#im just confirming this is one of those times

[july-19th-club]

everybody in the goodreads one-stars dislikes outlander because it's got too much rape and dubcon in it, which is fair and is in fact what turned me off of the show in college. but many of them dont like the sex in this book in a puritanical way and they're WRONG it's not bad because it's sex! it's not even necessarily bad because it's sexualized violence. it's bad because it's poorly contextualized, not justified by the text enough to bear as much repetition as it gets, and neither fits nor deconstructs the genre it's trying to play around with.

like, the marriage/sex/punishment-by-force fantasy is clearly a fetish of gabaldon's, so the book bends over backwards to present opportunities for it whether they make story sense or not, and in so doing gives readers a skewed understanding of the period and location it's simultaneously attempting to do historical fiction in. WHICH WOULD BE FINE IF: this was georgette heyer we were talking about, por ejemplo, and the whole scene was established as the kind of pseudo-history fantasy realm such fetishes often take place in. after all, there's a particular brand of time-tested romance fiction where the whole conceit is a fluttery but undeniable "but you don't understand - i had no other choice!" which allows our heroine the chance to indulge sexually without being considered a slut (see dan lavery's piece on this subject). which i think is what gabaldon's trying to do with the plot contortions that require claire to get married, and then REQUIRE their marriage to be consummated With Witnesses, and then REQUIRE him to beat her in order to maintain standing...etc, etc, etc. a good british woman doesn't want to commit adultery, a good british woman doesn't like it rough, a good british woman doesn't get off on humiliation, etc. which, described that way, almost talks me back into the whole idea.

except the description i just gave is not how it reads in the book. in the book there's no indication that she's performing mental gymnastics to get past her hangups, or that there's some underlying Understanding between characters, author, and reader. it reads like she's married a budding young abuser who claims 'this is normal here' to get what he wants. WHICH brings us to the whole 'savage man-beast...but i WANT him...but he's so violent! but i can TAME him' trope. it's only this side of racist here because the scottish people in this book are white. this man can't be expected to have respectful attitudes, those are modern. and he's from a strong, manly culture! and there's no use looking around for some other kind of guy, because everybody's like that here, and that's history, man. there's a scene in this book where her tarzan in tartan believes that all sex is doggie style and is shocked to learn it isn't. this scene made it into the show.

what im trying to say is. she's both trying to write serious hist fic AND trying to have the protagonist get raped every other page so as to justify the amount of sex in the book. like...i feel insane saying she's doing it wrong when i read carey with gusto, but again, there we are in the 'context' issue. carey's context is that the protagonist is a) a professional sex worker and b) a confirmed masochist, so it's no shock to the reader when she goes to have sex with a patron and he lays into her with a flail. people who don't want BDSM aren't going to be reading Jacqueline Carey. she even has goddamn safewords, for chrissake. and while it absolutely can be argued that the absence of a declared scene in-text IS part of the fantasy for some readers - and must be for at least a few of the outlander fanbase, since people think these books are sexy - there's just too much failure to commit. either claire is into it or she's not, either this is a wish fulfillment kink book or it's hist fic. a better writer might be able to thread that needle in such a way as to keep it both sexy and consistent, but gabaldon's not that writer. her fetishes come off uncomfortably; her details are sometimes wrong enough that even not very historically minded readers point them out and find themselves jarred out of the story.

and...worst of all? she's not at all interested in the time travel aspect of her book, which may not seem like the worst sin here, but let me go out by tying this into its origins. she based the books on doctor who, a show about travel through time and space. rarely do her 1740s characters make it to the 1940s, where the story starts - she doesn't care about the nineteen forties, or later the sixties, after the time skip. they are where stodgy frank is from. they are where claire is exiled after she's torn away from her highland lover! she doesn't care about this timeline except insofar as they constitute a Modern place (but not too modern!) to act as a bland counterweight to the pull of those glorious days of old. the interplay of timelines is never really about culture shock or culture sharing, never really about what it would be like to survive culloden and then find out about the nineteen sixties. not in a funny, lighthearted way; not in a serious, all-implications-delved-into way. in diana gabaldon's time travel, the twentieth century is only there to get away from, to leave for some imagined romantic past where men are real men, women are real women, and small furry creatures from alpha centauri - except, wait. we don't know, do we, if the small furry creatures from alpha centauri are real small furry creatures from alpha centauri. in diana gabaldon's story, the scottish guy doesn't even go anywhere near alpha centaurai. truly there's no fixing this one.

[mettywiththenotes]

Hori killed off the villain trio because he knew they would have screamed the stadium down in the second year sports festival cheering for their heroes

[deus-and-the-machina]

hythlodaeus be like "teehee I hope I can be of some use" *clean headshot* 😊

bitch they wanted you for the aether-centric governmental position I know you think your curmudgeony cunt husband is amazing but stop selling yourself short its a slippery slope to sacrificing yourself to make god smh

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[tennessoui]

Do you have a preference for top Obi-Wan or top Anakin in obikin? And if so, why? I'm new to the fandom and ship, and it seems that top Anakin is very popular. I've always imagined him bottoming more often for Obi-Wan, although I like to think they switch occasionally

i very much do not have a preference or an opinion on this! i read and write either - the important thing for me is that they're recognizable to my understanding of the characters and i don't see either of them as massively frail, demure, twinky, etc so that's usually the stuff i don't read or interact with (and i've moved away dom/sub stuff currently) though more power to you if that's what you like! to me, their sexual positions in bed do not make up a big part of their characters, so i really can switch between both and enjoy it all.

it's just not the interesting part of a story for me, and honestly (and i know this is controversial or what passes for controversial in a fandom lol) i don't tend to tag my explicit fics with who is topping and who is bottoming if there's penetrative sex involved - especially for longer fics because the story isn't about that in my mind. it's a very small aspect of it and the least important part

i do think i've seen a lot of conflating dom/sub with top/bottom lately and that's a trend that comes and goes like waves and also a trend i very much dislike. i definitely have stronger views on conflating dom/sub and top/bottom than i have on who should top and who should bottom LOL

[strawberryseeded]

i wish we had gotten more of kugisaki nobara. i just watched dis vid and all my contained RAGE abt dis topic suddenly HIT ME LIKE A TRAIN GOD IM UPSET

ive talked like 32893882 times already (and its still NOT ENOUGH) abt how upset i was abt nobara's death cos she was such a good character, with so much potential!! i really REALLY liked her. she was funny, strong, confident and kind!!!! i loved her char design!! her cursed technique and weapon were cool as hell!!!!!!

and her (recently SOMEWHAT(?) confirmed(?)) death sucked so fucking much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

she was just. fucking fridged. as much as it pains me to admit it. from a narrative standpoint, she died so yuuji would get upset and further develop his character & then move the plot along. even mahito admits that he wants her to die to make yuuji suffer. like yeah he also recognizes her a strong opponent (ofc. cos she is) but at the end of the day he wanted to kill her just to wreck yuuji. and he succeded.

nobara has no say on the way she dies. she's just.. slapped, kinda. its so sudden. its so... weird. not that she's accepting of it (we already know that she knows she can die at any moment and she's ready for it (cos she's a freak like the rest of the sorcerers lol)), but its weird bc its like its not a personal moment for her. yeah we get a flashback & her speech about how, even tho she always was a person who refused to let other people affect the way she is and decides to live, there still are people who, by being accepting of her, managed to gain a place in her heart... and she's happy for that. its rly beautiful.

but its the impact her death has on yuuji what the story really cares about here.

and like. thats fine! im not even saying killing nobara is a bad choice or that its bad if her death also developed yuuji's character. but the way it was done, its like her death only had that purpose. its a way too transparent device, that's what i dislike abt it. i dont mind being upset bc a character i love dies? i like feeling strong emotions when i engage emotionally with art/stories.

but i think she was killed off too soon. we didn't get to properly say goodbye to her. both her character arc and her death were rushed.

she could have been developed so much more! it feels like she was taken away way too soon in the story. i wanted her to fight sukuna along the others. i wanted her to use her cool technique to help yuuji nail sukuna's soul. i wanted to see just how much stronger she could get. i wanted her to finally meet saori. I WANTED HER TO HAVE A COOL EYE PATCH!!!!!!!!!!!

why is she barely mentioned after she dies??? she was one of the 3 main, dude, are u kidding me? yuuji's the only one who mentions her but he's almost afraid of talking about her. its like the whole world forgot about her!!!!! and what about maki?????? werent they girlfriends?

what is nobara's LEGACY? why did gege not make her death matter in the narrative? even if she (for whatever reason) came back(??) at the end, id still be rly mad & sad abt it cos i wanted to see her DO STUFF!! i wanted to see her kick some ass!!!! i wanted to see her grow!!!!! to open up with others!!!!! I WANTED TO SEE MORE OF HER. IM SO UPSET I WANT OUT

[sonknuxadow]

still wondering whos voicing black doom because i havent seen any confirmation on that but now im wondering whos voicing mephiles... surely he's gonna have at least a couple voice lines right . it would be weird if he didnt

[skeletalheartattack]

so for like, a decade plus, i've been searching for a youtube video i remember seeing back in 2007, and i've finally managed to make some headway:

good news: i've found it

bad news: it's lost media

[good-beanswrites]

Just wanted to plant an idea if you wanted a bit of fuel: Mahiru asking Yuno to come to her cell before everything goes down.

Edit: I forgot the ask didn't say it but this is part of Kyanako's incredible Order Of Attack AU!

Didn't mean for this to become a mini Mappi study but here we are ✨ Thank you for the request! I fully intended to write them hanging out, but it's more right before they hang out lol. Went a bit on-the-nose with foreshadowing, but isn't that the fun part? It has become Emotional Over Mahiru Hour...

I kept things vague, but TW for mentioning her boyfriend's state of potential self-harm

Mahiru tried not to act superstitious, she really did. As much as she loved the idea of little luck charms, or avoided easy signs of misfortune, it was easier to keep quiet about such ridiculous things.

Maybe catching a bride’s bouquet meant no guarantees; maybe there was no real harm in stepping underneath ladders, maybe a coin tossed into a fountain had no real magic to its wish. However, the one thing she knew for sure held power was a lucky presence. Being in the right place at the right time could alter everything. And today was the right time for something. There was this waiting in the air. The prison had been holding its breath. Mahiru knew it was time to release it all.

“You must be so lonely, why don’t you let big sis Mahiru keep you company?” She beamed at Amane.

She often recalled the good fortune that she and a certain young man had crossed paths on the university terrace. She used to laugh with him about the wonderful coincidence of bumping into each other outside of the bakery, then the convenience store. 

Though she’d never spoken about it to him, she was also grateful for many occasions where she walked in on him at the precise moment to talk him out of something reckless. She always told him that they’d do everything together. He didn’t need to be alone anymore. 

“I wish to be alone. I need peace of mind to think.” Amane turned away from the cell door.

It was a good thing, too. Mahiru’s smile wasn’t as convincing as she said, “o-oh. Of course.”

She made her way around the panopticon, hearing Fuuta pace his cell in anticipation. He must have felt it too, this holding of breath. 

Or perhaps not. He turned down her offer for a bit of company, including a few more colorful words than Amane had. Mahiru just apologized for bothering him and headed back to her cell. She wasn’t sure where Mikoto was at this hour, but she didn’t feel like smiling through a third rejection.

She shook her head back and forth. She wished the motion could rattle the voices inside, she wished she could shake them all away. With her arms secured in place she could no longer cover her ears. She used to hum to keep them at bay, but lately they’d been too loud to stifle. They just kept on talking.

Their words told her the two were right. Nobody needed her company. No – nobody wanted it. Being together hadn’t helped her boyfriend. In fact, being together had been the very thing that got him killed. No wonder Amane and Fuuta wanted to avoid her. 

So then, this was for the best. She would rather deal with the brief sting of refusal than stumble in one day to find them hurt… or worse. As much as she tried to avoid the superstition of it all, the voices reminded her that her very presence could mean life or death. 

“Mappi, are you alright?” Mahiru hadn’t realized a tear had slipped down her cheek until she hurried to swipe it away in front of Yuno. 

“Hah, I’m fine! Just fine.” It was impossible to fool her, Mahiru had learned, but that never stopped her from trying. 

At least she always spoke tactfully. “Rough morning?”

Mahiru shifted her arms in her uniform, making a small sound of agreement.

“Can I do anything to help? What if I stay with you for a bit? I can do your hair, and…”

The voices were right. Amane and Fuuta knew it, too. Presences did hold power, and Mahiru’s was cursed.

But she would sound foolish admitting such a fear to Yuno. She'd heard plenty from the voices about how stupid and airheaded she was, there was no use in getting the same lecture from someone as grounded as her.

Mahiru managed a weak protest, unable to explain her real reasoning. Yuno was insistent. She didn’t give much of a choice. Could she feel the strangeness of the prison, as well? 

At last, Mahiru allowed her shoulders to sag. Yuno was lucky. And kind. Having her nearby would do her good. Amane and Fuuta would be alright. Mahiru had tried spending more time with them after verdicts were announced. Now, she made a mental note to pull back. If her love couldn’t save anyone, at least she could spare them from her curse. They would be safe. 

“Yes. Please stay. The truth is... I don't want to be alone.”

[r0semultiverse]

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake finale spoilers without context

[diah-the-demon]

YES I FUCKING GOT TICKETS FOR ADO WORLD TOUR FUCK YES

[joshuamj]

i am Blind to basically anything I'm not familiar with, so i still don't know anythin about In Stars and Time. Could you give some info on it??? i am looking for games to play rn....

hmmm okay.. I will say, going in blind is best! I went in knowing literally only 3 things. 1) that it was about a timeloop, 2) that it was entirely monochrome, and 3) that this one character I had seen once was in it (Mirabelle, didn't know her name, just that she existed). And going in with such little knowledge was great, I'd highly recommend

But if you want more, then here's a bit more.. (mostly a synopsis of stuff you'll figure out early on, no major spoilers)

Obviously its a story about a timeloop! In the game, your party is a group trying to save the world from someone simply known as "the King" who is freezing the entire country in time. Interestingly, the game takes place at the end of your journey. The entire party has been assembled and have known each other, you've journeyed across the country, collected items that'll allow you to enter where the King awaits. All thats left to do is go through where he's holed up and defeat him. Also interestingly, you don't play as the protagonist of this story I've just mentioned. A girl named Mirabelle is the chosen one, blessed by her god, she is unable to be frozen in time, and has taken it upon herself to save her country. Yet, you aren't playing as her. You're playing as someone named Siffrin, just one of her party members, and one that says that they're only here because "they have nothing better to do." This should be Mirabelle's story, but you quickly realize why it isn't. Not long into the game, Siffrin's life unexpectedly comes to an end, and the fact that there's a timeloop afoot becomes apparent. Nobody but you and one strange mystery person (named "Loop" of all things) are aware of the loops. In the game you'll do all that you can to make it to the King and defeat him and keep your friends safe, no matter how many deaths, no matter how much time. But thing's aren't that simple you'll find!

Also this game is about a timeloop, so as you may guess, there's a lot of death involved so warnings for lots of death (including suicide), and also warnings for Really Bad Mental Health Stuff, as you may also guess, being trapped in a timeloop isn't good for your mental health. Check the warnings for the game if you think you may need to!

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[pepperpixel]

More!!!! More!!!!! More bird art!!!!! So much fucking bird art!!!! I actually had variants of those chibi pics I wanted to post as well that I actually can’t because I have!! too much bird art!!!! And, a lot of these are actually pretty old tbh? I just never got around to fully finishing them. I have now tho! So yeah!!! Finally! I can post birds!!

[anzfaulkner]

Ok yk what I think I need to run a poll I need to know what the pipeline is for ppl who like went to public school or didn’t have many friends or smth & basically had zero exposure to what is & isn’t socially acceptable until eventually branching out social circles and learning more

SO HERE IS THE QUESTION maybe this is actually a natural human experience maybe im just fucking autistic idfk. All I know is I’m still incredibly fucked up from smth that happened a decade ago and I’ve never bothered asking if anyone else has gone thru smth like it

[timeisacephalopod]

Not that any "ism" makes sense but antisemitism is wild to me because everything I learn about Judaism makes it seem like a pretty bitchin religion. Like they don't just go evangelize at whoever will vaguely accept their religion because they expect you to study the doctrine and religion deeply as part of the conversion process, they question and often debate parts of their theology and the merits of those things, and have a bunch of great food? I mean that's most of the issues I have with Christianity gone- a religion that won't just accept you at the drop of a hat because you said Jesus was cool and actually expects you to work and understand the religion? I'd say sign me up if I were the religious type but since I'm not just be nice to Jewish people they seem pretty awesome and their religion is pretty cool from what I see of it.