#have about three more I'm considering...
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bug doodles so i can say i drew something
#oc#original character#alien oc#artists on tumblr#art#aliens#sketch#nyx#having a rough month creatively. and mentally. like a really really rough month. but i'm tired of saying that too#i made like three things this year i was excited about and that's it. where did the fun go. im supposed to enjoy it right#if i dont enjoy it then what is the point !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of anything !!!! i dont enjoy Anything anymore even !!!!!!!!!#why is it already august. almost september. i dont even remember most of 2023 let alone 2024.#i got no drive to draw let alone to push through a drawing when it gets challenging or doesn't turn out right. i barely drew this month#just kinda hated everything. nothing is fulfilling#IF IM NOT HAVING FUN !!! THEN WHAT IS THE POINT !!! WHAT AM I DOING IT FOR#more and more i consider taking a hiatus from art. but what the fuck else do i do with my time then. what if i never come back to it#i got a list of stuff i could draw but either i try and i dont like it or i sit there and wonder why even bother because i wont enjoy it#guys im tired. im so exhaustingly overwhelmingly depressingly fucking tired and i feel no joy in my art#or videogames. or anything.#i need to go to bed
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The X trilogy + "psycho-biddy" influences
#x 2022#pearl#maxxxine#x series#strait-jacket#psycho#what ever happened to baby jane#horror#psycho-biddy#hagsploitation#made this whole big thing which i still might post eventually but. in terms of aesthetics. this abridged version is better lol#i'm not gonna finish the other post tonight but consider this a preview of sorts#i can't stop thinking about what if they leaned more into the 'hagsploitation' aspect of it all lol#i actually find it odd + off-putting that they start and end maxxxine with a bette davis reference#with a big significant psycho cameo at the bates motel itself#and there's not really any payoff for those allusions!!#i think if you're gonna try to tie into a legacy of older horror films you should do it in a sincere way#because that just felt like 'elevated horror' bonus points + nostalgia bait#anyway. it's fun to think about the potential it had + how all the building blocks exist within the narrative to do something interesting#and i am a 1960s hagsploitation subgenre apologist lol#what ever happened to baby jane? changed my brain chemistry the first time i watched it as a kid#so maybe i'm just nostalgia baiting myself making these connections lmao#but it could have been so good#it could have been the perfect synthesis of the shared themes across all three movies#but i don't think hagsploitation gets butts in movie theater seats like girlboss 80s nostalgia vaguely true crime related shit#oh wait also i guess calling psycho a hagsploitation movie is like. probably not 100% accurate#but it is though. it's not an inversion of the subgenre bc the subgenre didn't exist yet#but it builds up a mystery 'psycho-biddy' character only to reveal that she's not the murderer#which is also what happens in strait-jacket so i think it counts!!#+ psycho is directly referenced in all 3 movies so it’s a pretty clear influence on the trilogy as a whole
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the great thing about falling really deep into a new media niche is developing opinions on many new things. the terrible thing about falling really deep into a new media niche is developing opinions on many new things
#fjdkfdjkfd.#anyway. last week a trailer came out for something only called kidnap. which is hilarious because that's a blocked tumblr tag#it's a romance (with the kidnapper. who is secretly only doing it to pay a medical bill). i don't think it sounds or looks very good#& considering who is airing this and their history with Edgy Content the keyword here will probably be Bland. or maybe Toothless#but unfortunately...... tragically...... one of the leads is an actor i'll take in literally anything.#so i've spent my week periodically being attacked by this insignificant bit of knowledge and experiencing shrimp emotions#literally just. going about my day. thinking 'kidnap'. going OOF. then remembering i'm in the middle of brushing my teeth#also. i found out the original writer of bad romance & together with me is ALSO the writer of not me. and it's things like this#that would take like. twenty layers of explanation of these properties in general and also my takes on them specifically#and how it contrasts or aligns with their general perception. to even come CLOSE to explaining the mental hit i took from that#i need a corkboard and some red thread. and then probably three more corkboards#for day 1 that is. i think i have a week's worth of loosely connected spontaneous deep dive video essays i could do off the top of my head#ah well. the curse of having interests#*
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I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.
But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.
As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?
oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be
Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot
Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)
Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.
Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up
Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.
Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.
Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.
#necrotic answerings#canon vs fanon#batfanon#batfamily#I was *going* to include “Janet and Jack Drake are bad parents”#then realized I don't really like that fanon anymore.#but I used to go *hard* for it even knowing it wasn't canon. it was all projection but still#nowadays I think the tragedy of Tim losing his parents the way he did is *far* worse if they loved him and were good to him.#I'm so serious about the Kon thing i've had *nasty* arguments where ppl got so rude to me telling me to “Google it”#like listen I get it. kon's canon backstory is currently difficult to understand#the timeline of the superboy mantle is a little confusing and most people have not read young justice (2019)#so for fanon it's far easier to simplify it as “clark just kinda sucks to kon” and i enjoy that#but the canon is also fun. it's fun when you consider how fucked up it is most people don't remember kon#and the timeline he remembers doesn't exist anymore.#also technically since they never killed off new-52!superboy on page there could be two superboys/kon-els running around rn. who knows.#i like to believe there is bc it's funny.#i have wanted to write a new-52!konkon/tim/kon sandwich#with the “is it selfcest or not” question#bc new-52!kon wasn't a clone of clark and lex.#so like. he's arguably a different character just sharing the name kon-el for some reason#also on the nightwing: renegade thing i know *damn* well most fanon-only fans haven't read it (no shade in that)#bc the fanon crowd despises devin grayson and she wrote it.#one day i'll write a meta about fandom treatment of devin grayson trust me.#this question was SO fun#i feel like i should have more answers?#if you'd asked me like six months ago this list would be three times as long#but the more i exist in this fandom somehow the saltier i get idk what's happening#so now i'm more and more attached to canon#but i will never begrudge someone for liking fanon#like i said my issue with it is the confusion of what is canon
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Someday, eventually, I will get an opportunity to talk about Celtic Apollo.
I see a lot of discussions and content (light-hearted and not) talking about Greek Apollo and Roman Apollo but y'all don't understand; it wasn't just that Greek Apollo had a second Roman Apollo hidden in his pocket, it's that Greek Apollo also has a secret third Celtic Apollo hidden behind his back like a tramp stamp he got in college and refuses to acknowledge or show to anyone.
#ginger rambles#Even then it wasn't secret or hidden at all#According to a couple sources but most relevantly Pindar Apollo would spend his winters in Hyperborea because he works entirely too much#the other nine months of the year#Hyperborea was actually England y'all it was England this whole time#It's hilarious btw because obvi Boreas the literal winter wind was the Greeks' big concept of cold? And Hyperborea was considered#even more north than Boreas hence the name and I just love the idea of the thing that is more cold than even winter itself being England#Anyway Celtic Apollo is rad as hell#He was even sycretised into a bunch of other gods because when the Romans came to do their whole conquering thing#(the first time not the time they succeeded)#They were like “gee wilkers y'all have Apollo too :0” and the Celts were like “???” because they didn't speak Latin#Anyway the real secret is that Celtic Apollo is actually at least three other Apollos in a trenchcoat#Namely Maponos Belenus and Lugh (and yes this is a fun little cross cultural equivalency thing#like the greco-egyptian pantheon equivalents#I won't call Horus Egyptian Apollo because it's more like Horus and Apollo co-evolved like brothers separated at birth#But I also definitely want to call Horus Egyptian Apollo because I'm an Apolline menace#ginger chats about greek myths#apollo#greek mythology
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Thoughts on Padmé x Anakin x Rex?
Padmé and Anakin are so mutually obssesed they would first have to check into that before trying to bring another person to their carefully-balanced-kind-of-damage or something it's going to explode.
Honestly it's a fun ship! But I don't have too many thoughts about them because when I consider them is usually in very low-stakes-fun-AU-scenarios.
And I'm actually a bit of a fan of Rexwalker myself! Athough I tend to like them more as very good buddies, the covering-for-you-dynamic it's so funny for them, lol It's also angsty and complicated because, y'know, the power-imbalance and unchecked trauma? Is funny that the clone that's actually a slave for the republic is the most normal if you bring him into the anidala romance circus.
Also shout out to @phoenixyfriend , she has a lot of rexanidala fics and recs for anyone interested reading this!
#I have rexwalker wips somewhere in my endless wips folder although im generally very lazy to draw or care about ships unless i REALLY dig it#which is why you see me mostly drawing anidala despite the fact I do actually have lots of ships i like/consider#anakin is such a strange character he's hard to ship around bc look at him his social circle consists of 4 ppl#and padme's impressive social circle are her coworkers and her decoys#which is impressive bc SW has SO MANY characters lol#also sorry i ramble a lot just to answer 'it's a fun one'#thanks for the ask!#rexanidala#anakin is also such an anxious and intense guy he would need a LOT of talking and reassurance and stuff#bc otherwise he would feel guilty as hell like the three of them could have agreed to it and he probably would feel like he's cheating LOL#the thing with rexanidala which is the most interesting to me to wonder about is how padmé got into rex#she's actually a very closed person and part of the reason she fell for anakin that hard was over mutual trauma bonding#so i wonder i wonderrrr#but also generally the thing with me is that i tend to lean more into non-romantic dynamics and platonic stuff believe it or not#so if you see me doing lots of art for a ship (like anidala) it must be bc i really love them both otherwise i'm more into family or#complicated relationships stuff probably because i'm aroace and a ship must have some incredible complex thing going on for me to care#with rexanidala the biggest brownie points it gets to me is all the AU possibilities the ANGSTY AU possibilities bc it would change A LOT
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In this post, I will attempt to calmly, reasonably, and in-a-good-faith-manner argue all the points raised by tumblr user @library-bat-girl in the following posts. I am starting a new thread so as not to further destroy the original poster, @skitterenjoyer's, tumblr notifications. Worm (+MHA) spoilers ahead. This will be a long post.
Firstly, I would like to apologize on the worm fandom's behalf. We will not engage in ableism of any kind. I sincerely hope that this was a singular incident and @skittersdrippygirlcock will be better about this in the future.
"MHA has better characters,"
My Hero Academia's primary achievement, I think, is managing to make many decently well rounded characters in a fairly short time-span. It certainly has very good visual character design, with easily memorable character designs, like Mina Ashido or Tsuyu Asui. Most of Class 1A is shown to be more than single-note gimmick characters. For a story with such a tight schedule, and only so much page real-estate, that's impressive! For instance, a character decidedly outside of the main cast, Fumikage Tokoyami, is shown to have more to his personality than "is an edgelord," showing a humility and friendliness that is highly against-type. This is very different than a lot of its peers, especially in Shonen manga, where side characters (and sometimes even main characters) are never more than their tropes (see Fairy Tale, One Punch Man*, The Seven Deadly Sins, or Black Clover). My Hero Academia does clear that bar, by making side characters little more than their tropes. This is to say nothing of the primary cast, who, again, is largely defined by tropes and easily slotted into standardized interchangeable Shonen roles. Rival, Love Interest, Rival but Nice About It. Additionally, MHA has an uncomfortably sexualized main cast, for one composed primarily of minors.
This is compared to Worm, in which many characters are fully realized and could have been the protagonist (and often were in older drafts of the story, due to Worm's 10-year development hell). Every character that gets an interlude, and most that don't, all have fully realized interiority, traumas, and wants. In fact, this is one of the major themes of Worm. Every character, from the protagonist Taylor, to characters so minor they're seen only once (see Damsel of Distress, Dauntless), to major antagonists and monsters (see Jack Slash, Bonesaw) all have their own story, even if this is never shown on-screen. There are no "side characters" in the same manner as in My Hero Academia, because every character is a protagonist of their own story, and not in a trite "life is so beautiful" way.
Taylor isn't the center of the universe, there's an entire world outside of her 3-block bubble. The mechanism by which all characters get their superpowers means that the mere fact of having powers implies this about them. Even the seeming exceptions, aren't (see Alexandria, Garotte). Taylor is a good character. I don't even know how to elaborate on that. She just is. Worm does not have the character Minoru Mineta.
"a better plot,"
What... what is the plot of My Hero Academia? For the life of me, I can't seem to recall. I can tell you the general formula of most of the arcs for the first ~2/3rds of the story. Class 1A goes to do a hero high school thing, like do rescue training, or on-the-job training, or on-the-job-training, or on-the-job-training (they do it like 4 times for some reason), the League Of Villains shows up (even when it's seemingly not the league of villains it actually is the league of villains) they fight about it, the class beats all the villains, and Deku beats up strongest bad guy and also breaks his bones. Repeat step 1. But like. What's... the plot? The League of Villains is evil and wants to kill people and do bad stuff. They explicitly do not have greater motivations. There's generally themes of passing-on-to-the-new-generation, so there's Tomura Shigaraki as the arch nemesis to Izuku Midoriya, just as All Might's Nemesis is All For One. Eventually they fight a big fight about it and I stop reading because I find out about Worm. From what I understand (I have not read the conclusion) the series ends without addressing any long-running questions, wrapping up any character arcs, or concluding anything in a narratively satisfying manner. As if severely rushed.
Worm, there are maybe 15 main stories going on simultaneously, which are all tied into the final confrontation with Scion. The most obvious is Taylor's and the Undersiders' story, about taking over Brockton Bay and defeating Coil, which is a smaller part of Coil's story about taking over the bay, until their confrontation with him in arc 17, when it supersedes Coil's story, and then intersects with Cauldron's story, the Traveler's story, the Case 53s' stories, the Wards' story, all of it, in arcs 18-19. This is one example. A great deal of attention is spent making sure the reader knows that Taylor, the Undersiders, Coil, all of them, are bit players in a very large game. Despite this, it's never hard to follow, because Wildbow, while lacking some of the more flowery prose, manages extremely well at making his stories easy to understand.
"I feel like even people who like Worm can agree that Worm is not the most consistent piece of fiction ever written. The disjointed way it was written meant that emphasis was primarily put on 'What Wildbow thought was cool in the moment', [sic] and the story RADICALLY shifts gears every time a new arc starts."
What? Huh? Worm is extremely consistent. Like. 1.1 to E.x. It's, like. Not disjointed? Oh my god, are you talking about interludes? Is that what you mean? The interludes shift gears? Because that makes sense. It's one of the hardest things about worm, yeah. It's gripping! The interludes are a great idea to expand the world of worm, but the problem is that taylor's story is so intriguing that stepping away from it to focus on something else is hard, no matter how individually interesting. I want to read about taylor's escalation spiral, not the travelers! (As opposed to My Hero Academia having random escalation and de-escalation between arcs with no real explanation. We're reading about lives-on-the-line battles with child-slavers and then move to playing on a playground with little kids? Best I can think of is that this whiplash is intentional, but this is never communicated to the reader. Worm does not do this. Any de-escalation is met with the explicit understanding that this is merely a period of calm before things get even worse). Taylor's story wraps up in an extremely narratively satisfying fashion, following her story to its logical conclusion. There were so many ways it could have been avoided, but there was really only one way that it could have ended.
"better worldbuilding,"
This actually offends me. MHA could have had great world-building. It doesn't. Every potentially interesting bit of world-building is backpedaled out of or stopped before it could get anywhere. Or it's just never elaborated or expanded upon. Everyone having a superpower could have been cool, but the implications of this are nonexistent. The reasons for this having no real implications, that being the banning of quirks, also has implications that are also immediately backpedaled out of. It's been hundreds of years since our time, yet life is exactly the same. Nothing ever happens. Endeavor is a cool concept. I like Endeavor. his existence implies such interesting things about the world, how important hero ranking is to these people's lives, that he would create this horrific system of domestic abuse to try and get to the #1 spot. What does this say about this system of heroes that operates like a popularity contest? It could have said a lot. It says nothing. What does the League of Villains, a league of people who call themselves out-and-out villains, who base their ideology in opposing this system of heroes, say about society? Nothing. On purpose. Worm does something with this. One Punch Man does something with this. My Hero Academia puts it in the story, and lets it sit, unused, for a decade.
Worm has... unique world-building. Because it's both good and bad at the same time. Worm's #1 feature is its world. It's brilliant, full stop. Triggers, The Birdcage, the PRT, Exclusion Zones! Why does the status quo exist? what does it say about that society? What does it say about our society? Why hasn't society radically changed from how it is in our world? This is explained. This plays into the themes. The story wants to say something about this world, and so it does. There are characters whose stories explicitly delve into these themes that are set up in the worldbuilding, like Armsmaster, or Battery, or Bonesaw, or Coil, or Piggot or Alexandria or Taylor herself or Brian or Lisa or ANY OF THEM THEY ALL DO THIS. Sorry.
Anyway, the bad part is that the actual world is not well built (and is kind of racist). What's going on in Europe? There's a 3 blasphemies! a 3 what? never explained. What's going on in Asia, aside from Japan? China is a monarchy for some reason. Why? It's never elaborated on. India gets a little bit of elaboration, we're told its different but not how it's different. Wildbow uses machine translation wrong and names some guy caliph of dogs. This is like worm's #2 problem honestly (#1 is Amy). Wildbow tries to make the implication of a well thought out globe without actually making a well thought out globe.
"stronger themes,"
It really doesn't. As I said in the worldbuilding section, MHA makes a point out of not saying or doing anything. I don't know if editors made Horikoshi walk back the more ambitious story beats or what, but there are multiple points in the story where the author pretty much looks you directly in the eye and goes "This Story Isn't Saying Anything At All Even Though It Looked Like It Would. Lmao."
Worm has lots of themes. I think Armsmaster/Defiant's story is my favorite. His entire character arc (which is fully realized despite him being a background character for nearly the entire story) has a point to it. It says something. It's misanthropic and uplifting simultaneously, and manages to feel like it earns both. It's a shared theme with Bonesaw/Riley's story, explored in two different ways.
"Meanwhile MHA establishes an actual overall theme/message right from the start that expands and develops throughout the story. The worldbuilding is informed by the message, which informs the characters arcs and the people they become by the end of the story."
I notice that you never actually say what that message is. What is it? Like, for real. I'm not being confrontational or anything, like what is the message? Cuz' I can't think of one. My Hero Academia, at its very core, is a defense of the status quo. Much like its world-building, but much less forgivable, because it does do something new and unique with its world-building. MHA could have done some extremely interesting stuff with its early implicit critique of heroic society as shown with characters like Bakugo, or Shigaraki, or Endeavor, or Overhaul, or Midoriya himself! It just doesn't! It doesn't do stuff that Worm does do!
Worm does have a message. It has a lot of messages, actually, some that the author disagrees with somehow. Prison abolition, for one. We know Wildbow loves prison. Anyway, the big one is in the subtitle: doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Taylor's constant spiral of escalation, her dwindling attachments to her friends and greater focus on treating herself like a soldier is prevalent, and it is to be avoided. Taylor isn't a sin-eater. They don't exist. From what I remember, this is sort of explored in Deku's character arc for a short period of time, but much like everything else in MHA, it is backpedaled out of.
The funniest is "don't text and drive" though.
"Just on a basic level the way that the audience is meant to feel about Taylor oscillates wildly between being directed to think of her as a misunderstood victim of circumstance, or history's greatest monster."
That's kind of the point. Like. the audience isn't meant to look at Taylor the same way throughout the entire story. It's meant to change as she changes. Taylor's opinion of Taylor changes. The mistake here is saying it "oscillates wildly." it doesn't. It's a slow and steady change for the worse, as Taylor gets more violent and starts throwing away greater and greater parts of herself to become more like a robot and less like a person.
"But a bigger issue in general is tone. It's very focused on being dark and gritty and edgy, and it makes the mistake a lot of consciously edgy media does. IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic. It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is."
Did you read the boys and think it was worm? What? It's not being smart when it's bleak or graphic? I actually personally like the endbringers or the slaughterhouse 9, and not because I like watching people suffer. These things exist for a reason. It's not being dark for the sake of being dark. The heroes could stop the slaughterhouse 9. We see that, when they almost stop the slaughterhouse 9 (it's explicitly shown that they are stopped from destroying the slaughterhouse 9). The question then becomes why don't they? It's a grim, brutal calculus, and one that wasn't worth it. That's the point. The Endbringers are different. It's not until arc 27 that they're really explained. You could either read them as a criticism of Eidolon or of ableism, honestly. I mean, it wasn't intentional, he didn't create them on purpose, he needed something to fight, because without that he's nothing. His powers are all he has.
"Worm spends so much time trying to be edgy that as with a lot of edgy media the edginess loses all impact quite quickly and becomes sort of cringe."
I don't really think so, but like. Okay. I don't think this is a reconcilable viewpoint (none of this is really but this especially), so like we're probably gonna have to agree to disagree. The only thing I can really think of as edgy for the sake of edginess is Amy's arc. But even that's not really true. It's meant to be an utterly avoidable tragedy that could never have been stopped because of the people involved. Much like Taylor, actually. Amy could have stepped back from the brink, but she didn't, because Amy could never have done that, and nobody else was willing/able to help. It's supposed to be a thing where you sit back and think of all the tiny ways this could have easily been avoided, but wasn't.
"When body horror happens it still has impact because it's not happening constantly."
I mean, I guess. But like. I never got desensitized to the body horror in Worm. It hit pretty consistently for me throughout. As opposed to MHA, where it was usually walked back by the end of every arc. I never felt much tension or suspense because it felt as if there weren't actual consequences. In Worm, when Brian was strung up on his nerves, it felt disgusting because I was fully aware Worm would explore the ripple effects of this. It felt entirely possible he would die there, or never recover, because Worm didn't pull its punches. MHA did. This is a matter of opinion. We'll just have to agree to disagree about it.
"But most importantly - you root for the heroes because the world actually seems like it's worth saving."
that's just, um. sorry. I'm really trying here. That's just. Uh. Dumb. Do you root for Batman cause Gotham is a nice city? Everything's worth saving, that's, like, at its most basic what the concept of a superhero is about.
"Not only that but MHA simply does villain protagonists objectively better than Worm."
um. No? There straight up aren't villain protagonists in MHA. The villains are the POV characters for, like, one arc? You know what, here's a good spot for it. It's stated throughout the story that Shigaraki and the League of Villains have a goal, beyond just death and destruction. They're here to stop the corrupt society of heroes (that MHA hints at the existence of before backpedaling away from), and bring about a fairer society. But then, and this part pissed me off, one of the characters, I think Bakugo, says: "you're just using that as cover! you just want to kill people, you have no noble goal!" and shigaraki's like "dang you caught me." and then it happens again with Deku! Because My Hero Academia is allergic to saying something. Nope! They're villains! No moral depth here! They're Villains, We're Heroes, Go Put Them In Jail.
This is opposed to Worm, where- "The characters of the villains and their origins are used to highlight the flaws in the Superhuman society"
"Most of the villains are only villains because society failed them in some way, and the specific ways in which that happened become big plot points that then play into the future arc of our heroic characters."
I had to walk away from my computer for this one. It's hard to be civil. It's really hard. Polite and reasonable.
So Worm is about this. To even say this without a shred of irony makes me thing you've never once read a single word of Worm and are doing this purely as bait. Or you've read all of Worm and are doing this purely as bait.
"They're actually extremely complex in a way that ends up being fundamentally important to the overall story - where in Worm the villains are either based heroes fighting a corrupt system or they're histories [sic] greatest monsters... until they're presented as heroes again."
I think I get it now. I really think I do. You're not supposed to agree with all the characters. Like. Worm is inconsistent, in that it follows the perspectives of inconsistent people. Of course Triumph and Armsmaster don't agree on what is right! They're different people, they have different perspectives!
"See. Worm fans keep saying "This is Bait." It's not Bait, you all are simply ridiculous and obsessed with this series to such a degree that you feel compelled to say "This is Bait" instead of just... ignoring it, because you have no actual counterargument."
Perhaps worm fans are inclined to believe you posted rage bait because you brazenly walked into another fandom's post and wholeheartedly proclaimed that the thing they liked was Stupid Idiot Bullshit For Fucking Morons, and refused to elaborate until prompted, at which point you said several things that are demonstrably false about Worm.
"Your only response to anything I've said is pedantry, bigotry, and deflection. If it was obviously just bait why are you engaging?"
Well, I'm engaging because I've been in a foul mood since I woke up this morning. Also because you, again, said some very rude and patently false statements about a story that I really enjoy and find narratively rich, even in its faults.
"MHA's characters do fall into archetypal shounen character roles - but they are all given a solid amount of focus explaining why they are like that and developing them into something bigger."
Again, as I said, it's a genuinely impressive feat to have an ensemble cast like what My Hero Academia has, and give so many of the characters a degree of depth, with such little manga to work with. I think worm does it better, but worm doesn't have to be economical about it. MHA does. The problem I have with this statement is that it becomes a question of scale. How much bigger? They're no longer defined by their tropes, instead defined by their opposition to their tropes. It's still a one-note character, you've merely changed the note from C to C sharp.
"so almost every member of the cast has an arc that either develops them past the person they initially seemed to be or explains why they're like that."
This is probably my favorite part about MHA. They do have arcs! I love ensemble casts! it does a much better job in this than all of its contemporaries, even One Piece. However, they are comparatively simplistic arcs that all follow a similar formula.
"I've heard people say MHA is neocon or pro-establishment but the story literally concludes by showing that society HAS TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE or the same problems that created the villains in the first place will keep happening. The entire time skip specifically focuses on the fact that for eight years the main characters have been forcing change in the world and addressing the issues the villains brought up."
Now, I'm going to be clear. I stopped reading My Hero Academia around chapter 275. I don't know the exact number, but it was the latest chapter in ~mid 2020. I would occasionally attempt to reread, in an attempt to catch up, but give up around chapter 200 out of boredom. I don't know exactly how the story ends, but I have read ~2/3rds of the story. I feel this gives me a pretty good understanding of the general tone of the story, unless it wildly changes tone at the 3/4ths mark, which you have explicitly said it does not, as it is extremely coherent and consistent. Therefore, I believe I can state with some degree of confidence that MHA does not do that.
I would certainly believe that it tries (and fails) to SFP it, but SFP does not promote a fundamental societal change. That's the problem. Strong Female Protagonist was willing to come up and say that Alison lived in a fundamentally unjust world, even if it was never willing or able to offer real change. And hey. You do what you can. I sincerely doubt My Hero Academia is even willing to call its world fundamentally unjust, from the 200+ chapters that I did read.
"In the case of the actual main characters, they have extremely comprehensive character arcs."
Adding this behind the last point just so that I don't have to reiterate I haven't finished the book. I am, however, very much not inclined to believe the actual main characters had extremely comprehensive character arcs.
Which plays back into the initial theory that ANYONE CAN BE A HERO.
man, spider-man did that better (not a real argument, but like, spider-man totally did that better). Not least because midoriya specifically could not become a hero were it not for all might giving him a power.
No, the Villains don't get happy endings,
Why not? Why do they go to jail, even the ones who changed and wanted to redeem themselves? Endeavor never goes to jail. He did some horrible stuff. He's redeemed himself in the eyes of the story, right? Anyone can be a hero, right? So why not them? Why haven't they redeemed themselves in the eyes of the story?
You may wish to turn this back on me and ask why doesn't Armsmaster go to prison? Because he's similar in some respects. But worm never calls prison justice. (for some reason, even though wildbow totally loves prison). Prison is punitive, a tool for those in charge to control those it manages to capture. Maybe some deserve life in the birdcage. Many don't. It doesn't matter. Because the birdcage isn't a tool of justice. It's not meant to be. it's a box to put the uncontrollable capes in, until they can be used as meat shields. So Armsmaster doesn't go to prison because the story says explicitly there is no point to it. But MHA? MHA says there is a point to it. Endeavor needs to go to prison if he wants to atone. He's escaping justice every second he's outside.
I have actually read Worm, and for the first half to two thirds I loved it.
Weird. That's exactly how long I really enjoyed MHA. Not, like relevant, to anything. Just odd. I mean, I don't actually dislike MHA. I think it's fine, actually. It feels like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to me. Funny (when Mineta isn't around), bombastic, and a good time, even if I don't think it's super thematically rich.
I'm not coming at this from the perspective of someone who has never seen any of the merits of Worm, I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right.
See, this makes me more inclined to think it's bait, actually. since you said "Oh yeah. MHA is published. MHA's been an ongoing publication with a large following for ten years, in a notoriously competitive industry. Now this might seem kind of unimpressive, it's a very low bar to clear I know. But it's one Worm hasn't, so. I dunno, I'd say that's fairly objective. Now you may think "Yeah, but Trash fiction gets published all the time." And that's true but again - Worm hasn't. The worst piece of fiction you can think of got published and Worm didn't. You wanna be an asshole about this? The thing you love is so mid that it was self published in 2013, couldn't get picked up for professional publishing until 2019 and as far as I can see has stayed in development hell since then." in your previous post. Sure, perhaps we can say you were pissed at the time, but "the thing you love is worse than trash fiction, an altogether nothing piece of literature that isn't even worth the paper it would hypothetically be printed on" does not strike me as the words of someone who "really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right." In fact, going back through your other statements on the story, you seem to have genuinely disliked it from the very beginning, on grounds of being too edgy (which I can fully understand the logic of): "IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic," thematically incoherent: "It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is," and utterly devoid of purpose or meaning. "When it does introduce new lore that new lore is almost always overly convoluted and acts as a catalyst for things happening, but not really things happening that play into a wider theme or message. It's just "Oh and here's this team of god-level serial killers who are gonna string a dude up by his nervous system." Like yeah, cool visual, but what is any of this actually saying?" This does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the first half of Worm to me. In fact, this sounds like you hated every second of it.
"And frankly given the number of comments that are just people saying "Bait" - I don't think any of y'all have engaged with this in a fair or honest way"
I'm going to reiterate on my previous statement. I like my hero academia. Capeshit is my favorite genre, it probably always will be. They're my favorite genre of story. While I find the themes—or lack thereof—extremely frustrating, I still think of it as fun. I gave it a fair shake. I would probably really enjoy the ending if I didn't have a reading list that was 300 books long.
#worm spoilers#MHA spoilers#*One Punch Man is partially an exception as characters are “never more than their tropes” for the sake of parody.#i don't dislike my hero academia by the way. in fact i rather like it. at least the first three quarters or so#L style contessa should have hit eidolon with a car and been like “look at that the endbringers stopped crazy.”#well it would have actually been crazy considering she had no way to know he was causing them#sorry n0brainjustvibes i never finished that MHA fanfic you recced me#quote text is colored to stop your eyes glazing over at the wall of text#armsmaster is what endeavor could/should have been#like they have a very similar arc. but they differ in that armsmaster's redemption is earned and endeavor's isn't#how so? there's like a reason armsmaster has an epiphany about his previous behavior#endeavor's like “oh the narrative is focusing on me as a protagonist i better be a good guy now!”#the fixing society thing is what ward should have been about but wasn't. but we're not talking about ward#by the way i wish they just killed teacher instead of birdcaging him. ward would have been so much better#^that was a joke#sorry about making the quotes smaller i'm trying to save some space in this tumor of a post somewhere#please don't say “god-level serial killers” by the way. for my sake if nothing else#you know i made the comparison to gotham being a shithole somehow without any thought that the person i am disagreeing with is a batman fan#or at least a batgirl fan
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“We belong to the Earth and the sea, you belong to the stars.”
— Zhang Beihai (The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu)
#quote#three body problem#the dark forest spoilers#i initially wrote down this quote because of how beautiful it is#at the time it only seemed like an observation of how much humanity has changed over time#but now i can't help but think about what he does later on...#saying he is a defeatist or escapist doesn't feel like it captures his motivations#he realised they changed and knows they will have to change even more#his motivation is not simply catastrophising or fleeing but rather *developing*#if that makes sense?#to him going into space was the only logical next step for humanity to survive#making this quote as much an observation as it is a prediction#which is beautifully done#also thinking about his thought later on of how instead of finding a habitable planet they might be travelling in space forever#but that this generation wasn't ready yet to consider that#of course his ship had to be called Natural Selection lol not very subtle there#also:#the phrasing 'we' against 'you' makes me think that he knew he wouldn't be a part of this in the end#for someone who thinks things through as much as he does#some part of him must have realised there would be no place for him in this new version of humanity#ah i'm having many feels over here#(still not a fan of someone acting all by themselves and justifying all their actions with 'duty'#but i find him a lot more interesting than expected and also like him a lot more)#...this may have worked better as an actual text post rather than this mess of tags but here we are#zhang beihai#the dark forest
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Is it true that Elizabeth of York birth celebrated like she was a son? I have seen some historians say this.
Hi! Yes, Edward IV did celebrate his daughter’s birth as though she was a male heir (“a prince”), iirc as per the Great Chronicle.
While we have no contemporary reports at the time of Elizabeth of York's birth, we know that Luchino Dallaghiexia reported that the birth of Edward and Elizabeth's third child, Cecily of York, "rejoiced the king and all the nobles exceedingly*, though they would have preferred a son'. Wanting a son (ie: an heir) was typical for their time period, likely enhanced by Edward and Elizabeth's unprecedentedly controversial marriage, her very unsuitable origins and his own status as a usurper. The fact that he was described as being "exceedingly" delighted at the birth of his third daughter in a row regardless does support the claim that he would have gone over-the-top to celebrate the birth of his first legitimate** child.
Hope this helps!
*Bizarrely, I have seen several historians and blogs using Dallaghiexia's letter to claim that he was bitterly disappointed at Cecily of York's birth. I don't understand how historical reading comprehension can be so poor that "rejoiced the king exceedingly" has somehow been rewritten as the...exact opposite of that. With no self-awareness whatsoever. **His illegitimate daughter Margaret (known as Elizabeth for some reason) was almost definitely born before his marriage. We don't know the birth dates of his other two illegitimate children: I think the likeliest conception date for Arthur was in early 1470, but it's unverified; and we know nothing about Grace (which was in fact her surname, not her name) other than the fact that Elizabeth Woodville seems to have been very attached to her.
#ask#elizabeth of york#edward iv#queue#speaking of which#did I mention how much I dislike historians who state that one of Elizabeth Woodville's 'advantages' was that 'she was fertile'#and just leave it at that?#or dumbfuck Anne Boleyn stans who argue Elizabeth was 'safe' because she had a son (she was literally deposed twice but okay)#That is simply incorrect and a complete erasure of her actual - presumably difficult - experiences#Elizabeth literally 'failed' (so to speak) to have a son throughout her first queenship#She had three daughters back-to-back#Her first son with Edward IV was in fact born seven years into her marriage after her husband had already been deposed and in exile#It does her an incredibly disservice to rewrite her very complicated situation according to your own whims and fancies#Particularly considering the very unusual nature of her marriage and rise to queen (+Edward's own status as an usurper)#which meant that Elizabeth - like H8's wives after her - was in a far more precarious position than sonless foreign royal queens before her#And while the lack of a son clearly didn't affect her personal marriage (her husband celebrated their eldest daughter's birth#as though she was a male heir and was described as exceedingly happy at the time of their third daughter's birth;#they decided to go on a pilgrimage - presumably to ask for a son - *together*; etc)#That doesn't change the fact that they were in a very very difficult situation that having a son could have resolved/legitimized#Worries that may have intensified even more after 1469 when George of Clarence (second York brother) rebelled against Edward#I also suspect their lack of a son affected the nature of Warwick's propaganda against them during his rebellions#but that's a whole other topic of discussion#Either way: What we should never do is erase and rewrite Elizabeth's (and Edward's) very complex situation in the 1460s#in favor of an inaccurate but more 'convenient' alternate history#It's a little odd tbh because I HAVE seen such discussions for Anne of Bohemia; MoA; and Henry VIII's wives#who all struggled to have male heirs#But for some reason Elizabeth's situation is not even acknowledged - let alone discussed#funny how that happens#anyway#ik I went VERY off track I'm sorry about that
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i personally think there was no need to make remarks about age
#i dont need to feel any more ashamed about this when i shouldn't feel ashamed about this in the first place#because three years is not a HUGE difference. it IS an age gap but it isn't a GIGANTIC red flag-waving age gap.#but i guess for a guy it is if the girl is older#but anyway man it was comment after comment line after line and i felt like i was standing in front of a firing squad#not gonna lie my whole chest literally hurts when i think about it too deeply!#i have literally never been told before that i'm not an option because i'm too old#i also personally (and this is a bit bitter of me to say so maybe) i resent the fact that he did take the time to tell me that he was not#personally attracted to me. and then add at the end of the conversation that if i were younger he'd consider it#like. you literally told me you don't like me that way and aren't attracted to me that way#so the only reason you'd consider me as an option really is the fact that you know I'M interested in you ????#anyway makes me want to throw up:)#the waiting room chapter
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decided to leave my job and i'm gonna fr gonna cryyyyy
#literally can't work with my new boss bc i can't trust her#she went to the head of the department with complaints abt me without ever speaking to me or giving me any indication she was unhappy#and various other reasons im not happy w management and the school in general#HOWEVER#i love the kids sm and im gonna miss them and worry abt them 😭😭😭😭#im literally scared for some of them bc it feels like the other teachers have no empathy for some of my favorite kids#one of them who is so so sweet and when he cries i'm the girst to comfort him bc everyone else thinks he needs to toughen up 😭#also my new boss sucks so so bad and is gonna be such a bad influence on him and all the other kids#and my main co teacher said she's gonna quit if i do so i cant even beg her to look out for my babies and take care of them 😭💔#and it would be unprofessional to mention any concerns to the parents but genuinely some of the kids would be better off elsewhere#like im actually worried about it#i dont want some of the really sweet sensitive kids to lose their sweetness bc they're being treated unkindly#and the worst bullies and spoiled kids are the ones the teachers dote on#so it encourages some of the sweet ones to act out for attention#anyway 💔#i really do need to go tho#and i'm sure i'll love the kids at my new job#but im so sadddd#also its unlikely i can find a well paying job w this age group even tho i love this age group#its basically impossible not to get attached to them at this age and i get to pick them up and hold and cuddle them and stuff#and you cant really do that with the older kids sadly#literally on the verge of tears even seriously thinking abt leaving#things have been p bad for a while due to management but i never seriously considered leaving bc i love the kids so much#but i literally can't see a future here#and my new boss clearly hates me and im worried she's going to try to get me fired#she already made up a bunch of lies about me and its only been three weeks#anyway i only make 15 an hour so hopefully i'll at least get more somewhere else and i know i'll still love the kids#its just really hard#which is why i've stayed this long#i was p unhappy before my new boss even started bc of the way they treated my old boss
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(genderly) chill as hell if i was only ever glimpsed / detected like this
#Shrouded In A Rectangle neither sleeves nor an open front to be besieged with? yes#just doing whatever else like doesn't matter. tee cargo shorts which is my best guess rn of my ideal outfit. + sandals Absolutely#unfortunately my hair could never do that. somehow neither am i yet like forties fifties? have i not been at this for eons?#i Can be like uh let's just nobody talk to me i'm busy pensively perceiving truths that you don't ever actually wanna hear about#just the other day it was like hey....a [way Having To Talk could be a difficulty / problem] was under my nose in this lifelong pattern#certainly noticing the Verbal Exchange Demand heaped upon burnout as like [delay delay delay struggle weariness stress]#but also who knows like spent plenty of time just probably indeed Not having to have such exchanges while burned out. not noting them#anyway like this isn't even [dysphoric Ideal Outfit until i could [whatever supposed even more ideal than that gender euphoria]]#though shoutout to that but like nah get shrouded anyway. the only [how do i look] im motivated to consider is: when it's a costume#when it's just me it's like. i guess whatever pants and a comfortable enough tee. need glasses. hair's w/e so cut quite short ig#might accessorize w/things that are fun to me like hey yeah yknow i might want a calculator watch#[yea as a kid it was like :( im actively appreciating the animals supposedly Gross or Bad] if i had hated little friends Sure yaay#if i had disorienting light effects like a pelagic creature. but you don't even need that. like hey i'm nd in real life. i got it#chat i'm in the walls too bestie lmao. if only my bigfoot pose reference Step was this good#tl;dr long rephrasing of my being like; now the gender slay....#& nodding & Noting when [worksheet exercise: what's your gender euphoria look?] is like shrug idk. but this is serving maximally to me; so#going Chat how can i up my uncanny stats. looking up ''isn't it like Uncanny knowledge e.g. so like why not....canny''#but i think the un canny is the Uncanniness Accuser's perspective. not of My ken. your literal weird one maybe#so again apt to be like jk i'm just autistic & shit; i got it....horror shit challenge impossible: Don't have sm typical mundane#[disability moment] as like Unsettling danger/malice cues. challenge impossible; again#subverted here like as [horror holding hands touching foreheads w/comedy] w/o Rescinding just casual disabled behavior/qualities#just remembered like three witches weird sisters etc macbeth. weird uncanny soothsaying gendering. word#anyway i should be shrouded (made no any connection whenever i put the blanket now over my head & shoulders in place min ago)#perhaps the real Ideal Look insight: i do not have any way i wish to be observed by people. secret passages / removed room anytime
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I hadn't sat down to rewatch s2 in a while and now that I'm doing it (for pure entertainment purposes but also for ref for a fic I'm not even working on yet as I have been run down by the VtM doctor superion AU after writing the gen VtM WN AU ahem) I'm kind of amazed at how the feelings are all still there. The excitement, the laughter, the hatred I have for Vincent...
Ah, this show. There is nothing like it.
#silly blabbering#i just felt like sharing. i even like ava more this time around -- when i first watched s2 i only came round to her by the end#but this time i'm rooting for her from the start so THAT is an interesting difference#(which doesn't apply to s1 lol i had been rewatching it to take screencaps for icon making and yeah. far from being my fave)#the jillian and suzanne love only grows i must say. ahhh them...#anyway. about the doctor superion vtm au. it's... it's going at an insane pace tbh. i have 16 pages done already lol#i'm a slow writer so that is... A LOT in three days. and i should do at least one or two more in a bit#i'm putting poor jillian through a shitshow tbqh but it will be worth it! i hope!!!! it's self-indulgent as fuck#which is a weird thing to say considering the misery i'm writing but i've just loved vtm for nearly 20 years now so i'm indulging in that
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I think for me the allure in base releases in persona games is how it feels cloudy and there's still mystery involved regarding how one should go about the concepts and characters introduced in the story. as inconvenient as it is, it's fun to scour different media release after, or even before, that release, to see how they tried to present these concepts and characters, how they actually came out to be, and how they decide to shape them henceforth, adding on to what was already introduced and simply building on it, or topping on details that probably weren't obvious in the initial release, or something they wanted to be more prominent to evoke a more specific image of those ideas.
it's fun to look at famitsu magazines and decipher what those game teasers were all about. it's exciting to read through novels or listen to drama tracks to look a new perspectives of the same story, or even look beyond it. the art book gets released and youre looking through creator comments and concept art and deciding whether to agree to these ideas and decisions or not
but when the re-releases came, golden and royal for me, the whole charm of the game was wiped away and just became too... saturated. the eerieness of bright eye searing yellow wasn't eerie anymore, it just look more mellow and hopeful. from fog and static, theres sub and glitter. which is I guess what they were pretty much going for, when they decided to try out a new technique to draw an audience in. the red and white and black gave a monochrome outlook to the player's worldview, and the flashy and chaotic elements of the ui and other game design made it feel like you were breaking out of the off camera elements that felt too limiting, too controlling and tame, yet dark. now, the flashiness felt like too much sugar in a dessert meant to be a bit more bittersweet. there's a new meaning of rebellion vs control considering how yal's prominence in the plot was completely overshadowed with what az had going on.
I guess what in trying to say in the end is that both the base releases and re-releases have their own charm and can be enjoyed in different ways and through different perspectives. it just makes me a little sad to see how these concepts and characters shrouded with mystery and aching to be uncovered, which is what intrigued me in the first place, were just... stripped naked entirely. you look under the sheets torn off by the people that wanted more people to look at these creations and you see that it wasn't even the same thing underneath. it feels like they stuffed all the things people could like than retaining what these things had that people already like, it's just that they didn't realize they liked it in the first place. their insides were mangled and now their outsides were prettied up as well. all this mystery and intrigue I once found were just blank spaces filled in by someone else rather than the audience themselves
yosuke's closeted nature, kanji's relationship with his own orientation, naoto's own identity and representation. even chie's tomboyism and teddie's malleable inhuman body. and even outside of that, there's adachi, another label slapped on him and exaggerated only the traits that would make him more marketable to an active market that wants to be spoonfed to fill their egos and say they're right. and I sit here looking over all that had happened to realize these writers are not as sincere as they could seem. it's a big project after all, and there's too many people looking over your shoulder.
and the nature of fandom itself, I suppose. if there's mystery and intrigue pressured by audience reaction profit, then then fog shrouding them would dissipate and theres no fun looking through the unknown anymore
#kommento#long post#// oops another essay let's go to sleep.+#// I talk about this pretty vaguely because I'm tired but also how I try to apply it to other things#// I hate how pstudio saw how people reacted to adachi. then they completely fucked over his potential in Golden#// yes I'm glad he's getting recognition! I'm glad he's rightfully popular considering his place in the story and how it was executed!#// but why did you exaggerate him the Wrong Way. couldn't you have handled him with more grace. this looks rather careless.#// his sl is a giant ick to me because I know where this came from and where it's going#// his promo art his merch art. however he's been presented after that just sucks it absolutely sucks. why did you do that to him#// I wish he had a lower profile and it's the fans that massacre him but NO official sources had to do it to.+#// this phenomenon also happened to akc sorry walnut head I'm so sorry#// this could've been elaborated in a three volume novel spinoff series that nobody read because it was never translated#// bangs my head into the wall and waddles into bed to wake up to my own pool of blood I guess
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someone tell me to stop even entertaining the idea of flying to la last minute
#it’s DELUSIONAL#it’d be the most irresponsible impulsive thing i’ve EVER done#yet have i completely written the idea off? no#i’m just sad!!! i don’t want it all to be over!!!#ok but...my CO flight cost was covered by flight credit i had from 2020#so that means i can justify another flight right 😅 the price of the first flight hit me three years ago it doesn't count lmao#i still should not be thinking about this#sarah if u see this u aren't helping lol#i probably won't do it but i'm considering it more than i should be
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randomly looked at this account to update my age and holy shit it's been a while since i posted here..........i have a small pile of art i have yet to post but hbhbshdbshbd too lazy
#part of it is that i haven't posted any of my recent art but in addition#i haven't made new art in a WHILE (abt 3 months) which is highly unusual for me but the reason for that is#3 months ago i suddenly remembered that i tried learning mandarin for three (3) days before forgetting about it for 9 months#(amusingly the reason why is not because of danmei......i did not even know danmei existed when i first decided to learn it)#anyways i have been insanely fixated on learning it for the past 3 months#however since art is primarily a way for me to process my interests and that only really be done when i'm fixated on media........well#let's just say i have not been making art at all#that might change soon tho#rn i'm reading 撒野 (saye) in chinese bc it's at a level i can read and i fucking love it so far#idk why i picked a book longer than svsss (which took me a week to read in english)...u would think there's no chance of me finishing it#or even reading it#especially when the only novel i've read before this is a chinese translation of the fucking magic finger by roald dahl LMFAO#but it's been a week and i'm a fifth of the way into it which i was not expecting at all#it was initially an exercise of “i will get as far as i can and try my best to read a chapter a day” but i've been zipping through chapters#last night i was up until 3 AM reading it and i was so tempted to read more but had to stop myself#of course this is all aided by pleco which lets me quickly look up words that i don't know yet. pleco ily#that being said...this all does mean i know words like 收銀台 before i even know the word for “orange” (the color) which is pretty funny#but idk considering that the sum of my time spent learning chinese is just 3 months..........i think i am doing pretty damn good#i thought it would be a LOT longer before i could finally start enjoying some interesting things#god but it really has been a while since i last read a high school romance...but i am quite fond of the leads and their respective baggage#sorry for the whole tag ramble.........i haven't really had anyone to talk abt this stuff with#oh also it's my birthday#that is why i am even here to update my age in the first place#happy lan wangji birthday#actually the only reason i realized it was gonna be my birthday soon is because i saw chinese artists posting lan wangji birthday fanart#and then remembered that we share the same birthday#also re: the art i haven't posted yet.........a good chunk of it is misvil fanart...song qingshi my beloved#and there's also a luo binghe drawn on an art app i PROGRAMMED MYSELF (!!!!!!!!!) in there#actually that piece is the main reason i haven't posted the art i HAVE made. how the fuck do i explain that i drew it on an app that i made#sorry this is genuinely the most off the rails tag ramble i've ever done. okay i'm done
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