#but the art was better. and i feel like it's true for the internet – it was better when it was a free-for-all.

[coolnonsenseworld]

A little promo with my little obsession on the side...........

Reminder all items are shipped from Poland - for details on shipping times check out FAQ or send me a private message!

 mmezzy.bigcartel.com

[sciderman]

How do you feel about the increase in really weird NSFW ads on here (advertising panels that look like sexual encounters, and AI art apps that pride themselves on porn) but will take down NSFW posts from their users, even if it isn't technically sexual.

i hate all social media and it's consistent prioritising the advertisers over the users and the internet simply was a better place before capitalism sunk its hooks into it

[mcmansionhell]

the motel room, or: on datedness

I.

Often I find myself nostalgic for things that haven't disappeared yet. This feeling is enhanced by the strange conviction that once I stop looking at these things, I will never see them again, that I am living in the last moment of looking. This is sense is strongest for me in the interiors of buildings perhaps because, like items of clothing, they are of a fashionable nature, in other words, more impermanent than they probably should be.

As I get older, to stumble on something truly dated, once a drag, is now a gift. After over a decade of real estate aggregation and the havoc it's wreaked on how we as a society perceive and decorate houses, if you're going to Zillow to search for the dated (which used to be like shooting fish in a barrel), you'll be searching aimlessly, for hours, to increasingly no avail, even with all the filters engaged. (The only way to get around this is locational knowledge of datedness gleaned from the real world.) If you try to find images of the dated elsewhere on the internet, you will find that the search is not intuitive. In this day and age, you cannot simply Google "80s hotel room" anymore, what with the disintegration of the search engine ecosystem and the AI generated nonsense and the algorithmic preference for something popular (the same specific images collected over and over again on social media), recent, and usually a derivative of the original search query (in this case, finding material along the lines of r/nostalgia or the Backrooms.)

To find what one is looking for online, one must game the search engine with filters that only show content predating 2021, or, even better, use existing resources (or those previously discovered) both online and in print. In the physical world of interiors, to find what one is looking for one must also now lurk around obscure places, and often outside the realm of the domestic which is so beholden to and cursed by the churn of fashion and the logic of speculation. Our open world is rapidly closing, while, paradoxically, remaining ostensibly open. It's true, I can open Zillow. I can still search. In the curated, aggregated realm, it is becoming harder and harder to find, and ultimately, to look.

But what if, despite all these changes, datedness was never really searchable? This is a strange symmetry, one could say an obscurity, between interiors and online. It is perhaps unintentional, and it lurks in the places where searching doesn't work, one because no one is searching there, or two, because an aesthetic, for all our cataloguing, curation, aggregation, hoarding, is not inherently indexable and even if it was, there are vasts swaths of the internet and the world that are not categorized via certain - or any - parameters. The internet curator's job is to find them and aggregate them, but it becomes harder and harder to do. They can only be stumbled upon or known in an outside, offline, historical or situational way. If to index, to aggregate, is, or at least was for the last 30 years, to profit (whether monetarily or in likes), then to be dated, in many respects, is the aesthetic manifestation of barely breaking even. Of not starting, preserving, or reinventing but just doing a job.

We see this online as well. While the old-web Geocities look and later Blingee MySpace-era swag have become aestheticized and fetishized, a kind of naive art for a naive time, a great many old websites have not received the same treatment. These are no less naive but they are harder to repackage or commodify because they are simple and boring. They are not "core" enough.

As with interiors, web datedness can be found in part or as a whole. For example, sites like Imgur or Reddit are not in and of themselves dated but they are full of remnants, of 15-year old posts and their "you, sir, have won the internet" vernacular that certainly are. Other websites are dated because they were made a long time ago by and for a clientele that doesn't have a need or the skill to update (we see this often with Web 2.0 e-commerce sites that figured out how to do a basic mobile page and reckoned it was enough). The next language of datedness, like the all-white landlord-special interior, is the default, clean Squarespace restaurant page, a landing space that's the digital equivalent of a flyer, rarely gleaned unless someone needs a menu, has a food allergy or if information about the place is not available immediately from Google Maps. I say this only to maintain that there is a continuity in practices between the on- and off-line world beyond what we would immediately assume, and that we cannot blame everything on algorithms.

But now you may ask, what is, exactly, datedness? Having spent two days in a distinctly dated hotel room, I've decided to sit in utter boredom with the numinous past and try and pin it down.

II.

I am in an obscure place. I am in Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, on assignment. I am staying at a specific motel, the Voyageur. By my estimation the hotel was originally built in the late seventies and I'd be shocked if it was older than 1989. The hotel exterior was remodeled sometime in the 2000s with EIFS cladding and beige paint. Above is a picture of my room, which, forgive me, is in the process of being inhabited. American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) hotel rooms are some of the most churned through, renovated spaces in the world, and it's pretty rare, unless you're staying in either very small towns or are forced by economic necessity to stay at real holes in the wall, to find ones from this era. The last real hitter for me was a 90s Day's Inn in the meme-famous Breezewood, PA during the pandemic.

At first my reaction to seeing the room was cautionary. It was the last room in town, and certainly compared to other options, probably not the world's first choice. However, after staying in real, genuine European shitholes covering professional cycling I've become a class-A connoisseur of bad rooms. This one was definitively three stars. A mutter of "okay time to do a quick look through." But upon further inspection (post-bedbug paranoia) I came to the realization that maybe the always-new brainrot I'd been so critical of had seeped a teeny bit into my own subconscious and here I was snubbing my nose at a blessing in disguise. The room is not a bad room, nor is it unclean. It's just old. It's dated. We are sentimental about interiors like this now because they are disappearing, but they are for my parents what 2005 beige-core is for me and what 2010s greige will become for the generation after. When I'm writing about datedness, I'm writing in general using a previous era's examples because datedness, by its very nature, is a transitional status. Its end state is the mixed emotion of seeing things for what they are yet still appreciating them, expressed here.

Datedness is the period between vintage and contemporary. It is the sentiment between quotidian and subpar. It is uncurated and preserved only by way of inertia, not initiative. It gives us a specific feeling we don't necessarily like, one that is deliberately evoked in the media subcultures surrounding so-called "liminal" spaces: the fuguelike feeling of being spatially trapped in a time while our real time is passing. Datedness in the real world is not a curated experience, it is only what was. It is different from nostalgia because it is not deliberately remembered, yearned for or attached to sweetness. Instead, it is somehow annoying. It is like stumbling into the world of adults as a child, but now you're the adult and the child in you is disappointed. (The real child-you forgot a dull hotel room the moment something more interesting came along.) An image of my father puts his car keys on the table, looks around and says, "It'll do." We have an intolerance for datedness because it is the realization of what sufficed. Sufficiency in many ways implies lack.

However, for all its datedness, many, if not all, of the things in this room will never be seen again if the room is renovated. They will become unpurchaseable and extinct. Things like the bizarrely-patterned linoleum tile in the shower, the hose connecting to the specific faucet of the once-luxurious (or at least middling) jacuzzi tub whose jets haven't been exercised since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wide berth of the tank on the toilet. There is nothing, really, worth saving about these things. Even the most sentimental among us wouldn't dare argue that the items and finishes in this room are particularly important from a design or historical standpoint. Not everything old has a patina. They're too cheaply made to salvage. Plastic tile. Bowed plywood. The image-artifacts of these rooms, gussied up for Booking dot com, will also, inevitably disappear, relegated to the dustheap of web caches and comments that say "it was ok kinda expensive but close to twon (sic)." You wouldn't be able to find them anyway unless you were looking for a room.

One does, of course, recognize a little bit of design in what's here. Signifiers of an era. The wood-veneer of the late 70s giving way to the pastel overtones of the 80s. Perhaps even a slow 90s. The all-in-one vanity floating above the floor, a modernist basement bathroom hallmark. White walls as a sign of cleanliness. Gestures, in the curved lines of the nightstands, towards postmodernity. Metallic lamp bases with wide-brimmed shades, a whisper of glamor. A kind of scalloped aura to the club chairs. The color teal mediated through hundreds if not thousands of shoes. Yellowing plastic, including the strips of "molding" that visually tie floor to wall. These are remnants (or are they intuitions?) of so many movements and micromovements, none of them definite enough to point to the influence of a single designer, hell, even of a single decade, just strands of past-ness accumulated into one thread, which is cheapness. Continuity exists in the materials only because everything was purchased as a set from a wholesale catalog.

In some way a hotel is supposed to be placeless. Anonymous. Everything tries to be that way now, even houses. Perhaps because we don't like the way we spy on ourselves and lease our images out to the world so we crave the specificity of hotel anonymity, of someplace we move through on our way to bigger, better or at least different things. The hotel was designed to be frictionless but because it is in a little town, it sees little use and because it sees little use, there are elements that can last far longer than they were intended and which inadvertently cause friction. (The janky door unlocks with a key. The shower hose keeps coming out of the faucet. It's deeply annoying.)

Lack of wear and lack of funds only keep them that way. Not even the paper goods of the eighties have been exhausted yet. Datedness is not a choice but an inevitability. Because it is not a choice, it is not advertised except in a utilitarian sense. It is kept subtle on the hotel websites, out of shame. Because it does not subscribe to an advertiser's economy of the now, of the curated type rather than the "here is my service" type, it disappears into the folds of the earth and cannot be searched for in the way "design" can. It can only be discovered by accident.

When I look at all of these objects and things, I do so knowing I will never see them again, at least not all here together like this, as a cohesive whole assembled for a specific purpose. I don't think I'll ever have reason to come back to this town or this place, which has given me an unexpected experience of being peevish in my father's time. Whenever I end up in a place like this, where all is as it was, I get the sense that it will take a very long time for others to experience this sensation again with the things my generation has made. The machinations of fashion work rapaciously to make sure that nothing is ever old, not people, not rooms, not items, not furniture, not fabrics, not even design, that old matron who loves to wax poetic about futurity and timelessness. The plastic-veneered particleboard used here is now the bedrock of countless landfills. Eventually it will become the chemical-laced soil upon which we build our condos. It is possible that we are standing now at the very last frontier of our prior datedness. The next one has not yet elided. It's a special place. Spend a night. Take pictures.

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[lacesoflove]

glimpses of you pt. 1 | hamzah x editor!reader

rating | slightly suggestive, nothing too crazy though

warning | semi-proofread! smoking of ganja lol

author's note | will be rewriting this slightly because i hate most of this but i wanted to put something out :) also my first series ayeeeee

YOU HAD FOUND YOURSELF IN THE DESPERATE PREDICAMENT OF EITHER KILLING YOURSELF OR TURNING TO ONLYFANS.

Both options felt equally unappealing, and frankly, a little extreme for what the was, at its core, a mundane problem: you were broke. Flat out. You were just another college student drowning in debt, tuition fees rising like clockwork, and your part-time gig at the campus café barely covering any of your basic expenses. Still, you didn’t fancy having your ass plastered on the internet, and suicide seemed a bit tedious if not dramatic. So there you were, perched on the rickety communal library computer, two minutes left on your internet credits, with the only things popping up on your screen were clearly scams or were posted by “Jessica” or “Alex” living 5km away who, shockingly, wouldn’t be resolving your financial crisis.

Then, as though God had decided to throw you a bone, you saw it: a post for a part-time video editor.

The job was listed by someone named Mandy, a vet who was working as a vet but also did YouTube on the side, and working full-time with animals didn’t leave much time for Adobe Premiere on her end. The pay was decent—more than decent, really—and seemed almost too good to be true. You clicked her socials out of pure paranoia, half expecting her to be some creepy guy with a burner profile and you realised then and there, in the library of your communal college, all the years spent in highschool doing edits would now finally pay off. Literally.

Without thinking twice, you messaged her and said you’d take the job.

The next day, she sent you a zip file with raw footage, and that’s when it all began.

Editing for Mandy became your saving grace. She sent you a few videos every other week, and you gradually got better at your craft. So much so, in fact, that Mandy stopped reviewing your work altogether. She uploaded everything you sent her without a second glance, calling your edits “art” like you were the second coming of Stanley Kubrick. 

Which was an odd thing really. The trust she had in your work - which she’d call ‘art’. It was nice how much she trusted you so much with something so important to her, yet she didn’t really you know you beyond your name, your availabilities and the fact you had a roommate and said roommate needed your help with schoolwork thus leading you to being a bit slower with the updates on a video.

It was kind of difficult not forming a weirdo pseudo-parasocial relationship with her, on your end - after all you’d edit her most intimate moments. Her videos consisted mainly of her and her boyfriend, who you’d come to find out name is Martin. You knew so much about her life - her quirks, her habits, her boyfriend, Martin. He was nice and easy-going. Funny even -  you remembered laughing when he noted his surprise that you were just some college student who did Justin Bieber edits back in highschool and not a certified editor. You laughed along, but his words stuck with you. You were just some college kid. And yet, you knew the most intimate corners of their lives—their inside jokes, their fights, the way Martin looked at Mandy when she wasn’t paying attention. Something about the love they had for each other stirred something ugly in you.

Eventually, she wanted to meet up with you. The message came a little out of nowhere. It was around 10am after you had just bombed a test, and you were bed-rotting in your dorm room when you felt your phone buzz and your eyebrows furrow when her caller-ID popped up. “I just feel bad,” she’d remarked in a over the call. In the background you could hear her dog Rudy, if you recall, playing in the background. “You’ve done so much for me, and I barely know you. Let me take you out as a thank-you.”  She followed up by saying she wanted to go somewhere downtown, cozy  - you rejected as, although it was sweet, but honestly being paid was a thank you enough (as well as the fact that you could barely afford some of the places she suggested) - but she was relentless in her generosity so you gave up, put on the most “I am not a broke college student and this restaurant you suggest will definitely not financially break me” outfit you could find in the depths of your, and your roommate, closet and met up with her. The dinner was…nice. Mandy was calmer than you’d expected, a bit blunt, but funny in a way that made you feel at ease. By the end of the night, after too many drinks and a waiter accidentally spilling pasta all over you both, you’d started to think of her as a friend.

You began hanging out at her shared apartment with her boyfriend, sometimes sleeping over with her in the same bed (her boyfriend, Martin, banished to the couch). You’d watch movies till the sun came up and helped yourself to breakfast without having the typical self consciousness of being a guest.

And then you met Hamzah.

You’d gone to Mandy’s to pick up a bag of clothes you’d left behind. She’d given you a spare key ages ago—it was easier that way, she’d said—and you hadn’t thought twice about letting yourself in. You figured you’d grab your things and leave unnoticed.

As you walked past Martin’s office, though, you froze.

Sitting in one of the gaming chairs was someone you’d only seen in clips before. Hamzah.

He was leaning back, scrolling through his phone, a dab pen loosely held in one hand as he exhaled a slow cloud of smoke. He hadn’t noticed you at first, not until the floor creaked beneath your weight. His head lifted, brows furrowing as his eyes landed on you.

“Uh, hey,” you said, awkwardly waving.

Before he could respond, the bathroom door opened, and Martin appeared, wiping his hands dry on a towel.

“Oh, hey, Y/N!” Martin grinned. “Here for your stuff? It’s in the bedroom.”

You nodded, eager to move past the awkwardness, but as you left the room, you caught the brief exchange of looks between the two men.

“Who’s that?” Hamzah asked, his voice low but not low enough for you to miss.

“Mandy’s editor,” Martin replied. “You know, the one I told you about.”

Hamzah hummed, and though you were already walking away, you couldn’t help but feel his eyes trailing after you.

After you left, you weren’t really sure how to feel about seeing Hamzah. You knew you had to get used to him, especially considering he was just as close to Martin and Mandy as you were, if not even closer. It was strange, weird even. You knew a lot more about him than you should’ve - you’d seen him before, of course—in Mandy’s footage, in the background of videos you’d spliced together, laughing with Martin, rolling his eyes at a bad joke. But seeing him in person was something else entirely. You wanted to know more about him though, you weren’t sure if that was weird. The memory of his gaze stayed with you longer than it should have. You felt weirder about the fact that you didn’t feel weird enough  about it, that you did sometimes wonder what he was thinking of when tying strings of footage together. You found yourself replaying footage of where he smiled more than other pieces of footage. Maybe you were weird.

Martin and Mandy were throwing a get together. It was small, Mandy assured you when she noticed you wavered, picking up upon your your reluctance. “Me, Martin, and a few friends. Totally lowkey.”

You should’ve realised that meant he’d be there. 

Hamzah wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of a party, but the thought of hanging out with Martin made it tolerable. That, and the unspoken promise of weed, along with the fact that it wasn’t going to be some huge, overwhelming crowd. Just Mandy, Martin, Chase, Claire, and a handful of their friends who weren’t part of their usual social media circle.

What bothered him, though, was the mention of a “special someone.”

Martin had been annoyingly vague, but Hamzah knew. It had to be you.

He’d caught himself that day, when his eyes lingered on you far too long as you stood in the doorway of Martin’s office. The second he let it slip, Martin noticed. Martin always noticed. And once Martin had something like that to tease him with, it was game over.

To Martin, it was probably exciting—Hamzah showing genuine interest in someone for once, and not just anyone but someone in their circle. Hamzah, on the other hand, was already bracing for the sly comments, the well-timed nudges, the not-so-subtle efforts to push him into a conversation with you. By the time he was on his way to the party, he already had a headache from overthinking. Worse still, he could feel another one building as he tried - and failed - to think of something, anything, to say that wouldn’t immediately come off as awkward or disinterested. And what if he did mess it up?

The idea of talking to you shouldn’t have felt so monumental, but somehow, it did.

You walked into the party with your roommate, Candance, who was dying to meet the so-called Mandy who, ever since entered your life, seemed responsible for your sudden ability to start paying for your own drinks when you and her went out. Candance was buzzing with the need to socialise and almost immediately departed from you to talk to Mandy’s female friends, one of which being a girl who believed was named Clara or Claire? You weren’t really sure, you tried to avoid Mandy’s other friends, Not for any strange or unkind reason—it was just how you were. Conversations with Mandy’s friends always seemed to trip you up, words slipping out of rhythm, leaving you stranded in awkward silences. Even Mandy’s good-natured attempts to bring you into her group couldn’t quite shake the feeling that you didn’t belong - that you were simply a girl who just edited her videos.

So, you’d drifted, quiet and unnoticed, until you found solace on the balcony. The Toronto air was crisp, a faint chill weaving through the hum of the party inside. You laughed as you noticed someone, Martin probably, had started blasting Nettspend. You leaned against the railing, fishing a blunt from your pocket, and lit it with practiced ease. The first inhale hit like an exhale—something uncoiling in your chest as the smoke curled upward, vanishing into the dark. 

Hamzah stepped into the party, the familiar rhythm of low laughter and muted music settling around him. He made a beeline for the drinks, grabbing a red cup filled with liquid courage (something he’d need plenty of).

It didn’t take Martin long to corner him, practically bouncing with thinly-veiled amusement.

“So, where’s this ‘special someone’ you mentioned?” Hamzah asked, feigning casual indifference. 

Martin’s smirk was immediate, sly and deliberate, as he gestured toward the balcony. “Out there.”

Hamzah followed his line of sight. You were leaning against the railing, the soft glow of the city lights flickering against the smoke curling from your hand.

“What do I even say, man?” Hamzah muttered, suddenly too aware of the weight in his chest, the too-familiar flutter of nerves threatening to undo him.

Martin shrugged, already stepping away, his grin widening. “I don’t know. Maybe start with hello? Or ask for a hit?” Hamzah sighed. Hamzah sighed, half-resigned, as he watched Martin retreat into the party, clearly pleased with himself. He really needed to get Martin to stop meddling in his love life—or, as both Martin and Mandy liked to point out, his complete lack of one.

Still, here he was, stepping out onto the balcony before he could overthink it. You hadn’t noticed him yet, your attention fixed on the glow of the city beyond the railing. It wasn’t until the soft creak of the door closing behind him startled you that you turned, wide-eyed.

“Oh, shit,” you exhaled, clutching your chest. “I didn’t see you there.”

Hamzah raised his hands in mock surrender, a small grin tugging at his lips. “My bad.”

“Do you do this often?” you asked, recovering quickly. “Creep up on people?”

“Do I look like I creep up on people?” he shot back, a flicker of amusement in his tone.

You tilted your head, pretending to consider it. “I don’t really know you.”

“Fair point,” he conceded, leaning against the railing beside you.

When he gestured toward the blunt in your hand, you passed it to him without hesitation. He took a drag, and something about the faint taste of cherry on the filter made him pause, his heart betraying him with a quick flutter.

“So,” he started, exhaling slowly, trying to mask his nerves with feigned ease, “what do you know about me?”

“Your address,” you said flatly, with a nonchalance that made him blink in surprise.

“What?” His eyes widened, and he gave you a look that silently demanded an explanation.

“In Mandy’s videos,” you clarified, smirking as you watched his alarm shift into sheepish realization. “When they visit you, the background gives away your street and house number. I’ve had to edit it out and censor it.”

“Oh. Damn.” He winced, scratching the back of his neck.

“You’re welcome for not doxxing you,” you said with mock seriousness, plucking the blunt back from his fingers.

“Thanks,” he muttered, exhaling a stream of smoke that curled into the cold night air.

For a moment, the silence between you wasn’t awkward. It hung there, fragile and almost weightless, like the smoke that lingered before dissolving into nothing. 

You both stood there for what felt like an eternity, the air thick with the smoke, your thoughts muddled by the high creeping through your veins. The party had been loud, the music had pulsed in your ears, but out here, on the balcony, everything felt quiet. Just the two of you and the low hum of the city below.

Hamzah’s gaze was steady, yet unreadable. You could feel his presence in the space between you—close, but not close enough. It was like you both were hesitant, waiting for something to shift, to give you the sign that it was okay to lean in further.

“So,” he started, voice a little lower than before, “this is where you come to hide, huh?”

You half-laughed, half-sighed, glancing down at the blunt between your fingers before looking up at him. “Yeah. It’s easier to think out here. Or forget, I guess.”

“Forget what?” His tone was gentle, but curious. His eyes didn’t leave yours.

You paused, biting your lip. “Stuff. Life. Whatever.” The words felt a little too raw, too honest for this moment, and you quickly added, “I’m not a big fan of parties, anyway. Too much noise. Too many people pretending they’re happy.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Hamzah said softly, his voice seeming to drop even lower. He stepped a little closer, and you had to resist the urge to step back. His proximity didn’t feel intrusive—it felt electric, like you were both standing on the edge of something. “I don’t really do parties either.” He paused, looking down for a second before meeting your eyes again. “But I like the quiet. The realness. The moments where you can just... breathe.”

You swallowed, suddenly aware of how dry your mouth was. “Yeah, me too.”

There was a moment of silence, and it felt heavy in the air. Your fingers brushed his, the contact brief but enough to send a ripple of warmth through your chest. Your heart skipped a beat, and you found yourself wondering if he felt it too.

“Y’know,” Hamzah began, his voice even quieter now, “I never really thought I’d be sitting on a balcony with Mandy’s editor, talking about life.”

You smirked, trying to lighten the tension. “And yet, here we are.”

He chuckled, but the sound was low, almost intimate, and you noticed the way his gaze flickered down to your lips before darting back to your eyes.

Your heart raced in your chest, and suddenly, everything felt a little too much. The weed, the energy between you, the overwhelming urge to close the space between you.

“I—” You started, but your words faltered. You didn’t know what you wanted to say, only that something had shifted, something that felt too important to ignore.

Hamzah took a step closer. His hand brushed the side of your arm, his touch lingering, just enough to make your pulse quicken. He tilted his head slightly, studying you, as if searching for some kind of sign.

You could feel the heat rising between you, the weight of his presence pressing in. “You okay?” he asked, his voice soft, but you heard the underlying question—something more than just your state of mind.

You nodded quickly, but then your nerves caught up with you. You could feel the anxiety building, and before you could second-guess yourself, you blurted, “This is weird, isn’t it?”

Hamzah smiled faintly,  “not really, I think you’re nice.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, and then, without thinking, you found yourself leaning in closer to him. Your lips were so close you could almost feel the heat between them, but then—just before you closed the space—your nerves overtook you. You stopped yourself, your breath catching in your throat.

Hamzah froze too, his eyes locking onto yours, both of you so close yet not quite there. The moment was suspended, hanging in the air like a breath waiting to be exhaled.

“I…” You pulled back slightly, the tension between you thick and palpable now. Your heart pounded in your chest, and you could feel your face flush. Fuck you hated being high. “Sorry. That was… stupid.” You stepped back a little more, suddenly feeling too exposed, too vulnerable.

Hamzah didn’t move right away, his eyes still locked on you. He looked like he was weighing something, deciding something. “No, it’s not stupid,” he said quietly, his voice steady, but you could hear the hesitation there too. He ran a hand through his hair, as if trying to gather himself. “I just—don’t want to make things weird.”

You nodded, but the knot in your stomach didn’t loosen. The air felt charged, and you couldn’t decide if you were relieved or disappointed. “Right.” You cleared your throat. “I should go.”

Hamzah didn’t say anything, just gave a small nod, his expression unreadable. You turned away quickly, as if running from the tension, and walked back inside. The party felt suffocating now, the music and laughter too loud, the distance between you and Hamzah somehow stretching even farther despite what had just happened.

You could feel your heart beating fast in your chest, the weight of everything swirling inside you. Your mind raced, replaying the moment over and over. What if you’d leaned in? What if you hadn’t pulled away? 

You asked Candance if she wanted to go home, and naturally, with her charisma she had become good friend’s with one of Mandy’s friends and was knee deep in a tea-spilling session.

You wished her goodbye grabbed your things and hurried out of the apartment, your pulse still racing as you made your way home. The high was still with you, the dizziness mixing with the anxious energy that had taken root in your chest. You couldn’t shake the feeling of his presence, like an echo, lingering in your mind.

As you stepped into your dorm, you kicked off your shoes and collapsed onto your bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to make sense of the mess inside your head. Why the fuck had you tried to a kiss a guy you only know through your friend’s videos? You wanted to scream and kick.

You rolled onto your back, eyes closing, but the image of him, that near kiss, lingered in your mind like smoke—unwanted but impossible to shake.

Would he tell Martin? Worse, would he tell Mandy? Would she be mad that you nearly kiss Hamzah? Would you lose your job?

You glanced at the clock. It was late, and you were so tired, but the restlessness wouldn’t let you sleep. Instead, you reached for your phone again, scrolled through your messages, then stopped.

One new notification.

It was from Hamzah. 

“Hey, sorry if I was too forward earlier. I was a bit high. You cool?”

You stared at the message, the screen flickering under the dim light. Was he apologizing? Or was this just his way of dismissing it, making it nothing?

Your fingers hovered above the keyboard. Was he expecting an answer? What were you supposed to say?

Finally, you typed a response, only to delete it a moment later. It was easier to just lie here in the silence, letting the unanswered questions fill the space. You weren't ready for any of this.

taglist: @xoxoange1l @sillyfungirl10112 @adiormoi @cheesecakeluver @homesick4la

[olderthannetfic]

Maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, but something I don't get is when people bring up that it used to be that nobody got comments, we use to post in formats where no one could comment, it used to be that people posted fic and you didn't even know how many hits you got, etc. and seem to be proud of how much they don't care about comments and hits.

And I get it. It's unhealthy to like comments or hits. But I don't know if that means it's inherently more healthy to not like them. I certainly don't think it's healthy to see people say, "I wish someone commented on my stuff" and go, "back in MY day we weren't PARASOCIAL LOSERS who used fandom as SOCIAL MEDIA! We understood that fandom was about TRUE ART and TRUE ART doesn't involve others!" because... it just feels like, to me, it shouldn't bother people? If you're really, truly happy with your fandom experience that didn't involve talking to others, why would you then talk to others, even to tell them they're wrong? If silence is golden, why would you ruin it?

And before anyone goes "typical stupid Gen Z kid, wanting fandom to be social media": I quit writing three years ago, I'm not parasocially attempting to use fandom to talk to people.

--

Is this something people in general say, or is it something that one True Art anon with serious emotional issues says?

There's nothing parasocial about commenting on people's fanfic. The only way that would be true is if you're so influencer-poisoned that you think popular fic writers are internet celebrities totally separate from their audiences. In fact, fanfic writers and readers, popular and unpopular, are peers. The people who try to give themselves airs suck and are best avoided.

In oldschool spaces, we most certainly talked to people whose fic we liked so that we could make friends with them. Actual friends. Not some weird cult around a youtuber.

It's also not at all unhealthy to like comments and hits: It's unhealthy to obsess over them.

People who've been in fandom for decades will confirm that the ratio of hits or zine sales or whatever to good feedback was always terrible and so fixating on stats like that will just depress you. Trying to "fix" it is futile. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have an emotional reaction. An emotional reaction is inevitable. It's just that realistic context will make the situation feel less personal.

--

Anon... true fandom olds bitch about modern social media bullshit because it represents a loss of community.

Actual community is the opposite of parasocial.

You need to hang out with better people if this weird shit is what you're seeing.

[potatoofdefiance]

My two cents and a rant on the allegations and Good Omens

(I will probably regret this later)

This has been eating at me for a while now, ever since the news broke that Neil Gaiman was a sex pest (see infamous TERF-adjacent podcast by Tortoise media) and I have been consciously and unconsciously ruminating over it for weeks now, so here goes.

I think the news of Neil Gaiman hit me harder than I was expecting, and certainly harder than I would have liked.

I didn’t (and certainly do not now) consider myself a “true fan”. I was never a hard-core fan, one that goes to signings or book fairs or cons to meet my favourite author. Partly because I never latched that much on any of the authors of the books or movies I loved, and partly (maybe for the best now that I think about it) because I never had the money, or wasn’t located in a geographically favored area. Meaning I never lived anywhere near wherever events with Neil Gaiman were happening.

So, with all this in mind, how is it that the news managed to hit me so hard?

I thought (read: ruminated) about it, and I think it is because of Good Omens. And the latest times. In my life, and I think a good chunk of other people’s lives too, these last few years have been a roller-coaster. You choose which particular scenario the roller-coaster is set into; mine is on fire, running through a sea of shit and we are being slapped by gooey flaming eels hard in the face.

Maybe someone might enjoy this. That someone isn’t me.

But the point is: I have been struggling. With my life, with a mental health condition, with the world and my place in it.

Enter Good Omens. In an effort to actively expose myself to “nice” stuff, stuff that would, if not make me feel better, at least make me laugh, I started tapping more into the fandom.

I’m not a fandom person. Again, never latched onto anything that had a fandom big enough (where are the Ann Halam fans? No one is making cosplays of Sloe from Siberia, are they?).

But with Good Omens, it seemed perfect for me. I wasn’t invested so much, it didn’t make me feel like I was “lacking” something in order to be part of it. I just felt like I didn’t care enough to really be vulnerable to it, I felt like it could have been a nice innocuous hobby.

But that’s the point. Thinking it was innocuous made me let down my guard enough to actually fall in love with the fandom. Fall in love with those two weirdos of characters (which by the way, I’ll say this now: I think Aziraphale and Crowley as portrayed in the series are more a product of fans and Tennant and Sheen than they are a product of Gaiman and Pratchett. And this is not a bad thing per se, I think, but let’s give credit where credit is due).

And let me be clear: I gained so so much from joining the fandom. It has positively affected so many seemingly unrelated parts of my life, and I’m so grateful to so many kind strangers on the internet who have shared such wholesome art with me, and have gifted me so much, that even putting it into words is simply not enough to explain all of it.

And one of the results of this “wave of wholesomeness” is I also started following Gaiman more closely.

Like so many, I loved Coraline. Gaiman seemed a genuinely nice person. An old guy who had wisdom to share, and who seemed to be fascinatingly non-stereotypical? If that makes sense. What I mean is that he was everything my father warned me against. A goth, weird, a writer therefore an artist (and in my family we know artists are fools who end up on the street jobless and homeless). And yet, to me now he seemed such a normal guy. Yes maybe someone who enjoyed that fashion style, but otherwise very far away from the usual excess of a rockstar. Of course I was too young when he was at the peak of his rockstar years. English is not my first language, and when he was 40 I was in elementary school and just learning about him, and you know, they do not write about his fans passing out at signings or his groupies on the back cover of children’s books.

What I mean is that I didn’t have access to all the media and information about him.

So I start seemingly connecting to this writer, whose works I have enjoyed for the most part, and who seems such a nice guy in how he interacts with his fans and people in general. Such an inoffensive, kind person. And kind seemingly to everyone.

I started liking him. To the point where I remember telling my partner: you know, Neil Gaiman is someone I’d take a coffee with (which in Italian culture is one of the greatest honors one can give you. Having a coffee while sitting at a café and chat for hours is what good friends do).

So, in my mind he had a special place now. He was someone I started to admire and look up to.

And this is, I think, where it hurts. It hurts because even if I wasn’t personally victimized, I never met him, he never acted creepy with me, he doesn’t even know me, it still felt like I, as part of the fandom, had been used for his clout. And also, it hurts to feel like someone you trusted because of how they presented themselves has lied to you.

And on top of that: it is so fucking disrespectful. The fact he thought he could get away with it. With hurting so many people (one is one too many by the way), and causing so much pain, while also enjoying crowds of adoring fans, both online and in person.

I find it personally difficult to reconcile my love of the GO fandom with all of this right now. And I think it’s for a number of reasons.

Firstly because the silence of institutions and people around these facts has opened some old wounds and made me angry again towards a system that I perceive as hostile towards me and people like me who might be vulnerable.

What I mean is: I know that Gaiman is a powerful person, and a lot of people need to bring money home and are tied to contracts and what not (yeah I’m looking at our favorite two male presenting british actors here) and I understand it. I do. And this is exactly why this stuff makes me angry again. Angry at the whole shitty system we live in, where if you happen to be in some kind of power imbalance you might end up having to eat shit and shut up while witnessing violence against you or others and not being able to utter a word about it. This sucks. It makes me angry. It makes me angry that Michael Sheen, someone I like to believe would be among the first to shout “I BELIEVE THE VICTIMS” if he was talking to friends at a bar, likely has to shut up and play nicely because Darth Amazon has some fucking clause written in Braille somewhere that says he has to sacrifice his firstborn if he ever dares to suggest he doesn’t like anyone related to the franchise.

It makes me soooo angry that we stay in the dark, and we only know from those people who are brave, and powerful enough to speak up about something that (allegedly) has been known for fucking years in the writing community. That this person was a creep. That he was treating people, mainly women and non-binary folks, if not bad, at least poorly.

And you know, this makes me even more angry because I have been in such shitty situations too! I was a victim of a system where exploitation and borderline abuse were normalized in a work setting.

And it wakes something deep in me to read that “it was an open secret bla bla bla” and again: I understand why people set up whisper networks instead of taking these giants down. I understand it. It still makes me angry because I simply do not want to live in such systems. Systems where I’m either the sacrificial lamb or I’m the one tying it on the table, or handing the axe over to the butcher, or a witness who has no power to stop the suffering.

I don’t want to live in such a system. But I have to. In my real life. I have to put up with so much shit sometimes, shit that makes me feel like I cannot stand up for my values because hey, I need to pay the bills too. And Good Omens was one of those few things where I could escape a bit into an alternative reality, where everything could be a bit better.

And I’m sure the fandom is still like this for most of the fans. I have witnessed first-hand how supportive and cheerful this fandom can be.

For me though, it still makes me think of all this...tsunami of shit.

I want to be able to enjoy the silly fanart, the memes, the wait for season 3 again. But I can’t. I can’t because my brain does not work like that. Good Omens still means Neil Gaiman too much to me. And I cannot go around talking cheerfully about Good Omens while feeling like I’m feeding into the clout of someone who used their power to coerce vulnerable people. Because (and I might be wrong) it feels like the message I’m sending is: my comfort show/book is more important than your pain or your life. And I can’t. This is not the truth.

I feel for the victims. Probably I feel even more than it would be healthy for me, or normal. But I don’t know, I feel like I connect to them. Maybe because I’ve been a victim of abuse perpetrated in clear power-imbalanced relationships, or because I felt like nobody cared about me and my wellbeing for so long, that eventually I stopped caring too.

And it is bad. It’s dehumanizing to a point where you really start believing you don’t matter. Your wellbeing doesn’t matter. There are more important things.

Ok so, I don’t want the victims, the survivors, to feel like this. They matter. They matter to me because if there’s one thing that is going to re-ignate the sacred fire of defiance in me is being able to stop this self-feeding cycle of self-loathing and misery. You matter. We matter. Vulnerable people who have been hurt matter to me. If there is one thing we can do to resist these systems of oppression and these people who abuse their power, that thing is believing that the people they hurt matter. If not more, at least as much as them.

And the way I show myself and others that the victims and their lives matter to me is by distancing myself from Neil Gaiman and his works, at least for now.

I feel bad for people who might have found themselves unwillingly tied to all of this. I feel bad for Sheen and Tennant, for all the wonderful artists and craft-people who have put so much of their work and love in Good Omens and I don’t want to let them down.

My two cents are that season 3 will not be canceled if they see there’s enough traction, and definitely won’t be canceled unless fans start a crusade against it, which won’t happen most likely.

The fandom loves Tennant and Sheen too much, and these are too much nice people to really hold a grudge against them, so I don’t think it will be canceled.

I’m afraid we (I say “we” meaning everyone who loves Good Omens) will be “held hostage” by Gaiman in the sense that he knows season 3 is not going to happen without him, so it’s either “we” or the majority of “we” behave, or it’s not going to happen. Which again, I don’t think he would lose the opportunity to make some money, and he also has contract duties to fulfill, but it still is worth it for him to try to leverage his power.

I wanted to end this rant on a positive note, somehow. But I don't know exactly what to say. Recently one of the things that has brought me laughs and joy has been the Channel 4 series “We are Lady Parts”.

In one of the episodes they quote a very beautiful poem, which came back to mind when I was listening to Claire (the latest woman who has come forward with allegations) on the “Am I Broken” podcast.

The poem is Speak by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, I will paste the version from the show, because I think it’s very powerful and beautiful.

Speak, for your two lips are free Speak, for your tongue is still your own This straight body still is yours. Speak, your life is still your own.

See how in the blacksmith’s forge flames leap high and steel glows red, padlocks opening wide their jaws. Every chain’s embrace outspread.

Time enough is this brief hour Until body and tongue lie dead. Speak, for truth is living yet. Speak, whatever must be said.

[a-student-out-of-time]

The Post-Tragedy Horrors of Despair Time

Hello everyone, Mod Bubbles here!

This Halloween, I decided to do something a little different. Rather than a dedicated post or song parody, I've decided to share a worldbuilding analysis. A pretty fortuitous one, since we've recently completed Chapter 2 of Despair Time.

I'm sure it's no exaggeration to say that DT is a pretty dark fangan, especially within its own context. I wouldn't say it's as grimdark and nihilistic as some people are convinced it is, but there's some elements to it that I feel are worth analyzing going forward.

See, it's been established that DT is set within the Hope's Peak continuity. This would mean that the canon games sans V3 (and if you want to have fun with it, other fangans like the Another series) have all happened here.

According to a Q&A, DT is set around 70-80 years after the end of the Tragedy, so if you wanted to estimate based on in-universe dates (such as Makoto's Hope's Peak brochure saying 2010 in the earliest version of the game but 2014 in a re-release), that would put it sometime around 2080 to the mid-2090s. Veronika backs this up in Chapter 2, when she mentions the Tragedy happened "almost a century ago."

Why do I bring all this up? Because if you looked at DT, you'd probably never guess it was that deep in the future. I know I didn't at first. And this is all by design, but it goes beyond simple cosmetic details. Allow me to explain to you why this is probably the darkest timeline that could've happened after Class 78's victory over Ultimate Despair.

___________________________________________________

Modern Stagnancy

So if we look at the obvious, the world of DT looks pretty much identical to our own, which should be a good thing. When you consider that this is set after The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History- an event that saw societal collapse, wars happen for the sake of destruction, massive pollution, rampant murder, and countless killing games- then it almost seems utopian.

Cities have long since been rebuilt, the skies are clear, there are functional trains, movies, celebrities, schools, music, art, Ted-Talks, the internet, all the trappings of normality. And that's really the problem.

Once the recovery efforts were underway, the goal of those in power was to rebuild things exactly as they used to be. Bear in mind, the world looks like our modern day, yet this is set deep into the late 21st century. In that context, the world almost seems stunted in its growth or even that it's regressed, given that CDs and DVDs are used rather than USBs or digital downloads.

Not only that, but this extends to societal attitudes as well. Nico was the victim of bullying over their status as an enby by everyone who knew, including their own father. It's almost the 22nd century and anti-LGBTQ bigotry like this still exists.

In that context, it feels less like the world is recovering and more that it's been stuck in its pre-Tragedy status quo, right down to continuing the Ultimates program that contributed to The Tragedy in the first place. And who would be motivated to do that?

2. Hope's Peak And Their Kin Are Stronger Than Ever

Probably one of the most contentious aspects of DR3's ending is that, after everything the people in charge of it were responsible for- exploiting their students, covering up crimes, human experimentation- Hope's Peak Academy was rebuilt by the survivors, now with Makoto as headmaster.

Now, one could make the argument that Makoto is a better example of hope and thus better suited to lead the school to follow its stated ideals than the Steering Committee ever was. That very well may be true, but as they also proved, nobody stays in charge forever. And now, because of his decision, Hope's Peak isn't contained to Japan.

There now exist Hope's Peak branches in every major country on Earth, with two in the United States. Teruko and co. are students of the East Coast Division's 27th class, meaning that one opened almost thirty years ago. This would also mean that Japan's Hope's Peak would have seen over 150 classes since its inception.

I bring all this up because, as has been made very clear by canon, Hope's Peak is a terrible place even in concept. When you remove the idyllic aspect of fostering talent and guaranteeing its students are set for life, the truth is that ultimates are stunted in their development. They're only encouraged to excel in their particular field, whether they really want to or not.

In addition, Hope's Peak has always quietly held this belief that only people with talent hold any worth; those without talent are just "ticks" who leech off the success of their betters. Characters like Byakuya and Nagito echo those very same sentiments, this extreme elitism that encourages people to view the "99%" as inherently inferior.

Even if you wanted to say Makoto managed to undo that idea, can we really say this divide would never come up again? No matter how many years pass or how many divisions of Hope's Peak are set up across the world? That seems really far-fetched to me.

Consider Min's bonus video. As she explains, she was never scouted by the school. Instead, America's Hope's Peak announced something called the Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students, where eligible high school students would be allowed to take a test, the best of whom would be admitted to the school when they graduated. The catch is that they had 12 years to prepare. Min, who was only 5 at the time, wasn't initially going to participate, but then the founder of a company called XF-Ture Tech approached her family- who was quite poor- and wanted to sponsor her in exchange for her participation.

She spent her entire life preparing for that test. And when she passed, she realized it was all really just an experiment to create their ideal version of the Ultimate Student. She even doubted that she was the best in terms of raw score, just that she met their desired expectations by cutting out everything else in her life for that test.

It also extends beyond just Hope's Peak itself. Those with power and influence now hold a strangle hold over the most vulnerable people out there, as we can see with the Lacroix family.

Rose wanted to help her family out of their financial limitations using her painting skills and her photographic memory, which lead to her becoming an art forger. However, at 15, she was found out and her family faced tens of millions in fines. This would've been the end, but then they were bailed out by a billionaire named Richard Spurling, founder of the Spurling Foundation. In exchange for clearing her charges, Rose had to sign a contract that meant she doesn't own the rights to anything she paints.

She hates what her life has become, where she can only ever really paint things at the whims of the Foundation because it was the only way her family could survive that mountain of debt. The exploitation there is undeniable.

No matter where you look, there's still exploitation and experiment abound with the school, corporations and the wealthy. And if you think the Spurling Foundation sounds bad here, they're implied to be responsible for something much worse.

Which is also brings us to Xander. See, there's a curious detail when we first meet him in the prologue:

And I agree. Xander being the Ultimate Rebel really doesn't fit him, as he's better described as the "Ultimate Revolutionary." Except there's no chance Hope's Peak would call him that, instead paying lip service to the idea in a digestible format to still support the status quo.

Xander is an activist who works to oppose corruption, but the ones who benefit from corruption wouldn't want him to flaunt that. It's a subtle but very clever detail that shows those in power still maintain a hold even over their beloved Ultimates.

They probably had no issue throwing the obviously corrupt under the bus to save their own hides, and raised Xander up with a quasi-supportive title. It gives them a chance to look like they're supporting what he's doing while still tying an element of a "rebellious child" to his image with the name.

Had Xander survived, he had a good reason to want to bring them down, especially the Spurlings.

3. Illness and Poverty

Xander's bonus video clued us in on what I believe is one of the most important parts of DT's continuity: the fate of the town of Chariton, implied to be where he lived. It seemed to be a small town, home to a couple hundred or a couple thousand people, where the only hospital for miles was "dinky, understaffed" and barely able to handle a minor flu outbreak. They were completely unprepared for what became known as the Chariton Incident.

When he was around 14, the town was hit by a disease that caused those infected to decay from the outside in; their limbs would stop working before their organs did, meaning they would just lay there and feel themselves slowly dying. So many died that nobody was left to move the bodies, so they were left where they fell, rotting in the summer heat.

The cause of this outbreak? A contaminated river that served as the town's water source. Chariton was an impoverished community, where people had no money to treat their water, get medicine from a nearby city or to even move out. It's also implied, based on Xander's anger, that Duke Spurling was partially responsible and that he got off the hook, which may be what drove Xander to become the Ultimate Rebel. Especially when you consider he's the only surviving member of his family.

Duke Spurling is, as the named implies and Dev has confirmed, the younger brother of Richard Spurling. The money and influence needed to get his brother off the hook is the very same that has the Lacroix family under his thumb.

So as we can see, Chariton was a major event in DT's canon. Not only does it showcase corruption, it also showcases understated but still prominent problems in the post-Tragedy U.S. If you pay attention, you'll also notice Teruko, Min, and Rose mention poverty playing a role in their lives.

As we can see, poverty plays a major role in their lives, and that extends beyond a personal level. Chariton's poverty is why the incident happened at all, and a big reason is because it's also an example of a medical desert.

"Medical desert" is a term used to describe regions whose population has inadequate access to healthcare. This can be all healthcare in general or in specialties such as dental care or pharmaceuticals. This is an especially prominent problem in rural areas, but it can affect urban ones too.

If that sounds implausible to you, today it's believed that around 30 million Americans- over 1% of the population- live over an hour from a hospital. Can you imagine how bad the problem is in a world after The Tragedy? All the damage to infrastructure, established institutions, the economy, and the population? I doubt Chariton was the first to see something this bad.

Ace's execution gives us more clues. In the Death By Illness section, there are several newspaper clippings on the wall, most of which are readable. One flashes on screen saying "Unexplained Illness Kills Thousands," which I believe is another reference to Chariton (why else would it flash on screen?), but there's more as well:

"More people are dying of cancer than ever before"

"Flu season claims thousands of lives"

"Falling rates of survival for hospitalized patients"

"Antibiotic-resistant infections a growing threat in this hospital"

One is harder to read, but I believe it mentions Chronic Kidney Disease being tied to an early death

Now, the interesting thing is that most of these are modern headlines, and they can be pretty misleading. The cancer one is actually based on the fact that more people are living longer lives, thus are reaching ages where they develop cancer due to their cell infrastructure breaking down naturally. It doesn't mean there's more cancer cases overall across all ages.

The only one that's not true is the falling rates one. Which suggests that not only was it Chariton, but healthcare infrastructure in general after the Tragedy seems to be a mess.

See, I was assuming that these articles are identical to what we see today. But it's also possible that the cancer one is now literally true, and it could be because The Tragedy was rife with this kind of horror. We know that terrorism, coups and wars happened for no reason other than to spread despair across the world.

Could you imagine how many nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons were used? How many diseases and hazardous materials were seeded into the environment? If it's unsafe to drink tap water after a serious hurricane or earthquake, how bad is the problem when contamination is the goal?

And this doesn't even touch on how disturbingly easy it would be to spread long-term illnesses such as HIV or CJD in contaminated food and medical supplies. Some diseases have latency periods that last decades, meaning they could still be killing people even by the time DRDT is set.

Antibiotic resistance is also a very real and serious problem. Even today, some strains have become immune to even the strongest antibiotics available. This has given rise to Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci or VREs, which are immune to basically every medication we can throw at them.

Now, it's still possible to deal with them, such as with naturally antimicrobial metals or experimental treatments such as CRISPR and Phage Therapy, but in a world that saw such a massive hit to everything? I'm certain antibiotic-resistance bacteria have become much more serious, potentially resulting in epidemics over the years.

And when these things happen, it's always the poor who suffer the most.

4. Lethal Repetition

Now we come to the most obvious example, something highlighted by the same reveal that DT is set nearly a century into the future:

Veronika, who provided us with information on the effects the Tragedy still has, apparently has never heard about The Killing School Life.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that most of the Killing Games in DR were pretty secluded and motivated. SDR2 was only broadcast to Future Foundation with the goal to allow Junko to escape into the real world, for example. However, DR1's Killing School Life was broadcast globally as a means to break humanity's hope by showing the Ultimates slaughtering each other. Instead, Makoto and co. managed to reinvigorate the world's hope and played a pivotal role in ending the Tragedy.

...And yet Veronika apparently hasn't heard any of it.

Now, there's two possibilities here, neither of which are good:

One is that the Mastermind has removed their knowledge of previous killing games, specifically. Now, I actually consider this an unlikely explanation because, not only does Teruko seem to vaguely remember the Killing School Life happened, but what's the goal in doing so for the participants?

The canon games all had solid reasons why the other masterminds erased the participants' memories: the revelation that they'd been killing their friends, the fact that their past identities were supposed to be undone to save them, even the fact that they weren't even who they were supposed to be in V3.

But what's the purpose of suppressing the memories of the Killing School Life in the participants themselves? Especially since this game is also apparently being broadcast to the outside world, although we only have MonoTV's word on that. Is it to undermine everything the survivors achieved or to get the participants not to consider the same strategies?

The other, more plausible explanation to me is that the mastermind isn't the one who erased their memories. The outside world did.

It's possible that, in the decades since the Tragedy and the drive to return things to the status quo, knowledge of the Killing School Life has been suppressed. It would be so easy to blame Makoto's decision to rebuild the school, but it's just as plausible that his attempts to genuinely reform the school were undone over the years.

Corporations and those that came after had a vested reason to improve their own reputations, and why would they allow their connection to the Tragedy to remain public knowledge? The entire thing began as a revolution of lower classes against the rich before it became a whirlwind of mindless violence.

So what does this mean for DT? This is more hypothesizing on my part, but I'd say this could tell us a lot about the potential motivations for this very killing game. Could it be someone trying to remind the world about this event and how we got here? Is it more retribution against the wealthy? Is it someone who was inspired by Junko to slaughter her friends? Or is it something else entirely? And what role does Teruko have if someone involved is so hellbent on trying to kill her?

For now, we can only speculate. But I can tell you that, based on what we've seen here, DT is probably the darkest future we could've gotten out of the canon series.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

[sordidmusings]

Tender Love and Care - Hair Care (Buggy x amab!Reader

Art by ijessbest on Twitter (refusing new name still) I believe they also have a tumblr by the same name!

A/N: Sorry I took so long to post this and thank you for your patience! I had thought I put it up earlier but noticed that wasn't true while doing some organizing. The differences are pretty subtle but I hope they are meaningful for your immersion and help you feel seen! If there's something I can do better (I am cis fem so I'm sure there's much my experience has me missing about yours) please let me know! I'd like to help y'all get your escapism too 🤍

From the original a/n - "Ah yes, another 'taking care of Buggy's head' fic to take up space on the internet. Just gotta indulge in giving this man some tlc. Did I write four thousand words of simping for the cringefail pirate clown's hair? Yes. And I'd do it again >:p"

Word Count: ~4k

Warnings: masculine leaning amab!reader (no pronouns or gendered titles), Lots of Feelings, yearning, possibly angst?, probably hurt/comfort?, waxing very poetic, Buggy being a prickly bitch who doesn't know how to receive affection, Buggy also being a delusional bitch who immediately latches on to that affection

afab!Version

~ ~ ~ ••• ✦✦✦ ••• ~ ~ ~

“Touch the makeup and I’ll bite your fingers off!”

“I’m quaking.”

“...I’ll spit in your face.” His eyes narrowed while you blanched. “I’ve got damn good aim too so you better watch those big ol’ eyes.” Almost a compliment? Progress.

“To save us both from catastrophe, I’ll let you keep your grease-face,” you promised. After a few more seconds of giving you the stink eye (really, you should be taking notes because his form is exemplary), Buggy finally settled back into your hold. His stubble scratched lightly at your palms and you allowed your thumbs a scant few passes from his cheek bones to the back of his jaw. That was easy enough to play off as mindless movements while you examined him for the coming wash. Hopefully.  You were at least putting in the effort to keep the affection in your chest from blooming into a wide smile on your face, lest he begin spitting like a wet cat again.

After placing him down on your clothes chest, you began gathering together the things you’d need to clean him up. You had already prepared a large basin of steaming water before you had grabbed Buggy from Zoro for your night shift with him. If he had truly protested against you then you’d just have extra water to spoil yourself with for your nightly routine. What a loss. While you flitted around grabbing a cup, a pile of towels, and care products, Buggy took to commenting about whatever his eyes fell on around your room. Your half-assed replies did nothing to discourage his gentle roast of your safe space. He only shut up when you picked him back up and brought him over to the basin.

You were taken by surprise when you took off his bandana.  You had guessed that his hair was thick from the pieces that framed his face, but you hadn’t expected long locks to be wrapped up in there. They slipped and fell down like silk despite being in clear need of a wash, and you started to become a bit excited to see how they would come to shine under your care.

“What’s wrong with you? Never seen hair before?” There was a bit more bite to him all of a sudden and it hit you that he may be self-conscious from your staring.

“Never seen yours before, duh,” you teased. “You should wear your hair out as a power move against all the scrangly ass men in these waters.”

Buggy took a blank-faced moment to process your words. Probably weighing your sincerity against the backlog of insults he’s heard in his life. Unfortunately, one joking compliment never stood a chance.

“Whatever, just do your job.” His bitter tone made you keep your mouth shut and drop the topic. For now.

Seeing how he had a lot more hair than anticipated, you got up again to grab yet another towel so that you could use it as a cushion. Finally settled, you grabbed Buggy in one hand, the cup in the other, and got to work. You had laid a small board across the basin so you could rest Buggy on it instead of having to hold him up the whole time. You may have gotten strong in this life, but you were not masochistic enough to try holding him up throughout this process. You made sure to be extra gentle when you put him to rest on the back of his head, mindful that the hard plank wasn’t the most comfortable.

Wetting his hairline was taking longer than you thought. The soft noises from the pouring water hitting his scalp and trickling through his hair into the basin below felt loud in the stillness of the room. Everything had a languid air like you could breathe freely without thought or time to measure the passing of each exhale. Wanting to check in, you looked down from your task and into Buggy’s face. Despite all his past showboating, Buggy was having difficulty keeping his gaze anywhere near your face.  You decided to take pity on him in his discomfort but not too much. “So how’d you get your damn good aim?”

Silence.

You’re beginning to think that him looking at you like you’re stupid is his comfort zone.

“You know, that ‘damn good aim’ that makes my ‘big ol’ eyes’ easy targets?” you supplied.  At first, you thought he would roll his eyes and make more digs at you, but he finally caught you off guard.

“It’s a trade secret,” he said with a growing smile and a glint in his eyes. His face grew even more pleased when you smiled mischievously back at him.

“Clown trade?”

He hummed out an affirmative. You saturated the last of his hair at the front and sides and now needed to dunk the rest in the basin. The sheer amount of long blue locks that this pretty, pretty man had may cause it to overflow, but you supposed that’s just a workplace hazard when becoming a glamor clown’s hairdresser. You paused in lowering him to look around quite dramatically (squinty eyes, pursed lips, and all) before leaning slightly closer to stage whisper, “You can tell me; I ain’t no snitch.”

You barely caught the laugh that he choked short in order to keep up his serious facade. He let his eyes wander the room to double check your surveying and pretended to be in thought. He let out a heaving sigh and said, “Okay, okay, but you have to lean in close. Can’t have this getting out.”

Ever obliging, you turned your head and leaned until you felt his warm breath on your skin and the roundness of his nose tickling to top of your ear. You were thankful he couldn’t see the little shiver down your spine or the goosebumps spreading down your neck. He was thankful you couldn’t see him close his eyes to savor the scent of your aftershave. All was still for a few breaths too long.

“The secret?” you prompted, thinking he was waiting for your urging or that he was just trying to make you squirm. You didn’t see his eyes flutter open while he forced thoughts other than your closeness back into that head of his. Okay, he really needed to do something to reel himself back in and get some control of the situation.  Easier said than done when he’s only a head.

You felt as much as you heard him take a deliberate inhale… only for a loud raspberry to be blown right next to your ear.

Nearly dropping him in shock, you quickly pulled your head back and held him at arm’s length like a misbehaved puppy. Through his canting cackles, Buggy met your wide eyes with a proud grin. It didn’t even need the help of his makeup to split his face. Damn, you could stare at that forever. He had just the prettiest eyes you think you’d ever seen. The way they shifted color under the low lights and sparkled with his smile had you feeling entranced. It had the same commanding presence and addicting warmth as flames with their own swirling colors and sparking embers. You thought your poetic idioms for him would always center around the sea, especially for his blue-green eyes, but here we are.

The corner of his smile started to twitch downward under your stare until wild and cheerful laughter burst from your lips. They were the kind to shake your shoulders and scrunch your cheeks up into your eyes and he’s now certain that he has fucked right up. Buggy felt alarms blaring in his mind as he took in your joy and was certain he would make an absolute fool of himself in any and all ways possible to keep getting hits of it. Between your settling chuckles, you managed to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring that wisdom with me to my grave.”

Readjusting your grip, you moved forward and dunked the back of Buggy’s head fully into the water. He sighed out at the sensation, but he fully melted when one of your hands went to support the back of his skull and the other flowed through his tresses to make sure all of them were wet. You let yourself take your time, both to make sure you were thorough and to indulge yourself in the comfort of the moment. A tenderness spread through you when you saw that this was also indulging Buggy. His breath was slow and steady, and his eyes were resting closed to better focus on the sensations coming to him. You truly were a people pleaser at heart and seeing someone so bedraggled and affection-starved accept your care made your heart and head feel fuzzy.

You slowly leaned him more upright and used your other hand to wipe out some of the excess water. Buggy felt you shuffling around, and his eyes opened to see what you were up to. After you moved him to rest on the flat bottom of his neck on top of the softest towel that he’s felt in ages, he realized that you went through the trouble to try to make even that wooden board comfortable for his sake. He was starting to feel even more uncertain and out of his element.

Careful fingers carded through and spread out his hair behind him while an equally careful gaze watched over their work. After lathering your hands with a shampoo bar scented by vanilla and spices, you set to work giving him the scalp massage of a lifetime.

While focusing on doing the best job possible and maybe also the beautiful color of his hair was keeping you from thinking about anything else, Buggy had no such luxury. He had nothing to direct his nervous energy at - didn’t even have fingers to fidget with! - so he closed his eyes and tried to keep his face neutral. Everyone enjoys a good scalp massage or at least some kind of pampering so it wouldn’t have been weird for him to visibly enjoy it, but something watery and vulnerable was pressing at his throat under your tender care. His mind and body (well… head) were at odds. While his train of thought spun every which way only to be tethered back to the word ‘why’, his muscles melted until they were soft and pleasantly limp. Has his brow ever been so smooth? His jaw so loose? His lips so softly set? Oh God, you must have noticed the stubborn stiffness in his neck because your fingers abandoned his hair to firmly rub from the base of his skull to where he met the towel and that was truly his undoing.

With a rumbly hum, Buggy finally gave in to temptation and tied his mind to your movements. He let himself imagine affection there - imagine that this was special and just for him. You’ve never tended to anyone else like this. You offered because you simply had to know what his hair felt like. You just wanted to touch him. You wanted it much more than you ever wanted to touch anyone else. If he opened his eyes and looked up at yours, he would see them pouring with love, just like your hands were, and you would look sweetly down at him with your gorgeous eyes and handsome smile and say lovely things and you’d love him-

You’d love him.

Fuck.

You noticed Buggy suddenly flinch under your hands and you tensed up.

“Are you okay? Did I snag your hair?” You hadn’t felt anything tug but you supposed you could’ve missed it.

Buggy cleared his throat before stiffly responding, “No. Keep going.”

Something thick in his tone caught your attention and you looked to see his expression was tense instead of the blissed out one you had admired not too long ago. That won’t do. You went back to the tried and true pressure points on the scalp that you knew from experience eased anyone up. Checking his face again, you noticed it was more relaxed but still too guarded for your tastes. Deciding he must be getting antsy, you switched to working the shampoo down his hair after getting a touch more product on your hands. The time it took to get it properly sudsed and rinsed was calm, despite the fact that there was some undercurrent to the air that felt charged. Maybe it was just from seeing the talkative and bratty clown be so subdued. As you began spreading conditioner through his hair, you decided that it was time to engage him again.

“This bar is my favorite; nothing makes my hair softer,” you said. Already, his hair was relaxing to glide even more smoothly between your fingers. You weren’t ready to give the feeling up, so you spent the entire time that the conditioner was setting to run your fingers through his hair.

Buggy couldn’t do anything at the moment to judge your claim, but the smell alone made him understand why it was your favorite. It matched that of the shampoo bar, but the richer ingredients in the conditioner highlighted the comforting tones of the vanilla and the sensuality of warm spices and wood. He relished in it on every inhale, hoping to unravel and memorize its every undertone. Was that a touch of amber in there? A little pink peppercorn? Maybe some incense and oud at the base? Buggy suddenly felt ridiculous. He was never one to give much thought to fancy perfumes, yet here he was trying to dissect your scent like a sommelier tasting a new wine. 

You made quick work of rinsing his hair this final time and gently pushing and squeezing any excess water out. You set Buggy back on a towel, this time one that was spread on the floor. It was the one that you had just been sitting on. Buggy was embarrassed that he noticed and enjoyed the fact that he could still feel your body heat on it.

“How many of those things do you have?” Buggy scoffed as you pulled yet another towel over to dry his hair. You flicked his forehead in warning against further sass.

“You can never have too many. It’s something that you use daily and they come in handy during emergencies,” you explained.

��Oh yeah like what?”

“Well, I was thinking of situations like having to soak up a spill or blood, but the state of your hair definitely qualifies.”

The outburst was immediate.

“I KNEW YOU WERE MAKING FUN OF ME YOU DAMN LIAR! HOW DA-”

Good thing you were prepared for this and stuffed some of yet another towel into his screaming mouth. He bit down on it harshly and glared at you with all his might. Snarls and grumbles still made their way through the cloth, letting you know just how displeased he was. You were a little shocked to find that despite being gagged and despite just being a head that his glare still actually intimidated you. The time spent with the crew treating him like a harmless little pest had helped you forget that, when push came to shove, he could back up his talk with violence.

The brief glimpse of fear in your eyes gave him a twinge of satisfaction but mostly felt a lot more hollow than he’d expected. Wasn’t this what he wanted? 

When you reached back out to continue drying his hair, you were more tentative than he had ever seen you and his mood dropped even further. Even with your caution, the way that you moved the towel over his hair and gently squeezed more water out of it was filled with care. The whole thing felt very foreign to him. Buggy usually rubbed his towel through his hair chaotically like the more forceful he was the sooner he could get done with the bothersome task. You were working over him like any undue force would be an insult. Like he was something precious. That watery feeling started pressing on him again.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” you started quietly. “I just meant to poke fun, not make you actually feel insulted.” After a few more soft pats with the towel, you slowly removed his makeshift gag. He took a moment to wiggle around his jaw and get the dry feeling out of his mouth.

“Yeah, well good job, dumbass,” he bit. You winced at the hurt in his tone. “Just finish up.”

You took a moment to recenter yourself while you grabbed your comb and brush. This was not how you wanted this to go. One wrong comment had sent this whole interaction spiraling and it made you sad. Sensitivity like that was usually built up from years of feeling the same hurts over and over again, and you didn’t ever want to be someone to aggravate an already festering wound, especially not on someone who you genuinely enjoyed. Not on someone who you were increasingly craving affection from. This needed to be fixed. Steeling yourself for the resistance you were about to meet, you began combing the ends of his hair and spoke, “The blue color is pretty.”

He ignored you. As expected.

“It was one of the first things I noticed about you.” He still wouldn’t even glance up at you. “Also how it brings out the color of your eyes.”

He snorted dismissively in a way that very clearly told you he wasn’t believing a word you said. Also expected. You’re just going to have to soldier on until this eventually worked… maybe worked… hopefully worked?

Just as in the rest of the process, you were slow and thorough when combing his hair. You murmured compliments to him about how soft it is; how thick and how beautiful. By the time that you had switched to using your brush, he was showing signs of being worn down by your flattery. His face was more relaxed and he let himself look around instead of trying to burn a hole through the floor. All you could focus on, though, was how downcast and tired his eyes looked.

“Alright, I’m all finished up,” you told him. “I’m going to put you in the hammock for a minute while I get ready for bed.”

After placing him in the middle of your bedding, you disappeared behind a dressing screen. The routine of bathing  yourself with a washcloth and bowl of soapy water eased you. Since you had taken so much time tending to Buggy, the last bowl of fresh water had become lukewarm. Despite this, the final wipe down had you feeling refreshed and ready to jump into bed. It was no soak in the tub, but still left you feeling much better after a long day of helping work around the ship.

You had set about your routine briskly so that you didn’t leave Buggy waiting too long. Little did you know, he didn’t mind the time of having nothing to do besides enjoy the soft blankets you curled up in every night. He was trying to soak it in before you inevitably put him back down on the floor. If the night had taught him anything, you’d at least put him on one of those fluffy towels instead of throwing him back in the bag like the others did.

You came over to him on the hammock and he admired how you looked, now clean and fresh. His eyes poured over your shirtless chest and the thin sleep pants moving around the shape of your legs. When you picked him back up, your face and body language were as placid as he had ever seen them and he was surprised at how content that made him feel. He readied himself to be moved away, left cold and forgotten, but he was astonished when you plopped yourself in your bedding instead with him still in your hands. The shock must have shown on his face because you chuckled at him and gave him a bright smile. Even with the bumpy road that the night had been, your smile made him soft and content. He was realizing with more and more resignation that your smile and laugh would let you get away with anything when it came to him.

“So no floor? Trying to bribe me with favors?” His voice was mostly back to that sarcastic lilt you’ve come to adore.

Content that he was feeling better, you answered, “Nah, just using you so I can have a teddy bear. Haven’t had a good one in ages.”

Making good on that promise, you made sure that he was securely nestled into your neck and shoulder. You used both of your arms to cradle him there and both hands to continue your worship of his hair. It was just barely damp and the coolness felt nice on your hands, especially in contrast to the cozy heat emanating from his head. His long eyelashes tickled at your neck every time he blinked, just like the light scruff on his jaw teased at the skin on your chest. His big nose felt cozy rested on your clavicle, and you had to resist the urge to reach down and trail your fingers on it. A giddy and victorious feeling flushed through you when you felt him close his eyes a final time and sink into your embrace.

Buggy should have known that he was doomed from the start. He was having a hell of a time trying not to moan at your fingers scratching and massaging his scalp, both during the hair care and now, when he was held in your arms. The feeling of being rested on your bare chest sent his heart racing. He couldn’t stop his little movements to nestle into you and get just that much more of your warmth and touch. If he thought that he loved the smell of you before, he was absolutely intoxicated now that he knew what it was like when it floated over the two of you while wrapped in body-warmed sheets.

He wanted to ask you why you were doing all of this, but he didn’t want to know the answer. Not right now. Right now he was going to let himself go back into that place in his head where you lo- cared about him. A place where each night he would crawl into bed with you and, no matter how the day went, you would be there to empty his mind of anything but the two of you. You’d greet him with a kiss or a laugh or an embrace and you would shine with so much joy because he’s next to you again. He’d know what your love felt like, how it felt to be under your hands, how your skin felt under his lips. All these daydreams swirling in his head started to make him sick with want, and he needed to know at least one of them. He couldn’t handle all of them staying forever in his mind.

The tiniest increase of pressure from his lips brought your attention to where they rested below your collarbone. The almost kiss was so heartbreakingly shaky and hesitant that you felt your eyes burn with the threat of tears. To reassure him, you dragged your cheek across his temple before turning to leave a deliberate kiss there. Buggy relished the contact, the satisfied sigh you let out afterward, and the gentle weight of your cheek as you snuggled back into him. Your reward came in the form of a grinning cheek pushing into you.

All his humor and posturing certainly caught your attention in the best way and even his explosive temper was something you couldn’t say turned you away. This gentleness, though, this uncertain and wounded place, had you bursting with affection and you were hoping to keep experiencing it. You’d meet it each time with steady affection until it turned into something he embodied with the same surety that he had in his beloved spotlight.

Both of you slipped more sweetly into dreams, curled up together as you were, and with more peace and ease than the years before had allowed. Neither of you would let the years to come be absent of this sweet treasure, either.

[mariacallous]

In Hollywood, the present is the future is the past.

Twin strikes shut down production for six months last year, and with its workforce still on ice, the entertainment industry has been slow to recover. Domestic box-office revenue is expected to be 30 percent lower this year compared to 2019. By 2028, cable TV subscriptions are expected to decline by 10 million. And with the looming acquisition of Paramount Global by Skydance Media, the future of Hollywood is as it ever was: reliably uncertain. As one studio executive described it to the Los Angeles Times, it’s “something of an existential question mark.”

Of course, this isn’t Hollywood’s first—or second or third, for that matter—financial reckoning. “When we look closely at history, we realize that all the negotiations we have to make about character, about financing, about representation and all these things have been asked before,” says Maya Cade. “Ego tells us that we must be the first, but why would we want that to be true?”

This, in part, was Cade’s mission when she launched Black Film Archive in 2021. At a “moment when people were demanding the full totality of our lives to be represented in media,” she says, “they felt as if Black film could not hold the capacity for Blackness.” Cade knew better. So she got to work and built what is now the most exhaustive online database of Black cinema titles, spanning diverse, obscure, and well-known films.

A former audience development strategist at the Criterion Collection, she tells me people were missing a larger context to the issues at hand. The archive, which celebrated its third anniversary this August, features more than 300 films released between 1898 to 1999, with each title available to stream online. What Cade has accomplished is both rare and essential: She has indexed a century's worth of Black moviemaking and made it free to access.

Anxious to learn more, I reached out to Cade to help make sense of what’s happening in Hollywood. Over the phone from Los Angeles, where she recently relocated, Cade and I talked about the fate of the entertainment business, the grave implications of the Internet Archive lawsuit, and how we can better preserve history on an internet that likes to forget.

Jason Parham: Is it true that the idea for Black Film Archive sprang from a conversation on Twitter?

Maya Cade: I was on Twitter in June 2020, and I saw a lot of people talking about how racist or dramatic Black films are as a way to dismiss them. So instead of shaming people for that opinion, in my mind I was like, OK, how do I make an offering for people to discuss that belief, to contrast that belief, and also move us past it. I don't want to dismiss the truth because it's harsh. And I know there are many ways to get to the truth. I also don’t want to dismiss people who feel that way. But I want to offer another lens of how they're seeing it. Because when we talk about Black films as only being traumatic, we're reducing the art form in a very minuscule kind of way. This idea of like, “Oh, all these films are about slavery. All of these films are about trauma porn.”

Which, of course, isn’t true.

I did the calculations of how many films are about slavery—and they were quite few across time. But I understand that at the same time, what does it mean when a white decisionmaker wants to see Black people in a specific way? They have the power of how we're told in media. I also understand that film becomes the dominant narrative of how history is told. So there are multiple truths to contend with. But I think we're better prepared to contend with those things when we have a full look of what Black film’s history can offer.

The Internet Archive recently lost an appeal, which could have major ramifications to how we access information. Resources like Black Film Archive and the Wayback Machine are also part of this conversation. This is a bit of an abstract question, but how do we better hold on?

One goal of the early internet was to democratize knowledge. Whether everyone agreed with that is a different point. And the Internet Archive is one of the only things from the early internet to still exist in its same way. Wikipedia, too. These two things are constantly under attack, because to share knowledge freely means that someone wants to come in and control the free flow of knowledge. They want to profit from that.

In so many ways greed has become a default response to various public resources.

With that being known, what do we do? The world has been upended. The only truth that we know is in books. On the internet, AI has turned knowledge upside down. AI leaves out the essence of truth. For example, through summary, it assumes who you are and what you want to know quickly about something, which isn't the same as a human would do it. That process can remove layers of truth at a very basic level. With that being the foundation of the internet of the future, the Internet Archive is essential. In the last 10 years, we have moved away from the internet as a service to the internet of things. An internet as service—it was a destination. It was a place that you could freely roam, explore, and use as a guide.

Is there a way back to that?

If we want places on the internet that aren't run by AI, where knowledge is freely shared, where we can explore as we desire, then we must invest our time, our coins, we must advocate and protect as much as we possibly can. There’s so much on the internet that would crumble if the Internet Archive or Wikipedia falls. That's a threat to many people because, ultimately, when you control the flow of knowledge, you control everything.

The consequences would be extraordinary.

It's almost as if the basic concept of the library would be a pie-in-the-sky idea today, because someone would ask, well, how could I make money from that? When Black Film Archive launched, many people wanted to profit off of it. Many people asked to sponsor it. The thing is, once you create something that becomes a front line of culture, the question isn’t “How do I help sustain you?” The question is “How do I own you?” I said no because I’m firm in Black Film Archive being free.

On the subject of money and ownership: Earlier this year, following the cancellation of several Black TV shows, you wrote, “Studios and streamers no longer care about loyalty or enduring legacy.” Why does Hollywood, in 2024, still have such a difficult time aligning its legacy with its business?

Well, here's the thing, the legacy business, they feel as if that work is behind them.

But isn’t that what Hollywood is built on?

Yes, but to create new legacy and new inroads, to them, that is less important than extracting every possible dollar from existing IP. It’s more “expensive,” quote-unquote, to create something than it is to rest on existing laurels. The beginning of the end of this, to me, was when Warner Brothers and UPN merged into The CW. Now, 20 years later, the CW is a shell of itself. In mergers, you're no longer competing with someone to make the best content. With the merger of Warner Brothers and Discovery, they own, what, one-fourth of TV? That competition era of television—it's over.

Which has a direct impact on the creative side.

The legacy-driven model only happens now in vanity. So a lot of stars are using their own distribution or first-look deals to produce things. And these are the majority of people who are allowed to create. So what does Hollywood mean when the only people who are given freedom are people who have already done the taxing work—if they have at all—to become stars? Hollywood is not in the business of guarantee. Everything must be proven before it's even created.

And if that’s the case, so many people get left out.

And if everything must be proven before it's even created, then Blackness never had a chance. It doesn't have a chance. The fight for nostalgia as currency comes in a moment where some of the highest rated things are non-white. That's not an accident. It’s as if television, media, and filmmaking are becoming manifest destiny in the wrong ways. And there's nothing sadder.

Perhaps we need better frameworks.

People have upended industries to chase Netflix. And no one has caught up. Everything has fallen in this chase. What’s happening now is, people are only duplicating the best and the most watched. There is no diversity in how things are being delivered.

You once described “post-2020 Black media as akin to a modern day blaxploitation boom.” It got me thinking about platforms like Tubi and AllBlk, which are sometimes mocked as being a kind of streaming ghetto, but those same streamers have also given opportunities to young creators.

Blaxploitation, as I was saying, makes way for Spike Lee, it makes way for the '80s independent Black movement that, of course, shapes everything we know about modern Black film and modern Black media. At every valley, there is a peak. It’s the nature of life. So what do I think is ahead? We should be thinking about independent models that have existed before our current era. There are many ways to make media. With pilot season essentially dying, as the studios have announced, what are some ways that Black creators can forge together to make what they desire?

I mean, I don't know if I have the answers, but I do have the curiosity. And oftentimes curiosity and care—and leading with them—can transform how we understand history and the future.

[genericpuff]

no but listen, rachel has truly embodied herself as persephone because she's constantly trying to "distance herself" from her past as a medical fetish artist but then keeps the name that's affiliated with her medical fetish art-

Like, I can't believe I never noticed it before tbh, but that was the thought that hit me while I was explaining to someone on reddit what the name "used bandaid" meant and why it was weird that Rachel is STILL using it on her print cover books, even now when she just recently set up a new Facebook account with her REAL NAME and not the used_bandaid penname (I feel like this is an attempt to "legitimize" herself in the industry but idk).

But that leads me into talking about how she keeps lying about LO being her first webcomic project and that really pisses me off. And yes, this is related to the used_bandaid thing, just bear with me here.

A lot of my contempt for this is for reasons that go beyond her, I just hate the notion that people should succeed on their "first try" and that's an idea that's often sold by people like Rachel who spin these grandiose stories of how they were just "trying it out" and suddenly wham! Fame and fortune! You can achieve all this and more if you just xyz!

Literally, in every interview I've found over the past couple years, she always heavily implies that LO was her "first attempt", that she had never used Webtoons prior to LO, and that she was just "dipping her toes" into the medium. None of this is true, she's literally been drawing webcomics since the early 2000's (possibly earlier but the earliest documentation we can find is of The Doctor Pepper Show), LO wasn't even her first webcomic on the Webtoons platform (that goes to The Doctor Foxglove Show which she ended up dumping a chapter in to work on LO almost immediately after starting it on Tumblr) and as much as she'll claim she "couldn't pay anyone to look at her work", she had landed a number of gigs that got her work out there, had been printed in anthology collections, and IIRC she had even won some small local NZ awards for her comics prior to LO. Shit, there was a local beer brand that had her art on its labelling.

But it really feels like she's trying her damn hardest to hide all that, never mentioning or implying that she did anything prior to LO, that she was just a "struggling graphic artist working in retail" until LO happened.

So why keep the penname that's directly affiliated with that past identity ??

It boggles my mind, honestly, especially considering she had gone by MULTIPLE usernames back then, some of which were actually pretty sane that she could have used instead (such as Rach Alex, which she uses in her FB groups, and Rachel Royale).

I wouldn't blame her if she was trying to hide her old medical fetish stuff, whether she didn't want it affiliated with her new LO branding or if she's just embarrassed by it, I can totally empathize with that because god knows I wouldn't be all that proud to show off the cringy shit I got up to during my early days on the Internet. But if she IS embarrassed by it, you'd think the last thing she'd want to keep is the name that's directly affiliated with the thing she's embarrassed by. Almost like a certain pink protagonist who goes by the name she earned after doing the thing she doesn't want to talk about.

But if she ISN'T embarrassed by it, then why lie?

Why paint this picture that LO was a one hit wonder, that she lived on "struggle street" until she found fame and fortune on Webtoons?

Oh right. Because it's a better story.

Because it's way more romantic to be some struggling indie darling who "came from nothing" and achieved fame through one big idea. Because it looks good for the platform who's trying to attract people to their app and website on the promise that you, too, can be a success story simply because you followed the exact same perceived steps that you saw another person follow and advertise.

If you can't tell from my tone, I really fucking hate this kind of disingenuous wish fulfillment advertising. It's manipulative, it's cruel, and it sets people up with expectations far beyond their scope of reaching, both due to the luck and "being in the right place at the right time" involved at best (which is a HUGE factor in stories like these that people never talk about), or through joy-killing comparison at worst when you don't achieve worldwide fame on your first try and wonder why everyone else did (spoiler: they didn't, they just want you to think that because it makes for better headlines and it gets you using whatever product they're affiliated with.)

If Rachel doesn't want to be tied down to her past, that's fine. But it's incredibly irresponsible and flat out cruel to lie about that past existing at all because it sets a horrible precedent to those who look up to her and want what she has.

And I say all that because I've seen what happens to the people starting out who admire these creators who painted the picture that they were just successful right off the bat. It's not a fun headspace to be in, it's robbed many creators like myself and others of their joy in creating, and it's really all just a ploy to get you to spend time and money and energy on a stupid corporate phone app that profits off your emotional investment and labor. Don't fall for it. Pretending like the Act of Wrath didn't happen doesn't remove it from history.

Anyways, I was gonna leave it at that, but then I ended up doing another rabbithole deep dive through her Wayback Machine and found album art she had illustrated for NZ band PorcelainToy. Enjoy this piece of her "dark era" art that still exists without needing to use the Wayback Machine.

[skylarkking]

I've been whacked with the valveplug stick again and I have headcannons for some of the Lost Light crew.

🔞 under cut

I'm gonna start off by simply listing the characters I know currently (I've read up to the issue where overlord first appears but have read other snippets scattered on the internet) and the list will begin with my favorites:

Rung

Definetly into BDSM

Uses interface as therapy

Despite being a fucking tiny adorable nerdy twink he knows how to work big bots

His glasses sometimes fall off during sessions and when they do he's often too blissed out or focused on the other bot to care

He is a moaner and makes all sorts of sounds that bots are obsessed with

He has tried everything and anything

He attended one of Ratchet's orgies during Ratchet's college years as a Party Ambulance

He and Froid DEFINETLY had angry interface before and you can't tell me otherwise

Rodiumus

Legit a horndog

This mf gets so worked up that throughout the day he has to step aside and take care of himself

He's a bottom who tries to play top and FAILS miserably

Drift and him are fuck buddies (you can't tell me otherwise)

He's capable of gentle and intimate interface with someone he loves, but due to his inexperience and somewhat childish attitude (not his fault I mean he's essentially a guy in his 20s) he prefers quickies over that

After interface he sometimes forgets about aftercare

Drift

Way hornier than he lets on

Loves to have his neck bitten

When he is in heat he is either gonna top every bot in his reach and make them beg through tears or he's gonna beg Ratchet with tears in his optics. I'm sorry I don't make the rules here

I think when he was a Decepticon he was Hella into knifeplay

And I mean HELLA into it

Like this bitch would pop a boner if someone licked a sword or some shit

He bottoms for Rodimus mostly but in a sort of bossy bottom sort of thing

Ultra Magnus/Minimus

This guy.... this guy may act like he's only into vanilla shit, but I fucking GUARENTEE he's a freak

He's fragged Swerve before (size kink when he's in the Magnus armor)

When he's in the Magnus armor sometimes the connections for his own spike and the armor's get wired wrong and he has to "adjust himself" (like human amabs have to do with their dicks)

Out of the Magnus armor he secretly feels extremely vulnerable and anxious when it comes to interface because of how tiny our little dill pickle is

Side note: give him a fucking HUG DAMMIT! HE NEEDS IT!

Swerve

If any of the bots would fuck a human, it would be this bastard

He'd also have human kinks (like mommy/daddy kink [thanks @archie-sunshine for rotting my brain with that idea])

Despite being a motormouth I think he can easily be silenced by a pair of thick thighs around his head

Side note: I think minibots have WAY HIGHER stamina verses their larger counter parts, so swerve will be going at it for a loooooong time

Secretly has a stash of human porn in his bar

Magnus has found said porn once and for a week Swerve was on edge in keeping his secret

Skids

Since he can learn anything really quickly I think this bastard can master the art of seduction

Like he could simply give a bot those bedroom eyes and BAM! He's fucking

He's a massive cuddler after interface

Has fragged Nautica at LEAST 15 times

When he overloads his headlights sometimes flick on by accident

Ratchet

Oh you cannot TELL ME this guy hasn't had a kinky past

Party Ambulance is fucking cannon and no one can tell me otherwise idc if it's only a fan thing ITS CANNON AND ILL FIGHT GOD ABOUT IT

Not as horny as he use to be but when Drift or Rodimus get their heat cycles you better fucking BELIEVE he's on the case

A true master of aftercare

Really into bondage

These are only a few lmao I have SO MANY MORE

[redjoey1992]

So last year, Disney's Wish was supposed to be a celebration of Disney's 100th year anniversary, and everybody was hyped up. Sadly, when it finally got released, people were very, and I mean very, disappointed with it. Yes, Wish has its flaws, and some parts felt rushed undet it's 80 to 90 minute running time, but for me personally, I thought it was good and it could've been better. For everyone else, it was a disappointment.

Then, people keep saying that they were robbed because of two concept arts that have been breaking the internet for over a year. One of them is the idea of a romantic plot of Asha and Starboy, a humanized version of the Star from the original movie (unaware that the humanized star is actually the younger version of Asha's Grandfather and the idea of them having a romance is gross, plus it's questionable because Stars are thousands and thousands of years old). The other is King Magnifico and Queen Amaya as a villain power couple. While those two sound like nice ideas, but in reality, they don't add anything new to it or could make it even more convoluted that it already is. Nevertheless, those two concept art ideas have been the main focus on everybody's Wish rewrite fanfic.

So, if I ever wanted to do a Wish rewrite fanfic, the first thing I do is change the main hero and villain.

ARMAAN:

Armaan is a starry-eyed and optimistic 11-year-old boy from the kingdom of Rosas. He’s energetic and passionate, sometimes rushing into a situation without thinking about it first. Although he considers himself a fish out of water because he has lived in Rosas for almost a year, he’s brave and hopeful and always puts a positive spin on any situation. He deeply loves and cares for his family and friends, especially his paternal grandfather, Sabino.

Armaan was born in a small region in North Africa to a philosopher from Rosas named Tomás and a seamstress named Sakina. Growing up, Armaan would hear his father lecture him about the stars and their connection to all living things. He would also spend time reading books, drawing, and building things. When he was nine years old, his father passed away from an unknown disease. Soon after his father’s death, Armaan and Sakina moved to the Kingdom of Rosas, where they now live with Sabino. He then made friends with seven kids named Ruth (10), Marri (16), Simon (15), Hal (10), Safi (11), Bazeema (12), and Dario (10).

At first, he had a high opinion of Princess Celeste like everybody else in Rosas, but he is rather curious about how she has the power to grant wishes and how the people of Rosas have great admiration towards her. He entered a contest to meet Princess Celeste for only one day on her 18th birthday. He saw this because of Sabino’s wish to inspire people with his music, and his grandfather’s 100th birthday is also on the same day as Celeste’s 18th birthday/wishing ceremony. Armaan won, much to his excitement.

The hangout with Princess Celeste started great in a little brother/big sister way. Then Celeste takes Armaan to her chambers, where she shows him the collection of all the wishes from the people of Rosas. When Armaan saw Sabino’s wish, he asked Celeste to grant it. But she rejected his plea. Celeste also revealed a dark secret to him. She erased everybody’s memories of the citizens’ wishes, rendering them devoid of any ambition and making them rely on her and adore her, which causes tensions between her and Armaan, which escalates into Celeste passing on Sabino’s wish.

Later that night, Armaan feels like he disappointed Sabino on his 100th birthday. Sabino then comes in to cheer him up and shows him to a wishing tree he and Tomás used to go to and says that sometimes wishing on a star can inspire him not to give up hope, something that he gave to Tomás when he was young. Soon, Armaan takes his grandfather’s advice and makes a desperate wish upon a star, hoping everyone in Rosas can make their wishes come true.

His wish is highly tremendous and pure, and he is granted the star itself, which takes on the form of an anthropomorphic ball of light whose name will be called Star. This will lead Armaan on a noble adventure to free all the wishes from Celeste’s wicked clutches.

So, I wanted to make Armaan’s relationship with Sabino as the emotional core as well making Sabino show him the wishing tree just like how he showed his father before him (it's taken from a deleted scene). Based on a friend's suggestion, I would have Armaan be more curious about Princess Celeste, her power to grant wishes, and the people of Rosas' greater admiration towards her, making Celeste’s villainous reveal more shocking. I based Armaan’s character design off of Ravi Cabot-Conyers (my ideal voice actor for him), Mickey Mouse from "The Sorceror's Apprentice" segment from Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Aladdin. There's also a little bit of Antonio from Encanto.

PRINCESS CELESTE:

Princess Celeste is the most beautiful, charismatic, and beloved 18-year-old princess of Rosas and the only daughter of Queen Amaya. From the day she was born, she was enchanted to be attractive, sing beautifully, and be beloved by all, but she was born with magical powers. As the princess grows up, she's been learning and mastering all kinds of magic and sorcery and studying astrology and alchemy. But her one extraordinary magic power is that she can grant the wishes of her subjects. She has that ability because, unbeknownst to everyone, including herself, Celeste is born a half-human/half-star hybrid. She considers her magic superior to all others to the point where she lets the power go to her head, leading her to develop a giant, vain, self-absorbed ego.

One day, people forget what they want or desire. Then, on her 15th birthday, Princess Celeste declares that she will be willing to help her people by announcing a ceremonial event where she'll grant only one wish every year on her birthday.

Unbeknownst to the people, including her mother, Celeste is wicked, selfish, devious, callous, narcissistic, and sociopathic. She cast a powerful and dangerous spell that will steal the memories of her people’s wishes and keep them sealed and locked away in her study room forever. Celeste can only grant wishes that would benefit her and keep the rest locked up, especially those that she deems a threat to her. She created the wish-granting ceremony every year on her birthday to maintain her power, beauty, and influence and have people feed her ego. She learned that spell from a book containing forbidden magic, which she uses as a contingency in case something threatens her power.

Despite her potent magic and enchanting appearance, Princess Celeste harbors an intense jealousy and resentment towards her mother, Queen Amaya, who is more humble and caring to the people of Rosas, leaving Celeste to feel overshadowed by her and will do anything to make herself the center of attention.

On her 18th birthday, she can only invite one person to spend one day with her so she can grant one special wish for the winner. When an 11-year-old boy named Armaan was declared the winner, things went wonderfully in a little brother/big sister way. Then she showed him the millions of wishes in her study room. Armaan discovers his grandfather's wish to inspire people to play the guitar. Once he tells her about her grandfather's wish, she assumes that it might be dangerous, although Sabino is mainly kind and harmless.

Then Armaan starts questioning why Celeste only grants one wish while many others will never for another year instead of being given back so the people who initially wished them could achieve them themselves. Celeste tells him that they can't do it on their own because it's unachievable, and they come to her because she's the only one who can grant the wishes to come true, so they don't have to worry about doing it on their own. Armaan is shocked and surprised by how she did it so people would forget the best memories about themselves, with an enraged Celeste declaring that she's the only one who decides what the people deserve. So, she refused to grant Sabino's wish at the wishing ceremony, leaving Armaan crushed and heartbroken.

Later that night, Armaan wished on a star for help, and the star, revealed to be a little, exciting, boundless ball of energy, answered. Celeste saw the light it caused and believed that someone had threatened her power. All this would lead to the events of her downward spiral, building up to her inevitable defeat.

My idea for Princess Celeste is to create an evil Disney Princess, which is something that Disney has never done before, so having a Disney Princess be the main villain sounds more refreshing. Plus, it would make more sense for her to grant only one wish a year every year on her birthday so she can have the people of Rosas feed her ego. I based Princess Celeste's character design off of Chloë Grace Moretz (my ideal voice actor for her), Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, and King Magnifico. Some of her character was inspired by Princess Fiorimonde from the fairy tale "The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde" and it's a very awesome read. You guys really need to check it out.

More ideas of my Wish rewrite will be coming soon.

[wishjacked]

Happy #WebcomicDay!! :D

This year we're celebrating the process of making pages... so below the cut I've got a bunch of pictures sharing how I go about making pages of my evil post-apocalyptic workplace sitcom, Cargo!! :D

So! My process!!

Writing-> I think sometimes there's pressure to "write" your comic a certain way, I see people talking about script format and stuff a lot. That really doesn't work for me, though! I write my "first draft" script in short scenes on scrap paper, in whatever order they come to me. Sometimes a scene will just be one or two lines, and then a little description of what I want to happen in the rest of the scene.

Later I type the scene up, and write the "connective tissue" that fits between the disjointed scenes so they all flow together like they ought. I don't do page breaks or even character tag or action notes hahahaha I like it to be as BASIC as POSSIBLE so it's easy to edit. And since I'm the person drawing it I can almost always remember who's supposed to be saying what lmao

I edit a lot, but the most major editing is also probably the last bit... when I letter my pages usually I realize "they would never say that" and so I end up rephrasing everything. My art brain is sometimes waaaaay better at phrasing hahaha. Like you can see in the finished page for this script I rewrote like basically all of it, and actually went back to the original "sketch" script in a lot of places.

Thumbnailing-> my thumbs are really big, I draw them with markers on printer paper and keep them in a binder!! I like to thumb scenes in batches and I also usually write my dialogue on them, just so I can read through them before (and while) I draw to get a feel for how the pacing works. :)

Sketching-> OH sketching is also really hard for me! I don't have a good visual imagination so it's really important for me to make sure I have good references. Last year I was especially focusing on setting.

My comic is set in Florida. I'm lucky in that I used to live there and still go back to visit sometimes, so sometimes I can gather my own reference images! But more often I start on Google Maps or Zillow, trying to find buildings that have interesting features or the right kind of "look" for what I want. I'll also look up other interesting elements, my comic is set in a post-apocalypse and I'll research home gardening and things like that which people would probably have.

For example, in this set in chapter 7, I used Google Maps images, photo references of indoor hydroponic gardening, and like, 90's-00's hacker computer setups haha. Also my BFF Roomstyler.com, where you can make 3d house interiors haha!!

Lineart-> I LOVE lineart it is my favorite!!!! I sketch and ink two pages at a time, and it usually takes somewhere between 10-12 hours to do both steps.

I actually think my art looks best when it's just lineart... but I think my STORY is better with color, like it makes it clearer and easier to read and it has a better atmosphere HAHA.

Colors-> I think it usually takes me 4-6 hours to do 2 pages (I haven't timed myself as consistently as I time my lineart and sketching). I have a big file with small copies of my previous pages that I color drop from, and my characters are all flats only. The limited palette that I use is also really handy, it streamlines coloring a LOT.

Finishing Touches-> aka I steal mercilessly from my one true love, my internet home, the beautiful and blessed Wikimedia Commons

I put lots of overlay layers on my art! I like textures so having some strange little textures or pictures on things makes my art feel a lot more finished to me.

And finally my very most favorite ✨finishing touch✨ is the bright colored/patterned gutters that I use. Here are some of my favorites that I've made and used in the past!

And that's all!! I hope you guys have a very happy Webcomics Day and find lots and lots of wonderful new things to read!!!

[lorelei-lilyprincess]

HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY FROZEN!!!

Sorry, I'm late... I've been trying to reminisce all memories throughout the passing decade since the launch of #FROZEN. 

In 2013, I was in Japan and had ZERO interest in Disney at that moment. Then I began to see my Thai artist friends started drawing these sisters. I was like who were these cuties? What are these blond beauty-red head lovers' chemistry here? LOL! My friends told me "GREAT STUFF FROM DISNEY. DON'T YOU DARE EVER MISS IT!!!" 

In Japan, they launched many months behind the rest of the world due to the translation process. It's a true AGONY to wait. I saw all the spoilers flooding the internet all those time. All I know was they're sisters who very much lovey-dovey for each other. 

It's 14.3.2014, the first time I watch a movie at a theatre in Japan. The very first round of the show. And that's it, I fell for them. I was obsessed, I continued to watch them in the theatre for one whole week. 

Such a fresh concept and idea from Disney. Anna and Elsa are sure so shiny and lovey-dovey as my friends told me. I can see how the fandoms grew, hundreds of fictions, illustrations, comics all over the places within months. Although this concept is not new at all compared to Japanese comics and animes, when it's "DISNEY" who made it happened, it's become phenomenal and more universal.

Anyway, thanks to Disney's FROZEN for making a big change in my life as well. I met tons of fans who are so kind and passionate in my artworks since I entered the fandom. They've been very supportive till this very day. That's the time when I started to feel like, I finally found something the I worth living for. 

Thank you all followers who love my Elsa and Anna drawings, for liking, sharing, and buying my illusts and comics, and giving me lots of donation that I was able to get a Wacom Cintiq, new MacStudio, and stuffs I needed for making my arts. Also many thanks for some fans from overseas who send me FROZEN goodies from time to time. I've been blessed to meet all lovely people around the world. Thank you so much for all the love you gave me.

p.s. Sorry that this year I've been not very active on my FROZEN parody comics and commissions. However, I've been feeling much better lately so I hope I can finish something for you guys soon. :)

[dlamp-dictator]

Okay, I know it's been awhile since I've been into Arknights, but I gotta' talk about this real quick, because it really does feel like some actual insanity that Lappland has something like this. I know the developers tend to make some weirdly cracked modules, but this is some madness that's almost on par with Eyja having Res-shredding on her first module.

But first, a not-so-quick disclaimer. It's recently come to my attention that Lappland's name is a known slur in some Scandinavian circles, and while I've read a handful of things that imply her name is meant to come from a specific location/region in the Nordic/Scandinavian area I will play things safe and refer to her as Saluzzo from this point on in this little analysis/discussion out of both recognition of the above and to be mindful of others reading this as I believe this is still a hot-button issue in some areas of the fandom. With that said, I'll only be doing this in deeper discussions like this, as... well, frankly, I've neither the time nor energy to police people on the internet and until Hypergryph actively changes the name themselves we'll all be very confused if I suddenly start talking about a character named Saluzzo off-handedly in a random post I make.

With that said, onto the craziness.

So, Saluzzo here's a Lord, a sub-class of a Guard, which specializes in (usually) physical DPS, High HP, and some minor laneholding depending on the archetype. Lords specifically deal physical ranged damage on ground tiles, which tapers off the further away the enemy is. But that's not important. For Saluzzo, the main thing is her talent: Spiritual Destruction, which silences enemy abilities. This disrupts a handful of the more annoying quirks that some enemies have like exploding on death, having some sort of passive shield/resistance barrier, passing through blocking units, stopping those damn Artificers from summoning the artillery shell, so on and so forth. Combine this utility with her already good damage and stats has given Saluzzo a very vital role in almost any new event or chapter. Namely, neutering some of the more... interesting quirks that come into certain chapters and event maps and made her a cornerstone for any new content.

And I feel I should mention that Saluzzo is a game launch unit. She's been here since the start and still has a place in modern Arknights' meta. The only other units I could say are comfortably in this position are Ejyafjalla and Saria, and those are Six-Stars.

Her module, by extension, is just as nutty. Combined with her already good physical damage, she can now deal a minor amount of arts damage with her base attack. This makes her ability to already shred through physically tanky enemies even better. But the true nuttiness is that additional fragile debuff along with her silencing when upgraded, letting enemies take an additional 8% of damage from all sources.

Including true damage.

For six seconds.

In a tower defense game.

Oh, and her Skill 2, her main skill, can attack two enemies at once to inflict the debuff.

Yeah, this chick is insane, both in lore and in game. She's so cracked that the only way to powercreep her was to make an alter of her even nuttier.

But yeah, that's Saluzzo. Looking forward to the coming 5.5 storyline. I don't keep track of Arknights' story nowadays, but I do keep up with the handful of extra chapters that focus on characters I like, and I like Saluzzo and the Siracusa storyline a lot. Here's hoping things keep moving up from here.

Now to finish Chapter 14 this week... and catch up on Wuwa afterwards.

[tocomplainfriend]

Responding to your post about fiction affecting reality: very well-written post and that’s something I agree with wholeheartedly!

Full disclosure: I am a Vivz supporter and don’t really interact with the critique community because of negative past experience (hence the anon), but I really liked your post as it was well-researched and brought up a lot of points that I did agree on. Mostly that, as you evidenced, “it’s just fiction” isn’t a great argument for poorly portraying a serious concept when there can be tangible consequences for that portrayal. And you gave some really striking examples.

In terms of Hazbin, it is not that I believe that Val’s portrayal as an abuser (and consequently Angel’s as a victim) lacks any impact, but instead that it adds a positive one. This isn’t something I’ve researched so the evidence I have of this is personal experience, but as you said in your post that media can affect real life I felt inspired to add to that conversation with how it personally affected me.

So I was aware rationally that a common result of abuse/SA is hypersexuality, like I’d seen that on psychology blogs and such but never really understood it. I’m ashamed to say I thought it was a little weird and very rare. Hazbin was what finally challenged that notion with me. Being able to see how abuse looks and attribute those events to Angel’s actions step-by-step made something click in my head. I even remember that shortly after seeing that episode, I apologized to one of my friends (a survivor themselves) over some judgmental comments I’d recently made over hypersexuality. Said friend also watched Hazbin with me and it’s the reason they talk more openly to me now and we’re a lot closer. Val’s “stupid” behavior in the show and mentioned in Vivz’s comments did not lessen the impact that episode had on me, or make it unbelievable to me that Val could be manipulative. If anything I understand more now that abusers don’t always appear as psychopathic masterminds. And I know my friend finds comments like the Mean Girls one funny and they tell me it’s empowering to make fun of Val’s incompetence.

That’s not the only positive influence Hazbin’s had on me, but the most relevant to your post, I believe. It’s the reason I’m often a skeptic on most criticisms, because my lived experience tends to go against them. You said the negative impact of Val was that people are drawing fetish art of him, but the only time I ever see that art is within critic’s posts. It never shows up in my regular feed, so it looks to me like he’s equally as fetishized as every other character; the unfortunate inevitability of the internet. I can’t say I’ve seen anyone post about stories like mine about learning to understand survivors, but I have heard positive stories from survivors themselves in person and online which lead me to believe that the positive impact outweighs the negative.

Fiction has real impact, very true. But consider that might be a good thing in this case.

Thanks for being respectful!

TW: Rape, SA

I'm a victim of SA myself and that's why I wrote all of this post. If you got something positive out of this piece of media, that's great. Same with victims that saw potion and were okay with it- that valid as much as the people that didn't like it at all. I recommend watching many others shows yourself (or movies, books, whatever) will help you out with sorts of topics in bigger ways. I understand you feel like you got something good out if (and I'm glad) but I do need to say, this is minimal in comparison to other media you could consume regarding the topic!

I personally suffer with Hypersexuality, and the treatment in the show (and merch and otherwise) I found completely wrong. Even if you got to a good understatement of the topic, please put research into it (also outside Tumblr for that matter! There are better places to find stuff about!). Thank you also for admitting your faults over your treatment of hypersexuality and apologizing for it. Many people will never let themselves grasp this concept, so thank you.

If you took Valentino's comparison to Mean Girls or Powerpuff Girl as a way of making fun of him, that's you. I found it, personally, terrible. Specially cause many comments regarding that (that I put on the post) were people actively disregarding the topic at hand. Saying that Valentino is just a karen, or He is Bubbles coded, feels so out of the realm of everything (the last one didn't feel like making fun of him). I don't like the comparison of an active sexual predator to a mean high school girl or a kinder garden girl that's regarded as bubblely or dumb. Feel like you should reach into his actions over It feels diminishing to me and other people (who also complained about this themselves).

People should be extremely careful of what they portray about this topic in media. Other stuff written in Hazbin or Helluva Boss regarding R-pe jokes also is extremely disgusting to me. Never forget that if you think this portrayal is ok, one episode apart it's a gang r-pe jokes towards Sir Pen... and an r-pe joke towards Moxxie in Spring Brakers. Which I find extremely disrespectful to do and adds to r-pe culture as much as any other r-pe jokes (general or towards men) in media. Especially when they want to portray it in a serious way with Angel, where was that energy then? (Don't say Viv didn't write that, she liked a tweet about the Sir pen joke, and the spring braker is written by Viv and Brandon.)

Also, about manipulation:

The tweet right below says that "He isn't manipulating them" because he is too stupid to do so. Responding "The Vees are just meangirls" it's crazy to me.

About "You said the negative impact of Val was that people are drawing fetish art of him, but the only time I ever see that art is within critic’s posts. It never shows up in my regular feed"

Val has being fetishized by the crew itself! The person (who is not an SA/r-pe victim said by themselves, who has being open of shipping ValxAngel and being into r-pe porn) is the one that produce the whole poison part of the episode (also based on his previously non canon ValxAngel comic). You could also go throught the people Viv's responds and likes and it's mutuals with, and they also do the same thing as this crew-member (Raph). Congrats that it doesn't appear in your timeline, tho. If this art appears in a critic post, it is because it's being criticized or brought up to make a point.

[It's not on my blog yet, but I don't like receiving double ask in the inbox, specially of anons! Sorry. I don't know if it's the same person or not, and I don't want to end up receiving 5 asks in my inbox again.]