#in the sense that I “watched” the whole show through Tumblr reactions

[bekolxeram]

For the first time in weeks I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow's episode?

Don't get me wrong, I'm still completely checked out emotionally. What interests me isn't the well written plot, the endless Brad storyline or any tiny sliver of hope I still hold for Bucktommy.

I just really want to know what caused the ongoing 911twt meltdown. I've also picked up a slight uptick of crazies sending anon hate over here.

Still not watching it through official channels. I'm going to piece the whole thing together through Tumblr posts I guess.

I'll bring extra popcorn.

[alchemistc]

911 was always in my periphery bc of how popular Buck x Eddie is on Tumblr and Ao3. I didn't really want to watch a cable network procedural drama, especially one that came off as so unserious. I could also see how such invested shipping by a lot of fans who are young and think it’s ok to demand things from the cast and crew would inevitably become a toxic cesspool. I stand by that assessment of the show based on the behavior of the fandom these last months, as well as the overall quality of the writing and how often good story lines just get dropped or undermined.

However, I heard about Buck coming out. Over the summer, I was going through a lot and feeling aimless, so I finally started watching the show. And I liked Buck and Tommy, but what I really loved was the quality of the fan works they inspired. At the end of the day, I never really had real expectations of high quality television from a show like 911; that’s not what it’s for.

Despite this, what really affected me last night—which was also the first episode I bothered watching live ever because of how terrible this last week has been—wasn’t even how badly it was executed or the fact that they broke up. But how unnecessarily and viciously cruel the whole thing felt?

What was the point of showing Tommy as a caring, supportive, present partner in the previous episode if it was going to lead to an unceremonious break up? What was the point of showing his yearning for connection and family only to see him throw it all away? Why have him say such wonderful things about Buck moments before questioning the commitment of their relationship after six months together? What was the point of Buck getting that speech from Josh and bringing up marriage and moving in together and that Tommy had been a transformative relationship when it was going to end with him being dumped? It just felt so horribly cruel to see a character bare his tender heart and see it get stomped on. He looked so sad at the end.

Up till the very end of the episode, I was actually really enjoying it. Their acting was so good from heart eyes to heartbreak, and the show seemed to understand Tommy’s reaction to Buck getting hit on by those women would cause friction. It even made sense to me that Tommy would recoil at the prospect of moving in together because Buck clearly hasn’t come to terms with being queer yet (sir, you haven’t researched the Kinsey scale? You?) And Tommy is also clearly afraid to reach for the connections he wants and the seeming inevitability of his heart being broken and is masking that with nonsense about Buck needing to play the field and the biphobia present wherein. It was such an interesting depth to his character! I thought the break up speech was so well-acted, and I was so ready for the conversation they were going to have that would address it and let them move on together stronger. To see Buck learn from Josh and see the scars Tommy was unintentionally revealing in that moment and address them.

And then the credits started rolling and I felt like I got punched in the gut.

It was definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back for me, with the election and other personal stuff really stressing me out this week. Last night, I felt sick and unable to sleep, and I spent the morning bawling my eyes out. It feels like one of the few things I really looked forward to had been snatched away for the shock factor. I believe the interviews are the definite death knell, but even if you don’t follow the interviews, it was just a cruel way to end the episode. Even if this ends up being a temporary roadblock or they “fix” it, it’ll always leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Anyway, I’m upset that I let a show I always knew wasn’t very good affect me this much, and I regret spending months of my life on it. But the reason I wanted to send this ask was because my real hyperfixation these last few months was never the show itself; it was always the Bucktommy fandom. Reading some of the most beautiful fanfiction, including yours, these deep and intense character studies or au’s or future fics that show more love to these characters than the show does. The stunning art, the lovingly rendered gifs, the startlingly funny and insightful writing. The fandom has been my real love, and I hope that despite this huge blow, people like you will continue being so immensely creative and artistic for this ship.

I’m sorry this has been so long and vent-y, but I wanted to send you this ask because you’re one of my favorite fic authors, and I’ve been following your posts since last night and you’re still responding to anonymous asks. I’ve always been stealth in the fandom to avoid certain parts of it, so didn’t want this on my own blog. If you do publish it, I hope the other authors and artists and creators who have made my life better get to see it too <3 And that they don’t regret the time and passion and love they’ve poured into the last few months. I have appreciated it, if nothing else.

Hi.

First of all, please don't apologize for the length of this.

Everything you pointed out were exactly the reasons people joined this fandom. Everything you listed here is EXACTLY the reason it left such a bad taste in our mouth.

I'm sorry I won't be more eloquent in this post, because this is such a kind and thoughtful and lovely summation of all the things I've been hearing and seeing and feeling.

The point of all that, if we are to believe Lou (which I do, and honestly props to him for being as gracious as he was in those post-mortems: fucking TWO exit interviews for a guest star? wtf abc), WAS to pull the rug out from under the audience. It WAS to end it all on a shocker of heartbreak. They filmed the bulk of Tommy's S8 scenes AFTER the breakup. It is absolutely vicious and cruel and meant to make people talk about it. The engagement they are getting right now is to some extent WHAT THEY WANTED. I went straight to my notes after work and I can't be fucked to check the insta or FB to see if they've posted anything new and/or what the comment count is on the 8x06 posts but THIS IS THE INTENDED RESULT. Broken hearts, upset people, an increasingly toxic fandom crowing.

That's where I'm at. I think that's where a lot of people have landed. And it's so disheartening to see something that really genuinely drew people in because it was handled so gently and kindly at first just be ripped away and the door shut on it.

And honestly if they close the mid season OR open or close 8B on a premise that includes one of them being injured and the other having a Realization™️ I won't trust this team to do it genuinely or truly. Even the breakup would have held so much potential for me, but not like this.

Anyway. I'm sorry you're feeling so disappointed. I am grieving the missed potential of literally every plot they built up this season for every character and if I do watch it won't be live and I will likely have very little trust for it's potential. There has been So Much wasted potential.

And I want to say thank you. Even if you lurked, even if you disengage now, the creators who made those works made them out of love and they wanted to share them and the community around it all has been lovely to see. Thank you.

Some of us will still be hanging around building the world that could have been. I hope, if you feel up to peeking at that sandbox, that you feel welcome to go play in it or even just clap from the sidelines.

♥️

[variousqueerthings]

okay I watched good omens s2 yesterday with my partner, and I was genuinely very surprised -- I think if you've grown up through superwholock/merlin/the 100/teen wolf type shows where (with the exception periodically of doctor who) you kind of had to make up the good show that something could have been in your head, that colours a lot of your viewing, and to be honest I thought season 1 of good omens was a fine little piece, honoured the book while modernising it somewhat, it was a nice, fun, low stakes time, with a couple of things I might have wanted a tad different but nothing overall awful.

so I was seeing all this meta and gifsets and discussion, while I was waiting to give s2 a watch with my partner and thought "ah, people have made up the good show in their heads again" not that I assumed s2 was going to be a bad show, but that people were taking extra deep plunges into possibilities, the way fandom does, and that was fine. I knew there was a big ol kiss, I had a sense of some kind of argument at the end, and that it was setting up a s3

I also knew that mainstream reviews were calling it (politely) self-indulgent and dependent on whether or not you enjoy david tennant and michael sheen having a good time for just under 6 hours

all in all, expectations of a somewhat mainstream show without too much to think about, a nice, fun low stakes time, moving on...

(EDIT: AND THEN I WROTE A LOT OF WORDS SO YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT MY REACTION WAS QUITE DIFFERENT)

as it turns out it seems these things that were being written on tumblr were discussing the actual text of the show and not things you could extrapolate if you squinted and tilted your head a little to the left as I'm so used to doing, so in fact there is much to think about!

and my first thought was "this is like when you read early discworld books that ask a question like a joke, only to find that over time the answer to that question becomes very serious (and also can be funny at times of course)." how terry pratchett would pick and pick at tropes and notions and social ideas and go "oh now hold on, this seems strange..." starting way back when he thought it was odd that women warriors always seemed to be dressed in metal bikinis and then realising he hadn't done a good enough job of subverting the trope, simply by depicting it and calling it a bit silly

why do goblins always get treated as the villains? what's with this divine succession of kings business? where are the female dwarfs? who do we treat as disposable?

good omens season one went: "haha what if heaven and hell were intensely incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring of the work they did, and we took an angel and a demon and had them actually care? wouldn't that be... a bit silly?" (and it was)

good omens season two went: "what are the consequences for caring when the people who have power over you are incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring? what are the forces that supersede systems built on fear, ignorance, and violent conformity? can people change and break out of/challenge/break down these structures by caring?"

and this was set up with a neat little sleight of hand (to reference aziraphale's switch-and-bait in the episode with the nazi zombies), because the majority of season 2 does feel a bit indulgent: hey, remember those two wacky angel-and-demon characters? watch some more wacky things they did through the ages, watch them take a sojourn through 1827 Edinburgh and do a magic show during the Blitz, and... stop the death of Job's and Sitis' children (actually maybe that whole segment ought to have been what they call "A Clue")

see them try to figure out a kooky mystery, all the while setting up a cute little same-gender romance on their street. watch as everything points towards a happy ending that's all about the two of them realising what they've been to one another all these thousands and thousands (and thousands and thousands) of years- but hold on. lest we forget - and the show has made this point over and over - there are powerful people who control them, who hurt them, and who plan on hurting others, throughout the whole season, and as it turns out they know what they've been to one another for far far longer, and know how to pull their strings...

season 2 then, has to show us these things, not because they're indulgent (well, maybe occasionally, but the apology dance is still important), but because in order to make the ending a tragedy, we first need to understand, properly, the impact that they have had on each other. we need to understand that Aziraphale relied heavily on Crowley to be his moral compass and leaned on black-and-white thinking in order to deal with things, because if it's all grey then where does he fit and what has it all meant and heaven has to be the good guys, even as Job's and Sitis' children are ordered to be killed, it's all he ever had...

and Crowley was always an anchor, needed to trust that Aziraphale was different, needed to bend to every whim that Aziraphale has, because otherwise what's his worth in all this? After having been already deemed worthless by the heaven that Aziraphale needs to believe in?

and that, simplistically described, is the narrative that we're seeing in s2, and alongside that the ways that the changes they have upon each other are noticed, and monitored, and placed under suspicion, and finally... broken up, not by the clumsy, brute force that's been attempted over and over again, but by a promise to return into a violent, controlling system and to "make it better from within"

and all of this is wrapped up in two queer relationships + a third queered-within-the-text relationship that creates the inverse of how it ends for Aziraphale and Crowley (so far). queer love -- whatever shape that has -- is explicitly the shape of non-conformity within this narrative, including within the symbolism of angel-and-demon love of Gabriel and Beelzebub, which in the context of the systems created is considered queer (and one can argue till the cats come home about casting cis actors, about angel-and-demon notions of gender/romance/sexuality, but the "queerness" comes from building something non-conforming to the systems they exist in), and enforced by the explicitly our-world-definition-of queer romance that Nina and Maggie have going on (which, while less high stakes, still contains the background controlling relationship that Nina initially is in)

all of this to say, that I disagree that s2 meanders, or that plotlines happen for the sake of showcasing Aziraphale and Crowley without purpose, or that characters get sidelined (I'd say it sets up a whole host of interesting characters to further get into actually), or that it's strictly mainstream easy-access narrative that's just an excuse for the main creators and actors to get back together.

the love is the point, and this show takes its time to show the love (and the unequal boundary-setting, and the fact that one of them has an undiscussed tragic backstory, and the desperation to belong again, and the fear instilled by oppressive systems, and and and), so that we understand why those last 15 minutes happen the way that they do

it's sleight of hand, and like all good magic, you don't notice until it's happened

[musashi]

its just so frustrating to have watched the psy-op revolve around black lives matter in 2016 and see all these legitimately intelligent leftists on my dash let their despair at not being able to do more indoctrinate them into what we now have tangible proof was a psy-op. watch them spread that anti-voting rhetoric that definitely had a hand in the worst, darkest government i have ever lived through, where thousands of people--including my friends--died.

it is so frustrating to watch the revisionist history take place now. "there was no psy-op! tumblr was just banning black bloggers because they're racist!"

(tumblr was not the only website affected, black twitter users had a whole HASHTAG where they exposed these bots as fakes, and there are actual fucking government documents you can easily google & read on this)

and now the same thing is happening using the genocide of the palestinian people as the same conduit. indoctrinating people whos politics rightfully are rooted in empathy and righteous compassion, passion for activism and change. showing them these violent photos of war and death, dragging them into these depths of despair, and then cheekily reminding them right at the end--remember, you're powerless. voting won't save them. reblog another gofundme, doomscroll for another hour, traumatize yourself with another photo of a corpse, and stay home on election day seething.

propaganda does not come in the form of a bogeyman. propaganda relies on convincing you that complacency is the best thing you can do.

i understand how horrible it feels. as an autistic person i suffer from hyperempathy, combined with a strong sense of justice that makes me feel like i am ON FIRE if i cannot help someone in need. but you need to take a deep breath, before reblogging that video where a bunch of palestinians out of context say "the election in the US doesn't matter," and think to yourself--why was this video made? what is the source? who is paying them? is it possible that these responses are cherrypicked? does this video give a wide breadth of the nuance involved, or is it just meant to get a reaction out of me?

this is a skill you can build. you are not immune to propaganda. but you can learn what propaganda looks like, and minimize your capacity to fall victim to it.

it's ok that you do sometimes. it's insidious on purpose. it's not a moral failing. but you have to try your best to think back on things, realize you might have internalized some bad ideas, and learn how to do better in the future.

yes, destroy the fucking democratic party. thrash them. rail into them. spit fire and venom and demands at them. protest. rally in the fucking streets. press their backs against the wall.

after we vote them into office.

[purplink8]

About Lights supposed care for Sayu

That may have been true for pre-timeskip Light, but post timeskip, there's not much evidence that Light feels any kind of affection for his family. To prevent his plans from being ruined, he attempts to kill her after she is abducted, but doesn't only because it wouldn't make sense for Kira to do that. He also shows no reaction at all to her near catatonic state following the abduction, meaning that Light likely sees Sayu as nothing more that another person he could potentially use to further his own goals, much like all the people he interacts with

I assume you mean this post of mine?

I think I have already compared how the anime adapted this scene vs how it was portrayed in the manga. And I suppose that you're going by the former since the hints (however subtle) are present in the manga that Light cares for his family (which includes his sister of course).

There's a much detailed & thorough post by tumblr user casuistor about this subject so I really recommend you to check it out.

Okay moving on to your ask.

About Lights supposed care for Sayu That may have been true for pre-timeskip Light, but post timeskip, there's not much evidence that Light feels any kind of affection for his family.

That may be true if we're going by the anime. But since I prefer the manga (I had read it before watching the anime) and analyze canon through it most of the time, I'll have to disagree with you on that one since the manga does have evidence that Light loves his family.

It's subtler than before the time-skip but it's there. I'll happily point out why I think so.

Light appears to have grown distant from Sachiko & Sayu and that's because of the whole 'Soichiro chose to disown Light (as he disapproved of Misa) & Light ran away to live with Misa' lie they had told them. Yet their (+ Soichiro's) opinions on Kira matter to him:

You do not try to convince people of something as important as your secret ideology if you don't at least care about those people (read: Light cares about his family).

Despite being a lil distant, Light & Sayu haven't lost their playful teasing/bantering kinda relationship as Light compliments Sayu on jokingly rejecting Matsuda and Sayu teases Light about marriage.

I'll discuss Sayu's kidnapping in the next section of my answer (see also: my linked post at the beginning). To sum it up: Light puts himself to a disadvantage (as Kira) to save Sayu.

I believe these words are very genuine. Light has, from idolizing his father, grown to disapproving his self-sacrificial (his putting justice above family) nature. He reminds his dad how hard it'd be for the family if he leaves them behind and makes him promise that he'd do his best to have both of him & Sayu live. Observe closely how not letting the Note to Mello isn't the priority but rescuing Sayu is the first thing on Light's mind.

He also asks Soichiro if he & Sayu are okay as soon as he gets the opportunity. Not a word about lamenting the loss of Death Note but a simple are you okay?

After a few days, Mello contacts Soichiro again (the latter's phone is to be kept on in exchange for the former not killing him). And asks him about the new L's identity and threatens to kill Sayu if Soichiro doesn't answer.

Observe Light's face here. It's very clear that he's having a great difficulty in making a decision: either tell Mello L's identity & risk getting killed yourself or refuse Mello's demands resulting in his dad & sister's death.

He seems to be actually considering surrendering his name to Mello to save Sayu & Soichiro! (But it doesn't come to that as Matsuda offers his name instead)

My argument is this: if Light didn't have any affection for his family in the second arc (as you say), then why did he hesitate to plainly refuse to answer Mello's question (a question which is too risky for the new L's life)?

The answer's plain & simple: He wouldn't seriously consider to give Mello his name if he didn't care for his family. Thus, he does hold affection towards his family. Period.

I can go on & about how Soichiro's death devastates Light but a picture is worth a thousand words:

I do believe that his tears are very genuine here; Light's crying does Not have crocodile tears behind it- in other words I think Light is VERY upset by his dad's death so much so that he loses his cool that Matsuda has to physically restrain him:

After Soichiro's death, he tries to emotionally distance himself from that tragic event (referring to said event by the impersonal 'them attacking Mello's hideout' rather than smth vulnerable to Light i.e. 'his dad's death'):

He's trying his best to avoid explicitly thinking about his dad's death, choosing to drown himself into his work instead: so much so that Matsuda is concerned about him:

And he acknowledges the risk of his identity as 'Light Yagami' is L being revealed to Near just because of him staying quiet after his dad died like he is THAT affected by it and trying to hide that fact.

I hope you can see that Light cares about his father. Let's get back to the topic of his regard towards his sister.

To prevent his plans from being ruined, he attempts to kill her after she is abducted, but doesn't only because it wouldn't make sense for Kira to do that.

I have discussed at length why that is not the case in the manga but here's the gist of it. I tried to keep it short. I really did.

The NPA director Takimura is kidnapped first -> Other NPA heads are duly notified -> Light kills Takimura without a moment of hesitation, assuming that the kidnappers will take the fall for his death (it's part of Light's keikaku plan so that Kira won't be blamed for his murder. And since only the kidnappers and the NPA know about the kidnapping: it won't be assumed that Kira has any link to the NPA) -> the kidnappers do take the blame themselves (just as planned!...)

(...not. as: ) Sayu is kidnapped -> Mello instructs them to not notify the other NPA departments lest they kill Sayu -> Ide pressures Soichiro to notify other NPA personnel out of obligation, Soichiro agrees to throw his daughter under the bus. and. then-

Light does a complete 180 and says outright to the task force that it was probably Kira who killed Takimura (instead of y'know killing Sayu immediately to stop the exchange like he did with Takimura) -> essentially arguing against notifying other NPA members (to save his sister actually)

This sudden change in Light's plan (from having the kidnappers blamed for Takimura's death to Kira being blamed instead) is actively detrimental to Kira's cause since only the kidnappers and the NPA personnel know about Takimura's kidnapped and suggesting that Kira is behind Takimura's murder implies that Kira has ties to NPA (remember that Light is now a part of that NPA) so not a win for our Light-o.

Also, if he was really serious about killing Sayu- he had two easy, very easy options:

1. Do nothing.

That's it. Remember Soichiro was ready to notify the other NPA personnel (Ide pressures him to do that). Thus, if the NPA (apart from the task force) made any move, the kidnappers as per their threat would've killed Sayu themselves.

If Light didn't jump in to rescue his sister (coz that's what he did in canon) by offering an alternate possibility of Kira being behind Takimura's death, Sayu would've ended up dead.

2. Kill Sayu himself at the best opportunity (which was when he had just heard the news about her kidnapping; not unlike how he wasted no time to kill Takimura).

But Light far from considering these options (*holds a neon sign reading 'LIGHT DOES NOT WANT TO KILL HIS SISTER AS HE CARES FOR HER'*), goes "hey, is anyone gonna save my sister?" and does not wait for an answer which he's already gotten what-with even his father agreeing to notify the NPA personnel which would've resulted in her death.

So no I don't agree with you when you say "To prevent his plans from being ruined, he attempts to kill her after she is abducted, but doesn't only because it wouldn't make sense for Kira to do that." since the reason it wouldn't make sense for Kira to kill Sayu was because of Light himself blaming Kira for Takimura's death (he did that to save her otherwise the police would've moved and the kidnappers would've killed her anyway).

The result of Light's actions? Now if he were to kill Sayu after revealing the real murderer behind Takimura's death, the list of Kira suspects would narrow down to...the task force as they are the only ones who know about the kidnapping other than Mello & his gang. Light is canonically a genius so why would he do something like this to jeopardize his own previous plans? The answer is simple as Ryuk points it out.

Light has a soft spot for his sister. I have elaborated on this in my above linked post so this is a bit redundant to say the least. (not that I mind your ask! I love discussing the tragedy of the Yagami siblings to anyone who'd care to listen.)

He also shows no reaction at all to her near catatonic state following the abduction, meaning that Light likely sees Sayu as nothing more that another person he could potentially use to further his own goals, much like all the people he interacts with

With Light you cannot take his reactions (or lack thereof) at their face value. He's more complex than that.

The following scene (in which we see Sayu visibly showing her disdain for Kira since he's the reason why their dad is so busy that he couldn't come for New Year's.

And Light's eyes are hidden as they usually are when he's feeling emotionally conflicted. He can't stop being Kira however that doesn't mean he likes causing his family misery indirectly.):

...is a direct parallel to this one (& both happen to be around New Year's which I assure you is not a coincidence):

His dad is dead because of him being Kira. I'm not saying Light is the direct cause of his death. Far from it, as Light had intended Matsuda to have the eye deal and die for it, but instead his dad had volunteered which wasn't according to his keikaku. Still Light being Kira is of course an indirect cause to Soichiro's death and the idea isn't lost on Light.

He likely feels very guilty for the same and cannot bring himself to face his remaining family. Sayu's current state (her in a wheelchair after the kidnapping) was indirectly caused by him being Kira as well. It isn't hard to imagine that Light has difficult feelings about that too. I'd argue that his lack of a reaction IS the telling factor of how much he cares actually.

He cares to the point of not daring to meet the rest of his family's eyes after the two incidents (Sayu's kidnapping & Soichiro's death). He cares because he is the cause of the Yagami family being the most tragic. He cares because no matter what he told Ryuk, that he'd be the exception to the rule of Death Note users being faced with misfortune, he now knows that he isn't that exception with his own family in shambles.

Death Note is a tragedy because of how much Light Yagami cares.

[lumilasi]

"Lone wolf's a Dead Wolf. Healthy Wolf protects the Pack."

Earlier this week, I reblogged a fanart piece for the Mouthwashing game, wondering why it was so popular, as while I had seen the game months earlier, seeing Tumblr get so into it was surprising as at the time, it didn't stand out to me too much when I first watched it. After being nosy and snooping around the tags, I now fully get why it has become such a phenomenon here.

Anyway, the whole thing kind of inspired me to want to make my own lil space crew. I'll be keeping their designs simple though, as I don't wanna stress myself out with this too much; its just a small side thing for funsies. I don't have full design ideas for others yet, but I figured I can at least post this guy for starters. I admittedly don't fully like the poster one, buuuut IDK how to fix it rn so I'll leave it as is.

More info about him below: (under the cut bc ONCE AGAIN my descriptions get far too long....)

The poster's Lone wolf quote is basically Stefan's mantra; it both shows how despite what he may seem like at first glance, he very much cares about the people around him, and how the whole "lone wolf" thing isn't even realistic (and in a way, harmful way of thinking), and Stefan knows that.

When I say "dad" I mean he is the responsible friend who tries to keep most shenanigans at bay - mainly from their tech assistant Mara.

The person yelling for him is in fact Mara

He's bi, tends to be oblivious to people's crushes on him because of a lot of self-loathing caused by what happened. He also learns later on he is polyamorous too.

He met pretty freaky people in prison, but NOBODY was as scary as his current captain, according to him.

His childhood friend has a crush on him, and so does the medic lady. He is aware of Matt's crush on him, but somehow completely oblivious to Cherry, even though she shows it more obviously.... (the Captain and the systems officer find it VERY fun to watch)

Those two aren't competitive or anything about their shared crush, they're both the kind of people that just want their loved ones to be happy and would be happy for either if they got lucky - provided the dumbass would notice either.....

His wolf motif is because of his surname meaning "wolf"

BG STORY STUFF: Stefan wears a gas mask, because of his sensitivity to a common gas type utilized in most spaceships' systems in this story; a special type of non-flammable gas, that unfortunately can cause hallucinations, and in his case, causes bouts of severe aggression/Lack of sense of pain.

-----> The reason why he has an odd reaction is because of some evil scientist shenanigans he had to go through as a kid, unknowingly to him and his mum, who thought the doctors were trying to cure a terrible illness he supposedly had. (They were just testing out brainwashing stuff, you know, usual evil government bullshit)

------> he ended up in prison because while working in another ship, he had a severe fit and killed a lot of his coworkers (whom he already had negative emotions towards due to their shitty behavior towards the woman staff - he was raised better by his mama)

-----> There was a massive riot in the prison he was in, hence he managed to escape.

His friend insisted on helping and got him in the ship; Stefan initially avoided everyone else like plague afraid he'd have a fit, but did grow fond of the oddball group pretty quickly.

Then, during a space-pirate raid, he learned that he can actually recognize this group even in that state, so they aren't in danger from him - plus their captain is a very prepared woman, and had already figured out his history. (She has stuff to knock him out to sleep it off)

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: georgesoot

today's interviewee is georgesoot/dreamwasfound, who, in his words, "emerged from the senior living center to tell all". under the readmore is a transcript if the questions and answers.

Q: What was, in broad terms, your experience in MCYTblr? Are there any experiences/events that stand out to you?

A: Well it was primarily an outlet to channel all my obnoxious thoughts about Minecraft at the time. I had started watching Minecraft videos during the Pandemic, and came across [they who shall not be mentioned] and noticed there wasn't really a community on Tumblr yet. I just knew that someone had to show up and make it gay. It was easy to slot myself in, start making posts that I will never understand how I thought they would be funny, and slowly built up some sort of a following due to my sense of humor but also due to my ability to soberly ~critique~ the Minecraft Men as content creators, micro-celebrities, and as people. I never really fell into niches or was much aware of what other people were doing, until I was kind of folded into this idea of Dream Lying. I don't mean to sound self obsessed but I didn't really care about anything beyond my immediate sphere of friends?

For instance, you mention with other interviewees the Elections. I did not pay attention to those for a single second. I do remember we were saying "stop the count!" because we thought Georgeeehd should have won. And I dubbed Wormweeb the Prime Minister of Mcytblr, but I don't even remember who was running? Or why this even happened?

But as for other events, if they were funny or I could wring something out of them, I do remember them. For example, the mass migration of Kpoppies to Tumblr after it was suddenly "legal" to ship content creators. That compltely shifted the "culture" if it can be called that. I remember all the fake stan accounts, but I never attempted to interact with them. Obviously I remember the Tapeworm post, all the Discourse, the Controversies, how I was able to get hundreds of notes by summarizing events of the DreamSMP, my great shame in life.

But yes, most of the time, I was not there to take things too seriously.

Q: More specifically, what was your experience being in Dream Lying/early critblr? Do you think your experience differed from “main” MCYTblr?

A: As for my experience in what has been dubbed Critblr, well I've been credited with helping to start that whole movement. I think it's funny, because truly the kind of reaction to [censored]'s warcry scandal just wouldn't play out today the way it did back then. But I think it's a function of being an adult, that I could look at [censored] not as an idol, like at all whatsoever. It's easy to swept up in the emotions of things. But as a veteran of Discourseblr, and multiple fandoms, I could see through [censored]'s lack of media training and awareness of the average center left teenage perspective on these issues like it was wet tissue paper. People were mad at for that, but I didn't care what people thought of me.

Maybe by coincidence the other members of Dream Lying also had similar worldviews to mine. Everyone could look past the stanning of it all and recognize when something "canceallable" occurred and discuss it frankly and succinctly. Well I couldn't discuss it succinctly but others could. So to answer your question, yes it was a different experience from the rest of the "community." And it got to the point that it wasn't just "holding creators to account" it became fun. It was fun being the buzzkill in an ironic sense, and also fun in an unhinged way to just create these ludicrous scenarios of [censored] the Young Republican cornering you in the hallway and asking you so how does gay sex work actually though? And again, shipping was a component of this too.

And we turned out to be right. At the risk of sounding arrogant, this will become a theme.

Q: In previous interviews with DLying members, we’ve discussed that misinformation/in-jokes were a big part of the culture, one of them being that Dream sued you for libel. Do you remember any others? Did you expect so many people to believe you?

A: As I mentioned, I didn't take things too seriously. I enjoyed doing a little light trolling, such as when I infiltrated a [censored] stan tumblr server and showed everyone his dogs, and then reveled in the drama of them acting like I killed their families. People also turned on me because I abandoned The Ship for a ship that comprises of two… perpetrators of sexual misconduct as of March 2024, though that would also be true of the Popular Ship as well.

Anyway my personal computer died sometime in early 2021, so I, as is per the usual for my personality, made it into a joke because it really was quite stressful. I mentioned to Reese Georgeeehd and Ozzie ohge0rge (sp?) that [censored] must've sent a virus to kill my harddrive. This evolved into [censored]'s legal team sending me a cease and desist letter, as I'm sure I was being extra ~critical~ on Tumblr at the time.

They asked if they could make that The Official Narrative. I cautioned against it, it leaked anyway, because their "Private Twitters" had hundreds of followers, and this enabled this joke to become a full fledged rumor. And then my "ops" as the kids call them, got wind of this too. Most didn't believe it, but some had this "If it did happen GOOD!" attitude.

But some other examples… let me think. We did try to heavily imply that Ranboo was a former member of our organization. We rarely outright lied about the creators, but we did usually distort or exaggerate things when it came to us, for comedic effect. Frequently someone will say to me "Oh so and so mentioned you again," and my go-to answer is always "Tell them I got hit by a bus," or "Tell them I'm withering away from my dementia in the nursing home."

I did not expect people to believe me, because I did not spread the rumor because I had completely disappeared from the "public" by that point. I purposefully devised a very unrealistic joke in the first place, so I really don't know who would believe that. Especially since I was known to be friends and enemies with doxxers, who could find that information out if it existed.

Like the thought of [censored] being so hurt by a single anonymous loser calling him a Trump supporter and a bad voice actor and someone who was going to hold his British friend captive in his basement and force him to go on a keto diet to the point that he starves to death, or that he had offshore bank accounts to evade Taxes, or that he paid his brother to be his body double (this turned out to be true), that he was pretending to be bisexual for clout, that he had 100% cheated on his speedrun (also turned out to be true), that he had enslaved his mother as his maid, that he and his other friend from Texas would engage in a little frottage as bros do… well the list is endless. But the thought of him being so offended that he gets his lawyer, whom he pays, to send me a cease and desist letter… well it's one of the few things I came up with that was actually funny.

Uh but no, anyone with a healthy attachment to reality would never believe that.

Q: I understand that you were also in EBblr and its surrounding communities. What was that like? 

A: I was never in ebblr… all I did was watch a few Tubbo streams, realize that he was probably gay, and I was right. Because what do you expect at this point?

I pointed out publicly that Tubbo and Ranboo were engaging in some light queerbait, except that they were obviously both queer. The point was I thought they (or at least Tubbo) were trying to engineer a New [censored], because that gets you attention which gets you money… like Kaceytron was right about everything? In these spaces, being Queer is a commodity. But I'm letting the point get away from me.

In private, I mostly reacted with bemusement, and we did have some genuine enderbabies, as I called them (mostly derisively), in our server, who took it all so literally and that it was so kawaii desu. I thought it was cringe. Like, Tubbo pretending to be coy and saying Ranboo's foot was bigger than his forearm. That took me RIGHT back to my days as a cringy 19yo baby gay trying to flirt. Oh I'm getting embarrassed thinking about it. But there were a few moments that Tubbo and Ranboo manufactured together that I thought were pretty cute and wholesome.

On the whole, I'm still confused as to why I'm included in this sub-community. I approached Enderbees as a marketing thing, or something of the sort. I never read fics, I never looked at art, I never really cared. I especially didn't care about their "characters" on the SMP, which also set me apart from the genuine unironic shippers. Some thought this was worse than shipping because I was committing that dreaded cardinal sin: speculating on CC's sexualities.

And yes, I popularized the word Truthing in this context. I explicitly modeled it after 9/11 Truthers, because the JOKE (hi remember none of this was meant to be too serious) was that we were deranged conspiracists who were probably best kept away from normal society.

Q: Is it odd to be regarded as infamous within the MCYTblr niche? 

A: No it's not odd, I at least partially strove for infamy. Any attention gratifies the ego after all, not just postitive attention. Then there was the absurdity of it all. Here I was, in the Pandemic, having multiple degrees, looking for jobs, getting a job, going to work, paying taxes, and theater kids in high school were probably drawing devil horns on my pfp and throwing knives at it. All because I said everything I said about [censored], or "speculated" that Technoblade was gay because he had drama kid energy, or called Tommy annoying that one time in 2020, or babied [censored] too much. There's really no end to the list of nonsense I was spewing.

And I'd argue that I'm not infamous. Gayminecraftmen had to tell me about your blog and your interviews. I'm doing this because my friends think it would be funny. And the Drama of Georgesoot emerging from the senior living center to tell all is the kind of stupid humor I like. But aside from this, I haven't thought about Minecraft in a while. I have to be spoonfed lore about these annoying content creators who don't even make content anymore. Anything I learn about the "community" now is against my will.

At the time, maybe I was infamous, but now? I don't care. To even dignify my "infamy" would be to admit that Minecraft Youtube is even relevant anymore. How pathetic! I just filed my taxes and got an oil change last week. Me and the homies are having Dune watch parties and writing elaborate screenplays for Timothee Chalamet to star in in our heads (shout out to Ciara). To reminisce on my Tumblr infamy for a community of mostly teenagers about Content Creators who made content for said teenagers and later preyed on those teenagers… is so opposite from the adult problems and adult interest I have. Not to be condescending but that's just how it is!

Q: What are some common creator criticisms that you remember from 2020-2021? Do you still stand by them?

A: The common criticisms have held up in my opinion. [censored] and [censored] were queerbaiting. [censored] was cultivating an audience of loyal vulnerable teenagers and he took advantage. So did [censored]. And [censored] who literally bites people? Oh… okay then.

Dream Lying was right about [censored]'s friend whom he invited into his home and whom he tried to gift a career, only to be outed as an abuser. We were right about [censored] coming from not just a conservative background, but a bigoted one, one that he refused to actually grapple with. We were right about MCC being rigged. We were right about the cheating scandal. We were right about so many things.

The only thing I was definitely wrong about was the [censored] really did hop off the plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan. I thought he for sure would just put off the [censored] team hype house meetup forever. My psychic powers don't always work I guess. That wasn't a criticism though, just my coping. Oh and I was wrong that Ranboo was an industry plant, but I was right that he's annoying and has no talent. And Dream Lying said from day one that Tubbo and Ranboo's little relationship would not last the summer and we were right! In fact during that whole thing I also speculated that Tommy would start queerbaiting and then he did! I felt like Cassandra at times.

Anyway back to the point. I mean the criticisms of [censored] were just all encompassing, and basically stemmed from the fact that he was like all these video game boys- a white man from a republican household who was not properly media trained because Streaming is not a real industry career and none of them were prepared for fame. And that has borne out over and over again. They all have shady pasts, they all abuse their fame and take advantage of fans. So I do stand by these criticisms.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to speak on or have archived?

A: Not really, I've already said far too much, so apologies to whoever edits these, I hope you enjoy the novel I wrote for you. I don't know, I have dementia, none of this is real. Karlarmy forever. Also who even knows if I'm the real Georgesoot.

[in-a-bucket]

Whit character analysis because this dude makes my brain go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Uh spoilers for all of drdt i guess? Idk better safe then sorry

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Ok, so it probably wouldn’t take much scrolling through my tumblr blog to figure out who my favorite despair time character is, can you blame me tho? I’ve always had a lot of thoughts about Whit floating around in my brain ever since I’ve gotten into drdt, but the amount of thoughts has exponentially increased since ch 2 part 1 finished a few days ago. I think we can all agree there’s something odd about Whit, The first time I really noticed it was right after Min’s execution. It was super gresome, probably one of the hardest to watch I’ve ever seen both in canon dr and fangans. This execution had Veronika of all people shook to their core, but Whit...

Uh, you are aware she literally got torn apart by wolves, right Whit? Hu even kinda calls him out on his comment immediately after this. Most people when they see a person die in front of them, they usually react with horror, fear, anger, sadness, you get the gist, but here Whit seems, mildly annoyed? I don’t really think that’s the best way to describe his reaction but either way, it’s too underwhelming for watching someone die right in front of you, especially in such a horrible way as Min’s execution was.

Ok then, does this mean Whit is some unfeeling asshole or something, well no, because earlier in this same trial he says this,

I mean this whole entire section shows that Whit isn’t some heartless monster, if he was just doing this for the sake of making sure they didn’t vote for the wrong person he didn’t have to add in stuff like this.

Ok so what’s his deal then, well remember how I said although chapter one got the brainworms started, but chapter 2 increased them exponentially. Well in chapter 2 it starts to become a lot more prevalent how odd Whit acts when it comes to death and the killing game as a whole.

He does this...

Making a joke about Min’s horrific death, having that kind of reaction to seeing Arei’s dead body, it’s not normal, at all if we take into consideration everything we’ve discussed so far, it just doesn’t make sense, especially cause he has moments like this,

Like the way I see this, he just seems to be really understanding of other people, and their feelings and circumstances, so it just seems super odd that he doesn’t really take death or the killing game itself for the matter all that seriously.

So basically, Whit’s a walking contradiction, why exactly is he like this? Well I believe it has to do with his secret.

His secret is worded exactly like this: “Your mother is dead, you always omit that truth”

I always found the way his secret was worded to be interesting, it’s extremely vague. Arturo’s secret also involves a dead family member, but that one specifies that the cause of death was suicide and that Arturo himself was involved somehow, now it’s highly likely this was worded in a way to make Arturo look as bad as possible, so what does this have to do with Whit’s secret? Well it’s a bit odd, his secret doesn’t make any mention of how or when his mom died, and the only way Whit is brought up is that he hides that truth, but it doesn’t imply that he was responsible in any way. It’s interesting that some secrets are more vague than others.

There’s also some other stuff you could analyze from it. Take the first part of Charles’s secret, “your older brother died” vs. “your mother is dead”, when you look at those two statements, don’t they mean the same thing? Why word them differently if they basically mean they same thing. Well Charles’s is worded in the past tense whereas Whit’s is worded in the present tense, why is that? Although this is more my personal opinion, Whit’s feels more like and intense statement, a fact that can not be ignored, this is what’s real here and now, which ties in to the latter part of Whit’s secret. He omits the truth, he denies it, but he can’t run away from it now that’s there written on paper, there for everyone to see.

So what does this all have to do with Whit’s contradictory behavior. Well I think it’s highly likely that Whit witnessed his mom’s death, whether it was an accident, a suicide, a murder or something else, he saw it all and, to put it bluntly, it broke him. He simply couldn’t handle the idea that his mom, someone he clearly loved a lot and cared about, as evidenced by what he said in chapter 1 with Teruko and Charles, was suddenly not there anymore. This was probably the absolute worse case scenario in Whit’s mind, and what do you do with a bad situation, you make it better of course! And that’s exactly what Whit did, even though his mom was dead he convinced himself that everything was completely fine in order to cope. If he remembers all of the good things about her, then she’s basically still here, and that means everything is fine, right? 

Now I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and guess that Whit’s mom probably died around time Whit was in middle school (so like 13 or 14 yrs old), I don’t really think she died when he was like elementary school age, and based on the way Whit acts in the prologue it wasn’t like super recent either. Considering he is able to identify his own secret during the ch 2 trial, his mom didn’t die with in the years that got erased from the students. Now middle school up till freshman year of college is plenty of time to develop a terrible coping mechanism, especially because it seems to be implied that was a pretty lonely guy, his dad worked overseas a lot and according to his character page, he doesn’t have any luck with love either, it’s possible he did have friends growing up but maybe his relationship with them fell apart after his mom died. Either way, it’s inevitable something like that would fester without a good support system.

Now several years later, Whit is thrust into this killing game and he is faced with people dying in front of him again, so he does what he knows best, pretends that everything is completely fine and that they’re all gonna get out of this somehow. so he tries to focus on the positives and tries to make a generally more positive atmosphere by cracking jokes every chance he gets, since dealing with the positives is way easier than dealing with the negatives. Thus stuff like this happens,

No it’s not alright Whit there is a dead body in front of you.

His hidden quote fits with this idea too, “We tend to idolize the dead”. It’s an accurate statement in real life, when people die we try to remember the good things about them from when they were alive. This is what Whit does, just to an unhealthy extreme.

There’s even this line from the FTEs which technically aren’t canon, but it still gives you a pretty good idea of Whit’s thinking process

Ya know shove all of your negative emotions down and away and only focus on the positive ones, this will totally not backfire in any way.

It also makes sense why he has the talent he has, to enjoy making other people happy with fulfilling relationships as a way to distract himself from his own pain.

So, where exactly does Whit go from here as a character? Well first of all I’m like 99% sure he’ll survive chapter 2, there’s evidence that shows he’s unlikely to be the killer and from a writing standpoint, if Whit were to be killed off now, then the only purposes he would’ve served in the story was comic relief and to give Charles some character development, so basically it’d be a waste to kill him off in chapter 2. I will say this though, if both Charles and Whit are still alive by chapter 6 that is a huge red flag and that probably means Whit’s the MM, I think the most likely out come is one or the other dies. I used to be super confident on Charles living and Whit dying but honestly, Charles is developing faster than I thought he would, so it could go either way. But I get the feeling the the peak of their arc will happen in chapter 4 (maybe 3, but I feel more confident about 4).

Under the assumption I made previously, chapter 3 happens as normal (whatever that is lol), but once ch 3 ends and ch 4 starts a certain someone has noticed that Whit is the only person who has yet to crack in any way, shape or form. So motive or no, Veronika starts to craft a plan, in order to make this killing game as fun as possible and to finally break her stubborn classmate. I could see this going one of two ways. Either Veronika kills Charles and pins the crime on Whit or she creates an elaborate trap for Whit to accidentally set off killing her or one of the other students. Personally I prefer option (and not just because Whit get’s to live), but because it allows for his character development to be explored in later chapters. Basically once the body is discovered, you can tell Whit is barely holding it together and then like midway through the trial he finally starts to crack. Then in like the aftermath of the trial it asl comes crashing down for him, everything that he forced himself to believe to make life easier he can no longer believe and its just ajkldlkjdljdalkfhlkfahafkkdhfsklfslkhfsakhj.

Anyway I’m probably gonna post this, go to bed, and wake up tomorrow and realize there’s more I want to add but that’s life I guess. I’ll probably end up making more whit posts anyways once the people I talk to discord start get my brain going.

This probably sucks but idc I have so much Whit brainrot you people have no idea.

[itsclydebitches]

We can agree that the tonal dissonance is the worst part yes because why did they come out of that good ass smoke confront yourself scene with Ruby making a hilarious meme face at us 😭 can they decide if they want serious or slapstick or at least make said slapstick feel more cruel/surreal, like go for a tone where the characters are suffering but the inherently ridiculous world is constantly fucking with them. I feel like that'd land better than 'hehe Weiss is going grrr and making anime bubbles! Ignore Ruby having a panic attack! This is irrelevant!'

Thanks for responding to the other thing as politely as you did and I hope it didn't come off as a personal attack. You do seem nice and you make a good point I just kind of feel bad for you slogging through this show you hate KSHSKSHS

Nah don't worry about it, anon. Idk how to really explain it, but for me a "bad" show isn't necessarily a "slog" show. I like waking up Saturday morning to watch RWBY, knowing I'll get to write a recap later, engage with other fans throughout the week, etc. It could feel overwhelming at times given the previous one day pace I had set, but not a slog (no matter how much it might sound that way in recaps because, as established, there's A Lot of problems to cover that obviously color my tone). But the moment this project actually becomes an uninspiring slog I'd just... drop it? I mean, no offense to anyone here who likes keeping up with these posts, but I'm not a Content Creator℠ in the sense of this being a job. Tumblr doesn't pay me lol. Whenever/if ever it's no longer enjoyable, it's no longer something I'll do. Simple as that.

Anyway, YEAH. Tone. I had the same sort of, "Wait, huh?" reaction to Ruby's exaggerated panic over losing the Cat (complete with more stylized, manga-esque animation cues) immediately after she's reminded that Salem is two steps away from destroying the whole world and they have no plan to stop her. It's truly jarring. You know what I was thinking about the other day though? How although it's obviously weird, frustrating, and sometimes dangerous, Ever After should also be beautiful. Creative. Inspiring. An astounding, impossible experience! We got a little bit of that with Ruby walking through the garden, but leaning into the girls' amazement could be a good way of lightening the otherwise dark Volume. I mean, they haven't just landed in a fairy tale, but a beloved childhood classic complete with favorite characters, gorgeous scenery, unlimited magic where before they've only seen bits in combat... Do you have any idea how fucking STOKED I would be if I suddenly found myself in Narnia? The Shire? Hogwarts? Or yeah, Wonderland? Even if I knew that there was danger here and even if I had something traumatically important to get back to in the real world, there would still be a part of myself simply giddy at the prospect of exploring my favorite story. If Blake spent more time gushing over meeting her favorite characters, if Weiss stood in awe at the architecture, if Yang was Ooo-ing over the cool creatures here, if Ruby took a breather to look at sentient toys and go, "That's awesome" we could add a lot of lightheartedness without interrupting the primary tone. Right now, the girls' attitude is primarily "Wow, this world is the worst" rather than "Wow, this world is a wonderland." And true, that is (mostly) accurate to Alice's experiences, but it's not helping me enjoy the setting when the girls so clearly hate being there.

[dannidorina]

Here’s a ship prompt for meljayvik, if that’s alright?

Where Viktor and Mel discuss/explore each others’ magical elements, talkin’ about the origins of Mels and consequences of Viktor’s, and Jayce walks in to comfort the both of them?

MORE THAN ALRIGHT! My beloveds <3 Here's a quick one-shot on tumblr only bc I'm moving a lot of shit today so I've only got so long ^^; enjoy!!!

CW // Mentions of body dysmorphia with V's hand

"Could you show me again?" Mel's voice was soft, mellow. She prompted Viktor, but she wasn't demanding.

Viktor nodded slowly, raising his purple, metal-fused hand and making a fist. Once more, his hand glowed in reaction to the pressure, illuminating the dimly lit room.

Read more...

"Fascinating," Mel slinked her hands up to cup Viktor's hand. She could feel the arcane presence through her skin, almost creeping up through her veins and nerves. It was like her own magic, but not entirely the same. If she heard the corporeal ringing of her own magic from her implants, they sang in the major key. Viktor's sung in the minor. They were two sides opposed, yet it didn't feel negative. If anything, Mel felt a new sort of compliment between the two.

Viktor sighed, letting his hand go slack in his girlfriend's grasp. It had only been a few weeks after the attack on the council. He remembered the evening in fragments, through falling debris and golden flashes of light. From then on, they'd been in hiding. Secretly stashed away from Piltover and Zaun conspirators alike.

When one group hates the use of magic, and the other hates the heavy-handed rule of the council, how does one even begin to protect the council's first-ever (and last-ever) magic user?

"What does it feel like?" Mel asked, breaking Viktor from his own thoughts.

Viktor replied, "When I do that... when I do anything with this hand... I feel this connection. Like there's a whole universe behind my own limb, and I'm not--" Viktor paused, "I don't own my own hand." It was true: his hand had started to 'detach' itself from his body. Not in a physical sense, but a mental one. It wasn't his, as much as it was built off of his own appendage. It looked foreign at the end of his arm. "I can't help but hate it."

Mel frowned, her eyes turned down as she stared at the hand. "I can't help but know how you feel." Viktor looked up, watching her expression change into one of understanding. "I didn't ask for these shields." She tapped her shoulders. "They're not mine. I've come to live with them, not love them."

Viktor took up her hands in his own, bringing them close together so that their foreheads touched. Mel sighed, nuzzling the soft hairs and the edge of his forehead.

Behind them, heavy footsteps broke them from their trance. "Is everything okay?"

"Jayce," Mel said, not letting go of Viktor, "Come here. Please."

Jayce didn't need anything more--he never did. He crossed the room and turned to the chairs the two were sitting in. He knelt in between them, bringing the two into a tight embrace. His strong presence--utterly human and full of strength--leant stability to both of his partners.

They dared not move as they held on to each other, unsure of what was to come in the future. Mel and Viktor could only hear, very quietly, the din of a major and minor key mixing between them.

[amethysttribble]

I don’t quite know how to explain myself in a way that makes sense…

In 2012 when I was a freshman in highschool, a classmate told me that One Piece was the most popular anime in Japan. Way more so than Naruto! You should watch it. And I did, and I did and I did.

I took my laptop to the library and watched One Piece during lunch (because I had no one to sit with) and during my free period (because I had no one to talk to) and I fell in love. Those loveable rascals, the beautiful world they inhabit, their brilliantly conveyed struggles, I loved it so much.

When I ran out of show to watch, I picked up the manga, and have been reading since 2016. Since the last chapters of Dressrosa.

I was in in that fandom. I read the fic, I was young and stupid and saved art onto my laptop because I had no tumblr to reblog on, but I scrolled and scrolled through tumblr without an account. I watched thousands of chapter reviews and reactions and video essays and I just… I loved it. I truly did. Do.

And it’s funny, I’ve never written fanfic for One Piece because… it’s too sacred to me. It’s too good. I get everything I need out of from the main story, and, it must be said, I feel I have nothing to contribute to fleshing out that lovely world and characters (unlike the Silamrillion, which is also a brilliant work, but leaves a wide sandbox). I always felt that I could never write Luffy properly.

As a brilliantly executed character, he is singular.

So. Then-

In the year 2020, I was watching a streamed event called “the Reverie”. It was a live discussion featuring a whole bunch of One Piece YouTubers. They’re discussing fan theories and reactions to the latest chapters, when suddenly, a live guest came on.

Matt Owens, one of the principle writers for the recently announced One Piece Live Action tv show being produced by Netflix.

To say I was skeptical of this would be a massive, massive understatement. I was dreading the possibility. Who could write Luffy but Oda? No one.

Then, Matt Owens spoke. Spoke, on a live streamed chit chat session between a bunch of nobody YouTubers (who were all somebody’s to me). Like, who does that? But he did and he just… he got it. He was a fan, it was like 2 in the morning and I couldn’t stop watching because he was a fan. He wanted to put us, mega fans, at ease. And he did. I felt seen.

I thought, “you know… maybe.” Wasn’t going to hold my breath, though.

So I followed the news.

The casting, the filming locations, the delays, the leaks and the rumors and the insiders. Cowboy Bebop on Netflix terrified me. Like, to my core. RoP was coming out around the same time and I just didn’t have the energy to get worked up for or about it, because something bigger was coming.

RoP was so empty and mediocre, I couldn’t even be mad. Why should I bother putting energy towards that? The One Piece Live Action was shaping up to be, good or bad, anything but empty.

It was something that, against all odds… kept looking not just good but loving?

The casting was perfect. I literally screamed on my parents couch when I saw it. “But okay,” I said, “that doesn’t mean that much.” And then we started getting images of those ships, the ships they’d made. The Baratie, the Going Merry, and Alvida’s ship.

That one stuck with me and I know why: because they didn’t need to make a minor villain’s ship that faithful and that memorable. But it was.

First trailer: I laughed I smiled I worried still. Oh… that’s not Luffy.

And it’s not. I stand by that, I’ve never seen anyone write Luffy like Oda, write him properly. But it was Luffy’s spirit and I adapted. It looked so good.

The news coo had a hat.

Second trailer, the same. Just let the dialogue be good. The sets be good. The condensing be good. Just let it be good.

And god, here we are, and it’s- it’s so good y’all! It’s just so good. Tonight, I was a 14 year old girl sitting on a musty library couch watching this show, aching for a big world and group of companions to explore it with. Freedom and dreams and laughter filled my soul.

It’s One Piece. That’s all it needed to be, and it did that and more. This is a version of one of my favorite stories that I can share more easily with people I love. I’m so happy.

Yohoho ❤️☠️

[konoa-t]

GranEssex Live Konoa Reaction (part 1)

Henlo I am deciding to do a live reading of @kachikirby ‘s series GranEssex Chronicles

I’m gonna try and go through the entire series, starting with the first book, “Wings of Beginning”

This is my first full-on live blogging(?) post, so idk if theres any way I should be doing it but f*ck it we ball

Anyway there’s a lot of text so behind a cut it goes!

(SPOILER WARNING cuz i’ll also be talking about what goes down in the book to give context for my ramblings)

Chapter 1

Note: Gonna try to use punctuation for now but this will probably disintegrate as time goes on (me hate punctuation on tumblr blog ooga booga). Also this live blog is pretty summary-heavy, but I’ll try to tone that down in future posts.

I’ve technically read up until chapter 4, but I’m gonna go ahead and backtrack to look over the previous chapters again and give my reaction on those :D it would feel weird to just start it halfway through anyway. The chapter opens up with Kurabe (if u don’t know who that is you should probably go check out Kachi’s account) going on a mission to eliminate a criminal group only to see that everyone’s just been absolutely bodied by some blue toddler with a stick. Kurabe’s like, “hey I need to take u in for questioning” and the kid is like “nuh uh” and tries clubbing her to death, but obviously Kurabe is stronger so she just blocks him. Even though I was only, like, two sentences in, my attention was already grabbed; I was very excited to see what happened next :D Anyway, Kurabe gets one of her swords knocked out of her hand by the kid, and she’s just like “ah.” But then she teleports behind him and chops him in the back of the head with her hand, causing the kid to faint. I was kinda surprised that she just knocked him out like that, but I guess it makes sense because she had a job to do lmao. Anyway she gets back to her ship and Mercury is there and, upon seeing the child, is just like “HUH”. Kurabe says that he’s fine and only has minor injuries, so she goes to her room to patch him up a little. She wondered why someone would leave their kid on a planet with so much criminal activity, and I honestly agreed because I was just as confused 💀 who leaves a whole toddler on the planetary equivalent of Detroit??? Insane, bro. So anyway she cleans him up and after he wakes up, Kurabe says good morning to him and the kid just immediately goes

Anyway, Kurabe tells him to calm down and asks his name, to which the child responds, “Meta.” It was pretty much implied from the start that this was Meta Knight, but I was still like “OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ITS HIM” Anyway cue Meta being suspicious of Kurabe and Kurabe trying her best to calm him down. I’m watching this whole interaction go down and honestly wondering if Meta’s just gonna straight up maul Kurabe, but thankfully he doesn’t. Kurabe’s maternal urges start taking over and she offers to raise Meta- err, I meannn… train him (because I can’t imagine it would be good to send him back to space Detroit 💀) and Meta asks if he can stay on her ship forever. Kurabe is like “yeah sure” and then after talking, she helps show him around his new room and then they sit down and have a meal together. The image of Meta playing with the spaghetti was really cute :D Meta makes mention of Kurabe’s sword and Kurabe tells him that she’d train him. However, she did warn him that he training was so intense that students have quit or even DIED because of it (which is…. Scary /not neg). He agrees to the training. Meta then got kinda tired so he went to go to sleep, and as Kurabe was tucking him in, he grabs onto her and they end up falling asleep together :DD Overall this was a very cute chapter and it does a great job of grabbing the attention.

[ifwebefriends]

dude . . . that post where you said you liked nagito not because he's a depressed uwu bad boy but a traumatized complex cancer patient . . . we are the same lmao i literally made a research paper on his overall condition. very interesting case study ngl

That’s so cool! I’d be interested in reading your paper if you’re comfortable sharing. It’s nice to see that not everyone boils Nagito down to a generic bad boy tumblr sexyman. I actually have a lot of feelings about him and how he affected me personally because I can relate to him in a weird kinda hyperbolic way.

Okay it’s trauma dump time now strap yourself in. (TW suicide, cancer, COVID-19, needles, medical treatment)

I’m actually a cancer survivor myself (stage 4 breast cancer diagnosed in July 2020) and because of COVID and cancer I took a gap year in my education (I had just graduated high school and was set to start college) to go through treatment, so I had a lot of time on my hands to play video games and watch TV shows. So I ended up playing Danganronpa 1 and 2 in like October through November of 2020 (I would have played V3 then too but I didn’t have access to it yet).

When I first started chemotherapy in August of that year I tried to stay optimistic, hopeful, and cheery about everything, I didn’t want people to worry and pity me (right after my diagnosis, the most painful part of it all was watching all my loved ones worry so much about me) and I was told that I would most likely survive it. But round after round of chemo along with the rampaging global pandemic that I was honestly more scared of (I was immunocompromised because of chemo and I live in a country that generally didn’t take mask-wearing or quarantine seriously) gradually wore down my spirit little by little. By November when my treatment plan got extended (at least two more rounds of chemo than initially expected) I was worn out, miserable, hopeless, and borderline suicidal. This was around when I played SDR2 for the first time.

When I first played through the game I thought that Nagito was kinda just a fun character who made the game more of a challenge since he was kinda working against you. I never hated him or anything (my first reaction to him was actually “OH MY GOD IT’S THE FINGERS IN HIS ASS GUY!!!!”). Then after I finished the game I read online that if you talk to him in his free time events (I later did the free time for all the characters myself in school mode) you eventually find out that he has cancer and dementia and that’s when my whole perception of him shifted. I felt a sense of comraderie and unity with him that I feel with other cancer patients/survivors. Also, due to my piss poor mental and emotional state at the time I found myself really relating to him in a way. I felt strangely seen and understood.

Needless to say, even in this dark time in my life, I wouldn’t even consider doing the things that Nagito did in SDR2. Nevertheless, I guess I related to him because he represented my specific agonies and pains to a hyperbolic degree. Due to cancer and the treatment related to it, I was angry, hopeless, frustrated, and at a severe disadvantage while the whole world was suffering as well. (Cough cough chapter 3 dispair disease cough cough)

I think generally that the emotional and mental health aspect of having cancer and the general dark parts of having cancer aren’t talked about enough. A lot of people like to make it this hopeful empowering thing and I think it’s fine to do that, it’s good to have hope and strength in times like that, but when one can’t stay strong and hopeful in those circumstances it doesn’t really hit well. And I think that’s what Nagito represents to me. He represents someone beaten down by his life circumstances that he had no control over, and while he puts up an optimistic front, he’s not the #strong #sobrave chronically ill person that seems to be really common in modern media. He represents the dark side and the brutally negative emotions that can come from chronic illness or just shitty life circumstances. He doesn’t care much about his own life or well-being, he’s basically given up. But he wants his short life to mean something good so desperately. In his own way he cares about the people around him and the world around him, he just thinks he can’t have a place in that world. He’s willing to hurt and kill people in order to, in his eyes, make the world a better place at the cost of himself. He’s like an antithesis or foil to other cancer patient characters I’ve seen who have a generally more positive saccharine outlook on their condition and their life (I.e. Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars).

Thankfully I’m much happier and healthier these days, I’ve been done with chemo for over two years and while I’m still going through some treatment related to it (hormone suppression pills and shots since my cancer was ER+) but it pales in comparison to what chemo did to me. I may not relate as heavily to Nagito as I used to, but he still holds a special place in my heart. I see him now and still think of him as a flawed but sympathetic character who was a twisted mirror of my deep-seeded physical and emotional pains that I felt back during the most miserable time of my life. At that time, I couldn’t see the light, so he sat with me in the darkness.

Nagito’s story isn’t really a story about having or surviving cancer.

Thankfully my story has a happy ending as I survived cancer and am still in remission. I am much happier and healthier now and I have a new appreciation for life, how fragile it is, and the little joys that make it what it is. I don’t relate to Nagito as much now as I did back when I was going through cancer treatment, but when I look at him, I’m reminded of how he reflected the darkness inside of me during my worst times and how comforting he was to me.

Thankfully I beat cancer and I am much happier and healthy now, but I still look at Nagito and remember the dark comfort he gave me through my worst of times.

[fiercynn]

heyyy! i was wondering if you liked the os2 episodes of bbts!!! i noticed you shared some stuff regarding the first two episodes. did you enjoy eps 3 and 4 as well?

i never get asks, this is so exciting??? (probably because i don't actually spend enough time on tumblr...i was kind of starting to be on here a bit and then got depressed by a lot of the negative reactions to @end-otw-racism during their first action. but tbh getting an ask actually makes me want to engage more so THANK YOU ANON)

okay, my os2 feelings! i talked about this a bit on my twitter so i'm going to recreate some of that here, haha. but the short version is: yes, i enjoyed the whole thing! i think episode one was my favorite because i lovedddd the patpran dynamic we got there - watching pran be confident but also settled in love felt amazing to me, and i loved the little domestic notes. i think my second-favorite episode was actually the last one - not so much because i think it was a well-constructed episode (it was a little all over the place, tbh), but i ADORED the phutian ending after having felt like their relationship was getting kind of shafted for most of the special. also we got to see inkpa again!

it's hard to talk about my own feelings though about it without reflecting on the disappointment a lot of people i know have felt about the special. and i certainly understand and agree with a LOT of the critiques, they are completely valid. but i guess i'll explain a bit more about why i liked the special anyway.

firstly, i think i came into it with the feeling that because bbs is such a perfect narrative, anything we got in os2 would be a bonus, and that i could take or leave the parts i liked and didn't like to apply to my own personal love of bbs - especially since it did take place in the timeskip instead of the ending. and i especially felt this way because of knowing that there was a crossover with atots.

i think that one of the issues with crossovers in general is they force shows to draw kind of contrived parallels between characters and pairings. and similarly i think crossovers require characters to be matched up in scenes together just so you see their contrasts. so that's why we had to have two separate nights of lost in the woods, so that we could get pran & phupha as well as tian & pat. could they have done better with making parallels that made more sense for both couples? sure. but i wasn't totally surprised that the crossover parts felt clunky/over-worked. i also think crossovers prioritize humorous moments over character-building ones. they're just really not a good vehicle for storytelling imo - they're more just about seeing your faves up on screen together.

as far as patpran's conflict in these episodes - again, totally valid & understandable that people are upset & feel like it was unresolved! for me, though, it felt like a pretty natural part of their progression as a couple. my friend @/siri_dechawat on twitter has a great thread about it that i totally agree with. and also i think it's worth thinking about how long patpran's history is, how many old hurts they still have that probably aren't fully resolved. i was once in a relationship that reminds me of that, a relationship that had six years of fraught history before it got happy, and my recollection is that by the time you get to the place where you're secure in that kind of relationship, you don't always revisit those old hurts because you have the feeling that now you're happy, so why look back so much? but they can still flare up and it can be hard to talk about them, so you try to work through them yourself and that isn't always easy.

to me, the fact that patpran kept up a lot of their usual dynamic - teasing, competing, cuddling, even while they're in the middle of a fight - felt very organic. they can't always say exactly what they're feeling, but they still express affection. and for me, the fact that they were having this fight at all about pran's independence & pat's self-sacrifice wasn't at all going backwards from the original show. the second half of bbs doesn't actually have them resolving a lot of those things out loud.

at the end of the day, while this is the last time we'll see patpran onscreen (sob), it's not their ending. it's not even the ending that we see of them. we know where they end up by ep 12 and it's pretty perfect imo. and the fact that they are not always perfect at communicating along the way is okay with me. we know they end up on the same page (ha) even if these episodes had some conflict around that. we know where their love is.

okay i said all this and i stand by it, but also if you have read any of my fic you know that i LOVE writing canon-divergence AUs, so i did a series of them for os2 as well based on prompts i got on twitter! i ended up with twelve separate "what if" scenarios for how various scenes in the special could have gone differently - just episodes one through three, because i wasn't as much in a writing mood after the last one - and i collected them together in an ao3 post called in another lifetime. i think my favorite ones within there are mountain, a h/c ficlet patpran do actually make it up pha pun dao, and secrets, an extension of the last patpran scene in episode three. so if you were unsatisfied by various scenes in the special, maybe you will like these as fix-its? :D? anyway thank you again anon for the ask!!!! maybe i will try to be on tumblr more again...

[the1975attheirverybest]

Hi!! Just want to share a hard time i've gone through this last month and I think only another the 1975 fan can understand (maybe).

I have to explain that I'm really really into music since as a little child, been through my emo fase and all hahaha. So I'm always that friend that people see as kind of a reference about music, you know? And the thing I like the most is going to shows. It always seemed to me the most wonderful experiece. I have severe FOMO when I can't go to a show of some artist I like.

I had to give this context cause I became a 1975 fan after the whole TS thing on tiktok. It felt very weird that I didnt listen to them before, because they are the kind of artist I tend to like.

The fact that I didn't know them before this made me feel so bad, like I was some kind of fraud? How could I miss this?? And so I found out they had come to my country several times, actuallly they came here this year!! And it gets worse! They played at Lollapalooza in my country several times and on days I was there and I didn't know them, so I didn't watch their show.

It made me so, so sad and anxious, I had to talk tô my psychiayrist about this hahaha I know It sounds soo silly but the FOMO is so real to me. Plus I was on vacation, so I didn't have much to do and my days were basicly listening to them, watching interviews and being here on Tumblr talking to you and another fan accounts.

My husband is the only one I can talk to about this but since he isn't into music he doesn't understand me haha. And I am ashamed to talk to my friends about it and they say something like "you just heard about this band, how can you feel like this?".

Sorry about the long text, I just wanted to get this out of my chest and I wonder If anyone been through something similar, so I don't feel like a crazy 12yo even though I'm 30yo hahaha.

no no no I can TOOOTTTAAALLLYYY understand. and as bad as you feel, its completely normal. But i have 3 things( maybe 4, idk, lets see where i go with this) to tell you:

When I first found the band my first reaction was THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD. immediately followed by "im so sad I missed two album drops with this band. all that time i felt weird and out of place and like i had no way of expressing myself, this shit has been under my nose all along and i missed it???" I was so upset. Cuz, like you, I love music. And im not afraid of mixing it up either. Like I listen to Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Beyonce, The Beatles, Miley Cyrus, Talking Heads, AM, 1975, you name it. and im pretty snobby about it. like its "my thing" that keeps me sane. AND my academic specialties being philosophy and literature, its basically the crossover of my dreams, this band.

When I first got into them, I kept asking around to see if any of my friends had already been fans. Nope. Then I remembered Matty's "we're the biggest band that you've never heard of." which is sooo true. they have such a strong following, but it's mostly fans. no casual listeners who sort of know them and know his but couldn't name the drummer or couldn't name an album. you know what I mean? they're a very specific case.

MATTY TIMOTHY HEALY. THEEEE MATTY HEALY! who's knowledge of music rivals my own didn't know The Mountain Goats existed until Feb. 2023. that SHOCKED ME TO MY VERY CORE. They're very much up his alley too like how come????? these things happen! the 1975 are your mountain goats. and thats okay!

Rob Sheffield (terrific music journalist who writes for rolling stone) once said "the music will find you when the time is right" like sometimes if you force yourself to sit down and really listen to Leonard Cohen, you might just be like "meh. i dont see the appeal. not for me," But one random day, years later, after you've gone through some experiences or expanded your musical palette or whatever, you might encounter him again, totally accidentally, and it'll allllll make sense. It'll find you when you need it. The 1975 found you at the right time. And now you have them in your life. if you'd been forced to listen to them years ago maybe you would've been like "nope. not for me," and then kept that impression of them so that any time you encountered them you'd have brush it off like "ooh yeah. tried them. not that great. no thanks." so its better that you waited.

WELCOME TO THE FANDOM. SOO SOOOO GLAD YOU'RE HERE. AT LEAST SOMETHING GOOD CAME OUT OF THE WHOLE TS THING!

[junk-thrillz]

Y hold urself back from posting about object show on tumblr? I love object show! Is there something bad about it? /genq

There is absolutely nothing wrong with object shows!! Sorry to any other object show fans who may have seen my reblog and came away with this sentiment, it wasn’t at all my intention.

I’m thinking about the first question of this ask as I write this and failing to come up with an answer that makes sense. Every time I think of a reason I’m able to come up with a counter argument for it. It’s a great question, because you’re RIGHT - why WOULD I hold myself back?

Because I don’t have a desire to be a part of the wider fandom? Being a part of a fandom and posting about liking something don’t have to be the same thing. Because I’m afraid of being seen as cringe for liking object shows? I’m very public about liking the Elementia Chronicles, official Minecraft fanfiction written primarily for the middle grade crowd. That ship and that anxiety has long since passed me by.

I don’t think there was a logical reason behind it, I think I just had an instinctive emotional reaction and acted on it without thinking it through. There’s something vulnerable about letting people know you like something that is (if you aren’t talking about the darker object shows) fundamentally and unabashedly silly.

Thanks for making me stop and think about my own shame! Anyways my current favorites are TPOT, It’s Time For The (mainly for its style of comedy), and CFMOT. And shoutout to HFJONE, which was the only object show I watched in the past four years after I stopped watching the genre as a whole. Objectified is also a really good webcomic…