#i also think this is a hilarious trait for me because in every other aspect of my life i am incredibly cautious about any new skill

[zosiayarn]

my toxic trait is that i fully believe i can figure out how to knit any pattern i see because im like "i literally just have to follow the instructions. how hard can it be to eventually figure it out."

i JUST learned how to knit with a sock and im like how hard is a fair isle vest with steeking REALLY (<- insane and stubborn)

[eezii]

don’t be shy tell us your favorite for each thing :D (in regards to your last ask)

nnaaa thank you! i did not know if anyone wanted me. to elaborate 💀 this may be very long ☺️☺️

Design

I really enjoy the design of the entire cast in general. i like how much longer their torsos are than their legs. if you could not tell, the show’s artstyle has greatly impacted my own. like hey! maybe! the eye can come off the head, and every possible place on the clothing can be filled with wrinkles and folds and wobbles! as for my favorite character designs, i would say i think the main trio has incredibly designs in regards of reflecting their character. Eddy’s really sticks out to me because he is so ugly and chewy. double d is my favorite to draw but I just love Ed’s design— specifically, how his head connects to his thinner than expected torso and lanky arms— and i need. to draw him more. I think at the moment my favorite character to draw is nazz but i have been doodling a lot of jonny recently. is fun to play around with his massive head (i also adore how that is a consistent gag/character trait!) I think nazz (especially in later seasons,) Kevin, and Edd have my favorite head shapes. eddy’s is pleasant because it moves nicely to his mouth, and May’s and Jonny are always rounder than i recall them being. i like nazz’s design so much because of her hair, lips, and body/clothes shape. I love her baggy pants and how the artists cannot keep a consistent length for her shirt(s)! i also enjoy Rolf’s design, because he does not stick out too much upon a quick glance. but he has smaller eyes, he is taller, and has much bigger feet compared to the rest of the cast! one of my favorite aspects of the show’s character design is how Ed and Sarah’s physical relation is depicted. they look very different, but i love how similar their necks and chins are. a thing to remember is that Sarah does not have much more chin than Ed. the kankers designs work very well, I think. may is. my favorite, but i always loved the way the swirls are done on lee’s head. i would like to say my favorite designs are Edd and Nazz. 

Humor and stuff 😁 

I think Eddy is actually. hysterical. like even besides one liners just the way he acts kills me. i do take him seriously as a character but seeing him go batshit insane is very pleasant to me and it makes me laugh. Ed and Edd of course are also very funny, I love when Edd says something under his breath or just snaps, and I think most people agree that Ed is consistently very funny. other than the eds, i actually find both Lee and Sarah to be very funny— unintentionally. i don’t think either characters are written for many gags (they definitely have several, but compare them to say. rolf or ed,) but i find them hilarious. i think Sarah is at her best when she is not screaming of course, and i love it when she expresses other emotions we do not regularly see her express. i am. thinking of a specific scene, I cannot remember the episode or context, but rather than shouting at ed for being stupid, she says so very seriously “ed, you’re scaring me.” maybe it is just me, but I love these moments. as for Lee, i just love her voice and how comically evil she is. all in all, Eddy takes my top spot! 

personality

most of the cast has seriously grown on me. for this segment! like most, when I first began getting into the series, I thought ed was funny, edd was polite, and eddy was an asshole. of course now I understand and appreciate the characters for all of their traits. the first character that actually got me to get into the show was Edd (not a shock at all) I used to play on the gameboy advanced a lot as a kid, very pleasant, and my favorite was ed edd n eddy, the misadventures. it looks a bit different than how. you would imagine the game, as it was 2D and pixelated. my favorite character to play as was Edd, as he was the most comfortable to manuever (eddy was too short and Ed’s posture made him feel unexplainably slower and heavier!) i had no clue the game was from a show, and about a year ago i suppose I got very curious as to who these characters were. Edd was immediately my favorite, even if he was nothing like I thought he would be based off the game (I thought he was. the cool chill guy. the first clip i saw of him from the show was him going bananas.) i think. at the moment, my favorite personalities are Edd, Eddy, and May. however, all characters have grown on me and there is not one I truly dislike. 

relatability 

I think if i would favor any character based on how similar they are to me, and how much I can connect to their situations and traits, it would have to be rolf. I usually think of myself more as ed because i am fairly artistic and not incredibly smart, but rolf is very similar to me. I grew up as a foreigner in my small town as well, and I know i probably confused and freaked out many other children at the time. i think i still can talk in a very silly way, but when i was younger i talked a bit like a real life rolf. my legs were hairier than the other kids, i had an odd hybrid accent, and spent most of my time working. my friends despised my cultures food 🤗💧💧 as a kid I didn’t think much of him, but. now I really enjoy him. I find edd very relatable as well, but that may be because he is a very easy character to project onto. 

potential 

do not get. me started! i have become so infatuated with alternate universes, highschool and adulthood ideas, and headcannons for these characters. for potential, I am referring to how much I like to expand upon these characters based off their rarely displayed qualities, homelife, and more. the top spot for this one goes to the kankers sisters. there is nothing I like to indulge in more than the three’s dynamic with one another and what parts of them we rarely see. my favorite episodes are those where they are forced out of their usual role of the eds tormentors. i adore possible explanations for characters and hypotheses of their futures. edd is another character i took and melted to my liking. as some of you may know, i am an avid enjoyer. of the idea that Edd is transfem. as for the other characters, all of them are so strongly written there is so many places to take them. this is why i am so in love with ed edd n eddy’s fan content. shoot out to others on this app!

if you have read this much i want to say thank you. you are very pleasant and we should become caterpillars and intertwine 🤗🤗🥰🥰

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

"send me a character" you get abed and adam faulkner stanheight (from saw was i close?)

Aaaugh!!!!! YES thank you so much!!!!!! I could talk about both of them for weeks!!!

Abed:

First impression: I loved him really early on and he really quickly became my favourite character in Community. The second they showed Abed's short film to Jeff, Britta and his dad, it was all over for me

Current impression: I love Abed even more now. He's probably one of my favourite, most likely even most favourite character ever. He's so so relatable and I could watch Abed just being Abed forever. I honestly am not even sure i could put into words how much Abed's character means to me and how much I love him!

Favorite moment: I'd say all the times he dresses up as a character and acts as that character/just acts as someone else for a bit. I used to do that a bunch when I was younger so I love seeing Abed doing stuff like that, it makes me happy. Especially when it's Inspector Spacetime. Also: the scene where its mentioned that he has a 2 hour long analysis of the Saw movies because that's gotta be the most relatable scene ever made for me

Idea for a story: I have so many. I have already written way too many and have way too many more. So I'll share one which I don't think I've mentioned before: I'd love to write a fic about all the times people call him emotionless or a robot, and just sort of write out how that makes him feel and view himself until he finally decides to tell people to stop calling him that. Because it happens quite often in the show and I want some kind of a moment where he just stands up for himself and puts a stop to it.

Unpopular opinion: umm, I'm not sure if I have one, at least from all the opinions people on tumblr have. For the most part, I agree with a lot of opinions people have of him on here. I think people sometimes overexaggerate some aspects of his character, but that just kind happens in fandoms and its not a big deal.

Favorite relationship: obvious answer, but it's trobed!

Favorite headcanon: okay, this is my own personal headcanon, but I hc that he keeps a notebook not just of people's traits and things he notices about them, but also has a seperate notebook about the movies and shows he's watched. He writes down every show and movie he's seen, main characters' names and actors, and any other info he wants to remember. Mainly this headcanon is just me projecting bc I have a spreadsheet I made for the horror movies I've seen, so I'd like to believe he does something similar!

Okay and Adam:

First impression: I don't remember what my very first impression of him was tbh because I didn't yet have the sawtism on my first viewing of saw. But I did quite like his character.

Current impression: not a single normal thought has entered my brain about Adam. Every time I think about him, I feel the need to scream about him for days. He's such a tragic character and he hides all that behind his snark. And he wanted to live!!! He wanted to live and do more, but he couldn't!!! Adam also has some hilarious and great quotes, which at this point I'll admit I have like memorised because apparently I've just memorised half of Saw.

Favorite moment: oh my god, either the moment that Lawrence says "there's something you're not telling me" and Adam starts listing a bunch of unrelated shit to Lawrence (which includes the iconic "my ex-girlfriend was a feminist vegan punk who broke up with me because she thought I was too angry"). Or the moment he discovers the camera behind the mirror and says the iconic "this is the most fun I've had without lubricant". Or the deleted Saw III scene where he and Amanda interact. I love that scene so so much and I wish they had kept it in.

Idea for a story: not really a story, but I have thought about writing like a character study of some of the characters from saw. Or I guess more like a partial character study, partial what were they like in their daily lives type of thing. I've also thought of doing something like that with Amanda. Idk if I would ever write a full on fanfic with a plot for the saw characters, but character study-like thing would be cool imo

Unpopular opinion: quite a lot of people want him to come back and be alive, but I am fully against that. I love Adam and the "Adam is alive" au's are great, but realistically I don't want him to be alive in the movies. It wouldn't make sense and it just wouldn't work well imo, especially with how his death impacts the other characters and their stories.

Favorite relationship: Adam and Lawrence of course. But I did see one post of a theoretical ship of Adam and Mateo from Saw X (even though they've never met) and that post was pretty cute!! I should look for that post again

Favorite headcanon: gonna be a stereotypical saw fan and say: gay and trans Adam. It's a good headcanon, I think it can definitely make sense canonically and it just fits! Gay and trans Adam is canon to me

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week?

Action Comics #1054 - Loved Superman going all Naruto with a susanno, loved how PKJ portrayed Supes in line with both the original Golden Age attitude (he calls Metallo a bully and takes him down a peg) and the softer modern incarnation (he offers to help Metallo save his sister). Reads just like Morrison Superman does. My one complaint is that we're still falling back on Metallo spamming kryptonite. All the upgrades he got from Warworld tech, and he's resorting to that yet again? Disappointing. Metallo isn't a total jobber, he's crippled Kara, beaten Conner and Jon, kidnapped the Super-Twins, built an army, he's kicking ass and is dangerous... except he can't even seem to scratch Clark himself. Henshaw calling Metallo a loser does seem to be true. I have a notion where this is going, I think Tracy is either going to die or be revealed as the leader of the Blue Earth group, and Metallo will join that movement to get revenge on Superman for her death, or to work for her because she's the only thing he cares about anymore. If Metallo gets to kill Henshaw and PKJ sets him up to return down the road for another big arc where he finally kicks Clark's ass, that's good enough for me. Otherwise, much as I've enjoyed this, I can't say PKJ has succeeded with Metallo the way he did with Mongul. He did however make me realize the one big Superman trait Metallo contrasts with that I'll write about at the end of this arc.

Green Arrow #1 - Never been a huge Green Arrow fan, an odd thing to say considering I read his entire Rebirth run start to finish, but I enjoyed Williamson's Superman so much I decided to give this a shot. Cry For Justice was actually one of the earliest stories I read because my library had a trade of it. Insane that this is where we finally get a reunion between Roy and Lian. Otherwise I thought it was fine, not sure about the cosmic aspect of things, but I intend to read the first arc at least.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #2 - Doing a piss take on the Krakoa Era X-Men right as I've become bored with them post-Hickman is just what I needed. Cackled at the data page jab, and also Culver lampooning how stupid it is for every magic group to just slap "Dark" on their title (knock it off Johns). Robotman launching Worm into orbit to prevent him from blowing up the Shelter was hilariously fucked up, should hopefully assuage the people afraid this would just be a knock-off X-Book. That's pure Doom Patrol right there, even more so with the reveal that Velvet is the true double agent. Peacemaker is a bastard and a great villain for the Doom Patrol, Culver has me fully on board with the Suicide Squad being the true antithesis to the Doom Patrol. Loved Burnham's depiction of the Shelter, FINALLY some cool superhero bases again! I missed that

Detective Comics #1071 - Interesting experience reading PKJ Action and Ram Detective at the same time, because they are both aiming for long epic runs that redefine their respective franchises. Action works better for me because it never loses sight of Superman being at the center, whereas here we get an issue full of lore dumping with Batman barely featuring. At this point I'm losing track of all of these new characters and the MacGuffins they're squabbling over, plus yet another retelling of Ra's early days. V's best work has been with Two-Face and Mr. Freeze, these Orghams are rather dull and derivative of other would-be usurpers, and I don't care about them anymore.

The Riddler: Year One #4 - How? How is this so good? How is a movie tie-in written by an actor who has never written a comic before running laps around experienced writers?

Blue Beetle: Graduation Day #6 - Surprisingly strong ending. Probably the best bridge between the original Giffen run and what the movie is changing. Looking forward to the ongoing now.

Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1 - Think I'm as sick of Sinister as the X-Men themselves are. Moira attempting to reclaim control of the narrative was nice, now how about we actually DO that by making her more than a mustache twirler? Unless the solicits are lying, Emma, Hope, Exodus, and Charles going into the Pit is going to be undone quick, but perhaps at the cost of resurrections. I give this event a 7/10, a huge step down from Judgement Day.

Invincible Iron Man #5 - Think I'm out, Fei Long and Tony's rivalry is stupid. Long just picks a fight with Stark for no real reason other than "I want a rival!" and while there's some justification beyond that, it's bound up in the Avengers not claiming Mars while the X-Men did. If this was Long wanting Stark's company to help Orchis, and Tony thwarting him being what kicks off their personal enmity, then it would be better. Instead Duggan tries to jump right into making things personal, but the crux of their fight having roots in another franchise undermines the whole endeavor.

Hulk #14 - Terrible ending but I expected nothing less. Had a chuckle at how heavy handed the letter from Samson was, might as well have been Ottley going "yeah sorry this run didn't go the way we wanted with Cates bailing, here's Bruce reset back to status quo, good luck to the next creative team!"

Doctor Strange #2 - Honestly I preferred Clea as the solo lead. The book is fine but it's not gripping me the way I want. I'll give it until issue 6 to pick up.

W0rldtr33 #1 - It's great, Tynion doing another horror book how could it not be? Jesus Christ though, somehow this is hitting even harder for me than the Department of Truth did. Internet as a demonic entity could come across as corny, but damn if Tynion doesn't make it terrifying.

[crystalelemental]

Unit Viability Speculation - February 2023

Palentine’s month came in with some high expectations I never really expected to go anywhere, but I figured I’d hit at least one.  Little did I know I hit two.  The most obvious two, but still, two.  The bad news is, literally every other aspect played out terribly.  I will not front.  I’m not satisfied with this month’s outcomes at all.  Like, at all.

SS Lysandre and Volcanion I’ll say it: Volcanion’s lame.  It looks dumb, it’s wholly irrelevant as a Pokemon with no interesting traits, and it’s set as either Fire or Water type, which we have too many of in the game already.  I don’t love this alt, which is a damned shame because holy shit my man looks good.

Volcanion got Water, and what’s endlessly comical to me is that they didn’t even make Steam Eruption important.  It’s just for utility, and has bad DPS for a 4-bar move.  No, his DPS is his Buddy move, which is also hilarious, in Hydro Pump, which is an AoE move that has the base power of a sync move.  The problem?  It only works if a foe is burned.  While he has Heat Wave for AoE burn, it’s a bad burn rate and his natural multipliers can’t make it work.  So he’s purely on Steam Eruption, then spam Hydro Pump.  Which works okay in CS where you can just keep the no status conditions effect off.  But in Gauntlet?  This man lives and dies entirely by whether the foe can be burned.  And I’m not going to front.  I don’t like Burn, so I have no idea who’s immune to it.  Uxie and Cobalion can become immune.  Lysandre has to use Steam Eruption alone on Bar 2 Uxie, and if he can’t take out Cobalion, the second half of that entire fight is a wash.  He can’t address Tornadus well.  If Moltres or Entei are immune to burn, they’re potential problems too, despite his advantage.  He’s weak to Rock so Regirock is a no-go.  I just...don’t know how I feel about the guy.

Grid gives him Furious Brain and a 50% chance to burn off Heat Wave to save some CS needs, but the rest is once again reliant on Burn.  I think my misgivings come from not knowing how much is Burn immune.  It could be fine.  But I don’t love that entire fights are outside his ability because of that.  Also, just putting it out there: the only interesting thing he does, debuffing Atk/Sp Def, is a 5/5 node.  No thanks, bro.

Anabel and Snorlax First, I need to know: does Anabel use Snorlax?  I don’t remember her using Snorlax, but also I don’t like Gen 7 so it’s been a while.  Either way, I hate the partner choice, it’s bad and should feel bad.  Second, why PokeFair?  I mean, it’s what Anabel deserves, but also I don’t think this unit’s that great, and I’m kinda stunned given that Looker is just a regular pool unit.

Headbutt with Aggravation is good.  Protect...exists.  Reflect...exists.  Trainer move buffs +2 attack, but also gives crit shield, status shield, and Light Screen.  ...okay.  She can GMax, so Max Replenish turns these 1MP moves into 2MP if nothing else.  She’s able to buff special defense by 1 every time an MP move is used, heals 50% HP when using her Max Move, and gains +20% to all stats when any field condition is active.  Note: absolutely nothing in her kit extends the duration of these effects.  PokeFair.  Melony.  Just saying.

Her grid hurts me physically.  Move Gauge Acceleration when a field effect is present and Synchro Healing 1 would be great tools, if they weren’t 5/5 locked.  But they are, so...  Healthy Healing is fine.  Quick Cure is nice.  Charging Infliction 2 is something I guess.  Durable on Trainer Move is fantastic.  Crit Squad 1 on Trainer Move is nice but insufficient to cap crit.  Shielded and Shielding Strikes are okay.  No built-in Vigilance, no gauge control, slow-ramping and potentially insignificant defense buffing, can’t cap any offensive stat, no extension of her myriad field effects.  I legitimately struggle to see Anabel’s status as a PokeFair.  This does not seem...particularly mind-blowing.  And I’m betting good money that grid will have energy issues regardless just trying to fix what she needs.  But hey, maybe the other one is good.

Emma and Crobat Hey kids, you like PokeFairs?!  Oh, and it’s Crobat!  Not Espurr.  For no reason.  Also Crobat is the first Pokemon to three major trainer appearances.  Gengar and Charizard could do it, but only because of MU’s eggmons.  Crobat has Koga, Janine, and now Emma for Triple Bat.  So it’s gonna be good, right?

Poison Fang!  No Hostile Environment!  Lucy!  Just.  Saying.  Potion!  On a Striker!  That’ll help!  Buddy move operates similarly to Lysandre, only working if the foe is Poisoned.  Now that one I know is bad.  Tornadus and Cobalion are right out, Uxie poses problems as well, and because she can’t even guaranteed Toxic by herself as a FUCKING POKEFAIR, teambuilding considerations exist.  Her Trainer Move is the only legitimately good thing about her, giving +4 speed to the entire team.  That, legitimately, helps.  Her passives also attempt to remove gauge considerations with Toxic Freebie...4.  Head Start 2 is an attempt at Fast Ramping, which some will love.  And her final gives guaranteed crit to her sync, which is nice, considering her buddy move also guaranteed crits.  She’s pretty free from setup costs, being 1MP for +4 attack and guaranteed to crit on every attack that matters.

Emma’s 5/5 grid is...really nice.  +1 evasion to the whole team per attack is great.  Ruthless Toxin is really good.  Toxic after sync is something, not too convinced it matters though.  Super Toxic is fun given her buddy move, being a great source of DPS in CS, but utterly worthless in Gauntlet where nothing is Poison weak.  Inertia and Ramming Speed are nice and synergistic.  There’s not too much of overwhelming value, but there’s good stuff.  She’s not too shabby, I just...really wish her DPS weren’t locked behind the foe being poisoned.  That’s going to really hinder her.  Like, severely.

Palentine’s Mallow Now that Mallow has an outfit I can respect, I can safely say I just don’t like Mallow.  I took one look at this and felt nothing but disappointment.  Shame she’s the support with Appletun.  Should’ve been Cheryl.

Mallow seems weird.  Dire Hit All+ is good, but her trainer move is +3 defense to the team and then move gauge recovery.  You know, like Lance and Rosa did.  I don’t know why that’s a thing.  Her Grass-type move is great, hitting -1 special defense per attack, but she doesn’t double up like Brendan, and her main designation is Dragon despite Dragon Pulse being terrible for a support.  Her passives are a buttload of healing, but all super conditional on her attacking, one pop heal of 50% when she’s under half HP, and Initial Synchro Healing 2, which is atrocious for a support, because your allies aren’t going to be significantly hurt by the time you bust that out for double damage.  She gets Hype Up 9 and Staggering 4 for Dragon Pulse, but (1) that’s the wrong attack move, and (2) that’s way too slow to build up special attack boosts.  She does get Vigilance and Revenge Boost 9, alongside Triage Tank 4 (not Team), but if it seems like I’m kinda glossing over Mallow it’s because I am.  I don’t like the partnership, this feels like Palentine’s Marnie and Bea all over again, but more in the Bea camp where the unit’s kinda bad.

Palentine’s Elesa Welcome to five alts, girl.  Togetic is an odd choice, but I guess it pairs with Winter Skyla’s Togekiss.  Metronome, Fly, Dire Hit+, and a trainer move that gives +3 to both offenses.  Not the best look.  Super Powered 5 is neat for her sync, but otherwise you’re rolling the dice on Metronome.  She does get +1 stack of both physical and special moves with each status move’s use, and guess what Metronome is.  Her grid even offers the boosted rate to all secondary effects, so the inclusion of moves like Rock Slide and Blizzard in its arsenal is wildly interesting.  It’s super luck reliant, don’t count on it, but random luck can sometimes pull through.  I don’t have a ton to say.  She’s a fairly standard Striker that lives for their sync nuke, but has a really interesting approach with Metronome shenanigans.

Lodge Morty Okay.  F2P support.  Boosts Special Attack and Crit.  Separately, but still.  This is unique.  Trainer move also boosts evasion and team speed, which is really useful.  Full Heal is situational, but can be clutch.  My misgiving is that Morty...has some issues because of his F2P designation.  Bad stats, mostly, but also he didn’t get Endurance.  Given low stats, this is a potential death sentence, given that others with much stronger and faster buffing kits have desperately needed that skill.  Morty takes 6 turns to fully cap all offenses, and I can pretty much promise he won’t survive that long.  You pick one buff or the other, and you ideally stick to it.  After that, you hope on some evasion, and aim for your 30% boosts to all stats per attack, with Healthy Healing and Ridicure as backup.  I won’t lie, I really like the buffing potential, but I can’t help but feel a little wary about the stats and lack of Endurance.  This won’t pan out so well in CS, but Gauntlet...maybe he’ll shine?

Common Grid War Act 14 I’m start Roark because I’m scared.  Standfast 3, 5, and 7.  Glad to know my fears were founded.  Pinpoint Entry, First Aid 4, and Sharp Entry aren’t bad, though.  Trainer Move getting gradual healing is great, and giving Follow-Through for potential sync is nice too.  Haymaker as a sync multiplier is divine.  He gets +1 physical moves up next on trainer move as well.  And Double Down 5 for good measure.  150% bonus sync damage, and his trainer move gives a lot of really nice effects now.  I can’t lie.  That’s...actually kinda good.  I’ll have to see how he plays, but he might just be the best Rock-type in the F2P pool now.

Maylene time.  Rock Smash On a Roll 1.  Natural Remedy.  Precision Pals on trainer move.  Pep Rally on trainer move, holy shit.  Quick Cure.  Superduper Effective 5 on Drain Punch for better healing?  Sterner Stuff, Safety Tether, and Unbending?  Those...are not bad at all.  Maylene realistically just wanted her MPRs to cap attack and crit, but she got some decent tools beyond that too.  Her trainer move giving speed is wildly helpful, as gauges were one of her biggest issues.  This is...pretty great.  I can’t lie.  I just wish she had a bit more healing potential as a support.  No Master Healer...hurts a bit.

Shauntal...please.  Please do neat stuff.  “Gritty 5 and Lessen Burn 9!”  Baller.  Endurance.  Ramming Speed, radical.  On a Roll 2, beautiful 60%.  Critical Eye 1 on trainer move, nice.  30% chance to burn foes when they hit her, nice.  Brain Sync 5, we take those.  I like it.  This seems like a metric ton of fun.

Grid Expansions Base Elesa gets Brawn Sync 5, Critical Eye 1 broadly, Standfast 9, and Fleet Feet 2 on her trainer move.  These are pretty reasonable effects.  I do think her overall power leaves a lot to be desired, since her sync was pretty awful and 50% isn’t fully salvaging that, but the remaining self-sufficiency and huge improvement to damage reduction in a single half-cost node is great.

Alder got Pinpoint Entry 1 and Brain Sync...2.  Wow.  Wow, okay, yeah, I’m gonna...I guess I’ll shut up about Anni Lillie now (lies).  Dismay is faster Devastation setup.  BOGO on Struggle Bug is...not worth it, but okay.  Impervious to block his own trainer move downside is okay.  Furious Brain for a move multiplier is hilarious.  It’s fine.  It’s all just fine.

Sycamore gets Quick Cure, Team Sharp Entry, Team Beef Up, and Freevenge 4.  Just...get it, man.  Team Sharp Entry was all I wanted to see, but even better gauge control and immunity to first trap to fuck over Entei?  Beautiful.

Miscellaneous Leon is bad with Gigantamax, and now we have Fire Damage Field, which means that much like Stealth Rock, this will be utterly useless and he would’ve been better off with just Sun.  Why the fuck doesn’t it inflict Trap on all foes?  That would’ve been something.

Oh and apparently there’s a Champion Select Scout at the end of the month, and Steven’s there.  Okay.

Oh, and we get regional Meowth in the eggs this month.  Galarian has Iron Head Aggravation which is nice, while Alolan has Bite Aggravation so not as good, and is probably better off taking the support for max speed.

Final Thoughts I’m crabby about this.  Volcanion is lame, no Looker alt, Emma and Anabel are PokeFair but legitimately don’t feel that great to me (though Emma’s DPS will likely change my tune), the Palentine’s alts aren’t all that exciting to me, and even the grid expansions feels decent but not all that exciting.  I dunno.  I know I set my expectations way too high, almost as a defense mechanism, but this...isn’t quite what I wanted.  At all.  Like I got the CS, but not Drasna, how did that happen?

But.  Anabel is here.  Which means she won’t be taking a spot in Alola.  Lusamine and Nihilego is back on the table.  Please, game.  Do not fail me there too.  Not like this.

[robotslenderman]

Top 5 pets, vampire clans and Pokemon please!

I'm gonna skip the pets one because I haven't had enough variety in pets to really make a top 5, but for the other two:

Clans:

5. Hecata

I'm not specifically interested in the Giovanni, but rather how diverse the clan of death is as a whole. Cappadocians, my beloved While I understand while they'd integrate all the death clans into one for TTRPG mechanical purposes, from a lore perspective it actually makes me really sad that that diversity is wiped out by the Family Reunion, and one reason I really like Perry from VTMOfB is that it implies some Hecata actually escaped the blandification of the clan and while they might have gained the painful bite, they continued to have their old banes.

The diversity also basically makes them the clan equivalent of the United States. Outsiders consider them to be one clan, but in reality they're multiple clans in a trench coat that present themselves as one for political purposes. I have never once met an American that said they were from America, they always said Texas, or Arizona, or New York. I like to think that if you ask a Hecata what clan they're from, they'll do the same -- they say Samedi, or a Harbinger, or Giovanni.

Their in-clan politics is probably the same too, which would be hilarious.

4. Gangrel

Yeaaaah my animal boys! The clan that appears to be independent from the outside, but is a lot more social than it lets on from the inside. I like how some clans are actually quite social (like the Hecata above, for instance), and the Gangrel are generally thought not to be. They also appeal to the Aussie in me in that they don't really believe in hierarchy; when Xaviar left the Camarilla, the rest of the Gangrel didn't mindlessly follow him, they spent years leaving, which suggests to me that every individual Gangrel made a conscious decision whether to leave or stay, and most of them decided to leave. Of course we have a few exceptions like Lettow, but for the most part Gangrel are free thinkers who aren't contrarian for the sake of being contrarian like the Brujah, but will quietly make up their own minds and follow through on that.

(And it also suggests that either Xaviar had an ego and thought himself more important than he actually was that he could leave and they'd follow, or that he was actually so in-tune with his clan that he realised once he left, many would follow in the end.)

And touching back on how they're actually much more social than we think -- Gangrel often come across as lone wolves, but they have Things: basically clan meetings/parties where they all get together and do Gangrel shit. Despite their reputation there is an aspect of a found family of sorts in there, and given their other clan traits, it's likely not out of duty, but out of choice. Gangrel who aren't interested just don't go to Things. Gangrel who are do, and those Gangrel have family connections within the clan. And "family" doesn't just mean vitae in this case -- the First Season tradition results in many Gangrel adopting each other.

I mean, I like to think that in most cases of the First Season (where a Gangrel is Embraced and then left to fend for themselves for three months to see if they're "strong enough" to survive), the sire is actually much like a mother deer in that they're nearby and keeping a close eye on their childe and making sure that they actually survive due to strength, and aren't destroyed purely by bad luck, but I also like that Gangrel are less selfish than other clans in that when they find fledglings they just take them in and raise them.

I also like the headcanon that different Gangrel behave in different ways depending on what their animal is, as if driven by that animal's instincts -- eg Gangrel whose animals have litters might Embrace several childer at once and raise them in a batch (wow, the poor sire lmao), other Gangrel might Embrace and abandon their childe right away because their animal does, but others might raise their childer one-on-one and be very involved and have relationships for the rest of their lives.

If you squiiiiiint it might even be supported by canon in a way that's not related to the Embrace. Beckett's a "lone wolf", but the lone wolf thing is actually a myth. They're pack animals. Beckett has a pack. Very few canon Kindred have genuine friends and he's the first that comes to mind. We have our Eagle Prince, Lettow. He loves to fly in a plane and his Elysium is physically high up, where he can look down on the world like a bird.

3. Ravnos

I actually don't have a Ravnos OC (despite having nearly 30 other VTM OCs) and never talk about the clan so it's probably surprise they're on this list, but I think they're so fucking cool. Master illusionists with one hell of a pain in the ass bane? That's awesome. It's so unique, it's so original. It's also a huge improvement over their racist as fuck meta history YIKES

I'm just sad that they apparently get along badly with the Gangrel (although it's hilarious that nobody knows why except the Ravnos and the Gangrel) because they seem they'd complement each other very well, but then, the Ventrue and the Lasombra complement each other too...

2. Tzimisce

I don't actually have that much to say about them, they're just such dicks and I love them, and I love how they have all this etiquette stuff explicitly because they're such dicks. They're a bunch of sadists, so they needed to have strict rules about how to interact with other Tzimisce so that they didn't start shit by turning the wrong Fiend's childe inside out or something, and boom, Tzimisce hospitality was born. I just find that so fucking funny. They might be a bunch of complete and utter assholes but they're not classless white trash, thank you very much!

Lasombra

I just fucking love these guys for two big reasons:

I'm a sucker for social Darwinists in fiction

The whole "technically they're disabled" thing, which is hilarious in light of 1.

So like. For me the Lasombra are a bit of a power fantasy -- as a kid I was emotionally neglected and sometimes outright emotionally abused. I was also neurodivergent. I was on my own. I never got taught any valuable life skills because I wasn't trusted to do shit or fuck by my parents, and other kids wanted nothing to do with me. If I was sad I had to comfort myself because I'd get a "well, what do you expect me to do about it?" or told what to do or told to get over it. When I struggled to do anything... I rarely got anywhere. I always lost. I always came last.

The Lasombra are a power fantasy in that they're in a shittier version of my childhood, where they get outright destroyed instead of eyerolls, and some of them still manage to thrive in it. I could barely scrape by, let alone win, but I was a kid in a highly social collaborative world that had no support, whereas the Lasombra are in an environment where they're expected not to have any and therefore, in a way, the playing field is more even for them because of that. The other kids were well adjusted and had advantages over me because they had parents that loved them and access to help whenever they asked, but most Lasombra share the same shitty childehoods. And they're encouraged to be mean motherfuckers like I used to fantasise about being mean to the other kids. Because I hated those kids, I resented those kids, I was jealous as fuck about those kids and I wanted them to pay for having what I didn't. In my fiction I love to channel that eleven-year-old girl in me who's bitter and angry at the world and wants to fuck it all up and make everyone else suffer so that they are forced to empathise with me in a way they chose not to.

As for the disability thing... they're Lasombra. The world is becoming increasingly reliant on technology. After thousands of years of being one of the most powerful clans in the world, of having a bane so minor that many Lasombra wouldn't have even realised it was there (mirrors were too expensive for most people to have throughout most of human history), they're going to be crippled in a matter of decades.

Fifty years ago Lasombra could do a shit ton of things they can't do today. Pretending that attendants don't exist for a moment: they can't go above the ground floor of many CBD buildings any more, because in many buildings stairwells are kept as fire escapes and the main mode of going up and down is via lifts, and when they press a button nothing happens. At airports they have to deal with the hassle of not being able to be scanned. Their communications suffer because the phone was invented, and then the mobile phone, and then the smart phone, so they're playing Telephone using ghouls or sending physical messengers because they can't contact people themselves like the other clans can, and so can't transmit messages as quickly. They can't even walk through a fucking automatic door!

A few years ago I had severe gastritis and had to mourn my previous able bodiedness after having just got a diagnosis for ADHD and feeling on top of the world because it was getting treated. So the Lasombra watching themselves going from being such a powerful clan to losing the ability to do so many things they used to take for granted... that's something I relate to. Strongly. And it's such a shame that I don't see that loss and grieving explored in canon, like, at all.

And it's also a kind of poetic justice -- they're the social Darwinist clan. Social Darwinists never see social bonds as the real asset it is, only a weakness. And now the Lasombra are increasingly disabled, they're also increasingly forced to rely on others to do things that other clans take for granted.

Pokemon:

These pokemon are all pokemon who ended up being favourites in the various pokemon games I played. As in, they stayed in my main party of 6 pretty much permanently while I might have rotated others in and out. I don't actually have anything to say about any of these, so I'll just share the list!

5. Sylveon

4. Skarmory

3. Breloom

2. Trubbish

Umbreon

[dew-creek]

Hope you don't mind me asking ^^;

May you explain more of the concept of Kaoru being neurodivergent? I know it has something to do with his fixation on Cinderella, but I'm not too sure on the specifics, and is there anything else you have that supports the headcanon? I love m'boi Kaoru so I'm genuinely curious to find out more (love your art by the way hhhhhhhhh)

Thank you, anon!!

So, I wrote a whole post here (second half) explaining the in-universe specifics of the headcanon (like how Kaoru become so attached to it etc).

If you want the REASON the headcanon for me exists. Well. It's a very very long story but I'll shorten it to the important bits.

Basically, in episode 21 of the anime, Kaoru uses Cinderella as a metaphor for his fears about growing up (the carriage turning back into a pumpkin). I.... have very, very, very complicated feelings on this metaphor. If you follow my main, you know I'm absolutely not normal about this. BUT ANYWAYS we're not here to discuss the dreaded carriage allegory we're here to discuss the Cinderella aspect of it.

I figured it was really funny that Kaoru was soooo hellbent on comparing his own life to Cinderella. The fact he just, randomly brought up the carriage and shit without context and people around him were like ??? it was hilarious. Because of this - the amount of times he talks about it, seemingly hyperfixating on it - I made a joke he just really, really liked Cinderella and that's why he wants to compare every aspect of his life to the fairytale somehow. This snowballed into me saying he's autistic and his special interest is Cinderella since he seems so obsessed with it, and thus the headcanon was born... with how much we talk about it, me and my friends, and reference it + the carriage (and the fact we have cinderella movie nights every thursday now. dont ask.) we all have genuinely forgotten this is just a headcanon and not like. Actually canon. Like I have to remind myself oh Kaoru isn't REALLY autistic and his special interest is Cinderella. That is just something I made up.

But it's So Real in my heart. Kaoru is very autistic and yes the whole autism headcanon in general is because of the Cinderella thing. I don't really have any other points for why I see him as autistic he just strikes me as the type (I use my autism beam on him). You could also say tho that the fact he is unable to talk about his feelings directly and coats them in layers and layers of metaphors is also a very autistic trait. It just so happens he chose his special interest for it <3 I also think it's fun bc I see Hikaru as having ADHD so they're like, Autism ADHD solidarity.

[aminiatureworld]

Opposites

Characters: Xiao, gn!reader

Word Count: 1,594

Warnings: Swearing

Premise: In which the reader is the brain and Xiao is the brawn

Author’s Note: I wasn’t sure what the general setting should be so I put it in a vaguely college/university setting. Prolly cause that’s around my age and also because I cordially dislike highschool AUs. Hopefully that works out alright!

I had to type out almost 2,000 words on my iphone. I never want to do that again.

Xiao

Honestly none of your friends are actually sure how you two got together.

After all, if someone were to take a picture of you and your partner side-by-side then show it to people not in the know, well the prevailing emotion would be something along the lines of: “Are they classmates or neighbors or something?”

To be fair, when the two of your first met even the idea that you would ever end up in love was something laughable. Having been pushed together for a project, your knee-jerk reaction had been: Oh I’m totally going to end up doing this all by myself.

Thankfully however you’d been quickly proven wrong. Although Xiao hadn’t necessarily been the best about planning and other such things, his work was organized and he always showed up to every meeting with his parts completed.

By the end of the project you never wanted to work with another person on a group project again.

And, to be completely honest, you’d definitely developed a crush on your slightly aloof group partner.

Xiao’s reaction was much harder to read.

At first he appeared to want nothing to do with you. Work was emailed to you with not so much as a subject line; meetups passed in awkward silence broken by tentative questions on your part. You’d sort of assumed that he saw you as annoying and the group work as useless - which to be fair it sort of was useless.

So when he emailed you a few weeks later asking for your number and if you wanted to do something, well, safe to say you almost fell out of your chair.

Though the start was a little awkward, Xiao’s conversational nature didn’t develop much in general, you two fell into a routine of sorts, a relationship of unspoken boundaries and spontaneous confidences.

During the first few weeks of you odd sort of relationship you’d come to the conclusion that, though not a talker, Xiao was ultimately quite apathetic in nature. Eventually however you realized apathetic wasn’t the right term.

Though he might’ve appeared sullen on the outside, Xiao never actually acted in a way that hinted at any resentment or irritation; he never dragged his feet about something or implied it was stupid that you should ask for help or for a favor.

His assertiveness, which might’ve been mistaken for aloofness, was endearing. Xiao never half-asses anything, even when if wasn’t doing something for another person, like you.

You appreciated this side of his personality, the fact that he was quick to act, admired if even. It certainly stood in stark contrast to your tendency to overthink things, something that could quickly end up kneecapping you depending on what decisions were being debated.

It was an alien concept to you, the sort of philosophy Xiao seemed to live by, and its novelty was refreshing.

As your thoughts slid more and more to focusing on Xiao you became more and more aware of the rumors that abounded about him.

He was a troubled youth, he was prone to fighting, he had been so uncontrollable in secondary school that only one teacher had been able to get him to do anything. The only times he spoke was to wound, and he never had a word to say that wasn’t angry.

Well, obviously that wasn’t the truth, but any attempt to clear up the situation was quickly met with odd stares and responses that all smacked of: “Oh you poor idiot, you just haven’t learned yet.”

You would’ve liked to think that you didn’t let it affect your relationship with him, but evidently the rumors had begun to catch up to you.

“Hey, you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Have I?” You shifted awkwardly in your seat. Xiao sighed, evidently aware of where this was going.

“It’s because of what people say about me, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.”

“I see.”

That had been the beginning and the end of the conversation for quite some time, almost as if Xiao had yet to decide whether or not you were one of the few in whom he could entrust the truth. Yet despite the rumors and the odd looks you still found yourself gravitating towards Xiao, and soon enough that initial pull turned into something much deeper.

The day that you two became “official” was the day Xiao told you the truth. He had been a delinquent as a teenager.

Born into a family full of troubles Xiao shouldered the circumstances as best he could.

However things cannot stay untouched forever; the distress that Xiao experienced only grew, the pressure ratcheting up with every incident, every item thrown to the ground, every fight that ended in humiliating pain.

Eventually it became too much, and when it did Xiao took his anger out not on his family, not on the people who had failed him, but on any classmate who antagonized the vulnerable child.

Fights became a regular part of Xiao’s life until university, and it was only in meeting his mentor, Zhongli, that the lost young man had managed to pull his life together.

Things made more sense after that, though one couldn’t say that everything was right with the world. Students, coworkers, the particularly idiotic TA, all of them still carried the sense that Xiao was not to be trusted. You could see how it upset your partner sometimes, when he was ignored at the coffeeshop or excluded from class group chars in the like.

Whenever he did that Xiao tended to retreat into himself, as if worried he might explode again. It took a lot of coaxing to get him out of such situations but it was always worth it to see your partner’s expression soften, to see his small smile once more.

What you didn’t tell him was that you were just as angry as he was, just as resentful at the people within your major which were hellbent on acting like they were still in high school.

Eventually however the trials of your early were utterly forgotten, the questions and the secrets replaced by a sense of slightly hilarious domestic bliss.

You were definitely the brains of the group, something Xiao didn’t seem to mind - though he probably would find that actual statement somewhat silly.

Xiao, on the other hand, held the esteemed position of Person Who Actually Got Stuff Done. You relied on him to get you out of your mental spirals, to pull you out of your room and out of your brain fog and to get you to do something; even if it wasn’t the thing you were thinking about.

In return it was your job to make sure Xiao didn’t get himself killed doing something stupid.

Xiao’s reticence masked an almost supernatural recklessness. Though your partner didn’t own a motorbike, if he had you were completely convinced he’d ride one without a helmet. His almost total disinterest in his own safety was something that you brain shrunk from, and more often than not a crazy plan of his would end with you listing the terrible things that might happen if something were to go wrong, even if those things weren’t always the most realistic.

There was a storm in twenty minutes? It was the perfect time for a walk! There was cavern nearby with tunnels were so tight you had to walk single file? Sure why not!

He would talk about such things as if there was nothing to it, as if it didn’t send your heart rate spiking. There wasn’t the slightest acknowledgment of danger. Even his tone was as gruff as usual, as if it was the most natural thing to want to go mountain climbing, not interesting enough to get even a little excited about.

It was probably good he did martial arts. You didn’t even want to think about where all that energy would go otherwise.

Xiao’s straightforward nature came out in softer ways too, ways that you envied much more than his full-steam-ahead recklessness.

He was never afraid to state what was on his mind. Whether it was correcting a waiter who got his order wrong or telling a rude doormats to fuck off, all these things were natural to him.

To be honest you completely envied that aspect of him, unable go replicate such a mindset in yourself.

When you’d commented on it once Xiao had stared oddly at you. After a moment he told you that he figured it came from his background. Sometimes you had to learn how to say “no” or “that’s wrong” or “you’re a shitty person.”

Just as you tried to curb the most extreme parts of Xiao’s recklessness, so too did Xiao work to bring you out of the spirals your mind went down sometimes, and so did he try to coax you out of the overthinking that kept you from asserting yourself in your life.

Saying you two were complete opposites wouldn’t really be accurate. You shared similar views, similar passions, similar opinions on what mattered. Yet it was true that, in some ways, you complemented one another. And when it came to those traits in which you differed, well you would like to think that your differences just made you stronger as a couple.

Maybe your friends couldn’t understand how you two got together, or why you were so deeply in love with the person you’d chosen to be your partner. But you didn’t care.

You loved Xiao with all your soul, and, at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well I guess it’s time for a new one. My list of dream Taskmaster contestants, as of the day that season 14 was announced (so this list excludes everyone from up to season 14):

- Frankie Boyle - I hate to say this but he might be my number one pick. If I were told I could magically pick one person to ever play Taskmaster, it would be him or Sandi, and I hate to think I might pick Frankie Boyle over my absolute hero Sandi Toksvig. But... I might. I just want to see him do everything. There’s nothing in the world that I don’t want to see Frankie Boyle do. I’d watch, like, Big Brother if he were on it. I would like to apologize to everyone who’s ever believed in me.

- Sandi Toksvig - she is perfection personified. She has been my guiding light since I was in high school and first getting into The News Quiz, and I’m like 60% kidding when I use such grandiose terms. It was genuinely a big deal for a teenager in 2008 who had just worked out that she was gay to get to hear a lesbian on the radio be so fucking cool on one third of the Fridays out of every year.

But aside from that, Sandi would be perfect for Taskmaster. I feel like she’d get genuinely into the tasks and try to win, but would also be more than comfortable holding her own in the studio and messing with Greg. I think she’d beat everyone and be fucking hilarious doing it. A 4 foot 11 firecracker, I think she could do everything except the athletic tasks, but I’m picturing a Jo Brand-esque eschewing of those that would be very funny. She should be my unequivocal pick in the hypothetical scenario of only being able to choose one future Taskmaster contestant, but the truth is it would be close, and I truly apologize for that.

- Andy Zaltzman - super into stats, keeps track of everything, would approach all aspects of the game intelligently and pragmatically. You know how Tim Vine always had a wordplay-based quip in the studio? Andy Zaltzman would be that but funny.

He is a true expert at straddling that line between getting genuinely into something and keeping it at an ironic distance, and I would love to see him apply that to Taskmaster. I think he’d completely throw himself into every task, but would have the irony in his pocket as a way to deflect from anything that didn’t go well. He’d fit right into the format.

- Adam Hills - competitive as fuck. And it’s not just an affectation, it’s an underlying personality trait. You can see it in everything he does. He makes everything into a competition, even when the show he’s on doesn’t require it, even when it’s not the funniest option on his comedy show. Any time he does anything, he can’t help but bring it around to whether he’s doing that thing better than anyone else who’s trying to do it. He will put ridiculous amounts of effort into trying to win silly things. He will come up with a challenge on The Last Leg, and Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker will go along with it because they work on this comedy show and doing silly things like that is in their contracts, but Adam will try his hardest and then get mad if the others don’t do the same. They documented an entire trip around Australia that was just a story of Adam’s need to beat everyone at everything. I want to see him bring this to Taskmaster.

- Richard Ayoade - weirdly, when I first got into all this stuff a couple of years ago, I found it mildly annoying that he was on everyone’s list of dream Taskmaster contestants. At that time I mainly knew him from The IT Crowd, which I’ve always thought was a decent show but rather overrated, and anyway, he was just an actor on there. It’s not like we’re actually seeing him. I’d seen him do the occasional guest spot on other shows, and he was always funny, but not the funniest guy I’d ever seen, which many people seemed to think he was.

A couple of things have changed since then. I watched Was It Something I Said?, a panel show that first showed me how consistently funny Richard Ayoade could be. Much later, Question Team did something similar. But the biggest thing that changed was I watched Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. That was such a funny show on so many levels, on level after level, that it made me want to see anything that lets Richard Ayoade show off all his levels. And Taskmaster is nothing if not a celebration of the depth of comedians’ levels (I mean... it is a lot of things besides that, but that’s one of the things that it is). I would love to see how far Richard Ayoade’s detached persona can reach, and once we reach the end of that, I would love to see what’s underneath it.

[ryodai89]

Tumblr be confusing as fuck. Like, seriously. Majority of people here practically preach about ’minors dont interact’ and how we have to ‘keep the children safe’ and then write the craziest shit. I’m dumbfounded but it is what it is. Ya’ll scary af but to each their own. 

However, while I’m somewhat happy to see some sane people pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of this place and people, (Simping over a pedo) thats where my line is drawn. I don’t get it, it’s gross, but no one should be ’coming’ for anyone.

People wanna fuck a slasher? I’m here for it. An alien murderous clown that eats people? I’ll sign that slip and ride that train with you. People wanna fuck villains and write whatever and write controversial situations such as murder and rape and what have you I will stand by you no problem. Shipping child characters….. ehhhh depends on the story. Hell I personally don’t mind if teens read this shit because lets get real, we all started here when we were kids so the whole ’minors don’t interact’ just kills me honestly. You write what you wanna write. I got you. I’m even here for ‘some’ of The Black Phone stories that actually make sense given the content and don’t erase the horrors that were that movie… I will defend damn near anything except this weird ’forgetfulness’ that is an obvious trait of the character. And the obvious, which is pedophilia. I think thats just a line that gets waaay too murky for my liking. I think that particular subject is just a no-go. I think it’s hilarious that people get butt hurt when it’s brought up because they don’t want to feel bad or guilty for simping over someone like that. The hypocrisy is hilarious. But anything else other than that I’m here for it. Even if it’s not my cup o’ tea I will defend that shit.

However this is starting to turn into this crazy situation where now everyone is pointing out everything, every single thing, thats controversial. Everyone now is a white knight, as though I’m agreeing that everything should be a ’safe space’ and now its getting ridiculous. That was not the purpose of my previous comments.

I stand by what i said, some of ya’ll just fucked up. Some of ya’ll are absolute hypocrites, I don’t buy the whole ’it helps me cope’ bullshit and it’s both gross and hilarious. And I don’t get it at all. But that does not mean that I’m saying that anything even remotely dark or controversial is wrong. That doesn’t mean that anything and everything you don’t like is wrong. My only comments were on the whole pedo aspect, and people willfully erasing it for their own means, nothing else. I said some of the shit was concerning but never once said anything hateful. It isn’t necessary. I think pedo shit is going way to far when it comes to writing in fandoms. But everything else I think fucking go for it.

I do not understand the fics for the Grabber. Especially the readerxGrabber ones. I just don’t. Not just because the guy is a pedo and this site seems to be very ’but what about the children?!’ but you are taking literally a major aspect of the character and just erasing it like, c’mon ya’ll. I know ya’ll pissed he’s molesting kids. If he’d have JUST been killing them I maybe could have-might have jumped aboard that ship too but ya’ll are crazy to try deny the whole pedo thing. People are literally saying it’s not true. Like trying to tell me that he isn’t one. And I’m both laughing and confused. I atleast respect the people that admit its true but say ’for the sake of the story we won’t mention it’ but to the people that are defending the notion that he really isnt, ya’ll fucking nuts.

I’m a firm believer in if you don’t like something don’t read it. And you’ll never ever see me say or mention anything to anyone or send an ask or comment on someone’s story about how they ’shouldn’t write this or that or thats wrong or whatever’ or ’I don’t like this blah blah blah’. Or that’s ’triggering’ or what have you. I don’t understand people who do that. I also really really don’t understand stories where we change complete aspects of a character to bend to your whim just so we feel okay to write about it. But you do you. 

But pretending, willfully pretending or down right denying that this dude isn’t a pedo is ridiculous. He is. You may not like it but he is. You want to continue writing that shit then embrace it. Nothing necessarily wrong with writing ’certain’ shit but don’t go telling me this horse shit that he isn’t because we don’t see it. He is. And that’s perfectly fine for the basis of the film.

This shit has turned into such a white knight thing that while i completely stand by what i said previously (ya’ll make NO fucking sense writing for a fucking pedophile as though he isn’t one) I almost almost almost regret mentioning anything. Only because now it’s apparently turned into a ’you can’t like anything controversial’ situation and thats just not true at all. It’s turned into an excuse to attack people and that’s also not okay. It IS fiction. It IS gross, it is. Its disgusting. But coming for the writers like, I find the whole situation ridiculous but shitting on someone for writing something you don’t like is also just as ridiculous as some of the content. 

Ya’ll need to chill out. Seriously. Pedo shit is gross. Writing it is gross. Simping over a pedo makes no fucking sense but coming after writers is just as equally gross. It’s not just here it’s everywhere.  I don’t condone any of that shit so for the love of fuck please stop assuming that i do. Or that I’m on ’your side’. I enjoy fucked up shit. I do. Just not that particular kind of fucked up shit. I also enjoy having enough respect for people to not send hateful ass stuff because it makes you mad. Some of ya’ll should try it sometime. Try biting your tongue, you might find a new fetish you’ll enjoy…

[dragonsareourfuture]

Death Note as Stand-Up Comedians

Mello

- he’s allowed to complain about Near in front of an auditorium full of people as long as it’s in the form of a joke — of course he loves it.

- He has a lot of passion up on stage. The audience loves it because it makes them feel really immersed into the show.

- Mello has a tendency to get really loud when he gets really into a joke or bit, so the tech crew has gotten used to lowering the volume on his mic as the show progresses and he gets louder and louder.

- Mello has a harsh sense of humor, often using exaggerations and sarcasm to accentuate a point.

- He would tell stories from his time at Wammy’s house, mainly the chaos moments with Matt because the rest is pretty traumatizing for him.

- It’s his style that draws people in and his sense of humor that keeps them there. He has a very unique clothing style and, even when his managers suggested he dress down for the show as to not scare people away, he refused. He said that he would rather show who he is upfront and let the public decide whether or not to invest time in him than fake his personality for people he doesn’t know or give a shit about. They got the hint pretty quickly after that.

- He would sometimes do joined shows with Matt, which is quite interesting. Their dynamic works perfectly on stage and they even weave jokes that weren’t scripted into the show to keep each other on their toes.

Matt

- He’s a pretty chill guy, so I picture his sense of humor as pretty dry. Not in a bad way, of course. For instance, he tends to say the most hilarious things with a straight face and flat tone, which somehow makes the joke even funnier.

- He likes to involve the audience a lot, so gags where he (with permission) takes an audience member’s phone and reads their texts aloud are common. Somehow he can make jokes about the most mundane of text conversations and have the audience howling.

- Like I mentioned earlier, he and Mello’s contrasting senses of humor work for a perfect dynamic when performing, so shows where they’re together are the audience’s favorite. But even though Mello’s wild passion can take the spotlight at times, Matt is never overshadowed as they’re both sure to include the other in any bit or joke they do.

- For no reason at all I think Matt it great at imitations and impressions of different people. So, like when he’s doing a bit and speaking for someone else he can assign voices for everyone and the audience knows who he’s supposed to be speaking as in that moment. Usually these people are only known to him and Mello, so the audience can’t tell how exactly spot on he is. His impression of Near gets Mello wheezing, and his Mello impression gets the audience wheezing with Mello constantly claiming “I don’t sound like that, idiot!” With the audience shouting “YES YOU DO!”

L

- L’s sense of humor tends to require a specific taste, which is why he would probably be one of the least successful of the bunch.

- Don’t get me wrong, his sense of humor is adorable and one of the best aspects of Death Note in my opinion, but it comes in short and random bursts. He’d be talking about something serious and then crack a joke (“yEs tHat mUst Be dArK”), so it requires patience to really get to his sense of humor.

- The audience, I feel, wouldn’t have the patience to stick around and wait for his humor to surface.

- But L would have a cult following of a specific group of people that appreciate his talents.

- I’m picturing a show in which he starts off by talking about some cases, and transition to jokes from there. Due to his occupation, many jokes involve a darker sense of humor but also contain surprisingly innocent little remarks or comments. I can’t really explain it better, it makes sense in my head but I’m not too sure how to put it into words.

- Most of the show he keeps his straight face, but when he gets the audience going from something he said he can’t help but crack a little smile and chuckle into the mic pretty bashfully.

Near

- I’m sorry but Near doesn’t have too much of a sense of humor. But he does do or say some of the most hilarious shit on accident.

- It was actually Halle that convinced him to take up stand up comedy, as she got to spend tons of time just sitting and talking with him, cracking up at something Near said while he just stared at her in confusion.

- She had complete and total confidence that just plopping Near on stage and telling him to “just talk” would get the audience going, so she took him to a bar that did stand up comedy nights. Near absolutely killed it.

- Eventually he learns what the public finds funny through experimentation and tells those kinds of jokes more often, learning to perfect his craft. Through this method he is able to go from ‘accidentally funny’ to ‘intentionally hilarious’.

Light

- I wholeheartedly believe that Light has no sense of humor. Period.

- Sure, he’s accidentally funny sometimes but not enough to fake it ‘til he makes it like Near did.

- So he gets someone else to write his show for him. He’s just a pretty face, and the person who wrote his show is mentioned once or twice but who really cares about them? It’s Light who’s doing all the work, obviously. He’s the one getting sweaty up on stage.

- Honestly he barely has a sense of humor he’s probably just do it as a side thing for recognition or like most youtubers who write a book or start a podcast.

Matsuda

- Okay so, I definitely think that Matsuda would be one of the most successful stand up comedians out of all of them.

- He’s just so bubbly and kind and just genuinely a wonderful person so who could walk out of a show if his unsatisfied? No one. That’s who.

- My mans here has the opportunity to make so many self deprecating jokes due to how the task force treats him and how he’s just overall looked at as inferior to everyone he works with. And guess what? He doesn’t take that opportunity at all. He thinks self worth is the most important thing in the world and instead focuses his jokes around break room stories and observations of every day life.

- However if he ever does make a self deprecating joke, it’s never with any hatred towards himself. Like, he’ll joke about how his recklessness got him in trouble with Yotsuba, but instead of cursing the trait he has, he always expresses his hopes to get better and learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile the audience is dying at how he tells the story with so much energy and just— ...he’s wonderful.

- He just reminds me of John Mulaney when I picture a show of his.

- He’s pretty goofy by nature and you can tell that he’s enjoying himself up on stage, watching him laugh at his own jokes and beam at the audience with a smile so bright it could rival the spotlight shining down on him.

- He also really likes the attention, having been pushed to the side for so long.

- He’s just overall a really nice and positive guy while also being hilarious to listen to. 10/10.

Misa

- With her already existing music career and fashion career, people know her pretty well. Therefore, there is a HOARD of people waiting to see how she fairs at something so different from her previous career paths.

- And y’know what? Misa’s great at it.

- I’d like to imagine she’s out of her terrible relationship with Light in this au and realize how messed up he was, so I think she’d do a lot of clowning Light in her shows.

- She will kinda mix the comedy with valuable life lessons on relationships, so a lot of fans come up to her and thank her because they let their kids watch her shows and they’ve learned so much from her while being entertained for a good hour.

- Also her voice is so cute and pleasant to listen to I would gladly listen to her talk for a week let alone an hour.

- I imagine her style of show and humor to be along the lines of straight up ranting and just talking her heart out. You know that friend that can talk for hours but it’s okay because they make everything, even the most mundane things, sound dramatic and fun and lively? Yeah, that’s her.

[creepercraftguy]

My thoughts and feelings on the Danganronpa S Swimsuit Designs.

Recently the designs for everyone’s swimsuit sprites in Danganronpa S were leaked on a preorder website here: https://ebten.jp/spchun/p/7015021110403

There’s a lot I have to say about each of these designs, so I figured I’d make a decently long post ranking each of them.

These are all my opinions and my thoughts and feelings may be a little biased, but please hear me out and respect my opinions. Also, sorry for low quality images, since that was the most clear cut I could make them by zooming in on the sheets.

7/10:

It’s a fairly plain design, but honestly, I think that’s quite befitting of the first games plucky protagonist. One of Makoto’s main traits is that he’s nothing remotely that special, so his swimsuit shouldn’t really be anything major. I do like however, that it’s colours replicate the brighter aspects of his original design.

6/10:

Of all the characters in the game who could have been stuck with the speedo look, I’m glad it was Taka. Unfortunately, this also means that his design, other than the very befitting whistle around his neck, isn’t anything major.

8/10:

This is a really good look for Byakuya. It’s really fitting with his personality and status and he wears it well.

5/10:

Unfortunately, Mondo’s outfit is exactly what I expected it to be. It’s unfortunate because I was hoping the game would do more, given how extra his 10th anniversary do was, but I was left a little disappointed with this one. It’s not bad though and it does work with him.

6/10:

It’s a pretty plain and simple design with no real outstanding aspects, but it really fits Leon’s character and he does well with it.

7/10:

This is honestly hilarious, because this wasn’t what I expected from Hifumi. I was expecting him to have a shirt or something, but I’m glad he doesn’t because that can be considered fat-shaming in my eyes. The Pretty Pudgy Princess image on his shorts was, for whatever reason, NOT what I was expecting though, and I think it looks great.

8/10:

I’ve had my differences with Hiro, but I have to admit that this design really does suit him and his character. I really love the little alien pattern on his shorts.

10/10:

This has got to be my favourite design in the entire selection of these characters! The main reason is because it really suits Chihiro’s character. He’s sporting both some very boy-like shorts but also a very girl-like crop top. The design doesn’t prioritize masculinity or femininity, but instead creates a well done balance of the two. This was probably the best that they could have done for Chihiro and I’m so glad he got his justice in this game.

10/10:

I feel like Sayaka is so underappreciated and so berated that we fail to recognize just how beautiful she is. I mean LOOK at this! She’s so fucking gorgeous!

10/10:

Kyoko is among, if not the top of, the characters in this that can sport a really plain and slightly bare bones design, but look absolutely beautiful while doing it. The dark swimsuit clashing with her bright hair, and also not sporting anything too outstanding, just like her original design, makes her look absolutely ravishing.

10/10:

I know it seems like I’m just dishing out 10’s at this point, but the DR1 girls are just THAT amazing looking with their designs, and Hina in particular is really good. One of the things that I love about some of these swimsuit designs is the subversion of the colors that I’m used to the characters sporting. Hina for instance is usually associated with red or blue, but here she is wearing a deep yellow bikini and my god does she look amazing in it. Also, it’s hard to see, but she does have some slight abs, which is something I wish to see on most of these girls.

9/10:

We have to talk about these two at once because they kind of have the same swimsuit with just one difference, in that Toko wears the skirt, while Genocide Jill does not. This makes sense and it’s pretty clever in design, since Toko has usually always worn long dresses/skirts in her previous designs, to cover up the tally marks Jill engraved in her legs from her kills. Jill obviously wouldn’t care about that, so she feels no need to wear the skirt, and given that Jill is slightly more outgoing and sociable than Toko, she wouldn’t have as much of a problem showing off more skin. It really does make a lot of sense and the design itself is overall very solid.

6/10:

I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is bad, but this style and colour is not what I expected or would have liked to see on Sakura. She’s still pretty, but I just think there’s more potential here.

8/10:

In a sense, this is a very clever design of swimsuit, since it’s almost as if Celeste’s original dress was turned into a bikini, and it’s incredibly fitting as a result. Still, it’s not out of any expectation.

10/10:

This is probably the most ingenious design out of every swimsuit in this game, so hear me out. One of the things Junko is the most well known for in Danganronpa’s world is she always defies expectations, most of the time in ways that leave people dissatisfied or unhappy. What could be more dissatisfying to a regular hormonal teenager (which most of the DR cast are) on a summer trip than a busty beauty arriving to the beach wearing a cheap, one-piece school swimsuit with nothing remarkable about it. It’s so clever and such a smart move on the designers part that perfectly encapsulates Junko’s character.

9/10:

I love this swimsuit design, and I think Mukuro looks wonderful in it, but I still stand by my complaint that she deserves to be her own person in this game and not disguised as Junko.

5/10:

Monokuma looks less like a lifeguard in this design and more like a McDonald’s drive thru employee. Still, I didn’t expect Monokuma to get a swimsuit at all, and this does fit his character, so whatever.

9/10:

Like Makoto, this outfit is fairly simple. Unlike Makoto however, it doesn’t really replicate the coloration of the original design and instead provides Hajime with something more vibrant and original, and I think it looks pretty good on him.

10/10:

I just in general think this is a really solid look for Nagito. It’s a nice diversion from his original style, while also keeping some of the things that made his original design unique, namely the pattern on his hoodie is transitioned over, but in a new, quite dashing colour. I also like how he and Hajime have a contrasting blue/red dynamic with their designs.

7/10:

I mean, it obviously has to be the same as Byakuya’s design, but the colours of the hoodie are inverted. It makes sense, but I do believe the original Togami does it better in this case.

4/10:

Is this REALLY the best you could give Gundham? This is such a simple design for someone with Gundham’s personality, he deserves something far more impressive. Yeah, I get that Makoto has the same thing, shorts of a single colour with his symbol on it, but that makes sense for Makoto given that he’s naturally quite bare bones, whereas Gundham is much the opposite. Honestly, this is kind of a letdown.

8/10:

Can Kazuichi just naturally pull off any vibrant colour? First, in DR2, his outfit was a vibrant yellow, and then in DR3, he had a deep blue outfit. Now he’s sporting this Neon Green and it looks so good on him. Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks that this is a really good way of transitioning his original design while also adding some originality?

7/10:

I don’t think it’s anything great, but I like the rose patterns and the clash of the dark shirt with the bright shorts. Honestly, this is a pretty good outfit sporting Teruteru’s moniker.

6/10:

Again, I kind of expected Nekomaru to wear the speedo, and I like the fact that he kept the chain on, but overall, the outfit doesn’t have an awful lot of uniqueness.

8/10:

There’s really not an awful lot to this design, but I think white shorts and a gold chain are a real good look for Fuyuhiko. He doesn’t really need anything more than this to look super good on the beach.

7/10:

We did see this outfit in DR2, but it was a CG and not a sprite, and at least she’s not covered in blood this time. The colours and patterns are a little plain for Akane, but she still looks pretty good in this outfit.

10/10:

This swimsuit already has a CG and sprites in the original DR2, but now we get to see more of them. And just as well because this plain white swimming outfit looks wonderful on Chiaki. She’s just super adorable like this and I can’t ask for anything more.

10/10:

I have to give Sonia the score she deserves here. While I am surprised she isn’t showing off nearly as much leg skin as I thought she would, I have no complaints to this. The colour is a good colour alongside her hair and the swimsuit itself looks splendid on her.

9/10:

I never thought in a million years that Hiyoko would look good in green, but I’ve never been more happy to be wrong. I’m also glad, and I can’t speak for everyone here, that she’s wearing a two-piece and not a school swimsuit like Junko, because she deserves more than that.

10/10:

I’m so tempted to sing the Bryan Highland song but change the yellow in the lyrics to blue. Words cannot describe just how much I love this simple patterns design on my all time best girl. Mahiru looks absolutely angelic with this outfit, and I’ve basically fallen for her all over again.

8/10:

All things considered, I’m really satisfied with this outfit. We all know what Spike Chunsoft and DR’s writers like to do to Mikan, so I was very concerned that whatever swimsuit she got, it was going to turn out to be really skimpy and barely cover anything. I am glad that this is a lot more modest than I thought it would be, and I thank the creators for giving her something more normal. However, it is still a string piece that has a likely chance of coming undone, so I am expecting a few wardrobe malfunctions in the game. Other than that, my only other real complaint is that I kind of want more than just a plain white design. I think a deep purple or even a deep red would work very well on her as opposed to this.

10/10:

This is the design I expected for Ibuki, and it works really well for her, so while my expectations weren’t defied, this is still among the better designs out of the selection we have.

10/10:

We all need to take a minute to appreciate just how gorgeous Peko looks in a plain black two-piece, because this lady looks absolutely exquisite. Even the most simple designs can bring out the best in characters, and while we did see this in DR2, we never got the sprite we needed. She just looks great like this, that’s all I can say.

5/10:

Izuru has a different swimsuit to Hajime for some reason, but I guess it does make sense since a bright, vibrant swimsuit like the one Hajime has wouldn’t work with him. Hajime’s is still better in my book though.

5/10:

Usami and Monomi have always had the adult/child dynamic in their designs. For example, in the regular designs, Usami has a skirt while Monomi wears a diaper, and that dynamic carries over in these designs too, which I really appreciate. Still, the outfits themselves aren’t anything outstanding.

10/10:

Is it just me, or is Komaru ever so slightly chubby in this? It’s the first time Komaru’s midriff has ever been shown in a sprite, so it’s the first time we’ve ever seen her bare belly like this. It’s not a complaint, if anything, I’ve been wanting to see some chub on the girls. Regardless, this is another example of a plain design pulled off extraordinarily well, since the plain yellow outfit makes Komaru look delightful.

6/10:

About what I expected from Masaru. Like Nagito, I like how he carries patterns from his og design into this one, but he doesn’t really do it as well. His design is kind of basic.

8/10:

I like this transition. The outfit and hoodie has originality, but it still bases itself off Jataro’s original design and I like how they do it.

10/10:

She’s just way too cute! This design is just super adorable and Kotoko pulls it off wonderfully. She was honestly one who I expected to wear a one-piece, so showing off this much skin is surprising given her backstory. It really does fit her though, and I wouldn’t think of changing it.

5/10:

Honestly, there’s not much to this. The colour and pattern fits Nagisa, totally, but I do wish there was a little bit more than just whatever this is. Nagisa’s a much deeper character than this outfit gives him credit for.

8/10:

It’s a really simple design with nothing outstanding besides the skirt, but Monaca looks really cute wearing this, and I think that that alone is enough. Besides, Junko had a fairly basic design too, so Monaca having one isn’t out of the question.

3/10:

I’ve always believed, as much as I really don’t like him and wish he wasn’t in this game, that Kurokuma has always had one of the best designs out of all the Monokuma’s. But as much as I believe that, and as much as I love the addition of the water gun in this design, this is honestly kind of lazy. The gun and the glasses don’t count as part of the swimsuit, they’re just accessories. In summary, literally all they did was give him orange trunks.

1/10:

THIS however is somehow even worse, because this straight up is NOT a swimsuit! Shirokuma is literally just wearing a hat and a floatie. This is probably my least favourite of all the designs in this.

9/10:

I have to add here that I’m rather disappointed that based on the scans, it seems unlikely that Yuta and Taichi from UDG are getting in the game, since I believe they both deserve some spotlight that they’re now giving Hiroko. I also don’t consider myself to be attracting to older women, but I am forced to admit that like with Mikan, I did expect something worse with Hiroko’s swimsuit, and this was a pleasant subversion of my expectations because I think she looks great.

10/10:

Maybe I’m being a but biased with my scoring here, but had Shuichi not been wearing the hoodie, I would have been a bit disappointed. Also, am I the only one who thinks that this is a surprisingly good look for Shuichi given that the colours aren’t his typical dark, emo style? I never thought Shuichi could rock a white hoodie and dark blue shorts, but here I am being proved wrong.

6/10:

Honestly, I did expect this of Kaito’s outfit, and I am a little let down that this is it really. Sure, it does look good, as he has the space pattern that he usually has on the inside of his coat, but speaking of his coat, one thing that I was expecting was that he, like Shuichi or Nagito, would have a hoodie in his design that he hung loosely around his shoulders like he does in his original design. C’est la vie…

7/10:

He literally looks like a tiny sailor! Like they straight up ripped him out of a Popeye cartoon or something! It looks really funny for some reason.

9/10:

Call me crazy, but I actually seriously love the colour of Rantaro’s shorts. The pink/red rose colour is a wonderful clash with his avocado green hair, and while the design is kind of simple, Rantaro has never been known to have the most over the top appearance. He’s kind of just a casual guy, so he deserves a casual attire.

4/10:

Oh Gonta, there’s nothing wrong with your swimsuit, but is this really the most justice they could do you? It looks so…I dunno…plain?

5/10:

Where’s his white coat go? Like, I love the shorts pattern, but is this really it? This is all we get out our clown prince of lies? It’s not totally disappointing like Gundham’s was, and thank god he doesn’t have abs anymore, but even still, is this the best they could do for Kokichi?

10/10:

Fuck yes! Why put Kiyo in shorts like the rest of them when we could give him this extremely fitting wetsuit! Like, seriously, how come I didn’t think this was a good idea? This is quite literally the perfect direction you could have gone in for Kiyo especially.

9/10:

Fucking…Keebo oh my god…Why did I expect any differently?

9/10:

Kirumi, Kyoko and Peko have exactly the same reason for getting their scores, and Peko and Kyoko only slightly pull it off better. My only complaint I have with Kirumi sporting this is that she doesn’t appear to have the spider pattern that she had on her dress before, which was one of her most notable features in her original design. Maybe it is there and I just can’t see it due to low res, but I’m fairly sure that this is all you need to make Kirumi look damn sexy during summertime.

6/10:

I know for a fact that Himiko doesn’t like the ocean, so maybe there’s a reason her swimwear looks like this. I don’t hate it, but I think Himiko might look better in a one piece, and maybe I’d like a bit more context as to why it looks like this of all things.

10/10:

Maki is so attractive in this outfit. It’s the perfect shade of red, and it’s everything she deserves. Honestly, while a lot of these girls look stunning in colours that I’m not used to seeing them in, had Maki had anything else than this red, I think I would have been a little disappointed.

7/10:

Pink was not what I expected on Tenko. I was honestly expecting something similar to Ibuki, but with light blue and green instea of blue and pink, and I’m honestly a little upset we didn’t get that. On top of that, she’s showing an awful lot of skin, maybe even more than Mikan, since that swimsuit looks like it doesn’t fit her, which I didn’t expect from her.  Still, you won’t be hearing any major issues on my behalf, since I still like this design somewhat.

10/10:

Yes, yes, and more YES! I ADORE the yellow swimsuit with Tsumugi��s dark blue hair. I was expecting something plain and white like what Mikan got with Tsumugi, and I’m so glad we didn’t. Not even Team DR are willing to take their jokes that far. She looks so god damn sublime.

6/10:

I’m fairly sure that all they did for Angie’s appearance was take off her coat. I mean, she does kind of wear swimwear all the time, so I think that even though there’s no real uniqueness or originality to this one, it was the obvious direction to go in, so I have no real comment on it.

9/10:

Ok, this was a good one. I was really hoping that Miu in particular would fit her character to a tee, and if it didn’t I think I would have been rather let down. This is definitely satisfactory though, since leopard print absolutely works for her. Overall I think she looks superb.

10/10:

KAEDE PLEASE MARRY ME! She looks so fucking pulchritudinous! That’s not a word anyone knows, but that’s the extent of how enticing, foxy and sublime she looks! The sky blue is SO good on her, words can barely describe it! Kaede was one in particular who I set high expectations for, and I can gladly say that they were exceeded above and beyond!

[im-still-watching-anime]

warning: this post is just me ranting about the writing of the naruto women for far too long

i honestly feel that one of the most frustrating/vaguely hilarious aspects of naruto is how naruto ended up being - and bear with me here - the best example of the extremely specific female archtype that kishimoto seemed to be obsessed with. 

like when you focus on sakura and hinata - arguably the most important female characters in the show as the two male leads’ respective end game love interests - you can break them both down into the same general mold:

- both devoted to the same boy their entire lives

- both are shown chasing after their crush in order to stand on “equal” footing (i.e. sakura’s “i finally caught up to them” and hinata’s “no longer chasing but standing by your side” mentalities)

- both suffer and try to overcome feelings of inferiority in their respective character arcs

and i want to be clear that while female characters who fit this mold aren’t usually my favorite thing it can definitely still work when written carefully and written well -  to be blunt i personally think both hinata and sakura are awesome character concepts and both had SO MUCH potential and i love their fanon interpretations but i feel that canonically they were poorly written, underdeveloped, and flat characters

most of their canonical character motivations revolve around their love interests - which really sucks because i would have KILLED for a deeper look at everything involving hinata and the hyuuga or even more about sakura’s development of her medical ninjustsu so much got skipped when it came to them which definitely didn’t help anything - that aside this is especially true in og naruto though to be fair - sasuke was still in konoha in og naruto and team seven was together for most episodes which made it especially prevalent in sakura’s case

the point is by the time shippuden came around it was extremely obvious that efforts were being made to improve the female characters - sakura now had much higher combat ability from the start of shippuden and, though she gets much less focus hinata is repeatedly shown doing brave acts and pushing herself to become stronger. and while i really loved the effort and it was definitely an improvement from especially sakura’s original character - it still fell flat to me.

sakura’s fight with sasori was perfect and a great way to revive her character but then she was pretty stagnant in a lot of the following arcs - i.e. injured in the reunion arc, not very important during the two saviors arc, her weird fake love confession during the assembly of the five kage arc, etc. - she constantly bounces between “now i’m strong” and “i still don’t measure up” making her character development - especially pre-war - virtually nonexistent because every step forward gets followed by a step back.

hinata is a bit more difficult simply because she’s such a minor character for so much of shippuden which is insane since she’s literally the protagonist’s future wife. regardless, looking at hinata’s big moments: her fight with neji in og naruto, blocking naruto from pain in shippuden, and the Smack during the war (there’s a few i’m missing i’m sure but those are really what constitutes her biggest moments to me during the meat of shippuden’s actual development phase - not the post war resolution phase) two of three of these moments precede her getting very heavily and soundly beaten which personally irks me - even if i don’t particularly like it i can see why and it makes sense to me she didn’t win the fight with neji or her pain confrontation and it definitely shows that she is brave and emphasizes the all-important devotion to her love interest aspect of her character BUT it’s also a little obnoxious that we never get to see her be REALLY victorious in her major moments.

so to sum up so far: sakura and hinata are both meant to be perceived as innovative and strong female characters but this perception doesn’t work in sakura’s case because she immediately repeatedly reverts back to the damsel in distress archtype and it doesn’t work in hinata’s case because the few strong moments she has are highlighted by failure.

and also the all important point that the majority of their “strong moments” are driven by their love interests - not a bad motivation except for the fact that that is one of their ONLY motivations

to the main point i’m trying to make: lets compare naruto (obviously take this with the understanding that naruto has a MAJOR advantage of having way more screen time and development as the titular character)

in regards to sasuke, naruto:

- is extremely devoted

- repeatedly chases after sasuke to match-up with him and improve

- and, especially in og, struggles with feeling inferior to sasuke

the context is a little different and the motivation behind some of the points changes between the two but it’s the exact same mold as sakura and hinata

the major difference between the two and the main reason that so many more people get frustrated with sakura’s devotion to sasuke and not naruto’s really boils down to development

sakura barely had her own character outside of loving sasuke and when she did, it immediately got downplayed in some way - just look at the war arc and her triumphant “i finally caught up to them” right before both sasuke and naruto essentially gain godlike powers, she then spends the war constantly distracted by sasuke even when fighting “sasuke isn’t worried about me at all” which really downplays her role.

on the flip side, even with his main goal of bringing sasuke back to the village, naruto has tons of motivation and character building outside of sasuke - ex. becoming hokage, gaining everyone’s acceptance, fixing konoha, living up to his parents/jiraiya’s expectations, bringing peace, protecting everyone he can, freeing the tailed beasts, etc. etc. you could go on forever the show is named after him after all.

we are told that sakura always chooses sasuke and nothing else about it but then we are told that naruto chooses sasuke despite everything else.

to sum up: the traditional female love interest that kishimoto wants to invent is the woman who is devoted. she puts the person she loves above everything else because she loves him. she’d do anything for that person even if it puts her at risk, etc. but at the end of the day there’s still the tired trait of still relying on the man in her life for certain things. and he doesn’t bother to expand characters like sakura and hinata beyond that. (great examples of characters who are almost completely separate from this mold are tsunade and temari - though one might argue about the way they were written designed to fit specific tropes for comedic moments - personally i think they manage to dodge that for the most part though)

with naruto and sasuke - naruto manages to fulfill every roll sakura is meant to in a much more elaborated and better way all without the curse of the female love interest that sakura and hinata bear. it’s hard to accept sakura and hinata’s “i’ll love you no matter what” when naruto is already actively outright doing that with sasuke. the roots of sakura’s feelings for sasuke, hinata’s feelings for naruto, and naruto’s feelings for sasuke are all exceptionally similar to one another which is what shoots kishimoto’s main romances in the foot - because it’s hard for them to measure up to the main “platonic brotherly” relationship he built between sasuke and naruto.

this post is obviously disregarding a lot of the Other really deep parts of sasuke and naruto’s relationship and some important points about the other women of naruto. also it’s important to think on the time period naruto and naruto shippuden were written in. we’re in a major incline period for improvement in how women are presented in fiction - just look at the difference of women between og and shippuden. obviously it doesn’t completely excuse anything but it’s a point to consider.

sorry for the rant and sorry if this is all really obvious to you or if it’s worded poorly, kinda just needed to word vomit my thoughts. i really like analyzing how women are represented in fiction and how the representations have developed over the years. i wrote a few essays about it for some of my courses and now i think about it all the time. obviously i’m not claiming this is how everyone should view these characters or anything i just had lots of my own thoughts about the entire situation and dynamics that i had to put SOMEWHERE. if you have any thoughts about it or points you wanna bring up feel free to do so i love fiction analysis a lot so i love hearing other people’s opinions

[danhoemei]

How do you compare art?

I see so many amazing artists anxious, dissatisfied, or even hating on their art and skills, while comparing themselves to others and putting themselves below them. And it frustrates me so much.

Art can’t be easily measured and put in an order of which one is better and which is not. One obvious reason would be because everyone’s tastes are different. But another important one is that the appeal can come from so many diverse aspects which often can’t be even compared. For example you put together

a very complex art with elaborate details which you could stare at for a long time,

a minimalistic symbolic art which brings out the emotions you felt in a certain scene and your heart squeezes painfully every time,

a meme which makes you burst out laughing no matter which time you see it,

an adorable colored sketch which puts a smile on your face.

You love all these pieces for completely different reasons, but you love them all wholeheartedly. And they are so different.

You can sometimes scroll past a beautiful image with perfect anatomy and the coloring which could blow your mind, but somehow it looks a bit boring and repetitive to you, as if you’ve seen it many times? Then you see a simple sketch with bare minimum of shading and wiggly silhouettes which still perfectly show people with all their unique traits, and you go wild about it.

If you put two images together and chose a specific aspect to compare them, e.g. anatomy, then yeah it could make sense to compare them. But also if the images were supposed to be anatomy compliant. They not always are. Sometimes it's exactly the point not to make something perfect anatomically because it would lose the appeal. Sometimes the style requires it or even is characteristic because of these overstretched sketchy silhouettes. Or it serves the scene which should not be perfectly realistic. 

And there is no one who is amazing at everything. Someone who makes amazing people might have never touched the background. Someone who makes detailed backgrounds may not be good at faces. For someone their soft blurry backgrounds are perfect to convey what they want and anything more detailed would only take away the attention from the forefront. For someone else the hands are not important and they draw them as a suggestion of a shape. For someone their simple colors are just enough and even better than too much coloring and shading, or they don’t color at all. So take any two people and they would always find at least one thing that makes them “worse”.

There are so many things which make art amazing. Every style is unique. Some pieces are loved by the softness, some for beautiful backgrounds, some for realism, some for symbols, some for the wild lines of a sketch, some for the stories they tell even in the most simplistic way, some for being hilarious. And how do you measure that. How do you just make a simple ranking.

All these artists’ skills lie in different areas. Maybe they haven’t reached their whole potential or would like to try out something different, but that's also the point. If you stop seeing that you can improve - you stop improving. So this realisation is as much of a blessing (because you can keep on working on those imperfections) as it's a curse (because at the same time you can feel really down that these imperfections are still there or new keep appearing).

You may not be at your best ability right now, and you may see such a long road ahead of you that it feels as if you’re never gonna get there. At the time time you see so many incredible people around with their amazing art. But remember this - they all walked a long road to get where they are now, and they often still feel anxious or down just like you. Because we tend to look ahead of us and what we could have instead of sometimes taking a break to look back how much we’ve already progressed.

So it’s good to focus on what you would like to pursue, but don’t lose the sight of what you already have and what you actually aspire to. You may compare yourself, but do so in a healthy way. Looking for inspiration, references, knowledge, not the affirmation that you’re never gonna get there. We are much harder on ourselves than we are on others, so when you have awful thoughts think what you would say if it was someone else.

We are all unique and this uniqueness seeps into everything we touch and create. And it’s beautiful how diverse and vast the sea of interests and skills is, how much content you can find on the same subject or just the same character.

Honestly people, believe in yourselves a bit. You are so incredible with your rare skills and burning passions, and you use it to bring joy to yourselves and people around. Even if it’s just a handful. Even if they are not vocal about it. Even if it’s going to take a while before you manage to reach out to a broader audience. But be your own cheerleader, as you would be for someone else.

What you do is truly inspiring and beautiful. So do remember that when you doubt yourself again, and know that there are people that get, or will get, truly happy when you give something out into this world.

[kob131]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buv3TA7dvdE

You know, for someone who supposedly watched Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid-

How is it I caught onto that Ilulu isn’t a fucking loli just at first appearance? Me, where the closest I’ve come is playing Dragonmaids.

So the first section is just the speaker setting up how she wanted to like the anime but apparently she got less and less enthusastic as the show expanded beyond Kobayashi and Tohru.

... Red flag. In my personal experience, this tends to taint a person’s view of a work and causes them to seek out problems with the work in question even when it goes beyond what a normal person or even what they themselves would do in other circumstances. So right away- I’m pretty damn skeptical.

We further go into the video and the person states that are an artist and they know what they are talking about. ... Okay, first off- You’re talking about coding as if it isn’t your internal projections (we’ll get to THAT later) so no, you don’t. Second, I don’t know if the artist thing is suppose to be connected to the ‘know what you are talking’ part but considering by the same logic a writer would know an abusive relationship in media...and Twilight exists- That’s bullshit. And third- why should anyone trust someone they likely never have watched before?

Next we get into ‘Coding in Media’. Here we have the person giving a definiton from the wikipedia article. I’ll copy paste the highlighted stuff:

“- a reader may initially interpret a set of signifiers as a literal representation, but clues may indicate a transformation into a metaphorical or allegorical interpretation diachronically “

“- i.e. acknowledging that there is sometimes an ideological quality to the coding system, determining levels of social acceptability, reflecting current attitudes and beliefs. “

However, I would like to point something out- This is from the ‘Discussion’ tab. Not the general part which she shows but doesn’t focus on. Here’s the definition she gives:

“Coding is a term used in media to refer to when the author wants to convey an aspect of a character to the audience but does not want to or isn’t allowed to explictedly state what that is.”

Here’s the article’s definition with an added definition of semiotics.

“ In semiotics *{the study of sign processes (semiosis), which are any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the sign's interpreter} , a code is a set of conventions or sub-codes currently in use to communicate meaning.”

Here we start to see things crumble. Semiotics and by extension coding is inherently indirect. Meaning that there isn’t a defined or solid meaning. And what does that mean?

You can basically insert whatever the fuck you want into the ‘code’. Hell, you can even insert meaning into a code that DOES NOT EXIST.

The speaker does it herself in the coming examples.

Scar from Lion King is apparently ‘queer coded’ because he’s ‘effiminate and willowy’.

Jafar too since he wears ‘eyeliner’.

Ursula was ‘literally’ based off of a drag queen.

... Order-

Scar’s ‘effeminity’ is shown with him making a hand gesture...that is a sign of SARCASM. And his ‘willowiness’?

This is a normal feline body.

Jafar’s ‘eyeliner’? Common practice in Arab culture with men. (it’s called Kohl).

Ursula being based off a Drag Queen? Yeah...

“ Calling Divine (real name Harris Glenn Milstead) "the great actor from Baltimore", Musker revealed that one of The Little Mermaid's writers, Howard Ashman, knew Divine and had Rob Menkoff - one of the film's principal animators - to do "some drawings that were based on Divine".

"Even though it’s sort of disguised, it’s based on the character [of Divine]," he said."It just fit the character," agreed Clements. "She was outrageous, theatrical..." “

She’s based off a drag queen...because they happen to have the same personality. And thing is here, even if they are ‘queer coded’- Ressiannce Disney villains are made to be LIKEABLE and ENJOYABLE villains. Contrast this with say...Looney Toon caricatures. They’re meant to be mocked and disliked.

But going back to the Ursula thing- The speaker never actually proves how Ursula was based off a drag queen. She just says it with a picture. And considering that looking into it reveals the basis is a COMPLIMENT. This is relevant because either the person didn’t know this and shows they are just jumping to conclusions (considering what she is talking about- that’s NOT good) or she did know...and continued anyway. Says a lot when ‘shit research’ is the GOOD option.

But let’s strike at the heart. Why would these minor things (even drag queens are not inherently LGBT) be ‘queer coded’ on her eyes when the use of LGBT characteristics as negative are usually MUCH more blatant? Well it kind of has to do with how ‘coding’ works. See, how do you code something as complex as being LGBT? Well, we have a word for it already. A very well known word.

‘Stereotyping’

No really. The hand gesture Scar used is a stereotypical gay man gesture, gay men are stereotyped as being thinner, wearing makeup with men is stereotypically gay, drag queens are stereotyped as LGBT. The speaker is using stereotypes of LGBT people to determine of a character is ‘coded.’

Issue- Stereotyping assigns universal things to specific groups simply due to connotations, ignoring reality in the process. In reality, Scar’s gesture is one of sarcasm, condescension and sadism with his lithe figure being a connecting thread to the Hyenas, his mooks. In reality, Jafar is just an Arab man. In reality, drag queens are not inherently LGBT NOR is Ursula displaying any other traits associated with being LGBT.

If you wanna hear what I hear- replace every instance of ‘coding’ with ‘stereotyping.’

Also I find it hilarious that she goes on about how ‘not all coding is bad!’ when showing Steven Universe characters later on...as she ignores context with the Disney villains (and I suspect with Ilulu).

So she goes onto specifically ‘child coding’, using things like ‘small, naive ect.’ She also acknowledges that shorter women exist, using La Brava from MHA as an example, talking about how her figure is proportionally more like an adult than a child and how she fits into MHA’s style despite her face looking like a child’s apparently

Moving beyond the Kanna stuff (don’t care)- she talks about how Ilulu’s face looks like a child’s and how her height is proportional to Kana...similarly to how she mentioned La Brava. And talks her body? Non existent.

Why? Well, let me show you a full body picture of Ilulu without her loose shirt.

Here’s a picture of Kanna.

Notice something? 

Ilulu has a thinner waist, a more pronounced buttocks and wider hips.

All things that indicate a more mature body than Kanna.

‘But KOB! We can’t actually tell what Kanna’s body type is like!’

Okay, here’s the chapter 100 cover-

Kanna’s body is clearly different from Ilulu. In fact, Ilulu more resembles Tohru, an ADULT. 

And if you REALLY think Ilulu’s body type is out of the ordinary for dragon bodies in this manga-

No, no she really isn’t.

The speaker tries to say they ‘de-babified’ her in the anime with this image from the manga-

But you can tell from the way she’s drawn this isn’t normal and is likely a comedic moment.

And going back to coding- Ilulu has a job, something children CANNOT HAVE.

‘But she admitted that her face in the anime was more defined than Kanna’s, her eyes are still lower though!’

Yeah, here’s the thing-

Ilulu’s not an adult either. She’s a teenager. Of course she’s not the same as adults but she’s also not the same as a fucking CHILD.

‘B-but she admitted La Brava is also short but she’s still unquestionably an adult!”

And yet she ignores how Ilulu is, by the same metrics, not a child. She says Ilulu talks like a child. ... But doesn’t explain HOW with the season 2 trailer. In fact, her La Brava example can actually be seen as childish due to her high tone. Yes I can here the...inflections that are similar to Kanna but numerous anime have used it with non-prepubescent characters to denote immaturity.

And as the final nail in the coffin- Back in the coding section, she mentioned that authors do this because it might not be socially acceptable. Issue is, the manga has the adult Lucoa trying to seduce a child (which she never mentions or even alludes to which is surprising) so clearly, the author doesn’t feel uncomfortable with the idea so even the justification is bullshit.

All in all, this comes across as projecting her own interpretation of things onto the original work. Which DEEPLY pisses me off.

[sylver-drawer]

A prompt in class had made me realize something deep within me—my hate for physical books.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate books because they’re physical. I’d actually love it, but rather what I despise…

Is what is contained within those books.

Where I live, physical books you can only get when visiting libraries or book stores unless specially ordered online. Yet I am never satisfied with what is offered to me, simply because, I’m tired of it.

I am so absolutely tired of seeing the same exact things over and over again.

To give an example, my tastes aren’t that condensed nor diverse. I love thriller, I love Mystery, but what I find the most interest in, is Fantasy Romance.

And saying that should already tell you exactly what I’m talking about.

I am so tired of seeing the exact same tropes over and over again. This is a problem in all stories, physical or online, in general—however, it appears to me that published and physical books are almost always having these qualities. When searching online, I can always somehow find at least a handful of stories that is different from the others and gives at least a fraction of what I need. But in libraries? Book stores? I can’t do that, because they all follow the same pattern one way or another because those tropes are what people only ever seem to want, which is why a lot of authors who stray from those tropes aren’t as well known.

Frankly, I’m tired of everything being reused or rebranded.

I wouldn’t mind the wizards and demons, the werewolves and vampires, if ONLY they weren’t just there to be there.

Let me explain. Witches and Wizards tend to follow the same pattern. People who use magic, which is simple enough. But the problem is, is that it ends with just that. In most stories I come across, wizards are included in a very weak magic system in which they can use magic to do basically anything they want. Something fell and broke? Use magic to fix it. There’s a fire? Summon water to put it out.

It’s simple. But that repeated simplicity is what makes me tired.

There is never any depth. There is no expansion or lore that explains the nitty gritty details, nor makes it important. Magic in fantasy stories, is most commonly, cause and effect. Problem, and fix. Something bad, changed to good. Hurt, then to heal.

In fantasy, magic is simply one layer—magic people can use magic to do anything. There’s no limit, there’s no depth, there’s nothing that makes it unique. Magic in fantasy, all falls under the broad topic of just ‘magic’. Shooting fireballs, summoning a river, causing a storm to drive away your enemies, lightning bolts to fend them off—all can fall under just magic. Using this, it might be controversial to say, but Harry Potter is an extremely soft magic system. Wizards can cast magic through words, yes, but it’s exactly that. They can cast ‘magic’, and that magic is an umbrella term that essentially means, “With enough training, they can look up the words in a magic dictionary and use whatever magic they want to do anything they want”.

There is no depth. There is no extra layer, it’s simply ‘magic’.

And I’m not even done rambling. I haven’t even touched magical races in fantasy, which I’ll actually transition right into.

I am tired of race conflict in fantasy. Not because its bad, but because they’re more often than not, poorly written. Let’s take Twilight as an example.

Werewolves hate vampires. Vampires hate werewolves. Why? Because werewolves bad, and vampires bad. That’s literally it. No deeper meaning, no actual societal issues, just “ew, icky vampire/werewolf”. In fact, in twilight it doesn’t even appear they hate eachother. If Bella didn’t even exist, what would Edward and Jacob fight about? If you notice, they only use eachother’s race to appeal to Bella and put down the other rival. “Bella, you can’t love him because he’s a dirty vampire”, or, “Bella, you can’t love him because he’s a mangy wolf pup”. Setting aside the obvious racist undertones that’s never important nor addressed critically within the story, the only time dislike about the others’ race is talked about, is only ever addressed not because they hate that specific race, but as a petty remark to bad talk their love rival.

So, in theory, the two races aren’t even… against eachother. Thinking back, all the times it was vampire vs werewolf in twilight, it was all because of Bella wasn’t it. And not because of general dislike of the others’ race, but over a human girl…

I’ve trailed off from my original point, but basically, race vs race within fantasy plots aren’t actually because of the race. I think the only fantasy series I’ve seen that remotely does racial societal conflict well is Lord of the Rings. Elves hate dwarves because they’re greedy, crude, and brutish. Dwarves hate elves because they view them as selfish and always seemingly on their high horse. They stereotype one another, and when they look beyond those stereotypes is when they start bonding and actually forming friendships. They then realize that those stereotypes didn’t matter and were harmful.

That’s an example I would love to see more in fantasy in general. Make the magical races dislike and judge eachother because of their race, and then overcome it while addressing it. Don’t add in races that hate eachother when they’re all literally just the exact same. And also, make the races different! Even humans practice different cultures, and that’s what makes us diverse. In the LOTR franchise, racial bias and hate isn’t simply because, “they’re x race”. It’s because they stereotype people within that race, a stereotype that’s just an exaggerated version of qualities they all just happened to have. In Twilight, I’d argue that there isn’t anything that sets the werewolves and vampires apart other than their superhuman abilities. In LOTR, taking their races away the qualities the characters had were still eminent. Legolas was a bit proud and calm demeanor ed under pressure because he was naturally like that, as well as how he was raised as an elven prince. Gimley fights violently with an axe, and puts his whole body into his fighting style. His words also come off as rough and unfiltered, while Legolas’ voice is smoother and speech well spoken due to his background. The traits they found in eachother due to racial stereotypes still linger and remain. While yes, werewolves were heavily based off of indigenous people, there wasn’t any clear examples of them practicing it that was essential to the conflict and characters other than reminding the audience every once and a while. If Jacob were the only werewolf shown, the Jacob-Bella-Edward conflict could easily just be seen as two roleplaying white boys fighting over a girl. That’s how important their racial identities of vampire and werewolf mattered.

(And please!!! Remember lore. Generations and generations of racism impacts people who grew up with it. Some people change and break away from that stigma of unadultered hate, some can only partly break away even while educated with unconscious internal bias, and some continue to nurture themselves in it and even spread it. Not every person under one umbrella ends up the same, and that applies to characters too. Taking inspiration from real life, look at the time we live in now. Hundreds of years gone by, and while things are certainly better, the dark stains haven’t even gone away and most likely won’t even in the distant future. The past two years are proof of that.)

There’s no point in writing racial conflict in your story if there’s nothing that sets them apart from one another (I’m not saying people need a reason for real life racism because there are so many people who hate certain races just because they’re that race, but story wise, it’s easier to show what’s commonly hate due to stereotypes and stigma that people make for that race). It’s like the spider man pointing meme. How are you supposed to be antagonistic with someone who’s literally the same as you? “I guess you’re not like other spider men” coming from a spider man???

Prefacing, I’m not saying racism is good. I’m saying including race conflict for the sake of race conflict is very empty and purposeless, which is what I often find in fantasy or romance-fantasy. Racial conflict apparently doesn’t matter until the main character is directly involved, in which only then does it affect them that it’s brought up and only because it affects them. A similar example is including LGBTQ+ characters just for the sake of sexual diversity, in which—

That actually leads into my next topic.

Romance.

How many. How many published books must there be of romance that completely overrides the plot as well as the characters’ other relationships? How many stories must be made in which the fantasy aspect is completely pushed aside and no longer included in the plot because the story wants to entirely focus on the romance drama between the main character, love interest, and best friend? Or not even best friend, miscommunication in general!

How hard, is it to write a story where the couple is healthy, and love and don’t doubt eachother, who trust eachother entirely? Like really.

And! And!

The moment when romance is introduced, everything else doesn’t. seem. to. matter! At that point, it’s not even fantasy even more. It’s just a rom com, because watching the couple fight over nothing is hilarious because they’re in the middle of a war. And the other characters don’t seem to matter anymore either. I am so tired of plots being thrown away to focus on the drama between the two leads, and for once just want a fantasy boom of stories depicting healthy relationships with actually unique magic systems and logical well written conflicts.

And diversity! In Relationships! I am so tired of only ever seeing poorly written drama filled heterosexual relationships in romances. In fantasy romances. Give me my wlw wizards who explore their war torn world and have to defend the people they love with intricate, costly, magic systems.

Can we just have. A literary revolution, in which a rise of stories where characters can have relationships—non romantic relationships—with other characters. Can male and female characters finally love eachother to the ends of the world without romance. It’s so easy to write. Love is so easy to write between any gender or sex. So why does it seem to be there can only be one kind predominantly in media? In published media?

Occasionally I can find diverse stories like this on the internet, but never can I find these in libraries.

Like it’s. It’s so, so easy to write love and companionship between characters of diverse identities and cultures. Even in heterosexual fantasy romance stories, I want to be able to see relationships outside the romance being as strong as the main romance. Between the girls, between the boys, and those in between. Men can be in love with men, women in love with women, and men in love with women without needing to force their loves against eachother. A man and woman can be written to love eachother dearly without any romance ever between them, because that’s how it’s like in real life as well. So often do main characters in fantasy stories have some sort of dark past that rid them of any familial love, which in turn ruins them for the capacity of platonic love, which makes people believe the only way for them to find love is romantically. Even in children’s books, there’s always the princess abandoned or overly protected by her parents who eventually finds solace in the pressence of a dry, brooding knight or charming prince. They fall in love, and that’s the only thing that’s ever positively shown. The love between the main character and the love interest. Because to society, romance is seen as the strongest form of affection.

But, it isn’t.

People are different, and to a lot of people who do and don’t have romance in their lives, it doesn’t mean they can’t love anyone else. In society, the only love that seems to exist is romance. It’s the only thing people tend to promote, and yet, people forget what love is. It’s care, it’s worry. Love is painful and happy. It’s sometimes angry and frustrating, but sometimes its something you need. Love is stubborn, yet so easily broken. Love was never just romance, and it feels like the world forgets that.

It’s frustrating, because it feels like anything published at your local library follows the opposite pattern. Because it’s what people believe the public wants, and what the public will only ever accept. Sometimes, it’s all people only know how to write. Sometimes, its all editors and publishers will ever approve of. And sometimes, its all people ever look for. Because either they’re afraid, stigmatize and despise it, or just don’t care for it.

At some point, this had turned from a ramble about how physical books lack diversity, to how media in general lacks diversity.

I do believe that one day in the future, media will change. Literary media will change. But as of now? The majority of published and physical books haven’t diverted from that pattern, and most likely won’t for a long time. I know so many stories are beginning to change online now that the new generation has informed themselves and become interested in new ideas and topics, but as far as physical publication goes? The world won’t accept these changes, not for a long time.