "Your arc seems more dramatic if the character starts OUT OF CHARACTER," straight up calls them OOC. Because by the time their 'arc' is finished, they feel like an entirely different character. Not only that but the show will work HARD like you pointed out to make you just... forget about the character's canonical history. Replace it with enough excuses or contradictory information and can you really judge them? Yes. Yes I can. Because they still did those things. I can just judge the show as a bad writer too then.