#because that's the context it was originally created in

[eroticcannibal]

It's still a minority view (plenty of varied viewpoints do get conflated with those things though, by people who have also grown up with the criticism of men = man hate line and internalised it in the other direction). It's still heavily exagruated by bad actors. Have you not actually talked to these people? Have you not looked at what they feel is man hate? Have you seen the examples the radicalised will list? Evil radfems saying all men are scum on twitter is a *tiny* fraction of what they feel attacked by and is almost never what they feel *most* attacked by.

I saw an intelligent, reasonable, compassionate, previously explicitly feminist man become *violently* (and I do mean violently, I was the target) antifeminist overnight because I expressed on Facebook I was having a trauma response (wariness of men) after an assault. And you know what else? Not a single man in that room defended me from *actual violence* because to them, fear looked like hate. Anything that made them uncomfortable looked like hate. This was during a time where publically discussing online your experiences with sexual assault was first becoming a Big Thing, the original #MeToo (interesting that it had to happen twice), and there really wasn't anyone going all men evil, just all men can be scary because we don't know who will hurt us. There was SO MUCH EFFORT to add nuance to the discussion, to let men know hey! We aren't saying *youre* bad! And they would not listen. Why? Because they'd rather listen to other men saying we are man hating feminists who are calling them all rapists even when we explicitly say the opposite! And that got me assaulted by a friend. The same shit fucking led to elevatorgate ffs. How dare a woman say she is uncomfortable, that's man hate, ignore all evidence to the contrary.

And yknow I did see an uptick in *performative* man hate at the time, but it was purely reactionary and it was a *test* (and a lot of current supposed "man hate" is still a relic of this era). Since you can make clear you don't hate men all you want and they will still say you do, "yes all men" became a sort of password. If you could here that without being a little bitch about it, if you knew the context because you actually bothered to listen, then you were cool. You knew no one actually meant that because you bothered to listen to them instead of people lying for political gain.

This is a tactic that has been going on since *before feminism even existed* and it is effective! It relies more upon the constructed belief that feminism is anti man which has become very well established over the years than it does the actual behaviour of feminists. I would strongly encourage you to look at anti-feminist sentiment throughout and predating the history of feminism (starting with the votes for women movement, that's the earliest I am personally aware of, there may be earlier examples) and see how we got to this point. Convincing every feminist to never again say "men are evil" will not create any change. (Which is not to say people *should* do it, but just that it's not the true root of this kind of radicalisation). Actual examples of it are *convenient* but not necessary for this tactic.

I would never *entirely* discredit the viewpoints of someone who has escaped cults and cult tactic using groups (I've been through that, I get it), but I would encourage caution with how much you trust the narrative of the *whys* from someone who has escaped. Leaving is quicker than undoing the thinking, and I really do believe that user isn't quite there yet. Best case scenario, that user is right about *them*, but it is not correct of radicalised men in general.

Because you can be as gentle as you like to these people getting radicalised, you can have all the nuance in the world, you could make it so that no one, not even as a joke, says anything about hating men, and you know what will happen? Just like has always happened, they will listen to who they want to listen to. They will listen to the people promising them superiority, they will listen to the people giving them a reason for their economic suffering (we must remember how much economics plays into radicalisation), that reason being evil feminists. They will see the man hate regardless of if it is there or not. Because they have been told to. Because it is convenient for them. And even if you convince them that we don't hate *men*, now you've got to convince them we don't hate them for being *white*. The point is not the hate they perceive but the superiority they seek and the power they desperately want.

Radicalisation and cult tactics do not rely on facts.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[stra-tek]

Big random list of things that NEARLY happened in Star Trek with no context or citation...

Harry Kim was to appear in Picard season 3 as a Captain (possibly of the Voyager-B)

Sarek was to use the Guardian of Forever to go back in time to become Surak of Vulcan, in a Next Gen episode

An episode was pitched where an NX-01 med tech played by Alice Krige was captured and assimilated by the Borg, becoming their queen

A Star Trek movie was almost made about undoing the Kelvin Universe, and would have had Shatner and Nimoy appear

They considered having Will Riker die, Data become first officer and Thomas Riker the Ops officer in TNG's "Second Chances"

JJ Abrams wanted Nichelle Nichols to cameo as the mother of Zoe Saldana's Uhura

The first season of Enterprise was to be set on Earth, culminating with the launch of NX-01 at the end of the season

They considered a shock reveal in ENT season 4 that it was actually the Vulcans who split off from the Romulans, and Romulus was their original homeworld

William Shatner wanted to return as Kirk from the Mirror Universe, in an Enterprise episode that involved time travel and creating the mirror universe with the transporter

Elnor was going to "explore his sexuality" in early Picard season 2 plans, before a change of showrunner and his character mostly vanishing

The ENT writers wanted Shatner to play Chef, a Kirk look-a-like hired by Daniels and trained to act Kirk-like to give an important speech at some point in history the real Kirk is mysteriously absent from

Data was originally created by mysterious aliens, and was to have a twin sister

Prodigy season 2 writers discussed having Chris Pine's Kirk from the Kelvin universe join the crew for a few episodes

In the originally filmed cut of Star Trek: Generations, Kirk is shot in the back and dies

Very early discussions for what eventually became Star Trek: Picard considered an adaptation of the Star Trek: Destiny novel trilogy

These discussions span off from a Short Treks pitch where a young cadet Jean-Luc Picard met Nichelle Nichols' Uhura

Early plans for the 2009 movie had wholesale destruction of the Prime universe, including the destruction of Earth. Thank Perpetual Entertainment for getting the destruction scaled back to Romulus so Star Trek Online had a Federation left to feature

There's was a story treatment written for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock where Spock stays dead

This one might be a little sus, but Christopher Pike in Discovery season 2 was planned to be very religious and fall to his knees at one point before the Red Angel, and clash with Michael over science vs faith

Early ideas for Star Trek Into Darkness had Benedict Cumberbatch as Robert April, former Enterprise captain turned rogue

Seven of Nine was going to sacrifice herself in order for Voyager to get home

A time travel Justice League of Trek movie by Brent Spiner, bringing together all eras of goodies vs all eras of villains, was considered

Spock shot JFK to fix the timeline in a proposed sequel to The Motion Picture

Ripper/Ephraim was originally going to be a regular, if giant tardigrade, crewmember on Discovery

Prior to Leonard Nimoy's involvement in what would become the 2009 Star Trek movie, a story outline was written about prime-universe cadets Kirk and Spock, in a story inspired by TNG's "The First Duty"

The Enterprise crew went through a black hole, back in time and introduced primative man to fire in another 70's movie script

A TNG movie was written where Picard summons a hologram of James T. Kirk for advice

George Kirk was to be found in the pattern buffer of the wrecked U.S.S. Kelvin 30 years later and resurrected

Voyager's EMH was originally to take on the name of his creator early on in the show, and the first Voyager novels call him "Doc Zimmerman" assuming it would have happened by publishing time

There's concept art where the U.S.S. Cerritos is a Galaxy-class starship

Riker was planned to dislike Data, and treat him poorly because he was an android

They considered making Troi's loss of powers in "The Loss" a permanent thing, because of how much hassle they caused the writing staff

Harry Kim wasn't originally planned to survive Species 8472

[discursiverecursion]

Psst... Queer American fam...

A lot of us are in survival mode right now, and who knows how long that is going to last. An onslaught could begin the first day, or it could be relatively quiet until a storm breaks, so our background stress/anxiety levels are going to be high, and some of the effects of excess circulating cortisol include anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, headaches, digestive problems, and problems with memory and focus.

It’s normal to be struggling right now.

It means you’re human.

I know this sounds bad, but I’m restating a thing I think many people already know, because the thing is, a common tactic of the Right is to put people in a stressful situation and then blame them for their response to it (I’ve seen this referred to in other contexts as “reactive trauma”). As queer folks and people being targeted, we might think we are immune to this, but it works more insidiously than that. It can tear us apart, and it plays out like the following:

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As violence towards our community escalates, they will start publically pointing at things “we are doing” that are “causing” the escalation. 

They will use this term “we”, because they don’t understand that we are not homogeneous.

Sometimes we ourselves, as individuals, will not be part of that “we”. 

It will be terrifying, in that moment, to have rights stripped away (or worse) without having any perceived control, and that lack of control will feel like it is due to the actions of another being blamed on you. 

DON’T FALL FOR IT THOUGH!

This is misdirection. They do not have to hurt us, even if we are loudly gay, even if we protest the ways they are hurting us already.

Please, please don’t let yourself get to a safe place and wonder why others aren’t hiding. You are allowed to keep yourself safe. In fact, I encourage it, but please remember that those of us fighting this thing publicly are not the enemy. We need your support and solidarity.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are a big family with many different survival strategies:

We don't all have to utilize the same one

We don't have to stick with our original choice over time

We are not bound to only using one at a time

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m going to end this with a list of some survival strategies found in nature, because I'm definitely rambling and this was the thought I actually started typing this post with:

Do you recognize any of your own strategies in the list below?

Do you recognize any that are the opposite?

Can you hold that we are all in this together coping in our own ways, that we are not each others’ enemies?

Can you remember that "health" is a social construct, and that a strategy doesn't have to be the "best" one for it to be functional for the time being to keep someone alive?

I hope you can, because we will need each other to get through the coming years.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------

STRATEGIES:

Becoming a spore (more info) - Shutting down completely for a bit - Sleeping more - Building mental walls

Playing dead (more info) - Retreating from social life  - Retreating from social media - Missing work

Camouflage (more info) - Going back in the closet - Codeswitching - Becoming extremely quiet

Mimicry of a more dangerous creature (more info) - Being argumentative/loud - Being assertive - Presenting even more queerly

Nocturnality (more info) - Nocturnality - Avoiding people - Staying in a social bubble

Distraction (more info) - Drag - Hacking - Certain forms of protest

Pursuit-Deterrent Signals (more info) - Making oneself needed - Feigning compliance - Presenting in “stealth” mode

Mobbing (more info) - Protests - Taking down websites - Coworker solidarity to create workspace change

Staying in the middle of a group (more info) - Being in community support networks - Going to therapy - Getting to know your neighbors

Sounding an alarm (more info) - Being loud on social media - Being loud in the workplace - Naming the quiet parts out loud

[1x20]

hello and welcome to my tutorial on how to create gifs like this one! full explanation under the cut, but if you wanted to take a little peek at the gifset attached to this tutorial, here ya go!

for the purposes of this tutorial i am assuming you know

how to make a gif

what vhs footage looks like

STEP ONE: MAKING YOUR GIF

choose your footage and plug it into your desired software of choice! i use photoshop for this so i can only attest to the efficacy of these methods in that context

as for shot selection, you could feasibly choose anything. however, i prefer shots without too much movement in them - makes it look more like a home video.

because of the heavy amount of colors and filters, i'd recommend a gif somewhere around the 40-50 frames! but of course you can play around.

oh i also set the frame delay to 0.08 seconds. this is slower than most gifmakers tend to set theirs, but it makes it run buttery smooth imo.

STEP TWO: MAKING THE COLORING

here's where we get vhs specific. if you're unfamiliar with vhs footage, i recommend clicking through this youtube playlist! if you're not interested in the coloring, skip to step three (smart object fuckery + filters)

now while making a set i tend to choose some primary colors for my gifs. in the gifset i linked above, i chose to work with blue and orange-y yellow. in some of the other gifs i'll be using as examples (from an unfinished set) i chose green and yellow.

to create the above coloring i generally use these steps:

1) curves

i'm a maniac so i use the same curves layer to initially edit the luminosity AND colors of my gifs. the purpose of this layer is to edit brightness/contrast like i normally would and already start the process of changing the colors a little bit. this is my curves layer for the blue house gif:

to make the gif go from the left image to the right image:

as you can see i used the brightening curves to make the footage a whole lot lighter. i also increased the reds to get rid of the cyan tint a lot of blue footage has, slightly increased the blues, and once again decreased the greens to get rid of any cyan. this does make the blue hue a bit more purple, which is a nice bonus!

as for the gif of the boy, that one's a little harder to show a before and after for, but i'lls how the curves for good measure:

the original shot was already quite bright so i only edited the brightness a litttle bit. because i knew i wanted the gif to be green and yellow, i increased the greens, decreased the reds (except in the shadows), and decreased the blues (to get yellow)

2) channel mixer

now the channel mixer layer takes a little getting used to so i recommend experimenting. ALWAYS USE THIS LAYER ON THE COLOR BLENDING MODE for a more even result.

i use channel mixers to sort of... unify the colors a bit more. for the house gif, for example, i increased the blue channel to +110% blue, but decreased the blue in the red (-12%) to retain the yellow in the window.

if you want me to explain this more in depth, send an ask! it'll be kinda longwinded though

before / after of the boy gif with curves/channel mixer.

3) levels

this is where it starts looking more vhs-y! vhs footage has light shadows and dark highlights.

first, set your levels layer to luminosity blending mode to retain your beautiful colors.

then, crunch the hell out of your gif to make it very... mid.

this may feel a little wrong at first but i prommy it'll look okay at the end. a before/after for the boy:

now that's starting to look familiar right?

4) color fill/gradient map

because i want to unify my colors/make sure my gif is saturated, i usually add either a color fill or gradient map layer. in the case of the house, i chose to go with a dark blue color fill:

because the coloring of the boy gif was a little more complex, i decided to go with a brown to green gradient map.

this will make the shadows yellow, and the highlights green.

BOTH THESE LAYERS ARE SET TO OVERLAY. i usually fiddle with the opacity of them until i like it, but it's anywhere from 7% - 17% depending on what i feel like that day

5) curves (again)

this layer is probably useless but i do it anyway to make myself feel better. this is just a regular curse layer to up the brightness a tiiiiny bit and amke sure everything's clear. also it helps counteract the darkness your overlay color will add in.

6) color balance

this is my most subtle layer so i won't be able to show before and after but i fiddle with the color distribution a little until i'm satisfied. set this layer to color blending 'cause that's what you wanna affect!

i decided i wanted the house gif shadows to be a little more purple, for example, so i added in red (+3), magenta (-1) and blue (+1). etc etc. do what feels good!

STEP THREE: SMART OBJECT FUCKERY AND FILTERS

OKAY that was a lot. sorry or you're welcome. but good news: now's the fun part. convert your animation to a timeline, then select both your coloring and gif layers, right click, and select convert to smart object.

now that your gif's a smart object, i usually crop it. i tend make vhs aes gifs a 4:3 ratio (so 540 x 405 px) because that's what vhs footage was usually recorded as! crop your gif, resize, and then we can continue.

1) color bleeding

vhs footage usually bleeds its colors - this manifests as a short of... weird subtle halo around any object. the way to recreate this in photoshop is to duplicate your smart object.

set your copied smart object to color blending. now move it to the side a couple of pixels (i usually do around 5px, but you do you!)

as you can see, the tree and chimney (and everything else but less prominently) have a yellow shadow to them. this is exactly what we want!

2) filters

now's the time to add your filters and make it look like shit (but on purpose!) first, select both smart objects and convert to smart object again. this will ensure the filters apply to all layers evenly.

i use the following filters:

unsharp mask (amt 35%, radius 4px) - this will subtly add some sharpening but only on the edges of objects

add noise (amt 7.5%, distr. uniform, not monochromatic) - this will add the signature vhs grain.

box blur (2px) - i edit this to be 75% opacity with the little arrows to the right, just to make sure you can still make SOMETHING out when you're looking at the gif. MAKE SURE THIS FILTER IS ON TOP OF YOUR NOISE FILTER. tumblr will kill your gif otherwise

4) ONE LAST THING

usually at this point i'm not happy with either the saturation or levels. (usually the levels). so on top of your smart object, add another saturation or levels layer and fuck around!

in the case of the house gif, i thought it was too bright still so i set my output levels to 13 and 216. for the boy, i thought the shadows were too dark, so i set my shadow output to 11.

BEFORE & AFTER:

aaaand that's it! thanks for reading! if you have any questions, feel free to come to my askbox, i'm always happy to explain my process. happy giffing 🥰

[taliesin-the-bored]

It was a musical, but...I am not beating the allegations.

I shall take this as an opportunity to ramble about Rómeó és Júlia, the subject of said allegations by @unstark, who may have created a monster (/j; thank you for doing so).

The first thing to know is that I haven't read Romeo and Juliet since middle school and liked it well enough then but wasn't really enthused because I liked the poetic elements but found the romance somewhat grating. However, I am a theater kid/opera nerd at heart, and looking at different versions of things and analyzing the connections, sometimes to an obsessive degree, is one of the things I live for (that's part of the lure of Arthuriana).

The second is that Rómeó és Júlia (ResJ) is fantastic, in large part because the cast is incredibly talented. I've seen all or a good portion of several different language versions of the musical, which originated in France as Roméo et Juliette (RetJ), and they all have good or decent but reasonably similar Juliets and mostly fine to mediocre Romeos. In addition to having a good Juliet, this Romeo, played by Dolhai Attila, was quite charming as an actor as well as a great singer so the rest have been mostly downhill. I am afraid, though, that like most of the people on ResJ/RetJ Tumblr, the characters I found most interesting were Mercutio and Tybalt, who both vary wildly from production to production. In ResJ, Mercutio (who fans call Zolicutio because he's played by Zoltán Bereczki) is a force of nature, and I did not properly appreciate that the first time I watched it. He sings, dances almost constantly, acts well, and raps in Magyar, and he never seems to stop or slack in energy until he dies. Tybalt, on the other hand, is a deeply tortured soul who's occasionally comedic in his melodrama (he does the Mr. Bean walk once) but has genuine pathos. I originally watched the first half without subtitles and did not realize the...ahem...concerning nature of his thoughts about Juliet, but that's in almost every version of the musical, and it is not as big a trigger warning as the obvious one, which is that Romeo and Juliet includes onstage suicide and murder, as well as references to sexual content. This is probably the first thing anyone learns about Romeo and Juliet, but I thought I should put that out there to be safe. Anyway, Szilveszter Szabó was vastly different than how I pictured Tybalt while reading the play, but he was excellent and brought a new perspective to the character. You love to see it. Also, ResJ Benvolio is a punk with the heart of a golden retriever, another far-from-the-play take which works in its context.

Now, the 2010 French version. I followed ResJ with the RetJ revival because John Eyzen's Mercutio is the second most popular Mercutio on Tumblr, after the inimitable Zolicutio, and I wanted to see what the hype was about. He is vastly, vastly different, both from how I imagined Mercutio and how Mercutio is in any other production. Eycutio alternates between stillness and over-the-top energy. He may or may not be bad mental illness rep. He may or may not be beholden to the madness-inducing entities of Chaos. Eyzen fully embraced the vibes of "La Follie" and the Queen Mab speech Mercutio has in Shakespeare to create a very unstable dude who revels in unpredictability and danger to a greater degree than Zolicutio and has probably won Best-Haired Veronese Man three years in a row. He has a love/hate relationship with Tybalt and flirts with him while fighting. (Zolicutio also flirts with Tybalt, but less in a I've-secretly-liked-you-since-we-were-twelve-but-also-hate-you-and-we-kissed-at-a-party-once-but-you-pretend-you-don't-remember-and-I'm-going-to-make-that-hard-for-you way than an I-bet-you're-into-me-and-also-that-you'll-hate-this-and-I-could-be-into-you-but-it's-not-clear-and-I-canonically-kissed-Romeo-but-didn't-seem-serious-about-it-and-I-rap-about-not-liking-romance-and-it-might-be-to-hide/drown/prevent-the-pain-or-I-might-be-aroallo-and-thriving way). Tim Ross's 2nd Tybalt looks and acts like the unlikely and maltreated test-tube child of George Michael and Cruella de Vil, and I'm going to leave it about that, because I have rambled too long without mentioning that Romeo's costume is exceptionally terrible in this one, that I really did not like Escalus, and that the Nurse was fantastic. All in all, what this one has to recommend it is the excellent Nurse, plus Tybalt and Mercutio's unevenly acted but ultimately interesting dynamic, which is the stuff of Fanlore pages.

I have not watched all of the 2001 French original, even though many people say Cécilia Cara is the best Juliet, because the other Juliets are also good and apparently a bald Mercutio is one thing I cannot take. (I could under certain conditions. If he were a young cancer patient, then that would add an urgency to his fervor for living life to the fullest, and a suspicion that he's going to die painfully soon whatever he does could influence his recklessness, but him being considerably older and more sophisticated than Romeo is weird). I might watch more of it, but it's low priority.

Apart from those, I've watched large parts of the Italian and Israeli ones, which I prefer to the French ones in acting but not in singing. The Italian one is a lot more dramatic than the Israeli one, which is maybe the least dramatic RetJ variant ever but pulls it off really well. The characters seem like normal people you would meet who try their best but get caught up in a tragedy bigger than they can understand. Of special note, as usual, is that ever-shifting scene, the duel between Mercutio and Tybalt, and this is the most original take on it I've seen. What sets it apart is that THEY DON'T EVEN DISLIKE EACH OTHER. You get the sense that they've had a lighthearted rivalry since they were kids but they're sort of friends and it's all a game to them. It's also the only version I've seen where those two actually have fencing swords, so the fight looks more realistic, emphasizing that they're playing with fire. When he realizes Mercutio is dying, Tybalt is visibly devastated and seems to lose the will to live. I don't usually cry at movies or shows, but that is the version which brought me the closest to crying.

I would like to watch the 2019 Toho version, since it comes highly recommended, but am not sure where to and might have to wait a while on that one. After I'm done with the Italian one, I intend to watch the Russian one, the German one, and the alternate cast recording of the Hungarian one. As for the English one...well, I've listened to a bit of it, and it was awful.

If you want to watch multiple versions at once or see which ones you might like, there is a great playlist on YouTube where someone edited together parts of the videos of different versions. If you want an incoherent-without-watching-the-full-thing but possibly still entertaining look into it, watch this compilation someone made, which is extremely funny if you've actually seen the full musical.

If you've read this entire semi-coherent ramble, you're a trooper. I hope it was vaguely interesting. Have a wonderful day!

it’s really easy to become obsessed with a shakespeare play you just have to watch one version of it and then read the play and then go mad trying to watch every possible version of it you can find and then study several centuries worth of performance history and controversy

[the-far-bright-center]

Re: TCW as meta commentary

A little while ago, I commented on a post about the electrocution that Anakin experiences during The Clone Wars animated series, but since my response turned into a bit of a rant I decided to make a separate post instead. It’s become almost a meme these days to say that Anakin must have 'brain damage' from all that electrocution during the Clone Wars. I realise that tumblr just likes to joke around, but I personally get frustrated with these sorts of 'readings' because it's just...not how I personally view these kinds of things at all. When I watched TCW back in the day, I just presumed that the reason there was so much electrocution was to give a ‘nod’ to Vader being so averse to Palpatine’s Force-lightning in RotJ. Having Anakin tortured countless times in a similar manner to how Luke is at the end of RotJ then explains why Anakin/Vader can’t abide seeing his son tortured that way any longer (he knows all-too well what it’s like!) and finally snaps and kills Palpatine. The fact he hates and is maybe even terrified of Palpatine’s Force-lightning by that point (knowing it will almost certainly kill him) also lends his final sacrifice in RotJ another level of pathos and heroism.

Of course, one could just dismiss the electrocution as the writers being sadistic and saying ‘let’s torture Anakin all the time’ (which is definitely part of it, lol), but I also feel like there's more going on there. Everything in the (original Lucas-era) seasons of TCW was constructed as a sort of ‘meta analysis’ of the PT x OT saga, explored via the Clone Wars-era characters and themes. One of the reasons TCW was even made in the first place was to shed further light on the Prequels at a time when SW fans were still fairly hostile to it. And particularly to shed light on the Prequels in relation to the Original Trilogy. That’s why Anakin was explicitly shown to be the Chosen One in the Mortis Arc—because at the time there was still tons of confusion from fans on the subject (despite Lucas confirming it many times in interviews) and the show was trying to clarify that.

I think people these days get tripped up because they’re trying to take every detail of TCW way too literally. Some aspects of the show can work on a literal level, but not everything. Simply due to the fact it's an animated series (where the rules of gravity don’t even apply at times), there is no way that every single moment in it could be considered 100% canon anyway. Acknowledging that some elements of the show couldn’t possibly be meant to be taken literally was easier to do during the pre-Disney times when the series was still just another entry into the Expanded Universe. It’s only because Disney has now absorbed TCW into their ‘official canon’ (and keep churning out content related to it—something I’m NOT happy about) that there’s all this sort of external ‘pressure’ to view it as completely canon.

Speaking of which, I’ve noticed a lot of polarised opinions on the series lately, ranging from people who accept it wholesale to those who flat out hate it and see it in the same vein as the current Disney material. I can't comment on the 'final season' released under Disney because I never watched it and probably never will. That being said, I personally have a great fondness and nostalgia for the 2008-2013 series, in part because I watched it with my husband when we first got together. If the OT represents my childhood and the PT represents my teenage years, then TCW is from a charmed, golden era just prior to the Disney takeover when I was bonding with my husband over our shared love of SW. Sure, I have issues with some parts of it at times, but it was never a big deal for me in the past because I never viewed the series as canon on the same level as the main six-film saga. Rather, I've always seen it as an interesting illumination on the saga, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t, and some of which I accept into my own personal headcanon, and some of which I discard.

Things I adore and have taken fully into my heacanon: Ahsoka's character and Snips and Skyguy's relationship. They mean too much to me to not do so. Likewise, all the cute, romantic, and (positive) emotional Anidala moments, as well as the Obitine ship (aka the only ship for Obi-Wan that ever made sense from my perspective). I also view Rex and several of the other Clones as canon additions, because fleshing out the Clone characters was always very important worldbuilding and I'm glad it was included. Similarly, I love all the humorous moments and banter, especially in the early seasons. But on the other hand, there are several story arcs in the later seasons that are either too ‘out there’, blatantly ooc, or even incredibly disturbing (Zygerrian arc, for instance), and I refuse to accept these as literal ‘canon’. Nevertheless, I can't fully dismiss them either because there are still moments of these episodes that I enjoy and value. In those instances, I sort of step outside the story for a moment and look at it from a meta perspective to discern what they were trying to do and say with those storylines, since taking them literally would be too jarring. Likewise, no matter how many times I watch TCW (and even having seen most of Rebels as well), I’m NEVER going to accept the idea that Maul was somehow still alive and wreaking havoc during the Twilight of the Republic and even during the Dark Times. I don’t accept it as canon because I feel it detracts not only from the impact of the Duel of the Fates in TPM, but also from the symmetry and beauty of the perfectly mirrored PT x OT saga as a whole. I can acknowledge that some of the Maul storylines in the animated series were interesting and even emotionally impactful (and can enjoy Sam Witwer's voice acting for him), while also sticking to my guns and saying ‘this whole premise is just plain silly, I am not accepting this as real’. (I would have actually been more amenable to Maul if he'd been 'ressurected' in a different manner, but that's a subject for another post.)

So, while I enjoy TCW, I personally think it’s more enjoyable if you stop believing everything in it is meant to be taken completely literally or realistically, and instead view it as part fun, entertaining romp, part ‘missing moment’ fanfic, and part serious (if somewhat dark and twisted) meta-commentary.

[roseworth]

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

[kagoutiss]

*complaining for no reason again because i am bored* i need more ppl to know that these. are all the same person these are literally canonically all the exact same individual person im begging u

literally almost all the ganondorfs are the exact same individual and almost all the ganons are the exact same individual, almost all the ganondorfs & ganons are the same exact person just in different forms and circumstances. except for FSA and maybe whatever the fuck is going on with TotK ganondorf but i still think it’s weird that he still has golden eyes & rounded ears when even the gerudo in TotK’s ancient past dont, but anyway ashfjsbfjsn

[labyrinthofthestar]

da*2. is a game

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

Hey THG fans thanks to somone else on here (I'm so sorry but I can't remember the name of your blog) I've kind of become obsessed with making book accurate (or as close as I can get) picrews of Hunger Games characters & now that I'm done with Katniss & Peeta I wanted to show you all some other characters I've been working on. This is my interpretation of Delly Cartwright.

At school

In free time

On Reaping Day

In District 13

[br1ghtestlight]

this is so funny to me actually bcuz this is 100% how i talk abt my characters ages. i know what YEAR they were born and i know what rheir ages are supposed to be at the start of the story but i dont actually know when it takes place?? im really bad at math. There was a moment where rainbow was supposed to be 23 and i somehow accidentally made her 17 lmfao

[why-rock-look-tasty-if-no-eat]

Oh! For read Star Wars, it'll have to be Vader Down! It's something that I feel shows just how insane Vader can really get during a battle in space and ground. Many people would think that him being an old quadruple amputee would put him at a disadvantage in a one man vs army situation, but that comic demonstrates that he is still perfectly able to fight

Though the Vader fight scenes are a plus, my actual favorite parts is Luke and co vs Dr. Aphra. The whole comic expands on the relationship that they all have really well in my opinion and keep to the original series while also making them act more than just the original. They don't act like they're stuck in (figurine) boxes

The two sides of Vader fighting the rebels and Luke and co fighting Dr. Aphra and co compliment each nicely too. Vader is shown alone, winning with brute force and using fatal battle tactics with little care of how he wins so long as he does. Meanwhile Luke and co are shown using their wits and plan on how to take down their foes. Vader is more a show of a natural disaster on a warpath to his son, while Luke is grounding of a human fighting for his life, knowledge, and freedom

Pawing through it again actually made me sad for Vader because you can see how much being trapped in that suit has forced him to think outside the box when it comes to fighting. Anakin wouldn't have set off those grenades unless it was to create a nonfatal diversion or to open up an entrance. He also would have more than likely done it manually instead of overly relying on the force like was taught to while being a Jedi. Though that was the whole point in Star Wars, showing the tragedy of Vader's life

Unread (Star Wars) comics, it'll have to be from a single panel I saw. I don't remember the name of it, but I remember the context of the scene very clearly. It was an ending of a comic where Vader is hunting down Luke, and he is in an aviary. The birds scream out "Luke Skywalker" then eventually just "Skywalker" all around Vader, and he then kills them all so that Luke couldn't be traced back to him and get a higher target on his back from the Empire (read Palpatine).

Iirc this is after Hoth and Vader was slowly changing his ideals to protecting his son from the Emperor and from his legacy rather than to claim him. I think it might have been this scene where it was written where Vader finds out that Luke is his son? Don't quote me on that though.

But the scene that left a deep impact on the reader, Vader snapping in a panel full of "Skywalker" being screeched as birds flew in chaos and then shown standing over the slaughtered birds in dead silence. The writers knew what they were doing and I love them for that. The scene after that was subtly emotional as well, when Vader walked out of the aviary and was asked by an officer (imperial forces were standing outside the aviary) what happened in there

I don't remember exactly what Vader said, but it was along the lines of "Nothing, let's move on" and (I think, again I haven't read the actual comic just saw a few pages years ago) the officer was shown taking a peak inside the aviary and internally thought along the lines of "It certainly wasn't nothing but I won't question him more about what happened"

That scene is my favorite out of all the scenes.

I haven't read any DC comics or even interacted with any DC media past watching some of the Teen Titans and a third of Young Justice S1 and not even reading the full S1 for WFA (which when I wrote this post it's in S3 and I haven't read it in months lmao). Which is hilarious if you ask me (I'm a DC fanfiction writer)

But if I have to pick a favorite DC comic . . . I think it'd have to be the one where the Titans are fighting against the Greek gods on . . . whatever planet they were fighting on (I have terrible memory). That war really emphasizes how much and we'll they can work together, even when they're fighting with a very small percentage of rebels against an entire planet and gods setting out to kill them. They aren't shown as infallible, the mistakes they make are very human and the fear they have comes across as having weight.

Sure, that comic has been out for decades so we know that no one died (at least permanently, again I haven't read the whole thing) but at that time? When everyone was taking hits, letting their fear and anger take over them? I would've been sitting on the edge of my seat, and I was when reading the few pages I had even though I knew the outcome. Watching the Titans work like a well oiled machine, falling apart like a clock tower collapsing, then eventually getting back into the grove was thrilling.

If I could remember the comic name I'd hunt it down now that I know free comic sites, even though I don't use them lol, just to read that specific comic. Anyways, this went on for a long while, thanks for the question! It was fun to answer and to choose which ones I like the best

What are you favorite Star Wars or DC comics and why?

[solradguy]

Ky’s Mom is Asuka if I remember the ancient texts correctly /j

Lmfao you're so right. I am ashamed for forgetting such vital lore.... When Asuka R. Kreutz man-birthed Ky Kiske....

[leapdayowo]

giggling and kicking my feet when I realize x, y, and z from different stories I’ve experienced over my life influenced parts of a story I’m writing. Like yes, this concept from an author 40 years older than me clearly influenced how I write this character, or this world building element was loosely inspired from bits and pieces I’ve seen of a fandom I’m not in. It makes me happy that I can carry the legacy of those stories, thoughts, and moments and how wonderful it would be to encourage my (hypothetical) future audience to find these outside influences. That stories can be connected not because the worlds in them are necessarily connected, but that the people in this world can be connected and inspire each other

[flowering-darkness]

"I should back up that last post to my documents so I won't lose it. it turned out quite long"

that last post: is seven pages long when I paste it into a document for safekeeping

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Delighted to learn the comic cover I originally chose to parody for my dream girl was actually a parody of a much older cover with a much meaner subtitle.