#i think it was on twitter or reddit that i saw this pointed out? i go there sometimes when i run out of new posts abt fav characters on here

[yardsards]

someone pointed out that milsiril sniffs the top of kabru's head like parents of newborns do with their babies, and i haven't been able to stop thinking abt it

like. ma'am. that is a wholeass preteen.

[roscoehamiltons]

also while i'm on a tangent, i think ppl need to stop using twitter and the man who owns that site needs to be de-platformed 👍

[doubleddenden]

So the stories leaked from gen 4 development are certainly interesting, eh? I'm sure everyone has their own feelings about it- some of you are apparently ECSTATIC about fucking your Machokes. Good for you, my guy. Some are horrified, thinking something's been defiled (it is fiction and most importantly non canon, you're fine, get a grip).

Me? I think the lady (yes, it was a lady) that wrote all of these is REALLY PASSIONATE about her craft, and was also referencing real world mythos and how they portray similar instances- I think we all know that Zeus has probably done worse on all giving and receiving ends of these stories, as well as Poseidon, Loki, and probably some other myths from Europe, China, and definitely JAPAN- key word there. In fact, the Typhlosion story is probably a reference to a similar story about a badger yokai that can alter its face to appear human, and the Octillery story is definitely a reference to- well, tentacle porn is a thing for a reason that goes pretty far back as a way to get around censorship in hand painted porn. The contents of the story aren't really much different or more terrifying than mythos we'd see in the real world (or if you're in the bible belt like me, probably EXPOSED to with morning bible studies before class growing up), and it's mainly just shocking to see it in the context of Pokemon.

And I think that's kind of the point. Sinnoh is already a pretty dark region in terms of lore and myth, and has surprisingly religious undertones considering the family friendly nature of Pokemon and its general target audience. Obviously none of the horse, badger, sloth monkey, octopus, god, or... Lapras fucking made it to the final cut, although in Japan they still reference People and Pokemon being so equal at some point that they could marry- that's even kind of referenced in Legends Arceus with I think a diary written by a man kidnapped by a Froslass? its been a minute, but you probably know what I'm referencing.

I think an interesting question would be "How did we get to these terrifying stories?" Especially Typhlosion and Slakoth.

Its important to remember this: None of this was meant to see the light of day outside that office circa 2003 to 2004ish. Yeah, surprisingly you weren't supposed to see the story of a man fucking an Octillery BEFORE throwing it back out to sea in a rated E for everyone game, and you didn't! You saw it via twitter, reddit, 4chan, tumblr, discord, or your local weed guy who all spread it from someone who got it from confidential office logs we wouldn't see unless someone took that info from Game Freak's darkest depths of other secrets they'd prefer to keep hidden. Every game and media company has this, good and bad, to various degrees of sfw and not. Did you know Disney has an entire vault of actual PORN that animators would make of their own anthropomorphized characters? Locked nice and safely, too... with uh, some exceptions breaking containment, I think?

So with that being said, we understand this is meant to be privileged info only a handful of people were supposed to see. That means they can use words and stuff you normally wouldn't see- Adventure time for instance had Finn and Jake saying "fuck" in story boarding, kinda funny- because its meant to be workshopped and tinkered with, refined until you get something desirable.

In fact, creators will often propose darker ideas than what they actually want so that they can more easily talk censors into an outcome they ACTUALLY desire. Alex Hirsch did this a few times in Gravity Falls' production, and you know Disney was a bitch to deal with (although he probably didn't propose stuff like this, but you get the idea). So this being said- Obviously nobody wants a story about a Typhlosion engaging in a non-con relationship with a minor it kidnaps. Nobody wants to read a story about humans MUTILATING Slakoths for fun and then getting revenge impregnated by a Slaking, only to give birth to a Slakoth and have it killed and thus kill yourself out of grief for your lost child (people reading this without context- ho boy you guys have missed out on some crazy shit that's popped up). So what is okay from here?

Maybe a little Pokemon death after going a while without it and accruing a reputation of being safe for kids? Mention of Pokemon bones being picked clean of meat and put back into a river so it can come back reborn? Some darker undertones of Pokemon being tormented by Team Galactic? How about a story of a boy slaying Pokemon with a sword, but less detail of mutilation of Ursaring and Slakoth? All of this made it into Diamond and Pearl, didn't it? Add in a little Human and Pokemon "Marriage" that is easily scrubbed out and replaced with "eating at the same table" for the more sensitive Western audience, and you have some pretty believable, dark, somewhat uncomfortable but child friendly lore for Pokemon.

Not to mention, a lot of this was probably pitched just to get a feel of the vibe they were going for in the game. If you read back through the stories, bits and pieces end up being used in other, non Poke-fucking stories, or recontextualized. See the above.

While its certainly a relief that they're non canon, it is a rather interesting look at the development of gen 4 lore and actually makes it feel more... realistic, in a way- again, comparing it to real world mythos and religious tales. That, and honestly? The religious backstory is actually, unironically amazing- HEAVILY based on real world religion, but plenty of real world religions steal from other religions and mythos anyway (coughchristianitycough).

Its actually a bit sad, because in any other JRPG, Arceus becoming a wounded woman that an ordinary man cares for, Arceus falling in love with this man because he treated her so tenderly, bearing human twins, the twins becoming Dialga and Palkia to fight some Titan that would become Mt Coronet, and Arceus loving this man so much that she took his soul to create Azelf, Uxie, and Mesprit to spread love and joy throughout the world? That would literally be INSANELY GOOD world building. Plus! Arceus was a human woman when she did this! It was also consensual! Can you imagine what the world would have been like if we had gotten not only FEMALE Arceus- god of all Pokemon universes- but also a HUMAN INCARNATION of her? And this was BEFORE Giratina came into the picture, apparently. If anything, we got robbed a bit of some deep lore and potential story telling from this being cut, imo.

But one more thing to consider is this: All the stories, even if they did make it to the final cut, would still be stories within a story. Fictional folktales within a fictional setting. If we judge the above by how relevant the ACTUAL content that made it into the games were to the actual overarching plot... It'd be overall kinda useless beyond some flavor text. That's kind of the sad fact of it. Pokemon Players especially, grown adults too, are not exactly known to be well read and some play the game by rapidly A pressing every ounce of dialog they come across, even in brand new playthroughs. I'm sure some remember that one idiot on twitter that thought he made the discovery of the century when he found Snowpoint Temple in Legends Arceus, right? So understandably, especially when you're working on a clock, on limited space, on new and unfamiliar hardware, and trying to be as broad and reachable to audiences as you can- things get cut. Even... Some of the coolest lore building of all time SERIOUSLY A FUCKING PANTHEON WHAT THE HELL.

And I lied, there is one more thing to consider, especially for anyone actually morally offended by some of the content mentioned- Keep in mind that this is in 2003 to 2005ish Japan, with Game Freak (who we know are pretty out of touch in some regards, even by today's standards), before twitter, before tumblr, during a more edgy time for... well, everyone alive at the time, and especially adults. That's 20 years ago. Some of you may not have been alive at that point (did you finish your snacks and juice, lil guy?), some of you probably had a lot of your formative education influenced by the more puritanical side of tumblr or twitter, but it was simply a different time and place. That's it. The people involved in this have moved on and have probably grown into better people, and probably haven't made more fics like this. Maybe. Who knows. It's fiction anyway, and nobody real got hurt from it, and that's what's most important at the end of the day.

So that's my thoughts on it. I think I'm more annoyed by the fact that one of my favorites got a worse Vaporeon treatment than anything, and there's possibly the risk of Nintendo/TPC/Game Freak overreacting and gatekeeping Typhlosion out of the games for a bit. Sigh. My first pokemon, man. Well, anyway, try not to take it too seriously if you see the jokes and memes about it. It'll pass.

But hey, sexy Latina Skyla is canon! Shadow the Hedgehog wins!

[ventique18]

Let me start with saying i love your blog really really much, this is something that has been rent free on my mind since Diasomia's arc started, is Malleus' father a dragon fae? I read the translations of chap 7 and i don't think i saw it mentioned, they just stayed vague on what kind of fairy he was, many fans started saying he was not a dragon, if that would be the case doesn't that mean Malleus is an half-blood!? The dragon bloodline isn't pure!?

Meleanor rejected many dragon suitors to marry the person she loved, whoever he was, why not say if Levan was a dragon or not, this is stressing me out. Especially since i saw the Crowley's theory.

Hi thank you so much for this question! I actually also wanted to address this, as I've seen some people (particularly on Twst EN Twitter and Reddit fandoms) who believe that the "Malleus is half Long because Levan is a Long" theory is canon. It's actually just one of the common theories which are:

He is a Long prince/noble.

He is simply a Raven fae. This is also why many believe that Levan is Crowley as both ravens and crows are collectively karasu in Japanese.

Let me put on a disclaimer that I'm leaning more on the theory that Levan might not necessarily be Crowley, but he is indeed a Bird Fae-- because his name does sound like Raven in the Japanese language, and the fact that Malleus' Platinum Jacket portrait has both Maleficent and her loyal raven Diablo in it. You are correct that there was never an explicit reveal on what he was though.

~ A short explanation on the first theory ~

So how did the first theory come to be? Because his official title in Briar Kingdom is 竜眼公 lit. Dragon Eye Lord. Some people have taken this literally and assumed that it means Levan is a dragon; more specifically, a Long. That's because the 竜 in his title is a kanji character and Twst happened to exactly distinguish in the Endless Halloween event an Asian Long 竜 (in kanji alphabet), and a western dragon ドラゴン (in katakana alphabet). Malleus specifies that he is a ドラゴン.

Now while theorizing that Levan is a Long is somewhat valid, it's less likely. Because a) it's common practice in Japanese to use kanji in formal titles and unusual to use katakana which is why ドラゴン was not used, which means b) Levan's "Dragon Eye Lord" title is just to indicate that he is Meleanor's eyes, as Lilia described him in the same chapter. This is also what Diablo's role is in the original movie.

~ Commenting on the theory that Levan is a Bird Fae ~

This is the most likely logical theory at this point, and you're correct that this means Malleus is half a dragon, half a bird. However, it's looking more and more like the fae are going with Mendel's Law of Inheritance with the Draconias' genes as extremely dominant that all other genes mixed in become recessive. Which means that while they're technically not pure-blooded dragons, the dragon genes will always appear in full view anyway so they might as well be pure. This is probably why Lilia mentions that the Draconias are "descended from dragons" rather than simply dragons. They may have varying fae species packed in their blood, but the dragon genes just completely cover them like a wallpaper lol.

Thanks so much for asking this! It was a fun write!

[a0random0gal]

Okay fuck it I'm done.

Remember that little rant I had a while ago about Jaehaera? And how she was just a little girl that deserved so much better?

Well today I saw this

And now there's an even bigger rant incoming.

I'm just flabbergasted, I don't know what to say except are you really this petty?

This person on Twitter commissioned a wonderful portrait of Aegon III's family, which looks great, I really have nothing against the artist, he was just doing his job.

Buut, as that user says

"Note a certain Doll tossed aside on the left next to Aegon😏"

So yes, a team black stan was so mad at the mere suggestion that Daenaera would be cut from the ending of hotd that they commissioned a well known Asoiaf/f&b artist to draw Aegon's family with a little doll to remind us that Jaehaera is dead and thus no longer in the way.

I just have to say...

What is wrong with you? Seriously, I admit I've spent some money on hotd/asoiaf related things out of passion for the story, but I've never gotten to the point of commissioning art to spite people in the fandom that have an opinion I don't agree with.

Also, alright, you don't like the greens, that's fine! We all have our own tastes. But this? It's just sick. Wanting a fictional, traumatized 10 year old girl to be dead so badly you pay people to remind everyone that she's gone is on another level. Cause I firmly believe this was drawn only for that reason,not to actually show a wholesome family portrait.

I'm so done with these people. Do they ever go outside of their mom's basements? Have they ever touched grass? I don't think so, otherwise they'd spend their money for better things than celebrating a child's death.

This is the kind of team black person who will happily watch blood and Cheese happen and cheer when Jaehaeys is decapitated.

The sheer toxicity of this fandom is unbelievable. I genuinely haven't seen this amount of pettyness since the days before the aot ending.

Get a life, seriously.

P.s

I got this image from the r/hotdgreens sub on Reddit.

[dnfnoodles]

what exactly happened with John swan. I remember the name but not anything that happened with him 😭

oh god get ready for some lore. So basically it all started with John Swan making some video I think minecraft related? (never saw it though idk if it’s even there or if it’s lost media) and he got Dream to be a part of it. So they had each other on discord. John used the fact to convince some other small youtuber guy he can get Dream to dm him. Then he and his friend used it to troll that guy. The troll included some weird shit like the fake Dream saying the n word and stuff. Then John Swan made some neg comment about Dream somewhere and it got posted on reddit and Dream responded saying this

John went to cry about it on twitter how Dream is slandering him and ruining his credibility blah blah blah and explained himself that the fake discord was actually his cousin or something like that. Obviously Dream wasn’t buying that bs but the whole internet was and was after Dream. Dream made his detective dream stream pointing out why the story doesn’t make sense. The story ended with Nicholas De orio who used to be Johns friend and was at his side at the beginning and after Dream, recording their discord call where he confronted John saying he knows he is lying after talking more with Dream and John at some point admits to it all and Nicholas posted that to twitter and Johns career died

[baphometsss]

solas is canonically bi and i will die on this fucking hill.

trick talking shit about it on twitter in 2015 or whatever means nothing to me. oh you wanted to avoid the depraved bisexual trope, did you?? you mean depraved bisexuals like iron bull who will literally betray and try to kill you in trespasser if you sacrifice the chargers? depraved bisexual zevran who tries to kill you and will try again if your approval isn't high enough in dao? depraved bisexual anders who commits an entire act of terrorism? depraved bisexual isabela who will run off with the qunari artefact in da2 and never return if your approval isn't high enough?? i could go on and those are just the depraved bisexuals. there are plenty of good, non-depraved bisexuals in this game too (leliana, josephine, fenris kinda depending on how you play it), so it's a moot point anyway

esp since as far as depravity actually goes, he's fairly good about the romance. like, his ultimate goal aside, he makes a point of saying in trespasser that he wouldn't sleep with lavellan under false pretenses. that's more than can be said for blackwall, who doesn't think twice about the potential consent issue of sex with someone who doesn't know who you really are

if it wasn't the fact that a good chunk of solas's romance lines were voiced with the male VAs in both base game dai and trespasser, i would be inclined to believe that this was an intentional choice, but given that and the fact that both solas and cullen use gender neutral language in their romances, and only cullen has a line which specifically turns the inquisitor down for being a dude, i find it much more believable that they literally just ran out of time

iirc neither solas nor cullen were going to be romancable to begin with but then they had a bit of extra time and they decided to do it, only to run out of time before finishing the male VAs lines

honestly i'm just frustrated by the fact that we have inconsistent writing and weird cop-out answers that people cling to bc they're offended that their precious straight boy might not actually be straight. i actually saw someone complaining on reddit about how 'refreshing' it was to see a straight character in dragon age like?? what. are you playing the same game? blackwall, cassandra, cullen (who was meant to be bi too but ig had either the same issue or his va was just too much of a bigot to do it), morrigan and alistair all spring to mind lol you're not short on straight people

in any case we can retcon our inky to be nonbinary, so unless they fuck it up by deciding that he's only into female elves and lock out all the nb solavellans who had to choose between male and female inky in dai, which is unlikely, it seems like it won't matter much.

just let me be gay with my silly egg man and i will be happy

[drop-dead-dropout]

Fuck's a pro shipper?

We've got a new one boys try not to scare em off /j

Okay but seriously, I'm more than happy to explain. I assume that if you're asking this question you're not aware of the proshipper vs antishipper, uh, "conflict", I guess. So, here is what both of those terms mean, to the best of my descriptive abilities:

Antishipper (often just "anti"): someone who vaguely believes that consuming problematic fiction (usually specifically problematic sexual fiction like lolicon or incest) is either a true reflection of them as a person or a corrupting force that will cause them to play out these desires in real life, onto real people. Basically, if you read age gap, you touch real kids in real life or secretly want to.

Proshipper (sometimes "profic"): someone who does not believe the above, and believes that fiction is not the same as reality because it doesn't harm anyone and therefore people should be left alone as long as you have no reason to believe that they would ever do something like that irl. Often hand in hand with things like anti censorship, kink positive, etc, though being a proshipper does not necessarily mean you have a problematic ship or kink yourself (example: me).

You're probably asking this question because you saw me day in my bio that I am a proshipper. I've tried to stay neutral in this initial description, but obviously I probably didn't manage to be completely unbiased considering that I believe myself to be right (most people do) so if you want to ask further questions after this that's perfectly fine. That being said:

Why am I a proshipper?

So, to understand this, let's first look over the issues within both communities— every group has issues, after all.

What problems do proshippers have?:

- sometimes 4chan assholes co-opt the label "proshipper" just because they're lolicons, even though there's good evidence to suggest that they would do or even have done criminal sexual acts in real life, or that they possess actual csam (child sexual abuse material, a term being used in favor of "cp" these days as porn implies consent). Proshipping has nothing to do with the harmful idea that you should be allowed to exploit and abuse real children.

- there are still many gray areas which proshippers themselves don't agree on. For example: I've seen a bunch of arguments about if writing fanfiction of live action shows or movies changes the equation. The general consensus of proshippers is that writing fanfiction of a character played by a child actor is definitely a more delicate situation and should not be sexual as it's inextricably tied to the image of a real child, but there are others who believe differently.

- I'm genuinely struggling to come up with more of these. Um, sometimes lolicons are really shitty people, like in point 1. This isn't SUPER relevant though cause in reality the overlap between predominantly queer or female proshippers and Reddit incels who just wanna jerk off to a petite anime girl is pretty small, though I'm sure it exists somewhere .

Now, what problems do antis have? (Fair warning, this is gonna sound even more "biased" but I hope my logic is still sound from the outside :p):

- I don't have any statistics on this (haven't exactly been many research papers on fandom drama), so you're going to have to trust me when I say that antis are absolutely NOTORIOUS for extreme harassment campaigns. The first time I was exposed to the word "antishipper", it was attached to a story of a former animator committing suicide because antis had gotten them fired by "exposing" their porn alt on Twitter and they could no longer afford medication for their disability. So, hell of an intro!

- their opinions are, in pretty basic ways, not backed by science or even practical common sense. The human brain can distinguish between fiction and reality after around age four or five

and people certainly aren't trying to hand nsfw content to children that age so I think it's safe to say that the people who are reading these things won't be "confused" by them or whatever. Also, even just using your brain and talking to these people, you find out most of them project onto the YOUNGER character.

- they claim to support victims but often simply don't. I won't keep dragging threats into the spotlight because I know there are probably antis who aren't as violent, but it's honestly astonishing to me how often they jump straight to wishing death and terrible things on people, and this has included more than once telling a rape victim they hope they get assaulted again just because they're a proshipper. See, a lot of these "taboo" sexual fantasies like age gap and incest actually themselves stem from a traumatic experience, and any therapist will tell you that fiction is a much healthier way to explore intrusive thoughts and urges than more dangerous coping mechanisms like self harm or substance abuse. And when confronted with this, in my experience and many others', antis will simply ignore that fact or say that the therapist is some sort of evil enabler.

-the general cognitive dissonance of believing an incest fanfiction will make you "forget" that incest is bad vs being fine with horror movies and slashers speaks to a deeper and honestly kind of worrying anti-sex mindset. I'm not sure I'm qualified to tackle this particular topic, but I definitely agree that it's a thing; after all, I have no idea how else those two things could coexist.

Anyways, I'd like to close this off by saying not everyone is as crazy opinionated as I am, I'm just autistic and like talking lol. A lot of people who id as proshippers just have a sort of minding their own business, ship-and-let-ship mentality, and a lot of antis are unfortunately just teenagers who were told proshipper = evil pedophile groomer and thus they put "proship dni" in their bios just cause they don't know and don't really care what it means. It is undeniable that many antis are kids themselves, and that does worry me, because fandom drama (especially Twitter fandom drama) is dangerous and vitriolic and also they're putting extremely serious threats on their digital footprints at the tender age of 14! But whatever, I'm not their parents, that's just my worry. Sorry for rambling this long lol, I wouldn't blame you if you dropped out halfway through but this is basically my summary of this whole thing. Do with this knowledge what you will! Or, you know, don't! I'm not a cop!

[butwhatifidothis]

Harassment is horrible, it's terrible mods in this Discord aren't doing anything.

But on the other hand, what about you? You harassed a person over *fanfiction* ( to the point it's the 4th tag who shows up on your blog ). Yet, all your harassment is still there out of the open. You haven't really seriously apologized, especially to them. You're still quite active on fe3h discourse while he had to remove himself from many public online space.

How is this fair?

You're rightfully upset about harassment towards members of your community, there should be *serious* amends made... But how can you hold double standards like that?

I haven't followed the discourse closely because it's so awful, why are you all so hateful? Because you just seems like one of the "bad guy" in this story along with Raxis and the other. I'm not saying you're the same, but you're not really better than those you criticize either, and the same apply for the other blog who participed in your harassment... It's just horrible all around. You're all drowning in a cesspool of toxicity and it's making you all worst people than you actually are.

I hope you, and people around you, will at least receive amend over the harm caused to them. I hope you stop receiving troll, death threat and any other type of hate message you probably still receive. But I hope you'll sincerely recognize your faults and fully amend to them too.

Look, I know you probably mean some kind of well and that you likely spent a long time thinking over this message, so I'm going to lay it out as simply as I can:

I have never once interacted with Cap'n himself, and I have repeatedly told anyone reading my posts to do the same. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who went out of their way to make sure we saw what they were saying about us. This includes publicly admitting to using alts to go around our blocks of them so that they can keep interacting with us directly

Very quickly into critiquing Cap'n's work, a primary focus became pointing out the problematic rhetoric he was spreading with his incredibly influential, incredibly popular fanfic. This includes the justification of holding racist rhetoric, the anti-miscegenation rhetoric, the infantilization of women, the demonization of men, the justification of imperialism, and more, all which appear very quickly into the story and stay prominent throughout the story. The people who have harassed me and others, meanwhile, either deny this rhetoric exists in their circles or outright hold this rhetoric themselves. This includes the use and defense of genocide apologetics.

This post is the first time I have talked about Cap'n in over a year, and the last time I posted any notes on his fic was over a year and a half ago. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have engaged in harassing behaviors as recently as this week (as of Aug 18 2024).

It has been explicitly said by those close to Cap'n that my notes, while upsetting him, had no part in him leaning away from social media more, unlike what you say here. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have driven off multiple people from social media and have openly patted themselves on the back for doing so, justifying their harassment by saying the people they've harassed off social media deserved it.

I have kept my critiques strictly on this Tumblr, as have most of the people who have talked about Cap'n's fic. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have spread their harassment on places such as Twitter, Reddit, and TVTropes.

I have refrained from ever accusing Cap'n of ever holding any bigoted views himself, and have made it a repeated point to say that his problematic writing is far more likely due to ignorance of the subjects involved rather than outright malice. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have accused many of us as people of being sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. based off of nothing. This includes accusing at least one of us of actual crimes against actual people with no proof and on multiple sites such as the popular and public Edelgard Discord and on Reddit.

People who said they were in contact with Cap'n (as in, mods of the Discord server that Cap'n was once in, the same server that has the mod that uses genocide apologetics) have been told that I was willing to remove parts of my notes that he found too attacking or harsh, and they've been told that I would outright remove all of my posts regarding Cap'n period if he would talk to me directly and we could discuss the implications and rhetoric he had accidentally written into his story. While I do understand him not wanting to do the latter (as it involves directly talking to me), he hadn't even done the former (which does not involve directly talking to me and only involves relaying messages through his friends). And with all of the above on top of that, it gives me the impression that he feels less like "this person is harassing me and that is giving my anxiety" and more "this person is critiquing me and I don't like that." While he has every right to feel the latter, we aren't going to sit here and say that's the same as the former.

So, nonnie, to answer why I am "hateful," as you put it: I don't like stories that unironically say being two races mean you don't belong to either race being influential in a fandom, as a mixed-race woman. I don't like stories that have characters of color only be used as props for the author's favorite little white girl to be influential in fandom, as a person of color. I don't like stories saying that women just want to go back to being innocent pure little girls and not be the wilted tainted flowers they are now to be influential in a fandom, as a woman. I don't like stories that lay the blame of all the world's suffering on the shoulders of a race of people who've barely survived a genocide to be influential in a fandom, as a person with a modicum of knowledge on where that rhetoric inevitably leads to. I don't like stories saying that men who don't bow down to women will almost certainly become rapist pigs or otherwise terrorizing monsters to be influential in a fandom, as someone who rejects sexism of all forms. I don't like stories that liken the violent conquests of imperialism to the blooming of flowers, or that say that imperialism is the only way for the "good" culture to help everyone - actual, genuine rhetoric used to justify actual, genuine imperialism - to be influential in a fandom, as someone who has read any history book ever.

And I don't like how all of this and more have clearly been normalized in big 3H fandom circles and how this has led to multiple people getting harassed, in no small part due to Cap'n's influence on the fandom at large.

I'm sorry if Cap'n doesn't like me pointing out the bigotry he had engraved throughout his story, and I'm sorry if I'm not going to be convinced that me doing that is the same as people's deliberate and long-standing attempts to chase people out of the fandom for saying they don't like Edelgard in the one way they allow anyone to like her, and I'm sorry that me calling out the racism people are engaging in and are hiding behind the shield of "discourse" seems to bother you so much, but I think I've explained why I'm not exactly that sorry well enough. Hope this answers your question <3

[yardsards]

people love an "i'll take care of you" "it's rotten work" "not to me, not if it's you" character dynamic until the character who needs to be taken care of is disabled. then it's supposedly fucked up and toxic for a person to have to take care of someone else.

[heckyeahponyscans]

I've been puzzling over these Care Bear poseables on Taobao, which definitely aren't from the 80s because 80s Share Bear had a milkshake symbol, not lollipops. It's possible they're bootlegs, but the seller is a wholesaler (sells extra goods from various factories) so they could be legit.

Anyway, by happenstance I saw a picture of a Care Bears Water Babies doll from 2003:

And they came with a poseable figure! And Share-Bear-with-lollipops is pictured on the back of the box.

So with the year, brand name, and company, I figured I could easily google the information. It turns out, NO. It kind of shook me because information was definitely being compiled and tracked by collectors at the time. But probably on Angelfire and Geocities pages, which are now dead.

So now the information is . . . not totally lost, I guess, because the merchandise from that era still exists, but you have to stumble on it, like a lost artifact; it's not compiled anywhere. (That I know of. If you know of a Care Bears website with all the merch, point me to it!)

I think one of the issues is few people have personal websites anymore, but personal websites are the best way to catalogue information. Not Instagram, not Reddit, not Twitter, not even Tumblr, because they all encourage a constant flow of new information which supplants old information. Whereas to catalogue What Was you need the same information to remain static and findable year after year. (I know this is a difficulty people run into searching for comics on my blog.)

Just some reflections. Anyway, there was a Share Bear figure from this line, so maybe that is where she comes from. Naturally I ordered the Taobao one to find out! :)

[snowblack-charcoalwhite]

Despite the bad writing, it seems that Aemond was not received as negatively as many people thought. I have skimmed through different social networks: with reddit, except for subs dedicated to a part of fans (TB, TG), on mainsub and popular subs about TV series, people still receive Aemond quite positive, they like the character's extreme personality and enjoy it or they just think of him as a character they love to hate, like Cersei. On twitter and instagram, of course there are many hateful comments/posts considering that 90% of the fanbase is TB. However, there are also many viral posts about Aemond. As for tiktok, oh well, I think regardless of everything, with character design alone he will never lose. The press also had a lot of praise for Ewan, although less than the others possibly due to a lack of memorable scenes and limited screen time, but among the young actors Ewan still impressed critics. I think for Aemond, the charisma and "aura" as well as the acting that Ewan contributed really helped a lot with the viewer's reception of the character. In my opinion,the change in the fanbase or the fact that many fans turned their backs on Aemond did not much affect the way the public viewed him. That I think is good for Ewan and also shows that no matter how much the writer intentionally reduces his screentime and writes about him poorly, Aemond will still always make an impression on the viewer, even in the scene where he just stands and doesn't say anything.

Good day/night!

Right, I checked out some reactions as well (on Reddit and Youtube mostly) and based on what I saw my impression is pretty much the same as yours. GA has not been nearly as hard on Aemond as the fandom has been. Some people are shaking their heads at his words and actions but then immediately say something along the lines of "I think he is fantastic".

And IMO it could be explained by the combo of two factors:

1) The unkillable (thanks to Ewan's acting and the character design) vibes and presence - just what you pointed out. HBO really struck gold with the casting here: with someone less fascinating and charismatic they wouldn't have managed to fumble Aemond's character development like that and preserve the character's popularity among the viewers. Huge kudos to Ewan, honestly: he makes the absolute most of everything he's given by the script, no matter the quality or the quantity.

2) (a not so good one) The shallowness of the show where making the audience truly connect with the characters and care for them is concerned. People seem to be warming up to Aegon this season (not all of them but quite a few) - and still no one (of those I have watched reacting to Rook's Rest) was really angry at Aemond for trying to kill him (there was surprise but no anger). Many of the reactors were outraged by him klling Rhaenys though - but literally a week later they seemed to have moved on. So, it's quite understandable that while many TG fans (specifically those who are very passionate about Aegon or Alicent and focused on them) might have developed animosity towards Aemond - just as hardcore Rhaenys' stans, GA smply dgaf.

[preciadosbass]

28/7/14 [draft from yesterday]

woke up at 11:47 to my parents in my doorway. mum started putting stuff on my bed but i though it was just stuff of mine that id left around the house but it turned out she’d bought me some stuff which is really nice. she got me socks [because i only have one non-fluffy pair], slippers [because our dogs hair is everywhere and my pyjamas end up getting the hair all over the house, even after the place has been hoovered], and purple trainers [because beforehand i only had my converse + knee high converse, and they were both getting muddy and causing me blisters when i go on walks.] i feel extra bad about the argument we had last night now.

i was super tired and my eyes still felt like they were glued shut but i decided not to go back to sleep. i got a little anxious when i saw my ex bestfriend was sad so i sent him a message telling him that i’m here for him and stuff. i still care about him so much, even if we don’t talk anymore. i watched a mikey way complication and listened to a podcast with the way brothers on up until 1:20 when i had a nap [im lazy, i know]

i should mention, i had the weirdest dream. so excuse how bad this explanation is going to be. me and kellin [quinn] were both teens and we were at a restaurant. he had tacky plastic skates on and started doing backflips in them? and running on the spot and joking about being chased? it was such a strange dream to have, especially because i haven’t had one in ages. also, my dad was there for some reason lmaoo

i woke up at around 2 and stayed with boris until 3:20 before i had something to eat and started researching a few crime cases. id been thinking about reading a bit of my sylvia plath book but i got in another argument with my parents [not really with my dad] and practically went into sensory overload so i went in my room and scrolled through ed related things on reddit. although i just wanted to have a conversation with them.

my dad lets things go easier, but mum tends to start saying ‘maybe you’d be happy if i’m not here’ and stuff like that, which i have never and would never imply to her. it just makes me feel like shit, she acts like i’m not allowed to be mad. and i feel absolutely terrible writing this, especially because of the whole gift thing from earlier, and i know shes probably just stressed, and i love her, but nobody acknowledges that i am too. they never do, whatever i do seems to anger my mum. anyway, i spiralled writing this and i don’t wanna turn it into a complete vent post, so let’s carry on.

i carried on scrolling through reddit until like 8 where i went on a walk with all of my family [which we haven’t done in at least a year]. didn’t get off to a good start because the second i walked outside my sister dropped her phone on our rock driveway and smashed her phone to pieces.

she was arguing about paying for the damage up until we got to the park when she went back home with my dad. me and my mum carried on walking while we did would you rather because anything else was starting an argument. we ended up doing so right before we got home but at least i walked for an hour today, i wish it’d been more though. also at one point she asked me if i was questioning my gender like WHAT?? why didn’t i take the opportunity to tell her ffs.. when i got home i obviously said hi to boris and then scrolled on twitter for a bit.

one of my acquaintance’s [i call anyone my age that i know that, because i know people, but they’re not nice to me whatsoever, we don’t hang out, they bully me, i don’t consider them a friend etc] was being their usual self again. i try everything i can to politely escape them/avoid them but i just don’t know how. id feel bad cutting contact with no explanation but if i told them all the disgusting things they do they’d deny it. but i know i have to at some point, they’re such a bad person and i’m tired of putting up with them.

anyway, i feel like i seem like a bitch for not liking them, and the problem in every scenario i’ve written about today so let me know if anyone actually reads this and wants to know what makes her such a bad person. after seeing that i listened to some evanescence and i was just about to put on my fight club dvd i got from a bootsale a while ago when my dad said he was ready for me to ask questions about boris soon so i went up to their room.

we actually didn’t argue tonight because i was able to get on with it quite quickly so i did my teeth and said goodnight to boris around 3. he again started purring before id even started stroking him, he’s so precious. also went over my cals by like 60 today so that sucks

have a good day/night -_<

[ohmuqueen]

231031 levinchk instagram update Taemin ‘GUILTY’

So I want to talk about the various reactions I've seen to the people Taemin is interacting with in the MV trailer, MV teasers, and the MV itself.

I'm actually surprised that anyone would be stunned that this moment above in the MV is Taemin touching a man, not a woman. Everything leading up to the MV had Taemin being touched and surrounded by men (to my eyes, younger men or men around his age). As these tags by @jaythajujubae say, everyone Taemin is intimate with in the MV is male, while he mainly dances with women. (very bicon of him I agree)

And in this analysis on twitter (I shared the whole thread here) saying that Guilty is the prequel to Advice, op points out something very telling -

Here op is saying that in MV teaser #1, Taemin is looking at a younger version of himself, which is a view I saw others echo - that this person here is a younger Taemin, and that this scene reflects the innocence he had in his early years in the idol industry - the entire concept of Guilty is heavily focused on corruption of innocence.

But when I first saw MV teaser #1, I had these thoughts that I posted on 10/27:

The person who may be the object of Taemin’s affection in the MV teaser seems to present in a genderless way, and I feel like that’s purposeful… especially based on what we see in the trailer (everyone has short hair, 3 are dressed similarly to Taemin in the beginning shot when they’re playing in the water, and some are petite, making it difficult to say if they’re male or female)

Because to me, this person looks more female than male, and I believe a point is being made here (again I will link to this video about the sexualization and feminization of Taemin, detailing what he went through all through his career as an idol, including when he was a minor - what he did with Move was pivotal to how he perceived himself as an artist, reclaiming what others had tried to dictate for him):

After reflecting a little, and seeing how others took the younger person above as a young Taemin, the phrase "object of affection" lingered in my head. Whether this person represents young Taemin or someone Taemin cares for and later feels guilt about, the meaning is the same. Corruption of innocence. The character Taemin represents in this comeback is both someone who has been corrupted and someone who has ruined others. As we see in the MV trailer and also the MV, he is forced to shoot a gun at someone begging for mercy - from an authority completely indifferent to both their suffering.

Going back to the twitter thread about Guilty prefacing Advice, in MV teaser #1 Taemin could be looking back at a younger self surrounded by older men, whereas when he is forced to commit violence in the MV trailer, he is dressed as if he is younger than he is and surrounded by younger men. To me, the first scenario reflects a view of his younger self in the idol industry, and the second scenario reflects a view of his recent self during his military conscription.

Another speculation, what if the person he is being forced to shoot represents his younger self? We aren't shown that person's face on purpose. They are representative of a bigger concept - loss of innocence, and loss of that self who possessed such innocence. Just like the quote (the first line which is on Taemin's insta), from Hermann Hesse:

"The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”

And now theories of this quote being personified by Taemin in the MV (put out on twitter and reddit, which I shared here) have been proven true by the Guilty MV's director - 231030 Guilty MV director Byul Yun instagram update:

credit to @nso-csi for sharing this here!

So ultimately, I think Taemin choosing to be intimate, sometimes manhandled, by men in the MV is a choice that makes a profound point. The moment in the MV that's being shown in the first picture on this post, Taemin sings this line: "Give up, you’re trapped inside me". I believe in parts of this song, Taemin is speaking of himself. Parts of his identity that society used to deny him to express that he gives free reign to now, through this lens of exploring the border between what is provocative and what is disturbing.

I haven't even gone into more imagery the MV provides us plus the lyrics. But the opening scene itself gives a hint that this concept also touches on the idea of forbidden love, i.e. queer relationships.

These are the opening lines of the song:

Poison apple Spellbound, you wanna take a bite Hand outstretched In danger, sinking deeper

During the last line "in danger, sinking deeper", we get this shot:

If you look closely, I am almost sure the person on the left is the same person Taemin is focused on in the pillow fight scene in MV teaser #1. And the person on the right looks female. To me, that person on the left appears genderless, or nonbinary. Taemin himself has said he embraces a genderless expression in his art. Just like with Advice, I think with Guilty he is saying that he embraces an identity that goes against societal expectations for male idols (and male music artists in general). With Guilty I think he's also embracing a love that makes the audience feel guilty (something I also talked about in rambling not-really-an-essay here, after the second MV teaser photos came out).

How exactly Guilty links to queer relationships is a deeper conversation than I can manage (and this post is already very long), but I hope someone does, because I think the potential for such a connection is there.

I do not think Taemin is giving queerness itself negative connotations. I feel that he is drawing a parallel between queer love and a relationship with the (queer) self. I think a lot of concepts are coexisting in Guilty, and the fact that this comeback has resulted in so many theories and interpretations is proof of that.

This verse that Taemin named as his favorite in the song keeps standing out to me:

I want you to lose yourself That’s what’ll make our love easy Just doing things my own way The bigger the pain, the sweeter it remains

~

Edit (November 2, 2023):

I'm just gonna leave these here:

[idsfantasy]

Wtf are even the Talbert files? I saw a recent post of yours where someone said it was confirmed by Scott that it IS real, but ISN'T canon. So, which is it? More importantly, if it isn't canon, why are we bothering to talk about it, if it was changed to the Freddy files? It's like that one time where they changed the cover of the SB: Ruin edition files because they accidentally used concept art, and Scott knowing his fandom all too well, had to change it. He didn't want people to make theories around something that isn't currently relevant to the lore. It's concept art, after all. It's like what John Funnaff and Tom had theorized, about the animatronics being costumes at one point, using the concept art as evidence. While I have nothing against it, and these are legitimately good theories, I can't bring myself to really believe them because there's a reason it's concept art. The same stigma applies here. If it isn't canon, and a concept before the Freddy files, why make theories of something that was so ominously changed? There was a reason why they changed it. And while I don't have Reddit or Twitter, I think people need to chill out for a bit. Just saying.

So. As it turns out, according to the first two of Scott's Reddit comments today, that "confirmation" was fake, and according to the third, the supposed Freddy Files precursor was as well. And I have no idea why people are so up in arms about it other than some people vehemently saying Scott is lying about it being fake because they've seen proof of it being real, but also saying they won't show the proof.

Very much agreed that either way it does not deserve NEARLY the amount of attention it's getting given it's not canon either way, and people should take a breather lol

[subjectsmile]

Well, I saw this question posted on Reddit, and I really thought it was an interesting question.(Letting it be clear, I'm not doing this to convert anyone, much less to attack, but because I'm tired of reading so many lies just to hide an obvious prejudice on the part of the fan base,and for the Sonadow fan, do you have arguments to refute these fans who take your peace, just search, this post has everything you need to deny these false fan statements)

And I decided to read the reasons why people attacked Sonadow/fans and to the surprise of 0 people, these were the justifications for attacking those who like the ship (I'll just summarize it in sentences)

"They hate each other, they don't even like each other, it doesn't make sense"

"they are both enemies"

"The people who ship this have enemies-to-lovers fetishes"

"there is no chemistry, people ship characters who only fight"

I think it goes without saying that nowadays these excuses have already been killed and buried by their current canons, right? And from what I've seen, this post is at most 7 to 8 months old, that is... is it serious that there are still people who really believe these lies? Or are they just empty excuses for not admitting that prejudice is the real reason for the attacks on this fandom and this ship? Anyway, I'm posting this to clarify what's true and what's not, making it clear I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm just exposing the lies of uninformed fans

I responded to this person's post and made a point of gathering all the official evidence refuting these false excuses that the fandom gives to say such nonsense about the characters and attack the fandom:

They both don't have Chemical?: Sonic Prime is living proof that the two are incredible as a duo,the voice actors of Sonic and Shadow admitted that they think their ship is really cool (this on Twitter), Ian Flynn and whoever animates Sonic Prime They practically implied that they think it's a good ship too (in Ian's case he made a podcast on his YouTube Talking about how Sonadow would work as a couple during Pride Month, he practically confirmed that the two work well together in Cannon ) Of course, even after all this, depending on your personal taste, you might not like their chemistry, and that's okay, you don't have to, but saying that the two of them don't really resonate it's a lie

Do they both hate each other?: No! It has been denied several times, quite the opposite, if they care about each other it is canonical that they both care about each other

Enemies?: Also a lie! It exists in several products and interviews making it clear that they friends and allies! (Also a lie from an annoying or uninformed fan)

In other words, most of the excuses used to attack this ship have already been officially denied, for me all that remains is the prejudice of the fandom as a justification for attacking those who ship both.

And before someone annoying comes and says I'm lying, I have sources for what I'm talking about!

Proof that the two never hated each other, that is, they don't spread lies around, do some research first (Honorable mention for Sonic Prime, with this series I can dig into the argument that they two don't hate each other, go watch the series) but for those who aren't satisfied with Sonic Prime : https://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/special/sidestory/coverstory/20210628_002603/

https://twitter .com/LadyLoveMoon/status/1737503549842485703

https://x.com/LadyLoveMoon/status/1657854808273965056?s=20

https://youtu.be/yJ8boVrPHEc?si=bCBrhNnsV5C9JJeq

https://www.tumblr.com/pastelspindash/ 735274368949698560/trazendo isso de volta porque não posso parar de pensar? ?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/ratjamtime/730643439809593344?source=share

Scenes from Sonic prime showing Shadow's care for Sonic:

Wow, what a bloodthirsty rivalry the two have, can you see the hatred in both of them? I can:

Are they rivals? They are, but they are friendly rivals, that is VERY CLEAR IN YOUR FACE, even in the Shadow game One scene is enough to prove that "hate" is definitely not what they have:

The voice actors of the two make it clear that they think the ship is cool (they make jokes and interact with the community (they even like things on the ship): Sonic voice actor previews the first release: https://x.com/DevenOClock/status/1631062456205299712?s=20

Even Sonic's former voice actor (Ryan Drummond) doesn't see a problem with the ship: https://www.tumblr.com/pastelspindash/734454772064714752/this-tiktok-driving-me-insane-ngl-they-are-so?source=share

Shadow voice actor:

https://x.com/IanStuartHanlin/status/1723764525843828828?s=20

https://x.com/paracosmicence/status/1736125901211902396?s=20

https://www.tumblr.com/krysissy/736943763953516544/it-was-probably-a-normal-tuesday-for-mr-hanlin?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian/733807770348011520/oh-my-gosh-ian-stop-playing-with-our-emotions-rn?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/nesonkin/727469580436619264/good-evening-everyone?source=share

There is a statement from the two voice actors stating that they had fun dubbing the two of them together:

https://x.com/Drey_Blanc/status/1593535566288547840?s=20

Ian Flynn on Pride Month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH46JnEUvZw

https://x.com/LadyLoveMoon/status/1676027477682946050?s=20

(The ship is so terrible that it was honored twice because it was so bad) Bonus: https://x.com/nenemyun/status/1703775474089132132?s=20

Sonic prime animators (The ship they referenced is so horrible): https://x.com/MAM_Imaginary_F/status/1679646368485494786?s=20 https://x.com/Lunatyk__/status/1677445528378900480?s=20

The animators hated the two-two scene so much that they posted it on Instagram: https://www.tumblr.com/corffee/734658327775215616/shadow-originally-had-his-eyes-open-i-repeat?source=share

Even Netflix Latinoamérica got into the ship's hype and interacted with the ship's fans (just so you can see how horrible the ship is): https://www.tumblr.com/tailstism/725737231497773056/oh-btw-for-people-who-dont-use-tiktok-i-just?source=share

The ship is so toxic it's bad, that even Jason Griffith paid homage to the ship for a fan,wow what a terrible ship, my god!: https://www.tumblr.com/paracosmicessence/733796577422016512/this-absolute-legend?source=share https://x.com/LadyLoveMoon/status/1723715163436536043?s=20

Even the mascot got in on the fun once: https://www.tumblr.com/shadthemadlad/731770142653136896?source=share

Even Discord doesn't see a problem with that, who knew:

https://x.com/mouseygalore/status/1736922478323106214?s=20

Anyway, turning off sarcasm mode, just stop making up lies and false excuses to hate a ship and attack people who like it just because it's not what you like, don't be a bad fan and above all

(stop creating reasons that don't exist to hide your internal prejudice, let the fans enjoy their ships in peace,If even the big names I mentioned ships sonadow and have normal fun with the ship then why do fans have to be criticized for having this taste for ships too? let everyone be happy in their space )