#because they're all old people who aren't on twitter enough and just don't know what The Youth are supporting these days

[castielsuneatenpussy]

doesn't really matter whether any individual democratic politician, or the democratic party as a whole, are 1) just woefully out of touch with what the people really want OR 2) straight up being evil on purpose while knowing full well that none of their voters or constituents approve. the end result is indistinguishable

[lizardsfromspace]

There was lots of concern about AI and deepfakes spreading misinformation this election cycle, so let's check in on that!

A lot of right-wing accounts are trying to prove that Kamala Harris' crowds are fake - that all the photos of them are generated with AI. We'll get to that, but let's look at the most...amusing example first.

There's lots of people pointing at an image of a crowd that's obviously been generated with AI, due to extra arms and gibberish writing.

So obviously someone generated this image with AI. Who was it and why? Well, we can actually find the origin pretty easily. It was...

A right-wing satire account. Who put "unexcited Kamala Harris crowd" into a AI image generator to make a "wow, crowds are electric!" joke.

An image their own side generated as satire is now being spread by the right as something Harris/Walz created as proof they're doing the thing they're doing. Incredible. Just a masterclass

Now let's look at the dark stuff.

By and large, AI isn't being used for hoaxes. AI is being used as a excuse: people aren't being tricked by AI images, they're being tricked by accusations real images are AI.

So this hoax went around recently...

This image is old. It spread in 2017, it spread in 2020, and now it's spread in 2024. The Harris/Walz rally wasn't even in the Phoenix Convention Center, or in Phoenix. But it's now a core part of the "no one's attending their rallies!" campaign going on now

This may seem strange if you experience the news by non-conservative media, where you can't escape stories of Kamala Harris filling up massive stadiums & of Trump rallies full of empty seats. All evidence in reality points to Kamala Harris being extremely popular and to Trump's campaign faltering.

But in MAGA land, Kamala Harris' crowds were generated with AI.

Their claims: the crowd isn't in the reflection, and uh, the arms look weird. But also that there "aren't any other images".

But? There are? There was a livestream of that very plane landing (starting at 25)!

They're subjecting what they think is The Only Image of this rally in long Youtube videos and on Twitter and TikTok, and just...don't realize there's full, uncut, commentary-free video of it that was broadcast live. So why don't they realize that?

Well, I did a search for this rally on Fox News' website and guess what? They reported it exactly twice: once a interview with her while leaving that slammed her for "not taking press questions" enough, and a few clips of the Palestinian protestors at it, but not many, bc if you don't follow the far right they're trying to frame Kamala Harris as, like, a radical pro-Palestinian (or, as they say, "pro-Hamas") activist who wants to destroy Israel which, uhhhhhhhh

But another thread I found debunking this, by a former Trump-voting evangelical conservative turned critic of the same, gets at the heart of it

People who said AI and deepfakes would be used to mislead the right were missing how misinformation actually works. Fox News et al don't suppress information by confusing the audience with misinformation; they suppress information by never letting them see it in the first place. They know that they have a captive audience who doesn't watch non-right-wing news (unlike the left, who are constantly aware of what's going on over at Fox).

They can just never mention or show Kamala Harris' rallies, or do so only in close-up, and they can frame Trump to only show shots where a crowd has gathered & make it seem like that's the norm, and their audience just has no chance to find out the truth. They're so propagandized that they just accept that there are no other images of that Kamala Harris rally, because, well, they were told there weren't, and would the news personalities they trust really lie to them?

And if any stray bits of reality float into the bubble, well, it was just AI. You know, how they have AI these days? AI's most important role in all this isn't as a vector for misinformation, it's as a rhetorical device for claiming real images and video are misinformation. You don't have to make images full of people with weird hands if you can get people circling real people's hands in red and pointing at it to prove reality was made in a computer.

These people don't know how popular Kamala Harris is. They don't know she's polling eight points higher than Trump. They don't know Harris is leading in right-wing biased polls. They're being told she's hiring actors at rallies, that her crowd photos are generated by AI, that Trump rallies are popular and hers are desolate.

This only likely to increase as we near the election because, well, Trump '24 is a shitshow. His campaign started out less popular than '16 or even '20, he picked maybe the worst VP pick in history, and he hasn't made a single effective attack on Harris/Walz. They were banking on facing Biden, and then on a chaotic open convention, but instead everyone closed ranks around Harris, and she instantly became the most popular Democratic candidate since 2008. We are cruising towards Trump/Vance not only losing, but losing in the closest thing to a landslide that's possible in our current system.

They're already laying the groundwork for, in the likely case of defeat, playing the "she stole the election!" card. Last time it was ad-hoc, because Trump thought he'd win. This time, they're already making "all her rallies are fake, all of her supporters are AI, they've already rigged it against Trump" a key strategy, and, I have to assume, their primary strategy as it gets closer to election day and the polls get worse. They've always lived in a bubble, but now it's a bubble designed explicitly to cause another January 6th. By claiming real photos have weird hands, and must totally be AI

[pastellieria]

The latest round of AO3 comment discourse crossing my dash made me suddenly realize that people are just taking it as a given that AO3 is a "fandom community website". AO3 is often directly compared to Livejournal and other older fandom hubs amidst laments about how "no one cares about participating in their community anymore".

But AO3 is not a "community" website. It's not social media. It's a fanfic archive that was designed to center the fics first and foremost. There is no space on the site for general, casual fandom discussion. You can't even DM other users. The site was designed this way on purpose to protect writers, because its creators were familiar with the ways in which writers have been harassed on other sites and wanted to minimize direct access to writers as much as possible, but that decision comes with the tradeoff of limiting the amount of communication and discussion between fans that is possible on the site.

This is, to be clear, not a criticism of AO3. It accomplishes its goal of being an archive very well. I don't particularly want DMs or larger discussion forums on the site, and I enjoy how it centers the writing it hosts. But as it exists now, it is simply not built to be a "community" and does not function as one. Unlike sites like Livejournal where fic posting and general interpersonal fandom interactions all took place in the same space, fics are posted to AO3 while the "community" for any given fandom now largely takes place on Twitter, Tumblr, Discord, or another site, depending on the fandom.

You're free to personally dislike those spaces and voice valid criticisms about how they function as communities, but they are undeniably where the actual "community" parts of most fandoms currently reside. These sites, not AO3, are where most fans talk to one another, form friendships, and express themselves. It's not impossible to do these things on AO3, but it is not the norm because the site simply is not designed that way.

The latest posts I have seen about commenting culture have gotten this dynamic exactly backwards. If readers are discussing a fic amongst themselves on Twitter or Discord, they're characterized as antisocial and accused of "not participating in the fandom community". But Twitter and Discord are the fandom community sites! The "bookclub" servers and Twitter threads are where the community bonds are being forged between fans! These spaces are the modern analogue to the old Livejournal groups and web rings, not the comments section of any one individual fanfic on AO3.

If an author's only interaction with their fandom is to post fics to AO3 and passively wait to be found, and they aren't seeking out their fellow fans in these other spaces and interacting with them... they are the ones who are "not participating" as much as the readers that are so readily being cast in so much of this discussion as "selfish" or deliberately spiteful for not commenting "enough".

I understand why many of my fellow writers feel this way. I too often find socialization on sites like Twitter and Discord draining and difficult. It takes time and effort to build friendships organically, discuss ideas and share snippets to pique people's interest in a fic before it is posted, and provide reciprocal effort when it comes to everyone else's ideas and snippets and stories, and there are many days when I just don't have the energy for it all. At the same time, I'm also very curious about my readers' thoughts on my stories, and if I learned that they were being discussed in a server I couldn't access, I would want to know what was being said. It's a natural impulse to feel curiosity like this when it comes to one's creative work. And of course, I also love getting comments on my own fics and I'm not immune to feeling disappointed when a fic seems to "flop".

However, it's not fair to take out feelings of disappointment and frustration on readers for participating in their fandom in the spaces where their fandom's community actually exists. If you find out that fandom discussions are happening in a place where you are not present, you have a choice in what action you will take. You can either make the effort to join the discussion, or you can knowingly distance yourself from it. Neither of these choices are objectively correct for every single individual's situation, but you, the AO3 denizen, are the one who needs to choose whether or not to engage with your fandom's community, because AO3 is not where the community lives.

If you choose not to join your fellow fans in their actual community hubs because of low social battery, annoying features, or a site culture you dislike, that's perfectly fine and a valid choice... but you shouldn't be surprised when the author who is participating in their fandom outside of AO3 gets more comments on their fics. And you certainly don't have the right to project your own social withdrawal onto your readers and accuse them of maliciously withholding "community" from you.

Comments are wonderful, and positively encouraging people to leave comments on the fics they enjoy is completely fine, but comments are not community. AO3 is not a community website and in fact is designed to put us writers behind a wall for our own protection. We are the ones who need to choose whether or not to venture out from behind the wall and join our communities, instead of getting angry that the community isn't spontaneously appearing in our comments sections.

[matan4il]

Update post:

During the night, a suspicious aerial object fell inside Israel, a little north of our most southern city, Eilat. At the same time, a senior in the Iran-funded Yemenite terrorist organization referred to as the Houthis, who have targeted Eilat before, posted on his Twitter account on Mar 15, in both Arabic and Hebrew, "month of Jihad." They're not officially taking responsibility for having fired a rocket at our civilians (on top of their on going attacks against global shipping), but they're doing the closest thing to this that they can.

On Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, a Palestinian terrorist had entered a Muslim cemetery in Hebron, and started shooting from it at the Jewish neighborhood of the city. The terrorist was eliminated. He turned out to be an Imam at a local mosque, and a member of Hamas. According to a TV reporter, the terrorist missed by just mere inches a boy who was passing on the street. During and after this terrorist attack, the Jewish residents (much like in other terrorist attacks on Jewish communities, including this recent attempted stabbing attack) were asked to lock themselves in until the IDF is done searching the area, to make sure there aren't additional terrorists still lurking about. The next time that you see anti-Israel propaganda posts about cemeteries, please remember that if Islamists don't respect their own burial sites and the Muslims buried there enough to avoid using these places as grounds for terrorist activity, Israelis certainly are not going to place those cemeteries above defending living Jews.

Following intel that Hamas terrorists have once again taken shelter in the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and using it as a base for their opereations, IDF troops have entered it, killed several terrorists and arrested 80 others. Again, people who don't want hospitals raided by armed forces, shouldn't use those as a base for terrorist activity. And I have to point out (because I've seen this misconstrued) that hospitals do lose their protection under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) when they are used by militants: "The protection to which fixed medical establishments and mobile medical units are entitled shall not cease unless they are being used to commit acts, outside their humanitarian duties, that are harmful to the enemy." It IS a war crime for terrorists to use a hospital this way. It is NOT a war crime, for a defending army to raid a hospital being used by terrorists, in order to protect its own civilian population from those terrorists.

During the raid on the hospital, an Israeli soldier was killed, 20 years old Matan Vinogradov from Jerusalem. Matan is the 250th IDF soldier to be killed during the fighting in Gaza. May his and their memory be a blessing.

I found Hebrew journalistic sources with pics, reporting on a man who came on March 15 to a pro-Israel protest in Washington with a burner (an actual burner, not a disposable phone), used it to threaten the protesters, and was arrested. I can't find an online English source, because every search I tried to do, gets drowned in how many anti-Israel protesters have been arrested. I don't think I ever feel the gap between what Israelis hear and know, and what the rest of the world does, more than in moments like these, when I can't find a single English source for info that was all over the national news on TV here.

Another one that I can find only in Hebrew news tweets and articles: UNRWA's offices in Jerusalem are seeing a protest from dozens of Israeli demonstrators, who are accusing the UN agency for its complicity in the Hamas massacre. Zaka (whose body bags were used in this demonstration) is the NGO responsible for handling bodies and collecting body parts after Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis, including on Oct 7. The protesters said that even though UNRWA has been denounced, it still continues to "operate normally, with its employees continuing their work as they always do, in the building they got for free from the Israeli government."

Did the following vid, about an Iranian American (non-Jewish) artist making a joint mural for Jews, Israelis and Iranians as an inspiration and dedication to all Middle Eastern women, make me cry? Yes, it did. So I'm sharing it.

This is 20 years old Daniel Peretz.

He was born in South Africa (where most of the Jewish community is descended from Eastern European Jews, who were fleeing pogroms), and his family made aliyah when he was 13 years old. He loved sports and hiking, and people talked he would always happily lend others a helping hand. Yesterday, we got the news that the IDF has collected enough findings to determine that he had been murdered by Hamas on Oct 7, and his body is held hostage in Gaza. An IDF rabbi has determined that among the findings, there is enough to hold a funeral, so IDK for sure, but I can guess this means body parts. The funeral is scheduled for today. For those keeping track, what we currently know is that there are 134 Israelis kept captive in Gaza, and at most, 99 of them are still alive. May Daniel's memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[chic-beyond-the-wall-oc-acct]

Ok, I've not seen it here but why are so many people on like TikTok and Twitter saying that the people in the Appalachians who didn't evacuate for the hurricane got what they deserved? I genuinely don't understand. People typically evacuate TO the Appalachians to avoid hurricane weather. All we got were flash flood warnings, which happen and are typically pretty easy to get over and recover from. And it's not just the fact that we don't get hurricane warnings, when things started to look worse we were told to stay put. And even for the few people who were told to evacuate, 30 minutes to an hour before they got hit, when you live in a place where people typically go to when they evacuate, where do you go? How do you know how far is far enough to be safe?

Let's take Asheville, a day trip from where my brother and his family live. It's underwater. A place 300 miles off the coast and 2100 feet above sea level. Ashville is one of the places people typically go to to avoid hurricane weather.

The damage in the Appalachians from Hurricane Helene is absolutely devastating. I have lived in Virginia my whole life and have never seen anything worse than a few flooded fields and raised creeks, this was not that. I've never seen the schools be turned into shelters. I'm almost 20, and I know that isn't a long time when you look at everything from before but that's still a good chunk of years. I don't recognize a lot of places anymore.

People's houses have been washed away, there are people dead and missing. Most people didn't have cell service for days and the first thing they see when they get back online to maybe see how folks are doing or get the news is people saying they deserved what they got. Entire towns have been washed away, bridges and roads are literally gone. They're not just underwater or damaged, they're gone. a damn broke and water had to be released into the already flooded rivers to stop others from breaking.

The land and infrastructure of the Appalachians isn't made for this. In most places the water has nowhere to go. It's too much for the ground, which is mostly clay, to soak up and in most places, like the valley my house sits in, the mountains form bowl-like shapes that keep the water from flowing out.

The wind was so bad we had a small twister touch down at my house. I joked with a few friends how it was a polite windstorm because it stayed in the road but stuff like that is literally terrifying. It threw something that knocked one of my windows in and I had to hold it up by myself. Our house is surrounded by 100 year old oaks and pines. If the one that fell had fallen to the left instead of the right, I'd probably be dead because it would have landed in my bedroom. One of our generators started leaking in the middle of the night and as my dad got up for work at 2 am he had to check to see if my mom, who had fallen asleep in the living room, was still alive because you could smell the gas which carries carbon monoxide. And that's just our personal experience. I feel absolutely awful for those that had it worse.

The Great Smokey Mountains, America's most visited national park, had 13.3 million visitors last year. Judging by everything that's been said online I doubt half of those people sympathize with what the people that live in that area are going through. As I said, we get flash flood warnings but nobody prepares you for this level of flooding! I guess it's easy to sit back and criticize the people that are literally suffering right now when you aren't affected at all. I can say I have never criticized people who got caught in a disaster nor have I met people who do so this is all so bizarre to me. It's crazy that the bar is so low and people can't even get across it. Hardly any sympathy and even less aid.

I really hate to put all of this here but I really need to get it off my chest. This was supposed to be a short ramble but seeing how completely unsympathetic people are being made me so angry.

[cheerfullycatholic]

So I saw this post on Twitter from a catholic mutual the other day saying that 27 isn't old. He was replying to a post that says 'we love hags' and shows a 27 year old girl. I dunno, but I've seen posts saying that girls over 25 or so are old and worth no value, and when I see posts like that, it gives me anxiety and right now, I'm denial about my 20s.

Genuinely, those people are losers. I have this theory that they hate women older than 25 because at 25 our brains are fully developed and we're less likely to put up with their bs because we're smart enough to know how immature and ugly their personalities are 🙂 (not to say women under 25 aren't smart and can't see their lies, again it's just a silly theory mostly for giggles. But I could actually see some of those guys believing that)

I'm turning 25 this month and occasionally I'll have a second of despair because I think about all the ways I wouldn't be considered valuable and how my age is just another thing to make it worse, but then I remember that no one else's opinion matters except for God's, and I can't recall a time when He ever put an age limit on someone, especially in regards to their value. I also think of all the people God called on who were older, sick, or disabled. There's not one specific way to be Catholic, no age where you have to be married with kids, and no disability or sickness that can stop you from loving and following the Lord. Anyone who says different is not a good representation of Christ and you shouldn't care about what they say. One of the reasons why I love the saints so much is because they're all a bit different. They're proof that you don't have to be or look a certain way to get to Heaven and become a saint yourself

[theheirofthesharingan]

the itachi's fandom full of proshippers..... they got him 💔 sigh

I don't really get how is that a bad thing? A piece of media and the characters associated with it will have all sorts of fans, and unless someone forces you (I mean in general, not you as an individual, anon) to watch/read their content, you should be okay with what kind of content they're creating. If you're not okay with it, you can still hold a negative opinion on the matter without making it look like it's the end of the world. If Naruto was a live-action movie/TV series and people started to create content on the actors, like they do with boy bands, that involves real life people, I would have a problem with it. But exploring themes through the lines drawn on paper who cannot exist in real world isn't the end of everything.

I'm not going into moral and psychological implications of pro-shipping, but in the simplest terms, if you don't like Itachi fans creating the "problematic" content you can always choose to ignore it. That's what I do.

Fiction is fiction. Yes, many people do get inspired from it and end up doing horrible things. But fanworks alone aren't responsible for that. They don't even have that much reach beyond a few thousand people on the internet. There are plenty of slasher movies. I don't like them personally. There are books dealing with darker themes as well that anti-shippers would not like. Again - one can ignore it instead of hounding the authors.

In my country a minor girl was paired up with a 37-year-old man for a romantic drama. That's one of the things pro shippers are accused of. A pro-shipper might or might not be okay with this in real life. We don't know. Who knows an anti-shipper who preaches morals on Twitter like a valiant keyboard warrier and fights "depraved" people is okay with it too?

In short, you can't assume anything about people on the internet from the things they create outside of their daily routine. The thing you can do is curate the content you want to explore and your own experiences. Much like you don't owe them anything, they don't owe you anything either.

I don't talk about shipping on my blog not because I'm against people exploring any of this, but because in general I'm uninterested in this aspect of Itachi and his relationships with other characters. Itachi and Sasuke's bonding can be deep without any romantic/sexual undertones to it. Shisui and Itachi were friends and kids before Shisui's death. And I don't think Itachi ever had the time to think what he wanted in his life in romantic terms before it all went wrong. Kisame and Itachi just make me uncomfortable. In canon they don't have anything going on.

If people want to explore these things about Itachi and his bonding with other characters it's okay, honestly. You can ignore it and focus on the kind of things you like. And if there's not enough of it you can create it too. There's always an audience for everything.

[olderthannetfic]

Re this anon: https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/718955493420384256

Yes, I will immediately throw into a trashcan anything Stitch attaches themselves to, and yes, I will also throw into a trashcan anything their devotees say, and I don't care if "it's not nuanced" or whatever other crap is the word of the day.

Stitch goes out of their way to attack people, screenshot their works and posts and then block them before they (Stitch) posts them onto their very public and followed Twitter profile, sending their followers to insult and attack anyone who doesn't agree with their braindead rants that we're all supposed to see as JSTOR worthy essays.

You wanna know who Stitch's besties in my fandoms are? All people who aren't black and who founded Discords they were forced to shut down because people were taking screenshots of them being openly racist against black characters, that's who.

How come people who are posting their stupid little fics are horrifically racist against Stitch and their followers specifically, to the point that a task force should be created to ban them from the internet as a whole, but Stitch's besties are totes okay writing vile shit, insulting and disrespecting all the POC in fandom, and attempting to blacklist all the creators who don't cater to their specific tastes?

None of the people who are pushing this movement have given me a single reason why I should listen to them. Not one. Oh, they wrote a manifesto? Cool! I can write one too! This doesn't mean I'm someone people should listen to or that should have the authority to delete others' works.

Moreover, fandom spaces are known for harboring racefakers, people who come up with batshit identities just because they want to belittle others. Remember HIVliving? What about that other one who was exposed like a year or so ago? If I'm not mistaken, the last grifter was constantly using Stitch's points too.

Am I supposed to be suspended from Ao3 and harassed (because this would absolutely happen, these people don't do a single thing if they can't use it as bragging material) because there's some white college student from Iowa who spends their days larping as a half Native American, half Iranian refugee who decided that they don't like a certain kink and therefore it means that anybody who writes about it is inherently racist? And we all know that, in the moment they were to be exposed, Stitch and devotees would suddenly decide that they prefer the "no comment" route, as well as weak attempts at defending them by saying "Yes, they were wrong in pretending to be of another race, but you all attacked them when you thought they were a POC, so you're still racist for calling them out and they're still right for sending their followers to harass you."

Sorry if I don't want my fics to be policed by these kinds of people. I've seen how they treat people they disagree with and who push back, and they're all absolutely vile and entitled individuals who see no issue in sending death and rape threats as long as the creator they're sending them to does something they don't like.

To sum it up: Stitch is trash, their followers are trash, and this whole campaign is just their 1000th attempt to censor people they don't like and who don't cater to their personal tastes (and that don't kiss their asses enough).

--

I presume the one from a year ago that you're thinking of is the Old Guard fandom racefaker. (Though, really, this pattern repeats regularly.)

[theliterarywolf]

So as a fan of indie animation, I've been so happy to watch the Lackadaisy backer kit raise a little over 2 MILLION DOLLARS to fund more work. That's awesome and I really enjoyed the pilot (and the comic) so I think they'll do good work

HOWEVER I noticed some weird drama getting stirred up on Twitter that seems to have gotten a bit tangled and frankly is really disappointing

So one of the Lackadaisy crew members I guess had been under a microscope for liking TERF-y rhetoric on Twitter and that was a whole thing. One of the leaders of the project is trans and they said they really think it was a misunderstanding/whatever. Of course people are still upset about it but I'm not sure how much the original person addressed it. I think that crew member was just retweeting a bunch of people that were defending her as not transphobic, not sure if she said anything particular in her defense

BUT THEN that same crew member also was weirdly catty towards Vivzie because when she tweeted about the Spindlehorse crew pooling towards a 5k backer tier for Lackadaisy, I guess Viv didn't include a direct link (although it was very clear what project it was).

Also I don't know how real these discord screenshots are but apparently that same Lackadaisy crew member was convinced Viv was only supporting the project to "get her claws in the credits."

AND THEN for whatever reason the Lackadaisy project rejected Viv/Spindlehorse's funding which Viv seemed confused about. One of the leaders of the Lackadaisy project gave this vague reason that Spindlehorse has done enough for indie animation but it's all really weird and feels rather unprofessional

I would hope they're not so blind to their friendship with their troublesome crew member that they'll stir up this weird unnecessary drama with Spindlehorse. Some Spindlehorse crew members said they felt really hurt by this behavior. It's not like Lackadaisy and Spindlehorse are fighting over a single spot on a network or something. . . they aren't rivals?? Idk

Like it's just so weird to me that yes, jesus, Viv is not perfect but so many people just seem to have it OUT for her I'm just genuinely confused

I'm going to go ahead and tag @topazdragoon since they were sending some asks about this as well but I was waiting to see if the situation would iron itself out.

The situation did not iron itself out.

But I'm just going to summarize my thoughts and observations on this whole situation with the following sentiment:

People who have the socioeconomic maturity of 13 year-olds should not be allowed to work in professional settings.

Because there should never have been this immature 'rivalry' between Hellaverse and Lackadaisy. The people working on the latter should have realize that 'hey, IanJQ was put under a microscope and nearly got cancelled for having a loli pic in his Twitter likes and he was a mainstream showrunner. How the fuck do you think people aren't going to look at your shite?'

When you apply for a job, especially in the creative sector, your sole responsibility from that point onward is presenting the project you're on in the best, SHINIEST fucking light like your breath depends on it.

'Starting incessant beef with creators I don't like' should be nowhere near that job-description.

And the fact that the latter team has had nothing but documented instances of someone on staff trying to start drama, someone on staff trying to start drama, someone on staff trying to start drama just shows that, despite dropping a technically sound pilot, I don't trust you guys with shit!

And the biggest signifier of this was the botching of Spindlehorse's donation to the Lackadaisy Kickstarter. 'Oh, I spoke to Viv about why we returned the donation in private', 'Oh, the BackerKit had a bad glitch', 'Oh, Viv only donated so she could have producer credit in another show!', 'Oh, we don't want the negative press from Hellaverse lingering around our show'.

Stop. Acting. Like. The Independent Animation Sector. Is Your Chance. To Relive. Your Middle School Drama Days.

If the situation was handled amicably in private, Viv wouldn't have posted the update about the donation being returned (even if the post she made was amicable). If the BackerKit had a bad glitch, you needed to fix it and remedy any understandings before it all burst into the spotlight. The donation was under Spindlehorse. Not just Viv, but multiple people from that team wanted to support another Indie project.

And, well, congratulations! Now you don't just have negative sentiments from the Hellaverse side of things, now you have to deal with the fact that, despite the Kickstarter being successful, when some people think of your bootlegger cat show, all they're going to think about are TERF-y middle schoolers.

[kaylapocalypse]

Hello!! This may be a bit of a long-shot, but you're a published and fairly successful author that I know how to contact, and I love The Wicker King..

You can respond to this via this ask or direct messages (or not at all!) Whatever you're comfortable with.

I'm in a position where I really need to start seriously thinking about my future career, and the one I'm leaning towards the most at the moment is a creative writer. I love it, and it's one of my strong suits... but the field is not known for being easy to navigate.

You clearly have experience, so I was wondering if you could shed some light on what I would need to do if I decide to be serious about pursuing this?

What does the publication process look like, how do you support yourself financially (is it substantial?), what courses did you take in college (if at all), and how did you get your name out there?

Being an author is a plan/dream I had years ago and had since given up on, but after two years of chasing a different passion, I'm starting to waver again on what I should do...

So, I was wondering if you could tell me about your experience in the writing/book industry; if you're comfortable of course!

Thank you for your time and I hope you have a nice day!

My apologies for taking so long to answer this, I had to think very hard about what I wanted to say.

I think the most important thing for you to know is that it takes about 10 years before most creative writers--novelists especially--are able to live off their craft. And that's not even factoring in the metrics of chance.

I don't mean this as a dissuasion of any kind. Its just very important to me that you enter this field with this understanding. Most authors have a second job, in particular, most authors are either teachers or attorneys for some reason (especially romance novelists, chock full of attorneys) quite a few authors also work at call centers (low effort job that allows for tons of energy for personal time) and another subset are just RICH PEOPLE.

I myself started out as a call center author and then I married someone kind of Well Off. Without them I might not be able to do nearly as much writing as I do.

The biggest thing I want you to be doing right now is picking a secondary "job" that will allow you to write for long enough that you are able to get to that 10 year time when you can retire your first job and get into your writing career. I know 10 years sounds like a long time, but I graduated at 22 and only now as a 32 year old are things starting to fall into place. Think of it like becoming a doctor. Those 10 years are med school and residency.

The next thing that I think is important is that you develop a strong relationship with constructive criticism and stamina.

Here are the three things that kill potential authors early and stop their potential careers on the spot

Being too scared to share their work with as many people as possible. Especially people they do not know. Getting opinions on your work (notably bad ones) lets you learn much quicker how to fix issues. You'll grow much faster as a writer if you're open to harsh opinions and open to sharing your work.

Thinking that because someone doesn't like your book, they don't like YOU. Art is so personal and its really difficult for a huge amount of people to jump this emotional hurdle. What helps is thinking about your favorite artists and authors and whether you like every single thing they ever created. Chances are, you just like /most/ of it. What you really like is THEM. I know of at least 4 people I'm online friends with on twitter who have hated every single book I ever wrote but think my twitter is absolutely hilarious. And people who love my books to pieces but think I'm so extremely annoying and have me blocked on twitter lmao. Its just product, its just a macaroni necklace. Its ok.

Thinking because they aren't having a Wunderkind Experience that they're a failure and give up too early. I recently met a guy who sent out 20 query letters and didn't hear back from all of them and got so bitter he threw an online tantrum (that likely got him blacklisted) and swore not to try trad publishing ever again. 20 queries is nothing. I personally sent out 80 and queried for about 7 months and I absolutely had what people describe as "a Cinderella experience." A lot of other people are like...., 27 and are like "ohhh im too old to be an author... there are so many young authors" meanwhile, if you go to any major conference, all the authors there are like 45-65 years old and there's like 10 people in their 20s-early 30s and everyone treats you like an interesting baby. Getting bitter and insecure about this is the quickest way to lose hope and squash your OWN dreams for literally no reason.

As for the publication process, I have a few links for you:

This last link will be very important to you later, so please save it to your computer. The first two are just informative stuff about the process.

If you have any more questions or want me to talk more about anything I've mentioned here, feel free to send them my way!

[atsushishelteredinmoonlitjasmine]

The things I'm reading about the commentary for RW/BY Vol. 9 have made me want to write this post. It's just something I want to say, regardless of how it most likely retreads old ground or shares sentiment with other posts like it. At least it'll be more concise and filled with less angry ramblings than if I decided to write this last night, when I was first reading everything.

(Just to avoid confusion, I'll be referring to the characters/writers via their initials as a way of censoring them from people who don't wish to see this post. This makes it easier for me and is less annoying than having to put slashes everywhere)

I mainly wanted to focus on two things. One was the hacker crew (as I will "affectionately" dub the writers) deciding to off-screen W telling the rest of RBY of what happened to P and J killing her. The other was of ER saying on Twitter that he (and the rest of the hackers) didn't think R would find issue with J killing P. Anything else from the commentary may or may not have a separate post, it just depends on what is said and if it upsets me enough.

Let's address the second point first because I have something to say. I don't understand ER's logic here. Why did he, and by extension everyone else, think R wouldn't be upset/angry at J for killing P? She has every abso-fucking-lute right to feel that way! I mean, one of her closest friends KILLED another of her closest friends! Disregarding how it was P's choice (which I hate, btw), you mean to say R wouldn't lash out at J, berating him for not trying to find another way or doing more to save P? Even if R understood that the situation was complicated or everything was just going a million miles a second, I can't see her not being incensed at him. Shit like that needs time to process and I can't imagine R to be super calm after hearing that bombshell.

Which leads me to the first point. Why in the fuck did the scene of W telling RBY of said bombshell happen off-screen? Why do the hacker crew INSIST on off-screening important scenes like this? Even if fans want to say they didn't want to reiterate information the audience already knows, they could've made it to where W starts the conversation, fade to black or cut away, and come back to RBY's reactions afterwards. It's not that hard! Do they think scenes that are character-oriented are filler? I just can't understand their reasoning for doing this.

It's at this point I'm saying the writers are downright lazy. I've known for years now that they're not good but I know for sure now they're just lazy. ER can Tweet all he wants that he and the team should've been more clear on certain aspects of the story or they should've thought more on other aspects but the truth is, they didn't WANT to put in the work. It's too much effort for them to put in care for decency's sake so they might as well half-ass it or better yet, just shoot the first idea that comes out of their minds, write it into the story without any revising or editing, and call it a day. Let the fans who actually do more for the story than the writers do put in the work to explaining the plot because clearly, they care about the material and aren't thinking they're hot shit for writing nonsensical bullshit.

It must be nice, getting paid to sit on your ass all day while the animators you overwork and exploit the services of do all the work that you underpay them for. Wish I and the other people who create art, fanfics, videos, etc. could get money for all the promo we give you, whether that's our intention or not. But then again, the harassment we may receive for any fuckups on your end wouldn't be worth the blood money.

[theoddest1]

i fear viv is like j*k*r -

there is evidence, proof, so so much of it. and even then, just her behavior alone, without the really bad stuff, is questionable to say the least. i dont know how to put it, but she and her fans act like 12 year olds on wattpad (i used to be one of those kids to some extent ik what im talking about here lmfao). it is a FACT she's horrible and disgusting (i could list a thousand other things here but the critical community already knows all this) and still people defend and dickride her. it is no lie that her fanbase is like a cult. i wonder if these people are actually completely oblivious or are just as horrid because the fact she's a horrible person is as clear as day. the fetish shit, her weird ass transphobia, her blatant disgregard to actual victims that aren't her fans, her drawing... that , her racism, her- should i go on? and i fear there is no consequences for BOTH these people- they will go on until they die without ever facing their actions and stuff. its disturbing.

its like j*k*r all over again. i sense a pattern here. not sure what kind, but its so fucking baffling how both are horrid and insufferable AS CLEAR AS DAY as people and HARM OTHERS and still get so much support. both need to be studied because what the fuck have they going on that protects them meanwhile some people on social media get cancelled for one sentence they said 17 years ago (not that that's not "valid" it's just baffling how some people get cancelled over the smallest shit meanwhile....) and these people get to enjoy their life without consequences while there's MOUNTAINS of proven evidence.

i feel like i discovered a goddamn alien baby the way im so fucking flabbergasted at all this.

anyways, sorry for the rant.

i hope you have a nice day/evening/morning/night!

Hey, no worries! Rant away! It's a very strange enigma for sure, and the fandon does indeed act like a cult! My guess for how Viv keeps getting away with all this stuff is that she has a parasocial relationship with her fanbase. The idea of landing a job or getting close with a creator with such a large following overrides any sense of reason or care for her actions, so people keep gassing her up because it could likely lead her to like or comment on their stuff. There's also the pseudo kind act she puts on, so people think she's the sweetest person ever when she has showcased the opposite. There's also a loooot of fandom bullying. Lots of the big dogs in the fandom bully people into silence or make em think they're in the wrong.

There's a WHOLE lot of control going on here, and thanks to her ass kissers logic is thrown out the window. Finally, there were the overblown posts highlighting things that, while weird or gross, aren't "cancelable" enough or downright exaggerations of the truth or lies. These threads on Twitter, especially back in 2019, did more harm than good and led many into believing there was a mob that simply wanted to cancel her for being popular. The threads consisted of her old cringe art (some are very questionable don't get me wrong) rather than the ones where she encouraged fandom bullying and made fun of a 15 year old fan for simply being critical of her work and called them nasty for it. No one did any research on her behavior or how she was an absolute bully to people like Starvader. Callouts need to consist of hard evidence so stuff like this doesn't happen, where your callout does more harm than good.

These factors led to many straight up turning off their brains and blatantly ignoring hard evidence. It's very, very stupid.

Also, who is the other person you mentioned? The only one that comes to mind is the guy who plays League of Legends and is famous for winning many championships.

[pumpumdemsugah]

I also just wanted to say that a lot of ppl say that black women are not seen as women when that's straight bogus! Like yt men treat black women like women, with their hatred and contempt. It closely parallels with how they treat women they deem evil or bad in their society but not men. Pro tip: when a man says he'll treat a woman like a man he means hell treat her like a woman who stepped out of line. A lot of the abuse I faced as a young black girl is not because I was not seen as a woman, if anything my womanhood was my defining trait in the abuse.

Right!

The Black women aren't seen as women originally started out as a statement that was meant in the same way men way " I wasn't treated like a man " but everyone's is being so dumb about us

Black men moan about manhood all the time but no one is dumb enough to think it's a statement about them being physically different from other men like an alien and they would immediately understand that doing so is racist but white monkeys are running around talking about Black female bones because they're insecure about being big and tall so we need to be weirdly built so they can feel normal and I'm not willing to affirms people's insecurities if they think they can bring up like this

Naysayers will bring up all the race science experiments as if a cornerstone of that ideology didn't also posit that white women had smaller brains and are less developed than white men. White men literally did it to everyone. Who gives a fuck what these old fuckers said about people's bodies ? They made shit up so why is that shit somehow true but Black women but not you?

Black women aren't treated like women is a statement about gender roles and expectations but the internet is too horrifically stupid for that simple idea to the point some dumb ass white monkey argued ' Black women would have never been slaves if they were seen as women ' lmao and said it to Black women with history degrees

Because of that, I'm rescinding the statement. No one is allowed to use it until everyone behaves

Everyone's being dumb including twitter lib Black women encouraging this idea to focus on our bodies so they can say fake deep shit about gender, instead of how we're treated. The point was always, we're being treated like shit but you say women are delicate. This is why so many Black women are obsessed with femininity- it's in hopes that we'll be treated nice and less rough

At this point I don't know what id do if someone says this off social media because I'm a deeply confrontational person that loves taking low blows when people say stupid shit to me

They thought we were like pigs and cows. We don't call farm animals women. So why is everyone acting dumb ? We were literally property like a table. We were never going to be treated nicely. Our foremothers brutalisation was spun as a necessity because if they didn't need to rape, beat and enslaved, they couldn't claim to be civilised

So many white people make it so obvious they wouldn't have been an abolitionist because they're affirming slave master views for what reason ?

[cxnscience]

respond to the following prompts out of character, then tag others you'd like to get to know a little bit better. i'm days late on this but hey it's munday so I Might As Well do it today

roleplayer name : august !

pronouns : she/her or he/him

muse name(s) : as far as solo blogs, i've got jiminy cricket (You Are Here), bones from star trek at @bcnes, and then a (way more inactive) oc who i won't even bother listing because he is That Inactive. i also have a lot of video game and movie muses over at @multimoth but to be frank i tend to write the same 5 of them and everyone else is gathering dust

preferred communication : i am AWFULLL with tumblr dms so those are at the bottom of the list. i'm on discord way more often! anyone can reach out and i will probably give you my usename to add me :")

experience : uhhh i started on random forums way back in the early 2000s and stuck with those venues for like 15 years. that and neopets. i moved to dreamwidth during college and then twitter after that (it was awful). then tumblr maybe 4 years ago or so

preferred roleplay type : i tend to start most interactions out as banter because it's just easier for me to let that develop into threads naturally! ask memes are also great. i have a bit of a hard time writing out fully plotted scenarios because i like the Improv nature of rp a lot, i like to see how things change when we both throw our ideas into the mix as the interaction progresses. that and i love relationships and plots that form slowly. the slow burn of it all.........

pet peeves / dealbreakers : most of my muses are multiship (and in bones' case, polyamorous even) so i get really annoyed when people insinuate they're cheating by virtue of having multiple partners or something. or get possessive of a character. like my guy.. . there is no overlap here there is zero reason to make your character jealous. i also dislike it when it feels like my character only exists to give therapy to other characters please he has so much more going on........ he'll reach out to try to do that sort of thing sometimes, yeah, but in general i think i don't like when rps feel uneven. i want the characters to get to know each other equally.

in that same vein, if people treat my character as a joke or belittle him constantly it's going to get old very quickly. and i'm prone to drop threads that feel like they aren't going to evolve into anything significant? like if it's just characters arguing back and forth with no resolution, or one character maintains the same view of mine forever with no room to change that. not every character has to become friends or anything like that but things should move in Some direction with enough time and repeated interaction

best time to write : i have a 9-5 and usually need to take some time to decompress after that so i'm typically on around 8pm est or so!

are you like your muse ? : god i hope not. but uhh out of all my muses honestly i think i'm Least like jiminy. outside of being like... relatively stubborn and a little hotheaded (i'm an aries, i don't know what jiminy's excuse is)

tagged by ellie @lcafman aaand honestly a lot of y'all have already done this so i won't double tag you. if you see this and you haven't done it, steal it from me!

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

More very old twitter stuff that I'm just now bringing to tumblr.

Specifically, two versions of repetitive time travel I Will Probably Never Write (But There Are Snippets Included This Time!).

(Variant One)

The war has barely ended when Jin Guangshan mysteriously dies in an 'accident' with a monster.

There are plenty of witnesses, but the timing is JUST suspicious enough (right as he's making a play for Xiandu) that Jin-furen demands the bastard son deal with sussing out what happened. Recognizing what a huge responsibility has just been dumped on his friend, Lan Xichen offers to help with the investigation.

Evidence is a bitch and a half to come by, and most of it seems to make no sense at all.

Not least of all because it seems to be pointing to Nie Huaisang, of all people.

They almost dismiss the possibility entirely because while they know he can be clever, the idea that he would orchestrate something like this...?

But gradually, it becomes clear that even though they don't have enough to prove it's him, it can't be anyone else. They're trying to figure out whether they should take what they have to Nie Mingjue and hope he believes them or confront Nie Huaisang directly when they happen to come across him talking to a creature that has to be magical... mostly because it's talking back.

And what it says clarifies a great deal of things, at least for Jin Guangyao.

"Reincarnation is one thing, but humans aren't meant to live the same lifetime over and over. If you don't settle, you risk shattering yourself and ruining your chances of ever reincarnating again."

The one thing Jin Guangyao had never been able to figure out was motive. Why in the world would silly Nie Huaisang go out of his way to murder a sect leader?

But if what the creature says is true, that Nie Huaisang has been repeating the timeline... well, there's only one thing in the world that could possibly drive him to that kind of madness.

He tells Lan Xichen that they should confront Nie Huaisang first, but when they do, he only has one question to ask.

"How many times did my father order your brother's death?"

===

"Hm... and why should I go back? Exile is exile, is it not? And if I'm here, no one will ever have to wonder or worry about what I do again."

"That's not true, and you know it. We’ll worry whether you're safe."

"Too late for that. Far too late for that." Nie Huaisang stretched, the motion calling attention to just how thin he'd gotten in the years since Jin Guangyao had seen him last, walking silently out of the gates of the Unclean Realms.

"I'm tired of talking to you," he said as he stood up "Go home. Tell everyone you trapped me here on purpose, and they'll consider you a hero. Everyone wins."

"Except you."

The smile Nie Huaisang gave him made his heart hurt. "I've already gotten the only thing I was after. For the first time ever, my brother has finally passed thirty years old, and he will live many years more. Whether or not I would be around to see any of that was never actually important."

Without another word, he turned and began walking away, and the shifting fog that permeated the strange in-between realm they were in closed him off from sight within a few steps.

Jin Guangyao shoved himself to his feet, a sudden sense of panic flooding his chest. "Huaisang, wait! Huaisang!"

Nothing answered him but the faint sound of wind. 

—-------

(Variant 2)

Jin Guangyao with a pretty decent/happy life discovering that this is actually the second (third, fourth, fifth?) version of this lifetime, with canon having been the first and Nie Huaisang having been the one who changed it to save his brother.

He becomes obsessed with the realization that Nie Huaisang could have destroyed him, and yet chose not only to spare him, but to include him on the list of improved lives.

===

“I still don’t understand.”

Nie Huaisang swallowed the last of his soup and cradled the little wooden bowl in his lap. "Don't understand what?"

"You could have gotten rid of me. If death was off the table, you could have just as easily injured or disgraced me to make me go away. Why didn't you?"

For a long time, there was no answer as Nie Huaisang just stared into the fire. Then he sighed and slumped against the rock behind him, tipping his head back.

"I thought about it. I'd even made plans for it," he says in a hollow voice that sends a shiver down Jin Guangyao's spine. "But the more I thought, the more I realized it wouldn't do any good. He would have just sent someone else to do it. In fact, he did just send someone else to do it the two times I managed to convince you to back off or otherwise distract you."

Jin Guangyao frowns. "Who... Xue Yang?"

Nie Huaisang gives a tired, bitter laugh. "No, no, as much as he probably would have been eager to do it, he was still considered too necessary," he says, then wipes his eyes. "Poor Yu-er. As expendable as he was to your father, figuring out how to keep him alive was almost as hard as keeping Da-ge alive."

Jin Guangyao swallows hard and decides he doesn't want to know. 

"Besides... I didn't always hate you, you know. At one point I would have given you almost anything you asked of me."

'Anything except my brother,' goes unspoken, but not unheard.

And, considering Nie Huaisang had gone so far as to give him this new life, comfortable and secure and free of his father's never-ending demands, he believes it.

Especially since it has all come at such a harsh cost to Nie Huaisang himself.

He reaches out and gently takes the bowl from Nie Huaisang's hands to refill it, but sets it aside instead of immediately handing it back.

"And now? Would you still do it?" he can't help but press, curiosity eating at him.

Nie Huaisang tilts his head, expression a mix of emotions. "That implies I have anything left to give you."

"You do," Jin Guangyao says, then leans in and kisses him.

[randomnameless]

Localization discourse has cropped up again on Twitter, and someone posted a few before and after screenshots of an Echoes mod that retranslates the game to be more faithful to the original JP script, with that same person claiming that all the mod does is remove all the personality and charm 8-4 added to the dialogue; for reference, here's the lines they're referring to:

Lukas (EN): But just once, i should like to be red with rage, green with envy... Something!

Lukas (JP): But still, i've never been caught up enough to lose control of myself...

Clair (EN): Do i not deserve better than these trite gambits of yours?

Clair (JP): That kind of behavior is very hurtful towards the one it is directed at.

Clair (EN): If that crass phrase means you wish to speak with me, then please proceed.

Clair (JP): Oh, Dyute. What is it?

I can somewhat get why people could see the first change as just being a less interesting way of getting across Lukas' lines about struggling with not feeling enough emotions (though even then i'd argue that changing the lines from him being dejected and resigned at his emotional struggles to him being actively angry about them is a decently big change to his character and not just "oh they worded it in a more interesting way"), but i really don't get how people can argue that Clair's localized lines aren't blatantly rewriting her character; her criticism of Gray being changed from "your behavior hurts people and you should stop because of that" to "your behavior hurts me and you should stop because i'm your superior and deserve better than to be toyed with by the likes of you", along with her greeting to Delthea being changed from "oh hi, what's the matter?" to "if that gross phrase means you want to talk to me, then i suppose i can grant you the privilege of a conversation" doesn't make the dialogue any wittier, it's just making Clair into more of a spoiled brat than she was intended to be originally.

You ruined my day with this :(

(i know this is an old ask, but I forgot it in my drafts!)

I thought FE15's localisation was nice, but granted, I didn't have access to the JP script (nor JP audio!), but now I wonder if the schtick "nobles vs commoners" wasn't overplayed in the lolcalised version, which in turn, would kind of explain why some people felt cheated by Alm's reveal -

Even if I always took it as "being a noble has nothing to do with birth" didn't meant Tobin as a peasant could become a noble and have a noble heart, but meant that even if you are born a noble with super special powers or not, being a noble character only falls on you, and the actions you take : Alm rescues random women (FE15 for you!) around at the cost of his mission/safety/etc, when Berkut, who is noble-born just like Alm, hunts peasants and burns his fiancée.

8-4 adding more "Nobles BaD" feels in touch with what ultimately happened with Fodlan, even if while the FE series already tried to dip its toes in this water with Ike, his "nobles BaD" ultimately amounted to childish tantrum and refusal to deal with "complicated things" when you realise and learn what kind of people he's working with, and their responsabilities.

In a way, I can understand the people being annoyed that the mod removed the "additions" brought by 8-4 if they really made the characters more memorable - but my stance will always be to be able to choose if you want to put parmesan on your pasta or not.

8-4!Clair is a spoiled and snob brat - but can't we get the choice to get a Clair without parmesan?

You know what, I'm thinking FEH's decision (in 2017!) to, uh, not include dual audio was due to the supposed limitations of the app, but imo, was also amde with the dubbing/US!VA industry in mind because, imagine the players from FE14-FE15 having characters who, by tone alone, are different from the ones they're used to, what kind of message would that send to players? You've played the parmesan!version of those games?

And to be clear, I like my pasta carbonara with heavy cream because I'm french and cream is life.

And yet, IDK, maybe that's just me, but I think I'd feel a bit out of the loop if I was thrown in game that celebrates a franchise I never played, since the games I played were... heavily "localised" to catter to my tastes and overplayed issues that weren't there because I'd maybe like this theme more than what was initially presented.

Cultural differences are a thing, but Crayon Shin-Chan is meant to be watched, in japan, by children in primary school.

OD's Crayon Shin Chan is basically japanese!Family Guy.

We had the "same" heavily lolcalisation back in the days here, with French!City Hunter ("Nicky Larson") and French!Hokuto no Ken ("Ken le Survivant"), and while in the 80s-90s some people still harped that those were the "real deal", with time it became more and more widely accepted that Nicky Larson and Ken le Survivant were... products that were lolcalised to fit with the regulations of that time (no blood for children! no swear words - when the regular french person says "merde" at least 10 times per day) - but if you were to go and interview the authors of those mangas, they wouldn't have a clue about what you're talking about with your french "dessins animés".

(granted, I've heard that recently, during a convention, both the author of City Hunter and Hokuto no Ken were surprised but pleased that even if it was lolcalised to oblivion, their work was so appreciated here!)

With modern FE though, I feel like FEH has to pretend that Nicky Larson and Ryo Saeba from City Hunter are the same person - so they will put Ryo in a fridge and call Nicky Larson "Ryo Saeba".

I mean, that's what we got with Halloween!Rhage - who roars using her special, and yet winks in her artwork because the artwork was commissioned by the people who designed/came up with Rhea, not with Rhage - and here, with your examples, with Clair.

Clair is a young noble lady, who as you pointed out with those lines, is a well mannered noble who doesn't hurt nor is looking down on people from lower birth, eons away from the "oujou who only means well" trope we ended up with with 8-4.

At the end of the day, people are free to enjoy whatever they want, let it be 8-4!Clair of Jp!Clair - but I'll have the same opinion as I always did regarding localisation : was it really up to 8-4 to change her characterisation this way? Are they still localising or swapping Jp!Clair with a brand new character of their creation?

If so, can this still be called localisation?