#it's a very poorly formed concept for me

[gh-0-stcup]

Idk exactly what went down with Darla in this show (though I do have a vague idea), but I can say they clearly did her wrong.

[crystalkitty1220]

Welcome back to tumblr! Hope you enjoyed your break

It was very stressful. Ended up failing the marking period for English, but not by as much as I was failing before. Could still pull up the overall grade by the end of the semester.

[gb-patch]

Sorry to send another ask amongst the sea I'm sure you're receiving, but I find myself more concerned about Rose being a sensitivity reader as I find more information. One of Rose's friends continues to insist that the conversation about Tamarack and male MCs was part of a larger discussion about biphobia in the fandom. However, they claim that Rose's position is "people erase Tam's bi/pansexuality by refusing to portray [her] as being attracted to anything other than men." This explanation of Rose's belief is, in-and-of-itself, biphobic. It claims that portraying Tamarack as attracted to men erases her queerness. This is textbook biphobia and bi-erasure that I as a bisexual encounter every day. It is NOT a good-faith defense of a queer character. It reduces us down to our partners and makes the claim that if we end up in a relationship that's "straight-passing," we're erasing our queerness. Especially as a bi sapphic myself, it reduces my identity strictly to the perceived-man I'm dating, and not my inner or previous experiences, or those of my partner. It's very uncomfortable that Rose, a non-bisexual, was discussing this like they're defending Tamarack's queerness when they're doing the opposite.

This is a doubly strange position when Our Life is a game about the acceptance of love in all its forms. The conversation could be different, MAYBE, if Our Life was a TV show or a book or a comic. But this is a game where people are meant to play as characters of their own design. I do not feel confident about Rose being a sensitivity reader for a game with bi/pansexual love interests if these are their beliefs about bi/pansexuality, particularly if they're unable to adapt their opinions to be relevant to different formats of media; this shows they're lacking in skill in the areas of media literacy and critical thinking.

I’ve been trying to make a post that presents the concerns people have about this, but your ask touches on the points I was going to, and I’d say it’s better to have it said by a player than me deciding what people are thinking. So, this is something that I want to make clear- that I see this and other asks/comments about it. What you’ve said is something a lot of people are unsure and upset about. I am sorry that you feel so out of place in this community now. And I am also sorry to players of any sexuality who use a male MC. That comment dismissed players and Tamarack’s identity.

It did come from a longer discussion about bi-phobia issues. The overall feelings were “if people did only want Tamarack to be interested in men, I really wouldn’t like that and wouldn’t it be a funny concept if Tamarack then left them for a woman?”. The comment itself didn’t encompass that idea at all. It does not give a good impression about where they’re coming from. It was unkind.

The viewpoint Rose is trying to have isn’t that “Tamarack can never express an interest in men” which would be wrong, it’s “I stand by the fact that Tamarack is someone who wouldn’t only be interested in men and no one else”. If it’s true that Rose likes Tamarack being interested in all genders and doesn’t want her bi-ness to be forgotten, I’d say that’s an acceptable view. If the point actually is that Tamarack should only be with women and if she’s not than Tamarack is no longer bi or she’s a bad character, then you're right- that isn't acceptable and that is going to get someone removed from the project. I do believe Rose agrees with what you’re saying and means it when they say they want to stop bi-erasure, not participate in it for real. But they had a very harsh way of talking about it.

I understand that people don’t know Rose and this situation has made them believe they do seriously hold that first view. But from working with them, there’s never been any feedback that shows an opinion of the sort.

Right now, I think that comment was being edgy and making a quick, very poorly-worded quip to people they’d been chatting with about that topic already. Rose has left the GB Patch discord servers, they used to be a mod, and may or may not ever be back in there. Rose won’t make blog posts responding to players going forward. They’re going to take a break from this and then try to give helpful feedback. We’re going to see if things can be okay from here.

And with this coming up, we’re all really aware that it’s something to consider about the game. I’m going to be as conscious as I can for any advice that seems to go against the character’s identities and I’m going to question my own knee-jerk choices for how I handle things. Other sensitivity readers will be able to give their viewpoints as well, so will the players. If the game’s content isn’t welcoming or is biased people will notice, and I’ll be here to accept what I’ve done. I don’t want that to be the result of this, of course. I hope the game will be thoughtful and considerate, but I can’t fire Rose at this point to try doing that.

No one has to keep following the game, though. I’m sympathetic to anyone who is too uncomfortable with all this to stay around.

[triptychgardener]

i saw you mentioned that transfem!calliope was practically canon, could you maybe elaborate on that? (im not dissing your hcs btw im just confused on where its suggested in canon)

Hey so it took me a while to get to this just because I wanted to solidify some thoughts about it! Won't go into as much detail wrt my other posts, but we can at the very least start with her handle: uranianUmbra

Uranian is an old-fashioned term, generally used for gay men, though also used in different ways to describe other-gendered people or ways of being, occasionally used as a catch-all similar to how Queer is used today. Its history is complicated and occasionally uncomfortable, as a lot of queer history can be, but notably, one potential root of this idea came from Urning

Now obviously conceptions of gender and sexuality were a lot different then, and I don't want to simplify this, but in Homestuck, it's pretty undeniable that Calliope is a woman stuck in a man's body, and this is likely why Hussie used that very specific word in the first place: to foreshadow the eventual Cherubian Twist.

And not that framing: a woman trapped in a man's body. Cherubs (at least as we are told) have two equal halves who can predominate. But the framing of their entire dynamic makes it very clear that this is Caliborn's body, not Calliope.

Callie's ideal self, in Callie Ohpeee, her Trollsona, is positioned as something to be taken off to reveal her true self. She feels that she needs to conform her exterior to match her interior self, something Caliborn never has to do.

Hell, even as she goes to sleep for the last time, she removes her jacket to reveal Caliborn's shirt underneath. It's his body, not hers.

Not only that, but throughout the story, we see that Callie experiences something close to either dysphoria or body dysmorphia. She hates the way she looks, and affects an especially sweet demeanor in order to not scare people away. She sees herself as a monster because her body becomes the most hideous masculine monster the story has ever known! Literally Lord English.

And shockingly, even though it (in my opinion) handles it poorly, the Epilogues do give us a brief insight into cherub gender, where it basically illuminates that Aranea was kind of talking out of her ass about cherub reproduction, and that Cherubs have no actual biological sex or gender. Meaning that somewhere along the way, Caliborn and Calliope CHOSE their genders, likely influenced by the human and troll internet they were permitted. Callie perhaps forming her own gender in opposition to her brother. This also probably created the ouroboros through which gender became a thing in the first place but thats besides the point. Point is, Callie was likely not a woman until she chose to be a woman. I.e. transgender.

Now the epilogues took it in what I find to be a kind of boring direction, i.e. "well cherubs have no real biological sex so that means I have to be nonbinary now" which is just such a lukewarm take on the imposition of gender but whatever. Point is that Callie is transgender end of story goodnight!!!!!

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Mr. Gaiman,

As an accomplished author with several books under his belt, how do you know that a story is a dud for lack of a better word? I have a million ideas bouncing around inside my head at all times, and while I consider them good ideas worth pursuing, how am I sure they will make a good story?

I ask this because I have been dwelling on something one of my professors said last semester. He held a seminar on poetry and got to the topic of fiction writing, where he stated that he had just recently finished a story he had rewritten several times over the course of multiple years. Now I myself write as a hobby with a faint imagining that someone might see it in the future, and I have written a dud or two, where the plot was poorly formed and the ideas behind it just had a flaw somewhere in the base concept. Perhaps this is my youth and amateurity speaking, but I was under the impression that given enough time and care, any story could recover from that stage so long as it had not been completed yet. Ideas would need to be reworked, concepts retooled, characters redrawn, but the very basic idea could still survive in a different format.

My professor disagreed, stating that he has destroyed 400-500 page novels that he has written before upon realizing said fatal flaw. He stated that the story was in a state that it could not recover from, and that many authors encounter ideas that seem good at the time, but stink later on to such a degree that the basic premise must be thrown out. This seems like a tremendous loss of work to me. As writing is an art form, it feels somewhat similar to destroying practice sketches and 'meh' oil paintings that showcase the artist's progress. An idea that stinks today might be able to work from a different angle later on in my opinion.

I suppose after rambling my question is now this: are some ideas and concepts just not worth pursuing? Are some story concepts flawed from the get-go and impossible to save, and is there a way to tell that before writing the whole thing? Is it even possible to waste that time as you're getting in practice for the next tale?This isn't something I ever really thought about before being told in sure tones that this is how things work by someone with a degree is this, so I figured I'd ask the professional author for a second opinion. Apologies for the length of the message, especially if this is one you've received before.

I have things that have stalled and a few stories that, when they were done, went to the box in the attic rather than to anyone who could publish them (there's a whole novel there I wrote when I was 21). But mostly because I was writing serial comics, failure was not an option, and if something did fail it had done it in public for everyone to see. And I learned that some things I thought were failures had actually worked really well.

Some people are afraid of failure. Some people are afraid of success, which can also be a good reason for junking books and never showing them to anyone. As long as you pronounce them irretrievably flawed and show them to nobody, you will never be judged for them or have to deal with either success or failure.

[lets-try-some-writing]

I have observed several types of fic writers, and so for kicks and giggles, here they all are. Each of them scares me for different reasons.

The Prepared And Ready To Publish™:

Several documents dedicated to worldbuilding, planning, cross referencing, character lists & traits, plot twists, and then the actual fic document.

Dedicated to the max to creating a rich world. Probably knows more about the niche thing than you ever will. 100% could have written a thesis and chose to do fic instead (or did both at the same time).

Created a masterpiece and promptly vanished off the face of creation before coming back in with another banger to crush souls and save fandoms.

Their arrival is akin to the birth of a new era because they never fail to somehow make a niche ship popular, make a headcanon fanon, or otherwise give so much depth and interest to a character or setting that whatever they have devised is largely accepted as gospel by their readers.

They either use a high end writing program or wordpad. There is no in-between.

Mysterious. Very mysterious. Reasons for this mysteriousness vary between fics and authors.

100000/10 would be friends with them if I could. Legendary writers. But also they scare me because ??? What void offered you such power ?????

The Baby Writer:

All vibes and loosely strung plots.

It may not make the most sense, but good gracious the dedication is there.

Notable lack of comprehension when it comes to characters and places, but it's bad form to not leave a kudo because it takes guts to post anything in fandom.

They are still figuring things out and their grammar or formatting (possibly both) is probably a mess, but they've put heart into their work.

Sweetest rays of sunshine who want to be involved and are eager to learn the ropes.

The fandom's young ward or despised new arrival (depends entirely on fandom popularity and age).

8/10 would happily offer advice to them. Just can't read their work for too long without wanting to throw it into grammarly. The fear factor comes in the form of the miraculous misuse of fandom terminology. (Yeah it's tough bud, the fanon is wild. But goodness that term/canon word does NOT mean what you think it does.)

The Smut For Your Soul:

Meticulously plans the smut with all the loving care of a sculptor.

Somehow plot got involved.

Miraculously, they managed to not include an iota of plot and it has somehow managed to work.

Headcanons abound and cuteness and or angst lurks merrily behind every corner.

The tags mean everything and nothing at the same time. They are but faint guides to the fae wilds ahead. Tread lightly.

Has a mountain of unfinished WIPs that will follow them to the grave or emerge ten years after conception to grace whatever fandom spawned the idea.

The fandom thanks them for their service, although often that praise is late or hits like a freight train.

???/10 I personally avoid smut but I have friends who write it so it really depends. Terrifying because you never know who falls into this role of writer. It could be anyone. Normalcy is a mask poorly adorned for the sake of conforming to The Great Machine.

The Angst Lord:

Has a million slightly different ways to hurt their blorbo. Each are somehow more horrifying than the next.

The embodiment of the iceburg videos seen all over the net. Ask one question and you shall unravel and scheme of torment so great you shall regret having dared to speak up.

Has dozens of WIPs or unwritten ideas that they claim they will return to.

They are controlled by passion and emotion and can and will insert their own complicated situation into a fic.

Almost nothing is off limits.

Arrives to the fandom ready to brawl and somehow ends up respected or feared. They often stare in bafflement as they end up unscathed and watch angry comments fly toward the arguably innocent shippers.

Generally some of the nicest people who happen to enjoy inflicting The Horrors upon someone fictional.

'10/10 would befriend and promptly regard like a wild racoon. Offerings of angsty ideas yield delightful commentary. But also I need to prepare myself for anything they say because O U C H my SOUL.

The General Writer:

Fluff, cuteness, possibly a delightful touch of angst and pure unbridled creative simplicity.

They may not have the most brutal or soul wrenching tale, but they always manage to write something that someone, somewhere, desperately needs.

Devastatingly underrated and deserves far more praise for their contributions to the fandom.

Produces some of the softest of scenes and the most touching of interactions between characters in a contained, careful crafted, tale.

Introducing new ships or family dynamics in such a tasteful manner that brain chemistry can easily be altered.

Arrives to the fandom as a lurker and shows their appreciation through their work. Oftentimes, they are very quiet and go unnoticed.

INFINITE/10 Love these writers, honestly a gift to fandom. The sheer level of dedication to producing fluff is astounding and scary all at once.

The OC X Canon:

Has so many ships and headcanons that it's astounding.

The lore development rivals IDW and Lost Light combined. All the kudos to them for putting their souls into their characters.

The dedication is mind boggling.

They put up with so much crap they could be in MMA Wrestling if the verbal assaults translated into physical strength.

Has so many adjustments to lore and whole AUs devoted specifically to creating a perfect world.

Skilled in the extreme (or not) at integrating their ocs into canon.

Arrives to the fandom not intending to make ocs. Leaves with seventeen leashes for their new abominable creations. Is loved or hated by literally everyone, sometimes for no reason.

6/10 perfectly lovely people but very niche in their interest and thus not everyone's cup of tea. Scary because that level of sheer willpower is meant for demi-gods.

There are more types of writers, but these feel like the big overarching ones. Which kind of writer are you? :D

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I’m away from home without full internet access so I can’t go into a full spiral about this latest buck outfit, but I have thoughts and I have parallels pinging around in my brain like the cards used to do at the end of a game of solitaire on the computer 😂

So here is a very brief meta that I will come back to when I am able! @bewitchedbewilderedbisexual I hope this ties in nicely with my post on buck in navy for you 😎

I’m still super fascinated by the choice of loose fit for Buck, because this outfit is ill fitting as well -the trousers especially, and not in an ‘intentional loose fit’ way - the jeans are too long by about an inch (which is why we see the odd bunch in at the ankle) and they are too loose around the hip and thigh (the section below the waist band). The jacket also doesn’t fit quite right - it’s a little too long in the sleeve and across the shoulder. It’s all very reminiscent of the fit we saw on buck in season 1 and that is super interesting to me considering the number of parallels we have been seeing between Abby and Tommy. This idea that Buck is searching for something - a way to fit in his own skin - something Buck was closest to doing in 2b-the end of s3 - when his clothes fit him the best. We saw the shrinking come into play in s4 and continue through s5 and 6 and then we saw a brief period of well fitting clothes post 7x04 - when he has realised he’s bi - only for them to start to fit poorly again from 7x05 onwards - suggesting that Buck is once more not fully comfortable in his skin and that we’re getting a parallel of his journey through s1 rather than s5/6.

We have buck in a white tee - and we all know what that means - danger ahead for Buck!

We also have the new white trainers - so the scenes this outfit is for will be about Buck and his journey - his new journey as he has new trainers (the old ones were connected to his bi journey - now he’s figured that out, we’re onto the next journey!)

Then we have a navy blue jacket - Buck tends to wear navy in connection with his relationships, most notibly his romantic relationships, but by no means exclusively (he wears navy shorts in connection with key moments in his relationship with Eddie - the fox house dinner in 5x11 and when Chris leaves in 7x10 most notably). All the moments he’s wearing navy blue connect into the breakdown of those relationships - we saw him wearing it a lot with Taylor, especially in scenes where their relationship was in not great places - when nails were being added to the coffin as it were- but we also see him wear navy when his relationship with Eddie falters, and with his parents,even his relationship with Bobby is connected to navy blue (law suit anyone!)

Then there are the khaki trousers - we just don’t see Buck in khaki very often - it’s just not a colour he wears - especially not in trouser form - he is nearly always in black, navy or grey trousers. So this is significant - he wore khaki trousers twice in season 1 - both scenes very much connected with Abby and Buck and Abby’s relationship. The first is imo the most significant - in 1x05 - when he helps Abby look for her mom - the first time they meet in person and Buck essentially commits to trying to date her - to pursuing a ‘grown up’ longer term relationship. That a parental issue is central to this is and the outfit most closely resembles this new one is what I’m most fascinated by. It connects the concept of this new outfit having something related to a parental issue and the fact Buck has th website trainers on means it’s a parental relationship of his not someone else’s that’s the centre of it - the scenes will be about Buck not someone else.

The second scene in s1 is from episode 7 - it’s when Buck and Abby have sex for the first time, but he wears a black tee rather than a white one and this ties it in with the next time we see him in khaki trousers in 2x06 - when he, Chim and Eddie are helping Maddie move into her new appartment - the ‘he’s cute’ ‘you should meet his kid’ scene.

The scene from 2x06 is interesting because it lays the foundation work for Chim and Maddie’s future relationship, at the same time as paralleling Chim and Eddie and Maddie and Buck. Maddie is still technically in a relationship at this point as she is still married to Doug, yet the foundation stones of madney are being laid. In the same vein - Buck is still technically in a relationship with Abby (well he believes he is!) and we see further foundation stones being laid for Buck and Eddie’s relationship. That the show is fairly loudly doing this in parallel is telling!

The only other time we’ve seen buck not wearing blue black or grey trousers is in his coma dream when we had the tan corduroy trousers. And while I think we might have a slight connection there - in that they play into the idea of some kind of internal struggle for buck - I don’t think it’s necessarily relevant here!

I know that the parallel with this outfit of Eddie’s hs already been floated

And it’s totally relevant in my opinion. Eddie setting off for Texas and setting up dealing with/confronting his daddy issues - whilst Eddie has no intention of addressing his issues in Texas he does end up dealing with at least a portion of them - specifically the ones around his dad. We see the outcome of that in season 6 when we are shown the improving relationship between them.

This feels especially relevant after the date night daddy issues scene between Buck and Tommy last season - one that very much felt like a set up for season 8 and buck addressing his parental relationships - something I think may well have been explored in season 7 if Annalise had been available for season 7 - as we would very likely have had Eddie with his queer arc and buck exploring his issues around abandonment and death (more in this in a minute).

There are actually two other Buck costumes which I think are far far more relevant when it comes to the meaning of this new outfit - this one from a flashback in Buck Begins

And this one from outside looking in

Both are white tee/hoodie with a navy jacket! The first is essentially Buck ‘breaking up’ with his parents and the second essentially marks the end of his relationship with Taylor (even if it’s a very long and drawn out end!) - the moment that his unhappiness (even if he’s burying it and not actually able to recognise that he’s unhappy in it) with the reltionship becomes truly apparent to us the audience. (The fact that LAFD bomber along with a hoodie is also worn in the scene when he goes to see Tommy is also key - it parallels the two scenes - placing Tommy in a sort of parallel with Lucy - as a disruptor of the status quo (in not even going to get into the fact that Eddie is key in both of these scenes - that while Lucy is a disruptor of BuckTaylor, she is much more a disruptor of Buck and Eddie!))

Both of these play into an overarching theme with Buck - especially in light of this outfit we’ve also seen for this season

Because this one also matches with an outfit from Buck begins - the one where he is planning to leave with Maddie but she hides and he ends up leaving without her. (I don’t have access to my stills from that episode at the moment but I’ll add it in later on when I do!) the greyish khaki parallelspeaks of Bucks issues around abandonment - the feeling of being abandoned by both his parents and Maddie (remember this is Bucks feelings in that moment - he is a flawed narrator and didn’t have all the facts- it is not the reality that Maddie abandoned him - she was protecting him and herself so we are not hiding her in any way) and him setting out on his adventure that ends up in L.A. and at the 118.

So this new outfit is very likely going to play into that concept - and the two new outfits taken together suggests to me that we are very likely going to see that aspect of Bucks journey explored this season - it’s an aspect of his character that lead to him clinging to first Abby and then Taylor - it’s no mistake that Taylor’s return to the show comes so soon after we see Buck begins - Bucks abandonment issues have been brought back into the spotlight and are raw when she reappears and becomes his girlfriend.

So I’m expecting to be seeing Buck doing a fair chunk of figuring himself out and dealing with his issues around abandonment in this season and in whatever both of these scenes end up looking like/ being about. This will very likely tie into his romantic relationship as much as his parental/familial ones and while I don’t think either outfit marks a BuckTommy break up, I very much expect them to play into that relationship failing - like the ones we saw leading to the ultimate destruction and end of Bucks relationship with Taylor (the dinner at the diaz house scene and then the Buck Lucy kiss scene) specifically.

I’m excited to see how this all plays out!

[stealingyourbones]

So, I'm new to DC. Your twin has been helping me get caught up on the basics. But from what I understand, the actual way Jason was brought back from the dead is either ignored or poorly explained. The pit came about when Talia found him after he already came back.

Now, what if when Jason died, he became a ghost and had a home island in the ghost zone. And became friends with the local reigning monarch (I like to think Danny was complaining about English and Jason heard and started tutoring him, but the how isn't very important).

Well, Jason is still caught up on his unfinished business in Gotham. The Zone doesn't have much need for a boy hero and he isn't ready to give that up. So he decides to go to Desiree and wish for his life back. She sends him back, but without his ghost core. Which is part of the reason he's so unstable. It has the side effect of him losing his memories of his time in the zone.

So Danny is in Gotham. Depending on the ship you like, he's looking at colleges for himself or Jazz. Or maybe it's a Casper High field trip and the fic is gen. And while there, Danny sees his friend Jason who disappeared into his core and hasn't been able to be helped since. All any ghost knows is that he was seeking out Desiree before whatever happened to him.

Anyway, I've no time to do anything with this. But it's an idea I had! Hope some others enjoy it.

Oh shit I’ve seen so many fics with Jason being a human with a core but having that prolonged rage because he lacks a core?! Oh that’s a fascinating concept.

Would he even be able to form another core at all? Is it unfixable? Does he have urges to, instead of brutally injuring someone, just flat out kill them instead? The reason being that he’s subconsciously trying to take the cores of the newly formed ghosts to continue living?

Oh god ok this is a completely separate idea now but I propose this: Jason is without a core and has to steal and consume ghost cores Vampire style to continue on living.

Ok back to the original idea: I absolutely adore it. Big question is how does Jason get his core back?

[gamerbearmira]

My Take On Wish

I liked it. Now, it’s not the best. But it’s still pretty good in hindsight. They had a good idea, but they executed it poorly.

I think a big reason is the movie had such high expectations. It was the movie for the 100th anniversary, which is huge. But they had no time and no money. The movie feels rushed, there's so much that happens too fast in such a short amount of time. That brings me to my next point.

Time. This movie should have been longer. Of the most recent movies, like Turning Red, Encanto, Luca and Elemental, they run for about 1 hr and 35-49 minutes. But they don't feel rushed. Everything us spaced out and works, at least for the most part. Every movie has it flaws in run time. Wish runs for the same amount of time as Encanto; but it feels so much more rush. The movie should have been longer, and I feel like people wouldn't have been too made at an extra 20 to 30 minutes. It would've given a lot more to world and established things, and answer questions that were left unanswered.

Characters. They weren't bad! They had some good characters, and the designs were...good. I like them, and I can see what they were doing. Like Magnifico and Amaya, I really like their designs! Same with the teens (save for a few things, mostly color, but I digress). Valentino is cute, but I don't like how they gave him a deep voice. Asha and Star? They're ok, at best. Looking at the concept art in the book, there was SO much potential that they didn't use.

Asha looks a lot like Isabela. It's a running joke. But the closer I look, she looks too much like her. Literally, if you look in the book, you can see that she actually had a floral dress that seemed a little too similar to Isabela's. The thing is, she had a lot of other really good designs, which I used in the redesign below, among other things. Star, he's cute but...it's sad. He was so obviously going to be a love interest. AND YES DISNEY. IT'S OK TO HAVE A HEROINE FALL IN LOVE. I took one of his designs that nearly stuck and tweaked it a little. He still has a star form, for other purposes.

The songs. They were ok, but I'm sort of understanding the joke if "They were written by ChatGPT". They sound so empty? But when you listen to the demos they sound better. That brings me to "At All Costs". I heard it in the movie. It's sung by Magnifico and Asha, when it was so obviously meant to be sung by Asha and her love interest, which would have been Starboy. And the demo is actually really good.

For my redesigns? I changed quite a but on Asha. Her friends are supposed to be like the seven dwarves. So why in the world didn't they utilize Snow White for Asha? I'm not saying she had to be a carbon copy, but jeez, it would've been nice. In my design, I gave her a mix of other dresses she had in the book, changing it a bit to look like snow white's but still being original. I changed the colors, toning them to be more similar to Wish's colors.

Valentino stayed entirely the same. I saw that he was originally he was going to be much larger, pretty much grown. So, I took that and gave him a sister. They aren't really "siblings, Valentina was born way before Valentino, but he's always following behind her, so Asha deemed them "honorary siblings". And I mostly wanted Asha to have more animals around her, like Snow White.

Star is still Star, but he also has a human form. In my opinion, it wouldn't be very present until later in the story. The more tine he spends around Asha, the more he feels more comfortable using it to help Asha. And also, he wants to be like Asha. He loves humans, and watches them from the sky all the time. He may or may not be the North Star. I'm still debating.

Maybe I'll do more with other characters.

Story. I want to try a rewrite. Not now, cause I still have a bunch of Encanto that I'd want to finish, but definitely in the future. I may do more Wish posts on my designs and what I'd worldbuild with some ideas were:

Asha is already Magnifico's apprentice.

Magnifico used the book before he founded Rosa, and built Rosa to take people's wishes for his power under the guise of what he does in the movie currently. He keeps some wishes alive to grant them. No one knows, not even Amaya. Asha finds out. This means he's evil from the start and stays evil. No redemption. No return.

Wishes affect a person not just emotionally, but slightly mentally and sometimes physically. When ita given away, the person feel not just an emptiness, but also heaviness in their body physically.

Amaya is a bit more morally gray, being in Magnifico's side, and even helping him, but slowly shifting to Asha after seeing what he's doing.

Star plays a bigger role much earlier on. The Teens do as well. I feel like they had no character in the movie. Not even Dahila, who I do I love.

It's closer to Asha's birthday. So when she finds out about Magnifico, she's scared of losing her wish, and being unable to restore everyone else's that was already lost, like her Saba's.

Asha may or may not have a staff like Magnifico's. But like?? A training staff??

Magnifico may or may nit being trying to corrupt Asha with the book. She is subject to hus magic still, and sometimes it seeps into her mind, but Star is there to counter it.

Star is much stronger in terms of magic, enough to be on par, or almost on par with Magnifico.

TL;DR: I like Wish. But it has flaws. I wanna try my hand at a rewrite one if these days.

[qcellbit]

meta talk. i don't quite know how to word this properly, but adding french creators to the qsmp is the riskiest thing quackity studios could've done and it doesn't surprise me that the success to which it was executed was minimal.

adding portuguese speaking creators exclusively from brazil as the first batch outside of the initial english and spanish speakers was the perfect "soft expansion" for the server when you consider the reason for the project's conception - because quackity had experienced poor treatment from white americans as a bilingual latino creator and sought to unite his two communities in an empowering way, further expanding this very noble and personal idea to encapsulate all communities and all languages spanning across the entire world. inviting more latino creators who have likely had the same experiences and would be able to appreciate what the project is trying to achieve is a no-brainer.

it's an uncomfortable thing to touch on (which is why i've never, ever, seen it spoken about on this website), but minecraft projects and communities have always had massive problems with all forms of bigotry, but especially racism. white americans and white europeans have probably not felt the euphoria of seeing their culture celebrated in mainstream global entertainment projects as they already absolutely dominate the entertainment industry on a global scale. as someone who is visibly brown and living in europe, i've always got a lot of grief from classmates and co-workers in the form of ignorant jokes and flat out exclusion - it's an unfortunate cultural norm that bleeds into streaming due to the medium's casual and open nature, unnoticed or unchallenged by white viewers who don't want to have to confront a content creator's bigotry in fears of having to stop watching them. something that cannot be ignored by the people it's actually affecting. there is a reason dsmp and hermitcraft cosplay meet ups are dominated by pale skin.

i love the qsmp because its inclusion of latin american creators and quackity's selectiveness based on personal experience have largely (and i do mean largely, not entirely, but that's a discussion for another day) eliminated that problem.

the most prominent and succinct example i can think of is the photo of quackity's bedroom that was mocked countless times by his english speaking community and his bigoted english speaking friends when he streamed on the dsmp - when that photo was brought to the qsmp, forever, a fellow latino creator, was the first person to gently offer solidarity because he had come from the same impoverished latin american background. to me, and to a lot of minorities, that is what the qsmp is about. yeah, sharing languages in a minecraft server is novel, it's a fun way for americans who did poorly in high school to get back into learning spanish, but it stands for so much more when you're a racial minority. when your pleading in the dsmp fandom was drowned out and ignored for the entire duration of its run. when you're completely unrepresented in minecraft tournaments, and when known bigots are encouraged to participate in said tournaments to boost viewership because numbers are paramount. when you are finally seeing your culture appreciated rather than mocked on streams with tens of thousands of viewers all over the world as part of a massive project with a brilliant, engaging story.

it was obviously necessary to branch out of the americas at some point with what the project is attempting to achieve, but such a task is daunting when the next group you're inviting and their community probably do not have the capacity through personal experience to appreciate what the project stands for at its core in the same way the first batches do. can non americans all relate in discussions of the internet and entertainment industry being america and by extension english speaking centric? yeah, of course. but can white europeans relate when the only representation you have in said media revolves around harmful bigoted stereotypes? can there be a quiet solidarity between a white frenchman and a brown brazilian based on experiences with government, racial profiling, and online mockery? no. and in the landscape of livestreaming stupid jokes for entertainment alongside fast paced gameplay, these nuances are probably not going to be acknowledged.

in complete contrast to the solidarity exhibited between quackity and forever when discussing their poverty growing up in latin america, i have not forgotten and never will forget aypierre excusing his constant racist jokes aimed at the brazilians on his uniquely "french dark humour" that the brazilians, hurt by his comments, could "not understand." this is not an excusable cultural difference, but a symptom of white european privilege, and total ignorance towards what the project is meant to stand for. a smooth integration of all the world's cultures necessitates white european and white american introspection in a way that i haven't seen a lot of streamers capable of. admitting fault to such a degree and the ego of a large online personality do not often mesh well.

i'm always very irritated when people (especially english speakers) complain about them not "adding the germans" sooner despite us seeing applications for german speaking admins many months ago - because it would not be a task of simply throwing out server invites to content creators and cobbling together an animation of a submarine crashing into the island. you cannot downplay the ambition of this project and the mammoth task its trying to accomplish. people take for granted and forget that this is an unprecedented melding of cultures that would never otherwise interact and clash on the rare occasions they do. the french qsmp community being small and the french creators largely being outliers when it comes to the qsmp is not something born out of malice or purposeful exclusion, but simply a symptom of an unspoken lack of solidarity and inability to meaningfully relate based on everything from wildly varying privilege to global placement.

and don't get me wrong - i'm not excusing things like the times at which events are broadcast (i literally live in europe and have to stay up until sunrise to see most events, i think the admins do have to bite the bullet and begin structuring events around a new timezone that isn't the globally inconvenient unsustainable PST), or the exclusion of clips from french content creators at the presidential dinner, but i think attributing those admin choices to the brazilian community being unfairly favoured is downplaying what the qsmp as a project means for minorities, especially when the brazilian community receive the most scorn for infamously being the first to call out bigoted behaviour from qsmp content creators. yeah, it sucks that the french haven't slotted into the qsmp as well as the brazilians and aren't anywhere as numerous, but with all these unspoken contributing factors being taken into account, i can't be surprised.

i wish quackity and his team the best in smoothly integrating more languages and cultures in this amazing project in the future, but for the love of god please understand that the implications of this project and its impact are far larger than any streamer "drama" you might've witnessed in the past. and stop underplaying what this project is trying to achieve in an online landscape saturated in bigotry.

[mewwfr]

Oh my god, staff.....

This auraboa issue with the lore being (most likely) unintentionally racist is especially maddening to me, because the concept they seem to want to portray (based purely on the encyclopedia entry) is very similar to an OC I have, and so I can say with experience, it's incredibly difficult to convey! ESPECIALLY when you try to portray it inside a short story where you're cutting lines for word count (their forum reply mentioned they left out some lines to keep it short)

Instead of getting across the concept the encyclopedia entry seems to allude to, the short story just accidentally walks into like 10 racism rakes in a row and its truly agonizing for me to watch, knowing what i assume the actual lore's intent is.

encyclopedia quote: "Older generations of Auraboa existed in a constant state of communion with their fellows. They refer to this connection as The Loop. In this persistent state they perceive time and memory in a non-linear manner; their intertwined considerations for past and present events are such that it became difficult for a dragon outside The Loop to grasp the intentions of these ancient wyrms."

what seems to be the intention is that the auraboa are a hivemind that doesn't experience time the same way other dragons do- they experience past, present, and future all at once and thus cannot communicate well NOT because they have a different language, but because they aren't experiencing TIME ITSELF in the same fashion as the dragons! However, in practice, in the story, the auraboa seem to speak with words in the proper order, just haltingly, since otherwise the story itself couldn't work at all.

another encyclopedia bit: "The newest generation of Auraboa is not linked to The Loop in their waking hours. While they move through the world, they are less directly accessible and read as "silent" to Auraboa who are within the communal state. This disconnection has allowed the young Auraboa to experience time in a linear fashion, and with this new understanding they have begun to form connections with other species of dragon that have never before been possible."

The encyclopedia seems more clear about the Linear Time thing, and that being why they can actually communicate sensibly, but in the act of having a story where the older ones DO communicate with the outside dragons and get a point across, they've kind of not shown the reason why dragons and auraboa COULDNT communicate before! which is! a big thing!

If they'd implemented the auraboa speaking with everything in the wrong order instead of halting single words at a time, i feel like the intention would get across better. As it is, it just smacks them directly into the 'simple native' stereotype with a truly awful tripping into the 'having our kids be taught by outsiders' which is. a really wretched parallel, as many native people have spoken of the unimaginable violence of residential schools.

I feel like the encyclopedia entry Alone isn't nearly as awful (still not great, but not as bad) as the extremely poorly implemented story that managed to ddr dance onto a bunch of horrible tropes.

they were literally so bad at conveying the fact that the auraboa are a hivemind that is unmoored from time, that i see people misinterpreting the lore as auraboa having their own weird language that other dragons can't understand! there was not enough effort put into conveying the ideas they tried to convey, and what WAS put forward was literally chock full of the most unfortunate parallels physically possible.

[yourhighness6]

I can't remember where I saw this but there was this post I saw a while ago about how if zutarians "really wanted to engage in media analysis they would ship zvkaang" and I just... Ugh.

For one, the age difference is gross to me, especially considering a lot of anti-kat@ang zutara arguments center around the fact that Aang was not mature enough to be in a relationship based on the way he treated Katara, and pointing out that Katara is considerably more emotionally mature than Aang throughout the series. Shipping Aang and Zuko, who remember are canonically twelve and sixteen throughout the series, may be okay for a lot of chronic anime fans (from my understanding anime has huge age gaps like that all the time) but a large age gap is basically the first thing that puts me off of a ship. It's the same thing with ships like tokk@ and zvtoph and sokk@ang. A two year age difference is fine for high schoolers, but four years is really, really pushing it, especially when you consider that Aang would be fourteen when Zuko is eighteen.

And if that weren't disqualifying enough, whereas zutara has a truly incredible amount of romantic coding from the music used in certain scenes to small gestures such as them reaching for each other in the final agni kai and Katara's thumb on Zuko's lips in the crystal caves scene to the "she's not my girlfriend!", a common romantic trope being used several times between them, zvkaang has no romantic coding. They honestly remind me of that "platonic tension" textpost that was making the rounds a while ago. That being said, I do understand that "chemistry" and "romantic coding" are fairly relative concepts, but it definitely isn't heteronormativity that makes people see zutara instead of zvkaang as romantic (and although I also ship zvkka to a lesser extent the same can kind of be said there).

Anyway, with a weird age difference and zero romantic coding, that, in my opinion, kind of derails the ship, but its also worth mentioning that the original post's only argument seemed to be that just because Zuko and Aang are narrative foils, it makes sense that they should be romantically involved, which frankly, isn't a very good argument, especially when you consider that Zuko and Azula are also narrative foils and siblings. Narrative foils come in many forms, and come to think of it, I don't think I ship narrative foils from any show I've ever watched. The parallels between zutara often specifically highlight how they might suit each other romantically, and fit with the show's themes of balance.

This is just my opinion, and certainly not meant as a callout for any zvkaang shippers, especially those who are zutara and zvkaang shippers, I just felt it necessary to debunk the idea that if zutarians actually cared about literary analysis, they would ship zvkaang. It's just another half-assed, poorly thought out way to delegitimize zutara shippers and pretend that the ship has no canon basis, while in reality, anyone with an objective eye for media analysis can see that zutara is by no means a ship to be ignored.

[thelovelydoggycatmadi]

A comprehensive thought dump by two idiots about MCD season 1 upon recent rewatch 9 years later.

Aphblr has lied to me.

for years I have been told that Jessica Bravura’s Minecraft diaries is the superior watch to her other main series Mystreet which is just simply untrue as of my rewatch of the series 9 years after watching it for the first time.

true to the art form and writing style popular at the time MCD is a jumbled mess of things just happening with no clear connection and in some cases direction.

so many wasted opportunities because we are put promptly into the perspective of Aphmau. A character with very little substance and is shaped by the characters around her rather than the characters own actions.

the most interesting characters and concepts remaining firmly in the background. Such as Dale and Molly’s struggle with their daughter being turned into a shadow knight.

Brian’s sudden and barely built up betrayal of his family.

Kiki’s daughter being Zane lets be so real that child is literally just Zianna 2.0 (oh but Madi she’s a werewolf! Idc Cope.)

to Logan and Donna’s love story.

Most characters in the for front don’t talk about there own trauma’s or really anything there feeling outside of there love feelings for or about Aphmau.

Even as the production value went up I find the most interesting arc is the pikoro arc. As it showed genuine comradely between our main characters and established a clear dynamic. Only for the Scaleswind war arc to completely ruin that by making Garroth lose all rational thinking and an extreme entitlement to Aphmau. Writing it as if Zane brainwashed it doesn’t make the uncomfortable and frustration go away.

Zane was a good villain, while motives are fairly unclear he had a genuine presence and had fairly smart well executed plans. (Ein is definitely not a better villain.)

Something that stuck out to me; was how much of the plot probably could’ve been solved with the poorly thought out magic system, specifically Kawaii-Chan.

Kawaii-Chan practices forbidden soul magic and is able to give inanimate objects a conscious. So Lion point out something interesting; couldn’t she just trap parts of the main characters soul in a doll and just, save them incase the worst happens? Imagine what she could do with relics.

Every time Lucinda is on screen I fear what comes out of her mouth. Because I’m just going to ask later “why can’t she just do this?”.

anyway here’s a list of our favorite characters in no particular order;

chicken shamen

Brendan

Logan

Yip

Donna

Katelyn

[pickmedolls]

𓉸ྀི ݁ ˖ ◜ THE PICK ME GIRLS

Pick Me! (commonly stylized as Pick Me) is the second chance for five girls who have been mistreated by the industry and poorly managed by their companies. Known for their appearances in various survival shows, four of the girls (Yue, Kiko, Pink, and Jules) were unfairly cut from the final groups due to rigged rankings. The remaining girl, Rosie, managed to debut with EVERMORE after Once Upon a Dream, but her situation didn’t get any better. After just a year with the group, her members accused Rosie of being a bully and got her removed from the lineup, despite the lack of evidence to back up the claims against her.

The group was formed and handpicked by Sylvia Hara, the creative director of Heartbreak Entertainment. Sylvia, who seems unfazed about discussing the group's origins, has stated several times that the idea for the group came about after she watched an interview of Choi Mijun, former group mate of Rosie and leader of EVERAFTER, in which she labeled Yue as a "pick me."

All three of them competed in Once Upon a Dream, but only Mijun and Rosie made it to the top 6 and got to debut. Yue, on the other hand, accused Mijun of cheating and claimed that her father had made a generous donation to Mnet to ensure that Mijun not only debuted but also won the show. Allegedly, Mijun would then orchestrate Yue’s exclusion from the top 6 despite her being a fan favorite to win. After OUAD, Yue went live on Instagram with a stream titled “OUAD: All the shit swept under the rug,” where she delved deeper into the topic. Just a few days later, Mijun gave an interview as an excuse to address Yue’s accusations and labeled her a “pick me” for complaining about not being good enough to earn a spot in EVERAFTER’s lineup.

Sylvia found the interaction hilarious and decided to capitalize on it. After signing Yue and making her the leader of the group, Sylvia had a marathon of survival shows. Notebook in hand, she listed 7 potential candidates to complete the lineup, ultimately selecting 4 of them.

Pick Me is known for its unfiltered girl crush concept and its dance-pop sound with hyperpop elements. Their debut single, "Angel of My Dreams," was a huge success, driven both by the drama surrounding the group and the song itself, which went viral from the moment the teaser for the music video was released. The girls are widely regarded as the leaders of their generation.

⋆˙⊹ COMPANY: Heartbreak Entertainment

⋆˙⊹ DEBUT DATE: April 20th, 2022

⋆˙⊹ DEBUT SINGLE ALBUM: Angel of my Dreams

⋆˙⊹ FANDOM: n/a

⋆˙⊹ MEMBERS: Yue, Rosie, Kiko, Pink & Jules

𓉸ྀི ݁ ˖ ◜ WHAT MADE THE GIRLS GET PICKED?

♡ FENG YUE, 2002 ݁ ˖ ◜ Competed in Mnet's Once Upon a Dream. Even though she was the show's front-runner since her very first performance, Yue ended up ranking seventh, missing out on EVERMORE by just one position. Her fellow contestant Choi Mijun, who unfairly won the show, was behind this. As the untalented nepobaby she is, got the show rigged in her favor by her daddy, who donated a huge amount of money to Mnet. All of this because Yue called them out. Also called her a pick after debuting. The audacity!

⋆˙⊹ SHOWS: Once Upon a Dream.

⋆˙⊹ RANKED: 7th.

⋆˙⊹ FORMER COMPANY: SM Entertainment.

⋆˙⊹ YEARS TRAINED: 4 years prior OUAD, 1 year before debut.

♡ SEORA ‘ROSIE’ PARK, 1998 ݁ ˖ ◜ Competed in Produce 101, didn’t make it. She then tried in Once upon a Dream. Contrary to Yue, she managed to debut after ranking sixth. Rosie opted for a much smarter approach: keeping her mouth shut and away from any drama. At least until her debut with EVERMORE. Spending twenty-four hours a day with a mean queen bee and her pose of hair-headed girls was bound to take its toll. Fed up with being bossed around and verbally abused by her leader Mijun, she stood up for herself and called her out to the company. Mijun accused her of being a bully and got her kicked out.

⋆˙⊹ SHOWS: Produce 101, Once Upon a Dream.

⋆˙⊹ RANKED: 13th (Produce 101), 6th (OUAD).

⋆˙⊹ FORMER COMPANIES: JYP Entertainment, Idol Maker Entertainment.

⋆˙⊹ FORMER GROUP: EVERMORE (2020-2021).

⋆˙⊹ YEARS TRAINED: 2 years prior Produce 101, 3 years before OUAD.

♡ SUKIKO ‘KIKO’ MORI, 2000 ݁ ˖ ◜ Competed in Mnet’s Produce 48 after just two years of training with SM. Although she went a bit unnoticed at the beginning of the show, Kiko ended up becoming a fan favorite to debut. She’s not just the best dancer I’ve probably ever seen, but also a super creative and versatile choreographer. Kiko was born to dance; you can tell just by watching her. But somehow, she ended up ranking fifteenth. With that talent! Literal daylight robbery!!

⋆˙⊹ SHOWS: Produce 48.

⋆˙⊹ RANKED: 15th.

⋆˙⊹ FORMER COMPANY: SM Entertainment.

⋆˙⊹ YEARS TRAINED: 2 years prior Produce 48, 4 years before debut.

♡ PAVINEE ‘PINK’ WORACHOT, 2002 ݁ ˖ ◜ Competed in Produce 48 and was blatantly robbed. Pink stood out from the get-go with her unique voice and natural charisma. No matter where you looked, there she was, smiling and surrounded by people like moths to a flame. She was one of the most popular contestants, even though her Korean wasn’t perfect. That’s the excuse the judges used to keep her out of Iz*One by just one spot. Fans went absolutely wild, and rightfully so!

⋆˙⊹ SHOWS: Produce 48.

⋆˙⊹ RANKED: 13th.

⋆˙⊹ FORMER COMPANY: YG Entertainment.

⋆˙⊹ YEARS TRAINED: 1 year prior Produce 48, 4 years before debut.

♡ JULIANA ‘JULES’ SANTOS, 2002 ݁ ˖ ◜ Jules initially debuted in JYP's disastrous attempt at a coed group, 2LUVU, which crashed and burned after just a year and a half, with only two comebacks to their name. After that, she competed in Girls Planet 999, where she somehow ended up in eleventh place even though she was more debut-ready than half the girls who ranked above her. She was edited to seem like she had a superiority complex and zero interest in bonding with the other contestants. Nowadays you can’t even have a bit of RBF without getting canceled. Mnet boo, you suck!

⋆˙⊹ SHOWS: Girls Planet 999.

⋆˙⊹ RANKED: 11th.

⋆˙⊹ FORMER COMPANY: JYP Entertainment.

⋆˙⊹ FORMER GROUP: 2LUVU (2018-2019)

⋆˙⊹ YEARS TRAINED: 5 years before debut with 2LU, 1 year prior Girls Planet 999.

[theartsynebulawhodoodles]

Cytherea (My UTMV OC) Art!

I’m going to write some things about Cytherea! She is my UTMV OC! I have posted her backstory in my blog if you want to check it out! (P.s) she has other outfits and this is just a concept of one!

Here’s some basic info:

Cytherea has multiple names! She has no official name since she doesn’t go by her dead name and has multiple names throughout her life. However, everyone just calls her Cytherea.

Cytherea is half Native American, quarter Greek, and quarter Scottish. Her original parents were Native American, however due to her being born from spirits of them, she was formed by hand, so when she was taken in by her adoptive parents after being brought to them so she could be taken care of properly, she inherited the Greek and Scottish in the adoptive parents.

She is Asexual, Pansexual, and a Demi Girl! Me and her share the same sexualities and gender since I wanted to represent my sexuality and gender through a character I made.

She is an artist and likes to make art! She also enjoys music, dancing, reading, learning, and writing stories.

Her personality is quite difficult to explain. She is a kind and motherly person who has strong levels of sympathy, however she is stubborn and can be very sensitive at times. She is kind to everyone and tries to find understanding in others to bond with them. She tries to keep her negative emotions hidden and away from others since she is terrified of accidentally harming someone.

Her physical appearance: She has paler skin for a medical reason I will list below. She has freckles and scars across her skin, the scars from many different things. She has dusty lavender colored eyes and brunette hair with flowers in it. She has Angel fang piercings and ear piercings and a round body type that’s chubby as her body type. She has two tattoos, a ankh representing a loved one on her hip and flowers that look like they are one with her body on her shoulder. She has a Greek nose as well. She is 5,4.

Some emotional/trauma/issues Cytherea has. (Tw: abusive parents, manipulation referenced)

Cytherea is a paradox in the UTMV. She basically exists despite it being impossible for her to exist. Since she technically was from another entire chain of multiverses and the creator originally put them in that chain of multiverses, then it means that since the creator didn’t write them originally in the Undertale multiverses then it would be impossible for them to exist in there. But Cytherea broke the laws of reality out of sheer determination if that makes sense! But she realizes that everyone has been made from something and that certain scenarios were created by creators and not all of them were natural. But she is uneasy around the idea of viewing everyone as characters, so she tries to ignore the creators and pretend like she is unaware of the creators.

She has issues with trusting to easy. Since her adoptive parents weren’t good people and treated her poorly, she trusts too easily when she feels loved and appreciated since she never gotten that feeling from her caretakers. It makes here very easy to control with beings like Nightmare.

She has BPD, Autism, and Anxiety. She has been mentally ill for a long time and is always trying her best to improve her mental health.

Whenever she formed and fused with the forgotten soul, the forgotten soul became apart of her, which made her soul have traits of the forgotten soul, which included integrity.

The flowers in her hair are apart of her body. She controls them and they sometimes even purr and hiss! They shoot poison at enemies.

Cytherea has a blood issue/condition which causes toxins to be inside her blood stream, which is kinda like venom or poison that are dangerous to others. This condition affects her abilities to do physical things like exercise or training like others (makes her slower or less active due to energy preserving) and her energy levels being extremely unstable. She has to take a treatment to remove the toxins in her blood every once in a while and has to rest for a bit at certain points of the day because of it.

If anyone has any questions about Cytherea send me a question in my asks box! I’ll either answer in my own perspective or of how Cytherea would answer, like me roleplaying as her! Thank you all for all the support!

(CYTHEREA BELONGS TO ME)

[gffa]

Have you watched the First Okiro's recent Star Wars video? He made a really interesting case about how TLJ Luke was a form of character assassination. When I saw the ask you answered about how Luke treasured Yoda and read the last paragraph, I thought maybe you'd agree.

https://youtu.be/r0I86ii2N_8?si=-oHY6dQsFBsSAfPv

Hi! Honestly, I pretty much refuse to watch any Star Wars video essays anymore because so many of them are anti-Jedi and I don't think it's fruitful for any of us for me to put myself through that, they don't gain anything, I don't gain anything, etc. So I have no idea what the case being presented in the video is, I'm only going on "character assassination" in TLJ and how I actually disagree. I mean, I think it was poorly executed in some ways, but that the basic concepts of it are ones I actually think are the best parts of the movie. My problems with TLJ's Luke story is that I think the extremity of it was too much, that him being on the island for six years without contact with anyone was too long for how I see Luke, as well as I think the structure of having Han die and not showing that deleted scene of Luke mourning his death, of having Luke interacting with Rey but making it all about Ben, none of that worked for me. But what does work for me is that the idea of overcoming pain and suffering is a one-and-done deal is just not how Star Wars or the Force works. Luke very nearly fell to the dark side in Return of the Jedi, that wasn't just put there for the aesthetics, that was something he was genuinely teetering on the edge of, he was raining hell down on Vader when slicing away at his arm, Sidious genuinely felt the anger and rage roiling inside Luke, he had to struggle to turn away from it and embrace what it meant to be a Jedi.

That's not a one time struggle--that's something characters face their entire lives. And if you include the Disney comics (which are really good imo), Luke struggles with loss and pain and anger after the defeat on Bespin, he has to struggle through not falling to the dark side again. And, hell, even MARK HAMILL says that Luke's fall down the reactor shaft on Bespin was akin to him basically trying to commit suicide because he was so devastated. So I think it's fair that Luke could struggle with that again later in his life, I think it's fair that after pouring everything of himself into building up the Jedi again, to have it torn down by someone he loved, someone that he may have bordered on attachment to (as Star Wars and the Jedi define it--love and attachment are not the same thing, attachment is the desire to hold onto something/someone so tightly because you can't live without it and thus you can't see it clearly, which I think I could believe of Luke, that he was so blinded by his desire for what he wanted for Ben that he couldn't be objective about him, just like he struggled with loving his sister so much that rage boiled inside of him when Palpatine threatened her and Luke's friends on the second Death Star), that he retreated because this felt so massive and he felt like he was the only one who could build this school and that he pulled these kids into this life. Like, it's fair that Obi-Wan struggled with Anakin's betrayal and cut himself off from using the Force on Tatooine, so I think it's fair that Luke struggled with Ben's betrayal and cut himself off from using the Force on Ahch-To--they both had to process that grief and it's not always a perfect path when it's someone you love that dearly and were so incredibly close to. Ultimately, the entire speech Luke gives is one that is DESIGNED to be knocked down, he is literally standing in front of the First Order and facing them down with his laser sword at the end of the movie, Rian Johnson literally says that it was Luke's personal failure, not the failure of the Jedi religion, and Luke finds his feet again. And that's my guy!!! The guy who makes mistakes, but is such a core of goodness and compassion and care for others that he eventually gets over these massive hurdles placed in front of him, and so that part of Luke's story worked for me. I'm just not wild about the finer details of how it was actually executed, even if I think it's fair to point out that Rian Johnson was handed a pre-existing situation that he then had to reverse engineer a backstory for with an extremely limited time to do it, because apparently THEY DIDN'T PLAN OUT THE TRILOGY AHEAD OF TIME for fucks sake.