#and none of them exist irl a lot of them were made for the game

[krillonthegrill]

me waking up every morning knowing that i can appreciate every life is strange game in different ways

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Bandits

As a game of heroic fantasy that centers so primarily on combat, D&D  is more often than not a game about righteous violence, which is why I spend so much time thinking about the targets of that violence. Every piece of media made by humans is a thing created from conscious or unconscious design, it’s saying something whether or not its creators intended it to do so. 

Tolkien made his characters peaceloving and pastoral, and coded his embodiment of evil as powerhungry, warlike, and industrial. When d&d directly cribbed from Tolkien's work it purposely changed those enemies to be primitive tribespeople who were resentful of the riches the “civilized” races possessed. Was this intentional? None can say, but as a text d&d says something decidedly different than Tolkien. 

That's why today I want to talk about bandits, the historical concept of being an “outlaw”, and how media uses crime to “un-person” certain classes of people in order to give heroes a target to beat up. 

Tldr: despite presenting bandits as a generic threat, most d&d scenarios never go into detail about what causes bandits to exist, merely presuming the existence of outlaws up to no good that the heroes should feel no qualms about slaughtering. If your story is going to stand up to the scrutiny of your players however, you need to be aware of WHY these individuals have been driven to banditry, rather than defaulting to “they broke the law so they deserve what’s coming to them.”

I got to thinking about writing this post when playing a modded version of fallout 4, an npc offhndedly mentioned to me that raiders (the postapoc bandit rebrand) were too lazy to do any farming and it was good that I’d offed them by the dozens so that they wouldn’t make trouble for those that did. 

That gave me pause, fallout takes place in an irradiated wasteland where folks struggle to survive but this mod was specifically about rebuilding infrastructure like farms and ensuring people had enough to get by. Lack of resources to go around was a specific justification for why raiders existed in the first place, but as the setting became more arable the mod-author had to create an excuse why the bandit’s didn’t give up their violent ways and start a nice little coop, settling on them being inherently lazy , dumb, and psychopathic.   

This is exactly how d&d has historically painted most of its “monstrous humanoid” enemies. Because the game is ostensibly about combat the authors need to give you reasons why a peaceful solution is impossible, why the orcs, goblins, gnolls (and yes, bandits), can’t just integrate with the local town or find a nice stretch of wilderness to build their own settlement on and manage in accordance with their needs. They go so far in this justification that they end up (accidently or not) recreating a lot of IRL arguments for persecution and genocide.

Bandits are interesting because much like cultists, it’s a descriptor that’s used to unperson groups of characters who would traditionally be inside the “not ontologically evil” bubble that’s applied to d&d’s protagonists.   Break the law or worship the wrong god says d&d and you’re just as worth killing as the mindless minions of darkness, your only purpose to serve as a target of the protagonist’s righteous violence.  

The way we get around this self-justification pitfall and get back to our cool fantasy action game is to relentlessly question authority, not only inside the game but the authors too. We have to interrogate anyone who'd show us evil and direct our outrage a certain way because if we don't we end up with crusades, pogroms, and Qanon.

With that ethical pill out of the way, I thought I’d dive into a listing of different historical groups that we might call “Bandits” at one time or another and what worldbuilding conceits their existence necessitates. 

Brigands: By and large the most common sort of “bandit” you’re going to see are former soldiers left over from wars, often with a social gap between them and the people they’re raiding that prevents reintegration ( IE: They’re from a foreign land and can’t speak the local tongue, their side lost and now they’re considered outlaws, they’re mercenaries who have been stiffed on their contract).  Justifying why brigands are out brigading is as easy as asking yourself “What were the most recent conflicts in this region and who was fighting them?”. There’s also something to say about how a life of trauma and violence can be hard to leave even after the battle is over, which is why you historically tend to see lots of gangs and paramilitary groups pop up in the wake of conflict. 

Raiders:  fundamentally the thing that has caused cultures to raid eachother since the dawn of time is sacristy. When the threat of starvation looms it’s far easier to justify potentially throwing your life away if it means securing enough food to last you and those close to you through the next year/season/day. Raider cultures develop in biomes that don’t support steady agriculture, or in times where famine, war, climate change, or disease make the harvests unreliable. They tend to target neighboring cultures that DO have reliable harvests which is why you frequently see raiders emerging from “the barbaric frontier” to raid “civilization” that just so happens to occupy the space of a reliably fertile river valley. When thinking about including raiders in your story, consider what environmental forces have caused this most recent and previous raids, as well as consider how frequent raiding has shaped the targeted society. Frequent attacks by raiders is how we get walled palaces and warrior classes after all, so this shit is important. 

Slavers: Just like raiding, most cultures have engaged in slavery at one point or another, which is a matter I get into here. While raiders taking captives is not uncommon, actively attacking people for slaves is something that starts occurring once you have a built up slave market, necessitating the existence of at least one or more hierarchical societies that need more disposable workers than then their lower class is capable of providing. The roman legion and its constant campaigns was the apparatus by which the imperium fed its insatiable need for cheap slave labor. Subsistence raiders generally don’t take slaves en masse unless they know somewhere to sell them, because if you’re having trouble feeding your own people you’re not going to capture more ( this is what d&d gets wrong about monstrous humanoids most of the time). 

Tax Farmers: special mention to this underused classic, where gangs of toughs would bid to see who could collect money for government officials, and then proceed to ransack the realm looking to squeeze as much money out of the people as possible. This tends to happen in areas where the state apparatus is stretched too thin or is too lighthanded to have established enduring means of funding.  Tax farmers are a great one-two punch for campaigns where you want your party to be set up against a corrupt authority: our heroes defeat the marauding bandits and then oh-no, turns out they were not only sanctioned by the government but backed by an influential political figure who you’ve just punched in the coinpurse.  If tax farming exists it means the government is strong enough to need a yearly budget but not so established (at least in the local region) that it’s developed a reliably peaceful method of maintaining it.  

Robber Baron: Though the term is now synonymous with ruthless industrialists, it originated from the practice of shortmidned petty gentry (barons and knights and counts and the like) going out to extort and even rob THEIR OWN LANDS out of a desire for personal enrichment/boredom. Schemes can range from using their troops to shake down those who pass through their domain to outright murdering their own peasants for sport because you haven’t gotten to fight in a war for a while.  Just as any greed or violence minded noble can be a robber baron so it doesn’t take that much of a storytelling leap but I encourage you to channel all your landlord hate into this one. 

Rebels: More than just simple outlaws, rebels have a particular cause they’re a part of (just or otherwise) that puts them at odds with the reigning authority. They could violently support a disfavoured political faction, be acting out against a law they think is unjust, or hoping to break away from the authority entirely. Though attacks against those figures of authority are to be expected, it’s all too common for rebels to go onto praying on common folk for the sake of the cause.  To make a group of rebels worth having in your campaign pinpoint an issue that two groups of people with their own distinct interests could disagree on, and then ratchet up the tension. Rebels have to be able to beleive in a cause, so they have to have an argument that supports them.

Remnants: Like a hybrid of brigands, rebels, and taxfarmers, Remnants represent a previously legitimate system of authority that has since been replaced but not yet fully disappeared. This can happen either because the local authority has been replaced by something new (feudal nobles left out after a monarchy toppling revolution) or because it has faded entirely ( Colonial forces of an empire left to their own devices after the empire collapses). Remnants often sat at the top of social structures that had endured for generations and so still hold onto the ghost of power ( and the violence it can command) and the traditions that support it.  Think about big changes that have happened in your world of late, are the remnants looking to overturn it? Win new privilege for themselves? Go overlooked by their new overlords?

Art

[dreaming-of-barbi]

That's so fucked up that people are romantizing Franco, because even Red Barrels are showing him as a total creep and disgusting person. In Outlast Tag I have a feeling that some artists are making him completly different character, making him charming/safe/lovely. I even have seen some people who were drawing him with normal face (without big forehead) and you couldn't tell them that it's the right character design! I feel like Franco enjoyers are more agressive than fans of other Outlast character. Even with Coyle/Eddie simps they seem to understand that they are evil and they murder others, but with Franco I feel like they can take it when someone tell them that he's grown up, murder people in very brutal way and his voice lines are just disgusting... it really seems that people are getting agressive only because someone tell some shit about 🎀✨️Franco🎀✨️. I know his fans isn't the only one that have stick in their ass (cause I seen a lot of shit bout Coyle/Big Grunts/Easterman etc.) but yall need to understand that FRANCO IS A GROWN ASS MAN and you would run for your life if you'd meet someone in irl as 1% fucked up as he is. Saying that he's just a Baby and he made nothing wrong is just 🤮 and problem is in yall if you justificate him and things he made.

idk how to tell you this ,,,, but this game is fictional. The characters are fictional. You're free to feel however you want about them, just like I and anyone else is.

I partially agree with the part about changing his appearance to make him look more "normal" or whatever, but at the same time people are allowed to interpret their favs however they want to. They can draw / write for him however they want to. I don't like "fixing" his face, just because it (personally) feels like saying "he's too ugly", but again, that's just me. As an artist, I know that people are going to have different interpretations of a character I like. It's just part of other people existing in the world. Not everyone thinks like you do, and that's okay.

Do you know how many posts I saw (and STILL see) about Eddie Gluskin, doing essentially the same thing as what you said people do with Franco?? That man would cut you open to "make a baby in you" no hesitation and people still ""romanticize"" him (me fuckin included I LOVE YOU EDDIE). Its just part of liking fucked up characters, some people are going to want to make them more "normal".

Personally, I see the normalization as more like wanting to give him some normalcy in his life, because of his past / lore. I love the idea of letting Franco have a normal life, be a normal person. A life where he never had to deal with the stupid Mafia stuff, had a decent father and never ran into Murkoff, having a normal, happy life. But, I also seriously adore his original, fucked up character.

Honestly, who actually cares if people are "justifying" his actions??? None of them are real. He is not real. I have never understood the sentiment that you have to make sure people know you don't justify a fictional characters actions... they are not real. It's not a real person. None of the things he did happened.

Maybe it's just me, but I would not run from someone like him. That's not some edge lord "im so evil and dark" bs but because of my real life experiences. Been with and around people in my life / family who are quite like him and I didn't run.

I imagine some of us are using it as a sort of coping mechanism, because (at least for me) some of us dealt with people who treated us like he would. Though, that's getting into personal territory, and I won't try and speak for others.

All I can really say is either learn that not everybody's going to have the same ideas as you or block the tag. Sorry if that's too harsh a response, but life is too short to really give that much of a fuck about someone /something other people like.

And I've said this before but this is literally Outlast, all of the characters are this fucked up, it's not just him.

Like does no one remember Outlast 2??? Does no one remember the pile of dead burnt babies, or the hundreds of other fucked up things in that game?? I really feel like Franco does not compare.

So, can we please just be over with this now? I mean, drama is totally fun and I love it, but I can imagine others don't.

[morriganjules]

I'm gonna take a break from my Arthur lust and Hex squeeing for a serious post.

Warning for mentions of mental breakdown and sui ideation/urges.

So my friends and gf are already sick of me getting obsessed with 1999, the characters and romance system. I can't help it. I'm AuDHD and I have hyperfixations, bite me. I'm also a sucker for a good story and characters you can get close to.

But this renewed love of Warframe has a much deeper importance that I'd not really thought about till tonight. This is gonna be a bit storytime, but bear with me, I promise there's a point.

In April 2021 I was living alone in a very remote village in the Yorkshire Dales. Think more sheep than people. I was here for work - and I was lone working in a shop. My friends and partner were over an hour away through many country roads. And of course, there was covid. So around Jan 2021 we went into Lockdown #3 and I didn't see anyone, for weeks on end. Didn't interact with anyone. Didn't go to work (it was non essential retail) and had not much money.

During these dark winter months in and out of covid lockdowns, my only socialisation had been playing Warframe constantly with my clan (who are my best friends IRL.) Especially in lockdown 3 when none of us were working.

A few days after lockdown lifted I went back to work, but things weren't right. I felt very unsafe in my own head. One morning I went to work and I had the most incredible urges to drive into oncoming lorries. Something in my brain was telling, commanding me, to off myself. It was SO STRONG. I still don't know how I fought it, I'm glad I did but holy shit it was the scariest thing I have ever been through and I had to FIGHT SO HARD.

I finished work - somehow - and tried to drive to my partner's. I couldn't make it. I parked in an industrial estate in a town on the way, feeling like I couldn't keep myself from crashing and killing myself and others. I rang a friend and begged him to help me stay alive.

He raced there with his dad. They plucked me out of my car, he drove me to their home and his dad drove my car there too. I was absolutely out of it at this point. Not responding to human interaction, just in a strange semi-conscious state of existence - my brain was absolutely fried.

Anyway I was on sui watch for a week, and my amazing friend and his parents kept me living there for a few months so I didn't have to be alone in bumfuck nowhere. I eventually recovered and still struggle a lot with my mental health to this day, but thankfully nothing so bad, and I'm surviving.

How is this related to Warframe you ask? Get to the bloody point Jules!

Well, my clan got back into Warframe (after Destiny 2 went to shit) and so I started playing with them.

And I started feeling incredibly anxious, distressed, unsafe in my head.

My bloody brain had linked all those nights alone in the dark in a tiny cottage with tiny windows, spent playing Warframe, and having a breakdown, to the game itself. Playing Warframe was triggering me. That fucking SUCKED.

But I'm a stubborn old goat, I left it a little bit and then tried to play again, and pushed me way through all the story quests I'd missed. The feelings lessened. And 1999 made me excited. There were NO negative associates or bad feelings left around Warframe.

And that makes me really happy. This game has not been permanently ruined by my stupid mental illness, and the mental illness can do one. I'm excited about an awesome game and as much of a grip as my mental illness has on me, it hasn't fucking taken this from me.

I win this one, brain.

If you read this far, thank you. I'm lucky to have wonderful friends and loved ones around me, and I'm safe now. Please don't be afraid to reach out if you struggle too. <3

[light-wynd]

ANOTHER random Melusine info/headcanon dump

Previous one here

Everything under the cut once again!!

Canon random facts

There's a Melusine (called Manaia) in Natlan, and you can find her at the hot springs talking to a Koholasaur! She says Neuvillette told her to wait for the hot spring water to cool down before drinking it, even though she has no interest in tasting it at all. So I guess Neuvi is projecting his hobbies onto them lol.

According to one of Sigewinne's character stories, back when Melusines were hated by humans when they first tried to integrate into society, many of them - understandably - went back underwater due to how badly they were treated. We don't know whether all of these Melusines are still in the village or if they've tried again since, or if they even still remember what happened back then.

A lot of them tend to be named after fairies and other similar mythological or fairytale creatures/characters from around the world.

They might be known for their special eyesight in particular, but pretty much all their other senses seem to be different - and usually more sensitive - than those of humans too. For example, they can walk on slippery surfaces without any problems, and can hear subtle sounds that humans can't (such as Cosanzeana being able to hear noises made by Naku Weeds even when they're barely moving).

The descriptions for the Merusea Village teapot furnishings have some interesting tidbits - for example, one type of their houses is built in a way that amplifies sounds made inside, and if any Melusines in the village are too noisy, they get shut inside one of said houses for some time to talk to themselves all they want.

Melusine ergonomics need further study to this day, which is apparently why they still don't have specialized furniture made for them in the Court of Fontaine. Another reason is that actually developing said furniture would be expensive. Still, come on man, it's been 400 years, let them have some comfy chairs and stuff already :c

They make all kinds of bubbly/squishy noises pretty much whenever they move (even outside of water!). Thought this deserved to be pointed out just in case anyone hasn't noticed them in the game because it's the cutest thing ever.

Elynas, in his parting words to Mamere, refers to all the other Melusines as her sisters, and Serene refers to herself as "everyone's big sister" rather than the village head. Some other Melusines in the village refer to each other as sisters as well - though from what I've noticed, it just tends to be ones that look really similar to each other, such as Flo&Rufina&Virda or Sluasi&Puca. However, none of the ones living in the Court of Fontaine seem to refer to each other as sisters at all, just as colleagues (though Aeval does also say that Serene is like a big sister to them all, but not that she is her eldest sister). There seem to be like, different levels of separation between them (for lack of a better word) despite them all being born from Elynas, and I just find that really interesting.

Apparently, Aeval has never gotten the chance to personally speak to Neuvillette.

Aside from the fact that they came from Elynas, they don't seem to be very aware of anything else about their origins. They all seem to know different legends about themselves and Elynas, but not the actual story of them being a result of an explosion during a battle.

Melusine dolls exist in Fontaine and i wish they existed irl too - specifically, they're Marechaussee Phantom Melusine dolls, commonly given to children who are afraid of the dark.

Headcanons

Sigewinne can assess the health of her fellow Melusines just like she can do with humans, and pays very close attention to them whenever they visit her for tea. She tends to observe the ones that are prone to stress or overworking particularly closely, and does her best to help them relax.

From (probably reading too much into) her dialogue, I'm pretty convinced that Menthe is relatively new to the human world compared to some of the others. For one, she's only now seeming to realize a bunch of difficulties that come with living in the city. But what really made me feel this way is that when she asks if it's too late for her to change jobs, you get a one-time dialogue option to say "it's never too late to start" - to which she responds "Whoa, spoken just like Monsieur Neuvillette". My personal theory is that she might've gotten that response from Neuvi by asking him if it was too late for her to try living in human society, and of course he wanted to encourage her. There are Melusines in the village to this day who want to work in the city in the future, so it's certainly not impossible.

They generally like to sleep curled up in small, cozy places the most. Sleeping on their backs can be uncomfortable for a lot of them because of their tails (and wings for those that have them) being squished under them.

Some Melusines are actually quite happy to let humans pet them if they're asked first. They tend to like being stroked on the top of their heads and scratched behind their feelers and on their chins the most. Additionally, pretty much all Melusines love to be petted by Neuvillette and consider it an honor.

If you're reading this and have any Melusine headcanons yourself, please do feel free to share!!

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: umbie

today's interviewee is umbie, who was a member of ebblr from march 2021 onwards. i would like to once again ask everyone to remain impartial and respectful-- this blog is a place for all MCYTblr history, which includes parts of the fandom that were more controversial. that said, let's begin!

Q: Since I realize not everyone knows-- would you mind explaining what exactly ebblr was, to the best of your ability?

A: Ebblr is an abbreviation for Enderbees Tumblr. It existed as a network of undiscoverable blogs where folks shipped and truthed beeduo romantically. It ebs truthing started at the beginning of 2021, late 2020 on plate's blog gayminecraftmen, who you did an interview with, then moved to jason's blog on mcytruth, and later decentralized into a collection of blogs rather than being headed by any one person. It also became a place to discuss mcyt shipping and truthing in general- we didn't ship minors with adults, but things like techza, techbur, benchtrio shipping. character or irl, we didn't discriminate. The core of it was ebs, though.

There was also stuff like neurodiversity and gender truthing. really anything thats gauche to talk about on main.

Q: What was your general experience in MCYTblr? What was your general experience in ebblr specifically?

A: Mcytblr was very... enveloping, is how i'd put it. Easily the strongest hyperfixation i've ever had. It was also pretty frustrating at times. 2021 ebs was the height of the /p era, when the characters were off getting minecraft-married and the outside fandom insisted on them being platonic. We felt crazy. Ebblr started from blogs like mcytruth and gayminecraftmen, but I think the reason it blossomed into its own independent community was because ebblr addressed a need that mainblr, at the time, did not. I think it's facinating how in hindsight the fandom has ever so slowly turned around on the romantic c!beeduo, and now it's just kinda normal.

Being in ebblr was rewarding and enriching, but also very anxiety-inducing. We had pretty strict rules around interaction- keep your blog invisible, no cishets (lol), no nsfw, no outside reblogs. It started about after the first blocklist as a way of avoiding harassment, but developed into a moral thing later on. We existed in a kind of grey area where we understood that what we were doing was weird, but we wanted to be as inobtrusive as possible. In the early days, i made an effort to follow everybody. The community was that close-knit. Whenever a member of Ebblr accidentally reblogged an ebblr post to their mainblog, i would hop onto an alt and message whoever I needed to clean up the leak so none of our posts escaped.

Q: In critblr and dreamlying, there was a culture of "doxxing", or otherwise finding personal information about creators. Was that also true for ebblr?

A: Nope! That's one of the primary differences between critblr, dreamlying, and Ebblr. One of our rules was to keep our posting limited to things the creators released on purpose. That didn't stop us from being invasive, though. We diligently kept records of our "proof." We would obsess over details, and considered anything said on social media, stream, or twitter space fair game, even if better judgment was that they're not things the content creators would want talked about. It wasn't a monolith. A lot of folks didn't truth at all, and only wanted a space to post art or fics of pairings that were unacceptable on main. I also tracked planes during the meetup times, but jury's still out on whether that constitutes doxxing. I also had enough sense not to post about it directly. While most of us were uncomfortable with outright doxxing and distanced ourselves from those who did, we sure could walk the line.

Q: You said in your initial messages that you coined the term "critblr". Could you elaborate on that?

A: Dlying existed before ebblr, but Critblr did not! Critblr started out as a subsect of ebblr.

Critblr was conceived of in a discord server i shared with a couple friends that joined at the same time as me! It was meant to exist as a solution to formalize a growing rift within ebblr. There were blogs that were more involved in things like discussing doxxes and criticizing content creators and mainblr/maintwt opinions, and there were folks who were exclusively interested in shipping and/or truthing. Ebblr was upset with negativity and complaining, and the blogs who would become critblr didn't care for the shipping. It started as a place where you could discuss things you couldn't discuss on main, but people's needs became different. I remember the poll to name it. I suggested and vouched for critblr. Since the server's been since deleted, you're unfortunately just gonna have to take my word for it, but i'm part of the reason it's not called truthblr and I'm proud of that.

Q: This has actually been really clarifying for me; I knew ebblr and critblr were similar and intertwined, but I didn't know the specifics! I suppose, knowing that, what are some things that you remember about critblr in specific?

A: i understood critblr as a sort of anti-mcytblr. whatever opinion was widespread and popular on main, critblr was the place where you could find someone with the opposite opinion. it was a haven of haters, trolls and gossips, and it was really fucking funny. they loved having rivals- back in the summer of 2021, they/we had a "war" with fltwt. (at least in terms of what jason was up to. i have no idea how its developed now.)

honestly a lot more of the ire of critblr was directed at mcyttwt than it was on the ground at mcytblr. (although in 2021 the boundary between critblr and ebblr was still pretty loose and even as an ebblr main i was aware of all this, i'll say critblr for ease of communication)

another note about eb-critblr. it was extremely white. some of the rhetoric bouncing around on critblr at the time was kind of in the vein of "arent these twitter kids so sensitive for being upset with schlatt"

i think i also want to make point about how a lot of the truthing was kinda unserious. sometimes people dont have clips or evidence or info sometimes truthing was just projecting onto a content creator and feeling it in your heart. The instinct to truth, i think, came from a place of wanting to relate to the streamers. See yourself in them, their relationships, and their mental struggles. still, It was soaked in irony- there was this sort of untouchable jester attitude, and the less seriously you took yourself, the better. I think people cared a lot, though, and that ended up being the problem. There was a lot of pressure to be certain, which is fascinating coming from a space built on speculating on incomplete info. im sure other people in ebblr had very different experiences than I.

Q: Would you mind explaining what fltwt was?

A: fltwt came into being in summer 2021, when ranboo got doxxed. jason mcytruth had already stopped caring about ebs by now, so most of his and his associate's energy went into researching, exposing, and clowning them.

you need to understand that they were like. an abberation to us. we had been doing good honest truthing and shipping in our private corner since the new years, and here these twitter chucklefucks were throwing doxxes around and using them to truth with. they were like our evil twin. we hated them so much.

[all names have been redacted for privacy]

the reason my url is glowfr0g in this is because i changed my url after this interaction, but i have screenshots with my url as umbie aswell. we were SERIOUS.

since beeduo stopped hanging out like a week into the summer because of the doxx, the truthing in the community diversified a lot. one of such truthings was Clemtruthing- or transfeminine tommy truthing. fltwt straight up stole this from us, screenshotting and circulating our posts, and now theyre more known for it than we were. the blog mentioned here, [REDACTED], deactivated over this.

i think at one point fltwt was doing a popularity tournament and mcytruth was entered in as a contestant? but what i did here was hardly the only example of eb-critblr butting heads with fltwt. the demographic was largely bored twitter ranboo fans. yknow the "im literally neurodivergent and a minor" meme? that was popularized because of THEM. also that text interaction is dated july 30 2021

fltwt was, partially private i think? but overall not well organized at all and a lot of people on there were attention seeking. i have no idea how much these subtwts were actually invested in ebblr or critblr, for all i know it was extremely one-sided

Q: Was it an interesting experience to be in a niche community that regularly experienced "containment breaches" and blocklists? How did that affect the community's growth?

A: I kinda appointed myself the manager of the containment breaches! I had a whole process. If a mainblr blog reblogged a post, i would contact them on my umbie blog. Since they reblogged it, they were probably a lurker and i could ask them directly to take it down. However, if any of the mainblr blog's mutuals reblogged a post, i would contact them on an alt instead from the perspective of a concerned bystander that just wanted you to know that you had accidentally reblogged one of those posts from those weird shippers. Worked every time. I took pride in it.

There were really only a few blocklists? The first blocklist, what most people would know ebblr from back in the early days, got ebblr so much attention that's how most of the folks within it found out about it (including myself.) There were one or two scares after that, but nothing serious. I only ever got on one, and that one wasn't shared publicly. We still made a big show about having everyone temporarily change urls though. We didn't really want to be well known. Anybody who knew about ebblr understood that it was for the best of both communities if people kept quiet.

Q: How did the "boundaries" discourse affect your community?

A: we danced around with boundaries. Back when we were making fun of main for platonic marriage, a lot of us were loud about the fact that neither of them had called it a platonic marriage until the fans started doing it. We weren't technically breaking any stated boundaries, but i think part of why we were so loud about it is because we knew on some level that it was a cope. When the boundaries were finally stated and the truth that we were being weird all along was unavoidable, it was fucking DEFCON 1. A lot of people left ebblr over it, and a lot of people were like "wait, you didn't know we were breaking boundaries?" The community had boundaries, but they were not the same boundaries as the content creators.

Q: Were you ever involved in any main MCYTblr events?

A: nope. we wanted nothing to do with main mcytblr. We stayed aware, though, and made fun of them whenever things went sour.

Q: Do you think being in ebblr was an overall positive or negative experience?

A: mixed. so mixed. so incredibly mixed. The anxiety of me or my friends getting exposed or discovered kept me up at night. I was constantly conflicted about whether or not i was doing the right thing while also reassuring people that we definitely were. Our proximity to the darkest parts of minecraft fandom means i've seen and learned things that I wish I hadn't. When Beeduo went no contact it was uh. It Was Bad. It Felt Bad. We Felt bad, and I felt partially responsible. it's hard to know if that's true.

At the same time, I've met some of my best friends on there, ones that I keep in contact with to this day! Being on ebblr taught me a lot of critical thinking- I now understand that twitter isnt right about everything always. Being known and liked as Umbie helped me safely built up a sense of identity there that has brought me into the best chapter of my life so far, and experimenting with pronouns was also really really nice. For all the late nights and callout posts and blocklists and moralism and bullshit, i think i will be chasing the high of the vindication that i got when ranboo came out on twitter for the rest of my life.

You can call us a lot of things, but you can't call us incorrect on that front, and as truthers go, that's kinda rare.

[umbie was kind enough to also send me the following image-- this is the "enderbees" flag, seen in the yellow/purple rainbow, as it appeared on Karl Jacobs's stream of 2022 r/place! You can also spot the L'manburg flag, the Snowchester flag, and one more I can't identify.]

[conkreetmonkey]

In the process of attempting to create an incredibly basic Fallout 4 mod, I've realized that Bethesda games are needlessly hard to mod. Like, let me tell you about my journey so far:

(long one... yet another ConkreetMonkey wall of text, this one bemoaning Bethesda's spaghetti code and lack of decent modding resources)

First off, I should probably explain what the mod is intended to be. The Sanctuary bridge (known as the Old North Bridge, which is a real and historically significant bridge irl, mentioned by Preston Garvey upon seeing it for the first time) has always bugged me. It's half-collapsed, and cannot be repaired in the base game, despite seeing a lot of use as the main entry point to an important settlement. There is no mod fixing this that I like, as none remove the collapsed part without replacing the entire model. I've always wanted to see the thing repaired in an immersive way, but no matter how many workshop mods I download or in-editor changes I attempt, the collapsed part is baked into the model. The mesh itself needs editing.

The plan was simple: extract the model, make my 10-minute edit removing the broken planks and supports in Blender, and replace the original version with my slightly different new one. Since all I was to do was delete chunks of the model without leaving any open holes in the mesh, theoretically, the same texture should still work. The UV map would not need edited, as nothing I didn't remove changed in size or position. After replacing the model with this modified one, I would then either "repair" it in-game with Place Everywhere and some mods that add planks and support beams, or "repair" it in the official editor. It would finally look like the broken parts were removed and replaced with salvaged, mismatching wood, which is what would realistically happen. The "cleanest" way to do this would be to save a version of the plugin with just the edited model, and then one with my immersive repairs made in the editor, both uploaded to Nexus so others can benefit. They say to make the mods you want to see, and this one was both at the top of my list and felt very doable. I shouldn't even need to edit the navmesh or pathfinding because I'm not replacing any parts of the bridge NPCs actually walk over.

Roadblock no. 1: extracting the model. You can't just download it from the editor (to my knowledge), you have to extract it with a third-party tool called Bethesda Asset Extractor (BAE). So I download BAE and start sifting through the filenames of all the models in the game.

Roadblock no. 2: the filenames and organization are hot garbage, probably making sense to the devs but not to me, and there's no way to know what the model is of aside from the vague hint the name gives you. It's already become abundantly clear that this game was not initially programmed with modability in mind. I go on Reddit, and am informed by a helpful soul named u/ChaoTikPranXter that I can just open the editor, select the bridge, and see what its filename is that way. Of course! I do so, get the name, go into BAE, and extract the asset.

Roadblock no. 2.5: Bethesda's in-house engine apparently uses a weird-ass file format for 3D models called a .nif. Blender was unable to open these files. Thankfully, there exists a plugin that allows it to, which I downloaded and installed. When I tried to open my new .nif that way, however, only chunks of it displayed. The walking surface, the planes representing the alpha-channel bolt decals on the supports, and some bits of railing. This could not be right. The model was complete when opened in Nifskope, a 3D software that could open .nifs I downloaded when manually sifting through assets in BAE to check what they were (Nifscope, unfortunately, does not actually allow you to edit the models aside from rotating or resizing them along the XYZ axes, so it was useless to actually carry out the edit I wanted, which required the deletion of polygons). Apparently Blender was still struggling with the file format? With no other options, I used Nifskope to convert the .nif to an .obj (which took a few attempts, as the selection system in that program was hard for me to figure out).

Finally, after much trial and error, I had a full, unbroken version of the bridge that I could open in Blender. A compromise, since I'd have to convert it back to a .nif to get it back in the game (just adding more possible points of failure), but it was done. I had successfully opened the model in Blender after hours of trial and error, and downloading 3 third-party pieces of software.

Roadblock no. 3: Apparently converting a .nif to a .obj causes some eccentricities. The model is so massive it is not all visible at once as it far exceeds the render distance, and is also rotated 90° on its side for some reason, and is also positioned just below the "ground." Really hard to work with. I had to reposition it, which will definitely fuck things up down the line.

Roadblock no. 4: Also, BAE can't rip textures, just meshes. It's a known issue and I couldn't find any fixes or workarounds online, just forum posts reiterating that it's how things are. It's not terrible, I can work with a pure white model for my purposes because it's an inanimate object made of wood so it's pretty clear what's what, but now I'm going to have to figure out how to reapply the texture in-engine, which I assume will be a nightmare. Every time I want to move a file from one program to another it feels like I'm at the DMV.

Roadblock no. 4.1: Not really progress-stalling, just another example of Bethesda-ness: the groups on this model makes no sense. The walking surface is grouped with a random few bits of railing for some reason. Not all the railings, just some. All parts of the model are like this, mixed in with a little bit of everything else like the steam trays at a crappy buffet. Like, no shade towards whoever modelled that thing, but... why? Why did you organize it like this? Do 3D artists have the same esoteric approaches to object grouping as 2D ones have to layers? Am I even using the right terminology here? The only thing I know how to do decently in Blender is remove the hair from game characters downloaded from The Models Resource to see them bald (which, coincidentally, is all I should need to know for the edit I want to make).

So I, finally, after HOURS of toil, an entire afternoon, finally get to start making the actual edit.

It takes like 10, maybe 15 minutes.

This could have been so much easier.

I'm hesitant to even attempt adding my new model into the game. Is it really worth the time and effort? This was the easy part. Who's to say the model doesn't flip out again once I convert it to a .nif? I'm assuming the editor will let me copy/paste the size, coordinates and rotation from the vanilla bridge, but is that too optimistic? Will the textures want to cooperate, if there even is a way to reapply them within the Creation Kit? I had to download 3 third-party programs already just to open a mesh file in Blender. Now I'm seeing forum posts about how Outfit Studio is the best way to get .nifs into the game, so I guess make it 4. I think my best bet is likely to get a more experienced modder to help me out with this. I just hope I can find one who also wants to see this mod be created, because none I've found really do commissions, just requests they find compelling (understandable tbh, not shitting on them for that).

In conclusion, Godd Howard has abandoned us. If you're pro-mod, make your games easy and intuitive to mod. Modding is never simple, I know, but this is ridiculous.

[jynxeddraca]

Toilets in Faerûn

This was supposed to be in the sewer post that I made but realized I was focusing a lot on toilets so it is now it’s own post because I can.  Once again, not doing the links because links make it so no one can see my posts for some stupid reason.

According to a Reddit post, supposedly, Ed Greenwood said that people use chamber pots that are emptied into 'nightsoil' buckets that are later dumped in cesspits or picked up daily by wagons while the wealthy have sluice toilets. Historically – this is indeed what people did.  I only have one major issue with this: chamber pots were used when sewers didn't exist, and sewers do exist in several cities canonically.  So while this would work well in an area that doesn't have a sewer – cities that have sewers wouldn’t use this method.  2nd minor issue is that this is Faerûn. Faerûn has magic – so while chamber pots might still exist, I think it won’t be so cut and dry as ‘do business in pot and wait until wagon comes’. 

Now the only spell that consistently comes up when magic cleaning is discussed is the cantrip prestidigitation – which is “a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice”.  There are multiple things it can be used for, but in regards to our purposes it can be used to “instantaneously clean or soil an object no larger than 1 cubic foot” (1cu ft = 12in/30.48cm on all sides).  Both things in quotes are directly from the Player’s Handbook.  This spell features heavily in my head.

Now for my headcanons!

I’m thinking enchanted "Self-Cleaning" chamber pots are semi-common in the land (probably not the cheapest thing in the world, but not an exclusively wealthy person thing) and use prestidigitation to clean themselves.

Honestly, items charmed with prestidigitation are probably fairly common in general.

Gross as I think this thought is: I’m not totally convinced that toilet paper exists or is terribly common in Faerûn. 

IRL, there is evidence that toilet paper was used in China as early as 589 AD, and by the early 14th century were making millions of packages of toilet paper annually.  But Faerûn is more or less based on Europe.  Sadly, toilet paper in the western world was not invented until 1857 and before that people used some variation of their hand, snow, seashells, ceramics, stones, leaves/moss, sponges/clothes on sticks that soak in vinegar between uses, and corncobs to wipe their butts after. 

Truthfully, I see ceramic scrapers being much more common regardless of toilet paper existence – most would be enchanted to clean your butt, but regardless of enchantment you only have to buy it once.  It’s even easy to travel with. 

Toilet paper would be a wealthy flex of ‘I buy this thing on a regular basis that I only ever use to wipe my ass’.

I refuse to believe that people don't wash their hands after using the toilet (I don't care how unrealistic it is, hand washing is a thing in Faerûn).

I mentioned this in the sewer post as well, but: Since there are sewers in Baldur’s Gate, I fully expect most homes, especially newer ones, to have some kind of toilet that connects to the sewers.  Though I still think mostly you would have to use a bucket of water to flush the toilets.

While the only faucet you see in game is in the House of Hope, in game it is clear there is some amount of plumbing because Astarion talks about ‘drunk naked patriars in the fountains’ and you can even talk to a couple of people who are trying to get water from Lower City fountains, but none of them are working currently. 

Lower City would have numerous fountains so people can get water for drinking, cleaning, cooking, etc, and not have to walk too far to get it. But - while not unheard of - it wouldn't be common to have indoor plumbing itself, let alone a flushing toilet.

Indoor plumbing probably would be far more common in the Upper City and a flushable toilet would be a huge flex.

There is no plumbing at all in the Outer City. 

For toilets, the Outer City uses a combination of outhouses, chamber pots, ‘night soil’ wagons, and refuse pits to deal with bodily wastes.

Also mentioned in the sewer post: Blackgate and Rivington would have their own "sewer systems" since those are the first places visitors see.

But neither are technically within city limits so probably more along the lines of a glorified cesspit/giant septic system that I'm sure someone has released a gelatinous cube or something into to keep the waste level down.

Outer City residents do have one surprising source of income and that is selling dung. Both pig dung and access to old outhouses that stopped getting used because they got full - because both are good sources of getting saltpeter which is used in explosives. (Fun fact, the best saltpeter is made from pig dung).

Bonus thought:

Since prestidigitation cleans things, the dirt, grime, etc has to go somewhere. I used to go with that it just 'knocks off' the dirt but now I'm starting to headcanon that there's "normal" prestidigitation - which is a minor magic trick, and an advanced "cleaning" prestidigitation that basically disintegrates the dirt/grime/whatever.

That or all the stuff that is removed by this spell is transported to an elemental plane of 'ew gross'.

[evenstarfalls]

*deep breath*

All For The Game...Review?

It's been over a week and I feel like I have to say something about it since Tumblr is what pressured me into reading it in the first place and I mean. That really was a series like. I don't even know what to say. I'm still processing everything. It was really bad but I really liked it???

I some of my mutuals <3 have not read it and I cannot it good conscience recommend it but I don't really care about that so. I'd recommend it with the caveat that you should turn your brain off before reading it and also look up the trigger warnings and don't read it if you can't handle that cause!!! There is some deeply disturbing content!!!

WHAT THE SHIT WAS ANY OF THAT LIKE HONESTLY okay now the rest of it I am gonna talk about spoilers so.

I picked up All For The Game expecting it to be a series about an alternate universe in which a ridiculous bullshit sport called exy exists. But honestly. Far more than just exy is unrealistic to the point of an alternate reality. This shit makes no sense. And I DID turn my brain off to read it. I had to. But now I do think about it and it. Doesn't make any sense. Andrew is required to be on drugs?? The Yakuza operates out of a college sports arena??? The Ravens are very clearly and openly some sort of freaky cult but most of the world just doesn't seem to care????

Listen to me. I really enjoyed this series. But now that I'm no longer reading it...I've got a whole skeleton and then some to pick with Nora Sakavic.

I actually deleted like a whole paragraph of ranting about the sports side of things because it was too embarrassing. Yes I do pay attention to college sports. None of it makes sense in aftg. I'm not going to humiliate myself by talking about how unrealistic it is.

I want to make it clear I liked it it's just fucking stupid!! Neil is a fun pov character though cause I don't understand his obsession with exy ✨at all✨ it's a SPORT. WHY are you willing to die over it. Boy chill the fuck out.

Oh Renee Walker is not straight and Nora clearly does not understand her character AT ALL if she thinks that. Ngl I really thought Renee and Allison were gonna end up together for a hot minute. They deserved to </3

Also...Nicky. Yeah he was kind of awful?? Like he was such a stereotypical creep what the fuck was that. WHY does him forcing a kiss on Neil just get ignored the rest of the series?? (Yeah it does get brought up when Neil and Andrew kiss for the first time...but that's almost worse. What the fuck.) He could've been a really interesting and good character but instead I just feel really bad for Erik.

It's just... it's entertaining and fun and I really liked it but it is so bad. It's nonsense. It's painful. I have a lot of problems with it. I still liked it. This is the most complicated I've felt about a book in awhile.

udkskdkdkkswbdns the dynamic of the team is so fun! I really like most of the characters. The romance was really great (I did go into it knowing that Andreil was endgame...but honestly that just added to the fun a lot of the time.)

Like. Come ON. Maybe Nora Sakavic just knew that if she actually made it good and well written the world wouldn't have survived...? Probably not. But it sure is a book. I have an irl who went through an aftg phase in middle school and I'm not sure how to explain my full thoughts to them (maybe they'll see it here! Ha)

Ig I'm rating it 🚩/10

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Here’s a simple ask. Banette!reader x FNF Lullaby Poképasta trainers? Also, the reader has killed multiple people in the past in incredibly gruesome ways but is friendly with the Poképasta trainers because why not? They also like to hoard plush dolls and they’re also extremely powerful.

Oop my pokepasta interest is finally creeping back in-

.........

Glitchy Red

You’re just like him fr: being so full of hatred and wishing harm on those who abandoned you. But you go beyond maiming--instead murdering them via voodoo dolls.

When you cross paths with Glitchy, you wonder if he’s really a Pokémon himself bc of his impressive Scary Face.

But even though he’s (sorta) human, you actually end up befriending him bc he’s not a typical trainer. He “haunts” a game and seems cool. Plus he empathizes with you on multiple levels.

“I get it. The feeling of no longer being useful...of being thrown away once you can’t offer them anything more. Must be hard for you, huh?”

“Hmmm...Nette!” You offer him a Gengar plushie, smiling. 

Alongside making voodoo dolls of your worst enemies, you loved to collect regular plush Pokémon dolls, ensuring none were ever left behind like you were.

Glitchy just blinks, before barely smiling at the gesture. "...that’s actually kinda cute. Who did you murder for that?”

Grey

Was honestly scared shitless upon meeting you. You just showed up while he was walking through some tall grass and nearly gave the poor kid a heart attack.

He’s still getting used to seeing Pokémon irl since they were all broken/messy glitches/nonexistent back in his game, but he did know the reputation Banettes had.

Tries throwing a pokeball to catch you, only to be flabbergasted when you intercept it and look at him annoyed.

But you notice that he’s not just some dumb trainer who signed his own death certificate..because he’s been dead for quite a while (albeit in a weird state of limbo since he’s free from the game, but not exactly who he used to be).

So you befriend him, though Grey is still very much wary around you despite Shinto immediately warming up to you and sharing your adoration for plushies.

You give him a Snorlax plush for him to hug and hold onto whenever his anxiety gets the best of him. You just wanted him to see you’re not totally evil.

He thinks it’s haunted 100% but doesn’t wanna tell you that, fearing you’ll be offended.

Gold

Immediately believed you were going to harm his Unowns and tried to “Scary Face” you away from his realm.

But you weren’t fazed, and when they reacted violently, you dodged all of their Hidden Power attacks before managing to reason with the doomed trainer.

You can tell he was in a great deal of pain, abandoned and forgotten as you were, so you showed him some sympathy, reassuring him you’re not here to hurt anyone.

With your expertise in stitching, you closed up his wounds and took care not to accidentally use your powers near his Unowns. 

Oh and you definitely let him lean against one of your bigger Pokémon plushies. It’s cute seeing him cuddle up to them and feel safe for once in his existence.

It certainly seemed out of character to not wanna harm this kid when you’ve killed so many trainers like him in the past..

Yet seeing Gold’s dilemma struck a pin into your cold heart.

Steven

He looks menacing on the surface, but you saw his softer side after offering him a Charizard plushie.

Usually he’s not one to accept gifts, though...he just couldn’t refuse yours. Even if it resembled what Miki used to be.

Speaking of whom, she adores you a lot! You’re just as cruel and unforgiving as her while in battle. 

She’d never think to combat you, though, as you’ve made her trainer happy and wouldn’t wanna chase you off.

Ofc, there might be some quarrels over who gets more attention from him considering she’s his ace, but it’s a friendly rivalry.

Steven lets you stick around while you endlessly roam Kanto together, not stopping you if you wanna lash out at some poor trainers who insulted him when he grieved Miki or accused him of murdering Mike (despite it being true and you knowing this, too).

He can’t stand to have any other Pokémon on his team besides Miki, though you’re an exception.

[albed-hoe]

Hello! Can I just say I’m head over heels with your writing? It’s just perfection! If you don’t mind could I request some hc’s for Childe and Kaeya (if u write for him) with a s/o who doesn’t get embarrassed or flustered? Those two seem like such big teases I’m just wondering what it’d be like haha

Oh, You Tease!

Characters: Childe & Kaeya x Male Reader

Summary: The boys VS. a reader that is not easily flustered

Warnings: Slightly suggestive

Word count: 640

A/n: You’re gonna make me cry!😭 Thank you so much, it means a lot that people are enjoying my writing, you made my entire month! Even my entire writing career, haha!

I’ve never written for Kaeya and I’m a very shy and quiet person IRL, so we’ll see how this one turns out. I’m also super awkward so I’m flustered in every situation LMAO

I’m hoping I didn’t make them too OOC!

Childe

Was actually very shy around you before you started dating which you found strange, because why would such a teasing guy be so shy only around one person?

Of course, you found out it was because he had a crush on you, so you had to make the first move on him and ask him out (he was too scared of rejection, shy!Childe got me like 🥺)

But to your dismay (maybe?), the boy eventually got more comfortable being around you, and his teasing personality came back with a vengeance.

However, you were having none of it, and your stoic reaction to his quips were becoming a little embarrassing for him to laugh off every time.

That’s why he made it his life mission to find a way to fluster you! He would ask the people around Liyue (and your friends) if they knew of any subjects that embarrassed you, but everyone was just kind of weirded out by his questions…

One day, however, he was at your house and you walked into the living room to find him staring out the window.

“What are you thinking about Ajax?” and that’s when a lightbulb went off in his mind. Confront the issue directly.

He stood up and locked his gaze with yours, slowly making his way over to you. You didn’t like the look in his eyes, so you backed away from him until you hit a wall.

“Childe, what are you doing?” you asked, beginning to get a little nervous at his unusual quietness.

He caught up to you and placed a hand against the wall beside your head, and he moved up beside your ear.

“You know that… I really do like you, right?” He whispered, making you slightly tense. The hand that had moved onto your crotch, however, was the finishing blow to your stoic wall. You slapped his hand out of the way and shoved him off you.

“T-That was uncalled for, Ajax.” You said sternly, looking away with a deep shade of crimson across your face. This made Childe laugh manically and you were sure to regret showing this side of you for the rest of your existence.

Kaeya

So, as we all know it, Kaeya has… A personality LMAO

He was definitely not shy when he first met you, in fact, he upped his flirting game tenfold the moment he realized he had a crush on you!

He would try everything, but unlike Childe, he got SO embarrassed when you wouldn’t react to his advances, he would just want to sink into the floor at that very moment (flustered Kaeya UwU)

When he saw that you were still as stoic as ever, he assumed you were oblivious to his advances so he just sort of gave up trying. :(

However, unlike Childe again, the way he got you flustered was a total accident!

You had been hanging out in his office, and while he was working on the typical Knights of Favonius papers, you were doing your own thing in the corner.

He asked you to pass him a pen that was in a drawer closer to you so that he could sign a couple things, so you happily obliged, getting up and opening the drawer.

But when you came back to his desk to hand him the pen, your fingers brushed against his. Him being so absorbed in his work, hadn’t even looked up. Your faint voice is what caught his attention.

“I-I’m sorry…” you muttered under your breath, turning around with a faint blush across your face.

“AHA!” he yelled, jumping up. “SMALL TOUCHES! THAT’S IT!”

You then had to tell him to shut up, otherwise other Knights would hear him, and you swore things would not go well for him if they did. Your sternness made him a little sad. :(

I decided to add a situation in which you finally became flustered for both, because why not? #simp4lyfe

[cozymochi]

38?

38: Professor Membrane: a good daddy or a neglectful cold father?

Starting this off with subtlety aren’t ya

ahem. Fine. I’ll f i n a l l y say a piece…!!!

TBH? I don’t either are very good reads. 😩 They’re way too “ONE OR THE OTHER”- both are pretty black and white again and neither feel right tbh… i don’t think it actually matters? …BUT Let’s talk anyway!!

In the original series Membrane didn’t actually show up enough to really say anything good or bad about him like that, and he doesn’t do anything really significant the whole series. Dib and Gaz didn’t really show any signs of being bugged by anything he does in particular either. (Mainly because in a meta sense, this concept didn’t exist at this time- we’ll get back to this)

I should probably note something about that entire family: None of them were fully realized as we know them now in the og series. Excluding Dib to a degree, they were all pretty flat and works in progress.

Membrane’s behavior highly depended on the writer. In one episode, he’s not around altogether and has pre-recorded messages to his kids. In another, he’s working from home and seems to be involved.

In “Game Slave 2” he wouldn’t even let Gaz leave the house at night unless her brother was with her, cuz he said it’d be too dangerous for her to be alone. Within the context of the universe and cartoon logic (where kids generally have more freedom/independence than IRL), that’s not really a lot to work with.

But also in a later ep he exploits his daughter’s image and subjects her to “painful experiments.” The apology comes in taking her out to pizza. Like. Wut. Lol. Actual “parenting” doesn’t really come in much, but that’s nothing too damning tbh given he wasn’t a focus anyway. It’s just a bunch of random stuff depending on what joke wants to be made.

OG Membrane wasn’t really there in-series, but the children weren’t really inherently bothered by anything on a personal level. Dib didn’t have any personal issue with his dad yet- and seemed actually proud to be related to him. Gaz just wanted to hang out with him in the rare instances they could. It more so just: “he’s busy.” Not much to it. I don’t think any of this was meant to be thought about deeply. Anything he does was just a means to an end or a gag. Nothing he did personally ever affected the characters or plot that deeply that often. If at all. Just his resources did.

UNTIL WE HIT THE COMICS… where an active attempt was made by JV and the writers to pretty much redo this entire family and flesh them out more in ways the series did not. Until we reach Enter the Florpus which is- to me- a culmination of all the changes made. Reminds me of musical theatre where they workshop a show then keep making edits until there’s a quote “definitive” version.

These versions also seem to be the ones that gain the most focus during talks like this. So. I’m gonna be on that now. WhY dOeS thiS mAtTeR?? Well it shouldn’t but—

Comics and Florpus (mainly the latter) brought in the acknowledgment that the kids, on some level, are being emotionally affected by what Membrane does or does not do… Most notably, Dib. So much so that earning his pride became one of Dib’s new personal motivations because how his dad acts makes him believe he’s ashamed of him. This did not exist before. Gaz seems to also feel something, but it’s pretty clear she respects her dad too much to say anything— but she also knows he’ll do anything in the name of “science,” so she uses that to get him to do what she wants rather than do what Dib does. Gaz just invests herself in video games rather than actively think about these things. It’s easier.

WITH ALL THAT now on the table, it really does re-contextualize a ton of stuff in the original as a result. Once somebody else (i.e the children) are showing explicit signs of feeling a type of way, it can make shit that was just a one-note “for the lulz” thing a lot more messy to any viewer. The whole “neglectful bastard” rhetoric got a lot more prominent cuz it makes whatever this amputee shampoo bottle does or doesn’t do more impactful. Also the changes had this effect of making that family seem more “real” if that makes any sense? I legitimately don’t hate their current dynamic (it’s a lot more palatable I think, but I digress). Once something feels more real here comes the— the… identifying… 🤢 and identifying leads to….dadcourse…!

BUT it can be frustrating to watch him learn nothing all the time or still be dense. But I mean… this is IZ… everybody is dense and unwilling to change. That’s just the nature of it. And why most fan content inverts this lol. It’s just people pick and choose when the denseness matters.

I think any person could easily read him as cold be it from personal projection, or read him as “well meaning” …also from personal projection lol. Which, i mean… both are fair I guess. I don’t really feel too strongly when people do either cuz there’s enough to lean on both...

Don’t get me wrong tho, I do not think he went through some “secret character development off-screen and is anxious about what his children feel about him :((“

No fam he just got workshopped. That’s all. And i could even diverge off to why I think- nay- know that Membrane fully believes he’s an amazing parent with no pretense or self-awareness whatsoever. And because he isn’t very emotional and has an inflated sense of self-- genuinely does not know why any of his kids would feel the way they do. Kinda in that same way why Dib genuinely doesn’t get why turning off Gaz’s video game and insisting she listen to him ramble about his shit would upset her ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But, nobody wants to hear that from me.

SO WHAT DO I THINK?? Both takes don’t matter and I’m sure he’s not supposed to be read like that in conjunction with the og and the revivals. I do not think he’s anything except a weird guy in an even weirder series though, and remembering that this is just that is probably what needs to be done more. Science first. Always first. One of the only other primarily reactive main characters there. He’s not that deep a guy… but that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of stuff to think about.

…there’s a reason as to why I’ve been studying him under the table for a while behind the scenes on my own time lol. Despite what I said, this dude is an interesting case study 🤔 Maybe one day we’ll see the results of that. Maybe. No promises.

Instead of dadcourse, we should just focus on how the fuck he drinks anything kjfdgdgdg

uh, the end (…?) sorry if u made it this far 😖

[mylove-thresher]

(didn’t reply for a while bc this week was. Way too much for me. Felt like shit physically and mentally. Especially mentally. And I wanted to wait for the weekend to decompress and finally have like. Actual interactions and that kinda stuff lolz. Feels good to feel more like myself after this week. Also if anything I say sound weird or whatever it’s bc I been having a headache this entire week 😭)

I’ve had shitty friends before (they were more like bullies to me tbh). I cut all ties I had with them a few years ago to move on and honestly I’m too scared to even get in contact w them ever again bc I seriously don’t think they changed at all in during that time 😭 (I think one of them tried resending me a friend request on discord but she was possibly the worst one of them all so I’d dint even consider accepting it). I don’t believe in irl redemption arcs when it comes to them 😔. Maybe ur friend could’ve changed tho

tbh I’ve been desensitized to a lot of stuff for a solid part of my life but it’s mainly horror and all that stuff not THAT 😭 I think I’d quit the internet if I read that a few years ago 💀

those Pokémon games were so good I’m going to tear my entire room apart because I never got to play them ughhhhghhhghg 😭. 10 year old you was going through the hardest times vro smh 💔/j. (I will… You’ll be seeing it all over the news… I will steal one of the libraries near you……)

tbh I feel like no character in jjba completely represents me so I kinda just kin a whole bunch that share fractions of my personality?? (I am a bunch of worms in a trench coat) And omg I just remembered she ra. I LOVED she ra. Now I don’t remember any of the lore (or at least most of it) 💔. I remember my dad just doing the Dad Standing Up Watching TV Pose™️ and just when I was watching it in the living room. And then a very Homosexual™️ scene came up and my dad just LEFT 😭. My ma actually loved he-man a lot she kept saying the intro part in Spanish like she a soundboard 😭.

but yeah it probably is canon that Bucciarati is the favourite. I mean. Why wouldn’t he be. He has sm good rep and tha banger ass fit Fr fr

I do not know what the musk rat man is and I’m scared of knowing 😭 (or maybe ik but don’t remember). Honestly thinking about posting art there kinda scares me? Posting art on here scared me at first too but… different kinda scary vibe idk…….

I feel like my friends are on the same wavelength as me (brainrot) but they just don’t coordinate things well bc sometimes I be telling them to lock in and go to the school library quickly during dinner (lunchtime 😭) to advance on a project or whatever and they just yap or get caught up in meaningless stuff. (Also a new girl joined our friend group and she’s super funny and I like her as a friend but they just leave me behind to hang out w her? I’ve been acting a bit cold lately bc of that but I feel lonely :( ). It’s just kinda annoying how we can’t get shit done w seriousness instead of ultimately avoiding it and doing it last minute. It feels like I practically have to be the group mom around them and I just wish they were a bit more responsible

My friends just don’t listen that much 😞. Like I could tell them the same thing in the same day thrice and they still would act like I never told them. (Also you just made me remember Heaven’s Official Blessing exists 😭. One of my friends read that years ago and I did not understand anything) I listen to them yap to me ab their fav books even if I don’t know anything ab them bc I don’t read their booktok stuff and I definitely think it’s not the best writing but I still gaf yknow. If you ask em what book they’re yapping ab tho? I could never tell you bc they all sound the same 😭. My friends watched part 5 during the breaks and none of them finished bc they had “other stuff to do” even tho they procrastinated the homework we had during the holidays. (Few days ago they said they were watching other series instead of part 5 even tho they promised they’d watch) (I just want to be friends irl w a jojo fan bro :( ). Oh and that’s kewl lolz it’s kinda like a gift exchange but it’s series instead of gifts (I have never done a gift exchange idk what I’m saying rn 😭). (Bro is on that mischievous tomfoolery antics)

You should totally ramble to me about ships you like :3 However many you like I’m just curious uwu

(I didn’t answer this as soon as I got it bc I was thinking about what to say lolz 😭)

tbh I like most ships as long as it’s not problematic or I find them weird/that they don’t have much chemistry. I also don’t mind poly or platonic ships (duh). I’d be sitting here all day yapping ab the ships I like/am okay w bc frankly it doesn’t have to strictly be character A X character B, I think it could also be character A X character C, etc. as long as it’s not any wrong. I won’t be going apeshit(/neg) over ships that I don’t like as much or have like a 2 year age gap. I mean, I think it starts to get weird when there’s 4 years of difference. I think people do too much when they hate on less popular ships smh if it’s nothing weird then let ppl have fun w their little kitty witties smh 😞

Huge yapping starts here vvv

Some ships I like tho r a lot of Ghibli movie couples in general bc they’re just super cute and I love the writing Ghibli does for its characters (I want what they have.). I also like Yukito/Yue X Touya and Syaoran X Sakura from CCS but that doesn’t mean I don’t also like Tomoko X Sakura (pretty sure Tomoko implied to like her anyway). I also like some other side ships from CCS but I barely remember their names bc it’s been so long since I’ve watched it and Netflix took it down 💔. CCS ships r cute in general I think, I’ve never seen any problematic ship (except that one girl X her fucking teacher. Pookie. You’re like 13. Don’t date ur teacher. And she was so pretty too bro why did they make her a questionable character 😭). And now. Getting to jjba my beloved. Since I unfortunately focus so so so much on p5 those are the only ships I’ll yap ab 😢. Huge honorable mention to Jonathan X Erina (jonaeri) tho they’re super cute together even if a lot of ppl said they barely have screen time and stuff :3. Anyway. Part 5. I honestly don’t care much about ships in la squadra as long as they had some form of interaction y’know (I don’t pay too much attention to La squadra anyway 💔). Usually ppl get really divided when it comes to Bucci gang ships tho. Honestly I’d rather see them all as a friend group that see each other as siblings to avoid all that shipping, but I admit I really like some pairings, like fugonara, bruabba, giotrish, futrish, naratrish, etc. I really don’t mind it that much (I don’t rlly ship mista w anyone bc I just don’t think there’s anybody matching his freak 😭). I mainly ship fugonara as you can see just bc to me it makes a lot of sense even if I also see them under platonic light. If there’s fugo, there’s narancia, and if there’s narancia, there’s fugo. I just find that rlly cute :3. I also like their backstories and how they tie together and the narancia death scene ripped my heart out in the anime so (IM CRYING AGAIN JUST FROM THINKING AB IT STOP 💔). Again that doesn’t mean I dislike the other ships, I just don’t pay much attention to them or think they had as much chemistry or time together. I love seeing my fave characters tho, so it’s not like I won’t like the content if there’s like gionara or something. Honestly I like seeing ppl have fun w their cutie patooties as long as it’s not too controversial, once again. It’s rlly a shame that ppl can jump at each others throat bc they disagree on a mere ship. It’s literally not gonna alter your life. Also, bc I say a ship some bucci gang characters doesn’t mean I don’t also ship them platonically. (I’ll type it like it’s ao3 tags lolz. Pretty sure & instead of / is for platonic, right?) I rlly like Narancia&Mista&Fugo (torture dance trio is literally the best friendship ever to me bc wdym you did a coordinated dance w ur homies to torture someone that’s so cool). There are also a few others, but they don’t come to mind rn (and there’s a f,y in my room annoying me.) You know what I think I gave jjba way too much attention. I also like Mimi X Sheshe (my fav lesbians fr 😍) from mermaid melody pichi pichi pitch. They tried censoring them by making them “sisters”, but they were blatantly and very obviously lesbians. Like vro. They are touching each other so homoerotically and have complimenting colours. And I think that’s most of it…

I don’t wanna make this any longer than it is so um. Yeah. This was a ramble. I didn’t realize it was so long lolz. But yeah it’s basically that :3

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[lovee-infected]

This is a weird thought, but what do you think the state of mental health treatment is in the TWST universe. We joke about Yuu being the school counselor, but the fact there isn't one at the school always struck me as odd. Not only that, some of the characters show some signs of mental health issues. Leona shows signs of depression. Idia might have an anxiety disorder. Jamil shows signs of PTSD-C. Silver has Narcolepsy. That's not the half of it. p1

Now this is a very interesting idea to discuss anon! I've seen this discussion regarding twst guys' mental health being brought up before so I'd like to get into the details. I guess I'd better use some real life references as well to clear my point!

First off, about the school counselor, do they even exist? Well although there was nothing mentioned about NRC having a counselor, I'd say that they most likely do because there's one in almost any school, and NRC as well is a famous and well-known school so lack of crucial school facilities such as having a counselor is far from mind. But the problem is, having a counselor isn't going to change everything.

Let me give you an example, during school and middle school I got to see plenty of other students having mental illnesses, serious issues, anxiety and enormous traumas. But not all of them had their way to the counselor's office, dare to say most of them didn't even try to talk to anyone including the counselor. And that's why having a counselor isn't enough; there's no point in there being a counselor if the students themselve don't go to them.

Now let's talk about the boys' mental state itself. We all agree that not all of them are in a pleasant mental status, from the severe results of their past lifes and hard childhoods to their unhealthy personality and manners. Some of them are dangerously manipulative (ex: Jade, Rook), some can be quite heartless and sadistic at the time (ex: Azul, Riddle, Leona), some are known for openly sadistic, causing troubles and injuring the rest if the students (ex: Ruggie) and some are found to be in pain because of their unwanted past and childhood traumas last. (ex: Leona, Idia, Azul) and lots of more cases you can name.

The biggest problem with such severe cases is how they seem to be totally unaware of their unhealthy acts. They've got a villainous nature too in general, so even if they feel like there's something wrong with what they're doing they won't necessary go to a counselor or ask for help in general. This is something quite common in real life as well because most of those who're struggling with mental issues are either unaware of it or unwilling to let anyone help them with it.

But since it's twst and NOT the real world which we're talking about...we should keep this in mind thaf they weren't supposed to be good in the first place!

I mean- just think of the game's official quote: "Welcome to Villains world", they were presented as students who have souls of the villains from the very beginning what else shouldd we expect to get-? LOL. Incomplete characters, not totally pure souls and dirty deeds are a totally expected concept to be found in the game, so we can't really question their unhealthiness because...this is how they were supposed to be all this time! Unhealthy just like villains but with more plot this time.

Well let's not forget that technically, all of the students in NRC are partly evil, otherwise they would've been sorted in other schools like RSA (Kalim and Lilia are the exceptions here, Kalim's father's money enabled him to enter NRC and Lilia technically came to NRC for Malleus, not that he needed to learn anything in NRC though).

The main thing that is making these twisted villains interesting is how they are being presented as students going to a school just like a normal teenager, the ability to make the audience relate and feel like they've been in character's shoes before makes it way more enjoyable than a gave which just throws some handsome villains with far from imagination background and unbelievable stories.

Idia would be a perfect example for this point, his design is legitimately showing what most of the teenagers look like these days. From wearing hoodies all the time and spending most of their time online to lack of real life communicating and having a low self-esteem.

We aren't going to talk about Idia now but that's basically what is happening with him, you can hear many fans saying: "I like Idia! He's such a mood" or "Man I couldn't relate to Idia anymore... He's just me" and many other compliments that show how this ability to relate to Idia and understand what it feels like to be him has made him considerably popular!

Same goes for other characters, most of them are designed to have belivable backgrounds and stories therefore which makes it very easy to relate to them. Most of them had to go through a hard time back in childhood, and so did many of us humans. From being bullied to having family issues, twst is trying to attach fans by showing how the characters have gone through the same pain as them. They aren't trying to hide that dark and unhealthy side, they want us fans to see it and feel what the characters feel.

They are indeed twisted villains because they aren't just designed to be evil; the most important part of their design is their personality and character development, they used something more than hot appearances and charming designs to make people all over the world fall for twst, they wanted the fans to feel genuinely and mentally attached to the characters as well.

Imagine going through the same trauma as Azul: being bullied as a child. It's a very common thing to happen during one's childhood yet the damage would remain for years, so when characters like Azul are being focused on, the audience can feel much better to see how that unfairness and cruelty isn't being shallowed anymore. None of our twst characters boys are perfect, and that imperfection is the main purpose of this game!

They aren't going to tell lies and give us some picture-perfect villains and all, they're going to tell us the story of the evil souls who were once pure; just as people say: “No one is born evil.” Humans can relate to the pain way more than they can relate to thr happiness, and this is what makes Twst brilliant. They aren't scared to show us that imperfection and incompleteness and once again, remind us all that no body is perfect.

Twst has used irl triggers and traumas in its character design, they crested twisted villains whom you can relate to, understand, feel attached to and love!

[sokkagatekeeper]

hey, i love ur opinions and texts and stuff abt ATLA characters, it's just so interesting.

so, between Azula and Sokka, who do you think is the smartest and why? 👀

forcefully looking past the fact that intelligence is a relative concept (irl, in media not so much) skaksnakd sokka 100%. it is correct to assume that sokka is the smartest character in the entire show because this is actually in the text, and in fact i don’t think azula is in my top 3 smartest atla characters – yes i made a list.

you see, azula is very secure in her own shoes. she knows how to play this game because she’s a princess, and the attitude is crucial in the competition for affection and survival that has been her life. azula is a good liar because she’s creative, because she’s confident. and azula needs to have control of every situation she finds herself in, or else none of her creativity, cleverness, or confident facade can work properly, and she gets defensive and irrational and insecure, visible mostly during the beach. even as sokka has her pinned against a wall with a very pointy sword in his power on the day of black sun, she doesn’t waver once because she recognizes sokka is losing grip of his emotional stability, and because she has the information sokka wants. azula is, despite it all, undoubtedly in control of the situation. but whenever azula is presented with rejection, defiance, whatever else that can throw her off her balance (the boiling rock, the beach, sozin's comet) she falters. azula lacks an important amount of self-awareness, area in which sokka doesn’t exactly excell at but is still miles better at than azula, which is also fundamental pilars of intelligence.

furthermore, azula’s strategies are essentially ruthlessness (lying, manipulating, threatening) where sokka’s strategies are purely logical and practical, always looking for a way to turn things around to find the best possible solution. while azula maintains herself with her intelligence and her bending (see: privilege) through aggressive approaches, sokka maintains himself and other people with his skills of leadership alone, more inventive approaches. this is indicative of azula’s privilege and high status as royalty as well, where sokka is from a marginalized community, who had to fend for himself, his sister and his village and he had to manage the situation that way in order to survive. azula was essentially the golden child, where sokka grew up thinking he was disposable and that he had to work to prove his worth. obviously, azula lived under the threat of what would happen if she were to ever dare and not be perfect on every level, but one thing is preserving your place and another different thing is being always unable to reach that place at all. while suffering is not indicative of neither morality or intelligence, this difference between their upbringings visibly affected the way their respective minds work – see above. and i do believe a decent sense of morality (which sokka doesn’t excell at but is definitely going better than azula) is a fundamental part of intelligence.

sokka lacks a lot of the pride that azula cannot let go for the life of her. sokka is immediately willing to learn from suki after being proven wrong, not only demonstrating his humility but his adaptiveness, versalitiy, and open mind as well. azula’s pride limits her to appreciate other people’s skills but never be willing to learn from them, as she sees herself as superior and unbeatable, which is why, when she’s beaten by sokka and ty lee and katara, it breaks her. when sokka is beaten, he learns from it. probably lowers his self-esteem to an incredible degree, yes, but sokka learns. because he allows himself to accept help and guidance from other people who know better than him (suki), or people who might have more experience than him on the matter (zuko). being willing to learn ties directly with being smart.

and this is not to mention, sokka is pretty much the textual definition of genius. he is less traditionally dignified than azula at first sight, but one of the show’s core themes is the deconstruction of the concept of dignity (among other interesting concepts), and he is put in a much more familiar, less threatening and intimidating light than azula (bc azula is. a villain). looking at his actions only, sokka has;

spent three entire books being the leader of the gaang on his sense of responsibility, caution and reason alone; helped the invention of several devices relevant in the story; fabricated an invasion strategy that was pretty much perfect and would’ve worked and ended a hundred year war, had not king kuei opened his lousy bitch mouth, based on information he stole from an elitist spirt. there are also several implications of sokka being a mathematics and physics prodigy (that scene where he tells jet sticking a knife to a tree amplifies vibrations, when he had literally hadn’t seen trees ever in his life until like 2 months ago; where he killed combustion man without even seeing his exact position but rather calculating the distance the explosions were coming from, and the angle for the path his boomerang would have to follow in order to hit that point).

sokka is disperse, expressive, neurotic, makes self-aware jokes to cope with his mortality & the weight of his entire existence, and is, why deny it, quite goofy. qualities which are well known to be associated with highly intelligent people. these are mostly fun little stuff rather than “evidence” but it’s still relevant imo.

so in conclusion. azula is good, but her smartest moments are fundamentally manipulation and violence, often coming from a sense of pride and privilege. sokka is inherently smart, there’s no doubt of that, but his humility and his will are always actively working to expand said intelligence. the brain is like a muscle, as they say.

and here’s the most telling thing; azula is fooled, constantly, by ty lee. ty lee lies to her face in practically every conversation they have; ty lee puts on a mask of a naïve, blindly loyal follower and friend, laughs at azula’s bad jokes, cries to make her feel bad, betrays her the minute she turns against someone she doesn’t have to pretend around – mai. ty lee is definitely smarter than azula, she just doesn’t brag about it the way azula would (and does) because it would be the end of her. just saying, ty lee’s move at the boiling rock was not out of the blue (unlike mai’s, lol, adrenaline-high queen), and azula was simply never going to see that one coming, but well. maybe she should have!!!!