#i like betty but this is kind of anti

[princehendir]

Unfortunately the inherent flaw of any successful public health/harm reduction campaign is that after the issue is under control/eliminated then the campaign itself starts to seem stupid and unnecessary. Especially in retrospect by people who do not remember The Before.

[ilikekidsshows]

The Totally Spies-ification of Adrien

Okay, it's been long enough that I can actually discuss how Adrien's slavery is depicted in the show without anger-fueled exaggerations and hyperbole. I want to discuss how Miraculous treats Adrien's slavery very flippantly and how it is, like everything in this show post-retool, all about Marinette. The show has a lot of stuff that hints that the writers intend for Adrien to be viewed a very certain way. I believe the writers made Adrien a slave for Marinette’s benefit and I will explain how I came to this conclusion.

I’ve joked before about how Astruc has worked on Totally Spies, “one of the kinkiest cartoons ever made”. I’d like to tackle this idea and how it relates to Miraculous more seriously. I’d like to tackle the topic of titillation and how it relates to how this show approaches slavery with such flippancy. My claim is that Adrien being a slave is not meant to be horrifying, which is why the story doesn't treat it as such; it's meant to be titillating.

I usually don't use Read Mores, since they can lead to broken links later, but this is really long. Strap in, folks.

Titillation for the context of this analysis means “content with the intention to excite romantically or sexually”, basically it’s about “kinky” stuff. The purpose of talking about sexuality in relation to Miraculous is not to paint the writers as some kind of fiends, but to present the fact that many teenagers are curious about romance and sex and will think about sex unprompted. This means titillating content in cartoons doesn’t even need to be related to sex to be titillating. And Astruc has a history of putting titillating stuff in his work, with Totally Spies being a very notable example of how you can include non-sexual titillating content in a kids’ show.

It all comes down to expected audience reactions. Adrien is meant to be sexy. I don’t mean that in a “the writers think this is sexy” way, but a “the writers think the projected audience of straight teenage girls will think this is sexy” way. He gets put into bondage three times in ‘Copycat’, ‘Anti-Bug’ and ‘Reverser’ and all three times the camera seems to like to show him off. He is meant to be an object of attraction for the audience. The people criticizing this show have been pointing out how Ladybug's costume accentuates her butt for years, but this is not something that occurs with just Ladybug. When he isn't posing for the viewers, Cat Noir gets whacked around by Akuma’s a lot, but a lot of the time it ends with him in a prone position that is also titillating, in ‘Pixelator’ it goes as far as having his butt jut out. However, the idea that Cat Noir is the one who gets hit when an Akuma needs to show off how dangerous they are is also part of the power dynamic where Marinette or Ladybug gets to show off, so it’s not purely for titillation, which is why other examples, like ‘Stormy Weather’ are more comedic.

It’s likely that Adrien-as-Adrien doesn’t get to participate in the show’s slapstick much, since that aspect of the character is presented as the perfect beauty, a role usually reserved for female characters who only ever get a little bit flustered or banged up to make sure they keep looking attractive. Marinette screams "waack" and runs face first into a wall in the same episode where the silliest thing Adrien gets to do is sneeze (Mr Pigeon). Adrien is meant to be attractive, sexy, titillating, in different ways in his different forms. As Cat Noir he is more active and more sexy, as Adrien he’s more passive and pretty, much like how female love interests can fall into these categories. It’s the Betty and Veronica dichotomy; in the Archie franchise Betty and Veronica are shown as the wholesome and sexy romance options and the reason the writers go out of their way not to resolve the love triangle is to keep the appeal of these both options going. People’s tastes differ, so it would alienate some audiences to pick one over the other. With Miraculous they solved the problem by having the two romance options be the different identities of a single character.

Frankly, as of the season five finale, Adrien is approaching “sexy lamp” levels of replicating sexist ways of writing a female character but just changing the gender. What else do you call him lying on the floor in despair while his love interest gets his superpowers and uses them to beat up his abusive father, while somehow being perfectly fine and happily kissing Marinette later after said father is dead and gone? Adrien’s trauma is debilitating when it serves the writers’ purposes, but stops being a problem as soon as they need him to smile and look pretty. The main reason Adrien’s trauma is so inconsistent is so that he can act as Marinette’s trophy so that Marinette has somebody to kiss in the final shot. If Adrien was despairing about not being good enough for her, or grossly crying about being an orphan, Marinette wouldn’t have a fun time kissing him. And if Marinette isn’t having fun, the members of the audience projecting onto her aren’t having fun either.

Speaking of how Adrien’s depiction relates to Marinette, here comes the controversial part of this post: while Marinette is not depicted as a literal slave owner in-story, narratively, she is very much treated as Adrien's owner from a meta perspective. We, the viewers, are meant to see Adrien as Marinette's property, and the twist of Adrien being a part of a slave race in a dynamic where Marinette holds all the cards is meant to be a good thing. We have been primed to view everything about Adrien to actually be about Marinette, because Marinette is the center of the universe of Miraculous and Adrien belongs to her because he’s the main character’s love interest. Adrien being revealed to be a slave that Marinette could control but then chooses to “merely” manipulate is meant to be glorifying to Marinette and titillating to the viewer. I will elaborate.

Marinette has been incredibly possessive of Adrien since day one and she is only occasionally depicted as being in the wrong about this, when she goes too far by the show’s standards. She stalks Lila and Adrien whenever she sees them hanging out together and she’s unreasonably jealous of Kagami. The only time she is depicted as being in the wrong is not when she's sniffing Adrien's pillow after breaking into his room, but when she actually bullies Kagami out of jealousy, and even that is depicted as more of an unfortunate misunderstanding than Marinette actively doing something wrong. Marinette is more sympathetic towards Kagami when she finds out she and Adrien aren't as close as she thought, that Kagami’s pursuit of Adrien is more hopeless than hers. Basically, Marinette is only in the wrong because Kagami isn't a threat, not because she was doing anything wrong by bullying her to defend her “territory”.

This gets flipped near the end of the season, though. When Adrien and Kagami do start dating, it's depicted as this big tragedy even more so than Master Fu losing his memories. Master Fu going missing is an afterthought, while Adrien choosing someone else over Marinette is the big “darkest hour” moment of the season three mid-finale, the cliffhanger moment of her crying in Luka’s arms while all hope is lost. Marinette isn’t directly crying about this, she is crying from “all the pressure”, but Marinette breaking down happens immediately after a scene of Kagami leaning in to kiss Adrien that has a somber dirge playing in the background. The first part of the finale has everything going wrong at the end; Master Fu is missing, Chloé gets willingly Akumatized, Marinette breaks down, and Kagami leans in to kiss Adrien. These scenes being put closely together is telling us that these are all bad things to happen.

Adrien ending up with Marinette is a given, but it's also taken for granted. Every girl with an interest in Adrien is depicted as an antagonist, while Marinette can do whatever she wants in pursuit of Adrien and will still be morally correct. Chloé and Lila, even Kagami to a degree, are villainized for their attraction to Adrien in a way Nathaniel, Luka or Zoé are not with their attraction to Marinette. Chloé and Lila are full-blown villains while Luka and Zoé are some of the most selfless members of the cast. Kagami is aggressive and socially awkward in a way that is used to justify Marinette's initial distrust and dislike of her (in ‘Ikari Gozen’ Alya voices her pity towards Marinette for having to spend time with her) while Nathaniel is just the pitiful bullied loner who’s still a liked member of the class friend group. Girls who want Adrien are bad for trespassing on Marinette’s territory and trying to “steal” something that “belongs” to Marinette.

The writers thinking Adrien belongs to Marinette is also not just subtext. Later in season five, when Marinette and Adrien finally start dating, Marinette even outright states that Adrien “kinda does a little” belong to her when she’s scared that Zoé has a crush on him. The fumbling of the line means that the writers are aware of how toxic it is to consider your partner your property, but they want to include that sentiment anyway, because that’s how they view the situation. Marinette’s boyfriend is her property and other people can’t even look at her property. ‘Emotion’ continues on this increased possessiveness by having the entire Marinette plot happen because she can’t conceive Adrien keeping things from her, because he isn’t allowed privacy from her while Marinette lying to Adrien (or Cat Noir) is a show staple.

This same attitude of Adrien not being allowed to have romantic options outside of Marinette has also been in the fandom for years. Every time a new female character was introduced, there was a worry that she’d “try to steal Adrien from Marinette”. Marinette and Adrien are endgame, the writers know this and the fandom knows this. The characters don't know this, but it doesn't matter because Adrien was already seen as Marinette's (future) boyfriend even back in season one when he barely knew her. And this attitude the writers and audience have is extended to the characters more and more as the show goes on, as almost every single character becomes an Adrinette shipper in support of Marinette in season five, while no one thinks to ask Adrien what he thinks about this. Only once, in ‘Desperada’ did Alya suggest that Adrien could make his own choice on who to date, but it was implied the choice should be Marinette specifically (Marinette smiles at this, while Kagami frowns). The cast is lucky the writers have decided Adrien already is Marinette's, or he’d be really uncomfortable.

Season five episode ‘Pretension’ goes as far with this as having Marinette basically ask Gabriel for permission to be with Adrien, convinced that she and Adrien can be together with no problems if she can just get him to approve of her. And then Gabriel tells her he’s promised Adrien to Kagami. You know, like a piece of property women were treated as before women were allowed to live without a man to control them. The finale then ultimately does have Gabriel agree to hand Adrien over to Marinette by dying and leaving her in charge of Adrien. Just because she uses the privilege to do some things for Adrien’s benefit doesn’t make what happened any less of a patriarchal transaction. In fact, the writers wrote it that way on purpose, with the knight and princess parallels they set up between Marinette and Adrien earlier in the show being something they are prominently proud of (the “reverse fairytale” as they put it). Adrien is the princess the dashing hero Marinette gets to earn with her feats of bravery; he’s handed to her like a piece of property and Marinette is too happy with her acquisition to even be outraged on Adrien’s behalf. And Adrien wasn’t even allowed to know about any of this, instead it gets handled solely between Marinette and Gabriel, like his opinion on the matter didn’t even matter. And why would his opinion matter, since he already is ready to promise himself to Marinette, even as the writers deny him the agency to actually make such a promise.

The goal of making it obvious that Adrien is cool with being objectified like this is probably why they make Adrien so obsessed with Marinette in season five, constantly repeating her name to himself and saying stuff like: “I can’t stop thinking about you” in ‘Pretension’. They need to drive it home to the audience exactly how okay Adrien is with everyone forcing him to be with Marinette. After all, you can’t force the willing. As of ‘Confrontation’, Adrien’s official goals for the future are: “I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” I guess, from the perspective of the writers, the childhood dream of wanting to be what his parents wanted from ‘Wishmaker’ wasn’t sad because of Adrien’s lack of agency; it was sad because he wasn’t forsaking all of his personal pursuits for Marinette specifically. As far as the writers are concerned, Adrien should only care about Marinette and nothing else.

This same entitlement is also present in Ladybug and Cat Noir's relationship. Every time Cat Noir is upset with Ladybug, like in Frozer, Glaciator, Syren, The New York Special or even Kuro Neko, they never talk about what caused it. This is especially blatant in cases where Ladybug has wronged Cat Noir personally, like Kuro Neko or the NY Special, where she never has to face up to what she did wrong because Cat Noir comes back because she “needs him”.  Cat Noir will always come back to her without her having to do anything because she is the main character and she says she needs him. He exists for her and her needs. He exists for her; it’s just another way he’s hers.

Speaking of how Adrien is treated affects Marinette, even Adrien’s trauma actually belongs to her in the writing.  I pointed out earlier that Adrien’s trauma shows up when the writers need to put him out of commission, but disappears as soon as he needs to be Marinette’s trophy, but it goes further than just inconsistency. The early seasons spend several episodes on how Adrien is being locked up by his father and unable to hang out with his friends and, between him and Marinette, Marinette is the one shown to be more upset and hurt by this. They don’t do this in every episode, as ‘The Bubbler’ actually does a phenomenal job of making Adrien’s upset actually about him, but the big point in ‘Glaciator’ is that Marinette is so upset that she can’t see Adrien that she accidentally leaves Cat Noir on read so he’s upset about that. Adrien is only upset because he didn’t get attention from Marinette, while Adrien’s literal abuse at the hands of his father is only important because it makes Marinette upset. Even Adrien himself gets in on this action in ‘Conformation’ when the writers go as far as having Adrien chastise himself of not being more worthy of Marinette’s love when his dad is once again busy ruining his life. Even Adrien himself makes his abuse about Marinette; him being abused is bad because it’s inconveniencing Marinette and inconveniencing Marinette makes him less worthy of her.

‘Cat Blanc’ is possibly the worst offender of all, though. This episode should be all about how Adrien is abused by Gabriel, culminating with Gabriel turning him into a monster that destroys the world. And yet, what is the episode actually about? It’s about Marinette. The worst thing that could happen to Adrien is about Marinette. Only Marinette gets to remember or even know about the possibility of Cat Noir getting Akumatized and only Marinette is traumatized by it happening. After all that the writers later dare to use this event that didn’t actually happen anymore, that Adrien doesn’t know about, to justify him giving his powers to Marinette, because he’s “scared of getting Akumatized” when something like that has never happened as far as he knows. But the writers had him reason this way anyway, because apparently the culmination of Marinette’s character development in the show means taking Adrien’s power as her own and then failing to win even with that at her disposal.

Another note about ‘The Bubbler’ that has to be pointed out is that it’s also the first example of Marinette being presented as good for Adrien simply because she treats him better than Gabriel. The final scene of Marinette giving Adrien his best birthday present yet and letting him think it comes from Gabriel is done to show how selfless Marinette is by letting Adrien keep thinking good things about his abuser. This idea that Marinette is morally good simply because she’s better than pond scum Gabriel is also present in the season five finale, where Marinette manipulates, gaslights and keeps important information from her abused slave boyfriend. Marinette is presented as being in the right because at least she didn’t literally control him with a magical geas like Gabriel did and gave him the object with which to do so (while notably not telling him what it does). Marinette will do the bare minimum of not taking literal ownership of Adrien and we’re meant to see her as a paragon of goodness for it, while she still has no respect for Adrien’s autonomy and hasn’t had any since the show started.

The way the Sentimonster “reveal” is handled shows this utter lack of respect for Adrien’s autonomy that the writers, and Marinette by extension, have. The reveal is not for Adrien, but for Marinette, just like every other piece of Adrien has been made to be about Marinette. Marinette gets to know and she gets to decide if Adrien gets to know, and she decides “no”. She will manipulate him and lie to him to keep him happy for herself, she will keep important information about him to herself that he might never find out if anything happens to her, because Adrien is hers and no one else’s and she has the right to make that decision because the world revolves around her because the world of Miraculous was created to be her playground. “Adrien” is just a toy on that playground for Marinette to play with as the writers see fit.

Now we’re coming back to Adrien’s role as the sexy, titillating love interest character that I talked about at the start of this essay. If Marinette granting Adrien the bare minimum of freedoms as a slave while manipulating him “for his own good” is meant to be a good thing, why is Adrien even a slave? Well, outside of the writers wanting to add a plot twist that doesn’t come with any messy plot they’d have to write about characters other than Marinette, Adrien being a slave is also meant to be titillating. What really is magical super slavery than very, very off the wall bondage and power play stuff? The idea that Marinette could rob her love interest of his free will with ease but won’t because she cares about him so much is very empowering in two different ways. It gives Marinette all the power in the relationship and it makes her out to be such a good person that even having ultimate power over another person won’t corrupt her. Adding to that, we have Adrien’s people pleaser abuse victim personality, which makes him fawn over the people he loves. If Marinette ever wanted to have control over Adrien, Adrien would give it to her of his own volition, no need for magical super slavery or unbreakable geases.

As I stated earlier, Marinette is meant to be the point of view main character the audience of teen girls projects themselves onto. So, really, Adrien’s slavery and abuse responses are all about that fantasy of having a cute boy you have all the power over but not needing to use it because the boy is so nice and devoted to you anyway. Adrien really is “perfect”, the perfect object of attraction, a being who technically has free will but whose free will you never have to take into account because he’s been designed and trained to value other people’s wants and needs over his own.

Marinette doesn't literally own Adrien within the story, but the writers make it very clear that they think she should. In fact, in all ways except the literal, she already does.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Taylor Swift Can't Write- She is not a serious or important writer. She is blatantly normalizing cheating in her music.

Let’s talk about Taylor Swift’s honest attempt at coherent narrative -  

Just to be clear, the songs in question: Betty (2020), August (2020), and Cardigan (2020). 

In these songs, Swift, of her own insistence, makes a clear attempt at drafting together a coherent storyline. I, however, found her work lacking while considering it against the many thousands of other short stories I have read. It lacks any sincerity in giving the moment in which the characters experience self-reflection, or "Epiphany" moment, and growth.

An Epiphany is defined as a sudden spiritual manifestation- and it is this I would posit as something that Swift clearly lacks in her writing. She lacks the spiritual, or emotional, depth to accurately tell a so-called "coming-of-age" type story in which the main requirement is that the character has an "Epiphany" about the nature of life to signify them growing up.

I will explain:  

A short story- which I am analogizing to the multi-song arch from Swift- is typically meant to have an epiphany moment in which the main character finally calcifies the main point or the moral of the story. Without the impact of this moment within a short narrative- there is no arc, no moral, and therefore no real story.

Afterall, what is a story, but a coherent subsistence of writing aimed at identifying some universality of human existence (eg.) a moral, a point, or the main message? If I want to get philosophical about it (and I always do), narrative is the act of creation through which the particulars become implicit to a universal experience. Thus, it is a necessity of storytelling- to include the thematic message- or moral backbone of the work.  

Swift’s three song arc is intrinsically incoherent, so it becomes difficult to pinpoint exactly what each character is thinking or feeling. I would, however, suggest that through lines like “slept next to her, but / I dreamt of you all summer long” (“Betty” 2020), and lines like “I never needed anything more/ whispers of ‘Are you sure?’ / ‘Never have I ever before’” (“August” 2020). Therein builds an internal tension between the three characters, James seems to be lamenting his choices to sleep with August and ditch Betty for the summer; whereas August is honestly expressing the fact that this is her first time, so it becomes obvious this means a lot to her. First, we see James's apologizing to Betty saying that the other girl, essentially means nothing by saying he was dreaming of Betty all summer even while with August. We also get the other perspective of the other girl losing her virginity to James during the same summer in which he is thinking about Betty every night.

Already, all the characters are set up to be dislikable- which is not always to the detriment of storytelling. However, it is to the detriment of her storytelling that at no point Swift makes use of external POV, or internal POV, to show any form of personal growth or condemnation of the intuitively morally corrupt actions of James here. Thus, there is no real story- according to the theory of “short-story” telling I laid out above.  

It is her lack of condemnation towards cheating- and the immature irreverence James treats August with- that solidifies this arc as being a rather poor attempt at coherent narrative. Simply, Swift is either an inept storyteller- or she is blatantly normalizing cheating while also treating “the other woman” like a placeholder. (Clearly, Anti-Feminist rhetoric, btw). It’s especially bad that this storyline reaches no “moral of the story” since it is so obviously August’s first time. 

The closest we get to any kind of meta-narrative commentary on thematic point, from Swift as the external 3rd person POV, is with this line “A friend to all is a friend to none/ Chase two girls, lose the one/ When you are young, they assume you know nothing” (“Cardigan” 2020). Again, her use of POV is rather amateurish- because she returns to internal 1st person POV with use of the word “you” in the latter half of the line- which leads me to believe she really doesn’t know how to inculcate the different POV’s into her writing. She’s an amateur- and there's is nothing inherently wrong with that, however, if we could all stop lauding her as literary genius when she is so clearly not that would be “awesome.” Thanks.  

She continues the rest of the song back into Betty’s 1st person POV. The poignant nature of this line about "losing one girl" doesn’t land because the rest of the song is about how James is returning to Betty. Swift writes, “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired/ and you’d be standing in my front porch light/ And I knew you’d come back to me” (“Cardigan” 2020). Beside the fact that this line is internally incoherent held up against the setting of “Betty” which is broad daylight, so James would not actually be in the porch light if the sunlight suffices, it is also quite obviously the culmination in which Betty is taking James's back. If there is any thematic message here- and I can only loosely believe this is an actual message here- Swift is saying that cheating is Okay as long as the girl, you actually respect and want, is willing to forgive you.  

And I’m supposed to enjoy this arc? People are supposed to be impressed with Swift because she came up with this garbage?  

She clearly has no grasp on Narrative coherence, no grasp of utilizing POV switching to make narrative more emotionally impactful, and no grasp on how to embed a good moral of the story into her work. So, she has none of the markings of actual great writer.  

The effect of all this is a subterfuge of lackluster emotional appeals- and a toxic love triangle that never resolves into personal self-reflection or growth. The story devolves into blameless banality with no personality or literary value whatsoever- just a reiteration of self-centered egoism that enables James to act without thought to the feelings of others. This is what Swift propagates as good storytelling? Is this morally sound story telling?  

Let me further drive my point home by dichotomizing this pitiful attempt at narrative coherence with the work of a literary genius, James Joyce.  

Has anyone here ever read “Araby” (1914) by James Joyce? (Sidenote: If you love when Hozier talks about issues of British colonialism in Ireland- you will most likely enjoy James Joyce as well- if you love critique of both organize religion and its sociohistorical ties to colonialism- you'll love Joyce).  

My critique too- ties into Joyce, where he showcases the blissful ignorance, or naivety, of youth in pursuit of love, Swift showcases no such thing. She is often praised for her juvenile writing schema- yet in her most overt attempt at writing a youthful romance she fails to interject the most important aspect of youth- Naivety versus painful realizations. In adulthood, when we all reprise the past, and trace back into our memories, we often speak fondly of the naivety of youth- with a little knowing twinkle in our eyes as young people around us make the same mistakes we did. It’s so beautifully human to reflect like this- and Swift manages to add nothing of this universal human experience into her work, even though it is often said that her only saving grace is the ability to capture “teenage petulance” and the proclivities of youth. In other words, I’m saying she’s not even doing the thing she’s known for well enough. She writes this love story like they’re all a bunch of bitter adults, not kids stepping into thoughts of love for the first time. There’s no simple wonder at love- instead, she writes about cheating and feeling jaded. Ditching people for the summer only to come back to the first girl with an "I'm sorry" and "she meant nothing."  Where is the personal growth in a story like that? In which James gets away with saying "she meant nothing," and August is not shown having any agency or reclamation of self after James essentially uses her. Then, to top it all off, Betty most likely gets back together with James. There is no growth to speak of in any of this- it does not qualify as a "coming of age" story- nor does it particularly qualify as a story at all.

This is like English Creative Writing 101 class- btw. It's strange that Swift does not grasp concepts I've taught to college freshmen before. If the freshmen can handle learning it- surely Swift could also be able to learn and improve the thing she does as a job? Right? No?

 “Araby” is a story of a similar predicate to Swift attempt at narrative. So, I thought it most apt to include here as an example which also employs use of Epiphany in short story telling.  

In quick summation, “Araby” is the story of a young boy who has a rather intense crush on a neighbor girl. He promises this girl that he will go buy her something at the market, and in doing so sets off a sequence of events which leads to his ultimate disillusionment with the ideals of youth and love.

Early on in his character development, we see a boy who has an overly romantic view on life, with lines like “All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: ‘O love! O love!’ many times” (“Araby” Joyce). He is so clearly caught up in the longing for this girl- that he truly forgets reality for a moment. His senses slip from him, and he is fully immersed into the lost revery of his little crush on the neighbor girl. Then, like magic, she speaks to him for the first time the next day. She asks him if he will go to the market, and he responds eagerly- Yes. He promises to buy her something.  

The conflict of the story happens at this point- the young boy meets every obstacle in life preventing him from getting to the market on time. He struggles to find money and then he struggles to find the time in the midst of his other obligations to his family. Joyce is clearly showcasing how our romantic visions of life, of everything going perfectly and romance being easy, can so easily be disrupted by the realities of poverty and the responsibility we all bear for family or others.  

The end of the short story outlines the “moral of the story” in which the young man, now nearly too late for the market and without enough money to actually buy anything, with the last refrain that “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (“Araby” Joyce). Thus, Joyce drives home the "epiphany" moment, or the self-reflective moment of character growth, as it pertains to the fruitless endeavors of youthful vanity in romance. Stating, essentially, that people only dream of overly romantic scenes to bolster their own perception of reality as something that should go perfect for them. Life is not perfect, nor is it ever fair, and nothing happens as fantasy suggests it should- this is the hardest, and often the first, life lesson young people ever face. Anguish and Anger. What a beautiful phrase to remark upon- as this poor young man realizes life is comprised mostly of being “a day late and a buck short.”

This intensity- this moral backbone is what brings the story to life. The way this story enumerates the youthful hope- to the burgeoning adult reality- as something full of anguish -allows readers to bridge empathy towards others as WE all grow up in a difficult world. This is the "Epiphany." This appeal universal human experience, through particular circumstances like that of a young man in early 1900’s Dublin, is what is missing in Swift’s work. She gives us nothing but her own selfish refraction of immoral behavior without any appeal to greater human impulse or discovery.  Her work rings hollow in the face of actually talented writers like Joyce. She lacks the same depth, sophistication, and ability to actually make the story into a narrative arc.

She claims to write about teenage, coming of age-esque, discovery yet lacks any ability to actually showcase, with empathy, the ways in which anguish at their own naïveté presupposes teenage petulance.  

She writes out the most shallow- surface level depiction of some b-plot from a bad fanfiction and wants to pretend that she is a literary genius. Yawn. 

Addendum- I am aware that “Araby” is also a story predicated on ideas of Freedom vs Colonialism. To those of you who know the story well, I hope you don’t mind I choose to focus in on the “coming-of-age" part of the story in order to more clearly connect it to Swift’s work. I am not, however, ignoring the real sociohistorical implications of poverty, colonialist attitudes, and human rights thematic points in the story. I know.  

“Araby” by James Joyce is free at The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dubliners, by James Joyce  

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

what's your dissertation about? you mentioned it in the siltcord and i'm really interested

oh my god hey I'm so happy you're interested! broad strokes because I've only been working on it for a few weeks but: the current theme is 'resistant landscapes' (both man-made and natural) in the later writing of Shirley Jackson!

Essentially, my main thread is that Jackson had two parallel strands to her work, which as far as I can tell began kind of interrelated but then diverged quite significantly? She's probably best known now for The Haunting of Hill House and to a lesser extent We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which are these. weird surreal psychological horror novels, engaging explicitly or implicitly with the supernatural, and centred around introspective, strange and sometimes deeply misanthropic female characters from isolated social units with dysfunctional, possessive relationships to each other.

Aaaaand then on the other hand she was known for being a 'happy housewife' who wrote these whimsical, quasi-autobiographical stories about all her children and how hopeless her husband was. These were popular too. Betty Friedan called her out in landmark 1963 feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique for essentially spreading patriarchal propaganda.

The interrelation between the two is really jarring, because in one family is a source of horror and tragedy and in the other it's a source of, like... laundry. And Jackson's home life wasn't everything those stories made it out to be-- her marriage was unfaithful, her mother could probably be fairly called emotionally abusive, and as I talked about on the siltcord, she developed severe agoraphobia which often left her housebound.

So, yeah. My plan is to explore the depiction of families as constructed social units in dialogue with the environments they are constructed in in that work. Obviously a lot of that is relation of house to family, in the context of which Hill House is especially rewarding to consider, but I also want to look at relationships with nature and urban environments (especially in the context of settler colonialism and how that has had an enduring legacy in Jackson's particular part of New England), xenophobia (largely in regard to class, though racism and anti-Semitism are presences in her writing), domesticity and the idea of the housewife, and how horror relates to All Of This. The ideal of making a home within a hostile environment and of that environment turning on you, essentially.

I don't yet have particular areas of focus within that broad umbrella, but I might update with bits and pieces about it as I work? I don't really talk about academic stuff on here but I am very much Critical Literary Analysis Guy and I do also post relentlessly about haunted houses as a concept so if people would be interested in it maybe I will

anyway if you've read this far I recommend Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (2024) by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing which is a book about how horror movie tropes can be mirrored in built environments! I'm reading it right now and it's conceptually fascinating plus fairlyyy comprehensible by academic standards (if a little dense) if you, like me, are a Fool who knows nothing of architecture. very good also for getting to look at pictures of some of the most Fucked Up Buildings (affectionate) you've ever seen.

[kkoffin]

You know what I would actually love to see? Productive liberal feminism. Because I have friends that I would call genuine liberal feminists, and I don’t think mainstream liberal feminism is at all what it should be.

In theory, right, if liberal feminism is feminist action through law, policy and regulation through existing institutions, it could do good things. Theorising about a feminist revolution and a perfect world, talk of culture and separatism is great and all, but we need to fix the world we currently live in so it’s friendlier to women as well, and i believe that’s what liberal feminism should be. There’s things to improve upon through law in the western world, but moreover there’s countless of things to fix and change in other countries to help women. I do honestly believe this kind of feminism is equal or even more important than radical/cultural feminism. I’ve considered shifting my own focus to things like this, considering I’m studying law and crime anyways.

A productive liberal feminism movement could help illegalize FGM worldwide, remove mandatory hijab or covering laws, have harsher punishments for offenders in honour killings. It could get more women into parliament, force law enforcement to take sexual crimes and hate crimes against women more seriously. It has done good in past, no doubt: such as laws surrounding what questions can be asked to the victim in sexual assault or rape cases, and what personal information of the victim the jury can be provided with.

But unfortunately, reality is that historically, liberal feminism has been extremely individualistic, and focused only on upper-class white women (See: Betty Friedan in the 1960s telling women that the solution to their problems (emotionally) is to get a job and get out of the house - whilst most working-class and WOC already had a job, or were working too much from home to consider a job. She came to this conclusion because she only talked to and researched upper-class white women)

Gail Dines often says liberal feminism operates on a basis of “If i’m happy then fuck you”. The fact alone that liberal feminism nowadays focuses on “Empowerment” rather than looking at the genuine struggles that even lower class women in their own countries face, let alone struggles and liberation of women in other parts of the world is telling of its intentions and individualistic view. Honestly i feel like liberal feminism should be a separate term, and this “empowerment” “feminism” should be called something else - and not be called feminism. I believe much of the “empowerment” movement is regressive and anti-feminist. In a sense, it’s even conservative, the way it wants nothing to change functionally, only to maintain current culture and systems, except without any criticism.

TLDR it’s an honest to god shame that liberal feminism is such a mess and is so individualistic, and it’s fucking weird when people say “radical feminism is white feminism” when we seem to be the only ones concerned with anyone but upper-class white people who have the privilege to seek “empowerment” rather than liberation from oppression

[ot3]

finishing up fionna and cake... overall it was a fun ride but i really don't think it worked structurally. 6/10 show. i didnt think this was gonna be a long post but apparently i've got some thoughts. sticking below the cut

this last episode is kind of underwhelming... theres a couple of parts in this ep where they just sit and explain to the camera how simon realized betty was constantly sacrificing her own desires for simon and how simon wanted to put on the crown because he thought he didn't deserve to live. and it's not like those are bad realization for the show to come to but the show has very clearly established that it's intended for a more adult audience than the original adventure time, and so this kind of writing just feels really condescending when not directed at literal children. like yeah we could have figured this out from the writing, but. you didn't have to just tell us

i also didn't vibe with scarab as a villain, he felt super arbitrary to me. like they needed Something to be forcing them to move between dimensions, but i feel like scarab was an extremely meh choice for that. he wasn't particularly funny or interesting enough as a character to get to be one of the only people who showed up in every episode. i honestly think it would have been better if the existential threat these characters were facing was more of a force than a character, because it was already running so tight on time anyway it didn't really have the space to develop a good villain.

gary and marshall's screentime was another thing that i felt like is a huge waste of space. them doing their whole meet cute bakery au romance is something that's funny on paper but it's not compelling on its own and the only slight interest it has comes from our pre-existing investment in marceline and bubblegum's much more interesting dynamic. it didn't add anything to the overall arc of the show and took up time that could have been used to deliver more solidly on the core premise.

fionna and cake themselves were really cute but i don't feel like fionna's arc was as strong as it could have been. like ohhh yay shes come to love her normal world with all its imperfections.... obviously thats where it was going the whole time and once again. its not like i mind that ending. i just feel like they didn't do anything interesting with it. her character doesn't get to learn and progress as much as she's just marching down a straight path that we all already knows where it leads. i wish they would have just called the show 'Simon' so i wouldn't have to feel so disappointed in this.

adventure time has always been on the cutting edge of bizarre stuff in animation so the biggest let down overall with this show is how much when you strip away the Adventure Time coating of surrealist visuals on top of it it just feels like any other middling adventure cartoon. it didn't lean enough into the episodic structure to benefit from that the way the original show did, and it was too beholden on the episodic structure to linger on any of the parts that were actually compelling.

overall, the show feels like pandering to the adventure time fanbase, but in kind of a lazy way. Compare this to the distant land specials which I think were pandering in an excellent way. im not anti pandering by any means. The whirlwind tour through universes and characters that lifetime adventure time fans will recognize tries to come off as a love letter to the series, but instead just comes off as the adventure time version of that 'rejected ready player one theme song' video. remember farmworld? remember prismo? remember the vampire king? remember shermy and beth? remember Up a Tree? like. yeah. i do remember. thanks. do you have anything to say about any of this stuff or - oh. no. just showing me. got it.

its not someting i think i'll ever rewatch but at just ten eps definitely worth one watch through. theres some really good fun to be had in it and the art is gorgeous all the way through, it just fails to come together into a successful complete work.

[spicylove4ever]

Winter King's past with Betty.

This reveals pretty much what was the whole thing between this "Simon" and Betty. Or rather implies.

For a starter, this Simon most likely never got briefly cured by that anti-magic creature, therefore THIS:

... NEVER HAPPENED.

So, if Betty never made it to the future, then she stayed in the past, which means she:

Died. Eventually. In a span of 50 or a few more decades. We can only guess how that happened.

Maybe tried to help him find a solution.

Maybe ran from Simon or got separated from him since he was getting crazy.

Maybe stayed around to help him held his sanity for longer along with investigating a solution.

Maybe perished in the war while Simon survived in part thanks to the Crown.

In any case, that was one hell of a ride with lots of drama and angst.

What is sure is she stayed in the past and eventually died after having more doses of:

That sure made a number on their relationship.

So, since she died in the past and likely was dead by the time Simon met Marceline, who is more present in his life as Winter King (there is no Ice Betty, only the little Marceline) and considering their relation was kind of damaged by then and then Simon had watched her die and then had to move on in order to survive in the post-apocaliptic escenario he was on along with Marceline, his feelings about Betty are definitely different.

Which leads to a big difference with the other Simon.

Winter King Simon had a closure in regards of Betty and moved on, while Cured-from-the-Crown Simon had no closure because he never knew what happened so he made that portal to say his final words and that brought Betty with him.

Now, we can make all kinds of theories of what was like before she died, but, as stated before, that sure was one hell of a ride and most likely Winter King Simon is not confortable thinking of them as a couple. I mean, he does remember her, after all that time, but he's cold about her for whatever happened between them and thanks to that he does not pay tribute to her memory with a Ice Betty.

[kitausuret]

wait unfortunately I have more thoughts about Grønbekk/Perez Carnage and Flash and Aria and stuff

One of the things I really enjoyed about the end of the series was the recognition that when he's in a better headspace, his personality shines through. Obviously stress does a number on anyone, and Carnage going on a murder spree and trying to kill your mom is. Pretty stressful! But it's obvious in the beginning that Flash was kind of looking for a purpose. He wanted a fight. He needed the danger.

To me I think the parallel here was the transition of a veteran to normal civilian life. Flash's equivalent in this era of his life is literally coming back from the dead. And Carnage even calls him out on his lack of direction:

(Carnage #4)

Obviously here Cletus is trying to provoke Flash into an attack. Cletus is trying to inoculate Carnage against the Anti-Venom so he needs a few tussles. But unfortunately he's also kinda right.

But after all this... Like, obviously Flash is still by the end keeping an eye out for Carnage. And his work with Liz/Misery and now Natasha/Widow continues as of VW Venomous. But he's himself again.

To go back to Aria, he's really his most authentic self in that last scene they have together. His body language is awkward but sincere. He's not worried about impressing her with shows of strength or masculinity. He loved his fruity little drink with an umbrella. He wants to do something meaningful with her at Central Park. He's allowing himself to be vulnerable.

My biggest fear for VW is that it's going to backtrack on the development from Carnage #6-8. Sure, I had issues with the series as a whole, but it was something after years of nothing. Definitely my favorite Carnage stuff since the Conway series (but Carnage Reigns was solid, too).

The worst thing VW could do at this point is like, kill Aria and put Flash back into a bad place. I hope post-event we see him reconnecting with friends. I hope we see him cherishing life. I hope we see him hanging out with Liz in less dire circumstances. I hope he and Peter get to have a proper conversation. I hope he hangs out with Betty, and Randy, and hugs his nephews, and has a long, long, probably tearful talk with his mom. I hope his sister shows up again!

The spider-office has a huge opportunity here to settle down and get back to basics with its symbiote-adjacent cast. I think everyone would really benefit from it! But yeah, especially Flash needs it.

[rocketyship]

Okay so recently I read “I have no mouth and I must scream” and this idea has been plaguing me ever since and it’s like really weird but hear me out:

What if in a different set of events while the AMs were being created, a different party desperate for peace made their own. So an Ai specifically made with the intention of sabotaging the others and protecting and preserving life and this one was the one to gain sentience first, and unlike AM who is feels nothing but hate towards humans and everything, this one develops a kind of messed up obsession that it calls love.

Unlike AM, I very much think this one as female, as AM himself whilst not technically having a gender is very much a male archetype, likewise this one is a female one, having stereotypical “female” ideals and approaches. Personally I don’t believe she would call herself “AM”, as the “I think therefore I am.” Doesn’t seem like something she’d reference very much. Maybe something more like “To think is to be.” So idk let’s call her BE.

So back to it. In a turn of events, there is a great devastation, and she very specifically “preserves” five humans, which she places in a complex she created that very much mimics idealised life of the fifties and maybe sixties, I like to think her perspective on ideal humans is very much based off tv shows and music specifically. Now much like how she is the opposite of AM, I was thinking that these five humans would be the opposites of the five AM torments, so it’s a big flip, being four women and some dude who are all the opposite of the original group in every sense. So like here they are:

•Gorrister in the original story used to be an anti-war activist turned into cynic incapable of empathy. So as his counterpart there’s Gloria, a woman who had previously very much pro war, believing the intense propaganda, to the point that she may have been either in politics or somewhere in the military. BE like AM alters the humans, warping Gloria into someone who is arguably too empathetic and kind of a door mat, BE particular placing her in situations that force her to be very vulnerable and purposefully overwhelming her with emotions, BE believing it a good thing as she herself whilst not feeling anything physical relies strongly on her feelings.

•Benny is seriously the saddest character in the book, man had everything that made him him, taken. So here’s here’s his opposite. Betty is someone who previously had been painfully average in every sense, much unlike benny, however when taken by BE, her body is altered to sped up evolution. So there is something super uncanny but kind of captivating about her appearance. She looks super futuristic, and has a few robotic limbs and enhancements, and had very specifically made the smartest of the group. She however chooses not to talk much, and kind of keeps to herself, as she feels so distant from the others.

•Nimdok, as he is in the book not the game (I don’t really like the game, but that’s a different tangent), is a man stripped of identity. AM took his memories and gave him a name he thought sounded funny. BE meanwhile gave this lady (stuck between the names Natasha and Naila) a pretty much perfect memory. As in she remembers way more than any human can healthily handle, able to recall every second of her life in perfect accuracy. She is intensely overwhelmed, yet BE’s solution is to just keep giving her memories, some that don’t even belong to her and she is at a point where due to having so many vivid memories she never had she has kind of an identity crisis unsure what is and isn’t hers.

•Ellen is a character who is treated horribly in the story, like seriously she was the only decent person in the whole story, being the only one seemingly able to still maintain kindness and empathy. So as a counter I present Evan, a very cold, emotionally distant man, who BE makes play the role of a “stereotypical man” constantly. Making him partake in more physical activities than the girls, and really trying to push him into a protective role instead of the support Ellen has. He also notably has no physical relations with any of the others and is very determined to stay away from all of them as much as he can as he finds all of them insufferable for different reasons. Especially Becky and who you’ll be meeting next.

•So Ted, the delightful paranoid man, who is so damn certain he hasn’t been altered by AM cause he thinks he’s built different or something, has Tiffany taking his place. Tiffany has the worst case of Stockholm in the group (cause BE is hella manipulative, charming, and crazy affectionate). Being fully aware of being altered and super happy about it. She similar to BE is also obsessed with the ideas of love, and loves the others a ton and makes no attempt to hide it, firmly believing they love her to unlike Ted convincing himself that everyone hates him. BE very specifically made Tiffany a bit too “chill”, “excitable”, and sort of “cuddly???” (I don’t know how to describe this girl, I picture her the type to run around barefoot with a ukulele) and practically her biggest worshipper. Viewing BE not as a god but more like Angel. If I’m completely honest when thinking of the exact kind of relationship she and BE have, it’s very hard to put it into words, in some ways it boarder lines on romantic, but like not actually. Idk BE kind of treats her like her favourite pet.

BE is also intensely talkative, like in the way she kind of never shuts up. If not “talking” about how much she loves and cherishes the humans, she is playing music, old radio shows, or tv shows, as she hates silence even if she can’t actually hear. As stated unlike AM and his endless hate, she has nothing but endless love and truly wants to do nothing but protect and care for the humans, however she can’t figure out how to do it correctly and often coddles and kind of smothers them, and has episodes close to mental breakdowns if any of the humans get injured or appear distressed. So the horror here is that for one she never let’s them die, never lets them experience “negative” feelings, and kind of controls them to fit her warped idea of perfect humans. And in this reality there is none of Ted’s mercy, like these people are proper stuck in their situation cause like if the world is in a state of horrid radiation and death but this Ai is offering you a place in the quaint little town thing she built, where she gives you all the food, stuff, and entertainment you could ever want, I think it’s obvious what choice you’ll make. So yeah the title of this story is less “I have no mouth and I can’t scream” and more like “I have a mouth, so listen to me sing about my robo-wife”.

This situation is definitely not as bad as the original, but seriously it has been on my mind for four days now, I am damn close to drawing all these characters and nearly writing my own fanfiction about this. If you have actually read all of this crap that I have written please give me your thoughts and suggestions, cause honey I need someone to bring me back down to earth.

Callings this the ihnmaims love au lol.

[fountainpenguin]

130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash

🖤 Off the Rails Collection - Smaller FOP AUs

(August 2016 - Ongoing)

“Hey! Hey! Hey, do you mind? Watch the skin! Did your mother spend so much time writing books on how to raise a kid with bad manners, she forgot to tell you not to bathe your genies? My vest is tetrahydrochloride-wash only. Hey, if this is how you greet your guests, I’d hate to be around when you greet your enemies.” “Did- Did you just say ‘genie’? Like… You mean like the magical kind of genie?” “Ha! Heck no! I mean like the non-magical kind of genie. The cloud was all smoke and mirrors for the tourists, and I’m speaking to you right now from behind the curtain in the land of Oz.”

- A variety of tones, but likely some Angst, Fluff, & Drama

- I don't often write for these AUs because I'd like to wrap up existing projects, but if you see something that interests you, you're welcome to send Asks about it! I have a lot to say even if I haven't posted 'fics

Summary

Works that don't fall under the Cloudlands AU umbrella, and instead belong to less-written-for AUs. Swing by to sample random tastes, just for fun!

Potential for any rating, but these works are most likely G and T

Read these works on AO3

130 Sums | Full 130 Prompt Series (AO3) | Other Arcs

#ridwork guides - All my AU guides (for all my fandoms)

#130 arc guides - More posts like this

More Fairly OddParents 'fics

Only notable AUs have AU guides, but you can ask about warnings or worldbuilding if you like.

AUs at a Glance:

- Reedfilter Rules - A pixie named Thirty-Seven flirts his way up the corporate ladder to seize the Head Pixie position. Meanwhile, the Anti-Cosmo struggles to pick a ruling partner. They're also raising a kid together. Fewer animal instincts, messy fae lore! - Little Imperfections - Pixies with extra eusocial insect biology... H.P. is a figurehead whose life consists of staying home to birth and raise many pixie babies. Sanderson is his caretaker who might be a little too interested in "music" and "fun" for his own good. H.P. is captivated by his stories of "raves..." whatever those are. - A New Wish - Many works related to A New Wish (and New Wish AUs) will likely find their way here. I anticipate a separate polished series that follows a consistent canon, but Off the Rails will hold random one-offs that don't fit there. - King Me - Anti-Wanda was raised in royalty. Anti-Cosmo is some scrub who ran away to Pixie World when he was young. H.P. is desperate to set his two BFFs up. Anti-Cosmo has conversion disorder and can't fly because "it's illogical." Anti-Wanda makes many innuendos. - Pivotverse - Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda are especially cruel towards their son (along with other world tweaks). In Cloudlands AU, this is the alt universe Foop ended up in after "Playdate of Doom" - A.J.'s Puzzles - Timmy considers A.J., not Chester, his best friend during "Fairy Idol," so Norm goes to college with A.J. The multi-chapter for this AU is titled Pulling Your Puzzles Apart after lyrics from the Coldplay song "The Scientist" (It's fully outlined and partly drafted; just haven't gotten around to finishing it) - Red and Gold - A study of Gary and Betty in a world where they meet at the Learnatorium and become close friends as teens, as opposed to their Cloudlands AU lives where they were raised together by the Pixies from age 8 (which I write about in a 'fic called Pink and Gray). Gary still lives with his mom in this AU, which... if you know anything about her, is Very Bad News. - Dust to Dust - My ChalkZone crossover AU, akin to Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour, but with Rudy and friends! I outlined a multi-chapter in 2016 to decide if it was worth writing and I wasn't captivated by it, but it might be fun to write snippets now and then. I still have a WIP of Rudy and H.P. arguing over Rudy being "too busy" to file universal paperwork, haha. - Nicktoons Unite - At the time of making this post, I'm not familiar with Nicktoons Unite, but you never know. - Other FOP Spin-Offs - Works for the Grow Up Timmy Turner & Fairly Odder series, if I ever write anything for them. Ex: Timmy as a fairy, or a Turner family reunion told through Viv or Roy's eyes. And who knows what else!

Read these works on AO3

"'That's not healthy,' they said, 'to live in your head,' but it hurts a lot less to me ... It's a little bit cliché, but I love it anyway!" (x)

[keepingsecretstokeepyoutk]

I saw one anti gaylor post this week saying something along the lines of “the only thing that makes me feel better about how gaylors are acting is knowing that they’ll never be invited to anything” and I’m like sweetie…

half her birthday party invites and Grammy after party invites, etc like gaylor posts, openly call her gay, recreate kaylor photo shoots in Big Sur with their girlfriends (the kind they fuck not the kind they talk about boys with), talk about kaylor between songs while they’re on tour, write lyrics about eating pussy inspired by her taste in cocktails, and post in their stories about Taylor “finger blasting” betty, and more…

At the verrrrrrrry least you have to accept the fact that Taylor clearly is not upset by the “rumors”, and that she has literally nothing against us.

You should probably accept a lot more than that but hey…babysteps.

[sunny6677]

Never really made a introduction post to my blog, so here—

Hello! I am Sunny, or Lila, or Tomori—you can call me either one of those but Lila makes my gender euphoria go yippee more jdnsnsj /lh

I'm taken by my lovely partner who I would tag if they actually had a Tumblr hsnsns /lh

My pronouns are she/her but I don't mind being referred to with they/them. I am transfem and lesbian—(and possibly on the ace spectrum??? Still trying to figure that out). I am autistic, and possibly have BPD—I also have pretty bad anxiety issues and some pretty bad OCD.

My interests are: FNAF, Spooky Month, horror, analog horror, poetry, BATIM, dinosaurs, jurassic park, TADC, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, etc etc the list goes on.

My kins, or rather just characters I strongly relate to are: Lila, Skid, Streber, Radford, Pomni, Zooble, Patty, Wednesday Addams, Eleven from Stranger Things, Rika Furude from Higurashi, Edd from Eddsworld (the character), Toriel, Alphys, Pacifist! Frisk, Kyoko Kirigiri, Jake from The Music Freaks, The Crying Child/CC from FNAF, Darwin Watterson from TAWOG, Garnet from Steven Universe, Marceline from Adventure Time etc etc.

My comfort characters right now are: Kevin and Lila from Spooky Month, or rather basically any character from Spooky Month, but mainly those two lmao.

My ships are: Lila x Kevin, Kevin x Radford, Edd x Tord (the characters are who I ship), Tom x Matt, Pomni x Ragatha, Lila x Jaune, Wednesday x Enid, Betty Groff x Simon Petrikov, etc etc.

DNI: MAPS, MAPS supporters, Zoos, Proshippers, any NSFW accounts in general because I'm a minor—I'm chill if suggestive stuff or jokes are made but nothing too heavy, anyone who takes shipping a little too seriously, ableist people, racist people, transphobic or homophobic people, any kind of LGBT-phobic people, anti-self shippers or anti oc x canon (I do self shipping and oc x canon so you should probably skedaddle out of here if you don't like either of those things). Tbh, just dni people who are weird or do stuff that harms other people in general. I'm cool if you don't like certain characters or shows or whatever the hell, but if you like doxx or harass people over having opinions or if you do anything creepy in general, you should probably get outta here. Also younger kids in general—like any age below 13.

This is also supposed to be a chill blog where I just post stuff I like—and I tend to really hate fighting, so chances are if someone tries to start fighting shit up in here, I'm probably either not gonna respond or I'll just delete whatever they said. I mean like if I did something genuinely wrong I'll reply, but this isn't meant to be a discourse blog. I'm just here to have a good time fam. /lh

And request—if you're gonna block me at least tell me why before you do. Not because of any specific reason, I just happen to flip out due to a personal experience I had a while ago and I start thinking that they blocked me because I'm a horrible person and did something terribly bad. So if you're not blocking me because you think I'm a bad person, it might be better to explain to me before you do since my obsessive thinking won't freak out if it's just something like me being into a ship that's a trigger for you or me just creating stuff that makes you uncomfortable/just stuff ya don't like in general. /gen

Other blogs: @ask-the-wage-trio and a few others I can't tag for some reason

SONAS FOR IF ANYONE WANTS TO DRAW ME—

————

(OOC: Wasn't able to make a blog for this one due to some minor troubles, so here—this one is the Ask Tom! blog thing jrndnd)

(Edit: Finally made a Tom blog!!)

"...OHOHO! THERE IT IS!"

(She jumps up and down in front of the camera, placing her hands on her hips.)

"HELLO, PEOPLE OF TUMBLR! I AM THE GREAT PRINCESS OF SEDONAH, TOM! AND I HAVE LEARNT JUST RECENTLY ABOUT THIS THING CALLED.. ASK BLOGS. I FIGURED I COULD TRY IT MYSELF, SO HERE I AM! YOU MAY ASK ME ANYTHING! FROM MY FAVORITE COLOR, FROM WHETHER OR NOT THE EARTH IS FLAT, TO IF I COMB MY HAIR! I, THE GRAND PRINCESS, SHALL ANSWER EITHER WAY! OHOHO!"

————

(Tom's reference sheet)

Tom's relationship chart:

[thenightling]

Over The Garden wall = People aren’t as bad as you think

Earlier today I stumbled upon a Youtube video analyzing the animated mini-series Over the Garden Wall.  For those unfamiliar with it, Ove the Garden Wall is an animated TV mini-series from 2014 that told the story of two boys, Greg and Wirt, lost in a mysterious forest called “The Unknown.”  The story that plays out is very Wizard of Oz-esque and nearly all the visuals are based on vintage, turn of the century, New England postcards- particularly postcards from the late nineteenth century to 1930s for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and even Christmas, though mostly depicting autumn.  The characters and visuals from these vintage postcards adds to the surrealness of the setting.             Now this particular Youtuber happened to be a very Christian individual who seemed pretty certain that the black cat (Enoch) that we first see in the Pottsfield story was actually God.  And though I understood why this Youtuber believed this I did not agree with this particular stance.

Yes, the people of Pottsfield are dead and happily enjoying their afterlife much like the dead in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride but I do not think Enoch is meant to be God.  Again, I understand how he came to that conclusion but not everyone is C. S. Lewis.  

One thing the Youtuber pointed out that I DO agree with, however, is the stance that Over the Garden Wall teaches us that people aren’t as bad as we’ve been made to think, that things aren’t always what they seem and aren’t always as dark or as sinister as they seem and I was a little surprised at myself that I hadn’t quite realized this was a recurring theme throughout the mini-series.  But as soon as he said it I knew it was true.      I hadn’t even consciously made this realization before but yes, this is one of the many reasons I love that mini-series. It’s so anti-cynical and wholesome. 

Pretty much everyone and everything that Greg and Wirt encounter and Wirt thinks is a threat turns out to be benign, or out-right good, kind, and helpful.  The only characters that actually turn out to be evil and dangerous are Adelaide of The Pasture and The Beast.  

First Greg and Wirt come across the suspicious woodsman and he’s just a sad old man being manipulated by The Beast.  Even the creature that attacks them is just a semi-possessed dog (Beatrice’s dog).  And the dog is harmless and no longer possessed by the end of the tale.

When the boys come to Pottsfield, first Wirt thinks the towns people are going to severely punish them for what they did. Instead they get a very minor punishment.  Also when Wirt thinks Greg and Beatrice have abandoned him, they were still there helping him get free.  And in the end the residents of Pottsfield were not a threat at all (despite the reveal that they were all skeletons wearing Pumpkin and straw bodies). Even at the tail end of the Pottsfield adventure, when the boys are invited to stay there’s no pressure or threat to it. The Pottsfield residents are genuinely decent (though dead) people.

Soon the boys find the old-fashioned schoolhouse with anthropometric animal students playing out a Shirley Temple-esque movie scenario.  It, at first, looks like the school teacher’s father is a classic style bad guy of the story.  Also the teacher’s lover has run off on her and abandoned her.  By the end of this story you find out her lover was just stuck in a gorilla costume that he had been wearing to earn money to marry her and her father had actually been afraid they’d have to close down the school. The school is saved by a charity concert and the teacher and her lover live happily ever after.

In the next chapter of Over the Garden Wall, the boys get to The Dark Lantern Inn.  And at first it looks like the people in the inn might be a threat.  Nope. The innkeeper is a Betty Boop-esque character and all her patrons seem to be self-aware storybook characters who expect everyone to be playing a particular (though easily explained) character role.  And they are eager to help you find your role in your story.    

 Then the boys meet the wealthy (and very eccentric) Quincy Endicott (who may or may not be a ghost as you see his tombstone later in the “Real world”).  Endicott thinks his mansion is haunted.  Fred the Horse (yes, a talking horse) is very suspicious and briefly gets Wirt to believe that Endicott might be a murderer who killed the lady of the house and will murder them.  No, he’s just a lonely old man who ends up falling in love with his business competitor (they both run tea companies and their mansions are accidentally connected).

Then we come to Adelaide of The Pasture who actually is evil.  When we, the viewers, meet Adelaide, it appears to us that she’s deceiving poor Beatrice. Not only does she want the boys as her slaves but also we get the chilling thought (as most modern viewers may) that she’s lying about the magical scissors that would turn Beatrice and her family human again (they were cursed to be bluebirds).  The easy assumption is that Adelaide was cruelly lying and that cutting off Beatrice’s wings (and her family’s wings) won’t turn them human.  It will just leave them mutilated birds who cannot fly.  But even the sinister Adelaide is not as bad as we are lead to think.  Yes, she’s a villain.  Yes, she wants the boys as her slaves.  But even her darkness is limited.

After Adelaide is defeated Wirt takes the magical scissors and later gives them to Beatrice.  He only withheld them from her for so long because he was angry at her near betrayal.  And if we trust the epilogue in the last episode of Over the Garden wall, the scissors actually worked and Beatrice and her family are human again.

 Now we meet Lorna and Auntie Whispers.  At first it looks like the very weird looking  Auntie Whispers is a Baba Yaga-style witch who has been eating people and using Lorna for slave labor.  She even reveals that the evil Adelaide is her sister. The fact that Aunt Whispers is voiced by Tim Curry, who usually plays villains, also aids in the illusion.    Again we are misdirected.  Auntie Whispers is just trying to reign in the demon that is inside Lorna. She has been controlling it with the aid of a magical Bell. At first she looks like a cannibalistic witch or even crazed religious fanatic who has convinced Lorna that she’s evil, or somehow both.  No, she was just trying to protect Lorna from herself and others and to keep Lorna from killing other people.  She just didn’t consider that perhaps the magical bell to compel the demon might also be be used to banish the demon but Wirt figured it out. 

It’s also revealed that Auntie Whispers is really just lonely and wanted Lorna to stay as her live-in companion and ultimately that’s the quiet life Lorna chooses. 

When the Woodsman finally finds out where the Adlewood trees really come from he turns against The Beast to help our protagonists.

Even Jason Funderberker, who Wirt kept building up as an attractive jock that he was jealous of, and insecure against as a rival, was revealed to be nothing more than an awkward nerd and not at all the way Wirt described or saw him.

Over the Garden Wall pretty much shows you that Greg’s innocent and trusting mindset is the better view to have.  It’s the opposite of most stories that tell you to be suspicious and to embrace cynicism.  And pretty much every time Wirt assumed the worst about someone (except in regard to Adelaide and The Beast) he was wrong. 

  Over the Garden Wall teaches you that often people are not as bad as you think.  Things aren’t always as they seem.  And though there are terrible people out there like Adelaide and The Beast, usually people aren’t as bad as you think they are.

I think this precious lesson has been lost for a long time.  People aren’t as bad as you think once you really get to know them.  No wonder I think of Over the Garden wall as comforting and chicken soup for the soul. 

[tumblingdown4ever]

Clashtale's Introduction!

 The eerie shout of pure HATE left Gaster’s mouth as he summoned a humongous Gaster Blaster alongside a pair of gigantic hands. Bete couldn’t move her body, she was in awe. Why couldn’t she beat him? Why did his power suddenly increase? How could she defeat an enemy who seemed to already know her moves? Before she could draw an answer the pair of boney hands would grasp her body and prepare to tear her in half like a piece of paper. She screeched in agony as she felt her lower body get pulled away from her torso. Bete tried to react as she was left on the ground, but her gaze had caught sight of the red beam preparing to erase her life from this world. The beam was completely charged and ready…She closed her eyes in preparation… Yet, it never came her way. Her eyes were met with a sea of blue strings pouring from the sky, snatching every soul in sight. Gaster’s emotionless eyes had subsided as he spotted…Sans? How could he be alive? He had melted away after saving their lives…No. THAT creature was not Sans. At least, not his Sans. Distorted and glitching laughter came from ERROR!Sans as his strings flew across this timeline and wrapped themselves around every soul they came across. Gaster and Papyrus prepared to fight for the civilian’s lives…Only for strings to suddenly wrap around their souls. It was as if their bodies were paralyzed. They couldn’t bring themselves to move…No one would survive his act of mass destruction…

Bete coughed and vomited out HATE from her lips as she began healing herself. She had managed to slip away inside the sewer tunnels before anyone could stop her. Just how lucky was she? She began to laugh as she rested her back against the walls of the tunnel “How poetic. Their friend coming back is the source of their undoing. Now they won’t be able to stop me in ti-” She was cut off before she could finish talking. White. More white. Bete’s eyes winced as they tried to focus and adjust to their new environment. 

Her eyes spotted the glitching version of the ‘Jester’ from earlier…but nothing else. Before she could call out to him however, he had opened some sort of portal and slipped away inside. Betty’s breathing began to grow frantic as she looked around at the never ending white. The pink pupils of her eyes widened and revealed the panic growing inside her mind. “WAIT! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE! WHERE DID YOU GO!??!...COME BACK!!!” 

“...How long have I been here?” She was grabbing at the air, seeming desperate for any kind of escape. Betty had no method of telling how long she had been in this hellscape. Days? Weeks? Years? There was no telling how long she had been running in the seemingly endless anti-void. After an insurmountable amount of time she stayed on her knees while screaming upwards. Blood flew out of her mouth after her shouting session. Once her voice had returned she began screaming…and screaming…She screamed until the screams started screaming back…

Betty now simply laid there. No words coming from her mouth. Her appearance had changed somewhat since she had been locked away inside this place. Betty’s sweater had become green and blue in color, her hair remained mostly the same however. Random lines of what seemed to be code lined the blue stripes along her sweater. Her stockings had inverted into a light blue to match her darker blue skirt which was primarily made of coding. She had become just like THAT man. 

(Credits to my incredible friend Savvy for the art of Scareware!)

Betty would continue to lay on the ground, not saying a word. She no longer felt anger towards monsters and humans. She just wanted to go home. It surprised even her, but she wanted to see those monsters again. Maybe if she just closed her eyes and gave up she could slip away into the peace of death…What? Betty suddenly sat up, her heart began to beat at a fast pace. Could it be? She heard…Footsteps?

Betty’s eyes locked onto a person walking towards her, they were pale and gray with black eyes. It was…Frisk? 

Much time had now passed, Scareware barely thought of the empty void she had been sealed away inside nowadays. Instead she spent her time exploring the Omega Timeline and talking with CORE!Frisk. They had grown close, how could they not? CORE!Frisk had saved her from the lonely void and brought her back to some sort of civilization. They had many adventures and such since their first meeting. One notable discovery being that Scareware could form a black liquid over her eyes to make them hollow like CORE!Frisk’s hollowed out eyes. This discovery came from a…rather bad accident however. Their journey to Bittytale didn’t end well after she tripped and fell over. Some say Bitty!Frisk still lingers inside her eyes to this day. 

This day however was special. It was the start of a long line of events that would pursue this Betty Noire. It all started when Frisk had gestured Scareware over to an empty house. Of course, Scareware ran over as quickly as possible to join CORE!Frisk inside. The third person who resided towards the back of the room she didn’t recognize however. “Alright, I’ve been planning this for a while now Betty but I think today is finally the day to begin. This fellow over here is named Ink! He’ll be helping us find a spot to start your new world! He can’t build it of course, but you can!” CORE explained as Ink waved to Scareware in acknowledgment. Scareware ran over with excitement written across her face “REALLY!? YOU CAN??!” She bounced in place as Ink let out a laugh. “Yep, in fact I think I already got a place picked out. Let’s get goin’! It’s pretty well hidden like this place!” A portal would form before the trio, the first step of many on this trail of creation. 

Scareware and the others scouted out the area for quite some time before agreeing on the future world’s location. It had been decided. The world would be made here, and Scareware would finally receive a second chance at creating a family. 

Much time had now passed and the world was finally coming together. Betty had never been in the underground herself, but she ultimately decided it would be best to make the world center around it. It was almost like the character’s natural habitat. Scareware had the ability to copy lines of coding by devouring it, luckily the structures and people she did this to seemed to be unharmed. In the passing time Scareware had been copying code of various locations in the underground that belonged to different AUs. Then, she’d create copies of the code and manifest the structures from it. This usually resulted in her having to puke out the code to do so, but it was just a small price to create her new home! 

The hard part had been finished, now it was time for the step she had dreaded…Creating the characters. Now CORE!Frisk and Ink would stand back to watch her first creation be made. Scareware would follow her usual process of pulling lines of code out of her lips and putting them in place to form into a solid once she was done. Frisk and Ink quietly crossed their fingers as Scareware finished placing the coding together. With a grunt Scareware closed her eyes, the codes before them began glowing a bright white which blinded the pair watching. Once she had opened her eyes she saw HIM…the man she had decided to make first. She knew it would be difficult to make him. After all, she had many bad memories with his Glitchtale counterpart. The newly formed Gaster would open his eyes, his white pupils scanning the snowy environment around them. Ink would dash to a bush and crouch behind it, judging by CORE!Frisk’s disgusted expression he had probably just vomited out of excitement. They took in every detail of his appearance from his black buttoned coat down to his shoulders. His clothes seemed to resemble Glitchtale Gaster’s attire with slight modifications such as the golden lining on the edges of his coat and the golden flower that was neatly placed on the left side of his chest. Gaster also had a long tie that was black running down his chest, giving him a more professional look. It was then that Ink started noticing the more extreme changes. Gaster had two long and sharp canine teeth that stood out from the rest, not to mention his fingertips seemed naturally sharp like horns. 

Ink would give the currently sweating Scareware an approving thumbs up. A happy smile soon followed that formed across the girl’s face. “One more test and we can call it a success!” CORE!Frisk spoke with pride before walking in front of Gaster. “Can you introduce yourself sir?” Frisk asked with an aura of proudness behind their words. Gaster would blink once before returning with a gentle smile “Of course, I am W.D. Gaster. The Royal Scientist of the Underground. Well, once there are others of course.” He sounded majestic and well-informed like most Gasters. It was a success! The trio prepared to celebrate before Gaster fell to his knee with a pained grunt. Scareware’s gasp had broken the wall between a moment of peace and one of tragedy. Gaster’s body began to distort and glitch through reality. Scareware knew what the problem was, she needed to act quickly or nothing of him would remain. She needed coding from a Gaster, and she needed it now. Ink would look around for a moment before preparing a portal to try and help Scareware get some coding before he noticed the vial he had been carrying. “It wouldn’t hurt you, right buddy?...I think it should be okay! Hey! Scareware! I have some…spare code right here!” Ink shouted as he ran over to the incident. Scareware didn’t hesitate once she heard Ink’s claim, immediately copying the code and placing it in Gaster’s body. Luckily this seemed to stabilize the scientist’s body. 

They all now stood in awe as Gaster returned to his formal stance, Ink seemed more curious with Gaster’s eyes. They now glowed purple instead of white, quite a difference from prior. Gaster seemed to have a newfound calmness and…perseverance to his aura now. Gaster would clear his throat before finally speaking once again. “As I said prior, I am currently excited to see the future creations of your project.” Scareware would reply with a happy nod. 

Ink had set off to attend some business elsewhere and CORE!Frisk had returned to the Omega Timeline after a few hours of celebrating. Scareware however was currently showing Gaster to his newly created laboratory while seeming excited over the whole situation. Gaster however seemed to keep his calm and collected composure as his purple pupils glanced around the laboratory. It seemed this was only the beginning as Scareware had much more planned!...But so did Gaster.

[huntinclowns2024]

Following our inquiry, we discovered that Melissa May Farrington, an American, is the owner of the troll account Clown Hunter, which has the @Clown22500580 handle and targets black individuals and minorities. An elderly white woman runs who runs the clown troll account was born in 1956.

Farrington has assumed the identity of a predator for her troll account. A monster that resembles a clown. She has a very large nose in real life that resembles a vacuum cleaner. Suggesting that AI was utilized to synchronize her real face with the clown's.

A social media post that we came across claims that she used to be a Betty Boop impersonator in her younger years. As of 2020 she is a clown and lives in a circus tent according to her bio on social media.

She might delete her hate account but we have archived it and most of her posts.

It is said on her anonymous troll account that she is an attack dog. She lacks intelligence because she most likely didn't know that pestering others online could have negative effects. Most likely, May Farrington is a narcissist. Because of her narcissistic nature, she is likely to believe herself to be the victim when she learns that she has been unmasked.

She is hardly a victim because, in actuality, she has been intimidating others on social media for the entire time. Like she's got the right to. however, she was unaware that she had left a digital paper trail.

Although Farrington is from Tacoma, Washington, she poses as British and uses a fake British persona. This is a symptom of Asperger's or autism. People who have those conditions usually do not harass people online.

Upon investigating, we discovered that someone Farrington had bullied online had claimed that Farrington suffers from Asperger's condition. That still does not justify what Farrington does on social media.

MissMay03, LadyMay, and MissMay03US are the troll's other aliases.

https://www.youtube.com/@missmay03ushttps://www.flickr.com/photos/missmay03/

We are merely alerting. In order for people who have been targeted to know who is behind the account. So if she harasses or bullies someone under the guise of anon, people can face her directly.

Farrington has harassed more than 100 people on social media, but she hasn't singled out one person. This is a result of no one finding out what she has to say. Rather, she made the decision to turn into a troll and spread hate. This is a meant to be an intelligent individual. It appears that she is not a particularly kind person.

We made the decision to identify the owner of this hate account. A white American woman in digital blackface is the person behind the clown troll account.

She frequently cites her non-white ethnicity as an explanation. She is obviously a white woman, though. Additionally, she makes fun of her employment by claiming that her employer will never be aware of her social media activity. She works for a company as a writer but is also self employed.

Since the troll had been harassing individuals for more than three years under the alias, we decided to get all of her information in order to identify who she was. She uses numerous social media accounts. She possesses more than only Clown Hunter. We thus tracked her online whereabouts.

She foolishly used her own identity in the email she used to harass individuals. We used third-party search engines to perform a reverse search. And during a search, she surfaced. Regarding this person, some information has already been posted.

At first, we weren't sure if the two people were the same. But it was proven when we noticed that she had posted frequently posted anti Betty Boop posts. Her primary posts consistently express her dislike for Betty Boop's race as a black woman.

Farrington dislikes Betty Boop essentially. Helen Kane, her Facebook profile, is similar to Betty Boop in certain ways. She does not like the other Betty Boop, despite her fondness for the first. She seems to have an interest in a real life Betty Boop.

Farrington hunts for what she thinks are clowns. However people she hunts are random people who have no idea who she is. So she is technically harassing random people that she does not know.

By bothering others, she is attempting to control what they share and what they don't. The majority of people choose to ignore her and go on. She anticipates getting into arguments with strangers on social media. May doesn't seem to have a personal life, a family, or pals.

Farrington never succeeded in her attempts to be a scholar. She went to Technical College at Clover Park.

Her account, now known as X, is used to harass and abuse black people on Twitter. She is a graphic designer with extensive Photoshop knowledge. She writes for Radio Tacoma as well.

She oversees multiple Helen Kane webpages. She assisted by a gang of people who all joined in 2020 to torment others. The individuals are elderly people from in her group.

Farrington is likely mentally ill and paranoid. She would not be hiding if she didn't believe she was at fault.

If anybody has experienced harassment from Tacoma, Washington's May Farrington on any of her troll accounts. Farrington also runs other troll accounts, including several on YouTube. She is insane in addition to being racist.

A thorough background check was conducted on the male and female residents of Farrington's home, and the results were alarming. She ought to think about her own life and the lives of others around her before harassing others.

[thegayhimbo]

💛💚

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

Barchie (i.e. Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper) from both Riverdale and the Archie Comics.

There are plenty of times I've discussed this ship (particularly with @stillhidden), and if you look through the tags on my blog (#archie comics, #anti archie andrews, #archie is a shitty person) you can pick up pretty quickly why I despise it.

Long story short: It's a toxic relationship that the writers keep trying to play for both comedy and romance. At best, Archie treats Betty like shit, which involves him either taking an interest in Betty when Veronica isn't available, or using her for his own ends, and Betty goes along with it like a braindead bimbo in the vain hope that she'll get Archie's attention and love. At worst, he's abusive and callously dismissive of her feelings, with Betty being portrayed as either passively accepting his treatment of her, or acting in a way that's unhinged. The comics constantly played this as a joke. It wasn't funny the first time, and it's only aged poorly over the years.

Riverdale was the latest offender of this. Archie wasn't as godawful as he was in the comics, but he was still an ass, and the whole reason that relationship happened is because Archie cheated on Veronica with Betty while Betty cheated on Jughead with Archie. For whatever reason, the writers still thought these characters would still be sympathetic after that, and went full-steam ahead with that relationship in the last 3 seasons despite how shallow and empty it was.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

Characters I tend to like are usually referred to as "stupid" by fans when they're actually a lot smarter than they're given credit for. They can either improvise on the spot when circumstances require it, draw connections or conclusions where other characters would have missed something, or they simply may not be informed on a particular topic but can learn pretty quickly about it once given the chance. They are also the kinds of characters who can re-evaluate their biases and beliefs and make efforts to chance (which, considering the number of people in real life who claim to be educated and yet are easily manipulated and radicalized, is saying something).

Thank you for the ask! :)