#don't read if you have taste

[specialscum]

Past a certain point (I wanna say sometime in 2022 but that year was kind of a blur with the ones before and after it, so I can only really be sure that it was after '21 and before '24) I realized I wasn't playing competitive games because I consistently found it fun, but because I thought it *might* make my own or someone else's day a little better. I swore off doing that again (not for the first time, hehe) in the middle of a team deathmatch because I realized no one ever benefits from it long term. You get to not completely hate the entire world for one or two games, and then one of two things happens:

A: Turns out you're a normal person, and you go back to treating others in game like a normal person does (very respectable if you're not rude and/or unreasonable, not very useful)

B: You go back to thinking of people with their in-game roles in mind, but without necessarily liking them (generally a big part of how most people get an understanding of what they're playing and with who, can go really right if you allow yourself to learn, makes you go fucking insane)

The best thing to do for someone in that kind of game is to convince them to quit. Not by telling them that they're "trash" and should "uninstall", just by pointing out the obvious and saying it's just throwing diluted rabies at yourself with the occasional victory to keep you going.

I realize this post may or may not make zero sense, I'm kinda completely pissed and overjoyed and scared and salty and tired right now. If you want something to take away from it that does at least sound coherent, though: There's nothing to be gained. Proving your own skill? Come back at a different time of day, time of month, couple years of people with the same ambitions and fresh faces. You'll try the same thing again, but against your own past. You'll be either old news, old shit, or an old man trying to pass as a veteran to everyone watching.

Or maybe you really are just here for fun? This is the Internet, we don't get together to have fun here. We get together to get divided, and we get divided to have some morbid parody of "fun". Man, remember fun? Fun was so fun, I wish it wasn't brutally murdered in a gross little shed in the back of the middle of nowhere when I turned twelve.

There's no "reason" why people get together in little teams where things either go to hell within 10 minutes, or you make a little alternative interpretation in your brain where we DID fuck up, it just wasn't immediately obvious to the ones who got to feel good together because we were too busy preaching about how great teamwork is while the others went off to die and have the worst cry's ever induced by entertainment. No "reason" to do THAT every day. Just excuses about how "oh but it'll be fine once I just [whatever achievement you're aspiring for, not thinking about how badly you'll want another one after {unless you're not as stupid as me, of course}]". Well it won't be fine. You'd have to get to a point where there's nothing more to achieve for that to happen. Which would only even be possible if you were completely incapable of setting your own arbitrary (pseudo-reasonable) goals *ever*, out of the question.

So that's the post. Last paragraph's conclusion is a little shorter than I planned, but I'm slowly getting more tired and less capable of writing like this. I hope no one ever reads this, and I'm sorry for making it. I would also say I'm sorry for existing, but I'm not in the mood or state to do much more than just lie down and shoot literally *anything* other than this through my brain right now.

[writeouswriter]

People sorting ao3 solely by stats and only clicking on fics with a certain amount of kudos or comments, you will not survive the winter, nor the summer, nor at all, *brings out knife,* run

[navree]

the amount of people doing the "you guys are Making Fun Of Children for like children's books/ya" is insane when that entire article was spawned by full grown college students in college saying that they're favorite book is fifth grade level

[cavennmalore]

with the amount that the main series dunks on the forbidden cities i would just love for unraveled to be just an unabashed celebration of humanity. like yes there is poverty and pollution and crime but also there is dancing and music and rollercoasters and scary movies. let keefe discover the beauty here! the first book was all about the wonder of the lost cities but unraveled could be all about the wonder of the forbidden cities

[nonasbirthday]

I just saw ur post about ppl hating on Gideon and now I'm sad I know shes not real but like... I love her. She's not a burden to read through and get to know before you get to the other books she's a delight and I want to hold her idc if they dont like puns!

SHE'S A DELIGHT!! i think of this post from @carys-the-ninth: If you don't love me at my comicbook-loving jock goofball butch book you don't deserve me at my schizophrenic self-destructive reality-warping nun book

[demodraws0606]

People complaining about Tsukasa5 already are pissing me off, because like, it's so unbelievably obvious what this event is trying to do and the fact that people are so hung up on "urgh dur tsukasa strong why can't he do a wall climb".

Like, first of all, a lot of Tsukasa's strength has been used as comedy before and also it's never been said that Tsukasa could specifically do a wall climb before so people calling this a retcon or a stretch is really dumb to me.

Sure we can make jokes about it, but this is not like a serious writing problem or anything.

Also are we just gonna ignore the fact this event is literally just a reference to his 3rd event in a silly trenchcoat. Or the fact that this is obviously meant to be WxS's downtime and training arc to prepare them to face the loose plotpoints in the future?

His inner dialogue when chasing the ninja is very clearly a reference to the whole Pheonix thing, how he can't reach it no matter how hard he tries.

The wall climb is like an extremely fucking on the nose metaphor to him climbing over his issues as an actor.

THERE IS ALSO THE WHOLE THING THAT HINTS THAT TSUKASA CAN ONLY OVERCOME HIS PROBLEMS IF HE HAS HELP FROM OTHERS (AKA tsukasa would've literally BEEN INJURED, if it wasn't for the fact the troupe's leader was there).

In fact this literally followed an event aka Tsukasa 4 where he FAILED to do his role correctly.

It's almost like this event is meant to be a transition point between Tsukasa 4 and 6, where Tsukasa builds up the knwoledge on how to face his problems.

But no this is just mid event because it's very silly and "wow plot is stupid why can't tsukasa wall climb".

WxS fans are slowly just turning into VBS fans in terms of how whiney they're being i swear

[rimouskis]

okay not to be a hater but I stumbled upon a review a woman made of the west end's hadestown production and she disliked it because she didn't know the mythology involved and maybe my "overly read at the age of 12" personality is coloring things but if you're invested in an arena of The Arts like, verily, the theater and you don't know the myth of orpheus and eurydice (or, like, don't do basic synopsis research on a high end theater production before seeing it) you should not be creating reviews. hot!!! take!!!

[nounpolycule]

The problem with using "Rose being immortal would be more sad in the end, not less sad" as a gotcha regarding immortal!Rose fics is that that makes it better. Sorry. I am a tragedy enjoyer. Give me Rose refusing to go back to Earth for a century because the last time she saw Mickey, he had some grey hair and she got so upset about the thought of outliving all of her friends. Give me Rose having friendships (and romances, if you're into not sticking with strict eternal immortal monogamy) that she doesn't tell her friends back on Earth about because it hurts too much that it's already over even though she got 2, 10, 35 years with them. Give me Rose freaking out with Jack over the fact that they're going to outlive all of their still-human loved ones by millennia - give me Rose freaking out that she's going to outlive the Doctor (pre-TTC reveal) in the end. I want Rose having a moment where it hits her that now that she has all the time in the world, she feels more like she's running out of time than ever before because the people she loves are going to be gone someday.

Sometimes major canon divergence isn't about making things sunshine and rainbows forever, sometimes it's about making things a different kind of sad.

[poetrysmackdown]

I'm hater but I just don't believe How to Be A Dog is that good, I hope jakey dies.

yeah no feel free to sow your hater oats. that's what this competition is for

[the-one-that-weeps]

Akari's birthday is here and I have done nothing I am never forgiving myself for this sin

Vein imagery below:

Feliz cumple a mi protegida everypony

[catocappuccino]

It's been a year since I redrew that one Snorkmimi render...

So yeah I did it again ofc I would, why oh why wouldn't I? Tee hee silly meee

Attaching the 2023 redraw and og cause- uh- I donno, because yes, why not!!!

[bonefall]

Hi Bones!! Thank you for you hard work on this project and for sharing it with us!

I've seen your posts about weird representation of society (regarding the "natural order of things") in xenofiction, especially in lion king, so I wanted to ask:

could you recommend any xenofiction media that has all (or most of the) animal species sapient? Or is the only solution to make just one or two species sapient while the others (especially prey) are plain animals?

Really sorry if you've seen this ask from me before - my account had a weird laggy period when I couldn't send or receive messages and asks, so I don't know if you got the previous one! I just know that now it's fixed so I double all the asks sent haha

Honestly I'm not totally sure! If any 3rd person has some good recommendations for "every being is alive" xenofiction types, feel free to weigh in.

If you want to jump in with me though, I am following the webcomic Africa. It updates every Wednesday. Africa is about a mother Leopard on the verge of a great ecological disaster, the relationship between her children and the animals around her, and the strength of both instinct and choice as the characters face an uncertain future.

Since it's ongoing, I still don't know how it's going to end and can't judge it as a full work! But it's absolutely fascinating and I think the author is doing a fantastic job so far. Bonus points for the way it portrays humans, btw.

No more spoilers though, if you're interested, it's on Webtoons.

(I'm also planning to read Oren's Forge soon. Ask me about it again in a few months over on Bonebabbles and I'll give you my thoughts)

As an aside though, funny you mention it because like... ever since I was a kid I've had a story I want to tell with the premise. It's a scintilla I've kept close to me for well over a decade but haven't done anything official with. So this is actually a theme I've thought about a lot.

It's rare to see it done well though because like... its very premise butts heads with reality. The "natural order" that an animal follows is not something it moralizes. A tiger doesn't have the capacity to think about how fucked up it is to kill to stay alive, the deer doesn't know that if its population isn't controlled it will destroy the forest.

They're animals. They don't HAVE that agency. Your dog does not care about being sterilized. A snake doesn't differentiate between a pinky and an adult mouse except in terms of if it will fit in its mouth. But the minute you put human morality in there... they have the ability to reason, create and agree on the rules of a society, make choices about MORALITY.

If nothing is going to change about their world, you just end up putting human arguments about "natural order" in their mouths and, well... start telling a parable justifying this "natural order."

(Genuine) Does what I'm saying make sense? Animals DON'T rationalize or negotiate. HUMANS do.

So the minute you're approaching a world with that logic, like it or not, you are invoking those "arguments from nature." And you're putting them in a being that is not fully an animal or a human, but an anthropomorphic mix which CAN rationalize but WON'T make an effort to change their world.

(Which is why tbh the best examples i know of are works with a theme of "change.")

OH WAIT I also remember another that's interesting!! Leafy: Hen into the Wild actually has a fascinating take on it. It's not interested in "moralizing" or really being about an animal society. It's a very emotional sort of movie, and it's about joys in adversity, the freedom that choice gives you, how bad things are going to happen and you can never completely prevent them.

INTENSE movie emotionally, the ending will wreck you (especially in the English translation which leaves out a really important theme making it feel abrupt x_x) but it's really good. Check that one out.

OH and also You Are Umasou. That one has more pitfalls imo (it does try to moralize a bit) but it's super unique as a movie. And is about dinosaurs.

[katierosefun]

hm maybe i’m going to get flack for this, but i genuinely don’t understand how some self-claimed fic lovers can be the same people who a) pressure and harass writers into producing more and more stories, regardless of their current health or personal lives, b) pressure writers when they aren’t updating fast enough, again, regardless of their current health or personal lives, and c) now, apparently, feed their supposedly beloved writers’ stories into ai bots. it’s becoming incredibly disheartening and clear that some folks don’t care so much about writers and really care exclusively about feeding whatever greedy need they have to just consume.

[gwandas]

the “why do you read acotar if you hate everything about it” crowd is hilarious because apparently liking Nesta doesn’t count

[steakout-05]

after rewatching TADC 2, i noticed that Gummigoo's lads were sitting on top of a Tim Tam log, which is a chocolate-covered biscuit that is very beloved and popular over here in Australia :D

[sskk-manifesto]

Proof that bsd would be a lot better if they just let it pass the Bechdel test more often