#I’m just very defensive because I’ve been conditioned to be… it’s a me problem lol)

[sluttish-armchair]

yeah I’m gonna edit the script a little (not now); I woobified Winston too much

[probably-haven]

Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^

I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.

.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance

Anyway! onto the actual content!

- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.

- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.

- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.

- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.

- Lets talk about killing. - During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master

..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first... do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"

-

Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it. - the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen. - it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."

- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.

a couple character story quotes:

-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins. The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat." -"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory. No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time. Xiao has spent many long years alone. But his battles have never been in vain." -"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield." -"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage." -"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end." -"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."

i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him. - until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute. - and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.

and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"

...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should. 

to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.

^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.

idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go- Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.

anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.

but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...

He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.

- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts

One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:

A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can.  Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it. 

both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory: Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t

Xiao’s power coming from himself  and Venti’s from others And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes

both have killed a lot of people during the archon war Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself

and this is where we meet out balance

Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty Venti on the other hand-

See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game 

Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-

whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows. 

however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-

Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over- 

they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.

GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING

I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.

anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason

Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of- Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included Xiao: Then why me above others? Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right] Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]

it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings.  I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is. 

I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other-  Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it

within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely

so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action. 

and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways. 

 -Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay

-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though. 

-Messages whispered on the wind

-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips. 

- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.

- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them. - And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself. 

- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change

- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those

- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you: - Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt.  - turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing. 

- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”

- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)

- “How long have you been together?” “Adepti have no need for-” “1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love” “O///O our...? ...useless”

- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics- - so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard- - uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-

- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth.  - Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced. 

- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute - just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh

- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports 

- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.

- and because i just had to.... love languages

- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so- - Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”

- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service - its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that. 

-

- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead. 

[rainingpouringetc]

Hi! So, I’ve been wondering what the problem with Anna Lightwood is, because my brain saw that she was bending gender norms and hit love. But, now that I’m on tumblr, people are saying that she is problematic?

hi! i’ll try my best to explain, idk if i’ll hit everything but i hope this helps. and i’m sorry it took me a while, i wanted to do it justice so i tried to cover my bases and do my research.

basically, anna has said and done things that came across to many as ignorant, racist, and even misogynistic. 

first, let’s look at “every exquisite thing” from ghosts of the shadowhunter market. 

“If I were to tell my parents the truth about myself, if I were to reveal who I really am, they would despise me. I would be friendless, cast out, alone.”

Anna shook her head.

“They would not,” she said. “They would love you. You are their daughter.”

Ariadne drew her hand back from Anna’s. “I am adopted, Anna. My father is the Inquisitor. I do not have parents who are as understanding as yours must be.”

“But love is what matters,” said Anna.

this is from when ariadne was trying to explain why she would be getting engaged to charles. anna is very lucky: her family loves and accepts her and she’s able to live her life as she wishes, which we see her doing in chain of gold. ariadne, however, is not as lucky, and she has to take into consideration the conditions of her parents’ love. anna apparently struggles to understand this, ignoring ariadne’s valid concerns and telling her that it doesn’t matter because “love is what matters,” as if it makes everything perfect.

this is where anna’s ignorance begins to show through. ariadne is: (a) a woman in the late 1800s/early 1900s (i don’t remember for sure what year this story took place but i’d assume 1900s), (b) indian at a time when india is under british rule, (c) adopted, and (d) a lesbian shadowhunter. we know enough about how intolerant people have been about homosexuality, but shadowhunters are a whole other story. put all of this together and you have someone who is terrified of letting down her family and being shunned by society more than she already has been. in ariadne’s mind, she has no choice but to hide who she is.

 anna ignores this. entirely. she doesn’t take the time to talk to ariadne about her concerns, but rather skirts around them and insists that what she wants is what’s more important. this is highly indicative of her privilege and how she puts herself before others and others’ feelings.

now let’s look at chain of gold. there are two scenes in particular that i want to look at, but there are more.

“I quite like your mother. She reminds me of a queen out of a fairy tale, or a peri from Lalla Rookh. You’re half-Persian, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cordelia said, a little warily.

“Then why is your brother so blond?” Anna asked. “And you so redheaded--I thought Persians were darker-haired.”

Cordelia set her cup down. “There are all sorts of Persians, and we all look different,” she said. “You wouldn’t expect everyone in England to look alike, would you? Why should it be different for us? My father is British and very fair, and my mother’s hair was red when she was a little girl. Then it darkened, and as for Alastair--he dyes his hair.”

“He does?” Anna’s eyebrows, graceful swooping curves, went up. “Why?”

“Because he hates that his hair and skin and eyes are dark,” said Cordelia. “He always has. We have a country house in Devon, and people used to stare when we went into the village.”

Anna’s eyebrows had ceased swooping and taken on a decidedly menacing look. “People are--” She broke off with a sigh and a word Cordelia didn’t know. “Now I rather feel sympathy toward your brother, and that was the last thing I wanted. Quick, as me a question.”

this scene is from cordelia’s tea with anna. i won’t touch so much on the “peri from lalla rookh” comment so much as i’m afraid i don’t feel well enough qualified or researched to adequately represent people’s concerns about this statement, but i do know that there were several posts going around about people discussing how it rubbed them the wrong way, so i thought i would include it as well.

the rest, though, is a bit more obvious. one of the things about books is that it can be more difficult to interpret someone’s words and their meaning because we don’t have things like tone or facial expressions or any of that unless the author explicitly includes it. however, we can draw on the way other characters react to certain comments. cordelia goes on the defense, answering anna’s question “a little warily,” setting aside her tea and explaining rather bluntly that not all persians look the same. it’s pretty easy to infer from her reaction that she’s uncomfortable from anna’s words. now, is that to say anna was intentionally being racist toward cordelia and her family? absolutely not. this is where microaggressions come into play. we see them with anna and also with matthew and even jessamine (though we see hers in the infernal devices rather than the last hours). microaggressions, while often unintentional, are still a form of racism. given the times these characters have grown up in, it’s not necessarily a surprise, but that certainly doesn’t excuse her behavior.

there is, however, a more intentional party to this scene that really rubbed me the wrong way. it’s her discussion of alastair. cordelia has just explained that alastair dyes his hair to stop people from staring at him when he’s walking down the street, and anna replies that she feels sympathy for him and that is “the last thing” she wanted. i understand that she has her own feelings about alastair, likely from listening to the merry thieves’ depiction of him, but that doesn’t excuse her. she even starts to say something about it, likely drawing on her own experiences of wearing menswear at a time when fashion was much more strictly regulated in society than it is today. but she stops herself and instead goes on to reemphasize her dislike for cordelia’s brother and changes the subject.

She held up a small black-bound memorandum book... “This,” she announced, “will hold answers to all our questions.”

...

Matthew looked up, his eyes fever-bright. “Is this your list of conquests?”

“Of course not,” Anna declared. “It’s a memorandum book... about my conquests. That is an important but meaningful distinction.”

...

Anna flipped through the book. There were many pages, and many names written in a bold, sprawling hand.

“Hmm, let me see. Katherine, Alicia, Virginia--a very promising writer, you should look out for her work, James--Mariane, Virna, Eugenia--”

“Not my sister Eugenia?” Thomas nearly upended his cake.

“Oh, probably not,” Anna said. “Laura, Lily... ah, Hypatia. Well, it was a brief encounter, and I suppose you might say she seduced me...”

i hope i don’t have to explain this one too much. there’s just something... unsettling about the fact that anna is held up as this feminist icon and yet she keeps a book with the names of and her encounters with all the women she’s slept with... and then reads those names aloud to everyone. it’s a bit much, don’t you think? and all of this is even without touching the leak we got about her and ariadne, which i’d rather not speculate on too much but is also quite damning. 

all in all, i’d like to believe anna is really a good person who’s just misguided and confused, much because i love the idea of a genderqueer character, especially one in an era before stonewall, but her actions and behaviors have led me to believe that she has a long road ahead of her. as i said earlier this week:

let me get something clear: i would die for fanon anna but canon anna needs to get her shit together before i’ll willingly breathe in her direction

i really hope this was helpful... i did my best lol. if anyone else has more to add, please feel free.

[lovely-ateez]

Cold Ice & Warm Hearts~

ꕥPosted: 12/24/20

ꕥGenre: College!au, Christmas Imagine, Fluff

ꕥPairing: FemReader! x Jongho

ꕥWord Count: 1.8k

ꕥWarnings: None

ꕥA/N: I’ve been watching a shit ton of ice skating videos lately so this is the result lol

Ice skating was my favorite part of the holiday season without a doubt. I was always able to skate more around December since I had a month off from college, which was fantastic. Not to mention that more people would skate than usual, meaning the more people I could teach to skate, feeling pride swell in my chest as I saw them improve.

I was recently gifted a pair of beautiful white ice skates by one of my friends as an early Christmas present. Although the holiday was right around the corner, she said she just couldn’t wait to give them to me, knowing how much I needed new skates.

“You’re completely wearing out your old ones,” She told me, “These will treat you much better.”

Although I very much loved my old pair, I had to admit she had a point. The laces were tearing and the soles were wearing down, making it very difficult to skate without having to stop and adjust them every few seconds.

Tonight I was walking to the outdoor skating rink only a few blocks from my apartment. I lived in a relatively busy city so I expected many people to be there, but I never minded that. It made me happy to see so many enjoying it.

As I walked with my ice skates, my mind wandered. It had been a few months since I last skated and I had been dying to get back. I was slightly nervous; however. I always was if I hadn’t skated in a while. Part of me worried that I would fall as often as I did when I began or forget how to skate all together.

I sat on the benches next to the rink to put my skates on when a deep, attractive laugh caught my attention. I turned my head to the right of the rink, observing the young man it came from. He was about average height and had one of the most endearing smiles I had ever seen. His dark brown hair swayed in the wind as he slightly picked up speed. His long, tan jacket looked warm and for a brief moment I had to refrain myself from thinking about how it would feel to cuddle up next to him.

He was surrounded by four other men, some obviously more skilled than others, but he, himself, wasn’t bad at all. He could skate relatively well and I wondered if he grew up skating like I did. Or maybe he was a natural talent?

His build was strong. I could tell that even with the several layers he was wearing. He certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes, to say the least.

One of the men near him stumbled and fell, the others laughing while the man wearing the tan jacket helped him up, a slight smile on his face but still expressing concern.

He seems kind.

I shook myself from my thoughts and tied the soft white laces of my skates. There were more people on the rink than I expected and it made me smile. Maybe some would find passion in it like I did.

I stepped out on the ice and made several strides, feeling silly for being nervous before. Ice skating was so ingrained in me that I had no reason to be. I moved to the rhythm of the Christmas music playing overhead and felt the world fading away. My worries, fears, stressors—all of it—melted from me as I made laps around the rink, occasionally adding a spin or two.

I was only slightly aware of the people looking in my direction and the gasps in awe being directed towards me. Because honestly, it didn’t matter. I never cared much for the compliments. Sure they were nice, but I skated for myself. To improve myself, not to impress others. Although, perhaps tonight I had a  motive to impress a certain man. Only perhaps.

I slowed down to look at the sky above me. The lights surrounding the rink only a slight distraction from the twinkling stars.

How gorgeous.

Smiling to myself I leisurely spun around, eyes still locked on the sky. I didn’t need to constantly look at the ice to keep my balance. It took some practice, but it became second nature to keep my balance no matter where I was looking.

“Miss?”

The slight disappointment I had from being interrupted only lasted for a few seconds until I saw the man I had been admiring in front of me. I blinked a few times, his handsome features up close catching me off guard.

“Yes?”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but where did you learn to skate like that?”

A wide smile spread across my face at his question, “I grew up skating. I practiced nearly every weekend.”

He nodded, “That’s impressive. Think you could teach me?”

“Teach you what exactly? You seem to have a good grasp on skating already.”

He chuckled and looked down, confidence faltering for only a moment, his gummy smile emerging, “Okay if I’m being honest, that was my best attempt to ask if you’d like to skate with me.”

I raised a brow and looked over to his friends who were giggling in our direction until they were caught off guard by my gaze, quickly averting their eyes.

“Do your friends have anything to do with this?”

“I mean, I suppose a little. I wanted to approach you so they encouraged me. It wasn’t a dare or anything like that if you were wondering.”

“That’s cute of them.” I cocked my head for a moment, “I don’t mind, but are you sure you can keep up? I can’t promise I’ll slow down for you.”

“I can certainly try.”

I nodded and skated off, not waiting for him to join by my side, but knowing he would, and he eventually did.

“So,” I began, “May I have your name?”

“That would probably be useful information, yes.” He laughed, “I’m Jongho. What’s yours?”

I introduced myself and he nodded, a slight smile still on his face.

“You’re really attractive, you know that?”

He flushed, “Wow. Are you always this blunt?”

“Usually,” I shrugged.

“I admire that. I am too, most of the time.”

“Yeah?” I skated slightly ahead of him, turning around and skating backwards, still facing him, “You give off the vibe that you would be.”

His eyes became playful, “What other vibes do I give off?”

“Hmm. You look strong, so maybe you work in construction? Or some other profession that requires physical strength,” I raised my hand to my chin, “Also, I feel like you play an instrument. Maybe you sing? Either way I think you’re musically inclined.”

“You’re wrong with the profession. I’m a college student but I’m on a dance team so it requires strength. Plus I just like working out. You were right about the singing, though. It’s a hobby of mine.”

Jongho once again smiled, but it quickly disappeared and his eyes widened. He reached out towards me grabbing my arms and pulling me close.

“What are you-”

A little girl skated past us at a fast speed, right where I had been before.

My heart was racing, almost to the point of not being able to form words, but I had to thank him, “Oh my gosh thank you.”

“Hey it’s no problem.”

I noticed how close we were, my hands placed on his chest with his arms locked on my back. All at once I felt as if my breath had been taken from me as I looked into his dark eyes. I felt myself being drawn to him, unknowingly leaning in closer.

And then he let me go, skating away from me, “Are you gonna catch up?”

I brought my hands to my cheeks, feeling their heat before shaking it off and skating next to him.

Jongho looked in my direction when I reached his side, “Your cheeks are awfully pink, darling. Are you feeling cold?”

His cocky voice and the pet name caught me off guard and I looked anywhere but him, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Oh don’t get shy now. What happened to the blunt and confident girl I met earlier?”

“She’s blushing right now. And feeling nervous because she thought you were going to kiss her.”

He titled his head, “Did she want that happen?”

“She might have...” I bit my bottom lip and nodded, “She did.”

“Well you’ve gotta take me out to dinner first.” He laughed, “But, I might make an exception for you. On one condition.”

“Which is?”

I noticed he stopped skating and I stopped as well, curious as to what he might want.

“I want to go on a date with you.”

I narrowed my eyes, “You aren’t a player, are you?”

“No, not at all!” Jongho raised his hands in defense, “I just think you’re really beautiful and I’d like to get to know you better.”

I giggled at the compliment, feeling shy, “In that case, I agree to all terms and conditions.”

“Come here, then.”

I skated slightly closer to him, placing my hands on his warm cheeks as I felt his hands rest on my hips.

“I haven’t kissed anyone in a hot minute.” I confessed.

“That makes two of us,” Were his last words as he placed his lips on mine. His lips felt so warm and inviting and only until that moment did I realize how badly I had wanted to kiss him. I pulled him closer to me and kissed him harder, leaving me breathless. Too soon we pulled apart, eyes finding the other’s.

Jongho’s gummy smile appeared and I felt my heart skip. The cheer of several men brought me back to my surroundings.

“Yeah,” Jongho rubbed his neck, looking in their direction, “They’re a bit crazy but you get used to them.”

“I’d like to.”

His eyes warmed and he took my by the hand, “So when are you free? I know a great restaurant that just opened up a week ago. We’ll have to hurry though, Christmas is right around the corner and I’m sure we won’t be able to get in for the next few days.”

“Oh yeah? How about this Friday?”

“Perfect.”

“What’s your favorite flower?”

I furrowed my brows, “Why?”

“Well if you think that I’m going to show up at your place without bringing you flowers, you’re sadly mistaken.”

I bit my lip again and looked down at the ice, “I tend to like peonys.”

“Noted.”

We exchanged numbers and said goodbye far too early for my liking, but his friends began to complain about being hungry, and he caved.

Watching Jongho walk away I decided to head back home. Originally I planned on skating for a while after, but I couldn't seem to concentrate with all the butterflies in my stomach.

Not even halfway back to my apartment I received a text from Jongho, making me smile. 

‘Don’t forget our date!’ He wrote.

‘I’ll be looking forward to it :)’

The butterflies in my stomach returned. Feeling childish with these new emotions, I skipped the rest of the way home with a smile on my face. All but holding my breath for the next time I would see him.

[danielletinybruiser]

The Good Fight New York/New Jersey Open 7/31/21

I competed yesterday! And I actually feel really good about it! I'm a writer, so, writing about my experiences helps me really grasp them and process them and such, so, here goes! 

And also: as always, when I compete, it's in basically no-stakes tournaments for anybody. I'm not going to big competitions, I'm just doing this as a hobby and going to light fires under my butt and test my skills as they are in the moment. So, I take it seriously, but I don't go into this with delusions of grandeur! I do not think I am the next Danielle Kelly.

(Content warning for weight here, I talk about it a fair bit!)

I think I prepared pretty well this time around! I trained *a lot* and took conditioning very seriously. I also had a funny thing with weight: since getting my (cough, cough, under my breath) Peleton - I've been riding a lot and running a ton using the app. I sure thought I was being a genius doing frequent two-a-day cardio workouts, thinking "oh yeah, I'll be 125 no problem." Instead, obviously, I gained some muscle weight from doing tons of high intensity interval workouts. It's a good thing! I'm so much stronger than I was, walking now at 134-137, and my cardio is very solid. But it did mean having to be very conscious of weight to ensure I came in at 135 on Saturday.

Again, this should actually be ideal for this level of competition (read: LOW), because it means my walking weight and competition weight are super nice and close (I used to be around 126-129 and still competed at 135, thanks to the other major tournament I do having nothing between 120 and 135), and I feel so much more durable.

An action shot! Thanks for reading so far! Lol

So, I was strict with my diet for the last month (I usually am, this just meant no cheat days for a couple of weeks, really), and did weigh-ins periodically, then every day in the last week. It also meant doing a little bit of math and knowing exactly what kind of food I could have in the morning, and what was safe to do in terms of sweating just in case. It was good to know, because that came in handy!

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 136.2 (you get a 1lb allowance, so I was only .2 over). I did a shorty 15 minute HIIT workout so I could have a tiny bit of food and fluid, being very careful to not dehydrate or do anything stupid. I'm not going to cut weight for this, lol, but it would be truly ridiculous for me, at my height (5'5") and body composition (muscular, but not JACKED), to have to go in at 145 for being, you know, .2 over.

The nice side effect of a short workout in the morning was helping my nerves a little bit (they were BAD), so at least that helped me breathe. I don't know if I've ever been this anxious before competing before, and I'm not sure exactly why — I know there are no stakes besides my pride, there's no money on the line, this isn't my career! This is my hobby, for fuck's sake, so I don't know why my body interpreted "lets compete" as "we are going to WAR and we might DIE," but there it was! I was scared! Brains are stupid!

We got a tiny bit lost on the way, but it was ok because things were running behind at the tournament. No problem at all. I made weight (135.6) and started to warm up. The venue had plenty of extra space on a turf field to warm up, and Viki was a SAINT, not only to drive my nervous ass over, but to help me warm up about six times. I felt better after just drilling and flow rolling a tiny bit.

It was a long wait, but my gi division was up first. I had one opponent at bantamweight, so, a small bracket in gi.

Here's how it goes in a submission-only tournament: you have your brackets, for a full division it's basically semi-finals and finals, with a bronze medal match and the two winners do a gold/silver match. With two, it's best two out of three wins gold, the other person gets silver.

For blue belts, we have eight minute regulation matches. No points, no advantages, no stupid bullshit (sorry, I hate points tournaments). If you both survive eight minutes with no submissions, you go into overtime rounds: a back take, a spiderweb/armbar, and a classic head and arm triangle. For each, the defender needs to escape, and the attacker needs to submit. If you successfully escape, and you successfully submit, you win! If both people escape, or both people submit, you go to the next round, and it repeats as needed (back, armbar, triangle).

It's a great format, imo, and really suits my style: I play defense, I like to wear people down, and then go for it when I see an opportunity. I will play all kinds of wild positions and try to get creative and weird with it, and frankly have fun, and I think submission-only facilitates that!

Still, I was so goddamned nervous.

We started the match and it was ON. My opponent and I were really, really well matched. Size and skill wise, we gave each other a lot of hell. It was rough, too, and I have all the bruises on my face to prove it! But I was having fun. A lot of fun.

Overtime action shot!

Our match went through regulation, to overtime. I escaped her back take, but her coaches fought with the ref a little. I offered to do it again, because, hey, I want to do it better. This may have been stupid of me, but I also, like... the reason I like sub-only so much is that I hate stupid technicalities and bullshit. So I offered to go again and did! And I escaped pretty well. On my turn to attack, I submitted her.

I honestly couldn't believe I won a match in gi. The last time I got a gold medal in gi, it was because I went to the 30+ division, and my opponent was 53. I was happy to win that day, but like... c'mon. I was 35 at the time. In sub-only, women don't have age categories, and I believe my opponent was maybe a bit younger than me, but probably not far from my age, and tough as hell. She was my size, we were well-matched in strength. And she BROUGHT IT.

I remember that going through my head, like "you can win in gi???" I could hardly believe it. I got my hand raised IN GI.

This felt great, and I was basically in shock.

(I won't belabor this, but I hate the gi. I think I'm terrible in it. Tuesday night - my last hard training day before competition, I did ok, but felt demoralized. I almost cried after training and told Viki that night "I don't think I'm going to compete in gi" and thought about pulling my registration. This is why I couldn't believe it, lol).

We had a short break and went again. Again, we did the full regulation match - she had an armbar at one point that I escaped, and I did have a last second back take and choke attempt, but I ran out of time. We went to overtime, I escaped her back take... and I remember, in the moment, getting ready for my turn to attack: "this is probably for a medal. IN GI. You are this close!" and I cinched it with a submission. I got my hand raised again. I thanked her and her coaches, and even chatted with them a little.

We went to the podium - another woman congratulated me on the match, saying she watched it and love dit. The podium worker said the same, and I was flattered. Kirsten (my opponent, who again, was fucking AWESOME and tough) and I did the podium thing, getting our medals and taking pictures.

Podium action shot!

Then, it was off to watch my teammate Ollie compete and kick ass,  and then get changed for no-gi, where I absolutely knew Kirsten was going to come for blood, lol.

It still didn't feel real: a gold medal? Me? Danielle? Gi-hating Danielle who almost cried after just training in a gi on Tuesday night (again, nothing went wrong, lol, my training partners are incredibly conscientious and were preparing me!) - I let myself wear the medal for a couple of minutes before putting it in the backpack.

Even now, just about 24 hours later, it doesn't feel completely real. I swear, I only even compete in the gi because it's just five bucks more to do both divisions, and you may as well get all the rolls you can on a day you are showing up.

There was a pretty big time gap between gi and no gi, but I was honestly a little nervous again. They put a (fantastic) purple belt (that's the next skill level up if you aren't familiar with jiu jitsu, and a pretty huge gap for me, being honest) in our division, and I faced her first. There was really no pressure at all here, I do not expect to win against a purple belt. I feel — very honestly — that I have a very, very long way to go in blue. Based on how the day went, I do feel like I'm on my way, and making real improvements — But I'm no where near purple.

I survived about five minutes of an eight minute regulation period, and did survive a pretty intense back take at first, but she got me with a second back take and rear naked choke/crank. All the power to her!

Then, the bronze medal match was between me and Kirsten again (who I faced in gi). Holy shit, this was a doozy. We fought really, really hard in regulation. I know she wanted it BADLY after gi, and I could tell she had serious wrestling and probably Judo as well in her background. She tossed my ass around! It was rough and it was tough, and my face is a little fucked up today, not going to lie. But I loved it, and loved rolling with her — she had such good pressure, and beautiful knee cuts, and she was strong and fast and athletic.

We went through regulation, to the first overtime. I won the "rock paper scissors" to determine who went first and I took her back... and she escaped. She did her back attack, and I escaped. 

At this point, I was TIRED. Not no much cardio-tired (I have myself conditioned pretty well), but... "I want to lie down and sleep" tired. But I got her in the armbar position for the second round, squeezed... and got the tap! Again, I thought "you are this close to a medal!" and defended the second round armbar well.. I really, really thought I was out, but in the last possible instant she just NAILED IT and got my arm back and I had to tap. It was fantastic, she did well to grab it back.

So, we went to a third round of overtime. Triangle. I had her in, squeezed, cut the angle... and got the tap! Yes! Now, I really knew I was close. I tapped her, all I needed to do was escape her triangle and I'd have a bronze in no-gi. I wanted it. I really wanted it!

I got into her triangle. It was tight right away (which it should be!), I *thought* I had stacked her in the correct position to escape, I thought I could do it...

And then... I remember dreaming. I started coming to, thinking I was asleep in my bed, and that i was dreaming about competition. I started to become conscious, and I heard her say "I think she's out!" and saw her face and the ref's face. It took me a few moments, but I realized where I was, and that I had passed out completely. She sank a PERFECT blood choke on me. Absolutely picture perfect.

I sort of kept saying, in my confusion "I'm ok! I'm ok!" and shook her hand and kind of stumbled off the mat.

Me, laughing in utter confusion after taking a nice nap on the mat (my opponent was really nice about it!)

Later on, I realized: we were actually supposed to go to a fourth overtime round! We both submitted to a triangle (if you lose consciousness, that counts as a tap!), and I believe the ref was actually asking me if I wanted to continue. Hand to heart, I'm not trying to save face, I just didn't realize it at all, in my complete confusion. I accidentally forfeited by walking off, lol. I seriously had no idea, and honestly, it was probably better that I didn't try to do another round THAT confused.

But still, that is absolutely going to be something I kick myself about, for forever. Just being THAT CLOSE.

By the way, I will say: it was the second time losing consciousness in jiu jitsu (and the first time... I'm not sure I was all the way out, this time I absolutely was) — it doesn't hurt. I'm not saying it's pleasant or great, exactly, it's very, very disorienting, because you actually start to dream a bit and have NO IDEA where you are for a few. But I would rather that than a broken arm or a torn ACL, so, as things happen on the mat, really not a terrible experience.

Kirsten deserves all the respect in the world — she put me out, and FAST (I had no idea how fast until Viki told me, lol. I sure thought I was fighting it for much longer!). She was wonderful to compete with, and I felt we were very evenly matched and got the best out of one another. I chatted with her afterward and we both complimented one another.

Overall, I'm proud of how hard I fought. I know that, in competition, I have absolutely defeated my self before, and gotten so discouraged. It's never conscious, I will always push, I will always mechanically force myself to get back up and get back out. Always. But mentally, in the past, I've really fucked myself.

Yesterday, I vowed to stay patient, and I actually did. I stuck to a gameplan fully: patience, defense, attacking whenever I saw or felt an opportunity. I actually feel, for the first time, that I did my best out there, the best I can do with my jiu jitsu right now, at 4.5 years of training, as a blue belt with one stripe.

That is a wildly unfamiliar feeling. Every other time I've competed, I've come out with at least a few things that were "holy christ, I am terrible at X and need to work on Y." The only other slight exception was the sub only tournament I got my first-ever medals at (silver in both) where I legitimately shocked myself. Even then, I had a couple of specific things I needed to work on (ankle lock defense! I still think about it!)

I'm a little bit beat up today (that armbar I thought I was out of, then got caught right at the last second? I tapped on time, but "on time" with adrenaline is "a tiny bit late" so it hurts like hell today), and will probably just do cardio for a few days to take time to heal up before going back to grappling. But I feel really proud. I feel good about it. I feel stupid as hell for accidentally forfeiting, but overall very pleased with the day.

Where do I go from here? Rubber guard, baby! I want to get *great* at rubber guard. And this has given me a huge boost to keep chipping away at gi, no matter how much I may hate it in the moment. Because I won yesterday, I do get a free invitation to the submission only worlds for this tournament, so, that's something I can think about...

But for now... I'm going to try and let the good parts sink in. Viki got me victory pizza last night, and holy shit, I don't know if anything has ever tasted so good :D

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Okay so tumblr did something super weird with the formatting and I couldn’t fix it; for some reason it had the page cut under the ask itself (as if the ask itself had the page cut in it) so I literally couldn’t edit it out and re-format it right. So I just took a screencap of the ask and I’ll respond via a standard textpost.

Gonna give a little warning because I’m gonna be talking about child abuse a bit.

Glad to hear it, anon. :) I try to keep an open mind with these discussions.

Tbh, I kinda get uncomfortable with some of the stuff I've seen in her tag regarding Zuko especially. I've seen a handful of people kind of dismissing him as being whiny or sensitive, and I just don't really vibe with that. I don't have anything against any of the people I've seen posting it, but I just don't vibe with.

I'm also gonna take the opportunity to try to break some of the misconceptions about the Azula fandom by saying that I don't feel afraid or intimidated to kinda go against a good portion of the fandom in a sense. And that's because, fellow Azula fans have never really outcast me or tried to fight me for saying that I think that Azula's a bit of an abuser. The Azula fandom imo, isn't full of bullies and hateful people; everyone I have talked to has been very open to a nice discussion. I think that it just depends how you approach them with your arguments.

All of that said, Imma get back on topic here; It’s a little tough to talk about Azula's flaws sometimes because I feel like (though, thankfully this hasn’t happened on tumblr to me yet) that some people take pointing out flaws in your faves as bashing them or posting hate.

But honestly this is really cool to hear because back when I first opened up this blog I used to do that thing where I’d justify everything that my faves did, which was a bit of a problem because my faves are all antagonists! xD So there has been a lot of progress made.

I think that there are three main reasons that people have a hard time admitting that she’s an abuser too.

I think that the biggest one is that a lot of Azula fans lately have been massively on the defensive. There has been quite a bit of hate in her tag, there have been things said by the writers (taken the wrong way or not), there have been a lot of generalizations, and so on. And all of it kind of puts fans on the defensive. I see so many posts about how Azula is irredeemable and just the worst, most evil character in the show and so people kind of swing hardcore the other way (Azula did nothing wrong) to make up for all of the demonizing she gets. One extreme usually leads to another. Seeing Azula get so much shit, like being called a killer and a sadist, provokes the Azula is a cinnamon roll reaction. Basically when a fandom gets put on blast for being 'the crazy' or 'mean' side of the fandom, I feel like it creates a cycle where that part of the fandom starts to actually act meaner because they feel backed into a corner. The more they are called 'delusional' for seeing good in Azula the more radically they will start to defend that belief until the shades of grey start disappearing, if that makes sense.

But this is just a theory of course.

The second reason I think that people tend to dismiss the things she does do wrong is that there's this association with criticism and hate. And this goes beyond the Avatar fandom. In general I feel like people find it hard to say bad things about their favorite characters because they feel like they're bashing their character and/or they don't want people to think that they are being negative. Plus it's just kinda hard to say bad things about something you like/love. Speaking as someone who used to do this; I always felt really weird about or like I was being negative when admitting that things I like have flaws. I'm not exactly sure why I used to feel like this because it wasn't an, 'I seem myself in this character, so insulting them is like insulting me' thing because I usually have almost nothing in common with my faves. Idk, it's just always been way easier for me to find things I like in a character I hate than it is for me to find things I don't like in a character that I do. On a personal level, it might just be because I'd rather focus on liking things that I like than hating things that I hate?

I guess that I think that it's just easy to forget that 'I don't like xyz aspect of Azula' is not the same as 'I don't like Azula at all'. I think that it's possible to love a character but not love everything about them, just like real people; you can love your mom to death but there will always be those things about her that drive you nuts.

And really, imo, I think that fans who are able to see flaws with their faves are the ones who understand them the best. I'm definitely not saying that the people who don't see/acknowledge their fave's flaws don't understand their fave. But I think that they are missing out on very crucial aspects of their favorite character. If you like a character you should like them for what they are in canon, not what you want them to be or what they could be.

I see a lot of potential for growth in Azula. I see potential for a redemption arc and I do love what her character can be. But I also love her character as is. Currently in canon, she's manipulative and goal driven to the point where she has a disregard for people. Currently she's an antagonist and I love her for that. Because antagonist, unredeemed Azula is the character I liked in the beginning. I don't condone her being manipulative and I don't like that as a personality trait. But I do love it as far as, she is a fantastically written antagonist. And those cold, manipulative, abusive traits add to her complexity when juxtaposed against her own abuse, insecurities, and need to be loved.

And that's kind of what I mean when I say that, if you like Azula, you should like her despite the flaws.  If that makes sense. I feel like people who say that she isn't an abuser (at least to some degree) kind of have a misunderstanding of her character. I think that one of the points of her character is to show that some abused kids don't come out okay. It's a tragic reality.

But with Azula I think that there's still room for her to change and start to break that cycle. I feel like she'd have a much harder time doing it than Zuko, because she has been subjected to his mental abuse in close range for much longer than he has. And I think that it would be something she'd struggle with her whole life, but I see good in her.

That said, I think that the third reason people have trouble seeing her as an abuse is because it is just really hard to see abuse victims become the abuser. I've mentioned before, but I come from a family where the chain ended with one of my parents. Said parent has told me many times how hard it was to fight that kind of upbringing. That's the real tragedy of abuse, it just goes on and on until you're mentally strong enough to fight yourself and break that chain. And the sad thing is, that some people just can't seem to do that. And I think that when discussing Azula, this comes into play a bit; it's just hard to look at even a fictional abuse victim and knowledge that they've become the abuser because it is all that they have known.

It's just a really hard topic and  that's why it's so easy for discourse like this to get heated; a lot of people have an Azula in their lives or relate to her in some way.

Thanks for the ask, sorry it took so long to reply! I wanted to make it thoughtful and word everything the best that I can.

As always, everyone is welcomed to chime in and give their own opinions.

EDIT: There are a few things that I don’t think I was clear enough on with the initial post lol. First and foremost, I’m definitely not saying that these three reasons are the only reasons people don’t talk about Azula’s flaws. @wingsfreedom​ made a good point about differing ways of interpreting scenes. That’s another biggy. 

The other thing I want to clarify is that I don’t think that Azula is a full on abuser. I think that she displays tendencies and does some abusive things. But I also don’t put her on the same level as Ozai. I feel like she’s a bit more merciful than him. Like Ozai is pretty much too far gone; he’s an abuser and his mind is set there. Azula, I think still has the capacity to break the chain. She’s not a lost cause. I also feel like she can be reasoned with more than Ozai. Ozai is all about power; Azula is motivated more by desperation (be it for her father’s love, to keep the last bit of control she has, and to keep her friends). It still leads to that harmful behavior, but I don’t think that she’s a lost cause like Ozai. Like, she has some abusive tendencies now, but I can also see her being able to break the chain under the right conditions.  If that makes sense. 

[roadtohappy]

Why I detransitioned

I mentioned it briefly in response to someone else’s post, but I believe this subject deserves a post of its own. It included the statement: “I detransitioned because my identity changed, and I don’t regret my transition”, to which I expressed how much it resonated with me - and here’s why.

I was, I am, and I always will be transgender. As a young girl, I developed gender dysphoria. To anyone who’s unfamiliar with what that means, gender dysphoria is a term used to describe the emotional pain and distress a person experiences when their biological sex and their self-perceived gender do not match - a body/brain incongruence, if you will.

When I came out of the closet and told my family and peers that I identified as male, I had already spent a considerable amount of time contemplating my situation. I questioned myself constantly, and doubted every answer. I did this prior to, and after coming out, and even during my social and medical transition. Not because I was unsure of myself, but because I needed to know if there was any chance that my gender dysphoria could’ve been caused by something other than simply being transgender. It was important for me to unveil and deal with any underlying issues that could’ve been linked to my gender-identity, because it’s better to find out early on and stop before you find yourself overwhelmed with regret later in life if it turns out that you were actually mistaken. I asked myself the same questions constantly; “Am I being influenced by my peers? Media? Online communities?” “Is my brain using this as a defense mechanism to mask childhood trauma?” “Am I using my trans identity to escape from my past/present problems?” “Do I have any undiagnosed psychiatric or medical conditions that could alter how I perceive myself?” “Can I learn to cope with my gender dysphoria without transitioning?” “Am I trying to mend the absence of my father and lack of male role models by becoming male myself?” “Do I have any unhealthy ideas of what it means to be a woman?” “Do I have enough strong female role models in my life?” “Am I simply not ready to become a woman yet? if so, why?”

-These are all questions you should never ever be afraid to ask yourself, no matter where you are in your transition - whether you’re in the closet or out. Early, mid or late-transition; it is never a bad time to discover yourself and make the best choices for yourself, wherever they may lead you. This is not at all meant to discourage anyone from transitioning, but rather inspire people to ask them self the right questions.

As I mentioned in my introduction-post; I started living as a boy at 15, meaning I wore boy’s clothes, and went by a male name and male pronouns. I started taking male hormones when I was 18. If you’re unfamiliar with what hormone therapy does for trans people, it essentially means that you’re taking hormones regularly to induce a second puberty in order to bring on characteristics of your identified gender. I’m now 21 years old and I had chest-masculinization surgery 8 months ago. I never wanted to go any further than hormones and top-surgery, as my dysphoria mainly revolved around my feminine voice and other minor characteristics, and my breasts. The further I progressed into my transition, my gender dysphoria decreased, as you’d expect. After having my top-surgery, I also no longer feel dysphoric about my chest. To my surprise, I now feel completely comfortable with my natural body, including my femininity.

Early 2020 when the lockdown started, I began to spend more time alone by myself, going on long nature walks and exploring my thoughts through art and creative activities as a way to “unlearn” some of the unhealthy masking-behaviors I’ve taught myself over the years, in order to fit in better among other people. (Very common coping mechanism in autistic people, apparently.) As I began this process of “un-masking” I made it my top-priority to stop caring so much about what other people think of me or how other people expect me to look, talk and act. My new mindset became something along the lines of “Okay, the way my brain is built means that I experience the world and process information differently from other people, which also means that my actions and feelings are based on a different set of experiences than other people. I will no longer measure my worth by my ability to blend in and be ‘normal’, and I will no longer apologize for being different.” And so began a whole new level of self-exploration. I played around with some of my old make-up, I started taking up fun activities that most people would deem feminine - and it didn’t make me feel dysphoric at all. In fact, I liked it. I was unapologetically leaning into my feminine side and it felt good, it felt right, it felt safe - an experience I was never able to have before I transitioned.

When the semester came to an end a few weeks ago, I found myself in a weird position. I now have two completely empty months ahead of me, I truly detest big changes like that. A solid everyday schedule sort of functions as a mental “anchor” for me. Because no matter what happens in my life, I know one thing for certain; I will go to sleep tonight, wake up in the morning, do my morning routine and get ready, get the bus at exactly 7:41AM and arrive at school 10-15 minutes later depending on the traffic. I then attend class and adhere to the school’s timetables for the next 6 hours. I get the bus home and change into my uniform, work for 5 hours, go home and do my homework, make dinner, do something fun or watch youtube, go to bed - and the cycle continues. These little “anchors” make me feel secure and grounded, they help me cope with a world that can feel chaotic and overwhelming at times. 

So last day of school arrives and I’m like “shit, what now?? One day I’m at school and suddenly there’s just *nothing* for two months?? Not only that, but I’ve just discovered that there’s a whole new side of me that I’m now free to explore since my gender dysphoria decided to evaporate into thin air.” Everything around me was changing, even myself - and that’s the moment when I decided that maybe it was time to give Testosterone a break. Whether temporary or permanently, doesn’t matter. It’s not like my body is going anywhere and I can always just resume hormone therapy again if I want to. But for now, it was time to just take a break, let go of everything and truly get to know myself. My transition is complete, and I am ready to continue this journey in a new direction. It’s been a month now, and I’m happy to say I’ve had a lot of fun just enjoying the time off and being my authentic self. I haven’t really told anyone I’m detransitioning. I’m just kinda doing my own thing, and if people want to run along with it and refer to be as female at some point then that’s their choice, I don’t really care to be honest. Name-wise, I might just jokingly suggest “Jane” when people ask, since it’s so similar to “Jake”.  I get weird looks from people when I’m out in public, because I’m starting to pass as female again, but my voice is unmistakably masculine - I like my voice though, so I don’t care what they think. If people ask why my voice is so deep, I just tell them the truth: “I am a woman, but my body was testosterone-dominant for 3 years, hence the voice.” Simple as, lol. Not only that, but I am a whole, grown ass adult, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.

On the topic of irreversible changes, there is one important thing that I cannot stress enough; My decision to detransition does not come from a place of regret, I have loved and cherished every step of this process. I’ve heard a lot of people say this about detransitioners but I don’t have “reverse-dysphoria”, why would I?  Man or woman, I love myself and my body regardless. I absolutely needed to transition from female to male in order to be happy, I could not have attained this level of happiness otherwise. I would not have been able to accept or even come to terms with my femininity if I hadn’t transitioned. I’m still on the same journey as before, I simply took a new path.

Anyway, I best end this wall of text because it’s 3:00AM and I’m going on a 9km hike with a friend in the morning, I can’t waiiiitttt!

[bigskydreaming]

Can we just talk about all the age reversal aus where Robin is still a thing before Dick comes around??? It makes no sense!!!! Ik you’ve done a post on the importance of Robin before and it just really ticks me off!!! Like, if Damian is the oldest, why would he go by a bird name when he works with Batman? It would make more sense to be like ‘Shadow’ or ‘Shriken’ or just plain ‘Batkid’ but all these authors use the name Robin and then show Jason being resentful when Dick takes it over. Just wtf?

Tbh, I don’t have a ton to say on that particular subject other than I agree with you on it not making a lot of sense, because I just don’t really tend to read age reversal AUs anymore. They’re just not a premise that draws me in, y’know? I have issues with the way Dick’s status as the oldest brother tends to lead to him and his own problems being taken for granted at times, but the solution to that which I’m looking for is to have that addressed, not to have Dick just not be the oldest sibling anymore. I like Dick the way he is….I’m as fond of AUs as the next person, but ones that kinda alter the core of him just aren’t for me.

Like….how to put this…..from my perspective, I’ve noticed that outside of fics by authors who consider themselves Dick stans first and foremost out of all the characters, there’s three distinct tropes in the vast majority of fics where Dick plays a major role, and is regarded sympathetically rather than being in the way:

1) Fics about Tarantula, 2) Fics where Dick is a Talon and 3) Age Reversal AUs.

And the one common element in these tropes is they’re most commonly utilized while depicting Dick as particularly vulnerable, to the extent that he’s like….dependent on the other characters.

In the vast majority of Tarantula fics - majority, not all, there are exceptions of course - but the common thread is Dick tends to have very little agency in even the aftermath of what happened with Tarantula. He’s usually not granted the right of disclosure….people find out despite his wants there, and often despite his attempts to keep it from them (huge pet peeve just btw…..people, disclosure is a HUGELY big deal to survivors, because its one of THE single most powerful ways in which survivors take back control over their lives….they might not have control over what happened, but they can control who they tell about it and when. The tendency to write fics about survivors but displaying no real thought towards the fact that many survivors NEED agency over who they disclose to and when, is part of why I tend to rant about people kinda….commercializing this particular trauma even while saying they do so in the name of spreading awareness or healing or stuff like that….because they’re not actually like….thinking about things from the viewpoint of the survivor. In many instances, stealing a survivor’s right to disclose at the time and place of their choosing can be massively retraumatizing in its own way. And again, please don’t talk to me about how I’m generalizing or insisting there’s only one right way to write survivors…I know I’m generalizing, I’m talking about TRENDS, not specific fics, and I’m not saying its NEVER okay to write things this way, I’m simply commenting on how often things ONLY seem to be written this way).

But anyway, point is, a common theme throughout these fics is that despite Dick being central to them, its a story ABOUT him and what happened to him, rather than actually being HIS story. He himself has very little role in many of these stories, they’re more about what the others do to avenge him, or to take care of him, etc…..which is great in principle….I just can’t help but note the emphasis on him being dependent on others throughout it.

Which brings us to number two, fics where Dick is a Talon…..I’ve talked before how I just kinda can’t, and back out of fics where Dick remains a Talon or altered by the Talon process, because I think most people do that as kind of a metaphor for a disability and finding ways to live with a disability, but to me it will always read as body horror, because this isn’t so much Dick being disabled as it is him being altered head to toe in very deliberate ways by his abusers with the intention of making him something other than he is, and something he never ever chooses or wants to be. And the fact that there’s no need to write stories with disability metaphors, you can just write a character having a disability, so it always kinda feels unnecessary to me, personally, and an inherent tragedy because this was DONE to Dick, and thus is a permanent reminder of his abuse at the hands of his abusers….which is not inherently the same thing as adjusting to life with a disability, though there can be overlap, obviously.

But the other tendency of the Talon Dick trope is how often this results in him being mentally altered. And not just in a brainwashed kind of way, as many of these fics have him raised as a Talon since his parents died and then rescued by the Batfam….but his entire mentality, personality and way of processing things and even speaking is altered….and the thing that bugs me about this is…..why? Why is this choice so prevalent in these fics, when there’s literally nothing innate about the Talons in canon that says the Talon process mentally changes their minds and personalities in this kind of way? Most of the Talons we see don’t speak….because they’re intended to be seen as mindless minions, a force of nature rather than people….its meant to add to their mystique, their threat, their legend….largely on orders of the Court, who thrives on those kind of things. But who is the Talon we see the most of in canon, the Talon that we’re specifically told time and time again the Court means Dick to replace, be the heir of? William Cobb. 

And William is nothing like the way Dick is depicted in most Talon fics. He’s the same as he was before he was changed, just with the changes to his biology now. Mentally and personality-wise, he’s still the same as he was before it. And even in the recent Nightwing comic where Ric was finally brainwashed into being the Talon the Court has been manipulating him towards becoming throughout this storyline…..obviously, the Talon process hadn’t occurred yet, but even with the brainwashing, Ric mentally was still himself in the sense that he could process things, make decisions, speak all just the same as he did before he put on the brainwashing goggles….he didn’t speak most of the time because again, Talons are meant by the Court to be mostly silent enigmas….but when pressed, he was absolutely still capable of it, the same as before.

So again, the question is….why this particular choice, with this trope? To have Dick so radically altered not just in body, and with the emphasis rarely even placed on his bodily changes, as usually they come up with some tech disguise for him or use makeup to make him appear the same as he usually does, at which point his changes aren’t mentioned all that much other than to display his healing factor. No, the emphasis by and large is to how different he is mentally….even though there’s literally nothing about the Talon the Court wants him to be in canon, which dictates that he has to be in any way mentally altered by the process of becoming one. It isn’t his mental faculties the Court has a problem with, its his morals. No other brainwashing or mental conditioning method in comics or fics places such a strong emphasis on limiting the person’s mental capabilities rather than just altering their morality and way of thinking…so why is it different here, with Dick’s stories? And the only common result I can ever find is that it diminishes Dick’s autonomy and makes him vulnerable in a specific way where he’s dependent on the others to a huge degree, due to being less socially capable or even just mentally capable on his own.

And then finally we have the reverse ages AUs, in which Dick is still himself as he was as a young Robin in canon…..just the baby of the family, doted on and protected by his family, who are all fiercely defensive of him and in many of these stories, drop everything to rush to his aid when he’s in danger and rescue him. Which again, is perfectly fine in theory, but the thing this raises for me is…..how distinct this is from Dick’s actual time as Robin, where the actual emphasis was on how capable he was despite his young age, how autonomous and independent and competent even when face to face with villains twice his size and three times his age. 

Situations like with Two-Face were the exception in his stories, not the norm…..much like the later Robins, like Jason before his death, Tim for over a decade in comics, Damian to this day….all roughly the same age Dick is in these reverse Robin AUs…..but when has Damian ever been depicted as that vulnerable and in need of his siblings’ protection, in canon? When was Tim? And in Dick’s own time as Robin when he was actually that age in canon…..how would he have ever lasted as Robin without all these older siblings in canon, let alone managed to become the inspiration for entire generations of other child heroes….if he weren’t as capable of protecting himself as he was…in actual canon?

Again, the focus of the premise, like with the other two tropes, often seems geared towards emphasizing a vulnerability that is kinda just…chosen for Dick, rather than being an inevitability of that trope, and results in him being particularly dependent on the rest of his family.

Understand, I’m not saying this to say oh these fics are all bad and shouldn’t exist, lol, I’m just expressing the common element through all of them that’s why they don’t appeal to me in particular - because as I’ve always emphasized in pretty much all my posts, one of the greatest appeals to me about Dick Grayson, and one of the things I love about him most, is his fierce independence, his commitment to being his own person and standing on his own two feet. And its why I have an issue with the common thread of infantilization that runs through a lot of the fanon tropes that treat him as though he’s incapable of feeding himself, clothing himself, or even cleaning up after himself or conducting himself in public without the help of others.

Because my issue isn’t that these things exist, its that I’m always going to want to know WHY.

Why, when Dick’s core characterization has always revolved around his insistence on his own personal agency and autonomy…..do so many stories revolve around…..denying him this, or stripping it away?

Why is it that he’s most appealing to many people when he’s not just dependent on his family, but forced to be dependent by the very premise of a story, with no choice or alternative in the matter?

What makes that such a common trend, and with his character in specific, as opposed to Jason, Tim, Damian, etc….none of whom display similar trends in their stories or most prevalent tropes?

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 157: Giant Zelda Boss

Previously on BnHA: The badass lady squad kicked some villain ass (even if it did take them a while). Toga showed up disguised as Deku and directed the heroes to where Nighteye and co. were fighting Overhaul underground. They crashed onto the scene as Toga, Twice, and Compress watched from the street above. Twice and Toga told Compress to go kidnap Eri, and he was all “:/ but it’s dangerous” but in the end they bullied him into going down there. Overhaul tried to escape with Eri and Deku leaped after them. We learned that Eri was the granddaughter of the Precepts’ boss, and her mom abandoned her, so the boss put her in Overhaul’s care. Apparently she had an unknown quirk that had somehow killed her biological father. Overhaul experimented and found out her quirk had something to do with “rewinding.” Then the rest of it we already knew -- Overhaul continued to hurt her and she had to suffer through it and eventually she was conditioned to blame herself and to believe that she was “cursed.” But now with everyone trying to rescue her, her quirk is apparently “awakening” with her desire to somehow save them all. omg.

Today on BnHA: Deku grabs Eri and says he’s not gonna let go! Overhaul, who has reverted back to his normal form, is all GIVE HER BACK, and creates some stabby rock tentacle claws to try and get at them. Deku instinctively uses 100% OFA to escape to the surface, and then panics afterwards, thinking that he’s broken his legs. But surprisingly, they’re fine. Meanwhile, Overhaul fuses himself with another unconscious minion and heads after them. Nighteye tells Ryuukyuu and the others that he saw the future and that Overhaul is going to pursue Eri and kill Deku, and that even if they go after him they won’t win. Back on the street level, Deku realizes that all of his injuries have been healed, but then he promptly crumples over in pain. Overhaul, having transformed into some sort of multi-limbed giant rock dragon man, explains that Eri’s quirk gives her the ability to “rewind” humans, and that she can’t control it. But Deku decides this is the perfect opportunity to activate OFA Full Cowl at 100% and just have Eri heal him as he goes. He’s gonna BREAK BONES LIKE NO ONE HAS EVER BROKEN BONES BEFORE.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 187 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

oh! I like this!!

“the determination to be saved” YESSSS ERI YESSSSS

also, going back to the previous panel for a second, what is going on??

what happened to Overhaul and Nemo? they unfused?? did she rewind time and undo all his bullshit?

anyway Deku has her now and he says this time he’s not letting go of her! YAY

AHHHHH

FUCK. SOMEONE SWAT IT WITH A NEWSPAPER

also Horikoshi’s love of drawing hands has officially gone too far. that is SO FUCKING DISTURBING. and also AWESOME, GODDAMMIT

like, look at how his fingers are separating the panels in the bottom right corner. fuck this artistic bullshit

also why is Deku worried about his ability to move? it’s not like Overhaul is any better off. he’s disintegrating the platform he was standing on so he can literally fall at them. you’re both falling. just dodge him. it’s not like he’s any more mobile than you are, and he doesn’t have 20% OFA or 8% or whatever the fuck you’re using right now

anyway he’s hugging Eri determinedly and glaring at Overhaul and again thinking that he won’t let her go no matter what

oh cool are we flashing back to one of the best lines in this arc? I’m down with that

nice to see Deku getting back to his roots

nice to see Horikoshi getting back to his roots, actually. pacing has picked up again, art style is back in full swing, and Deku is thinking determined thoughts about heroically saving others? this is the manga I fell in love with

...maybe I spoke too soon

wait, what? did he just make a giant claw cliff only to grab himself?

okay but what the fuck is happening, though?

wha

that’s what I... you know what, never mind

OH MY GOD

DID YOU BREAK YOUR FUCKING LEGS DEKU YOU FUCK

ARE THEY!?

I can’t tell?? they don’t look anything like they did the last time he used 100%, but the one time it happened with his legs, it looked pretty different from when he breaks his arms. with his arms his sleeves usually rip right off and he’s all noodley and floppy. but with his legs, his pants always seem to stay intact to preserve his modesty. which is very thoughtful of you, OFA

anyway, down in the basement, Ryuukyuu and the others are saying they felt some sort of shockwave, so it’s indeed seeming like he broke his vow to never use OFA at full strength until he mastered it

I forgive him though. do you guys. I fully forgive him. as long as it actually worked oh please god let it have worked

hmm?

SHE WHAT. WHAT’S HER QUIRK GODDAMMIT

he’s screaming at Eri (even though she’s not there) that he needs her “in order to realize Pops’s ambition”

well too bad

Ryuukyuu looks very concerned, and I didn’t understand why, but then I remembered that even though Deku and Eri got to safety, the rest of them are all still stuck down there with him lol

it honestly didn’t even occur to me to be concerned. I don’t know why. I just assume they can handle themselves

NIGHTEYE WHY ARE YOU TALKING

I mean, we already knew that though

omg

...well shit

but I mean. did he really see that? because if so, that’s officially the first vision he’s had that we 100% know is not going to come true. so I guess they’re not infallible after all

and of course Ochako is FREAKING OUT now

oh no but she’s falling down now for some reason

(ETA: I guess she’s still fatigued from all the vitality-absorbing attacks earlier)

Nighteye says that he saw it

Ryuukyuu’s turning in disbelief asking him if he thinks they’d just go along with what he’s saying after hearing that

but he says that in their current condition they can’t win

EXACTLY

Nighteye is all “...”

and he’s giving Tsuyu directions to where Mirio is

and he’s asking Ochako and Ryuukyuu to help him to the surface omg

ARE YOU GOING TO SACRIFICE YOURSELF

meanwhile back on the surface, Deku is landing!

and HIS LEGS AREN’T BROKEN OMG

IT’S ERI’S QUIRK

he’s asking her about it!

oh shit and now something’s happening

“RRIP” is not a good fx for one’s body to be making, generally speaking. though jury is still out on “ZZGGGG”

oh shit

look Overhaul, I’m going to allow you to make one last stand for just long enough that you can explain how this quirk works. and then you can fucking die

he says she doesn’t know how to stop it

siiiiiiiiiigh

you really went and made yourself into a giant Zelda boss. and made yourself into its fucking tongue

anyway he’s continuing to explain, and it seems it is indeed a time-rewinding quirk

actually that quirk sounds amazing. once she’s able to control it she’s going to be a BEAST. offensively and defensively this is a winner. I can’t believe she had to put up with so many assholes telling her she’s cursed. cursed with being fucking awesome, maybe

(ETA: question, the way Overhaul phrases this makes it sound like she can rewind literally anything. do we know if there is a limit? is it limited to just living things, or organic materials? or is it literally anything, because if yes, holy shit though?)

Overhaul’s telling Deku to return Eri to him. hahahahaha. full of jokes now, are ya

“there’s no way to stop her other than her disassembly” um, nah. pretty sure she’s capable of stopping herself if they can get her to calm down. which could probably easily be accomplished if you would just kindly step off and go fuck yourself

anyway, Deku’s strapping Eri to his back. oh damn

he gets it now. the instant his leg broke, she reverted it before he could even feel the pain

he says it’s a kind, gentle quirk

oh my god Deku yes. say it louder for her to hear!

oh

oh baby girl it’s okay

oh fucking shit, of course Deku immediately thinks of how to appropriate this quirk for his own reckless needs

DEKU YOU SELF-DESTRUCTIVE LITTLE LUNATIC

(ETA: “CONSTANTLY ACCUMULATING INJURIES AT AN EVEN GREATER SPEED...!” jesus christ he is so fucking excited to have found this new and revolutionary way to wreck his body more efficiently than ever!!)

HIS HAIR SPIKED UP LIKE ALL MIGHT’S OMG!!??

DID THE SHAPE OF HIS FUCKING FACE CHANGE?? IT LOOKS MORE ANGULAR AND LIKE HIS BABY FAT IS SOMEHOW GONE ALL OF A SUDDEN?

I WISH I COULD SEE HIS MUSCLES, ARE THEY ALL BIG

(ETA: normal! so we’re still not sure how All Might does it, but that’s okay)

THIS KID IS ACTUALLY INSANE. “WILL YOU LEND ME YOUR POWER” FUCKING MAYBE ASK THAT BEFORE YOU GO AND DO THIS

NIGHTEYE REALLY PREDICTED HIM DYING EVEN AT ALL MIGHT LEVELS OF STRENGTH? JUST HOW BADLY IS HE SOMEHOW GOING TO MANAGE TO FUCK THIS UP

OH MY GOD LET’S KEEP READING AND FIND OUT

BONUS:

okay first off we have an “afterword” by Horikoshi announcing that this arc will finally come to an end in the next volume, and thanking everyone who’s sent him fan letters, and apologizing that he doesn’t have time to respond to them

he also talks about how tired he is and how energy drinks aren’t as effective anymore

I’m pretty worried about him burning out now tbh. Jump always works their best mangaka to the bone, and it’s a problem

other than that, there’s just the back of the volume 17 cover, which has Eri clutching her beloved Lemilliocape and more or less looking like she’s come straight out of some sort of apocalyptic AU

how did her clothes and bandages get so raggedy omg. Overhaul is just the worst caretaker in the history of time

[canaryatlaw]

okay I should write, but it’s officially been my birthday for 40 minutes!! So that’s fun. sadly I’ll have to entertain myself for most of the day, but I’ll probably sleep in and then maybe go out to some of the shops on main street (like Francesca’s) and do some shopping, and then later on I’m gonna go to Olive Garden with Jess and then to see Captain Marvel and then get ice cream for part 1 of birthday celebrations, part 2 will be on Saturday when we can go up to where they have the cheesecake factory and the fancy movie theatre where we will go to eat and see Shazam, so I’m excited for that. But anyway, today. I was in and out of sleep for a bit before getting up around 1ish. I spent a while just getting breakfast and checking things out on my computer. When I was done with that, I grabbed the receipt the dry cleaner’s had given me to get their phone number, the clothes were supposed to be ready by today but the receipt said “ready by 5 pm” on that day, so I wanted to call and make sure they were ready before I came down there, so I called and they said they were so I got ready and started walking there. It was like high 30′s today which is colder than the last few days at least so I grabbed my winter coat, but that was definitely a mistake as I started overheating very quickly. I made the walk down and stopped at the chase bank along the way to get cash since the dry cleaner’s had signs saying “cash payments are appreciated” and Chase is my bank so I get free ATM use, so I stopped in there and got some cash from the ATM before continuing on. The whole transaction was easy enough, I gave them the receipt and they brought the clothes out, I paid the amount specified and was good to go. Since I was now carrying a decent amount of clothing, I was gonna see if I could catch the bus back instead of walking the half a mile or so it is carrying the clothes, but this would depend how close the next bus was since it’d be pointless to wait for it for like 10 minutes. so I checked the bus tracker and it said the next one was only 3 minutes away, so I was pleased with that. the bus was kinda crowded and stopped at every stop along the way, but it was at least less physical exertion and knowing that my arms would’ve been killing me if I walked home. so I got home and put the clothes away, and then started my next task of dyeing my hair. I do dearly love my bright red hair, but I’m at the point where I can’t let something as stupid as hair color jeopardize my chance of getting a job, especially when I have *the* interview on Wednesday, so it had to go. I can’t even remember the last time I used a box kit on my own hair, but it got the job done. It was like a auburnish color, brown and red mix kind of. I was a little worried it wouldn’t quite turn out that color because the hair it was going on was so bright, but that didn’t end up being a problem. but yeah, I’ve done this enough to know how it works, so getting it in wasn’t an issue. it said to only wait 25 minutes before rinsing which seemed kind of short to me, but I kept to it pretty much. They said no shampoo for 24 hours, just rinse and use their conditioning thing, the same basic stuff, so that was no problem. Once I was done with that I set out to do my final planned task for the day, which was cleaning up the kitchen, mainly by taking out the trash and doing the dishes. The trash was WAY overdue to be taken out, to the point where there were some paper bags outside the trash bin also filled with trash. so I tried to pull the overstuffed bag out, only to find the bottom of it had ripped, and leaked god knows what all over the bottom of the trash bin. WELL CRAP. so I had to grab another trash bag and stretch it into the trash bin, then lower the first one into it and over it so it wouldn’t leak everywhere. it was....difficult lol. But I took that out along with the paper bags and the cardboard for recycling. I did my best to clean most of what I could out of the trash bin, but some of it I just couldn’t reach despite my best efforts, so I ended up just putting a new trash bag in and figured we’ll deal with it at some point in the future. From there I started doing the dishes, putting away the clean ones and washing through the dirty ones, then putting those away, so everything in the kitchen was handled. It was fairly close to 7 when Arrow was on at this point so I got some dinner and went to the den and turned the tv on for that, set to livetweet for the dctvpodcasts twitter account. Interesting episode, probably kept my attention more than most of the episodes so far this season, but that’s not saying very much I suppose. It was fairly obvious to me that Emiko was all in with the bad guys, not being coerced into it. I was NOT PREPARED for the reveal in the last flashback regarding the queen’s gambit, though I was a little confused as to who exactly was pulling the strings and who did the actual work there, was she working with Merlyn or what? weird. Otherwise in the plot, my lawyer brain had to jump to the obvious 4th amendment issues with Felicity’s proposed tracking system. not that they would care about silly little things like constitutional rights here. The whole subplot with Dinah and Laurel was?? weird?? normally I enjoy my girls interacting but this week was just kinda funky. I am of course looking forward to what next week will bring since it of course features the return of Sara which I am eagerly awaiting, so here’s hoping that will be a great episode. After Arrow was over I switched over to 9-1-1 which had just started, which was a pretty good episode. I swear this show makes me cry every damn week lol it plays on my emotions very well, but I very much enjoyed the plot with Howie the firefighter guy (still terrible with character names) and his journey as to how he got where he was and of course for it to end with him being stabbed and unconscious after encountering Maddie’s violent ex-husband who was coming to kidnap her. So I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to see how that plays out. After that I switched over to The Fix since that was airing then. It was a decent episode, I’m not totally in love with the show but it’s had some good moments. It’s VERY obvious they’re closely tracking the OJ case and what might have been if he had ended up in this situation (which is of course to be expected given that one of the writers/producers is the OJ prosecutor). It’s interesting for me to see the tactics the defense attorney was using and how they blew up in his face so badly this week, and seeing them play the secret tapes Jessica had made for the media to see and them cutting to his daughter when he had just promised to her that he had never hit Jessica and now she was finding out that was a huge lie....that was very well done. so I’m still on board for now, we’ll see where it goes from here. After that I just watched the news for a bit and then some Jimmy Kimmel before starting to get ready for bed, didn’t need to shower since I did so earlier when I was getting the hair dye out, so I took my pills and grabbed my computer to start writing this and now I am here. It’s 1:16 am and I am getting a bit sleepy, so I think I will end this here. Looking forward to birthday fun tomorrow. Goodnight peeps. I hope my birthday is a great day for you too.

[flarebossmalva]

okay i have a long rant in my system about this game and i haven’t even finished watching the let’s play, but fuck it, i gotta talk about it. bullet points to make this more coherent hopefully also under cut

of our three main characters, markus is by far the most interesting right now and i’m thrown because i didn’t even know he, like, existed. all i’ve heard from the fandom is connor this connor that and markus is right there? anyway. markus is in a pretty unique position because he’s been taking care of this elderly artist, who’s disabled — confined to a wheelchair with some kind of chronic or terminal condition — and the artist treats him like his son, in a way. in one scene i liked, he encourages markus to try painting; markus’s first attempt is technically skilled, but just a straightforward representation of what he sees, so the painter encourages him to try again and this time try to depict something abstract, like a feeling. now, most humans don’t seem to think robots have feelings, and connor even said that only deviant (rogue) androids experience emotions, but i don’t think that’s true, because 1) markus was able to paint his own feelings just fine and 2) it seems that the androids experience things more or less the way humans do, they’re just programmed not to have free will, which makes them appear unemotional. anyway, this artist does have an actual son, but he’s kind of a fuckup of a young man who’s also got a drug problem; the three of them get in a confrontation after the artist refuses to help his son financially (because it’s obvious he’s withdrawing from something and plans to spend the cash on drugs), and i’m sure there are a lot of different ways this can play out but the way it went in this playthrough is that markus was provoked into self-defense, accidentally killed the son, and was then shot by cops and left for dead in a junkyard full of not-quite-dead robots. he put himself back together and i’m quite interested to see what he does now; his story seems like it has the potential to play out in a lot of different ways.

then we have connor, who is a top-of-the-line prototype model assigned to help a cop who, as it happens, really can’t stand androids. unfortunately for this cop all the cases he gets involve rogue androids. his bits of the story are pretty interesting because we get to see how the cops deal with androids, which... well, they don’t deal with it very well at all, let’s put it that way. humans investigating crimes involving androids don’t seem to be very good at it, because the usual markers of bloodstains and fingerprints can’t be relied on (android blood is blue and doesn’t leave traces visible to the human eye, and they don’t leave fingerprints) and also because the department doesn’t really seem to give a shit about androids and all crime involving them seems to be low-priority work that no one wants to do. that means the spike in rogue android activity is being taken way less seriously than it probably should be, but considering that the cop solution is to immediately start shooting i guess it’s good they don’t grasp what’s happening. the cop connor is assigned to work with seems like he could potentially change his views on androids depending on choices made throughout the game, and there’s actually one thing i do like about this mechanic — what seems to work best is having connor be honest about the ways in which he’s not human, because i think the root of this particular cop’s issue with androids is that he feels they’re essentially faking being people. i don’t like this as an oppression allegory but i like it as a trope about robots when the robots are allowed to be nonhuman; i think having robots who were created to mimic humans learn to embrace their differences from humanity is the most interesting way to go about it and i hope that this game is gonna do more than flirt with that, despite its title lol

connor himself is hard for me to get a read on, but at this point in the game he’s just been following orders and directives. i do know that there seem to be a lot of opportunities for him to get his ass murdered, but if that happens they just replace him with an identical model who i guess has the same memories too. in this lp he’s only died once but it was a close thing enough times that i think you could definitely kill him a lot if you were actively trying to do it. honestly that mechanic alone is so far the only interesting thing about connor.

and then there’s kara. since she’s the only playable woman, i assume we’ll eventually get a shower scene or an attempted sexual assault scene, because david cage is like that. however so far her scenes have mainly been about trying to protect alice, the little girl i mentioned in previous posts. in one scene that felt like it could have gone a lot of different ways, kara intervened to stop alice’s dad from physically abusing her and the two of them fled on foot. kara’s now attempting to pass as human while keeping alice out of harm, which makes her parts of the story by far the tensest scenes because you constantly have to look out for the kid. i know this is a gimmicky way to up the stakes, but i’m not mad about it because it seems to work. i suspect alice is actually of pivotal importance to the game as a whole, if only because she’s by far the most sympathetic human character, but that remains to be seen. i’m cautiously interested in this part of the story, because while it’s got my attention so far i cannot trust this game to be smart about things.

and now we get to my main gripe with the whole thing. i’ll try not to go on too long about it, but here’s my issue with DBH in a nutshell: it’ll give you fucking whiplash from how fast it goes from being an engaging story about androids navigating a world in which they quite literally lack free will to making incredibly dim-witted and outright insulting comparisons between the struggles of androids in the game and the struggles of oppressed humans in real life. one minute the game is doing what sci-fi should and giving us an insightful take on the imaginary issues it’s set up, one that you could even relate back to real-world happenings if you wanted, and the next we have a scene where the androids have to sit in the back of a bus because the front of the bus is reserved for humans. if it was consistently stupid i would have given up on it right away, but it’s not, and that pisses me off more than if it was dumb from start to finish. honestly i’m mostly watching because i’m writing my own story dealing with very humanlike androids in a near-future setting and this explores some of the same stuff i’m aiming to get at, but fully half of it is so dumb i wanna cry. at least hopefully the popularity of this game and the conversations happening around it will inspire more intelligent fiction about androids?

lastly. this game is only set like forty years in the future. you cannot convince me that forty years from now racism will be a non-issue in america, or that americans forty years from now aren’t gonna be like “hey, segregating androids and humans in exactly the same way we used to segregate white americans from black americans might make us look really bad, maybe we should come up with different ways to be bigots so we aren’t instantly called on it.” yet this game has so far completely avoided discussing actual racism, or even indicating to what extent it’s still a problem. i’m not even gonna get into how Bad that is when you’re trying to do social commentary because it’s bad enough just as a writing decision. exploring how the way humans treat other humans affects the way humans treat androids is an obvious thing to do with this premise and i don’t know why this game seems to be actively avoiding it. 

anyway. i’m gonna keep watching, i want to see this through to the end, but i already know it’s gonna keep pissing me off. at times this flirts hardcore with being an intelligent piece of writing but it seems more enamored overall with being stupid. 

[artpharos]

Arty’s VGC 2018 SG Open Team- 2nd Place Finisher

Anyway I figure since I FINALLY LEGIT PLACED WELL AT A REGIONALS-LEVEL EVENT even if it was just a 38-man regional sobs I’m just gonna write a summary of a team I’m proud of even if they’re technically not that good oops 

Put under cut because it’s long haha I put a lot of thought on my pokemon vgc teams weeps

So I haven’t had a lot of success in VGC 18. Not since the actual VGC 18 format, anyway. I’ve struggled to find a team composition I feel comfortable with, and I’ve had a lot of trouble relearning all my forgotten skills and regaining confidence in myself, especially since I was Out of Action for like... 2 years. But then after watching Brazil Internationals, I realized a lot of the standard ‘meta’ teams had this really gaping weakness to Bisharp and... I really missed Bisharp a lot. So then, I popped onto Showdown, placed Bisharp onto a team I was working on which was then Kangaskhan/Zapdos/Tapu Fini/Snorlax/Gothitelle/Landorus-T and then realized if I replaced Goth with Bisharp I needed another setup sweeper. I remembered back in VGC 13 that Volcarona was a good partner for Bisharp (or vice versa tbh) and I played a few games and then a month later I was in the top 100 on Showdown. And after staring at the team for a while I realized it had a strange resemblance to my 2015 team (Kangaskhan/Talonflame/Sylveon/Bisharp/Landorus-T/Rotom-Wash), which would explain why I was strangely comfortable with it. So then I ran it in a few tournaments, top cut a few MSSes, had a friend talk me over my mental blocks, and got 2nd at Singapore Open. Anyway, a breakdown of the team:  Potato Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite   Ability: Scrappy   Level: 50   EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD   Adamant Nature   - Fake Out   - Double-Edge   - Low Kick   - Ice Punch  

Throughout the season, people have been telling me since Jan 1 2018 that Kangaskhan Is Bad. And after a whole season and 38 teams of Kangaskhan, I can finally come to the conclusion that yes, on paper, Kangaskhan is a Bad Mon. Kangaskhan, as a mon, just isn’t as good as in 2015, when she was the overwhelming force of the metagame. The Parental Bond nerf has seriously hurt her damage, and Psychic Terrain makes it difficult for Kang’s primary support option (Fake Out) to be completely useful. The loss of Power-Up Punch, and the general increase of offensiveness in the metagame, and Kanga’s neutral matchup towards Intimidate Incineroar have all been factors in why Kangaskhan, in theory, does not work. 

But to be completely honest, whenever I used another Mega I’d just run straight into the stuff they’re automatically weak against and the thing is: Unlike the other Megas, Kangaskhan has technically no matchup that she automatically loses. It just feels a lot easier to put Kangaskhan into a position where she can do work, and I can accept the shift of her role from Primary Attacker to Offensive Support, relying on her to deal constant damage for the team and providing Fake Out support. 

So a breakdown on Potato. I’ve tried all sorts of Kangaskhan, and for the longest time I was convinced that Jolly was the only way to go because without the max speed investment, you’d be unable to outspeed stuff like Tapu Lele and Charizard. However, Jolly Kang always ran into the problem of being outsped ANYWAY since Tapu Koko, Kartana, Mega Metagross and other random fast pokemon exist, and without any investment in her HP she can’t take hits that well. So after trying out my friend’s team, I finally decided on the Super Bulky Kangaskhan with 0 speed investment. I’m still not content with the bulk-speed ratio on Potato, but with the way that the metagame is so matchup dependent, I feel like it’s safer to be bulky than not. In fact, after recent battles, I think if I had to improve Kangaskhan, it’d be to actually drop her attack (since you’re still going to get intimidated to Kingdom Come anyway) and invest in her bulk some more. 

Anyway, on to the moves. Fake Out because Kangaskhan is still, in my opinion, the best Fake Outer in the game, especially with Scrappy to hit ghost types (Hi Mimikyu!) and the ability to outspeed the other premier Fake Outer (Incineroar). Double-Edge for the consistently painful damage that OHKOs stuff like Tapu Koko and Charizard Y, Low Kick to deal 70% to Snorlax/almost OHKO Stakataka/random heavy things like Tyranitar and 4hp Heatran, and Ice Punch to still OHKO 4hp Landorus-T even after Intimidate. Potato functioned more as cleanup, or to clear certain threats that my main sweepers didn’t want to fight. 

Cernunos Landorus-Therian @ Groundium Z   Ability: Intimidate   Level: 50   EVs: 20 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 228 Spe   Jolly Nature   IVs: 0 SpA   - Earthquake   - Rock Slide   - Protect   - Knock Off  

Landorus-Therian is, arguably, the best mon in all of VGC. In fact, in VGC 2018, it’s only matched for utility with Incineroar, who’s also another Intimidating Cat. It’s also been constantly placing at the top (or near to the top) of all the usage stats, and it’s been said that the Best Way to check a Landorus-Therian is to use your own Landorus-Therian. In fact, it’s gone so far that some Landorus-Therian have switched the special scarfed Hidden Power Ice variants I also really liked the scarf Landorus-T variants since that would have helped my matchup vs Metagross+Tapu Lele/Charizard Y and random fast mons like Gengar a lot. However, given that I only have one other Ground-immune (Zapdos), I opted for the Groundium-Z variant, WHICH OHKOS INCINEROAR AFTER AN INTIMIDATE HAH TAKE THAT YOU STUPID CAT  and does a bunch of other neat stuff like being a really powerful nuke, being a single-target ground attack (even if only for one turn), and has the ability to P R O T E C T. Being base 91 speed has its drawbacks, sure, but I hoped to mitigate that somewhat with Tailwind, and once you get an unintimidated Landorus-T on the field with the ability to switch moves+a nuke+x2 speed, it’s definitely a huge boon on your side. 

So Cernny’s set is actually something Coach gave me. Jolly to abuse as much of that fast speed as necessary, attack to maximise the damage output, and the rest in split defenses for some ‘bulky’. His moveset was Earthquake (of course), Rock Slide (for the flinchy flinchy and Charizard Y/Zapdos), Protect and Knock Off because I hate Snorlax and any other mon that uses one of the Super Healing Berries, as compared to the lack of Steel/Normal type mons that you’d usually run Superpower for (and let’s be real, Superpower doesn’t OHKO anything of worth anymore, and without a scarf it didn’t really make sense to run Superpower). 

Castor Bisharp @ Life Orb   Ability: Defiant   Level: 50   EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe   Adamant Nature   - Iron Head   - Knock Off   - Sucker Punch   - Protect  

I’ll be honest, Bisharp is pretty much the glue holding the team together. The ability to gain attack boosts from any status drop, and the ability to pull out a powerful priority attack with those boosts can utterly cut through teams that are unprepared for him. All it takes is an Icy Wind or an accuracy drop from Muddy Water, and Castor can go to town. Especially since most teams rely on Intimidate to control opposing physical attackers, Defiant/Competitive users like Bisharp and Milotic can do a lot of work in the right conditions. Moreover, dark is an extremely good attacking type, even now, and with the ability to hit Fairies super effectively with Iron Head, Bisharp has almost perfect neutral coverage for most of the metagame (with the exceptions being idk Blaziken and Lucario). 

I was running Adamant Nature with max speed and Life Orb because that was the damage calculation/spread I was used to since 2015. Bisharp’s moveset is Iron Head for comfortable STAB, Knock Off to take out berries and also potentially KO weakened Cresses/other bulky mons/stop Snorlax before their berries trigger. Sucker Punch is priority, which helps me pin and maneuver around faster mons, and Protect is Protect lol. At max speed, Bisharp outspeeds most spreads of Tapu Bulu/Tapu Fini, Heatran, and also my own Kangaskhan, which allows me to make some silly plays like Knock Offing a Porygon 2′s Eviolite before Double-Edging into them, destroying fairy redirectors like Togekiss, or limiting Cresselia’s Ally Switch utility by taking out the supporters before Kang attacks. 

Curry Volcarona @ Firium Z   Ability: Flame Body   Level: 50   EVs: 4 HP / 92 Def / 192 SpA / 220 Spe   Modest Nature   IVs: 0 Atk   - Quiver Dance   - Heat Wave   - Giga Drain   - Protect  

I admit I named Volcarona Curry for certain very blatant biases BUT ANYWAY. I haven’t actually used Volcarona that well in VGC at all, dabbling in it only at the start of 2018 with a Salamence/Azumarill team that Did Not Work because I always felt that Volcarona was better off setting up Quiver Dance and sweeping than playing Rage Powder. Remembering that VGC 13 had a Volcarona+Bisharp team working super well for my brother, I decided to try it in VGC 18 because why not. Volcarona had 135 SAtk and with a Quiver Dance, I bet Inferno Overdrive would be extremely spicy. The other item choice that has been recommended to me time and time again is a Super Healing Berry, but to be completely honest I’m perfectly happy with having a secondary nuke in case I can’t land Tectonic Rage for whatever reason. 

Volcarona pairs well with Bisharp, Kangaskhan, and Tapu Fini, being able to clear steel/grass types as well as luring in stuff like Landorus-T into the battle (which its teammates can then take out before Volcarona starts quiver dancing). Volcarona is not a ‘good’ mon; it has far too many weaknesses and requires a lot of ifs to set up properly, and even then it’s main stab is Heat Wave and its defenses are, to put it mildly, shit. However, with most of the metagame being physically defensive, being able to set up a powerful special attacker that gets boosts in speed/special defense/special attack can seriously nuke a lot of teams to oblivion. 

So, Volcarona ran Quiver Dance, Heat Wave, and Protect. Modest 192 SAtk was to maximize my Special Attack as much as possible, but I do know that at +1, in the Sun, Volcarona’s Inferno Overdrive has been able to net OHKOs on Charizard Y of all things. 220 Speed was to outspeed modest Tapu Lele, 4HP/92Def was to survive a -1 Spread Landorus-T Rock Slide. Giga Drain was run to have a better way to deal with Tapu Fini and Milotic, but even at +1 Volcarona will still die to Hydro Vortex so that’s something to keep an eye out for. 

Vegetable Zapdos @ Iapapa Berry   Ability: Pressure   Level: 50   EVs: 28 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe   Timid Nature   - Thunderbolt   - Heat Wave   - Tailwind   - Sky Drop  

Zapdos has been something I’ve slowly grown accustomed to over the season. Without Talonflame, I’ve been searching for another Tailwinder that provided the sort of support/pairing ability with Landorus-T that I just couldn’t find elsewhere. While I am more used to the Misty Seed/Roost version, I just felt that it was far too passive and didn’t really feel like it could help contribute to the team with a low speed stat that the Misty Seed variants run (ie, set up Tailwind before dying to a Charizard Y Overheat). In the end, I decided to try something slightly different- not the Gigavolt Havoc Zapdos, but the fast speedy Tailwind support with Iapapa Berry. While it worked somewhat well, I realized that my team had issues with Azu+Redirector support, so I decided to toss Sky Drop onto Zapdos (something I learned from playing Hawlucha earlier in the metagame).

Sky Drop easily opens a lot of doors for my team, being able to stall out Trick Room, Tailwind, deal with redirectors, and force mons into not being able to Protect the next turn when they’re dropped. While my Zapdos spread meant that it was actually exceedingly frail for a Zapdos, it’s also an extremely good utility mon, if used properly (Hint: I still haven’t completely figured it out yet).

Thunderbolt for obligatory STAB. Tailwind helped support my team a lot, since the majority of them were slow and would greatly appreciate the speed advantage. Heat Wave was chosen over HP Ice because of the great Kartana weakness I seemed to have, as well as being able to threaten the 3hko on Mega Metagross. And Sky Drop is... Sky Drop. (Fun fact: I still haven’t completely understood all of Sky Drop’s mechanics yet, isn’t it fun?)

Ultimately, Vegetable started off as a mon I didn’t really like, but it is incredibly necessary for this team to work. If there is one thing I would change, I would drop its Satk and try to figure out a bulkier spread and go max speed Timid simply because I am tired of not having the ability to speed tie Charizard Y. 

Melusine Tapu Fini @ Mago Berry   Ability: Misty Surge   Level: 50   EVs: 236 HP / 4 Def / 196 SpA / 12 SpD / 60 Spe   Calm Nature   IVs: 0 Atk   - Scald   - Moonblast   - Calm Mind   - Protect  

So finally, the Tapu of my team. Tapu Fini easily loses out to ALL THE OTHER TAPUS of the metagame, but it also has one of the best terrain abilities. Immunity to status? Yes Please. Also, being the slowest Tapu (barring some really slow Leles/Bulus), it is almost guaranteed Terrain Control on turn 1. 

I opted for the Calm Mind variant of Tapu Fini because I Like Setting Up, and also Fini just doesn’t do enough damage otherwise. Calm Mind also helps shore up its special defense, giving it a chance versus Tapu Lele and occasionally Tapu Koko/Charizard Y/MGengar/other random powerful special attacking mons. I’m using the standard CM Tapu Fini EV spread, which allows it to outspeed slow Bulu while dealing some really nice damage with its STABS. 

While most Tapu Fini opt for Muddy Water, I’ve lost far too many games from Muddy Water missing, so I decided to go for the more reliable and slightly more powerful single-target Scald. Thus far, I have not regretted that decision. Moonblast for fairy STAB because you need Fairy STAB somewhere on your team to deal with Kommo-O, and Protect because this should be totally standard by now.

AND I HAVE SPENT 2 HOURS WRITING A LONG DRAWN SUMMARY OF MY TEAM. I’M EXTREMELY PROUD OF HOW WELL THEY DID, OF SOME OF THE BATTLES I’VE MANAGED TO PLAY WITH THEM, and while I’m not certain if I want to bring them to Worlds, I’m glad that this is the team that finally helped me overcome my own weaknesses and gave me my confidence back to play. 

Tl;dr: I really love pokemon vgc and I really love this team 

[mollafer]

Sorry it took me so long to get to this. I’ve been searching through two different books trying to find this story, and I finally found it. 

So, I think this is an interesting theory, but I have one of my own:

Basically, this whole situation was Colonel Stephen Moylan’s fault. This dude sent a letter to Washington that just talked about Tallmadge’s shortcomings, including the procuring of necessary supplies and equipment, as well as the treatment of his platoon’s horses. In my opinion, the colonel was probably just jealous of Washington’s and Tallmadge’s relationship, and wanted to throw Ben under the bus. 

In Tallmadge’s defense, he tried very hard to gather supplies and take care of the horses, but it was extremely difficult without the money he needed. Tallmadge was constantly concerned about money, and wrote Congress very often asking for more money for supplies. He actually ended up paying for more supplies, mounts, and even paying his soldiers’ salaries out of his own pocket.

So, I really think Tallmadge actually did drop the ball and didn’t take care of his horses, but he couldn’t take care of them since he didn’t have the money he needed. He was probably stressed out anyway about the lack of money, and of course other problems in the army, so I kinda don’t blame him for screwing up, but Washington probably wouldn’t have found out anyway if it wasn’t for Moylan, so I’m just gonna blame him lol. And to be fair, the harsh letter that Washington sent Tallmadge was also sent to Moylan, so he got in trouble too. 

Tallmadge attempted to defend himself. He wrote back to Washington saying they were lacking supplies and his soldiers weren’t paying attention to their duties. He didn’t want to take responsibility for the slip up, but eventually he must of realized it was his fault, because he offered his resignation to Washington, but of course Washington didn’t accept. Their relationship was rather tense at this point, and they didn’t talk for awhile, but I guess Washington let it go and forgave Tallmadge a few months later.

But yeah, I don’t think Tallmadge took the fall for anyone. He probably just felt like his soldiers weren’t doing their jobs and that they couldn’t take care of the horses without supplies, but he tried his best to defend himself to Washington. I think he knew it was really his own fault that his platoon was in such bad condition, but he was also probably pissed at Moylan for ratting him out.

Thank you so much for the theory though, @iwasthatlostcause! You could possibly be right too, but I guess we’ll never really know for sure. 

[worldsandcenturiesfunposting]

Late to the party: Should Video Game Journalists be good at video games?

You might have seen that cuphead video where some video game journalist spent over a minute trying to get past the tutorial and then proceeded to get railed over and over in the first level. The video is a little less than 27 minutes long and he doesn’t get through the first level in those 27 minutes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=848Y1Uu5Htk Take note that the original title was Cuphead Demo at Gamescom: It Isn’t Easy

What you probably didn’t see was the description in the video. No one reads those but I think there’s a lot to pick apart and ramble about at 4:30 in the morning because I’m a lonely sack of shit with nothing better to do

But here’s the man himself writing to his defense: https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/08/the-deanbeat-our-cuphead-runneth-over/

My game crime: I was so bad at playing I was deemed unfit to be a game journalist. My Cuphead gameplay video from Gamescom blew up, inspired rage, and spurred discussions about the death of game journalism across Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter.

Don’t flatter yourself that much. People were talking about how game journalism was dead well before your video. Hell, you even mention GamerGate later in your article. 

It was a failure to communicate.

In the description of the video, they mention that the guy playing the game isn’t good at platformers in general and the video was uploaded as a joke. I don’t know how true that last part is, but assuming it is, they’ve apparently put in 0 effort to make that clear. No tongue in cheek title like “Let’s Fail at Cuphead!” or giving context in the description. Only after shit hit the fan did they edit the description explaining why the guy sucked so bad. 

I only wish my two books on the Xbox business generated as much attention as the Cuphead story. It is a humbling experience.

It would help if you books were available to buy at the store. I’ve been in plenty of book stores and haven’t found anything about Xbox business practices. There are ones partially written by Anita Sarkeesian though so I guess that’s close enough.

The more people looked at my poor gameplay, which I myself labeled shameful, the angrier they got. I played the tutorial so ineptly — failing to read the onscreen instructions to jump and dash simultaneously — and then went on, failing to conquer a single level. I said it was hard, and the fans saw my gameplay and decided I was a poor judge of difficulty. By a ratio of more than 12-to-1, the ratings on the YouTube video are negative. It wasn’t just the troglodytes of the internet who hated it. Most people hated it.

You failed an incredibly simple puzzle, one that literal children can figure out, and you want to throw out insults like “troglodytes” at people saying you were shit because they either didn’t see or don’t buy the “lol it’s just a prank bro” deflection.

Another game journalist (and some say “shitlord”

Including you or someone from your website in the description of the video itself:  A shitlord on Twitter also linked to this video and claimed these are the same people doing reviews. 

The guy they’re talking about is Ian Miles Cheong. Once a turbo feminist switched sides to a more pro-gamer stance during the whole GamerGate thing. Outside of that, I don’t know much about him and I don’t give enough of a shit about him to find out. 

He clipped it to the 2.5 minutes of the most damning inept gameplay, and he posted it to his followers. He used me to condemn all game journalists

The guy is literally a video game journalist though so it wouldn’t be a condemnation of all video game journalist. Just pointing out that you (and presumably others) are awful at video games despite being paid to write about them. Which is true. Like if this was a video of some 4 year old failing the tutorial, there wouldn’t be this ire. 

Raising the smoldering issues around Gamergate and its focus on game journalism ethics. His post was political propaganda for the disenfranchised gamers, the sort who went from Gamergate to the alt-right and elected Donald Trump as president.

At least you admit GamerGate was about ethics. The fact you then went on to then claim that its proponents went on to support the alt-right and got Trump elected is fucking horse shit for a few reasons. 

1. GamerGate was comprised of various people of various different political backgrounds. Yes, some members were what we’d now call the alt-right, but a lot of its members were also incredibly left leaning. A few political compass tests were taken over the course of GamerGate and it seems a huge portion of its membership were what’s described as left libertarians. 

2. Of all the reasons Trump was elected, gamers aren’t one of them. The shit system that is the electoral college. Mass propaganda efforts from Russia. A bunch of idiots who’d literally vote Republican even if Hitler rose from the dead and was the nominee simply because they’ll always vote Republican no matter what....but not a bunch of gamers upset over poor practices in video game journalism and attempts at shaming and censoring from SJWs. 

Get fucking real, Dean. You’re out of your element. 

Before he got to it, my video had maybe 10,000 views. Afterward, the Gamergaters, or hardline reactionaries — or whatever we would like to call them 

How about people who know how to play video games. I wonder if there’s a name for that. 

Crying conservative boogyman doesn’t help your own personal cause and it certainly doesn’t help your political side either. 

— believed this narrative fit into their views about game journalists just fine

That’s because even before this clip, there was a general negative opinion of video game journalists and here you are proving that it’s pretty well founded. Not only are a lot of them unethical, but some of them fucking suck at their jobs objectively. 

I despise how this was triggered by a viral post that represented the worst of fake news

Fake news is a Trump term. ALT RIGHTIST! ALT RIGHTIST! DEAN TAKAHASHI SUPPORTS DONALD TRUMP! 

Hmmmm, maybe that’s a stupid line of reasoning. Tell you what. I won’t use it if you don’t either? Deal? 

So he continues on whining about haters, giving his own life story, and he actually has the balls to say this: But during all of the time I have written about games, none of my bosses cared about exactly how good I was at playing. They required basic knowledge and competence, but not skill on an esports level.

He whines frequently about how mean people are for saying he shouldn’t be a games journalist if he sucks so bad at video games....and then goes on to say that the thing his bosses cared about was the very thing that people were pointing out he utterly lacks. 

Not a skill on an e-sports level? Nigga, you were playing a tutorial! Stop acting like people are demanding the world of you and realize that people require you have basic knowledge and competence. 

So blatantly dishonest. 

Guess what? Unskillful gaming is authentic.

That’s literally the excuse DSP uses to justify being bad at video games and leaving in all of the footage of him bumbling around not knowing that he’s doing. 

Here’s where my nonapology starts. Gamers need to stop being mean to those who aren’t skillful. They don’t need to put others down to elevate their own subculture. Games have gone viral. They’re more popular than ever, reaching 2 billion people around the world. They have become a $108 billion industry. It’s silly to look down on games.

No one’s looking down on games and no one’s looking down on people for no other reason than their lack of skill. For a lot of people if they’re having trouble, people will be more than willing to provide advice and pointers. Just ask any question about how to do something in a game on a game related subreddit and people will be perfectly fine to tell you how things are done without insulting you.

The fact that you’ve spent so much time playing and reviewing games, and it’s literally your job, is where it starts to cross the line. Games are 2 billion people and 100 billion dollar strong industry as you’ve said so clearly the ire thrown at games journalists who suck ass at their job isn’t a problem within the industry. 

That industry will grow bigger, and gamers will get better games, if we embrace the new gamers. 

You. Are. Not. A. New. Gamer. 

Stop acting like you’re defending other people getting shit when it isn’t other people who are a problem. This deflection is as apparent as it is pathetic. No one’s going after Minecraftkid2003 because he couldn’t figure out redstone when he first came across it. They’re pointing out that Dean  Takahashi, a video game journalist with 18 years worth of experience and has himself boasted he was playing video games since Pong isn’t able to figure out a simple problem solving exercise any faster than a goddamn pigeon. 

We don’t need to dumb games down. 

And then he says 

We can have adjustable difficulty, so that the unskilled and skilled alike can play. We can make tutorials even easier than the one that I failed at so miserably.

Alright, dumbass. I’m sure everyone reading this has seen the video I linked. Here’s what the tutorial required. It required you to jump on a box....and then jump in the air...and then use a dash move to get over a pillar that’s too high to jump over from the ground. 

There’s no losing conditions. Time is infinite. There’s no enemies. There’s no bottomless platforms of thing chasing you...it’s literally the easiest part of the game second to moving around map itself. How the fuck can it get easier? Does it need to outright say “Alright Dean, now comes the doozy. You need to press this button and then this button afterwords to solve the exact same problem. Here’s an animation of what it should look like. Can you follow it, Dean? I’ll play the animation over and over on the top of the screen so you can see what you’re supposed to do. If you do it, you get a gold star and Anita will give you the good boy award!”

No, I’m not blaming the developer for my own shortcomings. I respect the designers, even if I didn’t truly understand at first the games they’ve made. I would just like to make sure that they make their games for people who are new, or noobs, as well as hardcore fans.

Cuphead is specifically designed to be a challenging platformer for gamers who like more challenge. Designing it to be easier, especially a tutorial that has no losing condition, is counterproductive to what the devs want to achieve. It’s like asking Stephen King to tone down the horror in his books so that non-horror fans can enjoy them too without being too scared. 

If you want an easy platformer designed with everyone in mind, there’s plenty of great games that will fill that roll. Not every game needs to be made for everyone.

As Nolan Bushnell, cofounder of Atari, said, games should be easy to learn and hard to master. (Yes, I know Cuphead’s tutorial isn’t that hard to learn).

Then what’s the fucking issue, ding dong? 

No, I’m not celebrating mediocrity

You literally just did when you whined that Cuphead wasn’t designed for noobs in mind. Here’s one big thing though: You were’t even mediocre at it. Garfield is mediocre. You were just awful. 

like the Antonio Salieri character in Amadeus. I’m arguing that all gamers, casual or hardcore, deserve recognition.

They do, but not in cuphead. And all gamers aren’t paid to write their opinions on video games. 

We are not all going to be esports stars who rake in millions of dollars. 

You’ve been at this for 18 years and got money for it. You got to play a demo that a lot of people much more skilled and much more deserving would have liked to play and you did poorly at it because you couldn’t figure out how to do 2 step logic. 

But we’re going to be the masses of unskilled players who make the game companies, including the makers of Cuphead, as rich as they can possibly be.

If there’s one happy ending, it’s that Cuphead did do well on the market showing that contrary to what Dean believes, it isn’t a good idea for all games to be dumbed down to the point where even video game journalists are able to play. 

The rest is more sob story and personal history. 

---

So what are my final thoughts? Well first of all, if you can’t solve a simple 2 step logic puzzle in part of a game with literally no losing conditions, you really are stupid. Pro or noob, there’s some point where you have to wonder how dumb the person with the controller is. There’s plenty of cases like the previously DarkSydePhil and also this blast from the past from IJustine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkYxfjJ72k4 Like seriously: use your eyes and brain homie!

But what about being just generally bad at games or just not knowing how to play well? It doesn’t matter. Contrary to what Dean thinks, tons of people aren’t going to be major assholes to you just because you picked up a game for the first time, don’t know the ropes, but decide to record yourself playing and slowly learning them. Plenty of let’s players do blind runs where they go into a game with no prior knowledge of it and yeah, they make mistakes but people are generally cool about it. 

However, there’s a point where making these silly mistakes over and over becomes...something of an issue. I’ve been driving for several years. If I legitimately couldn’t figure out which pedal is the break and which is the gas after all this time, it would be fair grounds to call me a dumbass or wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with my brain. As people do something more and more, it’s expected that they’re better at it than someone completely new. When someone does that thing for a job, it’s expected that they’re better at it than the average joe. 

And that’s the big thing here that Dean never addresses: it’s his job. He writes more about the tech than he does actual gameplay, yes, but he still boasts in his own article that he’s been in the industry for 18 years and have been playing games since Pong. 

It’s not even the rest of the video that was the issue but instead those 2.5 minutes (which he complained about Miles Ian Cheong trimming the video down to as a highlight) where he’s unable to solve that simple two step logic puzzle in a tutorial level. I drove cars for years because I have to get from point A to point B and it’s beyond walking distance and it would already be stupid if I couldn’t figure out the absolute basics of it. If I reviewed cars for a living and drove cars for longer than most car drivers have been alive for and I couldn’t figure out the basics of starting it, that would be beyond pathetic. I don’t think there’s a word in the English language that would be able to describe that amount of disconnect between the experience I should have and the amount I display. 

He constantly hides behind the idea that we’re not all professional e-sport people and gamers come at all skill levels...but he’s not at all skill levels. He’s literally a professional. Playing and reviewing games is literally his profession just like writing code or cooking meals is a profession.

You know how on Kitchen Nightmares Gordon Ramsey gets so pissed off at people who don’t know the basics of cooking and how to handle a kitchen even though it’s their job and they should have learned that in training? It’s like that. We’re basically Gordon Ramsey here watching some guy call himself a chef and his output is microwave heated frozen mac and cheese that’s somehow still raw and yet also on fire. And he wonders why people are yelling at him over the internet. 

Should video game journalists be good at video games? Yes! Just like food critics should understand how to cook a meal or reviewers of literature should know how to read! I don’t even know why video game journalists are trying to make this a contestable point. If you suck at your job, either get better....or don’t have you job! Get another one! 

I’m aware that this whole thing is a bit of old hat and I’m rambling on more and more than this guy deserves, but it is indicative of a larger problem within the industry. Just like the Zoe Quinn thing or the doritos pope thing was indicative of issues in the larger industry. Video game journalism has an effect and if some of them aren’t able to beat a simple tutorial level and then without any hint of irony, whine that video games should be easier when people call him out on it....it’s just baffling. 

It’s now 5:45 and I still have nothing better to do lol so I guess I guess it’s time for a few final words

I don’t think this event will lead to GamerGate 2. Hell, one article defending this guy had the title that GamerGate 1 never really ended. I don’t know how true it is but it seems over three years later since it started, the issues and arguments that were the foundation of GamerGate are still a bit relevant. But now there’s a new one: Some video game journalists are not only unethical....but they’re also utterly incapable! 

Anyways, join me next time as I’m even more late to the party and write my epic response Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis followed by a point by point breakdown of Oag the Caveman’s declaration of “Fire bad!”

[mickeys-coming-back-bitches]

You have stated several times that Ian isn't stable/doesn't have good mental health even after staring his medication. I have been thinking about it a lot, and I would like to hear your reasons for your opinion. I don't mind if your answer is long or you need time to think about it. (Part 1)

Part 2. I agree with you on the fact that the absence of manic/depressive symptoms doesn't mean that he has good mental health. But I think that there are signs which point towards the fact that he is ok. he was able to study to be an EMT and he can work as an EMT which could be quite a challenge. He is also capable of forming new relationships, feel empathy and interact with people. He can take care of himself and he can differ between reality and imagination/dreams.Part 3. On the other hand, Ian isn't very good at expressing his feelings and he is afraid to love and be loved. He isn't very independent or able to stand his ground in most situations. But these can be character traits and don't necessarily mean that he isn't in good mental health. So what are your thoughts? Sorry about the rant, but the topic interests me.

Aah, so you see, if you want, one day I’ll talk very extensively about the kind of therapy I’m doing - the branch, that is to say, because although most psychotherapists around are either Freudians or Jung(h)ians, my doctor is neither. My therapy is built upon the scientific discoveries of Massimo Fagioli, an italian doctor, psychiatrist and psychotherapist who started working on curing various mental illnesses during the ‘60s, and is still working now, even though he is 86 years old. The way Massimo Fagioli approaches mental illness is new and revolutionary - I have no idea if there are any american psychiatrists who keep up-to date with foreign discoveries, but I’ll only say that his (and therefore my) way to see mental illness is very different from how western society sees it. 

I’m telling you this because the way I see Ian is completely connected to the therapy I’m doing. What I’ve discovered about my illness, and a possible cure of it, has opened my eyes about every other case of mental illness as well. I’m not saying I understand them all - that would simply be impossible and pretentious. But I feel like I have a new insight, which makes me see reality better than I saw it in the past. 

But as I’ve told you, maybe I’ll talk about it another time. 

Right now, I can tell you that the meds that Ian is taking have made his symptoms more manageable - but I wouldn’t say that they disappeared completely. Depression comes in various degrees as something that keeps you from enjoying life - doing things that make you feel good, having stimulating and healthy relationships with the people around you. Also, sanity comes in various degrees. When it comes to mental health, there is no ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ and there’s no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. In the end, what I say about Ian’s condition corresponds to how I feel about it. My analysis are rarely logical and rational - they’re more emotional, and deep, which can also mean that they can be completely wrong. 

1) Ian was able to study for the EMT test - yes, I agree that that was an important “therapeutic” step for him, probably the only good, healthy thing he did in Season 6. Without meds controlling his symptoms and without therapy, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. But I’d also add that before wanting to be an EMT, Ian hadn’t shown a single sign of happiness since the start of Season 6. So, in a way, I’d say that the meds didn’t keep his depression off (on the contrary, he was almost suicidal at the beginning of S6), but finding something that would give him purpose helped with the depression. And the fact that he did it, and he became an EMT, proved that he was better than before. Not that he was healthy. He was better. There’s a difference. If you self-harm every day, and then after a while you stop and maybe you don’t do it for a whole month, it means you’re better than before. Not that you’re healthy. Because maybe you still feel the urge to self-harm, or maybe you’re self-harming in different ways and you don’t know it. I think the greatest help the meds gave Ian was with his psychosis. In therapy, you’ll probably have most therapists agree with this: you can cope with certain symptoms on your own, but you cannot cope with others alone. Psychosis and hallucinations are two of the most severe symptoms you can have with mental illnesses, so I think Ian needed to take anti-psychotics for a while. 

2) He was capable of forming new relationships - Yes, but what kind of relationships? I’ve analysed Caleb and Trevor too much to explain again why they were bad for Ian, so you gotta stop and think about what is healthier: having no relationships and trying to be healthy alone, or having unhealthy relationships that don’t actually help us at all in terms of identity and emotional wellbeing? You’re right, Ian is afraid of loving and being loved - and this is reason number 1 he chose people like Caleb and Trevor, who are completely oblivious to Ian’s mental and emotional life. Someone like Mickey would have helped him far better to gain confidence in dealing with his symptoms and illness, through the gift of love and trust. But Mickey was off limits, and Ian suffered that loss and wasn’t ready to search for someone to love him. Same thing goes with his relationship with his family. His family doesn’t give two shits about him, even if they’d like to think so, and everyone that thinks otherwise either 1. has no idea what a dysfunctional family is like, or 2. still has to come to terms with their own dysfunctional family, and is probably in denial. LOL. (harsh, but true). Don’t misunderstand me - it’s not that they’re evil or bad or do it on purpose (well, Frank is, but just him) - it’s just that they don’t have the emotional tools to love someone properly - and this is why every other Gallagher has mental problems as well, even if they’re not diagnosed (I mean, I guess Carl’s all right).

3) He can take care of himself. He doesn’t tell anyone, ever, how he feels, he surrounds himself with people who never ask his opinion or emotional status, he searches for unemotional relationships and distant partners, he drinks almost every day while taking a looot of meds without doing therapy or periodically going to the doctor: I don’t think this is taking care of oneself. 

You say being afraid of love can be a character trait? Oh, hell no. I mean, think what you think, but that’s just absurd in my eyes. We’re not born ‘afraid of love’. We can become afraid of love after someone disappoints us, betrayes us, hurts us repeatedly, and we have no defenses. A character trait is something that’s part of your identity and personality, how you speak, how you feel, how you move, how you love. And not: how you don’t speak, how you don’t feel, how you don’t move, how you don’t love. Does this make any sense to you? I hope I’m not being too cryptic. 

[eldritchsurveys]

896.

5k Survey XXIII

1101. Continued…Let’s see if I’m psychic.

You wrote three yes or no questions. Now I will answer them. 1 yes 2 no 3 no

Did I get any right? >> Wow, you can shove 18 jumbo marshmallows into your mouth at once? That’s impressive. You’re right, I cannot do that. But why were you eating marshmallows at all if you don’t like them? (Maybe you spit them back out afterwards.)

1102. You wrote one question that can be answered with a color (example: what color is my car). I say…. White. Is it true? >> False, Coldplay’s first hit was not called “White”.

1103. You thought of a number between 1 and 100 and typed it down. Was it 14? >> Not even close.

1104. You wrote one more question, anything you wanted. The answer is yes, 42, orange, Matt, Josh, Kim, Nicole, whatever or your mom. Does that answer your question? >> “Yes” is the right answer to “are you fuckin with me?”, I think, yeah.

1105. Do you think that Britney Spears would make a good Bond Girl? >> I’ve never thought about it.

1106. Have you read anything by C.S. Lewis? >> No. 1107. What is your favorite movie with Bill Murray? >> Hmm. I can’t remember many Bill Murray movies. He did appear briefly in Zombieland, and that was pretty funny... 1108. What is your favorite movie with Jack Nicholson? >> I don’t have a favourite movie with Jack Nicholson. I guess The Shining was pretty all right. 1109. What is your favorite movie with Christopher Walken? >> The Sentinel and The Prophecy, hands down. 1110. What is your favorite movie with Johnny Depp? >> Edward Scissorhands. 1111. What is your favorite movie with Orlando Bloom? >> I got nothin. I mean, LOTR was pretty good. 1112. What rhymes with ‘orange’? >> Nothing, I assume. 1113. Why do guys have nipples if they will never need to feed a baby? >> I’m not Google. 1114. Some people think that couples should be screened before they are allowed to reproduce (so that people who cannot afford to support a child don’t have one, or so that a child won’t be born into a dysfunction family or to unfit parents). What do you think about this? >> I’ve heard that idea a lot, and I still have no opinion on it aside from “that sounds like eugenics” and I am pretty damn leery of anything that sounds like eugenics. 1115. Have you ever swallowed an object by accident? >> Not an object, no. Just stuff like hard candy. 1116. Did you get it back? >> Well, I didn’t, but the toilet did eventually, right? 1117. Do you prefer He-Man or She-Ra? >> I’ve no knowledge of either. 1118. Are you proud of yourself? >> Not particularly. But Can Calah is proud of me, so that’s okay. 1119. Who should go to hell? >> No one should go to fucking hell, fuck off. 1120. Is your eyesight 20/20? >> More or less, I guess. I have zero problems with my eyesight (aside from sensory defensiveness, which does impact my ability to see in bright conditions, but not in the same way). 1121. Have you ever had insomnia? >> No. 1122. Does it bother you when people touch you? >> Yes. 1123. Is it better to get too much or too little sleep? >> I guess if I really had to choose, I’d choose too much. It doesn’t feel great, exactly, but I can usually function better than I do on not enough sleep. 1124. Have you ever given away something you made? What? >> Probably. 1125. Is it better to have kids when you are in your teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, or older? >> --- 1126. What gets your adrenaline pumping? >> Oh, the usual. Anxiety, fear, that sort of thing. 1127. Is hell all fire and brimstone or is it personal for everyone like in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey? Or does it not exist? >> Ah, I loved that movie. I have to keep that in mind next time I’m asked about sequels I enjoyed, because I was so worried I wouldn’t like Bogus Journey as much as I liked Excellent Adventure and let me tell you, I needn’t have worried at all, lmao. Anyway, I highly fuckin doubt hell exists. 1128. Do you ever talk about yourself in the third person? >> Sometimes. 1129. What’s your favorite radio station? What kind of music do they play? >> --- 1130. What did you think of these movies: Election? Gone With the Wind?  Fight Club? Meh. Spider Man? Which one? The Virgin Suicides? I tried to watch this recently and I just got bored. Resident Evil? I haven’t seen this in so long I don’t remember the plot or anything. Signs? Liked this one a lot more than I expected to. Also, my man Joaquin Phoenix is in it, so. Muppets from Space?  Pearl Harbor?  Halloween Resurrection?  The Dark Crystal? I thought this was lovely. I should watch the show at some point.

1131. Is everyone special? >> I mean, if everyone’s special, no one is, right? Or something. I don’t care, tbh. 1132. Are your toes: Painted (what color)? The answer to all these except “soft” is “no”. Manicured? Sparkly? Soft?  Wearing a toe ring?  Do you have hobbit-feet?  1133. Do you believe there is any place still undiscovered in all the world? >> Of course. Ideally, it should probably stay that way, at least for now. 1134. Whose picture would you like to paint a target on and throw darts at? >> No one’s. 1135. Is love all you need? >> No, but I’ve had little enough of it that it’s probably at the top of the list somewhere. 1136. Ever caught a fish? >> No. 1137. Are you adventurous? >> Not especially. 1138. Are you afraid of mediocrity? >> No, but sometimes I wish I was less unremarkable. Not that I’d be any more satisfied if I was, lol. 1139. Would you rather die tomorrow or have all your friends die? >> --- 1140. What are 3 things you don’t understand? >> Meh. 1141. I would do anything for love but I won’t do 'that’. What is 'that’? >> “That” encompasses a lot of things. 1142. Has your diary ever been rated? >> --- 1143. Do you do more than kiss on the first date? >> --- 1144. Are you very liberal or conservative? >> From what I can tell, I’m pretty squarely liberal. 1145. What do you like about your neighbors? >> Nothing. I think about homicide almost daily when it comes to them. 1146. I read that by 2010 they expect to market a gene therapy procedure that will increase the life spans of adult human beings by double or triple. If this happened would you have it done? >> That sounds ridiculous and improbable. Besides, being purely hypothetical and imagining a thing like this did happen to exist, do you think poor ass non-contributors to society like me are going to have access to it? Get real. 1147. If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands. Did you clap? >> No. 1148. Was this year a good year for you? >> It was... a year. 1149. What are you looking forward to next year? >> It’s still the middle of this year, why am I thinking about the next one? 1150. Are you a Jim Henson fan? >> No.