#come up with themes for issues

[uglypastels]

Ngl i've had it in my mind for a while but specifically last night I could not stop thinking about making a (maga)zine.

Like i was apart of my study association editorial team and i kinda loved it and I'd really like to work on something like that again. And now i'm just thinking of creating a fandom space zine where people could send in their fics or art or write think pieces or other articles or essays about fandom related stuff.

And i know it would be wayyy to much work and a logistical nightmare, and that's if anyone would even participate and/or be interested in reading it which i doubt, but i can't stop thinking about it because i just really want to *do something* like that again and urgggghh

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Why The Ending Sucks

Ok I figured it out. Hear me out:

The entire comic has a running theme best summed up as "who is controlling the narrative, and why are we listening to them?"

Hussie plays a caricaturized version of himself that he describes as "buffoonish" and "oafish". Caricature!Hussie is well-meaning, but a dumb idiot who's incredibly biased in favor of certain characters and in disfavor of others (the most obvious example being his "love" of Vriska, but there's also the way he constantly disparages Eridan). As a result, you have to be VERY SKEPTICAL and VERY CAREFUL when approaching Homestuck's narration, because even when the "best" narrator is at the helm, he's not 100% trustworthy and incapable of giving the readers an unbiased view of the story.

I say "best" because, importantly, Hussie isn't the story's only narrator. He and Doc Scratch explicitly fight over control of the story - Doc Scratch, the child abusing predator who engineered Alternia's fascist murder society, whose shaping of its history is explicitly described by character!Hussie as "fanfic". He is then killed by Lord English, who is described by Hussie as embodying the "toxically masculine" and by extension, the patriarchy, and Caliborn explicitly takes control of the story. John even grapples with Caliborn's version of events, calling out how sexist and misogynistic and shitty it is.

So if we're keeping score: control over the narrative is LITERALLY wrested away from Hussie (who was already struggling to be unbiased) by fascists, abusers, and the patriarchy. It's stressed multiple times that Caliborn/LE are responsible for literally everything that ever happens; the reason the Game Over timeline ends the way that it does is because the alpha timeline is, in essence, the narrative LE is telling: the forces of fascism get to claim the new universe, thereby propogating itself, while friendship dies and all hope is lost.

Who's in control of the narrative, and why are we listening to them?

There are other minor examples of this, too: Aranea is an exposition fairy, and she's biased as fuck and wrong ALL THE TIME about her own teammates. Karkat's explanations and rationalizations are constantly tinged with his own self-loathing and self-blame. Sollux and Meulin are both prophets as per their Mage class, but are both so bogged down by their own emotional issues that the futures they pick out are actively harmful. So on and so on. At nearly every turn, you have to interrogate who's telling the story, what their motivations are, and what they're overlooking or deliberately obfuscating.

So given that this theme is so prevalent, and so thoroughly weighted toward "well, actually, maybe you shouldn't take narration at face value and should interrogate it and come to your own conclusions," it would be Really Weird for the story to go "actually, you can totally trust the narrative now because everyone gets a happy ending".

So, I know that it makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but here's my genuine take on Homestuck's ending:

The ending is shitty on purpose because the viewer is intended to take it as a dare to refute the narration and make something better.

Why are we letting character!Hussie tell the story? He's a biased idiot. Why are we letting the various avatars of LE and Caliborn tell the story? They're fascist, misogynistic, predatory assholes.

And - because Homestuck is a story about life - why are we letting idiots, assholes, abusers, and creeps dictate the story of real life? The world is full of forces that would try to take control of the story and make everyone else play along, represented in microcosm within the text of Homestuck. We cannot let those forces win.

So please go out and do something kind and hopeful and loving in the world today. Thanks for reading.

[theteaisaddictive]

jane immediately recognising that her confidence in rochester is dead after the whole attic wife thing gets revealed — indeed, all throughout their engagement, noticing little red flags about his behaviour, which she wilfully ignores even as the more sensible part of her knows that she needs some form of financial independence, that rochester treating her the way he treated celine varens isn’t going to bode well for their marriage at all…….

i’m just saying. she’s young, but she’s not stupid. there’s a reason they can’t be together until jane’s inherited her fortune and rochester has been humbled by the loss of his financial status and physical ability — indeed, until rochester wholeheartedly embraces a christianity close to jane’s own, which doesn’t resemble the hypocrisy of brocklehurst or the puritan self-denial of st. john.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Everyone arguing about Stannis, JonCon, Jaime, god forbid Jorah being the 1000th commander of the NW….when it will be Jon again 🌚

[muthaz-rapapa]

This finale was WILD

Bunbee went OFF, Nagisa and Honoka are literally throwing fists with global warming (and they will win, woohoo~! ✌️), NozoCoco got 💖MARRIED💖

And Milk abolished royalty 👏😂

[zukkaoru]

the disparity in kudos between a skk fic and a fic for literally any other bsd characters/ship :/

[shannonsketches]

i am never not thinking about freeza trying to win vegeta's loyalty back by offering him goku's kill shot and when vegeta's like 'eh pass sorry' he really says 'fine how bout this and a promotion'

that will never not be the funniest thing to me

[dullahandyke]

and like sidenote if i can make a post with a target audience of zero. i feel like fhsy was to d20 what aa3 was to ace attorney but aa3 pulled it off better for reasons i cannot explain

[bardsandbees]

Here’s my semi-brief thoughts on the new Avatar show. Spoilers below:

My biggest gripe with the new show is that it’s a prime example of the death of media literacy. SO much of the story has been dedicated to just…info-dumping lore and basically having to say out loud who’s good and who’s bad and how you should feel about each character. It was cool to hear Gran-Gran say the intro of the OG show but she did it as a major exposition bomb. One of MANY especially in the first few episodes. ATLA’s heart is it’s world-building and the relationships between it’s characters, and those things went hand in hand as the OG show progressed. The characters learned from each other and grew as people, and the new show just feels deeply bland and shallow. The characters have been stripped of so many of their most human traits because it makes them seem like bad people, and it needs to be shoved in your face that they’re the good guys, so they can’t possibly have flaws. Sokka can’t be a huge misogynist, Katara can’t be angry and impulsive, Aang can’t be childish, etc. Hell, even Zuko seems to have been dumbed down at the cost of making Iroh seem like the better character, and don’t even get me started on what they’ve done to him. In season one we’re supposed to hate Zuko, so that his redemption arc is all the more compelling. Taking time this early to force out that “he’s a good guy don’t worry!” speaks very poorly to the writing, among other things. Overall it just feels very weak, and like the writers felt the need to spell everything out for audiences. The show starting in the past, while interesting to see and setting the mood quick, it was thematically so absurd and set me up to be disappointed. Aang should never have known about the war and the Fire Nation invasion before he went in the ice, it’s part of what bonds him to Katara in the first place! She teaches him what happened and tries to help him through the emotions of that realization. He comes to terms on his own that he’s the last of his people, he doesn’t have some old lady throw it in his face in a crowd. Listen, there’s some things about this show I actually enjoyed, and it certainly could’ve been worse. But God, I’m not a fan. I hate to say it, but I’m hoping Netflix stays true to themselves and cancels it after this season.

[doomzday-zone]

istg if i develop a minecraft fixation. man.

[july-19th-club]

i think the failure of the yellowjackets approach and (to an extent, because it absolutely doesn't land perfectly all the time) success of the umbrella academy approach to the "teens in life-changing danger must reconnect all grown up" plot is that yellowjackets contains very grounded concepts treated with almost TOO much *oomph* and TUA contains very elaborate concepts that it treats elaborately. with yellowjackets whenever there's ten different chaotically overlapping plots i just get annoyed that they can't stick with one or two, settle down and really stew in them, whereas when there's ten different chaotically overlapping plots on the bad sibling show im like yeah comic book. that's exactly where you're supposed to be . but no that's not it actually. still thinking out loud. it's that yellowjackets sometimes deviates from its central question which is 'how do we live the rest of our lives with Who We Became Out There' to do other stuff that doesn't connect well and comes off over-the-top because it's disconnected. but TUA's central question is 'how do we live the rest of our lives with Who We Became Because Of Dad' and absolutely every single poor decision they make or relationship they bungle or disaster they fail to avert comes right back to that question no matter how wacky a path it takes to get there

[qasian-tech-support]

Please ignore if I clicked the wrong blog to respond to.

But I also want new Megas and Protomen :(

RIGHT?!?!

I mean, yeah, the Megas also have their takes on Skullman's theme ("Cracked Skulls"; inspired by MM4) and Chill Penguin's theme ("Chill XMas"; inspired by MMX), and I guess there's also one based on Storm Eagle's theme ("Rougmer Storm"; MMX), but I haven't listened to that one yet.

Like, I get that they have a good story arc to cover the first 3 classic games, but it would be so cool if they explored some of the themes of the following games, y'know? Or flesh out the MMX or other series music! Or hell, pick and choose some Robot Masters and make a new narrative, or like literally anything, please, people are starving over here! And it's not like they aren't still active. Don't get me wrong, I love their Castlevania stuff under the Belmonts label, but it would be nice to get Mega Man content outside of just remixes/remasters of their existing songs. Plus, they're still doing concerts, so like the audience is there for it!

And as for the Protomen, I hope that they actually end up releasing Act III at some point. Having listened to The Fight, it makes me crave it to an unhealthy degree. I love the grimdark kinda take on Mega Man that focuses more on the role that humanity takes in all of the conflict. I feel like that angle gets extremely neglected in Mega Man media.

Idk, as a fan, it's just kinda frustrating how neglected mega man gets. Like, it feels like the rare times whenever we do get content, it focuses on the first three or four games (if we're lucky), and then it just dies off! Or goes dormant for a decade or more. The franchise has so much creative potential that just isn't realized and it's so sad!

[thefaeriefeatherdark]

If you redrew and posted half the panels from Jack Kirby's Forever People or Jimmy Olsen and claimed they were from modern comics conservatives would spend an hour lamenting how political comics have become.

[moe-broey]

"Return of THE KING" about Moe as if. I'm not CONSTANTLY on my bullshit about it. I need to forcemasc it though the situation is so dire. LIKE. Exclusive it/its/itself user but also fucks with masculine titles/language. As part of its identity, but also an elaborate parody. Guy who's doing it Wrong ON PURPOSE. WITH INTENT. TO KILL‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[magpiesbones]

the WORST thing about paper girls is that they set up this whole story that’s so. Specifically obnoxious and irritating thematically and then take the Last Six Issues and turn the whole thing around.

Dude. get a handle on the pacing holy fuck.

Having reread the entire series I maintain that it is firmly a 6/10. Nice take on mortality and the ephemerality of childhood and resilience of hope. Does not make up for your gritty-realism sexism/homophobia and the unexamined colonialist/racist myths baked into your settings. Or the lack of proper foreshadowing and pacing (even with time travel post-shadowing is kind of. lazy writing).

Want to have an INSANE time that is either Boring or Sucks for the first two thirds and only really Gets Going in the last four chapters but in those chapters sets up and executes INCREDIBLE thematic arcs re: childhood and hope? Read paper girls.

WHY is it LIKE THAT.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Speaking of tragedies, our personal favourite tragedy for the past three and a half years has just wrapped up! The ending is already inevitable, but there is no way through but forward, nothing left but to continue the cycle and allow your own mistakes to consume you! We can't wait to read it.