#I just also think there’s more to be said about a woman with abusive tendencies being a single mom

[sexyleon]

hey there! mia and rose actually got on very well! remember her diary (when she's like 6-8 years old i think)? she called her Mommy and that she taught her so much stuff, school was very easy for her. and then she sounds sad when she comments on her picture 'I haven't seen Mom in ages :( ' it was all eveline and her jealousy towards rose being loved and resentment towards mia and her not being the mommy she said she was going to be (in re7) and her research on her (mia wtf :/) that made her so angry, and so she used rose's memories of loneliness, 'absent' mother mia** and school bullies to torture rose.

**there was talk of interviews with the devs that chris took custody from mia (chris wtf, that's rose's only remaining parent who loves her just as much as the other did) and we know now from the DLC that he's been trying to recruit a VERY reluctant 16yo into a VERY dangerous squad, like srsly wtf chris? what part of 'take care of her' did he get wrong from ethan's dying words? or from rose's 'i want a normal life'? of course, it's possible that you just don't like mia (which is totally cool!) and i didn't see it anywhere on ur blog, if so, my apologies for this rant!!

You’re absolutely right, I do not like Mia at all.

I think this is a really interesting theory, but I also feel like Eveline was using Rose’s specific fears and memories in the first part of the house. It mirrored Ethan’s experience too much. I did see the journal entry, and I believe Mia was present for a while, but I also don’t think Mia has changed much regardless of if Chris took custody or not. We saw how she treated Eveline, a child/bio weapon with powers. We saw how she treated Ethan. We saw how she treated Chris at the end of it all. That explosive anger doesn’t go away overnight. While I think Mia can be gentle and kind (obviously why would Ethan fall in love with her), I do think she falls into the pattern of an abuser and has abusive tendencies. I think maybe Eveline and Rose both experienced a weird type of possession/surveillance by Mia and that maybe their experiences as children in her care weren’t too different. Based on your thoughts, i can definitely see the manifestation of Mia in the house as a combination of Eveline’s projection and some sort of personal experience from Rose because I think they likely had similar experiences with her to some extent. Of course, this is all speculation, and I will admit my opinion of Mia is low, but I think there is a conversation to be had about Mia, her behaviour, and how she potentially interacted with her daughter based on that.

[captain-mj]

What do you think how much Ghosts past sa (I think it's canon, correct me if I'm wrong), affects him now? With Soap or in general.

You're right it is canon! There are both explicit, implicit and alluded to sa in his story. The explicit being the woman, the implicit being the men and it's alluded to that his father may have sexually abused him also. The last part being that they often juxtapose torture he experiences with Roba to torture he experienced by his father and there's a scene with some heavy implications but it's not outright said.

I'm saying all of that cause I love the symbolism in the comics! To your actual prompt

Yes, Yes I do think it affects him. In the comics, he's shown to be nervous around women after the torture he faced from one so he most likely is awkward around them, especially older woman who resemble his mom. Laswell probably had hard time working with him at first, not because he argued with her, but actually the exact opposite. He wouldn't challenge her or provide input, but he was also awkward and never met her eye. He's past it now, but it was a problem.

With Soap, I think it's more complicated. I've written a ton of things about it, but my biggest headcanons are that Ghost struggles with people touching him too much and while Soap is easier than most, it's still a struggle sometimes. I also think he has a tendency to get lost in sex in a very not healthy way.

He just fades out sometimes and dissociates so he can’t feel it. Soap learns how to know when it’s going to happen and avoid it or bring him back, but it’s something they both dealt with in the beginning.

Ghost is good enough about reassurances that Soap doesn’t believe he’s the problem, but the thought does cross his mind when Ghost moves away from him

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Vito going from annoyed to loving your stay in his apartement and starting treating you with his wife, his obsessive tendency on the first few was very subtle toward you but it's getting more apparent by holding your hand when going out and beat up punk that disrespected you. One of his most fearful moment is for one day you just go back to your own timeline leaving him all alone

A/N: Ugh your minddddd!! Sorry this took a few days, I got a little busy. Using a prompt from the Yandere prompt list hehehe

44. “Leaving me and going back home is all you think about, isn’t it? Always dreaming about it, always thinking about it?”

Warnings: abuse, manipulation, being held hostage,violence, slight SA and happy sunshine rainbows!!

Requests: Open 24/7

Masterlist

As much flack as Vito had originally given you, he’s so attached to you now.

Vito definitely is the kind of Yandere who pretends like he’s not completely obsessed with you but is actually dying for your attention.

Tsundere I believe it’s called? Yeah. That’s him.

It’s been nice having you around the house. You make him meals, help out with laundry, cleaning, and even patch him up when he comes home hurt. Not to mention very caring and understanding. You check off all the boxes his mama told him to look for in a wife, why would he ever let you go?

Besides, ever since you told him that he’d end up old and alone, he’s been on the hunt to find his perfect wife.

Apparently that perfect someone is you.

Now you were simply doing all of these things as an exchange for him letting you stay while you worked on a plan to get back home. Not because you were trying out to be his housewife.

Vito is from another time period, for him, if you're basically functioning like a married couple then you are one.

All you need now is a ring and his last name.

You didn’t pay attention to his little gestures at first. Him opening the door for you, paying for you and being protective were all chivalrous gestures most men in the 50’s would’ve done anyways. He never made it a big deal or overstepped a boundary so it didn’t really rub you wrong.

Of course Joe would tease you about Vito being completely smitten over you but it never really appeared so. Also who really pays that man any attention???

It wasn’t until Vito started becoming bolder that you started taking him seriously.

Vito would start to get visibly upset if you decided to sit across from him and not directly next to him at restaurants.

He disliked when you interacted with any man other than him. Even to the point where he would start to question your feelings for Joe, slightly accusing you of flirting.

He became a lot more physical, insisting that you’d hold his hand or have at least one of his arms around your waist at all times.

You tried to protest about how this made you feel extremely uncomfortable since this was a very intimate gesture but the man wasn’t having it. It was like arguing with a wall.

“Y/N, I know we’re only friends but I’m doing this for your protection. If other men around think you’re with me, they won’t dare lay a finger on you. Everyone knows I’m with Falcone.”

To your dismay, you dropped it. What he said kind of made sense. Women and children are off limits, especially if they belong to a family. Maybe he knew something you didn’t.

The physical contact continued but only got worse. To the point he’ll just pull you onto his lap, adjust your clothes and move your hair out of the way so he can rest his head on your neck.

“Trust me Y/N, I’m not into you. You’re not even really my type. Like I said, I just want to protect you. I need people to believe it.”

Why are you lying so hard Vito??

This soldier doesn't like it when a man disrespects a woman period!! Like y’all remember this man holding everything in him back so he wouldn’t kill the guy that hit his sister.

Mama’s boy™️

Can you imagine what happened to the man who decided it was a good idea to not only catcall you but to smack your ass???

You tried to tell Vito to forget it and that it wasn’t that big of a deal…

You spent hours trying to get the blood stains out of Vito’s bomber jacket as well as the sounds of his fists slamming that poor punk into the ground out of your head.

As much as he tried so hard to hide his one sided relationship from you, it was so obvious by this point.

Vito felt strongly about you, even if it was platonic. It was getting out of hand and causing you to look for an out.

Maybe speaking to Vito about this would help? Maybe this was all a misunderstanding and maybe this time he’d actually listen to you?

Yeah….no.

He’s a stubborn fuck that refuses to accept reality.

“Okay…since you can’t respect my wishes and this isn’t enjoyable anymore. I’m thinking about leaving and going back home. I mean that was always the plan but-“

What? You’re leaving? No no no. How could you leave your husband?

“No. You’re not going.”

Haha that’s funny…

“Um, Vito, I didn't ask you. I’m telling you. I’ll be leaving soon. Did you really think I was going to stay here forever?”

Yes. He really did. You were meant to be a part of this decade, here with him. What is so great about the future if he’s not going to be there to spend it with you?

He’s not happy, this isn’t right. Something in his brain snapped and he’s not letting you leave.

“Leaving me and going back home is all you think about, isn’t it? Always dreaming about it, always thinking about it?”

“Vito-“

“Do you think it’s funny that I have to spend my life alone…no one to love or take care of me while you go back to your life like it’s nothing??”

“P-please calm down-“

“Oh please fuck off Y/N. There’s someone else isn't there?? Huh? You have some pretty boy waiting at home for you right now? I can make more money for you-”

“Vito! There isn’t anyone else. I’m just not supposed to be here. We weren’t ever supposed to meet. This was all a huge mistake and I’m sorry for interrupting your life. I wish I just never came here. I-I wish we never met.”

Seriously? Did you mean that? Are you going to go back and undo all of this? Can you even do that? You can’t do that, he can’t live without you. You’re meant to be together.

Taking a second to breathe and lower his tone, he spoke calmly.

“Look, I’m sorry. I gained a little crush on you and it’s admittedly gotten a bit weird. You are right and I’ll let it go. If you feel like going back home will make you happy then I will learn to live with it.”

“It’s okay Vito. Let’s just get some rest and then we can discuss this over breakfast. We’ve had a long day.”

Yeah he’ll never learn to live with it. That was his best attempt at setting down the situation. He needed alone time to think and most importantly for you to go to sleep.

It’s wrong…he can almost see the frown on his late mother’s face as he thinks up this sick plan. But he didn’t ever think about you leaving before and now he’s terrified of you doing just that.

He’d only be locking you up for a few days, that’s enough for him to break you…make you change your mind…

He’s been tought exactly how to fuck with someone in the army, how to make his enemy crumble into doing whatever he wants.

Vito could do that with you. It’ll be okay and you’ll learn to forgive him once he gives you a new fur coat or something.

“This is for the best, Y/N. It’s for our future.” He loves you and the ropes tied around your ankles are tied with care. ;)

[gregoriaofnyssa]

Demystifying Female Romance

The basis of female romantic interest is relation-- it is autoerastisphillia. Love of oneself as the lover. This is the true explanation behind the tendency for “female centered” romantic media to have a bland female protagonist and a dynamic, interesting, and often pained male romantic interest. The typical explanation of this is that the female protagonist is supposed to be a blank slate for the female reader to relate to; the female fantasy is to be loved by a dynamic, interesting, rich, and pained man. I am sure there are some women who interact with romantic media in this way, but I am also sure this is not typical, at least not subconsciously. Instead, the bland as bread female protagonist is a conduit for the female reader to relate to and romantically embody the male love interest. 

I experienced this recently when I started playing BG3 recently. I’ve never felt like this about a fictional character before. My heart is inflamed. I think about Astarion, and I giggle like a child. But what is my real interest here? My interest is in myself. I realized I do not so much as have affection for Astarion, but rather I have a great deal in common with him. Our traumas could not be more similar unless I was kidnapped by something supernatural. I was abused; Astarion was abused. I had my body taken from me; Astarion had his body taken away from him. Horrible things were done and said to me; horrible things were done to Astarion. Astarion had his flesh cut into; I had my flesh cut into. 

I always thought fictional crushes were weird, especially when I was a child and my abuse was happening. But now I understand it. The great quality of art is that it allows you to be seen. Really seen. Validated. Only, this art had abs and a lovely voice. This art, and all art I love, makes me want to be a part of it. I love the art because I want to be it.

Autoastarionphillia. Love of oneself as Astarion. It is extremely strange, like much of the rest of female psychology. Masculinized female psychology is even weirded. Reflecting upon this, I recall when I was younger and my abuse was happening, I connected greatly to the character Killian Jones from the ABC show Once Upon a Time. I was enthralled by the relationship between him and Emma Swan, but I really had no interest in Emma. I have always related more to male characters in general, actually. I relate to many male characters more than most real women in my real life. As far as Killian goes, I related to his anger, his pain, and his hunger for vengeance. At the time, I almost didn’t know why I related so. It took me some reflection to realize what was being done to me.

My desire wasn’t so much for the character (it was especially not for the actor), but to be loved like he was, and redeemed like he was. The same is true for Astarion. I relate to his pain, intimately, and I relate to his anger. I wish I could’ve brought vengeance like Astarion will in this (and every) playthrough. I wish there would’ve been someone to pluck me from the horror of what was happening to me. I wish someone would’ve defended me. I wish someone was there to be my mirror. 

This is why the woman in virtually every romance novel (or movie, TV show, or videogame), is a dishwater blonde or brunette with a meek, unknowable personality. (Emma Swan was not like this by any means, but we should still consider why I still related to Hook more than her). This is so prominent that I can’t actually decide if I find Twilight so memorable because of Bella Swan the character, because of Kristin Stwert’s acting, or because of the zeitgeist around the saga in general. The very fact I’m having this debate in my head I take as proof she is not memorable.

There is no question, however, that Edward Cullen is memorable. He spawned more discourse and fandom than I can even imagine (Twilight is slightly before my day). Just think, a pained, superpowered vampire who sparkles. The men in these novels (Twilight is not the first and shall not be the last) are dangerous, powerful, emotional, eccentric, and relatable, and the women are self-described insecure and frumpy, and nothing else described. This is not a fault of the genre, but a feature. 

Male love-interests in romance fiction are, furthermore, usually pained in a feminine way. They are violated, abused, degraded, raped, beaten, and so on. These are means of suffering most common to women. Further, they often inflict self-wounds of hatred, vengeance-seeking, self-hatred, and self-blame. In women especially, these wounds fester. Women believe they are unlovable, and so does the love interest. Their psychologies, as love interests, are also more similar to women. 

Astarion is strong, funny, and capable in a way I wish I could be, but never will be. I wish I could be loved as I love him --as my character loves him. I wish I could be supported and corrected and held, I wish my shame could be refuted, I wish my ugliness could be seen as beauty. 

No matter how much I am loved, I will never feel it. I will never really feel my shame refuted, or my ugliness turned to beauty. So, I possess it vicariously, through someone who will. 

All this is to say I am Astarion’s juice box. Because I wish I could drink the beloved’s blood.

[drdemonprince]

Re: an anon from November 15th: do you have advice on how become more comfortable with negativity? Because the White Woman Socialization Brain is strong with this one and I've had a couple of friends say it gives me a tone-policing problem

I'm going to depart from my usual gradual tolerance-building exercise approach here (though all that stuff still applies) and give you a more targeted recommendation:

I think you need to find a friend who can be a bit of a shitty little outrageous bitch in how they speak and emote, but who is at their core a wonderful, reliable, and morally stand-up person, and make a special place for them in your life.

The type of person who is not afraid to be disagreeable, who says "terrible!" and launches into a whole long rant about why when you ask them how their day is going and who will show up to your house with groceries when you are sick and start cooking and cleaning all around even when you've (lyingly) said you do not need the help. The type of person who will teach your nervous system that negativity is not bad, that ruining the vibe is sometimes needed, and that we can be good people even while not worrying about making other people feel good.

You can often locate such people in hard-core activist spaces, as the people steadily Doing the Work for years on end are unlikely to be motivated by soft, tender feelings, because those emotions sure don't keep in that line of work. You can also find them in places like AA programs (or SMART Recovery meetings, etc), support groups, queer discussion groups, book clubs, marxist reading groups, church groups, food kitchens, and any other gathering of people that is motivated by a strong ideological commitment or interest in intellectual pursuits but which can be rather dry or unpleasant in its execution of their ideals. you can also just like, throw a stone in places like New York or Boston or Philly and hit three to five people like these. Even as far out as Pittsburgh or Cleveland there is a lot of them.

Now, if you have chronic white woman everybody must be happy all the time syndrome (which really just means i will *make* everybody pretend to be happy or else im going to lose my shit), it can be tempting to fall in with someone who *seems* like a person like this, but who in actuality is a manipulative undermining abuser taking advantage of your tendency to excuse and downplay their many slights and offenses.

You do not want that. You want someone who can accept criticism just as readily as they dish it out. The kind of person who will fire off at the mouth but then go "oh dammit, youre right, i hate it but youre right" the moment you point out a valid flaw in their logic. Someone brash, but with a heart. Someone who can teach you that conflict is inevitable, and needed, and that saying something weird or off-putting is not the end of the world, and that arguing and complaining can actually bring you closer to someone when it is done authentically and from a place of good faith.

to find this person, keep putting yourself in places that align with the type of person you'd like to be, filled with people who are doing things with their lives that you admire. notice your initial reactions to people. who is off putting? is that a fair judgement? who are you afraid of upsetting? who expresses themselves in a way you'd never, ever dare to? most kind of unpleasant people wont be the special Prickly Friend for You, they'll just be kind of annoying people you dont want to be around. but at some point you will notice, hey actually, this person is a little off and irascible, but i notice they always come through for people. they might not be the most elegant in how they express their views, but when i think about it, i think they tend to be right. over time a person like that will prove themselves through their behavior and track record, and as you get more acclimated to their way of communicating, you'll find your voice of disagreement too.

good luck!

[eternityservedcold]

an extremely thorough list of content warnings for jojos bizarre adventure

because the old one was made by a deleted blog so it isnt easily accessible any more (and i dont think it was good enough to begin with)

btw if you say anything to the effect of "why do people like jojo when it has x" or "you guys really excuse y?" on this post im just gonna block you. people who get angry about me saying to skip parts/episodes will also get blocked.

feel free to reply/send an ask with anything i missed, preferably with a chapter or episode number. parts 7 and 8 wont be on here in full until i finish reading them but feel free to send me cws for them and ill add them. also the warnings are just in the order they appear, and more specifically when they appear in the anime, so as to not have weird "x is more important than y" nonsense

general warnings

these are things that…. basically if youre triggered by these i think you should just sit this out tbh. its an amazing series but its not worth repeatedly triggering yourself. this ones just ordered alphabetically bc its throughout (read: in at least 3 parts)

blood, violence, body horror, gore, and death -amputation -animal abuse and death (especially of dogs) -decapitation -eye, nail, and mouth horror -impalement -parental and sibling death -police brutality -suicide and self harm

child abuse -child abandonment -corporal punishment -leering shots of minors bodies -pedophilia (still gets a warning every time) -physical abuse

christian themes and symbolism

drug use -alcohol -tobacco -underage drug use -unspecified white powder

fire and explosions

gambling

misogyny, both in-universe and on the part of the author

racism (gets specific warnings every time)

sexual misconduct -catcalling -rape (still gets a warning every time) -sexual assault -sexual harassment

unsanitary -eating/drinking gross things —being forced to eat/drink gross things -pee -poop -snot -vomit

vehicle accidents -car accidents -plane crashes

part 1: phantom blood

(manga only) ritual sacrifice

restricted eating

non-consensual kissing

(manga only) a dog is shown on fire

poisoning

chinese ethnic stereotypes

a baby gets eaten

part 2: battle tendency

okay im gonna rip the bandaid off now. there are nazis in this one, and its significantly worse than youd expect just reading that. im gonna quote the old list here: "there are so many nazis in this part and they’re not condemned like at all tbh". i would almost say its glorified, one of the main allies is a nazi and another main ally directly praises a different nazi. in the manga, hitler and swastikas are explicitly shown as well as nazis being called by name, but in the anime, they are removed and simply called german soldiers.

almost nothing from this part comes back in the future and what does come back is explained as it comes up or is understandable from context. so please. if you need to skip this part, just do it. i even understand if you skip the whole series because of this.

its possible some may find the mesoamerican aesthetic of the villains in this part to be insensitive or offensive. im mexican and i personally dont, but i could see why someone would

racism toward: -black people -mexican people —slavery and degradation of mexican women is explicitly shown -japanese people

hostage situation

kidnapping

human experimentation

ritual sacrifice

"man in a dress" gag and subsequent transmisogyny

unintentional incest. there are only two scenes of this, which are: -a character spying on someone (later revealed to be their mother) in the bath -going through said mothers belongings and talking about her panties

animal cannibalism

part 3: stardust crusaders

since fights in this part are much more self-contained than the other parts, its possible to skip some of these if youre triggered by them. those will be marked with chapter and episode numbers

a woman gets spontaneously undressed in the middle of a fight (only her bra shows but it happens against her will)

jotaro, a 17 year old, kisses an adult woman to save her from possession. i wouldnt really say this is pedophilia and it lasts for 1 panel/less than 10 seconds but i found it uncomfortable

while incapacitated from sickness, holly will randomly be shown naked with weird leering camera angles. this happens many more times in the anime than the manga

pedophilia (depicted as a bad thing and the victim is saved before anything happens) (skip chapters 17-19/episode 7)

native american stereotypes (skip chapters 20-22/episode 8)

"person gets replaced" trope (skip chapters 23-6/episode 9; chapters 76-79/episode 27)

infection

suffocation

drowning

"child acting like a pervert" trope (skip chapters 92-96/episodes 32-33) -in the same episodes, the child spends the entire fight naked which might be uncomfortable for some

stardust crusaders ova

this gets its own subsection due to being so different that i was having to say "this doesnt apply to the ova" for a lot of the warnings. unlike the main sdc section, since this ova is extremely pared down, there wont be skippable warnings. also note that this is in "manga order", so its 2000 ova then 1993 ova

the english voice actor for avdol (a black/egyptian character) is a white guy doing a vaguely "ethnic" accent

the non-consensual kissing thing above, here its with a girl jotaros age though

infection

suffocation

ritual sacrifice (used as the intro animation for the 1993 portion)

drowning

part 4: diamond is unbreakable

rape, pedophilia, and kidnapping mentions

physical abuse

electrocution

blackmail

yandere trope -emotional abuse -isolation -stalking -kidnapping

restricted eating

skin picking

(anime only) jumpscare

invasion of privacy (skip this part if this bothers you because one of the main allies power is just, doing this, and its constant)

"child acting like a pervert" trope

bodysnatching/"person gets replaced" trope

theres an uncomfortable scene where a child gets attacked in the bath (non-sexually). both the child and the attacker are naked for the duration of the scene

part 5: vento aureo/golden wind

gang violence/the mafia (main crux of the plot)

bullying

(anime only) racism toward japanese people

reckless driving

torture

rape (not shown just heavily implied)

terminal illness/infection/disease

(anime only) pedophilia

forced childbirth (its like, magical childbirth and the mother doesnt register it)

possibly offensive depiction of systems (systems, feel free to correct me on this)

medical malpractice

a guy gets swapped into a girls body and gropes it

part 6: stone ocean

(anime only) heavy use of chromatic aberration, which may be eye straining for some

this part is really horny, comparatively speaking. this isnt really a bad thing but depending on your level of comfort with that you may want to skip

(manga only) misgendering a trans man

hallucinations

memory loss

abuse of religious authority

(manga only, only in some translations) homophobic slur

grooming

gang violence

"disposable sex worker" trope

creepy stalker-ish behavior (the person who does it becomes a main ally & never stops or eases up)

cult

drowning

electrocution

unintentional incest

the kkk (in the anime its a generic racist mob) -lynching

part 7: steel ball run

possibly offensive depiction of native americans (feel free to correct me if youre native)

a 14 year old girl: -is a child bride and im pretty sure this isnt condemned at all -gets hit on by adults -experiences a rape attempt? -gets pregnant?

the entire plot is about curing a disability

medical malpractice

capital punishment

(only in some translations) r slur variant

homophobic slur

attempted pedophilia/rape?

"bisexual sex pest" trope (grown woman making advances toward a minor/trying to rape her)?

part 8: jojolion

ableism?

rape?

part 9: the jojolands

"unsettling gender reveal" trope

pedophilia

[bambi-kinos]

There is something I noticed in this fandom, that's been bothering me for a while and I'd like to hear your opinion as well.

It seems like there is a tendency to gloss over John's streaks of aggression, violence and the obsession with sex. That post about anon asking if John was demisexual especially reminded me of that.

A lot of times I see untruth perpetuated that John only slapped Cynthia once and was so regretful of it, when there are so many accounts of him being violent with other women: hitting Thelma Pickles when she denied him sex, hitting a woman at Paul's birthday party after he grabbed her tit (same party where he hit Wooler), strangling May almost to death.

I think at the core people are trying to re-write John into someone he wasn't, and that's unfair to him and for the other people around him. He did make amends and become a better man, but that was way after Beatles ended. But at the core, John was aggressive and violent, just because he had soft side to him doesn't make him soft. He also knew how to manipulate people really well.

Also, I think his violence/agression is what actually attracted Paul to him because Paul liked danger. He liked when John behaved as a total prick, which made Paul pretty fucked up as well. But that's personally why I like their dynamic so much.

First of all, expecting demi-sexual John anon to take a pitstop in the middle of their fantheory, look at the camera, and say "did you know that John Lennon beat his wife?" like that dude from The Onion is not great.

Secondly, centering John Lennon's abuse of the women he came into contact with is doing a disservice to them. Cynthia, May, and Yoko are more than John's victims and they all have made it clear how they want their relationships with John to be remembered. They have their reasons for loving him and they communicated those. It's not asking much to respect that. They are all more than that and they should be remembered for other things besides "being John Lennon's victim."

Third, fans want to hang out in fan spaces doing fan stuff. Whether that's discussing musical technique or quoting a book or looking at song lyrics. Are we supposed to put legal clauses at the end of our posts and chat messages saying that we don't support John's DV and do not endorse blah blah blah blah blah?

Fourth, it's not an "untruth" that John regretted hitting Cynthia (and he did much worse than hit her, he grabbed her by her skull and slammed her headfirst into a set of exposed pipes) just because he kept being violent afterwards. This is the same guy that cried in public after he beat the shit out of Bob Wooler and kept saying "what have I done" because he thought he had killed someone. Smokers regret being addicted, that doesn't mean it's easy for them to quit smoking right on the spot.

John actively admitting what a massive fuck up he was is pretty much his only saving grace but it's also really important that he said that. Because wifebeaters don't typically do that, they just screech and shit and wail about how "it's my RIGHT as a MAN REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and refuse to accept blame for what they did. The fact that John did accept that blame says a lot about who he was as a person.

Fifth, fans aren't trying to "rewrite" John, we're trying to fit together the pieces of a complicated man who hurt a lot of people but also helped a lot of people.

And the thing is, I get it, I GET IT. I've seen insane shit go down before! I've seen people giggle and laugh about John beating women! I've seen fans say that John's violence is overblown and that fans are taking it too seriously, and every other horrible thing you can think of. All of this, and more, is present in Beatles fandom. So I get it! I understand that it's upsetting sometimes. I don't like it either. I piss on people who do that. I am still angry about that.

But how many fans are doing vs how many fans just aren't talking about the stuff you think is important?

We can fully acknowledge that John did many awful things and treat it seriously. We are also adults capable of nuance which means we can acknowledge and appreciate that softer side of him and be a fan of his art and public personality.

What else are we supposed to do. Genuinely.

(Thanks to @the-world-is-treating-me-bad for talking this out with me last week.)

[profanepurity]

Lucifer and Lilith story very resonated me that make me ship them despite no written text that ever mention them being a couple. Hazbin hotel that's when i was very happy seeing Lucifer & Lilith as a couple, while there is some where they are together it's either toxic or abusive or they just friend with benefit. That is also the reason i was into hazbin hotel beside the thing with Lucifer daughter trying to Redeem sinner. So what is the relationship between Lucifer & Lilith

In some stories, Lilith is said to be one of the wives of Samael, the angel of death. A lot of people consider Samael and Lucifer to be the same entity, while others separate them. While I believe that's where the interpretation of Lucifer and Lilith being together comes from, I still consider Lucifer and Samael to be two different beings, despite my liking of them as a couple Lucifer and Lilith have been together a lot in media before, which is why I sometimes hesitate to have them together as well. I want to try and do something fresh with these characters. That being said, every time I try to imagine anything different, it just doesn't feel totally satisfying lol. The idea of two people who were cast out and punished for their rebellion finding each other and falling in love is so comforting. More on their relationship below the cut!

Keep in mind that their relationship is still in the drafting stages: Lucifer and Lilith require their own spaces, so it's not uncommon for them to be apart for stretches of time. When they reunite, it's like no time has ever passed. Their relationship is fulfilling for both of them. Lucifer never demands her submission. Lilith lives in complete freedom. She wanders Earth and enters Hell as she pleases. He is always a supportive force beside her and never one that hinders her. The fact that Lucifer is always a grounded and reliable presence is what makes Lilith want to give everything she can back to him. Lilith is always checking in on him, even when she's not in Hell. They can spend hours together walking through the woods or sitting beside each other in comfortable silence. Their relationship is by no means perfect. Both of them have a tendency to draw back from each other. Of course, they argue and clash. Time has made them experts on each other, but that doesn't override their own flaws. The way I think about them a lot can be somewhat compared to the sun and moon. Lilith is the moon and draws power from the night, while Lucifer is the brightest star just before sunrise. They exist in an eternal, harmonious cycle with each other. Not only do they orbit Hell and its principles, but they orbit their son as well. I've been thinking a lot about my interpretations of Lilith and how she would present herself. She is not just the first woman and the mother of demons, she is the first witch. And while she can and is considered a demon, she walks the earth eternally like a human, like Cain. She is the head of a very ancient coven who is raising the antichrist, Lucifuge. It took much time and blood to bring him into the world, but now that he is here, Lilith is going to ensure this child survives.

[cinamun]

I think the people who think Bishop may care in a sick, demented way and people that think he’s doing this for his benefit…. are both right.

Lemme explain, y’all and don’t jump me! But I do think he does care. A lot of abusers (speaking from personal experience, my ex made me a victim of DV) care about their victims. The problem is That’s often why they seek out controlling and hurting the ones they love. They may love them, but they either don’t have the tools to love someone and treat em right, or they just don’t want to.

When Mercy held that knife to Bishop’s neck, I don’t think he was jus saying shit to say shit. He’s right, he was behind bars for 30 years and being controlled by others. Ion know much about his childhood or pre prison, but even just those thirty years should be enough to truly fucking rewire this guys brain. Control and Bishop go hand in hand, and there could be a deep, innate fear in him that if he doesn’t control - he gets controlled. Especially present in high emotional situations, such as finding a woman and possibly caring/having emotions towards her. Now I can’t say I like Bishop, I kinda wish Mercy cut his ass up when she had the chance - I just don’t know if I think he’s nothing but a stone cold psychopath, partly because of your tendency to very detailed, very nuanced takes on the human psyche, and partly because Most abusers are not jus….joe goldbergs or ted bundys.

I really am curious about Bishop’s childhood in more detail, and why he became this way - I think we need to be open to the fact that prison really did a number on this guy, y’all. That nonny that focused on the fact Bishop is the only one checking on this woman, making sure she eat, that’s true! Some of those behaviors could absolutely be this guy just tryna cover his tracks, but some of them are also….Ion know. I know someone said he may be covering his tracks because Jace know he’s at least abusive mentally, but I gotta point out this man successfully faked his own death and LITERALLY has a lair, y’all. This man would know better. I wonder if he ain’t leaving Mercy to die because he, himself, does not want her dead.

I think this is way more nuanced than just Bishop doing one or the other. I think the two sides have merged together to create the actions we see now, and I can’t wait to see where it goes further. I think he cares for Mercy, and that may be what’s actually triggering him to need to control her this badly. Either he’s scared of being controlled by her somehow, controlled by his emotions or… maybe he’s just fucking scared of losing the woman and it’s easier to control her than face the emotional worth he’s placed in her. It’s perfectly possible he cares for her in a sick, demented way (or at least shows it that way) AND calculates the risk and benefits of certain actions in terms of covering his own back. And PSA: even if prison reworked this man’s damn brain or whatever the case may be, it doesn’t make his actions any more forgivable - it does open the door to rehabilitation one day….possibly. Chile… anyways.

OOOHH WEEEE!!! Class has been in SESSION on this Holy Easter and Trans Visibility Day chile!!

[transmutationisms]

Your last posts about Shiv/the siblings put into words something I've thought about how (some) fans usually position their fav character as the 'least bad' or more sympathetic based on either who was 'abused more' or in this case, the 'least fascist' in a row of rich capitalist characters. I do think that certain plot elements this season (ie. baby plot and Ken and Roman sidelining Shiv) could make some viewers see her as 'more of a victim' and thus 'a better person', but that goes back to what you said in another post about how the show can play with gender and its relations to oppressive systems, but has a much harder time doing the same with race (and related to what you also said about how liberal viewers may ignore how the show treats liberalism as another aspect of the capitalist system, white viewers may have an easier time seeing the way shiv is affected by misogyny but not seeing her as a passive perpetrator of white supremacy).

yeah i think you're right that's part of what's going on with bad shiv takes. in general it's obviously very pointless to argue over who's the 'worst', and of course the assumption many people make that determining who 'has it the worst' is equivalent to a moral ranking is also very telling. it's also simply impossible to compare the characters' alienation or abuse in that type of quantitative fashion. but yeah, on those types of reads i think you're right that people have a tendency to try to tally up each character's political damage or participation in oppressive systems, and they often ignore that shiv's relationship to white supremacy is the same as the rest of her family's, in terms of the benefits she gains from it and her perpetration of it. and this is in some ways made easy by the writing's tendency to gloss over this aspect of the roys' power. we'll get references to "the white nationalist elephant in the room" or whatever else, but race is simply not explored with nearly the depth of gender.

of course it matters to the story that shiv is a woman, and we can see over and over how her brothers weaponise this against her (eg, calling her hysterical in this episode). what's irritating about many bad shiv takes is acting like her gender is equivalent to or inherently leads to a progressivism that in any way challenges capitalism or waystar's rule; also, i think many of these takes are incredibly reductive in their understanding of kendall's and roman's relationships to misogyny, though that's a different post.

really at the end of the day, i don't even think it's possible to say that any of the siblings has done 'more harm' or whatever within the roy family unit, let alone on a broader political scale. they all run the racism factory, it would be racist even if it were dem instead of republican, and it's just goofy to act like shiv isn't part of that by virtue of being liberal (these takes also understand the word "liberal" very ahistorically, which is a large part of why they don't get the relationship between liberalism and capitalism). there's a frequent failure to actually examine the content of any of the siblings' politics or their broader worldviews; instead, many viewers have a tendency to just use labels like "liberal" as signifiers in the exact way the show is often satirising lmao. with shiv it's actually pretty fucking explicit at this point where she does and doesn't diverge from her brothers' and father's politics, and how she operates within the same capitalist episteme.

[saintmelangell]

re phoebe bridgers it v much felt like too many young women were into her at the same time which obviously activates the misogyny brigade. i stopped mentioning her entirely because there was so much memeing about how ~theyfabs~ like her music and i already get sniffed at for not doing queerness correctly lol. plus she smashed a guitar which made various men very angry.

i also think youth culture's tendency to jump from topic to topic has fused with a social justice need to moralize so that artists are treated to the devalue-discard stage of abusive relationships. no one can just be mad at charli xcx for selling out to the kamala campaign, instead we need to all reassure each other that we ALL secretly felt she was a bad songwriter this whole time.

i love this take and i completely agree- and i'd extend your thoughts on fusing social justice and youth culture has a lot to do with commodification. i've ranted about this before about how social justice and activism culture has been reduced down to a commodity culture in which you must accrue the right amount of permissible morality, and if you fall short of this you end up essentially blackballed: and its seen in the reduction of blm to those black squares in 2020 and the ai generated picture of palestine that said all eyes on rafah. in addition to demeaning observers of injustice it absolutely and completely dehumanizes victims into consumable objects for a western audience who derives further privilege from voyuering their suffering in ways considered correct. and charli xcx selling out to kamala is a really good example of this, and so is people backpedalling on their enjoyment of charli. its all performance and its terrible for activism, terrible for people who need help and support, but also terrible for the essential activity of enjoyment. i think about that quote from karl marx about capital a lot, which i will post here for this unfamiliar:

Thus political economy – despite its worldly and voluptuous appearance – is a true moral science, the most moral of all the sciences. Self-renunciation, the renunciation of life and of all human needs, is its principal thesis. The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being.

capitalism lulls us into a sense of false security by coopting the means of resisting it for itself: by commodifying morality as something which can add or deplete one's essential value, one views the subject of that morality as an object, as an It (i will call upon martin buber here) rather than someone to whom we live in relation, whose freedom predicates our own freedom. i am not saying to consume artists and their work uncritically by any means, but the more we commodify social justice the more the sneaking agenda of capitalism, patriarchy, fascism, and so forth can leach into that pursuit of justice: one repackages misogyny as "i find this woman cringe" and denies their participation in patriarchy while actually aiding it. or, in another vein, we should not be participating in the bds movement because its moral for us to do so, but because it is required of us as human beings in a way that absolute transcends any binarized notion of right or wrong: the morality of that participation transcends the materiality of the act of consumption. the individual who has the privilege to be an activist without risking their mortality should not be at the center of their own activism, because morality reduced to the material ceases to be morality. and the more we apply sweeping standards of morality to fairly innocuous things, like pop singers, the more we are centering our material existence, as consumers in the west, as the activity of morality.

essentially what i am saying is that the more we attribute moral weight to ordinary activities, the more we reduce morality to something that can be bought and sold, and this reduction is (and i don't think people want to hear this) fascistic in nature. but this is definitely a topic far too complex to talk about on tumblr. in any case i really liked your response to this and i totally agree!

[thepurplewombat]

Character headcanon ask: LXC + JGY!

Okay, so it's finally cooled down enough that my computer has stopped making distressed noises whenever I turned it on, PLUS! we even have power for a few hours today, so here goes:

Lan Xichen

Sexuality Headcanon:

I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't give a lot of thought to characters' sexuality, at least not in terms of having headcanons for them. In my head, LXC is probably some flavor of bi, except that in practical terms, he's A-Yaosexual.

Gender Headcanon:

I think I've read one fic where LXC was actually a woman - not in the sense that he any flavor of trans, at least that was not the impression I got, he was biologically and emotionally a woman, but he was presenting male because of Political Reasons, and I thought that was quite interesting. But in general, I think he's a cis male.

A ship I have with said character:

Oh I don't know, I just don't know, who could I possibly ship the incomparable First Jade of Lan with - it's Jin Guangyao. Like, I'm not going to say that xiyao is canon and everyone who disagrees is wrong (even though they are) because everyone is allowed to be wrong on Beyonce's internet, but any version of Lan Xichen that isn't in love with Jin Guangyao is a Lan Xichen who is so wildly out of character to me that I just don't know what to do with him.

A BROTP I have with said character:

I think he'd get along really well with Jiang Cheng as friends - like, among the reasons that I don't think they work as romantic partners is that I think Lan Xichen would find being in a relationship with JC utterly exhausting. As a romantic partner, you feel somewhat responsible for managing your partner's moods, in a way that you don't necessarily feel the need to do in a friendship. I just think that the distance of a friendship would give him the opportunity to enjoy Jiang Cheng's cunty tendencies and temper, while not making him feel in any way responsible for managing Jiang Cheng's moods.

A NOTP I have with said character:

That being said, Jiang Cheng is not actually my NOTP for this character. I remain convinced that chengxiyao is a viable ship that just needs the right story to take off, and I'm sure that if I were to read a really good x!cheng fic, where Jin Guangyao is not demonised or erased, I would probably enjoy it.

No, my NOTP is Nie Mingjue. Mainly because I think he's an abusive jerkweed who reminds me of both my murderous ex and my late father (although to be fair to the Great Old One, he never tried to kill me) and I don't think that someone who is incapable of understanding that maybe other people have different priorities and points of view, is a good fit to be in a relationship with anyone who doesn't precisely share his values.

Oh and also Nie Huaisang. Just no. NOPE.

A random headcanon:

Not long after the end of canon, Lan Xichen disappears from his house of seclusion and is never seen again, because he's given the entire jianghu the middle finger and fucked off.

General Opinion over said character:

When I finished the book he was my favourite, and I was initially drawn into thinking more about Jin Guangyao because I was looking for stories where Lan Xichen has a happy ending, and a lot of the time, a happy ending for Lan Xicnen requires a happy ending for JGY as well. In the months since, he's been somewhat supplanted by JGY - it's not that I love him less, it's that I love JGY so much more (send help I am genuinely unwell about Jin Guangyao).

More general opinion - I think Lan Xichen should have the opportunity to go absolutely feral.

Jin Guangyao

My lovely boy, my sweet cheese, my rotten soldier, I love him so much.

Sexuality Headcanon:

I mean, canonically he loves both a man (LXC) and a woman (QS) so, bisexual?

I do think he has a complicated relationship with sex, because of his mother's profession and his father's...everything, but I think that like most of his traumas, he pushes it into a box and never ever thinks about it.

Gender Headcanon:

I think that when he was a small boy, his mother went on her knees every day and thanked all the gods and ancestors that he was a boy, because at that point she must have still hoped that JGS would come for them.

So I don't think that JGY has ever actually thought about his gender beyond 'thank the gods I wasn't born a girl'. Like, he could never allow himself to even consider anything other than being a man, because he was his mother's son, you know?

A ship I have with said character:

Xiyao. They're just so *clenches fist* I love them, your honor. Like, they just so obviously love each other - it's more obvious in CQL, but it's not exactly subtle in the novel either, and I just...my heart breaks for them and I love them so much.

I can also be convinced about Chengyao, because I think that Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao have got some things in common, and the ways in which they differ are very complementary.

A BROTP I have with said character:

I think that he and Wei Wuxian could have been great friends, if the stars had aligned properly.

A NOTP I have with said character:

Obviously it's a free internet and everyone can do what they want, but personally I can't ship my blorbo with someone who tried to murder him three times and hated him so much that even without knowing that JGY had killed him, he became a fierce corpse and escaped the grave to come after him. Just nope.

A random headcanon:

I don't think that JGY would have left the temple that night. I think he was genuinely trying, because at base he's an engine of survival, but honestly I think when push came to shove and he had to leave Lan Xichen and never see him again, I'm not sure he would have done it.

General Opinion over said character:

I love him. he's my favourite character in MDZS, and he's near the top of my list of all time favourite characters.

[ourpickwickclub]

I don’t think her relationship with the band was ever what she would call toxic or she would never be willing to perform or see them at all.  that just seems like the wrong word, and way too harsh for what she in the band have been through. That’s definitely something I’d reserve for her relationship with GR, a person from which she has severed every single possible facet of her life that she could while still having children with him. 

I would not put the band and GR in anything close to the same category, but I do have to politely disagree here.

I read the things posted and liked. I listened to the interviews and clips by the ND guys. And I saw the comments by some ND fans and the responses from “friends” of the band, who often were quoting what they personally heard from the band. It was all very toxic. But there are degrees of toxic. There is dysfunctional family toxic and psycho abuser toxic.

Both GR and the ND people didn’t respect her, resented her while capitalizing on the very thing they resented, both violated her trust, made her feel small, jeopardized her health, publicly humiliated her, and found ways to blame her for their behavior. But on hugely different scales.

The ND guys didn’t respect her by not seeing why she would want to do a solo album after her divorce. GR didn’t respect her by having multiple affairs, denying them, be awful to her, and blaming her for them.

The ND guys left her out and turned a blind eye to how much she was juggling as a mom with three young kids on tour by herself, while still expecting her write albums and be the perfect front woman. GR jeopardized her health by knowing her suspicions about him were correct but making her feel insane to the point she couldn’t eat or function properly and collapsed in public, then inferred she was being dramstic, and left for 300 days while telling the press and whole world that she needed to be a better mother and put her children first. All while also spending all of her money and wanting her to make more.

Gwen has repeatedly wished the ND guys well, posted about Dream Car, said nice things about her time in the band (and also lifted the shade in a healthy way on how lonely she felt towards during the last shows). She said they had never broken up. She always keep a foot in the door.

With GR, the door slammed shut and she keeps it shut for her own safety. What we know is disgusting and we know we only know that tip of the iceberg. The more she had time to process what she went through there, the more she is traumatized and pulls further away. She has too much ptsd to be around him and I’m sure she has spent a lot of time and money making sure the kids are as equipped as they can be to deal with him.

You can have a toxic family and still have a family if the level of dysfunction is manageable. It might not always be ideal but the goods can outweighs the bads. But you will never have a manageable level of dysfunction around a malignant, covert narcissist with psychopathic tendencies that only knows how to live in toxic, and that is what GR is.

- B

[rabbittwinrithings]

I’m finally making it, My Beyond Reach Review

Disclaimer: While I didn’t have the best time with this mod, that doesn’t mean you may not. I never want my opinion to sour someone else’s, and have the risk of them not playing the mod. So I highly recommend you check it out. 

I’m putting this disclaimer as well since my playthrough of the mod is a bit unfair. I played it with godmode (since I suck at game combat,) and after a while started to clip through dungeons to get them over with. This started to happen around halfway through as I found myself more frustrated with the mod and kinda wanted it done. I also played through only mostly the main quest. However, a friend of mine did tell me about one sidequest I do have a problem with. So keep this in mind with my review that I may be treating it a little unfairly. 

There’s also the point that mods are hard to make, let alone one of this scale. The mod author did an amazing job at creating this mod and I never want to invalidate that. With all that said, let’s get going. 

CW: Sexual Assault, Child Abuse, Ped*****, Cannibalism, and Harm Towards Women.

And Obviously Spoilers!

First off, I’m not the best at writing reviews. It won’t be wonderfully crafted or anything, just mostly detailed bullet notes of what I liked and disliked. While there is more I disliked, I did find some positives and will be layouting things in a sandwich review (that’s the right word?) going from positive to negative. Here we go!

This is a review for the mod, Beyond Reach by razorkid. 

Good: Grimdark. I will always love me some Grimdark. Hell, my current playthrough of Skyrim is currently a grimdark playthrough all with dead trees, gallows, horror monsters, ect. And while I think some parts of Beyond Reach’s grimdark-ness falls flat, most of it holds up and creates an eerie atmosphere. There were bodies hanging, creepy monsters, creepy dungeons, and a lot of stuff that fit the tone of the mod. However... some of it did not... 

Bad: A lot felt like shock value. In grimdark there’s always a tendency to add a lot of stuff for shock value, and sadly, BR had an abundance of it. I knew the mod got dark, but still I decided to play the uncensored version as I did want to get all the content. However, some it felt just... unneeded. At one point the player is tasked to go raid an Orc stronghold where there are legionnaire prisoners. However, you end up finding two of them, both women, one alive, one dead. The player can piece together what happened from that alone, and yet the mod goes as far as to have the alive prisoner wail at one of the soilders about how she was raped and would have an Orc child. The only purpose of this scene felt like to show how horrible these Orcs were. But why not just do that with dead prisoners (doesn’t need to be SA,) or why have her go on a whole speech about it.     After playing through this part I really was trying to rack my head around how it could have been done better. And honestly, after a day, I was reminded of Red Dead Redemption 2, and the scene were Arthur finds a woman who was also SAed. The only difference is that the scene added more than just “wow, those guys we killed were pretty bad,” instead, it added to Arthur's character. He helps the woman home. When she’s about to explain what they did he simply said “I know.” Subtly in situations like this tend to be the most powerful. As people our brains peice together what we want to see and having the woman simply say “They...” and the solider reply with “I know,” would have made the scene much more powerful. (She’s also naked during the whole ordeal, let me give the woman a blanket, something!)    There’s other darker themes that I felt like were shock value (mainly the ending place with some children, however, talking about will just make me sick. So I think I’ll just move on. Basically, some stuff happens to kids and again I feel like it’s only there to prove how bad someone is and doesn’t give much of anything else. I feel like something horrible and big like that need to have numerous reasons to be there than a singular “look how terrible this dude is!”)

Good: Cool enemies. I don’t really feel like there’s much to say on this part. I just thought some enemies were really cool. I think the ones that stuck out to me are part of Vicn’s Creature Pack, but could be wrong. Mostly it was the bloody skeleton monsters. Very cool to see. 

Bad: Not much role playing. Honestly, this part kinda made me the saddest as after one sidequest (which may have been my favorite part of the mod,) I had become an enemy of the state. It felt super in character as I was playing Alllin and despite being a serious guy, is also a little chaos gremlin who will flip off authority. But despite all that, I still ended up becoming a knight of the very state I was an enemy of and was forced to pick dialogue options that bended my knee to the king and was very formal. I’m not saying multiple path options in the way of a knight or criminal are needed, I just wish there were more dialogue options. 

Good: Neat dungeon horror design. So this one is a bit here and there as the dungeons I went through had super neat astrosphere that did have the grimdark feel to them. One was an asylum dungeon which I found pretty neat. However, there was also a problem with length... 

Bad: Long Dungeons. While this whole review is subjective, this part may be the most as I hate dungeons. If they’re neat looking I don’t mind. But when they take around thirty minutes to complete and little progress has been made I get real tired of them. This is why I started clipping through dungeons to just get the thing I needed and get out. 

Good: Music is nice. (But as I type this I went to go find the composer. But I don’t see any credits to music, so a slight bummer. If you know who did the music, please let me know and I’ll edit this part with credits.)

Bad: A lot of dead women. And I get it, a lot of people in general die in this mod. And maybe I’m misremembering stuff, or looking to deep, but in the main questline there was one main female character. And she is killed. And then there are several spots that are just about women in harm. (Like the SA I mentioned before, a part where a little girl is killed by a griffin, an Orc woman being tortured, a brothel getting massacred.) And I just didn’t see so much focus on men. And that sounds weird. But when it leans to one side so much, it is just super noticeable. 

Good: Voice Acting is nice. I know there isn’t too much to say there. I just really liked it. There were some unvoiced lines, but I don’t have too much of a problem with that since they are still looking for voice actors for various roles. I think the only problem I have with the unvoiced lines is that there’s no white noise for the line so the dialogue would just blink in and out and I couldn’t read what was said. 

Bad: Very railroad path. You are forced to be a knight, and see red flags of the nobility and yet you can’t do anything. Most of the time when you question a noble why you should do something it’s “well I’ll just have you killed,” and sure, not dying is great, but then the next line I’ll talk as if my life wasn’t just threatened.     A friend of mine who tried to be a bit more through in the mod took a sidequest where it told you a noble (who turns out to be evil later on in the main quest,) is a cannibal. Can we confront the noble about it? No. Can we warn those who may be hurt by him in the future? No. Do we talk to him as if we don’t know that he eats people? Yep! It’s all just odd and I think again it just falls back to the lack of player choice. 

Good: So on my list I wrote “Liked sick town,” which makes no sense to those who haven’t played it. So to explain it better there was a Side quest I really liked. Not only did it give a ton of player choice, but it actually made me feel like a good person, and the people were nice to me!    During my playthrough I made a rule that if someone was mean to me, I wouldn’t help them outside of the main questline. Cause why would I help someone who is rude to me? (There’s also an issue that most of the place is filled with mean people, so it creates little to no agency to help High Rock.) But one event was with some guards at a city I had to get into. I had to help them with an issue of some sick people and one of their guards who went missing. Come to find out the guard got sick and was trying to find medicine for the town so that they could live about three more years in peace. And in the end I was given a choice to kill the town, or help it. Obviously I helped it and became an enemy of the state. But I loved it! While the sick people would threaten you if you got to close to them, the guard with them was understanding. And his compassion for these people really stood out to me. It’s a shame I later had to bend my knee to the very people that wanted to kill them... 

Bad: Lore Friendliness. This one is very short as I see lore in ES as free real estate. I don’t care what you add in your mod. That what makes it fun. However, I know this will be a turn off for some so I thought I would say it. I think the main factor is you talk to Mara on various occasions and I’ve been told that isn’t possible. 

Good: City Design. I just like the layouts and looks of the city. What else can I say? Districts were interesting. (I think I'm running out of typing juices...)

Bad: Too much going on at one. There’s an Orc extremist group, there’s reach men attacking, there’s Namira shit, there’s a plague, and there’s a civil war starting. That is a lot, and it’s just the main quest. I realize it’s good to have a lot going on in a location, but not all of it needs to be in the main quest. All this stuff makes it super confusing and hard to keep track of what is really going on. 

Bad: Buggy. I’m doing two bads in a row as I do want to leave the review off on a good note. There were quite a few buggy stuff. However, considering how I played through it I wouldn’t doubt if a lot was my fault. That being said, I know some who did play through it correctly did also suffer from bugs. That being said, I know the mod author is still working on the mod so bugs will most likely get fixed.

Good: Dialogue explanation. One thing I really found helpful was that in front of dialogue options were [lore], [quest]. These little tidbits made it super easy to tell what dialogue I was picking or which one I needed to pick. Very small detail, but works wonders. 

Oh me, oh my, that is long... Sorry about that. 

TLDR: The mod is successful in it’s eerie astrosphere, but is dragged down by heavy writing. lack of player choice, and shock value issues. 

Thanks for reading all this and want to say again I don’t want to sway anyone away from this mod. I think it’s always important to try out something for yourself. Though, if the Content Warnings from above upset you, I recommend playing through the censored version (it will ask you in the game.) I haven’t played through the censored version, but it says it get’s rid of those events. 

I may try and do more reviews in the future, but understand these reviews are never an attack on the modder as I get modding is extermley difficult. My reviews are here to be optional constructive critism, and if I’ve said anything wrong or you disagree with I’m more than happy to have a conversation in the comments.  (I also say optional as sometimes modders aren’t looking for critism and just want to mod/create and that is 100% valid.) 

Thanks for reading again, and hope y’all enjoyed! 

[showmey0urfangs]

I'm the previous anon and would like to clarify because I feel like some people have been misinterpreting what I said completely (not you however so thanks for that), obviously there is commentary about patriarchy and gender in the show. The issue becomes, again, when people insistently refer to a gay male character as "basically" a woman to the extent that some members of this fandom do. I have quite literally seen far more people talk about the supposed misogyny faced by Louis (a man who profited of the exploitation of women!) than Claudia, an actual female character.

The other issue I have with large swaths of fandom when it comes to this topic is how many people seem incapable of acknowledging that one person can have both masculine and feminine traits, which manifest in different ways, and that two gender nonconforming men could be attracted to each other. It's really frustrating because iwtv is genuinely one of the only pieces of media I can name, at least in the mainstream, that features two gender nonconforming male protagonists who are in a relationship with each other and whose narratives and experiences are taken seriously instead of treated like a joke. The attempt to downplay Lestat's feminine qualities by some people also becomes very weird if you know how bisexual men are stereotyped as only ever being "straight-acting," it's like people don't even know this is something bi men face at all, or that Lestat is one of the few bi male characters to represent gnc bi men. It comes off very ignorant. But then, I've also seen numerous people claim that the show isn't "for" gay men anyway (despite being about them?), a sentiment that is not unique to this fandom in the slightest. It's the same shit as basically every other slash fandom ever.

I understand why a lot of people retaliated against all the omg lestat mother shit especially when it IS absolutely true that he acts like a patriarchial maniac but how is the solution to just swap it? or refer to this fact uncritically? people are out here acting like louis WANTS to be treated like lestat's subjugated housewife when in reality he was always uncomfortable with lestat's disrespect and humiliation of him. it's equally cringe to act like louis is basically The Woman and lestat is The Man and refuse to acknowledge the nuance in both their gender presentations. as you said, it also feels misogynistic and the fact that a lot of people seem to inherently associate womanhood and victimhood is genuinely concerning, especially with how common that line of thinking is among TERFs and SWERFs. as if, what, gay men can't be victims of abuse? as if abuse is somehow feminizing? (another a real sentiment I have seen in this fandom.)

if I seem heated it's because I kind of am at this point, because this shit is pretty much ruining my fandom experience if I'm honest. you so much as point out that maybe certain sentiments can be taken too far or expressed in ways that are problematic or that one extreme isn't better than another and people just twist your words. the fact that so many people would rather double down on their homophobia instead of simply own up to and dial it down even slightly is very telling. it's so disappointing, because i feel represented by this show but i guess not even canonical, nuanced portrayls of queer characters are safe from your average fandom bullshit

Hi there, thank you for clarifying and I totally understand your frustration. There is a tendency in fandom to wanna break down characters into archetypes or tropes even if the source material doesn't fit into it; Grumpy vs Sunshine, Aggressive top vs innocent virginal bottom (I've seen fans try to fit Louis into this even though the guy used to own and run several brothels 😂), Clueless cinnamon roll vs Life-hardened tough guy, high school quarterback vs loner loser etc. And this feminine vs masculine is just another trope that can often veer into fetishization, especially when it comes to M/M pairings.

I'd say Louis and Lestat both exhibit some of these traits, but they don't fit neatly into any defined category and that's what makes them interesting. They don't conform to heteronormative gender presentations because newsflash—most people don't actually, real humans are a lot more nuanced than that and well-written characters should/will reflect that complexity.

[goddamnwebcomics]

Mary Sue or Not?

There is nothing in the modern Twattersphere that angers me more than words losing their meaning and semantics. I will never EVER use a word I feel has lost all meaning unless I use it in its proper context and with a proper MEANING. But there is one word I admit I used a lot back in the early days and even post-hiatus days of my blog, "Mary Sue".

Here is the most objective definition of the term.

A Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, typically a young female, characterized by an implausible level of competence, unique talents or powers, and attractiveness. These characters are often universally liked or respected within their narrative, possess minimal realistic flaws, and exhibit innate virtues. Originating from fanfiction, a Mary Sue often serves as an idealized version of the author, fulfilling a wish-fulfillment role. While the term is gendered, it can apply to both female and male characters, with the male equivalents sometimes referred to as Gary Stu or Marty Stu.

Let's look at past characters I've labeled as Mary Sues or Gary Stus and see if they match the description.

Mora Linda (Las Lindas)

Even back then I hated to use this word, but apparently I used it to describe everyone's favorite cow asshole because...she got kissed by Minos.

Mora is NOT universally liked, even when you disqualify someone like Alejandra. Rachel and Miles both dislike her, which is why they bonded in the first place (ew). She has also received constructive criticism from Buttdog, Alejandra post-redemption and even Minos. Even then Mora is by no means shown to be a perfect bunny. It's just that Soulkat is a horrible writer, and can't portray Mora in sympathetic light. If she were flawless, perfect being, she would actually be way more likable. She is supposed to be a strong independent no-bullshit matriarch of the house with alleged street smart tendencies, but instead comes across like a fucking drunkard asshole who verbally and emotionally abuses her employees and cries constantly to manipulate people to do her bidding. We should've seen her develop into a better character by now, but anytime a character shows up who should improve Mora (like Alej or Randall), they instead become more like her. I can see how someone might think she is a Mary Sue though because of how she marries a Crest, is the daughter of a weird powerful God being and she is desired by multiple men, but that's just meant to give a reason for why Lady Ambar is constantly watching over her.

Mora is a terrible protagonist but she is not a Mary Sue, even if the comic treats her like she is right most of the time. She's supposed to have an arc, but that arc doesn't work because she barely changes. Being badly written doesn't automatically make someone a Mary Sue. Have some nuance for fucks sake.

Llewlyn Connor (Warmage)

Llew is a Mary Sue because he can fly and he was mentored by a group of witches. I...what?

Now to be fair, I was only starting the comic, but Llew is...complicated. Outside of the spanking scene, Llewlyn is completely boring protagonist. It's just that he gets into a lot of...bizarre situations. Yes, every woman in his life wants to fuck him but it's clear it's not necessarily because he is attractive but it's rather his bizarre hindu-pagan beliefs. I think it was an attempt from Dumok to make an audience surrogate, but then he also gets raped??? However, the comic doesn't treat him like he is always right, he isn't actually that important, and there are other superheroes besides him? A lot of stuff in the comic happens without him being actively involved. It's not really until Miguel Sanchez disguises himself as him that he becomes important.

Again, Llew is less of a Mary Sue than Mora is, but he is still averagely badly written protagonist. He is trying really hard to be the Hindu-Pagan Batman. And let's not even talk about his "Chaotic Neutrality".

Speaking of Warmage...

Tsuki (Warmage)

I am not going to link the post where I said it due to uncensored nudity, but I just called Tsuki "Dumok's favorite Mary Sue" at one point.

Tsuki is a ridiculously written character, and she was the worst character ever in the blog before Riley came along. She is not perfect though, she is shown to be flawed, hell that's why the infamous spanking scene happened in the first place! She also isn't universally beloved as she has beef with Lewis other ladies like Kriti and Laranya.

Speaking of Riley, if I were riffing Alien Dice in 2017 I would've called Riley a Mary Sue probably. Almost like being a "Mary Sue" is not the worst character trait, even if it is pretty bad.

Dominic Deegan (Dominic Deegan)

You could dig up countless examples from early days of the comic where I call Deegan a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.

I admit, Deegan is definitely Mookie's bitchboy and the fact he's saved the world several times and he's stated to be Right About EVERYTHING does have some Gary Stu qualities buuuuuut, I've actually done some thinking and Deegan isn't actually that hateable as a person. Yes he is arrogant snobfuck, but unlike someone like Mora, he doesn't treat his friends like shit. He is a misanthropist but not a cynical asshole. He likes to crack jokes sometimes and characters sometimes cringe at those jokes, that's why Punchline Face exists.

On top of that, Deegan losing control of his emotions is something Mookie is actually aware of. Like he did apologize at the end of Battle of Barthis for getting so mad over Serk Brakkis's misdeeds. It's just that Deegan's outbursts outside of that arc are never called out. That, and I have actually felt bad for him or even had to defend him sometimes. Also he isn't in charge of forgiving Stoneraper for his rape at any point either.

Where my biggest problem lies with Deegan is his powers. He is so goddamn overpowered, you'd think he could beat anyone. It's also that Deegan has never actually lost in a fight, even if he has been betrayed. His powers are not defined and he has stopped existential threats by himself. He just becomes a generic shonen protagonist when he isn't in a grounded environment, and that's the problem. If those elements didn't exist, and his searing ability was just an ability to see to the future, I would be speaking a different tone about him. Deegan should have been corrupted by the amount of power he possesses a long time ago. I think the lack of infallibility on his part does make him close to Mary Sue but even then that's like...hundred miles away.

Luna Travoria (Dominic Deegan)

I say she is a Mary Sue because she creates a formula for potion that turns sand into water, among other things.

Thus far, Luna is probably the closest to an actual Mary Sue. She is actually far worse when it comes to character shilling than Deegan is, especially in the most recent arc as of the writing of this comic. There is also the fact she used to be a nobody, but after being thrust into Maltak arc, we learn she is the CHOSEN ONE and the reason she has tusks is because of a curse created by Shintula Chief that turned gave a bunch of babies tusks. There's also the fact she's somehow the only good person in her family of assholes. She also cries even more than Mora does. We know Luna used to hate herself and she was very suicidal, but she eventually gets shoveled in endless praise and Dominic's support. Unlike Deegan, she is very rarely shown to be wrong about something. Even when she loses her pregnancy it's constantly stated to be a good thing.

Her constant crying and occasional tusk discourse is the only thing that reminds us of her old depressed self. I get that Mooks wanted to make an inspiring story, but instead it creates a picture of a person who is using their abuse and depression to dodge criticism and constantly demand for praise. But even if you asked me if Luna was a Mary Sue, I would still say "Kinda". The reason for that is the tusk discourse, and as a result she frequently gets insulted and distrusted and even other orcs don't like her due to her tusks. And it's not like there is a crowd of men wanting to fuck her.

Heather Brown/Spinnerette (Spinnerette)

I called her a Mary Sue because she has fool's luck, basically she is able to dodge any attack and misfortune by being a dumbass.

Heather is a dumbass who has things ALWAYS work out for her no matter what when realistically she should have destroyed herself. I agree with that. On top of that, she is a Trend Lesbian who doesn't understand what being attracted to women means, and she treats her girlfriend who is slowly dying like an object of attraction rather than someone she cares about.

Honestly Spinnerette at this point has much bigger problems than Heather. She has better chemistry with Sarah Nicole than her own GF, so she is not completely hateable but also she lacks humanity. Even when she does something stupid, she is easily forgiven.

Spinny is not Mary Sue, she is just gimmicky, much like every other character Kraw writes.

Now it's time to get into the webcomic with the most compelling arguments for Mary Sues, Gene Catlow.

Cotton Taylor (Gene Catlow)

The problem with Cotton is that, in a comic called Gene Catlow, he takes the center stage for the first arc. The problem is, the world of Gene Catlow isn't established before Cotton gets his powers. We are shown all his flaws and personal issues after he drinks Coffee^2. We're only shown his tendency to yell at people and be hyperactive, when after he drinks his coffee we also learn he has a tendency for violence, doesn't hesitate killing, and hell, we only learn way way way later in the comic that he grew up an orphan. With how long Gene Catlow ended up being, a slow start would have really paid off with Cotton, but don't have him hog the spotlight for being so early. The start would also make him eventually gaining his powers more interesting, since we now know Cotton has issues, and are looking forward to if he can handle that power responsibly.

I think the Mary Sue accusations come from the fact Cotton isn't called out enough when he does stupid shit. Gene and Catwhis only get mad at him when Cotton really wants to know about the Stagglers, which the audience also wants to know about because they never explain those fucking things until it's really late.

Other than that and Cotton never really struggling with the extent of his powers, I don't think he is a Mary Sue. In fact, I do feel bad for him because the rest of the comic pretty much cucks him. His position as the savior of the bunnies is taken over by not only Clayton, a rando who worked for Matt most of his life, but also Michelle, and speaking of...

Michelle (Gene Catlow)

In my original riff I treat Michelle like the second coming of Satan but in retrospect, I actually think she is a cute and funny character who actually helps people rather than try to convert them to join some stupid Friendship Islandian cause. However, I still think that she is completely unfitting to the comic in terms of her tone. She feels like a kid appeal character in a comic that regularly references sex and gore. She is also really really powerful even when she isn't born.

Michelle is not a Mary Sue mainly because there are times when even Albert knows to pull back on Michelle. Like she completely stops appearing towards the end due to her going through the process of being born and just being absolutely miserable. If we had ever seen her alive and in the flesh, I might be speaking a different tone entirely, but don't worry, she is somehow not as omnipresent as our next characters.

Gene and Catwhis (Gene Catlow)

Gene and Catwhis are really fucking powerful, any person forced to debate them in power scale context will lose their sanity. I have not forgotten about this infamous scene.

But even then, Gene and Catwhis are both shown to have enough flaws to dodge the Mary Sue allegations. Well okay, Gene is the flawed one because of how he is affected by his ancestor who's constantly trying to bring out Gene's primal rage, which causes Catwhis to go "remember to not kill anyone dear" whenever a single wrinkle appears in Gene's face.

Catwhis on the other hand, she is like a fusion of Mora and Luna. She is openly abusive towards Gene, and she often gets into squabbles with him over the pettiest shit. Sometimes you don't know if she loves Gene. She never gets called out at any point like Gene sometimes gets called out. And most of the time she goes on hypocritical ra ra speeches and never considers other people's opinions. If "never considers other people's opinions" makes someone a Mary Sue, does that mean every Twitter user is a Mary Sue?

That unrelated tangent aside, I don't really have too many arguments against Catwhis being a Mary Sue. The only reason I really don't call her that is that out of all the spy cams in this comic, she detects Matt's bullshit the least, the only time she detected anything Matt did was when he abused Borzoi, which reminded her of the "abuse" she received at Matt's hands. As far as Spycam Moments are concerned, that is actually kind of justified, as she is a repositor and all. And her repository skills are more well defined than Deegan's seer powers.

But, if there is one thing I would call a Mary Sue in this blog without a doubt, it wouldn't be one character, it wouldn't even be a character, but rather a concept of a group.

Family of Intelligent Life (Gene Catlow)

Where do I begin? Family of Intelligent Life is early on established to be the STRONGEST GROUP OF ALL TIME. and that is not even getting into all the things those fucking suits do. Or what Simmy does. Or how many allies the Family has. Or how they employ child soldiers and it's somehow a good thing. Or how they resurrected the dead. Or how easy everyone somehow gets along. Or how the Family is able to detect ANYTHING. Family of Intelligent Life is a testament to Albert Temple's anti-individualism. It's a group fallacy that states if there are a lot of people doing stuff together, nothing can go wrong and they never disagree on anything. They don't even have any roles, and they can give each other their abilities on a whim. The ONLY flaw the group is ever shown to have is the possibility of Gene's Primal Rage spreading to other members, but Simmy is shown to work on that.

The fact they're able to get into each other's heads so easily without any conflict is ridiculous. Can you imagine if one of them found out about a controversial political opinion Crendall had? Or that Cat Sneed likes to use the Bear Equivalent of N-word in casual conversation which offends Eubie and his GF? Or that they all can't agree on what their favorite incarnation of Sonic the Hedgehog is? I don't want to know every opinion my friends have on everything, what makes you think I would want to share a headspace with a bunch of strangers?

There's also the fact, any sort of critique of The Family is treated as a byproduct of Ignorance. Even when Matt's family critiques it, they can't actually make constructive arguments against it and just say "IT'S DUMB." No offense to Taria.

Everything I laid out to you is what makes Family of Intelligent Life Mary Sue. It has implausible levels of competence and is capable of amazing unique powers, they are universally liked and respected by everyone our narrative considers good, and possess virtually no flaws. It is Albert Temple's collectivist wish fulfillment.

But if I was forced to name a Mary Sue that was actually a character, nobody fits that better than Derukui the Kittycat from Crash Bandicoot Retold. I'll talk more about her one day.