#i didn't coin that

[always-is-always]

It's JINDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Woooooooooohoooooooo!! 💜💜💜

[gingerswagfreckles]

I just saw someone describe the phenomenon of all kinds of minority groups allying with people who want to kill them too as long as they also want to kill Jews and accepting all the bigotry that goes along with that even when it's directed towards them themselves as "intersectional antisemitism" and um yeah wow I think that is a really useful term.

[chaos0pikachu]

"so what is word of honor about"

chepie I don't fucking know, like legit I could not tell you what the Actual Plot as intended is something about a glazed donut that got the whole sword society in a tizzy b/c some dead dude a decade ago tweaked out from mercury poisoning and all his secrets were kept in the burn book locked away in elsa's frozen palace.

the bits that anyone actually cares about are two bottom-4-bottom retired villains, one an ex assassin with martial arts cancer and 8 nipples who wants to drink and die in peace, the other one of the most dramatic men you will ever meet who sprouts corny ass poetry and lines with negative shame cause why be ashamed baby we all die sometime and they become soulmates [censored] raise 3 kids together until one of their ex's comes back for a 2 episode sub plot like a mid-season love interest in a sitcom that got kicked off the show quick b/c everyone hated their ass and then the sword society shows back up b/c the prettiest assassin you will ever meet with the biggest daddy issues you will ever see didn't listen to his fucking lesbian girl gang and drop his broke ass daddy who never ONCE complimented his banging eye makeup and hair decided to Make Plot Shit Happen b/c it's like episode 34 and we gotta wrap! this! shit! up! and then someone sneezes so the show reenacts the scene where Mulan took out the Huns and then our bottom retired villain husbands get to ACTUALLY fucking retire and one of them gets a new sesshomaru wig and it's glorious

[nenoname]

Details in Stan's letter that still haunt me

(how long will I continue thinking about a two page letter that's technically not even that long because Stan's handwriting is fricking large? .....you don't need to worry about that.)

The bro code only shows up in the Lost Journal pages, and to me Stan's message feels like it purposely echoes Ford's "miss you" in the college photo (and for some reason the message doesn't appear in the website version of the photo?) ....or alternatively Stan simply noticed how distressed Ford was about this entire thing and wanted to support him in a way so he can be sappy but without the kids knowing, or both!

Stan's claim about the Oregon lottery contradicts what the Lost Legends website said about Tate McGucket's ability to predict the winning numbers!! ...but also breaking into the Lottery HQ is definitely a very Stan thing to do and it's not the first time small gags have been retconned

Despite spending most of his letter nonchalantly destroying him, the taunt about ripping a dollar bill in half is the only part where Stan is directly responding to Bill. Maybe it's the two of them having similar ways of thinking but it's rather specific considering Bill taunts the reader about it...

And after Bill spends an entire book calling Ford Sixer despite normally using a pretty wide range of nicknames for him, Stan then spends his letter mainly referring to Ford as Sixer, even though post-Weirdmageddon he tends to use a mix of nicknames. And it's not like he'd gotten to see Bill himself for long, let alone see him steal that childhood nickname (that is only used twice in the actual show btw!). Did Ford tell him what happened or...?

With all this and the website's "still on your mind" message, what I'm getting at is my tinfoil hat theory of Stan somehow seeing some of the pages the irl readers saw, even when it should be personalised to the specific reader, and he's been lying about it for some reason. Considering that the book flat out doesn't make an attempt at convincing Soos, I find it a stretch that whatever Bill was telling Stan via the book was an attempt to convince him either.

Wouldn't be the first time Stan's skimmed through a book and lied about what it meant to him.

(...Now I kinda wanna see a story about the family reading their versions of the book and making fun of it while Stan is improvising every single one of his pages and blatantly ignoring Bill's attempts to mock and taunt him)

But also I'm fascinated by the letters that only showed up on the website (aka the Soos+Wendy+McGucket+Pacifica ones). I'm assuming that Mabel had stuck them on after Stan's letter... but they were basically eaten by the book itself because seeing Stan's letter kick-started Bill's breakdown which takes up the rest of the book

[mayashesfly]

Suddenly thinking about an AU where Vox erased his memories about Alastor and how that might affect the show's timeline.

Though to be honest I just want to think about how Alastor is going to react and feel about waiting for Vox to eventually find out about his return...

Only to find out in the Overlord meeting that Vox completely forgot about him as he smiled at him and offered his hand with a practiced professional air.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Vox from Voxtek, the Leader of the Vees. Are you new around here?"

In this AU, Episode 2 changes drastically. There was never a "Stayed Gone" segment nor was Sir Pentious sent to the Hazbin Hotel to spy on them. Which means that a lot would've changed in this timeline since the First Redeemed would be mostly out of the picture.

And Vox not giving Alastor the time of day means that if Alastor launched his radio show again, he has to slowly win back his viewership instead of having free advertising in the shape of a tv-headed obsessed fool.

Honestly, with how Vox's obsession on Alastor gives him a reliable source of attention and entertainment, he would be rather upset that the TV Overlord wouldn't give him the time of day. Not only that but he completely forgot about him! New? What do you mean new? He has been an Overlord far longer than he had! He is The Radio Demon. And he dares to ask him if HE is new?

What the hell happened to Vox? Why doesn't he remember him? Is this the reason why Vox never gave him the attention he knew he would give him once he realized he returned? What was he supposed to do now?

His feelings are hurt. His ego was bruised.

Vox was never like this.

And he'll be damned if Vox stays that way.

[aeb-art]

here's a continuation of this comic. it ended up kinda long so the full thing is under the cut

yeah these two immediately forgot that there are other people in the room lmao

[lesbian-gnf-archive]

I'm catnip to the guys!

[deiaiko]

Team Agni's Halloween rumor

Masterlist

[salamispots]

mom while setting up mahjong: aren't you going to be uncomfortable sitting sideways like that in the chair?

me: do you not see me sitting like a little gargoyle in my computer chair

[kdelarenta]

may god bless the dinosaur that died to make the fossil fuel that was treated to become gasoline in the car that took @intimidatingpuffinstudios to the hospital to be born so that they could write one of my favorite IF dynamics of all time.

[imminent-danger-came]

Lady Bone Demon: "Do not lament your fate child, you can rest knowing you served your purpose—destiny has found you."

(2x10 This is the End!)

-

Lady Bone Demon: "A reminder: it seems you can not be trusted to willingly follow the path of destiny. But know this: If you betray me again—one misstep, one failure in any way—I will erase the very memory of you."

(3x04 The Winning Side)

-

Tang: "You're wrong. I know I'm not a strong as they are. I may still be searching for my purpose—but what I do know, is that doing it alone is not the path I'm destined to take. Deep in my heart, I know my place is alongside my friends."

(3x08 Benched)

-

Lady Bone Demon: "I sent you a task—you were to retrieve the Monkie King and his protégé, yet you refused the path of destiny and so there will be pain."

(3x08 Benched)

-

Tang: "STOP! It was me! I mean, yeah, Macaque forced me to do it and I am definitely starting to have second thoughts on the whole thing now but- I don't know how and I don't know why, I just felt like I had to. Like it was...destiny!" Lady Bone Demon Voice Over: "Destiny can not be undone Sun Wukong."

(3x10 The Samadhi Fire)

-

Lady Bone Demon: "No matter what you do, you cannot change the path of destiny." MK: "I don't know if this all happened because it was destined to, but I have to believe that I found the staff so I could use it for good." [...] "If you really believed that destiny can't be changed, you wouldn't be using every ounce of power you have to keep him contained!"

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

-

Lady Bone Demon: “Know this, monkey, you and I are not so different. We both fight for what we think is right—that pursuit only leads to one thing." MK: "Hmmhm. To destiny, right?" Lady Bone Demon: "No. To pain."  

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

-

MK: "I can't believe that worked!" Tang: "Eh, if that was destined to go wrong, then it would have!"

(4x03 The Great Tang Man)

-

Tang: "If your bonds of friendships our strong, then you will always find your way back to one another!"

(4x04 Pig Napped!)

-

Macaque: "Wukong was on a path of self-destruction, we all were. But when he met the monk, it set him on a different path." MK: "Ah! The path of the good guy! Making those good life choices?"

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

-

Purpose, Pain, and the Path of Destiny

[genericpuff]

The Kiss Bet Episode 172 - Hot Pot and Venting About How I Want My 70 Cents Back

Okay, look, this isn't a post I was expecting to make today but it's something that just happened and I have to fucking talk about, so let me preface this with some context.

I had to buy coins recently and because I switched to using my iPad for reading comics on, I got a "new reader" type deal from Webtoons for a coin bundle that got me like 100 coins for $5; because technically it was a 'new account' as Webtoons operates their in-game currency model on apps, not on actual emails (meaning if you use the app on an Android phone and then switch to an Apple iOS device, they're technically two separate accounts which you sync the reading data between via the account info linked via the email, therefore they have two separate coin wallets).

So with more coins than I knew what to do with, I decided to start FastPassing The Kiss Bet again, which I had recently stopped FP'ing around the S3 mark, as it's recently devolved back into the "will they won't they" trope, but instead of between Sara-Lin and Joe, it's between Sara-Lin and Joe's younger brother (the "true endgame") Oliver.

Now I don't mind the ship in essence. Joe was definitely not gonna be endgame, it was always gonna be Oliver, anyone who's read any amount of romance before - especially high school romances - knows how this shit tends to go, and The Kiss Bet isn't exactly trying to be groundbreaking or subversive in any way, it knows exactly what it's about and what it's trying to accomplish.

But it's almost become a little too good at this. Because in playing the "will they won't they" game for so long with a character that we know is endgame, it's basically been weeks and weeks and weeks of-

That said, after I caught up on the recent FP episodes, it seemed like stuff was finally moving a little bit. We were finally meeting Oliver's mom and his stepdad who he has a fractured relationship with, Joe was finally getting with his true endgame girl, Vicky (who's totally not an exact genderbent version of Joe lmao) and Sara-Lin was finally realizing she had feelings for Oliver.

And then the newest episode came out, Episode 172 - Hot Pot and Venting.

CAUTION: FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE KISS BET OFFICIALLY BEGIN HERE!

Already I was a little petty over the title like "lmao ok clunky title but whatever". I swept it off as not a genuine criticism, just me being a nitpicking asshole over what's essentially Fluff: The Comic.

The episode cost 7 coins, which is about roughly 70 cents, albeit closer to a dollar for Canadian readers (here's something they don't tell you about Canada - our Monopoly game currency is just as fucked as it looks) and that's where I'm gonna get into my second disclaimer that I need to be perfectly clear about (and it'll be what we get more into later on in this post).

I understand the principle of paying for art. I understand fully that many of these webtoons are being produced on tight deadlines by creators who often can only afford 1-2 assistants, if any at all. I understand and fully agree that creators deserve to be paid for their skills, time, and efforts, not just as creators working on the hellsite that is Webtoons, but as artists in general who deserve to make a living the same as anyone else. Anyone who follows my stuff here knows I'm an artist myself so I would never debate the ethical necessity of paying artists for their work.

However.

I can say that, and also agree with the people who have stated in discussion circles such as on /r/webtoons that a lot of the comics that have started charging 7 coins have been suspiciously delivering less comic since. And it's not even so much in the literal panel count, the liquid volume of these comics have remained the same, but the calorie count has dropped significantly. Food metaphors aside, what I mean is that despite many of these comics maintaining their 40-60 minimum panel count requirement, they have in fact reduced the actual amount of content that happens in them, and The Kiss Bet's newest episode is a stark example of what I mean.

I am going to start by posting only post three panels - three panels that literally sum up the entirety of Episode 172 and what it chooses to spend its time on.

That is it. That is literally all that's established in this episode. I'd tell you to go read it yourself, but honestly, this is genuinely one of those rare times I can honestly say that a 40+ panel episode is not worth 70 cents and you'd be better off, and that's saying a LOT when these episodes are only priced at the cost of a gumball. At least Lore Olympus has entertainment in how bad it is most of the time, Episode 172 of The Kiss Bet is just nothing. You will literally get more substance and flavor from an actual gumball.

Literally every other panel in this episode is either repeating the same dialogue (Sara-Lin saying the same thing multiple different times to express how Oliver is holding her hand or how his stepdad is a dick) and then Sara-Lin and Oliver staring at each other. Over. And over. Again.

I am not joking. I did not cut anything out in that sequence. That is where the episode ends. Complete nothingburger, seemingly cut off right as it was just getting started like Cait Corrain's career.

Out of the entire episode, there were 45 panels. So I can safely assume Ingrid's minimum panel requirement is at least 40 per episode, that's me assuming the best that she didn't exactly meet her panel minimum at 45 panels on the dot.

Out of those 45 panels, there were:

Two actual unique backgrounds that weren't gradients or just a single piece of furniture

4 separate panels of Sara-Lin freaking out over Oliver holding her hand and wondering if he even noticed

10 panels of Sara-Lin staring at Oliver either dumbfounded or asking him to repeat himself (or apologizing over nothing)

5 panels of the characters saying nothing

11 panels of Sara-Lin repeating information in different ways that could have been accomplished in half that time

Two separate occasions of Oliver getting Sara's attention from off-panel, literally formatted the exact same way both times (and both followed by reaction panels of Sara-Lin staring at him dumbfounded)

Way too many panels of Sara-Lin blushing in response to Oliver being an asshole tbh like literally this guy's a douchebag, Joe may have been the "out of her league" love interest but at least he was nice and didn't treat Sara-Lin like someone who just bought a Husky as a "starter pet" ???

Again, I don't usually like being a dick about the coin costs, and I definitely don't like being a hypocrite in telling people they should pay artists for their work while simultaneously posting their paywalled content like this, but I think there does come a point where it feels more irresponsible for people to not be aware of what they're about to pay for and how little they're going to be getting. This episode is literally one of the best - and worst - examples of how far the romance genre has fallen on the platform - when it's not being overtaken and oversaturated by problematic series that romanticize abuse and sexual assault, it's being dragged to death with the most boring executions of tropes that everyone has seen before and is only exciting for anyone who's never read a book or watched a romance movie, period.

And here's the thing where I do approach a bit more "hot take" territory, but every time I see this argument come up about episodes not being worth the coin cost, I see others who rightfully argue that 70 cents isn't that much to pay for what you're getting - weekly episodes of work that are usually always delivered on time, with more panels than you would ever typically see in a free to read comic.

But here's where I take issue with that argument, as much as the principle of it is sound, it misses the overall point: readers are paying for entertainment first and foremost, so can anyone who's actually paying for regular refills on their app currency step away from this and truly call it "entertainment"? Nothing was gained. The comic had 45 panels to say something, anything, and managed to not even squeak out so much of a word. Even the silent moments have no substance, they just reiterate information that we already know.

Do we really need another panel of Sara-Lin blushing at Oliver? We've known for weeks now that she has a crush on him. Do we really need another panel of Oliver getting Sara-Lin's attention? What is this actually showing of their chemistry? What is being shown here that hasn't been shown numerous times - with and without dialogue - for weeks now? What does the comic have to show for itself after four seasons?

Another point of the "it's just 70 cents, don't be an asshole" argument that people seem to miss is it's not 70 cents. It's $1. Because if you want to buy a single episode of the Kiss Bet, you can't just pay for the individual episode in isolation, you have to pay for the coins first, and $1 is the absolute bare minimum you have to pay to get 10 coins, which will only pay for one episode of a 7 coin series - of which there are many now, basically any series that's 40 panels or more will cost 7 coins and, shocker, those are the series that WT will tend to promote most, you'll rarely see the 5 coins series in the banner ads, and that's not even getting into how there are more and more series cropping up that have 5+ episodes behind FP rather than the traditional three.

So if you're someone who's (almost definitely) keeping up with more than one series? You can't just pay the $1, you have to pay at least $5 for 50 coins, and that will NOT go far anymore or cut as evenly as it used to when just about every series is now 7 coins. Webtoons knows fully well what kind of game they're playing by making the new coin cost an uneven number while still offering increments of 5/10 in their coin bundles. They undoubtedly want you to be left with an uneven number so that you'll be easily lured into buying more coins so you don't 'waste' the uneven amount you have left that isn't enough to buy the episodes for the series you want to read. Obviously this is more speculation and not fact, but it's a common business model and with the series that have adopted the 7 coin count model (rather than starting off with 7 coins outright) such as The Kiss Bet and Lore Olympus, it's becoming abundantly clear that either the creators or the platform itself is encouraging these series to meet their panel minimums with as little content as possible in order to get more money out of readers who are barely even being drip fed actual entertainment and narrative progression, let alone spoon fed.

And then there's the waiting. The goddamn waiting. So many of these series guilty of siphoning their content off through a hose that they're deliberately standing on are designed intentionally with the most egregious cliffhangers in mind to keep their audience hooked so they'll undoubtedly FP next week. Do you know what that amount of waiting does to a comic? To its readers? First off, it artificially extends the actual pacing of the comic to make it feel longer than it is, when in reality, many of these plotlines are happening in a vacuum of very short bursts of time. Case in point, Lore Olympus is commonly confused for having a plotline that takes place over the course of months, when actually when laid end to end in order of cause and effect, many of its subplots - including the romance of Hades and Persephone - takes place over the course of days. This over-inflates the plotline's actual depth and, even worse so, it makes it harder for readers to keep up with information that's being delivered, as it often takes weeks for that information to actually go anywhere - so by the time it does, many readers have straight up forgotten about it.

It's absolutely not okay that so many of these kinds of series are normalizing literal slow burning for an audience who's paying to be entertained. It's not a "slow burn". It's just slow, and deliberately so. It's absolutely NOT FUN to follow a comic that does not go anywhere week after week. It's frustrating. And before long, it starts to feel like gambler's fallacy, where readers have to essentially gaslight themselves into paying into it more and more convinced that it has to pay off eventually, based on a promise that was never actually made, only assumed in good faith. And readers should not have to fill in the bulk of the content that isn't happening with their own imaginations, which is something that happens a LOT in these series that spend so much time on the characters just staring at each other and saying nothing. It's not 'plot' to just draw characters blushing and have your audience fill in the rest of it entirely on their own. This is certainly a technique in writing, but in the case of The Kiss Bet and other comics like it, it's much less of a valid technique and more just flat out manipulating your audience into falling so hard into the sunk cost fallacy trap that they don't notice they're being robbed blind by the plot that hasn't actually happened - and they've been paying for that financial and emotional robbery out of their own pockets and brains every step of the way.

Again, I do not care about the coin cost in and of itself, seventy cents IS still an incredibly cheap price for weekly updates of a series that has to put out so many panels each week. But as a reader and a customer, I should not be leaving these updates with less information than what I started with. And I'm someone who's incredibly old school by webcomic standards, there are comics that I follow that have updated 1-2 pages a week for over a decade that manage to do more with their limited pages than Lore Olympus and The Kiss Bet manage to do after entire hiatuses filled with pre-production time.

Why does this page of Alfie manage to move both the intrinsic plot of the titular character as well as the external plot that's going on around her in one page made up of 5 panels better than what The Kiss Bet can do in 45?

Why does this page of Tamberlane manage to convey more information about the world's lore and the people in it in a way that's emotionally driven and clearly affecting the characters without outright info-dumping than what Lore Olympus has managed to spit out onto its plate since S3 started over a year ago?

How does Tales from Alderwood manage to be more entertaining and convey more meaningful storytelling through its characters in a single page consisting of zero dialogue than what The Kiss Bet can convey in its silent panels of staring, blushing, and repetitive stuttering?

Why are the creators who are relying entirely on their own efforts, resources, and ability to generate income through community interaction and support putting out better work with less panels and on slower schedules for FREE than what we're seeing from professional creators on a professional publishing platform who are being paid to do this as their job?

There's this saying in the tattooing industry: good work isn't cheap and cheap work isn't good.

At this point, 70 cents is not a 'bargain' as many people like to argue in defense of the creators. And while I do want to have good faith in the creators who don't pull this shit, the creators who clearly go above and beyond to do what they do in the pursuit of storytelling and polishing their craft to be the best piece of work that it can be - the comics that are worth paying 70 cents and beyond for - are not the comics that Webtoons is promoting to people. The creators of the works that genuinely deserve more than 70 cents per update are being left to fend for themselves without support from the platform, while those that aren't worth the price of even a flavorless gumball are consistently winning the Wonka Golden Ticket lottery.

The cost of 70 cents is relative. For some works it's a genuine bargain. For others like the The Kiss Bet and Lore Olympus, 70 cents is not a "bargain", it's not a "good deal", it's exactly the value of what you're paying for - cheap work that isn't good.

[guardian-angle22]

I love the moment in 2x08 when TK, in the midst of being held at gunpoint and kidnapped, reached into his pocket and pulled out his sobriety chip and dropped it on the ground.

It was so smart to do, but it also shows how much trust and faith he has in Carlos (and his dad, the 126, etc.) because a random person stumbling across that chip wouldn't think twice about it. The coin isn't custom made with his name on it - anybody could have accidentally dropped one in a parking garage. But Carlos knows as soon as he sees it that it's TK's and what it means.

and TK dropped it because he knew Carlos and his family would be looking for him. TK knew that once he was late enough and didn't check in, it would be Carlos who would go searching for him.

[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[ellystral]

I just watched The Wild Robot movie...

Couldn't cry but my heart feels like this:

The soundtrack was beautiful too and I love Roz's voice so much.

[russianyoshkinaneko]

The Hitcher (1986)