#i actually had to erase some stuff lmao

[neonlitlesbians]

still experimenting with colored pencils and stuff

[hellokittykookies]

Pose for me - J.JK -

──── sypnosis ✮⋆˙ After years of running from the life you never wanted, you thought you had finally succeeded. erasing y/n, becoming ji-ha, and leaving your past behind. But then came him. A model you accidentally brought to a cotillion, a man effortlessly loved by the woman who had become family to you. And it just so happens He was connected to the one person you abandoned nine years ago. You were supposed to avoid him. To walk away. So why did you keep finding yourself right next to him?

──── pairings ✮⋆˙ Model! jk x Photographer! reader (y/n also ji ah)

──── genre ✮⋆˙ slow burn, fake dating, forced proximity, angst, romance, mutual pining, emotional hurt/comfort, smut, hidden identity, jealousy, high fashion industry setting

──── contents ✮⋆˙ simp!jungkook, creative director!reader, reader works at dior, model!jungkook, jealousy, secret lingering touches, soft but intense sexual tension, rich! reader, rich! jungkook, domestic moments, unresolved tension, slow trust-building, implied sex (not detailed) unprotected sex (it's not detailed. just implied), family issues, abandonment themes, identity struggles, missing person case mentions, emotional breakdowns, trust issues, georgina is inspired by georgina sparks, inspired by gossip girl and devil wears prada, brother! taehyung, assistant! georgina, calvin klein jungkook, jungkook is like the main main model or the face of calvin klein, part time photographer! reader (it's her side quest pls), petty fights, bickering, push and pull?, nepo baby! jk (mentioned), make outs, kissing, teasing, curse words.

──── notes ✮⋆˙ this was last year. i haven't written anything in a while. i was looking or browsing my works on wattpad and saw this fic that i completely forgot about. i posted a poll and yall voted for me to post it so here it is! your wish is my command. haha. i'm still not sure if i wanna come back to writing but this fic is making me want to. the problem? no motivations and my words aren't still wording like before. i made my friend read the whole fic and helped me fix it and edit it so here it iss! most of the fics that were posted here in my acc will be reposted in ao3 or wattpad. reading this fic was mind blowing to me honestly. i feel proud about this.... i'm sorry if it doesn't feel rght or not omg i am not an expert at these things. i searched and researched stuff about devil wears prada outfits to change her outfits cuz it was sooo bad in the draft. like... tf you mean you're THAT rich and you're wearing forever 21 skinny jeans with fucking fitted top?? omg... my friend and i was cringing sooo baaddd. the amount of times i wrote "your breath hitched" "then" "smirk" what the fuck honestly... wrote this like actually july 2024 or something. i tried my best making this better so pls bare with me. the contents are there and the notes is here. if you don't like it feel free to give feedbacks but pls make it a little nicer maybe? also this was the time i was soo obsessed with devil wears prada. me and my friend changed the names, characters and some of the character traits cuz we thought it'd be fun if we added georgina sparks inspired character here (minus the part where she always want drama or trouble ofc), again i am not an expert at these stuff. had to literally ask my mom shit about her bags and designer stuff when i was re editing this. also i looovveee calvin klein jk omg... i can NEVER get over that era. we made ocs character a little bit moree pushy and stuff like pushing jk away and more in denial lmao. don't even know if this is slow burn or not but whatever.

──── WC ✮⋆˙ 34k

[gaywineauntsstuff]

See one of my favorite things about fanon is that Dick is like a normal dude outside of nightwing like genuinely he’s normal person who isn’t that extreme canonically. He loves his family but he needs space with them and doesn’t want to be a carbon copy of his father.

He follows Bruce is moral compass while also being more lenient on some crimes. He canonically values life and protecting the sanctity over it than actually stopping crime and has a very strong moral compass that exceeds “well it’s the law”. Dick canonically thinks that Corrupt police officials are worse than criminals and became a cop to weed them out the same way he did the mob. And has bad blood with the BPD despite working for them.

He has genuine reservations about trusting Jason for obvious reasons even if you don’t like Dicks run as Batman where Jason was flat out the worst or like stealing the Nightwing suit in New York in brothers and blood. While still being able to work with and like him.

He is supportive of Tim while still being frustrated at taking on more work bc he knows Tim does too much and will need help.

He loves Damian but steps away from that relationship because unlike Bruce at his age he’s emotionally mature enough to realize he cannot be a parent for the kid. A role model sure! A big sibling, yeah. But not a parent.

He didn’t want Steph as spoiler, Robin or batgirl bc she wasn’t well trained but neither did literally anyone else. Once she and him started working together they had a decent relationship.

Dick and Cass have a strong relationship and he helped Babs with her when Bruce was being an asshole while still not stepping into a parent role bc he’s in his mid 20s and not going to do that actually.

And Dick believes Duke is going to become a big leader in the hero world and sees his potential despite not agreeing with the we are Robin thing.

And the fanon goes 1 of 3 ways

he’s fully uninvolved, doesn’t like the bats, has cut them off after trying to send Tim to Arkham, and abusing/ mistreating or co-signing the mistreatment of Jason. All his relationships with everyone except Damian have been erased. He ruined Tim’s trust, hated young!jason, has never spoken to Steph or duke and Cass doesn’t like him because she’s on babs side or in Hong Kong.

Or

Literally Bruce Wayne’s lapdog, says yes to everything with the worst case of battered women’s syndrome you’ve ever seen. Jason must stand up for him and protect him from the big bad bat/ the bats cut him off aswell after abandoning the bat movement (more rare but I’ve seen it). He doesn’t have critical thinking and his morals are identical to Batman’s and he refuses to question them. Will call the police on a homeless man stealing food bc it’s illegal. And has never tried to rehabilitate anyone including his friends, abandoned Roy and Kory bc of moral differences. He’s still a cop and doesn’t understand the nuance that Jason, Tim, Steph and Duke do.

Or

Dumb himbo, doesn’t know nothing except smile and nod. Pretty face, no brain. Has had one thought and it’s the fact he misses his siblings and needs his cereal oh wait was that two thoughts? He forgot how to count lmao. Babs or Tim will roll their eyes and do stuff for him bc he’s so dumb and sweet like a puppy who has had a lobotomy. :( doesn’t even have a college degree dumb silly teehee. Worst liar you’ve ever met everyone can see right through him hehe. He’s loves Bruce and calls him Dad 24/7 and uses nicknames for everyone.

And like it’s total flanderization

He has some of these traits sure, (more rigid moral compass, more willing to work with other heroes and delegate though this one literally only became a thing during Tom kings run and maybe a little bit after Donna died, in the current canon he went to Uni for business and dropped out, he’s not as good on the tech side as oracle)

But they’re just so exaggerated and I firmly believe it’s bc the rest of the bats are so extra. Like Tim trying to clone his dead bestie 99 times.

Jason goodness gracious I’ve been bamboozled let me try and kill the penguin on live tv

Damian my mother literally tore my spine out

. Duke let’s start a cult that’s something that isn’t dumb and won’t get us murdered.

And Dick is just there like… yeah fuck okay.

Like he’s still unhinged even for a superhero but he’s just objectively more hinged than all of his siblings like you’re telling me if TIM got the talon ancestry storyline shit wouldn’t have hit the fan??? The mother fucker who at age like 13 broke in Nightwing and starfire’s house, memorized all their schedules bc he’s the most insane stalker you’ve ever met. You’re lying and we both know it.

And everyone thinks their fave is the sane won and you are all just wrong I fear. I have already slandered Tim so I’ll do the rest for funsies

“Oh babs is the only sane one”

Bby Barbara is such a stalker with a need for control someone stole her tech and turned Gotham into a police state. If she decided that she wanted to go dictator she has a WHOLE setup for it. She’s also unhinged

“Jason just needs to get away from the bats then he’s the only sane one who the others go to for protection”

Yall Jason’s 2 biggest teams were

An Amazon, and a kryptonian

An arrow and an alien (also some times an Amazon)

So the league big three knock off and a titans knock off

He has also slept with his dad’s ex and 2 of his brother’s exes. Let’s not pretend that he’s being dragged back into the bat family, bro never left.

He wears a bat on his chest

He has a helmet with explosives in it… when he died in an explosion and fought with a crowbar when it was one of the major reasons he died. Let’s not talk about his whole thing with scarlet but the Morrison run had some weird characterization.

“Damian-“ no actually you can’t even start with Mr let’s go to Lazarus island. Let me adopt a giant bat monster bc my abusive childhood means I slaughtered his entire race. No actually I will not allow it. The fucker is unhinged and I love him.

“Steph” - you know what she is also my fave so everything she has ever done is justified and she has the best batgirl run and also her and Damian are hilarious. (She’s also the best female bat hands down I prefer her to both Cass and Babs for so many reasons I will not get into)

In summary this isn’t actually a criticism I find it hilarious plz keep going my darling fanon fanfic writers

[worgengel]

Your art feels, for lack of a better term, dirty and grungy in a really good way. Effortlessly messy but still careful and intentional. I really love it. I was wondering, do you have any tips for how you achieve this, and who/what are your inspirations? Thank you, and keep doing what you're doing man, it's really cool. <3

thank you, that means a lot to me, that's really kind

I think i started my process simply from being aggravated that i couldnt draw as neatly as i liked, so i lean into that inability. i dont think its laziness, i think you have to work with how your brain works and the kind of art you enjoy. i think i had to learn what the difference was between "i was avoiding learning this because its hard" vs "this is how my brain works + making difficult art that works with how i visualize the world"

as for what i do to get digital art look nasty and grimy (through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears trying to learn how), i have a few things ive found helpful.

for one, i dont make a seperate layer for my lines vs pencils. the inks go right on top of the pencils and i just erase and carve away as i go.

another thing is working really loose, and a) tightening up your work as you go, erasing stray lines and making clearer forms and b) working with mistakes. also good to not overwork like, effects.

textures are your friend. scan papers and trash and junk. its fun and also you'll see potiental in trash

spattery brushes, rough brushes, scratch and scribble. i recommend collecting as many as possible LMAO, use any and all resources.

dirty up your canvas as you work, not AFTER youre done drawing, at least in my experience

draw a lot. it's gonna look bad a lot of the time but that's how you end up making good bad good art

as for inspirations, i think i have a lot of things i love and it changes often. as for now, i really love the art of robert weaver, brian sanders, bernie fuchs, austin briggs...artists in the late 50s and 60s KNEW how to work seemingly wild lines into a picture. its fascinating.

i really like dark black shadows like mike mignola, ayami kojima, and q hayashida. typically dark shadows make stuff take on an edge

i look at a lot of 90s graphic design. they knew how to make actually interesting graphics back then and it rules, its great to study just to learn how to put together interesting objects into a cohesive artwork

as for general inspo, i watch a lot of movies and listen to a lot of music. movies that mix industral and natural themes together are my groove (the texas chainsaw massacre 1974 and stalker 1979 really hit the mark.) i like metal, goth, industrial, grunge, hip-hop, and country. i just gotta say, like what you like and DONT stick to aesthetics. aesthetic culture is the worst (despite tagging stuff that appeals to my own tastes as aes on my personal blog). 60s art and skater magazines are really different but you gotta like what you like, thats how youre a unique person. i like to pick out any and all pictures that appeal to me. i hoard pictures, sounds, whatever looks cool. its fun. did I mention animal encyclopedias?

overall though, dont stress it ✌️ slap some paint here and there and remember its ok to make art just for the sake of it looking cool

[shattered-world]

They utterly despised each other in real life. And they're Irish twins, not actual twins.

They sure did! I did a bunch of reading after I watched the movie so you, my dear anon, are about to get a ramble of questionable organization that you did not ask for.

First off, yep. Irish twins; siblings born within 12 months of each other (neat term, I didn't know that). Caracalla was born in April 4th 188 AD; Geta was born a year later on March 7th 189 AD, 11 months later. Fun little fact!

Second, I don't know if it would be possible to overstate how much they hated each other. Like, wow. As far as I can tell, this likely partially stemmed from how their father dealt with their succession (although I am by no means knowledgeable on the subject, so take this with a grain of salt if you don't already know this lmao). Emperor Severus gave Caracalla the title of Augustus or co-emperor when he was 10, but Geta had to wait more than a decade longer even though he was only a year younger. I'm sure there was other stuff too, but I can't imagine he was pleased about having to wait— or that Caracalla was very happy with suddenly having to share power he'd had for 11 years.

They did almost reach a compromise of dividing the empire in two and each ruling half, but for a reason I don't understand their mother convinced them not to. Who knows, maybe Caracalla wouldn't have murdered Geta if they'd done that (I doubt it). They also split the palace between them and lived in constant terror of being assassinated, and for good reason given that Caracalla tried and failed to kill his brother, organized a peace meeting, and then had Geta killed in his mothers arms. Insane.

Also when their father died neither of them were in rome so they had to journey back and on the journey they never once stayed at the same place or shared a meal. And they only ever met in their mother's presence. And Caracalla declared a damnatio memoriae, attempting to erase his brother from history (he did a pretty good job too). And a lot of other things that are not relevant to this ask!

Side fun fact; Caracalla is a nickname! He was originally named Lucius Septimius Bassianus and then renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The nickname comes from a tunic he wore.

I can't imagine what the two would think of this fandom lmfao. Maybe they'd finally be in agreement re: killing us all. Thankfully, they've been dead for 1800 years and I don't think they care. Also thankfully, while the historical guys fucking hated each other and weren't actually twins, the ones I care about are fictional. Fictional, twins, very pretty (seriously their designs oh my god), and with a fascinating relationship.

Also, I'm choosing to take this ask in good faith, but if sending it to me was some sort of attempt to convince me to stop shipping them... sorry! Maybe direct your attention to things you enjoy instead of spending your time worrying about what others do; i guarantee your life will be more enjoyable. But if you did send it just to tell me some cool facts, I'd love to keep talking about them!

[batsplat]

sampras tops generous agassi is insane LMAO. thank you for that lovely pt. 2 to the sampras/agassi rivalry essay!!!!!! i showed my friend your first post and she said, of agassi's biography quotes (specifically the "pete, always pete" motif): "OK THATS INSANE.... whys he writing like this is the song of Achilles or something. i could recognize him by touch alone core" andlksjfd and i found it very apt

please it's no trouble, I LOVE talking about them. and yes!! yes!! I LOVE how poetic about this stuff agassi is, how he really just like... gets the narrative appeal of sports, how he's so singularly capable of putting words to it. and how he talks about sampras! where he knows they're both alike in some fundamental ways, that there's something they've shared with each other that can never be erased... that sampras will always be part of his story, inescapable, inevitable. as always, pete. but also this fundamental feeling of separation. of alienation. of not being able to breach that divide

which is a PERFECT excuse to bring in perhaps my favourite interview agassi ever did, courtesy of der spiegel around the time of the release of the autobiography. it's quite extensive and the whole thing is very much worth a read. unsurprisingly given that it's a german magazine, a lot of attention is paid to agassi's relationship with steffi graf - and those bits are particularly sweet and sad

SPIEGEL: Both of you were drilled by fathers who wanted to control everything. Agassi: What is right is that both of us were in our fathers' hands. I told a lot of people that I hated tennis -- seriously and strongly hated it -- and they all tried to talk me out of it: "Ah, that is not right, Andre; in fact you love tennis, don't you?" Do you want to know what Stefanie said: "Don't we all?"

god.

there's also a fair bit about agassi's relationship with his father, so fair warning that those parts are all quite heavy. AND it's also very interesting on the actual writing process for the autobiography and how agassi's collaboration with moehringer came about. plus it takes some fun swings at chang and courier, for old time's sake. but to turn back to sampras, there's just something so striking about how agassi describes what it felt like playing tennis -

SPIEGEL: Mr. Agassi, is it possible for a happy person to win Wimbledon? Andre Agassi: For me, it's hard to imagine. SPIEGEL: Roger Federer seems to actually enjoy playing. Agassi: Yes, maybe. But, in my world, this is impossible. The maximum were short moments of peace during a match which we, the players, used to call "the Zone." But you couldn't plan it. It was never constant. And it went by very fast. SPIEGEL: Does a tennis professional have to be obsessed? Must there be some kind of trauma for him or her to be good? Agassi: While I was winning Wimbledon, I felt like I would die. I feared to fail; I feared embarrassment.

- and then later in the interview gives his thoughts on sampras -

SPIEGEL: For years, the rivalry between you and Pete Sampras was magical to a worldwide audience. Is there still a connection between the two of you? Agassi: There is a lot of respect. I believe that, without Pete, I would have won more and learned less. SPIEGEL: He appears to have been as driven as you were. He had to sleep in ice-cold rooms in total darkness. Was he obsessed or traumatized, as well? Agassi: We were all driven. And, of course, there is something strange about tennis: Egocentric and narcissistic behavior can win; torture and the isolation of players may lead you to the top. Pete and I shared our life and our fate; we were together all year long. But we were lonely. If there was not the net separating us, there was a wall.

and... yeah. "if there was not the net separating us, there was a wall". nyhhhhh this idea that to be a good tennis player, you need to embrace the worst aspects of yourself, that you need to make yourself suffer... egocentric, narcissistic - a sport of the tortured and the isolated... pete and I shared our life and our fate; we were together all year long. but we were lonely........ god. GOD. what more is there even to say!!

which is really agassi's gift, isn't it... putting words to the dark underbelly of the sport that everyone who's spent enough time in that world is aware of - but may never be forced to confront. tennis is hell, it can be one of the loneliest experiences imaginable - and so much of agassi's story is about attempting to stave off that fundamental horror. surrounding himself by as many people as possible, trying to live a real and full and loud life... because whenever he stepped on court he had to face The Horror once again. rivals who can share a life and a fate but can never truly understand each other, a net dividing the players that might as well be a wall... as always, pete - and as always, alone

[1moreff-creator]

Taking a "Shot" at the DR:OS Prediction Game!

In case you're not aware, a post on the av-multifangan account explained an interesting prediction game: after reading the prologue, you give your predictions on killers, victims, death chapter, survivors and mastermind. I am, to be clear, really bad at this, but I decided to give it a "shot" (heh) anyways! Here are my predictions, with explanations under the cut!

(I put chapter number too because this format is not colorblind friendly otherwise lol)

CW: Murder, death, insane predictions. Spoilers for DR THH, DR2, DRV3, and DROS Prologue

[Also, in case you're curious, I didn't check accirax's guesses, nor the guesses of this Jonas fellow mentioned in the original post, before making this post. I only checked their mm guesses 'cuz I was curious :v I'll check them out after to see how different they are :)]

Survivors and MM

We're starting with survivors because sometimes it's easier to start at the end and workshop a way to get there.

First is the only freebie on the list: Ellis. As stated in the linked post, because of DROS' format, the protagonist must be a survivor. Which means I'll only get 15/16 wrong, nice.

After that... I have no idea :v

Mark is here because of... pattern recognition, really. In canon DR, out of three Ultimate ???s, two were survivors (Kirigiri and Hinata) and one died in CH1 (Amami. No I don't know why I'm listing them by last name). However, Amami knew he was the Ultimate Survivor (more or less? Been a while since I've seen anything DRV3 related) so he actually doesn't count. I think you can see my reasoning here lmao.

However, there's a reason Ultimate ???s have a tendency to survive. Simply put, if the mastermind (MM) chooses to erase this person's memories particularly, they're presumably somewhat important. Maybe connected to the nature of the killing game, even. And so, they're usually around for the CH6 reveal of what their missing memories might mean for the larger plot.

It's not perfect, obviously. There's many ways to kill Mark before CH6. Talent reveal can happen posthumously, which was the case with Amami for example. They can also happen earlier in the killing game, allowing Mark to react to it without surviving to CH6. And more! However, I have very little to go off of, and Mark's "talent" gives me something to argue for their survival, at least. That's more than basically everyone else in the cast bar Ellis, so they're going here :v

So, now that we're officially out of okay-ish guesses, let's dive into the insanity! Starting with my hail mary, absolutely most-probably-wrong MM guess, Grace!

Now, this cast has a few "suspicious" characters. Robert has the whole "plain" thing going on that Tsumugi had, Aidan's half and half color scheme could be a nod to mm leanings, Ultimate ???s like Mark are always decent guesses, and the setting being a casino makes Antonia a prime target for MM accusations. Of course, these might be too obvious for an MM, but that's not extremely disqualifying. There's also the argument that the attempt on the mm's part to replicate Hope's Peak throws suspicion on the Impressionist, Taylor; and that Paris' talent being related to secrets and stuff could be considered mm-ish. Plus, Paris is the 13th student by Countdown Order (which I can't help but notice is the order of this list when read left to right and up to down), and 13 is an unlucky number, compared to Ellis' lucky number seven. Thee two might be a bit better. Finally, since she's even less obvious, I also vibe with accirax's guess of Cass, but I can't think of many arguments beyond Vibes for them (which is valid, tbf).

But if we're going to take Countdown Numbers into account, 4 is also an unlucky number (related to death even!), which gets us to Grace. There are a few reasons I believe they could be the MM.

First and foremost; given some of my previous posts, I just find it really funny for me to call the Clockmaker of all people the MM. If you've ever touched a clock, it's on sight with me, apparently xD

Now that we've established that, I do actually think there's a good argument for Grace!MM... by the standards of any MM theory pre-CH1, at least. Beyond the previously mentioned Countdown Number thing, they're the person in the prologue found next to the Movie Theater room, which was locked and didn't really have anything interesting to look at. Could it be they didn't feel the need to explore, because they already knew everything about the building? They also mentioned they liked the directness of the message on the cork board outside the Movie Theater room, when that's the exact thing Vanessa complained about Monoquin earlier. These are, to be extremely clear, really silly points. But they're there! And compared to people like Jeff, who have somewhat disqualifying introductions on the mm front, it's not a horrible start.

Another point is that, so far, Grace is the only person to have definitively shot down Ellis' flirting, by talking about their boyfriend. If Ellis is Lucky, then maybe it makes sense for the universe to stop him from flirting with the mm... maybe. This point is even sillier than the others, especially considering Grace isn't even the only character Ellis has no opportunity to swoon, as for example Vivi is aro/ace.

The next point is funny. See, I joke about the talent, but Grace being a Clockmaker could be twisted into suspiciousness if you're mentally unwell like me.

Usually one of the tools I consider best for MM predictions is thematic analysis (in other words, what kind of mm would best fit the themes of a work), but I can't exactly do that in the Prologue when there's very little set up in terms of themes and such.

Unless. Unless we go insane.

The fangan... is called One Shot. So a theme of the fangan (bear with me here) could be irreversibility. That you only get "one shot" to do certain things or something. Which fits decently well with the idea of time, this unstoppable march forward that can never be turned back. Right? You get the idea? And, and, because the DROS killing game is the sixth in-universe killing game ran by the mastermind(s), another theme could be repetition. As in, the killing games happen "like clockwork."

...

Me rn

Yeah this is maybe the stupidest set of "evidence points" I've ever used for any theory ever. Like, that's an insane soul read on what the themes of DROS could actually be, I'm fully expecting to be completely wrong on that lol. I actually find Grace!MM pretty unlikely, but I currently feel like all MM theories are almost equally unlikely, so if I have to pick one... I'm gonna pick the funniest one and continue my "beef" with Clockmakers lmao

Anyways, so remember those themes I'm pulling right out my ass and struggling to even pretend there's the slightest chance I'm actually right about them? How about we draw more probably wrong conclusions from them? Because if irreversibility is a main theme, then Vivi, who is interested in "conquering death", could fit well as a survivor. After all, you only get "one shot" at living, and she has to accept that, right...?

God I'm so bad at these.

Finally, Taylor.

I have no idea why Taylor's here.

It's sort of process of elimination, more than anything. I'm not confident about the rest of the kill order, but I feel I can't fill the fifth survivor spot (or fourth if you count the MM as separate) with any sort of actual reasoning, so... uh, I just picked my current favorite out of the characters I feel are most plausible as survivors. And that's Taylor, apparently.

Of course, the counterargument is that if they're already taking charge somewhat by proposing the breakfast meetup in the prologue, then that might not bode well for their survival and they might die soon. It's definitely decent reasoning, but... I mean, the story can go literally in any direction atp, so it's not impossible Taylor survives regardless. Just let me have the silly impressionist okay they're cool :p

Btw, funny thing about survivor predictions in this fangan. Usually a good way to build survivor predictions is by trying to balance the genders of the surviving cast, as generally there's a more or less equal split of girls and boys in the final trial, and thus remaining at the end. However, there are very few girls and boys in this killing game. In fact, no one in the surviving cast I predicted uses exclusively he/him or she/her pronouns. This isn't even the only configuration where this happens! Not even close! I find that amusing xD

Now that I've already probably gained no less than 25 points with these guesses alone, let's move on to the even harder part; death order!

Chapter 1: Vanessa - Robert

I chose Vanessa as the first victim because she is (I believe? more or less) the only character to have had, count them, three whole positive interactions with other characters on screen! Her chat with Ellis, giving Mark their name, and helping Taylor speak up at the end of the chapter. She's too nice, so she's dying. Immediately. Because she's one of the only people whose death could have a legitimate impact on the cast even this early, at least from what we've seen. Obviously I could be wrong but that's a given by now.

As for Robert, well look. I'm perfectly ready to be proven horrendously wrong about this, but I kinda struggle to see how his shtick of being perfectly normal could continue to be all that interesting post-CH1. It feels more like a gimmick you use for one chapter, then make Robert the killer to make the point that "if the most normal person here murdered someone, anyone could murder :O" and get paranoia going on the rest of the cast. Again, I'm probably completely wrong about that, but it's an angle I find plausible, so I'm picking it.

Robert's also like one of my top four picks for fifth survivor. Just so we're clear on how unsure about my guesses I am :v

Chapter 2: Harper - Cass

Harper and Noah met before the killing game. Even if they don't know much about each other's lives, they seem to be on pretty good terms. That means the pair probably isn't making it past CH2 lol.

Out of the two, I find Harper slightly more likely to be the CH2 victim. Vibes only on that one. I guess it makes sense in my mind that the Philanthropist is more likely to become more well-liked quicker than the Frat Boy, and as we've established, a character making friends is a good indication they might die, because their death might impact the cast more. Obviously with only the prologue, it's impossible to properly guess about any character dynamics beyond maybe CH1, but I try to pick my guesses with some amount of reasoning so.

As for Cass...

Listen I have no idea what to think of Cass. For some reason my mind comes up entirely blank when I think about predictions for them, or even when I try to think about anything about her character in general.

Why am I putting them here, then? Simply put, I could see them being an interesting foil to Harper, and it's not uncommon for character foils to kill each other in these killing games. Think Mondo - Chihiro, Ryoma - Kirumi, Kaito - Kokichi (now I'm listing them by first name because I hate consistency /j), just for some easy-to-see canon examples.

The foil here could potentially be that Cass might be (and just so we're clear on this, this is an immense extrapolation from like two lines of dialogue and could be horribly wrong) a more money-oriented person, based on these lines:

Cass [Prologue]: Lucky Student, huh? That’s an all-around useful talent. Still though, it’s weird… Why is no one here talented at making things, or having something to sell…?  Ellis: Hey, who says I’m not talented at “making” something? Cass: I should clarify, I’m referring to making something physical. Something that one might, say, need someone to critique and/or help them market to higher ups

Cass [about the Customer Service Desk]: That can’t be a sound business practice…

While Harper is a Philanthropist whose likes include charities. So... boom. Foils.

Make no mistake. I doubt I'm cooking. I've probably overshot the kitchen and jumped directly into hell. Two or three lines are far from enough to properly guess what a character's deal is, especially when it's something so specific. This is not so much a genuine prediction and more so me grasping at straws to put Cass... somewhere and not have it be just up to the roll of the die. Unlike...

Chapter 3: Davis & Paris - Jeff

My CH3 guesses are nothing but Vibes Only hail maries. The reasoning here is that I don't know where else to put these people, so they're going here. I mean, putting them around the middle reduces the amounts of chapter points I can get from them under this scoring system, right? (<- Not actually the reasoning I used but y'know).

Davis, at least, has some form of... conflict? Thing? Going on from the very prologue, with him being clearly uncomfortable with Ellis' flirting and stuff. That could set up some form of early game character exploration, and that can imply an early-ish death after he gets explored. That or he survives. Uh... So he's going in CH3.

Jeff being a killer makes sense with him being the Ultimate Absentee, and thus wanting to leave. You could argue that might be too predictable, which- maybe, but that doesn't mean bad. The setup's there for him to not make it to the end... but still survive to see the pool open, since they were interested in it. So CH3.

Paris is here because I needed a second victim :v

Chapter 4: Noah - Aidan

It's not uncommon to guess that if one half of a pair dies, the other will survive, so you might think Noah as a survivor makes sense. And it does! But that reasoning didn't save Taka, so...

Again with these two, I am very unsure as to what exactly will happen with them. This, too, is a very Vibes only hail mary guess. I could see them going at practically any point past maybe CH1, but Aidan's probably gonna last for the sake of Conflict and... I don't know what to do about Noah so he's here :v

I can't even be sure about their roles! I could definitely see both of them as victims and killers, though I should note I think Noah being a killer is more likely if he dies before Harper, which is why I put Aidan as the killer for this prediction set.

Of course, this assumes Aidan can overcome his Contrarian urges to throw all weapons out the window when given the opportunity, but I believe in him! (/Slay the Princess ref).

Chapter 5: Kennedy - Antonia

You might think my confidence in guesses would go down as the chapters go up (barring Ellis and maybe Mark of course), as it's harder to predict things further down the road because of all the stuff that can happen in between the Prologue and the later chapters. And while that's generally true, Kennedy is actually one of the guesses I think is most defensible. Not necessarily more likely to be right, just easier to argue for.

I struggle to see her reaching CH6, since you'd probably want the protagonist to take center stage in uncovering all the mysteries behind the killing game, and having the Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist around could complicate that. However, if he reaches CH5, he can at least start uncovering the mysteries as a way to set up for CH6, and I can even see the angle of the MM specifically making a motive against them to get rid of them. That could even be the inciting incident for CH6, a la "Junko wrongfully 'executing' Naegi" (now I'm using both first and last names because I'm Evil) from THH.

However, a lot of that is probably the kind of bs Kennedy herself would say, and it's never a good sign when you start sounding like the Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist, so I'll leave it alone now.

Finally, Antonia...

Look, in my heart of hearts, I want her to be a survivor. I think it could work, especially with how intertwined her talent is with the setting and the protag's own talent. And in fact, those very reasons are the logical explanation of why she's this far in, all the way as the CH5 killer.

(The emotional explanation being that I just want her to last a while :v)

But... come on.

Ellis: … So, is there some kinda prize for winning? Other than our escape, I mean. Antonia: There must be. If it’s a “game,” there has to be an incentive to win.

It's the damn prologue and she's already considering prizes for murder honestly CH5 might be a little too optimistic T_T

---

Anyways, I hope this doesn't sound as completely unhinged as it reads in my mind lmao. And I also hope you enjoyed the objectively buckwild and most-likely wrong predictions, even if I'm probably going to end up with a ridiculous amounts of points at the end! See you!

[gayboygaming]

Honestly like as someone who used to like Harry Potter and had like 98% of my taste for it ruined by JKR's bullshit (all the stuff I still have any attachment to is fanon) I get...so weirded out by the way people insist that even still TALKING about it among friends is somehow LITERALLY KILLING TRANS KIDS-

But also, on a weird, irrational, emotional level, I get it - or at least, I can sympathize with...what I know is one of the less fair motivations for it. Because I also have that feeling of, well, this series was important to me. It was a gateway to fandom for me. I did so much cringey shit with it when I was younger lmao - those are some really important memories. And now I can't look back on them without remembering how that money went to someone who wants me dead and is willing to spend the money I spent on those books to make it happen. Disgusting.

It's easy, emotionally, to look at someone who manages to still enjoy it and be angry. A little jealous, a little erased - how lucky one must be, to be so unaffected by it all, I find myself tempted to say, voice dripping with scorn.

Similarly, I understand and sympathize with the emotion of where a lot of people who were never fans are coming from, in a way that makes me resent the actions even more - "HA! Vindication! You mocked me for being the weirdo who never like the cultural phenomenon, but I was right all along, I have the moral high ground!" Sure can be an enticing feeling.

I hate it all that much more because I understand it. It's certainly not the only motivation that exists, of course, but it really does come off as...this isn't actually about our lives and rights on the line. It's fandom drama with a righteous sounding excuse. It's a game to so many of you - not all, but far too many.

tl;dr ALL emotions are morally neutral - yes, including liking things - but the way some people act on them sure as hell aren't and that's NOT just on the "still liking the wizard books" side and thank you for acknowledging it <3

I was never all that invested in harry potter. I watched every movie with my first girlfriend a few years ago and back then i still considered them pretty average. Definitely not worth rewatching or buying the books over.

But yea there is a certain kind of puritanism as in "if you still like the books/movies now, youre a bad person". I agree you shouldnt be spending money on any of that stuff anymore, obviously, but its fine to like it. Harry potter is a big part of a lot of peoples lives and childhoods and just because JKR decided to come out as an idiot doesnt mean that those feelings arent still there, i totally get that.

In that way, if you can access the media without helping JKR in any way, then you should be morally allowed to do that. Its not like the books or movies are evil (there are problematic themes in them, but i trust in peoples ability to critically engage with media).

The question is just how to do that best. Piracy obviously. Not engaging in the fandom as to not draw more attention to JKR, to not give her any new fans? Its not like i have the answer to that

[rimurutempest]

Hello.....If you don't mind me asking, can I ask, what are your top 7 favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series/etc) and your top 10 favorite (fictional) characters from any media? Why do you love them all? Sorry if you've answered this questions before......

Interesting specific.......

7 media huh?

SLC Punk - live action movie from the 90s about Punks in Salt Lake City during the 80s. As a trans person that grew up in Arizona in a region populated by a ton of Mormons I sorta related to it kinda and nowadays I feel like it's actually a really funny, really scary, and really beautiful movie that gets overlooked a lot.

The Shining by Stephen King (book) - it's not my favorite horror novel and it's not my favorite Stephen King novel, but it was the book that got me to enjoy horror. The story is so scary and good, the characters are fleshed out, and there's a whole underlying dialogue about abuse and alcoholism that's very scary. Which is part of why I don't like the movie, cuz the movie adaption (erases the usefulness of the titular "Shining") sorta erases the personal story about alcoholism and abuse. And, it's definitely there still, it focuses more of its efforts on just being a spooky haunted hotel, it's style over substance to me. The connection of the personal and horror made me sort of see the true story telling value of the genre, and now I'm like. In love with horror.

Inside Mari by Shuzo Oshimi (manga) - the best way to explain this is, what if Freaky Friday were more of a psychological horror. Reading Inside Mari has been a very important thing to me as an adult, I sorta see myself in it and there's so much trans emotions in this (there's a whole thing that Oshimi is probably trans), this work is so dear to me I refuse to read to watch other people's take or interpretations, which sounds bad but I just want my special thing that I interpret my way to be interpreted my own way. It's amazing and I love it. All of Oshimi's work has hit me in a personal place.

Wandering Son by Takako Shimura (manga) - one of the first portrayals of a trans person I saw in manga, and honestly still one of the best. There's a lot of criticisms we could give it, but I love it and I related to it so much. It was nice to see a story follow such a young trans girl (and boy) and see them grow. Probably part of why I decided to finally identify as trans.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part 3: Rebellion (anime movie) - this one is largely just emotional stuff that's coincidental. The original Madoka tv show (and thus first two movies) were great but I never thought it was perfect, but Rebellion emotionally murdered me and as everything else mentioned, it felt so relatable. Came out in a very important time frame for bonding when my husband, so I got to see it in theaters with him (twice technically, we went a second time with a friend) plus I got to see it with another friend (three times total) hehe. It's just like, a very big date for my husband and I, I remember it perfectly down to what I had for dinner (my first bowl of professional made ramen lmao). The movie just, really hit, and the circumstances around seeing it were just really important to me.

Lateralus by Tool (album) - I'm sure some people are gonna be like "whaaaa how edgy loser" or whatever about this. But Lateralus was an important album for me cuz it introduced me to larger intellectual concepts I'd never considered before, made me really fall in love with that brand of music, and was one of those things I would put on repeat when I felt very depressed (read: dysphoric). I know the members have sorta grown into shitty people (namely Maynard) but this album is just very important to me.

I'm just going to say The Green Knight (movie), there's a lot I want to put here, especially a lot about Arthurian literature, but I think the best way to just, placeholder all the Arthurian shit I'm obsessed with. The Green Knight is a fantastic adaptation that's incredibly beautiful and well acted. Love it.

tbh w/ you I don't wanna do characters rn so if you swing back by later I might.

[hana-bobo-finch]

Can’t believe I talk about Domitone so little considering I’m pretty sure she was the first part of pdbc I actually introduced on here………..anyway this should make up for it (MORE SLOPPY DOODLE PAGES + DISJOINTED YAPPING YAYYYYY)

i loves her oiugghhhgh……my little vessel for world building. the scraps of world building that are there because as you can see a vast majority of history has been erased and she is not having a good time over it. I’ve been thinking more about PDBC post the main story (if you could call it a story really lmao) and she’s been at the forefront of all that because she’s essentially the main character for the very short amount of time after almost everyone else dies/mysteriously disappears/avoids the public eye because they’ve had enough of Everything for a lifetime. in short she becomes a college professor to try to fix the field that she had such a horrible time in as a college student and document all of the. stuff she saw. but Uh Oh turns out that’s impossibly difficult as well because nobody believes her even though she has loads of evidence because it seems “farfetched.” she literally risked her life to witness a historic fight with numerous casualties but the future generations just look at her footage and first hand accounts and say “hmmm no I don’t think so this seems unrealistic. I think the footage was doctored”. There will be More about her soon because I’m working on some in-universe documents she authored about the events of the story written in retrospect (e.g. discussing the. bad. treatment of the bug people compared to recent years) (YES THATS RIGHT THE BUG PEOPLE (later renamed the furin-Insectoids or just Insectoids because the term bug-person was later seen as outdated) DO GET RIGHTS, EVEN IF ITS DECADES LATER YAYYYYY) DOMITONE ILYSM

also 🫵🫵🫵The Language 🫵🫵gonna yap so much about it get ready. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it, and if I have it was extremely brief and probably very outdated, but there is in fact an archaic language that used to be spoken on Fincg island before it was. You know. Called that and thusly run into the ground by an incompetent egomaniac. The language fell out of use because its lack of sound grammatical rules and its limited vocabulary made it confusing and difficult to follow in more complex sentences (for example there’s no word for “the,” words can have vastly different meanings and you just kind of have to guess which one is meant, there are no pronouns except for “it” so again you just have to guess what the “it” is referring to (would be awesome if that was how it was irl actually zero gender norms everyone is an it)), so it was phased out and turned into the current spoken language (which does not currently have a name yayyyy for iffy worldbuilding). The original language’s name is technically Dailea/Dailish (directly translates to “all encompassing words”) but most people don’t know it actually has a name so they just call it The Language. Very few people actually speak it because it was made illegal, and on top of that a majority of the words and phrases have been lost, so the only way to actually speak it is to spend innumerable years trying to find every remaining word and piece it back together a word at a time. Although speaking Dailish is illegal, the inscriptions on currency are written in Dailish because who cares about rules. Most currency has the phrase “thas padai con enta Muzas” which roughly translates to “we will pierce through the hearts of the gods.” Dailish also has its own alphabet as you can see, which is also flawed and confusing because there’s no letter R, R and V are essentially the same letter in Dailish so again, good luck figuring out if that symbol is meant to represent a V or and R because that could make a huge difference in meaning. Even if you do manage to learn Dailish it’s very limited and you have to use a lot of euphemisms to get your point across. A lot of the phrases also are much different to English when translated literally. Just for funsies here is the conversation shown in the comic but translated literally (corresponding English letters used for the Dailish alphabet because obviously I can not type in it here despite making a custom font for it. sad)

“Thasa dalish con torin enn” — “I own a desire to pierce through your physical form”

“Barsil enntori?” — “unobscure the words of your being?”

“Enn” — “yours”

“Flet, thapado Dailea! Prororo enpada Dailish, aste thatori!” “It is true, I am able to perform the all-encompassing language! Fascinating you can person the all-encompassing language, in addition to myself!”

also for those curious the VILE, TOO VIOLENT TO TRANSLATE ARGUMENT basically just consisted of “kys” “no way, you crazed worm”

Also that is not the first or last time finch crashed his car. not by a long shot. Which is extremely concerning because there is literally nobody else on the road and the road is completely straight in all directions how does he keep doing this at a certain point it has to be on purpose right (it is not he is just extremely dangerous behind a wheel please take away his license it’s probably fraudulent anyway)

And 🫵🫵🫵🫵more yapping🫵🫵 I think I’ve only mentioned Toprumo in passing but he was the former ownder of the island, and Favre (who I’ve never mentioned before) was the one before Toprumo. The two of them were generally seen as pushovers who honestly deserved to have their positions usurped by some gourd headed freak because they put so little effort in actually leading but Oh Boy they have skeletons in their closet. The history on the pair is spotty but it’s believed Favre had an army of sorts of thousands that were known as the Disposables, as they were, in his eyes, completely expendable. Despite that he claimed he loved each and every one of his Disposables, in reality Favre saw them as essentially just a human shield at best and his little toy soldiers at worst. It’s believed Toprumo was one of the disposables who rebelled but instead of Actually Rebelling he just became a suck up to Favre to avoid responsibility and thusly inherited the power. It was believed for years that Favre was long dead but He Is Not. Information on the pair is spotty because every piece of history is but it goes without saying that finch does in fact know more about them than he cares to admit. DO NOT ASK HIM ABOUT FAVRE’S DASTARDLY DEVICE. OR THE FLESH POCKET. YKNOW WHAT JUST DONT ASK HIM ABOUT FAVRE IN GENERAL HE DOESNT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT

shoutout to Minerva. they are best buddies let it be known. they hate each other but Lovingly

she’s also in the background in one of the first doodles heckling Domitone because that’s just how she be sometimes. I think I’ve only mentioned Minerva once and she doesn’t really do a whole lot in the main plot but I love her anyway. please someone get her out of this rigid learning environment, she just wants to fuck around and make cookies but she’s been cursed with the good at math and science autism and has to “””have a lucrative career””” or “””help better the world””” or something stupid like that

[sunnybyler]

my thoughts on the first throne of glass book

so i finally started reading throne of glass two days ago and i just finished it and i rlly loved the first one! i didn’t start with assassin’s blade because i’m following the reading order sjm herself suggested. but i figured i’d give my thoughts on the book just for funsies. this isn’t like a review really just what i’m feeling abt the series thus far.

for quality i’d give it a 6/10 but for how much fun i had reading i give it a 9/10 and i care WAYYYY more about entertainment personally lmao. so overall i’d probably give it like an 8/10.

spoilers under the cut, obvi (including some from later books bc i know some spoilers)

• why are there so many exclamation points

• so i’m gonna be honest i’m beyond confused about celaena’s name. bc everything i’ve ever seen about tog talked about some chick called aelin. now i’m just kind of assuming they’re the same person somehow but i have no idea what’s going on in that regard

• it was an enjoyable read but you can def kinda tell it was written when sjm was younger lol. but i know the writing is just going to continue to get better so it didn’t bother me THAT much, though i must say i’m anxious to get to the later books for that reason

• this book was FUNNYYYY omfg dorian and especially celaena had me laughing out loud at times. i hope the books stay this funny

• I LOVE CELAENA SM. like that’s my girl fr fr. thus far feyre is still my fav sjm fmc but honestly celaena has potential to change my mind

• i also love dorian and chaol and i’m not gonna lie i lowkey ship her with both of them (which is a rarity for me usually i’m very passionate about one or the other in a love triangle). but that may be because i’m aware i should not get attached to either ship LMAO

• speaking of chaol i spent half the book pronouncing his name as chowl in my head which made him very hard to take seriously. but honestly i feel like that is 100% sjm’s fault bc the fuck you mean chaol is pronounced kale!? how was i supposed to know that

• i’m curious when more magic elements are gonna show up. like i thought this was another fae series am i wrong there? i mean elena was fae so. maybe i just need patience (but i’m gonna be sad asf if some sort of fae plot twist erases my bffs dorian, chaol, and nehemia from the story)

• okay but seriously once again what is up with the exclamation points. why are they so many. like it was genuinely jarring in the first few chapters. idk if it faded later in the book or if i just got used to it but it genuinely bothered me for a while. pls tell me this isn’t a thing in the later books bc i don’t remember it being an issue in acotar

• i think challenges and shit in books are so fun so i loved that the whole book was centered around it, lowkey wish we saw more of the challenges tbh

• that freak monster that cain was summoning is the stuff of nightmares. i already forgot what it was called but i made the grave error of googling fanart of it and it was actually terrifying

anyways that’s all i can rlly think of for now but i’m excited to keep reading! i’m super curious about celaena’s past because i can tell there’s sooo much we don’t know yet, but assassin’s blade (which i believe is at least partially her past? but maybe i’m wrong) isn’t until after crown of midnight so i’ll just have to keep wondering lol. but i’m very excited for crown of midnight i feel like shit is about to get very messy with her being the champion

[beevean]

Lenore, Hector and Alucard are by far the biggest victims of the sudden 180 in direction done by Season 4, both due to the team probably wanting to give everyone a "happy ending" at any cost after Season 3 got criticized for being glorified torture porn, and also due to Ellis leaving mid way, which most likely caused other writers to have to fill in the gaps

I'm particularily convinced that the Lenector stuff was added by the other writers because it literally has no sense of organicity with the dynamic as it was written by Ellis in S3, which was still shit, but this feels like a completely different kind of shit. Ellis liked his misery porn, he doesn't strike me as the type to suddenly turn and write a cutesy fluffy ship between an abuser and her victim, even considering his...background. You'd think he'd have doubled down even more on the edgy bullshit, but Lenector as it is in S4 feels like the kind of stuff a stereotypical crazy shipper on social media would write, which leads me to imagine that Lenector was added after the asshole's departure because some folks at Powerhouse really thought the two looked so cute together

Alucard's and Isaac's stories give me the impression that the writers needed more time to bring their vision to fruition, but for one reason or another they rushed things. Alucard takes one episode to get over his trauma and the implication that he'd be grappling with mistrust and misanthropy is never addressed, Isaac becomes Jesus overnight and then peaces out in the middle of the season after an epic speech. However, if I imagine being a viewer who has just finished S3 and has to wait a year to see how it ends, I can imagine their development happening, just not this sloppily.

The Lenector plotline is too jarring. Part of me still believes that this one screenshot:

was meant to echo Hector's "flashback" of him killing his parents, and be a hint of him going on a blazing rampage.

Which, in theory, happens! But 1) it's for the sake of resurrecting Dracula, after two seasons spent getting beaten over the head that he lied to him and wanted to destroy mankind (which makes his horror at Carmilla's plan of conquering the world immensely hypocritical); 2) despite having complete control of his Night Creatures, he still leaves the "epic" flight to Isaac, who at this point has ascended to the status of Creator's Pet; 3), most importantly, the scene makes a fine point that Lenore is special to him and she must be protected, after the previous six episodes showed them "bonding" and conveniently ignoring all the abuse, forced BDSM and treachery she used to trap him. All together it feels like a subversion for the sake of a subversion, like they kept the original idea but made it less dark at the last minute. And I could have accepted it as a subversion of expectations, if there was more focus on Hector's character (hah) and less focus on how ✨cute✨ they were or how 🥺sad🥺 poow widdle Lenore was. Considering that from what I heard she became a fan-favorite overnight, in theory because of her "nuance" but let's be real it's because she's "hot", I can absolutely see the writers deciding to make her more sympathetic in an attempt to make them happy. If S3 feels like an amateurish torture porn fic on FF.net, S4 def feels like a coffee shop AU lmao.

I don't know what happened in S4. I don't know if they had planned a 5th season, but were forced to condense everything in one: perhaps with one more season, the transition between "I made you into my pet! :D" and "This is why I like you. You're capable of actually listening to me 🥺" would have made more sense. I don't know if other writers entered the fray, even though Ellis is the only one credited in S4. I don't know if Ellis himself was strongarmed into writing fluffy shit because the executives heard the complaints that S3 was poorly received due to being a cynical waste of time - ironically, erasing all conflicts made that season even more of a waste of time.

We can theorize. But much like a rushed game is still a faulty product not deserving of full price even if you can pity the working conditions of the devs, the final result of NFCV is of a rushed, poorly paced, poorly thought-out mess that ended up making an offensive joke of the serious themes it wanted to include.

[kimberlyannharts]

See Ranger Academy has personal stakes instead of generic end of the world stuff that plagued the main book for basically half it’s lifetime

How did we have five (or six, depending on how we count Grace.) deaths and yet only one of them carried emotional weight. Hell the first time Grace died it was like unclear for a whole issue whether or not she was actually dead, and Billy just brushed aside Coinless Trini and Kiya being erased

The Return and Ranger Academy have definitely been breaths of fresh air because of how they actually were a return to form of character-driven plots with character-driven stakes, and it's so noticeable, even if people weren't directly comparing them to the main series - see how The Return was called the best PR book in years and ML's reviews of Ranger Academy nearly all have some variation of "it's nice to get a return to character focus!" Even if you don't like Ranger Academy's plot, at least it feels like a complete story and characters stay consistent with their personalities and motivation and relationships and the story builds off of them.

I guess in fairness the finale was trying to make it seem like Billy was particularly affected by Coinless Trini's disappearance as he addresses her in his journal (he also talks to Zordon about promising to bring "them" back, but let's be real, these books hate Kiya and I've been prepping on her dying without fanfare in this event for months) but everything happens too fast and we get too distracted with other things that there's no time to really process or feel the weight of what's happened (and the why and how of them disappearing doesn't help matters either. Can't be emotional if you're too busy being confused.) I've said it before but Coinless Trini and Kiya also had significant scenes with Trini, but I guess she doesn't need to know about them (because she has to deal with more important stuff like settling the love triangle between her, Jason, and Zack lmao).

The problem with Grace's (....first) death, is that Billy obviously takes it personally, which is built off how close he was with her in previous arcs, which is fine. (Ignore how he and Grace barely interacted in the lead-up to her death and the real emotional build-up to this was between Grace and M*tt.) But for everyone else the main emotional impact came not from Grace dying but M*tt killing someone. Of which that gets dropped too because a) M*tt and Billy never interact again in the event b) the whole "I murdered Grace" guilt turns into generic panic attacks that are fixed by his therapist girlfriend and c) Grace gets erased so now M*tt didn't even kill her in the first place (I GUESS?????? or at the very least he doesn't remember killing her). As much as I don't want M*tt to get more screentime, but if you wanted Grace's death to be a real thing, M*tt should have gotten the majority of the Grace stuff, not Billy. Or at the very least share the plot with him

[nartml]

it's not "entirely made up", which is the entire reason people are complaining lol have you seen what the fandom has done to the nazi allegory?

i agree that the people complaining are toxic, but also, a lot of the changes are both misogynistic and homophobic, and there's a lot of toxic masculinity and abusive romance tropes being romanticized, are people not allowed to call them out? representation is important, isn't it?

you literally tagged your post, adding to the toxicity

most new works follow the "new model" and people who write different things are harrassed (i've seen people be harrassed simply because they don't ship wolfstar). how are we supposed to change that if we don't call it out?

discourse in fandom is normal. you can just as easily follow your own advice and not read it/block it.

Y'all are quick lmao

Okay, okay, so, to get the easy stuff out the way:

I unfortunately made another hasty post, I didn't elaborate enough, that's definitely on me.

In my defense, it's 2:30am, I need to be up in five hours at the latest, and I saw the fifth post hating on jegulus and/or other fun parts of the fandom that I genuinely cannot find anything objectively problematic about.

I got pissed.

I tagged my post, and I agree that I further fueled the discourse.

This has been something that I've done before, unfortunately. I'm used to thinking of tags as part of screaming into the void, I'll be sure to erase them after this.

But as you said, it's normal for there to be discourse in fandom.

And honestly, that's what I usually do. Ignore it. Like I do with a lot of things I don't agree with on the internet.

I don't remember contributing to this whole ordeal before tbh, and I've been here for a decent amount of time.

But I got so ticked off, I wanted to get it off my chest for once.

Lost my grip there, but I honestly didn't think too deeply about it.

Anyway, yes, yes, obviously it's not entirely made up. We have the HP series, aka the source material, in which we do see quite a bit of Remus and Sirius.

I was more referring to the fact that every single other character in the marauders era, is, in fact, made up.

It's undeniable that, despite the bits and pieces we've heard throughout the books, we can't possibly have any sort of concrete understanding of how these characters were during their Hogwarts days, before the war.

Not only because the bits and pieces don't in any way make up a whole picture, but also because some of them might've been entirely unreliable.

So these characters; younger Remus and Sirius, as well as James, Peter, Lily, Regulus etc etc etc, have more or less been crafted on very arbitrary ideas.

They are made up, and very rarely reconcilable to their adult counterparts, which makes sense from several standpoints. (E.g. their canon characters have been severely beaten down and traumatized. AUs take place in entirely different settings; the context changes entirely, and so do the characters)

Now, as for the nazi allegory, I assume you're referring to a) morons who are glorifying the death eater tattoo (jesus christ), or b) the 'Slytherin Skittles'?

In b's case, I'd wager it started with Regulus and the potential to explore the Black Family dynamics, which then escalated to giving him his own friend group and creating entertaining dynamics between them.

However, I genuinely do not see the harm in this.

It hardly matters that they're canonically deaths eaters, or that they were most likely blood supremacists and horrible people; or whatever else could've been going on with them.

They were so barely mentioned in the actual story. Doesn't matter what effect their existence had on the story and how it served the narrative, because they were barely ever directly there.

We know next to nothing for fact. So it's next to impossible for most people to care for their actions in canon, and just see them as blank canvases.

I can't really fault them for that.

People project whatever they want on characters that are firmly established and thoroughly explored; characters that are borderline non-existent are free real estate.

And yes, changes can totally be problematic.

A prime example is definitely the hyperfeminization of Sirius, to make wolfstar fit the classic heteronormativity that plagues queer ships.

As for the romanticization of abusive romance tropes, I honestly have never seen it.

I mean, I hear people complaining about it, but I swear to fuck, it feels like you guys are fighting ghosts sometimes 😭

Either it's a part of the fandom I've somehow steered clear of, despite being balls deep in it, or some people are exaggerating, which isn't out of the realm of possibility, but I kind of doubt that's the case.

As for toxic masculinity, again, I literally haven't seen it. Hand to my heart, scout's honour, I have not.

Hyperfeminization? Definitely.

Toxic masculinity? Macho men? Written in any context that's not challenging it, and is promoting it? Nope.

Representation is important, and that was the other part my post was based on.

I've seen people hate on the liberties others have taken to explore gender through these characters, which ticked me off even more.

And this is coming from a cis individual, who doesn't really fuck with he/they Sirius, they/them James, etc etc.

I don't think that there's any harm in people creating/enjoying content that is representative of their struggles/experiences with gender (or any other part of life).

Exactly because in the marauders fandom, characters are incredibly flexible, for aforementioned reasons.

Blank canvases, remember?

Usually this hate, from what I've seen, comes from people who prefer sticking to the canon part of this whole story.

In which case, totally, the 'new model' is very. Very. Unrealistic.

(There are definitely harmful headcanons out there. Even within this context, there also exists content that fetishizes the very thing I just defended. But I physically can't sit here and list off every problematic thing that has happened in this fandom. I don't have the energy. And that's not what the post is about anyway)

-"People who write different things are harassed".

Yes, glad that you get my point, even though I obviously didn't get it across.

This goes both ways. This goes all ways. Yeah, people who don't ship wolfstar get hate.

But people who headcanon Regulus as trans get it too.

People who prefer Jily get hate.

But jegulus shippers have their hands full as well.

People giggling over silly headcanons that are honestly just that: silly; can't catch a break.

What was that, you like the new model? Here's all the ways I think it sucks ass.

Oh, you prefer canon? What a loser, you're in the wrong fandom.

Ultimately, the joy gets drained out of everything.

This is meant to be fun. This is meant to be a break from real life stress.

It's not meant to leave you exhausted because you're too busy apologizing about not taking something too seriously, or defending your ship preferences.

In the end, however, I obviously get what you're saying. There are harmful changes that deserve to be pointed out.

But I never said that they didn't. Calling out the notions that are inherently problematic when perpetuated is important.

Constructive criticism is welcome. It's crucial. It only adds, it deepens people's understanding of media and brings attention to problematic aspects of certain interpretations.

That's not what I was referencing in my original post; at least, not intentionally.

I was talking about how so many people love to mindlessly complain about things they don't like, without actually bringing up any substantial points.

The only goal is to tear other people down.

As we've agreed, some of these changes are problematic.

But so is the way some people convey their disagreements.

Some of y'all use your complaints about new character developments to also hide your general prejudice against something.

Like, there's no need to get this heated over genderfluid Sirius.

In this particular instance, it's because the general concept of the 'new model' is pretty mainstream, so it's hard to avoid it. So I know that I'm being a bit unfair when I say, 'ignore it'

Ignoring it is rarely easy though, no matter how mainstream or minor.

It should be, because logically this is all fictional and it doesn't matter if someone dislikes your OTP, or if you think someone's hc is painfully unrealistic.

But we can't help it. It's impossible to care about how fictional something is when it means so much to us.

And seeing something antithetical to our interpretation can feel like some sort of personal attack, even when it's really not.

Part of it also stems from how, when you see fifty other people throwing in their two cents, you also want to.

Because it's a base instinct to want to be heard.

All that said, ignoring it, despite the circumstances, is often the best way to go, because a lot of the time it can be irrational.

Hating on someone because they don't like your ship can be irrational.

Starting a fight over someone's differing interpretation of a character can be irrational.

Think critically before you speak, and be careful when phrasing your points.

Being respectful is crucial, and if you're not getting the same courtesy, then stepping back is the smarter choice.

I'm still working on always maintaining these things myself.

I've been doing a bang-on job, broadly speaking.

I had a slight moment of weakness earlier :P

(For those wondering, I took the og post down. It wasn't anything tragic, I just said that most people who complain about the fandom's toxicity actively contribute to it when they hate on stuff others enjoy.

In the tags I went off a bit, my ultimate points being that the fun is often sucked out of everything, and that if I personally don't like something, I avoid it, stick to my stuff, and don't venture into others' spaces if I'm not willing to be open minded.

But I was definitely more aggressive with the delivery, which was my bad. I hate it when I break my own rules on how I want to behave on here.)

Anyway, so sorry for this long rant, and sorry if I've missed something or made a bad/harmful point. I'm borderline asleep.

And it's now 4:10am and I got too absorbed in this *sigh*

[redheadbigshoes]

Exactly!!

And I’d like to add that there’s a lot of social, environmental and of course experimental factors that can influence an individual’s preferences! But the attraction to multiple genders (when someone is mspec) never changes. It’s always there, even when they’re mostly focused on one gender, their capacity to be attracted other genders is still very much there and always be. And yes, I HATE this thing too! Or when people say stuff “I did the straight to lesbian to bi pipeline”. Like, no. You were always bi, you just used different labels to figure it out. But at no point were ever actually straight or a lesbian. I was so tempted to say that to one of the people who called me a “lesbophobe” for saying that Lesbians don’t date or willingly and enthusiastically have sex with men and who said that they did the “bi to lesbian to trans man pipeline”. But I guess it would have come off as me being a “gatekeeper”.

Reminds me of when I was having a conversation with that ‘gay’ (I quite frankly doubt he was now) man on that Discord server full of homophobes and he was like “Sexuality is fluid, I’ve had many hook ups with guys who now identify as straight”. No dude. I don’t think those guys are straight and you probably just have a weird fantasy about having sex with hetero men (which is not possible). And calling themselves that won’t change the fact that they still willingly had sex with you, A MAN. Another guy I talked to was like “Maybe he was referring to people who just to experiment”. This is a thing that always sounds weird to me. Like, you can’t go out of your way to have sex with people whom you’re supposedly “not attracted to” as a “straight/gay/lesbian” and then pretend you’re not bisexual (with a preference). There’s literal steps before you get into bed with someone. That’s why I think the concept of “bi-curious” makes no sense. Like, wtf are you “curious” about lmao?

Also, regarding one of your recent posts about how people deny that a (fictional) character can have two mothers and no biological father, I need to say that I agree 100% and I think we need more rep for homoparental families like this! Especially considering it’s literally possible in real life! Not just if one the parents is trans but also because it’s literally possible for two cis women to conceive a child together with some medical help! And a few years ago I read that it apparently could be possible to create embryos with the DNAs of two cis men, but we’re not quite there yet!

~🌝

It’s so astonishing the gaslighting people like this do to call someone a lesbophobe for rightfully defending the fact that lesbians are not attracted to men as if this wasn’t supposed to be basic common sense.

I hate terms like “bi curious” or “heteroflexible” or “homoflexible”. People supporting this as if this isn’t literally a way of bi erasure… And bisexuals having nothing against this is so weird, it’s like they are incapable to understand how this invalidates their identity. I do understand people being curious to experiment their sexuality, but you don’t need to label yourself as anything just because you’re experimenting, especially with labels that invalidate and erase marginalized sexualities.

So many people normalizing to spread the mindset that is totally okay for a gay or a lesbian to have sex with the opposite gender and genuinely like it or have sex with the opposite gender just because they were bored or something like this… They all contributing to corrective rape and think they’re progressive lol they’re no better than conservatives.

As someone who is in touch with a lot of wlw ships in different fandoms is so frustrating to see how people are incapable to notice how heteronormative their minds are. They cannot see a wlw couple and think they’re two mothers, there’s always gotta be a father figure. In the case of Agathario (the pairing I was talking about) people try to dismiss this critic by saying Rio is genderless or anything like that.

But 1) her gender identity has never been discussed; 2) she’s always referred with she/her pronouns (or any term that’s usually associated with women); 3) Rio’s actress is a woman so it’s another reason why it’s hard to believe (in the MCU at least) that she isn’t a woman; 4) now that’s canon that she’s Nicky’s other parent, it’s very possible to understand as an implication when Nicky said “mother needs me home” that he was actually talking about Rio, not Agatha (since he always called her “mama”); 5) Kathryn Hahn herself said in an interview that he doesn’t need a father (or something like this).

[windupaidoneus]

first you're not horrible and in fact I care about you deeply and dearly, second!! Tell me about that furry modern AU i've seen you post a bit about I think? the one where they work office jobs. If you have anything you wanna say about that :] or um. Tell me hilde and emet's favourite date activities !

green. sneef. i hold ur kind words so close to my heart. always. even when i feel bad!! which is saying!! u know how it is with brain bad...

& of course i can tell u about my Epic Furry Modern AU where they work office jobs!!!!! it's one i haven't actually pondered TOO much yet but the beautiful thing abt thinking is that it's something u can do & then u have thoughts. isnt it beautiful

it would be separate from my Regular Modern AU which has its own lore. in this one they are really. coworkers. to start with. this one actually started off bc i was designing a fursona for hilde & the image came to me of him.. well hold on. this

^ this is him looking up over his shoulders while Handsome Kind of standoffish Smells good fuckkkk he smells GOOD coworker (though the way i see it it's more similar to like, when two companies work together? & they're from diff. companies basically. yeah) reaches over his head to grab something from the shelf he was sorting. & well emet is an Owl so he has Big Feathery Arms kind of like a cape... so in that scenario hilde is kind offf getting enveloped in that. not really bc emet isnt touching him but. yeah. if this hapepend to me id just die homosexual style i can promise you this

i think magic exists in this universe however we still need desk workers yk. magic doesnt, err, magically erase bureaucracy. Sad! theyre both full of magical potential but yknow when ppl either have a lot of skill but cant get hired for anything relevant to them so they settle for some nothing job OR the thing theyre really good at doesnt pay well so they go for smth that doesnt align w their preferences for the sake of living comfortably financially even if it means work is hell on their mind? them. hilde is the one who cant get hired for smth he likes & emet is the one going for a job that pays good rather than a job that suits what he likes doing. though of course he does get really really into the managing & organising aspect of Office Worker due to le autism. no way he isnt a manager of some sort he is NOT at the bottom of the ladder in any universe. i wouldnt say hilde is at the bottom of the ladder either bc he DOES have good skills & is generally a very applied worker (also idk im really not gunning for them having an unbalanced dynamic as coworkers, same company or not) but he definitely brushes his job off as not that important if asked what he does

emet probably has a sort of Reputation that makes him sound unapproachable but in the few interactions theyve had hes been a very reliable person to work with so hilde isnt particularly deterred from maybe trying to make friends for that reason. hes just.. socially awkward & anxious to start with. the moment their other coworkers (who hilde is actually like, decently friends with, likely one of the scions who mightve even been his friend before he started working there too. hell, could be a zero! or two even) catch that hes trying to befriend the guy with the Reputation theyyy try to orchestrate ways for them to work alongside each other more lmao. or like ohhh shucks i left xyz in the office over there can you go get it for me since youre nearby </3 which is entertaining for everyone in the know to watch.

they do get to work more as time goes on bc i feel like hilde would be doing like... communications stuff. great for the social anxiety lmao. & so relaying info & working out how the companies can better work w each other would be at least partly on him. he'd be involved in that i thinks. & ofc that would also involve the ppl in higher positions. fuck iahve so amny more ideas but im actually falling asleep in my seat remind me to rb with more tomorrow + the date activities ahhh