#because a) i make them for other people and thus have a reason to be accountable

[raviollies]

I had a lot of things to say but I've seen the same points re-iterated so I don't see the need to throw my hat into that ring BUT a point I haven't seen talked about that profoundly bugs me! Spoilers ahoy

The Varric reveal and how it's a symptom of the writings, in my opinion, greatest flaw.

The writing of Veilguard expects you to care about characters without giving the CHARACTER a reason to care. The game assumes you the player care, which is usually the case, so they just skip the necessary build up for it to work in character.

Varric and Rook have no introduction to each other. We start the game, launched into "they're friends". Rook cares about Varric but I don't know why. I didn't get to see them be friends. It's like i got launched into Inquisition at Skyhold, with my character already knowing these characters and having developed a relationship with them.

I love RP, you guys know this, so I engage with the RP elements to the best of my ability, making a character and trying to approach from different angles. I just didn't feel like I got that opportunity. Rook was already there, they already have a task, an end goal. They're already part of the greater plot without me. Other characters remark on their personality and deeds.

Other games in the series have done this but at least you got a little grace period to get to know them or shortcuts regarding establishing their relationship like them being a sibling ; and the game didn't hinge so much on them. DAO didn't hinge on Shani. DA2 didn't hinge on the lost sibling. They were aspects of the story but they are a small fragment of the plot as a hole. Varric ends up being a MAJOR cog in the story that our character grapples with and it rings hollow because I never saw them show why they care for one another.

If anyone should be mad it should be the inquisitor! Or Isabella! Or Dorian! They KNEW varric, we were THERE for that. We SAW that! But none acknowledge it. No one says anything about how this impacted them. Varric and Dorian have LETTERS back and forth. MAEVARIS IS HIS COUSIN.

Characters that SHOULD care don't. Characters that should care less, care a lot. It feels like the game assumes that the player loves Varric, and moves on. And it does this with a lot of Characters. You don't get to talk to the characters as much in this game, ask their opinion, get to know them, become friends. It's implied this all happened off screen. The characters are nice to you at the start and they're nice to you at the end. I barely saw any disapproval. Rook is one of 3 flavors of nice, and thus the characters are never challenged. I know people are quite critical of DAI but you could get to know the characters views - you could ask everyone on how they view the circles, the templars etc. I feel like I don't know this about Veilguard characters. I don't know where they stand on really anything, outside of being "good people". My Inquisitor didn't end up being friends with everyone but the game left room for that. Some companions did NOT like each other at all and the game accepted that, every game did - the conflict was PART of it. But in Veilguard, everyone is holding hands by the power of friendship.

The game just assumes you all care for one another without earning it, and it feels sad to me, as an RPer. After everything is done I can't even go talk to them and ask what they're going to do now. How they're faring. It's fade to black, and once again, the development is off screen and I am not part of it.

[bisclavret]

what SICKO wrote the last scenes between gwaine and merlin is what i want to know. because even lancelot's last episode with merlin - which had to have been intentionally gay-coded since it's obvious the man is grappling with his feelings for merlin morphing from platonic to explicitly romantic - is still subtext because he doesn't have the tools to healthily express his feelings so he goes for the biggest romantic gesture he can think of: sacrificing his life to save a loved one. the writers also make sure to root this gesture back to gwen by adding a scene where she's inadvertently asking him to make that sacrifice first, so although it's very obvious that it's more for merlin than for gwen that lancelot dies for, she is there to add some plausible deniability, thus keeping his sexuality within the realms of subtext.

i don't want to delve too deeply into arthur's last scenes with merlin as there is both so much to unpack about what they mean to each other and there is also somehow nothing left to say that hasn't been said before. my point is just that there's so much at stake that if the viewer doesn't want to deal with the romantic subtext between them they can hang onto the 38 other dynamics merlin and arthur have represented to each other that the writers spent 5 years plastering on top of the gay subtext. basically, while the romance feels textual emotionally-speaking, it isn't "canon".

i don't mean to say that any relationship is better than another (even though i obviously have a preference) but that in gwaine's final scenes with merlin there's just no subtext anymore. his becomes the most explicit expression of romantic love towards merlin, and therefore the most explicit acknowledgment of homosexual love and the existence of queer people on the show:

it starts out with merlin suggesting that gwaine saved a girl from the saxons and then looked after her because he has a more than platonic interest in her, and they show us that merlin is right - gwaine and the girl eira slept together - even as gwaine half-heartedly denies any interest (which, why even deny it? merlin saw them holding hands! unless the lie is part of the point). then in that very same scene and directly after this exchange, merlin needs rescuing from the saxons, calls after gwaine, and gwaine performs the exact same role for him that he performed for eira: he saves him from the saxons and looks after him (for as long as merlin lets him).

the parallel between merlin and eira with such quick cause and effect (it literally all happens within the same minute) is where the shift from subtext to text becomes undeniable. yes, there have been other moments on the show where a character's affections towards two different genders are beat-for-beat the same, but, again, there has always been plausible deniability. in this case the parallel is meant to be taken at face value: the core point of it is to show us how gwaine expresses his attraction.

then, the dialogue they chose to bookend this scene with takes it a few steps further by functioning as a textual love confession to merlin himself: the scene opens with gwaine thanking merlin for everything he did for eira, and merlin saying that there is no need to thank him as it was the least he could do. a minute later, after merlin thanks gwaine for protecting him from the saxons as both merlin and the show just concluded gwaine did for eira for romantic reasons (even as he denied it by outright lying), gwaine parrots what merlin said when gwaine thanked him: no need to thank me, merlin, it's the least i could do.

but this comes off as the opposite of dismissive: in fact, this echoing of merlin's words is meant to jolt both merlin and the audience. by saying this right after saving merlin from the saxons, gwaine has now intentionally pointed merlin's attention towards the explicitly romantic parallel between himself and eira. gwaine is directly implying he just did for merlin what merlin correctly deduced he did for a woman because he desired her sexually and romantically, and he is using merlin's own words to challenge him into seeing past the initial flimsy lie that there is nothing between them. and what's behind the lie, of course, is that gwaine has done all of this and more because he desires merlin sexually and romantically. the camera even lingers on merlin, allowing him and the viewer to absorb what just happened. that for as long as we have known gwaine, his motivations have always boiled down to "i want to be there for merlin". and now both the audience and merlin finally know for sure what was motivating him the entire time.

what's more, by using merlin's own dismissive words, gwaine also implicates merlin's penchant for repression and denial and never allowing himself to be given credit where it's due. this unfortunately never properly gets dismantled on the show, but this moment shows that gwaine knows merlin well enough to know that he goes above and beyond for people, and that merlin's reasons for this ring as false to gwaine's ears as gwaine's reasons for saving damsels do to merlin. it also bittersweetly implies that gwaine has accepted that these are the platonic, repressed terms on which he can have a relationship with merlin. but i think the way in which he explicitly points all of this out to merlin is meant to imply that he isn't entirely happy about having to accept that. or, to circle back to eira, that merlin seems to be cheering for him to enter a heterosexual relationship when gwaine would clearly rather be with him.

what's additionally interesting to me about this is that this is one of the only scenes on this show that touch on same gender attraction that isn't using magic as a metaphor - because merlin doesn't have magic at the moment, yes, but also because gwaine is the more active character in this sequence, and he's an adventure hero, so he simply fights the bad guy to protect the person he loves. there is no metaphor to wrap this in, so he just gets to explicitly state his bisexuality. in the next scene, the very last one he and merlin share, it all becomes about magic again, which is both representative of merlin's sexuality and the show's "plausible deniability" approach to gay-coding, and so neither gwaine or merlin are permitted to acknowledge it. also, and this is for another post altogether, but all things point to "gwaine knew". not least because he gets to come out as queer without the complications of the magic-as-gay-metaphor which in turn emboldens him to ask merlin for the truth as directly as the metaphor-suffocated narrative will allow it.

tldr gwaine textually and canonically expresses and then confesses his feelings to merlin in a shockingly well-written and layered scene which makes gwaine the most explicitly queer character on bbc merlin and it's entirely because he exists outside the magic-as-gay-metaphor plot while loving someone who embodies that entire metaphor and it's crazy to me that we don't talk about this more. once again i ask what SICKO wrote this and where were they for the entire rest of this fucking show

tldrtldr at least gwaine is bi. its like i always say. at least gwaine is bi. at the end of the day. gwaine is bi. dont cry ok? gwaine is bi. at the end of the day. gwaine is bi. when all else fails. gwaine is bi. we'll always have. gwaine is bi

[nekohime19]

Wukong study in LMK # PILOT

Let's gooo! I already did a study for Macaque, tbh I still have to post the study for S5 but I hadn't got the chance to edit it yet 😅.

Though now I wanna talk about Wukong! His character, his evolution, how we perceive him and how he's shown. I have seen some people complain about Wukong, about how he's a bad mentor, how he made the worst choices possible…and, well, I wanna go back on that.

Truly, the fact he's not a perfect mentor is what makes me like him.

So here we go, this is gonna be long 😌:

The pilot is our introduction to Wukong and it already tells a lot as it is.

The first minutes of LMK is about Wukong. DBK is going rampant in a nearby city and the Legendary Monkey King appears to stop him. Tang's voice narrates the whole encounter, which gives the scene an epic feel, but also makes both characters, DBK and Wukong, more flat. By that I mean that they feel more like characters from legends than people.

This feeling is reinforced by the fact that neither of them talk. During the whole fight sequence we hear grunts and groans but no exchange in-between them. In fact, the only voice that can be heard is Tang's. The silence of both DBK and Wukong make them feel like puppets, only characters of legends that Tang narrates.

Voices, logos in particular, is a human characteristic (logos is a Greek concept, more precisely it is the ability to speak being seen as the ability to reason, and thus speech being the characteristic of human beings. In literature and many other media stripping a character of their logos/voice is a way to strip them of their humanity. ). Stripping a character of their voice is a way to make them feel inhuman. Here, the fact that neither DBK nor Wukong speaks makes them feel like legends, being of paper more than flesh.

Our first shot of Wukong is this one :

He's presented as a shining beacon. The hero who comes from heaven and descends to save the mortals. The clouds part under his feet, the sun shines in his back and even though DBK appears infinitely larger, Wukong is the one with power, he's physically above DBK which gave his appearance a sense of power.

The whole shot basks in his colors (gold/yellow), even DBK is plunged in his shadow.

Afterward, throughout the fight, Wukong showcases his numerous powers (72 transformations /staff / clones). He feels unbeatable. Mighty. And end the fight by dropping a mountain on DBK.

Once the fight scene ends, our focus is brought to Tang, who closes a book, and MK. That in itself told us that the first appearance of Wukong is not truly Wukong himself but more his legend. In fact, we can even argue that the whole fight we just watched was the fruit of either Tang's or MK's imagination.

As such we're introduced to Wukong as MK sees him : an unbeatable hero, a shining beacon. A perfect being who protects those in need. Which is in fact quite clever, because MK is the MC, so it makes sense for us to be introduced to Wukong as MK sees him.

So what is the first real appearance of Wukong then?

Yes. That's him. That's our guy. The bird in the shadows. A pretty underwhelming appearance isn't it? He's not shining, he's not gleaming like the sun, he's not even a monkey. At this point, even if we saw Wukong's bird form during his fight with DBK, we're not even sure if it's really Wukong.

Wukong wasn't even following MK, he was already here, probably to keep watch on the Bull family. MK just happened to stumble here and Wukong took interest in him.

Wukong as a bird become some sort of comedic aspect. He watches the Bulls schemes with MK, even nips at MK's fingers to make him fall.

Afterward, Wukong follows MK closely, each of his appearances gives rhythm to the different scenes. He acts like a link in-between the different scenes.

They're searching for the Monkey and he's right here, under their noses, but none notices him. Probably, because none would believe Wukong is this measle butterfly perched on the railing. Why would the Great Monkey King follow them?

I think it's a great subversion of what we could have expected of the Monkey King. We expected someone great, someone perfect. At the end of the journey, Wukong is supposed to be enlightened, to be flawless. Yet he clearly isn't. And that's the whole point of Wukong in the pilot. He defies our expectations of him by being… imperfect.

Story-wise, I think Wukong is monitoring them. We can see that he watches both the Bulls and MK's team, he's silent, observant, clearly he isn't letting fate decide. He's not irresponsible enough to not observe the situation and let others deal with it. Yet he's intrigued by MK. He wants to see what the boy is capable of. What he is, perhaps. That's probably why he involved MK in the situation by nipping his fingers and making him fall right in the middle of DBK's resurrection.

When MK falls on FFM and enters the water-curtain cave, he sees visions of the pilgrims. He see a vision of Wukong, perfect, shining with a golden hue, and think it's the real Wukong, yet when he tries to touch him, the illusion fade away :

There is great symbolism here. MK chases after an illusion. A legend. An afterimage of Wukong that will never be the truth. Clearly, the show is already telling us to not trust our assumptions of Wukong, to not see him as a perfect hero, because he will not be that.

MK had an epic introduction right there. With imagery of the journey highlighted in gold. This introduction felt mighty, it felt heroic, worthy of the Monkey King. Yet it's not real. In contrast, the true Wukong is introduced to MK through a joke, through a comedic light.

Wukong tries to introduce himself but MK squashes him under his foot like a bug. Sorry, Wukong, you tried.

Afterward, Wukong pushes MK's feet away and goes through an epic sequence of transformations to finally properly introduce himself. The show is playing with our assumptions of Wukong, especially by alternating epic and comedic tones.

Wukong is first presented as epic through Tang's storytelling, then he's seen in a comedic light during DBK's resurrection because of his “bird shenanigans”. Then MK sees an epic version of Wukong, only to find out it's an illusion and stumble upon him through a joke.

When you finally think, perhaps the Monkey King is really a joke? Wukong still introduces himself in an epic fashion.

Clearly, Wukong isn't perfect, he's not the hero you (or MK) thought BUT he's still a hero nonetheless. That's why the show is playing with those two different tones (epic and comedic) to introduce Wukong.

The conversation that follows between MK and Wukong paints Wukong as a laid-back and somewhat lazy person, he's reclining on his cloud, eating peach-chips. He's not the wise master we expected to see. In fact, he's very elusive, seems like he doesn't even care.

His advice is admittedly not that great (even a smidge can make the difference) but ultimately it is what pushes MK forward, it is what gives him the confidence to step up and become the protagonist.

And again, like the show subverted Wukong character, the show is also subverting MK's quest.

MK thought he was here to give the staff to Wukong, but turns out Wukong had been following him this whole time, 🤡. That's because MK's real quest isn't finding Wukong, it's to become the protagonist. The MONKIE KID. In the end, MK needs to be established as the MC. Wukong can't defeat DBK, it isn't his role anymore, it's MK's. In the same fashion, MK isn't the Monkey King, he's the Monkie Kid.

As we can see in this shot. MK is the one forward, he is the protagonist. Wukong is behind, smaller, because it's not his story anymore, it's MK's. The whole pilot is about MK establishing himself and carrying Wukong's legacy.

In the end, once MK defeats DBK, we can see Wukong silently bowing to him.

This is a symbolic passing of his duty to MK. He's not the hero anymore, MK is. He inclines himself before his successor as a way to show he acknowledges him and that MK is taking up his torch. At the same time the mere fact that he's here shows that he's not letting the kid fend off alone. He was here if anything went awry.

So what does the pilot tell us about Wukong?

First, Wukong isn't perfect. He's not like his legend, and as MK needs to let go of this afterimage of Wukong we, as an audience, also needs to let go. We will follow MK through his adventures and as the plot progresses, gradually, we will see Wukong for who he is rather than what we thought he was.

Second, Wukong will not be the stereotypical wise master that we are used to in other media.

The figure of the wise master is often presented as someone that cannot be surpassed, as someone silent, serious with poise and grace. Someone that will make no mistakes, that will be perfect in their teachings. Someone that feels like a pillar. A mountain that the student needs to overcome to end their training.

An example of a common stereotypical wise master would be Master Wu of Ninjago.

In contrast, Wukong is the opposite of this ideal of a wise master. He's shown as lazy, gluttonous with generic advice that anyone could give. Wukong is shown as an antithesis of the stereotypical wise master, he is a deconstruction of this ideal.

It makes Wukong feel way more human.

In fact, I would argue that he is better than other stereotypical wise masters because contrary to them, Wukong learns from MK, he is growing alongside his student. His journey isn't over. I love this because often than not masters in other media rarely if ever learn from their students, it feels like they reached a point where they have nothing more to learn. But it's not true, you will always be able to learn new things from life. In fact, Wukong in his ability to learn from MK showcases much more humility than others masters that consider themselves at the zenith of their own learning.

So I reached the end of this analysis of the pilot. I'll do another post for Wukong in season 1!

If you disagree with me then no hate. This is only my interpretation of Wukong and his appearances. I try to be as clear and unbiased as possible but, you know, I still love Wukong very much so my view of him in LMK will be biased no matter what I try to do, 😅.

Anyway, glad you read this long post of mine. See you for the nest post on Wukong 😉. Btw if you liked reading this, I also made studies on Macaque (You'll find them under the tag Macaque study).

[zeroakun27]

Jimmy is an egotistical, delusional, and narcissistic person who wasn't capable to be a leader and a manipulative person as well. He r-word anya, literally make Curly not being able to do anything and literally the reason why Daisuke and Swansea died

Sunny is a child, he pushed Mari out of stress and fear, he suffered a lot due to the traumatic incident he had to witness plus the grief and guilty due to the consequences of his actions

Honestly, I am baffled as to how you think this two characters are the same, you probably need to seek a brain specialist and check your neurons, I'm sure God gave you a wrong patterns recognition. And hey maybe you can test your IQ in there and have some advice to get smarter.

Also, a friend of mine decided to come up with rebuttal

First of all, his murder of his sister was not an impulsive decision. The game doesn't indicate that Mari physically restrained him to stop him from running away. This means that instead of reacting like a realistic 12 yo child and running away to someplace safer - either his bedroom or the bathroom, which both were on the same floor they were having their argument on - Sunny consciously employed physical force.

Yes, but as we are both entitled to using non canon materials (the album captions are considered non-canon), I shall use mine:

This video: timestamp 0:35 Mari screams “Where do you think you’re going?”

Anyone with reasonable deductive skills can see what she means by this. The timeline was as follows:

Pre 0:35: Sunny attempts to get away. There would be no reason for him to pull his sister as he’s getting away, so there’s no contact, 0:35: Mari screams “Where do you think you’re going”, 0:37: Mari falls down the stairs.

Now in those 2 seconds, who is more likely to make first contact? The angry one or the one getting away.

Bingo.

Mari grabbed Sunny, closing the distance between them, and Sunny having a flight or fight response (normal for a human being, by the way) and shoving her off him, thus down the stairs.

Voila.

consistent pattern of being an ass.

Let me address each argument for you.

(Apparently) was aware of Aubrey's troubled situation at home, wasn't shown doing anything of note to help and/or support her

What can a ten to twelve year old do other than talk to their friend and make sure they’re okay? (Which Sunny did do a lot with Aubrey by the way, shown through the video montage of “Duet”).

Whined about having to help his friends build their treehouse

What twelve year old wouldn’t complain MENTALLY? It’s not being an ass, if he was, he would’ve outwardly said all those things. It’s just that mentally he doesn’t want to do it. But he does because he knows it's only fair to the others. That’s called respecting other people and compromising for them.

Threw a tantrum that resulted in the death of his sister because he couldn't watch cartoons for as long as he'd have liked

Once again, I am allowed to point at non canon as you have.

0:04: Sunny says “Gosh, you-”

0:05-0:014: Unintelligible

0:15: The violin crashes

Firstly, no one screams “Gosh, you-” without the other having not done anything.

Secondly: Do you really think Mari stayed silent for those 9 seconds of unintelligible noise?

Was throwing the violin down the stairs the best option? No. Do I think it was just caused because he didn’t get to watch cartoons? No. Mari obviously said something to provoke it.

Blamed Mari for the argument as if she forced him to practice even though he himself begged her to let him join her

Something tells me you don’t have younger siblings tbh. It’s very normal for kids to want something at first, but change their minds later after they realise the work that has to be put in. (E.g: Wanting to go to school when they’re younger but hating it as soon as they start) Also, you’re disregarding Sunny’s motive: He never wanted to do violin because he loved the violin. He just wanted to spend more time with Mari.

Also to address “ as if she forced him to practice “

You think a 15 year old whose parents booked a venue for their recital wouldn’t be pressured and in turn pressure their younger sibling into making it PERFECT? Just food for thought.

Chose to resolve his argument with Mari by violence even though he had the option to run away instead

Already addressed this :) 

Was relieved that he got away with accidentally killing his sister

For someone who has a brain and must scream, it sure seems otherwise. Do read what it says. “For a moment, you feel at peace. You hate yourself for feeling this way.” He was relieved, sure. But he hated himself for that. Because he didn’t want to feel relief.

Chose to lie to his friends by omission and let them believe they had somehow failed Mari due of the assumed nature of her death as a suicide, irreversibly scarring them

Chose to let Basil take the fall for blacking out Mari's photos in the photo album, which entailed Basil becoming the target of Aubrey's bullying and wore Basil's mental health down to near-psychosis by the time of the game's events*

Half of the game is just showing the consequences to Sunny doing that though. It's portrayed as a bad thing. It’s also realistic to those experiencing PTSD or shock. I don’t want to make this too long (it’s already 800 ish words) so just read it here https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-2035596

Walked out on Basil - his best friend - when the latter had a mental breakdown despite Basil begging him to stay

Considered leaving Basil to his death as a legitimate option, twice

Seems to have been content with thinking of doing nice things for Basil (e.g. watering Basil's plants in his dream world) as opposed to actually trying to support him in the real world

Walked out on Hero after seeing him crying over the piano

Again, just read up on the link I sent earlier. Specifically avoidance. It’s not morally correct but that doesn’t mean it’s in his control either.

Wasn't shown to feel any guilt or shame from having a picnic with the people he lied to near his dead sister's grave

I don’t know if you’ve played the game, but you like to bring up “Sunny and the player aren’t separate” so… Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe the reason Sunny doesn’t show any guilt in-game is because he’s discovering the truth as much as we, the player are? Just food for thought

Twisted the supportive words of the people he lied to to alleviate his own self-loathing over committing manslaughter

This is just a wrong interpretation entirely lmfao. The battle against OMORI isn’t a battle against self loathing. It’s a battle against the denial that kept him from telling the truth to begin with. Sunny doesn’t kill himself in the bad ending because he hates himself. He kills himself in the bad ending because he wants to hide the truth and knows he can’t do it for much longer. Why do you think he doesn’t end up killing himself in a majority of the hikikomori routes even though OMORI has taken over?

Told his friends the truth shortly before having to move town, thus avoiding the direct consequences of his confession and leaving Basil behind again to face them alone

Not exactly his choice as I’ve said earlier.

Is only concerned with how his friends' pain affects himself at the end of the day

Can’t say much about it (I’m a little stupid  and can’t be bothered to spend over an hour doing this) other than I wanna see an analysis of My Time next. Sure it's not made for the game, but it was chosen for a reason.

What Sunny did was the fault of an irrational mindset

What Sunny did was the fault of him being a child witnessing a traumatic incident being led by another child who witnessed the same incident and then the rest are just the effects of PTSD. A majority of the reason the incident took place the way it did can be explained by: Sunny’s in worse shock than Basil due to him having to process that he was the one who killed his sister, and Basil just wants to protect him. If anything, Basil's at fault.

”Lol I just got off the hook”

Lol I explained this already. You used the same point twice.

Sunny is forgivable because he was a child who was not in a good rational mindset and made an impulsive decision with much more dire consequences than anticipated

Jimmy is not forgivable because he was an adult who had to make several conscious decisions to do what he did and does nothing but repeat his horrible behaviour

Both games are about forgiveness but two completely different ends of that spectrum. Omori is about how forgiveness can be healing and help those recover, and mouthwashing is about how sometimes forgiveness does nothing but enable horrible people to continue their abusive behaviour

[here-there-were-dragons]

as a general rule, on average, if americans consistently complain about a food being conceptually weird, gross, and scary, then it probably tastes amazing. or at least inoffensive.

this is because in my experience americans for the most part (give or take a few exceptions by region) think eating literally anything other than beef, chicken, bread, eggs, peanut butter jelly sandwitches, ketchup, and disgusting cloyingly artificial brown sludge soda is insurmountably weird, gross, and scary.

[steelycunt]

ridi im sorry i need to rant and i think youll get it 😭 like not to be a bitch but this fandom kinda going off the rails and annoying the shit out of me https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRbYASpf/ everybody in the comments unironically loving it,,, i mean wtvr ship who you want but its kinda getting delusional like ppl are just operating on thin air and pretty fancasts atp and i do Not understand or emotionally connect with any of it. at least w wolfstar theres so much material and foundation to explore but what is all the rest of this?? just hot celebrity fancasts and crack. to be fair part of me respects taking a terfs canon material and making everybody gay but the way it seems to be so oversaturating fics and the fandom that characters dont even feel like their original selves .. atp its all just surface level OCs

hello! yes! i'll be honest talking about things like this always make me a little nervous, and i feel obligated to preface anything i say with a disclaimer that none of it really matters, nothing i say matters, and you should do what you like, because--who cares. i am not an authority on--anything, frankly. my opinion holds no more weight than the next guy's, and all i'm doing here is giving it, so. essentially what im saying is--people are perfectly entitled to disagree with me, but people are not entitled to be mean to me about it xx

having said that. it is my personal opinion that s x barty is one of the worst fucking things i have ever heard lol. who even is barty who is that guy. why would s be interested in him at all. i do not understand it it does not make sense to me. from where are we sourcing the character traits and personality that we are giving barty that would ever endear sirius to him, because it objectively cannot be canon.

overall i do not get the new interest in barty + evan + pandora (+ regulus, but we won't go there)...at all, other than guessing that people were bored with the marauders and wanted a new version of them (and new celebrities to fancast) while simultaneously changing next to nothing about them other than superimposing them onto the first slytherin side characters they could rustle up. i expect ive become a bit of a broken record in regards to my dislike of the popular meow-meow-ification + complete absolution of regulus as a character in order to make him a loveable oc (just as i think erasing all the negative traits that r/s have in order to make them more likeable is just as boring), and all of that applies to those other guys as well (with the slight difference that they are, somehow, even less interesting and significant than regulus in canon), so i won't get into that too much. but i think what you say about having no emotional connection to any of it is exactly right lol--it is a sort of shift? i guess? in the fandom that is simply of no interest to me. they are characters that i just have no emotional investment in and admittedly struggle a little to understand why other people do. i am emotionally invested in, like, five characters overall (and even out of those--there's only two i'm really here for innit xx) and i personally cannot extend that investment to a creepy little side character who is mentioned maybe twice in the entire series.

and that is okay! i do not need to understand it. i don't want to say it annoys me because honestly--i don't go there, its nothing to do with me. if i dont like it i just wont interact with it, and the fact that it doesn't interest me has no bearing on what other people are into or want to do, and i couldn't give less of a shit what people do with the canon material, which is largely garbage anyway. take the bits you want from it, play around with those and ignore the rest. in that respect we are all doing exactly the same thing. but yeah i think s x barty is genuinely awful lol. hate it. very terrible. he's already got a loser werewolf boyfriend and he loves him so so much. leave him alone.

[anthromimicry]

alright, but... it seems like i am in a mood for angst this morning because just imagine this: misao meeting someone that reminds her so much of ryu and having all of her childhood memories just rush back to her in one foul swoop despite the fact that she's tried really hard to bury them. because if misao allowed herself to think about them for a second, i have a feeling she would just completely breakdown because misao doesn't even have a picture of him or anything, so she forgot what he looks like and what his voice sounds like. so even if she saw him on the streets of gotham... misao wouldn't even recognize him because it's been so long.

and the fact that she has become like a ' human ' in that aspect somewhat enrages her because misao secretly HATES having to pretend like she is anything but who she is + like i believe i have talked about once but didn't get super deep into talking about, is that she may or may not distrust humans automatically upon meeting them. though this sense has lessened over the years, it is still slightly there due to her mother's death haunting her. and being forced to face her past like this where misao is not prepared for it mentally would be kind of devastating for her, NGL. (but y'all should totally give misao someone who reminds her of ryu anyhow, and i'm not saying that to be evil or anything. i'm just saying it because there has to be some way that she works through her issues eventually and with the way she is now... i don't think that misao would be willing to open up to someone else about them. so something has to act on her externally. )

[designernishiki]

bro kiryu is a terrible parent. he may be happiest when he's surrounded by the kids at the orphanage but what kind of genuine happiness has he given THEM? the dude provides them no stability and haruka is the one that actually looked after them the whole time while he runs off to fix up the tojo again and again. it's better that he stays away from them. even kiryu finally sees that. it's why he chose to do what he did at the end of 6. i hope he continues to leave them the hell alone.

park mirei is that you????

I really don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think he’s a bad parent and I don’t think he’s a perfectly good one either. I think some of the things that make him a “bad” parent are actually his fault, while other things haven’t been, and are instead more of an inevitable product of the shady world him and haruka both were born into.

TLDR: it’s literally factually incorrect to say he didn’t/barely raised his kids and instead just left haruka to do it (most of 2007-2011 he was fully present and solely devoted to raising them, no other job, no other intentions), and he absolutely has done a lot for them and their happiness. however, he’s made some bad choices as well and has his fair share of flaws as a parent. most importantly, his past does tend to find him in one way or another regardless of what he does, which is not something that’s easy to solve. taking himself out of the picture hurts the kids tremendously, while staying in the picture potentially endangers/hinders the kids. I can’t say what the “right” thing to do would be, because it’s not black and white. all I can say for sure is that he did have an important and positive impact on their childhoods, and they care about him just as much as he cares about them.

(more in depth version below)

the idea that he hasn’t done anything for his kids and didn’t actually raise them is something I wholeheartedly disagree with and is just factually untrue. before he starts getting threatened and manipulated by various groups/people to get him to leave, for several years (most of 2007-2011) he was a caring parent who devoted all of his time and effort to raising those kids and it shows from how much they love and miss him when he’s gone, and in the personal problems he helps each of them with whenever he can in y3. On top of love in general, he provides them with stability, a sense of family and home, and helps some of the more traumatized kids regain the ability to trust and overcome survivor’s guilt. he’s responsible for the years of those kids’ lives they would almost undoubtedly all consider the best of their childhoods. “what kind of happiness has he given them?” a whole damn lot, frankly.

kiryu never goes back to deal with shit in the tojo clan fully voluntarily. it’s basically always because something is threatening the orphanage and the kids’ wellbeing, or because there are people he cares about in the clan, which makes for a lot of potential issues but– considering he’s not heartless and can’t just turn off the bonds he has with certain people– can’t be avoided, considering the closest people he had to family were yakuza/yakuza-adjacent, and cutting all of them (that he has left) off completely isn’t as easy as you make it seem. when daigo– who’s like a son to him in his own right– gets shot and very nearly dies in y3, no shit he’s gonna be concerned. and he’s deeply conflicted at first on what to do (or not do) about it. it’s really really really not as black and white as him being a good person or a bad person for being dragged back into clan ordeals– much of the time it’s not his fault at all. by all accounts he feels guilty and horrible for his past endangering the kids, and it’s a HUGE recurring theme/conflict that contributes heavily to his distancing in y5, and further distancing in y6.

HOWEVER. he has absolutely made some iffy choices and I’d never say he’s a perfect parent. for one, I definitely think haruka was allowed to be more parentified than she should’ve been– he needed the extra help, considering one adult raising that many kids isn’t easy, but he should’ve gotten that help via employing another adult (I was hoping mikiyo from y3 would do this, but he doesn’t get mentioned after y3 for whatever reason sadly), not relying on her for more responsibility than a kid should have.

moreover, despite her parentification, there’s several times where he makes huge decisions for haruka (and the kids in general to some extent) without her input / against her wishes, and recklessly puts himself in grave danger despite having kids who rely on him to take into consideration. it absolutely baffled me at the beginning of y6 to see that there wasn’t any real adult put in kiryu’s place while he was in prison, and that it’d just been the older kids seemingly who acted as caretakers for the household. that was a horrible oversight and I think he should’ve known better– yeah, he didn’t have much time to find someone to fill the role, but he was in contact with haruka and he could’ve had her get help from one of kiryu’s friends to find someone. there were definitely options and I’m not gonna make any excuses there. he’s not infallible, no doubt.

Shit gets really complicated when it comes to him leaving the way he does a number of times. He does it in the hopes that it protects the kids from his past that keeps springing up and endangering their futures, but the issue with this is that BECAUSE he did, in fact, lovingly raise these kids for the most fundamental years of their lives and become their father figure, ripping himself out of their lives can’t be good for them– especially considering they’re orphans who have already had parents ripped from their lives and undoubtedly have abandonment issues as it is. this is terribly complicated and doesn’t have a black or white answer at all– leaving them has the huge emotional repercussions I just mentioned, and staying potentially endangers them and their futures. there is no easy way to slice it, and even the best parent on earth would be torn if put in that scenario.

personally I can’t help but hope he gets to reunite with his family, as I know they’d want that as much as he would; but it’s for the best at this point that they don’t have to fully rely on him and him alone. kiryu needs other adults to lean on in his life, and so do the kids. I think the kids are capable of this– of building new bonds and broader support systems– but kiryu has got a ways to go.

[muu-kun]

[seilon]

you know im realizing now. with the exception of a few resident psychiatrists, ive had like. no good experiences with mental health professionals

[crystalkleure]

>“What are your favourite animals” >*Lists off almost exclusively creatures that most people are afraid of or think are gross [or both], for the given “I am offended on their behalf, they are simply vibing” reason* “...And also dogs!”

One Of Those Things Is Not Like The Others, except it actually is because I was raised by my mother and my mother fucking hates [read: is afraid of] dogs, especially the big ones. When I was a kid I asked for a pet dog once and she got me two cats instead.

[awkward-teabag]

An advertising company that's faced or facing multiple anti-trust lawsuits and has lost multiples of them—including being fined collectively over €10 billion for violating EU laws, has been sabotaging its websites performances on alternative browsers to "encourage" people to use its browser instead, will collect and store your data even in incognito mode, partnered with a healthcare system to collect and store people's health records and promised it was safe and secure and wasn't shared or visible to anyone else but never notified patients of it or let them opt out of it.

An advertising company that has been pushing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which has ruined search engines because bots and large companies can devote the time and resources to adding and constantly adding/changing these invisible keywords, has removed or dramatically lessened the ability for people to be specific or granular in their searches, sells advertisement space so you can be a "sponsored" link on search pages that looks nearly identical to the actual search results.

An advertising company who has done nothing about malicious actors buying ad space in search results to get people to install malware or who hijack browsers to the same effect even though this has known (and reported) for years.

An advertising company that let slip they alter the search results in the background so they get more money out of it. They do not inform users about this.

An advertising company that created and is pushing for Manifest V3 that will not only limit or prevent you from blocking ads on Chrome but it reduces the ability for add-ons to protect your data or give you privacy... if the add-ons are even allowed on Chrome anymore. And MV3 will be the default on Chrome when it's rolled out.

An advertising company that is notorious for killing off projects that it gets bored of or doesn't make enough money (not unprofitable, just doesn't make as much money as they want... ignore they make hundreds of billions in revenue and could have absolutely kept most of these projects going infinitely)

An advertising that bought Youtube (which has its own host of issues and the algorithm tries to push people to right-wing content) and recently got in a slap fight with an ad-blocker because it tried to block Youtube on browsers that had an ad-blocker installed and tried to push people to buy Youtube Premium to get around this even though people with Premium still got warnings about using an ad-blocker. Oh and increased the price of Premium after doing this and having people sign up.

An advertising company that not only lets generative AI art be in its image search results but pushes those results higher thanks to SEO.

And so, so much more. Like how it's sold data to cops for racial profiling facial recognition or how it's helping Isreal to commit genocide by using (and training) its military AI.

You don't have to switch to Firefox but you should ditch Chrome and Chromium-based browsers and switch from Google to another search engine (personally I use DuckDuckGo). Google/Alphabet is a sketchy AF company that is infamous for collecting user data, falls foul of EU laws regularly, and has so many conflicts of interests but can get away with it by being a monopoly.

Though I don't recommend Brave. It has built-in crypto and was co-founded by a former Mozilla employee (who is CEO of Brave now) who chose to leave because he (and the company) faced internal and external backlash due to his donating to the Republican Party and being homophobic. He also believes in covid conspiracy theories, which you can find throughout his Twitter.

The most popular browsers in different countries in 2012 and 2022.

by @theworldmaps_

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[mirror-shards-broken]

🪴In times when everything feels overwhelming and your inner world is heavy, know that your strength is not defined by how you feel. Even if today feels dark, you’re still a person of immense value and worth. Take things one moment at a time, and remember that your existence has a quiet resilience. You are doing your beset, and something to be proud of🪴

im barely a person, but alright. thanks for the kind words, i guess

who are you, anyway? are you the same anon from the other emoji asks?

[fragmentedblade]

I hate that when I look up the "Kalpas" tag here there's me and then there's me again, but on another blog. Fake moustache me

[evocaitart]

Happy Ace Week 💜 Here's your regularly scheduled reminder that asexual people belong in the queer community because WE. ARE. QUEER!

If you like my lil ace bunnies, I have them as stickers in my shop!

Being Ace is Not a Choice Asexuality ≠ Celibacy! Many Aces TRY to feel attraction despite being unable. This can make them feel broken, wrong, and confused. It can take young Aces many years of suffering before they finally figure out that their sexuality just works differently from others. Being Ace is Not Just Low Libido Aces have a range of libidos. Many have a low libido and abstain from sex, but others have high libidos and enjoy sex for a number of reasons. Libido is your sex drive; the urge to partake in sexual activities. This urge is separate from attraction, which is WHO you feel sexual desire for. Aces are Not Heterosexual Heterosexuality = “attraction to the opposite sex”. Since Aces do not feel attraction to ANY gender or sex, they don’t fall under this definition. This point requires some nuance because many Ace sub-labels (such as Demisexual) CAN experience attraction in a limited or fluctuating capacity. However, the way that these labels experience sexuality still falls outside of what heterosexual society deems as “normal” attraction and can cause compatibility issues in relationships with non-Aces. That being said, some Aces still choose to identify with the Heterosexual label if it resonates with them. You can be both Heterosexual AND Ace, but being Ace is not the same as being Heterosexual! Discrimination/Struggle Happens Many people claim that Aces do not experience any discrimination and thus they don't belong in the queer community. This couldn't be further from the truth. Corrective assault, “it’s just a phase,” getting called mentally/physically ill, “you haven’t met the right person yet” are just a few examples. On top of the blatant discrimination listed above, Aces also deal with other struggles in our very sexual society, particularly when seeking romantic relationships. Aces who are sex-repulsed struggle to keep their partners satisfied in bed. Likewise, non-Ace partners often feel rejected and uncomfortable with the notion that Aces don't find them attractive. This disappointment from their partners can weigh heavily on Aces and make them feel broken/wrong.

Thank you for coming to my Ace talk hehehe. If you're Ace I hope you feel validated. If you're not, I hope you learned something!