#it's just genuinely a really funny phenomenon to me is all

[tvckerwash]

watching people discover the fucked up science guy part of viktor's lore and then being like "we need to acknowledge that he's a fucked up science guy 😔" is so funny. like yeah, he is a fucked up science guy who thinks ethics committees are bullshit because in his mind having rights temporarily violated is perfectly fine if it means saving lives—especially when the ones condemning his beliefs don't offer what they consider to be an ethical alternative to fix the problem and simply let it continue to exist.

and yeah, he's a fucked up science guy who experimented on himself following a, quote: traumatic period of introspection. he had a mental breakdown, fell into a major depressive episode, and spending this horrible time of his life "alone in the depths" reinforced and radicalized his previous beliefs, and to showcase his beliefs (and to try and get rid of his emotions because of how overwhelming they were) he turned himself into a cyborg (and did in fact make himself worse in certain ways but ehh who cares /j).

and yeah, he's a fucked up science guy who gave a kid back alley anti anxiety meds so he could face down his bullies, but he did so after making him a cozy beverage, teaching him about the dangers of propaganda and baseless rumors, and having him scream into a megaphone to freak out said bullies because it was funny (not that he'd admit to finding it funny because then he'd have to admit to having emotions, and well he can't do that, no sir).

so yes, viktor is a fucked up science guy, but that's half his charm! he cares so much about helping people, but he's a weirdo and freak about it! though to be fair, in the city that also has a chemically enhanced werewolf (warwick), a sentient blob of goo (zac), a wind and water goddess (janna), and a literal war criminal who invented chemical warfare (singed), among many other wacky individuals, he's pretty normal all things considered! fucked up science is just a part of life in zaun, my dudes!

[olderthannetfic]

Sending this to you specifically because I feel like you're the only normal brained person about this series.

I read Captive Prince a couple of years ago and liked it fine, as someone who doesn't have a strong preference for or against m/m and therefore isn't well-versed enough in its clichés to notice whether it reads like something full of cliché fanfic tropes. I really liked the use of language, some of the historical/political stuff, some of the ways that the characters are made complicated or unreliable.

The problem is, I've since coincidentally read most of the books that were Pacat's inspiration and. Well. Like 80-90% of the stuff in there has direct parallels in one of those. I'm not sure if there are more than three original thoughts in there.

I am not joking, if you read 1. The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett; 2. The Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling and 3. The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, you will find that some of the scenes were ripped off beat for beat, many jokes were taken and just lazily reworded, a lot of the character beats and arcs are at best a mashup of 2 or maximum 3 things from those books with the serial numbers filed off really poorly. There's a scene where some characters discover a suicide victim whose structure and descriptions are completely ripped off from another series, except Pacat fails to see what made the original scene so impactful. A lot of the pretty use of language is also directly copied from those, including some really really specific descriptors. It's so blatant!

And I don't see how people are okay with this! I know people who are fans of several of these works and they're totally cool with it! And honestly if it were some rando's unpublished original project I'd be cool with it too, but as a published beloved worldwide phenomenon with rabid fans? C'mon.

And another thing is, all of the other series mentioned above are balls to the wall insane. She just... she just made it bland. She took off most of the edge and reshuffled the elements into a fairly straightforward MLM love story with some light kink thrown in. It's not a BAD series, but I feel like I'm disappointed that someone read all my favourite books and THAT was their takeaway?

--

I started reading, got to the name of the series and burst out laughing.

And, wow, you brought up something totally new that I hadn't thought about! I'm impressed. Genuinely. Usually, I rant about all the reasons I hate the series while debunking the standard anti talking points.

--

I've read the Vampire Chronicles, but that was in the 90s and I read Captive Prince in like 2016 or after. I had zero recollection of common points. I haven't read The Lymond Chronicles despite years of hurt/comfort fans bugging me to do so, and I think I got like a chapter into the Nightrunner series before getting distracted...

The reason I found Captive Prince annoying and derivative is that it also reads exactly like the original m/m that was available when it was first being written, most notably the work of P.L. Nunn who was extremely famous for horny fan art but who also wrote some original m/m fantasy novels. The scene where they finally bone reminds me heavily of the one from... uh... what's the P.L. Nunn one where the prince creeps on that archer dude and he gets raped because of course and then the prince has to be ~patient~ and it's peak boring 2000s rape recovery tropes?

The rape backstory is not only lifted from Fushigi Yuugi (the author's fandom at the time) but is shared with basically 100% of original m/m from that era. It's sometimes the uncle, sometimes the stepfather. One single time that I can think of, it was the foster brother, but mostly it's that "funny uncle" type. Unless it's gang rape from a bad Gundam Wing fic. That was also everywhere.

Once somebody told me the author had previously shipped Tamahome/Nakago, I realized that they'd taken what would be a kind of unusual anime ship and made it a thousand times more boring by dumbing down the scary, tall general with the tragic backstory into an uke-appropriate waif.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there may be some inspiration you aren't familiar with, but it's the same story as what you said above: this is the blander remix.

--

As for why people are okay with this... honestly, most of the people who really adore the series whom I've talked to point to how it encapsulates the exact tropes and tone they loved in anime fic circa 2000.

As a fellow weeb, I loathed the tone of said anime fic circa 2000 and could not wait for tastes to change, so Captive Prince is a hideous blast from an unlamented past for me.

I think most people who love the series aren't familiar with its inspirations. Those that are may have consumed them quite a while ago and don't realize quite how direct the parallels are. Or, for the inspirations that aren't overtly canon m/m, the lure of it being Exactly Right may overshadow other things.

(They also mostly haven't read 90s fantasy doorstops that actually contain political intrigue, tactics and strategy. Captive Prince is a piss poor entry into this genre and should be recced for m/m, not this other stuff people constantly think is in there. None of these characters can reason their way out of a paper bag.)

More than any of that, there's a lot of love left over from when the series was a serialized original story on Livejournal in an era when we had vanishingly few original m/m works, especially long ones in a fantasy alternate world.

I think that is what gets it a pass when a new m/m novel presented as "m/m romance" or posted on one of the webnovel sites would be mocked for unoriginality. Many Captive Prince fans aren't (or weren't when they read it) all that familiar with the smorgasbord of original m/m available today. Many are unfamiliar with anime fanfic circa 2000, so this feels adjacent to the fic they've read but a little fresher... instead of like the week-old sardine tin I found it to be.

[flavoredfaeman]

Okay making my own long post so that I can get out all my thoughts clearly

So to start off 1. I think that queer baiting is a completely useless term, in part because all it is used for is arguing whether or not something is queer enough (in part because queerbaiting is an incredibly rare phenomenon in western media), 2. I think that the way male queerness is treated in Deadpool is unfortunate, and 3. Gay people are allowed to find joy in goofy movies and it isn't that serious.

**this is all my opinion, a lot of these topics are up to personal interpretation just like with any other movies or media discussion (I am trying to also cover multiple perspectives here, but I am only one person)

Let's get one thing clear right off the bat, no one who is familiar with marvel and disney actually thought that Deadpool and Wolverine were going to kiss/fuck nasty/become an item. (Those were jokes guys.) Those of us who were hoping for queerness were hoping for some subtext at most or the Deadpool-typical type jokes where he smacks a guy's ass, makes a quippy comment and moves on. And within that context of expectation, we were given way more than we expected.

Now, I will say that it is absolutely sad that we can have these movies with gay jokes, but that actually portraying queer characters seems to be too much for them. As is typical (to my knowledge) of bigger movies, they were allowed to make a side lesbian couple (this is a much larger topic, but for the purposes of this conversation, let me add on: cishet men think lesbians are hot + women are not considered to be able to have "real" relationships without men. So they can get greenlit a bit easier.), but Deadpool is not allowed to have meaningful connections to other men.

Deadpool's jokes about gayness can be interpreted in different ways. To some people, they feel hurtful and deriding. To others, they are the jokes made by a man who is comfortable in his identity, and who makes jokes to take power away from people who may want to use his queerness against him. It's really hard to argue this one way or the other, since Deadpool isn't a real person who we can ask to clarify. As such, how one feels about these jokes usually sits within the context of how they view Deadpool and the movies in general. Personally, I think that these jokes are meant to shock audiences, but I don't think they are actually intended to be hurtful. Especially when the funny part of most of the jokes is when he is making them, not that it's gay. Like, straight or gay, it's funny to talk about sex in a really emotional/tense moment, or in the middle of a fight. Particularly when you see how he treats the other queer people around him, not to mention, you know, the fact that he's canonically pansexual. (Frankly I find it kinda weird to go "aah there's a queer man making jokes about being a queer man!! How terrible!!" but that's my prerogative)

From movie 2 to 3 there does seem to be a change in how queerness is being treated. A positive change, in my opinion. Because Deadpool isn't making all that many jokes in this one, he's got a few for sure (Wolverine has one or two as well!!) but a lot of what he's doing is becoming genuinely close to Wolverine. This shifts the dynamic, now it's not just Deadpool making gay jokes or advances to people who don't really reciprocate (to my memory, though I feel like Colossus may have flirted back at like the end of Deadpool 2?), instead the jokes are being reciprocated/responded to and the characters are being put on even ground. Wolverine is a realized character, just like Deadpool, so they are able to grow closer over the course of the movie, and form an actual connection and bond. (Also a lot of the gay jokes become "wow isn't wolverine so hot?" jokes)

Important to also add that yes, they do start the movie with a very fraught and tense relationship, they are both very violent characters, Wolverine has crazy anger issues, and Deadpool makes everything a joke. All of these things are important to their characters and story! If you took some of those early interactions out of context you could argue that Wolverine isn't reciprocating or something of the like, but that would require ignoring the majority of the film. They are kinda crazy and impervious characters who have opposite personalities in a high stakes setting, of course they are going to fight and try to harm one another.

As much as it's already been talked to death, it is genuinely important to discuss the metaphors in this movie. Because as funny as the Honda jokes are, that scene is heavily implied to be a sex scene. This is the art of film, what you cannot show the viewer, you must convey some other way. The fight happens to You're The One That I Want, they repeatedly stab intimate places (stabbing as metaphor for penetration), the way they position themselves in the car and through themselves at each other, and the camera panning towards the bumper as the car shakes (a classic fade to black sex move). This is all movie language, and it is vital to understanding what a movie is portraying.

The climax is also very important in this regard, because as camp as it is, they were willing to die for each other and in that willingness they were able to save each other. Like A Prayer is playing, they are holding hands, when Wolverine's shirt explodes Deadpool takes a moment to oggle him despite the fact that they're both getting absolutely electrocuted or whatever.

Now, despite all of this absolutely beautiful subtext, Deadpool and Wolverine do not get together. That is absolutely an important part of this conversation, their relationship is ultimately left ambiguous. But a queer man being in a homoerotic ambiguous relationship with another man, does not a queer bait make.

Vanessa is an important part of this discussion of course - though to preface this, I find their relationship really boring so I don't really remember a lot of what happened between them in the first movie. Deadpool is canonically pansexual, so his relationship with any woman does not make him any less queer. Though, it could be argued that she's been kept around as a character to make sure he's always in or longing for a straight relationship.

Some people have been arguing that the movie ends with Deadpool getting back together with her, which blatantly does not happen. They were in a weird stage of exes being friends at the start of the movie, where she was in a new relationship, and he was still pining. All he does at the end of the movie is go over to her to let her know he cares about her, which could be romantic or platonic - but IS NOT them getting together. And again - even if he still is in love with her by the end of the movie, he is still queer.

In addition, I don't think that Deadpool is monogamous. He's constantly flirting and showing interest in many different people. Now I don't remember if he ever has a conversation with Vanessa about monogamy, so I could be missing an important part of their dynamic. But as it stands to my knowledge, Deadpool being in love with Vanessa doesn't mean he's not in love with Wolverine.

Both of these potential relationships end in the air. And of the two (if we assume monogamy is important) Vanessa said she had a boyfriend, and Wolverine just moved into Deadpool's apartment. So Wolverine is in a much better position to end up with Deadpool than Vanessa is.

It's also good to note that everything we got in this movie was fought tooth and nail for by Ryan Reynolds and the movie's team. There is every chance that Deadpool and Wolverine's relationship would not be implied but rather outright in a world where studio opinions don't matter.

Everything that I've just described is not queerbaiting. A movie with queer people in it canonically, is not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is when media sells a character/relationship as queer in order to get an audience and then tells that audience that they are not actually queer (usually done incredibly insultingly, think Sherlock). Marvel and Disney do not need to market towards queer people to get an audience, in fact marketing towards queer people is more likely to lose fans, and gain hate. It's also important to note that the marketing hasn't been marketing these two as queer, they aren't almost kissing in material, the cover is a friendship charm, the most they do is address the fact that Wolverine/Hugh Jackman is hot af. So it literally isn't queerbaiting.

Now, whether or not someone is disappointed in the level of queerness is completely up to the individual! Everyone is welcome to their opinions and feelings about the movie, disappointed or delighted. But a movie is not queerbaiting just because you are disappointed.

[averycutesalamander]

i just wanna add to ur smau that boothill maybe leaves hate comments on ipc posts???? bc official hsr on hoyolab posted a pic about jade's timeline and there is an ipc ad featuring jade, under which boothill commented "Oh fudgin' wubbaboo, why's the algorithm recommending this to me! Fudge you!" idk what he's exactly like in ur smau but thought this is a fun fact to share :)

THAT IS SO FUNNY AVAVDBBASBDB ??? I HAD NO IDEA I NEED TO HUNT THAT DOWN

i honestly imagine that he doesn't really look at other people's posts much at all (obviously this is made suspect by in-game events but hear me out.) maybe he occasionally scrolls his front page if he's extremely bored in a circumstance where he can't practice shooting?

buuuuut he could totally see an IPC-sponsored post when he opens the app to post something new and he completely blows a gasket about it. he leaves a comment on it with a million different censored swears. someone screenshots it and the silvergun fandom once again loses their mind because there's absolutely no record of him ever commenting before that's known to fans.

a week later he comments on a post of Jade on some luxury starship and all he says is "💥💥💥" and naturally the theorycrafting quadruples. is this a threat?? a diversion?? some extremely weird flirting tactic??? everybody gets their answer an hour later when the starship fucking EXPLODES. Jade doesn't die but a literal shipload of IPC higher-ups couldn't get out in time. IPC shills start a movement to cancel him ("#NotAllEmployees !!! many IPC members are very charitable and kind and fair as long as you ignore the war crimes and the slavery and the "unconfirmed" political assassinations and the--") but 99% of the people posting under that tag are people making fun of the whole thing. the moderators ban the tag and issue takedowns for a ton of mocking posts for "misinformation." all of the mods are accused of being IPC sellouts.

he gets banned again and his next returning post is the first full-body photo he's ever uploaded. he's holding a MASSIVE classified (well. now declassified) IPC weapon in one hand and making a thumbs-up with the other. he's holding the fucking thing like a fish and grinning like a moron. 2 minutes later he posts a picture of the entire thing shattered to pieces. it kind of looks like it has bites taken out of it. suspiciously human-sized bites, in fact.

the new account gets banned in like 10 minutes flat but that was enough time for the pictures to be re-uploaded a million times. the silvergun fandom has an unprecedented resurgence because a fuckload of people start making edits and art and shit. RPF is made about him. horny RPF is made about him. inexplicable enemies-to-lovers RPF is made about him and Jade. he actually appears in the comments of one of those fics and leaves a death threat. the silvergun fandom enters a golden age of thirst. his comments and DMs are flooded with people giving him tips and info about potential next targets, many of which are fake but some of which are genuine. the branch of the IPC responsible for media control is frantically scrambling to get a hold on this insane phenomenon but no matter how many times they ban him he keeps fucking coming back. determining which one of the "silvergun#####" accounts is legitimate at any given time becomes an olympic sport.

and he just keeps posting nature pics like none of that shit ever happened. decoders lose their fucking minds trying to figure out the "secret messages" in all of his uploads. one of the most popular decoding accounts gets outed as being an IPC employee. he posts a video of a fish in a creek and everybody becomes convinced that he's signaling that he's going to visit an ocean planet. he doesn't. a gargantuan amount of shitty bigfoot-esque hoaxes pop up of people "seeing him" in various impossible places where the photos are conveniently blurry. the IPC wastes a truly insane amount of money trying to figure out if any of them are legitimate. the singular legit post completely flops because they had zero followers and used the wrong tag. boothill comments on it with "🤫😉" and literally no one believes that it's one of his real accounts except the original poster.

[sam-keeper]

Halloween Film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

I always loved the ending of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the classic sci fi film about replicant humans being grown from strange alien plant pods and taking over society. Well, I loved what was the ending, before the nervous studio tacked on a prologue and epilogue giving the film an optimistic (and contrived) conclusion. You know, where the main character runs out onto the road, desperately trying to halt oncoming traffic, to get anyone to listen as he cries, into the night, and finally directly into the camera at the audience, "They're here! You're next! YOU'RE NEXT!" For all the film's been interpreted as expressing red scare paranoia about communist infiltration (and even that's contested--others see it as a cry against McCarthyite witch hunts), the sheer manic shrieking energy of that finale lodged itself in my brain ever since I watched the film as a teenager. It was fearful, but it also was relatable, almost a kind of perverse power fantasy. Imagine, just imagine, screaming out from every theater screen and tv set: don't you see what's happening all around you? Look away from the screen if you like--they're already here!

The 1978 remake is actually a weird kind of precursor to our new phenomenon of the rebootquel: a short ways into the film, the main character of the original (literally--it's Kevin McCarthy, the original's star) slams into the car of our protagonists, ranting that blood curdling monologue. In this version, however, the pod people swiftly dispatch him off screen, and we get a creepy shot of a crowd of them standing silently, dispassionately, over his bloody broken body. That sums up the film's sense, contra the original, that it will already be too late by the time anyone notices anything wrong.

What a creepy film this is. It's astonishingly shot, full of striking images and brilliant camera work. Like, if you want reflections and shadows and distorted views of characters to feel fresh again, like they're more than hackneyed metaphor but really, viscerally unsettling, this is the film for you. There's a pervasive sense throughout that the worst has already happened, the world already gone strange when you turned your back. Instead of zombified mania and violence, there's a flatness to everything, a cool impassivity. The cast enhances this impassive flatness through contrast: it's a film full of brilliant weirdos as heroes. Scope Jeff Goldblum in this, for example, as a self absorbed neurotic owner of a mud bath house, and Veronica Cartwright as his Star Child wife. Even the relatively well adjusted main couple has their oddities: early in the film Brooke Adams as Elizabeth has a moment where she does this, fuckin, crazy thing with her eyes to make her friend Matthew laugh that's genuinely very funny and unsettling, and it immediately lends her character so much off beat humanity. These are people who have dedicated their lives to the department of health and they've got the zealotry that comes from being genuinely a bit of a weirdo for both bureaucracy and science. Indeed, Elizabeth's husband gets replaced early in the film by a pod she brings home to study out of pure curiosity about the world.

Elizabeth, soon after realizing there is something fundamentally wrong and alien about her husband, remarks to Michael that San Francisco feels suddenly strange to her, like an alien environment full of alien people. I feel this sometimes in Seattle. Oh, everywhere, but pronouncedly here, interacting with boomer or gen xer artists in my area who casually talk about the homeless like they're subhuman, with people on the street who will freely monologue about who we need to cleanse from the city, with our repulsive mayor and city council who verifiably think I and queers like me are disgusting. You get to thinking, or at least I do, that surely people don't have that much cruelty in their heart, and then you run up against the flat casual way a stranger will condemn a fellow human to oblivion, simply for the crime of being an unpleasant reminder of poverty. Every supposed red line gets crossed--local leaders pump money into already bloated police budgets, people shed their masks, politicians race to be the most xenophobic and border-paranoid, and the state department and media shovel dirt on the fire of each exploded Gazan hospital or butchered aid convoy. Am I supposed to feel secure in this tough new environment? All I hear is the panicked cry: YOU'RE IN DANGER! YOU'RE NEXT!

Donald Sutherland's character Matthew has a belief in institutions that's at once charming and completely exasperating. He's a health inspector who clearly cares deeply about doing his job and doing it well, and so is almost totally unequipped to respond when every social system transforms into a weapon to hunt and replace him. The number of times this man calls the police, often seemingly out of civic duty!! Meanwhile Leonard Nimoy plays a psychiatrist who manipulates and shepherds the cast. He's a pod person, of course, but it's totally unclear whether he was one the whole time or became one late in the film. The suggestion seems to be that it doesn't matter: his role as a professional is to smooth over social ruptures and keep the state of things running as stress free as possible, so he seamlessly adopts his role in the new dispassionate world order. I can't stop thinking, too, about a scene where Matthew and Elizabeth are caught out pretending to be pod people because they react with terrified revulsion to a homeless man who's accidentally been grotesquely fused with his pet dog. The pod people, of course, do not react to this sight, but go about their business. All that seems to have changed in pod person world is that the whole machinery of society carries on without emotion or meaning. The horror is that instead of ending, the world just keeps going.

Sarah and I discovered after watching that there's two other takes on The Body Snatchers, one in the 90s and one late in the Bush era 2000s. I guess that means we're about due for a new generational interpretation of the story. It's not quite like clockwork; maybe it's more like a seasonal bloom. Every 10-20 years, someone feels a compulsion to run to the cinemas and shout, to anyone who will listen, that they're already here, the pod people have already taken over while we were sleeping. And maybe they already have.

Check out more short reviews on my Patreon

[ao3-top-batfam-ships-bracket]

Hi, prev anon venting about the Timkon vs Batjokes poll here: would actually find it very interesting to read some analysis on the rising anti mentality, actually. I've been in fandom for a long time, so I do remember when it wasn't like this, and for a while I was like "it's fine, just block and move on, don't engage, it's fine". But IS it fine?? Fans of more complex and not easily digestible ships... we block and ignore and create our own little niches, but at this point I've seen too many cases of shippers saying they're AFRAID of publically liking something darker just because they might get harassed. This shit is getting genuinely harrowing to real alive people, to the point where some poor fans actually buy the bullshit of "you're a bad person if you like That Bad Ship" as if thought crimes exist and we're in the damn 18th century. It's definitely worth studying this phenomenon in fandom because then maybe we can figure out how to fix this? Fandom is supposed to be fun... Lol, really long way of saying that those texts would be cool to see, thank you guys!

Sure!

Here's a huge library of sources about media literacy, lgbtq+ issues, fandom and fan culture. We definitely recommend checking it out!

Under the cut is the list of articles focused specifically on the phenomenon of antishipping. Please keep in mind that some of these articles are master's theses or doctoral dissertations and that we didn't fully read all of them. This is just a general list of what we've found.

Aburime, S. (2021). The cult structure of the American anti. Transformative Works and Cultures, 36.

Aburime, S. (2022). Hate narratives, conditioned language and networked harassment: A new breed of anti-shipper and anti-fan–antis. Journal of Fandom Studies, 10(2-3), 135-155.

Bradburn, M. (2023). Fans Like Us: Anti-Shipping, Othering, and the Reauthoring of Fandom (Master's thesis, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte).

Drouin, R. A. (2021). 'Fans are Going to See it Any Way They Want': The Rhetorics of the Voltron: Legendary Defender Fandom. Bowling Green State University.

Larsen, V. (2021). It makes me, a minor, uncomfortable. Media and Morality in Anti-Shippers’ Policing of Online Fandom.

Salsabila, J. A., & Sulhin, I. (2024). Social Media And Moral Panic: Examining The Case Of Antis Fandom On Social Media X. Eduvest-Journal of Universal Studies, 4(5), 4138-4150.

Stone, A. A. (2023). The Antagonistic Anatomy of Anti-shippers: A Thematic Analysis. City University of New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Urbańczyk, A. (2022). Finding a Dead Dove in the Refrigerator. The Anti-Shippers’ Call for Exclusion of Sensitive Content as a Means of Establishing Position in the Field of Fan Production. Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, 53(3), 404-420.

(Also, adding this screenshot of the table of contents from Larsen's article because it's very funny.)

[laniusbignaturals]

What are your thoughts on Benny? I think he’s genuinely fascinating based on his characterization in All Roads as someone who can be both cruel and gentle when he needs to be (maybe his unofficial last name should be Chameleon instead of Gecko what with how he changes his behavior for any given situation). I appreciate the good bit of “sopping wet cat of a man with a foot fetish” jokes about him every now and then, but I feel like the fanbase neglects a lot of what his personality is like.

Interesting to me that he seems to be subjected to a phenomenon which I usually associate with female characters, where they’re the ratio between passionate interest and variations of “hmmm step on me mommy” is unevenly skewed towards the latter end. Although when people shower female characters near exclusively with uncomplicated erotic praise, we can generally call that sexist, whereas with Benny I’m like. Lmao. Sure, sometimes it seems like the tumblerized subsection of the fandom doesn’t give his character the credit it deserves, but that’s more of a frustration than an issue. Your average picrew icon doesn’t owe Benny of all characters more careful attention.

The way I see it, Benny really shines during his captivity at The Fort, which is a part of the game you only see if you decide to go against the grain and allow him to run off. Most players won’t make that decision, so, the side of Benny’s character on display in the Fort scenes - the vulnerable side - is turned into his primary characteristic by those players who do.

Benny as he appears in All Roads is certainly a far cry from the “pathetic wet cat” characterization you alluded to, but you can see fragments of that version of him. What defines him as pathetic in the comic is this weird rigidity which is out of place in his setting, Vegas. Paradoxically, Benny has hardline disdain for his community’s identity before they became a part of Vegas. He’s also vocally distrustful of chem users. At first, the reader is set up to see him as a xenophobic outsider of sorts. He’s Stringer Bell, right, the one who conforms, imperfectly but still, and enforces conformity on his whole group because he thinks it will benefit all of them. I know niggas just like that irl.

Buuuuuuuut Swank obviously thought Benny was willing to be challenged on this front. We did see him confront him about it, however sheepishly. So, Benny’s stubbornness on this front is probably a recent development. And, as we see in Benny’s later discussion with Chance, bathed in that beautifully rendered early morning glow, this isn’t just an ego trip for him, he’s emotional invested in his beliefs. Benny doesn’t insist on rejecting his tribe’s former identity because he hates it, or looks down on it. He’s just become enmeshed in a culture that makes him feel like there is no way for them to live on as they used to. To be forward-thinking is a good quality in a manager, so you can see why Swank and the others trust him. It’s just turned into a double edged sword by Benny’s overbearingness and pretension. The fact that, in the game, he’s canonically a cooze hound is funny when considered in this context. Gotta love a man who fucks for his self esteem!

This part’s just me spitballing: in his relationship with the Khans, Benny often seems to cast himself as the “rational, forward thinking one” in a way that reminds me of House, almost? They’re obviously not the same character or w/e, Benny still represents something very different than House, but it’s interesting how even after he’s rejected Robert, parts of the man’s leadership style still creep up in his own. The drama.

[mysteryanimator]

Animatic Breakdown/storyboard rambles

You can watch it here :D

I know it is super silly but I really like geeking out about media analysis and it's a good wind-down for me since this did somewhat take some creative juice. Also, it acts to look over and kinda reflect over on how to improve stuff!

The breakdown will be slightly of order so I can be more concise with drawing toward specific parallels because there's a bit!

Right off the bat, I had initially planned about 20 seconds for this animatic. It did jump to 2 minutes due to an additional story I thought would strengthen it- but this meant what I wanted to show all had to count. So with that in mind:

This framing was really important for me to hammer into your face. To point out, every time this framing occurs, Mizrak is boxed and trapped in by some external force- until that last frame with his boots, to which his body has control of the frame. I might've gone overboard though I'm not entirely sure HAHAHA.

Even the cameos I wanted to make sure had some intentionality because these people were nice enough to give in ref pics and were interested in it!

You might be wondering "what on earth wdym intentionality with cameos?" Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, aka frequency bias/frequency illusion was something I really really wanted to play around with super briefly. Which funnily enough, the people who happened to ask, were able to fall into the concept I wanted to play with.

Mizrak's hair is curly. Mizrak's hair is also cropped- by this point I had to bring in an oc to vaguely resemble Olrox to continue that subliminal messaging that Mizrak is genuinely plagued by the thoughts of him and Olrox. While verbally or even mentally, he never acknowledges it- his thoughts are omnipresent. No one is a replica of Mizrak and Olrox, they just make your head turn, and make you think.

Which also, you could argue then that MONK BLUE falls into the frequency illusion because he does end up accidentally adopting the features of Olrox when simplified. I noticed that from the very start and I almost took him out because of the similarities before deciding to just keep him LOL. I still think it's really funny this ONE BACKGROUND CHARACTER has screen time just because he stood next to him and I decided he was going to be the one most suspicious of Mizrak.

(Briefly, I'll mention, MONK RED, is an old OC, he is the head guard in some fantasy world I made up and that's the only reason he's here HAHAH)

This is where I introduce the held shot, and it happens in other shots so bear with me here and it'll make sense, hopefully! So these shots hold for an awkwardly long time. While music does mask how long it is, Mizrak is just standing there. Thinking. Even when he's the main focus he's still. We know he's thinking but he's choosing not to verbalise a single thought- and when he does, we know there's so much more to it than what he says.

This shot was very intentional because this is the last time you will see Mizrak's face unobscured for this animatic. This is one of the reasons why this animatic jumped from 20 seconds to 2 minutes. I wanted the lack of his face (especially his eyes) to leave an impact.

Also, its a hint to "we as an audience will be blocked from seeing Mizrak's personal thoughts, and if we ever do get a glimpse we will be forcibly be shut out as soon as possible"

SO, eyes are an important thing I decided to run with here! Close-ups of Mizrak's eyes are only shown twice. Once near the beginning and secondly near the end. Even then it's a side profile under different lighting condition and different expressions.

Which you might be asking "why is the only frame of Olrox below Mizrak???" In a close up of Mizrak's face, the most detailed thing in it is his eyes, therefore naturally we draw our focus towards it. He's already looking down, which means our eyes will follow to where Mizrak is looking at. This meant putting Olrox where our eyes would naturally land. Olrox looking back up would allow for the eye to go back to the original spot so when I abruptly cut to Mizrak's mouth, it's not too much of a headache.

... I hope that made sense, if not, here's it in gif format!

Like that :D

Also since it is just an extreme close-up, it allows for an open interpretation of this glimpse of Olrox. What is happening here ??? I don't know you tell me :)))) Why is Olrox looking up like that :))))) Sometimes if you leave it to the imagination, the audience is just forced to wonder what happened. I'm not letting you into their most vulnerable deepest moment lol, that's all I'm giving you. Though also I wanted the audience to feel like they were shunted out because it gives the sense of "WE WERE GOING TO GET MORE BUT THESE MONKS DECIDED WALK IN"

SO Mizrak's mouth is important because he barely says a thing.

Also I like to find different ways to portray interactions, specifically reactions to dialogue- so for here I wanted Mizrak's restraint to be a huge focus. Silence and stillness in video and audio formats are very powerful in storytelling. Also also if I were to animate this, I won't though, I am absolutely finding a way to avoid animating little sections so more important sections get prioritized, say if I were to animate a action fight scene LOL. Therefore I personally lean heavily into composition and framing to do my storytelling rather than the choreography of moves. (However that is not to say framing and choreography cannot be mixed, they are an ungodly combo when mixed, I'm not very strong in mixing those yet)

This top down shottttt. I do this a lot in my boards LMAO, it personally conveys a lot for me and it feels like we're an audience perched up in a corner just watching something unfold. Like unseen observers. It also in turn just ends up making the characters in a weaker vulnerable situation. Especially here. I wanted Mizrak to feel absolutely corned, backed into a wall. Not only by characters but by the building too.

Though I'm like 100% sure there are different ways I can iterate on this top-down view I need to find a new dynamic angle to latch onto HAHAHA.

Which to note MONK RED always has his arms crossed, he's not prepared to attack, while MONK BLUE is always resting his hand on the sword from the get-go. Hopefully, this establishes what their dynamic is towards Mizrak from the start without knowing who they are beforehand.

Also yes the shadows are fangs and very subtly a tongue that was super intentional to make fun of the line MONK RED says. It made me lean heavily more into having shadows matter more. So yes, characters are backlit very intentionally. Faces being half shrouded in shadow? Also very intentional.

Yes, it was intentional that a shot of Mizrak's mouth goes to a shot where the shadow makes a mouth shape.

I knew I had to have this shot here, just to make Mizrak's silence so much more obvious to the point it's borderline violent. I think this framing is really cool and it does have the sword show up to continue giving the sense of being prepared to stab someone in the back. Also, this is a slightly high angle. If there was a camera here, it would be slightly tilted up, making the threat more imposing.

So this is the second reason to why my original storyboard jumped from 20 seconds to 2 minutes- I wanted to subvert the original the border frame I was going for because by this point I think subconsciously you can feel it already. I wanted Mizrak's answer to be really odd and let that weight carry on far longer than it should to make the audience go "...huh what was that answer???" and start questioning Mizrak too (hopefully). I wanted him to go around the question, both in a verbal manner and physically having him walk around the characters instead of through them.

The rest of the boards that follow after have all the characters off to the side because something is off. Therefore I wanted the balance of the scenes that follow to be off-center. Even if visually they are balanced for a second, it doesn't last long at all. I wanted people to hopefully feel the shift from the pre-inquiry about why Mizrak was late and post-inquiry.

I think I could've been a lot stronger with the 'off' sense, but also I didn't want to push it too far because I didn't want alarm bells- I just wanted to plant seeds of doubt to fester.

Originally this board was going to be super comedic- but I went with a different route, but it still kinda smuggled itself into a few places!

I wanted the swords to be fully shown, it was really important to me it was in the shot. Yes, that includes Mizrak's dagger. I wanted to just hang over the sense of danger, the ability to just start attacking each other once again, but instead, they're stalking each other like prey.

SIDE TANGENT- all the monks have their swords on the left while Mizrak has his kilij (specific sword he has) on the right. He stands out massively design-wise from all the other monks so I wanted to hopefully have that be really prominent here too, since right now, he's the odd one out in this interaction.

So here, the camera is dragging off the characters, which I hoped to allude that MONK BLUE is not listening at all despite looking at him. We as the audience are the camera, so by forcibly dragging the camera off MONK RED, I am trying to drag the attention off him so we get into the mindset of MONK BLUE.

Also this line, I wanted to jab at Mizrak and I wanted from the get-go to make everyone uneasy. Also also just from ten billion watches of Nocturne, I noticed that Mizrak has a lot of 'guard dog' allusions, so I wanted to throw that here. Especially since the rest of the panels have just been of Mizrak's jaw.

I wanted to experiment with something slightly comedic and I also wanted the feeling of being unwilling dragged back into a conversation we shouldn't be having. I played around with it being a shoe shot, a sword shot because I wasn't to particularly fond of doing ANOTHER face shot- but I wanted to save those other shots for later, also I think it kind of played into it having cut to MONK RED and just having MONK BLUE not following at ALL.

Despite being chewed out by his fellow monk, he still holds a massive presence on the screen in a literal sense, unwavering. Mizrak is just STANDING there until he inveitentivately cracks and says something. He's holding himself back, which I was trying to hark on his behaviors from episode 04 with Olrox.

Ok yipee this frame- so every single time this pole pillar frame thing occurs- its always outside of Mizrak's control. He is now in control of it, to a point where even the camera follows his walk. Also audio-wise it connects back to the beginning with the bell :D because this frame motif was there from the very start.

Also not at me finding myself drawing shoes so much more often now, free me HAHAHA

Oh my god, it's the sword again. Except this time I make it really obvious to pair it with the dialogue. Like I wanted to whack you with that pairing and be very explicit in the message I wanted to portray. Also in the back of my mind, this was a "this foreshadows episode 08" HAHAHAH

Fun fact, this was timed to Granite from Sleep Token originally, then I played around with Playing with God, which my opinion made it more intensive. I ended up with Classical Dragon from Marcin and Tim Henson but I'm not too fond of that either BUT i do not want to have this infest my mind because there's something else I want to go board for fun.

Ok now done HAHAH, hope you enjoyed this longgggg breakdown- this was honestly me trying to get more comfortable with Storyboard pro and also the idea of the monks being suspicious of Mizrak kept lingering in my mind. I look back on these boards and i know i could improve on these a lotttttttttttt BUT hey I'm now a lot more intentional with my choices than say a few months ago AND I have a lot more variety in shots and angles yipee :D

[waltwhitmansbeard]

an interesting pattern i’ve noticed in the 2+ years i’ve been in the cr fandom, something i’m seeing pick up again with the premiere of tlovm s3, is the way that perc’ahlia shippers seem incapable of talking about their own ship without shit-talking another ship in the process. totally get having an otp and loving to see them happy and in love or whatever, but when i think about the ships i love most, i never think about them in the context of other ships. i never feel the urge to compare them to other couples, and i never feel like victory or schadenfreude when another couple is “suffering” or whatever. i ship my ships and that’s that. of all the major cr canon or canon-adjacent ships—perc’ahlia, vaxleth, pikelan, shadowgast, beauyasha, fjorester, imodna, callowmoore, dorym, whatever the hell fearne/chet is called—i really only see perc’ahlia shippers post about their ship while dragging another for being more dramatic or less happy or not as successful or whatever the perceived flaw is. and i find this phenomenon interesting. i joined the cr fandom years after c1 ended, so idk what the rhetoric was like while that show was airing. as i watched, i assumed vaxleth was the predominant fandom ship, bc it was my otp and yanno bias, but then i started interacting with the fandom (current day) and quickly came to see that perc’ahlia takes up much more of the fandom discourse than vaxleth does (at least pre-orbification). maybe that’s a change that’s happened over time, idk. doesn’t bother me, i ship both of them and am happy to write and talk about vaxleth with the ppl who care. but also many posts i see about perc’ahlia come with this weird smug arrogance* that seems to come from nowhere, like there’s this urge to “prove” something, but i don’t know what and i don’t know to whom. it’s just very odd, and as someone who likes percy, vex, and their relationship, it makes me reluctant to engage with that ship in fandom spaces, bc quite frankly, it’s annoying. i don’t ever wanna have to prove my ships of choice are better or more interesting or more romantic or whatever than another ship, and tbh, to me, if you can’t talk about why you love your otp without shit-talking someone else’s, it belies a lack of anything genuinely interesting about your otp to engage with.**

*i shouldn’t have to say this, but this is the internet, so i will: obviously this is not ALL perc’ahlia posts or ALL ppl who make those posts. this is just a pattern i’ve noticed in quite a few posts that i’ve seen here in tumblr.

**and i don’t think that’s true! i think perc’ahlia is deeply interesting, and romantic, and funny, and worth talking about!! so i find it weird that so often that can’t happen without having someone else’s name in your mouth.

[pillarsalt]

How do you cope with loneliness? My friends are so important to me but sometimes I feel like I can't fully relate to them anymore, and I just think about how they would hate me if they knew I was GC. I have TIF and even a few TIM friends that I love and cherish very dearly because I can see that they've just fallen victim to a toxic ideology feeding their body dysmorphia and self-esteem issues. But I can't tell them how genuinely worried I am about their mental health or send them detrans testimonies that I think they would relate to because they'd think I was some hateful violent monster that I'm not. Even the content creators that bring me joy and comfort are all so fiercely anti-TERF and it just makes me sad. I don't want to hurt anyone. I even distanced from the radfem community a bit because I felt like I was becoming too hateful towards men and TIMs when I truly believe many of the ones in my life are just trying their best and fell victim to a manipulative ideology that myself and other women also fell for. It's not that I wish I was still a TRA, because I feel much more at peace internally with my identity and my belief system, but I don't know if I can say peaking has made me happier overall. I feel like I don't fit in anywhere now. Making radfem friends helped a little bit but it's not the same as being around people I've known for years and gotten close to for reasons other than this one shared belief. I don't just want to abandon them all. And it's FRUSTRATING to see people spew misinformed fearmongered nonsense and not be able to actually help them dissect those beliefs. Feeling like the only one who sees things for how they really are, but forced to play along regardless, is just so restrictive and isolating.

To be completely honest with you, I don't have a great answer. I've been lucky to have one or two close friends at a time to whom I can tell everything, including my uncensored feminism-related beliefs. I've also been (and currently am) in friend groups with multiple people who identify as trans or are dating someone who identifies as trans, and have had to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself to keep the peace. I agree it's incredibly difficult sometimes, and I know a fair few of them would instantly drop me if they knew I was a "terf". It's kind of funny because I know some of them have an inkling of what I think about the issue, but say nothing so they don't have to fight with me. If anyone asked my opinion directly, I wouldn't lie, but I admit that I lie by omission.

It is hard to watch the ones who take the medicalization route hurt themselves. My ex girlfriend and I still talk, she's a they/them nonbinary now and despite always and still being very feminine and never expressing discomfort with her body before (including posting thirst traps often,) she wants to get a mastectomy soon. It sucks because of course after having looked into this phenomenon for so long, I'm well aware of the complications and side effects that can result from a major procedure like this: phantom pain/itching, extensive and restrictive scarring, the risks of infection and necrosis, and of course the risk of regretting having an entire organ unnecessarily removed from your body later on when it's no longer fashionable to do so. It sucks that voicing even the mere suggestion that it might be a bad idea is enough to have you shunned as an apostate. I genuinely care about her and I would feel similarly if she was having any other radical cosmetic surgery like breast implants or a BBL. At the end of the day, our friends will make their own choices regardless of how we feel about it, and the only thing we can really do is be there for them in the end.

I feel similarly to you in that I don't want to hurt anyone, only to protect people and especially women from the harms that are intrinsic to trans ideology. Unfortunately, you can't help anyone who doesn't want to be helped. Sometimes though, you can play dumb and ask questions that might get them to think a little bit more about the rhetoric they're repeating. For example, I often go out for drinks with coworkers, one of whom is a she/they nonbinary woman. One time she said something about how she couldn't be a full they/them because she's still 'girly' sometimes. I said something like "doesn't it seem kind of regressive to associate how feminine you are with how much of a woman you are? what about butch lesbians?" She didn't have an answer and brushed it off, but I could see the cogs turning a bit. Playing the uninformed normie pointing out the obvious sometimes gets them to realize how twisted the logic in trans echo chambers can be. And I think sometimes expressing your disagreement with the dogma can show your friends, who know you well and know you're a good person, that, contrary to what they've been told, not everyone who disagrees with gender ideology is an evil nazi out to slaughter transwomen in the streets.

But yes, in general, it is very very isolating to hold radical feminist beliefs. I'm sorry you're going through it. One thing to remember is, there are tons of women even in your general vicinity, who like you, don't buy into gender rhetoric but aren't saying anything in order to preserve their safety and social lives. I do believe that as the world seems to be becoming more aware of the reality of the situation, more and more people will feel able to be open about their dissent, and it will become less of a fringe opinion as the flaws in the ideology are exposed. Here's hoping I guess. Keep your chin up anon.

[fadelbison]

Well something kind of funny just happened but I think it actually proves my point even more so here goes: I was trying to construct an argument about how the discourse around Thai branded pairs being 'real' or 'fake' is so short sighted and insular because what fans are trying to ask is "do you love and fuck each other within this rigid heteronormative lens" but what they ask is more along the lines of "are your feelings for each other real" and when people answer with a resounding 'YES!' it suddenly turns into lying when the answer to the implicit question turns out to be no.

But the truth is that the relationships between human beings are very complex and things can be intense, real and even be passionate without it falling under romance. I think this is especially true within queer friendships where being a little bit in love with your friends is at this point a widely accepted phenomenon. Anyone here whose job feels less like a job and more like a Trial By Fire knows that the bonds between you and your coworker are very, very real. And one of those jobs is acting - period. In the context of branded pairs that partnership suddenly amps up in intensity until you truly are having a very unique experience with only ONE other person in the entire world. This was of course all leading up to Krist and Singto, about how Krist really, genuinely likes Singto SO much, about that one (recent??) interview that I can no longer find where Singto said that he had to reassure KRIST that he wasn't leaving because of him - about how it's not always clear to the people experiencing the relationship itself what is truly happening between them. And part of that argument was going to include a small anecdote about a friendship breakup I had with a friend I used to do theatre with in middle-high school.

Well. This post is no longer focused on KristSingto so let's just get into the anecdote:

When I was in the 8th grade I started an unusual friendship with an 11th grader (Z) because we used to do theatre together. Many things made it unusual - we were of the opposite gender, a 4 year age gap at that age is HUGE, but also that he was a very reticent dude that almost never hung out with ANY juniors let alone female ones. But we became friends because:

1) We were scene partners, in fact, I was playing Zs secretary so every single one of my scenes was with him, I was almost never backstage without him because my entire role was following him around and saving him from the evil machinations of his adviser. We were backstage alone a lot because our entry and exit cues hugely overlap

2) I was nursing a horrible, terrible crush on a different 8th grader (B) also in the production and somehow this scary, reticent older dude was a HUGE gossip.

3) Z told me several years later that him befriending me during the production was part of a terrible matchmaking plot that the 11th graders had hatched to get me and B together because apparently our yearning for each other was difficult to witness. B had his own 11th grade buddy (the evil advisor in fact lol) coaching him. Spoiler: It didn't work b/c 11th grade boys make for TERRIBLE matchmakers.

But Z and I bonded in a way that was eye catching, part of that was because we were killing it on stage. We had amazing chemistry and we were kids so no one was coaching us to have chemistry. We just did because we trusted each other.

I cannot stress this enough that we were a comedy duo, our scenes were not even remotely romantic in nature. He was the King and I was his Jester but still people were buzzing from just watching our practices. I had unknown random girls come up to me to ask about my relationship with Z (people are always nosy about connection lol). Not only did the 11th graders FAIL but their very plot was one of the big reasons why B and I never got together because B would go on to believe for YEARS after that I was in love with Z 😭

Anyway, Z and I stayed great friends for long, long after that production and well into our adulthoods. A lot of our early years was me being sad over my unrequited love for B but I had more interests lol. We were basically ride or die and even had a marriage pact. We planned our honeymoon, we talked about what our married life would be like. We were completely platonic friends. We stayed good friends long distance for several years when I moved away for school. The friendship ended because I found out he was lying to his GF (now wife!!) about when he'd come to see me/hang out with me. And that was so disrespectful to both me and the girlfriend that I told him that we'll only hang out again if he introduced me to his GF. The reason why this never happened could have been because of a lack of opportunity since I live in a different country but we did completely stop talking after this.

Anyone who's actually managed to read all that is probably like girl your relationship was not COMPLETELY platonic. And like...yeah I'm realizing that now. Getting some clarity on a friendship breakup from 8 years ago that had caused me a lot of pain only because I started writing about it because KristSingto decided to simulate nasty fucking on stage.

Anyway, life is weird and KristSingto are about as real or fake as any other human relationship 🤷🏽‍♀️

[year2000electronics]

its so wild seeing trolls band together become an actual big thing, as someone whos seen the original a million times bc of something called a little sister (the script doesnt leave my brain send help) if i may ask: what is the appeal exactly for band together? like what made people like yourself catch on? ive heard is simply velvet and veneer but i thought asking might help me understand

WELL my own personal theory is that like. you remember how trolls 2 was a weird pandemic release right, where in order to make up the bulk of movie ticket sales it was basically the first movie you could buy on VOD for a fixed ticket price. for families of like, 5, or just multiple households in general, only playing $20 was actually a great deal, but for people like me who would only be watching it on their own, i’d be having to pay $20 for the privilege to watch a movie Once at home where i’m not even able to own it digitally after the fact. so a lot of people didn’t see trolls world tour as it came out

but then movie theatres opened up again, and trolls 3 managed to get some good promo in before the writers strike (it was a trailer bumper for BARBENHEIMER) so like. people were actualy motivated to see it more ig. especially with like, going to the movies with your family or going on discounted ticket days. it’s the Experience. there was also a bit of buzz around the fact that wish’s villain song sucked MAJOR ass, so people were kinda turning to trolls 3’s villain songs that had dropped like “ha. ha ha. isn’t it funny how this baby movie for little babies has FAR better villain songs than disney’s big prestige anniversary movie” but there was also buzz around velvet and veneer in general because people tend to really be fans of rubberhose style things imo. so like velvet and veneer really caught on as a phenomenon and a lot of people who saw the movie stayed v&v stans but a lot of people who saw the movie to see if the villains were all that ended up falling in love with the entire thing (like me!)

going back to the pandemic release vs theatre release thing i genuinely believe trolls world tour could have sparked a renaissance of trolls’ image like this if it hadn’t been dropped the way it did. because trolls 1 was a Fine Enough fantasy world but it was just about going to and from bergentown and neither pop village nor bergentown were very cool locales. but trolls world tour had COOL LOCATIONS and REALLY COOL LORE and AWESOME SIDE CHARACTERS which is a lot of stuff band together has too! ike i firmly believe that trolls has more of an appeal now because it’s shifted into a true fantasy adventure series it’s just that the one that actually started this trend was trolls world tour. because people LIKE thinking about the politics of the different troll tribes and they LIKE thinking about the sibling dynamics of brozone and it’s a lot more meat to bite into

either that or maybe people just really like velvet and veneer to a supernatural degree. who’s to say. who’s to say.

[irrealisms]

tidal forces liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

i mention this in the end notes and it's included in the web weave but a lot of this au is drawing off thoughts crystallized by part 2 of Barrier Blocks; a theme of heaven will be mine is that mecha fights aren't real war, they're play. they're communication! they can be an argument or they can be full of intimacy and joy! the point is sometimes winning but often--when it's at its best--it's about having fun. it can hurt people for real, but that's not what it's for. and this puts it in an interestingly similar place to pvp on lifesteal, to me! (this is why zam is cradle's graces--canon zam is the most attached to pvp and lifesteal as a place to fight-for-fun, and so hwbm zam is the most attached to the ship-selves and space as a place to fight-for-fun. contrast to subz's pacifism and general disinterest in the server, and to vitalasy's exploits that render pvp pointless.)

another thing i'm doing with this au: i really like putting eclipse fed in a setting where they are...genuinely at odds, they've got different worldviews, it's not like we know the devil where there's a true ending where they can all reject society and have an ending that's perfect for all of them, they're on different sides. but hwbm envisions a world where they can fight about it and then come out the other side with an ending where--it's not what 2 of them wanted. but they can still all be happy together, there. hwbm makes me believe in eclipse fed happy ending and this is rare for me & also makes me unbelievably soft

also the thing of. gravity. control over the narrative (as opposed to fighting in physical space as opposed to cheating, as three distinct things that characters do) as physical force. eclipse federation to me

speaking of narrative control. the faction that "wins" a scene is, consistently, the one who loses the physical fight. the first scene is sort of arguable since vitalasy runs away ig but-- the outcome of the fight is what vitalasy wanted, but zam is the one who wins the scene! and then in the second two chapters there are physical fights with clear winners, and whoever won the physical fight loses the narrative one. this too is eclipse federation

all of them are trans women bc the original game is very much about transness & transfeminity but it's also doing thematic stuff for all three of them. chapter 2 in particular is inspired heavily by (a) their conversation in this vod about zam leaving eclipse (b) the conversation quoted in the chapter summary between pluto and luna-terra in heaven will be mine, about how pluto identifying as a trans woman is bc she saw luna-terra and was inspired by her

i didn't explicitly get into vitalasy's gender as much but ... her issues around being seen as both [dangerous monster] and [scapegoat], and ending up sort of embracing alien-ness but in a way where she also kind of hates it, are very much tied into her transfemininity, here, as are her issues around earth and going back to earth

this is a small note but i'm really proud of the line in chapter 1, "All the implants they fit inside her couldn't make her matter more." because of the double meaning of the word "matter". matter as in physical substance--to have more of it is to have more gravity--and matter as in importance, which, in hwbm, to have more of that is also to have more gravity

subz's characterization is deliberately ... more comfortable with sincerity than canon? this is a subz who has undergone enough character growth to be openly trans and not just Wearing A Dress As A Funny Bit, yk. this is a big part of chapter two lol, subz talking about how when she was younger she was Kind Of Shitty! i debated making Subz more ironic and shitty and such in this fic also to be more accurate to canon but ultimately i think it works bc of how i explicitly establish the ways in which Subz has grown past that

chapter names! prominence eruption is a solar phenomenon but i chose it mostly just bc prominence once again has a double meaning of importance. retroreflection is the ability of a surface to reflect light back; it's lunar-themed but it's also a metaphor here for zam reflecting subz. for the last chapter i wanted something vitalasy-themed but i didn't have anything solid so i went with 'impact crater' since (a) it's pretty generic to a lot of celestial bodies (b) the Ogygia Chasma is an impact crater (c) it does work, since so much of the fic is abt the lasting aftermath of vitalasy's suicide attempt

more names, this time ship-selves: all the canon ship-selves are named after specific features of the planet their pilot is named after (for example, Pluto (character) pilots the Krun Macula, which is a dark region on Pluto (planet)); in this au, they're not named after planets, but they do have convenient space theming (subz moon zam sun vitalasy stars) in canon that i got to kind of steal from! the Montes Harbinger is a cluster of lunar mountains, so named (and so chosen) bc it's a harbinger of the dawn; the corona is the outermost layer of the sun, but it also means "crown", which is fitting for zam. vitalasy's is trickier bc "stars" is not actually a coherent....object in astronomy that has physical features, especially not ones distinct from the sun? i considered doing a constellation but one of my betas was looking at various things in the solar system to get ship-self names from and encountered the Ogygia Chasma and went "this would make vitalasy so sad" and . well. who am i to not pick names that will make vitalasy sad. (the Ogygia Chasma, on Saturn's moon Tethys, is named after the island Ogygia in the Odyssey, where Calypso trapped Odysseus for seven years, preventing him from returning home bc she wanted to marry him. i think Vitalasy would have some feelings about this and her relationships!)

in heaven will be mine, each of the three pilots (Saturn, Pluto, and Luna-Terra) mostly interact with each other, but they also each have someone in their faction who they communicate with privately and work together with to advance their faction's goals, although the specifics of the relationship vary based on the pilot. i didn't really get to show this off in the fic beyond two one-off mentions but the person filling this role for Zam is Planet and the person filling this role for Vitalasy is Spoke. i have some amount of vision for the relationships there that just didn't get onscreened at all. oh well! part of this is because i have no clue who fills this role for Subz--so much of subz's character in s4 is tied up in his isolation that it's hard to give him a confidant and teammate outside of eclipse. (zam was the easiest--if i didn't give him planet i could've given him pangi or mapicc.) realistically if i were to choose someone it'd probably be reddoons but one of my beta readers joked that the person filling this role for subz is princess of memorial foundation & renowned twitter poster Halimede and i keep imagining this and giggling to myself

i'm pretty sure zam betraying both Memorial Foundation and Celestial Mechanics doesn't actually work with the canon timeline of the game but shhhhhhh it's an au don't worry about it

i listened to Communist Love Song a lot while writing this. something abt refusing to reject the possibility of a better future even when everyone says it's impossible. politically or romantically? yes.

fun fact: i had written a chunk of the first chapter for a while and it was just kind of hanging out in my google docs as hwbm au inspiration and then zam said "I only want to be represented as a girl. Kissing other girls." onstream and i wrote the entire rest of the fic in a day. and then spent over a week editing it lol

[micamicster]

Micaaaaaa I am in need of a good TV show. IWTV left me craving for some good writing, please help 💙 I know some of your all-time favourites are Black Sails and The Wire, I gave them a try, but I'm afraid they're a bit too bleak for me :(( Any good recs?

Bestie this is a great question and im honestly a terrible person to direct it to because the truth is I really don't watch a ton of tv! But I'm gonna do my best!

Beneath the cut find a list of shows I think are particularly well written, divided into vague and confusing categories based on how similar to iwtv they might seem?

<3 <3 <3

(Totally get Black Sails and the Wire feeling too heavy. The wire in particular is imo the single most upsetting thing thats ever been put on television so I completely get not being up for it. But if anyone else is looking for shows I think are really well written those would be good places to start! Black Sails would be my first rec for iwtv fans tbh)

Dramas with syfy/fantasy elements:

Russian Doll: for literally anyone other than you (who's already watched it!) this would be my number one rec. One of the best (and specifically best written) shows of all time, has those spec fic surrealist elements, combines comedy and drama, just love it.

Andor: I know, I was surprised too. But despite being a star wars tv show it actually has writers that do a? good? job? And Diego Luna is spectacular. (If black sails was too grim this might also feel that way given our knowledge of the main character's fate, but it might be worth checking out anyway)

I forgot what i was going to put here

Not sf:

Reservation Dogs: Taika Watiti can be hit or miss for me, but this show is the best of his particular combination of humor and pathos. Also he's just really good at writing kids? (I would be remiss if I didn't point out that he has been (rightfully!) criticized for the antiblackness of couple of minor characters who appropriate black culture pretty egregiously, iirc they don't feature after season 1? But it is a flaw to be aware of). Why didn't I put this with the sitcoms? My mind is mysterious even to me

Bad Sisters: great 1 season irish show about a group of sisters trying to murder their sister's abusive husband. Again a really strong writing combo of humor and genuine emotion!

The Get Down: still not over this cancellation it hurt me in ways I can't even begin to explain... anyway a great show about the birth of rap in 70s nyc with beautifully thought out costumes, music, writing, visual style <3

The Americans: two russian spys undercover as an american suburban couple in the 80s is actually a vehicle for a probing exploration of marriage and intimacy. Also pretty grim (the cold war. yeah.) so idk if it would be for you.

The Knick: nobody ever watches this when I rec it because it's too gorey but I don't care! I love it! Period drama about a public hospital in early 1900s new york.

Sitcoms!: (sorry I know you've watched half of these just wanted to include them in case anyone else looked at this list!)

Derry Girls: this show is just hit after hit. Best written show about teens in the world!

We Are Lady Parts: See this entire blog. Genuinely one of the best shows ever made

American Vandal: Ok technically this is more of a mockumentary than a sitcom but i wasn't sure where else to put it. Season one in particular is some of the best tv show writing I've ever watched it is perfect in every way!

MASH: 70s sitcom about a US military field hospital during the Korean War. At its best it's hysterically funny, absurdist, and bitingly furiously anti-war. (At its worst it's racist, sexist, and boring. It was the 70s) This show was a cultural phenomenon, but it has literally over 200 episodes so I would recommend just googling for a best-of list and watching a handful to see if it works for you.

Atlanta: Donald Glover's surrealist sitcom about trying to manage his cousin's rap career in Atlanta. That's such a bad explanation of what this show is about i'm sorry but I'm not sure how to do better.

Shows I've watched between 1 episode and 1 season of, thought to myself "wow! this show is amazing!" but can't in good conscience recommend because I never really watched enough of them to qualify as an expert:

The Sopranos: everyone says it's the best tv show of all time and i watched season one, said wow they're right! and still haven't managed to get back to it! The pilot itself is so fucking funny like... mobster goes to therapy for his anxiety had to have been the pitch of all time

Station eleven: LOVED the book, heard really good things about the tv show, thought the pilot was amazing, got busy and couldn't finish it.

Babylon Berlin: this has the darkly romantic, opulent qualities of iwtv so it might be for you! Unfortunately I've seen less than half of it so I can't promise it doesn't go off the rails.

Breaking Bad: people are right! it's good! It's also (at least in season one, the only season I've watched so far) like someone made a slapstick comedy about a man cooking meth. In a good way!

You might want to just watch a couple gothic romances to scratch that iwtv itch! Check out an adaptation of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights!

WOW this is too hard. Just watch supernatural i guess

[anonzentimes]

do you also get so so so sick of "my fandom sucks" jokes? i got into sonic last year and the series is awsome but the fandom (mostly on twitter) is annoyingly full of "dont mess with us sonic fans we dont even like the games", and then i got into danganronpa and the exact same thing happened. people dont allow themselves to just enjoy anything for some reason????? as if they had to have a justification or apologize for having fun with a thing perceived as annoying by non fans??

anyways i really like your posts, thoughts and rambles so for that and as a fellow sonic and danganronpa enjoyer i want to know what your thoughts on this whole "haha i hate my fandom *stays in the fandom*" phenomenon are. i find it rather confusing personally

DUDE. OH MY GOD KINDA SAME??? Okay, I got into Danganronpa 3 years ago now and only recently last year got into Sonic, Well more like I finally got out of denial about the fact I could be a Sonic fan since I always cared and researched about the franchise more than somebody who wasn't a fan would LOL.

Anyways, It really depends on the context of the joke because I think it's funny when people don't even remember basic information and it's used there? But otherwise it's kinda weird and pointless. The reputation of the fans with media I liked alongside knowing someone who viewed their own interests negatively caused me to become really embarrassed about my interests for a while. I'm finally just kind of embracing myself again and not caring much anymore, I think the jokes and general feeling of people trying to apologize for enjoying something is a lot more harmful than people think. I can say a few of my joking "I hate the fandom," sentiments but it's always followed by SOMETIMES or a PART of the fandom when referring to any drama or specific people misunderstanding things. Every generalization has exceptions and I think it's quite unfortunate people kind of put themselves in a corner like that sometimes.

Honestly it also depends on what the person means when they say it too actually, because sometimes saying that means from the person that they've admitted they have this "bad" status as a fan of something and kind of have accepted it? Like they accept they have that status, say the status is bad, and then stick to it because they've accepted that they're "bad" and enjoy the thing. It honestly is kind of an interesting phenomenon. I don't know, it just kind of all depends on context I suppose.

Just overall I think the attitude people have of bunching status together because of reputation is kind of harmful but inevitable. I do know that whatever phenomenon it is I've been recently stopped being harmed by it from embracing myself lol. I still understand it has a reputation and I may say something like "Yeah, I'm a sonic/danganronpa fan" in a teasing way when it comes to cringe culture jokingly, but genuinely like I'm not sorry or guilty for enjoying anything anymore at all. I mean like, I'm the person who's gone out in public with my surprisingly comfy monokuma jacket and sonic backpack before LOL I don't care what anyone says I'm just having fun and living my life happily with the time I have in this world. I don't need to waste energy thinking about the reputation of the fans of the thing I'm enjoying as long as I'm enjoying it, and honestly life has been so much nicer after that finally solidified in my head again. Nobody lives forever and I'd rather spend it being myself and enjoying what I want to.

Basically my conclusion is this: It can be funny depending on context, primarily when someone isn't having great media literacy, and I think it's fine when exceptions to a generalizations are considered. HOWEVER in general I don't enjoy the negative tone people have towards themself and the guilt about enjoying something that is created with the negative attitude sometimes. We're all just like people on a floating rock I don't think anyone cares if you like the silly hedgehogs, and if they do then they're kind of a loser for getting upset over your enjoyment they should be more concerned with themselves and their enjoyment loll.

Sorry if this has typos or anything lol I was about to go to bed but this resonated with me so i wanted to get my thoughts out right away. Thanks for the ask!! <3

[the-dalseum-duet]

I’m going insane

@svwhssftr late night kohlsposting meets queer girlie music taste tag

oh God. oh god KILL ME

bags… i’m not like the biggest Clairo fan ever but i really liked her in middle school and now that bags is blowing up I’m reminded of just how baller her music is. she’s just so airy and cutesy and nostalgic and it makes me want to gut myself. i actually have insane cuteness aggression. i see something cute and i resort to extreme forms of violence. can’t have anything good around here without getting it a lil bloody

(the first time i heard this song was in a rory x paris edit and they’re my one and only comfort ship. they’re so. grrrrr I love them dearly like it physically hurts me that both are “””straight””” BITCH THEY KISSED anyway this is not about the most goated gilmore girls ship. those academic rivals are LESBIANS!!! the writers are SO WRONG)

but i keep seeing posts like “men who listen to Clairo are the most manipulative people of all time” and it’s funny in theory. but. ideas. IDEAS. GRAHHHH

so. this leads me to noeul. Naturally. Manipulative man ever. But noeul does indeed have a soul buried deep down inside him. He is naturally inclined to do things that bring him genuine joy. He is a hopeless romantic bitch HE IS I’M SO SORRY. NATURALLY. HE IS. HE WAS NOT BORN INTO A POSITION WHERE HE COULD FEASIBLY BE ONE. BUT HE IS REGARDLESS. AND HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THIS

like he obviously has a strong romantic attraction to Charlie. he stays in dirty motels to see her and blindly trusts her multiple times. he proposes to her. that’s a massive fucking deal coming from him. Living in Eden Grove gave him a sliver of life as a normal human being, and he fell head over heels as soon as he had the opportunity. Charlie made him feel safe. But like. In the way that you feel it’s wrong. It’s very queer even though he’s a man. And she is a woman. They are the gayest straight couple ever. It’s a hard phenomenon to describe but it’s so strong and it’s so conflicting but it’s so warm and hopeful and. ughhh. tl;dr Noeul has emotions he knows he should have but knows he can’t have 

but he suppresses these HARD once he returns to Dalseum. he has to be cutthroat again and maintain the image he had with the Council. this only worsens once his father dies. this is why he cheats on Charlie with Sonnet because he feels like he should be with Sonnet. Sonnet is a prominent community member who will blindly agree with him. Charlie is this nobody who opposes his authority. So he freaks out and just throws her in prison so he doesn’t have to think about what could have been. Sonnet is who he realistically should end up with. He cannot afford to do what makes him happy and, in turn, a better fucking human. 

Oh yeah. He absolutely has a breakdown once he learns about the existence of Crow. Also why he actually realizes that there is room for kindness inside of him. Crow’s existence as their child. But that’s neither here nor there rn i just love torturing this man. 

But. Here’s where we torture him more. Kai. Kai fits this into a way that makes me want to bash my head into a wall even more. 

Noeul sleeps around in a feigned attempt to crush his romantic tendencies. He’s not supposed to be sappy. He’s supposed to be cold and all exchanges with others must be neutral, if not beneficial to only him. Which is how he meets Kai. This was established previously. At one of Gale’s shows. 

And. Throwing this out there. Just to toxic-ify this yaoi even further. Noeul actually really fucking likes him. Like he gets flustered occasionally around him. Kai is a dumbass (affectionate) and doesn’t pick up on this but Sara absolutely does and picks at Noeul for this. But Noeul definitely picks up on Kai not actually caring for him so Noeul acts like he doesn’t care either. But ohh hohohoho he does!! This little whore DOES care so much!! He WANTS romantic dates out on the town and he wouldn’t trade the mornings they wake up next to each other for ANYTHING!! HE LOVES HIS STUPID BITS AND THE WAY HE SMILES AND THE WAY HE PERFECTLY FITS INSIDE HIS ARMS!!!! HE LOVES THAT DAMN SHARK BOY!! But Kai’s just oblivious. He’s just like “eh he sleeps around with Everyone. he just wants to have some fun and I’m cool with that. he’s just like that” BUT HE’S ACTUALLY NOT LIKE THAT. THAT’S WHAT HE WANTS EVERYONE TO THINK. THAT’S WHAT HE WANTS EVERYONE BUT KAI TO THINK!!

that’s it. that’s all. 

just. picturing Sara walking in on Noeul violently sobbing face planted onto his bed with Bags by Clairo playing on repeat in the background 

“…are you okay?”

“WHY DO I FEEL LIKE THIS”

“hungover?”

“worse.”

“kai?”

“NO”

“you’re in love, sang. I’ve never seen you act like that before. stay in denial all you want”

“fuck off sara”

“I’m just saying. It’s better if you figure it out yourself. I’m just pushing you in the right direction”

“there is no right direction here.”

“is that fucking pheobe bridgers?”

“NO!”

“oh-“

“it’s Clairo”

“oh my bad?”