#censorship is a weird issue that is not going to work out very well in the end

[floatingcatacombs]

It’s the Tar Taking Over That Came Unexpected

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 2

Back when it was a frustratingly rare Wii exclusive, I braved a storm to hunt down a used copy of Xenoblade Chronicles, and it still surpassed my every expectation. So finally sinking my teeth into Xenoblade Chronicles X earlier this year felt right.

This was a Wii U game and it’s still nuts that this was a Wii U game. The only change I made when emulating it was bumping up the internal rendering resolution, and it’s crazy how good it still looks. The highest-fidelity games I play are FromSoft so my frame of reference is busted, but even still, it’s frequently breathtaking. Monolith Soft has always had a reputation for building impressive open worlds on underpowered hardware, and their first foray into HD might be their greatest feat. Or maybe I’m just easily impressed by pretty skies. Emulated at 1080p 60FPS, the experience really clicks, with snappy menus, fast loading times, and the ability to alt-tab to the map on the gamepad. For once I didn't feel like I was missing out at all by not playing on original hardware.  

After starting a new game you're immediately dumped into a character creation screen, which means I already have to navigate an old stupid censorship debate. See, there was a whole internet shitstorm back in 2015 when this game released stateside because the English version removed the bust slider from the character creator. This was the era of GamerGate and “localization versus translation” and Fire Emblem Fates taking out a waifu-touching minigame and everything surrounding Tokyo Mirage Sessions – things got really heated for a second! In hindsight, it was weird mixture of niche game publishers misreading their target audiences and hypervigilant right-wing provocateurs gearing up for larger culture wars, using titty games as a nexus for radicalizing nerds.

Things have cooled down a lot since then, as Japanese games generally release unaltered these days, rendering it a non-issue. When controversies do happen, it’s not in Nintendo's court anymore, it’s usually Valve removing Japanese visual novels from their store page in an act of laughable double standards. Anyways, thanks to the wonders of PC emulation and memory editors, I was able to restore the boob slider to Xenoblade Chronicles X, and valiantly used it to make my character flat.

XCX’s design sensibilities are a pretty sharp contrast from the direction the series went afterwards, instead dealing in guns, gritty sci-fi, and a more realistic color palette. The storms and forlorn mecha on the box art tell you all you need to know. It’s all very western, with the designers definitely taking cues from Halo and Mass Effect in a lot of places. The hub city is also based on Los Angeles, further cementing the American influence in everything but the mechas.

Ultimately, I think this all worked out well. The original Wii release of Xenoblade Chronicles isn’t particularly “anime”, after all. Its aesthetic sensibilities are closer to Final Fantasy X than, say, any given Tales. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3, as well as the Switch remake of the first game, hew much closer to games like Genshin in terms of colors and character proportions, but Xenoblade X takes the original’s artstyle and places it in a more serious context. I’m glad the series didn’t commit to this direction (it would have gotten bland fast), but it’s cool that we got it exactly once. Despite the more western stylings though, this is still fundamentally a niche anime game, much more so than the first Xenoblade. There’s titty armor and fanservice outfits as quest rewards, a young moe girl in the main cast, and the occasional pervy sidequest. A lot of the localization conflict may have been Nintendo attempting to clean up Xenoblade X in order to pitch it as a mainstream release at a time when the Wii U really needed a hit. While it’s a solid game, it was never going to be able to appeal to a very large audience.

Also, the story’s a bit of a mess. The tone is all over the place, with both comic relief and serious moments frequently failing to land. What starts off as a surprisingly grimdark sci-fi about the last remaining humans trying to survive on an alien planet as their crashed generation ship-city runs out of power quickly morphs into Star Wars levels of goofy aliens. Plot twist after plot twist ensues, defusing a lot of the tension because you know that they’re just going to pull something even crazier out next. Though the main story struggles, the emergent narrative of New Los Angeles is actually pretty good. A lot of the player’s side questing is dedicated to resolving interpersonal conflicts and helping make the city feel like a real home for everyone. Gradually, NLA begins taking on alien immigrants and the mutual fish-out-of-water situation between human and alien refugees leads to some funny moments and the occasional surprisingly thoughtful quest about cultural tolerance.

But for the most part, the story takes a backseat to exploring planet Mira. Through the gameplay loop I’ve come to understand Xenoblade X as something of a single-player MMO. The combat system is based around positioning, auto-attacks, skills that go on cooldown, and extremely customizable character classes. There’s a nightmarish amount of skill trees to keep track off, to the point where I’d forget about them alone until I was having trouble with a fight, and then remember an entire system I’d forgotten to take advantage of. There are item collections to fill out and side quests of all flavors and secret areas and difficult raid bosses yada yada yada…

Okay I can’t hold off from discussing the music any longer. The combat theme for Xenoblade X is the stuff of legends. Terrible, terrible legends.

Putting vocals in your RPG’s regular battle music is a bold move. You really have to make sure you knocked it out of the park, because singing is going to grate on the player far more quickly than any instrumental. Because of this, the battle themes of Persona 5, The World Ends With You, and Get In The Car, Loser! are all something of a flex. Black Tar is not that. I’m just going to link the song, because it really has to heard to be understood.

Xenoblade X’s battle theme starts off strong, the grim sci-fi tone clearly communicated through the moody synths. Soon enough the guitars come crashing in, giving way to a distinctly nu metal sound. That stylistic choice alone pissed people off in 2015, to which I say grow up, it’s great. But if you let the battle run on for 50 seconds, someone starts rapping.

Black Tar has some of the most nonsensical lyrics ever put to pen, delivered in the jankiest way possible, with words just kind of crammed in without any regard to flow. It’s not even a case of “non-proficient English speaker comes up with shoddy lyrics” as occasionally happens with Japanese songs. Every single word of this is an act of malicious fluency, and if I singled out all the lines I had questions about, I’d be here all day. Opening the first verse with “We’re stuck on a whole different planet” tricks the listener into thinking that the lyrics will to tie into the game’s events and setting, but this is a fool’s errand. The titular tar has no in-game corollary, so to make any sense of it you have to go metaphorical and claim that maybe it stands for losing your squadmates and giving up hope. That's still pretty flimsy! Maybe it really is just be about heroin.

Eventually though, we reach the chorus, and it’s actually a great hook! Except for the fact that it’s sung by a Japanese singer in English. The lyrics were clearly written with no regard for which syllables he’d have difficulty with, and making this guy utter the phrase “Black tar’lll” was an open act of cruelty.

In a 2015 interview, Black Tar rapper and lyricist David Whittaker brings up that the he wrote the words for his first video game song in about two hours, going for “just foolishness”. I imagine his work here was a similar situation.

It’s so, so easy to harp on Black Tar. Everyone did at release, and everyone who hasn’t played the game still does. The thing is, it’s impossible to keep that antagonism up when you’ve got an 80-hour game ahead of you where this is the standard battle theme the whole way through. For the sake of your own sanity, you have to learn to love Black Tar, and pretty much everyone who finishes the game comes around to it. Much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, I quote Black Tar constantly, with less of a sense of irony each time. Eventually, you too will find yourself shouting along with David Whittaker as he raps about being on a sea of dark matter. And of course, the instrumental was always a banger if you weren’t a coward. The theme for New LA also gets a lot of flak for its gibberish vocal samples and St. Anger snares, but I’ve always been a fan and think it holds up great as an endless-looping hub area theme. It’s so…. Sawano zeitgeisty.

The entire soundtrack is actually a Hiroyuki Sawano joint, and he does a pretty good job. It very much all sounds like the kind of music he’s known for, with the exception of the overworld themes, which instead try to mimic the compositions of the first Xenoblade Chronicles. Primordia’s theme is an excellent response to the first game’s Gaur Plain, with a more techy and ominous tone that nevertheless still evokes the sense of grand exploration ahead.

The edgy atmosphere, the washed out palette, the Sawano tunes….Xenoblade Chronicles X is extremely of its time, in a way that comes across as deeply charming 8 years later. It’s kind of terrifying that something can already be an early 2010s period piece! The Sawano music alone will shoot you back to the days of Kill La Kill and Aldnoah Zero, when Gen Urobuchi was absolutely everywhere and the default crap anime genre was magic school instead of isekai. The mere idea of early 2010s nostalgia sets off alarms in my head, but it’s definitely real, and will only become more of a thing in the next few years. Brace yourselves for the flow of time.

Last, but certainly not least, the mechas! They’re one of the main reasons I tried the game out in the first place. Giant robots are often part of Xenoblade worldbuilding, but they don’t really factor into the gameplay. X is the exception. From the first preview trailers to the title screen to their first step into New LA, the player is made to want a Skell. They’re so cute! The Skells were designed by Takayuki Yanase, one of the people who worked on Gundam 00, and I can see the similarities in the combination of curves and blocky elements. There’s quite a few mecha otaku who work at the NLA hangar out of love for the Skells. Most of them are women, a detail that made me really happy!

Adding even more to the player’s desire is the fact that Xenoblade X withholds Skells for a very long time. You have to make it more than halfway through the story and substantially explore the first three continents on foot before receiving your piloting license. And it’s Xenoblade, so these places are massive. Even with an extremely generous jump, you’ll run into countless clifftops out of reach. They really make you work for it, but at least the core gameplay loop of exploring to setting up waypoints and mining devices is a lot of fun on its own (I was curious if the plot would ever get around to problematizing the resource-extraction gameplay loop, but no dice).

party members next to the Skell for scale purposes

When you finally get a Skell about forty hours into the game, everything changes. One of the major challenges facing mecha games is getting the scale right –it’s pretty easy for the giant robot to feel human-sized if all the player is ever doing is piloting. Xenoblade X avoids this by making your human pace painfully clear before giving you a ten-meter robot to traverse those same landscapes. It’s night and day how much more quickly you can navigate. Skells are also wildly stronger than characters on the ground, and being able to take on behemoth creatures as well as pulverize the human-scale enemies you’ve been fighting all this time keeps the scale relevant. It provides a real power fantasy and makes them feel believable in-setting. Being able to get in and out of your Skell at will goes a long way towards making it truly feel like yours, and this mechanic also acts as something of an on-the-fly difficulty modifier for the remainder of the game. A few chapters later you get a flight pack for your Skell, and the world opens up all over again.

not pictured: the j-pop earworm that plays every time you start flying

After spending so much time hanging out with the mecha pervert mechanic girlies in the NLA hangar, the back half of Xenoblade Chronicles X finally lets you be one of the mecha pervert girlies. Customization is on the lighter side, as you can’t mix and match body parts like in Armored Core, but there’s still plenty of color customization and weapons fine-tuning to do. I totally fell in love with my robots, and that alone makes it a victory of a mecha game.

A new song plays during Skell combat, and it’s…. more verses of Black Tar!! There truly is no escape. The backing has more of an EDM sound to it, and the lyrics are even more laughable than before. “Shoot them with your guns” still gets me every time. And yet, I would be lying if I said I’ve never headbanged to the part about being stuck on a different planet. You learn to love these things.

So that’s Xenoblade X. It’s a weird-ass game, a real triumph but also absolutely the wrong thing for Nintendo to have to put out in 2015. It’s easily the most impressive Wii U exclusive and I’m glad Monolith Soft took this detour. You’d be disappointed in it if you went in with purely the expectation of a mecha game, but as a Xenoblade fan who’s been gradually falling deeper into mecha, it was a great genre blend. Xenoblade X’s servers will shut down next year, and while I didn’t partake in any of that (the multiplayer elements seem fairly minor anyways), it will be the end of an era for sure. Just in time to start fondly reminiscing.

[dragontamer05]

Thoughts / sort of rating of the Yugioh dubs;

DM- Look for all it's flaws, weird edits and censorship over all it's fairly decent. Most of the voices are good, generally speaking the tone and story are still relatively in tact. No episodes were skipped or out right cut, although changes were made.

Are somethings handles better/ make more sense in the orignal form for sure but during a time among a sea of very mixed dubs (and even compared to some of the other series 4kids/4K tried) It's honestly pretty good.

GX- Look while I admit to having some nostalgia for it's just.. not great. The joke meter got turned farther up and while some areas they did manage to keep the tone/ emotion- particularly there's a few good lines of Jaden/Judai from the dub when desperately going after Jesse/Johan

BUt oh boy is it sure just a product of its time with just some of the dialogue feeling very peak 2000s energy. And also a lot more questionable voice choices for characters (some is decent tho)

I'll sooner recommend someone watch the sub first if genuinely interested in the series. But if you've got a bit of nostalgia or just want to have some fun riffing on something it can be a fun watch.

Other majour problem is due to the desire of wanting to get on the next series fast as possible it never got completed and never got s4

5Ds- A mess.

Once again for a lot of the main cast voices are okay but definitely getting worse/more extreme in their attempts to try and hide death / censor or alter things. Whole chunks of it simply was not dubbed at all which I'm sure made pacing weird.

Never actually watched it all but oof. Even if everything else was great just the fact that there is a good chunk that got cut / not translated makes it hard to recommend watching it.

Might be a fun curious watch I guess but probably the dub series with some of the most issues (maybe)

Zexal- Well at least it got completed, like DM did so that's something. Personally kind eh about some of the voices. Astral's is great love it, Yuma is okay but I can understand how it may get annoying for some.

Another one with pretty bad censorship problems that I think even some who's only watched dub could probably figure seem off.

Probably could have ended up a lot worse truth be told but even looking at how DM was handled probably could have been better in places.

Still suggest subs over dub generally but if knowing of the changes doesn't bother you / okay with the voices I mean there's worse out there.

Arc V-

Decent. A clear sign of things to change and improvements. Complete series, still some expected censorship and changes here and there but otherwise fairly faithful to the source. No egregious changes even any allusions to death if altered it's in away that still makes sense / doesn't totally negate it just perhaps stated less overtly or something.

Serious moments often able to be kept serious (compared to some from what I recall just the usage of jokes didn't feel as egregious / bad)

Voicing pretty good over all with only a few characters that make me question the voice direction.

Overall, for sure worth watching it's fun (also there are just some great very quotable lines that got me laughing)

Likely helped in part by being owned by Konami thus I'd assume giving them some control/input on how things go

Vrains-

So good. Voice acting great and just everything was handled well I think.

Once again Complete series, some of the typical changes that are just usual stuff at this point but for a series that can get as dark and serious as it does they handled it pretty well. I think honestly they even have a few lines that just wow.

Like as much as it would be great to have them do a dub where nothing gets changed (say for anything that is typically might happen for any localization- i.e like changing a joke that doesn't work in translation or whatever) I'd say it's pretty darn close and over solid job.

I know some people we kinda eh on that ending/scene in the last episode and I get it, wasn't what was expected or hoped for maybe but I thought it was fine. Far from the worst thing they could have done and it still felt at least fitting/ pretty in character. And if your someone watching only dub I think they still manage to hit and keep the emotion of that scene just doing it in a different way.

Sevens-

As it is, Sevens is a pretty goofy show with big Saturday morning cartoons energy. From the get go it had the makings of what would be a fun dub and they nailed.

Voice choices are so good, continuing on the track of completing series and whatever changes might have been made be it dialogue or what have was nothing that I ever noticed or affected the plot/story in anyway.

Like obviously the script can't/won't be word for word exact but I'm pretty sure more often then not whatever was used or said was pretty close to/equivalent there of whatever was in the original anyway.

It's good, it's fun and silly and I can promise that despite what you may think I'd argue the vast majority of jokes come straight from the Sub itself or at the very least it keeps within the general tone /feeling of something the character would say. Never came across any moment where a joke was used that did feel quite right.

As said as it is Sevens is a pretty silly and fun show even in its original form and the Dub does a great job of keeping the spirit alive and story intact

Sub or dub I strongly recommend watching it anyway. Yes it's animated by a different group- no longer done by Studio Gallop. But honestly it fits and works. I have no idea how much was already planned out before the switch was made or any of the behind the scenes but regardless the art/animation style really fits well the tone of the series - and you can still look at it and go 'that's a yugioh'

Plus after the plot of Vrains ngl kinda nice n fun to have what Sevens brought.

Also look it's time to accept that for as much as it is a series that anyone can enjoy the target demographic IS technically kids / a younger audience (and trying to use this as a means to attract more of that younger audience get them interested)

Go Rush doesn't have a dub yet but I'm hyped and am sure it'll be a blast to.

[mermaidsirennikita]

what do you think about booktok?

Meh. I think that it has pros and cons. I'm not super into it myself, and I've found that while some books hyped there work for me, some really don't. Often, the books that do work for me are books I read a billion years ago, pre BookTok.

Pros:

--trad authors often get a shoestring marketing budget, so low-budget marketing opportunities are important; obvi, self-pub'd authors are entirely self-funded

--more people reading is more people reading; I might wish that they read different things, but tbh that's hypocritical because I was a huge Twilight fan back in the day and everyone wished my teen self read "better books", when I was also reading the classics (some of which I read BECAUSE of Twilight, hello Wuthering Heights) and would eventually develop a much more mature palate, as teen readers tend to when they grow up

--there is something cool about older books getting a new lease on life; it might be annoying, but pre-social media, how common was it for a book to get a huge spike in sales 5+ years after it was published?

Cons:

--I do think that, as with many things TikTok, it's driven heavily by younger, white, often cishet women; of course this isn't the only BookTok voice, but I think this is the BookTok voice publishers will listen to more. This means, for romance at least, the promotion of books they think will appeal to a young, white, cishet female audience. Sorry queer poc, sorry people over 30! This isn't an issue BookTok invented, but it's one BookTok pushes.

--Another issue with that young voice being the only one listened to is that it narrows down the.... scope... of expectations. You see this a lot with Spicy BookTok. The Love Hypothesis, a book I really liked, was promoted as the ~spiciest thing ever~. It has one (admittedly long and good, that's what she said) sex scene. One. I can't help but feel like the 17 year old promoting this as the HOTTEST BOOK EVER may not have a lot of experience in reading hot books! Why would she?

The narrowness of this audience also means there's a morality echo chamber. Smaller BookTokers can promote dark romance, or older "problematic" series like Immortals After Dark, 80s historicals, and escape notice. But if one big BookToker with a morality complex finds them, they can put them on blast and make them out to be a creep, an abuse apologist (lol see: everyone dogpiling on Darklinas on BookTok), whatever. This is an issue on Twitter as well, of course, and it's certainly been an issue HERE, but because BookTok is dominated by a generation that has been trained to perform their morality at the top of their lungs, I think it can be... even more deafening? Like, if someone made a video saying that I'm okay with domestic abuse because I love Kresley Cole's Lothaire, and it got millions of views, it could be? Hard?

... and if that does happen, I spoke it into existence, but I would hope that they're occupied with more recent controversial books. That's the weird thing about BookTok, though. Someone can dredge up a book published in 1987 and go "I CANNOT BELIEEEEVE HOW PROBLEMATIC THIS IS HOW WAS THIS PUBLISHED" and everyone will seal clap in shock like the answer isn't "it was 1987". The format of TikTok just doesn't allow for or prompt a lot of introspection and analysis.

--TikTok is a heavily censored platform. This affects romance novels the most. Dark romance is hard to promote on TikTok (and when it is there's often a shitstorm). But so is... any romance with explicit sex, unless you go along with TikTok's sex-shaming, puritanical guidelines. So we have spice, "seggs", the censorship surrounding discussion of very serious issues like drug addiction, suicide, and so on. It's not just that it sounds stupid. It's that it puts these issues into a secret "taboo" space that I find deeply unhealthy.

That doesn't just affect romance--it affects romance strongly, but imo you can't have a good discussion about a book like Daisy Jones and The Six (a book where drug usage is a focal point) on BookTok.

--I do think BookTok promotes very surface level readings. People want to be a part of something, so they pretend they liked a book they didn't, maybe even pretend to read a book they didn't. It's quite shallow. Not every book needs to be picked apart, but I think that BookTok is less reading and more fandom, but it's being treated by publishers as if it is the voice that should be listened to.

--And that's a huge issue too, which isn't even BookTok's fault but it does MATTER. Publishing and booksellers are letting BookTok dictate, in part, what gets picked up and what gets pushed. It's a homogenous group of people, and we're seeing the effects with the same Colleen Hoover books promoted over and over, the same contemporary romcoms that aren't funny, the same the same the same.

[thatgirlonstage]

irt the richard iii anime, that's a totally fair reaction to have! I must admit that i have absolutely zero knowledge about the play and the history that inspired it, much less about how the play came about and what the intention behind it was. So my ignorance definitely helped with my enjoyment of the anime; it's a lot like enjoying shyamalan's avatar if you've never watched atla. The demographic for the manga and anime is shoujo– and it shows. Some viewers even likened the show to fujoshi bait and i must say i cannot disagree with that assessment. That said, one thing i noticed near the tail end of the show was that the narrative definitely showed how the tudors are sowing seeds of propaganda throughout the kingdom through plays and incitements intended to villainise richard so i think they have that going for them at the very least. Anyway the anime on the whole will most probably not appeal to shakespeare enthusiasts but personally i really enjoyed what they had to offer. Especially the internal struggle of the wants of one's self vs duty. The duality of rejecting and accepting one's inner desires. And above all else, i gotta say i really enjoyed the romance 😂 it was very messy and delicious despite the egregious censorship and questionable animation quality.

Anyway, cheers mate and i hope you're not bothered by my previous recommendation. Hope you have a nice day

Not bothered at all!!! My reservations about the theme of disability aside, it absolutely sounds like my shit and the whole reason I fell in love with Shakespeare in the first place was that they're these stories that you can take and reinvent and make your own and retell in a thousand different ways. I am right at this moment trying so hard to get my hands on a copy of the feral cats Romeo.Juliet movie that the latest Um Actually episode mentioned. Return to the Forbidden Planet is one of my favorite plays I've ever watched in my life lmao it was such a batshit hilarious time. Also one of these days I'm going to finish watching the Romeo x Juliet anime, I was just trying to watch it I think while I was still in college and I kept losing track of what was happening, but I fuckin loved what it was doing.

All of which to say I may very well still decide to check this out! It just pinged concern because I do think there are a handful of Shakespeare plays (Othello, Merchant, RIII, maybe Taming and Measure for Measure as well) that deal very heavily with prejudice and social issues that are still very present and serious issues today (as opposed to like... I think you can do whatever you want with Edmund in Lear because people in modern society mostly aren't shunned for being born out of wedlock anymore, that's not a thing you're going to really offend or hurt anyone with), and as such warrant some extra care in adapting, imo. And even those plays I'm not saying you can never take apart and reassemble into something new and different, just, like any piece of art, it's subject to criticism if you do it poorly. Also, full disclosure, I worked on a production of Richard III fairly recently (our director, a couple of our designers and crew, and a good chunk of our cast all self-identified as disabled), so a lot of conversations about how to approach that play with respect and in a way to open the floor to disabled folks are still very fresh in my mind, which may well have intensified the knee-jerk worry.

Thank you for expanding, and if nothing else I'm so fascinated to know this exists. I always like adding weird and wild Shakespeare adaptations to my repertoire of knowledge.

[thegeminisage]

6, 13, 18?

HI BESTIE ty for asking sorry i didnt do it last night I Went To Bed. lets fuckin go

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

well, look, the obvious answer would be those j*hnlock truthers, and i do hope those tjlc people are having a wretched day rn wherever they are, but ACTUALLY im actually choosing atla for this just to say (sorry) i hate zu//kka SO MUCH. i hate it so much, it's unreal. i don't particularly have beef with the shippers necessarily but i think the concept is so fucking lame. it's a classic case of migratory slash fandom paired with a side of misogyny. the thought process goes like "zuko is rotting holes in my brain > want to ship him with someone > i don't want to ship him with a female character > the only one left is sokka." (even though suki is right there.) aang is out on the basis of being a baby and the rest of the gaang is girls. if you don't like zutara that's fine, but sokka/zuko is the SAME THING with less anger issues and less women. katara is kind of a devisive character to begin with (this is misogyny) but then one time i saw someone deride zutara for being "straight" to reason why shipping zuko with sokka was superior and i have never forgiven it. IT'S THE SAME SHIP. like HOW was this popular enough to PIT ZUKO/SOKKA/SUKI IN THE OT3 SEMIFINAL POLL? hello?? what were they doing there?? suki and zuko speak TWO LINES to one another! god! i guess that's better than using your ship to excuse hating suki but jesus christ it's so transparent just say you hate women and go

13. worst blorboficiation

i'm not doing this one or your other one for spn bc someone else sent in these exact numbers so i am choosing teen wolf. what im gonna say is so controversial but it's actually peter hale and it's not even fanon that did this IT'S CANON. i used to be a big peter fan and then it got completely ruined. ok so peter's whole thing, right, is that he's a deeply horrible person and that kate argent burned every molecule of humanity out of him during the hale fire. okay, got it. fuck yeah. that's rad. SO WHY THEN. IN THE SEASON 3 FLASHBACK EPISODE. WAS HE ACTING EXACTLY THE SAME AS HE DID AS AN ADULT. and this was the one thing that fanon was getting RIGHT. pre-fire versions of peter in fic were wildly different to post-fire versions BECAUSE THAT WAS THE IMPLICATION. peter works perfectly as a villain because his actions are reprehensible but his motives are justified which makes him COMPLEX and with one episode they RUINED IT. it speaks to a larger problem of jeff davis backtracking a lot of stuff that was said or implied in season 1 (such as kate preying on derek when he was underage) for censorship or what the fuck ever. now whenever i see peter in anything the only thing i wanna do is roll my eyes. they made him like him for ten whole minutes in 6A and that was the best it ever got again. sorry to peter hale fans.

18. it’s absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

i won't list my teenwolf rarepair here, but that. oh, wait, actually, my ff13 rarepair. fang & lightning are WAY BETTER than fang & vanille. this on the basis of 1. hot. that section where you can do double commando. sexy. 2. everyone keeps calling vanille a kid and it weirds me out to ship her with someone who calls her that/thinks of her that way 3. lightning/fang is sort of the same dynamic as lightning/snow which i love in a NONROMANTIC way in that lightning is the straight man, very stoic, and fang is so flippant and casual about everything and so open with her emotions that it gets on her nerves until it becomes endearing. and theyre both quite In Charge generally so when lightning is like well every monster is one step closer to rescuing vanille they keep each other going in that same way, out of sheer stubbornness. anyway 10/10 ship dynamic i completely understand and respect fang/vanille fans but i wish fang/lightning got the same amt of attention

[ASK MEME]

[onewomancitadel]

The minors-against-adults in fandom thing is kind of weird because of the following reasons

I don't want to be around teenagers, I was one, it was terrible

The argument against age-inappropriate media (sexual content) being accessible to children in fandom spaces is important, but also the other day I searched up something innocuous and non-fandom related with SafeSearch off on Duckduckgo and I was very scared by what I saw. Talking about responsible use of technology is the responsibility of parents and schools and is a real crisis beyond the scope of fandom

I was sixteen and on AO3 and it took me a while to figure out what 'ratings' were. What happened next will shock you

I think that dismissing teenagers with concern about sexual content online when sexual content is everywhere for a lot of them is short-sighted, because well-meaning teenagers with concerns they don't know how to articulate and troubles they have difficulty navigating is Very Normal For Them, similarly it's not explicitly our responsibility, but also I feel really bad for them. Most teenagers in fandom are going to be worried they will not be allowed to be in fandom when they grow up because TikTok thinks you are an old woman past twenty-five years of age. Sure, not our responsibility, but teenagers are not exactly responsible for the censorship threat or the end of the free Internet and I also think it's important to say that growing up is not bad and ageing is good

I don't know, I think it's an issue that goes beyond your position on what fiction is or isn't okay to read/write, it's actually speaking to a greater crisis socially and politically - and fandom is one of those things you can sort of control the soft politics of.

I can be 'for' or 'against' donation drives to AO3 (that I don't really get - fandom is the cheapest hobby ever, if I donate to AO3 it's not really 'donating' like I would charity, that's just the cover to keep transformative works protected. $5 is how much I'd spend on a pen for drawing, and a cheap one at that. I have used AO3 for years, for free, the same as Tumblr). I can be 'for' or 'against' a Bad Ship or a Bad Sort of Writing. But in the world beyond that, there are things you can't control.

You can't control growing up, you can't control being a teenager (oh that was a bad time for me), you can't control bigotry, you can't control politics, you can't control what you're being told to do with your life, you can't control original sin... on and on it goes lol.

Of course now I'm talking about anti/pro stuff, but that does have a lot to do with age, to be honest. I know, I know, a lot of the pro-stuff I read is basically to the effect of 'do not negotiate with them' but I want to understand where that side is coming from. When there are real book bans coming back it's obviously a weird topic to write about though.

[e-b-reads]

I am actually going to do what I seldom do and add on (not just in tags!) to this post I've seen go around, because I happened to read the article before seeing the headline being shared on tumblr, and I think that people's reactions in the notes are interesting and informative.

If you're interested in reading the article (not just the headline) here is a gift link that I think should work for everyone.

Just to clarify: I do think banning books is bad, and this headline and tweet aren't misleading; there are truly very few people accounting for most book challenges, and this lady does really challenge ~1 book per week, and intends to keep going. The reason I'm adding on is because of replies like above asking (reasonably): "How could you do this?" or in other notes "Does she even read them?" "Would she challenge Shakespeare b/c he might not have been straight?"

If you read the article, you will learn that this lady - who is Buddhist, not a fundamentalist Xtian - challenges books, through her kids' school system, that she thinks have material that is too sexually explicit for kids under 18. She believes that being exposed to sexually explicit material too early makes kids more likely to perform risky sexual behaviors, including making them more vulnerable to sexual predators. She does indeed read every book she challenges, and marks the specific passages and language she has issues with. And though a minority of the books she challenges are books about LGBTQ+ issues/with LGBTQ+ characters, she challenges them again on the basis of sexually explicit material. (We can't really know, from the article, if she has personal issues w/ LGBTQ+ books for any other reasons, but there's nothing to suggest she does.)

None of this summary is to say I agree with her! I think it is flawed to think that exposing kids (especially when you define this as anyone under 18!) to explicit material is necessarily going to harm them in the future. In fact, though she cites a 2020 NIH study in some of her challenges, the Post points out that a 2022 study refutes some of those 2020 findings about the risks of children reading sexually explicit material. I have other reasons for disagreeing with her (some of which are stated by other people in the Post article) but will add only that her reasoning for challenging these books in school districts is mainly that she thinks it should be up to parents what their children are allowed to read, and that whole "it should be up to the parents!" kind of rhetoric is the same kind of argument used for a lot of transphobic school rules (esp. in Virginia, which is where this mom lives).

So why does this matter? Well, it doesn't really, if what you want is a headline to post on tumblr (also a censorship Georg joke, lol) and another reason to post "What is wrong with these people?" to your followers which, again, fair. I am not trying to rebut this post or any responses; sometimes we just need space to feel outraged, and people to feel outraged with us. But! I also think it's important, sometimes, to learn some context. Just as we (queer people, leftists, book-readers...what you will) are not a monolith, but a collection of varying individuals, so are the people we disagree with. It's possible, weird as it seems, that you reading this may have some values in common with the person who this article is about! Even as you disagree with the methods she uses to promote her values. I guess in the end, I don't have a full thesis for this long post, I just think more knowledge and understanding are something we should always strive for, even when understanding doesn't mean agreement.

Censorship Georg

[blepsweirdfandomthoughts]

So I popped onto the ao3 Tumblr and...censorship? On AO3? I have some thoughts.

I've been reading ao3 for around...4, 5 years at this point.

I've seen fluffy stuff, I've seen smutty stuff, I've seen fluffy smut, I've seen things that is cursed beyond all hell.

Do I want to read those dead dove do not eat fics? No. Is the solution then censorship? No.

If I don't want to read a gory/very explicit fic,

1. It is tagged as very gory, explicit, dead dove do not eat, so I skip over it.

2. Just use the tags system on the side to not include any of these fics. It's actually fairly easy to use, once you get over the brief intimidation of all the buttons and search boxes.

Censorship, in some cases, is ok. Bleep out curse words on kids programming. Sure.

But this is a case where censorship goes beyond all the legitimately gory stuff. What do we count as censored material? All the sex? BDSM? Furry? A/B/O? LGBTQ?

Books get banned for the weirdest reasons. 1984 was banned in the US for being communist, while also being banned in the USSR for being too pro American.

And just because a fanfiction has risqué content doesn't automatically mean it's going to be complete crack and shameless smut. Evern if the fics just a giant ball of plotless porn, there are tags for that. I've learned about bdsm, consent, tropes in fiction, and writing itself through ao3 itself better than some books out on the shelves, making ludicrous amounts of money despite them being complete trash. (Lookin at you E.L James)

IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ IT, DONT READ IT.

You're not obligated to read these fics if it makes you uncomfortable. If you want to read it because it makes you happy, go right ahead. If others want to read it because it makes them happy, you have no authority to say that they can't because it makes you uncomfortable.

Furthermore, these fics are a sign of dedication, a labor of love, in a way. Somebody sat down at their computer, laptop, phone, or blackberry, and typed out all of this. FOR FREE. Had it Beta'd perhaps. The amount of time put into these fics is nothing to be scoffed at. To have all this time, these instrumental pieces of humanity, ripped away because one person found it uncomfortable is a bit unfair, isn't it?

Finally remember that fan fiction is FICTION. Pixels on a screen. There are no actors cast. There are no helpless interns abused. The only people abusing themselves are the writers and the betas, screaming as they figure out how to write a sex scene without 3 consecutive uses of the word "member".

The fanfiction community is one where creators and readers come together to gush about the Fandom, characters, and ships they love the most (Still gotta tie it into Sandman somehow bc it's my current fandom- check out Slow Burn by Arahir; fluffiest sh*t I've read in a while.).

Censorship ain't gonna do shit. Prohibition didn't work. Overturning Roe v. Wade won't work (sorry for that political reference, it's a topic I could rant about later). So banning/censoring something so inane like smutty fanfic, is basically like shooting oneself in the foot. We're still going to find a way to write and read it, no matter what the higher ups do. Heck, a site called "collection that belongs to the common public" might pop up with all the smutty fanfics yall want.

Maybe continue working on...porn censorship instead?

So. Yeah.

[nedlittle]

hey! I liked your piece about the twitter spreadsheet. I generally agree with your observations and conclusions but I'm additionally concerned about the internet dogpiling it's received recently—a problem in its own right. were you aware the list was by a 20 year old girl? and that she clarified she's not saying no one should read them/they should be censored; her intentions were more along the lines of awareness-raising.

obviously she's echoing the "ur fave is problematic" tumblr trends, which I agree are an offshoot of puritanism cloaked in pseudo-leftist terminology, and the reasons on her list are mostly dumb and badly-written. but she's also 1 young person doing this (on what she thought was an account with only a few hundred booktwt followers) when i think lovers of books and literature everywhere still have a lot of reckoning to do with the systemic issues in fiction. wish we could've collectively just not given her list oxygen, because now she's gone viral, doubling down, getting harassed, and locking her account, which seems worse than having a 20-year-old social justice performance phase and then just... maturing out of it like a lot of people.

so yes she's wrong, but twitter (+ the rest of the internet) has gotten so outraged about her list when often the same communities don't do enough about very real issues of racism in fiction, or transphobia in fiction, or other minorities expressing their discomfort. it seems to me like she's just become the internet's scapegoat for channeling all the frustration in the air about purity culture's resurgence towards one lone target.

[on a slight tangent, she was not wrong about rainbow rowell—her books contain suuuuuuper weird depictions of mixed-race people to the point that i, a mixed-race asian, have asked friends not to read her. it's absolutely an individual's choice if they still want to, but that doesn't mean it has my enthusiastic approval solely in the name of anti-censorship sentiment. i just think her books are weird, hurtful, and unhelpful.]

originally i was going to delete this since i didn't have the time or energy to engage since it seems like you just want to vent, but y'know what i will dignify this with a response.

1. yes i'm aware of the op's age. i saw the original tweet when it was posted and checked out her account. i would not have cross-posted the spreadsheet let alone written about it were she 14 or 16. that's punching down on a child. op is, by her own metric since her age no longer has 'teen' in it, an adult. at twenty, the vast majority of the population is either involved with higher education or working, both of which require you to move in adult spaces as an adult yourself whether you feel like one or not. op is 20, i am 25; we are on equal footing in this scenario.

2. nowhere in my piece do i say that she directly calls for censorship of books deemed problematic

3. upfront i am not criticizing her for going viral in an internet safety psa way. however, there are means of limiting who can and cannot interact with your tweets even if you have a public facing account.

3.5. the nature of creating something with the intent to 'educate and spread awareness' is that you post it hoping that other people will see it and go 'oh, i should circulate that through my circles so that my friends can also be educated and aware', and then it continues spreading. that's how the transfer of information works, it's unfortunate that it snowballed the way it did because i saw a bunch of big accounts on my timeline being rude about it

4. in my posts here and my piece i specifically obscured her identity to avoid further harassment and dogpiling

4.5. nowhere in my piece do i make any personal attacks on her character. i say her choice of criticisms are "weird", mention the typos (because if you're going to post a call out the least you can do is get people's names right), say the whole thing is well-intentioned but silly, and call her methodology "ridiculous" & critique the spreadsheet as a symptom of the larger trend of tiktok gen z anti-intellectualism

5. "the same communities don't do enough about very real issues of realism in fiction, or transphobia in fiction" this was like....one of my main arguments in the piece, that deplatforming virgina woolf or ayn rand won't do anything (well... deplatforming rand may, if we can get rid of libertarians) but authors like jkr and helen oyeyemi are still doing active harm without widespread reproach. i was glad to see that oyeyemi was even on the list and upset that the transphobia in one of her books was getting sidelined in favour of making fun of the typos. that's something i highlighted in both my piece and a subsequent reblog of the post i made about the spreadsheet.

6. the modus operandi of being like "hello i saw a [tweet/post/video/photo etc] about X, which is an example of issue Y, let's talk abt it' is not something i made up. this is no different than if we were feuding shakespeare scholars duking it out via academic journals

7. nowhere in my piece do i say that she is the only example of the issues i'm talking about. i say that it's part of a larger trend, and it is. the spreadsheet is a very visible example of discussion that i have seen on various social medias, among my own social circles, and regurgitated by published ya authors and grown-ass adults

additionally, this website has several pages dedicated to problematic authors, many of whom also appear on the spreadsheet. the website is correctly spelled, alphabetized, and cited, but also listed tacitus as a code-red problematic author which, like, tacitus's histories and the antisemitism rampant in those histories are integral to the way we study western history and historiography. he was also born in 56 CE. i think he's been cancelled and analysed plenty in 2000 years.

8. tacitus tangent aside, i would like to stress that neither this account nor my twitter, on which i also posted in response to the spreadsheet and which has less than 200 followers, are Big Accounts. there is a world of difference between a blue check journalist writing the same article, with her name and handle left in, and getting a substantial sum for it. the platform i publish most of my writing on pays 1¢ approximately every 12 views. my post popular article has been read about 2000 times and earned $12. thank you for your time goodbye

[fatalism-and-villainy]

@hedvig-ulrika replied to this post:

I resonate with everything here. (Even if I haven’t reached all the parts yet.) And especially with everything about Zhou Zishu. He only started working for me as a character after getting to know the novel him. And definitely about the ending too. And wenzhou in general.

I actually first got endeared to Zhou Zishu while watching the show, during the Tian Chuang storyline. That was some great characterization - his assuredness and control over the situation, but also the façade that he’s put on for so long falling back in place. But I don’t think that arc fits in well with the plot of the novel. And his characterization is a bit inconsistent for me in the adaptation, both in the development of his feelings for Wen Kexing (likely due to censorship and the need for them to become closer faster) and his attitude towards the atrocities he’s committed and towards Wen Kexing’s current morality. (Like, we’ve got him being judgmental towards the collateral damage Wen Kexing causes, but then being perfectly nonchalant about Wen Kexing being the Valley Master, but also being wracked with guilt about the fact that he himself has done murders, which would seem to clash with his acceptance of Wen Kexing... I can see what they were going for, but yeah.) 

Furthermore, in the book he’s just not as concerned with penitence and atonement. He does carry the weight of what he’s done - see his flashback to killing that little Jiang girl - and especially of Jiuxiao admonishing him for what he’s done, but it’s not as central. He just wants to move on. And that’s kind of freeing?

And yes, like you, I also got truly attached to him when I read Qi Ye. He’s so much more ruthless there than what really comes across in the show, and there’s such an interesting through-line between where he is in that book and where he ends up in TYK. He has a lot of power in his former position! He’s not put-upon! But he’s constantly scheming and constantly enacting violence, always having to perform propriety and deference when around powerful people, and one of the only authentic relationships in his life, with Jiuxiao, gets ultimately destroyed... he’s just tired! He wants out! 

And there’s such a fascinating new side of him that gets brought out in TYK, because he’s had this inner gremlin just waiting to come out. Think the part where he says “fuck you” to that guy and is just SO thrilled at getting to be rude without consequences, or the part where he’s facing the Jianghu and is like “wait, why do I need to explain myself to these people? I think I will cause problems on purpose instead.” His entire life has been devoted to honing his skills and intelligence, and expending his abilities to the upmost, and once he’s freed himself from those obligations, there’s a playful and irreverent side to him that just flourishes. 

And then Wen Kexing forcefully elbows his way into Zhou Zishu’s life, and he is, at least seemingly, all gremlin and no filter - the exact thing that Zhou Zishu is so unused to, but that I think he comes to find incredibly refreshing. But Wen Kexing actually has some similar issues to Zhou Zishu going on - different circumstances, and some different emotional needs and neuroses, but there’s some palpable commonalities in the way they’ve both been constrained in some way, and in how (I think) they’ve both primarily experienced sex as transactional or a means of negotiation. And now they’re both trying to eke out some kind of joy from the world that they haven’t been able to experience before, in the limited amount of time each has available, and they find that joy through each other - in each other, yes, but also in a way that expands outward. 

And yes, the ending is wonderful. Another reason I’m so fond of it is that Beiyuan and Wu Xi are so involved in it! There’s something very endearing about Zishu’s weird gay friends being involved in his surgery and subsequent recovery, and I’m very happy that with this ending there can be the possibility of Zhou Zishu actually visiting them in Nanjiang the way he initially wanted to. And with regards to Wenzhou, the ending is very wrapped up in the trust they have in each other, as well as the fact the joy the take in each other is connected to the joy of life and the material world (in contrast to Ye Baiyi’s immortality). It’s very thematically strong, I think. 

[puppy-phum]

pingxie thoughts (and prayers) pt. 3

hello friends and pals and random peepers! it��s been a while again, mostly bc i’ve ended up binging way too many other dramas instead of rewatching ultimate note. but now i’ve watched three more episodes and finally got to one of the scenes that actually made me start this whole damn thing! so please enjoy (or suffer, your pick)!

and ah, as a side note: am very grateful that they have removed the chinese subs from the episodes! expect a ton of new edits from me in the future ^^ 

Xiaoge and the meaning of food

This is a random tiny detail I’ve paid attention to bc of some personal stuff am not going to talk about. It’s just very interesting to watch Xiaoge doing normal, mundane things when he’s been so strictly honed into being something infinitely more. You don’t always come to think about the great Zhang Qiling and his relationship with something as natural as eating.

(placing under cut once again bc this got longer than expected!)

I am especially paying attention to two scenes in this (with a third one on the side as an extra): the moment in episode 9 where Xiaoge finds the extra food Wu Xie left for him, and then the scene in episode 11 where they have survived the night with the snake invasion. As an extra, I also consider the beginning scene of episode 11 where Xiaoge returns and Wu Xie very petulantly offers him the asked food. On all occasions there are some heavy meanings placed on food (and sharing it?), and as someone who always wonders about Xiaoge’s relationship with his own body, I came up with a couple of interesting thoughts.

First of all, I think the whole fandom knows and agrees on Xiaoge being very… dissociative when it comes to his own body. He has been brought up via pain and fighting, he has learned to trust in his own blood as a weapon, has become overly aware of his body’s every function bc he always has to know his condition, and while doing that, he has forgotten how his body feels. He has forgotten how it feels to want to be touched or his boundaries being respected, and bc of this, he has learned to treat his own body as an instrument for survival instead of something to be taken care of or valued.

And here, in walks Wu Xie. Young and naive and very, very physically affectionate Wu Xie (and Pangzi, let’s not forget our resident cuddler). You can see it in TLT1 and 2 when Wu Xie just keeps getting close to ppl and giving shoulder pats to everyone and having no issues with any of that. We see it in Ultimate Note when Wu Xie lets ppl to just cuddle him in his sleep (I keep saying he’s everyone’s chosen body pillow for a reason). The same thing continues in Reboot where we get possibly the cuddliest Wu Xie to date. But that’s not really the point here. The point is – Xiaoge doesn’t have boundaries. No one has ever allowed him to have those. For him, physical touch is mostly violent. No one really treats him as a friend and then we have Wu Xie.

But this post is not about physical touch bc at this point, that is pretty much established. Pingxie are very comfortable with touching each other (for as long as censorship is fine with it too) tho they don’t touch as often or as excessively as Wu Xie and Pangzi for example. For them it’s small bc Wu Xie knows that Xiaoge has never been allowed his boundaries (and especially in Ultimate Note he comes very aware of this after we learn about Ah Kun) and he doesn’t want to force Xiaoge into anything as long as he doesn’t know what he wants. So, physical touch aside, what else are we left with? Xiaoge taking care of himself. And more specifically: eating (bc Xiaoge’s blood obsession is another topic, and I guess we all are aware of his (and Wu Xie’s) issues with that and Xiaoge getting hurt in general).

So, in episode 9 we see this brief moment after Xiaoge has chased after the mud man (his acquaintance, Chen Wenjin) and Wu Xie and the others have inevitably moved on without him, where Xiaoge returns alone to their previous camp. He discovers his backpack and Wu Xie’s note which says: “Xiaoge, we’re off to look for Sanshu. The rainforest is dangerous. Be careful.”. Before reading the note, he’s gone through the supplies left for him. Chen Wenjin points out that there is extra food, and Xiaoge tells her instantly that Wu Xie left it for him. It is implied that it’s an occurring theme in their relationship: Wu Xie leaving Xiaoge some extra food.

From what I know of Asian cultures in general, sharing food, eating together, and making sure that your loved ones have eaten is a big thing. It’s not even limited to proper meals, continuing to simple things like snacks and drinks too. But then we put in the aspect of survival and food being a slowly dwindling resource. Here, Wu Xie has deliberately decided that Xiaoge needs this food more than he himself does. He has, in some sense, decided to go hungry in favor of Xiaoge. It’s like him saying, “Here, take this from mine. Because I know you get hungry too. Because I know you are human in that way too even if you tell me you’re fine.”

In relation to this, I wanted to bring in the “extra” scene I chose, the scene we see in the beginning of episode 11 (which is also probably all of our favorite silly Pingxie scene, right? At least I get a stupid smile on my face every time). In that, Wu Xie is following suspicious footprints to one of the tents. He is expecting a fight (Boy has a damn shovel! He’s ready to whoop ass!) and rushes in – only to find (a very muddy) Xiaoge looking for what other than food. Apparently, his stock has run dry. His only words to a furious Wu Xie are, “Food.” I don’t even blame Wu Xie for instantly melting at that, it’s so sincere.

I think about this scene a lot (for other things than Wu Xie’s adorable crumbled face as he shakes his tiny fists in fury). I wonder, how often does Xiaoge ask for food like this? Bc I somehow can’t believe that it’s often, knowing who he is. Maybe it’s a distraction technique against Wu Xie bc he knows that Wu Xie is worried about him, and what better way to make Wu Xie think about other things than to look miserable while attempting to get food? It’s working perfectly imo. Tho Wu Xie is still asking about things and Xiaoge refuses to answer bc well, he can’t stop Wu Xie from asking. But it’s somehow so funny to me that Xiaoge’s go to tactic for making amends is allowing Wu Xie to take care of him in this very simple and mundane way.

Then finally to the scene I based all of this around. This is a scene at the end-ish of episode 11 where the day has come again after their hellish night of fighting against snakes. Pingxie have crawled out of their shared and collapsed tent to see the mostly destroyed camp. They are eating porridge. Or Wu Xie is eating it bc here’s the deal: Xiaoge isn’t eating at all.

I dunno why on my first watch of Ultimate Note, this was the scene that totally broke me. I didn’t cry before this bc everything managed to be so light with all the humor but then I saw them sitting here and it just opened up a faucet. The moment Panzi asks if Xiaoge is alright (boy was poisoned during the night and Pangzi didn’t even know if Wu Xie succeeded at getting the serum to him, gosh the stress) and Xiaoge doesn’t really answer and then Wu Xie reaches out to squeeze his shoulder like he’s making sure – yeah. That was a lot to take in. Bc then Wu Xie says, “Have some porridge.” And Xiaoge nods and proceeds not to touch his plate.

What I gathered from my thoughts – once I was done sobbing that time and now, after watching this again – is that I’m not sure how often Xiaoge has forgotten to eat. He is going through stuff basically every day. He goes to places where eating isn’t always an option or even a possibility. He has learned to survive, yes, and he knows that food is a necessity for that but how often has he convinced himself that he doesn’t need that either? How often has he just not eaten, especially if there are others around? I must say that I think it’s quite often.

Because, think about it: even here, with his friends, after one hell of a night, he sits with a plate in his hands and doesn’t even touch the porridge on it. He acknowledges that he has food at all only after Wu Xie has told him to eat. Wu Xie looks so worried while saying that (and his shoulder squeeze before this seems like he’s noticing how skinny Xiaoge is). And I don’t really know how to put this into words but I just feel like Xiaoge needs guiding with his eating habits? He has eaten whatever or nothing at all for so long that it just. Isn’t a habit anymore. Food feels foreign to him. Enjoying food feels even more foreign. Regarding food as something he, too, needs, instead of allowing others to take it as they are more human than he is – that’s something he needs to learn again. And I dunno how it’s going but Wu Xie and Pangzi are doing their utmost best.

So, yeah. Food is a weird thing. I dunno how any of this really came out but my point is: Xiaoge has disconnected from his own body in so many ways and so deeply that even these basic human things sometimes feel foreign to him. And only in relation to Wu Xie (and Pangzi), he’s finally recognizing that. That is probably also why they work so well, why Wu Xie becomes so important to him. Why Wu Xie, as someone who tries to bring out Xiaoge’s humanity, works so well bc he’s so thorough in showing that. His attempts at convincing Xiaoge of him being human don’t stop at him trying to show that Xiaoge is a good man but go deeper, into these very basic, instinctual things like touch and rest and eating which Xiaoge has also forgotten bc he’s not been allowed to be.

[crossdressingdeath]

to continue off of the anon talking about jc stans downplaying jc’s canon homophobia, i wonder if it’s partly because they view the homophobia present in the plot and in character behavior as a flaw of the novel rather than an integral part of the romantic conflict and character motivation

like, i’ve seen plenty of takes in this fandom around the idea that cql is ‘better’ because its world exists without homophobia (which they never acknowledge is because of censorship 😬). i’ve even seen people pass around edited versions of the translation “without the homophobia” as if removing those scenes doesn’t actually affect anything at all in the story and in our understanding of the characters.

i don’t think all jc stans or only jc stans have this take but law of large numbers there is definitely some overlap and i really think these attitudes contribute to each other. a person already predisposed to ignore the flaws of jc also gets it into their head that his homophobia isn’t even his flaw but the author’s. just another instance of horrible mxtx showing her biases :///. then they absorb this weird idea that jc’s flaws are actually a result of bias from the author and that jc himself (as if he is anything more than a literal construct made by the person they are determined to dislike) is a victim of her just truly awful thoughts :////////

Yes! It’s a big problem, where people fail to realise that a work containing something is not the same as that work supporting something. Personally I suspect that with MDZS in particular the issue is that the people making this argument have come to the conclusion that JC is the “hero” and so always right and correct; if JC is always Right And Just in the narrative and JC is homophobic, clearly we’re supposed to conclude that homophobia is Right And Just! This is, of course, incredibly stupid, but here we are. And as you say alternately they’ve decided that JC’s homophobia isn’t his flaw, it’s the author’s, because there’s no way an author could give a character a belief they don’t share or anything. There are of course other explanations for why people would hate the canon gay couple and stan the only openly, violently homophobic character who doesn’t learn better by the end of the novel while calling him their “homophobic gay king” and insisting he’s the only good gay rep, but... well, let’s not get into that.

With CQL in particular it’s... almost funny, because the subtext makes it very clear that unlike in the novel (where LWJ is punished for, y’know, treason) CQL’s LWJ is beaten for... having feelings for WWX. Meaning homophobia is in fact real and present in CQL’s universe. In fact it’s more present, even with the removal of all textual gay content meaning that all textual homophobia is also cut; remember that the Lan sect canonically isn’t homophobic, or at least is not-homophobic enough to take zero issue with their heir marrying a man beyond “Wangji why that one”. Meanwhile in CQL they’re straight-up beating him for it! And yet CQL has no homophobia in its setting? What, because it changes it so that JGY just accused MXY of harassing QS instead of going for the triple whammy of harassing his married half-brother? Because JC doesn’t outright call WWX disgusting for hugging a man? That is not how it works. Cutting the gay from everything except subtext is not the same as the setting not being homophobic!

People really do fail to realise that... the antagonists being homophobic or using homophobia to achieve their ends isn’t the same as saying that that’s a good thing? Yes, the MDZS universe contains homophobia, and it’s fine to not really enjoy a work that contains homophobia at all. But it never appears as a lasting trait in characters we’re supposed to root for, and when it appears at all in those characters it going away is an important part of their development. See JL; him going from being disgusted by WWX’s flirting with LWJ to demanding that if WWX is going to be Like That he should at least stay loyal to LWJ to just grumbling a bit over seeing his uncle being lovey-dovey is basically giving us a clear metric for his growth as a character! Honestly I’d take a work where homophobia exists in the setting but it’s clearly set up as a negative trait that only shows up in the heroes as something they need to grow out of over a work where homophobia supposedly doesn’t exist but people still seem weirded out or disgusted by gay relationships any day.

[genaleah]

ANSWERING WILDCARD QUESTIONS

For the first time in about a year maybe??? Some of these might be even older than that.

Yes, it is Korka! I definitely want her involved, she’s a wonderful character and there is a *lot* of fun paranormal stuff going on in this setting that she can help them research. Also, I’d just love for her and Nelson to become friends!

Thank you! I love him a lot, and it’s fun to picture him interacting with the other guys. They’d all make for some interesting uncle figures, but they might not be that great in terms of role models.

OHOHO. Devilish laugh. That’s a wonderful idea, and a good way to keep him occupied at some point. He’s a great character, but he’s incredibly powerful, and I want these dudes to solve their own problems whenever possible. 

A good question! I don’t remember most of my dreams, but there’s usually a consistent look to the vivid ones. Lots of water, mountains, creeks, and high, winding roads. There are also a lot of buildings that are closely integrated with nature, even though I have almost never seen construction like that. 

I had not, but now I have! Here’s a trailer, for anyone else that missed it:

https://youtu.be/33HXHaaagsw

I really like these new models! I’m looking forward to watching a playthrough when that’s available. Just like with Rhombus of Ruin, I don’t think I’ll be able to play this one myself.

DOUBLE FINE, I WISH TO SPEAK WITH YOU- no, I’m kidding! I think great minds think alike. But I’m really excited to learn more about that character and possibly involve them in this whole au eventually. 

I’ve actually tried to avoid almost any info about Psychonauts 2 so I can go in mostly-blind, and a lot of the characters are vague to me. It’s fun to look forward to, but it’s also a little harrowing because I don’t know how to anticipate for it!

N...NO..... I NEED TO... Honestly those are old enough that it might be a good idea for me to re-make them, as well as the playing cards I made for the mega playlist cover. I think it’d be nice to remake them as vectors... that might make for a nice art stream sometime. I’ll mention publicly if I start doing that, and sharing any of these conceptual Wildcards arts when they’re done. 

And if you’re just curious about what the tarot cards for the other characters are going to be, it’s this:

Eddie: Judgement, The Magician, The Emperor

Manny: Death, Justice, The World

Sam: The Chariot, The Tower, Strength

Max: The Devil, Wheel of Fortune, Joker

Although! I may actually give the Moon card to Max instead of the Devil, and replace the missing card from Nelson’s selection with the High Priestess?  🤔  I’ll decide when I get to it.

Could be! I’ve flip-flopped occasionally on if I want the split-a-cab gang to participate much in the story. I think they deserve a break, and splitting an apartment in New York seems like a good situation for the four of them.

Oh boy, that must be so disorienting for him. The Psychonauts deal with a lot of hippy-dippy weirdness in a seemingly organized way, but it seems like they’re not as paranoid about safety as a real federal organization would be. Not necessarily a good thing, considering one of their camp counselors went AWOL one day, and the head of the Psychonauts got kidnapped the next. They kinda need to get their act together.

Fun fact, in one of the earlier drafts of Chapter 3 I was actually going to make Nelson get scanned by the equivalent of a metal-detector for malevolent thoughts at the door and get really spooked by it, but I decided against it.

YEAH IT’S ON THE LIST

Honestly, a big bulk of the plot in this just regards characters having to face their mental health struggles... via facing it as literal internal demons, unstable powers, etc.  It’s going to take a little while for any of Eddie’s teammates to realize how MUCH he has going on under the surface because he does a pretty good job of hiding it. “Needing to help others above ever helping themselves” is a hard issue to notice if you’re not looking for it. But it’s a guarantee that once they find out he needs help, they’ll give it; whether that’s making sure he’s not working himself too hard, or fighting off demonic cultists. Care comes in many forms.

SHE NEEDS TO REST.... POOR SYBIL (on the upside, they don’t TECHNICALLY work there, so she might be fine most of the time.)

Strong Bad isn’t a Psychonaut! He’s just a vlogger and a petty (psychic) criminal. It’s honestly not very different from canon.

Free Country, USA is a smalltown hotbed of psychic activity. Nearly everyone there has some mild capacity for supernatural powers, but nobody really notices or cares. Strong Bad just pops the tops off of cold ones and.... sometimes alters reality, a tiny bit. But mostly just in regards to media. The cartoons, comics, etc, that he invents and talks about have a tendency to suddenly voip into existence and nobody knows how. I swear, there’s actually a line of him saying something to this effect, but I can’t find it anywhere.  Don’t worry about it! Nobody in town is ever going to do anything truly nefarious with their powers, so it’s not a high priority on the Psychonauts’ radar, just a weird footnote.

The only reason Homestar is an actual agent is because he seems like exactly the kind of guy to sign up for a job like that on accident and then stick with it. And he’s a talented telekinetic! None of his other friends know about his job or notice his absences.

And just for fun, here’s some weird instances of psychic overpowering that happened in the cartoon:

---

(Poor Strong Sad)

I’ve actually answered this one before! BAM  Pretty sure all of it is still accurate.

Nelson: He sees floating sheets of paper containing notes, questions, etc. Anything that he wants to know more about regarding that person. The notes are subject to edits, cross-outs, ripped pages, etc.

Guybrush: He sees the item that the person is carrying that he wants most. As he gets to know people better, he sees them for their useful skills first.

Manny: His view of most living people is not very kind...

The people he’s closest to will eventually look a lot less garish. More like a flattering, camera-ready versions of themselves.

Eddie: Sickass sketch drawings that look like they belong in the margins of a composition book. The illustrations improve as he gets a better picture of where they’d fit in the internal lore of his mental world.

Sam: A lot like Nelson; Sam pictures case files, though his are a bit more in-depth.

Max: Max’s visions of people are highly personal and uncomfortable for those who witness them. He sees Nelson as a puzzle with a piece missing. Guybrush is a ripped up voodoo doll. Manny is a forgotten ofrenda. Eddie is a powder keg with a long, lit fuse. Sam is Sam, but he’s the wrong one.

I also got two questions that were pretty big subjects, or that I didn’t want to repeat, so I’m gonna cover them pretty broadly:

REGARDING [X] CHARACTER OR SERIES INCLUDED IN THE AU

Sure, I support it! I’ve gotten this question a few times in regards to things that I haven’t had time to delve into yet, or I’m not interested in, so I’m not going to include it into the AU myself. But if you want to explore an idea like that, feel free! This AU is pretty dang collaborative.

My main focus is just on the main 6 properties: Psychonauts, Puzzle Agent, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Brutal Legend, and Sam & Max.

But my general rule of thumb for “characters that exist somewhere within the background of this story” are any other properties owned by Telltale, Lucasarts, or Double Fine. And considering all of the licensed games that Telltale was getting into before it kicked the bucket, that includes some really weird characters, even up to the Venture Bros. I loved that series, but I’m not really interested in doing anything with them for this story! Partly for my sanity, the canon I’ve picked are already a lot of content to play with. 

ASSORTED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WILDCARD AU DISCORD

There’s no particular criteria needed to join the discord, and it’s not strictly on a need-to-know basis! Because it’s been a long while since anyone has joined, I've been hesitant about adding new people in... But I‘ve decided to try sending invitations again! Everyone who had asked about it in the past will be getting a ping by me in about a day or so, since I want to double-check if you’re still interested. If you’ve been nervous to ask you can reply to this post or message me privately.

Some things to keep in mind before asking or accepting the invite:

If you’re not a friend or a follower I recognize, I will likely double-check your tumblr along with some other current members before sending the invite. 

Here’s the Rules page, so you know what to expect before you join: 

Be Mindful - Respect other people's boundaries, don't do or say things that would cross the line. If your behavior makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, I will remove you from the chat. In most cases I will try to resolve things with you and offer a chance to do better, but that will depend on the severity of the situation. And if you have any concerns regarding another member of the chat, you can contact me privately.

Health Boundaries - While discussions of mental health do occasionally pop up, do not rely on the chat for help. None of us are equipped to handle serious mental health concerns, and it will only cause distress for everyone. Please seek real help if it is needed! If you rely on people beyond the point that they have asked you to stop, I will remove you from the chat.

NSFW - Generally speaking, try to keep NSFW talk to a minimum. Swearing and humor is fine, but don't get too explicit please! Discussions should usually keep to a PG-13 / occasional R, but no NC-17.

Spoilers & Censorship - Please use the spoiler function to hide story spoilers, as well as discussions and graphic depictions of gore/excessive blood/body horror/severe psychological horror. Include a content warning so that people know what they could potentially be seeing when they click on the censored content. If the spoilered content is the subject of a back-and-forth discussion, please use another warning when you are switching to a different spoilered topic. (Note that these rules were added to the chat later, so be careful when using the search function or back reading.)

The canon series involved with the Wildcard AU are Psychonauts, Puzzle Agent, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Brutal Legend, and Sam & Max. Please be mindful of story spoilers!

Channel Organization - Also be mindful of which channel you're in and move a discussion over if need be! That way they don't get too clogged with unrelated info.

Creative Criticism - When it comes to writing, art, or character creation; try to be open to suggestions from others! Nearly all of the creative work in the chat is collaborative, so input from others is important! Creative criticism is not the same as judgement, and is not a personal attack.

Have fun! - Discussions move quickly in this chat! Don't feel bad if you ever need to step back, whether it's because of the speed or a disinterest in whatever current topic we're focusing on. If you ever want to come back, we're happy to have you and can give quick explanations if you feel out of the loop! :thumbsup:

We’re a group of approx. a half dozen to a dozen people, either posting very very quickly in a span of a few hours or barely anything for a few days. We’ve been in an activity uptick lately and there’s about a year and half of back content, too. If it’s hard to keep up on, not that interesting to read through, or you just have a hard time gelling with the group that's already there, there’s no shame in just lurking or dipping out if you need to.

We also talk a lot about Psychonauts OCs, so anticipate that.

[life-rewritten]

WHAT I WANT FROM BLS IN 2021 AKA A LOOK AND DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW TO IMPROVE THE BL GENRE

Hi, Hello; Bls have become incredibly saturated and growing each day, every single day we hear about new projects, new ideas, latest trailers, and it's been so great to see how BL has changed from 2015 to now. It's been a positive upward trajectory; however, again, we have to mention that it's being overfilled and not always with good shows. From the six or more countries that fight to get our energy and time to watch their shows, movies and animations, to the low budget, lazy plots that don't need to be written, Bl can sometimes be a phenomenal experience and incredible stories that make us cry and feel and learn or it can be this flop with no message, no structured plot, stiff acting and more. Am I being harsh? Should we just be okay with the fact there are more BL shows now to binge and to watch? Should we just settle for these bad stories just because there's nothing else available? I don't think so, I think with shows like ITSAY, Cherry Magic, GAYA SA, Bls have the potential to be so prominent, so unique and even beat out other heterosexual shows. So I am here to make a list of what I would like to see in 2021 with these new BL shows. Because it's quality, not quantity we want, we want better stories, better characters, better developments, just better. If we can be better, we can take over a lot of media, and there'd be more representation, education and more for the voices that want to be represented through BLs. Okay so without further or do let's get into it; 

The problem with Skinship

Now I hate to be the one that has to mention this issue, because sometimes in BLs this is not an issue; in fact sometimes some shows have too many kisses/skin ship, that end up making fans bored and frustrated with how much screen time is not being used to tell a great plot. But for me, since I started this journey into this genre, kissing has always been an issue with forced censorship that makes no sense, and stiff actors that clearly aren't comfortable with doing that. To couples that are meant to be so devoted and in love they resort to acting like buddies who can't touch each other to cut scenes and weird camera angles for a scene. Skinship isn't always needed but when a couple is meant to be obsessed with each other or addicted to thinking about touching the other, or there's a build-up of longing, and they're a long term relationship,  passionate couples kissing makes it more believable to me. What's up with this pattern of BLS avoiding kisses; please stop it's irksome I know I sound like a fujoshi but those couples that do this make me want to throw something because they're not believable no matter how much they scream from the top of their lungs,  that they love being with each other, or are attracted to each other, the lack of skinship just makes me get annoyed by it all. I also love shows like Cherry Magic where it's a softer relationship but teasing kisses and then like hiding behind an elevator for the main couple, not cool.

 I'm not going to make it a big deal, but I did feel somehow cheated at the finale of the show because one, in the manga this is not a problem, there is a lot of kisses with Adachi and Kurosawa, two, why would the second lead couple get a kiss scene but then when it comes to the main it's hidden behind an elevator, it's such a cheap way to censor it in my opinion especially since we've been teased about these two's kiss since episode 2/3. I don't need to see Adachi losing his virginity or whatnot, but I was disappointed when the elevator scene happened I was like but why it could have just been a cute kiss scene on the roof. It didn't need to be so covered and hidden. Make it make sense.  

So I don't particularly appreciate being teased by stuff like this, because it's not a sin for two people to show they care about each other like an average couple and kiss. It doesn't make the show not tasteful, or too crass, it just means that the couple are attracted to each other. I don't know, maybe it's just me, perhaps I am a fujoshi, and this is bothering me. But it's seriously to me more than that; there are some shows where this isn't a problem, where we don't need kisses and all that, but there are some where it feels so hypocritical and odd to censor a kiss like it's a sin or something. And with these shows (2gether for example)  it doesn't sit well with me, it really doesn't.  Just my opinion

The Issue With Side couples. 

Side couples need to add something to the show's plot or be balanced: there's the saying too much or too little. And with BLs I have found that the screen time of side couples can ruin or elevate a show. If you can't write a well thought out plot for extra couples, then don't add them. Normally some side couples are written powerfully and interesting as the central couple like Tin and Can from LBC or KingRam from My engineer etc., other times side couples just steal screen time for no reason, we could be using that time to make the other main couple stronger and it would be fine. Not in every BL show, that every single person have to turn out gay in the show, it's not by force. What side couples should do in a show, is add to the structured plot, give information/exposition about the world of the show, the ideas of the show, the themes of the show, they should be just as 3dimensional, just as important and fleshed out as the other characters are otherwise there's no need for them. 

Why R U, for example, had great bases for every side couple but failed due to rushed editing, lazy directing and more to make use of them. At the end of the day, the confusion with the side couples ruined the show and made everyone feel frustrated and tired by how the show was done because it felt unsatisfactory for the other plots of the side couples. An example where a side couple was done right in terms of plot but also didn't have enough coverage was TharnType season 1 with Tum and Tar, their plot was fantastic, essential and necessary to the storyline and it made sense. However, it still left a weird empty feeling because their relationship was still confusing, in LBC 2 we were meant to sort that out and Love by Chance 2 was one of the worst ways side couples are done. 

They used them for product placement (same as TharnType 7 years). Their stories were just repeating the same things we've already seen before, with no effort, no energy, and no direction given to the actors who were working hard to portray these roles. It's frustrating when side couples could be just as great in the show, but they're ruined by bad writing. 

Either have side couples with depth and storytelling that is good or don't add them at all. An example of a show without a side couple is Gaya Sa Pelikula and ITSAY. And you didn't see us moaning or crying about the lack of side couples instead it was praised because every side character had a purpose, a story of their own to tell, and depth to their characters that was needed to get us to the rest of the plot. Everyone had their own important role in the plot, and it was brilliant. So you don't need a show with many couples, you can just focus on one, or if you do have many storylines for couples, please just make it worthwhile. Please? 2021? I'm begging

More unique BLS: 

When we think about plot lines for BLs, we tend to especially in Thailand have one thing in mind which is engineering, medical students, university angst and guys in white t-shirts playing the same role over and over and over again. Don't forget the sotus gear being a symbol of their heart. I find it funny because I don't have a problem with this; if the storyline is unique/addicting enough for me to not focus on the fact it's a university plot. For example, Theory of love, but it is funny that for a very long time BLs have been focused on one type of setting; the university. We had other BLs that came from China, and Taiwan and others that weren't always based on this setting, especially China which has fantasy and more but those ended up being sad, censored or ruined. 

This is the problem. Luckily in 2020/2019, Bls started to want to be different, with new stories based on mafia-like worlds like Trapped, with supernatural storylines like He's coming to me, with the introduction of Korean BLs and Philippine BLs, we're starting to see different tropes soulmate aus, paranormal, fantasy, action, adventure etc. And 2021 already has a line up where most of the storylines veer from this engineering university plot. It's exciting. To think every country is trying to move away from student/ university storylines or give them more depth and change the normal tropes and ideas with them is so exciting and needed. I still love these tropes, but less is more, and a unique plot is even more because it shows BL can be more than just stories, can have depth, can have different versions, and can reach out to a new audience, to other tastes etc. It's been changing, and in 2021 I can't wait to see these new stories come to life. 

It’s Quality not Quantity : 

This is so important, bls are becoming saturated as happy as this makes me; it also suffocated me with bad shows not worth the praise of effort and energy and these aren't put into some shows. In 2020 we got shows like ITSAY where the producers, actors and directors fought and worked so hard to make it happen, they went through obstacles, struggled with days, they pushed through just to make sure ITSAY was created to the best of its ability. This was so incredible, and it made me almost tear up each time I watched the documentaries about how ITSAY came to life.  

Shows like ITSAY and Gaya Sa again that have directors and producers with fixed goals of trying to make a BL show more than just a typical low budget show, putting all their effort, time and ideas to make this mean something is so incredible, so excellent, words can't explain the masterpieces that are created from people who take what they're doing with this genre seriously. And for a long time, we've struggled for people to take this genre seriously, to put in effort and energy to ensure that the story they're telling makes sense, and is done well. 

I'm always harsh because you know sometimes the things needed to make something high quality isn't always available. Some people are genuinely putting everything they can into shows. However I feel like you can tell which shows do that, you can tell when a show is doing all it can to be as great as it possibly could be, for example, the History series; it's a low budget, but it's brilliant, some shows like Love By chance season 2 yes I'm going to keep on calling out this mess, you can tell did not try at all with what they were given, it was a lazy attempt just to feed fan girls and make money. And the thing about things like that is that it's just insulting, to the fans who waited with anticipation only to see the sequel come to life, to the actors who put in the effort and tried to make it be something, it's just disappointing.

 I'm sorry, but like in 2021, we don't want a repeat of that. If you don't want to put in the effort and make something that is high quality despite the low funds or whatever then don't make a show. Other shows are being made and you won't be missed.  Luckily 2021 seems like we will be getting shows of better quality, GMMTV appears like they've invested a lot this year into making BLs be more, we have the incredible Filmania KinnPorsche that is just outstanding for just a 10-minute pilot teaser, we have new channels with budgets and research ready to make new shows like Channel 3, and we have China with new directors wanting to make more danmei donghuas (with incredible quality like TGCF, with excellent live actions like the Untamed) and we have more countries just making good stories and good productions with all they have. So yeah I'm excited to see what shows will be created with this type of energy in 2021.

Let’s make it more risky

So already discussed about unique plotlines and better quality. But one thing as well in the same category as all of these suggestions is BLs being riskier. There are times where BLs try and go overboard and take risks to do new stories that make people uncomfortable, or agitated like Friendzone but the thing is I live for these storylines because it's not just fluffy or tropey stories that are based on novels that need to be told. BL can be so much more. Sometimes bls are stale, and sometimes they try to do riskier messier stories with more depth. And for example, with a company like GMMTV where they have sources and sources of stories they can tell that can be riskier and be different to the pattern they usually follow, we can get such great plots and tales based on new ideas.  I want to see a show like the gifted with bl plotline, the shipper season 2, focused on WayKim,  things without using a book adaptation and without basic plots we needed to settle for. GMMTV is trying to do that now with Not Me coming soon and shows like Friendzone, Baker Boys etc. But I want more riskier stories. Again so that BLs are more than just what they're known for, the same tropes all over and over again, the same ideas and plotlines, but new screenwriters, unique stories not based on books or what's already been made, just new ideas. That's one thing that will pave new ways for BL. Like Give us a historical Thai BL, give us a sageuk Korean show, give us time travelling. I don't know just new ideas, sci-fi, new genres, more psychological thrillers. It could be anything, and it would be so fantastic. Let's see what 2021 offers. 

Let's keep with the PC Energy; 

Shows are being called out for unnecessary toxicity, sexism, bad females that don't get the point that they're beards, problems with non-consent; these need to stop in 2021. I'm not saying we can't have shows that talk about the results and consequences of these kinds of issues, because I find it fascinating when shows take a risk and mention that, like TharnType, but it is 2021 , a new decade, we really need to stop having shows that romanticise topics that aren't okay, emotionally abusive relationships should be seen as emotionally abusive and not praised, character toxicity needs to be called out and shown as that, not as a typical bad boy who needs to be saved trope etc. I don't want to get rid of angsty haters to lovers or flawed characters that need to grow; because those stories are so exciting to watch, and analyse, but don't just add trauma for no reason and not take it seriously, don't just make characters do things without making sure the audience knows this isn't okay. We're getting better, and we're getting more healthier relationships, tropes and conversations, but there's more work to be done in some shows in 2021. Some shows like the shipper in 2020 that had predatory behaviour, incest  (not dealt with properly) which felt like a flashback to the past. 

Longer BLS:

Looking at you Korea, don't mess around you literally can have this genre in your hand,s if you make a worthy production like a typical kdrama it doesn't have to be 16 episodes. Ten is fine, even just 30 minute per episode is okay with us. If you just add more minutes and more depth to the stories, so there are more character flesh outs and more chances for your stories to be developed and not rushed. Then Korean BL will literally take over everything.  There's nothing else to really say, Korea has fantastic plot lines, intriguing characters, fun storylines that make you addicted. Yet, it always feels unsatisfactory and annoying because it's just 10-15 minutes per episode. Make it make sense. I mean there are reasons for it because of budget, and lack of mainstream support but I still think we can just focus on one show, with all the money and effort from the other shows add it to one show, make it long, make it big and create a masterpiece and it will explode. The potential is there, plus with Channels like Channel 3 in Thailand, Bls are really starting to be one hour long and have like 16 or more episodes. That's been a fun journey. But Korea, please join this energy and make more shows that are longer and better. Please??

China it's enough: 

I'm being serious; I don't know how we'll ever pass this problem, but TGCF tried to, and I can see many companies are trying to find a way to overcome this. I know with China it's not fair to demand this it's not a full representation of the Chinese culture or whatever,  but it's irksome; there's a lot of shows that can take our breaths all away in China, so many great shows so please stop ruining that. I'm tired of the PTSD of the shows potentials we lost (The guardian)  because of censorship and other issues, sad forced endings, cutting scenes and deleting episodes like it needs to stop in 2021. Because now, don't pretend that the success of BLs isn't making money and causing the Chinese industry to make more shows like these. But this is my wishful thinking like I said I don't fault writers for trying to be careful with laws, but it is incredibly frustrating when you have a country with the best creativity, storylines, acting etc., and it's ruined by censorship. Let's hope 2021 finds a way to get around this. 

Let the BL animation rain; 2020 saw a remarkable rise to danmei donguas! I'm talking MXTX universe with scum villain, TGCF, Mo dao zu shi and more, so let's keep that energy; what I love about danmei is how unique the plots are we can have transmigration, fantasy, supernatural, mafia etc. it never ends, these stories are incredible, the quality of the animations are so excellent, and the love of the characters always get me. We just need to see more come to life. 

The Brilliance of Meta; 

With ITSAY and Gaya SA and Cherry Magic taking over 2020, meta in BLS have been delicious to watch and analyse, and I want more. This is such a selfish ask, but what can I say, I live for shows filled with meta, with depth, with analysis, with characters that are not just one way on the surface but they tell a different story in subtext. I live for clues, and evidence, and production choices, hidden facial gestures, and objects with meanings;  more symbolisms, more foreshadowings, more dramatic ironies, more character dynamics, more use or other literature/media as bases for the story (like Theory of Love with Flipped and movies). I live for this. It makes a show so much more special and exciting when we're part of the journey; it gives something to do other than just watch the story unfold, we can predict, we can guess, we can analyse, we can just be part of the world of the story and fully understand the message that the writer is trying to tell us. Give us something to look for; clues to watch for, to see where the story is going. Change my mind.  For example with Cherry Magic, the fact that it was already precious and made us smile, was even more enhanced by how relatable it was with the meta, the pain, and the struggles the characters went through was so fascinating to analyse and read into and relate to. That's what I want from more BLs, like it's incredible when any kind of show has meta. I think it's one of the best signs of a great writer and production team. 

More Dimensional Characters; 

Especially villains, we don't want  stale girlfriends who know they're a beard but refuses to let go, we don't want the stale homophobic parent all the time, we don't want the bullies that always try to out people. Give me villains with revenge that makes me question who's in the wrong, reformed villains who become love interests, powerful villains we can't help but hate, but we also love, shocking villains with plot twists we can't see coming (like Lhong from TharnType). Give me depth give me angst, give me plot.

 Villains can make or break a show, they can make the show so exciting and thrilling to watch like we want to see them be discovered or end up where they deserve to go, we like feeling bad for people, and getting to see another side of a villain, we enjoy seeing villains that are different from what we initially thought about them. We like deep villains; we don't always need the same villain, like give us unique ones, give us interesting, weird ones, give us conflicting ones that make us side with them. I want that. Example of a show where there's no actual villain, but they all act like it, is Friendzone and it's so incredible to watch and see how these characters behave, grow, regress etc. I want more characters like this, real, human and makes mistakes. I want more flawed characters with deeper reasons for why they're the way they are. It makes a show very addicting to watch. Maybe that's just me.

The problem with streaming services, YouTube and international fans;

  It's weird international fans need to be taken seriously,  international fans are part of your shows rise to fame, more fame, more success , more projects can be made, and more bls can be seen. Some shows in 2020 lost their chance to shine because of the streaming issues (My engineer), subtitle issues and more. Please stop, please take this into account; try harder, there is always someone internationally willing to help translate or help. Just let us know. Putting shows on Aisplay without subs when you can find a contract that enables you to do so, is a bad move. It's just making you lose because international fans will always find an alternative source to spite you. Like it makes no sense to me, if in 2021 we're still struggling with subs, and where to watch a BL show. It makes no sense because 2020 showed that international fans could break or make a show (2gether) and as much it's privileged for me to say this, international fans should be respected and taken seriously. Luckily Channel 3, GMMTV and others are starting to put more effort into recognising international fans. Finally thank you. Let's see if we improve in 2021. 

This has been a fun rant and discussion to write. I sound so spoilt, and annoying complaining about each of these minor issues, but it really does mean a lot when a BL show tries hard to make their show worth it. Like it might seem like a small issue, with like the skinship, censorship, meta, saturated stories etc., but if BLs just stop focusing on the genre and what other people think this genre should be if people stop focusing on BLs as just BLs and see it as stories of love and representation and more, BLs can be incredible, they can be better than other dramas out there with better budgets, and mainstream support, they can have meaning, and create incredible, incredible one a kind stories. I just want that so badly for this genre. Like I don't want BLs to be seen as just the same tropes, and same issues, and same ideas that we had about them in 2015, we want growth and improvement and effort, this is not just for weird rabid fangirls only, this can be more, it can be for representation, education, for entertainment, and it can be for more people and cause a shift in the media in the world. It really can one day become just as big as many other versions of media like the world of kpop, kdramas etc. in the world.  I don't know, that's what I've always thought it could be. And if that happens, it'll be just a great thing. Anyway Let's defeat 2020, we need to keep this upwards trajectory going, and from the shows coming in 2021, I think it's possible. 

[aretheyaterf]

um. i'm not the person you tagged about the situation, but--i will say that, things you like to read and consume don't denotate that you yourself are a bad person, and that someone's kinks also don't define their morality. a lot of people indulge in kinks as a form of self-therapy--and as someone who's part of that community, it works wonders to help work through trauma. i don't think that the very legitimate good that saint-dionysus is doing should be sullied by what he consumes fictionally, and i don't think his kinks should define him. as for the omegaverse stuff--i have seen MANY aboriginal people say that so long as it is all-capsed (ABO) or has slashed (A/B/O) it is clearly an acronym and not a slur, and that's a slur that people outside of australia do not know and do not use, hence why it became the shorthand for the fic trope anyway. i think that decrying him a racist for saying "it's an acronym" is unfair, especially when he himself is a black man. i also agree with the screenshot in his callout post which says "please do not force other people to look at extreme kinks in a callout post; my sexual ideas are none of their business". none of this--and i am saying this as a trans person who has been assaulted--NONE of this makes him a bad person. none of those kinks. a lot of trans people explore detransition as a degradation kink, a lot of trans men identified as lesbians before they were trans men and explored orientation play at that time to cope with trauma, a lot of assault victims are into r*pe play to reframe that experience as something they consented to and can safeword out of. i think that callout post was misguided at best and malicious because OP just doesn't like SD at worst. i'm gonna keep talking about transmisandry! and even if he were awful, we didn't throw out sexuality labels just because they were created as mental illness labels, so why would we toss this? this genuinely feels like people wanting trans men to shut up about what they go through, because taking away the language to talk about it is the easiest way to do that.

..also i glossed it, but i wanna note that liking """problematic""" ships isn't a sin, and that he correctly warned for and tagged every bit of content that the person making the callout talked about. it isn't up to him to curate someone else's internet experience, and censorship of any kind will crack down on queer content and spaces first--isn't that exactly why we're fighting against the EARN it law right now?

Look, I'm not an expert on the situation, I'm not going to pretend to be either. And there's certain personal reasons why I can't comment on people involved as well. But I will say that the best solution to these situations is ignoring it, this is to both parties. Pick your battles. Not everything and not everyone needs to be argued with.

I will add though that censorship of media, whether that be on a teeny tiny scale such as tumblr, or governments banning a book outright is damaging, regardless of if its 'morally' correct (which you can also argue as a concept on its own.)

My final note on the topic of A/B/O; I'm not indigenous, but I do live in Australia, and even at 13 years old discovering that genre, it definitely struck me as weird. Yes, this slur really doesn't exist outside of my country. I do personally think I would be more comfortable if people adopted omega-verse, but I also think there are bigger issues in the world than arguing over a niche micro-community specific word.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.