#I'm at least glad that people seem to like me?

[kalinara]

So recent posts have got me thinking about the Throuple, and how I personally feel about it. And I'll be honest. I dislike it and I love it.

I dislike it because, ultimately, there really isn't much there. A couple of suggestive panels, a house schematic, one scene of expressed attraction between the guys, one scene that seems really heavily implied that they'd intended to go to bed together (I'll post that later, it's from early X-Force and it's pretty suggestive, IMO), and a few cameos in pride issues.

If Marvel was advertising this relationship, I'd call it queer-baiting at best.

But I always kind of wonder about the background of things. And I tend to assume that the Throuple was never intended to be a thing by the suits and higher ups. I think maybe a few creative types kept slipping things under the radar.

It does mean, unfortunately, that, in terms of actual story or emotional development, it's lacking. I mean, look, biased Scott fan that I am, I would have REALLY liked to see Logan apologize for basically everything AvX onward before those two characters hopped into bed together. I'd like to see Jean get to have opinions about everything that happened while she was gone (many things that she'd now remember from her younger self's point of view), before that happened too. These are characters with a lot of history.

So in terms of execution, the Throuple is a fizzle. (Hell, even the Jean/Logan side barely got off the ground. Some bits where she kept him alive when he was trying to save Xavier through time - which she'd have done even if he were just a friend. And one sex scene in the hot springs. That really feels like a satisfying culmination of decades of yearning. If I were a Jean/Logan fan, honestly, I'd probably feel cheated.)

But you know, I do love it for other reasons. Because however shitty the execution, the IDEA is firmly planted and that idea isn't going away.

All you have to do is go on reddit or tiktok and see anytime one of those toxic masculinity fanboys starts bitching about how Logan is 100% straight "blah blah woke agenda", and you get at least three people jabbing back "yeah, except on the moon".

And that's the genius of it. Because NO one likes those particular fans. And so even people who are utterly indifferent to the idea of the Throuple. Even folks who dislike the execution are very pleased to troll that hypothetical dude at every chance.

Marvel can say what they want. Brevoort (whether he believes it or is just Marvel's spokesperson) can say what he wants. The fact that the annoying fanboys go "I'm so glad he didn't walk back his denial and cater to the wake agenda" are just admitting that there's something TO deny.

I'll be honest, I suspect the issue is Logan's fanbase. It's the largest by far and Marvel doesn't want to alienate the straight men in the crowd. But the thing is, they're aging out. And younger generations of fans are more openly queer than we are, and definitely more than our parents were. This is going to be a non-issue. Especially when the new generations start running the asylum.

It'll take a long time, of course, and there'll be a lot of bullshit before then. But you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The idea is out there. And like Kitty, Rachel, Betsy, Bobby, Mystique and Destiny, Rictor and Shatterstar, EVENTUALLY we'll get to the point where Marvel admits what we all know. (And we knew for a while. The Throuple didn't come out of nowhere.)

Marvel's most famous and popular X-Men character is queer.

More than half of the Original X-Men, that earliest dream that creators never seem to be able to stop revisiting, are queer*.

The flag ship pairing of the X-Men involves a woman and a man who are queer*.

That's pretty awesome.

(*I know technically we're talking about an MMF throuple and it doesn't rule out Jean being straight, but let's be honest here. Jean's got more than enough suggestive interaction with Storm, Emma, Lorna and Wanda to make a strong enough case for bisexuality in her own right.)

[purpledemonlilyposting]

You genuinely seem like a horrible person to interact with, and I'm so glad you're not in any of the discord servers I'm in any more (or at least the ones I actually care about)

though I have seen you throw a tantrum when you saw something you personally disliked and then claim that people are ganging up on you, and continuing to argue and freak out after everyone else is done.

You were trying to control what was happening in SOMEONE ELSES server because you saw a ship that you didn't like.

Why are you like this?

Why do you feel the need to make everyone else around you miserable?

Oh you mean that time I apologized for a kneejerk reaction to something I find upsetting and Nugget wouldn't even listen to the person who had just entered the server that he was supposedly defending from me? Who was also trying to explain to him that we know each other and had had a discussion about it previously?

And then he told them to "get better co-workers" when told how we know each other?

And then both I and this person left his server?

That incident?

The one that made me stop talking to Nug and he's been acting like a crazy ex since last January? Sniffing around Lily Orchard's server trying to talk to one of her stans who was in my server at the time?

That one?

That happened in the same server that's full of teenage Stevencest you all goon to?

[the-kiarah-organisation]

Being only a little influenced by your source is weird. I'm sitting here with an angel and someone who could only be described as a demigod, and last I checked our source material is just Some Dumb Guy Runs Around Solving Mysteries With His Son.

[egophiliac]

here's the Meleanor chibi speedrun! upfront warning for some flickering and/or flashing throughout from all the sped-up zooming/layer changes.

it turns out I only really recorded up to when I exported the PSD for the first time, so I went back and recorded a bit more to at least show a little of the reworked cape breakdown and background. and then bounced her rig around so you can see a bit of it too! the parts I'm not too embarrassed to show, anyway

even sped up it's still like 47 minutes (s-she took a really long time to make okay), so there are timestamps/chapters in the description if you click through! I certainly don't expect anyone to sit and watch it through, but maybe it'll be interesting to skip around in?

[elviraaxen]

I'm probably not the first to admit this but goddamn was I a narcissistic prick when I wasn't on stimulants

[dee-daa]

as shitty as what in hell is bad is as a game (especially due to pb's greed), the community on this site is absolutely wonderful so far and seeing all the posts on my home page makes me so happy ^^

[eebie]

lots of fun today. Im worn the fuck out from socializing but i had a good time. on our walk my friends gave me the low-down on everything that happened while i was away and among several humorous anecdotes (for example one of our friends getting into a physical fight in class) told me that my favorite history teacher this big soft-spoken black guy was back after what i thought was just him just straight up leaving. I was very open about my beliefs because he was extremely chill & apparently he keeps bringing me up to them and he wants me to come into class specifically to talk politics. god i miss him.. the most distinct thing i remember was him leaving a note on the grade for one of my assignments where he said he hoped i would find my crowd. he actually cared and would call shit out. one time a group of my classmates made a video where they tried to be funny playing as racial stereotypes and of course came across as tonedeaf & offensive, so he sat everyone down and leveled on how something like that would affect others. it was common sense but he was really patient in explaining it. the craziest thing is that he’s a pastor and also pro-choice

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent images I suppose ~

[smile-files]

i continue to find ii3 baffling. why did they make it (this isn't to hate on the season, i'm genuinely curious)

[longagoitwastuesday]

Inside me there are two wolves (I love Nobara and Gojo, I'm not sure at all I want them alive)

[seaofreverie]

Anyway. 150 days left until I see TMBG.

[sans-joke-book]

Frisk: I'm just a little kid, but everyone keeps dumping all their grown-up emotions on me and expecting me to solve their problems and save the world.

Link: First time?

[bnuyy]

🪼. .

[kyofsonder]

It's been several days and I'm still bothered by the many 3 (out of 5) star ratings for a book I just finished reading because

1) I enjoyed it a lot, and admire it from a craft perspective. I feel naturally defensive of my own enjoyment when I see others calling this work annoying or boring or meaningless. It was the first book in months I've been able to read through to the end without getting distracted and letting my library loan lapse partway through, it was genuinely compelling to me, and it had plenty of meaning about mortality and humanity and choice -- and what it means when the choice of life and death is in your own hands. People saying they didn't see any of that... I know it's honest to their experience, and it's fair in its own right, but it still bothers me that so many people said it on the book tracking app I use.

2) Several of the reviews hate the lead character, specifically, and I'm bitter about the inaccuracies of WHY they hate her -- I almlst want to reply to one reviewer in particular, "If you're going to have problems with a major character, have problems that are actually there on the page and don't invent them out of thin air." Some also hated the romantic sub-plot and said it had "unnecessary bodice-ripping" when I, personally, found it way less romance-focused than other fantasy novels I've read in the past. Again, this is probably a personal perspective thing, but compared to the books that faded to black or had a graphic sex scene every other chapter I'd say 2.5 scenes that involved so much as kissing and only 1 short bedroom scene through the entire book is pretty tame. It's fine to be upset that there was romance and/or sex, but at least be accurate about how much there was and how it was handled.

3) While I know this one is specifically due to my being a writer and that the issue it brings up is more nuanced than just "be so kind to everyone that you lose all your critical reading skills and/or ability to resonate emotionally with books and other forms of fiction," and that the average person is in fact unaware of what it means to write a whole novel or series, any review that says a book was bad or just wasn't their thing without acknowledging the work that the author put into it has the potential to discourage that author and/or others from ever making or sharing their work again and that can decrease the number of books in the world. Which sucks. It's hard to avoid, but it sucks. Sometimes I think I just shouldn't read book reviews at all, before or after my own reading of a novel/novella/series.

[neverendingford]

.

[littlestarxmilkyway]

I'm on a rant now, but I kept trying to think what it is about the progression of tales and FF as franchise's that bug me. Not just the edginess and people pretending the writing is good just because it's danker and visually darker (neither are genuinely any darker in tone or theme than any previous title in their respective franchise), or even people just being excited over the graphics. (Which? Yippee, I guess! 4k but a poor art direction, so what's the point!) But it was discussion in an Atelier thread that made it click. And it's because the games are becoming annoyingly mainstream.

The games, but also the "fandom." And to a degree, I hesitate to call it the fandom. I think FF and Tales are becoming stratified, and suffering from what VII and XIV have both created before. A lot of people play and love XIV. But an oddly high number of them have never touched another FF game, and probably won't ever. Which is fine for them, but they're XIV fans and not FF fans. Same with XVI to a degree. Very true of a weird number of VII (Remake trilogy) fans, unfortunately. And that's unfortunate because Square Enix looks at numbers and takes the wrong lessons from it. In the end, VIIR and XVI at least under-performed, so I don't even know what that means for FF. But in the case of Tales, it's worrisome.

Arise wasn't meant to be a Tales game, and given how Tomizawa views and treats Tales as a franchise, who knows what he'd do to the series. But for higher-ups to see Arise as a game stripped of most of Tales's identity and see it perform so well, I can only imagine the ideas that are filling their bobble heads. Because the issue with these games getting mainstream means they're eventually going to lose identity and a real brand to sell them. Tales makes money off of merch, and it had longevity because of how well it was nurtured as a franchise. It's like how anime makes success off of merch sales rather than bluray/DVD sales. I think the characters were the strongest selling point of this, and now we're at a time when people are less invested in newer characters, sans a pair or so from each of the Xillia games and onward. Mainstream sales aren't bad to pick up some traction here and there, but the mainstream market is so fickle. And frankly, lacking in taste. I like that Tales and FF were their own kind of art, but they're being stripped of that by supposed fans.

How do you call yourself a Tales fan, but you hate the anime and series staples? You're a JRPG fan "settling" for Tales games at that point. And it's sad because I feel like we're getting to the point where these people are the most vocal, and also pushing the most in sales. And I think these patterns are helping contribute to the downfall of both series.