#its incredible what perspectives can do yknow

[vero-niche]

still obsessed with the cover of vol1 of chi. the gall. the daring. there has never been a more "hidden in plain sight". or maybe its just my adhd that made me completely miss the rope until i noticed his shadow is like. weirdly floating

[enniewritesathing]

[yelloworangesoda]

maxwell and sammy are all mine and i love them like my children but its pretty hard to divorce them from fnaf enough to make them straight up ocs. sammy especially bc hes technically not my oc, even if i made up every aspect about him except his name and dead twin sister

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

I think my biggest issue with Rhysand (so far) is that the narrative pretends hes such a pragmatist, a guy who makes the smartest decisions in the worst of circumstances when his decisions UTM are so bad from a tactical perspective they border on comedy

Like, hey man, why dont you just leave Feyre alone with her warm meals so she can recover and try to solve that riddle thats gonna immediately save all of your lives, why do you keeps dragging her outside so you can feed her weird wine which makes her unable to think. Sure, 3 months of solitary confinement that she can actually remember is gonna mess her up for life but you would think that would be a fair enough trade in exchange for everyones freedom in the mind of someone as mOrAlLy GrAy as my man Rhysand. (Not that the shit he actually did to Feyre wouldnt have messed her up, it just didnt because if she was actually traumatized by his actions, she wouldntve been fawning over him and we cant have that now can we) Amarantha is clearly not checking up on her so he can do whatever he wants with Feyre including yknow, HELP HER especially after they made that bargain and he got what he wanted from her. Like, he couldve totally healed her if he wanted and he wouldnt have even gotten in trouble for it because Amarantha wouldve just been like "oh damn, Lucien did that" and taken that as an excuse to torture him some more (and Tamlin by extension)

And its not like Im expecting the guy whos been getting traumatized for 49 consecutive years to make a rational decision, but because Rhysand is meant to be the bestest most perfectest MaLe in all 21 dimensions or however many there are in the maasverse, hes not allowed to actually be affected by the horrible shit that happened to him because that would make him a "weak male" in sjm's eyes, so all of his decisions are treated as perfectly rational and its incredibly infuriating

[twistedastrology]

Outer Planets & Affliction: What destroys a man.

----------------------------------------------------------

gonna talk abt a much darker topic today bc i feel like it and it's absolutely fascinating to me from a very morbid perspective (which happens a lot 4 me)

im gonna start this off by saying this is mostly focusing on extreme cases/what Could happen due to outer planet affliction, none of this is definite if u have afflicted outer planets bc it depends on the severity of their affliction and how many good counter aspects u have to them that help u heal!! :)

to start, the outer planets to me are Saturn to Pluto, so let me give u a quick rundown of what I think these planets are responsible for when they're heavily afflicted:

Saturn - Destruction of the will, the snuffing of one's inner, driving fire.

Uranus - Destruction of the mind, losing your cognitive function, going insane.

Neptune - Destruction of the spirit, loss or lack of intuition, feeling lost within your own life.

Pluto - Destruction of the body, the vessel decays and lacks the strength to repair itself.

i wanna say as well that all of this essentially came to me in a vision from god, i genuinely had no basis in my head initially, i was just rambling to myself in my head and all of this clicked and then it genuinely made sense and i even had evidence to back it up, so i wanted to post abt it because i love dark stuff like this (my blog name isn't twisted astrology for no reason- i mean like the reason was bc it was a play on twist and twisted transistor by korn But yknow it gains reasons as i go on-)

let's go over why each planet destroys what they do:

Saturn destroys the will because it rules over time and persistance- Capricorns are more often than not very driven people, Saturn grounds them and gives them the stability and willpower to see things through. A strong Saturn is often manifested as a very powerful driving force, as the planet often acts an incredibly crucial pillar, if not the foundation in a person's chart.

Uranus destroys the mind because it's the higher octave of Mercury. It rules over innovation and change, even higher thought. A strong Uranus is often an indicator of a genius in whatever area of life the planet is placed into. Thus, when afflicted, it completely shatters and even lacks this potential altogether.

Neptune destroys the spirit because it's known as the planet of spirituality. It's the planet of our higher self and our shadow self, it's our connection to the planes of existence beyond our own. A strong Neptune is often indicative of enhanced intuition, and can even mean the person has a heightened level of awareness of their place in the world and where they're meant to be in life. So naturally, an afflicted Neptune means a complete lack of perspective and the loss/lack of the ability to realize there is more than the self, making one feel lonely, inadequate, and lost.

Pluto destroys the body because it rules over death, transformation and rebirth. It even rules over destruction itself, and its connection to death gives it an inherent connection to the physical body as well. A strong Pluto can manifest as a strong will, but also as a higher pain tolerance because of that. Therefore when it's afflicted, the soul's vessel lacks the ability to transform and regenerate itself effectively, and ultimately will crumble to pieces throughout the course of life.

OK- lemme write normally now instead of all fancy n shit 😮‍💨 But what's my evidence to prove all this-

well someone i know has very heavily afflicted outer planets, mainly saturn, uranus and pluto, but neptune was kinda roped into the affliction as well- and all of this checks out.

saturn especially hits him hard, which also makes it all karmic so idk wtf bro did in a past life but it had to've been Bad bc he's got some SERIOUSLY afflicted outer planets like jesus fucking christ- and like i dont wanna talk too much shit on here but he's insufferable to say the least and, probably bc of the afflicted saturn, will not do the work to fix it.

would genuinely hate to be him on his death bed like 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

ANYWAY-

like i said initially tho this does not mean if u have a kinda afflicted uranus, ur gonna go insane!!! no sir!!! it's just abt the extremes n stuff and what i have literally seen happen with my own eyes- i think most people have enough soft aspects to get them into the process of healing, maybe not even soft aspects maybe just solid placements- it's all subjective, rly-

but this is also a really good way to talk abt the Power that these planets have- they are NOT to be fucked with bc when afflicted, they can obliterate you and your entire life tbh- i dont think they Want to unless you somehow have beef with them but overall they are just incredibly powerful planets and i truly think when reading someone's astrology chart, you GOTTA look at the outer planets bc otherwise you're missing out on SOOOOO much crucial information.

i always say that i think outer planets, whether in transit or in a natal chart, have the absolute MOST impact on a person despite being so far away.

far away ≠ lack of impact.

i hope this was interesting to read or at least thought provoking bc i absolutely LOVE dark topics like these, probably my moon/neptune in my 8th house tbh- i mean im genuinely fucking petrified of tornadoes like lilapsophobia type shit but i still put that image here because i unfortunately think they are really fucking cool at the same time (ive had multiple nightmares where tornadoes have killed me. but like........ they're kinda cool......and i hate them........)

anyway!!!!! thank u for reading this far into my yapping session 🙏🙏

[kozykricket]

i really love how imagination based deltarune is, its about the whimsy of indulging in fiction, and... i wonder how much of that part of deltarunes like... well, one of its core deconstructions (i think its safe to call fiction That) but i wonder how much of that part was affected by UNDERTALE itself, because like

well i was reading an interview about margin of the strange, and its funny because. margin started as a thing before oneshot... but oneshot took some inspiration and ideas/tones from margin. but now margin is actually becoming a game, and it can learn from what oneshot did and i think ... its p similar to undertale and deltarune from what we know. like. deltarune hometown wasnt going to have any monsters in the original concept, as toby said. im sure he decided on that after he started making monsters for undertale... and, well, theres a lot of things, again theres a really big post on frisk, chara, and the player, comparing them to kris and the player... that i wanna make (will probably be an addon to this post) but this post right now is about...

im curious how tobys EXPERIENCE with UNDERTALE has effected his views of fiction. clearly he was already involved in like, indulging in fiction, yknow. as a Gamer and also in fandoms like homestuck... creation was no stranger to him but, had he created something incredibly massive? no, he hadnt. but now that he's created undertale, i feel like... surely, even if in subtle ways, that must've added to his perspective around the creation of fiction and ... him experiencing *firsthand* how your creation can grow so much that it almost becomes not yours. i just think its interesting to think of. ive said it before but ill say it again: i love when games' settings or themes are based around fiction, escapism, or just like. has stuff manifesting from imagination / thoughts. and to add to that, i think in general Creating Things about Creation is pretty cool. like, chicory is a game that talks a lot about being an artist and... deltarune may very well kinda reflect being a creator of stories, as toby does. i think with undertale under his belt, perhaps he has more to reflect and show in that sense who knows? all i know is that i appreciate when i can look into something that someone made when it like... really gives insight into what their values and thoughts are as a person. like ive said this before but i think... yknow, people who say "oh skies forever blue is a deltarune lore hint!!" is like. thats silly

but also, its valuable to, in a broader sense, analyze the ways that a writer like toby likes to think about. his perspectives and thoughts around metanarratives, the things he likes to do... like i think "the greatest living show" shows hes a fan of the theming of puppeteering of a living person, on a surface level viewing anyways. which of course we can use to be like "yeah thats definitely something that he's diggin into more in deltarune" and skies forever blue goes into... whaddya know, meta concepts in games. thats just like, something toby clearly likes. games and playing with their save files if anything, skies forever blue would tell us more about undertale than about deltarune. i hope what im saying in this part comes across well. its just like "you can look at a writers other works to find out more about what they like to write about, what they like to deconstruct, and what interests them in general" ...but anyways.. i really want to make a big post sometime about how i fully believe Kris to be a more refined take on something that was only a sort of Experiment in undertale: frisk and chara i think theres a reason its a headache to talk about those two in undertale, because... i dont think it was really the main focus of undertales metanarrative necessarily speaking. yes, they are the vessel for the metanarrative, but the metanarrative isnt ABOUT controlling a protagonist as a Player of a game. its... close, but its a bit more of a "first try" at what kris as a character does. is what i think anyways i have some good points ive noted down in a decent sized document about the whole situation with the red soul and the humans and the player and. yeah. part 2 to this post may come. (also i just think kris is really awesome and cool)

[fruitsofhell]

CW for an anti-black slur cause it's the name of a damn movie title, also mentions of historical racism in cartoons

Get really pissed off whenever I think about Coonskin by Ralph Bakshi because I need to rewatch it to see if it might be a fave movie of mine. I want to go over all of Bakshi's filmography sometime and really digest how he deals with depicting black people (especially Fritz the Cat cause the black crows are so cute!), cause he's in an interesting perspective where he is undoubtably sympathetic to us and grew up around us, but expresses this in ways that are soooo over the top we commonly see them now as only acceptable For A Black Person To Do.

Like, he's some white Jewish guy from the slums, he doesn't really have the right to reclaim the racist iconography as we think of it but at the same time it's like if someone's doing interesting artistic work they're doing interesting work. And I as a black person have actually been really inspired by that film ever since I watched it.

Ever since the rubber hose style became super hot again cause of Cuphead and Bendy I've seen people actively downplay how goddamn racist old cartoons were, or I've seen people pick up a clip from an old film and I just go "Chat, they don't know this is a quietly racist animation trend...". But it's not even just that old cartoons were racist and had racist trends, it was baked into their fundamental styles of comedy and cartooning - they were built to either exclude or humiliate blackness. And I feel like Coonskin is a work that expresses that very very loudly but with some sense of purpose.

I personally have wanted to tap into that idea since I started playing with golden age art styles, but for the tone I set in my shit that's way too overbearing. Plus, maybe as an actual black person something unique for me and not Bakshi is a wish to actually see myself represented in those old cartoon styles as more than as an object of controversy. I've also been meaning to watch more of the Proud family and works by Bruce W. Smith cause of that too, I heard in an interview he was motivated to draw because he wanted to see black folks in that mid-century, modernist style and like, SAME.

But it's actually way easier to work black features into that incredibly flexible style than it is to brute force them into the centerline/rubberhose ones where their origins can be traced back TO BLACKFACE. You guys remember that fucking lesson right? How the entire generic rubbergose face is a play on blackface, that's why the mouths and eyes are white but the body is black. If you're unfamiliar with that idea or don't believe it, look up Bosko, Warner Bros first attempt at a mascot, and see if you can tell what he's supposed to be.

It's more of an uphill battle, but not impossible to make it work in those styles. Though I have also considered the utility of borrowing directly from those racist designs to express a meta-contextual feeling/understanding that that is what you look like as a black person in this time period - that is you in the dominant narrative vision of the time. No matter what you are as a black person, to the historical zeitgeist you just appear as some flavor of coon yknow.

It could be a very potent visual tool I think, and I don't know if I'd be considering that if not for Bakshi and my relationship to Coonskin and its themeing. Which is the point, Bakshi was one of those racey types who always wanted to get people upset to start a convo or whatever. It's interesting to look at older but earnest expressions of this that would seem disastrous by today's standards - imagine "They couldn't make Blazing Saddles today" but true and on steroids.

[discountskeppy]

hii... do you have any thoughts on fugo (jjba)... lost potential? or was he best left aside? character analysis, importance in the part's theme, things about his stand... do you like him or not... anything at all ... please? <3

YES I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS!!

so i think fugo is lost potential, but i dont think its a bad thing. in fact, fugo having potential he doesnt live up to as a character in a story is a very interesting mirror to his backstory... fugo is incredibly smart, he got into university at thirteen!! he had an exremely promising life, but that all got thrown away, and then he has to spend the rest of his life in a gang!! fugo as a person has so much missed potential, but him as a character has it in an entirely different way. and i think thats interesting to think about.

i dont hate the fact that he left the gang. it's perfectly in character for him, as much as he might care about the other main characters, he is really just a scared teenager who knows he should be doing better in life. (and, from a writing perspective, there just wouldnt reallly be anywhere to put him, yknow? there wasnt much he could have done really..) what i AM glad didnt happen though is him betraying giorno and helping the boss kill him. that WOULD have been too sad.

i love his stand. just, in general, and also for what it does to his character. stands that have their own quirks and personalities are my favoriteee and also its design and power is really cool. i think its nature as an ultra destructive stand, and fugo's use (or lack thereof) of it tell us a lot about him. the stand's extremely dangerous powers kind of remind me of the hand, purple haze in the hand both have powers to just straight up murder people extremely easily. but they both have extreme consequences to the people they actually care about. they know this, and their stands are never used. i really like thinking about stand usage in relation to characters' personalities, it really can tell you a lot about them.

[ponytailzuko]

were you shit at art before you became good

you had to learn how to do things, one after the other, right? like colors and lighting and line art and textures and perspective and all that. you had to learn one and then the other and then the other and then the other … (or maybe some things went kind of hand in hand but yknow)

these are stupid questions (if there is such a thing of course, lmao,) but i would be very happy if you could indulge me haha, because looking at your art is so overwhelming when you‘re thinking about learning it yourself ahfjaka (i love looking at your art it‘s a really nice experience, it‘s just intimidating too and a lil ah.. you know ahdjsk, only when i think about like. it looks a little unattainable or like it‘ll take 20 years if i‘ll ever be able to and that‘s not really — like i know better than to indulge these thoughts sort of so nowww i feel silly about this ask adfhkjfs.

anyway.

nice art, still, wowwwww so so beautiful)

(it’s a process and it’s about the fun of that process too but i have such a vivid imagination that i really really want to get really GOOD so that i can make it actually visible, and i know it can and probs will take some time and that’s alright so this ask is a little silly. i‘m asking it anyway though ahdjsjsjwk)

hi!!! im not bothered by the ask and its not silly!

i was, in fact, shit at art when i first started out. the reason i even started to draw and do it as a hobby is because i was very dogshit at it. (if there is such thing anyways)

i think i was around 11 or so? that age where elementary school is ending and middle school is beginning and everyone's getting kind of mean lmao. one girl asked me to draw with her and she was REALLY GOOD at it! but i hadn't thought much about art at all and only really did it for fun. so i was really just doodling to my hearts content until she ah. told me that the panda i was drawing was. Really Really Bad. like point at it and laugh kind of bad. like 'not even being able to tell what it is everyone come see this' kind of bad.

anyways obviously i was not very happy. i had not really thought of art as something i wanted to do, nor a hobby that i wanted to indulge in. just something some people are good at it and some people arent. but this girl told me my art was shit, and i was so mad that i didnt talk to her for a month and then for that entire month i did nothing but watch people draw online. speedpaints at first. then i got on iscribble (collaborative whiteboard website at the time) and just watched people do it. and i asked them, how did they start? how do you know what to do? and a lot of people gave me different advice - start with shapes, oh finish the lineart first, color like this - and generally it was very overwhelming and a lot of the advice went over my head. a lot of artists advice feels incomprehensible when starting out, and some of it really stays that way bc there is some art advice i STILL do not understand at all (but it works for some people so power to them), and there is some that is more understandable when getting into the groove.

but anyways while talking to people i realized i kinda really liked the coloring aspect of art. really really liked it. id ask people if they finished their lineart, could i try and color it in the layer below just to try and improve? and SO MANY PEOPLE indulged me. and were incredibly nice. and i guess thats what made me enjoy art even though i knew that in a lot of aspects my art wasn't skilled. because people were really nice ANYWAYS and said i should keep going! so i found something i liked to do in art beyond spiteful beginnings, and i just kept it up - i learned coloring first, and i tried to learn everything else so i could color it lmao. i only did lineart and sketching and anatomy because i wanted to draw my own stuff to color. so you can totally focus on one thing at a time! thats what i did :)

i hope that story helps in any way!!! im not sure if it totally answers your question but i guess i wanted to share that growing in art is a process and you arent alone :) ty so much im glad you like my art and if you ever wanna share your own im always open!!! :D

[spearohero]

what are some of your favorite stories! yours, other people's, small, big, etc! that's probably a big thing to think about so if you want something specific ummm recommend me a writer or three!

man!!! okay excellent question. i think ill still do three but ill talk about different things with each one; bear in mind that this is like, off the top of my head, so its not Definitive (ill try to sneak em in as honorable mentions but even stuff with a huge impact on me is gonna be harder to think of/talk about if it was like ten years ago, yknow?)

oh, and if you want to read my stories, you can see those here =3c

Kill Six Billion Demons

this one probably has to be The Bar for quality in my mind, at least at the moment.

82 White Chain Born In Emptiness Returns To Subdue Evil (yes, full name) has maybe one of the most compelling character arcs i've ever read;

the art is stunning, and the worldbuilding incredibly thorough (in a way that makes the history of the world feel dynamic and relevant, rather than just being tons of lore to sift through);

the fights whip ass and the logic of the cool shit that the characters do is directly tied to the underlying view the story has about Power™, which directly influenced my thought process for a lot of the plot details of "Dawnsister";

and, sort of related to the two previous points, the entire thing is just so fucking coherent, thematically speaking. all the side stories and bits of hover text, all the bits of commentary and passages from fictional manuscripts in the image descriptions, weave together and do some really good allegorical storytelling for the messages Abaddon wants to send (and to underline/counterpoint whats happening in the comic itself), and the details tend to come back later to be relevant in a big way

its just. high marks on literally every metric i can think of. this is the kind of "every line (both kinds) is crammed with intent and nothing is wasted" stuff i wanna do with my writing

(honorable mention for this category: Everything Everywhere All At Once, for sheer quality of writing and similar levels of "god they planned this from the fucking start". one of the only films to make me cry)

Homestuck (im not linking it we all know this one)

i have less to say about this, but i think its one of the stories that's had the biggest stylistic impact on my writing. i was kind of doing it even before reading homestuck but it SUPER cemented it: the 2nd-person voice and the fuckery where a character's thoughts, the narrator's description of a scene, and instructions from the audience/in-universe sources of Brain Interference all blend together is something i keep coming back to in both 3rd-person limited perspective AND 2nd-person (typically transformation-related) work

it also takes all the "using every possible avenue for Additional Storytelling" thing that i was describing about KSBD and ratchets it the fuck up. like this comic is repeatedly the benchmark for "what kind of weird, media-mixing, format-breaking shit can i do with comic panels and text rendering", even if i dont plan to dabble in webpage shenanigans like Hussie did

(i cant think of an honorable mention here, but i liked the way Tyranny presented lore and history to you in hyperlinks in the text, so that you could just HAVE background information your character would have instead of having to Do Exposition. also check out Vast Error if you liked the shit homestuck was doing with multimedia storytelling)

Ascension: Tales of Twin Tails

this one is just one of my favorites. out of this list its for sure been the most impactful on me personally, in like an identity sense at least. this shit transed my gender and othered my kin. its one of the only OTHER pieces of media to ever make me teary-eyed. its about being transgender extremely literally but also in some really creative And Also Extremely Dope ways

the fight scenes are about as grand in scope as the ones in KSBD, and the way that magic works in the setting is just about as thematically-strong (and also offer lots of room for insight about the characters, as well as self-reflection for the reader to have fun with).

the relationships are really, really well-done, and there are scenes that stick with me two years later as just strikingly and stunningly tender and intimate and vulnerable; the characters are just as strong (Coyotl is like, Top Three with White Chain, and if you know anything about me at all you know that Cat Kitten became my entire identity for months after reading it)

read it please read it i will evangelize this novel until the end of time

(honorable mention as far as having an effect on Me As A Person is probably like..... Night in the Woods; super super natural dialogue, lots of compelling relationship turmoil and hit some fears that were Extremely Relevant to me at the time of my life that i played it)

ty for asking btw!! i hope you get around to enjoying one of these =^w^=

[gaiaxygang]

a lot of enas issues are tied to art but the whole yknow emotionally neglectful family bit is veeeery important. ena thinks that shinei looks down on him and his art (regardless of shineis intentions this is what ena has perceived it as) shinei has never tried to correct this ever. talk to ena. akito has to tell him to try to look at ena as his daughter rather than an artist for him to even consider doing that and STILL he barely is able to. shinei is also out of the house a lot for work, as shown in wish (something something without shinei the shinonome household is noisy but incredibly warm which is why its important he was gone when mafuyu came over) he puts work over family even on family trips

it is so important that ena can NOT stand him. ena understands some of his perspective and knows that it could be worse but he never quite forgives him, not for the (ongoing) neglect not for how he constantly insinuates ena is talentless. ena avoids him as much as he can in the house, he hates talking about him in a positive light or associating himself with shinonome shinei. even if ena acknowledges his skill as an artist, that he didnt intend to hurt him, he never forgives him for what he does. he tried to drown him on a camping trip because he was painting instead of helping with the tent. this is NEVER framed negatively and ena is never pushed to forgive shinei. hes not actively damaging like mafuyus mom but hes not making any effort to get better like harumichi and i dont think their relationship will ever be repaired. prsk never pushes one direction or the other and i like that!!! very much so!!!!!

[isaacathom]

ds9 time :) s2e6

'i havent seen one of these in 300 years' i- okay hang on. there was a character IN tng who used a wheelchair. the old guy. the one in the absolutely horrifically bad 'old man' prosthetics who took some fucking drug so he'd regain his youth. i remember this episode. he HAD a fucking wheelchair. you HAVE them. theyre IN THE SETTING. what are you talking about Dax. ? i hate scifi when its like 'oh yea we wont need wheelchairs in the future' bullshit man. anyway

'once her basic needs are met she refuses all special assistance' i would not say 'being able to get around' is special assistance but like. ugh. UGH. we're doing this then are we. we're doing this?

the way everyones reacting to meloras stubbornness doesnt sit quite right with me, especially considering that bashir moments prior spoke glowingly of that stubborness. but also why the fuck did you modify the design? without telling her? like dude what the fuck. she sent you a design, you shouldve just made that, and then maybe as the chief medical officer suggested alterations and improvements and so on once it saw on-the-ground action in its intended environment BY its intended user, which is not you. euggggh.

im not sure i like where i feel like this is going to go? i dont know what i think that is but my vibe is poor.

okay so plot a) melora tries to just do her fucking job and b) quark gets murdered. i understand (i do not)

my problem isn't with melora as a character, i think its with a sort of exhaustion with the fact that scifi tends to erase disabilities because ~in the future we can "fix" them~ and then their rare disabled characters tend to be a very specific way. an aspirational disabled person, i suppose. one who doesnt ask for help, who doesnt "let their handicap stop them", you know the vibe. so its not that she's a bad character, per se, but that shes part of a trope thats just sorta annoying. this all comes with the caveat that im not disabled though so ? basically dont listen to anything i say

"its like slipping into a bathtub at the end of a long day" "really... im a shower man myself" bashir buddy what

BASHIR BUDDY WHAT ARE YOU DOING. what the fuck is this. oh i hate this. like to be clear its a significant improvement from bashir being cringe flirty back in s1 with dax (something that seems to have been dropped like a hot rock) but JESUS. BASHIR.

okay yea sure (skips scene) ill just read the transcript man im good. good for bashir making friends i guess.

yknow again melora has a point, who the fuck puts raised rims everywhere like this. its a trip hazard for anybody!

do not make out on your peril do not make out okay wait okay so she realises hes hesitating, goes 'oh dont worry thats my brother' and then they immediately make out, god thats a fucking awkward chain. that said, lol. the shot of them drifting up was fun.

i am not invested in this relationship at all but i guess its nice to see Dax interacting with other people and sharing some of her knowledge. i like her a bit more than s1.

well thats not exactly where i thought her plot was going but of course, mago-scientifically curing her of her disability, a fucking hallmark. god i hate scifi sometimes. like yea whatever it makes sense in the isolated incident that its the sort of thing she WOULD want, because her bullish independence is very important to her, and whatever, but as part of a trend you just. groan.

"you people sell pieces of yourself after you die, don't you? i'll buy one" odo and quark remain exceptional

"you let me fly, i let you walk, we're even" disability politics aside, cute sentiment.

bashir's complete forgetting that she has a family back home, incredible fucking work sir, truly the empath

this episode is not especially well written, is it

wow these plots collide like a sledgehammer

oh thank GOD she doesn't actually commit oto the treatment, thank GOD!!! THANK GOD!!! oh thank god. genuinely a good choice, like im so glad, from the meta perspective, that she decided being able to see her family and all that was more important. does that make sense? i just like that she made the choice, was empowered to make it, and knows whats up. that rules. thats a good ending for her i think.

that said that episode kinda sucks? its fine i guess.

[nihiltism]

hiiiiii here to explain my last patchnote for now!!! because Another trope thought i was having was my love hate relationship with the redemption equals death trope. see, it can be By Far the most bittersweet way to end a deeply flawed character's plot, and with the ones I do see I wouldn't change for the world. buuuut in some cases it kind of feels like its also because itd be Really Hard to give them an actual redemption arc from a writers perspective. yknow. like theyve done so Much atrocities that you dont know how to write a redemption for them that feels fulfilling and. maybe the character thinks the same. maybe the character also thinks theyre too far gone for any sort of redemption and anyway doesnt know where to start.

so. basically i want to kill sera but not for long because i love trope subversion for myself only. i want this to be an act of self sacrifice but also likely something she Caused in the first place and my first thought was like. in a full on panicked breakdown (i do not know what spurs it on, dont worry about it) sera weaves a Husk Of A Beast out of roots and thorns around herself, caging herself from harm so she can lash what harm's already Internally there on others. and my thought about that would be that shes snapped out of her mania there when her creation goes after trigger, since it and her panicky first thought process only knows her as someone who wants to hurt her also. and i guess thats not Wrong but seeing this giant Thing she's wrought hold the closest thing she's had to a companion under its finger, with trigger knowing Full Well it's drosera this time. it feels like inverse deja vu of exactly what she was running from to start with and she can't handle it and breaks out of her own cage to destroy what she's created, trading finishing blows to protect the hunter she doesnt dare define her feelings on but definitely doesnt want to see die.

okay well. issue here that makes me giggle a bit. uhhhhhhh. cough. sin of odio. i think this is Really funny of a realization to make but also? i think this is a good enough idea to uh. not fucking care. sorry odio. i think its really funny how similar these guys are. thats just a side note so none of you can call me on it.

anyway patch note .5 here is that after the dust clears and sera does die to save trigger in order to maybe even die the hero she once thought she was (or, at least try to). trigger kind of explodes in a confused anger and manages to command the earth like sera could Just This Once to rip the fucking ground open and dive into hell to grab her and bring her back herself.

see, drosera is an Incredibly avoidant character and also really. not great at the whole self preservation thing because of the whole I Dont Know How To Make Up For What Ive Done And Dont Think I Can. thing. so she doesnt actually have any qualms with dying here to save trigger, 1 because its a chance to finally do something good for once after all the problems shes caused. but also 2, way more internally, it's a Fantastic way to run away again! so when trigger comes back to save her sera can only fight and scream at her to get back Out, to not be stupid and throw away everything her sacrifice was for. to not ruin the escape into misery she so deserves- and trigger calls her a coward. does sera really think that dying here will fix anything? she won't leave this pit without her, and sera refuses to let her fall into the same fate she has for something as seemingly undeserving as her. so they have one last, desperate fight in the firey pits of hell and for the first time in their eternal cat-and-mouse chase. trigger Wins. trigger with a sort of contempt in her voice orders her to get up and help her get out of here. that's the final ping that makes sera give up and agree to go with her. trigger physically Can't actually leave alone.

and thats what sets up her semi redemption arc!! im really normal!! i assume once they scramble their way back to the surface sera just immediately flumps over, something something howl ratio, and trigger has to drag her to some sort of medic but like. i think that after all the Waves Are Settled from that the chase kind of. stops. not to say sera didnt Try but theyre both kind of. still not really in any condition to have the same rivalry they did, and its not like either of them really Wanted to continue that really. oh Noooo youll have to be forced to be vulnerable and suffer each others company as something more than just enemies. so after a bit they end up setting back out Together, as sera tries the best she can to Actually Earn a redemption while trigger holds her to it. and maybe theyll get there someday but its still a way better position than before. also they have matching burn scars!!

(lies down and dies) okay everyone meet drosera shes my best friend she's my little meow meow she has 97 mental illnesses and is not allowed in most public spaces. most of my ocs have accidental character inspirations and at least 2 of them for her are the ones I want to put under a microscope and then into a blender if that's any indication of what she's like. if u can guess them u get a cookie.

anyway her deal is that she's an exile from Whatever Place She Lived In because she decided to do an Itty Bitty vigilante justice murder and was shocked when her town took that badly. (note: she thinks this murder is justified. she is quite possibly fully incorrect and very out of line either way.) being exiled for doing The Right And Just Thing gives her abandonment issues for days and she abandons her whole past identity in an outburst of (I never needed you all if all you ever do is turn your backs on me) and is now plotting to get revenge on her town in order to be an object lesson on what happens when you betray someone you loved. effectively she's putting herself as an example or, failing that, a martyr, but really her worse and worse actions are only caused by denial and her own lost pride. but she does not see that at all because all she sees Herself as is a disgraced hero

[misnomera]

On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...

Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.

To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has...Dutch origins??).

Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).

What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like...it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general. 

And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?

(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)

On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”? 

This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese? 

At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.

And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that. 

Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here. 

You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it. 

EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post

[stlaika]

I saw you doing some MCR loveposting and got so excited! I love music so much and it makes me unreasonably happy to see people talking about how much they love it too. You are NOT pretentious and never will be, you deserve to talk about the things you like with passion and respect!!!

How do you feel about The Black Parade, as a concept album? I've always been into albums that tell stories and I love hearing what other people think about TBP, since it's so open to personal interpretation!! :0

Firstly that is SO sweet of you to say oh my god,,,,, i really appreciate it man bc ive been feeling VERY weird abt this particular interest of mine ayejdhisj,,,, thank you so much <3 !!

Secondly you have awakened a BEAST so i apologize in advance

ROIGHT. THE BLACK PARADE....

I LOVE the fuckin black parade man, altho its not my favorite concept album by mcr [that title belongs to danger days] its p high up there still.

The thing about TBP is that gerard way's penchant for storytelling really shines thru in this album, bc you can really feel the sort of..anger and anguish and eventual acceptance that the dying man of this story is feeling. It's absolutely mcr's most,,, whats the word. Musically diverse? Argh idk what the word is but they definitely experimented w different styles for this album [see: cancer, bits and pieces of mama, blood, and the first half of welcome to the black parade in particular].

Cancer in particular is a really good example of this bc it swaps out their usual guitars for a softer piano, and it really adds to like. The emotional rawness of that song yknow? Particularly w the way gerard's voice is so. Augh i wouldn't say growly but its like..rough and emotional and it just. Makes the song so fuckin moving to hear [Frank iero my friend frank iero cant listen to it without crying which says a lot when you know hes been w mcr for 20 years]

NOW. ONTO THE CROWNING FUCKIN JEWEL OF THIS ALBUM. WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE!!

My god am I truly an mcr fan if i dont wax poetic abt this song at least once? Anyway GSKSJ

The thing abt wttbp is that its structured like bohemian rhapsody, which is smth i noticed after my week long binge session of their albums. The marching band opening of wttbp is like the classicl choral/opera style of the opening of borhap, the swap to rock halfway thru is used in both, and theres that section around the middle point [the im just a boy section in wttbp] that once again shifts the musical style of the song [and focuses on ray toro's absolutely BRILLIANT fuckin shredding, god bless that man]. Theres also the fade out w music similar to the intro, and combine all of that w the fact that queen was one of mcr's inspirations and you can see my point. Theres also the fact its the band's most well known song, and even ppl who've never heard of the band know the song [again, much like borhap]

Like ALL of mcr's albums theres this like. Powerful mix of emotions that makes itself known throughout the album. Whether it's the resigned, bittersweet goodbye of cancer, the almost hysterical anger and self deprecation of dead!, or the apologies and declaration of death being inevitable in mama, each track carries parts of the emotional progress of the dying man TBP is written from the perspective of, and portrays it in such a way that even at its most abstract its just. SO clear what this man is feeling and what the band is trying to convey,,,, AUGH

AUGH!! i love mcr man its such an incredible fuckin band and the just. The fact that the members are just such ordinary people who really poured their hearts and souls into every song they wrote [to quote ray toro: "it all started to make sense. Now i know why we're here"],,,,,,,,,,, they really are the band that changed the world dude like i cant talk about them without getting worked up. Mx way if you can hear me you did it man

[transsexualhamlet]

Moriarty the Patriot + The Final Problem

aka another unecessary essay from ya boy on how yuumori, instead of taking away from the original text, adds meaning and depth to it

So I finally got around to reading the final problem after wading through all the memoirs of sherlock holmes and yes, I am in fact reading these because of yuumori. I wanted to see how it was portrayed, what the differences and influences from the original source were. I did end up getting incredibly attached to the original series too, so yeah... I'm glad to report that the original and adaption get along well.

And yeah, I have a lot of thoughts, most of them being just me generally praising yuumori. I think it was straight up genius how they pulled so much content from... well, frankly. The Final Problem was a 15 page short story tossed off by Doyle in order to have an excuse to be done with sherlock holmes, told from the perspective of someone who wasn't even there. And yuumori still managed to make it generally very accurate and complementary to the original, while still being, uhhhhh really fucking different, let's say that.

Read more because again, long essay

Just my observations on the final problem itself is that it is so underdeveloped and told from an outsider perspective. Because of that, so many questions go unanswered, and the reader gets a sense that they are only witnessing a very small part of what actually happened. Sherlock can't afford to go into detail on what Moriarty was even involved in, Watson isn't privy to what's honestly even happening most of the time, and Moriarty just... has this extensive network of organized crime that just isn't even talked about other than Trust Me It's Bad Bro. We don't know Moriarty's intentions, most of who he is, and more questions are honestly brought up than answered within the story. Sherlock knows, oh that's for sure, Sherlock knows what's going on and he has no fucking time to tell Watson. You get a sense that Watson himself isn't even telling all that went down.

So yeah, I can see where there's so much room to expand upon here, not even to change things or make it different because it would be cool, but there's so much that could be happening just within the realm of plausible deniability in the canon.

And I think that it's amazing how Yuumori chose to market itself that way- not as an adaption or reimagining- but that this was in fact the Real story, with Doyle's final problem being... honestly a bit of a cover up, a purposeful misrepresentation of a small slice of the full story. It lends itself completely to that, and I think that's amazing.

(One thing I do find funny is that in Yuumori the story "the final problem" is depicted as a full novella that could be published on its own... man it's not nearly long enough for that but I find it funny in any way)

Of course, there are elements of yuumori that are yknow, simply not realistically something that could have happened, but most of the story is actually within that range of plausible deniability since the canon is so vague and sparse. And since they state that things were changed on purpose to protect people and the moriarty plan, it basically covers that all as simply The Truth. It's well done, and very interesting, especially with the new anime ending taking them to Reichenbach itself.

Like, yuumori didn't even truly change the appearances of the characters, from the descriptions. (we're not counting the illustrations lol) like, Sherlock was never stated (as far as I can tell) to have a specific hair or eye color, hairstyle or such.... he was described as tall, thin, eccentric, messy, with like... long fingers and stuff. Man, yuumori did not go against that. With Moriarty it's different, though he was also reportedly Tall and Thin and Built Like A Yaoi Protag for some goddamn reason, he... you know, has these weird and unattractive features as well, which... in the context of Watson trying to portray Moriarty as unmitigated evil in order to protect the plan, were in this situation made up specifically to further the idea that he was just that.

Because of this situation, the Moriarty that is portrayed as yeah, a smart guy and a threat but seriously just A Bad Dude who seems to have no particular reason behind his actions save being A Bad Dude actually make more sense as a cover up behind a more dangerous secret of him having Real Feelings than the only stated reason being "he inherited being evil from his family". (like... watson, really?)

It explains the vagueness and the events and the weird connection between those two better than the original does, and that's really cool to me.

On their own, without yuumori to back me up on these things, reading this would have left me confused and depressed. But as a half truth immortalized as the real story, you get so much more out of it.

Especially these certain scenes:

When Moriarty just pops into Sherlock's house and they proceed to have a basically wordless conversation amounting to

"you know why I'm here" "you know how I'm going to respond" "well then" "here's date and time of our mutual destruction" "thanks I'll be there" "well I'll be off nice knowing you" "wow it sucks that we're enemies he's such a civil guy"

It just really adds something to that, don't you think?

And the subject of their fall itself, simply the fact that Watson wasn't even there. No one witnessed it. No one found even Moriarty's body. No one found evidence of anything at all.

All Watson could say was that Sherlock and Moriarty had gone up to the mountain together, Moriarty told Sherlock of his plans, let Sherlock write and leave a letter to Watson, and that they never came back down. So he came to the conclusion that they must have fought and both fallen off.... like, holding each other. Not really sure how they reached that conclusion, to be honest.

It doesn't even make sense, exactly told how it is. If Moriarty wanted to kill sherlock and survive, he would have just... brought a fucking gun. Or just pushed him off on the way up. As soon as he got him alone just fucking stab the man. It would have been that easy, but no, he had a whole ass convo with the man, they went up civilly side by side, and they stayed on the cliff a long time while Sherlock wrote that letter. Even then, Sherlock could have just waited to catch Moriarty off guard and pushed him off. But he didn't.

Why would they even have fought, if it was so scheduled? You telling me to believe that after this letter was written and moriarty stood there watching him sipping tea or whatever he was suddenly like "ok im ready to fight now", knowing they would both probably die, and if they were genuinely trying to kill each other and survive, that would even make sense?

Of course, these problems in the original stem just from Doyle no longer giving a shit and slapping this together after losing motivation for sherlock, he was obviously, not hinting at some great conspiracy in the slightest.

But damn, Yuumori really does change that all for you, huh. It adds a whole new layer of context to it. And I like it a lot, I like what they've done on their own, I like what they've done for the original stories, and I especially like what they've done telling the "real story" of this short, vague, mystery that otherwise leaves you feeling unsatisfied and confused.