#its so lazy and uninspired

[socialbunny]

 Skip has always found a way to work through his problems and turn them around with relative ease, but the sudden death of his wife, Brandi, has brought his mostly carefreeness towards his children  to a stand-still. With two freshly traumatized children and a newborn under his belt, can Skip juggle turning his shitty ass life around for his family, or will he crumble under the weight of his past mistakes?

Darleen hasn’t been the same since her husband, Darren, died, though she’d be quick to argue with you if you said anything of the sort. She’s FINE! She misses her husband, undoubtedly, but she’s not going to let that very, very, very tiny thing wreck her whole life, and she’s not going to let people give her grief about ANYTHING. Sure, she got fired from her job a few months back and hasn’t made any strides to find a new one, and she’s losing touch with her son as she goes and squanders all her responsibilities by partying and drinking on par with younger years, aaaaaaaaaaaaand the almost obsessive idealistic crush she’s developed on her neighbor is clouding the second half of her judgment, but she’s bounced back from worse and knows everything’s going to come up Darleen :) …………. hopefully

[ashpkat]

idk. some long haired call sketches

[pl4n]

[maxellminidisc]

The dude that's ripping off straycatj's pictures literally did the same thing to a photographer/artist by the name of Staice Shitanda literally a mere few months after he released one of his pieces, in fact during the exact same gallery showing he used landlady's picture aka his WE CAT exhibition. You can argue about the public access of peoples pet pics and shit all you want and you can keep trying to argue that landlady's pictures arent art but the laziness it takes to rip off the concept and the LITERAL form of another artist's work (as defined according to the definition some of you are laying out to discredit landlady's anger about this and invalidate her photos as art) is fucking egregious. Like Clegg is SERIAL plagiarist, its DISGUSTING and incredibly obvious. You can make a million arguement for transformative art but the behavior this man exhibits and the timing of which he does these things is incredibly telling to me. Here's what I'm talking about:

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Defying the Default"- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters

Okay, this one is going to be half lesson and half a thought experiment- it may get a bit frustrating, as conversations like this often do- but remember, discomfort is not always a bad thing! So I ask that you walk with me for this one.

It’s also interesting, because I’m going to direct this towards everyone (readers included!), but specifically towards my fanfic writers of media with no visual medium, as I’ve noticed this pattern there, and it makes up a good amount of creators on this site. Okay? Okay.

Behold! Many shades of brown!

I had to wade through a lot of colorism for this, and even this link is subtly racist in its introduction- the idea that brown is ‘unexciting’ 🙄.

Anyway, you know where I’m going with this:

"Chocolate and Coffee"

Even the link above pulled this! Writers who use this... they’re not ‘wrong’ per se but… often uninspired. It feels... Lazy. When you can tell an author has put no thought into the brown of choice, it makes Black readers feel like you believe these are the only shades of brown- that that’s all we look like. Even chocolate is more diverse (white, milk, dark, marbled, cookies and cream?) Coffee can come in numerous shades as well (light, medium, dark roast? Type of bean?)

My first direction to help with this: make it a point to know what shade that character is (whether canonically, or if you're the original creator, look at a reference and write it down) and find a name! Be consistent! Find similar browns to one another. If the canon Black character's skin color is done poorly, find something similar and use that! (I'll get more into this in the next lesson!)

Our skin colors may modify as we age, it changes over the seasons/presence in the sun, and some people even have vitiligo! But we're not gonna be “dark roast coffee” one morning and “light milk chocolate” suddenly. We're not chameleons lmao.

And you know what? That shade you choose might very well be 'coffee'! But it's not going to be because you didn't look and assumed we're all some random brown! That’s the intent showing! If we can find endless ways to describe the beauty of white/pale skin, we absolutely can for brown! Be willing to unpack why you may not believe brown to be capable of beauty, and work through unlearning that- it will show in your writing! One way is by pausing with yourself, and recognizing when you had a biased thought. Even by this, you’re learning!

Here’s where I want us to get into the thought experiment:

I want you to think about the description of characters in stories (as a whole). Challenge yourself- in the fics and stories you read, how often is anyone blatantly labeled 'White'? Read a story or fic; how long can you imagine them as not-White before it's ever clarified? Because not even 'pale' automatically implies a White person!

You know how I’ve mentioned before that 'Black people are not a monolith'? I can find you at least some examples of Black people fitting some of the common descriptions of white characters.

"Brunette with brown eyes"

(Fun fact: I actually learned back in my Masters program that genetically no one has ‘black’ hair- our eyes are processing it as black, but it’s really just dark brown due to eumelanin. Regardless, if you stand us in the direct sunlight, you will see that our hair is usually just dark brown!)

"Red hair with pale skin"

“‘tanned’ skin with hazel/green eyes”

“blond hair" (period!)

Now, I’m not saying that blond haired Black people or Black folk with albinism are overly representative of my people. What I AM saying is that it needs to not be taken for granted that a reader is automatically assuming a character is White in your piece of fiction- I can assume your character looks like anything if it's not stated! Especially if the OG source is a book or a podcast! We’re just used to assigning these features- and characters- as white until ‘proven not’! The default!

I am guilty of this too! Even still, I reread many of my works and go ‘ah, I didn’t clarify.’ And I have to work on doing better at it. This is having intent for your Black characters, but really, it’s having intent for all of them!

(This doesn't mean going “the Black man said,” the way sometimes people say “the Chinese said” (which…. Tbh we should all stop doing that anyway, it's weird and racist))

My Next Challenge:

Some people may disagree, but- Ahem:

Say BLACK!

Breathe lmao! Take the time to recognize that it's OKAY to introduce a character as Black, to say Black, it's fine! Obviously be sensitive about it, don't shove it in there to “win your diversity points”, but like… People are Black. It's not a bad word. What matters is the context in which you used it!

You don't even have to say it every single time. Really just the first, introductory sentence will do. For example:

“[Character A], a bright, young, Black girl with knotless braids to her mid back, glittering hair clips matching her bright green t-shirt, and a brilliant smile that shined against her bistre skin.”

I recognize that some might argue that by saying “bistre”, you don't need to say Black. But 1) you don't have to be Black to be brown or dark skinned, and 2) There's a social stigma behind even saying Black- of discussing race in general, because it leads to discomfort. Race (as a sociological construct) exists. When we say nothing about it, allowing Whiteness to be the default, we're still emphasizing race, however silently! If you're already doing it... Why not mention it? 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

(here's a good clip of Ijeoma Oluo discussing the difficulty of discussing race; while I highly recommend the whole thing, the relevant clip is 4:25-5:39)

Maybe they're in the Black student organization in a lead position, maybe they're in a Black main cast of a play- it's okay to have those things in the story to help develop the idea that your Black character is actively Black! Just do your research to make sure you’re not leaning into stereotypes!

“There’s no races in my fantasy/future world!”

That’s fair! But I want to give you an example of how people will still project these identities onto your characters anyway:

No one has an explicitly stated 'race' in Avatar: The Last Airbender (afaik); they’re all divided by element culture. YET, many people were offended that a mixed-Korean actress was cast in her role in the live action- they ‘just didn’t see it’, because subconsciously they'd imagined her ‘face claims’ as WHITE, despite it never once being mentioned in the canon! (there’s also a firm sexualization and east Asian fetishization argument to be made about it, but that’s not within the scope of this particular conversation.)

Point is, if you are including humanoid characters in your fantasy stories, fine. You don't need to say ‘Black’ outright. But, that just means that you’re going to have to be even more detailed in your description. Because if I were watching a TV show and a Black actor shows up as an elf… I know what features I’m seeing! Entire protests have occurred over the casting of Black actors in a role ‘meant for a white person’; so... everyone sees it!

Conclusion

This is another reason why intention in character design and writing is important! Context clues and socialization help me understand who your character is. If it works like this for white characters, it can work like that for everyone else! You just have to know enough about me to write it in (and that's where the social and societal bias lie, because how much do you really know about me?)

A way to better understand this is reading books by Black authors (for fantasy, I would highly recommend Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi) as well as Black literary classics! Finding and reading Black fic authors in fandoms with Black characters! By learning how we describe ourselves and our skin colors, you’ll learn and practice how to appropriately describe us!

Now I can't make you do any of this! But I do want you all- writers especially- to start noticing our bias, how we may default to the experience of whiteness- and how that affects the way we write. When we have Black characters, and really any character of color, we need to start paying attention to how often their features, culture, and activities are emphasized, even for what we may consider to be 'background' details. That’s how we normalize creation and understanding, and become better at writing!

It’s just something to practice; remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

In addition, if you are interested in a simple read into why approaching race is so uncomfortable as a whole, I've attached Robin DiAngelo's book here! Thank you to the PDF guru @toiletpotato for the link!

[starrylayle]

no it's not "forced diversity", you just hate seeing minority leads.

I really didn't want to comment on this, but as someone who has recently rediscovered monster high and loves the new show, I've seen so much criticism that isn't exactly...constructive?

I've seen a lot of people say that making Frankie non-binary is 'forced', 'lazy' and 'uninspired', when that is just simply not true?? Let's unpack their character for a moment. They are made of a ton of different dead body parts, some male and some female. If you were to use the 'biology excuse' it wouldn't even make sense in this context -- they literally have male and female organs!! Also alot of nonbinary people feel as though they have lots of parts to themselves,, what better way to portray that than through a monster character struggling with the same thing? It's literally such a cool allegory!! Creators have been using magic/fantasy to describe/symbolise real world issues and feelings for ages,, why is it such a big deal creators do this for more marginalised people. [also,, the orginal Frankenstein creature was heavily queer coded in the first place so its a sweet easter egg).

I also see people say,, 'oh why couldn't they just have made a new character be non-binary instead of changing the pronouns of a former one'. I hate this argument so much because it sounds like it's in good faith, but really what they're trying to say is "stay away from my white cishet characters and go make one of the irrelevant side characters queer or or just make a whole new show starring them that I have no interest in watching'. Just admit you don't want to see queer characters as leads.

I also think that sometimes cishet ppl (or non-marginalised ppl in general but i've mostly been seeing an attack on the queer characters hence the example) forget that we also grew up watching monster high?? and related to the characters?? And we would be so excited if we saw our favourite characters with similar traits to us?? Like sheesh,, cishet ppl have so much representation like let us have this pls 😭 😭

Actually speaking of representation in Monster High, g1 was already pretty diverse and inclusive, and its nice to see g3 follow in its legacy and become even more inclusive as times change! Like, they really said 'fuck you' to all the conservatives and included a drag queen character, a non-binary main character, autistic side character and so many more!! It makes me so happy to see and its probably why its one of my comfort show rn amidst the rise of the anti-lgbt rhetoric, especially concerning children's media.

So respectfully, to all those people claiming that the new monster high is "forced diversity" --- fuck you xxx

[yanderenightmare]

Please write more Deku docs and scenarios. Even if the posts are line 500 words long. I simply can’t get him out of my mind.

BNHA ! HEADCANONS

Midoriya Izuku "Deku" x darling

don't know if this is what you had in mind, I've been so uninspired lately

TW: yandere, nsfw, noncon/dubcon

Yandere Deku and all his selfish imposing ways...

His face and how he always comes home in a tattered state, tired and smudged with bloody cuts and dirt from patrol - a lazy smile inching up his freckled cheeks when spotting you in the pretty dress and apron he encourages you to wear.

His red shoes and how he doesn't bother taking them off before sauntering over to you, dragging in mud over the floors you mopped clean only an hour ago.

His heavy shape and how he slots himself against your back where you stand in the kitchen, your shoulders braced upon the impact with tiny clutched fists hidden within the hot soapy water of the dish sink.

His chest and its ever-present rumble and how it makes your heart leap with anxiety as you clutch one dish particularly hard, biting your lip when feeling his hot breath run down your neck.

His mouth and how he rests his chin off your shoulder and slinks both thick arms around your torso - his lips on your neck and his drowsy voice in a drawl purring, "I'm home~"

His big hands and how he doesn't give you a choice when tugging you along to the bedroom. Grabbing into your soft flesh, making you yelp when working you like putty between his fingers. Taking ahold of your chin and angling you to kiss him as he messages your hip, pushing your ass flush against his crotch.

His voice and how his words don't match his intentions. How he'll kiss your skin with words in that awfully soft and dark tone that has your stomach fold, whispering how much he adores you, how impossibly perfect you are, and how unconditionally happy you make him. All while keeping your wrists pinned in one massive hand so the other can wander, hiking your top up slowly to feel every soft spot of your skin.

His watchful green eyes and how they never once seem to blink while watching you. How the greedy unreadable look within them makes you feel all types of naked as he undresses you slowly - never with his lips leaving your skin and always with words of adoration leaving them.

His hot and wet tongue and how it leaves trails of cooling spit up and down your body, with teeth teasing those places that are extra soft and sensitive.

His ego and how every single one of your soft-spoken little sounds makes his cock get heavy and thick with pride - hungry to ruin you - fuck you into a wet hot panting little mess.

His strength and weight and how he likes forgetting it when touching you. Squeezing your waist until you pout with a whimper - turning you over on your hands and knees and tugging your hips so harshly he knocks you off balance.

His suppressed sadism and how he wets his lips when looking down at you, cooing at you softly when your little face hits the sheets and your back falls into a pretty slope - ass raised and pretty pussy ready to receive him. How he simply and tenderly strokes your hair out of your face before resting his chest on top of you with kisses and licks to your ear and cheek while you pant for a chance to breathe - feeling him sink so deep inside, you choke when he bottoms out.

His smile and how it only deepens when he sets his own selfish tempo, running through you at a pace that leaves you gripping the sheets for purchase and curling your toes for mercy.

tip-jar: Kofi

[solarspringg]

Random Marauders Headcanons :3

• Sirius has awful hearing. If you want to talk to him, you have either be super close to him or yell super fucking loud. His hearing is ruined from constantly blasting his music at such a high volume. James is always telling him to turn the volume down and that he needs some kind of hearing aid (half jokingingly). However, Sirius claims his hearing is perfect, but that’s the biggest lie ever.

• James runs hot. Like it’s actually insane how he’s always hot. It will be the middle of winter and he will be complaining that he’s warm while in a t-shirt and shorts. When he’s back at home he’s constantly adjusting the thermostat (his parents hate it) and brings a fan with him to school every year.

• Remus loves listening to people talk, especially Sirius. After a long day Sirius will rant to Remus and go into full on detail, and he will just sit there and listen until Sirius is done and then offer his commentary. He loves it when his friends will have full on conversations that’ll last hours and he’s just listening, smiling about how absurd their topic of discussion is, because you know it always is.

• Peter is an amazing cook and baker. When it came to the other Marauder’s birthdays, he was always in charge of making the cake, and the cake was always so damn good. He is an absolute genius in the kitchen and if you give him a recipe, he’ll make it ten times better.

• Lily hates contemporary romance novels. Absolutely loathes them. She complains that it’s always the same plot and most of the time, the writing is uninspired, lazy, and boring. She prefers classics, biographies, non-fiction, and poetry. Her favorite book of all time is Little Women.

• Mary is extremely passionate makeup. She has a blog about it and everything; from posting her makeup looks, to providing tips, to even writing essays about the history of makeup products and its usage. She does her makeup everyday because she thinks it’s so fun to get ready and try out new looks.

• Marlene can’t dance. Seriously, she’s has the worst rhythm in the world, but she will dance whenever she can. There’s nothing she loves more than to dance at parties and events because it makes her so ecstatic, and she could not give a single fuck as to what anyone thinks of her or her dancing.

• Dorcas is extremely allergic to animals, especially cats. Whenever there is a cat in the area she’s constantly sneezing and her eyes water a lot. One time Evan and Barty took a stray cat in and hid it in their dorm for months. Dorcas’ allergies went crazy and she finally hit her breaking point and screamed at the top of her lungs: “WHERE IS THE FUCKING CAT?!”

• Pandora loves arts and crafts. When it comes to gifts, they’re always homemade and made with an extreme amount of care. She will make cards, jewelry, sweaters, anything. You name it, she’ll make it. She loves scrapbooking as well— She’ll spend months creating books of memories for the people she cares about.

• Regulus is a restless sleeper. It used to be really bad when he was younger. He has an extensive routine he has to follow before bed in order to actually sleep throughout the night, which consists of sleepy time tea, reading, and even yoga (recommended by Pandora and they even do it together sometimes). If he doesn’t follow that routine, he’s up all night tossing and turning.

• Barty cheats at every game he plays. Cards? He either counting them or hiding them anywhere he can. Anything having to do with fake money? He’s stealing money when no one is looking. Literally any game he’s cheating. He’s not even that competitive, most of the time he doesn’t care if he wins, he just doesn’t want to lose.

• Evan is obsessed with anything that has to do with needles and sharp objects. He loves getting piercings and tattoos as well as watching others get them because he thinks the process is cool. He also really loves knives and has a huge collection of them, having knives from practically all over the world.

[simpshaaaa]

Modern au where otaku Cale has to uno-taku himself and get a job so his siblings can take after him but unknowingly created a huge misunderstanding

So it started with kindergarten Cale, tiny little Cale looking up to Deruth with innocent eyes and empty brain

Deruth: You must study hard, so you can play hard later, ok?

Cale eyes twinkled: Ok dad

Cale studies hard and attends a lot of activities:

Deruth: You must get into good uni, ok?

Cale: Ok dad

Cale gets into good uni:

Deruth: Graduated with honours, ok?

Cale: Ok dad

Cale graduated with honours:

Deruth: Live your life to the fullest, ok?

Cale fisting the air: Ok dad

And so after graduated, he becomes an otaku. Finally, after working so hard he can finally do whatever he wants

And for 2 years he lives with his parents and siblings, stays in his room and plays video games, reads a lot of novels and slacks a lot, Cale felt like he has finally accomplished what his father wanted. And heck his siblings even inspired to become like him

Cale felt proud

However.

Bassen: When are you getting a job?

Cale: Hum???

Bassen worried for Cale: You always stay in your room..

Cale: Ermmm.. (what is this mood? Could it be due to my lack of activities causing Bassen to be uninspired???)

Bassen worried if his brother has become depressed:

Cale: I'll talk to dad (I HAVE TO WORK)

However after years of living in complete laziness, Cale opted for an easier solution to get a job

Cale: I want to work in your company dad

Deruth: ??? (DOES THAT MEAN HE WANTS TO BE THE HEAD OF THE COMPANY?! 🧐😱)

So Cale starts working as an office worker, making his way up as the assistant manager

Cale thinking to himself: ( Yes, now Bassen will be inspired to be like me and be the head of the company)

Bassen thinking to himself: (I didn't know Hyung wanted to be the head of the company. I'm so proud of him, he's working so hard and becoming like himself again :'D)

Everyone thinks because Cale works so hard, he enjoys working hard. But actually he works hard so he can play hard later

Anyway plot thickened with Alver rolling in as the manager

Alver taking one look at Cale and goes: Yeah this guy's an otaku

Cale: Holy fuuuu

So they become somewhat close???? And Cale then poured out his life plans to Alver because no one understands him like Alver understands him

Cale: I want to retire after my baby brother becomes the head of the company and then buys a house, and lives my fullest life as an otaku!

Alver nodding: Uh huh.. *looking behind Cale, co-workers staring at Cale with approving looks and whispering to each other ("He's going to be a great head company!" "He will flourish our company to its brilliance!" "Deruth's oldest son is so competent!") ...Uh huh, I see.......

At the family dinner, Alver was invited to dine with the Henituses

Deruth proudly compliments Cale's achievemens:

Bassen nodding with excitement:

Cale: Just an exaggeration, don't mind it Ver

Alver sweating inside: (No Cale, Deruth is about to retire and you won't Cale.....)

Later

Alver: Hey, um.. I think your dad is planning to put you as the company head..

Cale: Whaaa?? Why would he do that? Bassen is the much better option to pick than me

Alver: What??? No-

Cale: Aishh, don't joke around

Alver:

Anyway months later, unexpectedly (or was it???) Cale was appointed to be the head of the company

Cale: ALVER MY SLACKER PLAN IS RUINED!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!!!

Alver smiling at Cale: Just do what you usually do, Cale^^ Work hard

Cale: NOOOOOOO YOU JINXED IT AHHHHHH

[adrianicsea]

like. scooby-doo and its characters are nearing 60 years old now and one of the beautiful things about the show is how easy it is to update and reinterpret the characters as needed for the specific story each new SD incarnation is trying to tell and I GET THAT!!! but i’ve always found it so VERY lazy and uninspired to interpret fred as rude or entitled or sexist because there’s literally none of that in his original incarnation. and in the adaptations that choose to give him these flaws, there’s never really a push to give him any new or notable POSITIVE characteristics either. fred was never the leader because he’s an alpha male, he’s the leader because he’s kind and friendly and brave. and if you can’t think of a way to make that character interesting without just making him into a shitty person i AM going to be judging your scooby-doo adaptation accordingly!

[olderthannetfic]

Pet peeve: I'm tired of this trend in fanart, especially with anime, which is just drawing characters with way darker skin colour than they have in canon. Just because they might be a shade darker than paper white in canon. Especially when the difference is so egregious there's no way it was just a fanartist accidentally picking the wrong colour/shade. Yet at the same time nothing else is changed about the characters. If they actually made a raceswap or something, but no, no effort on that level. Presented as if these were 'canon', sometimes so ubiquitous you get surprised when you open the source material and everybody is ~white~ (I say ~white~ bc with anime its usually/never actually white ppl being drawn that way) instead of brown.

It's just so lazy--as if going: look, darker skin = progressive but dear god don't actually make it a race swap or acknowledge that's what you're doing!

I guess I'm annoyed with it due to how over-present it is (I practically never enjoy fanon anyway) and how uninspired. Is it a reaction to whitewashing? At least put some effort in please??

--

[meowzfordayz]

what makes the weight worth it; writing for a single feeling

Author’s Note: to every writer (and reader) out there; thank you for all that you are, for all that you do, and for how much light and life you bring to the not-so-simple act of existing. 💞 (if you've ever wondered what writers often go through emotionally—especially in today's culture of consumerism and "content"—then read this)

what makes the weight worth it; writing for a single feeling

Tomioka Giyuu x Reader

Word Count: ~900

CW: none

~faqs~

“You’re frowning again,” Giyuu murmurs, cool hands resting themselves on your hunched shoulders as he stands behind you.

“And?” you mutter, swivel chair creaking when you lean back into his touch, “It’s called a resting bitch face.”

Cracking a faint smile, he kneads at the tension in your muscles, “And your tea’s half finished,” pecking the top of your head while tacking on, “I’m quite familiar with your resting bitch face, and it’s distinct from your frowning face.”

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned if I ever do finish my tea?” you chuckle lightly, nose scrunching as you let out a long sigh, your desk feeling more and more foreboding as its clutter stretches out before you, “I’m just tired.”

“Tired of?” he prods gently, glancing at your browser to make sure he’s safe to reach over you and carefully close your laptop’s screen, “It’s only 11pm.”

“It’s stupid,” you mumble, feet cold as you spin yourself around, Giyuu’s lazy ponytail and concerned gaze a sight for sore eyes, “Let’s get in bed, m’kay?” waggling your eyebrows, “I forgot to wear socks.”

He grimaces at that, well acquainted with your gleeful usage of his thighs for warming your toes (and his poor stomach for warming your icicles fingers), but doesn’t protest, wordlessly slinging an arm around your waist. Your head flops onto his collarbone, pausing for a quiet moment of hazy dew and newly blossomed bluebells — familiar scents drifting from his freshly showered skin to your thoroughly worn, cotton sweatshirt.

—

Giyuu knows something’s up when you willingly brush your teeth, even allowing him to hand you a tiny cup of mouthwash, afterwards leading the way to bed, your tired face shining with night cream as you crawl under the blankets, promptly tucking the sheets beneath your chin while you fix a cute smile on him.

“Thanks for turning off the light,” you chime, giggling at his deadpan stare, quickly replaced by his silhouette, stark and limber as darkness and moonlight fills the room, decisive footsteps padding toward the bedframe.

You scoot over when he reaches the mattress, rolling into him as soon as he’s horizontal, eagerly cramming your toes into the crooks of his knees, grinning at his groan of resignation as he stiffens from the temperature difference. 

“So,” Giyuu begins through gritted teeth, breathing shallowly (helplessly wishing you had better blood circulation), “What had you frowning?”

Your lips purse, exhaustion muddling your thoughts as you slowly process his question, fingertips like tiny pricks of ice as you tap them across his chest, goosebumps raising along his forearms even as he allows you to snuggle closer.

“I know I should be creative for the sake of being creative, for myself… but it’s hard when creativity also feels like something that exists for the sake of being shared. What is art in a vacuum? What’s the point of talking without anyone listening?”

He hums into your hair, finally relaxing as your limbs and his establish an equilibrium of warmth, catching your wrist and pressing a grounding kiss to your veins.

“It’s not that I feel uninspired, or that I don’t want to be creative, or that I’m burnt out from being creative… I’m just, wearing down from lack of use,” nose scrunching at your own analogy, “Not that I want to be used either,” rambling now, “But sometimes I feel like I’m offering samples of my heart at a grocery store, and everyone’s simply walking by. Nobody owes me a try, and hey, maybe you’re allergic to an ingredient, or ate lunch recently… I don’t know. I guess just, what’s the point in going to a restaurant if you only order a glass of water?” 

A hollow silence passes as Giyuu waits to ensure you’re finished, his pulse steady and loud, throat constricting with a strange thickness. You exhale shakily, eyes glistening and bright as you peek up at him, the sharpness of his jaw made fuzzy by the weight of the night.

“I would hoard all of your samples,” he says roughly, voice scratchy with sleep, “Even if I was allergic to them, even if I was already stuffed.”

You snort, lungs expanding with emotion as you drawl, “You’re sooo romantic,” blinking confusedly when he places a delicate finger to your mouth, shushing you.

“Someone cares about your creativity, someone needs your creations,” he continues firmly, “Please keep creating them. I’m here, I can always be that someone, and I… I would like to help teach you that you can be that someone too. You can create for yourself, and listen to yourself, and cherish yourself. I know that isn’t really the problem, but… did I just make everything worse?”

Your expression contorts at Giyuu’s hesitation, endearment bursting in your ears as you make a fond, strangled noise, clinging somehow tighter to him, managing to squeeze a contented, surprised squeak from his drowsy body.

“I don’t think everything’s better,” you admit, “But thank you for loving me and my creative woes.”

“Of course,” he replies, cheeks noticeably pink despite the midnight hour, “And thank you for trusting me with your feelings.”

“No more, ‘kay?” you yawn into his armpit, “Dream time.”

“‘Kay,” Giyuu agrees, yawning in return, his whisper barely audible as unconsciousness looms on the edge of your blurring vision, “I hope I dream of you.”

[lilisouless]

just saw a fancast of the grishaverse that is SO bad i don't know if it was a parody of it was real because i have seen shit like that on pinterest

I mean, first Tom Cruise 🤢

then Scarlett Johanson as Alina and of course a white woman for Inej (hell, the actress they choose for Nina has darker skintone)

Like i wanted to ask the person if it was a parody but i am afraid they´ll say they are serious. If its a parody, its an EXCELLENT ONE because its very pausible to the point i can't tell if it is one, a lot of people do it that bad, if its real well...yikes.Also if i thought Boo Boo Stewart as Tolya was lazy and uninspired it was because i hadn't seen BS as JESPER!

If it was a parody i bow to the person for making me question, its so well done, they encapsulated the laziness, the lack of concept of numbers and age, the freaking racism (pinterest and tumblr´s bread and butter) but i think it was not because nothing on the tags indicated that, the coments are disabled.

I am not telling people to go and tell them something , i am not even going to tell you how to find them, i just needed to get this out of my chest because i was so sure it was a parody until i saw the lack of assurance AND like i said, its totally something that i would see on tumblr or pinterest.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really That Bad?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like the universe actively conspired against something until I witnessed the production of The Flash.

Since 1991 there have been quite a few proposals for Flash movies, but they never really got off the ground for whatever reason. Following Barry’s debut in Justice League, a movie finally was announced before multiple delays due to rewrites, in particular to cut Ray Fisher’s Cyborg from the story after he went public about the awful shit he had to deal with under Joss Whedon. Things seemed hopeless until It director Andy Muschietti came onboard, at which point production on the film finally started to go smoothly. Sure, there were rumblings about Ezra Miller having episodes on set, but that’s just typical actor nonsense, right? Surely it couldn’t get any worse!

Look, I’m here to review a movie so I’ll keep this brief: Miller committed crimes. Lots of crimes. So many, in fact, you’d think they were method acting for the role of Reverse-Flash. The thing is, despite all of this, Miller was basically given a slap on the wrist by the studio, being forbidden from doing promos and press tours (oh no! The horror!). And as if the situation wasn’t already a fucking mess, while Miller’s crime spree was ongoing WB canned the nearly-complete Batgirl movie that featured Michael Keaton and Academy Award-winning actor Brendan Fraser while simultaneously inflating The Flash’s budget to nearly $300 million with reshoots. It seems baffling to cancel a movie that was nearly done and that people were marginally interested in for the sake of a movie that people were losing interest in quickly due to its star’s erratic behavior, but remember: Leslie Grace isn’t white, while Ezra Miller is. WB is never beating those racism allegations at this rate.

With a normal movie, this is where the nonsense ends. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

This film was meant to smooth out the clusterfuck continuity of the “Snyderverse” with a soft reboot, with Henry Cavill filming a end-of-movie cameo alongside Miller, Gal Gadot, Keaton, and Supergirl’s actress Sasha Calle to establish the new direction of DC going forward. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of power at DC changed, and Gunn shot that down. While this meant the ending would probably not get people confused with regards to upcoming projects, it also meant the movie wasn’t going to really have any closure for the old universe. Affleck, Cavill, and who knows who else are just gone, and the future is just a big old question mark. At least Aquaman is safe, maybe?

Literally none of this news was very reassuring to fans. Nothing above is any good for a film’s perception to audiences under normal circumstances, but here we have all this news coming to a fanbase that genuinely did not want this fucking movie. The DCEU was already divisive when the film was announced, and Miller’s portrayal of Barry doubly so; the fact it was adapting Flashpoint was seen as lazy and uninspired, not to mention its not really a story that lets Flash stand on his own merits, making it seem more like this movie was just an excuse to reboot; it was a multiverse story in a day and age with an abundance of such stories, and it was releasing around the same time as Across the Spider-Verse to boot; and Gunn’s reboot plans meant this story was likely a narrative dead end. This movie had an uphill battle the likes of which haven’t been seen since Sisyphus.

But much like that mythological figure, the boulder came crashing right back down when the numbers came in. The movie would likely need to gross $500 million at minimum to break even after factoring in the reshoots and advertising, and it only managed half of that with a pitiful opening weekend followed by a massive 73% drop. It now sits alongside films like The Lone Ranger and Mortal Engines as one of the most expensive bombs in history, to the point where WB would have saved more money by cancelling it like they did with Batgirl. And despite glowing praise from the likes of Tom Cruise and Stephen King, it received middling reviews from mainstream critics.

Audiences haven’t been any less mixed, but considering most people weren’t particularly excited or invested in this film’s existence this is basically a miracle. Sure, there’s plenty of people out there saying this is the “worst comic book movie ever” like they do every time a new superhero movie drops, but even more people are saying they enjoyed the film… although even they tend to have some severe criticisms.

Even though I knew most of what was going to happen in the movie going in, I wasn’t really sure what to expect given everything surrounding the movie. But you know me, I’m willing to give almost any movie a chance, and bombs this big don’t happen every day, so even before it was voted on I was trying to make time to check it out. So sit down, microwave yourself a snack—

—and watch as I try and determine if The Flash is really that bad.

THE GOOD

The biggest shock of this film is that Ezra Miller is actually really good here.

Their Barry is still a bit of a goofball, but he’s clearly matured as a character since his precious appearances. They managed to make him much more charming and likable than he ever was, and this gets compounded when he interacts with the younger Barry and gets confronted with how annoying he was before. I think young Barry could have come off as really insufferable, but the fact he annoys everyone around him and also ends up maturing makes him a lot more endearing.

Miller really kills it with the emotional moments, particularly the ending encounter with Barry’s mom and the scene where old Barry snaps at young Barry. The film is really carried by the dramatic, emotional moments far more than any of the superheroics, and Miller manages to sell a lot of it very well. It was to the point where I started thinking, “I really wouldn’t mind if they stick around.” Then a scene where Barry says the Justice League has no real psychiatric help or where his younger self ends up repeatedly exposing himself in public by accident happens, and then I remembered, “Oh yeah, aren’t they a mentally unwell criminal?”

Unsurprisingly, Michael Keaton absolutely kills it in his role as Batman, but much more shockingly is that Ben Affleck's brief return as Bruce is pretty great as well. I always thought Affleck, much like Henry Cavill, was desperately trying to give a great performance while weighed down by bad writing; here, he gets an actual poignant scene where he talks to Barry about how dwelling on tragedies isn't the way to do things, and you should try and move forward instead. It shows he really could have been great if given better material to work with.

Okay, enough being nice to Affleck, I wanna talk about Keaton again. As much as the marketing hyped him up and as much as he is obviously the most blatant fanservice possible, it's still so cool to see him in the suit again. I am not immune to nostalgia pandering, and as corny as it could have been from anyone else, the zoom into his face when he says The Line really is a highlight of the movie. Keaton has a great deal of charisma, and while there are issues with Batman they aren't his fault at all. Most impressively, he doesn't steal the show away from Miller like I thought he would; he enhances the scenes he's in without stealing the spotlight completely from their performance. I feel like this is a problem in a lot of movies like this, where the lead gets overshadowed by a hyped up character, but somehow The Flash of all things managed to avoid this.

And as bad as the cameos could get, this movie gave two of the greatest cameos ever put to film with the return of the GOAT George Clooney Batman and, best of all, Nicolas Cage Superman from the unmade Superman Lives, fighting a giant spider to the death just as God intended. I am not immune to the charms of Nicolas Cage.

Overall, this movie presents us with a solid story, plenty of fun moments, great character dynamics, and more... for the first two acts, anyway.

THE BAD

Once this movie hits the third act, it basically just loses any and all focus and becomes a big dumb video game-esque battle against Zod and his forces in a bland desert landscape. While both Barrys admittedly get some pretty cool moments sprinkled in and Keaton’s Batman’s second death is actually a well done emotional moment, Supergirl ends up being completely wasted, with her sole role being to angrily scream and then die repeatedly.

This actually highlights the problem with Kara in this movie: She’s basically nothing but a plot device and has zero personality, and a good 80% of her dialogue is just angry screaming. As hot as Sasha Calle is and how much she obviously wants to make Kara compelling, she is given so little to work with that her efforts end up being fruitless. She does nothing of consequence after helping Barry get his powers back, and could be replaced or written out of the story and it would still make perfect sense.

Zod’s inclusion is pretty baffling as well, especially since they chose to water down one of the only good things from Man of Steel into a boring, generic doomsday villain. You can really feel that poor Michael Shannon would rather be doing anything else, and his bored performance just highlights how poorly implemented Zod is in the plot. Like, the Fladh has some of the best and most colorful DC villains in his rogues gallery, one’s that are often overlooked because Batman’s villains sell more toys. Why not highlight some of them instead of taking a Superman villain and stripping him of all personality to the point the actor clearly has no passion for the role? Cutting Zod would make cutting Supergirl even easier, and then two of the biggest problems with the movie are gone!

The third act does manage to mostly rerail itself once it goes back to Barry trying to unfuck the timeline, with only a disgustingly egregious bit of fanservice that I’ll discuss in the next section hampering it. But at the end, despite the incredibly based George Clooney cameo, there’s just so many unresolved and unanswered questions, with the biggest one being who killed Barry’s mom? Considering her death is what kickstarted the whole plot, you’d think this might come up, but it never does. A lot of other things come up and get dropped too, like whatever was going on with Batman in the opening, but maybe I’m just crazy for wanting elements introduced in a plot to have significance beyond just being there to be cool.

Even beyond that, there’s the fact that Supergirl and Keaton!Batman’s final fates are never really resolved, something that apparently wasn’t a problem in early versions of the film since they showed up alive in the final scene. As much as I loved seeing Clooney, I think trading him for getting some closure for Keaton and Calle would have been more satisfying.

Everyone harps on how bad the CGI is—and it absolutely is, don’t get me wrong—but for the most part I found it endearingly bad. Like the opening with the CGI babies? That’s too goofy for me to hate. But once the movie revolves into bland grey and black CGI bad guys and creepy deepfake celebrity cameos, I stop being quite so forgiving.

Oh, and on the subject of cameos, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one as pointless and unfunny as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman showing up out of nowhere (complete with theme music) to make Bruce and Barry look like dumb assholes. Imagine thinking this was a good idea.

THE UGLY

The biggest point of contention surrounding this movie is the CGI necromancy used in the aforementioned cameo clusterfuck from the climax, which gives us George Reeve, Christopher Reeves, and Adam West posthumously reprising their DC roles in non-speaking appearances (there’s archived audio from West, but his cameo isn't really focused on to the point you can barely tell it's him) where they just stand there before the camera swoops around like in that Saul Goodman gif.

I think this is one of the very few times where I actually think the outrage is mostly justified. To be clear, I’m not getting mad on behalf of dead celebrities I never knew, and as long as the filmmakers went through the proper channels and the estates of these stars were properly compensated, I don’t have any legal objections. All of my distaste is coming from a subjective, moral standpoint.

I have never liked this CGI necromancy ever since Rogue One popularized it. I find it really gross and distasteful, and in most cases I think finding a lookalike actor would be preferable than playing Weekend at Bernie’s with a computer generated facsimile of a dead person. In The Flash, I understand having lookalikes would diminish the wow factor of the crossover, but there was an extremely easy workaround to this: Have cameos from all the living DC stars.

Was Brandon Routh not available to put on the Superman tights? Would it have been so bad to let Grant Gustin pop in for a cameo? They acknowledge Helen Slater, so why not Melissa Benoist? Hell, if you want to reference bad, campy movies, have Shaq show up as Steel or Josh Brolin pop in as Jonah Hex! Or even Ryan Reynolds, I’d bet he’d be down to return if you gave him a real suit this time!

Like there’s just no excuse for ghoulishly parading around dead guys when there’s so many alive guys you could use instead. People can complain all they want about the fanservice and cameos in the past few Spider-Man films, but at least they only had returning characters played by living actors. And when this movie already has the niche, out-there Nic Cage Superman cameo, proving they were down to do things as out there and inoffensively creative as reference unmade movies, it’s really just inexcusable. It doesn’t ruin the movie for me, but it makes me lose a bit of respect for the people who okayed this over less offensive cameo ideas.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

To my surprise, this film actually turned out to be pretty good. Not “great,” not “the best superhero movie ever,” but genuinely mostly good and enjoyable.

My opinion is that the movie is good in spite of itself. The third act is truly a hot mess, the stupid desert battle against Zod is awful and boring, Supergirl is depressingly pointless, so many plot points are just dropped or otherwise forgotten, and the CGI necromancy is nothing short of ghoulish. But the rest of the movie is truly a lot of fun. Barry and his younger self have a fun dynamic, Keaton really manages to take what little he’s given and show that he’s still got it as Batman, the Clooney and Cage cameos were delightful, and most importantly the emotional moments are actually effective.

I think with a bit more polish this film could have actually lived up to the hype around it. There is a great movie in here being suffocated by fanservice and CGI but still managing to get a few gasps of air regardless. I think if they’d kept the conflict more grounded or made Reverse-Flash the primary antagonist, things might have turned out better.

I think its score is pretty fair. My friend @huyh172 described this as “the worst good DC movie,” and it’s an assessment I fully agree with. It’s not as good as Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, the Snyder Cut, or Shazam!, and it’s definitely not as bad as stuff like Wonder Woman 1984 or Josstice League. It’s also a bit too enjoyable to be mid. It’s just a really solid movie held back from true greatness by some damning flaws… and really, that makes it the perfect capstone to the "Snyderverse," a cinematic universe that had some solid movies but was held back from greatness by incredibly bad ones.

[determinate-negation]

Hii. I'm not sure how to phrase this question, but how does one draw the line between the most effective way of getting people into engaging critically with art and politics (which is imo, being nice and encouraging and yes coddling a little bit people's fragile egos) and expressing your own discontent with people's lack of curiosity and desire to learn and form well funded opinions beyond base level takes, paired with an immovable conviction that anything that isn't immediately comfortable (such as your blorbo show (?) Being criticized) must be Evil.

What I mean is that as an individual you'd want to basically shake these people who shut down every discussion with the slogan Let People Enjoy Things, and rightfully call them idiots for throwing a tantrum at the grown age of 36 because someone said maybe watching something other than Steven universe would be good or whatever, but on the other hand telling people they are unintelligent for exclusively engaging with surface level ideas/ uninspired art does Not encourage anyone who does that into going beyond that comfort zone. At the same time tho it does feel like you're doing airplane sounds so the baby eats the pudding without crying. You cannot condescend anyone into critical thought but the fact that so many people are unwilling to engage in it out of laziness is making everyone's life worse. How do we get out of that point ig is my question. Sorry if that made 0 sense English isn't my first language :P hope you're having a good day/night

idk i honestly get very annoyed by watching people or interacting with people who respond to any mild critical thought with some iteration of 'let people enjoy things' and 'youre being elitist for not liking the popular thing,' and a million other things. ngl i dont think tumblr is also the greatest place for like... scholarly discourse although it can actually be quite productive for it somethings. but a lot of people genuinely dont want to look into shit. theres an attitude here (not just on tumblr but i just think in the capitalist west) of incuriosity and its difficult to say how to overcomme. for example ill post links to books and essays about a topic and have people complain that i dont specify what chapters to read. this pisses me off to no end and i end up ranting about it and probably coming off like a dick lol. thus the posts...

i also do post like essays and articles and shit that i think explains my position on this and the theoretical basis for it, and if people ask questions ill try to explain any concepts and give recommendations for stuff to read about mass culture and cultural criticism. i think this has been more productive, idk. i dont think political education and class consciousness will rise from social media though, which is where these tendencies are allowed to develop to the extreme. organization and education irl will be the most fruitful, but still i just think to show people the stuff that influenced me and how i think of it is a net positive. ty and same to you

[miquella-everywhere]

rant

i wont bring this up again but i absolutely hate miquella is griffith comparisons so goddamn much, it is my absolute least favorite theory involving miquella, and it irritates me that it's so prevalent when talking about him. its lazy and uninspired and if i wanted griffith i would go read berserk. miquella having his own motivations outside of griffith/berserk is what makes miquellas character miquella in elden ring. and to say that miquella is going to become/act like griffith does such an absolute disservice to miquellas character and is an insult to fromsofts skills as storytellers. yeah they are inspired and draw inspiration from berserk, but over all, the souls games ARE NOT BERSERK. and it utterly baffles me that so many people seem to think that way. elden ring will never be 1-to-1 to berserk and Miquella is not 1-to-1 to griffith. end rant.