#but then again! maybe some people don't want to see correct characterization

[gutfaced]

once again with the whole excitement about sunrise on the reaping and who will play haymitch, please keep two things in mind!

1) he's sixteen, so someone decently young would be playing him, not one of your favs or a guy older than that (that shouldn't be the case anyway but it wouldn't surprise me nevertheless)

2) his movie adaptation (played by woody harrelson) is NOT how he looks in the books. he has olive skin, grey eyes and dark curly hair. so while you'd expect that they'd cast someone who looks similar to woody, it would be inaccurate to the books. yeah! a change in appearance would be weird when they had his actor look a certain way for 4 movies, but then again, haymitch isn't white. he isn't blonde and blue eyed and he should've been played by someone who was accurate to his actual description. and again, he SHOULD be played by someone who is accurate to his actual description if he does have any apperances in sotr.

[bonefall]

Mapleshade Discourse O'Clock

It's that time again!!! SO I just kinda want to jot down all of my various thoughts about it as a story and just generally weigh in about Mapleshade.

I like the idea of Mapleshade more than the actual Mapleshade that is used throughout the books.

She has a really good gimmick-- to haunt Applekin though the generations. I don't like how they turn her into a generic "cat satan" for Tigerclaw's Fury and keep making her appear as a vain lackey demon.

I like her characterization in Mapleshade's Vengeance the most, of all her appearances.

But, I don't think my reading of the character depicted in MV is what the author intended.

See, I like MV as a story with no hero. The only blameless characters are the kittens who drowned and Perchpaw, while everyone else is some flavor of selfish, cruel, or vengeful. Everyone thinks they're in the right, but no one truly wins in the end.

Nothing about it was noble. Every tragedy that happened was utterly avoidable. In the end, everyone bears some responsibility for the pain and suffering that happened the day those children drowned.

BUT I'm pretty certain that the intended reading was that Mapleshade would be the one clearly in the wrong the whole time, as she justifies her own actions like a villain does.

Especially knowing how poorly the writers thought of similar female characters like Squilf and Leafp lying about the three, or Nightcloud being jealous her crummy husband is acting strange around another woman.

I feel justified in assuming that when Mapleshade is not happy she's being cheated on, or when she refuses to correct Frecklewish's record knowing it's unsafe if her kits are revealed as half clan, the writer really does think you're not supposed to take her side.

Because women should just not have emotions about being cheated on or something, and lying is unspeakably bad even if the truth puts you and your children in danger.

But. Y'know. We can all use the braincell for a moment and see that this is fucking stupid

SO when the book goes on to have Mapleshade ignore all the warnings about the swollen river, show both ThunderClan and RiverClan being obscenely cruel to her, and then walk across that bridge while insisting in her head that the deaths weren't her fault, I think the implication is obvious AND SHITTY.

Ergo I reject it completely. I can see what the book wants to say, and I think it says something trashy.

In spite of how badly the writer wants it to be Mapleshade's fault the kittens died, I say it was the asshole who threw a bunch of kittens out into the rain for being mixed race, actually.

Oakstar had the power here. Ravenwing had some power as well, but he makes it clear it wasn't his suggestion to throw the babies out into the woods.

And when it comes to Bridge Discourse, it was at least the afternoon, raining heavily, and Mapleshade was trying to get to RiverClan Camp. A straight shot across the stepping stones.

I think it is ridiculous to imagine an extremely emotional parent managing three very scared children, attempting to get out of the rain and dangerous wilderness before nightfall, would be rational enough to realize a large detour would be safer.

MAYBE the distance from ThunderClan Camp to the Bridge is equal to the distance to the Stones. But the distance between the bridge and RIVERCLAN Camp is longer.

I hope this goes without saying; but Frecklewish didn't deserve the Dark Forest.

Even in Banana World logic where she was sitting on the bank watching those kids doggy-paddle. Do not fucking jump in to save drowning people if you are not trained to do that.

I'm dead serious, this is the first thing you learn in any kind of water safety course. They WILL panic, you WILL get dragged down, you WILL become another liability someone else has to save instead of helping your initial target.

And that isn't even mentioning this being a flooded river. That's POOL safety.

In spite of how I think Mapleshade was right to lie, I do think Frecklewish being that upset and angry was understandable.

You're entitled to your feelings, but not how you treat people. She still attacked Mapleshade and called the kittens a slur.

That's what makes her interesting, though.

I don't think she deserves the Dark Forest, but Frecklewish's anger is an interesting trait. I don't like how a lot of defensive interpretations of her character end up downplaying how she acted at the exile

why does a woman being rightfully angry suddenly strike people as "unsympathetic." Girls can also say things in fury they don't fully mean. OR girls can rationalize their unjustified, ballistic response post-hoc out of pride.

Idk let girls be mad. Admit they were wrong without deserving HELL. I don't like the woobification impulse.

It's not really a hot take anymore I think, but Frecklewish is definitely only in the DF because the writing team judges women characters more harshly. Oakstar threw babies out in the rain in fury, and Ravenwing didn't stop it. But somehow only Frecklewish, a normal warrior, gets DF'd.

But what really rattles around in my head about the whole story is the way that the in-universe culture is able to suddenly value ethics like peace, forgiveness, and tolerance when MAPLESHADE is ready to throw those things out, but BEFORE then, it's well established that Clan culture is violent, vengeful, and intolerant.

One of our earliest scenes is Rainfall snarling at Mapleshade that he loves the way Birchface and Flowerpaw drowned. He's threatening that he'll kill even more ThunderClan warriors.

Over in ThunderClan, everyone is itching for revenge against Appledusk for those deaths, even though it seems to have been an accident. Oakstar even hates RiverClan well into sequel books for this.

But then later on, everyone acts Shocked Pikachu that Mapleshade actually went and GOT revenge.

And like, let's be real. This is a battle culture. Yes, by OUR standards Revenge Is Bad.

But in these books, so full of war and clan conflict...?

What I'm saying is that I wish the books let Mapleshade be a little more "controversial" in-universe. Like some cats actually frame the story very differently, and you can learn a lot about a person by who they think the hero is.

And how RiverClan responds to the drowned kids bugs me a lot tbh

We just established over in ThunderClan that there are people who think the babies were born filthy for being HalfClan.

We know everyone there stood by and watched as Oakstar threw them out into the rain-- only Ravenwing even seemed uncomfortable.

AND we know very well that in a few generations, TigerClan will rise. Which openly executed a HalfClan cat and wanted to kill 2 apprentices.

We KNOW the bigotry in Clan culture is deadly and unfair.

But then they go over to RiverClan and Darkstar is sad these three kids are dead? And RC is furious with Mapleshade for that?

Again, YES, you and me with OUR morals know that this bigotry is insane and spiteful. What I'm getting at is that IN-UNIVERSE half clan kittens and their parents face extreme discrimination. Even within this book.

It's odd to me that Darkstar refuses to let Mapleshade bury their bodies, sends her away for the death of the kids while saying it's "not the season for losing warriors" to Appledusk, and it's meant to come across as delusional that Maple thinks her babies were buried dishonorably

I wish more women in WC got so pissed off at the absolute injustice of it all that they went on a girl rampage. Perhaps it's my own taste, but I like it a lot more when the villain isn't entirely wrong and there's several angles you can read the story from. If she didn't do what she did, she would have been the only one who saw any consequences for anything that happened.

Anyway in conclusion uhhh idk murder is wrong. But Mapleshade's allowed to do it because she's a silly billy. Her greatest crime was not killing Oakstar also

[wyverndreamers]

WARNING for extensive talk about the dsmp and the characters in it !! THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CC'S THIS IS PURELY STORY BABBLE

loving the dsmp revival going on rn (maybe it's only on twt but i don't post on twt, so sorry for dsmp posting on this account) but i really don't like how a lot of the 'revival' is bringing back a lot of c!tommy's mischaracterization as a whole. i can understand the URGE to smooth him out, into something malleable and kind of babied, because for a while there he was just seen as this really annoying character in fandom spaces pertaining to the dsmp, but i see this urge around the internet to turn tommy into a 'perfect victim' with his trauma when that's just not true at all. i say this as a c!tommy enjoyer, i used to watch his pov's RELIGIOUSLY and i say this as someone who has an appreciation for his story and hate to see it cheapened by this constantly crying, blue sweater wearing blonde baby i see on my TL a lot. apart of what made c!tommy compelling is that at certain points he was very petty, and abrasive. he would act on impulse, and not always in a good way. a lot of the time, yeah it did good in the long run, but in the moment a lot of the stuff he does are stupid impulsive decisions that could've ended in FAR worse scenarios. people really like to hold up his trait of loyalty but completely ignore that his loyalty to a fault always came with a subtle sense of ENTITLEMENT that they were supposed to do right, because he was following him, kind of like how a child would be mortified seeing their parents doing something socially wrong like yelling at someone else. and a lot of people in the fandom actually LIKE this aspect of his character, but mostly because it can add to their characterization of him that is of inherent helplessness and childishness. and its usually painted as a good, pure trait to have, fully ignoring how a lot of his childishness is actually willful ignorance- especially in the face of his actions and how they'll effect people around them. he might bend eventually and mutter out a sorry, but that's not something he really WANTS to do. tommy is someone usually fully fixed in his own perspective and you can especially see it in the way that almost every other character at some point gets irritated at him FOR this in certain places in the narrative. and a lot of people would actually have you believe this is a good thing, because they actually view tommy as always having a perfect perspective on everything all the time. they think because he's the closest thing we have to a 'morally correct protagonist' that he is inherently morally correct and thus should be worshipped like the next messiah that will lead the revolution against the evil-doers. except, tommy just does not have that inherently morally correct perspective. yes he wants to do right, but his sense of 'right' is not always what is 'good'. bro literally tipped the initial domino that led to Doomsday happening, and that's not to say that anything that happened because of him burning down George's house was his fault (quite the opposite) but he also knowingly burnt down George's house knowing that George was friends with Dream, and having the full knowledge of what they could do at least to the extent of the L'manberg revolution where they literally had a traitor on the in betray them all. he recklessly incited George's (and again by proxy, Dream's) wrath because he did a reckless action. it's okay to call this behavior reckless and brash guys, that doesn't mean you're saying he deserved to be exiled. i could go on, but again i say this as an enjoyer of the c!tommy storyline and arcs he goes through. i just don't appreciate it when the thing that made his character so compelling, is cheapened down because the fandom cannot fathom the idea of liking a character that responds in complex ways to complex traumas. maybe some people relate too hard, IDK i just don't understand how you can praise a character for being human and then take out everything that MAKES the character feel so human sorry if this wasnt constructive or coherent, i didn't beta read my tumblr post

[thanatika]

people on that child support post are talking as if patho classic daniil is great with kids and it's pathologic 2 daniil that people are getting this negative idea of him from, which got me thinking...

daniil's main characterization of how he treats kids in patho 2 comes from artemy's POV of him, which is biased against daniil due to daniil making a really dickish first impression, and is also based off of unreliable narrator accounts:

first by some kids outside of rubin's house who lead artemy to believe that daniil refused to treat poisoned children when it was actually just dying dogs, which can be followed by artemy confronting daniil himself where he continues to misunderstand the situation and assumes daniil is calling children animals, until he finally visits the kids' warehouse and learns it was just the soul-and-a-halves' pets. which, obviously it would be a nice thing to save pets from dying, but he really ISN'T a veterinarian and there's a deadly plague starting. he's doing triage.

and then another early incident with the kid in the warehouse dying of sand pest, where notkin passes along a message telling artemy not to bother trying to save him that makes him sound very dismissive ("Don't waste your time on Patches, it's over for him"). reading between the lines though, it's pretty clear that he came to that conclusion not because he doesn't want to save people from the sand pest, but because this is a seemingly incurable disease with no medical cure, and at that point he probably hasn't had the chance to test the schmowders on himself so would have no reason to believe in their effectiveness, and assesses that loading patches up with drugs will just kill him. which, he's literally correct! whether you treat him with tinctures, pills, or a whole schmowder, patches dies that night. obviously trying to treat him or at least ease his suffering is a morally good dead, but you can also see the implied basis of daniil's actions, that every second is precious in the early stages of trying to prevent a widespread outbreak, so you shouldn't waste time on a patient who ultimately can't be saved. (which fits in really well not only with his arc in both games where he comes to the conclusion that the whole town is unsalvageable, but with the bigger emphasis on time management and manipulation that his remake has been described as having. hell, maybe from daniil's POV he knows for certain that patches will die due to whatever time manipulation that's going on with him, and that spending the time on that patient allows for a larger disaster to happen elsewhere). so, the situation is framed by notkin (understandably, because he's just a kid and that's his friend dying) and artemy (because he's honestly pretty petty about daniil) as just "the bachelor is an asshole and abandoned these kids" when it's more of a genuine ethical quandary.

he's also pretty rude and dismissive in how he talks about grace to artemy later on, but again, it's pretty clear that he's not just being a hater to a 15 year old for no reason, the point he's making is that she shouldn't be left in charge of a graveyard filled with potentially bio-hazardous corpses.

all that to say, the main canon info about how he treats children in patho 2 basically comes from the fact that a lot of kids end up disliking him, because he's extremely pragmatic to the point of being heartless, but still ultimately pretty understandable in what he's trying to do (stop a plague).

meanwhile when we do get to see his POV in the marble nest, i would say the way he treats children is pretty much consistent with how he talks to them in pathologic classic -- if anything, he's a bit nicer to them? he has some fed-up, yelling sort of dialogue options to the kids, but pretty much all of those are based on being upset that they're out breaking quarantine and putting themselves at risk of death. meanwhile other dialogue options make him come off very much willing to humor them and talk to them on their level. and when another adult is much harsher about the kids being irresponsible, he defends them, with no dialogue option to agree with corporal punishment:

meanwhile in pathologic classic, i do think that on the whole daniil is pretty nice to kids and willing to go out of his way to protect or help them (to the point of risking death, such as the late game sidequest where he can agree to go take on several soldiers to keep the father of two children from being wrongly executed). but he does also have some really unkind and spiteful dialogue options, like some of what he says to clara both in his own route and hers, and on the topic of corporal punishment...

[merlin-wolfgang-trades-hale]

I haven't written McDanno in forever, so idk if the characterization is anywhere near correct. But some McDanno for you all.

****

"Shut up," Steve practically growled as he glared through the windshield from the passenger seat. There wasn't much to glare at, as the pouring rain was coming down so hard, if he hadn't crashed into any of them on their way back to the truck, he couldn't know there were trees out there.

"I didn't say anything."

"Then why can I hear your ranting anyway, Daniel?"

"Maybe because I am both flabbergasted and amazed at the same time that a previous boy scout turned Navy SEAL who grew up on this island is the one who keeps getting hurt on these adventures you insist on dragging me into!"

"Did you really just say flabbergasted?"

Danny sighed and they returned to silence between them, the only noise being the pouring rain in the jungle. "I can't believe people have paid for this noise to help them fall asleep."

"Not everyone associates any form of water with drowning."

"Yeah, well, that's just another bit of evidence that I'm just smarter than almost everyone," Danny grumbled. There was a pause before he looked over and asked, "How's your leg?"

"Hurts like a bitch. Pretty sure I sprained something but nothing feels broken."

"You're not escaping a doctor visit."

"I never said I wasn't."

"Good."

"I just don't really see why I'd have to. Once we get back, I can ask Max to look me over, get the better bandages, we have over-the-counter pain meds at home. Done and done."

"No," Danny said firmly.

They entered another bit of silence that stretched on, despite the air being filled with a tension of both of them wanting to say more.

Steve sat up, and reached over, while calling out, "Hey..." When he turned Danny's face toward him, he captured the blond's lips with his own in a tender kiss. When they pulled apart, Steve smiled at Danny and ran his hand through his lover's soaked hair, "I'm sorry for ruining your hair."

Danny scoffed but cupped Steve's face and pulled him in for another kiss. This one came with Danny licking Steve's bottom lip. They adjusted as best as they could in the front of Steve's Silverado so they could deepen the kiss into a proper make-out session. When they pulled back this time, Danny flicked Steve's forehead with a nonheated glare, "When are you going to apologize for hurting my boyfriend?"

"That really more important than messing up your hair?" Steve asked with a small, but amused smile.

"Damn right, it is. He's mine. And I hate it when he's hurt. Only acceptable instances are bites from me or bruises left by grips when we're having some fun at home on lazy mornings."

"It's not just lazy mornings."

"If it had been, we'd be at home, making lunch and watching a game..."

This time it was Steve's turn to sigh. He turned back to facing forward but reached for Danny's hand and interlocked their fingers. He brought Danny's hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles, "I want you to see the island like I do. To see it as beautiful and enchanting. I...I want you to like it, if you can't love it. So you're not just tolerating it."

"...hey," Danny echoed what Steve had done earlier and cupped his face and made Steve face him. He leaned in and gave him a gentle, loving kiss, "The island and I are...getting used to each other. Grace's opinion on it matters most to me, and she loves it. But next to being able to be near my daughter, I got another reason for this pineapple infested hell hole to actually be paradise for me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And he's got some shit luck every time he tries to get me into the jungle. And hopefully will read into that, that it's a sign from some spirits, to stop bringing your boyfriend out to the jungle!"

"I don't know, Danno. I think we gotta try again. To show whoever keeps fucking up my jungle dates that they can't win! We're winners!"

"Next time you ask me out on a jungle date, you're really gonna have to work for it."

Steve grinned devilishly, "You know I love a challenge. And I know all you like. I'll enjoy getting you to agree for a next time, Danno."

"With what you'll have to do to get me to say yes, not as much as me, babe."

[rainbow-crane]

🌻

I see you have an EAH pfp so lemme ramble about something that bothers me abt the fandom I've noticed recently (I loooooved EAH as a kid)

regarding Apple White and her redemption arc, I find it ridiculous that to this day there are still people that insist she was the 'real villain' and completely misinterpret her character growth because of her ACCIDENTALLY freeing the Evil Queen from the mirror prison. Honestly genuinely how do people not see that her arc is meant to be that of a deconstructing evangelist? Maybe it's just because I grew up in the church but her arc and characterization seems so clear to me that I don't get how, after watching the whole show, people can still insist on her as the awful evil one

A) She was raised in a society and by a family that told her expressly that her behavior towards Raven and the other rebels in season 1 was not only appropriate, but morally correct. When we meet her mother in the show we can see her helicopter parenting specifically to make sure she's continuing to act this way, to the point where she has a popularity chart of the kids in her school that's updated regularly so she can keep tabs on Apple's every status at all times.

B) Growth in nonlinear. I don't know how else to explain that her shattering the mirror the Evil Queen was in (which, again, was an accident) was the fault of the Evil Queen for emotionally manipulating her because they made it pretty obvious in the scene itself that she was being toyed with. Also, that act doesn't actually contradict her assertion that Raven can choose her own destiny from the Wonderland special; even when Raven realizes that Apple freed her mom Apple straight up says the Evil Queen was promising everyone a happy ending. She was manipulated; she's not the evil conniving mastermind here

C) Her whole arc is meant to be a redemption arc. She's been led to believe by her mother, the school principal, every authority figure in her life that if everyone doesn't sign the Storybook, that everyone will die on the spot. When she says she doesn't want anything bad to happen to her friends in Thronecoming, she means that. She didn't have the benefit of meeting Giles Grimm like Raven and Maddie did, and faulting her for information she didn't have is a little ridiculous. Also, note that Thronecoming is what kickstarted her redemption because not only did she learn that the principal was a liar, but also met Giles AND saw that it wasn't just the Rebels who were being negatively affected by the stories; those who were happy to play along were being harmed too via Briar. Which is symbolic of the way people in the church are also harmed by its teachings, not just the people who reject it.

And like, obviously she's a flawed character, and you don't have to like her. I've just seen one too many people on tiktok yapping away about how she was "really a bad guy who got away with it" like. Have some media literacy I beg

[whetstonefires]

The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

[blubun0309]

(CW: mention of s#¡cide encouragement and ab#se)

I think more Vox fans need to let go of the good person image they have of him 'cause bro IS AWFUL, maybe at the same level as Valentino...(No, actually not quite there, but like very close)

The number of times I've seen Vox stans be like, "Oh, but he's a good person underneath," is insane. Cause like, NO??? He's in HELL for a REASON, bestie. I mean, did we forget that he literally told Pentious to off himself? DID WE FORGET??? What gave you the impression he's a good person? We've literally only seen him manipulate people (including his partner, but we'll get there), be a petty mfer, and that he has big evil plans in store, I guess.

I know we haven't seen much of the Vees to really pinpoint their moral standards (except for Valentino's...you know why), but it's very clear that they are setting up Vox as a big antagonist for season 2.

And about Vox and Val's...relationship. Yeah, it's toxic as shit. Wow. They're both evil, and they're both either using each other or deserve each other. We don't know yet. So far, we've only seen their relationship through Vox manipulating Val in episode 2 because Val is an idiot (which I do love, btw), but that kind of behavior could very well be reciprocated. Again, we haven't seen enough to quite tell yet. It's more of a headcanon than anything, but I love the idea of Vox being Val's sugar daddy. It's funny and also great characterization for both of them. Vox only seeing Val as a gullible idiot he can control with expensive gifts and manipulation, and Val essentially using Vox as a way to gain influence. Dunno, it's kinda interesting, right?

I've also seen people say that Val "abuses" Vox. Uhm....where? We haven't seen this in the show. I mean, you could be correct, but once again, Vox also manipulates Val. Cause again, it's a toxic relationship. Guys. There's two sides to this coin. Neither are the good guys in this situation. Vox uses Val just as much as Val (hypothetically) uses Vox. And even if Valentino abused him, like, that doesn't make his actions good. It makes them understandable, but if he actively chooses not to be better, then it's his problem. But that's just not it because Vox, as previously stated, is a piece of shit.

I don't want to come off as a Vox hater because I do have high hopes for him and his role as a villain in season 2, I just want people to realize that HE IS A VILLAIN. He probably won't get redeemed. He isn't a good person, and I LOVE that for him. I love the potential he has as a villain, and I want to see his plans for hell and his relationship with Val. I want to see him be BAD. Or pathetic, both work.

Vox sucks just as much as Valentino, but his potential is so tasty. That's why I love him. This pathetic, petty jackass.

That is all sorry if I worded myself poorly in some places or if I repeated stuff too much, we just don't have enough Vox screen time yet to REALLY get into him, y'know.

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

As someone with high-functioning autism and significant social anxiety, which can cause times where social cues are particularly difficult to pick up on especially when it's over a text format where it's even harder to discern tone and inflection without blatant indicators, there's a part of me that doesn't really get all the complaints I've seen about a lack of communication when it comes to "plotting". I mean, I can understand the perspective that it can come across as a partner being unenthusiastic whenever they're given ideas but don't really try to hash those ideas out themselves. On the other hand, it's also possible those same partners could really just be fine with the ideas they're being given and don't really have anything to contribute, maybe they'd rather get right into writing the thread out instead of just shooting ideas back and forth? I know that's usually what I'm thinking most of the time. A good part of the reason why someone like myself would be a little disinclined towards sharing much in return is also because I'd be afraid of taking one too many liberties with someone else's ideas or maybe crossing a line with anything I might contribute. I'm sure we can all agree how quick to take offense people on here can be and, having been on both sides of the fence on this, it can be upsetting both when someone wildly misconstrues things about your muse's characterizations and headcanons just to fit whatever idea they might have in mind, and when having to correct those misconceptions or explain why certain ideas wouldn't work very well. It just creates disappointment all around, and when people aren't willing to talk out any disagreements like adults, all it does it shut down the plotting just the same as giving canned answers. It's also worth considering that some people may be geared creatively different. It can be difficult sometimes to come up with something when you may not know another person's character, or their own particular brand of characterization, very well, and sometimes the ideas just don't come to all of us unless we've really gotten a feel for another person's character and we can see the potential for things. Some people may just be wired more towards improvisational writing at that and really don't start fleshing things out until they have a premise in their hands, coming up with possibilities and exploring them during the actual interactions. Not to mention there's also roleplayers out there who do nothing but plot, and when it comes time to actually write the thread, they simply just don't want to bother with it because… Well, you already know how the story's going to go at this point because you talked it over. Why bother actually having back and forth replies about it when you pretty much wrote the story already by plotting? I've had that experience plenty of times with others myself. You spend all this time laying the framework for where the interactions will go and then nothing just gets done with it beyond the planning phase because, hey, you already talked about everything by now. I just hope that by pointing these things out that everyone might realize they shouldn't generalize partners who may not communicate as much during the "plotting" phase and are just straight to the point, give short affirmative answers when offered ideas. I think the only fair way you can tell if someone really is just putting all the work off on others to come up with ideas is if you can see them repeatedly doing this, especially if they never act on it. That right there would be the surest sign of someone being disinterested or just lazy. Then again, there could also be reasons for this as well, like maybe your characters just don't really have any sort of chemistry for any kind of meaningful interaction – and that's okay too. No two people are always going to get along or want to have anything to do with each other, and sometimes it takes some attempt at communicating to figure that much out.

[einsatzzz]

How does fandom characterize/mischaracterize your characters ship in fanworks? for Kana

Hi Lou! I forgot to queue this skjdfhjsvfhsf but here's the answer for your second ask. Thank you again for sending them! Putting an old Kana pixel art here as it's kind of relevant hehe She does not give a fuck 👍✨

In terms of general fandom depiction/characterization, I feel like there will be a divide on how people would interpret her gender - whether she would be depicted as some set gender like female or male. Majority would probably depict her as female because we(creators) use she/her on Kana by default and her voice too (or maybe they even saw tk/rv Kana), but I can also see a good amount depict her as male because of her clothing and behavior.

I say gender, because I know there are people out there with strict preference with the genders involved in their ships. I don't really see anything bad with it of course, everyone has their own preferences, as long as they don't force it on other people. But the simple truth is that either and neither of those interpretations are correct.

To be honest, besides gender, there will definitely be people who will also fight on how they interpret her character in general, which would highly likely reflect on how they depict her dynamic with the character she's being shipped with. Though, I honestly won't blame this hypothetical fandom. Even I, someone who knows her current full lore, still feel like her character can be quite difficult to grasp at times (easiest is when she's involved in a comedy scene ngl) and I also get surprised by the (bull)shit she's capable of/can think of. Though, one of the most mischaracterization that people can do for her is to either extremely woobify her or extremely vilify her - in general, just seeing her in an absolute black or white way. Thank you @ciaossu-imagines for mentioning this to me hehehe 🫶🥰✨ sjbfjhvfs

For other possible shipping-related mischaracterizations, I'll just list them:

Love (and therapy) can fix her and bring back the light in her eyes - *smacks roof of the car* This bad boy can pack so much hatred, bitterness and emptiness. Jokes aside, I want to emphasize more that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. She can only hate that much because she already had a lot of love in her to begin with.

Depicting Kana crying from some shipping-related situation? Or tbh...for any situation people would think she'll cry from considering the current information revealed about her and any available canon information in KHR that's retained in KHRe - *smacks roof of the car* This bad boy can pack so much emotional repression.

I see this so often actually, but there really will be people out there who only care for the ship itself, rather than the separate characters that make up the ship. This won't be a Kana-exclusive instance in the hypothetical fandom, but an instance of such would be a grave sin against her character itself. It would really show if they ignore Kana's other important relationships with other characters (like Kurumi, Yui, etc), just to inflate their own ship more.

And that's another episode of: Thank goodness my OC is not a canon character!

[fabbyf1]

I think it’s inevitable with RPF that characterizations are going to be similar. We all rely on the same basic facts and we build what we consider to be canon together, so I’d honestly be worried if characterizations were vastly different—it’s still fanfic, we’re not building brand new characters each time. People get into RPF by reading RPF, so while there’s some variation we all share a vaguely similar idea of what these characters are like and we form those ideas together whether we know it or not, and that in turn gives us a sandbox we can all kind of mess around in together. Obviously lifting whole bits of dialogue or common phrases is very different, though. I think ‘thinking with [character]’s dick’ is a common one but the other two you mentioned seem pretty specific. Again sorry, literally stumbled in off the street and am only distantly aware of what’s happening—I hope this doesn’t come off as rude

Hello, anon.

I appreciate your non-biased and objective opinion on this matter. Really, I do. You make a lot of great points that I wholeheartedly agree with. RPF is a beast. Every story is going to have "similar" characteristics if we're following canon timelines and making our characters as realistic as possible.

I also agree that, as a fandom, we tend to... make up a lot of common personality traits and use them over and over again until it’s hard to remember that they aren’t necessarily real. And they’re not based on facts. But we all continue to use them in our fics, and it helps them to be cohesive and easy to follow along from fic to fic. It helps us writers not have to character build as much as we would in an original fiction. 

A quick example of this is Max referring to Charles as "schatje". I think that's a very commonly used nickname in F1 RPF, even though Max himself has never publicly called anybody that. We have just decided, as a fandom, that that’s the dutch endearment he would use. It’s also easy to take commonly repeated phrases from Max The Person and shove them into our dialogue to make it easier for our characters to have a voice. For example, the phrase “of course” is used a lot in Max's dialogue because Max Verstappen (the person) says it a lot. 

But I think it's important for this instance, for the plagiarism that I'm speaking about, that you know the full context and don't just "stumble in off the street". You openly admitted that you're not fully aware of the situation, and that's totally okay. It's actually kind of refreshing to know not everyone is as concerned about this and that not everyone sees the copycat works as much as often as I do. 

If you’re a casual reader of F1 RPF, you probably don’t know it’s happening. 

But it’s not just me it’s happening to. Lots of other prolific authors are being taken advantage of and having their works stolen from them on an every day basis, and it really needs to stop. We all create this content for free, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have ownership over it. And the only logical reason I can see for people to steal our work is that they are attention-seeking and looking for clout. They want to be known as one of the great RPF authors. They want love and admiration. 

And it’s fine to want that. 

But you shouldn’t want it so badly that you’re willing to steal other people’s work to get it. 

That’s... disgusting. 

This is not the first time I’ve had my work stolen, and it won’t be the last. It’s not the first time somebody has been too heavily inspired by my work, and it won’t be the last. I know that is the risk I take with every fic I publish. It’s just a shame that it’s gotten so out of hand. 

I would like to correct you on one thing, though.  

You said: “I think ‘thinking with [character]’s dick’ is a common one but the other two you mentioned seem pretty specific.” but that’s not what I said. If you’ll go back and read my original post, my direct quote was, “but maybe that was [insert characters]'s dick talking," which is a very different phrase. If you’ve ever read my work, you will see that my characters often go on and on (and on) for a paragraph or two, lusting after the other character, sometimes spiraling further and further until it no longer makes sense and will end with “... but maybe that was [their] dick talking.” 

Again, I will say that I do not own that phrase, but I wouldn’t say that was a commonly used phrase in Formula 1 RPF until I started using it. 

I would know because I’ve been reading F1 RPF since it first started getting posted on AO3. 

I have read a good majority of the (completed) F1 fics posted to AO3. 

I know what existed before I started writing and what has appeared afterward. 

And again, let me clearly say I am not claiming to own that phrase or any other combination of words. But when that phrase, along with other commonly used phrases from my fic, all appear one after another in someone’s work? It’s too much of a coincidence to say it wasn’t intentional. 

But I do not expect you to know that since, as you said, you stumbled in off the street. 

I hope that makes sense. 

I hope we can all stop stealing from each other, or this fandom will be over before you know it. 

[max1461]

To a first approximation, I think philosophy is basically "thinking not (yet) categorized as something else". Maybe this view will piss off everyone. But it's certainly the case that historically, many fields of study started out being considered subfields of philosophy (the natural sciences, logic, psychology... in the Western tradition, everything but math and history, it would seem) before acquiring enough of their own character and/or cultural status to be considered something else.

You can see this as a positive or a negative fact about philosophy, but I think it's basically neutral. Philosophy is what we call it when people are trying to figure something out, but their efforts have not yet acquired a distinct cultural or institutional position, or strongly unique set of characterizing methodologies, or so on. And naturally there are going to be topics like this. Any time you start asking questions that you're not exactly sure how to approach, that's philosophy. Maybe that's not all philosophy is: there are certainly some methodologies more-or-less unique to it. But I contend that they are not characteristic of it. That is to say, they coexist with "hey, I just thought up this question and I'm not sure exactly how to answer it but I'm just gonna start contemplating it, I suppose, and hope I get somewhere".

And it's like... that will always exist! You can stop calling it philosophy, but people will always need to contemplate a bit to answer new questions, whether some more specific methodology presents itself later or not. And this role as a catch-all title for "contemplating things not otherwise categorized" means that I think criticisms of philosophy as an endeavor are sort of uniquely meaningless. Philosophy isn't anything in particular! It's just whatever!

Certainly you can critique philosophy as a set of institutions that presently exist, or you can critique specific schools of thought, or whatever. But... if you're a scientist, you are doing science when you make models and test them, when you are calculating something or running an experiment, or planning for such, etc. But you also have to think about science on a meta-level, just because people always have to think about what they are doing on a meta-level to some degree. And when you do that, you are engaged in the same methodological thing as philosophers of science, although you might not be reading their papers or whatever. To critique this as a general activity seems almost meaningless.

Likewise if you are a mathematician, you think at least somewhat about philosophy of math. You can't not, even if you don't call it that. You have to have some thoughts on, e.g., what mathematical abstractions are, just from looking at them all day every day. If you're a historian you have to think about what constitutes a good historical argument and good historical evidence. If you're an artist you will think about what you want out of your art, what you're making it for. Etc.

I expect objections from both philosophers and decided non-philosophers to this point, but I think it's really essentially correct at its core. Everyone is always doing a little bit of the thing that philosophers do officially, you can't get through life without doing it, and indeed if you take a strong decided position against it you would appear to in that choice be doing it!

This has all been said before. But I do think it's worth saying again.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

This got longer than I expected I'm so sorry

The reason why mcu is not the same as comics is not usually because they are trying to be creative

One of the reasons is money (shocking I know) for example civil war In movies was just a fight between 12 people while in the comics there were more characters involved which made the fights much more crazy. In movies they took both hulk and thor out of the way. They didn't even wanted to cast rdj because he was an "expensive actor"

marvel comics were a thing since 40s Mcu has only been around since 2008. I'm gonna go with civil war as example again. The surprising part of that story in comics involved Peter. He always been so careful with his secret identity but when he takes Tony's side he reveals it in front of cameras and the consequences was that aunt may almost dies. In mcu civil war we've JUST met Peter so instead they held that storyline and used it when it was more convenient for them (in nwh). another example is Tony's origin story changing from Vietnam war

Third one is the lack of some characters in mcu. wandavision for example was based of house of M comics But the mutants are a big part of that story so they had to change a lot of things in that show to make it work in mcu

Another thing is that mcu doesn't have or had the right to some of the characters so like when they couldn't make a planet hulk movie they took that storyline and put it in thor ragnorak. two birds one stone

I'm gonna give mcu some credits tho because some of these changes were so smart and some times made the movie much more better than it comics version like what they did with thanos motives in infinity war

but still anthony mackie is really not wrong. In fact when he says "marvel is such a space of controlled entertainment" he is so fucking correct

The first ever mcu movie didn't had a full script but in no universe I can imagine marvel doing that ever again

They don't give actors and directors that much freedom. they seem to just make this movie for this next big movie.

Marvel being all connected was one of the reasons I liked it so much but know it seems to become a problem

I feel ya. It's only normal that they need to alter certain stories and characters, but this insane scrutiny is so over the top. Hell, I still remember The Marvels' director saying her movie turned out to be more Feige's than hers.

I'd argue in the past, that "connected universe" only enriched the stories. But that's because they left that "connection" to the post-credits or maybe a scene or two, it was never part of the story. They don't do that anymore. Now that connection IS the movie and they want us to get attached to characters we don't know just because we are told (not shown) that they're better than the old ones (why does it have to be a competition?).

I miss stories like when Stephen defeats Dormammu by losing and losing and losing until he annoys the hell out of him. I miss scenes like the ones we have in TDW (the Asgard ones) that are so heavy on the characterization that they give up on shiny battles, choosing to have characters just talk to each other instead. I miss honest talks like Steve's or Clint's to Wanda in AoU or the vulnerability of Quill...

They can't translate comic books to the screen, I get that. It's like movies based on regular books, you know you're not gonna get a page-by-page recreation, but it doesn't matter as long as the story is interesting, as long as it says something. Mackie says it pretty well, they're overly controlled by the execs and those are mostly business men who only see numbers and money but have no clue about art.

[theonethatwatchesalotofshows]

Hello there! Totally random but I've been watching Dawson's Creek and had a hot take and needed to share, and you have some of the best hot takes about these shows so I'd though I'd bother you with it lol sorry.

Granted, I haven't finished the show yet, I've seen til the season 3 finale, so this might be proven wrong by later seasons, but I've been thinking this for 3 seasons straight - Is it just me or is it completely and visibly Gail and Mitch's fault Dawson is Like That? Like, yeah, there are a lot of scenes of just Dawson complaining about his parents' relationship, but honestly? He's kind of justified! Their relationship is a mess, and they always put their son in the middle, and the drama was so needless and repetitive that by their S3 wedding they were even more boring a relationship than Dawson and Joey. And whenever he tries to bring it up with them, it's framed like he's just in the way of them being happy (whether that means being together or apart, whichever they're feeling like that week). It's not really any wonder that he has such a messed up relationship with Joey, because watching his parents, sure, why wouldn't he think he can treat her any way he wants and she'll still want him and they'll be "meant to be"? Works for Mitch and Gail! Not to mention, all their parenting consists of is telling him what a special and perfect boy he is (correct me if I'm wrong but I think the only time they "discipline" him is having him work at their family restaurant?). Once again, no wonder he gets such a protagonist complex and thinks he should always get his way and whines when he doesn't.

Dam, this show is just a mess... Every character either starts great and is completely assassinated or forgotten about (Joey, Andie, Jen, ...) or starts badly and is given a redemption arc bc the writers realized the actor can act (Pacey, Jack) or is barely even a character, just a plot device at the whims of the writers (Dawson). Anyways, this is all just because I've heard for years before watching the show about how Dawson is the worst and actually watching the show has me thinking Mitch and Gail might really be the worst. Sorry for the rant! But I needed to share this with someone. What do you think? Am I totally off base here or does this actually make sense?

Hi! No worries, you don't bother me, I love hot takes (unless they're extremely stupid lol).

My hot take is that Dawson is not the antichrist as most of the fandom tried to paint him. Is he annoying and whiny? Sure, but what teenager isn't. Now that I think about it, maybe the reason the fandom hates him so much is because they see themselves in him and they don't like it? Just a thought.

You are so right about his parents though! People like to say: "Dawson has nothing to complain about, all other characters have it worse". Sure, Dawson's parents are not dead (at the beginning), in jail, physically abusive, mentally ill or didn't ship him off to live with his grandma, but that doesn't mean they are perfect. They put him in the middle of their messed up marriage and fighting. No 15-year-old should know about their parents' sex life and that his mother is having an affair. I also think they were too chill and let him get away with too much, like you said. But that's in almost every American show. I can't imagine talking to my parents the way teenagers on tv talk to theirs, that's not just a Dawson thing. It might have something to do with how the actor plays Dawson perhaps?

As for the character assassinations, I feel like the problem is that the writers mold the characters to whatever they need in the moment rather than having consistent characterization and letting conflict naturally arise from that. That's why the characters contradict each other a lot and seem to change so much (I still maintain that Andie cheating on Pacey was completely ooc). Also what bothers me is that the writers rewrite history a lot in order to be able to recycle old plot lines. The best example of this is how Pacey underwent such a great character development while he was with Andie only for it to be erased so he can undergo it again with Joey. When he told Joey: "I have never gotten an A before" I rolled my eyes because he literally had the same storyline with Andie like two seasons before! It's like in season 2 the writers wanted us to root for Pacey and Andie, but in season 3 and 4 they changed their minds so they ruined Andie's character to make room for Pacey and Joey. But then in season 5 they decided: "scratch that, Joey and Dawson it is" so they erased all Pacey's development again and had Joey pine for Dawson again.

A bit off topic but I thought it related to what you said about the characters. I don't think Dawson is the worst. He was annoying but I feel like he got progressively less and less annoying as the show went on. Joey is a different story. I could rant more about that but it's a very unpopular opinion since everyone on here loves Joey.

[merge-conflict]

5 (it's wonc isn't it 😞) 16, 20, 21, and 22

ty for the ask :3 questions are here

5. worst discord server and why

idk the modding one? because it has a billion channels and as soon as I joined I got overwhelmed, muted it and haven't opened it again. you say wonc like I'm not logging on every day and going into a brainrot thread to play ocs. sammy and I are deep in a brain cancer arc right now. xD

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

getting Johnny back his original body. I don't hate it, but it seems like such an easy fix given how the original relic trials went and that it's not just growing a new limb but a whole body including the brain. saburo doesn't even do that with all his money in the DE, which tells me it probably would take a while to grow a clone like that, if it's even possible (if it was, why would they have tested on random bodies and know that that process works best with relatives?). and it's not like johnny was ever a well-adjusted guy in his original body.

I know the answer is fix-it fic. But I'm surprised more people don't want to explore the inherent body issues/compromises in the genre. But! I do think it's interesting if people do or do not write Johnny getting a cybernetic arm again -> something that both fucked him up and defined him. what a choice between honoring what was and trying to get a truly clean slate. anyway it's something like the happy ending with children thing where I don't personally see the appeal, and that's okay. I was just honestly surprised it was so popular!

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

I already complained about tech and the blackwall in a previous post. I guess on replays I really get bored playing Johnny's sequences or doing the BD stuff because once you know what happens it's just a slog to get through.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

overhyped would mean that I hear about it a lot? and I so rarely hear meta discussions that I'm kinda starved for it. I guess I'm disappointed to hear the sequel in planning has a big AI component because I wasn't a fan of how the story seems to be going in the original game (i.e. I think they're going with a straight forward apocalypse monster angle which doesn't serve the underlying themes the way I personally want it to, which as we all know is what would be objectively correct).

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

this is a hard one because again I don't see a lot of discussion about it but again I see very little lore discussion so I could pick anything.

I think it's fascinating Johnny never once discusses where he gets the bomb (it's a Militech bomb) or the fact that bombing Arasaka tower is as good for Militech as it is for him. I thought maybe it'd come up in PL but nope! in game there's a shard that describes a Militech convoy being robbed by nomads, implied to be the one that was carrying nuclear armaments. was it a setup by Militech? or did they not want it stolen but get what they wanted anyway when they got Arasaka thrown out of NC? How did that contribute to the war later where NUSA tried to grab NC and failed and resulted in Dogtown's creation and Arasaka being let in? When Johnny signed up as a corpo soldier who was it that he joined? Was it Militech or some other corp that broke him by sending him into battle? Why can't you even discuss the fallout of Johnny's actions? Especially in that dream of his where he apologizes to the netrunner whose husband got killed in the blast? (does anyone else think it's spooky you can find that NPC selling vinyls on the street?)

Anyway besides Johnny's enormous hate-on for Arasaka I want to know what his opinions are on the other major corpo players beyond the simple fact he thinks they suck. But not even canon delivers on that sadly.

[caretaker-au]

you’re probably offline again, and I don’t know if anyone is gonna see this. but your au is genuinely one of my most favorite Undertale AUs ever. I have been in the Undertale fandom for a LONG time, but I don’t think there will ever be something as well written as the Caretaker AU again. the amount of research and love put into it is so cool. it truly does feel like something that could possibly happen in the actual canon and I LOVE it.

your version of Chara is also one of the most best portrayals of them I’ve EVER seen in the entire history of the fandom. when you began releasing the final chapters for the AU, I remember just sitting at my computer and rereading Chara’s lines over and over again. because their character was just so interesting to see in action. even when it was still a comic, their goddamn expressions and words are just so memorable to me. I still and always will have that little sadistic smile ingrained in my brain. (that also includes literally every character in comic even the background ones.) I love how you handle Chara as well, how you made them a horrible person but not totally unrealistic. like that one asker said, you feel bad for them, but just a LITTLE TINY bit. because they always screw up everything for themself and then go blame a 12 year old for it.

speaking of Frisk, your portrayal of them is definitely so very canon to me. I love their design and personality so much. they are so just relatable too, possibly one of the most realistic 12 year olds I’ve seen in a comic. they remind me a lot of me in a way, especially when I was 12 lol. I’m beyond happy they got a happy ending, they deserve it after, y’know, everything.

I wish you all luck on any other projects you may be working on. and I hope you are proud of what you have accomplished. :) you crafted a truly beautiful story. now if you don’t mind me, I’m just going to go reread everything again.

(take a shot every time I say ever lol, sorry for any spelling mistakes, thank you for reading it all)

Thank you so much for your kind words. Caretaker truly was a huge labor of love. I remember back when Ellipsis came up with the concept how it just gripped me like a bear trap. I couldn't stop thinking about it! Eruto felt the same way and was saying we should make a comic, and I was like, "no no, I don't want to do all that line art" but then she was like, you won't be alone we can draw it TOGETHER and then to demonstrate she took one of my super rough sketches and lined and colored it. And I was like, wow okay maybe this is feasible.

The resulting 3-ish years it felt like we were spending every waking hour working on Caretaker. I carried my sketchbook everywhere and would draw out thumbnails during my breaks at work, I'd be thinking about it on the drive home, and then we'd get on a discord call together to draw, line, and color for hours at a time. I could go on but the bottom line is that I LOVED IT. Each finished page (drawn or written!) fills me with pride and I look back fondly on the time spent creating and maintaining this blog together. It was exciting, compelling, and at many times exhausting, but worth it.

As far as the characterization goes, glad that you appreciate it! We reminded ourselves to never lose sight of the fact that Chara was still a human being--full of contradictions and ego and multiple-facets--but we didn't want to justify their behavior either. We all know people who are selfish, manipulative, and arrogant, but what happens when a person like that gets naïve enablement and never has to face any repercussions for their behavior? Without the correcting force that is LIFE, a cynical, angry, cruel child like Chara didn't have any reason to second-guess their worldview. Of course anything that goes wrong must be the fault of someone else!

This has already gotten kinda long, so all I'll say on Frisk is thank you and glad you agree! Personally, I knew some friends of the family who had kids about that age so I tried to reference their behavior in my mind when it came to writing Frisk. (Though most of Frisk's behaviors boil down to "RUN!!") Through the many discussions and occasional rewrites of this story, we always planned on ensuring Frisk had a happy ending. ♥

Thanks once again for the ask, and I hope you enjoy the reread!