#It doesn't have to be a main story thing either

[harostar]

And so far, we have seen how redemptions have played out for some of them.

Emerald was always the most hesitant of the group, and eventually realized things were going too far. Oscar extended his trust to her, and encouraged everyone else to give her a second chance. That's all she needed to start making amends and trying to do better.

Hazel was saved through Oscar being willing to offer him complete honesty, offering him the password and the opportunity to confirm things for himself. Hazel was finally able to understand the reasons his sister did what she did, and was able to make peace with it while sacrificing himself to save the girl he'd come to care about.

Neo was saved by Ruby, after everything she'd done. Ruby, who was tormented and driven to attempt to erase herself by Neo, recognized another broken girl that needed to find herself again. They parted having made peace with each other.

Adam is an example of someone that had chances to turn back, but ultimately refused to recognize his mistakes. He kept doubling down, until Blake and Yang had no other choice but to kill him.

That seems to be a theme with its villains and antagonists.

The theme of Choice.

Whether they pause in their actions, and choose to accept an offered hand.

Whether they refuse to reconsider, and lash out when a hand is offered to them.

The villains that pause and reconsider are saved, though this doesn't automatically mean they'll survive. Emerald, Hazel, and Neo were all saved in some capacity. One joined the heroes, one made peace with his pain and sacrificed himself, and the other has chosen to stay behind to find herself with the Blacksmith's aid.

Adam, Ironwood, Roman, Leo, and Watts all clung to their self-destructive paths until it killed them.

Cinder has kept going, but is still the Maiden associated with Choice. Her story is far from over.

Mercury is another that could go either way, depending on whether Emerald can save him.

Jax and Gillian seem poised to be Vacuo arc villains, having already hit a bump in the novel. Whether they can break out of their self-destructive co-dependence and save themselves or not is to be seen.

Tyrian? Yeah, nah. Bro is worm food and he's more than happy to go that path.

Salem of course is the main focus. She cannot be killed, which indicates that saving her in some capacity is the only possible solution.

Oscar has already established himself different from Ozpin, in extending his hand to Ozpin's enemies. He saved Hazel, where Ozpin could not.

Something I do vastly enjoy about RWBY is that while it is willing to show villains as horrible people, it's also willing to show them as human and how most were failed by society at some point to end up on this path.

Salem was failed by the gods, not because they wouldn't bring Ozma back, but because they never really understood the grief that Salem was going through and thought making her immortal would help her understand the importance of death.

Tyrian, as far as we can tell, is mentally unstable and never ended up with the help he needed. So once he met someone who was willing to save him and indulge in his desires to kill, he latched right onto it.

Hazel was also a victim of his own grief, unaware of how his sister died beyond a training accident and blaming Ozpin for it. He managed to find Salem, tried to kill her and only fell further into the idea that Ozpin had to be stopped.

Cinder was abused for most if not all of her childhood, promised a way out if only she could hold on. But with nothing to really help her with the abuse and finally snapping, Rhodes hadn't even tried to understand her situation, only seeing her kill and seeing it as enough to arrest her. Eventually killing him and finding Salem, everything she's done has been in the name of power and freedom because she's terrified of going back to that situation.

Neo and Roman both ended up as criminals due to a lack of love. Roman was orphaned and Neo's parents treated her as something that was broken.

Even Adam was failed, only ever given reasons to give into his frustrations and anger, eventually using it as a weapon to try to put humans beneath faunus after losing himself to his anger.

At any point things could've been different for most of them. Someone to lean on, someone to help them, maybe there could've been other paths for them.

[fuck-customers]

Fuckery with phones: An ongoing series

-The phone ringing then IMMEDIATELY stopping before it can even finish its first ring tone. There's usually no caller ID and when there is it just says 'ringing'. So, not a caller ID. There's no number that shows up either. This is a daily occurrence.

-One day I checked the Voice MailBox to come back to NINETY-NINE BLANK VOICEMAILS all in a few seconds of length over the course of 2 hours. What in the actual fuck. How do you fuck up that badly. It stopped at 99 cause it filled the VMbox up and wouldn't accept anymore otherwise I'm sure it would have went on.

-The shop cell phone, used only for calling coworkers, used in function what would be a Walkie-Talkie but we don't have those, being bombarded with 'Spam Likely' calls 2 certain days. Only the shop cell phone, not the main landlines. Also, it's clearly not a customer who may have had that number, because all the calls show up as Spam Likely and all come from different phone numbers. The phone doesn't automatically just not ring when it is a spam like most newer phones do, thou when I go back to work I'm gonna mess with it to see if it's some sort of setting I can turn on. Pray for me that it is.

-Someone spoofing the children's hospital caller ID and it ended up being a scam caller about some bullshit.

-A robo call that purposely waits and does the confused 'hello?' thing after hearing a voice, waiting in silence then me confused says 'hello?' cause it sounds like no one's there. Then the robo says it's confused hello, I say hello again then it does it's robo speel. One time I asked it if it was a robo and it said 'while my voice may sound robotic-' I immediately hung up. But it keeps calling and I can't block calls with either landline the shop has so I'm stuck wasting my time with robo calls.

Also I can't hang up after I don't hear a response cause for some stupid reason customers don't pay attention when I say 'Good *time greeting* *business name*' then they go 'huh?' cause they weren't paying attention or ask what the business name is even thou I LITERALLY JUST SAID IT. Fuckin pay attention my god you made the call why are you surprised when I say the business name you're calling?

Anyway feel free to add your own stories, I know (hope) some other people out there have had their fair share of phone fuckery too.

Posted by admin Rodney

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! Do you have any advice on how to handle an inherently fictional facial difference (that was caused by a fictional reason and while may have some partial crossover/parallels with elements of real world FDs, ultimately is a fictional one and is specific to the world/lore) in a way that would not come off as harmful to real facial differences? I also have some characters with actual real life FDs in the story, but maybe there's something else I should consider?

Also, what is your opinion on fictional disabilities in general? Not when the story just has a vague disability that can't be strongly connected to anything specific from real life, but when author specifically develops a fictional condition/disability/chronic disease etc in context of/based on elements of their fictional world?

Hello!

A fictional facial difference has basically the same potential pitfalls as any other fictional disability. You can take a look at this post where we talked about what not to do, TLDR: make sure it's actually a fictional disability and not just one you haven't heard of yet and be mindful of what real conditions it could be reminiscent of (and avoid stereotypes accordingly).

It's good that you also have characters with actually existing disabilities, it honestly annoys me to no end when people boast about their "disability rep" while all they have is 20 different "magic character can't do magic" characters. So this is definitely a big plus.

The only thing you need to keep in mind is to not split the two (character with fictional FD vs characters with IRL FD) into separate categories, consciously or not. Don't treat the one with a made-up FD as better or as inherently prettier than "those other people". Ideally they're all just treated the same in the story since that's the only option that makes logical sense.

Also, it was mentioned already in the post I linked, but unless you have some very specific scenario you purposefully want to do and actually comment on, avoid making the cause of her FD either 1) result of her parents doing Evil Drugs or black magic or whatever or 2), contagious. Very little FDs have those origins, but many are stereotyped or downright accused of being such.

Other than that, think of the same stuff as you would with IRL facial differences existing in a story. How does society treat them? What is the acceptance level? Are the majority of people knowledgeable (a person can know exactly nothing about being disabled and still be kind and accepting; it's not exclusive)? Are FDs more common because medicine is less advanced?

For the last question; it depends. If it has symptoms that real people have, there are gonna be real people who will relate to it (if done well) and real people who might be offended by how it's portrayed (if done badly).

Let's say your setting has a magic toxic flower that causes lower limb paralysis and/or weakness after someone steps on it - that's fictional, but there are many real world disabilities that share similar symptoms, even if the cause is obviously very different. If this was the fictional disability, the characters who have it would probably share the same community as characters with SCI, neuropathy, MS, etc.; it's based in fantasy but it's easy to imagine that it could be real.

In this context you should be researching the symptoms - leg paralysis and weakness - and potential treatments - physical therapy, learning how to walk with orthoses/crutches, painkillers, etc. Real readers with real symptoms will be able to relate to this kind of fantasy disability.

But let's say the fictional disability mainly presents as chronic pain and muscle spasms caused by the person not using magic enough. This on the other hand, doesn't work as a (respectful) fantasy disability. The main "accusation" people with chronic pain get is that we are lazy and if we just did more of [usually exercise] we would be cured - it doesn't work like that, and it would be frankly offensive to make a whole illness where the chronic pain is caused by someone not waving their wand enough or whatever. No one will be relating to this because it's not based on how stuff works, it's based on a stereotype. "It's fantasy" isn't a get out of jail free card, you still have to be conscious of what you are implying.

As long as you do research and keep in mind which real things your fantasy disabilities resemble (e.g. Hansen's disease and ALS will have very different stereotypes attached to them) so you can avoid making a connection you don't want to make.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[hawker-the-gary]

Hawk, you doing okay? You haven't posted an Incipere page in a while.

Hey, things have been busy and...now very chaotic. So I'll take the chance to respond your question to make two announcements, one that people on my patreon already know:

I'm working on a new comic project! It'll be a one shot with over 70 pages and I've been working on it non stop for the past month or so. I'll be honest here, Incipere is not doing well, it has very little engagement, very low update rate due to it being colored, and I know a lot of people don't find it as fun to read since it's an extremely flawed series. In turn, I also don't enjoy working on it as much as I used to either. It makes sense I mean, I wrote it when I was 16, it makes sense I've changed the way I tell stories now, heh.

So, I'm taking the chance to work on something new, something that I know I will enjoy at the very least. Even if it doesn't get lots of support, I'll be happy that I was able to finish something that I feel satisfied with. I don't plan on abandoning Incipere though! I just feel like I need to make a step forward to improve as an artist and story teller.

-Now, for the second announcement. This one is more important than the first as it happened so recently.

A lot of people may know about my little sister, and I'm heartbroken to say that she passed away this weekend...

It happened so suddenly, it was something everyone in my family knew it would happen due to her complicated health issues, but even then...one is never truly ready for these things when they actually happen. I can say that she passed away peacefully. Because of everyone's support via commissions and patreon, and even sharing my art, it all helped so that my sister could have the best quality of life she could.

Thanks to this platform, my sister's medical expenses were paid whenever our insurance wouldn't cover everything, I had been able to make hospital trips, buy medication, donate my own blood so she could live another day. It was all thanks to you.

I know I said I was working on a new project, but my sister's passing hit so suddenly, so hard, that I need to take my time to be with my family and friends. It's ironic, because my new project has elements of loss and grief as part of its main theme.

I apologize that I don't have the strength right now, I'll come back for sure, but right now my heart is shattered, and picking up a pen is hard.

Thank you all for your patience, I'll come back <3

[neuship-zone]

[Can I respond to this?]

RPF is its own grey area so I'm going to talk about it later, but I need to know about how 'fictional CSA' is causing the same issues. Especially since 'fictional CSA' would cover more than just the lolisho stuff I'd like to assume you're talking about.

I hate to say this, but it WOULD be censorship to take someone's work down. It doesn't matter why. Personally, I don't see why writing about fictional characters in harmful situations is more harmful than any other fiction (That includes murder btw, since some of you become radio silent when other taboos like violence get brought up). Yes, it can be uncomfortable to read and I'm not personally a fan but....that's what the tagging system is for? You don't even have to SEE it if you don't want to, because you can filter it. And if your main complaint is that children can find it, then what, should we get rid of all smut too? After all, children shouldn't be reading that either. Or do you only care about what children read if it's stuff you personally don't like?

Now, I don't think banning this content will lead to all queer content being banned, but I must say, some of this content IS queer. Some of these stories are queer people writing about their own experiences. And those stories need to exist because not every queer relationship is sunshine and rainbows. Some queer people are CSA survivors. Should they not be allowed to talk about their trauma, because you don't want the shotacon (who may or may not also be a CSA survivor) to post their shota rape fic?

And if your response is then "just ban the fetishy stuff", where do you draw the line? Because I could write about a hypersexual CSA rape victim and someone could accuse me of "fetishising" rape and CSA because the child is """"enjoying it"""" (nevermind the fact that it's written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, apparently I need to yell "THIS IS BAD" at the top of my lungs in order for the story to be acceptable. I mean, I would put a disclaimer because I'm nice, but I shouldn't need to tell people what's morally wrong about a child being groomed and abused.)

As for RPF....I mean if it's like Donald Trump x Joe Biden, hell yeah! Also if the CC has given explicit consent. And also crackfics in general.

But obviously things get more complicated when REAL children are now being written about, or if it's an actual ship between two real people. This is not something that even the proship community is unified on. But personally I think writing CSA about real people is abhorrent. There's no "it's a fictional character" because it's not really a fictional character if it represents a single person. A03 doesn't have to take work down, but they could at least...idk...disable people's accounts? I don't think stuff like that should be written without consequences honestly.

And no, I'm not a proshipper. I'm neutralship. I lurk in both proship and antiship spaces in order to find new perspectives and come to a more nuanced opinion. You would think people would guess from my blog name but apparently not I'm not a fan of how (some) proshippers act morally superior over liking problematic stuff, but I will always be anti-censorship and anti-harassment before anything else. We should be promoting media literacy and critical analysis of what we read, not trying to take it all down (or glossing over any issues because "it's fiction")

hey just wanted to say.

if you worship A03, unfollow me.

its a website.

it is a website that has been in beta for 14 years.

its a website that willingly hosts RPF and CSA and allows racism to go unchecked.

it is a website that has donation drives 4(?) times a year and regularly exceeds their goal by hundreds of fucking dollars, but can't even protect their unpaid volunteers from being spammed with CSA

do not fucking defend A03's refusal to moderate their content.

Removing RPF and CSA and racism is not a slippery slope to removing queer content, unless you think the only queer content to exist is inherently CSA or racist??

then again considering how many mlm ships i've seen in fandoms pair up the child protagonist with the 40-60 year old villain "in the name of gay shipping", I'm honestly not surprised so many of these people are up in arms about CSA being removed.

If your queer content is indistinguishable from CSA and RPF maybe you should think about why you're sexualizing children and violating real human being's by using their names and images for your own personal pleasure?

[seiji-the-ice-drake]

The Rose fucking gentrified Osprey Cove

I suppose that makes sense. I wonder what's going on with the ninjas

Oh....

Well, at least the bright side is that you can enforce a "No refund" policy and keep the gold

[sukibenders]

Racism and misogynoir are so apparent in fandom, especially when it comes to shipping because why is it when a white male, sometimes female but I see it more with the former, character is on screen with a love interest, particularly woc, especially if they're black, and even with all the emotional scenes or just moments where they look at one another in ways different from the rest, it's met with "No, they aren't dating/the show is not going to put them together" but let the other love interest be white as well and suddenly it all makes sense? Heck, the examples I mentioned above don't even have to exist between the latter for some to STILL go and believe this rhetoric (eg. some Jace and Helaena shippers because, even if these two only interacted with a dance but yet we see Baela console Jace, after he seeks her out, apparently it's to far fetched to believe that Jacela could be a thing?!)

Sometimes it could be a headcanon that, largely, would make sense (and oftentimes was birth due to lack of respect that the poc characters could have been given by the writers *cough* TVD *cough*), and yet you'd still have people dismissing it left and right and spewing hate. At a HEADCANON! And I'm not saying that just because the other person in the ship is poc that you have to ship them, I'm not, but it's very apparent to many poc fans in fandom that unless the characters are swapping spit and doing the nasty, the possibility of them being viewed in any romantic lens feels too much of stretch even though their white counterparts don't have to jump through the same loops.

[greenerteacups]

Hi GT,

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I absolutely love the recs you've given (you've introduced me to tomione, and I love it!) and I was wondering if it's possible to give you some recs in return? There are some books and fics that definitely have dramione / got vibes, and I was wondering if I could share them with you!

So glad you've enjoyed them! Feel free to rec me anything you want. I've read most of the classic recs in terms of fic and adjacent content (Cruel Prince et al), but I'll try anything that's well-written. My tastes run towards weird and/or audaciously creative stuff, and I can forgive a lot of weaknesses in plot on the grounds of (1) ambition or (2) character work. My turnoffs are instalove, protagonists who can't fail, and most Y/A (I'm not a hater, I swear, I just need characters who can say "fuck" when their leg gets chopped off.)

I'm also a fan of weird and fucked-up dynamics.(Wuthering Heights was my favorite book for a while, and as a teenager I wrote an AU in which the book ends on a long sex scene where Heathcliff fucks Cathy's ghost and then immediately gets murdered by Catherine 2.) Obviously, I am very normal.

[riddlerosehearts]

i'm honestly not really into gacha games, just twst and a3! act addict actors--the game i was referring to in my tags. but a3 has... so many cards for every character. if you want an example of just how many, take a look at this page for my favorite character--and then also take note of the fact the a3 wiki, for various reasons, isn't even fully up to date and doesn't actually have every card on it! and to be completely fair, a3 just had its eighth anniversary while twst is only about to have its 5th, but the difference is still massive.

a3 is no longer available outside of japan so i exclusively keep up with it through fan translations and such, but it keeps getting new cards all the time. events are much more frequent than in twst and regular scouts with themed cards that have nothing to do with any event are... well, a frequent thing, which twst doesn't even really have--there's the clubwear cards, but those drop so infrequently that i got into twst two whole years ago, and i believe the pop music club and basketball club (except for floyd, iirc) already had all their cards released back then. and yet two years later we still have to wait for the equestrian club, the board game club, and the film research club and i'm getting a little tired of waiting for them at this point tbh especially since my top 3 favorite characters are in those clubs 😭

getting cards based on things that happened in the main story isn't really something twst did until book 7 either, unless you count how ortho got a school uniform R card when he became an official student at the end of book 6! and even then we're only getting cards for a few characters and not for all of these other cool alternate outfits. halloween-exclusive characters and staff members getting cards is a pretty new thing as well. and twst just... doesn't even have big events all that often, really. a3 has so many events, each one with decently lengthy multi-chapter stories, that i have to keep a spreadsheet in order to track which ones i've read, and just looking at my spreadsheet i see that they usually have events every couple weeks or so and never really go a single month without one. in 2024, twst JP had: sam's new year sale in january, master chef with jack and vil from the end of jan to the start of february, the crowley magical assault practice thing from late feb to march 1st, the fourth anniversary event in march, tapis rouge in april, master chef with azul and ortho from late april to early may, the third tsum event from late may to mid june, magical assault practice with crewel from late june to early july, a unified exam event in august, nothing in september except reruns and birthday scouts, the lost in the book with nightmare before christmas event from october 1st to mid november, and then, like, a holiday gift campaign in december.

many of these are very small events with short stories or barely any story at all (master chef/culinary crucible events have almost nothing to them, especially if you don't get the cards and read the vignettes, and anniversary events are extremely short) and i'm honestly not really familiar with the magical practice assault events but as far as i know they don't have stories attached to them at all. each of these events do have at least one card for them, though! whereas unified exam events let you unlock voice lines from the staff members but they don't have event stories or cards. neither do the winter holiday gift campaigns. so yeah, twst just doesn't really get new cards or events all that often. i believe the character with the most cards is jamil, at 22 cards, but if you exclude the birthday cards that number goes down to 17.

i don't think twst should have nearly as many cards as a3, or whichever other game you came from, because twst has very high quality art that i'm sure they wouldn't be able to have if they were releasing so many cards all the time. but i do wish it had actual important events with decent-length stories a little more frequently, that it would occasionally just drop some cool cards without there having to be an event (like the clubwear cards, but, you know, more of them), that R cards had groovies so it wouldn't feel so disappointing if your fave is in an event as an R card, and also that every card had a vignette...

anyway the fact that we don't have a card where riddle looks like this is just... wrong. deeply upsetting. an affront to me personally. i only just found out this concept art existed 5 minutes ago but now i'll forever be dreaming of the power that he could have. how unbelievably hard he could slay.

[milfbrainrot]

have always been a bit more neutral to timebomb but it has rly surprisingly grown on me so much ;-; i think i do see it more from the tragedy angle and maybe more one-sided. i'm not sure jinx has ever been in a place to reciprocate the feelings i'm sure ekko has, but it is nice to think about for years down the line and in terms of what could have been.

[hey-heigo]

i read 'the gender of mona lisa' and i feel. both extremely seen and yet incredibly infuriated

[kisskissgotohell]

i just wanna point out that, like. it's okay to disagree with the main character. just because they're the pov of the story doesn't mean they're infallible or that their word is law? you can like that character that tried to kill the mc. you can think the mc made the wrong choice. you can forgive things that the mc would never forgive, or choose not to forgive things that the mc does, because you're not the main character. you are the reader of the story, and just because you can't change it (and it's not the author's responsibility to capitulate to fans) doesn't mean you can't form your own opinions about it. it's fictional! that's the point! have fun with it!!

[todayisafridaynight]

I still remember Yakuza Movie Majima and how kill happy he is compared to his in-game self. Like every scene of him either the regular Kiryu Chan stuff or him killing a dude every other minute 😂😂😂😂😂😂 If we get a Yakuza 3 adaptation with the same director, maybe Mine would get the “ten times more unhinged than canon treatment”

it's SO funny just how unapologetically violent he is, i wouldn't be surprised if movie majima is the direct cause for the majima everywhere system in kiwami 1 honestly

a 'more unhinged' mine sounds like a nightmare considering he's already Like That on his own

[catcatb0y]

I ran out of tag... (It's mostly like two things that end up becoming annoyingly intertwined the more the series goes on). He was only powerful when it was convenient to the power scaling, which led to him being constantly put in otherwise intensely traumatizing victim situations solely to spur the main character into saving him no matter the cost. Which normally would have only furthered his unrealistic inferiority complex (and also his fear of weakness as well as distaste for weak people given how many people VICTIM BLAMED HIM, which you'd think would only confirm his fucking bias??) which OOPS was made into a... realistic inferiority complex?? Somehow solely to show that the MC somehow managed to grow past the underdog he never fucking was, and since the fans adored this, that became his only character! Yeah, somehow THAT was his big character growth...

He went from a complex, morally grey character to UwU empty ship fodder, and the fans of the series ate it up SO much that one of the main villains (one of the only people who genuinely acknowledged the strength and horrible treatment of my silly guy) telling him 'You're useless actually, I just want to kill you to make that other kid sad lol-' is seen as his PEAK. That. That's his peak. That's the "good ol days" the shipdom romantacizes. A villain poking at his weakness and deepest insecurity is somehow the canonizing moment of the ship (and it doesn't even happen, MC gets mad at his best friend's death for three seconds and then effortlessly kicks the villain's ass, as like the shittiest cherry on top) < it only gets worse from there!

I was also a shipper back in the day, and, in hindsight, I really should have seen the whole shitshow coming, but unfortunately I went on to dedicate six years to this hyperfixation that continues to haunt me three years after I attempted to quit the fandom cold turkey. It didn't even work.

reblog this with one canon thing you dislike / think is flawed about your blorbo and/or the way they were written

[arolesbianism]

Shakes the bars of my cage I need to draw soooo bad I need to draw I need to draw let me draw I have to draw I need to draw I must draw (<- has been too sick to be on electronics much and doesn't like doing traditional art)

[autumnrory]

i do think sometimes need to remember when something is an issue in fanon and that canon is not necessarily Like That