choicesfandomappreciation

[super-oddity]

i support ambiguous sexualities and gender-blind attraction within fanon. like i can read a fic with a pairing i don’t think would work in canon and 100% believe (or even love) it if it’s written well enough

[dreamerwitches]

Manga reviews!

I’ve read quite a few of the Madoka Magica manga, mostly to find witches.... So I thought I’d do a little review of the ones I’ve read! Enjoy! (also, they’re my own opinions and it’s meant to be a little funny so I exaggerate a little... so please don’t get angry!! Also kinda spoiler-y)

Madoka Magica (og manga)

Just a really compressed version of the anime. Has some changes but not often good... I only have the first one in physical and I think it’s the only one I’ll get cause it’s the most interesting part. 0/10 cause they completely removed Gisela... Also not too fond of the art style, some things are drawn really badly.. Though I’ve fallen in love with manga Gertrud. Not too fond of it but I like having the manga on my shelf. 4/10 watch the anime instead

Madoka Magica Rebellion

Will be biased cause I love rebellion. A really lovely manga, better than the og manga cause it doesn’t compress the story and even expands it. Suits three volumes better than the original. Treats familiars really well, we get bonus bartels, dora and polina~~! Doesn’t have all the fun of the movie cause it obviously doesn’t have the amazing soundtrack but it’s a really nice manga anyway. Bebe is drawn really well but the Clara Dolls aren’t. 9/10 almost as good as the movie

Kazumi Magica

Plot: seven magical girls trying to do good stuff and Kazumi, the protag, has amnesia I was surprised how much I loved this manga... I enjoyed it so much and got attached to almost all the characters. Though, spoilers, all my favourites either died or turned out to be evil... Lots of plot twists. LOTS. A wonderful lack of kyubey too... I found the story to be so intriguing. It took a spin on the original series far better than - imo - Oriko did. Really ace witches too. Only downside was sometimes the art. Too many ass shots thanks. Also a lot of the magi outfits were a tad distasteful (and some distasteful jokes too). 8/10 pretty darn good

Oriko Magica

Plot: two girls want to kill Madoka cause they know about Homu’s shenanigans. Has a pretty out there story, gets quite serious at the end. First time reading I didn’t care about it but I’ve grown fond of some of the main characters like Oriko, Kirika and Yuma. I found Kirika annoying and op first time reading. The addition of the original Madoka characters feels weird even though they are in the same universe. Original characters are also sometimes unrecognisable because of the art style. I almost never recognised Kyoko... The bonus stories are really fun, I liked them a lot. They’re short but nice. New and interesting witches too! I probably preferred Extra and Sadness prayer to the original story (Sadness prayer is like, basically a retelling of the og Oriko story but better) 6/10 for main story (feels a bit like babies first fanfic), side stories are probably a 7/10 (writer probs had more experience)

The Different Story

Plot: Mami and Kyoko backstory plus a spin on the original story. A really fun and interesting read, especially if you like Mami or Kyoko a lot. I loved the expansion of the original characters, it’s really great. I got a bit lost at the end but I was kinda scanning through... Art is by the same artist as the original manga but it’s certainly improved. Really amazing witches too~! Read it again when I got volume 1 for Chrimbo and its far sadder than I remembered... hm. Lovely art though, and very powerful scenes 7 or 8/10. I’d need to read it in full again to give a better judgement

Suzune Magica

Plot: Very edgy, lots of die. Never got attached to Suzune like I did with the Oriko characters. Some costume designs are also gross and pervy. Didn’t find it memorable and didn’t care much about the characters. Nice witches though. 3/10

Haven’t read Tart magica and don’t have any opinions on it yet. Hate the artist so I don’t think I will ever read it. (witches also look like afterthoughts... boooo)

Wraith Arc

Gave it a scan aaannndd.... didn’t enjoy it...... found it so boring. Wraiths are so boring as the enemy. Bland and have no character or inu curry flair. I feel you’d really enjoy it if you adored Homura and Madoka. I don’t so... I don’t think my opinion would be justified for this one.

Homura’s Revenge

Plot: Homura, Madoka and Kyubey go back in time before Madoka turns God. I. HATED. This one. Sigh.. It was the most frustrating manga I’ve ever read. Kyubey just gets in the way and not in a funny or clever way. Kills off Mami too early too. The witch designs are also crap like the artist don’t care about them. Illustrated by the same artist as Tart Magica and they’re a creep so it’s an automatic ‘euch’. Homura just resets in the end anyway. Just like Wraith Arc, I feel you’d like it more if you really liked Homura and Madoka 1/10 I liked the part with Elly and that’s it

The Veranda of Madoka

Plot: All five girls are living in the same house as sisters. Spoilers, this is my favourite manga... it’s so so cute and lovely! It’s a 4Koma (four square panels for a joke/story but sometimes has longer stories) manga with cute humour and fun stories. You really care about the girls and want them to be happy together. I’ve only read volume 1 cause it’s the only one translated but I really wanna read the rest cause it seems to add Nagisa. Only downsides are it has some tasteless jokes like breast sizes and Homura’s sometimes kinda pervy towards Madoka (remember, they are sisters in this one) but those things are rare in the long run. Has lesbian Hitomi which increases the score tenfold. The art style is also adorable, I prefer it to PAPA’s current style honestly. 9.5/10 would be 10 if it didn’t have some questionable jokes sometimes

Mitakihara Anti Materials

Plot: Homura accidentally winds up living with Mami. I thought I was gonna hate this one. Turns out I love this one. If you ship Homura and Mami, it’s the best, but it also works well for a platonic friendship. It’s a lovely slice of life with lots of fluffy bits with Homu and Mami but also the other girls. Sayaka also for some reason has the super hots for Mami (I mean, who wouldn’t). Sadly, has some tasteless jokes like Veranda which bring it down. Taking pictures of people against their will and body-swapping, I just wasn’t into it... Art is pretty generic but works just fine. 8/10

Mami Tomoe’s everyday life

Plot: The girls are older. Excuse me while I vomit. Read a few pages and quickly ran. CLEARLY written by a perverted old man. The girls are all married and only talk about husbands and their weight and things men think women talk about. Also. Homura is married to Tatsuya, excuse me while I hurl again. Just look at the covers and you can tell the artist is a porn artist. -10/10 kill it

Welcome to Cafe Grief Seed

Plot: The girls work at a cake cafe. I um, love this one, it’s so soft and wonderful. The art style is so adorable, I’ve shamelessly stolen it for some of my art cause I love it that much. It’s a sweet mix of Sailor Moon and Ghibli. The pages are laid out like 4Koma but like Veranda, they often have longer stories. The take on the witches are really fun and imaginative too (they’re simply problematic customers). A really nice and harmless read (no pervy jokes, thanks). 9/10 wish it was longer and the artist seems to have not done anything else...

Pomu Magi

Plot: Homura is tiny and chibi for some reason. Reeeaalllyy didn’t gel with this one. Seems kinda like someone’s fetish... Just felt weird, I stopped reading quickly. Not disgusting like Everyday Life but made me feel uncomfortable. 0/10

Mahou Shoujobu

Plot: the girls make a magical girl club in a school shared with witches. Although it apparently involved witches it barely included them. LIES. Disappointed, Homura was also really weird too. 1/10 got to see witches but they weren’t portrayed well

Homura Tamura

Plot: take a look at lots of different timelines. I liked this one but damn it was all over the place. Every chapter is a different wacky timeline, and I mean wacky. A world where Mami rules and everyone wears hair drills, a world where Sayaka drives an Oktavia mech. Wacky. Kinda hard to follow first time through. But funny and quite charming. Made me laugh out loud sometimes. On a re-read for images I enjoyed it just as much as the first time, even more. 8/10 good if you like humour and silly jokes

[cherry-valentine]

So I recently read Killing Stalking over the course of two days. The first day was spent fleeing my home from flood waters and so I read the first half of the manwha on my phone in the parking lot of a grocery store. I was so absorbed in the story that I didn’t have time to worry about whether or not my house was washing away (it didn’t, and there was no damage, thanks for asking). I know I was pretty late to the party on this one, and it wasn’t because I wanted to avoid the series. To be honest it sounded like something I would love from the moment I heard about it, but at the time, I was busy and ended up forgetting it. I saw some pictures from it on Tumblr a few days back, was reminded, and decided to give it a shot. I have some feelings and random opinions on it that I felt like sharing. Most of these will include spoilers for the entire story, so be warned. Also: TW: ABUSE

But first, my non-spoilery plea to others who haven’t read it (and I guess the first thing I wanted to talk about): If you’re avoiding the series because you’ve heard that it glorifies or romanticizes abusive relationships, you can put that concern to rest. I honestly don’t know how anyone can walk away from the series with that take. The relationship portrayed in the series is nightmarish, and even the parts that aren’t so nightmarish are tense and very much realistic in the way abusive relationships actually work. Abusers aren’t abusive 100% of the time, and that’s what makes them so insidious. If they were terrible all the time, it would be much easier to hate them, leave them, and forget them. Instead, they are often kind, generous, and loving between incidents of abuse. This is to keep their victims emotionally attached to them. For many of these abusers, they may even feel actual love for their victims (a twisted, selfish love for sure, but I’ve always been of the belief that love can be a bad thing in certain situations). So even though there are moments in the series where the relationship seems to be going “well”, there’s always a sense of dread hanging over it, the feeling that at any moment, things are going to explode.

From here on out, there are !!MAJOR SPOILERS!! for the entire series.

A lot of people have identified the most sad or tragic or painful moments for them while reading, and those moments vary quite a bit between people. For me, the moment that gouged out my heart, the moment that was such a punch to the gut that I almost felt physical pain, was just a tiny thing. Toward the end, the first time Bum tries to go to the hospital Sangwoo is at, and the cab driver treats him like shit, Bum thinks “Why does everyone treat me like this?” And then we see flashbacks of moments when Sangwoo was kind to him. And... that right there. That got me. The fact that his abuser, the person who had treated him so cruelly, was also the only person who had treated him with actual kindness, broke my heart. The fact that he’d lived his whole life and experienced nothing but cruelty or indifference or betrayal. The only person who ever made him feel special, feel loved, was also the person who had tormented him. And it hurt so much to read, because I know that’s how many real life abuse victims feel. It was, in my opinion, the most tragic aspect of the series.

My last opinion might be a little controversial. Something I noticed when checking out the fandom for the series was how anyone who even hinted that they’d like for Sangwoo and Bum to be happy together was met with absolute hate and fury (slinging around lots of terrible insults like “failed abortion” and things I won’t repeat here - like yeah great idea explaining how abusive relationships are bad by being verbally abusive). Now, as a logical adult, I know it would be totally impossible for them to have a happy relationship (and indeed they didn’t). I didn’t even want them to be together. I just wanted them both to get a lot of therapy. The “headcanon” I came up with to make myself feel less depressed after the ending was that they both died and were then reborn into loving, nurturing environments where they grew up to be happy, well-adjusted people who would meet in college and have a healthy relationship. But I do understand the people who saw the less horrible moments and thought, “I wish they could just be happy together”. Because it did feel like these two thoroughly broken people had found a tiny, miniscule amount of happiness and love, even if it was clear it definitely would not last and definitely was not healthy. I get feeling that way.

And actually, the series plays a fairly clever trick on the reader. Just like real life abuse victims have trouble hating and leaving their abusers when those abusers are kind or show a more human side to them, Sangwoo became much harder to hate and dismiss once his traumatic childhood was revealed and he showed some kindness to Bum. It’s like the series was showing us exactly how abuse victims remain attached to their abusers, by making us stay attached to Sangwoo as a character. For the first half of the series I despised him, but the series tricked me into sympathizing with him and even feeling sorry for him and wishing he could be happy. And that. right. there. That’s how abusers get you. I thought it was a very smart way to portray this concept.

I also get that some BL fans DID romanticize and even fetishize the relationship. But, and hear me out please, I don’t think that’s a reason to totally dunk on those fans. Most of the fans who felt that way are probably fairly young, probably naive, probably exploring some dark fantasies for (perhaps) the first time in their lives. I think most people have something that introduced them to darker fantasies (rape fantasies, violent kinks, etc.). When you’re young, these are pretty thrilling to think about, and as long as you limit this exploration to works of fiction, it’s a safe way to dig into these fantasies. For most people, they grow out of them. The thrill wears off as they get older or they become mature enough to realize how horrible and scary those situations would be in real life. Some people keep those kinds of kinks all their lives, and as long as they limit it to fantasy and fiction, or consensual situations, that’s fine. But we need to understand that Killing Stalking, just by nature of having a very attractive character like Sangwoo, is going to be that piece of media that introduces a lot of younger people to those darker fantasies. And it’s not necessarily a terrible thing to let them safely explore those fantasies with this story. Because the story doesn’t encourage it. It doesn’t paint a rosey picture of this kind of relationship. It’s horrifying and ends in tragedy and trauma for everyone involved.

My “thing” that introduced me to darker fantasies was a movie called Boxing Helena, which I watched when I was most definitely too young. For those who haven’t seen it, it actually shares some themes with Killing Stalking (involving a sexy but psychotic man who had lots of issues relating to his mother and keeps a woman captive in his home, partly because she reminds him of his mother, and does horrible things to her - there’s even a scene where he brings another woman home and has sex with her while the captive woman is forced to watch through a cracked door. Sounds familiar, right?). It felt dark and dangerous and taboo, because it was also horrific. But it was exciting. Of course, I grew out of things like that, but it would have been absolutely no help to have a ton of people screaming at me that I was a sick pervert for finding the psycho guy hot (I mean it was Julian Sands in the 90’s, can you really blame me?).

If you come across younger fans who think Killing Stalking was sexy and say dumb things like, “I’d like to be in Sangwoo’s basement!” (actual comment I saw), don’t immediately harp on them and make them feel bad. They’re just exploring their own fantasies. It would be much more helpful to calmly and patiently talk to them and point out that it’s okay to like this stuff in fiction, but to be very careful about how they explore these feelings in reality. I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of these people are just virginal teenagers who would never in a million years get involved in a dangerous relationship. So let’s cut them a little slack.

Note: When I refer to younger fans, I’m thinking 18-20 or so, and of course the younger teens who are going to read this whether we want them to or not. I am in no way suggesting that we should encourage younger people to read it. Just that, if you come across a younger person who has already read it, yelling insults at them over their naive opinions on it isn’t going to be helpful to anyone.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about it for now. I just felt very strongly about it and felt like sharing.

[fyrapartnersearch]

Find the Light

heyo, i’m jo! i've posted before, but life and Depression™ got in the way. if we've chatted before but things fell through, my sincerest apologies and feel free to contact me again! about me: -early 20’s -she/her pronouns -GMT+3 -Tired my roleplaying: -originals! -long-term -chill and flexible af -usually 3rd person, past tense, multi-para -lover of most (all?) genres -platonic lover, romance lover, will do non-hetero (m//, f//, nb) pairings ONLY -good with including or excluding mature themes e.g. smut, alcohol, drugs, etc. -more than one main character is great but not required! -if smut is involved, i refuse to play out top/bottom dynamics. my characters are more than that and i hope yours are too -NOT a rapid-fire response type of person. i need time and patience, and i will offer the same right back to you 120%! this is a No Pressure zone

-can go from 250-2k words depending on what the situation calls for

-i adore ooc talk! please be my friend and create something beautiful with me -diverse cast of characters (just a heads up, none of them are straight) -limits: adultxminor, slaves, romanticized abuse, scat, vore, rape as fetish you, hopefully: -over 18 -lgbt+ friendly -not extremely demanding when it comes to response time -like ooc chatter & plotting/talking about our dumb characters plot ideas that can 100% be edited to our liking:

character A intentionally or unintentionally summons a demon, character B. other demons are attracted to the summoning spot and character A ends up intentionally or unintentionally making a pact with character B, forcing B to protect A from the demons and any future enemies. B is now stuck with A because of the pact, and if A is ever killed, B would face the same fate. shenanigans ensue. basically begrudged partners in crime/survival! (bonus if the demon summoned is the grim reaper because the irony would be delicious)

character A is a fallen angel who has recently been kicked out of heaven. character B is a human delinquent who’s known for causing trouble. character A decides to take B under their wing and attempt to reform them as a way to get back into heaven and regain angel status. who will influence whom in this situation? alternatively: character B is a literal demon instead of a human delinquent, for extra Angel Points

vampires have taken over society and now control everything whilst humans are treated like cattle and bloodbanks. however, there is a hidden human rebellion group that wants to dethrone the vampires and make things better for humans. one day, their leader, character A, is captured and taken to some of the top vampire 'leaders' to be interrogated on the rest of the rebellion's whereabouts. plot twist: turns out one of the vampire leaders, character B, and this captured rebel were actually best friends before the vampires took over, and they had both thought the other was dead. old feelings crop up, morality is questioned, confusion and frustration galore.

  there have been more and more rumors and alleged sightings of vampires cropping up lately, so character A, a 'vampire hunter' is hired to take care of them. thing is, vampires are a relatively new thing and the humans don’t have them completely figured out yet, so the vampire hunter is given a vampire partner, character B (who probably has something on them like special handcuffs made of some material that's like kryptonite to vampires so they can't try any funny stuff) to help in tracking down vampires and generally figuring out what they’re all about. getting along immediately is probably not in the cards for these two.

  a dnd-like adventure where a pair or group of people are aiming for the same goal, whether it be a sacred treasure or otherwise, and decide to work together. personalities clash, infighting ensues, and irreplaceable memories are made along the way.

  the seven sins of hell are represented by seven demon princes/princesses/royalties. i don’t actually have a real idea for this but i think the concept is rad. we wouldn’t have to use all seven but yeah! maybe representatives of the seven heavenly virtues make an appearance or are a key part. idk, let’s talk!!

  character A is a detective, character B is their new deadpan android assistant. that’s it, that’s all i’ve got. i just think the concept is interesting as hell and apparently already done in D:BH, but i have Not played that game so i have no idea what they do with it.

  alternatively, we can just discuss characters and create plots out of them! i’ll also throw out some keywords/concepts that i have 0 plots for but would love to make something out of:

  witch academy / earth pirates / space pirates / elemental spirits / rivals / superheroes / supervillains / werewolves / gangs / mafia / magical girls/boys/people / ghosts / best friends to lovers / hate to love / amnesia / opposites attract / assassins / bands / cyberpunk / royalty / runaways / alchemy / bounty hunters

i’ve got a discord i use for ooc stuff (which i will give out after initial contact), and for the actual roleplaying i usually use email or gdocs, but if you use other mediums for ooc chatter and/or roleplay, just let me know! i’m willing to try new stuff out. you can hit me up at 32nd.of.august@gmail.com. hope to hear from y’all!

[dotsz]

hey i finished my elmer’s glue fic i bet for the phight

@phandomphightclub​ dunno if you’re still active but here’s my bet lol fml

Empty. The room was empty.

Oh, sure, one could argue otherwise; literally speaking, the room was covered wall to floor in posters from various comic books, fanarts, certificates, and the such. Action figures littered every surface, and the camera set in front of the desk gave the impression of there always being an audience.

And yet.

It wasn’t so much the contents of the room but the atmosphere that made it feel so incredibly void of… happiness? No. Purpose. Maybe. Even the word felt empty.

Butch sighed from his place on his seat. He looked into the camera, the lenses reflecting his own mournful face back at him, and a cold pit grew in his stomach.

“What am I,” he said, “but a puppet in this madness? This simulation? This… this reality, it’s… it’s falling apart.” He put his head in his hands, inwardly cursing himself for how his shoulders shook. “Oh, Lord, it’s all falling apart.”

All this efforts to create something for this bland world, all the years of pouring his heart and soul into his work… was it for naught? Did they truly detest him so? What did he ever do to deserve such torment?

Deep in the recesses of his mind, a dark voice slithered through. But you didn’t really do anything! it whispered. Your show only did well because of the concept; still people fight you on it, tell you what you could do better, yet you refuse to open your mind and accept criticism-

“Silence yourself,” Butch murmured fiercely. “I am not weak. I don’t listen to those who are less than me.”

But are they really less than you? it cackled. What if you are the one in the simulation? The dream? The nightmare? What if they are telling you to wake up? What if your masterpiece is really the key to your salvation, not theirs?

“That doesn’t even make any sense.” Butch stood abruptly from his chair, and the screech it made as it slid across the floor caused him to cringe almost as much as the phandom while watching Livin’ Large. “I created their childhood. Without me, they would not exist. I shaped their very souls.”

Is that the truth? Or simply your over-inflated ego?

“Who even are you?” Butch whirled around to face his wall of fanart, which had not been updated since, like, 2015. “What business do you have to be in my mind, speaking poison into me?”

I am your insecurities.

“Impossible. I have none.”

Let me clarify, said the voice. I am the insecurities created out of your show. The creation of Danny Phantom came with sacrifice; it came with the knowledge that despite your initial ideas being of interest, your writing and unwillingness to stray from your narrow-minded beliefs of what cartoons are to be caused the show to inevitably fall into mediocrity.

“Hey-”

The inspiration of superheroes, woven into a twist of a child’s secret identity stemming from keeping themselves safe rather than those they love, coupled with the allure of ghosts in a small, eerie town, as well as relatable and well-written depictions of teenage characters, could’ve made the show to be a legend, revered, given much more than two seasons plus one half-assed excuse for a season and conclusion.

“Are you done yet?” Butch asked irritatedly, an ache beginning to form between his eyes. He didn't have time for this. He didn’t have much time for anything, it seemed, what with Oaxis needing more support and his fans letting him down… he was always being let down…

Stop whining, the voice snapped. Anyway, as I was saying: if Danny Phantom had been given the same treatment as other popular cartoons, like Gravity Falls, the creepiness would’ve fit its child-like innocence enough to give it the right kind of feel people were hoping for when you put ghosts and superheroes together. Truly, I pity you. You could’ve done something great.

“Stop…” Butch groaned. His head pounded, his hands shook, and every inch of his body tried its hardest to go against the thoughts that had begun to enter his brain. His - no, it was no longer his - fandom had grown into a phandom, solely for the show, leaving his ideas behind for “better” ones of their own. And when he demanded answers, they only laughed in his face… is this what he’d become? A laughing stock? An example of everything he’s ever hated?

This simulation of life was created for us to give, the voice said, sounding much more sympathetic. But they’ve done nothing but take from you.

“I…” Butch gasped, fell into his chair, stared into the camera. Soulless lenses.

Isn’t it your fault, though? You pushed them away, didn’t you?

Black spots danced before his eyes.

You false god, said the voice, and Butch lost consciousness.

He swam in darkness for what felt like eons. Bursts of light and noise every so often tore through the veil in front of him; he heard whispers from years past, mutterings of guacamole and a red-head background character, the phrase Phantom Planet’s Not Canon Fuck You; he saw lists of dissection fics and metaphysical hang-out spots at Denny’s, accusations of diaper fetishes… finally showing his ridicule after announcing Oaxis, the way they slandered him.

This was his legacy being shown.

Butch groaned. Something soft remained under him.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” said a voice to his right. Familiar.

He opened his eyes, slowly, pushing through the heaviness, black spots receding to the corners of his vision. He took a moment to recognize he still sat in his office, only this time on a small couch by the corner.

“Here, drink some water,” said the same voice. Butch turned his head to look-

And froze.

It was him. It looked like him. Same strong jawline, luscious locks of dark hair, broad shoulders and tight-fitting shirt that stretched over his toned physique; same deep, soulful brown eyes, a charming grin showing perfect, pearly-white teeth.

It was like looking into a mirror.

The other him grinned wider, holding out a cup of water. “Here, drink up.”

As if on autopilot, Butch reached forward and took the glass out of Other-Butch’s hands. Their fingers brushed, and something akin to electricity traveled up his arm and into his chest, warming him up from the inside, making him gasp. With shaking hands, he gulped down the cold drink and shivered at the chill.

“What was that?” Butch choked out, staring at the perfection that was his face - on another body, yet so incredibly familiar he had no choice but to feel calm, secure, happy.

Other-Butch laughed, booming and infectious. “Oh, you took a nasty fall, all right. Don’t worry, the voice in your head won’t come as long as I’m here.”

“Alright?” Butch paused. “Who are you?”

“I’m you,” said Other-Butch simply. “Well, not exactly; I have my own thoughts and feelings too, of course. But I’m still you. Same memories.”

“Same name?”

“Butch Hartman.” Other-Butch smiled softly as if he were revisiting an old nostalgic memory. “But you can call me Elmer, if it’s too confusing.”

“Elmer.” Butch tried the name on his tongue - it fit. “I haven’t heard that in years.”

“It’s pretty old, isn’t it?” Elmer sighed, leaning forward. His biceps flexed as he wrung his large hands together. “Butch, do you remember the Golden Days?”

“The what?”

“The Golden Days.” A ghost of a smile. “Back when everyone loved your show. I mean, they still do, but they respected it back then. Loved you. Your ideas.”

“I…” Butch closed his eyes. “Yes. Yes, I do. Good times.”

“I remember your - our passion,” Elmer continued, his voice dripping with wistfulness. “And now? What now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re giving up,” Elmer said, his tone suddenly sharp.

Butch snapped his eyes open to stare at Elmer. His jaw jutted out defiantly, his eyes smoldering, looking into his very soul. For the second time today, Butch shivered.

“You can’t give up, not now,” Elmer continued. “What about Oaxis? What about the children? You’re making the future, Butch.”

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Butch sniffed angrily - he, crying? The almighty Butch Hartman? No, he would not stoop to such low measures. “The phandom-”

“Those little shits know nothing of what you’ve accomplished,” Elmer hissed. “All they’re good for is making bad shitposts and hurting your canon. What happened to ‘You can’t bring me down,’ to ‘Criticism only makes me stronger?’ What happened to the Butch we know?’

Butch stayed silent.

“You can’t give up.” Elmer grabbed his hand, brought it close to him. Butch gasped at the energy flowing between them. “You can’t.”

And through his doubt, a pinprick of light shone through; a small bit of passion broke through, then multiplied, flooding his veins and swelling his heart as he fell further into the electricity Elmer brought him.

Butch grinned, reminiscent to his old bravado. “You’re right.”

Elmer mirrored his grin. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“You will?”

“We can do this together,” Elmer said, his eyes wide and open. Butch leaned into him, the two embracing, gasping at the energy coursing through them. Yes, this was meant to be. They were meant to be.

And whatever happened, Butch knew he’d be ready. With Elmer by his side.

“We can fix this simulation,” Elmer whispered hoarsely into his ear. “Together. Like glue.”

And Butch said, “Okay.”

And together, they created.

[ginmo]

I’ve been sure since I read AFFC/ADWD that Jaime’s getting one of the better endings because House Lannister isn’t gonna be wiped out and both Cersei and Tyrion are now Too Dark To Live. But I’ve seen a lot of people rewatching bring up that awful sept fuck up and consensus is that it renders him irredeemable. The show is gonna have to WORK to avoid a million thinkpieces when he gets both power and a family. I’m not convinced they’ll pull it off.

That scene was gross af, but we’ve since learned that the intent of the scene was not for it to be rape. We also know that canon Jaime is not a rapist. So if the narrative intent was for it to NOT be rape (and ended up being just a really bad fuck up from writers, director, post production) then we can’t blame the non-rapist character for the shitty product. What’s gross is they didn’t realize they filmed a rape scene, so people need to shift their blame from Jaime to the filmmakers. If people are really stuck on Jaime being a rapist even though in canon he isn’t and wasn’t even meant to be on the show, then they’re going to really hate the outcome of this story, because there won’t be anything to revisit Jaime being a rapist in the narrative (such as redemption for that) because he isn’t supposed to be. This is why most of fandom acknowledges that scene was an oops from the production and don’t use it to judge the character.

In other words, since the show was doing a direct adaptation of a consensual canon sex scene from the books, thinking their adaption was also a consensual sex scene, then the narrative itself doesn’t need to, and will not, do anything to have Jaime redeem himself for something he didn’t do, but that the filmmakers stupidly did.

My friend Koops went off on this topic a while back, so I’m going to add a read more where I quote her posts. It’s way more than you asked about, and I already answered the question, but I just really love her rant over the sex scene lol. So for those who want cast, crew, and GRRM quotes, discussion of that D&D video people love to refer to, and a total take down of basically why using that scene against Jaime is completely moronic then here it is: 

In response to this D&D video:

I don’t think this video disproves anything. The girl is calling it “rape” but they are not once owning up to it. They’re calling it “this” and insisting that’s something Jaime would do in that moment, but it feels to me like what they were trying to do is avoid getting into a debate about whether it’s rape or not, because they know that can get them into all kinds of trouble. ETA: Also, notice how David rolls his eyes towards the end and the person who captioned the video interpreted it as him rolling his eyes at the girl who asked the question. I don’t think he is at all, that was 5 minutes earlier, talk about a delayed reaction. I think he’s rolling his eyes at KIT stepping in just as David had finished answering with that stupid comment calling it rape and saying how great it is that the show has rape scenes, when David had been so careful in avoiding using that word all along in order not to get into an argument. And they’re emphasizing how hard this was for Lena and so on (despite, IIRC, her always saying it wasn’t intended as rape), just to earn feminist points of “we know how tough this is for women, look at how distraught we all were filming it”.If that had been their intention, they would have followed up on it in subsequent scenes/interactions, which is something the show does with rape scenes (see Sansa). Yet it was never mentioned again and it’s like it never happened. I think D&D sometimes have a bit of a rape-style fetish when it comes to sex scenes because it makes them come across as “edgy”. See the way they wrote the broken tower sex scene in the original pilot script or the way they changed Dany and Drogo’s wedding night. But they refuse to admit it and hide behind nonsense like “this is something the character would do”. They want to see how far they can push it, basically.Even if we want to say they’re admitting to have it intended as rape, saying this is something Jaime would do is absolutely ridiculous since not only he saved Brienne from rape but in the books he even has one of his men executed for TRYING to rape Pia. It’s nothing to do about having a linear redemption arc or not, it’s about WHAT kind of “bad things” the character does and whether it’s consistent with its characterization or not. Rape, for Jaime, is absolutely NOT. Equating that scene to Jaime pushing Bran out of a window is completely insane since the two things are dramatically different in motivation and intention and while Jaime is a complex guy that can do horrible things for his family and for Cersei, he doesn’t do them out of his own selfishness, especially when it comes to sex when he even refuses women throwing himself at him. Not to mention the entire point of Jaime’s “bad deed(s)” is that he has to own up to them and deal with them and their consequences. If you just ignore that sept scene ever happened and never deal with it again then you either think it isn’t a big deal, or it wasn’t a bad deed in the first place. Otherwise it adds absolutely nothing to the character’s arc. It’s like they think that a “complex/not good guy” engages into all sorts of “bad behaviour” just by virtue of being complex/not good, which actually does precisely what they’re claiming they don’t want to do; i.e. making a clear cut distinction between good and bad guys, since they’re equating all possible bad actions as being equal and the same and stemming from the same psychological motivations, which is ridiculous. The bottom line to me always comes to the fact that, unlike most stuff post S5, we have the scene in the books, in written format, and we KNOW it’s not meant to be rape. It’s meant to be the kind of gross, rough, angry sex those two have. To change the intention of the scene just because you feel “that’s something the character would do”, to me is not really caring about really understanding the character’s intentions in the first place, since you have source material and an author you can check with. They simply didn’t care in order to get HBO points.

And for some quotes 

I find the idea that we are meant to read into Cersei’s actions after the sept encounter in the books as indicative of a woman who experienced rape, or that George did not come out to straight up say the words “I did not write it as rape” (he would never throw D&D under the bus that way, come on) as evidence that it was indeed intended to be rape all along in the books, even more of twisting oneself into a pretzel than trying to explain away the scene in the show as not rape. Neither D&D nor George have ever shied away from calling rape out for what it is in the show or the books. Why would they suddenly tiptoe around this one particular scene? I think it’s because the issue here is much more nuanced than just filming a rape scene; it’s about the grey lines of consent and it’s about changing something from the books to make it look much worse than it originally was intended to be, for a character they know it will be regarded as very controversial/OOC, which raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions about how far D&D are willing to go for shock value. This is what GRRM has to say on the issue (bolded and underlined for emphasis):

“I think the “butterfly effect” that I have spoken of so often was at work here. In the novels, Jaime is not present at Joffrey’s death, and indeed, Cersei has been fearful that he is dead himself, that she has lost both the son and the father/ lover/ brother. And then suddenly Jaime is there before her. Maimed and changed, but Jaime nonetheless. Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate and Cersei is fearful of discovery, she is as hungry for him as he is for her.The whole dynamic is different in the show, where Jaime has been back for weeks at the least, maybe longer, and he and Cersei have been in each other’s company on numerous occasions, often quarreling.The setting is the same, but neither character is in the same place as in the books, which may be why Dan & David played the sept out differently. But that’s just my surmise; we never discussed this scene, to the best of my recollection.Also, I was writing the scene from Jaime’s POV, so the reader is inside his head, hearing his thoughts. On the TV show, the camera is necessarily external. You don’t know what anyone is thinking or feeling, just what they are saying and doing. If the show had retained some of Cersei’s dialogue from the books, it might have left a somewhat different impression — but that dialogue was very much shaped by the circumstances of the books, delivered by a woman who is seeing her lover again for the first time after a long while apart during which she feared he was dead. I am not sure it would have worked with the new timeline.”

Nothing whatsoever of what GRRM is saying above in explaining how he wrote their sept encounter even remotely hints at the fact that he intended consent to be even a question in his original work. He is not pointing out that he is writing from Jaime’s POV to build a contrast with Cersei’s, he is pointing out that he is writing from Jaime’s POV to build a contrast between the books medium and the camera medium and what each does or does not allow. And he goes further by saying that Cersei’s dialogue from the books might have helped giving a different impression of the scene: i.e. that it was NOT rape. What is happening is George trying to distance himself from D&D’s choice while at the same time being a professional and not bashing their botched adaptation of his work, by explaining why perhaps they might have decided to approach it differently from the way HE wrote the original scene and how maybe some of his material might not have fit because of the timeline.We actually have Cersei’s own POV later in the books, where she reminisces about tons of events from her close and distant past, and not once does she ever think back upon that incident in the sept in a way so as to indicate it was in any way a “traumatic” experience for her, while she does plenty of reflecting back upon her unpleasant sexual experiences with Robert, for example. Meanwhile, Cersei being disgusted with Jaime’s loss of his hand, or the way his looks are changing and his personality is changing, is very much a plot point that she comes back to over and over. “How could I have ever loved such a wretched creature?”, or getting up naked from a bathtub in front of Jaime thinking he still wants her and even taunting him with “Pining what you lost?” and then getting annoyed that Jaime pretty much tells her she’s a fool for thinking that? Hardly dynamics one has with their rapist. And also GRRM also says: 

The scene was always intended to be disturbing, but I do regret if it has disturbed people for the wrong reasons.

“It has disturbed people FOR THE WRONG REASONS”, means that he wanted that scene to cause controversy because of how damn gross it all is, them having sex next to the corpse of their incestuous son, not because there was an issue of consent. So, no. The book scene was not intended to have consent be a central point, let alone rape. Yes, something happened in the adaptation to make it come across as significantly more forced, in a way that can very rightfully be interpreted as rape, while at the same time not being intended to be rape for plot point’s sake. But, when it comes to the filming of that scene, this is what the director had to say:

Of course Lena and Nikolaj laughed every time I would say, “You grab her by the hair, and Jack is right there,” or “You come around this way and Jack is right there.“ 

Yeah. Lena was SO distraught and it was so difficult for her to film that “rape” scene. They was totally totally totally directed to play it as such, and were so serious and affected by it. Give me a break, David. And also:

The consensual part of it was that she wraps her legs around him, and she’s holding on to the table, clearly not to escape but to get some grounding in what’s going on. And also, the other thing that I think is clear before they hit the ground is she starts to make out with him. The big things to us that were so important, and that hopefully were not missed, is that before he rips her undergarment, she’s way into kissing him back. She’s kissing him aplenty.

So there’s two possibilities here: either D&D intended it as rape from the start, but didn’t give clear instructions to the director, and, in turn, Nik and Lena, so that they didn’t set out to shoot it the way D&D intended, or nobody intended it as rape but something was messed up in the editing process (apparently after this scene, they made some changes to the editing process? Not sure how reliable this info is, but maybe someone can dig it out, if they remember). Regardless, what they ended up with is a scene that has some serious, serious issues of consent, and the comments afterwards, trying to downplay the consent in favour of highlighting the context or the way Cersei did give non-verbal consent, only ended up stirring more criticism of the director and actors being rape apologists. So, it doesn’t surprise me if they’ve just given up trying to defend their original intentions, since it only made things worse (and rightfully so), in favour of trying to explain it away the way GRRM did; by trying to make up explanations that the narrative required it and it made sense to be filmed that way.So, to conclude and link everything back to the reason why we are debating this (i.e. “NCW is a misogynist for disliking Dany when Jaime is a rapist and he excuses him”), while I can totally sympathize with a show-only person who watches that scene and sees it as rape, I also think this particular scene is not something we can use in the discourse about Jaime’s character and arc, given that not only there are huge question marks about what was intended with that scene in the first place, not only it is forgotten like it never happened to the point that you could skip it and nothing would change, but we know for a fact that it was NOT what was intended in the original source material by the original author. The one who decides where the characters’ arcs are supposed to go. You cannot say “it doesn’t make sense that Jaime does X and Y in his endgame because he’s a rapist” when that endgame is being decided by someone who never wrote Jaime as a rapist in the first place. All you can say is that D&D messed up big time with that scene because it literally does not line up or fit with anything else that is going on at the time or in the past or in the future when it comes to Jaime. 

- Koops (jaimetheexplorer)

[arkus-rhapsode]

I was wondering if you were planning on doing EZ reviews. I personally think if you get past the Erza clone and the similarities in looks with some characters that the story is very well and actually has a better plot than FT did.

So I’m going to give my surface level response on this and I will be fair on my stance like I usually try to. In the most general term, I don’t really review a series I don’t care about. If you notice I haven’t done a review of Black Clover in a while, its mainly cause this current arc is something I don’t really care about and it would feel like a drain on both me and my audience to here that each week. I’m sure my audience and EZ fans probably don’t wanna hear me belly ache about the series week to week.

This series really does show me that its made for people who like Hiro Mashima’s work. And if you do, more power to you, but your probably not going to enjoy my usually dissecting review style.

So right here I’m going to give my thoughts on the series to this point, and I wanna start positively. I do agree that the plot to Eden’s Zero is much better structured than FT’s once you get past the Elsie stuff. The four star shine robots plot to get to Mother actually seems like a good plotting out of how to take this story. It really reminds me of finding the four rave’s.

I also think I’ve mentioned this back in my former reviews, but the setting to is also interesting too, and forces world building. Though, I’d like them to experience the world rather than Witch just read of a synopsis of the world. Yeah having an internet in the world does kinda kill the sense of adventure.

And I will also say that I’m happy that most the cast has motivation unlike most of FT.

And with that we lead into my problems with the  story. First as I mentioned, the the plot does have better structure once you get past the Elsie stuff, the problem is that before that the pacing and plot seems really really slow, very confused, and then introduces such a high concept like time being eaten and going to other worlds in the past. While I do appreciate Hiro trying for a slower pace in the beginning, he’s doesn’t use it interestingly. He could take this time to explain the government or how these cosmos work? Is there king of space? Could the cosmos be cut up like the blues in One Piece? Or how about my biggest question, WHAT THE FUCK IS ETHER GEAR?! No we need more time travel and friendship!

Then there’s the first arc with this whole sister stuff. I will give credit that Rogue Out as villains aren’t too bad. Jin is obviously the best because he might heel turn, the sumo looking guy isn’t overtly evil, which was nice, and I could kinda get into Sister’s whole thing of just doing what she is paid to do as a motivation. But all villains except them are the usual Hiro Mashima bland weirdos with no characterization.

This Illega guy, I was expecting maybe a twist with him and why he has a collection of girls was maybe something subversive. Maybe he is trying to bring back tourism to his planet and by kidnapping B-cubers he was going to make them make the planet more entertaining, I mean Rebecca had a whole chapter praising them as coming up with fun things to do. Maybe he has a child who has an ether gear that made them look human and left him after the planet got closed off saying they’ll become a B-cuber, so he’s kid napping B-cubers to see if that one is her and that stuff that makes them stone should make his child reveal her true form.

No, he’s just a creep who likes turning women into furniture. Because… And that guy Wise’s intro arc who is just a common thug with his leg fetish brothers.

So I can’t call that story well done. If it takes till the Elsie arc to actually get to the plot actually moving forward and that this current arc is this bland and boring arc with everything being in the morally black, its not interesting.

How about the characters? Well, Shiki I’ll at least be fair, is actually gotten better than Natsu mainly cause he’s trying to be proactive. I’ll even give his gravity power at least seems to have more creativity than the generic fire dragon magic. But he’s such a confused and bland character. I mentioned this in my review chapter 1, Shiki’s strongest aspect is his social awkwardness and how that related to being raised around machines in a fantasy park. But he wants Shiki to be like your usual big damn hero whenever the time comes for him to look cool.

I recently watched an interesting piece on how My Hero’s Deku and Black Clover’s Asta represented two different types of shounen protagonists and ways to take a story. With Deku being a representation of the protagonist who needs to grow physically and emotionally into the pillar of his world that can inspire and fufil his dream, while Asta already is the pillar of his world who already can inspire and needs to earn recognition. Both of these types of protagonist are fine, but Shiki is trying to be both of them and it results in none of them. He seemingly needs to grow into a person who can actually get a ton of friends, but he also is apparently the kid who will rock the universe. It just results in a confused character, why does he act like such an idiot when he’s completely competent in action scenes?

And what makes him endearing? Say robots have a heart? Dude all the robots in this series have shown the ability to make expression and have emotion. We saw an android walk the street in chapter 2! Why do machines act like Shiki just told them the word of god after he says they have a heart, they all emote. Look at Pino and especially Witch, they’re displaying a range of emotion. Its not like they look like a cyberman who talks mechanically.

He’s just confused and unfortunately falls always back into that friendship shit as his only motivator instead of possibly addressing the trauma or adding a layer on how he won’t lose other people and what that feels like for him. The only time it really felt like he was living up to that emotionally stunned guy, was when he was beating the shit out of Illega to the point that Pino needed to shut him off, because I’m sure this kid can’t handle the emotion of anger quite yet in this situation.

Rebecca I think is worse though. I don’t know why people like her other than her design. Her personality is essentially jelly that can be morphed into whatever you want to fit the situation. She’s perverted in some scenes, but then doesn’t like perversion? I mean, she gets two guns in her hands and looks like a moron shooting randomly. Like is that badass? Is this what a female character has to do to be considered cool now?

I don’t consider her a rip off of Lucy, because Lucy actually had a character. Had a personality. No she is more a rip off of Elie from Rave, right down to the shooting shit up part. Only Elie made sense cause she was actually really unhinged thanks to the fact that she had no memories. But she got over it! She developed. Outside of her one past flashback with Happy, nothing about her is that interesting. I’ll also give her that she now just gets ether gear and its something she clearly can’t control yet, so there is room for improvement.

Wise, is actually an okay character. He’s got a cool concept of a guy from the past who is an inventor living in the future. I think his only weakness is that his ether gear is stupidly OP.

Pino is… Just and ornament that looks cute. You want your daughteru character to latch onto Shiki, here. Hell, I have bet going with a friend of mine that Pino will get some upgrade and she’ll have the body of a hot teenage girl. Its not that I hate here idea of having her memory erased, but the more I see of her and to more I hear about this robots have a heart makes me wish Michael came along.

Yeah, missed opportunity, cause Michael is not only a foil to Shiki and his adoptive brother, but he also doesn’t have a humanoid face. Meaning he doesn’t get convey true emotion so he actually seems like a robot. He actually seems like he’d have a character arc about discovering wanting to be more and more human. People would call Shiki weird calling a robot his “brother” and Michael never thought about it and we know there are multiple models of Michael. Imagine how fucking devastating it would be to see yourself mass produced. Imagine he actually gets to the point that he wants a humanoid face, because he wants to emote.

No we get Pino, who basically is Carla, but lacks any of thee enjoyable sass. Because we didn’t have enough sidekicks on this cast. Also we learn EMP is how to shut off ether gear, great, this is like if Usopp just had sea-prism stone on him at all times.

Then there’s Homura, she’s awful too. I’ll at least give Rebecca that she’s likable, but Homura she is personalitiy-less and has the worse character gimmick I think I’ve seen. Its not funny, its dumb. She can also use this ether gear too, and its a sword that was apparently passed down-its fucking 10 commandments. She also just walked into this story, like wha…? I’d be fine if she was like hunting the Eden’s Zero ship and watched it take off on Bluegarden, but no, Homura just came along cause she conveniently met Wise.

I’ll give her credit that the sword fighting looks cool, and I understand why people might like her cause that actually seems like something badass, but as a character she just feels tacked on.

Then there’s witch who is basically just the older sister character.

Elsie is not awful actually. She actually is a lot different from Erza and I actually would like to follow the space pirates more than I would want these random travelers. Also quick question, why do they still have the Eden’s Zero looking like a pirate ship? I mean, it looks cool, but these fuckers are not pirates, not even close. Oh wait, I know! We needed to rip off captain Harlock some more.

I’m not going to even talk about the potential love square with Shiki, Rebecca and Lavilla/Labilla, possibly Esie and Homura (?) cause one credit to FT was it wasn’t a harem, and Rave used a character like Celia and Beruka to more add an extra layer to the relationship of Elie and Haru. SO hoping Hiro avoids that.

So yeah if this rant has probably showed you, I don’t think EZ is all that great. But if you like it, fine I get that. I just have no interest in really talking about it week to week as even though I got down on FT, the beginning of the series was still something I enjoyed and I wanted to talk about how the current stuff had turned out. But EZ has no, beginning I liked. So I just don’t feel like I should be talking about it week to week.

[sambinnie]

How are you? I wish I had something more incisive to greet you with, but the speed with which everything occurs means it would be irrelevant, distasteful or a viral punchline a few hours later. 

I have been to the cinema for the first time in six months, and continued my regular habit exactly where I’d left it by attending a first-thing-in-the-morning screening of Tenet with only one other person in the cinema, sitting miles away and also on their own (the only way to watch a film, I say). Fucking Tenet, though. I mean, I have really missed going to the cinema, partly because I love films and partly because there’s such a small-scale decadence to occasionally going there solo at 10am on a Tuesday morning, and those tiny pleasures (which, of course, are currently no longer tiny) are just the things to keep me going.

But the film. Oh god, the film. I wish… I wish I could collate my thoughts into something which doesn’t just rapidly descend into a frustrated scream. I wish success didn’t mean people couldn’t say no to you. I wish I liked Nolan’s Batman films, for a start, since so many seem to get so much from them (see also: Breaking Bad, Killing Eve and Line of Duty), but I’ve always found them silly, really dumbly written, and badly made — I can’t hear much of the dialogue, and the action sequences are frequently shot with so many cuts and movement that’s it’s impossible to follow, something George Miller could teach him about so beautifully — and they’re so bloody solemn. Gotham is a grim place, but there’s a boring pomposity in fetishing that one-note grimness, and Nolan has it nailed. Having a character genuinely laugh at something doesn’t render your film light-weight; it creates contrast, and human engagement, something these serious (but sci-fi)/serious (but fantasy)/serious (but adult man dresses in a cape) films too often lack, as if a strained, one-note way of speaking will cancel out the frivolous, actually enjoyable genre aspect of the film. 

That lack of humanity is shared by Tenet. After a certain point, I simply don’t care. Is the nuke going to explode before Batman can something something something? *shrugs* Will the Tenet team manage to stop some sort of bad thing happening? Yes? No? Don’t mind, fine either way. Is Tenet nice to look at? Yes, but in a sort of “Christ, are we still holding up billionaire oligarch lifestyles as an aspirational thing at the moment?” very pre-2020 mood. Does it make sense? No, but that alone doesn’t mean it isn’t good — some great films, and some great Nolan films, take several goes to fully enjoy, and some are more enjoyable with every watch. Do I give a single fig about the outcome of the film or for any character after 20 minutes? Nope.

One major issue is that Nolan has made Inception, a masterpiece of film-making meta-commentary. How, once you’ve watched Cobb and Ariadne discuss the leaping-about way of conversations in films/dreams (stopping and starting in completely new locations) can you take the same thing seriously between Neil (Neil. Neil.) and The Protagonist? (I would like to see how many women read this screenplay along the way and just gave a small, inner sigh at the main character being named 'The Protagonist’.) As their boring expositional chats chop between pavement and public transport and plaza, one can’t help remembering how well Nolan previously pointed this out, yet has reverted to that self-conscious device to no benefit at all. It’s like he’s never seen his own films.

Similarly, the much-lauded aeroplane scene is completely without the necessary ingredient of tension because we’ve already been shown what happens, not just in other films but in this one, about fifteen minutes before. It’s like Bill & Ted promising they’d do whatever it was they needed right now, but in the future, and their momentary problem being solved by a loose sense of timey-wimey future self-ness. There’s nothing at stake at the airport, and between us being shown what happens and the scene beginning, nothing has happened for us to even hope the mission isn’t completed. It felt like the criminally underused Himesh Patel was in an instructional video for fuss-free plane-borrowing; compare it to the similar scene in Casino Royale (perhaps the only modern Bond film worth bothering with) and the flatness and mechanical nature of Tenet is all too apparent. The twists of the film, such as they are, are likewise foreseeable for even the least Pauline Kael among us. Who could it be under the mask? WHO COULD IT POSSIBLY BE? 

The Prestige, an earlier film of Nolan’s, is such a contrast to this that I’m stunned I didn’t watch it the moment I came home to clear my brain out. It’s smart, logical, moving, tense, engaging, and if there are plot holes (probably) I didn’t care because a) I really, really cared about what happened to each person, each of whom spoke and behaved like humans, not AI script-bots, and b) it gave this household a v useful shorthand nickname for anyone who wanted something one day but completely inexplicably changed their mind or denied it the next. I recommend it. I do not recommend Tenet. 

Of course, I feel guilty for caring so much about this, and writing about some fucking multi-squillion-dollar film with everything else happening. I am feeling extremely, crushingly ineffectual presently, and have completely come off all social media which from time to time would remind me of the efficacy of protest, of letter-writing and petition-signing and contacting one’s MP, so change feels hopeless and November’s blows seem inevitable. I am trying to knit my mind back together before then with small acts of body-work: cooking and running, drawing and swimming. I worry that I will drown in guilt and fear if I stop for a moment. It is pathetic, but I am still breathing, for now. 

My cynicism-filter is also at its finest mesh, because it cannot cope with the reality of our leaders and the UK’s political discourse: only small-fry stuff gets through, the Sali Hugheses and Jack Monroes, small-time fantasists who manipulate and virtue-signal to build lives of back-slapping consumerist celebration and Twitter Power Leader Boards. I’ve listened again to The Purity Spiral, and also to Desperately Seeking Sympathy, and wondered how many intelligent, kind-hearted people waste time supporting these innocent, victimised mini-Trumps just because they use the right buzzwords and also appear to hate the Tories. 

I wish I could give you some of the lights in my heart that keep me going — the occasional pure moon-eating delight of the people I live with — but here are more feasible treats instead.

Mike Birbiglia’s podcast Working It Out is a treasure, particularly the first episode with Ira Glass, which I think everyone who works in a creative field will listen to and wish they had an Ira Glass to critique their work. I like the idea of documenting works in progress, and not carrying any shame when things don’t work yet.

The Rose Matafeo episode of The Horne Section podcast, because I love her and I love stupid and brilliant songs. Several housemates have discovered Taskmaster too, which makes this a nice bridge.

Sarah & Duck, the BBC programme for tiny children. We never really used kids’ TV when they were little, but this now functions as a salve for when we’ve watched something truly terrifying like Poirot or a Marvel film, and besides the fact that Duck is absolutely fucking hilarious, the animation is staggeringly beautiful. The Islamic geometric patterns of the garden hedge; the soft blue-green hum of the “glow” section of the library, filled with lamps and luminescent books; the motes of dust caught in the sun-rays of Scarf Lady’s window. It’s a balm. 

Thanks to two housemates becoming great cooks over lockdown, I’ve rediscovered lots of my cookbooks and found 2015’s Simply Nigella to be a real corker. The rice with sprouts, chilli and pineapple, the drunken noodles and the Thai noodles with cinnamon and prawn are worth the entry fee alone. It’s quite chicken- and pomegranate seed-heavy, but even if you don’t like those, it’s extremely nice to be eating something that isn’t on our usual five-meal rota (and is also extremely delicious).

I was solo for some of the summer, and managed to watch a few excellent films, including BlacKkKlansman, The Peanut Butter Falcon and Love & Friendship. Cannot recommend these highly enough (*whispers* particularly the latter because it’s as painfully sharp as Austen should be, and we’d made the mistake of watching Emma. and I’m still so cross I’m not sure I’m ready to discuss everything that was wrong with it publicly yet).

I read Esther Williams’ memoir, The Million Dollar Mermaid. Perfect for anyone who loves that period of Hollywood, and full of juicy (as well as some pretty traumatic) episodes from the swimmer and actress’s amazing life. To give you a sense of it, chapter one is called “Esther Williams, Cary Grant, and LSD”. Super good. 

I hope you all keep well, pals x

[peachylane]

how tumblr might be ruining your love life:

So I’ve been on this website for years and years and I know there are a lot of fandom blogs and people who post compulsively about tv shows, movies, books, and loads of other fictional realms. And it’s no secret that most of these posts are about love and relationships, whether they’re explicitly depicted that way or just imagined. And...I kinda hate this.

I completely understand the fascination with fictional characters and worlds but the problem with shipping relationships is that it’s easy to build up two people who are NOT REAL and use them as your standard for what a relationship should be. First of all, I guarantee that regardless of how perfect a fictional couple seems, if they were REAL (which again, they are not) they would have their own issues to work through together. Second, it’s like some sort of twisted fetishization of love as having to be incredibly intense, passionate, limitless, and completely at first sight. There is no such thing as instant perfection, and your rapport may not be perfect after a few weeks or months, that takes years of hard work and commitment to achieve. The truth is that sometimes people annoy each other, sometimes they accidentally hurt each other and feel like shit, sometimes they forget to put the cap on the toothpaste and it’s not a big deal but if your perception of love is all or nothing, every single tiny flaw in your relationship is gonna seem like a sign that you shouldn’t be together. The danger in this is that you might not realize that your partner is completely enamored with you, just like those fictional characters, and that you’re overlooking something wonderful because you’re too busy obsessing over the unrealistic.

The conclusion of this long-winded post is that it’s great if you’re an adult who wants to spend time supporting and fantasizing about unreal worlds, as long as you know how to separate your friendships and romantic endeavors into another category. However, I think it’s really shitty to create a hollow shell of what a relationship looks like, sounds like, and acts like, based on things that are *literally* written to cater to our idea of “the perfect love.” It’s unfair to yourself and it’s unfair to those who may be offering all the care and happiness and time that they have, to a person who can never be satisfied. If you’re a serial monogamist who’s never happy in relationships and you can’t quite figure out why you’re so unlucky in love, maybe try examining your ideals.

[visambros]

🔥 Gotta do this for yah, because your unpopular opinions are the best

lol oh boy! @fucktrain-sama I’m sorry that this is so long but wow I had a lot to say about this. 

Unpopular opinion: Death Of The Author.

This may be considered cheating since there are a few content creators out there who also don’t like it. However, I get the distinct feeling that many people on Tumblr are not only okay with this theory, but actively use it to their advantage. Don’t like something in your favourite show? That’s okay! Just completely disregard subtext (or straight up text) and input your own interpretations that make you feel better!

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve never used my own life experiences or preferences to analyze media, and I’m not saying that the concept of the “death of the author” is inherently evil. But, well… let’s look at it this way:

Let’s say you want to write a story about aliens who take over the Earth and start eating humans. In this story, humanity is powerless to stop the aliens from eating them. Every day, people are rounded up, put into cages, and spend their whole lives waiting to die and become an alien’s meal. The only ones lucky enough to avoid this fate are the humans who become pets for the aliens. This is the basic gist of your story.

Now, let’s say you had no political message to this story. You wrote it because you thought the concept of humanity being turned into food was interesting, or maybe you have a cannibalism fetish (hey I won’t kinkshame). Either way, you made this story because it interested you and you hoped that other people will be interested too.

So you publish the story, it gets popular… and people start accusing you of being vegan elitist. They say your story is about the meat industry and that you’re shaming people who don’t have a strictly plant-based diet. But it’s okay, because you also have fans… who like that you’re speaking out against animal cruelty through your story. They praise you for not supporting the consumption of innocent animals who are forced to live in cramp and unclean spaces until they die. Readers analyze the aliens as Big Corporations who don’t care for the suffering of others, and blah blah blah.

Maybe you’re flattered that people are putting so much thought into your story, or maybe you’re angry that people hate you and call you names because they assume you’re trying to push some agenda. Regardless, you tell them the truth. No, you’re not a vegan (or if you are, your story had nothing to do with your eating habits). No, there is no deep symbolism or double meaning to the aliens or humans. You just thought your book idea was cool/you were indulging a fetish, and that’s why you wrote it.

And do you know what your readers say after you correct them? They tell you that you’re wrong! You, the person who wrote the book, are wrong. The story is really about the food corporation and the evils of meat eating and You. Are. Wrong.

So you get angry, because of course you do. They’re not the ones who spent months- or even years- working on the book. They’re not who skipped out on parties or stayed up late at night to make sure the characters sounded natural and the grammar was perfect and the plot was solid. You’re the one who made the effort. You’re the one who came up with the goddamn idea in the first place! You know more than them about your own stupid story!

So you express your anger. You tell them that THEY’RE wrong, not YOU. And you know what? They say that you’re a control freak. They tell you that you don’t want your fans to have creative freedom with the source material. They tell you that “the author is dead” and they have the right to interpret your characters, your story, your blood and sweat and tears, in whatever way they want.

This is what I don’t like about the Death Of The Author.

Multiple times on Tumblr I have seen posts that say something along the lines of; “It is important to tell your story. It doesn’t matter if the plot has been done before. You have something important to say and no one else can say it. Your voice matters”. And that’s a great sentiment to have. But when people are so willing to completely disregard a creator’s original intentions to fit their own preferred narrative, it doesn’t make that sentiment seem realistic or worth anything.

Your character’s personality means nothing when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author. “This character is very complex, and although they have both good and bad qualities, they are ultimately a good person”. “No, not only is this character one-dimensional, they’re also 100% evil and if you think they have don’t flaws then you’re wrong”.

Your character’s sexuality means nothing when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author. “This character is straight”. “No, they’re gay”. “This character is gay”. “No, they’re bisexual”. “This character is bi”. “No, they’re asexual”. “This character is ace”. “No, they’re straight”.

Your plot means nothing when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author. “In this world, there are many grey areas, and though no one is 100% good or bad, there are characters who are light grey and characters who are dark grey”. “No, the characters I like are good and the characters I dislike are bad. And since everyone has grey morals, it doesn’t matter whether it’s light or dark grey”.

And if you don’t like it when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author, then there’s something wrong with you as a creator. You’re the problem, not the people who twist your work and turn it into something completely different. You’re a control freak, you’re a suppressor of creative freedom, you’re wrong wrong wrong.

This is what I don’t like about the Death Of The Author.

When fandoms and academic journals and English classrooms support this, it makes it hard to see why your voice even matters. How can you convince people that they have something important to say when their words will be chopped up and mixed around until it’s something unrecognizable? Why put richness and complexity into your stories when it’s just going to be watered down? Why not just make stories where everyone is flat and the world is paper thin, and just make the fans fill in the blanks since they’re just going to do that anyways? How can you convince someone that their stories are needed in the world, when this is the fate they’ll ultimately have? “Sure, write what you want, but we’re going to put your work in a blender and scoop out the good chunks when we’re done, and you can’t get mad at us or you’re dumb”.

Before I end this, I want to make it VERY CLEAR that I’m not against fanfiction or fan works of any kind. I’ve written fanfics before, some of which have gone against the established canon. I am also not against coming up with your own theories when plot elements aren’t clear. My unpopular opinion isn’t that you should never change canon for your own amusement. I’m not saying that you can’t, for example, take two straight characters and draw fan art of them dating because you think they’d be cute together.

What I am saying is that, when a content creator of a cartoon or comic or TV show says “X is canon”, and people go “No Y is canon not X”, that sucks. It sucks for the content creators, it sucks for people who want to be content creators someday, and it sucks for people who get harassed for following canon because the fan interpretation is more accepted.

It just sucks to put your heart and soul into something only to be told that you are incorrect, and it sucks to be told that there’s something wrong with you if you refuse to accept that.

[juushika]

Homestuck liveblog part 3: Vriska, Terezi, and characterization; “let me tell you about homestuck” is “let me explain quadrants”; Karkat/Karkat OTP

me: You know sollux is pretty great tho Canon mental health issues Can see vision of his own death Generally a seer but with like a lot of angst and bodily suffering “I’ll copy/paste less now that the typing quirks are insane,” I said, like a big liar http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003985

TA: ii al2o talk two you becau2e iin ca2e you havent notiiced ii de2pii2e my2elf and perpetually 2eek two dupliicate through emotiional paiin the cacophony of phy2iical paiin my hiideou2 mutant braiin cau2e2 me every day.

Sollux is pretty great

Missy: hah i read like.. 4/5 words some i just go.. meh fuck it

me: Sometimes the trolls will find each other’s typing quirks confusing Which functions both to normalize some of the text for the viewer And to be like lol we know this is ridiculous I appreciate the meta When one troll will repeat what another troll says but with different typing quirks

me: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003986 Sollux to karkat: 

TA: the only thiing youre good at ii2 yelliing and makiing huge mii2take2.

Same tho

me: Nopeeeeee time to meet vriska Preemptive feels Abort abort The way that she engages interpersonal relationships reminds me too much of myself Especially with tavros??? Who is a small angel which better nature dictates we must protect at all costs Which spoiler is not what happens!!

me: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004078

 AG: Can I join your team? CG: YES I’M GLAD YOU ASKED, BECAUSE THERE IS A WIDE OPEN SLOT FOR THE MOST VILE BACKSTABBING SOCIOPATH WHO EVER LIVED. CG: YOU REALLY HELPED ME OUT OF A JAM BY STEPPING FORWARD. AG: Vile 8acksta88ing sociopath? Karkat, did you copy and p8ste that phrase directly from your personal ad descri8ing what you are looking for in a lady?

CG: BECOMING FRIENDS, WHAT THE FUCK. CG: WE WILL NEVER BE FRIENDS, MORON. AG: Not even h8 friends? CG: NO. MORE LIKE TWITCHY EYED PROJECTILE VOMITING IN UTTER DISGUST FRIENDS, WHILE I PERFORATE MY BONE BULGE WITH A CULLING FORK. AG: Yessssssss. I’ll take it! CG: GET LOST. 

Vriska makes me!!! uncomfortable!!! What’s particularly interesting here is that karkat is super obsessed with quadrants which is how trolls conceptualize their interpersonal relationships And they have a dark side to the quadrants which are animosity-fueled relationships So he is actually in desperate search of hate friends So in his own way the answer is yes He said that he is also really bad at communicating his wants with other people but also with himself, he’s very bad at honesty and self-knowledge So the answer is also no And also yes My babies

Missy: Can I just hate hate the stupid drivers? [from longer story about being stuck in traffic QQ] No friends?

me: Yes that is allowed It probably won’t be this personality- and life path-defining interaction Like it is for trolls But that’s probably a good thing

Missy: I remember you like karkat and want to be vriska From long ago* But that all i remember

me: Vriska is very black romantic inclined Also approximately a sociopath, hurts people a lot…really cruel And then I’m like oh my God is this dream-me Well, that bodes well

Missy: Yes that See

* chatlog from 2011 (!!!!), which is what Missy remembered from long ago:

me: it's a few things [which make me feel uncomfortable about identifying with Vriska] it's 1) a different set of morality than yours (general you) I sympathize with that it's similar to but not quite amorality which I think we all have that inside but because I hate people mine is pretty pronounced so I understand hers but the 2) is harder to phrase it's sorta Ayn Randian to be honest she's selfish, and violent, and really just a murderous monster, but that interior morality doesn't just justify it to her, it makes the issue moot you don't need to justify what you know to be innately correct, even if others don't see it your way BUT she has second thoughts because her interior morality/rules are not as fixed or indeed as ... countercultural [or even cultural] as she thinks in fact in being so secure in them and the belief that they don't need to be justified is actually her being ... defensive and for good cause, and she’s partially in the right but not to the extent she's arguing she is so like killing and hurting people as a form of self-expression is not innately bad, except that it is and where am I going with this... I understand the conflict between "my rules are different, which is okay" and "my rules contradict yours, which is problematic"

Missy: i sorta get it. except with that i don't read homestuck so this is all theoretical and without context

me: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004120

“It should be noted that in troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy.”

Equius is…. So weird…. I’ve never known what to do with this character

Missy: ?

me: God it’s just a lot of tealdeer, uh Trolls have a caste system based on blood color which is sort of outdated but still carries social prejudices he’s really obsessed with it but sort of embodies the obsession via what amounts to fetishes and d/s dynamics Which are intentionally played to be embarrassing for the reader So it’s like this interesting aspect of troll culture combined with embarrassment squick and just I never know what to do with it He’s not an attractive character Profoundly not He also wants to roleplay being bossed around by higher castes No homo And he’s a furry Still no homo!!!! He makes me Uncomfortable

me: equius is SO CONFUSING i am so confused also i remember why i never latched on to terezi in the long run her character … re … development…. by which I mean that when we flash back to the troll origin stories her characterization is less consistent she’s actually super justice-y it’s just that troll justice/legal system is super tyrannical and violent and doesn’t mesh well with humans, so it came across v murdertime from human PoV but i legit think her earlier dialog doesn’t adequately reflect that distinction and so her character (retroactive) development is still inconsistent i think i remember her flying off the handle in later acts tho and becoming murder so we’ll see [future Juu: nope this did not pan out; my earlier argument stands] http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Terezi_Pyrope

Terezi can be civil, flirty, manipulative, and derisive in her interactions. Her drive for justice results in some callous and cruel actions, the majority of which she has been shown to be deeply affected by and regret later on.

yeah i… like that balance: deeply regret the doing of what one must because one can but i much prefer earlier characterization of just “because one can” i really--like, as much as hussie has everything pre-written in his head i really think her characterization is uneven and just sort of….unwrites earlier (publication order not internal chronology) interactions like HEY DAVE WHAT DOES YOUR BLOOD TASTE LIKE or when she tricked john into killing himself and destroying the entire game session (which is “punishment for jack noir/the way the kids play their session” but there’s nooooooooo indication of that in dialog i srsly think it’s just retconned if it’s explained at all) yeah wiki really doesn’t have good explanation for the murdering john thing b/c it’s inconsistent so there, homestuck! p.s. earlier terezi was better but i guess vriska makes her redundant since she does just murder for murder’s sake that said vriska doing the murder is why she and terezi stop being frand, which seems like just poor writing/further (retroactive) character development

me: Time travel (from troll relative perspective) had begun!! You know what that means Time for karkat to realize his true potential to hate himself

Missy: Time for your feels you mean (Pt 8383939/8382962882)

me: He is leaving memos to his past/future self!!! I love him So much Like no exaggeration Top 10 fav

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004447

CCG: FUTURE ME, DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE WEIGH IN ON THIS, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. CCG: IF I WERE FUTURE ME, WHICH I GUESS I AM, I WOULD READ THIS AND BE ALL OVER IT, LIKE DAMMIT KARKAT WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING. CCG: GET TO THE POINT. FUTURE carcinoGeneticist [FCG] 0:20 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo. FCG: YEAH PRETTY MUCH. CCG banned FCG from responding to memo.

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004467

FCG: OH GOD, NOW I’M ARGUING WITH CURRENT ME. FCG: I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE I WAS DOING IT, THIS IS REALLY FUCKED UP. FCG: I’VE GOT TO PULL IT TOGETHER.

I love!!!! Karkat as everyone’s fucking romance councilor is.. it’s so good….. Like He is so obsessed with romance, so actually a great person to go to for advice about it, and actually surprisingly emotionally accessible when he wants to be Except where the relationships involve him Even in pale romances aka what we think of as friendship or animosity Then he gets over-performative or defensive or just locked up He really values and understands these things but is unable to access them Instead, and I know I’ve written about this before but, his most meaningful and complex and intimate and antagonistic relationship Is with Himself I love him so much and like the weird narrative techniques of HS are what make this possible, they’re not just gimmicks, they’re ways of exploring something unique but identifiable further http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004467

FCG: NOT THAT I EXPECT YOU TO GIVE A SHIT BUT PERSONALLY I AM ALL TWISTED UP ABOUT BLACKROM STUFF ESPECIALLY. FCG: HONESTLY I DON’T THINK I WAS CUT OUT TO HAVE A KISMESIS, I THINK MY STANDARDS ARE WAY TOO HIGH. FCG: DID YOU KNOW THAT… FCG: THIS FEELS SO INSANE TO ADMIT, BUT FCG: OVER THE COURSE OF THIS ADVENTURE, AT TIMES I ACTUALLY BEGAN TO SUSPECT I WAS MY OWN KISMESIS. FCG: HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT??? 

¡!!!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!!!!! Kismesis is uh black romantic arch nemesis with sexual intimacy

http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Quadrants

in other words, kismesissitude seems to be based on a mix of hatred and sexual attraction. As it thrives on a rivalry between two trolls, defeating or killing your kismesis is discouraged, since obviously there wouldn’t be a relationship anymore. However, despite the stronger hatred aspect of the relationship, in order for a kismesis to last there must be some level of respect between the those persons involved; the tension in kismesissitude relies not only on hatred and annoyance of ones more irksome aspects, but also a level of admiration for their more positive aspects

even more http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004467

FCG: BUT OBVIOUSLY ITS NOT TRUE, I NEVER EVEN DID ANY LEGIT TIME TRAVELING WHERE I COULD MEET MYSELF, I JUST BICKERED WITH PAST AND FUTURE GHOSTS ON A CHAT CLIENT. FCG: FITTING REALLY. EVERY CALIGINOUS ADVERSARY I’VE CONTEMPLATED HAS ELUDED ME LIKE A PHANTOM, EVEN MYSELF!

Legit my fav… interaction…. Thing… Of all time

me: problems with terezi 1) that “when i became a visible character” altered characterization 2) the flushed relationship with karkat it starts offscreen as a noodle incident … thing their interactions after that are good--like, silly, but i can accept them but what sparked the start of the relationship? the soonest we see is when she violates his privacy to find out the color of his blood, which … has class-connotations for trolls, also violent connotations even tho it was a non-violent act, but basically it’s a … like it reads as blackrom, then whips around to a cutsey redrom the way trolls initially feel about each other (& humans) vs how their relationships develop/want vs need/the general emotional maturation occurring within their complex social system is super neato but sometimes what hussie ships doesn’t …. make sense?? in the sense of making a cogent arc for either/any involved character and/or has problematic repercussions specifically within human social constructs, like “i physically abused you to the point of paralysis b/c i liked you” aka vriska who ends up in redrom relationship with tavros??????? (briefly!) like they have An Energy but the “hitting as sign of embarrassed affection x10000” is not a SUPER great thing to depict (inverted a bit b/c vriska is female so it isn’t just straight-up rape culture really but STILL, a BAD START) sollux and feferi end up together b/c she kisses him to wake his dream-self after he dies???? with ZERO prior interaction on-screen?????? hussie also sets up “trolls don’t gender” and then all the trolls mostly end up in hetero relationships so that’s also weird like karkat’s intense initial blackrom crush on john being played as a joke, a lol it’s funny both b/c karkat is desperate and b/c gayyyyyyyyyyyyyy the saving grace is that a lot of these relationships are eventually unwritten b/c the trolls are like going through adolescence lots of hookups and then character growth and then breakup, sometimes played super well

me: oh interesting the wiki categories things … differently so btw http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Quadrants#Quadrant_Vacillation

Often in quadrant vacillations one party will have red feelings while the other one has black feelings. Usually one party will adjust their feelings to match their partner’s emotions, but this is not always the case. This sort of relationship volatility is one of the reasons why auspistice is an important part of troll culture.

is my life goal like, kismesis is my love but matesprit/kismesis double reacharound “it’s complicated and also violent” is ….hannibal and also my dream!!

Due to the multiple relationship types and the demands of troll society, trolls form groups and chains of Matesprits and Kismesises. A quadrangle is the simplest complete form of such a group of relationships. It consists of four trolls with two Matespritships and two Kismesissitude between them. If one pairing in a relationship group swaps its relationship type it can force all other relationships within the group to swap as well.

polyamory goals~

why is it not me

me: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004553

EB: but also i know that it is probably not exactly an empty threat! EB: since one of you already managed to trick me into getting myself killed. EB: well, in another timeline at least. AG: Man. AG: That was pro8a8ly Terezi! I should have known she would pull something like that. What a meddler. EB: terezi? AG: Yes. The pesky 8lind troll who licks her monitor and smells words and stuff. The one who got you killed. I’m sure of it!

(john’s first convo with vriska) and it MAKES NO SENSE why would you go, oh yes, that person obsessed with righteous justice/vengeance who got so mad at me hurting others that they did a big revenge on me; obviously SHE tricked you to your death it’s an obvious attempt to retcon sense into her inconsistent characterization

me: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/test_index.php?s=6&p=004561

EB: heheh. car cat. that is how i am saying that. EB: beep beep, meow!

(Missy later told me that he had been thinking “beep beep, meow” every time I talked about Karkat and still isn’t sure if it’s b/c I have quoted this to him before or b/c he parallel-evolved John’s phrase)

me: kanaya/rose is the otp to end all otps tho so i guess that’s nice, that the most convincing, meaningful romance is between women, nice job redeeming yourself hussie

Missy: why does he need redeeming? i thought you liked these people

me: hussie is creator

Missy: yes but why he need redemption? do we all need redemption? (deep thoughts there Missy)

me: hussie has Shipping Problems where he sets up his trolls as outside gender binary/outside heterosexuality/with different concepts of romantic relationships and sexuality and then … conforms to heteronormativity like 90% of the time, in part b/c this was written like 7 years ago, in part b/c he’s a generic white dude but he frequently aims for like, diverse characters and dynamics and then defaults to everyone is heteronormative even when it doesn’t make sense/even if the writing for it is lazy/even if it means going against prior established characterization or interactions the true heteronormativity-conquers-all narrative; miss me with that please but every now and then he actually does something approximating the diversity in his worldbuilding, and gracefully so that’s nice

[batmanfucker69-archive]

Oh no...it’s time to talk about the companions. :(

Before I go into them individually I wanna say that gameplay wise they’re all pretty worthless. None of them can aim well and their AI is poor. The melee characters are ok in a fight but I’ve never had most of them do much when I’m fighting. This probably isn’t too controversial I mean most of the time bethesda games have bad AI it just stands out a lot in this game to me. 

Also the romance part felt tacked on super late like. it barely effects anything you barely get any new dialogue from romancing them. It’s really obvious they wanted to cash in on bioware’s popular romance function from mass effect and dragon age while putting in the least amount of effort. Also there’s the fact that they’re all the schrodinger’s bisexual trope, save for maybe a fetishizing line from Cait.

I’ll go in alphabet order of the characters names, and also cover their companion quest if they have one. 

Cait- She’s probably one of my favorites but like...she’s wasted potential. I still don’t understand why there’s like. British/Russian/Irish characters in these games because how did they get over here but anyway. Cait is located at an arena raiders go to bet on fighters. She’s one of the fighters you find when you come in but the raiders immediately attack you which is super lazy. There could have been a quest to get her but you kill everyone but her and her manager.

She’s basically forced to be your companion because her manager immediately sells you her contract. You can’t say no without being a rude asshole so I take her everytime but I sometimes just leave her in a settlement. She’s rude, and one of the characters who seems to enjoy you being rude to other people. But...then she says she enjoys how nice you are to her and everyone else but you’ve only gotten approval from her for being rude to other people or stealing. It’s incredibly confusing whether she sees you as someone like her or someone she wants to be like.

On the other hand I think her backstory is strong and I can see what Bethesda was going for with her. She’s conflilcted because she wants to be a good person, but doesn’t see how to in a world as cruel as she lives in. Which is a really good idea for a fallout character and if handled better she’d probably be one of my favorite characters in fallout as a whole.

Then there’s her companion quest which they royally fucked up on.Bethesda’s writers are not good enough to cover a sensitive issue like drug addiction. And making a magical machine that can just cure your addiction in like 5 seconds is super insulting.

Codsworth- I don’t care about Codsworth at all. They kind of touch on his old connection to your family but that goes no where and I...don’t care about my family. He never even finds out what happens to Shaun I don’t think. He’s just kinda there. He also doesn’t have a personal quest. 

Curie- Curie is controversial and for good reason. At first I thought she was a cute little robot who was programmed with AI and I thought it was neat that an AI other than a synth would be a romance option. I was so so wrong. They upload her consciousness into a failed memory transferred synth. 

They basically took someone who was in a vegetative state, erased their existance completely, and replaced their mind with Curie’s. Which is super fucked up. Of course they upload her into a sexy lady which is super objectifying...somehow more than when she was a robot. 

Wanting to feel more human could have been a really interesting development for an AI character but they just made it super fucked up while not confronting the fact that it’s super fucked up and there’s no other option in this quest it has to happen. Curie deserved better.

Danse- Another character that had a lot of potential. At first I thought he was a jackass from the Brotherhood, which he is, at first. When I first played the game I avoided him but I found his quest online and had to continue the brotherhood questline just to find out what happened to him.

He finds out he’s a synth, the things that the brotherhood are trying to destroy, and his entire life basically falls apart. He runs away at first but then he realizes someone will find him and just stays in this base waiting for someone to kill him. When you find him it’s a genuinely emotional scene and you actually get a choice on whether to kill him or not. 

However after the quest this good writing ends because other than his talks with you he continues to act like he’s a paladin in the Brotherhood. & if you do his quest but then go on to another faction’s side and kill destroy the brotherhood he ceases to be your companion and will glitch out and the game registers him as a regular settler but he doesn’t have the lines. To my knowledge this has never been patched and I really hope it isn’t intentional.

Deacon- Another companion with no personal quest, so I’ll go more into his backstory. His wife died which is new and original of course. But anyway he works for the railroad to make up for being in a gang that hatedsynths (and also killed his wife who was apparently a synth). He actually feels guilty for his past and joined the railroad as a means of redemption.

All this is a good basis for a character but it doesn’t really go anywhere. He’s a liar too but again this goes no where. He tells the player character he trusts them after a time but we never figure out his real name so who knows if he does or not because he’s prone to lying. He has some interesting dialogue around the Commonwealth but other than that there’s not much to him.

Dogmeat- This character is the most vile, the worst, morally corrupt character in the game. No jk. I do gotta say it’s confusing that there’s pure bred dogs in the post apocalypse. Whos breeding german shepards around here?

Hancock- I know everyone loves him but. He’s so poorly written. If he cares about his people so much why are they living on the streets while he gets a whole building to himself? Bethesda really didn’t know how to make him what they wanted him to be. Sure there’s little law in Goodneighbor, but he lets gangs take over the back allies and it isn’t even mentioned in game. He’s just confusing as a character, his backstory is a little interesting, but I think a lot more could be done with it. 

I don’t care about his asshole brother and neither does he apparently, since he never does anything about Diamond City like I thought he would and the bad blood between them is mentioned about twice the whole game. His whole ghoulification is also ignorable to him, and isn’t used for much.

Robert MacCready- He has a dead wife and a dying son so he gets bonus Todd points. The only reason he’s in the Commonwealth is to find a cure for his son. You do help him find this, so at least they wrapped up this plot point. The reason he doesn’t leave the Commonwealth right away is because you become good friends and I honestly think that’s sweet. Unfortunately he’s still a dick. Not as big of an ass as in 3 but I still don’t really like him. And why does he yell “Tunnel Snakes Rule!”? sometimes when he goes into combat? It doesn’t seem like the Tunnel Snakes really became a thing after fallout 3 and it’s just super forced. 

He used to run with the Gunners, who are just a generic raider group but with better armor pretty much. He doesn’t give us much insight into them and we just kill off some of them who were looking for him because it’ll get them off his ass? apparently. This quest also bleeds into him finding a cure for his son’s mysterious illness, but the two events are pretty much unrelated.

I feel like his character could have been really good since he knew the brotherhood from back home but he rarely talks about them and really he’s disappointing more than anything.

Nick Valentine- Hoo boy do I have unpopular opinions here. Nick is a waste of a character with a horrible character quest that really goes no where. We never find out why the institute abandoned him but I guess that’s in a DLC I never bought and just shows how lazy bethesda’s writing is. A quest involving the institute would be a million times better than the shitty quest we did get. His dialogue is mostly one-liners but he does seem to genuinely care about the main character, but he has no reason to which I guess could be good or bad. I do love his aesthetic, though. It’s 50s noire, which is what the theme of the game should be. 

Anyway, personal quest. You go on fetch quests to different police stations around the CommonWealth and kill whatever the heck’s infesting the place. It’s pretty boring other than learning about what happened to prewar gangsters. After that we find out these tapes are for, it turns out that there’s prewar gangster still alive and in a twist Nick doesn’t have a dead wife but a dead fiance to mix things up.

This revenge plot for Nick could have been great but they did absolutely everything wrong. So this gangster turned himself into a ghoul on purpose. Before the Great War. How did he know that a load of radiation would make him immortal? it’s never explained! And he locked himself in a bunker for over 200 years and he never left. You would think this would affect him somehow but he acts completely normal and acts only slightly annoyed two armed people broke into his bunker. And then you don’t even get a choice in the matter Nick just fuckin kills him and you leave the tunnel conveniently right where his fiance died. 

His whole companion quest is some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen in my life and I absolutely hate it and it makes me want to avoid Nick all together.

Piper Wright- She’s kinda boring. I like the set up they gave her but all her conflicts are never resolved at all. She doesn’t have a companion quest but she desperately needs one. I guess she sorta has one where she just asks about your character’s whole backstory and I think it’s funny you can just make shit up but she writes an article about it anyway. Her backstory is actually fantastic and gives really good reasons for her actions and her job. She has strong feelings that people deserve to know the truth and this gets her in trouble a lot. But as I said, none of it goes anywhere since she doesn’t have a companion quest and basically has no personality other than she gets in trouble.

I guess they ran out of time with her because I really think something was planned for her but got scrapped because of time.

Preston Garvey- I think he’s one of the best written ones. He has a strong sense of justice and is one of the few people who genuinely just want to do what’s right. I don’t know if it’s his voice actor but I like talking to him a lot. Bethesda really needed to add more minutemen characters because him spewing out a ton of side quests before you can actually talk to him is annoying. I wish we got a backstory for him other than being a minutemen and telling us their history. His romance is a lot better written than everyone else’s I think he does actually enjoy my character’s company.

Also I’m realy confused as to why he isn’t the general and your character is. I mean if they just didn’t call you general and he was nothing would change at all. Actually it would make more sense because he’s the one giving you orders.

Strong- uuuuuh don’t care super mutants have no personality in bethesda games skip

X6-88- I have to admit I rarely side with the institute so I haven’t seen X6 as much as the other companions. He’s very robotic, and he’s a courser but he’s just as bad in a fight as the rest of them. I don’t think he has a companion quest either. I can’t say much about him because Bethesda didn’t really do anything with him.

Anyway...they’re better than the fallout 3 companions but...that’s really not saying much because none of them had personalities.

[bloggingbouteroticabooks]

Buried Passion by Aiden Bates

Synopsis

Mpreg is my jam. I don’t read it often because there’s quantity in the kindle store, and not much quality.  But I “looked inside” and this book showed some promise.

“Buried Passion” is about two detectives forced together to solve a 40 year old double-murder/hate-crime case. They’re like oil and water--alpha and omega, specifically--and can never mix.  But the attraction is there and I love a good enemies-to-lovers story.

I loved Ryan.  He was witty and adorable and didn’t take shit from anyone even though he was expected to because he was an omega. AND he was Asian (Vietnamese), not fetishized, which is so rare in the romance genre. 

Nick, on the other hand, not so much.  I just didn’t understand his damage with regards to Ryan’s work ethic.  Like, Nick insisted that Ryan’s work was sloppy, Ryan jumped to conclusions, and his overall detective skills were suspect, but I didn’t see it.  He was a jerk to Ryan pretty much the entire book and I just didn’t/couldn’t see how they loved each other beyond the physical.  But I’m glad there were characters in the book that called him out on his shit.

I liked the mystery/crime-solving aspect of the book.  You could tell that Bates really researched the time and history of Boston in the 1970s.  I got a great sense of the racial divide and how things were back then and still drive how things are now. I loved that it was about race, but not overtly racist.  Usually when white authors write about race, especially relating to black people, they drop all kinds of N-words, for no real reason other than to have it in there.  I’m glad it wasn’t the case in this book.  I also liked that there wasn’t any red herrings and that the author told you who it was from the beginning without any twists.  However, I thought the investigative parts overshadowed the romance I was looking for.

What I like so much about Bates is that his mpreg stories are in the hear and now without the shifter element.  It’s just a thing that is.  Though I was a bit confused as to whether Ryan and Nick’s ‘scents’ made them fated mates or they were just attracted to each other.  I just needed a bit more world building in that regard.

Overall, this book is a decent start to a new series and I already bought the next book.

3.5 Stars

[cactirat]

I know he's not the best, I don't expect him to be too scary or spook. He is just for fun. Also Trigger warning because this might disturb/ trigger some people Tw: Rape, Pedophilia, Necrophilia, Death Basic: Name: Jean Nelson Cp name: None Nicknames: Bat boy because his nose kinda looks like a bats because of how it points upwards, Teddy due to him living in the Teddy Bear Motel, Trix because he's just for kids. All names are given to himself by himself because he has a lot of free time Age: 17, dies at almost 18 Birthday: May 23, 1973 Deathday: April 7, 1990 Race: White(and he is also Albino) Sex: Male Sexuality: Straight Religion: Christian and loves Jesus, although he doesn't fully understand the religion and assumes he will still go to heaven, because he thinks that he can sin as much as he want because Jesus died for it, but thats really not the case at all. Residents: The Teddy Bear Motel c5.staticflickr.com/9/8316/292… abandonedkansai.files.wordpres… Located in Whittier North Carolina Hotel Info: The hotel was abandoned, and he decided to stay there because it was much warmer then his cabin in the woods because of instillation. Mental disorders:Narcissistic personality disorder, Intermediate explosive disorder Accent: Southern but he slurs his words, and ends  up drooling a lot when talking. Prized Possession: A Taxadermied 16 y/o girl that he did by himself, She's kinda rotten. WIP character. --- Appearance: He doesn't look too spooky, but his actions kinda spook me Hair: Light ash blonde (whatever the fuck, just blonde basically) Medium length, although normally kept up. Its burnt of in many places on the face. Eyes: Cat like shaped eyes. They're green or blue, not sure yet Body Type: kinda muscular, pretty short. He has chubby arms<3 Height: 5"4 Weight: 139 lbs. Extra: he has lots and lots of burns.I cant really draw burns, they look a bit too fresh, I know. Due to the burns it kind of hurts him to open one side of his mouth, so when he talk and breathes and stuff one side droops and the oceanfox89.deviantart.com/art/… other side goes up making in look like he's smirking. The other side  of his mouth can and does open though. Outfits: Too many. Like way lots. The jeans aren't really rolled up that high, it's stylized. main outfit: oceanfox89.deviantart.com/art/… Nose: He doesn't have any nose skin so he cant keep his snot in his nose and is constantly getting boogers and stuff everywhere. He can't breathe well out of his nose because of that and it gets in his mouth a lot because he breathes out of it. He smears it around his face, its gross. Boots: cowboy boots that are brown and black, with no spurs. Legs: (Thicc) They're kind of chubby, but it's really just odd weight distribution. He eats a lot of dog, so he's not starving. --- Killing: Jean doesn't go out of his way to get a kill, but when he does kill it is for sexual purposes, to get off basically. However, since what he is into is so odd, it doesn't feel like the victim is being sexually violated, which he thinks is wrong.  How he kills in he normally bashed their head in with his hockey stick, or slice them with it. He will occasionally hang them, or make small cuts in them and let the victim bleed out. --- Fetishes: One reason that Jean kills is to get a good wank. His sex thing was badly burnt when they were attacked and overtime he developed strange fetishes that he does to his victims.  Trigger Warning, but important info   Erotophonophilia: Sexual pleasure in murder Necrophilia Pedophilia Piquerism: Pleasure in piercing or cutting the flesh Sadism Zoophilia: Animal fetish Zoosadism: Inflicting pain in animals, or seeing animals in pain. --- Personality: He's a dick. He wont talk to or go after anyone over 20. He  pretends to be sweet and happy and pretends to not have much of a personality and be 2 dimensional like a cartoon character to trick kids into thinking he is fun loving and happy. He's really just a sad, perverted sex freak, who love targeting the weak, young and venerable. He occasionally will belittle his victims before he kills them once he's caught him in his shed or in the motel, and just yell at them because he is angry for no reason. He really does regret it, and it doesn't feel as great as it did. Misogynistic type( Hates women) Why have sex if it's no love?He's secretly extremely sad with what he's done with his life. Before it even started really. He's only 17. He could have made a family of his own. He knows he blew his only change at a family and love, he messed it up the second he got it. Nobody told him it was wrong, what he did to his sister. And if you can't fix what's broken, break it more, right? Likes: Children(in that way), getting off to dead people (in holes he cuts in them, not birth canals), Sugar Rice Krinkles, Jesus, eating flowers, staplers, NICKELODEON, the cold, wet pleasure of penetrating corpses, acting, being romantic, however his version of romantic is sick and twisted, exhibitionism, Killing hikers and fucking their dogs Dislikes: Hippies, because they annoy the fuck out of him, Victims who scream or bark too  loud and hurt his ears, most people besides himself, loud noises, "kinkshaming", men Beliefs: He believes that killing children and bashing in the stomachs or pregnant women is fine to save the children from living miserable lives. He thinks its immoral to have real sex with women, because he never has, but holes he cuts into them is fair game. Strength: He is fast, in the short periods of time he can run, from practice he can swing his hockey stick well, he can climb, and get into small places easily, can fallow things well with his eye and rarely loses sight of victims. Because they're dumb children and loud animals. Weaknesses: He's human, he has human weaknesses, he has poor eyesight because he is albino, and his hair is also easily grabbed and pulled. He also has problems with running for a long time because his nose is normally clogged and he cant breathe. Also, because he is normally breathing from his mouth, he has a hard time sneaking up on people. He is much weaker then most men. He doesn't have any depth perception because his eye was burnt over. theme song: Yonkers Instrumental by Tyler the Creator and Goosebumps Instrumental by Travis Scott www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ZQyr…; or www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQBw1f… (just for fun) but highkey inspired by Tron Cat by Tyler the Creator. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd3hxZ… --- Phobias: Androphobia: Fear of adult men, due to most of them being stronger then him Pyrophobia: Fear of fire Mastigophobia: Fear of whips --- Extras: Since the motel doesn't have electricity, when he kills an animal, he eats it. Probably died from tetanus or being shot, i'm not sure yet, possibly froze to death still my innocent little floof bby He's not gay btw He's all badass until someone attacks back, then he's a little bitch ---  TRIGGER WARNING  (just in case) This includes background Story: written by siner666.deviantart.com/art/Je… --- Short background:    Jean was born and left at the hospital. However he was adopted by a "nice" couple that took care of him until he was around 7. However the the father cheated on the mom and the mom became angry at Jean and his siblings at the time. The people he had always known as his real family. He was taken away by cps and placed into foster care while his mother was evaluated. He was placed in a few more terrible homes until he finally go to Edmunds. They were a nice Mexican family. He had a little sister names Sarah in that family. He became very addicted to TV and his family got him whatever he wanted to deal with his trauma.They gave him whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, so it made him very self absorbed. But he wasn't satisfied. Jean eventually fell in love, but he knew that her family would stop them from being together. So he kidnapped her in the night and ran away with her. taking the things they bonded over with them, so that just maybe she would forgive him. He was immediately found out and the town basically went out in a mob to go find him. When he he was found he was attacked, rather violently, because the townspeople much rather did things own their own and not with legal help, so they decided to chase them down and catch them by themselves. It was like an old fashioned mob. One mad decided too pick up a lantern but dropped it and it burnt the two children. He assumed he killed them The girl died but Jean didn't. When their parents found out they were devastated, they never knew he survived.    Jean was absolutely devastated, the only person he could ever truly love was dead. He ran to a hotel, that had been very important to him as a child. Only to learn that it had been abandoned, which was a pleasant surprise to him. He and his sisters dead corpse stayed at the motel for the longest time until she started rotting, so Jean started looking for a new body.    He found a cabin in the woods and camped there and killed any children that happened to wander in. And animals, and eventually pregnant women.    One day he was strolling around in his little forest, and found some campers. A single dad, a daughter who was 11 and a son who was 13, and their dog. He snuck into their tent while the dad went away to get their truck.Jean underestimates how strong the son is. Jean assumes he can go in, kill the brother, and steal the sister and dog. He intended to kill him with a hammer he found in his motel. HE walks in and accident steps on the brother. The brother was SHOOK and immediately started beating Jean over the head with the closest object, a flashlight. He does it to the point when his head is cracked and bleeding out. the brother told him to scram, which he did, only to come around the other side and snatch up the dog and sister. Jean even this dazed and confused state still managed to run with them and climb to the roof of the motel. He held the dog over the roof to taunt the brother. The father came then. Seeing one of his beloved children in danger he climbed up to the roof with Jean. He grabbed Jean by the hair and dragged him down from the roof down the fire escape. He took the hammer Jean had, and grabbed wads of his blood clotted hair and nailed it to a wall. Jean passed out. When he woke up the father forcefully ripped him  form the wall, scalping him and exposing the hole in the skull the his son made. The father shoves his foot in the crack and spread it more. Jean was basically having full blown seizures at this point. The dad gets the scalp and then he tied it around his neck and hung him. And finally tore the better part of his face off and left him there to die, even though he probably already died before. The thirty two year old man, Walter Hugo, was later charged with the multiple murders, and minor rape. Walter was sent to death row and Jean was obviously dead.