#its my favourite ship i should post more of it

[incorrecteos10]

Jane: Is that a hickey?

Ryan: No, it's a mosquito bite

David, walking into the room: Hey guys

Jane: Hey mosquito

[hauntingblue]

Yabushige count your fucking days. I am so mad

[happyhauntt]

— april fic recs, brought to you by happyhauntt.

it's that time again! a wee fic rec post for a few of the fics i read in april that altered my brain chemistry!! i've put a lil comment next to each rec because honestly writers don't get praised enough for their work these days and i wanted to show my appreciation for these talented souls!!

criminal minds.

➡ spencer reid.

in every other life by @irndad. notes: adorableness incarnate honestly.

trouble almost all my life series by @januaryembrs. notes: might honestly have to put this on every masterlist til the end of time.

forgiven by @reiding-writing. notes: um HOW DARE YOU i sobbed my way through this

grishaverse.

➡ kaz brekker.

breakfast by @sophierequests. notes: look i'm a simple human i see badass characters and i fall in love

➡ jesper fahey.

i'm your gal by @atlabeth. notes: NOT ENOUGH JESPER FICS and this one is GLORIOUS

star wars.

➡ poe dameron.

the f-word by @the-little-ewok. notes: i reread this constantly pls it's so good

moon knight.

➡ marc spector.

i should've been there by @januaryembrs. notes: not em out here ruining my life and making me sob AGAIN you simply never miss

9-1-1.

➡ evan buckley.

take my hand by @redocity. notes: cute cute cute cute cute

emergency room by redocity. notes: the ANGST i feel well-fed

won't say i'm falling by @borntobewondering. notes: this was DELICIOUS

➡ buck / eddie.

a bleeding sun on a silver screen by @hoediaz / rarakiplin on ao3. notes: i was fully choking back sobs while reading this. i binged this fic in less than 24 hours and it has changed something fundamental inside me. i will never be the same person again. i'm billing you for my therapy.

good luck, babe by @hattalove. notes: i cackled my way through this, potentially the funniest shit ever.

hate to say i spent it all on masquerades by hattalove. notes: i sobbed and sobbed and sobbed while reading this. this fic is everything to me, it should be required reading for all my friends who want to understand me, it is beautiful and magical and i want it tattooed on my face.

don't wanna let you love somebody else but me by @shitouttabuck / fleetinghearts on ao3. notes: sheer adorableness i will well recover from this!!!!

tried and true blue by shitouttabuck / fleetinghearts on ao3. notes: SCREAMING I'M SCREAMING I MAY NEVER STOP SCREAMING

like a dog with a bird at your door by shitouttabuck / fleeting hearts on ao3. notes: iconic. truly iconic. quite possibly one of my fav fics ever written.

let the world have its way with you by shitouttabuck / fleeting hearts on ao3. notes: you don't understand how hard it was not to include every single one of shitouttabuck's fics on this list and there will almost certainly be more in future but i just want them tattooed on my forehead i feel insane

i have dreams where i kiss you and it's pink by shitouttabuck / fleeting hearts on ao3. notes: the cutest and i mean THE CUTEST shit ever

all my shattered oaths by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on ao3. notes: i sobbed. i sobbed so hard i think i burst something honestly. everything from this author is immaculate but THIS is the holy fuckin grail and i will truly never be the same again.

let my ink stain your pages by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on ao3. notes: castle au CASTLE AU i'm a sucker for a castle au and this is EVERYTHING

even in winter there is eranthis by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on ao3. notes: i think about this fic daily.

your love is an oil slick by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on ao3. notes: this is everything this is EVERYTHING to me i will reread this weekly for the rest of my life

even the darkest night by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on ao3. notes: stardust au STARDUST AU aka my favourite movie and my favourite ship combined into a fuckin masterpiece

curl up in my heart and let me keep you by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on ao3. notes: soft sweet my brain is mushy and i adore this

hoping it gets to you by @bucktommys / hammersmiths on ao3. notes: cute adorable stunning MAGNIFICENT

you're my whole house by @/bucktommys / hammersmiths on ao3. notes: THIS FIC OUT HERE MAKIN ME SQUEAL AND KICK MY LEGS

left unsaid by c_m2 on ao3. notes: this is mcfuckin adorable i'm crying buck deserves everything in the world

say yes to heaven by dylaesthetics on ao3. notes: okay full disclosure this made me cry so much i threw up. also it hit some pretty intense trauma for me. still so glad i read it because it was also kinda healing. and i want everyone else to suffer like i have because fuck i suffered.

if i need to rearrange my particles, i will for you by dylaesthetics on ao3. notes: author you will always be famous bc you're knocking my emotional stability OUTTA THE PARK

honestly, truly, completely by dylaesthetics on ao3. notes: simply fuckin adorable

feels like magic by 42hrb on ao3. notes: there's nothing i adore more than an urban fantasy au and this one is EXQUISITE

fallin' into your ocean eyes by princessfbi on ao3. notes: okay every part of this au is absolutely fuckin perfection i am so deeply in love with it

until now by tearsthissideofheaven on ao3. notes: a reincarnation au??? it's like you know how to ruin my life

if i never hear your voice again by @actualalligator. notes: disability rep!!!! brilliant writing!!!!

life sure can try to put love through it by @capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: ahahaha ruin my life why don't you

sometimes its hard to see what the future holds by @/capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: olympics buddie au??? didn't know i wanted it but now i can't live without it

all good things come to an end (but it's not the end) by @/capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: i will, in fact, devour every buddie!fwb au ever written but this one is especially great

you smiled and it was the most beautiful thing that I'd ever seen by @/capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: coffee shop!buddie have become everything to me wdym

it's funny 'cause i've always dreamed of me and you by @/capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: yes i did sob my heart out reading this and i'll do it again

'cause darling, you're the one by @/capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: icymi i think this author is the best author to ever exist and i want to devour everything they write forever

i don't think that we should have friendly sex, anymore by @/capseycartwright / wafflesofdoom on ao3. notes: !!!!!!! that's it that's the note. brain: faye you can't put this many fics by the same author on one masterlist. faye: bET-

still i call it magic (when i'm next to you) by @clusterbuck / lecornergirl on ao3. notes: urban fantasy is, in fact, my shit.

(this kiss is) something i can't resist by @/clusterbuck / lecornergirl on ao3. notes: NO BC THIS HAD ME CACKLING AND ALSO IT'S BRILLIANT

give me five more minutes, baby (i'm not finished loving you) by @/clusterbuck / lecornergirl on ao3. notes: fake dating or immaculate writing??? both

cuffing season by @/clusterbuck / lecornergirl on ao3. notes: i am still laughing at this and i may never stop

[marylily-my-beloved]

FATIMAH ! ♡

»»-----------► I HAVE A MICROFIC BLOG: @marylilymicrofic IF YOU LIKE MARYLILY AND LIKE MARAUDERS YOU SHOULD GO FOLLOW AND WRITE FOR IT!! I MADE IT WITH @icarus-last-fall

»»-----------► my Spotify ! (Go follow I make playlists sometimes) ♡

»»-----------► I made an aesthetic blog where I’ll be making mood boards and stuff !! It’s called @aesthetic-crows ♡

»»-----------► MY #1 WIFE RIYANA I LOVE HER GUYS @im-on-crack-send-help

»»-----------► Hiii! I hope you guys are prepared for like 4 fandom related posts a day and random rambles + shitposts ♡

»»-----------► My name is Fatimah (not real name), I am a minor (so plz don't be creepy) make any nicknames for me that you want (please please please call me Fay !!) ♡ She/they, arab, muslim, pansexual, infp, im just a girl ♡

»»-----------► MY AO3 <33 Go check it out I write marauders fics

➥ Lily and the Princesses of Power (ongoing). She-ra au, marylily fic, background ships as well. Lily escapes from the Death Eaters leaving Mary behind. 6/? Chapters ♡ On haitus sorry guys but I might update soon! Just have big writers block for this and I feel super bad for not updating :(

➥ Back at that Party (finished). Canon AU, marylily fic, background dorlene. Mary & Lily have a disagreement at a party and forced to sort it out together. 1/1 Chapter ♡

➥ Good Luck Babe! (finished). Canon AU, Lily x Narcissa wedding fic, end game narcissa x lucuis. Lily gets invited to Narcissa's wedding, and warns her about what could happen to her, and then dies a couple of years later. Main Character Death, 1/1 Chapter (based on Good Luck Babe! by Chappell Roan) ♡ (tumblr link)

➥ Burning Stars (finished). Canon AU, Bellatrix x Alice fic talking about their relationship in Hogwarts and how it ended. very angsty, hurt no comfort. 1/1 chapter ♡ (tumblr link)

➥ Strawberry Mentos (finished). Modern AU, marylily fic based on 'strawberry mentos'. Short and pretty cute and sweet. Getting Together fic. 1/1 chapter ♡ (tumblr link)

➥ Letters to A Happier Life (finished). after war AU, marylily. Lily is already dead, and Mary discovers their old letters after she obvliated herself. 1/1 chapter ♡ (tumblr link)

»»-----------► DNI IF

Rasict Transphobic and/or homphobic Islamaphobic Zionist / supports israel Sexist Discriminate against people for any stupid reason

»»-----------► I am obessed with Chappell Roan and women so much its not even funny anymore

»»-----------► I love writing fanfics, reading anything (plz give me book & fanfic recs), baking, listening to music & playing basketball ♡

»»-----------► I love hearts, pearls, rings, aesthetic stuff, pink and purple, uquizzes, cats, my moots & lipgloss ♡

»»-----------► SOME LINKS TO MY FAVE POSTS I MADE

Black Sisters Dialouge

Mary Macdonald Deep Dive (P2! more in depth)

Dorcas Meadowes Deep Dive

Black Sisters Deep Dive (sorta)

Peter Pettigrew Deep Dive

Blue by Billie Eilish = Andromeda & Bellatrix

Skinny by Billie Eilish = Lily Evans

Chihiro by Billie Eilish = Dorcas Meadowes

Lacy by Olivia Rodrigo = Dorlily (Dorcas x Lily)

Apple by Charli XCX = Evans Sisters (Lily & Petunia)

24/7 by The Neighbourhood = Jily modern AU

Bellatrix & Sirius Comparison

Microfics

»»-----------► Fandoms: ♡

・❥・ Harry Potter/Marauders fandom. Gryffindor. Lily, Mary & Remus kinnie. In love with James Potter & Pandora Lovegood ♡ (fuck jk rowling I do not support her) (jkr should go die)

・❥・She-ra (2018 reboot). Harcdore catradora and scorfuma shipper. Entrapta kinnie and I am in love with her ♡

・❥・ PJO (Percy Jackson). Percabeth and Valgrace <333 Cabin #8. Pretty sure I kin Annabeth. My favourite charcater is Bianca ♡

・❥・Hunger Games. Have not finished the series yet but working on it <3. In love with Johanna ♡. Need to read half of Mockingjay & TBOSAS ♡

・❥・Heartstopper. So excited for season 3, read all of the books on webtoon. Tori & Tara lover ♡. Darcy, Elle & Charlie kinnie. Harcore Tara x Darcy shippers ♡

・❥・ Young Royals. Harcore Sara x Felice shipper & Stedrika (stella x fredrika) & of coure Wilmon and Henry x Walter. Wilhelm and Felice kinnie. In love with Maddie ♡

・❥・ ATLA & LOK. I love them so much, I love Korra and Katara & Asami. Toph + Zuko kinnie ♡ Harcore kataang and toph x suki. getting into zutara but kataang will always be the otp. I have almost all the comics for ATLA ♡

・❥・TDP / The Dragon Prince. love love love love, I got sooo back into it after season 6. protect my boy terry!!! ♡ rayllum my loves. sorvus my heart. fuck viren. probably a soren kinnie... ♡

・❥・Probably more but I can't remember rn ♡

»»-----------► My tags and other random stuff <333:

➥ Pride Month headcanons: #fatimahs pride headcanons 🤍 (this will be every pride month) ➥ Headcanons: yapping about headcanons 🎀 ➥ Personal stuff: me me me ! ➥ Basically everything: fatimah yaps 🎀 ➥ Deep Dives & Random long rambles: #Fatimahs deep dives ➥ My Writing (either here or a link to ao3): #Fatimahs writing ➥ Asks: #Fatimah gets an ask woah ➥ My life: fay.talks 🎀 »»-----------► Quotes ➥ marauders: Fatimahs marauders quotes 🩵 ➥She ra: Fatimahs she ra quotes 🩷 forgot the rest lol ♡

»»-----------► Music: Conan Gray, Sabrina Carpenter, The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo, Chase Atlantic, Suicidal Tendencies, Hozier, Ariana Grande, Beadadoobee, Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish, Ethel Cain, EMELINE, Lana Del Ray, The Neighbourhood, Arctic Monkeys, CAS, David Bowie, Queen, Mitski, Cavetown & girl in red ♡

»»-----------► I LOVE ALL MY MOOTS IM TOO TIRED TO MAKE A LIST BUT I LOVE YOU GUYS <33333333

»»-----------► I usually yap only about the marauders and/or she-ra but will occasionally yap about anything and everything else <3 please send me asks for anything you want I love asks and your like personal comments on my stuff ♡

the dividers are by @cafekitsune & the images are from Pinterest ♡

[enemywasp]

Alright so someone on tiktok sent me a link to a compiled list of arguments against proshippers and so I wanted to put a sort of brief response of my own thoughts of each point.

Long post warning!

"Proshippers are non-offending minor attracted people in a fresh paint of coat"

What a start, am I right? Okay so first off this is a huge generalisation, not every proshipper engages with or is even comfortable with anything that sexualises fictional children, or ships them with adults. And of those that do ship adult/minor ships, it doesn't always mean they're attracted to the character themselves or gains any sexual pleasure from that.

They then went on to say that although they might be non-offending, they still fantasise about and romanticise children- in the case of proshippers by creating art and stories. And I am not personally educated enough on how people's minds works to go in depth here, but I do know a lot of pedophilic thoughts can be intrusive and unwanted. And I would much rather people engage in this and deal with their thoughts through fiction where no actual children are harmed, than actually go touch a real child or engage is any form of CSEM.

“People can draw and ship whatever they want!”

Here they went on to say that surely to ship and create content you must justify these things in some capacity regardless of them being fictional. And immediately I'd argue, the justification it that they're fictional. And that sometimes you want to read about things you'd never approve of in real life, it's a natural curiosity. And again, regardless of what the dark content is I would take someone engaging in fiction over harming a real person any day.

They compared this to alt-right groups and dark humour justifying racism and transphobia, etc. And whilst I think something we should always be aware of in fiction is stereotypes and how we may be representing people. Youtube videos like this are usually a type of propaganda that AIM to change people's mindsets and turn them against groups. Whereas fiction tells a story, some may have meanings and connections to real life, be a political piece, etc. Not everything is that serious and has a clear distinction from reality.

Think for example, reading/watching about murder and gore. More on that in a second.

"Fiction doesn't affect reality!"

I'm going to be honest I rolled my eyes at this as their main example was slenderman. If you don't know about that, those girls were schizophrenic. Anything could of set off and caused delusions, it just so happened to be fiction. Those girls needed help- not to just read purer content. They also basically brought up propaganda again, which is again deliberate and designed to warp peoples perceptions. Its based of lying and spreading misinformation and passing it as facts. The only thing I strongly believe can be directly harmful is stereotypes if not handled with care. But I think that's something for anyone who writes and consumes content should be aware of regardless of their stances.

Again here they implied that all proshippers are peodophiles. And that they normalise abuse of children. I'd also like to point out that most proshippers I've interacted with online have age boundaries to avoid interacting with minors depending on how graphic or sexual their content is.

"What do you think all stories about murder should stop existing?"

Here they basically argued that killing in media isn't the same as its not romanticised or condoned. YA Novels disagree- mafia stories being the most immediate example to spring to mind. Furthermore, morally grey villains. One of my favourite films is Mr Right. It's about a hitman killing people. Anna kendrick falls in love with him and its framed as a romantic comedy. Funny how its only fanfiction that's criticised like this? I actually have more thoughts on this if anyones interested.

Again they bring up kids not knowing adults pursuing children is wrong, and I'm questioning why children this young are unsupervised on the Internet. How young were you when you were allowed to watch anything with graphic blood or violence? This content isn't made for kids! Especially not anyone so young they can't seperate fiction from reality as most sites have a specific age you have to be to join. And I'm sorry to say it, but on websites and social media where adults can interact with kids, anything can be used to groom kids. (The real thing you should be mad about here is how there's no websites aimed just for children and safe spaces on the Internet anymore cause it can't be monetised as easily)

"Artists are allowed to draw and write about dark people"

They basically said, yes but it's not the same as promoting. Writing something under a romantic light and not saying "Don't do at home!" Isn't promoting. No ones encouraging these things in real life. Or rather, if they are its not because they're a proshipper but rather who they are as a person and their intentions.

The trans example they used is very extreme and honestly something I agree with a little more, fiction can definitely be used as an excuse to say and act out hateful and discriminatory things. Whilst I do think it's something we should discuss and unpack more, I'm not certain of my view on how I would fix this without risking silencing people talking about their experiences.

"Its not my responsibility to look after other people, just block me and the tags"

Here they threw all kinds of accusations. And says that we're making traumatised people jump through hoops to avoid getting retraumatised. I hate this argument, you know people have actual triggers they may not be able to avoid in real life? The world can't bend around you. And I am very sorry if any content online is traumatising to you, but someone could also be traumatised by a certain breed of dog and not want to see it. Should no one post dogs online ever again? A bald man reminds you of an abusive ex? Bald men get off the Internet! You see how this thing can just keep escalating? The tags and warnings are important because they're the best you can get. You can't control the world to protect everyone from everything ever. No ones forcing you to interact, and if you're on any algorithm based content that will encourage that content on your for your page more.

The only thing I think we should take from this is the reminder that warnings and tags are always important.

"You only care about censoring creativity"

Here they defend themselves that oh wouldn't you want freaks out the community! Which again immediately makes me lose respect for you, if you're just going to brand us all as freaks as an argument and generalize us.

No comment on that first line when you can easily argue antishipper do the same.

"Proshippers are not remotely innocent of targeted harrasement" Neither are antis. There's people who take things too far both sides and I'm not going to defend either for that.

"Real kids get assaulted and all you care about is censoring people online!"

Here they shout "oh I can care about both!" But what I don't think they realise is censorship can make it difficult for kids and to learn about how to speak up and to look for signs, or to speak up about their experiences. How do you plan on removing the topic from the Internet whilst also letting victims speak up? And people may want to write fiction based off their experiences. Who are you to go through it and proclaim what is too far, what romanticises it too much? More on this later.

"Antis are reducing my trauma"

They compared this to saying "date rape victims are reducing my trauma because they weren't taken advantage of in the same way as me" which is a disgusting parallel?? Date rape is still rape. Someone writing about something isn't the same as it happening. Although it can be used as harrasment, grooming, etc if directly addressed to you or being constantly sent to you, written about you. But the content existing in general? No.

"I'm coping"

Compared it to self harm, and such. Poetry and diaries are also used to write about your experiences and unpack trauma. Some of which may write it in an unrealistically positive light cause that's how they want to unpack it or explain those thoughts. And yes these things get posted online.

I can't imagine a single therapist or professional psychiatrist of any kind disapproving of creative writing because, again, it's much better than any alternatives of doing real harm to yourself or people around you. Although I do agree that if something is traumatising for you to read about and just upsets you further, be aware of your own boundaries but not everyone is the same so how are you going to police people's own thoughts and emotions.

Also I can't remember who or where as it was years ago now, but I have heard of people who actually realised they were being groomed or abused and just how bad it was through reading about it in a fanfic and seeing it in an outside perspective.

They also say to do it in private, but doesn't everyone on the Internet now have an understanding of finding a community and looking out for eachother and sharing experiences?

"There's more nuance here than just calling proshippers peodophiles"

Here they say no matter what it still comes down to whether it's ever okay to sexualise minors in certain contexts. And again, not every proshipper does this or is even comfortable with engaging in this kind of content. And further, no one is sexualising real minors in this context.

"I'm a proshipper and a minor tho!"

I'd agree minors should be wary of the spaces they're in but proship spaces aren't always necessarily sexual, graphic or 18+. Saying they're being groomed feels like you're watering down that term. I was a proshipper at age 13, I didn't interact with anyone online about it though, I didn't even know that was the term. I just came to the conclusion that it's just fiction all on my own. Minors aren't idiots.

At then end they talk about their own experience being groomed and I'm obviously not going to nitpick or criticise their experiences. I will point out that one person being bad and taking advantage of you and using content to do so doesn't mean everyone is like that. I am sorry to anyone who has been taken advantage of by someone who claims they're a proshipper though. There are people who have turned out to be horrible on both sides.

I am ill and it's late but I want to get this up sooner rather than later so please ask for clarification on anything. I'm always up for a discussion on this topic as I do believe some of these points do have merits at times and that this whole topic is not black and white

[dtmsrpfcringe]

the definitive dictionary and almanac of Tinhattery

hi, this will be a list of the main misogynistic accounts, definitions people have questions about, accounts you should follow and abbreviations— let’s gooo!! If you’re tagged in this I probably put you on the accounts to follow section. Adding a cut here because it’s long and gonna get longer

definitions!!!!

LCB- Used to stand for letscoffeebreak, she has since changed her username to dejadestalkearmeloser.

NGO- Nightgoodomens

Ingrav, Amy- Ingravinoveritas.

tardisrose- thetardisisblueandroseistoo

Tinhatters- A group of (mostly) tumblr users who think everything in these two relationships are fake and the women are abusive and the men want to run away.

Queeranoners- same as above, my favourite way to refer to them, coined by the amazing @theeminentlyimpractical

sheenbergs- Mix for Michael and Anna’s name

sheenbergnant- the amalgamation of the four bad bitches we love

sheenant- ship name for David and Michael. (Remember kids: shipping is cool but it’s fictional!!)

DT- David Tennant (Georgias husband)

MS- Michael Sheen (Anna’s boyfriend)

GT- Georgia Tennant

AL- Anna Lundberg

PR- public relations

GM- a…delegitimising way of referring to Georgia by refusing to use her last name. Instead use her maiden name. Note how they don’t refer to David as David McDonald

APAT- usually used by tinhatters (stands for Anna Plain And Tall) to refer to Anna Lundberg

PR (Tinhatter definition) - an omnipresent being forcing two rich white men who constantly champion human rights and lgbtq acceptance into a hetero relationship because they just are so oppressed and abused and not because they love their partners!

PR (actual definition) -the professional activities of an agency hired by a person, company, or other entity to shape, create, and manipulate that person/company’s public image. A public relations firm is often useful in helping a company manage its media reputation when a crisis happens, in order to attempt to minimize false information or slanderous statements which could damage reputations.

Shipping- Shipping (derived from the word relationship) is the desire by followers of a fandom for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters (in film, literature, television series, etc.), to be in a romanticrelationship. Shipping often takes the form of unofficial creative works, including fanfictionand fan art.

Shipping (Tinhat definition) - NO THEY HATE THEIR PARTNERS AND WANT TO FUCK EACH OTHER LOOK HE BLINKED IN HIS VICINITY THEIR PARTNERS ARE ABUSIVE I SWEAR

GREATEST HITS (posts that killed Tinhatters, feel free to submit your favourites in my inbox)

The breakdown of an anon

tassel jokes

backstreet cringe

Ingravinoveritas admitting it

Laurens amazing fuck off post that snowballed into half the fandom straight up saying fuck you to these people

HALL OF SHAME (Worst of tinhatters, again feel free to submit more)

• Taraiha’s rivals meltdown

NGO hates this fandom for…calling her out

it’s not a choice to be weird and creepy about people’s lives! (Again shipping is fine. This shit is not!!!)

it’s okay if you attack women just don’t criticise Michael Sheen (no idea what she was talking about with David) this same lady had another absolutely dog shit post I guess she removed?!

How dare women…have fun at their birthday parties?? (Part 1)

for a group constantly sexualizing David and Michaels every movement we can’t stand when a woman shows a little chest and has fun

Accounts you should follow!!!!:

@goodomenswarning - same purpose as this account, hilarious, an amazing friend

@badaziraphaletakes - calls out shitty takes in good omens as well, so much more level headed about toxicity than I am but I love talking shit with them. @thegeorgiatennantblog - best Georgia content

@fightingalgth8rs -bad bitches calling out extreme sexism

@phoen1xr0se - one of the best and I devour everything she posts

@davidtennantgenderenvy stands up for what’s right in the fandom, one of my idols and stuck up for me during a vulnerable time.

lmk more I need to add because I’m definitely missing some

THE REPEAT OFFENDERS (booo 🍅🍅):

Ingravinoveritas- one of the bigger ones, refuses to believe Georgia does anything nice for David, or that any of them actually like their partners. Can’t stop fetishizing gay male relationships to save her life. If David blinks he apparently wants to be bent over. Likes to pretend she’s not as bad as the others but has some of the wildest takes and said she felt threatened and scared for her life at someone making a Shakespearean reference. Professional victim

Nightgoodomens- a particularly nasty motherfucker. So toxic she’s quarantined. Misogynistic, ableist, um…yeah not much to say there except for the fact that apparently anything that David does that involves his wife means he’s forced into it. Would rather see them as abused puppies than accept they love their partners. Heavy on the homophobia and bi erasure since yes, fetishization isn’t allyship, it is homophobia. Everything is PR. She doesn’t know what PR means nor that David and Michael are not nearly important enough to have a 24/7 team controlling all social media and personal aspects of their lives. Neil gaiman apologist who blamed his sexual assault revelations on David’s support of trans people. Denies women flirting with each other and boils it to PR friendships??!?

Dejadestalkearmeloser- pretty much the same as nightgoodimens, flips shit when you call her out on it, I mean look at her pinned post about me and you’ll see. Also apparently I’m every account that doesn’t like her. Seems to have a problem with lesbians not liking her (wonder why lesbians don’t like the misogynistic people who only talk about the lgbtq community when it comes to fetishising mlm relationships)

Thetardisisbluesndroseistoo- flips shit at Georgia getting credit for anything, lost her shit on someone saying that Georgia has educated David on lgbtq allyship (he quite literally said himself that she does) later deleted posts when I called her out. Can’t stop laughing at that

invisibleicewands- really, really creepy about Anna, delving into her past and family to try and find…something. Body shaming. Mom shaming. The usual misogyny.

dtmsrpf- I guess a spoof on my name, belongs to one of the others on this list. The usual misogyny with a particular axe to grind against their looks and other things. Definitely a little salty.

georgiatennantunofficial (instagram)- extremely fucking gross. Body shaming and misogyny. Usual. You guys see a pattern yet?

[nthspecialll]

why do you ship jovier?? i know its common but i swear they barely interacted at all

Well, let me explain to you at least why I ship them, but also thank you for asking! It is an amazing excuse to yap about them.

To me, it is the absolute tragety that they are and the care that they have for one another that we don't always see them show towards others. Take the very first mission with them for example, John is missing, gone, possibly run off and Hosea knows to ask Javier to go find him because Javier will go and he will not complain like Bill or Micah and he is willing to go the extra mile unlike maybe Lenny or Charles and even Arthur.

In this mission we hear the first of John, he is unreliable, he left the gang, his "wife" and his child and everything for an entire year and it also becomes clear that Arthur who has known him for years still doubts him and believes it is possible that John left. Meanwhile, we have Javier who has not known John that long yet he stands certain and defends John saying "he wouldn't do that" even though he would and has. We also see Arthur willing to give up as soon as the trail in the snow becomes semi-hard to follow yet again, Javier pushes on saying "just a bit more." If it has just been Arthur John would have died on that mountian.

And now in chapters 2-6 we get to the "problem" with Javier, he is not in a lot of main quests so to get to know him you have to be around camp because he actually has a lot of camp interactions, and a few is with John, so let's go through them.

While John is reading the newspapers Javier comes up to him and says "scar looks pretty", John replies with "yeah, ruined my fine features" followed up by "thank you, for saving me" to which Javier says "of course, I know you would do the same for me" and then in the end John "I owe you, for life." This interaction generally just shows a form of appreciation as well as softness between them, it isn't a lot of other times you see any other male characters thank another.

You have when they are sitting and eating and they start talking about Mexico where John says "I would like to go to Mexico one day" and Javier replies "maybe you will." It is just a heartbreaking foreshadowing.

Possibly my favourite interaction between them, Javier is drinking and John is standing nearby so Javier says "come join me brother, have a drink," John looks over and replies "no, I will sit down and have several" so they just sit and drink, John quickly becoming drunk and poetic and Javier shows obvious signs of concern to the point where even John comments on it saying something along the lines of "why not give me another?"

Now, in chapter six, the end is nearing, people are falling apart and things are going to hell. I have before made several posts about this but Javier is desperate. He built his entire personality around ideals and he joined Dutch because of ideals, should it come to the fact that Dutch is not correct that would mean everything Javier was and everything he made himself into was also wrong, not to mention he wouldn't be able to stay in America nor be able to go back to Mexico because of his family. He is frustrated, and as any other person when frustrated, he becomes agitated and hot-headed, he needs Dutch to be right so he acts out. His "anger" is nothing more than fright.

We see Javier yell at John, yet we also see him defending John. Bill comes up to Javier and starts talking about how John has to be the rat, how it is the only thing that makes sense, Javier replies "that doesn't make much sense either," clearly standing up for John when he needed to. That is until it is Arthur, when it is Arthur he turns on a dime and says something along the lines of "maybe it is John" but that is simply because he is "hating" Arthur on principle.

Now, the final gun stand, whatever you wanna call it, I have made a whole post on this, but in short, Javier pointed his gun on John but he was hesitant because he didn't actually have a hatred against John, he didn't see him as a traitor, he saw him as a brother. Also as soon as the gun fight is over Javier is gone, you can find Dutch, Cleet, Joe, Micah, but Javier and Bill are gone.

1911, the two have not talked for ages, yet Javier knows John has several children, clearly keeping some form of interest on him throughout the many years. Also their meet?? Their entire meet, both had the chance to kill the other but didn't.

Javier could have chosen to shoot John and get it over with instead of jumping out of the window, securing his own life's safety, but he didn't. John could have chosen to shoot Javier immediately and save himself the trouble, but he didn't.

Also, John's talk about Javier to Abraham. "When Dutch started fallin' apart, it hit Javier harder than any of us. He went crazy. It was like the one thing he'd ever believed in turned out to be a fraud." John knew Javier wasn't thinking straight and I personally see it quite obvious that Javier was never angry at John either.

I think in the end that John didn’t hate Javier, not when he killed him either, he just loved Abigail more than Javier and chose her over him, but in any other situation where they stood face to face i think John would have just walked away.

[decepti-thots]

something that is very interesting rereading early MTMTE is that the comic is actually very much written with the assumption a ton of its readership are specifically pre-existing IDW comics readers, which can sometimes be difficult to remember because of the fact that a lot of people wound up coming onboard to MTMTE from outside the fandom in the end and now it has a reputation as an entry point as a result. this manifests in a couple ways throughout the first couple major arcs. one obvious one is that the Overlord stuff functionally makes it a sequel of sorts to Last Stand of the Wreckers, at a time no direct sequel was planned. but my favourite is that there's a kind of narrative trick the comic pulls with the leadup to the payoff Remain in Light gives us for Magnus.

the Magnus we get in early MTMTE is not the Magnus we get in earlier IDW comics. he's very exaggerated; where phase one Magnus is a by-the-books stickler for not so much as bending rules and someone we see struggling to maintain that sense of moral uprightness in the face of the war and the people around him being far less dedicated to staying on the straight and narrow like him, it's completely turned up to eleven in early MTMTE. phase one Magnus would not be doing endless doorframe audits, or throwing people in the literal brig for crooked badges. but this doesn't necessarily register as a change in character so much as a change in genre. MTMTE is also a dramedy with heavy emphasis on the comedy side of that in a way no other IDW comic is, and the shift in Magnus' characterisation therefore feels like 'well in THIS genre, that's what that archetype is like', rather than a diagetic shift in character. even if you come to MTMTE straight off those prior comics, it is very much a 'roll with the genre shift' thing rather than a 'hm. Magnus is acting… weird' thing. you let it go.

there are a couple indications this might not be the case early on. Rodimus especially seems to be under the impression that Magnus is acting uptight even for him, with his insistence on waving it off like 'he needs to relax, Swerve can you get him to chill on Hedonia because my guy is REAL stressed' and the like. (this makes sense- Rodimus is the person on the ship who has actually been directly interacting with Magnus regularly pre-MTMTE.) but it's not super obvious and not heavily emphasised.

which makes the eventual post-Overlord and RiL reveal, which is that Magnus has in fact been acting weird because he's having a breakdown that has largely gone unremarked upon by his shipmates, really really good. Magnus has not been doing doorframe audits because he's the comically uptight second in command acting as straight man for genre purposes; Magnus has been sending Rodimus a million memos a day and losing his shit over nothing because as someone whose entire identity as 'Magnus' is rooted in a wartime role he escaped into, he's been having an existential crisis now the war is over and he has no purpose and doesn't know what to do because he never expected to have to play that part in peacetime. the entire time the genre shift was somewhat obfuscating the fact this characterisation was a thing that is in-universe relevant, which also then reflects back on the fact Rodimus is like. hm. probably should have noticed that, now I feel like an asshole for not realising. (the scene where he and Rung discuss those unread memos, post-Overlord.)

it's a small thing, but it's a really effective misdirect for the payoff Magnus gets in RiL that reads a hell of a lot more clearly on reread and rewards that chance to revisit the early issues with that knowledge. of course that wasn't just a gag, of course he's actually slowly losing his shit slightly, he cannot go five seconds without making it clear he is Stressed As Hell. but until you get to that actual reveal, there's just enough room for the comic to let a reader assume it's, you know, we're in a comedy now, we need a hilarious straight man, and Magnus is it. it's great! all the stuff MTMTE pulls to simultaneously obfuscate the Magnus/Minimus reveal while also making it feel completely reasonable on reread is great. really good use of reader bias there.

[vanitythevantropist]

Mkay so it took me way too long but I have finally created new art :3 (I finished these a while ago and forgot to post them but SHHHHH)

Anyways, these characters are from my absolute favourite and most well developed story in the roster; Stones of Gold. The love I have for thus story and its characters cannot be put into words. They are my everything

Anyways, here they are :3

Characters featured (left-right): Zepsun and Casaraua

Cas is the main POV character of SoG and I love him to death, he’s one of my favourite characters in all of my stories😭 He was raised on a farm by his mom after his dad left her (he left because Cas is what is known as a Rune Shifter which I’ll explain later). He’s not the best with social interaction due to never having interacted much. He’s very shy and afraid of everything, even though he literally had super strength. He becomes the newest member of the main group behind the next guy

Zep, fun fact, is actually a minor antagonist in the beginning👀 He joins the main group last because of issues. Anyways, he was taken under some emperor’s wing after the guy saves him from slavery as a child which totally fucked with his psyche (as it should). Zep’s pretty closed off and tends to get defensive. He fears anyone who can beat him in a fight. He is also a rune shifter

They become very gay later on

Characters featured (left-right): Chryo and Cyruss

I fucking love Chryo to death, she’s just so fun. She is a TANK of a woman (and a Rune Shifter as well). I’d say she’s pretty motherly and sweet when interacting with people she likes but, when you threaten someone she loves, she’ll become your worst nightmare. She’s determined as fuck and very snarky, especially to her boyfriend. She was the first to join the group (AKA she created it LMAO)

Cyruss canonically has gigantism, making him very tall👀 He’s Chryo’s girlfriend and is definitely the more mellow of the two. He’s a musician (haven’t named or drawn the instrument yet but it’s kinda like a guitar/banjo hybrid Ig???) and enjoys his more gothic music n stuff like that (I imagine his music to sound like The Awakening or Miracle of Sound, or both) He’s a bit scary to many due to his quieter nature and darker colours, but he’s a very nice and chill guy with a lot of good advice to share. Like his girlfriend, he definitely knows how to fight :3 He joined the group second, though the last two basically joined with him so (The group as in the friend/rogue group, btw). Heis not a shifter

Characters featured (left-right): Drélan and Mitzen

Drélan is an ex knight who left due to disagreeing with his king. He had since become close friends with a viking, a gothic musician and an assassin (as well as a traumatised gay man and a farmer boy later on, obviously). He’s a very kind and selfless person who takes no bullshit from anyone every. This dude will literally stand between you and god. He sorta becomes a father figure to Cas in the story and they do strong man stuff together (like fix carts and talk about animals, obviously)

Mitzen is an ex assassin, leaving her guild for similar reasons to Drélan. They were once on opposing sides but became good and loyal friends once they both left their groups. She’s a ‘tough love’ kinda gal, shoving her friends into situations whether they like it or not. Like Zep, she’s pretty closed off but she’s definitely calmer and more composed than he is (due to being older and more mature)

They are the only characters in the group that aren’t in a romantic relationship with each other🤣 You can still ship them, tho :3

ANYWAYS, the ✨lore✨

Y’all are probably wondering what a Rune Shifter is, right? Yeah, I thought so👀 I’ll do my best to explain!

A Rune Shifter is a magical being with gem/rock/whatever material casings covering certain parts of their bodies (for reference, Zep, Cas and Chryo are Shifters). One-Runed Shifters are the most common, Two-Runed Shifters are rare, Three-Runes Shifters are VERY rare (90% of critters never see a single one in their lives) and Four-Runed Shifters are saved for myths n shit (no one knows if they’re even real) (Examples; Zep is a double shifter - meaning he had two magic types at once, making him a Two-Runed Shifter - Cas is a Three-Runed Shifter and Chryo is a One-Runed Shifter)

Shifters’ powers are element based (for example; Zep in an ice/water Shifter, Cas is a Sun Shifter and Chryo is a Moon Shifter (or Moon Rune and Cy likes to call her). There are quite a few of them and I haven’t written them all down yet, so🤣 Anyways, they all have different abilities (having more runes= more powers). More examples!! Ice Shifters can control ice, Water Shifters can control water, Sun Shifters are typically protective forces (with force field n super strength and all that), Moon Shifters can multiply and become invisible, etc. (It’s all still a wip so💀)

An ability all Shifters have is the ability to shift (duh) into Rune Beast forms. Rune Beast forms are like monster forms, they can take on any appearance but mostly take the appearance of different already existing animals (also a WIP). Many believe that the form you discover always means something

Now, for the ✨worldbuilding✨

Basically; Rune Shifters are powerful and scary so non-Rune Shifters hate them. Shifters are discriminated against and feared. Any mother to have a Shifter child and keep is also despised (basically Cas’ and his mother’s backstory lmao)

Omg this is a long ass post lmao-

But bro, I can’t help myself😭 I fucking live this story and the characters to DEATH and I hope y’all like em too💕

If you have any questions regarding the story, feel free to reblog or reply with said questions!

[lottie1824]

Masterpost

Hi and welcome to my blog. I'm Hannah and I write a variety of fics over on ao3 but my main pairing is landoscar. I should hopefully update my masterlists every time I post a new fic (if I remember). And I mainly reblog landoscar and f1 stuff on here but other things will occasionally creep in. I also have a side blog for more writing content My favourite drivers are: Oscar, Logan and Lando My favourite team is: McLaren but I also have a soft spot for Williams My favourite ship is Landoscar (if you couldn't tell) but I do occasionally dip into writing other ships Asks and dm's are welcome, I promise I don't bite :)

Landoscar AU's Masterlist

Multichapter Landoscar Masterlist

Canon Compliment Landoscar Masterlist- fics based loosely on real events

Bitesized Landoscar Fics- fics under 1.5k, except for drabbles

Archive Warnings Landoscar Masterlist- any fics that have an archive warning applied to them

Other Landoscar Fics Masterlist

Loscar Masterlist

Arthur/Oscar Masterlist

Carcar Masterlist

Oscar/George Masterlist

Maxoscar Masterlist

Oscar/Others Masterlist- any fics that include Oscar as part of the main pair which doesn't have its own masterlist

Random Masterlist- any random, one off pairings that I have done

Drabble Masterlist- drabbles of all pairings

[literallygeeway]

intro post!!

name: just call me caleb

age: dont wanna disclose but i am a minor so please dont be weird!!

pronouns: he/they idk

gender: kind of just unlabeled rn it hurts my head too much to think about

sexuality: also unlabeled. i kind of just like anyone in any way it doesnt really matter idk

favourite artist: my chemical romance!!!

other favourite artists: bikini kill, mommy long legs, mitski, bratmobile, cat valley, hell baby, dazey and the scouts, wet leg, skinny girl diet, the muslims, voodoo church

other artists i just generally like (yes i love music): sonic youth, le tigre, the julie ruin, senses fail, funeral for a friend, pierce the veil, crass, x-ray spex, sloppy jane, pleasure venom, olivia jean, necromancy

hobbies: music (i can play bass, guitar, drums and piano), writing, photography, filmmaking, cinematography, drawing, making bracelets (though i need to do it more often)

some other stuff i like also includes: heathers the musical (off broadway) (its the only musical i really like), studio ghibli, the sims 4, omori, undertale, deltarune, stardew valley, ddlc, doctor who, the umbrella academy, the owl house, bojack horseman, adventure time and scott pilgrim (the tv show, movie and game - i havent read the graphic novel but want to)

more stuff under the cut - dni, fun facts and some more stuff :3

fun facts!!!

my favourite colour is dark red

my favourite food is sushi

im learning japanese and french

my favourite movies are parasite, everything everywhere all at once and isle of dogs!! my favourite tv shows are i am not okay with this and the end of the f***ing world

i love wes anderson movies!!

i had two fish called flamey and sir bubbles the fishington when i was younger but they both died so i flushed them down the toilet

i collect bottles and cans (mainly ramune bottles and one cool can but still), funko pops (i have two gerard way funko pops - the black parade with the facepaint and revenge red tie) and vinyls (mcr, mitski, bikini kill and the muslims)

dni!!!

basic dni like homophobic, transphobic, ableist, racist, pro-isreal, islamophobic, etc

mcr haters!! /hj

shipping irl people unless its a joke

transmeds and terfs

people who think trans men cant present femininely and trans women cant present masculinely (im a trans-ish guy who wears skirts sometimes so suck my toe)

people who unironically think gerard way is a trans woman... guys he's said they use he/they pronouns and if he was a trans woman he would probably say something!!

please interact!!

mcr fans

riot grrrl fans (not problematic)

alternative people!!! (emo, punk, goth, scene, decora, etc)

just cool people in general :3

other stuff:

no need to use tonetags with me, dont worry about it

i use !!! and :3 and stuff like that a lot, and i also swear more than the average human should

im alternative but dont have a specific label as i dress in a mix of ways and listen to many different genres of music :3

on here i'm mainly gonna post about mcr, so if you dont like them you probably wont like most of the stuff i post :<

i will probably edit this as i think of more stuff to add and as my interests change but yeah <3

pinterest: literallygeeway

instagram: killj0ysneverd1e (i only use it to look at mikey way and frank iero's stories)

fav user: @darkermylovex (go follow her rn she is awesome!!)

I DID NOT MAKE THE PNG THAT APPEARED EARLIER!!

fav songs currently:

okay thats all, have a great day, bye bye :3!!!!

[yellowistheraddest]

LADIES, GENTLEMEN AND FELLOW CONTORTIONS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, i present to you 9 drawing requests with accompanying commentary...

request one:

honestly its not a crime but they are criminally curious to learn the rich history of Dallas in 1963! i mean arent you curious, you should google what happened there on november 22nd!!!

request number 2:

OH BABY you know i love making people feel :( my most popular post is characters crying so i was supposed to have fun with it but 3 people hugging - dude, i was no the verge of insanity and in the end pearl just kinda got swallowed up and disappeared.

[[7 MORE UNDER CUT!!]]

request tres:

coming from the last drawing i was still on the 'lmao get sad' bandwagon, and simon and athena they have lived through somethings so once again i drew people crying :D so heres a drawing of little athena and her goth uncle having a nice little hug and nothing ever went wrong

request četiri:

by now everyone should know that my favourite AU is these two bastards meeting before phoenix became a lawyer; ya know so he doesnt need to break his back trying to learn law as an art student - not that he learns much as he doesnt know what a cross examination is in his first case,,

request pénte:

this request marked the second day of drawing.

now,, i might have not read the request before i drew sooo i kinda just drew them taking a selfies at a steel samurai con so i kindly edited the second drawing to contain a peace sign. [the plush is the hellish creature named the iron infant [from AAI i think] and i bet its like the worst character in the franchise and these two will definitely burn it when they get home]

request numero sześć:

now i swore to never post kissing on here so i spare myself of the cringw when i look back later, so just dont read the first half and enjoy the way i found out you cant really draw flicking without making a comic. like the motion is so small yet so powerful how do you draw that?!?!?!?!?!? this looked miles better in my brain...

request shtatë:

you know what else is like rocks? big frozen chunks of ice, like the one here :D

RIP LMAO

request huit:

ah the t4t to end all t4ts. ron is definitely a guy to fall at first sight and bro desiree is the definition of girlboss

also people forget that larry was rons coworker and i need more content of those two because they are just wildly opposite

[edit: ''sir are good'' HUH??? brother i need to go to sleep and just not draw for the next millenia]

now we have arrived at the end of our trip...

you may be thinking "yellow, you said that there were 9 drawings!"

YES, but no.. theres probably a reason behind this but when i opened my inbox and saw this was like a game character who was stun locked. i mean look at this, aka request number NINE:

love ya to death, babes, but please get some rest because i think you forgot to write in the characters you wanted to see. despite that i decided to draw what you requested:

now just imagine whichever characters you waant in those places! wait was your request an investment so you can have an infinite amount of ships inserted into this pose???

anywho, ummmmm.. yeah Now we have reached the end - but do not fear, im not dying or going away. im still going to be here on my ace attorney bullshit as long as my brain can stand.

sadly i have to say GOODNIGHT, LADIES, GENTLEMEN AND FELLOW CONTORTIONS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT. may we meet once again when the planets align and it rains in the greatest depths of the ocean o7

[mellowquint]

Fanbinding Masters of Mayhem - a Ninjago and Lego Monkie kid crossover!!!

FINALLY after weeks of putting the project on the shelf i finally have the (motivation) free time to complete this amazing bookbind!!! Shoutout to my best friend who came to me and ask if i could bind it. So what better birthday gift than to bind her current favourite crossover story? At the time of this post i have not given the gift to her yet so fingers crossed that she likes this 🤞😖

Thank you FictionForLife_NZ for creating this absolute hilarious masterpiece!! I have been wanting to read an LMK crossover fic for the longest time and low and behold, the ao3 algorithm has answered my prayers lol. Me and best friend really love the character interaction that the Ninja’s have with the LMK crew 😂. Also the shipping!! Best friend absolutely LOVES dragonfruit but was sad that they didn’t have as much of a fandom dedication as opposed to spicynoodles. So imagine her suprised (and scream) that dragonfruit is the main pairing in the story and their many iconic moments together!! Also the climax truly had me at the edge of my seat!! And that ending?? Gosh couldn’t have asked it better myself Ninjago writers really should take notes ✍️!!! Anyways enough rambling here’s the fic if you would like to give a read, absolute 10/10

Flip through

Some close ups

also yes excuse me and my terrible phone and room lighting it did not do this book justice.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any fanart that was related/tagged so there was no illustrations for the book. However thats when i had the idea of making the chapter title in the same font as the Ninjago font! To make it seem like every new chapter is an episode!

Also unfortunately couldn’t tag the author since i can’t find their tumblr. If any of you know if said author does have tumblr please let me know!

If you’re all curious on how i make this, i recommend going to the first bookbinding project that i did, its all the same process except with some new improvements that im gonna talk about under the cut

I definitely learned a lot from my mistakes from the last time that i did this, and of course gain new mistakes as well 🥲.

The edges aren’t trimmed

The cover isn’t aligned

The printing for the covers are garbage

Book would not lay flat, instead forever stuck at a weird 120 degree angle

Overall a lot of stuff

This was a given by the fact that i have no experience and was impatient. But since this is a gift for Best Friend ofc this has to actually look good, so here are the improvements that i made

Signature printing— i will admit it took some time and effort but after the old cannon printer finally died permanently jammed, managed to convince parents to buy a more advanced and better printer that can now do double sided printing!! No more wasted signatures from here on out 😮‍💨

Cover printing — not wanting a repeat of the last time that i did it i went to my local Officeworks to get it printed by them. Here i discovered the beauty that is known as ✨Poster Prints✨. Now all of my yellow lines and elements actually do show an pop against the darker background!! Unfortunately this does have a drawback because the prints are sensitive to any type of scratching. Not the scratch and all the colors come off way, more like the scratch it and lines will show up kind of way as you can really see in the front cover :') . Will work on improving this is future projects.

Trimming the edges — originally in book one i trimmed the edges using your typical box cutter and cut it myself. Bad BAD idea i was doomed at that moment. So imagine my surprise the Officeworks ALSO do CUTTING service!!! My jaw dropped and i immediately went back the next day with my text block and asked them if they could trim all edges. After some inspection they put it through the guillotine and all of my edges are perfectly trimmed. Saved me all the time, money, and storage.

Laying book flat — this was definitely the biggest pet peeve that I have with my first book. The way i do it now is i now put a one cm gap between the front cover, side cover and back cover. And also using the right paper (cardstock) to connect the text block with the covers. Now the book can actually fully open!!!

Cover alignment — I printed out the front and back in regular paper and use that as a template on where i wanna fold the prints to find the cover. Worked like a charm

once again shoutout to best friend for giving me the brilliant idea when making the covers!! had it not been for her to point out about clause's book of spells i would have never made the coolest cover page that I've made in my entire binding experience!! all in all im pretty dang proud of myself for being able to improve on my bookbinding skill.

[reedeemable]

DBH Children Headcanons

Just like to preface this by saying that I love making fan-children for my favourite ships so I don’t care about “oh they wouldn’t have kids” or “this doesn’t make sense”. This is for my own amusement so just letting you know before you go on.

Also, I can't draw for shit but if people like my dbh children and want to see more, I will make them on the Sims or online (dress up games) and post them here. Let me know if that's something that would be of interest. I'll also answer asks about them and whatever if anyone is interested

Taglist for those who said that they were interested in my headcanons: @sundownridge @kristopher-1105 @dbhstruggleposting @glass-noodle @fearlessjones @heiko-goes-detroit

Connor + Hank

Name: Nicole (named after Cole)

Birthday: May 21st (gemini)

Appearance: She has Hank’s eyes and Connor’s hair. Her hair is fluffy/curly (like Bryan’s hair) and its shoulder length, tied into a ponytail (she also has a fluffy/curly fringe similar to Connor’s)

Other features: She has Connor’s freckles (not exact but similar) and wears glasses (inspired by the popular headcanon that human Connor wears them)

Info/Background: So, my headcanon for their child is that Connor is the one who asks Hank if they can have a child. Connor has been seeing other androids having their own families and he wants one as well. He would never pressure Hank into this but Hank agrees of his own volition and even though he’s older now, a part of him wants to try again. They have a baby via science (it’s the future, doesn’t need to make sense, haha) Because it is through science, they’re able to give her Connor’s hair and freckles but her facial features (skin, shape of eyes, nose etc) come from Hank’s dna.

Personality: - Ok so, for their daughter, I headcanon her to be someone who is adventurous and loves to have fun. She loves being outdoors, being active and anything athletic, like sports and dancing - She loves the heat and hates the cold (this is a nod to how cole died) - Even though her name is Nicole, she prefers the name Nicky (Hank called her that in the beginning because he couldn't bear to say "cole" yet and it just stuck) - She knows different forms of self-defence, mainly due to Connor's influence and she loves it. She can pull of moves that even has Connor going "damn" - She smiles a lot, like a lot a lot. Very rarely will you ever see her not smiling and laughing

Favourites: - Colour: Pink/blues - Symbol: Heart

Jericrew

Name: Riley (named after Markus’ removed romantic interest, Riley)

Birthday: November 9th (scorpio)

Appearance: Similar to her game counterpart, except her braid goes down her back instead of to the side (to distinguish her from north but in my head, she wears her hair like north's because she admires her so much) and she has grey eyes (this is a nod to her eyes being blurred out in her images)

Info/Background: Riley is left at New Jericho’s doorstep. Jericrew know that they should hand her over to humans but despite the positive aftermath of the revolution, they are still distrustful of humans. By time they decide what to do, they have already fallen for her. After caring for her for a while, Markus is inspired to fight for androids rights to adopt human children. Of course, humans are not pleased about this and there is a huge argument and debate around it but eventually it is legalised and she becomes part of their family.

Personality: So, even though her personality isn't touched upon at all, I've come up with some traits from the information and pics shown in Riley's wiki - Becomes an artist (inspired by Markus) - Good listener and advisor - Self-confident and assured - Into the boho style - Loves plants and flowers - Well-educated (this part comes from Josh, who would have taught her a lot)

Favourites: - Colour: Jade - Symbol: Chevron

Markus + Simon

Name: Milo

Birthday: July 8th (cancer)

Appearance: He is African American with short brown Afro-textured hair, shaved at the sides and light brown eyes

Info/Background: Milo is adopted by Markus and Simon after Riley grows up a bit. I imagine that because Simon is a domestic droid, he loves kids and once Riley becomes older, he aches for having a little one around the house again.

Personality: - Him being into fashion and dressing cool (since people love how Markus and Simon dress) is always something that I've liked - Combination of Markus and Simon's traits (determined, loyal, soft etc etc)

Favourites: - Colour: Dark pink

Leo + KL900

Name: Scarlett (named after Carl)

Birthday: August 15th (leo)

Appearance: So, because she was created through science, she looks like Leo and a KL900 combined. (edit: changed her hair colour and style). She has brown hair like Leo's which is short and curly (similar to Lucy's concept design) and Leo's eyes

Info/Personality: So, a little backstory on this crack-ship. Because KL900’s are created for social care, I headcanon that they have them in rehab centers. While at rehab, Leo meets a KL900 (which I have dubbed Kelly) and they fall for each other. Their daughter is born after Carl dies (of age) and Leo names her after him.

Personality: - Wants to become an actress - Has Leo's jealousy issues - Is confident in her abilities which makes her come off as a bit vain

Favourites: - Colour: Cyan - Symbol: Teardrop

Chris Miller

Name: Damian

Birthday: August 9th (leo)

Appearance: Ok this is just me but I headcanon that he dyes his hair part blonde during his teen years. I’m probably the only person whose given any thought about Damian’s appearance but ever since it entered by head, it won’t leave

Personality: - Ok, so because Chris' concept name was Chad, I headcanon Damian to be the definition of the slang meaning of a "chad" (but without all the assholishness that comes with it)

Favourites: - Colour: Beige

Name: Talia (name changed)

Birthday: June 30th (cancer)

Appearance: Chris’ hair/eye colour and Afro-textured hair that falls down to her shoulders

Info/Background: Not much to say except that I headcanon that he would have another child somewhere down the line

Personality: - She has a very "airy" personality. Like air, she's light, bouncy, free and just chill to get along with. She's gentle, caring, respectful and kind - Cries easily

Favourites: - Colour: Violet - Symbol: Butterfly

Gavin + Nines

Name: Curtis (named after Gavin’s concept name. Also Curtis means “polite/courteous and given Gavin’s personality, I think that is hilarious 😂)

Birthday: September 18th (virgo) (birthday changed cause I realised I had the wrong date/star sign)

Appearance: He has Gavin’s eyes and Nines’ hair colour. His hair is a combination of Bryan’s curly hair and Gavin’s hair from the reed900 movies (I haven’t watched them but I’ve seen a lot of fan-art with Gavin’s hair drawn like his and it seems appropriate to give his son that hairstyle) Because it is through science, they’re able to give him Nines’ hair and freckles but his facial features (skin, shape of eyes, nose etc) come from Gavin’s dna.

Other features: He has Nines’ freckles (not exact but similar)

Info/Background: I headcanon that after Nicole is born, Nines and Gavin both get baby fever and want a child as well. Science baby, of course.

Personality: - So, I know that this isn't original but I like the idea of Gavin's kid being the opposite of him. Curtis is polite, courteous, well-behaved, never swears, humble, friendly, sociable, charming, funny, everyone who meets him just thinks he's so nice etc etc - But in saying that, there a few traits he gets from Gavin. He is ambitious and an over-achiever. He's not bookish per-say but wants to do his best at anything he tries - I know I said he never swears but that's more in general. He will swear if he's mad or if he hurts himself by accident (stubbing his toe etc) - Also, his first word was "phck" much to shock of both Nines and Gavin, the latter swearing black and blue that he never said it in front of him (he did)

Favourites: - Colour: Green

Tina + ST300

Name: Katie

Birthday: October 19th (libra)

Appearance: She has Tina’s eyes and Staci’s (my name for the st300) hair that is shoulder length and tied into two low pigtails

Other features: She has freckles like Staci

Info/Background: A couple years after Gavin and Nines have their child, Tina and Staci decide to have one through science as well. Because it is through science, they’re able to give her Staci’s hair and freckles but her facial features (skin, shape of eyes, nose etc) come from Tina’s dna.

Personality: - I headcanon that she has fanon Tina's personality. If you've ever read most reed900 fics, you'll know that Tina has been given the traits of "party-animal, doesn't take shit, loves to tease, always the optimism to Gavin's cynicism, always has her friend's backs etc" - Since we don't know much about canon Tina, I gave her fanon traits to Katie

Favourites: - Colour: Olive green - Symbol: Flower

Elijah + Chloe

Name: Adam (a nod to the first man on earth because Adam is the first human born from an android)

Birthday: February 3rd (aquarius)

Appearance: He has Eli’s hair colour (his original brown, not his dyed hair) and eye colour. His hair is half-shaven and swept to one side

Info/Background: I headcanon that Eli has been experimenting and he alters Chloe so that she is able to give birth to children. Eli tells no one until Chloe is pregnant. The world is informed and watches to see if it works. It does and even though only one was predicted to be born, they have twins. Because this is the first baby born through an android, only Kamski's dna is able to be used so he has his eyes, hair, facial features etc Personality: - Genius (like his father) - Relaxed and nonchalant. Not a serious person - Enjoys the spotlight and fame of not only being a Kamski but also being the first human born from an android - Frivolous with money - Social butterfly, loves being around people and going to parties - Loves being in public - Always in the media for somethingFavourites: - Colour: Blue

Name: Ava (a nod to Eve but the e’s are changed to a’s to be alliterate with Adam’s name)

Birthday: February 3rd (aquarius)

Appearance: She has Eli’s hair colour (his original brown, not his dyed hair) and eye colour. Her hair is long and styled into a high ponytail

Info/Background: Same as Adam’s

Personality: - Genius (like her father) - Business savvy and ambitious (I haven't picked a career for her yet but she becomes highly successful like Eli) - Workaholic - Stubborn - Studious - Unlike her twin, she is smart with money - Is wary of befriending people because of her fame and status - Prefers to keep her personal business private - Not a big fan of the media

Favourites: - Colour: Red - Symbol: Diamond

Name: Noah

Birthday: March 8th (pisces)

Appearance: He has Chloe’s hair and Eli’s eyes. He has long hair that falls to his shoulders

Info/Background: Ok, so originally he wasn’t supposed to exist but after coming up with his personality and why he exists, I couldn’t resist. So, the reason why he was born is because Chloe wanted a child that looked like her. Because she was the first android to have a child, only Eli’s dna was used so Adam and Ava only have Kamski dna. Noah is more mixed.

Other features: Wears glasses

Personality: - Genius (he is the smartest of the three children) - So personally, I don't believe that Eli is evil but I know that it's a popular interpretation in the fandom so I went with it for his son - He is sociopathic and sadistic. He is reclusive, hates humanity and only respects his mother and other androids - He hates his father (because eli didn't want another child but only did it because chloe wanted it so while noah and chloe are extremely close, he isn't close with his father at all) - Because he is the third Kamski child, he isn't paid as much attention to as the other two by the public because he doesn't go out or isn't venturing into the business scene so this has left him bitter and jealous of his siblings - Wants to lead another android revolution and believes that androids should be ruling the world, not humans - Is loyal, obedient and very nurturing towards Chloe - To me, if I was a fic writer, Noah is someone who would be the big bad so his fate is that he would either end up dying or going to jail

Favourites: - Colour: Purple

Other

So, I made this next character purely for the purpose of shipping her with another one of my character's, Nicole but I lover her so much now that even if I changed my mind, she's staying

Name: Samantha Stern

Birthday: October 28th (scorpio)

Appearance: She has human Amanda's facial features, hair and eye colour. Her hair is straight and long

Other features: She wears glasses

Info/Background: Samantha Stern is a relative of Amanda Stern (the human amanda). She lived in England until she moves to Detroit. She meets Nicole in her young adult years and she ends up being a kindergarten teacher. I'm 50/50 on this but I like her having a british accent

Personality: - She is the opposite of AI Amanda in every way - She is an open book, has a warm attitude towards everyone, open to change, can be absent minded at times, encouraging, understanding, forgiving, compassionate and gentle - She's also independent and prefers to make her own way in life - When it comes to clothing, she hates big/dangly, shiny jewelery, long sleeved clothing and loves wearing dresses, skirts and shorts

Favourites: - Colour: Yellow - Symbol: Star

[maybevillage]

my really really long rant about endwalker

i'm not kidding this is really long. spoilers ahead of course, like immediately upon entry. sorry i sound so angry the whole time

unfortunately for me and for anyone reading this, endwalker is one of those cases where i like/d so much of what happens that the many weak moments make me more critical of the whole than i would be if it was just wholly bad like stormblood, bc it's a waste of potential. a lot of the time the moments i liked would even be happening simultaneously with the things i find so problematic: cheap storytelling decisions, cheap moments that only serve as fanservice or for shock value that only detract from a characters’ pre-existing complexity, poorly done rehashing of elements from shadowbringers, a lot of hollow pseudo-intellectual arguments, rushed and underdeveloped writing in one instance and then meandering wastes of time immediately after….these issues are so consistent that rather than try to break up endwalker's story based on these things, i will just try to run thru the whole thing chronologically and hope i don't get too repetitive. that's why this isn't an essay with some pretense of structure. i'll do my best.

what's crazy to me is i thought endwalker was going to be my second favourite expansion. this was despite not caring about its original main conflict--i thought fandaniel just wasn't a compelling or even interesting villain. he comes out of nowhere. and he's also asahi so that association is hard to break away from bc i find asahi silly. and he suffers from the same writing issues zenos does, where nearly every cutscene with them did little to develop their characters further from the baseline, only reiterated what i already know bc they literally never say anything else: zenos wants to fight wol, he's bored with everything life could possibly offer, fandaniel will ensure zenos can fight wol through his towers bc he no longer plays to the tune of his unsundered masters... even though what fandaniel was promising to cause were the final days i just didn't really care. in the wake of shadowbringers the final days are like a pretty big deal, but something about reviving a catastrophe i had just finished wrapping up--i thought, naively--made bringing them back seem really thoughtless. i don't really need to see anymore final days...like how much more do i need to understand how bad it was? i mean i think shb did a pretty good job????? of making the final days seem pretty fucking bad. why not come up with something new because this is endwalker and not shadowbringers haha? the only fresh thing about this new uncooler final days was the motivation behind them. fandaniel wanting to bring about the final days bc he wants to die and thinks everything should die with him vs emet-selch's unwillingness to die no matter what bc the final days took everything from him and he needs to bring it all back. still, recontextualising the final days from a past event into a present issue ruins them to me. whatever, i thought, there's no way we're letting the final days happen so what does this matter anyways. there's no way.

so yeah post-shb into ew was starting to lose me plot-wise. not the end of the world (LOL?) though bc the atmosphere in the beginning was so subtle and fresh and rich like dew in the morning that i was willing to look past it. going to old sharlayan i liked a lot. i liked going there not as a more typical homecoming for your friends but to instead uncover the sharlayan forum's cryptic behaviour. this kind of intrigue was what i really wanted after the grandness of shadowbringers and i really do think endwalker gave me that for a while. i liked the opening scene on the ship a lot bc it felt exciting and uncertain and new, especially talking to hydaelyn. i liked how she had become such an unstable variable after originally being the most anchoring presence in the entire game: learning she's a primal, whether she's actually “good” after listening to emet-selch’s explanation of her origins and actions in shb, and the fact that her appeals to her champions have been fewer and fewer… i thought her meeting with you at the very beginning of endwalker was cool and foreboding. i also really liked the emet-selch narration btw, i thought that was a fun choice. who better to guide you into the final stages of your adventure than the person who left you with that final, most important task. i wish this had been the only callback to his character at all. 

so a big part of why i like/d endwalker so much is all that atmosphere. and something i can't really put into words. it just felt cool and cohesive at the start. old sharlayan is one of my favourite locations now; i like that despite its rigidity and (to me farcical but w/e tangent) pursuit of rationality/knowledge, there's the quaint island charm and fresh winter sea and overgrown greenery and forest paths. i liked that the game enhanced the usual hubworld tour chore by having g’raha and krile follow you around to give you more personal anecdotes of the place, really gave it a more lived-in feeling, which really added to both them and the location. i also really liked all this charm and familiarity in tandem with the secret hostility of the place bc of the forum, having to sneak around and so on, sharlayan citizens not really recognising you somehow? but being very aware of a warrior of light threat to their way of life, even if i find that non-intervention way of life silly.

i also really liked labryinthos. it's a really creative place. i liked its uncanny false sky and controlled environment, and yet all the people scrambling about inside. and the music felt kind of magical like i had encountered another fairy area or something idk it all felt very whimsical. thavnair i really liked as well but i feel like my immediate impression of the place was kind of poisoned by the stereotypes, like the huge focus on trade and the first impression being undercutting foreign tourists but then i started to really enjoy the part where you run around with matsya and help him sell fish. i liked the mundanity and slow pace of that exercise bc it felt like a much more involved way of learning about thavnair and its current issues through conversations rather than the fetch quest slog, and this is one of the things i like a lot about the beginning of endwalker. the gameplay really improved i think bc they found more creative ways of having you interact with your surroundings, rather than having the usual running between npcs to fetch things for them or other chores. like rather than doing a string of quests and then being rewarded with development of the story, the gameplay simultaneously develops the story. like turning into frogs i thought was fun, testing nidhana’s aether lamp was fun, etc. it felt like they had better ideas about how to progress the in-between parts.

thavnair quickly started to upset me though bc it started to feel like the only relevance the location had was what they could give you for your military cause, that is, the scales. like alchemy is this place’s big highlight and its just the scales the scales the scales and the tower aughhhhhh!!!!!!! the tower!!!!!!!!!! i wish they had focused on something but i guess this is just to be expected with ffxiv...any interaction with a foreign ("foreign" as far as square enix eorzea is concerned) culture really boils down to how they might bolster your military efforts, the azim steppe for eg. so it felt like my concern for an individual (matsya) and the experience firsthand trying to help him with his day to day; the idea that every single person on earth is important and shouldn't be made to suffer, and helping that single person... was like overshadowed by something more focused on a “greater good", that is, the construction of the scales to defeat the towers to save the world ad infinitum. but if you played endwalker then you would know how this idea of only concerning oneself with a "greater good" and this diluting of the importance of an individual's life for the sake of this idealistic whole causes some problems for a certain someone..................so why didn't the game focus more on these themes? probably because at the end of the day it's a video game by square enix and you need a big boss to fight or something or bc this expansion is insanely unfocused i don't know. i feel like this concept about the importance of the small things that can add up to one life and how that one life is beautiful and important crops up with the significance of weeds despite its importance overall. i don't know if i think this is one of the main underlying themes of endwalker just poorly executed so as to not even be there or if i just wish it was one of its main themes. anyways i'm getting distracted, what i mean to say is thavnair gets dehumanised throughout the entire expansion in the most horrific ways possible so i guess this was just the start

moving on... i liked the part in garlemald a lot, which i didn't expect bc i don't expect this game to handle anything regarding imperialism well. i liked that the garlemald you finally experience, after it being one of your main enemies and this very proud nation, was just this dead quiet and ruined place. the quest where you follow that girl is another eg of how the gameplay was a bit more immersive, i think it helped me feel the loneliness and the danger of the place, that i could be a danger to this girl. that i really had to try if i wanted to help her. what i didn't like was alphinaud's and alisaie’s babying attitude towards the garleans? like ok yeah of course we’re gonna have patience and grace for GARLEMALD meanwhile lyse was losing her head at the ala mhigans whenever they disagreed with her. like sure arguing won't get anywhere but it felt like the twins were reckoning with children sometimes, it was so strange. but i did like that the game didn't shy away from making the garleans just unpleasant to be around at best, and an actual danger to you at worst. it's just better to me to make them harder to reconcile with so that there's no frustrating cheap shots at redemption but rather a good, sobering look at a society that's been totally and willingly misled. and i liked that alisaie's and alphinaud's attempts to help those garlean kids ended so badly, even though i'm not usually a fan of such cruel outcomes. it felt like we were seeing a garlemald not necessarily being punished for its actions more than we were seeing a place built on shitty ideals crumble bc of those ideals. i thought jullus was a good char and helped to carry that idea of disillusionment forward. i didn't care so much about sympathising with what he'd lost, but i did find it interesting how they contrast him with the legatus he's working under, who even while the place is in ruins is still more concerned with war than providing for the people relying on him. i don't think the part in garlemald is perfect by any means, like it doesn't do anything too brave, but ig it was a lot more subtle and complex in its storytelling than i expected. and it wasn't meaninglessly cruel. like i'm glad those shock collars put on the twins were only used to gauge jullus' emotional growth or something like him not wanting to activate them rather than them actually being fucking used which would have just made me close the game and not look back.

from here on is where i struggle to lock in for the rest of the story. starting with when zenos kidnaps you in the midst of the fighting at camp broken glass--i don't think i have ever been more immediately mentally locked out of a story. endwalker is darker than usual, trapping people in fleshy towers, two young girls lying dead on the ice, tentacles erupting out of tempered garlean soldiers... and so on. and while i don't personally like things that are overly dark or cruel, it's not that i think they're bad, just that with moments like that it's a lot better imo that a point is being made or they add something to the story, and that it doesn't feel soullessly random or disrespectful. unfortunately this stops being the case for the rest of the expansion..... like something about the weird eldritch feeling of fandaniel pulling you out of your body and putting you in a random soldier's was throwing me off immensely. it felt like i was playing a different game, like so disconcerting i found it distracting, because why would he not just do this to screw you over more often? i didn't understand them having access to such an unrestrained power. at the same time it was also just too wacky to really take seriously despite the apparent gravity of what was happening. zenos inside of my bunny girl's body??? i don't even understand why they did it? to piss you off?? the duty where you play as the imperial soldier was interesting i guess but i couldn’t understand what the meaning behind being made to struggle through that experience was... like didn't we just spend all that time sympathising with the garleans and wrap that section up already? why do i now need to sympathise with/experience firsthand what its like to be a garlean footsoldier? and it annoyed me because these parts felt emotionally rich, like stumbling across those garleans fighting that machine and trying to do your best to help them; dragging yourself across the ground to get to your friends before something bad happens to them, and running towards them before zenos hurts them while in your body--i thought all of that could've been really poignant if not for the actual situation being so silly?? they could have just kept some of those ideas, wol dragging themselves across the ground for eg--the extent to which they're willing to stop harm from reaching their friends (which reminds me of what vrtra says to you about the importance of protecting your friends the first time you meet him. but that was such a one-off moment that goes nowhere... i just wish ew would pick something, anything, to be a poignant message about love on planet earth if they want nihilism to be the main villain, and just stick to it)--and do something that felt a lot more relevant to the established story thus far? just felt totally pointless

what makes this worse is this ridiculous part is iirc right after fandaniel reveals that the entity tempering all of the garleans is varis reanimated as an ancient oh-so-important primal...?? like here's (what i thought was going to be) an actually important point in the story being sidelined for a moment that just goes absolutely nowhere. they certainly made it seem important for a moment, and i think this would've rounded off what was being said about garlemald well; the garleans are so taken in by the farce of their homeland that they think varis is calling them to reclaim their country over the radio, but all along what's actually causing their nation to fall apart is this monstrous version of their late emperor. the irony would've been interesting but they just do nothing with it... (i think desecrating a dead person's corpse by turning it into a monster is really weird btw, even weirder that they do it for no reason. whatever ew is weird.) i thought, considering that this plotline was being established from before endwalker started, that anima was going to take some time. not so. ffxiv would rather have you and zenos enact tropes from a disney channel movie. you merk that guy at the end of the tower of babil and from then on every important plot point the expansion could possibly have moves at fucking mach 567472838758745745

because why all of a sudden are you getting beamed up to the moon? and fighting ZODIARK? i was so confused when asahi i mean fandaniel was punching shit into that fuckgin allagan computer like fandaniel what the fuck are you talking about... i couldn't process anything that happened here. like i'll willingly put aside boring practicalities like why anyone can breathe on the moon, but not so much how fast this all happened and how out of nowhere--is this the reason fandaniel is also amon btw? so that he can use their allagan computers to do this? bc i honestly can’t find any other reason why him being amon is relevant when they revealed that in the tower of zot...like i dont get why that's important

and it doesn't get better after this is the sad thing to me. it doesn't pick itself back up. it is just extremely unfocused right until the endwalker. i was willing to move past getting rid of zodiark so quickly because it's not that i hold standard storytelling rules so dearly in my heart that i need the biggest final boss of the entire series to get a bit more gravitas. it actually ended up being a pretty interesting decision--dispatching the largest villain at the heart of the game being the catalyst for the biggest catastrophe you've ever heard of. like i like that wol gets played. but the entire mare lamentorum section that follows is disrespectful. this expansion suffers from some extreme tonal dissonance, bc how does wol learn that the final days are now upon them and then proceed to spend their time leisurely touring the moon rabbit facility to tell them that the clothes they’ve made for humans to wear isn’t fashionable? why on god's green earth does that matter at this current juncture? this part is one of the worst story-writing sinkholes in the expansion to me, bc why are the discrepancies between what the loporrits know of humanity vs what humanity is actually like something the story chooses to grapple with? we're building an ark to save humanity, and instead of approaching this in a contemplative or emotional way, the point of conflict they choose is logistics? in the expansion about nihilism? at best this conflict was overly realistic..... mostly it's just boring, and at worst the FINAL DAYS are now upon us, so why am i taste-testing carrots? how could the sharlayans, the most focused group of people on the entire planet, have been collaborating with the loporrits for decades and not even have one of the most basic aspects of staying alive squared away? i’m supposed to not only believe that nobody knew after all that time the lopporits think people only eat carrots, but also waste time on fixing this? whyyyyy would they even devote any time to this at all when there are so many more complicated and interesting ideas that they let flounder bc they rush through them at breakneck pace constantly? we just fucking killed zodiark! is this why they stick urianger up there to do all the fixing actually? to save time offscreen? maybe that's why they chose this asinine chunk of the story to start processing his character? though why they would choose to add more to a plate they can barely balance i don't know. i don’t even feel like getting into what they did with urianger bc it will just piss me off. i think only my love for rabbits and how i will never ever not find urianger precious were stopping me from putting a hex on square enix

the following section of the story is easily the worst part to me in the entire game. like i would rather replay stormblood multiple times in a row than ever sit through the final days coming to thavnair ever again. i've already said bringing back the final days would just be bad; a disservice to the time spent on it in shadowbringers. what more is there to say on that front? nothing. and the way ew utilises the final days tells me that the answer is nothing. it just wanted to unleash the violence of that event on the non-white area and spends an insane amount of time doing it. i can think of no other time in this game where there is so much wanton death and destruction for no useful storytelling reason other than to relish in the cheap shock of witnessing violence, violence they are unwilling to inflict on its white areas, because even in garlemald you only see the aftermath of what happens rather than being in the midst of it. it was actually making me feel fatigued. it was just so much of the same thing over and over with no real meaning to any of it. and that's not to say that meaning justifies suffering, but this is a game.....with a story... first and foremost? there needs to be some kind of reason to move the story forward? but nothing new or inspired is being said, just "the final days are really bad"

i’m actually not even sure where to begin so i’ll start with a glaring issue: i hate that people turn into abominations. people “randomly” turning into monsters just feels too unwieldy--how could there be any sense whatsoever that that situation is controllable? even learning that it's caused by feelings of despair is shit because emotions are so vague, how could there be any worthwhile attempt to control your emotions, let alone while watching your loved ones turn into/be eaten by monsters? this entire part felt so wildly out of hand/unpredictable to me that every single moment onward that wasn't more or less focused on maintaining this extremealy volatile situation felt like an unforgivable lack of priorities. it was extremely distracting to have it hovering over everything; everything else felt absolutely inconsequential in comparison. bc what the fuck do you mean people are randomly turning into monsters?? also the stakes were already really high just knowing the final days were coming, so raising them that much higher felt unnecessary to the point of it being hard to believe. and then bc you know there's no way any character important to wol is going to turn into a monster, subjecting commonfolk npcs to this just feels absurdly cruel, and also just made it obvious how much of a cheap scare it all was, bc it can't have any real narrative importance as a result of only happening to random npcs. it was all so blatantly fake-deep. there was no meaning behind them originally being people except for the useless horror of it--the scions still referred to them as monsters to be put down rather than as the people they used to be, just like any other monster in this game. dynamis was more of a retroactive explanation for why people turned into monsters, rather than people turning into monsters bolstering any understanding of dynamis. in shb the sin eaters had some method to them that made them more believable. you fight them throughout the story rather than them just being dropped on you midway through, they helped provide a picture of what kind of world the first was, they were emotional diving boards for characters like alisaie to develop personal goals and so on and so forth... the horror of the sin eaters had a narrative purpose. in endwalker it feels like they didn’t know what to do but wanted to replicate parts of shadowbringers, but didn't know why those parts worked so well bc they're too obsessed with trying to shock their audience. this part just sucked beyond description.

and it just continues to get worse. how can you be the one writing the parametres of a situation and you create something that's literally unmanageable, so that when its only manageable bc you need it to be, it's just so obviously shit writing? my sister described endwalker's writing as really contrived, like when they need something to happen (and that thing is often a really bad idea) they just shove it in there at the cost of keeping their characters in character, or having their story threads--both the interesting ones and the stupid ones--fall totally flat. she says they shortcut the writing. and it's true. for eg, the characters literally don't feel like themselves at times, or get utilised in really moronic ways. like when wol just watches the satrap die, another cheap scare btw he literally gets grabbed an eaten in a way my sis (i was ranting to her a lot about this game ok) described as straight from attack on titan. just gets grabbed and eaten. and this happens to him for such asinine reasons: 1. so that this random asf plot point of vrtra revealing himself as the true satrap can bear fruit. for some fucking reason. i struggle to understand why this is important at all but i guess it's yet another little sideplot that ew just can't seem to resist adding to its already towering plate at the plot buffet, like whatever is going on with urianger and moenbryda's parents/the loporrits, or zenos who now spends most of his time offscreen, or the twins and their father, etc, bc ew likes to waste time 2. so that g'raha (???????????????????????) out of fucking nowhere can have a big boy moment and direct the scions and the people of thavnair in their time of need. what on earth was that scene supposed to be? fanservice? a reminder that g'raha was a leader back in the first? which blows my mind bc mere moments before he had a scene i really enjoyed despite the circumstances, where after a man witnesses his son get turned into a beast and then stepped on by another beast because endwalker is literally jacking itself off to suffering and expects me to be doing the same... g’raha goes up to this man and stops him from panicking and turning into a monster himself. while i don't think any of this should be happening, i thought it was a nice take on his character to have a more sensitive moment in such a harrowing situation. i don't know, have a character demonstrate some emotional skills instead of the usual fighting ones. ofc all of this i thought mere moments before disaster. why was any of this necessary? literally why not just have the satrap, i don't know, take charge of his country when he's needed most, even if he's only been a figurehead the whole time? why let him go out so horribly when he obvious loves his people with his whole heart just so that vrtra can step in without any sort of conflict? i don't understand the focus on vrtra at all

and it actually just keeps getting worse.. the following part where you have to find matsya's friends at palaka's stand was awful. the friends have a newborn baby, so it's obvious that only that baby is surviving bc ew is convinced you don't know how harsh the world is yet. that must be why this part is so long? i'm repeating myself but so many other things that shouldn't be rushed get rushed, only for ew to devote a lot of time to sections like this where nothing changes or develops except for compounding how bad it all feels. i think it was at this point actually, that i realised endwalker actually had some underlying point it was trying to make. it would've been impossible not to realise bc of how heavy-handed it is. i'm not even going to try and paraphrase bc it was so random the way it was introduced i thought i had missed some lines of dialogue or something when it happened:

the suddenness of this felt like when a writer forsakes trying to show what a story is about and instead opts to speak to their audience directly through poorly disguised self-inserts. like i know things are bad right now guys, but the preaching tone of this is jarring. like maybe if you spent some time trying to develop your themes you wouldn't have to be doing this endwalker. i know you need your final villain to literally parrot these ideas for the rest of the game, but if this was supposed to be such a core point of the story why wait all the way until now to just beat me over the head with it? was watching a child be crushed underfoot supposed to make elderly man of palaka using the phrase "at journey's end" seem profound?

anyways then you go and try to save matsya’s friend (the mother bc the father has now died, of course). this leads us to another forced decision that doesn’t make any sense: alisaie and alphinaud fail to kill a single abomination--just the one solitary abomination that was stalking the poor woman--so that we can see it fling her into the water and her corpse dangling on the surface. in what fucking world do alisaie and alphinaud, who have single-handedly dispatched numerous abominations prior to reaching this point, fail to kill just one of them between the two of them in a way reminiscent of a cartoon, one being knocked into the other and them both falling over? how is that fucking possible? and then to somehow make things worse, because that's still possible, despite the fact that wol spends this entire segment in palaka’s stand being told by alisaie and alphinaud not to leave matsya alone because he can’t fend for himself, the twins suggest sending him back on his own to deliver the baby to palaka's stand? why??????????????????????????????

this is what i mean when i say the characters get used in the most bullshit ways for the most bullshit reasons. it's like the game needs as much suffering as possible to happen so that it can make a worthwhile point on this later on (spoiler: it doesn't) so it pulls shit like this. why would the twins, who we just watched try to spoonfeed the garleans cereleum straight from the tank, leave matsya on his own if not solely bc the story needs the doomerism of the Resolute Citizen to ring true? and this is also what i mean when i say the scions try to manage a disaster that is just not manageable, bc they for some reason believe that bc they've taken care of the abominations they saw in the area, that means the area is safe enough for matsya to go back on his own? like are we just suddenly pretending the nature of these creatures doesn't imply that anyone can turn into one at any moment? everyone is ALWAYS in danger? we're just going to mill around while matsya weathers the most potent fear of his life running back to the village on his own, with the baby of his friends who just died moments before, while we all know that extremely negative emotions cause people to turn into the monsters? why are we doing this after we just went to so much trouble keeping people safe (or failing to, really)? forget turning into monsters for a sec, why are we even letting him experience such painful emotions at all? anyways the fucking baby starts turning into a monster because this is endwalker.. but i will say that matsya running and chanting that little piece up there about how life is suffering to try and convince me it's true calm himself down was one of the cutscenes i liked the most from this entire part, maybe endwalker in general. it was another one of those emotionally poignant and well-executed moments that just suffers from how much i wish it was happening under totally different circumstances. i don't even remember why one of us doesn’t go with him, like i don't remember what we were busy doing bc it was that unimportant--no wait, i remember! we were waiting for matsya to reach the total end of his rope so that when all things seem lost, when those monsters obviously show up on his path back to the village out of nowhere like they've been doing the past painstaking quest after quest of this entire part, estinien and vrtra can get this really cool moment of jumping into save him! it all makes so much sense now. i've never seen estinien do anything really cool before like diving down from the sky with his lance, so i understand how this was a really important moment that the game needed to make happen. also how vrtra really needs to prove to the people he can be a good satrap bc ahewann just died and all. yeah, i totally get it. perfect. just great. 

what is the message behind despair turning you into a monster? we're about to get into it with meteion and try to convince her she's wrong--come out championing the idea that suffering is just one of the many aspects of life we need to accept, and yet we're going to preface that with a part where to feel despair is bad? you get punished if you do it? honestly?

whatever. elpis...we go here because we need to learn about the elpis flower. i'm thinking we're definitely just going to ask the watcher, right? like the guy on the moon who told us the name of the flower in the first place? and time is of the fucking essence here, so surely we just go back to the watcher and ask him what we need to know and come back? wrong. we're going back to the first. to talk to elidibus. i thought we killed elidibus? does nobody truly die in this game except for my favourite character? so wol gets sent back to the first, and there's this upbeat tonally dissonant little section where you catch up with some old friends like beq lugg and those kids you helped back in shb bc now is just the perfect time for pleasantries and remembering how good shadowbringers was. ew trying to relive shadowbringers was already something i was feeling out in thavnair fighting leagues of "terminus" creatures and not "forgiven" ones, and watching the carefully constructed horror and gravity of the final days get reduced to an average apocalyptic shitshow. so i can't say i appreciated this part. also people are indiscriminately turning into monsters. i can't help but have that hang over everything constantly until the end of the expansion.

anyways we go to the crystal tower and drag out elidibus even though i personally prefer when characters have their final moments and are properly laid to rest. like i hate to not only beat a dead horse but also reanimate said horse and then drag its corpse around. well fuck what i want. so elidibus willingly does this favour for us i guess and sends us to the past somehow with some useless warnings about how we won't be able to interact with our surroundings or change the past. i say useless because the former is just untrue, i'm not sure why he bothered to say it. the moment we step foot on elpis you get a nice gift of aether from emet-selch that renders you tangible and now you can proceed to live love laugh with him and hythlodaeus on elpis even though people are indiscriminately dying back home. and the latter warning, well. i don't know, that just seemed obvious. i'm kind of just a hater.

time to be positive again for a short moment, if you can believe it? emet-selch is one of my favourite characters. i enjoyed this new light cast on him...for a short while. i like his relationship with hythlodaeus and i really like hythlodaeus; i’m really fond of the faceless simulacrum version of him you meet in shb and i'm really fond of him now. learning about the unsundered world in person rather than through hearsay was interesting, and although i can't lie and say i don't think this all kind of felt like a huge tangent despite the important aspects of the plot that come out of it, i still like it. i guess it feels this way because a lot of big plot points have already been established, like the ark on the moon and the sharlayans' involvement and the final days, so this was all kind of too big to me to be coming this late into the story. it doesn't feel all that relevant to prior parts of the expansion either except for hermes, who has been poorly developed throughout, so okay, i get it. it's time to give one of the main villains some depth (i want you to guess if this is successful or not). hermes has a lot of qualities i really like. has a child, secretly nurturing a potent sadness, thinks differently from the world around him because at his core he’s too deeply empathetic…. even though i was still largely aware of the insanity happening back at home which i'm going to keep repeating, i still enjoyed elpis At The Start. the exposition of this part was easily better than its resolution. it was taking the time to develop hermes’ character so that you could see if the game was written well anyhow how he became the fandaniel of the present. i really liked his relationship with meteion too. it's getting hard to talk about what i like without simultaneously talking about what i don't like so i'm going back to criticising now, positivity over, sorry....

personally, i’d have been totally fine without any more development to emet-selch’s character. i think it was nice to see a fresh perspective on him and all, really rounds out who he is from what you know and what he talks about in shadowbringers. and i actually like a lot of the things he said throughout, not all of it, but a good amount of it was fun and sorely needed whenever hermes was being annoying, which was often. but there was a lot of times wehere i thought, i don't really need to be hanging out with emet-selch right now? i don't need my wol and emet-selch to be friends? considering who he is....? .............and what's going on back home? how many more moments showing how endearingly prickly he is do i need to see? like sure, i can enjoy this emet-selch fest in isolation of what's going on because me love emet-selch like it's not like i think these moments are bad or anything but i don't know, don't we have other things to be doing? i'm not diametrically opposed to fanservice, i like when things are kept fresh and lighthearted. but. well you know by now. about the people turning into monsters. i guess i just both enjoyed this part and wished it happened under different circumstances or in a different way or something, or maybe not at all, bc as things progress his character just gets more and more diluted.

i actually really liked meteion. i will say i’m really tired of non-human, overly childish girl children creature characters who become villains, because i think there's this concept where…idk how to say it? i wish i could find something that talks about this more... it's like the dehumanisation involved when non-binary characters or non-white characters are often not human (not that these things are done in the same way). but i feel like women or females ig are often the ones chosen to be non-human in this particular way...? like, when emotional labour is involved. or when it needs to be some taboo evil entity. it's like a guy and his part-animal female second lead or part-alien love interest or female-voiced ai system or android or abandoned girl he finds/rescues. it's kind of like the born sexy yesterday trope but without the blatant sexuality (i don't want to go on a tangent). quite often this weird quirky alien and playful girl child is a harbinger of destruction. take drakengard, for example, or fire emblem engage, or cc from code geass iirc, or veronica from fire emblem heroes.. there's apparently something about childishness and girlishness and innocence and corrupting that innocence or being fooled by that innocence that seems to incite fear of the unknown enough in people for villainous children to be a trope in general regardless of gender, but it was just something i was thinking about in regards to meteion's character, especially when she becomes evil. and this blurry line between her as a "being" with a consciousness and free well as GIVEN to her by hermes, and her as a "tool" to be used by him as well, doesn't really get addressed in any meaningful way at all. like sure, she doesn't need to eat but she can still enjoy candy apples and flowers, and can empathise bc often of her own volition she wants to cheer hermes up, but actually her ability to empathise is programmed; so let's send send her, this highly empathetic being (with consciousness and free will and tastes and personality) into the cold expanse of space for as long as it takes for hermes to find his answer, that's totally fine. why did he make it a girl? why couldn't they address the fact that the loneliest bastard in this entire game made himself a child? like i'm not saying there needs to be clear-cut definitions on what meteion is or why she or hermes take certain actions, but it feels like a lot of things regarding their characters are really complex and implied to be really deep, and then just don't go anywhere or are completely ignored or unexplained? and because these things are so present yet passed over, it leaves me genuinely confused about most of what happens on elpis and how these two specifically reach any of the conclusions they do once things start going south

like i thought what she and hermes were going to add to the story was going to be a lot more interesting and complex than what it turned out to be.....a banal mantra on the "mercy" of nihilism. i can barely reconcile what bothers hermes in the first place with what meteion concludes from her sisters' expeditions, like they almost feel irrelevant to each other. he's upset over man's lording over who deserves to live and the callousness of making and unmaking life. he feels sadder about the coming death of his friend than the average ancient, and doesn't want to accept meaningless platitudes about dying for the good of the star. ok, i agree with that. so he wants to know what meaning there is to life, if it can be so easily judged and discarded...? okay. so his answer is to....secretly create creatures without any of the rigourous testing they usually go through to prevent them from being dangerous, and then send them on a potentially dangerous and traumatising mission to answer his vague philosophical questions? like.......? so when she reports back traumatised and tells him every single society out there is suffering (which i just find so unbelievable btw), then the answer to his question must be that suffering is the meaning of life--which she figures bc she's an entelechy so i imagine she's highly susceptible to her emotional surroundings, and because his pseudo-intellectual question is so poorly framed (something only emet-selch points out in a throwaway line btw). and this alone spurs him on to allowing meteion to unmake their entire society in the most violent way conceivable? you literally tell him that the final days are coming as a result of his actions, but he's fine with it because he'd rather that than enact some policy changes at his workplace, or talking to someone? everyone seemed to listen and respect his decision when he suggested helping that creature learn to fly instead of just killing it, i'm sure he could've talked it out? isn't he in charge of the place? this entire section was so hard for me to follow bc i kept thinking something more complex was making everyone behave the way they were, when it was actually just totally senseless.

as an aside, i hate how they chose to make the way meteion reports information so cooly technological btw, it felt not only anachronistic but corny. i’m sure there's a better way to have her impartially report things without making her sound like she's reporting weather conditions on some distant planet in star trek. anyways, when you frantically search for meteion after she receives her transmission was another part that took up a lot of time for no reason. it just made everything feel so dire when i could barely understand why any of what was going on was such a big deal. and i’ll never be one to say that any bureau of anything should “detain” anyone, but why hermes was so frantic to prevent meteion from being brought to the convocation i just don't know. like he goes on the run with her so that he can hear the end of her report? is that really it? i just find it hypocritical that he doesn't want her to be sent to the convocation where they'll limit her free will or fucking whatever but he's totally fine with ordering the meteia into space? why am i being made to guess what the convocation is going to do to meteion when hermes is making it seem like such a big deal?? what fucking sense does that make? what on earth was he afraid of? their judgment? the convocation members deciding whether meteion is good for the star or not? could they not have just reasoned this out? aren’t they a "highly advanced" and "reasonable" society? like okay he sees through the veil of his utopian home but i just did not get a sense of how much it was bothering him at all, like i cannot stress enough how him going turbo feels like an insane jump from what his problems seemingly were. why did nobody stop to think this through or communicate to each other? is it because of the bullshit time paradox this game has trapped us in so that nothing we do will amount to anything anyways so we might as well make the most confused villain of all time be responsible for the biggest event in this game's history?

but it annoys me because meteion and hermes felt like such a waste of potential, maybe the biggest waste to me in the entire expansion. i was really intrigued by their wholesome relationship at the start, knowing that hermes was a main villain. and that he can't find connection or meaning in an otherwise "perfect" society, so he has to create it for himself and try to find it elsewhere, as far as the reaches of outer space... he wants to make what's hurting him stop hurting him. i like that he approaches such human desires with meteion despite her non-humanness, and that she can return those feelings to him. he wants to signify meteion’s return with a flower because they both like flowers… like those things we can’t put into words but share with others, moments, emotions, connections……..but nope. nihilism beam. it feels like the worst sort of retroactive writing ever. they didn't even think too hard about dynamis--this hugely important thing, except nobody has ever heard of it, aside from nidhana back at home? while members of the highest office in the most advanced society earth has ever had are left squinting.

and the entire section after you fight hermes just pissed me off. we kicked his ass so that we could stop him from inciting meteion any further, and yet we just let him hear her out anyways? he's yelling at you during the entire dungeon that he just wants the time to hear her out, we're chasing after him so that we can stop him from doing that, and then we just let him hear her out anyways? and then even when we do that she doesn’t even say anything different? she just goes right back to reporting on different worlds and how self-destructive they are and That's All She Really Proceeds To Say For The Rest Of The Expansion But Fucking Who Cares Anymore. so we let her repeat herself. this sends her into a spiral, because she's an entelechy who just got hit by a high frequency nihilism beam, but subjecting her to all that despair is only ever addressed by one of the scions in a throwaway line near the very end of the story in ultima thule... and then hermes...captures venat, emet-selch and hythlodaeus??? he captures two of the strongest characters in the game? did we not just kick hermes’ ass??? what is going on?

emet-selch: that's bullshit, and you know it's bullshit

hermes: *says more bullshit*

i really think hermes might be one of the worst villains in the game. it's a shame bc i think he's such an interesting character. i'm not sure why he started behaving like such an incel when he was right to be troubled by the things he was? why did they even bother have wol relate to him over experiencing sadness from loss if that just went totally nowhere? why does he behave so hypocritically? being saddened by loss leads to him setting the stage for the final days? him hating man's jurisdiction over other lives leads to him wiping emet-selch's and hythlodaeus' memories, and subjecting the entire planet to the worst test ever? he's not even morally grey or anything! just annoying! i saw someone say that it's even worse that he wants the ancients to prove that their life is meaningful to them, bc it's true, they do??? like isn't that what venat interrupts them from doing in the answers cutscene, calling back for that lost life? isn't that what you learn in shadowbringers? didn't an entire half of their population sacrifice themselves so that the other half could live? what the fuck else did they need to prove?

this part was pissing me off even more because i never even wanted hythlodaeus or emet-selch to learn about where wol came from or about the final days coming in the first place. i thought that was an awful writing decision. telling them just felt weirdly cruel to me considering elidibus explicitly told you there was nothing you could do to change it. maybe this is just my opinion, but why would anybody want to know that their planet is going to go up in flames and there is nothing they can do to stop it? telling venat i was like sure, she becomes hydaeyln so this makes a little more sense to me, but the other two…….? this is around when i was getting tired of the emet-selch cameo, because i don't really care to know what he thinks of his future self? i couldn't really understand what the point of any of that was? so it annoyed me even further that it amounts to nothing anyways when they get their minds conveniently erased. it felt like a fucking joke. why did we revive these characters, develop them, and then just treat them like tools...? like now that we're done using their powers and creation magicks--i thought, naively--we just toss them aside? like ohhhhh noooooo now they won't remember all the fun we had on elpis this is so sad......but at least before he got his memories wiped emet-selch, even though he definitely totally doesn't believe a fucking word i say, renews his shb vows to wol and leaves the future in my hands again? yeah, i totally wanted to hear him say that a second time. forget how deeply affecting and important a moment that was at the end of shadowbringers. i really needed to see him do that one more time in this shittier, more contrived context. that's really what i needed from endwalker. also i've been on reddit reading what people have to say about endwalker out of curiosity (ppl make a lot of good points that i haven't) and someone pointed out that moments before all this happens venat literally pulls memories from the aether around you so that we can watch hermes send the meteia to space. what on earth is stopping anyone from doing that for hermes, hythlodaeus, and emet-selch? but whatever, i already know the writing doesn't care how silly it is anymore. two of the strongest ancients get bound by a weakened hermes, only break out after the story conveniently needed meteion to start flying into space, and then venats lets her escape somehow even though doing so essentially dooms their entire planet. ok

so we’re back home and we have to go immediately help the thavnarians who are being punished for not being white again. the sharlayans were going to bring them to the teleporter to the moon in garlemald to start getting them on the moon, but oops, the final days have come to garlemald, so now we can't use the teleporter, so if you're thavnarian your life sucks. who saw that coming? absolute waste of time. so then we have to get rid of more beasts because we need to waste even more time doing something we already spent an agonising amount of time doing in thavnair. and then immediately after this we need to......wrap up yet another asinine plot thread endwalker is so obssesed with adding to it's already convoluted story: fourchenault excommunicating his children...? it seemed really important when he did this in post-shb, but materially nothing for alphinaud or alisaie really changed, everyone still gets into sharlayan no problem. ultimately i just didn’t really know why they chose to pursue this mini-plot at all because how many more pushes does alphinaud (i'm saying alphinaud bc he does not share that spotlight with alisaie lmfao) need to become resolute in his goals? he already does this throughout the series? they ruined arenvald's legs in post-shb so that alphinaud could become more resolute in his goals, why keep dedicating time to this? just keep juggling endwalker, just keep juggling. anyways we’re in garlemald, we calm the final days for now, zenos shows up out of nowhere to remind us he’s still in the game. and to be fair to him that was one of the most interesting cutscenes he’s had the whole time, and, get this--they have him randomly answer hermes' question? about the meaning of life? while talking to jullus? like jullus gets mad at him for not giving a fuck about causing what happened to garlemald, and zenos responds by saying: "ask any creature of this star and those above for answers, and they will tell you what suits their fancy. and they would be right to do so. what meaning there is to be found in the petty vicissitudes of your existence must be gleaned by you and you alone." like......? he just provides the answer right there in a conversation with jullus? did this expansion have any interest at all in putting any of its different parts in conversation with each other, or are we supposed to just try and build a good story like a puzzle, where the pieces, albeit interesting, don't actually fit together? weren't zenos and fandaniel working together at the beginning of the expansion? he should have just posed this question to zenos because the answer was apparently right fucking there, with the flattest character in the entire game, this whole time? whatever, i still liked this scene. alisaie putting a curse on zenos was very cool of her. so we're back in garlemald and....….tonal dissonance! puddingway shows up. cute scene where g’raha’s ears perk up also bc he's the one who hears the loporrits coming. just in case you forgot about g’raha, which is an oxymoron. and then maybe the second worst segment of endwalker...........we go back to labryinthos. 

now i love labryinthos. i thought it was interesting we only collected one aetheryte the first time we were there, and i was hoping the place would be as intriguing to me as it first was when we got back. admittedly learning that the sharlayans' secrecy only amounted to contributing to the moon project was kind of a let down, but i thought maybe there was still more to it. i mean, an ark to the moon? the abandonment of one's home planet? it's not like the ideas aren't there. let's go back to elpis for a second. one of the moments that really stood out to me during that part was a throwaway line that emet-selch says to wol after hermes starts freaking it:

he's right. i don't think hermes found society so truly beyond help that he couldn't turn to any one of his peers for help before devising such a reckless plan. but i'm not trying to rehash my issues with hermes, more that i think an interesting parallel could have been made, possibly, with the ark flying to the moon as currenlty the most viable solution to the final days problem? challenging this notion of just throwing it all away as a last resort? especially because it's so obvious to me that by the end of this expansion nobody is actually going into space to start a new life out there; trying to sort out living accomodations and acquaint the lopporits properly with earth is just a waste of time. so why not pose the underlying question of the entire expansion, about what makes life meaningful, to the last bastion of hope in the entire universe--the sole planet amongst millions of dead stars that still believes in itself? would it not just be free real estate to try and connect this story's multiple parts together by ...connecting this story's multiple parts together? the scions say repeatedly how much they'd prefer to protect their planet rather than leave it, and everyone on earth vouches for you because they don't want to leave, either. could they not have made a connection in some way between that ark and the meteia's voyage to outer space? could the writing not have turned around and asked the actual inhabtants of the planet of that we've helped and saved and laughed with and broken bread with or whatever the fuck what they think about the meaning of life, now that they have to leave that life behind? i guess fucking not??? i guess endwalker would rather only highlight civilians when they're being turned into abominations to drive home the same points about life = suffering constantly, and not the points about how despite the suffering life needs to be lived? because they don't actually seem to care about challenging meteion's nihilism when that can just be lazily solved by beating her up at the end. hermes could have been learning to love the world he was on, the smaller things that make it beautiful. because that's what he does, he creates this creature that is built to understand him, and it does and it shares these small joys with him. but nope, time to waste time doing fetch quests in labryinthos. find every single researcher who is obviously losing their mind with stress in labryinthos and give them their government-assigned lopporit while this hectic music with only one minute's worth of loop value plays in the background. go and deliver these papers with alisaie and alphinaud bc if you do a former friend of their father’s will tell them that their father actually loves them duh that’s why he disrespects them publicly every chance he gets. go follow one of the lopporits around while they sample fruits so that they can learn to make food other than carrots. go and watch urianger reconcile with moenbryda's parents even though she died all the way back in a realm reborn. fuck you. also everyone is still just a bad day away from turning into an abomination. just in case you forgot.

that shit where asahi shows up to take fandaniel away for the final time might be top three most bizarre scenes in all of final fantasy fourteen btw. i almost didn't want to mention it, but i need it on record how silly i thought that was. we are in the final stages of this expansion and it still can't stop wasting time. did we see ardbert's thoughts on elidibus using his body? no. but asahi was who they chose to get upset about this? ok.

i liked the trial against mother. you might have noticed i've had very little to say on venat this whole time. that might just have to be its own post or something if nobody is sick of me by now. but anything to do with working together with your friends to overcome a trial is good.

that's what i liked about ultima thule. at the same time, this is where the game finally just loses me forever. i think, somehow, even despite all the things i didn't like, the way the story is told i still enjoyed, even if what it was saying was often. bad. there's still a lot of moments i really liked despite it all. but after ultima thule i was just done. we get on the ark. great. i like that things don't go as planned because meteion intercepts our ship. but now meteion is finally here, which means it's finally time for me to reckon with the pseudo-intellectual nihilism she's been touting every chance she gets. it's hard for me to suspend my disbelief that every single society out in space wanted oblivion, but if that's what endwalker wants me to believe for the sake of its story making sense (oxymoron) then fine. ok. but that's all that's ever said. "life is suffering" "life is suffering" "the final days are really bad"

just the same pseudo-intellectual browbeating about how living just leads to constant strife and the most beautiful thing to do is to just end it all for everyone ever again. like sure, empath hears death cry repeatedly--i can see how meteion could change so permanently. i think that's fine. i doubt that's why she's so repetitive. i genuinely just 't think there's nothing anyone really had to say on this. and the thing is, we've heard this argument before? the idea that humanity is imperfect so they don't deserve to live? it will all amount to nothing, so why let it continue to exist? these are major points of conflict from shadowbringers because it's what emet-selch was always saying. the difference is that emet-selch is just an easily more interesting and fleshed out character whose arguments are largely more complicated, even if they're just as morally wrong. like it's extremely easy for me to answer whatever meteion is saying with a resounding no. and while i feel that emet-selch can also be easily disagreed with on what he believes, bc i do disagree--he at least introduces ideas that complicate the story and his own character. he challenges the scions on their hatred of primals--their god is a primal. he offers visions of a world where nobody has to struggle ever again, where strife doesn't exist, and so on and so forth. while that doesn’t justify his actions, nor do i think they should, i think he at least gives the characters something to think about. he throws their own actions back at them. why would the scions not want a world without suffering? when emet-selch asks alphinaud if he believes half of the sundered world would give up half of their number to save the other half, alphinaud is unable to answer because he knows that the answer is no. i don't think humanity should be tested, let alone with such an insane standard, but i at least think that the questions being asked in shadowbringers were interesting. there's a point to them. with meteion, all she basically says to the scions is that she’s going to fucking kill everyone they know and love in the worst way possible. nothing to chew on that wouldn't better be solved by just getting rid of the threat. i don't know why they even bother arguing with her ever. she doesn't even feel like a character to me in that last section of the game. and they keep trying to have her seem all scary by having her get really close to the screen or move around without warning which is all very silly to me. i at least did like how much of a threat she was, and the way thancred vanished, and then everyone finds themselves in that dark area in front of the ship wondering where he is while the ultima thule music plays for the first time, distantly and quietly. i actually really liked that part. i thought it was really moving. i wish it had stayed that way.

the first area of ultima thule was the best part imo. i liked the immense darkness and quiet and lack of wind and the foul air and  yet, green grass. i liked the strange horror of being the only person at first who could really see the dragons, and then learning that estinien can see them too. i liked how that was the segue for his sacrifice. having those "final" moments with a specific scion each time until that climactic moment that pushes the group forward i really liked. i liked that thancred was no longer with them but still with them, a presence over them keeping them safe from harm. i found that very touching. but i was actually really confused while going through ultima thule becuase of how they visually shows what happens, like while the swirling vortex each scion would stand in was cool, and then standing to face off against that dark bird, i think what those things actually represented i just did not really understand what was actually being done or going on. i think that might be because dynamis suffers a bit from being just too nebulous or underdeveloped. i don't mind how abstract of a concept it is, i mean aether is used to do all sorts of never-explained things all the time.. it's more like... if ultima thule is going to be a place ruled by emotions, with laws different from what the scions are used to, it's hard for me to see how they were able to really draw any conclusions about where they were or what to do. it actually kind of reminded me of the logic of jojo's bizarre adventure where an attack only overrules another attack not becuase of some fundamental power scale the reader understands, but bc of what araki feels like contriving to get the story moving the way he wants. and that's fine because it's jojo. but this is ffxiv, so in my mind ultima thule should have either remained abstract and they don't try to explain the rules of the place so much, or they should’ve just made what was going on less abstract if they were going to try to logic the place out

what i mean is: the scene where estinien argues with that dragon so that he can overcome its despair is really cool. i liked that he turned into a cool wind. i liked that your friends sacrificed themselves for the sake of their home, that the power of their hopes for wol to overcome this final challenge was the only way they could move forward in such a stagnant place, as well as the only way they could be protected by meteion's violence. but after estinien does it--and he admits that he doesn't know how, just that it was the right thing to do--it feels like the writing immediately tries to specify what's going on so that there's some easy way forward the scions just have to follow the rulebook for, so that they can get to meteion. when urianger takes wol and g'raha aside i was actually just so lost. i don't know what it was i wasn't getting. i still don't. like to kind of say that there’s always one "individual" in these fake worlds who is despairing more than the others that can be located if they just identify a certain set of behaviours... this kind of just waters down what the scions are doing and the magic of being at the universe's end or w/e to me. we use language because of our inability otherwise to really express the depth of emotions and sensations that exist in this world, not the other way around--trying to box in something so complex through things like processes and so on...so to try and narrow down this part kind of rung a bit hollow to me. it was somehow both overexplained and underexplained at the same time. this might seem kind of nitpicky but i guess it was just hard for me to enjoy ultima thule when i was genuinely confused almost the whole way throughout. and bc the ea and the omicrons were so goddamn annoying. trying to do this slapdash learning about their societies at the very end of the game was just like...? okay? why bother, all they really care about is dying anyways. and then that final dungeon, ew's final attempt at replicating the wins of shadowbringers (the amaurot dungeon) with meteion's voice over. like who cares now meteion, you are somehow still just repeating yourself. endwalker is almost at it's end girl, i get it. everyone wants to die.

where i actually started to get annoyed though was where y'shtola says in no uncertain terms not to use the retcon crystal hydaelyn gave you to call their spirits back. y'shtola, you shouldn't have bothered, because you know wol is going to do absolutely that. why even have her say it? there is no sense of risk whatsoever because that crystal is involved. i still liked the sacrificing, but maybe they should have framed it in a way where it wasn't obvious that the scions were going to be totally fine. ew literally didn't seem ballsy enough to kill all of the scions, and i don't think it should've either. but then it just makes this all very wishy-washy. and even worse was when wol used it to summon HYTHLODAEUS AND EMET-SELCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY!!!!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????????? i was so annoyed. i'm still annoyed. back when their memories got wiped hythlodaeus was like oh yeah by the way emet did you know that in the aetherial sea you can get your memories back haha? and i was like okay cool so when they die they can get their memories back, whatever, still don't think me and emet-selch should've been live love laughing on elpis. i didn’t actually think this game would be so juvenile as to let you get to meet them once more with their memories fully intact. i don't know why ew has to dot every i and cross every t and sign off every single bit of intrigue with the biggest fucking full stop The End ever where emet-selch is concerned, holy fuck man. i hated this decision so much. your friends SACRIFICE THEMSELVES so that WOL can face meteion. they believe that at the very end of everything, hydaelyn believes that at the very end of everything, WOL is the one who can defeat meteion. they all put so much faith in you. and the first thing you do is summon emet-selch and hythlodaeus because what? because you just can't fucking help yourself? just shit all over the importance of carrying your friends’ beliefs in you. christ i hated that. i loved seeing the elpis flowers grow all over that fake sun. why couldn't that have been wol who grew them, wol's turn to use dynamis to overcome meteion's despair, flowers that represent the hopes every single person on earth has placed in them to see their star to safety? why? emet-selch there for what? to set in stone his position as the Tsundere once and for all? is that it? to have him renew his vows to wol for the millionth time just in case you forgot that he wants you to take up the mantle of their future? i wish they would go back to never making emet-selch palatable and less hostile to the warrior of light, it feels like such a disservice to the character he was in shadowbringers and to just their characters in general like i do not want to be canon friends with emet-selch! it's not necessary! it's fucking emet-selch! what's even worse is that for some reason while the flowers are growing, emet-selch is just point blank explaining what's going on. he literally says something like, "these flowers are the hopes of everyone meteion you're washed. by the way, if you didn't catch that, wol. you can summon your friends back now." immersion gone. any sense of playing a game that actually gives a fuck gone. so we call our friends back, only to send them away again with the teleporter because meteion is just too strong for us. to be fair i liked that decision, but why fake me out a second time having me think yes, finally wol is going to face meteion ON HER OWN. and then have ZENOS show up? i actually just stopped playing and went to bed. genuinelly just fuck me. who fucking cares anymore.

and then after you finally get meteion to stop being emo and she offers to reconcile with you by sending you safely back to your friends it's like, actually i can't even accept this meteoin. because i have to go fight zenos now. and then it's crazy to me that after you kick zenos' ass for like the millionth time, we're literally on the edge of the world so i'm finally expecting him to say something worth listening to, he opens his mouth and says "you know, wol, this whole time... i've been so bored... and the only thing that gives me joy is fighting you...” like. stuck record. the writers dragged him all the way out here to be a stuck fucking record

i like endwalker btw. kind of. like i know nobody who reads this is going to believe me but i really do. if it had just, well. i don't even know. there's too much wrong with it. it wastes too much time and just doesn't seem to be able to let go. how is it possible that an expansion can make me tired of callbacks to haurchefant being important to wol? i've never felt that before. like how many more flashbacks to his grave does one need to have to know that when wol is fighting for their world they're fighting for their friends too. but this game just cannot let things go. it NEEDS to make that joke about alphinaud gathering firewood four more times. it makes anything i appreciated the second or maybe even the third time just upset me. they can't let anything go, they have to wave it in front of me like it's a dog treat and i'm a dog. a fucking dog with blonde hair and blue eyes

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

Hey new to the aphmau fandom, like days old, and i was wondering what order to watch her rps as its kinda confusing to me

This is going to be such a long post because there’s so much to say! (There is a TLDR at the end if you don’t care about specifics and just want a watch order)

The inclusion of side-series and stuff just convolutes things a tad. But I promise, you will get an answer.

First;

I suggest a side series to start. Which isn’t to say that they’re all short, they’re just not relevant to the Big Two.

But, yeah, just dip your toe in the pool first.

Dreams of Estorra- never watched it. But it’s popular. It should be on the Aphmau Stories channel instead of her main one, if you can’t find it there. If someone can offer me a summary for it I would love you.

A Royal Tale- a weird mishmash of Disney and the Aphverse. A lighthearted fantasy show with some adult humour, Lo (< an icon), and romance. It will introduce you to some of the characters from the other series without overwhelming you with references you won’t understand. Aarmau, but they’re exes who hate eachother. It’s only a roleplay

Mermaids Tale- similar thing to ART, a mermaid au for Aphverse. Very Aarmau centric, there’s lesbian mermaids. I cant actually remember the plot but it got me into my train (the singer) phase. It’s only a roleplay

Mod Mod world- never watched it, but it did get a sequel that I’ll bring up later. Again, would love a summary from someone.

My Inner Demons- it’s one of the only non-aphmau centric shows and doesn’t include ANY aphverse characters. The main character is Ava, and it’s set up like a Harem Anime with a bunch of male demon love interests for her. It has quite adult humour, but it’s pretty cute aesthetically and deserves a second season. It’s only a roleplay

HeartPoint- a girl sees how much people like her platonically and romantically by little stats that appear above their heads. I believe Aphmau is the only Aphverse character, and whilst the romance is pretty obvious to me, I’ll leave who she ends up with blank as that’s kind of a part of the series… iirc. It’s only a roleplay.

There may be more… I’ll have to look.

Anyways.

So.

Onto the behemoths.

Minecraft Diaries is the first of the Roleplays to really get her popularity. It’s a medieval fantasy, with both roleplay and let’s play elements in it. It ran for three seasons, seasons one and two being 100 episodes each, however season 3 ended short. It was never completed. Season three is regarded as the worst season, and most either don’t consider it canon or haven’t watched it at all, but I consider it canon solely because it introduces us Lo, who I love. The two main ships when it was popular were Laurmau and Garmau, and if it weren’t for MyS, they probably still would be treated as such.

If you want to watch the main series in chronological order, I would watch MCD first. It is my favourite tho so maybe I’m biased. The lore can be contradictory and the quality slowly improves over time. It started to get remade with Rebirth, which you can watch before hand to get a general gist of the show before you dive into it, though it isn’t incredibly accurate to how the original is. Seasons 1-2 are on Aphmau’s main channel (I think), but season 3 is on Aphmau Stories. You don’t need to watch MyStreet but, you will probably end up watching it anyways.

Brief intermission: Void Paradox. The Mod Mod world sequel, is also a side series for MCD s1, and was made years afterwards. Very high quality, probably one of the better side series in general, and deserved a continuation. MMW isn’t required to watch it, but for context on Laurence and what’s up with him, MCD s1 is.

The next is MyStreet. It started as a modern Au for Diaries with the side stories and The Big Move, however began to be made into its own series. It begins as a slice of life, and is very light hearted with an Aarmau emphasis. It faces a genre swap for Season 4, before reverting to a slightly more solemn version of what it once was, before it goes back to a darker vibe for s6. Until s6, it existed in a separate universe to MCD, and you don’t need to watch MCD to understand it (though it does provide some context for s6)

There are prequels and side series (and a three episode sequel, which is fun). PDH is the main one, and because MyS was made first, they can contradict, however you will need to watch PDH S2 for context for MyS S4. Otherwise you won’t know the villain or understand what the fuck he’s doing. After them, there is PDH: Graduation days, and FalconClaw University. Neither are particularly important, but again, FCU offers some context for s4, so… you could watch it. It’s just not mandatory. There’s Aphmau’s year after s4, which is just a recovery mini-season, and there’s Her Wish which was released before s6, but set after it. And I will give them credit, they did preplan when they wrote her wish and watching it after s6 and realising everything they did to retain continuity… oh it’s good. Her wish does require watching MCD S3/late s2 though, it won’t make sense without it.

TLDR;

If a series isn’t Void Paradox, Mystreet, MCD, Phoenix Drop High or FalconClaw Uni, you can just watch it whenever.

MCD / PDH / MYS is my personal favourite watch order, because it’s all chronological. But just go with whatever you vibe with!

MCD is the OG and fantasy Medieval, but is a mix of roleplay and let’s play, and doesn’t have entirely consistent lore. It has a partial remake and it’s final, incomplete season, sucked.

PDH is higher quality and a highschool drama with fantasy undertones but less relevant, and is a prequel for MyS

MYS is the most popular and is a slice of life with more fantasy undertones, as well as very high quality, but suffers through genre swaps, and requires some context from the other two in later seasons.