#First few episodes at the MOST. Not the last one????

[kabr0ztrousers]

What about a fem waitress/teacher/nurse/other service centered job that is being haunted by a horny exhibitionist ghost that will only touch them in public.

Bonus points if reader gets lured (either fed up with the torment or too cockdrunk to care) into releasing all of the ghost's friends for a ghost orgy

Kabr0z Writes Episode 39: Haunting

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: ghosts; public use; noncon; free use; creampie; group sex; possession; pregnancy mention

A/N: Back to requests today, and back to ghosts too, which I'm sure is welcome news to some of you

As always, if you have any requests for any situations, kinks, or revisits then please drop me a DM asking for what you want and I'll most likely write it sooner or later

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The café was always a little haunted, the odd thing moving here or there, the occasional flickering of the lights, unexplained cold spots, nothing major. That was, of course, until Othello turned up.

You weren't sure what was happening at first, it was a normal shift waiting tables, taking orders, business as usual. You bent over to clean a table when a hand cupped your ass. When you turned to confront whoever touched you, nobody was there. You shrugged and carried on working, maybe you imagined it? A couple of hours later you were working the cash register and felt something squeezing your tits, pinching the nipples through your bra. That's when you realised this was probably a ghost.

You shook yourself. Whoever it is, they're probably not going to be around long, and it's hardly the first time someone's been a bit handsy with you. You do work hospitality after all.

You ran off a little of the receipt paper and jotted down your question: "Who are you?"

Setting the pen and paper aside, you got back to it. You even got a few minutes of reprieve as well before spectral hands started stroking your waist, one unclasping your bra as you walked back behind the counter. In a neat copperplate hand, the spirit had answered your question. Its name was Othello.

There wasn't time to dwell on it, the lunchtime rush was about to start.

Your first couple of tables were fine. It's amazing how quickly you adapt to the roving hands of the unqiet dead when you have to. The next one was a little trickier.

The hands started off squeezing your ass, but one slid around your front and pressed up against your pussy. You felt your skin redden as you started to trip over your words. The men on the table looked quizzically at you, but didn't say anything. The other hand started feeling your cunt too, spectral fingers parting the lips of your pussy as more lazily toyed with your clit. You dropped your pen, crouching to pick it up. Your reward was for two fingers to push inside, immediately aiming for your g-spot as the the ghost continued to abuse your clit.

You bit your tongue to stifle a yelp, only half-succeeding. The men were definitely staring at you now as you half-waddled away from their table, conscious of the arousal dripping from you, soaking your underwear and running down your leg.

You scribbled another message "knock it off, asshole" putting down the paper and walking away.

The fingers came back almost immediately. You felt a hand trace two letters on your back. "No"

The rest of the rush was a stagger, taking every measure of your composure not to give in to the insistent hands rubbing your cunt, pushing fingers into you, toying constantly with your clit. You lasted most of the way through, only one table left before you could lock the door, take a break and recover yourself. A couple of men who work in a nearby office block, one blonde, one dark haired.

You took their order, face burning up and voice quivering. You could hear a wet stirring sound coming from your cunt and smell yourself, the way they were looking at you made you think they could too. Pushing the thought to the back of your mind, you turned to ring up their order. Othello tripped you, sending you sprawling. Your concentration lapsed a moment, letting a moan escape your lips and your back arch, showing your soaked panties to the two men.

You heard them get up before you scurried away into a back room, locking the door behind you. A semi-transparent figure hung there, glowing softly in the dark room.

"What's the big idea?" You spat at the ghost "Who knows what they would've done?"

"I wanted to get you alone" His voice sounded like he was at the bottom of a deep, dry well "Look in the box"

You looked where he was pointing, the lost and found box. On the top, nested on a hoodie someone had left a month ago, was a heart-shaped silver locket. You picked it up, the smooth metal much colder on your skin than it should be

"Open it" Othello's excited voice called to you from just over your shoulder

You unfastened the clasp, the locket fell open. A faintly-glowing cloud poured from it, flowing into Othello and forming two more spectres beside him. All three of them were much more visible now: three men, each around six feet tall. One reached out and opened the door behind you as another pushed you out. The light of the café made them hard to see, but their hands were solid as they manhandled you to a table. The office workers stared at you as the ghosts bent you over the table, pulling your soaked underwear to one side and hiking up your skirt.

The first ghost lined himself up with your cunt and forced his cock inside. Their laughter filled the room as he mercilessly pounded you, each thrust forcing a yelp out of you.

You could hear the other men walking over, moving slowly as the ghost fucked you, clearly not sure what they were seeing. They stood behind you, watching as the first ghost reached his orgasm, pumping his load into you before stepping aside for the next.

The second ghost wasn't any gentler, forcing himself into you using the first one's cum as lube, pressing his fingers into your clit and rubbing you to an orgasm around him as he buried himself in you. The office workers walked around the table to where your head lay, the edge rubbing on your cheek bone.

They got their cocks out and forced your mouth open, taking turns fucking your face and groping the sides of your tits as the ghosts held you down. The second ghost finished in you and the third took his place as the two men kept your mouth busy. This ghost took his time, running his hands over your waist and your hips, feeling every inch of your skin as he rutted into you. The office workers were getting close, you could taste the precum flowing out of them as they alternated thrusting down your throat. The dark haired one held you down. You gagged as he filled your mouth with cum, thrusting down into you for good measure, despite already being balls-deep. You gasped for breath when he pulled out, only for the blonde one to do the same, roughly fucking your throat until he pulled out and painted your face with it, slathering you with a mix of spit and semen. They put themselves away and left before the ghost and finished, making sure to be gone before you could get up.

You felt the ghost start throbbing inside you, pulsing his cum into your punished womb, mingling with his friends.

They left you on the table when they'd finished. Your legs shaking, tears and cum in your eyes. Othello pulled you up from the table, holding you from behind as another placed the locket around your neck.

You felt as though you were watching a film. You could still see everything, hear, touch, taste, but your movements weren't yours any more. You watched as you removed the stained and sodden knickers from between your legs. Your body moved unbidden, leaving the café and locking the door behind you. Your lungs filled with the outside air as you watched yourself walk down the street

"Don't worry" Othello's voice sounded in your head "We'll give your body back, just maybe a little more pregnant"

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A/N: Not sure how well this one turned out, but there's certainly room to expand this if needed.

Once again, any requests will probably be written, so if you want something: drop me an ask or a DM and I'll do what I can!

[utilitycaster]

I love the current discourse because a "woman with a crippling traumatic pasts, gets help of her party to heal from it and spends the rest of her life living a simple quiet life with her lesbian partner" is not the problem, and it has been done before in CR, it's Yasha

If you think about it, Laudna and Yasha's characters mirror each other in more ways than just a monochromatic palette, but one wound up being more interesting and earned her epilogue better and it's not the one that was present for all 100+ episodes of her respective campaign

Yeah; this has come up a TON but like. I have watched/listened to all or part of the following actual play series:

Critical Role (almost everything barring a few one shots, mostly from C1-era)

TAZ (afaik everything except a couple of the most recent episodes)

NADDPod (everything)

RQG (only main campaign and main-campaign canon sidequests, not one-shots, but I listened to all of that)

Relics and Rarities (all)

D20 (most)

Desiquest (first 2 episodes)

Into the Motherlands (first 2 seasons)

Burnt Cookbook Party (haven't listened the last few months for life reasons but intend to catch up, was otherwise caught up)

WBN (first 3 arcs, intend to catch up)

I also am a regular listener to NADDPod and Critical Role's talkback shows. I've been a regular DM since 2020 and had DM-ed one shots prior; I've been playing D&D and occasional other TTRPGs since 2016. I've read a number of articles on the topics of actual play as a form and TTRPGs and discuss it with friends. I'm saying all of this to make it clear: people can tell themselves that I'm stupid and uninformed and don't know what I'm talking about, and I think we all know they're just mad I disagree with them and am a better and more convincing writer to boot, and they're entitled losers who want me to write posts that make them feel good solely through what I'd call bullying but really it's more like if someone tried to shove me in a locker and accidentally gave themselves a concussion running headfirst into a locker, and I filmed it.

ANYWAY getting to the point yeah Yasha tells a story that hits the same core beats while also being a superior character on every level. She also had a difficult and abusive childhood (starting from a younger age) and experienced great loss and injustice, and also committed great harm. In her grief she was taken advantage of by sinister forces that sought to use and control her, and while she was able to escape with assistance, the bindings followed her. She continued to experience loss, and despite fighting back succumbed to her past controllers until her friends - not some stranger, but the people she'd met, coupled with her own abilities - broke her free, and she was able to meaningfully and rewardingly end her servitude. She messily worked through her feelings and in the process found love, and, having been forced to be a weapon and killer, made a choice to set that aside and find her own identity.

Any claim that Laudna's story manages to touch in a meaningful way on the same notes, when she never takes charge of her own destiny and simply drifts and flops about through various paths of least resistance until settling back in a rut, is a desperate and sad lie told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I say this as someone who thinks that Critical Role campaign 2 is the best longform campaign of D&D I've seen, and that Candela Obscura Circle of Needle and Thread, Moonward, and EXU Calamity are all some of the best shortform campaigns of actual play: there is nothing I can think of that Campaign 3 does, across the board, that something else in actual play (ie, in this improvised format) doesn't do in a far superior fashion. That's really it. It's mediocre at best. None of these were the casts' strongest character nor relationship and it's certainly Matt's weakest plotting. If you liked it, that's great, but yeah there's nothing special about it.

[atinylittleghoul]

my most controversial take is that plenty of the season 3 episodes aren't bad - they're pretty good for the most part. i like a few of the concepts it introduced (blood blossoms, the infinity map) and a few characters that i thought were cool (nocturn, amorpho). it was also nice seeing characters like wulf and walker again along with what i think are two genuinely great episodes (eye for an eye, d-stabilized)

but the problem is that almost all of the episodes are one-offs. sure the first 2 seasons had their fair share of standalone episodes but the show wasn't entirely made of them

so when season 3 came along being almost entirely composed of standalones throwing in all these new concepts and characters while also being the show's final season and leaving no room breathing room to really develop anything it ended contributing to part of what made the last season so lackluster

[worstqueerbaittournament]

Submission message for Klance: howdy, would like to submit keith and lance from voltron (lmao)

Submission message for Bechloe: Beca and Chloe from Pitch Perfect (mainly Beca but Bechloe was the ship they baited the most)

Additional propaganda Klance: Now Keith and Lance on the other hand was a whole fucking mess that they then shoehorned in an hetero romance to try and "fix it" but by lord it was bad, everything about voltron is so fucking bad

Anyway this is my Klance propaganda : They were actually bait

Klance's queer baiting by the team was the worst!! We had to deal with NETFLIX ALSO GETTING IN ON THE QUEER BAITING!! If you searched up Kkance during the times for season 6-8, the SHOW WOULD POP UP. The directors would make jokes about it being canon, even Lance's VA got in the joke!

Their queer baiting was the worst for anyone who was even looking for an ounce of queer rep in that show. The only queer rep we got was a man who died after not even 5 minutes on screen, and shoehorned in the credit scene of a gay wedding of a character that was neither Keith nor Lance.

I do not know Agatha and Sophie, so I can't argue that klance was bigger bait or not, I just know voltron was mean lmao. the creators said stuff like "lance will be someone's first choice!" (meaning NOT ending up in a relationship with allura bc she very much chose another guy over him) and heavily implying he would be Keith's 1st choice (or a guy in general bc of point number 2). point number 2: they also released official art showing how super cool and diverse the main cast was! race! gender! LGBT - they had shiro (who was......canon gay but that's a whole other can of worms) and lance hold the sign with LGBT on it and then did absolutely nothing with that w lance at all (he hit on allura, so obvi he's not gay, but at least bi or smt) (UNLESS you count the scenes where he's flirty with keith). I just remember going into the last few seasons being like "klance probably won't be happen be honest with yourself there's like no queer kids shows!! but damn like it so could tho!!! because of how much it's been teased both in the show and by showrunners like I can't have no hope with the way the producers talk about it!" lmao I should have had no hope, but i genuinkey believed there was a possibility it could happen. and actually I discovered after the fact that i think one of the writers for the show who was the main advocate for klance (they had a lot of diff writers for eps, which led to lots of character butchering but ANYWAY) left not terribly long into the show I believe bc he didn't like the direction it was moving in and didn't want to be tied to the show anymore. so it's not like fans just made klance up either - it was written into earlier episodes with the hope and plan to continue developing later, and then just nothing ever happened with it besides INTENSE teasing it to keep queer fans around. esp after shiro's relationship was literally only a flashback and then his fiance thing or whatever got blown up before we even got to watch him interact w shiro as we knew him in present time in s7, so I think they kept being like hmmm klance and the stuff about lance being a first choice before s8 to keep ppl around. also esp bc klancers made up such a big portion of the fan base. then they made a horrible szn and ended it w a flashforward to shiro marrying some random background character who maybe had 1 line? I just remember hitting the flashforward and being like uhhhh who is this dude??? but they did that to hit those diversity points wow first gay marriage in a cartoon or smt idk it doesn't count to me really. so anyway voltron in general is queerbait lol but klance is because it started out as a legit possibility and then they said sike! but only maybe sike bc u guys are mad at us burying our guys in s7 so maybe klance could still happen haha okay now we're serious no it's not happening. anyway I think klance is p bad queerbait and a vote for them is a valid vote, not just u liking the ship.

Here is my really boring and incredibly dry argument for #KLANCESWEEP:

There are countless examples of the Voltron showrunners queerbaiting when it comes to Klance. I will leave that argument and discussion to others. Instead, I would like to focus on why/how I believe Klance is the more significant instance of queerbaiting, despite Johnlock's queerbaiting being markedly more famous.

Queerbaiting is when a shows teases/hints at a character(s) being queer, but then never actually follows through on making the character LGBTQ+. Queerbaiting is, above all, a marketing technique; the show dangles the possibility of a queer romance in order to "bait"  a queer/ally audience into watching, and then continues to dangle or drag out the possibility of a same-sex romance in order to keep their audience hooked and continuously profited off. Queerbaiting takes advantage of peoples' hope and optimism, and that's why the betrayal stings so deeply once the queerbaiting is realized.

I argue that one of the major components of queerbaiting is that the show/writers must never explicitly confirm that there will NOT be queer romance. Queerbaiting is only sustained so long as the illusion of possibility persists.

Now, there are plenty of nuances to this.

If a showrunner comes out and explicitly states that there will be no queer representation in the show, this statement alone does not absolve the show of any queerbaiting it previously did. But, it DOES blur the lines for what can reasonably be defined as "actual" versus "willful" queerbaiting and subtext in the show going forward.

okay let me drop the pseudo-academic tone and just put it bluntly. what i'm trying to say is that, if a showrunner explicitly says "NO GAY ROMANCE," but the show's audience continues to insist and read for gay subtext anyway, and then the audience feels betrayed when the show ends with no queer romance --- at a certain point, wouldn't you argue that it's the fans that are actually baiting themselves, and not the show itself? this is what i mean by "willful" subtext.

As early as 2010 (this article/interview was posted the day of the first episode), the Sherlock showrunners explicitly stated that there would be no romantic relationship between Sherlock and Watson. Between 2010 and 2016, the showrunners repeatedly stated in multiple interviews that Johnlock would never happen.

I am 100% aware that I was drinking nothing but Kool-Aid while Voltron aired. I absolutely baited myself with desperate hope each season. But, in my weak defense, the flames of my Klance delusions were very much flamed by the promises made by the Voltron showrunners, who repeatedly floated the promise of queer representation in the show and spoke about Klance in the same breath. Klancers didn't bait themselves out of thin air; they desperately clung to the rope the Voltron writers threw us, and we were pulled in: hook, line, and sinker.

-

TLDR:

Queerbaiting involves willful deception and deliberate misinformation on the part of a showrunner/show.

If a showrunner encourages a queer ship, or makes vague promises of queer representation, then it reasonable for the show's audience to assume that a queer romance will happen. When a queer romance does not happen, this is clear-cut queerbaiting.

But if a showrunner explicitly states that a show will not have a major queer romance, then the show's audience should reasonably assume that the show will not have the queer ship they favor. If shippers continue to insist that their ship will come to fruition, and continue to pin their hopes on their ship, then the lines between who is actually baiting whom become very blurred.

Johnlock fans knew going into the show that John and Sherlock would never have an explicitly queer relationship. Fans continued to read for subtext, and maintained hope. The lines of queerbaiting become blurred, as it was not entirely clear if the show was actually baiting its shippers, or if fans were the ones baiting themselves.

In contrast, Klance fans were repeatedly encouraged by the showrunners, Netflix's marketing, and to some extent the VAs that Klance was possible (and that queer representation would firmly happen), and so Klance shippers were repeatedly strung along each season, up until the final season when Lance and Allura started dating and the Klance ship was torpedoed once and for all. (Do not talk to me about post-canon Klance, I am willfully defiant.) This is a firmly clear-cut case of queerbaiting.

In summary, Klance is the more textbook case of queerbaiting. It matches all the elements of queerbaiting: there was the willful deception by the showrunners, which encouraged Klance shippers specifically to hang onto the show, allowing Voltron to profit off its Klance audience. It's true that Klance shippers also continuously baited and deluded ourselves; but in our defense, we were following the example and promises set by the show itself.

Additional propaganda Bechloe: Ok for a little propaganda, since you may have forgotten pitch perfect, I want you all to know I first saw it as a 16-17 year old at gay youth group and can you imagine my fucking surprise and bafflement when they werent lesbians. Like basically thru the whole movie I was like “fun lesbian film nothing out of place just waiting for them to actually be gay” I know this was mostly the youth group organizers fault but I still think pitch perfect should have to answer for their crimes

I could talk so much about this but I want to point specifically to this promo for pitch perfect 3:

Bechloe - Pitch Perfect 3 Promo

Bechloe is REAL!

YouTube

and they then proceeded to give chloe an absolutely godawful love interest and like really overdid it (they also tried to give beca one too but anna kendrick was having NONE of that)

IIRC, Beca and Chloe were supposed to be lesbians but Universal vetoed it and made them give Beca a male love interest. Whether that changes things is up to you.

Even more Klance propaganda under the cut:

@klanced pretty well summarizes why Voltron was *more* queerbaity, but I think we should also consider what it means to be *worse.*

Make no mistake, the Sherlock team was.... for lack of a better term.... almost gaslight-y in their press, by disregarding the subtext that they themselves had written. But they were consistent. And their messages as showrunners did bear through, even as they were being cruel. Most importantly, Sherlock never needed the people they were baiting, so they could act aloof. That distance was horrible, but nothing like Voltron.

The relationship between Voltron and its fans was toxic, parasitic. Voltron couldn't have stayed around for that long without dragging its queer-baited audience behind it. It was a Netflix show, and those are always so close to the hangman's axe. It was the online fervor that sustained it.

And so, they had to appease the fans, pay the piper. But they had their own ideas for how the story would bear out, and each creator wanted something differently. In the end, they consistently used marketing tactics to imply something that could have been possible, if not for distinct creative voices that instead weakened the queer stories until they were watery piss.

Anyway, this was rambling. Vote Voltron for dangling queer alignment and ambiguity. Vote Voltron for pretending to be an ally. Vote Voltron for the stupid fucking LGBTQ banner that has Lance on it. Johnlock hurt, in a distant way, but Klance was worse.

I actually said this earlier on a different post, but I'll say it here too:

Its completely reasonable to think Klance was originally planned. Their interactions in the early seasons seemed a little too romantically coded to be something completely made up by fans. Thats why Klance was so popular, because it seemed all too possible.

However, when Dreamworks forced the creative team to change the story in order to keep Shiro alive instead of permanently killing him off like they originally planned, their entire story got fucked over. Seasons 3 and 4 were too far into production to stop and completely redo them, it would have been too expensive, even though it was the logical course of action. Instead, the producers had to make serious last minute changes to the story in order to keep Shiro in the picture. As a result, Shiro and Keith's switched places in the show, and Keith was almost completely written out of seasons 4-6 because Shiro was never supposed to be there. Any and all possible plans for any sort of development between Keith and Lance were thrown out the window because Keith wasn't there.

But as previously said, Voltron wouldn't have survived until the end without the rabid and feral online Klance fandom. The writing was very rapidly going to shit because there wasn't enough time to properly rewrite seasons 3 and 4 in order to meet Dreamworks' demands, and every season that followed suffered because of the decisions made for seasons 3 and 4. Everything was being improvised, and the storyboards for season 8 weren't finished until MARCH 2018 because of how behind schedule they were.

(I feel like the creative team don't get enough credit. Sure the show was a MASSIVE flop but their working conditions were less then ideal. Its impressive they got anything done on time due to the constantly changing ideas.)

The VLD producers knew that the Klance fandom was the only thing keeping the show alive, and continued to use Klance as bait until the very end. The VLD producers willingly enabled the notoriously toxic and violent Klance fandom with thumbnails and HotTopic merch, and allowed it to reach a point that the lives of their cast and crew were being threatenedby the rabid Klance fandom, just to get the ratings they needed to stay afloat.

THATS the disgusting part of all this. Whether Klance was originally planned as endgame or not, the producers used its popularity to keeping their already declining show running at the expense of the safety of their cast and crew.

I know next to nothing about BBC's Sherlock and Johnlock and whatever, but what the VLD producers did was sinister. Putting their creative team through both production and online HELL for some ratings, and it blew up in the most humiliating way possible. They did alllllll that, just to get one of the worst endings to an animated series of all time. Literally everyone hates them for what Voltron became, putting the lives of their creative team in danger was for nothing.

And obviously the producers can't completely blamed for the show's outcome, Dreamworks ruined their original plans. But continuing to use Klance as a marketing tactic while your fans are getting out of control and your creative team is being put in danger is just appalling. It was in their power to tell the Klance fandom Klance wasn't endgame, and that probably would have quelled the fire, but instead, with every season, they threw more and more gasoline into the dumpster fire.

So if you haven't already, vote Klance in this poll.

(I'm linking my source for all this info here. Its a video essay that I totally recommend watching. Super duper interesting.)

[ecoterrorist-katara]

hi! curious as to what you think about the comparison of aang giving up cosmic energy for katara and percy rejecting immortality for annabeth? i genuinely do not think they are the same because percabeth knew each other for years and gradually evolved from friends to lovers, in which their feelings were mutual. most importantly, him rejecting immortality did not have any negative bearing on the future of the world. as for aang, he gave up the avatar state, which he needed to save the world/defeat ozai. he risked it because of his obsession with katara, who at the time did not reciprocate his feelings at all.

hi! I agree that Percy rejecting immortality comes across as very romantic because, well, he already saved the world! Plus he was able to leverage his rejection of immortality to help people like him. That said, while I don't find the cosmic energy arc in ATLA romantic, I can't find it in myself to blame Aang in-universe. It's one of those "damn this kid is 12, he's lost everything, and I can't believe he has to make these decisions" moments of the show that made me feel super bad for him, and even if I disagree with his choice I understand why he made it.

However! I do have a HUGE problem with the arc, and it lies entirely with how the writers made Katara a damsel. They never gave Aang the opportunity to see Katara as another hero, like him.

Katara is not a Chosen One like Aang, but she still chose to be a hero. In episode 1, Katara chooses to stand up for Aang against her community. A few episodes later, she gets herself tossed into prison to free Haru and earthbenders. She demonstrates again and again that she's not worried about her own safety, as long as she's doing the right thing and protecting others.

There's a bit of dramatic irony in Crossroads of Destiny where Aang has this vision of Katara struggling in chains and looking every inch the damsel...meanwhile we the audience know that Katara is alive and well and yelling at Zuko. Then Aang goes off to save her, only for her to save him instead. He has that moment of “I’m sorry Katara” where he tries to access the Avatar State, implying that he’s letting her go, as if this is a decision about him — as if the decision to save Katara was about Aang’s attachment to her, rather than their shared values.

Even after the Ba Sing Se scare, it never seemed to occur to Aang to ask Katara what she would have wanted, and I assume this is because it never crossed the writers' minds that Katara is anything but a character development object for Aang when it comes to their romance. Would Katara be willing to sacrifice her own safety so that Aang can defeat Ozai? Uh, yes, least of all because she's scrappy and she would've figured something out to save herself (recall this was neither the first nor the last time Katara ended up in prison — is Katara the only ATLA character who’s thrown in jail every season? I think so lmao). But even if she wants Aang to let the world burn and prioritize her over his duties as the Avatar, the point is that she deserves a say.

Katara will presumably one day need to choose between love and duty. These are supposed to be shared burdens when two heroes love each other. Sokka and Suki, a secondary ship, got a whole arc where Sokka learns he doesn't have to save Suki because she has agency and she also wants to save him! But what did Ka/taang get? Nothing of the kind. It’s not clear if Katara even knows that Aang was about to give up the Avatar State for her, because they never talk about it!

I think other people have talked at length about how in ATLA, Katara is her own character and her own person with her own journey...except when she’s written as Aang’s love interest. The cosmic energy/Avatar State fiasco is another example of that.

[skydigiblogs]

Digimon and Nostalgia

i have a habit of just kind of passing by in the tags sometimes even when i'm quiet, and i'm realizing i don't know how much i've talked about the thought behind why we decided to revisit digimon last february from start to finish.

okay so fair warning, this is gonna be rambly and a little bit semi-incoherent because i feel like absolute dogshit today but the brain worms on the subject aren't leaving me alone to rest.

i am putting it under a read more for all our sanity

so there's this category of post i always see in the tags that seems to come from a place of either not engaging with enough digimon media or not engaging with the media.

that first one is a bit easier to explain. sometimes people will talk about things they want to see in the digimon franchise, and it's kind of clear that they have a very narrow scope of what they've actually seen from it.

i'm trying to think of an example that doesn't put recent posts i've seen on blast lmao (because that's not the point of this post), but also i think some of the points brought up by this post by @starwardking (pardon the tag) highlight the complexity of the first kind of issue, because it both is and isn't the kind of problem that can be fixed by just finding the right digimon media.

when i saw this post, my first instinct was to point to series like savers and appmon, where a majority of the plot takes place in the human world and allows for a lot of mundane shenanigans. i also think a bit about the earlier episodes of tamers.

(i think to some extent ghost game has a bit of domestic life shit going on, but seeing as it is also a horror anime, part of it is about the dissonance between "Normal for Digimon" and "Normal for Humans." but you also get episodes about little hideaways digimon live in in the human world so they can drink tea and share snacks. you also have digimon that just hang out in libraries and shit like that.)

at the same time, this is also an issue i think that isn't fixed by finding the right digimon media. the comparison to pokemon is what makes me consider this, specifically because of something like pokemon amie. it may have just been a minigame, but it's also something that, especially in the video games, i don't think we have a clear parallel to. i do agree that it would be nice to enjoy a bit of domestic fluff with your digimon!

but then i also recognize that i myself have also skipped over games where i could tell there would be some of that. i couldn't finish survive because it has elements i just can't handle either playing or watching. what i do remember in survive is that you have quite a few scenes early on in the school that are about resource management (figuring out how to digimon survive, as it were). this is done while you're also chatting with your human and digimon friends.

which i think segues better into the second kind of issue, being that sometimes i see these posts and they come from an angle where it seems someone hasn't exactly made an effort to engage with digimon as it is. there's a phenomenal video essay by deep dive on youtube, actually, that talks about this with regards to ghost game.

on the most abstract level, are you trying to be cognizant of your biases going into a piece of art when you take it in? what experiences make it difficult to engage with the text in a way that it wants you to engage? can you even see what the text is trying to say, even if it's ineffectual?

this is also why i wanted to tie this in with the reason i decided to make a blog to track my revisiting of all the different series.

nostalgia is killer, and not in a good way.

one of the things we regularly do with media we enjoy enough to praise is revisit it. if it's been over a year since i've watched something and i am trying to hype it up to someone, i want to not rely on my own memory, but also the text of that individual piece of art.

the second form of this issue comes about when an individual has an Idea about digimon, and they post with a very firm stance on what digimon is or is not. it's a retreading i think of the same reason anyone is willing to not consider appmon part of the digimon franchise (despite the "digimon universe" title).

again: what are your biases coming into a piece of art? do you have certain ideas about what digimon is supposed to look like? do you refuse to give other digimon media a fair chance because of it?

this form is more likely to get me to just block someone so i don't have to keep scrolling past them in the tags tbh. there's a mixture of "it was better in the old days" combined with a blatant lack of media literacy when "attempting" to engage with newer digimon media. you see this in a lot of franchises, to be fair, but it is always frustrating.

like i could also be biased because of my own background, being that i have an english degree, but there's something so... disappointing, i suppose, to the latter form of this criticism. if you're going to have a take, i want to see you articulate it. it's not a school assignment, sure, but what in god's name is making you come to that take?

i think the most painful series to see this with for me are savers and appmon, if only because i did rewatch them to better understand why i love them (and also what i really hate about them!).

savers especially is a show i watched because i was interested in seeing if the "MIB but if the aliens were Digimon" series could handle making any statement about the nature of law enforcement! and surprise surprise, it fucking did!

people probably feel the same way any time i post about frontier, which is a series i've been vocal about my dislike about (though i respect anyone willing to try to make frontiers better through their own art and writing). it's been a struggle to rewatch that series, but i also don't want to make strong judgments with firm backing because i know i have not seen it in years, nor have i seen the original sub.

i don't think i have a nice clean conclusion for this. it's an observation i keep having, and i don't think there's any particular solution for someone like me who just wants people to try a little harder to pick apart the things they like. i want people to understand how stories tick, and the things they both explicitly and implicitly say. it's the english teacher in me, i guess.

[gayofthefae]

Yes! Season 4 is full of using ily to contrast Mike and I've been saying this. Even if improv, they kept it (only the Eddie one was).

Jason tells Chrissy.

Nancy and Jonathan say it about each other.

PAPA FUCKING SAYS IT ABOUT EL AND HENRY. PAPA. they are establishing so strongly that you can say it without meaning it or believe it without it being true RIGHT before Mike says it.

And then there are TWO OTHERS IN 4X09 *THE SAME EPISODE*, originally intended one but now two

Right after Mike's, Eddie tells Dustin and Dustin says it back.

And BIGGEST TO ME OF ALL, they SCRIPTED to one-up Mike and Eleven in the last scene before El's fighting started/jumpstarting the impending ily speech:

Jonathan says it to Will.

Everybody cared more about that and they knew it.

Know what else? You probably didn't know any of that. And as I've said before, I wouldn't doubt that Mike loved El if he'd never said it. Until 3x06 I assumed that he had. Even after he did, it was only when everyone reacted with alarm that I discovered he hadn't. It was obvious to me. But now I don't believe him anymore.

They had the most people ever say "I love you" in season 4. Every scripted case being first. By the time Mike says it, we have seen it done better, and we have established that it can be unreliable. And only THEN do they let him.

I remember thinking they would use a song to wake Nancy then realizing they wouldn't because for marketing they would want Running Up That Hill to be the "season 4 song". They reserved a song for the whole season. They damn well could have reserved an "I love you". By the time it was Mike's turn, we had heard it at least FIVE TIMES ALREADY - "at least" because I wouldn't be surprised if I'm forgetting a Hop about El or Victor about his family or something.

Mike was SIXTH. And by keeping the cut of Eddie they didn't even make him the closer! He was SIXTH of SEVEN! And the one that was a LIE DIRECTLY REFERENCED MIKE'S PREVIOUS ATTEMPT

Never over how much more Jonathan saying it to Will matters to literally everyone than romance - queer acceptance is more important than even the sweetest love story and people empathize with that - and they put it JUST A FEW SCENES *BEFORE* MIKE'S to keep in your mind fresh what it's SUPPOSED to look and feel like.

Saw someone on Reddit point out that it took Mike an entire season to say I love you to El while Jason was able to say it to Chrissy in ep one and. Yeah. Kinda interesting how Mike is set up from the very beginning of the season to be the opposite of the macho hometown hero like that.

Not that the writers could possibly be trying to tell us anything though

[cloudluvs]

it was incredibly frustrating to see keeley once again be the pacifier between roy and jamie. it's been three seasons and she's still having to deal with their jealously and conflict. like, why do the writers oppose her having healthy relationships romantically and platonically?

[cauldron-burn-and-fire-bubble]

control (2019) + king of pain by the police

[variksel]

matthew arnold has mastered the game of tumblr ship teasing and He Knows It

[autism0fadown]

I’ve been re-listening to dndads s1 and i just finished the last episode again… im inconsolable

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

i unraveled half a dishcloth about 3 times because i was having a toxic man-refusing-to-ask-for-directions moment and kept telling myself "nah you've knit stacks of these and it's literally the easiest pattern" and ignoring the fact that i've been crocheting for 3-4 years and could really spare 5 seconds to google a pattern as a refresher

[cloudbends]

IM ACTUALLY IN TEARS . WERE GETTING THERE

[shikiimisaki]

ive once again come to understand the fact that i do not fuck with analog horror. shit got me seeing things that aren't there out the windows if its dark

[hooved]

Wrt your poll, I follow you for aesthetic posts, funny posts, and your art! I orginally followed for tf2 posting too but I think both of us have shifted focuses away from that fandom? But the quark posting is endearing to me and it's interesting reading all the little details you notice about him. I haven't watched DS9 at all but I'm becoming progressively more tempted to cuz of your posting 👍

[mariocki]

Stuart Damon plays pretend as secret agent Vince in The Adventurer: Poor Little Rich Girl (1.2, ITC, 1972). Damon was initially cast as a recurring supporting character, one of a group of assistants that work with lead Gene Barry, but he was dropped from the series (almost certainly at Barry's behest) and appears in just two episodes