#(as we've seen in canon)

[chamerionwrites]

Honestly this gets at my chiefest complaint/frustration/discomfort with fandom as a whole. Which is: in their rush to defend the artistic merit of fanworks I think a ton of people have really valorized transformation and remixing and reinterpretation in and of themselves, when imo those are all quite neutral actions. When done well, they can expand and build upon and subvert meaning in really powerful and thought-provoking (and fun!) ways. When done poorly, they are just as likely to flatten and oversimplify and decontextualize and completely erase meaning. The simple act of changing something does not imbue the choice to do so with creative validity. It is entirely possible for a cover song to be bad (or just boring!). To exactly the same degree that it is possible to transform a pretty shallow and straightforward work into something deeper and more nuanced and subversive, is possible to transform a work into a vastly shallower and less interesting shadow of itself. As with nearly everything in art, it's all about the execution!

But the second you voice this position (which should honestly be a pretty uncontroversial one imo), you get people shrieking at you about being gatekeep-y and pretentious and betraying the sacred fandom etiquette of Don't-Like-Don't-Read.

And like...listen. I was not raised in a barn. I am 150% capable of quietly back-buttoning out of a fanfic I think is bad or boring - which is exactly what I do when I encounter them - and I am obviously not advocating for stupid ships wars or any kind of harassment or leaving hatemail in people's AO3 inboxes. (Which some people will also accuse you of the second you say anything less than lavishly positive about fandom, in true piss-on-the-poor fashion.) Literally all I am saying is that you can't have your cake and eat it too - that if fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) have artistic merit then fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) are fair game for artistic critique. Which means, in practice, that I can go on my own blog and make a post exactly like this one - critiquing broad trends, or stating that some interpretations are bad actually, or pointing out that subverting or talking back to or reading against the grain of canon is very different from simply ignoring it, or saying "fandom's culture of collage/remix/fuck-canon-I-do-what-I-want can lend itself to to really creative and interesting art but also to a lot of really bland homogenized cut-n-paste art, not to mention some pretty troubling decontextualization." And that if you feel this rains on your personal parade, you are then free to DLDR by back-buttoning out of my blog and/or blocking me so you never have to see my hot takes again, rather than clamoring in my notes about how I should let people enjoy things.

[blorbologist]

meet cute! he's in a cell and even after ages in there can't grow a fucking beard <3

also [YOU/DO I] LOOK LIKE [YOU/I] COME FROM MONEY BEING A CALLBACK BETWEEN THEM?!?!?!?! FCUK! ME!

[discocandles]

one thing about steve harrington is that he sucks at doing nothing. like he has to be doing something with himself lest the guy waste away. this has led to him being very good at fucking around with things especially when its something relatively quiet. the loudest steve will let himself keep his hands busy while stuck idle is tossing whatever's in his hand to himself and catching it, which usually bodes well for sports practice after coach learned that just because he was moving didnt mean he wasnt paying attention(usually the opposite).

he learned how to flip a pencil around his thumb in middle school and seeing someone in one of the meetings he sat in on doing it. he'll twirl anything he can around in his hand, especially while he was working in the mall. the scoopers were perfect for it. and any way youve seen a drummer/percussionist fiddle with a drumstick, steve knew he had to replicate it.

but even with all this movement and the fact the guy was barely ever not moving, it seemed like no one noticed it ever. a fact that nearly drove eddie insane when they were in high school together. because he did have the reputation of being restless, and in a constant state of movement. and he probably fucked around with random shit less, so how did steve "the hair" harrington not end up with the same reputation? the answer was just that he was way more quiet("and sneaky" -eddie) about it. and if the teacher hated when their students fiddled and futzed he'd be sure to try and keep the movement below his desk.

but it not that he only has to keep his hands busy. no no no, if bored or stuck waiting, and that won't suffice, steve harrington will pick up anything with words just to read it. anything. outdated newspapers, ingredients lists, magazines of any topic. he just mindlessly grabs for whatever and starts fucking reading. Robin could swear under oath to a court that her best friend has read the back of every vhs in family video. hell, she's seen him reading drugstore novels, like the fucking grandma smut and books with cover art of nicely dressed ladies running from a castle. and its her jock best friend reading it, instead of some repressed suburban woman who hates her husband. yes, this information is the bane of robin buckley's exsistance because its not like anyone would believe her.

idk just give me steve being restless but doing it quietly enough that no one really picks up on it.

[avelera]

It's so weird that when 99% of fandoms take away a character's chest hair to make them more appealing, Arcane is the only fandom I've seen to give Jayce Talis chest hair to make him more appealing when he canonically doesn't have any

[frankiebirds]

[before-it-felt-like-a-sin]

And if I say hot popular girl Lottie Matthews cannot pull to save her life... what then...?

[paradox-n-bedrock]

it's occured to me that a lot of my favorite Donna tropes are just "Donna does stuff she shouldn't be able to."

like let her bully the Doctor into trying to teach her Gallifreyan and them be shocked when she actually starts to pick it up. have her and the TARDIS communicate and the ship indulge her whims a little when she's irritated with the Doctor. write her and her Spaceman getting into some touch telepathy shenanigans and have it turn out to be far more two way than they intend.

i don't even need a justification for it. we've got an easy handwave for just about anything with the metacrisis, but. unnecessary. i will eat it up regardless

[beepingmemesauce2727]

Fuckin normies

What about Will? Is he just gonna fuck off and be alone and miserable for the rest of his life?

[epiphainie]

i haven't mentioned this before but one tommy kinard family lore idea i'm really attached to is his mother passing away during childbirth, while giving birth to him. just something something about him and buck both growing up haunted by this feeling of a life lost in exchange for theirs where tommy is aware of it his entire life, where his father slaps him in the face with the fact every chance he gets, in contrast to buck's ignorance and the sense of hollowness he feels in the pit of his stomach. something something about the buckley parents' grief translating to neglect and blindness when it comes to buck vs the kinard patriarch's grief becoming words that cut a bit too close to tommy's skin and pressure and unrealistic expectations that make him feel like he's gonna choke. something something about buck feeling unsettled all his life, lost about who is because of daniel's passing and maddie's abandonment and his parents' neglect of it all vs tommy knowing exactly who - what - he is but not being able to look it in the eye because it would be the one thing to make him even more worthless in his father's eyes than his existence costing them his mother's life.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

this may just be the "i can make connections anywhere" brainworms talking but. i'm thinking abt how in part 13, arthur says he's only religious "when i'm out of options."

...and then how in coda, after losing everything and with really, truly nowhere else to turn, his very first action was to call kayne.

...and now i'm holding up arthur's relationship with the church/god and with kayne and comparing them in general. might be something here actually. apparently nigh-omnipotent being who is always watching and always listening but has been content to sit back and let his whole life play out without ever intervening. but this one doesn't pretend to be loving, this one tells him upfront how it regards him like a fascinating insect. this one has allowed him to perceive it, has demonstrated its knowledge and power, has proven its existence to him. and, of course, this one will come when called.

[bonetrousledbones]

i am sending this ask to a bunch of people. the reason is that i am curious. here it is.

what is your favorite thing about Papyrus in undertale?

do you think Papyrus will be important in deltarune?

what do you think will be Papyrus' role in deltarune?

what do you think of the "Papyrus is the Knight" theory?

what do you think his age will be? adult or teenager? (kid is not an option cus it would be stupid and no fun)

in what chapter do you think he will show up?

if Papyrus is the Knight do you think he will be nice or evil?

if Papyrus is the Knight do you think he knows what the Roaring is?

you are the fourth person i am sending this to.

well lucky you, you caught me in a rambling mood!

i talked more about this a lil while ago now, but to me the biggest appeal of papyrus is that i relate to him a whole lot, lol. his specific form of loneliness where he's very clearly trying really fucking hard and clearly doing all the things people say you're "supposed" to do to try to make friends, but it's just. not working, for whatever reason. it's a pretty hard-hitting feeling for me and it hits deep, and while it's not necessarrily a good feeling, it's definitely my favorite part of Papyrus if only for how well communicated and "real" it is.

putting the rest under a cut because it's gonna get long lol

when it comes to deltarune, my biggest thought towards it since way back in 2018 has been "i don't have any way of knowing what the hell is going on in that dog's brain." so i don't tend to speculate on the game very much outside of fun hypotheticals! i've honestly never been much of a theorist, i prefer letting everybody else be crazy while i'm just sitting back and letting things play out in their own time.

personally, i'd say it'd be nice for papyrus to have a big important role, but in full honesty i do have some doubts about how likely that actually is. for one, he's very much rooted in being a comic-relief character, so he very rarely seems to be written seriously in general, and for two, i don't think he would have much actual weight?

like, we know him as a character from undertale, and papyrus fans might know how mysterious he is, but most of the fandom doesn't see him as mysterious at all. on top of that, the characters in deltarune have no connection to him whatsoever. he's not one of their classmates, or neighbors they grew up with, or anything like that- he's just the grocery store clerk's shut-in little brother who nobody has ever met.

but, again, that brings me back around to "i don't know what's happening in that dog's brain." maybe they'll finally get to hang out with him & he'll become more involved in the story, or maybe he won't ever show up at all! idk!

naturally, all of that applies to my opinion on knight papyrus, too- it would be awesome and so so so so cool if it turns out to be real, but with the issue of nobody knowing him except sans, my faith in it gets a little dimmed. i do think the amount of hints that could connect him to it have been crazy, though, since most of them genuinely don't even feel like that much of a reach. i'll still be pulling out my cork board and red string whenever i possibly see a chance, rest assured

i really want him to be college-aged, ideally the same age as Asriel. one, so they can be besties obviously, and two, because if he suddenly becomes an underage character after ten years of papyrus fans fighting back against rampant infantilization i am going to fucking lose it

my own headcanon until we get to actually see him is that he's much more nervous, borderline agoraphobic, and much more awkward since he hasn't met any of the people that he very likely gained a lot of his personality from in undertale. considering he spends all his time in a dark undecorated house, the angst-loving part of me genuinely really hopes he's not just gonna be written the same as we're used to, lol

and sadly- judging from the previews we've seen of chapters 3-4, and the fact that they'll most likely take place in kris's house and then the church, i have some doubts that we'll see papyrus on june 5th :(. then again, the light world sections are apparently long enough to need their own save points, so maybe that's a good sign too! i'm personally not getting my hopes up, but it'd be a very nice surprise if we see him at all before chapters 5-7, even if it's just a really quick cameo or something :>

and finally, as for what he would be like as the knight & if he would know about the roaring, i actually thought about this some time ago too! i think he could know about the roaring and even actively be trying to cause it, but i don't think that makes him evil, per se. he doesn't know anyone in this town except his brother, making him even more desperately lonely than he was in undertale, and he's not even trying to overcome it this time around.

so, i think he'd get too attached to the fact that darkners literally have to like lightners and want to be their friends, and he'd want to cause the roaring either to be able to live in a world like that forever, or to then stop it himself and make friends by becoming a "hero." i can imagine him being not evil, and honestly not even all that bad (if you ignore the "casting the world into darkness to maybe make some friends" part), just really, really desperate.

[heelkenny]

One of the reasons the bucks were mad at kenny in late 2023 was that he worked with Jericho, who had hurt their dad in the past. which is fair.

(btw i really hated the kenny jericho team up too. i can't overstate that enough.)

but as the EVPs, the Bucks had helped Jericho a couple times. they kicked Taz off of commentary at least twice, so Jericho could replace him. Nick and Jericho also had a backstage segment together, where they complimented each other's suits. (Nick and Jericho were wearing matching suits that day lmao) Which led me to think that Jericho wasn't the main reason the bucks were (are?) mad at Kenny. regardless of their reasons, the bucks seemed to be on good enough terms with Jericho during 2024.

the other reason Matt Jackson gave for being angry with Kenny, back in late 2023, was that the elite stopped having each others backs not long after they had finally reunited as a group. Matt complained to Kenny about that right after Hangman had walked out on matt and nick. Hangman left during a trios match to chase after Swerve and Prince Nana. That caused the Bucks to be outnumbered, and they lost their roh trios belts to the Cage of Agony. Matt threw a tantrum outside the ring after they lost their belts. (which was arguably the start of the bucks heel turn) Then matt went backstage and angrily confronted Kenny.

in that context Matt's comment about the elite not having each others backs wasn't aimed just at kenny. it was aimed at Hangman too, because he ran out on their trios match. immediately after that trios match Hangman was off somewhere backstage, fighting Swerve. matt couldn't take his anger out on hangman. but kenny was there, so matt confronted him.

the irony is that the bucks and hangman had stopped having Kenny's back at least a month or two prior to this confrontation. even though kenny was still getting attacked by the Don Callis family almost weekly. the bucks and hangman had previously been a part of the feud between Kenny and Callis. the feud wasn't over, the bucks and hangman just stopped helping kenny while they were busy chasing trios gold as the hung bucks. all while the elite were still on pretty good terms with each other backstage on bte. (even after kenny had started to team with Jericho against the callis family)

in the back half of 2023, the members of the Elite all got caught up in their own goals/ problems and stopped being there for each other. it's not something that only kenny did to the bucks. it's something the members of the Elite did to each other.

[professor-doc-emeritus]

possible readings of the admech:

1 - admech rituals don't work and aren't necessary. imperium tech largely works based on a combination of dumb luck, ork-esque psychic gestalt fields generated by humanity's collective belief in it, and the efforts of the handful of heretic priests who worked all this out and now do all the imperium's actual IT/maintenance work in secret. The majority of the imperium, and the adeptus mechanics itself, still believe in the rituals wholeheartedly.

2 - admech rituals do work and are (mostly) necessary, but only because they are obfuscations of actual technical work, e.g. the application of sacred oils and incense is just an elaborately ritualized method of getting rusty old machines lubricated regularly, binaric prayers work because they actually contain bundles of voice commands to activate onboard error handling programs in most Dark Age of Technology artifacts, and "machine spirits" are just ancient and ornery onboard AIs that take pity on the occasional tech priest asking for help. This status quo is an unintentional side effect of millenia of collective trial and error; virtually all members of the admech genuinely believe in the cult mechanicus & are unaware there's any material benefit to their rituals.

3 - same as the above, except the admech are (or at least used to be) in on the ruse. The rituals do work, for the above stated reasons, but are deliberately designed to be as mysterious, impenetrable, and terrifying as possible. The people who made them didn't believe in the omnissiah, and sufficiently well-informed members of the admech don't either, often foregoing their rituals entirely when in private or in a pinch. The median admech member understands the basic principles of technology FAR better than they let on, and the cult mechanicus in general exists as part of a massive conspiracy meant to keep humanity at large ignorant, and the control of technology exclusively in admech hands, which they use to their own nefarious ends. This fact used to be common knowledge within the faction itself, however the heresy era split, the subsequent millenia of conflict, and their own overzealous propaganda have all eroded their collective memory. The truth is now only known to its highest ranking and longest-lived members, and is doled out on a need-to-know basis to a select few. This is why most tech priests that feature in the books and video games unironically believe in the omnissiah: they haven't yet been told the truth.

4 - admech rituals do work and are necessary, and the spiritual aspect of it is at least partially true, but this is only because the omnissiah is actually a manifestation of Mag’ladroth the Void Dragon, C'tan god of technology and Aeldari god of oblivion, a shard of which was defeated and imprisoned beneath the surface of mars by the emperor. This shard, either intentionally or unintentionally, influenced and warped the collective psyche of the mechanicum of mars until they became the admech we know today. Their apparent control over technology is the result of some combination of their proximity to the shard giving them aspects of its power, intentional siphoning of the shards power by the mechanicum, the shard itself lending them power as part of a long-term plan to corrupt & use the imperium as a means of revenge against the necrons that shattered it, and the Emperor's defeat of the shard granting him its domain over technology. It's this domain the Emperor won that allowed humanity to expand out and conquer the stars without their tech getting corrupted by the warp, and why technology made by other species and the machines-making-machines-that-make-machines (i.e. the men of iron) fall to the warp faster and more often than human technology

5 - the admech are just batting a thousand and are right about pretty much everything.

[tomurakii]

I know I have a semi-popular post about how Gale would not have made a good teacher and that's why I'm so happy that it does happen canonically. It shows so much growth in him: not only does he learn to love himself regardless of his magic ability, that love extends to others. He can now educate students in the field of magic that has always clearly been his true favourite without being "irked by their ineptitude". He shares the art he loves and his enthusiasm, talent, and newfound patience make him a great teacher. With Tav by his side he becomes a happier, less guarded, more caring person and I can't think of anything better for him.

[catlady48]

So I have been playing a lot of Marvel Rivals this week and I would like to talk about the design choices for Asgard a bit and share some screenshots I took.

As you can see they styled most of the "Yggsgard" outdoor map after the MCU version of Asgard. Really cool to just be able to walk around there. Of course, the areas used for battle have a really different layout and the interior design is also completely different from both the comics and the MCU.

For example, this is what they did with the throne, which is more reminicent of what they did with Asgard in Ragnarok and after, which I personally dislike a bit. On that note, the infamous Loki statue also makes a return and there is a reward for destroying it. Fun fact: in the Jeff's Winter Splash Festival game mode, it is turned into an ice statue.

Character design wise they take inspiration from both the comics and the MCU and add their own flair. I'm sure you've seen Loki's redesign already, but I wanted to show a picture of both Loki and Thor as kids that you can find in one of the spawn areas.

Loki has the "Kid Loki" look from the comics (yes I know the show tried to retcon it, but I don't see OG!MCU!Loki wearing that outfit as a child, sorry comic fans). But that was definitely what young!MCU!Thor was wearing in one of the first scenes in Thor 1 and I think Frigga also looks more like she does in the movies. Odin visually seems a bit more like in the comics, though. So do with that information what you want.

Anyway, it's a ton of fun being able to just wander about Asgard. In the game it's been merged with Yggdrasil for some reason, which is why it's called Yggsgard. But still, I like how much inspiration they took from the MCU. Probably because it's design for Asgard is more iconic.

[franollie]

steph's relationship to class as an extension of her coping with her unstable childhood....take my hand..walk with me here..