#i just dont get it what is so incredibly wrong with me that i get no answers

[itsfrenchfornothankyou]

okay so you said genuine question and im not from around here but i do have an answer! so you've unlocked an unskippable cutscene!

this is a much bigger topic than it appears on the surface, and i might be able to answer your question succinctly and briefly, but it would miss out on a lot of the stuff happening behind the scenes which is actually very important!

since this is going to be quite long (I did a rough notes on my thoughts and what i might say and it was almost 1k. so.) i am going to put the rest under a readmore

but now that you've clicked the button and commited, let's break this into parts for both our sakes.

part 1: moral purity and the loss of 'squick'

so there's been a fun phenomenon happening lately online, and it's the idea that you can assign morals by the type of things that someone likes. that the act of enjoying something or disliking something is an inherently moral act.

this in itself has a lot of reasons behind it, and digging through that history would be an essay in its own right, so im going to glaze over it. but the current state of affairs is that your own personal taste, be it in media, in people, or yes, sexual thoughts (even ones without actions) are in themselves, moral.

no matter the cause of these feelings, the outcome is this: if you find yourself liking or disliking something, there must be some reason behind it. if you find yourself grossed out by something, there is a moral and justifyable reason behind it.

this is, to me, related to the loss of the idea of a 'squick'; something that just grossed you out. 'squicks' didnt have to be triggers, they didnt have to be evil or harming you, they were a preference about something you just personally did not like.

now however, along with other terms, we have lost the idea of a 'squick' and so if you don't like something there must be a reason this thing is evil.

so now you have people seeing things like animal packers, and they are for some reason uncomfortable with them. where we might have once said 'oh well, not for me', we must now have a reason for why we are uncomfortable with this idea.

1.5: the perpetrator and the victim

in any given situation, to prevent discourse from becoming muddied or hard to answer, there must always be a person who is definitively in the right, and a person who is in the wrong.

this is a really normal reaction, it's hard to accept something as not having a clear answer, and so it's easy to find ourselves doubling down on something so we dont have to confess to the worst thing of all 'i dont know'.

Coming from disability advocacy, it's important to recognise that there are going to be situations which are not clear cut, in which nobody has done anything wrong, but people have ended up hurt or upset. sometimes needs and people are simply incompatible, and there's nothing wrong or evil there.

but that is difficult and scary, so instead it's much easier to talk about the victim and the villain. if someone is being hurt (i am looking at something that grosses me out) then someone must be intentionally hurting them (evil gross kinksters)

In this understanding of things, the discomfort itself must be harm done, and if harm is being done, then someone must be at fault. it becomes a matter of who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. So in order for them to be uncomfortable and not be evil themselves, the thing that is making them uncomfortable must be evil itself.

now that we've established these things we can actually get around to answering the actual question you asked:

Part 2: why zoophillia?

if this person has deemed the act that these people have done to be evil or bad, why not just call the act itself (which i am given to understand is hyper-realistic animal packers?) evil?

well what you surely understand, and somehwere in the back of their brain they understand, is that that's incredibly fucking stupid.

if you walk up to the average person and say hey, this person is doing this evil thing, and explain that, theyre going to think you're insane. so how are they supposed to tell the average person that this person is evil? they escelate it to most awful acusation they can think of in the moment.

in most communities, the terrible thing that they will accuse someone of is pedophillia, but in the therian circles, they dont need to escelate it to that point, because there is already a hot button topic they can point to instead.

Zoophillia, as i am given to understand, is one of the most hot button topics in the therian community. it is the group which is regularly aligning themselves with therians, that many if not most therians want nothing to do with.

it's also a group that is often conflated with therians, meaning that many therians have an immediate 'no fuck off that's not us' reaction to it, as a form of self preservation. because as soon as people have made a claim that you may be a zoophile, and you fail to respond in the appropriate way, you will be cast out of your own therian in group.

so the use of using zoophillia as an acusation is two-fold. for one, it makes people take the accusation seriously, and for two, it prevents people from doing their own research and looking into it.

because if you are told this person is evil, and if you support them you are also evil, at that point any questioning on your part is seen as complicity in evil acts. as apologism. this person is evil and if you ask my why, you must also be evil.

so lets circle back a little bit here, earlier i mentioned that the typical claim is pedophillia, which everything i said previously about evil acts is still true of, but you might not fully believe me about people escelating to the nearest most terrible thing they can think of, but the thing is that i have seen this before.

Part 2.5: tired asexual

hello again, youve probably never heard of me before, so let me tell you that I'm Asexual. more importantly, I'm an asexual person who has been on tumblr for a solid decade.

if you werent around in the mid to late 10s, you might not know just how bod aphobia on tumblr got, but i was there for it. and you know what the most common accusation of why asexuals, and anyone trying to discuss asexuality were evil?

because discussing asexuality was pedophillia.

yeah, asexuals. the well known 'lack of sexual attraction' community.

Now I can go into the series of claims that led to this, hell I could probably go diving on my old blog and find screenshots of these actual accusations, but that’s kind of besides the point. The point here is that the actual reasons people give for it being ‘insert evil thing’ are unimportant.

yeah, when i say it to you, a person who i am assuming knows a little something about asexuality, that that was the claim, your first thought is that that's an insane thing to say.

but for a lot of people the first time they heard about asexuality was in this discourse. so their brain is now primed to make the connection of 'oh, okay, asexuality is evil.' and now, when they see people defending asexuality, they're already defensive. they assume youre trying to trick them, or make them complicit.

asexuality is not the only place this tactic has been used though, you see it all the time. it's at its most common in things like homophobic legestation, anti-trans bills, or drag bans.

These people cannot justify the initial action as evil, so they jump to something you are more likely to agree with, and try to argue it is the same thing. this is what we call equivocation.

equivication is an incredibly effective tactic in fear-mongering, splitting up groups of people, and getting something innocuous labeled as morally wrong

'Think of the children' is a good example of this. No it’s not that im transphobic, it’s that I’m concerned about children. Therefore, if you’re arguing against me it must be because you yourself hate children and want harm to come to them.  

but not everyone is as obvious as to say 'think of the children' or some other line we've heard a bunch before. they find new ways to say it, and because the current safety tactics are to watch for certain phrases and words, people dont know how to look for underlying beliefs and sentiments, leaving people more vulnerable than ever to this kind of manipulation.

so now i've hopefully answered your initial question of 'why zoophillia', i want to take this a litte bit further and ask, 'what is the end goal?'

part 3: what next?

okay so would you believe me, if i said that until now ive actually been taking an incredibly good faith reading of the discourse so far?

currently I have been presenting this as a misdirection of discomfort, but not necessarily actively malicious. now however, i want to go back to the ace discourse.

bigots on tumblr weren't actually starting shit with the ace community because they really had a bone to pick with asexuals, they were doing it because they were transphobes. Surprise!

this isnt speculation on my part, transphobes have since openly discussed that they used aphobia as a kind of 'gateway' to 'gatekeeping'

if they come out of the gates talking about how 'transexuals are evil' and should be 'kicked out of the lgbt community', then they would be immediately revealed as transphobes and most of the queer community won't listen to them. these transphobic talking points have been around long enough to be identifiable and more easily discussed.

asexuality however was, particularly at the time, very under-discussed. it also wasnt a part of the 'standard' LGBT acronym, which made it easier for them to make the argument that asexual people should not be allowed to be considered part of the community.

aphobia at the time was considered less divisive, you could be more easily convinced that this community you have never heard of is evil, dont question it. theyre pedophiles and groomers, if that isnt enough to convince you theyre evil it must be because you're also an evil person, so don't question it or do your own research. then we might come for you.

This was wildly successful! And now that that campaign has gone so well, they can now openly admit that they were secretly transphobes all along! And wow, you already aligned with us, so you need to double down on hating trans people because the rest of the queer community doesn’t want you back after that bullshit!

now maybe you consider this to be a particularly poor faith reading of the current discourse. maybe i had you in the first half, but all of this stuff about secret transphobes and conservatives playing along in ways that are more acceptable seems a little far fetched and conspiratorial to you. a bit of equivication here and there isnt inherently a sign of deeper sinister intentions. isnt all of this a bit of a stretch?

and maybe youre right, maybe im just someone who has seen something similar play out before, and im jumping to defence at something that wont become the same issue.

but isn't it interesting that the people being most vitriolistically upset about all of this, and attacking the creator of these things and accusing them of zoophillia are also misgendering him?

[Tw: Zoophilia mention]

Genuine question: WHY do so many people in this community jump on everything they find weird and immediate label it as zoophilia?!

Like- animal packers, fantasy toys, yiff art, pet play, kink gear, LITERALLY ANYTHING.

Seriously, relieving dysphoria, having "dirty" urges related to your identity, even straight up liking some freaky shit does NOT mean someone is attracted to animals. And it definitely does not mean they are actively harming/thinking of harming real animals.

People really take whatever is too weird for them and try to accuse it of war crime. Be better y'all.

[freakinator]

thinking about kab and the thing about her i think is she knows just enough to keep herself safe Generally but not enough to really predict what would happen should something more... complicated??? unforeseen??? idk whats the right word to use but something not covered by someones reputation and/or vids happen, believe it or not this also affects her view of clownpierce (we'll get to that)

for example, mapicc has a reputation for being an violent, angry, & impulsive guy and nothing else which makes sense but is incredibly surface level and something that only really works if you dont have a lot of experience working with him

another is reddoons, his betrayal after the base incident while shocking is not unforeseen but his reputation as being a guy whos seen as being a reasonable person whos fairly loyal to his team made it seem like something he wouldnt do even tho it absolutely is

regarding how it affects her view of clown, since he isnt perfectly aligned with his reputation she instead pivots in the complete opposite direction and forgiving basically every crime he does even tho hes something much more mild and complicated than either his reputation or her view of him will ever be (think madonna-whore complex which is especially obvious when it comes to kabs vs woogies view of him)

another side effect of this Just Enough amount of knowledge aside from being blinded by her own expectations is that it frustrates ppl who think shes oversimplificating things (like me and seemingly several other tumblr users as well) especially when she claims that shes objectively correct and the smartest in the room at any given moment

how this roughness in her analysis affects her in the server still has yet to be fully seen but we do still have at least a couple months until the end but 'til then shes just gonna keep stumbling as more and more complicated situations pop up as is typical in lifesteal to happen and eventually shes gonna have to learn to adapt or else she'll be suffering the consequences one way or another

[arom-antix]

Happy birthday to the man, the myth, the legend, trophy husband of Yuuri Katsuki, Viktor Nikiforov!

[lemongogo]

why do i love the conflict more than anything else . the misery . the incompatibility that spreads like oil slick . wanting so desperately for resolution that never comes . hmmm

[todayisafridaynight]

sometimes i get nishiki i really do

[youhavethewrong]

do you guys remember when Attack On Titan had a fucking Looney Tunes Babies style spin off where all the characters were in junior high and the titans were just bullies and eren was mad at them because they ate his hamburg steak and it was legitimately better than the original

[tamagotchikgs]

i hate when i can feel things affecting me but i dont know what to do about it. i dont know what to use 2 counter it

[ganondoodle]

couldnt fall asleep for at least 2 full hours bc i kept thinking about it, so ... more (i hope this is the last time)

what was the point of adding isha? no i mean it! i started to like her in act 2 bc i liked mute characters and her with vanderwick where pretty cute.. those episodes are still my favorite, but shes so?? she gets dropped into jinxs lap quite literally (WHY where cross's goons (the chembaron) even chasing her?? i thought thered be some reveal or soemthign or backstory idk but no she just came out of nowhere and got chased for no reason other than to end up falling on jinx and seeing her shoot the goons) and then is given some cutesy time with em only to die horribly for literally nothing except make jinx .... suicidal ... which SHE ALREADY WAS, the entire vi and jinx fight scene at the start of the season is about her wanting vi to kill her- using isha like that is such a waste and so cheap, it served no purpose other than to give jinx and the viewer i guess the hope that things could be better even after everything only to rip it all away again and make it all even worse, but it already was so bad that it falls incredibly flat, and aside from jinx being worse than ever mentally no one seems to really mind? (ALSO feels slimy bc she was mute, mute kid chaarcter only gets used as a cheap way to make mentally unwell character even more mentally unwell)

magma vanderwick ... how ... what was that then? i thought it was either singed who was left alone in the greenhouse with vanderwick using that serum on him that supposedly .. does something to prevent viktor from bringing vanders mind fully back (no other information on that?) or it was viktor 'dying' that made all other cult people flop over and get taken/into stasis, and bc vanderwick was such a strange creature it took vander or part of him but not the beast- but then in act 3 ..... singed uses that serum THERE, so it wasnt him doing anything and him standing ominously in the broken greenhouse was jsut to .. show singed was still alive bc that fucker cant ever die- AND when stupid viktor turns people into fugly robots (im pretty sure, unless im mixing up what mind erased him) you see his memories being burned, so hollowed out .. which means that he was still himself? so it wasnt that viktors 'death' erased vander and left the beast bc it was still both at that point .... what the fuck was up with him then at the end of act2??? why did he go all volcano??

AND then at the end with the weird vi getting emotional over fugly robo vanderwick scene the beast i guess is STILL there .. but when you get turned like that you just turn into a robot and your mind ceases to exist, he already had vander erased, but then gets taken and turned robo so the beast should be gone too?? no`??? even if i remember it wrong and it was viktor who mind erased just vander- again problem as before, why did he go volcano then?? AND why did he slump over dead eyed after it? shouldnt the beast take over immediately when vanders gone??

....did jinx even interact at all with sevika after the scene in stillwater?? i dont think so, what a joke honestly, sevika was pretty much part of the team, then she gets isha out and then next time its jinx isha and vi going to search for vanderwick, the fuck has she been doing until the last episode where she doesnt say or really do a single thing???

im sorry lesbians but that sex scene was rather missplaced, not agaisnt it in general but the timing?? (any sex scene there at that time would be missplaced imo) jinx pretty clearly told vi that she will kill herself "you wont have to worry about me anymore" "im breaking the cycle" HELLO??? and while we dont know how long it took for cait to find vi down there (whereever that prison even is? not stillwater thats for sure) shouldnt vi burst out the prison and go chase after jinx the second she was freed???? i get she says soemthign like losing hope of getting through to her BUT JINX IS GOING TO KILL HERSELF?????????? and then cait and vi make out and fuck in the LITERAL SAME CELL THAT JINX WAS JSUT IN?????????? and even after that doesnt go to check on her?? you CANNOT tell me vi just gave up on her and accepted she killed herself like that

ALSO did no one know what signed was doing with vanderwick (who was still alive .. so isha kinda died uselessly, if he died then as well at least it would mess up the plan .. the stupid plan, i hate viktor cocoon hivemind shit)? they had to get vi out of there so ?? and vi also didnt like .. check if idk vanderwick was really fully dead or just go there again? even if it was secured or soemthign i dont remember her askign anything about him just jinx ... bc there she still cared at least a little bit about her i guess

jayce ... why did act2 make him out to be all mad and like he was given a mission by ekko and heimer (bc he says "i wont fail them" THEM) but then its revealed it was old future viktor who send him back/gave him the mission- ALSO why was he so extreme and mad in act2 when .. yes in act 3 you see him go through that torture in the cavern but when he climbs up hes relatively calm and collected and ignores the weird crawly monsters and has a somewhat normal conversation with old viktor .. and then he returns and is suddendly all mad and going after present viktor- WHICH ONLY MAKES IT SO IT ENDS UP LIKE THE STUPID TIMELOOP??? did i miss something or does that makes no sense?? the only reason it not ending up like that being ekkos intervention- but jayce before that seems to just .. do all that like he wants it to end like in the loop .. i thought he was trying to stop it .. what was the point?

did no one question where the heck salo went? even if he fell from grace .. it feels weird to put him to viktor, make it clear on him how viktor isnt just healing people but taking their minds bc that wasnt salo anymore and no one seems to care?

kinda similar with mel bc her being taken only really matters to ambessa (and when they reunite i expected ambessa to break tbh ...) and one comment from salo and anyone else? who cares? wasnt she in charge? i mean yeah cait took over in a sense but it still feels weird; plus on the whole mel business .. she went from big important power figure of the enterity of piltover to uh .. mage lady in black body suit so quickly? political power figure to weeee blasting vaguely gold magic stuff all over yippiiiie (but in general all political stuff just went out the window with those last episodes)

i said before how i didnt like the whole getting put into other dimension bs with ekko even if the setting was somewhat neat, but similar how weird jayces end speech to viktor felt idk .. ekko having to see, interact and .. make out with a jinx/powder that was 'normal' to see that jinx in his time still had value felt slimy to me also he conveniently gets put right there when jinx is about to kill herself (bc neither sevika nor VI went after her??or did he find her? when did he show up again? idk tbh?) and then uses the z-drive just to try and say the right thing to not make her do it and at the end to through it in viktors face ....................... and jinx showing up at the end barely changes anythign except give her another outfit/look and put her up there in order to do her 'sacrifice' .............idk it all felt so cheap

also maddie evil reveal was so .... was that really needed, like that especially? just so ambessa can tell caitlyn 'told you lol' ?

caitlyn knowing that jinx isnt gone and keeping it a secret is played as if thats a cool thing bc jinx isnt dead yippiiee but to me it makes it even worse (aside from the whole 'our story isnt over' bleurgh ouch eughgnen line of teasing more bc big corpo likes to leaves things open in case they make more expensives shows to serve nothing but the world most overblown champion and skin trailers and in case they dont well who cares) bc its just so ... slimy, am i supposed to see it as a happy end or win for vi bc she gets to be with caitlyn?? bc that is more important than her SISTER THE RELATIONSHIP TO WHICH THE ENTIRE SHOW WAS BUILT AROUND?????? adding the trope i hate 'group of people splitting up at the end bc thats clearly the best for them' FUCK THAT! Vi should have joined jinx and sevika (add isha and non robo vanderwick best case scenario, also ekko and they all get cool jinx outfits and everything, let jinx be a hero instead of a lil crazy footnote in viktors god complex) and get caitlyn on her side to fight piltover to free zaun (maybe with ambessa taking over piltover, mel returning and joining the forces of zaun forcing her to fight her even though it breaks ambessa bc she cares too much about mel or soemthing and jayce and viktor can battle it out gay boi style somewhere else or later interupting the main revolution fight idk im jsut yelling but this whole viktor god thing and robo war and whatever really went so off the rails and out of propoertion i hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh also vanderwick should get to kill singed)

..........and the line of Vi calling herself the dirt under caitlyns fingernails? ... what a line to end this stupid episode with, what a line, a zaunite calling herself dirt under her noble piltover lovers fingernails

(so ... in the end ... what was 'the arcane'? its not the void? its not jsut magic? its something fucked they created when trying to create magic but ... what was it? what where those creepy crawling things? why does it work like that? taking peoples minds? healing their bodies with metal parts but also hiveminding them? what was the hexcore in the end? what the hell was all that? where did the crystals even come from? skarners lore got erased so not there? did i just forget that? and also mages exist but also seem like a very unknown thing in the show? and then mel just is that? and the black rose? like??? what was the point??? it all just feels so pointless? what was this all for? a cheeasy happy ending where they fuck with time more to fix it all would have been satisfying to me than this ... this nothing)

okay i do have to do a mini (i call it mini now.. this is just letting my feelings about it out, so its spelled agressively bc im just so .. frustrated ... also not hate to the studio or the people working on it .. obviously >_>) rant about arcane-

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ARCANE SEASON 2

its the most beautiful show ever produced, i mean it, its style, fortiche's (the studio) style, is just .... impossibly pretty, 3d and 2d, the animation is just so GOOD, the designs largely (like 95%) are too, the acting and sound design, the voice acting (at least the english one) is so emotional and good, the show in general is just good ... until the last episode

i have my own problems with riot declaring arcane the new canon out of nowhere and for no good reason since it was, im very sure, never conceived to be that, its a reinterpreation and works best as such, now literally everything is once again completely messed up, no one knows whats real and what isnt, no champion or story is safe, especially with the weird hexcore bullshit potentially erasing the VOID (whish is like ... half on which the canon was built on tbh) AND hextech- multiple champions being impossible to exist now .... but thats not what i wanted to talk about

i was pretty on board with everything the show did, though i wasnt a big fan of the whole hexcore stuff, but it all spiraled so far out of control, it just kept making everything worse, also with bringing in the black rose and leblanc, it kept piling stuff onto the plate despite them already compressing everything so drastically; espeically regarding viktor, but i kept my hope up even after season 2s act 2 bc it still seemed 'fixable', though not easily so

what i liked about it (in its writing) despite its pacing issues was that it was rather .. self contained for the longest time, focused on the characters and the class struggle of piltover and zaun, and doing so rather well imo, like it did and said things i did not expect riot to let through

i was worried with the alternate universe stuff that came with the escalating hexcore bullshit but held onto hope even until episode 8 and then ...man .. the last episode ... the fuck was that- like i hate timetravel and multiverses and whatever but the thing with ekko was done rather neatly ... they made all those chaarcter models and sets just for that short stuff and really .. was of little use other than getting heimerdinger out of the picture as well lmao maybe he will get his own series to advertise for 200 dollar skins in league hahaaaa but i guess the main point was to give ekko the z-drive ... which feels alot like what i feared about them forcing it to comply with the characters in game ,,,, even though that wasnt for everyone like warwick was done SO dirty after giving me hope in act two

everythings focused on the hexcore/arcane shit, theres the black rose shit (honestly i think it was a mistake bringing them in too bc .. noxus is its entire own region with so many champs and story itself that got connected via ambessa .. which was a new character the show made up until they made her a champ now .. its just too much to put into this one show already going at a breakneck pace), mel doing her bit with them then bam she mage now which felt like a champion teaser more than an organic part of the story, especialyl with how hard it got pushed later (poor little riots gotta sell more game cosmetics uwu), jayce just taking over control again and everyone going with it, singed reviving stupid version victor via using vander/warwick WHO WAS STILL ALIVE AFTER ISHA BLEW HERSELF UP TO STOP HIM FROM KILLING EVERYONE (which was ALREADY pretty cheap, but i guess jinx had to be even more suicidal than she already was heehoo), dont even ask me HOW, viktor was just whoops from corpse to im a cocoon now, ambessa being so obsessed with it, the entire class struggle being """"solved"""" by piltover and zaun fighting stupid viktors weird ass robot shitheads together and then acting like giving sevika a seat at the council is the solution to it, half the cast just dying horribly for honestly no reason?? ORIANNA being now i guess some weird viktor robot but without the mindcontrol part and singed just kinda ... winning i guess by giving her cocoon some goo of stupid viktors cocoon

it just all ... turning from this so drama, character and class struggle thing into weird ass dimension hopping magical world war that all gets solved bc we fought together once uwu AND it being a fucking timeloop WITHIN what ONE episode? and that being the ENDING (i know i know the hexcore bs was building up throughout the show but it still felt so .. unearned and sudden ... )

also i got personal gripes with the 'ending' bc .. was it REALLY an ending like they kept saying?? was it?? viktor, jayce, heimerdinger, jinx are just disappeared i guess, mel going back to noxus- the fucking 'our story isnt over' tease???? the last minute appearance of swains fucking raven???? pecking at something blue and shining like idk a hex crystal??? SHUT UP i dont want more to come, this story should have had its self containing ending, not this open ended bullshit that just reeks of corporate meddling bc they want their game to connect to their popular show as much as possible now so we gotta bring in as many teases and connections to other champions YIPPIEEEEE (yelling)

also if jinx is dead, wow, what a way to end her story, the traumatized suicidal character being tortured and tortured especially after seemingly having something good for once (i liked act 2 except for its ending the most bc ... man jinx was so enjoyable there, i loved her dynamic with vi and isha and half wolf vander warwick with the beast and man struggle i love alot, that part was genuinely beautiful, i wasnt a fan of the idea of idk ekko doing time stuff and them having a happy ending bc i just dont like going back in time to fix everything kinda stuff, but i would have much much prefered that, not changing the existing story into the perfect world where everythings happy (though i liked that part ... vander silco being gay husbands like that is just so goood) but to fix what is fixable in the present- them still having gone through alot but being able to live with it, so act 2 setup was honestly my favorite way to not invalidate everything and still have something happy .... but no we gotta kill the kid to make jinx even worse and vander/warwick too while we are at it

if shes not dead (given you see a blimp(?) flying away and her scribbles showing up and caitlyn looking at the blueprints of the hexgates) then ... ??? oh yeah lets make her leave zaun and just idk go be the main character in noxus or soemthing for the next show they are gonna do bc jinx is popular so putting her everywhere is a good idea!!!1!!11

ALSO since vander/warwick is my favorite .. i thought maybe after isha doing that, if they dont reverse it, hed get taken by singed again or ran away and turned fully werewolf like he is in the game (though i would have liked if they were able to be a weird family like in act2)- but no he just gets used as fuel for stupid viktor cocoon and then mind erased and made into the ugliest weird robot thing that looks more like galio than him JUST and i feel like it really is JUST to have Vi at the end do the scene that gets jinx 'killed' .. to lead into the 'more to come' teaser.. idk about you but that scene felt so .. forced, the typical oh no platform is slowly falling down but Vi suddendly gets emotional about weird ugly robot warwick (who conveniently comes back to life as ugly robot beast since his human mind got erased but not the beast??? i guess???) and completely ignores jinx yelling at her to get to safety, it felt so WEIRD to me (if you gotta do him like that at least let Vi listen to jinx, them embracing and then watchign emotionally as robo vanderwick falls into the hexgate thing .. that was still active somehow i guess??)

(poor viktor got done so dirty too .. i liked him .. until it all went weird wit hthe hexcore stuff ....... ..... also jayce weird speech to him .. why the FUCK did you not do that back in the cult camp instead of blasting him to bits, i get it he was fucked up from seeing the future, but then later hes just ... okay???? pretty fine all things considered??? and pretty aware of everything?? also his weird speech being all like vitkor actually you were perfect in your imperfection BITCH HE WAS SLOWLY DYING AN AGONIZING DEATH???? idk ??? it all feels so weird to me, like there episodes literally missing- ambessa dying also felt so unnecessary .. just so mel can take her place and go to noxus and have more shows maybe- )

i just .... and just like how i cant enjoy botw anymore after them fucking it all up with totk ... i dont know if i will rewatch arcane knowing it ends like that, what was that for, the most beautiful show ever made just to do a game of thrones ending in a single episode?

im so tired of it all ..... im so tired of being disappointed and feeling let down over and over no matter with how little expectations i go in with

this willl be the only arcane rant unless theres some .. big stupid reveal that gets me more frustrated than i am now, which i hope there isnt .. im tired of being and feeling like this .. i just want to enjoy things, everythings going to shit IRL and i cant even find something enjoyable to watch

[macclownn]

just found out one of my all time absolute fave re artists was bullied off the internet for being "pr/osh/ip" and that tells me everything i need to know about the state of social media and fandom these days tbh.

[triglycercule]

This is a question related to the mtt hobbies answer that you wrote, the murder trio go around the multiverse and live in a place together, then what happend to horrortale au and horrortale papyrus? If the murder trio got to meet horrortale papyrus how would it go? (The meeting propably wouldnt end well with more canon mtt haha)

aaaaa i dont think it through to be honest when i talk about that concept. they just do. maybe horrortale's issues are already solved and aliza's already gone through horrortale and somehow fixed the hellhole (ALIZA MY GOAT PLEASE SAVE HORRORTALE I DON'T CARE IF IT TAKES 10 YEARS‼️‼️‼️) by the time that horror somehow meets dust and killer (since i dont see a feasible way that horrortale could be fixed outside of aliza or outside intervention.) or maybe he just visits from time to time. and by time to time i mean probably quarterly weekly. idk sorry i cant be bothered to think about it,,, they just do. anyways bad answer i KNOW I KNOW put the tomatoes down pls PLS

if the mtt met horror paps? horror would obviously do his little bantering thing with paps (he's probably revealing every single one of horror's embarrassing moments to them as they speak and horror's desperately trying to get him to shut up because he can tell. dust and killer are piiiiiiissed.) dust is probably like eerily calm during the whole thing. he manages to hold up a conversation pretty well with horror paps and gets along with him good enough without mentioning that theres a ghost version of him screaming asking why dust is ignoring phantom paps. meanwhile killer is mostly silent during it too probably only responding when he's spoken too. i mean like killer already doesn't like being around papyruses (papyri? papyri is so shitty i dont like it we will be saying papyruses) and then seeing horror's papyrus??? what the FUCK happened to horror paps??? sunken in eyes and cracks in his bones and those jagged teeth AND THEN THE FUCKING CROOKED SPAGHETTI????

needless to say once horror paps is gone all of them get into a biiiiig fight. dust drops the cool act because he's not gonna lose his cool around a papyrus but also he's absolutely fuming. he can tell that the changes that phantom papyrus has gone through have something to do with horror with the way that he's acting. killer is also incredibly irritated too (surpringly. being around papyruses just gets him like that) and seeing papyrus like that just gets him upset and angry. like wtf horror did you even TRY with keeping your papyrus safe??? at least killer reset his au and now papyrus is living an unharmed life (with minor concerns about killer's whereabouts but he'll ignore that for now) but horror paps looks so fucked up that there is no WAY that horror tried to prevent him from getting to that point

obviously they fight and many many many many MANY words are said about eachother's characters and the state they left their respective papyruses in. horror knows damn well that horrortale paps's state is because of him but he regretted telling paps to eat humans and neither dust nor killer knew the struggle of living with that guilt and how much he regrets it so they dont get to drag him for not trying hard enough to keep papyrus safe. dust is definitely getting some low blows here and there (but he's getting fucking assisted by phantom paps so he's got some of the deepest hitting insults) and he's definitely getting ganged up on for killing his papyrus and like. not even attempting to leave him alive in someway shape and form aside from the absolute insult that is phantom paps. surprisingly killer is winning this fight because he left his papyrus in a relatively good state. even though he's in a more emotional state than he normally is and would've absolutely OBLITERATED dust and horror in the fight in stage 2 he's actually doing pretty well. probably because hororr and dust dont really have anything to drag him on. they might bring up how something new papyrus is searching for killer but like,,,, is that really that bad compared to how they left their papyruses

[skyburger]

i love reading things set in countries that i'm knowledgeable and/or have been to because i can point out really minor errors in fanfiction. i think the average american does not know that in england (and apparently some of asia! which i only just found out) there are switches on power outlets so you can just turn it off instead of unplugging it. like 9 times out of 10 that won't come up but on the off chance it does i'm like ohoho. this clown has never been to england...! my favorite part though is watching americans (specifically americans because i swear to god people who speak english as a second language and/or are from any other country have some idea of what it's like to have an accent / personally know people who have accents? idk) try to write british accents like it is REALLY funny. i literally only lived their for five years and i never picked up a full accent myself (certain words and tones i did but they're mostly gone after living in the states again for a few years) but between living there and having a ridiculous amount of family there & visiting them often (like once a year if im lucky) i like KNOW what british accents sound like. i think some americans genuinely dont even know theres more than one or two english accents i think some people think there's like posh english and chav english and nothing else. maybe scottish accent gets thrown in there if they remember the uk is not in fact just england. i would bet real money they've never heard a welsh accent. anyway my point is it's really funny watching people who don't know as much as i do write this stuff. like i see it and i understand how doctors read this and go Oh that is so medically inaccurate. i get them now. anyway i dont remember what my point here was but please know if you are attempting to write a british accent. reddit and youtube are your best friends if you don't have a british friend you can ask and also rest assured even if you do ONE google search. it will not be the worst attempt ive seen guaranteed

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

smth I forgot to mention about my italy trip is that whilst we were on the motorway going from the airport we actually saw a car literally on fire on the other side of the road lol... like that was dramatic enough but the funny thing is that the lane right next to it was still OPEN !?!? cars were just driving past a burning car like it was no big deal

in contrast, we heard when we came back to the uk that there had been a similar thing happen in my town (a lorry caught fire on the motorway) but the cultural difference between there and here means that when that happened here, literally the ENTIRE motorway around my town was closed for several hours & even once it was open the disruption effected the roads for the rest of that day lol... idk I just found that rly funny lol

[famewolf]

I'm gonna be a little quiet on here until after I start playing Dragon Age. I don't want to be spoiled and the urge to click on posts that have DA tags blacklisted is mounting. And just like with Inquisition, I want to go in totally blind.

[bardinthezone]

Night Vale and the Power of Stories

So I’ve been losing my mind about this latest arc. Full hyperfixation. Studying for finals? Calling my parents? Enjoying other hobbies? Eating?? Who’s she, never heard of her. There is only the “#wtnv spoilers” tag.

Anyways, inspired primarily by this post, this post, and this post, I have been thinking about Night Vale as a place of stories.

Night Vale is a deeply weird place. It is a place where all the crazy conspiracies and contradictions and creepy crawlies can coexist (try saying that 5 times fast), and it is built on stories.

We know from “109: A Story About Huntokar” that Huntokar singlehandedly saved the town from nuclear destruction in 1983. This in and of itself is beautiful, tragic, terrifying and wonderful (I could write a whole essay on the lasting effects of the Cold War on the American psyche and how that’s impacted our media, but that’s not what this post is about). But what Huntokar says in describing this moment is fascinating: “ The people of Night Vale huddled, waiting for the end to their story.” The use of the word “story” here is so poignant and poetic. This was her town, a narrative she had lovingly followed since its inception, with an ever rotating cast of characters, finally seeming as though it would come to an end. And yet she managed to continue their story. The people of Night Vale, of every alternate universe Night Vale, are kept alive because Huntokar wanted to keep the narrative going. It is a town kept alive-- inverted and shattered and bizarre, but alive-- because someone saw the tale coming to an end and wasn’t satisfied with that. Night Vale is a place of stories.

And Cecil. Cecil Gershwin-Palmer is such a wonderful enigma. He’s a deeply troubled man, he’s the town’s beloved radio host, he is the voice of Night Vale. As the town’s only (?) regular source of news, he carries incredible weight in shaping the public’s perception of reality. It is his radio show that keeps the people informed through all of these earth-shattering events-- it is Cecil who, for as goofy and cringefail (thank you @bigcommunist for that phrase) as he can be, has been responsible for keeping his citizens safe. In “227: A Word With Dr. Jones,” Dr. Janet Lubelle notes that one of his traits is “town leadership.” When Cecil speaks, things happen. He rallies the people, against Strexcorp or the Beagle Puppy or Steve Carlsberg and his dry, dry scones. Hell, he says “weather” and everyone stops, or sometimes (Like in “204: Audition”) it literally saves his life. @lostboywriting raises a fascinating theory about Cecil having inadvertently brought the Faceless Old Woman into existence through his repression of his complicated relationship with his mother-- and while this contradicts with the backstory presented in "The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives Inside Your Home," who’s to say that both origins can’t be true, with how splintered and fractured Night Vale’s existence (and especially relation to time) is? Perhaps Cecil, as the Voice Of Night Vale, is capable of changing the world more than he knows.

Either way, this is why Dr. Lubelle’s Explaining of the town has so much of a tangible effect on it-- because she’s coming in and using something “empirical” to change the narrative. That is why she’s so threatening-- because how do you argue with the facts? How do you argue with science? She is using logic to insist that her reality is right, that these stories and poetics used to keep the town alive are meaningless. That it would be better for them to not exist than to exist outside her narrative. She said it herself-- she cannot imagine that anyone thinks differently to herself about anything, and she is all to happy to provide any who disagrees with an Explanation. No matter the cost.

In 227, Cecil remarks that “Science is not good or bad, as language is not good or bad, as religion is not good or bad, because humans are not inherently good or bad.” This sets up a fascinating play between science, language, and religion that I think is perfectly encapsulated by Dr. Lubelle, representing science, Cecil, representing language, and Huntokar, representing religion. Whether she knows it or not, Dr. Lubelle is directly undoing all of the hard work of Huntokar, and attempting to use Cecil as the most powerful tool at her disposal.

And this works in conjunction with my distinction of the What vs. the Why. We can take the incursion point of November 7th, 1983, and view it through both lenses. From Huntokar’s perspective, we get the Why: Night Vale was in danger, and it needed saving, so she saved it. But from Dr Lubelle’s perspective, we just get the What: Night Vale was the target of a nuclear missile. Nuclear missiles are unstoppable by any force known to science. This is a town that should have been empty for 40 years.

I posit a world in which Dr. Lubelle reduces Night Vale to what it “should be:” A town ruined by nuclear destruction. The empirical facts, the anchors that held Night Vale down to reality, the threads that Huntokar broke-- Dr. Lubelle is seeking to tie them back together. And with the Voice of Night Vale on her side, Explained and ready to share the Truth, of course she can make that happen. Perhaps Huntokar takes center stage again to show that science is not the end-all-be-all. Perhaps Carlos steps in to replace Dr. Lubelle as the Scientist in this equation, to provide a good alternative to her callous methods. 

Or I could be totally off-base with that prediction. I imagine the bodies being dug up in the sand wastes and the murals of flesh will play a major role in the finale. Maybe she’ll uncover the splintered realities of Night Vale and won’t know how to explain them away. Hell, people keep hyping up a Desert Bluffs return, what with the Sandstorm tapes and the talk of doubles-- Maybe Kevin and Lauren will be the “religion” in the triumvirate, and drive Dr. Lubelle mad with their unrelenting fervor. Who knows? I have my theories, but I’m just excited to see where this all goes.

.

Also from a meta perspective, this is 100% harkening back to all those early-days fan theories that “Night Vale is a normal town and Cecil is just off his rocker” (Thanks @maxgicalgirl for that one!). Welcome To Night Vale is a show that has never been about continuity and tight lore-- it’s about spinning a fun narrative, it’s about the poetry, the music, the aesthetics; it’s about everything that Dr. Lubelle HATES. From a meta perspective, Dr. Lubelle is every theorist who tries to ruin the magic of a story, who nitpicks it endlessly because it doesn’t adhere to how the “real world” functions. She doesn’t care about why story elements are included, she just needs what’s included to adhere to her worldview. And I can’t wait to see her get taken down, no matter how it happens.

Thanks again to @maxgicalgirl, @lostboywriting, @eclipse-song​, and everyone who’s been sharing their thoughts about the latest arc on tumblr. I would not be writing this without y’all!!

[cosmik-homo]

Honestly i really do know im being annoying with this but the logistics of swapping out Avon and Raistlin and watching what theh do is the greatest form of Playing With Dolls I've ever ever had. Its a serotonin treadmill. You've heard of watching a brilliant, dark tortured genius asshole slowly create his own downfall what about landing in the middle of such a slipperyslope and starting to turn it into an entirely different one. AND THERE'S PVP ALLOWED, one of my main options rn is Avon-as-Raistlin starts planning how to re-open the connection and either undo this or pass some more things between the worlds- and Raistlin-as-Avon is like FINDERS KEEPERS BITCH. Paying It (The Lichdom Curse) Forewards, im staying in your life and im winning at it, fuck off. And Avon's like, ex-fucking-scuse me?

[ronkeyroo]

I’ve been so badly traumatized by people online constantly demanding my attention and snuffing me out in the worst possible ways in the past that to this day I dont know how to properly emotionally navigate this kind of behavior when i am faced with it again, even when its mild.

I’ve went through experiencing unrelenting and overbearing messaging to weird guilt trips and even (I hope to dear god my assumptions to be wrong here) people vagueing at me in such an oddly specific, hurtful manner when i dont appear to be available for their needs and it just...Fuck, it eats away at me. It doesnt happen too often nowdays but, I recognize those behaviors returning and it bothers me alot...

Its easy when its strangers unlike my fucked up now ex friends, I can just put the boundary without all of the previous mess...But I cant shake how incredibly mad it still makes me TT This inappropriate reaction to want to bite and lash out and burn that bridge immediatly to spare myself a FRACTION of the trouble, and for fucks sake i know its still the remnants of the damage inflicted upon me echoing out as self defense but its so uncalled for and im tired of feeling like a mad dog when this trigger is being activated. I really want to unlearn this behavior...