#idk what happened but i will not accept korra hate

[thefallenangel2008]

There ain't no way people are calling the new upcoming Avatar series "woke" because the avatar is a black character with a missing leg. Don't y'all remember TOPH? Our badass, blind, Asian earth-bender or nah? Or Teo??? He was in a wheelchair.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

It itches my brain, fam, because I can *see* all the perspectives and philosophies. If he leaves well enough alone, he is forsaking the ancient elves and condemning their society to utter extinction. He has the ability to fix things (supposedly) and simply accepting things as they are is like getting away with murder with a “sorry”. But if he does try to change things, he is condemning an entire world to death. He is trying to wrench the past into the present, trying to resurrect an empire. Even though he hates imperialism and empires, that’s what he’s doing.. He is trying to replace those alive *now* with those whose existences are *potential*. He’s trying to bring back people who lived during a time of great splendor and eminence. In essence, Solas wants the ancient elves to *replace* those who are presently living. He doesn’t get into what this means for humans or qunari or dwarves (the latter existed during ancient elvhenan). Can we be sure that the ancient elves would resist exerting superiority/supremacy over the remaining living people? Can we?

As far as I understand. I still don’t understand what he means by bringing back the Ancient Elves. If he means that there are ancient elves in comas he wants to resurrect or souls stuck in the Fade he wants to give bodies? Or he means the few elves like Abelas that are still alive that he wants to return their pre-Veil powers to. IT’S REALLY UNCLEAR.

The reason WHY I am so furtive about the Veil is because so many important details are left unknown. In a conversation you have with him in DAI on the balcony, he tells you to your face you flout the categories he has created for the different races, and this is him as Wisdom-Pride given mortal form. I cannot shake the nagging worry that the Ancient Elves, if they were to return, wouldn’t reassume a collective sense of racial superiority over the surviving living races. If they truly get their resurrected empire off the ground, I can 100% see them marginalizing the modern elves, dwarves, humans, and qunari. Everyone would be “separate but equal”, and not even Solas with his good intentions and “philosopher king” pursuit of freedom would be able to prevent it. If the ancient elves were to get their shit together, some form of organization would need to be arranged, and like Elgar’nan, it could lead to a consolidation of power that recreates oppressive hierarchal structures. Solas would probably take up the mantle, reluctantly, but for all of his desire that rulers cede power when they are no longer needed, he would have to remain a ruler if only to prevent war lords and ambitious ancient elves from pulling another elgar’nan. He would either need to become the thing he detests, watch the ancient elves make the same mistake as before, or watch the ancient elves wither away and die before their society ever had a chance to see its true birth. Just because the ancient elves were slaves and freemen who suffered under the tyranny of the Evanuris doesn’t mean that their suffering will make them nobler or more insightful and more sensitive to the harm they could inflict on the survivors of the apocalypse. Because it would be an apocalypse.

But again I need details on how Solas’s plans allow the ancient elves to come back and exactly how many people will die if they were to go off without a hitch. We talking 25%? 50%? 75%? 80%?

I want to live in a world where it is possible for there to be a Legend of Korra style Harmonic Convergence where spirits and people can mish mash together with minimal death and bloodshed. Where the hell is that option. Yes it’s very neat and tidy and “happily ever after” but I don’t care, make it one of the most difficult and intricate world states that you need to do a fuckton of things to be able to trigger! Have your Inquisitor and Solas be the sacrifices needed to make that happen so that you still get that bittersweet tragedy, crib the “Shepard is Spacedust Spacetime God” for it, idk! Make a dozen different endings, if you want.

Veil comes down (Inquisitor dies)- Inquisitor dies in attempt to prevent it. Thus Solas wins, but it’s a pyrrhic victory because it is the final piece of his humanity he has sacrificed. He rules as a stone-hearted king. Romance version: Solas has once again lost a world he cherished. His heart.

Veil comes down (Solas dies)- Solas dies to ensure it does, believing the world is better without him in it. The final sacrifice. But without Solas to lead the ancient elves, his efforts are all but wasted. They cannot gather together to rebuild and meanwhile every other kingdom and empire is crumbling from the shock of the Veil torn down. The world is on fire and demons are everywhere and oh my God what the fuck. This is the worst ending.

Veil stays up - Inquisitor dies to keep it up and things end up in such a way that Solas is incapable of ever interfering with the Veil again. His punishment is to live in this world created by his actions, divested of power, neutered.

Veil stays up (Romance optional: Stop Solas) - Solas somehow, either voluntarily or involuntarily, sacrifices himself to keep it intact. Essentially the “Good” and “Trick” DATV endings.

Veil stays up (Romance optional: Stop/Save Solas) Solas abandons his desire to tear down the veil. He accepts that trying to change the world is not worth it because this world is also worthy of life. Solas is basically put in Inquisitor’s/Lavellan’s custody. One can choose whether to imprison Solas, Tranquilize him, kill him, or task him with helping make the world a better place.

Veil comes down (Romance-Save Solas) - By some means, Solas and Lavellan sacrifice themselves to bring the Veil down safely. LoK Harmonic Convergence. It is more difficult for the world to adjust. Solas is not there to lead the ancient elves, Lavellan is not there to help unite modern people. It’s a brave new world, for better or worse. Underlying theme: We have to believe and hope that people will strive to make the world better.

Veil comes down (Romance-Save Solas) - The rarest and most difficult achievement. Solas and Lavellan survive and the Veil comes down. They are there to lead their worlds toward integration and coexistence. They live happily ever after. I don’t know what big sacrifice needs to be made for this to work. Perhaps Solas completely loses his magic? Perhaps he also loses a limb. I don’t know, fam.

Anyone got any other ending ideas?

I’m just talking aloud and getting my thoughts down. Pay no mind to me. I have never claimed to be good at writing stories.

[angelhummel]

I saw a post from a Seblaine page on Facebook saying Grant Gustin said he'll be willing to return to a Glee reboot, remake or reunion, then the post went on saying Darren would be the first to agree to that as well, then some comments hoping Kurt and Blaine divorce and Blaine dates Sebastian, it disgusted me, but it got me thinking... If there was some sort of reunion episode showing where are the characters in the future, I do believe Darren and Grant would return, however Idk if Chris would, thus making it possible for Ryan Murphy or whatever person to destroy Klaine, giving me ICarly reboot vibes, I get why Jennette doesn't wanna act again, but at the end of Sam & Cat there was a hint of Seddie only to be dismissed in this new ICarly where they're trying to make Creddie happen, anyway, do you think Chris would return to anything Glee related to play Kurt alongside Darren? And if not, are the writers really capable of making Seblaine canon? I'm literally afraid lol, canon married Klaine is the only thing we have against crazy Seblainers

Well I'm gonna disagree with you on that last part right off the bat lmao. I think we have way more than just married Klaine on our side. See: the entirety of canon Klaine

Honestly if they did do a reboot, I couldn't see Chris coming back. Unless maybe RM was very lightly involved and he got a good paycheck out of it. Maybe if they let him write another ep? Idk. It seems unlikely

But any idea of a reboot seems in incredibly poor taste. Chris probably wouldn't do it, I'm sure Dianna wouldn't do it, Naya couldn't do it... Kevin and Jenna probably would akljflksd. Amber, idk, I really don't know. If the general public hates s4-6 then they're going to hate a reboot that's just Rachel, Blaine, Tina, Artie, probably Sam, and fucking Sebastian lol. Like idk what you want me to do with that

Besides even if beyond all logic and taste they did actually go through with the reboot and beyond all sense and dignity they made Seblaine canon alfjdslkf... I would not give a fuck

How many people watched this new Teen Wolf movie and accepted it as the canon continuation of the series they loved?? Hopefully none bc that thing sounded like trash

They're making a new Avatar series about the original gaang, whomst I LOVE with my whole heart. If it sucks, I'm hitting the bricks, it's not my canon. Hell even some of the stuff that came up in Korra about the og gaang, I was like, "well that's just not true"

If for some reason a reboot came up and Seblaine was canon I would say "no it's not" and go on about my business. And I'm sure most other people would do the same lol. For all reasons necessary, not just a shitty ship happening

[stitch1830]

About your ask about what if Suyin killed Lin by accident. There is this one nerve in the neck that if disrupted can cause you to become paralyzed. So what if Suyin disrupted said nerve with the metal cables and now Lin is paralyzed. Do you think that Toph would send her away or would there different consequences? Would Lin still become chief of police? Or would she and Kya travel the world together (since they’re in love). Would she still help Korra? Would this bring Lin and Toph closer both having disabilities to over come? Or would it break them apart more? If it brought them together would Toph still move to the swamp?

Anyway I feel like this incident would heavily effect what happens in alok greatly. But I want to know what you think.

Hey g thanks for the ask! :D Interesting scenario, lemme think...

My guess is immediately after the cable hits Lin, Suyin would still run to her sister to try and help, but this time Lin obviously lives. The experience would still be traumatizing for both girls. Suyin only wanted to get away with her trouble making, and Lin was doing her job. But now Suyin's the reason her idol is in a wheelchair and is the reason Lin's life is harder than it used to be and that guilt would eat away at her.

After the fact, I think it depends on everyone's emotions once the dust has settled. I can see Suyin still being a bit inconsolable, she nearly killed her sister, and hopefully the experience would make her own up to her mistakes and try to learn from them and accept the consequences. Toph would be heartbroken at how things turned out, grateful that Lin didn't die, but still upset that her daughter now has to deal with this for the rest of her life. And Lin... I'm not sure. I can see her hating her sister for the rest of her life and never speaking to her again, and I can also see her facing this life obstacle head on. She would still be angry at Su, but may forgive her, especially if she sees how remorseful Suyin is... I'm gonna go with the latter because it's a bit ~nicer~ LOL.

As far as discipline goes, I'm guessing it would be a rehabilitative center where the main goal is for delinquents to learn from their mistakes and make healthy contributions to society until their time is up? Idk if that's the right word for it, but I don't think Suyin would be in jail. It would be about Suyin understanding how her actions had consequences and what she can try to do moving forward to be a better person.

I'm assuming that since Lin wasn't the Chief when she became paralyzed, she wouldn't become Chief. Field experience probably plays into the qualifications for the job, and in general, I think she would let that dream go for something else.

Haha I like the idea that she travels the world, and I think that would fit her story well!

My guess is that in between travelling, she'd spend time with Toph, and I would venture to guess this makes them closer? They might still have communication issues and there's always that elephant koi in the room with why Lin is disabled now, but I think as long as Suyin changes and there isn't any lingering resentment, the family wouldn't fall apart. Might take Lin a while to speak with Suyin is all.

Not sure that Lin would help Korra as much. After the incident, I can see her kind of picking up a more casual lifestyle as opposed to career oriented. Plus, if she's with Kya travelling, I don't think Kya would drop everything to help the Avatar (even if it is her dad reincarnated lol). She didn't seem like she wanted to fight; only did it out of necessity and preferred being free to do what she wanted. Perhaps by this point, Lin is talking with Suyin and convinces her to help the Avatar? 0-0 That would be interesting. Suyin could either come down from Zaofu to speak with Korra (If Zaofu still exists).

And yeah I'm not the biggest fan of Swamp Toph so hopefully she doesn't go to the Swamp if she's on speaking terms with both of her daughters and still visits with them LOL.

I think that's all I got for this scenario! It would definitely change things within LOK, and I think it depends on how much Lin resents Suyin after the fact. This route kind of revolves around the idea that everyone is on speaking terms after the fact, but if the Beifong family is strained (like it is in LOK but worse), I think those outcomes within this 'new' LOK would be vastly different.

Hope this answers your questions! Thanks again for the ask, and hope you have a great day!

......

Send me asks about ATLA, or anything, really! :D

[rogueninja]

Okay so we all know who your top ships are... who are your unpopular ships? Or obscure ships? What characters from what series do you think about often in either good or bad ways? Who is a character that you hate that others love? If you could rewrite a story or part of a book, what would it be and what would you do differently?

Ok I am digging through my brain right now bc if I’m not able to hyperfixate on something then I tend to forget I even liked it. Ok buckle in bc this is gonna be long af. YOU ASKED FOR THIS, REG.

I’m putting a readmore so as not to torture my followers lol

Thinking about Veronica Mars. About Veronica/Logan. Do they have a ship name?? But I love that show and i was THERE for them. They were kind of a surprise ship for me, in that when they got together I was like, wait, WHAT? Like I was totally caught off guard. But there first kiss is, like, sooo romantic to me haha. It’s my fave scene in the show. But Logan is suck a prick sometimes. And they break up like every five minutes. And every season Logan gets accused of murder which of course he ends up not being the murderer. And they get back together eventually and I’m like really? But deep down I am rooting for them lol. I really enjoyed the new season of Veronica Mars that came out last year, actually. The ending made me SO SAD THO.

I also used to watch Supergirl and I thought Kara and Mon-El were adorable. He was very Carswell Thorne-esque, RH, I *think* you would like him. I never watched past season 3(?) though, and he shoots off into space and I never caught up so a few months ago I actually googled what happens and [spoiler] he ends up marrying someone else in the future or something so I was like, ok I’m not investing any more time in this show lol. (Also I had to google Mon-El’s name just now bc i forgot which is a bad look BUT I WAS REALLY RIDE OR DIE FOR THEM FOR A WHILE lol). Also I loved Martian Manhunter in this show, he was my favorite character. But the CGI for him was awful, omg. He had practical makeup at first, they should have just stuck with that.

Speaking of Martian Manhunter, I also used to watch Young Justice and loved Miss Martian/Superboy. Am I basic??? lol oop. But I love basic love stories. Anyway, I thought they were super cute. In season 3 though they’re kind of on the rocks. I haven’t watched season 4. I also loved Artemis/Wally West, but of course that had to end tragically.

Also, let’s talk about Nightcrawler. Allow me to set the scene. Little Kat is 13 and just rediscovered the cartoon she saw a few times as a kid called X-Men: Evolution. And thus, a weird obsession with the German, blue demon boy began. I loved Kurt Wagner. In the cartoon he starts a relationship with Amanda Sefton and I thought they were a-dor-a-ble. She accepted him for who he was, and they had a really nice healthy relationship. A lot of ppl shipped him with Kitty too which i am honestly all for idec I JUST WANT THE BLUE BOI TO BE HAPPY.

Can we talk about A:TLA too??? Like, obviously Zutara, amiright? Power couple. Like, Kataang is.. fine, but its probably my least favorite part about the ending, haha. Also, consider: Tokka. Toph is bae and can get anyone she wants, and she clearly had kind of a crush on Sokka and I think they could have been awesome. It actually kills me that they never say who Lin and Suyin’s father is in LoK. I had a whole theory that it was that kid The Duke from Jet’s band based on like 2 scenes from the series. There’s a tumblr post I made about it somewhere in the ether lol.

I also just remembered Tahnorra (Tahno/Korra) from Legend of Korra. It’s hard for me to explain this one. It’s a weird combination of being hyperfixated on the first season of the show when it came out, and I think I stumbled upon some fic or something???? And I thought Tahno was hot or something??? And FUN FACT, he was voice by Rami Malek BEFORE HE WAS COOL. So like before Rami really got big I knew who he was. He also basically played the Avatar in Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 and I thought that connection was hilarious. It was kind of a problematic crack pairing but there was one author in particular whom i follow to this day hoping she’ll update her Tahnorra fics…. *sigh*

Okay one last ship…. I used to be ride or die for Outlaw Queen in Once Upon a Time (aka Regina/Robin Hood). Like, before TLC, I had a personal tumblr renaissance for that ship alone. My only existing published fanfic is for that ship. Taylor Swift’s 1989 came out that year and I related every dang song to that ship. I loved Regina so much and I just wanted her to be happy. That show is a dumpster fire, though, and spat all over my hopes and dreams. *sigh*

Also, lightning round for obscure pairings I ship and/or never talk about:

Frank Castle/Karen Page (The Punisher) ok this one isnt that obscure but I never talk about it… but the pining, oh god the pining

Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (GoT) THEIR 5 SECONDS TOGETHER ARE THE ONLY WORTHY PART OF SEASON 8. everything after that never happened

I already listed Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye (FMAB) as a top pairing previously but I feel the need to mention it again bc it was for real my OG OTP… LIKE U WANNA TALK ABOUT PINING…. *sobs*

Percy/Annabeth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) This used to be my fave book series and i loved how their relationship developed over the course of the books

Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter) ok can we TALK ABOUT THIS??? They were both badass misfits and they were perfect for each other. But noooo JKR has to announce they marry some nobodies…. this is the only change the last movie did right

Midna/Link (Zelda: Twilight Princess) I honestly have no explanation for this lol

Qui-gon Jinn and Shmi (Star Wars) CAN U IMAGINE if anakin had a proper father figure and didnt have to abandon his mother to slavery

Obi-wan/Satine…. (Star Wars: The clone Wars) we know whats up

OK, to answer some of your other questions: character I hate that others love. HMMMM…….

This one seems too easy/obvious but Professor Snape? Like obviously there’s already a ton of discourse surrounding this but he was gross, mistreated his students for years, committed atrocities, couldn’t get over his high school crush, and we’re supposed to believe he’s a hero in the end and HARRY WOULD NAME HIS SON AFTER HIM….. uh no. “Always” is gross.

I’ve literally been wracking my brain for days and I can’t think of any more characters for this. OK I did some googling and I remembered some LOL.

Ross from friends…. I literally can’t stand him. He’s so entitled and just the worst. He tries to act like he’s the nice, sensitive guy, but really he is so full of himself. Joey on the other hand is portrayed as a womanizer but is actually super sweet and I love him

Archie from Riverdale… I have only seen the first 1.5 seasons ish but he is the worst…. we’re supposed to believe he’s some easygoing musically gifted football player but instead he manages to pull off being bland as heck and actually kind of a terrible garbage person

Nick from chilling adventures of Sabrina. I hate characters that are like hitting on the main character even though she has a bf and are like dark and broody and sexy blah blah blah…. I liked Harvey way better. I never finished season 2 tho

Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time? Idk she was fine she just got old after a while

If you could rewrite a story or part of a book, what would it be and what would you do differently?

HM. First, Harry would name his son Remus Rebeus Potter LOL. Ok but real talk there was a headcanon floating around forever ago that Harry should have become a professor at Hogwarts instead of an auror and I am 100% on board

Ok, ok….. what abouuuttt…… OK, is star wars when Han and Leia get together. I like them as a couple, but the entire first half of the movie Han is being such an ass. And when they kiss the first time, he’s being SOOO creepy. It’s like so quintessentially 80s romance. and HERE’S THE THING. They actually filmed (or maybe just wrote?) a version of that scene that WASNT CREEPY. And i’m like WHY DIDNT YOU USE THAT?!? So I like to pretend that’s the version that actually happened.

This part is way harder than the shipping portion. If I think of anything else i’l dm you. I HOPE YOU ENJOY READING THIS NOVEL LENGTH POST OF ME RAMBLING ABOUT MY FIXATIONS OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS. If anyone actually read this far, you deserve a cup of hot chocolate and a blanket

[purekesseltrash]

Okay so sorry for going destiel on main but I have shit to say. No one is going to read this anyway, so who really cares.

There's a lot of anger from people on tumblr about the response to 15x18. Alot of it seems to stem from people feeling defensive over their ship and the show that they have poured so much time and personal investment into. And it appears that a lot of the general consensus is that the people who are saying that Jensen wasn't giving anything in his acting or that the scene was homophobic are people who hate the show and hate the pairing.

Oh no baby, you do not have feelings this strong about something that you do not love.

There are a lot of us who got really invested in Supernatural. Some of stayed in the fandom and believed in the show. Others lost faith in the show and not for bad reasons. For one, the direction of the writers was clearly going in different directions with on faction more pro destiel and the other simply not interested in that. Charlie's death was another one that should probably never feel right with anyone. But along with that, there was the generally accepted knowledge that the writers were never going to do this thing right because no show ever did when it came to queer content.

Maybe it's because Supernatural didn't even air until I was a senior in high school and I didn't get into the show until I was in college but man, by then I had seen shows just like Supernatural that developed a huge, rabid community that saw queer content reflected in it. And I'd been let down by them all because that was just what the culture was. Will & Grace was about as close to queer content as you were going to get on major network television and Queer As Folk and the L Word were as close as we really got to mainstream. And sure, there were outliers like Willow and Tara but the quickest sign that a character was going to die was for them to come out. I had accepted pretty early on that I was never going to see relationships reflected on TV that matched up with what I wanted. Fanfiction was where I was represented. I could trust 23 year olds working dead end jobs who wrote in their spare time to speak more truth to me than any showrunner ever could. As far as I was concerned, the canon was just what created the building blocks for the fandom. I'd learned my lesson, canon just let you down.

With that in mind, I hope that it makes more sense as to why Glee, of all fucking shows, shocked me. Because Klaine was canon and Brittany and Santana BECAME canon. It was accepted and there and on mainstream TV. Ryan Murphy is problematic as hell and Glee really went downhill fast but that was a first big sense that a shift was going on. That being said, Glee remained the anomaly but the self awareness that Supernatural's writers had made things seem... possible. So you got these baby little fledgling hopes up that maybe, just maybe - but nope. Wasn't happening.

Then, in the meantime, the Legend of Korra happened. Steven Universe happened. All of these shows started to come about that had been created with actually showing healthy queer relationships and diversity to the world and the constant toss and turn of Supernatural's will they won't they with canon became even less appealing. You didn't need to get queerbaited anymore.

So when I heard about the clip, all of this baggage came down and it was like 'oh god, have times really changed this much?! Are we actually going to be able to have this?!'. And I watched it and started bawling. For one, that was basically the storyline of how Angel lost his soul in season one Buffy and that was frustrating. But also, because I had waited so long to see this and to see Castiel speak his truth only to immediately have him get killed. Immediate case of bury the gays. Instant. And there wasn't even any clear reciprocation, it was legit Cas coming out, feeling the happiest he'd ever been in his frankly brutal existence and then he was gone. It didn't feel fair, not to the character and not to us.

Listen, they could fix this and make it better. Idk, I don't know much about the writing crew right now. And I did feel at least somewhat better when I watched a more full clip with Dean actually crying at the end. But after all of this time and all of this waiting and teasing... I both had hoped for more but also don't expect to get it because historically, I almost never do.

We don't hate the fandom or the show or the pairing or you, we're just jaded and have been let down a lot. I hope they make this better. I do think it was appropriate for the show and was in character but after all that waiting, it didn't make me feel as though anything has actually really changed.

I hope I'm wrong.

[missfaber]

author interview

I was tagged by @orangeflavoryawp, thank you so much! 

I already know I’m going to enjoy this way too much, writing is such a lonely endeavor and I just love talking about it, sooo... I apologize in advance for rambling. 

name: Madeline/Maddie 

fandoms: this is complicated because there’s fandoms I very much consider myself a part of because they’re just a huge part of my life, even though I don’t contribute content to them, and then there’s fandoms I do create content for. So idk where the line is drawn! 

fandoms I contribute/ have contributed to: Avatar the Last Airbender, Game of Thrones, Merlin BBC, Once Upon a Time, Legend of Korra

fandoms I haven’t contributed to but are so dear to me: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings (my two favorite things ironically lol), and lots more 

where you post: AO3, used to be ff.net and livejournal too

most popular one shot: by kudos, it’s as if death itself was undone (zutara, atla: katara wakes up to azula in their house and wants to find out a) why she is welcome b) why zuko is acting so weird) 

most popular multichapter: by kudos, it’s soldier, go bravely on (jonsa + gendrya, got, complete, rewrite of the last episode of got with sweetness and angst and action, and may i say some common sense?)

favorite story you wrote: fuck omg this is difficult lol! because I both criticize and love all my stories in equal measure, I honestly don’t write anything that i don’t love, that doesn’t give me butterflies / actual chest pain (from angst). I feel like I’m being asked to choose a favorite child lol. so I’ll try to justify these picks somehow... 

closest to my heart: soldier, go bravely on (also mentioned above). this is the fic that brought me back to writing fic, and to tumblr even! I was on hiatus (that I didn’t know was a hiatus because I had no intention of coming back) for six years before writing this fic. I wrote it so quickly after the got finale, it was such a passionate and fevered few days and it just sucked me back in to everything I used to love as a teenager. It was also a nice stretch out of my comfort zone, because of the dialogue (which was so tightly planned it’s ridiculous, I wrote the whole fic as a screenplay type thing first to make sure there wasn’t a single dialogue word not needed) and tv-episode style. It’s also such a wish-fulfillment fic that I can’t read certain parts without getting a bit teary. for all those reasons and more, this fic will always be so special to me. 

most proud of: wolf, circle north (jonsa, got, alternate season 7 & 8). this is the longest fic I’ve ever attempted and the number I’ve hours I’ve sunk into it is astounding and i should be ashamed.  It’s going to be obscenely long (my outline is 70+ chapters) and when I pull it off, best believe it’s going into a bound book so I can look at how thicc it is and be like, “I did that!” lol. The range of POVs is one of the most challenging but most rewarding part of this fic, and why I’m so proud of it. This is another wish-fulfillment fic for me, not just because it’s another fix-it fic but because I have been writing bits and pieces of this fic for about three years. I kept thinking of jonsa scenarios and little scenes I would have loved to see after season 6 and writing them in a little secret doc, just for me, as I never thought I’d write fic again. After writing “soldier” i had already broken my hiatus and I realized this fic was an actual possibility, so I put it out into the world. I couldn’t be more happy that I did that. Not only did it give me the chance to be in such an excellent, lovely fandom, but the feedback I get is so validating after having this be my secret little project for so long.  

most formative: Coffee & Cigarettes, (merthur, merlin bbc) I’m ashamed to list this and the merthurs reading this 100% want to kill me for having the audacity because it’s incomplete and hasn’t been updated since 2013 when there’s only one chapter left so what’s my excuse?  I call this the most formative for me because until I published this I didn’t really have a fic that people followed and liked, eagerly awaited updates for, and commented regularly on. I was writing a lot of one-shots and atla stuff on tumblr (I used to RP lmao I was like 15 ok?) This was the first time I experienced so many fic-life things, like being excited to get AO3 emails, etc. This was the first time I started to really focus on character which is so important to me now, my writing is completely character driven. Not to mention Merlin and Arthur’s dumbassery and sheer attraction and denial is just... *chef’s kiss* 

guiltiest pleasure: my recent foray into nedsei, who am I??? one more word and you won’t survive, just international hate sex

story you were most nervous to post: ummm idk I’m usually excited not nervous, since for me fic writing is just fun, I write things I’d enjoy reading and that I’m proud of. I read my own fics more than anyone else does, I guarantee it. am I a narcissist? who knows I guess I’ll say “soldier” again because I hadn’t posted fic in six years.

how you choose your titles: wow the hardest part of fic writing for me!!!!! thanks!!!!! lol. Okay so for my work titles, which are always terrible and I literally regret them immediately after posting, it’s usually just some words I play around with and string together that are somewhat thematic and related to the work... they’re always terrible lmao, I hate making titles. I mean, look at “soldier, go bravely on” and “wolf, circle north” for god’s sake, I hate them lmao. But I have to pick a title to post, so!!! For chapter titles and one-shots I’ll usually go with a song lyric, and especially for my chapter titles I spend so long seeking out the perfect one that reflects some thematic or emotional content of the chapter somehow. I’m very proud of my chapter titles for wolf, circle north. I have a doc on my scrivener just for chapter titles that I created in the very early stages of writing it, where I just dumped HUNDREDS of song lyrics that I thought I might use. Then by them I wrote some scenarios where they could work. here’s a screenshot:

It’s so helpful now. Sometimes posting an update will take an hour more than necessary because of me going through that doc, finding the perfect lyric. 

do you outline: OH, DO I OUTLINE... Hell Yeah, I outline. I couldn’t live without outlining. I love outlining. My outlines have outlines. I’m a planner centric, calendar centric, bullet-journal bitch so of course I love outlining. In all seriousness though: I write out of chronological order. I feel my writing is best when I write the scene I’m in the mood to write- unfortunately this scene could be ten chapters down the line from the chapter I’m gonna post next. This is the biggest reason outlining is necessary for me. If I didn’t have an outline, my story would be a non-post-able mess. 

I wasn’t kidding when I said my outlines have outlines. For wolf, circle north I have, um, a few. Character/location centric outlines where I bullet every scene that needs to happen for that plot to happen cohesively (these were all more or less completed before I even started writing the fic), then a “loose” outline that I copy everything from the other outlines into for some semblance of chronological order, then a Polished Final Outline that I write from. I know that sounds psychotic. It’s how my brain works. Some photo evidence/explanation:

And here’s a screengrab of my Final Outline, this is pretty much how it is all the way down- The POV character is italicized in the front, I talk to myself a lot in there, let myself get carried away, will sometimes write out whole segments of the scene if they come to me while outlining. Spoilers for chapters 1-3 of w,cn I guess!!!

Then, because scrivener is awesome, I get to see this outline in the corkboard view (I input every scene as a card) and so I get to see every part of my outline as a Synopsis on the right hand side of the doc where I’m writing the scene:

The POV and status tags (which are completely customizable) on the lower right are helpful too. This post is just a scrivener ad. 

complete: 9 works 

in progress: 4 works

coming soon / not yet started: I have so many fics in the works, I’m an indulgent person so if an idea comes to me I usually go with it for a time. I’ve had a very not-serious Jonsa PLL AU I’ve been writing on and off since summer. I have three different fairytale AUs (also jonsas) I’ve been working on and one time travel AU for @sunbeamsandmoonrays. I can’t say when or if any of these will see the light of day, because my priority is my WIPs and my original writing. But the most prevalent are my Halloween fics (one jonsa, one gendrya, one merthur) which I really want to be able to put out this month, but only if I meet some other goals. I’m trying to rein in my indulgent ass, ya’ll. 

do you accept prompts: no. sorry! but I do workshop ideas with friends, for example the nedsei fic happened that way by talking with @flibbertigiblet. But I don’t take writing prompts in my inbox. 

upcoming story you are most excited to write: my halloween merthur fic. it’s witchy, sassy, and I’m so excited to get back into the heads of these characters.

Tagging! @uchihabat @anniebibananie @noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth @sailorshadzter @vivilove-jonsa and any other lovely writer soul who wants to do this!

[appavevo]

okay so listen some times you get really interested in one single thing and that’s all you think about for a long time so you develop some dumb thoughts and here are a list of mine about atla and tlok in no particular order

1. in tlok they made aang look so BORING like so COOKIE CUTTER. the only times i like how they made aang look is in the old friends poster and in the picture where he’s airbending the rolls like that’s IT like come on yall focus too much on making the hair differenet people got faces too ya know

2. TENZIN IS LIKE 16 YEARS OLDER THAN PEMA??? ISN’T THAT CRAZY??? LIKE PEMA WOULD HAVE ONLY BEEN ABOUT 20 WHEN AANG DIED. ALSO TENZIN HAD KIDS SO OLD

3. at the end of tlok bumi must be about the age (maybe a few years younger) when aang died that’s so weird bc bumi doesn’t look old i wonder how it happened with aang like maybe the last few months of his life he just physically aged like 30 years wouldn’t that be weird (and sad)

4. i mentioned this before but i’ve seen posts like “its sad to think about the fact that aang probably had to bury appa” and NO i refuse to believe that esp appa bc i thought an avatars spirit animal lives as long as the avatar? like roku’s dragon lived and died with him so that’s what happened with appa too. also momo, i’ve decided

5. kinda.............weird how learning the avatar state was like one of THE main problems in atla and aang had a hard time with it and it was considered this awesome power that we didn’t see that often and the in the legend of korra she just.......................gets it. like aang gives her her bending back and oh here’s the full power of the avatar state as well no need to learn about the chakras and meditate on life or whatever hey also have some energy bending as well why not

6. lin beifong is literally so hot 

7. also in the legend of korra, bending isn’t as cool.. like in atla bending has all the beautiful forms and its like a dance or an art like that dance aang and katara did was based on their bending moves!!! and tlok isn’t like that and they try to spin it like “oh its modern now” but that’s just lazy and  boring

8. also (that one video explained this better than i could) while it’s kind cool to see the new technology mixed with the bending at first, the legend of korra is so much more american than atla, like i can see how a city with all those cultures mixed together might be a bit culturally ambiguous but like....... idk they talk about democracy in a weird way and they literally got the statue of liberty type thing going on (although i love every reference to aang i can get) and idk how to describe it. the bending is like this too where it used to be based off of hung ga kung fu or tai chi chuan now it’s just ..........boxing. i’ve seen some people say it’s because its easier to animate but like idk

8.5 oh also the whole good and bad evil spirit thing goin on (i forgot their names i think the good one was raava?) was really like god and satan smelling even though they tried to paint it as yin and yang idk it just didn’t come off like that

9. speaking of animation while i am desperate for new material can they NOT MAKE ANOTHER LIVE ACTION VERSION like........make a NEW STORY or maybe just DON’T with how korra turned out just like.....focus on the goddamn comics bc those are kinda fun and chill

10. bolin is pretty funny but him and mako and even asami are kinda boring im sorry but they are(asami is more interesting than mako though)

11. also fucked up how like the culture that was the most accepting and peaceful and spiritual and kind is the one that we never fuckin see this isn’t really a complaint about the plot just like it fuckin sucks!!! i would have loved to see some gay and funny air nomads

12. also maybe this is just bc im a big dumb fan but i refuse to believe aang was a bad father like maybe he didn’t divide his time in the best way but hey no one’s perfect and kya esp made it clear she wasn’t interested in air nomad culture so like what was he supposed to do ALSO SORRY BUT HE HAD TO LITERALLY BUILD A WORLD OUT OF 100 YEARS OF WAR AND REBUILD HIS CULTURE OUT OF NEXT TO NOTHING LIKE SORRY HE DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO TAKE YOU FISHING OR WHATEVER 

13. i do love kya though bc lesb 

14. THAT ONE LINE IN TLOK THAT WAS LIKE “ZUKO KNEW AANG BETTER THAN ANYBODY”??????? LIKE OF COURSE THEY WERE VERY COURSE BUT KATARA IS RIGHT THERE???? HELLO???

15. bc im a big dumb stupid idiot every character i get attached too i immediately insist that they can sing bc i’ve always wanted a really good singing voice so i’ve decided that aang is just like, a great singer

16. god i just love momo

17. UHHH I’M CURRENTLY READING THE WIKI AND IT SAYS THAT KYOSHI LIVED TO BE 230??? THAT’S COOL????? 

18. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, air nomad avatars are just cooler bc of their fuckin tattoos. when those tattoos glow? fuckin tight. korras just got her eyes and like.......where’s the drama and conflama 

19. while the spirit world can be interesting idk how i feel about the spirits in the legend of korra, like all cutesy and weird like that, like i don’t hate it, it’s just really different from atla spirit world and idk

20. i’ve always been curious about aangs tattoos like,,,, the ones on his arms go into his armpit, but like the one on his back? does that just go all the way to his ass or what? and where do the leg ones stop do they connect with the back ones or just go to the hip bones or idk

21. i wanted a detailed map and description and history of air temple island and i want it now

22. while i know that extensive and unnecessary backstory and weigh a good story down WHO ARE AANGS PARENTS, I’M JUST CURIOUS. LIKE WERE THEY EVER TOLD HE WAS THE AVATAR?

23. i will defend aang until the day i die bc he was so young and so good and even the stuff he did selfishly he has like ample reason to can u imagine being twelve and waking up and realizing that not only are you the only person left of your race and culture and history and that everyone you knew and loved, like even people you didn’t really know but the people who you would smile too sometimes, the all died pretty violent and horrible deaths while you were just stuck in some ice bc you got hit by some storm after running away can u imagine???? ALSO LIKE the world hadn’t had an avatar for a century so he had to just like make shit up as he went along of course he could talk to his past lives but like..........idk!!!! and how do you build up

24. I ALREADY SAID THIS BUT KORRA JUST..........GETS THE POWERS. LIKE WE SAW AANG NOT ONLY LEARN THE ELEMENTS BUT ALSO DEAL WITH LEARNING ABOUT THE AVATAR STATE IN DEPTH AND HOW BEING THE AVATAR WORKS AND IT WAS SPECIAL AND INTERESTING AND WE COULD HAVE SEEN KORRA WORK TO GET HER AIRBENDING POWERS AND HER SPIRITUAL SIDE AND HER AVATAR STATE BUT THEY WERE ALL JUST FUCKIN HANDED TO HER EVEN THE E N E R G Y BENDING LIKE COME ON................................................................GIRL WHOS WRITING THIS

25. real disrespectful how much sokka is neglected in tlok!!! smh

26. this is very important to me but my favorite episode (not really including the last ones bc those are just on a dif level) but my favorite episode is 3x2 The Headband which was the footloose ep if you don’t remember..........it’s just fun............he just wants to dance AND HE WAS FUCKIN MACKIN YOU SEE THAT SHIT?????????? “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THEM IT’S JUST YOU AND ME NOW” LIKE BITCH!!!! YOU’RE TWELVE YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS BEIN THAT SMOOTH also i LOOOOOOVE the fact that aang being a good dancer is literally canon....................

27. i literally never wanted to know how the avatar cycle started like don’t explain the magic like that just leave some mystery

[altraes]

Tagged by @avenger-hawk @renamon15 and @koukenkage . Thank you :)

Rules: Answer the 11 questions you were asked, write 11 questions and tag 11 people.

(this is going to be long, sorry)

Questions by avenger-hawk:

1. What’s your favourite book? The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Siddartha by Hermann Hesse. Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

2. What’s your dream job? Becoming a sustainable and/or preservation architect. Want to be able to make artworks and write preferably fiction (and fanfiction XD) on the side.

3. Favourite and least favourite food? Favorite: Apples. least favorite: bitter pickles

4. What’s the thing you like the most about yourself? These days, nothing really.

5. And what’s the thing you hate the most about yourself? Ah, many things. I’m under-confident and indecisive. I mostly make decisions based on my feelings rather than logic and practicality, which is not smart at all but I can’t help it. I’m reluctant and wary of change. I am slow and absent-minded. Etc etc

6. If you could go back in time what era or moment in time (both general and in your life) would you choose? @renamon15 same. I’d like to go back to my childhood and live life with the mindset I’ve gained till now.

7. If you had the chance to get to know one thing that has been hidden so far, what would that be? (like are aliens real? or conspiracies or gods or whatever lol) All the mysteries that comprise the deep sea. Not helpful for me in any way but I’ve always been intrigued by it and find it surprising how little we know.

8. How many languages do you speak? Is there a language you’d like to know? Four (not completely fluent in speaking two of these). I’d love to learn French, Japanese and Russian.

9. What’s your favourite music genre/artist/artists? These days I only listen to indie music, soft rock, jazzhop, asian-traditional fused with modern. I listen to the occasional song too. And I don’t have particular favorite artists or bands etc, it really depends on the songs/music and my mood.

10. What’s your favourite word? I don’t know ^^’ I don’t really think about this, mostly because it changes with my mood too.

11. What’s your favourite quote? “When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change” by Aang in The Legend of Korra. (there are many others but that’s the first one that came to mind.)

 Questions by renamon15:

1. Is there a song that describes you, or song you can relate to? Stay in the Dark by Lambert. I’m not sure if it describes me or it’s something that I relate to, but I find it soothing.

2. Your first pet? (If you didn’t have a pet, did you wish to have one?) It was a goldfish named Poly, lol. I want to have a sassy/curious cat and a chill af dog.

4. Is there something you liked in the past, but you regret it now? I used to read more in the past, nowadays I don’t read as much, which I regret.

5. Is there something bad/embarrassing that happened to you, but you laugh about it today? Uh, I forgot to lock the door when I was showering and my mom walked in on me ^///^’. THANKFULLY IT WASN’T MY DAD OR ANYONE ELSE. It still makes me cringe to this day. I’m often absent-minded so ^^’

6. One guilty pleasure? I like to stay up very late. I really try not to, but it’s when I’m most productive in terms of writing and drawing.

7.How do you reward yourself after accomplishing something big/important? Any among these things: have ice-cream, watch a movie or anime/TV show, take a walk if it’s a nice day. Start a book (if I have the time).

9. One dream you can’t forget (like one that was really scary or pleasant, or one that for some other reason stayed engraved in your head)? It’s disturbing that I sometimes see nightmares as if I’m watching horror movies. I see people I’ve never seen/met before and places I’ve never been to. I see creatures and events that flit by one scene after the other in quick succession. They’re terrifying and very vivid. I usually wake up screaming and with sleep paralysis. Till now I’ve seen three of such distinctly horrific dreams and have even written them down, but I don’t think I will post them anywhere. (I think I watch too much horror movies lol.)

10. Favorite game from your childhood? Hide and seek :)

11. If you could be possessed by someone, dead or alive, or even fictional, who would you like to be possessed by? No one? I find the idea of possession kind of weird. Also, idk why anyone would want to possess me lol.

 Questions by koukenkage:

1. What did you want to become as a grown up when you were a child? A vet. That changed when I learnt I would have to see sick animals all the time and I realised I wouldn’t be able to handle it ^^’

2. Is there a big dream that you had to give up to achieve your goals? Do you regret it? I don’t think I’ve given up any big dream. Right now I’m doing what I enjoy so I’m satisfied.

3. Is there a book/a movie that you’ve loved but couldn’t read or watch again? Citizen: an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. I had a love-hate relationship with this book. It’s about racism faced by African Americans in America, and of course, I sympathize. However, the book is too serious and intense - it’s stressful. Of course, I suppose it’s supposed to impart such feelings, but still. The best thing about it, however, is her writing style: it’s one of the most unique I’ve come across - a blend of imagery, script and poetry along with dialogues between various photographs and artworks. It’s really an inspiration. But yes, would never read again, sorz Claudia.

4. If you could be someone else for 24 hours, who would that be? Can I be a happy eight-year-old kid thank you.

5. You can get your dream job in exchange for ten years of your life, do you accept? Nope. Time and youth is precious, I’d rather work and study the ten years to get my dream job. In the ten years lost, I feel like I’d miss out on a lot of things.

6. A meteorite is to destroy the earth in 24h, what do you do for dinner tonight? Be home with my family but they’re across the globe so this question stresses me D:

7. You can revive one human being, no matter how long ago they died, who do you choose? Someone of your family? Siddhārtha Gautama? Homer? Shakespeare? Jesus christ? Be wild (or not). Van Gogh. So that he’d get to see how much his art inspires people now. Poor guy was depressed most of his life and his art career was unsuccessful. I’m sure there are lots of artists/writers/activists etc whose works and deeds became appreciated only posthumously. Let them see that they touched people’s lives.

8. You can make one thing disappear from existence, what do you choose? (It has to be something concrete, not a concept, like the flue is okay, but not the concept of disease.) Mosquitoes lol

9. You wake up in the body of Quasimodo, what is your first thought? If we’re really talking about first thoughts then: I AM IN PARIS FFFF I WANT TO TOUR EVERYWHERE.

10. You are going on an adventure of unknown nature, but you are allowed to choose a fictional character to accompany you, who are you going to choose and why? Shisui. Because he’s intelligent and strong so my potato brain and unathletic body can rely on him ^^’. He’s also wonderfully optimistic and has a good sense of humor so he’d make the journey fun too.

11. You fall deeply in love with someone, then realize that this person has done something horrible that goes against all your principles, and you know that you’ll think of it every time you see them. What do you do? I wouldn’t be able to look at them the same way, but I’d be willing to give them a second chance for redemption (everyone deserves this I think). If even that doesn’t work out, sorry. It would have to end. This is all in theory, of course.

My questions:

1. When you’re most depressed, what do you do/think about to cheer yourself up?

2. What are some things you’ve touched that grant you immediate comfort/happiness? (i know, it’s a weird qt, lel)

3. What is one quality in someone that you’ve found really admirable and why?

4. What is one profession you’d like to practice instead of the one you’re working towards/working in?

5. One wondrous/disturbing/interesting memory or imagery from your childhood that you remember vividly.

6. Early bird or night owl?

7. If you could teleport, where would you choose to go first?

8. One good gesture you did today?

9. One thing you’ve regretted doing in the past and can’t get over it even now?

10. One superpower you’d like to have and why?

11. What’s the last book/movie/show/play etc you indulged in that strongly affected you (as in emotionally or made you reflective)?

Tagging: @avenger-hawk @renamon15 @koukenkage (please, only if you want to ofc) @tsukiko-hibiki @littleunknowncrow @konohagakureship (also if you want to)

and anyone else who’d want to do this :)

[shylilrainbowpossum]

I was born in 1993. Late 1993. I’m on the cusp of being Gen Z and a Millennial which makes me Zillennial.

I knew what a lesbian was when I was 7 (though strangely enough, I didn’t know what gay was until I was 9) because I said after watching Harry Potter for the first time “I’m a lesbian for Hermione” (strangely, I am an out lesbian now). I knew that cross dressing (or drag might be the more PC word nowadays? Idk) was a thing when I was about 3 or 4, but I didn’t know what it meant. I know i knew what being transgender was because I remember when I was 5 years old, I spent half an hour crying on my bedroom floor because I wanted “a sex change so I can be a boy” (my exact words).

The first time I came across LGBT people in media was The Simpsons. I was 11 and Marge’s sister Patty came out as gay. There was another, earlier, episode where Homer was worried Bart would turn out gay, but I don’t remember that one. I took it for granted that Patty was gay. Rather I just accepted it. Living in the UK, I had no idea the episode was so controversial, to the point it had been censored and accompanied by “parental discretion” warnings (there were no warnings in the UK).

The closest thing I had to an out musician to listen to was REM’s Michael Stipe. Otherwise, it was Madonna or Cher or Kylie.

I was 18 when Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper came out. I remember the hate they got. I still watched them, because I liked them. It made no difference to me that they were gay. I still remember the hate directed at Shep Smith because his then-employers Fox News were keeping him in the closet. It was from all angles too ranging from “how dare he be gay” from the right wingers to “how dare he not come out” from the left wingers. Rachel Maddow was already out and on TV by then. She was also getting hate. So much hate. And this was was 2012-not even ten years ago.

I remember when Oreo did an ad with a rainbow Oreo. It was small and cute-it was just an Oreo with six different fillings, each in the colour of the rainbow flag. They were slated for it. They got hate. They were threatened with boycotts. They were protested.

Even though I was 18, I couldn’t name a single gay character in a book. But it was about that time Northstar of Marvel Comics (out since 1991) got married to his black boyfriend. And because they were an interracial gay couple, they had so much hate.

This was when every news organisation reported that One Million Moms would stage a protest or a boycott of anything slightly gay (they’ve largely lost relevance in recent years, I just googled it and apparently they are still going!). Westboro Baptist Church we’re going around with signs reading “God Hates F*gs” and getting media coverage for it.

Then Steven Universe started. Korra and Asami held hands. And things started to change for the better. But that was barely over half a decade ago.

I remember being in Disney World. I had just come off Soarin’ and checked my alerts on my phone. While I’d been on Soarin’ (being a typical Zillennial, I was glued to the internet and only put my phone in my pocket for the ride), in that 6 or 7 minutes, the US Supreme Court struck down DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. I cheered and whooped and celebrated and in the Soarin’ gift shop, I bought a rainbow bag charm for my backpack. Of course, it wasn’t a gay rainbow because it wasn’t the done thing for corporations to support the gays back then; they could still be protested and boycotted by One Million Moms.

I remember the changing landscape. I remember the hate LGBT+ journalists got when they came out. I remember Brokeback Mountain. I remember Cablepool. I remember DOMA. I remember Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. I remember One Million Moms. And I know people complain about it now, but I remember no big company made Pride merch or anything with rainbows on it for fear of getting boycotted like what happened when Oreo did.

This is recent history. So very recent. Painfully recent. Most of this all happened when I was an adult and I haven’t been a full adult for ten years yet (though I passed the age of majority in my country nearly twelve years ago).

You could probably find it all with a quick Google search.

and what about it.

[sherokutakari]

I’m gonna do something I never do, and that is write a reaction post for an entire goddamn season of Voltron. Spoilers will ensue.

Firstly and foremostly, I think we all need to heave a big ol’ ball of fuck you at the creators over Adam, and WHATEVER ship name you call him and Shiro by.

That was not representation

That was not “respecting your lgbt+ fanbase”

That was a straight up Bury Your Gays trope, and I am sick

Although if we’re being honest with ourselves, it can’t even really canonically be BYG at this point because

not

ONCE

was it even touched upon in the season that Shiro and Adam had been a couple. We had some heavily subtextual lines but had we not had direct confirmation outside of canon that Adam was Shiro’s ex, it would have just been another ship. Klance has more frequent and meaningful interactions. Shieth has more frequent and meaningful interactions. Hell, much as I hate Allurance personally, and as stunted and forced as that relationship is, even they have more frequent and meaningful interactions. Even goddamn Acxa/Kieth have more on-screen dialogue about romantic feelings than goddamn Adam/Shiro.

And I promise this reaction post won’t all be ship related, but on the subject, they did both Klance AND Allurance dirty, too

With Klance the hints and baiting from cast and crew are undeniable. Now being a pretty low-key Klance shipper, I have not compiled all the evidence thereof like so many other blogs have, but at the least

at the very least

we were told to expect more time for Kieth and Lance’s relationship to develop again, much like it had in season three. Outside of them saying each other’s names first in battles, we basically got diddly.

In fact, we got Lance saying Keith should be set free from their weird ass test because he’s an amazing leader, and half Galra, and called him the future. What a great start, right? And wow! Keith even also chose Lance!!!

... so that... he wouldn’t have to spend time with Lance ever again.

What in the actual hell?

Also wasn’t there an interview or something that said Keith and Lance got stranded on the astral plane while the rest of Team Voltron were “asleep for a long time”? Hope is in the stars? Et c. whatever??? Idek anymore. There’s so much crew talk involving Klance that I can’t remember even HALF of it at this point.

Anyway, ALLURANCE

I absolutely hate the idea of this ship just because of the lack of, or at best one-sided build up, but I know a ton of people were looking forward to it under the right circumstances

Something like Lance and Allura actually, I don’t know, talking to each other about this type of thing? The fallout of Allura’s relationship with Lotor? Lance maybe NOT taking an interest in Romelle just ‘cause she’s there?

But no, we got a suddenly blushy Allura, who had previously shown NO interest in Lance and in fact still chose Lotor over him after learning about Lance’s feelings, being all “come back safely~”, and then newly introduced characters having to be like OOOOOOH THE PRINCESS LIKES YOU TOO. I HAVE TO SAY THIS OUT LOUD OR THE AUDIENCE WILL NEVER BUY IT. THIS IS TOTALLY NATURAL.

Like

Come on.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there something about Lance pairing up with someone who “isn’t what he wants (Allura since day one) but who he needs (shut up, we all have theories on who this is and I’m not fighting anyone over it,) so did they just drop that bit for him?

And what about Lance being Allura’s rebound being referred to by (I think) Joaquim as being “a disservice to both those characters”

Meanwhile Lance’s promised development has STILL

not

goddamn

come

We got him being very competent in battle and... still... being belittled by his teammates at every opportunity. Like ha ha I get it Lance is the cheap shot comic relief but all Lance really seemed to develop this season is a Millennial’s nihilisticly suicidal sense of humor. Which I mean #Mood but we still haven’t addressed Keith’s suicide attempt, and Lance has already DIED (and not talked about it,) and is making outright “Don’t worry, we’ll all be dead soon anyway” jokes. And when he and Veronica were about to die and Red saved him, that was just Red saving his Paladin like always, not Lance successfully calling him to Earth. (As evidenced by the other lions all lighting up and flying away, and the like two second shot of Red just... sitting there, entirely dark.)

Not only that but we’ve seem to gone backwards? Where was his sword Bayard, hm? Why did he unlock traditionally “Keith’s” weapon (albeit a different style sword,) if that wasn’t going to come into play once Keith was back?

and SPEAKING OF KEITH AND LACK OF DEVELOPMENT well firstly a pause, for the lovely Keith and Hunk scene. That was a long time coming and absolutely wonderful.

But suddenly Keith is just... IN leader mode? No adjustment period, no getting reacquainted with the rest of the team, not even a scene to talk with goddamn Shiro over being more willing and able to accept leadership. Two years in space with one other person and an animal, not matter how cool that animal is, does not suddenly a leader make. Oh, and there was no follow-up whatsoever on said two year time gap either, by the way.

And Krolia just leaving again, after making a big deal about not doing that again?? Like hey son we had a fun and terrifying vacation on an enormous space whale, but once again, mission above all else, peace out. They definitely couldn’t just bring Kolivan with them until he’d recovered and have a few scenes to put a proper plan in action that may still have had Krolia leave, but at least have it make sense. Nope, better just leave right now immediately while Kolivan is almost dead because there aren’t quite as many knives in this wall as their should be.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH GALAXY GARRISON, no one had ever thought about MAYBE defending the earth against POSSIBLE ALIENS when the Kerberos team disappeared!! We’ve known since season one they knew it wasn’t pilot error! We’re told this from the files Pidge is going through!!! WHY WAS AN ESTABLISHMENT CALLED THE GALAXY GARRISON SENDING PEOPLE ALL THE WAY OUT TO OUR FARTHEST PLANET, WITHOUT HAVING ANY SORT OF PLANETARY DEFENSES IN THE WORKS

But instead, let’s just macguffin our way out of danger for half a season straight.

Can’t fly the Galra pod Shiro crashed it? Or the Altean ship Sam brought?? No worries, we SOMEHOW got Navs up and running well enough to make simulators for how to fly them just in case

We have good pilots on the simulators now? Good thing Sam knows how to actually build the things!!

The ships are short range and burn through non-crystal powers quickly? GOSH if only we had some of the season’s first episode’s macguffin left HAHA JUST KIDDING WE DO

Need the Lions from four planets away? Now you can AAAAALL CALL YOUR LIONS, REGARDLESS OF BOND LEVEL OR THE FACT THAT ALLURA KNOWS HER BOND IS THE WEAKEST AND NOT YET UP TO PAR

The lions can come to you, but can’t actually do what you want them to? WHOOPS THEY CAN NOW, IF YOU JUST CONCENTRATE EVEN SUPER DUPER HARDER

Oh no, we built a giant ship! But it won’t!!! Run without a crystal!!!!! or like 7 super massive blackholes!!!!!!!!! Coran: CHECK OUT MY BLING

But Coran, your bling is too small! Look at how big the bling hole is, and your bling is just too smol! Bling: BITCH IT’S MAGIC

THE DEFLECTOR PLATES JUST HAPPEN TO HOLD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE ATLAS TO GET IN PLACE

THE ATLAS’ SHIELDS JUST HAPPEN TO HOLD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE LIONS TO DESTROY THE CANONS

SUDDENLY DUAL WIELDING VOLTRON

SUDDENLY SHIRO IS BASICALLY OLCARIAN BECAUSE OF HIS DOPE NEW FLOATATION DEVICE ARM

SUDDENLY ATLAS BECOMES ANOTHER GIANT ROBOT TO TAKE ON THE SMALLER GIANT ROBOT THAT JUST BEAT THE TITULAR GIANT ROBOT’S ASS

- d e e p   b r e a t h -

Like don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot about this season I liked. I mean I stayed up just to finish watching it all the way through. But with how hyped it was, and honestly how positive the reviews mostly were, I was expecting a better. A lot better.

They did Adam dirty.

They did their (largely lgbt+) fanbase dirty, while patting themselves on the back for idk thinking they pulled another Korra? (Which, haha, no.)

They did lots of ships, characters, plot lines, and honestly their own universe dirty.

I’m hoping to hear more from the cast and crew soon, about things in this season, things in the upcoming season, and honestly just what the heck just happened. Because tbph? For once, Voltron has actually left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

And I want to believe they can fix it before it’s too late.

[calliecat93]

TMNT: Final Retrospective

I was going to wait until the finale aired to post this. However at this point, my interest in the show is pretty much gone and I don’t plan on watching it. I still love it, but I realized during Season 4 that the quality was going down. Who to blame? Ciro? Brandon? Nickelodoen? Viacom? Playmates? All of them? IDK, and at this point it doesn’t matter. Plus I’ve been obsessed with the show since 2012, to the point that it began to affect my actual life and cause problems, hence why I had to start letting it go. So, for now, I don’t plan on watching the finale. But I still love this show and have fond memories of it. So I want to make one more post about it and finally say goodbye to both it and the fandom (I’ll still reblog stuff, but I’m not going to do anymore analysis).

In 2012, things were... not great in RL. I mean they’re bad now, but it was harder to deal with back then because I didn’t have anything to use as an outlet. Fortunately I had discovered Tumblr (and it was a LOT tamer back then), made friends, and found a way to enjoy my shows without having to go to forums/Fanfiction,com all the time. When at my grandparents, the show premiered. I wasn't interested, but my grandfather was currently at a nursing home due to surgery and I was tired and needed something to do. SO I put it on there with no idea what to expect. I had watched the 2k3 Turtles and liked it, but never became a fan and even then I was weary about reboots. 

But the premiere blew my expectations. Great animation, well-rounded characters, perfect casting, a fun and well-paced story, very well done fight scenes, and it all just blended together into one of the best shows I saw on Nick. I mean it’s only competition in terms of good shows was The Legend of Korra, so... but yeah, it pulled me in instantly. At that time the only other thing I was watchign was a PBS ids show called Wild Kratts (that I highly recommend) so I needed another show, so it filled the void. Heck it made me like CGI animation when at the time I was bitter over it due to it killing off 2D.

I hadn’t planned on getting seriously involve din the fandom, just reblog things. Mainly because I saw what doing that did in various anime forums. But the longer I was on here, so many of the complaints began to get on my nerves. I understand why those complaints existed, like lack of female characters, but it angered me that so many were personally attacking the people behind the show. Plus the mroe I watched the show, while I saw the flaws, I felt that people needed to look at them from another end. April was complained about for being a useless damsel in distress without looking at how she was actively involved in helping and there’s a VERY good reason why she was more downkey int he beginning (she wasn’t a ninja at the time for one). It was enough to make me go ‘well if these people can express their opinions and say whatever they want and not are if anyone agrees, why can’t I?’ Plus college made me analyzing things more or less mandatory, so I really began to look deeply into this show more that I had any other. And that led to me analyzing and reviewing the show for the net 3-4 years.

Beneath it all,t he show made me happy. I was able to relate to all the characters. Leo having to become responsible and tired of receiving no gratitude for it, Mikey wanting to make friends despite what hes perceived as without losing his lightheartedness, Donnie’s awkwardness an frustrations about being behind everyone else, Raph’s temper and ability to get easily frustrated, April wanting to be helpful and do more but lacking the ability to do so. I was going through those issues at the time, and in a way I still am now and seeing these characters have those issues and working through them made me feel better. This version of these characters are why I stuck with the show, even if i admit several episodes (Pizza Face for example) were really stupid. I wanted to see what they’d do an where they’d end up. It’s why The Invasion  impacted me so much, it made me fear for them for the first time and I wanted to see if they’d be okay. It’s why I analyzed and began liveblogging, because I wanted to talk about their journeys as characters and explain why they ended up where they are. April especially became so important to be because the hate against her was by far the most unfair and due to it, I got to know her and care about her more and ore. She is still my favorite character and I will still defend her if I have to, because I want people to see why she’s not a horrible cheating, useless idiot. She’s the complete opposite.

But... all good thigns come to an end. As I said my obsession with the show and Season 4′s decline (I blame marketing cause if not for the Space Arc, they could have done FAR more, but gotta sell the toys!) are big factors on why I veered away from the show. But another reason is... well, I was starting to not enjoy it and not just because of the previous reasons. I began to take the show too seriously.I had to argue about everything. I wanted to prove haters wrong, even when now that I look back, there are flaws and good points about them. I realized that I was really no better than the haters, I was blindly in love with the show that I couldn't accept nay criticism about ti. And that was wrong. I was also burnt out from all of it and with RWBY and Miraculous now around, I was ready to move on to something else. TMNT only had the Aeon crystal and the eventual final duel with Shredder left for me, and when those happened I was over it.

Looking back now, I just facepalm at myself. I let the show overrule my life and I should have had more self control. I should have admitted that the show had glaring problems in it. I guess I was worried that if I did, I wouldn't be a real fan, and that’s bullshit. So now we’re at the end, and I really don’t feel anything. I had already moved on by then. I only felt angry that Nick was treating it so horribly, but as for the show ending? I was like “Huh... okay then.”. But I still love this show. I still have so many good memories of it. It helped me through a lot and even with the flaws, it had plenty of good as well. t helped me realize that I like reviewing, hence why I’m trying to become better at it with the Miraculous reviews. And as much as I complained about how volatile fans could be,  can’t say that I hate the fandom. There are a lot of talented people and deep down I know that most people are just as passionate as I was for it, even if not for the same reasons. We all wanted to see the show to succeed, and due tot hat I respect those people. It really was a fun ride all in all, and I wouldn’t change anything about it... except for the personal attacks on the showrunners. I’d get rid of that, but that’s about it.

Thank you TMNT 2012, for everything. For being there for me through these past five years. For making be a better person. For being what would make me smile when I wanted the world to end. You will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you, and goodbye. Booyakasha everybody!

[inkmyname]

The comics are OOC BS. There, I said it. I don't care about the shipping. The bigger problem is, I can't believe half the things that these characters are saying or doing, especially Aang and Zuko. It's like 3 seasons of character development just didn't happen. The comic characters are just talking heads who look like the show characters we came to know and love.

Also, romance is literally ATLA's weakest point when they try to shoehorn it in without putting in the hard work to actually develop a romance (ATLA's idea of romance is let's forcefully kiss the female lead twice without consent and never follow up on it on screen!). Like, please gtfo with making a 15yo brown indigenous-coded girl fantasize about having a family with a 12/13yo. It cheapens Katara's character to go from being observant about other people's struggles just because she's so damn compassionate and will never, ever turn her back on anyone who needs her (iconic, truly, we do not deserve her) to "oh shit this whole BS segregationist ideology might affect me personally but I guess I'll be a passive participant in whatever Aang decides because my function as a character has been reduced to supporting and validating his feelings." Please stop making her a trophy and then invalidate her feelings and punish her when she feels sad about being a trophy.

Also, Aang spouting problematic BS about miscegenation like he isn't literally the physical manifestation of all four elements living together in harmony and like the Air Nomads weren't canonically, you know, nomadic and the most accepting of differences (in Rise of Kyoshi and Legend of Korra) and like he didn't have friends from all over the world and like he didn't have an entire character development episode about rigidly holding on to Air Nomad orthodoxy vs identifying the spirit of Air Nomad philosophy as what's important. Nope, that totally didn't happen!

And Zuko! Like Zuko Alone never happened and Earth Kingdom colonials never told him, justifiedly, to fuck off just because he was the literal spawn of the imperialist nutjob responsible for their suffering . Like he didn't live as a poor starving working class refugee for a whole damn season in one of the last strongholds of the Earth Kingdom that was free from colonial influence. Like he never stood up to his father against Fire Nation imperialism and propaganda only to get shot with lightning for his troubles. Like yeah, he's making a good point in the comics about forced family separation but the way he does it comes off as imperialistic like yes there's massive socioeconomic inequality between the colonizers and the colonized but at least they are better off than they were 100+ years ago! There's like no nuance, the kind you'd expect from Zuko post-Ba Sing Se and post-Invasion. Not like Zuko didn't experience socioeconomic inequality in a ship full of refugees eating food unfit for the lowest lifeforms. Not like he didn't work a shitty customer service job with nothing to live for except the drudgery of survival, making sure he had a roof over his head, clothes on his back, and food in his belly. Yeah, that didn't happen at all! Why in the world would you ever reference that in the comics! :)))

It's much more important to artificially manufacture conflict by making our characters OOC and ignoring all of their past characterization so we can have like a bigass but ultimately pointless battle or something, IDK. :)))

Can y'all tell I hate the comics yet?

I just want to point out that in The Promise, Katara is the first person to actually understand the difficult position that Zuko is in, and is literally the ONLY person in the gaang who actually has his back - all the while, poor Zuko is *desperate* for someone to confide in about these new responsibilities he has (let alone the six attempts on his life that happened over the course of only a single year after taking the throne) -

- to the point that he had a nervous breakdown on the battlefield after narrowly avoiding another full-blown war that leaves him in a coma for four days.

Like.

If Katara had to be paired off with someone, then someone please explain to me already why she wasn’t just paired with *Zuko* and serving as ambassador for the Fire Nation / Southern Water Tribe????? All of their chemistry aside, you can CLEARLY see how much ass she would have kicked, not to mention how extremely beneficial that would have been for the dangerously overwhelmed 17-year-old Fire Lord.

And the thing is, if Zutara had been endgame in the show, there actually isn’t a whole lot of the political part of the plot in The Promise that would even have to change, really - except Katara’s role would have been much more important as an ambassador, and the decision to merge the two nations together in a former fire nation colony would have been personal in addition to political. Imo, it would have *enriched* the plot and made it more engaging.

And although a Zutara pairing would have satisfied the majority of fans (MUCH more), another thing is that it still wouldn’t have had a cheesy “happy ever after” feel to it unlike Kataang. It still would have been interesting. While Zuko and Katara would have been imo perfectly matched as a pair, this would have added conflict between Aang (who would still need to learn to let Katara go, for real) and Zuko, and even a little between Aang and Katara, since I can definitely see Aang’s personal hurt feelings keeping him from listening impartially to Katara, and thinking (wrongly) for a while that Zuko is turning Katara against him / bad. It also would have further explained and made much more sense why Zuko (and Katara) would have been SO adamant on the two nations learning to live together, and why Aang very much wasn’t.

It also would have been a much greater moment of truth when Aang decides whether or not to save Zuko’s life on the battlefield in part three. And of course, them having a heart-to-heart in the Jasmine Dragon would have also carried more weight, since all of this heavy personal shit would have also been in the way.

All that having been said, how much more meaningful would this conversation have been if it was taking place between Katara and Zuko, or at least be Katara talking to Aang *about* her and Zuko (do I need to give more reasons why?????? - because I can):

Not to mention uhhhhh

If it was so necessary for him to have a trophy girl after being the hero in the series finale then uhhhh why again was it necessary for it to be Katara??????

tl;dr I will never ever ever ever ever understand why Zutara wasn’t endgame. That is some PRIME golden characterization that they just… uugghh…

It’s not even just about a Zuko x Katara romance, I mean ALL THE WAY AROUND it would have just made SO MUCH MORE SENSE. Instead, we get Aang and Katara making out in every other panel.

[the-noodles-say-toodles]

I was tagged by @yo-looksomeoneactually , ha sorry it took me so long to do this

Rules: Answer all the questions, add one question of your own at the end, and then tag people.

Coke or Pepsi? I don’t drink soda, I hate the fizziness.

Disney or Dreamworks? Disney. I love them both.

Coffee or tea? Coffee. Not a fan of either thought. I need the frap or the half half iced tea. 

Books or movies? Movies. This was so tricky though. I love books, I’m a book fanatic. But recently, I’ve been enjoying movies a lot more since I don’t have as much time for books as I used to. (plus I don’t have as nearly as much time to look for new books))

Windows or Mac? Google

DC or Marvel? Marvel. Love DC though, I’m not a DC hater. 

XBox or Playstation? XBox. I have no gaming systems what so ever 

Dragon Age or Mass Effect? Dragon Age. Don’t know much about either, but a little about both. 

Night owl or early riser? Both, how fun is that. 

Cards or chess? Cards.

Chocolate or vanilla? Choconilla

Vans or Converse? Converse, though I always wanted Vans 

Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash? Lavellan, I think. I don’t know that much about Dragon Age. 

Paragon or Renegade? Renegade, but I am a secret goody two shoes who aspires to be a criminal. 

Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars

One episode per week or binge watch? BIIIINGE

Gandalf or Obi Wan? Obi Wan

Heroes or villains? Herains John Williams or Hans Zimmer? who are these humans

Disneyland/world or Six flags? uhhhhh, Six Flags.

Forest or sea? AHHHHHH I DONT’T KNOW FOREST?!!  i love nature i love hiking i love water i dont know which one 

Flying or reading minds? Reading minds

Twin Peaks or Northern Exposure? Haven’t seen either, but I have at least heard of Twin Peaks.

Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter

You’re banished to a deserted island, which Benedict Cumberbatch character would you choose to take with you? I dunno, Doctor Strange or Sherlock. Marvel magician or dude who cheats death in his free time. 

Train or cruise ship? I LIKE TRAINS!!! (asdf ref yall) I love cruises though. 

Brian Cox or Neil DeGrasse Tyson? I also do not know these humans 

Art museum or science museum? Depends on the exhibits.

Irish pub or night club? No idea. I’ve heard crazy stories about both. 

Aang or Korra? Korra. Aang’s great, of course, but I can relate to Korra more. 

Swimming in a pool or lake? Lake. ADVENTURES. Maybe I’ll see NEssie one day 

Classical music or classical literature? Music. Sometimes I want to claw my eyes out for classical literture, no offense Shakespeare.

Oxford comma or no Oxford comma? Oxford comma, thought I doubt I use it properly 

Digital or paper books? Digital. I can’t handle real books. I lose them all the time, they’re really heavy, and I have to worry about their condition all the time. 

Rainy days or sunny days? Rainy. Give me stroms or give me death. 

Fantasy or science fiction? OOOOOOOH, both are insanely good if they both have quality plots. Going to have to say Sci Fy though.

Poetry or prose? Prose, poetry is too deep for me. The intended meanings of poems often go over my head. 

Music or lyrics? Music, I’m lyric deaf. 

Kissing or cuddling? Cuddle me.

Dancing or movies for date night? Movies. I was once asked if I was feeling okay when I was dancing. 

Sea or space? Space, there’s so much potential out there. The sea is epic too. The Kaiju are out there too. 

MBTI or zodiac? Zodiac. It’s is goofy. MBTI seems too serious.

Netflix or YouTube? Netlifx. Let the binge begin

Plushies or pets? Why is this an option, this is literally the most impossible decision ever. 

Pizza or nachos? Pizza

If you could speak to one person from history and tell them everything you know about the modern day, who would it be? FDR. He deserves to know how the war ended. Maybe he’d tell us how to fix the world today.  If you could become fluent in a language right now, what would you pick? Japanese or Chinese or Russian. Japanese so I don’t have to watch subbed animes, or Chinese because I am Chinese and I know very little, or Russian cause why the hell not. 

Favorite Mythical Creature? Dragons. Do they count

Vampires or Werewolves? Vampires because I once saw this tumblr post about this vampire in Vatian city like what life would be like there’s holiness everywhere garlic everywhere and idk I know a lot of vamp headcannons like WWII vamps and the immortality thing where they find someone and then they have to live without them and what happens if there’s a time where vampires are accepted but hten shit goes down and they’re all forgetten again just like where they started from, and that doesn’t make any sense, but vampire headcanons. None of that twilight shit here. 

Ao3 or ff.net? archiveofourown ftw 

I tag @nerdy-band-waffle, @coco-the-corbae, @8282-8282, @jcamacho4165, anyone who wants to do it I guess

[tirkarokujo]

Tirk dreams of Tabletops pt. 1: The Dungeon Doofery begins.

I’m now experimenting with doing some half-baked word salad I’m calling “writing” for shitposts longer than 140 characters and throwing them on this blog. Might make a new blog for this soon idk, but for now you’re free to read my antics with Tabletop RPGs after the jump.

5 years...wow! It's now been 5 whole years since I ran the very first tabletop RPG campaign for my group that I've stuck with through this entire half decade of rolling virtual dice, so it feels only right to reflect on my many ups and downs when it's come to this sweet hobby of mine.

Traditional role playing has always been something inherently ingrained into me since the very day my brain developed enough to form original thoughts. It's kinda like that for everyone if you think about it. Tabletop role playing is essentially a more sophisticated version of those games of pretend you'd play with whatever you could scrape out of your toy bin, where one would weave dramatic sweeping narratives in which He-Man, Optimus Prime, Goku, Donkey Kong, and the floating disembodied torso of Hulk Hogan beat the shit out of/kiss eachother in Barbie's dream house or have a hollywood blockbuster worthy car chase on that street map rug everyone owned for some reason.

We as humans just have an inherent desire to play out hypothetical scenarios in our head with whatever resources we have, and even the inevitable sands of time aren't enough to wash that feeling away. No matter how advanced our technology gets, barring a technological singularity that turns us all into gods capable of shaping worlds with our fingertips, nothing will ever truly replace the limitless scope of our imagination as our greatest form of entertainment. Even mediums such as video games and movies still rely on some level of imagination on the part of the audience to truly sell the worlds it's trying to convey. So in that sense, you can say that I've been technically tabbletopping all my life. But if we wanna get literal, my first exposure to tabletop RPGs was a little roundabout. I had always -heard- of the name Dungeons and Dragons thrown about here and there, and I knew it was a game of some kind, I just had no idea what nor any desire to find out. If I'm to wager a guess, I suppose I thought it was some kind of board game akin to RISK or Settlers of Catan? idk. That's what I gathered out of the one time it was parodied on Dexter's Lab.So my first time getting introduced to real tabletop role playing was in....Yu-Gi-Oh, of all places.

Yeah, I'm serious. Bear with me for a second.In the final arc of what's popularly known as "Season zero" of the Yugioh manga, when the actual card game was just one of many games that were featured, the final shadow game to end them all was an arc hosted by Yami Bakura called "Monster World." During the Monster World arc, the rules of the titular game was more meticulously explained as all of the games featured in the manga were. It was clearly supposed to be a take on D&D or perhaps some other TRPG that was popular in japan at the time, like Sword World. Either way I read the arc and thought it was the absolute coolest shit ever and I soon got hard at work at making my own playable version of Monster World, which didn't get very far before I found out some way or another lost to the sea of time that Monster World was just supposed to be a parody of D&D. My general thought process then being "holy shit what have I been missing this whole time" and soon enough I got my hands on a boxed Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e starter kit with a dungeon map, pre-made characters, a bunch of miniatures, everything I could have ever asked for. Not long after that I then obtained the 3.5e Dungeon Masters handbook.

Even without playing the game, my mind got simply swept up in the endless possibilities. Fuck all these other so-called "role playing" games, here this tome is just telling me that I can just make my own adventures where anyone can do anything without the confines of a video game telling you what you can and can't do, and that people have been doing this for DECADES now? It really was just the old days of playing with plastic tat, but now more legitimized with an actual ruleset that gives some much needed grounding to the proceedings, and slightly better knowledge of storytelling conventions under my belt. I'd pour over the dungeon masters guide for hours just reading all the facts about magic items and the different planes and how to build a dungeon, I could just get lost in that shit forever. So naturally I got to work making my own campaign (keep in mind I had no idea how to actually play the game, I just figured you rolled dice and damage happened, which is all I needed) and tried to get some of my friends to play it. That's where things went downhill fast.

See, when I was just a little piece of shit in his early teens, me and my squad were undeniably as geek as it could get. We talked about video games, anime, the YTMND-era internet, hustled Yu-gi-oh cards, everything. We were straight up building a game in Game Maker at the time. You literally couldn't mistake us for anything else. And yet, despite all this, nobody besides me was actually comfortable with playing some good old D&D when I got a hold of  everything. In their own paraphrased words, even they knew it was just "too nerdy" for them. Too nerdy. Seriously. Here this dude who I spent many sleepless nights discussing the intricacies of Mega Man lore with telling me something is too nerdy for them. Admittedly, I can't call them out too hard on this, as it probably just isn't something they were keen on, and I don't think it's entirely uncommon for tabletop role playing to have a sort of stigma attached to it, even among "geek" types.

Let me go off on a tangent here to differentiate between two opposite ends of the spectrum of fandom-based culture, and that's "consumerist" and "transformative." Consumerists have, as far as I seen, been the dominating force of geek culture, especially among young males such as myself. Consumerists take pride mainly in their massive collections of games, movies, figures, and other various do-dads as the means of expressing their devotion to their hobbies. When they are doing creative work, it's mainly for reviews, tutorials, editorials, theorization essays, or collecting trivia that pertains to their subjects of interest. While there's certainly nothing wrong with being a slave for the massive capitalist machine that will inevitably kill us all, as after all I still partake in buying a bunch of useless media trinkets in a futile attempt to fill in my empty soul, it definitely feels like the most acceptable and "safe" way of being on the fringe of fandom culture.

The other end of the spectrum, transformative, aren't simply satisfied with what already exists. These are the peeps who go beyond what they see on the screen, and take it in their hands to answer the question of what if Cloud and Barret totally FUCKED. These are the kind of people that write obscenely long fanfiction about that old early 2000s cartoon you forgot about until now, and run an extensive AU RP blog in which the entire cast of Undertale are professional shoplifters and tax evaders. Not tryna make any sweeping statements here, but it always seemed to me that the more artistic/creative side of fandom culture has always been more inclusive and liberal, while consumerists have always been more conservative. (Not like in a political sense, but I mean the actual definition of conservative, being more reserved and not trying to overstep any boundaries or push the envelope in any way.) There's probably a multitude of reasons for this, but I won't get into them here.

The thing about being transformative though is that you tend to be raked against the coals a lot more. Normally when someone has to take a couple of cheap shots at some kind of fanbase, the ones that are put up to pasture first are the creative types.  Indeed, being a creative within a particular fanbase is going to be suffering no matter what. When you think of easily-mocked aspects of fan culture, you think of the cheesy fanfiction or the weird fanart or the freaky RP bloggers or the Mary Sue OCs, the whole package. And while it's undeniable that yes, SOME creative works aren't the best or most holy, it's dishearteningly common for some enthusiasts to straight up discourage any kind of creative thought within a fanbase, even if it's just kids having fun with their silly new Korra AU. And yes, this kind of stigma even extends to tabletop role playing games.

In the case of my friends, they were probably more on the consumerist end, though it's also entirely possible they were influenced by the popular perception that D&D was just "that nerd shit." Well, no matter how many times I try to deconstruct it, what matters is that I didn't really have anyone to play with so my interest in TRPGs dropped off after that. Flash forward to about 2011, when I was semi-well established in my new online circle, and a good chunk of my chat group was into this thing called "PTA." No it has nothing to do with parent teacher conferences, but rather it's an acronym for "Pokemon Tabletop Adventures," an RPG system based loosely off of 4e that obv centers around those goddamn Pokemon critters. You know, the thing where the guy comes out of the thing and he starts auhgbabaabhgbl, Pokemon. I don't remember if I was still interested in getting back into tabletops back then, but I largely ignored all that hubbub because 1. don't think I really cared about Pokemon all too much back then, and 2. the main dude who the tabletop group revolved around, we'll just call him Thrice, was a guy I absolutely could not stand, so the idea of needing to listen to that screeching cat even more was an absolute nightmare. (He's now one of my best friends, but I think he's still convinced I hate him now just as much as I did back then.) Still, eventually I got interested in playing, and he hooked me up with a player role in one of his new campaigns around late 2011.

I was pretty impressed with just how much Thrice was willing to teach me just about everything; I still remember that day when he was showing me to ropes and took so long to explain everything I stayed up until the wee hours of sunrise for the first time since high school ended. So naturally, I completely forgot everything and needed the rules re-explained to me throughout the entire campaign. Thus, the first tabletop campaign I ever had the privilege of playing was some generic Pokemon league setup. I think there was some darker undertones involving brainwashing or something, idk I forget and nobody had the common sense to archive the sessions back then. My character was a news reporter named Lauren, and I guess this series now gives me a good a time as ever to explain my exact thought process when it came to decisions I made with my characters and campaigns to my group. Lauren was an amalgamation of things I was into back then, such as Dead Rising and Kino's Journey (which is where she got her appearance token from) but the idea of playing a journalist/reporter funnily enough came from the "Wrestler" minigame in Rhythm Heaven Fever. I wanted to play a sort of reporter like that, but with kind of a dark edge to it, where she secretly resented and wanted to cuss out everyone she had to be nice to in order to keep her job. The idea was that'd she'd be nice out the outside but then occasionally go on BB Hood type violent outbursts and keep just about everyone on her shitlist, but it turned out a little too hard to RP back then, so what ended up happening was that she'd just be more of a lowkey pissy jerkface who wasn't incredibly pleasant to hang around, but I guess it could have gone worse.

PTA had a "photographer" class so I felt it was a natural fit for Lauren given her profession and all. Big mistake apparently, as the Photographer more of a support type class (with a lot of said supports not having much combat application) and her personality was more suited to a physical bruiser, so that definitely put a damper on my enjoyment.My first real exposure to some good ol' tabletop discourse was during a particular encounter. Thrice had decided to throw at us an encounter that was....interestingly balanced to say the least. It was a dude who had so many high level Pokemon that just one of them could have counted as its own boss, so the fact that so many of these death monsters was coming out of this dude like the world's most painful clown car meant that we didn't stand much of a chance before we got wiped out. I'm not sure if it was an "unwinnable" situation but either way I remember it pissing off most of the player base and the general perception of that campaign went downhill since. This is the first of like...maybe two times, perhaps three, where we learned one of the most important lessons in Tabletop RPG balance ever: Never, ever have an unwinnable fight because it's never going to go as well as you want, and if it does it's gonna suck ass, just don't do it fam. Eventually the campaign and that entire era of PTA died soon for reasons that I don't remember, tho it's not hard to understand why. But still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun, so naturally next time we flash forward to March of 2012 when I decide to jump right into running my own damn tabletop RPG, with miniboss squads and hookers, and occasionally go other more observations of the medium as a whole in a completely disorganized fashion.

[knaccblog]

Forgot to post about this but I finished season 2 of Korra and I really really hated it.

Stuff I hated:

Basically everything about Bolin.  He was one of my fave characters in the first season and now he’s one of my least.  I hated how he treated his co-star, I hated his romance with the one creepy twin, I hated how he treated Mako when he was in jail, I hated how he basically cheated on his actress girlfriend with that horrible twin girl (what is it? a family trait?). He was just not likable at all this season imo and it made me sad.

The bit where the bad guy beat the past lives out of the good spirit made me feel like I was being punished for caring about the lore and the whole avatar cycle thing tbh.  I loved all the history of it and removing the whole “past avatars are continuing on and can offer advice” thing really bummed me out.

Mako lying to Korra about them being broken up and screwing Asami over didn’t surprise me but I still wanted to smack him.

The creepy twins still suck. I really hated how they basically made everything awful with their loyalty to their horrible father and then were like, “oh no we aren’t upset he’s dead” at the end like that wasn’t really funny to me? idk what it was suppose to be even but relative to villains in the first season and the whole first show they are really flat characters.

The pacing of the whole convergence event thing was really bad.  They kept almost winning and then nope almost lost and then back again over and over.

Asami didn’t get to do anything which bummed me out.  I was hoping she would be the one to figure out that Mako had been framed because she’s a smart cookie but that didn’t happen.

The President not helping at all annoyed me so much.

That said, there were some good moments so here is a list of them:

Tenzin’s whole plotline this season was pretty solid tbh.  I got very happy when he beat the mist by accepting himself as he is.

Bumi beating that camp in the crazy way just like all the stories he tells amused me.

Uncle Iroh showing up was cheating tbh.  I love him and while the first spirit world part (were Korra is a child) was already decently solid relative to other bits, him showing up really won me over even more.

The part where Bolin fought to save the President in front of his movie was cool and basically his only good scene in the whole season.

Varic’s line about the boat being made to escape his exes made me laugh actually as did the fact that he named it after his assistant.

The Avatar backstory bit ended up being overall enjoyable.

I’m not quitting the show but I feel like skipping most of season two if I ever do a rewatch seems pretty likely atm.