#also i see what people mean when they talk about tumblr eating the quality of their art

[rwby-tuesday]

just a girl and her big scary guard dog

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Top 10 Things I Love About the QL Tumblr Community 2023

I'm loving everyone's end of year lists, and decided to make up one of my own.

I haven't been on Tumblr for very long and was originally just lurking. 2023 marks the year where I finally started posting, after I read a take that made me feel compelled to come to a fictional character's defense. (Saengtai, my poor little blorbo).

So in commemoration of my first proper year of active tumblring, I present what I love about this community (in no particular order).

(Side note - Technically I know this is still primarily a BL community, but I like to say QL because I am trying to manifest more lesbians for us.)

1) The Gifmakers

Y'all are a good 70% of the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place. There are so many show moments that I want to relive, but without having to search through videos. Sometimes I want to appreciate the aesthetics. Sometimes I want to remember adorable or goofy moments. Sometimes I just want to see cute boys eating each other's faces. Our gifmakers give all of that to us, with the addition of so much creativity and style.

There's too many amazing ones to mention everyone, but I have to shout out @sparklyeyedhimbo, because the way your brain works makes me so happy.

2) The expertise

The other part of why I joined Tumblr was to learn more about what BLs were out there and what I might be missing. And holy hell. Y'all are putting in the work. Not only lists and resources for finding all kinds of QLs, like these fabulous monthly breakdowns by @gunsatthaphan, but also amazing posts that add additional context, like @absolutebl's incredibly helpful breakdown of Asian honorifics. There is so much research people do, for fun! And then they share it!

3) The meta analysis

I frickin love reading people's takes and analyses on series. I love learning, I love seeing perspectives from people with different cultural backgrounds to my own, it's all so fascinating! There's so much context we can miss due to our own privileges, or lack of knowing about various cultures, or due to whatever bubbles we've been living in. People here are just so smart, and nuanced, and willing to reflect and think about things, and also push back at each other, but generally with respect (except when you call out the dumb shit you see, usually on Twitter or TikTok, where people are being reductive and dumb about gender and sexuality).

And I've seen a few takes where people complain about analyses, and say that the director/production doesn't do everything deliberately, and we're all reading too much into it. To which I say, eh, lighten up. How people connect to and relate to media has relevance beyond what was intended. The point is we get to think and discuss and learn and grow. That doesn't happen if we don't analyze.

Special shout out here to @respectthepetty because colors mean things!

4) The wild theories

The other side of the analysis coin, the clown cars y'all drive around in with the wildest of theories. I have happily climbed into an occasional clown car, and usually I am utterly wrong (*cough* Saifah *cough*). But it's a super fun ride. I love seeing how people's brains work. I love it when y'all are wrong. I love it when y'all are right. It's beautiful.

5) Immediate acceptance

I am one of those people who knows that I have a lot of good qualities, and also, always kind of expect rejection. Blame the childhood bullies, I guess. Anyway, whenever I delve into a new space, I still feel like a total dork that no one will want to talk to. It's kind of a fraught way to move through the world, but I manage.

Anyway, I started posting my thoughts as they came up, and people are just totally cool with it. People even follow me sometimes. Even my silliest thoughts and dumbest jokes get at least a couple likes. It's so validating.

And my very silly joke about gay mafia in Kiseki has over 800 likes. I feel very seen.

6) Mutuals

I still kind of can't believe I have any. This ties in to the dork feeling above, but seriously - they are soooo cooooool. They're smart and awesome and funny, and they somehow find me worth following back, which is baffling yet wonderful. I want to squish their faces and give them many kisses (if they're into that kind of thing).

7) The self-exploration

I really appreciate how it's become more talked about how a lot of people are discovering queerness through BL, because that is so the case for me. I think it's both that I was in a bit of a hetero bubble before, and also that I'm evolving a bit as I age. I had figured out I was demi, and maybe a little bit gay, before getting in to BL, but being in this community, and seeing so many of you share so openly and freely, has made me realize it might be more than a little bit.

Either it was a new realization, or being around y'all has made me more gay. Win win, either way.

8) The weirdness

I'm weird. Y'all are weird. I love it.

9) The thirst

So many in this community are thirsty as fuck, and as someone who is in that same condition, I love that it's not just me. There are not many places where I can freely admit how horny I am as a part of my general existence.

Here? I could post about wanting to lick some random BL actor's face, and it would get a bunch of likes and some tags like #lickable, and it's just not remotely a big deal.

Also the gifmakers understand this, and give us beautiful cuts of our spicy scenes. They are genuinely too good for us.

10) The communal watching experience

There is absolutely nothing like watching along with people in the community. It is so worth the torture of having to wait week to week for new episodes. Seeing the show trend, watching the theories fly fast and furious, or the way everyone collectively loses their minds over particular moments. In a world that can feel very isolating, it's a very warm experience.

So there you go. Thank you all for being you. Here's to another year of QL shenanigans and losing our collective minds!

[luciawithoutj]

Hey hi hello!

I have some things to say about new merch and jo merch in general so this is gonna be a litrle longer post and actually I think I should cange my semiotics theme (which is already about jo) about how bad their merch design is.

First of all little disclaimer: this is all my humble opionion based on what I learned in my one year of being graphic design student and an artist and designer on the internet for last 4-5 years. Before going to uni I learned most of about art and graphic design stuff by reading books and watching tons of yt videos. Second of all this critic is just coming from place of love for this band because I see so mucb potential and they could do some amazing merch designs if they give it a chance and I am fully aware how expensive the touring is and why they had to cut the quality of merch products.

So far my favorite jo band merch designs are cds (that probably required some designer to make), condoms (because they are really funny, genius, nicely designed and unique merch that fit the vibe of the band and matches their songs as well) and the new tshirt from last merch drop (which design is made by one slovenian fanartist : link.

Main reason that made me want to speak up is seeing that this merch drop will only have 100 products (my friend said that could mean 20-ish shirts per size) which how big this fandom has gotten in last year is pretty really dam limited. For a limited product I am really disappointed and I hoped for more. For such a limited product that design is the most default design they could have gone for and I am so sorry for Damon because his work is goregous, amazing, breathtaking and I could talk about it for ages and how inspiring it is but this shirt design isn't serving.

If they wanted to do bare minimum of design with those 5 images here is some of my ideas (unfortunately I don't have time to visually show them to yall on a mock ups because of finals that I should be studying for instead of writing this so try to imagine what I am trying to say and demonstrate). First is just simple instead of white choose black shirt or even better a thisrt. If you want it to go a stepp further is using their name logo font (font name is Avaline btw if anyone wants to download and use it for their designs :))) and either put it how they did when they promoted the everybody's waiting or to write idk therapy sessions or anything related to the band or it can even be some inside joke.

Something like this would make design just a bit more intersting but still bare minimum but amazing for regular merch. If they want to go a step further but want to keep the long sleeves (this idea was suggested by few people I talked too) they could put pictures vertically on the sleeves. I would find it a bit cooler if it is on the right sleeve out-side and then they put their band logo (the heart one) on the left side of the shirt where people's hearts normally are.

After exams I would definitely like to try to make some designs and just limit myself with this 5 pictures and play with typography and photoshoop to make something interesting.

Another I want to mentioned is how in my humble opinion if you are gonna sell limited edition either make it really pretty or good quality or really cursed and funny with inside jokes.

I think people (and me first) would eat tshirts (but also other merch designs) with some cursed designs or just texts that say "sparklative" or "slay pose" or "I feel SloveNACE" (this 3 were suggested by amazing people in tumblr discord server) or even let Jan photoshoop their faces on most random picture. This 5 guys with their gen z humour could make and do some hilarious merch like how amazing idea the condoms are.

Last thing I want to say is how many amazingly talented fans are. I mean even Damon was so shocked and moved by amount of talent and art made in this community. Furthermore I know (some of them as online friends and mutuals, others as just artists from same fandom) who are also either graphic design students or they work in art/graphic design/entertainment fields and some of them (including myself) would be so happy to even make few merch designs or art for them for freee or for a ticket for their show. Personally I would die from happiness if I get a chance to work with my favorite band that inspires me so much everyday to the point people at my uni think I am from Slovenia and know slovenian because of how much I include them in my uni work and how much fanart and designs I made because of them in last 6 months.

I just think there is so much potential guys might not be aware of (Idk honestly because who knows what is going on backstage in their lives). But yeah they could have even asked Damon to help them with composition of the pictures on that shirt or even hire Racik to make some pretty art or any fanartist honestly. Here is just few links of my favorite fanartists who also do a lot of graphic design related stuff (and also some of them sell their products on their own websites/redbubble/etsy/inprint/etc) :

Tia <3

Roxanne

Vic

jo.kam_ (previously mentioned her design)

Lemon

yelecx

Racik (ofc)

There is probably more but my brain for hell of it won't remember any names so feel free to add in the comments or tags more artists <3

I could probably go more in depth and give more ideas how to improve merch designs the cheapest and best way as possible but still trying to keep the quality good as it needs to be. I know there is still gonna be people fighting for this shirts and people are still gonna buy their merch but just it hurts my art/designer soul seeing this bad designs when there is so much potential and they have amazing fans and amazing crew and they work with so many talnted people and they themselves are so talented and their music inspired so many and so much.

Thanks everyone for coming to my TedTalk. <3

Actually now I am thinking and from just talking about jo work from design and semiotics perspective for that semiotics seminar I could just focus on their merch design and go more in detail about it and if yall want when it is done and I translate it in english I could share it here for people who want to read about it. Let me know I guess.

Also if someone is interested my art and design insta is lucia.without.j and my redbubble is lucia-without-j and my dms are always open if someone wants to chat or complain about anything art, design, joker out or any other fandom I am in related.

P. S. I am so sorry for any spelling mistakes and if what I said doesn't make sense. English isn't my first language.

[wildflowerdoeeyed]

𝑀𝑜𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝒪’𝓈𝒽𝑒𝒶

(the character overlook)

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

these are all my opinions, totally open to the conversation about molly’s character also totally fine with people fact checking me, anyways i’m starting to fw o’shones

in the words of @krayzie-jelli the autism is autisming (don’t cancel me i have referrals to get tested 😔😔)

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

small credit;

the red dead fan wiki

@/reaperqween on tik tok (for the almost ten minute tik tok about mollys outfits which i ate up)

^ her tumblr is @river-of-wine send some love yall want 💕

colour analysis & general observations

🪞💋🍓🌹🍰

colour theory is heavily used based on honor, the best example of this is dutch, he consistently wearing red, mostly on his back until guarma when the red is on the front, when dutch’s true intentions become more apparent, anyways onto molly.

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

COLTER

(i went quite quick through colter so im actually unsure how she is with dutch, but from what i remember she doted on him a whole ton, constantly staying at his side and at one point saying “dutch is all the company i need”)

💋though a lot of people relate the red in different characters with low honor i think the fabric, the pattern itself points back to her privileged past

💋the necks scarf being green, i feel like it doesn’t imply much at this point but as the game continues it implies way more

💋the rest of the outfit being blue means a lot to me, there’s never anytime molly oversteps or is aggressive to anyone (obviously except from the obvious with karen, i’ll go back to this later)

💋i’d like to note that she’s still doing her makeup freezing and starving in the mountains

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

HORSESHOE OUTLOOK & CLEMENTS POINT

(i honestly will end up mixing these up so i grouped them together)

(tbh my honest opinion is horseshoe is one of the best chapters based on the relationships in camp (tho sadie’s still going through it, you can’t have everything))

💋her first outfit has a good amount of blue in this outfit, her necklace has its first appearance with the red (i always got the vibe that dutch had gifted it to her as it’s more shiny than a lot of the metal in her outfits and it’s like a part of him)

💋she wears a thick belt with this outfit and the brass (?) seems worn, even coming from a wealthy background she holds onto clothes that look old and worn

💋she always wears white boots, she’s doesn’t have to do any work, and she’s not expected to do anything

💋the majority of the mornings in game, molly is constantly checking herself in a mirror

💋i’m going to be honest i hate this shirt

💋but i’d like to think this shawl has always been with her and that she holds it close to her

💋her outfit is quite shapeless, and i think that’s how she liked to dress personally

💋i would love to talk about this outfit

💋does this eat? yes, but i don’t think this was a honest choice for her

💋this outfit mirror mary-beth’s a lot, who seems to be dutch’s new interest

sorry for the bad quality i used my own screenshot for this

💋this outfit particularly ^

💋there’s now a lot of cleavage in her outfit and she’s dressing more akin to other girls in the camp

💋and the gold in her outfits bright, and with mirroring marybeth, I also think this mirrors dutch’s style, with more red and gold incorporated

🩰𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨୧

💋her relationship with dutch is starting to crumble, i heard a voice line where she says that she loves him and he thanks her (?!) you wouldn’t see me again personally

💋but to contrast that there’s some scenes were dutch kisses her hands and they’re all giddy and cuddly, and they eventually dance when sean’s rescued from blackwater

💋she’s also not well received by a lot of the gang, we get the first glimpse of that when you take mary-beth, tilly and karen to valentiene and karen says that molly’s “too high and mighty” to come with them

💋she attempts a to interact with numerous members

💋she also attempts to talk to tilly, tilly quickly brushes her off as she’s working and molly isn’t attempting to help her

💋i also saw an encounter with dutch and molly where, he approaches, and honestly he could be covered in shit and molly would still look up to him like he’s a messiah. dutch says “should i compare thee to…” he quickly cuts himself off asking her what he should compare her with, even asking arthur if you pass by (he actually says that dutch could compare her to an idiot if she actually believes dutch cares about her)

💋 throughout clements point, dutch talks down to molly as if she’s a child and then will quickly back himself up by calling her dear (to which if arthur intervenes when she goes off at him, dutch says she’s just leaving and she’s stomps away)

💋when she approaches abigail about the subject of dutch, abigail tells her “dutch don’t love you, not in the way you want to be loved”, molly gets defensive saying that she doesn’t get what she’s talking about, to which abigail says she does (implying drunk john?) and molly stomps away

💋i think this is the first time molly actually goes a bit crazy about dutch, she calls him a degenerate liar and stomps off when dutch wont argue back and (i think) goes to sleep, he at least turns away from her

💋i think people who discredit mollys character (men) don’t realise that her and dutch’s relationship show early signs about how manipulative dutch can be, he dumbs down what she says then calls her dear, eventually he only calls her miss o’shea, which she obviously goes off at him for

💋adding onto this i’d love to talk about her character item request of a pocket mirror and her asking arthur if bad lucks a thing, i feel like this is meant to reflect how young she actually is, like how kieran still referred to his parents as ma and pa, and that she genuinely seems nervous asking arthur for a mirror and the superstition of a broken mirror giving bad luck (which i guess you could say she had

💋and i feel like her vanity that the gang and from an outsiders perspective that she’s self absorbed but i think she’s more conscious about how she looks, she doesn’t have to lift a finger and not having much to do around camp because everyone distances themselves from her (i’ll obviously elaborate more when i get to writing about shady bell) i think she’s left alone with a mirror, which i feel is more implied that she’s had for a long time, i’d say since childhood, you become more conscious the more you look at yourself and if your man seemed to be going for someone younger than you, you’d loose it too

(tl:dr - molly doesn’t deserve any hate, the girls that get it, get it, men don’t, im so ready to talk about chapter 4&6)

The poem

-

Uaibhreach

(the irish gaelic word which means “being proud and arrogant to the extent that it alienates & isolates you from those around you, leading to loneliness)

I was a girl - until your call

(i’m not going to annotate this everytime but the religion of this actually makes me feel like my hearts being ripped out)

Commanded me to cross the sea.

(she was driven out of ireland looking for freedom and adventure and she was enthralled by dutch’s charm, to be honest i always saw her “privileged upbringing” being her family owning a big farm, or in a big industry, a lot of irish people immigrated to canada after the potato famine, then crossed to america)

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

(i think she means this in, like, every sense)

My darling Liffey was so small.

Your land and love are vast and free.

(‘MERICA)

I was a girl until your call.

You stood so strong, and dark and tall.

You stole the heartbeat out of me.

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

Your lips enchant, your eyes enthrall,

Your empire is of ecstasy.

I was a girl until your call.

Your parasites and lackeys crawl,

(now do i think this is the gang or her fault that they don’t like her, i think its a mutual thing, they see her as a spoiled woman and she doesn’t help that opinion but i think she’s a young woman manipulated by an older guy, and that she thinks they’re all just jealous (which im sure she even says a few times)

Mocking a love they dare not see.

(going back to when she try’s to seek abigail’s help, or when she confronts karen later on and that she can’t see that he’s really not interested in her)

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

I sit in solitude and scrawl

These wretched words, and wait for thee.

I was a girl until your call.

I've nothing left. I gave you all.

[tirralirralirra]

something I love about having read/watched frieren and dungeon meshi concurrently is getting to see that, despite their similar broad genres (fantasy, DND-esque settings, failure op elf girls /lh), they are two very distinct stories that ultimately achieve the same* thematic goal through different narrative means.

like you have frieren's contemplative, almost slice-of-life style storytelling that focuses on how the connections between people make an impact, and how it's beautiful to cherish the memories of those we love, even the small ones (especially the small ones), and that being alive is so, so beautiful because of those things. Then juxtaposing this with the overall narrative of a literal journey to a land beyond in order to meet with the dead, while not losing focus on those that are alive. Frieren as a story takes time to explore the small things that make life beautiful (fields of flowers, the beauty and not the power of magic, stargazing and sunsets with your friends).

and then you have dunmeshi's tight narrative arcs that are built around urgency (saving falin, first from digestion, then from...chimera-ization), but also continually return to the same concept as a core tenet to both the literal narrative structure around meals and the overall story: to eat is a privilege of the living. That there is joy to be found in eating because it means you are alive, that you survived. That taking time to take care of yourself is honoring your life. That death is a part of life through the acts of killing monsters to eat, and that the dungeon's condition where a soul remains tethered to the body is unnatural.

For that last bit, I love how we're just introduced to the concept in the beginning as a bit of world building, something you might just take at face value of, "oh, I guess this is how this works in this story", and over the course of the story the characters start to interrogate that reality, culminating in Marcille's realization at the end that they took death for granted because of the dungeon's condition:

[ID: Manga panel of Marcille looking down in thought and saying "Look, this might sound a little weird, but...I think the entire point of this journey we went on....was learning how to accept death.]

(Panel is from the ehscans version, will update with official eng when the final volume releases)

I also love that the story takes the time to say, look, you can be in a hurry, but you still need to take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, What will you achieve in the service of yourself or others if you don't take care of the most basic qualities to survive first? The most recent episode is a good example of that with the focus on shuro vs. laios, and then there's this reinforcement of the idea by the end:

[ID: Dungeon meshi manga page showing Laios, Chilchuck, and Senshi shouting "A balanced diet!!" "R-regulating our daily rhythms!!" "And moderate exercise!!" respectively, followed by the three in various poses in front of the word "VICTORY" and Laios saying "If we watch these three points...we'll naturally work our way to strong bodies!!"]

Anyways this is all very disorganized and I have other things I need to do and I could write a more cohesive, actually organized thought piece on all of this with like, coherent points, but I don't really like to delve into literary analysis on my fandom account. it just lives in my head, rent free. thank you for coming to my ted talk tumblr. don't expect to see more of this, lol.

*I say same goal, which is not to say the only goal. stories can have more than one theme, it's ok if you disagree with me on this, but please bear in mind that I'm speaking very, very broadly.

[teddyclara]

Fragaria Memories Red Bouquet Ep 1 Thoughts

I'll be using @kanatajelly-tl's translation of the voice drama. You can find it here!

Everything is under the cut!

So the Strawberry King is missing and then the SEEDS came into Fragaria World. Obviously connected

I mentioned this in a previous post, but the Strawberry King is a real Sanrio Mascot. He looks like this

(Stolen from the wiki) (Tumblr fucking up the quality)

He's the ruler of the Strawberry Kingdom, which, apparently, has 7 other children that dress like him

They're referred to as angels (??), and they debuted in 1975. Interesting how the story is using this guy as a figure and saying "lmao we don't know where he is". Anyways, history lesson over

Kinda interested in how the abilities of the knights are going to play out here. Magic is obviously a factor, but we don't know too much about how they use it. It's a limitation of medium used for the story, though maybe we might see it in the MVs.

Hallritt appears to be the least experienced knight among the cast, although given how he one-shots a SEED despite having never seen one before means he's likely Really Cracked at fighting. He also dodges the ambush of the other knights pretty well.

Merold caught me off guard like, really hard. I actually looked up his introduction because I was like "wait did they say he was Like That?" and yeah, he's just Like That.

Actually, he's so funny. Making himself home in Romarriche's place and eating his candy. He does seem like a massive piece of work, especially given what he says to Hallritt in the preview for the 2nd ep

He seems to just sort of have this condescending attitude to others, which his feats only exacerbate. I can see why Kurode was so upset and ran away.

Now I'm going to talk about the topic that caught my attention first, the SEEDs

Apparently, their main abilities is that they are able to cause things to disappear.

In the Voice Drama, they were making produce and shop items disappear, but the opening narration notes that they do this with people.

Also like how SEED's actually bloom, that's a cool feature

Anyways, I wanted to state my theories about how the story will unfold.

One of the big theories floating around is that this is a Madoka Magica situation, and the story is a time loop. This is based on the music videos that were released prior for each Bouquet. You can find them here, here, and here.

That said, after learning this information about the SEEDs, I don't think there's a time loop at all.

There's absolutely a loop, but I think what's happening is that everyone is forgetting what truly happened in the past as the SEEDs keep making everyone's memories disappear. There's a lot of emphasis on the past, even this Drama mentions it in regards to a legend of the Fragarian Knights of the Red Continent's past, but I think that they are just a different flavor of the main cast. It's just that everyone keeps repeating their choices because they're stuck never knowing or learning the mistakes of their past.

Maybe. This might be debunked hard when the 2nd Voice Drama drops. But who knows.

Anyways, those are my thoughts for the Drama. I hope there's more worldbuilding because the fairy tale-esque setting of the series is just appealing to me.

[snootlestheangel]

Just A Dude!Ghost Monster AU

Side note before this post gets rolling, I love that my post with the highest notes starts with "I don't know who else" and I think that's very reflective of what Tumblr is like XD

Anyways

We're doing it! We are writing a Monster AU featuring Ghost as the only human despite what everyone else thinks! As far as I am concerned, mostly gonna post it here on Tumblr, since I don't really have much right now for it, mostly just little blurbs but if needed for readability, I'll put it on AO3 (under my profile FeelzMaster)

I'm gonna go ahead and give y'all the rundown of what species are featured, kinda what this world's like, the stuffs, ya know? TW: talks of death (just how they can die, relax)

Soap

To be 100% honest, I really wanted to do the whole werewolf!Soap thing cause it's just so perfect for him, but I thought back to a post I made about him being lightning and thought HUH WHAT IF?

So, partially inspired by @tactax-art and their depiction of Soap dealing with fire 'n shit, I have made Soap a unique type of "nymph". Technically, nymph isn't the right word, but neither is elemental, and the true name of these things is so old it's real translation has kinda lost meaning so they stick to describing themselves as "nymphs" or "elementals".

He is a Lightning Nymph, which is rare but that's apparently what happens when you cross an "atmospheric" air nymph (his mum) and a less traditional water nymph (his dad). He's often seeing consuming/messing with things that have electrical charge in order to keep up his own energy (Gaz once had to watch him literally lick an exposed outlet and maintain a straight face). Every time it storms, he's outside somewhere as high as he can get so he can soak up the natural static energy that comes with storms. He can and will shock people for the fun of it.

As for abilities, he's obviously highly conductive, can manipulate electrical energy but it's pretty exhausting so it's more of a life or death thing, he can glow in the dark if he wants to, and he's hyper aware of changes (due to ~energy~). His diet is batteries... Jk, but seriously he does not eat like a human would, he straight up eats things that will help with energy. Like I said earlier, he's licked an exposed outlet like it was an espresso shot. Downside is he can't see for shit in the dark so he's reliant on sensing energies, nightvision, or having one of his buddies that can see in the dark guide him. Can be killed if his brain stem is destroyed, but is also very weakened by the typical stuff (gunshots, stab wounds, severe bodily trauama, etc). but can be severely weakened by being trapped in insulated rooms/wrapped in insulators. If exposed to these things and not able to find a sustainable source of electrical energy, he will die. (rubber, steel, copper are some good insulators)

Gaz

I don't know why but I'm gonna make him a Siren. For some reason Siren!Gaz just melts my heart and I wanna hold him. I don't care if he can lure me to my death with his voice, I wanna hear him sing :'(

He's typically pretty human appearing, it's a natural instinct for Sirens, but when he's tired or distracted (like working out/doing paperwork), you can start to see some very fish-like qualities. Mostly very gorgeous iridescent scales around his ears, eyes, neck, shoulders, knees, top of his feet, and back of his hands.

Can breathe underwater, has the best vision in the dark, eats like a typical person but with more sea food cravings or cravings for fatty foods (like human), when in full Siren form he doesn't have a "mermaid's" tail, it's much more shark-like so he can accelerate really fast. Generally just more shark-like, except his scales are fish-like. His nose, like sharks, is super sensitive to certain changes, so booping his nose always throws him off if it's surprise, but he will also bump his nose into people/things without realizing it to get a better sense of it. Can be killed by things humans can, susceptible to parasites.

Price

Honestly, his has been the hardest but I'm gonna do changeling. I honestly don't know a lot about them, and quite frankly I've already got one homebrewed monster here, so why not another?

He's definitely the one everyone mistakes for being human cause he's so good at keeping up appearances. But there are always times where Price manipulates his appearance/body just enough that it's a little startling for those that believed him to be human to suddenly realize he's very much not.

He's got better eyesight in the dark than a human, but nowhere near close to what Gaz has. He's good at picking up on scents though, as his nose is a bit more attune to sniffing out humans than anything. He's not a bloodsucker, but changelings typically feed on weakened/ill/very old/very young humans, so he's able to tell when something is wrong with someone. Stifles the more violent urges of his species by eating a primarily meat heavy diet with a lot of raw veggies for the crunch. Most susceptible to things with iron or salt (obvi) but can still be fatally wounded by stab wounds/gunshots. Most other stuff won't kill him but it'll certainly hurt and he'll complain the entire time.

Alejandro and Rudy

These two are werewolves and Los Vaqueros is their pack :'). Most Vaqueros are also werewolves, but they do have a variety of other creatures commonly found in North America.

And finally, the whole point of this: we got our boy Ghost as a literal human being. Nothing more, just a dude. A dude with so much fucked up shit happening to him constantly it's just assumed he must be inhuman. NOPE! He's just a dude, a very very unlucky, and probably cursed, dude.

So yeah, that's what I have so far! Working title is "Cheers to the Unknown"

Taglist (if you want added let me know in the replies/reblogs): @tacticaltaxonomist @cthulhusstepmom

[katsy-kitty]

ok I'm gonna be vulnerable for a moment

I'm prescribed Xanax* and while I know it can cause amnesia when taken in too large amounts, what happened yesterday is a bit different

I took one pill in the late evening because I'd only slept for less than 3 hours the night before and wanted to fall sleep earlier and also was feeling anxious. I waited for some time and decided it hadn't done that much of a difference, so I took two more. So, three pills in total - not that much.

Well... I don't really remember going to bed, but:

I woke up in my bed fully clothed - not bad; I sometimes do that even when sober

I left the computer, music, the TV, and the bathroom light on - not THAT hard to imagine; has happened before when sober

I apparently forgot to take my daily evening medication, which is a bit of shame because it improves my sleep quality and also should be taken daily

THERE'S A WHOLE HUGE 1KG PACK OF SALT ON MY DESK IN THE LIVING ROOM

MY BRA IS ON THE KITCHEN COUNTERTOP

THE MILK WAS OUT OF THE FRIDGE EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T EVEN USE IT (also it was my last one and I doubt it's still good so RIP milk...)

I HAD SOME DRY, USED TEA IN A TEA INFUSER AND NOW IT'S JUST FUCKING ALL OVER THE DISH DRYER AND THE COUNTERTOP FOR SOME REASON

THE MICROWAVE DOOR WAS OPEN BUT I DON'T REMEMBER MICROWAVING ANYTHING (I WOULD have noticed because the light is on in the microwave when the door's open and I have a long corridor leading to the kitchen with the microwave at the end of it - that's how I noticed IN THE MORNING WHEN IT WAS LIGHT, so at night it would be extra visible)

I'd opened a pack of crisps, left one on the countertop and just left the rest OPEN on the countertop without eating almost any of it (I know this one doesn't seem that bad, but I'd never leave crisps wide open because they get stale)

THE SCARY PART: I DON'T REMEMBER ANY OF IT HAPPENING

THANKFULLY, when I checked in the morning, I DIDN'T MAKE ANY TUMBLR POSTS WHILE BEING A ZOMBIE (so all the deranged posts from yesterday are just me)

1.5 year ago, when I was doing reeeaaally badly, I took way more and then went to a birthday party of a person close to me, where I met some of his friends whom I'd only heard about before and had been excited to meet, AND I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT THAT PARTY OR THE PEOPLE I MET EVEN THOUGH I ACTED AND TALKED NORMALLY AND IT WASN'T APPARENT TO ANYONE THAT I WAS FUNCTIONALLY A FUCKING ZOMBIE. And I cannot ever recover these memories afaik. Do you know how fucking scary it is to not remember what you did the night before? What if I did something reprehensible? What if I was outside and broke the law and got arrested? What if I did something extremely reckless? I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF PERSON I WAS WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING. I DON'T KNOW IF I WAS MYSELF AND HAD MY NORMAL VALUES AND OPINIONS OR IF I TURN INTO A DIFFERENT KIND OF PERSON. All I know, because someone close to me has told me, is that I am meaner and more egocentric. I DON'T WANT TO BE MEAN

btw for anyone wondering: amnesia IS a legitimate side effect of Xanax and not something specific to me. I'm not sure if all leaflets list it (I'm not in the US), but you can check Wikipedia for more info

*generic Xanax, to be exact, which is the same in effect btw

PS. I don't abuse Xanax anymore and even when I did, it didn't ever any feel-good effects for me; I only used it to numb myself / make myself go to sleep. I don't even see why people use it recreationally (apparently) because if I wasn't extremely anxious, like having a panic attack, it wasn't very helpful or pleasant to take.

All of the above doesn't mean that I am against Xanax. I think it's a great medicine for panic attacks because it (a) works, (b) acts extremely fast for something that's a pill ingested through the mouth.

But it's extremely important that people don't abuse it, and that's why doctors should be responsible when prescribing it and inform patients of the side effects and the harms of abusing it.

Xanax is also very addictive and the addiction is hard to break (not from personal experience this time). And abusing it can lead to long-lasting (I'm not saying "permanent") cognitive impairment even once you've stopped taking it.

[lividria]

Funny Story: Bad Video Game Endings (+ a game nobody's heard of before)

Not as in bad endings as in negative outcomes in the story, I mean video game endings that are of poor quality. I have some funny experiences with them. One of them is in a game I could probably convince you was a hoax if I tried hard enough. The other is from a recent Nintendo release. Strap yourself in, this'll be fun.

I'm back from writing this out, and HOLY SHIT, THIS MIGHT BE AS LONG AS THOSE TWO REALLY LONG METROID PRIME 4 POSTS I WROTE OUT. Abandon all hope, ye who enter in.

I Might Be One Of The First Actual People To Document Sparklite On Tumblr

Okay, Sparklite is a pixel-art 2D top-down roguelite that's on a couple consoles and I think Steam, but I played it on my stepdad's Switch (He found it in the eShop, I watched him play and wanted to try it myself). The game is seemingly often compared to 2D Legend of Zelda, but I personally don't really see the comparisons beyond comparisons you can make to dozens of other games and not just LoZ. It took me 2 or 3 days to beat, but if you have enough time and know what you're doing you might be able to beat it in 3 hours. This game has enthralled me ever since I played it like... It might've been months ago now, actually, because it is possibly one of the most obscure games I've ever played, and the way it handled it's plot fascinates me.

I looked on YouTube and only found a couple playthrough videos & specific segment guides and not much else besides the official soundtrack upload (By the way, huge shout out to the game's composer, Dale North, this game's ost is amazing go listen to it right fucking now it has under 2K views but is spectacular and deserves better), I found a Fandom wiki for the game that only has 16 barren pages and the main page was vandalized for some time because it wasn't fucking edit locked, and besides for like 1 or 2 people playing through the game on their own, all of the posts about it on here seem to be either automated reposts from other sites and/or like... Reviews and articles written by game journalists? Which puts me in an interesting spot here.

I just find that entire side tangent really interesting, but I'm now going to spoil the entire plot because it leads up to why this game's ending sucks. If you're playing through this game right now, don't read further but let me know and provide proof because I will not believe you but also really want to know if I am literally the only person who knows about this game.

Sparklite's Story, From Memory at 12:30 AM

You're a mechanic girl named Ada flying an airship with your robot pal Wingnut. You crash atop the continent of Geodia, and have to figure out where to go now. Woohoo.

You go through a weird building called a Founders' Vault that gives you a crossbow then replaces it with a blueprint in your inventory when you leave, and get your ass kicked by a robot that eats Wingnut and has a human piloting it that is uncommunicative and never elaborated on and entirely possible to miss.

You wake up in the Refuge, a fucking sky island base built by the people of Geodia because it is currently experiencing multiple seismic events constantly reshaping the land. Because it's a roguelite. There's this one character I forgot the name of, he's really cool looking and is said to be the one who built the Refuge but hasn't talked since he finished it, he'll come up again a bit, I'll refer to him as Hero because his design at first glance reminded me of a character named Hero from one of my friend's projects, ROYN, which I shall now shamelessly plug, go watch it. I dare you. I don't think the designs are actually comparable in hindsight.

You go down from the Refuge into Geodia, starting in the Vinelands which has a lot less vines than the name implies, and explore a bit, meeting a strange pirate gambler who makes you gamble at his game and resets all of the objects once you leave the room allowing for you to grind breaking plants eternally for infinite money, and eventually find that boss from before and kill him. Wingnut is saved, hooray!

Behind the boss (Because I guess it couldn't get in there but wanted to guard it) is a room leading to a giant chasm underneath Geodia revealing a big crystal. I don't remember if it was named. I'm going to call it the Philosophers' Stone because it's funny and technically a pun. You step on a symbol and a voice from who the fuck knows where speaks to you, telling you things. You're warped back to the Refuge, Hero speaks to you, and the next area is unlocked. This loop repeats for each major world, because that sequence unlocked the next one.

Between the mystery voice and Hero's monologues, you learn the following:

The main fuel source of this world is Sparklite, a usually green crystal that comes in other flavors and contains essentially infinite power. Basically anything drops it, and it's the currency of the game. Despite being set up as a power source, you're arbitrarily given a separate energy meter for the weapons that cost energy.

You can burn Sparklite to get a higher energy output but destroying the Sparklite, which fucks up the environment and turns things into monsters and is what's causing Geodia to fracture, and that's what the main antagonist, the Baron, and his soldiers, the bosses, are doing. Why? I dunno. Hero specifically mentions he was the one who invented burning Sparklite, but this never goes anywhere.

There was this ancient people that either came to this continent or planet and made it alive because they needed a place to stay. I forgot all of their names, but there were 5 important ones, but only 3 were actually important to the plot, and in fact I might be misremembering and only 2 are. one of them made the Philosophers' Stone as essentially the world's heart (It's one giant Sparklite crystal), one of them is Ada's ancestor and passed down the necklace thing you use as a key to get into more Founders' Vaults, and another tried to break the Philosophers' Stone and figured out how burning Sparklite works. No, I don't think this means Hero is thousands of years old, though I wish that was the twist.

I think Ada was prophesized to show up here, but I don't know how or why.

The Baron wants the Philosophers' Stone. You have to activate the seal things at the end of each world to protect the stone and stop him from getting it.

There are these musical creatures called Beats that keep getting lost. This one girl, Harmony, wants you to rescue them all. Saving all of them across the entire map gives you essentially the instant win button, as it's the max upgrade of each major equipable accessory thing I forgot the name of. If you've played Iconoclasts, they're essentially this game's more elaborate version of Tweaks... Iconoclasts is also another obscure indie game I've obsessed over a lot, and I only know one person outside of the game's Discord that knows about it.

Sparklite's Ending Has To Have Been Developed In Under An Hour

Okay, that's a bit of hyperbole, but still.

You're in the final world, Titan's Ridge, listening to one of the coolest tracks in the game, and you enter the final dungeon, seeing that the standard boss room is empty and the door to the Philosophers' Stone chamber is broken open. You walk in, the stone is gone, and the voice tells you you were too late and to go stop the Baron.

You're warped to the top of Titan's Ridge (it's a mountain), where the Baron is staring over the clouds at the Refuge. He has a generic villain monologue about how Ada is annoying and Sparklite is always more powerful when burned, snaps his fingers and the ENTIRE REFUGE CATCHES FIRE AND FALLS OUT OF THE SKY, and the final showdown commences.

You beat him up, and then he just absorbs the entire Philosophers' Stone out of nowhere, transforming into this horrid abomination that takes up almost the entire background as you fall into the stone chamber, and have to fight a swarm of buffed enemies to reactivate all of the seals. Alright, now I can fight him for rea- Wait, what the fuck, the game's over.

I'm not kidding. You have the first phase where you fight him in his normal form, then he turns into a kaiju, and you don't even fucking fight him, just his enemies. He doesn't even have a unique animation for when the seal lazers shoot at him and just... Disintegrate him offscreen, I guess, because the Philosophers' Stone is put back in place and the day is saved.

Hero's entire arc is never resolved, none of the other characters you meet have literally any relevance to the story, there's no further explanation given from the voices, the Refuge is somehow back to normal again, and the monsters all turn back to normal animals. The credits put you in a white void with nothing to do but pet a dog as the credits roll, and then you're booted to the title screen once the credits and their corresponding song (best track in the game and one of the best credits themes I've ever heard btw) finish.

You can imagine why my immediate reaction was frustrated, confused vocalizations of distress and despair, after having spent approximately 4 or 5 hours trying to beat the final boss (You had to restart at phase 1, and I had to leave to get better equipment twice which meant finding the dungeon in the newly randomized map all over again).

Hero's story never went anywhere and had no relevance to the plot, Baron's character was never explored, you don't even see what happened to him, his minions literally never got dialogue but were clearly people as Hero would talk about them individually each time you cleared a world, a lot of questions about the ancient people are left unanswered, Ada's relation to the ancients and Geodia is never explored, Wingnut is barely even a character if you remember them by the way they don't talk ever again after rescue besides when you get upgrades for them because they're a gameplay gimmick, and I don't know if Ada ever gets her ship back.

I don't know if this was a deadline issue, since the game was already pretty light on content and made by seemingly an indie studio idk I haven't looked into them, or if the devs just... Ran out of ideas on how to wrap the story up and just threw together something just to get it over with. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, you won't be playing the game for the plot, and it was my fault for expecting the game to have one when it was absolutely a gameplay-centered game. But still, as the ending to a narrative, that was dogshit. I still recommend the game, though. I don't even play roguelikes/lites and I still had a great time. I don't remember the price tag, and as you can tell I'm too lazy and tired to be googling things right now, but I'm pretty confident it was less than 30 dollars.

Princess Peach: Showtime, A Paradox Of Game Design

One of my friends didn't even know this game released when I started playing through it. I got it for my birthday, because I thought a modern Princess Peach platformer would be a decent time and I was running out of modern first-party Switch releases I was actually interested in. Like Sparklite, I see nobody talk about it, but obviously due to being a Nintendo game (Though made by some other company, I don't know what Goodfeel is in relation to Nintendo but they're to blame for this) there's much better documentation meanwhile Sparklite doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. I don't know what the standards are for that kind of thing, but you get the idea.

In case anyone missed that this game existed and don't know anything about it, Princess Peach is invited to the Sparkle Theatre, only for Madame Grape and the Sour Bunch to infiltrate and fuck up the plays happening in the Theatre, while locking everyone inside. The theatre's guardian, Stella, this game's stereotypical tiny floating exposition dump partner, asks Peach for help going through all of the plays and saving the day. You go through the plays, resolve the story conflicts the Sour Bunch are causing (Fun fact, they literally commit an act of terrorism in one of the levels), rescue the main actors called Sparklas, yadda yadda.

The game's story is as bland and generic as you can get, so you won't be playing the game for that. You could've swapped Peach out for a unique non-Mario character and nothing would've changed, literally nothing. Especially since most of the character designs don't feel like Mario characters to me. The game's soundtrack, to me, was nothing to write home about. The graphics are alright, but still pretty standard. The gameplay loop, in a vacuum, should be really annoying: You go through a linear level with a couple easy-to-miss side paths or side quests to get collectibles, do a couple minigames, maybe fight a boss every now and then, and if you want to retry literally any part of the level you have to restart the entire thing. At some point, you get a transformation into a costume matching the play, and a new gimmick is introduced, that usually sucks.

The game is easy as shit, unless you're trying to 100% it, then if so the developers hated you. I genuinely don't know why I even finished the game, I should by all accounts not have enjoyed it, but I somehow had fun with it and I still can't really figure out why. It was barely even a platformer. I gave up 100%ing it halfway through when I had to ask myself if constantly retrying a level if I actually cared enough that I wanted to be doing this, because I realized I was just acting on completionist instinct. Once I re-evaluated, I immediately dropped it and just went to finish the game, because I was just not into this game enough.

Princess Peach: Showtime's Ending Is Sonic Adventure 1's Final Boss But Done So Terribly Worse It's Actually Really, Really Funny

I have not, in fact, played Sonic Adventure 1.

I will preface this by saying that even with how lame the game was over all, it was ultimately inoffensive. Sure, it existed only to exist and make Nintendo some more money and nothing more, but you could at least have a good time with it. Up until this ending.

You've beaten every level, and rescued all of the Sparklas. The final boss door is waiting for you, where Madame Grape is waiting behind it. But... Stella can't get it open, even with her magic (By the way, Stella and the Sparklas are powered by Sparkle, Grape uses DARKLE). The cutscene makes it feel like all is lost, because now we can't stop Grape if we can't get to her, and she's just gonna rule the theatre forever.

The Sparklas, previously not in literally any part of the hub world even after being rescued unless I missed them, all surround Peach and offer up their Sparkle, and Peach absorbs it AND GETS A SUPER FORM. Like, literally, through the power of friendship she gets a Super Sonic form.

She floats now, too, and can shoot magic projectiles. So Peach goes through the door, Grape is waiting, somehow three times the size she was in previous cutscenes, and challenges you to a fight, saying she'll create the perfect tragedy by defeating you, her foil. The fight is flying around a ring-shaped arena and shooting projectiles at her around obstacles blocking you from shooting her as you occasionally have to dodge rocks and lazers. That is the ENTIRE FIRST PHASE OF THE FIGHT.

Some of the major bosses of the game actually had interesting gimmicks, like Light Fang was a snake in a clocktower-like environment who you had to avoid being spotted by or else they'd REWIND TIME until you got high enough to hit their fuse and stun them, and Spotlion who would turn the arena to glass and shoot projectiles that now bounce around and you'd have to reflect them back at the boss to stun them. But not the FINAL BOSS.

Peach powers down, and she and Stella go to leave, satisfied Grape is dead as only her mask is left on the floor, only for her to reform and the entire room explodes.

Peach and Stella wake up in the rubble of the Sparkle Theatre, which is now completely destroyed. Grape, now instead of basically being invisible under her clothes besides for a purple smog orb is now whatever this is, and the size of a fucking kaiju.

All seems lost AGAIN, until the residents of the island offer up their Sparkle to Peach, who powers up AGAIN with technically a different form but functionally the same except shooting a beam instead of an orb, and flies off to fight Grape... IT'S THE SAME FIGHT AGAIN, BUT WITH A SMALLER, RECTANGLE ARENA, SHOOTING A BEAM, AND EVEN EASIER TO DODGE ATTACKS.

AND THEN GRAPE IS BLOWN UP AND THROUGH THE POWER OF BULLSHIT THE THEATRE IS RECONSTRUCTED AND PEACH GOES HOME. THAT'S THE ENDING. THAT'S THE FUCKING ENDING. But then, on one of the random credits slides you can see Grape's mask floating in the ocean, implying she might come back in the future. That wasn't a post-credits scene, not one of the last 5 slides of the credits, they put the sequel bait only like 3/4ths into the credits.

I can't be the only one who feels like this is basically just thrift store Perfect Chaos, right? Just when it seems the villain is going to succeed, the main character assumes a floating super form with the help of their friends and goes in for the final showdown. The final boss is the main antagonist which is some esoteric being with shapeshifting capabilities thousands of times bigger, more monstrous, and made of some kind of viscous fluid, and is fought in the remains of the hub world. It even looked like the island was being flooded in that final sequence right before the second phase of the Grape fight.

Obviously, Perfect Chaos is much better than Grape in basically every aspect, especially because that form is actually earned by Chaos meanwhile Grape just... Turns into it.

Oh, also, get this, I didn't look much into the post-game content just because I was so fucking done with the game by this point, but those collectibles you can find in the levels if you hate yourself can actually be spent on something besides unlocking boss doors now. You can decorate the hub world. There's only like 15 decorations, and you can't choose where they go. They're in specific spots. And you can only get one of each. And there's only like 3 per floor.

Don't play this game. You can take the triple A price tag and split the money up to buy like 5 indie games so much more worth your time than this fucking garbage. I beat it a few hours ago and I'm still fuming about how dumb the ending was.

Conclusion

I hope at least one more person buys Sparklite or at least looks into it/listens to it's soundtrack because of this post, and one less person buys Princess Peach: Showtime because of this post.

Also, Bonus Funny Story: Me joking with one of my friends about Grape devolved at breakneck speeds to PP:S 2's antagonist being named Pineapple, having the evil plan of opening a portal to Hell, being fought in the Greed layer of Dante's Inferno except it's basically El Dorado, burnt to death by being dropped into molten gold, replaced by a corrupt businessman as the main antagonist only to come back for the final boss as Golden Pineapple. And then Reality Pineapple.

Would you believe me if I told you all of that was references to the ROYN series I mentioned earlier and the inside jokes we have related to it? Because that's what happened. No, you are not getting an explanation. Unless you watch ROYN. There's a running gag where me and that same friend from the Pineapple joke advertise the series like we're paid shills, and it's really tempting to lean into that right now, but then I'd just actually look like a shill. Especially since I'm friends with the guy making it.

[sciralta]

just thinking about this, do you think TPA will be in some way determinant to the chance of male mcs in future books? TPA has a default male mc and i wonder if tpa flopping will have any affect here.

Well I think we need to clarify. The Phantom Agent is not a default male book*, it’s a gender of choice book. Most Choices readers are women, and that understanding is evident in how PB writes. I don’t think most GoC books can be considered to have a ‘default’ gender, but I do think there are some books where it’s apparent they were written with a certain MC in mind, and how that changes according to different MCs sometimes slips by them. A clear example is Untameable—despite all of mlm side of choices tumblr’s flag-planting that ‘this one’s for the gays!’—where Austin’s overprotectiveness of his sibling, especially in regards to who they date, is smoothly understood under the context of sexism when playing with an f!MC. But when playing with an m!MC, it’s just weird to be doing that to a grown adult man, even if he is your little brother who you once kinda had to be a pseudo-parent to.

Side note: this is why I still firmly believe they should’ve made Austin homophobic if you’re playing a gay MC. That weirdness experienced with an m!MC could be plausibly explained away if Austin’s ick around MC dating and dating Kit was actually because he’s homophobic and was fine to keep his mouth shut about it as long as it was ‘out of his house’, but once MC and Kit start seeing each other he feels like he can no longer ignore it.

Is there a book with a male ‘default’? I don’t know. What are we even judging ‘default’ by—who’s on the cover? I’ve been using default to mean what kind of MC it feels like the book was written with in mind. If we’re going by covers, I genuinely can’t even tell if that dude on the TPA cover is meant to be the MC or the LI or not.

But I guess a good question is: is TPA flopping? How do we even know? The VIP split release model has basically decimated engagement, at least on tumblr. Gone are the days of Choices occupying a place on the trending page, so we can’t use nobody talking about it as a metric for flopping, because well nobody now’s talking much about anything compared to before. We also can’t say that people panning a book’s quality is any indication, because The Nanny Affair was pretty widely declared as trashy on here, and it still got three books.

As for it influencing the future of m!MCs—possibly? I personally wouldn’t think so. PB have started to dip their toe into having some of the more erotic books be GoC, so it wouldn’t quite make sense to so quickly do a 180 on expanding the scope of which books get to be GoC. In any case, I don’t think TPA will be a smoking gun in the event of PB deciding to reduce GoC books. I don’t think it’ll be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Basically: yeah us homos still have our place in Choices and I really hope Pixelberry doesn’t turn around and make me eat these words and look like a clown.

*At least I think it’s not? I don’t know, it’s not like I’ve kept up with the discussion around this book or even what PB has said about it lol. Hell for all I know, it could be written with a male ‘default’ and I haven’t picked up on that because I’m playing with an m!MC, so if that was the case it wouldn’t stick out or be apparent during my play-through, and also I wouldn’t know if certain things in the story change according to the MC’s gender.

[underwhelmingalchemist]

For the violence asks: 8 & 13

*chanting* violence, violence, violence-

8 - common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about: No fandom was specified so we're talking about Tony Stark within the MCU. Specifically that, believe it or not, he's not a completely horrible character with no redeeming qualities or points in his favor! I can totally understand hating him. That's completely fair. BUT. The fandom, or at least the fandom on tumblr, treats him like he's pure evil. I think a good deal of people think that even within the canon of the movies he's worse than Thanos. But I feel like a lot of people want to ignore the fact that, like him or not, he's a complex character with a lot of depth. He's not some golden boy, and imo, he's never treated like one. Not by the movies (except maybe Endgame, but fuck Endgame), and not by the other characters around him. He's a deeply traumatized dumpster fire of a person with too much money and privilege, and I don't think he knows how to be a good person. But damn does he try. He's motivated by an often misguided notion of how to improve the world, one that's influenced by his upbringing. It's strongly implied that he was abused and neglected as a child, and that the butler, Jarvis, was more a parent to him than his actual parents ever were. Howard provided a perfect model of his future pattern of substance abuse and partying. He's been through numerous apocalypse scenarios, and was shown to have strong PTSD, along with likely some form of neurodivergence (I'm sorry, but no neurotypical person is hyperfocusing on an engineering project for days on end with no sleep and losing track of time). Tony was raised surrounded by wealth and privilege, and was never taught how to be a good person. But through the Iron Man trilogy, we see him trying. We see him struggling with facing his own mortality through the thing that once saved him killing him, we see him facing his personal demons in Iron Man 3, and we see him doing his best through all of it to stumble through the path to being someone he can not hate when he looks in the mirror. And yeah, he sucks at it. Watching Tony Stark trying to be a good person is a bit like watching one of those wobbly kittens try to eat out of a food bowl that's not theirs and only succeeding occasionally and very messily. But I think that's part of why I enjoy his character. I think I like watching someone who is so damn far from perfect struggle to become a better person, battling his personal demons, and I don't think his wealth completely erases that battle. Also, the later movies completely fucked over what was being developed through the Iron Man trilogy and just made him into what other people would have seen him as without holding any regard for his internal struggles and characterization, but they also did that with, like, most of the characters. Name a single MCU character they didn't make worse over time. I

13 - worst blorboficiation: I'm a little confused by what this one means. IMO everyone should have a blorbo. I strongly support everyone adopting a character and rotating them in their mind for 8-12 hours a day, no matter who that is. You can pick the most despicable resented character in canon and I will still fight for your right to go a little rabid for them. Foam at the mouth a little, it's good for you

Thanks for the chance to rant, Alex :3

🔥choose violence ask game🔥

[sleepymarmot]

Phantom Thread (2017)

[Finally forcing myself to post the reviews of films I watched earlier this year. Saw this one on January 29th — almost exactly seven months ago! As usual, I also post the notes I took while watching, so scroll down a bit if you only want the review.]

Liveblog

The dress is pretty but it doesn’t sit well on her at all.

Damn that was quite a rude way to hit on a perfect stranger

Girl has no sense of self-preservation! What do you mean you get into the car of a customer you talked to for two minutes, after dark?!

Wow he put his fingers in the sauce, is that normal for rich British men or is that another creepy flirting method? That’s unhygienic, please use your own food for innuendo

Oh my god Cyril is immediately acting creepy also

“My job to give you some. (beat) If I choose to.” Dude lmao…

“You have the ideal shape. He likes a little belly.” Ok first of all, insane thing to say once again. Secondly, w h e r e

I like this dress even less. Weird skirt, looks uncomfortable.

Why did he bring his sister to their date

“How early?” “I’ll wake you.” …

The fabric conversation… Is this negging again or is he for real

I really thought Cyril would say “Maybe you’re being too fussy.” I guess Alma has not yet leveled up enough to get quoted verbatim

“But, please, don’t let her sit around waiting for you.” Ha, now Cyril is repeating Alma’s words without even knowing Does Cyril not drink from the kettle? That was kind of risky…

The wedding dress is ugly Oh, he said it himself, okay

Damn, all of these women have to work overtime because of this couple’s power plays

He went from “I want a divorce” to “We’re doing food poisoning based BDSM” awfully quickly

Wait where’s that text post about being poisoned by your wife... Was it inspired by this movie lol

Ok so we all agree Reynolds is autistic, with his routines and picky eating and misophonia

---

Review

How come Tumblr has never mentioned this one to me? Feels silly to say “where have you all been hiding this” about a Best Picture nominee from five years ago, but still. This is literally a romance between “ok first of all i didnt "miss" the red flags i looked them and thought yeah thats sexy” and “love my terrible wife […] when we eat dinner ill smile and say “poison again ?” and she will shrug mischievously but we both know it is very much poison”!

General notes

Set design, cinematography and lighting were beautiful. In our age of murky shots, it’s remarkable to see a film that’s never underlit — sometimes even the opposite. Wasn’t a fan of the grain, though; the flickering is hard on the eyes, and in the copy I watched it looked like a low quality rip instead of a warm nostalgic analogue look that I assume was intended. The sound side was as good as the visuals: this might be the first time I actually noticed the sound design, and the score was nothing less than what I expected of Jonny Greenwood.

I have mixed feelings about the costuming. Some of the dresses are beautiful… but the two most important ones, the very first dress we see and the very first dress made for Alma, didn’t fit the wearers’ silhouettes, and looked stiff and uncomfortable.

Some of the dialogue, mostly at the beginning, felt unnatural; not sure if that’s just me not being a native speaker, since nobody else had the same complaint.

I didn’t get “never cursed”. Was that a statement Reynolds secretly made about himself, or a lucky charm referring to the princess’ marriage? Why did Alma rip the label out? Why did she join the seamstresses in the first place — did she feel guilty that they got caught in the crossfire and had to work overtime because of her, or did she just want to inspect the dress? I also don’t understand why people seem to adore the New Year’s Eve scene.

Do you think Alma told the doctor the whole story, or just talked about their relationship but left out the poisonings? I think it would be unwise to tell that to anyone lest they call the police…

In the sections below, I am going to talk negatively about Reynolds a lot. So I want to clarify first: I do sympathize with Reynolds in many ways; I wouldn’t want a new person to get in the way of my habits, and I would be unhappy with the surprise dinner too. And that’s also exactly why I don’t invite strangers to live with me and interrupt my routines then get mad at them for that, you know…

Filing this one as “Movies I wouldn’t want to watch or discuss with my mother even though there’s zero sex and nudity on screen”. I don’t know which part would be more awkward, the Freudian subtext or everything else…

The omelette

I’ve recently acquired a bad habit of reading too much about movies before watching. In this case it was probably a good thing, though: without the spoilers, I doubt I would have seen this any time soon, or managed to sit through the first hour. Luckily, I didn’t know the key element of the omelette scene, and still managed to have a proper first time viewing experience as it slowly dawned on me that Reynolds was aware of everything and the poisoning was going to be consensual this time.

That scene, and the follow-up interactions between Alma and Reynolds in the cottage (excluding the daydreaming flash-forwards, which I have mixed feelings about), were, unsurprisingly, my favorite part of the film. Many reviews quote Alma’s monologue (which, as I realize now, I might have originally encountered in a joke screenshot with zero context) or the line Reynolds says in response, so I’ll highlight some other things. The contrast between how simple and ordinary their actions are on the surface (cooking, serving food, eating, talking at the table) and how wild the meaning of these actions is; the mix between a duel, a dance and a negotiation that mostly consists of extremely mundane movements. The intense eye contact, the “I know that you know that I know”. How Alma put too much butter in his food and poured water too loudly for too long, and he accepted it without complaint but with the same calm and clarity as the poison. How they look genuinely happy, in love, and on the same page for the first time in the entire film. How easily he says “I love you”.

The omelette discourse

…And now that I’ve documented my immediate positive emotional response, it’s time for some overthinking and complaining. Perhaps everything I say below can be dismissed by saying “they’re both awful and deserve each other, that’s the point haha”, but that’s not a mode my brain can stay in for long. So please bear with me, or just skip this section.

Because no matter how exciting and cathartic that ending is, I can’t help but ask: what next? Is this experience going to let Reynolds finally grow out of his cycle of childlike helplessness and patriarchal despotism, instead of solidifying it? What are we supposed to infer — that the poisonings are going to be a regular occurrence from now on, or that they will become unneeded as Reynolds gradually mellows out? (The former would, realistically, have diminishing returns and practical complications like “people are going to start asking questions”, and the latter kind of goes against the celebratory kink-positive tone of the film’s grand finale.) Are we to believe that Alma’s poison is an antidote to Reynolds’s toxic masculinity, and that the more he submits to Alma the more he can tolerate her when things go back to normal, until the two of them grow to exist harmoniously?

I guess there is some evidence of that process already beginning. When Reynolds bounces back after the first poisoning, he’s slightly less mean to Alma than before the marriage. Alma’s poisoning is also less destructive the second time: consent, no collateral damage, not on the eve of an important deadline, she agrees to call the doctor.

I think the film wants the viewer to think that by the end, Reynolds and Alma’s mutual toxicity cancels itself out, and they manage to reach a harmonious equilibrium. That might be true of the first poisoning, where Alma retaliates against Reynolds’s abuse with some of her own. At the mid-point of the film, their vileness is pretty evenly matched. After that first poisoning, there’s a brief honeymoon period. Then Reynolds goes back to berating Alma, disregarding her feelings, and being dissatisfied with her presence in his life… And in response to Reynolds making her feel unloved, Alma does something that makes Reynolds feel loved. In the end, the score is still in Reynolds’s favor instead of being even. Even in Alma’s daydreams of their happily ever after, the closing monologue of the film, there is no mention of Reynolds changing to accommodate her, only of Alma changing to accommodate him: “I am older and I see things differently, and I finally understand you.”

Perhaps here the story structure and the balance of power between the characters are in conflict; it makes sense to end the film on the strong scene that changes the relationship in a major way — but that means the viewer doesn’t get to know if that change leads to improvement. We never learn if Reynolds eventually becomes a better partner; we only know that Alma is committed to him either way.

No matter how satisfying the couple’s new arrangement is to watch, I don’t see how it would help with the actual problems in their relationship. They are at different stages of life, and that exacerbates the natural differences between their temperaments. Reynolds doesn’t respect Alma as an equal; he insults her and allows others to insult her to his face. He has immense power and privilege over her socially and materially. He has a career that he loves and a devoted sister, but she has no life outside of him — no friends, family, interests, hobbies, income, etc. — and it’s hard to tell if it’s sexist writing, intended characterization, or both.

How is any of that going to be helped by them growing closer emotionally? You two found a love language you have in common and unlocked a new level of intimacy and mutual understanding, congratulations! Is it going to broaden Alma’s horizons and opportunities? Is it going to give Reynolds more progressive views and social awareness, enough to at least defend the honor of his lower class wife? Is he going to stop being emotionally abusive because he is emotionally fulfilled?

This would imply that Reynolds behaves the way he does simply because he is too high-strung and he just needs to take a chill pill. That the problems in their relationship can be reduced to him being a control freak, and once he gets accustomed to giving up control and learns to enjoy it, and then he’ll be a good partner. Sorry, but it’s hard for me to believe that one can tame, let alone fix someone by domming them.

The film seems to attempt a subversion of the patriarchal, hierarchical “artist/muse” “upper class/working class” “man/woman” power dynamics. But the characters do not dismantle that existing power imbalance: instead, they build something new and mutually satisfying on top of it. The film intentionally avoids the feminist wish fulfillment route: Alma doesn’t liberate herself, and she doesn’t even want to. It’s a fairy tale where the Beast doesn’t really become a better person, so the Beauty becomes a worse one to “match” him… but she’s still locked inside his castle. Alma doesn’t abandon the role of a muse, only adds another traditionally feminine role to it: mother. As Feminist Frequency’s review puts it, “Traditional, restrictive gender roles are not escaped; one set is just briefly swapped out for another.” Related: it might be just a consequence of Reynolds’s chosen trade, but the people Alma walks over in her bids for his attention are always women (Barbara Rose, the seamstresses).

Speaking of motherhood… What happens when the woman who likes to treat her husband like a baby gets a real baby? How does she split her time between them? Does she end up neglecting one of them, does that make Reynolds jealous or more abusive? Or will he by that time have gone through enough personal growth to be actually fit for fatherhood? An interview with an expert on Alma’s specific brand of abuse asks an even more worrying question: “I also wondered about the baby at the end, because those who engage in the behavior are likely to do it [again] when similar situations arise. So as the baby gains skills of emancipation, would Alma be equally threatened by that? I saw the baby and thought: Oh no, it may be at risk.”

Perhaps I am being overly cynical and uncharitable here because of who made the film. When an artist with a history of being cruel to his girlfriend writes a story about an artist being cruel to his girlfriend, and makes the fictional girlfriend abusive too, how can I not question it? This film was already very awkward to approach and enjoy as a fan of Fiona Apple, even regardless of its content.

The relationship development

Another thing that didn’t work very well for me in the final sequence is something that also applies to the other parts of the film: the internal logic of the couple’s relationship development. Reynolds goes from “This was a mistake, I can’t live like this, I want a divorce” to “Intoxicate me now 😏 With your lovin’ now 😍 I think I’m ready now 😳” in the space of one cut. These scenes are directly adjacent with no development between them. It makes sense from Alma’s perspective (“what an asshole he’s being, he needs to be poisoned ASAP”), but not from Reynolds’s.

On Alma’s side, though, there’s also a bit of weirdness: Alma to Reynolds: Don’t worry babe you’re not gonna die, I’ll take care of you <3 Alma to the doctor: If he died that’d be fine by me, we’d just meet in the afterlife ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I really can’t tell how I am supposed to take this, and which of the men she was lying to!

But let’s go back to the beginning of the film. Throughout the initial phase of the relationship, I was sure that Reynolds chose playful bullying as his flirting tactic consciously, but later in the film he showed so little self-awareness that I started to suspect he thought that was a normal way to show interest in a girl you just met. Either way, I was surprised that the way he condescended to her changed considerably when the seduction was over, though in retrospect it makes sense. On Alma’s side, there was a similar shift: she was far more welcoming of his insulting methods of flirting than I would expect from a self-respecting adult with a strong personality, and started rebelling when they settled into domesticity. Perhaps the domineering attitude of a handsome stranger showering her with attention was exciting at first, but when their relationship became routine, she quickly grew sick of being treated like a second class citizen in what has become her own home. (I wasn’t joking with the quote at the top of the review: it was my genuine and immediate impression that Alma goes along with the 342561 red flags exhibited during the very first day not because she’s a doormat but because she’s a freak.)

The love at first sight didn’t work for me, as well as the couple’s determination to stay together despite their incompatibility. I’m just not convinced that they actually love each other as entire human beings. They do love certain sides of each other. Reynolds loves the muse with the perfect measurements; the assistant totally devoted to him; the new woman (future) finally displacing his older sister (present) and mother (past) while, unlike them, also being his sexual partner. Alma loves the genius who makes her feel beautiful and important. They both love the persona the other assumes in a caretaking scenario. But is there a deeper connection? Do they actually love each other unconditionally, not just the aspects of each other that fulfill their needs? I’ve seen quotes in confirmation of that from PTA and Vicky Krieps — but the text itself provides no satisfactory evidence of that.

Obligatory comparisons with other films

I like to chain movies together because of themes or character dynamics they share. A couple of reviews for Crimes of the Future mentioned this film, and I decided to watch it next assuming that the similarities start and end with the relationship between an aging artist and a strong-willed younger woman. Turns out, these two films also make an interesting double feature because in some ways they’re an inverse of each other. Crimes of the Future and its main couple wear abnormality on their sleeve, but the central relationship is healthy and stable; Phantom Tread appears classy and family-friendly, hiding the more shocking aspects of the relationship beneath the luxurious surface. Both films are very sensual without the conventional sex scenes, but the approach is diametrically opposite: Crimes of the Future circumvents the content rating system, managing to put explicit scenes on screen just because they don’t contain specific banned body parts; Phantom Thread purposefully and conspicuously avoids showing any sex or nudity to preserve the aesthetic and make other scenes feel more charged. The protagonist’s old age is important in both: for Saul, it’s deteriorating health and conservatism towards newer ideologies and ways of interacting with and modifying one’s body; for Reynolds, it is the decades of habit and privilege making him internalize the belief that his own authority, taste, routines are something absolute and unquestionable.

A bigger surprise was the two films also shared the theme of food and eating. Crimes of the Future: eating as a fundamental bodily function, food as means of sustenance, and the politics of food; Phantom Thread: eating as pleasure, food as means of human connection, and the power dynamics of feeding and being fed. Both films go deeper than the surface: food is not just something that is served and tasted, but chewed, swallowed, and digested, which is not necessarily a smooth and uncomplicated process. Phantom Thread’s exploration of the food theme is probably the best one I’ve seen so far not just in film but in any media, and the only one I can think of where “food as love and sex” made sense for me.

Choosing The Favourite as the next film to watch after this one was a good choice too: they also had some things in common. There’s a young woman winning an older and more powerful person’s affection by taking care of them while they’re sick, there are toxic relationship, there’s even literal poison... The older parties are similarly spoiled and eccentric but very different in certain important ways, and the protagonists are even more alike.

People have mentioned this film’s similarities to Rebecca, which I haven’t read or watched; my own first thought was about Misery, which I also haven’t read or watched. Out of the films I’ve seen before, there’s Crimson Peak — someone made an entire Venn diagram for their similarities. I’ve also seen comparisons with a number of other films, mostly ones I haven’t seen. Is Phantom Thread more intertextual than the usual or is that just me?

[vahnithedreamer]

Girl manusmriti is literally ONE smriti, and I do know that it changed the status of women to way worse than it was. I'm not saying goddesses make up for manusmriti's sexism. Manusmriti was a person stating his own opinion on how things should be run, and I'm just saying its not particularly essential to Hinduism as a whole. The violence of caste is not acceptable but it's not essential to the nature of sanatan dharma as a whole. Where did I say it was OK to discriminate against people because vibes?

I've reblogged a ton of posts from other bloggers that talk about the issues you're asking me to talk about, but I'm not really very good with tumblr. I can't post citations because I don't know how to. Yes, anti casteism is a rich tradition. But does that mean Hinduism has nothing of value to preserve? I'll thank you not to talk about my integrity.

There was another post I reblogged from you, where I actually refuted your points and stated my own. I wonder why I didn't get a notification of your response to that.

Anyway. Say, Islam discriminates against women in the Quran. Does that mean you eradicate it? No. The Bible discriminates against the LGBTQ+ people, does that mean Christianity has nothing of value? No. You don't call for eradicating it. Because the CORE VALUES are different from some upper caste Brahmins deciding to oppress everyone else. But the only time I see a call to eradicate the whole religion because it's "casteism" is with Hinduism. Just like Islam stands for peace and justice, regardless of its flaws, and Christianity for love and forgiveness, sanatan dharma stands for truth, duty and honour. So casteism happened, and continues to happen. The Crusades happened too. Does that mean Christianity is wrong?

So, to support what I reblogged: yes all religions had a bad place for women. Yes atleast Hinduism has not only women gods, but people who literally believe in mata shakthi and no one else. That's the beauty of Hinduism, you don't have to follow certain rules to be called one. You just need the spirit. There are literal beef eating Hindus in Kerala so don't even try going against that argument. So you can literally believe that the Atman, the all present spirit of the world is female, as mata shakthi. There's also the shiv and shakthi have to fuse so the male and female spirits together brought about the world theory which I believe in. No one else practices the caste system?maybe not by the same name, but girl did you ever open a history book of Europe? Or literally anywhere else? People everywhere had discrimination, does that mean all the religions were evil? Yes the caste system was supposed to be about profession, not hereditary. Yes, people who are at the top of the rung absolutely WILL take the chance to oppress those at the bottom. That happens EVERYWHERE and is not unique to sanatan dharma.

All I'm saying is no culture should be eradicated for it's flaws. There should be continual reform, and people shouldn't blindly follow a book, they should instead adapt their beliefs to changing times.

What bugs me is Hinduism, out of all the religions I've seen, has the most redeeming qualities yet it's the only one that people want to eradicate. I see literally so many posts here, on twitter, that reek of hate against the entire religion saying it should be eradicated. I'm pretty sure I saw one in your blog too, yesterday.

And don't come at me with the BJP's treatment of minorities. The Taliban are oppressing women, it still doesn't mean Islam is worthless or should be eradicated. Why doesn't that logic apply for sanatan dharma?

This is what I meant in my other post where I initiated discourse with you when I said the best quality of Abrahamic religions is that they will never abandon their own religion,they respect their own culture and preserve it, even if it's flawed and imperfect. I personally believe they shouldn't just preserve it but reform it too but atleast they respect their culture and religion. I don't know many born Hindus who do that.

It has been lovely to see you accuse me of not having integrity just because I had an opinion. I supported all the arguments from what I reblogged. So I ask again, what's the joke?

me: caste system evil and makes hinduism uniquely evil

upper caste hindu apologists: all religions are kind of evil no they all hated women right like it doesn’t matter and atleast hinduism has women gods right wasnt that so cool dalits are not really that relevant right it doesnt matter that no one else practices the caste system at all the caste system isn't really that oppressive right its just a system of professions and untouchability is just about cleanliness im not saying dalit people are gross or anything but not interacting with anyone doing an unclean thing prevents disease it wasn't really supposed to be hereditary its just been taken too far.

[sweet-honey-fruit]

Genshin Characters with Injured Reader

Genre: Fluff, hurt/comfort (?) possibly

Warnings: Use of pet names. Strong language. Descriptions and mentions of blood/injury (nothing life threatening). Spoilers for Scaramouche’s story. Slightly suggestive for Venti’s, lmao sorry im biased.

Inspired by me being flung into a fence and scratching up my legs. How? Don’t ask, it’s embarrassing. I’m rewriting this cause TUMBLR DECIDED TO DELETE MY. FIRST. DRAFT. Also please note that i am very out of practice with writing. These characters may seem OOC but i promise you im trying my best to make them canon djnfjnds. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! I aim to get better to provide you all with high quality content. Let me know if you guys would like a part two!

Childe

Upon seeing you walking in with scratched up knees and hands, he’s secretly on high alert.

He hides it with his usual laid back and child-like persona

“Well well, what do we have here? Is my lovely babe injured? Come here, let me take care of you.” While giving you a cocky smile.

It doesn’t matter how much you protest, he’s going to bandage and clean them up

“Childe please, I’m not a toddler, I can take care of it myself.”

“I’m well aware that you can, but would you even get around to it?”

As he’s putting a bandage on them, he’ll ask you what happened.

“Would you like to tell me what happened? Oh- you fell? Was there anyone around? Why am I asking that question? What, am I not allowed to be curious” Cue him putting his hands on his hips while pouting

Childe doesn’t show it, but he’s highly paranoid about your safety anytime you’re not around him or someone he trusts.

The Fatui has a lot of enemies, especially him. He’s a bloodthirsty Harbinger, and the most front and center member of the Fatui to the public eye. Meaning you are also on display.

And while the mere mention of his name makes people fearful and tremble, there are a handful who simply don’t care and wish to hurt him with any means necessary.

So anytime you come back with something as small as a scratch, he instantly thinks it’s someone trying to get to him by going through you.

If it was an incident of you being clumsy and falling, he’ll lovingly lecture you about how you should be more careful while holding you close, mentally thanking the Tsarista that it wasn’t anyone targeting you.

But if it was someone, either on accident or on purpose.

Hahaha, pray for them

It’s better to be up front and tell him the truth, otherwise he won’t leave you alone till you tell him who and what happened. He knows when you’re lying. It’s a keen skill to have in his line of work.

While he admires that you’re trying to cover for someone, he admires getting revenge on your behalf way more.

He will interrogate you until you tell him who it was that dared put there hands on you.

But don’t worry, it won’t be like the interrogations he does for the Fatui, he loves you too much to do that. It’ll seem like a casual conversation.

He’ll act like he drops the subject before brewing you a cup of tea, giving you your favorite snack, and holding you close while you two talk.

He’ll get you to tell him who it was through a seemingly normal conversation. He’s good at doing that.

He won’t stop the conversation till he gets the answers he was looking for. Not that he would want to anyway, he absolutely adores talking to you. So really, it’s an added bonus.

Chongyun

Oh Chongyun, my sweet, sweet boy Chongyun

This man is instantly worrying

“What happened?! Are you okay?! Was it a demon?! Tell me where it is and I’ll take care of it. I’ll make sure it never touches you again!”

That last sentence is low key terrifying to you

Please reassure him that you’re okay and that it wasn’t a demon. It was just you being clumsy, that’s all!

He has to walk away for a moment and eat a popsicle to calm himself down before his Yang energy acts up.

Once he has calmed down, he’ll come back to you and sit you down to take care of you.

He’ll carefully clean it for you before bringing up a spray bottle

“I bought this in case either of us were in need of first aid. Baizhu said that it’s a no sting disinfectant spray.”

He sprays it. And it stings lmao.

“OW THAT HURTS YOU FUCKING LIAR”

“Ah! Wait I’m sorry, please! I promise he told me that it wasn’t supposed to burn!”

He’s instantly hugging you tightly while apologizing

“No Chongyun it’s okay, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that, I was just surprised.”

It’s a disaster lmao. He’s still mumbling apologies.

He has to eat a popsicle again fjjdr

He wants you to double, triple, quadruple confirm that it wasn’t a demon once you’re all cleaned up and bandaged

“Are you su-“

“Yes Chongyun, I’m positive! It was of my own clumsy volition to trip down the stairs.”

Once he’s finally calmed down and pushed away the thought that it was a demonic attack, he’s holding you close while carefully tracing the bandage

“Please, my dear, be more careful. I don’t want any harm to come to you.”

Scaramouche

As you walk in through the door with blood pouring down your head and legs, this man just stares at you

His eyes follow your every movement as you’re limping towards the kitchen to get the first aid kit

He doesn’t make a move, he’s just watching you, as if he’s analyzing you

It isn’t until you’re hissing in pain trying to get the first aid kit does he finally stand up and go towards you.

“Sit.”

“No, Scara, it’s fi-“

“I said sit” He pulls out a chair and pushes you to sit down in it. You don’t dare protest with the look that he’s giving you.

He huffs as he pulls out an alcoholic wipe to clean up your wounds, not caring about the hisses, whines, and protests your spewing out

“Quit your whining. What the hell happened to you?”

He won’t show it, but he’s concerned. He low key has the same fear that Childe has. Being an ex Fatui Harbinger doesn’t come without its dangers. Not only does he have enemies from being a Harbinger, but he has enemies within the Fatui as well since he took the Electro Archons Gnosis for himself.

But once you tell him that you just fell down the concrete stairs in Inazuma City, he’s scoffing at you

“How can you be so pathetic and clumsy?!”

He says as he forcefully pulls you into a hug

Don’t take anything he says too serious. He cares about you deeply and can only express it through tough love.

“Dont-…don’t do that every again.”

He won’t let you leave the house for a while after. Unlike Childe, he lets his paranoia take over just a little bit.

It’ll take some time to let you get back out of the house, but that doesn’t mean he’ll leave you 100% alone.

Venti

This man saw the accident happen first hand. He was playing his lyre in the courtyard of the cathedral. You just came back from your commissions and decided to go watch his performance. As you were walking around the crowd to get a better look at him, you weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You guys made eye contact and he gave you his brightest smile. You were too focused on how elegantly he played and how adorable he looked that you didn’t notice the concrete pillar in front of you. As you smiled back and gave him a little wave, you comedically ran into the pillar

The anemo archon immediately stopped playing and ran over to you

“Windblume?! Are you okay?”

You rub your head, feeling the warm blood that’s gushing out of the cut along your temple

This man is instantly all over you, cupping your cheeks, checking you over for anything else before grabbing your hand and leading you back home

He’s thoroughly cleaning it while lightly scolding you

“As much as I admire you watching me perform, I want you to do so while standing in place next time.”

Once he makes sure youre 100% okay, he will flirt and tease you, that’s just how he is by nature

“Although, my precious Windblume, if you wished for my attention, all you had to do was ask. There was no need to go about such drastic measures.”

“Venti, I wasn’t-“

He’s putting a hand up to your lips while shushing you

“Now now Windblume, why don’t I show you how much worship this bard has to offer”

And who are you to say no to that 😏

Either way though, he’s going to cling onto you for a while to make sure you don’t hurt yourself further

He’s slightly scared you’ll injure yourself in a more serious manner

Can’t really blame him though. You’re the only one that saw him for him, even after finding out he was Lord Barbatos himself. You worship him as a mortal, not as an archon and he holds you dearly because of that.

You’re the only one he has truly ever loved in all his years of living. He just doesn’t want to have another Nameless Bard incident with you.

Please reassure him that nothing will happen to you. Please hold him close. In times of you getting hurt, he is in need of more comfort than you since his imagination loves to run wild.

He doesn’t have to worry for long. He’s the anemo archon, he realized. He forgets he is sometimes since he gets so wrapped up in his mortal façade. As the anemo archon, he can always have an eye on you with just the slightest breeze.

He gives you a soft kiss on the lips before dragging you to Angels Share for a drink or two in order to lighten the mood.

Xiao

Xiao is a little bit like Scaramouche, only more understanding and visibly caring.

He’ll scoff at you and roll his eyes all the while he’s checking up on you and making sure that youre okay

“I can’t believe you managed to get yourself injured. You mortals are so fragile….Are you hurt anywhere else? Who did this to you? Why didnt you call my name?”

It takes some convincing that “no, no one did this to me”, “no, I’m okay”, and “No, im not going to call your name over something as minor as a cut on my arm.”

He doesn’t buy the last statement. It doesn’t matter how big or small the situation or injury is, he wants you to call his name. He wants to know that youre able to rely on him.

Why did he have to date such a stubborn individual?

He keeps you in his lap and kisses your head while gently holding your injured arm.

He’s not one for physical touch most of the time, only when you’re hurt.

You joked about that one time and it didnt go well

“Wow. If I knew I would get cuddles and kisses like this, then I should get hurt more often.”

The look he gave was enough to shut you up and instantly retract your statement.

He’s stern while lecturing you. Practically demands that you call his name next time, even if it was just you tripping over a tree branch.

With anyone else, it would be annoying to have his name called out all the time. But if it’s from you? It’s a relief. Cause he knows that he’s protecting you.

This man has seen a thing or two, he knows the horrors the are out there that everyone else seems to be ignorant to.

If he could permanently stay by your side then he would, but he knows that’s not possible.

Yet it’s refreshing to know he’s only one shout away.

Please call his name when something happens, even if it’s only you stumbling a bit. He feels relieved to know he can be there for you so quickly for anything.

[therealvinelle]

Thoughts on Twilight books vs. movies

Part one of infinity, because I have a lot of these.

As a fan of the Twilight books, for the longest time I kept being astounding by things the fandom mentions, or believes. It was when I rewatched the movies (well the first two, anyway) that I realized that much of what people kept talking about, the way they see the characters and canon events, was so wrong because it was from the movies. And the movies are... well the movies are a parallel universe where everyone’s subtly different in a myriad of ways that add up to the movie characters being different people than the book characters. It’s late in my time zone so this is not going to be a full essay, just general thoughts.

Examples that come to mind are Bella’s crippling self-esteem issues, her general absence of any sense of self worth, being cut from the movies. She also loses her wit. Kristen Stewart did a good job with the material she was given, but the material was a Bella who was cut down from her book counterpart to be as relatable as possible. It’s thin.

You have Aro. Take New Moon for an example, in the book he’s impeccably polite, reminisces fondly about his dear friend Carlisle and lets the Cullens go because they promise they’ll obey the law from now on. In the movie he is a maniac who comes within an inch of killing both Edward and Bella, never bringing up Carlisle. I’m highlighting Aro and this scene because it’s such a good example of how the movie characters are different characters. The Aro of the books is not the Aro of the movies. (I’m not bringing up BD because I don’t remember what the movies did there apart from unleashing Michael Sheen)

Another example is Jasper and Bella bickering fondly in the hallway in New Moon. In Eclipse, by contrast, we have Bella musing that Jasper is the quiet outsider of the family, the one she doesn’t know at all. She believes that if it weren’t for Alice he’d be de-Cullenized and eating people within the day. (I do love that, by the way. Bella, he tried to eat you, of course he’s keeping his distance.)

There’s Edward, who while self-loathing and all that, is also ridiculously over-confident. He thinks he can do anything, at one point claiming to Bella that he could take Jasper in a fight. This Gilderoy Lockhart quality is lost entirely in the adaption. Edward in general is crazied down, no doubt to make him more palatable, but it just removes everything his whole personality.

Edward/Bella might suffer worst of all, as they’re made these incredibly boring people who really have no reason to get together in the first place.

There’s also the vampires, who in the books are gods, in the movies they have generic Hollywood superhuman gimmicks and as one poster beautifully put it at one point, they all look like they huff gasoline in Czechoslovakia. I’d be more forgiving of this, since Meyer’s vampires are ridiculous and the only feasible way to do them justice would be to animate Twilight, but these movies didn’t even bother keeping the vampire look consistent from one movie to the next. The effort just wasn’t there.

Then you have the big stuff, like the movies never actually explaining why the Cullens are vegetarians who live with the humans in the first place. We’re just shown their house and lifestyle and the movies sort of take it for granted that this is what the Cullens do. Of course the Cullens live in a house, go to high school, and eat deer, it’s the Cullens! Again, no wonder the Harry Potter fandom killed Twilight with their memes about lame vampires.

This is turning into a rant on why these movies make no sense, which it wasn’t supposed to be.

Point is, the movies and the books are different in all these insidious ways, and it adds up to movie canon being completely different and me not understanding what anyone in fanfiction or on tumblr is talking about half the time. Not only are the characters different, but the worldbuilding is too.

One difference wouldn’t matter, a few differences would just mean some things had to change as the story changed mediums from book to screen, but when all I can see are differences, on every level, then we’re dealing with two separate canons.

[per1shed]

hey ive also been following u since idk at least when i was in high school and im 21 now and i just wanted to say that your blog has always given me a lot of hope. despite how terribly you have to struggle, you're always doing everything you can trying to get better. you try to go on walks and you try to watch movies and you try new medicines even if all of that scares you. you like reading and music and beautiful things. you try and you love and you appreciate. no matter what happens, to have that as your legacy is something to be extremely proud of. its so upsetting that anon chose to project their shitty mindset on you. it's a pitiful quality to not be able to look at the immense suffering in the world and not also see the beautiful hope and kindness and resilience of those within it. the lotus flower is an important symbol in my culture bc it's something beautiful that only grows from the mud and because of that, it represents purity and strength. you always remind me of that. i hope you know that their bitterness doesn't reflect on you. it's always good to see your posts, even the sad ones. i'll follow this blog until you delete it or tumblr goes away, regardless of your mental/physical state.

you are incredibly kind and i’ve been crying for 20 minutes thinking about how what i want to reply to this. i didn’t think anyone would ever pick up on the “good” parts of me. my issue is that i want to love the world and i’m trying so hard to find things to get me going, it’s just that i have an incredibly hard time talking about them to ANYONE. ever since i started becoming physically sick and woke up one morning unable to walk, to eat, to talk, to listen to music or even laugh, it was so traumatizing to me that the only way my brain knew how to cope with it is to never talk about anything that means something to me ever again bc im scared it will be taken away from me. that’s why i never talk about bts even though they mean the world to me, bc im scared that if i do they’ll die or something. and that’s how it is with EVERY single thing that means something to me. i have very little things left (reading, the 30 minutes of music a day that i can bear, sitting outside when my body lets me etc) so i can’t risk having them be taken away. but im trying to post about them every now and then to challenge my magical thoughts bc i know rationally that they’re just in my head. (probably).

people with me/cfs have the lowest quality of life out of many other major diseases tested so i find it astonishing on my part that i’m still holding on. life has not been good to me and i think people don’t realize that sometimes it just doesn’t get better no matter how much help someone has or how much someone is trying. your message means so much to me i don’t think anyone has ever said something kinder. i will keep it close so i can read it whenever i’m sad so i can remind myself that i’m not only bad. thank you so much really ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️