#eh I've seen people tag for less

[thatofabeavers]

uuuh cooking headcanons, because no one can decide so I'm deciding for myself

-

Dick: can cook. But like... simple shit, that can get you by. He can use the microwave, cook eggs, boil pasta- anything like that, made in simple steps, he can do. But something like cake or lasagna? Not at all, he'd burn the building down. He lived with the titans and had an apartment, on a shit salary, like. There was no way he was affording takeout every night. He can cook.

Bruce: can cook! Kind of. He can... put things together. Like sandwiches and toast and cereal and salad. But that is it. Your boy was not cooking properly, not when he had Alfred doin it for him and he had a batsuit to put on.

Jason: Probably the best cook out of everyone- can bake complex foods like lasagna! Nevermind helping alfred out in the kitchen- though that def helped, but he spent most of his life away from the bat, and does it as a hobby (in the games i think?)

Tim: yeees? He's bad at it. Serviceable. He'd burn toast just because he forgot he put it in the toaster and push the thing down again. He'd never had anyone to show him to cook, so he probably always just took snacks, takeout, or things that could fill him without burning the house down. His food experiments are more like how Nilered does it, and he doesn't really have the energy to spend on getting good at it.

Damian: Can NOT cook, he is like 12, raised in a cult where the only thing that judged your worth is fighting, currently being raised by Bruce and fed by Alfred. He'd use an entire sword to cut tomatoes.

Cass: can't cook for similar reasons Damian can't. She'd get too eager, I think, and put in a bunch of stuff that only go good separately.

Duke: Can follow instructions! He's at Dick levels of cooking but can do complicated stuff as long as there's a guide.

Steph: eeeeeh- she's a takeout queen who just gets everyone else to cook for her. She CAN cook, she just never wants to.

Barbara: I FInally figured it out!!

yeah she can cook! Courtesy of Gordon, it was a bondin thing, when they both had time. Losing her ability to walk made cooking- really, really hard, for a time, before she could get a more accessible apartment, as she couldn't reach a lot of ingredients and spices or navigate her kitchen. But it's better, now, with the extra space and relocated items. When she's being obsessive over her work as Oracle, she just orders takeout, though.

Alfred: Yeah (godly implications)

[here-there-were-dragons]

i'm seeing three times as many people bitching in the tag about the very idea that someone might not like this breed than i see people actually expressing unambiguous dislike for this breed

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

You know, for as much as I didn't like all the romance soap opera drama and what happened with a lot of the ATLA cast in Legend of Korra, I can admit that just because it wasn't my thing and bothered me in a lot of instances doesn't make it necessarily bad per se. I just think there were some weird decisions character-wise

However. I did not like what they did with Wan and the Harmonic Convergence, and I am quite confident in saying that it thematically weakened the show and was a wasted opportunity to do something truly special with the concept of the Avatar itself

[sandorsubs]

shiftblr/loablr is giving pathetic lately

first of all, dear fabricated "void success story 🌺✨" post owners, come here. i'm gonna have a friendly chat with you in a dark alley. posting same things in same templates, tagging SAME accounts...look, i don't care if your stories are real. they are probably bots anyways because i've seen tons of them.

just get the fuck out and stop promoting your accounts. no one gives a shit. i'm sick and tired of your ads. whatever you are trying to do, promoting, scamming, attention seeking, you are just being sus and i recommend others to block tagged people in those posts.

and you, success story addict, come here.

i'm watching some of y'all drool over those bloggers because they got what they want, they have shifted or they succeeded. seriously? if you are a sucker for people like this, then your subconscious must scream "i put success on a pedestal and this person is my savior because i can't do a shit" everytime you enter this app.

no one is going to save you, no one is going to manifest for you, not a single success story or account will MAKE you shift or manifest. all they do giving ideas for YOU(again you) to use. obsessing over them makes zero sense. plus it's not serving.

you are handing them power, you supposed to hold for yourself. it's pathetic. why are you addicted to success stories? they are not yours. why are you putting some shifters on pedastal because they shifted? they are not a prophet or god, they won't make you shift.

some of those accounts took it wrong when they heard "i am god" concept. you are no one's god, honey. be your own god and move on with your life.

"but they have proofs" oh i couldn't give a less fuck. that's not the point, don't you get it? point is why do you need them so badly? look at their asses skyrocketing because they are popular now, they try to scam people, they start CULTS, fucking cults to abuse people easily and they think they can tell you what to do or control you.

control my ass, make it bigger please, void prophet/master shifter because i can't do a shit 🙏🙏🙏

and fuck motivation, seriously have some confidence. motivation this, motivation that. you made a comfort zone out of motivation, don't get me started.

"so what tf am i supposed to do?" still asking me? still asking someone else? stop watching outside the window, you are driving. i'm not saying don't enjoy the nature but you keep pulling over to have ridiculous amount of picnics now.

for what? comfort, oh sorry motivation of c.ai? motivation of reading other people's success stories and imagining it could be yours? or daydreaming for 38 hours a day? if you find yourself searching for success story, a new post from your fav void prophet/master shifter like an addict, work on your confidence. get the fuck out of your comfort zone. why is it so hard to focus on yourself? because it's easier to watch people fail or succeed rather than yourself, eh? sorry, at the end of the day, you remain as watcher.

and let me tell you, motivation is not a poison but it's not the cure you are looking for.

[thefandomenchantress]

Chapter 2 Episode 15 Spoilers below!

Since Ace being the culprit has brought about so much pain to ace lovers, including me, I figured I'd make a list of all the good things that him being the culprit brings to us. Even though Ace will (probably) be executed next episode, that doesn't mean that nothing good came out of this, right?

-Ace's backstory may be revealed much sooner than expected! Before we would've had to wait for chapter 3 or chapter 4 and so on, but since Ace will be gone soon, almost everything not revealed next episode will get told to us in a bonus episode! (I think every dead person gets one of those? Idk if that's officially confirmed). I doubt Teruko's gonna find, like, Ace's diary in chapter three detailing his life story, so if we're ever getting the Taylor Lore™, it'll be in a bonus episode! Plus, a bonus episode would come out a lot faster than the whole of chapter three, so more Ace content sooner no matter what happens in it! And there's always the chance he gets picked for an FTE, since dead people are on the list of options.

-Ace canonically has neat, fancy handwriting. Begone rumors of Ace having illegible, traditionally boy-ish handwriting, he actually writes like a 19th century scholar and I find this very funny. More evidence for my 'Ace likes reading and writing and wanted to become a romance author' crack theory, since he also reenforced his particularness about vocabulary in chapter 2 part 2. (Our only remaining question: Does Ace actually have terrible spelling ('responsibel'), or did he just think Eden would?)

-Ace is very good at being sneaky and often overhears things he shouldn't. I can't wait for this to be used as a plot device in numerous fics ("XANDER YOU'LL NEVER GUESS THE SHIT I JUST HEARD DAVID SAY ABOUT YOU WHEN HE THOUGHT HE WAS ALONE").

-Ace will have to be included in the dead (formerly a) trio posts forevermore. Get ready for Xander-Min-Arei-Ace shenanigans.

-Now that the cast has been forced to acknowledge that being dumb and angry aren't Ace's only traits and that he's just as human as the rest of them, Ace is much less likely to be seen as just those two things by the average viewer. Ace's popularity, or at least the amount of dislike towards him, seems to have shifted since the last episode, and I'm happy more people are able to enjoy what his character has to offer now. He's a cool little guy. I've literally NEVER seen the Ace Markey tag this busy before.

-We got so many cool Ace CGs guys. SO MANY. Including one where he's hanging upside down on the swing set and looks weirdly cute for someone in the middle of a murder plan.

-Also new sprites! The DRDTdev gave Ace a redesign knowing full-well that it would only get a singular chapter of use, and I massively respect that. We already got some new sprites in part 2 of chapter 2 so far, and I'm guessing next episode he'll probably have at least one more breakdown sprite before he dies.

-For someone who no one in the cast liked, he's definitely going to leave an impact. He's finally made at least some of the cast realize what happens when they ignore the issues right in front of them. Ace shouts about how everyone hates him and sees him as an insufferable idiot? Eh, probably nothing, we don't have to worry about that. Sure, multiple people told him he's gonna die next in here, and he almost got murdered, but that won't amount to anything. What's he gonna do, murder someone--WAIT SHIT Ace step away from the Arei I repeat step away from the Arei-- (plus Teruko parallels). I'll probably go more in-depth about this sort of thing in a different post.

-WE NEVER GOT TO SEE WHAT'S UNDER HIS GLOVES. Kyoko and Mukuro both had hand-related secrets that connected them to the plot later on, does that mean Ace will have some sort of relevance to the mastermind or overall lore later on? Like a Mai tattoo situation? (Or maybe it's another thing that may be alluded to or discussed in the bonus episode)(Or left to interpretation but I hope not because I have so many theories).

If you have any more suggestions for other good Ace-related things the culprit reveal brought us, let me know and I can add them to the list! We need as many good things as we can think of right now...

[velvetvexations]

as an autistic trans man, sometimes I feel less safe in public presenting as a man than as a woman, because, especially in certain places, man + visibly autistic tends to be more often falsely read as "dangerous and predatory" than when people read me as a woman.

Yeah, as an autistic trans woman who doesn't pass, I feel that. <3

Honestly thank you so much for what you do on this app. I'm so glad there's people who are actually willing to stand with trans men instead of pulling the "um well I have it worse so do NOT talk about your own oppression EVER or else you're a transmisogynist!" I'm so happy I found your blog and I hope you have a great week <3

I hope you have a great week as well!

Eh a long while ago Chris Fleming made a video making fun of polyamorous people which used a lot of the same hurtful stereotypes society already perpetuates against us and I’ve not paid attention since

Noted, as someone who is also poly.

i wish the queer community didnt put so much emphasis on sexuality labels like i just want to have sex why do i need to put a word to it

very valid

about the dropout “discourse”: hot take but real life people are not representation. theyre people. real people are not queerbaiting you and real people happening to not be transfem (and I have literally seen transfems in some dropout episodes theyre just not part of the main cast) is not a lack of representation. these are real people. stop* *not you, the people being shitty about it

the complaint is not in any way coming from a genuine place tbh

hey! i just wanted to let you know how much your blog means to me as a trans guy. you and your reblogs have given me hope at trans unity, and lets me know that i-- that we-- aren't alone. so thank you for everything you do, and i greatly appreciate your support and look up to you 💛

Thank you. <3

i redownloaded etsy recently and seeing all the trans stuff saved to my favorites is so sad. i used to feel happy and proud and i wanted to be open about being transmasc. but since all the discourse got worse i just. cant bring myself to feel like it matters. it makes me feel like im trans and yet i will never matter the way other trans people do.

You do matter anon, I promise. I love you, you matter, and I'm glad you're here.

As a trans guy a lot of the self-ID'd TME transmascs weird me out so much. Like why do they all sound like "I am so strong and my power to Harm Women is immense. I could do it so much and I feel the pull to the Transmisogynist Dark Side but *unsheaths sword* I will protect them instead with my big strong testosterone arms from my fellow men" like what even is that. Who is into this.

it's so incredibly obviously bad but it reinforces some people's victim complexes so it's praxis now

a trans person will joke about their experience and a trf will jump in to assume theyre a white transmasc who has never ever faced any real difficulties for being trans

every time

Out of the many, many stupid ideas in this dumb discourse, I've finally decided the one I hate the most is that underlying implication that transmascs just aren't trans enough. It's so gross seeing people imply that we aren't really trans. Our dysphoria is minimal discomfort at most, apparently. I've seen people post about and imply that transmascs will never understand not feeling like a person or being unable to live a life pre transition and that's why we have privilege, i guess - are you kidding me? It's like our experiences are a joke to these people who are clearly so wrapped up in their online discourse bubble that they're just detached from what it's like for trans people as a whole. Sorry for the vent (would rather not post this on main and I don't have anyone to talk to) but it's just the most grating part. Also it's like. Low-key transmed shit. Thought we left that behind, c'mon.

transmeds are like ants they come back every summer

i wish TRFs had a label they proudly called themselves so i could jsut go through their tags and block them, but noooooo they HAVE to frame their transphobic bullshit as Brilliant Transfeminist Theory. like atleast radfems are fucking honest about being radfems

That's part of why I made antigonism a label for anti-TRFs to call themselves~!

[betweenlands]

Impulse thinks he might've started seeing things early this time.

It happens at least once a season at this rate, so it's not really a surprise on that side of things. And it's not as bad as the boogeyman clock-ticking he's heard twice now, so, he'll take it, just... it hasn't even been a full session yet?

He'd like to say it started when he ended up tag-teaming with Gem and Scott, but the truth is, that's not quite it. It started when he got his task and ended up in the cherry grove up there, and that little part of him he knows is basically a ghost detector went this task isn't so bad -- maybe people will actually trust me this time! There's never been a bad guy who built with cherrywood, right?

Really weird thing for a ghost detector sense to say. But then Gem and Scott caught up, and they sort of just fell into a natural alliance, and yeah -- Impulse looks at their location-in-progress and thinks we're gonna be the good guys this season, and for a split second feels this headache.

Then it's gone.

It happens again when Skizz visits, which is probably part of a task, but all Impulse knows is... he walks up to Skizz while he's saying "I've been that guy, that all I do is tell the truth, and I'm a loyal sword -- I think I might be the guy that just wants to lie to everybody and just be a jerk!"

Knee-jerk response: "Nah. Don't love that idea. Hate it."

Internal ghost-detector response: I mean, who says those things are mutually exclusive?

Impulse has to stop himself from whipping around fully at the voice, which sounds almost like Scott, except Scott isn't behind them right now -- just Jimmy, and past that the cherrywood trees. He thinks for a second there might be a flash of red among all those pink blossoms. He shrugs it off as Grian skulking around, even though he knows Grian doesn't have pink hair.

A few minutes later, he knows it definitely wasn't Scott, because the guy shows up to immediately point out a zombie villager appearing on the mountain -- there's a librarian, right there, aggroed more or less directly on him. They scramble to get it in a boat and cover its head. Some part of him suggests they should bury it underground, just in case. They only need one more.

Next sighting is a bit more difficult to ignore, mainly because Impulse knows when he's being made fun of, and when a goat smacks him while he's trying to wrangle it into a boat, he catches sight of someone with long blonde hair cackling like a maniac about it from the other side of the border wall, and before he can do anything more than think huh, how'd False get past the border? they're gone.

False is not in this season. He tries his best to put that behind him and inform his teammates of the real issue, which is:

"YOU SAID THAT GOATS WERE NOT A PROBLEM," Impulse yells, trying to pretend the panic is about the loss of a half heart. "I JUST GOT GOATED." He can see the campfire Gem and Scott set up over their shoulders. Someone wearing red is sitting at one of the seats. Impulse resolutely ignores the fact that he hasn't seen Grian at all so far.

That's it for the ghosts for a while, enough to lull him into a false sense of security. Maybe it is just Grian sneaking around. (Maybe the guy in a red poncho he sees in the distance in the badlands Scar has based just outside of is just Grian reliving his glory days.)

"By the way, this is Traitor Scar's!" Scar says brightly.

You think his partner's Grian again? a voice says wryly. It's not either of their voices. It's not the voice of anyone Impulse even knows, for that matter. It sounds like it came from over by the badlands.

"Trader Scar's," Impulse repeats, realizing he's misheard what Scar actually said.

Eh, the voice says. Like recognizes like.

[alexanderwales]

Save the Cat!: the short review

I liveblogged this book (anything tagged #save the cat on this blog), but this is the actual review of it.

Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder is a book about screenwriting, and it's very specifically about screenwriting spec scripts in order to get huge sales for movies. Blake Snyder worked mostly with family films, PG affairs, and sold a pretty large number of scripts, most of them by sticking to a formula. He knew a lot of people in the business, and his ethos seems like it was their ethos (though I should probably read a few other books for comparison before making any sweeping generalizations).

Blake Snyder is a hack screenwriter, but he's a hack's hack, and aside from a few completely unwarranted barbs at films which were more commercially successful and societally important than anything he would ever end up doing with his life (he died in 2009), he seems to understand who and what he was. He's writing screenplays to sell those screenplays for the highest possible dollar amount. He calls his screenplays "product". He cares about good story only in the sense that he wants whatever producer or actor is reading the script to think that it's hot shit.

Some of this is probably an act, Snyder playing up some version of himself like a good writer would. He contradicts himself at certain points, and reveals that he doesn't walk the walk quite so cleanly as the rest of the book would have us believe. He's brash, in a way that I found charming.

He's also irritating, because I fundamentally disagree with this approach to making art, and maybe that would be fine if I could just say "eh, we have very different goals" but he also doesn't seem to understand his own system very well, nor does he seem eager to explore it, and he's constantly just saying stuff without regard to whether or not it's true, or makes sense. I get the feeling that the book was written in a bit of a rush, something to work on while beating out scripts, rather than being a labor of careful love. That it took off was either his marketing talents or just that its paint-by-numbers specifics are really appealing. There are pieces that I would have pegged as being written by GPT if the book didn't predate LLMs by a wide margin, especially some examples that make no damned sense and his rambling-but-formulaic way of imparting lessons.

A lot of the examples are also kind of eye-rolling, but I cut him a little slack, because it's hard to write about writing, and giving examples of tricks you use is one of the hardest parts. You kind of need the reader to have read/seen the thing in its entirety, because if you give the brief version, with no investment or background, it just seems lame. Some of this is also Snyder, who worked mostly in 90s PG family movies: those examples are always going to be a bit cringe.

This book is the #1 book in Amazon for screenwriting, and so far as I can tell, has been the top book for screenwriting since it came out twenty years ago. It's a bestseller. As a writer, I think it's kind of crap, both because it pushes formula and because I think that it's not likely to result in very good scripts. I think you can tell a good story using this formula, but once you've mastered the formula and understand how all the pieces are supposed to move together along with the principles of storytelling, you won't need the formula. The book also does a bad job on principles of storytelling, at least in my opinion, dancing around them rather than laying them out in a clear and concise way, and especially in the middle it's poorly structured, which is somewhat ironic given how much Snyder seems to lean on structure.

I have never written a screenplay, much less sold one. Going into 2024, I told myself that this would be the year to give it a go, and I've been writing a comic, which is much closer to screenwriting than prose fiction. Maybe 2025 is going to be my year to actually sit down and hammer out a screenplay, but I can't say that I expect to take too much from this book.

[jesncin]

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on MAWS characters alongside Lois, if you want to do that of that’s entirely up to you but it would be really interesting ^_^

I've written about maws a fair bit on this blog! You can find my general thoughts on the jesncin talks maws tag and my massive maws Lois essay here for my thoughts on her. Suffice to say I'm not a fan of this show, lol. I haven't been able to stomach watching season 2 so my entire knowledge is limited to season 1. With that said, roundup of my thoughts on maws characters:

Clark Kent: boring. Vanilla. Critical lack of hero motivation and idealism outside of "people are getting hurt!" as a platitude. Just some guy who does chores because that's the nice thing to do. Not defeating the Superman Is Boring allegations- just has an uwu cute cinnamon roll himbo filter on it.

Lois Lane: xenophobic asian lois lane is the worst crime ever committed to me. A historically jaded, award winning, accomplished career woman fighting against work place misogyny is now a cutesty uwu girl-failure who needs the help of two men to get hired. Barf.

Jimmy Olsen: I get the attempt at making him a conspiracy theorist as a means of tapping into Jimmy's wacky silver age antics and to bounce off of Clark for shenanigans, but it doesn't meaningfully interrogate how that is at odds with his job as a journalist. Also he was sidelined hard in S1- more than he was in CW Supergirl.

Perry White: I was hoping that unlike STAS and if MAWS was going to pull from anime, that this meant strong relationships with Superman's cast system. But nope. Perry is just a running gag. I was hoping for a Snapper and Kara dynamic like in CW Supergirl.

Scoop troop (Cat Grant, Ronnie Troupe, Steve Lombard): Superfluous characters, easily delete-able. All of which have been reinterpreted as anime stereotypes. Yawn.

Newskid Legion: Also delete-able and a waste of my time. They should be called newsies. They make no sense as outdated characters placed in a futuristic setting. What is child labor doing this late in the game. Be more creative with modernizing outdated characters.

Pa and Ma Kent: Boring. The biggest problem you can have with the Kents is making them generic supportive parents like they're sentient Hallmark cards. Pa Kent got the bad end of the stick as the clueless parent, while Ma Kent was pushed as the heart of the family to Clark. Not that she did much.

Vicki Vale: Absolutely insane of this show to add another Asian xenophobe woman journalist. The MAWS crew love gloating about how they're not going to include Batman in MAWS, but they can't resist putting a Gothamite in their show and stealing rogues from other heroes. Could've brought Angela Chen (a canonically asian Metropolis reporter) from STAS but I guess she's not as big a name as a Gotham character, eh?

Livewire: the glowdown of a century. DCSHG continues to outperform every modern version of this character. Why make her a generic smuggler when her original job as a shock jokey is far more interesting?? Podcaster or influencer was right there. Her motives make no sense too.

Intergang crew: Why. Did they consolidate. Banshee with two random rogues (Mist & Roughouse) and call them Intergang. That's so many glowdowns at once. I've never seen someone look at a hero's diverse rogues gallery and say "let's consolidate all these characters so we have less material to work with in the future". I hate how the rogues are all tech based, and share the same origin. These baddies kickstarted the show's "villains with petty crime motivations": no ideological or thematic draw to them.

Ivo/Parasite: Another villain with nonsensical motivations. His business is going bankrupt so he sets up an investor event party to show off his Black Panther Lexo suit (which was apparently a response to Superman! A stranger that we can't trust! And somehow these expensive suits are more trustworthy) only to attack his investors and get owned by Superman. Then he just has a hateful vendetta against Superman. People who think this is a good Parasite interpretation because they projected vague Elon Musk are kidding themselves. I could clown on MAWS' Ivo all day. He is so badly written.

Heatwave: Why genderbend a Flash villain when Superman already has a Fire Woman in his rogues gallery? Volcana? Remember her? She's from the same show yall got Livewire from? Praise this show all you want for "reigniting interest in Superman", it's clear they're willing to toss away actual Superman cast characters for more popular characters from other heroes when it suits them. What's Heatwave's motivations? Petty crime.

Slade Wilson/Deathstroke: Imagine building this character up to be a big threat only to do nothing with him lol. I can't take him seriously, his voice acting is the worst and I hate his design. This show is so desperate to make attractive villains for fangirls it's frankly pathetic. How did people even mistaken him for Superman? He doesn't FLY.

Mallah and The Brain: This is what happens when you revive gay villains and put them through the HarlIvy Respectability Beam on fast forward. The gay villains aren't villains anymore! Because that would be bad representation! They're now cute cuddly domestic dads who want to raise robot children and run away together!! How TRITE. Mallah has "american faking a french accent" syndrome but bad voice acting is the norm in this show.

Mxy: The one time they include a villain that Lois and Jimmy could easily help Superman defeat (Mxy's whole deal is that you can send him to his dimension by tricking him to spell or say his name backwards) they opt to make it even dumber by just "removing his hat". Because the MAWS crew aren't smart enough to think of ways Superman and his pals can trick Mxy. For the record, CW Supergirl got this right in comparison.

Legion of Loises: It's the way this show can't write competent women even when that's the goal. All the characters act so stupid and that includes the Legion of Loises. At least MAWS!Lois learns the important lesson that even though she's not as accomplished as these career focused versions of her, at least she can keep her man. Misogyny in a cute package.

Alex/Lex Luthor: Go away. Ugly design I can't stand him. Miserable voice acting as usual.

Amanda Waller: She's pretty generic here. Playing second fiddle to Sam Lane for the most part, but this show has a problem with fleshing out Black characters in general so.

Sam Lane: We now have up to THREE asian xenophobes in MAWS season 1. The crew did not think their diversity through because at the end of the day S1 was really about a White Guy Alien getting oppressed by mostly people of color. Without a hint of irony.

Jor-El: I thought the language barrier between him and Clark was an inspired choice and clever as a means of postponing Clark learning about his heritage. But nope. Jor-El just starts magically talking in English later on. Otherwise boring and generic!

Brainy: I know he's prominent in S2 so I can't speak much for his character from the small impression I got of him in S1, but I can say that he looks mad ugly <3 truly horrible rogues designs in this show.

PHEW!! That's my roundup of MAWS character opinions! Wild how I can't even pinpoint a character I like on this show, lol. I know Kara's in S2 as well, and what I've seen of her sounds awful. Her design is bad too. I'm just not ready for the heartbreak of meeting that version of her because I love Supergirl so much :((

[fandomwave]

"No Guys I Swear You Have To Go Out Of Your Way To Find It!" And why I don't love this take

This is about the Ha Ha funny Coffin Game which includes but isn't limited to topics of: Cannibalism, Murder, and the core topic of this little rant, Incest.

feel totally free to skip this if that's a hard pass from you! No shame in knowing what you're about including things you'd rather not engage with.

"I know what I'm about"

Good! So this entire little rant? Vent? Observation? Comes from the recent uptick I've seen of posts in the Tcoaal tag where people come in to defend the game with more or less this argument:

"No no guys the incest is really easy to avoid. You have to go out of your way to find it. The game even WARNS you that this is a bad route. Its nowhere in any part of the game beyond this. Honestly it's just not there actually"

And I get the want to defend the game as being more than 'The funny Incest Game'. I agree that The Coffin Of Andy and Leyley is WAY MORE than just the funny incest game. To reduce the game down to that would be a disservice to the writing that went into this game. Andrew and Ashley deserve way more and Numlie themselves deserves better credit than that.

h o w e v e r

However, I think it's also doing more harm than good to try and sweep their dynamic under the rug as something that is 'easily avoidable' and 'totally optional' I hate to break the news but Andrew's romantic inclinations towards Ashley are pretty obvious in Chapter 1. They certainly aren't as obvious as they are in Chapter 2, I'll give everyone that. But they are there, and to act like they aren't... Not to mention the defense EVERYONE gives so readily is that 'The Game Warns You This Is A Bad Thing To Do' is a lot more complicated than it might appear on first blush. First and foremost the 'narrator' is the one to say: "Somehow it seems like a highly questionable idea to take this route"

which imho is a far cry from "This is the bad end" "This has incest" "you are probably a bad person for taking this ending" that some seem to argue is the 'warning' you get. Secondly we should remember it isn't 'you' the narrator is talking to here. Effectively it's still Ashley first and foremost. When Ashley responds 'I know what I'm about' that is also the game showing us that Ashley knows what this means and still wants it.

Enthusiastic consent if you will

So what's the point to this little post eh?

Well I think it's doing a little more harm than good to both the story but also anyone interested in checking the game out who might actually be genuinely triggered by such topics. Tcoaal has the siblings romantic inclinations laced into the story from point A to B. It's impossible to avoid actually. You can go the entire game ignoring any acts of kindness towards Andrew as Ashley or Ashley as Andrew, and you'll always get the scenes of Andrew playing with Ashley's hair. You will always get the text informing the player that Andrew fakes panic attacks to share a bed with Ashley. You will always get the CG of Andrew's hand in Ashley's belt loops. You will always hear the voicemail 'You think you're better than me because you can fuck him and I can't' from Ashley concerning Andrew. You will always get the hints from Mrs Graves that she knows they are too close but did nothing to curb that behavior.

It is wholly unavoidable no matter what route you take. Burial, Decay, Questionable or not.

I think to argue that it's just a silly little ending you can get does a disservice to people who might genuinely be upset by that, and I think more than anything a game that is at the very least talking about incest rather brazenly deserves the warnings it earns!

I love this game to bits, anyone who's been within ear shot of me has had to deal with me talking their fucking ear off about the Sibling Abuse Simulator. I've gone on in excruciating detail how I think Tcoaal's writing has been done dirty by saying that Andrew and Ashley's romance is just a 'ha ha shock ending', comparing it to the siblings ending in something like Corpse Party (a game where the incest ending is 100% totally avoidable, and the story has exactly nothing to do with incest as a topic, and is only brought up if you trigger that ending. One where I agree with the argument that it's just there for shock value)

Anyways I see where people are coming from, I can understand the want to defend the game as more than the sum of it's parts and I agree that it does suck that this seems to be the thing everyone is hyper-focusing on in terms of it's breach of containment. I get it man, I really do. It deserves so much better than being reduced down the way it has by the greater internet.

But to say it's avoidable.. I dunno it's like taking the dragons out of Game of Thrones. The story as a whole about so much more than the dragons.. However you'd have a fundamentally different story if they weren't there, wouldn't you?

[salsedine]

10 characters, 10 fandoms

Tagged by the lovely @greypetrel - so here we go! Thanks :*

Everything is under the 'read more' after the first one because I don't want to clog other people's dashes.

Aaand I tag @birdkeeperklink & @pyritefes2 here, so they don't have to scroll down the whole list to understand why and where they are tagged :P as usual, no pressure at all!

1.Stephen Black (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell)

Incredibly well written and compelling (Mrs Clarke, teach me your secrets) in the book, and great acting by Aryion Bakare in the show. Probably one of my favourite male characters ever.

2.Lucrezia Borgia (Borgia: faith and fear)

I loved her character's arc through the 3 seasons. It really showcases the thing I love most about this serie, despite its flaws (and some are big flaws) - it never shied away from complexity. All characters are shown as capable of great tenderness and great cruelty - and this is one of the reasons why I think that they really captured the spirit of the renaissance.

3.James Flint (Black Sails)

"I was unjustly branded as a monster in the eyes of the so-called civilized society, so I'm going to destroy it" - what's not to love? And yes, of course I'm obsessed with the "freedom in the darkness" speech, of course.

4.Justice (Dragon Age)

"A world so full of beauty that beauty goes overlooked. I must see it with different eyes."

I couldn't find a gif, ops! Put my favourite quote instead. Initially I was really torn between Merrill and Anders and other five characters, but I'm in an AwakeningTM mood so I've picked my favourite rotting corpse.

5.Mr Nancy / Anansi (American Gods)

^^^ favourite scene/quote, no questions.

6.Jacquette/Jacquetta Woodville (The White Queen)

"We are all on fortune's wheel," I say. "Without a doubt we will rise. We may fall. But still I have no fear of it.”

Look at that Burgundy-inspired fashion!! The witchcraft and prophecies and definitely less accurate, but eh- that's still my thing. Also, a novel about her story (The Lady of Rivers) is the only book by Philippa Gregory that I didn't dislike, and that's truly something.

7.Uinen - Silmarillion

I have a soft spot for sea-themed mythology, so I obviously loved that section of the Silmarillion.

8.Hastur (Good Omens)

#team-Hell, because I like the demons' character design. Also, for some reason Ned Dennehy follows me on Instagram, so I feel like he deserves a mention.

9.Thomas Cromwell (Wolf Hall)

I have developed a love/hate relationship with this book&show - but Mantel's prose is stunning.

"It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires."

Do you see this? Annoyingly good.

10.Morgan le Fay - Camelot

I feel like this show had a lot of potential that it never got to fully express, and Eva Green as Morgana? Inspired casting, 10/10.

[cilil]

I've seen many posts about people missing how common asks used to be so I have been trying to send about an ask a week. Now I send this ask first anytime I follow someone as I really don't want to bother anyone, so I'd love to know if you enjoy receiving asks and if so what kind of asks. Not having energy for asks or being comfortable with them is perfectly okay.

The categories I have in my ask notebook that I file under are in colour. Please feel free to make your response as long as you want or private (the asker cannot directly respond to private responses).

Self, Job/Work: please let me know what you are comfortable with from eh idk just ask it to nothing personal at all.

Baggishield/Tolkien, Dragon Age, Johnlock/Sherlock, ineffable spouses, other fandom: Please let me know what fandoms. I think my main fandoms and ships are Bagginshield/The Hobbit, Sherlock/Johnlock, Dragon Age Inquisition, {Pippin/Faramir Merry/Eowyn}/The Lord of the Rings and I dip my toes in a few that I currently can't remember but ships I don't engage with the canon of at all are: Good Omens but only for Crowley/Azirapheal, Stranger Things but only for Steve/Eddie , The Witcher but only for Geralt/Jaskier.

OC's, art/drawing, their writing, blog specific only

Story snippets ideas and prompts: Do you like receiving them?

Pets: I'd love to know all about them

Garden and Hobbies: What type of gardening and/or hobbies?

Like being tagged in things: If so what kinds of things?

*Asks are sent for fun, no pressure to answer.

Oh thank you so much for this, what a lovely idea! And I hope you don't mind that I did indeed lack the energy during the last few days... was out seeing friends and now I'm sick too x) anyway!

Job/work/about myself: Sure thing, ask away, I won't have many interesting things to talk about since I'm currently finishing up my degree and going into exams for the next few months so it's basically same old every day (-> desk and books). I may also choose not answer certain questions if I feel like they're too personal in the sense that me answering would reveal too much about my real life self, like location, identity etc, but that's on me, I'll decide that in the moment and there are absolutely no hard feelings. I do appreciate people's interest and as long as nobody is overly pushy or prying that's all completely fine :)

Fandom: Tolkien, mainly Silmarillion. Happy to chat about Hobbit and LotR too of course, just may have less to contribute. I do love Bagginshield and Aziraphale/Crowley, but don't really talk about the latter as I keep this blog Tolkien-focused

OCs: I have a few and enjoy talking about them every once in a while. They're all Maiar though so it might not be of interest to everyone and that too is very okay :)

Writing: I write and talk about writing all the time so... always love that :D

Art: I make art very occasionally. I don't mind talking about it or answering questions, it's just that I don't have much to show or be proud of or new developments happening x)

Snippets, ideas & prompts: LOVE THEM! Just a dangerous business because I get tempted easily...

Pets: While I love pets, my dog has recently passed away so it sadly remains a bit of a triggering topic for me. I sometimes share old stories about him when I have the mental and emotional capacity for it, but would prefer not to be asked about it for the foreseeable future as it can catch me off-guard and put me in a dark place🤍

Garden/hobbies: Due to my current living situation, my gardening is pretty much just maintaining my cacti collection. Also writing is currently my only hobby due to aforementioned circumstances

Tagging: Everyone, tag me in cute seal and bird pics! I also love doing tag games and ask games and the like, even if it sometimes takes me a while. In general: Never hesitate to tag me for stuff ^^

[pinkpoweredpunk]

---

[AUDIO: A recorded conversation.

Alder: So, that boy Cheren seems to have his dream more or less figured out. What about you, kid?

Blake: Huh? Me?

Alder: What are you on this journey for?

Blake: ...

Blake: I don't know. Well, I do, but- it's kinda pathetic...

Blake: I wanted to get away from school.

Alder: Really?

Blake: Yeah... this one my mom tried to send me to. She wants me to find some direction in my life, but- I hated it. It got me all antsy and uncomfortable just thinking about it- sitting around in a classroom full of strangers, listening to some guy drone on for hours, going back home with a load of homework- been there done that in elementary and middle school, you know?

Alder: Ha! Trust me, I do know. I had the exact same problems when I was your age- I couldn't sit still or stay in one place to save my life. Why learn about the world on a chalkboard when you can go out and see it for yourself, right?

Blake: Yeah, but- still. It was kinda irresponsible of me.

Blake: And... I dunno if it ended up being worth it. I got caught up in all this stuff with Team Plasma, and- people have gotten hurt because of it, and...

Alder: Ah, Team Plasma, eh? Yeah, they've been on my radar for a while now. I just got back from talking about them with Clay. We're looking into trying to stop them, but they're a slippery bunch.

Blake: Yeah... and uh, lately someone I thought I could trust turned out to be... not who I thought they were.

Alder: I see. So all of this is what's been making you want to call it quits, huh?

Blake: ...kinda. I don't know why I even bothered, honestly. This always happens- I get all excited, and think this time surely nothing will go wrong, and guess what? It does.

Blake: I don't... at this point, I don't know why I keep thinking I deserve to give myself second chances... All I keep doing is getting wrapped up in some kind of trouble, and dragging others down with me. It'd be better for everyone if I just threw the towel in.

Alder: Now, now, hold on there.

Blake: Huh-?

Alder: You're not giving yourself- or the friends that have been sticking by your side- enough credit. Your Pokemon, your traveling buddies- you've clearly got some loyal pals if they're still tagging along with you after all this time.

Blake: But-

Alder: I know you probably think it's unfair to them, huh? That they don't deserve to be caught up in this mess with you? I get it. But from the way I see it, I think they would've said something by now if they didn't want any part of this.

Alder: Well, at least that's what I gathered, from how close you all seem. I don't think I've seen a team of Pokemon this happy in a long time!

Blake: I...

Alder: We've all got our flaws, kid. Every adventure, every journey is gonna have its ups and downs. But I think the best way to handle those road bumps isn't just shoving everyone outta the way to deal with 'em yourself- it's tackling them together.

Alder: People aren't always gonna understand each other. Family, friends, strangers... People and Pokemon won't always, either. But I think what help us persevere in the face of those things is the bonds we share. And the way to nurture those bonds is opening your heart to each other, trusting each other.

Alder: Let me guess- you haven't told Cheren or any of your other friends much about these feelings, have you?

Blake: ...No, not really... They all see me as this tough, unstoppable trainer. I-I'm the most experienced out of any of them, they- they rely on me to keep my shit together.

Alder: Mhm. And how's that been working out for you so far?

Blake: ...Not great.

Alder: Well, I won't try and push you into doing anything- but I think it ought to be worth a try to open up more. Just a little bit. You're not infallible, champ- no one is.

Alder: It's clear you're enjoying this journey more than you say you are, otherwise you would've given up a long time ago. You love the feeling of seeing new places, and gathering all these new experiences, you love traveling with the people and Pokemon you've met along the way- deep down, I think you understand you wouldn't trade any of that for the world.

Alder: You've still got a long road ahead, and it's gonna have its mix of good and bad moments. Best you can do to prepare for it is trust your heart, try to know who your friends are, and take in whatever's around you and whatever you're feeling in the moment.

Alder: Like right now- you aren't facing down with Team Plasma, are you? You're at a festival! You ought to go enjoy yourself.

Blake: Haha... I guess you're right.

---

[aliciavance4228]

"Medusa x Perseus" Why don't you guys ship Bellerophon with Chimera? Or Heracles with the Hydra?"

Comparing Medusa to the Chimera and Hydra is a bit unfair. Gorgons are atleast humanoid, the other two are not. Its a bit zoophilic in nature. But again it's ancient Greece - Pasiphae fucked a bull so eh. It probably depends how humanly sentuent the monsters are. Still weird. I however do think that Heracles would fuck the Hydra, he is a canon monster fucker

Shipping Medusa with Perseus could be more comparable to shipping Theseus with the Minotaur. Both are stupud and make no sense but I've seen way less people complain about Theseus x the Minotaur that Medusa x Perseus.

The funny part is that I've already talked about and explained these aspects in the original tags lol.

[nakitengoku]

oc interview: 💙Vex💙

Shoutout to @mail-me-a-snail for tagging me in this post and also egging me along with getting into Cyberpunk 2077 and subsequently creating Vex 💫

(I don't have a single good photo of Vex so you instead get the Compilation of sillies I've drawn, many featuring Snail's Vance!)

💙 Name?

"Name's Vex, but call me anything you like."

💙 Nickname?

"Some people used to call me V, but that was a while ago."

He used to be called Ghost when he was younger, being able to slip into the background unnoticed at any moment, but he later grew out of that. When he eventually adopted the name V, it was less of a nickname and more of a stage name. It's mostly forgotten now, but some hardcore fans will still recognize and call him V.

💙 Gender?

"Prettyboy 💖"

💙 Star sign?

"Oh, I used to be really into these! If I remember right, My sun and moon are both Libra. Missy could probably tell you more about what that means though."

I decided to take one out of Max's book and use the first time i drew him as his birthday, which if we're going by the absolute first concept, was September 26, 2022. He's changed a Lot since then. Also, reading up on libras with Vex in mind is just 💥

💙 Height?

".....5'8."

He's actually 5'7 and a half.

💙 Orientation?

"Anyone able and willing. Why, you interested?"

If he cared enough about labels, it'd probably be pansexual. But by the end of the day, he doesn't really care what he gets called. As long as he gets what he wants out of it, anything's fine.

💙 Nationality/Ethnicity?

"White."

💙Favorite Fruit?

"Oh man, okay so I've only had it once at an after party forever ago, but it was this round, redish purple thing. When I bit into it, it was a little tart at first, but the inside was such a sweet taste that I was in heaven. By the time I finished and threw the pit away, there were no more left and I nearly cried. I haven't seen it since and I can't remember the name but man. Best organic thing I've ever tasted."

If you give this man a plum, he'd kill someone for you. Which isn't a lot given that that's his job, but still. He'd do it without expecting to be paid in money.

💙 Favorite season?

"Fall, for sure. While I was in Atlanta, they had these parks with trees that would change their colours to these gorgeous shades of reds and oranges. God, kinda makes me wish I could grow something like that here."

I don't actually know the plant life in Nevada or how much the temperature differentiates between the seasons in Night City, but I imagine that what shrubbery they do have there have leaves that are always green or simply non-existent. Vex saw a plant change colour outside of blooming and immediately fell in love with it.

💙 Favorite flower?

"Officially, Lilacs. But between you and me, I'm very partial to forget-me-nots."

He used to be gifted Lilacs all the time during his first career by Jonathan, his producer, but Vex always found himself enjoying the little forget-me-nots that acted as accent flowers than the actual lilacs themselves.

💙 Coffee, tea or Hot chocolate?

"Hot chocolate. Although, I will drink coffee in a pinch."

This man has the biggest sweet tooth. The amount of sugar he puts in his coffee before he chugs it down for the caffeine should be illegal. [I cannot judge bc I am the same way <3]

💙 Average hours of sleep?

'We talking Mean, Median or Mode?"

It varies so much that the actual average ends up being about 6, but um. Do not be fooled into thinking he's actually sleeping 6 hours every night. Think more along the lines of several all-nighters followed by crashing super hard for a day or two.

💙 Dog or cat person?

"Oh, a cat person. I'm just not home enough for a dog."

💙 Dream trip?

"I saw a pamplet once of Crater Lake in Oregon. It was something about the ten deadliest lakes in the world or something, but I'm just into how Blue it is. If I could, I'd visit the rest of those lakes too, but. Eh, I doubt it."

💙 Favorite Fictional Character?

"Hmm, it's a toss up between a side from this really long and old comic from the 2010's and the protagonist from a just as long manga from the 2000's. I think their names were Kanya and Ruffy? It's been 15 years though so don't quote me on that."

It's Kanaya from homestuck and Luffy from One Piece. He likes Kanaya because of her fashion sense and her dealing with the responsibility of her entire species on her shoulders. And he likes Luffy for his optimism and stubbornness. At one point, he imagined finding friends like Luffy did, being surrounded by so much devotion. The reasoning has since faded and he just barely remembers much about them now.

💙 Number of Blankets you sleep with?

"Eight. I like the weight and warmth."

His AC bill is through the fucking roof but he refuses to take a single blanket off, instead insisting on just making the rest of the room freezing. Giving him a weighted blanket wouldn't fix it, but he'd probably go down to five instead of eight.

💙 Random fact?

"When i was really little, my mom used to take me to a church. Don't think it exists any more, but I remember the Stain glass windows, how the light shone through and fell onto her. In normal lighting, I remember her looking pale a sickly, but once a week, with a statue of a half-god watching over us, my mother glowed. She was gorgeous.

"Anyway, I stopped going after she died. For a while it was because I never remembered what day it was, but later it was because I realized I only ever went to see my mom glow."

~~

Thank you for tagging me, Max! This was much longer than what i thought when i was getting into it but I'm still glad I did it.

I can't think of anyone specific who'd want to do this, so if you see this and want to give it a try, please do and tag me! I'd love to see your little blorbos :)

[doberbutts]

A lot of arguments I see against people with PCOS + hyperandrogenism calling themselves intersex is due to PCOS being a chronic illness, which is honestly very strange to me. Intersex conditionals also being chronic illnesses is far from exclusive to PCOS, but it's an argument I see used against it often.

Like you said, I often see TERFs and radfems arguing against it too. Mainly because they believe that being considered intersex would make them less of women. Whenever I look through the tag or look into online PCOS spaces, I see cis women angry in droves against the idea of being considered intersex because it means (at least in their mind) that they're not women. Femininity and honestly (as much as radfems would hate the idea) gender dysphoria from said perceived loss of femininity is so common in these spaces. Being seen as intersex in their eyes seems like another way their womanhood and femininity is being stripped from them.

I'm genderqueer so not having a connection to womanhood or femininity has never really been a problem for me (I'm personally much more concerned about my risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease due to PCOS). But it is a struggle for a lot of woman to lose that femininity (especially woman of color in these spaces since they're often hyperfeminized or hypermasculinized due to race/ethnicity) they desire and being called intersex can often add salt to that wound.

Their hated of PCOS + hyperandrogenism being considered intersex comes from intersexism + transphobia and how rampent they unfortunatly are in PCOS spaces, but it also tends to come from dysphoria from being defeminized due to things such as body hair, weight, wide shoulders, longer clitorises, and deeper voices that all come from hyperandrogenism (doubly so if you're not white). I think education on what being intersex actually entails and how it doesn't take away from your gender would be incredibly helpful and take away from the stigma in these spaces. A lot of people who say that PCOS + hyperandrogenism can't be intersex are radfems yeah, but a lot of them are also women who struggle with their connection to womanhood/femininity and feel like being intersex would just be a further attack on said womanhood.

Even though I no longer identify as a woman and haven't for over half a decade, I struggled a lot to fit the mold of womanhood and femininity due to being a PoC with pretty severe hyperandrogenism. And for people (especially WoC) who want to be seen as feminine and as woman, PCOS can make that struggle much more difficult. I've been diagnosed for a decade and this has been my observation in these spaces. Hopefully this can give some perspective.

Eh, like the discussion regarding MRAs, I'm not so willing to let terfs off the hook that easily.

If radical feminism had not spread the poison that gender ambiguity, masculine traits on women, intersex as a condition period, and higher amounts of testosterone were somehow "un-womanly" or "mannish" in the first place, we would not be here talking about this today. If they had instead chosen to embrace their transgender and intersex sisters, there would be no "de-feminizing" of intersex women. But because they have decided to instead vilify traits associated with trans women at the cost of implying (or sometimes, outright stating) that intersex women are not "real women", they're now forced to eat crow as their theory is working against them and, really, against up to 10% of all cis women.

If they had chosen inclusivity, they would not have to worry that being labeled intersex takes away their womanhood. Their own theory has blown up in their faces, and they're mad about it.

And because these radfems have spread this poison, now we have other cis women who are not radfems who still believe in what they have spread, who are now also harmed by this notion that they may be "lesser" "fake" "half" women due to a circumstance they were born with.

All they had to do was accept trans and intersex women and not vilify masculine traits on women.