#because people literally don't say nice things about or to me ever irl

[kokushibosbestie]

helloo!!

i wanted to tell you that i think you’re an amazing person no matter what other ppl may think! you’re rambling sessions always make my day and i smile every time i get a notification from you!<333

i-

im literally crying right now omg

this made me so happy

thank you so much dear

man now i have to go to math crying 😭

[whatdidtheydotomygirljinx]

the problem is that it's so hard to really analyze anything about arcane, and draw any conclusions about the story, because of the way it was written and conceived in the first place.

to the people who're like "yeah season 2 was bad, but season 1 was a MASTERPIECE in story writing and PERFECT in every way", that's just not true. the cracks were already there in season 1. there's multiple things, especially overarching ones, that just don't add up, and several ways that the story progresses that seem like odd choices. the thing was that, to me, the rest of it was all so good... the small details, the contained scenes were so well done, so detailed, so touching, that i really believed that maybe those cracks were just hiccups after all, and it's not a big deal, and maybe they'll even make a lot more sense and all get tied up with a nice little bow in season 2 (ha)

to me, at this point, it seems obvious that the way season 1 came into being was that these three idiots (who should never be allowed to write anything ever again) wrote a script, that was so terrible that riot had to bring in help to fix it for them (cause they were that incapable) and then someone got handed their slop and told "save this as much as you can, but keep the main points the same", and save it THEY DID! but the overarching plot is still the original one. which is why there's this dissonance all across it.

season 1 often seems like it's trying to tell two different stories at once. the example that comes easiest to me is jinx's transformation from powder to jinx post time skip. to the people i know irl who watched it, me included, the difference between these two is jarring, to the point that it just doesn't seem realistic that powder would change that much. this is what most people's reaction to her transformation was. like, sure, she changed... but jinx is almost a completely different person. and we can sit here and analyze all we want, and say yeah, but look, in ep2 min37, powder laughs when an enforcer is hurt, so that shows that she is indeed attracted to violence even at this age, but like... first of all, im at this point fully convinced that these details were put in specifically for that, to attenuate the valley that is between powder's character and jinx's, and I also honestly feel embarrassed that i even have to do all of this at all.

other notable examples are whatever is going on between jinx and silco in their relationship. like, yeah, he was actually a good father to her... but actually, there's something weird going on between them... but actually, no... he was better than vander, but actually he was worse than vander and was actually the cause of everything bad in jinx's life..... and on, and on, because the literal story itself never actually makes up its mind on what it wants the relationship between these two characters to be. same as it never makes up its mind on whether powder was a cute, innocent kid who was just manipulated by silco, or if powder was born like that and was just looking for an opportunity to release her inner jinx. same way as it never makes up its mind on whether vi is a devoted sister, who would do anything to get powder back, as she herself says, or if she actually thinks this new enforcer chick she just met is kinda cooler, as her actual actions would indicate. does silco adopt jinx because he sees himself in her, or does he intend to use her as a weapon and then later on grows to actually care about her? there comes a point where "this is a complex story" just becomes an excuse for "we were actually working with three different ideas at once and we never really decided on which one we were gonna do and we kinda just prayed it would all work out somehow"

the one thing that arcane season 2 has on season 1 is that it doesn't suffer from any of these weird identity issues. it's bad and simplistic but it's bad and simplistic in its entirety and it doesn't ever seem interested in being anything else. the story has no continuity or congruence issues, except of course for the ghost of season 1 that haunts it, and especially haunts the writers, who so far have displayed nothing but dismay for the story that actually made this show so acclaimed, and have done all they could to bury it as much as possible in season 2.

now, personally, im a big death of the author truther. even more so in cases like these, where we're dealing with teams of people. power struggles happen in studios, and in writing rooms, and at every level of production. and these three people that have taken credit don't seem like the most emotionally (or intellectually) mature individuals.

so, to solve all these issues, just know that when im discussing or analyzing arcane, im going off the interpretation of the events that serves the story the most, and that leads to the most meaningful narrative and the one that is most worth telling. all of this weird lee and overton slop that snuck in im gonna be completely ignoring.

[leejeann]

Pls tell me/us about your Cinderella Boy AU úwù

Oh hi Anon, I am SO GLAD YOU ASKED :D. I was literally working on it when I got this ask, very nice timing, friend

(i will, uh, try not to make this an excessive amount of paragraphs but bare with me, I'm a yapper).

So, tl;dr Cinderella Boy College AU babyyyy. Chase is a first year music theater major (he started a year late), and Buddy is a second year creative writing major.

(I don't actually remember if they're canonically the same age, but they are in this)

(also Deacon is here too, he's just over in med school but him and Chase hang out on weekends)

They meet through an Intro to Literature class that Buddy takes for his major and Chase regrets choosing as an elective credit. Eventually Chase has to accept that he Sucks So Bad at literary analysis and really doesn't want to fail a course in his first semester of college, so he reluctantly asks mr writing major to help him. Buddy agrees, with the trade off being that he's writing an anthology of short stories for a future capstone project and Chase has to read them and give feedback.

(Buddy says it's because he's aiming for a younger audience with some of the stories and if an idiot like Chase can understand them so can a kid. Secretly he just....doesn't have anyone else to ask and kind of just really wants someone else to read them so he saw the opportunity and took it. But you didn't hear that from me!).

They agree to those terms and off we go! Shenanigans and angst and rivals-to-lovers nonsense (my beloved) ensues!

Aaaand because i have little self control when I'm excited about an idea but no one irl who knows what the hell a cinderella boy is to talk about it with: a much longer explanation of the exposition is below the cut!

OKAY SO BASICALLY I had this funny idea the other day of a college AU where like the Intro to Lit class is an in-person/online hybrid, i.e., all the lectures and materials are posted online so people can enrolled in it as either an online or in-person class. Chase takes it in-person while Buddy couldn't fit the timeslot into his schedule and takes it online.

And like any basic college course, it has *drumroll* Online Discussion Posts! Objectively one of the most tedious assignments in any college class, and this class does 2-3 a week. This professor decided to try a Fun New thing this year, where all the posts and replies are anonymous to the students (he can still see them so he knows who did the assignment, obvs). Something, something, he wants to promote discussions between classmates instead of people just only ever replying to their friends or something. Chase wants to keep up his Branding™ and sign off his posts with his little tagline, but after the first post his professor says that "defeats the whole purpose" and "looks unprofessional." Chase signs off with a little star instead, which the professor reluctantly lets him do. (A few other students actually start doing it to with their own little symbols or emojis.)

Two weeks into classes and Chase is being DRIVEN INSANE by these discussion posts. No, no, not by the monotony of them. No, not by his lack of skill with literary analysis. Rather, there's one student in particular who just keeps replying to his discussion posts specifically and ALWAYS seems to have something to disagree with. And they're so pretentious about it. Chase knows it's always the same person because no one else in this mostly-just-an-elective-credit class is using words like "insufferable" and "colloquialism" and "alas" in a discussion post.

Something something, Chase does some sleuthing and figures out it must be one of the online students, which is annoying because he has no way to figure out who they are so he can tell them to lay off and chill the hell out. Until! Midterms roll around and some random new guy is just in the class for the test. Oh, it's just an online student who didn't want to deal with one of those stupid virtual proctor websites, and since he lives on campus anyway he asked if he could just take it in-person. Yeah, that's fair. But then the new guy says something (idk what yet) and the phrasing of it makes it click in Chase's head that Oh my god that HAS to be Buddy holy shit

(sidenote, in this story the name "Buddy" comes from Chase ranting to Deacon about the random anon student and sarcastically calling them Buddy as a joke. But then that nickname just sticks because when you're pissed off and ranting "Buddy" is so much faster to say that "that anonymous asshole from my intro to lit class" ya know? So like, save for Chase saying it in an angry reply to the anon student once or twice, he hasn't directly called Buddy, Buddy before until like he confronts him after midterms).

I haven't quite figured out the interim of how they go from "Oh my god that's the annoying anonymous dude" and Buddy not even realizing Chase is the Star-kid (.....ha) in those discussion posts–

((sidenote 2, electric boogaloo, the reason Buddy is so snarky on the discussion posts is because, naturally, he thinks literature is Very Important and that it's annoying how obvious it is that most of this class is just taking it as an elective so they aren't putting in any real effort to learning anything. The discussion posts are all literary analysis on short passages and his classmates do, like, the bare minimum for it. He doesn't just respond to Chase's posts in a snarky tone, but most of the students fully ignore his responses and do not improve and he decides they're a lost cause. Chase is also a lost cause, but sometimes Chase argues back and okay fine Buddy has to admit that's kind of entertaining. So Buddy always makes sure to respond to the one with the stupid little star at the bottom. As a treat))

–and to them being like, civil enough that Chase finally caves and asks Buddy to tutor him, but eventually they get there. And that's how we get to the rest of that tl;dr! Chase asks for help in class, Buddy agrees as long as Chase helps him with his creative writing projects, they start meeting up to work on classwork regularly and once a week or so Buddy brings a print-out of another short story for Chase to take with him after. And Chase does his best to return it with some amount of helpful annotations.

(I totally forgot until after I came up with that idea, but I actually kind of did that once in college. Except I wasn't a creative writing major, one of my good friends was. I was entering a short story in a competition once so I gave him a printed copy of it and he gave it back a few days later covered in annotations lol)

And I DO plan to include Buddy's short stories as their own things! I have a few ideas for them already, basically I'm going to write a few original short stories that I can insert as their own little in-between chapters whenever Buddy gives Chase a new one to read. They'd probably be posted at the same time as either the chapter before or chapter after it, depending on which chapter would make more sense to pair it with narratively.

I think the first will be some parody of Cinderella, because duh. But like less of a "Cinderella, but in a new setting" thing and more like from the pov of a totally different character, where the actual Cinderella plot is lowkey almost just in the background. Idk it seems fun and like something Creative-Writing-Major-Buddy would write. Or maybe I'm projecting because I just think it sounds fun to write. Or maybe both!

One specifically that's a minorly pivotal moment for them is actually just a short-story-ified version of a poem I wrote years ago, and the moment in the story is basically just Buddy felt it was an optimistic story, whereas Chase felt like it was really sad, and both are incredibly thrown off by the dissonance that realization creates.

Which is also kind of from personal experience actually! Small tangent, but that happened with the poem back when I first wrote it too. To me, it was a melancholy but overall optimistic poem about life. I shared it with some people and seemingly all of them thought it felt sad and almost hopeless. I was SO thrown off! Because I really felt like it was hopeful, not hopeless, but it felt like I was the only person who saw it like that. As silly as it sounds, that (plus a couple other personal reasons) made me struggle with writing anything for a long time because I was a little afraid of feeling so isolated by my own work again.

(In hindsight, I can see how it came across like that to them. It still remains one of my favorites that I've written though. I actually completely rewrote it to enter in a contest just a few months ago! The newer version is much better, and I think actually gets across the intended mood a lot more)

*ahem* So, uh, anyway! I amp all that up a bit in the story for the sake of ~drama~ of course, but that's where the general idea for that scene comes from. I've already written the scene actually! I just don't know how far into the story it'll happen yet.

I'm also still on the fence about how to include the keyple we know about in canon. I can't decide if I want to just make them like other students and/or friends who appear in the story, or if I just want to like really allude to them. Leave references in the stories Buddy writes or classwork they do or stuff like that, etc.

And I'm also-also on the fence about if I should give Buddy a fake name for sake of the plot. If I do, I'm definitely going to swap it for his real name once that's properly revealed. On one hand, being in a college setting it would make a lot more sense for Chase to find out his actual name early on, even if he still calls him Buddy to be annoying. But on the other hand, Buddy totally would refuse to tell Chase his name, also to be annoying, if doing that annoys Chase more than the nickname annoys him. But on a secret, third hand, it feels so weird to give Buddy a fake name lol. Like even if I wasn't a fast-passer I think it'd still feel weird.

Then again, depending on how slow I end up writing this, the free episodes might catch up to fast pass before I even need to worry about that and I can just use his actual name from the get-go.

Phew! That sure was fun to talk about! *scrolls back through this post* oh yikes, uh, well you asked for it anon! If you actually read this far down, thank you, bless, I warned you that I yap but I appreciate your fortitude very much lol

I have no idea when I'll start posting the fic bc I worry about like getting through a couple chapters, posting them immediately, then losing steam and just....dropping it or taking forever to update after. So I want to get at least a few chapters written before I start posting any, ya know? But I've been wanting to get back into creative writing for a LONG time so I'm really going to try to stick with it! Just, bare with me if it takes a while lol

[doberbutts]

about your TME/Imane Khelif post, i believe i can provide some answers (im not transfem myself but im very interested in transfeminism)

first of all, no oppressed/oppressor binary is going to be perfect. POC/white is a useful distinction, but last summer a white man was killed after being mistaken for being arab. a straight man may be harassed for hugging his male friend and being seen as gay, etc. TME/TMA are useful terms to describe the way transmisogyny operates in society, even though like all oppressions, things can occasionally get muddled IRL. it doesn't make those terms useless or incorrect. to go back to the harassed straight man example, that man would certainly be a VICTIM of homophobia, but that doesn't make him gay, or mean that he doesn't have any heterosexual privilege at all.

(you said imane khelif may be sent to jail IF she's ruled not to be enough of a woman. horrifying prospect of course, but that IF is doing a lot! a trans woman would not have that IF!)

just wanted to provide that perspective since you asked very genuinely and thoughtfully. have a nice day

I appreciate the good faith response!!! This is exactly the sort of discussion I was looking for.

I am mostly on board - I have discussed at length how these social categories are muddy at best and do not operate on strict lines, and that people in general are impossible to place into neatly sorted boxes. Similar to your first example, I reference frequently a past love of mine who was white but often mistaken for mixed asian (usually chinese/white) due to his monolids, facial structure, and facial hair pattern. Despite being a white guy, he had numerous encounters with racists that ended quite violently for him, and as a result was probably one of the most sensitive white guys I've ever dated regarding race.

Being mistaken for being chinese, while not actually being chinese himself, is not at all the same as actually being chinese. I certainly agree. However, I think it is wrong to say that sinophobia does not affect him or that he is exempt from sinophobia because he has the ability to say "hey wait a second I'm not chinese I'm white". Mostly because any time he tried to do that, it didn't work, and he still got beaten up anyway.

And I also don't think it means he has no white privilege at all- certainly, we experienced it as a couple in real time because while he could be mistaken as a man of color, I absolutely am one without question. And, furthermore, I'm visibly black, not just "of color", which makes people really double down on the racism. Case in point, any time I parked my car in the visitor spot next to his apartment door, the landlord would run out of their office to chase me away stating the spot was only for approved visitors. Even though she saw me entering and exiting his residence in her pursuit to make me move my car. The town he lived in is less than 2% black, and these were luxury apartments that did not have a single black person in the building he specifically lived in. He could live there, but I couldn't even visit without being harassed.

Similarly, as I said in my post, I can see the logic of stating that there is privilege there even though Khelif is in a difficult situation currently, because yes, she can provide a birth certificate and a blood test and a genital check and be cleared of all accusations. I just think that being forced to submit to embarrassing and invasive testing, as well as being forced to provide personal documents, and having the world weigh in on the judgement of your gender, is not really a good literal get-out-of-jail-free card. It is certainly a leg up that she has the ability to do so. I do not think it is right that she should have to- but then I don't see the problem with trans women competing alongside cis women. I think it's stupid that sports are divided by gender and not by weight/height/proficiency.

And I think that forcing specifically women of color who oddly enough seem to be the vast majority of these cases (esp black women and esp esp black intersex women who didn't even know they were intersex before but w/e) to prove that they're woman enough to be qualified as women is racial violence with interphobia and transphobia as the weapon. Intersectionality and all that.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hi. I heard you answer questions about sex ed and I can't ask anyone this irl since none of my friends talk about any sex that isn't super cishet and allo.

I'm kind of worried I'm asexual and of course I'm ok with other people doing whatever they want with their lives and not having sex whenever and however they want, but I really don't want to not have sex. Except that whenever I think about having sex with a person I'm instantly disinterested. like even fantasizing about myself having sex in a nonspecific disembodied way turns me off.

I worried for a while that it was because I was scared of my body (like a vagina-fear/dysphoria sort of thing, which was probably true) or just didn't have any sex drive, so to figure it out I started trying to masturbate when I was sixteen (my parents tracked my search history on my phone so I actually had to go to the library and find a sex ed book in the adult section and hide the cover with my jacket while I read it just to memorize the diagrams so I could figure out where the hell the clitoris was lmao) and I did like it and was capable of feeling good and orgasming and whatever. but even after I knew that it felt good and I do have a sex drive I'm still not interested in having sex with other people (I'm eighteen now for context, so its been a while). I can't think of one person I would ever even theoretically want to have sex with, including people I know, famous hot people, fictional characters, nothing. I don't want to be asexual but I feel like I have to be because I don't want to have sex with anyone. How can I be asexual if I don't want to be, or am I even asexual? what if I just have high standards, or I haven't met someone I really like yet? what if I am ace and I'm just being ace-phobic because I've internalized the cultural norms that 'sex equals humanity'? I keep having this mental loop where I think about possibly being asexual then I conclude that I'm definitely not asexual then I start thinking about it again. I know I'm supposed to define my own identity, but if I think I'm allo but all of my feelings are the types of feelings everyone says is ace, then what am I?

obviously you're not the mind-reading wizard rabbi of the internet so you can't divine my sexuality from an ask, but do you at least have any advice for figuring it out?

thanks for listening, sorry for the tmi

hi anon,

let's take a big deep breath and calm down a little, okay? it seems like you're overthinking yourself to bastard death and that's not going to help anything at all.

listen, man: the only thing that makes someone asexual is if they decide that's something they want to call themselves. like it's literally just a word to use or not use, and it sounds like you really don't want to use it. labels are meant to be helpful in letting people express something about themselves, so if a label doesn't spark joy, don't use it. simple as that. not wanting to call yourself asexual is no more phobic than me not calling myself a lesbian - I don't have a problem with lesbians, I just personally don't happen to be one.

it sounds like the main thing getting you down here is that you're 18 and like jacking off but haven't ever super wanted to have sex with someone, which is, like, oh man that's so normal. some people just don't have a very high sex drive as it pertains to other people, dude. you've likely only met an extremely small portion of the people you're going to meet in your entire life, and you're going to have feelings and relationships and experiences you can't even begin to imagine with all the people you're yet to meet.

in the meantime, let's channel all of the energy you're spending worrying about being asexual into something that will actually make your life cooler and more fun. might I recommend reading a nice book or perhaps doing some manner of art?

[chaifootsteps]

while it's nice to see Vivzie finally acknowledge Stella is worthy of pity 'in her own way' (something about the phrasing on that tweet rubs me the wrong way tbh, feels like they're implying her pain is like less important or valid or something? might just be me) it's kind of frustrating to see the end of the tweet say 'that doesn't absolve her of the pain she's caused', because like

I haven't seen many people making that argument, tbh?

like sure there are Stella stans who unironically say she was in the right to order a hit on him and it's fair retribution, but I don't think they're the majority

the majority of fans & former fans I've seen are just frustrated at how much of a caricature Stella is; as a portrait of an abuser she's incredibly poorly done and as an intended Hate Sink with no redeeming qualities she's frustrating because her backstory is just as tragic as Stolas', arguably more so because she has way less power & social mobility than him yet we're supposed to treat her like an irreedemable monster because the writers decided she was evil since birth.

I don't pity her because I like her or because I excuse anything she's said or done to Stolas. I pity her because I look at her backstory and can easily imagine how much of a nightmare her life is & how the fandom only ever seems to consider the 'arranged marriage' part of it and not the laundry list of other things that are awful about Stella's life. And I pity her because she reminds me of people IRL - mostly women - who are stuck in awful circumstances then are victimized twice by people who, if they even recognize the circumstances are bad, don't care about how that influences the person they currently are or why they behave in ways that seem inexplicable to us

for example the whole Stella likes throwing parties thing. we're obviously supposed to take it as a sign she's vapid and shallow, but what else is she supposed to do? at least if she throws parties misery can have company & her friends can visit. We see Stolas make fun of her for not knowing how to spell, but was she ever expected to be literate or allowed to have interests outside of raising a child she didn't want? the show just doesn't care to answer what society looks like for someone in her position. her interests only matter insofar as they provide a vector for the viewer to hate her some more

(going back to the recent discussions around MLP it's so noticeable they went out of their way to avoid 'stereotypical feminine interest = worthy of scorn' by having Rarity & Pinkie's interests be fashion and parties and the rest of the cast being chill about that even if they don't share that enthusiasm)

I know there are some proposed fix it scenarios in your inbox that often throw in 'and then Striker kills Stolas' as a closer but like even those don't sound like they approve of Stella or anything she does. far as I can tell they just hate Stolas and are tired of him because the show keeps insisting he's a perfect angel who never means to hurt anyone so that makes it OK. there's no chance of getting any catharsis seeing Blitzo or anyone else stand up to him, so we have to imagine it. It's even more galling considering Stella keeps most of her ire focused on Stolas whereas Stolas is exploiting and gaslighting a member of the lower classes. I mean at least Stella seems to have no delusions about who or what she is, she knows she's being awful and she revels in it. Stolas meanwhile is in total delusion about who he is and what he's done & the show is running out of chances to fix that

so like yeah, nothing Stella has suffered absolves her of her treatment of Stolas. But that exact logic applies to Stolas, too, yet the show wants us to show him more than pity - it expects us to like and empathize with him while he frees Blitzo from sexual slavery mainly because he feels entitled to love & affection that he's not getting and was never owed

That's what it boils down to, really. Stella's not allowed a free pass, while Stolas is allowed to hurt whoever he wants for any reason.

[tbhimnoteasyonmyself]

Who is White?

If it is not I, your friendly neighbourhood non-binary deranged literature major, once again to tell you about stuff that the voices™︎ have prompted me.

This time, let's talk about the elephant in the room, the odd one out: Mr. White, a.k.a the fandom's babyboy.

(me as Fluke in this GIF, walking in ready to dissect this bitch)

So, what do we factually know about this man?

From what we're directly told in the show:

He's Tee's boyfriend, at least, since 12th grade, meaning they have been together for about 3 years, maybe 4 (depending on when exactly we are in terms of time in the present and when exactly during 12th grade they started dating).

He's younger than the rest of them, according to Por and Top in episode 1.

He studied at a different school from the main gang AND from Phee (yes, despite the embroidery having a similar colour, the writings where the institution's name should be are nothing alike, thus, not from the same place)

He cares a lot about his appearance (he does skincare when Por is literally dying downstairs and he sees a rash on his body while under the effect of New's absynthe - idk if it's absynthe or not but my friends and I have been calling it that since we saw them drink the green drinks so it's absynthe for me and there's that).

He's generally a very respectful person (he always speaks formally and nicely to everyone, even when people are hostile to him, like Tee or Fluke).

His fear doesn't seem to paralyze him in high-pressure situations (he strikes people with a tripod twice to save himself and others when he thinks they're in danger).

Another source could be the Yearbook, which, now, we have to be a bit more skeptical about because, as seen in New's case, it's not 100% accurate. One can argue that it is accurate because the yearbook would have Tan's info, since that's who he's living as and no one knows any better than that, including the institutions and, sure, yeah, fair. But while we don't know that White is hiding anything from us as well, we can't be sure of it. So, take the following with a grain of salt:

(translated with Google Translate)

His legal name is Watcharin Siriphan

He was born on the 25th of February 2005 (which confirms what Por and Top say)

His blood type is A (which according to the Blood Type Personality Theory means he is shy, stubborn, a perfectionist, polite and hard-working, apparently. tbh this thing is super shifty, no source seems to agree on the meaning of each type and, of course, it's a pseudoscience and all, so... yeah. take it as you will)

He's studying Software Engineering

He likes cakes

He dislikes cockroaches

He plays games and programs in his free time

So... We don't know much. He's the most generic person ever. Like... I too, and half the world's population, like cake, dislike cockroaches and like to play games. It's not exactly very special. Which is exactly why he is so intriguing. After all, we had 5 whole episodes so far, which were just the backstory of the people we see together in the mansion in the present. We've seen their personalities, their qualities and flaws, what they did and what they didn't do. We've been given a reason as to why they're here. Not just in the more direct sense of "they agreed to come here for Jin's goodbye party" but of why exactly they needed to be put all together in these conditions for this story. All except White. White is just... Barely an afterthought. We're shown when he comes into this story for the group (when he becomes Tee's boyfriend), but we're not given a reason so far as to why the narrative wants him there.

Because, sure, IRL people sometimes end up in random places and things can be pretty meaningless but this is a work of fiction. One that, evidently, has been greatly focused on details (Non's framed apple picture and Phee eating an apple alone, for example, or the correlation between the group and the colour blue). So why would it just throw us a character that is, seemingly, irrelevant to the story?

And to this, there are 2 possibilities my friends: either White is a narrative tool to get to the audience or White is not who we think he is. So let's explore it, shall we?

White = Narrative Tool

Let's start by assuming, possibly the most likely outcome, that White is exactly just a guy who ended up there due to his connection to Tee. Why would this narrative need that character?

Glad you asked. Because he's the only person who's 100% innocent. If he's just some guy who, as we've seen, keeps being respectful and nice and trying to always do the right thing, then he's got nothing to do with the others who, in different degrees are all guilty of something. He's the odd one out.

Because, yes, this is not a show of villains (at least, not in which concerns the main characters). They're all morally grey. But they have some drop of black that makes them grey.

Por is arrogant and a liar and selfish.

Tee is aggressive and manipulative and a control freak.

Top is an overall asshole and a coward.

These 3 actively bully Non. Por steals his work. Tee and Top blame him for shit he didn't do which puts him in the situation where he owns Por and they spy on him. Tee manipulates him into mafia money laundry and threatens him.

Fluke is selfish and refuses to take action even when he knows it's the right thing to do.

Jin doesn't have the capability to realize that the peaceful passive way with which he normally carries himself with won't solve the issue. Plus he's overly emotional. And a bit selfish too.

They didn't help Non when it was their moral obligation to do so. And Jin records him being abused by their teacher and possibly posts it online (though that's still up for debate).

Phee is too stubborn and also overly emotional and even overly empathic.

New is obsessive and vengeful.

Phee never really helps Non because all the ways he offers Non help are the wrong ones. He almost tries to control him. And he fails. And then he tells him awful things and breaks up with him in a terribly vulnerable moment for Non. And even when he regrets it and tries to bring justice to him, he fucks Jin because he wanted to and tries to cover it up as if it was part of the plan. Sure, they were broken up, technically, but Phee himself seems to have had "take-backies" over that breaking up. So, in his mind, at least, it's fair to say he cheats on him, which is very hypocritical after how he reacts to Non being abused. And New... He tries to help sincerely because he feels guilty but he only makes things worse. Nothing is solved and their father curses them both before committing public suicide at their mom's funeral.

Non (which may be even more relevant if he's still alive) is overly independent and uncommunicative.

He doesn't tell Jin he has a boyfriend when it's clear Jin's trying to make a move on him, event though Non's not interested. He hides very important things from Phee. He commits fraud (understandably, but yeah). And yeah, he's justified in his rage and attack but... Does he ever think of how his actions affect other such as Jin, for example, who, in his eyes, is innocent? Not really.

So, amidst a sea of grey characters, White is, funnily enough: white. He's just good. He's done nothing wrong. And the narrative needs him because, when the others die, we'll feel (to different degrees, sure, but still, we will) that there's a reason. Even if we like the characters, those deaths will make sense. But what happens when an innocent man dies? What happens when you kill the man who wasn't even supposed to be there (he joined the trip at the last minute)?

"Oh but White won't die!", I hear you say. "The innocent people never die in slashers!! Only the people who did the killer wrong do!" And that's exactly where I have to disagree.

As @syrena-del-mar says in this post: "DFF is more than just a 90s slasher film imitation". It "sits at a novel intersection of genre: horror slasher on the one hand and BL on the other hand" as @brifrischu puts it here and, for that, it bends expectations and rules and subverts what are natural tropes and events of the slasher archetype. White dying is the sort of thing this narrative, and our inventive genius Sammon, would do. Because... Do you really think they're giving us grey characters instead of black ones because we're supposed not to question this revenge? Because we're supposed to be happy about this? No. Of course not. That would be dumb. If we're meant to 100% side with the killer, then why give us likeable characters as the targets? Because, and this is as much speculation as it is reading the room, we're not.

This story, I don't know how it will end, but regardless I'm pretty confident it's supposed to tell us something important about cycles of violence: that they're neverending until someone chooses peace instead. That aggression and bloodshed and revenge... They won't bring time back, they won't undo the mistakes we make, they won't restore that which is lost, they won't make the grief go away... That they won't make us feel better. More even: that they will only hurt more people, create more injustice and prompt more revenge. And, thus, perpetuate the cycle.

So what's White's role? Being the final drop into our collective cup of realization (and perhaps the characters' as well) that this revenge mission is pointless and won't solve anything. White's role is to die.

"Oh, but uncle Dang was also innocent! Is his death not enough??", I hear you ask. And well... Maybe, maybe not. I think, honestly, his death is too impersonal for us to feel too deeply about it. Like, sure, yes, it is the death of an innocent, but it's a distant innocent. It doesn't make our blood boil because we don't know shit about that man. But, for all we don't know of White's past, we've seen him cry, we've seen him scared, we've seen him fight for his life, we've seen him be a good boyfriend and a good friend. He might just be some dude but we like him. He's the fandom's babyboy, as I said. It is more impactful and it tells the story better.

But this is just a hypothesis. And it might not convince you. And that's fair. So, because I'm a persistent obnoxious fucker with a little too much free time, I'm bringing you a second theory. For this one, though... You might need a little tinfoil hat... Be prepared.

White ≠ Who He Says He Is

So, if you think just having a character be hollow and pure good in a show of very fleshed-out and grey characters is weird, even if he might be narratively relevant, then we can only assume there's something important to White's character we don't know about yet. (I'm adding this in retrospective because I forgot but this idea came to me partially from @yellingaboutkp and their great analysis of horns in the show that you can find here)

But what could that be? We've seemingly seen all the flashbacks we needed from everyone, White doesn't seem very relevant to anyone's storyline but Tee's but... We'd assume if there was something directly connected to Tee's actions and White that we needed to see, we would've. Admittedly, the next episode seems to be on its way to tell us what Tee knows about what happened to Non and Keng while they were captured by the mafia and he could be there but I think, honestly, that it goes deeper than that. And here's why: because there's a person who's even more of an odd one out then White: whoever Perth's character is.

Now, he would've been completely unsuspicious if it wasn't for one thing: Perth's presence in the promotion of this series. He's just... Always there, somehow? Like, his character has only really appeared last episode massaging Tee's uncle but he's constantly talking about this series. Plus, his name is very well credited. AND, the absolute cherry on top, his character appears in THIS poster:

Now, yeah, I understand Marketing and Publicity (it's part of my Master's, you don't have to explain it to me). So, I know this could very well just be a strategy to sell the series. After all, Perth did get a lot of attention after The Hidden Character, I know, I know. It's also a way to put his name out there for other future roles, kinda like a soft launch. Plus, this is the show that killed Us's character first when he was one of the most popular actors in the cast. HOWEVER, I'd argue that, considering the previously mentioned attention to detail, they would not have given one of their rising stars a role in this series if it wasn't important. Like... No other background character without lines (so far) was given an important actor to play it. So pardon me, but I don't buy it. Perth's character's gotta matter somehow. And, back to what I was saying, I think the next episode will be exactly where.

See, I made a poll here on the hellsite asking what y'all think happened to Non. It's this one. And it shows that, overwhelmingly, we all think Non is alive BECAUSE he was helped by the man himself:

Now, if we're assuming Perth's character's the one that's gonna help Non (and possibly Keng or maybe not, idk and it really doesn't matter for now), we've gotta assume he's a possible suspect for the murderer. And even more so under this optic that Non is alive. Who more than a person whose whole reality seemed to be the mafia and who might've escaped it would be okay with murdering people? Right? Or, on the contrary, that he took a liking to Non and is trying to prevent him from further digging himself a hole in life and is trying to save him from himself.

"Okay, Dante, but, even if that's true, where does White fit in all this?" Glad. You. Asked.

You see, I didn't watch The Hidden Character (and those who did apparently recommend it stays that way). I didn't know any of these people before except those who were in Kinnporsche. And you know what that led me to? Curiously enough, dear reader: confusing Fuaiz with Perth. So, yeah, you know where this is going... White and Perth's character might be related. Brothers, probably.

"All because you think they look alike?" Well, if you ignore the way I just explained how it would tie some very loose ends... Yeah, kinda. BUT, in my defence, it makes a lot of genetic sense.

See, no other characters in the show really look this much alike. Believe me, I tested it.

For this purpose, I tried many different sites but the one that seemed to give me the most reliable results was FaceShape. Most characters got no more than 10%, some even got 0% (e.g. New and Perth's Character). And you wanna know how much White and Perth's character got? Nearly 50%.

For comparison reasons, New and Non who are CANONICALLY brothers, got about 30%.

BUT, if this is not convincing enough, my sister and I (who share EXACTLY the same 2 parents) got lower than them.

(pls ignore the picture, I was trynna make it as accurate as possible so I took a front pic with a neutral expression. also, my sister is censored for privacy reasons)

Now... Will I claim this is irrefutable proof? No. Not at all, but think about it: if White and Perth are related that might maybe explain how Tee and White met. It might also explain that really weird scene in the pre-release trailer (albeit all scenes in that are rather odd) where White-

Yes, thank you, Obi-Wan. And Anakin Tee is looking up at him, as if White has more power than Tee does. Because then, it could probably mean that White knows something and is probably there to do something. What exactly? Idk, man. He could be there to ensure the group remains clueless/confused or that they remain where they need to be for things to work... Or he could be there to try and prevent stuff from happening much to the likeness of what I stated for Perth's character's case.

"Oh, but if he knows something, wouldn't he know what happened to Non? Why would he be curious to watch the recording??"

Well, not necessarily. We know Non is not communicative and that he doesn't typically share his problems with anyone (the exception being Keng, obviously, but then again, the exception confirms the rule). And sure, Keng might be more talkative but idk if he would say something if Non asked him not to. I have a feeling he probably wouldn't (since he has that weird thing JJ mentioned about how he "loves Non" and, therefore, even if he's an abuser, he doesn't perceive himself that way and wouldn't do something he actively thinks would hurt Non). So, while Perth's character would know what happened to Non while he was being held by Tee's uncle and even some things about why he is there, he probably wouldn't know the rest.

But then why would he date Tee? Well, this is a narrative so... Foils are something that can happen. Having White and his relationship with Tee be a parallel to that of Phee and Jin is not weird and, in fact, has happened in the very first episode when both couples arrive at the room where the singles are, in pairs. Therefore, it wouldn't be weird to think of White as someone who maybe also fell in love with the guy that was supposed to be a means to an end or, alternatively, and perhaps more interestingly, have White NOT be in love with him and actually succeed, unlike Phee. Thus, drawing the comparison that, while Tee and White are in a relationship, White didn't fall in love and, inversely, while Phee and Jin aren't in a relationship, Phee did fall in love.

And this would mean that all we've seen of White's fear might, in fact, be an act to throw suspicion off of him. Or even more justified because he knows exactly what's lurking in the woods... After all, why would he suddenly join Jin's goodbye party if he's not a friend of Jin's? What reason better than to tag along your boyfriend's getaway with his friends if not to protect him from the terrible consequences of his actions?

But I get it. It's an extremely convoluted theory and, in all honesty, maybe makes the show more dull and boring if it's true because... Why would they repeat this "secret brother" twist? Or the dating with second intentions trope? It could be a narrative parallel, yes, but I can also definitely see how people could point that out as uncreative or lazy writing.

Either way: these thoughts were circling around my head and, before the next episode confirms or destroys them, I wanted to get them out into the world for y'all to, maybe, hopefully, join in on the hype for it, as it's less than 24h 'till it airs. Hope in that I was successful, at the very least.

Anyway... As usual feel free to (politely) argue with me, tell me I'm wrong, tell me I missed this and that, add to it, etc... Because if there's one thing I currently love more than DFF itself, it's definitely the fandom and I want us to make the most of it!!

I'll see y'all tomorrow when we're freaking out about episode 10!!!

All the love! 💜💜💜

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if i told my friend to, essentially, count their blessings?

sorry for possibly bad english

CONTEXT: me (19 they/them) and my online friend (18 they/them). years ago we bonded over not having friends IRL. they were being bullied and i have some mental issues that make social things difficult (social anxiety, low social battery, tendency to isolate)

then things changed. i got therapy and started talking to some classmates. my friend now has an entire IRL friend group they're very close to.

but this past year was a nightmare for me. i'm not in school anymore and my mental health hit a new low. i can't stay in touch with people, everything is exhausting, i'm back to zero. i'm still in therapy but i'm seriously struggling.

silver lining: talking to people online is a little easier. i don't have online friends aside from this person. but i'm very friendly in videogames (i jump around, spam a little, TBH i'm annoying but it works) and i'm active online and open about my interests, some are crazy popular. basically i have small exchanges with people here and there, very brief and or casual. it looks like nothing but where i'm at RN it means the world to me.

PROBLEM: my friend. every. single. time. they see a mutual commenting on my post, or i tell them i had a nice interaction in a videogame, they say "wow, you're a magnet, everyone always talks to you, nobody ever talks to me, haha, i don't know how you do it since no one even looks at me". seriously, EVERY TIME.

they've been doing this for years. it didn't bother me as much before but things are different now. they have a wonderful IRL friend group, a girlfriend, many online friends they're close to. they literally DO befriend people the same way i do, i don't understand what they're envious of. meanwhile this is all i have and they're fully aware of my situation.

BTW it's okay to feel jealousy and envy, i'm a little envious too, but it's how you act on it that can be rude or insensitive. i keep it to myself because i know my issues aren't their fault. also over the years i reassured them when they acted this way and a few times i introduced them to some of these people i meet. apparently it didn't change anything.

i want to tell them to start thinking about how many friends they have and to stop complaining. kindly. i probably sound irritated because i am. but if i say this i don't want to be mean to them, i'll try to be respectful. i just don't know if i'm in the right to even be annoyed

[limi-strology]

Astro observations II

Decided to make a part 2, didn't expect the first one to get more than, like, 50 notes 😅

Based on just my personal experience, might not be true for everyone! ᵔᴗᵔ

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ Contrary to the stereotypes, I don't think I've ever met a two faced Gemini. They honestly seem pretty cool people, they have so many friends and they just know how to communicate, you know? Their relationship with their partner looks really wholesome to outsiders too (but could be just me viewing it this way, lol). If anything, I think they just stand out more, which makes it a bit more difficult to approach them. 🤷‍♀️

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ Gemini sun girls also have something aesthetic about them, like my cousin has a nice academia aesthetic going on in her life and a classmate from uni has this high-end fashion sense, she looks really pretty everytime (For some reason, when I think of Geminis, I'm envisioning luxury parties with champagne and brands like YSL and Louis Vuitton, that's the vibe I get) ✨

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ People with Sagittarius in their big three (sun, moon, rising) are some of the most outgoing people I know. They have so many connections and, once their schedule allows it, they start planning coffee dates, hangouts with their friends, clubbing etc. A friend of mine can literally NOT stay at home the entire day, he just HAS to go out or meet up with people for at least 2-3 hours. 🏙️

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ To the fellas with Moon opposition Neptune; How do you guys deal with moments in life that don't live up to your expectations? You know, when your imagination goes wild and has a very idealistic scenario of a certain situation, only for it to happen in a much different way and lowkey dissapoints you? Also, do you have dreams that kind of warn you or prepare you for something that will take place in the future? Because I feel like we kind of build our own world and the universe has to remind us that life isn't always perfect, lol 💭

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ My dear Aquarians, why the pessimism? Rather than overthinking everything and imagining the worst scenarios possible, how about you try focusing more on positive things? Even if it's just something small each time, it helps you view your daily life in a better light :)

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ Speaking of Aquas, I've noticed that most of you guys also don't really like being alone for too long. Sure, you want to have your me time (it's fine, we all do) but you also can't stand not having company around. Like, you'll randomly decide to stay in and spend some time alone but then you'll get upset and start calling your friends and family. A friend of mine cannot stand being alone for too long, even if we spend the whole day together, he hates being home on his own, to the point where he sometimes straight up takes the bus back to his hometown. It's wonderful that you enjoy spending so much time with others (I could never, lolll) but try picking up a hobby when you don't have the chance to be around people as much. It'll kind of distract you from loneliness and give you the chance to have some quality time with yourself 🧩

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Thank you for reading, hope you have a wonderful day 💙

Edit: Bonus Observations

So a lot of you guys commented that Aquarius actually prefers solitude and could easily pass time all by themselves, so I looked into the charts of the social Aquas I know irl and see what it is that makes them so outgoing and talkative;

(I didn't include houses because I haven't gotten to confirm their birth times)

• My friend has Saturn in Gemini, which can make people talkative in any situation (I also have this placement and, although I see myself as an introverted homebody, I am surprisingly pretty chatty and enjoy going out with people that make me happy). Truly, he always gives something to talk about with everyone he knows, sometimes he'll start a conversation with another friend of his while I'm standing there not knowing what to say or do in the meantime, like 🧍‍♀️?

• He also has Mars in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Leo; energetic, lively and outgoing, thrives when surrounded by people. He almost never gets tired of hanging out with people, my low social battery could never 😅

• Other than her sun, my mom also has Aquarius in her Mercury, which makes her friendly and likeable, plus she enjoys conversing with people.

• Another thing about my mom, her placements are a bit contradictory; She has Sun in Aquarius, Moon in Virgo, and Uranus and Pluto in Libra - These indicate shyness, independence and introversion. Truly, she prefers doing things on her own most of the time and doesn't open up to just anyone. She also used to be very shy around my age (probably because of Virgo moon?). However, she also has Jupiter and Neptune in Sagittarius, which make her more adventurous, outgoing, charming and humorous. So that would probably explain this whole 'outgoing yet independent yet still can't be lonely' vibe she gives me.

Hope this explains a bit better why I had this image of Aquas at first, thanks for sharing your thoughts in the comments!

[justladders]

A Thing About Asks

Just wanted to talk about something that's been happening to me a lot more as of late and figured it needed to be its own post.

I get your all's asks. I see them and get an idea for something to say back. Since this is an art blog, a lot of the time the ask is something art related, which means drawing something to answer them.

I have a lot to do irl, outside of the internet, outside of this site. When I get on Tumblr, I want to look at/laugh with/share art and whatnot. This is basically the one place I go for that. When I'm free at home, I get to spend some time of that time drawing for myself, for projects, and even for answering asks.

I like getting asks. I like when people have something they're curious about, want to share, or want an opinion on, and it's nice to know there are people that are comfortable with bringing some of those questions/ideas to me. And yet, asks are not my #1 priority. I have things I already want to make. It's why I do any art at all. I have jokes, designs, concepts, and stories that I want to put down and be able to share. Replying to asks that bring something new to the table is fun too, and sometimes that's what I feel like doing when I get my free time.

I have some very old asks that I still haven't gotten to. It's not even that I don't want to answer them, but I find motivation to create certain and specific things to be extremely fickle. I'll answer asks out of order: some very old, some literally as soon as I get them. I don't try to pick and choose, I just draw whatever whenever I have the drive to.

But.

Spamming the inbox doesn't make me answer faster. In fact, it makes me want to not answer at all, because I don't condone or want to reward that kind of behavior.

An ask is not a free pass to *demand* art. I should make a point that I don't think of a lot of asks I get as being like this. I understand that the thing about being an art blog means lots of questions for/about/of characters that I draw, and I like that. It's fun to create interactions and that kind of thing. I don't think everyone that has an ask about potentially drawing something is "trying to get free art," there are just some people that will repeatedly hound as if they are owed something. (It's sometimes hard to tell if an ask even sent -I know, I use this site too- so I don't consider it badgering if you're like, "I can't actually tell if that worked so sorry if this is a repeat.")

Asks are not a contract. And certainly not a timed one. In relation to the last point, I and other artists are not "obligated" to get to asks "on time." Receiving an ask doesn't mean the artist has to drop everything to go answer it, use up their free time, etc. If they want to respond, they will. You might not even know them. You might just be a complete stranger to them. You might not know what their day or schedule looks like. They don't have to set aside whatever they're doing to answer.

This isn't because I'm mad, it just feels like this doesn't ever get addressed and needed to be.

[brokentoys]

wanted to say that uh ... when i state that eddie abuses drugs, i don't mean it's a social thing. eddie is an addict, it's not something he does occasionally. eddie is always high on something. if anyone talks to him? he's high. there is RARELY ever a moment when he's not. the only times he's not is when he's in arkham (or in reformed verse) when eddie wakes up, even if he plans on going back to sleep, the first thing he does is get high. like he is literally DEPENDENT on it. it's not something he can "turn off" or "pause" for a moment. and honestly? if i did do that, it would just feel disrespectful. i know many people who struggle with addiction irl. in fact, the majority of drug abusers are mentally ill and/or traumatized, and they use it as a way of coping. that's also why this issue is so important to me, and why i went with the decision to depict ed this way.

a lot of the drug issues in america are ALSO mental health issues -- which mental health is a major focus on ed's characterization. one of the biggest reasons why i love eddie is that he's very fascinating to psychoanalyze.

there's a reason why it's called a dependency, eddie is dependent on drugs mentally AND physically -- if he stops cold turkey, he could die from it. so again... it's very important to his characterization. that's why i bring it up a lot, because when he's constantly abusing, then it's hard not to bring it up!

are these dark topics? perhaps. but like... that's another point. i intentionally write eddie as a tragedy. many bat.man/DC series in general tend to be dark and depressing. and whilst he does get his happy ending tho (probz) it's also something he has to work for. therefore, these problems are very important for him. and... this blog will definitely explore it, and it'll be brought up frequently.

WHY am i bringing this up? just 'cos this year is ending and i've been reflecting... i've written eddie for 4 years now. hell, if i count a server i had with former friends, i've written him for nearly 5 years now. in that time, i have had ... people get mad at me for the way i write him. in that server i mentioned, i've had friends get mad at me because of his attitude -- they said he's too mean and he's hurt their feelings and made them very tense. (even tho... he was only ever rude to *their* muse, never ooc) i've had ppl who were disappointed by ed's behavior / mental illness symptoms. and i've had quite a few ppl follow me who list many of ed's history in their trigger list. (esp abuse / drugs) when ... that's gonna be a thing that frequently pops up on this blog, and sometimes it WILL slip into threads because it's just who eddie is. his history and vices they make up WHO. HE. IS. it would be like if i played a muse that owns a floral shop and i have to avoid mentioning the floral shop, y'know???

which i don't mind ppl who do not like my take, or do not like the content i write about. everyone has their taste! that's one of the reasons why i rarely ever follow first, 'cos i'm highly aware of the content on my blog. so like, anyone who follows me -- i just kinda expect them to know what they're getting into. that ed's a heavily flawed person, that he can indeed be CRUEL to others. and he has a whoooole lotta baggage. (again, there's a reason he goes to a mental hospital instead of prison! only those who are very, VERY unwell gets that sentence. it's a very rare one to get!) eddie is a heavy character, and i just don't wanna make him palatable is all. 'cos that feels like i'd be doing his character injustice.

hell... even NOW i feel like i write him far too nice. like hoo boy, back in the day? especially in that Discord Server? he was a reeeeeall prick! it was funny! a part of me hopes i'm not writing him "kinder" just because i'm scared to write him like that again, and that... maybe i just write him kinder because it was a natural progression. i'll have to do more reflecting.

[pokemon-my-beloved]

the differences between teams flare, skull, yell, and star (and why only some of them work)

post under the cut because there is. a lot to say

so we all know that the villains in pokemon peaked with team plasma right (this is a matter of opinion but that's beyond the point)

and after team plasma, we have team flare. and team flare is. different.

they were the first evil ceo, unless you count cyrus, which i don't because cyrus (in my mind) was more about nihilism than corporate greed or anything

and lysandre is too, kinda? he's interesting enough, but literally everyone else in the team is boring as shit, especially compared to every team that came before them

so in kalos, we've got a villain team that doesn't really know what they've signed up for aside from the leader (probably it's been a hot minute. the admins might know), which makes sense, but the grunts and admins aren't entertaining at all. they're built up as a threat and exactly one of them is. it doesn't work

(this (imo) applies to most of gen 6's story but that's besides the point)

and then in alola, we've got team skull! this was the first generation i paid attention to the buildup for, and if i remember correctly, before release they were built up as the villain team, but not a threatening one. and in the game, that follows. no one really sees them as a threat on their own, cause they aren't.

but we've also got the aether foundation! and they were built up as mysterious but benevolent pre-release and in-game (didn't necessarily succeed but they tried well enough), and this was the first "twist villain" that pokemon did, and it was new and fresh and worked

and team skull isn't a threat. but they are an annoyance, and that's exactly what's needed during the storming of aether paradise. by allying team skull with the aether foundation, it gives both of them more of what they need most (seeming like a threat for team skull and character for aether foundation)

bonus points for aether foundation working well with the buildup because while almost everyone there is corrupt, we've still got wicke, who is genuinely benevolent and provides some nice contrast

the combination (as well as the fact that all of these dynamics were new) really sells the whole thing for me. it works

then we get to team yell :/

team yell was (pre-release and a little bit in-game) built up as villains and they Aren't. at all

and then at the same time, they expect us to believe that macro cosmos is totally fine and benevolent and nothing is wrong with anything they do? what the fuck

the part where you work with team yell to storm macro cosmos is fun and cool i guess, but that isn't enough to save either of them

team yell isn't a villain team, it's just an extension of piers being an overprotective brother and should have always been treated like that (amplified even more by the fact that marnie tells them off multiple times)

and macro cosmos doesn't work at all either because they expected us to be totally blindsided and then didn't even have the decency to have a single character who was morally good or benevolent like wicke!

at least aether foundation was built up as mysterious but benevolent, macro cosmos was just like "yeah we're a power company and good guys our chairman has the most rancid vibes you've ever seen but that means nothing" and then later it's like "oOoOoH wE'rE aCtUaLlY eViL aReN't YoU sUrPrIsEd????" like no!!!!! i'm not!!!!!!

and at this point the corrupt ceo bullshit and incompetent team bullshit is wearing SO thin, no one likes it or cares at ALL anymore

it's just like, go back to the mafia or whatever! i do not care about this! if i wanted to be mad at a ceo i've got enough irl to choose from!

which brings us finally to team star! they were built up as a villain team pre-release like the others, and we're all just like yeah okay whatever we know they're not a threat and probably fine people and we all know geeta is going to be the actual villain you aren't clever gamefreak

but then! we get to the game! and they aren't treated like villains!

they're treated like victims of circumstance who have gone too far and need to be stopped for their own good and it works

it works incredibly well, compounded by the fact that the actual villain was one no one was expecting

i have. many thoughts about the subversions of expectations that the professors pulled. but that's beyond the point-ish

but team star is not treated as a villain. at all. the closest we get is penny recruiting us to take them down, but that's more "they're a problem" than "they're a danger" and it works

tldr no pokemon villain has ever surpassed team plasma and gamefreak needs to join a union and stop making all their "twist" villains ceos thank you and goodnight

[radmalenia]

if you love sucking up to a nazi so much why don't you book yourself a first class one way trip to hogwarts, i heard terfs get to ride free in the furnace because they're so full of hot air and sure love going off the rails with their trainwreck takes

Dear, you are literally delusional. You have no room to say a single word about people like me being "full of hot air". Lmao!

One, you're deluded about her being a Nazi (I'm assuming you mean JK Rowling here.) I don't know where the fuck you got this idea, but it is so bullshit you may as well also start believing the earth is flat.

Two, you're deluded that people are "sucking up to her" - when actually it's that people respect and love what she has to say and what she does, and therefore genuinely like her and support her.

Three, you're deluded about "terfs" being treated horribly in a world where Hogwarts existed.

~ "Terfs" are kind, strong, intelligent, normal women; who stand up for their rights and for all women, and who have ideological disagreements and criticisms of transgender beliefs. That's...not exactly an evil character. That's fairly neutral as far as people go; and it makes for a good character, in fact.

~ Also, Harry Potter characters are often known to have short patience for the sort of nonsensical bullshit that trans ideologists would tell them about gender identity... Judging off what we're told of them; most if not all would brush that shit off with a laugh. They'd look at you like you have two heads. And would therefore be rather sympathetic to women like us who are challenging your beliefs.

~ This would particularly be true once they learn about things like you putting males in women's prisons, bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, even lesbian dating apps...by letting them just claim to be women. The average person IRL doesn't support that shit here in the real world - why would they in this one?? Harry Potter is about humans, therefore human sexual dimorphism is also real there; and so the characters understand sex and women's needs for female only spaces - (I could even pull stuff out of the books to show that if I really wanted to spend extra time on this, but it's not needed.)

Four, you're deluded that the Hogwarts Express could ever "go off the rails" - it's a magical train and known for perfect punctuality!

Overall you desperately need to work on your insults. They're all over the place, full of holes and bullshit, show your ignorance; and basically are incredibly weak and lame.

Seriously, I could eat alphabet soup and then shit out something more coherent and more stinging than whatever the fuck that flop of an ask was. That ask was a trainwreck; my dear delusional anon. You failed miserably and made a fool of yourself, and you literally were projecting when you spoke of "trainwrecks". 😂 So, nice try. It didn't work. Try again perhaps, if you have the guts for it...

[momentomori24]

Long-ass fandom rant because I need to scream into the void to find a reason to live let's gooooo

[For context I wrote most of this last friday which I thought was good to mention so the timeline makes a bit more sense. I really held off on this one XD Welp, let's start this trainwreck.]

Ok, I know I have other long posts I should be paying attention to (*cough* Keiji's shady shenanigans rant *cough*) among other probably more important things, but quickly wanna get this off my chest because it's kinda started to bug me and add even more concerns about the yttd fandom than I already have. This is specifically going to be about soushin-- yeah, yeah, I know-- but also bleed into something more... broad. Or broader. Idk, I'm a Tumblr user not a grammar teacher.

While browsing through Twitter I've been noticing a little spike in popularity for yttd with more fans and soushin shippers emerging as well. Which is cool, the game deserves all the praise and popularity it can get. And as someone whose been here for years, I'm glad that the fandom is slowly and steadily grown more accepting of soushin compared to the attitude around it way back when. There's been some genuinely really cool stuff that really does the ship justice from a lot of talented artist and writers that I absolutely love (will link some later), but something I've also been seeing a lot of from fans is what I can only describe as a "sanitisation resurgence" (but not really. kinda). A week or two ago on Twitter I stumbled across some soushin discourse where some people were sharing the sentiment that "if soushin end up being related and/or have a big age gap the ship is ruined". That they can only be two years apart max or else Nankidai has "fumbled them".

And the only response to that I had is "what". Like, how is that a deal breaker to you lot? How did you even get into the ship without accepting that those things could very likely end up being canon? How are you here and not ready to ship them no matter what's revealed about them after everything we've learned about them? Midori and Shin possibly being related was always on the table, and Midori potentially having already been an adult when Shin was in high school was always a very real possibility ever since we learned that he was never actually a student at his school. This is literally what soushin shippers got harassed by antis for years ago. Soushin is "problematic", and that's why people who shipped them where treated so badly in the fandom or just excluded all together. I can't count how many timed I've come across a "soushin shippers dni" or "soushiners are freaks and I hope you all have a bad day" or soushin fanfics/art with "I DON'T ACTUALLY SHIP IT BTW" and "not a ship" and "actual soushin shippers dni" attached to it. I can't recall how many times I had to explain myself with the "I ship but I don't condone it irl" or explain why I shipped them to not be labelled as a freak as if you need an excuse to ship anything fictional to begin with. I still remember soushin artist @uououoon and how they ended up deleting their Twitter account years ago because of the harassment and slanderous comments they were receiving for ships the fandom deemed problematic. When a person was saying their goodbyes to them on reddit and made some goodbye art (which is now deleted), some assholes in the comments were calling them weirdos and pedophiles for how they explored fiction and "glorified abuse" (which are the usual comments to uououoon's art posted on reddit unfortunately). I only caught wind of this one because back when they were still active in the fandom they were my favourite soushin artist and I went through their stuff almost every day and was tipped off when I randomly couldn't find their account anymore. They were such a nice and incredibly talented person too so the fact they essentially got bullied by a flock of stupid western fans seriously irritates me thinking about it again. This is why we cannot have nice things.

Soushin is "problematic". It's toxic and subtly abusive and important to the characters in question, but that didn't stop people from going after people who wanted to explore a dark, canon relationship (romantic, platonic or otherwise). How the actual hell did we go from "soushin has very toxic and problematic elements and you shouldn't be shipping it, you fucking freaks" to "you can ship it but don't make it actually problematic, you fucking freaks" like what is happening right now???? The worst part is that this is coming from other soushin shippers. The fact that there's actually soushiners with "proshippers dni" or "soushin is not for proship" genuinely makes me want to bite someone. Like, you horrible summer child-- not only are you demonstrating that you don't even know what "proship" actually means, but you're also spitting in the face of the people in our community that have CARRIED this ship for us for years. Why throw them under the bus to be one of the “good ones” in the eyes of antis when they hate us all anyway?

This brings us back to the sanitisation point: I feel like soushin is slowly being "sanitised" to fit the sensitive palette of antis by trying to make them as "morally acceptable" as possible. It's a worry I’ve had for a long time that once the fandom grows more accepting of the ship we'll be seeing more people basically scrubbing soushin of everything that made, well, soushin, to justify enjoying it. I've seen a bit of it already with a few people trying to say it's "not abusive" or just erase Shin's very obvious trauma by Midori all together for quite some time. Guess it's starting to happen on a bigger scale sooner rather than later. Maybe. Personally I don't think soushin having a big age gap or being related would ruin the ship. It just adds another layer of fucked up to their already fucked up relationship (I already hc Midori to be significantly older anyway so maybe I'm just biased). It doesn't really matter. I came here for toxic yaoi. I want nuclear waste level toxicity, not nuclear waste level toxicity presented in the most conventional and moral way possible. What would the point even be? It’s like packaging poison in a grape juice box. Like, it might be harmless to look at and more justifiable to think of as delicious, but it’s still poison. You making it look all cute and innocent isn’t going to change that. It's kinda funny and by that I mean not really that people will talk about wanting more "toxic yaoi" but when the yaoi is actually toxic and messy and horrific they will cry about it being "bad" or "ruined". You don't actually want dark dynamics, you want dark dynamics stripped of everything that makes them uncomfortable and dark so it's digestible to your tastes that don't even align with said dynamics in the first place. The worst part of this whole "soushin isn't proship so it's fine" bullshit is that it relies on trying to make the ship more "morally acceptable" or "legal" than other ships. Dawg, we are talking about abuse. You shouldn't be minimising that to say "well it's not [insert other terrible thing] so it's fine!!" That's not the "gotcha" you think it is. It’s one of the reasons why antis being into soushin made me feel weird cuz like you can’t ship it and then turn around to insult someone else, man (I’ve seen so many soushin defenders bash other “proships” to justify theirs like what are you doing--).

Realistically, the simplest and smartest thing to do when I see someone mischaracterise or butcher my faves is to either block or ignore and pretend to not care so I don't act on my sixth sense telling me to off them and myself. Realistically, this shouldn't be a big deal or anything that important, but this attitude is usually weaponized to harm and harass people who don't conform to their purity crisis over fiction. I'm in the unfortunate position of being not only a Your Turn to Die fandom dweller, but a Hazbin Hotel and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley one too. I'm used to being labelled a rapist and incest apologist irl who's delusional and deserves to be harassed and insulted by virtue of the media or ships I like (probably not a good thing). But people who are more active in these fandoms than me have it much worse as they get this shit directly waaaay more often while I mostly get called these things indirectly, which is what motivated me more to make this post.

So a couple days ago someone made some art of Monika from ddlc, Nikole (don't know the game sorry) and Ashley from Tcoaal. A lot of people on Twitter, unsurprisingly, bashed it for including Ashley to the point where some felt the need to clarify that they like her as a character but her actions (for some reason I do not understand like Monika has also done some seriously evil shit why are you not applying that logic to her too?). What struck me the most is that a yttd fan-- a self proclaimed "Midori enthusiast"-- ALSO quoted it to bash having Ashley in it. A freaking Midori fan. I told them to mind their business and start separating fiction and reality and to stop being a hypocrite, and thus ensued the most hilarious and stupidest convo I've had in a while:

You can literally count the seconds it takes for these guys to start throwing predator accusations and slurs at people. So "not exploring fiction correctly" makes me weird, but harming or putting real people on blast for nothing is free game, apparently. They're not the worst, both in this instance and in general, but it just stuck with me. Which is impressive, cuz I normally don't have much emotions to spare aside from general mild irritation for things like this. Maybe it's the Sonic feet.

But it ties into my issue. Midori's an absolute piece of garbage, yet some people will convince themselves that his actions are in some way justifiable to justify their hatred of something else (that is a lot less severe in this case) rather than love and let love. Tcoaal is not an "incest game" and if you describe it like that unironically you are not ready to be on the internet. No, it doesn't condone or glorify incest-- it literally does the opposite. If you need the characters to look into the camera and say "what we're doing is wrong and immoral" before doing something bad, I think you're the problem at that point. For the same reason you liking Midori (probably) doesn't mean you support human experimentation and torture, someone liking Tcoaal doesn't mean they support incest and someone shipping soushin doesn't mean they support abuse. These things are dark and shouldn't be condoned irl, but this is fiction. We can do whatever the hell we want. Being into darker themes and media doesn't have to reflect your real world views, but the inability to grasp that sentiment leads people to make their interests as moral and sanitised as possible and, feeling morally superior, will go after people who don't do that. This person deadass said that "incest is not morally grey and absolutely unjustifiable" (didn't even say that it wasn't btw) as if their blorbo hasn't committed so many atrocities for kicks that I personally find more unjustifiable. That line implies that they think that everything else Ashley has done and everything Midori has done can be justified because it wasn't incest specifically, which I find is a WILD thing to insinuate XD But it really does encapsulate the hoops antis will jump through to defend their likes while attacking yours despite the fact that it's literally the exact same as theirs. Rule of thumb: if someone accuses you of condoning something immoral because you like it in fiction, apply that logic to them, look at what they like and if their wet little meow meow is the Joker, Eren, Killua, Makima, Midori or whatever other morally bankrupt character you can come up with, take that as a confession and run. Cuz half the time these guys are actually nuts. While quote tweeting someone to shit on their art isn't the worst thing, considering how twitter has treated tcoaal artists the fact that they'd potentially open them up to harassment pissed me off, which is probably evident from my tone.

[Hi hi, this is me from the present right now cuz a more recent development came up so I’m using it as an example here too.]

While most of the things listed here have all been happening online, this attitude can come up in the real world as well.

As OP states, a bunch of hellaverse cosplayers were targetted at a french convention by haters of the show trying to ruin their cosplay. This is already completely unacceptable but the thing I can’t for the life of me get over is torching their costume while they’re still wearing it. Literally attempting to set someone on fire. All over a fucking show. It’s baffling how people can justify actions like this because they think your taste in fiction is so disgusting it’s Ok for them to hurt you. Not just online, but outside as well. It’s not the first time a hellaverse cosplayer has been harassed (last time it was a Valentino cosplayer but then again Val fans get shit from all sides all the time), and while I’m pretty sure these will remain as isolated cases it’s still scary to think about. What’s even more scary to think about how people think that their opinion on hazbin hotel has any relevance to the situation. So many of the comments in that post are just “I hate Hazbin Hotel, but—” or “I hate the fandom, but--” or “I hate Vivzie, but—” and I’m literally here ready to start pouncing like SHUT UP. No buts. That is not in any way important here. You not liking the show or the creator should not be important to the situation of cosplayers being actively harmed. You don’t have to signal your allegiances before showing basic human empathy, goddamnit. And what’s even worse is that some people have just turned this into a “b-but the hazbin fandom!!” issue, which is insulting. For example:

The “Hazbin fans do blackface and disrespect black people daily” is a reference to ONE Alastor cosplayer that nobody had defended. Not even fans. At least no one I can find. Yet they are using this one bad apple to generalise the whole fandom as "bad" and down play the amount of bullshit the hatedom does to fans on a regular. It kinda makes me feel sick that someone would look at a situation like this and spin this into a “fandom thing” rather than focusing on the victims. That they don’t deserve to be taken as seriously just because of the fandom their in. Some lunatic in the comments was literally completely minimising this whole thing saying “some red paint (fake blood capsules) isn’t nearly as bad as lynching and what black people have gone through in America” before calling anyone who called out that that’s completely irrelevant racist for liking Hazbin Hotel like are you kidding me. My homies in Christ, someone almost got lit on fire can everyone please stay on the goddamn topic. This is one of the rare moments where I was kinda proud of twitter as the majority of the comments and quotes where calling out their bullshit, but the amount of likes and some of the comments are still disappointing.

So what points am I trying to make here? This was very spontaneous and rushed so apologies if it feels messy cuz it very much is messy. But my main points boil down to this: Purification, sanitation and the “fiction equals reality” and "your fictional tastes reflect on you morality irl" arguments need to die. They just have to. While petting Shin on a daily basis gives me enough serotonin to find the will to live, the only true solace I will find is when people start being normal. People shouldn’t be getting harassed or labelled as freaks for fiction you don’t like both online and real life. People are not less worthy of basic human decency and empathy solely based on their fictional interests. People should be able to explore fiction however the hell they want without worrying about there being made a call out post on them somewhere. I search Tcoaal on twitter and there’ll always be a bunch of posts with over 10k likes calling all fans annoying weirdos or say it’s an “incest game” even tho it literally isn’t. I will try looking for some Valangel art on tumblr and see some loser use the tag to basically shit on everyone who ships it and lying about the treatment these shippers get while defending Charlastor or just shit on the ship in general. I just exist on the twitter side of the HH fandom chilling with other Val fans and literally every single one of them has either received death/rape threats or told to kill themselves, got ratio’d by a bunch of haters, had a call out post saying not to follow dedicated to them, had their art reposted and Val scribbled out, repeatedly accused of ““romantising a rapist””, or all of the fucking above. Valentino’s VA gets asked if he’s actually like the character he plays in real life or a fan being “relieved that he didn’t abuse them like Valentino” when they met (kudos to Joel for being chill about it btw I would be fuming this fandom does not deserve this man). I type in a certain controversial yttd ship to search and most of the latest posts are just people being rude, saying that if Nankidai makes them canon they’ll drop the game, calling the man himself a freak, calling other shippers freaks, shitting on soushin as well and then having soushiners defend their ship while also shitting on said controversial ship. It genuinely feels like fanbases are circuses and we are the clowns 💀

I could list other examples people being weirdos but I can't do that without breaking the momentum of this post even more than I already have. I guess what I wanted to vent about is how these attitudes regarding fiction and the way people police how others engage with it and how people think of you based on what you like can go from just annoying to downright dangerous more often than you’d think. That belief that you are morally superior to someone else based on the fact that you ship or like things the “legal” and “pure” and “healthy” way (which is never actually the case btw) can lead to you being really disrespectful or a complete asshole and not feeling bad about it at all, which does more harm than good. Which is why I thought it was important to bring up more extreme cases to empathise how this obsessive gatekeeping of fiction can and does hurt real people, who should be more important to you than fictional characters.

All of this is very likely going to sound very aggressive in tone and I want to quickly clarify that this is not meant to be an attack towards anyone in particular. I'm just tired and recalling all this stuff is making my mood sink like a stone lmao. Who knows, maybe I'm just overexaggerating and things won't get worse when the game gets more popular. This is just what I've been witnessing both in and out of my side of the moon. The amount of yttd fans I've seen act like this are a lot tho. No fandom is perfect obviously, and this one is the farthest from it, but with new people coming in and this weird attitude and need to sanitise not only towards soushin, but other "problematic" ships and media as well growing more prominent (mostly on Twitter and Tiktok) my biggest worry is that the hostility in this fandom will just... increase? Roulettefeel made pretty good posts about it-- my favourites being this one, also this one and this one's pretty short and sweet, summarising most of my soushin points a lot better and shorter than my trainwreck of a post so I recommend checking them out. If you like soushin, go check them out. If you don't like soushin, go check them out anyway. They make stuff outside of soushin too. They're pretty cool.

[I also want to add that the whole sanitisation thing in the yttd fandom is nothing new. It’s been a thing for longer than I have been here. I’ve just been seeing it again with soushin, which is was what made me want to do this in the first place. There’s another dynamic the fandom obviously does this for, but uttering it would not only get me flamed but straight up burned at the stake of bad takes so I’m saving that for a rainy day.]

Aaaaannd, I'm done, I think. I didn't have a good conclusion for this in mind. Idk, just be nice? You don't have to like "proships" (or what the fandom has defined as proship cuz that's not the actual definition), but that's what the block buttons for. Don't like, don't read, I say. Fandoms are for everyone and as long as what the person is doing is harmless, let them feel safe being themselves without having to worry about someone coming after them. Real life cops already suck. Let's not bring them into our collective escapism. And something you personally don't like ending up canon doesn't mean the game or ship is "ruined". That doesn't just go for soushin. That goes for other things too. To tie up loose ends, soushin having an age gap or being related has always been on the table and fits with other themes in the narrative. That does not count as "bad" if it makes sense. Soushin is not "Ok to ship" because it's "not an illegal ship" (whatever tf that means) and it's not "bad to ship" because it's "romanticising abuse". It's fine to ship because it's fictional. You don't need a moral justification to ship anything. That goes for all ships. That's why NOTPs exist. And "proship" doesn't and has never meant "shipping problematic pairings". It's a stance on shipping. It means being pro people being allowed to ship whatever they want. That includes being cool with problematic pairings, but is not limited to those. It means not being a fandom cop. Please stop saying otherwise, I cannot keep living this way--

Soooouuu, to end off on a more positive note and finally put this whole thing to bed I'll link some of my fav newer soushin accounts for anyone who's interested:

Hyo (orewagahai on ao3 check that out too): They are an amazing, amazing writer. If you're into dark, abusive co-dependent, complicated soushin with beautiful characterisation I would highly recommend. They just posted another soushin drabble on twitter and it's great.

jinn: They've been putting out banger after banger ever since getting into the game. Their art is absolutely stunning and they upload frequently, so go check 'em out if you can! It's actual medicine for the soul, I promise. They also draw for dead plate, so if you're into that go ahead too.

angel: Also cool. They're soushin art is hilarious and cute. As much of a sucker as I am for toxic, abusive sludge, they give thses two idiots a silliness that I enjoy. Also if you like trans!Shin content they're pretty good.

欣武 (my dumbass forgot to add them the first time sorry): They are INCREDIBLE. Extremely incredible artist. Their art is so, so freaking good. Not checking them out is absolutely your loss, ngl.

Be nice to them. If I catch anyone attempting to annoy them I'm coming after you and your entire family. Let's be better and not chase new comers off this time :3 Thanks for listening to my incoherent venting. This is mostly for me to feel a bit better, but anyone is free to read. If anyone's got an opinion or observation, feel free to offer it. I need coffee. Coffee sounds good.

[artistsfuneral]

Ugh i always get ADS about Reading apps and it's always some terrible a/b/o or werewolf thing. I Like those tropes but what can be read in that ad reads like it's written by a 12 year old. Also i don't get a/b/o with hetero ships when it's still the woman who is the Omega. What's even the point? If they want some soulbonds just use the trope soulmates...

But it also makes me want to read more good a/b/o witcher stories 😅 that's why i came to rant to you, because you wanted to hear a/b/o related stuff:

One Story that often pops Up ist a story about an Omega (a woman 🙄) who has been rejected by 6 Previews Alphas and doesn't want another rejection from a soulbond but gets summoned by the Alpha King and get's there with the mindset that she will get rejected again.

I don't want that Reading app and the way it's written makes my skin scrawl, but one par of me dies to know why she was rejected before 😅 also i think there actually could be an intetesting Story with that Prämisse 🤔

Thinking about it i could imagine Geralt being the omega in this scenario hmmmmm ... Well

Thoughts?

Oh gods those ads!!!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂 They are soooo terrible (I would have totally fallen for those age 12-14)

I think a/b/o with hetero ships can be nice too, but usually it's just used for porn then - go into heat, be animalistic, special better-than-human instincts, and there's the whole mate thing. the idea that there's someone out there who's the one for you and (most of the time) is someone that can and will protect and care for you. also huge dicks and knotting 😂😂😂

.

Yes, with a/b/o you always have to distinguish between porn and world building. Both is good, of course. But for me it really depends on the mood and there's never enough a/b/o world building heavy fics out there :(

.

So. those werewolf / a/b/o ads are essentially based on 'guilty pleasure' reads. (at the moment there's a huuuuuuge rise in the publishing of smutty books, I'm sure everyone has noticed, and this factor plays a lot into these ads, they know what (mostly women) people's guilty pleasure = smutty books are) for one thing it's the sex. obviously. well written sex is cool. the second thing is the "being cared for/being protected by a big strong man" part. Moooooost of these books (and I can say bc my friend and I like to read realllllly bad Highlander books with titles like "eine unbeugsame Braut" and make fun of them - -100000/10 btw that book is so unglaublich schrecklich, dass wir zwischendurch Pause machen mussten) have rather..... traditional views of women and I have yet to find one with a healthy relationship portrayed in them, BUTTT who doesn't want to be taken care for? by someone who would actually, literally, kill for you? the whole "you are mine and no man shall ever lay hands on you again" is honestly kinda hot (in fiction, my gods) because in the end it is romance. bad romance, but definitely portrayed as a living-happily-ever-after, you-can-fix-me, you-are-my-one-true-love kind of romance which most irl people hope for (let's be honest, would a sexy, rich couple approach me and ask me to join their polycule, providing for every single one of my needs while also falling in love with me....... Yeah.) And if at this point you're thinking to yourself, "yeah, like that's ever going to happen, true love doesn't exist" I'm telling you, "of course it does, because they're werewolves!" - "my god they were werewolves?!" meaning: the fantasy aspect makes it more believable, ironically enough. also. werewolf sex. or a/b/o alpha sex, with a huge, muscular dude growling at you. 👀 yeah.

.

And. The most important thing about these stories - which makes them soooooooo much worse - is that every. single. time. the female protagonist/omega/submissive was regularly abused before meeting their new partner. because she is beautiful even though she is broken. and even though she can not see it herself, her new alpha husband mate CEO takes one look at her and knows that she is not only the most beautiful person he has ever met, but also has a pure and loving heart. (probably big boobs too) and her past abuse makes her shy and submissive and gives him a reason to be an aggressive, masculine protector dudw who rips her abusers into shreds. (remember that book I mentioned? male love interest, literally murders the female protagonists abusive brothers (in the stupidest way possible) and it's mentioned for like two pages afterwards and then never again, but at least he had his moment and showed the reader that he cared)

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To read bad romace books, you have to be able to pull your brain out of your head and set it aside for a couple of hours.

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I thiiiiink I've seen the exact ad you are talking about (for that greenish app?) and at some point there was another one with the girl being scared of walking into the kitchen bc her abusive Dad never let her (which....????) and I actually gave in and downloaded the app because I wanted to know just how stupid it could get and..... Yeah. Not worth it. If AI had a 13 year old child that wrote werewolf porn....... Yes. Some of my very first creations still exist on testedich.de and Jesus Christ I'd rather cringe through those than download the app once more.

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Thaaaat being said. Geraskier. Yesssss please. Geralt being an omega that has been rejected multiple times before and therefore just given up on love completely is such a delightfully angsty prompt 👀 make a 6 +1 out of it..... But also! World building!!!!

Is there just a limited number of people that are compatible with you? With your scent? Your soul? Your life's destiny?

Was it courting gifts? Did they know Geralt was trying to court them? Do witchers court differently than humans? Did he gift them handmade crafts when they actually expected jewelry? Do omegas hve one specific set of gifts that will only match the right person??

Was it just a wild mix of people and unfortunate circumstances? Did a freshly presented Geralt try to proposition to his favorite grown up witcher he had a teacher crush on? Did Eskel accidentally reject him by being straight for once? Was Pavetta not allowed to mate with him due to political bullshit??

Does Geralt think he's the problem? Does he turn bitter, saying stuff like "witchers don't have mates" when he meets Jaskier? Does he lie about his secondary gender? Are they slowly warming up to each other or does it take one big realization?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmh 👀👀👀👀🤭

[avichor]

name. macy pronouns. she / her preferred comms. discord but only after chatting a bit on tumblr dms to suss out vibes unless we've interacted a lot on dash name of muse. literally my entire roster . and no it is not getting trimmed idk how to do that //: experience in RP. i started tumblr rp in 2019 but i was on fb rp since like. 2009? best experiences. h8 to say it but when i joined the desc rpc in late 2019 it was probs the highlight of my rp experience on tumblr, purely bc i was just so new to tumblr rp and naive and excitable so i looked past a lot of things i wouldn't tolerate now. it was the most involved rpc - wise i'd ever been — co-owned a server, created and joined events, actually had sm fun that i haven't really been able to replicate ( but i think it's a given with how much my irl has changed and the time i can even spend on tumblr rp ), and then decimated that rpc :D joining grishaverse rpc is a close second, and then my time writing vincenzo was my last source of unbridled joy ;p outside of rpc experiences, it was the long - lasting friendships and relationship formed. pet peeves / dealbreakers. i have a lot and i've stopped pretending that i don't for the sake of making everyone happy or appearing "nice" or "peaceful". there's a lot of highly questionable behavior that goes on in the rpc ( that goes ignored bc people like to "its just rp let people have fun" ) that it doesn't really stop at pet peeves or dealbreakers for me but rather smth i think really needs to be fixed. anyways most of them can be found in my rules within the dni section! but lack of communication is a huuuuuuuuge pet peeve. also lack of taking accountability, victim - mentality, people who aren't normal about duplicates, people who are freaks, etc. muse preference ( fluff, angst, smut ). none as a singular ?? i get bored with just fluff, i get distraught with too much angst, and i get tired of pure smut ( i'm also just extremely picky with who i'd write actual smut with, it's only one person ). i do prefer threads that are actionable in some sense, when it's purely philosophical discussions or mostly introspection i check out reeeeeaaaal fast. plot or memes. both! but given my lack of energy and time, memes have been really helpful as a tool for me to get to things without relying on active plotting. but ultimately i would like to plot so we have something that works longterm. long or short replies. both! it really depends on the substance because there could be novella type threads that. don't do much, and short threads that actually pack quite a lot into what's written. best time to write. night <3 are you like your muse. the muse types i go for have been less predictable lately, but previously i would gravitate towards baddie fems and clown mascs, some vein of mentally ill, and i think that kinda perfectly encapsulates me as a person. i am a baddie ( real ) and i am very stupid.

tagged by. stolen from @starspurn <3 tagging. @ninkaku , @adamanteine , @bllakcat , @prryhic . @gritandgear , and whoever hasn't done this !!