#I thought it would be interesting to see an average of the number of total side blogs each user has.

[charmac]

I was thinking about how there's so many Dennis & Dee team ups in Season 11 and thought it would be interesting to see the numbers in comparison to the frequency of their team ups in every other season.. and then I ended up calculating averages for the most popular pairings across the seasons, and the Gang generally. (The average is just the # episodes that feature the pairing over the total episodes that season.)

Definitely reflects why Season 10 is my favourite, lmfao. I think the change from 15 to 16 is also a little indicative as to why 16 felt a little more classic than the recent years, much heavier on pairings than group episodes (and 13, the opposite...)

Thought I'd share in case anyone else was interested for whatever reason

[handwrittenhello]

i think its kind of ridiculous to think that homestucks are seriously using bots in this poll because why the hell would they bot this poll instead of the tumblrwoman poll which was the poll EVERYBODY in the hs fandom was actually making a big deal out of . also because im going to be real but i dont think anyone cares about polls enough to rig one? even the bayonetta/miku poll turned out to actually not be vriska voter fraud (most people in the homestuck fandom voted miku anyway) i think people are just unable to comprehend that a lot of people are still dormantly into homestuck & probably just saw vriska serket at the front of the trending disco elysium tag and thought it was funny. like oh my godddd no one cares enough about the outcome of this poll to bot it . somebody with a lot of followers probably just posted about it on twitter or something mundane like that its not that deep . a lot of people on tumblr have read homestuck its not extraordinary that a lot of vriska voters exist. disco elysium fans im sorry your blorbo is losing you’ll probably be back in the lead in a couple hours anyway all of you need to chill out‼️‼️‼️

answering only this ask about the cheating/botting, and no others, because i'm getting a lot of asks about it. congratulations, this contest has officially had all the fun sucked out of it.

here's data i've been collecting for every poll i've run. it's organized by votes the character received per round, then the total number of votes on that poll, for all five rounds. then there are two columns for totals.

the next five columns, Notes 1-5, are the number of notes on each poll. i've highlighted two posts that were circulated with a greater-than-average frequency even after the poll ended (the loki/JC one because people were memeing on JC, and then HDB/Howl one because it gained popularity following a popular blogger reblogging it.)

V/N is the votes to notes ratio for each poll. it was taken by dividing the number of votes when the poll ended by the number of notes on each post. one limitation is that this was not taken at the same time each day, and so older posts will have slightly higher notes. however, i believe this uncertainty isn't enough to discount the conclusions i'll come to.

i've highlighted vriska's V:N ratio in red at the top. as you can see, round vriska's V:N ratio wasn't even the highest; she beat kaeya alberich easily, and the comments in the notes reflected that.

in round 2, things started to get interesting. this is where i and other people noticed a sudden flip, but i didn't think much of it. she was up against izzy hands. izzy was leading all day, and when i queued the next day's poll and went to bed, izzy was leading by 60%. when i woke up, it had flipped to 53/47 in vriska's favor. it's not a HUGEamount, but it is a NOTICEABLE amount.

keep in mind that every single day, there have been other, closer polls, that hovered around 49-50-51 all day, and which also flipped at the end of the day, or remained 50/50 and could only be determined by tumblr. in these cases, the notes also reflect the split. these polls also never swayed more than one or two percent.

in round 3, when vriska faced zuko, there was a clear and immediate lead for zuko, with him leading by 80%. keep in mind that by this point, all 28 other polls i ran, besides vriska's the day before, never swayed more than 1 or 2% once a clear lead had been established.

this poll went from 80/20 zuko to 59/41 vriska. that's RIDICULOUS. the only way that's possible is if an OVERWHELMING amount of people voted vriska and NO people voted zuko. for such a thing to happen, this post would need to spread really rapidly, right? surely this post had tens of thousands of notes and comments!

the V:N ratio for round 3 is TWENTY-SEVEN to one. that's the most out of any poll. the standard deviation for the round 3 polls is 9.0, compared to 4.8 and 4.9 the days before. not to mention reading those notes also does not get us an overwhelming amount of comments rooting for vriska.

today has also been highly suspicious. it started out with an 85/15 lead for harry. i wouldn't necessarily expect it to hold exactly at that percentage, but the flip was immediate and drastic. you can see the trend being tracked on this post. not at all suspicious, right? also note that the comments all day have been 95% rooting for harry and maybe 5% for vriska.

please also look at the GRAND TOTAL column, which has reliably predicted the winners of future polls each day. vriska has received 49,064 votes over the course of the whole contest. harry has received 64,644. that's 24% more votes. and yet the poll is locked at 50/50?

and if this isn't enough evidence for you, then remember the tumblr sexywoman poll. it is a FLAT FUCKING FACT that those polls were spammed by bots. out of respect for their privacy i won't go into detail, but they outright admitted it.

TO CONCLUDE,

it's pretty fucking obvious that something is up, and although i admit that there's simply no concrete way of proving it, there would have to be a really standout explanation for this.

and besides this being super lame, it's also removed all the fun from this contest. it's a stupid tumblr poll that wins literally nothing, congratulations!

also, to everyone making death threats in the notes, BOTH SIDES, you've failed my secret challenge of not being rude which means i'm judging you personally. be fucking nice.

[wot-tidbits]

Curse Words Analysis Part 1: Blood and Bloody Ashes! by JaimTorfinn

The whole article can be read here.

The curse word “bloody” (by itself) is one of the most common curses in the series with 1,284 total occurrences. It’s used like its real life counterpart, and unlike its associated phrases, “bloody” is almost always followed by a word that it intensifies, such as “bloody fool”, or “bloody dice”. A recent comment by u/wjbc offers some additional insight on the word:

"Bloody" is a real world curse that Jordan uses because it's considered mild by modern standards. But in Victorian times it was considered very profane, short for "God's blood." It was also very lower class. George Bernard Shaw created a sensation when his character Eliza said "bloody" in the play Pygmalion (later turned into My Fair Lady).

Jordan started off slowly, and then went a bit wild in The Dragon Reborn, which is mostly due to the introduction of Mat POVs. In fact, all the numbers are very affected by how much screen time Mat gets in that book, with The Path of Daggers having the lowest occurrences due to Mat being absent.

When Sanderson took over, he was conservative at first, but then set new records with the final two books. As you can see from the authors’ average per 100k words chart, Sanderson used the curse almost twice as much as Jordan.

When it comes to total occurrences, Mat Cauthon is the bloody king! With 767 uses, he says or thinks “bloody” almost 7 times more than Uno, who is in second place with 115. It’s interesting to note that he thinks the word more than he says it, with 440 instances thought, and 327 spoken. Uno, on the other hand, speaks almost all of his (101 instances) since he only has one PoV section, in A Memory of Light.

With 110 occurrences, “Blood and Bloody Ashes” is the most common of the “bloody” phrase variations. It is often used as a standalone sentence, usually with an exclamation mark. Considered a fairly strong curse, it has been known to raise the eyebrows of the prim and proper.

With 101 occurrences, “Blood and Ashes” is the second most common of the “bloody” phrases. It’s very similar to “blood and bloody ashes”, but is perhaps a bit milder. It was also Jordan’s curse of choice when he first started.

With 68 occurrences, “Bloody Ashes” is the third most common “bloody” phrase, and functions pretty much the same as “blood and ashes”. “Bloody Ashes” is a Sanderson invention, with no occurrences in Jordan’s books.

Some fans assumed the use of “Bloody Ashes” in Sanderson’s books was a mistake, but when questioned about it, Sanderson claimed that it was on purpose.

SANDERSON: I've done this intentionally. It's a personal quirk of mine from my linguistic background. I feel that many constructions like this, over time, will simplify. As the world of the WoT has been modernizing, I feel that slowly "Bloody and bloody ashes" would shorten. I've used the longer version in the books, but have begun pushing the oaths toward their more clipped versions as part of a subtle linguistic shift to accompany the birth of things like gunpowder and steam power. Our world's own oaths have done this quite aggressively.

[acaciapines]

hello !! what are your thoughts on actors and acting in a world with daemons ? how do you think they would work ?

oooh this is super interesting...i've been thinking over this most of the day and i honestly think there wouldnt be a lot of like, huge and drastic changes. i do think people would cast for appearance of the human actor AND the daemon actor, so there would 100% be casting calls that would be like 'canine daemons only' because whatever character youre auditioning for would have a canine daemon.

BUT ALSO i think there'd be like. daemon costumes!! for places where you need a specific form but your actor isnt settled as such--like, maybe youre doing a documentary about a real person who settled as a parrot, and your actor is AWESOME but a rat. so there's a rat with a parrot costume :3 i feel like this would be more common on stage than on screen (think like, if youve ever seen the costumes of lion king on broadway, thats sorta the vibe i could see), since i feel like CGI tech would make it a tad easier to pass off one animal as another.

like i dont think cgi would replace a daemon actor entirely (to me thats like casting a human actor, and then using cgi to turn them into an entirely different person) but you would use cgi like how cgi is used today, like i know some cgi is used for costuming and stuff. so maybe a daemon has a sort of green screen type costume and thats how you get some species-changes, but like, their face and general shape is still their own.

on the same thread of movies/tv/shows etc, i do think on average there'd actually be less characters per show...like a show in our world would have four main characters, but a show in a world with daemons would have two--because the daemons are characters now too! so this might mean acting is even more competitive than it is today, since there's just less roles even if theres the same number of productions.

tho this varies based on how you present daemons in your world lol, in my 'ideal' sort of daemon-world they'd get as much sceentime as their human counterparts so you'd just have to cut down on total characters, but i write worlds where things are Not good for daemons lol.

along those lines i bet theres also daemon forms that are more vs less likely to get cast--i tend to go canine + feline are the most desired and thus like. "uplifted" forms so every hero has a lion etc, so if you wanna act but youre a sea slug you are going to struggle a LOT to be cast, bc productions would be like sorry we just need dogs <3 i think there would be a mammal bias and i wonder if there'd be anti-discrimination laws passed about this? i feel like that would be really contentious in-universe though, like a thing often argued about--people like, there are totally roles for snakes! (theyre only villian parts). or you can get cast with a fish daemon! (you will never get a main part and most of the time cant even get an extra part because its "too much work" to make the space fish-daemon accessible.) basically you can take this a lot of ways too!

if anyone else has ideas feel free to add on! or send me asks about unrelated daemon topics. i love talking about daemons :3

[officiallymyself]

I have a thought and I want to get some input on it:

What is the correct formula needed to reach “The Ren-Faire Ratio” a.k.a. the number of people relative to the total number of people present doing one thing in a given place and at a given time (i.e. being in costume at a Ren Faire) to the point that NOT doing that thing is considered to be unusual?

Basically, if there are 100 people in a room and only 1 of them is dressed like a pirate, that person is doing something unusual. HOWEVER, if 99 people are dressed like a pirate, then the 1 person who is not is now the unusual one.

I do think there are multiple parts to this, such as “The Establishing Barrier” a.k.a. the point at which enough people are doing the thing that it’s no longer unusual, it’s just INTERESTING. So, clearly, there is a reason for these people to be pirates, which is fine, but I don’t know what that reason is and it’s not terribly pressing for me to find out or to join them. I think this would be about 10%-15% of the population doing the weird thing. A high enough number that the average person not included would see at least 3 separate people doing the thing.

Another part is that I think “The Setting Slider” could for 25%-30% of where the Ren-Faire Ratio is being set because being dressed up as pirates on a pirate ship is much more explainable than being dressed up as pirates in an office building. However, being on a pirate ship with a handful of people dressed as pirates does not compel you to join unless the number of people dressed up is high enough. But, the more convincing the location, the more of an impact it could have.

I also want to make mention that “The Perception Push” would maybe be a 10%-15% impact on the overall ratio. This is what comes into play if it seems that all (or most) of the people doing the thing are only doing it because they have to. If all the people who happen to be dressed up on the pirate ship are tour guides, the impulse to also dress up as a pirate drops. This Push can be affected by “The Dedication Decider.”

“The Dedication Decider” is maybe a 5%-10% push based on how much fun the people involved seem to be having being dressed up as pirates. If they put a lot of work in to go all out and they are in character the whole time with a smile on their face, it can be contagious and make others want to join in.

All these considered, I feel like “The Ren-Faire Ratio” should be set somewhere around 70% of a given population, but again, I want more input on this.

The floor is open to discussion.

[jtl07]

jtl07 fics, spring 2024

We interrupt the posting about various water animals with my first fic recap of 2024!

An admission: I’m still in a rollercoaster of a headspace (also still open to song recs so I can make noises on the guitar btw) - I was, gently, reminded that it’s not even been a year since life upended itself and there’s been a lot that's happened in the past couple months, even more in the past couple weeks, so. We’ll take it one step - one water animal, one guitar riff, one fic recap - at a time.

General stats

Total on this pseud: 5

Fics posted (in chronological order):

Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs - Just a snapshot in the form of the contents of folks' bags

tell me all the things you believe - or: one year later

even though you're not mine - or: Ava comes back, but not hers; or or: Princington's artwork strikes again

i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now) - or: on touch and waiting and wanting; or or: Ava comes back invisible

nineteen, again - or: Ava at thirty-eight

(Per usual, more numbers and thoughts under the cut)

More numbers

(As of last night; some of the numbers seem to have changed but only slightly)

Total words: 26,369

Shortest fic: 813 - Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs

Longest fic: 19,010 - i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now)

Average/Median word count: 5,274 / 1,676

Most hits: 2,128 - i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now)

Least hits: 555 - Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs

Average/Median percent of *interactions to hits: 21.3% / 22.0%

Highest percent of interactions to hits: 23.1% - nineteen, again

Least percent of interactions to hits: 18.7% - i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now)

*where “interaction” = kudos, comment threads, bookmarks

General thoughts

None of the regular stats (all the word count stuff) were a surprise to me, so I added some new stats looking at interactions and hits. Interaction totals seem to correspond with hit counts (hence why I didn't note those above) but what was interesting was the percentages. Yeah, it's a difference of only a couple percentage points but the nerd in me is intrigued. As in: I wonder if the length and premise of "i see you clearly" was both draw (hits) and deterrent (interaction)? Also several comments mentioned liking the setting age-wise of "nineteen, again" so that plus the fact that there were a lot of familiar faces was perhaps folks knowing what they were getting into? idk, really can't draw any conclusions - it can also just be simple reader behavior.

Actually, speaking of which, another interesting thing I observed: I did an initial pull using the bookmarklet on the 25th, then updated the numbers last night. The numbers that changed the most were hits and, surprisingly, bookmarks (kudos were next, and comments hardly changed). I hadn't realized that bookmarks were utilized so much.

Fic that surprised you:

Technically "i see you clearly now" fits this prompt - but then again, it fits every prompt in this recap lol - but the fic I want to talk about here is "even though you're not mine. I had fully expected not to post anything for February (context: I have a soft personal goal to complete something every month) but then @princington had to go and be amazing lol. I distinctly remember seeing their art (linked above) and immediately being beset by two different ideas. I then went for a walk and during said walk, lines starting coming for the shorter idea. Near the end of the walk, the ending for the fic came to me as well, and by that time I was speedwalking to get back home and write it all down! It had been a while since I'd felt an idea take hold of me that quickly and completely - it's such a rush and was fun to write. That one definitely would not have happened without Prince's fantastic work <3

Fic that you're proud of:

Okay now I'll talk about "i see you clearly now" lol - everything about it was terrifying, from the length, the content, the style. It really was unexpected because the opening came fully fleshed out early on, which usually points to a quick little fic. But I remember hitting 3k and looking over what I had so far, and thinking very clearly: ohshit, this is going to be long. But I think what won out over the fear was this curiosity - I wanted to see where this fic was going to lead me. There was something in it that kept drawing me back, even though I didn't know at all where the story was going, something in me felt surprisingly, idk safe exploring what was, for me, uncharted territory.

Fun fact #1: I think it was around the 5k~6k mark - before I'd gotten anywhere near the ending, mind - I'd had this thought (which I'd fully written down in my notes lol) of having a fun spicy one-shot as a follow up. And then shortly thereafter, I realized how crucial physical intimacy was to the story and how it there wouldn't be a follow up - it had to be integrated into the fic. A lot of internal screaming ensued lol

Fun fact #2: I surprisingly didn't do a lot in terms of editing. The biggest was a rewrite of the phone conversation between Beatrice and Mother Superion. I remember feeling a bit iffy about it and @gohandinhand (best beta ever seriously!) gently highlighted it as well. I guess it was one of those scenes where I needed to know what the story was before I could really write that scene in a way that fit everything else. It was interesting because I felt that's how it was writing the fic as a whole - it wasn't very linear, it was more like I'd write one scene near the beginning, which gave some inspiration for a scene near the ending, which then brought me to a scene near the middle. It felt quite intricate, seeing how adjusting one area affected another, affected the whole.

Fun fact #3: Before I wrote the reunion, I sat down and studied a bunch of fics because I'm a nerd lol - there's that one post, which I of course can't find now, about how there's nothing more embarrassing than writing smut that doesn't turn anyone on, which I felt very keenly lol - I was like, jt, if you're going to do this, you better damn do this well. So I went through some other fics and studied structure, word choice, pacing - it was quite enlightening actually, and something I think I'll do more of this year. (Studying, I mean. Not the - well, I shouldn't promise anything about what I will or will not write lol)

Fic that was the hardest to write:

Much as "i see you clearly now" terrified me, it actually wasn't hard to write. Similar to Beatrice's arc in the story itself, I as the writer had to just be patient and allow it take form in the time it took. I mean, even that rewrite that I mentioned came on fairly easily.

Now that I think about it, I do remember "tell me all the things you believe" being difficult to write. Yeah, quite a number of afternoons sitting at a nearby Starbucks pulling at my hair lol The main prompt for that was simply to mark the occasion (that being my own 1 year of writing Warrior Nun/Avatrice). I think what I'm learning is that things are much easier when an idea is couched firmly in a character or an emotion. (For example, I mentioned a while ago having a hard time with i walked with you once, which could have also been due to not having formed a good grasp of JC's character)

Oh I also had not a difficulty writing, but a difficulty posting Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs - I'd thought it was too simple yknow? But ultimately I thought hey, this is all just for fun, not everything needs to be complex and worldchanging so why the heck not.

What's next?

Gosh that's a question I've been carefully avoiding what with being in the midst of so much transition. I've been doing a lot of resting and found myself being drawn to studying structure again - kishoutenketsu in particular (I recently found some studies I'd done a couple years ago, I might clean those up and post them here), and how to layer complexity onto that. Which is timely because there's a couple ideas that came to me late last year that I immediately knew were going to be complex and kinda put them on the shelf because I didn't think I was ready to write them. Writing "i see you clearly now" has made me question that thought so hopefully the studying will help bring up my confidence to at least try.

In any case, there are still plenty of ideas (Beatrice voice: "there's always more") it's just a matter of figuring out which ones feel right to write. I'll likely continue to be a little quiet here - save for the posts of the water animals lol - but I'll be around.

Anyway, huh, apparently I had much more to say than I thought I would for this recap. If you made it this far, wow, a virtual cookie for you! Hope the end of March brings some rest and comfort <3

[ltwharfy]

"Bob's Burgers" Season 14 Episode Ranking Rewatch (long post)

So, I've been rewatching "Bob's Burgers" from the beginning and ranking the episodes using the spreadsheet that @babsvibes created! If you want to know why I'm doing this or how I view the 1-5 rating scale, you can check out my Season 1 post! If you want to check out any of the other seasons, I've been using the "bob's burgers episode ranking rewatch" tag for all of them.

Now, on to Season 14:

Average (Mean) Score: 4.54

Mean (Most Common) Ranking: 5

Ranking Breakdown: 8 5s 4 4s 1 3

Season as whole thoughts:

I won't call it a comeback...but you can check the previous posts and see that the strike-shortened Season 14 has the highest average score since season 9 and that it's numbers put it right up there with my personal Golden Age of the show. It's possible there is some sort of recency bias with these ratings- with one exception (guess which one...) I've only watched these episodes maybe two or three times now so the jokes might feel a little fresher and make me laugh a bit more than they otherwise would. But, I don't really think that's the case. Rewatching these episodes I think that Season 14, like my beloved Season 7, features a great blend of humor, creativity, and emotional resonance, both within individual episodes and throughout the season as a whole.

I also feel like this was a pretty great season for the show's supporting characters: Rudy becomes the first non-main character to be the focus of an episode, we learn more about Zeke's past, they actually made me feel sympathy for Logan, interesting new characters like Will and Sam were introduced, and we get the long awaited (possibly only by me) return of Downtown Randolph Brackenbrown!

Some thoughts on specific episodes (and feel free to ask if you want my thoughts on an episode I didn't comment on):

"Fight at the Not Okay-Chorer-al": The bedtime story- and the way the telling of it went back and forth between the parents and Louise- was a really fun, unique way to break out of the normal world of the show without doing another anthology episode (even though I love those.) So many of the visual details of the western town were beautiful, compelling, and fun. And I'm a sucker for an emotional Linda and Louise story.

"The Amazing Rudy": I am totally normal about this episode. Writing two fics inspired by an episode within a week of it airing is normal, right? Okay, yeah...this episode emotionally resonated with me more than any piece of entertianment I'd encountered in a while. The way it captured the feelings of being a child of divorce- the stress, the anxiety, the loneliness-hit home for me so hard. I can pause this episode at multiple points and tell you about similar things that happened in my own life. And, while I know it's just a coinceidence, it's so weird for me that this story came out last year. Because when I wrote my first fic about Rudy earlier last year, I foiund myself crying while writing a line mentioning his parents divorce- and that lead me to think about why- and to finally do something to process how my parents' divorce decades ago had affected me in ways I hadn't acknowledged before- and to work to move beyond that. So, maybe it's a coincidence, or maybe the Molyneux sisters are witches who can see into my soul? Really, who's to say?

Okay, sorry to do two paragraphs on one episode, but that kinda turned into a weird autobiographical essay, didn't it? As an episode, I think this is top notch in terms of writing, direction, animation, music, and especially the voice-acting of Brian Huskey and Kristen Schaal. Also, while this might sound like a weird comment coming from Mr. "I've been shipping Louise/Rudy since the first airing of 'Carpe Museum'", I really didn't think about the end of this episode in romantic/shippy way until I came on here and saw some other Roudise folks squeeing over it. Because, while you can view it that way, I also think at its heart this episode is really a story about loneliness and friendship-about how we can all help ease each others pain just by being there for one another. And I hope folks can appreciate this lovely story of friendship even if they don't enjoy Roudise from a shipping perspective.

"The Pickleorette": That was fun! Really, both the A story and B story in this episode are a hoot. TIna immediately forgetting about the board game and scheming about how to see Pickles in the restaurant is one of the funniest moments all season. The lines about big sisters making mistakes so little sisters know its okay not to be perfect are some of the best moments between both Linda & Gayle and Tina & Louise.

"Running Down a Gene": I am always a sucker for weird dreams, and Mr. Ambrose always cracks me up. The Louise and Tina cricket storyline is funny and weirdly sweet. But what ultimately puts this into 5 territory is Gene's sweet song at the end- I always love when they have him write a surprisingly moving song (see also "The Gene and Courtney Show").

"Bully-ieve It or Not": It was great to learn more about Zeke's past and get a new (hopefully recurring) member of the 8th grade class. But the character I really loved the most in this one was Jimmy Jr.- in this story, he is the voice of reason, displays some emotional intelligence, and you see how much his friendship with Zeke means to him. Really, this is an A+ story for both Zeke and J-Ju in my book.

"The (Raccoon) King and I": If I need to choose an episode from the whole series to cheer me up when I'm feeling down, it might be this one. The storylines are all pretty low stakes (except for Little King Trashmouth) but the endings are all super sweet! Tina gets to "woo!"; Arnold, Andy, Ollie, and Rudy dance like the nerdy boys they are; Bob dances like the tired middle-aged man he is; Louise fills up a giant bowl with soft serve ice cream to bring to her friends (this is literally one of my favorite images from the whole series); and Little King Trashmouth and His Husband Gary are reunited!!! It is all so freaking beautiful, man!

"Fraud of the Dead: Zombie-Docu-pocalypse": Just a really fun episode- a great way to break from the show's usual formula while still telling a funny, emotionally resonant story. I kind of wish we could see another episode that was the "behind the scenes" of the movie from this episode- I particularly enjoy wondering about if Louise scripted everybody's lines or if it was more improv (Yes, I am particularly wondering about Rudy's "I don't want to be remembered as a complainer" line). Also, Louise beginning to sing in the documentary was one of the biggest laughs in the season for me just because it was so unexpected.

"Jade in the Shade": Putting this in here for Babs, as her reward for creating the spreadsheet and making it through all these posts, but my biggest laughs in this episode came from Cynthia and Logan's interaction. I think anyone who's ever been a teen boy with a mom can relate to Logan in this one. The Linda and Louise interaction is also great, and I loved the return to some of the settings of the movie.

"Butt Sweat and Fears": The Tina storyline and the way it ends- both with her and Sam dancing and with Jimmy Jr. leaning on her- is just so freaking sweet. It's also a really funny episode throughout (call me immature, but the stuff about Chelsea's potentially sick cat and it's poop really cracked me up). And it was fun to see Dalton again- one of those enjoyable recurring characters who I forget about until he's on screen! Funny, sweet, good supporting chracters- this served as a fitting ending to this short season.

Random thoughts (stuff that doesn't affect the ratings):

-Rudy was in six of the first nine episodes of this season, making me hope he was on track to tie or pass his record for most appearances in a season (seven in both Seasons 5 and 10). Alas, he didn't appear in any of the remaining episodes. Who knows how many episodes he would've appeared in if it was a full length season? Too bad the season was shortened by the strike. Rudy's kind of like the 1994 Montreal Expos in that regard. (This is an incredibly dorky joke put in solely for my own amusement, please feel free to ignore it.)

Is this the end of my Episode Ranking Rewatch Long Posts?!?! Probably not, I'll probably do one or two more with some thoughts on the series as a whole and sharing my writer and director rankings, since those were one of the reasons I found Babs' spreadsheet so exciting to begin with.

[asimplearchivist]

(This has been sitting in my drafts long enough…my fear of mischaracterizing Astarion is lesser than the agitation of seeing this beast among my WIPs. @fangswbenefits I’m affectionately blaming you for giving me pale elf brain rot🫣)

Okay guys this may be a very niche concept that will appeal to maybe like two people total but it hasn’t left my mind since I mentioned the idea to a buddy of mine who convinced me to play bg3…(Cullen and Astarion have a lot of similarities, which I would love to elaborate on later, but…) hear me out—it could be a very interesting dynamic to play with in a crossover.

Headcanons under the cut:

I’m not usually one for crossovers unless they’re in self-contained within a fandom (like Pokémon or Dragon Age, for example—there’s a phenomenal fic called The Half-Life of Element Zero by @unhealthynpcobsession which is a DAI/MEA crossover and safely one of the only “cross-fandom” crossovers I genuinely enjoy and adore bc the story and concepts are contextually sound and professionally orchestrated), but I feel like the sheer numbers of DAI fanfiction that explore the concept of the Breach opening up portals into other worlds (namely our modern Earth, thus the Modern Girl in Thedas trope, my beloved) could include adjacent worlds. I believe I have seen Skyrim before, so why not Baldur’s Gate 3? (Now keep in mind I know next to nothing about BG3 bc I am newly introduced to its lore and everything but) I think one could easily get away with having Astarion somehow slip through the Breach, along with the Sole Survivor at the Conclave.

(Holy shit why did this turn out so fucking long?)

The Survivor wakes—chained, cold, and aching—in the cells beneath the chantry, interrogated by Cassandra and Leliana, and denies her involvement with the Temple’s destruction. Forced to cooperate with the Survivor due to their dire need for the Mark and its potential use related to the Rifts, Cassandra casts a scowl at Leliana. “I will escort the prisoner if you will deal with the pale elf.”

Leliana only responds mildly, “I will continue to deal with him as I have been for the last three days—as well as nurse the migraine that he has caused.”

The Survivor doesn’t meet this esteemed “pale elf” until the battle at the Temple, and she only sees him from afar—he accompanied Leliana’s men to deal with the array of Shades and Wraiths that speckled the cratered grounds while the rest picked away at gargantuan Pride. She notices he is masterfully skilled with his weapons, perhaps even peculiarly so—she also notices that he has far greater strength, agility, and stamina than the average elf, easily surpassing the abilities of his peers.

She doesn’t see him again until well after the dust has settled—the Breach has been patched, Haven is able to reassess themselves, and the new Inquisition begins to construct their foundation. The newly named Herald of Andraste attempts to escape it all, fleeing into the grounds beyond Haven’s gates under the guise of fulfilling favors and errands for the various supervisors in the village, and stumbles across an abandoned cabin in the forest—at least she thought it was abandoned, at first.

She’s rummaging through the things there, finds the passed healer’s notes, but the lightest creak of displaced wood behind her tips her off to the presence of another. She whirls, hand already flying to her weapon, and backs up against the table, sending things clattering to the floor. The pale elf stands there, smirking at her startle.

“Act all the victim when you intrude on my space,” he croons, tilting his head and tutting at her, “my, how manners seem hard to come by around here.”

“You’re that—” She stops, hesitates, starts again. “Sister Leliana mentioned you. You’re the only other one who survived the blast.”

“That is comparatively the least of my problems and only the beginning of my present predicament, yes.” His eyes—as brilliant a crimson as the blood that still crusts the wounds that litter her bruised, battered, borderline broken body—scan her form from top to bottom, pause on her bandaged hand, and return to meet her uneasy gaze with a considerate one of his own. “Although I’m afraid I can confidently say that I ended up with the better of the lots drawn between the two of us.” His expression relaxes, just a little, a thready furrow forming between his silverite brows. “Does that hurt?”

She clenches her fist and clenches her teeth. “It’s dismissible.”

“Considering I heard tell that it is in the process of consuming you, I would disagree—but, I digress!” He flashes her a toothy smirk. “I am just grateful that there are no longer demons spewing out of that torn arsehole in the sky.”

She stares at him for a long moment, uncertain what to say in response. She’s exhausted, sore, and reeling from the last week of utter unfortunate bullshit that had befallen her.

“You’re…rather tall, for an elf,” she finally says lamely.

His brows arch into his forehead in clear surprise before he tips his head back and laughs. It exposes his teeth, and…no, those were not fangs. It must have been a trick of the firelight.

“It does seem that my kindred, however distantly related they are, do not possess as generous of traits as I,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “All so thin and lithe and…well, diminutive…it’s truly a marvel how they’re able to get anything done without breaking their hollow little bones. It’s little wonder that they seem so afraid of everyone else around here.”

She frowns, echoing, “‘Distantly related’?” with some dubiousness.

“Oh, your lovely spymaster didn’t tell you? I’m shocked.” The stranger gestures to himself with his arms extended to either side. “You have my sincerest apologies, my dear, I haven’t even introduced myself—I complain of lack of manners, yet fail to offer them in due turn.” He dips at the waist briefly, eyes glittering through his frosty lashes. “My name is Astarion, and…to put it simply, I am not supposed to be here.”

“I imagine anyone is fortunate to have walked away from all that destruction unscathed,” she responds mildly, narrowing her eyes.

“How cute,” he simpers, straightening and bracing his hands on his hips. “I fail to possess sufficient enough knowledge of magic in order to explain how in the hells this happened, exactly, but I originate from a place called Faerûn—not your delightfully archaic ‘Thedas’.”

He goes on to ramble about his companions, at least two of whom would have been far better suited to hypothesize how to rectify this particular ‘magical’ predicament. He tells her about their unusual circumstances of being thrust together, forced to cooperate and work towards fixing their looming health issues and the threat that faces their world.

She studies him for a long moment after he finishes. “…It sounds as if you and I are trapped in similar problems,” she sighs, rubbing her face. “As incredible as this all sounds, I sincerely doubt such a story could be easily invented on the spot…so you have my sympathies. Do you think that you’ll be able to return home?”

“Sister Leliana introduced me to that lovely gentleman who dresses like a vagrant. Supposedly, he’s the resident authority on this…‘Fade magic’, as it were?” he surmises.

“So I’ve heard,” she responds.

“Yes, well, our conversation was cut rather short at the time due to him being rather persistent in keeping his eye on that little souvenir.”

She flexes her hand and glances away. She’s been doing her damnedest not to dwell on the burning in her palm, thank you very much, and she didn’t particularly want to discuss it, either.

“Nevertheless,” he continues lightly, although his tone tempers into something more neutral, “he promised that he would look into the issue.”

“That’s…that’s good,” she replies quietly. “I hope he finds a way to send you back.”

The pale elf tilts his head at her then, eyes contemplative when she looks back up. He offers her a thin-lipped smile—this one actually reaches his eyes, softening his angular features. “As much as I am grateful not to be in your position, I do apologize. It would seem that the weight of your new moniker is not one to be taken lightly.”

“It is what it is,” she grits out. “They will believe what they wish regardless of my input.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier.” He leans in, holding her stare. “…I think it best to remain nearby, for the time being. Sole survivors of a devastating explosion still under scrutiny by those newly in power ought to stick together, yes?”

She relaxes, just slightly. “As long as you’re not the one who caused all of this.”

His expression sobers enough that it jars her. “I am the least inclined to cause spontaneous combustion among my compatriots,” he tells her, attempting humor, but there’s something in his eyes that contrasts his words entirely—a lingering fear, apprehension, borderline horror, if she has to place a name on it. “But no. I did not. And I think I have a few choice words—and daggers—on reserve for whoever did cause all of this devastation. I never asked to be thrown into the middle of this refuse burn.”

“Neither did I.” She offers him a bow in return and gives him her name. “I would say it’s been pleasant to make your acquaintance, but…I think we both are allowed to say that we would rather not have met at all.”

“Agreed.” He stoops to pick up the papers Adan had sent her to find and hands them to her. “I trust I will see you again soon?”

“You do intend to stay?” she asks, brow furrowing as she tucks them into her pocket.

“I’ve nowhere else to go,” he begins, “and fleeing from an investigation would provide rather damning evidence for the prosecution, even if misused. For now I’ll lend my particular set of skills and…services to this delightful little collection of vagabonds. I think you need all the help you can get, given that poor, overworked general of yours is relying on farmers and pilgrims to become your armed force.”

“I don’t speak on behalf of the others,” she says, “but I thank you. You’re greatly appreciated.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he purrs. “Now…do go get some rest, my dear. You look positively horrible for someone who has slept for nearly six days.”

His nonchalant sincerity startles a laugh out of her—the first in what felt like an age. He seems pleased to have done so. She departs the cabin feeling slightly less isolated than before.

[kihakugato-art]

The Harriet Pinup Art Project

Session 0- goals and preparation

Out of the sessions this one will probably be the wordiest- my apologies that I can't break it apart with more images! Hopefully the future sessions will have more show and less tell.

Goal for this project-

To make a good enough quality artpiece that it could be printed as a poster or print. I won’t end up making it an actual print since it entails some considerations I’d rather not mess with, but I’d like to at least push my art to that quality. This is my loftiest of my goals but a goal nonetheless.

To finish this piece within the month of September. It’d be nice to get it done sooner, and its equally possible that I may end up finishing it later than that, but I want to take my time with this piece for longer than I normally would for an art piece. I rarely work on my pieces for longer than a week on average.

What is the planned setting/composition for the pinup?

A candid of Harriet sitting on the edge of the deck of her ship (or off of a dock) all chill albeit possibly mischievous. She will likely be holding/eating a grilled fish on a skewer, giving lowkey implication that she snatched/stole it out from the ship’s kitchen/BBQ before mealtime.

The outfit will preferably have shorts/daisy dukes, a top of some sorts, draconian features out (so her lil penguin wings and her long flippered tail, maybe also feathered webbed hands/feet) in her human form for added interest, with a shirtless/tits-out as an additional outfit variant (I hope to come out of this project with at least 2 different versions- a sfw and more nsfw version). Her happy trail must be in view as well as her chest to add to the pinup-ness.

I may also give a canon-compliant colour pallete (so the teal/red/white) for her outfit as well as a non-compliant variant (the colour those clothes would be normally in the real world) depending on how well the colours compliment her.

Inspiration-

Of all things, the one that finally motivated me to think of taking a crack at it, it was the Brazillian Miku art trend. Created by ErinArtista (artpiece link X).

Tanned skin, teal hair, tomboyish energy, the parallels to Harriet are very similar which made it hard not to think about her when seeing the trend spread in full force.

The version that really got me thinking of Harriet in such an outfit was by irreligiositat (artpiece link X) which gave the interpretation of Miku having a big teal happy trail. Being Harriet has a blue-green happy trail herself, it caused the final mental click.

[image source]

Before this I had previously thought about drawing Harriet in “sexy” outfits- especially Mordred’s shorts/coat outfit (no surprise since I credit Mordred for being some of the inspiration for Harriet).

Although other OCs in a pinup artpiece have crossed my mind before, Harriet has always been the easiest to imagine; she canonically sometimes straight-up walks around shirtless or nude out on the deck of her own ship simply cause she’s the carefree type to do so! No other OC of mine is that bold (barring some WIP NSFW OCs that are still baking in the brain oven).

As I’ve been feeling more comfortable/bolder I have grown more motivated to explore this kind of art.

Preparations

Inspiration/reference board/folder

Collect images to assist in compiling/understanding the art being created. I don’t do this too often unless I’m very uncertain about certain details for the art piece. Also being I don’t draw often enough the references help give some guidelines for the brain to follow.

[yes I am well aware of how sus the third folder looks- don't make me bonk you for the obvious]

While the number of folders/images may grow as this project progresses, I am currently starting with 4 folders with 49 different images total; A folder for backgrounds, cooked/skewered fish, outfits (particularly daisy dukes- cause I had some confusion on certain art depictions of them that I had to get clarified on), and various sitting poses that come close to what I’m after. Also Harriet’s reference sheet so we can keep more inline with the iconography of her design (and also help when we get to including her draconic features since I’m not used to drawing a transitional form).

Canvas preparation and tutorials

I’m starting this on Clip Studio Paint with A4 paper dimensions (albiet with a stupidly large canvas size to avoid accidentally drawing too small) with 300 resolution.

For tutorials I am currently starting with only one- how to use 3D models in CSP, since I have never used this feature before, and I feel this could be extremely helpful on quickly getting an idea of what will look best for this composition.

Pretty cut and dry overview, even if it’s a lot of new information to take in. In the future I may use the fancier features of it such as making specific body types (meaning I have help with grasping Demauria and Riivar’s absurd height differences) but for this project we will start/stick to the default body even though it’s not quite accurate

With the new information I imported a female 3D model from the materials section, and selected one of the sitting presets to get started with.

I also imported the top poses from my inspo board onto the canvas so that I can quickly reference from them while working on messing with the 3D model.

Depending on how well I can mess with the poses I may even do more than one 3D’d pose so that I can compare/contrast which I’d prefer for this piece.

[communist-ojou-sama]

This isn't meant to be an insult since I'm not either but I'm curious if you're even an anarchist anymore? Like, not because you dismiss 'authoritarian' as a useless idea, I know anarchists that thing it's a worthless distinction, but you seem to think that a transitional state is necessary to overthrow capitalism so I wanted to make sure I'm not misunderstanding your position.

At first I was gonna give this an unfocused, rambling answer, but I feel like it's worthy of a somewhat more focused answer so I'll try to wrangle my thoughts into concrete points. There's a reason why despite my url, which I've been using for like 7 years at this point, in my bio I merely describe myself as a "Marxist" and in short that is because after a lot of reading anarchist theory, lots of talking to other anarchists and looking at anarchist positions on things, I realized anarchism as a theory of revolution and change has really very little to offer anyone who isn't a white person in the imperial core relative to other left-wing ideologies. First of all, anarchism as a whole has a very bad habit of flattening injustice and taking the structuring of society as a purely moral exercise, often demonstrating blindness to the scarcity of resources that caused societies of the past to take the shapes that they do; if you have any knowledge of or interest in societies of the ancient near east then the truly laughable anarchist characterization of these societies puts that reality into sharp relief On another point of "flattening injustices", in order present the transhistorical entity of "the state" as the ultimate evil you will frequently see anarchists not directly, but as a rhetorical slight of hand imply that, for example, censorship on the one hand and starvation of the populace, or lynchings, are basically equal, never bothering to develop an understanding of why some societies maintain strong support form the populace while others quickly fall apart. On the point of the collapse of societies, the collapse of "oppressive" regimes is romanticized among white anarchists despite the fact that they have been some of the greatest humanitarian tragedies ever. Anarchist ethics often acts as the total triumph of the concept of the human over real human beings and their needs, and there is no substantive anarchist program for challenging existential challenges that inherently will require organization and coercion (e.g. green energy transition). Anticiv anarchists and their fellow travellers plainly admit that they have no intention to engage in any real political activity, so whatever they say can be safely ignored, but even putting that aside, ordinary anarchists base much of their view of world-wide geopolitics on a number of racist lies propagated by the countries in which they live, believing that asians or black people are simply enduring conditions that would cause revolts, and have before, as if their will to freedom is less than that of whites, and in general western anarchists exercise a total failure to appreciate US imperialism as a world system, and what that actually means, much less develop an understanding of things like color revolutions. As a result they constantly demonize non-white leftists for self-defense, and glorify compradors and counterrevolutionaries that masquerade as "progressive", as if any state founded on them would not be a US puppet state, and treat the very suggestion as some kind of tin-foil hat conspiracy, not much different than the average white liberal. There's plenty more I can elaborate in my problems with anarchism as it is practiced in the 2020s, but hopefully this is a decent starting articulation.

[cospinol]

time for the summer 2024 isekai log☆! the count of actual, by-the-books isekai this season was surprisingly low, on about even footing with the number of single-wold rpg sludge settings; it's purely an academic distinction, but is nature healing...? both populations' crops were pretty decent this season either way, though, so maybe there's something in the water

far and away the best of the bunch is of course isekai shikkaku. this show has essentially the perfect premise, because probably the most interesting aspect of the genre as a whole - and always, by design, completely unaddressed - is the way it so often functions as a suicide fantasy. miserable about your everyday life? bullied at school or beaten down by your shitty job? Don’t worry, the perfect solution is always waiting for you, just a half-step away - all you have to do is die! it’s quick, painless, and also obviously always accidental (whether truck or random heart failure) because you can’t just admit that the power and joy of your escapist fantasy make the death of the ‘real life’ proportionally appropriate, desirable, and necessary; most shows move past their premises as quickly as possible to escape the implication but that doesn’t make it any less present.

so isekai shikkaku’s dazai (who is coincidentally hit by a truck moments before going through with suicide, establishing a Narrative for all the other characters who are coincidentally hit by the same truck while at the lowest points in their lives) is the perfect lead for a show about drawing portraits of the circumstances that lead people to seek that kind of escape, hearing them out, and sending them home. it’s an incredible anti-fantasy, and I could easily see myself outright hating it in a slightly lesser work, but this show is sympathetic and clever enough in its character depictions that the payoffs of characters being returned to their everyday regular lives for a second chance always feels satisfying & well earned.

it’s still not the perfect show by any means; it takes several episodes before it actually gets to the point, and not all of its standalone stories work (tama’s focus arc is unfortunately weak, for example), and although most of its comedy/antics work, it has an equal amount of gags about vestigial genre trappings that aren’t any funnier than they would be played straight (don’t show me those goddamn dialogue boxes). Still, this series has way more meat on its bones than any of its peers and is among the best of the season, even outside of the genre!

of course the other show I kind of liked is its polar opposite iseyuru, new reigning sovereign of No Thoughts Head Empty. once you’ve read the sentence ‘average op isekai protagonist adopts two equally op kids and takes them on low-stakes adventures’ (which is also the series’s title, incidentally) you can easily picture every single thing that happens in this show’s entire run.

the only thing that’s unusual to any degree about this show, given how overwhelmingly by-the-book it is in every other respect, is the absence of 50% of the usual hax-and-harem staples granted to mc-kun. totally excising any ecchi inclinations is not only reasonable but imo necessary to the success of a show with this specific premise, of course, but the absence of any romance on any level was a little surprising to me and, in the void left behind, left me feeling like this might actually be a sleeper Gay Isekai. beyond just being love-interest-less, it’s almost entirely homosocial; all but one of the adult characters takumi spends any amount of time with are men, as are the majority of the supporting roles, not to mention the divine co-parent who saddled him with the kids in the first place. Like…

this is where the main heroine goes in the op, right? also, there is a subplot with an explicitly gay character who wants to kill takumi for supposedly trying to take his man, and the whole thing is just brushed off as kind of a no-harm-no-foul situation. much to consider

i initially assumed that konofuka would end up in a much higher position on this list since it was one of my most anticipated shows of the season and the energy its first few episodes generate is honestly a rare treat. the atmosphere is incredibly rich for a simple trapped-in-vr-mmo story (with an intentionally simple storybook aesthetic), and the tension is electric; the power dynamics/interplay between player groups operating under limited information & the carefully-placed moments of horror/violence in its semi-cutesy setting all work together to raise its stakes in a way that feels natural and immediately immersive.

unfortunately, at the show's approximate halfway point, that just...... stops. it's not shocking for first-arc villains to be dispatched at the end of the first arc, but once our main party foils the enemy debugger team, there's simply nothing left. it has places left that it wants to go, but is content to meander there with no sense of urgency at all. i'd be less bothered by this if the first group of opponents our main party was facing felt like less of an urgent threat, but what sold me on this show was the real sense of danger that suffuses the first arc, and the pivot to kind of half-hearted stumbling-into-danger-that's-not-danger that ensues just isn't compelling in the least in comparison.

it doesn't help that none of the characters have any skin in the game after amano's gotten his (kind of...) revenge; it's a real killer combo of lack of character development, plot progression, or really any sense of purpose at all. there's a little bit of growth for nikola (and haga, by association)... and then a glimmer of akira's nascent maybe-my-team-is-evil arc, though curiously that one doesn't seem to be pointing in the direction of her PKing tendencies (i guess her murdering that man in cold blood was just fine) and instead is just about her getting teleported into a dungeon by alba in a random accident, and i have major issues with the premise of that entire arc and its main villain's villainous activities being a partial retaliation (and also an incidental straight up accident) against tesla, who initiated aggression and is actively trying to harm him. her (& haga's) rigid dedication to enforcing the game's rules to the detriment of others is an interesting setup, but with so little else going on in the back half of the show it can veer into slightly repulsive (i don't really know how else to describe the yamanaka situation and its conclusion), which would be great but i also don't think it's intended at all. so... meh (regretfully)

annnnnddddd at the bottom of the barrel, in every sense of the word, is failure frame, of course, lol. i can't even muster any real contempt for this show the way i can for a shield hero or even an arifureta; it's mostly just a little pathetic. you can tell that it's really aiming for the grimiest depths of those shows at every turn, but while it is almost always at least a little unpleasant, it's also incompetent enough that it's almost endearing; there's just something about how badly it wants the viewer to believe that mc-kun spamming the same three status effect spells and defeating the strongest man in the world before the show is even half over that makes me want to... just pat it on the head and send it on its way, i guess. there are so many little things that add up, like the ugly cg models of the two leads that the designers were so proud of that the entire op and ed sequences are dedicated to showing them off, or the fact that the protagonist has to tell us and his party multiple times not just that they are his found family, but which of his family members back home they individually remind him of. anyways, i'm not actually going easy on it, this show's shockingly badly made and never actually fun to watch, but it's at least not quite as repellent as its peers in the subgenre. also to be honest it gets 1 extra point because misaki watada voices a lead <3

andddd a brief lightning-round for the ‘all the required tropes except the isekai part’ light novel sludge:

mobkara is bad and looks bad but, in the season’s most shocking heel-turn, paid off the previously near-despicable secret-keeping drama between the two leads with a very charming moment of real character growth and mutual understanding. also, the real point of interest is whatever happened in this series’s production that resulted in the character voiced by kanahana regularly singing songs provided by nana mizuki, it’s so funny and jarring every single time

nazeboku looks bad and is bad, and somebody involved in its production should at some point have taken action re: the fact that its character designs/art style are complicated beyond its means to animate, & as such the sheer effort of trying (and failing) to keep them even close to on-model prevents the characters from ever emoting correctly. just nothing but stone-faced staring in all the most emotional scenes lol

and that's the state of the season, more or less! well, i guess i forgot i parry everything which is also genre slop but very pleasant about it. also i feel like i'm slowly dropping my pretence of caring about anything except seiyuu content here so it should be clear i wasn't paying attention to anything in that show except for toshihiko seki playing a smug blonde character. that's what watching anime is about, thanks for playing

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

just want to say i love this blog, honestly was up til 5 reading your britcom thoughts last night. Thank you for going through some seriously long backlogs of podcasts and shows that i would never have the attention span for and finding the highlights/posting your impressions. it helps that i seem to share your opinions on most things lol. i hope you are having or have had the most wonderful time in edinburgh--it's a total bucket list trip for me and if/when i go i wld definitely want to plan it as meticulously as you! :)

Oh wow, thank you for that, that's extremely kind! I love that you've enjoyed things I've written. I have been through a lot of backlogs, and I sometimes feel odd writing about that. When I started this blog it's because I'd watched a lot of panel shows and I wanted to say things about them, mainly to people who'd already seen them. At some point I started getting into increasingly obscure things and figured most people who read this stuff won't have experience with the source material, so I'm not so much saying "Here's what I think about this shared bit of culture" as "Let me tell you about this thing that I found and may or may not be able to provide a link where you can easily find it too, and if not then there's really not point in me writing it as you can't see the context for what I'm talking about, but even if I can provide a link then I know most people realistically won't go look at it, so I'm still giving thoughts on things to people who don't have the context to make any of it interesting." Which would be a greater concern if it weren't for the fact that when I say something about "most" people who read my blog - "most" means "more than half", and I'd guess that for my average post, just over half the total number of people who read it is probably about three. So, you know, may as well just say what I like.

Given that, I do appreciate the validation that some people enjoy reading ramblings about obscure things like that! That it can be interesting even if you don't have the context. Thanks for that, that's such a lovely thing to read. I mean, sorry for keeping anyone up until 5 AM, but I'm glad you're having a good time.

I had a wonderful experience in Edinburgh, got back just over a week ago and it's one of the best things I've ever done. I hope you are able to experience it someday!

[orionsangel86]

I think part of the reason Morpheus is often headcanoned as asexual in this fandom is a combination of people projecting (which is totally valid) and that there's a significant portion of the fandom who hasn't read the comics and only has the show to go off of. In my opinion, in the show he does have strong ace vibes. Much less so in the comics, but it's a lot easier to headcanon a character as ace when your first introduction to them gives you strong ace vibes. So there's probably a good number of people who still headcanon him ace even after reading the comics.

Personally, I just headcanon him as queer. My reason being that if you have a being that is basically the subconsious of all humanity averaged together, the odds of that person being straight is probably low.

As for there being discourse on his sexuality in the fandom: if there is discourse, I've missed it. Though there very well could be discourse on a side of the fandom I'm not in.

This is an interesting viewpoint bearing in mind I have been discussing the exact opposite opinion in a separate post in which we theorised that the show has played up Morpheus' sexual allure...

Without wanting to overspeak here, as someone who is not asexual and therefore cannot speak for that community, I think it is part of a wider cultural thing within fandom that people who are queer and in particular asexual and/or aromantic, tend to relate and imprint rather heavily on characters who tend to be non-human. I think there is probably an interesting psychoanalytical reason for this but its probably a bit too deep of a topic for me to tackle on a Sunday evening.

Dream is just the latest in a whole batch of non-human characters that often get depicted as asexual in their fandoms. I'm thinking characters like Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens, Castiel from Supernatural, The Doctor from Doctor Who, Spock from Star Trek, to name a few.

I can therefore understand why fandom may view Dream this way, even though canonically it isn't technically the case. I don't think there is any harm in it persay, though I think fandoms need to be careful about constantly headcanoning non human characters as ace because what does that say about real asexual humans? Asexuality is a human characteristic at the end of the day, and I wonder if this is just the latest in the trend of queer people in general being made inhuman and "monstrous" which goes all the way back to old hollywood monster movies.

I personally don't pick up any ace vibes from Morpheus in the show. I'm not really sure what I would be looking for regarding "ace vibes" anyway because its just simply a lack of sexual attraction, and I think both episode 6 and episode 11 make it quite clear he experiences sexual attraction, at least in my opinion and interpretation. If its his inhuman element that makes him appear asexual I'll be honest I find that a bit problematic, and I would ask asexual fans to also look internally as to the reasons why they associate inhuman qualities as asexual qualities. Of course if there are qualities he is presenting that can be compared to a lived asexual experience which don't relate to his inhuman nature at all then that is different, and I would like to know more about that since it is an interpretation I do not see and would like to read about.

My viewpoint is that he is quite a sexual character even in the show, and I thought this before I threw myself into the comics and audiobook. Other than episode 1, in which the show does a wonderful job of not sexualising or objectifying him outside of maybe Alex's gay awakening, even though he is completely naked throughout, once he has his clothes back on the show leans into the sexual chemistry he has with every single cast member to the point that its basically an in-fandom joke that Dream is a bit of a slut (affectionate).

Even in the cast interviews, this "Dream is a slut" viewpoint was already known about and acknowledged (thank you Kirby and Mason) so its not exactly a secret that the show is playing up the sexual elements even if currently they remain in subtext. Personally I doubt they will remain in subtext for very long and I think future episodes will quite likely lean into Dream's sexual allure and bring it more into the forefront. I am very curious about how they will adapt Tales in the Sand for instance, which is the only time in the comics that Dream has sex within the panels rather than "off the page" and since that version of Dream won't be portrayed by Tom Sturridge, I do wonder if maybe the show will decide to give us more Dream sex scenes - there is certainly an opportunity to bring Calliopes praises to life in the "show don't tell" manner, and we have yet to discover what they are gonna do with the Thessaly situation, or whether the intense sexual chemistry he had with Johanna Constantine will come to fruition.

I also can't not bring up Dreamling fandom here, because if my experience in Dreamling fandom has taught me anything about the general fandom opinion of Dream, its that the show has clearly encouraged an interpretation of Dream where he wants to climb Hob Gadling like a tree. Fandom hasn't giffed that particular smoldering heated gaze from 1789 20million times for no reason. They giffed it 20million times because it is fucking HOT and sexual and arousing and is the first indication we have in the entire show that Dream himself experiences sexual arousal - because he sure as hell looks aroused in that scene.

As always YMMV and everyone is gonna have different opinions and interpretations and they are all valid in their own ways. I dunno if there is actual discourse I just saw a few comments and wondered if there was. If it helps I also headcanon him as queer, because I think heterosexual is a much smaller limited box to try to shove such a grand and unknowable concept into. I doubt a creature such as Dream would ever limit himself to only one specific type of being, even if that is all the comics were willing to show us of his sexual and romantic history.

[sounds-of-some-day]

Yup. Fans need to pay for a subscription if they want to support these shows. I got an AMC+ subscription because I watch IWTV and Gangs of London.

I wanted to make a post in general about the overall advocacy of piracy, but I am a tiny blog and no one cares about what I think.

But, with respect to this specific show, I will share some thoughts.

I see a lot of people angsting about "What if AMC makes the series run too long, like they did with Walking Dead, and the quality declines?"

and like, y'all, seriously, this should not be your concern right now. TVC are not The Walking Dead, and they were never going to be. I know there's this rumor going around that AMC bought this property as a replacement for The Walking Dead, and I don't know where that comes from, if it's just wishful thinking, or if someone connected to the show or AMC somehow hinted at that, but I seriously hope that it's not the second option, and that AMC is not expecting Walking Dead numbers from IWTV, because that would be really naïve to say the least and I would hope the people in charge of these things have better sense.

During it's peak, The Walking Dead was pulling in 17 million viewers per episode. It was the number one show on cable television. Not just the number one show on AMC - the number one show out of all of the cable networks. Even at it's worst, it was getting 3 million viewers per episode.

The best I can tell for IWTV is that it is averaging less than 0.5 million viewers per episode.

To put this into perspective, Fear the Walking Dead averaged 0.8 million viewers in its last season and it's on cancellation watch.

Here's from cancellation watch after the premiere of IWTV:

"On Sunday, AMC’s heavily promoted Interview With The Vampire–based on the Anne Rice novels–had its premiere but only managed a 0.15 rating based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 622K total viewers.  Those are not terrible numbers, but that is also not a great start for a shiny new franchise that received a notable marketing push prior to its debut.  It was also available on AMC+ the same day (along with the second episode), though, so the digital viewing should give it an additional push."

And the thing is, there was a 40% decline in viewership after the first episode. Why? Well....honestly, most likely because of the gay sex. IWTV was never going to be TWD because it is openly, unabashedly, LGBT. And that is going to turn off a lot of the general viewing public. I'm sorry, but it's true. I wish we lived in a world where that was not the case, but we don't.

So if you want more LGBT media like IWTV, you have to support it. And that means supporting it financially if you can. Look, AMC+ is what? $8.99/month? Ideally you'd continue your subscription, but even if you cancel it after the show airs, you still showed AMC that there is interest in this specific show that generates revenue, and it only cost you less than $20. Are you not willing to put $20 into getting more IWTV??

I know not everyone can, because they live where AMC+ isn't available, or maybe you are truly flat broke, but if you can support the show, man, you gotta do it. Because anything past season two is NOT guaranteed, and we all want to see Sam Reid as Lestat in his rock star era.

So, please, I'm begging you.

And also, the other show in this franchise? The Mayfair Witches? Man, that show is facing an uphill battle because there is zero hype about that show right now and it airs in a little over a month.

Anyway, this got long, so I'll leave it here. But please support this show. And as for how you can do that between now and season two? Keep the hype up. Create fan content. Talk to people about the show. Hype the ever loving shit out if. Cause the one thing IWTV has going for it right now is that the critical reviews have been incredible. That doesn't mean anything without ratings, but it definitely helps.

[themidgardlibrary]

Something that peeves me off is how people will claim that gifted kids were 'privileged' because of how adults treated us. And like. Bitch. No! There's a reason why so many of us are burnt out disasters! It's not a privilege to be told your primary, if not sole worth is your ability to do good on tests.

I never got praise from any adults for my actual inherent traits. I didn't get praised for my interest in art by any adults until I BECAME an adult. I didn't get praised for my thoughtfulness. I didn't get praised for trying to be fair. I didn't get compliments on ANYTHING unless it was related to my school work. My personality did not exist unless it was in service to my school work. I was a trophy, a bragging right, not a PERSON.

Like, I get it, being considered 'dumb' is ALSO hell - and surprise surprise I know exactly how that feels because the moment I struggled with anything I was accused of purposefully being stupid, or pretending to be stupid. The MOMENT I was not performing I was clearly just being stubborn, not, you know, finally hitting a wall of what I could understand without an adult explaining it, not, you know, someone with untreated ADHD who was hitting the early stages of a total burnout because it turns out that when you excel at academics, PEOPLE PILE MORE ACADEMICS ON YOU without regard for whether or not you can handle all the extra work.

At least in general non-gifted kids were allowed to have FRIENDS. And do things OUTSIDE of what would get them good grades. They were allowed to build up some form of self-identity or self esteem that wasn't directly connected to their grades. I and many other gifted kids didn't do that!

And, I need to make it clear, I'm not saying that gifted kids have it worse than normal kids or kids who do poorly in school. WE WERE ALL FUCKED OVER. Every last one of us was hurt because of this. The kids who struggled with schoolwork were written off as hopeless, or not worth the time to teach, as well as being compared to people who excelled. AND THAT IS INCREDIBLY FUCKED UP. Average kids were always being compared to both their gifted counterparts ("Why aren't your grades like your sister's?") and told very clearly they would be less valuable as people if they had any REAL struggles with school. Which, AGAIN, IS PRETTY FUCKED UP.

We were all used against each other, every one of us. We were all made to see each other as enemies, or superiors, or inferiors, when in reality we were all fucking KIDS with our own needs and specialities. The adults in our lives FAILED ALL OF US, and blaming gifted kids only serves to ignore that fact, while further victimising people who in a LARGE number of cases got demoted to 'failure' the moment we were no longer worth bragging about.

Have gifted kids pulled the "Well I'm smarter than you and that makes me better :)" schick? Yeah. And those individuals were being douchebags, often times douchebags who had NOTHING other than the fact they were doing well in school as a sign they had ANY value. Non-gifted kids have pulled the "Yeah you're good at school but you're also a loser who has no practical skills and also you're boring, and you don't deserve friends", and again, those were INDIVIDUALS being assholes, individuals who were constantly being made to see themselves as somehow less valuable. None of the 'sides' was perfect, and none of the 'sides' deserved what they got from adults.

And some of us? Some of us were 'privileged' to get it from both ends - being told by other gifted kids that CLEARLY our failure was a sign we were never really valuable to begin with, all while the people who knew our background as 'gifted' treated us with contempt and often rubbed it in our faces that we were failures.

Again, this insisting any one of the 'sides' was privileged in this situation is fucked up and only goes to further support this shitty system that assigns value to *anyone* based off of academic success when they should be focusing on making sure their kids are happy, healthy, and prepared for the world!