#but mostly its because people expect me to act a certain way and i just..

[vroomvroomwee]

On today's question: Are you really socially awkward, or do you just not know how to act as your assigned gender at birth?

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Dear Raven, do you have any opinion on the Tangled event in terms of it’s “story”? Cause I personally feel that it was rather underwhelming…

I have a lot of thoughts about Wish Lantern, so I'd be more than happy to expand on those here. First of all, I think a lot of us were underwhelmed by this event because we went in with a certain set of expectations. We thought this would be THE Riddle event and hyped ourselves up about how this would further his character development. And technically, the event did do that--even if said development was only relevant for parts 2-7 to 2-13, and the final part, 2-18. I think we just weren't fans of the execution. Rarely are story events contained mostly in a single room--but Wish Lantern was. Rarely are modern Twst story events a mere two episodes long--but Wish Lantern was. Rarely do story events call for characters to just stand around and reenact the exact same things the Disney characters did--but in Wish Lantern, they do. It was just a storm of blandness when I think we were wanting and expecting to explore a new place, and more in-depth exploration of Riddle's complicated relationship with his mother, especially considering we got Wish Lantern right off the tail end of his book 7 dream in the JP server. But we didn't get that, so many people ended up disappointed.

Now, how do I feel about it? Well...

I think I get what they were going for by cramming everyone into the library. The devs were probably trying to show us how claustrophobic and suffocating it is to be trapped inside and stripped of your freedom. They wanted us to feel the same way that Rapunzel did up in her tower, and they did it all without telling us to our faces "doesn't it suck, don't you feel awful about this?" But the problem with this setting is that it also makes for a dull story, especially when you combine it with the fact that Riddle and the others come to the stunningly stupid conclusion that they HAVE to live out the same life the Princess in the Tower did to get out.

We never got an explanation as to why this chain of events was even set off by the lantern to begin with. As a writer myself, this really bothers me :/

We got NRC library lore, but it was not that interesting because this could have been easily guessed, given the age and elite status of the school.

One bit of new lore I thought was very interesting was Jack saying that only a handful of mages are authorized to move humans using magic + there are restrictions on this kind of magic. This fleshes out the magic system of Twst and the laws around its use.

I found it silly that Riddle was the one to suggest that they pretend to be princesses and that this is what would help solve their problem. That's so nonsensical and such a huge leap of logic, I expected it of KALIM, not Riddle. (Maybe you could argue that Riddle has a desire to let his inner child out, but I do not see current day Riddle so overtly expressing that; he has shown time and time again he is uncomfortable going outside the bounds his mother laid for him, and that includes acting in traditionally immature ways.) And not only that, but why did they all insist and automatically invest so much in being princesses, and continue to dig into details about the Princess in the Tower's life, truly believing that reenacting it would get them out of this bind??? I know it's for plot convenience, but it was so contrived. They literally had no proof this would work yet kept acting in ways that implied they genuinely believed it would work. Why wouldn't they just believe "okay, this isn't working" after changing into their new clothes, makeup, and hairdos and try something else? No, instead they just fully dedicated themselves to this reenactment strategy after questioning their assumption maybe once or twice.

The Princess in the Tower is even a FAIRY TALE in the world of Twisted Wonderland. It's not actually a part of their history. The characters point out (at multiple points in the event) how silly the fairy tale is or how little sense it makes. So... that gives them even less reason to believe in reenacting it as their solution.

Shoutout to the part where Jack talks about how tight his shirt is in the chest area (boobs too big, lol) and how he had to alter it to be more comfortable for him...

There were strange parts where the event was like a... poorly written locked room mystery? In a good mystery, the reader is handed all the clues to come to their own conclusions. In a bad mystery, important details are not given to the reader, so there is no feasible way for them to come to their own conclusions until the story tells them that missing crucial information. This happens a few times, with Ace handing Riddle "something he'll need" (which turns out to be a frying pan), Riddle "taking a long time" to jump out of the window (because he was contacting Silver to tell him to bring Vorpal), and Vargas giving them climbing rope (to aid in their escape). We only anticipate these things to occur if you're familiar with Tangled already. If you haven't seen it, you would have NO IDEA what is going to happen with these scenes.

I liked that every NRC character, including staff, got their five minutes in the spotlight. We don't often get events like this, so I appreciate them when they do happen.

Mom!Jamil was so very prominent this event 💀

Jade killed me when he showed up wearing THAT STUPID VARGAS CAMP MONSTER MASK THING.

... Remember what I said earlier about how it's confusing how Riddle, Jack, Deuce, and Kalim are throwing literally their ALL into these hobbies??? Well. Leona comes in and tells them it's inefficient to do that. Why are they trying to play an entire game of chess when moving a single piece is enough to constitute fulfilling the (supposed) requirements? If they were so worried about the time crunch, they should have been more economical with their time and spent the minimum amount on every activity, not spend hours trying to do each one. AGAIN, I HAVE TO GIVE IT TO KINGSCHOLAR... HE IS CORRECT. Of all the characters, I can only really see Riddle being anal about doing everything perfectly, but the other three could easily coast by on the bare minimum.

This is a bit of my book 7 salt spilling over into this event, but I kept having this nagging thought that Riddle and co. (+ Crowley) seem VERY concerned with escaping the library before it rolls over to the next day. Like... I understand why they're worried--but they oddly do not demonstrate this same level of urgency for most of the dream hopping in book 7 even though the stakes are much higher there. It doesn't make sense to me...

The devs got creative with the framing of this event; there was the diagonal slice and then showing two characters in two different locations speaking, as well as the Jamils low fade in + vanish.

The new music tracks were nice; one emulated the Kingdom Dance, and the other was a combination of the instrumentation of When Will My Life Begin and At Last I See The Light, which I appreciated.

The rhythmics/twistunes were cute. Nothing else to add.

I did like the character development we actually got for Riddle—I just wish it came attached to a better event and was executed better. His development is sort of poorly spaced out (especially when compared to Deuce in White Rabbit Fest), the event itself is short, and Riddle doesn’t even bring up his mom until 2-13… when the last part is 2-18.

I still felt that the parallels between Rapunzel and Riddle were sufficiently conveyed; it just requires reading between the lines.

I loved that they made a point to mention that the Princess didn’t know she was kidnapped by a witch because the witch provided all that she could ever want in her tower. Delicious food and lots of things to do… why would she ever go against someone that provided these amenities for her? It is similar to the mindset many abused children have—simply because an abusive guardian provides for them, children are compelled to give them grace and feel guilty about disobeying. These kids don’t realize they are “kidnapped” (under the abusive guardian’s thumb). The same goes for Riddle.

When I think about it… the window is an important symbol for Riddle. The manga more explicitly shows us that Trey and Chenya knocked on Riddle’s window to get his attention. It’s also through the window that Riddle escapes to go play with them. Now, again, a window is his escape, and, learning from past experience, he hesitates to take that route even though it is so easily accessible. I've decided... Never again. Almost made me gasp out loud, honestly. This was the part I expected from the start, and Twst actually delivered.

Another point I feel is very important is how Riddle consistently brings up the rules as a means of depriving himself of basic things like food (because you cannot eat in the library). The others have the be the ones to convince him to take better care of himself. He even has trouble jumping from the window too—and this is the same as Rapunzel. It’s not that they cannot leave the tower. They can leave anytime they like—but they trap themselves in it, psychologically speaking, due to how they’ve been isolated and controlled. That takes real strength and willpower to overcome.

It’s great that Jack, Deuce, and Kalim support Riddle through this tough decision-making, even if they’re blunt about it. (Sometimes bluntness is what he needs to really snap into action!!) “I don’t want to see you turning into a loser that uses the rules as an excuse to not act.”, “Are you planning on staying there forever?” etc.

The ending nicely wraps up Riddle’s little arc. He connects the dots that both he and Rapunzel broke the promises made to their mothers—but it was worth it to see this amazing sight, wasn’t it?

I happen to have my own Wish Lantern rewrite if you're interested in an alternate version of the event. As it currently is, it's okay to pretty good in the Riddle development scenes alone and has some cute interactions, but everything else surrounding that is pretty bleh.

[ashes-goin-down]

I think Cartman hates jewish people and -Kyle- too much to be vulnerable like you've depicted. No matter what level of physical attraction he might feel.

Hi there, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately I wrote a whole-ass novel in response so here's the TL;DR so you don't actually have to read all that: I agree that the comic is OOC but I don't think it's because of Cartman's hatred of Kyle or Jewish people.

Sorry for misusing your message to go on a somewhat loosely related rant but I've been meaning to write this for a while and it came as a convenient excuse lmao _

I agree with you regarding the vulnerability. I don't think Cartman would voice his feelings like that unless (he could claim that) it's a farce (e.g., Jenny Simons, "Cartman Finds Love") or the other person shows interest in him first so he feels safe from rejection (Heidi, initially - not opening that whole can of worms rn lol). For example, he treated his attraction to Patty Nelson as a big secret, apparently not even considering ever confessing to her, and that's most likely because he was expecting the reaction she did end up giving him since, beneath his self-deceit, he's excruciatingly aware of the fact that he's actually not exactly highly regarded by his peers.

It's a lot of work upholding the façade he's build for himself of being this cool, esteemed person and it cracks easily even without direct outside influence (for example when Clyde Frog or Cupid Me insult him) so he really, really doesn't deal with rejection very well. Him being this vulnerable to Kyle specifically and then getting rejected would be absolutely catastrophic for him, so I agree that he wouldn't put himself in that position. However, it's my opinion that the most OOC thing about the comic is the fact that he simply acknowledges that Kyle hates him. I don't actually think he'd just accept that but would instead convince himself that it isn't true ("Kyle has internalized homophobia" or better yet "Kyle doesn't think he's worthy of someone as cool and awesome as me") and then do some crazy shit to try and win him over.

So yeah, you're right: He Would Not Fucking Say That. I don't think his hatred of Kyle and/or Jewish people is the reason he wouldn't, though, as I believe Cartman's feelings towards Kyle and Judaism are a lot more complicated than that. It's not without reason that his relationships with both are such a big part of the show and that people smarter than me have written whole essays on the topic lmao

I feel the need to clarify that I am in no way trying to excuse any of Cartman's antisemitism! I'd just like to voice a few thoughts on its origin and evolution.

Cartman is clearly weirdly obsessed with both Kyle and his religion and obviously they are linked. While I suppose initially it might have been a bit of a chicken-egg situation ("He hates Kyle because he hates Jews" vs. "He hates Jews because he hates Kyle"), I believe originally his antisemitism may have simply been a byproduct of his fascination with the third reich, which itself I think was mostly a result of his enjoyment of envisioning himself as a dictator (i.e. the ultimate authority figure) and as such was actually pretty surface-level - as is evident from the fact that for a long time he didn't seem to fully grasp what exactly Judaism even IS (as shown when he apologizes to Kyle for calling him a Jew or when he uses the term as an insult towards Stan and Kenny). Still, I very much dislike it when people try to downplay his bigotry as naivety. That really doesn't hold any water after very early on in the show, if it ever even did in the first place, since he definitely acts from a place of malice and over time his fixation on the religion seems to have developed into something bigger. He's learnt more about it and it became much more synonymous with Kyle for him (the order of which is also debatable but I of course lean a certain way). At this point in the show I believe it's safe to say that he wouldn't be nearly as obsessed with Judaism if Kyle wasn't Jewish. While Cartman is obviously a bigoted asshole in many ways, he's not nearly as preoccupied with other minority groups as he is with Jews and he has even shown himself to be surprisingly tolerant of homosexuals and disabled people (who, of course, were also heavily persecuted under Nazism).

I really do think that "Jewpacabra" did leave a lasting impact on his character. It's pretty obvious that he was being genuine at the end of of the episode and actually did intent on self-identifying as Jewish from then on (and iirc M&T confirmed as much in the commentary to that episode and explained that they just sort of… forgot about that lol) and then in "Shots" he does claim to be Jewish and while that may have been in an attempt to get a vaccination exemption, the aforementioned commentary makes me believe it may not exclusively be that.

Notably, he specifically calls himself an "Orthodox Jew", which Kyle obviously doesn't seem to be and that ties in nicely with him becoming a rabbi in PC and making the religion his entire personality - because it's not enough to become Jewish: He needs to beat Kyle at being Jewish.

Of course, Cartman never actually stops being antisemitic before the time skip but then "Cupid Ye" implies that that isn't even a fully conscious decision that he can completely control but instead at least partially caused by whatever he has going on mentally. He even actively attempts to counteract it when he decides that it has gone too far. That's my take on the episode, at least. Obviously the whole thing with Cupid Me is kind of messy. No matter what exactly is actually happening there, I do think the his actions here prove that his feelings regarding the matter are more complex than they may initially appear to be.

Though I know it's still a point of contention for many, to me personally it seems pretty clear that him being a rabbi and a family man in PC was authentic and that he wasn't simply messing with Kyle the entire time. However, I find it extremely interesting that Cartman converted BEFORE meeting Yentl so I actually don't see any way in which Kyle didn't have any part in that and as such I don't think he would have ever become a rabbi if Kyle didn't happen to be Jewish. So my personal headcanon is that while Cartman's conversion was indeed directly influenced by Kyle, he actually did end up finding fulfillment in the faith and it ironically helped him let go of his obsession with him (which I think fits the show's style of humor).

To summarize: As a shipper I may be biased but I think that Cartman is a disturbed little boy who grows up to be a disturbed little man who fails to fully understand his feelings towards Kyle and - as an extension of that - the Jewish faith and thus lashes out into extremes regarding it.

[unrav3l]

the day has finally come when i tell yall about my current hyperfixation with majima as an intertextual character. the rant is gonna be quite long so better prepare yourselves

it all started with my uni lecture about cinematography and my teacher telling us something about Wild at Heart. the moment i saw nick cage as sailor the chemistry in my brain changed forever. THEN i found out about The Fugitive Kind aka the very first movie where snakeskin jacket makes appareance as the symbol of freedom. watching both of these movies and connecting all the dots made me loose my mind BECAUSE

my fixation with majima and the way he is portrayed was (so far) mostly centered around his psychology and looking at him as a person. the fact that his design is a tribute to a thing going on in cinematography for +60 years made me look at him clearly as a character, not a potential human being. and when i tell you it goes so deep!! because we can look at it from two very different perspectives: the creators of RGG and majima himself.

the story of snakeskin jacket characters always have certain points that turns them into a topos (a repetitive motive used in different artworks) and not fully independent characters. because all of their stories respond to one another. freedom, violence, the cage/leash thing, important role of a woman, the list could go on. and even if the characters have different personalities, even if the stories are made in very different styles we see the exact same motive created with different tools. and the story of majima fits perfectly into the crossing points of these stories. in y0 we learn about the reasoning behind his fixation with freedom, about the mental prison, about the twisted fetishization he meets from his oppresors ends (the way everyone sees him as a tool/pawn, the way his worth depends on his obedience etc.). it all is a massive buildup for the scene when we see him wearing the jacket for the first time. it mightve been the creators decision to use the same symbol used by Lumet and Lynch as a tribute to their work, as taking the snakeskin jacket further than cinematography and western culture and making it just as iconic and symbolic in their very own vision.

but majimas case is what makes it all so much more special. because we all know the ongoing dehumanization and his need to put on an act, never letting others see his true self. here i am pointing out that the snakeskin jacket mightve been a concious choice of majima as another act for dehumanization, just as much as it was a choice of the RGG creators. turning himself not only into mixture of figures/people that had great influence on him but also styling his visual to imitate fictional characters who are embodient of certain values might be the opposite of real independence symbolised by the snakeskin jacket. and yes i know, i know that Wild at Heart is from 1990 but in yakuzaverse i truly beilieve some David Lynx exists the same way Stephen Spinning does and he mightve as well make Wild at Heart two years earlier.

just. something. something about majima using symbol of independence and freedom as another illusion, as another role and not who he really is. something about snakeskin jacket symbol being another label he puts on himself so people know what to expect even if its not true.

anyways rant about this thing gave me an A for my uni so i guess nerdism at its finest also i truly recommend both of the movies (The Fugitive Kind 1960, Wild at Heart 1990). theyre very different (and specific) but very important in understanding the whole snakeskin jacket thing and its roots

[applestorms]

following the very funny take that L just speedran his feelings for light from denial to acceptance over the course of the tennis game alone, i do think that even if L was somehow aware of the fact that his feelings verged on less-platonic he wouldn't necessarily see them as being requited. or alternatively, that if they are, light is too much of a repressed freak to ever get over his own bullshit enough to make it actually happen.

like i said in my own tags, this perhaps is another anime/manga difference to me. to elaborate...

in both cases, i think it starts off mostly the same: L's interest is Piqued when he realizes KIRA might actually be a human person, with the high of that feeling hitting its peak during lind l tailor as his theories are confirmed -> L's feelings about KIRA develop/are further complicated as he starts investigating light specifically. personally, i think he starts getting Interested™ while stalking him through the cameras in their house & seeing how he acts under the mask, realizes his feelings are Developing in a way he didn't expect the more he watches, and is fully in the Annoyance/Denial stage when he's autism staring at him throughout the testing sequence (could still vary) -> he works through/accepts it by the end of the tennis game, like a kind of background process monologue, maybe capping off specifically when light beats him.

following this, it seems natural to me that there would be a period where L furthers his investigation on light as KIRA while simultaneously also kinda trying to figure out how DTF he is. he's already pretty certain about the former point so a lot of this is just checking his work, watching very carefully to see if he can push light into losing his cool again and giving himself away, which has the additional side effect of pushing his newly developed crush to the front of his brain on a regular basis through sheer necessity.

this all comes to a head w/ misa's arrest. again, at some point throughout this time frame i think L starts putting enough pieces of the Light Yagami puzzle together to start figuring out that he's either 1. not interested entirely, or 2. never gonna fucking admit anything truthful about who he actually is, ever, even to himself. perhaps the next planned step of L's approach would be to push light into telling the truth or revealing something genuine about himself period, even outside of the KIRA investigation itself, but this gets fucked up by light's little memory loss/alternation plan.

yotsuba is interesting because it obviously gets to L quite a bit, showing aspects of his character that we don't really see outright before that point. it is well known that L is a filthy little liar, and that he specifically uses his lies as a way of testing light, but i think yotsuba is when he kinda. gives up on that. in a way, light is being fully truthful during yotsuba, it's just that what he believes to be truth has been manipulated beyond what's usually humanly possible. so L gets what he wants but it's a twisted version of it, and still misses the key component that drew him towards light in the first place (KIRA).

he's grumpy, basically. his toys aren't working the way he wanted them to, so he's throwing them at the wall and demanding that they fix themselves again. as i said before, L is simultaneously incredibly alienated from (the rest of/his own) humanity and directs his entire focus on it- he's the world's greatest detective, not out of empathy or sympathy for human suffering, but because people are the most interesting/complex puzzle he's ever come across and the scale of mass murder makes his dick harder than anything else.

in a way, you could see him locking light away in this shitty little constantly watched cell/literally holding him on a handcuff leash at all times as L's attempt to recreate the feelings that started popping up while he was watching light in his house the first time, seeing the seeds of a serial murderer in his little perfect teenager pet. the most notable shift throughout all of this though is the fact that L starts telling the truth- to bring this classic panel back,

he's not bothering with the "ooo sounds like something KIRA would say," shtick now. honestly the only other time someone really gets this blunt about telling light he's KIRA to his face is near:

(think this might be my favorite near panel ever lmfao. finally found it in ch.80 =3=)

point is, L is both pissed and genuinely kind of depressed throughout most of yotsuba, or at the very least has been annoyed into spitefully shucking off all his duties cuz he doesn't wanna play the game anymore. childish, and a sore loser- just like he said.

ANYWAYS. the differences between the anime and the manga, right.

the main way this diverges is that i think L is definitely aware of his feelings in the anime. all of the evidence for this comes down to episode 25- the rain scene, the foot washing, "Have you ever told the truth once in your life?" and so on and so forth. part of this may actually follow the divergences of light's characterization between the anime and manga, but L is almost certainly talking about something that light isn't willing to admit during these scenes and it's motivating a lot of his hardest lines.

again, it's the two cases: either he's morose about the fact that his feelings are unrequited and kicking back as a final fuck you for getting pulled around for so long, or (and personally, i kinda think this is more likely) he is aware of the fact that light does like him back in that way and Supremely salty about the fact that he won't ever act on it. "It will be lonely, won't it," etc. etc. "You're gonna fucking miss me, bitch. You don't have to do this but you're going to tear us apart anyway, and I don't forgive you, never will." light is putting the game above them, and L is fucking mad about it lol.

sidenote: it's interesting that the tennis game itself kind of parallels/foreshadows L losing in this way. as i've said before, in the tags on some fucking post i don't even remember now, light knows throughout the tennis game that winning might add to his KIRA percentage (though it is admittedly still quite vague), but he chooses to go for it anyway. just can't stop himself from winning, even if it goes against him and everything he actually wants... some classic light yagami shit right there.

in the manga this is a lot less clear, specifically because we are lacking these scenes in particular. L's death just happens so goddamn quick in the manga, it rushes up and catches him by surprise basically the second he lets his guard down and stops watching light, so we don't get this same drawn out saltiness as he metaphorically bleeds out. this is not to say it isn't present entirely- much of the above analysis still applies to the manga just as much as the anime, but it is perhaps a lot more subtle to follow by the end.

honestly, that all being said, i think manga L is also a lot more likely to simply never figure his shit out when it comes to light. it's a particularly interesting part of canon to me that both of these interpretations actually seem to work equally well when it comes to L, that he is either fully aware for most of the series about his feelings or entirely unaware and never bothers to reflect or consider it. says something about his character i guess, that he still manages to hide or cloud so many of his internal thoughts that shit like this can be pretty ambiguous and still feel kind of core to his character.

anyways, thanks again to @ai-the-broccoli and that original post for kicking this particular essay off, as well as everyone else who responded for getting my brain rolling this time around :)

[coolchulainn]

to be observed is to exist

image text with punctuation and paragraph breaks:

And you might think having such a strenuous relationship with my identity would lead to a certain sense of distance from myself, right? But I would say the truth is the opposite. I am excruciatingly aware of myself at all times, because for better and mostly worse I am indeed an actor, constantly observing my own behaviour and mannerisms and expressions and desires to replicate them later as needed. And this performance of a self is carefully constructed of external observation and instruction. Whatever intrinsic traits I had have been completely overwritten and replaced by both their and my efforts to live up to these inhumane expectations placed on us actors and best serve the troupe’s goals, because the alternative was death.

So it’s not like I don’t recognise who is looking back at me in the mirror, because it’s quite literally a role I rehearsed for all my life. In fact I would say I am far too intimately familiar with that man and the desires that move him, because he is me and they are mine. But I also know that this self is an externally imposed construct, and not just is the only “self” that I have available to me to live as one that cannot actually be called “mine”, but this identity is defined and constructed by those who I fear and despise the most.

And so, because that self is created by something of which I know the intentions cannot be trusted, I also cannot trust that self and its desires. And even though it was my own remaining conscience that lead me to run away, I am unable to put faith in that same conscience to distinguish between which of my desires can and cannot be trusted or acted upon, because it is impossible for me to determine just how much of myself is ever actually mine, even including the very conscience that lead me to defy the troupe. Because, as established, the personality that retained this conscience was assigned to me by the same people who wanted me to surrender it, so there is no way for me to know if I escaped or was simply allowed to leave for the sake of whatever play they are writing this time.

And even though I’m supposed to be “modest and gentle”, frankly I am best thought of as a bottomless pit of aimless desire. Before I was Shalem I was Abyss, and that too continues to define me. I want and want and want, both the mundane and the unspeakable. And because I cannot trust the self that holds these desires I do not act on any of them, and instead for the sake of the conscience that wanted to leave I continue to act as this modest and gentle and inoffensive self that is not mine.

[worlds-worst-ships]

Welcome to the home of the world's worst ships!

WARNING: BY ENTERING/INTERACTING WITH THIS BLOG, YOU AGREE TO ALL CONDITIONS OUTLINED IN THIS POST.

Hello there, I'm Jack Goodwin and this absolute affront to the natural order that I call a blog is where I take a break from the insane content I normally make to bring you fictional pairings that'll make your heart go "aw man, what in the..."

Wanna stay up to date on my video/.streaming content? Go follow @maji-man. Or just click HERE to see all my socials in one list.

Here's a post where I explain the point of the blog. I highly suggest you read it twice or more to make sure you understand.

Be warned: If you neglect this post and run your mouth in my comments, chances are I'll make fun of you in my videos and streams. Now then, down to business.

Are there two characters that absolutely should not be anywhere near each other, to the point where one should be getting a restraining order? Are there pairings in fiction that you couldn't be paid a quadrillion rubles to come up with on your own? Are you sick of all these picket-fence, vanilla pudding, ERENxMIKASA snoozefests that plague the internet? If so, you've come to the right place. Get your kissy-kissy lips on, find a slightly uncomfortable chair and LETS GET SHIPPING!!!

I have only FOUR RULES HERE:

You can say whatever you want here, so long as;

1. Its not discriminatory

Any sort of phobia/ism here is not welcome. This blog is for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, orientation or gender identity.

2. Its a joke,

and clearly a joke. We poke fun at each other here. Lets keep it fun.

3. Its true.

I have the power of google, and any misinformation will be swiftly corrected. When you are corrected, either accept it or be blocked. Misinformation and straight up lies are not welcome here.

4: You speak with the understanding that these characters aren't real people, nor do they represent them

These are cartoons. Works of fiction. They're not real. Please keep any deep-seated obsession with character's ethnicity, sexuality, age, background etc to yourself. Acting holier-than-thou and making that the subject of your personal issue with my posts doesn't make you a hero, nor is that the groundbreaking opinion you think it is, it just makes the jokes awkward and uncomfortable for many people here.

Aaaaanyways, now we've got that out of the way (and yes, I will add more rules as the need arises, don't test me)

I'll mostly be using the absolute maelstrom of doodoo I call a brain to come up with ideas, but if you'd like to submit some ideas of your own, feel free. Send it to my ASK box. Nothing illegal, past a certain point, please.

Oh, and the ask criteria/format is in the linked post below. (Anonymous asks are and will always be turned off, cuz I know that this site is full of pussies who can't talk shit on main)

JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T READ THAT POST, AS I KNOW MOST OF YOU WON'T: If you do not follow that exact format, I WILL DELETE YOUR ASKS ON SIGHT.

I REPEAT: I will not even CONSIDER posting them.

FUN FACT: After having this blog for multiple months with anonymous asks turned off, I haven't gotten a single hate message (other than that one kid who got made a fool out of). This is why they're off, in case you wondered.

Its also worth mentioning, some of you are new to the concept of comedy, so I'll write it nice and big for you (if you know what a crackship/joke is, then skip this paragraph): THIS IS A JOKE BLOG. A GIMMICK BLOG. A COMEDY BLOG. I DO NOT CARE EVEN SLIGHTLY ABOUT SHIPPING AS A CONCEPT MUCH LESS DO I EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT 9/10 OF THE CHARACTERS YOU'LL SEE HERE, SO IM JUST MAKING J O K E S. IF YOU ARE OFFENDED, THEN YOU HAVE KNOWINGLY CHOSEN TO BE OFFENDED WHICH IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT. THANK YOU :)

I REPEAT this is a CRACKSHIP BLOG, so if you're deeply hurt by any of my polls, just know that nothing here reflects me as a person because none of what I post is serious. If anything you see after reading that causes you any emotional distress, it IS NOT my fault. Its funny, but its not my fault.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Aang is insufferable:

He has some very bad ideas that the narrative never explores and gets rewarded by the narrative for bad behavior.

Mostly just the way he deals with his crush on Katara and kind of forces it on her. It’s honestly really shitty because she never truly reciprocated his feelings and had plenty of moments where she shows she’s just trying not to hurt his feelings with a straight up rejection, but ends up with him in the end just because that’s what he wanted.

Like we know what it looks like when Katara actually has a crush on someone, she wouldn’t let the situation like the war affect how she feels about demonstrating those feelings when she’s so in touch with them. Like how she was with Jet and Haru. I just wish the writing team did a better job of showing Katara developing feelings for Aang way better than they did lol.

Made a series that was otherwise reasonably tolerable impossible to watch. I hate that all the jokes written for his character target 8-year-olds exclusively. Also his little TV show keeps appearing on my dash no matter how many words I block and I hate it

Propaganda why Gregory is insufferable:

This boy is so poorly written, it hurts. In the gameplay, he just acts annoyed and pissed off the whole time. Then, in the endings, he becomes a whole other character who acts scared and sad, which does not match the previous hours of gameplay AT ALL

But that just annoyed me

What really made me hate him was the GGY and Robot Gregory stuff, because OH NO, Gregory could not just be a normal kid who got into this situation by chance, he has to be a robotic recreation of the Crying Child, despite not acting one bit like CC, or, according to the GGY story in the books, he's responsible for multiple murders and is Afton's/the Mimic's apprentice.

Just let this kid be fucking normal!

(Also, unlike a lot of people, I really enjoy what the Ruin DLC did to his character. And don't try to say that's still the mimic, the mimic recycles dialog from the main game. This Gregory uses completely unique dialog, and unless the mimic was able to form new words in his voice all of a sudden, that's still him. He had to make a tough decision, one life or over hundreds and I can respect that)

Suffers from being made into another one of Matpat's ""is actually a robot theory"". It is annoying as hell, especially if its canon. We do not need robot children theories in a game about possession, child murder and serial killers. Especially not dumb theories about him being a 'recreation' of someone with a completely different personality. It has completely ruined any enjoyment I had in that character because we're just going back to the Afton family again

Someone made a good point about how his personality seems to be reminiscent of a certain trend where a video game protagonist has to be snarky even though it would’ve worked better for the horror atmosphere if he was more scared because it would’ve made the player feel his fear. I recall people being surprised about his personality and expecting him to be more scared, and I assume the developers were just afraid of ppl calling Gregory ��whiny”, but it still feels like a missed opportunity

[huanzhuyulu]

I wonder why Ruyi is now called as Daru (大如) in China?

Sigh. (This is not directed towards you the asker but just...this "discourse" in general.)

(And I guess this is not really relevant to this blog but since you asked...)

I don't want to know the answer to this, but my social media feeds keep pushing this at me so unfortunately I do kind of know the answer to this. In the last couple? (few? what is time?) years, there has been a wave of backlash on Chinese social media against Legend of Ruyi the drama. Some say, it began as a calculated smear campaign against Zhou Xun because she was being nominated for a bunch of awards for her 2023 drama Imperfect Victim.

But for whatever reason, there was a wave of criticism against Legend of Ruyi the drama, focused mostly on how the character of Ruyi is portrayed and how Zhou Xun supposedly influenced that. Apparently Zhou Xun abused her position as the lead actress to change the entire ending of the drama so that instead of being a badass girlboss on a vengeance spree as FL in harem dramas are supposed to be, she acts the way she acts in the drama which isn't badass enough for certain people and that's bad because it's Zhou Xun wanting to play a saintly Mary Sue. And Zhou Xun also ruined Wallace Huo's career. Or something. I don't even know.

(There's also accusation of characters in Ruyi having unreasonable plot armour (either Rong Pei or Yanwan), sometimes hilariously coming from people who prop up Yanxi Palace to drag down Ruyi with absolutely no awareness/acknowledgement that Wei Yingluo is the queen of plot armours.)

The people who buy in to this "discourse" begin calling the drama and Ruyi "Daru" to mock the drama and its fan as thinking really big of themselves and as a way to signal that this is the direction that their post is going to go. (I think? I mean, this is what I gleaned from having these posts shoved into my feed, it's not like I go and look for them.)

Anyway, the discourse/cricitism is exhausting, mostly because it's made in bad faith and paints Zhou Xun as some sort of supervillian who single-handedly ruined the drama. Because there's no writer/director/producer whose job is the steer the direction of the drama with enough balls to stand up to her or whatever.

Sometimes people think a drama is bad because it doesn't turn out the way they expected it. Sometimes people can't deal with the fact that a drama subverts tropes and expectations and it told the story it wanted to tell, but it wasn't the story they wanted to hear so they throw a hissy fit over it.

[system-of-a-feather]

I just kind of realized with us fusing, I apologize like an Asian cause I adopted XIV's standards and ways of apologizing. Like there are TWO apologies we make

The first is the social norm of "Sorry" or "my bad" for small things like forgetting to hold the door for someone or something

The other is full on like ORZ energy because its usually when we have disrespected ourselves by not following the standards and values we personally hold for relationships we respect and / or value and so it always has a "This is what I care about and how I want to approach this relationship and this action directly undermined what I feel both you, me and our relationship deserve. I apologize for this disrespect and am sending this as an attempt to right that wrong and do not expect anything from you in return as this is mostly to make amends for the disrespect I made on myself for not following my values and the disrespect I made on this relationship."

And that comes from the fact we don't really feel remorse about much of anything, but we do follow a strict code of values and principles and that guides our morals PARTICULARLY with people we consider important and deserving of a certain level of respect and honesty from us to foster a genuine and health relationship.

But I remember being Riku and the first time XIV apologized to me like this and going ".... brother its fine, this is intense lol" cause Riku operated with apologies in a western "repent your sins" sort of way, while XIV operates with a "my actions is not only an act of undermining myself and dishonoring my own values, but also dishonoring and disrespecting individuals that I care about by not doing what I think is important" which does not ask nor depend on forgiveness as much as it is about accountability, humility, and transparency

It's not a "please forgive me I was bad" its a "I did you dirty and it was an authentic mistake on my part that I do not wish to represent my character in the long run, I hope this apology will help keep that action from being considered a depiction of my overall character as much as it is reflective of my human mistakes and regardless of what you do, I intend to do better because it is as much for me as it is for you and us."

[cgtg]

HEY, thief of doom here, 1st i totally agree that way more eople should 8e picking classes like this, especially with how interesting they are, 2nd i picked this class 8ecause of ego mostly, since i believed i was a witch or rogue for a certain amount of time 8ut rogues are way too, like, unsure of tbeir aspect to be a thief, and witches revolve more around understanding and manipulating something rather than just taking it and using it, when it comes to 8eing a thief of doom specifically it mostly has to do with "always facing great misfortune" and the fact that it relates to things like fate & death also which very surprising are very important themes in my life, like, i kid you not, this shit GENUINELY leads me through life, which i guess makes sense 8ut is still kinda crazy to think, idk if i should go more into detail into what a thief of doom would do in s8ur8 or what theyre like specifically so imma just wrap it up here, so thanks if you read this!

hell yeah thieves. i think a lot of ppl are scared to touch the “active” classes that textually act in self-benefit, bc we’re taught that having “an ego” & wanting to behave fully independently/in our own self interest is inherently wrong. there isn’t anything wrong with that, there’s a difference between that & being a complete asshole. unfortunately the archetypal thief is the easiest for ppl to place on this axis by its very conception. it’s easy to assign to a character, but not to a person u think is kind, & *especially* not urself.

i think ppl are more open to being a witch, for example, because the “good witch” has more of a presence in media (including homestuck itself) while still feelin distinctly witchlike. in most media, including the systems homestuck is inspired by, rogues/thieves are easily conflated. a lot of ppl would say a “morally good thief” is just “a rogue”. eg robin hood. & nobody wants to be “the bad one”, that’s not good…! consider how popular the rogue class has been in these polls by comparison.

i ended up goin on a whole rando rant here, so i’m just gonna tuck the rest under this thing. thank u for giving ur perspective ^_^

it’s a limitation of the godtier system that is intentional & effective in-comic with fictional characters, but when it’s lifted into the massive nuance of “real human beings” it can buckle under the weight.

we get a rlly limited scope for how certain classes can act w/in a narrative. damara vs jade, or rufioh vs roxy, i think are good examples of how differently a single class can present/act based on the person & their circumstances. myself & one of my closest friends, who also chooses witch (of life/heart), are *extremely* different ppl. i see no reason that a thief can’t vary just as much. i’m not trying to arbitrate how an irl thief guy should be, or anything, i just… hypothesize this is the reason they’re not picked often. folks are basically decent, & most ppl (including assholes) don’t wanna walk around saying “i’m an asshole”. feel like i’ve seen ppl who pick prince talk abt having this issue too. but they have dirk as an avenue to *easily* understanding the prince w/ more nuance to their role & personality.

& im not saying vriska lacks nuance. i’m not saying i hate vriska. i’m saying she’s easy to view without nuance & easy to hate. just like a thief. & with all this, it seems reasonable 2 me to expect that only people who rlly love/relate to vriska would feel comfortable openly picking thief. a very exclusive class… maybe it works out after all.

thieves rule. u rule & thanks for sharing ur perspective. sorry it ended up w me doing a huge rando rant haha.

[belladrawschstuff]

When your shitty 13 colonies become the world superpower

General info

Nicknames: Ame, stars, the Phoenix (ThEn IlL rAiSe YoU lIkE a PhOeNiX) He's friends with a lot of people, he mostly likes you as long as you respect him. He really is just his dad.

HCs

Because he's older than most countries he's kinda known as a lot of peoples mentor and some see him as an older brother

Speaking of mentors America was taught by a lot of old empires. People like Prussia, Russian empire and all his uncles along with a lot of other countries who taught him about their culture and language. But America did learn how to fly because of Prussia.

He has a few gifts from people, the sunglasses were originally given to him by Scotland but when America was taking care of west Germany, he got weirded out about the fact he couldn't see his eyes, so he made them have an eye tracker, the guitar was given to America by Britain as a way to say sorry for the revolution and war of 1812

He loves fluffy and soft things which is why his coat is fluffy despite the fact he can warm himself up by his fire

His personality disorder is mostly the reason he acts differently in certain situations than others. Its not that he doesn't know how to act its just he needs to have that experience to know how to act. An example is when he 1st started to date Russia because the only affection he knew how to put on other people was to Either act like a child like he was when he was younger or act like a guardian because he was an older brother and also because he's a father. France had to explain to Russia to take it slow and show America what to do.

The choker around Americas neck is from when he was younger. Because he has fire powers, he's kinda allergic to water so he gets burned by it so Britain made a little gem to keep him immune to water, so now he can talk underwater with no consequences.

America is forces to go the presidential debates but he doesn't really care anymore cause he knows both of the people are gonna be shit so he just uses that time to make fun of them.

To torture America Canada makes him watch Hamilton. Like imagine there was a musical about reliving you least favorite time in your life and also the story of how your friends died.

He hates his singing voice so he'll go outside to the forest and play his guitar on the edge of a nice cliff and blast music through his headphones.

America has extreme Arachniphobia. every time Australia loses one of his spiders America says you better find that spider before it finds me.

When his siblings were younger he used to sing to them because he didn't want Britain and France to have to wake up and deal with it.

After 9/11 America has to wear a hearing aid because new York is technically his brain, he covers his ears because of it

Idk how I forgot this one but Americas eyes changes colors depending on his mood. Blue and red is normal, only red is mad or ticked off, green is protective or wary, yellow means he has his eagle wings out and purple means he's bout to nuke you cause he's really mad like lvl 5. His eyes show not only his mood but also which persona is in control at the time ( which I figured out is called split personality disorder

He can also talk to the ancients and dead countries, so he just talks to them when he's bored, Canada can do the same since he is a ghost. If America doesn't have pupils and it's just fully white or black he's talking to them, but its more his internal thoughts that talk to him. he doesn't just start mummbling luckily.

Hes immune to most of the different abilities of other people, he doesn't get frozen in time which came in handy during the cold war, he can still see Canada even if he is a ghost, though Britain can still use magic on him, bad magic like cursing him doesn't work, France can still see his memories, but its mostly because their his parents.

(I know I'm making him over powered but like you should've expected that, I do live in America and America does have the best military by a landslide, so L)

Oh also meme of the day ( don't expect this to be normal)

[noeldressari]

Rate your OC - Eryn von Holtz

Thanks for the tag @bonechillen! And sorry for the long wait, idk why it took me so long to finish this one lol. Maybe cause I went way too in depth.

Compassion: 7/10 Comes off as cold and distant but the moment innocent lives start getting threatened, shes committing war crimes to save them. She just doesn’t like anyone to know because she wouldn’t know what to do with the praise and attention if people knew. As someone used to being ignored, attention is overwhelming.

Bitterness: 9/10 Plenty of reasons to be bitter with the world. Her whole life is riddled with abuse and injustices in many forms, most done for reasons she doesnt know or understand. She often looks with envy at the people in the material who can live full lives with happy childhoods. And she glares bitterly at all the forces who robbed such possibilities from her.

Happiness: 3/10 Deals with depression daily, despite her desperate attempts to drink and fight and do other reckless shit to let her feel something. Having seen the absolute worst of society, and an almost nonexistent childhood, she has a pretty cynical outlook on life. That said, she will say that this plane is significantly more fun to get screwed over in.

Chivalry: 5/10 If asked, she wouldnt consider herself chivalrous. Honor is a silly concept to her. You gain some honor, you lose some, and nothing changes. It’s just another currency. To her respect and trust is earned, because she believes everyone by default is self serving and untrustworthy. But once it’s earned, she’ll take an arrow for whoever she cares about.

Pride: 2/10 No sense of self esteem to be found.

Honesty: 4/10 Honest with those close to her about practical things but MAN does this girl have secrets. Expert deflector and the ease with which she lies as if its second nature can be disturbing sometimes. Sometimes she doesn’t even know why she lies so much, even when she knows its gonna end badly. But when she’s honest, she’s unabashed about it. She may be one to dish out the bullshit but never one to suffer the bullshit

Bravery: 3/10 She isn’t scared of much thanks to all her time in the Shadowfell. But when she finds that thing that terrifies her, she often decides its better to run and live to fight another day. She once ran from a fight knowing full well her entire family would perish. Her cowardice is one of the things she hates most about herself.

Recklessness: 9/10 Absolutely no sense of self preservation. Lol.

Ambition: 2/10 Power is just another cage for her. In her mind, being unimportant and free of responsibility is the only way to truly be free.

Love: ?/10 (because love is too complicated to rate) Before reaching the material plane, she didn’t think love was a thing that could truly exist in the way people talked about it. Her mother always told her “The more people you love the weaker you are. It only makes fools out of people. The pain you feel when you lose them is your own doing. Love no one to keep your heart safe.” And that sentiment was proven to her over and over by a certain vampire eager to use her emotions against her. As soon as she found herself developing feelings for Shadowheart, affection constantly mixed with terror. She struggled for a long time, keeping Shads at arms length and trying not to get too close, expecting a knife in the back at every turn. But by the end of Act 2, she was a goner and so was Shads. Now she finds that love is a terrifying, painful mess thats the only thing in life thats worth all the suffering. Now she looks at love as one of the many things that keeps the people of this plane going every day.

Sense of Family: 4/10 Eryn didn’t have a very happy relationship with most of her family. Her father was a kind man but he was mostly absent from her life, her brother was the favorite golden boy of the family who got all the attention, and her mother was never the soft or most comforting would always view her as a failure no matter what she did. She cared about her family, but after they died and she became an orphan, she never really gave much thought to family. Finding out about her divine heritage as a child of a god didn’t exactly improve her feelings.

Attractiveness: 7/10 I will admit, shes not conventionally attractive, and her actual in game appearance leaves a lot to be desired, but in how I see her in my mind, shes pretty hot. I always envision her looking like Ruby Rose.

Agility: 10/10 A true parkour legend. In a modern AU she would be one of those crazy folks racing trains and leaping over buildings and not even care about views. She would do it for shits n giggles on her way to work.

Sex Drive: 8/10 Ok let’s be real she’s a horny ass dyke lol

[handsomethrowrug]

SILLY M.UFASA REVIEW

Featuring my niece, who has decided this is her faceclaim:

I'm putting her opinions in [these brackets]. Some of them are written by me, most are by her.

We were going into this expecting this to be terrible, and we were not disappointed by that. We had a great time making fun of it!

Spoiler free rating: 1.5/5

[niece says I'm being too generous]

Note: We're judging just the movie. We're not making comparisons to the animated, just to be clear. This is just the movie by itself. It's also me ranting about my muse. (Yes I know it is technically a different version that I don't technically write, but still)

Spoilers ahoy!!

-

Let me be clear: I think this movie should not have been made. We were fine without it. However, as a Scar writer, I needed to go see it to do some character research.

Overall.... The movie was... Okay. I wouldn't be recommending people to run out and get tickets. If you want to watch it, go for it, I suppose.

The plot as a whole felt a bit spread out. There was literally a lot of ground to cover. The pacing went back-and-forth. The music and the visuals were nice, but there were also some heavy-handed references to the original movies. The good thing is that the P.ride Lands didn't get his by a snowstorm like we all feared. They're unrelated scenes!

I left the movie in heaps of giggles, mostly because I couldn't believe what we just watched.

Now, onto the pros and cons that we could think of.

---

PROS: (Yes, we found some pros.)

I loved the visuals. The scenery was really pretty. [sometimes. Niece hated the desert scenes]

K.iara was a national treasure. Best part of the film by far. I am glad she was there.

[Niece liked some of T.imon and P.umbaa's scenes. Not all of them.]

Two songs. The first: the brother song was rather cute.

The second? bye bye :)

(I also liked the song with M.ufasa's parents but niece said it doesn't count)

THE ANIMALS CAN EMOTE. I REPEAT. THEY HAVE EMOTIONS THAT ARE VISIBLE. I AM SHOOKETH.

That one bit where there was a white lioness and then an elephant ran by and she was YEETED to the sky. (bye bye!)

The P.ride Lands was SO PRETTY. (Yes I like the visuals shhh)

They played familiar leitmotifs at certain points, like when he became king. I got really excited to hear them.

R.afiki. :D

Cons:

Oh god.

The pacing was a bit weird. It felt like some bits were rushed, but others dragged on. There were parts that felt like they were adding onto the time to bulk it out.

[I was sooooo bored lol. There was one point where T.imon mentioned act 1 finishing and I swear I was zoned out from there until the climax of the film. I don't think its anything to do with my, admittedly varying, attention span. IT WAS JUST SO BORINGGGG.]

I'm biased but I wanted more cub time. Having the timeskip be part of their song after they officially met was a little bit of a bummer. But I should have expected that from the trailer tbh.

Niece didn't care for white lion. We were impressed at his villain song until he said that line over and over. Then we couldn't take him seriously and spent the rest of the movie making fun of him. We absolutely would have been eaten had we been there. :D [He was so goofy but in an unremarkable way? Like yeah bro you're so scary flashing your smile and doing nothing, mhm sure you are.]

I still don't like how they made Z.azu. I LOVE the idea of him being a scout but I just don't like the version of him that they show in general. It's not a comedy partner, it just made him... Incompetent?

WHY. WAS. THERE. A. GODDAMN. LOVE. TRIANGLE. I HATE IT. I HAAAATTTEEE IT. We audibly GROANED when we realised. I think I lost a year of my life in disappointment. WHYYYYYYYYYY.

No joke there was a song and I was tapping my niece's shoulder to tell her how it was nice that there wasn't a love triangle despite my worries and T.AKA IMMEDIATELY STARTED SINGING ABOUT HOW PRETTY S.ARABI WAS LITERALLY AS SOON AS I SAID IT. I'm fairly sure I slumped against my niece at that point.

I predicted the love song before it happened. I'm amazing.

There were a LOT of heavy-handed references. This isn't the same as the musical references, as these were trying to reference things that happen in the main movie, and giving Mufasa a lot of the same key life points as Simba. Which, again, I get because of the 'Circle of Life' circular aspect, but it came off a little too strong at times. [I was really happy to hear the ending music from the original L.ion King again, not because it was actually impactful but because I could tell the movie was nearly over]

The getting of the scar was soooooo meh.

I wish more time had been dedicated to the P.ride Lands. It felt super rushed like they forgot that they had a time limit. It would have been nice to explore it a little more somehow.

[Niece thinks there was too much desert. To much canyon. So dry.] [just like the 'humour'.]

M.UFASA KILLS LIONS. HUH??

-

(S.car rant ahoy! Niece has given up on me and is playing games on her phone instead) [I just let her do her thing]

I'm putting all this together but I'm sooooooo bummed by T.aka. This isn't even about comparing him to the animated version (though I do accept this may accidentally happen), as the reason I went to see this was to gain inspiration for writing him. I knew the story was going to be about him being an heir, losing everything, and watching all his dreams being fulfilled by someone else but... I feel like they were missing something, you know? And, again, I know they were implying that he was spoiled and expected everything to just land at his paws but... Still.

The idea was that he was supposed to be spoiled and entitled. At the same time, there was a real lack of that throughout the film. He was really just the 'sidekick' for a while, and really got pushed to the background once S.arabi was introduced. Only that I was deliberately paying attention to his scenes, it would be easy to forget he was even there.

In several key moments in the film, he stays back, runs away, or hides. I know it's to emphasise the fact that he's cowardly, but they could have easily shifted it to "I'm going to be king, you fight for me", to align with his later stance of disliking violence. It would have been cool for him to solve a problem, or properly help out and latch on to that thirst of power. Instead, they have him obsessed with the one thing he did do.

(I do not kid. When he discovers M.ufasa has fallen in love with S.arabi, T.aka literally goes like "I saved you when we were cubs and this is how you repay me?". This isn't even because his dad pushed the idea that those outside the pride will betray him, this is him insisting he's amazing because he did one thing.)

I think this might have been fixed a little if we had more time with them as youths to see other examples of how T.aka might have 'helped', but we didn't get that.

Every time he 'turned evil', it was literally like they put in a stunt double. His voice changed, his accent changed, everything. It was so jarring, and literally wasn't hinted at prior to this. In the main movie, S.car boasts about his intelligence, yet we don't actually see it in play until he decides to betray M.ufasa for him falling in love with S.arabi when he knew T.aka liked her. We only see this cunning side once when he was persuading the white lions to work with him, and that was SO COOL. Where was this the entire way through? (Seriously, if he had turned bitter from losing his family and his home and took on that snarky attitude while still on M.ufasa's side, I would have been SO happy with that.)

I didn't like how, yes, his descent to evil was because he didn't get the girl, and not because of something like how everyone was turning to his brother for ideas and guidance instead of him, the one with royal blood. It felt like they had an idea for who T.aka should be, and who S.car should be, but couldn't properly connect the two. They had T.aka's father be lazy, self-centred and willing to use underhanded tactics to get his way, which is supposed to give a glimpse of what Ta.ka himself would be like... Yet Ta.ka technically doesn't display these traits either. He blames M.ufasa for winning over his parents, but at the same time wasn't particularly close to either of them himself.

But at the same time, T.aka never goes 'truly' evil. His moment of bravery that his mother predicted would happen is when he gets the scar and takes a hit from the big baddie for M.ufasa, but it feels slightly flat; and once everything is over T.aka skulks away. It just felt a little... Messy, I think. There's no mention of how the throne should be his, no confrontation with M.ufasa at the end before he's told to stand down, nothing. They spend so long calling M.ufasa a 'stray' that I thought this was going to be a fighting point at the end. It wasn't. :(

All in all, I just feel like something was missing from the character. He was trying to play two roles - a sidekick and a traitor - but it didn't fully succeed in either.

tldr: S.car was basically "GO GIRL! GIVE US NOTHING!!".

[tldr: be prepared for boredom AND disappointment]

[dogaquarium]

Dreamposting!!!! One of the dreams I had last night! Featuring aforementioned stupid red porcupine I've been posting about lately. I may draw something for it later

For context: being that this was a happy tree friends dream starring flaky, I was very excited at the start. Even after becoming gorey halfway through, I was still happy to see my favorite characters, and I expected it considering- well- it was a happy tree friends dream, so.... figures that was the tone of it. Comes with the territory and all. However! At a certain point it changed its perspective to be first person, and THAT part freaked me out bad. I even woke up from it! But getting into the actual story itself....

There was a party; that's mostly what I remember. Everything before the party actually began playing out is a bit fuzzy, but I KNOW something else came before bc I distinctly remember flaky getting ready to leave for it, with flippy picking them up. At the party itself, the two got separated and flaky found their way over to cuddles, their best friend. They started chatting and catching up with one another but flaky continued to grow more and more weirdly paranoid because of how oddly lammy (who was hosting the party) was behaving.... she was being SUCH a gracious host, but her eyes kept lingering too long on certain critters in an unnerving way. She started serving drinks and people would get totally sloshed way sooner than they normally would have. Some folks started disappearing altogether in the middle of the celebrating, just when the crowd got a little too sidetracked with something else. Cuddles brushed all this off of course, but flaky was FREAKED OUT. BAD.

At a certain point in the festivities, flaky noticed handy and lammy speaking quietly between themselves. Their eyes also followed handy incessantly after this point, noting how he was acting kind of funny too. Flaky actually sought out asked his wife, petunia, just so they could ask if if handy was feeling okay. She said it was all normal for him, and she was completely confident in it- almost offended that someone would have asked..... only for a couple minutes to pass and a completely unhidden bloodbath to break out. Handy and lammy just started killing critters for no reason! They had waited until everyone was far too intoxicated to think properly or coordinate a getaway.

Instantly, flaky darted outside with (a very drunk) cuddles being dragged along. Petunia, who was horrified at what was playing out, followed quickly behind. Before they scrambled out, flaky had run all around the chaos trying to find flippy, who they had been separated from. Unsuccessful though, they decided to run around the perimeter of the house in hopes he had escaped on his own. Upon approaching a particularly tall bush beside the house, cuddles was dragged inside of it and slammed against the wall. Well, surprise! Flick was fronting now, and he was super on edge!!! He was super tense and breathing really raggedly... arguably handling it even worse than flaky in the moment. He wouldn't even let cuddles go for a minute because of how laser focused he was on defending himself and was petrified that maybe cuddles was in on it. But flaky's terrified yelling snapped his attention back to the present as they begged him to find a better place to hide for all of them. And so they all ran. Hopped over the fences of a few people's yards, remaining barely out of sight of their pursuers, who had made quick work of finding all their remaining vicitms. Flaky got worn out FAST though bc of how out of shape they were, and so when they were far enough away, flick told them that he'd continue with the other two to find help, as long as flaky stayed hidden in this relatively small bush maze(?) they had come across. They just needed to stay still, and stay quiet.

Unfortunately, this is where the dream started stepping into nightmare territory because my pov changed to a first person flaky rather than a 3rd person view of the whole group. It was no longer me watching my favorite characters, it was me hiding from some abstract concept of a pair of killers. I was just. Waiting. Hidden in the bushes. I could hear where they walked and I could hear them sniffing me out. It was horrifying. I forced myself to wake up after I saw one of the two's feet suddenly stop right beside where I was hidden. I was hyperventilating, it was so bad!!! But at least the first part was fun, before it got scary.

[nomsfaultau]

Halloween interactive event (p.4)

The person stays mostly silent, noting down three names. He doesn't seem particularly surprised by the bickering of the guests. As soon as he finishes doing so, the man speaks up again.

"Oh, of course, I apologise for my rudeness. You can call me Fragment 186, Count's loyal servant."

The odd man bows.

"I welcome you to the masquerade, dear guests. This will be a night that you'll remember for the rest of your lives, I'm certain."

~

The mansion is grand. Many guests in many different costumes line the halls. The interior seems practically brand new, no scratches or marks. It smells of wax and aconite.

The main ballroom is giant, with ceilings as tall as six meters in height. There are inside balconies on which the musical instruments seem to be playing by themselves, without any person to wield them. There are also two staircases leading up to the second level of the ballroom and the big outside balcony.

There doesn't seem to be a buffet, strangely enough. Instead, each person is given a pen and paper. (For The Blade, the pen works telepathically. Magic.) There are a couple of meals written down as suggested, but the rest of the list is blank. They are instructed to write any and all meals and drinks that they'd like on the paper and they shall appear.

How do they choose to sate their appetite? Or perhaps they choose to interact with the other guests instead?

Meals:

Wilbur: *Stops trying to eat the walls to see if they taste like wax when he’s given a menu. Nibbles at the edge of the paper just in case. Then it writes down “everything” on the paper, just to see what happens.*

Philza: *Doesn’t really trust it. He orders nothing.*

The Blade: *Orders round after round of baked potatoes. Starts taking suggestions from the voices, which leads to some really weird stuff getting eaten but hey when you need like 300 pounds of food a day.*

Tubbo: *Writes down “Martha’s chocolate cake”. They sigh in delight with the first bite. Too many years since she’s died, and the ache is bittersweet. Also gets sopaipillas and drizzles their honey on.* Supreme Alpha Male! Remember that contest we did? Back with Ros? Now we can finally see who’s right! *They nudge a bite of cake at Tommy.*

Tommy: *Writes down “Mum’s waffles.” After a first bite he stops almost immediately, overcome with emotion. His eyes are glossy with threatening tears.*

Tubbo: Hey. You’ll see her again. Soon, probably.

Tommy: I know. It’s just- it’s just been so m̴̡̬̒͑ű̴̬̭̙͗̀f̸̦͑ͅf̴͙̖̂͌í̴̲ň̸̩ing long. I didn’t- m̴̡̬̒͑ű̴̬̭̙͗̀f̸̦͑ͅf̴͙̖̂͌í̴̲ň̸̩, when I told you it was my favorite food, I didn’t- I couldn’t actually remember what they tasted like. Y’know? And now I can, but- but it’s not really her, is it? I’m still not home.*The pair find a corner of the room to sit and talk about Tommy’s family. He eats his waffle and cries as Tubbo comforts him.*

Interactions:

Philza: *Going around idly chatting with people, mostly so he can move around the room and try to see if anything is suspicious. He’s keeping an eye on his Collected at all times. Kinda expecting a murder mystery.*

The Blade: *Absolute introvert. Has never been to a party before (bc lorge). Following Phil around because he knows him but then ah too many talking to people. Cringe. Tries to stand in a corner and avoid people. Unless he can escape to the garden again, then he does that.*

Wilbur: *Sees that The Blade is getting some weird looks for introverting, and its Act As Normal As Possible Or Die tm mode kicks in, so Wilbur starts also trying to talk to people. Mostly gauging the humanity of the crowd, trying to match the energy of the crowd. Has zero familiarity with party etiquette or upper society social cues but is trying to charisma its way through.*

Tommy & Tubbo: *still having their conversation. But may eventually begin causing problems once Tommy bounce back and overcompensates with self aggrandizement and arrogance. Packaged deal, with Tubbo escalating and supporting to make Tommy feel better.*