#especially since the tl and canon are going completely differently at this point

[mushroompollution]

going to post another chapter summary on my last break tonight, bc it's like the most important one of them all. it's going to be 2 parts and honestly, mostly just the actual manga reduced down a bit instead of summary. it's a pretty short one, and it's Elliot and Leo's backstory which. I've summarized both ic and ooc several times already. so it feels fitting to just include and post as much of it as possible

[wixelt]

Btw, I've been working to flesh out characterization and worldbuilding for the Player Culture AU but, due to that technically being a mostly completely seperate AU from Hermitphibia, I'm probably only going to update you where it's relevant as to not flood your inbox with unrelated lore. I've been mostly going through SMP's to see if they have anything lore relevant and seeing where it would apply.

...

So anyway, Pirates SMP Scar is almost explicitly HC8 Scar and also shares the name of his previous sailing ship with New life!Scar's plane and I think The Hermatrix may have done essentially the same thing to the Hermits' memories The Core did to Marcy's memories to ensure they were for the most part versions of themselves that wouldn't catch on to being in a simulations, with the exceptions of Doc and Ren, who were made into versions of themselves that would catch on quick. Yes, this is rather the big assumption to make based just on Scar having continuity, but it's either this or decanonising The Hermatrix.

It also goes to explain some of Season 8's weirdness as a whole and opens the season's lore up to be used again... just not in it's surrounding context. Mumbo is probably a formless shapeshifter with half a soul, but it probably isn't Grian's and he's probably been that way since before joining Hermitcraft. The reason The Hermatrix accounted for Pearl's connection to the moon is because of the subconscious memories she still had but hadn't recalled. Impulse eats rocks because he both is and isn't a dwarf due to existing in like two or three points of his life simultaneously. Pearl's megabyte resembles the human settlement in S9 because, well,

Tl;Dr: either The Hermatrix is explicitly noncannon or it was fucking with the hermits' memories to make them relive moments of their pasts because otherwise I can't see how the entrepreneur who traveled by wagon went on to become a pirate and possibly later an air pilot.

Also Pirate!Scar's pirate hat is in Scar's room in Scarland and Pilot!Scar's head is in Cub's meuseum if I'm remebering correctly, both shown in Sausage's world tour.

(Glad to hear your culture interpretation's going well. Always interested to hear about it in relation to the Hermitphibia AU.)

I like the idea that the Hermatrix fundamentally shifted the Hermits' inherent selves to keep them safe (& that it echoes Marcy in canon/False in the AU), though I imagine its less making them different in personality & more unconsciously nudging them away from certain lines of thought they'd usually have.

The idea that this process embellishes or reinterprets certain traits of each Hermit is fun, too.

I don't know if some of the specific interpretations line up with the way I view things, though, but lets work through them one at a time:

Scar's timeline in my mind happens as released & I don't think too much Hermatrix shifting would be needed, nor would it be non-canon. The Hermits take on personas all the time (RenTheKing, etc.), & Scar of all people is very inclined towards that.

I don't know where the interpretation of Mumbo as a half-soulless shapeshifter comes from (aside from the potato thing, maybe), but I'm not sure if I buy it over, say, the view of him as a vampire. I'd be interested in hearing more, though.

Pearl's connection to the moon in the sim - name aside - stemming from her past lives is something I like. Makes it more than just a symbolic connection, & that'd be especially important in the AU as unless Pearl chose her name (which is plausible), Grian's surname would also be Moon.

Impulse eating rocks coming form his dwarf phase is something I'm going to steer clear of, unless we interpret that the Hermatrix was somehow predicting the future as well, since that was still a season away.

[firendgold]

Pk now I want to hear tour rant about how Harrydore is bettter than Grindeldore. Bring it 🤣❤️

ohhh, this one's easy. I've been in this fandom on and off since 2006, and seen how Harry, Albus and Gellert were written pre- and post-'Dumbledore closet interview'. cracks knuckles

got to hit you with that readmore though. and it's going to be in two parts. I rambled again. ^^

🗲

//

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

//

(...'rambled' is perhaps an understatement.)

🗲

grindeldore vs harrydore

grindeldore

the tl;dr of the below is the following sentences, and then I'll get into it. My philosophy on gr*ndeld*re extends to all other ships in all other fandoms, especially HP: if it's not an AU and you have to excessively mischaracterize Character A to get them to 'fit' with Character B, then it's not a good ship, canon or not. Albus Dumbledore is quite often mischaracterized in order to 'fit' or 'keep' him with Gellert Grindelwald.

here's my problems with how gr*ndeld*re is most often portrayed:

Inconsistency within canon. JKR is partly mostly to blame for this (because she has contradicted her original 2007 statement in the present day with more interviews in the 2010s and with the Fantastic Beasts movies), but the first problem is: gr*ndeld*re was originally an unrequited ship. The original statement was that Albus was dazzled by Gellert's power, his presence, their similarities, their shared ideals... but That Woman wasn't explicit on whether Gellert ever returned his feelings. But based on her quotes where she says "falling in love can blind you to an extent" and that [Dumbledore] was "terribly, terribly let down" by the result of that whirlwind relationship, I think it's safe to assume that her original idea of Gellert cared far more for seeing his grander plans realized than for the needs and feelings of his 'equal'. And yet... in fandom, they are most often portrayed instead as star-crossed lovers torn apart by 'conflicting ideals'.

The second problem is that in the avalanche of fics and art that have come from The Reveal, the original lesson (/moral...?) behind the reveal of gr*ndeld*re, and how it shaped Albus as an adult, leader, and progressive, just... got lost. Completely lost. The whole point of it was to show that even Albus (supposed 'paragon of goodness' until book 7 showed the fandom that he is a regular human being) can make 'relatable' mistakes like... you know... being friends with a fascist. Being in love with a fascist, even. Thanks to said retcon interviews and the new movies (and even before that tbh) the fandom has since: overexaggerated Albus' new clay feet to the point of bashing him, idolized Grindelwald's red flag traits and ideals to the point where he has become the new "Tom Riddle was just misunderstood!" guy, and twisted that lesson/moral/whatever to mean that actually Albus and Gellert were tragically kept away from each other by an itsy bitsy little difference of opinion. A minor little fight. Casual death of your sick sister. Haven't we all been there?

The fandom diminishing the real reasons why Albus and Gellert eventually clashed, were destined to clash, is bad enough. What's worse is the opposite end. Some Dumbledore-bashing fans go the other way and paint present-day Dumbledore with the same brush as Grindelwald, even going so far as to say he still supports The Greater Good even though his entire character is literally built on being the opposite of the pro-magic, anti-Muggle philosophy. Albus has also been painted in some fics and even meta discussions as someone who 'regrets' his past not because his sister died and his brother is estranged from him, but just because his ex-boyfriend is in prison and he maybe kind of regrets not going full fascist with him. Like... bruh. NO. There are people who ship gr*ndeld*re just because they feel like Grindelwald, the worst dark wizard in the world, the reason why Voldemort is only a minor league little lord in comparison, is an appropriate "punishment" for the character they already dislike and thus misinterpret. (Side note: I'm not sure if I'm in a worse hell watching Albus' character get whitewashed for fascism or demonized so he can be a miserable lonely gay.)

Albus diminishes himself to meet Gellert's needs. An in-universe problem this time instead of a meta/RL one: Albus and Gellert were lovers, yes, but in order to be so, Albus had to actively start neglecting his siblings (since in Aberforth's words he was 'doing all right' taking care of them before Gellert showed up) and leaning more into anti-Muggle sentiment. He put all his energy into what for most of the magical world was a wild goose chase after some fairy-tale items. (Remember, most wixen don't give a shit about the Deathly Hallows, or think they're even real.) He became the person Gellert needed/desired most. Albus became a version of himself that he despised later in his life and after his death.

Relationships often include the members changing, and it's easy for even the most devoted partners to fall out of love if they change and are now too different from one another, or one person changes and the other... doesn't. After Ariana died, Albus chose to become a different person and champion the same people he and his family once despised. He chose to stay away from Gellert, whether he called it cowardice or principles or whatever else. And his choice put him in conflict with Gellert, who at sixteen refused to change course or rethink his ideals even when his choices led to the death of a magical person (the type of person he supposedly prizes above all others). His magical boyfriend's magical sister, even. And we see no sign that Gellert changed, repented, or considered Albus until decades later, at the very end of his life—far too late.

Healthy relationships require give-and-take, sacrificing for your partner in things big and small. For high-stakes relationships like Albus and Gellert's (queer in the 1800s, sweet Merlin), that is even more true. During that steamy summer of 1899, it was Albus who did all the sacrifcing/giving and Gellert who did all the taking. Gellert may have entertained the idea of bringing Ariana along on his quest with Albus (we don't know), but Aberforth was right to say that it would have been torture for her—and no alternate idea was brought up that would prioritize the wellbeing of Albus' siblings while he was away. And in the moment of required reciprocity when Albus was at his lowest, Gellert left him behind and went off to go rule the world. Not even the most diehard shipper can argue against the fact that when Ariana died, Grindelwald left.

This problem is even more personal/biased than the other ones. Albus and Gellert parted ways in 1899. They didn't see each other again until the duel in 1945 (because fuck Fantastic Beasts, the scripts don't even make fucking sense). Albus defeated Gellert, put him in prison, and then went on living for another fifty-two years. And That Woman expects me to believe that Albus never had a relationship with anyone before Gellert, and never even looked at another wizard afterward? In 52 years, he was one-and-done? He never once fell in love with other people, whether or not he fully trusted them/let them in? Be serious. Pull the other one. It's not realistic, and it doesn't speak to the kind of man Albus Dumbledore is. He may not have found a man to check the same boxes Gellert did, but he wouldn't arguably be looking for someone too similar to his old flame. He might not trust them unconditionally or be the Perfect Partner for them (bc whew traumaaa), but there would be other people for Albus in a realistic Magical Britain (even discounting time travel shenanigans). Before the reveal, the most popular people to ship Albus with were Minerva, Alastor, and Elphias Doge; these options are still arguably more valid. Albus Dumbledore loves love, he champions love, and he doesn't think he deserves it after his sins, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't go looking. It's mind-boggling to me that with all the well-deserved disavowing of JKR following her anti-trans hate (and her shameless pandering to the same people calling her a witch poisoning their children's minds decades ago), that some people still treat her words about Albus and Gellert's relationship and its effects on Albus in particular as gospel. I sure don't. (Especially because she said he became "asexual" after His One Gay Experience when like. That's not. What asexuality is??? And ace gay people exist???) Whether you count the FB movies or not, there are still decades of Albus' life that are a mystery, and I refuse to believe he closed his heart and caged his dick for all of them.

IMPORTANT END NOTE: These observations obviously do not apply to all gr*ndeld*re shippers. Some people genuinely do like both characters, characterize them correctly, and still want to see them together for reasons. I'm not going to judge them. I ship a frigging time travel age gap ship, how the fuck could I. And I'm also aware that a lot of fics/art are made to color in between the lines of what we don't know in the fandom, bringing Albus and Gellert together during the mystery years, or making one wizard better for the other to address all the ship baggage. I just can't join them because of how rarely that occurs (and, admittedly, how much I personally can't see it). You would not believe how many fics and discussions I've seen that lionize Grindelwald and treat Dumbledore like an accessory, or completely mischaracterize Albus' motivations, intentions, and actions, and then put him with "the other Big Bad". UGH.

Most of the time, I see gr*ndeld*re the ship hurting Albus the individual. It's very rare to find an iteration where Albus is not bearing the consequences of Gellert's choices, Gellert's actions, Gellert's mistakes and harm done. I think Albus deserves better than to be Gellert's accessory just because he loved him deeply long ago.

okay. whew. that was a lot.

a character limit prevents me from continuing here, so the second half of this versus will go elsewhere, sorry!

[feelin-kinda-cocky-bmc]

FKC Update 6/12/23

Alright, we're moving quicker than we have been this time around. As always I'm not writing everything to completion just yet, just the basic premises I'm looking to write, but will be filling in the rest.

But good news, Dustin Route days 3 and 4 are both done! Which leaves day 5, the dance day, and the date day. These tend to be easier to write just because it's at the stage with the most romantic tension, which for ships you love, is fun as hell to write. The beginning of routes tend to be harder because it's a lot of setup and context and world/relationship building, it be like that. But I'm making headway.

Thanks to a helpful video I found from an ADHD writer, my writing production has improved drastically. Basically my process is open a Google Doc, copy paste the bullet points/ideas I already have, and then just absolutely spitball incoherent, unpunctuated, slang shit for what I want to happen for the day. Then I just copy and paste the spitballing and just write and it works. It's also funny as hell, but I'm gonna be embarrassed as hell when I do eventually release it to the public. But it just helps me get all my thoughts out and not feel pressured, and I end up writing better because of it.

Anyway, looking ahead while I'm here. After Dustin's route, I'm going to be tackling Jake's, because P&P my beloved. That's gonna be a bit messy because I have not written Jake that much, but hey, whatever. I'll get through it. And then after that, obviously, is the Jeremy route. And I'm sorry to admit but I'm not the biggest Boyfs fan. HOWEVER, stay with me here, I think I'll like them more by the time I finish Feelin' Kinda Cocky. I know there's the Boyfs haters and the Boyfs lovers and everything in between, so I want to see if I can make something that will appeal to anyone in the BMC fandom, especially because it's not at all a bad ship. But anyway, I'm not having that discussion here, just letting y'all know my plans for the future.

Then I'm planning on simultaneously revising each route (in order of progress, so Rich-Dustin-Jake-Jeremy) and working with my artists to get some shit done there. Ideally I'd like to make the sprites since I kinda know what I know how I interpret the characters. They won't stray far from canon, just will have different outfits for some flair. Except for Dustin and the secret route characters, which I would need to be in charge of either way. But I'm also not that great when it comes to art yet, so I might have to hand it off to someone else. But beyond sprites, the artists I'm working with will (ideally) be helping out assets (like the title screen and GUI assets) and backgrounds. I'm also planning on including some Monster Prom-esc elements like images occasionally appearing in between the sprites when something during a scene happens, and would love to have a similar photo gallery for endings, special events, secrets, fanart (if I get any) and more.

Anyway, tl;dr, I finished Dustin day 3 and 4 in the span of two days and I'm planning on writing Jake's route next. I'm just trying to give as much detail as I can right now because doing sneak peaks for lines of code is kinda boring.

As always, thanks to everyone for supporting the development of Feelin' Kinda Cocky!

Discord | Community Idea Drop

[starlit1daydream]

trying to articulate my thoughts here

generally speaking with heathers i try and think of ways to merge the movie and musical characterizations to get a bigger picture of the character

the problem is, duke has THE most drastic difference between the two

in the movie she's a timid bookworm and a genuine friend to veronica who gets manipulated by jd into taking chandler's crown

in the musical she's just a douchebag from day one and always 'the meanest heather' with no real personality beyond how much she's a cunt

generally speaking when trying to write for duke in a way that

A - makes her an interesting charactre in her own right

B - rings true with her canonical characterisation

there's a few ways you can go about it

you can have her primary conflict BE about her lack of substance and personality, there's some interesting ways to tie that into her bulimia (something the fandom grossly underrepresents with her)

you can incorporate the more intellectual aspect of her personality that shines through in the movie, which is what i tend to do because it provides something in common with veronica

and there's a lot to be said about her being a direct contrast to veronica's more idealistic worldview that people are capable of change - duke is the best way to provide that antithesis. write her as directly challenging veronica's compulsion to 'fix' people that we see with j.d.

and with the idea that duke is somewhat of a closet nerd from what we see in the movie combined with how little she actually seems to enjoy the party scenes in the musical until she gets a chance to bully martha

duke's mother paid for implants according to 'beautiful' and that's about all we hear - she's repeatedly trampled and stepped on by heather chandler when she tries to have an opinion and she seems used to this

the picture that forms in my head is of somebody who tried against all odds to prioritise academia when everybody else in her like told her to just sit there and look pretty

and in the end she just collapsed in the face of that pressure and submitted to that toxic, misogynistic culture and all of the unrealistic beauty standards that came with it. that's where so much of her body image issue comes from

we have her flattened to the point where she lacks any substance to herself and just mirrors heather chandler in an attempt to fit in and roll with the popular crowd. she's willingly stripping herself of any agency and surrendering to that hollow, vapid popularity

and once she gets the chance to take the spotlight and is blackmailed into usurping power by j.d. she goes completely out of control because it's been so LONG since she's felt like she's had any agency. she lashes out, continues the cycle of abuse that's been lumped onto her even if the victims of it (martha, veronica, ESPECIALLY mac) didn't do shit to her. "heather, why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?" says veronica. "because i can", replies duke.

is this a very different read from duke's fandom interpretations? probably. most people seem to narrow her down to just 'the asshole heather' or 'guys she's not actually the asshole heather! (provides no elaboration as to what other role she can fill in the narrative)

this is gratuitously long and probably directly contradicts a lot of what's said or implied in canon but at the end of the day if it results in good storytelling in any hypothetical fanfiction i could write down then i'd be willing to hear it out

tl;dr heather duke's body image issues and implied academic interest from the movies need to be focused on more in the fanbase, the musical kind of fucked up her character and people's perception of her and she's the logical direct antithesis to veronica.

its hard to explain but the way i characterize heather duke is just gifted kid burnout on steroids

[blorb-el]

very happy to finally see someone who is as much mentally destroyed by flashpoint kal as me (it gets better I promise) and thanks to you I finally tried the superman radio show and... I don't know if I should thank you or curse you ? I just finished listening to the headless indian and the super sleuth and I fear this hyperfixation isn't going away soon...

But anyway, please pretty please could you give me some recs ? Is there an order I should listen them to or are they more stand alone stories ?

And continue to share your knowledge about superman and comics in general please it's fascinating!

flashpoint kal is literally something i'd daydream up and then go 'no no you're being too self indulgently angsty come on.' flashpoint beyond #3 was worth it all to see him finding a purpose :,)

old time radio the adventures of superman my beloved! (qualified). I've wanted to do a rec list for a while but I keep on getting hung up on how anti-Native/Indigenous a lot of the episodes are, especially in the first 'season.' That being said, I think most people are going to go into a radio show from the 40s aware of both the progressiveness of the show and the instances where it fails to reach the high standard it set for itself, particularly in the postwar era.

When I listened, I listened to The Clan of the Fiery Cross first, then went back to the beginning and just listened straight through. A very knowledgeable old time radio enthusiast did a podcast of every complete serial. 3 caveats here: 1. there are a few episodes missing or out of order but that's pretty easy to figure out, 2. the first 40 or so podcast episodes went missing (look those up on youtube or download those on archive.org here), and 3. while looking it up I only just now found out he's pretty far right-wing. He keeps it off his commentary though.

I think of OTR TAOS as 3.5 eras: the first before it moved to Mutual (40-42ish), the War years which are almost entirely lost, the postwar "S stands for sjw and sci-fi" era (my beloved) (Dec 45-48), and the short last series of half-hour standalone episodes. Here’s how stuff changed over time:

There’s a major paradigm shift between the first era and lost war serials where Superman operates first as an urban legend/cryptid, then switches to operating in the open and the world becomes aware he exists. Weird Justice Cryptid.

There’s a ‘soft’ retcon at some point in the lost serials where instead of growing up on the way to Earth and stepping out of the spaceship fully grown, as in the first episode of the first era, he gets to grow up with the Kents (who, fun fact, are from Iowa). His origin will be retold at several points.

During Looking for Kryptonite, the serial following the Atom Man saga, Clark makes the momentous decision to trust Bruce with his secret identity. This is a paradigm shift on the level of revealing his existence to the world.

In the switch to the last era of half hour standalone episodes, Bruce is then retconned out of existence (RIP). The half hour episodes may as well be a different canon, since many of them are adaptations of previous serials. They do have their own charm though.

There’s some smaller details that happen as ‘continuity’ within the postwar era, but all these shouldn’t trip a listener up much - Poco shows up, Perry gets elected Mayor of Metropolis, Lois gradually becomes more friendly to Clark, Unity House is built, etc.

Under the cut, a LONG list of highlights in order of airing, but tl;dr I’d say my top 10 were: the first storyline, The Black Pearl of Osiris, A Mystery for Superman, The Headless Indian, the entire Atom Man saga including Looking for Kryptonite, The Clan of the Fiery Cross, George Latimer Crooked Political Boss, Superman vs. Kryptonite, The Mystery of Meteor Island, and The Voice of Doom.

From the first era:

the first 21 episodes form a roughly continuous story which I'd recommend highly. this was the only era that they gave individual episode titles so I'll skip listing them all, just stop when you get to The Emerald of the Incas which is five episodes of pure YIKES. (to be fair the last episode is essentially "hey you moron, ask the Native Americans if perhaps they wrote down the statue's inscriptions instead of STEALING IT???" Debatable if it's worth slogging through the five episodes before that. )

Pick right back up again with Donelli's Protection Racket and Airplane Disaster, which were Jimmy Olsen’s first stories in any medium, and go a long way to explain why Jimmy loves Clark. The found family really kicks off here imo.

It's been a year or so since I listened to these but I recall Buffalo Hills, Happyland Amusement Park, Pillar of Fire at Grave's End, and The Yellow Mask and the Five Million Dollar Jewel Robbery were all pretty good, with the last featuring a familiar villain.

The Howling Coyote is a tossup, featuring maybe the one (1) multidimensional, memorable Native character in the whole run, but also more racism than usual. Give it a try if you like Westerns. It has one of my favorite side characters from the entire series, Tumbleweed Jones, a cowboy who took one look at Jimmy and turned to Clark and said i know you're his adopted dad but i want to also adopt him. can i. elder queer mentor vibes. gay little cowboy adopts gay little bowtied city kid and coparents with gay tired superhero. Howling Coyote goes right into...

The Black Pearl of Osiris, which is one of my favorites. Tumbleweed Jones comes to the big city. A decent mystery. Ridiculous side characters. Clark gets gaslit instead of gaslighting everyone else for once. Some racism as usual, though. Note that this one is slightly out of order on the podcast.

Last of the Clipper Ships is slow paced but good if you are in love with Jimmy (I was at this point) and also features an ABSURDLY good Moment in part 18 where they're in a dark room and Clark ventriloquizes a conversation between himself and Superman. It was one of those moments I felt like a kid listening because it blew my mind.

Dr. Roebling and the Voice Machine pays tribute to one of the original inspirations behind Superman with its machine that listens into crime - a fun look at what sci-fi looked like in 1941.

The Silver Arrow, a direct continuation on from the preceding The Crooked Oil Association (a thoroughly meh episode), is a delightful Western treasure hunt with Tumbleweed's return.

The Mechanical Man has an evil Nazi robot Superman gets to punch, what's not to love.

The first three parts of Lita, the Leopard Woman are really good Daily Planet family dynamics, the rest is skippable.

A Mystery for Superman is the last episode in this run, and you are either going to think the solution to the mystery is INCREDIBLY FUNNY or SO STUPID. I think the first. love this episode.

There are almost no complete serials from the war years, a consequence of the master recordings being stored on cheaper materials in order to preserve metal for the war effort. You’ve mentioned The Headless Indian, one of the best serials in the entire show, IMO. Amazing characters, great villain, and somehow less racist than the title would imply.

The first Batman/Superman team up and the first encounter with Kryptonite are from this era and they are both lost and I’m going to die mad about it.

Postwar era favorites:

Dr. Blythe’s Confidence Gang is the first surviving Batman serial; I would recommend it just on those grounds but it’s also a fun story where Batman and Clark Kent work together to clear Lois’s name of a false murder.

The Atom Man saga is the longest connected group of stories. It goes Meteor of Kryptonite, The Scarlet Widow, The Atom Man, and The Atom Man in Metropolis, and technically leads right into Looking for Kryptonite. Big recommendation; although Superman’s faced off against criminal genius type supervillains like the Laugher and the Yellow Mask, this is the first (and one of only two times) he comes up against an enemy with superpowers, and he shows his mettle and courage as he’s almost killed multiple times in this storyline.

Is There Another Superman, another Batman team up, is a little ridiculous but it does delight me because half their problems could be solved if Clark took a nap while Bruce watched him. This makes sense I promise. 

The Radar Rocket is so bad it’s good. Terrible, terrible science. Superman fights moon pterodactyls and moon ants and also Poco is there. Also notable for being the only serial I can remember where Clark spends the majority of his time being Superman instead of Clark Kent.

Story of the Century is an adaptation of A Mystery for Superman, only this time Bruce gets to get in on the fun, and then Clark gets to turn the tables.

The Hate Mongers Organization is the opening salvo of the show’s antiracist campaign. From here on out, this will be the show’s major concern. This is followed by Al Vincent’s Corrupt Political Machine, a similar story which I also recommend, and then comes...

The Clan of the Fiery Cross. Justly famous, a fierce, pointed criticism of a real, present opinion in American society, and it deserves the praise it gets. Although folks coming to this serial from Superman Smashes the Klan may be disappointed to know that there’s never an explicit Superman as Immigrant storyline in this serial, it’s still devoted with a singleminded, refreshing intensity to making sure that the bigot is proven wrong at every turn, and showing the violence and hatred of the Klan is founded on hypocrisy. (ALSO READ SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN.)

The Super Sleuth is another delightful teamup with Batman, where a detective is convinced Clark Kent is Superman and annoys the hell out of him.

The Secret Menace Strikes Again returns to the justice and tolerance themes, this time with the corporate censorship of the Daily Planet, fearmongering, war profiteering, and the kidnapping of Perry White.

George Latimer, Crooked Political Boss, deals with violent antisemitism, Nativism, and the political machine. High recommendation, especially since Latimer will return.

The Dead Voice: Someone is blackmailing Robin. Furious, protective World’s Finest Coparents, Alfred gets to do something, and Dick gets a grandfather!

The Disappearance of Clark Kent - Superman takes a break from corruption on Earth to try to save a planetoid from destruction. A quintessential Superman Moment in here as he decides he has to do what he can to help despite the personal risk. The rest of the serial is bizarre sci-fi. It leads right into The Secret Letter, also recommended, in which Clark returns to Earth to try to reclaim the last will and testament he left for his friends before they open it and discover his identity. Another Batman appearance.

Drought in Freeville returns to corrupt politicans, addressing the tension between newly-returned veterans and people suspicious of and hostile to them. I liked it mostly as a historical document - if you like the political stories listen, if they’re not your cup of tea it’s skippable.

The Monkey Burglar - if you liked The Dead Voice, here is more Robin being threatened!

The Knights of the White Carnation - White supremacists try to destroy a high school basketball team because there are Catholics/immigrant children on it.

The Man Without a Face - international spy espionage featuring a surprise return from Herbert Caulkins, the investigator in The Super Sleuth, and an attempt to sabotage the World Peace Organization/UN.

The Mystery of the Lost Planet - This is Poco’s origin, meaning it’s a rewrite of one of the lost War serials. Possibly the funniest thing radio Clark Kent has ever done in his life in part 10.

Superman vs. Kryptonite - Another of my favorites. Spoiler alert, Superman does not win the fight vs Kryptonite. George Latimer returns, determined to get revenge on both Clark Kent and Superman, and runs steps ahead of Batman as Bruce frantically tries to figure out where Superman is and rescue him. Features a completely bonkers plot twist halfway through which I kind of love, and one of the most memorable ending sequences - I can see it as clearly as a movie.

The Secret Rocket - The only time Clark returns to the Kent farm, in a poignant moment (it’s been sold: the Kents are dead in this continuity). The remainder of the story is a little eh, but a fun core idea of how destructive Kryptonian technology could be in 1947.

The Ruler of Darkness - yet another political machine story, except in this one, Perry White has HAD ENOUGH and runs for Mayor himself. Cue many, many, many attempts to sabotage his campaign.

Batman’s Great Mystery - the mystery is that Batman has turned into a hatemongering bigot, and obviously Dick and Clark must team up to go “this isn’t you.” It isn’t him.

Mystery of the Stolen Costume - Someone’s robbed Clark Kent’s apartment and has found his secret closet with his spare costume. Bruce and Clark work together to try to save his identity.

The Skin Game - More bigots try to de-integrate a track and field team, explicitly because one of the athletes is Black. For reference, this serial was broadcast in 1948, Brown v Board of Education was decided in 1954.

The Mystery of Sleeping Beauty - completely ridiculous in terms of history and sci-fi, but it rolls right around into kind of charming, and plus Superman gets to fight and probably kill a whole bunch of Nazis. In an off-camera 1948 way.

The Mystery of Meteor Island - okay have you ever read/listened to/watched a Superman story where he gets owned by Kryptonite and thought idly to yourself, what if someone ELSE got owned by radiation poisoning? Well have I the radio serial for you. Batman and Robin story.

The Voice of Doom - the only other superpowered enemy in the series. A killer convict acquires some hypersonic voice power in a lab accident. A Batman team up, and also the return of the Scarlet Widow (even though she totally died earlier. Comics style retcon!)

The Mystery of the Letter - the most memorable Lois centric episode, she receives a letter from her sister Diana which brings her and Clark to Paris.

And finally, of the half hour standalone stories - after so long listening to the serials, I’d gotten used to their slower paced storylines, so this wasn’t my favorite format, but the pacing is probably more amenable to most listeners. I liked The Double Trouble, One Minute to Death, Death Rides the Roller Coaster, Mystery of the Mechanical Monster, and The Diamond of Death. The Mystery of the Walking Dead was also okay, but Clark was a bit of an ass in the first part of that one. These were oriented towards adults and were much darker in tone, hence the edgy titles.

Whew. Or as Jimmy would say, gleeps! Fellow otr taos enjoyers feel free to yell at me anytime about any of these serials, or sound off about your favorites. 

[renaerys]

Don’t take this the wrong way cause I’m just curious and this is my first time on your tumblr account lol (I’ve been following your blossick fics). I’m familiar with Naruto since I was young and I was wondering about how you got into the sasori and Sakura ship cause for me it’s very random. What made you ship them instead of the canon ship? You’ve probably answered this before so sorry if I’m asking!

Not at all! That's a really good question. I'll put it under a Read More because 2014 fandom ptsd re the end of Naruto taught me too well.

The tl;dr for why I don't like the canon SS ship is that I thought they had nothing positive in their foundation, which was only made so much worse in the final chapters. There were plenty of opportunities for Kishimoto to show us that they had chemistry and actually cared about each other in a meaningful, non-superficial way over the course of the manga, but bizarrely he did the complete opposite in a way that felt not just careless, but downright malicious at times, especially in the final war chapters. It was honestly offensive to read, even as an anti-shipper, and I found myself feeling really bad for the people who like that ship in the end. What a shit way for their OTP to become canon.

I'm not going to get into the dirty details here because that ship fandom is fucking demented about anti sentiment, even when it's delivered in a respectful way. Frankly, I don't have the time or patience anymore to debate online about a fictional couple in a manga that ended years ago. If people like the ship, cool! I hope they have fun shipping it and making good content for it. I happen not to like it, and I'm extremely comfortable in that camp and always will be.

As for SasoSaku, go re-read the manga where they fight! It's the hottest villain/hero encounter I have EVER read. There are some very compelling takeaways from that fight:

They have diametrically opposed world views, and yet they both demonstrate a willingness (and even a desperation) to understand something about the other's point of view. And they actually accomplish that, to different degrees, in the end. Sasori lets the last attack hit him because Sakura got through to him and made him acknowledge that he had failed, that he had made a mistake, and that he was never truly alone. I think he realized in that last moment that the "life" he was living was no life at all, and that he maybe could have made different choices if Chiyo had done a better job being there for him and if he had let her. It is so staggeringly beautiful that I literally cry. When she yells at him "why is that the only way you can see the world?" and is so angry and so emotional because it feels so personal to her now, I just completely fall apart. If only he could have seen and done things differently, what kind of life could he have led? I think she mourns this in a way, and I think not a single person has ever shown him that type of empathy before now (that he was willing to listen to) and it totally destroyed him.

Sasori is the second person aside from Tsunade to have ever acknowledged Sakura's real power and capabilities--and he is a villain trying to kill her! And he's a rude, entitled, unspeakably selfish person who would rather get stabbed than not get the last word. If that's not a show of the humanity he still has even if he doesn't want to admit it, idk what is. And then he rewards her for killing him? For a dude who keeps berating her about doing pointless things their whole fight, he sure does feel okay doing something completely pointless for her in the end (not for Chiyo, btw, but for Sakura). He took her seriously in this fight, and we saw her feeling so thrilled about showing off her strength and her abilities and how she'd beaten his poison. Sakura was living in this fight, it's all over her face in the panels, and Sasori was living right alongside her as she visibly impressed him each time he thought he'd gotten her and she got right back up and kept going. They were held up as equals in this fight, not necessarily based on shinobi skill alone, but as people with goals and feelings and a violent desire to be seen in the eyes of another they consider truly worthy. I mean, how is this not art and also super fucking hot?

SasoSaku is the first real ship I ever shipped. It was my shipping awakening. I will never forget when that fight first happened in the manga, waiting each week to see what would happen next, and realizing holy shit, this is what the foundation of a real enemies to lovers romance is supposed to be? Go re-read the manga chapters and pay attention to those points I made. I hope it completely blows you away like it did to me!

[crisscross-inksauce]

First thoughts on BATDR as a long-time BATIM fan...

Okay, first of all it was not what I was expecting at all! Almost everything I had thought previously was completely wrong. I expected that because we didn’t really know THAT much about the game all things considered. Even then, it went places I never thought Bendy would go.

For example, Ink Bendy and Toon Bendy being the same entity. I mentioned it as a half-joke to my friend after Bendy had shown up. I recognized it as a possibility but didn’t think it would happen because it had been such a huge meta in the fandom (especially the early days) that it seemed too easy. I literally said, “You know, we’ve never seen them in the same room, so...” But, whaddya know, I was unitentionally correct.

Also, I expected either the Ink Demon OR Wilson to be the villain not both of them. The subversion of expectation I expected came in a way I didn’t expect (lol).

Another example, there were NEVER souls in the ink machine???? How much of the first game was real??? What information should we keep and what information should we discard as being no longer canon??? This game clears up as much as it confuses. It’s so frustrating. (I feel like I might be missing something but I’m not sure, feel free to explain it to me lol)

Also, (in my opinion) both BATIM and BATDR are less impactful if there aren’t any real world consequences (Well, I suppose there will be in the future). I guess no-souls explains a lot but it leaves me dissatisfied. Maybe I’ll come around to the idea, but idk.

Also, Henry did NOT look how I thought he would (mostly thanks to Doberart lol.) I also wish he had a more important role in the story, being the protagonist of the first game. But I suppose it’s better that he isn’t for the story they’re trying to tell. Idk though, I feel like they could’ve given the og characters more of a limelight (besides alice, she got everything.)

Final thoughts: At this moment, I recognize that BATDR is a technically better game. But, I JUST watched it and it doesn’t stick in my mind nearly as much as the first game did. The old characters were barely present (except for Alice.) The new characters didn’t make up for it, since they’re not that memorable (except maybe Porter). The environments all look very similar to me and the cluttered art style doesn’t help. Most of the new levels don’t stick out in my mind as visually interesting. This game was touted to be SO much scarier than BATIM, but it really isn’t, like at all. There were a few moments, but not enough for the level of reiteration the devs were giving XD. I’m not sure I like how this game handled the first one, but I’m not crossing my arms just yet. I’m keeping my heart open, hopefully the next game will be better.

TL;DR: I feel very conflicted about this game. It feels like a setup and not a payoff. I found myself thinking “That’s it?” instead of, “That was awesome!!!” when the end screen came up (kinda like the first game hmm). I’m not sure I like where things are headed, but am still open to it. To be fair, I didn’t know what to think about the ending of BATIM when it first came out either but grew to love it more than anything I had originally theorized. Maybe that’ll happen here too once some theories come out (looking at you SuperHorrorBro.)

But, for the moment, BATDR is just okay. Certainly not bad, but not that great either. I feel like we didn’t really NEED it, y’know.

At this point, I'm not sure whether or not my expectations affected my enjoyment of the game. I didn't expect something better, I just expected something different. Something a little more fulfilling, I guess. Maybe that's gonna be the next game, idk. All I know is I left feeling confused(normal) and unsatisfied(abnormal)

P.S. I am not hating on this game, I think it is a good game. But I also think it has issues. I love BATIM, and am very easily pleased. So me having negative feelings about it is very surprising to me. And again, I may come around to it in the future these are just my feelings straight off the game.

This was not in an orderly fashion at all but it’s 3 in the AM and I’m tired so whatever

I'll post a more coherent version l8tr

[friedricebunny]

ranking the things i remember about sequel 6 in how much i think about them in contrast to the other sequel stories/liar stories in general

one: johnny and his boyfriend (the fat "mama's boy" who acts as "indicator" for mc to look out for in 1st liar) being taken seriously as characters for once???

like these two (johnny's boyfriend more so) are usually just complete gag characters and the fact that johnny even started dating him is meant to be a gag as well because of how absurd it must've been to the writers that johnny was dating this guy you were assuming would just be a throwaway character (but somehow there are so many characters in liar where they really just aren't throwaways which is just something I'm realizing now abruptly), especially since this guy is meant to be like an "example" of a blatantly undateable character as opposed to the more subtly undateable guys at least in voltage's eyes.

(there's also probably something to say about how the intended humor of their relationship might come from the fact that it's a gay relationship and neither johnny nor his boyfriend are really conventionally attractive but my memory on that is way blurrier)

but then sequel 6 comes around and suddenly their relationship is like actually meaningful to the story?? and when johnny breaks up with his boyfriend, his boyfriend actually wants to change as a person and shows genuine love for johnny?? and when he professes this to the guys and MC, the guys give him actual genuine advice (which was kinda thinly veiled advice for themselves but still).

and admittedly there's a little bit of a gag at the end where johnny secretly tells mc "well honestly i just broke up with him because he was too much of a mama's boy" but OVERALL, their story in sequel 6 was really heartwarming and i just remember reading this sequel and going "??? am i reading liar uncover the truth right now" because in what world would i expect voltage inc to take this gag relationship somewhat seriously.

two: guy interaction

okay i'll admit i made this post mainly for the point about johnny and his boyfriend because it genuinely baffles me how voltage actually started writing them seriously BUT another thing i always remember about this sequel is the guys like. actually interacting???

one of my fave things about liar is that it lets the guys actually interact with each other, but i'm used to seeing interactions in side files that really don't come up much or 10 guy events where the premise is absurd and pretty much not canon.

so like reading sequel 6 and seeing the guys (at least of that sequel) casually interact with each other as they're helping mc solve this case is genuinely surprising. but it was really good (exhibit a: that one mock trial about the shower, that was so funny)

three: stage structure

this is such a small thing in comparison to the other two, but most sequel stories are just prologue -> one "stage" that acts as the common story -> guy routes (excluding sequel 5 which is more of a ten guy event structure) but imagine my surprise when i reach sequel 6 and it's got TWO stages. this impacts nothing other than maybe helping the pacing a bit

anyways uhhhh tl;dr sequel 6 is different vs. most other liar stories but that's why it's probably my favorite sequel that doesn't include haruichi

i will never stop thinking about how out of place sequel 6 is in comparison to the other sequel stories or even really most liar stories in general (and i mean that in a good way)

[sineala]

Is 616 Tony a Democrat or Republican or neither? I’ve seen posts comparing him to Trump (barf!)

Wow. Geez. You don't ask easy questions, do you, anon?

First off, I am going to assume that whoever was comparing 616 Tony to Trump was trying to slander Tony. And I will tell you that we do in fact have 616 Tony's canonical opinion of Trump -- yes, Donald Trump exists on Earth-616 and has been referenced in several comics -- and he doesn't seem to like him much. I mean, this is back when Trump was primarily being known for being a New York businessman. They canonically ran in the same circles and Tony canonically knows him. He doesn't like him.

Here's Tony in Iron Man v1 #227 complaining that Trump bought him out of a building:

And here's Tony again in Iron Man v3 #37 being not especially thrilled when he thinks that the person he is about to meet is Trump:

(The person he is actually meeting is Tiberius Stone, which is also a very bad idea.)

I am also going to point out that due to the way Marvel likes to handle politics in its comics, I don't think we can say anything about the canonical political affiliation of most characters, because Marvel deliberately leaves that undefined. So to the best of my knowledge, we don't have a canonical statement about Tony's political affiliation and we probably won't ever get one.

But we can speculate based on canonical evidence, can't we?

My very long answer is under the Read More.

Your question is sort of framed as "tell me if Tony is a good or a bad person," and I would like to suggest that this is not really a useful framing for several reasons: (1) what the political parties currently stand for is pretty recent, actually, and Tony as a character predates a lot of the modern conceptions of the two parties; (2) the history of the Democratic Party specifically in New York, where Tony is from, is, let's just say, not 100% pure and unproblematic; and (3), when we're talking about someone with the amount of money, connections, and influence that Tony has, party affiliation generally doesn't mean the same thing it would mean for us ordinary mortals. What I mean by that last point is that there is a big, big difference between every one of the following list of statements: "I would vote for Republicans," "I am a registered Republican," "I would give very large amounts of money to Republicans," and "I would accept a political appointment in a Republican administration." For most of us, the last two of those points aren't ever going to be something that comes up in our lives, but they are going to be things that matter very much for someone like Tony Stark. And we have a canonical answer for at least one of those things. We can theorize about at least some of the rest of them.

I'm saying all that because I suspect you're really not going to like my answer.

I think that there is a very, very high chance that 616 Tony is a Republican.

I mean, I don't think he'd be a Republican right now at this exact moment in time, are you kidding me, but I feel like he has definitely been a Republican at some point in the past. Say, before Trump. One of those socially-liberal fiscally-conservative types. With a conscience. Sort of like Mitt Romney. Picture the kind of Republican Massachusetts likes to keep electing as their governor.

Yes, is possible that, since Tony is from New York, he's a lifelong Democrat. It is definitely possible. New York is heavily Democratic in our world, and barring contradictory evidence, that is probably also the case on Earth-616. But I think that, specifically because of the rest of Tony's background and the ways that Tony has interacted with the world of politics in 616, he is most likely to be a Republican. It doesn't mean he couldn't be a Democrat! I have no proof either way! In terms of several elements of his characterization -- say, his commitment to social justice and fighting inequity -- I would say he definitely leans Democrat, because these days that sort of thing is mostly the province of the Democrats, although I suspect that back when Tony was created it wouldn't have been out of character for a lot of Republicans. I'm just saying that Republican seems more likely. If you gotta pick one. I think you could definitely argue for either. He doesn't fit completely into either but his canon interactions with politics push me toward thinking he's a Republican, because he does several specific things that I think it would be unlikely that anyone other than a Republican would be given the opportunity to do at the specific time that he does them.

Yeah. I know.

Right. Okay. Tony is extremely, extremely rich, and even though I know that he is basically the fantasy of The One Good Ethical Billionaire (more on this in a sec), it's probably worth thinking about what actual real-life rich people do with their money in ways that intersect with politics. And the answer to that is, well, generally they give money to politicians who are favorable to, say, helping them continue to have money. Now, yes, as far as I know there is no evidence of Tony doing this in canon -- this is where all the conjecture comes in. So we ask ourselves, okay, if Tony were to endorse particular politicians because of this, what party would he give money to? Who would he want to get in good with? In most parts of the country, that would probably be the Republican party. But, specifically in New York, it's the Democrats.

So, yeah, one of the big points in favor of him being a Democrat is that, well, Democrats traditionally run New York. The class of old-money New York elites are pretty stereotypically Democrats. And that would include Tony. Which is not to say that he couldn't be a Republican, but if he wants to get anywhere with New York politicians, and I suspect he probably does because he is trying to run a series of very large businesses and he owns a fair amount of real estate including several buildings whose permitting processes I can only imagine fall into the category of “probably highly irregular" -- I mean, he has multiple jets that he regularly lands on his house and secret underwater tunnels for a submarine -- he has to cozy up to Democrats. If he gives money to anyone involved in politics, that's who he gives money to. Making superhero bases probably took a lot of money. A massive amount of money. The city planners probably cry when they see him coming.

(At one point I believe they did ban him from keeping the Quinjets in his house. That was when the Avengers had the Hydrobase.)

I tend to assume most people know something about the history of the Democrats in New York, or at least the history of US political parties in general, but the tl;dr version is that the parties haven't always stood for the same things that they do now. They also weren't always the same parties. And historically, in New York, the political machine gives you Democrats. That's just the way it is. The Democratic Party of the past was not really, um, devoted to all the same causes as the current Democratic Party. And it was very hard to get anywhere in New York and not be a Democrat. It still is. If you haven't read up on Tammany Hall, maybe you should. There was a lot of corruption. I mean, yeah, it's not currently a thing, but the Democrats remained in power in New York; it dissolved probably around about the time the Republican Party explicitly decided that the way to win the South was to appeal to the racism of white voters ("the Southern strategy"). Because, yes, before that a lot of white, conservative Southerners were traditionally Democrats. And then the Democrats split about civil rights, and, uh, the Republicans took in the racists.

Anyway! US political history is sure a land of contrasts! Rich New Yorkers are traditionally Democrats! That is a point for Tony possibly being a Democrat, yes. Moving on!

But Tony is not just a random old-money New Yorker. He inherited Howard Stark's money and Howard Stark's company. And Howard was, well, a defense contractor. And so was Tony, until he stopped making weapons. And, uh, being a defense contractor is, um, one of those things that is extremely, extremely Republican. No, I don't have stats to back this up. Just trust me. So, yeah, he's a rich New Yorker -- but he's also a defense contractor from a family of defense contractors. I would be amazed if Howard Stark were anything other than a Republican. Which is not to say that Tony could not be a Democrat anyway, but the job does come with a certain predisposition.

(Incidentally, one of the other things Tony inherited from Howard was his membership in the Hellfire Club, which is one of those things I keep forgetting about until canon smacks me in the face with it every few years.)

We all know that the conception of Tony, as a character, is basically the fantasy of the Ethical Billionaire. He is The Best At Capitalism. He has money and he is not corrupted by it. He has money and he uses it to do the maximum amount of good in the world because that is what he really, deeply wants to do. He supports a large number of philanthropic causes! He has a foundation named after his mother! He funds programs for low-income youth! He runs a homeless shelter for women! Throughout his history, he has been consistently portrayed as a deeply, deeply kind human being, who wants to help people. A lot of people! People who aren't like him! People who might not even like him! That is just... who he is, as a person.

And these days we tend to associate that kind of push for systemic change and caring about social issues and remedying inequity with Democrats, but that wasn't always the case. I think it still would have been believable coming from a Republican, oh, around about the time Tony came into existence. He was created back when you could be an elected Republican and, uh, push social policies that I think these days we would consider progressive. I mean, Eisenhower was the one who started integrating schools, right? The Republicans are the party of Lincoln! It's not like Republicans are prevented from doing good things. And I think we need to keep in mind that Tony dates from the early 60s when socially-progressive was still a thing Republicans could conceivably be.

So, yes, Tony is very kind. It's nice. We all like that about him. But also many of the ways in which he is kind to people are very much Republican fantasies. Like, yes, he's a great boss. He's close to his employees. They're like family. If any of his employees have problems, he helps them out on a personal, individual level -- and that, as an ideal, seems very Republican to me. I mean, he's a CEO, right? He's owned a lot of companies. Are any of them unionized? Combing through Wiki, I find one reference to a union in ToS 63, which is really, really early -- you know, back when unions were more popular. I can't find anything after that. And nothing is coming to mind. So, I mean, yes, we have now established his employees were at one point unionized, but he's certainly not known for, say, running a union shop. Part of the fantasy of the Ethical Billionaire is the idea that Tony's employees don't need unions because Tony is so kind and so generous and so personally selflessly good that he takes care of everyone who works for him. And the thing is, Tony actually does do this. He is fictional and therefore capable of achieving perfection.

Okay. He's a fictional character. Let's step back a little and think about fictional characters, and specifically the way Marvel Comics depicts fictional characters interacting with well-known real people. Many real people from our Earth do seem to exist in 616. Earth-616 is not our Earth in a vast number of ways, but one thing it shares with our Earth is presidents. Whoever is the real-life president when a comic comes out is pretty much generally president on Earth-616 at the time. Yes, I'm going somewhere with this.

Now, for whatever reason, Marvel often does not canonically refer to presidents by their names in dialogue, but the artists pretty much draw whoever is president at the time when someone in canon needs to meet the president. (Captain America seems to get to meet the president a lot. I'm sure you're shocked.)

There are a couple exceptions to "everyone who looks like the president is the president,” namely that Marvel says that the villain who was Number One of the Secret Empire in Captain America v1 #175, who attempted to conspire with aliens to take over the Earth, whom Steve watched commit suicide -- anyway, the official Marvel word is, I believe, that this guy is not Richard Nixon, but Steve Englehart, who wrote the comic, says it absolutely was:

And, yes, this is the incident that causes Steve to lose faith in America and become Nomad. You can kind of see why that would be traumatic. Marvel clearly had some feelings about Watergate they needed to process.

Anyway, I just wanted to put in a picture of that time Ronald Reagan was turned into a snake person. It's Captain America v1 #344:

I love comics.

More recent presidents still make appearances in the comics, and they are the president who was the real-life president at the time. For example, the president who pardons Steve for all his SHRA-related crimes in Who Will Wield The Shield is definitely Obama:

And that means that I must also unfortunately inform you that Hydra Steve also received a presidential pardon:

Though the issue in question (Captain America v9 #8) does not specifically name the president, following the "whoever is the actual president is the 616 president" rule, the president who canonically pardoned Hydra Steve is... Donald Trump.

Let's just pause here to contemplate this. Take as long as you need.

(I was today years old when I learned that Hydra Steve has been dead in comics for over a year. Since the issue in which he was pardoned, actually. Which is an issue I am sure I read the day it came out, but somehow I missed the four entire pages where Hydra Steve is set on fire and burns to death while hailing Hydra with his last breath. I guess it wasn't memorable! I mention because I am pretty sure I am not the only one who missed this.)

Anyway. I do have a point to make here, and my point is this: Tony has received political appointments. Two of them, in fact. In the 2003-2004 Iron Man arc "The Best Defense," Tony becomes Secretary of Defense. He does get Senate confirmation; it's not a deputy appointment. He actually gets unanimous confirmation. And I know that Tony had this job is a fact that everyone knows about Tony, but I feel like a lot of people may not be totally conscious of the timeframe involved here, and by that I mean that he is absolutely, positively, the Secretary of Defense for Earth-616's George W. Bush. Yes, I am sure of this.

Here is Tony with the president in Iron Man v3 #78, being told he got the job:

Yeah. That’s George W. Bush.

Can a Cabinet appointment cross party lines? I mean, sure, it's possible. I am not the kind of giant politics nerd who has this memorized, but there is in fact, a Wikipedia page for US political appointments across party lines. And it looks like there have been five cross-party Secretaries of Defense and five Secretaries of War. So, I mean, yes, it's happened, but it's fairly rare. None of the cross-party Secretaries of Defense (deputy secretaries excluded, since they weren't confirmed, obviously) were ever Democrats appointed by Republicans. And since we're looking at Dubya's administration specifically, it looks like only one of his Cabinet appointees (Transportation) was cross-party. So it looks like he in particular would not have been especially likely to appoint a Democrat to his Cabinet, since in real life he only had the one.

So to me it seems that the most likely party affiliation for Tony has to be Republican, because of this. Sure, the appointment could have crossed party lines. But I feel like it's just... not likely. Being a Republican Secretary of Defense in a Republican administration just seems way, way more possible.

(Also I'd like everyone to remember that Tony is replacing the previous Secretary of Defense because the previous Secretary of Defense was secretly the Red Skull and released an engineered flesh-eating virus at Mount Rushmore. Just, y'know, to set the mood.)

What's more, Tony gets a second political appointment from the Bush administration. It's not a Cabinet position, but he does become the Director of SHIELD in 2007. Here Tony is with the president, slightly earlier, in Civil War #1:

This is not really as good a likeness of Bush as the previous and I guess you could argue that the artist was drawing A Generic Politician but I feel like, y'know, it's probably still meant to be Bush. And Tony may not have wanted this particular job -- we know he definitely didn't -- but he absolutely wanted to be Secretary of Defense. So we know that he is definitely fine with serving in a Republican administration.

So, yeah, that's my argument: odds are pretty good that Tony has, at some point in his life, been a Republican. Maybe not right now. But probably in the past.

Having said that, given the way Marvel handles politics, I don't think it's likely to ever be much of an issue in canon; the Avengers mostly just tend to get to get along with whoever the president is at the time and I can't recall really anything about partisan issues. However, you're never going to convince me 616 Steve was anything other than a New Deal Democrat -- even though I know that in Cap #250 he turns down both the Democrats and the Republicans when they ask him to run for president -- because, I mean, come on. I assume that he and Tony probably try not to discuss politics ever anymore, because we all know how the SHRA went. They probably mostly agree, but when they disagree, people have a tendency to end up dead.

That was probably more than you ever wanted to know about my thoughts on this topic.

[miyuskye]

Today I stumbled on old posts from people reacting to the sk8 finale. I want to make a premise and say that I also felt mixed emotions after it and I was sure that there was something wrong with it. After two months and a half I can say with certainty that the only thing that felt wrong was the lack of episode time, but oh well. Thinking back about sk8, I feel that the writers and the director did the best they could with the time they had.

I think that the main source of confusion stemmed from people misunderstanding the point of the plot. I'm putting myself also among these people because I was so sad that Tadashi forfeited his match vs Langa, but after thinking calmly about that I realized that I just wanted to see Tadashi skate because I am this whipped for him XD and, in reality, even if he had a match with Langa, it would have probably ended the same way -- with Tadashi forfeiting the race midway and letting Langa win (since it's hinted that he's a skating god and Langa beat Adam because he was lucky). This is coherent with the small number of available episodes and Tadashi's arc.

Back to the general public confusion. I'm sure a lot of people were blinded by Renga and totally missed the point the staff wanted to make. It was confirmed in an interview that "sk8 is the story of Adam's search for his Eve", whatever this means (it could be Adam finding his Eve in either Tadashi or Langa, i.e. finding his Eve through the concept that skating is fun). The point is that the focus is on Adam and always has been on Adam. The fandom gave into a collective thinking that Adam was a pedophile and an abuser, but that's clearly not how the staff wanted to portray him. He is obsessed with Langa because he finds in him a worthy and, most importantly, equal partner, he adores Langa and given how loudly he expresses his feelings (i.e. painting a pierced heart over red chrysanthemum to shout out his feelings for Tadashi) his attitude toward him is just the embodiment of that. He isn't interested in Langa because of the power imbalance between them (again, he sees Langa as his equal); he just doesn't want to be alone.

And, yes, the final episodes clearly fit into the narrative of "skating should be fun" because Langa understands (through Reki) that skating with friends is fun and makes Adam remember that (meanwhile he realizes that Tadashi, his friend, was by his side all of this time). Langa, at the beginning, thought that skating was all about the thrill and the adrenaline. He didn't understand that it was fun and amazing to do it with friends/ the people you care about (paralleling to how he didn't realize why he stopped snowboarding when his father died). That's why from ep 7 to 10 he doesn't feel anything. It's because it was all about being with someone you care about, both in skating and snowboarding. He understands that through his relationship with Reki, but my point (and prolly the point a lot of people missed) is that it's general and it doesn't limit itself to Reki and Reki only. I don't want to invalidate Renga, of course not, I like the pairing and the ending makes it clear that Langa's happiness is skating with Reki especially. But the fun experience that comes from skating is a general thing and him going against Adam is just a consequence of that. He wants to make Adam understand that you should have fun while skating, and he wants to have fun with him because he admires him. He was never scared of Adam, and he generally looked pretty chill even when he smashed Cherry with his board. The only thing that mattered to him before his race against Adam was 'why did he start skating?' and 'he looks like he's not having fun' instead of 'i'm going to make this guy pay for his imaginary crimes with my board'. It was like a argument but between friends, the one that gets you in a fight (idk like Rin taking Haru by his collar in Free lmao) because you both want to stand your ground but still care about the other. Also, Utsumi also confirmed that she wanted them to fight with fists in the last ep XD

So, yeah, sk8's ending falls perfectly in the 'skating should be fun' trope. Moving on, let's talk about Kamata. She's, once again, a target for the fandom collective hysteria and she became like this because they projected their hate for Adam into her. Or into Tadashi sometimes, again completely missing the point that the show is about Adam. A lot of people wanted the police to raid S, but that couldn't be realistically attainable because Adam made sure to take off S from the patrol route again and I'm p sure he took additional measures so it wasn't believable for those measures to be shattered in less than a week (when S has been up and running for 7 years). Let's pretend she somehow managed to search Shindo's house. What would she have found? Nothing accusing Adam of Takano's crime. I understand that Takano's crime wasn't very well detailed but I'm thinking that it was something on the line of being bribed to making a certain kind of contract (when he talks about receiving illegal fundings it's the only thing that came to mind). And, on another note, Adam was the one leaking info to the police in the first place XD first, because he wanted to raise to the top of his party (and just standing in Takano's shade isn't his way to roll) and he wanted to have a leverage on the police, so that he could use that leverage to hide his borderline illegal skateboarding races. But they are two different crimes. Kamata wouldn't have found anything useful for the Takano investigation and, even if she managed to find proofs of S (and that's a big if because I'm sure that Adam and Tadashi go out of their way to hide the S screens also from aunties and the household staff), what can she do with those? They're not related to the investigation at hand and can't be used in that specific trial (which is about Takano receiving illegal fundings). A new trial should have been made and Adam wouldn't surely go to prison in one day XD furthermore, it's clear that Kamata belonged to a subplot and that she was a supporting character. She was never meant to be something more than that. I have a long history of elevating supporting character to something they're clearly not so I'm used not to feel 'betrayed' when this doesn't happen, but probably other people don't.

I don't know if I want to talk about Tadaai AGAIN because I feel like we said plenty about them. TL;DR the relationship is not abusive so the point doesn't stand. Tadashi has agency, and chooses to stay by Adam's side because he wants to (and not because he has... Stockholm syndrome... I cringed while writing that XD)

The last point should be the fact that people felt betrayed that Renga wasn't more canon. which I think stemmed from the fact that Utsumi can't decide what to ship XD she had the same problem in Free because she was torn between MakoHaru and RinHaru, but here?? I'm so sure she ships Renga and Tadaai but she definitely likes Eden too. (She wouldn't have had a whole ass theme song for them if she didn't 😊) and so she couldn't decide what route to take and she ended up taking all of them. Bless her, i love a multi shipping queen 🙏

On this note, I saw also some posts about Adam being a homophobic example of queer villain except for the fact that he's not. The authors have made it clear that they love him to no ends. He's not supposed to be Evil and Unredeemable. I don't know why people are so bent on labelling him with things he's not. My roommate told me that he gave off the creepy vibe at the beginning but she confirmed me that after ep 4 it's clear that he's not meant to be dangerous like the other villains he's compared to. I don't personally like people comparing Adam to Hisoka, for example, because I feel that there are very different intentions behind them. Also, I have a feeling people have never watched a media representation of actual grooming (or something that is closely related to this). There's no grooming in sk8. There are fanfics when people describe Adam this way (and while it's interesting to read them, I feel that he's/very/ OOC there), but he's not like this in the original canon.

Thank you for reading this 🙏

[thelegendofstella]

Sephiroth’s true eye color (among other things)

Ever since I got into FF7 stuff I’ve wondered about Sephiroth’s rather inconsistent eye color over the media he’s appeared in (which is a lot), and I think I finally have an answer for it, as well as answers for other slightly unexplained phenomena. Warning you now, this will be fairly long and full of spoilers for multiple games in the series, yet hopefully informative.

Sephiroth is best known for his green, cat-pupiled eyes, among other things, and that’s generally the accepted eye color for him in fan works and such. But his eyes are actually light blue, and not just mainly in spinoffs. There will be a TL;DR in about the middle of the post for one interesting point, and another at the end for the whole post in general.

Disclaimer: This isn't intended to be a "this is the right way to portray Sephiroth's eye color" gatekeeping thing, this is just an analysis of an element of character design that went way too deep and is breaking Tumblr as we speak hfsdgyfudgfsd

Evidence, theories and such under cut-- all 63 images (yes, you heard me, be warned) either come from various wikis as official art/screenshots/etc. or are my own screenshots:

In Final Fantasy 7, where this mess all started, his iconic official art has green eyes:

But in all other art, models, etc. for the game, even the Ultimania scan, his eyes are light blue (or some sort of blue in general):

Of course, you could argue that Sephiroth’s official art also has blue eyes if you stare at it hard enough, but at first glance it’s more green than blue, and with the amount of green-eyed art I’ve seen, I’m sure many people have just accepted that his eyes are green and nothing more.

Several other games in the main series also portray Sephiroth’s eyes as light blue, sometimes borderline colorless depending on the lighting:

I particularly curse Advent Children for it’s washed-out aesthetic because in the darker scenes it completely masks Sephiroth’s real eye color. Thank the gods for HD screenshots.

However, there is a very interesting phenomenon that only seems to happen in Last Order, the 25-minute animated retelling of the Nibelheim Incident and Zack and Cloud’s escape 5 years after. No one seems to have noticed this yet, to my knowledge, so I’ll go through this as clearly as I can.

When Zack confronts Sephiroth in the reactor, the latter’s eyes are light blue:

It isn’t very obvious due to the mako glow tint and his face being in shadow, but I’d think green eyes would look different here, so they are light blue. They stay light blue for a while after this, until Zack begins to fight him and parries him onto the ceiling (anime physics...), resulting in this peculiar scene:

Light blue into green. Literally, you can see it happening in the actual video. This happens a second time when Sephiroth has Cloud skewed on Masamune, just more subtly:

Again, light blue into green(er). Definitely something funky going on here. It goes back to light blue when Cloud tosses him away, though:

And speaking of Cloud... he, too, shows very obvious eye color change directly after this scene, as seen below:

In the video they are visibly, animatedly glowing, it’s not just me discerning between two different flat shades of color. Keep in mind this is before he gets mako poisoned and Jenova-celled and whatnot, so this isn’t due to SOLDIER enhancements. What gives?

Here’s my take: it’s the Lifestream. People are made of Lifestream like everything else in in the FF7 universe, and it’s common knowledge that Lifestream/mako can do some pretty weird shenanigans. SOLDIERs are literally pumped full of the stuff and have seemingly superhuman abilities, and that’s just the lower-ranking ones. But the series has also placed a lot of emphasis on willpower, which Cloud post-experimentation struggles with due to the J-cells and stuff. A lot of people with particularly bright or “glowing” eyes have expressed an incredible amount of willpower, some of which include Cloud, Sephiroth (unsurprising), and Aerith:

Aerith’s eyes have always been incredibly bright in the series, regardless of which game you reference. Remake especially makes this obvious, as it seems like every close-up shot of her makes her eyes the centerpiece regardless of lighting, setting, etc.:

Like, seriously, they almost seem to glow they’re so bright. But here’s the kicker: Aerith is a Cetra, and the Cetra, obviously, communicate with the Planet... or, in other words, have an incredibly strong willpower that influences things. It’s been stated before by various people and media that Sephiroth and Aerith are two sides of the same coin, but not quite like this, I think. Cloud shows a similar phenomenon in his close-up shots as well, though the artificial SOLDIER glow is most likely contributing to most of it:

Compare these to younger Cloud in the Nibelheim flashback, when he was more innocent and had no need for incredible willpower, artificial or not:

Going back to Cloud in Last Order, the point we can make about him in particular is that when he was stabbed, literally at death’s door, he drew on his inner Lifestream for the strength to toss Sephiroth away. People have wondered for years about how this moment was even possible besides Protagonist Syndrome, and this may be the answer.

If this is the case, then this could apply to anyone: Aerith, Sephiroth, Zack, hell even Tifa seems to have slightly glowing eyes in the Remake sometimes-- and sure, it may be just the game engine making sure we can actually see their eyes in key cutscenes... but it ties into canon lore and actually makes sense, so I’m sticking with that. It’s also not a coincidence that Aerith specifically has green eyes, too, since the Lifestream in general is green-colored and whatnot.

Midpoint TL;DR: people with lots of inner willpower can call on their own Lifestream to give them strength, resulting in “glowing” or even color-changing eyes depending on how much Lifestream/mako they have in them. SOLDIERs, for example, would fall in the latter category... the most extreme being Sephiroth.

Now that's we're back at Sephiroth, another interesting point is that his eye color in Remake is consistently light blue, or some blue variation depending on the lighting, with green centers, as seen below:

Cloud obviously shares the same eye color pattern by this point because it's implied that he has the same if not slightly more mako in him than Sephiroth, which very conveniently also equates to him having the same if not slightly more willpower than Sephiroth.

An honorable mention goes to the Remnants, since they, too, follow the light blue with green centers pattern, appearing to fluctuate between the two colors at certain times:

With all of that said and done, I’ll wrap this up by going through Sephiroth’s appearances in side games and other franchises as quickly as I can:

1) The Dissidia series (Dissidia, 012/Duodecim, NT, Opera Omnia) almost always portrays Sephiroth with light blue eyes in art, renders, and models, occasionally with a hint of green in them:

A very interesting exception is NT Sephiroth's Safer Sephiroth costume, which has completely white eyes in all three of its alts. Yes, it's basically just a cosmetic costume, but it's still worthy to note for comprehensive purposes:

2) World of Final Fantasy’s Sephiroth has light blue eyes:

3) Record Keeper Sephiroth’s sprites are very obviously based on the original FF7 official art where he has green eyes (yes, I checked the colors by hand, they're all in the greener sections of the color wheel):

4) The Kingdom Hearts series is particularly unique because it features a blue-eyed Sephiroth but with an explicit reason for it. Kingdom Hearts 1 simply says that Sephiroth is part of Cloud’s past, but Kingdom Hearts 2 literally has Cloud saying “I'll get him. This time we settle it. Me, and the one who embodies all the darkness in me.”, and then explicitly clarifying that it’s Sephiroth he’s talking about. Sephiroth even shares Cloud’s facial shape, which is particularly obvious in KH2 renders:

All other Sephiroth appearances in the KH series also feature him with blue eyes, except for any usage of material from other media.

5) Itadaki Street games feature Sephiroth with green eyes:

6) Puzzles and Dragons features a rare teal-eyed Sephiroth:

And finally 7) All other Sephiroth appearances in spinoffs and other media feature him with light blue, blue, or rare teal eyes, except for sprites, which are (most likely) reused from Record Keeper:

And that’s FINALLY a wrap. All my evidence for Sephiroth’s actual eye color in one place, and even a theory on why it can potentially fluctuate between that and the iconic green.

Actual TL;DR: Sephiroth’s eyes are actually light blue in 90% of his appearances, and the remaining 10% either comes from temporary green-ness or partial green-ness thanks to mako/Lifestream stuff, or spinoffs.

There is one small point I’d like to make at the end of this, and that is the remaining mystery of why Sephiroth’s pupils are even slitted and cat-like in the first place. That... is far more ambiguous in terms of evidence than the eye color. Some series, particularly the Kingdom Hearts series, have them as regular round pupils, while others sometimes if not most of the time give him the cat-like ones. I may make another in-depth analysis post trying to figure it all out, but for now I’ll say that it may just simply be a result of the Jenova cells he has or something along those lines.

If you made it this far down and didn’t just instantly scroll past my massive log of images and sundry, thank you so much for reading all of this! If you did just instantly scroll past, I don't blame you. I guess I'm in proper Sephiroth hell now, lol.

I hope you have a great day and that things turn out well for you fhjksdgfyhughuhyudfs

[mira--mira]

Question from an aspiring writer:

How do you stay motivated on one project for such a long time?

I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, and whenever I have an idea I either have to write down everything my brain can spew immediately or have it be lost in the void for eternity.

Never mind going back and turning my outline into a fic or gasp editing.

Do you have any tips and/or tricks you use?

Ok, I got completely carried away with this just fyi, but hopefully I ended up answering your actual question 😂 tl;dr at the bottom.

To be honest, staying motivated is a tricky thing, one that I feel I'm still learning how to do even now and varies a bit between shortfics/oneshots and multi-chaptered fics/longfics. For a bit of background, I've been writing fanfic for about a year and a half, but I've been writing original fiction since I was seven, over a decade and a half, and I still wrestle with it. It's definitely a learning process.

One thing I wish someone would have told me when I was starting out was the power of ~scenes~ in either multi-chapters or one-shots. All writing is ultimately made up of scenes, but if you're struggling to put things together, focusing on an individual scene, or multiple short scenes, might help you focus on getting something completed, and it's something that eventually can be applied to longer works as well. Writing has been a snowball process for me and once I started getting anything completed, I felt more secure in knowing what I could write comfortably and what was out of my comfort zone, eventually getting to the point where I felt comfortable tackling bigger and longer projects and knowing I could stay with them.

OoT's interlude chapters and the snippet series are both good examples of scenes because I wrote them with that intention...even if most of them are actually two or three scenes combined. "Gai meets Hashirama and Madara", "Hashirama gets revenge on Kakashi", "Tatsuki and Hashirama pick flowers for Madara, then give them to him" etc. were all my starting points.

If you're first starting out and feel comfortable with outlines of some sort before you start writing I would encourage you to try and write down a bullet point list of your scene(s) and what you know you want to happen in it.

"Gai meets Hashirama and Madara"

* Hashirama meets Gai first, mistakes him for Lee.

* Madara is shopping for a gift for Hashirama

* Madara finds Gai and Hashirama, they spar, Gai kicks his ass, both of them love him.

This is how my initial outline looked for the first interlude chapter, technically each one of these "points" are their own scenes stuck together. Outlining is different for everyone, some people like super specific points, others even less detail than this. For me this is a nice middle that gives me a roadmap for the chapter, but allows plenty of room to naturally diverge and add detail. Play around with outlines and see what you're comfortable with/what gives you the best results.

I'm not sure of your individual situation, but if you're struggling to put together fics in general something like this might help. Doing this process again and again personally helps me stay on track and gives me a sense of progress.

This sense of progress is ultimately key and why I think motivation differs slightly between one-shots/short fics and longfics. If you confine the individual scene to a one-shot, that might give you the motivation to complete it. Even if you start writing and you get interrupted/can't finish having in one setting, bullet points sometimes help inspire me to finish because I'm not starting from scratch when I return to writing. The whole "eat an elephant one piece at a time" thing was difficult for me to learn, but ultimately proved true. Learning to chip away at something bit by bit is going to be the only (healthy) way to write longer projects you can't complete in one sitting.

For longer projects, it's a similar beast just on bigger levels and with an added dimension. I would actually suggest something similar to OoT for a starting project because it is ultimately broken up into arcs that you know and can reference, instead of making a lot of og content for a fan setting. Maybe not go into it thinking, 'I'll do a complete rewrite' but once you feel like you're ready for a longer project 30K+ or so, the rough outline method and the ability to follow arcs was what got me started when I eventually decided to make the fic multi-chaptered. Try writing one arc and keep yourself contained in that. Now the added dimension aspect in general for longfics is that you eventually want to plot individual chapters in a multi-chaptered longfic and individual arcs (character, plot, etc). This comes with practice. I honestly don't think there's a way to get around that. It's something that I'm still trying to work on and I can look back at my early work and see how I've improved, how I can recognize where things didn't go well in certain places, and how I would change them if I was writing today. That's a good thing to be able to do, it means you've grown! The other thing I find that helps with staying motivated week after week for longer projects is to roughly know where you're going and to try to be excited about a plot point/scene/chapter/etc that you're going to write. Really try to hype yourself up. For me, it's a moment that comes at the very end of the chunin arc and I start grinning even thinking about it because I know it's going to be awesome. It's always what gets me through the rough days, imagining the moment I'll get to actually write that scene in its entirety (it's definitely already outlined and I mentally play it out at least twice a week lol) and is a big motivating drive.

So far I think this is pretty standard stuff if you're an outliner and you've been writing for a few years, but the other thing motivational-wise for me is having a schedule. From reading this message alone, I would not suggest it for you right away. Get comfortable finishing small things and feeling confident that if you let an idea sit for a week or two, you can pick it back up and continue. But if you eventually dip your toes into longfics (and don't plan to pre-write everything before you publish) that routine and rhythm really helps keep me going. I've made a commitment, I've posted it online, I'm going to stick to it. No one is going to jump down my throat if I fail to keep it (this is still a hobby and having fun is the most important thing) but in my mind I should commit to it unless something irl prevents me from doing so. Don't put a tight deadline on yourself, I'd start with once a month or if you write shorter chapters every three weeks. This also would help you build up and get a readership, interaction being another big motivational key.

Also, it's important to accept that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and when you feel completely demotivated from a fanfic project...it's okay to drop it. It's okay to take a step back and work on something else. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. If you can, try to pinpoint what it was about that project that made you demotivated, were you pushing yourself too much and you got burnt out, was it an ongoing series and your interest for canon lagged and so did the fic, was it just too stressful to keep juggling plotpoints, etc. and keep that in mind moving forward. Every experience can be a learning one and eventually make you a better writer that can eventually tackle those bigger projects. Don't be afraid to take on big aspirational projects, but don't walk into them blind either. Above all, and this is repeated a lot because it's true, enjoy what you write. Some days you might not. That's true with anything, but any project you take on the good should outweigh the bad.

This is my wrap up of the motivational section but I also wanted to throw my two-cents in about editing because "oh no editing" is a perspective I've seen from a lot of writers, and used to have myself, but I think is going to stifle your progress in the long run.

Here's the thing: you need to look forward to editing.

You don't have to be jumping for joy, but editing, imo, should be a positive thing. You have all these great ideas, you made it into a fic, something you wrote, and now you get to go back and make it even better! This is a tough attitude to adopt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It took me a long time to unlearn the negative attitude and even then sometimes I still wish the editing was already done once I type in the last period. But I've learned to at least appreciate what editing does and I try to think to myself as I'm going through and making changes things like "wow, this suddenly became so much better. X plot point that I thought of ten pages from now is suddenly being hinted at and doesn't come out of left field. The transition points are a lot cleaner, it's not so jarring anymore. I bet the readers are going to love this little detail. Here's some foreshadowing that I hope someone picks up bc it's going to come back in like 5 chapters from now" it's hard, especially when you start, but this is something you made, and now are actively making better and that's something to celebrate.

I hope this helps anon! I know it's a lot and I'm by no means an expert but I've been doing this for more than a decade because I love it and I want to help others get into writing to! I have no problem answering any writing questions you may have if you find this helpful!

tl;dr

-motivation is slightly different between short/long fics.

-starting out, learn to outline by scenes and focus on finishing small projects and getting to a point where you feel like you can put something down and come back and pick it up again in a week. Completion is key and will help you feel satisfied/know your limits.

-long projects also can work on the scene-to-scene outline but now with individual chapters and individual arcs. It's tough to balance both but comes with practice. Bit-by-bit is key, as is having 'one moment you can't wait to write', possibly a schedule if it works for you, and reader feedback are all huge long-term motivational points.

-editing is tough but learn to look forward to it instead of dreading it.

edited: added a bit more/few typos fixed

[astudyinfreewill]

I have a fun question, when do you think Adam figured out Ronan liked him, and HOW do you think he figured it out? I was always thinking, Adam is very observant, and Ronan was always looking at him, but at what point does looking betray attraction? But do you have any head canons or thoughts beyond this? Was it the hand cream? Or do You know of any fun theories? id love to hear them!

hey there! 

of course this is all speculation, and i will explain my reasoning below, but i think adam first starts figuring it out towards the end of the dream thieves, and that’s partly because ronan’s behaviour changed, and partly because adam finally had the mental space to notice.

premise 1: i think adam is aware that ronan is gay before then, at least prior to the start of trb -- there is just no way in hell that the “i’m always straight”/”oh man, that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told” was not meant as a double entendre. i mean, obviously adam is also calling ronan out on his claim that he’s always straight = honest, because we know that unlike gansey, he doesn’t buy into ronan’s “i never lie” shtick. but it’s definitely also a gay joke, like. come on. besides, there are hints that even gansey knows about it, or at least has guessed (noah clearly knows but it doesn’t count bc he can literally read minds), so you know if he’s clued into it, then adam definitely has (no shade to gansey but he’s not... the most observant person.)

premise 2: it is my view that adam has known that he’s bisexual even before then, definitely before he knew gansey and ronan. i don’t have hard and fast evidence of this beyond the fact that his povs have no discussion of a sexuality crisis whatsoever, and we know adam overanalyses everything, so... yeah.

premise 3: adam clearly already thinks ronan is attractive - “savagely handsome”??? going on a ronan-related rant in his FIRST pov in the FIRST book??? boy please - so he’s bound to be extra observant of him. but at the same time, ronan for most of the first two books is... exhausting, especially to someone like adam. he’s destructive, violent, rude, and on occasion downright cruel. adam has enough of that in his life. i don’t think he can afford to invest extra attention in ronan lynch -- as he himself would say: there is such thing as an emotional cost.

so, when does he notice?

personally, i think he starts noticing towards the end of the dream thieves. as for how he notices, as i’ve said above, i think it starts with ronan’s behaviour changing. ronan says in the epilogue of tdt that “Adam was different since making the bargain with Cabeswater. Stronger, stranger, farther away. It was hard not to stare at the odd and elegant lines of his face.” i take this to mean that while ronan has had a crush on adam for... ever, basically, literally as soon as he saw him and before even meeting him, his feelings have been steadily getting deeper; ever since the cabeswater sacrifice - so, ever since the end of trb - he’s been openly staring at adam more and more. 

now, obviously, adam didn’t immediately notice this, but that’s because both ronan and adam are, to put it mildly, GOIN THRU IT in the dream thieves. ronan is at his most self-destructive, and he has a book’s worth of character development which ends with him finally overcoming his self-hatred. that also means he spends much of the book on his own, or apart from the other main characters. 

adam is also under increasing amounts of stress (which is saying something) and undergoes a complete mental breakdown, and then also comes into his own as the magician. so, he’s a little too preoccupied to think about ronan’s increased attention. but when he finally gains clarity towards the book’s climax - literally as soon as he is able to think things through without being crushed by ptsd - he immediately realizes that ronan has paid his rent... which is a first clue of his changed behaviour, because as ronan himself notes bitterly, people don’t usually expect him to do nice things for others. 

now, i don’t think adam quite knows ronan LIKES likes him yet at that point, but right after adam says “I know it was you. I figured it out. The rent.”, they share a long, very charged look: “he held Ronan’s gaze for just a moment longer, until something inside Ronan unwound and he almost said something.” that’s a look that says, “I’ve got your number. I know now that you care about people - that you care about me.” adam always pays attention, but now he’s started paying attention.

and in fact, to return to the epilogue of tdt where we find out that ronan is in love with adam, that is also the first time adam really catches him staring - and looks back: “He glanced at Ronan, eyebrows furrowed, as if sensing Ronan’s eyes on him. Ronan looked away.” that’s going to become one of the recurring themes of bllb -- ronan looking at adam, and adam catching him at it, and then adam returning the look. once he notices ronan’s increased attention, he can’t stop noticing.

it helps, too, that they spend a lot more time together in bllb (and subsequently trk) than they did in tdt, since more and more often gansey and blue are split off on their own, and ronan and adam are having their magic non-date dates. but mostly, as i said, ronan’s behaviour has changed -- he’s no longer a ticking time bomb, he’s no longer cruel to people because he hates himself, he’s no longer too draining for adam to like him as more than a friend; and adam’s circumstances have changed too -- he’s in control of his powers as the magician, he’s no longer living in an abusive household, and he’s starting to let other people in more often, which finally gives him the chance to consider new, different possibilities that might have seemed too difficult before.

TL;DR: i think adam’s been aware that ronan’s gay/interested in boys since at least the start of the series, and i think he becomes aware that ronan is specifically attracted to him at the end of the dream thieves.

[halfpint55]

A Defence of Kataang with regards to how they are portrayed in TLoK (it’s long but there’s headcanons at the end)

Note: This is not about shipping wars. This is a safe zone. This is not about Zutara vs Kataang. This is me defending Kataang and the characters themselves...from the writers. 

I initially wrote this as a response to a post that got me heated. My reblog just made it too long so here it is as its own post. 

Now this post ripped apart Kataang as a couple but more than that said some stuff about Aang himself that hurt my heart. I didn’t really want to pick on this post but its condemning of Kataang was based almost entirely in what we know of them as parents in TLoK and honestly it’s that lil nugget of canon that I take issue with. It has bothered me from the get go because it doesn’t make sense from a writing and story perspective, and it’s been pissing me off since I watched it.

TL;DR nice and early bc this post is gonna be a long one:

This particular condemnation of Kataang rests almost entirely on the SHITTY way they were portrayed as parents by the writers of LoK, and in all honesty, on this particular topic, canon should be ignored.

Overall Kataang parenting is of my biggest gripes with LoK because in terms of writing it’s totally incongruous - it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t align, and it makes zero sense for what we know of those characters, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive the showrunners for allowing it to be written it into canon.

I will also preface this by saying I like LoK - love it. I had a scroll through the comments and reblogs on this post, and a lot of the hate towards this portrayal of Kataang ended up being blamed on the “terrible writing of LoK” which is not where I stand at all. That being said I am so angry at the writers for this one.

The other portion of the concurring comments that were very hateful towards Kataang came from Zutara shippers and honestly for me, although I do ship Kataang, this not a just a Kataang issue. I’m of the belief that Zutara would’ve just as easily been written to have similar issues due to very similar dynamics - Zutara also would have been two powerful benders from very different cultures, and with Zuko/Aang (whoever you ship w her) having a massively important global leadership role that is embedded in who they are, and therefore impossible to ignore as a factor in their relationship.

Now let me be clear, my desire to reject canon on this front is by no means me wanting to believe the best of my faves, and not wanting to hear a word against Aang. It’s not even necessarily a defence of Kataang bc I ship it that hard (I mean I do but I can set that aside for the sake of argument if that’s what you need from me here). 

The first, and main issue people have with Aang/Kataang in Korra, is the first point of the original post:

So why in hell would [Katara] be okay with Aang ignoring TWO of their children’s complete existence once he found out they had an airbending son?

And I agree with the post on this front; Katara would not have allowed her children to each be treated differently by their father. I had the same initial thought when watching LoK, and it’s the reason I hate and want to ignore the canon of LoK so badly. 

As much as it hurts to think of, we have to accept that Aang wouldn’t have been able to stop his preferential treatment for Tenzin from bleeding through into his parenting just out of a desperate desire to save his culture (which is absolutely understandable - doesn’t make it okay, but it’s understandable; Aang suffered an incredible loss, a massive cultural trauma which he alone carries the burden of). So of course he wasn’t able to hide how excited he was, and forgot to be mindful of his attitude and behaviour towards Kya and Bumi. So this aspect of canon Kataang? Yeah, I’m with it. So far so good. EXCEPT the most unrealistic element of canon is now that Katara would let him. I simply do not believe for a second that Katara would’ve allowed Aang to be the kind of parent LoK painted him to be.

However, I do not think it would’ve been a point of contention between the two of them! Katara would pull him aside, Katara would gently (but firmly) point out what Aang mightn’t be able to see for himself - he’s focusing too hard on Tenzin.

And Aang would listen.

All throughout A;tLA the two of them often help the other sort through their stuff. Aang has a great track record of being receptive to Katara’s advice and help (calming him down when discovering Monk Gyatso’s body, The Desert when he Appa is stolen, Serpent’s Pass when he’s bottling his feelings about Appa being missing). He’s also just so receptive to others’ ideas - he just goes with it and trusts in his friends (think of his trust in Katara’s plan to rescue Haru, his trust in staying behind with Sokka in the library to get the eclipse info). Aang’s humility is one of the most incredible things about him and it’s at the core of who he is. He would absolutely be able to hear Katara telling him he’s focusing too hard on one child - he would be open, and he’d listen.

So to me now canon just does not make sense at all. it does not align with their established character traits. And yes, people change as they get older and grow into adulthood but honestly, the elements of their respective personalities that we’re talking about here are pretty core elements of who these two people are.

Katara has always been fiercely protective of those she loves, strongwilled, stubborn, and ready to (vocally or physically) fight for what she believes is right and that wouldn’t disappear as she gets older. She wouldn’t let Aang’s preferrential treatment slide.

Aang has always been, and chose to be despite his loss, an optimistic, kind, believe in the best of humanity kind of person. He’s open to all points of view, he’s a good listener, he always tries his absolute best to find solutions that are good for everyone. And again his humility, his willingness to love, is who he is.  He believes all humans (including fkn OZAI) and all life are sacred, he believes in the absolute right to life. The kid is a vegetarian for crying out loud.

Now the parts of the take in the post that hurt my heart to read about what OP thinks of Aang:

“Aang never made an attempt to establish anything resembling a real familial unit with Katara, basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender [...] she was treated like some trophy wife to give birth to airbenders and that’s it!”

I wasn’t going to address this in this post until I read the comments in the notes, because people seem to agree. They share the sentiment that Katara was reduced to “just a love interest” by the two ending up together.

However I do very much take issue w the notion that Aang “basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender” (and honestly that entire paragraph - we don’t actually know that Aang didn’t make an effort to establish a family unit). As much as the LoK writers fucked up in their portrayal of Kataang as parents, this is a much harsher judgement of Aang’s character as a husband and father than anything implied by Aang and Katara’s children. I just don’t buy that Aang would view Katara (or anyone he married, even if you don’t ship Kataang) as a trophy wife, whose only role is to have airbender children. He never has viewed her that way - he has always looked at her like she’s the sun, and the most important person to him after she pulled him out of the iceburg. He loves her the most of anyone on the planet. It does not align with his character, his values or beliefs that he’d think of her (or any partner) that way. He is so besotted with Katara for who she is it HURT me to read that part of your take. Aang simply would never. Look at how he looks at her! 

What’s more is the unwavering respect and deference he shows Katara as his waterbending master - he recognises and loves her as the whole, complete, three dimensional, TALENTED POWERFUL INCREDIBLE WOMAN that she is. She is NEVER “just” a love interest for Aang. (But ALSO, do we respect Suki any less for being Sokka’s obvious love interest??? No. suki is written to be so badass that Sokka is HER love interest and I think Katara has equally badass energy but I digress).

Moving on!

OP made an excellent point that there would’ve been culturally different values between the two but I don’t think it would’ve been family that was the clashing point. Yes the airbenders value spirituality and enlightenment. But they lived together in massive communities! They supported and raised one another. Their community and culture was strong, and they were bonded in their spirituality! They value love, as well as enlightenment, peace, and the lives of all.

Now, again the points they made about the cultural divides within the Kataang family unit are valid, but also again I dislike how they chose to portray this in LoK. It would definitely be a struggle they faced as a couple. However I think they really missed an opportunity here with where they took it. Because they do at one point in the comics have Katara bring up the fact that their family will be a blend of two cultures, and she brings it up because Aang is trying so hard to bring balance back to the world by means of seperation.

They’ve known from the get go of being a couple that they’re going to have to navigate being a culturally blended family unit.

So I find it so shitty that they wrote it so that Kya got to learn the waterbending culture, Tenzin got Air and bumi got…nothing? It’s dangerously close to the way Disney does the “the girls are carbon copies of mum, and the boys are carbon copies of dad” thing (think Lady and the Tramp). It’s lazy. Especially when we had that “separation is an illusion” episode, AND things like Zuko learning different nation’s styles and applying them to his firebending, and Sokka learning an element of strategy or fighting from every nation. 

So give us Kya using Airbending moves with her waterbending (maybe she invents the water scooter)! Give us Tenzin doing more grounded moves that Aunty Toph (or Lin, while they were together) taught him from earthbending.

There are much more creative ways to illustrate the bumps and troubles Kataang might have run into in trying to navigate incorporating equal parts of their cultures in their children and family unit. Even just smaller scale issues like food and meals - how do they figure out how to do mealstimes with Aang’s vegetarianism with Katara’s culturally significant Water Tribe meat dishes? And then even taking into account how picky little kids can be!

Give me a scene where they literally just ate moon pies for a week because toddler Kya would scream if you put anything else down in front of her.

Maybe Bumi demanded sea prunes over and over but Katara and Bumi are the only ones who like them, and Bumi bonds with his mother this way - they go on little one-on-one outings to water tribe restaurants in Republic City, searching for the most authentic sea prunes!

Kya maybe likes the water tribe fashions the most because it helps her connect with her namesake BUT Kya also has a playful sense of humour - not unlike Monk Gyatso - Aang sees how much she loved moon pies and teaches her to throw them with waterbending.

We know Tenzin was a calm, quiet, and possibly shy child. Maybe he loved to hole himself away learning crafts. Give me Tenzin learning to tattoo, Tenzin learning to carve (and carving his first glider - it crashes of course), but also Tenzin learning to carve water tribe adornments and necklaces. Katara tries at first but when she gets busy Sokka comes in and teaches Tenzin to break all the carving rules Katara has laid down (”it doesn’t need to be perfect my little pupil - let the creativity flow!”)

Tenzin may not be able to waterbend but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn other means of healing. As the littlest he spent a lot of time watching Katara work - she teaches him to tie splints, dress wounds, and yes deliver babies.

If you made it here I love you so much for reading. I love sharing my thoughts so HIGH FIVE YOU MADE IT, ur now my friend - the friendship is non-refundable sorry 😌😌

[lesbian-roguefort]

ok i kinda wanna elaborate on my emotions surrounding sniscourse and the aftermath of both of em for a minute since it is the one year of the first one

so. the first sniscourse was started as something that I had wanted to talk about for MONTHS leading up to the cereal meme and my main post being created. it was about an issue that I had been ACTIVELY observing with my own two eyes for weeks on end. it wasn’t a problem created out of nothing or out of boredom or whatever, which is what I feel a lot of people thought.

when I made my first post, I had people telling me TO MY FACE that the things I’d been seeing and watching with my own two eyes weren’t real. that I was making things up and that everything was just in my imagination. that I was just mad that “my art isn’t getting any likes sad face :{{{{{{{{{”. i was being fucking gaslit, basically. and that’s not to say that I was the only one either; pretty much everyone who posted about the issue was told the same thing.

then I’d see all of these different opinions all across my dash. my mutuals and following split in two. it’s hard to even estimate how many people I had to unfollow that were spreading straight-up lies and hatred vaguely directed at me and the others who spoke out. the stress was almost unbearable. it was fucking awful.

sniscourse one came to a slow stop eventually. the ahit fandom was... surprisingly decent in its wake. like they learned their lesson for maybe a month before turning their backs on everything they had supposedly “learned” about treating artists with respect from snis1 and going back to overrunning everything. it sucked, but at that point I was very much ready to give up on the fandom and to leave it to rot and burn.

then, in nov 2020, snis2 happened! which is what solidified my hatred towards all sn*tcher fans.

snis2 originated from a post about how a majority of ahit fans observed the borderline abusive dynamic between sn*tcher and hat kid and decided to make them “““found family.”““ literally not even a hot take because of the canon content that supports this.

yet SOMEHOW, SOME CRAZY, INSANE FUCKING WAY, people STILL tried defending this. even when presented with ALL the canon evidence, we were met with “but he’s my comfort character 🥺🥺” and “but aus >:{{” and “but I don’t fucking care.” think about that for a second. I and other survivors of abuse spoke up and said “this dynamic is abusive” and were met with BACKLASH. put yourself in my shoes for a second. you’re an abuse survivor, and you’re being told, TO YOUR FACE, that a character whose traits are LITERALLY abusive that it isn’t abuse.

since then, things have been literally fucking awful. snis2 in particular is what solidified sn*tcher as a trigger for me. I literally could not bear to see them portrayed in a positive light without wanting to smash my skull in, and I STILL can’t. I still can’t listen to their voice. I still can’t look at art of them being portrayed in any positive way.

I still think about snis1 and especially snis2. every fucking day, without exception, it crosses my mind. especially in times where I’m reminded of it. it hurts so much and sometimes I’ll get so furious I’ll start to shake. it’s fucking hell.

and then I’ll think to the people on the other end of sniscourse, who probably don’t even think of it for a second of their days. who have no fucking clue what a horrible impact they’ve had on me and others. who don’t have an IDEA in their MINDS how I’ll lie awake at night wanting to tear my eyes out over things that I’ve been told I’m making up and abuse being completely excused.

do you know how fucking painful that is to realize how horribly you’ve been hurt by something that never even crosses the mind of the person who hurt you?

uhhhh tl;dr happy one year anniversary snis1 you got me fucked up 🎉