#i genuinely dont want to be mean about people not engaging with a story in the same way as me. but i swear some people are simply not

[jewfrogs]

it’s wild to me that people act like the bad kids were baselessly paranoid and rude to the rat grinders as if kipperlilly wasn’t weird and hostile in her introduction. and as if the girl who had a baseless one-sided grudge against them before she was infected with preternatural rage was gonna go ‘nevermind’ and give up her evil plot if the bad kids were perfectly niceys. Okay

[ourhouseishaunted]

people acting as if laios can Do No Wrong and infantilizing him because he is autistic are annoying as hell. especially because laios belongs to my favorite genre of character: "person who desperately wants friends and deep relationships because they're lonely, and while part of their problems stem from people not wanting to understand them and refusing to meet them where they are, they also genuinely come across in a way where you Completely Understand why others can get turned off from them"

[hauntingofhouses]

i think im gonna take a break from my fic to write my original work instead

[lakesbian]

i have had like 10 friends rec worm to me but nobody’s given me a good like, gist of its vibe and what its abt because ‘its best blind’, could u please give a like brief summary and vibe check of it 😭 it’s so long i dont wanna try and invest that much time without knowing much abt it

so, worm is a 1.7 million word long webserial written in 2010. 1.7 million words seems like a lot, but it was also written over a relatively short period of time, which means the writing style is very easy to parse--the ideas aren't without complexity, but the language itself isn't intimidatingly dense. you can get through it at a very decent pace. i agree with your friends that there are vast portions of worm that hit best when you're unspoiled, but the thing is that worm is long enough that giving you the basic plot pitch is in no way spoilers for any of the things that i wouldn't want to see spoiled for someone. i'm actually kind of baffled they're not telling you Any Thing, because it is in my estimation one of the best books i've ever read, but it also Needs a briefing before you get into it for like five different reasons. which i will now provide. i swear to god this is brief by my standards it's just that i am very thorough

worm is a story about superheroes and supervillains, set in a world where superpowers are traumagenic--rather than appearing randomly or innately, some people gain powers after a traumatizing event happens to them. the protagonist is taylor hebert, a 15yo girl who has the power to control insects and desperately wants to be a superhero. and then accidentally finds herself scouted by a team of teenage villains instead. who's to say how she's going to react to all that!

one of the most compelling things about worm is that the superpowers in it serve as visceral, hyper-literal metaphors for the trauma and traumatized coping mechanisms of the characters with those powers. each power is incredibly specific and thematically relevant to the person who has it, and it's incredibly interesting and evocative. it feels so natural and well-done that it comes off like how superpowers are just meant to be written.

the fact that superpowers stem from trauma also means that worm is fundamentally a narrative about trauma. specifically, about traumatized teenagers and the relationships they form as they cling together while struggling through growing up traumatized & mutually coping with an increasingly intriguing, intense, and far-reaching escalating plot. worm's depictions of trauma + mental illness--including unpalatable trauma responses, including traumatized characters who are allowed to be complicated and nuanced and messy while still receiving narrative respect--are deeply real-feeling and impactful, and they're placed in the context of a well-spun + engaging story.

i really do have to stress how excellent the character writing is. worm is fully deserving of being as long as it is. over the course of 1.7 million words of character development, the average reader's reaction to the main characters goes from "sorta interesting" to "okay, i want to see where this goes" to "augh...really likable" to "i am now on hands and knees crying and these characters are going to stick around in my brain forever." wildbow has incredible talent for efficiently conveying complicated, real-feeling, and viscerally evocative characterization. many of the interlude chapters (chapters written from the perspective of different characters other than taylor) are so interesting, fleshed-out, and emotionally affecting that they make you wish you could read an entire novel about just the side character being featured. with that level of characterization for just the side cast, it's not surprising that taylor (& co) are genuinely just downright iconic. and i do not say that lightly--taylor is truly one of the best-written protagonists i've seen in anything. ever.

the other main pitch-point for worm is that it's a fascinating deconstruction/reconstruction/examination of the conceits of the superhero genre. it answers the question of--what would the world have to be like, for people with superpowers to act the way they do in classic cape media? and it does this well enough that it's interesting even if you have only a passing familiarity with cape media. i am not a big superhero media fan, but worm addresses virtually every aspect of cape media that was under the sun around 2010 in a way that's so interesting i still find it incredibly engaging. the approach it takes makes the narrative very accessible even to people who aren't usually cape media fans.

and speaking of the narrative: the end of the story is coherent and satisfying and deeply thematically resonant*. the way worm follows through on all of its main mysteries & plot threads is excellent. you don't have to worry about getting thru 1.7 million words and being dissatisfied by the author shitting the bed at the end, or anything like that. he does an amazing job of weaving together plot events in a way that makes each successive one feel rationally, thematically, and emotionally connected to what came before. there's really only one part where i feel the story stumbles a bit, but i think it was the best option he had for the narrative, and it's by no means a dealbreaker. it's in fact really impressive how cohesive and satisfying worm is for such a long webserial released over such a brief period of time.

*this is subjective ive seen some people who didnt love it but ive never seen anyone who downright Hated it who didnt also demonstrate egregious misunderstanding of literally everything worm is about. so thats a good sign

as for the downsides of worm/things that might put you off:

there is a very long list of trigger warnings for it. if you have any trigger warnings you want you should ask your friends to let you know about the relevant parts, because the fact that it's About Trauma (& about typical cape media circumstances presented very seriously) means that traumatic and violent things & their realistic aftermath are constantly happening and/or being discussed. i would not classify worm as needlessly dark or spiteful to the audience by any means, but it is intense and covers a lot of heavy topics. i do assume if your friends are all recommending it to you, they think none of the material would be too much for you, though!

worm was written in 2010 by a white cishet guy from canada. it's typical levels of 2010-era bigoted, it has a deeply lesbophobic stereotype character, it has some atrociously racist stereotype characters, the author really hates addicts, It's Got Blind Spots. i think worm is generally fully worth reading despite these, but very fair warning that it can get bad. i think what exacerbates this is that worm is generally extremely nuanced & sympathetic regarding ideas such as "crime is a result of systematic circumstance vs people just being inherently evil" and "mentally ill people who are traumatized in unpalatable ways are still deserving of fundamental respect as human beings" and so on and so forth, so it's extra noticeable and insufferable when you get to a topic the author has unexamined biases on and all that nuance drops out. the worst part is that a lot of this is most concentrated in the early arcs, so you have to get through them without being super attached to any of the characters yet. it is worth it though.

worm like. Does have a central straight relationship in it. and it's a very well written straight relationship for the most part and i like it quite a lot. but worm also passes the bechdel test with such flying colors that it enters 'unintentionally homoerotic' territory. which means a lot of people were shipping the main character ms taylor hebert with her female friends while the story was being released. which caused the author to get so mad he 1. posted a word of god to a forum loudly insisting that all of the girls are straight and 2. inserted a few deeply awkward and obvious and out of character scenes where he finds an excuse for the girls to more or less turn to the camera and go "i'm not gay, btw. this is platonic." This is fucking insufferable, and will piss you off immensely, but then you will get to any of the number of deeply emotionally affecting scenes between them, and at that point you will be too busy sniffling piteously and perhaps crytyping an analysis post on tumblr to be mad about all that other shit. also they're only a couple tiny portions out of an entire overall fantastic novel

overall: if those points don't sound like dealbreakers (i hope they aren't they're really massively outstripped by the amount of devastatingly good moments in worm, worm still has a thriving fandom over a decade later for a reason), you should absolutely give it a shot and see what you think. my final note is that you have to read up until the end of arc 8 to really see where what makes worm Worm kicks in, so aim for at least there to see how you feel about it if you're just thinking about dipping your toes in vs fully committing. i hope that was helpful and not too long :)

oh and don't go in the comments section on wordpress if you don't want spoilers. or anywhere else in the fandom at all. you will be spoiled. quite possibly for things you could not even have imagined were topics to be spoiled on.

[dr-spectre]

if team past wins im gonna be so sad bc it's the most boring outcome idk

If Team Past wins I'm actually gonna be upset. Idc if this seems so unsportsmanlike but I don't want them to win dude.

At best we'll get a game with a past like aesthetic and have boring wooden and bamboo weapons or some shit.

At worst we'll get a Great Turf War game and I genuinely don't want that. I would fucking hate that so much. That would mean no Squid Sisters, Off the Hook and Deep Cut for over 5 years.

If it's DLC for a Splatoon 4 that involves time travel or a spin off then fine. That's okay. But the main focus of a multiplayer mainline Splatoon game? No. Fuck no.

Setting the next mainline game in the past would be an awful idea for nurmous reasons.

1. You would have to cut down the weapon roaster for lore reasons. If you introduced new weapon types and variants it would create a lot of weird questions and holes in the world building.

2. The story and world millions of fans have grown to love would go on hold for at a minimum of 5 years or longer. Which WILL impact the engagement of the game. There is a huge subset of the fanbase that loves the Idols and characters and not seeing them for a long time would cause a LOT of people to leave the fanbase.

3. The themes that the story could go for, would be a repeat of Splatoon 1 as it would focus on the conflict on the Inklings and Octarians. You know, THE FUCKING CONFLICT THAT GOT FINALLY RESOLVED IN SPLATOON 3!!!!!!!! YOU WANT TO UNDO ALL THAT?!?!?!?!! FOR WHAT?!?!?! FUCKING LOVERS TO ENEMIES TOXIC TWINK YAOI OF CUTTLEFISH AND OCTAVIO?!?!?! REALLY?!?!?!

If Team Present wins, we'll just stay the same which is okay. I dont really give a shit. Maybe it'll have a stronger urban focus? I don't know.

If Team Future wins, we might get cool Sci-Fi weapons, locations and it would be such a shake up for the Splatoon we have currently.

Although there is a risk that it would take place a long time after Splatoon 3 and if I see Callie and Marie as old ladies I will leave the Splatoon community. I'm not joking about that btw, I would be incredibly heartbroken.

Also btw, Team Past, can you fucking calm down? Why are you guys so sweaty?! Like... JESUS CHRIST YOU REALLYYYYY WANT that twink Cuttlefish x Octavio sex scene THAT badly huh?! You friggen Splatoon 1 boomer friggen wii u owners... I bet your wii u's are dusty too.... gross /j.

Im sorry to my friends in Team Past, I'm just pissed at the moment from Tricolour matches.

[pixelprofligate]

this is another Fallout London post. more of a rant but still:

because GOD this is really not good. maybe im just like really critical of stuff but so much of the mod just doesnt add up to...anything? most of the quests are uninteresting or outright present you with dialogue options that outright contradict themselves or basic established lore of the world they've set up, so many locations are near empty and boring as hell to try and explore, with a SIGNIFICANT number of the marked locations having literally nothing to find in them, some of them actually having nothing in them at all, there's tons of NPCs, both generic and some named that have, and i dont mean this hyperbolically, literally no dialogue at all, the mods full of things that are just wrong about britian, like posters calling the tower bridge london bridge, the combat encounters are regularly boring because all the factions are functionally the same in terms of equipment, lots of the weapons you can use have blatantly anachronistic modifications like actual real modern day attachments, all of the "new enemies" are just model swaps that use the same skeleton and movesets and often the same exact sounds as base fallout 4 enemies and often aren't even properly rigged for the skeletons they used (like the fucking assaultron replacement that just constantly clips thru its own model anytime it moves at all because they gave it a skirt it was never built to have), and on top of all of it, the mod itself just breaks all the time. there were multiple times quests couldn't progress because NPCs just didn't say the line of dialogue they were suppose to, completely softlocking their quests (this happened with every single main faction at least once), and to top it off most of the assets actually used in this mod weren't even made for it, most come from the Capital Wasteland Project, but even things like the terminals and most of the guns are just straight up from other mods. also, multiple terminal entries were just outright written by AI. and im not saying that like "oh theyre just poorly written so i assume its AI" i mean the lead dev in their discord fucking confirmed it and said he had no clue it happened. like i get a lot of people worked really hard on this, and i dont want to shit on them, but to call this mod "one of the best things fallout has seen in years" i think is a massive disservice to everything else fallout related weve seen since even 76 came out. this mod is a mess of ideas that rarely add up to anything interesting, with a story that gives you no real reason to care or engage with it, that leads to a fight that fucking sucks so much the final battle is terrible (you're forced into a melee fight with a weapon that isn't any of yours on a tiny catwalk where you have to beat the same guy TWICE in a row, and then he gets great mouse detectived), and ultimately never feels fulfilling. it does so little actually interesting with the factions it made or the area its set in and the fact people absolutely adore this mod fucking baffles me. this mod is not good. i genuinely want to know what people like about this because i cannot understand a single aspect of it, ESPECIALLY the people saying this is better than like, base Fallout 4 itself.

[roseworth]

Wait, I’m confused do you or do you not ship Jayrose?

short answer: usually no but ill ship it when its funny

long answer:

most of the reason i dont personally like it is because i see rose as a lesbian and i dont enjoy any ships of her with men (its fine if other people do! its just not my thing), plus i hc jason as aroace so im also not very interested in jason ships unless im in a very specific mood (the "specific mood" being jaykyle lmao. every few months i get really obsessed with jaykyle for a few days then i forget about it for the next few months. then the cycle repeats)

another reason i dont like it is that i am constantly in fear of rose becoming Jason's Girlfriend in comics and online. like how babs and kory are both seen as Dick's Girlfriend (also steph and tim to a lesser degree atm) and people refuse to engage with their character not in reference to their boyfriend, so writers have them constantly mention their relationship with dick even in comics that hes not in (like batgirls having dick show up randomly/birds of prey (1999) having babs talk about dick alllll the time, or kory in the current blue beetle run constantly mentioning dick even though theyre not dating rn and jaime has never even met dick). and thats somewhat starting to happen with rose where shes only in comics that jason is in and if jasons not in it then jason gets mentioned (see: catwoman #62). and obv as a rose fan i really don’t want that to happen because she’s such a great character outside of jason and i don’t want her to be reduced to just who she is with him. this is mostly me overreacting, especially since she had a miniseries just last year that jason was not in or mentioned at all. but being a fan of a female comic character means that most people are not willing to talk about her without mentioning her relationship with a man, and its even worse when the man is a batboy so i’m constantly on alert

so basically thats why it puts a bad taste in my mouth, but i have no issue with the ship itself or anyone who ships it!

i think jason & rose are extremely compatible. i see them as bffs but i genuinely do think about them in a relationship a lot even though i dont necessarily ship it. im rotating both of them in my mind 24/7 so i think about how i think they would act in a relationship & how it would ideally be done in canon. but i just dont trust any comic writers to actually respect rose

the reason i said that jayrose is one of the only jason ships that matters is because most jason ships are soooo bad... i wont name names but some jay ships rely on one or both of them being extremely out of character for it to work at all. in terms of jason ships, jayrose is one of the best just because a) an in-character jason AND an in-character rose would genuinely get along really well and b) none of the stories that they've been in have really been THAT out of character (with the exception of gotham war imo, which i went into here so i wont beat a dead horse. dceased was pretty bad too but that’s tom taylor’s fault it has nothing to do with jayrose). also unlike many other jason ships, a good portion of the people that ship jayrose are the ones who actually read the comics so it tends to be an actual Nuanced and Accurate portrayal. ofc there are many exceptions to that but as of rn jayrose is not one of the Certified Batfam Ships (you know those ships that are the only ships that fanon fans know about so whenever they want to give their fav a boyfriend they shove em with another character they know nothing about. like dick/wally where people say "well they were friends in yja thats enough for me" and they havent read anything with wally in it besides dick/wally fanfic and they dont care about him outside of his relationship with dick), so theyre somewhat safe. but unfortunately because of titans tv its also shipped by The Worst Man You've Ever Met so. you win some you lose some ig

it bothers me when people claim that they dont like jayrose because they "dont like what it does to rose" ???? literally when has jayrose ever been bad for rose. her worst out of character moments have nothing to do with jason in any way. she doesnt get sidelined for him and she doesnt get reduced to a damsel in distress or something. its annoying to me that people feel the need to make up an excuse for why they dont like the ship so they use rose as a scapegoat and pretend that theyre doing it for her when they actually dont know anything about her. just say you dont like it and move on! you dont need to justify it you can just not like it

so for the most part i have no issue with it, which is why i tend to mention it when i think its funny. theres a lot of jayrose content that i enjoy bc theyre fun together and i like seeing them interact! i dont ship them but i think its a good ship <3

however. despite all that i still have more thoughts. im playing devil's advocate against myself and disagreeing with everything i just said

because also. its kind of not in character for them to date. i like where they're at right now because theyre kind of in a casual thing, like theyre hanging out and having sex in the bushes but theyre not Dating. theyre not in a serious relationship that we've seen (other than gotham war but im not acknowledging that), so i like where they're at right now. hanging out, rose flirting aggressively and jason giving her next to nothing in return because he cant flirt, and probably having sex off panel*. i think theyre in a good place at the moment and i dont want it to change from exactly where it is right now in canon. *inside my head theyre actually just pals that pretend to flirt because they think its funny. they do not have sex off panel and they dont want to but the insane flirting is an inside joke that no one else thinks is funny. but thats just me

because neither of them has really shown any interest in dating (when written in character! so we're not counting rhato). the most "interested" jason has ever been in someone is minor flirting with donna in countdown. but he did not make a move on her and repeatedly said throughout that book that he was only focused on the mission and did not care about anything else. he doesnt seem to actually be interested in a relationship with anyone, partially because hes extremely emotionally closed off (to a degree. he is VERY open with his emotions, but hes not the kind of person that lets people into his life easily) and also because he just has other shit to think about. no sex only vengeance.

and ROSE. she is the most closed off person you will ever see. she will have casual sex in an effort to suppress all emotions (which i could talk about extensively. but thats not what this post is about), but she doesnt date people. the only people that she was close to being in a relationship with were eddie and hosun. with eddie, it was all flirting, emotional moments, and her pushing him away. she genuinely liked him (arguably. i could go into how its comphet but that is once again not what this is about), but she was closed off and didnt want to date him because she has so many issues. she tried to make him jealous and did her aggressive flirting thing like she does with jason, but she did not want to have an actual relationship with him. and with hosun, she once again (arguably) genuinely liked him, but she did not tell him that. she MARRIED HIM and still didnt talk to him about her feelings. he liked her and was interested in a relationship with her, but she did not want to embrace that and didnt make any effort to have a real relationship with him outside of agreeing to stay married to him after slade was arrested. she doesnt have any interest in actually dating the guys she likes, and shes so emotionally repressed that she will not make any effort to even be close with them

i hate phantom-one and i hate the idea of rose dating phantom-one but. i genuinely think their "relationship" is pretty in character for her (brisson understands her so well), because at most they have some nice conversations. shes somewhat interested in him so she'll come onto him a bit (no aggressive flirting but still), and she opens up to him when shes at her absolute lowest, then she leaves. shes more focused on what stormwatch is doing and she shows little interest in phantom-one during missions, but she likes him and oscillates between ignoring him and hitting on him. so.. out of the relationships rose has in recent canon..... i could make the argument that rose/phantom-one is more in character for her than jayrose even though i like jayrose a LOT more than i like rose/phantom-one

so yeah. its in character for them to get along. but i DONT think its in character for them to be in a serious relationship. which is another part of the reason im kinda skeptical about their relationship in canon, just because i dont want it to be an actual Relationship since it doesnt really make sense for them to actually date given... everything about them.

but again thats all just my opinion! ship whatever you want we're all just playing with dolls

[kipperlillyforpresident]

Okay so number one. Super cool that you wrote your paper on the American dream. Single-handedly it is my favorite antag from any season.

And two. Well it is true the back to back filming probably definitely made them have less nuance for this. I absolutely agree with your statement. If your players can't engage in a story something is probably wrong. Honestly I've just come to the conclusion that the reason that episode 19 felt so weird. Is because it felt more like it was the intrepid heroes killing the rat grinders. Instead of the bad kids killing the rat grinders. Like I don't know if I'm just going crazy here?? I know it happens where your characters blend together so much in your mind That it's hard to differentiate the character from the player. But things felt so mean spirited in like a unique way. Like a unique way that you can only get from hating a villain as the viewer. Instead of like the character. Because besides Kristen trying to see if Buddy was still in there. It felt as if, the bad kids. Who have notoriously all been put into difficult situations at different times because of various adults. Saw what is basically just them without the support system. And hit it with a nuke. It's not like a Johnny spells type thing where You can be like "this guy sucks. kill his ass." Cause besides Kipper Lily. We don't actually know any of the rat grinders motivations. Like people can say that the rat grinders were just power hungry All they want. But the more likely answer is probably, Porter saw a group of vulnerable children who were actively unsatisfied with the situation they had been put in. And prayed on that!

It's frustrating definitely. But there is always fix it fics. And these final episodes aren't going to stop me from loving the rat grinders. I do not care what anyone in the fandom says. Because half of the time they're just spitting the same misogynistic bullshit we got with saccharina frostwhip. I'm genuinely hoping That at least the adventuring party clears up some things??. But my hopes are low unfortunately. Mary Ann forever though. She got that dog in her

a) IT WAS REALLY COOL!! i also wrote a final paper in a different class about the cubbys . Communications is kind of fake as hell as a major (if youre thinking of becoming a comm major dont </3 its great for student athletes who dont need jobs. as for me. um. well. 1 year out of college no new job), but it meant I was able to write a lot of interesting papers and my professors gave me room to run with it.

b) That's a really interesting thesis, and I haven't thought about it before, but that honestly makes a lot of sense...? Like, in that Really Uncomfortable Speech that was given before Ruben died, he was blamed for wasting a season on him. Which is an extremely meta/IH thing. It makes no sense for Fig to say that. But it does make sense for Emily to say that.

[theguardianace]

Can I politely ask you to elaborate on the Aroace Nene fic you talked about some time ago? Or just simply how you see her in your brain after finding out she's aroace? If it's not much to ask, of course

OMG YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! absolutely. i will ramble about aroace literally anybody on the drop of a dime this is one of the best anons to get actually

nene's story is actually the one i have the least about, to be perfectly honest. i have a plot for both emu and tsukasa's stories, but haven't quite figured out one for nene. honestly, i think nene's the type of aroace to not really... care about it that much. she'd never cared about love or romance to begin with, so when she realized it was because she was aroace, it was mostly like "hm. cool. im gonna go play animal crossing now".

as for finding out... i think it would have happened in middle school, back when she was Online Gamer Nene TM full time. with how much she loves games and storytelling, it really only makes sense she'd want to engage with fandom content like fics. however, just... seeing the way people sexualize her favorite characters, or only write/draw shipping content... she didn't care for it. she didn't want to engage with that. not that there was anything wrong with it! people can do whatever they want with fictional game characters. she just. didnt care about it herself. which led to her feeling even more isolated even within her favorite hobbies. i think this would sort of lead her to playing a variety of games so she doesn't have to worry about getting absorbed in fandoms she doesn't care to be a part of. she still checks, every once in a while. for games that she really likes. i think its through this that she eventually stumbles across a popular aroace headcannon, goes "what", googles it, and is like "wow. thats me. sick". and then moves on

but like. even when she's moved on. it's still really nice to know, yknow? it explains why she felt like the odd one out not wanting to ship stuff, or even care to entertain it. there's people out there just like her. it makes her less anxious, a little more sure of herself.

she doesn't ever tell anyone. not even rui. (i mean, they hadn't talked in ages. how is she supposed to? "hi, we havent had a genuine conversation in years, how are you? by the way i discovered im aroace and you probably don't know what that means and honestly i dont really care about it myself. have a good day".) (and once they do start talking again, it just... never came up. she never felt the need to, and he never felt the need to ask.) until my epilouge chapter where they all end up coming out like WHAT WERE ALL AROACE THATS SO SILLY anyways

in casual life, i think nene would have been the type for adults to go "oooh, you have a crush on him, don't you? look at you, all red and shy just thinking about him" when shes simply Just Like That. it was really annoying. she knew she didn't like them like that and that was that. but shes too scared to say that so she just took it. definitely didn't help the "nene needs to learn how to make friends" department. honestly, her only relief from it was with rui- both her parents and the kamishiro parents recognized that the two really did care about each other, but it wasn't like that. also no way in hell they're ruining the one friendship their kids have.

later with emu, i don't think there was any point where people even considered a romance, at least not at first glance. it wasn't like people at school even knew about emu (minus when she snuck in, but why would this hyperactive pink thing be looking for that shy second year?). and people walking the streets didn't really assume they liked each other like that since they were two girls. nene's mom was a little curious if they were dating since emu comes over so often and is so physically affectionate, but she never really pressed. she was mostly just happy nene has friends over that aren't just rui. (also, emu's aroace too, so nothing in her demeanor even made nene consider it could have been romantic. shes just Emu.)

for tsukasa, it's a similar thing. by the time people have realized the two are friends, nene's confident in herself and her feelings enough to shut down the people who would even dare assume she likes a buffoon like that star in that way. there's those people that go "oh but you're mean to him and girls are mean to boys when they have a crush on them" but she's tough enough to go "ew" and move on. (she did complain about it a little to rui on a walk home once. if he ended up in her classroom the next day to "grab her for lunch" and weaponize his dangerous reputation to intimidate them when she wasn't looking, it was sheer coincidence.)

also, i think out of the four, nene falls most on the loveless scale. tsukasa, emu, and rui are all beings made of love despite the fact they don't fall in it. nene's a bit different. she cares about her friends, and she's super good at making them (despite what she thinks), but she doesn't really... love them. not in the ways people usually want to describe love. she would kill a man for them in a heartbeat, don't get me wrong. she just experiences those sorts of feelings differently. it's care, and determination, and hope, and happiness, but not... love. not completely.

anyways aroace gamer nene so real fic will happen once i figure out how to tie these ideas to a plot 👍

[hareofhrair]

Saw another post about an inclusive piece of media getting torn apart for a small mistake, and someone once again wondering why queer people are so eager to attack queer media.

“Why are queer fans so quick to turn on queer media?”

The problem is, you’re not talking about the right people.

The genuine fans who made the thing popular aren’t the ones that do this. The problem is this website is just as full of bad faith assholes who see something inclusive (usually something that dares to acknowledge trans people exist) and are immediately chomping at the bit for a way to destroy it.

They’ll latch on to stupid petty reasons people make fun of at first but eventually they’ll get the opportunity to jump on something that is even the slightest bit more legitimate, and once they’ve passed it around to all their hater friends it breaks containment. Then someone not that familiar with the show sees the vitriolic exaggerations of the hater and that’s their whole impression of the show now, and when it comes up that’s what they talk about.

And then well meaning people who maybe even liked the thing see what seems to be a lot of people talking about claims that have by now been sensationalized to extremes, and think “ah geez this must be a big deal, i dont want people to think I’m an asshole who condones bad shit.”

And because it’s just a show and a minuscule part of their life they don’t look any further into it they just reblog the same sensationalized posts uncritically, and suddenly the only thing anyone knows about this show is that anyone associated with it is a toxic pedophile racist abuser.

We saw it happen with Steven Universe, and Dream Daddy, and Boyfriends, and on and on. People keep trying to start this conversation about “why do queer people attack inclusive media as soon as it isn’t literally perfect?” When the answer is- first off, queer people aren’t a monolith and plenty of us are exclusionist shitheads- and second it’s not the fucking queer people doing it! It’s %90 of the time just god damn TERFs, if not straight up cis conservatives, and every body else not caring enough to double check the claims that end up on their dash.

I’ve seen actual receipts on the fact that the origin of these hate trains can frequently be traced back to the same individuals over and over. Serial haters whose only apparent goal on social media is to shit on something other people like, and then when it gets boring they just move on to the next target.

It’s ridiculously easy for assholes who want to tear something down for being inclusive to hijack the narrative surrounding any popular piece of media, because the more popular it is the more people are only tangentially interested in it, and thus not well informed about it or willing to question the story presented to them or dig for the truth, because it’s a tumblr post about a show they half watched and they have better things to do. And also the mean gossip is frequently just more entertaining than the truth. Which means they can turn the huge segment of fandom which are passive casual fans into what appears to be an outraged mob.

And most importantly, outrage is infectious. There’s a reason the twitter algorithm prioritizes negative engagement, and fox news headlines are designed to make you angry. When we’re only half engaged, scrolling past things we’re not really informed about, and we see something that makes us react with outrage, why would we waste time questioning it, when we could just reblog it with a nasty comment and move on, and probably forget about in five minutes? Then everyone who follows us sees it, and gets angry, and reacts, and forgets, and it spreads, and next thing you know another trans woman has been driven off the platform under a mountain of death threats. Or we show it to a friend to shit talk about it together, and get worked up about whatever bogeyman has been attached to the issue, until the target now represents to us the bogeyman incarnate, a symbol of everything wrong in the world- and now you’re one of the people actively contributing to the mountain of death threats.

So the pipeline is this. A person makes an inclusive piece of art. A bigot who hates whatever particular flavor of queerness that art includes makes shitting on that art their new hobby, and get all their shit head friends together to talk about how bad and gross everything *insert despised identity here* makes is. People laugh at what appears to them to be the pedantic nitpicking of insatiable fans and not the seething cope of dedicated hatewatchers. Then the art handles an issue imperfectly or someone associated with it says something regrettable or the haters just land on the right combination of buzzwords to make their bullshit look like legitimate enough criticism that someone not in their hate circle reblogs it. More people who have only a passing relationship with the piece of art uncritically pass it around because it’s funny, or it briefly pissed them off, and reactive anger makes us stupid and incurious. More people, including people who like the thing, assume the quantity of criticism is an indicator of its legitimacy and are more concerned with not being perceived as complicit than the truth, and spread it further. And now instead of being remembered as a revolutionary boundary pushing queer led show that changed the game for queer inclusivity in animation and also was just gorgeous and had a soundtrack with ZERO flops, Steven Universe is remembered as the show with all the stupid toxic discourse and how the ending TOTALLY said you’re obligated to forgive your abusive family members and also genocide apologism.

Queer people don’t have it out for queer media. People who hate queer people and everything they make are just very good at making you think you agree with them.

[cosmicjoke]

adding to that earlier discusion abt morality

one of my fav characters is jesse pinkman and while he does bad things like killings i dont think he is a good person he kind of reminds me of levi because they both never enjoy hurting other and both care a lot about kids

so when jesse (spoilers ahead) killed this guy gale he was shown to really be affected by that and he spiralled into toxic behaviours. he didnt want to kill him but walter make him do so. so while yeah he did a bad thing he isnt a bad person.

Hey there, and as always, thanks for your asks!

The thing that's being claimed about "Attack on Titan" by people making this argument, that killing is always wrong, and so killing automatically makes you a bad person, is that the story itself pushes this message, but it doesn't. AoT doesn't actually present any, definitive answer on the question at all. It doesn't show us or try to convince us one way or another that killing is right OR wrong. All it does is present scenarios in which violence breaks out, and the various reactions to that violence and the subsequent outcomes of those reactions. It doesn't condemn or approve either reaction, but simply presents the circumstances and lets the audience decide for themselves what they feel is right or wrong based on those circumstances. Levi conveys this idea, and really encapsulates the nonjudgmental nature of the story itself, when he tells Jean that he doesn't himself know what's right or wrong, but only knows what the factual reality of the situation was, that reality being, if Armin hadn't killed the woman from Kenny's squad, Jean himself would now be dead, and the rest of them might be as well. He thanks Armin for his sacrifice, but also tells Jean that he should decide for himself what he believes is right and wrong. He doesn't try to impose any definitive answer or opinion on any member of his squad regarding the moral question of killing.

Armin says "we're bad people now" after they've killed other people, but Armin also refuses Reiner's offer to sit out fighting the Yeagerists at the dock just to keep his hands clean. Armin in that moment is acknowledging that it would be selfish to refuse to engage in violence only to preserve his sense of moral comfort and righteousness. The situation was desperate, and if Armin had refused to fight the Yeagerists, they never would have managed to obtain the airplane, and so they never would have been able to engage with Eren and, as a result, countless millions of people would have died.

So does that make Armin a bad person, because he engaged in violence to save millions of lives? Does this question even need to be asked?

Similarly, if killing is always wrong, and if killing someone automatically makes you a bad person, regardless of circumstance, does that mean it was wrong to kill Eren in the end, and does it make Mikasa and the others bad people for doing so, even though it saved millions of lives?

Instead of asking Armin if he thinks he's a good person or a bad person based on his actions in these situations, maybe it would yield a more accurate answer to ask the millions of people who were able to go on living because Armin chose to kill.

My point is, this question of what makes someone a good person and what makes someone a bad person can't be boiled down to ones actions alone. To judge the worth of someone's character based on their actions, without taking into consideration the mitigating circumstances surrounding those actions, the intent behind those actions, or a person's genuine feelings about those actions, is completely unfair and reductive. That sort of thinking and judgment only leads to making unfair and unjust generalizations and assumptions about others, which, as AoT shows us itself, can lead down some very bad roads indeed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Morality is not a static concept. Calling someone "morally grey" is stupid, because morality itself is grey. No question of morality is set in stone. No question of morality is immutable. Like everything in life, morality and questions of right or wrong are dependent, always, on circumstance. How we measure ones morality isn't based on their actions alone, but on the reasons behind those actions.

Are we meant to accept that Levi is an immoral person because he kills other people? Regardless of the reasons for him killing? Regardless of his intentions or feelings? Are we supposed to condemn him as a monster and a bad man because he kills, and just ignore the motivation behind the action? Does Levi's kindness, compassion, selflessness and genuine desire to help others not count for anything simply because he's taken another person's life? Are Levi's positive qualities rendered worthless because he's engaged in violence?

That's what people who claim that killing another person automatically makes you a bad person, regardless of the reasons or circumstances, are saying.

They're saying, that because Levi has killed other people, it doesn't matter what the reason was, and it doesn't matter what his intention was, and it doesn't matter how he feels about it, he's bad for the act alone, and nothing else about him counts or redeems him. He doesn't get to qualify as a good person anymore, because he's violated some other persons fantasy about the immutability of moral principles.

It's stupid to try and make definitive statements on moral principles at all, because, again, morality isn't contingent on principle itself. It's contingent on circumstance and intention. If you kill someone because you think it's fun to do so, then that's morally wrong. If you kill someone to save your own life, or someone else' life, then that's morally right. Killing on its own can't be deemed morally right OR wrong. It's simply an action, one which alone does not reflect a persons moral values or worth.

Levi can be stated to be a moral person because he only kills in self-defense or in defense of others. He doesn't kill for personal pleasure or satisfaction. He doesn't kill out of petty revenge. He doesn't kill to win himself accolades or glory. He doesn't kill to hurt anyone. He kills when either himself or someone else is being threatened, and that's it.

Levi is irrefutably a good person because he contains within him multiple qualities which by any standard would mark him out as such. He genuinely cares about and wants to protect other people. He's deeply empathetic and sensitive to other people's feelings and wishes. He's incredibly kind and shows immense compassion toward other people and their circumstances, and does all he can to alleviate their suffering. He's selfless to a fault. He values life more than anyone else, and wants and tries to do all he can to preserve life.

To dismiss all of that, simply because Levi has killed other people to defend his own and other people lives, is not only unfair, it's frankly disgusting.

[mummer]

When people describe asoiaf as grimdark it makes me tear at the wallpaper. Do you think that label is from a misunderstanding of the text/only a surface level reading, or the way got portrayed the books?

i mean, on one hand, i get it. there ARE parts of asoiaf that are very deeply nihilistic and cynical. especially compared with other mainstream fantasy. it became really trite to associate got/asoiaf with constant character death… but it IS a departure from the standard! maybe you’d get a mentor or supporting figure dying, your obi wans and boromirs, but ned, cat and robb, oberyn.. these are shocking moments for a reason lol. they ARE subversive! and quentyn and tyrion in adwd in particular feel truly angry and pessimistic. there’s plenty of grimness and darkness to mine from. But firstly, there is…. nothing wrong with being “grimdark”! it’s not wrong to refuse to write about utopias, or to be ultimately cynical and pessimistic about human nature, or for characters not to get what they (as decided by the ~ultimate morality~ of the author) “deserve”— aka the ultimate building block of tragedy. i want more angry art, more art that makes you miserable! sometimes the world does feel hopeless lmao like it’s okay to wallow in the darkness of the human soul or whatever!! asoiaf is not as a whole grimdark, but if it was, that wouldnt be an immoral way to write! (and i dont think GOT is even that much more grimdark than the books— its problem is that it is.. extremely badly written, not that x character didnt get y happy ending therefore it is bad 🤷🏻‍♂️)

i probably dont need to reiterate why it ISNT grimdark— theon adwd, sam, brienne, et cetera, you know the gist. better writers than me have talked about this. i think it’s a bit troubling that a story can get a dismissive response just for genuinely being interested in the whole ugly picture of human experience lol. idk if it’s YA brain or ted lasso kindnesscore or what, and maybe it’d be dismissive to attribute it just to that. but tbh, i dont think the people who write those 50k note posts on here or twitter about how asoiaf is ontologically evil for portraying a broken world have actually read the books at all. there’s plenty of ways to engage in actual criticism of the series if you wanted to. but they are really not interested in having a conversation about themes and stuff, they just want an easy dunk ❤️ so whatever

[year2000electronics]

Hi, just being curious, what do you think is the greatest difficulty you’ve faced carrying out the storyline in your ask blogs (aside from potential burnout)?

Is there any time where the asks were not going towards the direction where you’d want them to go, and how did you steer the story back on track?

Do you have any techniques giving out clues or keeping the pace of the ask blog?

[sorry these are a lot. Of questions. It’s just, it’s amazing how you are able to run multiple successful askblogs, and I’m curious how you did it]

OOOH THESE ARE SOME INTERESTING QUESTIONS! really pickin at my old noggin here...

id say probably the most difficult part is like... ok through my tenure ive obviously had some physically taxing moments, moments of people being way too mean, people being way too NICE, people complaining that every single member of a giant ensemble cast doesnt get the exact same amount of screentime etc etc, but id honestly say the hardest part is just. making the medium Work. when i run an ask blog like this, im basically asking people to drive the story forward with no promise of whether their choices even like. Matter. if youre not tethered enough to your asks, it can feel like youre just asking people to put a coin in the slot and letting the story play for another page. you have to play this balancing act of wanting to tell the story you want to tell while also needing peoples' help to get there. thats why an engaging story and endearing characters are so important. i wound up telling people here on my main that y2k would end with a good ending specifically because i got people concerned i genuinely would end it with a Bad End, but still even knowing that people would tune in. so its like. i always have to make sure its Engaging enough. for people to be willing to play this game with me at all. the hardest part of fishing is getting the fish to bite yk.

2. YES ALL THE TIME LOLLLL a lot of the time i will end up either picking an ask from before the topic came up and answer that one, or plant my own decoy ask. basically jingling keys at people HJSSKHASGK. but sometimes even that doesnt work! benrey in y2k has a very touchy complex about his helmet specifically because I DIDNT HAVE SPRITES WITH HIS HAIR. and i thought that his hair was kinda boring compared to what people were probably expecting (its very short and simple i draw his hair like bootleg barney) so i ended up having to answer that little thread by having an explosion and then presenting my own resolution (gordon calm him down :)) i like to think ive gotten better at key jingling though haha. usually the two types of key jingling topics i find work best are either little plot teases or a 'now back to what we were doing' ask, but if you dont want things to advance quite yet, i usually use questions that will elaborate on a character trait or introduce a new character fact

3. dont be me. /j ok actually the thing about this specific medium is like. people will send me asks guessing my twists WAAAAY early on but the thing is i can just. choose not to answer them. hehe. id personally pay attention to how often people are guessing your twists though because like. its BOUND to happen if you lay out clues some people will pick up on them. if theres not a lot of people guessing, then you can lean more into the big sting reveals of like 'NOOOOBODY EXPECTED THIS' but when a lot of people have guessed the twist, i usually make sure to present it in a way that doesnt imply that there was nobody on the right trail or that people got bamboozled. as for the clues themselves. well im about to figure that out myself again! i have some clues i need to lay in bmfe!! dont get discouraged if people pick up on what you thought was really subtle, cos like. literal day 1 of episode 3 someone literally made a powerpoint saying 'LEADING LIGHT IS BACK' and i was like ok i was just on my first crumb DAMN. as for pacing, it doesnt matter if you get the blog done in one month or one year- what does matter is PLANNING. if you know what your goal is, what your landmarks and checkpoints are, youll be able to stagger stuff successfully no matter the length. some of the best-recieved parts of y2kvr were parts i went into the session going 'this is my goal for today' for. the goals dont even have to big, it could even be something as small as like 'get from place a to place b'

SORRY THIS GOT LONG but ty for the question! reflecting on my process is interesting :]

[spicybylerpolls]

Hi! Adding my two cents to the bad fanfiction writing debate.

Lots of fanfic authors don't read anything but fanfiction, and are more interested in their favorite characters than they are in reading or writing itself. Obviously, big readers make good writers, and for that you need to read lots of things, not just fanfiction written by other fans who don't have editors of any sort. You need to read novels, nonfiction, articles, copy, textbooks, even the back of crisp packets.

Even writers who have beta'd works are often working with other fans who don't have any professional experience or training in how to edit. Some writers are intuitive, sure, but they can always benefit from editing.

My pet hate: describing a character by their hair colour when its irrelevant to the plot. Maybe your character finds it sexy, and you're writing a sex scene. But if it's just there so you dont have to saythe characters name again, then your sentence structure itself needs reviewing.

All this said, fanfic is meant to be fun so it's a space where people are free to be a bit shit and learn haha, which is great. I just think it's a bit gross when people get angry at criticism. Sure, you didn't ask for critique, but by putting your work out there, you kind of did. Any artist who shares work (in any platform) should expect to be critiqued. Obviusly there is meanness and then there is criticism, but if a lot of fanfic writers are young people with egos and hormones running wild, it's no surprise they can't handle criticism well. Accepting criticism gracefully and learning from it is something writers and artists of all kinds learn when training in their field. But like I said, if your fanfic writer isn't interested in the craft of writing, and only their character/fandom, then they won't be interested in improvement in that way.

Hmm, yeah I've definitely experienced some fanfic that seems to... let's say... have beef with the basic grammatical structures of the English language. (Honestly, most of us use A03, but back when Wattpad was more widely used, this was even more noticeable. Sometimes it was genuinely hard to decipher what people were trying to say). You're right about some fanfic writers being very green and unrefined, more interested in just engaging with their fandom and getting their feelings about their favorite characters out there than in storycraft best practices. (That's probably where fanfic got the negative reputation it has in some corners of the world, where people see it as unserious and as writing that's "less" real).

That being said, there's also a lot of amazing fanfic writers out there in the Byler fandom and in every fandom, and they should be given their flowers. Many of these stories are better than Hollywood movies and bestselling books. And fandom is ultimately about fun, so if someone genuinely isn't interested in the craft of writing and just wants their blorbos to kiss, I'd say that's fine too. There's an audience for that, there's really no right way or wrong way to do things, and there's obviously a fine line between constructive criticism and just mean-spirited attacks. But I think it's ultimately a balancing act. Curating your own taste both in writing and reading takes time.

[defensivelee]

my thoughts about the latest chapter

-the title is a reference to the english translation of the dutch word 'dwaallicht' !! so it's equal parts abt keppy and also william

-the william devil is the oldest character in this verse who is still alive

-ally ildicó, like many of my other ocs in this verse, is part of the 'los absolutos' story

-the song william sings in the car is actually the original yiddish version of 'dona dona.' he likes it a lot

-keppel's special claws are a reference to the kitty/dog/fox/???? creature in tooboe's tablet mv, it was one of the very first concepts i had for this au

-yes keppel is very vixen-coded. literally

-i want to congratulate james on his new engagement!! even tho it was literally kind of an impulse move on his part that just happened to fit well together with a new half-baked plan he had

-i swear i did not mean to bring up an election conflict right about this time 😭 but oh well. i like how it's going to forward the plot :3

-i think i write sunderland with bpd + autism tbh. like he doesn't do all this awful shit bc of that, but it's the way he forms attachments... he holds his favorite people to impossibly high standards and is extra disappointed when, surprise surprise, they don't live up to them. william is his latest unhealthy obsession

-the last scene was meant to be both incredibly romantic and incredibly fucked up. obv it would only be terrible irl, but like, idk here with sunderland he felt very genuine. but not rlly. if that makes sense

-and finally if this doesn't convince you i have a crazy intox kink i dont know what will, goddamnnn i love a good drunk william

[arcadekitten]

hi ak!!! considering its cms anniversary i just wanted to wholeheartedly thank you for making and publishing it!!! ive only been into your games for a few months now i think but they genuinely changed something in my brain chemistry (/hj) and now i think about it constantly bc it just makes me so so happy!!!

the way you present stories and characters is honestly so incredibly amazing!! no matter what a game is about it pulls me in entirely every single time, even if im replaying it for the fifth time! you genuinely have a wonderful talent!!! i dont have the words to describe just how intricate everything is, especially psychologically, but god!!!! its all so good!!!! (its honestly a whole other thing to get into, but the mareggie layers in particular are everything to me, along with twyla and novas dynamic.. aughhhhh)

i mean it when i say ive fallen head over heels for most of your characters!!! each and every one of them is so unique and all of their designs are so gorgeous!!! as an autist myself im especially happy to see characters like mary and capella given important roles in a story!!!!

im using a LOT of exclamation marks but i just cannot contain my excitement when im talking about noisrev!!! i love drawing your characters and theorizing and whatnot!!! this became a bit longer than i thought itd be so. yes! thank you! from the bottom of my heart!!! youre changing lives and bringing so much happiness to others!!! ❤️

Cool I'm gonna go cry about this now!! (positive!)

No but for real like, I can't just get a sweet message like this and return it with nothing! Reading stuff like this feels like you reached through the screen, through my chest, and hugged my heart directly and it just makes me really emotional and happy.

Putting your art into the world is always really scary. Any time I release any project, I've always got such a tightness in my chest! Even when I know I am happy with what I made, I still hope that the people who have come to know my work are not disappointed with what I'm putting out. It's hard not to be at least a little worried! But time and time again I am told that the art I made is loved, and that feeling is the whole world to me!

When I receive messages like this (and no, you don't have to feel pressured to send me anything like this!) it really warms my heart. When I think about the games I make being someone's favorite, the characters I make being someone's favorites, I mean hell even just having them like it a lot! it really brings a tear to my eye if I think about it for too long.

I think about all the ways my favorite media pulled me out of dark places when I was younger and still do now, and I'm happy if I can impart that feeling onto others.

Thank YOU all for playing the games, engaging in them, and just being generally interested! Thank you for making me feel like my art is worth something to people who aren't me, for granting me the opportunities to keep making art, and for allowing me to experience a human connection I haven't been able to replicate in any way other than from sharing my art. Thank you for making me feel as though I made a good decision in making games.

I hope I can always make art and games you'll enjoy, and I mean that more and more every time I say it! Thank you for sticking around to see them ♡