#i've summarized this one badly i'm sorry

[fictionadventurer]

For the ask game:

Title: As Falls the Midnight Moon

Genre: fantasy (any sub-genre)

As Falls the Midnight Moon by Jodie Akres

In the secret-filled city of Verram, knowledge is power. Restia, the unassuming caretaker of the city's archives, knows this better than anyone, so when a thief gets away with a secret that could bring down an empire, Restia takes to the dark and winding city streets to track him down. Her journey entangles her with ruffians, gamblers, smugglers, and some of the most powerful men in the city, but she will do whatever it takes to track down the document before the moon sets.

[oshinohoshi]

What do Ai's words in ch 154 say about her?

I thought I said all I wanted to say about the Hikaru/Ai breakup in this post but I want to comment on something major I glossed over: Ai bringing up Taiki, and therefore Hikaru's sexual assault, before she left.

I've had to mull it over because (without some of the context provided below) it's just so out of character. Ai started her breakup speech with "being with you forever is too much for me," followed that up by stating that Hikaru's child born from molestation was too tough, and ended with "I can't love you." Talk about psychological damage. If I was him, I'd be curled up on the floor sobbing. I'm sure he was.

Just look at the below panel. Fifteen years later, he framed Taiki's birth as something he did. That's devastating.

BUT I'm coming back to critically alter this post (sorry to anyone who liked/reblogged it already) because the lovely @aihoshiino provided some important context about Ai's words being vaguer and less harsh in Japanese. I have pasted this as bullet points at the end of this post and it's far more important than anything I have to say, so if you want to stop here and just read that, I highly encourage it.

To summarize: In English, it sounds more like Ai blamed Hikaru for Taiki, whereas in Japanese it's vaguer and not as cruel. Which isn't to say Ai did nothing wrong when she glibly walked away, but it's far more in line with her character.

But there's still the question of why say this at all. Didn't Ai realize that "I can't love you" was enough? Why bring up the worst thing that ever happened to him, the very thing that broke him so badly she felt he couldn't raise their kids?

She may have wanted him to hate her, thereby setting him free of the supposed burden of herself and her pregnancy. It was also a convenient lie. Unfortunately, it was one Hikaru easily swallowed because that was already how he felt about himself.

She said in the DVD that she thought he'd be OK once she was gone. I do wonder if she really thought that or just hoped so. After all, she later felt that a whopping 15 years later he might still be struggling. Either way, it worked to chase him away.

Did Ai blithely say something hurtful and uncalled for that caused lasting damage? Yes. Was she a teenager who couldn't communicate her emotions, ran away from conflict to protect herself, and had a traumatic childhood that influenced her developmentally? Also yes. Not to mention, she was dealing with an emotionally dependent boy and an unplanned pregnancy. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation.

Even if we were to ignore the subtleties I mentioned and view this in the worst possible light, saying a horrible thing you don't mean doesn't make you a horrible person.

Hikaru gets Ai's characterization mostly right in the below panel but he's wrong if he thinks Ai's cruel words were an accurate representation of her.

Finally, I think getting hung up on what we, as people who don't have the lived experience of Ai, would do in her shoes is missing the point. The idea isn't to judge Ai as innocent or not innocent. Instead, we are invited to see that Ai was a loving person but she was also human and humans sometimes fuck up badly.

A good chunk of the manga focuses on the complex relationships between characters as well as their relationships with their inner selves. This chapter touches on both. Hikaru misunderstood Ai's intentions and Ai failed to understand her own feelings for him or what to do about it. The reader, meanwhile, if they were clinging to any misconceptions of Ai as some kind of saint, is forced to reconcile with who Ai really was.

The below is the context I mentioned from @aihoshiino. I'm just gonna paste this word for word from Claire:

Ai's words aren't quite as pointedly cruel in Japanese. Her line in Japanese that mangaplus translates as "I can't even, that's too tough, I can't bear it" is '無理無理、流石に それは キツいって、背負え ないよ!` Which is more like, "No way, no way, that's too hard, it's too much to carry"

Importantly, she does not specify who cannot carry this weight

The only time she specifically talks about herself is when she says `子供も･･･うーん 私じゃ難しいかな` which mangaplus tled as "about the baby, it's difficult for me too" and ig that's not WRONG but the tone is kind of off. In Japanese there's more of the sense that she's saying that she, herself, is not up to the task, that she's lacking, she wouldn't be able to do it VS the situation (and Kamiki with it) being in of itself the problem

Basically mangaplus's TL is not incorrect in strict text but does kind of mistranslate the spirit of the exchange imo

It makes Ai more pointedly cruel and self-centred whereas the Japanese text imo is more in line with the thoughtless, innocent cruelty she hurt Nino with

The wording of the Japanese text makes it clear that this was a misunderstanding and Kamiki took the worst possible interpretation of it because he hates himself

That's why Aqua frames Kamiki as being punished for "not understanding her"

Because if he really, truly understood Ai like he said, why would he be so comfortable assuming for nearly 20 years that she would have meant something that cruel?

Thanks Claire!! Saving the fandom one translation at a time.

[mysticstarlightduck]

Character Aesthetic Deep Dive Tag!

Let's go with Luke Katt from Scrapyard Boys for this one!!!

Rules: Make a moodboard with your character's aesthetic, a playlist that fits their vibe, "badly summarize them" (like, talk about their personality, but funnily), etc. It absolutely does not need to be super detailed!!!!!

✦ Character Aesthetic: Luke Katt, WIP -Scrapyard Boys

♡ Moodboard ♡

♡ Playlist ♡

Voices In My Head - Falling In Reverse

The voices in my head keep on telling me to pray 'Cause I'm spinning like a carousel, circling the drain Hit the bottom of the bottle, I don't wanna feel the pain But that is all I got for now, I don't wanna talk about it The voices in my head keep on begging me to stay If I pull the trigger now then the demons go away And I know my time is coming so there ain't no time to waste So that is all I got for now, I don't wanna talk about it The voices in my head keep telling me to choose a side It's heaven or hell like it's do or die I'm a sad boy, you know better Please don't make this last forever The voices in my head keep telling me I'm not okay It's feeling like a hurricane in my brain Dark clouds, hard times, bad weather Please don't make this last forever The voices in my head keep telling me I'm gonna (die) And I don't wanna talk about the drama, I'm trauma (tized) They're tellin' me I'm fine but we both know that's a fuckin' (lie) I'm losing my mind but I don't wanna talk about it

I'll Keep You Safe - Sleeping at Last

I'll keep you safe. Try hard to concentrate. Hold out your hand, Can you feel the weight of it? The whole world at your fingertips- Don't be, don't be afraid. Our mistakes, they were bound to be made. But i promise you i'll keep you safe. You'll be an architect, So pull up your sleeves And build a new silhouette In the skylines up ahead. Don't be, don't be afraid. Our mistakes, they were bound to be made. But i promise you i'll keep you safe. I'll keep you safe.

Hey Brother - Avicii

Hey brother There's an endless road to rediscover Hey sister Know that water's sweet, but blood is thicker Oh, if the sky comes falling down For you There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do Hey brother Do you still believe in one another? Hey sister Do you still believe in love? I wonder Oh, if the sky comes falling down For you There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do What if I'm far from home? Oh brother, I will hear you call What if I lose it all? Oh sister, I will help you out Oh, if the sky comes falling down For you There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do

Timebomb - Motionless In White

Seconds are left on the countdown Panic attack, the next normal in bloom I let you go to get a grip on myself But will you welcome me back as someone else? All my life I've been a timebomb (now time is running out) Juxtapose me with my past-self (a doubt I can't surmount) It's survival of the restless (survival of the restless) So split the difference between us Looking back on the things that I've done I should've known that I've always had more than enough If tonight I fall asleep for the last time I wanna be proud of the things that I've done right If I could learn how to hold my head up Maybe life wouldn't seem like it's passing me by If I could give myself what I give to you Then maybe I'd find strength to hold on to

If I Killed Someone For You - Alec Benjamin

I'm sorry that I did this The blood is on my hands I stare at my reflection I don't know who I am Practice my confession In case I take the stand I'll say I learned my lesson I'll be a better man

I'm packing up my things And I'm wiping down the walls I'm rinsing off my clothes And I'm walking through the halls I did it all for her (him) So I felt nothing at all I don't know what (s)he'll say So I'll ask her when she calls

Would you love me more (Would you love me more) If I killed someone for you? Would you hold my hand? (Would you hold my hand?) They're the same ones that I used When I killed someone for you

Another Way Out - Hollywood Undead

I wish there was another way out! Voices won't go away, they stay for days and days They say some awful things, ways to make you fade away I don't think no one's home and we're just here alone I better find you first before you find the phone Better run, better run, better run, yeah, I'm coming after you When you're sleeping at night, yeah, there's nothing you can do There's no place you can hide 'cause I'm coming after you I wish there was another way out for you Wish there was another way out for you

Take It Out On Me - Thousand Foot Crutch

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know anymore Thought I had, thought I had it under control Hear my voice, there it goes, hear it louder than most Here it goes, hear it (one, two, three, four) It's not worth it, it's not working You wanted it to be picture-perfect It's not over You don't have to throw it away So scream if you wanna, shout if you need Just let it go (take it out on me!) Fight if you need to, smash if you have to Get control (take it out on me!) So scream if you wanna, shout if you need Just let it go (take it out on me!) Fight if you need to, smash if you have to Get control

♡ Badly Summarized OC ♡

If the perfect mix between Dean Winchester (Supernatural) and JD (Heathers) was sent to the Arkham Asylum, that would be Luke!

The embodiment of a "I CAN KEEP YOU IN THIS WORLD OR TAKE YOU OUT MERCILESSLY" - has both Healing powers and Wound Generation powers.

Has killed before, will kill again if prompted.

Severely traumatized teenager who lives for his little brother and will burn down the world if anyone as much as threatens to harm a hair on Riley's head.

Swears like a sailor and smokes like a locomotive but would cry while watching their world's version of Disney, though he would never admit it lol

Sense of humor trapped between overly childish and mindnumbingly dark & concerning.

Loves getting tattoos, especially those themed after his favorite pop culture references or rock bands etc.

Sounds like a wheezing kettle when laughing - for no apparent reason, his laugh is just Built Like That - and doesn't seem to mind.

Is not scared of the police and is a mastermind when it comes to jailbreaking, despite being like, 18.

Suffers from insomnia so most of his nights are spent watching his favorite series until he blissfully falls asleep - if he does - and then downing cups and cups of coffee during the day.

Source for pictures: Pinterest

Source for music/songs: Spotify

Tagging (gently): @sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart, @ray-writes-n-shit

@the-golden-comet, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams

@differentnighttale

@wyked-ao3 and OPEN TAG

[powerful-niya]

Out of Context WIPs

Omg! While I was on my break, I was tagged into this game by @sessakag @dayseternal-blog @chloelapomme @opttagoyeo and I'm just now doing it. Sorry!! I have NOT forgotten, haha!

I appreciate you all tagging me! It's heartwarming to know that you all consistently keep me in mind, and include me in these fun little activities. It means the world to me! 💕💕

Pick a bunch of your WIPs and summarize them as badly as possible, then ask your followers to vote on which one they'd be most likely to read. Multiple/all/none options are completely optional.

🤭🤭

The wips I'm listing are the few remaining one-shots I still plan to write for the past Nhmonth event: Nhmonth23. I've also included some prompts from the Nhmonth22 event that I still intend to write as well.

I've done my best to infuse humor into these snippets, though I must admit, most lean toward the smutty, angsty, or dark side, haha. The "out of context wips" could go either way—terribly bad, good, or downright goofy. Who knows? 🤷🏽‍♀️ You all are the judge!

These are just sooo stupid, lol. 😂🤭 I can't explain it, but these random snippets just popped into my head, and so, I didn't think anything further on them and just wrote them all down here. It was fun though!

Here's who I'm tagging (no pressure) @brwnsugcr @wickermayne @tjtheanimelover @opal-chan @inayasurya @naeverse 💕💕

[eggtrolls]

my enemies are working against me; I was strongly tempted by dark forces to make a completely nuance-free statement like "dear christ I hate the wiki education foundation so fucking much it's such a terrible idea" but instead I will be SO strong and make a post with way too much nuance about a niche step in the sausage-making of wikipedia

backstory: when the world was young in like...2010, some wunderkind realized college students use wikipedia for their classes, ergo college students in classes can be harnessed en masse to be use FOR wikipedia! if you're taking a class on, say, the Punic Wars, wouldn't it be an excellent educational experience to teach others (via wikipedia) about the Punic Wars to develop your own research and academic (okay, academic in tone) writing abilities! the kids will contribute! wikipedia gets a new crop of editors who HAVE to do this unlike the rest of us morons editors who voluntarily toil under the endless wheel of the open internet! yeah!

and that's not like. the WORST idea I've ever heard, for all that it's not really a good one. Because on the surface, there are a lot of similarities to writing a humanities-esque college paper and a wikipedia article. you are assigned a topic; you research the existing scholarship; you compile a bibliography and summarize the relevant literature IN YOUR OWN WORDS; your sentences are cited, your perspectives are balanced, and you check your bias (as much as you can) at the door.

two major, one minor (but no less annoying), issues with this :

(major) wikipedia editing is not the same as college essay writing. for one thing, coordinated editing in groups on one topic like this is uhhhhh strongly discouraged on wikipedia because it's very fucking easy for a cliche of editors to make massive changes and sideline other editors who disagree with them. wiki editing is an iterative process where articles are refined and improved in the forges of a Socratic circle of topic-proficient grammar nerds.

(major) a lot of you are really bad writers!!! you are not good at writing at a college level on the first go and, as far as I can tell, none of you are using the blessed Sandbox feature that every single registered editor gets in order to test and try out the big, blocks of text edits y'all are adding to these shivering, unsuspecting articles who are getting t-boned by 19 year olds adding sentences that are just comma splices on comma splices.

(minor but lol it's the largest one because I'm petty) the rest of the editorial corps of wikipedia, to say nothing of the READERS, who are unaware of that this fuckery is ongoing, are not in your college class. I'm not taking Fall 2024 ENG 2201 at [Random Ass] University and the articles that I keep an eye on didn't sign up to be shoddily edited by a bunch of novices who have no understanding of, let alone respect for, (among other things) the Wikipedia Manual of Style, editing norms and best practices, how to not plagiarize whole-cloth, and how not to regurgitate propaganda. the rest of the internet is not standing still while you make unsourced claims about dead Emirati sheikhs being "visionary leaders" with references from Emirati governmnet websites. no!!!! there's never enough oversight from the professors and Wiki Ed Foundation people and then when I undo most of the shit-tier edits they're like ummm hi sweaty sorry but I'm reverting you (triple-revert-undo-block guideline violation but go off I guess) so I can see my students' edits for their grade (despite the fact that the history features keeps a record of every single edit) sooooo yeah just leave this horseshit on Hedy Lamarr's internet for 8 weeks until the semester is over :) and I'm like no. die perhaps.

'so why does wikipedia keep doing this if the student editors suck so much donkey dick' - again, a few main reasons.

I'm bitter rn because I've been dealing with a particularly stupid batch of student editors editing particularly badly. most of them are much better and have supervision so they can't suck THAT badly. it's generally an overall benefit to have anyone edit....ever. so this is still a positive, either from the edit itself or that it prompts other editors to go take a look at what these kids are doing and clean up both the new mess and the preexisting mess that has been stagnant since 2012.

WIKIPEDIA NEEDS NEW EDITORS SO BADLY. you know how the premise of Game of Thrones is that there's all this seemingly really important but in fact petty fighting happening between the houses or w/e but the actually, huge issue is the ice zombies about to fuck shit up? people are freaking out about ChatGPT and other LLMs but the reality is that won't matter very much if there's no one to do the actual editing. Wikipedia is STARVING for editors as people move on, get older, get new responsibilities, get fed up with bullshit, sometimes die, etc. multiple college classes of dozens of students (worldwide! so doubly great if it helps with countering the American/Western-centric bias!) who are under 25 is like a blood infusion for a hemophiliac to Wikipedia. I cannot emphasize enough for much they (we) want YOU to go edit. I will help you, I will take your hand. they want you, personally. and imho that's why there's the willingness to put up with these pretty solidly mediocre editors - the odds that one or two per every 50 will stay and turn into a relatively active editor.

[alifeasvivid]

Hello I recently read your headcanon about Hetalia's interpretation of American Independence just being Alfred's fantasies and I am so curious about what Arthur and Alfred's relationship is in this reality where Arthur never cared and Alfred is totally aware of that - is Arthur still in love with Alfred? Would Alfred trust those feelings? I am in AGONY

Hi! good questions! And this gets a little long so it gets a "read more" I implore you to please read it very carefully because, for better or worse, I've been developing these thoughts since 2009 and I can only try to summarize them here.

So my headcanon is that my headcanon IS canon but from the perspective of "what actually happened". All we really ever see about the American War for Independence is very distinctly ONLY Alfred's point of view in the storage closet strips/arc. We never really see Arthur's point of view, nor anyone else's (to my knowledge. I've been around so long it's possible I've missed something >.> LOL)

The problem with that is the way this period in history is taught in American public schools is basically all propaganda, which is something I actually learned because of Hetalia and it was very eye opening for me. A lot of people who didn't like usukus would sneeringly say that Great Britain didn't even care about the 13 colonies, that they weren't even that important, etc etc. (I've mentioned this a few times on my blog, I'll see if can dig any of them up at some point LOL) So I started digging into it and they were... somewhat correct. The colonies that would eventually form the US were not the most important nor most financially lucrative for Britain and Parliament had to oppose the rebels *mainly* to prove to the other colonies that rebellions would not go unopposed.

And the problem with all THAT is that Hima seems to have only ever absorbed that propaganda. What happens in the storage closet arc is so out of line with what actually happened IRL that I like to speculate that this story is what America tells himself.

This follows from my headcanon that America has been in love with England (in some form) since the very beginning of his existence. But England didn't see him that way at all. He loved America as a little child in a kind of selfish way that he knew America was always across the sea, always happy to see him when no one else was. IMO, part of America's desire to become independent was to show England that he was grown up, that he wasn't a kid anymore, that he could be England's partner/lover, but England was still fixated on this idea of the smiling sunshine little boy across the sea and this blinded him to what was really going on.

Side note: I have a whole bunch of adjacent headcanons that England felt so betrayed by the America's rebellion because he *thought* he gave America the world, gave him protection and care, things that he himself did not have as a child and so America was being horrendously ungrateful. And I also have some other relevant headcanons about how America is more like the Eve to England's Adam, which I also think is more in line with actual history: England tore out a piece of himself and flung it across the ocean where it grew into his own soulmate. I have so many posts about this because I think it's so deeply romantic and I love it, but I can't seem to find rn I'm sorry T_T...

Okay continuing on... so my theory is that what we see in the Hetalia canon aka the storage closet stuff is America's fantasy, mainly in a situation where he still believes his love is unrequited. He wanted England's attention so badly, but the reality is that part of the reason Britain lost the war IRL is because their resources/military were stretched waaaaay too thin. They didn't have the troops available to successfully oppose the rebels and Parliament deemed that other conflicts/locations were more worth committing to, mainly for financial reasons. So England wouldn't have been there, his priorities would have been somewhere else, it's not that he didn't care. I also think that whatever Parliament thought, England, as in Arthur, cared a LOT and he was so angry and hurt that he didn't want to face Alfred and that Alfred's betrayal (in his mind) is part of what drove him into high gear as far as imperialism is concerned: "Fine, if no one will love me, then they'll all fear me"

America wanted England to be there at the end of the revolution, to show that he did care, that America mattered to him, that it mattered to him that America was leaving, so he came up with this fantasy (which is actually kind of in line with how the founding of the US became so mythologized, IMO), but in my headcanon, what we see in the actual canon exists only in his mind, the rest of actual canon is still the same, as in, England and America reconciled and became good friends during and after WWII and that's when their relationship gets really repaired... America feels more like he's actually grown up and England can finally consider "forgiving" him for the perceived ungratefulness and begin to see him as an adult.

As to your question about how this headcanon changes things for England... it doesn't. England has his own perception of what happened in his mind and perhaps it isn't deliberately a fantasy, perhaps it is more in line with the "reality" of what happened, but in my headcanon, it changes nothing about him and his actions in actual canon. He just doesn't see America as someone he could have romantic or sexual feelings for until that time around or after WWII because before that, he still emotionally views America as a kid even if he knows logically that America isn't anymore--he still has those lingering memories from long ago, but seeing America during WWII is a real shock to his system like... oh, oh shit he's hot what the fuck! meanwhile America has been pining for England since around the 1740's LOL. England doesn't have to been in love with America all along to be in love with him now.

In my version, I think once America and England actually get together, America can maybe let go of his fantasy version of the revolution. It's not that England never cared, it's that America saw their relationship one way and England saw it another way and those ways were fundamentaly incompatible.

The truth, irl, is that Great Britain/England is so old that of course the American War for Independence is but a tiny blip in its history, but it's the literal birth of the United States so of course it matters way more to us and this is partly my way of accounting for the discrepancy and for fitting in how the ACTUAL history makes for much more interesting usukus ideas and a deeper connection between them so it's actually the opposite: it's not that England isn't in love with America, it's that he has no idea he's in love with America and just how deep in his heart that love is. America is very aware of it and is just trying to get England to see it, but in the meantime, his heart hurts that he wasn't given the consideration he thinks was more befitting their relationship and the "fantasy" is his way of soothing himself.

I apologize that this got so long LOL. I hope this answers your questions, let me know if you need clarification on anything ^-^

[thepeculiarbird]

Badly summarized WIP poll

Thanks @kaylinalexanderbooks as always for tagging me

Honestly, same, I've one WIP but too many ideas to count. (won't put them all tho)

Tagging: @jaelink @raiden-makoto @sarandipitywrites (I'm sorry if you already did it) and you if you want

[opttagoyeo]

Thank you for @chloelapomme (omg) and @dayseternal-blog (double omg) for tagging me with @secrettastemakerland idea of wip game! 

Pick a bunch of your WIPs and summarize them as badly as possible, then ask your followers to vote on which one they'd be most likely to read. Multiple/all/none options are completely optional.

I'm truly sorry because it took me roughly 3 days (I guess??? idk anymore TT) to even think of badly summaries (that will actually not spoil the whole premise of each of my WIPs) 🥲🥲… I don't know if this is bad enough but please understand I'm not really good at summarizing it bad (even summarizing it good is no-no to me)

Okay I actually put genderbend on the last two because those two are actually my two genderbend naruhina I was supposed to post this month but since they weren't actually still flesh out just yet, it might take some time for them to be posted (probably within this year, lol I do hope so).

The last one is actually a WIP of mine that I wrote last year. I actually love the premise I've built with it in my head (lol) but only ¼ of what should be written is written so I doubt if I would actually post this or not lol! To be honest, when I saw this tag game the first thing that came to my mind was hold up, do I even have WIP?!! But then I remembered about my two genderbend nh! They saved me hehe… honestly I just jump back and forth to some unfinished ideas of mine and then somehow will continue it if some inspiration struck me (I'm truly just a beginner in this so I'm super sorry) or maybe not and they'll never see the light outside my notes.

I just realized you can't edit the poll once it was published 😭🥲, so now I can't even edit the poll because I've summarize them a teeny bit longer than necessary that tumblr had the audacity to cut them off :') so I'll put the five of them here to prevent confusion! ^^

1. the sunset is beautiful isn't it? oh wait, are those tears?

2. the heart wants what it wants but maybe not this time

3. naruko just wants to visit the apartment and meet the poodle goddamnit (genderbend)

4. naruko thinks she's hallucinating, or she hit her head so bad with a rock (genderbend)

5. so it's really weird to call you by that name when we look just the same, you know?

I'm really nervous about who I should tag so I'm sorry in advance to the people I will tag (hehe) I hope I'm not coming off as rude TT! I wanna see all of your WIP!!! @happyocelot @powerful-niya @opal-chan @diyas-diaries-98 @wickermayne @sessakag

[gralunaisland]

Gruvians saying juvia has had a "tremendous amount of growth since joining Fairy Tail" never fail to make me laugh. Happy had more character development than her. Also, they really should look up the definition of 'obsessive', because she literally embodies that word. Honestly there isn't much to her character, aside from lusting for Gray. I guess the main reason she's popular is because she's 'attractive'? I really don't see any other reason this kind of character would have such a massive fanbase.

Examples of juvia Lacking Character Growth, and Why People Might Like her

This is the oldest ask I have at the moment, so thank you very much for your patience, Anon, and I apologize that I haven't been able to answer this in a while!

I agree with you on all points! You made some great ones. I'll respond to each!

It's pretty hilarious that some Pro gr///vians truly believe that juvia is a much, if at all, better person now than who she was before. she seriously hasn't gotten any less obsessive over the years. If anything, I believe the more we see of her, the more she gets worse. Anyway, I could probably pick apart any instance of "character development" that a Pro might try to use as proof. Here's a couple:

juvia killing herself for Gray? Look no further than this post of mine where I explain this in more detail. she lacks utter agency and will to live outside of Gray, so her life is quite literally worthless to her if she doesn't have Gray, and therefore it's not her being selfless in taking her self-made-meaningless life when she didn't have a self in the first place.

juvia apologizing to Gray for killing the necromancer who controlled Gray's already dead dad? I've already picked apart how that was utter manipulation and disingenuousness on her part in many of my posts, so I'll summarize here:

First, juvia never actually apologizes (literally, go back and read the panels, she never ONCE said even something as simple as SORRY).

Second, juvia makes everything about herself by saying essentially "I don't deserve to love you anymore", as if this had ANYTHING to do with her "love" of Gray when in reality all it had to do with was her doing her FRICKING DUTY by KILLING THE ENEMY. What's more, she's sobbing in that scene not because of any sympathy for Gray losing his father again. she's literally only doing that because she feels she's somehow lost Gray's good graces, that by doing this she doesn't get to give her abusive love to Gray anymore, that she's somehow lost her nonexistent chance to be with him. This scene should not have been about her at all, and yet of course, she's only focusing on the one thing that is in her life, her obsession with Gray against his wishes.

Third, she also stalked him to Silver's grave. Gray didn't tell anyone about it, and yet of course she follows him without his permission or knowledge as per usual. To her, Gray has no right to privacy.

Fourth, her pseudo-apology (which again wasn't one) went right out the window (she literally starts blushing and stops crying and hugs him and says he's warm. Uh. Crocodile tears anyone? Clearly all she cares about is skin-ship with her Gray-sama. she didn't look the least bit concerned that he was crying) once Gray clasped her, breaking down into tears and apologizing to her. What did he do??? she's really broken him so badly that she manages to make her "uwu I'm so sad I don't get to uwu love you anymore" into the most heartbreaking heartfelt apology Gray's ever heard. That amount of emotional and psychological manipulation, even if not on purpose, is absolutely despicable. she's making him feel EVEN WORSE. Remember, Gray is at his father's grave, and she doesn't care. she invades his private time for grieving and centers everything on her abusive passion for him. And Gray is too screwed up to realize how awful of a human being she is for doing so. she's literally making her self-imposed guilt more important than his trauma and making it his problem. I cannot overstate how horrible that is. she doesn't feel bad for Gray grieving his dad or even crying right now in front of her whatsoever, because now that Gray's made it clear that he doesn't hold her accountable for killing the evil necromancer, she has no reason to feel sad anymore. she never once felt real guilt, she just mourned what she was losing. This is the same thing as a kid only apologizing to their mom for breaking a vase just so they can go to that birthday party they wanted to attend. her "apology" was a means to an end, and she absolutely obtained that end.

Fifth, and one of the most damning things against her in this scene, and that's saying a lot, juvia doesn't change her behavior at all after this pathetic excuse of an apology. Throughout the rest of the story, she continues her unwanted, extreme, intrusive behavior towards Gray. she doesn't change one darn thing about how she treats him. (And it continues all the way even through 100YQ [which of course I don't include in the FT canon, but Pros do, so I shall include it here], only from what I've seen, which thankfully isn't much, it may somehow be even worse). If she were really sorry, she would've decided to stop loving Gray regardless of if he forgave her. she didn't take any convincing that what she did was guiltless. I can't believe (but I can because it's juvia we're talking about here) that she wouldn't take any of the meager amount of time that she felt bad to self-reflect on how her actions have negatively affected Gray. Whom am I kidding, that would require character growth, and we all who aren't blind can tell that she's had absolutely none beyond leaving Phantom Lord, and even that was just because she had a crush on Gray, not because she wanted to apologize to FT or Lucy for all the egregious things she did to them.

If anyone has other instances they want me to break down, feel free to comment them or send me an ask! I don't want to make this impossibly long haha.

Anyway, onto your next point, Anon, as I sort of mentioned when linking my other post, I totally agree with you that "there isn't much to her character, aside from lusting for Gray". I would even go as far as to argue that there isn't anything to her character beyond her perverted tendencies towards him. Literally, if you strip Gray away from her theoretically, what is she? she has no hobbies, she basically has no friends whom she's gone out of her way to make and hang out with (because yes, Mashima made the stupid move of making all the girls in FT like her for literally zero reason because she's been hostile to most of them on the basis of Gray), she has no motivations or hopes and dreams. she is nothing without Gray. she is the definition of a "satellite character", a character written to only revolve around another one with no agency of their own. Don’t forget, she even began to adopt Gray’s habit (and perhaps trauma coping mechanism) of stripping. she lacks THAT much self that she begins to turn into the guy she likes. Wow. Disgusting.

Onto your last point, I think I'd agree with you, that a big reason why juvia is popular is just because people like how she looks. But she's the very typical slim-curvy woman with a huge chest and butt and giant eyes that Mashima loves to draw. There's nothing wrong with that body type, but it's not like she looks that different from anyone else in the show because of that, especially since she kept changing her looks to try to get Gray to like her and literally grew her hair out and stopped curling it to look more like Lucy, someone who is Gray's type canonically. she even starts to show more skin like the others, a far cry from the completely covered up Rain Woman. Perhaps they like her color scheme or her dead-fish eyes as well. I couldn't understand it myself, but to each their own really.

I personally thought that the biggest reason why people liked her was because they projected themselves onto her. juvia does what juvia wants, completely self-centered in every way, ignoring Gray's consent, and yet she still comes out on top, having secured poor Gray's affections by the time of 100YQ thanks to Mashima's poor writing. juvia acts however she wants towards other people, snarling and glaring and insulting other women in Gray's life to their faces just because of her inane jealousy, and yet she somehow ends up every single girl’s friend. juvia acts insane and delusional and has only eyes for one man, and yet she gets other people to hit on her all the time, most notably Lyon.

Who wouldn't want to act completely selfishly like juvia does and still gain everything you desire? Who wouldn't want to ignore everyone else's needs and wants and only care about yourself and still get all the attention and all the power and all the love and all the friends and all your dreams come true?

Sounds like such an easy, fun life, huh? But it's a totally self-absorbed and awful way to live, and it's exactly how juvia lives.

My guess is that people use her as a self-insert character and root for her in their own stead, but I think that's very subconscious, and most wouldn't admit to that. Otherwise, I would really love to see how people justify her behavior as laudable, but then again, I have seen those attempts, and none of them have made any real logical sense to me.

All in all, thank you so much for your patience and for sending this ask! I hope I answered it properly, and I appreciate you waiting so long!

[angry-pinscher]

I've seen on iMia stuff about him not being an "untouchable" anymore and that he's not even considered as a starter both for bayern and gnt but i always thought those were exaggerations... until i saw your tags 😮

Why does the audience hate him? if you don't mind me asking :o

Hey! Of course I don't mind 😊

But I have to warn you, this is going to be a looooooong answer because there's no real reason. For me it's always stats speak for themselves and he's always one of the best. So it doesn't make sense to me, but I'll try to summarize my observations. This is just my opinion, so if anyone has other reasons, feel free to let me know.

It started at the beginning of this year, when things weren't going so well at Bayern, that the media focused on him a bit. On one hand, they love to cause unrest in Bayern, because articles about FCB simply gets the most clicks and comments. You always read about rumors about them here. Sportbild in particular is at the forefront of coming up with things. Most of them aren't true, but that doesn't matter. As long as people get upset in the comments. And they do! They really don't learn, it's ridiculous… On the other hand, they seem to have a problem with leaders here. They did that with Leon, Manu, Lewi when he dared to not score a goal for one or two games and now Joshi. This was strange since he was almost always the best player, even in games that didn't go well. But for the media he wasn't as good as he was a few years ago and then it doesn't matter if he's still better than the rest.

Then it's a little bit a German thing to always focus on the negative. As a German, I can't understand this in the media or among many fans. As soon as we don't beat supposedly weaker teams 4-0 or something like that, it was a bad game for them and people immediately ask what was going on. That was the case with Germany against Algeria in 2014. As if we weren't in the round of 16 at a World Cup...

And the gap between non-Bayern fans and Bayern players is growing. I used to read comments like: I don't like Bayern, but he's really a great player! as soon as it came to the DFB team. When it came to die Mannschaft, the clubs didn’t matter. That's no longer the case for some fans. Today I read comments like: All Bayern players should be kicked out! (it doesn't matter whether they were good or not) So you have the media that starts to report badly about Bayern, the fans that hate Bayern more and more and that was very interesting for me to watch. I hate it, but it's still interesting. Kimmich's character hasn't changed. But what was once called passion is now suddenly aggressive. When he used to cry when we lost at the DFB, it was said: At least someone fought! At least one person seems to be interested! Now they call him crybaby. Everything just becomes negative. Then of course many non-Bayern fans write in the comments on Instagram or Twitter and just hate on him (or other players). So it also seems as if a lot of Bayern fans are suddenly against him, which in turn is a great target for the media. And so the spiral continues downwards…

So yes, it's unbelievable what Joshi has had to put up with here for about half a year. But as someone who is constantly at home games and public training, I can say that his name is always shouted the most and loudest along with Müller and Kane. He is still as loved here as ever and is a crowd favorite and that at least comforts me a little….

Okay, the answer is actually a loooot longer than intended. I'm so sorry about that :D

[forthesanityofstorytellers]

March Challenge WIP intro post!

So I'm participating in @moon-and-seraph's march challenge Words Into Potions (I love it so much, highly recommend you check it out if you're not already a part of it!) and I have a minute+brainpower to introduce the piece I'll be working on during the month, so here we go!

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Title: Midnight Madness (working title)

Genre: Fantasy (other-world/non-human)

WIP summary: The best I have is the badly summarized one: "Mentor is losing his mind because MC wants to go feral and it is A Problem" and really that's all I got so far. Lyra wants to run away, her mentor wants her to stay safe, constantly chases her to try and keep her in one piece while she wildly tries to buck the system, and whatever I had written as a summary before has kinda dismantled itself so...we'll see where it goes, lol

Learn more links: A more centralized glance at what I've got so far Spotify Playlist

Tags: rn I use either/both #Midnight Madness and/or #Lyra (most of them are tagged for Lyra really)

More under the cut!

Lyra Picrews (Feels like I should make an attempt to actually draw her out one of these days, lol)!

And have a bit of the opening as a snippet:

Lyra stared up at the open sky, watching the clouds drift on by. She wanted to be like those clouds. Free to soar in the open spaces. Not held down by rules or regalia or circumstance. Free to be whoever and whatever they wanted. Only tugged by the winds. “Princess!!” She grunted at the voice below, flicking a pointed ear as she tried to ignore the callings of her tutor. “Princess!” The calls were getting louder as they got closer, Lyra rolling over and grabbing at a blanket to try and cover herself so she wouldn’t be seen. “Ah, princess!!” “Aimoupon,” she shouted, to which her tutor let out a gasp. “Princess!” he chided. “Language!!” She pushed the blanket off herself and sat up, crossing her legs and looking down. “Don’t fret at me Qwkas. It’s just a word.” He frowned, rubbing at one of his ears as it quivered. “And where did you happen to hear this, ‘just a word’?” She flitted her wings as she waved a dismissive hand. “Just…around.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would it happen to be down by the waterfront?” Her wings flitted again. “Conversing with the workers?” Her ear twitched and she flicked it. “Where you’re not supposed to be?” She frowned and folded her arms. “My family rules these islands. Doesn’t that give me the right to be wherever I want to be?” He sighed. Rubbed at his ear again. “Of course it does. But the way of the outlanders is not our way and they must be held to station…which doesn’t include talking with–” He stopped talking, Lyra twitching her ears as she realized she was making faces again, mouthing the words with him. She smiled as the tips of her ears flickered up and down. “Sorry Qwkas.” She said it a bit forcefully, knowing that she would get in trouble if she kept it up much longer. It’s just that she’d heard the same speech a hundred times before and it never changed. Her tutor crossed his arms and stared at her for a moment. Motioned for her to come down, her wings fluttering as she lifted herself from the soft top of springy perch and flew down gracefully to land next to him. He sighed and brushed a bit of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

Looking forward to it!

[northwest-cryptid]

I found this image on my computer, which; without context is probably EXTREMELY confusing but it kills me every time I see it

I cannot tell you how badly I wish I could explain this game to you all, more specifically the adventure I went on with Chester but all I have left from the streams is this recap, which if you can forgive my god awful voice/audio summarizes exactly nothing everything and shows just how often my audience abuses the sound/music alerts video below the read more so it shouldn't randomly auto-play for anyone:

So, right off the bat horribly sorry for my god awful voice gracing your ears.

Other than that, for people who don't know; Kenshi is possibly my favorite open world sandbox game because it genuinely has so much to offer. It has no goals, it has no morality system nor does it try to tell you what is right and wrong. Kenshi just puts you in the world and asks you to survive however you want.

In the playthrough I'm doing on my streams I am playing as Chester, who's literally an old man who was a slave, escaped slavery, and lost all of his limbs; he has since been re-enslaved but broken out several times. I've decided that since he has been mistreated directly by slavers he would seek to rid the world of the two factions in the game that heavily support slavery, those being The Holy Nation (who are essentially a parody of Extremist Christians with their sexist and racist beliefs that anyone who isn't a Greenlander Male needs to be someone else's slave, or be killed) and The United Cities (who are basically Capitalism, I would say "Capitalism to the extreme" but no that's implied by saying Capitalism in the first place. Wealth is everything to them, how you get it doesn't matter; sell drugs, sell people; who cares as long as you make money in the end) as a result his journey has taken him all over the world.

Now normally in Kenshi you play as a group of characters you can set up a base somewhere, start up productions and do whatever. Kenshi is really well designed in that the world will come to you and happen at you but it will never treat you like anyone special even if you become a big shot. Taking out a few Holy Nation Paladins will get you a bad rep with the Holy Nation but no one is going to call you an Anti-Slaver hero, but if you take down Holy Lord Phoenix himself, you'll start to get a name for yourself both good and bad depending on who you ask. For every ally you make you make an enemy of someone else. If you build in bandit territory they will demand food to not launch raids, if you build in Shek lands they want their tribute for your colonization, if you build in the United Cities you better be ready to pay taxes. The world feels alive no matter how you play, and Chester is something of a nomad who just wants to explore the world and have one last adventure while leaving the wastelands a more peaceful place than he came into it as.

My current playthrough off stream is actually 100% different, I'm a lone barkeeper who set up shop in one of the towns of the United Cities, I would buy slaves and release them if they chose to stay with me I'd give them a job working at my pub. I was literally just a humble barkeep. Eventually I had the whole situation automated, we have robots manning everything, one running well water to the farmer, one working the farms harvesting crops and turning them into usable ingredients, another taking the ingredients and preparing food, another running that food to the front desk for sales, it was an elaborate and beautiful pipeline delivering grog, sake, and plenty of rice to the fine people of Stoat while simultaneously ridding the UC (United Cities) of their slaves, with the money lining my pockets it wasn't hard to buy out every slave shop I came across, and just release the slaves.

Oh yea and I have modded the game to all hell without a care as to what I was actually modding in, which means everything from vroid models to dinosaurs to uh... warframe grineer? For some reason?

So my playthrough kinda looks like this:

I kinda want to run you through this playthrough in hopes it will share some of why I love Kenshi with you. See the stats in this game are brutal and they only get better by being used. If you want to get tougher you need to be beaten, if you want to run faster you need to travel, if you want to make better clothing you need to do a lot of crafting. So with only 6 Athletics (which is nothing) and a dream, I took off to go get my Skeleton crew (Skeletons are the name for robots in this game) which are out in the Black Desert which suffers from constant acid rain and lightning storms... which are a slight problem, however that's not as much of a problem when I didn't even make it 5 minutes out the door before some bandits launched an assault on me because I happened to have a loaf of bread in my pocket, yea this game is UNFAIR and it's great but we'll get to why later.

^ See this in the bottom left? Those are your health bars, you don't get HP in this game you get values for your limbs. Your VITAL limbs are things like your head, chest, stomach, and obviously blood. The higher your toughness stat the lower those can go before you fall unconscious/die. However you can entirely lose arms and legs and still be okay, you can even craft your own limbs (or steal them in the case of Chester :P) to replace them, and in a lot of cases limbs are a trade off, maybe you're really strong but that strength means you don't have good finger dexterity so you can't pick locks or steal very well but you can bust open a door or hit someone really hard, scout legs for example give you a ton of movement speed as they're basically springs on your feet, but they don't have a lot of health value so if you get hit in the leg you're probably going down quick, not to mention you can't swim very well with large pieces of metal for legs. These trade offs are really fun and the way health values work in this game is something I hated at first but came to love as I played more.

Everything you survive in Kenshi literally makes you stronger, it's that age old saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" yea it's that cranked up to 11, because wouldn't you know it after hiring some robots at a pub (they can only drink grog because it's basically oil to them, and yes they have oil not blood as a stat; man the devs really put so much detail into this game it's so cute) I got struck by lightning and left out in acid rain... with literally no protection from it.

However if you notice most of my stats are in the green minus stomach and chest... and my left arm but my VITALS are doing better because I already took a beating getting here, and I got tougher for it! God I love that shit so much it's such a cool concept because it means you organically grow over the course of the game!

So anyways we get back to Stoat eventually (I had to get one of the robots to carry me) and we begin to properly set up shop, it's real cozy since there's no real conflict and I have plenty of money (called Cats) to spend on resources right now

I even started making and selling weapons and stuff! I eventually had enough money I bought ANOTHER building and decided to turn this one into a big farm, we'd use moister farming to condense water in the air since we're in the middle of the desert and wells out here kinda suck for consistent water supply, we'll continue the use of hydroponic farming and start bread production from grain silos, yes all of this shit matters; Kenshi is a complex game with lots of moving parts, I mean hell there's a whole graph for making robotic limbs and it's fantastic, you have to know what to make at what crafting station and where it all needs to go, and what research you need to do to unlock it all. This game makes you work for your reward and then properly gives you a fitting reward when you can make shit like this:

This whole thing is a blueprint that contains 3 different types of farms (Vegetables, Rice, and Wheat) a grain silo to turn the wheat to flour, then an oven for baking that flour to bread, as well as Grog, Rum, and Sake distilleries, storage for it all, as well as 4 stoves all set to make various foods from the farms, the floor above this houses 6 water condensers that will generate passive water for us so the farms won't dry out, and you know what? This all pays off, we make literally over 100k just selling various foods and drink that cost nothing for us to make since we can now grow it all in house!

Just to give you an idea, there was a moment like this for Chester too, except Chester's moment was when he tracked down a tyrannical Skeleton warlord who had been literally making skeletons go haywire so he could have an army to commit genocide on anyone and everyone, Chester couldn't fight through the literal hundreds of thralled skeletons so instead we used stealth which we had been training for a good while now; and snuck into his throne room before carefully sneaking up and assassinating him. It turns out he has one of the strongest weapons in the game, something called a "Meitou Falling Sun" which is actually really important because the "Meitou" in that name is the weapon's grade, Meitou is a grade only given to 1 of each class of weapon, forged by an ancient blacksmith named Cross who was renowned as a legendary blacksmith who made top tier weapons. Now the Falling Sun is still WAY too heavy for Chester to use properly, but he was able to grab the warlord and turn him in to an anti-slaver group for a bounty, fun fact about that the anti-slaver group is ran by another Skeleton who used to be friends with said warlord but didn't agree with his system of going to war, and instead became an anti-slaver gigachad who doesn't even fight with a weapon.

Notice how in my Barkeeper run my big moment was automating a farm + kitchen combo and decorating my bar to be nice and fancy; but for Chester it was basically an elaborate stealth mission to assassinate/Stealth KO a warlord and change the global politics of the game entirely? Yea that's the freedom this game gives you, you will get these big rewarding moments no matter how you play. In one of my playthroughs that rewarding moment was hunting down a slaver group who had taken one of my characters and enslaved them, I broke everyone out of the camp including my old team member and despite effectively only getting back to square 1 (having both my party members in the party again) it felt super cool and rewarding to break them out of this elaborate slave prison and set everyone free to help me fight off the guards, because my whole playthrough changed when they got captured, suddenly I cared a lot more about lock picking and stealth and everything else took a backseat, I joined a group of ninjas and had them train me so I could sneak in and pick all the locks before opening all the cages and arming all the slaves with weapons from the storage rooms. Kenshi is an entirely unique experience every playthrough and speaking of playthroughs after I upgraded my bar I decided to take a little vacation out of the desert to go pick up some more friends, this time I figured I'd get some fleshy new hires since I want to diversify a little bit. While I was out, this Beak Thing (large carnivore creatures who when the game was released, could accidentally talk and would absolutely destroy you before saying "relax, enjoy death" which is the most terrifying shit) got stuck in our grog room

But he's still only a pup so we can't legally give him any alcohol, don't worry; he still hasn't left and he's now an Elder. I am trying to find the guy who will sell him to me because he's become something of a mascot for the bar. He also doesn't fit anymore...

So you may be wondering if there's plot or anything and well, there kinda is; and it's super organic and I love it to death. Okay so let's back up, now that I have an automated system I've begun going town to town and buying a bar in each major town in the UC this allows me to make money in town and then buy out the slave market freeing any slaves and hiring any who want to stick around giving them a weapon more powerful than a sword in the UC; money. In doing so I wound up in a coastal town called Bark where I was approached by a young woman and this dialogue happend:

It's a little hard to read but I'll summarize if you're not able to read it; essentially she asks if I'm from around here and when I ask if there's a problem by any chance she tells me she somehow fucked up with nobility, which in the UC is a big deal; like a "they will kill you" big deal. She tells me she NEEDS to get out of town, so I ask her what she was involved in; remember that if I get a bad rep with the UC my bars will be raided, all the slaves I have employed will be killed, I won't be able to fight the system so for now I have to play nice and that means I can't be helping anyone out if it costs me my own skin; plus I'm not some super strong anime protagonist, I'm a fucking barkeeper! I have no stats for fighting at this point and can't very well go to war with the UC over one person as much as I may want to help everyone. She tells me it's all a conspiracy and someone ratted her out, she needs to be gone by the morning so I tell her I'll see what I can do; yes you can actually disguise people and sneak them over boarders in this game it's incredible. However she tells me she only needs about 3k to bribe the guards to look the other way, 3k is pretty much nothing to me at this point so I say sure. After which point she joins our squad, I am then approached by another young lady looking to join up and get out of town; sounds good to me but I kinda need people here to run the shop in this town so I attempted to have a bit of dialogue to figure out why she wanted out so bad;

But she's an absolute riot, she tells me she has a pet Gutter (a species of Beak Thing) named Grimes and how she apparently has had a steamy affair with the barman's daughter and then even goes so far as to try to show me her weird rash but I figured we knew enough and you know we stan a lesbian with a weird rash.

But I couldn't just leave them here if they weren't well protected; so I set up a small fishing camp, and taught them how to farm, I even bought them a house and made good sure Khida was safe to leave town if needed.

I even installed a little Gutter weathervane for Ojillo on their farm

This game just has so much charm! Though I really need to get these two some clothes, most characters spawn with pants but not shirts; but the game is never weird about it so meh I'll pick them up some leather jackets from the shop down the road from my pub.

Now remember how I said I'm physically pretty weak? And how I can't really fight yet? Well to fix that I went ahead and used the skills I do have (in crafting) to make myself some martial arts gear, in this case this absolute insanely modded mess of a game showed me I could make Goku's gi and you know I have never seen Dragon Ball but that wasn't going to stop me, I even found a guy selling some weird robotic enhancements and bought that to go with it.

I essentially waited around at the gates of Stoat for wildlife, bandits, or threats of any nature to attack the town and when the guards would get involved I'd just back them up, it was pretty safe and if I was knocked out I had my pub staff nearby with medkits to pick me up and haul my ass back to bed. After a LONG time of this I was finally skilled enough at dodging, tough enough to take hits when I couldn't dodge, and actually skilled enough with martial arts; to explore the wilds out by where Beak Things live, I was hoping to get some beak thing eggs since they sell for a good price and I could use them in cooking some really nice stuff to sell at my pub, would absolutely bring in higher paying clientele and I'm all about that.

Oh and while I was doing all of this, the rest of the world was still actively going on around me, remember how I said I was freeing slaves? They were starting to take notice of this, and one of my ex-slave employee's Frump went by the slave yard to free some more people when this really wholesome interaction happened:

Kenshi really does a great job of making the world feel like it's happening around you but at the same time, taking notice of you. I love stuff like this, it's genuinely cool to see slaves notice my faction and know they have a chance of escaping because I set slaves free; and yet they don't immediately trust me just off my reputation because that's the kind of world Kenshi is, it's a world where for all they know I "free" slaves and then shoot them for sport, or feed them to my pet dinosaur for fun. Oh yeah my pet dinosaur, about that.

So remember how I said I was going to go get beak thing eggs for profit and money? I found a Western Tyrant instead, or at least a Juvenile one; a quick fight later and it was knocked out, I patched it up and dragged it's ass back to my house in The Hub where I was greeted by none other than Elma from Xenoblade Chronicles X and 2b from NieR; why? Because MODS BAY-BEE WOOOO!

ANYWAYS we put it in a cage so it can't kill us and we feed it until it trusts us, we name it Gura because it will become an Apex Predator, and now we are best friends :D

Look at it! I love this thing! It's so cute! It's still a baby so I have to be careful not to let it get into fights with things that could easily kill it but it's a tanky beast and I'm keeping it safe. Well...

OKAY LISTEN IT'S OKAY! THE RAGDOLL PHYSICS ARE JUST HILARIOUSLY WEIRD IN THIS GAME BUT I PROMISE IT'S OKAY!

On my way back to Stoat I found a group of nomads who were also traveling with animals and I decided to follow them, strength in numbers and all that; we're all friends here.

This game is honestly beautiful to me even on low settings; I love looking up from the desert wasteland and seeing huge planets floating over the horizon it really sells me on the scale of this world.

Eventually we got to a town where I hadn't had a chance to set up a shop, the Nomads just brought me to an entirely new place; so I ran by the local bar to pick up a new hire and well, interview went great!

I literally asked if they had any potential skills they said no, and I hired them on the spot!

Oh yea I also found a guy getting chased around by a "processor unit" which are basically robotic vulture raptors that eat dying things; he was beat up pretty bad in a fight and woke up from his recovery coma because the unit was eating his flesh, and then the pathfinding decided he should RUN IN CIRCLES

So I see this looney tunes bullshit off in the distance while I'm traveling; gotta love it. Good luck dude! Some say he's still out there running in circles to this day.

This happened by the way because he was trying to attack the unit, and the unit was trying to attack him and the pathfinding wouldn't just let him turn around, and dear lord it was hilarious.

I was also laughing really hard because I sent my friends THIS picture which looks like the most generic youtube clickbait thumbnail, but was meant to express how much hell I was going through trying to transport all my goods over to the next town which was so heavy I couldn't move faster than 4 mph but of course there were a ton of things in the desert at this exact time of day, that want me dead:

I guess what I'm trying to say with this extremely long rambling, is that I genuinely love Kenshi for how much love and care and soul it has. Every character I encounter has a story, something to say, something to do. I wander into a town and someone tells me about this legend they heard and they want to join me to go hunt down some treasure somewhere, or I'll stumble into a pirate town where anyone who doesn't know the pirate code is immediately taken in to become a slave and work your way up through the ranks because you're an obvious outsider; but you can buy a pirate code book off a drunk guy super cheap at a bar and then pretend to know enough to not get caught. Sometimes I'm running through a place just for travel and stumble upon "Skin Bandits" who are Skeletons who think they're human, and they're all friends with a human who's their leader; and made them "peeler machines" to peel the flesh off their "flesh brothers" and wear the skin as a suit; genuine horror shit right there and I love it. Kenshi has so much packed into it, you could be a leviathan hunter seeking riches from battling behemoths that roam the land, or you could be a barkeeper who just wants to settle down in a quiet town and run a shop, or you could be an anti-slaver and free the oppressed people of the world; and hell there's nothing saying you have to play this way. If you prefer to be a morally bad person in games you can join the Holy Nation, you can become a slave trader; you can steal and kill to your hearts content because the game will never point a finger at you and say "you're being morally bad and mean and rude!" Instead you are chased down by the police, you might have to break out of jail, you might have to fight and die to get out of prison or to get away because you may get caught trying to rob people. Kenshi is immersive because it never tells you "no" outright, it plays like a huge game of D&D where everything is fair to the point of being brutal and unfair. Like the game doesn't deem you anyone important, you're just another person; so every choice you make matters but not in some grand scheme kind of way.

And what's really cool about it is, if you do want to be some important person, you can do that too! If you take out a big political name, someone else will make moves to take their place; other factions will move into the land and take up residency and you can sway how the game map will turn out. You can help the Shek reclaim their land, you can help the Holy Nation colonize everything, you can help the United Cities get even richer, or you can hang out in the swamps with the turtles; they're cute as fuck dude I love those little guys.

Yes the game is buggy, and yes you should probably mod the fuck out of it because there's a ton of ways to cheese it and honestly sometimes a bit of quality of life mods can go a long ways toward making a game more fun.

But I ultimately think this game deserves a look if you're into these sort of genres; explore the world, see what it has to offer; and just have fun with it. If you're curious and don't wanna play it yourself you're always welcome to check out my streams, Chester's quest to get all his stats to 100 is about to start back up again, we still need to put an end to the Holy Nation and make Chester the gigachad he deserves to be; so if you can handle my absolutely aggravating voice come hang out if you feel inclined.

Anyhow thanks for reading all of this, hope you enjoyed it; I could gush about Kenshi and it's little details all day but I'll spare you since this post is long enough as it is.

[littledreamling]

About Me (part 2!)

Thank you so much for the tag @mathomhouse-e!! I did this back when it was circulating before but I'm excited to see if my answers have changed since then!

Nickname: Kai or Crow, though I'll respond to anything

Sign: Sagittarius sun, libra moon, scorpio rising (yeah I know)

Height: 5'5" (I've grown an inch! In reality, though, I went to the doctor and got measured for the first time in years, giving me an extra inch to lord over all of my friends who are still 5'4" *cough, cough* @levi1088 and @birdbraintm)

Last thing I googled: oh this could be very embarrassing... oh thank god it's Tom Burke, the reason being that I saw his name in the credits of Mank and recognized it from The Musketeers (fantastic show, everyone should watch it, Tom Burke did an amazing job with Athos' complex character)

Song stuck in my head: Thankfully, I do not have one, probably because it's difficult to have a song stuck in your head when you're actively listening to music... (for anyone wondering, I'm listening to Lightning Crashes by Live, which is a childhood favorite handed down from my parents). I also had Voulez-Vous by ABBA stuck in my head earlier this week because I watched Mamma Mia over the weekend

Number of followers: 429 (I've gained about 40 since the last time I answered this, half of which are from the discord server lmao, I love you all my beloveds <3)

Amount of sleep: Time spent actually asleep? roughly 7 hours, give or take. Time spent laying in bed scrolling through my phone before falling asleep/after wakign up? Far longer, but I refuse to admit how much longer... I'm on break, sue me lmao

Dream job: this hasn't changed: university professor. It's been my dream job every since starting university (with a brief stint where I wanted to be a pilot, though that didn't last long when I realized how expensive getting a pilot's license is and that the only way to get one for free is to join the military...) because it's largely my only career path. As a cellular and molecular biology major, my two paths lie in pharmaceutical labs doing quality control or doing research funded by a university. Of the two, I'll always prefer the latter.

Wearing: This always feels like a main character describing herself in a badly written fanfiction, but here goes: black sweat pants, a grey long-sleeved t-shirt, black socks, and my hair is tied back with a hair tie in the world's smallest ponytail. Nothing fancy to see here. I don't even have my dangly earring in, though I do have my other earrings in (because they never get removed) which consist of a pair of small gauges, a septum ring being used as an earring, and a black industrial bar. I also have my rings and signature necklace, so I guess that counts for something. Idk

Movies/books that summarize you: Last time, I asked my roommate to answer this because she knows me best, but I don't have her here at the moment, so I'll take a stab at it. Where Hope Comes From by Nikita Gill is definitely a strong contender, simply because of the non-toxic positive messages it contains. I particularly enjoyed the book The Genome Odyssey by Euan Angus Ashley as well as Genome by Matt Ridley. Both vastly expanded my horizons in my chosen career path and have pushed me to better understand everything that can be done through the field of genomics. Antigone by... well, Sophocles is my favorite play (sorry Shakespeare, I have to agree with Hob on this one) because everyone talks about loving the way men love, but Antigone shows what it is to love the way women love. I adored it when I first read it at the ripe age of fourteen and I still love it today.

Favorite song: Too many to list. I have a playlist on spotify called Absolute Favorites that is over 7hrs long... If I had to pick, though, I'd say (right now) it's Saviour by George Ezra or Michigan Cherry by River Whyless. I'm not sure they'll stand the test of time to be included in my Absolute Favorites, but they're currently scratching specific itches in my brain and that's enough for now

Favorite instrument: My answer 100% has not changed: church organ, bagpipes, and the harmonica. I have religious trauma, blood that sings for Scotland, and I was raised in the American South. I'm not sure what else you could ever expect of me... I have to add to it, though, for sheer hilarity: the hurdy-gurdy. Tangentially, I love the fiddle and always wanted to learn how to play but never had the time/money to do so.

Aesthetic: I could copy/paste my answer from last time because it hasn't changed. As @the-cloudy-dreamer and I were talking about earlier, roughly 90% of my clothes are black, 7% are grey, and the rest are some variation of other neutral tones. Color and I do not oft get along, so I don't try. My skin is so pale that I could be an Endless sibling and I dress the part lmao

Favorite authors: Neil Gaiman, obviously. My literary tastes, however, rarely fall neatly along the lines of one author; I tend to pick up books as they interest me, not because I know or like the author, which leads to me reading books by wildly various authors and not having any particular favorites.

Random fun fact: I'm never quite sure what to put for questions like this... reading back over my answers from last time (I can lick my elbow, I rode horses for 10+ years, I own far too many tarot decks, and I have blue hair), they seem so surface-level, but they're also deeply intrinsic pieces of me that add up to the greater whole, and I'm not sure if I could fit anything deeper or more meaningful into a tumblr text box. I'm a photographer (or used to be), I'm a trans man (though I'm not out socially), I'm in a sorority (part of the reason why I'm not out socially, though not the entire reason), I have over 700 hours in Animal Crossing... if you want to know anything about me, just ask I guess, I'm an open book!

And because our whole server was tagged in one fell swoop, I have to exit our little bubble so I'm tagging @birdbraintm @levi1088 (my two IRL friends on tumblr), @landwriter @avelera @softest-punk @staroftheendless and @fishfingersandscarves (because it was surprisingly fun to revisit these questions to see how much, or how little, has changed) As always, feel free to ignore a tag! I'm also leaving an open tag: if you see this and want to do it, do it! I'd love to be tagged in it so I can be nosy!

[marky-iplier]

Hey! As a Muslim and a hijabi, I'm gonna explain why the hunie pop game is Islamophobic and why Mark should stop or even delete/remove the play through videos. I've done this on twitter but they're not pretty specific so here we go. BTW this is the link to my tweet about it

https://twitter.com/eef_iplier/status/1362316236588085256?s=19

As you know, Abia, a Muslim character in the game.

These are the reasons why her character is problematic:

Her persona, a lot of non-Muslims always say that our religion oppressed women because our hijabs. Repressed is synonym of oppressed. It's a main stereotype that Islamophobe always uses to attack or give hates to Muslims. Fyi, it's the person's choice to wear hijab or not, people can't force her to wear it. Most hijabis choose to wear hijabs not because they have to but hijabs are making them feel comfortable and safe. Hijab means cover, covering us from the people who wanted to sexualize us. Most hijabis wear hijab to prevent themselves getting sexualized not the opposite. The game satisfies those who has hijab as fetish, fetishzing hijabis are really really fucked up and disrespectful. It defeats the whole purpose on why most hijabis wear hijab. Yes, I know the religion tells Muslim women to wear hijab but in no way they are forced to wear it, it's their choice, people can't force them to wear one, but instead giving them the time to wear it. No one should or can force people to wear hijab. It's their choice. The religion doesn't tell people to force those who are not ready or doesn't want to wear it. This counts as stereotype because in a lot of shows, Muslim women are "oppressed" and will get freedom when they take off their hijab which is really messed up. Wearing hijab doesn't press us at all. Again. It's making us feel comfortable.

Try to connect us with terrorism. Why? Because the streotypes thaf already have been put in the game and her job as airport security which makes it related to 9/11 tragedy where a lot of people started to hate Muslims because they think that Muslims do that. Like, all of them. Most people even think that all Muslims are terrorists because of several events that not even Muslims do. Our religion doesn't allow violence. We only can fight back if our lives' are threatened. Also, one of her outfit which is 'Assasin' (Yes, that's the name of the outfit is Niqab which is this one

Naming it as assassin is more likely to associate her to terrorism. Just like hijab, niqab has its own purpose, covering face, hair, and their body. And also, no, no one's getting forced or pressed to wear it. It's their choice. Hijabis aren't oppressed for wearing niqab. burqa, and hijab. No. One. But again, these stereotypes that mostly white people assumed about us portrayed us badly. These streotypes are bad representation of Muslims. Beside, putting hijabis in porn game already a bad idea itself and also disrespecting. Hijabis are getting harmed and violated on public just because their hijabs and now people are fetishizing us. Hijab is and will never turning as fetish. And people who has it, need to realize fetishizing hijabis are disrespectful for not respecting the purpose of why most hijabis are wearing hijabs. Making it more normalized. I know the game is just again game, but some people or even most of them are taking them seriously and started to turn hijab as fetish. Playing the game makes you pay the devs who are making the game with messed up streotypes that have been hurting and violating Muslims. They're profitting money of the offensive and problematic game.

The more people play it, more people normalized the streotypes, more Muslims get hurt and violated because the streotypes.

To summarize:

The reason why Mark should stop continuing the series or even taking down the hp play through videos because he's promoting the game to his channel and making a lot of people who can't afford the game, enjoying the fetishization of Muslim. Also, normalizing these streotypes. It's also making most Muslims in his community feel uncomfortable. We can't ignore the videos if everytime we go to his channel, those videos will pop up. Not only that, some of his videos will get suggested too. Beside, we can't ignore islamophobia.

The playthrough videos of the game:

1. Making Muslims uncomfortable and we can't ignore it because every time we go to his channel those videos will pop up and also we'll get suggested of those videos

2. Normalizing the shitty stereotypes of Muslims

3. Making some people who can't afford the game is enjoying the fetishization of hijabis

4. Promoting the game, and making the devs who made the game with the shitty stereotypes and put a hijabi there to satisfy people who has hijab as fetish (Because it's a porn game about fetishes), getting profit from the game (Again, The more people play it, more people normalized the streotypes, more Muslims get hurt and violated because the streotypes)

That's all from me so I do hope Mark discontinue the game and even take down the other videos about it. Thank you for reading this, I hope all of you get educated on why this game is problematic and why Mark should stop discontinuing the playthrough. I'm sorry for ruining your enjoyment of the play through but this is harmful.

Also, no, I'm not cancelling Mark over this. I don't cancel the devs, but only dont want them to get profits off that one specific game. Although, they've made several racists jokes which makes them racists too but, I'm more focusing on the game.

I'm not cancelling Mark. I'm criticizing and suggesting him. I'm not the only one that suggest him to do this but a lot of other people too.

Please find the differences between criticizing/suggesting/holding someone accountable with hating/cancelling. They are huge differences.

Another note: we're not gonna forcing him or bashing on him for keep continuing the series but we only continue to criticize and suggest. Not cancel.

Edit: I'm sorry that some of my words might be not making sense, English isn't my first language and it almost 9 pm and I'm sleepy djnendn

[audreydoeskaren]

Hello Audrey, your costume reviews are really interesting and fun! I enjoy reading them a lot, and now I can watch movies with a more informed eye.

If you want to, you could review Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster? I plan to watch it sometime this week, it seems interesting! Only if you have time! I imagine watching and rewiewing these shows must take a lot of time, and movies should be enjoyed 😊

Thank you! 😘

Hi, I’m glad you liked my reviews! Yes I would absolutely love to review The Grandmaster. Sorry for posting this so late, I happened to be away last week. I actually watched this movie when I was a wee child so I more or less know what it's about, now as an adult with a costuming obsession I can see it with new eyes.

The Grandmaster (2013) 一代宗师

The Grandmaster is a 2013 Hong Kong-Chinese martial arts drama film based on the life story of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man. The film was directed and written by Wong Kar-wai and stars Tony Leung as Ip Man. (copy and pasted from Wikipedia) The Wong Kar-wai + Zhang Shuping duo strikes again. The plot spans many decades and it's not really specified in what year some scenes take place, but it could generally be understood that the chunk of it where Ip Man is a middle aged man takes place in 1937 and the other chunk where he's older in 1950. If I had a euro every time I reviewed a drama set in 1937 I would have three euros which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that there’s three already. If you read my posts, you can pretty much pick out the questionable things by yourself. But I also like to be mean toward badly made costumes so here I am.

Source here

I'm watching it on Youtube on rent and apparently I can't screenshot anything. So seven minutes into the movie and there is a scene where women who look like this appear (this is not the same scene) and I've already stopped thinking. I'm starting to doubt if the shops selling fingerwave extensions are holding Chinese costume designers at gun point to include them in movies they're designing for. It really looks like 铜钱头 used in Chinese opera hairstyling, is that why costume designers are so attached to it? They actually waved the actress’ hair in this one but still somehow chose to use extensions. A real fingerwave wouldn’t have such exaggerated circular shapes, and the circular part would only be on one side of the part. The circular shape is also just the low part of the “wave” structure, not a deliberately created shape.

Apart from that, the cheongsam in 1937 should have a lower collar with one or two buttons. I’m not a fan of the huge bling trims used here, they existed but weren’t common at all. Even for evening occasions 30s cheongsam were a lot more toned down in the decoration. I would like to give a special shoutout to the plucked eyebrows though. I will give the costuming one free point because of that alone. I also like that they showed both Chinese and Western shoes in that scene. However, the lip shape could be more heart shaped.

Source here

Early 30s fingerwave.

There are a couple women in this scene wearing sectioned bangs and giant flowers on their shoulders, the former is a 1920s thing and the latter a late 20s/early 30s thing, so neither of them should appear in a scene set in 1937.

Source here

They are wearing something like this, which is decidedly late 20s.

Source here

I like the representation of sheer cheongsam here, but the sleeves could be shorter. I think this shot summarizes the staples of Zhang’s 1930s costuming... He’s been doing the same thing for decades and there is zero character development. The female characters here look almost exactly identical to some from The Flowers of War. The fingerwave extensions, the unnecessarily long sleeves, gaudy fabrics and trims etc.. My biggest problem with his way of styling 1930s characters is that although the individual elements used aren’t technically wrong per se, but the frequency in which they appear and the overall atmosphere they create do not match that of the 1930s at all. For example, he’s super fond of using these “luxurious” fabrics with darker colors, loud floral patterns and long sleeves for younger women, which were at the time more associated with older women. Simpler, brighter, abstract patterns were a lot more mainstream. He also loves elaborate trims, which did exist in the 30s but were not common at all; the much more popular plain binding in multiple rows is never attempted. He and most other costume designers for republican era dramas almost never dabble in Modernist, Expressionist or Art Deco aesthetics, although they dominated upper class circles in fashionable cities in the 30s like Shanghai and Hong Kong. The costumes he creates are always dark, moody and stiff yet trying to be seductive, revoking semi Orientalist impressions of a rotten, decadent “old China”, even though historically the republican era saw a lot of innovation in fashion and avant garde experimentations. The magic of the 30s is never successfully captured in his creations, in my humble opinion. I personally would like to relegate this to the limitations of the straight male imagination but feel free to interpret this in your own way.

Source here

The cheerful 1930s aesthetic we never got.

Source here

Sheer cheongsam with slip, though this look is more of a mid 30s thing (this poster is from 1934). Also see how voluminous and not flat her hair is.

In the fight between Ip Man and the other masters, the character of Sister San has a pretty interesting outfit. I love that they showed her in bound feet, which some older women still had after 1912 because they felt it was more comfortable than letting out their feet. Seeing a woman with bound feet do a fierce martial arts sequence is also weirdly the empowerment I didn’t know I needed. The socks and slippers combo would be unthinkable before the 1900s when women would commonly wear heeled lotus shoes and leggings, but in the republican era footbinding wasn’t so prestigious anymore and many women chose more relaxed footwear.

Her hair is once again blasphemous, but the plucked eyebrows are so good I’m willing to let it slip. She wears a black aoku outfit with lace trim which could be a thing in the 30s.

It reads very early 1910s with the sleeve length but I guess you could do it in the 1930s if you want? I actually have no clue what a 1930s aoku outfit looks like.

Source here

1900s photograph of a woman in aoku.

Source here

Gertrude Olmstead in a similar aoku costume, 1927.

Actually I just figured there aren’t many costumes to talk about in this movie... The male characters mostly wear 长衫 changshan, which is a very simple garment that you couldn’t possibly get wrong. Menswear also doesn’t change much over the decades so you could get away with whatever.

Source here

Men’s changshan.

I tried really hard to find photos or shots of costumes in subsequent scenes but I’m sorry the movie is just so dark and there are no full body shots showing a character’s costumes from head to toe... There is this iconic look where the female lead wears a fur trim coat and a cheongsam but it’s a fight scene and everything moves really fast and I can’t really see any details. 

At this point I feel like y’all can recognize Zhang Shuping’s costuming style and the common mistakes he makes so there really isn’t any point in picking out everything from this move in particular. Overall a 5/10, just because it’s usual Zhang Shuping does 1937, but one extra point for the plucked eyebrows like I promised. The movie itself is really good though, just the fight scenes alone make it worth a watch.

[castiel-left-his-mark-on-me]

Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!

Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."

It was a wild time haha.

In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.

We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.

After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.

Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.

Who isn't being optimistic though?

Jared Padalecki.

When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"

As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.

However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.

The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.

Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.

The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?

In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.

But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.

So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!

💖💖💖