#i would also accept Kale

[sexycornenthusiast]

Do you have any other Regina headcannons?

This was originally meant to be its own post but I would feel bad giving a non-answer to an ask twice in a row, so I present!

Regina George headcanons part 2

Because you guys liked the first one so much

Very selective about who she'll accept physical affection from.

Gets really into health food. She's got her little meticulously packed lunchbox with the little compartments which she fills with the most bizarre combination of vegetables you've ever seen.

(she tries to convince her friends that kale is good actually and they tolerate it bc "at least she's eating")

Hates being taken care of because it makes her feel helpless.

My number one red flag is that I think Regina would like kids. They amuse her. Their typical brand of blunt honesty speaks to her.

That being said she absolutely does NOT know how to interact with children. Catch her talking to a one year old like they're just a small adult because she's a freak.

Her bad relationship with her mother isn't entirely her fault

Regardless of whether I'm shipping them with other people I think she and Cady are close in every universe. Cady is the one person who has quite literally walked a mile in her shoes and she grows to really value that kind of deep understanding after a lifetime of performance.

The more nervous she is about something, the more dressed up she gets for it.

SEVERE perfectionist. Holds herself to an impossibly high standard.

(also tries to hold everyone else to this standard pre-bus. results vary)

Does not comprehend how anyone could love her without wanting to get something out of it. Interpersonal relationships are a series of transactions to her.

If someone told her they loved her, her immediate response would be "Why?".

[feyburner]

hello mr feyburner sir i really want to get into baking but i am scared to mess up and recipes terrify me. i only know one simple sponge cake recipe that my mom taught me anyway point is what were the things you wished you knew before you started baking? i know it’s a lot of trial and error but would you let us know what to start with and how to not get completely overwhelmed by the fact that i am not immediately good at it…

(Also if u have a sponge cake recipe of yours i would love it!!!)

1.

The first step to being less scared is accepting that you are going to mess up. In fact, the more you bake, the more you will mess up; you can’t fuck what you’re not doing. There is no avoiding it. Sometimes your fuckup will be fixable. Sometimes it won’t be fixable but you can still eat the end result. Sometimes it won’t be fixable and also the end result is garbage, and now you’ve wasted 3 hours and a bunch of ingredients, and it is the most frustrating thing in the world. That is just how it goes. I’ve been baking since I was a kid, baking very regularly (like, averaging 1-2x per week) for 5-6 years now, and I fuck up all the time. I fully expect to keep fucking up on a regular basis until the day I die.

What years of practice have given me is not the ability to never fuck up—it’s the ability to understand why I fucked up, what I did wrong, and how to hopefully not do it again.

One of the most common things out of my mouth is: “This is good, but I know what I’ll do differently next time.”

Next time I’ll shape the dough tighter. Next time I’ll let it rise longer. Next time I’ll check for doneness earlier. And so on.

2.

Taste is subjective. Everyone’s kitchen is different and everyone likes different things. Some people want thick, chewy chocolate chip cookies and some people want thin, crispy ones. Some people like a very tight crumb on their sourdough bread and others want air holes so big you can’t butter it. There’s no such thing as a perfect recipe because the point of food is the person eating it.

This is why it’s so rewarding to learn basic techniques and basic baking chemistry as you go. Once you get more comfortable in the kitchen, you can start going off-book. “This looks great but I think I’m gonna want a chewier texture. I’ll use half bread flour and mix the dough a bit longer to really activate the gluten.”

3.

Don’t just pick a random recipe. Especially in the age of 1 million recipe blogs. I always, always read at least 4-5 recipes for the thing I’m trying to make. I read the reviews. I compare and contrast them. If you’re looking at 5 recipes for chocolate chip cookies and only 1 says to add kale, there’s a good chance that’s not the one you want to start with. You can experiment with it later—maybe kale is the secret to the best cookies ever!—but typically you’ll want to start with the standard and deviate from there.

I often take notes on the 4-5 recipes, noting not just differences in ingredient ratios but in technique as well. A good recipe blog will explain to you WHY you’re doing something a certain way. If it doesn’t explain, look it up! Reddit r/baking and r/AskBaking are super helpful. Often someone’s random comment is the reason I learn something incredibly useful that can be applied to tons of recipes.

(I love King Arthur Baking and America’s Test Kitchen for learning technique—the ATK cookbooks are some of my most-referenced. Sally’s Baking Recipes never lets me down for good old American basics. Serious Eats is also very informative, though their recipes are often overly complicated or finicky.)

Often, I won’t simply pick one recipe—I’ll use a little of Recipe A, a little of Recipe B. I did this for a brownie recipe that ended up going viral on Reddit/Youtube which was pretty funny. I don’t necessarily recommend combining recipes when you’re first starting out, but keep it in mind as you go.

No recipe is set in stone. You can always adjust it to your tastes, to what works for you in your kitchen. Make it a little less sweet, a little sweeter, a little denser, a little lighter. Whatever you want. That’s what technique, and understanding how ingredients interact with each other, is about—like artists who learn realistic anatomy but paint in abstract.

4.

It can be hard to compare multiple very similar recipes. This recipe says to use 3 cups of flour and 1/2 cup butter and this recipe says 2 cups flour and 1 cup butter—but Recipe A makes 12 cookies and Recipe B makes 24 cookies. (Or, Recipe A uses volume measurements and Recipe B uses weight.) What does that mean? How do you draw a meaningful comparison?

Math!

Baker’s percentages are your best friend. They’re super easy. Just pick one ingredient to be your baseline—typically flour. That’s 100%. Then calculate the ratio of each ingredient to your flour ratio to easily compare different ingredient amounts.

For example, from my croissant recipe:

500g bread flour

10g kosher salt

150g milk + 100g water, room temp (70°; microwaved 10-15 seconds)

50g white sugar

10g honey

10g active dry yeast

30g (2 Tbsp) butter, softened

+

309g (remainder of 3 sticks after -30g; 62%) butter for lamination, softened, sliced 1” thick

BAKER’S PERCENTAGES:

100% bread flour

2% kosher salt

50% hydration (milk + water)

10% white sugar

2% honey

2% yeast

6% butter

45-62% butter for lamination

How to calculate:

500g flour is my baseline 100%.

What percentage of 500 is 50 (50g sugar)?

50/500 = 0.1 = 10%.

It doesn’t work as well for volume measurements. But many recipes include weight and volume—and you can always convert volume to weight using tools like King Arthur’s Ingredient Weight Chart.

5.

Finally, start with the basics and build. Don’t attempt making a Napoleon or macarons right out of the gate. Start with simple, beginner’s recipes, look up techniques as you go, watch lots of videos, always try to understand the why. Baking is chemistry but it’s also art. It’s whatever you want it to be. Mostly it’s about the house smelling like cinnamon rolls.

*

In summary, you’re going to fuck up and that’s okay. Baking is beautiful, and there’s nothing like the satisfaction of pulling something incredible out of the oven. You will learn and improve as you go, like anything else. You will eat lots of ugly cakes and pastries. But taste is what matters anyway.

Good luck in your baking adventures. Feel free to ask questions anytime. I love sharing what little knowledge I have.

I don’t have a sponge cake recipe but I do have these cake recipes. Let me know how your sponge cake turns out. You got this! 🍰

[beautiful-basque-country]

Hold on did I get this right from twitter. Are the far-right Spaniards now complaining about police brutality because they wanted to storm the Audiencia Nacional to opose the Catalan amnesty??

Kaixo anon!

They didn't go to the Audiencia Nacional, but to the PSOE headquarters in Madrid.

For context: although the elections were held in July, there still isn't a President of the Spanish Government. PP leader Feijóo failed to gather votes enough to become President in the Congress, so now PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez is trying. He has already some support, but will only be able to become President just if JPC (a Catalan party that was key in the failed referendum for independence of 2017) votes for him.

So JPC and PSOE are negotiating, and it seems like PSOE has accepted JPC demands: that Catalan politicians that were imprisoned and/or accused of the crime of treason are amnestied; and that the 15 billion euros debt Catalunya has with Spain is canceled.

So around 4,000 Fascists rallied to the headquarters to show their discomfort with these concessions to independentists - in their words, of course!! -, accusing Sánchez of traitor and basically asking for his head. The police has officially stated they identified 200 protesters with "an ultra aesthetic" which in their language means full on proud nazis with visible nazi symbols.

They showed flags straight out the 15th century, like this one of the Habsburg coat of arms:

Or even further back to the 13th century with the silhouette of Cid:

Some of them wore helmets imitating the conquistadors' [eskerrik asko @kinkyviolence !!]

They mocked the Catalans and the police brutality they recieved during the referendum process:

(Police officers from other regions of Spain arrived in Barcelona in cruise boats decorated with Tweety, hence the flag)

And most importantly: they started throwing down the barricades protecting the rally intinerary, throwing glass bottles to the police officers, and tried to storm in the headquarters of the party that has the most chances to be in power in Spain with ropes, sticks, and iron bars, so the police reacted as expected: whomps, rubber balls shots, and tear gas.

Of course since fascists have always had the police on their side, they started freaking out on social media describing it like total war, dictatorial repression, police brutality, unnecessary violence, etc. So, you know, when Basque or Catalan people recieve the same treatement or worse when rallying unarmed it's okay and expectable, but when it happens when they literally want to storm in a building with iron bars and ropes is dictatorial censorship.

Also on a sidenote, leftie people on social media are mocking them under the tag #CayeBorroka. It's a play on words with kale borroka (street fight in Basque) that was infamously popular in the 90s-00s in Hegoalde with subgroups linked or not to ETA that would vandalise or burn down buses, benches, automatic teller machines, etc as a protest against Spain's policies regarding EH or ETA; and the diminutive of official posh name Cayetano, that has become a noun itself to describe someone wealthy and far righter.

And I have mixed feelings regarding this tag. Because kale borroka was considered "low intensity terrorism", and people accused of it was judged under the anti-terrorism law, which could easily mean years in prison for burning down a dumpster; meanwhile these fascists not only won't get arrested, but they're already publicly urging people to go back and do the same tomorrow.

But as usual, there's one treatment for Basques and another one for anyone else, so it's not really something new, just that I don't like the CayeBorroka gag ngl.

[yumeka36]

Since I always do all the NPC questlines in Elden Ring, I decided to do the opposite for my recent journey 6 playthrough - I wanted to kill as many NPCs as possible, as soon as possible. I also wanted to avoid accepting Melina's accord for as long as possible.

Here are some of the notable things I discovered while doing this (probably someone has discovered these already but they were new to me!)

The first thing I did was go to Mistwood Ruins and kill Blaidd (I didn't know that he won't actually die, but will continue to be hostile towards you). Much to my disappointment, Kale's dialogue after this remained the same and he talked about Blaidd as normal

I continued along killing Godrick, Rennala, and Radahn all before accepting Melina's accord. I made frequent checks on Church of Elleh but Ranni never appeared. Blaidd was also absent from the Radahn festival, something I hadn't seen before

As expected, even after I got to Ranni's Rise, she wasn't there. Iji also wasn't at his spot

I killed Irina immediately and Hyetta never appeared in my game or at any of her spots. Edgar's dialogue was the same

Killing Miriel made me feel the worst! He has a ton of health and he makes an awful sound when he dies

Roderika and Rya have barriers around them which prevent you from killing them. Millicent as well but only when you initially meet her at the Church of the Plague

When I finally made it right outside Leyndell, it was sealed with the message that I don't have enough Great Runes even though I definitely had enough. I later found out that the seal will only break from this point after I talk to Enia in Roundtable Hold. And the only way to get there is to accept Melina's accord. So I finally did that

When I finally got to Roundtable Hold, Fia was surprisingly absent. This was probably because I killed D very early on. Diallos also never appeared at Roundtable Hold and I'm not sure why. However I did find and kill him at his next spot in Liurnia. Fia was also at her next spot in Deeproot Depths (her dialogue is the same)

Since I killed so many NPCs early on, Volcano Manor was totally empty - no Bernahl, no Diallos, no Patches

After the Radahn festival, Jerren never came back to Redmane. I'm guessing this is because I had killed Sellen at Witchbane Ruins early on

I didn't visit Latenna until way late in the game, after I got to Consecrated Snowfields. When I finally did go to her spot, she wasn't there

Even after accepting Melina's accord, Ranni never appeared at any point in the playthrough. I kept checking Church of Elleh and her rise but it remained the same no matter how much progress I continued to make (Iji also never showed up and Blaidd never moved from Mistwood Ruins). Because of this, I was unable to open the chest with Fingerslayer Blade or access the area beyond Astel

That's about it for all the interesting things I discovered from the "no friends" playthrough! However there are a couple of other things I want to confirm that I didn't get a chance to...

- I killed Coryhn as soon as I found him in Altus but I should have waited until he joined Gold Mask as I'm curious if anything different happens if you attack Gold Mask in front of him

-I'm curious if I had accepted Melina's accord right away, if attacking Blaidd in Mistwood would have made any difference in Ranni's quest. Would Blaidd have different dialogue when I talk to his phantom at Ranni's Rise?

[m00n-elixir]

finally got around to designing my hi-fi rush s/i :3 i need to draw them in the hi-fi rush style but I cant rnn mimimi im tired

so uh this is Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Mae (they/them)!! they're an android created by Macaron WAY back before Kale took over Vandelay, but once he was fired and forced to hide due to Zanzo replacing him, Bonnie was taken under the wing of Mimosa, who basically raised them to be Mimosa's secondhand, referred to as the marketing popstar "Rosé".

due to their insecurities with being a robot (and with robots basically being seen as nothing more than assistants and machines that serve humans), they forced themself to hide their robot traits and adapted a more "human" persona, which is basically just the same as Mimosa's.

Macaron originally designed them after his now-deceased wife with the same name, but the Bonnie Jr. now is most DEFINITELY not the same as the previous Bonnie.

oh yeah they kiss chai too

some additional trivia under the cut referring to their design, story, and other traits (might add more in the future):

After Macaron was fired from Vandelay, Bonnie taught themselves how to repair and fix themselves since Macaron always did it for them (even if he programmed them to need minimal repairs). This includes the older models (since they don't physically age due to being a robot), but they're probably ~25 (or at least in their 20s)

Their nickname, Bon-Bon, is a reference to the French word for "candy" and is a direct tie to Macaron, who is also named after a French candy. Their other name (or stage name) is Rosé, a reference to the French alcoholic drink, which is a direct tie to Mimosa, who is also named after an alcoholic drink. Additionally, French bonbons are typically filled with liqueur or other sweet alcoholic fillings.

As briefly mentioned on their ref, many of the pinks on their body, not including their clothes, can glow, but this is only when in a dark environment or when feeling intense emotions (like anger, happiness, or embarrassment).

Since they are heavily inspired by Chappell Roan and her style, Bonnie is also heavily inspired by the song "Good Luck, Babe!" by Roan (not exactly in the same way, but both their arc and the song focus on hiding the way you are, pretending to be something different, and being stuck in the cycle of denial about who you are (in the song, it's about comphet, but with Bonnie's story, it's more about them being a robot).

The use of pinks and blacks helps bring a contrast to their different personalities: pinks are used to symbolize innocence, acceptance, and tenderness, while blacks are used to symbolize discipline, intimidation, and strength. The use of black in the design symbolizes their attempts to hide the old Bonnie, who was a lot more naive and accepting, as well as showing how poorly they've been doing since Macaron was fired.

If I had to pick a voice claim for them for both talking and singing, I would say that they sound like Marceline the Vampire Queen from Adventure Time (voiced by Olivia Olson).

[zalrb]

You have posts about building up relationships, but they're all about tv shows. Are there ways to build up couples from strangers to stelena level love without the benefit of multiple episodes without the relationship feeling contrived - like rose and jack. If they weren't teenagers I'd be harder to accept their id die for you status even though we've only known each three days.

Oh, I have posts about movies too, they're just less popular.

Cecilia and Robbie in Atonement. When I read this ask, my mind automatically went to them but I felt like I should do a list since I have so many ships and sometimes I forget a few, not because I don’t ship them, but just because I have so many but I don’t know there’s something about Cecila and Robbie … it’s not just that I find their story beautifully tragic because there are a lot of beautifully tragic ships on this list, it’s McAvoy and Knightley together and as actors unto themselves, the way they hold the emotion of their characters and their relationship in their bodies

and the cinematography, the certain directorial choices that reinforce the romance

and romance and period of the film

like the fact that Cecilia was in the fountain

and so just to get close to her, just to feel something that’s touched her, Robbie puts his hand atop the water

and they gave us this scene!

It’s a beautiful film and they’re a beautiful ship.

or

OK well first of all, it’s beautifully shot with the soft blue lighting and it’s extremely sensual with the waves crashing in the background mingling with Chiron’s sighs, the close ups of the hands grabbing at the sand and then smoothing the palm over the sand,

and then there’s the context of this being the single most vulnerable, single most intimate moment, connection Chiron’s had with another person

[I think what’s so great and so heartbreaking about this confession is the second line where it goes from “you’re the only man” to “you’re the only one” so it’s actually not just romantic, he hasn’t had that kind of connection or intimacy with anyone else in any other capacity, it’s just and always has been Kevin.]

and then there’s the fact that this is an intimate, gentle love scene between two Black boys/men. I just love this movie so much.

There is such a weight to this movie and to the dynamics portrayed in this movie and there’s almost this cosmic connection between Chiron [Black] and Kevin

that I think the actors portray really well

because it’s a movie with very little dialogue so they convey so much without speaking and obviously a lot of that is the acting but a lot of it is also having the chemistry to pull it off.

or

(I mean, granted, they have three movies but still) and with Willabeth I kind of talk about how they're a great ship in pieces/different posts

by the way, when mindy kaling says “you can’t write chemistry”

this is what she means because it’s written in the script that will catches elizabeth and presses her against the wall

but it didn’t state that it would be like this

this, though,

they brought that shit to life

like there’s this perception of passion as being carnal rather than sensual or like strong emotion that brings about an intensity or a kind of ‘i burn for you’ type deal but when I think of passion, I think of shit like this

and Elizabeth and Will’s intense need to protect each other and stay with each other

I don't even care for this couple but I broke down how cinematic language can reinforce a connection between two characters and help the romance along

Their dance scene — which is beautifully shot — is a good example of a scene that uses certain cinematic language to enhance tension in a scene without relying on those things to create it,  like this [...]

and there are more.

[chai-fi-rush]

Hi-Fi Rush and Capitalism

I've seen multiple posts about how Hi-Fi Rush is capitalistic/neo-liberal propaganda and like. I'm not gonna say they're wrong but I'm also going to say it's a little more nuanced than that. Or at least there's multiple angles to look at this thing and I want to do that so I will.

Also I just want to quickly say that I think that even if something endorses certain aspects of capitalism while critiquing others doesn't mean that what it does critique is meaningless, or that everything that critiques capitalism should end with a radical change in it's story's system. Sometimes things that are sort of milquetoast can be fun or make some good points, albeit not rly something to strive to.

The first thing to address which is undeniably on the side of those posts I've seen is that HFR basically assumes that capitalism is the default. It tacitly accepts that the system must function through capital, and not just at the end where instead of getting rid of the company they just replace the CEO. This comes up the most in Zanzo's level when CNMN and Macaron say that budgeting and development are a balance. There's no implication that the idea of well-managed projects shouldn't have to rely on money to be able to function, just that Zanzo himself is bad with money due to unrealistic goals and Kale's light hand as long as he gets what he wants. Honestly, this is where a lot of real life people get tripped up on. They genuinely have a really hard time conceptualizing how a world without capital would function and often think of it as some lawless world. So, even when they disagree with capitalism they often try to think about how to change it without the removal of currency.

That being said, it's more accurate to describe Hi-Fi Rush's early stages not as a critique of capitalism, but as a critique of the conditions of capitalism (I know to us red-blooded commies those things are basically the same but hear me out). The only point where money is really important to the plot is in Zanzo's level and the overarching point of Kale using SPECTRA as a market manipulation tool. There are also undercurrents of class when it comes to Chai and Kale as foils, but that point is also linked with ableism (which is linked with classism under capitalism, but the game is very purposefully vague about Chai's backstory so I don't necessarily feel comfortable making too much speculation about it). The game vlog's heavily discuss the labor and physical exploitation of their employees, such as how all of the old Vandelay units such as CARR1E are being overloaded for the sake of productivity and you know. The fact that there are three or four Mondays. But the game rarely mentions the wages of the employees. I'm not going to say it never does even though I don't remember a time, but needless to say the actual working conditions of Vandelay's labor force is a much bigger focus. It does sort of come into play when Kale talks about how he's planning on firing almost everyone once SPECTRA gets up and running (something we are supposed to consider is Bad because without those jobs those people won't have money).

Breaking all this down abstractly, HFR is a story about corrupted intentions. The game's narrative exists in two different camps, the experience of what Vandelay is right now, and how everyone talk about what Vandelay was when Roxanne was in charge. Obviously, the first one is going to be more powerful. Characters like Peppermint, Macaron and Korsica can talk all day about how cool Roxanne was, but we basically have to take them at their word. There's no reason for us to consider them untrustworthy, but lets just say that as an audience member it's hard to fully reconcile the idea without actually seeing any of it in action besides Roxanne being kind of chill in the final cutscene and some vlogs about how the company used to work (particularly from O5KAR).

But what we can glean from this narrative is that Vandelay under Roxanne was not productivity driven. You get this idea from both the Zanzo and Roquefort levels, and a couple of those aforementioned vlogs. One that comes to mind is about how production used to take the time to actually fix defected products, but under Kale they all just get immediately scrapped because it's faster to just make a new one. Roxanne was someone who wanted to make things whereas Kale just wants to sell them. I mean, Roquefort is literally crushed underneath the quarter profits. HFR has a lot of metaphors, and they never really claimed that any of them were subtle.

Something that hangs over the entire story but rarely comes up (even within meta discussions about it) is that Project Armstrong was something born out of Roxanne's love for her disabled daughter. It's not just that she came up with the implant tech and then had Kale make the project as a scheme, Peppermint specifically says in Track 12 that it was Roxanne's idea. This was something that was made to genuinely help people, and Kale warped it into something that would get him more customers because it's not profitable to just "help people."

That's the story that HFR is trying to tell. It's about a project that was good, became bad through its management, and then had people who believed in the original intention of said project (I should note that Korsica's inclusion as someone who hadn't worked pre-Kale was also probably intentional so it wasn't solely a return to the old guard). The game isn't trying to say that any company can be fixed with the right leadership, that this one had its reigns taken away for the sake of profitability. A corruption of intentions. If you're willing to accept capital as the implicit base of society, it's incredibly inoffensive, but if you can conceptualize outside of that system it becomes a hand-wavey response to the problem. We all know that "just put good people in charge of capitalism" isn't actually a solution the the problem.

It's also worth mentioning that HFR bears a lot of meta-narrative about the video game industry specifically. The director said that some of the emails were literally taken from ones that he had received. It draws attention to its relationship in several ways, ESPECIALLY with the addition of Vandelay Gameworks. It's all stuff that can be applied to companies in general, but there's still that undercurrent of game devs upset about crunch time or being forced to throw out something that they worked hard on at the last minute because it "Just doesn't work." The kind of people who love what they're working on but work underneath conditions that make it feel like hell.

Anyways, hope that made sense. Hope I didn't sound too apologetic because I also take beef with endings that handwave capitalism away as an individual issue. Honestly, I think that HFR has far more interesting things to say about disability, but that's something that has to be its own post.

[duhragonball]

In all honesty, while I do miss Super Saiyan "first times" being emotional beats, a lot of fans forget Goten did it by accident and Trunks did it because he felt like it. Like what, was Goten that angry at Chi Chi during their sparing match? Was Trunks' jealousy of Goten going super saiyan equal to Vegeta's self-loathing during the time skip before the Androids Saga? At least with Caulifla there's an in-universe explanation that honestly makes sense for her character. She's not the type to explode with rage and Cabba's not the type to antagonize her. Rather, she's adept enough at fighting to recognize that all she has to do is emulate the feeling of the transformation to attain it and skilled enough to do it by force. She basically skips the awakening part to get right to the "do it at will" stage which is perfect buildup for her as a rival of sorts for Goku.

I think what really bothered the Caulifla haters (besides their misogyny) was that she said the quiet part out loud.

The dirty little secret about the Super Saiyan form was that it was never this ancient and mystic power of destiny, but a quirk of Saiyan biology that almost anyone could replicate if they knew what steps to follow. The reason Vegeta, Trunks, and Gohan all pulled it off in such a short span of time was that they had a living Super Saiyan as a reference, and they had the motivation to work at it.

By the time Cabba showed up, it was considered a big twist that he couldn't turn Super Saiyan. That's how cliche the form had become. So when Cabba learns it very quickly, it's mostly because we need him to get "caught up" in a hurry. And Caulifla and Kale were even stronger than he was before he learned the form, so it only makes sense that they would get the hang of it quickly as well.

But their transformations weren't treated like this big dramatic moment that turns the tide of the story. That's because Super Saiyan was no longer a major milestone, but also because we'd already seen it done several times by several other characters. The gimmick with Caulifla and Kale was that they were prodigies, diamonds in the rough who were suddenly tapping into their hidden potential. Could they improve enough, quickly enough, to become a threat in the tournament?

The thing fans have to accept is that Super Saiyan isn't the be-all and end-all of this franchise. That's why we have Super Saiyan 2, 3, 4, God, and Blue, along with Ultra Intinct, Beast, and all of the other advanced forms that have cropped up along the way. And the bad guys have always been able to keep pace, so calling each new level "unearned" is pointless.

We could say that Caulifla deconstructed the whole concept, except Vegeta already did it when he first transformed in 1991.

One page. One page is all it takes to undermine whatever legend or superstition is still attached to the Super Saiyan form. This is the third character we've seen use the form, but Krillin still hung onto the idea that a Super Saiyan had to at least be a good guy. But Vegeta informs him that he simply trained and trained until he hit a wall and his frustration pushed his body over the threshold. But Vegeta still clings to the idea of a "Saiyan Messiah", even though he just demonstrated that there's nothing special about this. You don't need to be a mythical hero, or a man of destiny, or even a nice person. You just need talent and effort, and maybe some luck.

The U6 Saiyans just did a speedrun of Vegeta's process, and that may irritate fans, except that the U6 Saiyans were far, far more powerful than Vegeta was in the Androids Saga. Cabba and Vegeta fought evenly in their base forms, and that was the same "Saiyan Beyond God" level seen in Resurrection F. They were already capable of the transformation; they just needed someone to tell them it was a thing.

[rav-rabies]

Hi Fi Rush Headcanons/ideas: pt 1 Heroes

got a few ideas bouncing around mostly just backstory stuff I wanted to write down to clean up my head and thought I'd share.

Pt 2

Possible trigger warnings: discussions of family fights, age gap relationships

Chai

Sun sign: Cancer, Moon: Sagittarius, Ascending: Sagittarius

Is smarter than he lets on

Grew up in a small town and got himself into trouble because there wasn't much else to do.

Never knew his father. He left home to pursue his dream of being a Rockstar and disappeared.

Chai created an idealized version of his father. Wants

Majored in Business as his mother wished but negotiated to study Music Theory as a minor. Got mostly A's and a few B's.

Quit school after being discouraged by an asshole professor and because he wanted to live his own life on his terms.

Couldn't find work after dropping out because ableism and struggled on disability payments.

Peppermint

Sun: Sagittarius, Moon: Capricorn,  Ascending: Virgo

Was an invitro baby and was conceived around the same time as Kale.

Roxanne and her husband had been separated for three years when there was an accident at the treatment center Peppermint's zygote was stored in. Roxanne was relived one of her zygotes survived and she and her estranged husband agreed to bring the child to term.

Her father died when she was barely a year old so she never got to know him.

Has a small tattoo of two intertwined violets on her back to represent Sapphic love.

More interested in environmental science and politics then robotics but was supported by Roxanne as both fields a line with her worldview.

Is planning on returning to school soon after her mother gets everything back on track at Vandelay.

Macaron

Sun: Libra, Moon: Taurus, Ascending: Pisces

Spent his vacation reconnecting with his old friends outside of Vandelay.

He was that kid who took things apart. His parents were great though and supported his interest. Just they made sure to redirect his curiosity towards lest destructive

First learned about Roxanne when he was finishing collage and wanted to become a part of something bigger. He was drawn to her ideas and drive.

Korsica

Sun: Virgo, Moon: Scorpio, Ascending: Aries

Had not been working at Vandelay long before Chai came along.

Had a tentative "friendship" with Zanzo due to both being bottom of the social hierarchy.

Has zero interest in Chai and Peppermint as romantic partners. Though that can change for peppermint. Her age is the only hurtle really. (NOTE: I do love this ship and have no problems with age gaps in shipping or sometimes irl. But, as someone in their thirties, I feel comfortable saying that we're not as inclined to date younger unless we're kind of immature like Zanzo or said 20 something is really chill.)

CNMN

CNMN doesn't need headcanons from me he's perfect as is.

Roxanne Vandelay (Heads up she gets Rose Quartzed a little)

Sun: Capricorn, Moon: Sagittarius, Ascending: Aquarius

She values altruism above all. She believes the purpose of creation in both science and the arts is to better the world.

Also values hard work and sacrifice, not to insane levels but again to the point she lacks some sympathy for those

Has a hard time accepting others as driven as her. She isn't actively mean but she's not very understanding of those with different values.

She and her husband both wanted to create a better world and fell in love while working for it. After Kale was born Her husband became devoted to his son. She believed both still/would support her vision and spent as much time with her family as she could and hoped love would be enough.

It wasn't. Overtime her son grew to resent his distant but caring mother and her husband grew sad and frustrated.

Arguments started and the rift got too big for anyone to ignore. She left.

After her husbands death Roxanne found herself a CEO of a rapidly growing company and a single mother to an unruly teen who just made a strange new friend.

[newtonsheffield]

Anthony: you said we could have sex in the car if I got you the burgers

Kate: Well, I also said I’d have kale salad for lunch and look where it got us soooo…

Kate narrowing her eyes at her husband like “You haven’t even asked if I’m going to follow through on my sex promise.”

And Anthony just sighs, “It would make me a bit of an arsehole I think, and I assumed it was like your promise to eat Kale salad. Which is to say, it was a lie.”

Kate scoffs, “Fine, it was a bit of a lie, the most I can manage is a grateful blow job at the end of the day.”

“I’ve decided to accept your gracious offer.”

“So long as we can stop for ice cream on the way home.”

“Deal.”

[dykeulous]

| ~ fatphobia ~ |

near the end of 2014, rhiannon lucy cosslett published the article “I Feel Guilty but I Hate My Body: a Feminist Confesses” in The Guardian, in which she described in detail her own obsession with counting calories, with catching her own reflection in all reflective surfaces, as well as the fact that; regardless of the fact that she knows better– she does not like her body and constantly tries to reduce it. many things in her text are probably well known to a large number of women who at some point were overweight or thought they were overweight: googling “miracle” diets, fixating on clothing items that we no longer fit in, but kept in the closet; in hopes that the reality will change soon, the fear of photos over which we had no control, but also the sincere belief that other women who had the same problem were beautiful & had no reason to worry about their appearance. cosslett feels additionally guilty because she’s a feminist and the co-author of the book The Vagenda, critical of the way the media writes about (female) bodies, is expected to put into practice what she advocates on a theoretical level, as people like to assume feminists are immune to the pressure of media and pop culture.

while reading the text, i sympathized with the author, and in some things even identified with her; but after that, i was gripped by that familiar feeling of anxiety that is well-known to me, due to the colorless conversations about fatness that i had with various friends & acquaintances from high school until today. conversations in which we were seemingly equal, sharing the same problem, but in reality it was never like that. cosslett says that her body mass index is 21.7, on the lower spectrum of “normal” or “healthy” weight, and my friends from the mentioned conversations were also regularly slimmer than me, sometimes significantly so. i have no doubts about the sincerity of their dissatisfaction with their own bodies– the main task of the mainstream media is to keep us all in that state 24/7– but i can’t help noticing the imbalance: were my friends so focused on their problem that they didn’t notice the differences between us, between their problems and my problems? did they also have this issue of only applying these strict standards to their own selves, while otherwise believing in the beauty of all sizes? and, finally, do we really believe that “big” can be “beautiful”, if at the same time we cannot accept our own bodies, according to medical, cultural, or personal criteria?

i’m writing this from the gray zone. i’ve been in this zone almost my whole life, fluctuating– as mindy kaling would say– between curvy and chubby, curves; 11 and 44 pounds “extra”. it is the “in-between” zone, within which you are not officially defined as plus size, but at the same time a zone within which distant relatives, neighbors, saleswomen in clothing stores, and random passers-by feel invited to comment on your appearance, negatively or positively: “have you lost weight?” (even though i haven’t), “you could lose a few pounds!” (saleswoman after my pants were tight in the hips). i don’t want to sound like hannah on hbo’s Girls  when she tells adam, “i am 13 pounds overweight and it has been awful for me my whole life!”. i am very aware that i’m actually quite average in my clothing size and weight, however– i cannot ever ignore the fact that at one point, i used to be near the line of obesity. i cannot forget that at one point in my life, i used to be so mentally exhausted that i let my bmi grow to a 29– i cannot ever forget that i went to the gym & dieted for 2 months, and i cannot get rid of the obsessive calorie counting, purging desires, and the horrendous effect diet culture has had on me. i am complimented on the regular basis, and it’s now almost exclusively about my looks and weight– it never stops. “you’ve lost even more weight! do you still go to the gym?”, “you used to be so fat… you’re so beautiful now!”, “you genuinely changed! are you glad you did?”– yes. i did, in fact, lose an additional of 17 pounds unintentionally, but that is not something that we should be celebrating, i don’t think. i developed a lifelong thyroid disease, due to incessant chronic stress & paranoid tendencies, and that caused my metabolism to rapidly speed up. i am now taking medicine, but somehow people around me, even my own mother; who is a medical professional, by the way– compliments me on the additional unintentional weight loss, even though she knows it’s no matter for celebration.

recently, mainstream popular culture has begun to let women with a bmi above 25 into its ranks more often– so far, admittedly, mostly white & heterosexual– who are no longer there just for comic effect or as material for a miraculous transformation. more & more sites, blogs, profiles on instagram, slowly, but increasingly– include more & more diverse representations of women for whom there was never a place in the narrowly defined mainstream ideal of beauty. mainstream feminists often see this as a step forward– as it should be– but capitalist exploitation & beauty trends are ever-changing, and the commodification of female bodies should never be celebrated, even if rebranded as curves are sexy. fatphobia is therefore still a feminist issue. patriarchal control over women’s bodies is further reinforced by the pressures of the capitalist fashion, cosmetic & pharmaceutical industries and the mainstream media, which depend on advertising revenue. it is well-known that sexism also works by evaluating a woman’s value primarily on the basis of her external appearance. many of us have internalized this external control in the form of self-control and self-discipline; constantly counting calories, and constantly checking whether we fit into the ideal. for many, the tip of the scale is one of the few things they can control in a world where so little is under our control. it seems to me, however, that we measure our own worth in kilograms/pounds and implicitly agree that others value us in that way. such prejudices are regularly supported by a seemingly irrefutable argument: “concern for other people’s health”. part of the comments on every internet text that aims to destigmatize obesity will always fall under the so-called concern trolling, trolling packaged as concern for another person that only supports prejudices using the alibi of health, ignoring numerous scientific studies that prove that obesity & health are not contradictory terms. these prejudices are also connected with the “aesthetic” intolerance of fatness, its incompatibility with beauty, which is wholeheartedly supported by the mainstream media.

capitalism, the media, the beauty industry (and its institutions of reinforcement; make-up, mandatory shaving, cosmetic surgery, etc.) & our culture altogether– are focused on minimizing women’s humanity & maximizing profit from women’s pain. fatphobia is a form of female oppression, and feminists cannot be fatphobic, even if we are concerned for a fat person’s health, or projecting. projection is often a form of female infighting, and it serves to prevent female class consciousness– it is regularly enforced by patriarchal institutions. making fun of plus size models, telling an overweight girl/woman to put the burger down, competing with other women on who can starve themselves for a longer time period– it all needs to undoubtedly end. fatphobia is systemic, it is built in the very fibre of capitalist society, and it affects the medical field as much as it does fashion & beauty trends; which can be detrimental to a fat person’s life. fatphobia does affect men, but it affects women uniquely; especially women of color– and especially black women. i am saying all this as the person who lost a bunch of weight, and who is very annoyed at being told how beautiful i am now– i seek to heal the fat girl who continues to live on deep in my heart. 

[negativnine]

stupid Kale headcannon thing

stuff

idk

i feel like the reason he is the way he is, is because of unreceived attention and bullying, like “THEY NEVER CARED ABOUT ME, WHY SHOULD ABOUT CARE ABOUT THEM” but he is just talking about like ages from 5 to 10

most definitely  theater kid, and the dramatic kind like there is now way he is not into theatrics probably the reason he got bullied as a kid seen Hamilton at least once

speaking of theatric kale, he also probably writes poems and it’s the edgy cringy kind of poems as well he only has fun while writing them after finishing them he reads them through he’s just like “yeah no” and because of that he has a super secret and complex safe just for whatever notebook he has those poems written in

also when chai and the gang finds it and opens the safe, ‘cus of course they will since it looks suspicious as fuck, it’s just gonna be like Chai: HE WRITES POEMS?! Peppermint: HE STILL WRITES POEMS?!

i know that the accepted relationship between him and Mimosa is Mimosa looking up to him, but personally i find the idea of them friends more appealing like they’re the cliché mean girls high school duo that judges and gossips about everybody

that being said Mimosa was probably his only friend, which is sad, but it’s kale so not really

probably has anger issues, not the violent outburst kind, but more like Dylan yelling at his old baking recipes or kitchen wear (i have such a clear image of him just yelling “CEASE AND DESIST” to an oven)

since it is canon that he is a dog person,(which just makes me so giddy for no reason) i like to think he is just the most aggressive dog person a dog person can be like at some point somebody in the boss team was like “it would probably be nice to have meetings outside every once in a while” but that had to be scrapped because he would just disappear every 10 minutes ‘cus he somehow found a dog just chillin’ and decided that it needed to be pet like i feel like he could have been bribed with dogs in someway and the whole final boss fight could have been avoided

as much he is a poor little meow meow, he is also kind of a malewife material my mind cannot be changed about this

he probably has been living by basically himself since like the age of 15 he definitely knows his way around the kitchen at least

also back to the dog person bit at first i was like “so who the hell made the conscious decision to make Rouqefort into a mecha warewolf?” but it was definitely Kale and Rouqefort probably approved and i don’t know which one is worse  

this man has been living in my head rent free for god knows how long

if anything else comes to my mind i’ll probably add also feel free to add yours if y’all have any

[ringlorn]

"Hey, I'm back with the stuff!"

Nezha all but glides in through the back door, arms laden with grocery bags while his Wheels do the work of leading him into the kitchen. Why his roommate wanted so much soymilk he'll never know, but he trusts Macaque's cooking skills.

Even if he makes lotus root dishes far too often.

There was a sale on kale this week—Nezha doesn't know whether Macaque would use that, but he buys one bunch anyways, figuring the macaque can always whip up extra snacks to take to his boyfriend, or Liu'er, or whoever he runs into around the city. Most of the time he doesn't know what the guy gets up to at all since his shadows make him virtually invisible—but that's on him for not really caring. The rest of the time they spend passing each other in the halls, through the windows, or actually sharing sauce over the meal table (and isn't that weird enough, him eating with a monkey that isn't Sun), living more or less...like roommates do, he guesses.

He's not sure why Macaque doesn't just move in with Monkey King at this point—they obviously like each other and even the third guy's been accepted by both—but it's the same question he could ask himself: why not move in with Sun? Too many monkeys, is his first reaction, but honestly the threat of Zhang San coming back someday and seeing the two of them in one house is what really keeps him in check.

(If he wanted to win over Sun, he would've done it first and a thousand years earlier rather than settle for second place now.)

Once in front of the fridge, Nezha opens it up and starts to put stuff around what's already inside, finally used to the proper placement of things. (Honestly, the looks he'd gotten from putting vegetables next to raw meat once upon a time?)

"Do you want me to take out any of this stuff?" he keeps talking as he works. ostensibly to no one. But having a roommate with six ears means you can whisper and he'll hear you just fine, so he might as well been shouting right now.

It's Nezha himself who needs to strain his ears for a response, only to hear nothing. He checks the clock on the wall—it's getting on evening, so the guy should be home to cook? Unless he ran off to hang with Monkey King again and pranked Nezha into coming back to an empty house or something.

Pah, joke's on him. He's rich enough to order takeout for the rest of his life.

Closing the fridge, the lotus prince saunters to the family room, still talking to empty air. "Also, do you know any good cooks? I mean, guys who do it for a living. A friend of mine's thinking to hire...I don't know where to get that kind of chef, snipe 'em from a restaurant or something?"

That's probably the easiest way to do it, but otherwise he was looking at online research instead. Magnolia could do that herself. It was also a pretty stupid question so he's expecting a snarky comeback, but the fact that no one replies is pretty telling.

Macaque's not home.

Just in case, Nezha decides to float upstairs, planning to listen in on the guy from outside his room. If the monkey's not sleeping, sick, or well, dealing with stuff like last time, he's likely MIA.

He doesn't expect to see Macaque's bedroom door standing ajar by the time he reaches the landing though. Exasperated, Nezha dismisses his Wheels and stalks over noisily on foot. "C'mon, you've never been this obvious with bait—"

The door creaks open. The inside is bare.

This...what, did he actually move out?

Looking around the empty space makes the ends of Nezha's hairs stand on end. It takes a moment before he unfreezes enough to scramble through his pockets for his phone. Fingers scrolls through his contacts—nothing, no name—then social media, where people are posting about the eclipse that dropped by while he was obliviously browsing the aisles of the supermarket.

Gone, just like that.

He's not sure what he feels at the moment. Honestly, the ones who should be missing him are—again, more scrolling back and forth—still here, so that's gotta suck. The other guy's gone too, though Nezha doesn't recall him as much as he does Monkey King with him, and—his brows wrinkle, thinking back to the fridge.

It's full of food, and right now he's the only one living in this house.

...tomorrow. He'd deal with it tomorrow. Keep what he could eat, donate the rest or something—it'd be a joke if he tried to cook like Macaque, but wasting his ingredients is even worse.

Do I tell someone? No, they'd probably find out for themselves—and maybe even sooner than he did, since they were actually close. He and Macaque were—well, they couldn't be friends as far as Heaven was concerned, but they weren't enemies.

They were comfortable, Nezha decides, in their special brand of impersonalized co-living that had the guy bossing him around with a spatula in one hand and a pan full of spicy sizzling vegetables in the other to scrub the toilets already, it's only fair, Nezha, before setting a full bowl of food in front of him for lunch half an hour later.

Wordlessly, Nezha walks to the bedroom windows and throws one open. A late summer breeze trickles through the opening, hot and heavy, making it hard to breathe. He inhales it anyways—and then climbs onto the windowsill before stepping out entirely. Of course his Wheels catch him before he falls, and Nezha turns mid-air to hover outside his building, staring at the windows darkening with the onset of incoming rain clouds.

The houses here are never left empty for long—the Stars always fill them with new, confused faces every few days. He'll probably get a new roommate next time, but he'd have to figure out the groceries before that, and there's no telling how the other monkeys are going to cope with this all, or if they'll even drop by to check.

He frowns at that thought. Would it be better or worse for him to be there when they do?

If he keeps the window open, they can let themselves in—or just use the balcony, another favorite. There's been no issue of thieves in this area of city so he can keep things unlocked—the locals know better to try against all the superpowered weirdos they get every month moving in. And even if nobody comes—

Well, maybe he's the one who needs time to readjust to living by himself again.

Nezha looks at his phone and decides to book a hotel for the night.

[margoshvets]

Wait so if zanzo swapped with roquefort, and he became more calm and strategic then that means that....shakes in fear and horror no, no, NOOOOOO I DONT WANT A WOLF OF WALL STREET ROQUEFORTTTTTTT.

Nah but in all seriousness, what would he be like?

Well, he won't be there XD

A little about why: The bosses that we see in HFR are the crew that Kale brought in, so the crew that Pepper brought in would be different (since she is not exactly a copy of Kale).

With the exception of Korsica (she's not exactly a part of Kale's crew and was accepted for that position for her skills, which is also true for the AU).

Macaron is still the head of R&D (tho he is not the same person we know). Zanzo is there because he worked at Vandelay before Kale (if I remember correctly), and, in the AU, he's still there but in the finance department.

I want all other bosses to be different (unless I'll change my mind).

A little bonus! Some notable characters straight up don't exist in this universe, such as CNMN, SCR-UB, 808 and Chai.

[devisrina]

(I have no idea if you've answered this b4) Who's ur fav? Benvi, Bela-Eric, or Danny/Mindy (Ryan/Kelly is not an option)?

Hello Anon! I actually have not answered this before. So I might have to describe each ship, so I can give you the gist of which is my favourite.

To be straightforward- My favourite is Bela Malhotra and Eric Miller.

And Because I love talking about these ships, I'm going to give you the rundown of how I view each ship and if I like them or not.

(SIDE NOTE: This is going to become a long post.)

Danny and Mindy - THEY ARE AN ABSOLUTE NO FOR ME. I have never liked them one bit. He was alright in season 1, and I did sort of see the potential. But if I'm being honest, I preferred Josh, Casey, Sam, and even Brendan Delaurier over that misogynistic dickhead.

And in season 2 of TMP, I preferred Cliff Gilbert Over any other love interest she had in that show. He was smart, sweet, and had nice banter with her. He genuinely had an interest in her. And it pissed me off so much how they ruined his character to make DANNY of all people seem to like her better match.

And believe it or not, it got worse. DANNY LITERALLY SA'd her in season 3 episode 4. And this issue got 'resolved' by him explaining to her that he was insecure about his experience and wanted to try it out. LIKE BITCH DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE, WITH words? He literally made her feel bad for something that he did when he violated her.

Ben and Devi - They are pretty neutral to me. I don't actually dislike them, nor do I love them. If you asked me in season 1 if I was either Team Ben or Team Paxton, I would've 100% said, Team Ben.

But now, I kind of just think that they kept fucking with their storyline. I got tired of the fact that we didn't even really see them date and how they would be in a relationship. I genuinely don't think that they would be toxic, they were really cute in season 4. But another thing that annoyed me quite a lot was the lack of communication, and the fact that Eleanor and Fabiola kind of push her away from ever really expressing to Ben how much she likes him. Like, Ben wants Devi to be open about her feelings, it really doesn't matter if she comes off looking uncool or not.

Also, I kind of liked how realistic Ben was in season 1 in comparison to how he is in the other seasons. In season 1, he was kind of like a mixture of himself and Ethan in the way he would respond to Devi. Like the way, he was just kind of chill and more grounded. they just made him super cocky in seasons 2 and 3 and then tried to give him growth beyond that. It was clear he kind of held a bit of resentment towards her after she broke his heart. I just wish that they quit trying to hit the replay button with them. They could've had more scenes together.

Bela and Eric - They are my favourites! They are the vibes, and like Quinn from Kappa says, "We have to preserve the vibes."

And I love to proclaim myself as one of the people who defended Eric even before season 2. I just thought he was capable of growing and changing. And I love how chill and unfazed he is by Bela, he sort of just accepts her for who she is. I love it so fucking much. It's not cringe, and it's very natural in comparison to Ben and Devi. I just see Bela and Eric as their ages and the writing team does a good job of connecting them to college life.

Because with Devi, you can kind of see when 'Mindy Kaling Dialogue' is set for her. And I wince every time I have to hear something along the lines of that. But with Bela, because the actress who plays her has this charisma where she doesn't really care what other people say, it just works. I know, Bela is insecure when it comes to how people view her, whether it is with her comedy writing, boys, making friends etc. The actress doesn't get enough credit for her variety and range.

Just to disclose, I am a Bela supporter. I think the fandom is too rude towards her, the fact that some of them even compare her to Ryan is truly gross to me. I don't like that she cheated on Eric, but it also kind of bothers me to see how many people were quick to dislike her. Especially since everything Eric says kind of gets swept under the rug the minute Bela does something shitty. And let's be honest, people love the 360 development of the 'asshole who is not so much of an asshole' and it happened with Eric. He literally heard her tell him that she was being ordered around by the comedian, and he just swivels in and takes the opportunity. Bela is not Innocent, what she did was horrible, and while the thing he did was not as wrong, it was still a shitty move. I've seen people dislike Bela since season 1, people will just jump at the chance to dislike her. And she got assaulted last season, and people overlook that because the narrative doesn't lead us into it. Like yes, the show is kind of shit when it comes to following up on major plot points, like with Whitney literally being Gr**med. But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It clearly affected her.

And people like to use the handjobs as a reflection of Bela always being sex-crazed. No, it just REINFORCES that she was broken even before college. She had all of this cultural pressure on her, she never had many friends, and she was nerdy and uncool. She had such a bad and negative view of herself before, so she's sadly just giving into any attention she might get even if it's bad.

And I think Eric would've been a good influence on her if they made a better choice in the way they wrote them. He warmed up to her in ep 10, he kind of just looked annoyed with her in Episode 1 of Season 2. There wasn't even any room left for subtext. After he gave her advice, and she left, he could've been seen looking at her walking away before he slowly closed the door. It could've been a parallel moment to the caution tape scene in the quad.

And the reason I loved Bela and Eric so much is that he was essentially who she would've been if she was more security with herself. Like, notice how she likes his glasses and his nerdy comedy vibe. He is the version that connects her to her old self where she was nerdy and loved comedy. Of course, she still loves comedy, but she tried to feed into that cool girl vibe. And that shows a lot about how she is with Priya. She is so insecure when she sees Priya's glow up and her jealousy of seeing how quick she got along with everyone kind of hurt her. It is wrong that she was projecting onto her, and it's not okay to be rude to people because they look nicer.

I think the most infuriating thing Bela did for me was when she was with Jorjia and ruined everything with the foxy. Evangeline and Jo were really on her side and it makes me sad that she self-sabotaged.

I do believe that Bela and Eric could get back together. But I think they need to develop a better connection as friends. Without the benefits lol.

I'm thinking that maybe they could have an encounter where they both have the same internship. At this point in time, Bela might be at another school if she did follow through with the transfer. Or she could still be in Essex, but they just don't talk to each other. Eric is mad at first and Bela doesn't blame him. Maybe there is a point where she helps him gain more exposure, and he kind of sees this as a silver lining. Like maybe she has changed. During this, Eric decides to let her in more and they have a nice friendship. He might try dating someone else for a bit, and Bela helps him navigate it because she doesn't want to be jealous or rude. I want her to go through therapy during this, so she can self-reflect. I think at some point Bela and Eric could have a moment where they almost kiss or gaze intently into each other's eyes. They kind of just brush it off, and Bela thinks everything is okay and it was a heat of the moment, thinking he didn't feel anything. But Eric wanted to kiss her. He might quit dating the girl afterwards because he realised he still has feelings for Bela. And because he's Eric, he kind of doesn't know how to deal with this, so he kind of pushes Bela away anytime they are at the internship and Bela asks him if he was okay.

And there could be a point where he almost sabotages the internship for himself and he bursts out the door. Bela could follow him out. Then she'd be like. "I have tried so hard to get on your good side. What else do you want?" It's kind of like a parallel to the summer theta party where Eric asks her what she wants.

Then he's feeling a mixture of conflict, anger, and everything above. But he knows he can't blame her. "I-I'm just mad."

And she shouts. "Why?!"

Then he's like. "Because you made end things with ____"

And she's all confused. "Why is that my fault?"

And then there is a moment of silence and the tension is thick. And she's like. "Well?"

And then he's like. "God damn it Bela-" and then he leans forward and they both know what is about to happen next when he kisses her.

It's all passionate, and then he releases for a second when they have to breathe, and they're all wide-eyed and their lips are swollen. And he says "Because she wasn't you."

And then following it, they slowly take their relationship slow. They talk to each other about their feelings, and they become an official couple this time.

So yeah, I didn't expect this to be such a long post. But yeah, thanks for the question!

[royalreef]

@lambfated​ inquired: What would cause you to leave a fandom? Munday Salt - Accepting

(( Glances over at the Monster Prom fandom.

Ha ha ha. Hah.

So the first thing you should know about me is that I don’t seem to participate in fandoms in the same way as everyone else. I don’t fandom hop. In my experience, and from my experience of watching everyone else cycle through ten different fandoms a minute, it’s pretty uncommon to find people who don’t fandom hop. Sure, I’ll get into other things and even reblog fanart and read fanfictions of them, but I don’t consider myself as being in the fandom in the same way, because I don’t participate the same way. I probably don’t have all that many opinions as to what’s going on as other people. I won’t really talk about it.

Instead, as evidenced by this blog, I will find a fandom and I will stay there. For years at a time. I will remain there, remain making fanart and writing for it and speculating on things and hashing ideas out, things that I do now for Miranda, and I simply won’t leave long after everyone else has already left and I will stay there day in and day out at the same level. I don’t really chase trends, I don’t really get into new stuff, I will find a singular fandom and camp there.

This is how it’s been for Monster Prom and me. I got in right when the game released, and I remained here. DLC has come and gone, a Kickstarter has come and gone, sequels have come and gone, and I haven’t really left.

For my previous fandom, Homestuck, I think I was there for something like 8 years. It was the same way.

So when I talk about leaving fandoms, I mean this in a much different way that most people mean it. If it’s a casual interest of mine, I’ll just stop interacting with it, and won’t consider that leaving the fandom because I was never in it. If it’s the fandom where I’ve camped out in, it’s a much longer, more painful process.

I guess I couldn’t really tell you when it really started? Like, the writing issues first started cropping up in the Second Term DLC, but they felt minor enough at the time where I didn’t worry about them then, and worrying about them now likewise feels odd. I’ve talked a lot before about my disappointment with Zoe, but her and Calculester both feel fundamentally different from the original ROs to me and it’s hard to decipher why. Maybe it’s just because they were created and added later, so they inherently missed out on working all of the ROs in together and figuring out how they riffed off of each other, so they’re inherently far less connected to each other than the other ROs were? The Kale ending was an utter nightmare for multiple reasons, but I was willing to write that off, especially since apparently there are people that exist that love it.

I know there were also issues with the Kickstarter too, but these also felt minor at the time. I’m less bothered by the limited Kickstarter merch than by the rest of the limited merch that would be released, mostly because it feels much more natural to me for Kickstarters to have limited edition merch. I’ve pledged to a lot of Kickstarters, that seems fairly common to me. I don’t like the limited releases of other items in comparison, because they do have proper merch stores for Monster Prom that haven’t been updated since Second Term, and it always feels like they’re preying a lot more on FOMO.

Monster Camp also had..... a lot of writing issues for me. The first and easiest one to get out of the way is just the scatological humor. It feels like the original Monster Prom had WAY less scatological humor going on, and the ability to remove scenes with it never worked in my games. For the record, that kind of topic for me is legitimately a trigger, one that I don’t like discussing both because of how severe it is, but also how much no one takes it seriously. I don’t like that there are parts of this game that are suddenly inaccessible to me when they didn’t used to be, and I don’t like that entire “secrets” are also excluded from me due to something that never was an issue before. I also fundamentally hate the Drinks mechanic. Yes, I know there are different modes for it, but the fact that you have to unlock the drinks too is just frustrating more than anything. Either my choice is to miss out on a lot of secret endings due to RNG, or to try and use a system that I can’t because I have trouble with hand-eye-coordination and moving my hands in the first place. It also doesn’t help that it’s not optional, unlike the Shop that it replaces, so you end up forced back to it time and time again and you don’t even get the chance to avoid it.

But the characters themselves also began to feel... off, to me? I don’t think it was as bad as I was dreading, but it still didn’t feel right. Dynamics felt jilted, characters didn’t seem to quite have the same force of personality they had before, there was a ton of loss of “voice” for individual characters. I think them not having the same voice as before is one of the big issues — when I look at a list of quotes from the first game, it’s VERY easy to figure out which character said them just from phrasing and word choice and inflection. When I look at a list of quotes from the second game, I can’t, because these characters all start to sound the same and say the same things and come off in the same way. It’s where I feel like the ability to let Kickstarter backers choose the ROs really failed the hardest, because that meant there wasn’t a diversity of dynamics and different internal voices for these characters for them to stand out against each other, but I also feel like the writing itself lost the ability to distinguish between characters.

And then... Roadtrip. Oh, oh Roadtrip.

Mechanically, I actually kind of love this game? It feels like it has a nice, snappy balance, in a way that Monster Camp didn’t have, and it doesn’t make me utterly hate my life to play. There was still an issue with the scatological humor — this time it doesn’t even remove the options from your game or give you something alternative, but just adds a ticker that an option will contain it. It still locks “secrets” behind those triggers, and it can also really fuck with my stats if a stat I need is connected to an option with that trigger. But it’s not as big of an issue as Monster Camp where it didn’t work at all, so, you know.

But Roadtrip’s writing is... atrocious. The characters feel flanderized in a frankly awful manner, like the devs were just looking at the fandom’s notes for how the characters behaved and worked and entirely threw away everything that they had before. I’ve always hated the fanon, but now fanon is canon and it loses so much of what I actually liked about these games and what drew me to them. These characters don’t feel like friends anymore. They almost feel like they all hate each other and are forced to tolerate each other because they want to fit into the idea of a friend group, they stop feeling like individual people to me, they’ve had all their hard edges sawed off and sanded down until they could be as palatable as possible to as many people as possible, it’s just awful all-around. I hate Scott being given the Papyrus treatment and Polly treating him cussing as out of character for him. The expanded lore for the PCs feels out of place and not like Monster Prom characters, as if they belong to some other game. The way they handle Miranda’s eating disorder is downright offensive and made my own flare up. It’s bad. I won’t lie.

And I think that ties back into why I tend to have to leave these big fandoms for me that I camp out in for years at a time.

The fandom is just fucking awful.

It’s been years since I’ve properly done anything inside the main Discord server for this game. Too many times I’ve started talking about Miranda, or made fanart of Miranda, and, totally unprompted, I would get people going off about how much they hate her and want to hurt her or watch her die. It’s just constant if you don’t like any character other than the fandom’s main darlings. If you don’t like Damien, the PCs, or Zoe, then you won’t get anything out of the fandom. The only real ships I see floating around constantly feature the PCs. The only anything anyone ever really properly talks about is Damien. If you want deeper lore or consideration or just to talk about the world of Monster Prom then you won’t find anyone or anything. I’ve had people go on and on about how my art is “uncanny” and “upsetting” to them, I’ve had people constantly make snide comments to me, I’ve constantly been shoved to the shadows and insulted because I don’t make typical “fandom” stuff.

Like, I know this fandom is much better than a lot of others, and fandoms in general are hell. But it’s also so discouraging and upsetting to see it still be the same way, still never change, and to see canon itself start to enable all of this. I know Monster Prom has always been more connected to its fanbase than other games and other media, but this has never been a selling point for me, and it’s always been something I dislike and discourage. I don’t want the devs to care what I do. I don’t want the devs to let me influence their games. I don’t want the stupid lore I came up with because it’s some of my favorite tropes and I could loosely justify it to be canon. I don’t want other fucking characters to be made and introduced to explain things that characters that already exist should be explaining.

I really just want the characters to continue to be themselves and to be interesting. And I didn’t even get that.