#in fact it was probably really good for one of the main characters who recently watched her home get destroyed

[lesbworth]

a probably incomplete list and rating of all the britcoms i have watched and how gay they are

somehow, during my short life, i have managed to watch an obscene amount of britcom, mostly through family osmosis. this probably explains a lot about who i am today. i have recently been thinking about just how many of these things have passed through my eyeballs over the years and also just how many of them range from kind of to very to unbelievably gay. so here is a list rating how gay they all are out of 10 because i always love a list!

notes:

many of these i watched at a tender age so i remember kind of fuck all and i have not rewatched any for the purposes of this. so be aware that several of these reviews are based on hazy recollections of vibes

yes some of the ones with canon queer characters are going to have lower ratings than some of the ones without that's simply how the cookie crumbles. sometimes a show is just packed to the absolute brim with pure trademark typically english inexplicable repressed homoeroticism and it makes it feel gayer than one where a character came out

let's say 5/10 is what i consider the "average" level of britcom homoeroticism but other than that there's no system to the ratings just vibes fr

-

1960s

dad's army

this is probably the one i started watching at the youngest age, but i watched so damn much of it. i was too young to be looking out for this kind of thing but considering it fits the classic britcom format of revolving around the strong bonds between a cast that fails to pass the bechdel test i'm gonna make an educated guess at 3/10. there's probably old man yaoi in there somewhere. (and if i had to pick the main ship it would clearly be mainwaring/wilson)

1970s

all creatures great and small

i mean. OBJECTIVELY. it is not gay. it's literally based on real people who as far as we know were not in the least gay. but THERE'S JUST A WEIRD VIBE. AM I CRAZY? TELL ME I'M NOT CRAZY 5/10 (it's probably partly a side effect of watching this as a babygay since i would basically headcanon the whole main cast of anything i watched as bisexual. good times. i also had tristan farnon gender envy)

fawlty towers

really heterosexual vibe i will not lie. at least 60% propped up by classic i hate my wife humour. if there's anything queer in there it did not impress itself upon me 0/10 at least it inspired vicious

the good life

ostensibly this is about two married couples but it emits such an oddly bisexual energy??? like they're a polycule. to me. which is already basically canon since they have the whole wifeswap dynamic but i mean tom and jerry (yes really) are giving exes and margo and barbara have probably snogged a couple of times. TO ME. 6/10

only when i laugh

on balance i think it's probably at least a bit homoerotic considering the bechdel test metric again but despite having decently clear memories of it i can't think of anything particularly. i'll give it a 4/10 and as a raffles fan christopher strauli being there adds a point LMAO

porridge

despite being set in a men's prison i don't think it gets a very high score... let's go 4/10 because i'm sure there's enough there to go off of. pretty sure there were also many jokes about gay sex as can be expected. also inspired red dwarf

rising damp

going to be so for real the main thing i remember is the racism. 1/10? there are enough male characters that there might have been something idk

to the manor born

i mean it's a straight romance but it's not toooo hetero. audrey and marjory are kind of schoolgirl exes yuri #if you think about it. in fact i remember a scene where they're gushing about how they both had a crush on one of their schoolmistresses? 5.5/10?

whatever happened to the likely lads?

i THINK i've watched episodes of this. i know my parents have the box set. but i cannot for the life of me recall anything from it. just based on the premise though, i'll give it a strong 5/10

1980s

'allo 'allo!

girl... i forgor. i don't think so? i mean let's give it 3/10 for being set in france. also i have been reminded that there's an implied gay nazi, diversity win

blackadder (all series)

absolutely. "i cannot conceive", etc and so on. the crossdressing shenanigans. fry & laurie are there. just has a fruitiness about it generally. 7/10

only fools and horses

eeehh. all-male main cast but they're a family which hinders its ability to serve homo. generally giving very straight energy. 1/10 in case i forgot something

red dwarf

the fucking show that led me to make this ranking in the first place. grant naylor you will be dealt with. 10/10

a very peculiar practice

i didn't watch much of this and it was a long time ago but distinctly remember getting some kind of A Vibe. and looking it up apparently one of the main characters is canonically bi?? damn 7/10

yes, minister (and yes, prime minister)

look. LOOK. there's just something about it. it's the father of the thick of it which is british succession to me. also sir humphrey is homosexual there is literally no other way to read him nigel hawthorne told me himself actually. go and watch the homoerotic wispa ad 7/10

you rang, m'lord?

i actually haven't watched any full episodes of this but i must give it a 7/10 for the inclusion of CISSY the stylish 1920s aristocratic butch communist who could have walked right out of le monocle. love it

1990s

drop the dead donkey

this was such a deep cut i actually forgot it existed until making this list. i know i watched quite a lot of it to be honest but i can't remember shit other than that i liked one of the women's hair. i think it was pretty straight? NEVERMIND THERE'S A LESBIAN IN IT HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT A WHOLE LESBIAN 6/10

father ted

to be honest i don't think this comes from quite the same place homoeroticism-wise as most of the others on this list given that it's irish and not english (not to disparage oscar wilde of course!). catholic yaoi...? i really don't think so 2/10 for the catholicism also get fucked graham linehan

jeeves and wooster

let's be serious now. 9/10 i <3 gay people. i was raised on the books which also probably explains a lot about me... and naturally i have also always gotten severe gender envy from bertie

mr. bean

is mr. bean really considered britcom. can i leave him out. i'm going to leave him out

one foot in the grave

now i am certain i have watched this because i remember the theme song and vaguely the title sequence but i also forgot about its existence until this list. honestly i think it was just giving constant i hate my wifeism even the imprint where a memory once was of it that i have feels tiring 0/10

the royle family

painfully straight but in the way your irl straight friends are. if that makes sense. 1/10

2000s

black books

maybe i watched this at an overly impressionable age but like... it's giving. it's got the odd couple the domesticity the found family if you will. the m/f platonic relationships. also tamsin greig in that haircut? i remember always being so unconvinced that fran was straight that woman looks sooo lesbian 8/10 and FUCK graham linehan

the it crowd

very classic britcomism (you're my wife roy! you're my wife!!!) and i mean the guys snog on screen that is very much a thing that happened. also i just don't really think richard ayoade can totally play straight despite being a straight man. also the main three kind of have rancid bisexual polycule potential. also there's a goth. also i would watch gay! a gay musical. 7/10 AND FUCK GRAHAM LINEHAN!!!!!!

peep show

classic britcom homoerotic odd couple except one of them is actually bisexual and played by a bisexual actor. and the other is "possibly bi but basically uncurious". and they ALSO snog on screen. i haven't watched much of this to my shame but I Know What It Is 8/10

the thick of it

BRITISH SUCCESSION. i swear to god you would all be foaming at the mouth about this if it came out at a time and context to be big on tumblr. malcolm tucker god's worst bisexual 7.5/10 by the way that's an incredibly homophobic headline you massive poof!

2010s

ghosts

8.5/10 right off the bat brother firstly it's a six idiots show which already guarantees a high score but also it's genuinely very sweet with regards to canon queerness and the characters are flamboyant and lovable in a way guaranteed to attract the kind of queer fandom it has today. captain my beloved

upstart crow

i mean of course it's about shakespeare and it doesn't shy away from implying he's queer but the general vibe is not suuuper fruity. i'll say 6.5/10

vicious

this is what i'm TALKING ABOUTTT i'm so glad this show exists in the world. genuinely what would we even do if there WASN'T a show about ian mckellen and derek jacobi being a gay couple of 50 years who hate each other 11/10

yonderland

i feel like this makes ghosts too low but i wanted to put yonderland a bit higher for the sheer amount of environmental queerness knocking about in there and also the general campiness of it all. six idiots moment. 9/10 the elders are incredible ho-tan you will always be famous queen

2020s

staged

yeah. 9/10

-

thank you for reading 🙏 honestly i basically just made this for the appeal of making A List but absolutely feel free to argue with me about the ratings, suggest your own fav britcoms not listed here, et cetera

(also have fun spotting the same fucking people in half of them LMAO. i fear british tv is never beating the 3 actors allegations)

[the-eeveekins]

I'm not very active on tumblr much these days, but as a Gundam fan I should probably pop in to talk about GQuuuuuuX. Because I sure have some opinions on it.

The basic overview is that I think the show had a very interesting framework. But everything was so rushed that I found it all to be very shallow, and I didn't enjoy it as a result. It especially hurts in my case because Beginning and the early episodes really drew me into Machu, Nyaan, and Shuji, and they were the part of the show I was most interested in. Unfortunately they felt completely overshadowed by all UC stuff in the 2nd half, which did not interest me anywhere near as much. That said, there are two things from the finale that I'm particularly upset by:

1. Bringing back Furuya as Amuro.

I don't care that production on the show started before his behavior came out. I don't buy any of the excuses. Bringing him back was an awful mistake, full stop. He confessed to his actions long enough ago that even if his line was recorded before hand, there has been plenty of time to recast and re-record one line. Having him there is a black mark against the show.

2. The Machu x Shuji Confession.

You can go through my post history on bsky and see that I never expected GQ to be yuri. In fact, you can find me rooting for the polycule more than anything. But damn, was the het absolutely terrible. Machu's attraction to Shuji is completely one-sided, and they don't even see each other for half the show. There is even a whole moment in the final episode that built up to "Shuji loves Lalah." It all perfectly clicked into place. And then it's like someone burst into the writing room and shouted "NOOOOOO! You have to make Shuji get with one of the girls, or people might think it's gay again!" What follows is a completely out of left field kiss and love confession, none of which felt remotely earned.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Suletta and Miorine was the core of G-Witch's story. They share multiple moments of mutual affection throughout the show. They end the show married. And yet, they couldn't kiss on screen. They couldn't directly say the words "I love you" to each other. By all accounts the staff were handicaped by Bandai in how they were allowed to depict Sulemio's relationship. And while the staff did succeed at making it textual, they had to get creative to do it.

In any other context I would say "Ah, forced het because he's a boy and she's a girl. Must be a day ending in Y." But to get served that right after G-Witch? After all the hoops Sulemio had to jump through? Yeah, I'm a little insulted here.

Sapphic romances work so hard and can be so good, they can be the core theme of the story. And they still get less than the most lazy and uninspired het romances in media. And make no mistake, bigots will be tripping over themselves for years to say that Machu and Shuji getting a kiss and "I love you" makes it a better/more legitimate relationship than Sulemio.

I don't outright hate GQuuuuuuX. Like any Gundam series I don't like, there are still things I enjoyed. Nyaan, Shiiko, Deux, the Gyan and GFreD, the animation, the ED and the fact Machu & Nyaan live together after the finale. Conch, my precious robot crab son, who I'am so proud of. Hell, I'm still talking about it over two days later, something I can't say about other recent Gundam entries I didn't like (Metaverse, RfV, Silver Phantom). But this entry missed the mark for me.

On a personal note, I am so glad that this got delayed and Suletta was our first female MC. Suletta was such a great starting point for female MCs: she felt like the main character of her own show (a show actually centered around women!), and her personality and motivations didn't revolve around a boy. And GQuuuuuuX had far far more misogyny problems than G-Witch; they wanted to make a show about a female Gundam MC and they failed Machu in just about every way. Considering Gundam's often problematic issues relating to it's female characters throughout the franchise, Suletta feels like a miracle, and we somehow dodged the bullet of first female MC being plagued by those exact same issues.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

Nobody asked me for my opinion on the controversy that dropped today when the Sonic Movie cast pay rate was revealed, which is fair ig since I try to stay positive on this blog. But in case you're wondering, yeah as a certified AFAB™ I'm pissed, but not really specifically at the Sonic crew. Actor pay rates are usually negotiated between agents and the production companies so just like all the other problems with the Sonic movies, this is most likely an issue with Paramount and their patented dumbfuckery. Disclaimer that obviously it could very well be a Sonic crew issue as well, obviously I don't know the inner workings of the entire film production.

Also, if you're mad about this: please be mad about the pay gap that has been going on as long as Hollywood has been alive. This isn't a problem unique to the SCU. I know the phrase "pay gap" is thrown around a whole lot but do you guys actually know how big an issue it is?

Recent percentages are that male and female actors have "a wage difference of about 25 percent," with an estimated difference of $1-2million between star-power men and star-power women.[x][x] Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone said she made $500k to Michael Douglas's $14mil– and when she was asked to be lead in a film being made in ~2022, the lead male, who was "new", was going to be paid $8-9mil, with her salary still at $500k. Last December, Biggest Monopoly In The World Disney was sued by 9,000 women over their pay gap.

This article is from 2019 but brings up some big fucking pay gaps between leads– for instance, Gillian Anderson was offered half of what David Duchovny was for the X-Files reboot as one of the two main fucking characters, Amanda Seyfried has disclosed she made 10% of what her male co-star made on an undisclosed film, Natalie Portman made 1/3 of the salary of Ashton Kutcher in No Strings Attached, and Ellen Pompeo, the titular character of Grey's Anatomy, was paid less than the actor playing her love interest, Patrick Dempsey. In fact, Dempsey was being paid almost double what she was.

However, BIG issue with the 2019 article: it only focuses on what White actors are being paid. Research shows that Black actresses make 57 cents to every dollar white actors make on a good day. Viola Davis, one of the most popular and talented actresses of our generation, has said that black women "get probably a tenth of what a Caucasian woman gets. And I'm number one on the call sheet." Octavia Spencer had to collaborate with Jessica Chastain to make sure they both got paid the same amount of money on a film they both worked on, and revealed that her new salary increased 500% afterwards.

At the end of last year, while promo-ing The Color Purple, Taraji P. Henson broke into tears while talking about how little she's being paid when compared to her white and male contemporaries. And when she talked about the gap, I find it so fucking frustrating that the general audience response was to immediately blame the only Black female producer on the film. I have a million gripes with Oprah Winfrey but TCP cast has said that she herself managed to fix a lot of the problems on set and was nothing but supportive to them. Oh, and there were a lot of problems on set, including a lack of food and dressing space for the main actors. And this is all from celebrity women. Just think about how Hollywood is treating women who don't have the star power to speak up.

Of course this isn't even a problem solo to Hollywood, let alone Paramount, let alone just one movie. And honestly it was probably really sad that when I saw the pay rate for the Sonic 3 cast, I wasn't even surprised, because I've seen worse on bigger projects.

[inexplicifics]

Hiii! So your newest story got me binging your A/B/O fics (again) and got me wondering…

If AWAU was set in A/B/O, what dynamics would the main characters be? And would it have changed anything?

Ooooh what an interesting question. Alright, let's see how I'd make the AWAU omegaverse. I'm not going to do everyone, but I'll try to hit the main characters and relationships.

Jaskier: The obvious play is to go omega, but I think that's wrong. I think he's a beta, and therefore assumed he wouldn't be vulnerable to the "send off a less-valued child as tribute" ploy. This also explains why he was allowed to go to Oxenfurt and be a bit wild while there, as an omega might not - and why he's not higher in the line of succession for the county, as an alpha son might be.

Geralt: Again, the obvious choice is alpha, due to the whole Warlord of the North thing. But he didn't do that on purpose, after all, and part of the evolution of his relationship with Jaskier is Jaskier seeing past the Warlord-of-the-North mystique to the person beneath. Also, I'm going to assume that Witchers in the omegaverse AWAU have a method of concealing their scents, so as to mitigate issues with outsiders. So I think the feared and fearsome Warlord, who everyone assumes must be alpha among alphas, dominant and terrible, is an omega.

Eskel: Alpha. Of the "care for my pack" variety, specifically - he'll work himself to the bone looking out for the people who are his. And, occasionally, go avenge them on their enemies in dramatic and extremely violent fashion. And having a demisexual alpha pleases me.

Lambert: Again, very tempting to go alpha, with that temper. But I'm going to go beta, actually. He's just bad-tempered by nature and nurture - and getting less so as his life gets better. And the fact that he wasn't an alpha is part of why his father was so willing to sell him off.

Milena: Oooh, I'm not sure where to go here. Let's go with omega, because her parents do expect her to be a nice obedient pawn for them to move around and marry off as they please. And also it gives Lambert something else to be insecure about, the poor lad. (No, she does not want an alpha. She's very happy with him. Yes, even in her heats.)

Marika: Beta. Cool-headed and calm and rational, by stereotype and nature both. She's going to be a very good queen.

Griffin: Also a beta. Has never particularly wanted to be an alpha. Is genuinely glad that he doesn't have to deal with heat or rut; they seem deeply inconvenient.

Marta: She's an alpha, which explains why their parents were so willing to cut her so much slack and indulge her in so many things. I'm not sure how inheritance rules work in this variant of omegaverse, but she may even be heir to the duchy, right up until she kidnaps Jaskier and Eskel and Milena and experiences Consequences for possibly the first time ever.

Aiden: Alpha, because it makes his preference for bottoming even more scandalous to anyone outside the Witcher society. He's a cocky, charming, dangerous man and he knows it. He does have a bit of a temper but he's good at controlling it, and it blows over quickly.

Aleksander: Also alpha, because it makes him even more like his despised grandfather and he hates it. He doesn't want to be that sort of swaggering monster. Aiden's cheerful arrogance confuses him at first, the flirtation really baffles him, and eventually he's going to settle on Eskel as his role model, because that style of looking after His People makes sense to Sasha.

Livi: Omega - Duke Velen had strong preferences. Which probably means all the Mantikittens are omegas, too. Zia is going to surprise some people.

Dragonfly: Alpha, and has recently discovered her doting instincts.

Yennefer: Null, because she's a mage; their dynamics are removed during the ascension process. That said, I think she was an omega prior to that.

Triss: Also null, because she's a mage. Probably a beta before that.

and finally, Ciri: Oooh, this is the hardest one. But I think she's an alpha. And if she takes after her Papa in ferocity and her Uncle Eskel in protectiveness, she's going to be magnificent.

That's the best I've got - anyone else got thoughts?

[seilnakyle]

Despite Selina being portrayed in her numerous iterations including the recent live actions,the amount of people having trouble acknowledging her as a woc is insane to me.I do blame dc tutorial for this.As time went on they really veered from what makes Selina the ideal Batman counterpart.That is an incredible intelligent and resourceful woman who’s a different sense of justice than him which also makes her an ideal intellectual counterpart.That didn’t really translate in modern media(I like what reeves was doing).Now we have people claiming Selina is just some rooftop hookup for Bruce who can be discarded anytime where his baby mama is his forever love because well they have a baby?It’s so fucking tiring that his fans think Selina is beneath the bat family,isn’t capable of being a good mother or a long term partner for Bruce.I really just want a generational portrayal of her that returns her to her status quo.They seem to be doing Lois good in superman but people are really weird about Selina..

Yup Selina at this point been portrayed as a woc in several adaptations, I wish they would make her canonically Afro-Cuban/irish tbh, I do wonder if we’re gonna get another parent retcon bc of the Falcone connection in Reevesverse…

I think the reason main canon refuses to celebrate her canonically being the daughter of a brown Cuban immigrant is probably the same reason they refuse to celebrate her canon bisexuality. Status quo of editorial being the main enemy :/

We need a good writer to come in and take us back to the east end roots like Brubaker did, bc we have fallen very far from what the Catwoman title and character is capable of.

I want Someone to write Catwoman who is willing to use her character to actually say something of worth, make a REAL story that doesn’t feel like phoned in filler that you could use any female character for and be the same story.

This is SELINA KYLE CATWOMAN! She’s up there with the most popular and well known comic book characters of all time and she’s an anti-hero!! It’s amazing! A complicated emotional, selfish, empathetic SURVIVOR of a character. She’s meant for so much more. I also love what Reeves is doing too, I just hope we get a lot lot loooot more of her. The fact that we don’t have a Catwoman series greenlight yet will only be forgiven if she has another significant role in Batman II…the amount of times she’s *almost* got a series/spin-off show/animated series before and then it just… got scrapped….

But back to the thing about people “acknowledging” that she’s a woc, in some ways I think Selina and Dick are in kinda a similar situation…technically Dick at this point in time has had BOTH his parents retcond to being Romani multiple times by like three different writers,(Grayson made John Romani, Seeley made Mary Romani, TT -mayhaps unintentionally- made them both Romani lol) he should be full blooded. But obviously, on a good day he is still only drawn to look ambiguously tan or just white.

Selina has been half Cuban since the early 2000s and then went through another parental retcon in the new 52 which changed her father and ignored her mother entirely, then another in rebirth with Tom King having her remember nothing of her family, and then one more in Catwoman (2018) that set back Maria and Brian Kyle as her parents.

Both Dick and Selina were originally white in the 40s, both are mostly drawn as white (in main canon), both occasionally have their parents whitewashed in art or adaptation, I suspect DC thinks they’re more marketable with that ambiguity, and leave it up to the artists and writers to recognize that aspect of the character or not. :(

I agree with those that say Selina is a character that could really be any race, and played by any ethnicity, but main canon Selina has an identity too that should be explored and acknowledged at least. She’s not a character that can be any woman because her identity “isn’t important” It’s because her character represents women in a way that has evolved over decades, in a very similar way to Batman’s. She represents “women of the era” like Michelle Pfeiffer said

In the same way Bruce is a “man of the era” and could be played or portrayed by any race or ethnicity, but that doesn’t make his main canon identity as the son of a Jewish woman less important or worthy of acknowledging.

Aaand yep it’s so ridiculous and misogynistic the way certain people love to degrade Selina as a character, her place in Batman mythos, diminish her bonds with the batfam, identity as a anti-hero, and romance with Batman. They love to use traditional family dynamic arguments and delude themselves into thinking Bruce has ever been more serious about anyone else lol

[femsolid]

I don’t know if you’ve already answered this, but I saw your reading count post recently. Can you share what books you’ve read and which you recommend? Whether radical feminism related or not.

With pleasure!

These are some of the books I've read this year. All books written by women. From best to worse.

5/5 books

I Who Have Never Known Men is a mysterious story about a girl who's been locked up underground her entire life and doesn't know why. She's caged with other women, and they're all guarded by men who refuse to speak, for years. It's the story of their escape, leading to even more questions. I often found myself wondering what I would do if I were in their shoes. Dark. Very intriguing. Well written.

Hung Jury is the diary of a female juror on one of the most famous American murder case. When it came to the verdict, the jury ended up divided by sex, because the male jurors were sexist and homophobic, resulting in a mistrial and the public's fury. It was interesting to learn how the justice system works from the inside, especially how it is to be a jury. The writing is light-hearted despite the subject, which emphasize the fact that juries are just... people.

Woman At Point Zero is the true story of a woman sentenced to death for killing a man, as reported by the journalist she confided in. As you read it, you realize that you don't know which man she's going to kill, because her entire life has been mapped out by misogyny and betrayal. She concluded that men can't be trusted.

One Child is the true story of an elementary school teacher who welcomes a six years old girl, who was trialed for attempted murder, in her class. The girl is smart, capable of extreme violence and also very scared of adults. It's a very moving book, not for the faint-hearted, that promotes the not so popular idea... that children are people, too.

French books: Far-Ouest and Une Belle Vie. Highly recommend them to my french readers!

4/5 books

The Left Hand of Darkness is a sci-fi book about a man joining a planet where people are all hermaphrodites. As an intruder from outer-space, he doesn't fit in with their political intrigues and ends up in deadly trouble. It's probably the book that was most recommended to me when I asked for book suggestions on my blog. Clearly a popular one. I liked it a lot, read it in one day, but I was left wanting for some romance because it would have been interesting with the hermaphroditism.

Not So Quiet... is the story of a woman working as an ambulance driver during the first world war. It tells her everyday life; picking up dying soldiers, avoiding bombs and accidents as she drives in the dark, being mistreated by her captain, cleaning blood and vomit, petty fights between her coworkers, not being able to wash, the propaganda at home pretending they're having a great time serving their country, her new perception of war as wasteful patriarchal nonsense etc. It was good, the only thing I didn't like was the bullying between women which wasn't really addressed as such.

French book: "Défaire le discours sexiste dans les médias" a feminist book about sexist propaganda in media.

3/5 books

I'm Glad my Mom Died is the autobiography of child actress Jennette McCurdy. It was interesting to learn how children are used in the entertainment industry. I'd always been curious about how it works and what kind of parent lets their kid play roles such as "child beaten to death", "raped child", or "crying child in a concentration camp"... well, they're narcissistic and abusive, is the answer. However, I got bored after a while and actually had a hard time finishing it. Maybe it was a bit repetitive.

The Haunting of Hill House is a book about a group of people hired to stay several nights at a supposed haunted house to uncover evidence of a supernatural presence. It's really more a character study than a horror book. It's not the house that's interesting, it's the main character. However, the book probably suffers from the numerous haunted house movies and shows that have come out since it was written. Nowadays, it feels pretty bland.

I read tome 1 and 2 of the horror manga Adabana (one more to go) and I have mixed feelings about it. It's about a girl who is arrested after confessing to the gruesome murder of another girl. Tome 1 gives us the point of view of the killer and tome 2 the point of view of the victim. Except, the story changes depending on who's telling it, which leads us to discover who lied and what really happened as it progresses. The drawings are gorgeous, I love the style, and the manga is in a bigger format than usual, it's the size of a real book, very pretty. But there are some really graphic scenes of abuse, including sexual abuse, as the story focuses on how men treat girls and make pornography out of it. It felt very gratuitous at times, too long, too vulgar, I was uncomfortable. The author also seems to be holding our hand a little too much while telling the story. Some things don't need to be spelled out. But I'm intrigued enough to keep reading, so we'll see.

The Housemaid is about a homeless woman desperate for a job who agrees to start working and live at a rich family's house. Only, the housewife is unstable, to say the least, and tries to make her life a living hell. The daughter and the gardener are also strange and not very welcoming. The only normal person is the husband. oR iS hE? I'm giving it a 3/5 because I read it really fast, which means it did the job of entertaining me. But boy was it poorly written! Was it stupid at times! I got so tired of hearing the author fantasize about male protagonists' biceps strong enough to carry heavy boxes and shit. I sent pictures of the most ridiculous lines to my sister all throughout my reading, which made her laugh a lot, eventually she said: "I don't understand, everyone's talking about this book, how can it be this bad?" I think the author publishes one book a year, maybe even several, which explains a lot.

2/5 books

The Vegetarian is a horror book about a mentally ill woman who becomes a vegetarian from one day to the next; her entire personality changes, she becomes withdrawn and no one around her understands what's really going on. The first part of the book is from the point of view of her repulsive boyfriend who is annoyed by her, the second part from her repulsive brother-in-law who just wants to have sex with her, and the third part from her sister, who doesn't understand her. So, as you can imagine, it makes for a compelling read... The book feels like it was written by a man, which is probably why it got so famous and got a Nobel Prize. Every five seconds, you'll hear about the woman's nipples being visible under her shirt. In fact, the female character is relentlessly objectified throughout the book. There's also a really disturbing and graphic depiction of the family dog being tortured, killed and eaten (the book is set in Korea where it's legal to eat dogs) that serves no purpose other than to shock the reader. I'm sure I'll be told that it's deeper than that, that it's a book critical of boring middle class life and principles, or misogyny even, but it just felt like being subjected to the male gaze, and that's not what I want when I read from women. It's a shame because she's a good writer.

1/5

Her Body and Other Parties is a book compiling short stories which are advertised as feminist. They're not. The first story is about a woman who meets a man and has lots of sex with him, described in great details, over and over and over again. There's a ribbon around her neck that he's not allowed to touch. I suppose it represents consent or something. Then she marries him, more descriptions of sucking his penis or walking with his sperm dripping down her leg under her dress at their wedding. She gives birth, the "husband's stitch" happens (title of the story), never talked about ever again, they have a son, she doesn't know about the stitch, her sex life is seemingly not affected, more descriptions of sex, the husband is still curious about the ribbon on her neck, she finally lets him take it off, her head falls off, the end. I guess it was about trust. The second story is a woman describing every sexual partner she's had, male or female, threesomes, whatever, more of the same, for pages. Didn't finish it. The third story isn't a story; the author wrote a fanfic of Law & Order. I'm not joking. She wrote made up synopsis for 272 (272!!!!) Law & Order episodes and published it. It's not "like" Law & Order. It's the actual show with its characters but with made up synopsis for each of the 272 episodes. That's a big chunk of the book... that I didn't read. I decided to give her one last chance and read the story about a woman who wants to get surgery to make her stomach smaller. It was okay, I suppose, but by that point I was still annoyed by the Law & Order bit and decided to stop reading the book anyway.

That's all I can remember right now.

Currently reading: "Le coût de la virilité" (the cost of virility) a french book that examines with great precision how much money we would save if men behaved like women instead of sociopaths.

[possiblylando]

HTP; Ghoul Lore Audio Log Spoilers/Analysis/Discussion

Dude holy shit uh Spoiler barrier and then all in cause

Okay Okay fuck where to begin this episode literally changes everything okay I guess lets start at the Draught. Based on what we know about this unique Draught, it means Grimal might not be the ghoul?? If the ghoul potentially has this Draught (which I vaguely doubt will come into play in this arc specifically) it could mean anyone could be the ghoul so long as they were only in a place without 1 other person. Atleast I assume so because if they could use this high power Dominate on multiple people simultaneously then this whole operation would be cooked from the start. While I was very mixed on the idea of Gloria as the Ghoul previously, I think its far more possible now. This high level Dominate (Lets assume 4 dots) This ghoul could have access to Rationalize or Forgetful Mind, Or any others in that category. If Grimal is was being commanded to act that could explain why everything is so suspicious around her. Have someone else go in and take care of Occam while the ghoul sits with someone else and has the perfect alibi. So now I think the possibilities for Ghoul are; 1. Grimal is the Ghoul (The Draught is a red herring and simply setting up something in a future arc instead of this current one.) 2. Gloria is the Ghoul & has this Draught; this is based more on Vibes and the fact Gloria doesn't actually do too much in part 1 outside checking Occam's pulse. If she's the ghoul and commanded someone (Namely Grimal) to attack Occam, she would have a vested interested in knowing if the attack was successful. Okay thats about it for my thoughts on the Ghoul right now. Onto the far more important bit of this episode. Because this was not simpyl a Ghoul Lore episode, THIS WAS A MARCKUS LORE EPISODE TROJAN HORSE.

But before the deep Marckus shit- Markus was 12 in 1988. Door was present and seems to be in his 20s or 30s. Boy has not been born yet and Boy is 11 in 2006 so he was born in like 1995. So I think its reasonable to place door as being in his 20s here, having Boy in his 30s. This means Door is probably 8-15? (Maybe) years older than Markus which would make him roughly 40 in modern day. D does look markedly younger in these photographs but I'm not sure if thats art style or actually because he's aged. It does put a damped on my thoughts about D being MUCH older than he seems. But we do know his previous Ex-Wife Rozalia (The Ghoul) is roughly 108 in modern day. It seems to be implied D had met & later married her after she was pretty deep into being a ghoul so there probably was a large age gap already. But it still kinda stands out to me. D is very afraid or Marckus becoming a Ghoul because he sees himself in him. I don't necessarily think D was a ghoul (thought it could explain his weird age). Thought all this might be confirmation Bias as in the more recent episodes D's hair has been more consistently colored with grey streaks when compared to earlier episodes where it was more like a sheen in his hair. It just feels like D has done too much to only be roughly in his 60-70s and very fit. While older people can certainly be in good physical condition it doesnt seem like D has suffered any real negatives from aging? He's MINIMUM 18 years older than Door who is in his 40s but again that's a low ball. I don't know. Alright time for the Marckus stuff. So its rather basic background knowledge that HTP's main cast is inspired by the cast of Warhammer 40k TTS. Now up until this point I had thought it was mostly a baseline thing. Only really carrying over personalities and vague relationships between characters while having the freedom to change them with that background knowledge. But based on this episode it appears to be more relevant.

Whatever the fuck Marckus managed to summon, It was something not even D understood. This is in directly parallel with 40k's Magnus who Marckus is based on. For those who don't know about 40k lore (I don't blame you its VERY long.), Magnus is a Primarch (Emperor's special kids) who ended up being manipulated by 40k's god of trickery and ended up fucking up literally everything because of his lack of thinking things through and the influence of said trickster god. Gods in 40k are manifestations of humanity (and alien's) collective subconscious minds and often take the forms of their most volatile negative aspects. They're entited formed from 'The Warp' which is the source of magic in 40k. Magnus is very naturally tuned to the warp. Almost all the issues in TTS (and 40k) relating to Magnus are because he has a MASSIVE complex. He craves parental affection and affirmation but in TTS every time he thinks hes denied it, some shit goes wrong. When he actually gets that parental affection (Earlier season 2 iirc) he mellows out alot until finding out the only reason the emperor (D's counterpart) brought him back was so that Magnus would act as a pawn and decoy in his 5d chess game to deal with political enemies. Magnus is not happy about this. With all this background information, whats present in this episode slots into place. Marckus seems to have forgotten about the incident yes. The better case is that he blocked out the memory due to trauma. But the worse possibility is that a seed was planted. One that's been festering within him since that time. D may be planning to tell Marckus everything in a few months, But I get the feeling before those months are up, That seed will sprout. In one form or another, Marckus will be given the option to go down the same path of darkness as his predecessor. I don't think Marckus would go for such a path without a push but the one providing that push might be D, even if unintentionally. D is so focused on the forest that he's missing the trees.

[sam-keeper]

Hey Look At This Comic: The Property of Hate

I don't know if any form of comics is as love with wild digital experimentation as webcomics. while even indie print comics often feel like they're opting for a more traditional and coherent look, webcomics feel like the place to be if you want people furiously twiddling the knobs and dials to see how far the machine can be pushed aesthetically. a lot of the boldest and most beautiful hypercomic experiments along these lines--stuff like NAWLZ and A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible--probably aren't anything like household names anymore, but it feels like that spirit is alive and well in contemporary webcomics.

like just take a gander at the above pages from The Property of Hate. what an incredible, juicy abundance of style! this is a comic that's not afraid to get messy with layers of effects, even to the point of sometimes being kind of hard to visually parse. this is a digital comic writ large. actually, it feels like it's doing stuff that other comics these days eschew, stuff that was more a staple of--and probably is somewhat negatively associated with--early, rough, photoshop heavy webcomics. (the fact that the Property of Hate started, I guess, in 2012 probably has something to do with both this stylistic tendency, and its love of guys in suits with objects for heads.) like, look at that layering of semitransparent text elements in the first page above. look how hard it's going on the different layer styles all mashed over one another. it's full on reveling in this look, and the effect is a lot of fun, really conveying the idea of "this little sock puppet creature, Assok, just bellowed out a wall of prerecorded sounds".

of course, it helps that the actual cartooning and paneling here is a delight:

I love the touch of having RGB, the tv object head tumblr sexyman there, extend slightly out of frame in that first panel. it does a great job of establishing the "camera" and its exaggerated perspective for the sequence of three panels, setting up the gag of having the Hero fall on RGB in the background while in the foreground Assok's head pops up (and what a great expression lol). this sequence in turn acts as the setup to the big structural break that is the bottom of the page and its wall of noise, Assok comically small at the bottom. good stuff!

that second page, a sequence in which the Hero and RGB navigate the darkness under trees under sea by... sound essence I guess? is more painterly but also has some gorgeous digital art touches. I love the way RGB's body is a grey staticky cutout that looks like a uniform texture painted onto the canvas. the whole page is so lush, especially for something so defined by a very simplified set of brush strokes sitting on deep areas of black.

and then there's this third page, crowded with neon-outlined object head guys. this style does a great job of capturing the concept of a whole city of characters who haven't reached completeness and departed for their individual works of fiction or art--outlines waiting to be filled. the color palette of this location is delightful cause it feels like a black light poster or gel pen drawn on a black backpack. and it's got that mark, again, of digital production: scope out how those outlines have clearly been drawn first then covered in glowing gradients. this is the kind of technique that breaks with the vogue for digital inking and painting emulating physical media.

that's nothing compared to the incredible rushing storm on that last page and its bedlam of filters and blending styles. fitting for a storm that threatens to erase the main characters, the page is almost unintelligibly dense with effects and textures. it's almost a bit... too much? the comic can sometimes be a bit obscurationist in both style and narrative. after reading through it all recently, I wound up skimming back through in search of pages to talk about here and found that things were clicking a LOT better for me after getting some very necessary lore dumps later in the story. nevertheless, I can't help but look at a page like this and feel kinda thrilled! it really feels like Sarah Jolley is constantly looking ways to swing for the fences with the aesthetic of the story.

the cool thing about webcomics is, you can just do that and no one can tell you not to layer on as many filters as you want!

pages from:

this post originally ran on Cohost on June 3, 2024. you can read more reviews in the Hey Look At This Comic tag and support me on Patreon.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

I ken she isn't a character you typically focus on, but my curiosity is biting ma baws so I may as well ask just in case.

What do you think of the dynamic between Kate and John? And possibly the dynamic between her and Nikolai. Apologies, I ken there's about a bawhair of dialogue to work with on Kate and Nik but you're smart and I'd trust that if you do have an answer, then it'd intrigue me.

If you don't, fair enough, I completely get why. I'm just, to my core, a nosey bugger. And I fear an obvious one because Christ, the way I type isn't subtle and it really fucks the anonymity bit of this, I just cannae be fucked asking on my main blog.

I think their dynamic is pretty great but obviously complicated by the fact they're working for, and loyal to, different nations. Until very recently, UK and US geopolitics has been pretty aligned. I think John and Kate, if they existed today, would be struggling like fuck with how the rest of the world is turning its back on the US. All of Kate's avenues of information are being cut, MI5 and MI6 view the US as a liability, etc.

But, anyways, in fiction! First meeting and I think Kate probably thought "aw an upstart baby", because Baby Price with his shaven chin and serious eyes probably looked comical to someone who had a twelve year headstart on him. And then he proved himself to be a truly formidable operator, she realised she needed to build a strong link; he was clearly brilliantly intelligent and also gay as fuck ("aw repressed gay murder kitten").

It started off as a relationship of necessity. Then they shared a whiskey and a smoke after a particularly grizzly op, and it snowballed into actual friendship. John did wacky shit like use a gorilla costume as a decoy, and wasn't afraid to bend, and sometimes completely break, the rules. She liked that. He's smart, witty, funny, and so is she. If he was a woman, he'd be her wife. Luckily, she found someone just as good, but without John's temper and fixation on duty (read: someone healthier), so he gets "best friend" instead.

It's still characterised by their roles though. Sometimes Kate has to keep things from John and she hates it. But it's just the way it is. She hates it when their mission objectives don't align, she hates it when she can't provide him all the intel because she just doesn't know, and the fact that he'll go in anyway... Sometimes she wants to choke him with her bare hands. She'll take his growls and his snarls when he's frustrated because she knows it's coming from a place of deeply seated duty, an honour code that pushes him constantly forwards.

John is loyal to Laswell as much as you can be to a foreign agent; again, there are just some things he needs to keep to himself. He'll go in and risk his neck to save her arse. He respects her highly, would follow her into the maw of hell if needed. Over the years, he's started to see her and her wife as part of his extended family. I think he's probably slept on their couch while injured a few times. I wrote "Kicked Into Touch" initially because I wanted to write that domestic time between them. John values Laswell's opinion of him and he enjoys sharing hobbies/time with her outside of work. He's been to BBQs, the occasional family function; she'll likely officiate his wedding to Nikolai.

Speaking of Nik, I think Laswell adores him and him her, even though he finds her exasperating. "Why do you want to go there you crazy woman, what is--fine." He doesn't understand the American mind, probably finds it more than occasionally frustrating, but he knows Laswell is good and just, working within a straight jacket as best she can. She's not your standard, cookie cutter capitalist. She finds him eccentric but brilliant. She knows she can count on him to achieve the impossible in most situations; acquiring specific weapons, flying into hostile territory, accessing the inaccessible meetings and gangs. Nik is one of her greatest assets.

It was Laswell that gave MI6 the idea to use John to get Nik to turn. She had known Nik for a while by that point as a potential informant but her guys had failed to entice him over. Their offers just weren't hitting the mark; he didn't trust them. She had enough intel to know he was gay, and in an exceptionally vulnerable situation, so she had to play it carefully. Honeypotting him outright was cruel and it would only damage the working relationship later on. She needed someone that sat in the niche of hot and interesting, but not a blatant appeal to his prick.

She told MI6 to put Baby Blue himself right in Nik's path; intense, honest, brave and handsome in a unique, roguish kind of way. Laswell knew the way John spoke, the way he carried himself, his expressive face, would hook their Russian in. So when Price turned to Nik in the bar and said, "Come work with me, Nikolai. We'll change the world", Nik damn well believed him.

[circus-clangen]

asking a bunch of cool clangen blogs (yea you) a question cause I’m working on making one right now- How did you find the main plot based on what clangen generated and make it all mysterious and interesting and stuff?

OHH this is so tricky because SO much of the main lore I’ve interpreted from clangen events hasn’t happened yet, and I can’t spoil it…. How about a very vague one: rng gave me a cat in the future that looked VERY similar to an existing cat I had, with a kit that looked VERY similar to a kit that same existing cat also had. Now I admit that the “Oooh secret family member!” Is probably the most common and least mysterious way you can interpret clangen lore, and I myself have had to tone down my own use of it, but that’s just one example!

I’ve also had cats die of non-murder causes, but given circumstances and relationships with another cat, I choose to interpret it as a murder.

My two big pieces of advice for you are this:

1. As you’re making your plot, write down EVERY little thing that happens. Im even talking the randomly generated character statuses that change every time you reload the game. You don’t have to USE everything and in fact you shouldn’t, but sometimes two correlating minor details are all you need to get a good idea going.

2. Clangen isn’t going to magically make you a wonderful storyteller, and your readers aren’t always going to be captivated. When making a mysterious dramatic plot, know that you’ll get better over time. I look back at my old moons and cringe SO hard, because I just didn’t know what I was doing. And don’t get discouraged if your readers dont seem interested in your mysterious plot or don’t notice all of your foreshadowing details! A good mystery cannot be super intense 24/7, or it’s exhausting. If you want a good mystery, take it slow, and trust that it’ll be more rewarding for the people who really care to stumble across your little details months later, than it would be to compromise and water down the storyline.

You’ve got this! It won’t be easy, and writing mystery is in my opinion the hardest thing you CAN write, but just do what you can and what you love and you’ll do just fine!

GENUINELY both work very well for him. Any accent that’s aggressively and nauseatingly city boy American, that’s how he talks

Anon to be so fr I changed it recently but for MONTHS that’s exactly what it was. Gold star 🌟

Aww weird… that’s crazy… it’s a good thing there wasn’t any kind of supernatural occurrence going on the exact instant Tigertoe found out she was pregnant because man that’d be awkward

*checks toaster over strapped to wrist* hm

U right anon

🫲👀🫱

You guys are not ready for the video essay I’m going to make in like 2 years when Circusclan is completely finished. I have a bottle of wine I’m saving

THIS GUY GETS IT!!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I completely understand and even encourage the Ringstar haters—he’s not a saint—but THISSSS is how I see my boy… he never wanted any of this to happen, and yet it’s his own fault it all did.

Of course—of COURSE he had to let his baby girl live, even though it meant she couldn’t never be anything more than an insect to him for the rest of his life.

Did Goldmasks deal extend to Starclan? Will he even make it to starclan? Something in him knows that surely he cannot… yet something else dreams that maybe his soul and the devoured part of his heart waits for him there. One day, maybe, he’ll peer down through the clouds and once again feel love for his one and only daughter.

[iamhereinthebg]

Heya Anon!

Tbh I don't really know, Akane is a character who has been dealing with a thousand death flags leading to nothing since his most serious appareance in the manga. And this new timeline is not an exception.

Especially since we know that Kako and Mirai gave him 'You have to try to stay alive' rule as one of his duties

Implying that it is dangerous to altern the past and be the Clock Keeper of the Present, that they have to stay alive to make sure everything goes according to plan.

It also ties to my theory that Akane is the first human clock keeper of the present; Because after all if Kako and Mirai have been asleep since they changed the past in this new timeline, they couldn't have chosen anyone during 1968 and the current events in the manga (2015).

Akane is the only person who is directly coming from a different timeline even compared to Nene and Teru who just remember the stuff from the previous one, being on a time limit before their memories are erased. Akane brought along with him the fact that he is a clock keepers and mystery n°1, something he couldn't be in this new timeline in the first place since both of them don't exist.

But I digress.

Akane has been a little bit different since they came back from the boundary closest to the far shore. It's not that surprising with how much the previous arc must have taken a toll on him. Understanding that Aoi wanted to die, losing her, being impaled, having Teru confirming that he will lose years of his lifespan by turning back human too soon, being beaten up twice by number 6, etc...

Akane is like Kou and Nene on this point, a character who wants to do a lot, but is always a step behind when it comes to supernaturals. And like the other two, it is starting to show in his attitude.

Akane has been shown more unsure of his choices and of his opinions when it's something that never posed him a problem before. He is more scared of Teru (when he knows the exorcist by now) and of being hurt in general,. Something he hasn't showed as much before, liking and enjoying life of course, but never being afraid to be in the first line even if it meant being hurt; Now he acts like he is truly scared of dying.

And he lets things involving Aoi not being his first priority. Refusing to listen to Natsuhiko plan to even try to heal her. Akane has always been showed to be really proactive anyways, that's one of his main character trait. So seeing that he is putting something for a later date and it involves Aoi can be seen as a little bit strange. Akane still loves her deeply and all but he seems to have other plans now, which we learn later in the clock keeper arc. He is not even looking at her directly, having an air of melancholy when he announces he will heal her but not now

That's more of a stretch now, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that Akane has known since a long time what it meant to be the clock keeper of the present, that they had the power to change the timeline. But nothing special has been happening to make the clock keepers take this drastic decision, especially since we know that nothing has been ever changed since the Yugi Twins 4th birthday at least. Which is why he probably never thought about it before. But now that he knows the school mysteries are more important, not just dangerous supernaturals but are protecting the land, and that Hanako has been destroying the yorishiros (which to me, seem to be the seals to keep away the God from the pit/the God Sumire was supposed to marry) he seems to be more aware of this duty in general.

Or if he was made aware of it recently anyways, it's something that the clock keepers must have brought up before the fall festival, being something that even someone as 'Carpe Diem, it is what it is' Aoi Akane may not be able to entirely ignore.

He has been forced A LOT in his role lately too and he clearly doesn't really like it, even if he is good at it.

He finally say 'we' when talking about the clock keepers, and consider even himself as the biggest threat of the school. He doesn't know what to think directly of the supernaturals or seven mysteries now. Knowing that they have an important role to fulfill but still not trusting them at all, knowing of their dangerous tendencies to hurt humans. He can't even look Teru in the eyes when he asks him if the clock keepers are planning to change the timeline over and over again. His feelings for the clock keepers being clearly a difficult case for him to tackle down even if he pretends it's not.

I always said this kinda as a joke, that Akane had the role of a Chosen One but went 'fck no' with it. But I think that it really is this kind of stuff now. Like for Nene who is 'the Kannagi' of the current time and get to make choices and stuff she doesn't want to do. Akane is the same with his role as the clock keeper of the present. Because no matter what he says, he kinda has accepted this fate now, preferring to know what is happening (since he realizes how ignorant he was in the "to the far shore" arc), and having a way to be able to change things. Sacrifying his chance to be 'a normal student'.

But he is not happy with any of it, being the one on the front row to endure all of the supernaturals choices, even knowing that if they don't change back the timeline, he will be the last one to remember. And as said previously, he is now a part of it! He is of course still more human than supernatural but he still acknowledges his role way more than before. Akane hates the way supernaturals work and now what he is doing? Being one of the reason the world is in this state. Of course it's taking a toll on him.

Of course, he doesn't accept everything right away, like Aoi's engagement, it's at first played for jokes but even then, it's understandable with how far their relationship evolved in the previous timeline. He is now thrown into the role of 'the childhood friend who never stood a chance in the first place'. I do think he has a right to be a little bit upset

But after understanding that technically, it's not that much of a big deals in the current events of everything else, since at first most people seems okay, he goes right away to do what the clock keepers asked him to do. Even going to go ask for Teru's help when he knows how much he destroyed his trust.

To finish this long stuff, I think the real big ''death flags' for what is happening right now is of course the fact that he got cursed by the red house (which is a supernatural who has already tried to fool him in the og timeline btw) .

And that there is a chance, like said earlier, that there is only one Akane like him for now, and that he could get stuck here or at least not coming back entirely as the Aoi Akane we knew in the manga (a chance for him to become a full supernatural for example, to be forever now the clock keeper of the present) But for this tbh we don't know a lot it's really more speculation because we know nothing of what could happen to him particulary.

My fav 'suspicious af thing he said' for now in the new timeline is this.

The official translation goes " .. And will love my whole life to the day I die and even beyond that."

When he starts the manga with this.

With the same belief than Hanako that 'death is the end' and now he is considering the After Death, with everything he saw of course, but specifically for him in this case.

Bonus: a thing that is apparently confirmed to be a lie, or he can bend the rules, but he didn't say this in front of Teru and Nene the first time.

And something that I truly think he doesn't know anything about too (my brain truly think Kako and Mirai choose him, and I have some delulu proofs but I digress) Akane do not know sht about the clock keepers and especially doesn't see when people show clear interest in him

[oh-no-its-bird]

your uchiha houhua au is living in my brain rent free....im sleep deprived today bc i was reading/thinking about it late last night lol, its so good!!

after the massacre he would essentially be sasuke's guardian, right? maybe not officially but still, he'd be in charge of sasuke as the only older family around? idk if he'd be a GOOD guardian but i can see his paranoid ass just always handing sasuke more weapons and money, just in case

i need to know more about sasuke finding out about houhua and itachi's thing for each other!! and does sasuke still end up going to orochimaru in this au?

YEAHHH IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT !!! Uchiha Houhua remains one of The Favorites(tm) I really need to finish writing chapter 1, I'm like. So so close. So close.

I also need to update my tumblr vault fic with all the more recent Houhua au posts, since theres been a good amount of new content, but I'm putting it off till I'm done writing chapter 1 for the actual fic

No but I'm honored it could take up space in ur brain !!

YES! After the massacre, Houhua basically becomes Sasuke's officially unofficial guardian. There's no real paperwork for it done, but like, they really only have eachother

Sasuke flocks to him as the only other Uchiha, and Houhua takes him in both out of pity + not wanting him to be alone, and also partially because he knows Sasuke is a main character and his survival heavily depends on sticking close to main characters in the hopes that it'll help bump his character importance points

Houhua and Sasuke are stupidly rich now just because all of the Uchiha belongings and funds are theirs now.

There's a bit of trickiness bc technically, most of it should go specifically to Sasuke (as he's now default clan heir, though that isn't exactly worth much now) but Houhua is older than him

Houhua will probably end up splitting things between them, and Sasuke will trust him enough to do it (+ be too young to really realize that's something as important as it really is)

I think in canon, and lot of Uchiha shit got stolen or went ""missing"" in their death, mostly bc Sasuke... wouldn't know what to watch out for / prevent people from trying to take. But with Houhua here, it's going to be way hard for anyone to do any sort of grave robbing

Houhua is absoloutley gonna be taking inventory and his past life's experience means he knows to be on guard for people looting the compound when he's not looking !! There might even be some fun drama w that in the future ,,,

Houhua is stuffing weapons and money into Sasuke's pockets, very much fussing over him every chance he gets.

(Because Sasuke is his meal ticket!! He insists to himself, going out of his way to demolish anyone who looks at Sasuke even a little bit funny)

I honestly think Houhua would make for a good guardian for Sasuke overall, tho he'd for sure have his faults. The key word here is 'guardian', not anything like a father— Sasuke is gonna end up seeing Houhua as his (new, better, real) big brother over shitty Itachi over there

Houhua, as Shang Qinghua, lived to be very old (for a human, not for a cultivator) and had a hand in raising and training many disciples.

I like to reference Pride Is Not The Word I'm Looking For (aka the single best Shang Qinghua fic of all time) for my characterization for him, so he's like. Genuinley a good teacher and uncle, when he tries to be. He is just also burdened with crippling self doubt and likes to insist that every nice thing he does is canceled out by his own selfish reasoning behind doing those nice things

In Naruto world especially, filled with shitty murderous parents and a government that churns out murder babies, I think Houhua will be winning awards in his own parenting skills

Then there's also the fact that Houhua did know and interact with Sasuke before the massacre, just not too often. He was Itachi's weird cry baby friend, he'd hang out with him sometime

They just were never really close, and never really got to interact 1 on 1 for long— till, ofc, the massacre happens, and now Sasuke is latching on to Houhua and hyperventalating if anyone so much as looks like they're going to try and separate them

Houhua's existence as a whole allows Sasuke to be a lot more vulnerable, both because he is not "the last Uchiha" and also because Houhua will no doubt try to piggy back off of his revenge quest or even try to steal it entirely (to try and become a more important character, he insists to himself)

So Sasuke is just. Nowhere near as alone as before. And Houhua's own relationship with Itachi helps Sasuke believe Houhua might get it... more than other people, at least.

Ofc, there's also conflict in Sasuke maybe not thinking Houhua gets it "enough", or like Sasuke himself does, because Sasuke was, ofc, Itachi's little brother.

^ I think that would inevitably come in to play later, when Sasuke realizes Itachi and Houhua might have feelings for eachother. Sasuke would be so fucking hurt and feel so fucking betrayed, believing that maybe Houhua never "got it" to begin with

Things get even more complicated depending on when Sasuke learns this tho, because eventually Houhua is going to share his suspicions about the massacre being not as simple as it looked. So Sasuke's own feelings on Itachi are gonna go on a roller coaster of their own, trying to figure out if he himself can or should forgive his brother or no

Its all just a mess tbh, I love to see it

I HONESTLY DUNNO IF SASUKE WILL GO WITH OROCHIMARU OR NOT !! On one hand, mmmayybe ,,,, if he does, Houhua will go with him, full stop.

But there's also a chance that Houhua might try to take his place too! And he and Orochimaru are inevitably going to interact eventually, bc I have plans ,,,

(I mentioned it in another post, but if Houhua ever shares about the system and his past life with literally anyone, I would choose Orochimaru to find out. I think I could get the most milage out of him, and Orochimaru would absoloutley try to hack into the system for immortality and power or some shit)

I think whatever route I go with w Orochimaru will just depend on what I'm feeling when I get to that point in writing the fic. We will have to see where the story naturally leads me, you know? All of the options are so good, so it's hard to choose

ANYWAYS THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASK !!! I love Houhua au so much, I think its so much fun. Ur ask actually reminded me I really have to keep writing chapter 1, so this has kind of spurred me on to go do that

Hopefully I finish and post it soon!

[murderofsomeone]

it's probably decently obvious that my main lemon demon design was created BEFORE seeing any fandom depictions (or even really that much official art past the logo) because of how violently he stands out in comparison to other designs. it's a little obvious that my inspiration was self-contained and it granted me a bit of creative freedom along with a completely different train of thought while designing him. his three eyes however is very much a relic of 2022 because I was designing a lot of demons with asymmetrical faces at the time and well, why not make another

anyway here's a comparison of him to my most recent lemon demon original design (where it's a bit more obvious I was influenced by somewhat of a fandom culture)

extra bonus rambling under the cut

my general design process has actually stayed relatively contained with a few exceptions like soft fuzzy man's color and weirdly neil himself. yeah sorry chat neil is the first guy that was highly influenced by someone else's design you can shoot me too if you'd like. but I legitimately believe he's the only real example because every other character that has a design remotely similar to someone else is likely due to us both following a similar source material (like my cabinet design being based off polybius) or there being only so many ways to interpret the design (gef the mongoose would've fallen into this category if it wasn't for the fact I made him Joker colors)

in general I tend to follow a mindset of how "weird" I can make a design or how much I can push a lyric/implement it into a design. I also like to twist around the convention and try new things. a good example of both of these apply to my doctor amnesia design.

really the main things going through my head were "well he didn't state HOW many eyes", chosing an eye color that often is overlooked in conventional beauty standards to elevate them and cause you to think, while leaning into the somewhat otherworldly nature she's depicted in by giving her blue skin, a color I associate with the song.

another fun thing I'll do is create a "design pipeline" where I'll take an attribute and run it through a list of connections before we end up in a place long past where we started or just combining a bunch of traits that could be interpreted that way, resulting in designs like this.

though wolfgang isn't my weirdest design, he definitely did not start where we ended off. I believe before the wizard of oz theming for clown circus was set in stone (a choice that has EVERYTHING to do with oz explodes and an element I'll explain later), he was some kinda mirror object head that had absolutely nothing to do with his current namesake. since I wasn't satisfied with that design, I kept a relative aspect of the personality and shapes and thus ended up creating a really interesting take on a character who is largely depicted as... well there's no really good way to say this, but Bad.

since I was working with a new fresh aspect I started by making him a wolf... and then connecting him to "there's a robot in my head". this kind of connected the dots to ultimately make him associated to the tin man, since no one was connected to that character for the wizard of oz element and it was up for grabs (this is also how he somehow got associated with toasters via connecting the previously mentioned song to "what's in the toaster", etc etc). these pipelines of connecting songs that aren't normally related, but making them Work in a believable way makes designs more interesting for me and gives them a bit more purpose and personality. I think this is what ultimately makes people get a bit lost on my interpretations considering they aren't super simple by just being about One Song, but by being about multiple that aren't originally related in the source material. just like how I connected dr amnesia to when he died, explaining a bit of her more mildly supernatural or off-putting elements by making the man in that song her father.

the final real design element that I focus on is the strange rule I follow in terms of how these characters are shaped. there's a massive sort of "alice in wonderland" theming going on in terms of how human/humanoid designs look in contrast to designs that look less and less human. their proportions become more cartoon and shaped, their sizes are affected etc etc all while the human/humanoid characters stay relatively normal next to each other with more believable design elements.

here's the horrid long strip of nearly 100 different character renders next to each other to get a general idea on what I'm talking about

the silhouettes of the human characters "pop" less because they're supposed to contrast to their nonhuman counterparts. which isn't something I normally do, but given the source idea of a sort of "wonderland", I think it works in this specific context.

in conclusion: I'm design autistic and like to use designing to try new things, which is why I fucked that lemon up. sorry about that chat

[plasterbrain]

Hello. First I’d like to say that I love Pizza Game so much. Second, sorry if you’re the wrong person to ask about this and/or you’ve already been asked about this, but what advice would you give to someone who wants to make a visual novel but has like zero idea about where to start, if you don’t mind me asking? I had an idea for a visual novel recently that I really like, but I admittedly have like none of the skills I would assume are requisite to creating a good visual novel aside from writing. Or any real knowledge of what the process for crafting a good visual novel would be.

Yes, I am aware that I am a fool. No, I will not give up on this endeavor.

Also, one aspect in particular that I’d like to ask you for advice about, since it’s a bit similar to a mechanic in Pizza Game that I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of other visual novels use (unless this is a thing that shows up in a lot of visual novels and I don’t know because of the few visual novels I’ve experienced Pizza Game is the only one I actually know about that does it) except actually diegetic instead of just a quality of life feature, is how to make the dialogue roll back like it does in Pizza Game. The main character of the story idea I want to make has the ability to do that as an actual superpower, so however I end up making this visual novel, it’d have to include something like that as a feature. And I’d need to make the game able to acknowledge the fact that you’ve used it and probably also give the player an action prompt for “something interesting will happen if you rewind here,” which I feel like is going to be a pain and a half to accomplish in a way that looks good, so any advice you can give me would be appreciated, though I understand if the second part is too complex for you to just puzzle out how to do for a rando asking for your advice on Tumblr. Admittedly I could probably make the main character’s power… basically anything else, really, since the main point is that they have a superpower and not that it’s specifically time powers, but with the way I’m setting up the story and challenge of the game, the character having a time-rewinding power pretty solidly sets them up as the person who has to do everything without it seeming too… “I know the answer to this problem, but figure it out and tell everyone for me, Naegi.” So I’m kinda attached to that idea, even if it causes me a great deal of annoyance to figure out.

Thanks in advance if you have any advice to give me. And again, thank you for making Pizza Game, truly the best visual novel of all time.

Hi (sorry for late response),

My advice for "how to make visual novel" starts and ends with Ren'Py! It's free, open source, and easy to use for people who just want to write! Nearly every Western indie visual novel uses it, and for good reason.

As for your question... The good news is that rollback is actually a built-in feature of Ren'Py. You probably didn't suspect as much, because it's kind of an unusual behavior to include in games by default and can "cheapen" the seriousness of VN-style branching narratives. (It's hard to make choices matter if you can just undo them 10 seconds later.) Doki-Doki Literature Club and Slay the Princess (I think?), arguably the two most famous Ren'Py games, both disabled it for this reason.

The bad news is that having the game acknowledge use of rollback is kind of difficult. Pizza Game does it twice iirc, but only as quick early gags, because it requires cluttering your script with persistent variables. If your game uses this as a central mechanic, your code will be hard to read, write, and test... I do not recommend it.

If you still want to give your character a visual-novel ludo-narrative superpower, there a certainly other options:

Use the tried-and-true "wow you've completed this scene before? here's different text!"

Have dialog that only shows up in the text history window (I've seen at least one game do this and it was pretty neat)

"Stop" time using audio/visual effects and let your character investigate the scene/people's thoughts or something

Make the game create/detect files in the game folder (a DDLC staple, ofc, though I've seen other meta Ren'Py games fool around with this)

...Or peruse the Ren'Py documentation and see what you can come up with.

Ganbatte, Anon-chan! (•̀ω•́)૭✧

[tobiasdrake]

So I finished Oxenfree 2 recently. Very good and forms a complete story with Oxenfree 1. It's like what Alan Wake 2 was trying to be for its predecessor except that it does a better job of it.

(Probably because it doesn't have to deal with trying to integrate a whole bunch of lore changes that a mostly unrelated side game by the same developer bolted onto the original story. But I digress.)

That choice at the ending was brutal, and really got me thinking about one of my personal wonks: the flexibility and complexity of circumstantial morality.

I will die on the hill that right and wrong are often highly contextual, and not easily hammered into ironclad rules. The Talos Principle 2 is probably the game that landed most closely to my moral beliefs. Specifically when it said the one true moral principle is that you must always follow your reason and your compassion to wherever they will take you.

And it was that very thing, following reason and compassion, that left me momentarily paralyzed by the endgame choice of Oxenfree 2.

So. Like.

Setting the stage for a moment.

The "villains" of Oxenfree 2 are a trio of teenagers named Charlie, Violet, and Olivia. The main plot-moving force is an MCU Sky Portal made of radio waves that they've opened up which is shattering the fabric of reality and threatening to take over people's bodies and fill them with ghosts.

Right.

But Charlie, Violet, and Olivia are the antagonistic characters you actually spend most of the game getting to know. They're the ones you interact with, while the Sky Portal is really just the stakes of the thing.

But also they're just dumbass kids fooling around with forces they don't really understand because Olivia's grieving her dead parents. She is nasty and mean throughout the game, at one point even trying to convince Charlie to stab protagonist Riley with a knife, but it's clear this is coming from a place of traumatized desperation.

Olivia's been promised that she can see her mom and dad again if she goes into the sky portal. Which is true. If she goes into the sky portal, it will imprison her in her happiest temporal memory in exchange for letting someone currently trapped inside out.

Olivia wants to make that trade. She wants to spend eternity locked in a time when her parents were alive. To never grow up, never move on from them, never recover from her grief. To simply languish in the memory forever.

And the main reason we can't let her is because there's a bunch of angry spookers on the other side who see the opening and are all trying to forcibly come through the portal and take over random bodies and shit, potentially ripping apart the fabric of reality in the process. So the portal needs to be closed.

Also there's Alex, the protagonist from Oxenfree 1. A teenage girl who went to a spooky island with her friends that she wasn't supposed to go to, who became imprisoned in the Sky Portal and locked in an eternal temporal prison of repeating memories right alongside all of her friends because she had to sacrifice herself to save the world.

Alex just fucking wants out. She is a teenage girl who had to die and go to Time Hell because she did some misdemeanor trespassing.

She made a deal with Olivia to trade Olivia for Alex. Olivia wants in, Alex wants out, fair exchange. And also all of Alex's friends will be released alongside Alex if she gets out because of... something something. That's not important.

(That Olivia is metaphorically trying to commit suicide is pretty blatant.)

So we arrive at the endgame.

Someone needs to close the Time Portal from the inside. And the player has to choose who stays in Time Hell. The one option is Protagonist Riley, a grown-ass woman we've spent the game getting to know, who's lived a complicated but mediocre life. The other option is Olivia, a traumatized teen girl trying to kill herself out of grief but who technically caused all this.

Like. Starting at the fact that "Do you (correctly) sacrifice yourself or this other person (you coward)?" is a pretty common moral choice in video games. The way Oxenfree 2 handles it is... interesting.

See. I think most people, facing this choice, aren't going to have a very hard time with it. Olivia seems tailor-made to produce one of two kneejerk reactions.

1 - Olivia is the villain who did all this. Fuck her. She should die and go to Time Hell.

2 - Olivia is a child lashing out over her trauma. She deserves a chance to recover and get better, and my protagonist's life is a small price to pay for that.

Depending on how much sympathy you have for troubled children whose emotional hardships manifest in ways that aren't convenient to handle and easily brushed aside in a five-minute pep talk. Personally, my kneejerk is the second.

But this is where things get complicated.

Because. Like.

The thing about Riley is?

A lot of this game is subtextually about the complicated relationship between parents and their children. There's a reason you're cast in the role of a grown-ass adult who's still figuring her shit out and isn't ready for the burdens of parenthood in a conflict whose central antagonists are troubled children. Children who need an adult, and can't wait for you to get ready.

Riley is two months pregnant. This is happening. Rex's birth and all the struggles that entails are bearing down on her. She doesn't have time to figure things out anymore. She needs to be ready now. And this manifests in the plot in the form of these children who need someone to guide them now. Charlie, Violet... and Olivia... and Alex.

And it manifests in Rex. Through the temporal flashes and undoing of reality that strikes throughout the game, Riley sees visions of her life with Rex. And it's. Not great?

Like, it's not terrible.

But it's just. Moments of drama and the struggles of raising a child as a single parent. Riley isn't a Hollywood Parent armed with all the right answers, and she struggles to connect with her son as a single mom raising a boy who's just as much a troublemaker as she was for her father, who she no longer has a good relationship with.

She's just. A mediocre person leading a mediocre life. Raising a son who isn't going to be easy to raise, but who - by his own admission in the final conversation with him - will grow up to be a mediocre person with a mediocre life, but one who's satisfied with the mediocrity his mother instilled in him.

Riley is nobody special. And Rex will grow up to be nobody special. And it's going to be difficult and painful getting there.

And now Riley has to decide the fate of two three people.

And. Also. Uh.

Alex is lying to you.

Specifically, in the endgame choice.

Alex wants to get out. She wants Riley or Olivia to stay behind. She doesn't really care which. She is on the cusp of her freedom and she needs one of them to go into the portal and shut it down, in the process trading themselves for her.

Alex says that it's okay for Olivia to go in because Olivia's doomed. Olivia will never recover from her grief. Never come back from her trauma. Letting her metaphorically kill herself is the best possible outcome for her.

This is a bald-faced lie. In the same conversation, she admits that Olivia's future is cloudy and uncertain. She has no fucking idea if Olivia can recover or not. But she says it with certainty anyway because she doesn't want there to be any complications with letting Olivia trade herself.

Olivia's fate is, indeed, uncertain. If you sacrifice Riley, then Olivia goes one of two ways. She may wallow in despair and resentment and bitterness for the rest of her life. But if treated with kindness, if shown the patience and understanding of an adult to a child, Olivia goes into therapy. She comes back from the edge and moves on with her life.

Alex was wrong to say there was no hope for her. Or, more specifically, Alex was lying. Because she wants Olivia to go into the portal.

Alex also says that Riley's relationship with Rex is doomed. Rex is going to grow distant from Riley and ultimately separate from her. There's going to be a breaking point that they never come back from. But if Riley goes into the portal, then she can live eternally in a temporal snapshot from the best days of Rex's childhood.

She can be happy with her son and never face the doomed future of her inadequacy as a mother.

Alex lied to your face about Olivia's hope of recovery. There is no reason to believe that she's being honest about this. Alex tells Olivia and Riley what they need to hear in order to be willing to condemn themselves to a fate one of them must suffer.

Alex is lying, or at least spinning coercive interpretations out of a foundation that may or may not be true. She wants someone to sacrifice themselves to the portal. Nothing she says here is unbiased, and thus, nothing she says should be counted as part of this consideration. There is hope. For Olivia and Riley both.

(Technically you can also sacrifice Jacob. But only if you've gone out of your way to make him feel miserable and unloved by the world. And let's be real, if you bullied a man whose only crime is being lonely so that he'd be willing to commit suicide for you, you're the bad guy.)

So. The choice.

This is where things get hard.

If you were to ask me, "Does Olivia deserve a chance at recovery?" I would say yes. In a heartbeat. And, in fact, I love that she can actually get that chance if treated with kindness and understanding in the face of her lashing out.

It means the world to me that this outcome exists. The game makes a firm statement that even a child as troubled as Olivia is not a monster. She is just grieving and wounded, and she can get better. But only with the help of adults willing to suffer through the trials and tribulations of trying, of not giving up on her even when her pain pushes her to strike out.

It's not easy to change a life. This is why foster children have a hard time finding permanent homes. People think "Yeah, I can handle a troubled kid," but then give up and write the kids off as unsalvageable when their problems can't be solved overnight.

Olivia isn't going to get better because you said the right thing to her at the right time and made her anguish go away.

But Olivia can get better. With time. And work.

...

But.

The problem is Rex.

Because, as much as what Alex is saying is a lie, the choice itself is just as much of a lie. It's not a choice between Riley and Olivia.

Rex is not a hypothetical future that Riley might have one day. Nor is he a child waiting for her at home, who can be taken in by Jacob or someone.

Riley is two months pregnant with Rex. The gun to Riley's head is a gun to Rex's too. If you sacrifice Riley, Alex's endgame letter to Rex changes to a letter to Riley's father. This is because Rex went into the portal with her. He will never be born, existing only as a temporal shadow in Riley's memory of a future Rex will never be allowed to live.

This isn't a choice between Olivia and Riley.

This is a choice between Olivia and Rex.

Fuck, is this complicated.

For me, the presence of Rex in this equation, the fact that there is no way to sacrifice Riley without also sacrificing Rex, changes the math considerably.

At this point, it is no longer a question of, "Do you, as an adult, sacrifice yourself for a troubled teenager?"

Now it's become the Trolley Problem.

Down one track, there is a teenage girl waving at the trolley and shouting "COME ON, HIT ME!!! I WANT IT TO HIT ME!!! GO AHEAD AND HIT ME!!!"

Down the other track is my goddamn son.

...

And I know what my answer to that question is.

[centrally-unplanned]

As part of my current quest to get out of my recent "hobby" nadir of low motivation, I am watching The Animes more - one prong of multiple I assure you, isn't a full weeb project. That includes the seasonals, so I watched the first two episodes of Gundam GQuuuuuuX. Directed by Tsurumaki, of FLCL fame! With Anno advising and Yoji Enokido doing the scripts! With character designs by take of Pokemon legend! I was definitely optimistic for this one.

But man, were those first two episodes rough for someone who isn't particularly a Gundam fan...

The first episode was "fine" - the character designs are, of course, amazing, take doesn't miss:

This is one of my "language of anime" moments, where like from the outside "hey let's make the characters 20% blobbier and also add highlights to their eyes that match their hair tones" is such a minor change, but once you are someone who follows ~2000 anime artists seeing designs that stand out in these little ways from anything else around is super cool (at least when they first debuted in Pokemon and spawned imitators, ofc). Having characters with the level of pop in their color pallete as Machu, or the sallow, dark-toned frigidness of Nyaan, in what is technically a war mecha show, feels like a fresh identity. I really liked the rooftop scene for their initial meeting (loved Machu tripping mid-speech, moe-cute moment), and these two are like walking opposed emojis, that too is yuri:

But everything else! That is a lot of jargon to throw at someone for a first episode? And it isn't meant to be technobabble I can just ignore, it is the plot. They obviously expect me to have seen the original Gundam, but that is a show from the 70's, lots of people haven't! You can do this more gracefully. And meanwhile, as runtime is eaten up by loredumps, Machu's character is just forced to become a fucking lunatic and instantly jump into a mecha to Fight The Police for ~reasons? I am sure we will learn reasons, but in the moment I was watching her bumbling from generic mobile suit to discovering the Special Gundam and all suspension of disbelief was blown - "yeah okay they need to get her into the famous mecha, I get it, you can skip this part". It was just very awkward.

Obviously none of this is helped by the fact that modern gundam has just committed to the idea of their mecha being fully-3D objects that pristinely bounce around space with no sense of momentum, feeling, or visual drama to them, so all the fight scenes are pretty bland.

Still, okay, rough first episode, but that happens - maybe episode 2 will flesh out the two main characters a bit now that the premise is out of the way?

Well that is a little hard to do when they do not appear on-screen because episode 2 is a fucking flashback alt history remake of the original gundam show!! It is just Char Anzable being his gay war criminal self for ~20 minutes. I had no clue what was happening, I authentically thought I was watching the wrong show.

They didn't even let us see if his eyes have a Pokemon Trainer hue shift, the complete cowards.

I am obviously not gonna hate too hard on the Huge Otaku at Khara being huge otaku about this and expecting you to have seen the original Gundam - but this is something you do in like episode 8. I did not need to know any of this alt history stuff yet, and I certainly don't care. I don't even remember the main character's names yet! I had to google them for this!

In any other context that level of one-two punch would make me drop this show, but in the end this is Tsurumaki, this is Khara, every anime junkie I know is talking about it - I probably will give it at least ~2 more episodes. I do respect that the fundamentals of character, animation, and directing are there. If they stop being fucking dorks for five seconds this show could be good, so I am hoping they do that.