#i would say if anyone is interested in this genre of media then check out Terror Ball at terrorball.io!

[killerforthepies]

i once did a 2 hour long blaseball explanation presentation and by the end of it my friends still did not know it was a website.

Round 1

Note: before voting for the first option please leave a detailed explanation of what Blaseball even is in the notes, cause I have no idea. Also votes for the first option count for Jaylen Hotdogfingers

Propaganda Under The Cut

Jaylen Hotdogfingers:

The greatest came-back-wrong character ever. She's the mayor of Seattle. She's was the best pitcher in the league. She was murdered by an umpire in an act of divine retribution for the fanbase's transgression. The fanbase exploited game mechanics to bring her back to life. Immediately she murdered 12 people. She died again and got revived a second time as part of a team of undead players that killed god. She's a really awful batter. She has, like, 16 songs written about her and they're all really good. I thought about her every single day for a period of six consecutive months. I love her.

I'll be real. I'm an outsider to the Blaseball fandom. I don't understand it. I think they've crowdfunded characters from fictionalized fucked-up Baseball stats and a dream. I love seeing what the fuck they're doing in their eldritch sandbox just so much.

Bruce Wayne (Batman):

he's babygirl your honour! single father of 6 (ish), world's least likable manwhore, he's obsessive and mean and cares a lot and is an asshole

he’s a whore. he’s batman. he’s terrified of bats. he’ll fuck villains he’ll fuck heroes he’ll fuck any consenting adult. he’s a dad. he’s traumatised. he beats the shit out of people. he can do anything with enough prep time. he creeps people out on purpose. he lives and dies by the bit. he is everything to me. truly the character of all time

[redbuddi]

Do NOT Read "Lady Crystal is a Man"

People who know me know that I'm a little bit of a webtoon addict. I'm basically always reading a million different fantasy romances, even as someone who is not personally interested in romance in real life. Because of this, I am well aware of the more problematic elements of a lot of webtoons, to the point where it's easier to list webtoons that aren't problematic than to name ones that are. It's unfortunate, but it's a common aspect of webtoon consumption that most people get used to. (Note: When I say webtoons, I am talking about the genre of phone-optimized romance webcomics as a whole, not just things from the WEBTOON app. The series in question is on Tapas.)

Because of that, I will admit it is partially on me for assuming this comic was going to be more progressive than it actually was. People new to webtoons may be fooled, but I should have known better. On top of that, I am well aware that female-oriented romance stories can sometimes be a little toxic, and while this is a problem that needs to be worked on, I also know about what can happen when something meant for teenage girls is criticized. Even when the criticism is in good faith, it can start a trend of bashing anything teenage girls like and shaming them for wanting to explore media that is anything but flawless. I don't want to add to that.

But this series isn't just a little problematic. It doesn't just have some questionable elements or common plot failings. This is a series that has the potential to seriously hurt anyone who is trans, gnc, or gender questioning, and could give anyone who isn't any of those things the wrong idea about what is and isn't appropriate when it comes to trans/gnc/gender questioning individuals.

If you would like the td;dr, then in a nutshell this comic portrays material that could make an individual feel shame, discomfort, or even body dysmorphia. And on top of that the protagonist is cruelly gaslit and manipulated in ways that the series presents as if it were just light teasing, and that is all only in the 19 chapters that I was able to stomach before dropping the series entirely.

If you would like a more detailed description of this series' flaws, then I will continue below the cut.

cw: transphobia, body dysmorphia, gaslighting

Lady Crystal is a Man follows the story of a man raised as a woman attempting to escape a forced marriage by going to the mysterious and dangerous duke Illian, unaware that Illian is secretly a woman. The story is essentially a combination of two tropes, the Crossdressing Romance trope, where the main character and/or their love interest is secretly not the gender they present themselves as, a trope which has been around for as long as female-oriented comics has existed, and something a little more specific to webtoons (to my knowlege,) the Contract Marriage trope, wherin the protagonist escapes a bad situation by entering a temporary marriage with someone else, only for true romance to bloom between them. I have read many webtoons about Contractual Marriages, but not very many about crossdressing. As a nonbinary person, I tend to be uncomfortable with the highly traditional way many webtoons portray gender roles, and so I try to steer clear of series that tackle gender directly, but that is not to say no webtoon as ever handled it well. In particular one of my favorite webtoons, Alien Idol, tackles gender in an extremely understanding and informative fashion, even taking the time to acknowledge places where it's knowledge is lacking, which I've never seen a comic do so honestly before. Most webtoons are not like this, unfortunately, but that is only to my knowledge, and recently I've been wanting to expand my horizons a little bit. How can I be sure so many comics handle it poorly if I don't even read them for myself, after all? That is what convinced me to check out Lady Crystal is a Man.

In the first few chapters I was hooked. The series has extremely good artwork, and it first appeared to me that they might be trying to do a metaphor for t4t couples. Crystal is constantly coached on how to act and behave as a woman, because if he lives as a man he will be killed by his cruel and uncaring family. He takes a drug to halt his growth, and this drug is actively harming him, he is literally being torn up from the inside having to live as something he is not. He envies masculine traits he observes in others, and dreams of running away to live with the people who truly love him, cutting his hair short, and living as himself. It's because of this that I made the mistake of buying multiple chapters in advance instead of just waiting for them to unlock, and that's why I read so far into this series when normally I would have dropped it the moment it started to go downhill. Anyway, Crystal meets duke Illian, and already a connection is established by the narrative in how the two have had to live in fear of being who they really are. And at this point I was ready for them to start relating to each other and forming a bond.

This does not happen. Not really, anyway.

Illian tricks Crystal into thinking that the marriage paperwork went through extremely fast, and that they are now husband and wife. This is a red flag, but in the same chapter Illian reveals that she's just teasing Crystal as payback for trying to trick her, and that she will fully support Crystal's escape to be with her family as soon as the snow clears up. But then she doesn't. Even when Crystal admits the truth to her, and the snow clears up, Illian maintains the facade that they are married and that Crystal will have to keep staying with them until the annulment paperwork can go through. This happens because Crystal, under the impression that they are really married and that he has tricked Illian into falling in love with him only to have her heart broken, decides to take responsibility for his actions instead of running away like he originally planned. And Illian, hearing this, continues to lie to Crystal about their being married. This establishes a pattern that will continue from here: Crystal will show genuine care and consideration for others, and will be rewarded for it by being continuously manipulated by the people around him.

It's at this point that Illian finds out that Crystal is not a cis male. Not because Crystal told her, mind you, but because Crystal faints due to side effects from the drug he is taking, and Illian, who has taken the same drug, recognizes them. At first this is fine to me. I like that Illian does not get angry or upset, or even wants to confront Crystal on this, and at first I thought it was because Illian respected Crystal's boundaries and would only acknowledge it if Crystal decided to tell her. She even continues to refer to Crystal with female pronouns, even when she deduces that Crystal might be living as a woman just to not be killed in the battle for succession. But then, Illian decides to "make sure" that Crystal isn't cis. And while we aren't directly shown, it is heavily implied that Illian looked under Crystal's nightgown to see his genitals.

There had been one or two red flags up to this point. In particular, focus on the size of Crystal's hands. This was off putting to me, as this is something that could hurt people. Even people who aren't transfeminine could be hurt by this, the fact that having bigger hands than what is considered "normal" for a woman and how this is treated like a clue to Crystal's gender identity is something that would hurt anyone who identifies as a woman but doesn't fit what is considered a normal body standard. Focus on hands is even something that can be a big dogwhistle for TERFs, although I don't suspect the author is a TERF since I'm fairly certain this is a Korean comic, and I don't know what the discourse on gender in Korea is like.

Regardless, even with my growing suspicions, this was a massive shock. Crystal was unconscious at the time, unable to consent. This is unambiguously a massive violation, but the comic portrayed it as just a silly, over-the-top bit of shenanigans by our female lead. I know for a fact that this wouldn't have happened if the genders were swapped, in every webtoon I've read people who try to look under women's skirts are treated as disgusting perverts. But because Crystal is a man, suddenly it's cute and funny when his privacy is undermined. And this is the turning point where the series goes from a seemingly flawed but earnest attempt at a trans metaphor to a showcase of the most disgusting abuse I have ever seen in a story, all written as though it were just silly antics by people who are ultimately in the right.

Soon Illian and the doctor she had look at Crystal begin internally referring to him with masculine pronouns, all without asking if it's what Crystal wants to be seen as. As the doctor mulls over Crystal's potential circumstances, she thinks "Few people pretend to be the other gender, even fewer do so against their will," the series acknowledging the existence of trans people, but only as "petenders." And again, this is before they even know for sure if Crystal is doing this against his will. All the while, Crystal is portrayed in more and more infantalizing ways. He plays with snow like a child. He doesn't understand basic social cues, or even that people might be lying when they speak to him. He accepts everything Illian tells him without checking, even when he knew going into this that he would need to be careful. Illian secretly alters Crystal's communication devices so that she can see everything that Crystal says when he sends out messages to his friends in the east, who are waiting to take him in, unaware that he has been manipulated into staying against his wishes. Illian is drawn in by the way Crystal wears his heart on his sleeve, and doesn't want to let him go, even though she knows that Crystal has a home somewhere else. Crystal is prevented from escaping, and isn't even giving the courtesy of knowing that he is a prisoner.

There is another character in the comic, a cook who is portrayed as being large and strong, completely unfeminine despite being female. For one thing she's a show of hypocrisy, a cis female is a female, without question even if they don't fit eurocentric standards of femininity, but a trans female has to pass these standards with flying colors, and even then they don't really count. But there is another thing about this character. She is regularly referred to as a "monster" for her immense strength, size, and endurance. She owns it, seeming to be perfectly content with it, but not all real people who look like this would enjoy being called that. I feel that this is another acknowledgement of the other, that yes there are cis people who also don't perfectly fit their expected appearances, but they're not normal. They are exceptions. Monsters.

And then came the chapter that made me drop this series for good, completely overwriting my buyers remorse with disgust. Illian has to leave for a mission, and had instructed the Doctor to take away the drug that Crystal is using to maintain a feminine body. The doctor confronts Crystal, telling him that she "knows" he's a man, and blackmails him, threatening to tell Illian if Crystal doesn't hand over the drug. In exchange, the doctor gives Crystal a magic ring that she says will make other people perceive him as female. This is already bad for a few reasons, namely that even during this confrontation, the doctor never asks Crystal if he truly identifies as a woman or not. If Crystal did identify as a woman, then the ring would be a terrible trade. A person who wants to look at themselves as feminine does not do so in the hopes that other people will see them the same way. While the perception of others is certainly a concern, the main consideration is if the person sees themselves as feminine. A ring that only allows other people to see them as feminine would certainly be useful for people who don't want to be misgendered or seen in a way they don't want to be seen, but it wouldn't be an adequate replacement if it wouldn't help the wearer get a body that makes them comfortable. At best it would just be a supplement to something else.

But worst of all, it's all a lie. The ring doesn't actually work. It's all a trick to get Crystal to give up the drug. Yes the drug is harmful to Crystal, and Crystal himself doesn't want to take it, but as far as the Doctor knows Crystal could be trying to appear feminine for his own reasons. But without even consulting him, Illian and the doctor assume they know what's best for Crystal and trick him into giving up what could very well be the thing making him happy and comfortable in his own skin. Imagine how horrific things would be for Crystal if that was the case. Seeing his body change in ways he does not want, entirely against his will, and since the ring doesn't actually work his transformation would be fully visible to everyone around him. But instead of asking what if he wants this, Illian and the doctors decide to play the odds, and this is written as though they're being helpful by doing this. To add insult to injury, the doctor internally criticizes Crystal for accepting the trade without questioning it, seemingly forgetting that Crystal was essentially forced into it.

For obvious reasons, this was the point where I had had enough. This was abuse, plain and simple. Yes characters are not real people, and there is a place for stories that tackle things like abuse and manipulation, but this series never acknowledges the horror of what it's characters are doing, treating these things as though they're just cute and quirky romcom gags, maybe not normal but ultimately harmless. Meanwhile in the real world, these things are deeply harmful and hurtful to the readers of this series, especially those who, like the characters of the story, are forced to live in identities that are not themselves.

It's pretty common for webtoons to tackle things like this without really knowing what they're doing, and usually I'm able to shrug it off and keep reading, even if still criticizing it, as long as it seems the writers have the best of intentions. Making mistakes is how we learn, after all, and a lot of webtoons are written by young adults living in conservative societies who just need the chance to see other people's experiences. But there is a point where I draw the line, and that is when there is no perceivable compassion whatsoever for the types of people they are portraying. As I mentioned, the comic clearly shows an understanding that there are people who do not live as the gender that they are assigned at birth. But it does not see them as people. Even beyond the "pretend" line, gender is portrayed as concrete, inescapable, with terrible consequences for trying to change it. It portrays transfeminine people as clueless, weak, and unable to decide for themselves what's good for them, and illustrates anyone who doesn't fit typical standards of appearance as a strange and terrifying other that shouldn't be considered on the same level as everyone else. In general webtoons already have a massive issue with beauty standards, (don't even get me started on the way fat people are usually written,) but this is a whole other level of cruelty. While this comic was probably not specifically made to harm people, it takes careful steps to put people it doesn't like "in their place." It wants you to feel bad about yourself. This comic and comics like it should never be supported, not just for political reasons, but because, like it's characters, this comic is trying to enforce ideals that it feels for best for you, regardless of if it's what you actually want. And no one deserves to be hurt like that.

So if you see this comic or a comic like it, I encourage you to turn away. If they won't portray us as human, then we don't have any obligation to give them our support.

[thrown-away-opinions]

Watching "Why Do You Always Kill Gods in JPRGs?" and I am in awe of the stupidity on display.

>45 minutes of rudimentary Japanese/eastern history in broad strokes > glosses over the fact that Japan has basic capitalistic free trade and business for its entire history >no, fucking seriously, Japan had industry, independently owned businesses, the general free exchange of goods and services... otherwise known as capitalism. >Japan underwent a post-war economic boom >Some people get very rich and powerful during this boom primarily due to controlling the banking system with backing from a corrupt government >"Their new religion was... CAPITALISM." (paraphrased) >youtube essayist proceeds to explain at length the ways that forcibly aligning culture, religion, and government with private corporate interests is a bad thing (which it is, but it's not capitalism) >... but still constantly invokes "Capitalism" being forced on Japan from the West ("The False God") as the true evil in this narrative >Points to various examples in games where the bad guy is literally just the government and politicians, corrupt megacorps, giant evil monsters, and/or overt oppressive authoritarianism and tries to frame them as symbolic representations of western culture and Capitalism (spoken of as an evil ideology that makes people evil) >At no point do any of these stories (FF7, Persona 5, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, etc) present the idea that anyone except the already corrupt and evil are in favor of oppressing/destroying/enslaving all humanity and the planet in the name of endless economic growth and power for power's sake. >Several examples are literally evil entities that demand destruction for the sake of destruction and say as much directly >essayist's explanation for why none of this seems obvious and so far detached from the far more clear messages in their stories is because Japan speaks in deep contextual code so as not to offend anyone >aka, essayist gets to assert his beliefs and you can't tell him he's wrong because you just don't get the triple-secret encoded message hidden under all the deep cultural context clues that only a true Japanese audience (or foreign weeb, apparently) would understand >his western examples of Capitalist metaphor are the Outer Worlds and Bioshock Infinite... games where corporatism and an overt pseudo-religious authoritarian are the villains >this guy is a goddamned lawyer, apparently.

This is so fucking stupid. I should have checked out the moment I detected that hint of venom when he named capitalism as the culprit, but morbid curiosity got the better of me. For a bit there, when he was talking about the economic bubble and the lost decade, it seemed like maybe he wasn't going to be totally retarded, but he sure proved me wrong.

The message behind the JRPG genre is often that protecting the world is good, amassing power for the sake of power is bad, and that with the power of friendship and grinding side quests, a ragtag gang of spunky kids can save the world from malicious extraterrestrial entities that aim to mindlessly consume.

And also that the SMT series and many other pieces of Japanese media invokes western religious iconography, names, and symbols because it sounds cool and mysterious to Japanese audiences. That's literally the direct explanation given by nearly every single game and anime writer when asked about all the obtuse and confusing mythology and symbolism in their games.

[the-fiction-witch]

Arrangement P2

Media The Artful Dodger

Character Jack Dawkins

Couple Jack X Reader

Rating Flirty

Requested  More!!! Yes please! OH MY GOD do part 2 where they skip to the wedding and get up to no good 😏 I need a part 3!! pt 2 plz

"did you have anything you wanted to ask or know about myself? Or am I simply a woman so that's enough to be your wife?" She asked,

"yes...I would like to know more things about you. I would like to know the real Y/n, not just the pretty girl who is going to be my wife."

"of course, ask away then" She nodded, 

"I suppose the obvious first question is...what do you like to do for fun?"

"I read. I sew. I bake of occasions"

I nodded, I rather liked those answers. 

She reads, sews and bakes. Those all sound like very wholesome activities. Very Wifely, I can imagine her sewing my shirts and baking me cookies for work. 

 "well...what kind of books do you like to read? are you more into fiction or perhaps more nonfiction? do you like a nice romance novel? I suppose romance is something that might be right up your alley." I smirked, "Perhaps reading some romance in preparation for our meeting? but you seem like a woman of...depth...and a woman who has more layers to her than meet the eye."

"I don't much enjoy romance I find it very repetitive, I do love a good nonfiction book it's always interesting to learn but" she explained, "I enjoy mystery, horror, and thriller a good murder mystery novel cannot be topped" she smiled genuinely giving my arm a little squeeze,

Awww that genuine smile and that squeeze. it's the kind of contact I'd been craving from her all day, and it makes me feel even more attracted to her. I felt very lucky... to be so close to her and get to hear more about her like I was discovering a beautiful garden now her harsh walls of stone were lowered, she sounds like the perfect woman...I barely want this day to end.

"that's very interesting, actually. I would have never guessed that. I mean I could guess the mystery part. but horror and thriller? those are such intense genres. why do you like them?"

"I enjoy the darker more macabre I suppose" she giggled,

my curiosity piqued as she mentioned 'macabre' I couldn't help but smirk and let a sly smile form across my lips pulling out my most flirtatious language, "a woman after my own heart. dark and macabre. I think you're the only one who can make such a claim and get away with it. I don't think anyone else could pull that off. I have to admit, it's somewhat sexy that you're attracted to such intense genres."

"Pardon?" She chuckled, 

"I said I think you're sexy when you're into dark and macabre things. isn't that what I said? did I say that wrong? am I not making myself clear here?"

"it was clear I was merely checking I heard correctly," her lips curling into a smile

"yes, you heard correctly. a lady who likes dark and macabre stuff...is pretty sexy. I will stand by what I said." I smirked, "I am a surgeon," I chuckled, "Blood, bodies and death are a key part of my day," 

"So you'd say you like a more macabre young lady?"

I bit my lip hard trying not to imagine her with her hands and a pretty dress covered in blood, Ummm she'd look good like that. The thought of a dark macabre young lady admittedly excited me, and the thought of my wife being like that... well how can I not love it. "yes...I do indeed, a young lady who's a bit macabre is incredibly attractive to me. I can't help but find such a woman intriguing...and sexy."

"ohhh wait till you see my bedroom" she giggled to herself biting her lip a little,

"Oh my...I dare say you're only making me more interested and excited. I would love to see your bedroom..." I smirked, Half at the idea of merely seeing her bedroom and at the idea of my macabre little firecracker. 

"I don't know it might frighten you" She raised her eyebrow, 

"frighten me? my dear, nothing you can do will frighten me. I'm a surgeon. I see more blood than a human holds most days, but... I find this dark and macabre side of you enticing and appealing. I want to see what really lies underneath that innocent and charming exterior of yours. I dare say that the darker and more intense nature is what I really want to see..."

"humm" she smiled clearly enjoying herself as by now we had finished with the garden and headed back towards the house 

I can't help but be mesmerized by her gloved hands, which have now taken mine, the soft supple texture of her fingers in the sweet velvet as they intertwine with mine. I rather felt a wave of sensual excitement build inside me as her gloved hands intertwined with mine. I can't help feeling incredibly aroused, this is not just due to the physical touch, this sight mixed with the flirtatiousness we had been experiencing back and forth with each other unable to remove the thought of marrying my little macabre firecracker makes my body ignite. 

her fingers began dancing on my palm for a while only causing me more excitement and arousal and after a while, I noticed she was not just playing with my palm but reading it her fingers tracing subtle lines and shapes on my palm was so exhilarating. the more she traces, the more my body trembles. suddenly I became very curious to know what she could tell.

"oh ...what do you see in my palm, My dear?"

"very strong lines, life line shaky at the start but I'd say that's fair"

I felt a little odd she brought it up, as I know she's right. "well you're definitely not wrong about that. I'm actually pretty surprised that you can read my palm accurately, although I suppose that's what you learn to do when you read so many dark and eerie genres..."

"Something like that," 

I stared deeply into her eyes, My expression of pure devotion as I felt her soft hands tracing those strong lines on my palm. I am already so captivated by her beauty and by these innocent gestures knowing what's behind them. I was already feeling so aroused by her that now my breathing is quick and shallow my feelings showing themselves in the slight trembling in my hands as she continues to read my palm. "well, I hope that's true. and you're telling me this based on the line shapes only?"

"ummm, heart line is very thick too you must be very caring, fate line is very strange though"

"Strange? in what way? what does my strange fate line indicate?"

"usually difficulty with life, with money and with experience usually a struggling life"

"yes...you are correct in that. my life has been fairly difficult so far." I nodded, "What a clever little thing you are my dear," 

"forgive me. I shouldn't" She shook her head trying to separate our hands but I took her hands in mine again, 

"no, please. it's ok. I think it's good for me to know that information. maybe I've just been having bad luck so far, and it will turn around someday. but it can't be right all the time...right?"

"no, it does straighten out see," she said showing off the lines in my hand, honestly they just looked like lines to me but it was still interesting to hear her talk like this with me, and feeling  her trace the lines with her velvet gloved fingers were helping,

"so...this indicates...a turn of luck?"

"mhm, struggle and then stability, and look your heart line and love line join," she said showing off where two lines become one, 

"yes...they do. I've never read into any of this at all. what does it mean that they join together like that?"

"it means your love life and relationships meet and then combine with your heart's true intentions usually means soul- ohh uhh soulmates." she blushed letting my hand go and fixing her hair behind her ear, 

Awwww her blush is so cute, "Soulmates?" I smirked at her and she blushed more,

"If you believe in that sort of thing," 

" believe in it," I told her, part of me honestly did I like to think there is someone special out there for everyone, but most likely never find them, and I also just wanna tease her a little more, and if she believes this stuff? no harm in thinking we... couple be. "I believe this was destiny...and what you had just described. soulmates. I absolutely believe in that sort of thing...I am a hopeless romantic at times."

She nodded as we walked blush flooding her cute little cheeks, I just wanted to kiss all her her sweet little red face. 

"And...what about you? do you believe in the same things? love at first sigh...being soulmates and all that jazz?"

"I don't know honestly, I would like to believe such things but I think I am too uncertain to truly believe them" she said fiddling with her fingers,

"Being sceptical is good, very good I think. doesn't mean you can't be allowed to believe in a little magic," I winked, I am...quite a bit sceptical myself. but the way today has gone...and the way you've made me feel...I have to believe that this was simply meant to be. I cannot believe anything less than that."

"I have..." She began stopping walking and fully turning herself to face him fiddling with her fingers and being almost unable to make eye contact "hope."

"Hope?"

"Mhm, Hope."

"For us?"

"For us." she nodded,

"then I feel the same. I also have hope for us. let us promise to hold on to our hope and make things work. let us try our hardest to make this work and be the happiest we can be...together." I smiled kissing her hand, 

"I'd like that Jack," she nodded, 

I smiled so warmly to think this was true I know I already got lucky that an arranged marriage was to a woman so beautiful so sweet, so firey, and so many of my desires all in one woman, and now to hear she had hope for us even after so little time together, hope for our soon to be marriage, It made me feel so cozy, I was starting to believe maybe she was my soulmate, my most perfect little innocent macabre firecracker of a woman soon to be my wife, I rubbed my thumb against her hand and for a moment was convinced we simply had become part of a romance novel, as I glanced at her sweet eyes holding her hand, it all felt so delicate, so tender, so sweet, a little sensual those sweet eyes looking back at me, "I would like that too..."

Y/n and I made our way back to the house and into the dining room where the formal dinner was to take place. The large meal was already laid on the table and was indeed quite impressive. Mr. Y/l/n takes his place at the head of the table with his wife Mrs Y/l/n, to his left. 

I was seated at the other end of the table directly across from Mr. Y/l/n. Y/n is seated to the left of me. already my stomach was rumbling after a good while of hospital food, I did my best to seem a proper gentleman even if my mouth was watering, Mr. Y/l/n raised from his seat with his glass so we all did too with our full glasses, 

Mr Y/l/n he smiles warmly, his eyes brightening, "I'd say today we toast, to agreements come to pass, to clear skies ahead" he said, "To marriage and to love young" he said raising his glass to Y/n and I, "and old" he gleamed raising his glass to his wife, 

I smiled as we all had a sip after the toast that was very sweet and then he looked to me,

"I think that is a very appropriate toast that you have chosen, Mr. Y/l/n...I hope that we can all share happy and successful marriages like the two of you." 

"Here, here," He nodded and we all had another sip before sitting and getting on with dinner.

Be a gentleman. Be a gentleman. 

I'm at the table with her parents, and my soon-to-be wife, having met her less than two hours ago. I have to be proper, I know I'm hungry and I know there is literally a whole roast chicken in front of me! but I need to... BEHAVE. But I... did my best. 

Once dinner was done we headed to the parlor where Y/n sat with her mother the two signing back and forth, and Mr Y/l/n put his arm around my shoulder in a very fatherly way, "Shall we have a drink then Doctor Dawkins? I am rather eager to have my first drink with my soon-to-be son-in-law." 

"Ohh yes I'd be delighted sir," I nodded,

"No no, No sir, Just Martin. You are to be my son-in-law. You are to be family." He said as he fixed us each a glass of whiskey, he handed me my own and we clicked our glasses. "Just a week to the wedding,"

"Just a week, I admit I am quite excited." I nodded, I chatted with her father for a while being pleasant as I slowly drank the whiskey, doing my best to be a gentleman and conversationalist even if I think I missed some secret conversations given her mother would often sign things and they would reply back to her in sign so I have no clue what anyone is saying, I should really learn. I'm sure y/n can teach me once we're married, just feel like kinda a dick making her mother lip-read me, and I'm sure it would be handy in the hospital. For patients and for secretly insulting Sneed. 

I noticed her mother sign something and Y/n blushed a little,

"Perfect idea Darling," He smiled signing back to his wife, "I think we shall leave the engaged couple to chat I'm sure they'll get along swimmingly," he said taking her by the arm and the two leaving shutting the door to let Y/n and I be alone. 

"Would you care to join me?" She asked flicking a deck of cards between her hands, 

I smirked immediately downing the rest of my drink, "I'd be delighted, my dear." 

[seventeendeer]

TF2 analysis - on cultural references, context as characterization, and how to analyze comedy

-taps mic- HELLO, TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMMUNITY !

A while back, I received an ask requesting analysis of one of my favorite video games of all time and special interest of 12+ years, and you know I just had to go and turn that into a several thousand word essay for the reading pleasure of the people.

Because that shit got way too long, I’ve decided to put it into a post of its own. Hopefully a big title and no previous context being necessary will give more people an incentive to read it. I spent a long time on it and I think it’s pretty cool, and I would love some nice attention for my effort. ;w;

The ask I received went a little something like this:

Below the cut, I will be replying to these questions individually. It touches on everything from Cold War propaganda to the media landscape at the game’s launch in 2007 to first-person shooters as a genre - all to gain a better understanding of author intent, expected audience reaction, characterization and themes.

Anon previously requested help writing more accurate fanfiction, and damn it, that is what they are going to get!! and MORE

Introductory disclaimer:

First of all, for clarity's sake: this analysis is going to specifically talk about TF2 as seen through a fandom lens. I'm going to be talking about the game as a piece of media, creator intention, and the fandom's reactions to the game and extended canon - that is, the slice of the TF2 fandom that is interested in the characters, in the world and in doing at least semi-faithful fanworks.

I will not be touching on TF2's wider playerbase or meme culture. I greatly enjoy both, but they are not relevant to the post I made that sparked this anon's questions (I will link this post in the replies, in case anyone is curious).

I also have to disclaim that any references I make to real world history in this post have to be taken with a hard grain of salt. I've done my best to fact-check everything, but I am not infallible! For a better understanding of the historical elements I talk about here, please do your own research, and approach my claims with a healthy amount of scepticism, same as you would any unsourced social media post. (Readers may notice examples I give below primarily feature Soldier, Spy and Scout. This is because I feel I have the most solid grasp on the historical events and media that informs their characters, compared to the other classes. All the classes contain these contexts and meta complexities, but in an effort to not talk out of my ass too much, I have decided to focus on the characters I feel the most confident dissecting.)

>1) What tropes was the game parodying/what cultural contexts would you say are essential to understand, in order to better understand the game?

The characters of TF2 were specifically designed as satiric takes on national stereotypes depicted in American propaganda media during the Cold War. Two easy-to-explain examples to illustrate:

- Soldier embodies the ideal of a "red-blooded American" who is strong, brave, hyper-masculine, hates foreign superpowers, loves the vague ideal of "freedom" and firmly believes America is the greatest nation in the world. He prides himself on having personally murdered nazis in the past, despite actually having accomplished no such thing (comparable to the US taking a disproportionate amount of credit for defeating Nazi Germany in World War 2; at the time, WW2 was a very recent cultural memory that made for good propaganda fodder). He fears, hates and dehumanizes communists (as Soviet Russia was the US's highly-villified opponent during the Cold War). The satiric angle: he is depicted as so brainwashed by propaganda that he has become immune to facts and logic. He is horribly sadistic, brutal, paranoid and xenophobic. The ideal he is based on is portrayed as shockingly and disproportionally violent and illogical to the point of being laughable.

- Spy is based on how the US viewed France during the Cold War: as a weak, cowardly, “unmanly” nation. At the time, France was depicted this way because they were perceived to have surrendered to Nazi Germany early on in World War 2 out of cowardice. Spy is one of the least macho of the mercs, he is ineffective when fighting enemies head on, and his main method of attack is reliant on trickery and “not fighting fair.” The satiric angle: Spy isn't actually much of a coward - he is more intelligent, more tactical and more resourceful than many of the others, and simply doesn’t feel the need to risk his neck when he could be working smarter, not harder. The other characters are portrayed as a bunch of meatheads for picking on him. The negative stereotype he is based on is portrayed as largely unearned and ridiculous. (Though note that Spy is also depicted as an upperclass prick to contrast with Engineer being working class; in that dynamic, Spy is depicted as a pompous asshole, while Engie is depicted in a more favorable light. The characters are multi-faceted and no class is universally “better” or “worse” than the others, but right now I'm specifically focusing on the "Cold War stereotype" aspect.)

Notice how, while these two characters have different nationalities in-universe, they are both based on stereotypes seen through an American lens. Notice the way the American character is based on a comedically deconstructed ideal, while the character from a nation the US did not view favorably at the time is depicted as falsely judged by an unfair and ridiculous metric.

The entire TF2 cast and universe revolves on this axis! It takes old American ideals and prejudices and uses them for comedy, adding exaggeration and caveats to make those ideals look absurd.

It’s a parody of media produced in the US during the Cold War, which contained massive amounts of propaganda. It satirizes the political ideals that were glorified in said propaganda media.

Very important extra cultural context: this satiric depiction of old war propaganda was specifically designed to be instantly recognizable to TF2's central demographic at the time of release in 2007.

Older Valve games like TF2 were very specifically made to appeal to pop culture-savvy, nerdy young adult gamers. This demographic was expected to see the characters and think "oh hey, it's like a funny version of X character type I've seen in movies!"

Because those kinds of movies were still everywhere at the time. The Cold War ended in 1991. TF2 was released only 16 years later. To put this into perspective: the Legally Blonde movie came out 22 years ago, in 2001. Think about how many Legally Blonde memes are still floating around the web today, how fondly remembered this one movie is and how often it’s still referenced in contemporary media. Now consider that media produced during the Cold War was fresher in the cultural memory at the time of TF2′s release than Legally Blonde is for us today.

TF2 was never meant to be seen in a vacuum. It was always meant to be in conversation with old media that it expected everyone playing to be extremely familiar with.

I'll say that again: the cast of TF2 are based on Cold War stereotypes - comedically exaggerated - so they would clearly read as parodies to people in 2007.

Those are 3 different overlapping lenses to consider when approaching the characters.

The characters are more than just funny cartoon men with guns and an unusual amount of differing accents. They are commentary on older media trends.

Now, someone might ask - why did the developers choose this specific aesthetic and tone for their online shooter video game?

The developers have stated multiple reasons, including wanting the characters to be immediately recognizable both physically (they generally look like the stereotypical depictions they're based on) and audibly (the differing accents and regional dialects make it easy to identify which class is yelling in your ear mid-combat during gameplay).

However, I also have another theory:

It's been confirmed TF2's comedic tone was designed to combat a lot of negative aspects of shooters in the genre at the time of its creation. I have seen developers discuss that they were going for a lighthearted atmosphere to discourage player hostility.

I, personally, also think it is extremely likely the developers opted for satirizing old war propaganda partially in order to combat the tendency of other shooters often being war propaganda. Valve has always been a politically left-leaning company, with a history of depicting military-like forces and unchecked capitalism in a negative light (see the Half-Life and Portal series, respectively).

By depicting the cast of TF2 as generally unhinged, illogical and clownish, they were able to communicate to players: "War is dumb, nationalism is dumb, whatever Call of Duty has been telling you is cool is actually illogical and copying it makes you look like like an idiot. That being said, we all sometimes wish we could beat the shit out of other people in the desert with a shovel, so let's get our aggressions out in a safe, non-serious environment with no consequences. Come play pretend you're a murderous sadist blowing up equally unhinged people with us, it's silly, but it's so fun."

I believe everything from the cartoonishly over-the-top, non-permanent deaths to the deserted, remote environments, to the lack of any truly innocent or defenseless characters was all a carefully crafted foundation made to encourage players to make the informed decision to leave their inhibitions and moral hangups at the door. They wanted players to have fun and go nuts engaging in military-like violence, without encouraging pro-military attitudes in their playerbase.

For an example of a game that royally screwed up doing the same thing, just look at Overwatch - it tried to preach a "wholesome" vibe that was completely mismatched with its gameplay. Overwatch tries to justify extreme violence as Okay When Good Guys Do It To Bad Guys, which ... yeah, again, that is straight up modern military propaganda, on purpose or not (and knowing the US military’s tendency to pour money into video games that glorify war, “on purpose” isn’t as much of a stretch as one might think). Paradoxically, TF2 comes out both looking and feeling better to play, because it handles aligning player emotions VS in-game actions much more elegantly. It accounts for common pitfalls in its genre. OW jumps into those pitfalls with both legs and instead ends up looking shallow and nauseatingly twee.

Of course, all of this is personal speculation. Whether or not this was the reading that Valve intended, I do believe it's a big reason why TF2 has remained so profoundly loveable over the years - it uses its writing and art direction to put the player in the perfect mindspace to Fuck Shit Up.

It's a fantastic example of how to carefully and artfully craft something extremely stupid for maximum intended effect. It uses the strengths of comedy as a genre to its absolute fullest.

Unfortunately, because of cultural shifts since the game's release, newer fans do end up missing out on a lot of what makes this game so expertly done. Many newer fans don't come into the game with the base cultural knowledge it expected of its original audience. To gain a better grasp on the characters and enjoy this piece of media as it was intended, I think it will be extremely helpful to familiarize yourself with the material it is referencing.

For an introduction to media produced and influenced by the Cold War, I would recommend the Wikipedia article Culture during the Cold War as a starting point.

(I have skimmed, but not read, the full article; I encourage readers to be especially source-critical when engaging with pages like this that detail themes of history and propaganda - it's a starting point, not a finish line!)

>2) What themes/layers do you feel the fandom has lost sight of, over time? (or never really managed to acknowledge to begin with?)

Some of this is covered in the previous section, but I'll use this question as an opportunity to talk about another thing I feel is overlooked by fans (and, frankly, the writers of the newer comics too), especially when creating fanworks:

The fact that the characters are extremely dependent on their setup and narrative context to be likeable.

Something I think fandom culture struggles with in general is interpreting and handling fictional characters not as real, independent people who exist in a vacuum, but as the sum total of countless moving parts inside a narrative all working together to create the impression of a real person.

In a comedy, characters are especially dependent on presentation to feel like themselves. It is not enough to loyally recreate an arbitrary list of personality traits in order to create accurate fanworks - recreating the sorts of situations they get into, the kinds of people they interact with, and cherry-picking the information they have access to is neccessary for bringing out what makes the characters so charming!

This is especially important when interpreting and handling a cast made up exclusively of characters who are mean people with bad intentions, bad opinions and a complete lack of adequate self-reflection across the board.

Canon makes them all come off amazingly likeable, but this is because the writers were manipulating tone, relationship dynamics, setting, and much more to show off the characters at their most distinct, least detestable and absolute funniest.

Overlooking this aspect of writing comedy characters often leads to a very common pitfall in many, many fandoms out there - following the logic of a character's canon personality to a place they don't like, and getting rid of those personality traits to combat their own discomfort.

Making characters too kind, too understanding, too progressive, etc., is an endless source of micharacterization in fandoms in general, but especially in fandoms of media where the characters are a bunch of dicks in canon.

To be clear, I fully understand where this is coming from. Fans get attached to characters like these because they're funny (and intended to be loved!) - realizing that a character you really like would logically react in an unlikeable way if you put them into certain situations feels bad. No one wants to turn a character they love into something they find they don't love anymore.

But this is where carefully engineering your setup and narrative comes into play.

Example:

A lot of TF2 fans are queer. Queers flock to TF2 because let’s face it, the campy vibes and silly fun masculinity and weird women are like catnip to us.

But a lot of queer fans go into the fandom aspect of the game and find that ... wait, shit, these characters are not exactly pillars of progressiveness. Reconciling some of the extremist political views of the characters with queer narratives, with queer values, seems a daunting task to some. Because what’s a queer fan to do? Portray a character they love in a way that makes them unloveable? Painstakingly depict shitty, uncomfortable characterization in the name of “realism” that ultimately detracts from their own and other people’s enjoyment of the story? That’s not fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. So, what, do they just portray the characters as miraculously having perfectly amicable social politics by the standards of the larger queer community in 2023?

Some do, of course, for their own comfort, and it’s understandable, but it’s not good storytelling. It’s an excessively shallow way of interacting with media - the fanfiction equivalent of confidently sitting down to write an in-depth, flowery review of a horror movie you watched with your hands over your eyes during all the scary parts. You cannot create fanworks that are even remotely faithful to the spirit of the canon while deliberately ignoring the core themes and author intention of the canon you’re working with. These things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive. TF2 characters are meant to be wrong about most things politically. Hopefully my reply to the first question in this post adequately illustrates why that’s so important.

But the good news is that bastardizing canon in order to avoid making characters unlikeable also isn’t necessary.

There’s a reason Soldier, in canon mocks his enemies for everything from failing at masculinity to being disabled, yet doesn’t have a single homophobic line:

The people writing his lines figured it would detract from the character. It would hurt real people’s feelings and make the character less fun to play as, so they didn’t include it. No excuses, no explanation; it is simply omitted for the sake of likeability.

(For contrast, notice that the writers did not extend the same kindness to certain other minorities, like fat people - playing as Heavy fucking sucks when you’re fat, because every other class hurls fatphobic abuse at him. This is a fuck-up on the writers’ side; they failed to identify this type of humor as meaningfully detracting from the experience for a significant amount of players, and so ignorantly decided to include it.)

This is what I mean by “setup and narrative context.” I also like to call this “maneuvering”, because it involves selectively portraying a character in contexts and situations where they shine and instill the intended audience reaction, while steering them away from situations where they would logically act in ways that counteract how the audience is intended to feel about them.

Fanworks can absolutely do the same thing! Fanworks can even take the technique further, because they’re not bound by limited time and focus, the way the original work is!

Sticking with the above example of wondering What The Hell To Do when portraying a character who, due to the ideal he’s satirizing, should by all rights be on the wrong side of history in relation to queer rights, let me make a bold statement:

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic. He's a nationalist, a right-winger, a sexist, a xenophobe - but he's not homophobic.

Why? Because he just so happens to never encounter any gay people in canon. They happen to never cross his mind. He's thinking about other shit. If there's a Pride riot in Teufort, he just so happens to be looking the other way.

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic, because he can't think for himself. He's an idea, a fraction of a bigger narrative that he does not exist outside of.

And if he needs to encounter gay people in a fanfiction, don’t just passively follow the logic of his character to that uncomfortable place none of us enjoy going to - use that maneuvering! Make him misinformed, make him misunderstand, give him incomplete information - the character is not only a face with personality traits attached, his soul is also in the context of the story!

Make him homophobic, but he's pretty sure only Europeans can be gay (just look at them!), and it's already so damn sad that they weren't born in beautiful, paradisical AMERICA, so he pities them instead of hating them. Make him think he's successfully being homophobic, but he has misunderstood what a gay person is and thinks it's a particularly venomous type of snake (men who kiss other men are fine, why would he care about that when there are HORRIBLE HOMOSEXUALS slithering around in the desert that he needs to go blow up right now before they bring this glorious nation to ruin). Make him homophobic, but literally "phobic" - he's shaking and crying hiding inside a cupboard, and his newly-outed gay friends have to lure him out with canned meat and a trail of small American flags, treating him like a feral cat that needs a little time and space to get used to people.

That's funny. It's likeable, it's charming. He isn't portrayed as a good person, or woke in a way that clashes with the themes of his character, but with a little maneuvering, he is faithful to what makes him such a legendary character in canon - being a silly caricature that brings us joy.

If Soldier himself needs to be gay? There are ways to make it happen. Same approach. Get creative. Make it silly. Go for thematically appropriate comedic explanations, not cop-outs or realism*.

That is what I think the TF2 fandom is lacking - understanding of how to manipulate context to make a character feel like their own unique, lovable selves.

Characters are not just visuals and personality traits. They are also what happens to them, what they conveniently find out, what they happen to miss.

This is the same for every story, but it is especially important to understand in a comedy. Doubly so in a whimsical, hyper-violent, morbid comedy like TF2.

It's one of the most important layers to be able to recognize, and an even more important one to be willing to try to recreate.

*Unless you feel like doing a deliberate deconstruction, in which case, go ham, sometimes actively engaging with canon means doing some real weird stuff to it to make a certain point on a meta level. This is obviously different from the issues I described above.

>3) "even the newer official comics don't even seem to really "get" the original game" … I've had a nagging sense for years now that the TF2 comics don't really match the game, tonally -- which has admittedly soured my enjoyment of them -- but I've never been able to put two and two together and fully determine why that is. What would you say they've failed to "get" about the work they're based off of?

While I very much love the newer comics on their own merits, I do think they are wildly removed from the game, and lack a lot of depth by comparison.

I believe the greatest failing of the comics, especially the long-form comic, is that the writers do not seem to be aware of either of the subjects I covered above.

They do not handle the satirical aspect well. The newer comic writers don't even really seem to be aware that there is a satirical aspect - they treat the world as just a silly version of mid-1900′s media, with a narrow focus on silver age comics (which were primarily superhero comics, not an easy genre to match with TF2′s more grounded setting - see the comic’s limp attempt at doing a Superman parody with Sniper) + a dash of the Man’s Life magazines (would have been a good match, if not for the fact that it’s primarily used as aesthetics, with no attention given to themes the way the game does with its own media references). They attempt to write parody only, and even the parody aspect is a hollow effort. Crucially, the writers don't seem to have much of an opinion of the old media properties they're parodying, and without opinions to guide a parody, it becomes shallow and lifeless. "Mid-1900′s media was a bit silly, right?" isn't enough of a hot take to justify its existence. It needs an axis on which to spin to feel complete.

Reiterating the point I made in my answer to question 1: the game's satirical aspect circled the point that was "American media made during the Cold War pushed a narrative that was illogical and ridiculously misaligned with reality."

Its absurd humor is grounded in reality and follows a thematic red thread that the comic does not. As a result, the comic (again, primarily later entries) loses a lot of the sting and edge of the game.

Even though the comic attempts to be more serious and "dark" at certain points, the much more silly and easy-going game (and Meet the Team videos, not to mention) comes out looking more mature, interesting and layered, even though many of the layers remain subtextual. The game is fully married to comedy and has no intention of "getting real", but it is loyal to the spirit of satire. It has opinions. It has bite.

In the game and early supplementary material, there is a dread and horror in the subtext that the comics tried to bring to light later on, but the comic writers didn't know what the scary thing behind the curtain was.

The scary thing was - is - the Cold War.

The scary thing is the dread injected into the genre it's satirizing by people who wanted American readers and movie-goers to be afraid. Scaring people into compliance, into finding a sense of safety and comfort in their national identity, was the entire purpose of many, many pieces of media released at the time.

The comic writers didn't notice the subtext and figured they had to make up their own reasons for why the world of TF2 is so utterly fucked.

They didn't understand the cultural context, and they missed the mark entirely.

This also hindered the comic writers' ability to reproduce the game's humor and characterization. Without understanding where exactly the game's humor was coming from or why the characters were so likeable despite being horrible people, they lacked direction. They made the characters at the same time too impassionate, too stupid, too uncaring, and too nice. All together, the characters became less interesting, less likeable.

Example:

- In the game, Spy was not intended to be Scout's father. Spy having a relationship with Scout's mother emphasized Spy's craftiness and intelligence (undermining the enemy team not only through brute force, but through infiltrating their personal lives), and showed off the strengths of his aforementioned "softness" and sentimentality (he's the only mercenary shown to have consistent luck with women). It also emphasized the flaws in Scout's worldview, and his status as the team underdog, and showed a clear contrast to Scout's non-existent love life. Spy came out of the situation funny and likeable because he 1. was portrayed as cool and capable in a way the other mercs aren't, and 2. his softer side is simultaneously humorously endearing, consistent with the rest of his characterization, and highly informed by the satirical aspect of his character in a way that clicks perfectly thematically. Scout comes out of the situation likeable because his ego is balanced out by his bad luck - you can simultaneously see that he's trying too hard and why he's trying too hard. Spy and Scout's dynamic in-game is also fun and interesting, because you have a tough, hyper-violent, wannabe-macho young man who is desperate to gain the respect of both his team and his enemies getting freaking owned by a guy who is nowhere near the impressive-tough-guy ideal Scout strives to embody. The game's satirical points inform the characters and their actions, which gives the comedy depth and nuance, which in turn makes all characters involved fun to watch and easy to get invested in. It is the establishing of and subsequent pointing-and-laughing-at an ideal that produces engaging, character-driven comedy in this situation.

- By contrast, the comics decided that Spy was Scout's father. Spy's motives for getting involved with Scout's mother is no longer about gaining intel on his enemies. In this version of events, his motives are reduced to merely wanting to reconnect with an old flame. This completely undermines the dynamic described above, for multiple reasons: the situation no longer shows Spy as having a particular skillset that sets him apart from the other mercs, he is no longer portrayed as emotionally "softer" than the others (in fact, having left a poor woman to raise and feed 8 kids on her own while he was off enjoying his upperclass life makes him look incredibly cold in a way that is distinctly unfunny; I don’t think the writers thought this part through), Scout's comedic poor luck is no longer on display, and the "macho character is humiliated by the type of guy he respects the least" satirical aspect no longer works. There is an attempt to replace it with a mutual "ugh, I'm related to this guy?" running gag, but it's a very pale substitute for the layered, strongly characterized, thematically appropriate dynamic present in the original game. Spy comes out of it looking like more of a cowardly, cold-hearted fuck-up than a hilariously brilliant tactician with a heart. Scout comes off way too pitiable, because he is not responsible for his own misery here, and the person horribly bullying him and picking apart his self-esteem on the battlefield is his absent father who abandoned him as a child. He's not an objectively badass character who nonetheless fucks himself over in humorous ways trying to chase an ideal that objectively sucks - he's just a regular shitty guy who ended up in bad circumstances because of things outside of his control.

The comic writers didn't understand what Spy and Scout respectively represented in the game, and because of this, they didn't realize they were taking the characters off the rails and making them much less interesting as a result. They didn't realize they were killing off an endless source of comedy that supported the game's satirical angle in a fun, unique, dynamic way.

It resulted in a flat, flavorless subplot. It had some superficial attempts at "heartwarming" moments ...

... but here's my take: if the writers wanted to include more warmth and sincerity in the comics, wouldn't it have been way more heartwarming if Spy started treating Scout as his son even though he wasn't?

Would it not have been way more endearing to see him look out for his girlfriend's child, not because he has any personal ties to him himself, but because he knew if anything happened to Scout, his mother would be devastated?

Why not build from there? Why not make it an active choice? Why not preserve the existing dynamic and themes, and just follow that narrative thread to its logical conclusion?

Spy has an established sentimental side. Scout is desperate for approval. The reluctant surrogate father/son development practically writes itself. It would have been such a good way to explore TF2's themes more explicitly, too!

But again, the comic writers did not seem to realize the game even had themes.

I do like the newer comics. I do think they're really fun, and I did even enjoy the "Spy is Scout's father" subplot in its own way. But this complete inability to identify the game's themes, and thus the source of all its comedy, and thus the red thread defining characterization - it resulted in supplemental material that was lackluster, directionless and unable to scratch the same itch the game does.

They're good comics, but they're hardly TF2 comics.

>4a) … Sheerly out of curiosity, how do you feel Expiration Date holds up, in comparison?

Similar to the way I dislike Spy being revealed to be Scout’s biological father for coming off as a stilted, superficial attempt at being “heartwarming,” I also immensely dislike later supplementary material trying to promote Ms. Pauling to Scout’s recurring love interest for the exact same reason. Expiration Date pushes this subplot way past its breaking point and shows off extremely well why the “jerk characters are secretly a bunch of softies” treatment is so deeply, deeply out of place in TF2.

Back in the early comics, Scout hitting on Miss Pauling was played as a joke at his expense. He was an idiotic, sexist guy incapable of talking to a pretty woman without trying to fuck - she was a highly skilled and deviously manipulative minor character who mostly existed to show off how dangerously competent the Administrator and her people were. Scout acting like an utter dumbass too entrenched in his own limited worldview to notice what was happening right in front of him was important characterization for him, Miss Pauling’s quiet, calculating efficiency was important characterization for her boss, and their clashing personalities set the tone for the dynamic between the entire team of mercenaries and the conspiracy going on right under their noses.

Expiration Date chose to eliminate these layers and invent a completely new conflict for these two specific characters to go play with in a corner, which had nothing to do with their original characterization or the larger plot. Scout is now portrayed as being genuinely in love with Pauling, even noticing small details about her mannerisms and knowing about some of her interests, even though the entire point of their original interactions were that Scout was so busy trying to live his tough-guy-with-a-pretty-girl-on-his-arm fantasy he did not bother to listen to or learn anything about the women unfortunate enough to cross his path, allowing Pauling to carry out her job without causing suspicion.

Instead, Scout’s sexist approach to interacting with women is played for sympathy (”he’s actually a romantic underdog because the lady he likes accurately clocked him as an idiot!”) and inadvertently validated (”once she gave him a chance, she found out he’s actually a pretty okay guy!”).

In the process, Miss Pauling loses far too much of her usual competence, being visibly freaked out over having to perform a job she’s been shown to handle with grace in the past, and being taken aback by what should by all rights be routine weirdness in this world, all so she can have an eye-roll-worthy forced positive reaction to the entire experience at the end of the short, in a weak attempt to justify why she comes to like Scout more despite all the trouble he’s caused for her and wants to spend more time with him in the future.

The romance subplot is only made possible because the characters are heavily edited compared to their past portrayals, is only able to develop in the direction it does by aligning itself with the values of a character who existed to be a laughable, obviously-mistaken caricature, and is only able to distill a happy ending to the whole mess by stripping the other character of personal standards and agency.

Scout and Pauling are frankly two halves of a whole shitshow in Expiration Date, because the writers either didn’t notice or didn’t care about what older works were gunning for - all they saw was that Boy Liked Girl, Girl Did Not Like Boy, and that just wouldn’t stand! After all, everyone likes romance, right?

Scout, as he is portrayed in the game and in the early supplementary material, is one of my absolute favorites of the mercs. I find him incredibly funny, and the way his hyperactive, fun-loving, jokey traits overlap with his intense bloodlust (literally - he’s the class with the most weapons available that cause bleed damage!) and barely-suppressed rage makes him fun and fascinating. The little man has so much unchecked ADHD and cultural trauma he just has to go and kill people about it, which is just so intensely relatable in the “forbidden mood” way TF2 handles so well.

Unfortunately, I get the impression he has in later years fallen victim to the curse of being a skinny young white guy character, making him a target for writers who think every series needs a relatable everyman protagonist for either themselves or the audience to project onto (and who think skinny young white guys are the most relatable people around, for reasons you can probably imagine I’m not personally very fond of).

TF2 absolutely does not need a character like that, and butchering Scout’s established personality in the name of “relatable” and “wholesome” is first of all Some Bullshit, and second of all a lost cause. The character simply has too much baggage as an over-the-top caricature to be comfortably rewired into an author- or audience-surrogate. He’s always going to come out looking like an asshole - whether this aspect of his character turns out likeable or unlikeable is entirely controlled by whether the story itself acknowledges it.

I did find Scout and Spy's dynamic to be quite well done, though, especially if you ignore the "Spy is Scout's father" reveal from the later comics.

The idea that Spy didn't have to go and do all that, but has grown a soft spot for Scout purely because his girlfriend clearly loves her incredibly annoying boy and her happiness is his happiness, is perfectly in-character. Scout has also long been established to desperately crave approval from his teammates, and on paper, the idea of putting him in a situation where he had to let go of some of his macho man dignity, imitate Spy more closely and ultimately win a tiny bit of that approval he's been looking for is interesting and plays well with the game's existing themes.

It's just a shame Scout's motivations ended up being conjured out of thin air, in direct conflict with past characterization, for the purpose of enabling a schmaltzy, tonally dissonant romantic subplot.

tl;dr, I'm conflicted on the subject of Expiration Date. It's funny, it's cute when it's not trying too hard, and seeing the mercs dick around off the clock getting into stupid shenanigans together is something I've always wanted to see in a longer animated format. It’s largely a good time and a fun watch, despite its questionable gender politics and trope-y execution.

However, like the newer comics, it suffers immensely from writers who are simply unable to identify the themes, characterization and comedy style of older material, and thus, in my opinion, falls way, way short of its potential.

>4b) I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on Emesis Blue, should you end up watching it.

I'll be sure to share my opinions if I ever get around to watching it!! I'm super curious about it. As I mentioned in another post, what little I've heard of it seems much more on-point thematically, and even with the characters being so far removed from their official characterization, I really get the impression this is a deliberate, informed choice, in stark contrast to the newer official supplementary material. I’ll be sure to drop some words on it if I ever get around to watching the full thing!

Anyway, that about wraps up my thoughts! If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with it, and please do consider reblogging - I’ve spent an insane amount of time writing and re-writing and fact-checking this, and I would love for it to reach just half of all the people who were curious about my initial posts on the subject. :’)

Follow-up questions are very welcome, though to be clear: I’m not really interested in “debating” the subjects I’ve talked about here. I know I posit a lot of hard opinions in this post and not everyone is going to agree with me and that’s fine - if you feel differently, I invite you to simply ignore me and write your own take on your own blog. No hard feelings, I just don’t enjoy those kinds of discussions. (Corrections on any factual mistakes I’ve made are of course encouraged).

[stormywinter42]

If you could be anything, what would you be?

Welcome to my intro post :3

Oh also if you like someone’s art wether is music writing or some visual media FUCKING REBLOG IT likes don’t do shit

Im a pretty silly (not funny at all) person (not a person) who is severely addicted to this little known band called My Chemical Romance a good portion of my blog is just dedicated to them.

By the way if I ever tag you in a post and you want me to take it down lemme know and I’ll do it immediately

Basic info

Name: Winter (make sure it’s capitalized)

Deadname: [[REDACTED]]

Pronouns: she/it gendervoid transfem (robot girl?)

Sexuality: what are you a cop?? (I like who I like and that’s that)

Age: 16

Relationship: poly (unfortunately single (lost both my partners in the same week))

Oh also @robyntheloser is my daughter be nice to her

Time zone: PST

Sandcore🏝️

Alts:

@winters-rambles (reblogging)

@winters-grimoire42 (posting about my experiences with practicing magic)

Tags:

#what/ever/major/loser - posts reguarding updates/previews for my indie pop Midwest emo solo project

#Sandcore - anything relating to the beach and/or sand

#insane shit - me being horny or saying otherwise questionable things (which are probably also horny)

#reblog on main - self explanatory (usually important)

#accidental reblog on main - self explanatory for when I’m too lazy to delete and post to my other blog

Interests

Music genres: Emo, pop-punk, Midwest emo, Electronic, Post-Punk, Ska-Punk, Indie Pop, Prog-Rock

Bands/artists: Pink Floyd, MCR, Daft Punk, Gorillaz, Depeche Mode, Sublime, Modern Baseball, CAKE, Polyphia, Green Day

Hobbies: Guitar, Dungeons & Dragons, Marching Band (percussion), Gerard Way, Learning new skills, Baking, Balisong Flipping

Films/Shows: The Owl House, The Breakfast Club, The Matrix, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, DuckTales, Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline

Games: Celeste, Undertale, Deltarune, Terraria, Hollow Knight, Rhythm Doctor

Bad Things

DNI: Homophobes, Transphobes, Racists, People who are gonna harass me for being underweight, Pedos/MAPs, anyone who is otherwise bigoted

Triggers: [[REDACTED]]

Oh also fair warning sometimes (very rarely) I post insane horny shit because sometimes I can’t just keep it to myself

If I say something you don’t like you can block me without verbally harassing me I’ll ignore you anyways if you do

My Airbuds :3

You should follow my insta I play guitar there :3

Will expand on/update in the future

✨Mwah!!✨ Thanks for reading! Love ya!

[emotionallychargedtowel]

the persistent and the cute

Over the last few days, there’s been a really interesting discussion in the comments of my reblog of the gifset @tinngun​ put together of the Utsukushii Kare season 2 finale kiss. I’m transplanting it here because 1) it seems like @tinngun​ could use a break from all those notifications and so forth 2) the conversation was totally getting buried and I think it might be interesting to folks who probably wouldn’t see it without it being brought back out into a main post. So, first, here’s a quick recap of what I posted when I reblogged the gifset post in the first place. Well, the part that’s pertinent to this conversation, at least. I commented on the tropeyness of the scene, including allusions to Hira and Kiyoi’s sexual relationship, which (from what I hear) gets quite a bit of time in the novels but by virtue of TV as a medium, is mostly not portrayed in the series. In other words, since this part of the relationship isn’t shown directly the vast majority of the time, it has to be sketched out through these allusions, including what I’d consider coded language. 

With regard to the coded terms, I brought up something @bookittyboop​ had mentioned to me previously, that “persistent” and “cute” have specific meanings in BL/yaoi/other related genres. Basically, someone labeled as “persistent” is more active/forceful sexually and someone labeled as “cute” is yielding/more passive, with these roles being mutually reinforcing (i.e. the more yielding the “cute” person is, the more forceful the “persistent” person becomes).

Then I talked about the way Hagiwara Riku’s voice shifts in the line, “Sorry, Kiyoi. I can’t wait any longer tonight.” I had checked out some clips of other roles of his and noticed that among other things, he really seems to use his voice to differentiate between characters. This helped me to notice how distinct his “can’t wait” voice was, and I thought this was probably a voice belonging to the “persistent” part of the character. And I was less sure about this, but I thought Yagi Yusei was playing into this as well by reacting to the voice by kind of melting/going all floppy in response to it (he’d been fairly swoony before that, but it definitely seemed to be going up a notch there).

Then @xnoel, perennial fountain of information, pointed me to this quote from an interview translation (highlighting added):

So yeah, this seems like confirmation! I mean, what else would Yagi be referring to when he talks about “Hira’s ‘dark’ side” than this authoritative husky whisper thing?

Then I got some really great comments which I’m going to share here with permission, in part because I asked if anyone could point me toward more information on the “persistent”/”cute” thing.

The ever-helpful @nieves-de-sugui​ said:

a little bit of translation notes for your analysis! Hira is saying, literally, "I can't hold back (anymore)" and it's a very tropey sentence to say in BL (and shoujo) right before getting it on.  It's also the main indicator of taking over/taking charge of the sexual encounter. There's a lot of one taking over and the other giving in. (I think there's a lot here about how Japanese people relate to sex and how it should be done).

(I said I’d run into this trope in Kdramas before as well.)

And then the kind and knowledgeable @bookittyboop​ pretty much took me to school on the whole persistent/cute dichotomy! They left comments in two clusters at different times so I’m putting a little dinkus (the line of asterisks or symbol that marks a transition between sections) in there to show where that was. Oh, and I took out some greetings/closings and stuff like that for flow purposes. Here we go:

The best source I can think of (because otherwise this is the kind of thing your get through osmosis once you've watched enough Japanese media) is @absolutebl's post [link added by me] on the whipping boy trope, though there is more to it. I would classify Hira as a whipping boy/attack dog/service top and Kiyoi as more of a kuudere than a tsundere as well as a spoiled prince/pampered princess.

Their characterization and dynamic (and derivatives) is a staple not only in bl but in Japanese media. You've got a male character (Hira) who is the unassuming or even the loser archetype but unearths or shows a "manly" and protective side in benefit of his loved ones (many times after his "cowardice" or "uselessness" has let them be hurt) and slowly makes something of himself.

Then you got a (normally female) character who is  a combination of cold and aloof (kuudere) or prickly and explosive (tsundere) but actually wants to be cherished and uses the gruff exterior as a way to protect herself from heartache/rejection.

The first archetype normally admires the second and wants to be at their service while the second sees the potential in them and the adoration makes them feel safe. In normal circumstances the first character has a submissive personality and the other a domineering one. The second character is also going to find emotional vulnerability extremely difficult to express. But in certain circumstances, there is a "mom friend hack" button.

* * *

When character 2 opens up/shows vulnerability, character 1 identifies a need in the other to be cared for and takes confidence from being  chosen to provide that. There's also gap moe (duality cuteness) and horny "I'm gonna worship you so good you will forget everything else,” "gotta get top marks at satisfying you," and "you're so cute I wanna eat you up" buttons.

The second character in turn feels attracted, safe and tethered by that show of confidence and let's themselves (their barriers) go more and more . Those energies feed into each other and that's how you get to our kiss scene. Sometimes(Kiyoi's case) they add coyness and shyness ("no, that's too much you beast") because God forbid the tsundere/kuudere lacks plausible deniability when they go back to their senses. (there's a "baby it's cold outside"element too)

This is where @absolutebl​ chimed in to say they thought @bookittyboop​ was doing “a GREAT job” with this explanation.

And I agreed, and thanked them for the time and effort involved in such a useful explanation, but asked about the “mom friend hack” because it was new to me. Here was their explanation:

The mom friend is the responsible, caring one, prepared for any eventuality. If you're a generally anxious person but also the mom friend, you've got a hack where you handily navigate  situations which would normally be embarrassing or anxiety-inducing if it's for your loved one's benefit.

For example:

-Buying condoms, pregnancy tests, emetics or other "embarrassing" stuff

-telling waitstaff they got an order wrong and to please change it

-asking a teacher to explain something again or revise an exam score

-giving a jerk a piece of your mind

Basically, you may not be able to stand for yourself or even make perfectly mundane, normal requests for your own sake, but the power of love lets you rationalize things, be brave, and do it for others.

I just realized I probably didn't clarify enough. Hira's thing is not exactly a "mom friend hack" but it's similar to it in the sense that "being needed" lets him overcome a mental block.

And they added, re: my theory about Kiyoi’s response to the Persistent Voice:

As for the kiss voice and Kiyoi's reaction, I too am convinced that was all on purpose. Bl drinks from yaoi manga, which has a treasure trove of visual cues and tropes. If there was a manga version, we'd probably have seen Hira suddenly get wolfy ears and shiny eyes + Kiyoi blushing like a maiden (maybe a fade to black with the dirtiest onomatopoeia known to man) to signal someone's getting railed within an inch of his life 😂. This is the real life equivalent.

So, yeah. Lots to think about here. I’m glad to know I seemed to be on the right track. It’s funny how there is so much material out there about some tropes and genre terms (googling seme and uke will get you more results than you know what to do with) while other tropes are harder to find anything about. (If only because of the vagaries of search terms, which might be a factor here.) If nothing else I’ll have this post to refer back to and I hope others will do the same if they find it at all useful.

Thanks again to @bookittyboop​ and @nieves-de-sugui​ for their thoughts! And to the illustrious @absolutebl​ for chiming in with praise (for @bookittyboop​) and confirmation.

postscript:

There are a couple of things I keep noticing about that kiss scene since this discussion that I wanted to point out. I guess the fact that, due to both of my reblogs, I had a gifset of the scene at the top of my profile for three days probably has something to do with it.

First, I hadn’t noticed how much Kiyoi really is slipping into a “cute” persona even before the Persistent Voice is used--just in response to Hira’s first kiss. His eyes get very soft and he does that affectionate head-bonk but the pièce de résistance, to my mind, is the rather childlike way he sticks out the end of his tongue. So, yeah. The first stage of cuteness comes before the Voice is even used.

Second, I hadn’t even reckoned with just how floppy Kiyoi gets after the Voice. He’s swaying around so much that Hira keeps having to grab him so he doesn’t just keel over. He’s gone almost boneless.

I guess it’s just really fascinating to me how this set of tropes can be so pervasive in one culture (or at least noteworthy chunks of it) and yet almost entirely novel to me. I mean, I was aware cultural differences existed, of course, but sometimes getting hit by the reality of them is still startling.

[jacksonscouts]

Gather round, Scouts!

Let's meet @roselees, our Scout Spotlight winner! Feel free to say hello or give reactions in the comments. Now without further ado...😊

1. What was your first introduction to TLOU?

Is this when I confess I'm a relatively new fan? 🙈 I first played the game in about 2021 when I was looking on the PS Plus catalogue for something to play, and I've been hooked ever since!

Finding out there was a show was just an added bonus, even if streaming it here isn't super accessible. I wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of games in this genre so it was an accident I stumbled across it, but I'm very glad I did.

2. What would Joel's favorite girl scout cookie be?

3. What TLOU moment lives rent-free in your head?

None.. he's on Atkins ✋️.. my terrible show reference aside, in terms of an actual answer, I'm not from the States so my knowledge of girl-scout cookies is limited to pop culture but after a bit of googling:

I think he'd be kinda basic.. he's probably a thin-mints kind of guy. Whatever Sarah would buy, he'd probably sneak one when she went to bed, in typical dad fashion.

4. Any special talents?

Tess' goodbye in the game was an especially poignant moment because I went into it completely blind - I hadn't had any spoilers and had no idea what was coming. I'm a big fan of exploring different types of relationship and connections within media and so I really loved how they managed to essentially canonize how important Tess and Joel were to one another in that final scene without having either of them out and out /say/ it.

Something about the way in which their relationship is so clearly this unspoken bond built up over the years was really beautifully done and it really does occupy so much space it should be paying rent

And for the show - I'll keep it quick here because I've rambled enough - but definitely the scene where they first arrive in Jackson. I'm also a sucker for found family and I adore how it leans into that trope as well as showing the first instance of Ellie struggling with that new dynamic; it's the first real moment in canon where she goes from being a FEDRA orphanage kid to realising she could have a real home somewhere and all that entails.

I love how you can see that on her face when they get there and she's clearly awestruck by the most mundane things, yet is obviously also struggling with Tommy being effectively this newfound obstacle because she has no idea how his presence is going to shake up the - already turbulent - dynamic she's developing with Joel. Safe to say I have an awful lot of thoughts about those two scenes LMAO

I wouldn't say I'm a super talented person all things considered but I am quite proud of my writing! I've been in fandom spaces for a long time but it's only in recent years I've really been happy with the quality of the work I'm putting out there; it's just for fun, but - as most fic authors on here can vouch for - I put a lot of time and energy into making the plot and the characters tick ❤️ I'm also a historian, which isn't necessarily a talent but something I'm equally passionate about!

5. Would you like to promote anything?

I wouldn't mind promoting my ao3 to anyone whose interested in reading some more TLOU fics - I'm roselees over there too. I currently have an ongoing canon-divergence AU where Tess, Joel and Tommy raise baby Ellie (who they discover at the same time as the Fireflies is in fact still immune in this timeline) and I have several others in the works: a Sarah!lives AU, a part one rewrite following the original idea for the game wherein Tess is the antagonist, and some Jackson!Joel and Ellie shenanigans.

I'd also 100% recommend that if you're a part of the LGBT community or just otherwise an enthusiastic ally, if you want to check out the @tloupride blog run by me and @consultingzoologist, for the whole of pride month we've been reblogging posts that relate to the queer community and TLOU, as well as providing prompts for people to submit their own fanart and fics! We're hoping to keep the blog up as an archive of LGBT pride within the fandom so if you're interested, be sure to check it out ❤️

[lemonsrosesandlavender]

There were so many fanfic questions I wanted to ask!!😩 and my brain is so small I can’t remember number!

I think I wanted to know… 22, 31, 40, and one about what you hate to see in smut which I’ve forgotten the number of please 😁!

Ahhhhhh thank you Jessica <3 So much writing, it's going below the cut!

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

Mmmmm! That's such an interesting question. At this point, I've written fanfic in 2nd and 3rd person, and am toying with original novel stuff in 1st so... any POV is a good POV ;) And genre-wise, I'd hate to limit myself. I haven't written any mystery thrillers, but what if I suddenly had an idea I was itching to write?!

Trope-wise... we've got enough f!damsel in distress saved by a man in the world already. And bad boys turned good by the purifying love of a sweet woman. Non.

(I was also about to say I hate the "someone's video goes viral" trope that's in so much media nowadays, but I would actually love to read or write a thoughtful version of that where the virality is believable and the consequences are actually considered and extend beyond "wow the MC is even MORE the centre of attention right now!")

31. Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

For non-OC-centric fic: I've already got the characters, so then they drive the plot.

For OC-centric fic: broad starting point of narrative ("Good-aligned Tav romances Rolan during BG3", "OC isekai'd into BG3", "Rolan pledges himself to hot queen") then gives rises to "what kind of character would work in this story? what character growth might be spurred by the inciting incident?" gives rise to the actual fleshed-out plot and story. So... never one without the other ;)

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

Answered in forgetmemaybe's ask! <3 But um. Mostly big romantic moments b/c I'm a cheeseball (and smut because I'm a horndog. A horndog with cheese on?!)

63. Something you hate to see in smut.

OK, well, you all know my feelings about dominant men at this point, lmao. I'm just... really tired of the fact that men get to be dominant by default, whereas I feel like people have to be convinced that any particular man could be submissive or any particular woman dominant (unless she literally wears leather all day and is the most stereotypical domme to ever dominate). I used to feel I was more on the submissive side, but it's hard to disentangle that from the fact that kinkiness that for a woman especially is most acceptably channelled into submission. These days, submission to a man gives me the ick, and to anyone else leaves me rather "eh". (Also spare a thought for all the lovely subby men out there who are constantly the butt of the joke, and not in a sexy way. Submissiveness is not contrary to being a man).

(All this is said with a firm "everyone should write what they like", of course; I just steer clear of dom!m/sub!f, and skip over those scenes if I'm reading a fic I otherwise like. I'm absolutely sick to the back teeth of men thinking they know best - there's enough sexist crap irl - and I don't have any interest in fantasies that echo that.)

On a different note - safe sex. I'm mostly joking here, but I just don't give a fuck about whether these characters got STI tested/are wearing condoms/implemented a full BDSM check in with safe words (you know, if you're not doing pre-agreed CNC then "no" and "stop" must be respected anyway, right?! An additional safe word is an option, but not a necessity). Pleaaaasseeeee why must this sex scene grind to a halt for a lecture on safe sex?! I'm a grown woman who's been fucking for a decade. I don't need this!

The only time I'm fine with it is when it's actually important to the plot/characterisation, or risky sex when partners know they shouldn't be doing this bareback but they're just! too! desperate! But then I like that we're bringing it up JUST to turn up the heat.

[halfagone]

DID YOU SAY THAT YOU READ WEBTOONS? What uh.... What are your favorites? 👉👈 I'm still trying to wean off reading manga, and the only webtoons I've read are Queen Cecia Wears Knickerbockers and Wayne Family Adventures 😂

Yes, I have read quite a few Webtoons in my day (Why do I sound so old right now?) I have not heard about the Queen Cecia Webtoon, but Wayne Family Adventures is a very good choice, in my totally unbiased opinion. 🤣

If you want more DC Webtoons, then there is Red Hood: Outlaws and there is Zatanna & The Ripper. I haven't caught up with either of them, but if you do love those characters or want to see more from them, I definitely commend checking those out. There was also the Vixen: NYC Webtoon, but unfortunately that one seems to be cancelled now. 🥺

If you're interested in completed Webtoons, then I have a few offerings. I love Siren's Lament, it's a wonderfully complicated Webtoon even if it does hurt my heart sometimes. Gourmet Hound is more of a slice of life with some drama for added effect, but I really did adore that Webtoon that the art was just so cute!! Flow has some incredible worldbuilding mechanics and it's just so tasty. If you want more hero Webtoons, then there's I Don't Want This Kind of Hero, although that one does contain some distressing themes at times so like... beware. And then there is one of my ultimate favorites, which is called Gepetto, which is inspired and based on the Pinocchio tale but more futuristic and dystopian, if that's your fancy.

As for ongoing Webtoons, there's Marry My Husband, which is one of those time travel Webtoons where the MC dies and comes back to life sometime in the past and tries to fix their future. The main story is done, but they do have side stories which have been super cute to read.

There's the ever famous The Remarried Empress, and you'll probably see a lot of references to characters from this Webtoon if you read other Webtoons with a similar premise of- arranged marriage, terrible consort, attractive male lead that is decidedly not the husband, but don't worry he will be.

There is a newer Webtoon called I am the Villain, which is part of the Isekai genre, I would say. It's a beautiful Webtoon, the art is just stunning, and I have no idea what's going on but I'm having a great time.

For more action-based Webtoons, there is Eleceed and if anything happened to my boy Jiwoo I will kill everyone in this room and then myself. And apparently I've done a poor job of that promise because this boy has gone through it, but he still a sweetheart and I love him for that.

There's also the Omniscient Reader, which was actually originally a webnovel called Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, but has since been turned into a manhwa and it's so long but it's so good. I love my sunfish man and ugly squid king (bonus points to anyone who knows that reference).

Here is a Webtoon I have complicated feelings about: Tower of God. This was actually the first ever piece of media I published fanfiction for. It's this really incredible, complex, mind-bending fantasy Webtoon. It is very long, it currently stands at 581 chapters and counting. Unfortunately, the fandom ruined the experience for me, and I pretty much quit all of my fics and that's how I found myself here in the DPxDC fandom! There is an anime for it, currently just Season 1 is out but fingers crossed on Season 2! 🤞But definitely read it first before you watch because the pacing is a little fast for the anime and you don't get that same sweet, sweet tension. I am lucky enough that I do still have one beloved friend that I can talk about Tower of God with, or else I think I probably wouldn't have put it on this list at all.

Eleceed, Omniscient Reader, and Tower of God are all manhwas, which are Korean manga for a shorthand explanation. So if you want to wean yourself off those forms of fiction then... maybe stay away from these because they can suck you in.

Speaking of beloved friend, @midnightenigma recommended to me the Like Wind on a Dry Branch Webtoon, and I am still so upset about it because I will never be the same. 😭 The worldbuilding for this Webtoon is amazing and I adore the slow building romance and plot, and the exploration of grief and just- I am not okay.

I have more things I could recommend but that's... probably as much as I should offer now. lol I hope you find a treat to read from the bunch, though!

[shobringer]

Hello there!

It's about time I did a post like this. Hi, I'm Charlie, known to my close friends as Charles or Ferre, and I love writing.

I'm a polytechnic student, and am currently studying for my diploma in Story and Content Creation (for media). I am a huge theatre fan, mainly Les Miserables, and I kinda go batshit crazy over Star Wars at times.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alright, with all the introductions out of the way, I've been thinking about being more active on Tumblr so I'll be opening writing requests to anyone who may be interested. I mainly write Star Wars and Les Mis, you may check me out at archiveofourown.org/users/CharlesAndCo for the works I have published. (I implore you to ignore my Marvel fics...) But before everything, I do have several boundaries when it comes to writing for requests, so please, I hope you'll respect them if you're thinking of requesting for any fics.

I will absolutely not write /reader fics, even gender neutral readers or male readers.

The ships I specialise in are as follows: for Les Mis, Valvert, Enjoltaire, Courfius, Combeferre/Jehan; for Star Wars: Obikin, QuiObi, Anidala. I would not be opposed to exploring other ships, but I will put my foot down if it comes to any ship I am uncomfortable with, which does not happen often but if it does, consider this a warning.

If I have any ongoing WIPs when you request, especially oneshots that are meant to be gifts to my friends, I will not prioritise your request over the works for them. I love my friends to hell and back, the only way to get around this would be to become my friend, I guess.

NSFW is... well, it depends. I may or may not write NSFW depending on how I feel about it. To put it simply, I have had bad experience when it comes to sex, and so sometimes certain things do trigger me and bring back bad memories. So unless you really think that I would enjoy writing the NSFW request you send in, I'd appreciate it if you mainly stick to SFW works. Thanks :)

If I am uncomfortable, due to any reason, with the request you send in, I will probably very politely decline to write your request.

I write trans stuff as well. HMU if you want me to write a Trans!Javert fic for ya ;))))

I'm pretty versatile when it comes to writing. If you have any specific writing genres or styles you wish me to write, include it in your request and I'll see if I can meet your expectations. For example, if you want me to write an introspection for you, say it in your request, and I'll gladly write it for you!

What you could request:

Les Mis (Musical, 1972, 1978, sigh 2012)

Other musicals like Newsies,

Moulin Rouge (movie my beloved, wouldn't mind musical too)

Falsettos

Catch Me If You Can (musical)

Little Shop of Horrors

Jesus Christ Superstar

(Maybe...?) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Star Wars (mainly Prequels, may write OT though)

If any other musicals that you might want to request is not in this list, you could check with me if I know it/would write it. And yes, Hamilton, DEH, BMC ain't on here, I will not be writing them, thank you.

More might be added, as I discover and watch more shows.

That's about it from me for now. Idk if I'll get any requests from anyone that ain't my friends (not to say that my friends can't request anything, y'all would actually have priority), but I was bored and I need to start writing more. If you've made it to the end here, thanks for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more information about tags:

[elaanaa]

I guess it's time for a pinned post

Hai!

I'm elaanaa, a 23, bi femboy and a 196 refugee whose entire personality changes depending on the last piece of media I consumed. Sooo, instead of talking about myself I will just talk about my interests :3

TL;DR: im apparently a narcissist who loves to talk about themself, I shitpost and hornypost on main, I have nerdy and horny hobbies and want you to info dump about your hobbies in my dms NOW!

Vibeo Games

I mainly play 3 types of games that change depending on my mood:

Second Job Games

This is the category for games that are fun to play but require to play daily and basically become your 2nd job. Currently it's Genshin... 😞 but it's actually fun. The game is really enjoyable when you realise that you CANNOT 100% IT. So I just play where it lands with wish rng and make the best I can get.

2. Watching YT/Twitch Games

These are games that I play while I watch/listen to something. Right now I am playing some Yu-gi-oh Master Duel because I got an itch to play after listening to like 20h of Duel Logs videos (banger yt channel).

3. Story Games

And finally the Games. Right now I am playing Bladur's Gate 3 at my own, very slow pace (70h and in act 2). I am quite enjoying it, but so far I think I've enjoyed Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous a bit more. If you are going to take anything out of this post then please,

IF YOU LIKE BALDURS GATE 3 PLEASE CHECK OUT PATHFINDER WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS OMG THAT GAME IS SO GOOD, IT HAS SO MANY FLAWS AND IT FEELS UNPOLISHED BUT ITS SOOO GOOOOD <33333

so yeah, im very gamer 😎

Animeh

My favourite anime is by far Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Please watch it if you somehow haven't (or come here so we can watch it together while we cuddle 😳😳😳). I also really like Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen (but more on that in the next section)!

Men-gah

I started reading manga as a good way to pass time during slow days at work, but I really liked it! My top 3 manga, in no particular order, would probably be: JJK (as evident by Kirara in my profile picture), Demon Slayer (which apparently is a controversial opinion) and Chainsaw man. Currently I am looking for manga recommendations, so if you somehow got all the way down here and have some, feel free to dm them to me :3

Mewsick

I can't really describe genres of music I like, so instead I'm just going to say my favourite artists: I'm Geist (whose album cover is my profiles banner), heylog and basically anyone featured by biteki. The best word I found to describe this music is:

AltHyperEmoPopRapRock

Other than that, I just listen to whatever sounds good. Oh, and Hollow Knight and Risk of Rain 2 OSTs because they probably have some of the best music I've heard in a game (City of Tears, Mantis Lords and Rain formerly known as purple <333).

Whorenyposting

My latest "hobby", which developed after realising that "Dopamine coming from fictional numbers increasing" > "The fear of posing pictures of myself online". So look forward to Femboy Fridays (I definitely am :3)

Anyways, that ended up being waaaay longer than I expected (I guess i really do love talking about myself >.<). If you want to know more about me, want to make it even by infodumping your hobbies onto me or you are already in love with me - feel free to dm me :3

And remember - stay silly :3

(Picture in the post is from CHAOS! by geist - a certified banger)

[dykesynthezoid]

Been formulating my thoughts on that post about kids books with challenging subject matter you reblogged the other day... the funny thing is I'm pretty sure there IS an established thing with middle-grade kids being like "ugh why does the dog always have to die in these books 🙄" (anyone remember that Gordon Korman book "No More Dead Dogs"?) but it has nothing to do with them being too fragile to take it and more to do with there being such an established canon of kid's books where a dog dies at the end that the ending is too predictable and kids are BORED by it. Like in the original tweet that sparked the discourse, wasn't it a 6th grader making the comment? At that age kids are less emotionally fragile and more cynical, in their own youthful way. Like you said, they can take it!! It's just up to the school board to, idk, teach these things in an interesting way I guess. Maybe through the lense of greek tragedy? Like "yeah we all know the dog is gonna beef it, but let's pay attention to how that's built up and foreshadowed", etc.

I honestly hadn’t thought about that, but it probably really is a factor. Bc children’s media does have a whole lot of tropes, and when kids get to an age where they’re trying to challenge themselves (or are being challenged in schools) running into the same tropes over and over and over must be grating.

I do think the number one reaction for a kid when a dog dies in a movie or book is at first a sense of betrayal (honestly, it’s a reaction I still have as an adult, lmao). Like, “hey, wait a minute!”

But if that was a plot event you’d only ever seen once or twice, it would be more confounding and intriguing, and less frustrating and overdone. So yeah, after a whole lot of that I wouldn’t be surprised some kids are rolling their eyes.

I didn’t necessarily notice it as a trope myself as a kid; but that was probably because when I was young enough to read children’s books I was mostly reading things like adventure and fantasy stories, or even mysteries. Meanwhile I think tropes like the dog dying at the end is more common in contemporary stories, which I wasn’t reading very many of.

(And by the time I was reading other genres, the books I was reading were mostly adult. And “by the time” I mean by like, 12, bc l started at a school that was pretty academically rigorous; my 7th grade English teacher had us reading Gogol. Which is all to say I’m maybe not the best person to comment on this tbh, since I kinda missed out on that aspect of being a young reader; so take this all with a grain of salt!)

But yeah I love the idea of at least like. Changing the lens through which children are taught books to keep them engaged. It does so much so draw them in to the story, to make them care enough to meet it halfway. Which isn’t easy! Kids have a lot going on, especially these days, and it’s no wonder they’re just going to check out if they get bored with their learning material.

[krinsbez]

Forgive me if this is an uninformed question, but how would you define a "pulp hero" as opposed to a super-hero? or is the one an older term for the other- Mister Miracle, in the letters section of his original Kirby-penned 1970s book, was referred to as a "pulp hero" and it got me wondering about the difference and I figured if anyone would know it was you. Thank you for your time!

Oh, L-RD, this is a toughie.

It's a very complicated question, and I'm not surely I can clearly articulate the answer.

My buddy @maxwell-grant has a few posts on the subject. I would also recommend that anyone interested in the question of what Pulp is check out this marvelous Youtube video by Pulp Culture, although it doesn't address the subject directly.

Me being me, I am incapable of giving short answers so a bit of a capsule history:

Back in the early years of the 20th Century, these were these cheap fiction magazines meant to be disposable entertainment for the masses, made of cheap paper, hence "Pulps". They covered pretty much every genre of fiction; Western, Romance, Comedy, Horror, Adventure, Crime, you name it. Flash forward to 1930, and pulp publisher Street & Smith sponsored a radio program called Detective Story Hour, which featured adaptations of stories from their flagship title, Detective Story Magazine, in order to promote said magazine. As is traditional for anthologies, the stories were tied together by a fun narrator character, a mystery man who "knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men"...The Shadow!

The show was a hit, but when fans went down to the newsstand, instead of asking for Detective Story Magazine, they were asking for "The Shadow Magazine", resulting in S&S realizing they needed such a title on the stands ASAP. Enter Walter B. Gibson, who under the "house name" of Maxwell Grant, began writing stories starring the character. This magazine was a massive success, spawning a new genre, the Hero Pulps.

So, at the most basic, a Pulp Hero is a character who either A: was created for the Hero Pulps, or B: is deliberately intended to evoke them. Most people, however, tend to use the term more broadly, incorporating, for example hero characters from other genres of pulp, or from earlier pulp stories, or from other mass media of the time. Others extend it backwards to also incorporate characters from the Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls and such that preceded the Pulps, and to the various characters who the Hero Pulps used as inspiration.

I, personally, tend to use all of these, and also go by vibes. If I feel a hero character has a "pulp" sensibility, even if they're a character that exists firmly in the 21st century, I will consider them a Pulp Hero. As a rule of thumb, if I can look at a character and say "is this character a superhero? I kinda feel like they're a superhero, but I'm not comfortable saying they're a superhero"...then I am comfortable calling 'em a Pulp Hero.

Muddying the waters, there are a number of superheroes who are ALSO Pulp Heroes, and drawing the line is tricky. I, personally, think Batman is juuuust barely still a Pulp Hero, Superman isn't and I go back and forth on the Fantastic Four.

I hope this is helpful, and apologize if it's a bit too ramble-y.

[kirwell]

my advice to the writers out there

I'm writing this instead of my book right now,, cause intrusive thoughts

I’m someone who likes to look around for writing advice to get new perspectives and helpful tips and ideas from other writers.  But sometimes I’d hunt around for validation from videos to see if I was “doing things right” with my own book, and I can’t tell ya how damaging that’s been for me in the past on my writing journey.

While taking advice and constructive criticism is good and progressive and can help you see things from another perspective to better your writing, I also can’t stress enough to take things with a grain of salt when it comes to other people's opinions on genres and tropes.

Has someone else written something like my story before? Probably yeah. 

Are there tropes in my story that have already been in other books/other media? Oh yeah, I don't doubt it.

Are some people tired of seeing certain themes and settings in stories? Sure. Everyone is into different things. 

Does that mean my story shouldn’t be written at all, and I should just write something else instead? Hell fuckin no, yo !

I love my story because I’m telling it the way I WANT in my own style, my own characters, and with my own messages that I want to tell. Putting your heart and soul into your writing is a real thing ya’ll, and that will stand out. 

I love high fantasy stories with medieval themes, magic, fantastical worldbuilding, great adventures, and grand quests with a party of characters I can love and relate to.  I love wizards, elves, fairies, demons, and all the things you imagine when you hear “classic fantasy.”  That genre has always inspired me and brought out the most creative side of me. 

So when some people say, “Don’t write that,” or “Don’t write this,” because it’s been touched upon before and nobody wants to read that anymore, it would bum the hell outta me. 

So should I NOT write my own story and share it because a part of it fits into a familiar trope within the genre? Does that mean my story shouldn’t ever be read and that it’s inherently not good?

If you have a story to tell, and you wanna tell it, then write it! It’s your book, it’s your story, it’s your characters, and you’re allowed to enjoy what you’ve created. 

Take constructive criticism, be flexible, and be open to learning and changing, like you would with any other skill. I wouldn’t be where I’m at in my writing capability today if I had never listened to advice and practiced over and over again.

But don’t let anyone take away your creativity!

Changing the whole theme of your story because it may not appeal to some readers or publishers is the most ridiculous, damaging thing I’ve heard. There will always be people who won’t wanna read what you’ve written, or publishers who aren't interested, and that’s okay. That’s to be expected with anything creative.  But if you like something, write it, and don’t let others say you shouldn’t. It’s damn near impossible to be 100% original in every aspect of your story and avoid every single used trope, if that’s even possible to do anymore these days. Trying to be perfect will drive you insane.

Personally, the more you try to “change this” and “change that” in order to check off your originality boxes, the less happy you’ll be with your work. That's been my experience, at least. I went through a lotta versions of my book to fit what writers in their videos were telling me it should be in order to be accepted and appreciated, and I wasn’t happy with any of it and felt really stuck.

Try and find the right kinds of videos and communities that’ll inspire you, encourage you, and help ya in places where you’re falling short.  Some channels can really suck out all of your creativity and make you second-guess everything you’ve created, wondering if your story will ever be good enough.

A setting where a character or a group has to go on an adventure to fulfill a certain goal is something I really like, and to be told that specific trope is dull and overdone was discouraging on a whole other level. Why should I write this if nobody even wants to read it?

I’ve had to stop watching channels in the past because this idea was preached so much and I believed it, and it was depressing reading comments who felt the same as me.

“I gotta rewrite my whole story now.” “Oh no, my story is like this!” “Guess I shouldn’t write about that in my story.” 

Please don’t give up on your stories because of personal opinions on a genre or a trope! We all have opinions, likes, dislikes, and prefer different things. Nothing is set in stone. 

For me, a story is about the journey and what the characters go through and how they make me feel. If you wanna write a vampire love story with witches and werewolves and a love triangle, go for it! If you wanna write a story about a school for magical creatures in a fantasy world, go for it!

Make a story YOURS and don’t be afraid to tell it! Someone out there will love what you’ve made and it’ll inspire them just like you were inspired. Write for YOU and for all those people who love what you love and will wanna read the fuck outta your book! 

,,I hope this was actually useful advice for someone out there. Cause this is something I wish someone would have told me years ago. Now go write and have fun with it ! 

[bookwyrminspiration]

Quill, I have book recommendations for you! I have read all of these books and can guarantee that they are at least somewhat enjoyable! Also, if you want to learn more about the books, let me know!

Tarnished are the Stars by Rosie Thor: Sci-Fi novel featuring the son of what is essentially the chief of the law enforcement, a spy for the queen, and an illegal medic. Very interesting book to read, and the romance, while not the focus, is very interesting.

In the Role of Brie Hutchens: Okay, so middle schooler with an obsession with soap operas that has to lie to her religious mother about being awarded a very high honor after being caught looking at some inappropriate pictures of her favorite actress. It’s a lovely queer novel featuring monologues and discovery. The other books by the author are also very good!

Felix Yz: About a kid who fused with a 4th dimensional being when he was 3, and what life is like years later. He has a minor romantic side plot with his crush on his classmate, but not the focus. Also, the author has another book about a trans girl if you are interested!

The other boy: doesn’t go with the stereotype of a trans guy hating sports and instead has the main character be a part of the sports team. After he’s outed he has to deal with the consequences of that. Very good book.

I have more but I don’t want to overwhelm you! If you want anymore book recommendations, let me know!

-⚙️

!! thank you very much!! I love getting suggestions and learning about other books, especially through the lens of someone's whose read and enjoyed it. Adds a bit of excitement and sentiment to it

Out of these four, the two that are catching my interest more than the others are Tarnished are the Stars (because I have an affinity for fantasy/sci-fi) and Felix Yz (once again, for the sci-fi). However! I do like to peruse through queer media of other genres, even though sports and soap opera related things really aren't my area. So perhaps I'll end up reading those as well.

I say this every time but its still true: I have a lot of books to read through so I don't know when I'll get to these, but I'll try my best to check them out!

Also I'm always open to book suggestions, though I can't promise to read every single one I get. So if you'd ever like to send more (or anyone else would, preferably with a summary), you're more than welcome to do so :)