#getting to make huge inane rambling posts about one of the only things that gets me to the end of the school week rn

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapters 13 & 14: the moult & the vulture

now the dust has settled... thank you for reading chapters 13 and 14 of beasts! thank you also to the askbox angels who asked for the author’s note (it is still mad to me someone reads these). now, it's inquiry time, baby - and boy are the gloves coming off, and the secrets spilling out. the wait was long; so were the chapters. sorry, again, about that. so - kindly read on for discussion of some major themes and plot points, a little on song choices, and some juicy deets and a sneak peek of chapter 15... and 16…

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons

first - a disclaimer: am going to talk about that cliffhanger in a separate post up shortly (i rambled on too long). it will be up shortly!

second - a thank you! the reaction to these chapters has me in absolute bits. i'm a soppy sentimental shit at heart and this really did make me the happiest little girl in the world. so thank you forever and ever for that.

third - an acknowledgement, as ever, to @saintsenara, whom i bounce all the inane details off of, whose takes absolutely slap and who i hope will forgive me for making her boy rookwood such a flop.

divide and conquer/accidentally wrote two chapters again: what am i like! the trouble is - life-stuff aside - i was excited about these chapters (and the reveals), but also put far too much pressure on them to do a huge amount of heavy lifting, and to get the story to a place it wasn’t yet at and needed to get to quick. the writing challenge for these chapters was that i needed a series of plots to hit a rolling boil so we can get to the flashbacks to ginny’s war and all the reveals. and it took fucking ages to work how to structure and serve them as each needs at this point in the fic, and try to find a set of themes/devices to tie those plots together into something cohesive (especially because writing fic is much more like dropping tv show episodes in structure rather than actually sharing a novel, in part because you drop them one at a time at intervals, and i think the more successful ones can stand alone while also serving the overall body of work). i have - i confess - knitted, in my time, and you know when you have really thick wool and thick needles and you’re trying to slowly eek off one stitch onto the other needle and it actually really starts to hurt? it felt like that :) 

two inquiries, both alike in dignity: god, i love an inquiry. the truth being dragged out kicking and screaming by  the state, buffeted by political winds and a rapacious press? inject it. at last, the past is getting properly dredged up, and all sorts of buried secrets are getting unearthed in the process. so: in the present, the hogwarts inquiry is under way, and the wizengamot has assembled to hear what exactly has been going down in that cursed drafty old castle. in the past, though, we have flashbacks to a separate inquiry, into the events of 1992-1993, after the chamber of secrets was opened, where it wasn’t hogwarts on trial, but ginny herself (in a way). the events of ginny’s first year have haunted her in diffuse, quiet, private ways in the flashbacks throughout this fic so far, but we’re moving into the part of the fic where we see just how much they changed the course of her life and who she is as a person. in canon, ofc, we only see harry’s view of the aftermath of ginny’s ordeal in the chamber - dumbledore is reinstated, lucius gets kicked off the governors, ginny weasley is ‘perfectly happy again’... but would that *really* be the end of it? doesn’t it seem perfectly plausible the ministry would investigate given the scale of publicity and threat to student lives, given (as discussed previously) the ministry canonically holds inquiries of varying scales for all sorts of things in canon? wouldn't they hold one for this?

ginny's guilt: in CoS, young harry never blames ginny for any of it: she was hoodwinked, he recognises, and not at all culpable. it’s very harry, and it’s a compassionate read of the situation. but given how little we know dumbledore tells anyone about what the diary actually was (even lucius didn’t know), wouldn’t ginny expect to face at least some questions about her own involvement and culpability, even if she was clearly to some extent also a victim? (the nod to colin’s mum is there as a reminder that there were real victims of the basilisk attacks: ginny could easily have been responsible for the deaths of several children, including her own friends, and if it were my child i think i’d want to ask at least a question or two). what i wanted to show with these flashbacks was this very formative experience for young ginny grappling with her own guilt and her place between two wars, having to face difficult questions about her own complicity in dark magic and attempted murder; for there to be echoes of ginny’s experiences in the experiences of young death eaters during the second wizarding war, and to start to properly draw these themes about choices, moral agency and grey areas, about children’s radicalisation and wars fought both by and through them, and, in particular, where ginny weasley sat within them. what i wanted to show was how ginny’s political and moral worldview was shaped in those pivotal years: her guilt, her sense of her own failings and inadequacies, how discontent she was to be a victim, how obsessed she is with being an agent and a soldier, how much she feels she has to prove. i might bash out a proper meta on this but i think it’s so telling how ginny talks about her second year later on in canon - how haunted she is by the forgetting (in OotP), and how much she sees it as having ‘[taken] orders’ (in HBP), rather than thinking of her possession as just playing host to another entity. here, it’s dumbledore who points out the key traits that led ginny into riddle’s path: her loneliness and isolation, her many insecurities that made her so vulnerable, her fear, a certain desire for self-preservation. even though we know most hogwarts students don’t seem to really know what happened in CoS, and certainly not ginny’s part in it (terry boot in OotP is like ‘lol did you kill a basilisk with a sword!’ which seems to be the extent of the student body’s knowledge of what went down). but i like the idea of there being a record of ginny’s darkest moment in her file, ink and paper proof of this most formative experience in her life, dumbledore dancing around her defence but keeping his cards close to his chest - and also there to pursue if anyone planning a hogwarts takeover was interested in finding someone close to the order of the phoenix who might be a weak link in the chain and be persuaded to flip…

dumbledore: dumbledore appears here only in flashbacks - he’s still absent from his portrait in the present - but it was sooo fun (re)introducing him as a character for the fic for the first time. what i liked about writing dumbledore’s dialogue (though it’s actually much harder than i expected, and i don’t feel that great about some of the lines) was that it was a chance to get a bit meta with the dumbledore bashing tropes that circle around fandom - you work through child soldiers, you monster etc - and try and do something a bit more interesting with them, or at least ask some questions (child soldiers or human shields? can children fight for what they believe in? how you fight a fair fight when the other side sees children as fair game - do you confine children to victimhood, or do you acknowledge, or even encourage, their own moral agency and desire to fight back?) dumbledore is walking a very difficult moral line here: defending ginny, but declining to disclose information that might conclusively exonerate her - eg. the existence of voldemort’s horcruxes - in the name of his most favourite thing, the greater good. in dumbledore’s mind, ginny deserves a defence, but not the whole truth, because that’s too important and bound up in a much bigger picture. dumbledore is always playing 3D chess while everyone else plays chequers. should dumbledore have revealed the horcruxes to conclusively exonerate ginny here? no, right? and yet. one day ginny will name her middle son after this man, and we might start to think about why. is it just loyalty to harry? or something else? i wanted us to see ginny’s political worldview being built, and her view of war and a soldier’s role in it, all themes that will be super important as we go back in time to see her war as she lived it in future chapters.

the intellectuals: one of the least developed but most interesting parts of the wizarding world in canon are the ideas and the people who have em. the series has a lot of important characters that are supposed to be eminent thinkers, but it doesn’t ever really linger on ideology, in the end settling on a kind of boilerplate liberal universalist good vs evil message which is fiiine but much less interesting than actually playing around with the concept of political thinkers and political thought in wizarding culture. it’s why i find the department of mysteries so interesting and so ripe with potential; the idea of a space of intellectual inquiry and investigation, but also a place where the staff’s moral allegiance is kind of a question mark. i loved introducing rookwood here and playing with a different kind of death eater, especially juxtaposed with dumbledore’s reflections in the flashback testimony. rookwood isn’t a bruising thug for fire, or a self-serving machiavellian real politik type or a coward acting out of fear, but someone who really believes in magical supremacy and has built a robust political worldview around it. there’s something really chilling about that. we’ll be seeing him again and i unfortunately am now so rookwood-pilled i worry i will never recover. i knew i’d get hegel in there somewhere! and they said it couldn’t be done! ariana carl schmidt what are you doing here!

kingsley vs minnie: delicious to reignite the minnie discourse, especially to come out to try and beat the minnie-bashing allegations that have jovially dogged me thus far. so far in this fic, kingsley has been an unrelenting goodie, someone who came to ginny to get her endorsement of the inquiry and framed that approach as the righting of a moral wrong in letting the victims of a death eater-run hogwarts have their day in court. minnie, on the other hand, seemed like ginny’s opp, defending a toxic status quo and making wild suggestions like ‘do your homework’ ‘don’t play quidditch when you might die’, like some kind of fucking idiot. in the series ministers of magic are canonically not to be trusted - harry certainly never meets a minister who doesn’t try to put the squeeze on him - and it’s extremely fun to sow these seeds of doubts about kingsley’s motivations here, especially when using ginny the protagonist as canon harry’s mirror (ie. a narrator who is frequently a dumb bitch). what’s kingsley up to? answers on a postcard. but i’ll die on the kingsley is a slytherin hill i’m so sorry! and speaking of minnie…

mother figures (or: the pitfalls of shipping your mum out to the dominions): look i bummed myself out with this one. i have had that the mrs granger knife crime incident scene written for SOoooooo long let me tell you. i’ve written elsewhere about how much this fic is really so much about the girls, and - especially - the girls and their mums, or the people they make mother figures out of. one of the least satisfying of the ‘all was well’ aspect of the series was that actually, at the end of DH, you have a whole host of people who were probably never going to be well again, and i very much see hermione’s parents in that camp. the world and his wife has an opinion on hermione’s decision vis-à-vis her parents. hermione’s stans see it as her deepest personal self-sacrifice; her haters take it as yet more proof of her monstrousness. even if you imagine the grangers were totally mentally well after having their muggle brains messed around with by powerful magic, it is hard to imagine how their relationship with their daughter could ever really be the same again after hermione played god with their minds. but also - as ron says - hermione was motivated by a desperate desire to protect two people who would never really be able to wrap their heads around the peril (such was their distance from her life in the magical world), and who conceivably did need to be yeeted halfway across the world to get them out of harm’s way. the choices made in war - the inglorious, imperfect decisions not of purist heroes but of soldiers in the grimmest of circumstances - are so interesting to play with writing post-war fic, and i have found it so interesting and so sad to play with; especially the idea of girls coming of age and learning to see their mothers clearly, and - in the case of both hermione but also ginny - having to wrap their heads around the possibility that they may never really be ok again, and asking what that means for them, their daughters.

(also hermione brawling at ballet is a tribute to a very dear friend of mine who was in fact asked to leave our ballet lessons for pulling another girl’s hair in a fight over the barre in a pre-primary exam. monstrous competitive precocious stroppy madams unite!) 

hinny: i’ll answer some of the Qs i’ve had about this in a separate little from the postbag post shortly, but i do want to say: the thing with these chapters is that it was really important they happened after harry and ginny have had some breakthrough in the preceding chapter, where ginny has agreed to be honest and harry has asked her to let him help her and not to protect him from the truth. i always wanted harry and ginny to write these letters each other and promise to be honest to work on bridging the gaps between them and overcoming their own failings to work to do better by each other, and for those letters to now look like contracts they have to hold each other to. how will harry take it? they’ve made a commitment to each other. now they’re testing that commitment, and that’s going to take a lot of work, especially on harry’s part. (also ofc he had to find out at shell cottage, the official place of harry realising stuff. he’s going to start declining bill and fleur’s dinner invitations fr.)

ron weasley is our king: this whole fic is just ron apologism and i will never apologise for it. helping his girlfriend's traumatised mentally scarred mother with a bit of tlc and a spot of gardening! rescuing neighbour's children from trees! you will never be able to convince me ron weasley wouldn't be a great fucking boyfriend to one ms hermione granger. do not ever try!

last thing - sodding quidditch: fucking hate writing it!!! hate it with my whole heart!!! i see why everyone writes hermione now. you don’t have to give a shit about those stupid balls if granger's your gal. the mystery of what’s going on with ginny on her broom continues, with ginny’s apparent ability to seek (just about) but not chase throwing up more questions than answers. what was fun about writing this bit was getting to write ginny the captain and the team player, taking on great risk for the team - of injury, of humiliation -  and also place her in this surround that the trio never really operate in: a character who is canonically very popular and liked by her peers, who has played the thoroughly selfless and unrewarding role of backup seeker and potter understudy for years for her house, and who will saddle up at enormous personal expense not just because she is brave, or inherently self-sacrificing, but because she wants to make the people around her happy - her gryffindor family, but also the hogwarts student body at large. the trio are much less motivated by the well-being of the other children around them - they have higher-minded self-sacrificing tendencies about a more abstract moral good. neville and luna, the other two members of the silver trio, are goodies but unpopular oddities. it’s an underplayed part of the series that harry and the trio turn around in their sixth year and clock that somehow ginny turned out to be very liked and respected by the popular and unpopular of hogwarts alike, admired for being a) a laugh and b) someone who cares about other people and wants to get on with them. (makes you realise how often protagonists are removed from their peers in a slightly lofty they don’t understand me or being popular is beneath me vein.) this isn’t just a Nice Thing: i think it’s important for who ginny is as a character, and will be important for thinking about her wartime motivations, too.

reading list:

not done one of these in a while! but most things should come with a reading list, and these chapters are no different.

on ministry bureaucracy and the state (actually read this after these chapters were done but desperately wish i had read it before ffs):

Subluxation by @saintsenara

on hermione's mum/parents:

alone now by Kyra Along the Way by ElizabethCulmer you were broken-hearted and the world was, too by celaenos

on post-war justice and difficult questions:

what you're not to do by irnan

on the potters and the sea (more vibes than subject matter - this is next gen - but this one is gorgeous, and really got me thinking about harry and ginny's family by the sea):

Eyes like Sea Glass by @clerical3rror

songs from the playlist for these chapters:

for chapter 13 i went all moody, building dread, bit of a throwback to michael corner calling ginny a tryer with the taylor swift choice (i've never been a natural/all i do is try, try, try). that kate bush song basically got this chapter written i swear to god:

she is like the swallow by karan casey | waking the witch (2018 remaster) by kate bush | house of the rising sun by joni mitchell | bane by alt-j | afraid of everyone by the national | mirrorball - the long pond studio sessions by taylor swift | what if the birds aren't singing they're screaming by aldous harding

for chapter 14, much more abstract, a bit more instrumental, and out to sea (watershed moment; the tide is rolling in, kids). tortured poets is a deeply flawed deeply uneven album by a deeply un-self-aware artist convinced she knows herself well but but i'm afraid the albatross is very good (so is guilty as sin but it wasn't the moment for a matty healy wank anthem now was it):

the opportunity passed in less than a minute by roy montgomery | the albatross by taylor swift | first of the tide by erland cooper and benge | wash by bon iver | escapism by a. blomqvist

about chapter 15 (and 16…)

the next chapters are ginny's war. they're (almost) all flashback, and i am sooooooo excited about them (and desperately hope you will like them jfc). i am in the unusual position of now picking up great enormous pieces that i wrote over a year ago and dusting them off and sorting them out and rewriting bits and writing new bits around them. there's probably two chapters in it, so am currently expecting chapter 15 and 16 to drop at the same time (that might change, but for now, that feels right to me). i'm tip-tapping as fast as my little fingers can carry me. here's the least spoilery sneak peek i could rustle up!

'I'm not smugglin' in nuthin", says Hagrid. He raises a large muddy finger at her. 'I want yeh to listen to me, for once in yer life. Keep yer head down. Go to yer classes, have yer dinner, put up, and shut up. They're lookin' fer a reason to go after yer family. Reckon the best thing yeh can do for the Order is to keep to verself and stay out o' trouble. Reckon that's what yer mum wants yeh to do. Reckon that's what Harry wants, too.'

[trackermons]

ghost game episode 9 thoughts aka i tried to do the post on main as usual but ended up breaking the tag limit so you have to deal with me now

LONG long long post under the cut

so i didn't dislike this episode but i probably wouldve enjoyed it more if i hadn't spent most of last week theorising and losing my shit and getting WAY too overexcited about things that probably weren't going to happen and, to nobody's surprise, didn't. in retrospect i shouldnt have expected an all out reveal of what is presumably the big bad literally nine episodes in so looking back a day after watching it, i'm just pretty stoked gulusgammamon actually got acknowledged at all. i hope they continue to actually question that/hiro worries about it, because your partner turning into a big violent cloud and slapping the shit out of a guy so hard you launch him into next week (or several years, actually) is Kind Of A Big Deal that you probably shouldnt ignore

i also kinda wanted to see wezengammamon because it's my favourite of the three non-fucked-up-and-evil evolutions but thats literally just me i think and i would still like the other two partners to evolve first they deserve it. do i think they will evolve first? debatable but i have theories

i was kinda. unsatisfied by the resolution from a "ive been watching this series since october and nobody's been given a proper digimon-style beating yet" standpoint but also if i think about it from a character point of view it makes slightly more sense. like these are kids. hiro especially does not strike me as the kind of kid to sit there and watch someone fucking die in front of him even if they were trying to kill him a few seconds earlier. i think the CPR thing was a bit dumb but i can at least understand why they would have wanted to help clockmon, and at least by now the general approach to digimon has been long-established as "talk them down and if that doesn't work just knock a little sense into them until it does"

on the other hand, clockmon immediately going to "ok nvm i guess i can't hurt anyone anymore now youve been nice to me :(" was a lot less understandable and i won't get into it because i'll be here for hours if i do but you could at least give him a little moral crisis onscreen come on

i am glad we got the loredrop from bokomon this episode actually! while it felt a little clunky and out of place in its execution, i've actually spent a considerable amount of time these past weeks wondering and theorising what the pattern is behind some digimon being able to touch things and appear and others not, and it's pretty cool to learn definitively what's up with that. maybe that's just me i love comparing the little worldbuilding details in digimon but i'm glad it was explained and not just brushed over as "thing that happens" for the entire series

i still can't believe they just ditched hiro to go get ice cream. they took his fucking digimon partner to get ice cream without him and just left him there hE KEEPS JUMPING AROUND IN TIME GUYS. GUYS THATS A TERRIBLE IDEA WHY WOULD Y i know there needed to be some reason for clockmon to be able to catch him alone but the whole thing is equal measures of sad and hilarious to me lIKE OF ALL PEOPLE ON THIS ONE PARTICULAR DAY HE SHOULD PROBABLY NOT BE LEFT UNATTENDED AND YET,

overall i did kinda feel bad for hiro this episode. this whole time he's really seemed to have his shit together so actually watching him get the short end of the stick in a digimon scenario was fucked up but fun. and then he had to watch some kind of Murderbeast come out of his little buddy and vibe check someone nearly into oblivion like it was nothing? i think he needs to take a nap that's gotta take its toll on a guy

as for next episode predictions i know ive been saying it for the past four episodes but i really think angoramon could evolve this time. from the .5 seconds of footage of symbareangoramon we actually have, i don't think he'd be especially out of place in a fighting game setting. i've been proven wrong Multiple times before so i don't want to say it's definite, but like- put it this way. in the episode where flying was a useful skill to beat the enemy we got kausgammamon. so in the episode where physically beating the shit out of things is (presumably) a useful skill to beat the enemy we could get symbareangoramon. angoramon's moveset in general is pretty centered around Hitting Things Hard like i think it could happen

another point to this theory is that the angoramon/jellymon dim cards for the vital bracelet are being released this month, but the champion forms on the cards are still hidden in promotional material. i think they're going to show symbareangoramon and/or teslajellymon in the anime before they release the cards, which is a pretty strong point for them showing up in the next few episodes. it's the most credible prediction i have tbh

ok thats all for this week i will be back next time

[coffeebeannate]

Possibly Nonsensical ToG Representation: Personal Perspective

Nate nobody wants to read six thousand paragraphs of your inane ramblings okay?

Well maybe that IS the case, maybe SO but maybe I’m going to ramble anyway. And maybe I’ll never ever undraft this post because well who knows.

I ended up not drafting it, I just posted. Because why not. Pls don’t regret this, future me.

BUT.

I will say that, one thing that The Old Guard did that really stuck out to me, and has only continued to do so since reading others posts about it was, ironically, send my dysphoria sky-fucking-high.

(Not in a wholly bad way, that is!)

(For the record, I’m 29, and an AFAB pre-T trans guy, pre-T in like pre ANYTHING, I’m barely out publicly to anyone that isn’t a personal or really close friend, or like, my therapist, anywho)

In most cases, my dysphoria is on a very low simmer, there, but something I try to ignore because of circumstances, etc. It’s always a bother, sure, but well, I live, I guess.

So, I’m a Marvel fan, and in most cases..people I see on TV have been, well, lets be real-Chris Evans. Standard Hollywood types. I do have other examples of less ‘classically’ attractive actors on my list of things I like to watch, and absorb, and I’m a basic person who has basic ass thoughts sometimes. Those people are hot, those people appeal to the most innate feelings of people who feel things from attractive looking people.

But in my head, it’s ALWAYS been through the lens of ‘This is nice to look at. Utterly unrealistic, but nice.”

(I actually only recently learned about using dehydration to get those looks, and it further cements Hollywood shadiness, but anyway)

So for me, AMAB and men on TV have never really done much to my dysphoria. It’s not a look I’d ever have..so it never set off those bells in my head. I dislike having an AFAB body, sure, but it’s not like looking at the equivalent of a modified human art project on TV really did anything to it.

And then..the Old Guard

Fuck this is long, more under the cut.

So I want to point out that I LIKE action movies. I like things that blow up and gun fights on TV. I get a kick out of the dramatics and I’ve been in the Bond fandom since Craig Bond became a thing. I have some familiarity with the genre in general, on a low scale. And again, the Marvel fandom ofc. I also like comic books, and have for years. 

None of these things are new to me.

But what is new, I think, is seeing it done differently.

I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in reviews of the Old Guard. On sites like IMDB.com. YouTube, etc, it’s..not getting the best reviews. And I know now why that is-it wasn’t MADE for the audience action movies are usually made for. And if you compare the comic for the Old Guard to the movie, it’s VERY obvious where Gina Prince-Bythewood made changes with Greg Rucka (And possibly Leandro Fernandez) to give it a better appeal over all. (Especially with giving the characters more layers, even in two hours, and making the story have more of a family and emotional value, which is a great choice and I wholly applaud her and her team. The team feels so much more lived-in in the film than in the comics, though I’ve not read through Vol 2 yet)

Compared to Tumblr, where people are raving about the movie *myself included*, and people who NEVER see themselves in a movie, let alone in a movie done WELL are flipping over themselves over it. And I am in that group entirely.

It has been an absolute delight to see people raving about this. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s so incredibly important to people who don’t ever get any GOOD representation that isn’t terribly forced, overdone, stereotyped, etc.

Is Old Guard perfect? No, is it really nice to see yourself in a movie outside of your ‘assigned genre’ (alternative films, etc)

Have I watched it six goddamned times since it came out? Yes, I have. I’m down this rabbit hole, I am living here.

Which brings me back to the original point I was making before this spawned into something entirely different. 

“How did that make you dysphoric, then, Nate?”

Because, to be perfectly blunt, I want to link this post here, by @lindstrom2020 which hammered home why, and that point is that, there is virtually 0 sexualization of the characters. There is nothing gratuitous about bodies on screen here, nothing. And we never.ever.see.that.

And no, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t eyeball people on screen. I’m not devoid of sexuality, I am entirely pansexual. But that’s not what I’m trying to say here. I think that, well..seeing bodies that are still entirely masculine, and yet not..what’s the word I want..’done up’? Made all the difference in the world. For the first time, I saw, on TV, an average body, presented in a way that makes it look good, strong and almost achievable. Almost completely NORMAL in that way.

And no, none of the actors in the movie are unattractive. Not even a little bit. They’re still really goddamned pretty. But it was JARRING to see them as pretty but fairly average appearing.

And my brain..synapsed.

As a trans dude, I’m going to straight up say it’s VERY hard to envision what your post-transition body might appear as. It will never be entirely cis-looking (if you will) the way a body that’s biologically created will be, if you will. So you’re stuck working with so much imagination, so much of it relies on looking at post-transition bodies, those done after surgery and YEARS of hormones and even then not knowing.

And for me, well I’m tall, bulky and overweight. I’m also curved, and have a massive back, broad shoulders and long tree trunk like legs. (None of this is said to be a put down on my end, btw, I’m not fishing for compliments, this is the best way I can describe it)

(None of the characters are overweight, so obviously there’s still something there too that’s left to my own imagination, but I digress)

But! There is still something REALLY fucking validating about seeing men on screen who are still attractive without dehydrated abs and veined out skin because the flesh is crying out for sustenance.

I dunno..for me, it was just..strange to see. And there’s also something really really fucking NICE about queer people in the action genre that haven’t been shoved to the back of the movie, appear for five seconds and leave so the movie can scratch of ‘representation’ on it’s proverbial audience appealing points card.

And I’m sure if I watched more movies on my watch list, and stuff that’s been recommended to me I will find more! I know they’re out there, but for the Old Guard, it’s a genre I’d actually watch, something that APPEALED to me and was easy to get into because with my ADHD-Autism, it’s hard to get invested at times. So 2 hours was a good starting point.

Especially if I had to take breaks *but I didn’t need to, it was engaging enough for my wandering head*.

Wow this is messy, I stg I meant for this to be cleaner, but, anyway.

The overall thing is that the Old Guard makes me feel things I really do not usually feel watching movies. Sure it’s still a fantasy, sure it’s still got flaws, but wow if it isn’t just..really goddamned nice to connect to something outside of the box.

It’s not perfect, nothing is.

But Old Guard has done various forms of representation RIGHT, it has done extremely valid and important things. And since I’m old enough to remember the NONSENSE when Brokeback Mountain came out and it was called ‘career ending’ for it’s actors..to see this is just..

It’s nice.

And I KNOW that this movie and series is always going to hold a special place in my heart as a result.

A lot of others have made excellent representation posts, and I wasn’t going to publish my jumbled up nonsense thoughts, but feck it.

It’s not coherent really-my thoughts never are, and it’s long and rambling, but hell, so is my brain.

[bigskydreaming]

Thank you again and still for all the help and support! I really truly can not imagine making it through the past couple days without it, considering I spent most of it awake and in the bathroom puking from the constant migraines that come with your head not being happy about its bones not being in the right place. Stress aggravates them, or at least my awareness of them, and because of how little work there is currently and how expensive being broke and disabled in LA is, let’s just say, there’s been stress, lol.

I’m feeling a bit better today, or at least I’m making myself pretend that and act like that since I’ve got another appointment at that clinic where I get my juicy and tasty IV bags of nutrients pumped into me since I barely even CAN eat, physically, which combined with the lack of sleep and the nausea, like, also not a great combination.

So, I mean it when I say your donations and support have absolutely been invaluable, everything from a couple dollars to an anonymous message, like, its all amazing and appreciated and invaluable. Yeah. I already said that, whoops, anyway, BUT I DIGRESS.

That’s about all of an update I have there, lol, so in other news, I should be around more today since like I said, I’m feeling a bit better and have possibly plateau-ed on this latest pain level. (My super-annoying superpower....ever since I was a kid I’ve been able to adapt to increases in pain like a pro. As in, being able to manage/function despite it. Course, I still feel it, but give me a day or two to adjust to a new norm in how much my body hates me currently, and then I can power through).

So, like I said, I should be around more today, and I’ll probably be random as hell. Like I’ve mentioned before, my blog is where I spew literally everything from inane thoughts to fandom feels, since its like.....my only social outlet these past couple years and the only way I get to interact with people who aren’t doctors. Expect no pattern in topics until I find whatever sticks and keeps me focused on it enough to serve as a distraction from, y’know, the broke body and broke bank account.

SO! Absolutely feel free to hit me up about anything and everything. ESPECIALLY if you’ve made a donation or sent me something. Like, I know some people who have sent money don’t even follow me or know me at all and are just generous spirits who saw my post somewhere, but for any of you who have sent any kind of support just cuz you like, like me and my rambles, lol, totally feel free to drop into my messages even on anon and say what kind of posts or content from me you really engage with and would love to see more of. I can’t make any promises or guarantees, unfortunately, given I didn’t expect or plan on crashing so hard these last couple days, bleh, and just....literally, like, writing more of the kind of stuff or posts people who have helped me stay alive is pretty much the only way I have of kinda giving at least something back, so I mean, I am happy to pounce on anything in that direction. 

Again, just can’t make any guarantees given how unpredictable my life is and depending on how many people send requests or prompts or messages, etc, but I don’t delete anything of that nature and I usually get back around to stuff EVENTUALLY. For instance, I’m REALLY hoping to finish up two one-shots today, one that’s focused on Duke, Dick and Cass from that prompt you sent me a couple weeks ago, @zee-gee, and the other uh.....that umm, TW/X-Men fusion you commissioned way longer ago than my pride will allow me to admit in public @camelotpark, lol. And like, those posts you see me making to @russianspacegeckosexparty about the changelings project I talk about a lot, like.....Adam basically just sends me random thoughts and prompts about it all the time, and its like a running thread that’s easy for me to pick back up and sink into whenever I see a new one in my inbox and I’ve got enough spoons at the moment to dig in.

Also have a couple other things I want to respond to today while I have the energy and a destined-to-be-longer-than-it-needs-to-be meta about Dick’s positioning in narratives with various other characters and WHY I think it so usually works out that way, and I’m aiming to keep that more like....musing-esque than rant-errific, but uh, let’s see how that actually goes, lmfao.

Anyway, that’s what I have in mind for today, aside from my going to get my IV buffet at ten and emailing and calling people from listings about rooms to rent, but tbh, I might just end up being even more random and sporadic than usual, if I can’t focus on any of those long enough to stay sufficiently distracted today. (Like, my other annoying superpower as long-time followers have heard before, is my ridiculously fast metabolism. I know, “oh no, I’m so skinny, poor me,” but like....its never been about weight gain or loss for me, its about how fast my body processes various medications, meaning pretty much every painkiller I’ve ever tried is largely useless to me, or at most wears off in a couple hours.....whereas my ADHD meds actually provide me MORE relief from the pain than any of them. Basically, they let me actually focus on something OTHER than pain and not get interrupted/distracted by the occasional pain spike that likes to remind me its there and wants my attention......so I mean, I still feel everything that comes with my head being physically out of whack, but for the hours vyvanse is working for me, coupled with some heavy duty pain meds, I can like.....just sorta....not care about it for awhile. Like, it hasn’t gone away but its more shoved to the back of my mind at least. And all of that, I’m happy to stuff in a closet whenever I can, lol).

And that’s enough rambles for this post, I think. LOLOLOL, as if I have a quota. But yeah. Just wanted to express how much your support has meant and continues to mean, and like.....I’m still here and alive and crossing fingers that I’ll hear about an actual surgery date soon, but in the meanwhile like......I’m kinda stuck in a perpetual Limbo, one that’s largely confined to whatever is in hobbling distance from my bed of the day, and as much as donations help me physically, in remaining able to at least stay that way, just, any and all interactions on here help by keeping me engaged with the world on at least some level, and make it so I have stuff to think or talk about beyond my own situation and how I’m not a super huge fan of that.

(Okay, I shouldn’t say any and ALL interactions are appreciated, since I have my fun little runs of anon hate in my inbox, but I mean, all of the above is why they’re not really a big deal to me and never have been. Its like, dude, my own body has been trying to take me out for the past three years, and you think a few insults from an anonymous stranger are gonna do the trick? LOLOL, please. Tbh, the only real negative effect anon hate has on me is that it makes me a bit more snappish and quick to assume the worst than I’d like, when people @ me in a way that I misread as aggressive or in bad faith. I’m aware that my day-to-day temperment is a lot more irritable and open to fights than I usually like to be, as self-control is kinda a big deal to me, and my situation and stress and other shit kinda keep me constantly operating at a level best described as itchy, and none of that is an excuse for any times I read an interaction wrong and go for the throat. I just mean like.....I’m a very blunt and straight-forward person, and I do appreciate when people take a similar approach to me as it really helps keep those misreads to a minimum. Any time someone wants to engage with me in some way, I promise I am SO much easier to talk to if you just....put it out there, whatever it is. Its the games people play online (and in real life) that just frustrate the hell out of me and...yeah. Again, I’m not saying any of that as an excuse or a request for a free pass any time I fuck up an interaction or cross a line, I’m just saying, if anyone’s held back on interacting with me because they think I might snap at them or mistake it for them trying to start a fight, like......just be direct with me. Honestly, thats just....always gonna be more productive when it comes to me.)

But yeah. So that’s the current state of me and all that jazz. Again, I so appreciate everything everyone’s done to support me, not just these past couple days but over the course of these past three years as well. I notice and remember all of it, and its why even though I rant and complain and am critical about so much in society and fandoms and all that.....I really truly am a believer in the idea that there’s more good in people and the world than bad, and the bad just tends to be louder is all. It was especially loud for me the last couple days, the volume got way jacked up, but the goodwill from you guys has been more than enough to drown it out and give me some reprieve.

Alright, shutting up now. All done. The end.

[migleefulmoments]

awesome-fanfictionada * tumblr * com / post / 615676095589728256 so anon ask how it's possible that no one's ever let the cat out of the bag this entire time (not to mention no one's ever captured a surreptitious pic of C/D together) and the answer is a rambling response filled with fake rumors and inane talk about smiling at each other. basically, there is no answer for how darren's "incompetent" team has kept a lid on this secret for nearly a decade. cuz they haven't. cuz it's all bullshit.

The first thing to keep in mind is that awesome is a newbie- she popped up in January 2020. Everything she knows is from "researching” the ccers favorite gifs and answers Abby and co gave to their nonnies in the last few years. She was trolling through the cc masterposts but most of them are long gone so she basically learned through their favorite gif playlist-if you put all the gifs together and took away the slow-mo feature it was probably a total of 4 minutes or less of Chris and Darren’s lives and all of it was from the Glee set or during promo for the show.  

I wrote my comments after her post: 

Anonymous asked:

So, we're 8-9 years? into this whole situation. I want to know how no one has ever let something slip about the truth. There's a lot of pieces in motion...PR houses, SM, appearances with beards, them being together (physically in the same place, like living together) without public knowledge. There's also a lot of people that would have knowledge of the situation. And some of them are not that bright or discreet. It's an incredible amount of time to maintain all of this.

Dear Anon, I’m not sure about the tone of your ask and if you want me to convert you or reassure you? However, I’ll just comment on the things you say. It’s not correct that no one has ever let anything slip about them, there have been in the past people who (2) tweeted about them as a couple just to dleete the tweet shortly after. Not always, some tweets are there still. (3)There have been IG posts and radio interviews with the voice of one of them in the background when there was supposed to be no official interaction. There have been other let’s call them (4)“clues” - even if they weren’t meant to be such. (5) It’s been many years, yes, and with the years comes the ease and the routine, everybody is aware of the situation, teams know what they have to do to keep it going (though sometimes they also slip up, some more than others). With the years the startling suspicion that they might be indeed a couple subsides and nobody cares about it anymore (but us), no one goes out to investigate because why should they? (6)Who cares about D marrying to hide the fact that he’s gay? He’s not the first nor the last to do it. (7) And he’s not that famous that people will want to know at all costs or have tabloids to pay for the scoop. (8) No, it is still his team that needs to pay to get articles out (talking about M mostly). And based on the comments they get on such articles, D’s secret seems to be an open one. Why would anyone tell about them? In HW everyone knows everything about everybody but they seldom tell cause they are all in it together - so who should tell and whom to? (9) Besides - there are plenty of couples in HW and around HW who are pretty secretive about their relationships and have been for years without anyone finding out anything they did not want exposed. Some couples are never seen together anywhere but are known to be married because they have at some point or another confirmed their relationship. (11) It is a long time to maintain this but if the parties involved are fine with the outcome (I doubt D and C are now, but for argument’s sake) nothing will get in the way to disturb the situation.

Do you want me to confirm to you that they actually live together? I cannot. That they have been together all the time? I cannot. (12) But look at them interact at the G/lee reunion and tell me honestly that there isn’t anything going on between them - they have been looking at each other that way for almost 10 years now. Have they at any time looked at their official SO in the same way? They make each other smile and laugh, that counts for very much in a relationship.  

Yes, I started on 2...ignore there is no 1. 

2. She mentions the Tweets that were soon deleted- this is one of my favorite arguments because it’s the most pathetic proof and proves just how easy it is to con a tinhat. Faking a Tweet has been easy for many years and anyone with photoshop skills could do it from day one. Tweets that showed up, then quickly disappeared but luckily ONE person managed to get a screencap? Riiigggghhhhttttttt. We also know that a couple of those famous disappearing Tweets were never real but were written about as part of the “news” post that GleekinthePink mistook for real but was later proven to be fanfiction. 

3. The videos where they hear the voice of the other -usually in a laugh- aren’t “proof�� of a relationship. First of all, the obvious, we don’t know who it is since they are off-camera and the person on camera never makes a face of surprise like I would expect if the other outed them. It also makes no sense to imagine that Darren married Mia to protect the secrets but they took a risk by having the other in the room during a live or while shooting a video they posted to social media. I can’t imagine taking a chance like that on something as stupid as a promo Livestream or a haircut-maybe to attend a small family event like Chris’s mom’s funeral or his dad’s wedding, but not a haircut. 

4. What clues did they give away exactly? The not-actually-matching shirts? The not-at-all matching duvet covers? The song lyrics? None of these “clues” are evidence of a relationship. They are simply evidence of a fandom obsessed with making everything into confirmation bias and Abby’s talent at bringing everything back to Crisscolfer.   

5. Now she starts to layout her argument that “everyone knows and they are willing to keep it a secret because who cares”? This argument is so weak I would hope that her community should see right through it, but I’m sure they don’t. I’ve learned through my interactions with Trump supporters and ccers that people who are in a group because they want to win and to be special, people who are bonded together through anger, misogyny, and hate require very little fact-based information. They thrive on short sentences-repeated often- and in anger and having a scapegoat to hurl all their shit at. Having someone to hate is like meth- it’s highly addictive, it rots their brains and it keeps them coming back even after it is killing them. I am sure that any ccer who reads awesome’s post will accept it all at face value.  Hollywood isn’t a close community full of people who either love and respect each other enough to protect Darren or are indifferent as long as it doesn’t affect them. The fact is, Hollywood is a small community, yes. If cc were a couple, everyone would know but being a small community and one willing to hide another’s deep dark secrets aren’t the same thing. Nobody has a reason to protect Chris and Darren by lying or actively working to protect their secrets.. People like and respect Darren because he’s genuine, honest, kind, and interesting but ccDarren is none of those things. He’s a liar who is hiding in the closet because he’s can’t give up his fame, he “treats Mia like shit”, he continues to work with the man who put him in the closet using THE Contract. THE Contract alone would be HUGE and go well beyond tabloid fodder. The NYT and WaPo would be all over the story of Ryan Muphy and Fox TV forcing Darren into the closet, forcing a beard and forbidding them to interact for a decade. 

The biggest reason her theory is nothing but a naive fantasy is that Hollywood isn’t a static community.  Over the last decade, many people came and went and there is no way you will ever convince me that in 10 years, not one person let it slip or was willing to sell them out for their own 15 minutes of fame or blackmailed one of the players get something they wanted. Darren is a vary social man and lots of people consider him their friend. He attends a lot of functions where people see him with Mia. Either ccDarren and ccChris never go out in public- for 10 years they have kept their relationship inside at one of their homes and only a couple of friends know the truth or it’s statistically inconceivable that someone hasn’t slipped or outed them. Glee had a huge cast and crew- add the plus ones and we have a crap ton of people who know, but not one person told a friend who let it slip? Nobody told a friend who works at TMZ or knows someone who does or who is on TMZ payroll? Puh-leaze . 

The tabloids would LOVE to get ahold of CrissColfer- not simply because they are gay, but because Darren has presented as straight for over 10 years and he just married a woman! He also said as a straight man he won’t play another gay character. A gay Darren would be tabloid fodder at any level but as Abby loved to point out, he just won every award; he’s one of the Ryan Murphy Players and his career is on fire right now. CDAN has posted multiple blinds about Darren being gay over the years which proves that tabloids would be interested in such a story.  

6. In 2020 it would be big news if a celeb married to hide a gay relationship.  Especially if that man was famous for playing gay characters and who has been in a relationship with the woman he married for 10+ years. Awesome is dreaming if she imagines nobody would care about such a story.  It’s a story about deception and lies but if you add in the shit they believe, THE Contracts and being forced in the closet, a paid beard who abuses Darren and hidden relationship with another man who has presented another man as his long-term boyfriend? Yeah, that would be huge news. 

7. I have no clue why she thinks he isn’t famous enough to have a tabloid pay for information. Has she read TMZ in the last 5 years? It’s full of stories about Farah Abrahman and other reality stars and their shenanigans. You don’t have to be a huge blockbuster movie star to get a tabloid interested. You only need a sordid story about love mixed with deception, sex, money murder or abuse of power. The tabloids feed off stories like the tinhats have written CrissColfer. 

8. I always love the comments about his team forcing articles out -especially Mia. WTF? His team doesn’t force out articles- they get him publicity when he has a project. Darren hasn’t done all that much press I would call fake, certainly, not many that are written by his team or read as if they just pieced together PR pieces written by his team. Maybe ccers are finding nonsense articles that are clearly written for clicks (they were debating about one last month that was clearly written by someone who Googled Darren and cobbled together his story from what they found online without trying very hard. It wasn’t even written well.  It’s super easy to avoid those articles- if they say “sponsored” that’s a good clue. If you have to click through paragraph by paragraph or photo by photo, or you can barely see the article among the flashing ads, you’re probably reading something of poor quality and not worthy of your time. Stick with articles that are more reputable-actual entertainment publications that cover the industry and including interviews or stories written by journalists. BTW, when was Mia in an article last? I mean more than a mention or two? She was quoted in some for TSG’s opening but other than that she isn’t in the pieces.  

9. There are plenty of couples who keep their relationships quiet but Darren Criss is NOT one of them. Neither is Chris Colfer... but especially not Darren Criss. He doesn’t talk about his relationship per se but is mentioned in places where one would normally talk about one’s spouse. Mia is always by his side and clearly enmeshed in his life- they share old friends and live and work together. The people awesome is referring t-those who keep their private lives private- aren’t running around with a fake wife or fake husband to protect their actual relationships- they are just keeping everything quiet-think Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes or early Angelina and Brad. Arguing that because some celeb’s keep their private life private, it is rational to believe that Darren and Chris are simply one of those couples is a fallacy-but it’s almost 3 am and I’m too tired to think about which one it is. 

11. Now she’s arguing that in over a decade in Hollywood, the people in Darren’s and Chris’s lives have been static and therefore there isn’t anyone to rock the boat and out them. An interesting argument in light of Darren’s resume over the last 9 years- Broadway (4 different shows (2 Hedwigs)), TV (Royalties, Hollywood, Glee, AHS, ACS), music (including a few tours, 2 albums, multiple one-off shows, and several music videos), Elsie Fest, two feature movies and all the award shows, charity events, fundraisers, and other random things that Darren does. He also owns two businesses that we know of- TSG and The Motley.  That’s a shitload of people that he’s interacted with just at work in the last decade. Oh and add all the people who worked on the wedding-the vendors and their staffs- it’s unrealistic to believe that not one of them realized something was ccUp. Chris entirely changed careers adding all the people in the publishing world that an author works with. He also has done a couple of shows for TV. I’m not even considering the charities they both work with. Not only is this a LOT of people who are keeping their mouths shut, but it isn’t a static group-Darren filmed Hollywood and Royalties this year and rehearsed Amerian Buffalo bringing in an entirely new set of people to work with. If Chris gets his TLOS movie off the ground that will be hundreds and hundreds of new people with him  The fact is, Hollywood isn’t static- it’s the most unstable business I can think of with new people coming to seek their dreams and others giving up or going off to do something else like music or Broadway. There are alwasy new people coming and others going. If Darren and Chris were in fact in a relationship then lots of people near htier homes would know- grocery store workers, restaurant staff, dry cleaners, etc. Yet nobody with this type of evidence has ever even suggested they are a couple. The legit media has never sniffed around trying to find out if Darren is actually gay or with Chris. That says a lot about the validity of the story. Darren would have been hounded by the media when he started playing Blaine but was telling everyone he was staright and showing up at events with Mia. 

Hollywood isn’t known for being altruistic and kind. It’s a ruthless industry full of people with huge egos and big power and people who are broke and just want to get hired for a part, they want their dreams to come true. Hollywood is a town of desperation for so many with big dreams and a quick buck selling a story to a tabloid or the 10 minutes of fan that it would bring- hell even someone making a deal with TMZ to cover them for a period of time in exchange for info about Chris and Colfer is wayyy more credible rational than believing Hollywood is static and nobody has a reason to out Darren.  

12. Laughter and joy are important in a relationship but smiling at someone during a charity online reunion isn’t proof of anything- it’s just common courtesy to be polite in that scenario. Notice they once again are relying on a photo- a stillshot from a video- 1 single frame is “PROOF they are in love” because Chris is giving heart eyes to Darren.   

If your entire argument is they have overwhelming chemistry then you must know that nobody will take you seriously and you should really get listen to an objective opinion by someone who isn’t desperately searching for confirmation bias that they are a couple. Good chemistry doesn’t make a relationship-lots of people have good chemistry and they aren’t in a relationship and lots of people in relationships have poor chemistry. It isn’t proof of anything except that ccers have no evidence.   

[dinamnealey]

Dina Recommends: Cabin Pressure

Hi!

As some of you might know, I'm not always up-to-date with the latest pop culture fads, or the hottest new things on the entertainment front. I don't really play video games, I don't watch a whole lot of movies or TV series, and I haven't been following a lot of manga or anime series ever since I was fifteen and read all of Love Hina. (I have an... interesting relationship with Love Hina as a result of that, but that's a story for another time.)

But this doesn't mean I don't have my moments. I have plenty of stories, movies, series and whatever that I'll shamelessly fangirl over... but I notice that some of the things I end up fangirling over are things that not a lot of people I talk to have heard of. Oh, these series or whatever often have sizeable fanbases, with their own TV Tropes pages and everything, but they're not really in the public eye the way, say, the Harry Potter books, or the Marvel movies. or Monty Python are.

So I decided, why not dedicate the occasional journal post to talk about and make small reviews of some of these things? Maybe, if I fangirl a little, I can get a few more people curious about those very things... and maybe they'll check them out.

Anything is fair game for these reviews... I might talk about books, or movies, or comics, or podcasts, or TV shows, or whatever. It might be old things, or new things, it might be kiddie cartoons or hardcore fetish stories... there are only three criteria that a work must fulfill:

It must be entertainment-related.

It must be something I unabashedly like.

It must be something I think MORE people should experience.

So, with that out of the way, let's begin!

For my first review, I decided to talk about the BBC radio sitcom, "Cabin Pressure."

"Cabin Pressure" is a radio Britcom of 26 episodes (or 27, since the last one is a double episode), plus a Christmas special, and it's about the life of the people at "MJN Air," the world's smallest airline, which consists of one single 16-seater plane. ("I don't have an airline, I have one jet. You cannot put one jet in a line. If MJN Air is anything, it's an air-dot.") Four people work at MJN Air, and these four are also the main characters of the show:

Carolyn Knapp-Shappey (played by Stephanie Cole), the elderly and somewhat jerkish owner of the plane and of MJN Air.

Martin Crieff (played by Benedict Cumberbatch... yes, THAT Benedict Cumberbatch), the skilled, but inexperienced and rule-obsessed captain.

Douglas Richardson (played by Roger Allam), the experienced and intelligent, but reckless and sarcastic first officer and co-pilot.

Arthur Shappey (played by series creator/writer John Finnemore), Carolyn's overenthusiastic and incredibly stupid son who works as a steward.

Though there are a handful of recurring characters, the series focuses on these four and their struggles with difficult passengers, long flights, a plane that keeps breaking down at inconvenient moments, and of course with each other. Martin is always trying to prove himself in the eyes of everyone else, Douglas splits his time in roughly equal parts between making creative sarcasms and thinking up schemes to either benefit him or to get everyone out of the fix-of-the-week, Carolyn desperately tries to keep costs down at the expense of everything else, and Arthur seldom has a clue what's going on.

But there is more to them than this. Carolyn isn't JUST a mean old penny-pinching lady; she's a divorcee with huge financial problems and who struggles to keep MJN afloat because even though she's the owner of the world's smallest and least-equipped airline, at least that's better than being just a "little old lady." Martin is a bit of a loser who struggles to be taken seriously, but never gives up because flying is his PASSION and being a pilot means more to him than anything. Douglas is an ex-alcoholic who was fired from his old job at "Air England" because he got into too many shenanigans. And Arthur.... Arthur is actually a total idiot, but he's genuinely sweet and well-meaning. Over the 26 episodes, the characters actually do change and grow quite a bit.

Also, given that John Finnemore's father was a pilot, the series is very technically accurate about usual procedures and common hazards and problems of the job... or at least people SAY it is, and since I know absolutely nothing about planes or piloting I'm just going to take their word for it. It certainly SOUNDS like it's accurate.

The real charm of the series, however, it that it's FUNNY. Since it's a radio drama, everything stands and falls on the dialogue and the performances thereof... BBC radio comedies do in my experience tend to deliver here, but in "Cabin Pressure" the touch is magical. The writing is really sharp, and the actors deliver their lines perfectly. Especially Douglas's creative sarcasms, delivered in a real deadpan voice by Roger Allam, frequently has me laughing out loud, but Arthur's inane ramblings are often just as funny, partly because John Finnemore plays them with such earnest enthusiasm. The back-and-forth banter between the characters is a delight to listen to... since the majority of the episodes tend to take place during flights, much of the banter really comes from them trying to entertain themselves with weird conversations, silly word games or debates on the most ridiculous topics. Highlights include "Supervillain Celebrities" where they discuss which celebrities have names that sound like they beling to supervillains, and the ridiculous game where Douglas and Carolyn try to see who can go longest speaking only one-syllable words:

Carolyn: Tea? Douglas: No. Could I have...the one that is NOT tea? Carolyn: "The one that is not tea"? Which one is that? Douglas: You know what it is. Carolyn: Beer? Oh, dear Doug, no, you can't have beer. Douglas: No, not beer. Carolyn: Wine? No! No wine for you, my friend. Douglas: I do not want wine. I want the hot drink made from a bean, which comes in types such as "Gold Blend." Carolyn: I think I know which one you mean, but I will need you to ask for it by name, just to be sure. Douglas: ...Fine. I will have tea.

In my humble opinion, "Cabin Pressure" is a brilliant, intelligent and hilarious show. Of course, not ALL the jokes hit perfectly, and it takes a couple of episodes before things really get into the groove, but that's just to be expected.

Perhaps you balk at finding out that the show has been taped in front of a live audience so there is laughter involved... not a laugh TRACK; the laughter comes from genuine audience reactions, but I know a lot of people absolutely hate the "laugh track" type comedies... or perhaps, especially if you're unfamiliar with the more cynical British sitcom format, that the characters are too flawed and that a lot of the unlikeable guest stars get away with bad behaviour. In which care you're especially likely to feel that the show is a bit too mean to Martin (a bit of a Charlie Brown "loser" type character). But, if you like radio sitcoms, they don't come much better than this.

[compan-heiro-blog]

some inane rambling about toonverse stuff

def not relevant or interesting to everyone.. It’s about the idea of toons fading or being forgotten if not enough people love them or remember them.

Not really something I tend to write when I write my toonverse stuff for multiple reasons BUT I STILL HAVE THOUGHTS...

Personally I just think it’s Too Sad for me.. Like it’s fun to explore the idea that toons are created for and by humans, that they are subservient and exist as property... But the idea that the toons NEED to please humans or they will DIE/go to some terrible place just makes me too sad. Like I like that a toon can just... not to do cartoons! And they can exist in other places in society. (Not that they always have the CHOICE to, cos they tend to be owned property, but I like it being possible)

Also I like the idea of toons not only existing from a massive mega corporation... I like the idea of low budget independent creators making their own toons. Toons that will never reach a wide audience.. They’d Just Die without that wide audience? nah i don’t likey...

Lastly I just think it’s kind of Interesting if toons of toons just exist out there in the world. Like a toon made only for One Short.. still out there, bouncing around, doing stuff in the world...

I don’t think fading/being forgotten exists in Didney Roger Bunny rules, which is the rules I like best. Like those little shoe dudes? How often would you need talking shoes in a short... They’d basically be Doomed To Die and I’m not super into that... I’ve seen some people talking about this idea of RESPONSIBILITY involved with creating toons.. Like you made the toon! Now there’s this immortal being in the world.. what do ya do.. like these concepts just interest me more personally.

BUT.... IF FADING AND BEING FORGOTTEN WAS A THING....

I like to think about what role Fans would play in that.

How much love and notoriety is needed to keep a toon alive? As someone who has liked a lot of obscure characters, who is writing a character many people consider “obscure” these concepts interest me.

Like for real, if Nestor was a living being and his LIFE dependent on people loving him, you bet my feverish fan behavior would be increasing. I’d be posting all the fanart I draw, creating more of that, TRANSLATING ALL OF NESTOR’S STORIES, I’d be constantly trying to let people know he exists! I’d be the Head of the United States Nestor Lifeline Organization. Trying to spread love of Nestor.

I think in these universes where Toons Are Real, ignoring fans love is a huge mistake.. This would have SERIOUS IMPACT on the world!! YOU KNOW HOW MUCH FANS LOVE THEIR CARTOONS???

If a massive mega corporation was like ���nah not doing anything with this character who people love” would the fans RIOT? I’m sure. Would there be attempts to buy the character away from the corporation? Would people sue? Would people be angry at the corporation? HOW DARE YOU LET THIS CHARACTER I LOVE DIE, IF YOU JUST MADE MORE CARTOONS WITH THIS CHARACTER PEOPLE WOULD LOVE!!

I’m sure for some time studios would HIDE the fact characters fade and die if they’re not loved enough, but someone would slip the secret, people would find out somehow.

I think this would be a world of Chaos. Cartoon Loving Fanatics constantly involved in Cartoon Activism. Fans keeping characters alive with the power of their FAN COMICS and FAN FICTION and ONLINE ROLEPLAYS....

Like I don’t know why fan influence isn’t really acknowledged in situations where toons not being loved dying can happen? Like... OH NO ONE LOVES OR REMEMBERS THIS CHARACTER doesn’t happen that often... There’s always Someone who LOVES that character so much.. Unless like it’s a one-shot side character, I think it’s more believable those poor dudes who fade with no one noticing...

but yeah it’s just something I think about. And to clarify, I’m not very aware of the forms of media where FADING is a thing, so if there are established canon rules I don’t know them... But I never see people talking about this kind of thing... I know in Epic Micker games, TONS of characters who fans WOULD MOST DEFINITELY remember are portrayed as being forgotten...

And that’s just not believable to me. Look at me over here constantly yelling about Nestor as an example. You don’t think most toons have someone like that? As a serious fan of cartoons I know how deeply people can connect to some more obscure characters...

anyway sorry I’ve just thought about this a lot, and it feels good to get it off my chest. lol. Again I don’t even WRITE the fading concept at all cos I’m not into it, but man I just.. the power of fans, dude. The potential effects that would have on those kinds of worlds...

[savefrog]

This post could be read sarcastically but it’s not. I can honestly see why people would be upset with this. I do like seeing interiors (Sun and Moon had some great interiors that said a lot about the world and characters) and I do get the whole BIG HUGE OPEN WORLD GO ANYWHERE = IMMERSION!!! Thing etc.

(Warning: the rest of this post is just LONG rambling about game design that is honestly less about Scarlet and Violet and just more about me getting annoyed when people think cutting anything in a game is bad without analyzing the effect it has overall on the Gamefeel (tm). The cinemasins-type stuff of video gaming)

But also this just makes me think about how a really important aspect of Game Design is what you leave out. It is sometimes GOOD to leave things out and streamline an experience. Not just for making the game easier to make but for preventing meaningless bloat; it makes things easier for the player too. It makes the game’s overall Feel stronger. And i think when it comes to open world game people kind of want and expect it to have EVERYTHING, as though that’s just a logical progression of games being “better” or “more realistic” (even though barging into random houses is not realistic, but i don’t really care about THAT level of realism). Like as though not checking off every item on a checklist of features past games had is proof of inherent “bad design” (and it could be!! It can be bad!! It’s just not INHERENTLY bad).

Films will cut scenes for just dragging on too long or for just being redundant or for slowing down the pace of the movie. It happens to games behind the scenes constantly too, but i feel the player response is often like “I can’t believe they cut this level from the game they have deprived us” when the developers may have been like “all the playtesters hate this fucking level and are getting stuck and quitting and say it ruined their lives and it’s not worth 5 months of fixing it when we have to work on something else and most likely we are under crunch i havent slept in 3 days and haven’t seen a vegetable in 2 weeks.” (i mean film is no different i feel fans of a movie are always like “I CANT BELIEVE THEY CUT THIS SCENE!!” when like…it added nothing. And it’s ok for scenes to exist for the sake of existing but like. Again. That depends on the Overall Feel you are going for just like with games.)

Like by no means am I going to defend Scarlet/Violet like “the new pokemon game cut this out purely because of game design genius and not because the team was crunched to death” and like. Ok maybe I’M the only guy with an issue about generic npc houses making me have silent mental breakdowns and like it’s just an obvious thing to have in a jrpg….but i just feel like it may become one of those things that’s criticized as proof of “WOW i cant believe they were TOO LAZY to add this” points, when it’s one of the smarter cuts. When there’s SO more to critique and actually it makes sense for a game like this to do this??

Early game npcs in houses that just tell you things you already know but SOMETIMES giving you items, thus making you feel you HAVE to talk to ALL of them and mash through all the generic dialogue did not Add Anything to my experience. Yes, I do love how Legends Arceus for example had NPCs talk about their lives in a way that made the world feel more alive….but also the thought of going into all of those near identical houses that i lost track of to get these interactions made me want to die inside. NPCs that gave quests about their curiosity of pokemon had the same effect of making the world feel alive, without also being hair-pullingly slow and repetitive and inane. I would’ve much preferred if you could only go inside those houses when a quest called for it and maybe some special exceptions, for my fucking sanity!!

Like i feel like this expectation for you to be able to go ANYWHERE in modern Open World games (which yes, is exciting and it’s in the name) is why Sword and Shield really leaned into you being able to go into every goddamn building when previous pokemon games had buildings without doors as environmental details which is like. Okay to have in games. I want people to know it’s ok to take shortcuts when designing a game. It’s okay!!! (Can you tell im a bigger fan of weird little indie games than AAA games where REALISM is the only metric shit is judged by.)

And maybe in some games it works better than others; it’s about what it’s adding to the overall experience. I think going into every house and talking to every npcs works for Mother 3 for example because the game revolves around how this one little town is changing over time and how the inhabitants are reacting. Maybe a game that’s more resource-heavy, like Lisa the Painful, the tension of hoping you get an item and not getting randomly screwed means a lot more to the player when it comes to random nameless npc interaction. It worked for me in Fallout games because you were meant to be a survivor scrounging for resources, but it was totally unnecessary and not included in Borderlands because that game prioritizes shoot n’ loot and wants you to get those resources from pumped up action, rather than slow quiet scavenging. For Pokemon I DO think it is really important for the world to feel like it’s alive and friendly and full of interactions between humans and pokemon but I think that’s better kept to little vignettes when it comes to unnamed characters we will never talk to again because if the endgoal is just to show these interactions, you can still do so while respecting player time. …or maybe not having to wait for the interior to load would fix it feeling like as much of a chore. But like the characters outside of houses playing with their pokemon do more for the atmosphere to me, than an npc standing in their house saying “I love my pokemon!” And not much else.

I forget which game did it, but I remember something where doors of houses you could go in were colored differently which was genius! Game developers could do the thing of having empty buildings to fill the space without making an endless dialogue torture session!! And it fit into the world of the game with “people who welcome travelers paint their door a specific color! ☺️☺️☺️”. I cannot remember, was this a pokemon game that did this or am i imagining it?? Anyway it was fucking genius and immediately clues player into where they could go without the frustration of some doors being locked with no indicator or ALL of them being locked. TO BE HONEST this is the IDEAL for the pokemon series, I think!!! If they didn’t do this before they should do this!!

I mean in the case of this game. I 100% think it’s the result of not having enough time and needing to prioritize elsewhere. It may have had to do with loading times (I feel like this is why pokemon centers are outside as well. Which actually does ALSO feel like it suits the outdoorsy adventure vibe and makes me dread going back to the center less. May also be a carryover from PLA). They probably would’ve had random npc houses full of nothing dialogue if given the chance. The team likely cut it strategically and it’s only coincidence that it benefits my gaming hangups. But also im dreading seeing “you can’t go into the buildings in this town” come up as one of those CinemaSins-esque DINGs without the analysis of “Not being able to go into the buildings makes me feel like the town is less immersive” or “Not being able to go into the buildings when past games did makes me feel less welcome, and conflicts with my view of the pokemon world as being very open to travelers” or just something instead of “GAME NOT HAVE FEATURE I EXPECT. THEREFORE BAD.” without any reasoning as to why this particular missing feature is bad.

I CHEERED when i couldn’t go into the houses in Bravely Default’s first town!!! It is not inherently bad for a game to not have a thing other games have when it would not have benefited that game’s overall Gamefeel. Like Breath of the Wild not having traditional dungeons. I LOVED the puzzle heavy dungeons of past Zelda games. But those REQUIRE being extremely linear, restricting movement, progression and they also do not mesh well in an open world game that’s about approaching things with wacky physics. Just try designing a dungeon with a progression of rooms that must be open in certain order to prevent the player from immediately completing it in 5 minutes when the player can glide, climb, have ANY assortment of items/equipment because there’s no determined unlock order and also not just make it a straight line. It’s possible but it’s not easy and by that point it is also not going to feel like the rest of the game and you have to ask “Will the game benefit from having two totally different gameplay “modes”, or should I focus on one?”. BOTW having smaller “dungeons” (Shrines) works well because if the player breaks it, it was meant to be short anyway. The player can do as many as they want in any order as well. They will also not get stuck progression-wise if they break it in the Bad Way. I can understand why people may not like them, but also just saying “bring back old style zelda dungeons” is not an argument that can be made like “just cause the old games had it” when the mechanics of this one are SO DIFFERENT.

Or like the complaints early on with Pokemon Go having no wild battles. The complaint was “it’s not like past pokemon games” and i was also intially skeptical, but that complaint did not factor in the fact i dont want to stand there in public and slowly lower health while people stare at me. The throwing pokeball mechanic works really well for the mobile platform. It streamlines the process of catching pokemon in a way that respects player time and also was more engaging to general audiences.

In short. Games cutting feature are not inherently bad. Think why it was cut and if it would’ve fit the mechanics/gamefeel. Except for fishing minigames. Not having a fishing minigame DOES inherently make a game suck. Sorry.

BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT OF NEW POKEMON GAME:

i cant go inside the random little house and obsess over talking to every single npc and insist i cant move on until i talk to each and every one even though i am not enjoying it and it feels like a chore but it HAS to be done!!!!!!! IM FUCKING FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (hasn’t reached that big school area yet)

(literally got stuck and stopped playing sword and shield bc of this in the ice city, its why i never beat it. not even joking that i stopped playing rpgs bc of this)

[embracesadness]

Bluepulse Week 2017 - Day 5: Rumours

(Late post for rumours! Have half of today’s written up and I’ll try to post it for today! Okay, enjoy!)

Bart Allen. Vital signs show that your heart rate has increased tenfold since arriving within the Velocity's vicinity. Suggested course of action: Eliminate him.

"Khaji, for the millionth time, we aren't eliminating anybody. Honestly. You suggested vaporising grandma Iris today just because she didn't fry the pancakes to look like little seals!"

The Iris shows no concern or regard for the Bart Allen's need for seal shaped, battered nutritional contents.

"No comment." Bart sighed, walking up to Jaime's front door and ringing the bell. There was a beat of silence from the alien-thank God-and also within Bart's mind. He had to admit, he was nervous coming here. He was always nervous coming here, though.

Mostly because Jaime was here.

Not that he had a...crush on Jaime or anything. That would be stupid. And dumb. And it wasn't like the older boy could ever like him back.

This scarab's highest functioning and priority depends on reasoning and logical problem solving skills. The Bart Allen's insistence on completing this task is inane.

"Are you upset that I'm doing your job for you in doubting every single one of my decisions made in life?" Bart snickered to himself, then looked around to see if anybody had bore witness to his absolute insanity.

Kill the Jaime Reyes.

Bart sighed in defeat. Then again, he should have expected this from the alien on his back. He was pretty much used to the weird looks and raised eyebrows his ramblings received. And having Khaji Da as a partner-for-life was just normal to him now, even if it was a constant reminder of what Bart had gone through in his life up until that point.

It was sort of funny the way things worked out sometimes. Bart remembered how much he despised the Blue Beetle and his cold, harsh demeanor. How much he hated being a slave to a regime that treated humans like corpses or-even worse-sacks of meat.

And he remembered vowing to kill the monster that had taken so much away from him and his people.

Then the day he arrived in the past to finally find and kill the Blue Beetle he became what he had sworn to destroy.

There was an explosion by a building where the Scarab was located according to the directions he had been following on his tracking device. One minute he was walking towards the building, the next there was a huge explosion, heat and this awful burning pain in his back.

Then everything went dark.

Bart woke up back at his grandfather's and grandmother's, tucked into bed with a bowl of soup laying next to him. Nothing seemed to make much sense at first. Then he realized what was on his back and slowly put everything together.

Honestly, Bart had no idea who the Blue Beetle of the future was. He didn't know if the REACH eventually killed him off and replaced the source material with another or if he truly had despised himself all of those years.

He tried not to think about it.

Still, living with Khaji Da seemed impossible at times. Especially when the damn thing tried taking over constantly at first. However, after a while, the two had both simmered down and seemed to have set some simple ground rules. It was easier to deal with it that way. For the both of them.

The door finally opened and Bart grinned as soon as Jaime came into view.

"What's up, her-ma-no?" he laughed, winking over at the latino boy and then realizing what a stupid thing that was to do, why had he done that?

"Your pronunciation is truly something to be marvelled at, esé." Jaime chuckled, a small smile plastered onto his face. Bart smiled even wider if that was even possible and Jaime tilted his head to the side, motioning for Bart to come in.

"You entering or no?"

Do not trust the Jaime Reyes. He plots to terminate you. Eliminate him at once.

"No!" Bart hissed at the scarab. Jaime's eyes twinkled with confusion. Bart shook his head almost immediately, blushing.

"No! Not yet." he covered, "I have to take my shoes off first."

Jaime looked down and nodded. "Yeah, good call. Mi mama would freak if I got dirt all over the house."

"Aren't you running in here at lightning speeds all the time, though?" Bart questioned, kicking off his shoes and entering the house. Jaime bristled and motioned to Bart to keep it down.

"Dude!" he exclaimed, "What if mi familia was home? They would've heard you!" He looked around and sighed. "Besides," he continued, "I run to your grandfather's house if I need...anything."

"Geez." Bart laughed, "No need to be so secretive!"

The Jaime Reyes' heartbeat is irregular. Possible reasoning for this anomaly is that he is plotting to kill you. Suggested tactic: Destroy him before he can.

"On second thought." Bart spoke aloud, "Maybe some things are best kept secret in your head."

Jaime scoffed. "Duh." He wolfed down about four packages of Chicken Whizees at an incredibly fast pace right before Bart's eyes. The boy smiled.

Jaime had been normal before Bart had come back and all of this stuff had gone down. Sadly, after arriving on earth, the REACH began taking in human prisoners and experimenting on them like there was no tomorrow. They took runaways; people that nobody would end up looking for in the end. Somebody who could just...disappear.

People like Jaime's best friend, Tye, who just so happened to disappear whilst all of this was happening. Jaime, catching wind of what was going down, decided to go on a wild manhunt to find what had happened to his friend. He stuck his nose too deep into somebody else's business and ended up getting himself captured in the end as well.

They awakened his metagene, thus gifting him the power of superspeed. Jaime was one of their majorly successful guinea pigs. Tye not so much.

But Jaime was one out of two of the most important experiments they had going there.

Bart was the other.

He'd stupidly gotten himself captured after trying to track down the stolen kids himself as well. They quickly noticed who he was and just what was on his back and suddenly they were trying to reboot the scarab in order to get it back on mode.

Bart had never been more terrified in his life.

He and Jaime were stuck in a room together for the majority of their time there. Chained to one another, facing a barren wall. They were even put in pods close together as to not get them mixed up with all of the other "failed" experiments out there.

During this time, Bart and Jaime grew closer than ever. They learnt pretty much everything about each other. Jaime told Bart all about Tye and his family. About how he was terrified of these new powers invested within him. Bart told him about the bleak future ahead of them and having to come to terms with becoming everything you'd ever hated.

They were each other's rock. And Bart could even admit on having a crush on the older boy. Not a big one, though. Just a small one...

Okay, maybe a big one.

Eventually they were rescued by a group of younger heroes known as the "young" justice league. Actually, they didn't really have a name. They were just them. Not like the Justice League, anyways.

A bunch of kid heroes running around saving a bunch of kid screw-ups.

Jaime and Bart were two of the last out since they were kept under maximum security. They'd grown so used to holding each other when things got rough that when these strangers came and tried to separate them they screamed and cried and begged to not be taken away from one another.

They didn't let go of each other. Not even when most of the other runaway kids dispersed. Not even when Jaime went home for the first time after everything had gone down. A member of the Team had had to explain what had happened to his parents. They were very understanding but it was still very difficult to fathom that their son was now so...different.

And then there was also the fact that Bart went with him everywhere. They physically could not be apart.

Therapy eventually undid all the damage inflicted upon them and they could finally go without being with one another constantly, but it was still difficult for both of them to function without seeing the other at least once a week.

Joining the team made it simpler to see one another. Jaime began receiving lessons from Bart's grandfather, Barry, who became his mentor. Just another reason to see the boy. Bart would fly to Jaime's occasionally and Jaime would run to Bart's.

Back and forth across the continent. Just like that.

Bart never would've dreamed that his life would end up as it had. That a person could have that much of an effect on him. But they did. And it was just so incredible.

"Earth to Bart. Heellloooooo? Isanybodyhome?" Jaime was speeding around him, flailing his arms about. Bart blinked back into the world of living.

"Hello! Yes! I am here! And alive."

Only until the Jaime Reyes deems it acceptable to initiate your destruction.

Bart resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Stupid scarab. Jaime giggled, grabbing a Chicken Whizee and popping it into Bart's mouth.

"You're so cute when you do that." he admitted to Bart, chewing on his own delicious snack. Bart cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh, am I?"

"Yesindeedyouaremygoodsir."

"I don't understand speed talk."

Their faces were getting closer and closer to each other.

"No?" Jaime questioned, "Doesn't your grandfather teach you anything?"

And closer.

"Not much." Bart admitted cheekily, "He spends all his time with you after all, the golden child of-"

The space between their lips suddenly disappeared and all Bart was aware of was just how soft and beautiful Jaime really was. He felt the spanish boy vibrating under the pressure of the kiss and Bart smiled into it.

Warning: Danger detected within the immediate vicinity. The Jaime Reyes is attempting to suffocate this organism.

Bart giggled at that. The two finally separated for air. Bart reached up and wiped the little bit of spittle off from his lips. Jaime blinked, staring at him with these wide eyes.

"I don't know why I did that." he admitted softly, still staring at the younger boy in front of him, "I just felt like doing it, I guess."

Bart grinned seductively. "Then feel like doing it again."

Jaime's eyes widened even more. Bart's eyelids shut softly as he approached the speedster and wrapped his hands around his midsection. Jaime laughed and leaned in closer.

"My pleasure."

For some reason, ignoring Khaji Da became a more simpler task than it had ever been.

[tessatechaitea]

New Titans #110

DC has been "unleashing" characters for over twenty-five years!

Twitter might be a smoking rectum of a filth and despair but let me tell you what it's given to me. I signed up to Twitter nearly ten years ago, mostly to secure the name Grunion Guy. I think my first tweet was "Why are they called Sixlets when there are only five colors?" Fucking insightful stuff, that. Anyway, at some point, a junior high school girl from Missouri followed me on Twitter. I followed her back and she lost her fucking mind because Grunion Guy started following her. It turned out, her and two of her best friends loved A Really Scary Story and some of Grunion Guy's other stories that were online (I say "Grunion Guy's other stories" and not "my other stories" because some of them (some of the best of them and certainly the first of them!) were not written by me. I just sort of took over the persona). Apparently the stories had been something fun they shared and they were excited to be acknowledged by Grunion Guy. They were funny and clever and I enjoyed reading their tweets and following their lives. Since then, I've watched them grow into compassionate, hilarious college students. I'm proud of them like I would be proud of my actual nieces if they were the kind of people to make me proud (ha ha! Just kidding, actual nieces! Whatever your names are!). But there's a dark side to this other aspect of Twitter, this allowing instant access between writers and their audience. For the most part, it's what makes Twitter truly terrible. But long before Twitter, fans already felt entitled to the stories they expected. But if they didn't get them, they actually had to write a letter that would almost certainly only be read by some person whose job was to act as a firewall to the creator. Now when Tom King writes Batman stories where Batman actually has to deal with the existential ramifications of taking on the role as sole arbiter of justice to the universe, Batman fans can tweet directly at him saying, "You suck! Batman is about punching things, idiot!" I would like to believe that most creators ignore what the audience claims they want and just continue to express what they feel they need to express. Art isn't about feeding the masses what they want; obviously it's about stroking one's ego as if it were a massive cock that just needed orgasmic release. Mostly when people scream at me for writing shit they don't agree with, it doesn't bother me. On the other hand, there's a part of me that feels proud that when those three young kids from Missouri found something they enjoyed in my writing and subsequently followed me on Twitter, they were able to find that the person behind those stories was somebody they actually enjoyed interacting with, somebody whose beliefs they could respect and agree with. I can't imagine how disappointing it must be for, say, a Dilbert fan to get online and follow the douche that does that comic book only to be greeted by his terrible politics and inane philosophies. Actually, I can't even imagine somebody being a Dilbert fan so that was probably a poor analogy. Ultimately I know that who I am doesn't matter when somebody reads A Really Scary Story (a story which, might I add, was once read out loud (by Daniel Heath Justice, no less!) before an audience that contained Connie Willis. So I'm practically a Hugo Award winner myself!). But I'd rather be seen as a somewhat enlightened, mostly compassionate moron than a selfish asshole who thinks they're the smartest fucker in the room. While I'm rambling on about Twitter, here's a little free advice for debating online: only respond to the person angrily responding to something you've written if your response makes you laugh. And never respond more than twice (only once if at all possible. I just say twice for a little bit of latitude). I generally don't engage in "discussion" on the Internet. I "write" posts. If somebody responds angrily, I'll either ignore it, say something whimsically stupid in response, or will clarify once and leave it at that. Most people having debates on the Internet seem to think that they're arguing their side and that they really have to make sure their point is understood. But that's a huge mistake! Because nearly 100% of the time, the angry respondent has intentionally misunderstood what you've written, and will continue to believe that what they said you said is what you said. So even one clarification is probably too much but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Very occasionally, the misunderstanding isn't intentional and we can part on good terms. Anyway, Dick is traveling through the rain forest looking for Kory this issue.

Dick seems shocked by the acrobatic oral sex customs of these indigenous peoples.

Dick finds Kory in the jungle telling stories of her homeworld to this Amazonian tribe. If Dick doesn't stop her, Starfire's stories will soon usurp the stories of the native tribe, being that they're far more exciting and filled with more aliens and space lasers. She's going to destroy this entire culture nearly as fast as a white Christian missionary! Before Starfire can supplant the basis of the village's cultural understanding of their place in the universe by telling space operas, the stars of one of her space operas attacks the village! And just as the story begins to get exciting, the scene changes to the bureaucracy of Checkmate running the Titans. Now that the Titans need the government's help to battle lawsuits brought against them for their familial disputes causing citywide destruction (which the Titans deny but, I mean, have they been reading their own comic book? Eighty percent of their battles are against family members and the other twenty percent are against villains who have a grudge against the Titans themselves), they're being given political missions by the government. On one hand, it's despicable that they're going to be used as pawns for political and corporate interests. On the other hand, there's at least a 50% chance they'll actually be helping to make the world a better place for once.

What a surprise. There first mission is against a guy who wants to make the world a better place by saving the environment! I wonder if the Titans uniforms will have Shell, Mobile, and Exxon patches added to them.

How do I not remember this guy? That was a rhetorical question that means "I love this guy! Why didn't I have a shirt with him on it?! Why did I spill so much semen over Lobo when this guy existed?!" What I really meant to say was "Terraist? No wonder nobody remembers this guy!" You know when something clever goes a bit too far into clever so that it becomes fucking idiotic instead? That's the name "Terraist." But he's cradling a cat and a rose and he's battling for the environment! How is this guy the bad guy?! Just because he lives in Zandia? Fucking racist, man. Oh wait. Maybe I should have listened to the rest of The Terraist's rant. He plans on destroying the world quickly unless government's stop all pollution immediately. That doesn't seem insane and unreasonable at all! But I don't think his cat is into it. The cat just wants a few nice chin scritches and a plate of fancy food. The lasers that hit the rain forest were part of The Terraist's attack to save the world by destroying it. Maybe I was wrong about judging the people of Zandia. Maybe they are all fucking assholes.

"We know you can't get into space but we need the Titans to stop Terraist and his death satellite!" "You know there are heroes that can fly into space?" "WE NEED YOU!"

Red Planet declares that they will help and Arsenal is all, "Are you fucking nuts?! I don't have a rocket arrow!" But Flash is all, "I used to hate you because you were a Communist and Russian, Leonid. I just wanted you to know!" Fucking Wally. Although in Wally's defense, I once said this same kind of bullshit. I once told Mistina La Fave of The Prids how I didn't really like their music the first time I heard them but that I loved the show I had just watched before saying that horrible thing to her. Now in my defense during Wally's defense, the first time I saw The Prids (way back in like 2000 or 2001, I think? Yeesh), I also saw The Faint for the first time (touring for Danse Macabre) and I can't be responsible for comparing everything else poorly in relation to that glorious spectacle. But I still suck for saying that thing. The Titans decide to accept help from Alexander Luthor since he's the only private citizen with a ship that can get them into space so they can stop an eco-terrorist from saving the environment in completely the wrong way. This was twenty five years ago. It's like nothing ever changes! Why does anything we do matter if we're just repeating the same shit over and over again?! Oh God, I'm so tired! New Titans #110 Rating: B-. If you were paying attention to the cover, you might be wondering when Baby unleashed his beest. It happened over one panel where he attacked Steve Dayton but Dayton instantly downed him with some neuro-laser. I'm not sure why Checkmate didn't hire Steve Dayton to take down The Terraist since, using the transitive property, if Dayton can defeat the Titans, he should also be able to defeat The Terraist. Also, he probably has a ship that he's not letting the Titans use because he's tired of being used by them. Also he might still be insane seeing as how he's working on another Mento Helmet. Maybe going insane is the cure for being insane? So a second Mento Helmet is the cure for a first Mento Helmet! Man, no wonder I'm not a genius. When I break my arm, I rarely ever think the cure is breaking it again! But then, I know I've heard doctors talking about rebreaking arms to help fix broken arms! So I really am stupider than I thought!

[nowonderyouhavedemons]

All evens!

WOW I’m getting to this so fucking late I’m sorry I forgot to do this my entire day off so now I’m doing this at like midnight and I’ll post it tomorrow afternoon or something during my break

also thank you Allie once again for letting me ramble about my dumb self~

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

Maybe a 3 or so? I think it depends on if I’m familiar with the environment I’m in or not, and if the darkness is something planned. I don’t mind walking around my home in the dark in the middle of the night, but I’d be less okay with the dark if it was due to a blackout at home.

Probably shoots up to 4 or 5 when I’m in unfamiliar places. This includes haunted houses in amusement parks. I’m a huge baby I just try to hide it

4. What is your favorite word?

God, there’s so many good ones. I really like the word “dawn”. “Smorgasboard” is good too. Also “succinct” and “bracket.” Those words just feel fun to say for me!

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

“god why does my facial hair grow back so fast?”

it doesn’t really, but I like being clean shaven and I swear it grows to the point of being noticeable within 3 - 4 days and it’s really annoying.

8. What do you label yourself as?

A bunch of stuff, really! Male, straight, raver, diabetic, dropout, all that sort of stuff. Depends on the context we’re talking about too because this question feels super broad.

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

I think I was in bed getting comfy to go to sleep. I got called into work that day and I was exhausted when I got home. Basically ate some food and watching a single youtube video and went to sleep.

12. Who told you they loved you last?

Think it was my friend/coworker actually. Pretty sure she was playfully jabbing at me and roasting me. I agreed with her (because I either completely agree unless I have something wittier to reply with) and I think she was all “Ahhh, you know I love you.”

Having a good relationship with your coworkers is nice~

14. What is your current desktop picture?

Right now, it’s the Dishonored 2 main screen! I actually use Wallpaper Engine from Steam which lets you use videos and animated loops as desktop wallpapers, so I have about 50+ on rotation right now that get switched out every hour.

16. The last song you listened to?

CA$H by Barely Alive!

MAKE THE SPEAKERS *VIIIIIBbBRrAaAaAaTtEe*

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

The guy who was with his girlfriend as one of my customers yesterday when I got called in.

Listen asshole, the first thing I told you when you came up other than my “hi” was that we were out of slushies. We couldn’t make slushies. We refilled all the mix. What do you do? Ask me “what about the blue raspberry?”

“No sir, I apologize, but we’re out of slushies.”

“What about the lemonade?”

“Sir, like I just said, we’re out of slushie mix.”

“So you’re completely out of slushies?”

“Yes sir, that’s what I just said.”

and then when I gave you your change, you YANKED the bill out of my hand.

Like listen you fucking ignorant shit, you can’t be mad at me after I tried being polite multiple times and warned you multiple times and then get frustrated with you because you kept asking inane stupid fucking questions holding up my line of 20 OTHER CUSTOMERS

I hope that guy tripped later on that day and ate shit. God that pissed me off.

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

Shit. I honestly hate my body in general. I guess my eyes can be pretty nice sometimes, but the light has to be hitting me in the right way. My eys are dark brown so you can’t really see a whole lot. I’ve always wished I had a different eye colour.

That, and I’m pretty tall for a Filipino dude, I think. Taller ones are growing up in Toronto now, but a lot that I see still are like 5′6″ or shorter. Being 5′8″ ain’t too bad.

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

Not????? really???? I think? Like really anything that I could be remotely good at is already something I share publicly (which would be making music really but I haven’t even been doing that.)

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

Honestly, it’d just be the cold cut combo sandwich setup from Subway I always get except also with ham and a shit ton of bacon added, really. I get it cheese and toasted with Italians Herbs and Cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onions, cucumbers, mayo, and chipotle sauce.

I’m a simple man. The greatest sandwiches I ever have are from Subway because I never have sandwiches otherwise.

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

fucking nowhere I have work dude and I get no shifts during tourist off-season I’m working as much as I can while I can

for the sake of funsies, and I know it’d sound boring, but I’d either pick California/Los Angeles or Florida. I’m not in a rush to go overseas because I feel that’d require a lot more planning and possibly learning phrases in a new language. I have family in California and friends in Florida so I wouldn’t have to worry about being alone, the Canadian dollar is weak as shit compared to the USD so I could buy things on the cheap there, and it wouldn’t be as huge of a culture shock while still being new to me (because I barely explored California with my family the one time I went because we did VERY tourist-y things.)

Also portions. I fucking inhale food, dude. Give me those US portions for meals CHEAPER than here in Canada, holy god.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

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No littering. Fuck y’all, if I’m creating my own society, I’m not letting SAVAGES in that don’t know how to clean up after themselves and throw things out properly. We’re keeping it clean here.

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

It’s gotta be my laptop just because it’s the most expensive thing I own that I deeply care about. I could eventually afford another PS4, I don’t need a glamorous TV or anything, and I only upgraded to the iPhone 6 because my mom got a deal on it for $100. I could use that as an excuse to switch to Android.

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

To avoid a cop-out and using California as an answer AGAIN, I think I’d really like a place in the Philippines. Not deep inner city though. Like, further away in the quieter cramped backalley houses like the one one of my aunts has there. I don’t want to be completely out in the country either.

I’d want to be able to get into the inner city relatively easily, and I want to really feel in tune with the background country more!

34. What was your last dream about?

Oh god, what was the last dream I even remember? I get so bad at remembering them now. OH NOW I REMEMBER PART OF ONE. I forgot most of it but I know at some point I ended up in the back of a large sorta hippie van? Like the back seats were removed and the back was all lined up tons of nice rugs and blankets and decorations. There were a few of my college classmates lying there with me and I was cuddling with one of them. That was a nice part of the dream I remember.

I don’t have dramatic or weird dreams. A lot of my dreams are just stuff like this. I’m really fucking romantically lonely I want physical intimacy ugggggggggggggggggh

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

Oh yeah, at least three times. I already have to visit a hospital fairly frequently for my diabetes. First time was when I was just diagnosed with T1 Diabetes, and the second and third times were when I was in danger of DKA because I wasn’t taking my insulin. Second time was worse than the third. My nurses weren’t happy both times though.

38. What is the color of your socks?

I’m not wearing socks right now! I don’t wear socks at home unless I find it cold.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

Sunsets, since I’m not a morning person. Both are pretty though!

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

Is this that newfangled Sportsball I always hear about? I’m not hip with the times yo, sorry.

No seriously I really don’t care about sports and the only ones I MIGHT care a tiny bit about are my local ones like the Blue Jays and Raptors, and that’s just out of a sense of Canadian/Torontonian pride more than anything.

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

lol whoops I dropped out

dream goal is still to be a music producer and DJ. If that doesn’t end up panning out, I’d still like to go into something involving music or audio engineering. Sound mixing for TV/movies maybe? Doing front-of-house mixing for concerts and raves would be cool too.

46. Are you reliable?

I like to think so, but I know I slip up a lot sometimes.

48. Do you hold grudges?

To be honest, yeah, I still do. I can be pretty fucking bitter about things from my past.

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

Not the MOST, but this just happened a couple weeks ago (and it wasn’t really a conversation but whatever)

A woman came up to me while I was on cash wanting to buy something. She was holding a Canadian $20 in her hand. She approaches me, looks at her bill confused, looks up at me again, and asks “Do you guys accept cash?”

Like???????????? nothing has ever taken me that far aback before????? like I don’t????? what??? the fuck like miss??????? miss we are an establishment that provides goods for currency??????????????? damn I HOPE we accept cash at this physical shop because we’d probably come across some issues with our customers

This happened weeks ago and I still bring it up to people. It still bewilders the fuck out of me. What would possess people to think a physical store would not accept cash? What has troubled you in the past that would lead you to think that this cashier and this till you walked up to would ONLY accept debit/credit cards? Holy fuck.

52. How long could you go without talking?

To another person physically? A good while, I think. Probably a week, two weeks tops. I’ve stayed inside my apartment for a week straight before and I swear I barely talked to my mom too.

If talking to myself counts, than maybe a couple hours. Maybe. I talk and make comments to/by myself a lot.

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

God no. I’d probably be trash at baking stuff. I’m surprised I can manage some stuff on the stovetop.

56. What do you like on your toast?

Butter/margarine for the most part. I’m a simple person. I could say peanut butter and jelly too, but it’s actually been over a year or so since I’ve had a PB&J.

58. What would be you dream car?

One that worked, was fairly stable, and had a damn good audio system.

I’m not really a car person, I really wouldn’t give too much of a shit what the car was. Maybe not a pick-up truck or a mini-van though, and that’s really it.

60. Do you believe in aliens?

Not in the stereotypical image of “aliens”, but I definitely believe that the universe is too fucking huge and operates on too massive a scale for there to not be any type of intelligent life somewhere else at SOME place.

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

Either A or M. A’s probably my favourite vowel, and for some reason “LMNOP” is my favourite part of the classic Alphabet song, and M is the letter I like the best out of that section.

64. What do you think about babies?

Babies can be super cute and adorable sometimes! Other times though? Devil spawn. They can be double-edged swords sometimes.

[meibatsu-prax]

MBTI draggings for all!

My very good and nice and smart friend wrote some great posts for every mbti type and I have commented too! Click the read more to read about yourself! :D

IDEALISTS

ENFP: You think of yourself as selfless and socially conscious, but you really only get into all that because you believe in your heart of hearts that it makes you look good. Your core motivation for everything you think you do for the sake of others is to look good in front of them. You probably think you don’t care too much what other people think about you. Such a free and independent spirit! Alas. You are kidding yourself. a morality hipster if you will. but doesn’t even know it. just cringeworthy all around.

ENFJ: In your heart of hearts, you’re an asshole who doesn’t really care about 99% of the people you pretend to care about. You are are good at fooling people, though, and maybe even yourself. But let's be real: you’ll sacrifice anyone in a hot second for the sake of your art, or your mission, or whatever it is you’ve dedicated yourself to. You’ll tell yourself it’s all for the greater good or whatever  - and to be fair, you might even be right - but you might just be the biggest asshole of all. there are a buncha people who would all too gladly be used by you at first only to probably try to take you down when the idol worship goes sour

INFPs:  You are convinced you know what everyone is thinking and feeling, and I promise you are wrong, like, 75% of the time. What’s more: nobody has the slightest clue what you are thinking or feeling. Which leads to you offending people without realizing it. Lots of people. But how, you ask?! You’ve never had a malicious thought in your life. Unfortunately, nobody cares about your good intentions. I know YOU do, so you think OTHER people should…but they don’t. the best-worst is just reading ooc interpretations about everything including yourself coming from them

INFJ:  We both know that the self-loathing you so love to hold close to your heart is just a piss-poor attempt to balance out the fact that you’re a raging egomaniac. In your heart you feel like you’re a hidden genius. You probably also think you’re really good-looking as well…or that you were when you were younger, and now you’re sad because you’re not anymore, but you know it’s vain and silly to be sad about not being good-looking anymore, so you beat yourself up about that too. eternal struggles with aesthetic worship and trying to look too cool to care and usually your blogs have all ugly layouts as a result come on

GUARDIANS

ESFJ:  The good news is that you have such a great personality and work ethic that you will always be successful, even though you’re not that smart or talented. The bad news is, everyone knows that you’re successful because of your great personality and work ethic, and that you’re not that smart or talented. :D how nice for you!

ESTJ: When you have kids, they will probably hate you and will run off to break your heart living some wild irresponsible existence. How could they do this to you?! You raised them so well! Spoilers: it’s definitely your fault, but you’ll never figure out why. here’s a hint: shut up lol

ISFJ: Everyone actually knows that you’re a secret asshole. The nicer you are, the more they know this. Maybe the key is to be more of an open asshole. But then less stupid people would love you! That is one of your problems. You care too much what stupid people think. Unfortunately a lot of these stupid people are your loved ones. I can’t really help you with that. you try so hard to look like a sincere martyr don’t you

ISTJ: I don’t know how to drag you guys. I’d say you’re boring, but you already know that, and you don’t care. aw a short nothing blurb but i think you make for some decent tools

ARTISANS

ESFPs:  A lot of people think you’re shallow and uninteresting. What’s worse, they’re probably right. you guys are all a blur to me too!

ESTP: On that rare occasion when you’ve been rejected romantically or sexually, I guarantee it’s because someone wised up to the fact that you’re completely uninteresting. third boringh in a rowe’s the charm tho maybe

ISFP: For most of your life you have felt like you have deep hidden intuitions that nobody else does… that you “see” things and people more clearly than everyone else…but unfortunately, you are not an INFJ, so you are delusional. You are probably also depressed. On the plus side, you’re a simpleton and will probably be cured by volunteering at an animal shelter every weekend. just probably never actually adopt an animal because i question your common sense about taking care of any living thing including yourself

ISTP: I know nothing I type here can bother you so I’m just going to go to your house and root through your things and shoot your dog. *NECESSARY DISCLAIMER: I’m just kidding. I would never shoot anyone’s dog, but especially an ISTP’s dog, because I like not having broken legs or having a creepo stalker

RATIONALS

INTP: You worry a lot that you aren’t as smart as you think you are, so let me put that fear to rest: you’re right. A lot of the time, the line of logic in your inane ramblings is a lot flimsier than you think it is; you just don’t want to acknowledge that. You are one of the worst types for being able to admit when you’re wrong. This makes you look even stupider. intp x fandom is the worst and i wish it upon all my enemies

INTJ: You have a suspicion: you would be way more successful and have way more money if you just stopped screwing around on Wikipedia or Reddit or whatever and just went out and applied all that information in that big head of yours. Your suspicion is correct! But let’s be real…you’ll never do that. this is true and i’ve made peace with it and so should you hillary

ENTP: Your ideas aren’t actually as great as you think they are…nor as good as you con other people into thinking they are. Good thing you’re good at dashing away to the next thing before people catch on! You dick. you guys are also probably the ones responsible for the sorry state of the internet in general smh

ENTJ:  I don’t even really know how to drag you guys because you already know you’re assholes and you don’t care. The only thing I can say for a lot of you is that at the very end of your life, you’ll suddenly stop caring about how much money or power you’ve amassed. You’ll start to look around for people who love you. But you won’t find any. Boy, what I just wrote was so poetic. You don’t care, though, do you, you philistine. Fortunately my INTJ friend gave this suggestion: “Sometimes the numbers just don’t look good. Just accept it, you huge stupid baby. Sheesh!” that is me i am that friend and if you give me big monies i will be yours too ;D