#Not saying any of this is inherent horror btw it's just bad TO ME and also I feel like we shouldn't deny the horror of-

[hajihiko]

Your tag saying Mikan is gonna have it rough has me worried. She’s already been through enough! I mean they all have but especially her! I don’t even want to imagine what her haunting is like!

there's no metric for suffering so it's not like she literally has more bad than the boys. I just mean that, to me, things pertaining to childbirth and the menstrual cycle is horror in itself so it hits harder

[lakesbian]

and now for our Checking In With The Dallon Sisters poasting

Panacea shook her head, “Tattletale found a way around my sister’s invincibility. Glory Girl was bitten pretty badly, which is why I didn’t come sooner. I think it hits you harder, psychologically, when you’re pretty much invincible but you get hurt anyways. But we’re okay now. She’s healed but sulking. I- I’m alright. Bump on my head, but I’m okay.”

victoria is demonstrably having a bad time with the previously noted psychological pain of being forcibly reminded that, no matter how hard she tries, she will never be the spotless, invincible, perfect hero she wants to be. the bug bites suck obviously but the "sulking" After being healed is an indicator of where it really hurt--not just physically.

(amy's power reminds me of. do you guys know that one tumblr post about the concept of exploring the horror potential inherent to D&D-esque fantasy healers? like, the horror inherent to being perfectly, magically healed from horrifying injury a hundred times over, and being expected to just get up and keep fighting afterwards, without any regards to how your mental health is doing. that's exactly how amy's power functions: you're made physically better than ever, and expected to get back up and keep being a hero, but you still have the memory of the pain and the lingering psychological aftereffects. but, like, you're fine now, so you just need to get over it and go back to throwing yourself in the line of fire, okay?)

amy is also right off the bat clearly not doing so hot--she's acting very shy and withdrawn and unsure compared to both of her prior appearances. obviously that is due to the horror of some random villain going "btw, remember that you're ontologically an invader into the family you are trying to belong in!" but i think it's probably compounded by the fact that amy is so used to being treated either 1. like she's intrinsically awful/unwanted or 2. like she's only valuable/desirable as a resource by Everyone But Victoria that walking into a room of heroes w/o victoria by her side is always liable to make her insecure and withdrawn.

oh, and the burnout. obviously the severe fucking burnout.

“No, I hated that he would have a normal life, because I’d given up mine.  I was scared that I might intentionally make a mistake.  That I might let myself fuck up the procedure with this kid.  I could have killed him or ruined his life, but it would have eased the pressure.  Lowered expectations, you know?  Maybe it would have even lowered my own expectations for myself.  I… I was just so tired.  So exhausted.  I actually considered, for the briefest moment, abandoning a child to suffer or die.” “That sounds like more than just exhaustion,” Gallant replied, quietly. “Is this how it starts?  Is this the point I start becoming like my father, whoever he was?”

the "every second i rest, someone dies" conundrum would be nightmarish for her even if she had the healthiest social support net on the planet, but her circumstances make it infinitely worse. she's treated by everyone in her "family" but victoria like an invader, and even victoria has unintentionally stressed the importance of using her healing power in the way that the family wants (i.e. to cover up victoria's police brutality) in order to Be A Good Family Member. amy has internalized that being a good dallon is the same as being a good hero, and failing at being a dallon is the same as being overcome by her ontologically criminal roots. so she works herself to the bone, and when she inevitably starts to falter, she views it as an indicator of something intrinsically wrong with her rather than as a sign that her family + society's expectations for her are harmful and unfair.

and dean's advice for her only reinforces this further:

Gallant let out a slow breath, “I could say no, that you’re never going to be like your father. But I’d be lying. Any of us, all of us, we run the risk of finding our own way down that path. I can see the strain you’re experiencing, the stress. I’ve seen people snap because of less. So yeah. It’s possible.”

he suggests that she try to take a break, but only in the service of "so you can heal more people in the long run." he validates the idea that she could go "down that path," as if becoming a villain--becoming A Bad Person--is a risk all heroes have to fight against on an individual level, as opposed to criminality being a result of circumstance and not even inherently immoral. and of course dean thinks that way--he's a millionaire child soldier, his entire life is predicated on individualist thought with ignorance to the ways in which systematic factors impact people. acknowledging that amy is being horrifically mistreated would mean not only acknowledging the flaws in the PRT system, but acknowledging what might lead people to stray from it, and he simply can't do that. it goes counter to every idea that his life is built on.

he never even tells anyone that amy thought about letting a child die, or if he did, it didn't go anywhere. she was desperate for help all along, increasingly ready to explode, and everyone just ignored it. because as she says:

"My sister’s all I’ve got. The only person with no expectations, who knows me as a person. Carol never really wanted me.  Mark is clinically depressed, so as nice as he is, he’s too focused on himself to really be a dad. My aunt and uncle are sweet, but they’ve got their own problems. So it’s just me and Victoria. Has been almost from the beginning."

this is also where we see another more blatant sign of her crush on victoria--it's very ambiguous as to whether dean is interpreting amy's feelings towards him as meaning "wants to date me" or "jealous of me for dating victoria" but i think it's probably the former because there's no way he would keep his mouth shut if it was the latter, lmao. really what this scene is doing is introducing all of the stressors amy is experiencing that, because they're going unaddressed, because everyone else is refusing to address them and she has internalized that's how it should be, are going to boil over horrifically later on. that burnout and fear of accidentally-on-purpose making a mistake will lead to truly being unable to heal victoria later on. that sense of obligation, that if she can't keep healing she's turning into her father, will contribute to her being unable to just walk away from victoria instead of trying to heal her. her crush on victoria--the ultimate example of how her should-be family has ostracized her--will boil over in the impulsive brain alteration & the sexual nature of the wretch's design.

and all of this would've been avoidable if not for, as mentioned in the prior post abt this interlude, the dallons' and the PRT's enforcement of wallpapering over the kid heroes' pain to Keep Up The Show.

[nickmpreg]

been meaning to ask for awhile now and now I feel brave enough to, can I hear about the fanverse incident

claps my hands together . so this might get long you’re just going to have to bear with me . some details may be foggy in my head because it’s been probably a year since ive cared or really paid much more attention than what my friends told me to it but this is , essentially , what i remember the most and what makes the fanverse a fucking disaster

so the fanverse predates the Republican donation stuff by about a year . when it was announced i think the games that stood out the most to people were the joy of creation , popgoes , candy’s , flumpty’s , and the fnaf 1 remaster ( that i’ll spend so much time on . there’s so much stuff on phisnom alone ) . TJOC and candy’s don’t really have a lot to say on them , because the creators are normal people ( ? ) who just wanted to make fnaf fan projects , and if they could make some money via assistance from Scott by means such as selling on steam and possible merchandise , of course they were gonna take it

i don’t wanna say that the cracks started to show when the creator of flumpty was outed as a pedophile and openly admitted to it and banned himself from any online space to go better himself or whatever , but i will say that you could probably guess things were only going to go downhill from there when Scott made no public statement . i guess if you’re a dick rider you can argue that fnaf has an audience of children who don’t really need to be hearing a lengthy statement from the series creator about how pedophilia is a bad thing because Obviously , but he Has made statements about that before . he cut ties with pinkypills ( supposedly ) because of her comics that portrayed william as a pedophile . this isn’t meant to come off as a defense of pinkypills because she’s a genuinely terrible person , but one would think that a real life human person grooming a minor and admitting to it would be worse than possibly having someone read a comic that would have others perceive your fictional character as a pedophile . moving on

popgoes is being developed by kane carter who’s his own brand of something . he has such a bad tendency of saying stupid shit on his Twitter and then when someone goes ‘hey man this sounds a little stupid’ he will bug out and post some heated rant before going nuclear and locking his account , rinse and repeat for however many years it’s been . <- that’s why i joke that i have beef with him . because he did that to me circa 2020 when i made a joke about his old sister location theory about it being an underground sex dungeon or something He just had to make sure i knew at 14 years old that he wasn’t serious ! and it was a product of lack of knowledge of the time or whatever . i don’t hold that against him btw i just think it’s objectively a little funny . i think in terms of fanverse reception popgoes is still held in a really high regard because it seems to be one of the only projects that’s still actually being fucking worked on . if kane carter wasn’t such a fucking bizarre guy on his Twitter im sure that he’d still have a crumb of good faith left to anyone other than the people who have been following him since he made popgoes as a one off thing and probably feel some sort of obligation to keep going

Stares At You . and phisnom . phisnom is a special guy . he was the one who was assigned to remake fnaf 1 but make it Scarier or something . i feel it’s important to say that phisnom has gone on record saying that redesigns ( such as the ones in analog horror ) that just take the base design but make it grimy and ‘scarier’ are lazy and don’t actually add anything to their base design . i don’t inherently disagree with his take but seriously look at this

yeah man you’re really dodging the ‘making it scarier just because’ allegations with this one . i honestly think that aside from the joy of creation which is just like a really impressive fan game this was probably the second most hyped up one because it was being sold as a remake to the first and it was being funded by Scott’s money . objectively for the time it felt a little bit cool and i drew fan art for it ( which i still think is cute . i wish that phisnom didn’t suck so much fucking cock and balls so that i didn’t feel bad about looking at it but it’s whatever )

where the problems with phisnom reach a head is that he’s a cunt . like really just a cunt i don’t know how else to put it . there’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to have an audience of adults or whatever especially if the thought of having an audience of children makes you uncomfortable there is Nothing wrong with that , but when you sign on to make a remake of FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDYS you need to know what kind of fan base you’re signing up for .

phisnom’s twitter is 18+ , but he would get interactions from minors all the time . whether or not you blame the minors is up to you i guess but Again , when you’re posting about your five nights at Freddy’s project unless its just straight up porn it’s kind of absurd to think that everyone here is going to be a strong hearty adult . like let’s be so for real we all know the adults in the room aren’t funding your fan game .

what you probably heard is that after he played the ruin dlc he didn’t like it . since the dlc had just come out it had its recency bias and a kid replied to his tweet about it and then phisnom quote retweeted them and inadvertently sent his audience who aren’t stalking him for fnaf over to this child and send him gore and porn . obviously a person can’t control what their fan base does but when people were like ‘hey dude your community is sending a child gore and porn’ instead of making a tweet like ‘i don’t want you guys to do that’ he posted an ‘apology’ that just led back to a rick roll . obviously at this point he kind of just looks like an edgy child and people go to their lord and savior Scott Cawthon to get something done

by the way , i didn’t mention this yet , but this phisnom stuff happened in like July-august of last year , so it’s not like this was that long ago . that being said you also have to wonder Hey . where’s fnaf+ by now . because that was also the question that a lot of people ran back to . so you’re getting funded by both Scott cawthon and an audience of fans who are expecting a project that the creator himself managed to shit out in about a month , while you’ve been given three years to recreate some source material and you’re not done yet ? what’s taking so long ?

all of this combined into one melting pot led fnaf+ to getting canceled . go figure . scott never released his own statement on it because he’s off doing god knows but phisnom did , which basically said he’s done with fnaf and don’t ask about it or fnaf+ as a project anymore because he’s not completing it and he would like to do other project .

im sure there’s stuff i missed because of the aforementioned brain fog all the way at the start but yes . the fanverse is a fucking disaster . the joy of creation and candy’s are pretty good though

[indigosfindings]

can you elaborate more on the joyful/optimistic art vs cynical/sad art thing?

(re: this post)

sure, sorry in advance if this is messy.

the gist is that there's a slew of micro-discourses whose common thread is the inherent or automatic superiority of art and stories that are optimistic and centre 'joy', 'love', and other positive emotions over those that don't.

it manifests a million different ways: "x series is bad because it's pessimistic/cynical/dark", "x story is bad because it depicts SA/incest/abuse*", "horror is really about love/family", "love is a unilaterally healing and moral force", "dark/negative art is universally less authentic/earnest", "sad/disturbing art is easy to make while positive art is difficult," etc. (also seems to correlate w the internet's general attitude toward criticism--that even mild negative feedback toward any art is in essence insulting its author & audience)

one of the factors imo is that a lot of people are unwilling to interrogate their reactions to something. like the process is "i see disturbing art -> i feel disturbed -> 'disturbed' is a negative emotion -> this art has done something negative to me -> this art is bad" and then never question it further

as for why i feel frustrated: hmm where to start. it's an extremely flat heuristic that diminishes alll art with any aims other than to please or to be Fun. it denies that "to disturb", "to frighten", "to disquiet", "to sadden", "to critique", etc are worthwhile endeavours in art. it also just betrays a narrow view of what has the capacity to be Fun for someone! i'm especially frustrated because horror always gets the brunt of it. there's a sort of longstanding anxiety about the "value" of horror, about horror needing to "prove its worth", and i think a lot of people's answer to that is to say "it's not actually about Scary, it's about Happy :)"

one of the really popular takes that i still see today is "if you're writing a fantasy story where anything can happen, why incorporate homophobia, misogyny, etc?" and, i mean, it's a pretty straightforward answer--because those things exist in real life, and by incorporating them into a story you can reflect, comment on, and explore real issues that are pertinent to the audience! likewise re "love is virtuous and healing," it's just a simple fact that love is morally neutral. people do HORRIBLE things for love all the time. i used to be more idealistic about this, but now i honestly cant stand the idea that a saccharine, childlike stance on love is by default a better one

(there's a huge comparison to be made here with the reactionary pushback against modern art btw)

it also ties into a broader schema--"toxic positivity" is a popular line, but we can aim higher: there's a sort of cultural mandate toward positivity, where saying "x is bad" is worse than x being bad. think right and send thoughts and prayers. capitalism loves the idea of each person fending for themselves--you have the whole concept of "wellness" and "mindfulness", ie Positive Thinking as a vector for mental health (the corollary being that a person who is unwell is a person who is Not Trying Hard Enough To Be Positive), whereby to read a situation cynically (or pragmatically!) is the worst thing you can do. and well, by the same token, when we have a whole cavalcade of employers who LOVE seminars and videos about How To Manage Your Stress (and zero interest in inspecting what it is that makes employees excessively stressed to begin with!), im sure you can imagine why someone could get exhausted of positivity.

as i said in the previous post, the most insane part is the particular framing of this atittude as somehow counterculture, controversial, or against the grain. y'know, when we're discussing chipper upbeat art about how everything is good vs art that's grim, violent, negative, pessimistic--which of these is most likely, historically and today, to be censored, to be banned, or to arouse controversy?

*(obviously there are depictions of SA and other sensitive subjects that are callous, sexist, etc! but there are also plenty that are trenchant, edifying, powerful, evocative, etc!)

[l-art-stuff-l]

alright making a pinned post finally I guess. i draw sometimes and I am so so normal about everything trust me

I am a fagdyke and so so queer and all the tiktok and twitter kids are so so mad and they’re screaming and crying

CBEEDUO IN GAY LOVE 💞💞💞

dni (do not interact) [I know this won’t work for some people but eh]

if you’re a terf/swerf/radfem/radfem aligned/gender critical. if you’re rethinking your decisions about being one feel free to hop in my askbox and I’ll try to answer your questions as best as I can

anti-blm (black lives matter), support blue lives matter (fuck the police)

antisemetic, islamaphobic, hostile to people with different religious beliefs or ancestral roots in any way

pro-life. fetuses are parasitic and it’s the choice of whoever is carrying the fetus to decide wether or not to get an abortion

any kind of disability/neurodivergency/queer gatekeeper. why are we fighting. we should all kiss and get along

antivax. vaccines don’t cause autism and even if they did how is it worse for your children to be autistic instead of dead/dying?

support autism speaks or peta. autism speaks is a hate group, and peta does nothing but spread lies and hurt animals

think everyone with a cluster b personality disorder is inherently bad or evil, or if you believe in narcissistic abuse

aphobic, yes that also includes aromanticism. asexual and aromantic people are part of the queer community

pedophile/MAP/NOMAP/clovergender/supporter. i do not want you here. please talk to a professional therapist and distance yourself from any minors around you

romantically or sexually ship incest, pedophilia, teacher/student, etc. this is not the place for you and I would prefer for you to leave me alone

I may add onto this as time goes on. I know I can’t stop anyone from interacting with my posts, but I thought I’d just put it out there. if I don’t like you I will block you

if I somehow do something offensive or problematic, tell me, and leave my friends and mutuals out of it

I’m a fan of homestuck/hiveswap, but I absolutely do not support hussie. you can enjoy a piece of media and think critically about it without supporting the creator

I’ve also been part of the FNaF fandom since the beginning, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. i also like undertale/deltarune, mcyt in general, the owl house, the magnus archives, the mechanisms, wings of fire, warrior cats, horror, BatIM/BatDR, liminal/derealization kinds of stuff, and other things that I’m probably forgetting. I’m really bad at consistent tags, so I’m sorry if I reblog or post something that makes you uncomfortable, and I’m not good at remembering to use tone indicators. please assume that everything I say is lighthearted and/or joking unless said otherwise

I’m also a minor, so please don’t be creepy

my queue tag is #mmm bbqueue

my og posts are #toby tattles

my og art is #arts art

answered asks are #art answers asks

posts that make me smile are #habby

if you prefer flour tortilla tacos over corn tortilla tacos I’m legally allowed to kill you btw <3

[thechangeling]

I was reading your co-signing the narrative post- great post btw- and your thoughts on Kit Lightwood helped me figure out exactly what bothers me about the way other characters talk about and treat him.

So, there’s this kind of this running “joke” in TLH that Christopher’s interests are boring, that everyone else puts up with it him as though it’s this big nuisance, that everyone zones out hearing him talk… and on and on and on.*** And then there’s this scene where Grace is genuinely interested or at least not bringing him down about his self-expression and the things that bring him joy, and that’s romanticized as special when it’s really kind of the bare fuckin minimum. Like, I’m not saying James/Matthew/Thomas had to immerse themselves completely in every sciency detail but the constant “jokes” implying that Christopher’s work is boring or incomprehensible or not worth their time is just so tiring. There’s always an undercurrent of “Christopher’s just playing around uselessly” (which is not true and even when he’s having fun with his work then it’s still automatically WORTHY and VALUABLE because it makes him happy!) Not to mention this recurring problem directly contradicts the value that Christopher’s work has (beyond its inherent value) when he sends it into the world to literally save lives: the poison antidote, the fire messages that will probably come about in CoT.

And the thing is, the merry thieves’ disinterest is directly meant to foil grace’s interest in order to lend the Grace/Kit relationship a certain significance, as CC assigns to it. I’m not saying shared excitement over an interest/hobby/career/field/etc isn’t sweet platonically or romantically. I just really dislike how the idea CC is using is “no one else can bear to tolerate Kit’s ‘quirks’ but Grace, and that is Endearing, and so they are Soulmates (TM)” rather than the much healthier and positive idea that “Kit does cool sciencey stuff which his family and friends generally don’t share as strong a passion for but still don’t huff about it like it’s somehow a chore or a burden on them, and then Grace comes along and she does happen to share a similar passion and that’s the beginning of their ties to one another.” That second reasoning is what could make their friendship really refreshing; we don’t need ableism poorly twined into romance to enjoy that relationship.

I haven’t read TDA in a while but I’m thinking we could also find touches of this with Ty partly because so much of when we see him is from Kit’s POV? Not that Kit means harm or thinks himself heroic but CC on the other hand is a repeat offender in “abled/white/straight/cis character is ultimately and completely responsible for the salvation of disabled/POC/queer character in this aspect.” And I’m kind of half dreading the wicked powers for that reason among others …

I apologize if all this seems obvious or rambly. I do sometimes have trouble articulating things exactly but when I read your post i had a lightbulb moment and I wanted to note it down.

Have a great day!

***Side Note: this is why I really enjoy fan-created content that explores Christopher’s relationships with people (even people he didn’t interact with on-page in the canon) without that annoying and problematic aspect built into the framework of the relationship.

^^^^^^^^^THIS ALL OF THIS!!!!!!

Full disclosure this is gonna be kind of long sorry. But you have stumbled across my favourite topic to rant about. Allistic saviorism. Basically the name is pretty self explanatory. It's when an allistic person fictional or otherwise has the desire to or actively attempts to essentially "save" the autistic person from the horrors of the world or their life, or even themselves because they think that the autistic person isn't strong or capable enough to fix/handle it on their own. All of this is usually done for very self serving reasons. Part of this is also allistic people being praised as heroes for being nice to autistic people or asking them out, or loving them.

I don't neccesarily think that kitty is an allistic savior ship on it's own. I think that there are definitely peices of those beliefs scattered throughout the books and it might get worse in TWP. That's honestly something that I'm worried about too tbh. But honestly I think that the fandom made it a billion times worse.

This mainly allistic fandom wanted to romanticize the idea of Kit taking care of Ty and shouldering the burden of his "unpredictability." Kit is the only one who can get through to Ty. The only one who understands the mystery that is Ty 🙄. Some of this is canon too. For example, Ty can look Kit in the eye, he lets him touch him. He doesn't wear the headphones when Kit's around right? And Kit was able to calm him down during his meltdown.

And while some of this is really cute from a romantic perspective, it's also kinda problematic because it reeks of allistic saviorism. It promotes the idea that Kit is like Ty's "cure." And that's just impossible.

And honestly I know I've contributed to this in some ways. Because if I'm being perfectly honest with you, there's a part of me that enjoys that. The romantization of autism.

The idea of being taken care of.

The idea that someone could love an autistic person and see them as "beautiful" and "extraordinary" and all the things Kit calls Ty, was incredibly moving and appealing to me as a kid. It still is. Because I grew up on stories of charity cases and allistic saviorism making headlines with prom dates. I was super secretive about it, but I was always a romantic growing up. But I thought that it was impossible for me to have a real love story because people like me don't get that. (Not to get all sob story on you sorry. I overshare. It's an autistic thing.)

And there are some really compelling things about kitty that really do work. And I'm not trying to suggest that Kit learning to help Ty with the ...shall we say more colourful traits of his disability is a bad thing always. It's not. But I think the issue is with Ty's lack of pov and Ty's lack of a narrative in the books. It makes him seem like less of a completely developed character and more like, "Kit's" you know?

And because we don't have Ty's pov we don't really get what makes Kit have this sort of calming effect on him or why it's different. And more importantly we don't get why Ty's letting him in, we only get Kit pushing past his boundries. The entire thing becomes about Kit essentially and that's at the root of all allistic saviorism.

Also like you mentioned before, Kit is seen as special to a certain extent because he can handle Ty. That's not neccesarily something the character believes obviously, but again with CC co-signing the damn narrative with the way she makes the impact Kit has on Ty such a big deal in everyone's eyes and in QOAAD she really emphasizes the drain Ty's necromancy plan is taking on Kit, suddenly Ty's grief becomes all about Kit and with no pov from Ty, it's more allistic savior bs.

Honestly most of this isnt actually THAT bad it's just when you throw it all together and look at the ugly history and let's be honest present, of autistic people being silenced and spoken over by our caregivers and loved ones and we are treated like burdens on them, and how those people are praised for loving us, it kinda looks bad. But the fandom definitely made it worse.

I always get criticized for criticizing kitty by allistic people with, " well if you think they're so toxic then why do you even ship them?" Which is a piss poor take lacking in any nuance. An autistic person has the right to critique a dynamic involving an autistic character. More to the point, you can love something and be critical of it. I swear when this fandom finally figures that one out... we could accomplish so much.

I'm really hoping this is making sense it's like 2 in the morning. As for Grace and Christopher's dynamic I agree with you. I basically have nothing to add. Bare minimum. Should not be idolized. The way the others treat him should not just be brushed off as no big deal. It's ableism.

Basically it's just a bunch of classic mistakes that come from a neurotypical abled writer writing nd characters. Some mistakes are more damning then others. But it does make me scared for TWP.

I can only hope.

[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?

[synodicatalyst]

epilogue thoughts part 3

a big part i didn’t like and about which i’ve seen similar complaints is the aspect of taking the “absurd gritty edgy realist” fanfic trope WAY FAR and the more i think about it, the more i agree

because the fact of the matter is that i DIDN’T enjoy reading the epilogue. there were lots of parts i liked and found funny, but it was arduous and horrible in the way that you don’t feel hope, at any time, for any chance of happiness. you feel like youre reading through 180k words of genuine depression, even including the softer moments, the happier ones, the ones that offer development

i say this as someone who has read my fair share of gritty what-if bad-end longfic. an example i’ve been thinking about is the FFXV fic tu fui, ego eris. while it doesn’t share the same meta elements as homestuck’s epilogue, it strikes me as broadly similar, for a few reasons: one, it’s like, MEGA long. and two, we get to see a beloved character (my favourite character, ignis) spiral on his journey to becoming a villain.

here’s the thing about tu fui: i enjoyed every step of the way.

and that’s the thing, really - you CAN write horrible, tragic stories where the gay dude becomes a villain not out of inherent evil but because of Necessity. both tu fui and homestuck did it. but the difference is that i fucking loved tu fui, ego eris because not only was it written spectacularly, but there was an underlying sense of hope.

Throughout the fic, the author states many times that there’s “no going back”, that if you’re expecting a Good End then you’re in the wrong place. (I read it in its entirety, in one sitting, before she started writing a Good End by popular demand.) And i persisted -i still held out hope - not only because i had already read like 100k of it, nor just because i’m stupid and believed in the good of ignis scientia, but because it was ENJOYABLE. i loved being witness to the descent of ignis scientia. i was deeply invested in the outcome of this horrible, hopeless universe - will ignis find a way to accomplish his original goal? will he succumb to the scourge? will noctis still die, despite the horrible sacrifices made? i knew ignis would die. i knew it would be ugly, that he’d have to be stopped. but i didn’t care. even though this was a character i poured my soul into, i needed to see this til its end, villainy or no.

I got to see hardened, sharper versions of characters i loved (much like the epilogue) and even though the end was tragic and made me actually cry, and the whole thing was SUPER LONG with a lot of Plot Bullshit that probably went over my head, i didn’t regret it, i enjoyed every step of the way.

so i’ve been wondering where homestuck left me. and why homestuck left me here. and why i was slogging through thousands of words of jane suddenly being outright xenophobic and dirk Doing Some Bullshit. and why i didn’t fully enjoy reading it even though i am just as invested in these characters as like, ignis from ffxv (btw i know i have bad taste and ffxv is a shame fandom full of pretty videogame boys but that’s not the point DONT @ ME OK)

and i think it mostly boils down to the fact that 1, it felt hopeless the whole way through? like that was the POINT but it was hammered in again and again. tu fui did similarly - there was no Happy Reprieve, no funny jokes except for ardyn being a fucking weirdo - but it did it less absurdly. which i think leads to number 2, that homestuck just...started off 7 years after the end of the game. we didn’t get to witness the characters change into what we saw. we were plunged straight into “jane is spouting actual fascist ideologies now i guess” and “dirk is really purposefully manipulative to the extreme and kidnaps rose and fucks with people’s heads a lot”. we didn’t get to witness the spiral, the descent into feral horror. we just witnessed the outcome

this doesn’t mean it’s BAD to do so, but it is jarring, and i don’t think it was a good choice, character-wise. like this is the precise reason many people said the epilogue reads as OOC - yeah, cuz no-one is the same at 23 as they were at 16 - but like can you BLAME people for thinking as such when going from 16 year old “i want to be the best version of me because i know i can fuck up or slip up really easily” dirk to 23 year old dirk requires a WHOLE LOT OF INTERPOLATION

anyways what i’m saying is it is indeed possible to write dark nihilistic Everything Sucks fic and still have it be enjoyable and i’m sort of at a loss because while i liked a good chunk of the epilogue, i cannot in good conscience say that i Enjoyed it, and i think that’s a shame

[userseokkie]

Steve Rogers is a walking contradiction: the anti military soldier

After reading this meta on a gifset about Steve and Tony i got carried away and wrote essentially an essay about the analysis that had been made. and while i agree with the general sentiment of the post, some things didn’t sit right with me. btw i decided to make this my own separate post because this isn’t intended to start an argument or derail the original post, i know it can be annoying for gif makers to have dozens of comments added onto their posts.

(the meta in question)

ok so full disclaimer I’m not American and I’m not white. i just felt like this analysis was really interesting and when I read it I couldn’t stop all these thoughts that formed in my head, next thing I know I had written all of this in like 30 minutes. I’m not trying to argue or start shit, this is my own personal analysis of Steve’s character and why I don’t agree with some things said above.

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: Steve does not trust the US government. at least not blindly. the fact that he’s still the little shit that had a real problem w authority figures is something they touch upon on catfa a lot. he changed on the outside but on the inside he’s still that idiot punk kid and like, I get what the tags above me are saying but also Steve’s arc is more than that? and let’s not forget this stupid movie was written and directed by thanos Joss “I’m the true feminist ally” whedon so I would take this exchange with a grain of salt. I mean this is the movie that gave us “gOllY tHeRe’S OnLy oNe gOd m'Am” and “sOn oF a GuN” Stephen Rogers which is the most ooc thing I’ve seen since endgame’s Steve. Steve is a fucking potty mouth ffs he’s Irish and a soldier, so that doesn’t even make sense. but anyway, my point is something else, nvm this movie’s portrayal of Steve in general.

I guess we could probably argue all day long abt which Steve portrayal is the most accurate one since his character in the MCU is the one that’s suffered the most at the hands of inconsistent characterization, but I prefer thinking he already WAS someone that was well aware of the horrors of war and how unfair it was to recruit people w lies and the promises of education opportunities and loans for the poor to join the army, because he LIVED that he grew up dirt poor and had to see his mom take on three different jobs to support herself and him, so he’d consider this attempt to bring civilians into the military life by preying on their needs disgusting, he’d be fucking seething with anger. and if he had lived through the 60s (which I think it’s better for everyone involved that he didn’t, can u imagine poor guy would’ve died from the disappointment in what his country had become) I highly doubt he would’ve been the bitter WWII vet that defended Vietnam and shit on the protestors……. Steve would support the citizens’ rights to ask for accountability and demand justice!! even the hippie movement I think he would’ve been ok with when he saw that they were advocating FOR PEACE. that’s why he enlisted on the war after all, to bring the fight to an end and to have Bucky come HOME. I think Steve rogers would be all for peace. I mean, civil disobedience and telling the government to shove it? that’s Steve Rogers’ goddamn ethos. he would be all over that shit.

I agree w op’s tags where they say Steve doesn’t represent America, he represents what America wishes it had been. and I think Steve himself would be well aware he’s the anomaly here, the one that should have been America’s highest ideal. and I think that makes Steve very wary of his own image, anything he endorses becomes what America endorses. Steve rogers isn’t important, Captain America is. but I think Steve’s response here has more to do with his coping mechanisms to deal with loss, rather than coming from a place of “oh we’re soldiers, it’s what we do, we die for our country.” while Tony’s response comes from a place of anger (we are NOT soldiers!!! fuck u old man, i never asked for this!!! coulson didn’t ask for this!!!!!) Steve’s reaction comes from the intrinsic nihilism and dadaism product of his own time. it’s not that he’s minimizing Coulson’s death, it’s more that he’s so used to losing people, the thousands he met that died in European soil, the sick and ill from his ma’s work that died everyday, his own father whom he never even met, that his mechanism is to just. shut down. shrug it off a bit, even. people die. every day. “for believing” means for standing for something, because Steve is WELL aware that people that stand for nothing will fall for anything, and standing for something gives counterbalance to the official agenda. in his eyes, Coulson died not because he’s a soldier and winning the war means being prepared to make a few sacrifices. Coulson died because he chose to believe in something that the majority didn’t care about or even actively sought to destroy (the wsc over fury’s shoulder) and he died because he would not back down from the fight. I can do this all day is something Steve feeds off of because he knows that when you stop getting up from the ground, anyone and anything can strike you down.

but on another note, I get that Avengers happens literally 6 fucking days after he woke up from the ice, he probably had no time to catch up on all the atrocities the US had done on his behalf, or rather on what they said he represented, on the ideal he died defending and the US took and twisted and tore apart until it was no longer recognizable. Steve being a week out of the ice is super sad and to me, the biggest crime this movie did was literally brushing off Steve’s trauma, being riddled with PTSD and shocked from waking up seventy years in the future was not even addressed. at all. this could’ve been easily avoided by setting the movie at least a couple of months AFTER he wakes up. but whatever. After learning of all the shit the US has done, I think Steve rogers would be the first to walk out of there and be like “fuck it, I died for this country and you took it and fucked it up and now young people and people who’ve been killed for protesting your shitty ass decisions genuinely believe I would side with the government. they think I’M the stubborn baby boomer who kisses government boots and would approve of the Gulf War or the Vietnam War or the Central American coups or the war on terror or any of the stupid shit you’ve pulled in the 70 years I was gone!!! YOU MADE ME A SYMBOL FOR YOUR BIGOTRY WHAT THE FUCK”. so he obviously needs time to catch up on all of that before realizing how bad they fucked up his memory and how corrupt the system has become. but Steve’s depiction as a boy scout who believes the US can do nothing bad is inherently wrong and something only this one movie tries to do. no other movie featuring Cap tries to drive the point home that Cap is a goodie two shoes who still believes in american exceptionalism.

CATWS was the gold standard because it truly touched upon the cognitive dissonance Steve experiences coming out of a 70 year nap. the loss he experiences not only for being “the man out of time”, but the true man behind the symbol. heavy are the shoulders that carry the world indeed. and he’s been carrying the entire world on his since he decided to become Captain America. I truly believe the tragedy of Steve Rogers comes from the lack of agency he has over the Captain image, one that has been used to prop up political agendas over and over again. of course, he’s the one that decides to be Captain America as much as he is Steve rogers, blurring the lines between the two men. he could’ve retired, he could’ve adopted a new mantle or even go the old reliable route and try to keep a civilian life away from the superhero gig. but he didn’t. even in the comics whenever he tried to do that it didn’t stick for more than a few issues. so, you know in CATWS he truly experiments what it’s like to pull back the curtain and see the wizard behind it, he faces this disenchantment with the institutions that created him, both SHIELD and the US government. this helps pinpoint the moment he grows super distrustful of politics and agendas, because up until this point he’d only been in the battlefield, and he realizes governments cannot be trusted to make the right decision or even act in benefit of their people.

this way, Civil War does make sense when you see how Steve has grown so disappointed with modern politics that he sees the Sokovia accords as one big red flag, and the first step in a direction that only points toward authoritarianism and civil control. this movie deals with many things poorly of course, but one thing that doesn’t feel ooc is Steve telling the UN to fuck off. He wasn’t around to see the formation of the united nations remember? he literally has no background on what collective security and globalized autonomy are. there’s many things that could’ve been different in CW, but Steve was on the “right” side of the conflict for his character. (i’m NOT saying there’s a wrong and a right side on the Civil war dilemma. that whole thing was badly written so let’s just say it made sense in a hypothetical way). supporting the government in any capacity isn’t a part of Steve’s “thing”, but even when/if he sided with the US govt, he’d never endorse a political agenda that he perceives as “wrong”, knowing it’s hypocritical to do so. 

he doesn’t think the end justify the means, which is highly different from Tony’s pragmatism. if Steve and Tony represented opposing philosophical movements, Tony would be utilitarianism and Steve would be deontology. this brings the analysis full circle by pointing out that yes, Tony and Steve operate differently in theory, but in practice they both work for the same objective. Tony is the cynic product of his own doing, he understands how war can destroy and he knows the US has a bad track record of owning up to its own shit. and because of that, he believes that the most good he can do is in his own hands (and because of his extremist way of thinking, he also equates that with being the only one who can do it and therefore, he must, no matter the personal cost). On the other hand, Steve is the idealist product of other’s people efforts, he understands how sometimes war can be the only way to save what is worth saving, but also how it can corrupt even the noblest of men. and because of that, he believes that the most good he can do must be done because other people believe in him, and because by setting the example, others can follow and make the world a better place. (and because of his very stubborn nature, he also equates that with being the ‘tree that must plant itself in the ground and say no, you move’.)

so what I guess I’m trying to say, is that to me at least, saying that Steve Rogers would be in favor of US militarism or that he equates the word “soldier” with hero is a huge disservice to his character. the fact that he’s a fictional character that was first conceived as WWII propaganda is not relevant, because I choose to believe the idea that says fiction stops being the creator’s own the moment it’s out in the world. And Steve Rogers NOW is a different character and serves a different purpose than what he was originally intended to. His entire origin is based on being a soldier, yes, but what makes his character so compelling is the juxtaposition between being a soldier and being essentially opposed to what the US military complex entails. he embodies a lot of american values ofc, like freedom and right of free speech and so, but my take is that he defends this values in a way that is distinctly non American. setting aside discussions of propaganda and the integrity of an art form, i think he’s been written in a way that evokes patriotism without being exclusively american. i mean heck, Steve rogers makes me proud to be from my own country, and inspires me to be better while never reminding me of the fact that he’s from an imperialist super power. Star spangled suit aside, he’s probably a fair enough representation of what one's love for their own country can bring to the surface, no matter which country specifically. i could delve more into that, but this is already getting too long and, since i already mentioned, I’m not from the US and my cultural upbringing is far different from the US. so i’m not sure i could make such a poignant analysis about the military culture and the way it impacts characters such as Steve. 

[nyxabird]

The problem with Zeroken’s design

I feel like rambling today, so. Let’s talk about Disgaea 5. Or more importantly, let’s talk about one of Disgaea 5′s characters, Zeroken. Now, I love Zeroken. Anyone who’s seen me stream know I love Zeroken. I go to massive efforts to make him a strong little boy and despite his flaws, I think he tends to be an adorable and charming character. But there is one major, meta flaw in Zeroken and that’s in his design.

Now, I want to say, I like Zeroken’s design. I think he’s cute! And I think his appearance fits well with his personality. The problem is that his design is flawed; it commits a sin of media called “informed attribute”.

For those who don’t know, an informed attribute is something about a character that is told to us through outside sources and that isn’t actually in the actual series the character is in. For instance, a lot of anime will say that a female character is a tough fighter, but every time you see her, she doesn’t actually have any strength and she’s constantly in trouble. It, essentially, is just saying “oh yeah this character is actually this” even though there’s no evidence of it. A lot of the time, informed attributes feel like they’re tacked on for the developers to get brownie points, but that’s not related to this subject, so I won’t discuss it.

So let’s get back to Zeroken. What’s his informed attribute, you may ask? It’s his race. So first, here is a picture of the kid.

I want you to look at that and think about it. What race do you think he is? For me, I always thought he was just a humanoid demon like about 50% of the classes in Disgaea 5. Like the Warrior or Gunner or Sage or Lady Samurai or any of those. And that seems right, right?

Nope.

He’s a werewolf.

Did any of you who heard of him actually guess that? Did you have any idea he was a werewolf, or intended to be one? I bet most of you didn’t, because of the people I knew (one who’s played D5 since it came out) had no idea either. So how do we know he’s a werewolf?

Because his intro trailer said so. Something I’d never even heard of, and neither had they, until they went browsing in the wiki one day.

The only “hints” to this in-game are his Overload (Superluminal Wolf) and the fact that some of his moves (in Japanese, at least) have voice clips of him howling. And that’s not even remotely an actual hint, because that could just as easily be his theme. Non-werewolf/-wolf characters have used wolf references or howling, so it’s not even remotely a hint to the fact he’s meant to be a werewolf.

Even his design doesn’t hint towards it at all. There is nothing distinct about his design that hints he’s anything but a humanoid demon. There is nothing in the game that is actual proof/a hint that he’s like that, except some throw-away lines (such as Seraphina calling him a dog) that aren’t evidence on their own, because it’s just as often used against non-wolf-related people too.

I really think this was just a huge error in his design that NISA did, a mistake that was made that no one actually bothered to think about being a mistake when they really know how to do better.

Why do I know they know how to do better? Because they’ve done it before.

This is Fenrich, from Disgaea 4, who is in fact a werewolf. Could you tell? I bet so, because the tail gives it away really fast. Even if you wouldn’t immediately label it as a “wolf”, you still can see, at a glance, that he’s not Yet Another Humanoid Demon. More than that, some of his skills make it even clearer that he’s a werewolf; he has skills that have him running on all fours, for instance. Even if the game didn’t tell you what Fenrich is, you could guess from the evidence in the game.

And Zeroken doesn’t have that. And why? There’s no reason for that. There is no reason that Zeroken doesn’t have anything that really hints towards his nature. It was as simple as giving him a tail, really, because the game had already established that race as looking like that. And you can argue game canons/timelines/AUs as much as you want, but races/classes in general stay the same/use the same depiction; some do change, such as the Armor Knight changing genders, but overall it’s fairly consistent.

I have no idea why they failed on the most basic part of Zeroken’s design. There’s some theories that his hair is meant to resemble a tail, but I honestly think that design in general is a bad design and just a way people get themselves out of having to depict stuff with tails. It’s a cowardly design decision to me, especially because it’ll never be able to tell you what they are at a glance, failing that aspect of their design. (I also think it looks incredibly crappy and stupid, but that’s a personal feeling of mine)

In general, whenever I or my friends write or do anything with Zeroken, we’ll add in his tail, and just hand-wave it as having been cut off during the Lost invasion and regrown somehow after the war. Because quite frankly, NISA (or whoever designed him) failed. They just failed, flat out, on making his design clear that he isn’t just yet another human-looking demon and is actually one of the beast folk. The rest of the design is good, as I’ve said before, and I really like it... but no matter how much I like it, it is a failure in informing us what he is.

Magnus and Usalia are easy to tell what they are from the start. Seraphina is a bit harder, but you could reasonably figure out what she is from the evidence. Christo’s whole arc is about trying to hide what he actually is. Killia’s design is also problematic in this way, but he actually has hints to him being a beast folk (the claw-hands that are clearly not gloves, the scales on his chest), so even if we don’t know what he is, we know he’s something different, not just a humanoid demon, though there’s no hints as to what he is in-game. (Dragonewt, by the way. Killia’s a dragonewt) Killia is more complicated, though, so I won’t get into that unless someone actually wants me to discuss my feelings on that one.

Zeroken has nothing. Every “hint” could just be as easily as applied to a normal humanoid with a wolf theme. And it’s incredibly disappointing

I guess my point is “NISA, you were fucking cowards by not giving him some aspect that made it clear what he was.” And it doesn’t even have to be a tail. When I (and I’m sure other people) talk about this, we’re not just inherently wanting what people usually call the “clean and cute” sort of things (though why they call it that/what’s wrong with ears/tail as a distinction, I don’t know). We just want something to be clear. Ears, tails, claws, even fur in distinct places. Something, anything, that shows you that there’s something else here besides another “human”.

You can’t just say “oh btw this person is this” when it comes to major aspects like their race. You have to show us. You have to give us evidence. “Informed attribute” is okay when it isn’t a part of the series they’re in (such as telling us a horror protagonist is gay) or wouldn’t have come up canonly, but things like their goddamn race? Or like trying to talk about sexualities in a romance game? Just... no.

If you’re going to design something, put effort into the design and actually show us. “Show, don’t tell” is the rule of visual media, and unfortunately for poor Zeroken, NISA failed him hard on that front. I have really strong feelings about this sort of thing, this thing of making beast characters have no actual traits whatsoever so they look totally human, and it really needs to stop.

[moonmilkandthesea]

Yessssssss. For me, Glimmer’s character arc is so powerful because she recognizes herself in Catra on Prime’s ship, but also recognizes the ways in which she is very much LIKE Catra, and begins to understand her, and that’s a lot of why Glimmer lets her in and becomes her friend.

I’ve never heard anyone state Glimmer’s psycho-emotional betrayal of Adora so beautifully, btw, @garnetsfists, that’s a really eloquent way to explain the brutality of Glimmer’s choices (especially around Shadow Weaver) during that season. 💖

So yeah! I hate when people act like Catra’s the only one committing war crimes. She’s just the only one who does it while also being a crappy friend and yandere misanthrope, whereas characters like Glimmer and Entrapta oscillate *between* being a psycho killer and a bad friend, never *quite* alienating their friends entirely by being both simultaneously.

And I say all this as someone who loves all of these characters wholeheartedly! Part of that love is just *because* they’re all broken in really human ways and have to actually go through shit to *learn* how to be decent people rather than inherently always knowing how to do the right thing or be a good friend/leader/teammate/partner/etc. on the first try just because they’re The Good Guys(TM) or whatever.

Because like. Watching Glimmer struggle desperately to hold onto—and half-strangle—friendships/relationships that are in no danger of fading because she doesn’t believe she’s good enough for people to want her company when they have other options is the single most relatable character moment I have ever experienced.

King Emeritus Micah having *absolutely no fucking clue* how to cope with Frosta’s maturity and competence/deal with a kid who has been prematurely aged by loss and responsibility? The way he resists understanding, because if he understands, he has to also realize that his own daughter was similarly disillusioned and grown, partially by having lost him as a child? *chef’s kiss* Fucking nuanced perfection, bitches. The fact that his infantilization of her is somehow clearly not motivated by misogyny, just by her age/the reminder of his daughter? *Glorious.*

Like. Adora got lost in the woods after a joyride with her pre-girlfriend gone wrong and found a soulbond to a magic sword that made its magic flow through her and break through her lifelong psychological programming and fill her with new thoughts and feelings, and then she got kidnapped while in a liminal state due to that INSANE experience and basically reprogrammed via positive stimuli in Thaymor and then adopted into a loving family that had literally been waiting for her forever.

Catra didn’t get…any of that. And Adora only thinking to even offer it to her in a “join us instead of fighting us, why are you attacking us even though that’s what you’ve been raised and brainwashed your whole life to do?” way, never in a, “so I really love you guys but my best friend ever since I can remember for my WHOLE LIFE is back in the Fright Zone, going through daily horrors and constant abuse while we laugh and hit each other with cushions. Could we maybe try and like, idk, contact her? Get a message to her that I’m okay? And to stay safe, and that I’ll come for her when we attack, or something? She just doesn’t know what we know.” way is, straight up, *horrible*. Even Adora is a *terrible friend* in the beginning. Because she’s totally spun by a life-changing, paradigm-shifting event! It’s understandable. It’s normal to be self-centered as hell when you’ve been hit with a ton of bricks!

Catra’s experience, on the other hand? She steals a ship for a date joyride with her bestie/crush/only friend, loses her only friend in the woods, and that only friend is also “Mom’s” favorite, so Catra’s life goes from a life of “I may be second best, but only to Adora and that’s because she’s perfect, but she loves me and it’s us against the world, so things will be okay” to “I am literal garbage and got the one person who ever loved me lost/killed/kidnapped by the enemy and everything bad that happens because of it is my own fault” to “all it took was like ten seconds for my only friend in the world to shrug off everything she’s ever known, including me, for new friends and a makeover, so she must know I’m garbage, too” to “oh, gee, thanks, good to know you’d deign to let me tag along at your heels like a dog if I gave up everything I’ve ever known for you, Adora-who-left-me-totally-behind, that’s so fucking condescending magnanimous of you” to “if I’m going to get blamed for fucking everything up, I might as well *actually* fuck everything up” to “…oh my god I actually fucked everything up oh god oh god oh god.” Of *course* she’s a constant tornado of anthropomorphic disaster.

Glimmer didn't just simply blame Adora for her mom being gone. That then would have been an one-off slip that could've been brushed off.

But it was a culmination of Glimmer treating Adora (and Bow! remember when Glimmer snapped at him and Adora yelled "don't talk to Bow like that"?) terribly all season long: Glimmer was giving Adora's abuser free range and full rights despite her knowing it's making Adora unhappy, by using her as bait without Adora's consent twice despite it making Adora feel incredibly hurt, by laughing at her being gaslit by her abuser, telling her "are you jealous because you're not her favorite any more?", and pulling the "I'm your queen so you WILL obey me" order on her and Bow, keeping them locked up against their will.

And before a glimmadora says "look, she was under tons of pressure and grieving and had no healthy adult figure to guide her", surprise!! so was Catra throughout the show.

[glassdollreviews-blog]

Admin Cade’s June ‘18 Wrap Up

I was supposed to post this last night, and I suppose I could have put it in the queue now that I think about it...but I was dead tired after my first day at work. Here it is now, though! Lmaoo...my July TBR should be up today as well. Btw, Admin Inky is currently on vacation, so she may or may not be able to upload for a little while. Thanks for understanding! As a general warning, this post could possibly include spoilers, so ya know, spoiler alert.

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchinson (The Collector #1)

Year: 2016

Genre: Horror/ Psychological thriller

288 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.07/5

Personal rating: 4/5

   **WARNING- this book is very graphic and disturbing, and I do not recommend it being read by anyone underage or easily triggered by any form of abuse.

The Butterfly Garden is written in changing POVs of FBI agent Victor Hanoverian and an 18 year old female victim known as 'Maya'.

When I say that the POV changes, boy does it CHANGE- there are no actual 'chapters', only page breaks. It flows back and forth seamlessly from the interrogation room after the discovery of the 'Garden' and Maya's flashbacks of her time before and during her kidnapping.

The 'Garden' is a place where the kidnapped victims of the Gardener are held- essentially a greenhouse with rooms. As the girls are taken in, the Gardener tattoos each of their backs with intricate butterfly wings.

I was up until 3am trying to finish this book, because it reads in such a way that I HAD to know what was coming next. I'd recommend for anyone that likes reading books with (extremely) darker themes, and who can stomach some really twisted sh*t.

Quote: “Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.”

The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey (The 5th Wave #2)

Year: 2014

Genre: Science fiction/ Dystopia

320 pages

Goodreads rating: 3.92/5

Personal rating: 3/5

   **I'm going with slight spoilers because I suck at writing reviews

Let me just start with this: if you've read The 5th Wave, chances are you're already aware of the COMPLETELY ANNOYING point of view changes. Personal opinion, of course, but seriously?? It was so frustrating to me trying to read this simply because when I felt that I'd finally built up to a point where some new plot info was about to be divulged- IT STARTS OVER IN A WHOLE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS POINT OF VIEW.

That aside, I did enjoy this book. I read The 5th Wave last year (it was 1 out of 2 that I read the entire year), and I had The Infinite Sea sitting in my closet collecting dust since around winter of last year.

I love that this book focuses more on Cassie being with the group, however I found that Cassie was slightly more nausea inducing than in the last book. Not inherently bad, but I felt that Cassie and Evan's relationship was maybe a little too...prioritized? Considering it's literally supposed to be an alien apocalypse (side note: the movie casting of Evan was a big no for me, just not what I had in mind). I also have to note that the pace of The Infinite Sea is different from The 5th Wave. More violence and revelations seem to happen back to back in this one when compared to the first book.

I'd recommend (obviously) to anyone that enjoyed The 5th Wave as well as anyone partial to dystopian settings.

Angelfall by Susan Ee (Penryn & the End of Days #1)

Year: 2012

Genre: Paranormal (Angels)/ Dystopia

288 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.18/5

Personal rating: 5/5

Where do I even start with this one?? Angelfall is one of those books that I thought would be a nice concept in synopsis but poorly executed in reality. I was SO WRONG.

It isn't a new concept that Angels are darker and meaner in spirit than what people assume from biblical stories- I can't think of any titles, but there are several movies and books portraying them as such. While the Angels in Angellfall are as far from guardian angels as you can get, they're also at times sarcastic bundles of fluff (ok that might be stretching things a bit, sue me if you like pocket lint).

Exhibit A: Raffe. While it's apparent from the beginning that the general census of Angels is that they're evil, murderous creatures (seriously, who kidnaps a disabled child from a wheel chair?), Raffe shows that they don't all share the same opinion of humans. As Penryn and Raffe interact on their way to save Penryn's sister from the evil, kidnapping Angels, you can observe the humor and care Raffe shows (albeit in a backhanded way at times) that helps to prove that point.

I'd recommend to pretty much anyone. It's a relatively short read and absolute oddness of some of the characters paired with humor helps break up the serious bits.

Quote: “Sometimes, as we’re stumbling along in the dark, we hit something good.”

I chose not to use so many good ones simply because I feel that the humor of them would be diluted if read before reading the book.

The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran

Year: 2008

Genre: Historical Fiction

383 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.21/5

Personal rating: 5/5

This books follows Nefertari, the niece of the heretic queen Nefertiti. From a young age Nefertari has to face the ridicule and hate that comes with being the last living relative of a queen that turned away from the ancient Egyptian deities for the monotheistic views of her husband. She grows up with the kindness of only her nurse and two friends, Asha and Ramesses (Ramesses II, the crown prince and future Pharaoh of Egypt). Nefertari leaves for a period of 12 months after Ramesses comes of age and marries his first wife, both with sadness and a determination to better herself.

The detail that the author put into writing this book is obvious, and I feel that it must mean extensive research or an intense love of history. The way that she describes the day to day interactions of the people and the items and customs of the society is mind blowing. The attention to detail is absolutely lovely and paints what I feel is the perfect backdrop and visual of the time period.

I'd recommend for anyone that enjoys detailed writing and historical fiction.

Note: while there aren't any 'scenes' necessarily, there are blatant allusions to sexual themes.

[alarajrogers]

literally google what pedophilia culture is, and read about rape culture too to help you understand. no one is calling you a pedophile or whatever or even criticizing you personally. your choice is irrelevant. it is about how society encourages men to see youthful = sexy, and how this contributes to our view of pedophilia. there's an article on theodysseyonline about it if again you google it, it's in simple words and even has a meme to help someone like you (who's somehow 40??) understand.

Yeah, no. I do in fact know what rape culture is. Society encouraging men to see youthful = sexy isn’t actually about pedophilia at all, which is a mental disorder; it’s about power. Men who are attracted to women who are much younger than them have power over those women, and if men in general are encouraged to have power over women, then patriarchy maintains its power.

However, none of that has anything to do with shaving or not shaving. That’s by itself an inherently harmless choice that becomes harmful when it’s enforced. Every change to our bodies that is enforced on us for the sake of gaining male approval, whether it makes us look “younger” or “older”, is harmful. Getting breast implants, which I think even you guys would recognize is approximately the opposite of “pedophilia culture”, is harmful. Enforcing that women wear makeup is harmful. Enforcing that women be too skinny or too fat is harmful. Societies have in the past done things like demand that women damage their own necks, earlobes, or put poison in their eyes, to say nothing of foot binding and clitoral mutilation. Some of these are inherently harmless, like makeup, but become harmful when enforced. Others, like foot binding, have as their fundamental purpose harming women and making it harder for them to escape male control.

You guys and your hyperfocus on pedophilia is dangerous because you are literally giving air cover to pedophiles by declaring any number of things to be “pedophilia” that are not. The things might be inherently harmful, or harmless, or are harmful if enforced by society (and yes, demands that women, or anyone, shave are harmful if enforced by society, but not because of pedophilia – it’s because nearly any body modification that society demands of you in order to appeal to men is wrong, particularly if the same modification is not demanded of men. Shaving has negative side effects, which those who choose to shave can choose to endure, but those who are pressured to shave should not have to because they didn’t freely choose it.) But as long as you declare them to be “pedophilia” or related in any way to pedophilia, you do two things: you broaden the definition of “pedophilia” to the point where most normal people no longer agree with you, thus creating a “boy who cried wolf” effect where people just stop thinking that anything a person on tumblr defined as pedophilia could possibly actually be. This harms actual victims of CSA and makes them more vulnerable. Also, if you are right, and women who shave are more attractive to pedophiles… as long as the women in question are adults, maybe that gets some actual pedophiles to have sex with consenting adults and not harm children. Things that attract pedophiles to adults are good things because they reduce the harm done to children.

The problem you’ve identified – that society promotes simultaneously the infantilization of adult women, and the sexualization of young girls – is a real one, and it exists not because of the powerful pedophile lobby that doesn’t exist (yes, there are powerful pedophiles, but in general people have such horror at the concept of pedophilia that no, there is no powerful organization lobbying to normalize sex with children because there are pedophiles who want it that way), but because men being sexually interested in teenagers – which is not pedophilia, and is not a mental illness, and unlike pedophilia, men can be trained into it – promotes patriarchy. Also, because anything that prevents a man from being attracted to an adult woman until she undergoes various expensive modifications or buys products, allows capitalists to sell her shit. This is also what’s behind the sexualization of actual children. If you can convince a 12 year old that she’s not pretty without a ton of makeup on, and you can convince a 30 year old that she needs plastic surgery to look 18, you’ve captured money from two demographics.

But when you specifically attack anything women (or men!) do as “this is being forced on you by pedophiles!”… first, you destroy nuance. Second, “pedophile” is a radioactive word on tumblr right now because people are using it to attack people who drew art of fully clothed teenagers of the same age kissing and holding hands; the word is losing credibility, and considering how valuable the concept is and how terrible what it represents is, this should be something we fight back against, the way we fight back against “rape” being cheapened to mean “defeated in a video game” or “forced to pay a lot of taxes.” You have a problem with people being pressured into shaving? Me too! I also have a problem with people being pressured into wearing makeup, getting breast implants, or changing their names when they get married, and your hyperfocus on “it’s all the fault of pedophiles!” is going to completely miss that two of these problems even exist. 

The problem is never the specific thing that women are being pressured into doing. The problem is that they were pressured into doing it. I took up shaving when my only exposure to porn ever was to images from the 1970′s, where women were very hairy, because I hate body hair of all kinds except what’s on the tops of our heads. No one pressured me. But in today’s environment where porn is full of images of women who are fully shaven, and men feel they have the right to expect that, and treat women as gross if they’re not? Yes, that’s absolutely horrible… and in no way is calling it “pedophilia culture” a valid means of attacking it, both because it’s wrong and because it’s going to be ineffective. If the pressure was on women not to shave if they want to because “shaven women look like children”, it would be equally as bad. (BTW: shaven women do not look one single goddamn bit like children. And children with pubic hair do not look one single goddamn bit like adult women. Which is part of why I feel so strongly about this. I have personal reasons to be horrified by the conflation of “adult woman” with “has pubic hair.”)

So if you want to fight the social pressure, promoted by porn, that women *need* to shave, I am right there with you. But if you want to make up bullshit about how the societal forces training men to have a sexual interest in young women have anything to do with pedophilia, a mental disorder characterized by sexual interest in pre-pubescent children, instead of focusing on how pressure on women to meet any kind of standard enables capitalists to make money off female insecurity and how training men to be sexually interested in young women protects patriarchy by promoting relationships where men have more power than women just because they’re older, then you’re barking up the wrong tree and I cannot support you. A secret cabal of pedophiles does not rule the world. But societal forces that reward men for doing things that oppress women really do exist. And your focus on pedophilia leaves you completely incapable of addressing the issue of adult women being pressured to hyper-extend their features of sexual maturity, such as wearing high heels or getting breast implants.

[henriiiii-1001old]

ok, so

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQCDrY6nt-x/

this is scott’s response

and... i personally don’t mind him being a republican because it isn’t inherently bad. from what i know about politics, choosing a party is about how one thinks the government should be run, and it is mainly based on opinion. thing is, the definitions of political parties have changed drastically as time went on. all of a sudden, race, sexuality, and gender identity was pulled into politics. which it shouldn’t have been in the first place. why people in the community got mad was because most of us are lgbt+, and many republicans nowadays do not support our community. it just feels... heartbreaking. we are an entire community of people who just want to live and yet he supports people who practically want us dead, or worse. “maybe he doesn’t know” you say, but he can just look stuff up by himself if he pleases. i personally believe he chooses to be ignorant to the truth, but i do believe there is a chance he's completely oblivious.

but oblivious does not mean innocent.

so.. now what do i do? here is my decision: i am not going to support canon fnaf now. my au will now be turned into an original story, simply named “Immortals”

remnant will be changed to something else, the animatronics will not be featured in any way, shape, or form, and all human character names will be changed (mainly last names, but first names may apply as well). designs will stay as is though, unless they are fnaf related, like guard outfits

i have worked so much into my au and it has many fnaf elements in it such as its human characters and implementation of the games, but really? i haven’t used much of the canon fnaf elements in my story. so it’ll probably be easy for me (personally). i’ll just have to find ways to remake the important canon elements i left in.

fnaf, i’ve loved you for a very long time, but it’s time for me to go. the fandom i have seen has its horrible people, but i’ve had so much fun getting to know people here. i will still possibly like fanart of it, i just won’t interact with anything from the canon universe, such as games and books. it pains me to say this because i have already purchased three of his many books, but i can just find them online somewhere or read summaries.

thank you all for staying with me throughout my time with the fandom. i hope you will stay as i leave as well, and i hope you will enjoy my story.

oh btw this does not mean i will stop posting!! i’ll come up with things whenever i can and keep you guys updated with the story! i never told you guys much about my au anyways, so i hope this isn’t too painful to hear. /gen

goodbye, five nights at freddy’s, the horror franchise that changed horror, and my life, forever.