#i think if you go around saying theres a limit to medias you can ship people in or

[iamnotmereally]

Love when new media drops in town and people immediately ships two guys (sometimes because it's funny af) and there's always someone who is personally offended

[nuctua-larc]

GAHHH I LOVE ALL OF THIS THANK YOU!!!! I wasn't TOO surprised about all the davejade hate mostly because girl in the way of gay ship is a cardinal sin(apparently??) and the epilogues did NOT help matters. Plus theres all the Jade plot being shoved to the side in canon on top of fandoms general idea that bi characters can say theyre bi but if they express attraction to the opposite gender theyre no longer?? Bi?? idk about all of it but the point is I was SO glad to see a fellow davejade shipper,, our community is small but mighty.

Anyways all that to be said Im gonna try to give this the same amount of effort!(still so happy seeing this giant ass response to my ask like!!! i win. ive won) Also...This is not going to be near as comprehensible as yours is the tagents are immense, just a warning.

1. Frog breeding

Ok first off I gotta say that I love the flower breeding analogy going on here it really does help put the genesis frog mission into perspective!!

Its definitely... very odd how they didnt really elaborate on anything that happened with that mission. Honestly during my first readthrough I didnt see ANY of it. And this was mostly because I read the entire comic in one sitting and at that point was a little tired and didnt realize I was supposed to click on the pictures, plus I just didn't notice the banner(which I typically still dont, and have to go back everytime I get to it). I think a big issue the webcomic has for me is that while it is rather long it tends to put the focus on the wrong things.

We've got things explained through sprite prototyping, the sylladex, and moduses. A lot of the games mechanics are explained in an insane amount of detail, and yet, one of the most important aspects of the game(quests, genesis frog). I mean, Rose doesn't even get to look into the quest at all. Unlike most forms of media Homestuck doesn't any sort of time limit--no season deal, chapter limit, nothing tying it to being a certain length. Thats why its able to have extended wacky hijinks! And while I do appreciate the slow silly parts, or at least, I know that the parts I find boring someone appreciates, theres also a lot of unutilized space for them to actually SHOW us the important parts they left out. And yes, Im saying homestuck shouldve been longer. This is the hill I will die on.

Anyways, all that being said the whole idea of Dave constantly groundhog day-ing the game, reliving the same hour or minute over and over to make the game successful is just... SUCH an interesting concept. Not to point out the sollux parallels but pulling double-duty is something of a theme with him.

The day itself is a constant. The trolls pester them at the same times no matter what, John goes off on his own to godtier, Rose destroys her planet and goes grimdark, and Jade works to create the new universe. People die when they have to, they do what they have to, and he can't do anything more than preserve the best course of action. Even if that means Jade has to kill the first person she's seen since she was four, even if that means He can't hug her before she has to do it. Again the CONCEPT is wonderful, and we hear other characters tell us about it, with karkat mentioning her freakout and dave mentioning how he didn't want to upset her, but we're never SHOWN it.

Number one priority in a hypothetical alt comic, let these touch starved kids hug

2. Davejade vs Jack

If I'm being honest here, the dynamic with Jack Noir and these two is just...so underutilized. They had Jade fight the two superdogs in the finale. Well...fight as a loose term here, in all honesty she flew around for a bit before getting punched into the ground, but in general while all the beta kids have a connection, narratively Jade and Dave have the biggest to me. For jade theres the obvious connection with Bec, all three are tied via the first gaurdian, abilities and care for one another, and I do genuinely like the weakness they gave Jack in that he just. Cant hurt her. Dave's connection is through Jade, with their first fight in the banner and my personal favorite fight sequence with him defending her in the game over timeline.

It just...felt like these two things were introduced, the idea that every time they meet he dies, the whole self sacrificial situation he keeps putting himself in and the tragedy of hypothetical survivors guilt even if hes still alive. One of many plot points introduced with no real conclusion because they never really TALK about it. Personally I would've loved to see her genuinely fight Jack. Maybe she teams up with Peregrine against Jack or maybe she just kicks ass on her own idk. Let her get revenge!! Or maybe even...idk....show the freakout after he dies? You know? Because if something big happens that has a heavy effect on one of your main characters you should...show it?

3. Grimbark

I'm not gonna lie...grimbark makes no sense to me. Grimdark in general makes no sense to me, especially in the context of Jade versus Rose. With Rose, it was the overtaking of a great darkness, a loss in humanity and a sole focus on rage and destruction powered by grief. While she'd been destroying the game prior to this, slowly allowing herself to succumb to the horrorterrors in a misguided effort of finding information, the death of her mother causes the big switch in her completely abandoning restraint and forethought.

It manifests in her being unable to speak, at least in that of any human language. She's angry and focused on nothing else but her revenge against Jack, a decision that leads to her demise.

In contrast to hers Jade is perfectly capable of speech, her 'switch' is triggered by the Condencse without any emotional reason(which is a small gripe, I'm fine with the mind control situation. However it would've been a little nice if there had been a prior snap moment for her that allowed for the grimbark thing to happen). She too acts violently without speaking, in this case to serve the Condensce's will. However I think the issue here is that unlike Jane's robo-mind control, grimdark never really felt completely divorced from the character. Jade in her grimbark form is just...so fundamentally different from Jade that I can't even imagine a scenario in which she would be pushed to act like that.

Personally I would've enjoyed a more emotional shutdown situation. Witches and Seers are(not sure if canon or not but in general) very opposite classes. Witches are a class that takes action while Seers are the ones to plan. So for Jade instead of a one track mind of grief induced rage, maybe it's cold calculation, brought on by constant isolation. Jade's been through a lot, and even in the game over timeline where Davesprite is there and John's alive she still seems...lonely.

And during the game over plotline I kind of would've liked to see Jade successfully get revived! First off because for a proper retcon where each group has its own issues leading up to the final battle, having all three perspectives present(Terezi for the meteor, Roxy for the alphas, Jade for the ship, and then John going through with all the plans) would be helpful...I also just want some sort of reaction to his death. It's the second time it's happened and maybe then we'd have an opportunity to *see* how that had hurt her the first time. Eventually I wanna write out an alt game over situation...give this girl sme FOCUS! she deserves it!

4. Music!!

[cracks knuckles] ok. so I actually have a lot of thoughts on this. First off, that post has been living in my mind, cat rotating in microwave style for a hot minute(btw seeing you reblog my tags,,, I keep winning >:000!!!). Second off music theory and music in general is a bit of an obsession of mine so imma elaborate way more than is really necessary.

Their band name is SpaceTime Continuum. The opportunity is right there, how can you NOT. I absolutely love the idea of lead vocals\woodwinds jade and the robots being bass and guitar respectively. And I said this before but Dave is so percussion to me. That man is BUILT for the drums let him POP OFF!!

But also I love the idea that like...during the three year timeskip they both react to the boredom by learning new instruments. And then they meet up after everythings said and done and they're like wait..we both ended up learning instruments that compliment each other really well. So like, Dave picks up the drums of course, and a bunch of other percussion based instruments, but then it'd also be fun if he like...picked up the trombone or something. He seems like a brass guy to me. Also...lowkey seems like an acoustic guy to me. Like he's chords/fingerpicking on acoustic to Jade's melodies and badass solos on electric! And the further complimenting going on in that she's a bass player that matches well with percussion(linking song here as an example to the fuckery they could do here)

And then more with woodwinds and brass matching well together like they naturally gravitate towards things that compliment!! Also vocally I like the idea of duets, her taking the lead vocally while Dave does harmonies. As far as general sound SOLELY for vocals not so much for vibes the Civil Wars comes to mind(dave cannot escape the country vibes).

And the time player powers can and SHOULD be exploited for the sake of harmonies the possibilities are endless here.

When it comes to character arcs them being in a band would be good for them…they both have a love for making music, sure, but also it would give Jade the connection she’s never been able to have before. For me there’s not greater connection to someone than to jam out on some musical collaboration. My best friendships are made through people who I sing with. Then for dave, being raised for the express purpose of battle, being able to completely divorce from that and do something thats just…fun, that doesn’t serve any greater purpose. It’d be!! So good!

OK OK SO!!

First off!!! Hello fellow davejade enjoyer i see you. Second off—what sort of things do you wish you could’ve seen with these two in canon :0. Could be expansion on canon scene, arc direction, or just a new scene entirely. for me personally I would’ve loved to see some genuine fighting collaboration going on. I felt VERY teased with all the magic combo’s in collide.

Third! I know they do a lot of music collaboration in canon, and I’ve seen some things with them making a band together post canon. What sort of sound do you think they’d have/what artist do you think they’d sound like?

Thank you :))

okay god theres so much i wish was expanded on in canon with regard to dave and jade

this post is swan dive into homestuck meta and took me over a day to write. so i would appreciate feedback or discussion on this if you'd like, reblogs appreciated!

despite this question being posed as davejade related, my answers here are actually relevant for anyone interested in homestuck meta as well.

it’s just recently come to my attention that there are a a handful of people on twitter who are vocal davejade dislikers. i didnt know it was actually disliked until i looked it up on twitter, i honestly thought it was a joke blown out of proportion but no they exist! it surprised me a lot to see people think they "lack chemistry". not only because knowing what i know about them thats a ridiculous insinuation, but also i haven't seen the vitriol on tumblr. probably because we can actually poast about it on here in an unabridged manner which thus enables better, deeper critical analysis and engagement with the media. i think also people forget that dave strider is canonically bisexual and are too yaoipilled + facing the consequences of the epilogues to even give davejade a serious look/analysis. (dave dates terezi and karkat in separate timelines, thinks jane is hot, thinks roxy is a babe but shoves it down when he discovers she’s his ectomom lmfao. davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dated jade! but i'm going to cover that in more depth in this post since theres a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of that relationship in fanon.)

(as a side note according to what some people have told me in inbox and what ive seen lol i think that ive been inadvertently been getting people into davejade. it's all in my davejade tag here in chronological order if you'd like to get a Whiff. be sure to read the tags on posts in there too!)

even though theres a lot in this post as it is, it doesn't cover everything ive talked about wrt davejade, and i think it would benefit readers to have complementary posts alongside this for the full picture with stuff it doesn't cover. there's a ton about why theyre cute and why i think they work well together in that tag.

here's some highlight analysis posts, but be sure to check the tag because there's a more in there:

post a / post b / post c / post d / post e / post f (← one of my favorite ask responses ive ever gotten)

i think a huge chunk of the issue has to do with how the narrative handles dave and jade. one of the most damning things to me is how glossed over their canon interactions were in act 5 despite them collaborating on one of the most important things in the story. i haven't talked about this yet but i'm going to do so here. because they’re put on the backburner by the focus of the narrative during act 5, people who don’t read carefully will miss the implications that are there all along in canon but easily passed over.

under the cut ive separated it into multiple parts

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

this is an analysis examining apart exactly what jade and dave did while frog breeding. i wrote it while high which was extremely enlightening and it allowed me to comprehend it and hopefully explain it in an understandable way. i also discuss how shitty the lack of on-screen communication between jade and dave was for this part and the next.

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

ive discussed this one before on my blog so it's not as dense (see davejade tag). but i still sewed the gifs together and discuss how unfortunate this was to be be delegated to a banner at the top of mspa and the neglect of that whole arc despite the outcomes of it being reissued by characters thousands of pages later

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

i get into davesprite's head here and try to make his motivations about the breakup clear to the extent that i can infer because jesus fuck i love these characters way too much ive known them for a decade i understand their core personality structures and why they think what they do and what is most likely to happen when extrapolating. not to toot my own horn btw .. but what im saying is i am confident in my interpretation based on canon. i also talk about how grimbark jade changed the way the fandom perceives their relationship, leaving davejade on a low note instead of a high note. and then hs epilogues had even worse consequences for davejade but i wont get into it because it was character assassination all around and doesnt deserve my time or yours. but if you wanna know what i think, here

4. The music question

where actually answer this ask like it's an ask and not an essay

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

i wish we could have seen what collecting frogs entailed for the two of them. what exactly were they doing? jade’s quest is one of the most interesting.

before i start i want to take a tangent and say the frog breeding reminds me of back in 2020-2021 when i would breed hybrid flowers in animal crossing new horizons to get a very specific gene sequence for these flowers to not only use to breed for hybrids, but to get known gene sequences that i could use to “check” the genes of other flowers. the goal is to get two parent flowers whose sequences when bred would make a specific phenotype 100% of the time.

this sounds complicated but here’s what i did for the lilies:

(“rare island” refers to one of the first acnh patches that removed a nook miles island from the pool that had hybrid versions of your native flower of very specific phenotypes for each color. i wrote out the breeding chains to get parents that would always breed that exact flower found on the rare hybrid nmt island that is no longer available.)

the cleanup ALL TO GET the white 2-2-2 lily looked like this. and after i got white 2-2-2 lily it was smooth sailing

after all that i could use the orange 2-2-0 lilies and white 2-2-2 lilies made in the black lily process and get rare island orange 2-2-1 lilies 100% of the time. in mendelian genetics these numbers (2-2-1) are quite literally RR-YY-Ww.

RR-YY-ww (orange) x RR-YY-WW (white) = RR-YY-Ww (orange: heterozygous Ww gene)

and all that effort into getting white 2-2-2 lilies enables me to get it over and over again now. i don’t have to repeat that process to get rare island pink lilies. all i need to do for the pink 2-0-2 lilies is breed two default bag red lilies (2-0-1) together. 50% will be red (2-0-1) lilies, 25% will be black 2-0-0 lilies, and the last 25% will be pink (2-0-2) lilies.

anyway sorry back to the main point. FROG BREEDING. it just reminded me of it. now that i think of it the frog breeding process also reminds me a lot of artbreeder back from when AI was only a fun little toy 4-5 years ago

ok so have a look at what kanaya says about what jade must do. this is the coolest quest imo because of how it progresses and how long it actually is

here’s how it works. remember back in act 2, when the wayward vagabond needed to tie a longer cable to descend down the ship (and refused to give up the ones that made up his mayoral sash)? he used the appearifier in the ship to appearify the extra cable across the gap to his location? that’s how the appearifier normally works when when it’s locked to the present. it’s very straightforward.

when jade appearifies a frozen frog, it shows us this exact thing. she appearified the actual frog itself (the same way WV appearified the actual cable across the gap) to her exact location. it can get the frog out of the ice in the way WV could untrap serenity from the amber. if something’s destiny wouldn’t otherwise be changed, it will not be paradoxified, it will just simply itself be warped to that location, with precise carving if it is somehow trapped inside of something else.

if you could appearify it to your location right now, you wouldnt be able to take it out the appearifier’s crosshairs in person later to alter its destiny because the object won’t be there at that time. it wouldve been with you the entire time. unless you decide to take the appearified item back to that location so that you could appearify it in the past, but that’s the most pointless time loop ever and doesn’t change its destiny.

for this icicle frog jade and dave weren’t capable of changing its destiny anyway, because it was completely encased in ice, and just didn’t bother to go after it. partially because it was with jade at the appearifier the entire time anyway and she can’t exactly put it back in there in the future. the point is, besides jade appearifying it to her location, the frog had no other possible routes of destiny. in that part of lofaf where she appearified the frozen frog from, the ice is too deep to get anything out of it (other than appearifying it) and i’m not sure the forge would have melted it in time before their reckoning ended anyway.

the goal of jade and dave is to target frogs on the appearifier screen and trust that their future selves follow through in altering the frog’s destiny. if so, then the frog’s paradox slime will appear instead and its genes would be collected in addition to creating offspring between multiple paradox clone frog genes. then, dave and jade would necessarily have to go out adventuring and find the frog so that they end up following through for their past selves.

if i understand correctly, jade is creating all the frogs on her planet that grow up with manually modified genes. these frogs must be genetically altered from their parents so that the frogs she creates don’t grow up to become one of their parents (as they’d be identical). the mutant offspring frogs “generation A” she ectobiologizes will eventually mature from tadpoles to frogs, assisted by dave’s time travel. then she will eventually target “generation A” with the appearifier to get their paradox slime to fuse with some other frogs’ paradox slime and create new slightly altered frogs “generation B” (and then follow through on altering the “generation A” frogs’ destiny so their slime and genes can be paradoxified by jade and dave’s past selves). repeat until the genes are fine tuned for the genesis frog.

this is why i compared it to my breeding in animal crossing. getting the genesis frog reminds me of the blue rose paths. i worked with the garden council back in the day and i used backwardsN’s “cesspool” method, except i honestly gotta say my white 2-2-2 lily thing was much more involved and carefully maneuvered in a way that i imagine frog breeding is more like. backwardsN’s “genepool method” was basically making a red-orange-black rose primordial soup and waiting for a blue rose to emerge out of it, just increasing the chances seeing a blue rose sprout the next day after watering with each generation of offspring. you KNOW my ass was using time travel, even if i happened to get lucky and got a blue rose without even finishing the big turtle plot. without time travel, most players (95%) will get their first blue rose before these # of days. (open up advanced tag)

there must be so many daves running around to help her going back in time all within the span of a few hours while still having their own linear, older timelines that are much longer than the “time stage” they’re actually functioning in. this sounds complicated but it’s not. think of this “time stage” as analogous to the 3 days until the moon falls in majoras mask. it’s the “time window” all the time travel takes place within, but link doesn’t become a day younger when he travels to a day ago. the timeline of his “self” is older but is kept within the confines of the 3-day timeframe. similarly, in tears of the kingdom, two master swords exist simultaneously for most of history, but the one on the light dragon’s head (who was above the cloud barrier before the upheaval btw) is further ahead on its own linear timeline: it starts as the other, pre-gloomed master sword → broken by gloom → sent to the past to be repaired → renewed over time, existing at the same time on the “time stage” as its own pre-gloomed past self but ahead on its own linear timeline

now imagine this but within the “time stage” of just a few hours on 4/13/2009. kanaya says frog breeding ordinarily takes weeks. multiple daves can exist simultaneously because they’re operating in the same few-hour-timeframe but one can linearly be days ahead of another. it’s the exact same thing as breeding flowers in animal crossing for irl days but to your game it’s whatever date you have it set to. your irl progress isn’t lost if you go back a few days in settings. i’d often find a week in june to use as a “time stage” to loop through when it would rain at least one hour on each day of that week which would save me the hassle of watering my flowers every day before time traveling to the next.

it must’ve sucked for dave to hear jade say the same things over and over again. the novelty probably wore off pretty fast lol…… dave says he saw his future self fighting and dying to jack and knew that’s what he’d eventually have to do as well. every single dave at all points of his linear timeline understood that and it probably settled something horrible into his heart.

im imagining during the original run dave was thinking to himself: “im bored but cant alter anything about this without creating a doomed timeline. if i dont see my future self hugging jade then i cant hug her even though i really fuckin want to. note to future self: hug jade. aww shit look at me go guess i remembered. hell fucking yes cant wait for that to be me in a few hours” and gives a thumbs up

future dave pov, hugging jade and watching his past self give him a thumbs up from afar thinking to himself: “ahaha i remember exactly what i was thinking there” and gives a thumbs up

but anyway. goddamn. JADE AND DAVE. what did hussie do to you.

this is a goddamn atrocity.. what the hell man. i wish we could have at LEAST seen the text file jade sent to kanaya. we got to see ConversationWithAVeryStupidGirl.Txt but not daveisafunnyguy.txt?

i mean i GUESS the humor is delivered through this

and like, yeah that is pretty funny? but i feel like the single laugh this gives me is nothing compared to the joy i wouldve gotten out of seeing what dave has to say about the cloning apparatus for ants here and talking himself into circles about frog procreation enough to make not just gigglehouse jade laugh, but kanaya too

we spent so much time learning about the mechanics of the punch designix and hardly anything about creating the seed of the actual new universe. we learn about it through kanaya and karkat messaging jade, instead of dave and jade working that out through SHENANIGANS. even though this is JADE AND DAVE'S session. it’s fine that kanaya is helping them, as she should, but we’ve seen parallel pesterlog conversations before so i dont get why we didn’t get that here! jade and dave frog breeding is one of the most important events in homestuck, and yet it was terribly glossed over. everything in the story, their futures, are predicated on their success. not just in their unwinnable session, but the one they split up for 3 years and escape to.

at first i thought, maybe their lack of shown interaction has to do with hussie working out the intricacies of pesterlog/dialogue thing? as he once stated on tumblr:

shoshaumbay asked: In the intermission of act 6, it says that they get to talk. Does this mean that their guardians couldn’t talk to them before and that is why they left them notes all around their houses?  The achievement badge only upgraded their ability to speak to each other as presented through the comic. I.e. it permitted them to speak to each other… WHILE WE WATCH! Do you think all the trolls were hanging out together, not talking at all? Or Dave and Jade were doing all that frog hunting without a single peep?? That’s ridiculous. On the other hand, abstraction weaves itself through the Homestuck reality, and it can be hard to pin down where abstraction is to be taken literally. The truth is, there is not much distinction between the layers of abstraction and the reality they are meant to stand for. John was both literally named on his 13th birthday, and not quite, because that’s silly. The guardians are both literally silent automatons, and not really, as there is indication through allusion they function as normal people too. And the kids went through a huge adventure, achieved immortal god status, and even then had to gain a few more levels just to gain the achievement of simple dialogue as a literal upgrade, as well as not literally, because that makes no sense. The reality is inseparable from the way the story is presented and the way the “game” is played. But those abstractions are also a facade for a more life-like reality beneath it as well.

then i realized, this is not only an arbitrary cop out that affects my enjoyment of the comic in retrospect because they wind up being able to talk later anyway and that makes me feel cheated in these moments, but also still actually awful within these parameters because hussie breaks his own rule here, proving he could have shown us dave and jade talking in person at any time regardless of needing the gift of gab achievement for us to watch them as readers. recall this is also the first time john and rose met in person (at least when rose wasn't asleep):

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

this is where i take out my frustration over this being delegated to a banner at the top to the point where readers forgot it occurred.

i wish their time on lofaf frog breeding and fighting with jack was front and center and wasnt just in the banner at the top of the page. it makes it seem not as important when it completely was, considering that characters brought up what had happened in that scene multiple times.

it is significant because it is at that point that jack noir has killed all of the kids at least once. the only one left being jade who he refuses to kill due to bec’s loyalty

THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE (foreshadowing)

jack noir killed john on his quest bed which allowed him to ascend to god tier. then he killed john AGAIN but it wasn’t a heroic or just death so john was revived

jack killed grimdark rose. john smooched rose’s corpse, allowing her to take over on derse.

jack killed dave by redirecting jade’s bullets into dave’s body instead. jade smooched dave’s corpse, allowing him to take over on derse.

after jade shoots him through jack, he’s down for the count. she kisses him and he wakes up on derse; all he and rose have left of “themselves” in an existential sense are their dreamselves. they didnt know they were going to ascend to god tier delivering the tumor. they assumed they were just going to die like for real and not come back which is why dave went with rose since he didnt want her to die alone.

it was also an important point since her time spent with dave on lofaf is the first in-person contact jade has had with another living human since she was probably 4 years old with her grandpa.

for jack noir, we got [s] seer: desend and [S] ==> (3696) which were hella impactful. seeing jade and dave essentially go through the same thing but with an extended battle sequence honestly kinda warrants a flash in my mind. (the sad thing is that unite synchronization was originally written with those pages in mind (the track was originally called redshift) but of course malcolm brown couldnt have known what was going to happen unless hussie commissioned him for a specific track for a specific story beat, probably like whatever he did to coordinate cascade’s music with toby ahead of the 10/25/11 release of the flash and publication of volume 8 on bandcamp)

i think one of the worst parts is that entire conversations were referenced, but cut or never written.

this is a real forgotten homestuck fact: jade was completely freaking out after filling dave with bullets until karkat had talked her through it. very easily forgotten since even though it being referenced twice we never actually saw the conversation. (i overrode the black scratch background so it's easier to read)

wow thats so crazy i as a member of the audience dont in fact remember! would it have killed to write it my guy

and we find out thousands of pages later dave was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die. if you even care btw

i wrote more about this here

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dates jade but breaks up because he feels inadequate at being the dave that he thinks jade deserves. NOT because they fought or anything. they were still on good terms. davesprite just felt inherently unlovable. john seemed more upset about the breakup frankly.

what davesprite did was because he thought it was in jade's best interest. there is nothing to suggest it was a fight / clash break up. they still seemed to be on good terms, davesprite asking where she went and all. jade says the breakup “is complicated” and “hes going through a lot of stuff”. given the context i think it's reasonable to assume that davesprite's thought process was: “we're coming up to the new session soon and youre going to meet up with dave again and i dont want to make shit awkward with you dating knockoff dave. you deserve to be with real dave instead so im gonna cut what we have going here in advance and distance myself from your life”

jade probably protested about saying how he's just as real as “real dave”, but davesprite made his decision already. im sure it wasnt easy for davesprite to break up either. with emotions running high (sadness, not anger) he probably just left to be alone and distance himself from jade, and seems to harbor guilt about it as we see in the log. that's probably why he wasn't at john's movie party. this is just speculation on my part but it doesnt seem in character for the breakup to be explosive because jade seemed more understanding than john. sad, but understanding.

i feel like a lot of people forget this. grimbark jade made it seem like davesprite did it to hurt her, or for this to mean that dave and jade are not actually good for each other, which is a wild mischaracterization of what happened but the one that stuck with the fandom nonetheless.

not only that, but davesprite's existence tragic and he's understandably depressed. after spending about a year in sburb (accounting for time travel) without john or jade, only to go back and give up your personhood to advance the alpha timeline and become forgotten is fucking crushing, and i think the breakup is also about davesprite coming to terms with that trauma, being okay with his existence as a sprite instead of being a bootleg stand-in for the dave that jade knew.

basically what vintagegamebro says,

it was such a tragic way for them to part for 3 years with no communication, and it was only proceeded by more tragedy because jade then had no one but davesprite to turn to, and davesprite needed anything but romance at that point

grimbark jade isn’t a good reflection of jade’s actual self. she pushed the mayor into lava for fucks sake which normal jade would never dream of doing, grimbark jade is straight up unhinged. i’m sure jade was hurt because all breakups hurt, but it was blown out of proportion (see how calm she was above a few days after the breakup?) because of Evilness. but also as @vintagegamebro mentioned it also felt somewhat … “off”? or out of left field? especially seeing what the nature of the breakup was from both sides in the above screenshots.

when dave says “theres no way i would have done that to you” i genuinely believe him. i have no reason not to believe him. look at him above asking for questions and clarification. thinking about how what davesprite did, a version of himself beyond his control and how it reflects on himself, i think it's obvious dave cares a lot about how jade feels about him

even after this confrontation in the game over timeline, dave laid down his fucking life to defend her corpse from the becs in he hope she could be revived by jane

and to think that after all this he still chose to save her, like always, probably knowing he had little to no chance, just because he cares for her, her life and who she is beyond this moment, really meant a lot for them. i really, really was mad that this would be the last time they would truly ever be together in a way that to me mattered

4. The music question

i wrote this post regarding instruments with this song in the back of my head if its anything. takes about 12 seconds to start after you press play for some reason

this too, closer to the “style”. i like imagining dave going apeshit on drums

[actualbird]

Hello, Zak. I just want to say thank you for your content, it makes me super happy and your analyses have become a solid part of how I perceive the NXX.

Non-ToT related ask: what do you recommend for beginner fanfic writers and content creators (for ToT and fics in general)? I'm thinking of posting more on my blog but I'm not experienced in using Tumblr or writing. (please do not misinterpret this as self-promotion!!! i just need advice owo.)

hullo!! thank u so much for the kind words, waaahhh, im glad u enjoyed my works :DDD

and no worries, i dont see this as a self-promo and also oooohhh!!

i'll cut ur main ask up into parts, hehe!!!

the only writing advice i'll ever give: read a BUNCH

i think this is important for all kinds of writing, fanfic or not. the bedrock for writing is reading.

go to fics other ppl have written that you personally really love and enjoy. go through it again, this time taking note of the bits that struck you in any way.

like, if theres a line that hit hard or a fic thats structured in a way that you found interesting or a certain kind of characterization that you cant get enough or anything that piques your interest, take note of it

and then look deeper and pick it apart. try and figure out how the author pulled that off in the writing. look at the things you yourself enjoy reading and study how they managed to do the things that impressed you

to word it differently: study, HAHAJKJADBFKSD but it's a fun kind of studying, since ur sources are texts you like!!

the "pick it apart" method is a more active kind of way to "study" but in general, even reading without that active mindset still enriches the writer brain. subconsciously, you'll gravitate towards doing things in writing that you enjoyed reading from other stories. reading is fuel for a writer

like, in my opinion, no writer at all can grow by just staying inside our own head. we grow by looking around and learning from things that resonate with us

-

in terms of what u wanna write, just go wild, write what you want

idk if this is something that resonates with you, but when i was starting out writing for tot i was HELLA ANXIOUS cuz the stuff i wanted to write (found fam shenanigans, shipping uncommon ships, several thousands of words of character analyses) wassssnnnttt exactly the stuff i saw everybody else in the fandom writing. if this is something u arent worried/anxious about then hell yea! skip to next part! but if it is, then i tell u this:

write it anyway. even if it feels like something nobody else wants. if you want it, write it anyway

because fandom surprises you. it surprised me! turns out theres a whole lotta people who like the stuff i thought nobody would be interested in

additionally, write what makes you happy and what youre interested in cuz it really shows in the writing itself. i cant rlly explain it in words, haha, but like...i can tell when somebody is super passionate about their piece in the words of the piece. enthusiasm brings life into writing and enjoyment in general is, in my opinion, the whole point of fandom anyway :D

-

tumblr is a mess tbh, do you want an ao3 invite?

tumblr. is a mess. however, among the social media websites right now, it's actually the best for written fanworks thanks to the lack of word limits and the blog focused structure of the whole site. that being said, it's a niGHTMARE keeping things organized on tumblr. my masterlist of totworks doesnt work anymore on desktop cuz i broke thru the link limit kjbkHBSKF IT ONLY WORKS ON MOBILE NOW and i had to move the whole masterlist to a gdoc for desktop accessibility kabfskafa.

so if youre writing fanfic, i VERY MUCH recommend getting an ao3, if you dont already have one. and if you need an ao3 invite to register for an account, send me a DM! cuz ive still got three invites in my account, im very willing to send you one :DDD

buuuuuut, i do also make a lot of fanwork thats not technically a full fanfiction piece (hcs, analyses, minific rambles, etc.) and those do seem better just staying on tumblr. so for posting writing on tumblr, use tags!!!

some main tags for tot that i think would be useful to totwriters are:

#tears of themis

#tears of themis fanfic

#tears of themis headcanons

#[character's full ENG name]

#tot [character's ENG first name]

#[character's full CN name]

#[character's full ENG name] x rosa

#[character's full ENG name] x reader

tho if ur blog is new and has just be created recently, keep in mind that theres a tendency that your posts wont show up in these tags until tumblr has "ensured" that youre not a bot akjbfkjsfas. tumblr whack like that. how to make tumblr realize ur not a bot is by following a some other people and reblogging a bunch of posts. interacting with other blogs, basically. this is non-bot behavior and will pull ur posts out of the nether and into the tags eventually

other stuff that might be helpful would be adding a wordcount at the top of the post (apparently ppl like this? akbfkjfksa i had no idea until i joined this fandom) aaaand a title and/or short description of the post that gives an idea on what the post is about

i see other totwriters on tumb doing cool stuff with like, banners and formatting. those seem nice!! i dont do them personally because im not great at visual aesthetics KBAJSFKSAJFSA but if it interests u, go for it!!!

OH ALSO, if ur gonna be posting a lot of fanworks on tumblr, making a masterlist with links of every post is a great idea!!!

i think thats all ive got? kjKABKJFAS forgive me, i just clocked out of work, so my brain might be a little scrambled.

i hope this helps!! and i send best wishes to you and your writing :DDD

[antiloreolympus]

6 Anti LO Asks

1. also if hera and echo is being pushed as a new ship is like ??? is zeus going to have to grovel her for forgiveness and they make up? is hera going to give up her powers for some random nymph, because i doubt thatd last? like idk, the whole thing makes no sense??

2. Does anyone know why Leto isn’t allowed in the under world? Is it just cause she’s a sun god? Or is it the outcast thing?

Note from OP, not anon: It's because she's a sun god in LO.

3. Minthe: “hey everyone I know I’m being petty about not liking the girl whose clearly flirting with my bf but turns out she murdered some people”

Persephone: “my life is in tatters (even tho your bf has my side) because of you and to teach you a lesson I will be losing control of my powers again.”

4. ok so there was an article going around saying webtoons werent "real comics" and it was clearly an old man being upset webcomics are more popular than traditional print, but i did not approve of LO stans saying 'LO gets more readers a week than the last batman issue did last month!" and its like, yeah, its way easier to access webcomics than print media with limited release, but seriously? are they really thinking LO is more culturally important & popular than BATMAN? cmon guys, be real here.

5. Persephone: kills some people, struggling to control her powers in general, turns a co-worker into a plant but decides it’s time to go to therapy when Leto lets her know that Hera and Hades had an on again off again affair and proceeds not to talk about that affair that brought her there (which makes sense since it’s a first visit but still is the reason that lead her there) but also how can she trust Leto anyway since she didn’t know who she was and when she did it’s like it’s Apollo’s mother would you trust that completely??!!

Note from OP, not anon: She does briefly mention it without outright saying it was the affair. Still don't know why the affair was her tipping point, considering she just turned a woman into a plant.

6. theres literally many better options to ship hera with than echo?? like idk, LETO for example? dione? countless other women who arent literally her employee? like theres technically no law against bosses dating subordinates, but even LO showed how hades and zeus (and now hera) are the ones in power who are a"blurring the lines" and yet its ok in hades and hera's cases?? like IRL that would be a HR nightmare?? and can even be considered manipulative and even sexual harassment?? its so stupid.

[gunsatthaphan]

Bro i just talked about that topic with a friend and i find it so interesting as well cause in my male queer ships that arent from bl most of the fandom seems to be queer women.

Its very interesting to think about why bl is mostly women. A part may be that we are attracted to one or both characters but that tends to be the case with straight ships too i believe, hust now youre attracted to both.

I think it all comes to what female representation in media is like and who fenale characters are written by. I find it incredibly frustrating to keep watching tv shows that are led by the male gaze and only get frustrated when female characters are just an asset to make the male lead better or just are the romantic interest or the bad guy or sometimes in shows teenage characters with whom i could mostly never relate. I think bls are written or made by mostly women or queer people so its kind of refreshing to not only dont have to see a straight relationship and feel forced to relate to the girl/woman but also with seeing men being written in a way that is more appealing. Bl i think is kind of targetted to women and there is a side where some people may fetishize it or just be creepy about it but mostly its just a gay relationship in a tv show, its not that odd.

Also as a queer women i can tell you we are always looking for representation and bl is a big industry where you can find a lot of people who really try hard to show a good message and end the tabu around queer couples (and some who dont which we know but well). I would like that there were more gl things but i guess this shit works in a certain way, maybe in the future we will be able to improve more since in the last few years the bl industry has improved dramatically in its ways.

I really have been thinking about it and men just are so restricted in all aspects or life, that its so refreshing to see different kinds of ways men express themselves without them exploiting the idea of a woman that men create. Its refreshing to see the actors be more comfortable and create a safe space where they dont have to feel obligated to be always limiting and controlling their actions. I think its jut a good female space where women dont have to feel uncomfortable relating all the time to weird female characters and also seeing men in a different light (this last thing doesnt only happen in bl, if u see the kind of characters women love, at least in my case, are jake peralta or nick from new girl, not the male alpha sex symbol). Idk, theres a lot to say about this, i saw an article and took a few screenshots so ill try to leave them down here.

Also at the end of the day everyone watches what they watch. People shouldnt feel ashamed and i, for example, am a bisexual women so if it were that im attracted to both men and thats the only reason why i watch bl or gay ships then i should feel the same with straight couples...right?

Also watching gay or any queer couple isnt fetishizing or weird or embarrasing. Stop stigmatizing queer people and making it as if it were sooo different from watching straight people in tv shows. There are many issues in the bl industry but it also isnt a bad place. Actors are always embraced in the induatry and fans support them so much (idk too deep about some ships or fandoms, a lot is fanservice which is ok too, but for example offgun and their fandom which is amazing). Everything in the world has faults and bad spots but also...stop u guys lol

Ill drop the screenshot (which i just realized is in spanish so sorry if yall dont speak spanish but if u do here u go!!) and ill leave hahah sorry for the long ass text but i was just thinking about it.

hello there!

thank you very much for sharing your thoughts!

I don't want to make this too long; not because I don't want to answer but because you already made very good points. I don't think I need to add much 🙈

Also I don't know spanish so I can't read the screenshot but I very much agree with the last chapter of your text. The fetishization issue is still very relevant because sadly it still exists in big parts of the fandom but you're absolutely right about the stigmatizaton part!!

so thank you again!! ✌🏻

xxx

[neopuff]

hello, i hope you're having a good day!! i was wondering, do you have any tips for making amvs? like, what programmes you use, how you handle the timing, etc. thank you for all the fun edits you make!!

hi!! sorry for the delay in answering this, i just wanted to take the time to answer it thoroughly and i kept forgetting lol & thank you! i already typed this once and tumblr made it disappear so i apologize if anything i say comes out short ‘cause i’m just trying to remember all that i typed before lol

ok so ill just go through my general editing process in Vegas, i dont know any other program well enough to talk about it at length:

(disclaimer: this is just how i do it, i dont watch tutorials and my editing friends and i don’t watch each other edit often so i would assume that my way is very different from other ways you’ve probably seen! i might even do something in a very stupidly hard way, please feel free to tell me if theres an easier way to do anything lol)

1. Song: So skipping past the “choosing song and ship/character/show” theme, I’ll dive straight into CUTTING THE SONG! I’m not about that Editing The Entire Song life, and neither is most of the editing community anymore, so I cut it up into a shorter thing that I’m better equipped to edit to. I’m just using a random example but here I’ve taken this long ass song and turned it into this:

(the next step just kind of depends on my mood, or ill do both, doesnt matter)

2-A. Subclips: if im making a shorter video or a video where i’m not 100% super familiar with the footage, i will immediately start making subclips using the episodes ive already pulled into the project. if it’s a ship/character that i’ve edited before, i’ll just go to Import->Media from Project and import the subclips i made previously. either way, subclips are there! 

2-B. Sheets: for ships that i know very well/have a lot of footage/im concerned about potentially repeating something, i will go to Google Sheets/Excel and take the lyrics im editing to and put them in column A, separating by pauses in the singing. then i put corresponding footage i think will go well in column B! im often not super specific because i know the beats are gonna be different than i remember, so i usually stick to referencing whole scenes instead of specifics moments. here’s an example:

3. Clip placement: Then I start placing clips down! Below is how I organize my timeline tho I know a lot of editors who put the music on top, this is just how I like it. I also keep a single muted audio layer in between for the video footage’s audio and then I’ll delete that layer when I’m done (or sometimes I don’t, it doesn’t really matter)

I think it’s good to hit the beats as much as possible, it makes for a more dynamic audio-visual experience! In general I try to make my videos so that, if I didn’t add any zooms or typography or coloring, it would still be a good amv. And don’t limit yourself to just one layer, you can have as many layers as you’d like and put clips on top of each other (cookie cutter/changing the layer to dodge or add or screen or whatever) is a good way to mix things up

when I zoom in you can see I’ve got some variety already in my transitions, I know I use that motion-blur-zoom a lot these days but I still try to mix it up and keep my brain invested

4. Typography: After all the clips have been placed (or most of the clips, ofc sometimes I’ll want to add more later) I move on to typography! I’m lazy so the first thing I’ll do it just put down unedited text where I think I’ll want it to go. It just helps me organize myself. Then I’ll pretty up the text afterwards.

Typography isn’t necessary for a good AMV, but really nice typography can really spruce things up. I’ve only very recently gotten confident in my text editing skills, and I just kept watching typography done by editors I really like until I figured out what they were doing. My recommendation is to just KEEP ADDING EFFECTS! Convolution kernel, gaussian blur, mask the text so it appears from angles that the transitions wouldn’t be able to do - of course there’s gotta be a limit for taste, but just add stuff until you like how it looks. Also changing the blending style of the text layer is good, dodge and difference are my go-tos for typography layers.

5. Transitions: I don’t go crazy with transitions, but it’s fun to mess around with them. You don’t want too many crazy/different transitions, you want them to match the mood of the song and the type of beat you’re hitting. I usually ensure that all similar beats in the song have the same transition type on them, bbbbbbut that’s cuz I’m overly obsessed with parallel structure. There’s plenty of fantastic AMVs where they just go ham and do whatever types of transitions they want to in each part of the song and they make it work just fine

(next step, once again, kind of depends on my mood lol)

6-A. Zooms: Time for zooms! I usually just use the pan/crop for zooming, but often I’ll incorporate Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves or NewBlue AutoPan, especially if I’m trying to zoom typography with the footage at the same rate. I try to keep my zooms short and slower, I mean obv it just depends on the song but yeah. There’s a lot of different ways to do zooms so I recommend experimenting and just playing around with different effects

6-B. Zooms...but different: Another way that I’ll do zooms which is definitely pretty different (but this is what I do for crossovers like 95% of the time because I am laaaaaaaaaaazy) is I’ll drag the project into a new project timeline and start editing it there. It’s similar to how After Effects works and it makes it easier to put effects overtop of multiple layers without having to pre-render anything.

So you can see I’ve just pulled in the .VEG file and popped it in the timeline! So this way I can add zooms and transitions without worrying about layers. And if I see a mistake I need to fix, I can just go back into the original .VEG file and edit it, and it’ll be edited when I come back here. So it’s much easier than pre-rendering or trying to do zooms on a lot of layers. To be clear tho, this doesn’t work well if you have a lot of fade transitions, it’s best for sharp transitions and it’s great when you’re using Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves a lot.

7. Overlays: After that I’ll add more typography (or if you didn’t add any earlier, you can add some here overtop of the new project file) that kind of goes on top of everything. And then I’ll add any overlays or objects or whatever else I wanna add! I’m not someone who uses a lot of backgrounds cuz I don’t have a background-creative-brain so I stick to simple overlays at the most.

8. Coloring!!! This is very sad but I only JUST learned a few weeks ago that you can add coloring/effects to your entire video with this button here, so in case anyone else hates watching tutorials as much as I do here’s where I’m talking about:

This shit would’ve made my life so much easier throughout the years lol But alas. Anyway so for coloring there are some effects that are popular for any colorings you’ll find on YT (but you can certainly just download some, Riverdale editors in particular share a lot of really great colorings but you’ll find them anywhere in the live action editing community):

Channel Blend, Color Curves, Color Blend, Color Balance, Convolution Kernel (best for live action footage or footage that isnt very crisp), Color Corrector Secondary

These are all just fun to mess with. Channel Blend in particular is something of a mystery for me, I haven’t studied it fully to understand what I’m doing so I mostly just mess with it randomly until I like what I see lol

9. Render time! First render, anyway. Usually there’ll be some random problem in the footage or something and I’ll have to either go back into the project and fix it OR if I’m feeling particularly sour (or maybe if I’ve rendered like 3-4 times already) I will just take the finished render and manually remove any errors, stretching out the good footage to cover my tracks. You’d be surprised how often I end up doing that lol

And then it’s good to post! I primarily render as .WMV but I also go for .MP4s every once in a while. If I want to upload it to Twitter I’ll do an .MP4 but it’s a new thing for me so I’m still stuck on .WMV mostly.

Anyway I hope this answered your question at least a little bit, I can go into more detail about certain parts of this if you’d like!

[19possums-blog]

On tianshan relationship and their fandom, i guess ?

hello there @nightfayre !! Im the 5asks anon lol (the one abt the last chapter of tianshan). I wanted to thank you for your answer and continue to rant in your askbox but i figured it was so long that mb it would crash ur box lmao, so I... kind of created a blog..... hm. well theres no bad reasons to create an account is there lol ?? (also is there no way to send a long ask ?? why is it so limited :(( )

So once again thank you for anwser, and what an answer ! You raised many points i didnt think about and that was very interesting. I knew i would be glad to hear your thoughts ! the rest under a read more coz i think its going to be looong lol

(( To do a sort of disclaimer : I despise fandom discourse and im more of the mentality “let ppl enjoy what they want as long as it dont hurt real life ppl”, and “dont like dont interact”. So everything im going to say is not an attack against anyone, but just a way of prolonging a manhwa that i like. Most of all, i want to emphasize that at the end of the day, its just a manhwa : it doesnt justify being mean or aggressive towards other real life ppl. If you find yourself raging while reading fandom wank, just stop reading, block, and go outside a little. My way of enjoying the manhwa is to be analytical, to criticize (positively and negatively) and to look at the material source as well as the fandom in itself ; if its (understandably lol) not your definition of fun, this post may not be for you !))

Ur totally right in saying that the hardest thing is separate morality, reality and fiction. I hope my asks didn't come across as a 'u shouldnt like tianshan bc its not morally good'. There is a lot of puritan push back on tumblr lately, and im totally against it. Everyone is free to like/ship what they want ; reading only ‘morally good’ literature wont prevent you to become a nasty person - i would argue itd be the exact opposite, as your spirit wont be trained to think critically or to evaluate a situation (and every situations is always grey) by your own means. Also, its important to separate fantasies/what you like to read and who you are/what you do. To be embarrassingly honest, and like many people, one of my sexual fantasy is rape ; but in my real life, im in a queer anarchist collective that actively fights against rape culture and defends rape victims. That is why i dont have a problem with SheLI/Mo shippers (or even HeCheng/SheLi shippers) even if its not my cup of tea, but i would have a problem if in real life (irl) ppl would say to irl Mo that irl SL is good for him (or if they wouldnt find it wrong that a irl 30yo Cheng is involved wt an irl 15yo Li). I digress.

But then again this confusion about fiction/reality/morality is at the core of the tianshan fandom -and many fandoms. I dont know about you, but i grossly see 3 types of ‘trends’ depending on how ppl interact with the source material  :

1.The ones who think you cant like something while being critical of it. I love 19 days but I think there are flaws in it, beyond tianshan dynamic (like how OX handles the transition between funny and dramatic moments –I think its badly done). It doesn’t mean I personally hate OX and wish harm to their family oc. Worse than this, the ones who, because they dont like certain things in 19 days, feel free to harass OX on their social media.  Here its a confusion between fiction and reality and a lack of critical thinking.

2. the ones that loves Tianshan because they think it fits the trope “Dark, handsome, tortured violent boy who is violent towards fragile, sweet, pure cute boy because he loves him” and the typically associated trope “the pure boy will change the violent boy by the pureness of his heart”. Aka the most common yaoi trope. Again, if it pleases people to see Tianshan like this, good for them and i hope they have a nice time reading 19 days. Lets face it, I love really bad yaoi and books. Its just not how i see tianshan at all, but to each their own. I just have a problem when these ppl insist that its an ok behavior to have in real life and say things like “possessiveness is a proof of love” uncritically (hint : it isnt). For me, its the difference between enjoying fast food (thats okay), and wanting to force everyone to eat fast food and to find it pleasurable (not okay).

3. the ones that think what you like in literature defines who you are, and so in order to be a “good person” you have to only like “morally good litterature” -there are the ones I personally find the more interesting bc they can ask good questions. But alas, in most cases its just puritanism badly disguised and currently they are in all fandoms. Lets not delve into the issue of this statement : what is ‘morally good’ ? who are in the authority to proclaim what is good ? how can you recognize what is ‘morally good’ if you dont see what is ‘morally not good’ ? is it literature’s responsibility to educate its audience ? do literature have to point out “watch out audience what just happened is not okay” as if we were brainless children ? whats more important : what you like reading or what you do irl ? .... Okay i totally delve into this lmao. Here its a confusion between fiction and morality and a rejection of critical thinking : we could say its like when the Catholics prohibited women from reading bc it would pervert them and think of the children).

Returning to the specifics of what we've been talking about  : so in this last case, you (generic ‘you’) think that you are a good person ; so you have to read morally good literature. So in this case, fandom isnt just a harmless hobby, but a proof of how you are morally good, imagine the stakes ! But alas, you happen to like 19 days and most specifically tianshan. You said (@nightfayre​ ) that you judge Tianshan unhealthy as they are now, and i wholeheartedly agree with you, so im not going to discuss why since you already explained it so well. So, what happens when you like a morally not good ship, but you think liking morally dubious things makes you a bad person ? You bent over backwards to explain that, in fact, this ship is morally good, to protect your integrity. And thats why, in 19days fandom since the last chapter (and its the same thing with every chapter where flaws of HT are revealed!), there are many posts going around “hm, in fact, what He Tian did is good ! i know it can seems like hes a violent asshole who dont respect MGS because he punches him, threatens him, and dont listen to him, but hm.... in fact its because he’s nice...” and then they do mental gymnastics to justify what is, obviously, not morally justifiable. And i find its a pity because, my guy, my buddy, nobody is going to throw you tomatoes if you like a morally dubious character, and also bc nothin is morally good ! everybody does what they think is the best in ‘problematic situations’ ! and thats what make life interesting ! and so, 19 days interesting ! The flaws of HT (and MGS) are what drawn ppl to his character, bc it makes him real, its makes him contradictory, we can project ourselves in him, and we can see a complicated character with awesome latent potential. And yes, treating someone like a territory bc you care about them is a flaw lol. (on this subject : i saw ppl saying that its protectiveness and not possession : if you protect someone like you would protect a territory, then its not a healthy protection. you deal with a human whose agency you must respect, contrary to a territory).

MGS and HT are the product of what happen to them in their early childhood and then their adolescence. Like you said, they grow up in a violent, twisted world, where being emotionally distant is the norm. I would even say that they are expected to conform to the standards of (toxic) masculinity : channel all your emotions into anger, caring is being weak and feminine, prove your worth by your physical strength, be in control in all ur relationship, etc. I would say thats why Mo is so hostile towards HT : HT challenges his masculinity, by seducing him (everyone know that the biggest fear of macho men like HT and Mo is being considered gay -_-) and being stronger than him. Lets face it, Mo has kind of a homophobic issue, like all the boys. Between JY who tells HT its disgusting being told hes handsome by a man (at the beginning of the manhwa, i hope by now he had grown out of it), or Mo who tells HT he isnt happy that a guy is on his bed or who desperately wants to prove his heterosexuality by saying he likes all cute girls to his baldy friend... HT is more nuanced, but at the end, when he ‘seduces’ Mo, its always predatory. He doesnt let himself being vulnerable and he aggressively touches Mo even without his consent. For me, its a way of proving his domination, not his interest (and when i say that, i dont mean that HT is not genuinely interested in Mo -just that his actions dont translate this). ZZX is the only one who seems to have a healthy relationship with his masculinity lol, but then hes the healthy one in all aspects (thats why i dont like his character and am not invested in zhanyi, even if irl i would love to be his friend).

With all that being said, oc HT wont know how to adequately express genuine concern and interest in Mo ! This sort of social interactions is not something you just know, its smth you learn. And in HT and Mo’s cases, nobody was there to teach them -we could even say that ppl in their life made them unlearn caring behaviors. So HT does what he does best : he fights and forces, and is surprised when Mo thinks (obviously) HT is evil. And also, like you said, Mo will never be (at least how he is now) a driving force in their relationships bc he will always run away from bonding with ppl. So here we are, HT being the only driving force in their relationship, the same HT who only knows violence. No wonder that their relationship is like this...

As it is, i feel like tianshan is kind of in an impasse right now. One or the other is going to have to evolve if we want to see their relationships changing. Either HT learns how to care without being violent (seems complicated if Mo doesnt challenges him, bc HT isnt going to realize this without feedback since its how he has always functioned), or, more likely, Mo is going to be honest with him and tell him that his behavior is hurting him. Though more probable, I dont see it happening anytime soon : for one, Mo isnt capable of seeing when he is hurting emotionally and what is hurting him ; and also, bc Mo doesnt know any other language than violence, not unlike HT. I think its smth most of the fandom ignore, how violence is smth that HT and MGS both have in common, and how if HT wasnt violent, MGS certainly wouldnt consider him at all.

Anw im excited to see where OX is going with all this ! Like you said, the forced kiss was pivotal to their relationship, so im kind of hoping it would be the same here ! I just hope they wont... do like usual and just put a funny chapter and ignore this latest development.....

OMG i wrote soo much and there is so much i still want to say.... i think im going to do a second post... sorry about the spam lmao

( @nightfayre : i dont know how this site works yet, is @ you alright ? will it show you my post in your notif or should i send an ask ?  bc i want you to see my answer, but i dont want you to feel pressurized to respond or interact or anything !! above all dont feel pressurized, i was sad last night when you wrote ‘im sorry to not answer more quicly’ bc you should answer at your own rhythm or not answer ! your blog is a hobby, not an obligation, so dont feel bad to not do more when yo already do much !! )

[normal-thoughts-official]

I think the shipping-being-the-most-important-part problem had always been there but I think it's bigger now because of the desire/possibility of "making it cannon", but I can't fully articulate the why

personally, im not entirely sure its bigger. i havent really felt a shift in the way fandom behaves regarding shipping x other forms of engagement, altho to be fair ive only been in fandom for around a decade so theres lots of stuff i didnt live through; so im probably not the best person to make that assessment

but i do understand what you mean when you say that, i think. over the last few years we've seen fandom have a LOT of impact over what happens in media (see: reylo shippers and the profound impact they had on the newest star wars trilogy's writing), which i believe is because now, with the social media age, it's possible to basically run constant unlimited test groups with your audience. like, it took a LOT of money to do that before, now all it takes is a bot or frankly even keeping up with the trending topics list. media can be a lot more personalized now and cater to the specific wants of the majority of the fandom, which makes it more profitable. so fandom has been having a way larger impact on it's source media than it used to, and that means it is possible to "make" your ship go canon

also, because consumers are getting used to everything being targeted towards such a specific audience that they feel like it was hand-made for them, they feel entitled to having their media experience cater to their wants, headcanons, ships, etc

plus, specifically in the world of slash fandom (lets be honest, femslash is still such a niche that femslash shippers don't really have the leverage to want to change the route of a story) the discussions of queerbaiting have been largely appropriated to cater to fandom's desires. and to be clear! im not saying that discussions about queerbaiting aren't important or are just something fandom made up to talk about ships. but i frequently see ppl in fandom accusing a show of queerbaiting just because a ship that was in no way hinted at, or that was even effectively FOUGHT AGAINST by the writers/narrative/crew (see: destiel) didnt go canon. and while i dont think we live in a world where media corporations care more about being cancelled on the internet for queerbaiting than making a profit, nor where queerbaiting is less profitable than making a queer ship canon, this appropriation of the discussion on queerbaiting by fandom has also made fans feel more entitled to their ships becoming canon, or to campaigning for their ships to become canon. again, supernatural fandom is a great example of this

i think this has made fandom more intense and has made issues such as ship wars and fandom infighting more prominent and present (because before you could just ignore the corner of the fandom you dont like, but now there is fear that their influence will make the story go somewhere you dont want it to), but im not sure it has made fandom's ship-centrism more intense. first, because that phenomenum did not HAVE to be limited to shipping - people could just as easily campaign for, say, a specific plot twist that they think would be interesting to happen. but they dont do that. the fact that fandom's influence over media has been almost exclusively limited to campaigning for ships to go canon is a result of fandom ship-centrism that was already there, not a cause for it or influence to steer it even further in that direction

second, because i genuinely can't remember a time when fandom didn't revolve around shipping. if you go read about fandom history, most of it consists of conflict that arises because of ship wars, or within a specific ship's fandom. seeing most fanfiction sites, they are even organized in such a way that you search by pairing, rather then, well, anything else. AO3 has made it possible to steer towards a different path because its tagging system is so detailed and thorough, but in most sites you can search for a specific fic, or a specific pairing within a fandom. and that's kind of it

and third, because media in general since at least the advent of the cinematic industry (which is older than fandom as we know it already) has always been romance-focused. even stories that aren't romances always have some sort of romance. i dont remember the last time i consumed any media that didnt have at least one romantic relationship. often, that relationship's development is completely detached from the rest of the story and serves no real narrative purpose

because like... we live in an amatonormative, patriarchal, capitalist society, and media it produces, by and large, is meant to sell the great ideal of having a monogamous romantic and sexual relationship, have kids, and perform your assigned role in the traditional nuclear family™. so of course media consumers are used to seeing media through the lens of a romantic relationship, because that is pretty much the one constant you can expect from any contemporary piece of media. and beyond media, romantic relationships are always being encouraged and, as of lately, used to sell products as well (think perfume ads that imply that using that perfume will make you more desirable). so people are encouraged to want and need romantic relationships, particularly unattainable ones, and that affects the way they do everything - including consuming media

also, a relationship's success often MEANS a character's success in modern narratives, so the desire to see a romantic relationship is tangled in the desire to see a particular character be "validated" and "win". this is particularly true for women, who are taught that their worth relies on their desirability and their romantic relationships, and therefore see a character's worth the same way. men are mostly taught to see the women they end up with as a trophy or a sign of success, so shipping itself is not as important because the relationship itself doesn't actually matter. but of course that's not a set in stone rule, just a tendency

so personally i believe that there's been some shifting in the way fandom communities organize themselves and in the conflicts they face, but i dont think that it has changed fandom's tendency to be ship-centric. but that's just my two cents of course and it's not like i study the subject

hope i dont sound dismissive of your opinion, im really just sharing what i think and hopefully it might help you articulate what you mean better? sorry for the long ass response didndidm

[samanthasroberts]

Alex Rodriguez is Major League Baseball’s last megastar, and that’s OK

David Lengel: A-Rods fame transcends baseball; plus, Prince Fielder retires, Gary Sheffield demands respect for Tim Tebow and the Mets manager Terry Collins is under fire

All the way to the bitter end, and it is bitter, the fans want A-Rod. On Tuesday night, with Alex Rodriguez bizarrely left out of the lineup by the Yankees manager, Joe Girardi, Boston Red Sox fans chanted his name at Fenway Park, letting Bombers brass know they made a mistake by sitting the slugger who is (for now) set to retire after one more big night in the Bronx, this coming Friday against Tampa Bay.

Can you blame the Yankees for sticking it to their man, even if he was, at least seemingly, provided with a graceful exit plan on Sunday? After all, were talking about player who tried to torch his employers, the league he played in and the union who helped guarantee most of his 10-year, $275m deal during a scorched-earth defense of his role in the Biogenesis PED scandal.

Except this shouldnt be about the Yankees settling scores, this is about pure entertainment. And with the clock running down on one of the most significant sporting careers this country has ever known, limiting the owner of 696 of the most controversial home runs in history to pinch-hit duty is the direct opposite of giving fans what they want.

Yes, they still want A-Rod, a player who cant hit like he used to, but can still light up talk radio switchboards for hours, rattle social media and fill countless pages with pixel after pixel. In an era where content is in demand like never before, A-Rod has been just that: walking, living, breathing, never-ending content. At the next Baseball Writers Association dinner, they should give A-Rod an award for enriching their lives with some of the most colorful, controversial and polarizing stories theyll ever scribble. He deserves it, because another A-Rod isnt going to walk into the sport anytime soon.

A-Rod is arguably, along with his ex-team-mate, Derek Jeter, the most recognizable name in modern baseball times, and not just to sports fans, to everybody. A-Rod has transcended the game in a way almost all ballplayers dont. In retirement, his place in mainstream gossip columns will continue, especially if he sticks with billionaire CEO and co-founder of 23andMe Anne Wojcicki, who was once married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin: know any other baseball players who have landed in Vanity Fair lately?

The NFL has their Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and until last season, Peyton Manning, while the NBA has their LeBron James and a host of strong second-tier stars. After A-Rod, baseball has nobody on or near that level of national, crossover stardom.

Think about all the game-changing talent that is around the league today: Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta, Jose Altuve, Kris Bryant: the list of standouts goes on for a very long time, but theres no one that moves the needle like A-Rod, who is known by 50% of all Americans six years or older according to Q-Scores. Bryce Harper, who did make a late-night appearance with Jimmy Fallon in May, and is by far the least vanilla young ballplayer around, is the next highest at 20% awareness.

Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) October 30, 2015

Had a blast on my first time on @fallontonight with @jimmyfallon. pic.twitter.com/Gi3HjYu3rR

Every circuit wants to market its stars, who are the one of the main reasons the Big Four leagues are the behemoths they are today. But in todays sports world, MLB operates well despite the fact that their players have lower national awareness than those from other major North American sports leagues.

The league may wish their national ratings for all-star games and the post-season were rising rather than falling, but in MLB today, all of that matters much less overall. Their digital service, 33% of which was just picked up by Disney, is valued at a staggering $3.5bn, while local television and radio perform well. Their biggest issue is finding a way to maintain the status quo when it comes to the billions of dollars in local revenues earned via cable bundling, where many fans who dont watch an inning of baseball have been subsidizing huge rights deals for years and years.

So really, the model of pushing stars to drive national awareness across Major League Baseball has more or less been on life support for many years, meaning that the days of grandiose ad campaigns, as rare as theyve been, probably went out with Jeter.

As for Rodriguez, well, based on ticket sales for Fridays game, which is being broadcast nationally on Fox, hes certain to go out with a bang, whether he swings and misses or hits yet another A-bomb. As always, A-Rod will make an impact, simply by showing up.

Video of the week

ICYMI: Manny Machado: three at bats, three home runs in three innings, single handedly wrecking the White Sox on a Sunday afternoon. Thats one heck of a third of a game for the Orioles slugger who is breaking out from his breakout seasons. Is he your MVP? He certainly deserves to be in the American League conversation.

Manny from Mercury.

Quote of the Week

Take your stupid baseball team and get out.

Documents obtained by AZCentral.com say thats what Maricopa County supervisor Andy Kunasek said to Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall during an April tirade. The county, which includes the city of Phoenix, has denied the D-Backs $65m in ballpark renovations in an ongoing dispute that could threaten Arizonas long-term future at Chase Field. Kunasek also told Hall to go back to fucking West Virginia.

Whos closer to victory: Donald Trump or the Cubs?

Well, you would like to think that in a week that Le Grande Orange alluded to a possible assassination threat to a would-be presidential-elect, that the Trumpster would be farther away from victory than ever before. However, we also know that Trump bounces back easier than one of those 25 rubber balls your kid makes you buy outside the pizza shop: the Dems should limit any embarrassing high-fives.

The Cubs? Well, whatever was eating at them in July, when they were, somewhat amazingly, just 12-16, is done and dusted. Chicago raced out to a 8-0 mark this month, and their July to August ERA dropped from 4.47 to 1.29, while their OPS popped by over 60 points during the same span. That makes the Cubbies easy winners this week.

How did the kids piss off Goose Gossage this week?

The St Louis Cardinals, down 4-0 on Monday night to the Cincinnati Reds, on the verge of a three-game losing streak, got yet another gift from God. After rallying from a 4-0 ninth inning deficit, Yadier Molina stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and brought the winning home run by any means necessary.

Yadier does it again.

Theres only one thing worse than a bases-loaded walk to end a ballgame a bases loaded hit by pitch. Molina didnt exactly run away from Ross Ohlendorfs offering, and so Goose may be thinking that is one bush league way to win. Then again, hes probably thinking what we most of us think when the Cardinals somehow find a way to rise from the dead, and thats not printable here.

Nine thoughts in order

1) Prince Fielder is retiring from baseball after a second neck surgery forced the Rangers DH to call it quits. Aside from the sad news that one of the games most prodigious sluggers is retiring, it now confirms that then Tigers president and general manager Dave Dombrowski made one heck of a deal when he shipped Fielder to Texas in exchange for Ian Kinsler. By the time Fielders deal runs out, he will have been paid $138m for 34 home runs and a .760 OPS over 289 games. The Tigers will have paid $62m for Kinsler up until 2018, which includes a $5m buyout of the final year of his deal, but doesnt count the $30m they kicked over to Texas to help pay Fielders deal. So for $92m total, Detroit have received an .794 OPS, in over 400 games and counting, with the second baseman currently enjoying his best season since 2008. Theres some relief for Texas however – its reported that some $36m of the remaining deal will be covered by insurance. Fielder retires with the same number of home runs as his father Cecil: 319.

2) Toronto Blue Jays starting center fielder Kevin Pillar is out with for at least two weeks with sprained thumb ligaments, and considering the way he routinely bounces around the Rogers Centre outfield walls and dives into its turf, its a real wonder how he wasnt injured sooner. Luckily, GM Ross Atkins, who is quietly patting his own back this week, has an everyday center fielder in Melvin Upton to replace him. Upton is enjoying something of a comeback season, but has been slow to get going in T Dot now hell get his chance to play every day and make that deal look even better.

3) Tim Tebow is going to try and play baseball, allegedly, and as usual, the media are tripping over themselves to cover whatever he does. Personally, I thought he deserved more of a chance in the NFL after guiding the Broncos to the playoffs in 2011, something a whopping 10,000 Denver fans agree with after signing a petition for his return. Baseball? Well, I was tempted to write that its never, ever, EVER going to happen. Then I saw this tweet from Gary Sheffield:

Gary Sheffield (@garysheffield) August 9, 2016

I spent time w @TimTebow in the cages recently, he’s a NATURAL. I absolutley believe in his ability to play in the bigs. Tim has IT #focused

If you read Sheffields recent piece in the Players Tribune, youd have to think twice about Tebow he demands that you do! So, as per Sheffs orders, Im keeping an open mind, for now.

4) On Tuesday some 15,000 Red Sox fans learned theyd be denied a David Ortiz bobblehead doll, just hours before their game with the Yankees.

Boston Red Sox (@RedSox) August 8, 2016

We’re back home tomorrow night and we’re going big with the #BigPapi bobblehead! Get yours: https://t.co/uQuufP0I67 pic.twitter.com/Y5CzCEb5g8

I thought the bobbleheads were an inaccurate portrayal of David, said Sam Kennedy said. To go further, I thought the facial features were racially insensitive. Sox brass later announced that fans in attendance would actually be eligible to receive a more politically correct doll with a significantly thicker neck once a new figurine is made.

5) Heres an admission: my fascination with Ichiro was such that I used to write emails about him to friends before every spring. Mostly they rambled on about certain stats on how he missed just 33 games over his first 11 seasons in Seattle, or that he would have almost definitely been MLBs all-time hit king had his career started off in North America.

The first Japanese player to play the field, Ichiro is without question one of the most intriguing players in the long history of the game, and his 3,000th hit is just the latest statistical wonder surrounding his game. Ironically, after all these years of racking up hit after hit, my fondest Ichiro memory remains his throwing out of Terrance Long in 2001.

Incredible Ichiro.

6) Last month Pete Rose sued John Dowd for a statutory rape allegation the criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor made last year. During a 13 July 2015 radio appearance, Dowd, who lead the 1989 investigation into Roses gambling, referenced Roses ex-associate, Michael Bertolini, who allegedly told him that he ran young girls for him down in spring training, ages 12 to 14. Rose said there was no truth to the statements, which took place before the MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred, elected to not take him off the sports ineligible list in December. Now Dowd is trying to have the case dismissed, a move Roses attorney, Martin Garbus calls a stall tactic. Like anything involving Rose, this latest saga is unlikely to end anytime soon.

7) Yasiel Puigs reputation in Dodgerland continues to spiral. This time the recently demoted Puig was seen drinking beer in a party bus with a bunch of young Triple-A Oklahoma players, some of which were under the legal drinking age, having as much fun as possible inside a vehicle parked in Iowa. Unfortunately for Puig, who is just 25, these completely normal acts, which included singing, profanity and inside jokes, he posted videos of the partying on social media and so now its a full-blown controversy. Management said theyd handle it internally, while Puig merchandise was removed from Dodger Stadium stores. A word of advice to Yasiel: the nail that sticks up will be hammered down.

8) Terry Collins is under more pressure than ever after a shaky week featuring what were, more or less, indefensible decisions. On Saturday, down a run in the ninth and two outs, he didnt pinch-run for the plodding Jay Bruce, who was then thrown out at home to end the game.

Jay Bruce might be faster than anybody on our team for all I know, said Collins. I know he is a good base runner.

Bruce is new to the team, but in the age of information, there is no excuse for Collins: he has to know his players.

Making matters worse, Collins didnt challenge the call at the plate.

Mets fans have been critical of several of Collins moves this season, never mind the fact that he manages a would-be play-off team that hasnt won consecutive games since 7 July. However, few managers have had to deal with the injury issues hes faced over two seasons, and after taking New York to the World Series last season, hes probably safe for the rest of the season.

9) And finally, Clayton Kershaw is still finding ways to contribute in LA, despite being sidelined with back issues until at least 27 August. On Sunday, he led a dugout prank on Alex Wood.

LasMayores (@LasMayores) August 8, 2016

Clayton Kershaw jugandole una broma a Alex Wood. #LasMayores #MLB https://t.co/KK5eI5UkFc

A full video of Claytons stacking seeds on to the back of Wood, narrated to perfection by Vin Scully, can be found here. Rather incredibly, the Dodgers have gone 23-14 without their ace in the rotation, pulling even even with their NL West rivals, the San Francisco Giants, if only for a day. The Dodgers bullpen has played a large role in that success they have the lowest batting average against in innings seven through nine in baseball history according to SI a remarkable turnaround considering the fits LAs relief core caused their fan base over ensuing seasons.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/12/01/alex-rodriguez-is-major-league-baseballs-last-megastar-and-thats-ok/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/alex-rodriguez-is-major-league-baseballs-last-megastar-and-thats-ok/