#[im to plot more if you want i guess esp if wanting to play the android]

[nastyfck]

open to: verse/bottoms. 28+. beef preferred. wanted list here. (test) muse: michel freudenthal, scientist (fc: christopher trindade), bonus optional: L4-NC338167-CU12T15 or lance curtis, android (fc: seb stan) connections: lover, boyfriend, husband; assistant, fellow scientist. plot: michel is a workaholic and determined to get his creation just right. your muse could be trying to get him to rest or take a break, or helping him with his project. (alternatively if you want, your muse could be the android.) verse/setting: modern, sci-fi. home lab.

he must have been stuck in his lab just over 5 days now. michel, if pressed, would say he had a little more than 6 hours of sleep over those couple days. his eating habits weren't anything to write home about either. what could be something to write home about was the project he had been working on for years about to come to fruition. the scientist had developed his own ai, perfectly customised to a perfectly customisable android that was completely life like in every way, even down to the details, not to mention including all bodily functions. "just a little more and then he'll be perfect." its base systems were already on and he was looking at eyes blinking back at him. it wasn't the first test run of his creation and michel was just tweaking the numbers at this point. though truthfully, it was already performing way above standard which some would take as a sign of a job exceptionally well done. but mostly it just left him with a little bit of worry as to the cause.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

once again thinking about a version of the story where 13 lands in sheffield three years earlier when ryan and yaz are still sixteen and a whole lot angrier

13 turning out a bit more immature bc she spends her first twenty-four hours after regenerating with these reactive and kinda fucked up kids. ryan dealing with grace and graham recently getting married or getting ready to get married. probably feeling abandoned by his grandmother after his mother and father. feeling alone with his grief. maybe kinda just has tibo to confide in. yaz meanwhile is in hell getting bullied and either recently got driven home from a running away attempt and is now dealing with the familial aftermath of that, or is planning the running away. maybe kiiiiiiinda just has sonya to confide in but probably not really. probably doesnt confide in anyone

13, still malleable and fluid, running into these messed up teenagers who reflect all her own lonely angry betrayed abandoned feelings back to her, shaping herself in response to them. they dont trust her at all to start with, but i think she'd win yaz over in a similar way she does in canon, presenting herself as an authority who listens and understands. perhaps slightly more the understanding than authority part at this point in yaz's life. maybe she lands in front of yaz actually in the hills before anita can get there. yaz is like "where the fuck did you come from" and shes like "um the troposphere i think" and yaz is like "how are you not dead" and shes like "oh i was! but then i decided maybe i shouldnt be. so. now im here :) with you!" and that kinda strikes a chord with yaz. and then the doctor's like "do you happen to have a sandwich in that backpack im starving"

then aliens happen and once they run into ryan, yaz is already won over and she and ryan recognise each other and she convinces him that, like, no shes not nuts, theres definitely aliens shes seen them

11x1 would go entirely differently obviously. maybe grace wouldnt die and graham wouldnt travel. ryan maybe decides to travel a little bit out of spite and home doesnt really feel like home, and yaz isnt having fun at home or at school either and she was running away anyway so this is not a hard decision

the emotional instability and bad decision counter of a team tardis thats just 16-year-old yaz and ryan and 13 is kind of amazing to imagine. it'd be so volatile but they'd love each other so much i think they'd be the best friends bc instead of starting off closing herself off from grief, 13 would start off having her justified and irrational anger sort of validated and coaxed out i think by yaz's and ryan's. in the tardis between the three of them there would be a place to express "nobody cares about me" whether thats true isnt the point, i think theyre all feeling it a little bit. "everyone just moved on like mum didnt matter/'tell an adult' like what are they gonna do?/okay it wasnt all their faults but all my friends are dead" you know? i think they'd be heard with each other and i think there'd be space for the injustice of it all and especially as the doctor is like a children's advocate most of all, she would take ryan and yaz seriously in a way i think they wouldnt have been by any other adult in their lives at that point. and in return they, just by being there as they are, would make room for the hurt child that 13 is and will turn out to be

and i dont have details for this but i think it would be really nice if the way 13 listens and takes seriously yaz and ryan in the first season (not like consciously or deliberately or anything, shes not trying to Do anything, this is just who the doctor is) would be mirrored in the second and/or the third when they have calmed down a bit, dealt with some of their issues at home, talked to some family members, become a little less depressed and angry etc, and they return the way she treated them when she finds out abt the timeless child and tecteun. she took their anger seriously and she took them seriously when they said "this isnt fair" and in return they can take her anger seriously, probably are angry on her behalf, and they can stop her from overcorrecting from like being 10 by pointing out to her that this isnt fair and shes allowed to be angry abt it

and when yaz inevitably gets a crush i think it shows up as a kind of out of character/seemingly regressive prickliness and snappiness toward the doctor getting more intense over the course of s12 that ryan and the doctor first are puzzled by bc like sure in the first half of s11 maybe they were all a bit snappish with each other but theyve been friends for like a year now whats this about all of a sudden? and yaz is like Nothing!!!! it's nothing!!! piss of!!! bc shes having feelings she doesnt know what to do with or how to interpret so theyre just manifesting as Angery. that same need to prove herself + probably worry abt the doctor as in canon except a lot more combative and a lot less inhibited. shes probably picking fights abt everything the doctor tells her to do. trying to provoke the doctor into actually getting mad and yelling at her or, god forbid, grabbing her, shoving her, using her hands bc yaz wont listen to words. sometimes youre 17 and horny and you dont understand you want one of your two friends in the world to kiss you bc it hasnt occurred to you that girls kissing girls is a thing that can happen. ryan figures it out first

in this version ryan probably stays until the end too - or the same as in revolution happens and yaz feels betrayed that he'd give up on the doctor so easily and feels alone in the entire world again - graham and dan wouldnt come into the picture. ryan's and yaz's family would come into the picture a little more actively. theres a lot of plot to figure out that i cant and it would be a very different era in many ways but i think it would be nice

[a-town-called-hometown]

hi!! i loved your post about deltarune's metafiction and its (not) escapist themes, and it got my brain jogging, like... i guess ive just been thinking "why"? like ive heard that take before and i think its valid, but also like. why ? its obvious enough to me that deltarune uses the lightner/darkner relationship as a reflection of the player/game relationship and both of these things are addressed critically, but i can't help but wonder if there's a driving force for it all, outside of deltarune. like i can accept diegetically the darkners are not, or shouldn't be, subject only to the whims of lightners, but with any good story if you break it down to its core is ultimately saying something about humanity or the world and such. i mean i seriously doubt the people who seem to think that Toby Fox intends to induce *actual* guilt into the people who fund his life's work and career by purchasing his videogames, like, it's obvious that "you are a bad person because you play this videogame" isn't the intended message, nor was it in undertale. but then, what is? what is the purpose of a story that invites us to think of toys and game characters as "real"? not to trash my beloveds but i mean, literally speaking, their lives DONT matter, they r not real. it just feels like ive seen a lot of discussion about 'what' toby is doing with the narrative but i feel like that's only half the ordeal, the other half would be the reason why. my first thought was that the implicit 3rd thing being compared to the light-dark, player-game thing is actual social hierarchy IRL in which people are oppressed by another group that doesnt see them as human, bc iirc toby talked a bit about feeling powerless and wanting to do more to change the real world on real issues in an interview in 2020ish and of course there's the snarky gag about the fedora plugboy who doesn't like politics, so he doesn't care that an evil ruler is taking over the world. im not sure if that sits right with me as what the intention is (esp because the latter is a darkner talking about another darkner) but i couldnt think of much else although i do feel like a fallacy people get themselves into a lot in the fandom is the assumption that toby fox is this Impeccable Writing Machine and not just like A Guy. people make weird or flawed art sometimes, it doesn't *have* to adhere to standards. maybe deltarune is meaningless (or the meaning IS that it's meaningless, as though to complete the metaphor of it being a "real" fictional world, because if it is 'real' then like our world there is no "answer" or "purpose", it simply *is*.) dunno! im not expecting it to boil down to a simplistic fairytale moral like "dont bully people!!" or something, mr. fox tends to write more convoluted than that, but i feel like if there's something to be gained from this particular part of the game's story then i'm not sure i see the vision. what do u think? do u think this question is even answerable with only two chapters?

respectfully, I do heavily disagree with the notion that good stories necessarily have to say anything about the world or about humanity. one of the reasons I like metafiction is that it usually says something about how stories are constructed, and that's enough for me. there's plenty of stories that have bigger themes that aren't really all that much about human nature, at least, not directly. a story can comment on one specific thing without necessarily making a broader statement about people, you know? not every story has an easily explained moral lesson.

that being said, yes, this plot element is in service of deltarune's larger themes! which are about agency, control, fate, and identity.

deltarune's fate theming and its metafiction elements are a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation given how interlocked they are, but I've found it helpful to describe deltarune as a "person vs. fate narrative that uses a metafictional lens to characterize fate." rather than the three fates of greek mythology or whatever dictating its characters' lives, it is instead the structure of the rpg their world was made to be. they are player characters. they are npcs. they play specific roles in the narrative. no one can choose who they are in this world.

control is emphasized in this story. there's the control we have over kris, of course, and in a much subtler way the control we have over the world through them. there's the darkner-lightner hierarchy, which parallels our dynamic with kris. i would argue that there are even social forces in hometown which also serve to place the lightner characters into specific roles. under this level of control, it's hard for characters to push back and determine their own identities.

all these forces combine to mean that deltarune's characters are fighting back against the narrative itself! which says stuff about people's agency, and the way rpgs are written, and how we interact with all that...

ultimately, you can apply this to real life. even if there aren't things like "fictional people who are actually real," hierarchies of control do exist in real life. narratives that erase the agency and internality of certain types of people exist in real life. it's admittedly a rather general statement, but like with any narrative about fate, seeing characters resist rules that are seemingly written into the fabric of their existence can make you feel inspired to also define your own identity! and to be transgender. don't forget to be transgender

[1800duckhotline]

im new here and missed your bg3 phase entirely can i hear what makes the game so sucks for you (or ill go look in the tag! fine too). i love to hear people bitchin about games everybody else doesnt wanna criticize

omg hello... first of all welcome to my twisted mind etc. my blog is an array of a completely random agglomeration of interests so im sorry if i shift from posting from x to y at the speed of light LMFAO. my bg3 obsession phase was definitely a strange exception but i guess it is what it is

and def i can give u the sparknotes version of my criticisms for the game, which are both rational and not and you're free not to agree and so forth, i'm just one guy expressing an opinion which i think i'm entitled to since i've played this game for over 200 hours almost i am fairly sure. i was not okay.

obviously i'll be mentioning spoilers fyi. i got long here but i promise this is just the Resume of my actual opinions

i hate the fact everyone sounds british except minsc or jaheira. i just dont like it. like a few characters here and there its nothing that bothers me but i'm tired of british accents in fantasy media. it makes things more of a snoozefest

for a game that prides itself on characters being reactive and interactable (esp companions) more often than not the companions reactions have been disappointingly lackluster and straight up Sad because they're so Nothing. i.e. durge reveal

i think not having tav/durge voiced was stupid. my onion!

the game is not as revolutionary as people make it out to be when it comes to character design and good lord the character creator to me is offensive. the companions are all EXTREMELY SAFE when it comes to 'conventional beauty standards', and while i'm not surprised nor did i expect any less, the lack of body diversity to me is just so... boring. it's so nothingburger. like i love projecting hcs and shit but i wish i didn't have to do that

wyll having so little in terms of content and writing and reactions in the game compared to astarion (and let's also say shadowheart bc on a technical level she's the second favorite of larian) is genuinely the worst thing to me because his concept is charming and interesting and larian just decided to do nothing with him. players that are black and/or poc obviously have said this a trillion times, i'm just echoing the sentiment because i also hate how blatant it is, esp when i read up and watched how he used to be in EA. like not to say the writing there was stellar but he had dimension. larian just does not give a fuck abt him and it is irritating lmao, esp since astarion has tangentially 0 actual involvement with the game's main plot in his arc WHILE WYLL LITERALLY GETS HIS ARC SIDELINED BY THE EMPEROR I FUCKING HATE THAT STUPID TURN OF EVENTS SO MUCH

act 1 is probably the best optimized out of all the acts, with the optimization being probably up to midway of act 2. then it alllllll goes downhill. i said it so much but i never get tired of saying it: act 3 is so poorly organized, so many good ideas all smushed together in an indigestible slog of an act with too many quests flattened in one single serving making it so fucking hard to want to get it done. which is awful, because a lot of poignant plot events and fights happen in act 3. i'm still of the firm belief they should've made an act 4. considering this ties in with the aforementioned issue where wyll was supposed to get more content... and it got cut out 'for time'.

i fucking hate astarion fans. i trust like 2 people that do like him. i genuinely was so indifferent to him in the game. like he's fine as a character. i just dont like him much because of the fans. Again ties in with the wyll issues too because people love to pretend astarion would be in wyll's place in the dancing scene when astarion would call you slurs and kill you if he could

also like think what you will of minthara but i think it's criminal that she's a companion and alongside wyll is left to rot at the bottom of the game's code. it's definitely more egregious for wyll imo but like. idk i also am not a fan of this esp since i discovered halsin was added as a companion because THE FANS begged them to. seething

again, there's people more well equipped to discuss this and i did reblog and share posts abt this before on my main account but the embarrassing fantasy racism is there and it's an innate problem of dnd. i think it should be mentioned and kept in mind regardless if it's done well or not (which i don't think it was).

this is less abt the game itself and more abt the fandom but i genuinely cannot fucking stand people who are so aggressive at users who have sexuality headcanons for some of the characters of the game. i've seen people have SO much fucking vitriol towards lesbians having lesbian hcs, specifically, gee i wonder why. this hasn't happened to Me but i have witnessed it.

i think that's more or less the Issues i have with bg3. you're free to ask anything in specific but like... i dont hate the game. or i wouldnt have played it so much. but it should not have been GOTY to me. sorry. like there's so much i just think is wrong... but im just one guy.

i usually prefer completely different types and genres of games, so obviously i'll be more dissecting towards a game i tried out of curiosity and Liked, but with many grievances. the type of stuff i usually like is also far from perfect but i judge a lot of those things in bg3 because of how the game presents itself as in advertisement and social media posts, as well as just like, the steam page. i have plans in the future to try similar games to bg3 to see if it's a common problem within that genre or if it's the black sheep (for me) but for now it is how it is

anyways i did also like a lot of parts of the game, it's just, i can't really reccomend it without mentioning what i didn't like you know?

[mamawasatesttube]

So, I'm not a writer, but I am very curious 👀 What do you look for in a fic that features Kon? 👀 What kind of things do you want Kon to do, or experience? 👀 What characteristics of Kon do you absolutely wanna see? 👀 What characteristics of Kon you didn't like but want to see adressed in a fic? 👀 When you're writing, what are three major things about Kon that you MUST INCLUDE NO MATTER WHAT? 👀👀👀 Sorry about the many questions!!!!!

OHHHH this is such a good question okay okay okay. let's see.

what do i look for? primarily, kon having an actual character voice. that's the lowest bar to clear (and yet already takes out... a good chunk of the fics ive seen in the kon character tag 😭😭). he needs to be silly, geeky, deeply kind, earnest, etc. not every fic featuring him will necessarily get into the way he's also existentially lonely and has a Lot of sadness and self-esteem issues (esp after rex leech's roller coaster incident. this has been on my mind today. ough. his self-image never recovered after that one!) but by GOD does he have his issues, so if its a fic going into emotions i want it to do right by his. will def admit thats smth im incredibly picky about.

as for stuff i want him doing? honestly i am here for so much!! i want soft simple character studies. i want action showcasing how fucking powerful ttk can be, especially with a dose of creativity to its use. i want wacky yj space adventures. i want good good whump and hurt/comfort. i want him getting swept off his feet. you could sell me on almost any plot if it's well-written.

re: characteristics... i don't really split them up quite like that, i think! he's a well-rounded character, and that includes both strengths and flaws. ideally, a good fic will include both of these and represent them fairly (like, he's not perfect by any means, and he can do stupid things and struggle with personal issues, but on the other hand very few things tick me off more than portrayals where he's just completely incompetent and dumb as a rock, lmao).

BUT REGARDING MY OWN WRITING. ohhohoohoohooho three things i ALWAYS have to include? a) geek-ass loser (affectionate). i think it is SO endearing and also very humanizing as a quality that he's a trekkie/wendy fan/star wars nerd/etc. b) mixed-race metaphors. they may not be overt depending on the piece but the "child of two worlds that doesn't quite fit into either" thing is Deeply intentional. and c) HES A JUGGERNAUT!!!! i firmly believe adult fully realized kon (a kryptonian, with full kryptonian powers, WITH TTK) is a force of fucking nature. i like this so much and i specifically also always like it when he is at any given moment about 0.4 seconds from freaking the fuck out about how it's Too much strength.

to me, kon is a character made of some very delicious contradictions. he's so painfully human and yet grapples hard with his own personhood and humanity. he's a kryptonian and an alien but he's a child of earth. he's terrified of his own power. he wants nothing more than to protect everyone he loves (and everyone he doesn't love, too). he's always ready to crack a joke or make a silly reference, but he is deeply sad and spent so much of his early life suicidal. he contains multitudes. (and this isn't even getting into my hcs on his gender/sexuality crisis! ksjdhf)

i feel like a gripe i often find myself having when looking for kon fics is that he often gets slotted into the role of "emotional support boyfriend with no personality or role of his own" though, which i guess is why "does he have a distinct character voice?" is my first litmus test for whether i'd want to keep reading or not.

a good kon fic will embrace all his contradictions, i think. (a good fic for any character, really, should show them as well-rounded and three-dimensional.) and i for one love his Problems and Issues, bc man, it's a very fun space to play in! <3

[cocozydiaries]

More mha asks <3 :

Do u already know what ur hero name is gonna be like?

What are your dr hobbies/activities?

Do u have any pets?

Are u going for the actual mha plot or just without that?

And please PLEASE make it as long as u like. I love reading mha dr things so pls pls pls don‘t hold back.

ANON IM SO SORRY I JUST SAW THIS RN ISTG I WASN’T LEAVING THIS ON PURPOSE IM SO SORRY😭 this is all written out so weirdly i rushed it i’m really sorry

Do u already know what ur hero name is gonna be like?

i’m gonna be really honest coz i don’t have even the slightest clue💀

but knowing me i’m probably gonna pick smth meaningful or like really sentimental because i’m just really dramatic.

Also i think names mean a lot esp my hero name so that’s smth i don’t wanna take lightly. Not even to be mean… but what we’re some of those names you see in the canon show🧍‍♀️ not calling anyone out or anything…

but yeah i’m definitely not picking smth silly (actually might tho) so tbh I’m guessing it’s probably gonna end up being butterfly related because i’ve always like those! Or maybe smth related to my quirk?

What are your dr hobbies/activities?

I HAVE SO MANY i like writing, crocheting, gardening, archery, baking, painting, and i loooooove puzzles! There is just smth so satisfying about finishing one. These are the ones i remember off the top of my head😭 my drself is a busy person i fear

i also love making those like little scrapbooks too because even in my DR i’m still a pinterest girl to my core💔

Honestly some of these choices kinda make me sound like an old lady🧍‍♀️but like i also like exploring abandoned places?? which isn’t an old lady thing to do (unless it is) but idk if that counts as a hobby?

I also play a few instruments but idk if that’s a hobby either😭 my parents just heavily fw music ans being a well rounded individual soooo i learnt a lot

Do u have any pets?

My family has a lot of pets

i have a cat that i was considering calling sesame but now i’m not so sure coz someone suggested i name her after the loml tiramisu and now i wanna name her after the loml tiramisu

my younger sister has a dog (which is the only dog i tolerate in my life)

my younger brother has a snake. i love her and if i didn’t already have a cat i would probably also get a snake or maybe a tarantula i could name tutu

and there’s also the duck? smth my parents decided to randomly get idk why but she likes the pond!

Are u going for the actual mha plot or just without that?

defo following the original events but i’m guessing my presence is probably gonna change them up a bit

i mean i scripted i was friends with the dynamic duo when we were kids so that’s already one big change to the original. watching their little fights is gonna be so awkward esp coz i moved away for like three years (back to london!) so like there’s been a decent amount of time since i last saw them💀

i’ve also changes a bunch of minor things like the school uniform not being ugly and that UA has school trips and stuff that aren’t always hero related WHY IS EVERYTHING HERO WORK RELATED THOSE KIDS ARE LIKE 16? GIVE THEM A BREAK

i also scripted longer road trips whenever the class goes somewhere just coz i like road trips and it gives me more time to talk to everyone :)

ALSO scripted out a couple of deaths because I DON’T WANT PEOPLE DYING😭

but just to be safe i did script that aside from those changes everything else is pretty much the same

[nonbinarygamzee]

what are your thoughts on gamkar (esp as it is presented in the comic) ?

ehehehehe. well. i like dem :]

ummm um to be like #thoughtful or whatever though i always struggle to put my investment to words because i simultaneously feel like a lot of what draws me to them feels self explanatory but Also every time i think that about hs i turn out to be wrong. that sounds so mean i just have autism and 0 frame of reference lol.

but anyways for me like ive basically been invested in gamzee and by extension gamkar from the beginning. at risk of being kind of nice for once i actually think homestuck did a pretty decent job wrt the introductions of the trolls in establishing the levels of importance and especially the dynamics at play through when we see them interacting, so it always felt Important that the conversation that established gamzee and karkat as good friends was so early on. in general i dont really think hs has many transitional spots that are not being used intentionally to create subconscious association between the subjects. so by extension theres the more obvious literal conversation we have between the two of them that both establishes them as close (at least in gamzees mind) and establishes a rift in that relationship, but theres also things like the conversation gamzee and terezi have about playing the game together, that while not about karkat explicitly, kind of centers him from both ends and is literally sandwiched between the introductions of these two, which to me sets up the assumptions that their dynamic is going to hole relevance, which we end up seeing later on. dare i say that gamzee/terezi conversation even kind of ends up being the earliest nod that both of these trolls are in some way vying for karkats attention. theres like plenty more of these moments of association but im not willing to go looking atm, get back to me. good way to read the comic in general though, imo.

and like so its pretty obvious from the start then that gamkar was always going to be something, right? their personalities are written in a way that both compliment and counter each other, and theres that interest then in murderstuck when it is flipped on its head but idk if you go here i think by now it is clear i dont really agree with all of that. my interest lies in the fact that gamzee is the type of person karkat resents because to him, as somebody who both has been denied entry into society and who desperately WANTS it, even to the point of internalizing and glorifying the very oppressive violence that keeps him an outsider, gamzee has Failed. shes an addict, shes stupid, shes toothless, and above all she is weird and wholly unrelatable and karkat is simply not in the position at that stage of his life to sympathize because he is still running on the assertion that the Right way to be a troll is to conform to the expectations of the empire (and prove himself as one of the Good Ones). so when gamzee has their breakdown and all of a sudden karkat is not only unable to shove all of the responsibility he insisted upon onto another person, or ignore the fact gamzee spent all of her time haunting the meteor asking Him for help..... he does it. sort of.

this is kind of the spot where i have the most trouble articulating my thoughts because i guess they are sort of contradictory. because i think the gamkar moirallegience was not only at that point in time important to the integrity of the plot, but has always been an important part of the story in terms of culminating the themes and messaging going on. and i do stand by that, i think on top of the fact we were ROBBED, to erase that without ever addressing any of it again in the retcon is like.... a major misunderstanding of the functionality of the moment in the first place! which like yeah yeah its homestuck we should be used to that. but UGH. it undermined so much of karkats character to retcon what imo was always his peak moment of personal empowerment. everyone talks about karkat as somebody who is deeply caring despite his exterior and like... i do think that is true. but the story simply is Worse from then on having stripped him of the pivitol moment that truly defined that trait as vital to him, and i think it frankly has no small part in why karkat feels like less than a character by the end. that said i dont really think it was a "good" relationship. just not for any of the reasons anyone ever seems to say. so many conversations i see wrt gamkar is people talking about loving it but not the "toxic way it went down in canon", or calling it like mutually abusive, or just in general making karkat out to be some kind of victim of his ex when like......... thats all kind of just completely made up? for starters not that i dont Get it and not that i think it means he was being entirely disingenuous, but from the very beginning karkats establishment of their quadrant was done in a way that centered the people around them, not gamzee. and i say not gamzee exclusively because i think aside from the obvious of keeping their friends safe, karkat was also centering himself; we know the Point of moirallegiance is to keep an unpredictable party "in check", and that is what he did, but i can both understand the functionality of the relationship marker in the context of the universe And understand that to be a means of subjugation of the trolls involved. and karkat, being both obsessed with romance and holding a deep feeling of inferiority, of COURSE would look at this as an opportunity to prove he can live up to that expectation of pacification. we get his side of the story when things fizzle out, gamzees religion apparently becoming such a frontal obsession she doesnt pay him any mind, but we dont get to hear anything from the party whos not only being mind controlled, but also has to approach this dynamic with the knowledge it wasnt for her and that karkat continued to covet terezi "in every quadrant" (LOL!!!!!) when he wasnt openly mocking them. and well i just think that is very interesting. karkat is in a powerful position, narratively, that gamzee is never ever granted, that gives him the benefit of the doubt from the audience that he is right and she is wrong, even though we know that hes like... literally always wrong!!! i am not about to start trusting him NOW!!!

um ok this god long sorry. basically i think they are extremely complimentary to one anothers stories and flaws; karkat desperately needs to see and understand people that vary from the expectations he has grown up chasing. he needs somebody who understands what it is like not to meet those expectations. he needs a reason to choose growth or else he fizzles into the disgusting excuse for a character we have of him by the end! gamzee by contrast needs to be seen by somebody who is both in the position to treat her like a person, who holds power in this narrative they are all trapped within to Grant her the choice of depth. where he needs a reason to grow she needs somebody willing to grow to meet her where she is! you cannot pull somebody from their abuse but you must be willing to understand their reasonings and have a hand at the ready for the day they choose to go! ive never understood the debates surrounding gamzees agency because we are shown explicitly the ways it is denied, and shown her awareness to the fact she is trapped, the fact she is a character and the narrative cannot be upheld without her roles; karkats ability to "help" her to me was never as much a question about whether he could literally get her out of that, but whether he could act as the lens through which people understand gamzees situation As one of coercion. they are utena anthy forever ok im done

[zaruba-needslove]

I guess, but considering how much the writers did him dirty? the losses he garnered pop out more than his wins.

But yanno... in hindsight? As much as Kei-chan DID get played a lot throughout the series, at least he did get as much character development as Ace (regardless of what Yuya later say that some of the things Ace talked about his past may not always be completely true, which may cancel any chara development Ace had). Like Kei-chan's not just THE secondary character but he's also the secondary main character. Kei-chan had a lot of GROWTH. Which says a lot about the REST of the series' characters BESIDES Ace and Keiwa.

Like... how much character development arc that Michi ACTUALLY had? Like as much as he had that base setting of Tohru's death being the trigger to his wanting to gain power to destroy Kamen Riders, we don't really get much from that aside when Knight Jyamato taking Tohru's face and whenever Michi needed someone to hit some sense to him THEN you see Tohru appear.

The whole JGP arc only had him being shoved around leading the Jyamato pack sabotaging stuff and being angry at being lied to and fighting Ace. And then being an instrument to murder during Heaven and Hell round and feeling no remorse about sacrificing all those people during that round and I gonna stress this: As much as the show never really mention anyone other than Ace and Keiwa being missing for a week without any explanation, WE HAVE NO CONFIRMATION whether or not the 'npcs' that got turned to bubble was restored back to life... or not. ESPECIALLY since we're talking about the JYAMATO GP and not a normal DGP. Is Beroba the type of person to really follow the DGP's usual policy about the npcs? Wouldn't the extra sacrifices be a good addition to nourish the garden? Considering how the arc kept hinting how it would be 'bad' for the championship season to be concluded with the crowning of a new Jameity instead of the usual Desaity, the aftermath of the JGP win felt lacklustre despite the whole dystopia vibe. Like I thought post-JGP the world would be overrun by the Jyamato.

On top of this... does anything about the JGP and DR really have any impact in Michi's life cos I din see any. Like we DON'T REALLY see what made Michi change his mind from his shitty attitude to saving ppl mentality. can you even call that chara development?

The series never really got to explore all the possible plot holes regarding the Jyama Garden and the part about 'not all of the npcs are revived' plot. (Isn't the JGP supposed to be a game to allow the Jyamato get THEIR happy ending? It's certainly SHOULDN'T be about giving a happy ending to Michi.) I mean, was the Sakurai couple the ONLY exception? Or was there a lot more undocumented missing people that was NOT the DGP players that we never be aware of? Esp since Kurama corp was subtly doing all of the cover ups. Heck, we end up not getting much sponsor related plot. Like what was Win's Grandpa's function as a sponsor? Niram hinted that they were bigwigs... BUT WE NEVER GET TO KNOW!

That said? Did Michi get ANY proper growth of character at all? I mean, not counting the whole "Why can't I do it like you?" shit he said when he supposedly died. Or the magical "im a good guy now" instant cure without a proper lead up. (Dude din even answer Ace's question properly on whether or not they would save a player if a Jyamato try to kill them. PLAYER not the civillians. Series never resolve the issue of misplaced hate on the players in general and u expect me to trust his stance during the DR?) Cos considering how snob he was prior to that, that whole dumb line that sorta hint that actually Michi was Ace's secret fanboy was DUMB. Esp since afterwards that guy reset back his personality after supposedly finding out the 'truth' that Beroba told him.

Also i have TONS of questions for the guy's plot. Did he ever found out who was it that stole all of Tohru's items and left them to die? We KNOW it was THREE players, but we were never shown WHO. Did he even get his revenge on Tohru's death? I don't count his 'win' to be that. Because in the end, Michi NEVER punished those three or took revenge on them on the same LEVEL as how Keiwa hunted him and Daichi. Michi was just given 'Oh, Tohru really died in this game so Knight wasn't really Tohru revived. Lalala let's 'trust' ACE to fix the world plot while Michi adds unnecessary casualty while putting all the blame on Keiwa for 'ruining' the world.

I feel bad for Moku-chan for actually getting the short straw. Like Neon's overal plot wasn't all too good either but at least her story had some direction. Michi's plot was going NOWHERE. That wish for eating good meat was the best joke 😃 Even Daichi got a better redemption, which Kanato don't even get.

I'd add more if I want but nah... I rather invest in simping the Azuzu 😂😂😂😂 I mean MichiDai ship on the sidelines cos they'd make a good couple XD

[memento-morri-writes]

tis i the crit role anon 🙏

hey morri! i’m kind of the reverse of you where i’ve seen all of c3 (all of it to date i suppose), but none of c2! i am enjoying the overlap the first two campaigns have had with the third, tho i definitely don’t have a ton of context to the second!

tell me more about why you love it so much! what sticks out to you about the style, defining moments, the characters? who’s your favourite if you can pick just one? why were you drawn to that campaign over the other two?

if i had to guess i think my fav pc would be caleb, im a huge fan of vax and orym. liams characters in general haha

also i have to ask have you watched tlovm?

HI ANON!!!!! I'm so glad you came back and gave me a chance to ramble about this silly little show that I love so much.

This is extremely long, so I'm putting it under the cut to spare people's dashes.

So, campaign two is very near and dear to my heart. It's the first campaign I watched (and the only one I've finished), and it's (in part) what got me into dnd in the first place.

I mean, it really is everything I could ever want from a dnd show. The characters are amazing, the plot is excellent, there's the right mix of shenanigans and sincerity. Okay, yes, all of crit role has those things, but c2 knocks it out of the park.

Like, c1 is a bit more of your typical hero's journey. You have these people who start out rather ordinary, and end up rising to extreme heights, saving the world and gaining a lot of power as they do so. These people are also (generally) pretty good and righteous people. Which isn't bad!!!!!!!! I love c1 a lot! (I would kill and die for Vax, which explains why I've been procrastinating finishing, lmao.)

But c2 is more my style when it comes to characters. A bunch of fucked-up misfits who become an extremely dysfunctional but loving family, and semi-accidentally save the world while they're at it. Idk, there's something about the fact that the Mighty Nein don't start out to be heroes, don't intend to be heroes, that really really endears me to them. A fair amount of what they do is for not necessarily self-serving, but personal reasons. They fuck up sometimes, and it's great.

Also, TMN are just so much more chaotic than Vox Machina. I mean, it's to be expected when you have such chaotic characters as Nott and Jester in one party, plus everyone else.

As for defining moments, there's literally too many to list. I could sit here and talk about c2 for hours. But I will say that near the end of Episode 7 was where I well and truly knew that there was no going back, and that my life had been changed. (A lot of good things there, but the Molly+Caleb bit is what did me in, I think.)

Other top faves include (in no particular order) literally the entire pirate arc (but esp the fight on the ship in Darktow and the yuan-ti temple), Yasha's pit fight (I literally wrote a mini essay about it on my personal blog bc it made me so emotional), any time Essek is there (for both feels and laughs), Caduceus's speech in Dinner With The Devil, Jester and Nott fucking up that one temple (just because it made me laugh so hard I stopped making noise for like 10 minutes straight), any time Beau and Caleb interact, THE FIRST TIME THEY SEE THE NEIN-SIDED TOWER, the Lucien/Jester tarot reading, the Lucien fight (all stages of it), Fjord throwing his sword into lava, any of the times they polymorphed large monsters into turtles (giant -> snapping turtle or the turtle on ice), the time they got banned from two libraries in less than 20 minutes...

As you can see, I could go on for hours. And yes, if you're a Liam character fan, Caleb will be your favorite. Caleb is also my favorite critical role character of all time ever, and I'm so obsessed with this man it's unreal. Like, autistic (to me) sad wizard man who loves his cat, has so much trauma, and is played by Liam O'Brien??? Obviously going to be my fave.

As for why I started with c2 over c1, I'm not actually sure. I think it was on the recommendation of some friends and my cousin, because the beginning is more polished than that of c1, and in their opinions it was the best campaign (I'm inclined to agree. No other crit role campaign will ever top it).

I have not watch tlovm yet, but I plan on getting around to it someday. Unfortunately for me, I am very very very very bad at finishing tv shows. It's basically either I finish it at an insanely fast pace (ie all 141 episodes of c2 in ~6 months, or all 38 episodes of Black Sails in just over 2 weeks), or I never finish it at all. Someday I will get my shit together and watch tlovm, though.

Actually, I happen to have a little art wall at my mom's house that is mostly Mighty Nein art. I don't have everyone yet, just Jester, Yasha, Caleb, and Essek, but I'd love to get the full party up there someday. Sadly I don't have any good pictures of it.

[cielospeaks]

-dv livestream!

thoughts:

-so first of all, mY ABSOLUTE MADLADS HOLY SHIT JOSEPH JOESTAR VOICE RICKY BOI IS GOING TO WIN THE DEDUCTION STAR OH MY GOSHHhhhh ok. i am normal abt this. i would really like it if he wins but im terrified at what sorta skin they will give him.

neutral ending: he gets like. a chopin biopic theme outfit (or even another composer. monteverdi maybe if they want to hammer in the references to orfeo or whatever). playing it safe but thats fine tbh. you want me to suffer (affectionate) ending: its amadeus the movie and idk if ricky would be mozboi or sal but either way im screaming and crying on the ground. bad ending: its none of these options and its something predictable/boring/shipping related and im like. angery face. expanded galaxy brain it will not happen but i can hope: any of my shitpost rickys. music man ricky. froderick fronkensteen ricky. beet from batea ricky. ricky wearing a nightgown and nothing else absolutely losing it ricky (that being said i have no idea but a jekyll and hyde ricky would be a bit goated)

-and for the actual livestream stuff. the three new characters are neat. i think im more attached to them than other ones- memory and adaemil were very lore heavy, lily and friends were fine but i dont feel so invested (esp when operas backstory was just a more marketable rehash of antonios -angry face emoji- ). i like the gambler lady. shes fancy yes but shes got an air of like. elegance and politeness i dont get from other characters in the series. idk i just think shes pretty and shes got them gantsby vibes -pacha hand-. goatman seems nice, like bane or burk or someone. knight seems like a cool guy or could be just the "polite guy villified for plot" and i guess that means either way ill prolly like him -le shrug-. that being said i hope hes well written and isnt a character i wont end up liking. itd be cool if he and ricky can be bros. he gives me those vibes. also gambler lady and antonio being gambling buds would be so cute. the friend he deserves. everyone can be buds with goat man bc he seems nice too.

-not so interested in the crossovers/events besides the holmes one which is big interest omg. the new lady seems like shed be a cool irene adler if shes added. detective as holmes pls. (its prlly gonna b novelist or maybe mercenary bc of mr inference? but listen cone boi is detective so holmes should be too, since his apprentice is lol)

-sept the first school au hunter gets revealed. im like :| bc this series hasnt had any faves yet but it also seems mostly harmless and gives less popular characters skins occasionally so tbh im fine w it. itll prolly be a popular hunter and not my boi antonio but whatever. -shrug emoji-

-rest of lore: ok this is fine. like tbh id rather they dont focus on the journalist plot bc i really dont like it lmao. i find the animation kinda ugly and the characters are all really unlikeable. its also just impossible to talk abt the plot to anyone since everyone has such different takes on it lol

-that being said i am looking forward to maybe the next essence/season (w gambler lady? antonio a/b tier pls he needs it. pretty lady who is also gambler i think he needs this)

[stjunebug]

daybreak happened sooo long ago but whatever i just remembered to do this LETS GO!!

okay so bug collector was the first one i thought of when trying to make this little list because like.. Idk the vibes are sooo your writing if that makes sense?? like even ignoring the lyrics, just the instrumental and the voice are just so soft and cozy and they just remind me of those moments in between the insane and thrilling plots of your stories! likeeeee when scribbles and izuku go and eat together and talk about normal stuff, when your widening sky mc and katsuki hang out and they make the two of them crowns out of clover and they are just chilling and comfortable and *at home* yknow? maybe not at home at home but at home with each other!!!!!! and also i literally cannot explain this part about the lyrics but there are specific words when put together in this song that i associate with you its like my brain is playing pinterest with words… like “there’s a centipede naked in your bedroom” which is like whatever bugs yknow and centipedes dont wear clothes of course my little bro is naked and this was my first thought when i listened to this song but the more i think about it if you just said naked centipede in one of your fics i would have been like yeah. Yeah! naked centipede that makes sense -- its just a collage of words that remind me of you vaguely… the VIBES!!! “to scoop the slugger out the window” “a priest from a past life out to getcha” “to put the priest inside a jam jar” “staring with a vengeance” “to prove that nothing’s out to getcha” its literally word pinterest im sorry i cant dissect my thoughts these are just the way they are. WE MOVE ON!

OH MY GOD NOT ME BY PEACH PIT IS SUCH A GOOD SONG I LITERALLY LOVE THE GUITAR IN THIS if the guitar sounds in this were a girl i would kiss her so hard on the mouth you do not understand. Um this is definitely more sjlt coded for me cause! cause. i think it sort of makes sense for scribbles personality and just the way they react to things when things go topsy turvy… like “oh it cant help to know i wont stop feeling wrecked / im all alone because im never one to do / i guess its best to keep from locking eyes with you” the way they isolate themself and ignore problems when they happen to their relationships . this part too “i want something always, more or less than what I have / could be nothing but ill fuck off” ESP THE FUCK OFF PART LIKE! i havent read sjlt in a hot minute so i might be tripping expeditiously but isnt that what they do really? instead of trying to mend things with people they just Fuck Off yknow? either that or i totally made shit up about sjlt and i definitely am psychotic.

OKAY OKAY OKAY LAST BUT NOT LEAST -- walk you home by sir chloe THIS SONG IS SOOOO MERMS I LOVE THIS SONG ITS SO GOOD. i think its the details for me with this one because your writing is just so beautiful and it captures details about the mcs lives that literally i do not catch about mine?? LMFAO. honestly your writing helped me to be more aware of my surroundings and just appreciate small details more yknow like stupid details i would have definitely made fun of in middle school like. the way the sun hits my clear lip oil bottle is sort of like one of those little prisms that when you shine light through a little rainbow comes out? its sort of like that but a rainbow doesnt come out but i can see the white sunlight bleed into colors in the oil before it fades out cause it cant get fully through the bottle like it can through a prism and its soo pretty and i just appreciate that little detail so much its crazy and i dont think i would have given an eff about it at all if i hadnt read your writing man -- ill be thinking about even the texture of my shirt sometimes or the way my cats tail curls a little like a fish hook sometimes and its just little details that i have come to enjoy and contemplate that i would not have before!! and i think there are little details in this song that also just remind me of an mc you maybe wrote in some parallel universe? (the psychosis is setting in but HEAR ME OUT) just the details seem like stuff i might see in your writing and i could be totally insanely wrong but anyway let me share “faded lips, red /  down your chin, bled when you watched him go” “just a pretty girl with a shot glass / in your sunday dress and coat” “subway fly by / on the green line, no one does you harm” “just a pretty girl with a shot glass / in your mother’s borrowed shoes” anyway fank you for coming to my ted talk!

if you had to name three songs that captured what you liked to write, could you do it? i mean like—three songs that capture what you write. the stuff you try to do with your words. ok. let’s say you can. can you name three songs that capture what someone else writes? 👁️ what changes? of course naming songs for someone else’s work is gonna be harder—you’re filtering what you’re taking away from their pieces through your own bias, your own taste in music. but would it tell the same story, if they lined up the songs they picked for themselves with the songs you picked for them? would it be the same for you?

[gayspock]

okdok (how my mam spells okie dokie; need to give her credit) some more bsg thoughts

okie btw i never properly said. i DO rlly love the themes of religion in the show. i have seen glimpses (i go through threads, bc im nosy, despite trying not 2 spoil myself) of ppl rlly rejecting it but sorryyyyy its just... yknow like- i loathe how patronising scifi can be of it sometimes, AND how bad fanbases can get. coming off of trek, well, youknow....

also completely . disavowing it .. is always soo silly 2 me bc... like im not religious myself, even, but i always find it one of the most interesting things to explore within fiction ^_^ esp esp with more scifi stuff, like... thats one of the best places to challenge and to play with it. smile. both with its relationdship between science but also how with its relationship between Humanity and how that might differ for different cultues.... and again its so disappointing the way its hanled so much of the time in many works, and by many Scifi enthusiasts. -_- bc its sooo reductive.

anyways i still sometimes feel like theres something missing from the show and i think thats just me im not sure why. like in terms of like... a certain incompleteness thats not JUST them pacing it out, or leaving things up for interpretation... but i cant uqite put my finger on it. its like i feel like maybe its just bc s1 was SO short for what it was and s2 has been very plot heavy. i think the show would have benefitted a bit more from some more establishing "filler" eps in terms of, like, worldbuilding, yknow? again- i really want to see more of the civillian side of things. i hope we get more of that ^_^ its deffo not like THE WORSTTT problem the show oculd have

BC LIKE OTHERWISE im rllyyyy loving the direction they took EVERYTHING in in season 2. omg. they set it all up so well and OUGHGHGHGG. i love how its testing everything theyve built from s1, wrt the command. absolutely crazy moves...

i was absolutely ITCHING for a presence like admiral cain and she delivered. part of me wishes it went a bit longer? just a bit. i dont think it was like... RUSHED... partially bc i do agree her takeover would have just been immediate, like it was, and i dont know what her role really could have been after they called off the assassinations. but idk- i wish we got to see a bit more of her, i guess! maybe even just an ep or so.

nonetheless she was still a really good contrast. her and the pegasus and how its run, versus galactica. and i do think.... i think i tlked before abt how sometimes i was unsatisfied with how, like, bsg kind of handled its own politics sometimes? like- specifically the roslin and zarek. i think thats moreso an issue with the latter, and again how... kind of lacking i find him, for what could be a really good and interesting opportunity to challenge roslin, who does have issues, unchecked, rather than just be kind of a minor antagonist ... & THATS EVEN MOREE the case with his presence back on kobol. like he was literally there just to cause conflict and idk like its FUNCTIONAL but its also like comeee on you can be more interesting with him! come on!

BUT here i do think with both cain and tigh's brief stint in command they did well to rlly explore it a bit more so im forgiving it. its not like that fixes that mess but this stuff was good enough for me to be like 👍uh huh, yaknow? b c it was soo good and argh im- SPEAKING OF, i am glad they did "remember" incidents like the gideon massacre, even after adama came back. again i do wanna see MORE of the civillians- but i think we're going to getthat soon, i hope? i feel it more in the air, with the introduction of that new number 6 and the cylon apologists which im rlly excited for... both bc theyre things i rlly wanted to see more from the show ^_^

anyway i feel like noneof this is that mad i just wanted to ramble in bc i haventttt properly eek and squeak i feel like i acc dont have much to say ^_6 despite rlly enjoying myself and the show LOL

sharon is still my favourite btw teehee smile

[red-dyed-sarumane]

having been here from the very beginning i think my fave aru sekai series lore is that

• despite it very clearly being a series (it is. it IS i can prove it to u) hiiragi magnetite has never addressed it as such. the fan art tag on twitter is aru sekai bijutsuten However it was chosen via poll and was a listener created tag. hiiragima themself has yet to say anything about it being a series. if u ask them a question (for example when i asked if the charas have names) they wont correct u & know what ur talking about but nope. they dont talk about the content of the songs outside of the songs at all

• possibly not aru sekai but we'll see eventually- they decided to make a song thats one second for every like they got. theyre currently making a song thats 70,000 seconds long (like 19 &1/2 hours). they have the file name saved so that "seconds" is replaced with "illness" which sounds the same in jpn

• the content is so fucking specific every time i see other people try to translate it theyre like "this was so confusing". they are so right but also i promise u it gets 2% easier when u know the songs are related

• sena yuta does the art for the main aru sekai series songs. asa is the other illust. even tho asa tends to do art for nonseries songs (nadenna, uni, rasshaina) marshall maximizer & canon are absolutely part of the series & i cant believe i keep seeing people over look this. the motif is RIGHT THERE. canon says aru sekai de in THE FIRST LINE whats not clicking

• many songs have context as text flashed for a frame in the video background! as of right now aru sekai soushitsu, kyuuyaku hankagai, shuuen touhikou, unplanned apoptosis, marshall maximizer, canon (this ones in code) have text. oumen mokushiroku, kugutsu ashura, laboratory do not. (if u want to get technical oumen has the ou kanji to say its part of the aru sekai shoushitsu order but theres no new information in it)

• all of the songs except for kugutsu ashura & laboratory have the "nami no ne no yume wo miyou" melody from aru sekai shoushitsu worked in somewhere. if u dont believe me ill get u time stamps if u ask. those two songs dont have it but im telling u its thematic, they ARE part of the series, but i cant only really theorize on what it means until we get more songs & content

• hiiragima once said "if u dont know how to read the title of kugutsu ashura you can just call it ashura" this is especially funny bc they always put furigana for their titles in their descriptions.

• they actually do a good job of getting characterization across once u get past the technical language they use. some of them are a lot more obvious than others (unplanned apoptosis. i think this girls so funny bc its so different from everything else) but theres a lot u can get from the word choice/play once ur used to all the weird science (?) terms. sena yuta's art also does an AMAZING job of getting their characters down in a single drawing. u can tell so much from the art for real. this is a whole essay in itself im stopping here for now

• all the characters have names!!!!!! i would know i asked directly & they responded they said yes the characters have names but theyre waiting for the right moment to reveal them. every day this torments me both bc i would like to call her by name instead of saying tenshi everyday and also bc i know this means they have plot significance & im not ready to handle that

• so far all the charas in the songs are girls but if i remember correct the bg text in some songs (shoushitsu & maximzier i think? id have to double check) refers to there being at least one guy in there somewhere.

• this is just a personal note but none of these people have basic lab safety i mean look at their outfits. if the world wasnt ending they die anyway wearing that esp the laboratory chara but i digress

• in general the series is ur "the world is ending and we need to find a way to stop it from ending"typical story i guess. not only plays on destruction of the world but also destruction of the self. its not ur lighthearted easy to handle voca series if u want that may i suggest honeyworks or perhaps last notes mikagura school suite instead

• we dont have a timeline. i can tell u from context the songs arent being posted in chronological order. i have no idea what the order is ive made a guess before but its just a guess.

• theres a paragraph in shoushitsu about a swampman & hilarious as it sounds it actually describes exactly whats going on. both about how the world functions in that no two attempts are the same but also that people who lose their "self" are also The Same But Not. which is interesting to know its so thought out considering the time between songs & how hiiragima claims to just be doing whatever they want. its very cohesive. somehow.

• i have no idea why the english titles of the songs are like that on youtube. i dont know if they did that themself or not but i for one refuse to acknowledge that shuuen touhikou is called "blade" over there. girl what how did we get there u just lost soo much connotation doing that. i want to say the swords arent even a main part of the song but i dont think i can actually. anyway the "eng" titles on yt dont exist to me

• the theme used to be 5 kanji title songs were the main songs and katakana with the first repeating (ex MArshall MAximizer) were more like. sub or context songs. and then we have like canon & laboratory so idk if those are just another type of song along with the others or if they decided they didnt want to follow that anymore. i need more info but still something to note. the kanji songs also used to be sections of shoushitsu (kyuu, shuu, ou, fuu, mei, juu, mou, ei) but then, again, kugutsu ashura threw me off so [vague confused gesturing]

• rain. thats all i need to say really. very few songs that dont have rain or the color blue in it somewhere & that's absolutely intentional.

• i saw sena yuta say something about flower language in regards to the laboratory art but i never saw if they elaborated and my friend whos into flower language was having a time trying to pin point what flower it was so for now another mystery unsolved

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. there's a part of me that wants to laugh at posts like that "body diversity" in LO, but at the same time i just pity them. its very clear to me LO fans are becoming a bit more aware it's not living up to its progressive and feminist claims and they're just resorting to crumbs or just making stuff up to try and make it seem deeper than it actually is. they didnt need to hype it up a something its not, and now they're double down and making themselves look foolish in trying to make up for it.

2. i dont think webtoons knows what a graphic novel is either if theyre called the print version of LO that, bc GNs require a storyline and arcs to be done in one book, not hacked up into pieces like rachel is doing (for that sweet $$$). like hooky's print version is a graphic novel because it's self contained story, LO is not that.

3. yeah itd be one thing if pysche was depicted with textured hair from the beginning, but she wasnt. so now rachel giving her textured hair (i swear does she know there are actual natural hair and braid brushes for her to use?) just looks like her realizing nearly 4 years in she made an all white, straight cast and is trying to diversify it now for brownie points. its like jkr claiming her//mione could have been black despite her being called white in the text. it's just virtue signaling.

4. ngl its kinda a bad look all the LO merch and stuff webtoons uses for ads are at best only from the first 25 ish episodes, but more so only the first THREE episodes. like why arent you guys using more recent art? surely they should showcase what the comic is currently like, right? seems a bit weird to not show how much its degraded since early 2018 ...

5. the thing with comics and esp webtoons is like sure yeah on some panels you can get more cartoony with the anatomy for like a comedic moment or w/e, but rachel and the art team literally cannot keep the characters looking even in the same style from panel to panel, which isnt good. the characters cant suddenly change body types and whole facial features in the span of a few seconds, that's not a good style, thats laziness and a lack of consistency on everyone's part.

6. hades in the hades game is literally the antagonist and even he makes sure everyone is paid, gets time off, benefits, and even throughout the game gets them perks like a more entertainment and leisure options, hes literally the barely minimum to be better than and lo hades is a thousand times worse.

7. I feel like RS is trying to pull the whole "Three brothers! Two are crazy and wacky and the third is the straight man!" Trope with Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon. Except, for whatever reason, it's REALLY not working???

8. is lo artemis supposed to be british or is that anon just joking? bc if not does rachel know claiming greek mythology and making them a bunch of british people is heavily connected to really racist and white washing ideals? especially with the british colonizing and looting greece of their stories, culture, and artifacts as their own? then again rachel's ancestors were english ppl who even england couldnt stand so i guess we cant be surprised the colonizer gene is still in there 💀

From OP, not Anon: Honestly, I'm not sure since that could just be that anon's interpretation. From her dream cast, she picked a black woman to be Artemis so I think that counts for something. Although, I feel like RS might change it if she were to redo her dream cast because that would also mean Apollo (and most likely Leto) would be black and that's not a good look imo. Especially since Persephone would be played by white/fair-skinned actors.

9. its weird how LO fans go "according to the myths" when trying to justify anything in the comic because like what myth(s) is it even going off of? theres no myth persephone goes willingly, or of her on trial of mass murder, or apollo r//ping her, or her being involved with daphne, or hades and hera having an affair, or all these other made up plots. they cant go "according to the myths" when maybe 1% of any of it being myth accurate, with the rest just being rachel's nonsense fanfic.

10. i already have a problem with how rachel depicts the gods, but her idea that zeus isnt really that powerful, respected, or important compared to someone like hades and persephone is an insult. im not saying you have to like zeus, but he was and still seen as a major important religious and cultural figure, and to remove all his importance to prop up "her faves" isn't just bad writing, it spits in the face of centuries of his cultural and religious significance. it's not honoring, it's insulting.

[suenitos]

ok i lied i do have thoughts. spoilies if you care also very unorganized cause im making it up on the spot

ok so i understand why the characterization is so different, because it was written like late 2020/early 2021(?) but i was just so not convinced of dnf's love for each other because esp in the beginning it seemed more tell-y than show-y. i guess i get that george would get attached so fast because hes lonely and dream was too but thats just not enough for me especially with a sort of lacking dynamic that i feel is so characteristic of dnf. i actually found the chapter with dream and SAPNAP more compelling and wanted to know more about that friendship, same with q and george. i also think the writer shoved too much slang in that chapter and i wasnt rlly living for it, like yeah sapnap would totally say jeepers creepers or whatever. also PISSBABY was so random?????? also also i dont rlly love internalized homophobia in fics but i think its weird how quickly that historical context of being queer in the 70s is so glossed over and the fact that both dream and sapnap seem so chill with dream liking a guy in the 70s IN FLORIDA but i guess theyre just chill like that idk. i love how karl and q both have like one scene and never mentioned again LOL same with bad. speaking of bad i think the ending arc seemed a bit rushed and not super thought out with how bad was involved in all of it, and the fact that dream so super conveniently died after talking with george was not the move in my opinion. that and the restaurant bit felt really contrived, i understand wanting the drama of dnf meeting in real life and talking to each other but i think moving dreams death forwards or backwards in time without them ever meeting wouldve been more compelling and tragic. something that bothered me so much with this fic was the setting, because though the writer took the time to establish that it takes place in florida, i really thought we were deeeeep in the suburbs because it would not take george five plays of unchained melody to walk into town unless he lived in the city in which case neither dream or george are getting their renter's deposits back LOL. also little kid tommy is weirdly sexist for some reason ????? and i dont love how little attention is paid to niki because of course her role is relegated to background wife and mother and nothing else. wilbur couldve married a woman named sally fisch and nothing would change. or also the fact that george is weirdly trusting of wilbur snooping around the neighborhood and watching him like huh. btw dont love that the playlist he made dedicated to dream went nowhere just a bit of a missed opportunity if he really is such an important person in his life. i also cant tell if the plot is predictable because it really is set up very obviously from the moment wilbur gets introduced or because i already knew how it was gonna end due to the premise and people talking about how sad the ending was (also its been 3 years). and also i really thought wilbur was gonna kill george straight up like could you imagine. overall though i think the premise is compelling but i wasnt super convinced with how the execution ended up turning out, particularly with the characterizations of dnf.

final thoughts karl is a shitty flower shop owner and both dream and george shouldve been in the gay clubs amen

just read flowers from 1970.

[dead-thorin]

i have so many thought about it but cbs ghosts sucks lol

the acting did get better over the first season but Jesus. I skipped episodes bc i just didnt care about what the plot was going to be for some. Thor and Flower are just the stereotypes from their era which is just... bad writing. Like flower was separately in a cult and a commune? Man pick a struggle. I understand that people did those things and did drugs and yada yada, everything she's got going on people did back then, but it feels like they did that because they wanted to make her interesting instead of actually exploring why and how people did those things.

Honestly Trevor is a stereotype too and he just... doesn't really grow I feel like? Again skipped around so maybe im wrong but I get it, he's sexist, he parties, etc etc. I didn't know Isaac was supposed to be closeted for half this season and then I looked it up and I'm just like???? Idk that's not how I did shit when I was closeted so I'm comparing it to that. I don't like how they wrote about Hetty's era because they just made it too direct. "Oh women shouldn't vote theyre small minded, they shouldnt go to college" like yes write about those things, but make them more subtle? She just directly says those things like what? She mentioned once about how children can see ghosts until like age 5 and then by 6 theyre off to the mines, like that was a good throwaway.

Honestly, my biggest pet peeve is that these characters are just... flat. Like I simply don't care. They don't really grow, the writers barely showed their dynamics and how they interacted with each other before sam came into the picture, and when they do there's no depth. Like Thor sang to hetty when she was a child (which was about violence bc haha get it??? VIKINGS!!!!) and I guess it was supposed to highlight that he was hurt that they were no longer close, but it just felt not that deep. Esp when you consider that it's been at least like 150 years. Like if they had shown how he's tried throughout the years to reconnect with her, sure that would've been good, but no. Also apparently Isaac and Hetty had been friends for that long as well and I just didn't really get that.

Robin from the BBC version is a caveman, but he learned to play chess with julian. He knows about fire and about new technologies, he fucking speaks English for God's sake. It's hard for the ghosts because the previous resident didn't have technologies, like tv, but he changed with the times in those small ways that isn't as apparent then when they all experienced those changes (like using a laptop). And I really wish that type of thing was shown in the CBS series. Like if Thor had tried to learn to play chess or cards or some shit with Hetty to try and reconnect with her. Pete and Isaac and Flower talk about camping in the woods and what makes a good campsite. Crash and Alberta discuss music. Like it wouldve shown the dynamic between each other and how they adapted to modern times. Also really mad that like Pete's schedule for the day is mentioned like once and that's it. In the BBC version it demonstrated that they really lived with each other and befriended each other and that could've been used in this series.

The headless guy (aka Crash) also showed up the first episode and that was it. Like in the BBC one, Humphrey isn't always in the episode, but he's there enough and there was an episode revolving around him. Why show off brand James Dean and then never talk about him again? Like at least have the characters ask about him. "Oh where's crash?" "I think I saw him in the attic". Which btw, I didn't know his name was crash, like I had to look it up bc again, they straight up just dont talk about him.

I don't like the main couple. At this point I doubt Jay knows Sam's name because he just calls her babe. And, idk, it feels like they knew each other for a few months and then eloped. Like idk how to describe their dynamic, I feel like Jay definitely supports her, but she isn't giving back as much and then sometimes I feel like he doesn't believe that she sees ghosts? Like obviously couples have problems at times, but the resolution is just them being oh ok its fine, and then never talking about it. It just doesn't seem like a good dynamic and they dont have conflict. The conflict they had in the DnD episode was so bad. She lied about what the ghosts said and like that shouldve broken the trust the ghosts had with her, but everyone brushed it off. Jay, I feel like, shouldve been way more pissed off bc that was his friend group that he lost and he really loves DnD and found another group, and then she was selfish enough to do that? And then its brushed away? Man, come on lol

Some of these actors were... a choice to make. I dont like Isaac's actor for that role. I think he's a good actor, but eh. I don't like Thorfinn's actor maybe? Like I just don't like the character because he's loud and violent and, again, just a stereotypical viking, like tone it down, we get it. He plays the stereotype well, I guess?I don't like Sam's actress, she was good in iZombie, but this aint it. Jay is fine I guess? It's like Thor where it might just be the writing, idk. I do really like the acting from Sas and Hetty, they're pretty good. Pete and Alberta's acting also got better over the first season and I like the storyline about Alberta and her trying to seek fame, I actually thought that episode was pretty good. I also do like the Isaac/Nigel thing going on, I just wish their relationship was explored a bit more and it demonstrated them being better friends outside of their daily walks.

I know the first series is like rough because theyre trying to find a rhythm, and I want to give season two a shot, but Jesus Christ. I honestly do not understand why it has such good reviews, i really dont.