#and i don't understand why they included it if they weren't going to address it at any point in the show

[damnonew]

why would they cut that??????

i'm going to hijack this post, sorry, i just have a lot of opinions here

they did Top's character so dirty in this series so far and I do not understand why????? Top is set up as the 'worst' character from the get go. yes, worse than Ray. Worse than Boston. he's an outsider to the group who only shows an interest in Mew as a conquest. he literally tells Boston he 'always gets what he wants' about dating/sleeping with Mew right after they just met???? his character is set up as a rich entitled sleezeball who has never been told no a day in his life and we aren't supposed to like him. He then immediately cheats on Mew with one of Mew's friends and lies about it for the duration of their relationship. the bar for his character was on the floor and he still found a way to tunnel under it.

then shit hits the fan and the truth comes out and they break up and we watch Top flounder. is he floundering because of genuine feelings???? or because he doesn't want to 'lose'???? is the bed scene with blackout drunk Mew supposed to show Top being gentle/caring/romantic? or overtly creepy and possessive???? as a viewer it was impossible to interpret his actions with Mew up to this point as genuine because of the original character set up. so we have the villain character making repeated bad, selfish and hurtful decisions and just digging the hole deeper and deeper. we are at episode 9 and as the viewer, we still have not gotten any clarity or confirmation on Top's actual feelings and what is and isn't real because the origins of his character hasn't been acknowledged or addressed in any way? so he starts as a villain and just gets worse throughout the show. there hasn't been any sort of growth or redemption arc or reason for the viewer to think he's become a better person.

so a scene showing how he's tried to go back to his old behavior patterns with a random hook up only to break down crying IS SO IMPORTANT to his character development. that is the missing piece viewers need to see how he's changed and genuinely changed. that is the change in perspective we need to see some of his past actions in a more charitable light. that is what needs to be shown on screen for viewers to get behind the Top/Mew relationship.

and i find it infuriating that they chose to cut that scene

especially because the reasoning was 'viewers don't like Top'

no shit

and they never will

because as his character has been portrayed so far, how could they?

p'jo saying in his interview with let's talk bl that they cut a scene with top going home with a random guy but couldn't have sex with him because he starts crying since he still has feelings for mew... gives me some sort of feels about top, ngl.

my guy is pathetic, oh my heart.

[perictione00]

Selfish

Ch 6: Games

Pairing: Geto Suguru x reader

Warnings: MDNI, dark content ahead including cannibalism and death, intended incest.

Synopsis: You left the Jujutsu World behind the moment the source of your warmth turned cold. So what happens when you come face to face with that one episode in your life that you wanted to obliterate? Simple, you reap what you sow.

Jujutsu Kaisen Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Ch 5

For reasons unbeknownst to you, Suguru harbored a desire to conceal your presence and affiliation with his cult. To such an extent that your conspicuous absence from both the school and your family abode gave rise to speculations: either you had followed the path of the raven-haired curse user, or you had withdrawn and isolated yourself from the world to preserve your own existence. People who were acquainted with you opted to embrace the latter. Nevertheless, as time elapsed, doubts arose, contemplating whether you had chosen to end it all. And that was why you had deliberately violated numerous rules set by Suguru, in your order to ensure the well-being of your family, only to discover that they were enduring distress, burdened with self-blame for ever letting you go. The same was the case with Nanami. He regretted not being there for you when you needed him the most. Consequently, his immediate response to your call, abandoning all other commitments, came as no shock.

"Hey...?" Nanami appeared perplexed, tilting his head in recognition.

"Oh...Kento, you actually came!" You exclaimed, rising from your seat, only to be enveloped in a tight embrace.

"I've missed you." Nanami's usual stoicism melted away, surprising you with his emotional display. Memories flooded your mind as you reciprocated, the warmth of the moment reminiscent of simpler times. It brought back the days when things were less complicated, suddenly reminding you of the person you cared for. The realization brought back images of betrayal, causing frustration to set in as the conflicting emotions of anger and reunion played out, bringing tears to your eyes.

"Don't let go." You whispered.

"I won't." He affirmed.

In that moment, Nanami embraced you in a prolonged silence before addressing the unspoken issue.

"Where were you all this time?" He inquired, his gaze skeptical, his hands firmly gripping your shoulders.

Uncertain of how to respond, you grappled with the dilemma—reveal the truth, trusting him to keep it confidential, or fabricate a story to protect yourself?

"I... I fled after Suguru's departure. I was unsure of..." 

"Suguru, huh?" he murmured softly. The slip of your endearing tone told him everything he needed to know. "You were with him, weren't you?"

"Ken-"

"You don't need to lie to me. I don't think I can stand causing you harm anyway. I just want to understand... why?" Nanami questioned, wiping away tears from your cheek.

"I-I killed someone, Kento. It was unintentional...the voices in my head they're terrifying. It's waiting for the right moment, and I don't know what'll happen if it takes over. I'm sorry; I'm so so-sorry. I didn't mean to—I don't know. I really tried. I just-"

"Hey, hey, breathe. I've got you." He uttered while gently stroking your hair.

Geto Suguru was a man with unconventional ideals, and he lived by those every day. He relished in the pains of those unworthy of his eyes. He loved feeding into their delusions, and so he loved playing with his prey. A troubled girl of his age from an influential family with a curse wrapped around her was just another player in his games. The creature slithering around her body radiated envy, unsurprising for someone as spoiled as she was. Daddy's princess, who would get anything within a snap of her fingers or the opening of her legs. And if the repulsive relationship wasn't enough, the girl had the revolting audacity to expect a celebratory welcome from him.

"It's been days since I last saw you. Why didn't you text me?" She asked sensually.

"Oh, my little monkey. I was busy~" He answered in a sing-along voice.

"You don't know how many times I touched myself with just the thought of you. Do you wanna see Daddy? How much I missed you?" Dropping her wet panties to the floor, she moved closer to him.

Geto couldn't stop smirking, almost on the brink of letting go and laughing maniacally. He was excited to give her the gift of a lifetime, so he played along as she kissed him and tried humping on his leg while a certain someone watched the scene unfold through the gap in the door.

"Wait! I've prepared your favorite meal. Now be a sweetheart and have it before it turns  cold." Geto stated pulling away from her.

"But-"

"No buts. You can have me after lunch."

The girl seemed to enjoy the princess treatment as Geto carried her to a table with a single dish covered by a cloche.

"Open it." He ordered.

"A... sausage?" She inquired with bewilderment.

"Give it a try before jumping to conclusions."

The girl moaned unintentionally on the first bite from the 'burst' of flavors, and like a glutten, she kept munching on it.

"Wow! What is this?"

"It's your favorite meat. Been in your mouth many times before." Geto hinted.

"Is this Wagyu beef?" She asked mindlessly.

"You know your father has this itch to pull the most outrageous stunts-"

"Did Daddy plan all of this? Aww...my bubu is the best. You should try this too. Wagyu beef is rare."

"Shut up for once, will you?" Geto sneered as he released a few curses to hold the girl in place.

"Now where was I? Oh yeah, your father. Regardless of how much of a cashcow your family is, I can't fathom the nerve of a weakling to eye what is mine. And do you know what your dearest old daddy did? He did exactly what he wasn't supposed to do. He looked at my love and had the impudence to approach her. Talk about audacity. But I have to give it to him. Even after all these years, it has always been your photo in a high school dress that he jerked off to every night. He was hard too when I..." He stopped halfway, chuckling sinisterly and slowly eyeing the almost empty plate of food.

"No...nooo. No. You've got to be kidding me. You motherfucker. Stop this! Stop it, sto-" Her head blew up as curses began consuming her body. It was always a delicious sight to see the agony of the uncivilized. Now he would finally spend the rest of his day with you peacefully.

You were squeezed into a hug as you crossed the threshold of your house. And before you could stop your actions, you recoiled, instinctively pushing away the person in disgust, only to realize what you had done. 

"Ouch. Are you okay?" Geto inquired with concern.

"Oh-yeah, I'm good. I just got scared." You replied curtly, scared if he had noticed your absence.

"Alright. Now, c'mon, gimme a hug. I've been dying to feel you all day." It almost made you scoff at how shamelessly he was spewing lies when he had his tongue down someone else's throat on the very same day. But you complied with his wishes anyway.

"Where were you, by the way?" He queried, inhaling the fragrance of your hair with an unsettling intensity.

"Right here. I just went out to get some fresh air." You answered, feeling an uncomfortable coldness in the expected warmth of his embrace.

"Hmm...funny that you say that, 'cause I stationed myself at this very gate for the past two hours, anticipating your return. So I'm gonna ask again. Where were you?"

[laauranenn]

in wbk fandom you can't have conversation about the writing, development and complexity, this fandom is overprotective about nii's mid writing, Any comments about his flaw in writing characters or this plot will be shut down , fandom only cares about shipping and yaoi

the side characters especially umemiya are well fleshed out with detailed backstories , everything in the plot literally revolve around umemiya , the antagonists like choji and chika revolved around their obsession with ume , tsubakino and sugishita backstories included ume too ,nii is focusing on exploring umemiya and his past more than his mc Sakura

Nii can't make Sakura the center of the plot, the plot always revolves around the side cast and their issues ,while the problem Sakura has with trusting people has been addressed and nearly settled, the root cause is still left in the wind. It feels like the issue was addressed, but Sakura himself specifically never got his past elaborated on, but there is prime opportunity for angst and character moments, as well as just humanizing Sakura.

Thank you so much for responding!!

When I said I want to have a conversation, I meant it!! I agree that when you've got a fandom for something, the fans tend to be protective of the media and its author, and that shipping is something that is very prominent in fandom spaces.

But for the sake of this conversation, I'm going to do my best to ignore shipping that isn't confirmed or implied in the manga, and I'm going to acknowledge flaws in the writing if the points you bring up are convincing!

(If it becomes relevant, I'll only bring up things such as Endo and Takiishi's relationship and Tsubaki's affection for Umemiya, but I don't think they'll be something I need to really get into. )

I disagree with all the plot revolving solely around Umemiya, despite how relevant he is to most arcs in the manga.

The reason that Umemiya is so relevant, and is so present in the story, is because Sakura is going to take his spot someday. Sakura comes to Furin intending to take the top spot, a position that is currently filled by Umemiya.

For Sakura to make it to the top and it mean something, we need to understand what the position truly entails, and how it came to be. Which is what all the information we get on Umemiya is for. We're learning of his journey to the top and how he has shaped the world and its inhabitants.

For Choji and the Shishitoren arc, I'd like to argue that his obsession with Umemiya is about his position, and not about Umemiya himself. Choji and Umemiya are essentially in the same position, just in different teams. Which is why Choji focuses on Umemiya the way he does.

Choji and Togame share the same notion of power being a means to freedom. Choji latches onto this and decides that he wants to be the strongest, and therefore the freest. But when he reaches his goal of being the strongest, it turns out to not be like how he imagined, and the team takes a turn for the worst because of this.

Umemiya, however, is the strongest of his team. Yet he isn't experiencing the same boredom and despair as Choji is, despite being at the top. This is what Choji is so focused on. It's less about Umemiya as a person and is instead about the position he's in.

Sakura does also play an important role in the Shishitoren arc. The whole conflict likely wouldn't have started, or wouldn't have gone the way it did if it weren't for Sakura being there. Without him, the conflict likely would've been resolved differently.

Sakura and Togame's fight is important for both characters. For Sakura, he has a fight with someone where they both respect each other, likely for the first time. And for Togame, Sakura opens his eyes to the ways he's been acting, the ways he's gone against his own beliefs in order to salvage what is left of Shishitoren.

As for Tsubakino and Sugishita, they've both known him for years and he's played an important part in their lives.

For Tsubakino, Umemiya has been his friend since their first year in junior high. He learns that Tsubakino just wants to be himself and love the things he loves, which Umemiya praises him for, and tells him he's going to help back him up if someone tries to hurt him again. And they've been close friends all the way to where we currently are in the manga! Umemiya shows up in Tsubakino's story because he's relevant. It'd also be a little strange for Tsubakino to be one of the four kings without Umemiya showing up somehow, don't you think?

And with Sugishita, Umemiya also plays a similar role. Sugishita gets himself stuck in a spiral of meaningless fights he doesn't even want to be a part of, which Umemiya then saves him from. Umemiya saves him and brings him the peace he wants. This then manifests into his loyalty to Umemiya, as well as his friendship with the four kings.

With Sugishita, this also gives us insight into why he seems to hate Sakura so much. From the start we've known the main reason for it, which is Sakura aiming for Umemiya's spot in the school. But with the most recent chapters, we see why exactly he is so offended by this idea. Umemiya brought Sugishita peace, something that Sakura is actively disrupting. How could someone like Sakura, who's constantly snapping at people, and running into fights possibly measure up to Umemiya and what he's done for Sugishita?

It adds another layer to Sakura and Sugishita's rivalry, which I find incredibly interesting!

It's true that a lot of side characters are getting detailed backstories, while Sakura hasn't really had one yet. But in my opinion, this works out nicely with the way it's executed. It adds to the worldbuilding and makes the characters and the town feel more real, more solid.

I've really enjoyed learning about all the characters, as well as their relationships with each other. It makes Makochi and Furin feel like actual places with actual people, rather than just something that's there to only serve the main character.

As for Sakura's lack of backstory? I can see why you're itching for one, but I can't see it fitting into the story well if we got it right now. I also don't think that there even is a lot to it, not a lot to tell. We've already got a lot of info about Sakura and why he is the way he is, even without a proper backstory.

Even the first chapter makes Sakura's past very clear. He's a boy who's been mistreated for his looks for his entire life. It's brought up a couple times in the first few chapters even.

"How ya look doesn't matter in a fight, that's why I came to Furin"

"This is more like it. This is the right reaction. Everyone is always pushing me away, rejecting me, dismissing me-"

Sakura is someone who's been isolated growing up. This shines through in the way he interacts with others. Sakura is much more confident in a fight, he handles himself better in a fight. But when he interacts with others in a casual setting, he stumbles and gets flustered easily. A lot of the things that show just how alone he's been are subtle or might even be played as jokes, such as the only contact in his phone being a bot that gives you the weather forecast for the day. He also takes things literally. This could be just a trait of his, but it's likely a result of his lack of experience in social situations.

It's a lot of little things that add up. He's slow at texting because he's had nobody to text. He holds a spoon weirdly, likely because nobody corrected him growing up. Doesn't know how to open a Ramune bottle as he's never had one before. (This last one could also just be coincidence, but it all does still add up.)

I'm satisfied with how much we know about Sakura, but I'd love to hear what you'd like to get from a Sakura backstory!! Because it is true we haven't gotten a lot of info on where he was before Makochi.

The lack of backstory for him is because Wind Breaker isn't about his past, it's about him moving forward from it. It's about how Sakura makes a space for himself in Makochi. It's a story about him being accepted, about how a boy hated by all others becomes the hero of the town!

Please do respond again!! Share what you think of what I've said and give me your own observations! I'd love to keep the conversation going :)!!

[whos-hotter-jjba]

Hey, I don’t know if you read the tags (I understand there’s a lot and you’re busy) so I’m sending through here.

I honestly feel like Over Heaven Novel Dio should’ve been considered in the prelims. If GUCCI Jolyne was considered for prelims, I think other non-canon should be as well. I genuinely believe it stood a chance in being considered since it is a well liked outfit even though it’s not commonly seen in fan art.

But, this is my main issue. The Shadow Dio pic chosen for the polls has like so little of his outfit visible, like really just his ass and a little lower lol. After all the bad outfits are out of the matches, he’s probably going to drop from the polls because Shadow Dio, in the pic you chose, really isn’t a full outfit, so why would it compete with full outfits? In fact I think he’s the only character that doesn’t have a top piece in the images you chose for the polls. I’m not complaining here, because I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for a lot of people here when I say he’s hot topless. However this isn’t a who’s the hotter character, it’s based off of the outfit.

In summary, if possible, I think Over Heaven Novel Dio’s outfit should be considered as I think it stands a better chance in the polls. If not, a better image of the Shadow Dio outfit would help (I know it’s probably hard to find an exact pic though because they are so many dang variants of shadow Dio in the manga lmao).

If you read this, I appreciate your time.

Including pic for reference.

Hey, sorry I've been ignoring this ask forever, there's been a lot going on, but I got other people complaining too so I wanted to address this.

This is exactly why I did the preliminary polls, and Dio had two of them. People voted for Shadow Dio, so that was the image I chose. I've redone other polls, but because they used images that weren't canon (Jobin and Daiya) or because I forgot outfit options (Koichi), but this isn't the case.

About Over Heaven Dio, I had no idea this novel existed, sorry. I thought you were talking in the tags about Heaven-Attained Dio from EoH, which would be non-canon and not drawn by Araki, but you're right. I considered Jolyne, Fly High with Gucci because it was drawn by Araki, and now I looked it up and Over Heaven was drawn by Araki too. But I fucked up and we're halfway through round 3 already, so I'd have to redo his prelim poll and, if the result changes, I'd have to redo 3 more polls to make it fair to every character involved.

I honestly don't think (personally) that the results will change. People picked Shadow Dio even though there were other outfits in which he was actually wearing more clothes, so I think Shadow Dio won through a combination of being iconic and horny. We can try, though, even though it's going to be a lot of work.

Remember that if Over Heaven Dio (or another outift in his prelim) wins over Shadow Dio, we'd have to redo his polls against Squalo, Reimi and Mountain Tim!

[ihopesocomic]

I think what a lot of people who have issues with you (aside from the youtube lion show stans) is that you dont baby people

People ask for obvious spoilers and you just say "we'll see!" (Unless its been asked several times in which case you explain that)

People try to push for bigotry to be in your comic which you wont stand for

People refuse to actually read the comic and want it explained and you have to put your foot down and tell them to read the comic

Ect ect ect ive never seen you guys get unreasonable with any messages, angry? Short? Sure some of the anons you get are like "why is hope have 3 legs?" Its completely understandable to be angry at messages like that

Yea that's pretty much the vibe we get too tbh. But we're not gonna apologize for having standards and we're not going to change how we present ourselves if it means putting in extra mental energy to be overly polite to bad faith actors or people who just simply ignore what we put out unless its addressing them personally.

You mentioning the spoilers incident is interesting because the person who brought that up would later state that spoilers weren't their issue at all, just us being "condescending" because they made the personal choice to read our neutral responses as such. Or us using 'lol' whenever we indicate we're being light hearted. Because not everybody who uses 'lol' is being snarky or rude.

Ultimately, being given the benefit of the doubt would go a long way instead of people automatically assuming we're being nasty or "unprofessional" because of things like 'they criticized something I enjoy" or "Well, I didn't like that they weren't bowled over by an ask I sent two years ago' or just anything that happened years ago LOL

Anyway. Some people may be fine with spoiling the whole story of their project, but not us. We're having a lot of fun keeping people guessing, especially if they guess correctly and their theory is proven in a future chapter. We do big high fives when that happens lol

The people who outright demand inclusion of bigotry are especially confusing because at best its people thinking our one little comic that's not-that-popular-actually constitutes as erasure of the queer/disabled struggle. And at worst it's people who somehow can't find value in entertainment unless it's misery porn. And both of these instances they claim the existence of IHS in its current form takes away from the countless already-existing content that covers both, or somehow shames people for including it in their own story when we've never said such a thing. Anything we've said either applies to us personally or we're criticizing mainstream media that takes our experiences and makes them palatable to a mainstream audience. (At it's funniest it's nerd fans who criticize our comic for being a knock-off of MP while in the same breath complain that it's not doing the same thing as MP)

And an insincere sorry in advance to people who want us to spoon-feed them information in the comic. I was under the impression that when you saw a web comic, you had intentions on reading it. Heck, we have a dub now, you don't even have to read anymore technically. But I value my time too much to explain every single detail that may go missed in a chapter. Some stuff we feel confident in our readers piecing together on their own because we respect their intelligence, and most times there's no incorrect conclusion to arrive to because leaving some things up to interpretation is better than over explaining it. But maybe I'm just a meanie. - Cat

[resisteverything]

Tbh it's clear that S2 of HB is soft rebooting pretty much everything from S1, which is quite....sad frankly and why everything seems disjointed. Let's see here....

The Grimoire? Well that's pointless now, because of the introduction of Asmodean Crystals. If they were there the whole time, then the book is a paperweight(put a pin in this for now.)

Stolas and Stella's relationship? Well at the start, seemed a bit of a mixed bag sort of thing, there was tension obviously between them, but they still shared a bed. Octavia seemed at least by implication of dialogue, good memories of her parents when they weren't fighting. BOTH VAs for Stolas and Stella, seem to think there was more going on with their characters(kind of a red flag, so it seems they didn't even know where their own characters were going). Stolas' song to Via and the lyrics of "I used to think that I was bold, I used to think love would be fun." Sorry but that's clearly referencing him and Stella having had SOME kind of relationship before everything went sour, boldness as per definition suggests that Stolas was the one who initiated and wanting to be with Stella. His lyrics of "now my stories have been told, except for one..." Also implies that he was extremely old.

Oh but S2 shoots all that in the face, with the laziest plotline ever and absolving Stolas of any wrong doing by his Family, by making Stella an evil bitch, as well as a dumbass. This plotline is so boring, considering Stolas already stood up to her and kicked her out of the house and is getting a divorce....there's nothing left there. He can't have been bold for his and Stella's relationship, considering he was forced into it and all his stories? That's bunk, considering the guy is only like in his 30s..

Blitz big vocal grievances to Stolas at the end of S1? Pointless now, because in blink and you'll miss it texts, Stolas doesn't even understand WHY Blitz was upset despite being flat out told to his face.

Stolas and Blitz' relationship? Back to square 1 apparently within Seeing Stars and moreso Stolas has no character growth, it doesn't matter that he's going to give Blitz a Crystal....because he doesn't even seem to understand what he's done wrong.

Also side note, why is Stolas the one getting the Crystal and not Blitz? Why is Stolas having to be the one to give it to him, can't Fizz and Ozzie just you know...mail it to the address of I.M.P.? Ozzie has Blitz' phone number, just send it directly to him.

Blitz and Stolas' deal? Completely pointless due to the afore mentioned Asmodean Crystals and the fact that I.M.P. was killing in Hell before the Grimoire. You can now completely REMOVE Stolas from the show, due to these factors.

Season 1? Since Blitz mentioned to Crimson that they killed in Hell before in Exes and Ohs, why not have some of the episodes build upon that? Why not expand upon the worldbuilding of Hell this way, only for the crew to find out that maybe killing up on Earth would be far more lucrative and thus find a way to get an Asmodean Crystal? There's a catch though, the only one who can(Fizzarolli) hates Blitz for past actions against him...

So now...Blitz goes on this arc of making amends with those of his past, including Fizzarolli, Verosika and Barbie. This is where S2 picks up.

Oh look at that, I removed Stolas entirely from the show and now gave room more to explore Moxxie, Millie and Loona as characters with Blitz as they navigate through Hell in trying to keep their assassination company afloat.

I didn't mean for the long winded ask, don't have to post it up...but yeah S2 clearly seems to reboot S1 and the more hilarious sad part of it is, you can remove Stolas entirely now because of it.

Yeah… and how is it that this crystal is so hard to get that Stolas has to get them from Ozzie when they’re presumably handed out like hotcakes to every succubus in hell? Either that or Verosika being on the surface in spring broken is a world-breaking plot hole.

[nothorses]

Hi, Re: your tags about "what does femmes and nb mean"

There was a ttrpg project i applied to despite it saying it was aimed at femmes or femmes and nb people or something of the like, and they added that if you weren't sure you qualified as that, you could apply anyway. I think they were trying to be inclusive of fem aligned nb people, but it obviously wasn't great. I'm told the person who created the project is planning on going into a career for DEI and would be open to correction, but i wasn't sure quite how to approach it or what suggestions to offer to make things clearer

Do you have any thoughts or resources i could look into/send their way?

Yeah, I've noticed this wording from so many people who seem to honestly think it's The Most Inclusive, and like- it's not bad intent. The people I know who say this stuff tend to also readily agree that trans men should be included as well, that cis butches should be included if other cis women are going to be, etc. This is just the wording they've heard, and they don't know enough to evaluate it any further.

As far as thoughts and resources go: I would try asking some questions about who she's trying to include, who she's trying to exclude, and why.

"Women, NBs, and femmes" is wording I heard from someone recently in reference to a program aimed to get certain marginalized people involved in outdoor rec/ed. Her reasoning was that she had felt excluded from that world as a woman; historically, that's absolutely the case, and clearly she understands that cis women are not the people most targeted by gendered gatekeeping of outdoor spaces, either.

So I would ask: what is the exact group (and get wordy about it) that you want to include? Are transmascs a part of it? Binary trans men? What do you understand "femmes" to mean; are you including cis gay femmes?

Who are you trying to exclude, and why? If only cis men should be excluded, let's evaluate that, too: what about men of color? Disabled men? Both of those groups are extremely well-known to be historically excluded from outdoor spaces, and are still far more excluded from those spaces than any cis white abled woman is today.

But maybe your goal is to address gender specifically, because that's what you understand best. That's fair!

Now you need to ask: do you understand gender, or just other cis women? If you're including trans people, why? I would agree it's intuitive, but you should name that reason so you can explain it and work toward your exact goals more intentionally.

Most people would say that the overlap is something like "gender-based oppression", but maybe you want to specify "misogyny" instead. This gives you something to go off of either way! Now you have a through-line, the thing that defines who you are including and why.

From here, I would suggest orienting your project to be clear about that: does it need to be about the labels people use for themselves, or even the identities of the people involved? Or can it be about addressing this issue in this field? Maybe instead of being "for women and femmes", it can be "against misogyny", or "for gender inclusivity".

These phrases aren't inherently excluding particular people, I know- but that's good to evaluate as well. If a cis man joins a group "against misogyny" and is wholly committed to working alongside you in that, how important is it to you that he be excluded from the group? Why? Are those reasons also going to make trans people feel excluded- particularly closeted trans women? How are you going to tell one from the other?

If you're trying to provide specific resources and support to groups who are marginalized in a particular way, maybe you can be providing resources "to people impacted by the misogyny in this field", or "to support gender inclusivity in this field". Maybe you can let the selection of who does or does not get those resources happen in the applications, or the places you seek people out, or the "about" section, or the way you start your meetings.

None of this is an exact instruction or anything; these are suggestions, but mostly they're questions, and people need to get in the habit of asking and answering them. That's what DEI work is!

I also really reccommend this article on "women and femmes"; it explains what "femme" actually means, and the harmful implications behind the idea that masculinity, not cis manhood, is privileged.

This article from Salal Sexual Violence Support Center on why they're changing their language to "marginalized genders", and this follow-up on what they have learned about the deeper changes needed since making that language change, are also really great.

[crimsoncold]

Polls, Plans for a Future ASOIAF art series, and some Criticism of Antis and thoughts General Fandom etiquette ...

First of all thank you to anyone who participated in my poll on which pair of House Stark characters have the most underrated/underappreciated similarities or paralells (and for so many of you for taking the poll in the spirit it was intended and staying respectful in your tags- I always worry about that as part of the asoiaf/got fandom, particularly being a Sansa-stan and Jonsa shipper in general)

I was using this poll as a bit of research/inspiration for a future art series I wanted to do (there are just so many possible paralells/comparisons that I find intriguing or emotionally compelling, but i can only devote so much time to one specific art piece/series and was really struggling to narrow down the specific character pairs I wanted to focus on- hence the poll I made!)

So after getting an idea about which parallels resonate with people -and feel are underrepresented or unappreciated by fandom- and holding to the idea that if you want to see something specific or rare discussed or done in fandom/fanfiction/or fanart sometimes you just have to do it yourself ... I've checked the results and have decided I'm eventually going to do a cross-generation art series exploring certain characters' narrative parallels/similarities to eachother as well as a tribute to any canon relationship they have to one another...

It will include a Sansa & Ned piece, a Robb & Lyanna one, and lastly an Arya & Catelyn one.

Side note I'm also thinking of doing a separate Jonsa art piece that focuses a bit on the many ways their plotlines/arcs/dreams mirror one another.

(It's all going to take awhile- a few months probably but I'm very excited and I've already started brain storming ideas)

Ok now that I've expressed my appreciation and shared the more positive outcome from this poll now I want to take a moment to vent a bit about some of the negative backlash, address my general stance on antis, and give a little reminder about general fandom etiquette...

(I've tagged this accordingly so I'm unsure that any of the people this is directed at/could benefit from reading this will ever encounter it... but still I think its important to put it out there- even if only because it allows me to process my own thoughts and feelings on the matter)

(This may at times come across slightly bitchy- I'm alright with that but I decided I'd preface this by emphasizing... This is intended as a criticism of toxic stans... it is not the condemning of a specific character/certain character parallels, and it is not criticism of people who are simply fans of said character in general... everyone understand that? Good lets move on)

So I'm sort of feeling darkly amused about how (with I think a single nice exception?) the comments made on this poll (even multiple in a row from one user) were people wanting to complain that I chose to excluded some pair/parallel that they prefer ....

Instead of taking... what 10 seconds?... to read my explanation around why certain pairs were excluded from the poll- which would have apparently saved them a lot of grief...

(I.e. its not that the parallels between these pairs aren't present OR that I don't think they are meaningful... it's simply that I feel those sets of characters are very high profile and are frequently discussed in terms of their parallels by a significant portion of fandom and thus should NOT be included in a poll meant to consider underappreciated Stark character parallels)

...And then say deciding to either take this poll in the spirit it was intended (once again... to consider what is the most underrated/underappreciated stark paralells? NOT to focus on or reiterate some of the most talked about ones in all of asoiaf fandom?) or choosing to simply scroll past if they weren't interested in the options/design of the poll..

They instead chose to have a hissy fit in the comments about how offended they were that Lyanna was listed as having parallels with any Stark kid other than Arya (not just Sansa- which unfortunately is not exactly an unexpected response but apparently the idea of Robb + Lyanna having paralells was also deeply offensive. Who knew? I would have expected all the house stark boys were completely immune to the unecessary hate/criticism/dismissal that so much of fandom and many arya stans gleefully direct towards Sansa)

Or took the time to explicitly complain that I didn't include Arya being compared to.... whoever? Ned and Jon I think, maybe others? I've forgotten their explicit instructions on all their arya stan approved comparisons. Because isn't it sooo biased of me not to include these pairs because clearly Arya is the only character who can rightfully be compared to Lyanna or Ned... even in a post explicitly about parallels underrated by fandom!!! These commonly discussed parallels absolutely NEED to be an option even then... and if it isn't it has to be because the person who made it is prejudiced and biased-not because the pair/character parallels dont actually fit the poll criteria.

Really this just further justifies my disappointment in certain types of stans and makes me feel I wasn't being pessimistic or jumping at shadows when I listed my second reason for avoiding including those as pairs in this poll (i.e. wanting to avoid devoting space to pairs/paralells that bring out the worst in certain toxic stans- i just dont need to deal with that and neither does anyone else)

...when I say that certain character parallels bring up weird defensiveness/unpleasantness/stubborness in fans .. well these people choose to respond to such a statement by just literally proving my point.

If you dont like this poll instead of leaving comments to complain about it and its creator maybe go make your own Arya centric one?... would that not be a better use of your time? Or are you so lacking in creativity/the ability to think critically and express yourself persuasively that you can only ever complain about the content other's make and never actually be a productive or positive member of fandom through creating your own content?

All your actions do is make it less enjoyable to read or discuss said popular character or character parallels... you actively drive people away from the fandom discussion around your favorite characters/character parallels... which is an interesting choice to say the least.

I would love to plan out fanart that explores both the major and subtler ways the stark sisters echo both of their parents and even each other... but I am hesitant... Arya stans like these totally just reinforce both my concern that such content would not generally find acceptance/appreciation and my certainty that I would not even simply be peacefully left alone to explore or share these ideas without toxic stans invading my blog to bitch to me about... i don't know? How I'm awful for choosing to taint asoiaf things that sacredly belong only to Arya by including/linking them to evil incarnate Sansa or fandom nobody Robb? That I'd dare malign someone as precious as Arya by having the audacity to think or say that she has similarities to the useless female characters Sansa or Catelyn?

I'm a fan of all the stark kids (including Arya- i love the Stark sisters and wish more fandom discussion around their relationship was based in empathy and nuanced consideration rather than being mostly vitriolic and obviously biased) but stans like this make me not want to branch out beyond the more Sansa/Jonsa centric circles or content... because at least with this part of fandom I encounter people used to seeing/experiencing rudeness or outright harassment and who are not interested in behaving that way themselves (notice people weren't up in arms and taking to the comments in outrage about me choosing to not include and list Sansa and Catelyn parallels ... almost as if Sansa-stans don't harass or criticize people in their own posts... unlike many others I could list)

(including me!!!! I tag my content/art as in depth as possible not just to make it easy to find but also as a curtesy to be easy to filter or block for those who aren't interested in certain fandoms/ships/or even my art and content in general

I wish these people would remember that fandom is a hobby and we do this because we enjoy it... curate your fandom experience, scroll past things that don't interest you/filter any tags you want/block content or blogs that you don't like or don't care to see.

I am doing my part!

I am not willfully invading/infecting your space in fandom with my terrible interest in the starks/sansa/jonsa... use your damn filters and/or block my blog ... don't leave nasty comments for me or the other people to see)

Seriously!!!! Don't waste your energy on negativity, or your time on being rude or purposefully invading specific fandom spaces just to criticize and argue with people in fandom who you disagree with

... because I'm not going to engage with you or argue with you or in any way validate/reinforce your shitty behaviour, I'm not going to sink to your level by invading your blog or your posts to complain about you or your interests... I'm going to block you wearing a smile (just one less unpleasant person to run into in this fandom)

and lastly I'm just going to continue to post/enjoy all the characters/topics/ships that you hate.

and if I complain about what you've done or use it to emphasize my stance on specific antis or fandom conduct in general it will be only ever be in my own posts on my own blog- without explicitly identifying you/referencing your blog/or directing actual harassment or negativity towards you ... (I'm not going to make you feel justified in your negative opinions about/harassment of sansa-stans, jonsa fans, or just literally anyone in fandom who you disagree with... I'm not going to give you evidence/ammunition to slander or smear segments of fandom you consider undesirable... I'm just not going to lower myself the way you do... i have more respectful for myself and for other people in fandom... I'm content to let you look like the asshole and never have to think about you again)

if you failed to develope the ability to give enough of a shit about other people to be respectful in fandom spaces, filter and block accordingly, or at least be civil in your interactions please have enough respect for your own free time and at least care enough about your own emotional well-being and happiness to start acting this way ... Swear to god this will make things more enjoyable not just for others but for yourself as well

Now I'm going to go back to reblogging/making fan art of things I like... because it makes me happy and I don't wish to invest anymore time on negative things or negative people.

- Crimson Cold

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #10

10. UNITED KINGDOM Olly Alexander - "Dizzy" 18th place

Decade Ranking: 35/153 [Above Last Dance, below Monika Linkyte]

Gotta love the commitment to the art here, it's really giving:

I'm getting ahead of myself, but yeah I fucking loved "Dizzy". It was a really good entry that of course, was never going to get a single televote. They exist, and this is one of them.

But first, let's get the unfun bit out of the way: Olly Alexander was bullied. I'm not going to address that any further. Those responsible need to dc from the internet, because it clearly brings out the absolute WORST in them.

In these times of overwhelming negativity, I find it important to be POSITIVE whenever possible, so here we are - 'Dizzy" was far from perfect, but I love it nevertheless. SOMETHING GOOD to come out of Olly's miserable ESC journey.

At the core lies a really, really good song. I'm biased, obv - basic Synthpop IS my safe zone, and "Dizzy" is basic synthpop that perfectly articulates what I want / am missing from my intimate life.

"Why don't you make me DIZZY FROM YOUR KISSES

Take my hand AND SPIN ME

Round and round 'till this MOMENT NEVER ENDS

:sadsynth:"

It's unabashed in its hopeless romanticism, in it's naive optimism and in it's tragic, inevitable conclusion.

Okay, now we address the performance. The vocals, let's get that out of the way, we're not good, but they weren't detrimental enough for me to care. They were a step up from Mae, and the overall packages was still enjoyable, so whatevs.

The staging though, ho boy I have all the opinions. The bottom line is that i LOVE it but I'm also shocked they went with something so... QueerTube coded?

I don't CARE that it was on-stage seppuku.

I don't CARE that it was the raunchiest thing in the goonerverse.

I don't care that it served "Inclusivity, but only for queen men".

I get it, I understand, I accept it. Single Gay Men such as myself and Olly often deeply crave unrequited emotional affection, tenderness, a lover's gentle caress, but as Gay Men have learned to repress those cravings and not speak of them. Including to others.

So instead, we often default to the easiest alternative: Grindr, and all the depravity that comes with it. Kinkster-tinged debauchery as a form of escaping the lonelyness we feel in our hearts.

AND THAT, I think it was what Ted Uni Dom King were intending to convey with their staging. It's a tragic, but poignant combination of inner brittleness and outwards brutality and vulgarity that is so painfully real for so many (too many) strong codependent homosexuals.

THERE ISN'T AN END

THERE ISN'T A START

I DON'T WANNA STOP

I CAN'T GO TOO FAR

Ironically, he took the Sexual Thing way too far, bless. 😍 Literal cowgirling in a family show <3 If the objective was to score televotes they definitely shouldn't have went there. Inclusivity is achieved through including everyone, not by specifically showcasing your marginalized group (hopeless homosexuals => so, me). Considering that the majority of the viewing audience this year were wine mom karens and their tory husbands, it didn't go down quite as well, but like who cares? "Dizzy" pissed off all those that spend their afterlives within the nine circles of hell: bigots, karens, tories, pearl-clutchers, zionists, bleeding hearts, keyboard warriors, eurosnobs and LBG-without-the-T Cigarettes. Press their (nonexistent) hearts, King.

Also, I refuse to call the staging bad, because "Dizzy" frankly, was a bit basic as a song. It NEEDED to go big and take a huge risk, and it took it, fuck the consequences. It showcased a boldness that I can respect.

Furthermore, I just love the concept and how it flows? Like yeah it was erotic, but it was still doing with a sense of aesthetics. The showerroom shenanigans, the shaky cam, the topsy-turvy angles. Olly DESPERATE search for some level of intimacy from his collective of xwitter oomfbots. This was a much better representation of eroticism and desire compared to say, Sekret. (then again, I think "Sekret" borders on harrassment ♥) It suited the song and made it better.

So in this end, yeah. This entry is for me and people like me and NOBODY ELSE lmfao. 😂 Its low placement in the televote is also a massive defeat for the contest, but that's a whole nother discourse and I refuse address that. I'm still looking for a kind, cute beefy himbot who wishes to make me dizzy with his kisses, so DMs are open for applications. The only requirement is that you like Sebi...x

THE RANKING.

[inquebrar]

some of my ramblings about doied are mainly the fact that i still can't understand what was the intention behind making him exist. like, i still don't understand the reasons for making him part of the story in this way, the way it happened and also why it happened like that?

[since it's almost going to 7am i feel like i should make it clear tone indicator /lighthearted i feel like it might sounds like i'm complaining but i'm just intrigued haushaksh]

at first doied was like a way q!roier talked when he said a fact or seemed nerdy kinda things like that and then it seemed to go a little bit the way of alter egos? Perhaps, i even remember that once it generated many theories involving dissociative identity disorder (DID ... i think that's how it's said in english, sorry if i'm wrong) because q!roier had already talked about hearing voices in his head that weren't his (it wasn't something related to the chat) and that sometimes he felt disconnected from reality. i personally didn't follow this theory much because it can be a sensitive topic to address and doing something insensitive that could be offensive is not a good thing to do. which makes me wonder, could it be that at some point cc!roier thought about making a plot related to this but to avoid any kind of misinformation or insensitivity towards the topic, maybe he decided to change it or was that never the initial intention? i personally believed more in the point of view that q!roier has several ways of expressing himself, whether through alter egos that are not necessarily DID but just that he uses other names to refer to himself when he wants to express/present himself in another way, almost like the way many artists do, i even have a distant memory where he talks about melissa and doied to q!jaiden and he even changes his voice and makes body expressions and it's good to remember that q!roier dressed up as melissa it was part of his plan involving the begining of his lore, so melissa is q!roier we saw it. so i always thought, ok... melissa and doied are part of who q!roier is, right? .......

i was completely lost when it was confirmed that doied is a person apart from q!roier. i still feel like i'm in the denial stage to be honest XD there are so many questions i don't even know where to start. but with sleep reaching my brain i'm just wondering if cc!roier considered the impact that turning doied into a canon character had? and not only that but the way the character was introduced and the path chosen as well. like, he does the "doied voice" since the beginning, it's often something out of roleplay, it's a recurring joke but now that doied is a real character who is apparently q!roier's twin brother? and that he switched bodies with q!roier ?!?! everything is different now!!*

and especially from the public eye, this is something i noticed a lot: the confusion in understanding whether something was being done and said with intention and reason, or not. when you follow a character like q!roier who is a character where you can't judge the book by its cover, you're aware that cc!roier has always been attentive to doing roleplay in a way that is subtle but always with intentions behind it that often surprises even those who watch, from using the camera to show the change of expressions after saying something super happy and remain super serious, demonstrating false feelings, doing something good and then saying that it was just a preparation for when the betrayal happens it will be more painful, talking about killing everyone who gets in the way and then recommending acting with the others as if nothing had happened and pretending to be happy... and many other examples. q!roier keeps a lot of information, he is very observant and can pretend and manipulate very well. including something that happened after the body swap with doied that gave me emotional damage, it was when after sending a cute message to q!cellbit, doied said out loud that it was working, "he's falling for it" that caught me so off guard but i also saw the reaction of many people who had also completely forgotten that it wasn't q!roier and this just shows that cc!roier is aware of what he decided to do with the story and he remembers his decisions with his characters. SO THAT'S THE POINT. we know what he's capable of and how subtly he roleplays. so it's agonizing to see things and think "was that intentional?" and not knowing if they were or not, but i also think that this even helps with theorizing and analyzing, which is a fun part of entertainment.

*but when i say that everything is different now, it's that by transforming something that was usually just used as something fun momentarily into a real and unique character who, to complicate everything, is pretending to be his twin brother is WILD. that's crazy. and even had a body swap!!! so now even in moments that it's obvious that it's not something within roleplay people go "OMG DOIED?!" and when i talk about moments that are > obviously outside of roleplay < it's like when cc!roier was telling about his trip to cc!quackity and there were questions "is this still doied or is this out of lore?" or when cc!roier was alone building with cc!rivers and he spoke in doied's voice and she called him doied because it's a thing they do and people freaked out and were surprised, acting suspicious and stuff like that and sometimes it may seem too much but still, there are also big impacts like, what will it mean in the future? at what moments will really doied become careless and talk as used to? when will intentions become ambiguous? are people to blame for doubting and suspecting when the lore revolves around discovering that a character is pretending to be someone they're not? and the questions remain as to why q!roier spoke like that before and "behaved like doied"? what are the implications of this? how was this possible? why how when what huh??!?!!

i think the only way to stop how triggering that will be to see cc!roier talking like doied after going back to roleplay as q!roier is if doied dies HAJDJDHSK because i swear every time he does the voice i remember everything and i'm one step away from becoming the joker bring back q!roier he's still a rat what the actual fuck

but with that being said i trust in what cc!roier intends to do, from the beginning he's been interested in creating lore and continuing to follow the story he wants to do and it's good that he's doing what he wants, i'm curious to see where this all goes i just hope it ends with a happy ending because i can't stand being sleepless writing about how this character disturbs my brain im so tired get him out of my mind please what am i doing with my life.

[ceterisparibus116]

Do we know if Matt was blipped or not? How do you think it would be in either case?

AAAAAAA

So yeah, I wrote out a whole essay about how I think Born Again could/should/shouldn't address the blip, and then realized you weren't actually specifically asking about Born Again.

Sorry!

But there are some general non-Born-Again-specific points here, so...I hope this covers what you were asking?

Ahem.

I don't think we have any confirmation one way or the other yet, and I wonder if Born Again will address it. It's been long enough since the blip that I could see them kinda just...ignoring it, unless the blip is a big plot device. But if they want to stick closer to the gritty realism of the original show, it makes sense to not make the blip a big plot device. So I would be very understanding (and even, I think, appreciative) if they chose to just kinda ignore it.

That said, if they include it, I really hope they address the legal implications. TFATWS tried to touch on it (operative word being "tried") but Matt could actually take on clients who've been displaced by the blip or otherwise been affected by the blip.

And then there's the question of how it would affect our characters personally. There, the logistical questions (e.g. "Did Matt lose his apartment?") are less interesting to me, personally, than the psychological questions. Like, how would Matt feel about being blipped? My headcanon, as addressed in my post-No-Way-Home fic, is that Matt would blame himself for not being around to help people for 5 years. Or if Matt wasn't blipped, how would he cope with the trauma of hearing so many people vanish, and then trying to deal with the aftermath as both a lawyer and Daredevil? Like, that man would probably go a week without sleeping just trying to help everyone. Either way, Born Again could address that.

However, it would take a lot of work for Born Again to address the psychological impact of the blip, one way or the other, well. Why? Because your options are either:

a) inform the audience after the fact (e.g. through exposition, dialogue, or inferences) about how, exactly, the blip was traumatic for Matt, so that we can appreciate his healing journey; or

b) show the audience (e.g. through a flashback) how the blip was traumatic for Matt, so that we can appreciate his healing journey.

And both approaches are kinda clunky. Informing the audience about something we didn't actually experience with the character will never be as impactful as watching it unfold. But flashbacks pull the narrative backwards rather than advancing it, and are notorious for bogging down a story.

Frankly, I just don't have a lot of faith that Disney can pull off a blip arc well. I'd much prefer they focus Matt's emotional journey on things that are happening to him now, in Born Again, rather than on things that happened somewhere between the Netflix show and Born Again.

Unless:

c) Born Again is literally set immediately after the blip (if Matt doesn't get blipped) or immediately after Matt blips back (if he does get blipped).

That would be fine, except I don't know how that would affect Born Again's relationship to other Marvel projects like No Way Home, She-Hulk, Echo, etc. And, I mean, personally, I don't care whether Born Again is before or after any of those other shows. I'm watching Born Again for Matt, not to see how it syncs up with Matt going to California to see Jen or anything like that. But Marvel at least claims to be serious about cohesive timelines, so I don't think they'll go the route of (c).

[bunni-v1]

Hello! I read your "Reader Terrified of Scarabia" and I gotta say that I LOVED it.

I'm usually not a big fan of angst, but I would like to see more from the other overblots. Also, I agree with the anon who requested it that the boys weren't really held accountable after their overblots like why???

Like, all that happened could give someone serious trauma, and I wished they addressed that cuz it's very realistic. I feel so sorry for Yuu and all they went through, so seeing you write it out in story absolutely broke my heart and I can’t help but want to see more. However, if you are uncomfortable then I completely understand!

Firstly, thank you so much! I really appreciate you going out of your way to tell me that you appreciate my work! I'm also not really a huge fan of angst, but I surprisingly like to write it. I'm glad that I was able to get someone who doesn't typically like angst to enjoy my writing!

I wanted a more realistic approach, and I'm glad I could achieve that. While I do love the fun and whimsy of twst, it's equally as fun to make it more serious and deranged in a way.

I understand why they don't address it, because the Yuu in-game has a definitive personality that makes it easy for them to cope. (There was a really good post about in-game Yuu, if I can dig it up again I'll reblog it). Regular enjoyers of the game wouldn't react like Yuu in their situation though, so I kinda wanted to touch upon that.

I really would like to make that whole thing into a series, but I'm not sure how to go about it. See, the original post was based loosely off my Malleus is a douchebag after he overblots post. So if I were to make it a series, I would likely just do the dorm's reaction to the reader's reaction, and not include Ace and Deuce in every post.

Still, though, I do want to do it, I'm just not sure how to or what you all would like to see from it. I am ALWAYS open to suggestions, in fact, I encourage it because I want everyone to enjoy what I write!

Thank you so much for asking, and I'm definitely heavily considering making it a series! I love having conversations like this, so please keep these types of asks coming lovelies!

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Thoughts On Negative Feedback About TBB

Spoilers for TBB Season 2

So once again I am going to give some thoughts on some Bad Batch opinions I've seen floating around on Twitter. Just like last time, I want to preface this by saying that I mean no disrespect to the people who wrote these posts, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I actually agree with them in some way but we'll get onto that.

I've seen some main points going around (and some slightly less common ones) so I'm going to break those down. But one of the running themes I see through a lot of opinions is this idea that this season has introduced a lot of plot threads that don't seem to have gone very far. Now I understand where this is coming from but I don't want to get too sidetracked by this because at the end of the day, we still have 6 episodes left and there will be a good chance that things will become more relevant by the end. Saying that, I do understand the frustration that comes from an interesting plot thread being dropped and then hardly (if even) addressed for multiple episodes.

But let's get more into the breakdown.

What's Happening With Cid?

Now this is one I can understand the frustration of because I'm still trying to wrap my head around why the Batch still choose to work for her. I can understand if they see it as their only option, but she's been untrustworthy from the beginning and it's getting worse this season, even if she hasn't appeared as much.

The Batch aren't stupid, we know this, but they still don't seem to be addressing the fact that Cid is screwing them over and has been doing so the whole time. Especially since Ep 10, where they were faced with an entire group of people being manipulated by their employer and no-one in the Batch went "oh hold on, this scenario seems familiar". Employers screwing over their workers to keep more profits with very little concern for their welfare? I wonder where we've seen that before.

They've even addressed the fact that Cid is untrustworthy multiple times this season and yet none of them seem to be doing anything about it. Also, that whole thing from Millegi about Cid having a dark past and not being one to trust? When are we going back to that? I assume that it'll be covered in an episode like "Tipping Point" if them realising that they can't work for Cid leads to them joining the Rebellion (remember, this is just a theory).

But why has it taken the Batch so long??? Cid has been untrustworthy from when she first appeared in S1. Is it really going to take until Episode 14 of this season for them to actually do anything about it?

Like I said, for them it may be because they see this as their only option, that without this they have nothing to live on, but I totally understand how frustrating it is to see them being manipulated like this over and over again and have nothing be done about it.

Episode 10 Goes Round in Circles

I do kind of understand this one as well. For me, this ep didn't really add a whole lot and there were some interesting plot ideas that could have been addressed that weren't. But I'm not going to pile on it too badly because I also understand that this episode was supposed to be a breather and it's always unlikely that every episode is going to be incredible. So I'm just going to touch on what I've seen other people saying.

The main complaint I've seen about this episode is that it doesn't really give us any development with anyone. Tech has some moments of just being Tech (although one of his lines from the end is another point I'm gonna touch on), Hunter is just his usual self, Omega is being Omega but it's not really adding a whole lot, and most of Wrecker's dialogue this episode was him growling at people (some more lines would have been great).

I think a big part of why this isn't working for people is because some of the other episodes (including Ep 9) have been very emotionally driven and this one just falls a bit flat in comparison. Not every episode is going to end up being really deep and complex though so I can understand why the creators have done this. But I also don't think that there's anything special enough about the plot of this episode to make up for it.

I've already touched on the whole "manipulative employer" thing so I'm not going to go back over that, but one of these other ideas I saw people bringing up was how interesting it could've been for the Batch to talk more about their lives as soldiers, especially when faced with a bunch of children who have been manipulated into thinking that the people they work under actually care about them. The Batch were raised to be soldiers by Kaminoans, meaning that they didn't get a chance to really be kids (key message throughout this season) and these workers have spent their childhoods being manipulated into thinking that they're doing a good job and are being cared for because of it.

I do think that it would have been an interesting narrative to delve into and maybe would have given the episode more weight. But it would have also been quite heavy for a "breather" episode.

Selfish Batchers

This is an interesting point that I didn't necessarily clock onto while watching the episode but totally got it when I saw it on Twitter.

At the end of the episode, Omega is talking about how there are so many people in the galaxy like Mokko and like the Empire, to which Tech responds that there are also a lot of people out there like the Batch (i.e. people who can help others). Except this line feels a bit arrogant considering the fact that in this episode (and I don't want to sound like a hater here) they literally did the bare minimum.

They didn't go in to try and save the miners, they went in to get the Marauder back. The kids were just helped in the middle of that. Tech almost acts like they saved the kids when really, if they could've avoided going anywhere near Mokko they would have. Killing Mokko to save the miners wasn't in the plan, he was just getting in the way of them escaping. And really I think this is interesting to talk about because a lot of what the Batch does is for their own self-gain. We know this. But it's interesting to see that that hasn't necessarily registered with them.

I don't have an issue with flawed heroes, but so far the Batch are yet to acknowledge this flaw. The Batch are constantly portrayed as heroes, which in some ways they are, but labelling them as heroes because some people happened to be helped when they were saving themselves is a bit odd. Omega is the only one that actually asks the kids what they're going to do next. The guys are just happy the ship is back.

It's interesting that aside from Omega, the only person who has very clearly shown a desire to help anyone but himself is Echo, who left.

Once again, this may become a part of a realisation for the Batch later down the line and they are driven to join the rebellion. But really, a lot of the "saving people" that the Batch does is because it happens by chance (like in this episode) or they get paid to do it (aka some of the missions they do in S1). It's slightly odd that they are constantly lorded as heroes (and somewhat see themselves that way) when a lot of what they do is with selfish intentions.

(I didn't expect to write that much in that section. Oops.)

Focus on the Batchers

This actually ties into something I was going to make separate post about so I'm just going to drop it all in here!

One of the complaints I'm seeing is that some of the Batchers don't feel like they're getting much development this season, mainly Wrecker and Hunter. Now obviously this is interesting to me because these two are really the only ones who got much attention in S1.

One of my biggest gripes about S1 is that it felt more like the Hunter & Omega Show rather than The Bad Batch, so I actually like the fact that we've been given more focus on the other Batchers this season. Really, the focus feels a little more spread out in some episodes, rather than every episode seemingly revolving around either Hunter or Wrecker.

But I can understand where some of the frustration is coming from. Personally, I actually prefer Hunter this season but that's because giving the other members some time to grow has given us a chance to see how they all influence each other and where Hunter plays into all of that. It feeds into the idea that they're a team and not a bunch of stragglers following around this one person.

I do wonder how much the disappointment comes from the fact that we got so much Hunter in S1 that any less than that almost feels like nothing. Sure, I don't necessarily feels like there's a whole lot of growth but I think there have been some really interesting moments with Hunter this season, like Ep 5 giving us a chance to see his growing insecurities about Omega no longer relying on them as much as she once did.

Wrecker has also had some time to shine this season, but I do agree that it would've been nice to see him have some more dialogue in Episode 10. Him being reduced to mostly growling at people for a chunk of the episode was a little tiring after a while. He can be scary with words!

Really, I'm not totally mad about this but that might be because Echo and Tech are two of my favourites, so I'm just glad to see them getting some more love this season.

Although I feel like this entire debate over whether characters are getting enough focus does suggest that there's a struggle to give every character their due focus when they're all together.

Hunter vs Echo Conflict

Finally onto the last point!

This is one that I actually kind of agree with and I think it has something to do with what we were teased before the season came out.

Echo's goodbye was obviously very moving and there seems to be decent number of people that agree that it was a good episode. But some people felt like there should've been more of the Hunter-Echo conflict before that happened and I partially agree. Personally, I think that the little details throughout each episode help indicate what Echo is thinking and where he's planning on going. Little looks at Hunter, brief comments on certain missions, it all makes sense that he was going to go.

However, I do agree that there wasn't as much of the actual conflict between Hunter and Echo as I expected. In an interview before S2, the creators said that there would be a lot of conflict between Rex, Echo and the Batch and this gave me the impression that we were going to have more actual disputes than we did. Other than the spat they had in Episode 1, there hasn't been as much back and forth between Hunter and Echo as expected. They clearly have different ideas of where they want to go but it's more a conflict of interest than actual conflict.

I don't think it helped that Echo didn't do a whole lot for some of the episodes. We were told that Echo would be given more focus this season and that his disagreements with Hunter would be at the forefront of that. But then he disappears for 2 episodes and doesn't do a whole lot in Episode 5. He's got some more stuff in Ep 6, but the conflict isn't really addressed a whole lot there and then he leaves in Episode 8. And I find it a little odd that they specifically mentioned Rex as well. The Batch don't really have conflict with Rex. Sure, they don't go with him, but that isn't really what I'd call conflict. It feels like we were promised more conflict than we got.

And maybe that's the issue here. We set our expectations too high. We had all this time to concoct an idea as to what was going to happen this season and then it didn't do that. The bits that did address the disagreements were good, but did we maybe hope for more than we were ever going to get? For me, I feel like the interviews were a little bit misleading, but that may just be because I set myself up to expect more.

This may be another thing that gets addressed later on but I'm not entirely sure where more of that conflict is going to come into play. Maybe Rex, Echo and the Batch teaming up to help people like Crosshair but still being at odds? I don't know. I'm not sure where that bits going tbf.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I think that there are some interesting points that have been made about Episode 10 and the series as a whole. I definitely think that it's going to be a collection of opinions that people may disagree with here or there but that's the nature of the show. It's interesting to see what people think.

A lot of it may just be a case of having to sit on it and see how the entire show pans out because at the moment we still have 6 episodes to go. But it'll be interesting to see what points of contention will be addressed/sorted. I also think a lot of it is down to expectations. People set their expectations too high and now that they're not being met, it's influencing their enjoyment of the show. I also want to add that I am saying that as someone who has also had to put their expectations aside to truly appreciate some of the episodes.

This show isn't perfect, but no show ever will be. Personally, I prefer this season to the last, but I do still have my issues with it here or there. I'm curious to see where people's preferences end up by the end of the show.

[transenbyconfessions]

TW for menstruation.

I've been giving more thought to all the small things that weren't obviously signs that I may be non-binary that I've felt since I was very young and consistently held. I never had the language for how I felt back then. Realising how some of what I thought and felt probably had a bit of dysphoria along with the other reasons, is comforting but also sad.

The main one for me, who was AFAB, was they ever since I was young I never wanted children. It was something I was very, very clear about. But as this was primary school it was put down as that I was just a child and all girls grow up to have babies so you'll meet a man and change your mind. I'm 39 now, I still do not want children. I know a lot of my reasons are because I simply don't want to, it would cause me some physical problems, I couldn't afford to anyway but what I didn't realise as a child because I found, and still find expressing my feelings difficult, is that the whole idea disgusts me. I'd be changing in a way that I don't want. I hated it when I started my period because even although we had been told all about that at school, I never really connected that also included me. And when they did show up, Mum got all weird about it. I didn't understand why she got so proud and at the same time, ashamed enough that she just gave me these awful pads and not told what to do with them or how to look after myself. The whole teenage female experience and growing up into a woman wasn't something I ever connected with. It was a performance because I have a certain body that is capable of certain things. As a girl, as a woman in order to be accepted you should dress a certain way, behave a certain way. I didn't hate my body but I never felt comfortable in it, not entirely.

As I joined the military, I loved the gym. I worked out, tried to gain muscle as much, as I could. But I was way more feminine because the other women were, the women's uniform trousers were so stupid and I wasn't big enough to get the much smarter men's ones. I wanted to fit in. I cut my hair short but people always mistook me for a man in a nasty mocking way. Weird as it sounds, when I deployed and a local man addressed me with none of that, I wasn't upset because what he saw was a person with short hair, my chest hidden under my baggy shirt. It always upset me when people were snide and I wasn't even trying to pretend I was a man, I was just being myself. I dont suit long hair anyway!

Workouts almost became a bit of an obsession. It wasn't just about being fit for the work but with how I looked and I guess that was a bit of dysphoria I wasn't aware of because I didn't want a typical feminine shape.

I left, returned to civilian life and because I no longer felt the need to fit in with everybody else, I slowly dressed less feminine. I still wear some things but that's because I want to. It's just being me not presenting in a way I think others will accept. I thought about how I identified and that I never really felt like male or female fit or described me. I never had a sense of what it meant to be a woman. But neither can I say the same for man. I like being free with dressing in a way I like regardless of how masculine or feminine it is. I do think about if top surgery would be a good thing for me, just family would have a problem with it. I don't know if I'd go on T, I got used to the fact that I have periods. But I have short hair and nobody mocks me for it or say snide things about it. In fact if people can't tell which I am, that makes me happy. That's sometimes the point; I don't want to be viewed as either. I use they/them pronouns. I want to change my name to a non-feminine one. Being seen and accepted as a non-binary person means the world to me.

It took me so long to understand but I finally feel like I know and feel more at home with myself simply for understanding why I felt the way I did when people probably knew bit didn't want to face that they don't have a daughter but still a loving child.

[rotationalsymmetry]

OK so having slept after finishing the last graduate with no idea how the golden enclaves starts (spoilers for the first/speculation about the latter):

I can see three general possible ways things might go from here.

One, the most straightforward narratively from the way TLG ended: El gets shoved through the portal, Orion gets shut into a school that's about to eat itself, Orion gets to have his epic ultra boss fight until he wins or gets eaten or dies in the void or goes mad in the void, we'll never find out which. Presumably El will have a lot of distress over this.

Downsides: does not offer clear direction for what actually happens in the entire final 1/3 of the trilogy (that's more the sort of thing you have at the end of a story), doesn't really explain El's mum's warning, if we can trust El that her mum wouldn't give that warning for avoiding pain alone. (Unless El is pregnant and the warning related to that. But damn, El's mum warning her about getting pregnant while in the Scholomance would have some really weird implications for their relationship. It's not unusual for a woman who got pregnant young to not want her daughter to do the same, but...I have trouble seeing El's mum specifically addressing that concern in that way. Especially since it's not like Orion was the only boy in school. Except maybe if there's something weird about the pregnancy due to the circumstances, but I'm hoping we're not going in a magical/cursed/supernaturally very scary pregnancy direction.)

Two, El finds a way to either keep herself from getting thrown out of the portal -- finding something to literally or magically grab onto -- or somehow manages to get back in right after. The door closes, and they're both trapped in the void with a bunch of mals. In an exploding school. I actually really like this idea? It might get very surreal for a bit. But it also might mean that there was a reason the school was rewarding El for learning so much about the golden sutras while still in school -- and the school was pushing her to do that, that double independent study -- when El was fully aware that the sensible thing to do was to focus on survival for now and the sutras after graduation.

Especially since, while the phase spell was used near the end of A Deadly Education to patch up the hole in the walls, as far as I can tell the sutras weren't even slightly used after New Year's. El used the Mandarin (I assume, for some reason it was all "Mandarin" and "Shanghaiese" in book 1 and then all of a sudden "Chinese" in book 2? Kind of hoping that's a different editions issue because why would you do that??? Like I can understand simplifying things, but pick one or the other and definitely don't go from the more subtle/nuanced approach to the dumbed down one, that's just wrong) that she was picking up mostly to speak with the freshmen more than she used the Sutras in the last half of the year. Including that plot hook where she was getting really excited about the most recent spell she was on and then we never found out what it was because then she had to hurry to breakfast and then that was it for classes for the rest of the year.

Anyways. Advantage: maybe use the sutras to build new enclave from the shattered remnants of the exploding school in the void? Without dying or getting eaten or going mad, somehow? It'd be weird but cool. Plus it provides direction for the book, and lets our fascinating couple be together. Although it would mean we don't get to meet El's Mum Higgins for much longer, which would be terrible. It would also explain the Word Of Mum since presumably getting caught in an exploding school full of mals that has been cut off from the real world and is floating in the void, is something a parent would consider a negative outcome for their child, and it only happens because El is emotionally attached to Orion. (Maybe. Or maybe she'd try to save him anyways, idk.)

Third option: El manages to yank Orion out. This has most of the disadvantages of option one (no direction for where to take book 3, kind of anticlimactic) plus doesn't even have Angst unless El does something Evil to do it and it fucks up their relationship, El's relationship with herself, and El's relationship with her mother all in one go. Like either pulling mana from Orion against his will, or maybe mind-controlling him (we know she has mind-control spells.) The part of my brain that loves feeling awful really likes this suggestion. I'm not sure where it would go from there though.

Part of me really, really wants to see El have a descent into honest to god evil at this point. I'm pretty sure the story isn't going that way, El's done such a great job of walking towards the light and resisting even the smallest step in the other direction. And I suspect thematically the book is supposed to be "fuck what people expect you to be, YOU get to decide that" which wouldn't really work if El goes evil after all.

Anyways: advantages: high angst, would explain mum's warning; disadvantages, do we actually want that much angst? also, where would the title fit in?

(I was going to bed when the title of the second book, which had seemed pretty straightforward throughout the whole thing (El is last graduate because she's going out last to save everyone and is also destroying the school, so no more graduates after her) really hit. El's the last graduate because she graduated and Orion didn't.) (Well. If option 1 plays out anyways.)

There are a couple questions that are very important here, namely, what the fuck is Orion thinking? And, what was El's mum thinking?

It's possible that Orion was thinking that he had to fight the mawmouth from hell to keep it from getting out, even though El didn't think that. Or that he thought there was some risk to El's plan and he wanted to make sure the mawmouth from hell didn't get out. We don't actually know what his perspective was here. I think it's somewhat more likely that Orion knew he could get out safely and chose to have his epic boss battle instead. It's more than adequately foreshadowed. We know Orion loves fighting mals, believes he's invincible, and has never once expressed the slightest interest in backing down from a challenge (and has generally been resistant to El trying to get him to back down.) El tends to see that as a martyr complex thing, but in the graduation hall she realizes it's not, he really does like fighting mals just that much. She also concluded he could learn to like other things as well, but she did figure out that yeah, he really does enjoy this stuff, a lot. Orion walking away from the biggest boss fight ever would be like an Olymplic athlete who's been training to be a swimmer or whatever from toddlerhood just...walking away right before the finals. Your life wouldn't make sense after that. Orion is not primarily motivated by protecting people (if he was, he'd be happy at the lack of mals in the first part of the year) he's directly motivated by the fights themselves. So it does not matter that he doesn't need to fight the mawmouth to protect anyone. Fighting the mawmouth is its own reward. (One worth presumably dying over.)

El's mum: I do not know, this really hasn't been answered yet. I'm inclined to trust El that the warning wouldn't be about pain alone, El's mum seems the type to encourage her child to make her own decisions unless there was an overwhelmingly important reason not to. Telling her child to not fall in love to avoid heartbreak is the exact opposite of what someone like El's mum would do. She's probably told a zillion grieving people that grief is love that has nowhere else to go (or whatever), that it's a healthy thing and part of being alive. There is no way she'd want El to be alone her senior year rather than close to Orion just because Orion wasn't going to make it, she's not that kind of person.

Whatever is going to happen, it's going to be worse than Orion dying/getting lost in the void or Orion being unable to forgive El for pulling him away from his big boss fight.

Or, it's not going to be about El and Orion's relationship at all. It might be that while the Scholomance thought what they were doing was right, that there will be Unintended Consequences to the world of them destroying the Scholomance and a metric shit ton of mals in the process.

And I just realized a fourth option. That in getting Orion out, El manages to also undo their hard work and let all the mals pour back out too.

But that doesn't make sense either. El's mum doesn't do the lesser evil. She wouldn't let Orion die to save other people's lives, and she wouldn't want El to do that either. So while I could see that happening as a plot point, I don't see that explaining El's mum's message. Dammit.

I think the message only makes sense if El's connection to Orion results in her doing something evil/going down the maleficer path, at least a little bit, or at least El's mother thinks she is likely to. Or maybe if there's some evil that isn't caused by a lesser good. But not if there's a greater evil caused by saving one person.

I don't know.

Or maybe El has fundamentally misunderstood her mother. That is definitely possible. The parent a child sees is not the whole adult, and realizing your parent isn't as perfect as you thought is a very common coming of age experience.

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

not really a dnp hot take but anyway

i think if there were people pushing dnp’s boundaries too far it’s their responsibility to have open communication with us about that. so until then i think it’s fair people do whatever they want in the phandom space without other people policing that as if they know exactly what dnp are and aren’t comfy with ((obviously within reason like an obvious boundary of not sharing their address publicly and whatever they haven’t personally shared with us))

Tbh, there are times when celebrities go looking for fandom shit that they have no business being involved in and try to litigate small-time creators away from writing or drawing shit and that's not acceptable either. This is why we need to have our basic principles clear on our own instead of waiting for a seal of approval or disapproval from someone. Have a strong understanding of ethics by yourself and we don't need to rehash theses debates over and over at all!

You simply mind your own business (and this includes dnp of course) and if you go looking for shit that no one was showing you, you do so at your own risk 🤷🏻

And yeah there's obvious boundaries which are like 'you would not enter people's personal spaces if they weren't famous and you shouldn't do it even if they are famous' etc