#(there won't be any major changes to their designs btw. just little things)

[patiann345]

I'm flabbergasted, I'm shocked, I'm disappointed, and frankly? I'm indignant.

In a series with so, so very little in terms of representation in canon, a series that had what I THOUGHT was 2-3 confirmed POC (we'll get to that 2-3 bit btw), 1 Jewish man, a handful of women who's writing is hit-or-miss, and no queer characters because according to one of the creators "their identities don't matter"... (Tell that to the straight characters like Henry, Thomas, Allison, Susie, Linda who's not even a character and didn't need to exist in the first place-)

Preview for that graphic novel dropped! Spoilers!!

Norman Polk is white.

I'm. astonished. For the record, because I know someone will likely bring it up, I am aware that there was never a point in the series where it was ever actually confirmed that Norman was a black man. But it was very much the consensus for most people that he was coded to be POC. To see this is just.. it's disheartening.

Dreams Come to Life seemingly (egg on my face for thinking Norman was black ig???) had 3 POC characters; Norman, Thomas, and Jacob. This was... maybe changed to 2 later on, as JDS went back on coding Thomas as a black man (an announcement they made in a Discord server of all things?? Never publically???) which they may have gone back on again later since the wiki (not official, for the record) recognizes him as black.

3 characters, and we're now down to possibly one; I say possibly because it depends on how Thomas is represented in this book. If he's black, we've got 2. If he's white?

One. One character who's never made an appearance in the games; only in spinoff material in a book. One.

In the simplest way I can put it, I'm upset. There's lots more I can talk about here; how I think this opening is a disservice and bastardization of the original writing for cutting so much out, how while it can look worse (I've read a good handful of fnaf books I KNOW it can look worse) I can't say it really looks any good, how Buddy looks like he's 12, how the yellows are garish and piss-looking. But what has me the most upset is Norman, because he was 1 of 2-3 POC characters, out of a cast of dozens upon dozens. And sure, there could be more. But we only had 3 confirmed. Maybe 2.

And now we may be down to one.

I actually spoke with my partner a few nights ago about how nervous I was about the graphic novel. Because of how the cover looked, I wasn't expecting anything great. But I knew there was a chance they'd double down and be like 'Nope, actually Thomas is white, always was' I was anticipating that, and I still am. And I looked at them and told them something roughly along the lines of- "I can live with them making Thomas white, cause of them trying to back-peddle once, I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know how I'd handle them whitewashing Norman."

I still don't know how to handle it. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. People have done amazing designs of Norman for AUs and personal headcanons. Hell, all the staff really. And a majority of them, you'll find, are black. Almost everyone thought he was black. Not this pale Afton knock-off (seriously his hair looks greasy as hell, I know it's a stylization of the lighting but it looks gross)

I'm just throwing my thoughts out here for anyone who cares. Maybe most people won't mind, and fine. Again, it wasn't stated, it was seemingly coding, but clearly, we were wrong because he's paler than the fucking moon. But this is upsetting. This is genuinely upsetting to see. We have so little rep in this series, and the number is somehow dwindling.

What. the Fuck.

[conkreetmonkey]

Something I've realized is there's no instant game over condition. No event that instantly means hopelessness.

Humans are like cockroaches. One is easily squashed, but as a group of many we are extremely hard to wipe out. Rebuilding is in our nature. It's in our DNA. Many of you are likely surrounded by buildings built after the devastation of WWII.

I'm not sure anything could certainly kill all 8 billion of us and destroy any hope for the future.

Full-blown nuclear war? People have bunkers, basements, mines and sewers to hide in, and those who live in the countryside would be largely safe from the blasts. Radiation would cause ecological problems and health issues, yes, but Chernobyl showed us that life finds a way. It's a thriving nature preserve now. It's literally a haven for endangered species. The radiation will eventually decay, and we will rebuild.

Climate change? Sure, things might come to suck ass for a while, but we won't go extinct. There will be SOME food, SOME water, SOME fish and SOME plants and animals. Even if worst comes to worst and cities are submerged, droughts sweep the globe and extreme weather becomes the norm, we will not go extinct, the earth will adapt, as will we, and we will rebuild.

Asteroid? Countries the world over are constantly scanning the cosmos for them, the greatest mathematicians alive calculating their paths. We'd likely know decades in advance if a dino killer was on its way (and btw, some dinos survived and evolved into birds. They're still among us). Nuts to Don't Look Up, no jingoistic nation would be content to have themselves erased, and pass up a glorious opportunity to flex their military technology. It's why we went to the moon.

Look, things suck, and things are likely to continue to suck for years. We all know this. But time is a double-edged sword; just as no empire lasts forever, neither does any bad time. THINGS WILL IMPROVE EVENTUALLY IF WE HOLD OUT AND KEEP STRIVING FOR A BETTER FUTURE. Shit will go down, we will survive, and we'll build a better world, which will eventually face new crises.

The black plague passed. Both world wars passed. The cold war passed. The crusades passed. The Great Depression passed. 2020 passed.

Rome rose and fell, as did Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Assyria and the Aztec Empire, most of them falling bloodily, and yet people still live on the lands they once occupied.

England, the tyrannical, genocidal empire, decayed until it was just a tiny, cash-poor island with very little real power, and it's once mighty, feared monarchy has almost withered into nothing.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that you won't just instantly die. It doesn't work like that. You will almost certainly survive, as will the vast majority of us.

The Boomer politicians and oligarchs will die out eventually, probably within the next 20-30 years. Millenials, then Gen Z will one day be the oldest generation standing, and I doubt they'll be content to leave things the way they'll have been left. Eventually, I imagine, we'll do away entirely with these silly generation politics, as those of different age brackets will no longer exist in different realities. Time consumes all. Every evil person dies one day. Every institution crumbles. Every empire falls.

THINGS HAVE ONLY BEEN THIS BAD FOR, WHAT, A DECADE OR SO? NOT EVEN. THESE BAD TIMES ARE TEMPORARY. WE WILL ENDURE THEM, COME OUT THE OTHER SIDE, AND REBUILD. I HAVE UNWAVERING FAITH IN THIS.

HUMAN BEINGS ENDURE. WE ADAPT. WE FIND A WAY. WE FIND SOMETHING TO EAT, SOMETHING TO DRINK, SOMEWHERE TO LIVE, AND FORM COMMUNITIES, FAMILIES AND CULTURES FROM NOTHING.

IT'S WHAT WE ARE. IT'S WHO WE ARE. THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR, AND THE KINDEST STEWARD. THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. THE RISING APE. THE LIGHT IN THE DARK. THE MASTERS OF FIRE. THE TAMERS OF LIGHTNING. THE INVENTORS OF STORIES, OF SCIENCE, OF GODS.

WE ARE LITERALLY DESIGNED TO PURSUE OTHER CREATURES UNTIL THEY COLLAPSE AND DIE, BECAUSE WE ARE JUST THAT ENDURING. WE MINMAXXED INTO ENDURING.

BETTER TIMES WILL COME. HOPE WILL NEVER DIE. YOU ARE A HUMAN. WE ARE ALL HUMANS. AN ELECTION IS NOTHING IN THE FACE OF THAT.

I’m not about to get political on my silly snake account but everyone’s stressing over Election Day tonight so I’d like to say something.

It’s gonna be okay.

I promise! We’ve made it through a global pandemic. We’ve made it through having a variety of senile men run the country. Several social media platforms like tumblr have survived supposedly site-ending events, like the TikTok “ban” bill and Elon buying twitter. The economy is going to shit, everything’s falling apart, but we are still here. We’ve survived, we’ve moved on. We still find value and joy in life even so.

We. Will. Make. It. Through.

We’ll have each other. We’ll have our art and our fandoms and our friends and all the shenanigans that make us forget about global warming and its associated.

No matter who wins, it will be okay.

I promise.

Hope you feel a little better after that. Love yall, try not to worry too much. <3

[nashishishi]

after i received a comment some time ago mentioning the meaning of hxs tsukasa's username, i took some time to think about what the other usernames mean, since i kinda. didn't think about it lol. i still like sora, naninunene, and ramui but i don't really like mu anymore ://. but my posts have been up for a damn long time now, and i don't know if it's too late to change it, so i wanted to ask you guys if i should change it or not. and if i should, what should i change it to?

here are the options:

M (sounds like "emu" when said in japanese.)

UNI (pronounced "ooni". spelt like "you and i". means "sea urchin". doesn't rlly sound like it has any connection to emu tho.)

UME (emu backwards. pronounced "oomeh". means "plum". sounds kinda like "you and me" but only kinda. could also sound like "yume" (dream)????)

MU (no reason lol i'll make one up later if this gets chosen)

other (make suggestions in replies or reblogs)