#but yeah you all are making me uncomfortable and it sucks

[drdemonprince]

I remember a while back you did a fun ask game where people sent in kinks and you rated how good an investment they are and it keeps popping into my mind because of how chill you were about kinks that even kinky people tend to view really negatively in the sense of ethics. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to *feel* chill in terms of my own kink ethics. I intellectually believe that fantasies can’t be immoral and that kink with other adults is moral as long as there is consent (and appropriate risk awareness).

But I am still pretty triggered on the topic when it comes up. Eg, earlier a friend told me they are cutting someone they love off for being friends with someone who “sexualizes trauma”. And yeah, that is definitely where some of my darker kinks come from—though not all. They’re entitled to that opinion and action of course! But hearing all the things they said against this person triggered me, making me feel like I’m dangerous and that it is wrong of me to interact with them going forward even though this isn’t a topic I would discuss with them anyway. Until writing this I hadn’t even considered if they are still a person I *want* to interact with given this. Though I’m sort of unclear on whether it is actually wrong of me to interact with them still.

I am working with my therapist on this. And I know it will take some time to work through. I was just wondering if you had any words of wisdom on the topic.

My thoughts are that if I had a friend who cut people off for having problematic (or in this case, just like, unsettling?) kinks, I would not feel safe around that friend. It would seem to me that they were judgemental, moralizing, and had a completely different viewpoint on how the world operated than I did, and that sooner or later they would demonize me for things I thought, fantasized about, felt, and so on. I might have sympathy if the person was a trauma survivor early in their recovery, as it's quite common for people to think in very dogmatic, black-and-white ways about morality in order to protect themselves and to be highly reactive to perceived threat. But their feelings of safety are their own business to guard over, and mine are mine, and I just wouldn't be able to get along very intimately with someone like that. I'd have to give them a wide berth until they started to get over it, if they got over it.

Recently, a friend of mine was completely ostracized from their local queer community simply for writing a piece that touched on a taboo fantasy -- a taboo fantasy they had concocted as a way to cope with some really gnarly early childhood abuse. They lost performance gigs and friends, had hate campaigns erected against them, had mobs of people threatening all their remaining friends and colleages, all based on a rumor about a piece that they never even got to perform anywhere because someone had heard it was about a taboo subject and even the IDEA of what it might be made them uncomfortable, and so they assumed my friend was condoning abuse when they were literally just describing what had already happened to them and how they found healing from it. Shit like this sucks, and it comes down most heavily against queer people, especially trans femmes, and I've seen the fear mongering ruin enough lives that I try to steer really clear of it.

My life has been so blessed by inclusion of people with really intense, taboo, stigmatized kinks into my life. I was afraid to even breathe a word of my hypnosis fetish to anybody until I was in my late 20s, because I thought it was so freakish and evil. and now I routinely talk with people about really animalistic feral fantasies, harkness rule violating monsterfucking, rape play, necro fantasies, abdl, age regression, incest roleplaying, blood, eating bodily fluids, and everything else that freaks people out but harms no living being. Even when it's not my stuff, even when it's something I might personally find a little squicky to actually be in the room with, it makes me feel seen, safe, and free to express the depths within me. I think surrounding yourself with more people like that or just consuming their stories can help a lot. And trying to find some mental distance from the people who do fear monger and get triggered. They have their reasons for feeling as they do. But that doesn't mean we have to align with their values or actions.

[n0ahsebastians]

mayday, one, two, your touch is atomic...

18+ below the cut, there is HEAVY smut in this! please do not read if this makes you uncomfortable! this is a fic about real people but NOT about things they would do persay, it's all fiction!!!! please enjoy otherwise!!!!

(this is the fic i said i was gonna post last night but i got home hella late from work BAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA here it is though!!!!)

She’s lying on her stomach, cheek pressed into the pillow below her as he presses kisses across her skin. His breath’s warm, raising goosebumps across her upper arms and her legs. She’s bare, so is he. He’d barely made it in the door before he was lifting her up from the couch and carrying her to their bedroom. He took his time with her, laying her down on the bed, kissing her slowly. His fingers tugged at the hem of her t-shirt before lifting it up over her head. 

“Lift up,” he says softly against her lips. She smiled before pulling away to allow him to toss her shirt onto the floor somewhere. She was already out of her daytime clothes and of course wasn’t wearing a bra. She laid back on the bed, her breasts on full display, watching the way his teeth sunk into his bottom lip.

“You’re so sexy,” he nearly growls, lifting his own shirt over his head, baring his tattooed torso before her. He leans over her, his lips pressing to her, his tongue parting her lips to brush against her own. Her fingers tangle in his hair at the nape of his neck, tugging gently at the strands. He moans softly when she lifts her leg and her knee brushes against his center. She smiles against his lips, tugging at his bottom one with her teeth.

“Take the rest of your clothes off,” she whispers and he doesn’t hesitate another second. He undresses quickly, tossing his sweats, boxers, and socks to the floor. She reaches out for him and he leans down to press his lips to her left thigh, moving up to her hip bone, before tugging at her underwear with his teeth. He pulls them down with his mouth in one swift motion, her legs lifting up so he can pull them down the rest of the way. They’re tossed to their bedroom floor with the rest of their clothing.

“Wanna taste you, baby,” he presses a kiss to the crease between her center and her thigh, causing her leg to hitch when he nips at the flesh there. 

“Yeah.” She can barely speak let alone form a single thought, not while his mouth’s on her like this. 

He chuckles at her; she can barely say a single word and it makes this that much more thrilling to him. His mouth trails down her thighs, spreading her legs and placing them over his shoulders. She’s soaking between her legs and he wants to absolutely devour her. 

“Baby,” he says, squeezing her knee to get her attention.

“Mhmm.”

“Look at me.”

She opens her eyes, lowers them to look down at this godsend of a man that’s between her legs, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth again, resting her hand on his cheek. He kisses the palm of her hand, then the inside of her thigh again before pressing his mouth to her. She gasps, instinctively pressing her hips against his face and tugging at his hair. She feels his tongue inside of her, licking and pressing into her folds, these sinful sounds that make her head swim. He sucks his lips at her and she throws her head back against the mattress, digging her heels into his back, pressing her hips even closer to his mouth.

“That’s it, there’s my girl. Taste so fucking good baby.”

His breath is hot against her, his voice vibrating against her causing her breathing to pick up and her hips to move faster.

“Fuck Noah…please…”

“Feels good?”

“Yes, so…so good.” She was so close; they could both feel it. Noah moans against her, breathing gently.

“Come for me baby, come on my tongue.”

She does, she comes hard against his mouth and he mouths at her through her release. He rubs circles into her thigh with his thumb, coaxing her down from her first high of the night. Her breath comes in pants as she drops her legs from his shoulders, his lips pressing to her inner thigh again. She drags her fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. 

“Fucking hell,” he whispers against her skin. She chuckles, watching the way his chin glistens with her arousal. She runs her thumb over his lips, watching the way his eyes flutter closed, watching the way the dim lamp from their bedside reflects off his tattooed skin, her cleaner skin contrasting against him, the way there’s a thin layer of sweat covering their bodies. 

She loves them like this, loves the way he makes her feel. Even when they’re not fucking or making love. These little intimate moments between them are ones that she’ll always cherish, ones that she’ll always love. She loves him so much, so much that it hurts sometimes. 

Her thumb pushes past his lips and she chuckles gently when he flicks his tongue over the pad of her fingertip. She sees a glimmer in his eye and her heart rate quickens; she knows what he’s thinking.

“Can we try something?” he asks her, releasing her thumb from his lips. He crawls up her body, resting their foreheads together. She nods before answering.

“Yeah.” She’s not sure what he has in mind but she knows it’ll be so good, because that’s what they’re best at.

“Turn over for me,” he says, gently tapping her hip. She hesitates for a moment but turns over onto her stomach. 

Now they’re here. Her on her stomach, him above her. She’s nervous, he can tell by how tense she is. 

“Just relax, baby. I got you.” 

They’ve never done it this way before, it had never really occurred to them to try it. He’d thought about it before of course, so had she. But they had never really gone through with it.

But now…now it seemed like the perfect time. And she was more than ready for it.

His knee parts her legs from above her, a hum falling from her lips. Her hips gently rock against the mattress, trying to release some sort of friction between her thighs. He watches the way her body begins to relax into the sheets as he lowers himself to kiss her skin, across her shoulder blades, the backs of her arms, over her lower back. He ghosts his lips, leaving goosebumps in his wake, over the freckles littering the expanse of her back, inhaling her scent in the process. She smells so good, like vanilla and sex, and it clouds his senses. She smiles into the pillow below her, letting his breath and lips overtake her.

“You okay?” he asks her, his lips meeting the slope between her ass and her lower back, his favorite part of her besides her thighs. 

“Yes,” she says quietly. He hovers over her again, nudging her cheek with his nose and pressing his lips there. She turns her head just slightly to press their lips together gently and he sighs against her mouth, suddenly lowering his hands to her hips, lifting her so she’s on her knees. A small gasp leaves her lips before she leans back against him, his blunt nails digging into her skin, kneading the flesh in his hands. Her mouth falls open against his when he pulls her hips back gently to press himself against her backside. 

“Can I fuck you like this?” he breathes into her mouth, one of his hands reaching up to cup her breast in his hand. 

“Uh huh,” she moans, her own mouth falling open against his, their tongues pressing together. She sighs when his other hand descends where she needs him the most and her eyes flutter closed at the feeling of his fingers suddenly entering her. He nearly comes just from watching her fall apart underneath him for the second time. He circles his fingers inside of her and her head falls back against his shoulder again.

“Fuck baby, you’re so fucking wet,” he nips at her throat gently. She still feels sensitive from her first orgasm but she knows that she’ll be able to do it again; Noah is well aware she’ll be able to come again.

She can barely form a single coherent thought; she’s being all consumed by him. His body’s pressed against her back, his fingers are moving inside of her, his breath on her neck and in her mouth. She feels light headed and his other hand that was covering her breast comes up to wrap around her throat gently. She moans, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip as he fucks her slow with his fingers. 

“Fucking Christ, I wish you could see how good you look right now. How sexy you are. Tell me how it feels, love.” 

She can’t even speak, let alone form a single syllable. It does feel so fucking good, but she can’t even tell him. She just bucks her hips forward to meet his hand. 

“Words, baby girl. Use your words.”

“So…good…”

He chuckles before spreading her legs again, making sure she’s okay, asking her once, twice, and she turns her head again to kiss him slowly.

“Noah…I’m fine, okay?”

“I just…need to make sure,” he says sweetly, rubbing their noses together. He kisses her again, keeping their lips together as he sinks into her from behind. They both gasp and the sound she makes after that mixed with his own is sinful and he nearly comes right then. They’ve never done it like this before, it feels fucking amazing.

“Oh fuck…”

“Noah…” She pushes back against him to try and relieve the ache between her legs but he removes his fingers from her and squeezes her hip gently to stop her from moving.

“I know, baby, I know.”

He keeps his other hand around her throat still, barely putting pressure against her skin. He squeezes her hip again before rocking his hips forward, pulling her closer to him, his hand moving to rest on her lower stomach. 

“Fuck, you feel so fucking good like this,” he breathes into her neck, his nose nudging at her chin. Her head falls against his shoulder again and her hand lifts to tangle in his hair. The slow drag of his cock inside of her makes her head spin; he can feel every fucking inch of her, more than usual, and it makes his mouth go dry as he fucks her faster, harder. She moans the dirtiest moan he’s ever heard from her and he drags his hand from her throat to her lips, pushing his fingers against her mouth.

“Open your mouth,” he breathes. She gasps as his fingers press into her mouth, dragging against her tongue, his hips snapping against hers, the sensation driving him absolutely insane. 

“Noah..unhh…”

“Fucking hell, baby. So…good,” he moans when her tongue curls around his fingers and she begins to suck on them. His eyes flutter closed as he watches her tongue drag against the pad of his fingers, watches the way her legs begin to shake, quivering against his own. She’s so close, he can feel it.

“Oh…oh baby, are you coming again?” 

Her breathing speeds up and he squeezes her throat gently, dragging his fingers from her mouth to press against her entrance again.

“Noah…oh fuck, right there…, right there…”

“Right there?” He snaps his hips again in that one spot that has her fucking screaming his name. He never wants this to end, he wants to feel her like this for the rest of his life, wants to be consumed by her for the rest of his life.

“I want…you…to come inside me,” she whispers between breaths, tugging at his hair again and bringing his face around to kiss him again.

“Yeah? Want it inside?” His hips begin to slow down, dragging the length of his cock in and out of her to let this feeling last a few more minutes. She hums at the feeling, gasping as she comes around him seconds later. One hand squeezes her hip, the other squeezing her breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers, his own hips stuttering against her as he finishes inside of her moments later. He moans into her mouth, snapping his hips one last time to feel himself dragging inside of her this way, one more time.

“Fuuuuck I love you…” He wraps his arms around her waist, taking her down to the mattress with him, his cock beginning to soften inside of her as they both catch their breath. He pulls out of her slowly and she turns in his grasp, smiling sleepily at him. She wraps her legs around his own, dragging her toes across his tattooed calf. He presses their lips together, a low hum passing between them for her. 

“I love you,” she finally says, petting her fingers through his sweaty hair. He scrunches his nose at her. 

“That was probably…the best sex we’ve had…”

“Ever?”

“Mmm…maybe not ever, but close. Very close,” he chuckles, dragging his fingers over the skin of her thigh, drawing circles there. She runs her thumb over his cheekbone, down to his lips and his eyes flutter closed. A quiet tone begins to settle over their bedroom, the low hum of the heater from the vents and the sounds of passing cars outside are all they can hear as they settle into one another finally. He absentmindedly runs his fingers up and down her thighs and over her hip without stopping his movements and she suddenly notices that something’s wrong.

“You okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Noah…”

He sighs. Dude she knows, come on now.

“Just…wish you could come with us, that's all.” He means the tour that’s starting in a couple days; they’re going to be gone for almost a month in Europe and even though she’s used to it by now, the band being gone for long periods of time, she knew that he was more worried about it, about leaving her again. 

“Noah, I’m gonna be fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Yeah but…last time…”

“Noah, look at me.” She cups his cheek in her hand, running her thumb over his lips before kissing him slowly. He pulls her closer to him by her hip, squeezing the skin. She’s warm, she smells so good, and it’s consuming him once again.

“I’m gonna be fine,” she says against his lips, resting their foreheads together, “I promise if something goes wrong I will call Matt or Bryan immediately.”

“Or Jolly?”

She smiles and kisses him again. “Or Jolly.”

He takes a deep breath, kisses her one more time, before pulling the blanket up over their naked bodies, encasing them in their little bubble. 

“I love you so much,” he whispers, kissing her forehead, sleep overtaking them both.

“I love you the most.” 

questions? comments? concerns? 🫣

[tumb1rprincess]

Been having a lot of thoughts about Mouthwashing and I just want to get them out

Yeah, kind of late to get into this game, but ever since I watched a playthrough of it, it's been rotating in my head. I feel like I wasn't really scared per se, but definitely uncomfortable, that feeling where you want to look away but you can't. Just, everything slowly unravels before your eyes and like most members of the crew, especially Anya and Curly, you're helpless to do anything about it.

As soon as Anya asked why the sleeping quarters didn't have a lock, I immediately knew what that meant, and now when I go back and watch her interactions with Jimmy after the crash, it makes me sick. She has to suck up to her abuser, interact with him like everything's normal, and praise him when she can, hoping that it'll be enough to keep her safe. And after the crash, she had to take care of Curly all by herself and probably had a lot of difficult emotions about him. He failed her, but she can't hate him, because she believes people aren't defined by their worst moments. And when she has to give him his medication, she sees her own helplessness reflected in him to the point of making her sick. And she probably had to deal with that for a long time before it became too much and she had to ask Jimmy to do it instead.

Curly just becomes another victim of Jimmy's and it especially has to hurt because he trusted him, he was his friend, and now he's seeing him for what he truly is, and he can't do anything about it. He knows he's probably feeling the same fear Anya did whenever Jimmy walks into a room. Or when he gives him the painkillers, he knows it's going to hurt, just like how Anya probably knew that anytime Jimmy forced himself on her. And the game doesn't even show it when Jimmy gives Curly the medicine, you just hear it, and it's these awful choking/gagging sounds like he's being strangled and he can't breathe and it makes your stomach twist so uncomfortably, especially when he cries afterwards. And then it's made even worse when Jimmy cuts off his leg and forces him to eat it, because you see it that time. Every turn of those little wheels to line up his insides right makes him bleed and gasp in pain, and you're the direct cause of it. And if you don't get it right and it gets lodged inside him and he gets sick from it, it's your fault.

Out of all the bad things Jimmy did, I feel like it was his manipulation that I hated the most. He berates Anya when she asks for help, and makes her so meek and scared. He preys on Daisuke's need to prove himself to get him to climb into the vent. And when Curly finally talks to him about what he did to Anya, he turns it on him and makes it all Curly's responsibility, saying it's his fault when Jimmy is the one who assaulted her in the first place.

[l3monsoda]

Dear Art influencers everywhere,

I know you gotta make trendy content to stay alive and I can respect the grind but you do know the problem with HBO’s Velma isn’t the designs right? It’s the writing. If I see one more “Fix it” aimed at Velma that’s first choice is instantly to put everyone back to white I’m going to scream.

This show has real problems, the characters are unlikable, the A plot is so buried under forced comedy I don’t think even the show wants to remember it, and it really seems to genuinely hate it’s audience and source material. You know what doesn’t have anything to do with any of that? The race swapping. Listen we can debate all day about whether race swapping actually helps diversity representation or if the creation of more POC original characters would be a better direction of those efforts, (Well you can, I’m white as a sheet and don’t actually really have enough information to contribute to those talking points) but what I DO know for certain as a writer is it doesn’t in anyway hurt the narrative. 

Listen I know you all seem to think since the show is bad you can get a free pass and that you can quickly group the race swapping elements that made you uncomfortable in with all of the bad choices this show has made but it’s not as subtle as you seem to think. When you redesign the scooby gang in general sense you can take whatever direction you want with it but if you are going to reference HBO’s Velma directly to get that sweet sweet traffic and you go ahead and make your redesigns white, without saying a word you have broadcasted to your entire audience that “This character was made Indian in the show” is also a “problem” to be “fixed”. 

Bad look fam, I’m embarrassed and uncomfortable for you. 

[trashcreatyre]

I think the main thing that pisses me off about like 90% of mephiles ships is that people will be like "how old is he??" Look that fanwiki says that he's ten and they RUN with it. Like they don't read further. I'm so convinced that most people don't even know the plot of 06 bc the shit I've seen people draw and write with the characters is just mind boggling.

[alagaisia]

Hey if you’re still enjoying and engaging with Harry Potter in any capacity you can unfollow me 😊 please and thank you

Like. I get it. I was super into it as a kid too. I did not have the social context to pick up on the antisemitism or transphobia or sexism or fatphobia or bioessentialism or racism or anything else. I also picked up on surface-level language of Fighting Back Against Evil and ascribed my own values onto what that meant and thought we were all on the same page. I remember when the original kids who grew up with the books started becoming adult fans and picking up on the (blatant!) antisemitism and everybody was still mostly willing to give JKR the benefit of the doubt on it. (“She was writing kids books!” They said. “She didn’t know she was penning a global phenomenon! She picked a common literary trend in European fairy tales (antisemitic caricature) and didn’t examine it closely. It’s a mistake anyone could make,” we said. “She would probably do things differently now. After all, she word-of-god confirmed the vaguest hints she dropped that Dumbledore might be gay,” we said.) There was actually a span of several years where biases inherent in the actual real content of the Harry Potter series were coming to light and even the people pointing them out still seemed mostly to think it was an unfortunate accident.

That time has passed. Years ago! We are long past the first months of “maybe she doesn’t realize this seemingly-feminist tweet she liked was made by a noted TERF” and then “how could she not realize that these many veiled TERF-y things she’s retweeted have implications for the many queer fans of her work” and finally “oh wow okay JKR just dropped an entire transphobic manifesto on twitter. I guess the transphobia was the point.”

Yeah, there were a few months after that where people were still processing and still working through how they felt about Harry Potter and all of its flaws with the context of the now open transphobia of the creator. I was there for that. Remember how I was one of the kids who built it up into something noble and worthwhile based on my own beliefs about what messages it was probably trying to convey? Turns out it wasn’t trying to say any of those things, and when you take the time to examine all of the terrible shit that made its way into the text whether JKR intended it to be there or not, the whole series falls apart. It’s weird to discover that there’s a room in your house that’s rotten to the core, but eventually you figure out you can’t live like that, still going in there and holding your nose and pretending it’s still the same room you thought it was when the termites were only inside of the walls and hadn’t yet started chewing their way through the furniture. Because what’s going to happen is that they are going to infest the rest of your house. If you decide you can ignore transphobia and antisemitism and everything else just because you liked the color of the wallpaper, the rest of your principles are going to crumble too. You get rid of that fucking room. You put those books on a high shelf in the back of your closet behind other outgrown clothes and interests and you move the fuck on.

JKR uses the money made from her transphobic antisemitic children’s books to actively funding hate groups and to lobby for legislation that will and has actually affected the actual lives of trans people in an entire country. We are past the point of grieving something you were wrong about in childhood. Kids are wrong about a lot of stuff. You grow up and you learn new information and you change your behaviors based on it. You have to choose. It is transphobic to pretend there is not transphobia where there is. It is transphobic to support the work of someone who is using those funds to take rights from trans people with every fucking dollar. It is hateful to continue to engage positively with a story that at its very core is rooted in hate and bigotry and prejudice. You can choose to do all of those things but you cannot claim ignorance of them and you cannot choose those things and still pretend that choosing them upholds the values we convinced ourselves that Harry Potter stood for over a decade ago as uninformed children. You cannot choose to do those things and pretend to still support your trans and queer and Jewish neighbors. I do not want you in my neighborhood. Leave.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly it's been really healing being back to actively contributing things and writing out thoughts on tumblr the last week or so, because while twitter tends to be easier for me to write out Thoughts on without getting overwhelmed, the environment in the twitter fandom circles i'm interested in is not only infested with antis but cliqueish in a way that is caustic to the fucking soul if you try to express a thought that's more than three sentences long--a hundred times over if you're autistic in slightly the wrong way--and it's incredibly reassuring to come back to an environment where the very kindest and most inclusive people toward you are not clearly thinking the r-slur the entire time they interact with you lmao

[wayfinderships]

Saw this one post that was like "imagine your f/o" and it involved being called "kitten" and ew ew Nope ew-

[jabeur]

i need to say something just to get it off my chest

[anaalnathrakhs]

manifesting for everyone people who love them how they want to be loved 🙏

[dappy-dappernette]

Aaaugh ngl sometimes it's hard to find artists to follow because 90% of them draw your NOTP, especially when your current fave is a half of that NOTP, and most of the people drawing him are fans of said ship.

Obviously no shame to them, ship what you want as long as children aren't involved with adults but like- Still.

[orcelito]

Having lost my cat, my uncle, my great grandmother, my grandma's best friend (& one of the people who helped raise me), AND my dad all within the span of 9 months,

I have little sympathy for people who use deaths as an excuse to be an asshole. I get it, it sucks. Get the fuck over it. Your grief is not an excuse to treat others like shit. What the fuck.

[waywardsalt]

the phantom hourglass manga is the one i care about the most out of all of the loz manga and therefore the one i am most willing to rip apart because of its relation to the game, its own problems, and the potential that was lost or thrown away for any reason at all

making this separate than the list of things i liked about the phantom hourglass manga

im not going to be too organized about this; ill go by topic and in each topic go in chronological order through the manga and everything else will probably be all over the place

im not even going to touch the story yet and just go after the art off the bat because i really believe that this manga has the weakest art of all of them. i dont know if its due to some kind of time crunch or a lack of care but its really… im not expecting any of these books to have killer art, but in ph it just feels like there was less effort with inconsistencies in some designs and either very low detail or just absent backgrounds. this feels like a mean-spirited critique since i understand that manga is difficult to create and requires a lot of effort but its just visually… worse than the loz manga that came before or after it.

some specific grievances i have with the art are things like inconsistent designs of some characters (linebeck is hard to draw and i get that but hes just… never totally consistent) and some items like weapons (the shape of bellumbeck’s sword changes during the fight for some reason) and stuff is… left out. the fire temple has basically no layout since link’s just in some flavor of void for the entire blaaz fight. one of the panels with linebeck’s ship shows it from the behind at an angle where you should see the deck but its just not there

his ship is also missing its chimney on the cover art

this is also more of an opinion thing but the way astrid looks almost nothing like her game counterpart is just… it’s a nickpick based on opinion but that is Not The Same Character.

you can absolutely tell a fantastic story with lacking art, but the reason why im criticizing this manga’s art is because its the tenth in a series of manga who, up until this point, has had consistently good art, and then it drops off with weak backgrounds and character inconsistencies.

plus, i really care about how this story is visually portrayed.

the pacing, even with half of the story cut, is also a bit of a problem. as far as i'm aware, this is the only loz manga to have significant chunks of the story cut out, and while it admittedly works well with only half of the story, it fucks with the pacing a bit. specifically, it screws over linebeck's arc, which i'll talk about more in a different section, but it also kind of glosses over the phantom sword and (obviously) loses some possible time for further character exploration and whatever. the cut from the ghost ship right to jolene right to the final boss is, while handled well, kind of abrupt.

obviously, cutting half of the damn story will make what's kept feel a little too fast, but even some of the stuff more original to the manga is paced weirdly or is just... eh.

there's a bit after neri is found where linebeck decides to stop working with link and basically ditches him and this whole thing lasts one to two goddamn pages before everything is patched up and good and... why even include it if you turn the page and oh problem fucking solved. it's even a little out of character for linebeck at that point since a few pages before he's seen getting the sands of time for link and it's... it make sense but it's a really extreme character choice and while it serves its purpose (introducing the idea of linebeck not valuing other people very much and realizing that) it's still extremely brief.

the added stuff with linebeck being a past member of the ghost ship, while fine and interesting at first glance is also a strange choice that doesn't work all that well? it works for characterization and all of that but it makes for a weird situation with linebeck's character motivation where he's a coward and after the ghost ship for the treasure on it, but if he was present on the ghost ship literally as it was fucking gutted then he would know exactly what the danger of the ship is and want to avoid it no matter what. in the game his motivation for going after the ghost ship works because he doesn't know for certain whats on that ship and has never been on it. plus, aside from character backstory and whatever, it doesnt serve much of a purpose. linebeck even makes some comments about the ship's interior and the like but it all amounts to nothing because link never actually goes into the ship anyways. it's just a weird backstory to give linebeck.

the shuffling around (and cutting of one of) the three final bosses is also weird. it makes sense for the story order the manga goes with, but it actually lowers the stakes for the bellumbeck fight (in the game literally everything is on the line but in the manga its just linebeck and they absolutely use that to their advantage but still) and mixing the ghost ship fight and bellum fights make the final encounter really brief and kind of anticlimactic in some way. it's difficult to express, but the order of the final bosses in the game makes bellum a more interesting villain and melds with linebeck's arc in a much more interesting way. it feels like there was a specific reason for that given order and for the manga to just toss that aside means it loses something.

also reserving pretty much an entire chapter for jolene is A Choice to make. there's nothing wrong with using an adaptation to flesh out a character but here you don't learn anything new about jolene she just kind of makes very little sense in her motivations when you give her more screen time but dont change her from wanting to kill linebeck for fucking off but also still liking him maybe. good for you if you like jolene since she got more time here but they did pretty much nothing interesting with her

this is something i figured out while writing this, but the manga actually does Fuck All with the actual hourglass. you could've cut the fucking thing out and it wouldn't have effected the story too much. link never goes into the temple every again and the phantom sword is just. made on request with link having no interaction with it before using it to kill bellum. the only time the phantom hourglass is actually plot relevant aside from link first getting it and then using it to gather sand is when bellum tells link to bring it to the temple and then it's used exactly once to stop time and then it's used as proof that everything happened. oshus says link needs to use it and the sand to break the curse over the temple of the ocean king and then that never actually happens the sand and the hourglass is just used once to stop time once and otherwise it might as well not be in the story it's so weird. it's also implied that oshus needs the sand to restore tetra after he returns to his own true form but they dont say anything about that after he initially mentions it so who cares. oshus also tells link that zuaz will teach him how to defeat bellum. link never meets zuaz and still beats bellum anyways.

it feels like they cut the latter half of the story but forgot that the fucking majority of linebeck's entire goddamn character arc happens in that part of the story. sure, most of the cutscenes and whatever happens in the first part and linebeck does develop a bit in the first part but he doesn't really start to change until after the ghost ship, when you get his letter and his dialogue starts to change slightly to suggest that he's starting to like link more and care about something other than the possibility of treasure. the manga cutting out the latter half of the story but still making linebeck's arc end in similar places makes his arc feel really fast and even abrupt in the manga. he goes from being fully motivated to get treasure and still kind of selfish to caring a lot for link and deciding not to wish for treasure and the time was just NOT put in to make that a smooth transition.

honestly linebeck overall got fucked in the manga more than any other character. his arc was shafted, his characterization is strange and even kind of changed from the game, he's never drawn consistently and doesn't even look great since he seems to be stuck between two styles when he's drawn, he's more shallow and generally a less interesting character, and while most of that is probably a product of having one book to cover ph, it's still a problem.

like with all of the loz manga, the extremely limited amount of space and time the story is given absolutely fucks it over so you really are stuck with telling nothing more than an abridged and seriously inferior version of the story. i dont care how good the original stuff is if it barely qualifies as a good adaptation. the story wasn't told all of the way and none of the game's strengths are kept or expanded upon. you lose the majority of the best character's arc and depth. half of the story was cut. the title item is barely used. it feels like they didn't really care about adapting phantom hourglass and just hashed out a trimmed-down version of the story to fit into 188 pages and while there was some effort put in with a bit of a unique take on linebeck but it just falls flat when everything around it feels like it wasn't given a second thought.

i'm not suggesting that the author's didn't fucking care, i don't know what the process was with this, but it just... it doesnt feel like they actually wanted to earnestly create a good adaptation of this game. i have an altered perspective on all of this because this game is my special interest and something i deeply care about and inspect the little details of and it kinda just sucks that phantom hourglass never got a good adaptation because... this game has some serious potential for a really good extended adaptation.

Unlike the other Zelda games that the other manga cover, the structure of the journey in Phantom Hourglass has an insane amount of space for fleshing out of character, exploration of new concepts or character relationships, or just.. whatever you want. Providing you cover the original story, of course. Off the bat, there's a nebulous amount of travel time between islands, which can be used by authors for character moments and interactions and just little moments that can be used to further themes or concepts. You can use the implied time overseas between islands to have some interactions between Link and Linebeck. Show the three fairies hanging out with each other. Show the whole crew becoming closer to each other as time drags on.

Linebeck's existence and function within Phantom Hourglass alone is so fucking unique and amazingly good for an extended adaptation. In most other Zelda games, the companions are pretty much glued to Link's side and follows him through dungeons, or they're characters locked in a specific place, more or less divorced from Link's quest, but Linebeck is an integral part of the plot, present for every part of it as it advances, and yet he's out doing fuck-all while Link is in dungeons. He's a great excuse for authors to add detail to islands, write new characterization for background characters, or even just give Linebeck his own b-plot running concurrently with the game's normal plot. He's important to the plot and yet doesn't touch the gameplay; he's free to do whatever you want while Link does dungeon stuff. One possible idea I've mentioned before is the idea of, while Link is in the temple of the Ocean King, is to create and explore a possible relationship between Oshus and Linebeck. Scenes of them talking can be used to flesh out Oshus as a character and to add some extra depth to Linebeck and make his arc more interesting to follow.

There is... SO MUCH you can do with Phantom Hourglass if you care enough to do it, and I'm just so frustrated that we got this solid 4/10 of a manga.

[vaugarde]

Playing through Explorers of the Spirit and catching up to where I was... and I'm sorry I mean no disrespect, but it really comes across like the modder never got over their beef with chatot from 10 years ago and is using the opportunity in the game to vent about how much he sucks and why the guild is bad actually

[void-tiger]

Well…if there’s one (1) good thing about having a crush, it’s that when I’m (for the moment anyway) not worrying about the other person’s boundaries and terror about whether I’ve stomped on them or not + my own frustration at how slow things are to just communicate verbally and directly instead of constantly dancing around nonverbal reads (that are two-way, I suppose but still no substitute, can still mean just about anything)…

…yeah. I do let myself be selfish. Acknowledge what I want instead of burying it so deeply away from my consciousness to not “take up space” I suppose. Finally give myself some damn permission to fall in love with another person “despite” being ace, and “despite” being chronically ill and struggling with my mental health.

And what is it I want?

To feel cared for. Cherished. By someone here. To wake up and have someone greet me with a gentle embrace mindful of the constant chronic pain especially in the mornings to not accidentally pinch things, but not treating me like glass, either. To be given autonomy instead of having it taken away—to do things together, FUN things, without being made to feel guilty about that “taking away” spoons from chores or “well why won’t you just work a job then!” but also respecting my need to rest periodically or take a longer rest after the fact.

To feel heard. To trust that there’s love enough for us to disagree and feel angry and frustrated and sad around eachother and with eachother without judgement, without the risk that things are forever one disagreement or misunderstanding away from falling apart completely or worse.

And please tease me. Teasing is a love language just as much as communication and encouragement and acts of service and finally being held. It’s verbal play, and I trust you to not bully me.

And…I’ve shown as much as I can, I think. I know you’re trying to mirror at least some of it. And I think I’m reading you correctly, but I wish I understood why you seem so terrified to talk directly to me.

[kavehater]

Someone said kaveh is irani but the Kurdish irani type and I think my mum would actually hate him more